The Kevin Sheehan Show - Drafting 2nd For Now

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

Kevin with a quick New Years Day pod talking Commanders' draft position along with some follow up to the 27-10 loss to the 49ers.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it, but you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Happy New Year, everybody. 2024 is here, and it promises to be a year of change for the football franchise that we all follow. Yeah, a week from today, that change should begin in earnest. The day after this regular season of 2023, 2024 comes to a merciful end.

hopefully with a loss. This is a quick podcast today. Then I'll be back tomorrow with Tommy. Window Nation, as always, is the presenting sponsor. Call them at 86690 Nation or go to WindowNation.com. Zero percent interest right now for five full years plus 50 percent off all-style windows. 86690 Nation or Window Nation.com. Mention my name.

They'll take really good care of you. I'm sitting here on this cold gray, actually snow falling right now outside, New Year's Day, getting ready for the two biggest games of this holiday weekend, the two semifinal college football games, the Rose Bowl with Michigan and Alabama, and then the Sugar Bowl second semi-final game, Texas and Washington. Both are smell test picks. The smell test six one and one on Saturday and Sunday. I also have Michigan minus 1 and a half and Texas minus 4 in the two semifinals today. Looking for a monster weekend.

Haven't had, have had several winning weekends, but most of them have been narrowly winning weekends. But this one already is a pretty good weekend. Maryland was the first pick of the weekend, had the Terps in the Music City Bowl. Congratulations to Mike Loxley's Terps. 3113 easy winners over Auburl. Loxley's now 3-0 in bowl games since arriving in college park. He's done a nice job now, three straight years, in having his team ready with more time to prepare for these bowl matchups. They had some new faces out there and starting roles, including a quarterback where

Billy Edwards Jr. got the start. It wasn't the greatest statistical day for him, but it didn't need to be. The Terps ran out to a 21 to nothing lead, never looked back. At one point, 12 minutes into the game, they held a 226 to 13 yards advantage and were up 21 nothing. And from that point, they just didn't need to do much more. Edwards Jr. rushed for 50 through for 126, accounted for two touchdowns, which was good enough for him to take the MVP award in Nashville. But How about Maryland? It hasn't been easy since they moved to the Big Ten. Being in the Big Ten East, in particular with Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. Loxley said after the game, he said, quote, three straight bowl wins, back-to-back eight-win seasons, it's not easy to do that here,

closed quote. No, it's not easy to do. And for the TIRP fans out there that don't appreciate it, After Ralph Region got fired ridiculously by Kevin Anderson in 2010 after his ACC coach of the year season, Maryland's had two winning seasons over the eight that followed before Loxley got here. You know, Lox got here inherited a program which was in complete turmoil following the tragic death of Jordan McNair and everything that went along with that. He had to deal with, you know, COVID in year two. but since he's coached the team to three straight winning seasons, three straight bowl wins, and I know a lot of Maryland fans out there think it should be better, but since entering the Big Ten, the evidence says otherwise.

Not that there isn't another level for this program to ascend to, to aspire to. I want that too, but I'm not ignoring the nice job Loxley's done since he came back to the area and took over in College Park. 8 and 5, 3rd straight bowl win, and we'll see where it goes from here and what will be starting next season and expanded Big 10 with the 4-Pack 12 schools, Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA coming into the league as well. All right, let's get to it. The key storyline off of the 27 to 10 loss to the 49ers yesterday

is first and foremost, number one, draft positioning. This is what yesterday was mostly about, and this coming week against Dallas will be about. So let's explain where they are as of now. Their draft position as of today is number two overall. How did that happen? Well, they lost the game to the Niners, crucial. But that combined with Arizona's win at Philadelphia, shocking win, 35 to 31, knocking Philadelphia at a first place in the NFC East, putting Dallas in the driver's seat to win the division.

But the Arizona win combined with other results around the league, moved Washington up to number two as of now, per tankathon.com, which keeps track of not only records and draft slotting, but schedule strength. because schedule strength is the tiebreaker. It's not head-to-head. Just because Washington beat Arizona in the opener and beat New England during the season doesn't mean that they're behind those teams in draft order. Schedule strength is the tiebreaker. And right now, Washington, you know, with one week to go

and that schedule strength can change, you know, based on wins and losses of teams that Washington, New England, and Arizona played during the course of the year. But right now, Washington's schedule strength is easier than the other two teams, much easier than Arizona's. And it's probably impossible at this point if Washington loses to Dallas that they'd be any worse than third. New England could move in front of them with a loss to the Jets based on results.

