The Kevin Sheehan Show - Rivera's Media Sensitivity + More Cooley Film

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Cooley and Kevin today on Ron Rivera's interview with Ben Standig/The Athletic where the coach described that he'd prefer a more supportive local media. The boys also discussed Dwayne Haskins getting reps off-site and the possibility of 4th and 15 being an alternative to the onsides kick next year. Then it was Cooley's "Film Breakdown" of the defense from Sunday's loss to the Giants. He had some surprises along the defensive front, explained how Chase Young was game-planned for, and suggested that the team sign Eric Reid ASAP. 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 Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. It's a Cooley and Kevin Wednesday. Coolie's going to have his defensive film breakdown today. Two things to get to.

Actually, three things to get to you before we get to your defensive film breakdown. Number one is that Dwayne Haskins, there was a report about him, from Darren Haynes at Channel 9. The report went Cooley as follows. quarterback Duane Haskins is put in extra film study and because of lack of reps during practice took the initiative to work out slash practice outside of Washington football's practice facility with other receivers since he was benched last month. That's the report.

What's your immediate reaction to that? Because I have a couple of them. that it's silly and he doesn't need to do that and there doesn't need to be any report of him doing that if he is doing that and by the way he's a professional football player getting paid a boatload of money so just go do whatever you're supposed to do to get better silly uh that's one number two is uh you know this is the kind of report that comes from dwayne you know this is the kind of report that comes from dwayne or Dwayne's people. Dwayne's agent,

Dwayne's family, Dwayne or whatever, to make Dwayne look like he is taking this personal initiative to work out and practice outside of the practice facility because he's not getting enough reps during practice. First of all, like you said, just do it. Don't tell us about this. Because part of number one is it becomes very transparent

as to where it came from. and then you start wondering why it came from that group. Number two is this. Why do you need to get this work outside of Washington's football practice facility? Why don't you just stay late and ask a couple of trainers or a couple of receivers to stay and get some extra reps in? Well, I can answer that question. Okay. You could, you can't do that.

Why? They have an amount of hours that they have to be under. Okay. And he can't have anybody. They can't, if they're out on the field practicing, they're counting it as practice time in the facility for the team. I think they have 20 hours that they can practice and be outside. That's the craziest rule I've ever heard.

It was part of the dispute with the PA. You can't, you can't as a player go into the building and say to your coach, hey, can we go out for an hour after practice and work on some individual thing that coach can't go out with you? What about just a trainer? Can you go out by yourself? No. Like, could a receiver go out and take catches from a jugs machine? You're not supposed to. Okay.

So guys stay for a brief period after practice, but they count that now. It didn't used to be that way. It's absolutely unheard of that that would be. the case in the NFL. That's like a college thing, right? It is like a college thing, but if any of those things get reported, the team and the coaches get fined for it. Okay, fair enough.

Good answer. Then I would add this. Don't you think that the COVID-19 protocols might prohibit some of this off facility, working with other people, exposing himself to other people kind of a thing? Like, I mean, I'm, look, the fact that he's taking this. initiative, if indeed this is what he's doing, I'm all for it. I'm not for publicizing it, like you said. And I just, they're trying to get a message out about him. You know what? Be ready this week, because now you are one snap away, young man, you're one snap away. You weren't last week,

you weren't the week before, you weren't the week before that. Okay, you are now a backup. You're no longer inactive, demoted third-string quarterback. You're one snap away, and Alex is getting hit a lot. So be ready and show us that you can come in, and by the way, produce 250 yards and 20 points in a half of football in relief, rather than have a relief appearance like you did last year in the Meadowlands against the Giants or even the one against the Vikings in Minneapolis on that Thursday night game last year. Show us. God, this is an organization

that is insistent on telling us. Everybody that comes into it, just be ready. I would so recommend to all of the people around him, and I've already sort of mentioned this to one person around him, just do what they tell you to do and do more, and take the high road on every occasion, work your ass off, and prove,

to them how wrong they were when you get your next chance. That's what you've got to do. And now you're just, he's going to get it. You know what? He's going to get another chance. He's going to get another chance as a backup quarterback. Now what will happen, the only way he won't is if somehow Alex gets hot and stays healthy, seems like a long shot to me, even though I thought Alex was really good the other day,

compared to what I thought he would be. Or they bring in some of their quarterback and put him. back in the third string role. Then you really know what they think of them. I think we know already. But be ready. We don't need to know about your, you know, your private workouts and your private initiatives. You've got to be able to show them, not us, and then when you get in there, prove to them that you are a different player than they thought you were. I just, I hate this so much. I think it's so stupid. I know. It is. All right. The second. I mean, did you ever not just go out and play football?

You know what, Kev? When I was playing the game, I used to go run three, four, five miles all the time. I used to run routes in my yard. In the season, get better. Yeah. Weird. But I just can't imagine. Didn't you get your brother or something to blog about it?

Or didn't you get one of your media sources to put it out there? The coolies working out extra. It's different because you're not. I actually did. Do you remember what I did when I did that? Yeah, it was not pleasant. No, no, no. Oh, am I talking about something else?

Yes, but we were getting criticized for doing a blog instead of thinking about football. I do remember that. And so I put on my full uniform and we went around the house and did yard work and went to McDonald's and did all kinds of things. But I was wearing pads and a helmet. And I said, I'm thinking about football, well, we do this. All right. I don't want to compare you to an embroiled in-controversy young quarterback because they're not comparable. But, I mean, the point is, is you don't have to tell everybody what you're doing, Kev.

Here's how we're going to know. He's going to step on the field and play, and he's either going to play well or he's not. And we don't give a shit what happened beyond that. We just don't care. I don't care if he spent 22. two hours watching film this week. If he steps on the field and doesn't play, it didn't translate. It doesn't work.

He can't do it. Like, this whole work ethic thing with him is just, it's above and beyond. You didn't like all of the videos during the summer of him transforming his body and throwing deep balls to, you know, Antonio Brown and others. God, they were fun to watch. No, I don't need to see a football player workout. You know, the funny thing is, one of the, one of the ones. When I talked, when I was thinking about playing again, trying to play again, one bit of advice I got from a lot of coaches and a lot of people, don't send workout videos.

We don't care. Yeah. You don't need to send us workout videos of where you are. We don't. We don't need them. We don't care. I think that's good advice. But again, all right.

The next thing before we get to your defensive film breakdown, and I sent you this earlier, Ben Standing did a really good job with the story. I urge everybody to subscribe to the athletic because Ben does such a really good job. Rie Walker, David Aldridge, all of them. It's actually totally worth it. And Ben writes a lot. He got an interview with Ron Rivera this week. And the interview really was about the communication with the media between coaches and players

in what has become a remote media encounter. via Zoom. There's no more face-to-face locker room stuff with reporters. There's no postgame podium. You know, after the post game, Ron goes on Zoom, does a press conference with the beat. He does the same thing on Mondays, the same thing on Wednesdays. He is enamored and very, very obsessed with media. It's, you know, it's a good thing for local media that he's so available. He's available a lot, you know, even during this very difficult time that he's been going through personally. So Ben got access to him and wanted to talk about how difficult it was going through this process of, you know, not being able to meet people in person and get to know some of these

reporters in person. It's different than it used to be. And I'm going to read to you a couple of the quotes that came out of it from Ron Rivera. Ben writes, everyone recognizes Rivera's power as the one voice of the team. When it comes to various decisions, his word is often that matters. The media-friendly coach appreciates the back and forth with reporters, even if some of the topics become repetitive, but he simply doesn't like the distance. He said, quote, I like being in person. I like being able to see people and watch people's reactions, stuff like that. So it's been different. It's been quite strange. And quite honestly, I'm not a fan of it. He was asked about, you know, having more in-person contact, and he said, yeah, I wish I had more in-person contact with reporters.

I want to know who is asking those kinds of questions. I want to see how the question is being asked. I'm going to react differently to a person that I think is being professional to a person that's just kind of being flippant to a person who's being snarky. And the same thing for when I say something, I want to see how people react to what I said. Because if I see somebody asking me a question and I see a reaction on their face, I'm thinking, oh, they might not understand. I told Sean, Sean is their PR guy the other day. I missed this opportunity. I'll tell you some of the guys, some of you guys, and he's talking to Ben, are fascinating. There's a group of you guys that I think have the right attitude toward what we're trying to do here. There's a couple of you that I don't think

have that right attitude, and you think it's, and they think it's a joke. And honestly, Honestly, it really pisses me off. But there's a group of you guys that get it. Go ahead. When I read this this morning, I ended up putting Ben on the radio show because I read it and I'm like, whoa. Is he into the media stuff? Everybody buy what I'm selling. And if you don't, get the hell out of my store.

Come on, man. Like everybody has to get what you're doing and believe in what you're doing to be a part of the media. Like what world are you living in? You're not the dictator and czar of Washington media. Oh, my gosh. Remember during some of these, you know, post reports back in the summer, he told everybody he wanted everybody to focus on football. And that's all behind us. Let's focus on the positive guys.

You know, let's look, Cooley. I've been a media member for a much longer period of time than you. And the thing that has bothered me a lot about this organization, among many things, as a fan, the losing. As a media member, it is that they have often portrayed the media that covers the team as incredibly negative and on the attack. And it's just not true. It's certainly not true in a comparative environment to other real, tough media.

markets, which, let's be honest, Ron Rivera just came from Charlotte. Gruden had come from Cincinnati. Shanahan had come from Denver. Very easy media markets. Zorn from Seattle. Gibbs knew what this was, but even he was coming into a different market and world with, you know, the internet, which he didn't have the first time around, and blogs and social media, et cetera, even though during his time social media really hadn't emerged as a as a big vehicle, but it's not a tough sports media market. It isn't. Secondly, nobody in this town is actually out to get them. In fact, I would say that the majority of people that cover the team in my medium, which is more of an opinion-making medium, not a journalism media, medium, I'm not a reporter. You're not a reporter. We're here to opine,

you know, but most of us, a benefit significantly if the team's good, much more so than if the team isn't good, which has been the case for a long period of time. And then beyond that, I'm a lifelong fan. I want them to do well. I used to have this conversation with, you know, Larry and even Tony Wiley, and I would say there's this sense that we all have here that you think we're out to get you. and the truth is quite the opposite. We want you to win because we're fans, but more than that, if we're just speaking about it from a business standpoint,

it benefits us if you win. However, because you don't win very much of the time, we can't say that we're pleased with everything you're doing because no one would care and no one would listen. You know, Larry's show, Redskin Nation, was a rah-rah team-owned show. You know, that's not what works in sports talk radio or as a columnist or as a blogger. You've got to have, you've got to be honest. And you've got to be critical if critical is what is deserved.

