The Kevin Sheehan Show - Grade A

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Cooley and Kevin with Cooley giving out high grades during his defensive "film breakdown". They spent time talking about a few of the key plays as well including a curious blitz call that didn't work early. Thom and Kevin opened the show answering the following question--who deserves the most credit for WFT's turnaround?  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. All right. It's a combo sports fix Thursday with Tommy, and then Cooley will jump on and do his defensive film breakdown from the Pittsburgh game.

I'm going to start with this question to Tommy. Who gets the most credit for the position they're in right now in the organization? The football team I'm speaking of, of course. Ron Rivera. More than Alex Smith. Yes. More than Kyle Smith. Yes, because we don't know how much. We don't know if Kyle Smith comes to Ron Rivera and says, I want to do this, and Ron Rivera says, okay.

Or if Ron Rivera goes to Kyle Smith and says, I want these guys go get them. We don't really know how the personnel flow chart operates with that organization. We've never really known, although everyone just figured like Bruce Allen was, and it was nobody else. So, you know, we were told this was a coach-centric football organization now at the start of Rivera's tenure. And I'm going to continue to believe that unless we have proof otherwise. And, you know, there's a school of thought that Ron Rivera thought

Alex Smith would be a starting quarterback at some point this season all along. I don't even think it matters if we know whether or not Kyle. Smith operates based on Ron Rivera's reaction or influence or not. I think the answer is your answer. It's Ron Rivera. Ron Rivera is the person most responsible. By the way, I think it's a question that there are a lot of answers that people could have, including Alex Smith, is most responsible and should deserve the most credit for the turnaround. As an aside, I'm actually surprised you answered the questions so quickly rather than took me to task for, you know, calling it a turnaround because they are five and seven. But I think it's fair to say that this team is in a completely

different position today than it was a month ago or a month and a half ago. It's a turnaround. Okay. I think so too. Look, I have done not a 180, but close in terms of where they are this season. So I would call it a turnaround. So I think that, I think something, as far as as as far as giving Alex Smith the credit, do you think it's possible that they'd be in the same place with Kyle Allen with the quarterback? I do. Okay then. You know, you can't you can't put it all on Alex Smith. I mean, we love the guy. He's the Hallmark Card quarterback for Washington football. But I think there's a chance they'd be right here with with Kyle Allen too. I do too. But I'm just saying that I think, when I said I think there are a lot of answers to this question or there's more than one answer.

I'm just saying, you know, collectively the fan base, the listeners to this podcast, the listeners to the radio show, the readers of your column might, you know, say Alex Smith. I wouldn't say Alex Smith. And I do think that the story is incredible, right? They've got two simultaneous incredible stories going on right now. I call them on Twitter. They're the NFL's teddy bear now. all of the sudden, they're cuddly. All the sudden, Washington's cuddly.

It's unbelievable. They're a today show segment every day now. You know what? I'll tell you what, the team president certainly loves to go on Good Morning America. That's for sure. I think he's going to be the co-host of Good Morning America within two years. But in all seriousness, like Alex, the story is so phenomenal. And I'm sure the leadership and the inspiration and the understanding and having been there, the experience, the veteran, probably does give them more than maybe Kyle Allen would have.

But Kyle Allen's mobility may have been. Maybe some of what Kyle Allen could have done on the field would have, you know, offset what Alex is giving them, you know, in terms of leadership, et cetera, you know, veteran experience, et cetera. But yeah, I actually, I do believe that I could see it in that first giant game, you know, that they, that Kyle Allen, there was something to him. And it was pretty obvious. I mean, I remember coming in here the day after the giant game saying, look, I was all for Dwayne getting 16 games. And even, you know, the person that was saying at the end of last year, I want to see more. I mean, I saw progress. I see, I'm intrigued. But after that game against the Giants that Kyle started, that was.

was the first professional, consistent effort offensively of the year. Like, it was that obvious. I mean, I remember saying and getting into an argument with various people when I said, look, whatever you think about the result, the offense was better, period. Like, you have to be blind not to have seen that Kyle Allen running Scott Turner's offense was completely night and day from what we had seen before. And, you know, we made the concessions, obviously, about the the competition being not what it was in the first four games when you had Baltimore and you had Cleveland and you had the Rams, et cetera, or the first five games, whatever it was. Well, he started the Rams game.

But anyway, yeah, I do think in many ways the results would have been similar. Ron Rivera is the answer because it's what I thought when they hired him. I thought that they were, you know, and I was listening real quickly, this is part of this conversation. but I was reading, didn't listen to Kyle Shanahan in his presser yesterday with the Washington media. And, man, was he incredibly complimentary of Ron Rivera and Kyle Smith? This is the canary in the coal mine that proves that the image of this football organization has done a complete turnaround when you've got Kyle Shanahan, one of their foul hated enemies. He can't feel that way about Ron Rivera.

He can't feel that way about Alex Smith. How can you? You know, the guy they hated, one of the guys they hated, the most is gone. And the other guy is running around the country, suing people. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, and remember, it was just a year ago where Kyle was, you know, through the media, taking subtle, if not direct shots at the organization. And then at the end of the game last year, his team did a slip and slide all over the field. to rub it in, you know, when they won the game and remember how excited Kyle was.

Now, Kyle said, you know, that's in the past and it's a different organization, and he really respects Ron Rivera and Kyle Smith. I know that Mike and Kyle like Kyle Smith. I had Mike on the radio show this morning, and I did ask him. I said, all right, you got to be totally honest. Is it still personal with Kyle? Because, you know, one of the things, Tommy, I think we've talked about this before. Mike is not Kyle.

They're two totally different personalities. Kyle is, Kyle's more arrogant. Kyle's more full of himself. Kyle, you know, holds a grudge. Kyle really was pissed off about what happened here. Much more so than Mike was, believe it or not. And I think part of why he was so pissed off is because of the way it made his father look. And he knew the reason why it was the owner.

and it was the team president. Like they could not stand those people. But Kyle's one that is less diplomatic about it, less political about it. And he's been pretty direct. But in the press conference yesterday, he said, you know, it's a different group there. He goes, I respect the hell out of Ron Rivera and Kyle Smith. And look at what they're doing. They're really good defensively.

And Mike told me that this morning on radio too. He said, you know, they're doing a hell of a job. And that's a good defense. But anyway, Ron Rivera gets the credit because I'm not going to sit here and try to pat myself on the back for this because, you know, I was concerned early in the season about what I was seeing. So I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to go against that. But when they hired him, they hired a guy that I thought was going to be a culture guy. Like, you know, it was the same way I felt about Marty. You know, Marty was more of an authoritarian as we've talked about, you know, Ron more of a players coach.

but I just knew they were getting, like, quality at the coach, and they were going to get a guy that also coached it the right way. Like his teams were tended to be overachievers, tended to get more out of less, tended to always get better as the season went on. But the thing that I've noticed about him, and it started with, you know, really, Trent Williams, get the hell out of here.

You don't want to be here, you're gone. Quentin Dunbar, I'm not dealing with anybody that might be and might have some skisks, etchiness surrounding him. Ryan Carrigan, really? We owe him 11 million this year. He's staying. He's, he's my kind of guy. The culture thing is about the kind of people that you bring in. You got to have talent, but you've got to people, which by the way, immediately, I mean, not that I, this is a new thought. There is zero chance, Dwayne Haskins is part of this program next year. Zero. I would agree with that. Absolutely. Because Rivera wants tough

smart, dependable, which is something that Belichick's talked about a lot over the years, that he'll take tough, smart, dependable, accountable over talent any day of the week. By the way, Dwayne's smart. It's just that the dependable stuff, you know, was not necessarily Ron's kind of thing. Gibbs used to be this way. Remember, Tommy? Gibbs was all about tough guys, smart guys, character guys. You know, the thing with Dwayne.

and we keep hearing, you know, bits and pieces from teams about how far he's progressed behind the scenes. You know, Ron Rivera doesn't want even a young guy who had to be dragged into the right frame of mind. Exactly. Exactly. You've got to have it in you. I've heard Belichick before always talk about tough, dependable, and smart. He's like, this is a tough game we play. You know, Scott's told me about this too because he's gotten to know Belichick a little bit. bit. Dependable. If I can't, smart, if you're, if you're not smart enough to get what I'm, what I and my staff are teaching you, then you can't be dependable. You know, I can't depend on you when the game start. And then, you know, dependable is important. All of that rises above

talent and always has for Belichick. Gibbs was the same way. Rivera is very similar. You know, Rivera wants, you know, a certain kind of person that wants it, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that wants to be there, wants to buy into what he's selling. And if it doesn't matter how talented you are, he'll move on from you. Trent Williams is the perfect example. Never gave Trent a chance. Quentin Dunbar would be a starting corner on this team, talent-wise, but not his kind of guy, obviously.

He shipped him for a fifth, you know. So I think Rivera, the character of the people that, and it'll take a while for him to get the whole roster, you know, turned around, but they never quit on him. They never quit on them. At one in five, this would have been a backbiting situation. This would have been season over situation with Gruden, season over. And they hung in there. They believed in him. I'll also mention one other thing. It's not who gets the most credit for the turnaround. It's more of a what gets a lot of the credit for the turnaround. The fact that the division was so bad made it easier for Rivera to sell what he was selling about.

