The Kevin Sheehan Show - NFC Least, Rivera, & Cooley Film

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Kevin and Thom started the show with a discussion about the all-time low level reached by the NFC East. They discussed Rivera's issues and the World Series too. Then Cooley jumped on with his "film breakdown" of the Washington offense in the loss to the Giants.  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. There's first and ten. Kyler Murray, a deep shot. Got a man and it's caught.

Christian Kark. How about 80 yards to the house? Just like that. Speaking of bullet, Bob Hayes, touchdown, Cardinals. Oh, my goodness. Was that embarrassing last night for the Dallas Cowboys? They were humiliated on national television last night in that Monday night game. And Tommy, who is with us from the Fortress of Solitude in Frederick Merrill.

And I'm in studio in Bethesda. Cooley will be with us in a bit to do his offensive film breakdown from the game Sunday against the Giants. It was one of the weirdest games last night because Kyler Murray, who really is an exciting player to watch. The one thing I think I'm learning about Murray having watched him play two or three times this year, he's not a very accurate thrower. It's part of his problem. And part of that is he's always on the move, but God, is he fast and is he exciting? He only completed nine passes, and yet they beat Dallas 38 to 10.

It was never close. Dallas is atrocious without Dak Prescott. And let's be honest, Tommy, with Dak, they weren't that good. This division is the worst ever in the NFL through six weeks. No division has ever had a worst record. You really could see a situation where a 4-12 team could wind up winning the division. I don't think 4-12 would be almost impossible considering they play six games against each other. I think it can be done.

It can be done, yes. I think six, nine and one, six and ten is more than in play. And no division winner has ever been worse than seven and nine. I think the worst divisions in NFL history, the worst division winners in NFL history were seven and nine. And it's funny because I think the seven and nine teams went on to win playoff games. And Carolina was a 7, 8, and 1 division winner in 2014, not only won a playoff game, but had a chance in the next round against Seattle. I think we all remember the Marchion Lynch touchdown run that ended up beating the Saints in 2010 when they won the division at 7 and 9 and then beat the Saints in a divisional playoff win. But yeah, a 7 and 9 I think is the worst ever for division winner.

and I think the NFC East is very much on pace to have a less than seven game winner win the division this year, which of course means Washington still in it. Still in it. Still in it, baby. Oh, God. Andy Dalton, the Red Rifle. They don't even have a line on the Washington game yet, Tommy. I was looking this up earlier. I was mentioning this morning that there's no line on the game, and I was getting all these tweets.

What are you talking about? She and I see it on ESPN there. The Cowboys are three-point favorites. people don't tell me my business okay okay um i understand that you can find point spreads out there and Dallas is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a three point favorite but i promise you right now or at least as of early this morning and i'll check it again right now if you were trying to bet the game with your book if you actually were so this is the difference tommy between practical application and theoretical application there are a lot of people

that are really good at doing the theoretical, or doing the big talk about how they got a plan and they know what's going on. But then when it comes down to actually taking your money out of your wallet and putting it down on a team, they shrivel up to next to nothing. I can tell you I have multiple sites that I frequent when it comes to this stuff.

None of those sites are accepting bets right now on the Washington football team versus Dallas game. It is off the board. We call that OTB, off the board right now. And it's because Dallas looked so horrendous last night. It was so stunningly awful with Andy Dalton at quarterback that they have not been able to figure out yet what the line should be. I have a feeling by the time I'm able to bet it, it'll be like Dallas minus two, Dallas minus one. It might still be three, you know, because Washington's really bad too.

But anyway, I asked a question this. Go ahead. I asked a question early this morning on the show and took calls on it. Who's going to win the division and what will the record be? I'm going to say the Eagles and they'll be 5 and 11. Well, they can't be 5 and 11 because they already have a tie. So 5, 10 and 1? 5. No, 6 and 10.

They can't be 6 in 10. They already have a tie. Oh, they already have a tie. Yes, they've already tied a game. So they can't be six and ten. Five, ten and one. Okay, I had the Eagles also at six, nine and one winning the division. I think they're the one team that has a solid coaching staff, you know, a championship.

They have championship pedigree on the team, really good defense, but my God, Tommy, they are so injured. I mean, they keep, they lost Zach Ertz and Miles Sanders on Sunday. Ertz is out a month. Sanders is going to be out two weeks. They have basically every player that they counted on to help win a division this year on injured reserve or, you know, limping around, hobbling around. They've got offensively they're a mess. Defensively, they're still in decent shape. I got Philadelphia, too.

I think they're the best team. I think they'll rise to the highest level of bottom and be six, nine and one and be in a playoff game. I actually believe the Giants might be the second best team in the division. I think they might be the second best team. You know, one of the issues, Tommy, is that the NFC East this year has the AFC North and the NFC West as crossovers. So they've got the toughest division in the AFC and they've got the toughest division in the NFC that they're matched up against. I mean, it's brutal, the schedules for these NFC East teams the rest of the way. So anyway.

You know, when you were talking about gambling, I've never quite heard anyone describe betting as a measure of courage like you just did. You know, as some kind of badge of courage. Well, all these other girls are out there talking about betting. I'm doing it, baby. You know what, Tommy? You're right. You're right. And it's very funny because some of my very good friends who are also and have been gamblers, you know, we've had the conversation about those guys, you know, look, we all know the guys that are at tell you all about their big wins on Monday. But they didn't tell you about them on Friday, did they? They didn't tell you about them before the games. But we used to have a guy that we worked with. Remember Paul Gorgie. and Paul's still a good friend. He was a sales guy at 980 for years. And Paul was the king of Monday morning, went six and one.

You know, Monday morning. Oh, you had Tampa Bay? Oh, no, no, no. I had Chicago. You were on the Cardinals? Oh, no, no, I had Seattle. I went seven and one. I had that one loss.

And every Monday, he was a winner, every Monday. And I finally just said to him, I go, I don't want to hear on Monday about what you did anymore. I want to hear your picks on Friday. And once that started to happen, I realized that honestly, A, he may have been betting not that much. B, he was losing a lot more than he was talking about. But those that don't bet will always tell you, oh, that's dumb. I wouldn't have done that.

I would have bet it the other way. Really? But you didn't, right? But you didn't, did you? So, yeah, there's a little bit of bravery. involved in taking it? I don't know if bravery is the right worst. Actually, there's a lot of stupidity involved. I mean, bravery, that's sort of like diminishes the word bravery. Well, I think here's what I would say. I would say that there's a level of risk that some people actually get a rush out of

and other people cower when they're forced to take it. And that's, oh yeah, absolutely there. So, yeah, anyway, the NFC East is horrible. And the Cowboys, the Cowboy fan base, they've already turned on McCarthy. Of course they had already turned on Jones. You know, Dak Prescott, all the, you know, the viral videos and memes last night of Dak Prescott laughing hysterically and, you know, taking a Brinks truck up to Jerry's front door and saying, or Jerry taking the Brinks truck up and saying, you know, name your price. Whatever. It's a terrible division. Washington can win on Sunday against Dallas and be in first place in the NFC East on Sunday. That's how crazy it is. And I said this with Cooley yesterday. I'm predicting a Washington win Sunday. I did that before last night. I am taking out my you know what's and I am wagering on Washington to beat Dallas on Sunday. I think they, I don't think Dallas is very good. I don't think Washington is very good. I think Washington is very good. I think Washington is very good. I think Washington,

is going to win four games, something like that. And I think one of them is going to be on Sunday. You know, I don't think you're wrong. I don't think you're wrong. Well, you know, I mean, Dallas looks so bad. I think that's, I think Washington winning on Sunday is a good bet. Yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, it's, it really seems, it's such a pathetic matchup. I mean, to think of what you. you lived through when it was Washington versus Dallas and what it is now. I mean, it's, it's, I, I don't even know how to describe, uh, you know, what a magnificent, what a magnificent matchup that's used to be and how far it's fallen. I mean, it's, it's just, I mean, I'm not even a Washington fan and it's sad. So it's interesting that you bring that up. First of all, just a couple of minutes ago, I saw Ben Standig tweet out that this is probably the least anticipated Washington Dallas game of all time. There have been several of them, actually. Yes, there have. It really,

I mean, they played on 2001 on a Monday night game when both teams, I think Washington was 0 and 4, Dallas was 0 in 5. Washington was up 7 to 6. Stephen Davis fumbled. Dallas ended up winning the game 9 to 7. But then Washington took off. They were 0 in 5 after that. game and then they took off. They won their next five games under Marty Schottenheimer, won eight of their final 11. And it was interesting because I remember that Monday night game. And the reason I remember it is that it was the highest rated Monday night game of the year that year in 2001, even though it was 0 and 4 versus 0 and 5. And that was still, you were still in that window of the power of Washington versus Dallas when it came.

All you need to know now is that it's a one o'clock game Sunday. Yeah, I mean, it's not a primetime game. It's not a national television game. But there have been a bunch of these games in recent years between these two franchises. But this, it was going to lead me to this, which is, you know, how over the years before Dallas games, you know, as a show host on radio podcast, you've done the same.

You always think about talking about, all right, Let's do the one, let's do the couple of segments about the rivalry. You know what, Tommy? I don't even care to do that. Like, I think that fewer people really care. It's not. Well, you've been, not only that, it seems, I mean, if you're looking for, you're hoping for at least a semblance of originality, even though, you know, everything is a copy of everything else. and really the story about the diminishing of the of the rivalry is a cliche now yeah it's been going on for so long it's a cliche

definitely you know tell us tell us something new right right i mean we know nobody cares about it anymore yeah it's it's it's useless to write about i've got reams of i i'm doing this transcription of Redskins interviews from the past that I've had. I have reams of stuff from players about the Dallas-Washington rivalry and what it meant. You know, but I mean, why would I trot that out again now? I mean, you know, it's meaningless now. They, you know, they play the Cowboys on Thanksgiving this year. And, you know, whenever Washington and Dallas have played on Thanksgiving and God,

They played on Thanksgiving a lot in recent years, you know, a lot. They played on Thanksgiving in 2018. They played on Thanksgiving in 2016. That was the last game. The 2016 game really felt like in the moment, okay, this thing could get back to something here over the next couple of years. Washington won the division the year before. They remember they had just crushed the Packers and Aaron Rogers on Sunday night. that was the

How do you like me now game? And they went to Dallas and it was just a fabulous football game. Dallas won it. Dallas was 9 and 1. Washington was 6, 3 in 1. It was the best aggregate record matchup between the two teams in like decades.

And there they were. And Dallas was awesome with Zeke and with Dak and Cousins was having a big year and Washington looked good. And it was a massive game. And it's been all downhill since. Yes.

Anyway, you know, you had the 2012 RG3 game at the end of the year for the division. You're right. It's a cliche. This is now, I do believe that if either team got really good and they started playing meaningful games against one another again, it would become a big deal. Remember, Tommy, for decades, the Green Bay Packers meant nothing. in the NFL. When Lombardi left, they weren't good in the 70s with the exception of like one year with John Brockington. They played Washington in the postseason. They weren't very good in the 80s, and they

weren't good for the early portion of the 90s until Brett Favre got back. So that rivalry, their rivalries between Chicago and Green Bay, which has always been a massive rivalry, became cliche, you know, because Green Bay sucked. So if Washington ever got good again and Dallas ever got, got good again, it would come right back and it would be a big deal for the NFL. But it's not right now. No one cares. No one cares. So I think I'm going to make the decision this week to really not talk about what Washington,

Dallas meant to me and to everybody else that listened. I think it's gotten old in recent years. Okay, great. The championship game in 83, the championship game in, you know, 72. the great Monday night game with Ken Houston, the great 35, 34, all the games. I mean, you know, all the memories. At this point, who cares?

It's so long ago, it is, you know, I don't know, in the 90s, were they talking about bears, redskins from the 40s anymore? No. Were they? I don't think so. It's almost, I mean, it's almost been that long. It's so meaningless. Yeah.

Anyway. So how about our head coach? Wow. I'm a little perplexed. I was actually, I wrote a column off the game Sunday for Mondays, Washington Times. You can still read it probably somewhere on the website at Washington Times.com. You sent it to me and I've read it. Yeah.

