The Kevin Sheehan Show - Rookie Night For JD + Jay Gruden

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Kevin back for more on last night's 26-18 loss to the Eagles. He talked a lot about the Jayden Daniels performance while also going through a second version of his "Game-Take". Jay Gruden jumped on with his post-game thoughts on the Commanders' loss. Jay provided his weekly "NFL Lock" pick. Kevin finished up with 9 "Smell Test" picks.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. So commanders down by nine. Daniel spires over the middle. And is Re Blankenship, who for the moment has awarded the interception.

That was just the third interception of the year for Jaden Daniels. And after rewatching the game, I think I know what happened on that point. play. The show's presenting sponsor, as always, is Windonation. Call them at 86690 Nation, or head towindonation.com if you need new windows. Jay Gruden will be on with me in the next segment. The smell test and a few thoughts on the

two huge games Sunday in the NFL, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo KC in the final segment. So I'll let you know why I think he threw that interception when I get too my game take updated from last night. I did put out another postgame show following the game last night. My immediate reaction to the 26 to 18 loss to Philadelphia. It's there.

If you want to listen to it, you're going to get some of what I gave you last night in this opening segment. But it was about a 40-minute show afterwards. I've got a few updates because I did spend some time this morning, re-watching the game. And I have a slightly different opinion of Jaden's performance last night. And it may affect the grade that I gave him last night. It was absolutely the worst game of the year for him. His first bad game of his professional career.

But man, he did not get much help. And also, Philly was really good defensively. This from Tom, Tom writes, Kevin, the first nine games were a trick. They beat nobody, and we've now seen who they really are against the Steelers and Eagles. The situation is going to get dire. They'll lose again to Philly, split with Dallas, lose to Atlanta, and maybe on the road to New Orleans. Nine and eight wouldn't be good enough to make the playoffs, and 10 and 7 might be a close call. I'm just preparing you for this because this team lacks talent and the coaching

is overrated. Thank you, Tom. This from Samson, Samson writes Kev, we got God again. This team is average at best. J.D.5 is crashing back to Earth and Cliff's end of season meltdown has begun. They'll be lucky to sneak into the playoffs, but if they do, it'll be like Cliff's team in Arizona that fell apart and then got crushed by the Rams in the playoffs. Good to see everybody staying medium after last night, as Jim Zorn would say. Come on, people. Seriously, a lot of people had reactions like this one. Not everybody did. And look, social media isn't always the end-all be-all.

In fact, it really isn't. But this is coming from, yes, Twitter, but also some of the people that send emails my way. Look, I believed that Sunday's loss to Pittsburgh, as I said on Monday, was not a bad loss. It was a disappointing loss, but that's different from a bad loss. I think last night was more of a bad game than it was a bad loss. I don't think either one of these two games, and maybe we're talking, you know, semantics and language here, but I would not categorize Pittsburgh, Philly, as bad losses. Dyer situation crashing back to Earth?

Come on, guys, they got beat by a better team last night, a deeper and more ten. talented team, a team that had won five in a row coming in and was about as well-rested as you can be coming into a short turnaround Thursday night game. And they were playing at home, and they were the favored team, justifiably so. The line, by the way, at kickoff went to four and a half. Philly went from three and a half to four and a half by kickoff. Nothing is dire. Jaden's not crashing back to Earth.

You know, real quickly, by the way, Tom, 10 and 7 is as of now a lock for a wild card birth. I'd be shocked if Washington doesn't get in if they get to 10 and 7. I would agree that 9 and 8 could be more of a problem. And Samson, yes, Cliff's teams remember, because we went through all of this over the summer, Cliff's teams, when he was a head coach at Texas Tech and with the Cardinals, they started fast, finished poorly, you know, kind of consistently. And we went through during the summer that while this did happen and it was a trend and a pretty consistent trend when he was a head coach in college and with the Cardinals,

what wasn't totally consistent about it were the reasons that his teams flamed out. Some of those teams, you know, sort of petered out on offense, but a few of those teams flamed out as much on defense as they did on offense. One of the teams at Texas Tech basically gave up 40 plus on defense down the stretch, and the offense was still scoring, but they were losing, you know, 45, 41. You know, the team that he had at Arizona that Tom referred to, I think it was Tom, they gave up 30. plus in five of their last six losses that season, including the playoff game to the Rams, which you referred to, which was really ugly. So it wasn't always about the offenses, which is, I guess, my point, because that's what he's in charge in here.

But sometimes it was, you know, you're right, the teams consistently that he head coached, flamed out. They started quickly and they ended poorly. It just wasn't consistently about the offense every single time it happened. I'm fine right now, man. I mean, I'm glass half full. I'm not glass half full just because, you know, there's seven and four, and we all would have taken that and paid for it at the beginning of the year,

which, by the way, is true. But it's because, you know, less than two weeks ago, they beat the Giants 27 to 22, and Jaden was insanely great. It was his highest QBR game of the year. It was 95-something. He didn't look unhealthy in that game. He ran. He threw accurately.

