The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley Film + Eric Reid

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Cooley and Kevin open the show with why the team only offered Eric Reid a practice squad contract and if Reid made a mistake by not accepting it. Then it's Cooley's "Film Breakdown" of the defense from the Dallas game featuring some legit optimism about the team's safeties. The guys spent time talking about the Dodgers' World Series win and the controversial Tampa Bay decision to pull Blake Snell. Also, do the Skins' believe Kyle Allen might be the guy for now AND the future?  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 Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Coolie Kevin on this Wednesday. Coolie's defensive film breakdown coming up. We will, more likely than not, at the end of the show,

get to what was an extraordinary game six of the World Series last night with so much to it. We're going to start with football because that's why most of you tune in to this program. and we will get to the film breakdown here momentarily. But, you know, this story, first of all, landing Collins to injured reserve Cooley with a ruptured Wright Achilles tendon. So he's done for the year. And, you know, that's an eight-month injury, right?

So we're talking about not until next summer that he's back and ready to go. The team signed Jeremy Reeves from the practice squad. He played in a couple of games at the end of last year. so he's on the regular roster. But the story that was of interest is that the initially it was a reporter out of Philadelphia, then it was the Associated Press, and then everybody got the story that Eric Reed, who had played for Ron Rivera in Carolina in 2018 and 2019, was offered a spot by Ron Rivera

on Washington's practice squad. Reed declined, and he told the assistant. Associated Press, quote, I texted Rivera yesterday to let him know of my decision. I'm just not in a place to play on the practice squad right now. If they go in a different direction, I'll be ready. Closed quote. What do you make of A. Rivera offering them a spot not on the roster, but on the practice squad. And then secondly, read not taking a path back into the NFL potentially. I don't like both sides of it. One, if you want to be in the NFL and you get offered a spot on a practice squad,

when you know you can play and that team doesn't have any safeties, actually we do have safeties better than I expected, but the expected the team doesn't really have safeties and need safety help. You gotta assume Eric Reed, the practice squad thing is essentially going to be a, where are you, full week tryout only because they can do that now. It's not common that you could bring in a however many of your veteran and put him on your practice squad. The COVID thing is allowing that.

Right. So essentially, you get more than the workout with Eric Reed. Okay. So you don't like it. I don't like Eric Reed turning it down. Okay. I don't. I think that he would be playing within a week if he's ready to play football.

I understand, trust me, I do. I understand exactly where he's coming from. there was a time in my career, a gear out where that would have been laughable to me. But after the first year, the first year out of not playing, if someone, I didn't want to take a contract where it was just a show me contract to go to training camp. I was like, you pay me and I'll come play with you. You give me a bonus. It was arrogant. And I was probably wrong.

But in the moment, there was, I wasn't, there was, there was, there was no. no way I would take a practice squad spot. That was dismissive and embarrassing, in my opinion to me. I wasn't offered a practice squad spot, but that would have been how it would have felt. Three years later, not playing. When I worked out for the Giants, if they just said, hey, we got the spot on the practice spot.

I said, hell yeah, I missed playing football. Let me go wreak some havoc in practice. Just get out there and run around. We're going to blast. So I understand where he's coming from. I think he's making a mistake to not take that spot because the belief is that he would be on the field within a week.

On the Rivera side of it, I understand the situation. It's like none before where you can put a guy in a practice squad that could have never been. Normally, guys that are vested more than three years couldn't have been on a practice squad. Right. No, the practice squad rules during COVID-19 are much more liberal. And the reason for that is that rosters have to have more flexibility in the event that they lose players. So the opportunity to sign a veteran and stick them on the practice squad to begin with exists now.

It didn't exist before COVID-19. No, you're exactly right. I think it's, I told you I would have felt belittled to an extent. It would be a little embarrassing. I think that Rivera has to know that. But I'm sure in Rivera's conversations, it was, hey, look, we just, we like you as a player. We know you understand the scheme. I want to see where you're at.

You haven't played ball in almost a year. This gives me a week to get you back into football shape without having to put you on my roster. I understand that side of it. I just think, man, it's hard to put a guy like that with everything that surrounds him on the practice squad. I think we're not considering one Ron Rivera, I guess, idea behind offering Eric Reed this. He may have been attempting to find out how badly Eric Reed wanted it. You know, he's building a culture. He's changing a culture.

And he wants guys that are super hungry. And maybe he, first of all, I think it is a bit of a feather in the caps of both DeShazer Everett and Cameron Curl that he didn't just go out and sign Eric Reed. I think he's got some faith in Curl and Everett, you know, in two young players that have played pretty well. But I think maybe with Reed, it's possible that, Rivera's like, look, you know, we could use Eric Reed, but I want Eric Reed to be hungry. I want him to want him to want to hand it to him. We have two young players.

I don't want a culture here, too, which used to exist here, where they would bring in big names and guys that were here that were homegrown here, that were playing well, you know, were immediately, you know, benched or sidelined, you know, that wasn't necessarily performance-based. I think there's a possibility Rivera in his own mindset. you know, Reed's going to have to show me that he really wants it. If I'm Reed and I really want it, this is an easy way to an active roster right now. You go through the practice squad, you work out, you show them you're in shape,

you pass the COVID-19 protocol, you show them, you know, in a couple of practices, how much better you are than anything they have, and you immediately get signed to the regular roster. There are other players because of these liberal practice squad rules this year, other veteran players that have gone the path of the practice squad. Right now, Jonathan Siprian, who's a longtime safety in this league. He's 30 years old, has had a lot of success, signed a big deal in Tennessee a few years back. He is sitting there on the 49ers practice squad right now.

So I don't, you know, from Rivera's standpoint, look, if I desperately needed a safety, if I felt like I'd have to have a safety or we're really in big trouble, I probably would have just signed Reed if I thought Reed would be much better than what I have. But I don't have a problem with him doing it this way. And then with Reed, you know, it's like you and I've had this conversation so many times about so many aspects of life. Like, you've got to be hungry, man. You know, unless you are so super talented and such a great dude, in a team sport and a sport that doesn't rely on just stars like the NFL, you better fit in and you better be hungry and you better be willing to go beyond the job description

because it is a team league much more than it's a player league the NFL is compared to the other sports. And, you know, Reed not taking that offer unless there's another one coming right around the corner, if he's still sitting there three weeks from now not playing, then to me that's an indication that, you know, he's going to look back on it in the same way you looked back on it or would have looked back on it and said, eh, I probably made a mistake there. Yeah, if he doesn't have a chance to play this season, I think he will look back on it and say,

I made a mistake here. I wonder, you know, Reed was one of the guys that said the NFL was blackballing him. Right. And Rivera gave him a shot. And Rivera gave him a shot. And I'm not suggesting anything more than that, but I just wonder in Reed's consideration,

did he say, I can't say I'm getting blackballed, per se, but I am getting practice squad allocation here. Oh, I didn't think of it from that standpoint. That's, you know, and that's... He had to consider that on that side of it because, I mean, even when you just have this thought and discussion with yourself, it's easy to say I'm not playing because there's some form of conspiracy. It's actually easier to say that in some way than to say, I'm not good enough.

The problem is the guy that offered him the position is the guy that offered him the contract and gave him a chance to play for him for two years. No, I understand. He could be blackballed by 30 other teams at this point. But he wasn't blackballed by Ron Rivera. No, you're right. He was not blackballed by Rivera. I'm just saying, you know, there's that whole, like, self-awareness thing that almost every

veteran player lacks as to where they currently are in their career. No, you know, the more we sit here and talk about it, the more it's like, it's not embarrassing because it's essentially just a one week full tryout or a two week full tryout because you can if you're Rivera. I don't think Rivera's question if he's hungry. Rivera knows him. Coached him last year. Yeah.

I think he knows what kind of guy he would be and his feelings towards football. I don't know how hungry Eric Reed is. I will just say this, don't feel embarrassed at any shot. when you got nothing, any offer is a good offer. Yeah. And I think that the practice squad, because it's never been discussed for a veteran player because it wasn't a possibility, the conversation about the practice squad this year is just different. And you've got to view it as different.

You've got to view it as just an easy path to the main roster, but the team's taking advantage of this path because they can right now. But I also think that it's somewhat vindication for, Curl and Everett. Because if he really felt that Curl and Everett weren't possibilities and he had to improve that position, then he would have been more aggressive, don't you think? Especially since in his mind's eye right now, there's a division to be won. I think so.

I think you also gain favor with your team by saying, we believe in the guys that have been here. The guys that have been here and the guys that are this team, that's who we're committed to right now. Yeah. We need a guy, so we'll sign our agreed. this is a production league. And if you don't produce, obviously, it's also production. And next man up league, everybody likes to say. But I think they, if I'm sitting there as a younger player and I'm saying, man,

this coach has got the backs of the guys that are on the field versus Atlanta got hurt. The next best guy wasn't actually on our roster. It shows a commitment to your roster. If you didn't believe that Curl was the next best guy, you should have had Eric Reed in the first place. So I do. I actually like the commitment. I think it's,

I understand how it can feel demeaning. To me, it would just, it would be that private conversation between Ron and Reed and how that went and what Ron said to him. But I think it's an easy conversation. The more we sit here and flip through this is you're basically saying to Reed and his agent, like, look,

he's going to play for us. It's just, I have this opportunity to give it two weeks. Yeah. He'll play for us, but he'll play when he's ready to play. Nobody's ready to play tomorrow. Right. Especially not at this point in the NFL seasons.

I think when you get to week 14, 15, even week 10 plus in a normal year where you have a lot of practices and meetings and stuff, guys do start to wear down and veteran players can come in and be on the same level because they're fresh. I don't know if there's as much wear and tear on a lot of these guys. so you want to make sure he's ready to go man knows the defense you want to make sure he's ready to go there's a good opportunity for a lot of teams to do

sign players that are out there yeah flipped I flipped on it you did flip a little bit I'm flip on the Eric Reed thing I will I understand where he's coming from I think he should rethink this yeah anyway

uh Jeremy Reeves Troy Apkey backing up DeShazer Everett and Cameron Curl moving forward for now at safety. We will find out how Cameron Curl and Deshaeser Everett played on Sunday when we get to Cooley's film breakdown 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. Right into the defensive film breakdown. Cab, normally we start with the defensive line, but.

With your great teas, I'll just tee it up right now and go safeties. Oh, okay. That's the biggest interest anyways. It is? I don't know. I mean, I think your best grades all year long have been the defensive front. So I sort of look forward to those great grades that you give on the defensive front. I think you know what some of the defensive front is going to be this week.

Yeah. But go ahead. Start with the safeties. You do it your way. Okay. So DeShazer Ever, it's a guy that's been a special teams guy his whole career. He's made plays at safety, but for some reason, nobody's wanted to play DeShaezer at safety. Right.

Before I get into the two safeties, like, I think DeShaer may be one of those guys that is not evaluated properly in practice. And I say that knowing that I was one of those guys because some of the things that I did best did not occur in practice. Like? Like for a DB, tackling would be one of those things. You don't tackle in practice. You just come up and fit and maybe touch off. Shazer Everett is an awesome tackler. Right.