And I'm in a minority on this, I guess, that really calls. in the question his decision to go for two points at the end of the game one of a number of I don't think you're in the minority I would say you're in the majority I haven't heard many people think that it was the right thing to do it wasn't the right thing to do well I mean I guess I guess from what I'm seeing is the Washington media that's covering this coach and it's going down the same path that they did with Jay Gruden where you know everything he does is right and he's a really good coach. And then all of a sudden you wake up one day and he's not, you know?

Yeah. So, I mean, are you accusing me of that? I mean, because I could be because I think I thought it was a good hire and I thought Ron Rivera was a good coach in Carolina. Right. I thought what was was a good hire and it still may be a good hire. You can't evaluate everything in a COVID year with the coach having cancer taking over the worst organization in football. But in the moment, there's a lot of confusing things about the coach. And, you know, I mean, this whole notion of going for it for the win, for the two points to help change the

culture, to, you know, teach his team a lesson and show that he believes in them. couldn't you have done that if you had kicked the extra point and went into overtime? Of course you could have. I mean, couldn't all the same lessons be taught? Wouldn't it be a level of confidence to say, look, I'm going to kick the extra point because I know we get these guys on the field for another 10 or 15 minutes and we'll beat them. Yeah, I mean, thanks for listening to the podcast yesterday. It's exactly what I said.

Like this notion, and you know I love Sally, and Sally writes this, you know, column and I'm paraphrasing about, you know, the guys on the couch that don't know anything. I mean, this was a firm, bold decision. No, actually, you could have made the firm, bold decision to say, get out there, kick the extra point. We're the better team right now. We're going to go kick their ass in overtime because that would have been the right answer. We're manhandling them up and down the field.

Of course. Of course. We've got Chase Young. We have Chase Young. Chase, go out there and get the ball. If they get the ball first, which, you know, does favor them, obviously, in overtime. Go get the ball, Chase.

Playing to win, playing to teach your players how to learn how to win, all the platitude stuff we're hearing from this guy. He's got to stop talking. Somebody's got to help him shorten up his answers because it's just, it's really, it's gotten annoying. You know, you can do that by kicking the extra point, you know? You can do that. I mean, that does not exclude kicking the extra point as an answer, especially when kicking the extra point in context, gives you more likely than not a higher probability of winning the game.

You know, they were the better team in that moment. They, I believe it was advantage Washington going to overtime. Still, the most nonsensical part of everything. And I saw Russell really get after him on his Monday presser yesterday, Chris Russell. And I said this yesterday. why is he talking about a philosophy of home and road? These are neutral site games. These are neutral arena games.

There's no advantage to playing at home or on the road this year. Is he unaware of this? I pointed that out in the column. I said, what's he talking about? The fake crowd noise? I don't know what he's talking about. I mean, what was that all about? I mean, it's like you're living in a different world.

when you hear him say something like that. And I mean, you've got to be looking at each other saying, what's he talking about? You know, there's, I mean, it's 2020. There's nobody in the stands. He said, Russell asked him about, you know, this approach, this philosophical, we go for the win on the road, we go for overtime, we kick for overtime at home.

And look, there are some statistics out there that say that if you're at home, you've got a better chance of winning an over. time than the road team. Right. But everything should be in that situation a mixture of analytics, context, you know, what you're seeing in the moment. These hard and fast rules are stupid, you know, because how would it about, like I think

I gave this example yesterday. Can you imagine, you know, you've got this hard and fast rule of going for the win on the road. And your offense has produced zero points and 14 yards on the day and can't make a yard against the team you're playing on the road. But your defense gets a fumble return late, and it's 7 to 6, and you're going to put your offense out there? You're going to put your offense out there to go for a two-point conversion in that context? Like, stop it with that approach. You've got, you've got to include context. Who are we playing? What's the game situation? Who's injured? Who

isn't? Do we have a play that we think will work in this situation? There's so much to it. But Russell said, asked him on the road versus home thing, considering that there aren't any fans. And he said, yeah, that's pretty much the approach that I used that we were on the road. Sure, there weren't any fans. To be honest with you, I didn't even think about that. The only thing I was thinking about was that this was an opportunity for us to win. You're down at the two-yard line. You feel good about the play you call. You feel good about the guys that are on the field. We just scored. We had momentum. We had energy.

So I figured that now was the chance to do something and see if we can do it. Unfortunately, it didn't work. And then Russell follows up. But he said, so just to clarify, if you had been at FedEx Field, you would have kicked it, you would have gone for the tie. And he said, I'm just looking at what the statistics tell us. So a couple of things. First of all, he said this in multiple answers yesterday. We were down there at the two-yard line for the two-point conversion.

We were down there. Let me just... Where else are you going to be? For those that don't know this, that's always where the two-point conversion down there. It's always where the two-point conversion play takes place. Secondly, when he kept saying, we had the momentum, we had the energy,

we had just scored. You know, well, then why, with all the momentum? And he did have the momentum. They had run 31 plays to the giant six plays since late in the third quarter. So why would you have it come down to one play? You know, there is. no doubt a probability formula that says if you are the better team, more plays will give you a better

chance to prove that than fewer plays. That's why when you're a big underdog, right, you want to shorten the game. Fewer plays. If you are the favorite in that moment, and I would, if I were an odds maker and they had just scored and I'd watch that game start to finish, I would have made Washington a favorite in overtime. A slight favorite, but a favorite nonetheless. So if you are the favorite at that point, you want more plays, not one play, not one play. Because, you know, because first of all, if you're using the numbers on two-point conversions, it's less than a 50-50 overall, over the years, currently in recent years, it's about a 48% rate. Yeah, it's close, but it's under 50%. But you're not even flipping a coin at that point. You're

actually it's a better chance you're going to get stopped based on the numbers. Anyway, his explanation, once again, nonsensical, you know, the whole thing yesterday. He's talking about the division again. He mentioned, you know, that there's still, you know, the biggest thing is that, you know, we moved the ball and we felt good about that and defensively we had a good game and we had guys stepped up and you just hope that, you know, what's happened is I've challenged these guys because of the circumstances in our division. It's not like anybody's running away with it right now. We're going to keep seeing what happens each week. Well, I mean, they must have been on a group text last night watching the Cowboys saying, well, we're better than them, you know, because

you know what, they might be, actually. Now, you mentioned this on Sunday on Twitter I saw. I wrote about it in my column. Here's this is another part of what he did in his press conference on Sunday. Have you ever seen a coach read the statistics of a quarterback? No. A loss after the game. I'm sure it's happened, but this was not the place for it to happen. You're right.

I mean, that was such a bizarre moment for him to actually reel off the statistics in a losing effort of his quarterback. Isn't this what Dwayne Haskins got in trouble for for talking about statistics? in the locker room after he lost the game? I mean, I think there's that whole thing. I mean, look, first of all, that's at this point been a report. Secondly, I don't, you know, a player reading his fantasy stats after a loss is pretty bad. A coach in the middle of a press conference, you know, asking whether or not his quarterback's going to start the following week. It's not the answer I would have given.

I mentioned this yesterday, and it sounds like you read my tweet. it's a real simple answer. The offense was better, but it wasn't good enough, but he's our starter next week. Next question. He starts ripping off the stats. I mean, come on, dude. It was another bizarre week moment in the press conference. And all that said, like you said, he'll probably beat the Cowboys.

I don't know if they're going to be the Cowboys. They're going to win four games this year. They're going to win four games. I think he's just. I think there's a, I mean, again, I hate to do this every single time because it sounds like I'm making excuses for him. I just, I don't think he's right right now. And I think there are reasonable reasons for him not to be completely with it right now. And so with that said, if I were the PR department, I would be out there trying to protect him a little bit.

I would be really trying to help him. But, you know, he's got a, you know, we've had a couple of people call in on the radio show and say, look, it is good for. for him to be working. It's better for his health to be working. And if that's true, great. But he's impacted right now. Decision-making, you know, press conferences, probably tired, impacted, because I don't think I've ever been in this, and this is saying a lot for this franchise, through a month and a half of press conferences that have been more mixed-messaged, nonsensical. He was asked, by the way, about the mixed messaging yesterday. He said, I'm not, you know, He doesn't feel like he's giving out mixed messages, which is fine.

I mean, are we playing to win or are we playing for the long game? Are we, you know, are we, he doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, I don't know. Somebody suggested me, Portis did this morning. He said maybe he's legitimately tanking, which is why he went for two. And I said, well, what if he had made the two-point conversion? Yeah. You know, what if he had made it?

That doesn't make sense. Yeah, what if he had made it and won the game? Yeah, well, the play call wasn't great. You know, maybe he thought the play that they would call wouldn't have a chance of scoring. I don't know. I don't think he's tanking, to be honest with you. I don't think that that's what's going on right now. You know what?

I mean, you could easily make the case, and I'm going to ask you here in a second, that if he were really trying to tank, he'd be playing Haskins or Alex Smith. He actually played the guy on Sunday that clearly after the game Sunday against the Giants, and I know it was against the Giants. I understand that. But he's the guy that clearly gives him the best chance to be professional offensively right now. And Kyle Allen.

Well, you know, I mean, he said the PR department should kind of protect him a little bit. They were pretty busy last week promoting Alice Smith's six SAC performance. Last week, all you saw on social media were stories and interviews, about Alex Smith and how he survived six sacks. Again, I've never seen a team go out of its way to promote a game where they suffered six sacks like this organization did.

It's just the whole beginning, the whole beginning of it is bizarre. Usually, like you said, usually it takes a while to get to the bizarre part for this team. I mean, usually, you know, in the beginning, I mean, Jim Zorn seemed relatively normal in the beginning, you know, a little bit. I mean, it's just, it's just, we've like, we've spit up to the dysfunctional part, like, immediately. Much faster than you've even ever predicted. Yes, yes. But again, all that said, all this could be meaningless. It could be mean.

It's such a screwed up year for so many reasons. And this is why I don't want, I don't think he should be out there coaching because it's, it's a lost year. It's an irrelevant year. Just kiss it off, you know. But, you know, he could, you know, I mean, next year they could come back and he could seem like the smartest guy in the room again. Well, if he ever did, I don't know if he was. I didn't see him that much in Carolina. Cooley said something to me last week in the podcast, Tommy, that I thought was like, you know, he said,

look, you were a fan of his, but did you really know? Like, we're all, you know, we all watch football. We're all sports fans. But really the teams that we know the most are the teams where we follow the every day. And we listen to the every press conference. And we see how things are handled in every game. And he's, you know, because Cooley. has soured on Rivera. I don't know that he was ever a fan of Rivera, but he has really, he said,

this is really not good in the offensive coordinator selection was not a good one at this point, even though he conceded too that, you know, they were much more professionally incompetent offensively on Sunday than they've been. I think this season is heading to four wins. you know, if they can get to four quickly, you know, then we'll have meaningful games in November and December. But, no, I think they're heading to like a four-win season. And hopefully that'll be enough to get into like the Justin Fields, you know. The quarterback of their team is not on their roster next year, the quarterback of their future. No, absolutely not.

He's definitely not on the roster. So that's why it just seems like a lost season. And look, what's fair is, and I talk about this all the time. You know, that's not fair to Washington football fans because they've suffered so many lost seasons. They've suffered far more lost seasons than seasons of meaning, you know, over the past 20 years. And like people say, well, you got to give him some time. He's just getting started. it seems like one long continuous start.

It's like they've been waiting, you know, for years for this corner to be turned, and it never gets turned. So, I mean, I understand when Washington fans are after, you know, people say, well, what did you expect? Did you expect them to be good? No, I mean, the rational part didn't expect them to be good, but that doesn't mean that you have to swallow it. That doesn't mean that you can't express your outrage that you've lived through this so many times, waiting for it to get better.

And it never does. I am not going to bail on Ron Rivera, but I'm also not going to avoid the question six games into his first season, which is a reasonable one. And that is, did they make a mistake hiring Ron Rivera? It's a reasonable question. I know it's only... Let's deal with the reality here. Just briefly. Just let me do it briefly.

