The Kevin Sheehan Show - Defense Dominates Opener

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Kevin recaps his day at Fed Ex as well as Washington's 20-16 season-opening win over the Cardinals.He talked other NFL week 1 results, the Terps' comeback win over Charlotte, and Texas-Bama as well. The show ended with some of what Ron Rivera said today (Monday's press conference) about Sam Howell's performance. For your sports betting needs go to https://www.mybookie.ag/sportsbook/. Use code KEVINDC 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 Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. We'll just get it off. Four-man rush. Dobbs hit as he throws.

Ball is out. Commander's having it. It's paid on top of it. It was knocked out by Sweat. Without that play, who the hell knows what the final results of the game would have been. But Montez Sweat and the rest of that defensive line. Incredible in the opener yesterday in Washington's 20 to 16 win over Arizona. I almost had it exact. I predicted 20 to 14. 20 to 16 was the final.

My game take is coming up in the next segment. By the way, let me just start with a quick apology. My intention is to have the podcast recap of the game out much earlier. We had some technical issues in this studio, and we did not get them fixed until about 15 minutes ago. So I'm going to get this out as quickly as possible and maybe shorten it up a little bit as well. The show's presenting sponsors, Window Nation. If you've been thinking about new windows, call them first, best product, best deals, best people to work with. Mention my name. They will take good care of you.

You'll get a free estimate. You've got nothing to lose. 86690 Nation or windownation.com. The game was not the prettiest, but it does feel good to get the win. Not every game is super easy to describe, but if you were trying to describe yesterday to somebody who didn't watch it, it's kind of easy, right? Ugly game, we won, the defense was great, the offense wasn't. Period.

That's how you would describe it. There's a lot more coming up in my game take where I described the things I liked, didn't like, and more than that. But I want to start with a few things. Number one, I say this every year after the opener, and I'm going to say it again this year. You don't know and I don't know as much as we think we know after week one. It's fools gold much of the time. thinking you've got your team figured out after one regular season, you know, game is a big mistake. And I think most of us that have watched the NFL for a long period of time, and I think many of us who have bet the NFL for a long period of time, because I do, as I've said, for many, many years now, I think it's a completely different perspective from the people that will sit here on radio or on podcast or in podcast form or blog form or column form.

The gambling perspective is a different one. I actually think it's a better one, personally. And I'm not talking about the actual gambling talk. I'm talking about the perspective it gives you of the league. And week ones, we all know, just aren't that representative more times than not of what a team will be. Now, yesterday was not a preseason game. The starters played. The teams tried to win.

But this league, as, you know, I've just, described for years is week to week. And the first week is a little bit different. You know, starters haven't played in forever. New coaches and new systems which produce limited tape to prepare for are part of the, you know, week one complexity. And so many teams are just so close, especially this time of year because we haven't had the injuries. We haven't had incentive, you know, related reasons to either try harder or not try as much. You know, when you get to a certain point in the season and a team's really performing poorly and it seems like their season isn't in play as much anymore, that factors into it,

but not in week one. Look, 85 to 90 percent of this league is essentially that, you know, somewhere between 7 and 10 and 10 and 7. We used to say, you know, 10 and 6 and 6 and 10. And there are a few teams, you know, at the very top, and those are the teams with the elite quarterbacks usually. And there's typically a team or two at the very bottom. But everybody else is just, you know, a whisker away from tennis, 10 and 7 or a tough break away from 7 and 10. And that's like 27 to 28 teams. And Washington is in that group. You know, it takes, they haven't always been in that group, Because the one or two truly terrible teams, even when they haven't been terrible, but there are teams like Washington in many seasons that just were too dysfunctional organizationally to really be a threat to win.

But the bottom line is it takes time to figure out what these teams are. It takes several weeks sometimes to really figure it out. And even then we get fooled a lot. Last week, last week, last year in week one, Dallas was destroyed by Tampa Bay 19 to 3. They had hardly any offense in the game. They ended up winning 12 regular season games, finished fourth in points per game, and were a lethal offense at times last year.

Philly in the opener last year gave up 35 points. They ended up being a top 10 scoring defense, top five in a lot of defensive metrics. Washington's opener last year against Jacksonville, nearly 400 yards, 28 points. They ended up with a bottom, you know, bottom 8, 9, 10 defense, bottom 5 in several statistical categories. Week 1 can be a head fake for sure. And for this team yesterday, remember, they had a new quarterback who had never really played. They had a new offensive coordinator who really had never. called plays as the primary play caller.

And this team had a revamped offensive line. And by the way, they were playing in front of a really good crowd. I'll get to that in a moment. But it's just too early to have any definitive conclusions about anything. So remember, when I get to my game take, it's based on yesterday's game. It isn't necessarily a prediction of things to come, because I don't have a prediction. of many things to come. Although I think the one prediction that I felt the most confident about, actually two of them, but one in particular heading into this season, that defensively they had a

chance to be really good, there were signs of that yesterday for sure. But the opponent may have had something to do with that as well. Number two is this. Number one is it can be kind of a head fake week one. Number two is don't worry about being a good team now. Being a good team later is much more important. But you have to win games early enough so that if you become a good team later on, those games matter. So I think that that is something that is a major positive from yesterday. Now, they've won three out of their four openers with Ron Rivera, and then they have slid backwards early in the season. But you have to gather as much of, you know, these nuts. As Eddie Jordan once said, we've got to harvest our nuts. We've got to harvest these wins. We've got to

stack these winds up and put them in our pouch, even though we're not playing well. But in the NFL, because it's such a short sprint of a season, you may not be a good team at the beginning of the year. You may develop into a good team and be a threat late in the year. But if you didn't win enough games early on, then those games at the end of the year when you are playing well, may not mean anything. All right. Three. So before I get to the game, take, a third thing I wanted to talk about with a little bit more time. I went to the game yesterday. God, I loved the energy from pregame, through the game. It was just an energy that...

Look, I have not been at a game in five years, okay, but I've still been at almost every big game that that stadiums ever held. And I, you know, at RFK, we've shared those stories for years, as many of you were. I was in that stadium for almost every big game during the glory years.