We're still in this. Follow me. Do it the right way. We're going to be playing games that matter. You know, if Philadelphia right now was 9 and 3 and Washington was 5 and 7 tied for second with the Giants, we wouldn't be in this, wow, what a turnaround mode. We would be, look, there's some things here that look good. and I love the way they've played recently,

and maybe this can carry over into next year, but the fact that they actually have a chance to make something of it makes it even more of a conversation, I think. I agree. I agree with all that. Now, one of the things that Rivera has been good at is he seems to have a real good understanding of how media works. And, you know, I mean, his,

He does not. There have been moments where he's been combative and snippy, but overall, he has been smart enough, and he did this in Carolina to, you know, to basically be media friendly. What we don't know, now, now, given that said, and we've talked about this before, it's not that it, he doesn't have a lot of pushback, you know? Not right. Right. There's not a lot of pushback. We don't know how he'll react, how he would react if there was a lot of pushback. There's no reason to pushback right now. I mean, you know, he's doing well. Things are going well. But, I mean, he's come into a situation where, and we've talked about this before, that, you know, people talk about how tough the DC media is. Yeah, well, he, yeah. And, I mean, that's just, that's just not the case. It's just not true. No, it's not true.

Look, I mean, when we have this conversation, I think, you know, and I think we say this typically, but I always feel compelled to say it. I do understand that when it comes to the skins, it comes to the football team here in town, that it's a serious thing and it's been a serious thing. And the fan base and the media base is tough. But when we have this conversation, we're comparing it to what tough really is. You know, New York, Philly, Chicago, Boston, you know, where it, I mean, I think, look, we've had the last three coaches, right? Rivera came from Charlotte.

You know, Gruden was in Cincinnati. Mike was in Denver. You know, Zorn was in Seattle. You know, Gibbs knows what it was, but Gibbs didn't live through, you know, the media craze, social media, you know, phase the first go around and didn't have to deal with the social media part of it either, even from 2004 to 2008. There was something that Ron Rivera answered the other day about the whole process. I guess it had been a year since he had been fired in Carolina.

And he, somebody asked him about that or, I don't know what the question was. I'll be honest with you. But he said, I would say this. I wasn't angry about getting let go at Carolina. I had a great conversation with David Tepper, and I understood his reasoning, David Tepper, the newer owner, who didn't hire Rivera. For me, it was more a matter of I was disappointed

that I didn't get a chance to finish it out. I was disappointed in the way that we had played more so than anything else. We were six and six. It's something people don't know. Last year's team, Carolina's team, was six and six. And then they had a shitload of injuries, including a quarterback. We were six and six at the time.

We had just lost to the Washington football team. That was tough. But in my exit press conference, the one thing I said was I was going to get back into coaching. I wasn't going to take time off. I wanted the opportunity. I was looking for an opportunity I would feel really comfortable with. When I got the phone call, what happened was he had actually reached out to my agent and talked to my agent and told my agent he would like to talk with me.

And this is about Snyder. My agent let me know. And so when Mr. Snyder called, I wasn't surprised. I was kind of anticipating it. The thing that I was really pleased about was that the conversation was about the football team and was less about the football team and more about reestablishing the culture. He said that in his conversation with Joe Gibbs, Joe had told him about the things that I had done, meaning Ron had done, and what I had done with all of the situations we had here in Carolina.

It was about culture. The conversation was probably a little over an hour, and I'd probably say about 45 minutes of it minimum was about culture, about rebuilding culture and doing the things that were needed, that were needed, and this is going to be a coach-centric approach if this is what you're looking for. When we hung up, we were going to talk again. Sure enough, I believe that.

that it was on December 9th that we talked. And so it would have been a year ago yesterday, their second conversation. And he had encouraged me to reach out to talk to Coach Gibbs, which I did. I got a chance to visit with Coach. But I also want to say that it was at the end of the week that he had asked me to come for an interview and asked me to look at his team. He had sent me a bunch of, he sent me the last game because I had missed the last game. They had played on Sunday.

So he sent me it on a disc or on one of the last. those thumb drives. I don't know why he wouldn't have had access to the All-22, but he said, I plugged it in and watched it and broke the team down. He asked me to look at it more, so I started to look at the tape, and I pretty much put together a little report so that when I went out to see him, I was prepared. Then they asked, well, what was the second meeting like with Snyder? Or what, you know, the actual meeting face-to-face. He said, I would need to look at the calendar, but I think it came at the end of the week. It followed into the following week. It was the weekend of the 12th or 13th. I think we flew down on the 12th and we met with him in his office.

We talked football straight through till dinner, then had dinner with our wives. Then we went back in and talked more football. We got up the next morning, had breakfast, talked all the way up until we left and then we flew home back that meeting that day. Well, that was not necessarily something I needed to read. I thought there was more to it than that. But, you know, this goes back to people telling, you know, Dan, your culture sucks. Your culture's terrible. And him, you know, of course, God damn it, that Bruce Allen, he really ruined our culture. Yeah. And then reaching out because really Gibbs, you know, said a lot of nice things about Rivera.

You know, Gibbs was integral to this hire. I wonder if he would, again, this is an aside, I wonder if he would be the same way, given the pissing match between his good friend, Dwight Schar, and Snyder at this point. Yeah, you'd say he's really good friends with Dwight Sharr, obviously. I believe you. I'm not familiar with that relationship. Yeah, I mean, and to your point, you know, the, you know, the, sort of the stars are aligning, right? You know, he's winning immediately, which you thought was important. He's winning immediately with Snyder being totally preoccupied with something else so that he can't really be even focused on this right now.

because he's basically, I don't know if he's fighting to keep his franchise or, you know, whatever. By the way, on that story in the post the other day, you read it, right? Yes. I read it, and then, you know, Neil and Rockville actually broke the whole thing down for me. And after reading it, you know, once again, I mean, what's in there, really? I mean, it was sort of billed as some sort of big thing. You don't even know what the story is. Is it a story about David Donovan, the lawyer, who was also the chief operating officer of the team at the time,

and a confidential settlement involving him or someone else with the team or Snyder? Look. You don't know anything about it. As a journalist, when you're on a big story, you want to move it along every way you can. So any little development is worth writing on. I mean, you can't control as a reporter how the story is promoted or the story is perceived, you know, but what you don't want to do is just sit on it. I mean, I always used to tell my reporters that if you find one nugget of new information, that a story that is ours, that we've been reporting, you figure out a way to flesh that out into a full story. So I have no, I mean, you're right.

The story really doesn't really tell you other than they're hiding something. That's what it tells you. The story tells you they're hiding something. That's the story. I mean, an organization that is supposed to be, you know, supposedly transparent in this investigation is hiding something. Maybe it wasn't well written. Maybe it wasn't well edited. But, and, you know, you never really got that sense as to why am I really?

reading this, but I have no problem with them writing it. I should probably, for those that don't know what the hell we're talking about, just mention that during the game on Monday, the post dropped a story. NFL investigation of Washington football team uncovers confidential settlement. You know, it's Beth Reinhard, Liz, Clark, Will Hobson, Liz, and Will have been, and I think Beth, too, have been all over all of these stories, you know, going back to July. And basically, you know, the first paragraph reads, the NFL's investigation and allegations of workplace sexual harassment at the Washington football team uncovered a confidential settlement from a decade ago court record show. And an emergency motion filed Monday said that team owner Daniel Snyder plans to intervene in a legal dispute over which details surrounding the settlement can become public.

Well, that's a story. Hold on. Because of the transparency that supposedly comes with the Beth Wilkinson investigation. Well, hold on for a second. The second paragraph, the name of the complaint in the settlement, that person's job and nature of the allegations have not been made public, but the available records show that lawyer Beth Wilkinson, who's leading the league's probe into the team's workplace,

encountering resistance from the team's former lawyer. The team's former lawyer is David Donovan, who served as the team's general counsel from 2005 to 2011. I think he also had chief operating officer in his title at one point as well. So Tommy, first of all, team owner Dan Snyder plans to intervene. There's nothing in here that says he has intervened, for starters. Secondly, okay, they've uncovered the fact that there's a confidential settlement from a decade ago. There is nothing about what that confidential settlement is.

Why? Because it's confidential. Also, confidential settlements, you know, These are confidential. So, you know, an emergency motion to intervene in a legal dispute over which details surrounding the settlement can become public, I mean, there could have been an intervention, and there was from David Donovan, to make any of it public because it was a confidential settlement. Two, confidential settlements in big companies are not uncommon. You know, they can be about anything. They can be about, you know, compensation plan differences or getting fired, you know, for a reason that's in dispute.

And the company finally says it just makes sense. Let's come to a settlement on the money that will pay you and you won't say anything bad about us and we won't say anything about it. Well, it can be anything. You know, but now this coming on the heels of all of the other stories of sexual harassment and misogynistic behavior in the organization, I think led a lot of people to amelior. come to the conclusion of, ooh, there's a confidential settlement that may be that may have been a settlement that the owner had to make with an employee. This could be big. Well, actually, although it doesn't say anything specific about the confidential settlement

with respect to who and what was confidentially settled, nothing in this story says who or what about the confidential settlement, nothing. But if anything, if you were to lean in the direction of speculation, you would lean in the direction of it had something to do with the organization's attorney, David Donovan. I have no idea if that's true or not. I'm just saying the story reads, he's the one that seems to be more desperate to not have the settlement details become public.

and Snyder, at least based on the story, just wants to intervene potentially about which of the details surrounding the settlement can become public. Again, there's nothing in here other than the uncovering of a confidential settlement, which Tommy, they could have written this story without even knowing it, and I guarantee you there is more than one confidential settlement in an organization that's been around for 80 years, or 21 years under this owner, because there are plenty of them in a lot of companies, especially bigger companies. But again, you know, I mean, it's ridiculous to dismiss this story when you have an investigator that initially was always hired by the NFL.

Right. To look into charge of sexual allegations of sexual misconduct. And they run into a confidential settlement and they say, well, what's this about? and they say, well, you can't know that. It's confidential. And then the next reaction is, well, I need to know. Yeah. Or else there's no transparency.