But Seth Walder, the ESPN analytics, you know, guru, he puts something out earlier today. His, per ESPN's analytics, right now Washington has a 69% chance to earn the number two overall pick behind Carolina, who right now has the number one pick, which of course will go to Chicago. the Patriots have a 23% chance the Cardinals have and 8% chance, and the Giants are next in line with less than 1% in terms of the chances. Now, if the Patriots win and Washington wins, I'm sorry, if the Patriots lose and Washington loses and Arizona loses, that brings into play a better chance for the Patriots to end up at number two

in Washington to fall to number three. the Patriots are favored against the Jets in their game. Washington is a 13-5 to 14-point dog against Dallas in their games. So, you look, the storyline for this football team, as we have gotten into these waning weeks, number one, is get as high a pick as possible in a draft that's got three very high-ceiling quarterbacks that likely will go in the top four to top five of the draft. Washington could end up with one more loss to Dallas with the number two overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft. And really, you know, big picture when you look back on the 2023 season, that will be the saving grace.

Is that as bad as this season was, we found out, you know, that Sam Howell, more likely than not, is not going to be a franchise kind of quarterback. and that Washington didn't end up with a great defense, as some of us yours truly thought they could have this year, with six or seven wins, which would keep them out of the quarterback sweepstakes in the draft anyway. This is the next best thing from a dreadful season is that they ended up dreadful enough to potentially end up with the number two pick in the draft.

And then what will be really interesting is what will Chicago do with Carolina's number one overall selection. The Chicago fans were chanting keep Justin Fields in Chicago yesterday and their blowout win over Atlanta, which ended Atlanta's playoff hopes. Interesting to see what Chicago does. What would it cost if other teams want to come up for the number one pick? I think it's Caleb Williams, but I think there's also a chance things could change. But if there's one guy that Washington desperately wants and one guy that several other teams want. What will it cost Washington to go up one spot if they end up at number two?

It'll cost them their number one, you know, number two overall, and perhaps number one next year, maybe even another pick in this upcoming draft. Just to move one spot, that's possible. From, you know, especially, remember, don't even use the draft chart for this one. This would be about supply and demand. because there could be a lot of demand to go up to number one if there is a clear cut number one. And for a while now, most people have thought that that was Caleb Williams. Washington's game Sunday against the Cowboys, 425.

The Cowboys just need to win the game, and they are the NFC East champs. So that would be another year of no repeat NFC East champs, going all the way back to 2003, 2004 with Philadelphia. The Eagles would be the five seed, the Cowboys would be the two seed behind San Francisco. And all the Cowboys have to do is win. The Eagles need the Cowboys to lose and then they need to beat the Giants. But man, the Eagles really seem to be in free fall. And we identified early on in the season when Washington was moving the ball up and down the field against Philadelphia, that Philadelphia's defense was a problem.

And man, is it a problem? It has been the Achilles heel by far and away of that football team this year. By the way, the 425 starts Sunday for Washington. Just to give you a heads up, there is a major East Coast storm on the maps for next weekend, and it's possible it could be a major snowstorm for the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. It's also possible it could be all rain. the weather forecasters will let you know after it happens what it's going to be. But this is something to keep an eye on.

Now, it's possible this could be more of a Saturday, Saturday night, Sunday morning thing as of now. And by the time the game kicks, the weather could be beyond. But you never know with these things. So weather will be a factor for some of these East Coast games on Sunday. Washington and the Eagles both playing Washington playing host to the Cowboys, the Giants playing host to the Eagles. And that Patriots game, which will be a big game for us,

because you want the Patriots to beat the Jets, that also is a Sunday game as well. Just something to keep in mind for next weekend. So that's the storyline with this football team right now. is draft positioning because a week from today, it's more likely than not that the change will have begun. Ron Rivera and the coaching staff will be out, and I would imagine some within the front office will be out. And we'll start talking about some of this this week, because I think you'll start to see some rumors pop perhaps in terms of the interest level in various candidates to be GM, to be head coach of Washington.

It's possible we'll start to get some of that this week. When we come back, I'll do a very short game take from yesterday's 27 to 10 loss to the 49ers. There were some good things. Look, you're not getting rid of all the players. There may be a significant roster overhaul in 2024, but there are some players that are going to be a part of this team. And there are a couple that I actually thought played very well. on yesterday in the loss of San Francisco. We'll get to that right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

A quick game take from yesterday's 27 to 10 loss presented by MyBooky. Go to mybooky.orgie.orgie.org, use my promo code, Kevin D.C. You'll get a cash bonus on your initial deposit. All of the week 18 lines are up, and these are tough games, a lot of them, because in many of these games, you've got at least one team, not necessarily playing. for anything. But in a couple of the key walk-off games, Indy Houston on Saturday night, Indy's a one-point favorite at home against the Texans. The winner grabs a wild card could potentially win the division, depending on Jacksonville's result the next day. The loser goes home.

