The Kevin Sheehan Show - Chase Young's Off-Night

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

Cooley with his final "Film Breakdown" of the year includes an in-depth analysis of Chase Young's game against the Buccaneers. Grades for the rest of the defense as well.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Here's Kevin. All right. It's Wednesday, and that means it's defensive film breakdown day from Cooley. That's all we're going to do today.

We're not going to bore you with any talk about the Wizards game being canceled or any of the college hoops that I watched last night, even though Michigan Cooley is the best team in the country, not named Gonzaga, which I've been telling people about. I also urge people to consider Wisconsin plus three because the line reeked. They were down by 40 at one point. That's all we've got, though, on college hoops. We've got your defensive film breakdown.

How are you today, by the way? I'm good. Happy, I thought Thursday, but it's not Thursday. It's Wednesday. No, it's Wednesday. Yes, it's Wednesday. It's amazing. This podcast is out a little bit late because Kevin text me and said, are you ready at 9?

And I thought it's Thursday. I don't do Thursday. odd that I would do that because I had only did the offensive film breakdown seems to me that I have somewhat of schedule but somehow some way in discussing the days of the week with my daughter after school yesterday

I explained to her that she only had two and a half or one and a half days of school if they have half days on Friday why I got into this I don't know I woke up I was happy to do nothing and you called me you know this you just reminded me and I make many references to my favorite show the office when Jim and Pam convinced Dwight

that it was Friday when it was actually Thursday and he didn't come in for work the next day until very late and then he was running in real hard and that was on Evaluation Day I believe. Anyway, that's enough of that. Let's get to your film breakdown. Defense, it didn't play well, did it? It really didn't.

You know, you look at this large and part. it really didn't. And I've thought through this a bunch of times now since I've watched the game. And I've come up with a couple different conclusions. Obviously, you go into this game with a game plan. And part of their game plan was get pressure on Tom Brady. And they didn't get a lot of pressure on Tom Brady. Other than Duran Payne and Alan a couple times, sweat had one sack.

There was really not a lot of pressure on Brady. And a big part of that was because Tampa State really balanced the entire game. They were able to mix it up in first and second down situations. They went with a lot of run action pass type of stuff. They converted way too many third downs. And there was no balance. Got to the fourth quarter, they changed into that five down front. And that's when Dron Payne had a sack on a second nine situation where he really got a one-on-one.

And I just sat and thought about it. And I think there are certain things that I've seen people have success with against Tom Brady. the thing that they don't normally have success with is trying to mix coverage in a four down front. Unless you get dynamic pressure like the Giants did in the Super Bowl, however many years ago. I've seen teams have great success against popping eight into coverage and trying to go with the three-man pressure. The Broncos did that to the Patriots a couple years ago at the playoffs, and it was great. they played two deep six underneath and said you're not going to beat us with your little stuff I think you could have played four deep four underneath the way Tampa executes the type of

weapons that they have and probably tried to double with some of the underneath guys on someone like Evans but then you start started to talk about stopping the run with your backers and bostick and I think that makes it tough can he really play both sides of it if you're committing to maybe helping outside with Evans with the three-man rush and then you watch this five down front

and I think Kev honestly if the biggest thing is getting interior pressure on Tom I think the best way they could have done it is go five man front and try to get to him before he can get the ball outside deeper down the field I think Alan and Payne

You would have brought in Settle and rushed Chase Young and Montez And essentially it's a blitz Because you're rushing five But it's just a five man it's a five man rush And you're playing A varieties of coverage behind it You're just not going to fool the guy

And they had a five man front On the Payne sack that forced the field goal at the end You said they were mixing too many coverages What kind of coverage is? They played every kind of coverage. They played three. They played cover three blitz for what you call like 33B. They tried to place a man to man, which did not go well for them, really, at any point in this game.

They played some quarters coverage. They played like a cover two inverted coverage that they gave up a touchdown to Antonio Brown. They mixed and matched a ton of coverages. It's not uncommon. They're not, they didn't play coverage that they hadn't played at any point in the season. There were no new coverages called into that game that Del Rio came out of left field with. But a lot of games coverage-wise have more of a theme. They know what they're doing, and a lot of games, they'll go straight three,

and then they'll have some cover three blitz stuff. It was funny as I was, because in the last few weeks, they have played a little bit more split field coverage or two safeties deep coverage. And I was, as I was listening to the game, at one point I heard Tony Dungy say, you've seen a lot of single high, one safety in the middle of the field. And this isn't what this team really does. And I thought, no, this is exactly what this team does. It's just not what they've done as much in the last couple games.

Right. They really are a single high safety zone coverage team that I think they've gotten away from to some extent, likely because they just don't have the secondary to do it. Yeah. So, I mean, to me, that's what I see him as. But they played a lot of coverage and nothing really, it's, you're not going to fool Brady. When they played that five-man front late, Cooley, was it with an extra detackle? Yeah, it's an extra detackle.

Okay. There's also stuff that they've done where they've brought Holcomb down to the line of scrimmage and played him head up over the tight end. What about Curl? I mean, you wouldn't call Curl a five-part of the five-man front. Right. I guess if you were in Buddy Ryan's bare defense, you could run a five-man front, which essentially would become a six-man front where curls up over the tight end. Right.

They didn't do this much in the game. It was just a thought as I watched Duran Payne have a one-on-one opportunity. And you were like, how did that happen? Well, I know how it happened. Yeah. You got a one-on-one opportunity because they had five-de-bloss. You heard Tom Brady at the line of scrimmage say 50-50. And I actually remember this from the game.

you can hear him say 5-0. And when the quarterback says 5-0, it means the line is responsible for the five guys on the line of scrimmage. Right. The back would then have anybody else coming from the backer spots or the secondary. It's a common call across the league, 5-0-5-0. Yeah. And I remember this from the spot in the game.

And, you know, that's a hindsight situation. The thing I didn't like with the game plan is I just, you're not going to fool him. so don't try you got to beat him with rush you got to beat him with pressure the blitz stuff wasn't getting there i don't think you're going to fool him in terms of they've had some unblocked rushers throughout this season he sees it man he'll pick it up when i say you're not going to fool him it's not just that you're not going to fool him in the back end you're not going to get free rushers against tom he'll slide his line he'll get his back in the right spot he'll tell the back exactly

where the pressure is coming. Right. You're just, you're not going to get free dudes. So if you can't get home with four, you have two choices. Try to contain them in the pocket with three and really play big time eight-man coverage, which I don't know if I totally buy into the fact that they're that good as zone drop coverage type of team. So it leads me to, if I could go.

into this game again, I would implement more five down rushes, especially in first and second down situations. And I would say, shoot gaps. If we get beaten the run game a couple times, we'll get beaten the run game. But where's Tampa going to kill us? They're going to kill us getting the ball down the field because Brady's got long enough, got long enough to throw it. You need pressure immediately on him. And the incompletions that he had in this game were there's some throwaways or there's some bad balls, there are pressure. And a lot of times it's Allen or pain right now. All right. So I want to get to this Chase Young thing before we get to anything else. There's some other stuff we'll get to, but let's get to the Chase Young thing first.

