The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley Film: "Linebackers Are The Problem"

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Kevin and Thom start with the latest on Dwayne Haskins including John Keim's tweet that no teams have inquired about Haskins so far. Thom's thoughts on Alex Smith's performance Sunday and future. Then Cooley joined the show to talk Tennessee-Buffalo and Derrick Henry. Then, at 1:09:50 it was the Cooley "Film Breakdown" of Washington's defense against the Rams. Cooley believes the biggest problem....linebackers. 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 Chean Show. Here's Kevin. A busy Wednesday show today. Tommy is in. He's going to be in today and tomorrow.

It'll be Tommy and I solo tomorrow. Cooley's going to join us on the back half of today's show with his defensive film breakdown. But I haven't talked to Tommy since Sunday's just incredible offensive. performance by the Washington football team. It was so impressive in the offensive performance Sunday, the offensive performance

Sunday by the team, that Julie Donaldson, we love Julie. Julie is now a senior executive in the Washington football organization. And she put out a tweet yesterday. You retweeted it. I saw it. Six sacks and feeling good.

What a tough T-U-F-F. Dude, obviously referring to Alex Smith in an interview she did with Alex Smith. When you're hanging your hat on six sacks and feeling good, you got big problems. Big problems. I mean, this is just unbelievable. I mean, it's why I retweeted it saying, let's go for seven this week. Yeah, right.

You know, because, I mean, they were using this as some kind of promotional tool. that this was this was something that they were proud of six sacks still standing Tommy I said here on Monday in the recap of the game I thought it was irresponsible that Ron Rivera left Alex Smith out under the field and I thought his explanation about abundance of caution for the backup quarterback for the younger more agile more mobile quarterback who, by the way, two years ago didn't nearly die nor have his leg amputated, close to having the leg amputated, how he exercised an abundance of caution for him and not the guy that was being ravaged for an hour and a half on the football field by Aaron Donald and Company. I mean, the whole, you know, we haven't had a chance to get your take on the game Sunday and some of the stuff that's going on this.

week and the updates on Haskins here, which we'll get to Kimes update here shortly. But I want to give him the chance. You know I like him. You know, I think he's a decent coach and was a decent coach. This has been the most confusing month of Washington football information and communication. And that's saying a lot that I can remember. I mean, I just, I think he's off. I don't think he is fully functioning right now at a high level because of a lot of justifiable reasons.

He's fighting cancer. I would agree with you. Is there a 25th Amendment for football coaches? Oh, my God. I mean, we can't remove them from office completely, but we could. Although I had a doctor or two tweet me and talk to me about, you know, when patients are going through this, really in many cases, the best thing for them to do is work is to carry on with their lives and to be distracted by work. I agree with that normally.

But, I mean, my issue is more of he's going through this while it's the most vulnerable time in American, in the last 100 years, to have your immune system weakened. Yeah. That's my issue. You know, if Dwayne Haskins and they insist he really was sick and Julie Dodgers, Donaldson said he had been sick for days. Well, if Twain Haskins had his stomach flu, was he around the coach? Right. You know?

I mean, was he around the guy whose immune system is compromised because he's undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment? Hold on for a second. Are you saying, Julie said that he had been sick for what? A couple of days. Well, the conversation about him getting benched only happened a few days earlier during the week. I know. Would they have exposed the guy who was sick to the head coach? I don't know. That's my question. I don't know. I don't know. They could have done it over Zoom.

I mean, it's just, it's just unbelievable at this point. And you're right. I mean, you know, I wrote my column that, you know, all of a sudden, the Washington football team has become this hallmark card for the NFL between Ron Rivera's cancer. in Alex Smith's comeback. But if you go past the surface, if you open the card, it's like a horror story. I mean, I'm sorry. And so many people bought into it, and I understand why,

but the Alex Smith, let me just, I'll get to something else in a minute. The Alex Smith comeback to me is, is a bit cringeworthy. Oh, terribly cringeworthy. Yes.

How so? because for multiple reasons for me, but go ahead. Well, first of all, I don't understand, and I guess, you know, there's some kind of mystic reason for the comeback. I don't understand the reasons for the comeback. One of the reasons that he's pointed out was he's doing it for his kids, to show his kids the value of perseverance and dedication and resilience, whatever, all great qualities.

You know, God help us all. if we have to break a leg or put our limbs at risk to teach our kids this lesson. Right. I'm thinking that Alex Smith's kids, and Alex Smith being the stand-up guy who we believe he is, they probably know these things already. A lot of chances to teach some life lessons without breaking a leg and showing the resilience and competitive spirit of bouncing back from that. Okay, very good.

So, I mean, I don't like the explanation. It's not my point to like it. It rubs me the wrong way. And he's not very good at this point, which is ironic, because I told you that all things being equal, he'd be the starting quarterback over Dwayne Haskins. And sure enough, I was right. Well, do you believe me, though, that he's not very good and that he wasn't very –

See, part of this for me is, first of all, I think your point – I didn't think of it from that perspective. I thought of it from other perspectives in terms of it being cringeworthy. Cringeworthy. By the way, I say this now for three days running. All of the disclaimers understood, okay? Incredible story, inspirational story, competitive spirit, resilience, so happy that he has gotten himself back into good health as far as that leg is concerned. And look, he took an absolute brutal, brutal beating on Sunday. The worst beating any NFL quarterback in the league took on Sunday, and he survived, which is amazing, so good for him. So all the disclaimers aside, the whole thing just reeks of the owner

and the owner's fondness for this quarterback, his preferences for quarterbacks in general in this franchise, and how more times than not, that has led to sort of the sabotaging and the summer reining of seasons. Now this season isn't going to be a season. So do what you want to do. But, you know, this story is already great. We don't need to see any more of this story. Is he looking for a final chapter to the book or a final scene to the movie? Did we need a touchdown drive on Sunday a 60-yard touchdown pass or a two-yarder at the end of a 95-yard drive to say, there it is, that's the end of the movie, and now we can move on. There's a lot to this that just doesn't make sense to me.

And I feel like our coach, who is a decent person and I think a decent coach, not right now he isn't. But there are a lot of reasons for that, and I am not bail on the coach. All right, I'm not going to bail on Ron Rivera. I think it would be unseemly to do it, to be honest with you. It's way too early. It's way too early to begin with. I remember Joe Gibbs went 0 and 5 in his first five games coaching. I'm not saying he's Joe Gibbs, but this is not Jim Zorn.

We know this guy he can coach in the NFL. I wouldn't even if it were Jim Zorn or somebody with zero experience, bail. Neither would I. For the reasons of it's only been five games, he came in and inherited a shit show of the highest order. We knew that. And, oh, by the way, he's fighting. cancer for crying out loud. But what I saw Sunday was some of these issues with Rivera in the first month really actually put a decent person who's completed this comeback into great danger.

And now they're celebrating that danger because they always have to find something to market. So now they're marketing six sacks on Sunday. Can we get a seven against the Giants? I mean, and I'm just sitting here and I'm looking at it, I've got my Twitter page open and it just popped up that Jason Wright, the team's new team president, who by the way, I mean, I think all of them are to a certain degree. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't have sort of been sucked into the same thing. They appear to be very enamored with their new fame. And I'm talking about all of the new people there. But he put out a tweet and he's very bright and he's handsome. I don't think he's long for this job.

I think he'll end up, you know, being a co-host of Good Morning America or running a much bigger business with better quality people in it, working for a higher quality person. But he just tweeted out a picture of himself from FedEx Field. We are in, and it's the letter N in quotations, we are in this thing together. Exclamation point. Then hashtag go cats. Go Cats is a reference to Northwesterns. wildcats, I would assume, because he's a big Northwestern guy, and he's got a Rivera

strong t-shirt on. You know, that was the other thing, and I said this on Friday. I want him to beat cancer. I want him to be well. I don't want every Sunday to be about T-shirts and Rivera. Like, let's go try to beat the Rams, or in this particular weekend, beat the Giants. It's focus on football to a certain extent. I'm not being cold-hearted here. It's just that This organization, because they suck so bad all the time on the field, they try to find every other thing to market to keep some sort of sense of happiness and optimism. There's nothing right now to be optimistic about other than the defense, which we'll hear from Coolie's film breakdown.

I have no idea what he's going to say. But my sense of it was that it wasn't nearly as bad as other people thought on Sunday after the three drives. That aside, I don't even know where we're going with this. I just wanted to get your overall thought on the state of the football team after really one of the most embarrassing offensive performances in NFL history, not franchise history, NFL history. But the point was, I did say this would happen, though. In fact, I said it last week. What did you say? I forget what you said by the podcast last week.

I can't keep track of all of your things. I know, I know, because there's so many times I'm right. Last week I said on the podcast, I said this is going to be a shit show on Sunday, and we could see Alex Smith. And remember, you kept saying to me? What do you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. I thought you actually knew something.

No, I just, I had a vision of Kyle Allen being decimated by the Rams pass rush and hurt. Well, let's restart this last brief segment. Hey, Tommy, I meant to give credit for you. You had it right. Friday's podcast when you said we're going to see Alex Smith and it's going to be a shit show. Remember with that, Tommy? And I said to you, what do you know? And you said, I don't know anything.

I don't know anything. I just, I have a feeling Alex Smith is going to play Sunday. Tommy, you were right about that. Good job. You know, it's a burden. It's not easy to be right all the time. Yeah, I know. Okay.

Right. It's a burden not to remember your, your miss speaks. and your bad predictions, which there have been plenty of over the years. But you always remember the ones you get right. That's 100% true. It's not just me. It's our listeners. They remember all the ones they get right too.

Of course, your listeners do. You know, the one thing about Alex Smith and the comeback is this is what this reminded me of. You know, they kept showing pictures of his wife and his kids in the stands watching this. You know, and this reminded me. I've seen this so many times at a boxing match when the boxer will have his family ringside with his kids there. Yeah.

And he's getting a beating. He's taken a horrible beating. And I never understood why fighters invite their kids to their matches because there's always a risk of them taking the kind of beating. And I've seen it. So it's a horrible scene. I imagine it must be terrible for a kid to watch their father get beat up, you know, like that. And that's sort of like what it was.

Was that part of the cringe worthiness of it? Yes. I mean, it's just, I mean, I don't see, I don't see the hallmark. So once you open up the card, like I said, it's like Freddie Kruger wrote it. It's Halloween. It's a nightmare. And, but you're right about not bailing on Ron Rivera. have to remember, like you said, he took over. That's ridiculous talk. I know. He took over a horrific

organization that's going to require a significant amount of time to turn things around. He's not, that's not going to happen because of the aura of self-destruction. But let's speak, you know, to what we're faced with right now. He's been handed a lot to deal with. Here's the other thing that It's a little bit bizarre than you and I have talked about this. He sounds like a fan when he's talking about the schedule. He's looking at the schedule. Oh, my God. And he's saying, oh, we can win this game.

And we might lose this game, but we're going to win these games. This sounds like a fan. You never hit an NFL. I never. That, you know, oh, our next four, five games, they're winnable. You never hear it. Can you imagine Gibbs saying that? Never.

Never. I said, I told Cooley yesterday, you know, Moose Johnston referenced during the broadcast that, you know, and they get to sit with the coaches on Friday, you know, before the Sunday games. And he said, Ron Rivera is really looking at the next six games. The next six games. And he, you know, he needs to go four and two. And he thinks if he can go four and two in this next six games, he can get back into this. Well, now he's got to go four and one, you know, after Sunday. I've, no, I talked about this yesterday. I've never, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't remember coaches talking about six games snapshots. You know, I've heard the quarter to quarter and we've got to win the quarter and the whole thing, but it's ridiculous. The whole thing, this is right now a bad football team because it's truly awful offensively. It's offensively. It's offensive on offense. And I was looking through some of the updated statistical numbers. We know what Sunday was. It was the third worst. most inept offensive day since 1961 in the NFL regular season. They're dead last in yards per

game at 263 in the league, 32nd out of 32nd out of 32 teams. They're 30th in scoring points per games, points per game. They are dead last on third down offense. 29.9% is just horrific in terms of a third down conversion rate. They are 32nd dead last in average yards per drive. They're 32nd, in time of possession per drive. And what was really funny, and I found this early this morning, they are eighth in the league in average starting field positions. So they've got great field position, but they can't do anything with it. So, you know, it was Dwayne's fault, and now, you know, it's Alex and Kyle Allen's fault.

