The Kevin Sheehan Show - No Command In Opener

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Kevin with his recap of Washington's 37-20 season-opening loss in Tampa. His full "Game Take" including plenty of thoughts and a grade on Jayden Daniels' first NFL game.  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. Third and four. Daniels pumped. Field is open. He will take it. Running for a first down into Tampa territory. Tiptoeing down the sidelines and he caught the sideline out of bounds at the Tampa 36. Well, we knew he could run the football. That was never in doubt. Jaden Daniels, 16 carries in his NFL.

debut for 88 yards. That was the longest. A 17-yarder on the team's second drive of the game, where he tightrope the sideline. Overall, a decent first NFL game. Not perfect. Far from it. But it didn't really matter because the defense never gave the team a chance. 37 to 20, blowout in Tampa, 0 and 1 with the Giants heading to town next week. The show's presenting sponsor, as always, is Window Nation. Give them a call if you've been thinking about new Windows 86690 Nation or Window Nation.com. No guests on the show, just me and yesterday's game to talk about. I'm not going to lie, I was as juiced for a game as I've been in a long time,

as juice for a Washington game as I've been in a long time. Not sure it had to do with the team as much as it did in seeing what Jaden would do in his first game. But there was something there for the team, no doubt. You know, yesterday morning before all of the football started, I watched a Todd Bowles press conference from last week. Todd Bowles, the head coach of the Buccaneers. He was asked about what it was like to coach against Washington, the team he played for and won a Super Bowl with.

He was on that Super Bowl 22 team, the Doug Williams Super Bowl team. And he said, and I'm paraphrasing, Washington's always going to be important to me. It was the team that gave me a chance to play, and I got a chance to play on great teams in big games against great players. And then he went on and said that he'll always be grateful to Joe Gibbs for the opportunity. that he gave him. And as I was listening to that, there's just, I think for a lot of us of a certain age, despite all that's happened over the last 20 plus years and much more so in the last four years, you know, when Washington takes the field for an NFL opener in particular, and the whole world is focused on the NFL, and you have a team in one of the third,

32 cities. It's less than that, 30 cities because New York's got two and LA's got two. You know, there's a certain level of me anyway that's hoping that they don't disappoint. That, you know, one day in the future, it could feel like it did when Todd Bowles played on the team. You know, that the team from this city, you know, is going to be thought of as it once was. and that was as not just one of the best football teams, but as one of the best sports franchises. But we are a long way away from that.

Anyway, it was legit excited for yesterday, and then the game started, and I felt like I was watching last year's team. This from Max, Max tweeted me, Kevin, what an effing joke. Quinn is Rivera 2. No corners, no pass rush, no wide receivers, and another kicker fiasco. Also, your quarterback won't make it through the year.

I'm done. Let me know when Harris sells, exclamation points. That last line was kind of funny. Made me laugh. I'm glad, Max, you're not overly reactionary. Good tweet. By the way, Max, just before I started to be. record the podcast today. They cut the kicker. Are you happy? They cut Cade York just moments ago

after he missed two field goals and kicked a ball out of bounds, you know, after their first touchdown and they had a little momentum. Austin Seabert, according to Ben Standing, is expected to be signed by the team. Seabert, I think it's Seabert. I don't think it's Seabert. I think it's pronounced Seabert. I've seen him kick in the NFL before. He's expected. He He was cut by the Jets at the end of the preseason. They kept Greg Zerline. He's kicked with four teams over five seasons. He was drafted by Cleveland in the fifth round in 2019 out of Oklahoma.

He kicked with the Browns in 2019 and had a very good season on field goals. He was excellent that year, 25 of 29 on field goals, but he missed five extra points. They cut him in the opener, or shortly after the opener in 2020, after he missed another PAT against the Ravens, and he's bounced around the league ever since. Kicked in Cincinnati, kicked in Detroit, kicked with the Jets. Seems like it's the same teams on these kicker conversations that keep popping up as you search for kickers. But Cade York out.

I think if they had kept him through Sunday, if they had kept him on the roster, it would have cost them that seventh round pick that they gave up for them. So I think they now have that seventh round pick back. So Cade York is out. New kicker, Austin Seabert likely in. There's your breaking news. And Max honestly, man, relax. You're going to bust a vein or three.

My game take coming up in the next segment. It won't be a kind take when it comes to the defense, that's for sure. It'll be much nicer towards Jaden Daniels, although it will include some criticism of Daniels. But that's not where I'm going to start here in this opening segment. I'm going to start with two things. I'm going to start with Dan Quinn, and I'm going to start with, for people like Max, my annual post-week-1, don't believe anything you saw speech. I'll start with this speech, shortened version, because I know many of you have heard it before.

So the NFL is a 17 game slate, as we all know, played over 18 weeks. The mood swings week to week in the NFL are unlike anything else in sports. No other league comes close to the way things change like the NFL does on a week to week-to-week basis, literally in a matter of days. One Sunday you think your team stinks. Seven days later, you're like, we might be a playoff team. Yesterday, the biggest underdog on the board, the New England Patriots, picked by everybody to be either the worst team in the league or the second worst team in the league behind Carolina. They went on the road and beat the Cincinnati Bengals, a perceived Super Bowl contender.

by many. 16 to 10 was the final score. Jacoby Brissette, by the way, was the starting quarterback for the Patriots. Antonio Gibson played in the game for the Patriots. The Circa Survivor Pool, which I was in last year, it's the largest survivor pool in the country. For those of you who don't know what a survivor pool is, you are in a pool where each week you have to pick one team, no point spread, if they're.

They win, you survive, if they lose, you're out. You can't pick the same team twice in one year. The Circus Survivor Pool yesterday lost 34% of its participants on the first full Sunday of the season. By the way, the second most picked team in the Survivor Pool, Week 1, Buffalo, they nearly lost. if Buffalo had lost nearly 50% of the survivor pool at the Circa Sportsbook in Las Vegas would have been out on the first Sunday of the season. The league is the most unpredictable, the most entertaining, the most changeable in short-time reality show there is.