All right. We'll do that right after this word from one of our sponsors. We're going in-depth, play-by-play. The Cooley Film breakdown. Here's Cooley and Kevin. All these mouthy fans pissing you off, Kevin, telling you what Chase Young did in this game and you don't know anything. Do you think you still know? Yeah. Before I do this, you feel good? Yeah, I went back and watched it again last night.

Now, just to be sure, I went back and watched it again last night. I'm sure. I'm sure. Was I right? All right. Here's the details from Chase Young, which anybody else can go and determine this was not that hard. Here's what I came up with, all right? Chase Young double teamed two times.

As a pass rusher. Right. He was doubled a couple times in the run game, but that's very common for a defensive end in a four down front. Two times in the past game. There was no plan whatsoever from Tampa Bay to double team Chase Young. None, nada. Go watch it.

You can't find it. Back runs into him and helps once. Another time, he goes down inside Donovan Smith, and the guard is there to help. He wasn't planning on a double team pre-snap. He just, the tackle knows if Young goes down hard inside, he's got help. That is not a double team. Twice.

26 singled up rushes. I counted. Donovan Smith was damn good, wasn't he? Damn good. He was singled up 26 times, two, maybe three against a tight end. and then I counted three stunts inside once where he's picked up by the center, twice where he's picked up by the guard. They didn't end up being double teams.

They were stunts. He dropped into pass protection twice in this game. Right. Out of the 26 singled up rushes, I came up with what I would consider three, individual wins, none of which resulted in him touching Tom Brady before the ball was thrown. Maybe one impacted Brady's drop. And that was where Brady slid hard left and threw across the field to Evans in the fourth quarter. Exactly. And that was against Hague when he took

the inside path. Hague is the extra offensive tackle playing tight end. And he's knows extended that far. The only way to get there is the inside path. And Hague did a good job hanging with him. He did not beat Hague quick enough to actually impact Tom Brady's drop. Maybe another quarterback, not Brady. Brady still in the pocket. He made a throw. He had three wins. I counted that as a win. Yeah. He had another three out of 26 that I thought were good rushes. He had 18 losses out of 26. And that's not counting the two double teams where one, he did an okay job splitting the tackling guard. It was a 50-50. So on his, on his 28 total rushes, I saw him as four 50-50, good rush, no win, three win. And those wins, Kev,

are not von Witton-Miller, change the game wins. if you want to say he didn't play well, he played fine for a guy. But if you want to say he's a game changer in this game and he was doubled and there was a focus and there was a reason, no, you can't. And I'll go through this game. I'm not going to suggest that he was a bad player for Washington. But what he wasn't in this individual game was a baller. non-factor in the game is the way I described it. He was a non-factor.

He was a non-factor for what he is supposed to be. Well, he wasn't a factor. He didn't sniff Brady. I know he, and yes, that is based on the fact that we expected him to sniff Brady. We expected him to make plays. But, you know, just a guy means that you're at least doing something to make others better. He was getting single the whole time. Oh, wait a minute, hold on. He got held the entire game.

That's right. He got held the entire game. Explain that to everybody. There were no holding penalties, in my opinion, against Chase Young in this game. I thought there was one. On the Vaughn where they tried to swing the pass to him, I thought he got hooked a little bit coming in. That was it. Maybe you could, there was no definitive two refs should throw a penalty flag holding

and two rough should throw it the overall what i saw and what i think and then we'll get to some of the individual stuff he did not expect that he was going to get jump set and by that i mean instead of the tackle kick sliding to depth he takes one or maybe two kicks back and then jumps into young surprised him three or four times had no plan and didn't end up having an answer for that late a lot of times you get him once and then all of a sudden he's waiting on that jump set and as soon as you stop short he's got that quick outside counter didn't have a plan for that and he never turned a short corner he actually fell down three or four times trying to run the loop as they call it and was pushed down but i mean even you talk about the short set stuff what's the first play of the

game this is a great job yeah by donovan yeah the first play of the game, Young comes straight into Donovan, and he shucks him down. That's actually sort of a hold. I was just going to say, the very first play of the game, you really couldn't tell certainly. You couldn't tell on the over, on the big view. And then on the end zone view, I just, I looked at it and I'm like, I don't think that's a hold. I think that he just gets into that position. and I'm remembering the play, and I don't have it in front of me right now,

where he sort of goes in head first and he gets knocked to the ground. No, here's what happened. And this is a taught technique for offensive lineman. And this is a great opener for the tackle. You go inside hands and then you yank him downwards. And then you put your... It's like that, almost like a hockey, pull the jersey over their head and push him down, move.

It's a shuck down. It's tot. It wasn't lucky. He didn't fall into it. It was a definite plan on the first play. Chase Young, you try to bullrush me. I will shuck you down. And because of that, I didn't see any bull rushes the rest of the day.

He tried to run the loop and he didn't get there. And he had a couple where he tried to get inside and he didn't get there. Kevin, he wasn't held. He wasn't doubled. It's we're not going to, you, my friend, do not need to debate this anymore. Yeah, I know. my position was this. He was a total non-factor on pass plays.

Total non-factor in past plays. And this was not because he was held or because he was doubled and chipped and tripled like he was in the Clemson semi-final game a year ago. And that's, to me, that means he did not play well. Because in this game, we needed Chase Young to pressure Tom Brady and he never did, except for the one where he made Brady on that inside rush where Brady did a really good job of avoiding it and threw to Evans down to the three-yard line. You needed Chase Young to be Chase Young, and he was not.

I did before you get finished with him, the one thing when I was looking at it again last night, I thought he looked very small compared to Donovan Smith. It really seemed like a physical mismatch to me, which surprised me. Am I right or wrong about that? that. I felt like Donovan Smith seemed overwhelming in terms of size and strength to Chey Chong. Me, that's me too. I noticed that. The other hindsight to this is you know who Donovan Smith is. You've watched film. You've watched film with speed rushers with quick twitch guys off the edge. You've got to understand he's got a plan for that and he's got some skill there. What you need to bull rush and put him back into the lap of Tom. The guy to do that would be Montes sweat. So as they got into the second quarter of this game and you could see that Chase Young

wasn't going to get pressure, switch them. I know. They never did, did they? Not until very late. Very late they tried them on the other side. They switched them. Again, and that was after, and that was after Young got hurt. Right. Exactly. After he got him. Yeah. And because I don't know if Chase understood it. didn't feel like he could push Donovan Smith back into the pocket, but he never tried. He never went with speed to power. And I think the thing that he had to do in watching it again early in this game was really go with speed to direct power.