And Cooley pointed out yesterday, Tommy, it was quite a scathing of Scott Turner. Cooley basically said a couple of things at the end of the podcast. He said, Scott Turner and it did not even account and plan for Aaron Donald. For those of you that missed it, go to the last five minutes of yesterday's podcast, and you can hear Cooley talk about that it was just stunning that they did not game plan for Aaron Donald, which allowed Aaron Donald to personally do what he's done in the past, which is wreck a game. He wrecked the game single-handedly. He is the best defensive player in the league, and he totally dominated a team that appeared to have, be completely oblivious to how good he was.

Cooley, very critical of Scott Turner's play calling, very critical of their game plan Sunday, very critical of the way they try to get the ball down the field. And so Scott Turner, who was hired, let's not forget, because he was Norv's son, was on the Carolina staff, ended up going 0 and 4 as a coordinator of the last four games, and now is 1 and 4 in his first 5 here in Washington. I want to address a couple of things. Number one, Kevin O'Connell wasn't going to stay here. Kevin O'Connell had an opportunity to go work with Sean McVeigh and Jared Gough in that offense. He did not want to stay here in this organization.

No matter what we think the chemistry was between KOC and Dwayne Haskins, and it was developing at the end of last year because Haskins had his best performances. His most competent performances with Kevin O'Connell calling the offense. And Callahan, being the head coach, will give a little bit of credit told Coach Cal and his 25-minute answers during press conferences. But COC wasn't going to stay here. Okay. And this was a situation where I think a lot of people around the league looked at this quarterback situation and said, not sure. And I think a lot of people around the league probably knew even more than what we knew, which is not sure about the attitude and the preparation and the work ethic and a lot of

the things that have come out here over the last week. And so he went with Scott Turner and inexperienced coordinator. And Scott's struggling, even though I'll just add, because I mentioned this, I thought he called a really good game against Baltimore. I thought he gave him a chance to move the ball against Baltimore, which they did against Baltimore with very much a simplistic college scheme that got the ball out of the hands of the quarterback quickly in very much an east-west way, not a north-south way. A lot of throws at the line of scrimmage, behind the line of scrimmage, a lot of bubbles, a lot of slip screens, a lot of run extension throws to the backs. I actually thought that should have been the game plan on Sunday.

What I did say, Tommy, and what I want a reaction from you on is this. I don't want to see Alex Smith on the field again. This is a road to nowhere. Alex Smith is not going to be your quarterback if and when you become a competitive team. He is also not the best option now to keep you competitive if you actually think you can, quote, make a in the division, close quote, from Ron Rivera. Kyle Allen is that best option. And I don't even believe in Kyle Allen that much. But I do not want to see Alex Smith exposed the way he was on Sunday.

I actually used what you brought up. I used the analogy in describing this on Monday as a coach in a corner that needed to throw in the towel for the fighter. The fighter was, you know, fighting the fight. But abundance of caution, where was the abundance of caution from the corner for the guy that was getting mauled for an hour and a half? I just I don't want to see that again. Scott Turner's game plan obviously was a train wreck and his lack of experience has to be called in the question. What's bizarre is I know I know that Rivera had him on the staff in Carolina and of course he's North's son. but that Rivera went heavy NFL coaching experience on defense with Jack Dale Rio,

but went so light on the offensive side of the ball as the offensive coordinator with Scott Turner. You know, I mean, not bringing in somebody with more experience. Why do you think that was? Do you think it's possible that Rivera wants to have a. say, more of a say in the offense, so he wants somebody young without experience who's not going to buck him on

the offensive side. It's very bizarre because it's not consistent with his defensive choice. Look, as much as I think voodoo jack is crazy, he has a lot of NFL experience as a head coach and a defensive coordinator. You know, so I think he's capable of the

job. To not go the same way on offense is kind of puzzling. I don't know the answer. to that. I don't know. I don't, you know, I'm wondering, you know, now if Dwayne in the presence of Dwayne Haskins and the preference by the owner to try to make Dwayne Haskins work may have been a problem with hiring somebody more experienced. Look, you know, Cam Newton is in New England. Josh McDaniels is a proven offensive mastermind. I don't know if Cam Newton knew he was going end up in New England. But Cam Newton wasn't going to, people have said in the last couple of days,

why didn't he just, Cam Newton, my God, they would have been much better off. Well, maybe Cam Newton didn't want to come here. Maybe Cam Newton didn't want to work for Scott Turner. Maybe Cam Newton knew that Josh McDaniels was going to be available for him in Bill Belichick's, you know, universe in New England. And what an opportunity. Obviously, a great opportunity for Cam Newton. This would have been a disaster more likely than not. I don't know. I don't know why Scott Turner. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not giving up on Scott Turner yet. You know, I've seen, and I've been alarmed Sunday. I was alarmed early against Arizona. And at the same time, I was impressed what he did in the second half against Arizona. And I was impressed with the game plan against a very good and a better defense in Baltimore than the one they faced on Sunday.

I'm not bailing on this coaching staff yet. I'm not, this year is, it's turning into the year we thought it would be, which would be a year that they're not going to compete for anything meaningful. It's also becoming clear to me five games into it and things can change that the improvement record-wise may not happen. And if it does, it may barely happen. It may be four wins, you know, not the, the potential, what did I say, six wins or seven wins that was in play.

I mean, they're just too bad offensively. They're just way too bad offensively. This is historic bad offensively for a team. And this notion that they can compete and make hay is ridiculous because they're just not going to do it. Unless Kyle Allen, and there were signs that Kyle Allen can be a major upgrade, I don't think the future of the franchise, but a major upgrade potentially to what they have,

unless somehow, you know, he ends up being a stroke of genius, and his mobility and his understanding of the offense ends up translating to something much better offensively in terms of results. But right now, the way things stand, if Kyle Allen gets banged up again on Sunday, in comes Alex Smith again.

Yeah, I would, I would, bring Stephen Montez up from the practice squad and have him as the backup. I just, do you agree with me? There's no, what's, what would possibly be the, the benefit of playing Alex Smith, another down for this franchise? Well, because it, because it has taken attention away from everything else that's so horrific with this organization. Yeah, we got to stop, they got to stop doing that, you know, they got to stop.

Good morning America, today show. I'm sure they're all, you know, they're all talking about. Alex Smith probably. You know, they're not talking about the sexual harassment lawsuits. They're not talking about the in-depth football of this organization now for 20 years under Dan Snyder. They're not talking about they're talking about the glorious Alex Smith comeback. So, yeah, that's, I think that they'll, they won't hesitate to put him back in the game.

Yeah, I think it would be a big mistake. I would, you know, he survived Sunday, good for him. And you know me, Tommy. I'm the one that didn't want Robert Griffin the third pulled in the playoff game, regardless of what we were looking at. He said he was okay. The doctors cleared him to play, and it was the playoffs, and it was a close game. But, man, Sunday, I found myself after the first couple of drives of the second half,

saying, get him out of here. Get him out. This is not going to work. He's not ready. He's rusty. But beyond that, he's. He can't protect himself. You know, that was supposed to be the number one goal.

And it's not just him, but his offensive line couldn't protect him. And the play calling couldn't protect him. And the game plan couldn't protect him. And yet the abundance of caution was there for the other guy. We'll find out today in a little bit after their Wednesday preparation. If indeed Alex Smith, Kyle Allen took all of the snaps, which is expected. And I hope it's Kyle Allen. And I hope we, you know, play the rest of the season out with a guy that, you know,

may be a backup for this team next year. And who knows could be something more, I doubt it. But they're going to be in a quarterback market next year. There's no doubt about it. They're going to be in a draft opportunity market more likely than not with the top five, top six pick. And then if that doesn't work out, they'll be in what could be a very interesting free agent market with the likes of Matt Ryan and Matt Stafford and Cam Newton.

You know, there could be a lot of veteran. quarterbacks available with, you know, three to five years left in their career, you know, available next year to them if they decide to do it. I mean, in hindsight, personally, I was a big Teddy Bridgewater fan. Most of you know that. I mean, I would have rather seen Bridgewater on this team quarterbacking. But again, they need more than just that. I think what we have learned through five games, it wasn't all Dwayne's fault. You know, it may be a problem beyond his performance on the field that they can't get through. And if that's the case, and I believe it to be the case, it's time to move on.

But the offensive ineptitude hasn't been solely on the quarterback. No, no, it hasn't. And, I mean, look, the one thing that Kyle Allen gives you is mobility. is the ability to run for his life. Alex Smith didn't have the ability to run for his life on Sunday, which you need if you're going to play behind this offensive line. All right. I want to take a break for a word from our sponsor here in a second.

I want to read to you what John Kime reported about Dwayne Haskins last night. We'll react to that. And I do want to get Tommy's thoughts on Joe Morgan, who passed away two days ago. Let's pause for a moment from a word from one of our sponsors. So I had Tommy John Kime on the radio show yesterday. He was actually really good. I think one of the things that I'm hearing, you're probably hearing, a lot of us are hearing, is that this is not fixable with Dwayne Haskins.

It's over. I think that there is an immaturity, or at least from their standpoint, there is an immaturity that they can't overcome. You know, there's some talent there. I think that there are also some on-field things, the mechanical flaws, the footwork, all that stuff. But it's much deeper than that. It is the fact that they think this is going to be really impossible from their standpoint or really more, I think a better way to describe it. It's just not an investment in time that they're willing to make based on the maturity level of the player.

That's what's coming out. That's what's coming out of there. So the selfie was a revealing moment. The selfie was a revealing moment. The number seven was a revealing moment. The, you know, the social media stuff, the, you know, off of a loss, the promotion of the, you know, the Black Friday sales and the Cyber Monday sales. And, you know, and some of the interviews, remember, with the family, you know, early on. Yeah, I mean, you always were on it.

and I always acknowledged that we may look back and say, of course, those were red flags. And according to, I think, what everybody's hearing, those not only were red flags, but they were reasons that, you know, the last coaching staff didn't want anything to do with them, and this coaching staff doesn't want anything to do with them. I find the whole thing to be a shame for so many reasons. Number one, it was a waste of time this four games in the summer, whatever summer there was, of toss around in training camp. And I also think from his standpoint, and I'm going to take his side for a brief moment,

is that if he had been into an organization with real leadership, with a leadership that wanted him to succeed, that believed in his abilities and thought that he could succeed, that maybe there'd be a better chance, you know, for him. And maybe the results would be different. And there's always the chance that it wasn't going to be. and it won't ever be. I did think it was pretty interesting, though, what Kime tweeted out.

John Kime tweeted out last night, for what it's worth, no team has yet called Washington to inquire about Dwayne Haskins according to multiple sources. And my understanding, he said, is that he has not requested a trade.

John also said, you know, it's ugly, it's over. I think everybody feels that way. John also said the possibility of releasing him is in play. Wow. Can you imagine if he gets released? I wouldn't do it before the trade deadline. I would do it after the trade deadline if you can't trade him. If they want to rid themselves of him,

if they can hang on through the trade deadline, which is the end of this month, a couple days into November, I think it's November 3rd, actually, is the trade deadline. Yes, it is. I think if they can just hang on to the trade deadline, I mean, who knows, maybe he's not even in the facility today. I don't know. I don't know if he'll show up on Sunday in the Meadowlands

or if there'll be another tummy gate, a tummy eight gate situation. But they should try to move him for something. And then if it doesn't work out, then you can release him after the trade deadline. So how are we, we can only assume at this point, because I don't think anybody knows anything. Well, somebody does, but nobody I know. What's the owner's reaction to all this? I don't know.

I mean, this was his guy. Yeah. This was the guy. He interviewed him personally in Indianapolis for the combine. It was the only interview that the owner insisted on sitting in on. He was the one who made the call to Dwayne when he got drafted. He was the one who insisted that the football people take Dwayne. He's the one who told Dwayne not to go in the game last year.

when he was hurt. I mean, I don't, I know, like I said, the owner may be just distracted with all the other crap he's having to deal with and trying to survive as the owner of the football team. But he watches the team play on Sunday, and he noticed that his guy was not a quarterback this Sunday, but it's Alex Smith, his guy, too. and does that sort of like ease things a little bit? I mean, there's got to be some blowback from the owner who can't. I mean, he's not the kind of guy who puts his head down and says,

well, yeah, everybody was right. I was wrong. You know, I shouldn't have picked him. He's not that kind of guy. Well, the only thing we do know, because we haven't heard from him and we won't hear from him, the only thing we do know is that Ron Rivera was able to bench him four weeks into the season. that's the only thing we know. So I think part of the benching him and the acceptance of the benching him

was the prospect of an incredible movie that ends with an Alex Smith win. And with Alex Smith returning to the field in a blaze of glory, with a 350-yard passing day five touchdowns and a win over the L.A. Rams or the Dallas Cowboys in a couple of weeks. I don't know. Because we know that relationship is tight. Instead of a movie about cheerleaders and sexual harassment? Yeah.