Go through this game. One, I just, I love his ability to attack the line of scrimmage square, sure, and constantly coming downhill towards the football, never hesitating, never waiting. You see a lot of safety sit at five or six yards and go, okay, which way is he going to go? Which way is he going to go? I'm going to react when he makes a move. DeShazer continues to force the action. He continues to attack the ball downhill. Hill, heel. I can't say that word. Downhill. And essentially, presses the running back harder than the back presses him.

He's aggressive. He's physical. There's no weight. There's pure confidence as a tackler. It's fun to watch him. He knows. No, you see run. He's coming down from that free safety spot. But he's closing, Kev. He's closing the distance. And I love that. And maybe it's a special team's mindset that you're constantly closing distance.

But there's no, I'm at five yards. I'm going to put both my arms out to either side. Like, corral you in. I'm going to corral. No, it's just a bullet, man. He just keeps creeping, creeping, creeping, creeping. It's great. Early in the game.

What? What didn't you, what didn't coaches know about you in practice specifically? You talked about Everton. My great tackle breaking ability. Right. So. And my great React off schedule ability. Those were the things, those were the two things that I was best at as a player.

React really well when the play breaks down and break tackles. Those are two things that don't happen in practice. plays don't break down in practice they're drawn, designed, scripted two, you don't get tackled in practice. And you did break a lot of tackles. Like I always felt when you caught the ball

that you weren't going down with one guy and you were going to get three more yards out of the play than you should have gotten. I think I've told you this story before. Sorry to redirect from the film breakdown. But we were playing.

It was the first game that I was going to start in college, my junior year. I think we were playing Louisiana Monroe or Middle Tennessee State. Big game, you know. We had the head coach McDennyhy stand up in front of the team, and we started doing this thing with goals and get up a guy. Guys, you have to have a goal for this game. Can we play if we don't know what we want to do? I don't know.

If we have a goal, can we get it done? You're damn right, we can. And he had his finger in his belly button the entire time. When he did that, just sit there dig. Mick Denny, he just dig his middle finger with his right hand, would just pry into his belly button, which is a really weird thing to do. Of all the coaches that we joke about, he was my favorite.

Just no one knows who it is. Yeah. Anybody that played for McDonoughy that has ever listened to this podcast. It's like, yep. There we go. Mick the motivator. So we had to write down a goal before the game at the Friday night meeting. And you know me.

This stuff is stupid to me, even at 20 years old. Right. So I write down, never get tackled. and they go through all the goals and they read a couple of them, then they get to mine. They're like, coolie rates down and never get, we want serious goal. We want a goal that we can be serious about. Is this?

I don't know. What did you say? I said, I'm not going to get tackled. Dude, I broke like 14 tackles in that game. I was not going down. Was this the 51 to 48 loss to Monroe? It might have been. You had four catches 77 yards.

You average 19.3 yards per catch. I'll have to look it up. I've got the games right here. I got them right here. What was the game that if you're at the schedule, what game followed the BW? What year is this? 2002.

2002, Utah State. Okay. It was, whatever game was after BYU. A BYU game that we had a 35 to zero halftime lead and lost 38 to 35. 35, 34 you lost to BYU that year and then you played New Mexico and won 45 to 44. Yeah, look up that game. That game you had only two catches for 31 years. It wasn't that one. Okay.

This is stupid. No, it's not. No, it's not. I think it was Middle Tennessee that year. Huh? I think it was Middle Tennessee that year. Hold on for a second. I'm going to find it here. I am going to find this come hell or high.

New Mexico we played at home, and I actually didn't start that game. I should have started that game, but I did have one big catch in that game. I can't remember exactly what. You don't remember exactly what it was? Okay, that year, you think after New Mexico was Louisiana Monroe. Yeah, what was my stats in that game? That was the one I already told you, where you had four catches. Then it was Middle Tennessee.

Okay, Middle Tennessee State was the last game of the year. You guys lost the game 45, 24, 28. Yeah. Is that it? It's got, I mean, what were my, look at my stats and I am. It was a game where I had like six catches. Five catches, 105 yards. You averaged 21 yards per reception.

That was the game. That was the goal game. Yeah. That was the game I wrote down that goal. But all aside, that goal I stuck with it. Jose Fuentes was your quarterback. Yeah, that's right. 31 of 53 that day for 426 yards.

Yeah, Kevin Curtis had a big game that day. He played, he was a third round draft pick. 13 catches for Kevin Curtis for 177 yards. Two touchdown. You had a touchdown, but your average yards per reception was the highest in the game at 21. I'll have to go find that film. I think it exists?

I don't know if it exists, but as another aside, I'm pretty sure that that game in itself really sparked the rule change the next year for offensive OPI. We had a play that we called Pops because Casey Pupingo was the tight end that got benched for me that year. He was this great big dude. And Pops would run and pop the middle linebacker, just go try to bang into him and push him off and then turn around and catch the ball.

I had three or four catches in that game where I shove it. their middle linebacker 15 yards downfield. And turned around and caught it. Pushed him down, shoved down, turned around and caught it. And they started calling that the rest of my career. Right. But I mean, that guy had a bad day that day. I was all over him.

There are a couple things that maybe the coach could have written down his goals. Uh-huh. No penalties because you had 13 penalties for 115 yards. So maybe next game he should go no penalties. And four turnovers for the ass. Aggies in that game. And you guys didn't really rush the ball very well. 23 carries for 11 yards.

Jose Fuentes lit it up. Yeah. Oh, he threw for 426. I'm trying to see if Middle Tennessee State had any players that I recognize that were in the NFL. I don't see any. But anyway. Yeah, they were a rush offense.

They rushed the ball for 3. 116 yards in the game and beat you guys going away. That was your final game of the year. You guys finished 4 and 7 on the season in 2002. You opened up with Utah. You got beat by Utah. You played at Nebraska. You've told me about that game playing at Nebraska.

Well, that was that game I didn't play much in. We played them two years in a row. You guys lost 44 to 13. You played at Iowa and got crushed. Yeah, we got stomped at Iowa. And you got stomped at Boise, too. You know, you beat Idaho State, New Mexico, New Mexico State in Troy that year. Yeah, yeah.

Troy that year had O.C. E. Muniora and DeMarcus Lawrence on that team. Wow. Yeah, they had some other. Well, wait, not DeMarcus Lawrence. Not to Marcus Lawrence. Who, God, we're 94 for the Cowboys forever and then went to Denver. Oh, yeah, him, to Marcus Ware. DeMarcus Ware. Yeah, they had both of those two on that team. Okay.

Do you know, hold on for one second. You know, your rookie year in Washington after your senior year, did you know that Utah State opened at Alabama the next year? And played at Clemson the next year. Yeah, my brother was off on that team. The next year's team, you had road games at Bama and at Clemson. Okay, back to DeShayzer Epper. I mean, think of how much money they got from those.

Yeah. I mean. A million a game. Well, Utah State's had some really good teams in recent years with some really good players. But, you know, when you were there, old coach Mick. Not good. Mick Denahey, he's struggled. Mick's overall record at Utah State was 19 and 37 with no bowl games.

Didn't have one winning season. He had some good offenses, though. Okay. Okay. DeShayser Everett. She's or ever. Um, okay, so I just want to, I'll go, I can go through some of the plays in general, but I want to sum this up. He was outstanding in the thing.

He was confident in coverage. He passed the NFL will. He had great eyes to pattern match. He was excellent as a tackler. Throughout the game, I thought he was, he looked like a Pro Bowl safety. He gave up one play, really. and that was when JMU came in and through the cover two, Honey,

glory hole. You mean the old JMU right to the glory hole? That play? Yeah, it's a common JMU thing. Yeah. JMU to the glory hole. DeShazer Everett gave up JMU to the glory hole and that was it. Continue. That was about the only thing he gave up and really it was just risky depth. There was a two safety, but I think

it was just him believing that he could make a play on something and he didn't get there in time. The other aspect of that is Darby should really be jamming and as the cover two flat corner, he does not redirect or take anything off the receiver and lets him just free up the sideline. And that makes it tough on a safety.

So you've got to get corner help there in cover two. And he doesn't. So here, look, you go through this game. Communication with the corner really good early in the game. Him and Kendall Fuller pass off a corner and post route. Really nice pass off between the two of them. I wrote this as a quick note, but fluid hip turn and great click and drive. Like click at the top step drive on the, I looked up some football terms just for fun.

Attack Dalton on the boot after KPL lets him outside, confident tackler. You know the CD Lamb played the drop on the slant that they said, I don't know if he might score here. It looked like that. No, let's stop that shit. Shays was right there. He's going to blow him up. Okay. That's what everyone calls him, just so you know if you want to do that.

Shays. They call him Shays? Shays. The question is, will we be calling him a pro-bowler? Because you made the statement he's playing like a pro-bowler. No, in this game, he looked like a Pro Bowl safety. Okay. Great drive on a dagger route.

It was a third and ten, two minutes before the half. Bostick's so bad in his drop. Shea's is the single high safety, and they're running a route to try to clear in the middle, like a seam down the middle to try to clear him, but still great. great drive on it almost gets in on the play. It was awesome. That is best play of the day, which was outstanding, was a pass break up in the middle of the field in the end zone.

They ran CD Lamb inside. He does it, call it a jerk or like stop and go right through the middle of the field. And Bostick just takes the bait. DeShazer gets in there and closes quick. He's playing right on the goal line. He looked for a second like he might be beat, but he's able to turn. fly to the play and break it up. This is a big time play for safety.

This is a hard play. It's a quarter safety who's as flat as he is. Is it at the end of the half when they were close? Yeah. That was the only time they were close, right? Yeah, they, it was a, the ball could have been thrown more to the middle of the field if they wanted to, they wanted a shore thing. But Chase's play in fairly flat as a quarter safety there.

Bostick gets jerked off. we used to call that route jerk off because no seriously that Kyle Shanahan still calls that route jerk off because the first route would be called a jerk route and any double move route

you would say like off add to it take off jerk take off but we'd shorten it to jerk off so he gets jerked off there in the middle of the field Jesus that's a big time play though by Shea's. All kidding aside with the jerk route. Getting in on that play

was huge. I just, I thought he was consistent with vision. I thought he was consistent with eyes. I thought he rallied to the ball. I thought he tackled extremely well. I thought he looked fluid and confident. Chays was an A. Where are we going next? Oh, let's actually, let's get to the guy that we're going to play and we'll go camera curl. We'll get to Land and Columns. Okay. Curl, good man on man-to-man coverage on the tight end multiple times and good sense of when he was going to break down. I thought got in front of routes, played well in man-to-man coverage.

Good slip and avoid of receivers coming down and trying to block him. Now you've got to pitch your camera curl as that down safety in the box that Landon had been playing because that's what he came into play. Came in as a strong safety, not as that nickel lineback. He's going to stay there too, according. to Del Rio. Yeah, he should stay there. He's much better zone pattern match as that hook and flat type of player

and some of their underneath zone coverages. I thought he did a really nice job pattern match in some of these things. He has incredible instincts as a tackler. He's just an outstanding tackler. His run fits are physical. He is fearless coming in to tackle. You can watch the game on TV and see five tackles by camera curl. It would be bullet in there.

Right. I mean, how many tackles do Curl end up with? Quite a few, I think, three or four at least. And they were solo tackles coming in to make big plays in the run game. I mean, really one of the only plays that I would say, he did have a miss tackle on Elliott at the end of the half out in the flat that ended up getting a couple extra yards. Curl had three tackles officially in the game, three solos.