And look, FedEx field has never been RFK Stadium. It never will be. There was just something about RFK that was special. There was something with the design of the stadium that made it better and louder and more acoustically, I guess, beneficial to keeping the sound inside the stadium. FedEx has never, on its best day, been what RFK was, even with, you know, at times 40, 40,000 more people or 35,000 more people. in the stadium. But the energy yesterday overall was great. There was a real feeling, I think, of celebration, which is what we talked about all offseason, especially when the schedule came out, and we knew it would be Arizona on September 10th. And I think that that was a really

good day for so many of the current fans and the longtime fans who came back yesterday. And I'm going to tell you the story of somebody I met yesterday here in a moment. By the way, Tommy and I spent some time together. Thank you to all of you that we did see at tailgates. We got to a few of them only. But I know that there were many of you that invited us to your tailgate on Twitter. I got those messages. I appreciate it so much. Tommy was working. He was also bitching and screaming at about 10.30-ish about the weather. And he couldn't get wet because he had to work today. and I thought he was going to bail, but he did come out and hang out with me for a while. And we had a good time, and we had a beer or two.

He was working. I continued before kickoff. But anyway, it was a really good scene out there. Super positive scene. And as far as the noise goes, look, for those of us who really know what a really loud stadium sounds like for a Skins game at RFCK or even there. It wasn't that. But it was good. But I heard some people saying, oh, that was like the Seattle playoff game. No, it wasn't. It wasn't. That Seattle playoff game, I still think, along with the Cowboys game in 2005, the Gidge year, when they made the big run at the end of the year to the playoffs and they had a 28-0

lead at halftime. That place was insane that day. Four o'clock kick, Cowboys, December, playoffs on the line. It was a big, that one in the Seattle game, even more so than the Cowboys game at the end of 2012, are the two loudest stadiums at FedEx I've been to. And yesterday was really good and really good compared to recent years, obviously. And, yeah, look, the place was packed. There were, you know, there were spots here and there, upper deck, club level, pretty usual. but the fans were there early. I put out a picture on Twitter about 45 minutes before kickoff. I was on the club level headed to a brief meet and greet with radio people.

But anyway, I put out a picture right 45 minutes before kickoff from the club level. And you could see, I mean, the stadium was filling up. I mean, it never has that many people in it, 45. minutes before kickoff. There was a legit buzz yesterday. And it did get loud at times, no doubt. It was awesome to hear. There's also, you know, a lot of kind of pomp and circumstance around this game. I, you know, all weekend long, you know, there was the pep rally in Franklin Park Friday night. all the focus on the alums coming back, RG3 and Champ Bailey Rigo was there, Billy and Sunny.

Oh, that's great. I'm not knocking it, but it's like, look, it's time for the season now. Every season's a new season. Now there's actually, you know, who knows, maybe a chance to have a good season. And we're, you know, we're really focused on a lot of the other stuff. Look, I get why ownership is immersing themselves in all of this, okay? First of all, it's important for them to sell their product. Reengaging with the community, reengaging with the alumni, reengaging with the media, quite

frankly, is something that they're doing a great job doing. I'm not knocking it at all. It just seemed like it was like, all right, let's play a game now. Let's focus on because if you don't beat the Cardinals, all of this stuff is going to look, kind of silly. I mean, Durant and Embed, and look, we've had it before, McConaughey and Cruz and others. How about Rigo, though, opening up his jacket to reveal the old logo?

I love Rigo. And Rigo has always had a very, very keen sense of certainly the fans of the teams he played on and how they feel and what they think. and that was pretty good. I wanted to just mention a conversation that I had, and I talked about this conversation on radio. So I ran into several of you, but Brian in Rockville stood out to me more than anybody else.

Big Irish guy, Brian. He came up to me, he introduced himself to me, and he told me that it was his first game in 10 years that he had been to. And he actually said that he had not watched a game, to finish in four years. Brian, my age, in his 50s, talked about, you know, the relationship with his father and going to the games and how important it was.

And we've all heard those stories, told those stories. The bonds created with, you know, fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, mothers and daughters, you know, uncles. I mean, when I started to go to the games as a young kid with my father, he would put me on his lap. He'd throw me over the turnstile and then put me on his lap. but I was with two of my uncles. Like those are incredible memories for me as a young person.

And then as I got older and my father stopped going and my uncle stopped going, it was my brother and I that spent a lot of time together. You know, usually with one, you know, we had three tickets to RFK, with one of my friends who would go and occasionally one of his friends who would go as well. I was much older than him. So I had, it was my call on who the third ticket would go to. too. Yes, I actually have a sister too, but she never was interested in going, not as much. She wanted to go occasionally, usually to the Santa Claus game, as I recall when we were much younger.

But, you know, the stories about the bonds formed through, you know, mutual love for this football team are obviously legendary and everybody's talked about him for years. So this guy, Brian, hardcore fan. This was part of him. This is part of his. This is part of his, whole makeup. And like many of us, he just stopped, you know, caring as much, you know, the owner sucked the life out of it for him. It's kind of the way I've felt in recent years, too. But he was back there yesterday and said that, you know, he's considering buying season tickets again. He was with one of his four children, I think he mentioned. It was a daughter. She was 20-something. He was wearing a commander's jersey, a Terry McLaurin, number seven,

commanders jersey, which the whole thing as we're having this conversation, it's not adding up to me. Because, you know, at that Burgundy and sold party at, you know, at the bullpen, phenomenal spot the bullpen next to Nat Stadium, I didn't see more than four or five commanders jerseys and nobody my age had a commander's jersey on. So I asked him about it. You know, know, full disclosure. I said, what's up with the commander's jersey? Because he just struck me as a guy that would have had, you know, a number nine jersey or a number 44 jersey or a number 81 jersey or a number 28 jersey. And he said, and I'm going to paraphrase this, he said, I'm over it.

I'm just ready for my life to have less confrontation, he said. This topic has warned me out. And he went on and talked about how he's approaching it like when the Nats came to town. And he referenced the fact that I've referred to it as kind of an expansion feel to the team since 2222. And he said, I agree with that, but I'm embracing this expansion team now without Dan, obviously. And I just thought it was when he said, I just am ready in my life for less confrontation. And maybe he's had a lot of confrontation in his life. I don't know.