Right. Well, Wilkinson's lawyers want courts to, you know, to decide on documents that can be unsealed versus those that shouldn't be. Well, that's a story. You know, you want somebody to look at this and say and knowing what the investigation that's going on and see. and see if it's relevant to the investigation. I don't think I... I'm not saying it's not a story. I'm not saying that if I were in their position...

What are you saying then? What I'm saying is there's just not much to the story. Well, not necessarily. Yeah. Yes, necessarily. No, there's a lot unknown. What there is is a lot that's unknown. What I'm saying...

But there is a... It's a significant piece of information that there's an investigation going on to the team and there's a roadblock to that investigation. What I'm saying is that, you know, the story is that there's some sort of, that the post, the NFL investigations into allegations of workplace and sexual harassment at the Washington football team uncovered a confidential settlement from a decade ago. Okay.

So I'm not suggesting that you wouldn't write this and that this wouldn't be something, especially when you're now in competition with the New York Times. on this story, right? Because the Times is covering a lot of this story as well. I'm not suggesting that it's not worthy of pushing forward. All I'm saying is that for me, what did I really get out of this? I understand having been in an employment and an employer situation long before broadcasting that confidential settlements between employers and employees aren't that rare. They're not that in common. You know, every big company's probably got a dozen to a lot more. than that out there.

So that's not a surprise to me. But let me just mention this one thing before I lose this thought. The bottom line is, is that with this organization and all of the 42 women that have come forward, et cetera, and a Beth Wilkinson investigation going on, it does lend in, like, if this came out of nowhere, it'd be like, well, you know, but at least, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, well, whatever was confidentially. settled might be interesting. I just would...

You see, that's... The thing with this story that I don't think diminishes the story is what we don't know. What's behind the curtain? Right. Okay?

Yeah. I mean, but there's a curtain. I mean, you were told that every door was going to be open to you, and then all of a sudden there's a curtain that you can't get past. Right. What's behind the curtain is the big,

biggest story about this story. What is being hit? What is being confidential? So that uncertainty may be frustrating, but I don't know how you get around it. And I just think, I just thought it was a worthy story that maybe could have been crystallized a little bit better. I'll tell you what. It would have been one of those like, I don't know if I would have thought of it, but that somebody could have thought of, hey, you know what, here's a story we can write. I guarantee you it exists. Just do a little bit of research, and I bet you'll be able to find some sort of confidential settlement between the employer and the employee at some point. Let's see if we've got any, you know, insight or we can find some court record that indicates there's some sort of, and

then we'll have another story to write, even though we would have no idea what the details are. And maybe they do, and they just aren't, you know, privy to say or whatever. But that's one. of those that if you if you understand what employers you know uh and employees go through in most organizations it was even money that one existed whether we had the stories in july or not it was even money that yeah i think i think i think with dan snider i think he's got more confidential uh settlements on on with employees than he does wins as an NFL owner look this was we both know this was a seedy, sketchy group for many, many years. And this is why we're so focused on what maybe Ron Rivera's turning around culture-wise. Maybe Jason Wright has something to do with that as well.

Jason Wright's job depends on the football team doing well. Everybody understand that. Like, they could be the nicest people in the community, which would be great. If the football team doesn't win, he can't sell tickets and he can't hit his revenue number. One last thing on all this. you know, I, when you said you made a comment earlier that, and then I, I forget exactly what you said, but it made me think to say, you know, the stars of a line, right, that, you know, he's doing what you thought was important, which is being a competitive team year one, maybe a playoff team, and two, the owner's preoccupied, you know, in his life right now, so he's not involved. What I would also just say, and I think, you would say this, so I'm going to say it for you

because you haven't thought to say it yet. Sometimes you don't think of these things until after the show. Here's the concern. I got a confidential agreement for you. Here's the concern that Ron Rivera won't have, because he hasn't been here long enough to have it, but the rest of us have. And that is if they really start to have some success here

down the stretch, like if they get to the playoffs, let me just tell you what Dan Snyder will not want his role to be diminished, marginalized. Yes. You know, not to be thought of as part of the reason that this is turned around. Yes. So just. Yes.

So I'm very surprised you didn't think of that. I'm glad I thought of it for you. But just something to keep in mind. Like, I'm excited as a longtime fan about what I see right now. but I have always read Tommy Surgeon General's warning and I would just say that if they let's say they beat San Francisco this week

and then they beat Seattle and all the sudden they're seven and seven and people are talking about uh-oh you don't want to play them he may be completely consumed with investigations and lawsuits and discovery motions he will not want to be thought of that way just remember I said that

and Tommy would have said that. Listen, that's the Steinbrenner-Torri dynamic. That's the whole thing right there. It drove Steinbrenner crazy that Tory got all the credit for the Yankee's success. And it was a serious, it was a serious wall between the two of them. And I mean, yeah, you're right. At some point, Snyder, after the euphoria of not having people hate his or

organization wears off, he's going to say, whoa, how come no one's patting me on the back? Right. He'll want to take, exactly, he'll want to take credit for Alex Smith. He will totally deny Dwayne Hat. No, in all seriousness, how would it manifest itself? I'll give you a perfect example of how it would manifest itself. So let's just say they go eight and eight, win the division, and then even win a playoff game, and then they lose in the second round. Well, you know what? we're missing four or five pieces from being a Super Bowl team next year. Ron, you know, let's go out and get. We got to go out and Antonio Brown's not going to be around with Tampa. We got to go get him. We got to overpay A.J. Green. You know, we've got to go out and

overpay, you know, the top free agents in the game. Von Miller's available. Can you I've already got, we're working on a deal. I sent the plane there. Von Miller's coming back. Not that Von Miller would be a bad guy. get. My point is, is that that's how it would manifest itself, is he would want to be a part of the excitement of, and certainly would want to, you know, let me just say this. The way it would manifest itself initially is that he'd want credit for hiring Ron Rivera and being the guy behind, you know, helping Alex Smith get back to where he is, at the very least. Yeah. He

will balk at being the guy left behind when the credit train pulls out. Right. Right. Okay. I got one other thing I wanted to ask you. Yes. Before I go. We didn't talk about this on Tuesday. I'm sure you talked

about it on your radio show. Do you think that Alex Smith took the ball off the field on purpose at the end of the first half? So we did talk about it a little bit, and then Cooley went into it in more detail. Number one, I think they were well prepared for the situation, which was good to know. I think even if he didn't take the football off or the K ball was available, I think they

would have been on the field on time and they would have gotten the field goal off on time had the ball been spotted timely in a timely manner. The reason the ball couldn't be spotted in a timely manner and they stopped the clock is because the ball wasn't available. The ball that they need is a K ball, which is a. is supposed to be, I think, in the possession of one of the sideline referees, sign line, you know, officials. And they throw the K ball in.

The K ball wasn't available. Now, would they have used the ball on the field and spotted that if the K ball wasn't available? Perhaps, but Alex- Mike Pereira said they, normally they do. Normally, if the K ball is not available, they'll use the ball that was on the field. Yes. It was Dean Blandino who said that, not Mike.

Dean Blandino, okay. Who, by the way, wasn't available for the first part of the game to, you know, weigh in on the third and 13 Logan Thomas catch and first down that got challenged, but for whatever reason wasn't overturned. Anyway, so Alex Smith taking that ball off the field didn't help them get a field goal off on time. It just helped them get a field goal with the K ball off on time. Because if he had left the ball in the field, they would have just used that. ball and you would have had Dustin Hopkins kicking that ball instead of the other ball.

I don't know the big difference between the two balls and whether or not he would have missed with the regular ball and not missed with the K ball. I can't answer that. But the bottom line is when the- So you think they would have had enough time to kick the field ball? Yeah, no doubt. And in fact, Ron Rivera, I was very, very pleased to hear him talk about how they time it out. You know, it's a 14 to sort of 17-second thing depending on what happened on the play.

Like if it's a ball down the field and you've got receivers that have to run from one field to the other, one end of the other to the sideline to get off the sideline, it'll take a little bit longer than a shorter play or even a sack where everybody's there. So they had when the play ended about 18 seconds, they would have gotten it off. They were prepared. It sucked that he took the sack. Now, Alex said he did not take the ball off intentionally. Maybe that was, you know, playing dumb like a fox. You know, but I think that it's not unusual for that football to come off and the K ball to come in.

What is unusual is for the quarterback who's got the ball in his hands to run off the field with it. Yeah. But that's the situation they were in, too, which was a hurry up, scramble situation. You're right. You're right. Okay, I get it. Okay, I'm with you. So anyway. Okay. All right.

Prediction on the game on Sunday. Man. Look, it. I'm going to get, put my foot. on the bandwagon. 1916, Washington wins. Oh, look at who's jumped on board. Oh, my God.

You are the biggest frontrunner of all time. Actually, you know what he's a frontrunner for? Himself. And them winning is good for him. All right. I'll talk to you on Tuesday. Okay. Okay, boss.

Chris Cooley with his defensive film breakdown right after this word from one of our sponsors. We're going in-depth. Play-by-Play. The Cooley Film Breakdown. Here's Cooley and Kevin. All right, time for Cooley's film breakdown of the defense from Monday night's win over Pittsburgh. Have that it. Pretty good game defensively.

You know what I found funny today? I've seen multiple things with people dogging Ben Rathosberger. Brandon Marshall had something that I saw on Twitter today. Remember the receiver Brandon Marshall? Yeah, of course. Where he was saying, it's Ben's fault. He needs to check his ego because he's, changing the plays at the line of scrimmage.