Yeah, so they were all solos. They were all at the line of scrimmage type of tackle. I thought was pretty consistent in coverage, and that's one of your big worries with Curl is, is what's he going to be in coverage? But to me in this game, he was excellent. I thought Cameron Curl was in A-minus. Wow.

What do we need Eric Reed for? We don't need him. Get out of here, Reed. It's one game against Dallas. Yeah. And a JMU quarterback that can't even pitch the ball. Well, he got one into the honey hole. Collins played his best game so far this season.

Yeah, I thought so too. I mean, the big play was the sack fumble, blitz. He juke's the tight end inside, and you end up getting the safety on the third and eight. It was huge. Block avoid was so much better. I've been very critical of Landon, I think last week especially

with his inability to get off blocks and his ability to take on blocks rather than take on the ball carrier. We'll do that in this game. We made a couple plays. Coming down the backside of his own run, cross the face of the tight end, makes the tackle down the line of scrimmage, Voids receiver, really good.

It was good when we had to press coverages, press on tight ends, had some lockdown plays. Early in the game, I like this, you know, sob boot, C.LAM was coming across the formation. Darby was running with him over and was way late and Landon turned that thing down. It might have been the first play of the game was pretty good. Some good bracket coverage and some good vision as a. a hook defender as well. I got Landon Collins was a name. You like him in the box as a hook defender

and in the box safety and that's where they had him. Maybe they were listening. So I'm just going to tell you right now, and you know this, but anyone that, because I saw this a couple of times and someone actually called me this way. They're like, what's your agenda with Landon?

There's not one. He hasn't played well. That's it. He played great in this game. He was an A. he had played poorly in the previous six games. He was not good. There's no agenda.

You know, it's really nice on the play that he made for the safety is the thing that I, and when you, I played back your landing Collins stuff on the radio show last week the next day because you said that you would try to trade him before the trade deadline. And, you know, too bad they didn't try to trade him. I would have been right on that one. Yeah. But, you know, one of the things, there was a conversation coming out of it, and I just said, I don't know, I like Landon Collins. I think he's aggressive. I think when he, like you've said, when he's in the box, I think he's a really aggressive, instinctive player. You said he's guessing too much. He thinks he's got things figured out pre-snap, and that's why, you know, he had not played well a lot. You know, get him down in the box, have him be basically. you know, a hook safety, and let him go from there.

That's the solution. Don't overthink this. That's what he is. And when you see him in the box aggressively, especially against a team like Dallas who's hurting so badly, that play that he stripped sacks Dalton, which leads to the safety, I mean, they tried to block him with that tight end Schultz. That was a joke.

Now, he's also, you know, just outside Chase Young as well. and it's just such a good play by him such a great play i go to m f shultz so big time if i was coaching schultzer this was the dallas film breakdown that's horse crap that was terrible it was terrible safeties are easy to block even good rush well he juked him pretty good yeah well come on he's coming from pure width all you got to really do is prevent the inside rush you're a tight end just make him run the loop it's not

but still good move by Collins to get inside not going to discredit Colin there so your safeties were all good in this game really good I mean Deschaser was an A Landon was an A and Curl was an A minus How about the corners?

We'll get to the corners I have a couple thoughts before we get to the corners Okay one they blitzed a boatload in this game I Yes Like I was, you know, it's interesting during our recap on Monday, why I didn't ask you this. Because during the radio show, I said, you know, obviously defensively up front, they were really good.

And they blitzed a lot, a lot more than I thought they would have thought they needed to. So why did they? Remember Ron said before the game, he was asked with Dallas's offensive line, are you going to blitz him a lot? And he said, I don't think we're going to have to. And that should have been the, that's actually really telling for Ron Rivera in the future. Yeah, right. That's, yeah, go opposite. If he actually answers the questions strategically, like gives out strategy, it's the opposite.

The exact opposite. It's actually really telling of Rivera because they blitzed them over and over and over and over and over. They had run blitzes and early downs. They had a lot of third down blitzes. my only criticism to any of the blitzes would be don't drop chase young yeah they he dropped three or four times drop jonathan allen or drop duron pain or drop anybody else don't drop chase young they drop sweat a couple times didn't they not much maybe once but most of the blitzes they were trying to bring two dbs and two linemen from one side so

they were trying to create a four-man side and then loop one of the D-ends or the D-Tackles to the other side. A couple of the blitzes were a linebacker, but most of them were trying to get four-man sides away from where the back was protecting, which is great because you're making the back come across the formation. And they had a really good key on what Dallas was doing with protections. McCarthy's got to go back to the drawing board with some of his protections because they were exposed.

There was a point early, or sorry, right before the end of the first half where they brought the same blitz twice and sweeps. came free both times. Like Holcomb came off the edge and they left sweat free two times in a row. On the same two back-to-back plays, it's like, ah, that worked. What do we want to do? Do it again. Here we go.

So there was a ton of blitz pressure that got back to the quarterback. I just don't see a reason that you drop Chase Young versus Allen. They're usually throwing into the blitz side. You're dropping Young away from the blitz side. Just drop Allen away from the blitz side or drop Paying. don't drop your best rusher um i know so here's why here's a i mean i get why they're doing it all right so when you bring that four man side it's easy to loop the detackle outside away from it to keep contained easier than it is to let chase young go flying up the field like it's easier for

allan or someone to loop and keep contained there than it would be for a defensive end against the tackle. So I understand that. Still, I just, I want to chase young and brush in the quarterback. You know, I'm wondering, because I'm looking at some of the plays as you're talking, there were a lot of early down blitzes. Yeah. And maybe the strategy was after the disaster of the last few weeks, they're going to try to get back to Zeke. And we're going to run blitz them, and we're going to drop them for a loss, and then we're going to just absolutely annihilate them on second and long. Maybe there was some just thought of, we are going to send people and we are not going to let Zeke Elliott.

We're going to hit him before he ever gets to the line of scrimmage. And they're going to give up on that. And then once they start dropping Dalton back, it's over. The only thing I would ask you is, you know, as they were doing this during the game, I remember thinking to myself, the only chance they have if we're watching this game is to beat the Blitz with one of their really good skilled position players. and have a big yards after catch touchdown. So why wouldn't you be a little bit more conservative,

especially when they got the lead? Yeah, I hear you, but it was, why would you go away? No, I wouldn't be more conservative. I hate that. If something's working really well, don't change it. Like when an offense is just gashing someone, throwing the ball and getting some run-action stuff, and then you're up 20 points and you go,

we'll just run it now. They were just crushing them with some of these blitzes and some of this aggressive package. And Kev, that's what they prepared for. It's what they practiced throughout the week, and that was the way they prepared for this team, and they executed. So I wouldn't want to go away from execution. That's kind of where I stand on that.

I hear you. I mean, look, remember a couple of years ago when they were just terrible in defense, and it's like, I mean, we're like, if you just get a couple, you know, a couple sacks and a couple turnovers because you're overly aggressive and you're blitzing on every play, then you got a better chance because your offense was good

enough. And I'm talking about 2015, 16, early 17, and you were like, yeah, at this point, just blitz everybody. And the misery, because it's painful to watch them get gashed all the way down the field. And now they actually have a defensive front that can hold up without pressure, and yet they're aggressive. Look, I prefer watching aggressive. And the speed of their team, like with KPL and Holcomb on the field, especially, and Bostick's got some speed as a, as a blitzer, you know, maybe they're using their guys in the way that they should use them. No, it was almost like a couple years ago, you and I as golfers, you go out and you got about a 310 yard par four and a little bit of danger.

Like, let me just pull out a 3 iron lay up and get on the green. Then you yank a 3 iron out of bounds. You're like, what do I lay up? Yeah. Like, let's find out now. Let's either win or lose right now. Let's make a big play or we're going to get our ass kick. What are the other?

Because safe doesn't work. As a quick add on to that for those of you listening to do play golf. The one thing I've learned from this summer is don't get cute. Don't take out a little bit more club and just try to punch it. Just be aggressive. That works so much better for me. You just made like yesterday, I took out, it was an important shot in my Tuesday game that I've told you about that's been just so much fun

during the pandemic. A bunch of guys, we actually have a great time. Anyway, you know, it was like between, it was like between a five iron and six iron. And I take the five iron out and I'm like, hey, you know what, I'll put it here in my stance and just punch it and it'll... Let me knock one

down. Yeah. And it just, it went sideways. Your face opened. And you know what I did? I took the six iron out of the bag. I dropped the ball down to hit another one and just swung at it. It was perfect. Like, just be aggressive. I think in golf, that's true.

At least it is with like a mid-handicapper like me. I think a mid-to-high handicapper, it's better to just take a club and swing at it. Don't try to get cute. You're not good enough to get cute. Anyway, corners. Here's the other thing that I've really come to the conclusion with golf. Whatever the first thing that pops in your head is, just do that. Right.

It's the thing you feel best about. If the six iron popped in your head, sit the six iron. I know. Then you're going to start thinking about why you're hitting. It might be a five. I don't know. Then you don't feel confident with it. And then you,

not the thing to do, Kev. Just not the thing to do. You know what, as long as we're doing this, one more thought on that. I think when you're a mid-to-high handicapper, which I'm guessing a lot of people, if your golfers are, most of us are, hit the clubs that you're comfortable hitting.

Forget about the different. Like, it's really. stupid, in my opinion, to be like, okay, I can hit the nine iron 130, but I'm really like debating wedge or nine iron? But I love hitting the nine iron. I just love the feel of the club in my hand. And maybe, you know, this 120 shot, it's too much club or the 140 shot. It's not enough club. But I like hitting this club. And I know I'm going to make good contact with it. You know you should hit that club. You should hit the club that you feel comfortable hitting.

I learned that, God, this is probably driving people nuts. I put five clubs in my bag early in the spring when it was chilly, and there were no carts, and there's pandemic rules, and we were carrying. I put five clubs in my bag, coolly. I had a driver. I had a wedge. I had a rescue. I had like a seven iron, and what am I missing?

A putter. And you know what I found going around? Maybe four or five times I could have used another club in the bag. Other than that, it was perfect. It was fine. Well, maybe Del Rio put five calls in the bag and said, this is what we got today. Right. And we're executing.

I mean, it's not like you're playing one over golf through eight holes and you go, let me go back to the clubhouse, get the rest of my clubs now. Right. Good point. Okay. Okay. Understand. Let's get the corners.

Yeah. Darby. Lockdown big time man-to-man. A couple dig routes was good, consistently man-to-man, on anything vertical down the field. Really good tackle on Cooper on a fly sweep out in the open field. There are plays where he can flip his hips and drive, especially on out routes. He almost had a pick on a slant where Dallas was backed up in the third quarter

right before the Bostic penalty. there's a lot to Darby that I really like. I think he's more than adequate as a just off-cover corner, but there are also times where he's slow to drive on things, gives up a hitch to O'Marie Cooper, gives up a speed out on a first and 10 play, and slow when he's got to cross the formation. In man-to-man crossing the formation,

it's definitely a problem for Darby. It's almost like, I'm coming. Shoot, they threw it. Also, he could be a much better jam player when he's playing two, but that's so rare. Darby gives you real consistency and know what you're going to get as a quarter's corner and as a cover three corner. I think that he can give things up a little bit when he's soft, but I also think he sees things pretty well and reads quarterback vision pretty well. I don't think he's going to give up as many intermediate to deeper breaking routes. He's not just a guy you can look off and throw at.