And then in the final regular season game of the year, we predicted this a few weeks back that it would be Miami and Buffalo in the Sunday night game. How about Buffalo being favored at Miami? They're a three-point favorite at Miami in a game that will determine the AFC East Championship and the number two seed in the AFC playoffs behind Baltimore. MyBooky.orgie.org promo code Kevin D.C. All right, a list of things that I liked from the game. I'm going to start with this. I'm going to give Eric B. Enemy some credit.

This was a very fast-moving game with not a lot of overall drives in the game for Washington in particular. They had the ball for just 44 offensive snaps in the game because San Francisco just dominated time of possession. It was basically 38 to 22 in time of possession. Washington just could not really get them off the field. And it was one of those fast-moving games. And that's primarily why the 49ers only scored 27 instead of more than that. Although Washington's red zone defense, which I'll mention here in a second, was effective. But I'm going to start with, I actually really liked, and I tweeted this out before the game.

Now that Sam's starting for an injured Jacoby Bresset. And no, I do not think. Several of you tweeted me to say, do you think Berset did what Taylor Heineke did? did last year, which is just basically beg out of a game that he knew couldn't, you know, wouldn't necessarily help him in the free agent market. No, I don't think that happened. I think he was legitimately hurt. I think Jacobi Brissette probably wanted to play in this game. That's my personal view. Who knows? Maybe he is super sharp and decided he didn't want to go up against the 49ers, that his five-for-five on those first five drives in the Rams and Jets games were enough for him to

secure another nice backup quarterback deal in 2024. But anyway, with Sam starting, I just wanted to see Eric Bienemy give him a chance to succeed. And I said before the game, it's kind of incumbent upon Eric Bienemy to make things easier this go-round. Run the football a little bit. Really focus on quick game. When you do go to drop back, make sure, not that they haven't done some of this stuff a lot, you know, in recent weeks and certainly going back to when they realized that he wasn't a pure dropback quarterback at this point. But let's see some, you know, max protect. Let's make sure that we've got to check down that's, you know, immediately available somewhere. And I thought that's really what they did. Again, they didn't really have the ball much

in the first half because the 49ers went seven minutes on their opening drive, basically, nearly six on their second drive and like four and a half minutes on their fourth drive. But Washington went with a lot of quick, a lot of bubbles, a lot of screens, a couple of shovels, and they ran the football, you know, in the first half of that game. In the first half of the game, you had Washington only in terms of the actual number of offensive plays in the first half. not counting the kneel down at the end. Washington only had 21 offensive snaps in the game. And Brian Robinson was, Robinson Jr. was six for 33.

He ran the ball effectively. And when they weren't running it, it was a lot of the stuff that really Sam can do well, you know, where the ball's got to come out quickly. And a lot of throws at the line of scrimmage or even behind the line. line of scrimmage. So I actually thought that Bian and me put together a nice little game plan for them offensively in the first half. And on 21 plays, they had 131 yards. They were three for five on third down. And it was a 13 to 10 game. I mean, Sam had a couple of excellent throws in the first half. The third and two, three-step drop deep shot to Terry in press man coverage was a beautiful

throw. And it's also the throw that works for him because it didn't have to be longer developing pure dropback. You know, Terry had pressed man. He got off it and it was a perfect throw. The touchdown pass, that back shoulder pass to Terry McClearn was a beauty on third and goal. You know, at the three-yard line. That was well done. He had a good throw. I thought maybe the best throw of the day was the second and 20 throw, where he moved left, created some more time. It was their second drive of the second half. It was the drive that ended up in an interception, but he threw just over Fred Warner and into the hands of Curtis Samuel. So I thought Eric B. Enemy did a nice job on Sunday, you know, relative to some of the games that have been pretty rough for him

and the quarterback, and I thought Sam, for the most part, in the first half, was competent. You know, we're comparing it to what he's been recently, which has been disastrous. He finished 17 to 28 for 169 yards, and he had the two interceptions. Look, there were some bad throws, and there were near interceptions all along. And then he had the two picks in the second half, including the one in the red zone that ended an opportunity there. And there were some pressure on both of those picks. They weren't great throws. They were affected throws.