They had run plays called and he changing them into past plays. And then Tomlin's looking down the line of scrimmage at the offensive coordinator. And the offensive coordinator is saying, hey, I called a run. He changed it. Ben Rothosburg pretty good. He had about eight drops in that game. And the last time I really checked our film, which was this morning, they didn't have a lot of success running the football. Yeah.

And then he went through, you know, it's not, we're not talking about the RPO game. Some of the RPO game, that's different. You know, you get into like, I write week. I'm like, I write. There's no RPO and I. I just, I think it's funny some of these guys. Yeah. And you try to find reasons that Pittsburgh didn't win that ballgame or whatever it was other

than they can't run it. They don't have Connor. Washington's defense was very stout against the run, especially against that team. They're not built to run it. And they had seven or eight drops. Yeah, seven, which was the most by a team in the NFL this year. So, seven officially, yeah. Do we want to say Ben or something else?

Yeah, but would you say about the offensive game plan that even though they're not built to run it because they haven't run it at all this year? Close games, blowout games, really doesn't matter. They are heavy pass-to-run ratio. Ben has had more pass attempts than any quarterback in the league. Don't you think some threat of run would help them out a little bit or not? If you can run it, if you can't run it, then it's just a 10. They didn't have Connor, so that, you know, they clearly run it more when he's in the lineup.

But not a lot. Yeah, no, I totally get it. trust me, I'm a Shanahan run-first system scheme guy. Yeah, I know. That's totally me. But I'm also a, you know, do what suits you type of offense. And I can tell you they don't have tight ends that can block in the run game. I feel like their offensive line should be okay.

I got a couple guys, a couple dudes that should be able to block the run game. But essentially, Ben gets the ball out immediately. Immediately. He's so fast with his decision process. And so those four-yard underneath throws, serve as runs. They set up the deeper throws. He doesn't necessarily need

run action stuff to get the ball down the field. I did like, I went back and rewatched some of the game. They took a shot down the field the second to last play the game. I think they took a shot to Claypool. They're down 20 to 17. Daryl Johnson says something like,

Pittsburgh is just a team that hasn't been able to push the ball down the field. This is a situation where you have to be able to Push the ball, take shots down the field. Like, they're fucking prevent. Now push the ball down the field. Oh, gosh. I just, some of the stuff I hear, it's mind-bottling.

Yeah. Do you think it's because, in some of the cases, these guys have just not, they've not been close to the game. It's fine. What did you say? I said it was mind-bottling. Oh, I didn't hear the bottling. I just heard botting.

I know. I heard bottling. You pass over movie lines quickly, but I didn't want to just pass over it and have people think I actually meant bottling. Okay. Well, it's one of the reasons I typically have to watch a movie for a second time. But do you think sometimes it's because they've just been out of the game for so long and been away from the game? Like, even though you haven't been playing the game, you've been analyzing film, you were close to an organization here for the last several years. What do you think it is?

Or did they just never understand the game even when they were playing it? I think a lot of it is just pushing narratives. Daryl Johnson talked throughout the entire game about Pittsburgh needing to get the ball further down the field, and he wanted to continue the narrative. I don't know what Brandon Marshall is talking about. I don't know what some of the people are talking about with Ben Rothlisberger and Pittsburgh. That's not the problem. He's not the problem with their offense. And if you think you need to run the ball more, Mike Tomlin understands how to run the ball.

They understand how to run the ball. they're doing it. Excuse me, they're not running the ball because they're not good at it. Right. They don't have the personnel to do it. They chose to build a team that way. They have five receivers who are better than their first back. I don't know problem with what Pittsburgh's doing on offense.

Not the way I'd set up my team, but no problem with it. I wanted to go through two plays before we get right to the defensive film breakdown. One, you talked about kicking a field goal on the fourth and one that they took the shot down the field. Yeah. to McFarland. Why the hell wouldn't you have kicked a field goal? I don't know. I'm watching that game again going,

you definitely kick a field goal there. Yeah. You just, you take the lead right there. And you believe in your defense. That's the number one defense in the NFL. Right. That made no sense to me. Well, they had a rookie kicker, but he had already made one.

He had made both of his extra points, and it would have been a 45-yarder, I believe. So, yeah, I mean, look. Well, I guess you're saying, Tomlin does that often. Oh, no, no, no. They believe, and Ben believes very much so in, you know, going for fourth downs, especially fourth in shorts. And I guarantee you analytically, you know, with what was there left,

five minutes left in the game, something like that. But, you know, why not, I don't know, like third and one they threw it and fourth and one they threw it, and now you've given the ball back to the other team and the score is still tied. You're right. You should believe in your defense. It's the number one defense, one of the top defenses in the league, to at least protect a three-point lead or at least, you know, maybe Washington comes down and gets a field goal, but you'll get it another time. I don't know.

No, I'm with you. And if you don't believe in the kicker, then you shouldn't assign the kicker. Right. I understand that he's a rookie kicker, but there are plenty of dudes out there that can hit a 45-yard field. Yeah, he was on the practice squad, and Boswell was sort of a late scratch. Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of dudes. We're not talking about a 55-yard field goal. We're talking about a 45-yard field goal.

Pretty much every college kicker right now can hit a 45-yarder. Right. So that's an interesting decision. Zabe made a 45-yarder in the bubble that year. I made a 40-yarder. Or it was like 35, maybe. Yeah, you kicked it off a tee. It was off a tee.

No, no, no. We had somebody holding it. Somebody was holding it. Nick Ashue was holding it for us. Okay. I know. It's not that big of a deal. 45-yarder.

Big what. So the interesting thing about that play is Washington's in man-to-man coverage. And Darby, they have the back McFarland go out outside the numbers. Yeah. Darby's sitting outside, but he's locked on the tight end, McDonald. Yeah. And Bostick all of a sudden runs late. And I'm sitting there going, I think I'd rather have Darby out on the back and let Bostick cover McDonald, who ends up pass blocking anyways.

Right. It should have been a completion. They got Bostic. They had what they wanted. Ben just didn't put enough touch on it for a back who's not accustomed to catching that ball down the field. I know, but back to game situation here for a moment. So if that's in the first quarter or the second quarter

and you want to take a shot, because that is taking a shot. And when you take a shot on fourth and one, It's not just whether or not you got the right matchup and whether or not, you know, it's covered well. When you take a deep shot down the field, a lot has to go right for that play to work. I mean, it's got to be a good throw. It's got to be a good catch. You know, not always a good catch or, you know, sometimes it's an easy catch. But, you know, if it's a back shoulder throw, there's got to be a perfect, you know, cohesive, you know, turn and with your body to catch it.

I just think on fourth and one, I'd rather run something that I know is going to get, you know, five yards, that it's going to be an easier, lower risk play. You're right, it should have worked, but it was also a high-risk play. I guess I'm not sitting here saying it should have worked. I'm just saying that they had what they wanted. They had what they wanted, but to me, it should have been what they wanted in the second quarter or the third quarter, not a tie game with five minutes to go. Because even though they had what they wanted, what percent do you think that was

chance that that was going to be completed? What percent chance? I can't give you a random percentage. I mean, 93.6 percent of my percentage guesses are right, so I don't know. What do you think it was? It was over 50 percent. I'm sure they completed it in practice. Okay. So over 50 percent, maybe not more than 60? Yeah, that's going to be a really arbitrary number. I haven't seen McFarland catch a lot of slant goes. My point is, you know, maybe another place. maybe a run would have been a 65%, 70% play on fourth and less. I got to go back and look at it. I guess my point really is not necessarily what Pittsburgh called or should have done.

I would have kicked a field goal in that situation. But my point is more, why do you want to put Bostick out on the back? Why do you want to have McFarlane running that route? You ran a pretty good route. It's a back shoulder throw. Well, you want to have McFarland running that route because you're going to get a match up with Bost. I understand that. You get the matchup that you want when you put the back out there.

I understand that, but you would have rather had an experience, Connor, who wasn't available for that play. And at that, you would have rather had it work out with Levi-on-Bell. Sure. Even when you say that, it wouldn't have been Bostic out there with Levi-on-Bel. It would have been Darby. They would have made that adjustment. I don't. He was wearing Levy on Bell's number.

I just think it's really interesting that they didn't just bump Darby out and say, hey, look, I'll cover the tight-in. There's actually a chance of tight-in stays in a blocks because we're showing. some blitz pressure and why don't you go and d up the back who's probably more of a threat than the tight end who hasn't caught one pass today got it i don't know um montes sway got a little pressure on that play if you look at it again and it forces just a little bit earlier throw in my opinion and i think that helps because if there's any more touch on that ball i don't know i say that but back to your point why would you have in farland who looked like Like, he'd never caught a pass in his life.

Yeah. You know, the only other play that I wanted to discuss is, like, a questionable call, in my opinion. And Del Rio continues to do this at times. And some of his blitzes are really well designed and some get home, and this may have not been necessarily. Was this the late developing safety blitz? Yes.

Yeah. I wrote that down. I didn't mention it to you. But it was so ineffective, and it ended up being a big play for, Pittsburgh. It's a third and 12 in the second quarter right at the beginning of the second quarter. 14, 12 in the second quarter. They end up completing like a 17-yard comeback to Deontay Johnson. Yeah. Johnson. Maybe Cameron Curl hits this too late, but he's walking down from depth. You know, a lot of times when Washington's done this or when other teams do this, when they have those late developing pressures,

they start with three defensive linemen on the side that they're going to bring pressure from. they bring pressure to the side of the back. They only have two defensive linemen in Allen and Chase Young on that side. So all they got to do is turn the center that direction, which they're already doing. They don't have to check anything and they pick it up. They have four to pick up four with the back. Maybe you're hoping with the late developing pressure with Cameron Curled that the back gets out.