And for the most part, during the Dan Snyder tenure, it's been a losing era where it's been really hard to be positive. But deep down, I've wanted the team to win. Deep down, I know this is not a tough media market. You know, I listen to the questions that are asked during these things. no one's peppering the coach with a New York style or a Philadelphia style or Chicago style press conference after a loss. But here's the thing that really it's just, it's another guy. And I like Ron as a coach. And I'm all in right now.

But it's another guy that's come in and been told by the people out there. Oh, this media, it's so tough. You're going to have to really, I mean, and he is buying it and he is predisposed to being sensitive about it. I would tell him, don't give a shit about anything the media says about you or your team. Who cares what we think? I mean, when he said, I'll tell you, some of you guys are fascinating. There's a group of you guys that I think have the right attitude toward what we're trying to do here.

There's a couple of you that don't, and I think it's a joke, and honestly, it really pisses me off. Don't let that piss you off. Come on, man, you're the head coach of one of 32 NFL teams. You know this is a bottom line business. Win, and nobody's going to be critical. You're two and six. And you've been giving a lot of mixed messaged answers that have been a lot, very confusing at times. and we're all empathetic towards what you're going through.

There's a lot of empathy for you, and people want to see you succeed. But don't be pissed off. At the same time, please. I got to share this one quick story. The last time I heard any coach refer to any media member as fascinating was when Tommy and I were doing our midday show on 980, and we were doing the Jim Zorn show every week, and we would be out at the studio, not the one that you and I had, but the one across the hall,

which was the 980 studio there. And Zorn would come in every Tuesday, and we would do 20, 25 minutes with him. And I've told you this before, but when it was over, he would stay. Like, he wouldn't leave. And he would keep the headphones on, and he would listen to Tommy and I do the show. And I remember one day, I looked at him, I'm like, you don't have to be here. You don't have to hang out. And he goes, no, no, this is fascinating.

So the last time I heard anybody refer to a media member as fascinating. It was Jim Zorn. That should be all you need to know about A, who he was referring to as fascinating, Tommy and me. And B, the person that said it. Ron, ignore us. Who gives us shit about whether or not some have the right attitude or the wrong attitude? I mean, come on, man. You're two and six.

And, you know, I also think there's always, you know, with the new guys in town, there's a real, there's a real missing piece to the context of what it's been here. You know, they know from afar. They get a little bit of a sense. But they don't really understand how bad it's been here with this team. And so from their standpoint, there's not an understanding of sort of, perspective is everything. And the perspective of fans and a lot of media members is, you guys suck, you're always going to suck.

And until you prove to me that you don't suck, I'm going to think you suck. So that's what it's been for a while, because we've truly been treated and insulted beyond what any fan base should have been. beyond how any fan base should have been treated as a, I mean, the amount of loyalty from the fan base over a long period of time was incredible. The amount of coverage that this team gets from all media outlets in this town, considering their results, they should be on their knees thanking everybody in the media for spending as much time as we do talking about them, considering their results. Anyway, I like Ron. I think he's a good coach, and I'm rooting for it to work out. But that is way too sensitive, way too sensitive, and way too off focus.

Don't worry about the Zoom and who you've met and who you haven't met. Your job right now is to get well, which is what everybody's hoping for, a real-life thing. And then B, build a football winner here. You build a winner here, and you will not believe. how much people will be on your side. You will be a here. They'll build a statue to you in this town if you can build a sustained winner with this owner. It'll be the most impressive feat of any coach in the history of this town if you can do that.

And just so you know, again, because I know they listen to this podcast, 95% of the media people in this town are rooting for it, A, because of self-interest, because it benefits them. B, in the case of people like me, we're lifelong fans. That's what we want. So stop being so sensitive about what the media thinks. It's not important. It's just absolutely ridiculous.

It's just not important. It's, I can't quite understand it. Rivera wants the outside world that grasp Washington's new top-to-bottom approach during his first season. Okay, explain, make me grasp it. You can't just say we're going to change the culture here and we're going to have a top to bottom approach and then start Duane Haskins to start the season

all the while knowing that that wasn't the guy that you needed to start the season because that wasn't the guy that gave you the best opportunity to win. You can't come in week one and do exactly the opposite of what you're talking about and then say, we're not going to listen to the noise. Duane, don't listen to the noise. but then we're going to make the noise because we're going to talk bad about Duane.

Oh, wait. Oh, man, we messed that up. We'll wait a couple of weeks. Now we'll start to be positive about Duane. Now, Duane's sending mixed messages. He's out there working hard. I can't get the right type of practice in the building. They're not developing in him.

That's what that says to me is that's a shot like, boom, boom. I'm working hard out there because I can't get it in the building, the facility. It's top to bottom. Yeah. And the ultimate thing is this. One, every one of those reporters that I've listened to these pressers over and over and over, they are, I think our guys do a great job. But no one asks the dirty down hard questions in any of those Zoom interviews. I think, let me interrupt there.

I mean, it's as much as this like, Ron, did you, what was, you know, you went for two. I mean, why? I think they ask the right questions. I actually think, and actually more so... They're not brutal questions. No, no, no, hold on. Don't attack him personally. Exactly.

Let me finish. I was going to say that. I actually think that this group actually really does more often than not nail the right questions and the follow-up questions. But what they don't do, which is what they do in other real city, real tough media market cities, is that they're not antagonistic. You know, it's not an attack. He's not being personally attacked.

in these press conference in a sarcastic, antagonistic, condescending way, which is what you get in other places. That's never been this market. I think that this market is very capable of, look, the pro football team, no matter what you think about it, okay, and its fan base is diminished clearly in recent years. It is still the highest volume interest level in sports in this town, and there really isn't a close second. Okay, no matter how bad. they've been, no matter how fans and many fans they've lost, TV ratings, et cetera, it is still the predominant conversation. Ted Leonsis doesn't want to hear that. The learners don't want to hear that, but they know deep down that this football team drives the needle more than the

other teams, and the other teams have been successful. Put it this way. Do you hear Mike Rizzo or Dave Martinez or the learners or any of the caps? a group of coaches and general managers, McClellan, etc. Do you hear them being sensitive about the media? No, you know why? Because they're professionally run organizations that have been winning. You know, so if you were a professional organization and you look professionally competent, you start to win, you'll be less sensitive about what I think is a pretty responsibly

constructive critical media. It just isn't antagonistic. It's just not out there trying to make you look bad. It's not what it is. And it hasn't been that way ever. Look, in our medium where we have more liberties to be just completely opinionated and unfiltered, you know, rather than being a reporter, do we get passionate? Do we get upset? Do we call people names every once in a while?

Because we're really passionate and we're really upset? Yeah, but you know what? They should be glad that some of us are still passionate. that some of you out there listening are still passionate. Because there are towns where there would be nobody left. And there would be nobody interested in this conversation. And nobody pushing this conversation about a team that's been this wretched for this long. This dismal.

You're just snarky. I'm just snarky. You know, I did say, I wonder where is that quote? where's the one about that? Oh, I, um, hold on, sorry. Uh, oh, when he said, um, I want to know who's asking those kinds of questions. Let me just tell you something. Seriously, you shouldn't care.

It's nice to develop a relationship with media and address them like Sean does out in LA, you know, by, by their name and get to know people. I understand that. That's nice. And by the way, I would advocate, you know, on some level. And Tommy's always taught me this. You know, if you, like Dan and Bruce. obviously don't understand this but if you have people in friends in the media you know

they'll stick with you and be a little bit more supportive of you in of you in tough times okay so I do understand the the need to to get to know people or the benefit from that but when he says I'm going to react differently to a person that I think is being professional to a person that's just being kind of flippant to a person being snarky okay but I did wonder who's he talking about I think I think I actually know. And no, it's not us. I think some of the PR people in recent years, not necessarily now in recent years, had a lot of problem with some of us on radio and on podcasts because I was told that. But I think this is probably somebody on the beat. I'm not going to

mention who it is, who I think it is. But I think you know the one person. I think that there's at least one person that he. Just say it. I'm, I don't, I don't want to say it. Because I'm not entirely sure. I have a guess on it. I have a guess. I have a guess. I know you're thinking of. I don't think you do, actually. And it's really not that important.

There was one last thing. Well, now everyone wants to know. There's one last thing that we were going to get to. What's the first initial? I'm not going to, I'm not going to give it to you. It's a letter. It's a letter. I'll just tell you in the first.

It's a letter. The first name starts with the letter. It's in the first three quarters of the alphabet, the first letter of the person's name. Okay. So the last thing that we were going to touch on before we get to the defensive film breakdown. That's what you're doing today, right? Defense, yes. So there was a press conference that Roger Goodell had, you know, a Zoom conference call with reporters after a two-hour meeting with the league about several things. Number one, the NFL has seen a significant increase in COVID-19 infections.

Their last testing period, which was November 1st through the 7th, produced more infection rates twice as many as any other testing period. So the NFL has become very concerned about playing 16 games, about all teams playing 16 games. And you're seeing it here in the last couple of days, right? You know, Ben Rathesberger didn't test positive, but he's one of four Steelers that have to sit out and quarantine because Vance McDonald did. We've seen a couple of other players in Baltimore, a couple of players in various other cities, start to see more infections and more exposure to infections. So the league is now more concerned than ever that not everybody's going to play 16 games. One of the reasons, Cooley, is that few teams have bi-week opportunities left.