Darby was a B. Okay. Kendall Fuller. Made some big tackles off the edge and run support. Good aid in tackling. Huge play on a third and 16 that Dalton broke the pocket. Great plaster on a scramble. I actually don't even like saying that anymore.

But big play on a ball that Dalton threw. have a pass break up. Right. Fuller gave up a shallow cross on the third and two to Amari Cooper wasn't far off in coverage. He was crossed over on that quick post by C.D. Lamb, that was a drop. That was an open route. Gave a five-yard out route to Cooper and a mistackle late in the game on Cooper. He was being aggressive.

I see Kendall Fuller is a really solid corner when you put him in man-to-man situations as a guy that's going to cover anything better than Darby intermediate to downfield. can be attacked underneath at times and was in this game was a C plus, but it didn't affect the game in a negative way. It just wasn't a playmaker in this game. Gave up some throws at him. I think there were six or seven targets towards him, gave up three or four of them.

Jimmy Morland was actually pretty good in this game. Early, play through Noah Brown's block on a bubble screen, makes a great tackle on CD Lamb. And I wrote down like, what the fuck do they screen at Jimmy Morland? He's the one guy you wouldn't want to throw a screen at. He just makes so many plays on screens. He did tackle at the end of the half coming down on the drop. He did as a rookie.

Yeah, he did last year, yep, as a rookie. Had a really good pass breakup on a crossing route, man-to-man against CD-Lam. Played like 40-some snaps in this game was really much, much better in zone coverage as an underneath zone defender. I think that people can run by him on in-breaking routes in 10 to 15. yard routes. I think he's a little bit slow with clothes on some of those things. It didn't impact. There were a couple of plays where you would have found open receivers. Your quarterback's going to go, that's where I wish I would have went with the ball, but the ball wasn't thrown in that direction. Jimmy Morland was a B. Fabian Morrow played like 11 plays.

Didn't have any positive or negative impact on this game. So that's really your corner. So I get Fabian a C plus. All right. B's for Morland and Darby. C pluses for Fuller and Moreau. to the linebackers and the defensive line right after a word from one of our sponsors. All right, Cooley, you'll get to the linebackers and the defensive line here in a moment. Ever since I started out with this podcast, Cooley, people have been asking me for advice on all kinds of things. But in covering sports, it's usually about who's going to win and what team they should bet on, at least with me.

I think it's sort of the way I talk about sports and talk about gambling. So I get a lot of, who do you have this weekend? Who's in the smell test? You got the Patriots this weekend. You got the 49ers. Last weekend was a pretty good weekend. Seven and four on the smell test. Should have been eight and four if I just listened to you and taking the Rams on Monday night.

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I'm going to start with Cole Holcomb. He is really instinctual. He reads offensive line in the run game really well. He knows where blocks are coming from. He knows where plays are going to hit. You watch any time there's a pulling guard type of play, counter type of play, and he's got great instincts to make a tackle

at the line of scrimment during the backfield. He sees it well and he reacts to it really well with speed. I think he also does a really good job taking on offensive linemen with his hands. And that's a big thing for linebackers because so many times these guys want to butt their shoulder into him and then they just get eaten up. So he's able to get off some of these blocks and shed some of these blocks of offensive line or at least scrape around because he's using his hands. Had a great pressure of multiple times in this game, one on a run action pass where he sees run coming through the line of scrimmage. He redirects to Dalton and Dalton's got to have a throwaway.

Huge sack on a third nine, blew up the back. I mean, just punk the back. and then he gets to the quarterback and it's a big time sack. Yeah, Zeke Elliott just blew him up. I mean, that was embarrassing for Ezekiel Elliott. That was soft. Holcomb destroyed him. Holcomb's speed, like the instincts that you talked about,

he'll run through anybody and he's physical. I'm so excited to watch him. I hope he can stay healthy. Yeah, you should. I don't see him as a health problem kind of guy. I mean, I thought he was consistent when he played last year. We'll see. Yeah, hopefully you can say healthy.

Some of the negatives, one misdiagnosed on a toss. There's a drop where he's really deep on a Dalton scramble at the end of the half. It ends up being a six-yard run. He's a flat player in quarters, and he's dropping almost into the middle of the field by the hash at like 14 yards. Like, where are you going? Still, it was a great redirect to only give up six yards. Dalton's not slow. He's not fast, but it's a good redirect.

The play is actually around the 25-yard line right before the half. Watch Bostick. He's Perry Riley's little brother. Dalton starts to flush to the offensive right. Bostick sees him start to flush. Elliot's like four yards behind Dalton back into the middle of the field. And Dalton's slowly reacting away. Bostick's reacting away from where Dalton's running.

You're like, it just doesn't make sense. Cole ends up running him down. I'll start on the first play of the game, which about five guys had. They didn't call Holcomb on that. His was the least egregious. And then the interception is great, right? Johnny on the spot,

but that's a bad ball thrown at Ezekiel Elliott, way behind him. He completely overruns the route. He's like, oh, here's the ball. Poor coverage, pick. Love it. Those are the best plays. That's lucky.

That said, Holcomb was really good in this game. He is, I love Holcomb. I love watching him play. I love his instincts. I think he's a pure tackler. I think he's really good when it comes to making tackles, made a few in this game. I think he's so much better in coverage.

You can send him outside. He can cover it back outside. Holcomb's an A. He's an A in this game. Yeah. And now John Bustick. Right. Mistep Magoo.

Perry Riley's brother. For those that don't know the reference, Cooley, as he would evaluate film when Perry Riley, the linebacker from LSU, was on the team. He basically called him wrong way Riley because the action would be going to the right and Perry

would be running to the left. The ball would be thrown out to one side of the field and he would redirect the opposite way. You just couldn't figure out why that was happening. Okay, let's go through the game. I think easy to block, unsure, unaware of more blocks are coming from the opposite of instincts sometimes in the run game he's best when he just

aggressively attacks the line of scrimmage make take on the take on the offensive line at the line of scrimmage make the back make a decision he doesn't shed blocks but at least he's going to force the action in those situations for me with bostick i would say you see run hit your gap now just go fit your gap hard late drive on the ball is alert player quarterback eyes to the ball is the cd lamb drop that everyone thought was going to go for a touchdown but to chaise the there. But the quarterback's staring that down and he's got to react to that. He should be there to break that up. Those are great. Great inside linebackers pick that ball. Third and five in the second quarter, pull this one up. You'll want to watch it. It's third and five in the second

quarter. There's 11 minutes and 16 seconds. So Dalton's got some pressure in the pocket. He pumps the ball out to his right to Bostick's left. And then Dalton turns and runs the other way. Mm-hmm. I've got it. I've got it queued up here. Here we go. First of all, Bostick is what you call, like, the add-one player in a blitz. And so when you see the back protect,

that's add-on. One, you should have never avoided the blitz. Two, when Dalton pumps, he just pumps it and then turns and runs the other way. Bostick runs like five steps to where he pumped the ball. Oh, my God. Oh, wait. The ball's not out there? Where is that ball?

Where is that thing? That's one where, you know, Del Rio and company can just keep playing it over and over again, and everybody can just keep howling in film room. Because really, Bostick takes the pump fake and looks, he's like, well, where did the ball go? Where did it go? In the meantime, Dalton's running in the opposite direction. And Bostick's like, wait a minute. He threw it over here.

Where is it? Which way did it go, George? Which way did it go? Okay, pull this one up. and 10 two minutes right after the two minute warning third and 10 situation yeah two man concept they end up completing a deep in to that side bostick is dropping to the hook he drops wider than anybody on the field he's dropping wider than the widest nobody's out there they throw the ball in behind him he's just he flounders in coverage right he's out there floundering and

coverage. He can move, though, can't he? Even if he's going, look, he moves the wrong way pretty quickly. I'm not going to let you do this. I'm not. So many times throughout the game, you see him moving, and he's now moving with both his arms out to both sides. Like, don't come around me. See how wide my arms are? You'll never get anything by me. It allows a easy swing to Elliott at the end of the half. Hulcom's blitzing off the side. He's the flat player. It's slow react, and Elliot's out in the flat. You got to play that. It's easy. It ends up being a first down. Miss tackle on a draw in the red zone at the end of the half.

That was actually their third draw of the drive. It was about the only way they ran the ball. They had 80 yards running the ball. About 45 of them were on draw plays. We talked about the jerk off route. He was run by in the red zone on that. He's a quarter player underneath. The stupid hit on Dalton when he starts to slide at five yards.

I just don't have to grade anymore of this game for him. Okay. So what would be the grade before you stop grading? On the slide. We watch Bostic enough to know that he didn't do that on purpose. Right. Agreed. If you watch Bostic enough to know, he did like he got up and he was like, what?

They threw a flag? He didn't know. He wasn't trying to hurt Andy Dalton. He was just trying to make a play. But that said, Dalton's sliding at five yards. It's third and 10. Know the situation. You come up, force, and he slid at five yards.

He doesn't know that he doesn't have 10 yards, in my opinion. Right. I know what you're saying. It's like there's an awareness that, like, he's going after him like Dalton's about to get the first down. And he's just, he's only halfway there. So you got to have, you got to have some awareness of where you are in the field and where the sticks are. I cannot wait for this to happen, but it's going to happen here soon. and it's going to take one of the more special quarterbacks.

When is someone going to fake slide? We've seen some of that. We've seen the fake like you're going to run out of bounds and then turn it up. Yeah, but can you, like that fake slide's got to be tough because it's almost like a stick one leg out like maybe lean back. Well, they'll immediately put a rule in that says you can't fake slide that the ball will be marked right there. Because it just, it's taking advantage of the rules designed to protect those players. And it's just, it would be unfair. I can't wait to see a great fake slide deke.

It's going to happen soon. I'm going to start looking for it. The one thing I would say for Bostick, who is an F in this ballgame, was at times there was some better depth than his drops in coverage. It was clearly coached. Like your depth is not quite there, but there was some better depth. Tell me about KPL. Like he can blitz.

He's got speed. Yeah. He can play physical. He's not soft. It's all there's so much There's so many similarities Anybody that listened forever ago when we did Perry They are they are the same player

Yeah Perry could run a little bit No doubt Was aggressive I'm really actually I'm gonna tell you this right now I'm actually really interested to hear Your film breakdown of KPL In this game Because I have a feeling it's going to be good

You haven't told me anything But I want to hear what you say about Kevin Pierre Lewis Oh, yeah, the positives from Pierre Lewis. Great ability to see boot, good quicks to get the quarterback to force a throw. That's early in the game. I thought immediate and physical in some of his gap fits. And again, especially off the backside out of plays. It makes a great play in a cutback and an ability to not get blocked, tackle the line of scrimmage.

He was actually beat on a boot, I think in this game, which I'm going to get to the negatives. but there's a boot where he's in what you call the bear defense, the buddy Ryan defense. He's head up over the tight end. And the tight end blocks out on Montez's sweat and then KPL adds. And then the tight end let's go sweat and gets out in the boot. It's almost like the oh shit pass for a tight end. You know, block and block and block. And nope, I'm not blocking them up in the route.