It doesn't see him coming. But you're playing Ben Rutherstberger. The ball's out. You don't have time for this. Yeah, I remember making a note. I'm like, what are they doing here on 3rd and 12? I mean, if you're going to have a safety blitz, why isn't it like a safety blitz that has a chance of being disruptive?

He basically starts, and I just pulled up the play, he starts a full 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Like, he's nowhere near. And the ball is actually snapped before he starts to blitz. It's really, there's zero chance of that affecting the. play. It's going to take him four and a half seconds just to get there. Untouched. Ben could

take two snaps and make two throws by the time Cameron Curl would have gotten there. But they went on to score on that drive. You were in a third and twelve situation. I know. I know. Playing pretty good defense. Right. Did you feel like at that moment you needed to make that kind of a change?

That was frustrating. I remember it was like, what is he doing there? I don't want to be a whiny butt about this, but I'm going to have to tell someone how to do their job here. I mean, you can say that all you want, but you could also say that camera curl got the call late and hit it late. Who knows? I don't know what. It looked like it was, it looked like it was orchestrated like they wanted it to be. It just didn't, it just didn't suit the game plan, in my opinion, versus the team you were playing. Right. Yeah. That's all.

By the way, it's a great route by Johnson. Oh, it's, DeAche Johnson had a couple excellent routes in this game. He's a really good player. Deontay Johnson, I think, in watching this film, he's their best receiver. Yeah, it's funny because, you know, Schuster was supposed to be the guy, but Johnson's really, I'd have to go look at their numbers, but I thought before I looked at him before the game last week, that Johnson's numbers were better. Yeah, their three receivers have more yards than anybody else in the league, but yeah, because there are so many throws and so many completions.

Sure. So they do, I mean, they throw 50. Deontay Johnson, Smith Schuster has more catches, eight more catches. He's got 73. Johnson's got 65, but Johnson's been targeted much more than anybody else and has more receiving yards. His actual target and reception percentage isn't very good. It's 65 out of 106. So it's basically roughly around 60%. That's not a great... No, you've got to be over 70 for a great percentage. I remember it was a couple years that Josh Doxon's percentage was like 39. There weren't a lot of targets, though. Yeah, there was 40 targets.

He's caught about 12 of them. I love Josh at TCU. He was so good. God, he was good at TCU. God, he was. Go up and get a ball. The one more thing I wanted, you asked me a question two days ago, and you said, was that defensive line?

to jump and try to bat balls down. And I said, you know, I don't know. You're playing a quarterback that gets the ball out, and sometimes you're not, you know you're not getting home on a rush. So you just jump. No, they're coached. They're jumping way early. Yeah, right.

They weren't finishing rushes. Exactly. Right. No question. And they also stunted a couple of times, either young or maybe sweat right into the middle passing lanes. And Kerrigan, a lot. Yeah.

By the way, I thought. A ton of those stunts. I thought Carrigan, actually, I'll wait to hear your film breakdown, but I meant to mention to you the other day, he seemed to get several good rushes. He did. You are right. He did have some good rushes in that game. Let's start with Kerrigan.

Okay. Let's do it. I thought he had three or four pressures, a couple off a stunt. He had one nice pressure off the edge where he just punked the right tackle, knocked him down. He's in Ben's face. I thought he was really consistent in playing run. Didn't have any sacks, but he forced to hold. DeCast, they called the hold on DeCastro where Carrigan got in there on an inside stunt.

To me, I just, I still don't see that quick put your foot in the ground transition step. It's just a little hesitant and it's just a little bit slower than he's been in the past. But he played really well. He came off the edge where he needed to come out the edge. He crashed the pocket. He had his hands up in passing lanes. The entire defensive line made it a little bit tougher for Ben to throw the ball. And they did have some pressures.

had no sacks but they did have some pressures i thought carrigan was an a minus in this game well it's highest grade of the season yeah it seemed to me like 30 snaps too it's the most snaps he's played all season i think um i'm looking at one more game or chase young went out i'm looking at it right now he had 30 snaps i think so um i closed that i close that i close that list hold on let me pull it up go ahead continue i'll have no i think ryan ryan i'm pretty sure sure he had 30 snaps in this ballgame. Yeah, that would certainly be near a season high, no doubt, if it was 30. Because there have been games that he had single-digit snaps.

Yeah, 30 snaps. I thought he was impactful throughout the entire game. I mean, it wasn't like he made a ton of tackles. It wasn't like he had sacks in this ballgame. But there's still, I ought to give him credit. He does have a knack for finding where the quarterback's going to move in the pocket. He's got a knack for knowing. Has always had that.

Which way the quarterback's going to slide and move in the pocket? He's always sniffed out screens really well. Yeah. I mean, we're going way back in his career to some of those things. But yes, he has had a good understanding of what offenses or offenses are trying to do to him. I will absolutely grant you that. Montez Sweat. Yeah.

He's a, I'm just, I will, he's a pro bowler. He's going to make the Pro Bowl. There's no doubt. He should be a Pro Bowl. He's been outstanding. He gets better. Every game, you know, early in the year, there were like a quarter and a half

where sweat would take a game over. But then there was the rest of the game where you're like, oh, he's out there doing pretty good job. I thought he was really consistent through this entire game. I mean, unblockable in the run game. They'd try to pull a guard at him and run some of those gaps game plays out of gun. No, no chance, dude.

He's blown up guards. There's a, they ran an inside zone play where they're pushing at him and the tackle's on and he just reaches his right arm out and wraps the back, the running back around the waist. And he doesn't actually bring him down, but he completely turns him around right there. It ends up being a tackle for no gain. Like that is a big strong dude to be able to do that. The back's coming at him hard. It was like a Red Rover play. Right.

Red Rover, Red Rover. Don't go at Montez sweat. Yeah. Because you're going to be on our side. that didn't really fit the rhyme. You're not good at that. No, sometimes I am, but that was really obvious. Galdi's really good at rhymes, rhyming keys to the game.

Yeah, but he writes them down. Well, he writes a lot of things down, but there's nothing wrong with that. What was the back's name right there? Snell. Yeah, Benny Snell. I'm not going to worry about a rhyme there. He had multiple pressures in the game. He had three batted balls, one on the six.

screen that was awesome in the fourth quarter the tip pick that was outstanding i mean that's absolutely huge he was in ben's face often they did a really good job of just collapsing the pocket with ben too just continuing to collapse the pocket they knew that he was going to have the ball out so that push pocket really started to collapse the rush lanes and give him more of a chance to get hands up in there would they end up with five batted balls in this game i think uh i think it was four but he had three but it might have been five. By the way, the screen in the fourth quarter, I haven't watched that play.

I'm going to go find it. Was it almost a pick? Did he almost pick six it or not? It would have been the all-time best reacher handout. Look what I found. Well, he's got long-ass arms. Yeah, he does have long arms, but still to just reach your handout to the side

and snag a ball is like the old fantasy files commercials. That'd be incredible if he'd have picked that thing. God, he's a monster, just watching him the other night. I'm so glad he picked him. He is so good right now. He was an A in this game. Durampin had a batte ball. You watch the goal line stand and watch him come off the ball on every single play and you just go, my God.

I mean, in the backfield, the pass that they tried to throw to the offensive lineman. Right. That actually may have had a chance, but Durham Payne's seven yards in the backfield when Ben lets that go. Right. It had no time to deploy. Well, the O-Linman would have fallen. He was falling, so he would have fallen short of the goal line. It might have been a lost yardage play.

Listen, you want to sneak an O-Linman out? You got to sneak him into the end zone. You can actually ask him to turn and run with the ball in the flat, unless he's going to be wide open. He actually had a chance to be open. If it was a tight end, he probably would have been because both Curl and Holcomb freeze a little bit on the run action. But, God, he's just like looking his head all over the place,

drifting around. He had no chance, man. No chance. Bad call, Pittsburgh. Bad call. Try to be cute. It didn't work. Pain really, some of the run plays in this game, it's just a one-arm post, drive back yard, two yards into the back field, have the chance to shed, make plays. Really awesome. Consistent pressure on the A or B gap with Bull Rush, hands on the face of the quarterback. He had a tackle for loss on a draw in the third quarter or on a third down in the fourth quarter. It was awesome. He had a little stunt inside, played right into the back, saw it. Not a lot of negative.

I mean, one draw play in the third quarter, he overruns inside. And I actually noted, why doesn't Pittsburgh at least run more draw? The one decent run play they had was a draw. Yeah, good point. If you're going to throw the ball 50 times and you're not an impasseh. impact run team, then run some more draws. Of course. The old, the old Cooley, keep them honest. Yeah, let's at least keep them honest.

Well, and the thing is, is even if they're not going to stay honest, let's at least take five and six yards when, you know, twice a quarter on draw plays. Yeah. Because you can get it. Right. I thought Duron Payne was a B plus in this game. Jonathan Allen. I think he plays well.

I bet he's got a good grade. you know he did play really well he plays really consistent he's like here i i notice almost every single game but i did again in this game uh he has great control and he wins with his hands in the run game and he takes it over his gap and he's ready to shed and make a play if the ball ends up bouncing into his gap and he's just really consistent with that one-on-one and he was in this game they're getting up front they're there they're better gap sound defense they're playing on the other side of the line of scrimmage more than they did early in the season. Paying and Allen for sure settle some. Alan had a couple good pass rushes, one early in the game.

I think the first play of the game on a run-action pass, he ends up getting a quarterback hit on Rathlisberger. I actually think part of the reason they didn't have a lot of run-action stuff was because they didn't want longer developing plays. They knew with some of the longer developing plays, they weren't going to be able to get the ball. Well, I think Detroit felt the same way in Dallas-ville. I think, I think, I think, I think teams are purposefully now trying to scheme around what they deem to be a very good front four that can get immediate pressure. By the way, inside and outside. Absolutely.