And even if you aren't going to win, you're going to take him right back into Tom. And Kev, but as your two interior guys are bull rushing inside. side. Make him step up with speed to power. Make him step up at seven yards instead of nine. You know what's interesting is Del Rio has switched sweat and young at times during games this year. And I don't know if it's just to give, you know, so that the tackles don't get used to blocking the same kind of guy or if it's the defense that they're in. But that was, as I was going through it the first time I kept waiting for, okay, this isn't working. Maybe he ought to go to the other side. And you're right, it was when he got injured and then he was up against Worf's. Now, look, they are a very

good pass pro offensive line. They've got two excellent tackles. I mean, this is one of the really good pass pro offensive lines in the league. And, you know, they lost their starting guard during the game, which, by the way, pain when he got his sack was against the best. backup guard, I'm pretty sure. That was something that I noticed when you were going through it earlier on Painsack. But they've frustrated a lot of people this year, not New Orleans, but it was, they've got two excellent tackles, period. I think there's three games where Tom Brady's had been sacked three times.

There's maybe another three where he's been sacked twice. He's never, in this season. he's not been sacked more than three times. Well, and he was sacked three times. Wasn't the sack total three on Saturday night? I think it was. I could be wrong about that. Maybe it was less than that.

I mean, Payne Head, pain had two. Yeah, exactly. It's the most, I mean, it's tied for the most Brady's been sacked. Right. It's just if you're going to go with a lot of four-man stuff, in terms of four-man rushes.

You better win. On third down situations, and Chase Young's that guy. I'm not off of Chase Young because of this one game. He'll learn a lot from this game. He really will. Of course. But for wanting Tom, he didn't get any of him.

No. And again, I would have left it on Monday where I left it, which was he had a disappointing game. He was a non-factor in the game where we needed him to be a big factor. but it was him retweeting the tweet about him being damn near held the whole game. And I just think he's bigger than that. Like if you have the All-22 and you watch this, you know he wasn't held all-dam game. And you know that he wasn't doubled or chipped or anything else all-dam game.

He just got dominated on pass plays by Donovan Smith. Period. There's no excuse. not there's no now there could have been adjustments but there's no excuse to what happened in that game other than he he got beat he got beat period yeah and now coolly there's some okay quickly he did some things in the game okay he made some plays in the run game yep okay there was some stuff that he did well in the run game there was some stuff he didn't do well in the run game he got blocked by grok a couple times where he was locked out he got blocked by donovan smith where he

out a couple times. He wasn't a he wasn't a monster in this game. He didn't change the game. I'm not saying he didn't help his team, but he didn't hurt Tampa. And that's a huge difference. Yeah, period.

You know, I think that these these rookie defensive ends as pass rushers, if you look at guys like Mack and Garrett, I pointed this out to you earlier this year, that three, four outside linebackers have more of an immediate impact as pass rushers with numbers, with sacks, than four three defensive ends do in their rookie year. I didn't have an answer for you as to why, but I have one right now.

I think they just have to mature physically and get stronger. I think he was dominated by a much stronger guy. And Chase Young is really strong. Don't get me wrong. But two years from now, that ain't going to happen. There's no way. Because he's got the full arsenal. He's got the speed.

He's got lots of moves. I think it's, I think he just has, I think these four three defensive ends as rookies aren't always as strong as they're going to be two years down the road. you look at Garrett and Mac, you know, sort of contemporaries. It took them a couple of years to start producing at a really high level. Keep in mind, he's still the rookie of the year.

I understand that, and he deserved it. It's almost like you, it's big brother strength or grown man strength. Right. Chish Young might be as strong as any of these dudes, and he's faster than any of these dudes. But he just hasn't called the old man out. This girl's bad yet. He hasn't adjusted to the pure grown man strength. Right.

Donovan. Donovan Smith is some grown man strength. No doubt. No doubt. And I think that's a big part of it is just that adjustment to these guys are really good. They know how to play. You don't win with your first move a lot of times. They adjust to you.

They plan for you. now obviously in college you're planning for guys but the time spent watching chase young by donovan smith was five times as much i promised than any college tackle watch chase young right would you think would you like to see him at this point say i went back and watched this again and i got to be better and i will i bet he knows that at this point don't you are you if you're asking me if i care if he says it just i think about it And I don't like that they make, I don't like for anybody to retweet any form of excuse in general. I understand that.

But I don't like that. He's young and I understand it. But there's also this idea that 90% of people are just going to see or believe that he was held or doubled. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you want to keep making Pro Bowls and stuff, the optics of it is better if you were held and doubled all game. Well, Cooley, here's the thing. Okay, I said this to you last week.

I didn't have an issue with him calling out Tom because I didn't really view it as him calling out Tom. No, I didn't either. It was in the emotion of the moment. But here's the thing, and he's going to learn from it. When you're going into the playoffs, everything gets magnified. Everything you say gets magnified. And when you're going into the playoffs and your opponent is the greatest of all time, and his name's Tom Brady, and whether it was just in the heat of the moment,

and whether it was really egregious or direct or not, it's going to get blown up, which it did all week long. And you don't need to put that additional pressure on yourself, because if you do, you're going to have to back it up with a game that people remember. And that was not a game that anybody remembers for anything positive. So I just, look, everybody's different and everybody views these things differently. And I'm open-minded to, hey, you know what, didn't bother me at all.

Well, that's fine. And it didn't really bother me at all either, but he needed to walk the walk. Okay, if you're going to create something, even if it wasn't really intended and it wasn't that bad, that's fine. But now it's become a story. So go out there and let everybody know that you wanted Tom. You got Tom, but you didn't get close to Tom. You might have wanted Tom, but you didn't want Donovan Smith. You wanted no, well, I don't.

No, look, here's the reason I care zero about what he said. He said it in the moment of a huge division clinching game. Of course. Where he is so hyped and there's so much adrenaline. Had he said it on Tuesday or Wednesday, had he went back, watched Donovan Smith, and said, we want Tom, we're going to get to Tom. That's different. He said it with adrenaline and emotion.

I agree. I do not care. And he did. And it wasn't flamboyant. It wasn't outrageous. No. We want Tom. He got him.

He got him. What was his grade? It was a C-minus. Okay. What's next? Here's the last part of this defensive film breakdown. Okay. Two things.

One, Dron Payne was an A. Yeah. Dron Payne was an absolute monster in this game. He wanted Tom and got Tom. He made play after play rush after rush. He impacted this game. He hurt Tampa. He was the only guy that really hurt Tampa.

Alan made some plays and Alan had some good rushes. Like I would say in terms of grades, it would go pain, Alan, probably sweat, and then there were a lot of problems after that. Right. And here's my thing. Okay. you're a great defense. You can't give up explosive plays. They gave up way too many big plays down the field.

Right. And that's the thing. But they're good. Camp has got a lot of weapons. You're a great defense? Yeah. Right? You're not going to give up a deep post to Godwin early in the game down the field.