Right. Let's call it the oh shit pass. It's actually 13 minutes and 18 seconds left in the second quarter. It's a second and five play. He adds on and it's like, nope. It was one of the bigger plays Dallas had on the day, actually. It was that boot throw to Dalton Schultz. Right, to Schultz.

Yeah, they're only tight. So when I wrote, the very next play, there's a cutback. He avoids inside, makes a play, gets the ball carry on the ground, said he had a burr on. He was mad about that boot play. Get a burr. Had a burr. Joe Gibbs. Good scrape and force contain on toss and wide runs.

more consistent than he has been on drops to the middle of the field. Again, clearly a coaching point that went through the linebackers this week is consistent drops and depth to the middle of the field. That good diagnose of run and tackling closer to the line of scrimmage this week for KPL than rather than sitting at the second level, you know, rather than sitting there and letting the line get to him just attacking and being more physical at the line of scrimmage. Really good drive on a quick post by Schultz from the slot had a pass breakup. there. The negatives. We mentioned the boot, not seeing that. The third and ten that I talked about with Bostick at the end of the half where Bostick's strapping incredibly wide.

APL's in the middle of the field there and he's coming up towards the line of scrimmages that ball's thrown. You're like, dude, back's blocking. There's nobody to come up and attack. I mean, Dalton's not going to run for 10. Sit at sticks. Make him turn down the interim. immediate throw and force him to either throw the checkdown or run. What are we coming up for? Saw something. It's a ghost. It's almost Halloween.

And then there's the third and 16 that Dalton gets out on the edge and makes a throw that Fuller broke up. It's either there's a blitz on that third and 16 where it's either sweat should loop with width and keep contained there or KPL should loop with width. It looked like both backers were stunting. kind of cross dog, that's what they call it, cross dog, where Bostic goes and KPL's twist behind him or either way, vice versa. I'm not sure who that was, so I didn't downgrade either of them for that, but one of them

for sure got downgraded. Right. Like dog got out on the edge. I like KPL's speed. There were a couple of plays where I thought he could have been more impactful in making some tackles in the run game. There are a couple plays where he still blocked too many times, or too many times, too long into the play, even receivers getting in.

getting hands on him that I think he could be a better shed type of player. But to me, KPO was better in this game than he'd been. He was a B in this game. Yeah, I think he flies to the ball when he sees it. I think he has also got a lot of speed and is an aggressive tackler. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think his speed is his true asset. But I do think there's a physicality to KPL as well.

And it looked like consistently all these guys improved in coverage throughout this game. Really, coverage was, there are a lot of plays you could put up on film and say, you can clearly see levels between the secondary and the DBs. And when you can see two levels, it makes it hard for quarterbacks to find any windows to throw the ball, forces them to throw the thing underneath. Where we'd had problems in the past is there's a level of DBs in the back end, but then when you look at the four across or the three cross in the middle, one guy's at 14 yard, one guy's at seven yards, one guy's too tight to the hash.

And you're like, what is this mismatch? that's where you create holes. Right. And I thought they were better in this game. All right, D-line. D-line. Montes-Sweat, the negatives. At a false start on the first play backed up that nobody mentioned Dalton might actually do hard count

because pain, Allen, sweat, and Holcomb all jumped. There's a quarterback sneaked. You got to a first and five after that. He also had a false start on a third and ten in the second quarter that got them to a third and five situation. The positives. Oh, and I mentioned in the negatives. I really do think on that third and 16, he attacked too far inside of the tackle on that blitz package

and should have been the contained player. I'm pretty sure it's Montez Sweat on that play. By the way, I did notice after the fact that the strip sack fumble play by Landon Collins, sweat was dropping coverage on that play. That was the play that he blitzed away. That was the one play. I think they blitzed away from sweat. Yeah.

So here's what sweat is in this game. He's a fast first step in the run game and upfield with great length and heavy hands to fight off blocks. He was such a problem. There was no chance they were ever going to stretch or get to the edge with sweat on his side up the field. And really, I can see a lot of like Julius Peppers in him. I hated playing against Julius Peppers. You did. who was the other real tall defensive end

that played for the Titans for a while he was one of the better defensive ends in the league he was the other guy like real real length long arms anytime I try to block him like well you hated playing against a Marcus Ware too yeah where wasn't quite like either of these two was that dude oh Curse oh Curse Javon Curse

was a pain in the ass well you didn't get to you didn't have to play against him a lot No, but when you did, it was like, they always play, and they, Tennessee played with like, wide nine techniques or widened defensive ends. They'd always play outside the tight end and you'd go out and try to block them. They're like, yeah, good luck, buddy. Actually, in thinking about Javon Curse, that's not a bad comp for sweat. No, that's the two guys, peppers and curse are the two guys I think of when I think of sweat. Yeah.

And in their prime. He's a consistent problem up the field in the run game, but he holds the point and he gets off blocks. his pass rush was outstanding throughout the game. It's a great one-on-post and disengaged, and he's quick to turn the corner as a rusher. He's a constant source of pressure. He really is just a constant source of foreboding, I'm in-your-face pressure,

and he can beat you a speed off the edge. He's not incredibly fluid. It doesn't, like, it's not like loose hips guy, but he is. It's weird. It's like, my other comparison, to that would be always watching gronk and I'm like, God, he's so stiff. And then you watch him in person and you're like, no, he's not. He's just so big. He looks stiff. Right. Like sweat doesn't look naturally fluid like Chase Young does. Right. But he turns the corner with ease. He's able to turn the corner with ease so many times. The sack in the third quarter is just awesome hands. The first sack he had turned the corner and turn the corner with speed. And it's not. He's, they can't block him.

That dude for Dallas, their right tackle is not good. Well, they don't have anybody along their offensive line right now that's that good. They're all backers. They're Travis Frederick. Their guard's good. Had a half sack in the third quarter. I don't think they gave him a half sack. You're talking about Zach Martin.

Frederick retired. Oh, yeah, Zach Martin. The right guard. And he didn't play, right. He was hurt. The half sack. So I don't think they gave him a half sack. It's great because the court.

quarterback starts to step up and he's got an initial speed rush, but he knows he's got this sense not to get deeper than the quarterback to immediately turn and press the pocket. Once the quarterback steps up, he's not just going to go flying up the field to nine yards like got past you at nine yards. He's going to turn and then push the pocket. That's awesome, man. Don't be deeper than the deepest. Sack fumble in a third and 12 situation is just outstanding, great speed off the edge. So what changes games. He does. He's been really good

this year. He was an A-minus in this game with two sacks, because I think he had a couple of plays that he could have been better, but if you're evaluating him, you want that dude. Yeah. I mean, you've had him as an A for the last three games.

You had him for an A in a Cleveland game. You had him for an A in the opener. You've had a sweat as an A in five of the six games you've done defensive film breakdown. Remember, we didn't do it for the, for the Baltimore game because we had all the breaking news with Haskins getting benched that week. All right. Chase Young.

Yeah, so Chase Young, the one thing I would say is don't drop him. Right. He's got such a repertoire of pass rush moves. He can do everything. He can up and under. He can rip rush. He pure speed to turn the corner. He can change speed into power.

Just watch this dude. It's incredible. And it doesn't matter to me if the production's there or not. Like some guys, I graded Logan Thomas and you're like, the production was an A. He's not an A player, but production was an A. Chase Young wreaks havoc. I mean, he just does everything. The one thing that I noticed that you really see with,

young is I actually I wrote this down his hands and feet are perfectly in unison I'm going to like coin that like he has great body unison he's so put together and timed up with his hands and his feet and his rush and it's hard for some guys to do a lot of guys you want to make contact first but his feet are moving at the same time as his hands and you just see like this true twitchiness and true fluidity in him. He can also play the run incredibly well. He forced so many early cutbacks. Dallas never got to the edge.

We can fall back into anything. You know, third and five, he fell back into a tackle on the quarterback that forced that fourth and one. He's upfield with a great speed rush, but the redirect to bring Dalton down to force the fourth and one is excellent. And then the fourth and one's a boot

and it's huge pressure. You know, that's maybe like one of the only plays Sean Dionne Hamilton played, and he fucks up the coverage bad on Dalton. He played one play, one defensive snout. They're like, okay, you are in the one, fourth and one, and you fucked up the coverage. The tight end would have been wide open,

but thank God Chase Young's on our team because Andy Dalton has no chance. Chase Young was an A. When was that fourth and one? Second quarter. Okay. I want to watch that play. no it's

I'm it's got to be Dion Hamilton because Cameron Curl is going so they ran the corn tied in on a corner and they ran someone out in the flat and Curl goes immediately

to the flat player and Dion Hamilton just does Worley Birds in the middle of the field is is Dion Hamilton number 51 is he 51 yeah

is he Monty Coleman's a number oh yeah I see oh man he lost Schultz. Lost to Yeah. Well, sometimes you need to be out there and you got to play more than one play to get into the groove of things.

But... Not for him so far this year. Or last year. I actually liked him a lot out of Alabama. I know. I was a smart football player in Alabama. What did you grade Chase Young in A again? A.

Okay. Sweat A minus Chase Young is an A. All right. Allen. Let's don't get too far ahead of ourselves. Let's stick with the D.N. Okay, Kerrigan. He had a sack.

I know. He's got like four and a half sacks this year. I know. And not a lot of... His stack percentage has got to lead the league. He plays like 15 plays a game on average. Nobody that plays 15 plays has four and a half sacks. What does he have?

He's got four and a half sacks on the year? It's at least four. His snap count is... is very low for that many sacks. No doubt. It's incredibly low. I want to see if there's any information. Snap count in this game was 16.

Last week was like eight. Yeah. We could do this. This wouldn't actually be that hard. You'd just look up sacks and play count. I promise you he's the highest. I'm just saying if there's an NFL sack rate stat. I'm looking for

All right, go ahead We could create one Yeah Actually, you know who Oh shoot Why can't I think of his name The guy we loved Three or four years ago

That had the beach incident Oh, yeah, him 58 Yeah, 58 Junior Galette Junior Galette Yes Junior Galette

texts me all the time He does? Yeah, and it's always like pictures of him working out and stuff. He looks like he's in amazing shape, and he just wants back in the league. But a couple years ago, he texted me his Zach rate. There is a stat. Or is pressure rate. There's definitely pressure rate.

I know that. I know that's a stat. I don't know if there's a... Because the pressure rate's based on past rushes. Ryan's in on first and second downs. It's not like he comes in just for pass rush. Right. his sack rate is incredible

you know what maybe that would be I mean people are going to watch the tape obviously but maybe that would get somebody interested at the trade deadline I mean I said there's going to be zero interest

but there's always some interest in a guy that gets after the quarterback I mean Dwight Freeney Atlanta signed Freeney a couple years ago just to rush the quarterback and third down's late in the season, late in games.

Right. Like he'd come in more in the second half and third down situations and rush the quarterback. And that was what he did. That's what Ryan Kerrigan is now. He's not a good first and second down run defender. Now he did make one play down the backside

to help on a tackle. And he had the sack in the game. But his redirect to anything is markedly slow. Right. And he gets stuck on blocks and even tight end blocks. Easy. But he's got full. of sex.