If I'm playing Washington right now, I'm going with the quick passing game more than not. And the thing that they've done, I think that is really a smart adjustment is they're playing really edge sound run defense with Chase Young and. and Montez Sweat in that you have these wide ends and you can't get to the edge against them. Right. And so almost all of the run stuff has got to go immediately in the middle. And what was it like four weeks ago where we talked about the linebackers, we were so critical of late gap fits on this podcast. And then the next day, Ron said the linebackers have to be better in their gap fits.

And then all of a sudden they were. And now no one's really ran the ball against them. Right. I think they've kind of found a rhythm. It's a defense that has made adjustments to bear defense, some in this season, to five men front, almost a three, four looking front, some in this season. And now I think is really starting to understand and trust the guys around them. We're going to find out what kind of run defense we have on Sunday. This will be the biggest run defense test of the year.

No, I think they will find out if they're going to stop the run on Sunday. It's just the question is, do you really want to go over the top stopping the run against San Francisco? Because you got to wonder if they can really win the game just running the football. I think Kyle can, but at the same time, is that your biggest fear? I don't know. I think your biggest fear is some of the run action past stuff. So if you really want to stop the run, you can commit to it, but then you start risking, do we want to get beat over the top?

and then we give them true balance. Well, what was the most difficult defensive game of the year? The worst they played on defense was the Rams game. Right. So they're going to see a lot of what they saw against the Rams. Yeah, but what they got really gashed was not necessarily just the run. It was the run action passed with some of the two-man combinations where they got linebackers out of place in the middle of the field.

Their underneath defense wasn't good. That's been a big improvement, even Bostic in this game. But it's been a big improvement. So are you going to tell Bollack? hard downhill gap fits get out of place get thrown over the top or are you going to say let's just let's just trust our front and if they get some five and six yard runs we'll give it to them all right continue with john allen you know for the most part keb i would really just say moved once with a triple team which was actually interesting that they triple teamed him up front

it was pretty cool by the offensive line, triple teaming to get to the second level, or it was just an F-up. But, you know, I thought really consistent in this game. Jonathan Allen was A-B. Chase Young. Yeah. His rally to the ball is just awesome.

His relentlessness is really, really good. What's the Irbymeyer thing I was saying the other week? Like A to B, 4 to 6. 4 to 6, A to B. Right. Four seconds to 6 seconds from point A to point B, and he is all about that, man. which is why he's great playing screens out of the backfield.

It's why he's great chasing things down. It's a high motor player in Chayshung. Huge play on the fourth and one on the goal line. Coming out the ball, getting inside of Ebron. And really, the other thing I love about it is you see a smartness to him. Like, he timed that motion up by Ebron. He knew a second that Ebron came and sat on the other side and squared his shoulders on that motion that they were going on one,

that the ball was coming off, and he got inside of Ebron quick. It was great. Big tackle at the, on a third down right at the end of the half, on a little swing that got outside. Remember, Deschaser came over and made a hit right before they get the first down, but really great job rallying outside and making a big tackle. I had a couple quarterback hits in this game. One was on a Morland penalty where he had a quarterback hit

where he got inside on Rathosburgh. or the other one was in the fourth quarter where it was almost an interception, really disrupted the ball, knocked it awkward out of Ben's hand. I thought Chase Young was awesome. They stunted him, they moved him. When he was a one-on-one with Villanueva,

I think he's really started to set things up as the game progressed. There wasn't a ton of time to set things up because Ben had the ball out so fast. But hands up, some of the stunts, you can see him getting into that B-gap and just going hands up. And Chase was as big of an indication to me that either they as a D-Line really just sense the ball was going to be out or they were coached.

If you're not there in two seconds, just start getting your hands up. Yeah, he was the one more than anybody else. He seemed to be like more anticipating trying to disrupt the throw without getting to the quarterback. Yeah, absolutely. It was all of them. They were coached. Chase Young was an A. So we have really just settle left.

Settle played 25 plays, not much of an impact player. One tackle for loss in the backfield was real good play. He had the stupid penalty. On 25 plays, Tim Settle was A, C-minus. Okay. That's your defensive line or your defensive front. Let's take one more break. Montes-Swet.

Yeah. Montes-Swed A, Young A, Carragon A-minus, Allen B, Payne B, plus Settle C-minus. All right, we'll get to the linebackers and the secondary right after this word from one of our sponsors. answers. All right, so let's get to the linebackers. Let's start with Bostick. I thought this was Bostick's best game. He's good rally to the ball that he tackled really consistent. I had a nice tackle in the first quarter on Ebron where it was a third downplay and he did not lower his helmet. He put his shoulder into Ebron. It was good. And off that play, you know,

he starts with blitz. He ends up bailing back, finds his way right to. to Ebron and does a really good job getting a stop to get a three and out on one of the early plays in the game. I thought he did a very nice job adjusting the motions and initial formations. Both him and Holcomb did that throughout the game. They shifted and moved to some of Pittsburgh's motions really well. They did a consistent job being exactly where they're supposed to be. Really good job with eyes throughout the game.

The Ebron, Ben threw a great ball to Ebron in the end zone on that little. hitch and go. Kyle Shanahan, we always called the old jerk off route. It ends up getting broken up by DeShazer. But really good job by Bostick, not necessarily taking the bait because if Eber can get him just a little bit more,

bend it over the top of Bostick, get away from the safety, a little bit further. More consistent in his coverages. I like when they let him be the tamp of Mike player. They let him play with a little bit more depth. They actually coach him into playing with a little bit more depth, and that helps him to not have to make that adjustment

as a three-deep underneath player. You know, he had a mistackle in the third quarter on Jalen Samuels. It gives up a little bit too much. The fourth down wasn't necessarily good. The fourth and one in coverage wasn't really good, but he gets away with it. And then maybe just once in the game, he gets caught up on a run action in the third quarter.

They get a 14-yard gain over the top of him to Deonté Johnson. But I thought Bostick played his best game. I thought he played his most consistent game. He was an A-minus. Wow. That is far and away his best grade of the year from you. yeah without question Holcomb

really good rally of the ball and good tackle in open field throughout the game great job playing a screen on a third and 15 on the second drive of the game making a tackle on Deontay Johnson really good in terms of when he's keen the run I think early in the game there was actually a blitz there was a stunt up front but he makes it play in the backfield

for a tackle for no game is pattern match stuff on short throws and really in third downs stuff was really good. Looking up crossing routes from the other side of the field, finding where some of those receivers are coming from and knowing how to react to that versus just spot dropping was so much better. Holcomb's actually really good at that. I think I wrote good tackle three or four times out in space towards the flat with the running back on some screens and stuff, really good. The one negative, I would say, is if you watch that tip pick interception at the end of the

game, Ben's throwing it out to the flat. He's an underneath the fender who's responsible for the flat and he has his eyes stuck inside. It would have been an easy 10-yard game. But for the most part, I thought Holcomb played really, really well. Again, consistently, Holcomb was an A. Wow. The grades you're giving out today. Well, they'll get worse.

Okay. This is a great A day right now. It was a grade A defense. What can I say? All right. Who's up next? KPL? Yeah, KPL only played 23 plays.

Amazingly enough, he was beat out in the flat. twice. One late in the flat ends up making a tackle for only a four-yard game, which is good. And then beat later in the game by Jalen Samuels. And Samuels gets out for a pretty good play in the flat, and I'm like, he's the flat master. What the hell happened here to KPO? I do not know what happened. It's just wild. A couple of one of the screens out, really good fighting through a block. Good fits in the run game when he was in there. KPL was a B. Thomas Davis.

Oh, yeah. I don't understand. exactly the necessity to have Thomas Davis in the game right now. The interesting thing with Davis is I think that his eyes and keys aren't as good. And for a savvy veteran player, you'd expect some slowness, but it's not necessarily slowness. I think he's out of position. He's late diagnosing run a couple times. He's soft on the offensive lineman climbing.

The draw play that I said got out. Man, he really got smoked inside by the tight end. Did not see that at all. But in not seeing it, he should have been deeper. in a pass drop situation. He wasn't blitzing. It was interesting. They're the third and 14 that they completed in the third quarter over the top of Davis.

And their zone coverage, he's sprinting up to take the running back away. He's got Morland. I think it's Morland just outside of him as an underneath zone defender as well. You're like, dude, you want them to throw that ball. You want them to throw the four-yard flat route or the four-yard swing route to the back. He can't get the first down if we just tackle him. You take away the deep ball and then you rally to the short and tackle. That was interesting for me on Thomas Davis.

I didn't necessarily understand this. Davis was not a positive impact in this game. He was a D. So that's your linebackers. Bostic A minus Colholcomb A, KPL B, Thomas Davis, D. Right. Why did Thomas Davis play? You got any idea on that?

Are you asking me why he plays? Sure. Why do you play as much as he did in this game? I don't know why he played as much as he did in this game, but he's played more recently. I think they just like, in the same way they like Bostick, they love the smart, dependable, even though, you know, now Bostick can run. Davis can't run. I don't know why Davis is playing. Every time I watch him, it looks like he's stuck in quicksand. Oh, he's way stuck in quicksand.

Yeah, can't run. No, can't run And it's not making the adjustments that you'd want to be making this game Right Let's get to the secondary here Please We'll start with Darby A little bit of up and down for Darby in this ballgame

One, the first play of the game Great defense down the field on a go ball with Washington Thought it was awesome You love it Yeah, but were they playing a little bit more soft coverage In the first half And then that was part of the adjustment in the second half It's hard to say because that first play of the game, it's not soft coverage with Darby.