On any given Sunday, as the saying goes, anything can happen and it usually does. And with that said, there is no chance you're going to hear me today give any far-reaching conclusions about Washington after one game. I've said it for years. You're an idiot if you think one week is a referendum on anything in the NFL. Well, week one in particular is the biggest head fake of the season. You know, let's not forget that old Riverboat Ron, Ron Rivera went three and one in season openers. How'd that work out for him?

But especially when you have a team like Washington that is completely new, you know, totally remade. Washington has more new associated with it than maybe any. any other team in the league. You can't read that much into week one. You honestly can't read that much into weeks two, three, four, five, or six either. This league and the teams in it change so dramatically within seven days, especially when you're a brand new team, which Washington is. The last time Washington had a winning record, 2016. Yeah, it's been eight seasons since they went 8, 7, and 1.

They opened that year with a blowout loss to Pittsburgh at home, and then they lost to Dallas in week two. They were 0-2. They ended up with a winning record, and they were right there on the verge of making the playoffs in that season finale, which went oh so badly against the Giants. By the way, those two games in 2016, they were both at home. So I guarantee you the discussion about that 2016. team after the opener and definitely after week two was primarily, you know, what Max wrote.

This season is over. I'm done. Yeah. Almost everything you hear from me, almost everything you hear from me on today's show will be about yesterday's game as a standalone entity. If I say that the defense was terrible, which I will, I'm saying that they were terrible yesterday. Not that they'll be terrible the rest of the year. If I say that Jaden Daniels held onto the ball too long on a couple of throws, which he did, I'm not saying that he's going

to take a bunch of sacks this year. I'm just saying that he held onto the ball too long a couple of times in his very first NFL game. It's about yesterday as its own deal. We can speak in larger macro ways when we've seen five or six of these, but we still have to warn ourselves that things change so dramatically week to week. I saw this quote, I think it was in Sam Fortier's story in the Washington Post this morning from Zach Ertz after the game yesterday. He said, quote, the scoreboard was not flattering to us. And you are what your record says in this league. But I don't think anyone's panicking by any. means. It's game one. The only thing this means is we're not going undefeated. The Miami Dolphins

are safe from us, closed quote. Reference, good reference to the 72 dolphins, the last team, to go undefeated not only through a regular season, but through the postseason, because of course the Patriots went undefeated back in 2007. All right. Now with that out of the way, Dan Quinn, then we will get to the game take from yesterday in the next segment. So Dan Quinn had a bad day. It doesn't make him a bad coach. He had a bad day in one game. It just happened that it was his first as the team's head coach.

I like Dan Quinn. You know, he may not have been my first choice, but I liked him. And he was their first choice. Yes, he was. You know, just a reminder to those of you, who still believe he was choice number five or six, and they had to settle for him. That's not true.

And anyone you hear that from is wrong, dead wrong. And they're just trying to act like they know something, but they don't. I was on this podcast long before they hired Dan Quinn, but shortly after they first interviewed him, telling all of you that I had sources telling me that they loved him and that he had risen to near the top, if not the top of the heap in terms of the people they wanted to hire. They still had other interviews.

It was very early. It was in that Zoom stage. They hadn't gone through the in-person interview stage. But from the jump, they loved him. And I still talk to people occasionally who I won't name, but some of them are people and names you've heard of, mostly in national media, who insist that they hired him as a last resort.

or as a deep down the list prospect. And I tell them, no, that's not true. You got bad information. Quinn was always desired and really, really preferred by Harris and Peters. They wanted experience. They wanted leadership, and he was the most experienced other than Belichick and Harbaugh, but they didn't want either one of those guys because those guys wanted total control. That's another conversation altogether.

Anyway, sidetracked. They like Quinn a lot. I like him. Again, he wasn't my first choice. I would have preferred an offensive guy in today's game, but they did fine in hiring him, and I've been a fan from afar of Dan Quinn, certainly as a defensive mind. Now, with all that understood, not a good first impression for Dan Quinn yesterday. You know, he referred to during the preseason at one point. He referred to, he referred to, during the preseason at one point. He referred to, he referred to Mondays as Tell the Truth Mondays. You know, one of his coach sayings, one of his coach things. You know, they watch the tape. They all come in and they have a tell the truth Monday session. I guess that's what it is. Well, the truth yesterday hasn't changed today on Monday. His team was outplayed, out hustled, outcoached.

They didn't look ready on either side of the ball, honestly, although it was much worse on defense than anywhere else. Much more on that coming up in the game take. His clock management at the end of the first half costs them a chance at another possession and a chance at points. A couple of fourth down decisions were questionable at best. His decision to leave Jaden Daniels in the game running zone reeds in short yardage at the goal line down 37 to 14 late in the fourth quarter was in my view, risk. and unwise. Jaden got knocked around a bunch on those final few plays, lost his helmet on one of them. If he had gotten hurt there at the end, the Dan Quinn era may have begun to wind down on the

same day it started. Anyway, it's not, you know, Jaden Daniels' job to take himself out of the game. I love players like Daniels who just want to play and compete. A guy like that would never do that or play it safe when he was in there. It's the coach's job. You either keep him in the game and tell him to hand the ball off or throw it quickly or you take him out. Running designed or option runs was a risk not worth taking. You know, maybe Quinn in the moment was shell-shocked by the beatdown his team was taking, had taken, but the score at that point does not matter. You know, 37 to 20 or 37 to 14, the health of your golden ticket quarterback matters in a game that's out of reach. I don't think he should have been in there. Quinn said something after the game, too, that was,