Yeah. I mean, he's a C in this game on 16 plays. He's a C in the game? Yeah, he's a C. Okay. I think PFF's got some stats here. I know that you don't love that, but that may be the only place to find this right now.

I can do it. It won't take very long. I mean, I'm not going to do it. Here's what I'm interested in. What I'm interested in is his sack rate has to be, outrageously high. Like 12%. Yeah.

So I'm sort of interested to see where it is, but anyway, continue. You had him as a C or C minus? C. Okay. All right. Was there another defensive end who played in the game? Well, Ryan Anderson played 13 plays. Oh, right. I thought he was pretty good when he came in and

made some plays. You know, it's not like he impacted the game, truly, but played under and threw some blocks a couple times. was where he needed to be. I thought he was better than just a guy. A B for Ryan Anderson. A B for Ryan Anderson. It's great at every other game.

Jonathan Allen. Yeah. The negatives for Allen, and keep in mind, they continue to play Allen in the one technique or on the shade of the center more times than not. There were a couple times where they changed their under front, and I think it was just because Dallas shifted their front,

where Duran Payne would play over the sentinel. Not much, though. But he gets moved at times too easily down the line of scrimmage, especially versus downhill runs. When he tilts his body, he gets skinny. He can play with leverage. He plays back into the line. He plays in my football glossary look up, LIA at times.

What's that? Lost in the ass. Oh, he's light in the ass. Hmm. But he gets doubled every fucking play. Right. He battles, man. Jonathan Allen battles.

He's, look, he gets washed and pushed around a little bit, but he still fights through a lot of these double teams, finds ways to get back into plays. It's got a toughness to him. It's good. He's got a good bull rush to really push the pocket. And his bull rush can transition into power really well. When he loops as in as a D-end and gets. it's to the edge, I think you can take on the tackle and really continue in the pocket in those situations.

Alan, did they give Alan a sack in this game? Because he definitely had a half a sack. Did they give Alan? They did not give Alan. They didn't give him one, but I think he had a half a sack in this game. I would have given him a half a sack in this game, or credited him with half a sack in this game. I thought Jonathan Allen was a B.

Okay. Tim Settle is a great compliment. player to Dron Payne and Jonathan Allen. He's got a good up and under to create pressure one-on-one. He's got good hands and good strength with physicality. I think heavy hands in the past game. There's a toss play where he pushes the left guard five yards into the backfield and disrupts the play.

Oh, it was Settle that should have had the half sack. Yeah, Settle had a full sack. Yeah. And that was where I thought Montez should have probably got a half sack with him, but that was an excellent bull rush. You know, I think could improve anchor versus double team blocks at times. But when he fires off the ball, he's got such a quick first step that he can be impactful in the backfield.

Tim Settle wasn't a minus in this ball game on 20 plays. But very good compliment. He's a starter for more than 20 teams in this league in my opinion. Wow. Geron Payne. Gloucestry of football terms. He's a glass eater in the run game. A glass eater?

Yeah, you know, like some people eat sandwiches and some people eat chips and stuff. He eats glass. He's so tough. Yeah. I knew you'd like this. No, he's devastating in the run game, Kev. Yeah. I mean, consistently in front of blocks away from him, consistently in the backfield,

plays with great leverage, plays with active hands. He controls the line of scrimmage. He has the ability to shed and redirect. You can make any play in the run game. Uh, look at, pull up the fifth play of the game. It's fucking awesome. You just look at this game. You're like, he's a monster.

You'll play through double teams. We'll play through and make plays off the backside. I said that he's got great speed for a bigger defensive tackle. You forget when you watch him move with his feet and speed down the line of screen. Oh, he's athletic. He is athletic. Oh, yeah. I just watched that play.

The fifth play of the game is like, what do you want to do about this guy? I don't trap him. The fifth play of the game is he looks like one of the three best he tackles in the game. And he does often in this game. I thought it could have tackled a little bit better, but he's always coming off someone to try to make these tackles. And there are plays that he does come off and make tackles. You'd like to see more pass rush ability with pain,

but they just don't let pain one-on-one. very often when they're protecting. They turn the center to Payne more than they turn it to settle or Allen or anybody else. They're just saying like Payne's not going to destroy every play by pushing the pocket. So they double him. And it's the smart thing to do because when you double him, he does not have much counter react to some of the double teams. I thought Payne was an A in this game.

You know, he had the false start early in the game too. There was a couple of the draw plays that I thought too wide of a rush, but he, you know, you're kicking the shit out of Dallas and you want to get a sack. I do kind of understand that. But I thought the defensive line, to one of my keys in the game, completely controlled the line of scrimmage, completely controlled the Dallas offensive line,

shut down any ability to run the football, pressured the quarterback consistently throughout the game, made coverage easier on the back end. Some of the blitzes were perfectly timed by Del Rio. And it was a really well-orchestrated game against a football team that they were better then. Yeah. At least on that side of the ball,

with that offensive line. They were just much better. And, you know, as we've gone through a lot of these film breakdowns, and I've gone through calling a lot of these games over the past seven years, there's just been too many times where the third right tackle comes into the ball game, and there's another guy banged up, and we're like, we should get so much pressure this week, and we don't. Yeah.

Well, we embarrassed Alice's offensive line. They, they did. I'm not part of them. I'm not part of that. line. That's a good unit, man. Yeah, it's a really good unit. It's a really good unit. I mean, it's the one reason

that I would be optimistic about a chance to play meaningful games that combine with the fact that they're competent offensively now. And this division is terrible.

You know, when they come off this by week, it's not. When they come off this byweek, it's not going to surprise me if they're a three-point favorite over New York, maybe more, and if they beat the Giants to get to three and five at the halfway mark. No, I would really tend to agree with you. I think when you look at that, I think Kyle Allen's the changing factor in that because they are saying, the offense can score 24 points now. They're not a 30-point offense, but they're an offense that's capable of being a mid-20s

type of offense. And when your defense is playing this well, a mid-20s type of offense, will keep the defense off the field, we'll keep them fresh throughout the game, give them more opportunities to have one-dimensional type of plays where you know you're getting after the passer in situations. They're not going to be favored against big-time teams because they aren't going to be able to score those types of points. But if you keep this defense fresh, you keep it balanced on offense,

and they've got chances to be in every game. All right, we're going to take a break and we're going to finish up. I want to play a sound bite for you from my. Monday Night Football, where Brian Greasy is part of the new booth with Steve Levy and Lewis Riddick. And he made a comment during the course of the game about Nick Foles and Matt Nagy, the head coach of Chicago. And I want you to answer as to whether or not it is an out-of-bounds comment right after this word from one of our sponsors. Get to a couple of World Series game six thoughts here in a moment. But I wanted to play this for you, Cooley. This was from Monday night

football when the Rams beat the Bears 24 to 10. The new Monday night booth is Steve. Eve Levy, Lewis Riddick, and Brian Greasy. By the way, some of the stories about Greasy when he was in Denver from Clinton Portis or classics. Apparently, Greasy had some great parties that Clinton's talked about from his days in Denver. Anyway, Greasy was talking about Nick Foles telling him that the head coach, Matt Nagy, sends in play calls, and Foles basically already knows that the play's not going to work well because they're not going to have enough time. after the snap, meaning that, you know, he's not going to be protected well enough. So Greasy shares this story, and let me just give you some context.

When you work a TV game for one of the big NFL broadcast partners, Fox, CBS, ESPN, NBC, you get a lot of access. You get to sit down with the coaches and the quarterbacks in particular on that Friday before the game on Sunday. You were a part of that, right? You got a chance in the game that you called for Fox when you called that Arizona Cleveland game to sit down with, you know, coaches and quarterbacks on the Friday before the game, right? I was a part of that. I was a part of it when I was playing multiple times. Right.

So, you know, I'm going to play this and then I want your reaction to what you think is stuff that the announcer should share or not share. We were talking to Nick Fools yesterday and he said, you know, sometimes play calls come in and I know that I don't have time to execute that play call. And, you know, I'm the one out here getting hit. Sometimes the guy calling the plays Madagie, he doesn't know how much time there is back here. And so that's something that they have to get worked out.

So, out of bounds for him to share that with the audience or not? I don't think it's got a balance for him to share it. I think that he, so I heard this in the game broadcast, and this is how I felt this went. I felt that he added on to the story. by saying things that he would have felt. Like I think Foles may have said very clearly, some of these calls come in,

and I know I'm not going to have time to get the ball down the field the way I want to. Then I think when you played again, you listen to Greasy say a little bit more. I don't know if Ful's said that, right? Like, play the second half of it again. Well, I mean, here. We were talking to Nick Foles yesterday,

and he said, you know, sometimes play calls come in, and I know that I know that I'm, I don't have time to execute that play call. And, you know, I'm the one out here getting hit. Sometimes the guy calling the plays, Madagie, he doesn't know how much time there is back here. And so that's something that they have to get worked out. He's clearly sharing the story that Foles told him. I just don't know if he said if Foles would have said, I'm the one back here getting hit.

I don't think Fools would have said that. I think that's Greasy's add-on. I see what you're saying. He said sometimes play calls come in and then Greasy added what he felt the side of the story was, man, I'm the guy back here getting hit. Matt Nagy doesn't know the pro. I agree. I agree with you on that. I think that's a good analysis of greasy basically directly quoting Foles, but then adding some creative liberty there at the end.

I don't like the creative liberty. I've met Nick and know Nick a little bit. There's no chance Nick Fulz is throwing his coach under the bus. You guys shared the same agent, right? Yeah, and we've hung out a couple times. He's a genuine, humble, down-to-earth dude. I would never believe that he would throw a coach under the bus. And I'm sure that Nagy heard it and went.

Nick Foles did not say that. The indictment to me is on Nick Foles, is on the offensive line. Oh, of course it is. Even with Foll's first statement is, man, I get these play calls and I know I'm not going to be protected. I think greasy needs to be more protective of Foles, though, in that position. I think whether or not, you know, the creative license to, you know, sort of add on to how he would feel on some of the play calls with, you know, an offensive line that wasn't very good at protecting,

you know, it's fine to have a gripe with that. but he shared a story directly from Nick Foles that was really supposed to be for context, for background, to be shared in a different way. Like, you know, if they keep dropping Nick Foles back like this with their pass protection, that's going to be an issue for them. You can see that... Even as far as, man, when I was playing, there were a lot of, there were times when we were banged up up front or there was issues,

and I knew I wouldn't have time to throw things that got called. Right, but I think he could be specific to the Bears. I mean, one of the things that I always, you know what, one of the things I always tried to do when I hosted the pregame show for 13 years. I always tried to get one of the two guys calling the game on the pregame show. It didn't always happen, but I always tried to get those guys because I knew that those guys on Friday got some information about the team that not everybody else had. and could I get it out of, you know, Iron Eagle, or could I get it out of Joe Buck?