I'm not talking about the first play of the game. That was the shot they took. That's where Moose Johnson should have said, hey, we're going to take a shot early just because we're coming back and getting it out quickly the rest of the game and we want them to respect something deep. I mean, it's almost like that's what the play. Wasn't that the first play from scrimmage? I think it was the first play from scrimmage.

Yeah. And did they take many shots, truly deep shots, the rest of the game? not a lot of deep shots. Right. You know, one of the first big plays of the game, they got Darby on a little stick route by Washington, who got down the scene. Yeah, right.

You know, he jumped out way too quick. I mean, there was a couple of plays that Derby was really good. There's a third and four play in the game that they take a shot down the field to Deontay Johnson, and Darby's right there to lock it down. But, again, I think both of those shots downfield, the one to Washington and the one. to Johnson, I think they were both thrown out of bounds. Yeah.

So, you know, Darby is a guy, to me, is a guy that is pretty good with tight coverage. I think he gets beat with double moves more when he gets off coverage more. Right. And then really Darby kind of fell down. There was a clay pool throw down in the red zone on a third and seven where he ran the out, up and stop, and he can't stay with it. He kind of falls down at the last second, gets under the two. two yard line.

Derby was a B minus in this game. Fuller. I think Fuller struggled more than anybody lately, and I'm not exactly sure what it is on Fuller. Right. The positives, a couple tackles, one coming downhill on a screen, does a good job with the fit,

awesome job on the third and one that preceded the fourth and one that they went for, making a play out in the flat. But then you look at it, and it's like he missed a couple tackles in this ball game. He missed a tackle on Deonté Johnson on the hitch that ends up going for a touchdown. Wasn't consistent with that.

I think from a little bit more depth on a receiver, he has poor transition out of his back pedal. One of the plays is a great example is the third and 12, where they have the slow, delayed blitz. It's third and 12, and you're a late transition out of your back pedal on a comeback. Like, play sticks, understand sticks. He's so scared of Deonté Johnson when he's off. I actually noted I think he's better when he plays tight in the hip.

of some of these receivers. I think he's got the ability to turn and run and play in the hip of receivers versus play off. That's where he's been beat with double moves. That's where he's been beat, maybe trying to play with too much eyes to the quarterback. He got beat on a touchdown to Deonte Johnson. That was actually pretty good coverage.

The first touchdown to Deontje Johnson was exceptional with the route and the ball. He looks inside like he's going to get that fade ball, four yards into the end zone. And he really sells it with two steps, eyes up inside. And then as he comes out of the break, the ball's already thrown. That's a tough cover. Really is a tough cover.

And then he had a DPI on Claypool on a third down. Yeah. And two in the third quarter that really didn't help him at all. Kendall Fuller was a D. Morland. It's funny because I said, Morland tackled really well a couple plays in this game. But then I think he had a mistackle as well in this game.

I also think there was a tough. total bullshit, you know, illegal hands call on him. Yeah, and I just, that's such a tickey tack call. There might be a tiny grab, but those are never called. That was a third and ten that really shouldn't have been called. I think that was really good coverage. Yeah. If you were just watching the game on film and didn't see the outcome of the play,

at least the penalty, you would say that's really good in the hip man-to-man coverage. So, you know, that's, I think that's, a really ticky tech call. You know, a couple times they asked him to play the field as a kind of a two-invert player, so he's playing the deep half. One of them is a

deep claypool catch, the jump catch that Deschaser got beat across his face a little bit. It's not good by Deschaseer. We'll get to that, but I mean, he's playing the deep half on the other side of the field. There's nothing vertical threatening him, and Claypool is seven yards over the top in the middle of the field. Like, you've got to sense that other side of the field. It's tough,

but when you don't have a vertical thread on your side and something's coming into the middle of the field from the other side he needed to have more depth on that play gave up a 14-yard completion to dionche johnson in the third quarter um this was a really interesting one they ran two slants i said bostick on this this was the play i was talking about where he got caught up with some run action pass i have literally no idea what morland is doing it's it's in third quarter play where they go it probably is rPO two slants and there is nobody to cover either of the two slants right it was a i think it was more of a what a w tf play uh moreland was a c minus cameron curl

great drive the positives good job on ebron the short angle play in the first drive of the game they get a third down stop that was big good fits and fills on goal line on that goal line stand made a great hit late in the game the last play of the game to keep ebron in bounds as a two player was a big play. Some of the negatives picked on a crosser on the fourth drive gives up a 13 yard reception on a shallow. It's poor eyes to start and he's late to chase that thing down. The safety blitz we talked about. There's a third and five on the first touchdown drive. He's, it's the throw to Ebron on a third and five on that first touchdown drive. They hit him on a corner route. Yeah, right. He, okay, this is a, this is like, I think I talked to

about this with you. I've talked about this with a couple other people and a couple of coaches in the last two weeks. This is one of those plays. He's at the line of scrimmage. There's no wide receiver with depth or with width to his side. The tightest players the tight end to his side. He

barely puts a hand on Ebron. Barely puts a hand on him. And then he buzzes hard to the flat to nobody. You're like, dude, think if you're the safety on that side who ends up being fuller, dropping to inside because he's got to be aware of something coming from the other side and then having

to turn and play as a deep two player to the tight end side. Is it going to be easier for that guy if you jam the hell out of the tight end at the line of scrimmage because you really don't have any other threat to the flats or just jam him the death and then that delays that route? Or is it going to be easier if you just let him free run and get a ton of depth to the corner and make it hard? I mean, if you think of yourself as a safety in that situation, the safety you would say, just jam the hell out of him right there. You got nothing else to worry about. And after he barely puts a hand on him,

he buzzes hard, flat with no depth. There's nobody else coming out to that side. Just match Ebron as a two player. You are the flat defender, but once there's nobody in the flat, just match him with depth, take the throwaway. Ben gets it over the top of his head, and he gets his hand up to try to help break it up,

but he doesn't, and Ebron gets it. That's the first touchdown drive. That was just, let's just having some awareness as a young player playing tight at the line of scrimmage as a flat player just be better in that situation Cameron Curl missed one tackle in this game but really did a pretty good job as a tackler

and you see that with the physicality with Curl I think he was in on eight tackles and to me I think he had seven solo tackles I think both safeties they have right now love to hit and I love that Cameron Curl is an aggressive physical player and does love to hit he was a B in this ball game Everett

and that leaves me with just Deschaser ever left in this game. Yep. So Deshaezer, he's a physical dude, man. Oh, my God. I've used your, you said something when he first played, and I said, why hasn't he been out there more? And you said, he's the kind of player that gets overlooked in practice, because what

he does well, they don't practice. What he does well is tackle and hit, and you don't tackle and hit and practice. And it's just amazing to me. so much sense, and at the same time, it's like, well, don't coaches know? Like, he's had enough on film during his career here to see that he loves to hit. And by the way, remember, he's also a guy that's made some big plays, like big interceptions at times for the years. So I just don't know why it's coming so late with him. Maybe it took really good coaches to recognize it.

Maybe it just took the opportunity. I think it's the coaches. He's had the opportunity before. He hasn't had enough of an opportunity to start. There's barely been a time where he played more than 10 plays in a game. No, no, no. He started some games back in, you know. A couple maybe.

He had that big interception against the Eagles in that game that he played a lot in years ago. Anyway, you might be right. But he's getting the opportunity, and I would bet that he's getting the opportunity because guys like Rivera and Del Rio and position coaches who are here now recognize what he does well. Yeah, I think they do recognize what he does well. They also recognize that they had the need because Landon and Colt was out.

Yeah, and they did have, you know, Apkey in there before. Yeah. And we did not see him take a snap this week. No snaps this week. No. The positives. One, I just wrote this and I see this with the Shazer and this is probably coaching as much as it is playing, but he's doing it. He's actually playing with good eyes.

the pre-snap he knows where he's looking he knows what he's looking for he has good keys he's coming up to fit run when he has to fit run which isn't often in this game but he's getting his initial drop in depth he's in the right place you know two two three seconds into every play i think he's in the right place which is critical for a secondary player it's critical for a safety player uh he broke up a couple balls one the ebron play in the end zone he does a really good job closing that and getting that ball knocked out another one later in the game it's claypool down the middle where he comes over the top and has a really nice pass breakup as a two player and that's a big play um a tackle on a screen on a third and three the one that he helps chase young with that's that's a huge play big come up and make a play huge hit you got to let goline stand really started on a first down play where snell got some yards and de chaser comes up and makes a huge hit to keep him out of the end zone if the chaser doesn't come up immediately and make that hit that's a touch. touchdown. That's all DeShazer. It got a little bit, it got out a little bit more than they would like to, but DeShazer did a heck of a job coming up and fitting that play, which was absolutely huge. One, I would say, be careful as a two-player with eyes on a couple plays. There's a third and 15 that you can pull up on the second drive. It's the second drive of the game. It's a third and 15. They actually have a screenplay, which Holcomb does a really good job of seeing and snipping out, and Chase Young does a really good.

job of seeing and sniffing out. And then Ben goes back to the other side of the field. He doesn't get any offensive lineman downfield. And he makes a throw to the scene. But if you look outside, Deschaser has completely omitted that there's one more player outside, one receiver outside. It's a sixer. It's a sixer if he throws it. He's wide open. Is that Smith Schuster? I mean, it was the guy to cover that Darby was covering. Well, it's a cover two look. So Deschaser's really should be splitting the difference between the two. Understood. Yeah.

I mean, it's a broken down screenplay that Ben survives, and I think he survives and just makes a throw. Be careful with that one, though. You watch that one and tell me that's not a touchdown if Ben throws that thing, because it is. Miss tackle on the touchdown, we all understood.