When we had the mini-outbreak in Tennessee early in the year, there were buy weeks to sort of reconfigure the schedule to make it work. Now they're running out of those opportunities. So two things. One, they may have an 18th week to finish up games, but if they can't get a totally balanced schedule, they are indicating that they're all in agreement that they will expand the postseason from 14 to 16 teams. So they basically told you, we're really concerned about all teams.

playing 16 games, and if we can't do that, we're going to expand the playoffs to, you know, to essentially let in, you know, an additional team or two, it would be one team per conference, that may not benefit from, you know, enough games. So somebody might play 15 games, somebody might play 16, somebody may play 16, somebody may play 14. By the way, they'll determine the playoffs by winning percentage at that point if it's not, you know, even Steve in 16 games across the board. By the way, the other thing that came out of that particular story was there was discussion, I think, from Tom Pellasaro at the NFL network, that they would cede based on record, like they would qualify four division winners for wild cards, but then they

would seed based on record. They're not going to do that, which means the NFC East winner, let's say it's Philadelphia at 6-9-1, would still host a playoff game in the first round, even in an eight-team playoff format. By the way, Kuhli, I've said this for. forever. I think they should do that anyway. I think in the seven-team format, you should qualify the teams, four division winners, three wild cards, but then you should cede them based on record. I don't think it's fair. I think it's fair enough that a seven-and-nine team can qualify for the playoffs by winning the division, but I don't think it's fair that that seven-and-nine team then gets to host a 12-and-4 team. I just don't think that's fair. And somebody will

say, well, they won their division. That's what the benefit should be. they got into the postseason. They qualified for the playoffs. But anyway, to make a long story short, they're not going to do that. Now, the other part of this story was really interesting. This is what you wanted to talk about. The NFL discussed that they are now more seriously considering next year,

a fourth and 15 alternative to the onside kick. So instead of lining up to kick an onside kick, you can choose to take the ball from your own 25-yard line with a fourth and 15 play, which, you know, however that play ends, the game continues from there. So if, you know, you throw an incomplete, the other team gets the ball at your 25. If you throw a 10-yard pass, they get the ball at your 35. If you throw a 20-yard pass, it's your ball first and 10, you know, at the, you know, 45-yard line. So that is supposed to be an equivalent or an improved opportunity to, you know, the onside kick,

which right now is a very low probability play since they changed the rules where you can't overload one side, you can't get a running start, etc. You wanted to comment on this. It's ridiculous. I think it's absolutely ridiculous. It'll look strange. It'll be funny. It's college-like.

I don't like the fourth and 15 play. And in part, when you read this whole article, the NFL is not really considering it because fourth-down attempts have gone up tremendously, especially this year. People are averaging like 60% on fourth downs. Yeah, well, there's no crowd noise. Obviously, it's going to be higher this year. But I mean, just based on the fact that fourth downs have gone up and fourth downs are exciting. Honestly, Kev, if there's a real situation, an onsides kick is really exciting.

But to make it what it should be is just a lousy overload. Was there ever these massive crazy collisions that guys were getting hurt on? I think there were a couple. The way it essentially worked out and the way it was always coached is in the overload situation was that seven of the guys on the front line were essentially blocking. And you have two guys to have an attempt to recover it. You just have a more jumbled up mess of players to have a better chance to get a kick. What's more, find a better kicker. Like how can none of these guys kick on sides kicks? I swear to you in the 80s and 90s, you used to always see that one bounce. Now, maybe that was because of the actual astro turf fields and maybe some of the field turf fields take the bounce out of the ball. Ooh, interesting. That could be one of the cases because you never see that high bounce kick. Like the new thing is they just turn it sideways on the ground to do some weird little

spinny kick that half the time doesn't make it 10 yards. So find a better way to kick the kick. but I don't hate the idea of physicality on an onsides kick. I don't like the idea of saying, we'll just go for it on fourth and 15 from our own 20. I think that's not part of the game of football. I mean, send your two best players out there and have a wrestling match one-on-one.

Let's just find some other way. No, get kickers that can actually kick onsides kicks. These guys should work on it. I'd like to talk to a few. kickers about this. It's got to, there's got to be something to the lack of bounce. But then you really start to think about it and you get late in the season and you start to get cold, hard fields that aren't turf fields. Like that ball's going to bounce different, especially late in the year in games that are truly instrumental. I don't understand why you can't overload aside. It really frustrates

me. I never felt in danger in harm's way. The same types of contact are being had with the way it's currently orchestrated, it's just less players having that type of contact. It's the same exact thing when you watch it. There's just five guys, four of them are blocking, one of them's trying to recover a ball. I mean, it's, there's no realistic reason to not just have the potential overload side. What are the percentage change in the overload side? Oh, it's a much less percentage chance of recovering an on. But I'm wondering if it's not necessarily because of the overload side, if it is part,

because of the field. Well, I mean, this was a rule change two years ago, so there were plenty of field turf, not astro turf field. Yeah, I wonder what it is over the last 10 years versus the 10 years before that. I mean, I like, I think it's an interesting thing to consider because I can picture the hard astro turf field, the guy that comes in kicks the top of the ball,

and it bounces once, and then it kicks straight up into the air. Like, you're right. I don't feel like we see as many of those anymore. Personally, I think the move is to aim for a couple of the players that are close up front on the front line and kick it as hard at them as you could possibly kick it and hope that they can't catch it and it bounces off them. I actually think that's a better strategy than some of these little dribblers and trying to block the people in front of them. But I'm going to take the other side of this.

Hold on real quick. Here's what it is. I mean, it's not necessarily the turf field. In 2017, there were 57 onsides kicks. The kicking team recovered 12 of them, 21%. And with the new rules, it's been 6%. Yeah. Big difference.

But I also, how many, I've seen at least 10 onsides kicks this year. I have not seen one high bouncer. I know. I don't understand that. Why? You didn't answer my idea. Like, I would like to see them like. You know the other thing that hurts it more than the overload?

What? is the lack of any running start. Exactly. That's part of the rule change too. That's one of the rule changes that I think you could easily fix. These guys are getting blocked. So I guess theoretically they would have one guy free potentially to the return man or the guy that's intended to receive the ball. I don't know.

Take the other side. Let me hear what you have. Well, I'm definitely on the other side of that. But before I get to that, on the on. onside kick right now. It definitely is the running start, probably as much as the overload. I think that's interesting. You're bringing up the point about field turf versus hard astrof, I think is very interesting. You didn't answer my idea of a better onside kick chance, which is having the kicker really try to rifle a kick into one of the players standing 10 yards in front

of them and get the deflect. No, I love that idea. You know, that was, we had something like that all the time for guys the guys do that. No, no, not at the end of the game in an onsides kick. No. I love that. You know how hard it is to hit a dude? Well, it's, do you know how hard it is to recover a little dribbler? We did have that all the time in a regular kickoff situation where guys would turn and run early on the front line. They'd kick one hard like a squib and try to hit one of the front line guys. By the way, you can't, you really have a fabulous answer to the data that the NFL put out as part of this story. Through week eight, NFL clubs have attempted fourth and won 55.9 percent of the time this year compared with an

average of 42 percent from 2010 to 2019. Well, first of all, I really don't want to, I don't care about the 2010 through 2019 number because that 42 percent average during a nine year period or 10 year period is, it includes four or five years when teams weren't thinking this way. So, the average is going to be much higher. Yeah, exactly. I'd rather know what the average was last year and compared to last year. Clubs have converted 69% of the fourth downs, which the memo, which the league says is up 7% over the same period in seasons 2010 through 2019. Again, I'd prefer to know what it was right now compared to last year, but your point is such a good one. Like, for a road team on fourth and one, I mean, can't we all as football fans, you know, the noise, the pressure, and now you don't have any of that in these road games.

So that's a phenomenal point, which really would, you know, really put these numbers into a better context. But here's why I'm in favor of it. And I'm a traditionalist. This is different for me. Because as an example, you know, I never had a problem with the NFL overtime rule where a field goal could win it. And I certainly, and I don't really have a major problem with the one possession having to end in a touchdown to end it or the other team gets possession. What I hate right now is 10 minutes. I think the 10 minute overtime is really stupid.

First of all, it increases the odds of a tie. Secondly, it really is, believe it or not, if you've watched a lot of these overtime games, I don't have stats on this. But the team that loses the toss and doesn't take the ball first is supposed to have. this opportunity to respond if they hold the other team to a field goal or less. But the possibility exists for it to be very unfair because a team can go, and we've seen this. Teams go on seven, seven and a half minute drives off the kickoff, kick a field goal, and now that team has two and a half minutes instead of another seven and a half if it were a 15 minute overtime to respond. Once you get down to that two and a half minute, you can go score a touchdown to win, but your chances are much less.

Now you're really in a position where you're trying to tie. I think that's stupid, and I think the incremental safety gain is not worth the imbalance of the team that's down 3-0 that now has two and a half minutes left to try to go win the game or tie the game. The five minutes less of a game is an absolute joke for safety. A joke. Now, let me get to the only. I mean, it's a complete joke. And everyone likes to watch an overtime game. Like, let's say no one scored in your 12 minutes in. That game just became really fascinating. Not to mention, basically, like, 80% plus of overtime games that were 15 minutes were decided in 10 minutes or less anyway.

Now, that was also when a field goal could win it. All right. But let me move back to the proposed 4th and 15, own 25 as an onside kick alternative. So I'm not usually a fan of dramatic change. You know, I don't, I, I, anybody that knows me would say she-in's going to be against that. I'm not against it. I'm totally for it. I actually, the one problem I have with it is I don't think fourth and 15 is the equivalent to what the old on-side kick percentage was.