And he said, it just has warned me out. I don't know how many people agree totally with Brian. But I kind of get it. It's like life's too short. The name, by the way, ain't coming back. And on Friday, Josh Harris reiterated that to everybody. They're not going down the path with something that's divisive, you know, whether it's divisive for a legitimate reason or not, we've been through all

of this. So, you know, Brian's essentially saying I'm not going to deprive myself of trying to enjoy this thing. And, yeah, I mean, I hope they get it right at the end of this year, going back to Washington as the brand and getting rid of this name and getting the old uniforms back. I'm all for that. But, you know, for a guy like Brian, he's not forgetting the past, and I'm not. going to forget the past either. He's just moved on and embraced the new. Good for him. It has caused a lot of, you know, I'm not saying it's, you know, it's a political, the political football that the 2016 election or the 2020 election or the 2024 election will have in many households. Okay? But, you know, I've been in a lot of those knock-down, drag-out name

discussions, and it does get exhausting. My game take next, right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Third down and goal. It's Howe. Step it up. It's Howe. On the move, That was one of several really good plays from Sam Howell, the starting quarterback yesterday, and that was a massive play in the game. That was third and goal. He's scrambling, he's extending, and then he takes off and scores for the go-ahead touchdown with about 12 minutes to go in the game. That was a really, really good play by Sam Howe. He had a couple of really good plays in the game. But overall, well, you'll have a really good play. have to wait. I'm going to get to my game take and I'll tell you overall what I thought of Sam

Howell's game. This segment of the show is brought to you by my bookie. I went four and five on the smell test over the weekend. God, the college games. I mean, you talk about bad beats. Texas Tech, terrible beat. Interception down one late return for a touchdown. Minnesota's got a first goal at the one inch line with plenty of time left and they end up kicking a field goal. 0 and 4 on Saturday, but I came back yesterday 4 and 1 and nearly went 5 and 0 with New England. Plus the points getting 4. They lost by 5. So a 4 and 5 weekend for the smell test. Hopefully you used my bookie to make wagers. They've got NFL college football all season long. They've got a brand new cash out system.

gives you plenty of options this season. MyBooky's got a no strings attached cash bonus that lets you deposit and withdraw quickly. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C., on a deposit of $50 or more, and you can receive up to $200 in cash instantly into your MyBooky account. Now, the week, two lines are out. They were actually out already. First of all, for the Monday night game tonight, right now, the bills are minus two and over the Jets in the Aaron Rogers opener. And the total is 44 in the game. And as far as next week goes, Washington at Denver, the current My Bookie line in that game is Denver minus three and a half.

With once again a super low total on the game. Now, there are more low totals next week. at MyBooky than there were in week one. There were a lot of low-scoring games in week one. Washington's at 39. That's the lowest total. Cleveland and Pittsburgh's at 40. And then the Giants and the Cardinals are at 40 as well.

I'll go quickly through some other NFL games in the final segment of the show. But mybooky.orgie.ag, this is a place where even if you've got a place to bet, use MyBooky as a second place to comparison shop. on things like point spreads, et cetera. Bet your deposit amount one time at MyBookie, and you're ready to withdraw at any time. But you've got to use my promo code, Kevin D.C., to claim your cash deposit bonus. If you get to the sign-up page at MyBooky, and there's something already written in the promo code section,

a couple of you reminded me of that over the weekend. Just erase it and write Kevin D.C. My bookie's got fair lines, fair points, spreads, fair totals. fair pricing. You get paid without any complexity, and you get paid quickly, and they're going to give you free cash. Take it. MyBooky.ag. All right, let's get to my game take. Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Take. What I liked, what I didn't like, a few other observations. And again, this is pretty much about yesterday's game, especially when we get to the list of things that I didn't love. I'm not saying that this is the way it's going to

be the rest of the year. All right, let's start with the things that I liked. The defense just as a whole, they held Arizona to six points. And when I say six points, I know that they had 16, but there was a defensive touchdown. And one of the field goals was off of the interception that Sam Hal threw. And then the defense held the Arizona offense on that drive to one yard and a long field goal. They held the Cardinals to 210 yards, 210, 3.6 yards per play. four of 14 on third down and 0 for one on fourth down. The defense in the second half got two crucial takeaways. The first one, the sweat sack strip.

That's the biggest play of the game. And then listen to this. The Cardinals had 58 plays on 11 offensive drives. Those are 58 plays that did not include a replay because of a penalty. 58 offensive snaps. On 58 of their offensive snaps, the Cardinals had 15 negative yardage plays. 15. 26% of their offensive plays were basically stopped behind the line of scrimmage for negative yardage. There were three sacks and 12 tackles for loss. 12. That's pretty amazing. Now, the Cardinals are not very good on offense.

Josh Dobbs is not very good. I would bet you any amount of money that Colt McCoy would have given Arizona a better chance offensively. Josh Dobbs is not Josh Allen, who they will face in two weeks at FedEx Field. Joshua Dobbs may be the worst quarterback they face all. season long. That's a really good bet, unless you get backups or backups to backups because of injuries. With all that understood, it was still a dominant day for the defense. And they got a fast start to the season defensively for the first time since the 2020 opener against Philadelphia when they had a bunch of sacks of Carson Wentz. You know, they did not start quickly against the

Chargers a couple of years ago. Some will remember that, well, the Chargers only had 20 points, but they converted 14 of 18 third downs. They couldn't get off the field in that game. And then last year, Jacksonville and then Detroit in Game 2 had their way. So it's good to see them ready, prepared again. The opponent may have had something to do with it. But the perceived strength of this football team is its defense. And it was the strength. Yes. and specifically that leads me to number two on the list of things that I liked. The defensive line in particular was just outstanding. I just love watching Duran Payne play.

I don't care how anybody grades him out. Duran Payne was a beast in that game yesterday. Montez Sweat terrorized the opponent yesterday. Jonathan Allen lived with pressure lived as a pressure player the entire game. He was playing on the other side of the line of scrimmage. All three of them were. By the way, they weren't the only ones.

Like James Smith Williams, I thought played pretty well. He blew up a screen early in the game. I thought he was pretty stout run defense-wise. Casey Two-Hill basically stopped a zone read all by himself. It was that zone read when Ingram was in the game, the running back with Moore. He, I thought, had a really good game. Abdullah Anderson had a half sack.

Also made a good play for no gain on James Connor early in the third quarter. Ridgeway, they all had moments. By the way, not a lot of Cinco package in the game yesterday that I noticed. I thought that Montez Sweat and Pain and probably Allen, those three were the ones that really stood out. pain just is always seemingly in the backfield blowing up plays. He blew up a second and seven on Arizona's third drive of the game for minus two. He got out and, I mean, he's so athletic.