Or could I get it out of somebody? You know, Dick Stockton actually, I think, gave me a lot of stuff. Of course, you know, I'm not sure what Dick even remembers from the Friday meetings, you know, two days earlier. But I remember doing that because they really, the coaches and the players will open up with the game announcers. And there is the expectation that that stuff is very much off the record. that it's not to be used as a direct quote or, you know, it's spoken as if you learn this during this Friday meeting, but to be used as a way of understanding what's going on

to be able to more accurately call the game. You are absolutely right. Yeah. So I think he broke that promise or that protocol. The other, well, a problem for Greasy is now, he's going to sit down on these meetings and they're going to be like, what are you going to say on air? Yeah, well, I mean, I think that that could be a problem.

And look, you know, the Monday night booth, okay, been an issue here for a few years. You know, the testator, Bougar, McFarland, Jason Whitten thing was an absolute disaster. The Sean McDonough, John Gruden thing didn't work, even though I like both of them individually. This booth so far, it's better than the last booth, but it's not very exciting or not great. I don't really give a shit, to be honest with you. I'm watching the game for the game now, not the announcers anyway. But I do think that Greasy probably is like, you know, we got to go for it a little bit. You know, we got to create some news here.

We got to go for it. We got to have some real information here. We got to make this broadcast. We've got to spice it up a little bit. And maybe he just went a little bit overboard on that. I don't think that was what it was. You don't? I do. I think that has something to do with it.

I think he had something, the moment seemed right, and he shared something that he probably wishes he wouldn't have shared. That may be true, but I think that there's probably a discussion, maybe not a mandate, but a discussion of, man, we need as a broadcast booth, this thing needs to be more exciting than it's been. Needs to be better, a lot better. Maybe. I don't think that that's probably the case with Greasy. I actually thought the booth is, I think it's pretty good. I like Lewis Riddick.

I think he does a nice job. I think Greasy is the worst of the three. I think Riddick's really good on TV. What? The other thing with all of this is it was basically understood when I was playing that that was background. That was context. Right.

But especially ESPN, they transcribe everything that's in those meetings. And a lot of their headlines throughout the next week come from what got said and what was background. And then they dig into those stories. Do you remember anything specifically? Not in, I think I talked about this with you on the radio show with a couple of the things.

But they used background to create. And it's, it's just different than it's, it had been, but the thing that coaches and players need to understand is just because Lewis and Brian are in there and it seems like we're talking ball conversation. It's not a free talk ball conversation. It may as well be the Washington Post. All right. I wanted to tell you one other thing to Washington football team related. But real quickly, on the World Series game last night,

which was, it was really the best all-time analytics versus old-school field baseball debates. The situation created an all-time debate as far as that is concerned. It was, and I know you didn't watch the game, but I sort of talked to you about it a little bit before. But for those that watch the game, and I stayed up, and not only did I watch the game last night, Cooley, I stayed up because a couple of reasons. I stayed up and watched all the post game. The Blake Snell Pool by Kevin Cash in the sixth inning is an all-time analytics versus field a game moment in baseball. Baseball's been the sport heavy on analytics.

Tampa Bay, in particular, has been a team that has led this analytics revolution in the sport where every team uses analytics to a certain degree that Dodgers do. but one of the reasons I was into this game is I just I really wanted to see the Dodgers win the World Series and Clayton Kershaw get a ring which he did and in the reaction after the game just as a quick aside before I get to the Blake Snell thing and Kevin Cash thing somebody tweeted this this morning and it actually was exactly what I was trying to articulate at the beginning of my radio show and then somebody sent this to me towards the end of the show. Chris Fowler from ESPN tweeted this out after the game last night.

He said, I have no connection to the Dodgers. I've never been a fan. But those scenes of joy, relief, guys hugging, acting like jubilant kids are what drew me to sports in the first place and still move me watching championship events. And I, this morning, one of the first things I said before I got into the controversial decision in the sixth inning, there was something about the end of that game and watching the Dodgers celebrate and watching them and they're outpouring towards Clayton Kershaw in particular. And then to listen to all of the postgame where Big Poppy and Arod and Frank Thomas on Fox and then all of the guys on ESPN and MLB Network, they could not get enough of being so happy for one player. I don't know that in recent memory there's

a player where more of his peers and people who cover him have wanted him to succeed more than than Clayton Kirshaw. He is the greatest left-hander of his generation. He's a first ballot Hall of Famer, and he's been snake bit in the postseason. He's got more, by 50 more innings pitched, postseason innings pitched without a world championship ring. He's got like 189 innings pitched in the postseason prior to last night without a ring, and he finally got it last night. He won both games that he started. And there was just something about watching it that really it moved me in watching it as a sports fan. And as just, you know, somebody who's a fan of Kershaw to begin with.

But it was really so genuine and so nice. And, you know, I've heard from guys like Scott before that Kershaw's one. one of the great guys to cover, one of the great guys to interview, and one of the great people in sports. But just like Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing and all the great players that never won a title, you know, they're first ballot hall of famers that never had a chance to win a title. The Kershaw story has been so interesting because he's had so much heartbreak in the postseason. He hasn't pitched well in the postseason. He's the greatest regular season left in the last 30 years.

And yet he's had all this heartbreak. The image of him in the dugout sitting by himself last year after he had gotten Adam Eaton out in the seventh came in and gave up back-to-back homers to Rendon and Soto to blow game five and then seeing those pictures of him sitting alone in the dugout are iconic. For baseball fans in particular. So that was one part of last night that I really wanted to stay stay on. Don't move on just yet, though. Okay.

You see he was the third starting pitcher ever to earn two wins and strike out at least one out of three batters in a World Series. That's a stat from him from this series? Yeah. I didn't know that. It's amazing. But what's more? Because I'm with you, a couple things on this. I didn't watch the game, but I watched SportsCenter and I've seen all the highlights and I've seen all the stuff.

and I've seen the celebration. I've seen everything. One of the things I loved was Kershaw basically said, I don't give a crap about legacy. I don't give a crap about anything else. The Dodgers just won the World Series in 2020. Who cares about anything else? True desire to just win is one of the things that make you love any athlete,

more so than look at me and look what I've done. It's just the want to win. And that was the one thing that you always saw with Kershaw. It's the thing that I always see with Scherzer, too. It's just it's the burning desire. to want to win, and it makes you love sports, and it makes you love athletes. Yeah. It's incredible, you know, his competitiveness, and for that, I'm so happy for him.

Yeah, and he's also, I don't know, this style of pitcher he is, too. I've always enjoyed watching him. But so let's go to what is a raging debate in the sports world today, which is Kevin Cash's decision to pull Blake Snell, who was an absolute. badass from the game in the sixth inning. And Cooley, I'll just describe it to you and for those that didn't see it. First of all, Blake Snell is a former Sigh-Young Award winner. Secondly, he has pitched great in this postseason. Thirdly, the Rays are the ultimate among many teams that are absolutely driven and beholden

to what the numbers say, what the advanced numbers, advanced analytics are. And it goes much beyond, like, statistics against facing a batting order for the third time. You know, Galdi was explaining to me this morning, it's like, where is his spin right now? What's the velocity? What is the, where is the, you know, arm, you know, angle? You know, where, like, there's so many things that go into the decision to pull him or leave him in the game. Well, Blake Snell, through five and a third, had struck out, Nine of the 18 batters he faced, he had allowed no runs and just two hits, and only one of them

was hard hit. And that was the catcher Barnes in the bottom of the sixth inning with one out, single to center, on a pretty good rip of a ball that got a little bit high. Now here comes the top of the batting order. Mookie Betts, Corey Seeger, and then Justin Turner, who was still in the game at that point. That was the other story from last night. We'll get to that in a moment. And here comes Kevin Cash to pull Blake Snell.

Now, Blake Snell, man, what a wicked left-hander, badass. And he was, as they like to say in baseball, dealing. And the whole baseball world on Twitter exploded. It was so hysterical to watch the ripping of all of the geekheads in that moment. like how they've ruined the sport and how this will be a decision that will backfire, and this will be the one if it does backfire that will change the way baseball teams think. Kevin Cash is going by the numbers. Now, Galdi said, look, it's ridiculous to think that there isn't some feel in the moment.

But if there were any feel in the moment last night, there's no chance, you pull Blake Snell. So he gets pulled and they bring in their reliever, Anderson, who's been a phenomenal relief pitcher all year long. One problem with that, though. He's given up an earned run in each of his last six outings. Also, the top of the order coming up, Betz, Seeger, and Turner were 0 for six against Snell with six strikeouts. Well, the obvious happened. All right, Betts doubles to left off Anderson. Barnes scores, it's one to one. Then Seeger reaches on an infielder's choice to score bets. and it's two to one. And it's game over. And it shouldn't have been game over necessarily, but it was pretty much game over at that point. And Snell didn't like it. And, you know, Cash took it in

stride really answering, look, I understand the criticism, but this is the way we do things. And, you know, Tampa Cooley is a super low payroll team against a super high payroll team. You know, baseball people will say Tampa shouldn't have any chance with their talent against the Dodgers talent. And one of the ways they make up with it, make up for the difference, is with real advanced understanding of the game and the numbers and the probability. And they won 40 of the 60 games this year, you know, doing it this way. You know, Snell, you'll look at it. He rarely, if ever, pitch past the sixth inning.

And so this is the way they did it. But it was an all-time moment. We remember Zach Granky last year in game seven against the Nats. I mean, he gives up one home run, and it's like they yank him, and that's the first hit of the game he gives up, and the Nats were like, thank God. You know, they basically just helped win the game. Well, last night, Mookie Betts, Dave Roberts, everybody on Los Angeles's team said the reaction in the dugout was, few, we don't have to face him again. Now we've got a chance.

And you know what? That's the reaction you should go with. Like, if you think that the opposing dugout is going to be thrilled with the moment. move, then don't make the move. And you should read the room a little bit. Yeah, but you can read the room a little bit. You know that this

isn't something that if you were watching that game, it was impossible to think that he could pull Blake Snell. But he did. You go out to the mound. You pull him, you say, just take about five steps. I want to watch their dugouts reaction. He gets about

five steps out the mound. You see them all go, you go, no, psych. come back on here. Yeah. In a moment, you made a decision. I hate the decision. I hate it on so many levels, but I understand when you play a certain way and you do things a certain way

that that's the way you do things. There is a clear and defined answer to why they did it. So I do understand why Kevin Cash. Hold him. Before I get to my feelings on this, I have a question for you. You're the manager. what would you rather have happen?

Go down with your guy in that situation, right? You leave him in. That one. You're like, Snell stay in. That last night, that one.

Now it gives up a Homer and it's 2-1, or Snell gives up three runs there, or would you rather do what you've always done? What's your choice there? Like Kevin Cash in the situation. Try to play the role in the actual, context. I think that the problem, the context would be you are actually working for management that has hired you to do it this way. Managers on these teams don't make that much money.

They are basically there just to carry out the plan, which is to take a low payroll team and compete and potentially win with advanced analytics and saber metrics. And so he is there to make the decision that management hired him to make, which is to pull Blake Snell because of the other data that they probably had. You know, Galdi explained, you know, maybe his velocity or spin rate was not where they wanted it to be in the two previous batters. Maybe they realize that bets, you know, against that kind of spin rate that was now a different spin rate from the last time he faced bets was going to catch up with him. I don't know. I mean, all that stuff.

I've got a microphone by the catcher, and they're like, it's the sound off of the glove is not at the same decibel as it was 13 pitches ago. So it was. Would you hold him? There's, I mean, in the context of Kevin Kemp, I don't know if I would have had a choice if I wanted to keep my job. But if it's me with the choice, there's no chance I would have pulled that dude from the game last night. There's no chance. I completely, I'm completely with you.