It really didn't matter who they hired. I know. But you do this all the time, and it's like, okay, so what do you want to do the podcast about? I know that. I get that. Dan Snyder owns the team. He's going to continue to own the team, which means they're never going to be any good. They're going to lose more than they win.

They're going to have more turmoil than not. So what do you want to do today? You want to talk about the weather? A lot of people enjoyed the cover. Bridges conversation from the other day. I mean, they did. I understand that. By the way, Saturday, I was hiking the C&O Canal up here.

So we could talk about that as well. But look, I think that when you start bringing it, did they make the right hire? I think you enter into the conversation. It doesn't matter who they hired. I understand that. I do understand that. So why not hire this guy? So let me restate then, okay?

Okay. Is Ron Rivera the guy to turn it around? Or at this point, what's your opinion on Ron Rivera through six games? I'll get one word on Ron Rivera through six games. One word. Give me one word right now. Overwhelmed. I was more looking for a word that you would utter about,

your reaction to him. You're saying he's overwhelmed. Yeah. That's fine. That answer is fine. My one word would be concerned. I'm legitimately concerned. That would be two words.

But I'm concerned that he's not the right guy. I am. I mean, I think I told Cooley this yesterday. I had somebody tweet me over the weekend. You flip flopped on Hoskins and you're flip flopping on Rivera. Whatever. I'm telling you how I feel in the moment, okay? information changes opinions and influences opinions, and if you're hard and fast sticking with an opinion based on new information, well, that's your problem.

I like using new information and new data and then forming a new opinion. I liked Ron Rivera. I liked the hiring of Ron Rivera six weeks into this season based on what I've seen on the field and based on more importantly, the way I hear him handling things and talking about things, concerned. And the concern is maybe he ain't the guy. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe they were wrong. It certainly wouldn't be surprising if they were wrong. And at the same time, I feel badly saying that, because this could all be a result of him battling cancer right now for crying out loud. Yes, it could. Yes, it could. And, you know, we're not hearing anything from the players. The players seem to love them. So, you know.

We certainly didn't hear, to me, part of the thing that I was impressed by is all of the players that played for them, all the coaches that coached with them. They all loved them. Yes. So. Yeah. Now, one other thing, just set aside, and I know this is just a stupid little thing. Did you know this that Thomas Davis didn't play on Sunday and was not hurt? Yes.

Isn't that his guy? Yeah, but Cooley pointed this out that Davis' best days are clearly behind him based on his film breakdown of Davis's play the last few weeks. He's just not capable like he once was. And Cooley really down on Bostic. Bostic continued to play, but they got Cole Holcomb out there for the first time this year. Yeah, they did. Yeah. They're trying things.

You know, like I had somebody say to me, it's really interesting, right, that Haskin, They're one in five, and Haskins is the only guy that's been benched. Well, that's not true, okay? They benched West Martin the other day. They benched Troy Apkey. You know, they benched Fabian Moreau. They've tried a lot of different things. They're trying.

You know, they're learning too. I mean, you know, I don't want to use the offseason and the lack of one as an excuse because a lot of other teams had that issue as well. But, you know, the teams, especially with new coaches, the Giants, the Cowboys, Washington, Cleveland, and Carolina's been the one in Cleveland, too, with Stefansky. They've done a good job, but, you know, I don't know that Cleveland's going to end up in the postseason either, but they're still figuring it out. But they've tried a lot of different things so far. To say that is just, I find that to be, when I hear somebody say that and say it in the

way that this was said to me, it's like they're implying, the overtone is that it's somehow racially motivated. Oh, yeah. But it's, you've got to deal in facts. He's not the only guy that's been benched. They've been trying a lot of things here, you know, with the players that have been struggling. Have they sat down landing Collins yet?

No. They don't have a lot of options to sit landing Collins down. They have sat Troy Apkey down. They sat Sean Dion Hamilton down. He didn't play very well. They clearly thought that Thomas St. a senior to your point, who is a favorite of the coach, shouldn't see any time on Sunday. So, you know, sometimes it's amazing the way opinions are formed and people just accept them

without actually looking up whether or not they're true or not. I was going to, so I want to take a break because I don't know if you saw this, and I just saw it. And it's a screenshot of an Instagram that, Dwayne Haskins put out yesterday. I'll be honest with you. I don't understand it, really. Maybe you will. We'll do that next. It's the Kevin Sheehan podcast.

Tommy's on. Coolie's coming up with this film breakdown. We're back after this message from one of our sponsors. So yesterday, Tommy, Dwayne Haskins put out an Instagram post. I'm going to read it to you, but I have to give you the context of it. Justin LaBoy, I don't know who Justin LaBoy is. Do you know who Justin LaBoy is? No, I know who Cocoa LaBoy is.

He used to play for the Minnesota Twins, I think, in the 60s. Or he played for the Expos, I think, for a while too. I don't think that there's a relationship there. There could be. Justin LaBoy is, it says he's a former professional basketball player and he's some big-time social media personality. Look, several of you were probably like, and you don't know who LaBoy is?

No, I don't. He Instagrammed out, I hate people like this. Bitch, it's my turn to complain about you right now. Don't try and bring up issues you have with me. Go to hell. And then a lot of, you know, smiling, laughing, crying emojis, hashtag respectfully. So Dwayne was responding or answering to this.

And Dwayne put this out on his Instagram. and then he took it down, but somebody got it screen capped and screenshot it before he took it down. It reads, quote, if I bring up an issue I have with you, that is not your time to bring up any grievances you have with me. You had time and opportunity just like me, but you chose not to. Now is your time to listen, not deflect. And so he had that up on his Instagram briefly and then took it down. but it got screenshoted. Now, on Twitter, I'm not following him on Instagram.

I've been following him on Twitter, and he did congratulate Cam Sims, who had his first touchdown. Yes, he did. And he retweeted a Cam Sims tweet saying, super proud of you, been working to have an opportunity to like this for years, a way to capitalize on your moment, fam, keeping my fingers crossed. He also, you know, Instagram, tweeted out when Dak Prescott got injured. last week praying for you big bro at DAC.

And he's really been absent for the most part on Twitter. You know, no retweeting stuff. Of course, there probably haven't been any favorable reviews of his performance to retweet. But what does this mean if I bring up an issue I have with you? That is not your time to bring up any grievances you have with me. You had time and opportunity just like me, but you chose not to. Now is your time to listen, not deflect. So it's sort of in response to this Justin LaBoy thing.

Look, do you have any sense of what it means? No, I mean, it could be something personal. He could be talking to a friend or a girlfriend for all we know. Right. So I'm conceding that I have no idea what it means. I have no idea who he's responding to. I don't know any of the context. But what I would suggest, and maybe somebody suggested to him,

which is why he took it down so quickly, that he not put out these kinds of messages on social media right now, whether they are completely benign or they're cryptic or they're more direct. You know, I don't care which of the three they are. Right now, the perception he should try to create, and really it should be a reality, for his team of coaches and teammates and the rest of the league, is that he recognizes that his career is hanging in the balance right now,

and the only thing that matters to him is football. That's it. The only thing that matters is in the facility every day doing what the coaches tell him to do, and more than that. And so, again, I don't know anything about what this means. I'm not saying that it was some sort of message to the team or to the fan base or to anybody else. I'm just saying that whoever gave me the advice to take it down quickly, I think that was good advice. He should be absent on social media, absent from doing interviews.

And the only discussion should come from others about him, about how well he's handling himself right now. and the adversity that he's facing. Well, he's not going to be able to sustain that. Most people his generation can't seem to. It's good advice, but I don't think he'll be able to sustain that. Not everybody in his generation, you know, lives for social media approval. Not everybody. That's true.

Not everybody does. Yeah. Concerning Haskins, you know, the biggest story around the, this team right now that we don't know anything about what what's the owner's reaction to his quarterback being benched um we don't know anything no i i had clinton porters on the radio show this morning and i said have you talked to dan and he said right before the season started that's the last time he talked to him and he just said that he's going through a hell of a lot right now you know yeah there's a lot of you know um a lot of stuff he's going through but but on sunday he's watching his

football team, he notices who's out there playing quarterback. So, I mean, as much as he's going through, you know, he still has one day a week where his guy isn't, he notices his guy isn't out there under center. And if he's not reacting at all, and if he's fine with it, that's a story. If he's chomping at the bit and he's angry at it, of course, that's a story. but if he's doing nothing or if he's privately saying whatever the coach wants is fine

and he really means that, that's a story. I guess. It is. I know. You know what, I'm not looking for stories anymore. I mean,

I know that it, it's really, I just can't, like you said, I can't believe we've gotten to this point so quickly. Quickly. I mean, you know,

you had the overunder on Lafamina as a year. year and you know came in at what nine months or whatever yeah i mean the over under on this season unraveling and maybe even the ron riva era unraveling um this season unraveling was i don't know eight nine weeks at least 10 weeks and on riva unraveling it had to be three years it's that numbers come down a little bit yeah yeah it has anyway uh what do you think about the world series I'm actually very much looking forward to watching this World Series. That's good.

You're not? That's good. No. Oh, man. I mean, it's, this is such an illusion. And, you know, God bless them. I know the reporters who are showing up in these press boxes and doing the interviews on Zoom. You know, I know, I know, you know, they're committed and I feel for them and I respect them.

But it's almost like Stockholm syndrome that they're writing that, This is something exciting and interesting and good. This is an aberration. The whole season is, is, is, it's a phony joke. I mean,

it doesn't mean anything. It's like, it's like an interim WBA, light heavyweight title. It's like the title they give in boxing when they have a champion, but they want to create another champion. So they create an interim title. I mean,

It's a phony ear. I mean, this is, this is like a tournament after spring training. And you know what? And this goes for football, too. It's not enough to drive me away from it because I've enjoyed watching the football so far. But the crowd noise is an insult. The fake crowd noise, it's an insult to our intelligence. Well, it's been really bad, too.

I mean, and I know the guy that does it here locally. for the FedEx games, for the in-game experience for the players. So I'm not hearing, I don't think I'm hearing what, whoever's handling the TV. Actually, he's doing the TV. I think somebody else is doing the, I forget now. It's just so inconsistent. It's bad.

It's bad. But it's an insult. It's like the cardboard cutouts. It's all, I mean, my God. I mean, how stupid are we? That we think, wow, this is almost like the real thing. The cardboard cut. Not the real thing.

Yeah. And still like the World Series, I'll watch it, you know, because I watch the, uh, uh, some of the, uh, LCS games. Uh, but, uh, I mean, don't tell me this is a season. Okay. And don't tell me this is something great. All right. Can we get past those of us?

I put myself into that category of being weirdly, you know, um, um, Stockholm's syndrome, you know, psychologically attached to something that was trying to treat me poorly, and cozying up to something that apparently is so bad, because you know I really enjoyed the NBA playoffs. And I had friends of mine saying, what is wrong with you? I'm like, it's good. And Tommy, I watched a lot of the league championship series stuff. The game seven the other night, I was watching that as much as I was watching the Sunday night football game. That was a compelling game.

It felt like a playoff game in October. Seventh game and Bellinger comes up in the seventh tie game. You know, the way that game started with May on the mound struggling in the first inning, I disagree with you. I understand why we're going to look back and say, yeah, but. But I'm just telling you the games in the moment are exciting. Games in the moment are exciting. Yeah, I'm enjoying the game.

I can't forget. I can't forget. What did these teams do to get there? They went through a 60 games season. Well, look, the Dodgers were going to be in the postseason. And Tampa was likely going to be in the postseason, too. These were, you know, as it turned out, they were the two best teams in the 60 games sprint. And they were the two best games by a long shot. So, like, it wasn't close. Like, the Dodgers were 43 and 17, and I think Tampa won 40 plus games out of the 60. Nobody else was close to that, right? I think so. Let me just, so my interest lies with this. Clayton Kirshaw, one of the greatest left-handed pitchers of all time in the regular season, but man, has there been pressure on him in the postseason, and he really hasn't delivered Tommy. I think sometimes

it gets a little bit overdone in terms of how poor he's been. He's had some moments in the postseason. He pitched really well in his first two games in this postseason. And he was pitching very well in game four the other night. I think Dave Roberts should have taken him out before he faced Ozuna and Freeman and Ozuna back to back for the third time. I think he would have been better off getting yanked in that spot. But I really want him to do well. I'd like to see, I'd like to see Kershaw become something other than Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley.