I think it needs to be like fourth and 18 or something like that. Fourth and 15, to me, seems like it, you know, if you were to put it side by side with the best on-side, kick recovery percentage in NFL history, it would exceed it by a lot. You know, I mean, if you've got Mahomes or Wilson or Aaron Rogers on 4th and 15, you know, that is, you're feeling so much better about that than an onside kick. Even the old rules on onside kick. So I think 4th and 18, they have the numbers to figure this out. Although really the numbers can be skewed based on, you know, the 4th and 18 and when it was

picked up versus a true pressure down, you know, where you've got to convert. I would go with something like fourth and 18. I think part of the rule is to limit it to the fourth quarter only, and you have to be two scores down to use it in the, you know, before like the five-minute mark. And then under five minutes, I think you can use it even if you're one score down. I think there's some stuff in there about that, which makes sense to me. But I love it, Cooley, because there used to be a feeling when you were two scores down. You know, you're down 27-17 and you score a touchdown with a minute 10 to go, but you only have one time out left at 27-24,

and you've got to kick an on-side kick. There used to be a feeling as a football fan, and we can still get the on-side kick. But you know what the feeling is now? The game's over, and you're not going to get the on-side kick. And so I would rather substitute something that gives you the chance of all right, it's not over yet. It's a long shot, but it's not over yet.

Down two scores. And I think the fourth and 18, I would make it 18, are fourth and 20. But, you know, whatever the number is, fourth and 15, just to me... Fourth and 15, in the proposal they put together on third and fourth downs, so third and fourth and 15 is like just about 17%. So that's going to be higher than any of. onside kick number.

Onside, the historical onside kick recovery rate is 13.2%. Yeah, so it's higher than that at fourth and 15. And you also have to take the context of those fourth and 15s to be fair, because the third and 15s that are at the end of the game, when the other team's up by, you know, 21 to 3, it's a lot easier to convert. What are you going to do with a defensive holding? You treat it like it's an automatic first down. That's crap.

Well, I mean, it's a real play. You get defensive holding at five. Like I would have one guy always just fall down and act like you get held, got held on the play. One guy I would take out of the route package. I would say run at somebody, throw your hands up and fall down like you got held on the play. Every time. One guy, one out of my five guys is going to run and get egregiously held. That's like your idea yesterday.

Let's practice the bad shotgun snap to hold the middle line back. I rarely read Twitter, but I tried to retweet the show in something. I was like, oh, yeah, cool, he thinks you could have a bad snap. Oh, they did? Yeah. That's funny. Seriously, dude, I'm not going to really practice bad snaps. Well, you're not going to really practice on a fourth and 15 having a defensive player just fall down either.

I might practice the bad snap play on a fourth and 15. I think it should, whatever. I actually think it would be really, I think, look, I don't want it to be a play that ends up converting 25% of the time. I don't want a team down two scores who hasn't earned the right to a victory to have a much better chance than they used to have with a regular onside kick with the old rules. But I also don't want it to be 6% on an onside kick recovery. I don't, because there is this sense. That's like, it was 8% last year. It's historically low this year for whatever reason.

But the point is, is that you know this is a fan. If your team is down, you know, Yeah, you're down because you got your ass kick. Exactly, but you used to have at least a glimmer of hope, and now you have none. This is such a – This is such a yellow ribbon. This is such a yellow ribbon for showing up, prize world we live in.

I don't think that's really a good analogy. You're not – Gotta give them a chance. They haven't done very well today, but we still – we've got to keep them alive. By that logic, then they should just – the other team should just take the ball at the 25-yard line. They should just have Oklahoma drill, and it should be like the best of seven. Well, I hate college overtime.

That college overtime, to me, is like a three-point shooting contest to decide a college basketball. I hate it, too. I can't stand it. A lot of people love it. I can't stand it. To me, it's not football. It takes special teams. It takes too much of football out of the equation.

It doesn't take special teams out of it. No, you're right. How many college overtime do you see the freaking kicker missed the point after? It takes earning the right to get into a scoring position out of the game. You're just given scoring position. I don't like that. I'm fine with this. I think it would actually – I think they have to do something.

Because here's the alternative, Cooley. The alternative is, you know what? We hate the low on-sidekick percentages. So we're going to go back to the old rules, which we told you were unsafe and we were trying to protect you. They're not going to do that. Well, that's what they should do. But they're not going to. They're just not going to.

The kick better onside kicks. Yeah, really. I mean, that's been egregious. Let's get to your defensive film breakdown. Yeah, I got two things you'll like before we get to this. Okay, before we get to the film breakdown? Really just, really just one that I would have started the show with, but we'll get to the film breakdown really quick. So the Powell Tribune here in Powell, Wyoming, once a month or once every two weeks, publishes the police report.

Right. You told me about something last week. They read it on the radio, but let me read you some of the police reports. 147, October 7th. Three horses were reported to be on the road on County Road 8VE in the Clark area. Sheriff was unable to locate the animals. The reports were the horses were there. But they came out. They were looking for those horses. It was a big old deal. They couldn't find them.

504, same day. Sheriff's Office assisted with animals on the road at lane nine, road one. Lane nine, Road one. 7.12 p.m. A report of someone stealing firewood on Road 4 outside of Powell was determined to be unfounded. Stealing firewood. Well, they probably had this, one of these massive properties, and they had it, you know, an acre, a half from the house and it looked like it was for sale or for for for giveaway that was maybe october 8th 655 p.m a resident on spicer lane and cody said two dogs had chased chickens off and they wanted a deputy to help find the dogs and possibly contact the owner the sheriff's office assisted

well what do you think dogs are going to do if they see a bunch of chickens they're going to go after them. Keep your chickens in the coop. October 9th, 11.m. A horse that got out on lane 14 in the Powell area was returned to the owner. Well, that's good news. 30 a.m. A resident reported that a neighbor's dog was

chasing their cows on road six and lane 10. Here comes lane 10, pal road six. A bunch of dogs and cows running down the road. Oh, boy. 9.7 p.m. Same day. A resident reported that a neighbor's horse was out again.

on saddle court in the pal area. Oh, geez. Oh, Mr. Johnson. He's got to get those cows back into the barn, man. He just leaves that barn door open all the time. 5.20 a.m. A resident on South Hamilton Street reported seeing what appeared to be some sort of spacecraft in the sky.

A responding officer advised that it was the planet Mars, and it looked a lot bigger from the residence window. Well, that's the most serious out of all of them so far. Here's my favorite. 4 p.m. on October 13th. Officers responded to a report of a person acting up on Avenue B, and the case

is under investigation. Whoa. What kind of acting up? I don't know. I mean, were they threatening to turn their horses loose from their barn onto Road 9, Lane 7? I mean, the area you live in now. Oh, I mean, you're talking about...

There's a couple realistic things in here. here, I highlighted, you know, I didn't read like five or six other animal claims to the Sheriff's Department. And there's a couple, like, realistic ones. I mean, you're not even getting the... Citizen reported seeing a male suspect inside a bank on East Second Street, wearing a cowboy hat and carrying something. The bank was supposed to be closed. An employee was contacted, and they advised it was only the cleaning personnel. All was fine. But you're not even getting like, you know, road 14 lane 6, you know, two cars broken in, two cell phones taken. You're not even getting that.

No, it's more like a resident reported that two kids were racing on lane 8 in the Pal area and they ran the stop sign. God, all right. I just thought, I get, this is like my new favorite thing is the police blutter here. They put it all in the deal. I think the best is when they're doing it on the radio because you can see how serious they're taking all this. and you can hear it. Oh, my God.

I mean, we had somebody acting up on Road 9, Lane 6. He was just acting up. What was he doing? Well, he was acting up. You should know. What else did you have before the film breakdown? So I got this, you know how your phone? Sometimes when you get a message, it says, like, maybe Joe, but you don't have that number in your phone.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, I do know what you're talking about. So I get this message that says, maybe Woody. and he says, still up for a call? I'm not positive. We closed the loop for 1,500 CST. I'm like, that would be, what would that be, 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.?

That's interesting. And then he texts me later and he said, do you have a quick second? So I called him. I know a Woody. And I wasn't sure if I had this Woody's number. I didn't recognize the first message, but it was a, I have,

it's a pretty uncommon name. so I call Woody and it's like hey what's going on man oh nothing what are you doing I said we're just making dinner now what are you making chicken nachos ooh are they spicy and we we sit there and talk for a minute and he goes I don't think this is the right person yeah and so then me and Woody talk for another 15 minutes it was the best no call he has no idea I have no idea and we talk for a long time. But you, but he acknowledged at one point that he knew that this wasn't the right connection, but you continued the conversation after that? Yeah, we just sat and chatted for a, he's from Colorado. That's nice. Yeah, that's awesome. I just thought it was hysterical.

That is pretty funny. I'm trying to think there was a, um, why am I forgetting what the situation was recently? Because I think I shared it with you or Tommy on the podcast where I, there was a from somebody and I thought it was somebody else and I had a conversation with this person for 10 minutes before I realized, wait a minute, I don't even know who you are. Anyway, it was a conversation that made no sense to that person but was making total sense to me. But he was too nice to say, I think you have the wrong person. And then eventually I figured out that it was the wrong person. And then it actually, I think I did know. I can't remember now.

Whatever. You know what? Let's take a break. You're going to hear a word from one of our sponsors, and then Cooley will start his defensive film breakdown. We're going in depth, play by play. The Cooley Film Breakdown. Here's Cooley and Kevin. Sometimes I forget we're doing a podcast.

We're doing the film breakdown here in one second, but you'll like this too. My wife has no idea that what we're talking about today. Obviously, she hasn't listened. She just sent me a message. Have you seen this? It's from September 2019. He just hates media in general. Total power trip.

It's an article of Ron Rivera walking out of a meeting because he didn't want to answer questions about Cam Newton and the press conference. Really? He said to them, I just asked you to ask me questions about somebody else. I'm not going to do this anymore. I told you.

I won't know until tomorrow. Thank you and walked out. Yeah. I'm looking at the media in Carolina, too. Yeah. But I think it's funny, like, how timely is that that she sends that today? There's no chance she saw the standing report. She's not looking at that.

No. That's strange. Well, remember when he got fired, he held his goodbye press conference and was really emotional and talked about, you know, started listing all of his accomplishments, you know, how he had inherited a two and four team, how they, 14 team and how they had won division titles and gone to the playoffs four times in the first. for six years and, you know, I mean, let's be fair. He's built an incredibly successful Twitter account.