He was outstanding in that game. The week before that, he was pretty damn good against a decent Chicago defense in which, you know, the team put up like 470 yards of offense. They needed a Hail Mary. to win. I get it. And Chicago stinks right now. But the point being offensively, they just played the two best defenses they have played, Pittsburgh and Philly. And both, by the way, are extremely well-coached. They just played two really good teams overall. And they lost at home by a point, wasn't even really a home game, in a game that was far from their best. And they

lost last night on the road playing poorly, and yet they had a lead in the fourth quarter. And, you know, again, take this for what it's worth. It's not meant to be excuse-making, but Pittsburgh was healthy coming off a by week, and Philadelphia was healthy, getting healthier, and coming off really a semi-buy week. I mean, they, you know, rested their starters against Dallas late third quarter, fourth quarter on Sunday. I'm going to put off being alarmed for a little while. I'm not really that distraught as some of you are. I have not changed my mind.

I think they're a good team, well-coached, have an excellent quarterback, and they're going to win 10 or 11 games and be in the playoffs. I can't wait to see what the defense looks like with Latimore on it, and I can't wait until the rematch with, Philadelphia on December 22nd. You know, Philly's schedule, they've got a road game against the Rams, a road game against the Ravens, then they play the Panthers, and then they've got the Steelers at home before the rematch here on December 22nd. Washington should be a sizable favorite in their next game

against Dallas. There'll be a sizable favorite against Tennessee. They'll be at least a slight favorite on the road against New Orleans. Those are the three games they play before the rematch with the Eagles. I think despite being a game and a half back right now, you know, these two teams could be even record-wise or Washington could maybe be a game behind Philadelphia when they play that rematch on December 22nd. Everything's still in play. Like I said, last night was telling it wasn't defining. got six left, Philadelphia's got seven left. They're going to go ahead and play them anyway. So let's see how it works out. All right, let me get to a revised version of last night's

game take. Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Take. All right, what I like, didn't like in a few other observations, including the fourth and two decision, which I still even after thinking about it and listening to Dan Quinn, who came out in his press conference last night and talked about fourth and two before he was even asked. And I kind of suggested last night on my quick recap that I thought that there were reasons that weren't that crazy as to why he decided to go for two. I just wouldn't have done the same thing because I think there were more reasons not to go for it than to go for it.

I would have kicked the field goal. But I'll get to that coming up in this game take. All right, let's start with what I liked, and it's pretty much the same list as I had last night. I think I added one player to it. Austin Echler was number one on the list. He's just excellent in everything he does from the running back position as a runner, as a pass catcher, as a kickoff returner. Yes, he should have caught a tipped ball on what was a huge third down and could have been a big play in the game. And he also fumbled a kickoff return that they,

They recovered, Washington recovered, but eight catches, 89 yards. That 34-yard catch and run on that first touchdown drive was spectacular. I love the backfield combination when they're both back there. He and Brian Robinson, Jr. And they're in that, you know, 20 personnel or 21 or 22 personnel, two backs. You know, one tight end, two tight ends, no tight ends. I think it's creative the way they use them. I mentioned this last night.

I'd like to actually go back and maybe I'll ask coolly this. I think it hurts their play action a little bit with the two backs and the way they tend to run everything back there. But it also, I think, helps them a lot in the run game. Both of them are excellent. Brian Robinson Jr. was solid last night, too, in his return. But I really like Echler. I thought the first half defense was very good.

I think it was encouraging again from the defense. They held Barclay to under four yards per carry. I think it was 3.7 yards per carry in the first half as a whole. Philly managed just over four yards per play. They did load the box. They chose to do that more often than not in the first half to stop the run, but I didn't think the coverage was that bad behind it. It was another good sign that this defense is improving the first half was.

You know, specifically Louvre was great. and Sanra still was great. I really thought those were the two best players defensively, although I loved Bobby Wagner. I still think Armstrong gets some subtle pressure as well. Did not think the tackles played very well more on that on the list of things I didn't like. But Louvue, two sacks. He's up to seven on the year.

He's their best pass rusher. I know Fowler Jr's got eight and a half sacks, but I think Louvue is their best pass rusher. Plus, he got in the way of that flea flicker. And then Sanra still, I mean, he covered Smith, he covered A.J. Brown. In the red zone on two different occasions, they tried to fool him with a double move. He didn't bite and he broke up passes in the end zone. I thought it was his best game as a cover corner on the outside.