Maybe more on that to come, too. All right. I did before we wrap up and we get to Cooley and Cooley's defensive film breakdown. Joe Morgan, Tommy, correct me if I'm wrong. Joe Morgan passed away the other day. At a young age, really a young age, right? 77 years old. Morgan. You know, there's a generation of people. I have that age, right? Right? He was 77?

77. That's awfully nice of you to say very young age. It is a young age. It is a young age. It's 11 years away from there. Well, it is a young age to pass away now. I mean, what's the average, what's the average age of death for a male? I think it's exactly around 76, 77. Okay. Well, maybe, I don't know. It just seems younger than it should be now. You know, there are a lot of people that remember Joe Morgan. as part of a great, you know, ESPN booth with John Miller for a long time. You know, Joe Morgan was an outstanding broadcaster. I really enjoyed Joe Morgan as a baseball broadcaster. But Tommy, he's one of the greatest second baseman in the history of the game. He's probably the greatest second baseman in the history. It's a short cut debate. It's him and Rogers Hornsby.

That's the debate. Those are the two second basemen? That's the debate. Hornby had a 358 career batting average, you know. But Morgan, at the time he played, was probably a better all-around player than than Hornsby. I mean, he was a two, you know, he was the MVP in the two years that the big red machine won the World Series.

Right. You know, all those great players on that team, bench, Foster, Rose. Conception. Yeah. And it was Joe Morgan, who was the MVP in both those years. He was the first and still one of the ultimate combinations of speed and power. I mean, just when you talk about, they called about five tool players. Joe Morgan was basically the ace hardware of five tool players.

And, you know, and he loved the game. He was not, he was very active in, in the Hall of Fame. I mean, as, as, as one of the members in, like, in making sure that things were done right. And he wrote a letter a couple years ago asking voters not to vote for these players who had been, who had been proven to take it steroids. Right. He wrote that controversy. And I'll be curious, uh, how that plays out in the upcoming vote. if there'll be other hall famers who will pick up what Joe did and speak out about that.

Not that it has any effect on the baseball writers who vote. It may. I'm not sure. But Joe Morgan really cared about baseball a lot. I always enjoyed him, and I do remember, Tommy. Those are, you know, the Oakland A's teams of the 70s, the big red machine team of the 70s are the first, you know, baseball teams. I remember, I also remember the Orioles being very good, you know, in the early 70s as well. But it seemed like it was always the same teams, right? The A's, the Orioles,

the Reds, and the Pirates there for several years. With the Red Sox, obviously, in 75, you know, that famous World Series in 1975, that the Reds ended up winning even after the Carlton Fisk, Game 6th, 11th inning home run. But yeah, I knew he was one of the greatest second. basement of all time. I didn't really realize it was a conversation between just two players. Yeah. I think so, at least. No, I'm looking it up after you said it. And that's basically it. It's Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan. That's where the conversation basically starts and ends in terms of the greatest second baseman of all time. And he really, yeah, by the way, my son asked me about this because he was watching something and I said, that's Joe Morgan. He goes, who's Joe Morgan? So I spent five minutes.

and my son asked me a question, and I think this is true. He goes, is Cincinnati one of those towns that is really a big baseball town, maybe more so than anything else? I think it is, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely it is. Definitely a big baseball town. I mean, it's been around, I think baseball in Cincinnati has been around since like,

you know, the late 1800s. Right. So, yeah, it's a big baseball town. Remember Joe Morgan, he had that elbow tick when he was up to hit. Of course. The elbowed. So many kids would try to imitate that. And nobody ever did it.

Right. Nobody ever did it. No. Anyway. Here's what's interesting. He wasn't a great postseason player. He only hit 182 in 50 postseason games. But ironically, people forget, he played for the Phillies.

the 83 World Series, the Orioles won in five games. Right. And he had two home runs in that game in that series. Wow. And that was, that was his last games. And he hit a triple in his last that bat. So yeah, he played for those Phillies team that made it to the World Series and Law City Orioles too.

His first team, his first team was the Houston Colt 45s who became the Astros. Yes. Yeah. And one of the great trades by the Reds, acquiring. Joe Morgan like that. And I talked to Joe a number of times when he'd be on the field. If I needed to do a certain story about something, like Joe was like Jim Palmer. Yeah.

He would always be there to talk to you about baseball if you needed to talk about baseball. You know, you had to have an intelligent question. But Joe loved the game. He loved it a lot. Morgan also had this incredible memory like Palmer too, because I remember him as a broadcaster talking about, you know, at-bats from like 30 years previous to that. Anyway.

It's been a rough year for baseball hall famers. Yeah, it has been. All right, you're back with me tomorrow. We'll get a prediction for you on the Giants Redskins game, Giants Washington game. Giant Washington game. And we'll probably have a lot of. lot to talk about because, oh, Ron, who knows what's going to come out of his mouth today?

These pressers are just totally unpredictable. Today, he might say we've brought Stephen Montez up from the practice squad and he will be competing with Alex Smith to start. And then we'll be like, what happened to Kyle Allen? Kyle's still in the plans, but we don't know. It could be anything today. All right. Talk to you tomorrow.

Thanks. Okay. I'll see you, boss. All right. Coolie's up next to have his defensive film breakdown and more right after. this word from one of our sponsors. All right. Cooley joins us right now.

And there's several things before we'll get to your defensive film breakdown. I'm very actually more interested in this than I was in yesterday's because I had this sense that the defense wasn't as terrible after the first three drives as many other people did. But we'll get to that. I don't want you to tease anything about it right here. Because your tease yesterday was a fake tease. Remember your fake tease yesterday on the offensive line?

I was being sarcastic. Well, it didn't sound like you were being sarcastic. I got a lot of surprises. I think there will be a couple surprises from this one today, and it's not a fake tease. Okay. I think there will be a couple surprises. I'll just leave it at that. We'll get to it.

I hope it's not a fake tease. It's not. So there are a couple things I don't want to touch on. First of all, did you watch the game last night, the Tennessee Buffalo game, two undefeated teams? I made it into the third quarter when Butler picked off, when Butler picked off Alan. Yeah. So I think we I know the NFL season changes the whole thing.

I think we got to start taking Tennessee pretty seriously. You know, this is a team that's now 13 and 4 with Tannahill as a starter. They got to the AFC title game last year. They have a good defense. I think Brable's doing a good job. You think Arthur Smith is doing a very good job. Really good coaching. They have talent, you know. Derek Henry is an absolute monster.

You know the interesting thing about Henry? He's only averaging 3.7 yards per carry. I looked that up after last night's game because I actually think that he is a real dominant back and a real impactful back in sort of a traditional way, you know, in a traditional run-first offense. I guess that's what I mean by traditional. But the 3.7 yards per average is 40th in the league. 40th.

Like there are so many super high averages and not even counting the quarterbacks like Jackson and Murray. Like Rahim Mostert is averaging 7.0 yards per carry. How many carries is Mostert? He was out of three. He's got nine carries last. He's got like nine. He's got 34. He's got 34.

I get that. And Henry today has 101 carries. So there's a significant difference. You rip one off at 34, and that's going to bump your average by two yards. Chubb has the most 20-plus yard runs in the season. He's got six. Nobody's even close. He's averaging 5.9 yards per carry.

Now, he missed last week. Sony and Michelle's missed too many games as well. He's way up there. But looking at the guys that have a lot of carries, Dalvin Cook averages 5.3 yards per carry. Miles Sanders, who missed our game, is averaging 5.1 yards. per carry. By the way, Alexander Madison Cook's backup

averaging five yards of carry with 70 rushes. Do you know Todd Gurley has 79 carries this year? He's averaging 4.8 yards per carry. There's somebody else. Clyde Edwards. I didn't know that because Todd Gurley's not my fantasy team. Yeah. So Henry's way down there, yet I think he is

such an impactful player on that team. I can't believe that Derek Henry got drafted in the second round as the Heisman trophy winner. It was that span of time where backs were really demoted in the draft. Yes, it was. It's true. It was that five-year period where they're like, don't draft a back in the first round. That is true. Derek Henry in that 2016 draft went in the second round, 45th overall.

What you would want to look at is were there running backs taken before him? And there were. There was one, Zeke Elliott at four overall. He was the one back taken before Derek Henry. Remember, there was a need for running back in Washington. And we talked about this on draft night. Doc and I were doing a show, and I think you were a part of it as well. And we were talking about Derek Henry when we got into the second round.

but he wasn't there by the time they picked. They picked that great player, Sue Cravens, which really goes right in line with all of the, all of the due diligence they've done so well on picks like Suea Cravens, Darius Geis, Josh Doxon,

and perhaps Dwayne Haskins. Perhaps it's done, I think, at this point. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, the other thing with the Titans, I... Like, you got to look at who they played as well. I don't know.

You're right. I guess I should say that, but they played. Well, they just blew out Buffalo. Who was undefeated? Yeah, Buffalo is a good team. And Buffalo has a good defense. They played Minnesota. I mean, Minnesota's defense has been horrific.

Until the other, I actually thought it was pretty good the other night for the most part. It's gotten better in the red zone. It's improved each week. but yes, in that first two and a half game. The Broncos aren't really a dominant team. Like, you'd think he'd have more yard dressing. It is interesting, though, a couple things on Tennessee. Not our drafts.

You know, they barely beat the Broncos. They barely beat the Jaguars. They beat the Vikings by one point. Yeah, I know. It gets three and O. I know. And Scouts had six field goals in that game. The other, my what do you got to this morning is really,

and they got a lot of credit. It was talked about a million times that they didn't practice for two weeks. They didn't practice for two weeks. Twice in 16 days. You know the scary thing about this? Everyone around the league is going to sit there and say, they don't need to practice. Right.

Look at Tennessee. Yeah. Seriously. If I'm playing right now, sitting there saying, what do you want to do on Thursday? I don't want to practice. I'd rather be fresh. Yeah.

It's wild. That changes the top process. So it would be a really interesting. What do you really think about that, though? That's cute, you know, because of the result last night. What do you think if not practicing or barely practicing became a practice in the NFL? Well, one, I think you have to have a very good staff to manage that. And that staff's got to be able to understand what your team is capable of.

And I think both Brable and Arthur Smith are very competent in that. I think you have to have efficient efficiency at quarterback. And Tannahill is. He's a guy that I think can be a very efficient quarterback. He's done a good job this year. To me, you need a run game. And Derek Henry is that. I don't know if you can get away with it and how many times teams will get away with it.

It's going to happen more of the season. I mean, there's been 50 changes, it seems like, to the schedule, which is wild. I actually love it, though, because I love that a football game is on Tuesday night. That's another interesting test for the NFL to see what ratings are through the week. Yeah, I just think the one-offs are more beneficial during a pandemic without a lot of other things and the excitement over football. Do you know that the Cowboys Giants game, which was a CBS game Sunday, not a Fox game, and what they call the crossover network games, the highest rated CBS primetime afternoon window game in five years, Cowboys versus Giants.

The Cowboys are always obviously a draw. But, yeah, and the Sunday night game, you know, basically did two and a half times the rating of the NBA finals, game six, the game that the Lakers won the title in. The Viking Seahawks basically did a rating two and a half times higher than the NBA closeout game in the finals. Well, both games, you mentioned Dallas and Minnesota, both those games, they were great games to the wire. They were, true. True. I mean, the Minnesota game was so compelling down to the end. It was great. It was one of the better games and more entertaining, you know, back and forth games of the year.

So this was my sort of, what do you got? Okay. I saw this on Twitter last night. And maybe you know this. And maybe some people that are listening know this and have already been exposed to this. Do you know what Derek Henry did in high school as a running back in the state of Florida at Yule High School? which is in Yulee, Florida. Do you have any concept of what he did in terms of the yards he rushed for? No. Okay. So his freshman year, he played as a ninth grader, he had 2,465 yards and 26 touchdowns.