But he had a couple that he got away with, too, in the game. You know, this was like a C-minus performance for Sam, but that is better than what we've seen over the last couple of weeks in particular. On the list of things that I like, Brian Robinson, Jr., man, he really ran hard. He looked healthy. He ran hard. And he averaged 44 yards. I mentioned that the 49ers, you know, ranked top three or four in rush defense, but a lot of that was because teams got behind by a lot and they stopped running.

But in terms of yards per carry, they were actually 19th in the league allowing 4.2 yards per carry. Washington had Gibson and Brian Robinson Jr. average 4.8 and a half yards per carry. They were, you know, they did a nice job. So both of the backs, did a nice job. Terry had, you know, a couple of really good catches, including the back shoulder for the touchdown, the 42-yarder, and he looked good out there. I thought defensively, they played hard. They just were a mismatch for San Francisco, and they kept losing players throughout, you know, they were already banged up, super banged up in the secondary, and then they lost players throughout the game. But, you know, red zone-wise, defensively, the 49ers ended up three-finged.

for six and one for three in the first half, Washington holding them to two field goals. But, yeah, that would be pretty much the list of things that I like. There were a couple other performances that stood out. I thought David Mayo had a couple of really good plays. I thought Emmanuel Forbes, even though he gave up some things, was close, closer in coverage. Yeah, just looking through my notes, that would be it. Tressaway had a really good day punting also. The list of things that I did not like. Well, obviously, you can't turn the ball over two times in Sam through two picks, including a red zone pick, and have any prayer of beating the 49ers. Number two, defensively, they just could not stop the run, whether it was McCaffrey or Elijah Mitchell or Debo.

they could not stop the run. Thirdly, even when they got pressure on Purdy, Purdy did such a good job, and then they couldn't cover for much longer. So defensively, they basically gave up 408 yards on eight real drives in the game. Again, it was a fast-moving game in part because the 49ers had these long drives in the game. If the game had mattered, I would have just absolutely eviscerated. Ron Rivera for the lack of using any timeouts defensively towards the end of the first half. You just had to start using them earlier. They had a first intent at Washington's 14 at the two-minute warning. From that moment forward, you had three timeouts.

They used one of them, and they got the ball back with 19 seconds left. If they had used them appropriately, they could have gotten the ball back with a minute plus. left in the first half and had a chance to do something in what was a 10-10 game at the time. But I don't know what was going through his mind. He hasn't been receptive to even the advice he's gotten with respect to clock management, I don't think. And, you know, it would have been a bad look. But to be honest with you, I was fine with him doing that because I wanted them to lose the game.

And then I still don't understand this. When you get the ball back with 19 seconds to go and you have no intention of scoring, why do you even hand the ball off and risk a fumble? Like, I don't even know why teams do that. You take a knee and San Francisco is ready to go to the half, and you're going to half time down 13.10 and getting the ball to start the second half. What else is on the list of things that I didn't like? Yeah, that was, you know, basically at another porous effort, another porous production for the defense,

even though I actually thought the effort was there. Certainly it was in the red zone. They were obviously shorthanded and down a bunch of players, but it was a rough day defensively. 27 to 10, you know, a first half that was competitive, a second half that wasn't because offensively, even though, you know, they moved the ball on the one drive, you ended up with two turnovers, you know, and that was it. And Washington got that one, you know, red zone stop on the fourth and goal when David Mayo came in and made a good play on Mitchell there at the end. A couple of other quick observations. Number one is, man, the 49ers have some talent. They're just players that just stand out so much with them.

And even though he probably gets less of the headlines offensively than Debo and Kiddell and McCaffrey and Trent Williams, who was dominant in the game, Brandon Ayuk is a star, and it's been coming for about a year, year and a half, seven catches, 114 yards, you know, 16 and a half yards per catch. McCaffrey specially got banged up, and then here comes Elijah Mitchell, you know, averaging 4.8. yards per carry. How about Chavarvarius Ward, how good he is, Bosa, how good he is. They're just a pleasure to watch, which really tells you a lot about Baltimore. Also, Chase Young in his return, you know, a pressure or two, but I think he had one tackle, no sacks in his return. But I thought Trent Williams, per usual, was pretty damn noticeable and really, really good in the game. And then I was going to mention, so for the first time in franchise history, Washington will go back-to-back games of being a 13 or greater point underdog at home.