I think, an understanding of yesterday's result and probably the results to come maybe early in the season, you know, certainly up and down more likely than not. Here's what he said. He said, quote, it was part of his introductory remarks in the presser yesterday. He said, quote, you need to struggle to see the identity develop. You don't want it, but you need it. That happened tonight, closed quote. An interesting thought from Dan Quinn. I actually watched that earlier today. And you could see in his face, as he said, you need to struggle to see the identity develop. You don't want it, but you need it. That happened tonight. You could see that there was a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment, you know, yesterday last evening in Tampa with the way

they got drubbed and that the identity that they had spoken a lot about over the off-season, over the pre-season, that, you know, they were far, far from what they see as their kind of aligned vision, the AP, DQ, you know, aligned vision. And I thought that there was some real awareness there in the moment. It was a bit of a reality check moment yesterday, even though it's just one game. They understand that too. I actually had him on radio a few weeks ago. It was right after, I think, the second preseason game and before the New England game.

and I asked him, I prefaced a question by saying, you guys have been very upbeat, very optimistic about, you know, the kind of players you're bringing in, the way that you're utilizing them so far, the production you've gotten out of the off season, you know, the boxes you've been able to check off for Jaden Daniels and other, you know, things that you've wanted to accomplish. and I then said, I'm curious to know if you think you can really learn anything about your team before they start playing real games in September. And he said, you know, I appreciate the question.

I think that there's, you know, truth in that it takes several games and it takes facing adversity to really know what you have. And he said it sometimes takes a half of a season, you know, a quarter to half of a season. And, you know, he talked about, you know, forming winning habits and developing kind of an identity. You know, you can identify the identity building habits. But in terms of whether or not, you know, that will manifest itself on Sundays in September and October, you don't know until you get there. And I wonder, you know, the identity that he mentioned in this quote, you need to struggle to see the identity develop.

I wonder if that identity, you know, that he's talked about, Adam Peters has talked about, you know, throughout the offseason, throughout the preseason, playing fast, playing physical, competing till the end. I wonder if he was disappointed with some of that yesterday, you know, especially on defense. You know, Tommy and I talked a couple of weeks ago. It may have been about two weeks ago on a show. We titled the show, actually, Commanders Secret Sauce. And it was really the secret sauce that has been referenced at least a half dozen times since Dan Quinn took the job and Adam Peters took the job. It's, you know, this very optimistic view when they spoke. about the roster they were compiling and the production they were getting from that roster in OTAs and

mini camps and then training camp. And it was a way to describe the type of players that they had brought in and the way the coaches were utilizing them. You know, that that combination, the player traits and the way they were utilized was the secret sauce. They hadn't played a game yet, but they were talking identity, secret sauce, and just being very positive and optimistic about the job that was being done. You know, my two cents worth of advice on the podcast that Tommy and I did, you know, two weeks ago, was that I kind of wish that they would talk a bit less about identity and secret sauces and show us those things instead, you know, when the real games begin. And, you know, and then when we see, you know, the identity emerge and the secret ingredients coming together for a great taste, we can speak on their behalf.

We can laud them and compliment them for those things. You know, don't get me wrong. This is not the same, you know, nitpicking or bitching about previous regimes that constantly overpressed and under-delivered. and under-delivered. I'm not saying that that's what they're doing. I like this group so far, and I know that they just happen to be very positive, very upbeat, and look, part of it is they're trying to generate interest in a team that's lost a lot of interest in recent years. I like Dan Quinn. I really believe that it will all play out much better than the way it started yesterday. But when he said that after the game, you know, you need to struggle to see the identity

He knew that some struggles, or at least some ups and downs, were coming. Knowing that, I just would have made it a point to talk less about identity publicly. You know, I'm a coach Joe guy, like many of you, when it comes to this stuff. He never told us anything was going well. You know, he was never in front of a mic talking about secret sauces and identities and checking off boxes, you know, and really grasping things and the whole thing, right? And I get it. Today's media is different than, you know, the Gibbs era media. But when you listen to Gibbs talk about his team in the offseason, in the preseason, in a week leading up to a game,

you would have thought his team had no chance. It's not what he was saying behind closed doors, but no way was he ever going to talk about anything being, you know, figured out quite yet. His total focus was showing us on game day and then letting us talk about his team in very optimistic ways, you know. Look, AP, DQ are far different from what we've had around here, or at least I want to believe that, and I do.

But none of the talk about anything over the last eight to nine months meant anything until yesterday. And yesterday is a standalone entity, and it doesn't mean a lot. But you are judged in this league on games that are played in September and run through late January, sometimes the month after that, hopefully. And, you know, he told you with that quote after the game, it's going to take some time. The identity isn't quite established yet. You know, it was a bit of a reality check. Real games versus joint practices, OTAs tend to be, you know, better measuring sticks,

you know, better tasting sessions for secret sauces. I'm all in, though, on DQ and AP. all of them. And while yesterday was not very good, it was just one game. Thank God this isn't a first impression league, because yesterday was not a very good first impression. But like the weather, you know, in places like Denver, just wait a few minutes because things do change. Rate us and review us if you get a chance, especially on Apple and Spotify. Five stars, if you see fit with a quick one to two sentence review on Apple really helps us, as does subscribing to the podcast and following us on Apple and Spotify as well. My game take after these words from a few of our

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I think we're going to see a lot of those in the weeks and years ahead. That made it 23 to 13 at the end of the third quarter. Dan Quinn opted to kick the extra point rather than go for two to try to cut the deficit to eight points. I'll give you my thoughts on that decision and several others coming up in the game take. By the way, Jaden Daniels in the game yesterday, his 88 rush yards, the most by a rookie quarterback in a season opening game during the Super Bowl era. He definitely showed us his wheels in the game yesterday, last night, whatever. This segment of the show brought to you by Wind Donation.