As a sophomore, he had 2,788 yards and 38 rushing touchdowns. In his junior year, he had 3,116. 65 yards and 34 touchdowns, but those three years pale in comparison to his senior year. His senior year opened with a game against Gainesville. They lost the game 51 to 28. He had 31 carries for 336 yards and three touchdowns. In game two, a win over Potter's House Christian, 15 carries 242 yards four touchdowns, average 16.13 yards per carry. Then against South Lake in week three, 41 carries 303 yards and five touchdowns. But here we get into some big ones.

Against Andrew Jackson in week four, a game they won 45 to 28. He carried the ball 45 times for 510 yards and six touchdowns. All right. Hold on. It doesn't stop. The following week, 35 carries 362 yards, six touchdowns. Then, oh, this was an off week. 16 carries 201 yards, three touchdowns.

Then 35 carries 215 for three. Then 35 carries 455 yards and five touchdowns against West Nassau. Then they lost a Trinity Christian Academy. I don't know how they lost a game. And it was 21 carries for 404 yards. I'm sorry, 45 carries, 242 yards, three touchdowns. The next week against Hamilton County, obviously he only played a half in this one. They won 56 to 6.

21 carries, 404 yards, six touchdowns. He averaged 19.24 yards per carry. The following week, Cooley, listen to this one. Against Taylor County High School. They won the game 41 to 26. He carried the ball 57 times. for 485 yards and six touchdowns. That was not a good yards per average, 8.51 yards per carry.

485 yards. Then his worst game... Hold on. Hold on. How many carries? 5-7. 57. So I'd be really interested to know that in a 48-minute game... Yes, right?

How many total plays they didn't just hand the ball to Derek Henry? None would be the answer in that game. I mean, honestly, did he touch, did he run the ball every single down? Well, he had to. I mean, that much. I'm watching his highlight tape from high school right now. It's unbelievable. His worst game of the year was against Gadsden County.

1613 was the final sport. Great cackling and Gadsden. They won the game. 43 carries 189 yards. 189 yards. Jesus, Derek. What was wrong with you? He must have been sick.

And he only had one touchdown. And then his final game was 43 carries, 317 yards, four touchdowns. His senior year, in high school, he rushed for 4,261 yards. He averaged 327.8 yards per game, 9.2 yards per carry, and he scored 55 touchdowns. Now, the 510-yard game was the, hold on, where is it here? The 510-yard performance against Jacksonville is an all-time Florida high school record. Well, I would hope it would be.

So they got this kind of assistant offensive coordinator in Uly. His name's Tim, and Tim's like, look, I just think that the play action is set up this week. And Bobby Ramey, the head coach is saying, we're going to get it to Derek Henry. This is Bobby Ramey goes to head coach. He said, I've always said, Henry, he's the best back in the history of the world in high school football. The numbers dictate that. Okay. Yeah, I think he is.

He had 7,000 carries in high school. He was the number one five-star recruit in the country coming out of high school. He originally committed to the University of Georgia, but then changed his mind and committed to Nick Sabin and Alabama. you know, I think Herschel Walker had one of the storied high school careers of all time, and I don't know what Herschel's is compared to Derek Henry's, but I can't imagine that it's better. I mean, I mean, how- Well, no one's better. He has the record. He does.

The overall rushing record. I mean, he rushed for 12,124 yards and 153 touchdowns in high school. Yeah, he beat the record. Ken Hall finished with a last year. 11,232 career. What about Herschel? In 1953 in Sugarland, Texas. Wow.

I want to see what Herschel's high. Because Herschel was truly when he came out, one of the most highly recruited players in the history of high school football, in part because he was also a track standout. He was the high school athlete of the year Herschel was, all around high school athlete, the year. His senior year, he rushed for 3,167 yards. So nowhere near the 4,200 plus that Derek Henry

rushed for. But I remember, you know, even back then when recruiting wasn't a big deal, I remember the buzz over Herschel Walker and going to Georgia. And, you know, the first big game that he played in at Tennessee and he basically ran over a linebacker on his way into the end zone. And it was like, Oh, okay. And you know what it is? Like with Herschel and with Derek Henry. It's the thing that, you know, anybody that's ever played sports in any kind of sport,

it's that kids that's just so big and so strong and so fast that it just doesn't matter. At that level, there's nothing you can do. He was 6.3, 245. Well, they clearly couldn't tackle him. Well, yeah, but I was pretty big my senior year at 200. 10 pounds right as a tight end right yeah he was 6 3 245 I mean this is crazy but it actually probably hurt him to go to Alabama because everyone just says everyone's going to run the ball at

Alabama like his 5.6 yards per attempt at Alabama his senior year or did his junior year before he came out it's Alabama I mean anyone can do that Probably hurt him. Everyone else that helps to beat Alabama. It probably hurt Henry. You know, the first, that first playoff game with Alex Smith that Tennessee played in at Arrowhead when they were down a bunch of points and they came back and won the game. And it was basically, they came back and won the game with Derek Henry dominating the game.

And, you know, that was his rookie year. I think, no, 2016 would have been his rookie year, right? Yeah. because he was in the Josh Doxon draft. They were down. That was a crazy game. I'll never forget that game because I had Tennessee on the money line for this game. I remember that at Arrowhead in the playoffs.

And they were down in that game, 21 to 3 at halftime. And Kansas City couldn't do anything offensively. Alex Smith was terrible in the second half. And Derek Henry rushed for 156 yards. I just pulled up the box score, average 6.8 yards per carry. and basically put the game on ice on a third down and like eight run late Cooley. I don't remember exactly what it was. Kansas City needed to get a stop.

And he went one way and then cut it back the other way and ended up running for like 15, 20 yards. Like he started off going one direction, came back, and then it was just like an incredible run. But his playoff run last year against New England and Baltimore in the postseason when Tennessee made it to the A. title game was incredible. Let's not forget that last year, I think he had in back-to-back games 182 yards and 195 yards rushing against New England and Baltimore. And basically, it was a one-man show against both of those teams who were heavily favored. If you recall, and I'm going to pull up the box score right now, Ryan Tannahill threw like 20 combined passes in the two games. The game against New England, Ryan Tannahill,

8 for 15 for 72 yards. Derek Henry, 34 carries, 182 yards. And then in the upset at Baltimore, which was a shocker, Tannahill, 7 of 14 for 88 yards, and Derek Henry 30 carries 195 yards in the postseason. This dude is so good. And yet the average yards per carry isn't that great. But yet every time I watch him,

I think he's one of the most impactful players. on the field. He's incredible. Yeah. He's absolutely incredible. Okay. That was, what a high school career, though. Here's the other thing.

Just quickly. Yeah. As we're in this world where everyone thinks their kid is going to play D1 football. Right. Look up pretty much any big time D1 kid. Look up any professional athlete and watch their highlight. tape and say to yourself, is my kid that? The answer will come very quickly.

The answer might not be Derek Henry because nobody's Derek Henry. Right. But just say to yourself, is my kid that? Yeah. Can't we answer it for him? No. Anyway. All right.

I had one other thing before we get to your defensive film breakdown, and that is this tweet that came from Kime. I don't know if you saw it or not. But Kime tweeted out last night, for what it's worth, hold on, I had it up for a second. Let me just get it again. For what it's worth, Kime tweeted out last night. No team is yet called Washington to inquire about Dwayne Haskins, that according to multiple sources. So my question to you, we both agree he's not going to play

for them again. If they can't trade him before the trade deadline, Kime suggested to me on the radio show yesterday that they could potentially release him. Like they're ready to move on from this. Do you think they would release him? No. So if they can't trade him by the trade deadline, you think they take him into the offseason and try to deal him? Yes. You have to. What if they just don't want anything to do with him? What if he's planning on not going to the game again. What if he's... What was the... What did they put Sue Craven's on? Yeah, with some sort of personal exemption list or something.

Right. UIRM for personal exemption. You find a way to do that. Boy, that'll really help the trade value. Well, it's better than zero. For anybody hoping that it can be resurrected, it's not going to be. It's not going to be. It's not going to be resurrected. It's just a stunning turn of events when you really think about it

because it was just two weeks ago that Rivera was essentially saying, we're sticking with him. I mean, what are we going to do? How are we going to learn anything about him with him on the scout team or with him, you know, not playing? To now the possibility of a trade and or a release. All right. Let's get to Cooley's film breakdown right after a word from our sponsor.

We're going in depth, play by play. The Cooley Film Breakdown. Here's Cooley and Kevin. Kevin, the defensive film breakdown today. You predicted it would be much better after the first three drives. It was not much better after the first three drives. I think the Rams changed maybe the style of the way they were calling plays, and they didn't convert on a couple of third downs.

Clearly, that does make defense better. It wasn't dynamically better. There were still gaps in coverage. There were still runs that got out the gate. There were some, I thought, lazy plays late in the game. it wasn't much better. Well, they didn't convert on eight of their 10 third downs after the first three drives. There were two for 10 after the first three drives.

But continue. I'm amazed that this game wasn't a 50-point game than watching both sides of the ball. Okay. Before we get to the grades, I just, I want to go through some of the first couple drives. The third play of the game is the third down. Bostick's in coverage on Everett. That's a matchup that can't exist. Bostick can't play man coverage against Everett.

Everett split out wide. Bostick's trying to wall him to the inside and still lets him inside. He's too far off. He's soft and easy and throw and catch. Like, gosh, that was the matchup we wanted early in the game. Or did they just think that Everett wasn't going to split out why? Next play, run action pass. You have Cooper Cup running across the field sitting down.

On the other side, there's a little back coming out in the back field and a deep sit route. Essentially, the Rams have two players 20 yards down the field. in between the defensive right hash and the defensive numbers. Washington has three players at 10 yards right in between the middle of the hashes, 10 yards, Lana Collins, Bostic, and Darby, all covering air, 10 yards short of anybody on the field and all inside of both receivers on the field. Trust me, this is going to be a theme throughout this film breakdown. Is it hard to guard air? Is it hard to cover air?

Well, it's light. It can move quickly. You never know. I don't know. Six play of this drive. You end up in a second 15 situation. They allow Higby an eight-yard catch on an easy little sit-down combination. There's a deep route and short route.

And both Land and Collins and KPL are sitting there letting him catch an easy ball. Golf stares this down. You've got to collapse on this thing. The next play is the third and seven. It's a great screen to Everett. They checked into it. I love this by Sean. I love this by the Rams.

They saw a two-man side where it was going to be hard to get out and cover that screen. Someone is going to have to make a tremendous play there. And it was a bad, bad, formational situation for Washington. Good play. Kev, I want you to pull this play up. It's the eighth play. It's a first down towards the red zone after the Everett screen. It's another screen passed to the running back.

But I have never seen this. and I get so excited when I see things that I haven't seen. They go with a hard fake on outside zone to the back. The tight end, left tackle, left guard, all block run, essentially. Stretch it wide. And then they screen it to the back. It's a really cool way to ensure the ball gets to the edge. It wasn't ever like a pass.

They were all blocking on the screen to start like it was run, and then it still ends up being a screen, and they sustain their blocks. Bogg is the edge. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I mean, what's the part that's unique? Is the part that's unique just the way the offensive linemen sell run? Exactly.

Everyone's selling run. There's nobody that's acting like they're getting beat on a screen and then leaking out as a lineman to block down the field. Right. They're just all sustaining their blocks and it's still a screen. Right. I have never seen this. It's cool.

Right, because in a normal screen, traditional screen that involves the running back or a fullback, The offensive linemen let everybody come in and then they get to the outside and the quarterback throws it to the back and the defensive lines already rushed up field and they're done. This is they're selling run the whole way and then they end up blocking the screen anyway because they're already blocking the players. Yeah, but it's a screen. I don't think it's just a dump off. It's really cool. If you have NFL game pass, it's the eighth play of the game. It's great.

They ended up scoring on that drive. The second drive. The DPI on Everett is egregious. It's bad. On a third and ten. It's a shame too because they... Hold up the third and ten on the second drive. And please just explain to me what Bostick is doing.

He is so far lost in coverage. He turns, sees the receiver get to the middle of the field, and then shuffles and drifts away from him. On the backside of this play, they're playing court as coverage. Lannon Collins and Darby allow post to get over the top. This could have been a touchdown if he would have thrown it over the top.

They ain't going to cover that post. No one else is going to cover that post. Collins allows it to get to the middle of the field over the top. This is ugly, baby. Like, ugly. You, G-L-Y. You ain't got no while about it. It's ugly.