You're not going to on a second 11, more like second 12, let Godwin run a little jerk route in the middle of the field in front of Bostic. and not come up and tackle him and give up a first down on a second long early in this ballgame right on a third and ten in the third drive you can't let scotty miller beat you on a deep bench row that was terrible for 23 yards yeah that was pain on a third and ten you a deep bencher out takes time to throw there's timing between tom and scotty miller i get it the ball came out on time too but there's got to be more pressure you got to have someone in his face who's got to throw the check down on a third and ten kev You can't lose contain on reverses. That was one play that Chase Young came out. Brown. Yeah. On the brown reverse.

Yeah. Yeah. And old 95 comes in and he doesn't see. Casey Two Hill. Right. You got to make plays like camera curls got to catch that tipped pick opportunity. Right. It was a tough play, but that's at the end of the half.

That would have put them closer to midfield. They had a chance to score at the end of the half. You can't give up, you can't rush. six on a Godwin touchdown and get spun on the crosser as Darby and have no chance. They got beat outside too. Reeves had to take the outside guy on the Godwin touchdown. You can't try to play two invert with no answers to how to carry two incredibly quick receivers, the first touchdown.

They're playing a two invert. Darby takes off to the middle of the field. He's the deep safety on that side. he's got to chase the middle of the field he's got Godwin running vertical down the middle of the field it's a touchdown if he doesn't run with him there's got to be another answer Morley can't just be the flat player there either

you got to carry the inside vertical with someone inside with the middle linebacker and that's a lot of times what you do in the invert is you have a deep safety a safety that looks like a one safety actually basically play in the middle of the field if it goes way to the middle or Morland's got to be able to carry Brown up the sideline

One or the other, but you can't turn him free. And then, Kev, if you're an elite defense, this is where it matters. And this is the only drive I really want to go through. You're down 21-16 with 12 minutes and 33 seconds in the fourth quarter. And I get it. They've been good in the fourth quarter. They've been good in the second half. They have.

Yep. All year. Have a stop there. Your offense is finally starting to click. You can see. I mean, Chase Young's pointing at Heineke's jersey. This is Heineke. Yeah, yep.

First and 10, run action pass. 20 yards down the field to Mike Evans. God, Mike Evans is a pretty good route runner. That was second down one. I don't know. Oh, no, no, your touchdown drive. My fault. Yep, go ahead.

2116, run action pass. Lockdown. Chase Young locked down by Gruncowski. D. Lang, no pressure. Derby spun around. Great route by my. Mike Evans on a deep comeback. Good stem, pushes him vertical, totally sells it.

It's the epitome of a perfect 20-yard button hook. But you got to stay with it. The problem is, is you've been run by enough in this game that you're shit in your pants saying I'm not going to get run by again. Right. So you get no pressure, you give it up. But then Leonard Ford, that's going to run for 17 at midfield. Chase Young's kicked out there on a frontside double team.

It's a soft fill by Bostic. Allen rarely playing behind a block, plays behind a block. Holcomb's getting owned by Grancowski. Michael Kendrick's is way late from the backside, still taking on a block when he should be running the ball. This is not the defense that I expect. 21-16. You gave up one, then you get run for 17 on the second one.

They come back with the reverse. They come up with the reverse on the next playing. I mean, it's a heck of a tackle way down field by Reeves. But Morland and sweat, never see it. Eye discipline, not there. Penetration, not there. Miller's outside easy on a reverse. They get a second and two run for a first down,

and then they come back to a run-action pass, and they are so balanced now. It's hard to get rush. This is where Chase Shung did get an inside rush against the extra offensive tackle. Again, Darby is spun around on a deep bench route. and Brady does a great job making a throw, but he's what Evans is wide open. And I'm just sitting here thinking, this isn't, you're getting owned on this drive,

owned. They throw a touchdown to Brade, it's overturned, and then they run one right in. And my God, 95 and Jonathan Allen get their ass kicked on double teams. Bostic has a poor fit and it's a touchdown. And the game that you've started to take momentum in is now 28, 16 instead of 20. 2116. That's just the epitome of great defense is, well, they're not a good plays and big time moments. They're a good defense. They're a good defense. They're a good defense. They're a good defense.

They're not a great defense. They're not a dominant defense. They're not an elite defense. They might be next year or the year after. They certainly have the makings of an excellent two elite defense. It wasn't that. And they just played a really top flight offensive team and they got destroyed, period. Destroyed. End of sentence. That touchdown run by Fournett after the overturn and the bright thing, you know, you have to understand something.

Like a lot of the people that listen to this podcast are big into Washington, and they watch every Washington game. And I know a lot of you watch the league, too, but some of you are just into Washington, and you say, well, that's Leonard Fornett. Leonard Fornett hasn't looked anything all year long like he looked in this game Saturday night. Trust me. I've watched a lot of Tampa Bay. And Leonard Fournett has been a shell of what Leonard Fournett was the year that he had the big year for Jacksonville when they got to the AFC championship game. I'm pulling up right now. I just want to see what his stats are if he had

any game even close to this game. Here are the games leading into this game. Five rushes, 13 yards, 2.6 yards per carry. Nine rushes, 34 yards, 3.8 yards per carry. 14 for 49, 3.5 yards. Three carries, seven carries, eight carries, one carry. That's the last seven, eight games. Okay? In week two, he had 12 carries 103 yards against Carolina. It's the only decent game he had all year long. He rushed for five yards a pop in that game the other night. So my concern for much of the year that they could be run on to me was proven out more in this game than any other because Fournette wasn't a good back this year. Wasn't.

Ronald Jones was their best back. Fournette was a big name that they had, that he got some carries in some games to spell Ronald Jones, and they had to go with him full time in this game because Jones was out. And they made him look like the Fournette from a few years ago when he was in Jacksonville and he had a massive year, especially in the postseason. I'll tell you one thing, though, that run where pain gets into the backfield and almost tackles him, and then he breaks it, and then he has a spin move on camera and curl.

Yeah. Good year, bad year, that's a hell of a run. He's talented. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking through his thing. Was it the rookie year that they made to the AFC title game or a second year? What year did they? It was the year that Bortals played great against the Steelers in the playoffs.

Yeah, they won 48, 45, or whatever. Speaking of that, it was 2017. The backup for the Rams, I'd be interested if they played Bortals this week. Bortles is for L.A? I think he was the third stringer.

He wasn't active. Huh. His playoffs in, they actually weren't nearly as good as I thought. Remember that Buffalo, that ugly 10 to 3 game that they won? 21 carries 57 yards. That was terrible.