14-point dogs when the game kicked against the 49ers, and they are a 13 to 13 and a half point underdog right now to Dallas. That may go to 14 by the time we get to the game. And that speaks to what we've been talking about for several weeks now, and that is, we have just witnessed as Washington fans truly one of the two or three worst regular seasons in terms of on-field performance and franchise history. Four and thirteen can't get here fast enough, and when it does, lots of changes are coming and a pretty attractive opening perhaps, especially with the salary cap space, with five picks in the first three rounds, and with those picks being

maybe super high. Second overall pick is in play. And remember, and I mentioned this last week, it's not just the number two pick in the first round, it's the number two pick in the second round, and the third round, and the fourth round, fifth, sixth, seventh. You're moving up in every round,

not just the first round. So real opportunity to completely remake the football product, and that's going to be fun to watch. All right, a couple of thoughts to finish up the show when we come back right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This last segment of the show brought to you by Windonation. Call them at 86690 Nation or go to Windonation.com. We do have lots of cold weather and stormy weather ahead in January and February.

If you listen to all the weather people out there, El Nino is going to cause a very active storm pattern. A lot of these storms could be a lot of rain, but there could be some cold outbreaks and probably a lot more snow than we've had the last couple of winters. If you've got older windows, get new windows through Window Nation now. They can take care of you quickly. You'll save big on your heating bills. Your home will look better. And right now, if you want to finance the purchase, zero percent interest rates for five years, plus 50 percent off all-style windows. That's all-style windows. You're going to pay 50 percent. You've got to use my name. They'll give you a free estimate and they'll take good care of you. 86690 Nation and window nation.com. So the NFL from

over the weekend, that Cowboys Lions game obviously had a lot to it. And I'm going to end with that here in a moment. But there were a couple of performances that I just wanted to mention real quickly. You start with the Ravens. Good God. This is right now, this right now has a chance to be, per the DVOA metric, which Aaron Schatz started, this has a chance to be the greatest team in the DVOA era, or in the measurement of the DVOA era. The 91 skins were the greatest team per DVOA. Baltimore right now is trending towards the greatest and most complete team of all time. Their offense ranks number two in the NFL, their defense ranks number one, and by a lot,

I mean by a lot, defensive DVOA. Right now, their defense is number one in the league. Number two is Cleveland. And then there's a much bigger drop off after that down to the Jets. And special teams-wise, they rank number two in the league. The Ravens just destroyed Miami, 56 to 19. In that game, they turned Miami over three days. times. Their defense is nasty as hell. Lamar was 18 of 21, 18 completions for 321 yards and five

touchdowns. They rushed for a buck 60. This is one bad team. I mean one badass team the Ravens are and they will have home field advantage. But man, don't you sense a little bit like Lamar wrapped up the MVP yesterday if he didn't have it already. He is the MVP, two-time MVP by the you're 26 years old. That's never happened before. But don't you sense that when they play that first play off game in Baltimore, it'll be week number two of the postseason. There's going to be a lot of pressure on him. He's won one playoff game. That was at Tennessee on the road. And they haven't won another game. He is one in three in the postseason as a starter. And that's what he's got to do. He's got a win in the postseason. What would really be interesting would be if Cleveland as the five-seed

beats the AFC South champ and then goes to Baltimore for the divisional round, and you get Flacco back in Baltimore as the Cleveland quarterback against the Ravens. They already beat Baltimore in Baltimore this year. That was with Deshawn Watson at quarterback. But that, I think Lamar's got a chance to do it this year. I do. That team is so, so good and so well-coached. Philadelphia is a mess right now. They can't stop anybody. This is just a horrendous defensive team. Look, the Cardinals have been kind of game a lot this year, but they roll up 450 yards and 35 points, 32 first downs against that Eagles defense. That Eagles secondary is horrendous. It has been. We saw it in the two games. Washington played against them. And I wanted to just shout out James Connor. I think he's been an excellent back throughout his career. He's had some really big moments this year. I think he flies very much under the radar because of the team he plays for. But 128 yards, a touchdown in the win over Philadelphia. He had a really good game against Washington in week one, if you recall, all the way back.

then. The Eagles are in big trouble, man, because right now is a five-seed. They'll have to go more, most likely to Tampa, who all they have to do is beat Carolina to win the NFC South. That's not going to be an easy game for Philadelphia to overcome. I don't know how they fix themselves defensively. I think offensively they're still capable, but man, there was a lot of Jalen Hertz designed run yesterday, almost too many, and it seems like they have forgotten who the best player on their offense is, and that would be A.J. Brown. Yesterday in the game, Brown targeted just five times for four catches in the game. What was the other game? How about the Steelers? Tomlin. Mason Rudolph, 34 points, 30 points. They go to Seattle.