You know what I mean? Like really great all-time Hall of Fame, Locke Hall of Famers, that could just never get it done in the postseason. Obviously, Ewing and Barclay had Michael Jordan in their way. But I'd like to see him pitch well, and I'm rooting for the Dodgers. I don't know if you even have an interest. But Dusty Baker nearly got his team into the World Series. That actually, and I know they're cheaters, but I was rooting for Dusty, too.

Look, I was rooting for Dusty, and I know they're. cheaters to. That was part of the reason they hired Dusty was because he was so beloved and respected in baseball that he would diffuse the anti-astro's feeling. It would have been perfect to have the Astros win the World Series. I know. It would have been. It would have been poetic if that would have happened. Look, in a bizarre way, I mean, I'm rooting for Goliath here, the Dodgers, because I know people in the Dodgers organization. and what it would mean to them. I don't know anybody in the Tampa organization.

And I have the feeling that if Tampa wins, it's a validation of the faceless, you know, starless kind of baseball that the geek squad wants when, you know, they're sitting in their basement with their slide rules. And they're saying, well, let's just change this player with this player. You know, really doesn't matter. you know, if he's a star or not, you know, his analytics say this. Tampa is the team that represents that.

And if they win, it's a step towards, it's a step towards, it's a win for the bad guys. How's that? Well, the Dodgers are an analytics team too. I know that. But they turn around and they traded for Mookie Betts. Yeah, they did. And he's been phenomenal. All right.

Do you have a pick or not? Do I have a pick? No, you don't. No, I don't have a pick. But I have one thing to say to you before we go. What? Antonio Brown can return in two weeks. Oh, God.

Think about that. I just did. I just did, and my thought is no chance. But it would be, you know what? It would make our jobs a little bit. It would add some spice to a season that's basically got none left. No taste. left in this season. Let's get some, let's get some taste back into it. That would actually be kind of fun. Can you imagine him with poor Kyle Allen? Oh, God. That would be the fun. How painful would it be for Dwayne Haskins to sit there and watch Antonio Brown take passes from Kyle Allen. I know. All right. Go enjoy whatever you're going to do today outside or transcribing an old, you know, column or put into some digital format, whatever you've been doing.

I'm sorry my days are not as productive as yours. No, yours are very busy. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Go back in the laboratory, discover a cure for a disease? No, I'm actually playing golf today. There you go. You're pathetic.

Let's see you. I will talk to you on Thursday. Thank you, Tommy. Okay, boss. Bye. Cooley next, right after this word from one of our sponsors. We're going in-depth, play-by-play. The Cooley Film breakdown.

is Cooley and Kevin. All right, Cooley's with us. We're going to get the film breakdown on the offense started. I asked Tommy this earlier in the show. The Cowboys looked so awful last night. I mean, seriously, they looked almost as bad as Washington did against the Rams Cooley a week ago. They're terrible. Like right now, this division is shaping up to be the worst in NFL history.

Give me your prediction right now. Who wins the division and what's the record? I can't even predict that. Am I seriously going to predict that the record's going to be six and ten or four? Philly's got a tie. My prediction was Philly would win it at six, nine and one. They've got championship pedigree. They've got the best coaching staff.

They have the best quarterback. But they don't have anybody left on their team. They lost Ertz for a month. They lost Sanders for another two weeks on Sunday. And by the way, the schedules, you know, division plays the AFC North and the NFC West. I mean, the Eagles still have, listen to this schedule. They have the Giants, Cowboys, Giants, the next three, okay?

Then at Cleveland, Seattle, Green Bay, the Saints, the Cardinals. So, I mean, are they going to win six games and win the division at six, nine, and one? Whoever gets to six is going to win the division. That one would look better at six, nine and one, because at least the It's not a 10-loss season. True. Never had a 10-loss division winner. We've had 7-9s a few times.

Remember, New Orleans. Seattle beat New Orleans in that playoff game is a 7-9. The famous run in that playoff game by what's, why am I blanking on his name right now? Marshawn Lynch. Marshawn Lynch. Jesus, God. Yeah, they were 7-9 and won that one. And then the Panthers of Ron Rivera in 2014 went 7, 8, and 1 won a playoff game and nearly won a second playoff game.

Anyway, awful division. The Cowboys stink. God, they're bad. They get out of their own way. I mean, it's hysterical. I said to you, they'll try to control the game more, and Ezekiel Elliott will have more touches. He fumbled twice in two possessions. He's got a fumbling problem, massive fumbling problem this year.

That's his fourth lost fumble this year. fourth lost fumble in six games. Like that's a problem. It's insane. I mean, I liked Andy Dalton. He looked terrible last night. One quick thing on Kyler Murray. Kyler Murray's really inaccurate as a thrower.

He's really good, though. Don't get me wrong. No, but he has those moments. Like when he hits Christian Kirk 50 yards down field for an 80-yard touchdown, that's very accurate. He still has those moments where you're, looking at him going, Jesus, this dude can play. You know what I think he is?

I think he's just a faster, more athletic, better vision, better feel for the game, RG3. Well, because RG3 had the gun too. More athletic. Yeah, that's actually a really good comparison. It doesn't see the field entirely well, but can. Like, can hit his one read. in timing when he has to.

There's something, yeah, I don't doubt that. It's just he could evade and allude and people have to play him so different. He's a really interesting player because there's enough to him where you're like, I don't know, man, but then there's enough to him where you're like, this dude's incredible. He's the fastest quarterback I've ever seen, ever. I've never seen anybody as fast as he is. I've never seen anybody also. Well, Lamar Jackson's.

pretty comparable. That's true. They're comparable. Murray, I think, is quicker. Did you see the naked bootleg on a fourth and one that he kept? Oh, yeah. That's an unbelievable, like, there's no way to stop that. There's no chance you can stop that.

I don't know. By the way, they have some pass rushers that I didn't even play against Dusted. That guy, number 45, Guardek. play against Washington? No. Oh my God, he's, he was unblockable. Now, Dallas is messed up along the offensive line. They got all these injuries.

They're done. They're not going to win five games. And we're going to, and Washington's going to win Sunday. I'm telling you right now they're going to win this game Sunday. I think they are going to win the game, which makes it even crazier because you're looking at this division like, is Dallas going to be in first place in the division with two wins after this game? Or I guess we would theoretically, right? Yeah, or, you know, yes, it's possible that we could be in first place on Sunday.

Although, actually, if the Giants won because of the head-to-head, they'd be in first place if they beat Philly because they play Philly. And if Philly won Philly would be. So actually, we cannot be in first place. I think I just figured that out for the first time today. Right? Am I right about that? The Giants play the Eagles? So if the Giants win, they're two and five. And so even if we won to go two and five, they would, the Eagles would be one.

five and one. The Cowboys would be two and five. There'd be a three-way tie for first place. And I think the, I don't know, the Cowboys beat the Giants, so I don't know how that would work. Who cares? Let's get to your film breakdown from the Giant game, because it doesn't matter because this is an embarrassment of a division. I think Philly's got the championship pedigree. They've got the quarterback. And at this point, I think they either the Eagles or the Giants are going to win the division. those two teams. Yes, I said it, the Giants. They might win the division. The Giants might win this is insanity. I know. They get the first win in week six. All right. Let's get to your film breakdown from the Giant game and start with the quarterback, Kyle Allen. This is a really

interesting game. I think in general, I wanted to go through a couple plays before we get to Kyle Allen. Okay. I mean, normally we just get through the plays with Kyle Allen, but there's a few plays and a few things that I just, I wanted to talk about. And I wanted to start with one, the two-point conversion. You know, the two-point conversion, they got exactly what they wanted, Kevin. They run outs on both sides.

So it's basically Omaha, Omaha, Omaha. Not good looks to any of the outs, but in the middle of the field, it leaves Antonio Gibson one-on-one with the middle. middle linebacker. And he's running an angle route or what a lot of people call it Texas route where he's just really pushing like he's going out towards the flat and then trying to break back in front of the face of the linebacker. God, he wets the bed on this thing. Like this is one of those routes where you have to feel the backer start to go over the top. You've got to convince him that he's got to run with you a little bit in that direction to the flat. He breaks that route

at one yard. I mean, I don't even know if he crosses the line of scrimmage before he breaks back into the middle of the field. And Alan's now got nowhere to go with it. The problem with this concept is essentially, you have out routes working outside of him, all the receivers breaking outwards. So you can't really read that one to two.

Right. Like, if you're going to do this, you've got to have back end line throws from your outside receivers. Like you can have the underneath guys running the five, five yard outs, but behind them, you trail them with the end line throws, unless there's a bus. Like on the right side, it was two speed outs. If you want to read the Texas or the running back, where are you going after that? Because you can't check down outroutes on the sidelines.

So that's what's crazy to me. I just, I look at this play and I'm like, it should have scored. You're talking about a guy who played receiver in college. You love him. you got the matchup you wanted. I get it. It's a one-man show. It's just he doesn't win.

No, it's not even close. It's not even close to winning. And then he sort of gets... No, but if you freeze frame it with two steps from his position, from the running back position, you would go, this is a one-on-one premier matchup. He sort of gets bracketed, though, doesn't he, a little bit? No, he doesn't get bracketed. There's a backer coming from way back on the backside, but he's got to push the front.

I think it's who's sitting in the middle, 54. He's got to push the front side back. Is that Martinez? That's Martinez. He has to push Martinez out towards the flat. All right. And he doesn't. It's not a good route.

It's a terrible route. But if you're Scott Turner, you're pulling this up with Ron and the coaches meeting the next morning. You're like, this is what we wanted. I knew we'd get this down on the two-point play. We ran it in practice. We executed it. Gibson did a good job. there and you know it's his fault to Randy Randy Jordan I told you tell him push for

width and debt not break off too early you're ruining my plays a Kyle Allen comes off him pretty quickly too like he knows that he's not going to win I don't what you could have done there if you were Gibson is you could have bent in felt pressure from the backer who was not going you were not going to break off and then whip back out like a Texas whip. I don't think Cooley, and we talked about this yesterday, and I just want to know what you think after looking at this play, I don't think Alan, even if he is super decisive, beats Gibral Peppers to the end zone. Do you?

No. I mean, he could. I think New York did a really good job of plastering and playing scramble drill. Yeah, there's no way he's. going to make that. He's not fast enough. And Peppers is really fast. Yeah, no, he's

going to have to make the most incredible run of all time. John L.A. helicopter and the Super Bowl type of run here. He's going to have to, or he's going to have to juke him and cut inside of his momentum and somehow... Yeah, I don't even know if Kyler Murray gets in there. No. Yeah, I totally agree with

that. Let's shut down that conversation. He could not have made it, no matter how decisive. he was not going to make it running. No. What else you got on this play? A couple other of the critical plays in this game. The sack fumble.

Yes. Touchdown. Sack fumble touchdown. Yes. He actually has right man to man against a corner. Or sorry, running a corner. And if he lets it go in timing his right starts to come out of that break, he's going to convert the first down there.

You got to have better ball security. But man, I think he's got to shot it right. That said, what you see here is a stunt by New York on defense. And into the second, there was really not a lot of pressure in this game until really later into the third, fourth quarter. And they essentially figured out that Geron Christian and West Switzer could not pass off stunts on that side. So they would slant their defensive end down inside and their detackle outside. And it was, they couldn't pass it off. really they took the detackle first and the detackle ran through the outside shoulder of Switzer

and then ran right into Jerome Christian and the D-N would loop inside and he was free. That was almost the only pressures that the Giants got. They did a good job understanding throughout the game that they were going to get those stunts. But God, what a shitty job figuring out between Christian and Switzer. Like, how do you want to pass these off? Because essentially it looks like they're locking man to man and you can't. It's impossible. You get picked that.

way. So I just, that was something they had to figure out. And then we'll get into, oh, one more thought, and I'm going to go through this a little bit with the backs. The backs are doing a terrible job pushing to where they need to push with their track on zone. And really, vision is pretty average. Some of the run game stuff, I thought, could have been a lot better. Okay. You've said that about Gibson before. Yeah. And it's going to, it's going to, it's going to consists throughout. Okay. So Kyle Allen, as we go through this game, one thing that I think is going to be paramount for them to get better is he is going to have to operate better with his play action fakes. The run fake is non-existent. Yeah. There are times that you can pause the film on the end zone

copy at the mesh point with Allen in the back. And you can't even see the ball. Like, he's not even putting the ball out. And when you freeze any of the run action, play action passes, they're not getting anybody. Nobody's buying it. Nobody is buying it. Was Dwayne better with the, you know, ball handling and faking? Yes, Alan's, if this was the Peyton Manning film breakdown,

he would crucify Allen for some of the ball fakes. Peyton Manning was adamant. that the play action look identical to the run. It's entirely different. As you go through the game with Alan, early in the game, there was a ball that he threw over Terry's head. Looked like it could have been a potential pick.