Buffalo's defense was excellent. Against Pittsburgh's defense, which was supposed to be good in that shootout, 45, 42. 25 carries 109 yards, and then he was 24 for 76 in that AFC title game that they had a legitimate chance to win. I mean, it's crazy, right, that Jacksonville three years ago with Blake Bordles, Leonard Fournett, and a great defense was within a whisker of going to the Super Bowl. I mean, they were up 1710 early in the fourth quarter in that game. I'm sorry, they were up 20 to 10 in the fourth quarter against New England and Foxborough.

And then, by the way, the guy that they played the other night, who is now Fournette's teammate, he brought him back on two drives, two touchdown passes to win 2420. He's pretty good, Brady. That was the year Jacksonville, that game. I loved that game. It was one of the best offensive game plans that I'd seen in a while. It was Nathaniel Hackett, I think, was the offensive coordinator. Exactly.

And I thought Hackett did an unbelievable job. getting Jacksonville ready to play that game. Yeah, Bortles ended up having a really good game. And nobody thinks Bortles is any good. Bortals could start this week for the Rams. Oh, he'll start 14 days ago. He'll, he's going to start Gough. Come on.

Bortals could end up playing in this game. Okay, but don't you think he'll start Gough? I do think he'll start Gough, but I don't think he likes Gough. Well, I understand that. I mean, I think he started, well, Gough, they, I mean, you heard watching that game, everyone basically said one out of four throws went awry, even in practice that week. Three or four would look good and one would go haywire. He is so inaccurate.

Well, the thumb thing makes it really hard. What about Wolford? What about Wolford? Can he play? Or what happened? Was it a neck injury? Yeah, it was a neck injury. Went to the hospital.

I know he did. I didn't follow a follow up on that, on his status. He was back in the locker room after the game. He was out of practice yesterday. They called it a stinger, but he is a possibility for this week. I don't think you play Wolford without being able to practice. God, I can't wait until Friday we'll go through all four of these games. I think all four have the possibility of being really good, including the first one,

which is Rams Packers. I think the Rams defense has a chance, man, a really good chance. And you know what, Cooley, when Green Bay's lost this year, they've been run on. you know, you can run on them. It's just hard to run the ball when you can't throw the ball, unless you implement the quarterback as a runner. And I think that's why McVeigh wanted to play Wolford, because he knows they can't throw the ball,

so he may as well have a quarterback that can run it. Right. To me, that's why I think he wanted to play Wolford. Rivers certainly couldn't run it, but their team ran it. Minnesota beat them with basically all running. Dalvin Cook was unbelievable when they'd be able. Believe it or not, Minnesota can really throw the ball.

Well, we know that, but a lot of the people listening, you know, roll their eyes when we say that. They were, I think they were the third best past. They were way up there in pass offense this year. Kirk, at one point, probably led the league in yards per throw. Yards per round the field yards per attempt. One of them, yeah. Whatever.

Nobody wants to hear that. I think that the Rams have a chance. But anyway, back to our team. And the game Saturday night, the bottom line is, like what you said, we thought that it was possible that the defense could lead the way and keep them in the game and hold, you know, Tampa to 20 or less and give an offense that was either going to have a compromised Alex Smith or this Taylor Heineke dude running it, you know, can they get 17 to 20 and keep it close? And it was the opposite. The opposite happened. You know, here's the, I mean, if you want to do the bottom line thing of what you think of what the defense needed to be, watch the Rams play Seattle last week. Or watch the Ravens play Tennessee.

And watch the Ravens play Tennessee, but the Rams play Seattle a week ago. And you needed Chase Young to be more of Aaron Donald and that defense to do what they did to Seattle. That's what an elite defense is going to do. That's how an elite defense is going to win playoff games. they try to throw a screen and you're so prepared that your cornerbacks jumping the college screen. And taking it to the house. That's how you win a game on defense. I mean, this is what I do think that it has the potential to become in the next year or two.

But so many of you wanted to jump ahead after some really very impressive performances, against teams like the 49ers with Nick Mullins or the Cowboys with the JMU quarterback or Dalton or the Steelers, to be fair, who were on a five-day week leading up to that game and really had started to tail off a little bit, even though they were 11 and O. And it was a very impressive performance,

especially in the second half. It was. But Joe Burrow threw for like 260 in the first half or whatever it was and completed 21 balls. 203 it was, my fault. I think it's a big reason, though, why before the game, after the Philly game, Rivera said, we're a lot farther along than I expected us to be.

The defense, you mean? I think the defense is, but I think even at that, look, they're a smart staff. Yes, they are. They don't, the defense might start to feel, and the fan base might start to feel that they're an elite type defense. And those guys have, that did. Rio and Rivera are looking at the stats to the season and saying, yep, we're an elite defense.

You watch this film and you know you got a long way to go, but you look at it as well and you go, we really did some things on defense to grow. I agree. I agree. What all we're talking about here is we watched six playoff games over the weekend and a team that was good defensively this year, not elite, didn't play well, and got beat. A team that was excellent and elite defensively this year, completely snuffed out a team like Seattle with Russell Wilson and D.K. Metcalfe. Held them to like some ridiculous number of yards. And without a quarterback, basically, went on the road and won a game.

Baltimore, look, Lamar Jackson was a big part of that win. They held Derek Henry to 40 yards. Tom Brady threw for 381, and I haven't asked you this question yet. How many yards do you think Chris Godwin left out on the field? I have an estimate. 60? I think it was closer to 75. But when you count those 75 yards, you're counting out yards that were made on certain series that you didn't get.

Fair enough. Not always. There was a touchdown pass that led to a field goal, and there was a big first. a big first down, which would have been a 30-yard play that they ended up punting on. But anyway. So at least 60? Yeah, they would have had a lot more yards had Godwin not been so charitable the other day. The thing is, is they stayed balanced the whole game.

Yeah, because they could run it. And back to, you know, the hindsight in my thought process is, I don't know if I would have said, we got to play them in a five down front. But hindsight, I would have went to that five down front early. All right. Let's finish up some conversation on this game right after this word from a couple of our sponsors. I know you're going to throw out some grades here momentarily. I did want to ask you just about one player in particular that I think they've missed the last few weeks.

Now, he was up and active but really only played on special teams. But I think they've really missed Kevin Pierre-Lewis the last couple of weeks. without him out there. Do you agree or disagree? I disagree. I think that Pierre Lewis had some games early in the season where he had some impact plays. I don't think we ever graded Pierre Lewis two weeks in a row above a B. Pierre Lewis also, if you look at snap counts over the last 10 games, has never really played more than 15 or 20 snaps. He's not been a part of some of these big games and why. Now he's made a couple plays, but he hasn't been the impact go-to player for this defense. Well, when they have Holcomb, he was playing a lot of snaps. He was playing a lot of snaps,

but Holcomb's a better player than Pierre Lewis. I just like his speed. I think he's really fast and I think he's aggressive. I like his speed too. I don't think he's good enough in the run game to have made a true, true impact. He's an okay past offender. I don't think, I just don't, I don't think they missed him that much in terms of not winning the game. Okay. We'll get to some of the grades from the game right now.