They win 30 to 23. If they win and Buffalo loses to Miami. Pitsburg's in and Buffalo's out. Pittsburgh plays Baltimore on Saturday and the Ravens have nothing to play for. The Steelers are favored in that game because Baltimore, the expectation is they're going to rest all their starters. But how about Mason, Rudolph, and Najee Harris in particular, just the running game? They rushed for 200 yards yesterday and Rudolph in his second start, he's now 35 of 51, averaging 284 yards per game with two touchdowns, no picks, and he's only taking two sacks.

He's got a 79.1 and a 70.9 QBR in the two games. Amazing. And then we finish with the Dallas game and the very controversial two-point conversion, which wasn't. So I'll net it out for you. Obviously, Brad Allen, the head referee, got confused as to which lineman was announcing themselves as an eligible receiver. Taylor Decker was the eligible receiver, number 68. But Skipper, number 70, Dan Skipper, also came in the general direction and had reported earlier in the game as an eligible receiver. and Brad Allen, the referee, the head referee, got confused and announced that 70 was the eligible receiver. He messed it up, period. You know, saying after the game that he believes that it was Skipper who reported to him, no.

It was 68 that reported to him. 70 was in the area, though. And this is where I would just mention this. I think even though Campbell explained to them what they were going to do in the kind of play that they were going to run in a two-point setting, before the game. They tried to be a bit too sneaky by having Skipper in the general area again to give Dallas this sense that he was the one reporting, even though Brad Allen, if he had acknowledged 68 Taylor Decker, would have told Dallas 68's eligible. Alan messed up. The lions were a little bit too, I think, on the sly there, trying to get Dallas to think about who's the

eligible here. And it caused Alan to get confused. It's on Allen, first and foremost, but I thought Detroit, you know, really did their best to confuse Dallas, but ultimately it ended up confusing Alan as well. What I didn't understand is after the penalty, why Dan Campbell decided to go for the two-point conversion from the eight-yard line. There's no analytics in the world that will tell you that that was a go-for-it situation. They should have kicked there. They got a third chance after Micah Parsons jumped off sides, and then they missed on the third chance.

But going for that second two-point conversion after the illegal touching was called on Decker was just frustration. I think it was Campbell just saying, I'm shoving this over the goal line to shove this up your backside after you just screwed us. and ultimately they should have kicked and gone to overtime for 2020. I was glad they were going for two because I had Detroit. And the only way of losing that game was overtime and then potentially, potentially a touchdown by Dallas and OT.

The play calling by Dallas at the end of that game prior to Detroit's drive when they were up 1713, you know, they had the tripping call, which was apparently not a good call against Dallas. and they were trying to overcome that first and 25, not only for field goal range, but for a first down to end the game. I actually, in thinking about where they were at the Detroit 33, when Prescott threw incomplete, which stopped the clock, I don't know that I had much of an issue with them being super aggressive in that spot.

I'm not a big fan of McCarthy in his game management, that's for sure. But with the way they had, and I thought Detroit defensively played pretty well, well. But C.D. Lamb was uncoverable in that game. It was one of the great individual performances of the season by a wide receiver. 13 catches, 227 yards, a touchdown on that 92-yarder, which I have no idea how Dak Prescott didn't get sacked for safety. The blitzing linebacker didn't tackle him for some reason. But I thought with C.D. Lamb in that area of the field, I actually thought Dallas had a really good chance of just ending the game with a first down and I actually didn't think it was nuts that they were being aggressive there.

Now the third and 14, they completed, which forced Detroit to call their final timeout. But sure, if they, you know, run, if they forced Detroit to call their third timeout on second down, then Detroit's going to have roughly a minute five-ish, somewhere around there, around a minute-ish left with no timeouts, and instead they had a minute 41. I understand that. And from a clock management standpoint, you know, especially if you feel comfortable extending the lead to seven, you don't want them to have timeouts with a minute to go. That's a tough way to go.

But I thought Dallas with the way C.D. Lamb had been open. I just don't think the shot to Cooks, let me make that clear. I don't think the deep shot to Cooks was the right play call or the right decision by Prescott. but I was okay with them being aggressive in trying to keep the ball and play via the forward pass because I thought Lamb had a chance to end the game by himself. So much to get to the rest of the week and we will start doing that tomorrow. Tommy will be with me. Happy New Year, everybody, back tomorrow.