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Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Take. The Game Take, broken into three categories, as always. Things I liked, things I didn't like, and other observations from the game that don't necessarily fit into either of the first two categories. I'm going to start with the things that I liked from the game that may seem hard to do. It wasn't easy when your team gets so soundly beaten, as Washington was yesterday. But there were a few things.

that were encouraging, and I'll start with the quarterback. And I won't bury the lead. I gave Jaden Daniels, not an A, not an A minus, not a B plus. I gave him a B for his first game. I thought there was more good than bad. He certainly tried to kind of don that Superman cape, understanding that they needed to score a lot of points, given how poorly the defense was.

It was probably a similar feeling for him to playing in college last year with a defense that was so horrible at LSU that they pretty much had to score in every drive to have a chance to be in the game. Look, he was playing for us watching yesterday with Washington's 2023 defense. He was playing with LSU's defense or being reminded of it.

We were being reminded of 2033's Washington defense. And you know, you start with his ability as a runner, His ability to create something out of nothing. There is a cheat code quality to his mobility. It's special. You know, this is something that we all knew, especially if you watched him at LSU. All you have to do is turn on a highlight reel.

It's some of the most incredible highlight plays you'll ever see from a college quarterback. This isn't just your run-of-the-mill mobile quarterback. This is a very unique talent with his mobility. I mean, we've seen some of these guys in recent years. Lamar kind of tops the list. And there is this incredible innate ability to feel where the defenders are and make those guys look silly with speed, with quickness, with vision, with wiggle. This is why I've said during the whole offseason, and I hope you saw it in the first game,

He's not RG3 as a runner. This is not a straight line guy. This is a guy that has great feel for where it's coming from and makes people miss. I didn't have a problem with the way he got down yesterday. He can slide. This idea that he can't slide is silly because he did slide at times at LSU. It looks like he's more comfortable moving forward. I didn't have a problem with it.

Does it look a little bit awkward? A little bit, not a lot awkward. He falls forward rather than going into a slide and losing yardage. And by the way, having that head exposed on your back sliding, you see a lot of quarterbacks take big hits that way that always get flagged. But really, more than anything yesterday was this incredible ability to run. I didn't think he had to run as much as he did. But what you saw was basically every scoring drive was created primarily by his

ability to turn limited plays or bad plays into positive plays with his legs. I mean, that is, you know, right now something that they'll be able to count on. I think they can count on a lot more, but, you know, 88 rushing yards. He ran primarily through scrambles. That was most of the yards, but he also had a QB draw. We had read options. We had a quarterback counter. I don't love that. I don't want to see him running quarterback counter, to be honest with you. I don't mind the scramble. I don't mind the read options. I don't mind the QB draws from empty set against a defense that spread. But, you know, quarterback counter, they ran that early third quarter. I think he picked up three or four yards on that play. I think those are the plays where they're pile-ups

and I don't know. Those are the plays I'd prefer them not to run with Jaden. You see that with Lamar. You see a lot of quarterback counter. You see a lot of quarterback power. You see a lot of quarterback duo. You see a lot of quarterback sweep. You know, they really treat him like a running back at times. They have in the past. They did in the Thursday night game.

Love the scrambling. Love zone read to be a part of what they do. Love quarterback draw in different spots. Don't love the designed quarterback counters. I'd prefer they not run those, but they ran all. one of those in the third quarter. His passing wasn't, you know, perfect, but there were some really good accurate throws to Ertz over the middle, to Eckler over the middle, processed quickly, threw it quickly, versus pressure was able to get the ball out to Brian Robinson,

off to Echler. He was pressured on 47.1% of his dropbacks. There were five plus rushers in the game. I saw these numbers a little bit later on after the radio show this morning, but I really thought in watching the game that he had been pressured a lot, and the numbers were out there per next gen. Five plus rushers or more. I mean, Bowls came after him. 47.1% of his dropbacks. It was the second highest rate in week one in terms of being blitzed. And he was pressured on 38.1% of his dropbacks that was the seventh most in the league. And his average time to throw was 2.35 seconds. That was the fastest in week one.

So he didn't have a lot when he did drop back. He had some opportunities. I'll get to those. You know, the passing yardage, 17 of 24 for 184. A lot of that was kind of what you would refer to as, you know, garbage, stat stuffing, yardage at the end of the game when they were down 23 and Tampa was soft and Tampa had reserved. in the game. I mean, Tampa, Tampa lost key, key players during the game yesterday in their

secondary. But overall, there was a lot of good. Now, the criticisms would be, I didn't think he needed to run as much as he did. I thought there were opportunities for him to throw the ball before he scrambled. There's one play in particular that I want to talk about in length. But before that, I also thought that there were some inaccuracies. He had a third and three missed to Zakias. He missed Terry on that long bomb to open up the second half. You know, the guy that tweeted me about poise and accuracy, he could have also said, and you said he was the best deep ball thrower in college football and he missed that one to Terry. He's going to hit that. Trust me. He will hit that throw. I'm sure he would love to have that back. He was an excellent

deep ball thrower. We saw it in the one deep ball he threw in the preseason. But man, that would have been big. It was 16 to 7 and Terry had a step on the defender and Terry barely even touched the ball yesterday, but he overthrew him on that one. The one play that to me bothered me the most in the game came on that first drive of the third quarter. They're down 16 to 7 and they're you know, right around midfield. And it's second down in eight. The ball's actually at Tampa's 36, so they're already in, well, I say field will range for Cade York, you know, who knows what that range was.

But he took a sack on a play in which they went one by four, four receivers, one side of the field, right side of the field, one on the left, that was Terry McLorne. McLaren kind of lined up in the same spot all day long. There was not a lot of motion used by Kingsbury. I'll get to that when I get to the list of things that I didn't love. Ertz and McCaffrey were on the inside of the four on the right side. Zekees and Echler were split out further. And, you know, Ertz runs a shallow cross.

McCaffrey runs kind of a post behind that. And Jaden drops back, and there are five rushing. There is a blitz. And I think there's a pocket there for him to step up, and I think there's time for him to make the throw. He can pick McCaffrey over the defender in that second level. He can pick Ertz underneath. That ball's got to come out.