There was a bubble screen that was a little bit late developing, but he just absolutely disrupted it and then made the tackle for like a three-yard gain. Sweat, you know, game-changing sack, obviously. which was huge. Sack and a half total for the game, he shared one with Abdullah Anderson. But the sack strip fumbled down 1610 is the play of the game. And without it, we don't know how that game actually plays out. I just thought sweat and pain and then Alan, you know, he blew up a zone read. He had a sack at a big spot on that final drive. He was outstanding. I just thought pretty much everybody along the defensive line played really, really well. This is, you know, it has been the strength

of the football team, but, you know, you give them, you know, a questionable offensive situation and a Josh Dobbs at quarterback. The other team just isn't going to have that much of a chance. I mean, it would be great to have those kinds of quarterbacks every week because I think all you need is 17 points and you're going to win almost every game. But yeah, I mean, overall, they gave up a couple plays. You know, oh, they could have had defensively. They could have had an even bigger day. There were two to three drops of interceptions,

Curl, Fuller, Forbes. They gave up two plays of note, basically. They gave up that 29-yard reverse to Hollywood Brown. By the way, Forrest made a really good tackle on that one, probably a touchdown saving tackle. They had the wheel route to Rondell Moore, which got 31 yards. That's 60 yards on two plays. They only had 210 yards.

I mean, those two plays were nearly 30% of their offense. A little bit more defensively. Cam Curl, good God. I mean, he's a blur on the field. He plays so fast. Hits hard. He should have had an interception on the one drive that got down there and got him a field goal in the first half.

I thought Kendall Fuller played pretty well. He gave up one or two, but he anticipates so well. He jumped a route on a blitz, which was a really good play. He had, I think it was that guy Wilson on man coverage on a stop and go where they took a deep shot. He was right there, broke that play up.

I thought Fuller was pretty solid. I think St. Juice looks the part out there. I think they completed a ball on him as well. I think he had a defensive hold that was a little bit tiki-tack. I'm sure I'm forgetting some defensive performances here. I'm just looking at my other defensive notes. I just think the defense was phenomenal. The other things on my things that I liked list are wide receivers just,

stay open, especially Dotson, Terry, but I think Diommy Brown can get open. I think Curtis Samuel can get open. Logan Thomas can get open. You know, he dropped a couple. He was a target, a big target for Sam, as I predicted last week. Eight targets for Logan Thomas in the game, just four catches. He had two drops. But, you know, Taylor Heineke and Carson Wentz had some big days last year. And they're any quarterback that can actually play NFL football with these receivers, they're going to have some plays when they have time and they can see the field. And Sam Howell is going to have plays that result in very good because this receiver group stays open. Dotson in particular. There was something coming out of their own end zone. It may have been the throw. I forget

exactly where it was. Dotson is able to create space because they fear speed and then when they get close it is just crossover after crossover basketball style. Foot and ground, little wiggle and

boom, all of a sudden the defender's like, oh, I thought you were going the other way and he's wide open. Diami Brown was wide open on that first drive of the game. He's got some speed. Curtis Samuel gets open. Their pass catchers get open.

There was a contested catcher, too, no doubt. Cole Turner had a really good contested catch on a really good throw by Sam. Also on the list of things that I liked, Tressway and Joey Sly. Tressway, because the punting, as always, was outstanding. But he caught that dribbler or that bouncer back from Cam Cheesman on a field goal attempt and got it perfectly up for Sly to make a 30-yard kick. Cam Cheesman coming up in the part of the game take where I share with you the things I did not like.

Joey Sly didn't miss a kick, so good day from the kicking group. All right, let's get to that list of things that I didn't like. We'll just start with this. The offense overall struggled. You know, it's just one game, all right? but for some of you that thought we were going to see such a dynamic offense after these preseason games against threes and fours and twos, no, that's not the way it works. And the result in this one was not good because they were playing starters and the game mattered

to the other team. So it was not a good result. 20 points, but 10 of those were set up on short fields after forced turnovers by the defense, 248 total yards, 3.8 yards per play, four for 12 on third down, six sacks, three turnovers, two for five in the red zone. You know, they were a bit fortunate that the sack and turnover numbers weren't higher

because I think Sam avoided some sacks on scrambles or on throwways or on throws actually when it looked like he was going to be, you know, sacked. He certainly could have had another two picks minimum in the game. You know, there were moments, but even on the long 91-yard touchdown drive, that was penaltyated, 67 yards of stupid Arizona penalties on that drive, two 15-yard personal fouls on a 37-yard pass interference call. It just was not a good day offensively against a team that isn't supposed to be that good on defense. You know, again, like I said, the NFL is a week-to-week league,

and maybe Arizona will be one of those teams where you look back and you say, yeah, that was an indicator of things to come because they're a pretty good defensive team. And maybe it's because they've got a defensive-minded head coach, but this is a team that gave up 30 or more seven times last year. They gave up 30 or more points. Guardex's pretty good. Collins is pretty good. Wallace, Baker. You know, 13 drives yesterday, nine of them for the offense resulted in punts or turnovers. That's not a good day. Specifically, and that gets me to number two on the things I didn't like list, overall, the offense struggled. That's number one.

Number two, three turnovers. One of my keys to a win, and it's kind of cliche, I understand that. But with a team like Arizona, you know, if you don't make it easy for them to score, they're not going to score that much. And Washington had three turnovers in the second quarter and almost a devastating fourth turnover on the final drive of that first half. You know, we'll talk about that when we get to Sam Howl. The interception was tipped, but as a quarterback with some height limitations, you can't get balls tipped a lot. You got to understand and find your lanes because that'll lead to, you know, bad results like it did on the Zaven Collins interception off the deflection. The Gibson fumble, I mean, I just kills me. I'm such a big Antonio Gibson fan, as many of you know, and I thought he had gotten rid of that problem last year.

You know, the ball got punched out hard, but it doesn't matter. That was a good little run that he had, too. But you're in, you know, you're in the red zone. and he coughed it up. And it's going to limit his snaps if that becomes an issue again because Brian Robinson, Jr. really doesn't fumble at all. I know that he had a couple of fumbles last year, but they were like out of bounds.