They said, you know, he saw it late. One, it's a terrible fake. Two, the inside team, inside of Terry, tracks the player right there. He should have slipped him inside. And then three, Terry's breaking at, 11 yards on a comeback, a terrible depth. That said, just throw the check down there.

They're too soft. You can't force that thing in there. RPO early in the game, I just noted this, an RPO run that was completely stuffed. Just throw the ball of the hitch outside. He had an illegal shift penalty. Come on, man. Quarterback can't have a penalty.

Right. On the wildcat play. Yeah, exactly. like the Wildcat. Logan Thomas, you know, it made me think, I'm sure it makes everybody think. Logan Thomas is a quarterback at Virginia Tech. He could throw the ball a little bit. They could definitely do some of the RPO stuff and some of the Wildcat stuff like the

Saints do with Taysam Hill. You know, he's never really done that in the NFL. Right. Is he that bad? I think it's a nice mix-up, especially for an offense that's struggling with a lot of things. And I will tell you this, for an offense that's struggling to get defensive players to commit to run action pass, Logan Thomas would make you commit, at least for a little while. There was miscommunication in the game where he threw an out route at Gandy Golden,

and then Gandy Golden was running an out and up. I think they pulled Gandy Golden after that play. He was also hurt in the game, wasn't he? I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I will tell you this. If Golden was just running the out, that's. gets picked. The corner's sitting on that. The corner actually turns and runs with the out and up and doesn't see the ball. There's a third down to 10 on the first drive. Alan really didn't need to flush right from the pocket. Got a deep out in timing. If he hits him on his back hip, really

it ends up being a three-man rush, just too early to leave the pocket a few times, especially to what really isn't pressure. We talked, oh, the first interception. that's a bad, bad throw. Like underneath coverage is falling into the throw. They're falling into everything. It's terrible as far as inman and right getting off the ball and getting down the field. Like you're counting on those guys getting down the field to take deep coverage off of it. The safety's draft on this thing too because they're trying to throw a 15 yard in route behind two seams.

The en route beats both the seams to the middle of the field. This is laughable. again, that said, that ball cannot be thrown there. Logan Thomas is running a collection trash shallow cross. We always called the last guy beneath that, the trasher, the trash route. Just throw the trash route. Yeah, there he is. Just dump it underneath you.

You don't have to force that. He knows that. There's no question about that. The old trash route to Logan Thomas is wide open. It's wide open. Yeah. What's going on? What's going on with the receivers on?

of these routes. I know you pointed out the crossers against zone, but man, the spacing is, you know, I'm a basketball guy, you know, against zone defense, you want great spacing, one great spacing against man defense. You know, the closer you are together, unless you're set in picks, then it's easier to cover more people with less people. They are always so close to one another. There's two answers to your question. Well, there's two possible answers to your question. One of them is correct. One, they don't know how to coach some of the spacing on these routes.

Or Turner doesn't understand the landmarks of where these routes need to end up. When you're running that deep in route and you have the vertical route just inside of it, there's two coaching points. If there's two safeties, split them as fast as you can down the middle of the field. boom, try to take them both, pull both of them off. If there's one safety, you're running through the inside shoulder or the opposite shoulder of that safety, but you're not going across the field.

You're running directly at his inside shoulder. If there's one safety in the middle of the field and you are running that clear it out through route, you're not getting the ball. Your job is to take him out of the play. There are five times in this game where either right or inman are not even coming close to that angle. They're going deep cross over the middle of the field, and that's just the safety is just driving on the in-round. So one would be, and seeing it a lot of times, it would just be that they don't quite understand what I would call the right way to operate this concept.

And then two would be the receivers are morons, and they're not operating. It's one or the other, but it's not good. They clearly have spacing problems. They also have some speed problems. Like on the interception, Wright is jukeing nobody at four yards. You've got to go, bro. We're trying to clear this thing out.

You're running a seam. It's not one-on-one with you and the underneath coverage defender. All he's trying to do is bump you to disrupt timing a little bit. you do not have to put a one, two, three on him and then re-establish yourself vertical. Run. So there's a couple answers to that. Allen in the second half. I thought early you missed a tight window seam throw versus Blitz.

The blitz came off his right. I thought he had a look in there. He ends up scrambling in the A gap gets two. But really, I thought he had a look there. He had a bad miss on a third and four. Yeah. They're one three and out. Terry McLaurin is running an in-rout inside against two-man and does a damn good job with a double stick and breaks off the trailing defender.

And I think that normally Allen's probably just seen Terry roll that in hard. And possibly Terry with a trail defender could have just rolled in hard. But he does a good job with a little stick at the top. It just changes the timing a little bit. The ball is early and low, but I think as a quarterback, you're thinking if he rolls in hard, that's where the ball will be. Now, here's the thoughts behind this. In Cori-L's offense with Al Saunders, you don't double stick at the top of anything down the field. You roll, speed cut, everything.

Everything. This is not a break-em-off type route. Once he's in a trail position, you roll it in and kill. count on the ball being where it's supposed to be. I don't know what they're telling Terry. I mean, because in every other offense down the field, if you get trail defense or man-to-man defense, you've got to break them off.

So it just depends on the system that they're in. Either way, he missed the throw. I missed a throw to a screen to Logan Thomas on a dangerous high throw that was interesting. Had another screen that was just ugly as sin. It was like the play action. Inman looks like he's running. a reverse fake, Alan aborts

the reverse fake, but then Inman almost runs into him. Yeah. Is that a fly suite? Or that was right. It was right. It was 83. It was right. Right. Almost runs into him. Like, the action would be fake the handoff, turn, fake the reverse

and then dump the screen. Alan fakes the handoff, forgets the reverse is coming. Bells almost runs into the right and then is high to Gibson. That was one of the uglier plays of the game. We went through the sack fumble, which I didn't think was, which I didn't think was good on the third and nine.

You don't want those to result in touchdowns, obviously. No. Just to have a sack there. One more thing I'm sitting here thinking, oh, I didn't write this down for whatever reason, but there was a boot that he took a sack around the 25-yard line to put him out of field goal range. Yeah, that was the big sack.

He's, that's the Sean McVeigh boot throwback. The leak. He's trying to, he's looking for right on the leak. The thing is, is when you have edge pressure, that plays over. And as I'm coaching this offense, I'm never with, until they get better running some of the stretch stuff and Alan gets better at some of his fakes, we're never going to get that edge. player to crash down the line of scrimmage, he's always going to play the quarterback. He can't run that play. That said, on that league play, just hit Logan Thomas out in the flat.

This is the one that ultimately sets him up for the third in 24 where they actually get back into field goal range. Yeah. This is the big, this is the big sack that he takes on the, yeah, I mean, so what's your coaching point there? When they read boot clearly and there's no. nowhere to go and he can't beat him to the edge. They've, what, what does he?

When there's edge pressure, you have to get the ball out. Right. You don't have time to sit there and jerk it off and wait for the leak to come all the way across the field because that leak starting on the quarterback's right and he's booting right. And then he's basically acting like he's blocking all the way down the line of scrimmage cutting off and then he's trying to leak out the backside. It's covered anyways.

Once Alan fakes to the left and starts to roll and he's got someone out to his right. He doesn't have time. Just dump it. Yeah, it's Thomas. He's just got to throw it at his feet because Thomas could get blown up anyway. But you know, it's interesting. Just a quick point, any boot they've tried this year, I feel like none of them have worked.

None of them have fooled anybody with any of the quarterbacks. I don't even think play action has been that effective. They don't run almost ever zone from under center. Right. More of their under center runs are gap-style runs. Got it. I mean, it's not often that they run that pure under center stretch zone. They should because they can block.

They're good enough to do it. Their back struggle with it, but the offensive line can get it done. Positive is with Allen. Before we get to some of the individual plays on this, I do think that Alan has some decent pocket presence. And I do think he's got a good idea. of where to flush and move in the pocket. Right.

And he's also versatile. Like you've seen him move left, you've seen him move right, you've seen him step up in the A gaps. Like I don't think he's got a bad feel for the pocket. I also think he's got a pretty good feel for timing and when the ball has to be out. I don't think he's got tremendous arm strength. But we'll move on from that.

Oh, there was one more negative. Speaking of that, there was a play that, I'm trying to think of when it was in the game. Terry's, he ends up trying to throw it in the cover two hold of Terry McLauran. Terry tries to sideline catch it on about the two-yard line. It's almost picked. God, Terry's wide open. It's a cover two look.

The safety stays inside. If he just has the arm strength, Terry's, no one's going to touch him seven yards into the end zone. throws it short. The cover two corner almost gets into it. Trying to think of exactly when that was in the game. because this is one where you'd look at it and think oh my gosh this is so so wide open i think i know where it was i can't find it i know it was it was just an incompletion they were on around the 20 yard line going in i should have noted that better um

i thought throughout the game he threw some pretty good balls especially underneath um he'd through early in the game, good on a corner route to Logan Thomas on a run action play. Right. Didn't get anyone to buy anything. Logan Thomas runs into Terry McLaurin because they can't space this thing out. Logan ends up knocking Terry McLaurin to the ground. And somehow he's wide open out there. Giants are watching this film like, seriously?

What are you guys doing? The tight end knocked the one receiver down. Took him out. How's he that open? A great ball on a whip route to Terry McLaurin on a third and five. Good throw, leading him away from the defender allows him to turn up and run. It looks like Terry's got to extend a little bit more, but I like when the quarterback throws it to where you have to extend to the direction you're going as long as you're not getting blown up.

Right. Because it really pulls you out. Consistent throughout the game, pretty good moving up in the pocket, climbing to hit the checkdown when he didn't have anything down the field. Good timing throw on a hitch to Terry McLaren as you get through this first half. I thought on a lot of third downs, he was awesome. He hit right on a third and nine in the first half that it converted. There's a sit, like an eight-yard hook route, right, ends up bowing it backwards,

and then still ends up getting the first down. But that's awesome. They're trying to high, low, that deep in with the sit route. Right. That's a better way of doing it than they normally do with two clearing routes. And that's a good throw. Good spacing throw on a second 17 to Logan Thomas. I love those second 17.

Like let's dump it at six to the tight end. Let's see if he can turn up and get seven or eight. And let's get back into a third and eight. Those are good throws right there. To me, those are good plays. He ends up on a scramble throw where Terry's wide open in front of his face. This was the fourth down throw. I was waiting for you to get it to this.

God, McLaurin's wide. open. Right. So why didn't he throw it there? He makes a great play to scramble and make a throw on the run to Inman for the first down and a bigger play. But why didn't he throw it quickly to McLaurin because that's a first down? Zero idea. I wrote plus slash minus. Is one of the DNs just sort of maybe in his face a little bit where he doesn't see it? There's no way he can't see that. I don't understand how he doesn't see that that's okay he made a really good play everyone in the world's like hey moron what are you looking at but it's complete so he went into baller mode

I think if you look at it from the end zone view he can't see it I don't I think he can see it but I think that there's some immediate pressure up the middle and I think he thinks he's going to have to get out of there quicker than, which is one of the reasons he did. I could be wrong. I mean, I can't imagine that on fourth and four.

So everyone listening knows, he knows it's coming. Right. In any... We're not debating. This is a backyard ball where everybody just go run something. You're like, ooh, he's open. He knows it's coming. There is a bit of...