It's got to come out quickly. And I think that that's a throw that, you know, there are people that, you know, followed, didn't watch a game, but focused only on statistical, you know, numbers that were sort of advanced in the PFF world. He doesn't throw across the middle enough. He has a high pressure to sack percentage, et cetera. This would have been one in which those people would have said, see, see?

Now, there are plenty of examples of him throwing across the middle under pressure. There are plenty of examples of him under pressure and maybe, you know, creating a two-yard loss instead of a nine-yard loss on third and long, because he's trying to make a play at LSU. But this was a play that was concerning because there is a pocket for him to step up into. There are two options, and it looks like they are his early progressions. It's a second down and eight play, and the ball's got to come out. He's got to step up. The ball's got to come out.

And instead, he backed up. he backed out of the pocket, got hit, fumbled, and Tyler Biotish fell on the ball, fortunately recovering the fumble, but they went from second and eight to third and 18. That to me was the most concerning play of the game. It really was, and you don't want to see that. It's a great coaching point.

It's his rookie debut, and you know, you didn't see a lot of that at LSU. You didn't see the backing up in the pocket. You typically see that with guys that don't have good pocket presence that also don't see things or don't process things quickly enough. He does and has, and he did in this game, but that play didn't like that one at all, especially watching on the All-22, because Ertz and McCaffrey are both options for him. But he's got to step up and the ball's got to be out. You know, he's getting blitzed and the ball's got to come out.

And both of those receivers make that catch and move the sticks. So that would be, for me, on his day, the most concerning play. You know, he was charged with three fumbles in the game. One of them was the lateral to Robinson Jr. on the first play of the game. The other one was on a scramble where when he got out of bounds, the ball, just as he was going out of bounds, the ball came out of his hands. But it came out of his hands going out of bounds. By the way, the other thing about that sack and fumble, the ball's totally exposed. He's got to protect the ball in the pocket.

I just did not like the backing up in the pocket. One game. it's only one game and there's no referendum on anything but i didn't see that you know watching him in college and what you did see against the good and the better defensive teams is you saw when they did blitz him he either burned him with his legs or he burned him with his arm and he did that a bunch in the pocket um but that's one of those throws that you have to make in the NFL when the defensive coordinator on the other side on second and Nate says, we're coming after you. And they came after him all day. Look, he didn't turn the ball over. He was sacked just twice on the day.

And for the most part, you know, I'm sure Todd Bowles is saying, I don't want to face that team, you know, down the road with that guy if I'm going to blitz him as much. because he made me pay to the tune of 88 yards rushing, and he'll do that to a lot of people. So that's kind of it on him. He's on my list of things that I liked. Both running backs are on the list of things that I liked. God, I like Brian Robinson, Jr. a lot. He can catch the ball out of the back field.

He can run it. Look, statistically yesterday, 12 for 40, nothing to write home about a touchdown. The three catches for 49 yards. The 32-yarder was big-time, broke a tackle, got it down almost into the end zone, and then, you know, they scored on the next play. I just think that he's a solid NFL back. I think he's a top half of the league back, and, you know, my bold prediction was he was going to have a pro-bowl season.

You've got to have more than 40 yards rushing to have a pro-bowl season. But I think he's going to have some big games, and I thought Austin Echler looked really good. He only had two carries, but he had three catches in the game, four catches, excuse me, in the game for 52 yards. He's really got that ability to shed a tackle to kind of duck or make somebody miss in the open field. If he's healthy, I think he's going to be a big positive. I really think Echler and Brian Robinson, Jr., along with Terry, and then at least Eertz for now, are going to be the real. skill position producers. We'll see about Senate.

We'll see about Noah Brown. He was inactive yesterday. But I liked both of the running backs. I thought that they were impressive. I thought Ertz was pretty good. I'd like to see Ertz stay up a little bit after he catches the ball. But three catches for 28 yards. He's a big target.

He's going to be targeted more. So those were, you know, offensive players I like. Now, look, I'm going to absolutely crucify the defense when I get the list of things that I did not like from the game, but let me tell you about the only thing that I did like defensively. It's kind of weird, too. So the defense on first down was actually pretty damn good. The bucks were stopped on first down for six tackles for loss and four zero yardage plays. Washington had six TFLs in the game. That's a lot in a game. You know, they, the bucks, let me list the second down and distance situations that they had in

this game. They had a second down and 11, a second in 12, a second 14, a second 12, a second and 13, a second in 10, another second in 10, a second in 13, a second and 14. On nine different occasions in the game, Tampa faced second and 10 or longer. That tells you two things. That tells you that Washington was pretty decent on first down defensively. It also tells you that they were hideous on second and third downs, mostly third downs in this game. But six tackles for loss, you take that most days on first down to set up second and long. I mean, look at what I just listed. I mean, that's a hard situation to overcome in the NFL.

I mean, there are certain teams that do it all the time. You know, the Josh Allen's and the Patrick Mahomes do it all the time. Baker Mayfield was really good yesterday, but that team doesn't do it as much as some of the other teams. And yet, they could not get off the field. You know, who was responsible for some of those second and long situations? I thought Duran Payne at times was pretty disruptive defensively. I thought that Bobby Wagner had his moments as well,

but it's hard to really pinpoint anybody defensively that had, you know, a legit good game. That's kind of hard. I wouldn't really, I'm just going through my list of notes here. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying anybody individually played a good game defensively. Not of the players that were out there a lot. I mean, the PFF numbers might come out tomorrow, and they might have, you know, a defensive player that didn't play a lot that played well. But for me, you know, Brian Robinson, Jr.,

Austin Echler. By the way, I thought the offensive line, I meant to mention this, I thought the offensive line was solid. I know that he didn't have a lot of time to throw it, but I thought that there were pockets there. But in terms of specific players along the offensive line, you know, Cosme, you could see his athleticism at times kind of shine. but defensively, the only thing you can say positive is that they were pretty good on first down a lot of the day.