I just felt badly for Gibson. I'm a big fan, and I think he can be a big part of what they, you know, can accomplish on offense, which would be, you know, at a bare minimum, improved from last year in the year before. But three turnovers. You can't give Arizona points. They're not going to be good.

enough offensively against this defense, Washington's defense, to score without help. And they handed them 10 first half points, which of course was punctuated with the sack fumble and the touchdown returned by Thomas on the Gardek sack. You know, Gardek, by the way, he's been a really good special teams player, his entire career for Arizona. Coming into yesterday's game, he had played in 72 games over five years, and he had a whopping eight career sacks and one forced fumble. Yesterday, two sacks and a forced fumble in one game. He beat the hell out of Andrew Wiley on the play that resulted in the touchdown return of the fumble. Three turnovers, hurtful, for sure. And again, I'll get to the luck that I think Sam Hal really had at the end of the first half.

because that could have been a back-breaking play. Next on the things that I did not like list. Six sacks. Look, I have no idea until I really look at the film or Cooley really looks at the film more than me. And maybe I don't have a good idea until we hear from Ron, you know, on his day after press conference, which I might be able to fit in here at the very end of the show

if he's had it by the time we're done. I have no idea how many of those sacks were all. O-line versus the quarterback, but some were on the O-line. I think the play that Sam fumbled, that was too quick of a pressure. Wiley got beat badly on a Gardick move, and it was all hell breaking loose on that particular play. And I thought it was too quick. I thought some of the pressures just looked really quick. I remember last year really talking about how Carson Wentz in those first two games, remember against Detroit, he got sacked all those times, Jacksonville, all those, whatever the games were, where he was taking some

big sacks, Cowboys game, Philly game. And I was like, look, some of those, I don't know what else he can do. What else can this guy do? He's got no time. And the offensive line really was a sieve last year. And we knew that it was going to be a concern coming into this year. But of the six, I would bet you it's probably half and half. That's my guess. There certainly seemed to be a couple of them where Sam held on to the ball too long. I actually felt like in watching the game that there were sacks that Sam avoided, but almost ended up being sacks where he held on to the ball way too long. But he was able to get out and get back to the line of scrimmage or throw the ball down the, you know, incomplete. Yeah. This, we're going to get to Sam Howell here in a moment,

but this was, you know, a potential issue with the offensive line and a quarterback who has in college taken a lot of sacks, who in college took a lot of sacks. Next up my list of things that I didn't like. First, you know, just the overall offense struggling. Secondly, specific to the offense struggling, three turnovers, third, six sacks, fourth. I did not love. the play calling in the first half. Now, I say that, and I did like the aggressiveness of Bianami's play calling, and I do wonder whether or not there may be something in play where he thinks this is the best thing for Sam Hal and the long term right now, and he's focused on that too, developing a young quarterback.

I hope not at the expense of winning games because there were roughly 33 pass plays called in the first half alone. You know, somewhere around half of those, maybe a little less than half being, you know, pure dropback. Actually, right around half, more than half, actually. There were three-step, there were five-step drops. There were a couple of seven-step drops. If you call anything sort of five-and-seven-step as pure drop-back, About half those plays were dropbacks. And some of them resulted in decent plays, but the six sacks and the three turnovers all happened in the first half when they just kept calling pass play after pass play.

I didn't see a ton of RPO. I think there was one RPO play where Sam immediately looked, and I think his intention was to throw in an RPO, and then you saw them rush it right back up the middle of the line of scrimmage. I think that was an RPO. And there may have been one or two others, but it wasn't heavy RPO yesterday. Not on, look, I was at the game. And then I ended up watching the game last night. I got to go back and watch it again.

He's fast-forwarded through it. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. I didn't seem to think that there was a lot of RPO. I thought there was just not enough balance for a quarterback who's running game. And maybe it's because they didn't think they could. run because they didn't run that effectively, that's for sure. So I just, 33 pass plays, nine runs basically in the first half in terms of called plays,

you know, six sacks, three turnovers and, you know, a 13-7 deficit. And it's not like they were constantly behind the chains. They had two third and tens and a third and nine in the first half. Look, he went for it. He was aggressive, and he did have some short passing concepts in there. He had some run extension passes in there, understood. He had a couple of sprint outs. But it didn't pay off, basically.

Dropping him back that much in the game, more times than not was not a great thing. He made some good plays in dropback, but six sacks could have been more, three turnovers could have been more. And the only way you were going to lose this game was by turning the ball over or really impacting field position. Again, I want to be really, really adamant about this. I think there's a chance that Eric is in the, let's call a game plan that gives us a chance to win the game and also gives us a chance to have an improved quarterback down the road. and there may be some method to, you know, what he was doing yesterday. Next on the list of things I didn't like.

The offensive line just wasn't very good. Got beat, you know, in the interior, got beat on the edge. Wiley was the one more than anybody else that really stood out as bad. I, you know, I can't tell you specifically without looking at the film who played well and who didn't. I just didn't think that Wiley was very. good. And I thought a couple of the pressures came interior pretty quickly. But Cosmi was out. Cosmi is my favorite player on that offensive line. But look, they didn't even open up big holes for the running game. I mean, I thought Robinson Jr., who averaged 3.1 yards per carry, I think

what he got, he got a lot on his own. The offensive line on the list of things I didn't like. Cameron Cheeseman, the long snapper. We got a problem. He dribbled one back. He did it in the preseason. They better figure this thing out or he's going to cost him in a big spot. And then lastly, on the list of things that I didn't like, overall, and I contemplated not putting Sam Howl on this particular list because he made some good plays.

And there was some promise in his performance. But the bottom line is there was more bad than good for the starting quarterback yesterday. It's just one game. So, you know, it doesn't mean he's going to be on this list next week. And he was far from terrible. You know, we saw some terrible quarterbacking performances in recent years. That was not a terrible quarterbacking performance. I'll give you the grade in a moment.

I think he's got clear ability. You know, he has the arm strength. He has the mobility and the feet. And he has that thing that we said about Taylor Heineke. He's a baller. He's a gamer. But two of the three turnovers were on him. Let's just say half of the sacks were on him.

He missed Diami Brown early on what could have been a 65-yard touchdown pass somewhere, you know, in that range. It just wasn't a really good starting performance for an NFL quarterback. But it's his first. I say it's his first because you know what I think about the Dallas game. He didn't have his full team. The game didn't matter to the team. Yesterday was the first game that truly mattered that he started in the NFL. So let me go through just some of the good plays first real quickly.

So opening drive, good throw to Dotson. On that throw, though, Diami Brown was open. He had some balls dropped on him, too. Logan Thomas dropped two of them. The third nine before the first punt, they came with everybody. He recognized it, and he hit the checkdown, which was Curtis Samuel. It was not good enough for a first down, but it avoided what would have been a big sack. The first touchdown pass to Brian Robinson Jr. is brilliant.