I don't know what Bostick's doing here. It's terrible by Everett, but at least he's breaking on the ball. Bostick's breaking away from the ball. Sounds like a theme. A Bostic theme. Bostick theme. The touchdown throw to Woods.

It clearly looks like halves on the, aside with the two receivers. So Landon Collins would be the deep player on that half of the field. Cover two. The inside receiver is running the old John Gruden banana route. Well, there's no reason to chase him to the middle of the field as he bends in. Your job is to split the two receivers. I don't even think he sees Woods. Fuller gets a little rerout on Wood, but Landon starts to drift in. You got to remember there's another guy outside of him, man. The other thing that's amazing about this play, as the ball's thrown, the ball's thrown, two Rams receivers are basically outside the numbers.

They're clearly outside the halves or outside the hashes. Six zoning Washington defenders are inside the numbers. That's not good. What is the reaction to Goff's eyes? He's looking at it the entire time. We have six players inside the numbers. one player outside the numbers that's a flat corner. Yeah, that's Fuller.

Who are we going to cover here? Seriously, I counted it. Yeah, no, I'm looking at it right now. Fuller is the only, Fuller and then Collins ends up inside the numbers. As he chases the play from way behind with no chance. And you've got two receivers just flooding that area. It's a two-man route combination.

They were beat over and over and over and over by two-man route combinations. And some of it ended up having whatever, the fly-sweep-looking guy in the flat, but you're beat downfield a million times by two-man route combinations. The next play I want to go through is the third drive. So the second play of the third drive,

it's a run-action pass. I actually sent you a picture today that I drew on my computer, my computer. Yes. It ends up being a checkdown to the back out in the flat. But 11, who's 11 for the Rams? I can never remember that dude's name, is running down the middle of the field at about 20 yards and sitting down.

Bostic decides that after he sees run, then realizes it's past, he's just going to go chase the quarterback. Fuller's sitting wide covering essentially nobody. KPL's on the receiver to the far sideline. If you draw a circle, it looks like the old school bull in the ring. It is 11 in the middle of the field on the hash. Reynolds.

And 10 yards in every single direction, a star of Washington players, 10 yards away in every direction. He turns Troy Apkey around to the deep middle of the field. Troy's got nobody else back there. Troy's got 10 yards on him. He's turning around and sprinting backwards. Landon Collins is standing covering nobody. The backside corner derby is sitting covering nobody. It's incredible.

And golf doesn't throw it. He still hits the back and they still get a decent gain on it. It's a first down. Stop the film on this play and say, what is the? answer here. I can't tell you. McVay's going to pause this film and he's going to go, Jared, what are we thinking right here?

I mean, you like to throw? Yeah, but I mean, they did rush five and they, but Young drops in coverage too. Did Young have responsibility for the back? Young doesn't drop in coverage. Young just sees that it's passed and that he's done. He ends up turning back after he sees the ball thrown to the back. Okay. I mean, it's a five-man pressure, but Bostic adds for no reason, and Young ends up falling off, making a decent playdown field.

Third and four on the third drive, Cooper Cup and a stack set goes inside. Fuller's a man-man coverage. He goes hard inside. It's the old paint manning in and out, the burger out. It's a stack set, and if you're not going to combo, then moth. So essentially, Fuller and Jimmy Morland are out there. Just look at each other and say, if he goes in, you got it. if he goes this way you got it cool got it if you can't combo those things off then you're going to

get stack set killed all year first thing i would do next week if i was playing us and third down just just go to stack sets the other part of this is it's a third and four and chase young is dropping into coverage covering nobody he ends up young ends up having an okay drop later in the game but goff stares this down the whole time and young just sits there and looks at goff we didn't draft him number two overall. No. This one is frustrating because Chase Young does nothing on this play. What's his responsibility on this play? Key quarterback guys. He's a lurker or robber. Okay. There's no back to cover. He's not rushing the quarterback on third and four. There's two guys outside of there. Yeah. Two guys drop into them. And golf looks that way the entire time. Throws a nice ball too.

Oh, it's great. It's great. Run action pass to Everett coming out of the backfield on the third drive. It's so bad. Everett comes out of the backfield. He runs past Bostick. Everett's essentially going to sell block on 31. Come on, Chris. Bostick.

Cameron, Carol. Everyone's good to sell. He's selling the block on Cameron Curl. Yeah. Cameron Curl essentially would be the flat player who should. should get underneath this. He's four yards in the backfield. That's a little bit tougher on him because he's got to go fit a lead block. Bostic, as Everett runs by him, turns and directly runs in the opposite direction. That's what I was laughing at. Sinking to the middle of the field. It's Perry Riley-esque. And Bostick's still going, it's so Perry Riley-esque. The ball's thrown,

he's still going the other way. Really, I think they're in quarters coverage. Landon Collins should almost count this as a crosser and cut it from the backside. Essentially, they have zero idea how to cover any run action pass from slot sets. They don't know who to cut, what safeties are cutting, what crossers, how to count the numbers count with who's in the backfield. It's horrible. It's coached poorly. It's executed poorly.

It's embarrassing for Bostick. Essentially, it's a borderline embarrassing for Curled because it's a pass and he is deep in the backfield. This is bullshit. The Bostick running the wrong way is actually. really funny. It's not funny. It's not funny.

Yeah, well, it's kind of funny. Okay, you want funny? Pull up the boot walking touchdown by Goff. Well, I know that. He was a bit compromised on that, didn't you think? Watch Bostic on the boot walking touchdown. On that boot, a lot of times there's the flat late player. So whoever's blocking to the side goff's going to run to is blocking forever and then they're coming

out late behind Goff. If you were to dump it, he's got a cross-body dump it. Kirk did this all the time. Bostick at some point has to realize he's not going to dump it to him. Bostick is still fucking side shuffling as Gough's crossing the end zone line. Playing the down flat late. He's past the line of scrimmage, bro. He can't throw it to him.

And John Allen's already right there. Mm-hmm. Oh, man. This is three drives. of just absolute pull your hair out stuff. They didn't know what was coming next. They didn't know what was happening. And you know what, Sean, and the Rams have done that to people.

Why is what they do so good? I'm just going to tell you right now that what we did was so bad. We. What Washington did was so bad. They got bamboozled. as Clinton porters would say. That's the word I used. I guess I got it from Clinton.

They were bamboozled. They didn't know what was coming next. I mean, there's a couple other ones that I want to go through just quickly. These are late in the game. There's a third and five throw to Everett. Everett ends up having Bostick playing man-to-man and breaks them off really bad on a choice route

to the middle of the field. It's in the third quarter. it's a third and five conversion not John Allen Chase Young and especially especially Ryan Carrigan

loafing Everett breaks like four tackles he keeps going where's the play I should have I actually should have the exact number but it's a third and five

in the third quarter I think it's like 520ish in the third quarter I got it I don't know. This is a minus two-yard play for the Rams, that wouldn't it? But go ahead. Continue.

We'll get to that more with Ryan. And then the last play I want to go through is a third and four to Cooper Cup that he took the big one on. Yeah. He's running a choice route as well. It's an option choice route for Cooper Cup. They're dropping eight. They have two lurk players or robber players in the middle of the field. The Rams to the cup side run a crossing route in front of both the lurk players.

everybody goes with the crossing route. They leave Cameron Curl one-on-one with Cooper Cup. Cup double sticks and Curl shits his pants. It's an awesome route. I mean, it's an awesome route. But I mean, Curl almost falls down. Landon Collins ends up taking such a terrible angle. He can't get there.

He should have made the tackle. What a great move by Cup, though. I mean, Cup gave you the basketball shaking bay crossover. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a straight. One two crossover right there. Troy Apkey takes a terrible angle. It's like, okay, so we're going to drop eight.

We're going to triple cover woods on a crosser. We're going to leave Cameron Curl one-on-one on Cooper Cup. You guys like the plan? Yep, like it. Okay. Give up a touchdown on three. Here we go. One, two, three.

Hold on. What's the play? Okay, got it. All right. Cameron, you're on a cup. Let's give up a touchdown on three. Ready, break. give up a touchdown on three.

It wasn't a touchdown, but it was damn close. I mean, you go through this game and you sit there and you say, well, they only scored 30 and our defensive line stopped the run all right sometimes throughout the go. He only gave up 3.7 yards per attempt and golf only threw for 309 yards. But my God, they did anything they wanted to do. They did. all right you didn't see

you didn't see on a lot of those early downs a toughness a more urgency and some good third down defense after those first three drives it was better it wasn't great I mean a couple of the third down

one of the third downs was after a sweat sack fumble that's the third and 20 they end up running the ball two of the third downs in the third quarter were third down and sixes that they ended up running draws or running the ball on. So those are basically give up downs. There was one third and two where they ended up getting a fourth and one stop. That was excellent.

Darby had a great play at the end of the second half, at the end of the first half where he made a break on a ball. They were trying to throw hitch. I mean, they made some plays, but. I mean, you had the sack force fumble by sweat that, you know, created a third and 19. Yeah. And then they ran the ball. Yeah. At least three downs they didn't convert.

They ran the ball. That's a tendency breaking, Kevin, for Sean. Yeah. That's what he was doing. Just so you know, up in a game that he can't lose, he now puts three or four runs and third down and medium. It's a tendency break. I can't give a crap if you got a first down.

Let's get to the defensive line. Yeah. Chase Young. Some of positives. I still think I like the way he plays aggressively in the run. I do. He plays the right way. He plays under blocks when he needs to play under blocks.

You get a tight-in sifting and he doesn't just run up the field. He knows where to fit. He knows where to fill. I think there's some good stuff. Did a good job forcing the edge on a boot on an opening drive. How to tackle for loss on the second drive. I mean, he beat the right tackle ASAP. I thought throughout the game, great rally downfield, high motor, good recognition of when the ball was out.

I actually, we gave him a little bit of grief dropping in coverage, but late in the game, actually late in the first half, second and seven, he had a past breakup. Right. Dropping in coverage. So once not good. The other time, actually pretty darn good. I mean, it was good key ice, good break on the ball. Like, that's better than Boston.

Some of the negatives, I thought, to some of the run plays, to his side, he got too far up the field. He didn't have a huge impact on the game on Whitworth. He had a couple nice bull rushes against Whitworth, but essentially, Goff got the ball out a lot earlier a lot of that time, too. Chase Young was a C-plus in this game. Worst grade of the year for him. I don't know.

Two weeks ago when he got hurt, I think he was in that C range, B minus C plus. You look that back up. I'll look it up. Jonathan Allen. He was the C. You're right. He was a C against the Browns.

Great recall. I actually really think John Allen did a pretty good job in this game. Not a ton of pressures. But I had a hard time. I don't think I noted any real negatives from Allen. Consistent late shed, especially I have double teams, was able to get in on plays,

was not ever really moved up front. When he was one-on-one, did an excellent job with his hands, taking on either center or guard and then getting free of those. I thought multiple times freed up linebackers by taking two in the double teams. On the sweat, sack fumble, he had an awesome upfield penetration. It was a run-action pass. He split the double team. He's back in the backfield right there. later in the game still good penetration throughout john allen was an a minus all right duron pain he's really he's not going to show up in a statute so much in this game and some of the negatives were that he had opportunities with arm tackles coming off blocks that he didn't finish

on some of the positives though was that he impacted almost every single run play strong physical good penetration while still playing his gap. You know in the sack fumble that Sweathead, Doran Payne almost picked it off. I didn't remember that. He almost caught it out of the air. Hit him in the hands. How we didn't come up with that is insane.

Right. There's plays where he's coming off double teams making tackles at one, two, three yards. It's almost crazy with the way, the backers are playing not getting off blocks in the run game that if our D-line doesn't shed and get off and make a tackle up three yards, we're going to get gashed.

I thought Durant Payne was actually really good in this game. I also thought good sense for screen a lot of the game. A-minus for Durantin. Montez Sweat. I felt like Montes-Swet played all game, but he played 44 plays. One of my favorite plays of the game early, the Rams always like to add receivers into the run game.

Yeah. And so you got Cooper Cup trying to block on the backside. and hold off Montez sweat, should never happen. You should not allow that to happen, and Montez doesn't. He takes Cooper Cup by the chest, walks him six yards back into the pile, and dumps him over the back as the back's tackled. And that's one of those plays where you say, don't block me with the receiver.