No turnovers, okay? That's good. And yeah, that's the list of things that I like. The things that I did not like. So I think we just have to start with what they were defensively in this game because it was really kind of an ugly flashback. the last year. And the problem with that is I really thought, and I still do. It's one game. No referendum. I'm not changing my mind after one game on anything that I thought. But I really

thought and think that Dan Quinn, a defensive head coach along with Joe Witt Jr., and the staff they put together on defense, combined with the veteran players that came in, the players who were familiar with the system that they were implementing, I thought that that would make a big, difference and a big difference right away. All right? It didn't in the first week. You know, I thought the bigger mystery was going to be the offense and that it would, you know, have ups and downs and it might take a while. But the defense appears after the first week or yesterday, just talking

about the one game, the defense had more holes in the boat than the offense did. You know, I just thought that there was a chance defensively that we were going to see a quick improvement, like in week one. Now, to be fair, Tampa pretty much brought their whole team back offensively and defensively, and they have their own cheat code in Mike Evans. He's an elite wide receiver. They're receiving corps with Chris Godwin, with the rookie McMillan from Washington, Tray Palmer. This is a top five-ish receiving core, and the quarterback is coming off the best year of his career, and by the way, was outstanding yesterday. So they're playing a solid unit who's experienced and together off of a playoff season in which they won a playoff game last year. So I do acknowledge

that Tampa Bay overall, you know, offensively was better. By the way, they were better defensively versus Washington's offense as well. But my God, this was a disastrous day for the defense. The Buccaneers scored points on their first five possessions and seven of their eight total possessions in the game. Seven of eight. That's a Big 12 college thing, not an NFL thing. And what makes it impressive is that the seven scoring drives didn't start because of

turnovers and a super short field or a big kickoff return or a punt return. They were all drives. They were all drives. Washington didn't turn the ball over. They didn't give up a big return. You know, they did kick the ball out of bounds and gave them the ball at the 40 once. This was ridiculous efficiency and production. and it was, you know, it was death by a thousand cuts. You know, it wasn't one big play that gets them down to the three-yard line. It was these second and longs and third-in-longs that they just kept overcoming. You know, in the game, they were nine of 13.

The team stat line shows nine of 13 on third down. That's bad enough. But actually, two more conversions on third down due to penalty, which doesn't get counted. in the third down conversion means that 11 out of 15 times on third down, they stayed on the field. The other four times, they kicked three field goals, and they punted once. The two best receivers on the field, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, they were targeted 14 times. They had 13 catches and three touchdowns. The quarterback was outstanding, the receivers were outstanding, Washington's defense.

was dreadful. They threw it wherever they wanted to, to whomever they wanted to throw it to. In the second half, they ran it wherever they wanted to. If not for a bunch of penalties, Tampa penalties, and an early drop touchdown pass and an early overthrow by Baker Mayfield,

it would have been worse. They scored 37 points, all on offense, no special teams, no defense, on basically 60 offensive snaps. That excludes the two kneel downs at the end. That is domination, kids, domination. Tampa's offense is good. They deserve a ton of credit.

They have good players. They were schemed up well. They went after Washington's clear weaknesses, which we knew coming in, was coverage, some of the personnel that they had out there. but man, if I didn't know better, I would have thought I was watching last year's defense. It's just one game. I am consistently here to remind myself that it was just one game. They had 11 new players out there on defense, so it's going to take some time.

But it was a disaster defensively. And there was no worse day than the day had by Emmanuel Forbes. it was really awful. He is struggling with confidence. There is no doubt about that. He had two penalties on one play. He couldn't cover the slot. He couldn't cover anybody.

It's not like Sanra still was much better. He got abused at times as well. First game, he's a rookie. I know what all of you are saying. I do. I don't know what their options are. Mike Davis, the corner they brought in from the Chargers, didn't play a defensive snap in the game.

So you had out there, you had Forbes Jr., you had St. Juice, who had a near pick, and on the touchdown to Mike Evans was actually in pretty good position coverage-wise. He just didn't turn his head in the right spot. But, you know, what are you going to do? I guess you can play Davis. I guess you can play Noah I who came in. You know, Forbes Jr. was benched. was then x-rayed for an injury. It was a bad day for the defense. It was a bad day for coverage.

And that's the only thing that, no, there are a couple of other things. But defensively, I would say that yesterday is a standalone event. It's one game. But at the same time, we've known for a while that personnel-wise corner was going to be an issue. especially outside corner. Sanra still did not have a great rookie debut, that's for sure, but it's one game. I think a big part of it too defensively in coverage is they looked so confused. There was a lot of confusion. There were communication issues as well. Some of the players talked about that after the game. You could see it on the field. It forced them to call a time out on defense. You know, it was confusion. It was communication.

It was just, you know, they didn't tackle well. You know, early in the game, it was actually Wagner who missed a tackle. They let Mayfield go a couple of times when they had them down. I actually didn't think that the pressure was that bad. They just couldn't finish. By the way, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Defense, coverage, communication, confusion, gap integrity. against the run in the second half.

I mean, they seem to be, you know, crowding the line of scrimmage, and they still couldn't stop Bucky Irving, the rookie running back from Oregon, or Rashad White. I think their backs are underrated, Tampa as are. I talked about White coming into this game. I know that it was brutally hot down there.

I know that the humidity was horrible. The whole thing was just really awful. defensively. It really was. The number one reason for the loss, not even close, was just how bad the defense is. When you give up scores on seven of eight drives, think about this, Tampa only had eight drives. Why? Because there's no change of possession. The clock's rolling. They were two to one almost in the first half on time of possession, and they're scoring. And you give up scores on seven of hate drives totaling 37 points, you've got very little chance in this league. One game, Giants are coming up next. They're not as good as Tampa is, although Daniel Jones seems to

save his best for Washington. On the list of things I didn't like the kicker, clearly two missed fuel goals and out-of-bounds kick, and he got released. He also had a PAT that barely made it through an upright, but he's gone. So they'll try Austin Sebert against the Giants. No takeaways defensively on my list. This was a staff that promised takeaways. They had feasted on takeaways in Dallas. Quinn and Joe Witt, Jr. had none in the first game.