It's second and goal. He's extending, extending, extending, and then he finds that little seam, draws the defense to him and flips it to Brian Robinson, Jr. in the end zone. Great play. there's a nice throw to Terry McClure on their fourth drive over the middle of the field on a third down. There was a really, really good throw to Cole Turner. Fourth drive, this is before the Gibson fumble. They're driving, and he's got great pocket movement on that throw,

and he puts it on Turner in what was a contested situation. I thought that was one of his better throws of the day. His best throw of the day, though, was the throw at the end of the first half to Curtis Samuel. And that followed, you know, a throw to Samuel for 15 yards, another one to Logan Thomas. I love that they stayed aggressive in that moment after that terrible play, the touchdown, the fumble return for a touchdown. Ron and Eric said, fuck it, let's go for it. and they are confident enough in Sam Howe to go for it, especially when dropback wasn't working as well.

Maybe Arizona got a little soft there. I didn't spend a lot of time looking at that. But the throw to Samuel is an absolute dime. I think that throw to Cole Turner, I think the touchdown throw to Robinson Jr., the touchdown run, and the throw to Samuel were his best plays of the game. He also was really smart. They ran that sprint out with eight seconds to go.

Because that Samuel play got him in position for not only an easy chip shot field goal, but gave him a chance to take a shot to the end zone if there was something there. But he rolled right, he threw it away quickly. You know, in the second half, he had the third and goal scramble for a touchdown, which is just one of the plays of the game. I mean, it just was. They don't score. If they don't score a touchdown there, they kick a field goal.

it's 13 to 10. Again, that was a fine line game. They needed the two touchdowns that he produced. The list of things that I did not like. Can't throw that interception, and I know it was deflected, but he's got to account for kind of height and length on the other team, and he's got to find the right lanes. You know, a tip ball sometimes is a really good play by a defender,

and sometimes it's, you know, lack of awareness by the quarterback, or trying to force something that isn't there. You know, he's got to protect the football. Bottom line, you know, he got sacked. It was quick pressure. Guard deck did a great job, but you've got to protect the football. That's a devastating play.

And then on that final drive of the first half, I'm telling you, that may have ended the game right then and there. I know there was a whole half to play. But given their struggles and dropback and throwing, he goes to Samuel and goes to Logan Thomas and they got a first in 10 at about the 44 of Arizona and he stares down I think it's Logan Thomas, it might have been Cole Turner

and Wallace, Kavon Wallace steps in front of that thing and he's got a pick six in his hands and drops it. I think it would have been a pick six. I don't know, maybe somebody would have run him down possibly but it would have led to some points anyway. for them, but stared it down. When I say he stared it down, he quickly looked right, came right back, and just threw it right to the defender. Just a terrible, terrible decision trying to fit one in there to get in field goal range. And, you know, the truth is that the 44-yard line at that particular

spot, they only needed, you know, six, seven yards for field goal range. You know, so they ended up getting the big play on the next play after the dropped Wallace pick six. and he ends up with that incredible throw to Curtis Samuel, 32, 33, 34 yards, whatever it was. I think it was 32 officially, actually. But they, on the play before that, you know, they're 20 seconds left, and I know they've used their timeouts, but they're able to throw something over the middle shorter and get a quick spike in a field goal attempt. That was lucky.

You know, we talked about how Taylor Hineke got lucky a lot, and there's no doubt. turnover worthy plays. He was always one of the highest in the league. Sam got lucky on that one. He got lucky on a throw to Terry McLorn that could have been picked that was way behind McLaren. I thought there were some accuracy issues at times. There was a checkdown throw to Brian Robinson Jr. where his arm got hit and he was under pressure and he tried to throw it anyway in the checkdown. Should have just eaten that one. That was a very dangerous play. There was another screen to Robinson Jr. that was nearly picked. He was getting hit. The ball was high. Yeah, that's kind of it. I don't think I forgot any of the plays. I thought in watching him,

because one of my sons texted me and he said, Sam, Howell's terrible. And I go, no, he's not terrible. He's not terrible at all. He is just taking too much time and he's got to protect the football. And he got lucky a couple times, but this is what we're going to get. We're going to get up and down performances from a young quarterback with no experience. The key is, will he, as Eric talked about at times during the off season, will he, you know, auto-correct or whatever the saying was? Will he learn and evolve and develop and, you know, shake these habits? Because, you know, I think we know the reasons why he dropped to the fifth round, decision-making,

and he takes too many sacks. And maybe his height had something to do with it as well. But what we've seen when he's played is some decision-making that's not great, and he'll hold on to the ball a little bit too long. But these are things that are coachable. With playing time and with good coaching, he can be coached out of these things. Because there are so many things that he does well that if there weren't anything, if there wasn't anything that he did well, you wouldn't be wasting your time with him.

You know, because he is a risk out there with the sacks and with the turnovers and with some of the decision making. But he does things well, and he's got talent. He's got real ability. He's got arm strength. That throw to Samuel. We haven't seen that throw. I mean, Wentz made a couple of them. C for Sam Howe.

I didn't have to have him on this. By the way, he missed Diami Brown. I think I mentioned that. Early part of the game, first drive of the game, he looks right at him too. I don't know why he didn't throw the deep ball. that would have been a touchdown early. That would have been an unbelievable start to the game,

a 65-yard touchdown pass early in the game. He's looking right at him, and he comes back over the middle to Dotson. And those are the kinds of things, by the way. I don't want to be overly critical on the receivers that he misses. Because we do that as fans. We have no idea what his progression is. We don't know what the play design is.

We don't know that essentially he's coached to go one, two, And if one is there, two is there, I mean, you immediately get to it, especially against a certain defense. And Diami may have been option three, although he did seem to look at him. All right. Other observations from the game. I don't know how Ron Rivera lost that challenge. Seemed to me like Gibson got the first down. I thought that, oh, Chris Rodriguez, three snaps in the game, three runs in the game.

that may be something of a tell for the Broncos, so maybe they want to put him into the game and not run them on Sunday. I thought Crowder looked good as a punt returner. The numbers don't bear it out. His best return there was a penalty on, but I actually thought he looked really decisive. And as long as Dax-Miln is out, I'd be surprised if Crowder's not going to be the guy

until Dax-Milln comes back. And maybe he's got a chance to be the primary punt-returner on this team. He's never been a great punt-returner. But I don't know, he just looks shiftier and more explosive and more willing to me. There were situations in the game where there were penalties accepted by both Washington and a little bit later on by Arizona on third downs that came up short. So instead of taking Washington had a chance, it was near the end of the first half, I think. Instead of a fourth and three, they decided to go third and 16 or something like that. Look, context is everything.