Yeah. Okay. I don't, like, I feel on one hand, I just think that somebody who's been battling cancer and reading that Kime story from a week and a half ago about what he was going through every day with vertigo and nauseousness and, you know, just everything, the side effects that were impacting him, the extreme fatigued. This is a rough year for him. I do want to give him the benefit of the doubt,

but there is a bit of a track record here, and there's no doubt that the comments he made to Ben were very sensitive. And I would prefer my coach of the team that I root for to not really give a shit about the criticism that comes his way, but to be totally dialed in on winning games and then understanding everybody will love you. Sort of the way it works in sports, you know? You win and there's not a lot of criticism.

When you lose, there usually is. You don't want to answer the question. Don't answer the question. Just go win. Yeah. I want my guy to just... You know, we talked about this yesterday. I just want guys that love ball.

I'm not questioning that he loves ball. But you don't need to be involved in that much else. Yeah. Okay. Well, he is because on Happy Thanksgiving Day, the owner made him coach-centric face... and voice of the franchise, although Jason Wright is a big face. I mean, they've got a lot of faces and voices talking a lot these days.

Social media-wise, I mean, team president does everything. He's, you know. They have a chief people officer. They have a chief people. Oh, I wanted to real quickly update this. Damn it, I forgot to do this on the radio show. So my brother-in-law has been in a bunch of technology companies. He's in a placement business where he basically places CEOs

in big technology companies. Really good business. And so we were at dinner last night because he was in town. And I said, is chief people officer, is that a common thing? He said, yeah. In the last couple of years in corporate America, especially in the tech world, you know, CPO is a big job. And I said, it's just the, you know, it's the senior VP of human resources.

He's like, exactly. But they, but a lot of companies for a long period of time have, for at least the last several years, have had Chief People officers, CPO's. And so that is a thing. And I said, well, it's not really been a thing in the NFL, but this guy's a McKinsey guy. And so, you know, naturally he knew this.

And this is so less, less, you know, sarcastic about that today than maybe yesterday. All right. Let's get the film started here on the defense. All right. So I told you to pull up one play. Right. And this has been a defense, Kev, for the most. most part that doesn't necessarily blow coverage.

I feel like they've communicated well. Some of their lapses have been, you know, poor route recognition, poor pattern match, some of the stuff. A couple things have gone wrong here in the past, but I want to look through this. It's a third down in five at the 46, 41 yard line. Yeah. Giants have the ball at their own 41. The second quarter.

I watched this, and coaches, it's funny when coaches watch this film, they always try to say, like, what coverage are they in here? You watch this play. From the top, Darby's playing man to man and chasing receiver across the field. Curl is running with the tight end vertical, which looks clearly man to man and tracking a dig route. Cole Holcomb's playing the flat, a back, and attacking it. It's not his own play, man to man. I don't know what Bostick's doing.

Bostick runs the opposite way that the quarterback starts to scramble and then chases the receiver the opposite way across the field after the ball is thrown, which is not an uncommon situation. With him. At the bottom of the string, Kendall Fuller's playing cover two, and there's a corner route running vertical that would be a walk-in touchdown over the top of him. DeShazer Everett's playing single high, something in the middle of the field.

Like we have three different coverages being played on this play, at least two. And it's a wide open throw. for an easy first down and then there's a mistackle and then there's another mistackle and finally finally Cameron Curl hits him out of bounds what are we in

somehow there's a lapse here in communication and it happened a couple times in this game you know it happened early on the Mac play where the play after the turnover where it looked like I think on the television

they said Vilma said, well, Curl's got to run vertical with that play. You know, the transition play where Mac gets a deep ball up the seam. I mean, you pull that up. They're really just running four verts and the outside receivers are running out and up.

Darby has got to go with that vertical. If that's not curl, Vilma's wrong. And then if you watch the other side of that play, you pull that thing up, you watch the other side of the defense. Fuller, it's a mirrored pattern. Kendall Fuller's carrying the out and up vertical on the other side. And then Desjaser Everett's in the middle of the field, shadowing hard opposite where the quarterback's looking. He has no chance of getting in on that play. So there's some of these

communication things that really, I think they struggled with a little bit. And they've had some community. I mean, if you think to some of the games with APKee, the Landon Collins against Arizona. Landon, for sure. But I think Landon Collins was a lot of times not out of communication, just trying to make plays out of position. Okay. So it was really interesting. When you watch this game, I thought the Giants ran the ball

incredibly well. And it seemed like they had a plan for the Giants running the ball. They played like Buddy Ryan's bare defense to some extent. Like they put Cole Holcomb over the tight end and then had either sweat

or any of the ends outside of him wide. He played an extra guy at the line of scrimand. They did a shitty job with gap control in this game. And so you actually said this to me earlier in the week. You could probably explain gap control better. Well, I think anyone can understand gap control. Some defenses play two gap up front where linemen are responsible to basically press and have the ability to play in two gaps.

This is a one gap defense. Play your gap. There are so many times that Bostick's out of his gap. that our D-line get out of gap. They ran counter and gap scheme plays all day to a one-gap defense, and there was never an answer to it. It was almost like yesterday when I said the Giants had a certain blitz that they attacked, and they never had to get off a plan A.

Right. Well, they played this bare defense to heavy personnel all game, and they didn't have an answer to the gaps game stuff. It was like, well, stunt. or do something different. You can't just keep getting gashed with these counter-type runs. And they did. They gave up way too many yards and too many plays on the counter-type runs.

I mean, it's not like the Giants scored 23 points. It's not like it was atrocious. Right. But this defense is way too good up front to add Holcomb to the line of scrimmage with your four D-Linmen that are supposed to be studs, no matter who's in the game, to give up five, six yards of carry. And that was common. It wasn't like they gave up over five yards of carry because the Giants had two carries of 50 yards.

They just got gashed. You know, I just want to have you be clear. You know, when you're talking about the Bears 46 defense, that's the buddy Ryan famous 46 defense, where you've got four defensive fronts, four defensive linemen. and then you've got basically a safety deep and a bunch of people near the line of scrimmage. You know, linebackers, safeties, et cetera, right? You got two corners. You got a deep safety.

And then you got basically a bunch of dudes all crowding the line of scrimmage and being aggressive. That's exactly what it is. And you know what killed Buddy Ryan's defense? My Joe Gibbs created counter hog. was because he could beat the Gap scheme defense. That was it. That was where the counterhawk or the countertray came from.

Countertray, yeah. Which they called counter hog pretty much. Because the H-back would pull. And so he was the hog player. It started with an H. Get out of the bare defense. But if you want a good example of like out-of-gap defense, it only takes one guy sometimes.

Watch the first play that. the second half. The very first play of the second half. The Giants come out and they run that counterplay. They're pulling a guard and they're pulling their backside tight end. Almost everybody fits this play really well and you can literally in a one gap defense

figure out who's playing one gap, what gap. This is not the bare defense on this play. But Bostick is clearly responsible for the inside gap that this ball carrier gets through. Galman. Galman busts through this hole. I mean, so

on the defensive left side, pain stunting down, sweat, stunting down, KPL is outside playing contain. Cole Holcomb's hitting inside. Bostick's just getting scraped and washing over the top. I mean, if you understand this play in football at all, and they've run this play seven times so far today, this is designed to hit a gap. Like, this is not a bounce play. And then DeShazer comes down and misses a tackle from this free safety position. But this was indicative of a lot of the day. One guy get a little bit out of gap. Sometimes it was drawn pain.

A lot of times it was Bostic. You know, sometimes it was defensive end playing too far up field. But there's just way too many yards in the run game, Kev. Way too many yards for a team that they should have dominated up front. And the answer to me is understand that you're getting gashed and don't say we're better than them this should work, adjust. But I'm not the boss of him. So you're not the boss of him.

I mean, take your whiny butt somewhere else. I'm not whining. I'm just telling you what happened. But I mean, I'm one of those snarky guys. Were you talking about me? I was talking about the Del Rio tweet. No, I know you were. But when you were talking about those snarky guys, my, my, yeah.

I don't find you to be snarky. I can be. Yeah, but it's. It's good-natured snarky. It's not like ill-intentioned mean-spirited snarky. But I guess, I don't know, maybe snarky has a negative connotation to begin with. I don't know. What's the point?

What are we doing here? You know what? At one point, somebody that I'm close with now that was involved in the organization told me I was an acquired taste. Well, you're an acquired taste. It took me about five years to warm up to you. see that's very interesting um I would never describe you as that

but I think somebody who is takes a long time to learn that I'm reliable and trustworthy I think I think there's some I think there are certain kinds of people that could could view you that way um but it's this one person is now one of my closest friends so

yeah you want to tell us who it is it's it starts in the first half of the alphabet i know it does as soon as his last name you got it yeah uh all right defensive montes sweat yeah not as much impact on a game as he's had on the past but he didn't make some big plays in this game early in the game good pressure on a run action pass he's chipped by the back as well he spins out of that he still makes Jones fill him i love that he can play through two you know he's not dead when they try to help out on him really good pressure on the second drive on an RPO play on Jones forces an incompletion on a pass that probably would have been there he's right in Jones face they highlighted him in the game on this play he's great at playing boot he had a batted ball on the boot he's he's he's really a good boot player as you look at this year you know and it's funny as bad as we've been against the boot legs in the past maybe some of it has to do with this

reverend del rio defense but man so it's been a tough guy to out leverage in the boot situation well plus he because of his height and his length and his arm length like he can really be disruptive after he's diagnosed the play he can be really disruptive to the play he can be really disruptive to the play. Very disruptive. It's hard to throw the ball over a guy that's arms up jumping eight feet tall. I just, I see him as a guy that when he gets one-on-one, plays with really good leverage for a tall dude and really good hands. And so many times you see him on the edge against the alignment or a tight end, and it's not just holding the point. It's walking those guys back into the backfield. He's powerful. Powerful guy. They had a bunch of blitzes in this game.