I thought Kingsbury's overall plan, you know, this is kind of hard, I think, for us, because they know what they're matched up against. They know what they have. I didn't love, you know, essentially, you know, almost a two-to-one pass play called or run call. You know, a lot of those runs were read options or designed runs for the quarterback. You only had 16 carries, right, or 14 carries for the running backs. Now, they were behind, too, so you take the fourth quarter out of it because they're not going to run the ball there. I said on Friday that the number one key to this game was having a plan for the pressure because it was going to come.

And I'm not sure they had a great plan other than Jaden go make something happen. That's not, to me, a sustainable plan. It's not the plan you want. What you want is really you're going to bring an extra guy or two. Well, we're going to throw the ball to somebody with our guy from the pocket who processes quickly, who releases quickly, and it's going to be in the hands of a playmaker. But, but, you know, in Kingsbury's defense, when I went back and watched some of the All-22, it wasn't like there were people open other than that one play I talked about.

You know, it's not like even when he went off schedule. There were a lot of people getting open off schedule. You know, usually when a quarterback's able to extend and create time, somebody breaks free. I didn't see a lot of separation. I mean, who's going to be? the step-up receiver after Terry. You know, for those of you that just really, really seem to have a problem with the Brandon Iyuk conversation all summer, I mean, come on.

Like, you didn't know that they didn't have a second receiver and you need one in this league? You know, you need one for Terry. Look, if you didn't want Brandon Ayuk for a lot of reasons, that position's not unreasonable. Too expensive. You didn't like his attitude. but you need another guy that can play. Maybe it'll be Noah Brown.

I mean, he came in late. He was inactive yesterday. Luke McCaffrey was the receiver with the second most snaps out there to Terry. But, you know, the Kingsbury plan didn't include a lot of motion. You know, I'm watching last night the Rams in Detroit.

Cooper Cup had 14 catches in the game. I would bet you that half of them, minimum half of them were off of him in motion. Where was all the pre-snap motion? Terry's kind of lined up outside primarily. You know, if you're going to put your best receiver in one spot until the defense he's not moving from that spot, I don't know.

Is it easier to cover him? I think so. This could have been just the plan for this game. I think Kingsbury is a huge part of J. Jayden Daniels development and a huge part of what this team will or won't be this year. And I was not blown away impressed with the first outing. But again, there are probably some reasons for that. You know, if Kingsbury pulled us into the room and said,

you want to see the receivers, we didn't get any separation because I saw a lot of that watching the All-22 this afternoon. What do you want me to do? I mean, Jaden's looking and he's processing right and we're not winning. We got to win. And you would have seen more of those throws against pressure. And I think that there's probably some truth in that. Still, the lack of kind of pre-snap motion, you got some interesting formations. You had Brian Robinson Jr. in the backfield right next to Jaden and Biotto snapped at

Robinson on a wildcat snap. You had a formation where Echler and Robinson were lined up kind of in a stack formation in the backfield. Not an eye formation. It was offset to Jaden. So it wasn't, you know, pistol necessarily, and they went with an inside handoff to Brian Robinson, Jr. And let me just tell you that there was a play in the third quarter, third and 18. It was the play after Jaden got sacked, the play that to me was the one real concerning play for the. for yesterday, where he stepped backwards out of the pocket rather than stepping up and throwing to Ertz or McCaffrey. The next play was third and 18. They had the perfect play it looked like. It was a bubble screen look to McCaffrey, but then he was going to throw back, as in a lateral

back, across the field to Jaden, who had a wall of blockers set up. It looks on the all 22 that if McCaffrey makes the lateral to throw backwards right away and doesn't hesitate that Jaden catches it and he may run 50 some yards for a touchdown, he didn't throw it. Instead he kept it and he got eight yards and then they tried a field goal. So, I mean, for those of you that have the All-22, go watch that play and tell me what you think. So then we come to this, some decisions by the head coach in the game. So I'll start with the most obvious in terms of clock management.

I don't know why he didn't use his final timeout on defense at the end of the first half. To me, that was silly. You had an opportunity to get the ball back with about 48, 49, 50 seconds left. Tampa kicked a field goal and when you got the ball back you had 11 seconds to go you took a knee and went into the locker room with one time out.

I was really hoping that I could just put on ice for a while since they hired this guy Dave Gardy from the league office all of the clock management complaints because it's been going on for years through many coaches Ron, Jay, Mike, Zorn,

Joe, you know, wasn't great at it. his second stint. And, you know, game number one, they've got an opportunity to snag an extra possession. You've got a quarterback that has basically run them into field goal range on a couple of occasions. I know the lack of faith in the kicker, but still, you're down 16-7. Wouldn't you want to try to go for that double dip because you were getting the ball to start the second half? that was a mistake, period. That's a mistake. I can't think of any explanation. I always think about, well, if they sat down with me, this is what they would say in their defense. I don't think there's

much of a defense for that one personally. I don't. The decision not to go for two down 2313, I'm okay with that, honestly. There's too much time left. It's late third quarter, minute 52 left. There are more possessions in the game. You could make the case that because your defense couldn't get off the field that maybe you only have one or two more possessions in the game, it's not like there are going to be two, three, four more, and you're going to get a bunch of stops and there are going to be a bunch of scores and a bunch of scoring opportunities. I'm personally of the opinion that you go for two starting in the fourth quarter when you have to. I mean, late third quarter in certain situations, but I was okay on his decision not to go for two there. I did not think that that was an egregious error. I did not like the decision to punt the football on fourth and five, you know, down 23 to seven.