I will make him pay for it. Ever. You've got to make him pay for it. I thought he did a good job one-on-one when he ended up tight-end blocking him, bowing the player back, bowing the tight-end. Higby, more of the time than Everett, and getting in on some plays. I thought he did a good job when he had to take on both tight ends on the edge.

Making tackles. You made tackle for loss. The first play of the second half took on two tight ends. Great tackle for loss. Had a sack fumble the next play, big time. Against Higby. Against Higby, yeah. Key to slip screen in the second half gets out there with Cameron Curl

and makes a tackle on a screen. So you love that he can see that. Did a good job. Forcing early throws on a couple of the. boots. Really, I wrote on the fourth drive of the game, get a boot pressure on, um, on golf. And it was, I really noted it as the first pressure of the game, four drives in. Thought he played consistent through the end of the game with good pursuit downfield. I thought Montez-soot was an A-minus in this game. So can we get some good grades for defensive

players right now? You do. And the other guy up front that I liked, I thought Tim Settle worked hard throughout the game. I thought he was consistent in finishing plays. I thought he was consistent and get himself in on plays. I thought he was hard to block. I thought he fought through some things. I mean, I liked Tim Settle.

I thought Tim Settle was a B. He played 21 plays in this game. So, you know, recapping the first five players, Chase Young was a C plus, had a hard job with Whitworth. Jonathan Allen, A minus. Dron Payne, A minus. Montes Sweat, A minus. Tim Settle, B. there are two more players that played on the defense.

Ryan Kerrigan. Yeah. There's actually three more players that played. Oh, James Smith Williams played? Yeah, he played five plays. Yeah. He was okay. It was all late in the game and he was fine.

Right. Ryan Kerrigan. Yeah. Orchard played too. Oh yeah. Orchard did play. I saw that. I like Orchard.

I don't know what kind of game he played. I love his speed. But go ahead. Look, I want to start with this. On Carrigan? I want to start with two plays. One, the Everett, I think it was the Everett screen early in the game. Right.

On the first drive. I think that was the play. Watch Carrigan run down field behind him. Like, I'm coming. I'm still going to, I'm just going to track. I'm just going to run down the field right behind you. I'm never going to get to you, but I'm coming after you. Go tackle him.

And then the third and five that I mentioned, that Everett caught in the second half. Right. It's in the third quarter. It is the biggest loaf of the game by anybody on this defense. You guys got him. Go get him down.

You got it. I know you guys got him. Oh, he's still going. Eh, don't get him. You're playing 20 plays a game, bro. Run your ass off. You're always tough on him. Watch the play.

I'm looking for it. The play we're talking about is 10 minutes, eight seconds. found it. I found it. It's the one to Everett. In the third court. Yeah. To anybody else that wants to find it. Balls out, Kerrigan's up to field a little bit. He promptly turns around and watches. Everett keeps running and in both cuts of film, finds himself not in the final picture.

He had a good view, though, to watch the play. He got himself back in nowhere near the action, but he loaves down to about the 30-yard line and looks over. He just wanted to see. He wanted to watch it. You could tell that. Play 20 plays. One minute, 12 seconds in the third quarter, it's a nine-yard run. Kerrigan ends up being the D-Gap player. He's blocked by Higby. Because you're the D-Gat player doesn't mean stay blocked in the D-Gap.

Way the fuck out in the right field. At some point, the back isn't going to bounce it outside. Contain is not a thing anymore. It was never designed to bounce outside. It was a tight inside run that it was cut back towards him. I mean, it's run away. Play through the tight end and get in on the cup back. Can't just stand out there and push into Higby.

Same play, Lannon Collins can't get off a block. And it ends up in a nine-out run. And I just can't watch that. I cannot watch that. I cannot tolerate it. I cannot watch it. Good for Carrigan here. Pushed down a couple times on rip rush, pushed down by tight end.

Once he's knocked down by Woods, he's rushing Higby early in the game, and Woods ends up coming knocking him down. He was on the ground a couple times. Kerrigan was an F. Ryan Anderson was a D, got his butt kicked a few times by pulling guards in the run game, played behind cutoff blocks a couple times on the day. Not great by Ryan Anderson. So five guys were in the A, B, range, Anderson, Kerrigan were not, F and D.

Right. Which leads me to what I would call not more fun and the linebackers. Not more fun. John Bostic was maybe. in the running for the lowest grade I've ever witnessed. And you've liked Bostick a couple of games this year? There's, yes. I didn't like him in the Philly game.

I thought there was big time concerns. And then bouncing back in Arizona and against the Browns, I thought there were times when he was okay. I mean, it was never like a, it was never an A. You gave him a B in the Arizona game. and you gave him a C plus in the opener and then a C minus against Cleveland. And then remember, we did not do our defensive film breakdown.

You didn't do your defensive film breakdown last week because we got involved in the whole Haskin story. So I don't know how he played against Baltimore. But go ahead. So I'm really just going to start reading the notes that I wrote because I feel like I really did a great job writing notes. First third and five, playing off at six yards outside. It's got his ass turn to force Everett to the inside.

or excuse me, to keep Everett from getting inside of him. He's slow. He doesn't break. Everett makes an easy catch, and it's a mistackle. Garbage. Awful zone redistribution after any run action pass, but this is the fourth play of the game. You can watch his drop. We talked about it early.

It's nowhere near the play. Second drive, play one. What is the decision process on his run slash gap fit. The left guard is double teaming up to him and he's playing underneath it. It's not a cutback play. It's not going to cut back. There's a fullback coming front side to block the front side linebacker. Fill your gap, fill your hole. Second drive, third and 10. It's the DeShazer Everett pass interference. Please tell me why we're leaving the only player in the middle of the field open. We should not leave him. It becomes a pattern match situation at that point. There's

nobody else in your zone. Third drive, second play. It's a run action pass. He just decided to go chase the quarterback after he saw a run. I'm not sure. I don't think it was a blitz. If it is, it's a really, really delayed blitz that has no chance of getting there. Just look at the middle of the field. Wow. Run action pass to Everdown the back field, wherever it had 40. I'm not sure where he's falling off. I'm not sure what he's thinking at that point. We went through that play. third and two with the boot golf run at some point we got to stop shuffling and go tackle the quarterback yeah uh third and five poor man coverage on everett he overruns the quick post uh he also misses a tackle on that play i did note that we should show logan thomas the route that everett had

on the quick post or really it's i think it's a choice route by everett but it's funny everett starts to arc outside with depth and bostick's a quarter's player in the middle of the field it's not really man-to-man he's the quarter player. He's his own. You don't have to overrun that to death. Let him break out. It was a good job getting depth by Everett on the route. It was actually a really good route.

Third and goal at the nine, Cooper Cup. It ends up to pass breakup by Thomas Davis, one of the big plays by Thomas Davis on the day. Another third down stop. Look, at some point in time, when you're zone in the middle of the field, and there's only one guy in the middle of the field, they'll just play him.

It's a touchdown if Davis doesn't break it up. Fourth quarter, 826 is the mark. It's first and 10. It's a run-action pass. You've got to pull this up. It's 826 in the fourth quarter. I mean, this is unbelievable. The reaction to the ball in the air to the route combination,

I'm just going to let you. I'm watching it right now. The first and 10, balls at the 41 at the going in. Yeah. Oh, the ball's already been caught down the field by Reynolds and Bostick's still looking into the backfield. Oh, he's going the opposite direction. This is Perry Riley-esque. Again, this is funny because after the ball's caught, he's really, this is, I'm going to guess that this is not going to be a good grade for Bostick. The ball's caught by Reynolds. Reynolds is running in the other direction. Bostick's still looking back at the quarterback. He doesn't even know the ball's been thrown. What kind of defense are they playing here?

This is zone. There was no way that he didn't see the ball thrown. Oh. So you asked me if it got better in the fourth quarter? It didn't on this play. Third quarter? Not really. Not when they went back to the run action stuff.

Mistackle around the five-minute mark. I guess what they did early in the second half is they created more third and long opportunities, which they didn't do as much in the first half. So the early down. stuff looked better and then the third down stuff was harder for them to convert right ultimately that's it their front five it's because their front five was capable of stopping the run yeah yeah yeah they i mean like that's really what it was but the one the one thing they weren't capable of was generating any pressure to play action or run action pass right right no one got an a yeah no you're

right the price there's so few only only the only the sweat play when he ran over higby Yeah. Oh, the other sweat play I forgot to mention was on the um, kind of fuller interception. Yeah. It's a quarterback hit on the, I didn't mention because that wasn't roughing the passer. But the only other sweat, the sweat play, the Kendall fuller pick, he did a heck of a job. Yeah.

He's a good player. He actually is a pretty good player. Jeff Bostic, John Bostic was now. I had more negative grades for Bostick than I think I've collectively had ever in a game. He had three positive grades. A couple times did a nice job sorting out run and they're making it tackle. He hurt them in this game. He really did.

He really, it was like the plus minus for a baseball player. He was, it's hard to have a plus minus in the NFL. he was minus 10. Cost him 10 points in this game. I'm looking at sweat. I'm looking at sweat right now on the fuller thing. Sweat really didn't cause that interception. That wasn't the pressure.

I think you had that confused with somebody else. Who causes the pressure on the? Was that just young then? Young really caused it. That might have been young. I know that Goff was hit on that place. It was young or sweat. Young just takes, he takes Whitworth and throws him back into.

Yeah, yeah, that was one, because I had noted that he had a great bull rush on Whitworth. Huge bull rush there. KPL. Funny I say this, my film's just rolling as we get to KPL. I've said this since week one. I'm going to say this now. One-on-one matchups with backs or tight ends are bad situations for KPL. He's a good zone defender, but it's the hand-earned.

choice route out of the backfield where he ends up scoring a touchdown. Balls on like the 13 yard line. It's the last touchdown of the game. And just completely stalks and overruns Henderson, bending into that little angle route. And he just takes himself out of the play on that. He really does struggle in man-to-man coverage. In my notes, I said, but it was always interesting in training camp.

And I think fans even watch this, where you'd get the line of tight ends and backs and receivers. and you'd have one-on-ones with the quarterback. And sometimes a safety would walk over you, and sometimes you knew you could beat that safety. But then there were other times that a back would walk over you, and you're like, okay. Man, if KPL walks over you in one-on-one,

you're licking your chops. I'm not saying that he isn't a decent zone defender. And when he gets out in the flat, does a pretty good job carrying and running with some things. But my gosh, one stick or one cut, and he is. Yeah, that's not even a, like, I think Henderson's are really good back. Like I think he's a bit underrated, and I liked him coming out of Memphis.

But that's not even a good, as you would say, stick like, you know, plant. It's one stick. It's a single stick. It's almost a rounded stick, too. It's not a real good sell of it. And he shouldn't have, he didn't need to have a really good sale, sell, because if you, this back, if you feel the way KPL overran the initial stem, you know. know that you're inside of him already.

True. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, you know, it's the crossover and you already feel immediately the defender in basketball on your back and you know you, you know you've got an easy layup. You've got a, you got a path right to the, to the room. Exactly. Some of the positives. I think he's got great quicks. And I think he does have good change of direction. Early in the game, there's a boot that he initially gets beaten and then breaks back out and tackles Cooper Cup for a one-yard gain. It's a really good tackle. It's a slight overreaction to boot, but he gets himself back in the play. It's a one-yard game. Like, that's a big time reaction for a backer. Great hustle on the third and seven screen early in the game

to Everett. If it's not KPL, it's a touchdown. Right. I mean, that's a touchdown. That first drive you're talking about. First drive. Yeah. That's the one that I think. I think you're watching Kerrigan just jogged down the field right behind Everett. Like at some point, you're going to have to pick it up. Pick it up, buddy. Yeah. A little popular. Yeah, and KPL makes the tackle.