And Ron probably thought there's no way this dude's going to, you know, get a third and 16 or, you know, and so we're going to end up with better field position if we take this penalty. I thought Ron managed the clock well in the first half, used his timeouts appropriately, and then at the very end of the game, when they had, you know, around eight seconds to go, you see these coaches all the time. They can't wait to call a timeout with one second left on the play clock. Well, sometimes you don't want to keep one second on the play clock if you're punting the ball, which is what they were going to do. And I was absolutely convinced he was going to take a time out with one second left on the play clock and then punt. No, you take that second because you

don't want them to have any additional time. Take the five yards and punt it from midfield, which is what they did. I thought Curtis Samuel played, I think he's going to be a factor again this year, and I don't think we've talked a lot about him. And penalties were an issue for this team yesterday. Two bigger penalty for the opponent. But, you know, penalties were kind of an issue. Let me just see if there's anything else. Oh, I was going to mention, you know, they, Zach Ertz dropped a touchdown pass before that field goal for them that made it 7 to 6. I think it was 7 to 6. The ball is a little bit high from Dobbs, but Ertz, I guarantee you, thinks he should have caught that ball. But the defense,

really didn't give up much. Oh, I thought the Bates' offensive pass interference call on the little rub and the out to Logan Thomas, which he turned up the sideline, was a terrible call. It looked like he was running a normal route. That was a bad call. All right, I think that's it. I'll finish up with just a little bit about the rest of the NFL Sunday and a little bit on Maryland and the Texas Bama game when we come back. Ram Ganoe, the veteran 36 years old. Great, great through by Thomas, who blocked it. And Ibnogany has it for Dallas.

No way Ibnogany stays inbound and the Cowboys special team gets the first score of the year. Touchdown Dallas. What a disaster last night for the New York Giants. That's the way it started. The blocked field goal and the return for a touchdown. They had a fumble return for a touchdown in the first quarter. The Cowboys jumped out 16 to nothing, and their defense all night long was smothering. It's week one.

Remember, I mentioned earlier in the show. They lost a game 19 to 3 with no sign of life in the opener last year against the Buccaneers. I say that because the Giants were one of my big picks this year to be much better than people thought they were. and they looked awful last night, but Dallas's defense had a lot to do with it. 40 to nothing, 40 to nothing in the opener last night against the Giants. The Cowboys go to 1 and 0. They get the Jets next week on a short week. The Giants go to Arizona to face the Cardinals.

Real quickly, because I want to keep this podcast a little bit shorter today because I'm getting it out. You know, around the league, you know, I think one of the real interesting results, and I did have the Rams as a smell test pick, but the Rams dominated Seattle. Matt Stafford looked healthy, and the Rams looked back. They didn't have Cooper Cup, but Tutu Atwell, who they picked in the 2021 draft out of Louisville, was outstanding in the game. He is a little, you know, I mean, an absolute difficult check. I'm not putting him in the Tarik Hill category. He's not that necessarily, but he's all of like 5-8 and 160 pounds or something like that. And he had one big play after another. Some other receiver for them from BYU, who was a fifth round pick. Puka Nakua had 10 catches.

By the way, in the game, Stafford was 24 or 38 for 334 yards, no touchdowns, no picks, no sacks in the game. He had an 88.9 QBR in the game. there were, according to those that watched the game, four big drops, one by Van Jefferson that would have been like a 65-yard touchdown pass. So Stafford looked healthy. They ran the football. They were balanced. And they dominated defensively with Aaron Donald and Company.

And they absolutely blew out Seattle, you know, many people believe, you know, one of the teams that can really advance a long way. I think going into this season, Arizona was picked to be the, worst team in Houston and, you know, maybe, you know, a team like the Rams were thought to be the next in line among the bad teams in the NFL. Maybe not with the Rams. They did win the Super Bowl two years ago. So that was a surprising result.

Minnesota losing at home, it wasn't super surprising to me because I gave out the Buccaneers plus, you know, less than a touchdown. That game went to four. I give it out, I think, on Friday plus six. And the Buccaneers with Todd Bowles and Devin White and Vita Vea and Antoine Winfield Jr., they're going to be good defensively. And that division is just going to be kind of wide open with Tampa, New Orleans, Atlanta. Three of those teams won games yesterday. You know, that's supposed to be one of the worst divisions in the NFL.

And yet, in that division yesterday, Tampa won outside the division, New Orleans won outside the division. and Atlanta and Carolina played head-to-head and Atlanta won that game. So that division, along with the NFC East, are the two divisions that had three teams win games. The only division in the NFL that had, the only two divisions in the NFL that had three teams win a game in the opener.

And the only reason it wasn't four is because there was an intra-division matchup. But in that game, Minnesota struggled. Kirk had an interception in the red zone as they were going in at halftime. And even though he threw 33 or 44 for 34 yards and two touchdowns, they could not run the football at all. And they were one-dimensional, and that's never good for a quarterback like cousins.

The other result that was really stunning is Cincinnati. I know the weather was bad in that game. Cleveland just absolutely annihilated Cincinnati. And the numbers for Cincinnati are so. scary. Again, one week, and remember, Joe Burrow didn't play in the preseason, but the Cincinnati Bengals had 142 yards of offense. Joe Burrow was 14 of 31 for 82 yards. Had a 20.4 QBR. Deshawn Watson was better as a runner than he was as a passer, but that's been the case before, and Nick Chubb averaged six yards per carry. Cleveland, I've talked. I've talked about. I've

told you, and we've talked about this, if Watson is the quarterback that he was in Houston, that's a really, really good football team around him, kind of like the Jets. Miles Garrett was just unblockable. That Cincinnati Offensive Line's been a problem for years, as we know. They've tried to upgrade it. They've tried to improve it, and they've been able to overcome it. Just a stunning result. Not that they lost the game, but that they only had 145 yards of all.

offense and only 82 yards of passing. But again, week one, we'll see. Elsewhere around the league, the 49ers were super impressive and their blowout win at Pittsburgh. Christian McCaffrey, 152 yards on the ground, nearly seven yards per carry. Brock Purdy, really solid, had one of the best QBRs of any quarterback on the day yesterday at 91.3. That was, you know, San Francisco. winning wasn't the surprise. It was the blowout nature of the win. And then how about Jordan Love and the Packers in their debut at Chicago? Another blowout, 38 to 20. Jordan Love three touchdowns, no picks in the game. I mean, can you imagine if it's another 15 years of dominant quarterback play in Green Bay with Jordan Love?