There's some traffic in his in his face. Still, not enough, I don't think. All right, continue. I just, I don't think that. I don't know. I'm pleased that he got it. They go down, it's an amazing ball in the fade to Logan Thomas. That was a heck of a play.

Yep. That was a really good ball. I keep writing like, good get to check down on run action. Playfakes are nonexistent. end of the half there's a third and two really good scramble and he hits inman to move the sticks into the second half great touch pass on a swing screen to gibson that he threw over the head of logan ryan yeah yeah great touch throw the third and six scramble that he had the challenge play was huge no one's open there that's a big time run the third and four later in the game the great

scramble left and throw to right. This was down on the goal line. They didn't get this. They ended up kicking a field goal. He gets out to the left. Right just fucking sits there on the goal line. Like, dude, could you just come back two more yards to the ball so we can move the sticks? You don't have to catch a touchdown here.

No, it's third and four. It's third and four. You're 15 yards downfield. Yeah, he waits. Just please run back through the ball. Yeah, he stops at the goal line and waits for it. And that's why it got broken up. by Ryan

Mr. Relevant Was he Mr. Relevant or was the other guy I forget Yeah he does a terrible job here You're right I mean he's got to come back He's got to come back Like Devante Smith for Alabama Comes back for everything

I mean dude The first thing I thought about When that play happened Yeah Was that dude from Alabama We'll just run through everything You'll catch the ball That was the first thing

thought about from watching the game the Alabama game. And then I thought he was big time on the last drive. It was a good throw on a third and six to Inman. Great throw and scrambled to hit Inman again on a third and two. I thought it was a pretty good throw in a corner route to Logan Thomas that I think Logan Ryan ended up picking or Bradbury will caught, but it was out of bounds because Thomas tipped it. It's a little bit high.

He's got to come down with that ball, though. Huge throw on a dig route on a third down to Terry McLaurin. and then awesome job on the touchdown to Sims. Yeah. It's a really good job. Here's what I'd say for Alan. First and second down plays, not awesome. Some of the run and action stuff, not awesome.

Did miss a couple throws in this game, made a couple bad decisions in this game. But essentially, in a lot of third downs, came up big and moved the sticks. Moved in the pocket, was pretty good with his eyes, found open receivers, made enough plays to move the sticks on.

third down. This was no dynamic offense that we're talking about here in this game. Right. Like this, this was just good enough to score 20 points, not 19, 20 points. And they had a chance with the play they wanted in the two point conversion. He ends up 31 of 42, which is 70, almost 74%, 280 yards. Some of it was on some easy stuff, but a lot of the throws were good throws down the field. he's going to continue to get better or I mean he needs to continue to get better it's a C plus grade for Kyle Allen I thought there was a lot left out there and I think that there could be a lot more created by the quarterback but it's it's interesting because some of the third downs you're like you did make some plays

all right let's get to the skill position players right after I tell you about my bookie.orgie. World Series starts tonight. Opportunity, if you want to bet some baseball to get involved with MyBooky.ag, they have reliable point spreads, reliable money lines, reliable pricing. And if you use my promo code, Kevin D.C., they will match your deposit dollar for dollar all the way up to $1,000. MyBooky.ag, you're looking for a place that's reliable, that you can count on, that you know you'll get paid if you win. They've got every kind of bet, in-game betting, prop bets, futures, everything you need. MyBooky.ag, use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. All right, let's get to the skill position players.

Let's start with Terry McClaren. Okay. I just started it 11 times. He had seven receptions. He had 74 yards. He had some big plays after the catch. I thought did a lot to create for this team. It is by far the best receiver.

There's, I mean, it's just not even a debate on this team. It's fun to watch him run after the catch. Like, before we really get to Terry, they have to find more ways to get him the ball in the intermediate range. I don't know exactly what the answer is to that because you've got two other receivers who really just are just not good enough. Yeah. And you don't have that tight end that can really create for you.

And so you're looking at it like, I don't know. But they've got to find ways to get Terry more receptions. I don't even mind some of the slip screens and bubbles to McLaurin. You only had one in this game, and that was that third and 24. I just like the ball in his hands. Yeah, like 10 plus times in every single game. Right. I do think that they have an idea that they need to get the ball to Terry.

I think that that is clear. But they just haven't found enough ways. Here's a, for example, they haven't run one fly sweep to Terry. No. No, they use other guys for that or they use other guys in the action for that. But who's the best with the ball in their hands out of any of the receivers? I would imagine he is. I mean, unless it's Stephen Sims, but he's not available right now.

Right. The positives from a clorum. Just a great finish throughout the game. Like the whip route on third and five, turn it up field, get the first, get an extra seven yards, big. A hitch route on a second and ten. Good catch, spin back outside to the sideline where you're supposed to go, get a first down on second and ten.

The tunnel screen on a third and long, big gamer. What was like third and, and 20. Third and 24, yeah. He gets 20 yards off of that, 20. Right. And moves them into, as we would call it now, Hopkins Range, which is inside 40. Had another tunnel screen on a third and two.

Had actually two more tunnel screens in the game, I think, but a third and two that he ends up moving the sticks on. And then I talked about this. third and four where Alan misses him down into the middle of the field it's really a great route like if you want to show a double stick down the field that doesn't truly disrupt the timing because Terry doesn't really slow this down

it's just one two three like a good stick is he's going to break left so stick your left foot hard stick your right foot and go wouldn't work for Alshunders stick your right foot pretty hard to then really stick your left foot and then stick your right foot and go.

It's a really good double stick. It really is down the field. It's in timing. It works. He breaks off the defender. Al Saundra wouldn't approve. No, Al Saunders would have blamed that on Terry. 100% would have blamed that on Terry.

But at the same time, would have coached adamantly that you never do that. You know, Kyle Allen did take a big hit on that play. A huge hit. West Weitzer and Geron Christian missed a stunt. again. And then he made a big time catch on the last drive on a third down, dig over the middle of the field. Didn't double stick that one.

Just a couple of things think about with Terry on the negatives. One, the first play of the game, I actually wanted to go through the first play of the game. So run action pass. I talked about all the Rams last week. in the defensive field breakdown, run these what they call reed routes. And you're attacking vertical between the numbers and the hash. So more towards the middle of the field to see if you can get over the top of the safety in the middle of the field.

Or bull safeties if they're there. If you can't, you're sitting that thing down at about 18 yards in between the numbers and the half. Terry really runs this more up the numbers. And in doing that, well, he's sitting down. he doesn't really make the safety, that two safety, that to that side make a decision. They had Logan Thomas coming on a wheel route behind it. So he'd motioned over and then he's going to wheel and sneak up the sideline.

You'd love Terry to attack more towards the middle of the field. So that two safety really starts to go with him. And then Logan Thomas slips behind on the wheel route. It's just not good spacing again. So do you think Kyle Allen made the right decision to hit the checkdown immediately. There was no other decision to be made there. I think that's also got to be hard for a quarterback,

like consistently wondering if the spacing is going to be right on some of your stuff. Right. Because it means more defenders in the area and a potential pick. Right. They're not worth, they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there. The, early in the game,

there's a comeback that, Kyle Allen threw over his head, and I think it was a good job by Kyle, at least not throwing a pick, realizing that there was, was going to be underneath coverage. Terry's got to run that comeback deeper. I just highly doubt that that's coached as a 14-yard comeback. I've never seen it coached that way. Now, I'm not seeing it couldn't be, but he starts breaking that route down at 10, maybe 11. You can definitively see that he's going to run a comeback. comeback. You got to push, especially with zone coverage like he had, he's got to push that to where he's setting that down, starting to break at 15. That way, the cover two corner can't

fall off into that. So just some, some basic yardage issues on some of those routes. And then the other one I thought was, it wasn't, it didn't end up being a big deal, but the run action pass to Logan Thomas that he caught on that little corner out. Right. I'm not. So Terry's running a seam from the slot, like as the two receiver. He slips inside the DB and then he runs directly into Logan Thomas. At least they both don't fall down.

Great balance like Thomas. But I think he just got to fly on that thing, man. Like you just got to go. Yeah, I mean, it's really, I mean, that that plays. hard to watch. It just goes to something's not right on some of these. You hit on the crossing routes against zone and not sitting them down and then running right into a player that's playing another part of the zone. It's insane. Again, I always think about it from a basketball standpoint. It gets a two-three zone. You're not going to have a guy flash to the middle and then continue

to move into an area where a player is. He's going to find the hole and he's going to sit it down. and he's going to be there as an open player. And in this particular play that you've already hit on a couple times, I mean, literally they're so tight with one. Logan Thomas is so lucky he didn't fall down too. And if he falls down, it's probably Allen getting sacked at the five-yard line. It's exactly what it is or dumping it off to the back on a checkdown. It's just consistently shows up.

We're going to go through the rest of these players. and it's, I mean, we're just going to keep talking about it because it keeps showing up that the receivers are not where they're supposed to be. Right. I mean, there were plays that I wrote down, like, I'm not sure what this concept is. I mean, there was nobody better than Norv,

scheming people open. Norve does not like what he sees right now, the receivers. Pops, Pops, and happy with son. I'm not saying he's not happy. was son, but he didn't like what he saw. Terry was an A-minus in this game. I still, I think Terry's really good. I'm really impressed with Terry.

I mean, went to there a couple things, but let's get to Inman. Running a hitcher out from inside, it's a spacing concept. So three guys are sitting down hitches at about six, five, six yards. He's running at seven yards, turning around looking lost. And it's like, I don't even know if he knows what he's running. a constant inability to attack the inside shoulder of safety on these vertical clearing routes. I'm not even, I didn't downgrade him for it because I don't even know if that's how they're coaching it. I better go back and look at some of the Carolina stuff on some of these deep dagger concepts because they ran a lot of them.

It's almost like I need to do that to see how Norv was coaching it. There's a draw play in the game where he had pressure from the nickel who crossed his face and ends up blowing it up. and it's a tackle for loss. He's two yards displaced from the line of scrimmage. He's got his right foot up. He's on the right side. His right foot's up. His left foot's back.

His left foot then crosses behind his right foot almost a full foot. And he's completely crossed up under himself and it gets hit in the backfield. That would be the only run play I'd have for him. There's some other good plays in the run game that he had. And then poor initial stem on a lot of his version. route. It's too slow down the field. You want to be a vertical team. Go watch Kansas City.

They just go. We're not that slow. Okay, like our guys aren't that slow. There's no way. I bet Inman didn't run worse than a four or five. I bet your right ran a four or five, if not better. It's not like Kansas City's guys all run four one, four two, four. they're not all four three they just go they fly down the field we're slow down the field we get hemmed up with underneath coverage we try to make weird adjustments to like it's zone and you have underneath

coverage run the fuck by the guy just run by him he's just going to put his hand on you a little bit he's not going to press you positive serenman well not only that you can force people to put their hands on you and draw more penalties they're not they don't they just all they're coach to reroute and play their zone. Just avoid just shoulder down and run. Inman. Positive from Inman. Yeah. He had like four catches on third down that were.

Yeah, he did. And the fourth down catch. And the fourth down catch was absolutely massive. The little swing screen to Antonio Gibson, the one with the loft on the ball, he had a great knockdown block on that play. But yeah, it was really, it's really interesting watching talking about Allen and then talking about Inman, zero impact in a positive way in the game, other than one RPO catch on an out route in first and second down situations, but made four or five plays on third downs to move the sticks.

And on fourth down. And on, well, yeah, fourth down. On a fourth down that should have gone to McLorn. No doubt. Inman was a B. Okay. Right. Too early to bend to the middle of the field on a vertical route.

no established width or any stem completely disrupt spacing he's out there running things early in the game on a run play they're in a bunch set they run to that side both gandy golden and right run right past the corner or the nickel guy who's at the line of scrimmage and both of them bypass him to get to the safety like one of you two need to block him I'm not sure how you decided you were going to do it, but you didn't communicate that at all. Third down situation early in the game, no urgency coming out of a break on an out route. The short out really has to break out hard and run to force coverage to make a decision. He's just willy-nilly out there kind of whipping his shoulder around the break.