By the way, I thought Young hustled downfield a lot on plays that it, yeah. I definitely mentioned high motor with Young and good work ethic downfield. KPL had a good pressure blitz. I thought decent run fits throughout the game. He had a great run fit. It was the second play of the fourth. drive it's a second and 10 you just missed the tackle it would have been a one year it's a great fit missed tackle though so you're sitting there saying man i love the fit but it ends up being a

like a seven eight yard carry if i remember so um we talked about the second 15 on the first drive where you're just giving up too much space to higby who gets eight and shan's just great at getting eight yards and second and 15 so you get to a third and seven or getting 10 yards and second 15 or but that shouldn't have been allowed like that it should have been at most a five-yard game by higby sitting down golf's eyes on him you collapse hard and you make the tackle as soon as the ball's got kPL was the C in this game Cameron curl i'm counting Cameron curl as a linebacker in this game okay he was always in the box and essentially he was your nickel backer late react to a screen in the red zone on the first drive

But it was, they were down on like the 12-yard line, something like that on the first drive. Right. It's that cool screen I was talking about. But watch his athleticism to get back into this play. It ends up beating Whitworth across his face to get to the back. Where's the play again? It's like the sixth play of the game, seventh play of the game. It's a screen to the running back on around the 12-yard line.

I think it's a first down. I got it. I mean, he doesn't. It's a weird. reaction initially, but Curl's got, look, here's the thing about Curl, he's got fight, he's got toughness, he's got some athletic ability.

I noted later in the game, like, he's backside of running, he takes on Whitworth, like the dude'll fight, he'll battle in there. Right. Yeah, he did take on Whitworth on this play, and sort of undercut him and made the tackle. Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't have been out as far as it was, but still, he got back in and made the tackle, in a touchdown.

I mean, you can find, like, getting off blocks of offensive linemen, shed blocks, even into the fourth quarter, plays hard, plays tough, key to slip screen, made a tackle on Cooper Cup in the third quarter of the ballgame. The problem that you end up having is his overreaction to some of the run action stuff, his late diagnosis of it. Like, we talked about the Everett leakout play for 40. He's a zoning defender. He's an underneath zoning defender there.

He's three yards on the back field. Higby's, or Everett's essentially behind where Curl should be defending. Well, they're clearly in zone on this play, on the, on the Henderson screen, you know, the cool screenplay at the end. And he's lined up actually in front of Woods as a slot corner. Right. Broke off when he had to cover guys. Cooper Cup talked about that play. Cup running a choice route.

I mean, broke him off bad. the I think it was a little bootleg drop by Higby late in the second quarter or maybe even it was the fourth drive first play the fourth drive because this was the first play that I really started grading again I remember this it was a good pressure in the face by sweat yeah got if got to dump it off curl over runs it that's the roughing the passer call yeah if he hits curl if he hits Higby oh he does hit him if Higby catches it it's a 10 yard game curls behind Higby Dropped it. Get off me, call. He's a liability and coverage right now, especially when he's asked to be man-to-man. He's an overreact to run action stuff. I know it's the Rams, but still he's an overreact guy. And so it's hard for me to find a fit at this point for Curl besides that nickel first and 10 guy when they go to three or four wide receiver sets.

He's a C in this game. There's a lot I like about him. there's a lot of concerns still with camera curl, especially in coverage. Okay. Thomas Davis. Right. Drive to fourth play to run action pass, and it's like, where are you going? The second drive, he's the quarter's flat player.

Woods ends up faking a fly sweep. He's out in the flat. They throw the ball to him. Thomas Davis is standing there, not even. close to the flat staring at the quarterback. What? He's over there. Go go over there with him.

This is also the play with Bostic. Yeah, this is, I mean, that play in general summed up the game. Yeah, the 56 yard touchdown pass to Woods. You got a lot of, basically it's like the old electric football game. You got a lot of players just doing twirls, like in just not really, being able to move. They're stuck in one, you got the throw, which was always the hardest

thing to do in electric football was to put that little soft little ball into the quarterback's hand and flick it down field, but Goff was able to pull it off and you had a bunch of defensive players I need new fuses. My fuses are broken.

I don't want to be the red team. The red team's defense has fuses broken. They're just turn it around in circles. Poor Poor Davis and Bostic. Yeah. He had a pass breakup at the goal line, third and nine. Big time play.

Yeah, I remember that one. Look, Davis is not the player that he was. He was a D plus in this game. He doesn't have the reaction time that he used to have. He doesn't have the burst that he used to have. He doesn't have the tackling ability that he used to have. had a on the third and two on the fourth drive it should have been a tackle for loss chase young takes three dudes on on the edge it's that fourth drive it's it's a third and two

situation they go on to score on that drive if thomas davis is free they'll make the tackle do you know who didn't play one defensive snap at linebacker john dion hamilton yeah they must not they don't like him and they don't like no no they don't like him and they don't like him And they don't like Merle either. I want to get to the secondary, but I got to do a quick read for my bookie. Let me just give you one thought before you do that. Okay. Ron Rivera's defenses were well coached in Carolina.

Yes. The biggest problem that this defense has, and it's by far the biggest problem, are the linebackers. The one asset, when Carolina's defenses were unbelievable in Carolina, linebackers. Luke Keeley and Thomas Davis. were exceptionally good. They've had great linebackers.

Right. The first person I would acquire, if I were Ron Rivera, would be a linebacker. The best middle linebacker you can possibly find. Well, Micah Parsons from Ohio State, from a Penn State is a projected top three to five pick. It will change this defense. They're going to. One, like Luke Keekely would make this defense a top five.

defense. That's really more so than the secondary. The linebackers are the biggest problem. There's some problems in the secondary, but yes, the linebackers and the lack of matchup ability and the things that you want to do, it takes so much versatility out of what you could possibly do with your linebackers. At this point, I would strongly suggest somebody else playing in the middle of the field beside Boston.

Micah Parsons is a top three to five projected pick in that. year's draft. Can you imagine if you go Cheshung one year and you go defense again? The problem of course, as we know, is they may have to take a quarterback. Doesn't mean that you don't have chances to get other linebackers. All right, um, you'll finish up with the secondary right after this

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It's not just sports. They've got presidential election bets, prop bets on the election, and a lot more. At my bookie.ag, use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. All right, finish it up with the secondary. Let's start with the safeties. We'll start with Landon Collins. The positives for Landon Collins. There were times in this game where there were good run fits. And there were times where he made very good tackles.

There's a third and six in the third quarter. Fight through traffic. Make a big time tackle. You get a stop. There's a third and five draw in the fourth quarter. Great tackle. Great Johnny on the spot. He's right there.

I like him closer to the line of scourage than anything else. The closer he gets, the better he is. I don't think he's great in shedding blocks. I thought that was a problem as you get to some of the negatives. I think that once guys are on him, he's got to find a way to get off a little bit quicker. I'm very concerned with some of the coverage stuff.

Let's start with the big touchdown to Woods. Right. I know that you want to be versatile with some of the coverages that you're doing, but Landon Collins as a half player is not versatile, in my opinion. you have an inside banana route and then outside a go route two man combination he's got to be able to split those two he cannot track inside when you talk about the banana essentially the inside of the two players in that slot starts to drift across the middle of the field and as they cross the hash then they're going to turn a whip back out as he starts to drift to the hash he's now not your guy so you have to midpoint those two I mean if he's run by The way he got run by, you can't get run by. They had another half player over there. And just keep in mind, on the backside of that touchdown route,

there were two tight ends on the other side, and neither of them released down the field. There was two men out on the route. Yeah, that's it. Two men out on the route. And can we count... You've got to be able to turn that over. Can we count the number of people in coverage without the two tight ends

that are on the right side, not going out? It's a two-man route on this touchdown pass to Robert Woods. And there are one, two, three, four. were five, it legitimately in coverage and maybe six against two. But as you said earlier, too many of them are inside the numbers while these two guys are outside the numbers. So what is Kendall Fuller's responsibility here? He's the flat player out there.

So his responsibility would be to jam or reroute Woods on the outside as much as he can. And he could probably give some more. Yeah, he doesn't reroute Woods very well. And then his responsibility would be. to play the flat, but you would really ultimately, and you would want him to essentially drift back into that banana route or anything that would be coming behind what's deep. The other thing that we didn't talk about on that play in particular

is Jimmy Morland could essentially replace flat out there. He's standing in the middle of the field doing absolutely nothing. So you could have- Fuller run with Woods. Two-man side, Fuller drift deeper. Fuller's not going to run with Woods in cover two. He's a flat player. Okay. But you could have him drift deeper, which would essentially put him under the second player inside the two receiver.

And ultimately, you get Landon Collins high and deep over the top playing woods. You get Fuller drifting into that banana and you got to throw a checkdown. And Moreland should be wide enough to just rally and take it. That's how you'd want to, that's how you'd draw it up versus that combination. It's not Morland. It's Everett. Oh, is it? Are you sure?

It's not number 20? No, it's Everett. Okay, well. Either way, it's just really poor zone distribution. Really poor. Third and ten on the second drive. The ball's not thrown over the top to the post, but Darby is running with the post,

and Landon Collins is sitting on sticks as a quarter safety. Yes. And they run over the top with the post. that's a touchdown man like you can't just play sticks they end up on the other side of the field running routes to get to the sticks that's one of the ones where bostick was completely lost i think it was the disheaser pass interference but if you pull that third and ten i promise you that's a touchdown of the post so i'm not just going to say because he didn't throw at you you did a great job right um we got a lot of cover in air

we really do with Landon. There's a lot of covering air. And there's a lot of nobody's near you, get closer to where you need to be. I can count seven or eight plays where he's not in the vicinity of a receiver. Now, I'm not suggesting that he is blown an assignment. I'm telling you that he's covering the zone

that he's supposed to be in, but that zone has got to change. a couple poor angles really poor angle on a Cooper Cup choice route third and four that he took a big play he's got to be able to make that tackle like you get camera curl one-on-one with Cooper Cup and Cooper wins and you get a first down but that can't be a 40-yarder right Landon Collins has to make that tackle in the fourth quarter they end up playing a little bit more cover three which they didn't play very very much in this game um there's another kind of banana type route he's the hook player now so the underneath zone or one of the four underneath zone players he's lost i mean it's just then here's the last one we didn't talk about this with with landin the henderson touchdown yeah late in the game higby's singled up on that side and the corner's going to play him heigby starts to break out so as he breaks out he's not going to get into

Landon's quarter. Essentially, Henderson becomes the number two. So it should realistically, he should be help with KPL. And if you knew they ran choice routes, like you should, everyone should know Sean wants to get his back and tied in on a single side to run choice routes just like Jay did, that KPL should be able to play outside leverage like he was, and Landon should be able to fit inside in it. It should almost become a bracket. I would double that situation. And I would lock my corner. I, I, I, I would lock my corner. I, I, I, I, I, want, I'm just, I'm going to talk about that there's a lot of ways to play quarters coverage. And one of the really popular ways is to play quarters match. And in a quarters match

coverage, you could essentially say, if a tight end is singled with one of our corners, we're going to lock that completely. We're then going to take our safety and backer and bracket the next inside player who would be a mismatch. Right. It doesn't have to stay quarters. You can realistically, by formation, lock quarters coverage. And you would consider Henderson versus KPL to be a mismatch that needs help. That needs help. And so let's essentially play that in and out. KPL will make sure he takes any outbreaking route and Landon will drive hard on any in-breaking route

and will trust that Darby will cover Higby. Right. That makes sense to me. Yeah, why do they have to be doubling Higby when you've got Darby on him? Because they're playing zone responsibility. Yeah, I see. Man, how many times with McVeigh did you just see the, you know,

the drop back in Jordan Reed on a choice route right across the middle? I know this is the back, but Chris Thompson. So many times. So the single side with a tight end. Yeah. John hit three big choice routes in this game. Had Everett on one, had Cup on one, and had Henderson on one. Three of them. Landin Collins was a D-plus in this game. You like him at the line of scrimmage, though?

all the criticism essentially was him in coverage. This is actually a crazy, crazy thought. And it's not going to work because I just don't think they have the safety help. Right. Move Collins to line. I don't think Boston's a positive impact in the run game unless he's a blitzer. I don't think he's a good block shed guy. I know this sounds crazy, but the biggest deficit, even though Landon and Troy aren't good at safety and there's nobody else is middle linebacker,

it's not that crazy to think that Landon just might play in the middle of the field up Mike. Okay. It's not. Michael Parsons, I just, it's just occurred to me. He will be the number one linebacker taken in the next year's draft at a Penn State. He wears number 11, which is the same jersey number that LeVar wore at Penn State. Anyway, continue. Roy Upkey.

Oh, boy. The dude can't tackle. He had a bunch of mistackles. You can't shed blocks either. Can't shed blocks. I mean, you mentioned shed blocks. The first screen to Everett is the first one on third and seven. He has no chance.