But here's a situation I posed to Galdi. I think it was interesting, and I didn't hear this discussed last night. There was one out when Barnes, the catcher, the number nine hitter, singled the center. What if Barnes had struck out, where he had gotten him out on like a pop-up on two pitches? And there were two outs and no runners on. Would he have allowed him to face bets at the top of the order? Galdi thinks the answer would have been no, that they were going to pull him once he got to the third rotation,

him facing the third round of the batting order. But with two outs and only the ability on one swing to tie you, I think it would have been a more interesting decision. It also would have been a much uglier reaction. Like, wait a minute. He's got a one hitter. Nobody's on. And you're going to now, because why?

Because he's facing the top of the order? It's crazy. The other... I think they let him finish the inning if he'd gotten Barnes out. I think maybe. The other story real quickly is just... Hold on. Hold on.

Yeah. Hold on. So analytics managers get jobs. and gut managers get fired. Yeah. And that's just the case in what it is in baseball. But this is why I hate this, because my firm belief in it, there's,

there's definitely an argument in baseball, but my firm belief in sports, and that's why sports are great, is because you win, because your best players, play big in big situations. That's it. And that's what we love about sports.

We love the hero moment. Yeah. In analytics and baseball, destroys the hero moment. Sure. It destroys the all-time great performance. It takes away from one guy showing true guts and resilience. And the idea that if Snell's spin rate was down a little bit,

that maybe he did understand that and was able to complement with a different style. He had to compensate. Yes. Right. He could have figured out another way. Yeah. He can't think. They're taking away the concept that Blake Snell has no idea how to,

adjust or think or change his style to some extent. I mean, it's not like we're talking about a pitcher who throws straight fastballs and now he's down from 98 to 92. Like, Snell is a Cy Young pitcher who is in the middle of a gym to think that he can't adjust because keep in mind, he's also seeing all of those batters for two straight innings and he knows the adjustments they're going to make. He's watched a film on these guys. He knows how they adapt to pitchers as they move on throughout game.

games. They're taking so much away from Snell, actually being a human being with some guts. I hate that about sports in baseball. And it'll never translate, in my opinion, to football. It just can't. But, God, it just makes it so dull. Look, there's no room that you're not going to get a Jack Morris. You're not going to get an oral hersizer. you're not going to get a pitching gem with these kinds of teams anymore. You're going to need Dusty Baker to manage a team to have that happen. I just totally agree, but at the same time, what a conversation it created today. And it did last year with Granky against the Nats in Game 7.

Here's the interesting part that Justin Turner getting pulled before the eighth inning because the COVID-19 test came back. he gets pulled from the game and nobody knows why he's exited the game until after the game when they say the Dodgers were informed in the seventh inning that Justin Turner tested positive for COVID-19 and you're like, whoa.

After the game, he is celebrating with his team on the field at times with a mask and at times without a mask and nobody seemed to care. That's a huge controversy today. But Cooley, what's really interesting is baseball made it through. The NBA made it through in a bubble, the NHL made it through in a bubble, the NHL made it through in a bubble. Baseball made it through without a bubble during its regular season. They had some

issues early, but for the most part, over the last three months, it's been perfect. And they made it through these playoff bubbles, and they finished their World Series last night. However, on the final night of the season, one of the key players in the World Series would not have played in Game 7 if there had, if there had been one. And it'll be interesting. I don't know if there's news out on any of this. But what if several other players then were exposed and tested positive? And didn't have a game seven tonight. Like, what if it fell? What if they got to just within a game?

And they didn't finish or didn't finish for like another couple of weeks. They may have just barely gotten in this season. Incredible. By the way, speaking of COVID-19, Wisconsin's game this weekend with Nebraska was called off moments ago. This is one of the more incredible stories. I think I talked about it with Tommy yesterday, maybe not. Graham Mertz, who's their quarterback, who is their backup quarterback, actually played in the opener. It was 20 at 21 against Illinois and Friday night in Wisconsin, 1,45-7.

He tested positive. The backup, or the third-string quarterback, tested positive as well for COVID. Well, they're in the same meeting room every day. Well, I guess they don't meet. They have Zoom meetings. So anyway, the net of it is this. The CDC tells us, what, 10 days to maybe 14. You know, World Health Organization, CDC, quarantine 10 to 14 days, boom, all right, now you're back in action.

Not the Big Ten. The Big Ten, who has been completely and utterly dysfunctional when it's come to creating their football season. Are we going to have one? Yeah, we're going to have one. No, we're not going to have one. We're going to have one. We'll start one in late December right after they've had the playoffs already and take it into, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to start at the end of October.

And then, oh, by the way, our policy requires any player who tests positive for COVID-19 to miss at least 21 days and undergo cardiac screening before being cleared to return. So the CDC tells you 10. You know, World Health Organization, I think, is 10 to 14, but the Big 10, the Big 10 knows better. This Kevin Warren, who's the commissioner of the Big 10, is off to a rough start, man. and replacing Delaney. Rough, rough start. All right, I have one question for you on the Washington football team and Kyle Allen that will finish up the show with right after this word from one of our sponsors.

All right, one question for Cooley, and then this show is over for the day. So I did a call segment after playing my Kyle Allen interview this morning, and I also played what you said about Kyle Allen, probably not being an elite quarterback, but you didn't think it was necessarily fair to judge now, but then you said, you know, somewhere between 15 and 25 anyway. I asked the following question. Does anybody think maybe, just maybe, Kyle Allen is the plan and could be the guy for next year?

And I really didn't want to ask that question specifically of you because you sort of answered that. But this was my thought, and I want you to tell me whether or not you agree or disagree. I believe that they think he could be the guy moving forward. They traded a fifth rounder for him. It could have been just because they saw him, you know, as potentially a backup to Dwayne or somebody else in the future. But the more and more I think about it and the more and more, you know, you consider how quickly, sort of quickly they bailed on Dwayne,

and I think we all know what they thought of Dwayne to begin with. I believe that Ron Rivera and Scott Turner believe that Kyle Allen could be their quarterback moving forward beyond this year. Do you think I'm onto something or not? Yeah, I think you're onto something. I think he could be the guy moving forward into the future. There's some real reasons for that. First of all, he traded a fifth for Kyle Allen because they definitely didn't believe in DeWain before they came here. There was nothing to truly show you that you should believe in him, including his Ohio.

state film in my opinion. So to me, there was nothing to show that Dwayne is definitely the guy. You gave up the fifth because you're like, we have Dwayne and Alex Smith, and Alex Smith can't hardly walk. That's not quite true, but you understand the point. So they had to have another guy. The positives for Kyle Allen becoming the quarterback through the future is if he can truly operate this offense,

you have a quarterback with a zero cap hit, essentially, for the next couple years. And... Well, he's not under contract next year. Yeah, but I mean, what's he going to get? Yeah, no, you're right. You know what I'm saying? Like you've acquired a quarterback that's not going to cost you anything. And so the thing when you have a quarterback that is like 3% of your salary cap is it allows

you to build a tremendous team, pay the players that you have that you need to continue to sign all your defensive players that are going to be needed to be signed in the next couple of years to acquire talent around Allen. And you build a tremendous football team. It was what the Seattle Seahawks did with Russell Wilson before Wilson really became Wilson. Right. You know, and so we proposed this multiple times. They didn't do that on purpose, though, because they...

But it was what ended up happening was they were able to build just one outstanding ball club because they didn't have to pay quarterback 14% of their salary cap. Yes. You're not paying a quarterback, 14% of your salary cap allows you to have two other A players on your team. four or five other B players on your team. But remember, the Seattle thing, you know, Russell Wilson was their third round pick, but they actually intended going into that 2012 season for what's his face, Matt Flynn, to be the quarterback because they signed him to a big deal.

I understand the scenario. I'm just proposing the way this works out. Sure. Sure. A quarterback performed above what you expect him to perform and has paid nothing. And I think that they believe Kyle Allen can perform above expected. I don't think anybody's looking at Kyle Allen saying he's the next Joe Montana. But I think that if you look at him and understand we can get a huge big time signing in free agency as a receiver.

We can shore up the Brandon Sheriff Deal. We could potentially go out and draft a left tackle in the first round, which would be huge for our team. We can pay some of these guys. You build a team around a quarterback who's competent. and you have a lot going for you. You also allow the potential to draft a quarterback in the middle rounds or late in the first round or second and slow roll develop him. So you don't take the one through 20 quarterback.

You take quarterback late and you say, look, it might be a couple years for this dude, but Kyle Allen's going to execute this offense. I do think it is. I think it's the plan. I think the deviation from the plan would be, what if you fall in love with a rookie quarterback and you have a top 10 pick?

And then your plan changes. But at that, you still get a guy that's not a huge cap number. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. If he plays really well, like if he were to play really well over these final nine games, and let's just say they finished seven and nine and made the playoffs and won the division. And let's take it a delusional step further

and say they won a playoff game. they'd have to get him signed. If it were because of him or a significant contributor was Kyle Allen, they'd have to get him signed because he's a restricted guy next year. So, you know, where he could go out and maybe command a deal based on the way he'd play. Like if they win three in a row here, it's just crazy talk, okay? They beat the Giants, they beat the Lions, and they beat the Bengals. and they're five and five. Is that what's next? I think that's what their schedule is next, right?

It's the Giants, the Lions, and the Bengals. Let's just say, and they're on a four-game winning streak, and they are five and five going to Dallas for Thanksgiving Day, where they are an eight-point favorite because the Cowboys are now two and eight, and it's over for them. Danucci, old JMU's playing quarterback. He's trying to hit the honeyhole and he can't even hit it. I mean, that was the one. He was trading for Fitzpatrick right now. Do you think the Cowboys should? Right, asap.

Yeah, they should. Cowboys are going to be in the market for a quarterback. They are in the market for a quarterback this week. Okay, so just go with my hypothetical. Yeah. You'd have to actually get aggressive on signing Kyle Allen before the end of the year. Sort of. It also depends on how he plays.

No, I just gave you that part of the hypothetical was he's playing really well. You're playing the Giants and Bengals. He's creating a market for himself. Some. Yeah. He would have to be, to create a real market for himself, he's going to have to play good in some of those stretch games against some of the better teams. He just is.

He's going to have to play big against San Francisco. He's going to have to come up big in a couple big games to create a real market, more than $7, $8 million a year, more than $10 million a year for sure. Still a low-cap number if you do that. He's making $650K right now. That's a pretty damn good quarterback number. No, no, I'm with you. The other thing when you look around is, like, the quarterback market is less than it's been in a long time.

There's a lot of good starting quarterbacks, and there's more young starting quarterbacks right now. True. All right. I know it was another long show, guys, but Cooley and I, when we get started, it just keeps going. The film breakdowns are over for the week and go listen to yesterday's. Cooley's stuff on Kyle Allen was exceptional, as was his stuff on J.D. McKissick in particular. that stuff you can listen to right through the rest of the weekend next week, too, because there's no game this weekend.

I'll be with Tommy tomorrow, and then Cooley will join me for a shorter show on Friday to preview the NFL weekend without a Washington game. So have a great day.