We talked about the interception. Pull up that interception and watch right. I'm not going to re-go through this. Just run. Don't chatter your feet. There's a tunnel screen to Terry early in the game. Well, the big one to Terry, it's a missed assignment by him. He doesn't know who he's blocking.

And then he doesn't stay in the block on the guy that he gets on. There's another missed assignment in the run play. He's on the backside of an inside dive play, and he's flying down into the middle of the box to block a linebacker who the lines accounted for. The receivers don't ever block linebackers in the run game unless it's that crack kind of play. So like three or four missed assignments in this game.

You just, on the interception, you want inmen to really move. He's got to beat the in. Yeah. I mean, Terry's breaking on an in route, and he's, if that in, he's seven yards into the middle of the field after he's broke on between the numbers and the hash, Edmund still hasn't, right still hasn't gotten that far vertical. Yeah. You're clearing it out, bro.

Yeah, you got to run. I mean, you know he's clearing it out because he never even, you know, like, this is one of the things I've just got, I've got a question. for you. When receivers have zero, in the play called, have zero opportunity, they believe, to catch the football. And their job is to clear out a safety or clear out a side of the field. It's interesting, like I'm watching right here. He never even looks back. Like, I think these, what's the coaching there? Like, okay, you're not in this play. You're not going to get the ball. But there's always a chance. A play breaks down. The quarterback's running. around and you got, you know, he's an eligible receiver, even though he's not going to be

targeted on this plane. He's got a responsibility, which he clearly does not fulfill on this play. But when is it that they're supposed to look back and maybe become an eligible receiver? If you're running a vertical route like that at about 14 yards. Yeah, at least sell it like you might get it. It's an interesting debate because as a coach, you like to tell receivers when or when they're not viable. Yeah. If he's running that vertical route and he had two high

safeties, he's really viable. You try to press hard up the field and you're running a real skinny almost post on the inside in front of those safety on your side and you're trying to get down the middle of the field. You're viable. You see a single high safety there. And honestly, it's not dead with a single high safety because on the next guy inside in that plays running a crosser,

that's Inman. But Inman's running like a real cross crosser. He's just crossing the field, so he wouldn't hold anything. So I'm not really sure what Inman's doing. I'm not sure what any of them are doing. But the thing is, is you're like, do I tell this guy when he could get the ball or not? Because if I tell him too high, you can get it. He's really going to run.

I tell him, he's dead. He'd probably just going to loaf it out there. Yeah, I'd tell him. That said, you just tell him to run, man. You got to fly. This looks bad on film. This looks bad on film. At least he turned around and noticed that the ball got intercepted.

He started chasing down, Brad. Redbury. McClurent tackled him. Anyway, all right. What about Wright? Had a screen, a little tunnel screen outside where he gets knocked down by Brandon Sheriff. You can't find a better lane.

You got to make a play there. It's not that poorly blocked. It was a two-yard game. We mentioned the third down and four down by the goal line. He's actually the deep guy that Alan scrambles out to on the left. side of the field. You can't, you have to attack the ball. We like to wait on these balls. Like, go get it. Go catch it out in front with your hands in front. We always did all these drills. I'm sure they do. And honestly, we made them fun games where you had to, like, Kevin, you,

you'd be the quarterback. You're standing at 15 yards. And I'm just going to sprint towards you and you're going to throw it at me, but I can't stop. Right. Run through the ball and catch. Come meet the pass. Bounce pass, chess pass, come meet it. Don't wait for it. When we did it, it wasn't even turning catch or like turn and run back the other way. It was just sprint through it. Talking about high school drills here.

You got to go get that ball. The positives. Kind of whip route on the last drive, pretty good. The sack fumble touchdown. He had a great route man to man versus the DB. I thought he separated. A third and nine, I think in the first half he sat down on the deep sit. That's the one where he lost a little ground.

And you're like, just turn up in your shadow. I love all the sayings for that. Get north-south. Not east-west. Got the first down. I don't care at that point. He's, there was a zone run play that he blocked the front-side edge with Geron Christian, got up to the second. level. I thought that was pretty cool. McVeigh-style, where they put him right next to the tackle

and he helped on the double team. Poor angle of the second level. He is a D-minus. Gandy Golden was a D in this game. He didn't play a lot. I think Gandy Golden's lost. He got it. Well, he got injured in this game. He got hurt. I still, I just, I think Gandy Golden's lost out there. Okay. What about Cam Sims? Really good. Seven plays touchdown. A. great out and up. Give him a chance. He's a big dude.

Are you being sarcastic or serious? No, he played seven plays. He made the play of the game. It was a great route. Got the corner to bite on the out. Awesome route. Good play. I think that's it on the receivers.

Here's what I wrote down with Gandy Golden. Yeah. Oh, actually, that's not it on right. With a minute 20 left in the game, Wright broke a tackle and then decided not to get out of bounds, but to cut it back upfield. Again, we didn't learn our lesson from the end of the half last week. Rightcott went over on the left side and the flat, breaks a tackle, and then cuts back inside.

Time out. Just right out of bounds. Here's what I wrote down with Andy Golden. Arms flailing at the top of his routes, way overextended and out of position to make the break. Did have one really good sustain block on a crack on Fackerel, on a toss play. I just I'm not I haven't seen anything from Gandy Golden to show me anything right now at this point it would be Sam Cam Sims in before Gandy Golden Logan Thomas I thought played really well in this game yeah I was gonna say I think this is gonna be your best grade for him yeah I thought he was actually pretty good in the run game good kickout on a linebacker out in space or a corner out in space on a toss play the one I just mentioned with Gandy Golden um um great job running through traffic to make a catch on that run-action corner,

knocked his own guy down. Get the fuck out of my way. I'm going to go catch this ball. This was mine, Terry. You get 11 targets every game. Get down. Did a good job on a little inside zone play where he's leading to the middle linebacker, sifting from the backside, getting up the field.

Zone with a man concept by the tight end. Good contact, physical. Uh, really good job finding some of the block on the tunnel screen. The third long to Terry, Logan Thomas almost makes that play. He's getting out there and you almost have a numbers count with DBs when you have those tunnel screen plays. And he's like, whoa, right? Who are you? I guess I'll go find somebody else.

Right? You're wrong. Good kickout blocks and sustain on a couple of zone plays. One bounced all the way behind him. He stayed on his block through the entire time. Awesome, awesome job on the fade touchdown play. one or two times man to man did not fully sustain blocks but was more square on his blocks used better hands this week than I've seen so far at the line of scrimmage this week

and then I thought dropped a tough ball on the last drive on the corner out he wants to come down with that ball you can say tough catch all you want to say tough catch but we this is in the NFL make tough catches it hit both hands right but I thought Thomas was pretty good he's still guy that gets hemmed up too much of the line of scrimmage. He's a guy that when you press, struggles to separate a little bit. But ultimately, you know, he's by far their best options. Best option. It was targeted four times, had three receptions, really had a drop, in my opinion. I thought Logan Thomas was a B plus. That's great, I think, for him all year. Yeah, there might have been one game that he was actually pretty good.

The other two tight ends didn't play a whole hell of a lot. What did they end up? How many plays did that? Hemingway had 10. Sprinkle had 11. Yeah, neither of them were a big impact on this game. I did write one note, almost similar to a note I wrote from Sprinkle last week for Hemingway. There's a outside zone play to the offensive right side.

The safety peppers walks up inside of Hemingway off the ball. which means Hemingway has an outside linebacker on the outside side of him. If the safety walks inside of him and there's nobody else outside besides the backer, that guy is going to run to the sideline when you step and start to block him. The more you try to put your helmet on his outside shoulder, the more he will go to keep his outside shoulder free. Like when you get zone run plays as a tight end and you see that your outside blindbacker definitively has the D gap and that's easy because pepper's the safety walked inside

which means he is going to play the gap inside of you it's like heaven like oh I'll kick this guy's ass and we'll just run to the sideline and even if I don't I'll extend him seven yards and he'll be out of the play takes one step and turns his ass in the hole and then the linebacker can push him back into the play. He's young, but these are just things when you're coaching outside zone as a tight ends coach. You've got to have them aware of like, do you want to do the really hard way or do you want to do the really easy way? Right. The really easy way is a good way too. It's just attacking their responsibilities. You gave Hemingway a check last week, didn't give him a grade, just gave a check. Yeah, Hemingway was a C-minus in this game. Spinkle? I mean, last

week. I mean, you were pretty harsh. Sprinkles is a C minus in this game. Okay. Running backs. I'm just, I can't, I really struggle when I watch Sprink because I still see potential in him. Right.

I know what he's going through right now with the guy that's completely underused, with the guy that's, I think, been stripped of a lot of his confidence as a player. You know, Sprinkle is actually a really good blocker out of Arkansas.

Yeah, I know. That was the one thing. He was a technique sound blocker out of Arkansas. I thought he had a lot to him. He's lost some of that. And obviously, I think Sprink could improve a ton in the past game. I talked to Sprink

a lot last year, and I think one of the things that was hard for him, he didn't say this, but what are the things that I think was hard for Sprinkle was that he played with Jordan Reed and Vernon Davis. And as a tight end, you can't do either of the things that those two can do. So how do you learn to be you as a route runner? He's in a room where he's watched two guys

who do things definitively different than he does. Sure. And now he's through his third tight end coach in three years. I thought he was coached very poorly last year. What's that dude's name? You know his name. He's in Carolina. No, I do. I can't think of it right now. He's in Carolina as the tight ends coach now. Right. What's his name? I forget to. It's like his 15, in five years and he keeps getting jobs. Angelico. Brian Angelico. He did not want me to talk to those tight ends.

Yeah. Who did he play for? Yeah, I'm not even sure if he played high school football. Oh, really? I think he was like a lifetime want to be a coach. No, playing career, 1991 to 94 St. Lawrence University. What did he play? outside linebacker he was also a team captain on the baseball team at st lawrence

he's i don't want to dog angelico anymore okay he doesn't not look like he ever played football in his life though all right running backs gipson uh i'll make this really easy on gipson he is a downhill can run dive between the tackles ball carrier can run physically um he has bad vision and he has bad initial track right now i think he left a lot on the table as far as some opportunities predetermining cuts doesn't see certain what i would call wide open holes clinton always said like you can never question a back's vision well i'm definitely going to question it right now um i i wrote poor vision in general as a runner uh the two-point conversion not good enough now he made a couple plays in this game

You know, he's okay when he gets the ball and he gets out in space a little bit. But right now, I think that you might want to consider even Peyton Barber more as a back. Why not use Gibson at receiver? He played a lot of receiver at Memphis. I think that there's definitely a better way to use Gibson right now. I'm not suggesting in any way that I don't want Gibson on the field. Right. I think that there's a lot they could do with two back sets.

there's a lot of that, you know, dive stuff that he could be really, really good at. But you've got to simplify the run scheme for him. He's seen too much. Okay. You're either going to make him a zone back or you're going to make him your gap back. Or, I mean, it's, I mean, it's hard. You don't necessarily want to do that if you're in a lot of one back fields. But he's just not good enough in some of the zone runs.

And Barber, to that extent, too, can do a better job of pushing the front. front side, but Barber's better as a back, as a ball carrying back. I'm not saying that Gibson can't get better, but I'm saying that you might want to limit the some of the scene that he's running. Mr. Blitz pick up off the edge, had a quarterback hit. Although he did have one zone cutback run that I wrote, that he almost broke a tackle to get 10 and ended up being a couple yards. I personally, I thought Gibson left three or four yards per carry average out there on the field.

That's not good. He was a C in this game. He was a C in this game. McKissick. Like him. McKissick is really got a knack for getting extra yards after the catch. Yep. He does.

There's definitely something to McKissick where you're like, this dude's this dude's got some stuff going on like as a receiver very very talented by the way that last route that two point that would have been in the kisick all day baby all day before gibson um there was a play that i highlighted in this game it's the third drive of the game on offense it comes after a throwaway on a boot it's a second 10 zone run it's almost clinic on the front side. Morgan Moses has a dominating front side

reach block and really takes backroll eight yards out of the play. There's a good double team with Sheriff and with Rueh where there's really good movement. The backers end up stunting and the safety comes down in the box.