He takes himself out of the play. He's the only guy that can make the play. He's got to either go blow it up or take a shot at Everett. He took himself out of the play on the Lamar Jackson touchdown run completely. I mean, there was no effort. You didn't do the defensive breakdown last week, but that was the most frustrating thing about APKy. That play, I mean, he allows himself to complete. And there was no competitive fight to get back into the play there.

It was just like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be blocked here. and number eight's just going to run to the end zone. There's no doubt. And to me, I said this before the season started, based on some of the last year's stuff, and it has been persistent throughout the season that his ability to take the proper angle to any ball carrier or any ball over the top

is not adequate. Oh, what did, yeah. I mean, the Everett play. Miss tackle on the Cooper Cup, the poor angle on the Cooper Cup choice route, like how he, I mean, he gets by land about how Troy from deeper doesn't get to him. I don't know.

Miss tackle around the five-minute mark in the fourth quarter on a big first and 10 run. And then I thought heavy overreaction to deeper routes into the middle of the field. So if I was to tell anybody about this offense, I would tell you this, especially as a single high safety. their routes that go vertical towards the hash mark are called read routes, their decision routes. If they can get over the top of the safety, they will get over the top of the safety, i.e., if you're even, you're leaving. If the safety is definitively over the top, they will sit that route down between 18 and 20. They did it five times in this game. two of the times one was thrown one wasn't thrown the one that wasn't thrown

Troy's 10 yards deep and that deep sit route spins him around there's no way he's running by Troy but if you understand he's going to sit it at 18 because you're 10 yards deep just drive on it like the lack of understanding for how they were operating offensively was so evident it's they're they're called read routes so they have a decision they can if they can get it They want to throw it over the top. But if they can't, the receiver and quarterback are on the same page and they sit it down. The quarterback can fill the safety and the receiver should always fill him. So they just sit it at 18.

Hook it up. I mean, just to see him spin around, he's so worried about getting beat over the top right now. You know, one of the positives early in the game, I wrote this and I want to say it, it's a bootleg. It's the second play of the game. There's great communication with Darby and with Apki. Darby plays over the top and Troy comes out of midfield to cut the deeper crossing route

and it's, that's not exactly the way the zone would be drawn up and madden football, but they understand when they get that boot that's how they're going to play it. It was scheme within the scheme. Well, Chase Young does a really good job

on that play too. He does an excellent job on that play, but I'm just saying there are flashes of Troy knowing I see, I know, I see what you're saying. You know what I mean? like he's cutting the crossing route, taking himself out of center field, and they're turning it over. Yeah, they know it's the boot,

whereas they call it the keeper. That's what Mike and Kyle call it, keepers. So I'm assuming Sean calls it that. Yeah. Man, you know, how many times has Carrigan been fooled on boot? Chase Young didn't get fooled on any of these boots. No. Chishong is, I mean, he was, like I said, he was a C plus in this game,

but it wasn't bad. Yeah. He just didn't make a lot of plays. He might have been a little bit better than that. I think you might have to upgrade it. Every time we turn this thing on, I'm like, yeah, but Chase Young made the play there. You had him at C plus. You want to upgrade that to B minus?

Sure. Give him B minus. I like number 99. Who doesn't? So what was APK? APKU was D-Mines. Okay. Ronald Darby.

Yeah. Made a play. At least one. Yeah. He made a play on a third and four on a hit route. It was the first third downstop of the game. Right. He also had a great tackle on Higby at the end of the half

and a two-minute situation to keep him in bounds. He also had really good coverage on Robert Woods on a crossing route on their fourth and one stop. He can cover a little bit. You know, I've mentioned this five times, but the third and ten on the second drive, they gave up the post. It wasn't thrown, but there was that. The one real negative that kind of frustrated me, five minutes and 37 seconds left in the game.

It's an acres, like, 25-yard run. The one that Chase Young chased him down on? Yeah, I think so. 537 left in the game. I think it was Monti's sweat that chased him down. Nope, I'm pretty sure it was young. I remember the play. I think it was Montes' sweat.

you're going to find out because I want you to pull this play up I'm trying to find how big how big was the run by acres it was a big run for me biggest run of the day it was like 27 yards yeah um they have some good backs man Henderson and acres are both good yeah it's the balls at the 20 yard line um by acres I mean it's this is just absolute shit defense again late in the game I'm looking for it I'm looking for it here I will find it here shortly It's a first and ten situation, 60 second play of the game on film. Right.

I got it. It's garbage across the board defensively. I think this is also, I think this is a Bostic plain mistackle. Yeah, it is. So Young does a good job taking on to. Bostick ends up missing a tackle. Troy Apke comes down and like blatantly misses a tackle. But 15 yards downfield, Robert Woods is blocking Darby.

And as the back starts to get to him, instead of actually, looking at the back. Robert Woods is keeping mind locking Darby down. Darby throws his hands up in the air and starts begging for a penalty. He then realizes three steps later, oh shit, the back has passed me and starts to run again. You're right. You're right.

It was sweat. It was sweat. I know. Yeah. It was a great hustle play by sweat. And sweat doesn't do that. Great hustle play by sweat. Your sweat doesn't do that. I mean, sweat is hawking down acres. God. Acres has ridiculous speed. Like this is a really frustrating play when you look at it.

I said Landon's good in the box, but Landon ends up trying to fix his face mask, and he's looking backwards as the ball. Is he really? He's not really trying to fix his face mask, is he? I'm not sure what he's doing. Well, he's looking back and saying something to Thomas Davis. Thomas gets blocked out of the play.

What are you doing tonight after the game? What's that? What are you doing tonight, Thomas, after the game? Hey, um, pretty much over. You want to go, want to go grab dinner or something? I mean, I'm going to be really hungry. We've had a lot of plays here.

But yeah, it's like, Duram Payne's doing what he does, great penetration, but he's still playing behind the block. Landon Collins has reached immediately by the right tackle, the line of scrimmage, mostly in part because he doesn't know the ball snapped. Bostick gets off a block and misses a tackle. Troy Apkey comes down and doesn't even get close to missing a tackle. But in the meantime, well, Troy Apkey misses this tackle. He also takes out Jonathan Allen and both of them fall to the ground.

Darby's throwing his hands up all the while instead of actually trying to make a and Montes Sweat, here he comes. Thank God. Oh, my God. Look at his closing speed on Acres. I'm really, really liking sweat this year. I knew I would like him. I mean, I thought Darby was,

there was also a couple plays where I could circle Darby on the backside of something. Granted, he's the backside corner to something, and he's not covering anybody, but he's just there. All right. Darby was what? I think Darby was a B in this game. Kendall Fuller. Yeah. Interception leads the league in interceptions has only played in three games.

Yeah. The negatives. Beat deep on a run action pass, well, on a deep sit, turned around a little bit by Robert Woods. It's not terrible coverage. It's good route by Woods. Ended up being, I think, 20-yard completion on the first drive. Third and four, beat by Cooper Cup in that in-and-out route. that's a tough cover right there.

You can see he's frustrated at the end of the play, but he's got to fight through the initial receiver on the line of scrimmage to get to that start in breaking route in a man-to-man situation. And Cup does a good job coming back out of that thing, and he's a little bit late coming back out of it. But it's like you've got to be able to combo those off. I mean, it's not great coverage by him, but still I'm going to tell you that that's a tough cover right there.

I thought throughout the game, though, good coverage consistently. The sweat, sack, fumble, great coverage, good deep down the field, running with anybody. Good break on ball on a corner. Sean likes to run those corner outs and then stop them, sit them down, seven sits or corner sits. I thought he did a good job covering a lot of that. The interception was awesome, falling off as a cover two flat player. to get deep enough where really i thought he was shallow enough early to bait the throw and then to drift into it was was really really good i thought kendall fuller was an a minus in this game

and then jimmy morland i think is the last uh poor man coverage you didn't do ever it so maybe a quick more i'm not doing i mean ever just ever did how many plays did ever play uh i don't know i'll check he wasn't very good 20 21 snaps he wasn't very good okay continue um jimmy Morland, poor man coverage on Cup on the first third and five. Actually, pull that first third and five up. It's really interesting. Cooper Cup's running in a sit route over the ball. Morland's running man to man with him.

And he points at nobody, like he's passing it off. I don't understand exactly what he's passing off, and then he misses a tackle. It's really interesting. That was also where APK, sort of didn't make a good tackle attempt. well that's a lot of them yeah I see what moreland's yeah but I mean

I don't quite grasp what he's doing is all yeah I mean you love the morland and morland's snap count continues to sort of be on the decline here not like morose morose is zero yeah uh

I thought a couple times decent man coverage in third down situations blew up a screen early in the game on the back You know, I talked about, you said it was Everett that could have helped on one of the plays. It's the third and seven Fuller interception. There's two outbreaking routes, and Fuller drifts deep into it,

Morland standing inside. I just don't understand why he's squatting there, golf stares at it the whole time. This is a nitpick thing, but it just went into my theme of, we got to find ways to pattern match. Morland didn't play a lot in this game. He was a C-plus.

You know what they're good at? They're good at late-and-a-half interceptions. They're the best in the league. What did you give Morland C-plus? Yeah. Okay. And Everett just wasn't very good. I didn't even have notes from Everett.

Why? I mean, I obviously have the pass interference. Okay. The secondary wasn't. The corners are, Darby and Fuller are okay covering down the field. Landon, I'm really questioning his ability to cover. There are flashes with Landon. For a guy that's supposed to be one of the best tacklers in the league, certainly hasn't been that this year.

He's missed a lot of tackles this year, and he's taken poor angles to some things. Troy's obviously been an issue, especially with tackling and angles. They need linebacker help. But realistically, when I look at this defense right now, The inability to pattern match in zone coverage is a massive, massive problem. Well, the ability also at the linebacker position, the inability, you don't have anybody that can cover except for KPL and zone coverage.

And you got people that are completely lost right now at linebacker. And Rivera, to your point, always had great linebackers in Caroline and Charlotte. Always. I mean, the championship year, the year that they went 15 and 1, They're linebackers on that team, okay, were Luke Keeckley, Thomas Davis, and Shaq Thompson. Plus, they had K-Wan short, Charles Johnson, Lottulele up front. And Jared Allen, by the way, on that team. Yeah, yeah.

No, the front matches that type of front. Right, agreed. Right now the linebackers are not good enough in the run game. They're not good enough in immediately diagnosing. I would, there's a couple of things I would really think about with some of this defense. And first and second down situation, blitzing Bostic a lot more or not playing Bostic. Because I think he actually is an effective blitzer and is pretty good at timing that stuff out. And when he run blitzes, he's been a decent run player.

When he will immediately hit, he's pretty good or diagnosed and hit his gap. He's pretty good. I don't like him ever in coverage, so I don't really see a reason to put him in coverage. I would attack him over and over and over in the middle of the field. And so here's the other problem that I saw with this game is while I think that Bostick struggles in coverage, and I think KPL can as well, you can't play quarters coverage. And in quarters coverage, you're playing four over the top and you're playing three underneath. The three underneath makes the zones bigger, wider, harder to cover for the underneath players.

They're struggling to cover when they play four underneath. So let's not make it three underneath. The thing I hate about what they did in this game in playing a lot more quarters coverage is they tried to copy a game plan from the Bears from 2018 where they played incredible pattern match quarter coverage against Jared Goff in the freezing cold where he can't play in the cold

and the Rams looked like garbage that day. That wasn't a good scheme. Right. They were out-schemed on offense. Sunday night game. They were. completely out-schemed on defense, and they made a poor choice by how they wanted to try to play them

with the personnel that Washington actually has. How did the Giants slow them down? Just real quickly, because I want to end this podcast today because it's going along. But how did the Giants slow them down? I didn't watch too much of the Giants game, to be completely honest with you. I'd be willing to go back and look at it, and I actually will as we get to Friday. So we'll talk about that on Friday with what the Giants' defense actually is. Last thing before we run, Dwayne Haskins, still sick, did not show up for practice.

Hmm. We'll leave you with that. Cooley will be back on Friday for a preview of 0 and 5 New York against 1 and 4 Washington. Great job today. And I think one of the big takeaways is they've got a fixed linebacker in the off season. Cole Holcomb has not played, Cooley, has not played yet. He's not played, and I was wondering, is he healthy? He practiced last week, but he was inactive again. Maybe we'll see him this week. wasn't quite ready. You'll see him this week. All right. Take care of everybody. Back tomorrow with Tommy, then Friday Cooley for a football weekend preview, including New York and Washington.