The Eagles, they jumped out to a big lead like the Cowboys did, but they didn't win 40 to nothing. in New England. That was, I watched a lot of that game. It was the only game I lost yesterday, smell test-wise, the NFL picks for four and one. I can hear it now from all of you guys who say, Sheehan, stay away from college. You're much better on the NFL. It's actually not necessarily true, although maybe it's been true in recent years. But that was the only game that I needed for a five-and-o Sunday and another winning weekend, and the Patriots had plenty of opportunities. Jalen Hertz got hit a lot in that game and fumbled late. And New England had a chance, and I, in watching them, if I were a Patriot fan at the end of that game, I would have been encouraged.

I would have been encouraged with Mack Jones. I would have been encouraged a lot with my defense, which was awesome last year. I would have been encouraged with guys like Kendrick Bourne and Ramandre Stevenson. By the way, Zeke Elliott fumbled in that game. But the Eagles held on and won that game 25 to 20. The game of the day was, you know, Tuatunga Viloa. 466 yards passing and a 36 to 34 unbelievable back and forth win over the Chargers at SoFi. That game I saw the second half of, and on the NFL network, man, you could hear the Miami fans at SoFi.

The Chargers just do not have a home field advantage at all. And then my Titans, remember the Giants and Titans are two of my preseason prop overplays. I have several of them. they had a chance down 16 to 12 on a 4th and 6 with two minutes two minutes and 20 seconds left. They kicked the field goal. Now they had three timeouts left and it was a defensive game and so I'm sure they thought they'd get the ball back with a chance to kick a field goal

and win 18 to 16. I was glad they kicked the field goal because I had them plus three and they were losing 16 to 12. But the Saints got a couple of big first downs and Derek Carr threw for 305 yards in the game. Novak Djokovic. wins the U.S. Open. 24 majors now, tying Margaret Court for the all-time, not just Open era, but all-time mark anywhere. He's going to get another three, four, five of them. I mean, look at the condition he's in. College football, Maryland was down 14, nothing to Charlotte. And then

they scored basically 38 unanswered. And it's been a little bit shaky for them here early. I thought Leah, unlike his brother, looked a little bit rattled early on through two picks. But man, Roman Hemby, that sophomore running back for the Terps is, I think he's a pro running back. He went for 162 yards, 8.1 yards per carry. The Terps rushed, basically rushed their way back into a 3814 lead. They won at 3820. They get Virginia on Friday night in College Park. Virginia is not a good football team this year. I think the Terps are two touchdown favorites.

And look, that Texas game was off the charts on Saturday night. Bama's defense, just incredibly disappointing. And Quinn Ewers looked the part. I mean, there's some quarterbacks that are going to be available in the draft. I mean, it's going to start with Caleb Williams. And I don't know that anybody's played any better than he has to start this season. And Drake May and Carolina, and another thriller over Appalachian State. They won that game in overtime. 40 to 34. But I thought Quinn yours was outstanding in the game. That is a tough environment, Tuscaloosa at night,

and that kind of a heavyweight matchup in that game. And they took Alabama's best punches. I thought when Alabama scored and then went for the two and got it to 27, 24, I thought that was going to be it. But I mean, Texas just, you know, they rolled up close to 500 yards of offense somewhere around there. yours through for 350 and three touchdowns in the game. And Texas number four in the country, I think I saw in the poll today.

And Bama has a loss. You know, they're the one of a couple of teams that can kind of bounce back from a loss. I thought Milro didn't look nearly as good as people were talking about. He made some bad throws, but you can see the athleticism and the arm strength on that dude for sure. But Texas gets, you know, a big win. and now, you know, you look at their schedule. They do have Oklahoma in the Red River shootout game. They've got TCU on the road.

They've got Texas Tech who's pretty decent. But, you know, Baylor's not as good. Kansas, they look good the other night with Jaden, with the guy that was back Daniels who played really well. Big 12 is interesting. New teams, BYU, Cincinnati, UCF, but Texas has a chance to make the playoff. That's for sure.

All right, one more thing as I let you go, because, yes, Ron Rivera's press conference just took place. And I'm looking at some of the tweets and some of the things that he said about Sam Howell's performance. By the way, it looks like they have signed Jameson Crowder to the 53-man roster. So he's going to be your punt returner until Millen gets back and he'll have a chance to kind of keep that job if he plays well. but Rivera apparently said some things about Sam Howell's performance. So I will slap that on to the end of this show so you can listen to it. And then I'll be back tomorrow with Tommy. Well, it's one of those things where you're never as bad as you think and never as good as you think.

There are some really good things that happened. There were some really good rhythm stuff that was on. And then there were some things that were just kind of like, oh, why'd you do that? You know, so I know he's spent time this morning looking at the tape, sitting down with Eby and Tevita and Kee and going over those things and just kind of get a little, you know, corrections on those things. And what were some of the things that jumped out to you, I guess, both in that? Was there a player two that just say, like, you really like this and like this is you got a fit?

There were some really good things when he went through some of his progressions. You could see him getting to his second and third read and getting the ball out in a timely fashion. and then there are other times where you saw him get off of one read, maybe a little too quick. If he hesitated for a second, he might have seen it, and then would have probably gone there. But again, you know, he's learning, he's learning the tempo of how to go through progressions, you know, which he's good at, and it's just, you know, the process now lining up and doing it. The idea of a quarterback knowing the clock in his head knowing when to get rid of the ball, seems like that's something he's still kind of working with.

in your experience, like is that something, is a different maturation for each quarterback or how quickly does somebody typically kind of get past? Well, I can't tell you typically, but I can't say, you know, that some guys will probably pick it up quicker than others. And, you know, again, he is a guy that, you know, only played his second start in the NFL and you'd like to see him continue to just keep getting better and better, which I believe he can. And with the sacks in general, I'm sure it's a mix of Sam doing what we just said, and

offensive line, but I guess what did you kind of see on on those plays that you hope to correct going forward? Well, pretty much what you talked about. You know, there are a couple things that for us, you know, we missed a protection. You know, we thought something was going to happen. And because of that, we came off a switch too soon. And then we actually had one where we had a little foot traffic and one of our guys got tripped up.

And then a couple times we probably should have gotten rid of the ball. And so it's a combination of things. It's all things that are correctable, all things that we should get better with and we expect to get better with.