West Switzer tracks a backer backside and he shouldn't and he should continue to go front side. but God, McKissick, there's no reason to not continue to push this all the way to the front side.

It's there. There's no reason that he can't get outside. And I highlighted this play because if he can get to the edge with the dominating block like Moses had, or at least push that four more yards to the far side towards the sideline before he cuts,

your play action will work. He breaks a tackle. I mean, just it completely runs through a tackle. You're saying that you... It's a five-yard run play, but I just think the domination... Am I looking at the right play? Is second and ten the play where he gains 14 yards and breaks a tackle? I don't think so because the next play's a third and five.

It's the third drive of the game. Okay, yeah, I'm on the wrong play. My fault. No worries. I just, you know, it just to me is indicative of a team who doesn't quite know how to run zone. And in two reasons. One, the true concept of the zone run is to get to the edge if you can get to the edge. Right.

And it was the biggest luxury when Trent Williams was playing here that without a tight end on his side to the weak side, you could still get to the edge because he could eat up that outside player, that D-end. most tackles can't do it. Moses did it here, and Moses is actually getting better at it and doing a pretty good job. So you want him, he turns it up quickly. You want him to press, press, press, and then cut it inside Moses? Or if he can bounce it outside, Moses, take it outside. But either way, he needs to push that much more.

I see that. There really shouldn't be a reason to cut back. Yeah, I see. I see that. The safety peppers comes down. And actually, I thought Ruey did a really good job within the play, deciding that Peppers was his guy on the double team. And they climb up to Peppers on the front side.

The backer in the middle of the field is on a stunt, loops all the way to the backside. Now, point B of this is you never as a lineman tied in to anyone turn back on zone. Once they loop behind you, they are out of the play. It is over for them. Got it. So if someone's looping behind you, Switzer, then turns. and looks back for 48. Now, that was his initial guy,

but as he turns and looks back, man, if he climbs to that next backer, that cutback still ends up being pretty good. But it's like, we've got to understand how these plays really work, like how you really operate on these plays. It's zone. So although you could have a double team to someone,

you're pushing a zone to a direction, they play behind it. They're doomed. Right. I thought McKissick was a B-plus in this ballgame. Had a couple good runs. You talked about the 14-yard carry. Had some good plays after the catch.

I do. I really like McKissick. Barbara didn't play much in this game. Did have a, what was a third and two run where he got the first down? Or the fourth down, right? Yeah, the fourth down. The one they went four on fourth down. Right, right?

Yeah. I think so. He ends up getting it. Ideally, that was his own play where he started in gun to the right and you'd like him to push all the way left, let go. You could stretch that play. But it's fourth and two and he thinks he does. So get it. I'm fine with that. That I'm completely fine with. So those are your skilled players, essentially recapping. I thought Terry McLaurin was an A minus. I thought Enman was a B. I thought right was a D minus. I didn't grade Gandy Golden, but I think that he's a little bit lost right now. As far as the tight ends, Logan Thomas, I really thought, played his most complete game as a player. He was a B-plus. Gibson was a C. McKissick was a B-plus. All right.

Offensive line, and let's wrap it up. Here's your offensive line. It's hysterical to me because every time I do this film breakdown, I spend more time writing notes on the office. offensive line and then the offensive lines last and then we just essentially grade the offensive line. I should almost like put the notes to this in a blog comment. No, no, get through it. Can I just, can I tell you something really quick? I tried something a little different here as far as the way I did the notes just to see if I could make it faster because normally you like make everyone a single spot. So I just went, I have notes play by play by play by play.

And then I tried to filter it out and I'd cut and paste like every 71 play. 71, good initial block downfield, no sustain on a fourth play. But then it was too long to cut and paste everything. It was funny how it's been seven years and I'm still trying to find better ways to write no. You're never satisfied with ways that work, which is interesting. I'm satisfied with the ultimate grade process of. I'm just glad we got letter grades this year. And we're not, you know, we're not forcing people to take advanced algebra.

figure out what somebody got. All right. Let's get to the offensive line. Let's go. Morgan Moses was the best offensive lineman in this game. I thought he was very impactful in the run game, had some good movement plays. It was good on double teams with Brandon Sheriff, got to the second level. I think he's playing with good leverage.

I don't know if Morgan Moses gave up one pressure in this ballgame. There was once or twice where they looked like there was an edge pressure, but I think those were backs that were supposed to come and pick up that edge pressure because you, You can see Morgan almost glance at it and go, no, I trust the back's going to be there. He was really consistent in this game. He has been the highest graded offensive lineman all year. He'll be the highest offensive lineman graded today. He was a B plus in this ballgame.

Okay. Brandon Sheriff makes his return to the field in a game that I did not think that he played very well. Some of the positives, when Brandon does get movement, big time. He's got a violent streak to him. He's got some nasty. stuff to him. He'll finish late in place. There's a play where he doesn't have anyone to block and he just goes

and knocks the crap out of the dude over Moses on a pass. Good clean pocket. I love that though. I love that when Sheriff is doing that stuff. He played high in the run game. And he got thrown down four or five times

in the middle of the field. He didn't have great movement throughout the game. Now, there are a couple that we've talked about that he did. But I thought it was really average for the type of run blocker that he could be. To me, he's that physical dude that just it's got to be better. Like double teams with Ruiye barely punch on a double team to not really put him on Ruiye and then immediately Don. And you're like, knock the shit out of that dude before you look you want to take care of the first level or second level first level is

obviously going to be important ruggie is going to need help against these big ass dudes in the middle right give him some more help on some of these things you know um i like him as a like straight downhill guy at times he's an okay stretch type run player in this game but essentially to way too many minuses in this ball game to have a good grade brandon sheriff was a seat he wasn't okay path protector before I move on to Ruea, I did leave out one note with Morgan Moses on the negative side of it. There's a toss play where McKissick, I think that's the one he ran through where it gets like 14 yards. Morgan does a great job. He's pulling.

He's out. He's downfield. He's tracking. And then he gets on the DBE. It's the free safety. The free safety. I can't remember his name. He gets thrown down by the free safety.

I'm like, come on, dude. You're not going to get let the free safety throw. you to the ground. He weighs 190 pounds or 200 pounds. You're 340. It didn't really kill the play. Ruehye, one-on-one in some of his own plays, push too far in the backfield. He's too much of a position blocker. I don't know if he has the power to come off and be a dominant takeover guy's type of blocker. I've seen him do it, but more times than not, he's giving up too many penetration-type plays and to me some of the predetermined cutbacks are because they see initial color over Ruiye. Now, got to cut it behind Ruiye. You don't because he's still going to stay with the

dude, but he's getting bowed back into the backfield a couple yards. And I think that's one of the struggles that they're having in some of the run stuff. If they're going to run the zone plays, you've got to give Ruehay more help, especially when he's out leveraged with what they call a shade on either side. So someone's over his shoulder, essentially, not head up, but over his shoulder. I think that they're going to have to give him more help in more of those run-type situations, or at least obviously they're coaching it to help, but you got to punch and actually turn the guy's shoulder so you put him on to Ruey in this ballgame. Gave up one pressure on a run-action pass where he's pulling. It's a pressure off the edge. He doesn't

see it. It ends up being free. They have him pulling on the run-action pass, and he doesn't really see it. Right. It was pretty good in some of the downhill stuff, especially when he was working with Sheriff, like the dive duo stuff, is okay as a gap scheme blocker where he's just essentially got to turn the guy.

I thought Ruey was a C in this ballgame. Wes Switzer is better on the right side, clearly than he is on the left side. We went through this with the stunts really causing problems for him in the second half of that ballgame. They're going to cause problems for him the rest of the season at left guard

if he doesn't start picking it up. I'm playing them and in every known pass situation, I'm going to start stunning on his side just to see if he can handle it. Like I'll give him a couple hard outside rushes with that detackle where the detackle, the end won't loop. And then after that, I am following everything with stunts.

His feet are not fast enough. And he is turning his ass and his shoulders too far to the outside to ever have a chance to come back and pick up some of those stunts. That's not good. Well, it was one game. Well, maybe we're going to be.

maybe a few weeks it'll be Cedique Charles back in that spot. Played two plays in this ballgame. Yes. Yeah, no, everyone loves Cedic Charles. I do like the physicality that Switeser Blee brings to the game. Sure.

I love when they pull him and he's kicking guys out, I think he's got a violence to him. I think he's going to get better as a polar as he's turning up the field. Like there's a power player, like we always called it pop, which is one back power. So down, down, a guard will pull.

Like, he gets stuck on the double team with sheriff. Like, he bangs into sheriff. You're like, dude, get a little depth and turn that corner and then go knock the crap out of the linebacker. Guards are supposed to love that stuff. But you run into your own guy, you're not good. There's what I'm shitty on pole. You got to know the backer count and go. Don't get hung up on the double team.

Switzer has, he's one of those guys that some of his positives really flashed. But again, throughout this game, I thought had some missed assignments, had some missed targets to backers on some of the run plays, turned back on things that he didn't need to turn back on in the run game and struggled tremendously in the stunt game and past protections. He was a D plus. He is okay with one-on-one pass protections. Dron Christian. Yeah. Again, on that left side, when they had one-on-one looks, where Schweitzer had the detackle and Christian had Marcus Golden, they were locked.

down. The protection, a lot of this game, was actually pretty good. The stunt stuff's hard for Christian, too. One thing I did note between both of them, and this is another problem with the run-action pass, they're not selling run. It's another thing, by the way, that I noted with Gibson. He's not selling run. His run fakes are terrible. He's supposed to act like you have the ball.

One of the run-action passes immediately upon the snap, Switzer puts both hands out to either side. Like, no one's coming to either side. Nobody ever does that ever in the history of football if it's a run. Like, if you want a key run pass, watch West Switzer. He'll tell you play action or not every time. God, you're so good at picking up the tells. So that's something that they're going to have to adjust to with Switzer is,

look, dude, if you miss, you miss. I mean, but you got to understand if it looks. looks like run and they think it's running your blocking run. They're going to play run first. Okay, back to John Christian. There's... You like him. I don't. I think he's a great backup.

Okay. I actually... You think he's better than people thought he was going to be? He's actually not doing this poorly in past protection, especially in one-on-one situations. The thing that I would say, and again, it occurs in this game, is as the game progresses, his pass sets get worse in every game. And so as games progress and he gets into the third quarter, he starts opening his hips too much.

And that I'm saying, like, his ass is looking at the quarterback on his third slide. You still want to stay square. Now, when his ass is looking at the quarterback, there's no way he can turn back to pick up those stunts. So it's some technique in his set as well that's really hurting him. in some of those situations. He's okay in the run game. Like, he's okay. And in this game, he's just okay in the run game.

He's not a power type blocker. And that's one thing you'd love with some of the zone stuff is for him to be able to attack the weak side with his side. He's not even physical enough if you were to put a tight end that they're going to get big time movement on a defensive end with the double team. So it's like I sit here and I love zone, but I got to have a tackle and tight end who can do it to really stretch the edge. I thought Geron Christian was a C minus in this game. So your offensive line, Morgan Moses was a B plus, Sheriff was a C, Ruea was a C.

West Schweitzer was a D and Drone Christian was a C minus. Your Schweitzer is a D plus. Yeah, the highest graded players, McLaurin A minus. And then you had Moses, Thomas, and McKissickall as B-pluses. You said that Cam Sims and his seven snaps was an A, so we'll keep him in there. And then for those that are just tuning in late in the show, it's a podcast, Kevin, it's a podcast. It can go back and listen to it. Kyle Allen, AC Plus. Cooley will have his defensive film breakdown tomorrow.

I'm going to leave you with one thought, Cooley. And that is go back and watch the touchdown pass to Cam Sims. That should have been delay of game. That place should not have counted. And I know that they give them a beat after the clock hit zero. That's not only a beat. That's a beat and a half. That looked like it was delay of game to me.

I forgot to mention that. You got to go back and watch the actual game to see that. You don't see that on film. Yeah. All right. Good job. Cool. You'll have a defensive film breakdown.

Have a great day.