No, I'm sorry, my fault. I did not like the decision in the fourth quarter down 30 to 14. It's technically a chance to tie the game on two possessions down 16. I don't like referring to it as a two-possession game because that assumes that you're going to make both two-point conversions. And the likelihood is it's a three-possession game at least because you're not going to convert on both. But it was fourth and seven from their own 47 and he punted the ball there. I didn't like that. I mean, what do you have to lose?

You got a quarterback that has a chance to run for it, you know, and scramble for it or throw for it. I just, you're still technically in the game down 30 to 14 and you punt with 11, 15 to go fourth and seven near midfield. Didn't like that at all. You know, the decision to kick the field goal in the first half on a fourth down and three at the Tampa Bay 29. I don't know, man. It's going to be a little bit different to think about these things with Jaden Daniels. You know, fourth and three, they were down six nothing. They had driven it. You know, this was their second drive of the game. You know, do you go for that? I would probably guess the analytics say you go for that fourth and three, you know, with your quarterback or with

almost any quarterback with that field position. But they went for the field goal and Cade York was wide right. Those were, I think, the only decisions, the egregious one by far. The no debater, in my opinion, is not snagging another drive opportunity and another scoring opportunity at the end of the first half. That didn't make any sense to me. Also on the list of things that I didn't like, too many penalties, too much confusion, pre-snap, both sides of the ball. Nothing was really smooth in this opener. But it was just one game. All right, there were other observations.

I'll give you some of those. And we'll go around the league a little bit and talk briefly about some of the things that happened on Saturday. We'll get to that and more right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Out of all the things we do to maintain and protect our homes, getting up on a ladder to clean out the gutters is the last thing. anybody wants to do. Whether you're tired of unclogging gutters or you don't even know what your gutters look like from above, it's time to upgrade to a permanent solution with Leaf Filter. Right now,

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Anyway, Washington, two and a half point favorites over the Giants. The total is 43 and a half on Sunday at FedEx Field 1 o'clock. Go to MyBooky.ag promo code, Kevin D.C. All right, a couple of other quick observations. I'm actually going to hold off on some of the other football stuff. The show is getting a little bit long, and it's taking me a little bit longer to get it out today. Just had a few technical issues.

Sucks because it's the Monday after the first game. We're getting this show out. It should be out in the early, late afternoon to early evening. But I'm going to get this show wrapped up and just kind of pass on some of the other NFL stuff and some of the college football stuff. I was going to talk a little bit about Maryland's tough loss on Saturday. But let me just give you the other observations I had

from the game, and then we will be back tomorrow. The other observations are this. There were 12 kickoffs in the game yesterday. Nine were touchbacks, three returns. I haven't seen the numbers for the league, but I believe that there were many more touchbacks than the league anticipated when they put the new kickoff rule in. And the league's going to have to make a decision, if that's true and I think it is. we're going to have to, as a league, penalize the kickoff teams for kicking the ball through the end zone,

forcing a touchback by five more yards and give the receiving team the ball at the 35 instead of the 30 because moving it from the 25 to the 30 for touchback was not much of a deterrent. It would seem, you know, again, one weekend, but maybe they just wanted to do it that way until they saw results in other places. I don't know. But a lot of touchbacks, it would seem. A lot in our game, a lot in some of the nationally televised games that we saw leading up to yesterday. Or they could just scratch this thing all together.

I don't really love it. I'm open-minded. If it turns into an exciting play fine, I'm sure we'll get used to it. It just looks very gimmicky to me. But the bottom line is one kickoff return for a touchdown. That happened in Buffalo. yesterday. The Arizona Cardinals had a big return. I don't think, you know, unless they decide to really penalize the kickoff team with five more yards, I think we're going to see a lot more teams just

say, yeah, we're okay with the 30-yard line. Last observation is this. Yes, totally focused on today's show on just one game, and it was week one, so you really can't get wrapped up into what you saw. With that said, there are a couple of things because they were concerns going into the game, and then in the game these were big problems, that I think we can consider as medium to perhaps longer-term concerns. They have a problem at corner. There is no doubt. They have a coverage issue, and I don't know if they can fix that with players. You know, Mike Davis didn't play yesterday at all.

find him in free agency. Kendall Fuller would be nice, but he is in Miami. Forbes Jr. has a confidence crisis, and he may just be a guy that can't do it anyway. I'm not going to get after San Francisco. It's one game. But they're going to have to figure out and coordinate something better defensively to fix this. The communication was a problem. I think that can be fixed. That could be a one-off from one game. The talent and the personnel, you know, St. Juice is there for a lot, but that's an issue, and they're going to have to scheme around that somehow. So it's going to be, you know, I talked about how I think Kingsbury's kind of under the microscope with a rookie quarterback and with an offensive line that has

some question marks or receiving cord that doesn't have much depth. And defensively, somehow in, you know, 2024, where teams identify your weaknesses in the secondary and they got quarterbacks that and receivers, they can go after it like the team did yesterday, they got to come up with a fix for that. I don't know what it is, but it's a concern beyond just a one-game thing, because we had it going in. The other thing I would say is, you know, who is the other guy at wide receiver after Terry?

You know, I think Echler and Robinson Jr. are going to be on the field more often together rather than individually. And that may be part of the solution they come up with. But, you know, is Luke McCaffrey really the answer? He might be. He might be. Diami Brown. Did Diommy Brown even have a target yesterday? I don't even think he had a target in the game yesterday.

So Senate maybe you can get on the field and be more of a factor. We'll see what happens. But, you know, those two areas were areas of concern going in. they are still areas of concern and maybe a little bit more serious in terms of the concern. All right. We'll talk some NFL tomorrow, and I will talk about Maryland's loss to Michigan State tomorrow as well with Tommy on the show. But I want to get this out to you now. Back tomorrow with Tommy.

A lot to work on, and Tampa was a better team today. You need the struggle to see the identity develop. You don't want it, but you do. need it and that part you know is hard and that struggle happened tonight.