And I loved one in particular where they brought Morland off the left side, stunted sweat inside over the guard. And God, he just kicked the guard's ass. I think he's one of those guys that instead of stunting as much as they do up front, you could potentially just interchange like Allen and sweat and let Alan be an interior rusher. Or you could interchange Allen or pain and sweat and let pain run that loop outside and hold contain and bullrush the outside and let sweat work. inside a little bit more. They're trying to get to that with some of the end tackle stunts,

but I think another way to get to it would be to potentially have a three-man signed, put like Jonathan Allen over the center, sweat over the guard tackle area, and then make pain the wide rusher. And say, pain, you rush, contain, sweat, do whatever the hell you want, beat the guard, and Alan, you keep the double team off of sweat. I haven't seen that yet, but I think that that's a, something that sweat would be really impactful doing.

He had a couple, he had one, just a defensive off sides. Yeah. I don't, did you, they didn't really show, I don't necessarily see it. I guess he's just lined up in the neutral zone. Oh, I thought he jumped a little bit early. Well, there's one that he jumped on a third and five. There's one that he jumped. Yeah.

That was a big play in the fourth quarter that hurt them. But there's another one that they called off sides on him. Normally the official will give you a heads up on those. Oh, I didn't notice. It's in the early part of the game. Okay. Montes Sweat was a B. Okay.

Chase Young. Man, they had a plan for Chase Young. Oh, yeah, they did. There are times, like, in some of the run-action pass stuff, and Young's been good redirecting Rush with run-action pass, they would have both tight ends and the tackle would be coming out to play. him. There were plays where it looked like there were four people trying to block him.

There were plays where there were definitely three. There were plays where they were faking action and running backs were coming to cut him and then offensive linemen were there to take care of him. I mean, they had a lot of intent to not let Chase Young disrupt this game. That's a ton of respect for a young player. God, it is. And then they sure gave him that respect. not a lot of negatives from this game,

but I'll give you a couple of them. We'll get to the positives. Early on a Jones read option, he just crashes the dive so hard. And again, that could be coached that way, but I've seen him be able to play both. And I would say definitively,

with Young on the side away from the back, or to the back, so the back would be running away, but he's on the backside. Play both. ensure handoff and then rally down the line of scrimmage. He is fast enough and capable enough to play both every time on zone read. He's certainly quick and athletic enough.

I would not give a definitive go take the back key to Chishong. I would make him a both boy player. Once playing upfield over a kicking out guard on counter, you get a guard running at you. and they are trying to get you to go up the field and kick you out so they can run inside of you. And then here's my thought, and I saw this a couple times. He's holding his responsibility too long, especially in the run game. He's got to trust his end, seeks, and go make plays.

The example of this is a second and ten situation at the 20-yard line after the fumbled punt. So if you pull this up, Kev, right after Wright fumbles that punt, they're in a second and ten. He is taking Ingram and literally pushing him off, but he doesn't want to lose contain. So he's holding his spot right there, and then at the last second, tries to shed and make a play on Galman. I would say to you, just kick the shit out of Ingram and go make a tackle in the backfield. If you pull this play up... Is it the play before the fumbled punt? I didn't write the timestamp on this.

What was the down in distance? It's a second in ten. I got it. I got it. I got it. Directly after the fumbled punt. Yeah, Goulman six-yard run. But if you watch Chase Young on this play, there's nothing to suggest to me that.

that he couldn't have went and made that play in the backfield, other than he's trying to play responsibility sound first. And so he's ensuring, like, I did, I'm doing my job. And it's not, like, he's not just sitting there as a do-your-job kind of guy. But he could have made this play. I see him as a guy that you've got to turn free a little bit more. Right. Like, you got to say, yo, if you see an opportunity to go make a play,

go make it early because I think he's that good yeah so it's like at the 15 yard line yeah no I don't I see the play and so Ingram or Galman is in the backfield Jones is under center and Galman rolls right to kind of like

that duo play Young's there he could go make it now again on this particular play and I won't have to bring this up when we get to Bostick Bostick is definitively an A-Gap player as Durrampain is taking on a double team in the B gap.

Bostick just sits there directly behind Durant Payne and waits and waits and waits. And then gets blocked by the double team. You're like, dude, just go hit the fucking A gap. Yeah, you're, you're not going to see Bostick on this team next year, are you? But these are some of the gap plays. Like Young's won his gap, you know, and he could have, he could have tackled Galman in the backfield. But he's just holding, he's holding there on Ingram.

Like he's just literally like, I'll stay here until I want to leave here. He's just leave a little early. Well, he's going to make sure also that Gallman can't bounce it outside. Right. The other aspect of this play is Chase Young makes this tackle for one yard if Bostic is in the A gap where he's supposed to be. So, I mean, it's amazing. Jonathan Allen actually stunts outside it from the detackle position, loops hard outside and somehow finds a way to get back into this play,

or it's one-on-one with the safety. Six-yard gain. Should have been zero, Kev. Should have been a one or zero-yard gain. Six yards is a lot in a run game. Back to Chase Young. Miscontain on that speed reverse early in the game. That fooled everybody.

That was an awesome little play, but Young had a contained bust on that one. The positives. His speed rush is just outstanding. He should use it more. He uses a variety of rush. and his up and under is very good as well. He can go to power, which he doesn't do as much.

But his speed rush is just so outstanding. Like he's just, his first three steps gained so much ground. He had a sack in the game. It was Jones climbing the pocket. It was a no game play, but they gave it a sack in that play. Really good to get back into that play. He had another missed sack opportunity on a third and 17, where they had like a, or second 17 where they had a fake reverse on.

And it was like he held just a second for the reverse. And then it almost gets to Jones and the settle ends up getting a sack on that play. Look, I just, I just love watching him. I mean, to me, Chase Young's a B plus in this game. You have to have to account for him at all times. I think right now they got to turn him free a little bit more. You know he played 64 of the plays in this game. I know.

So when you say turn him loose, a little bit. You want to see more of the speed rush. You want to see him more, you know, peeling around that, you know, right tackle with speed off the edge, where he takes a better, he uses his speed to get a better angle. Also in the run game, I want to see them say, like, if you know you have gap control early, go tackle the back. And if he bounces one or two, we'll deal with it. But let's go get the tackle for loss. Because right now, we're having a hard time controlling the inside gap with their backer. I have one quick thing about Cheyishung. He seems to line up much wider at times than sweat does on the other end. I'm talking about

when they're in a four-down lineman situation, he's at that left defensive end. Sometimes he's really, really way out there, well beyond the tackle. And sweat isn't. Why is that? I don't know exactly what they're doing with that. I wish I could tell you the answer to that. Maybe that's just where he's comfortable. Okay. B plus. Yep. Duran Payne.

He had a huge fourth one stop. Yeah. Early in the game. Yep. He's a splitting double team dude. Like his run game stuff is awesome. And it should be so much more awesome because he's keeping linemen off of Bostic so much. And if you had a backer, just trust and hit some of those things, you should be so much better.

there are times when he can get awesome pressure, especially with bull rush. There's a third and 11 in the fourth quarter that he had tremendous bull rush pressure. There's some speed. There's some looping ability. There's so much there to Duran Payne. The thing I would say is at times he has this kind of propensity to try to shed early. Exactly what I was suggesting that Chase Young do, but maybe not as much with Dron Payne. Like he got out of gap a few times in this game.

Right. he's a he's just not at this point like a game wrecking D tackle he's an A minus in this game he's stout he's everything you want

in a detackle besides that true versatility to really play on the other side of the line of scrimmage like the one the one I see like three or four plays a game where Duran Paine's in the backfield Dron Paine's making but there's so many plays

where he's, He never gives up ground, but he's not playing on the other side of line of scrimmage. That may be defensive scheme. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. How much of it do you think he is intent on playing the way they've coached it versus going out there and using his freakish athleticism to be Fletcher Cox or Aaron Donald? I think a lot of it's the way they coached it. But when you say that, it's still like he's a guy that doesn't have a dynamic pattern. rush ability. So is he as freakish as those guys? Well, power-wise he does, don't you think?

I think he's just a little bit less quick twitch than those guys. And I'm not suggesting that he's not quick twitch for a delinment because he can really run. Yeah. And he can really move. But I don't think he's quite as quick twitch. Right. I just, nobody. I've seen enough over two years to think that he's probably not Aaron Donald. Right. Donald really is like the quickest of the quick twitch defensive tackles much more so than even cox yeah well donald's another person yeah like who's an alien he is he is really ridiculous jonathan allen you gave i gave pain an a minus right a minus okay jonathan allen yeah i had no negatives from jonathan allen solid and stout in the a gap and rarely giving up any movement in this game.

Great shed and burst. Great close and make tackles. Even three, four yards downfield, in on plays, rally downfield. His redirection was really good. Had a sack on the little flea flicker play that he shared with Ryan Kerrigan. I think they shared that sack. There's some early, they had some cool little two tackle stunts where Duran and Jonathan are both stunting. I liked that a lot.

I think they could get to some more of that stuff. And it's just one-on-one. He can create good interior pressure. And there's a lot of ways he can do it. He played low in this game. He played with good hands. He had some good pass rush moves. One, he had a good underhook move and throw, get off me.

Kind of the ionitis move. Jonathan Allen played 59 plays. I graded no real negative plays. A for Jonathan Allen. The rest of the guys. Tim Settle. 25 plays. I think he's got some stuff where he's stout enough that he can fight through double teams.

Like you look up the fourth and one early, he's eating up his gap, man. The sack on Jones in a second 17, that's after Chase Young missed that sack, that was almost broken down in the backfield for the Giants. But consistent good run penetration, and he's a guy that will get penetration in the past game. It's just not a make you miss kind of deal. So he's always playing through the block to get that. that penetration in the past game. Tim Settle was a B.

Ryan Anderson. We made some plays in the backfield. Showed up a few times, you know, had a little against the tight end or tackle league. Swat hands down, start inside, get into the backfield.

Did a couple times, made a play in the backfield on one of those. Really good pressure late on Jones to force a fumble. Well, or Jones just dropped the ball. Mm-hmm. But impactful pressure there. Was solid in the run game.