He took a poor angle on the touchdown to Deonté Johnson, the one play touchdown, the one play drive touchdown. The one where Fuller misses the tackle. The one where Fuller misses the first tackle. The Schezer misses a tackle on that play, too. And the end of the half, he's cross-faced as a two-player by Claypool. Claypool, the jumping leg up in the air catch.

DeShazer just can't flip his hips and turn to run inside. It's a good initial landmark, but he gets beat as Claypool starts a track inside, and he really shouldn't. It almost gets in it to make it up, but poor transition there in that situation. Too much depth. Late in the game, there's a third and 14. I talked about Thomas Davis coming up to run towards the back on the third. and 14. De Chaser is a cover two player. They did play a lot of cover two in this game.

He's a two player and there's nobody going to threaten him deep. And so he's got to drive on that thing a little bit faster. It's a dig by Deontay Johnston. Johnson, I want to put that tea in there every time for whatever reason. I don't know why either. It's just my stupid Wyoming accent. But I thought Dechaser actually played pretty well in this game. To me, Deschaser was a B in this game. The safety's, you got some good stuff off. The other thing I like what they're doing is they're really changing and manipulating some of the cover two coverage where they're inverting the corners and they're letting DeShazer play from a single high look or one safety in the middle of the field the short middle which is the Tampa player he does a really good job with that

I think he's getting better to me kev he's getting a better sense of space and and some of that awareness the spatial awareness he's doing a better job with so between him and kPL and some of the looks they're manipulating coverages with, they're making it a little bit harder on quarterbacks. I don't think they did, I don't think they were shy to blitz because of anything

in the secondary or being afraid of their guys not being able to cover per se. It's that the ball was going to come out too quickly. I just think they knew the ball was going to be out so quick and that if they got picked or they got crossed up at all that Ben was going to find the open receiver immediately. To me it was

a really good defensive game. It was a very good defensive game plan by Del Rio, again, who's doing a really good job. We can question a couple of the calls. But for the most part, I think he's putting his guys in good situations. I think they're well-coached in the situations. I think their pattern matching is much better. And you're talking about guys doing it from different spots all over the field and figuring out, you know, exactly where number one is to number two.

And then ultimately, they're a defense right now that's playing with speed and physicality. A couple of missed tackles here and there, but for the most part, Speed and physicality is really becoming paramount for this defense with the defensive line that if you take more than two seconds is going to get home. I think it's going to be really interesting Sunday because it'll be a completely different defensive game plan. They may have to play many more players in the box, you know, bringing, you know, curl down into the box more often. And they're going to have to really be aware of just how much bootleg Mullins is going to run off the zone run stuff. This is what they really struggled with against Sean in that first game.

And even though it's not Garoppolo and there's no kiddle on the field, they ran the football against Buffalo and they've been running the football. They've got their backs back and healthy. You know, Mosterts back and Wilson's back here recently. And, you know, the thing about Mullins is he's just, you know, he's just okay. And if you get him into, it looks like if you get him into third and have to drop back, you can really cause problems. but, you know, Samuel and Jordan Reed and Bourne and Ayuk, I mean, in the fullback, Jusek,

they're going to have, they're going to, I can just see, you know, here comes the whole flow to the left. Oh, nope, here comes Mullins coming back on, as Kyle and might call it the keeper, but I like to refer to it as the bootleg. And there's old Kyle Eusechak wide open, 44 for a 15-yard gain. I don't know how you can play So hard to run the keeper game against this team because of how good Chase Young and Montez Sweat are on the edge in the keeper game Well, we better have some backers that Thomas Davis shouldn't be in this game

Need some backers that can run in this game Yeah, you need backers that can run But you just don't let them get to the edge Especially with the quarterback getting into the edge And I think he should be in good shape You know, I'm really interested in the way Kyle schemes this up this week. I really will.

I mentioned to you yesterday, I think I mentioned this to you yesterday, that if you just look at our games recently, we played three games in a row against teams that were not interested in trying to run the football, even Burrow in the first half, through the ball 29 times. You go back to the Detroit game and the giant game before that. The last two teams that decided that they could run against this team actually did. You know, D'Andre Swift had some big runs,

Galman had some big runs, and the Giants rushed for 166 yards against us at FedEx Field, nearly five yards of carry. Detroit Swift, I think, went 16 for 85 or something like that, and we've had three opponents in a row that had zero interest in trying to run the football. This team lives off of running the football and running it creatively, and then obviously all of the run play action off of it. And then you're, you know, this is going to be a different, totally different deal. Washington's got a three-game win streak and their defense has played three pretty good games in a row, even though Burrow completed a lot of balls. And now we're back to that giant and lion. It's different, but we're going to have a team that's going to actually try to run.

I'm going to be very interested to see how good the run defense is Sunday against the best rushing team will play the rest of the year, although the Panthers can run the ball a little bit. Panthers can do a lot of things. I'm interested in this game. How is San Francisco a three-point favorite? Well, it opened at four, four and a half. It's down to three. Once again, lots of sharp money.

Lots of shark money on Washington, plus the number. That number has been coming down. There's a lot of belief. Lots of public money on Washington as well. Public money's on the 49ers a little bit based on what I had seen or was told. Covers.com and says the public comes more on Washington right now. I told you, covers isn't always accurate.

I'll get information. I'll get information. I actually like our chances again. I don't know why. I sort of like our chances the rest of the way. So we'll see. But the 49ers are, this may be the matchup of the four remaining games that could be the toughest

because they're the one that, they're the team that's so balanced and can really get you off balance. Even a good defense. I mean, look at what Kyle's done over the years against good defensive teams. And Washington's a good defensive team. You know,

Seattle's all about basically two players. And, you know, making sure Russell Wilson doesn't, you know, slice and dice you up with extending plays and finding, you know, Metcalf. Carolina is going to be interesting because they actually, you know, you know how

much I like Mike Davis. And he's having a decent year for them after they went out and signed him. Philly should be easy. We'll see. I'm talking about defensively. They'll be more difficult offensively to move the football against. And by the way, Carolina could have McCaffrey back when they play them. They had him back two weeks ago.

Yeah, and then he missed, right? And then he missed. Yeah. So they could have him back at that point. They had him for that Kansas City game. That's more than two weeks ago now, and they nearly beat Kansas City, and he was unbelievable in that game. I don't remember what it's unbelievable anytime he's on the field.

It's crazy as how many plays he took in that first. Yeah. That first game back that he had. I just saw this interesting thing. And it was Symphony Freeland's mathematical model that projects the chances of teams making the playoffs. Who is this? And what is this? It's on the NFL.com.

I mean, Bill Barlow. Mathematical model has Washington with a 41% chance of making the playoffs on the Giants with only a 40% chance of making the playoff. Bill Barnwell writes, you know, the epic pieces on all this stuff. And he had something on the whole, you know, playoff thing, too. And it's like after about 20 minutes, you realize you're not even halfway through reading the story. And it's like, okay, I got to go do something else.

I don't know. You know, I'll be honest with you. The ringer and all of the long, long form writing, I don't get that. I mean, and I'm of the generation that should. be okay with that. I don't need something really quick and easily digestible, but it's too long. Barnwell writes, I mean, he writes really well, it's just so long. I don't get it. It's not for me. Not every day anyway. I need to have more time. And if I have that much time, I'm not going to sit there and read that. Bottom line, by the way, Cooley, I've said this to you a million times over the years, all these, you know, oh, the win probability at that moment, or, you know, these projections,

on, it's like the guy that just returned to Boomer's show in New York, Craig Carton, who was in jail for the tickets selling scheme, he was Boomer Sison's longtime morning partner on WFAN and he just came back. I forget if I mentioned this to Tommy or on the podcast or not, but I watched an interview with him and he was a big gambler. He was basically going to Atlantic City on a helicopter, betting hundreds of thousands of dollars a night, and then the helicopter would drop them off literally right in time for a show at 6 a.m. Morning drive on F.A.N. with Boomer. Nobody in his life knew that he had this major gambling problem,

and nobody in his life knew what he was going through. And then he got involved in trying to pay off gambling debts with this ticket selling fraud scheme. Anyway, went to jail. He got out of jail. He's back on F.A.N. with Boomer Ossi. Or in the afternoons. I forget where he is now.

Anyway, I was watching this interview. And he just said something that I've said to you so many times to others. It's like these people, whether they're writing, for websites or whether they're charging you for picks or whatever. People don't fall for that bullshit. You know just as much as any of these other people know. You really do.

And when I talk about sharps or sharks as one of our people said that I keep talking about the sharks, the sharps, there are a handful of people, a half dozen maybe, okay, in the world that Vegas truly fears. That's it. That's the list. How do I know this? Because I know a lot of the people that are on that other side. I know, and I've known those people for my whole life, all right, without going into detail. And so are there sharps, are there a few people in the world that have made money gambling and sports betting? Yes. Do you think those people will tell you or try to sell you their picks? No. The people that are selling you the picks are the people that can't win betting and are trying to make money off of selling you their picks to try to tell you, hey, you suck

at this, but I'm so much better. No, trust me, you are just as smart as they are. And all of these people that write on ESPN.com or CBSSports.com, any of them with all of their, they don't know any more than you do. Trust me, one of the only things that's ever worked and it's what I do on this show is just try to figure out who the house has and be on their side. And you might have a chance of breaking even, although I'm not breaking even this year. Anyway, that's... You got some more games. Yeah, plenty of games. Oh, by the way, you just reminded me. Georgia Tech tonight plus seven boys and girls, early smell test pick. We're done for the day. This show's got to get out. It's late for a lot of reasons. We had some technically

issues on Cooley's end and on my end. And now we're done back tomorrow to preview Washington, San Francisco, and the NFL weekend.