Okay. Brought to you by the high wind warning in Park County, Wyoming. The winds blew in a 90 miles an hour on my house right now. I think my trampoline almost blew away. Yeah, we just took a little bit of a break because it's cool he got a call and I heard him talking to somebody and the guy that he was talking to said, yeah. It's really blowing out here. And I pulled up my little weather app for pal, and I said, yeah, you got a high wind warning

out there at the North Big Horn Basin. And you said, yep, my boy just told me about it. You know, it stinks. It's, what's the weather today? It's warm, like 50 degrees. It's 57 where you are right now. Yeah, you know how nice of a day 57 is in Wyoming and January? Of course.

Well, not that nice when the wind's blown 100 miles an hour. No, no. It's nice here today. It's 50 here today. Good. Yeah. Maybe I'll go play golf. It's a five-club wind.

I'm supposed to play tomorrow for the first time in a while because it's going to be 50 tomorrow, too. All right. What's the biggest wind you've ever played in? A couple of weeks ago, it was really windy. I committed to playing because it looked like it was going to be 46 and sunny, but I didn't look at the wind. And I got out there and it was 46 and very windy. and it was a big group, you know, like five different, you know, foursomes going out, and we were going to hang out afterwards.

And it was brutal. It was so cold. At 46, when the wind is blowing like that, it is too cold for golf. I have no problem with 45 to 50 with no wind. But 45 to 50 with a howling wind is, let me just tell you, Cooley, because you know my course. We couldn't wait to get to the shack to load up on some brown liquor. We needed something to warm us up.

You finished. We did finish. We stayed out there for the whole four hours. We went through the whole thing. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah, but it helped after we served ourselves. That helped us a little bit.

That always helps. Yeah. I played a couple years ago in the late summer in a town called Sheridan, Wyoming, on the way back to Virginia. And we determined truly it was a four-club wind. Yeah. That's amazing. Oh, yeah.

Well, I can tell you this. There were some shots. It was so windy that day. I remember one specific hole. It was 100 and, I had 140 left. You know, for me, I'll hit an 8 from a buck 40. You know, sometimes, you know, if it's. A lot of five, didn't you?

Three-clubber. Oh, no, no, no, I pulled out my rescue. I had to pull up my rescue and hit it like it was a 200-yard shot, 210-yard shot. So, and still, actually, actually, I think it went right and long. But, you know, whatever that is, four or five club wind. It went long. And it was uphill.

Back when we played golf. Back in the day when we played golf, God, it was a long, long walk to school, coolly. What did you shoot? No. that day actually you know what that was the last time I played which was three weeks ago it was the week before Christmas and I played well but the three times before that I was horrible and I basically decided that I was going to quit until the spring but I did but I did commit to playing tomorrow because it's going to be lovely tomorrow no wind 52 degrees

tomorrow partly sunny all right let's get to the grades and get out of here the grades were not great for this game. Look, Duran Payne was an A. Right. I thought Montez Sweat was a B. I thought that John Allen was like a C plus. Tim Settle played all right in this game, probably a C plus B,

and that's your defensive line. You already gave Chase Young a C-minus. And I gave Chase Young a C-minus. Kerrigan played, he actually played 27 plays in this game. He was a C-minus. Yep. I thought that Derby, had his worst game, which hurt them big time. I thought Darby was an F. He just, he gave up way too

much down the field for a guy that had a good year. Right. That Darby was an F. I thought Fuller was a D plus at best. Had a big DPI in this game that still ended up being converted to Evans. And I hate when they have DPI and it's converted and they start acting like you're pushing off and then they show the replay and you're like, no, there's some push. And by the way, what's the point anyway? He caught it. Yeah, he caught it. Kendrick's played the linebackers. Kendricks played 27 plays. He was a D.

Holcomb had one of his worst games, in my opinion. I thought was a D in this game. Bostic wasn't much better, probably a C-minus in this ballgame. Okay. The safeties were okay. Reeves was actually okay in this game. Reeves was probably a B in this game. I thought Reeves did a pretty good job in this ballgame.

What about curl? and I thought curl was all right. I didn't think he was good enough. God, there's, I loved this play by camera break. It was a third down and four and he really just blows up camera curl and then runs away. And you're going, that's got to be PI. But that's inside of five yards.

That's contact inside of five yards before the ball's thrown. And it just makes me so happy because this was one of my moves, man. You get a DB that wants to jam you. He's probably going to be able to run with. you. Yeah. And he just blew up, Curl. I think he knocked him down. And then he's running away. And then two plays later, three plays later, it's a third down and seven. And he then runs away from Curl, who's concerned he's going to get blown up at the line of scrimmage and has that deep crosser. They struggle to cover break. Curl was a C-minus in this game. I thought he was better

than that, but okay. Yeah, I mean, you just can't get beat. by Brade a couple times. He had a miss tackle on Fournett. It was a C-minus. How much does Brady love Brate? Brady just I don't know. How much do I love Brate? I think Brate's one of the better tight-ins in this league, but I don't think he has a lot of reception.

I don't know what he's had this year. I just think, I mean, you know, who loved him more than anybody was James Winston. Winston loved Brayette. He caught last year, I wanted to look it up. Last Oh, okay. I thought he had more than that.

I really thought he had more than 36 receptions last year. He had 28 this year. Yeah. What we have against Washington? He had three consecutive years, 16, 17, and 18. Eight touchdowns, six touchdowns, six touchdowns. So he was a preferred target in the red zone. So the first half of the season this year, until week 10,

Brate never played more than 24% of snaps. The highest percentage snaps he played in any game was 51% against Atlanta in week 17. He only played 47% of snaps against us. Look, they have three big-time receivers. Grunk did. Grunk. Coolly, I haven't asked you about this, and we haven't talked about this. but another thing that I noticed, especially last night

when I went back to watch some of the plays, oh my God, Grunkowski as a blocker. He's an animal. He got a ton of credit early in his career for being a great blocker. And I didn't see it as much early in his career. He is really a good blocker at this point. Oh my God.

I think he's an excellent blocker. Really good. And he was, I don't think he was targeted in the game. He was targeted once when Bostick covered in the back. the end zone. Oh, that's right, on that late throw that was out of the end zone, or he caught it well out of the end zone. Yeah. Right. No, he can't move the way he used to move. He doesn't have the speed right now, but he is a great blocker. Morland or Morrow. At least at this point in his crew, Morrow was all right. He didn't have much of an impact either way in this game and was fairly good

in coverage. I didn't see it with Morland. And there are certain things. that like camera bright ran away from moorland at one point that can't happen the men the the touchdown early to Antonio Brown i can't put that on morland because i don't know how they coached that coverage right but i can promise you this that first touchdown where you see morland jam Antonio brown and then turn him free there's no other threat and you're playing that cover two flat area right into the sideline kev ride him hard to the sideline you got nothing to lose yeah the only worry is that he gets over the top behind you and i think that's been a big problem with with uh moreland throughout this year and i do think a lot of it just goes back to he's always been the

outside corner going back to jm you yeah he's been the the dude outside he he's been the the dude outside to me is an outside corner. Now, maybe he can develop into a slot corner because I look at Kendall Fuller in his first year as a true slot guy. It wasn't good for Washington.