I don't see much. especially off the right side as a rusher from Ryan Anderson. He was a B in this game. Ryan Kerrigan. What did Kerrigan end? Did he end up with a sack and a half again? What did Kerrigan end up with? I'm going to tell you here in a second.

Sorry, I don't remember. He's going to end up with more sacks playing less plays than anybody in the history of this league. He had a half a sack. He was credited with a half a sack. was it on that flea flicker play um yeah it was on the flea flicker play with jonathan allen yeah i swear to you

oh you know what late in the game he had a really good rush and kind of on a speed and swatted hands down when he gets hands off of him with some of that speed rush he's okay he forced an incompletion on a play that was like a very, very near sack. Well, the half sack is definitely, because I just went back and looked at it on the flea flicker. Yeah, that's where you got. They shared it with John Allen.

So the positives from Ryan. By the way, they were not fooled at all on that play. No, someone told them they were running that play. Yeah, somebody said, they're going to run the, Alfred's going to pitch it back to the quarterback. Don't even pay attention to Alfred. I mean, because everybody was around there. pass. Every single person was around Jones.

Everyone. And look at the secondary on that play is bailing hard. It fooled nobody. It fooled absolutely nobody. How is that possible? I don't know. It fooled not one person on the defense. Not one person. Like when you watch it from the end zone view, not one player is fooled. Not one player even looks at Morris, who has the ball. Actually, actually that's not true. Cole Holcomb briefly gives Morris.

a glance. That's it. Must have knew that was coming. Carrigan. When he gets on the edge and gets hands down, he's still got a decent speed rush. And when he gets his bull rush going and gets under the pads of the tackle, he's still got

a strong bull rush. He had a quarterback hit. He had the half sack. The negatives. He's getting too much movement against him with the tight ends on the head. Like he's They're

He's too easily blocked by tight ends right now And that's not the Ryan that you're used to Uh The Lombard they ran the Lombardi sweep at one point in the third or fourth quarter That he got pinned by the tight ends they got outside that was that was awesome man I love seeing the Lombardi sweep the three pullers on a sweep and what play never see you said it was in the fourth quarter I didn't chart the actual play but I think it's in the third or who carried it I should be able to remember.

I'll have to pull it up at some point or find a way to tweet that play out. But it was great. Curl got trapped inside. Holcomb ran through and didn't make a play in the backfield. And it got out the edge and out the side. And when he, like his patented go-to move is his rip rush. And anybody in the world can see this. like all the times Ryan Kerrigan has a underhook like rip movement upwards and then his other arms throwing it up like I'm getting held I'm getting held I'm getting held it's like no you're underhooking him which is holding him he just doesn't have that lateral or that lean to get that rip rush anymore he's too vertical he should abort rip rush completely getting held is pretending to get held is not the answer

Kerrigan was a C-minus. James Smith Williams played 11 plays at D-Tackle in this game. Where's number 96? Yep. He was a C. Okay. At times moved a little bit too much by double teams, essentially do your job kind of guy, just a guy in this game.

Okay. To recap, your defensive line and your front really six or seven guys, Montez Sweat was a B. Chase Young was a B plus. Duran Payne was an A minus and Jonathan Allen was an A. I thought played really, really well in this game. I actually thought that Jonathan had struggled a little bit over the last couple of weeks to be like an impactful type of player.

I thought he was in this game. Tim Settle was a B. Ryan Kerrigan was a C minus. Ryan Anderson was a B. And James Smith Williams, number 96, was a C. All right, we'll get to the linebackers right after this word from one of our sponsors. All right, we'll get to the linebackers with Cooley's film breakdown from the game against the Giants here in a moment. But Cooley mentioned the Lombardi Sweet Place.

We were just during that commercial break, we were trying to find where it was. It was in the first half shotgun, and it's in Alfred Morris. And by the way, Morris had like, that was the stretch where Morris had a run for 19 yards or run for 11 yards and a run for five yards. So we had 35 yards on three straight carries. But this first one is the old, we're going to get a seal here. We're going to get a seal there. And then it's right up the alley. And there goes Alfred Morris.

Perfectly blocked Lombardi's sweep, except from a shotgun, which Lombardi did not have the shotgun. Lombardi's way. Anyways, the point of this play, it's just one of those other, like, poor gap plays. Ryan Kerrigan is a D-Gap player. He's head up on the outside. There are two tight ends. He's head up on the wing tight end.

Like the wing tight end cannot seal Ryan Kerrigan. He can't pin him. This play should never get outside Kerrigan. Holcomb almost makes it trying to run through. But gosh, dang it. Like this can't get outside you. And that's the difference of like why you're playing Montez or why you're playing Chase Young in first intense situations or run type situations.

If that's Montes sweat, that play is destroyed in the backfield. Okay. Let's get to the linebackers. But just one last point about that play. Man, does Everett look for the knockout shot? He really does. He's a physical, physical player. I enjoy watching DeShayzer Everett play. I have no idea how you're going to grade him out.

But he really does come up and try to hit people. All right, go ahead. Let's get to the linebackers. Bostick. Yeah. We're not going to belabor this. I did know a couple times, like, a little bit better in pattern match throughout the game. I actually much better in pattern match after and react to a dropback than I noted right under five plays later.

He's completely broke off by Evan Ingram chipping and then running a crossing route, realizes it late and goes, oh. But his drive on the ball and some of his pattern match stuff was actually better in this game. Gap control was the biggest problem for Bostic. Poor run diagnose of counterplays, poor understanding of gap control. And the dude is just sitting there waiting to get blocked. Like he's a dream for a climbing tight end or a climbing linebacker getting to the second level. He's sitting there and his feet are beyond shoulder width and he's waiting. Like you got to go and hit the gap.

There's no waiting. You got to attack the gap. It's, don't wait for somebody else to make the play. Go make the play. He was a D in this game. Cole Holcomb. Really, he's the, it's almost opposite when you look at the run game. when you watch Holcomb.

Holcomb's aggressive. He attacks the line of scrimmage. He does a great job taking on offensive linemen and shedding to make tackles. He's fun to watch in the run game because of his aggressiveness and his attack at the line of scrimmage. Good scene play action stuff,

couple of the boot things really well. I think he matches backs and tight ends well when he's covering them out of the backfield. There was a read option. that he saw in the game. He just didn't make the play. He's chipped by a receiver. Probably mistackle there. A couple times when he was playing at the line of scrimmages, that over the tight-end buddy Ryan bear player, that did a really good job. Only once, maybe could have cross-face better and made a tackle. He's late getting into his gap. They had a gain of eight on that

particular play. I like Holcomb. I think he's by far the best linebacker. His grade this week was a B. But he does physically attack. He gets. gets off tackles. He takes on really anybody and gets rid of him. KPL. You know KPL only played 37 plays? Really? Played 37 snaps in this game. So essentially Holcomb took the spot as the second linebacker instead of KPL and Bostick kept the job. Yeah, Bostick's out there for all 77 defensive snaps with the corners and the in the

safeties in the game. Right. It's weird. Do they view Bostick as, you know, he's referred to Bostick as a great leader. I don't care. Yeah. I don't care. KPL, he's a good blitzer. He had a couple good blitzes, timing him up, quarterback hit late in the first quarter as an unblocked blitzer.

It does a good job when he's a blitzing linebacker. Had a pass breakup on a RPO whip. route. I thought did a good job on some of those things out wider in the flat. He played wide almost every time he was in. He was playing strong side wide and was more of a contain de-gap type of guy. He did have a big-time bust on that first speed sweep, the third play of the game that I just think is an awesome design. And then later in the game, fourth quarter, he's so wide to start and he lets Al bounce outside and it's like, how does that happen? I had a couple of mistackles in this game.

Had one as a free blitzer coming off the edge on a run. Could have made a play in the backfield. Didn't make a play. But his blitzes are timed and impactful. KPL was a C-minus in this game. One of his lower grade recently. Huh? Pretty average for KPL.

He's been a B-C-minus player most of the time. Sean Deion did play some linebacker. Did you grade him or not? It was. I didn't grade him, but it wasn't great. It wasn't terrible. Okay. Before we finish it up with the secondary, let me just tell everybody real quickly about My Bookie. The Master starts tomorrow. Listen to the radio show tomorrow. Scott's going to be on the radio show. Steve Sands was on the radio show this morning from Augusta. Bryson D. Shamboe on My Bookie right now, plus 600. He's the favorite. John Rom, second favorite.

Then it's Justin and McElroy. I'm rooting for Brooks Kepka to win the Masters. I need him in my golf pool. If you're curious at mybooky.ag, Tiger Woods, 45 to 1 plus 4,500. They've got so many different ways to bet the Masters if you're interested in this. They've got group betting odds. So in a group right now of Dustin, Rom, Rory, Bryson DeChambo, and Justin Thomas, they'll have money line odds for that group.

And in that group, you know, Dustin Johnson's plus 300. And that's a 72 whole. They've just got a lot of different prop bets. Okay. It's as good a master's prop bet board as you're going to find anywhere. Now, as far as the NFL odds for this week, if you're wondering where Washington is right now, the Washington football team, as they are referred to, the Lions. are three and a half point favorites right now against Washington at Ford Field on Sunday.

Cooley, did you know that there are 6, 4 p.m. window games this weekend? Six. And only 5.1 p.m. games this weekend. That's an oddity in scheduling to have that many 4 o'clock. There are 3.405 games on CBS, and then Fox has 3, 425 games. That's weird to have that. It's very rare that you see that. But my bookie.ag right now is getting your deposit and then matching it halfway.

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and certainly every kind of sports vet you can imagine. MyBooky.orgie.org, use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. All right, the secondary. Quick on the corners. Kendall Fuller gave up, I think, everything thrown at him. Well, that would be a first. But nothing was really vertical or down the field. Like, I bet you he gave up six throws at him.

Playing off a little bit early in the game, I struggled to break on balls. There was a couple third down situations where he's close to past breakups. but just, you know, if they're going to get everything underneath on you, you're going to have to come up and play him a little bit closer. I would trust Fuller to be able to run guys if he's playing with guys if he's playing a little bit closer, but just too much. And he can get big bodied by guys.

Ingram big bodied him early in the game. It was a bad ball and ended up being incomplete, but there was really good separation. Just too much given up at him. That said, though, is it the end? like it was more of a bend don't break kind of thing with fuller because he didn't give up any big plays he was a c minus in this game ronal derby the first deep ball like w t f not wft but w t i like there's just we're familiar with he just lost himself he's a deep third player and you can't attack the inside vert i mean is w t

TF on Cameron Curl there too and DeShayzer Everett as well, but they got him on that one. It's funny, though, because I watched that play. And I remember talking with McVeigh a lot when the Seahawks were a really good cover three exclusive team and Sean saying, we'll get Richard Sherman on this. He'll attack the inside bird. He'll try to midpoint hard. And the way Sean wanted to coach it was to really let the out and up take more. time to develop. So he would attack that inside vertical, which is exactly what the Giants did.

And Austin Mack on the out and up. He was impressive. He was very impressive. He made who is he. He's big, strong, has good hands and I thought really moved well. I mean, that's what everybody in New York saying about Cam Sims. Yeah, I guess that's true. But I mean, Mac was on the winning team. Also true. I just thought like he was. He was. replacing Golden Tate, who didn't even make the trip, and I don't think I had ever heard of him, and he's a rookie from Ohio State. He played on Ohio State. I mean, it's amazing what Ohio State produces year and year out, but I thought he was really impressive. I thought he was very impressive in this game as well.

Look, there's some plays where you look at Ronald Darby, back to Darby, where he can drive on balls. The thing for me with Darby is any in-breaking stuff, crossing route stuff seems to be a problem for him. There's play late in the game. Evan Ingram dropped a big ball down the left numbers. They're running a vertical crosser inside of Ingram. Nobody initially is on Darby's side, but that vertical crosser, he's got to pick up as it becomes his third player. That would have been a touchdown if Jones would have thrown that ball. He didn't see it coming. One of the plays I love, 2.18 left in the game.

They do your favorite deal. Instead of running the ball when you're trying to run out of the clock, you go with a little bootleg right there. And Darby was right there to pick that up, didn't take the bait on the run. I thought that was great. A really good tackle on a run in the second quarter on a reverse play. But, yeah, again, too many throws given up in his direction.

Darby was a C in this game. Okay. Jimmy Morland actually played pretty well. I thought he was better in some of the zone stuff. Good break on the ball a couple times. There was an early third and two where they ran a sprint out play. Oh, I forgot to mention that on Ryan Kerrigan. If you look at the third and two sprint out play,

Ryan Kerrigan gets absolutely pancaked on the edge. The O'Lyman lays on him. But slow break on that sprint right route and gives up the first down. Okay, close on the ball. Nice thing about it is they've tried to run the same play, the sprint left later in the game, and it was an awesome close on the ball and did a really good job forcing an incompletion.

The third and four down in the red zone, Giants are up 3-0, they give up the third and four that gets down to the one-yard line. Yeah. Really, he's carrying a vertical route all the way to the goal line. They're like on the 12 or 10 or wherever they are, and then they throw it underneath the Ingram,

wide open in the flat, and it's like, Did you not even see him over there? Actually, they threw it to Austin freaking Mac. Yeah, it was Mac. Like, do you just think they weren't going to throw it to Austin Mac? What, what we got? You're the flat defender here and a three deep four underneath.

You can't just do something else to do what you're supposed to do. Right. I mean, that was a big play. And if he goes and plays the flat, he should be out there making that tackle. I don't think he saw him. Yeah, there's some good break on ball. There was some better zone underneath stuff. Jimmy Morland was a B in this game.

Okay. The safeties. Yep. They were both in the A range last week, if I'm not mistaken, or two weeks ago. Last week you had Collins with his best game before his injury at an A, Everett at an A and Curl as an A-minus. I have a feeling that Curl is not going to be an A-minus this week. Cammer Curl.

I wrote this down, and I'm going to start with this. He sees things better from death. When he's playing deeper, he's much better in his reactions. I think he feels things better. I think he sees things better. That said, they're playing him as the strong safety. Right. So he's not playing from depth that often.

Positives. I still just, I love his physicality. I think he can be disruptive in the run game. I think he fights through. Anybody trying to block. block him. I think he at times mostly good run fits. Now he's out of place a few times and we can get to that. But to me, I see a good physical run fit, strong safety. I just think he misses some of the underneath coverage stuff. And I think he struggles on some of those things. Obviously, we talked

about that first deep ball to Mac. I'm not saying that I don't think it was all on camera curl. I think it was more on Darby, but even still, it's like, you got to carry the inside vertical, because if you don't carry the inside vertical, then you're going to throw that instead. And to that extent, the touchdown they threw to Evan Ingram, that's the same exact type of play, and he's got to carry the inside vertical there as a three player. And he sheds pants to Ingram stemming a little bit wide, jumps outside of him, and Ingram's up to the seam. I used to love when you could get a safety to cross over on those inside verticals.

Like you push them out hard. You're like, dude, I know you're responsible for the flat. But what's he really going to do vertical towards the flat? Like you don't have to jump outside. Break on any outbreaking route, but keep inside leverage so you can't get beat vertical. Right. It was too easy. The touchdown ingram was on him.

Ingram's a pretty good player. Ingram's a good player. Ingram really popped off the film in this game, even as a blocker. Some plays in this game. Not awesome, but qualified. I think he has just adequate, if not poor feel when he's playing zone stuff. Struggles to reroute guys, kind of got his head on a swivel looking around it, maybe a little bit too much.

Missed some tackles in this game. It was disruptive at times, but still couldn't make some plays when he needed to make plays. we went through some of them where he was in on throughout this game. Late in the game, he's outrun to the flat by who's their other tight end, 82. I like him, Stanford kid, I think. I thought we should have signed him last year as a UFA. Right, him. Man, he's just way late, gets outrun to the flat, and then he's got a mistackle on that.

He did do a pretty good job as an unplugged. Start with the K, K, you're Ced and Smith. Caden Smith, exactly. The K gave it to me, man. I can't give, like, ultimate credit for unblocked blitz sacks. It's a good play, sure. You're unblocked. It's the NFL.

You should get there. I know, but he needed to make Daniel Jones fumble because he fumbles when he gets hit that way by everybody else. Yeah. Should he have tried to strip or did he just? Yeah. No doubt. Always strip. Cammerc was a D.

The Shazer Everett. Not good on both of the vertical routes that we've talked about in this game as a single high safety. Slow reaction. The first one deep to Mac, it's like, where are you going? I mean, Jones never really looked over there. He is flying to the other hash away from where Jones ends up throwing the ball. And he's got no chance to make a play, even if they were to throw the inside vertical. They threw the outside vertical, but he's way too slow.

And then the touchdown to Ingram, Jones never looks the other way. You can't just move, like hold where you're at and make him move you. Like if you just held in the middle, now maybe they coached it for him to fly, him to initially start away from the tight end side. That might have been the case. You know, a lot of times they'll have a safety. The initial single eye safety go to the three-man side where the back's going or, away from the tight end side where they think there's more vertical threat but it's ingram over

there he's a receiver like don't just fly away from those things uh poor angle in the game outrun by daniel jones on the sideline uh on a read option punch the ball out though which is good but he's outrun to the sideline by jones when he should have made a play for two yards misstackle early in the game mistackle in the second half of the game another mistackle where he actually did trip the dude up enough and he gained only seven yards after contact, but he tripped him up, so you can't really call it a miss tackle. Miss tackle on a third and 20. It was a zero blitz. Evan Ingram almost broke out of it. Late in the game, third and 20, they came all out blitz, which I love because you're trying to knock him out of field goal range, but DeShazer can't miss that tackle. Inconsistent coming down from

the single high spot and making tackles in the run game. DeShazer, Everett was a D at best. I mean, that's stretching in this game. He did not play well in this game. So Curl and Everett were both these. Kendall Fuller C minus run. Donald Darby C and Jimmy Morland, who played 39 plays, was a B in this ballgame. And that kind of wraps up your secondary. I'll recap the linebackers, Bostic a D, Holcomb was a B, and KPL was a C minus. I have one question for you to finish up. I just want to remind everybody, if you need new windows, honestly, give Windonation a shot.

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completely dead. Would you, if you were Ron Rivera, who still believes he's in a division race, which he is mathematically, would you go sign Eric Reed? Yep. Wouldn't even think about it, would you? Nope. I'm also, I'm also thinking about, you know, what happens if something happens to Shays or what happens if something happens to Cameron Curl. I mean, you're already with a rookie at Curl, a seventh round pick, who I think is going to improve, man. The thing with Curl is I think he's going to be a pretty good player. Where are you going to go if something happens? I mean, you've got to think of a depth of your team as well. Maybe you're saying we can sign Eric Creed whenever we want to sign Eric Creed.

Yeah, but if he's much better than what you have and you think you're in the playoff race and you've discussed how, from a quarterback standpoint, you're playing the guy who gives you a chance to go win the division, why wouldn't you think the same way about your safety position? Well, I would totally agree with you. I would love

like I think you'd see Reed more as free. I think that would let Shays play more of the strong safety spot, which I think he's much better suited. I actually in watching curl from depth in some of these instances in this game, I think it might be advantageous to switch the two. Hmm. I get that you're taking a big risk,

you're changing responsibilities mid-season, but I would be interested in what Cameron Curl would be seeing things better from depth. I think he's a guy that's a sure tackler. I think he's a guy, I mean, I love his physicality. I love his knack for doing things in the run game, but I think DeShazer has that same kind of deal. and in Washington, Deschays are kind of open, open hips too much, move too much, be impacted, when you shouldn't be impacted as a free safety a little bit.

I don't know, man. I don't think that, I don't think it makes a difference really there, what you do. All right. Go be snarky the rest of the day, and we will catch up Friday to preview Washington at Detroit. I love it.