The first year, remember, I didn't like Fuller coming out. Right. And then the first year for Washington, it was 14 weeks into the season before I think I finally said, I think Cameron, or I think Kendall Fuller is getting it. Yeah, he got it.

I think that, I mean, they paid Fuller like an outside corner. But he played a lot of safety last year for Kansas City in the playoffs and played a lot of nickel stuff and got paid to be a one corner. I think there's an argument to be made at some point this year, especially as Fuller started to get beat down the field on some double move stuff, that maybe Fuller should have been your slot guy. And maybe More than should have been your outside guy. Now, I'm sure Del Rio and Rivera see everything in practice and would say,

no, you're crazy. And I would agree with what they say in that situation. But still, maybe. Yeah. I thought it was interesting. You know, Sean Dionne Hamilton, they cut literally right when the season ended on Monday. They released him. We noticed, you know, early in the season as his snap count went down. I can't imagine that Appkey's going to be back, except that Appkey was pretty effective on special teams. He's a great special teams player. Yeah, so they like them there. The Moreau situation, if you had asked me six weeks ago, I go, they clearly don't like him. He's not going to be back. But towards the end of the year, his snap count increased. He was back out there. You know, I like his size and his long arms. Like, I don't. But then again, Darby was playing well, you know, and Fuller was playing well.

So he was, Fuller was playing okay. If you go back and look at our grades for the year for Fuller, they're not great. Yeah. One last thing. You know, you know, they blocked an extra point. And it wasn't Morland, but it was an inside guy. But do you know how close Morland on the outside got a couple of times to blocking fuel goals? He blocked a lot of field goals in college.

Oh, he did? I didn't know that. I think I remember. You got to look that up, but I have this recall that he blocked a bunch of field goals in college. Interesting. Because correct me if I'm wrong. Have we talked about Morlin as an edge special teams rusher at all this year? I don't think I have.

I haven't noticed it. I noticed it the other night. Maybe it was just the matchup or something. I'll tell you what, at 2823, I kept thinking, maybe they're going to block a kick here. They blocked one extra point. Morland came close on two others really close to getting it. Maybe it was something where they noticed the outside and there was a tip on him getting a jump,

but he was really close. I'm going to go back and look that up to see about him being a good field goal blocker. No, he is. Okay. I'm looking at this. Where are we here? I'm looking at his JMU stats

Well that's a hard stat to find Blocked kicks No Yeah they're not going to have that in a normal Yeah they will They will Okay yeah Jimmy Moore and JMU Athletics

Helped Oh that's a high school stats Block seven kicks in high school Is a sophomore Oh he blocks seven kicks in high school Yeah Interesting All right

six blocked punts and kicks at GMU Wow Well does he have one here No I don't know that he does or doesn't I mean it's two years When you block that many kicks in college You have a knack for it

No doubt Now that I mean It's D2 ball But you still have a knack for it I don't block that many kicks Without some feel for timing that up I have a I actually have a question for you because we found out last week that you, you know,

were going to throw a pass against Seattle in the playoffs and that you were a quarterback in high school and you can throw a ball. I should have been a quarterback in high school. And you can throw the ball. Says only me. You can throw the ball 70 yards in the air. Were you ever good at blocking kicks?

No, I'm slow. Yeah. So, you know, I think it's really interesting that, you know, there are certain teams that are really good special teams, you know, groups. And we have not had really good, special teams in a long time. We haven't had...

Oh, it hurt them this year. Well, we haven't and we have. We've had arguably the best punter in the league for four years. Of course, my fault. Which has kept them in a lot of games. I think he was third this year in net punning. By the way, I didn't think he was very good on

Saturday night. I think he had a couple of punts that weren't nearly as effective as usual. Anyway, he wasn't hitting bombs. No. So I find it interesting sometimes when you're watching and you see a guy get free and he could definitely, definitely block the kick, but they don't have punt block called.

And he turns around. And he turns around. Don't you feel watching games every once in a while that a guy, if the coach said, look, we're in, you know, safe, whatever, punt return, whatever. But if somehow you don't get blocked and you get free, just go for it. especially if it's like fourth and more than five so that if it's a running. It seems like the only time you get a punt blocked is if they're trying to block the punt because otherwise you're not allowed to almost.

I mean, I know that's ridiculous, but it's like... So this is actually really funny and I don't know what the stats have been in the last few years, but I remember doing this with Danny Smith and looking at punts and kicks that were blocked. and over a couple seasons it was more times than not that it was not in a full block situation it was just the up the wingman getting beat a lot of times it was just an up and under on the outside and the wing dude getting beat

interesting not that many puns and the operation for NFL puns and kicks is normally so good I mean I just think about like well, Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech just made a living out of blocking kicks. I mean, Virginia Tech became known as if you're in punt formation, you better have practiced blocking because they're going to get one every two weeks. You know, George Allen, the first great coach here in Washington in my lifetime, I mean, he was the first guy to hire a special team's coach.

And that hire was Marv Levy, you know, future Hall. of Famer as the coach of the Bills. He was the first special teams coach. George Allen was an innovator, man. He really was. And I know you know a lot about his career too. But man, they blocked a shitload of punts, field goals, and always had a great returner. I mean, always had a great returner.

You can... One day we'll have to do this because I read every George Allen book over the last two years. One day we'll have to go through some of the stuff, the innovation stuff that I thought Allen had. Alan really has been one of my favorite coaches to study. And it's funny because there are different styles. And Alan isn't necessarily in the style per se that I would coach a team anymore. Right. Alan was more of that hard-nosed style. But there was a love and understanding that his players had. I just don't know if you truly get that anymore with the hard-nosed style. But gosh, there was some good stuff for Malone. One of these days, I have so many notes from

one of these days we should go through some of the Allen stuff. And I also have a connection to some of the, I mean, you know, I have the family connection as well. So I just, I think the world of George Allen. I think that, um, even though kickoff returns or have essentially almost been legislated out of the game, I think that you've got to try to find a big time kickoff returner. Like Cordell Patterson, of course, comes to mind. And Andre Roberts comes to mind. Cordell Patterson in that game in the Superdome on Sunday afternoon,

fielded one nine yards deep in the end zone. And he backed all the way to the end so we could sort of get a running start at the, and he probably caught it at eight yards. It wasn't much of a running start. And it was a 42-yard return. You know, when you have, most teams are like, nope, we'll take it at the 25. If it's even close, I've mentioned this about Danny Johnson this year.

If it's even close, we don't want, and I understand this. It seems like it's even money that a flag's going to be thrown on a return. So why start at your 12 when you can have a free advance to the 25-yard line? But I'll tell you what, if you have a bad offense, like by the way Chicago did, you need a guy like Cordell Patterson. I know he had one on that Monday night game this year of 106 yards or 104 yards or whatever it was. Roberts has been very effective for Buffalo. He'll take one five yards deep in the end zone.

And I don't know, I guess you really have to be dedicated to, I mean, if I had Brian Mitchell, I'd be telling B Mitch, you're coming out with it. You're coming out with it. We had no kickoff returns and no punt returns this year. We had a punter, and that was it on special teams. We had a kicker who was inconsistent. You know, I guess our coverage was okay for the most part. But we didn't make...

No, it was an adequate special team that you really... You probably lost five yards of possession on punt returns to the rest of the league. Yeah, he was, I don't know where it was statistically. That's a lot, though. I know it is. As you go over the course of a season. Well, I'm going to tell you exactly what it was because I'm actually very interested in this now. As you look it up, it's interesting, though, because the kickoff return to

is definitely changed. It used to be that the 31 would lead the league. But that was before they moved the kickback. Right. I wonder what, this would take a little bit of time. I'll bet it is somewhere. I wonder what leads the league right now

in terms of kickoff return, like the starting field position after a kickoff. Well, I can find that for you in two minutes, but what I have open right now is where they ranked an average punt return yardage. and they were 32nd, 31st, 30, 29, 20th, 27th in the league. All right. At 5.7 yards average per punt return.

New England led the league at 15.5. But we also have to look at, you know, the turnovers on, I mean, he had the one big one in the Carolina game. He had another one in that Arizona game. The turnovers will change your starting field position, though, I think. No. Yeah. By the way, the average. kickoff return.

It was Andre Roberts who led the league, 27.6 yards per return for Buffalo. And then the guy Duvernay for Baltimore was really, really good, too. God Harbaugh always has good special teams. Always. And then I was mentioning the Bears. So where was Cordell Patterson?

They were like 10th, 11th, something like that. So 27.5 is the best kickoff return, 27.6, which means he's going to have that many fair catches. So what's going to lead the league essentially is, the 26-yard line. Yeah. Well, I have that. So you may as well just down it.

Yeah, let me just, I'll give you the starting drive. Oh, shit. I got to log on to this thing and... I thought there were some times where Danny Johnson actually did an okay job. I did, I did too, but he was clearly, when he did have a chance at returning, I thought he was pretty decent. I think that's true. I'm not going to be able to find this right now because I got to... I have to, I got to reset my pass.

I'm just telling you, I'll bet you the 20, I'll bet you just, if the 26 didn't lead the league, it was the 25 point something. Typically, the best average starting field position does approach like the 27 or 28 yard line. But that incorporates all starting field positions. It does, yes. No, no, no, no. After, no, after a kickoff. I'm talking about after a kickoff. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but there's, I mean, that's, that's a yard, Kev. So if they're kicking it into the end zone, just take it. I'm gonna, and that's why I hate the rule, because it's taking a play out of football. I mean, we are getting. Watch them sit back there and wave it off. We're getting this podcast out so late, but I do want, I'm just, I'm going to get this.

We do this another day. No, I want to get this information for you right now, but I just have to reset my password to get into this, this particular. statistical site, which has all that stuff. And I... What? Something number 44. Remember we did that segment? It's true.

Like, over the years, whenever I've had numbers as passwords, I've always used favorite players. And there's no doubt that I had a 44 at one point for Rigo. And I've also had 28 for Daryl Green, 72 for Dexter Manley, at the end of whatever word. used um i know what i'm going to use right now and let me just confirm we're going to use heineckee four no he's not 99 anymore he's not he's not my favorite player list you have bad game uh okay hold on for one second this is scintillating podcast today this is so dumb you could just Edit this part out will you search? I'm not going to edit it out.

Okay, special teams, drive stats. They're making me reset everything now. You're such a dork. I know. I'm not doing this right now. They're making me reset my whole profile. I'm just telling you right now that it's going to be the 26. I want to know exactly what it.

Here's the other thing. Yeah, but it's going to be that every year. Because, well, here's the other thing. if he averaged 27 point whatever yards per return I doubt they counted any of the penalties into that they probably didn't count the penalties into it so it might not even be the 26 right it's probably the 24 25

and the other thing is like even if your guy's averaging whatever he's average or even if you you know it's interesting because you don't always have to kick it in the end zone. If you're playing someone that can't return, you should high hang time kick it. Right. And that's where special teams actually can come in big too is if you're that good of a cover team, you've got Lorenzo Alexander's running down the field, then tackle them on the 18. That's the one thing that I'm really interested in. I'm actually fascinated in is the biggest difference. You're talking about almost five yards of difference between starting field position in the NFL in general.

It used to be the 31. Now it's the 26. Why would you ever kick it into the end zone? I would kick it down to the one and make a play. I agree. I totally agree. You've got a shorter distance to run to field, too. Kick it into the one every time or kick it to the same.

You kick it to the one and they're going to let it bounce in. Yeah. In college, you can call a fair catch and advance it out to the 25. So that's the other difference that they have on the rule is it used to be a live ball in the end zone. Right. If it bounced in. Now it's not a live ball. It goes in the end zone.

It's a dead ball. They should at least change that rule. So here's what I have. Okay. What I have is I don't have the average starting field position after a kickoff. Because I told you that would be hard to find. You're right. I have just the average starting field position.

The best in the league this year, was the 31.89 yard line. So basically the 32-yard line, the New Orleans Saints. But if you want to know how important field position is, listen to this. As an average starting field position number, New Orleans was one, playoffs, Baltimore was two playoffs, Tampa Bay was three playoffs, Seattle was four playoffs, Indie was five playoffs, Pittsburgh six playoffs, Chicago seven playoffs, Buffalo was eight playoffs before you get to the Raiders. The top

eight starting field position teams in the league made the postseason. Yeah, but offense, defense, and special teams factors into field position. I know. I understand that. Miami was after the Raiders, then Arizona Giants. Washington ranked

14th in average starting field position, the 28.5 3-yard line. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That took some time, but we finally got there. Not really.

No. We still don't really know. What about opponent? You want to know about opponent's starting field position? Not in particular. I'm sure it's the same exact thing. New England was number one in the league. Really?

Yeah. 24.5 yard line. So the 24 and a half yard line was the average starting field position for New England's opponents. And that was number one in the league. Well, it's too bad New England couldn't move the ball ever this year. But they had great special teams. And, you know, for a lot of the games, pretty good defense. It's for some of those games, excellent defense.

Okay, sorry for getting this out late today. No, we're not. But Cooley thought it was Thursday. Have a great day back tomorrow on Thursday.