And, you know, the conversation of what happens when Latimore gets back. Well, let me just mention, I didn't think St. Juice played that poorly last night. I thought he was decent. And, you know, he left the game at one point. and Davis came in. It turns out it was for an injury, but he came back into the game, and, you know, he was okay last night. Zach Ertz is who I added to the list of things that I liked. Ertz was great. He was open a lot. Ended up, you know, having a decent night catching the football six catches, 47 yards, had the touchdown, and the incredible job on the two-point conversion, where he caught it with a defender draped all over him. borderline defensive pass interference and somehow got, you know, a second toe down for a successful

conversion. So that was pretty much the list of things that I liked. What I didn't like, you know, overall the offense, it was the worst game of the year offensively for them. They had one decent drive in the first half, and it was excellent four plays, 58 yards, bang, bang, bang, touchdown. I actually thought Brian Robinson Jr. scored on the third play, that longer run that I thought he fell on the defender and actually scored. But 264 total yards, you know, well below their average. 70 of them coming on that last drive with Philly, I think, playing a bit soft. They were one for nine on third down before that final drive. That is really off from their norm. They've been an excellent third down conversion team. They've been an excellent, you know, score points per drive team,

and all of it was down last night. It was the worst offensive performance of the year. I said last night that I didn't think they ran the ball enough. I think Brian Robinson, Jr., I think I would have fed him a little bit more in the game, especially when they were having some issues in the past game. And that brings me to Jaden. He's still on this list of things that I didn't like. I gave him a D last night. I've upped it to a D plus, not a major difference. It was the worst game that he's had all year, but man, he did not get a lot of help last night. And he was up against it with some of what Philly did in just how good some of their players are on defense. You know, as far as his health real quickly, I'm still where I was last night. He is definitely sore from the rib injury.

perhaps not 100%. Quinn said last night, what I said earlier last week, is that he was much improved from where he was in the week after the injury, which was the Chicago game. And he didn't think that the rib was an issue at all. Jaden said the same thing.

He cut his hand during the Steelers game, which we talked about earlier in the week. Logan Paulson had reported that during the broadcast of the Steelers game. He's on the sidelines. And he cut something last night between his pinky finger and ring finger on his throwing hand. Kaley Harttung had the report, showed the shot of the hand. It did not look good.

I would assume it was the same thing from last week, the same cut, because Logan did say it was on his throwing hand that they were applying, you know, an anti-clotting, you know, probably this sterile super glue that they were using last night. So, you know, the hand last week and this week. And, you know, like I said last night, I would love to chalk up the D plus performance to injuries because I am his biggest fan. But I just don't think it explains everything. You know, and after rewatching the game, it definitely doesn't explain everything. I agree that he didn't, you know, look fleet, didn't look quick, didn't look fast at times.

I agree that he didn't throw the ball. He did not throw the ball well for the majority of the game. But trust me on this. And you're going to hear Jay Gruden talk about this in the next segment because I've already recorded this segment with Jay. And something Jay said made me go back and rewatch the game immediately. Jay was convinced there was not a lot there for him last night. And he was pretty much right.

You know, and I'll also emphasize that while he didn't look his normal athletic self a lot of the time for the lack of a better description. There are examples from last night where he did not look unathletic. He didn't look constricted. He didn't look hurt. He didn't look slow. And I'll point some of those plays out here coming up. Here's the thing. If the injured rib is a major problem right now, why wasn't it a major problem against the Giants less than two weeks ago, or the bears less than three weeks ago. You know, if it was truly impacting his performance, the Steelers and the Eagles are totally different opponents, and I think, by the way, really well-coached opponents, that did things

to make him look a lot less than he's been. Again, is he sore? Yep. Could the vest or whatever he's wearing to protect himself be constricting? my good friend Howard Gutman thinks that might be what it is, might be. Could it be the finger or the hand? That's the real issue. I don't know.

That wouldn't affect his running as much as it would affect his throwing. I just don't personally think that the health is the major part of why he didn't play well last night. So as I said last night, I thought he looked confused and unsure. I think that's still true, but I think more than that, he was also fooled at times, not only by the opponent and by the very good Vic Fangio, but at times by his own team, which I'll get to here in a moment, he definitely played like a rookie for the first time. It's his 11th start.

He's facing some adversity for the first time in his pro career, straight losses, two straight games in which he didn't play anywhere near where he had been playing. You know, a C plus against Pittsburgh, a D plus last night. You know, we're going to start to find out a week from Sunday against Dallas how he handles this first adverse situation. I think he'll shrug it off. I do. I think he'll shrug off last night and show what he's capable of, which we've already seen, especially with kind of a mini-buy, which I think will do him and everybody else out there some good. I'd be shocked, honestly, if he doesn't bounce back against Dallas or some of the opponents they've got coming up and look like he looked in the first nine games.

Like I said last night, he has not had a normal rookie quarterback season. It's been all-ups until the last two weeks. So we can deal with this. The issue is, will he be able to deal with this? I have confidence. He will. Let's look at some of the numbers from last night. night in some of the plays. So 22 of 32 for a buck 91, 45 to 50 of those yards came on that

final drive. You know, plenty of ugly misses. Ball hit the ground short of Target, you know, a lot. He got intercepted once and got nearly picked on that first third downthroat to Noah Brown where he tried to squeeze one in there. On that interception, I said that, you know, I think I have an explanation as to why he threw it. So let me go through this. They were down 19 to 10. Remember, after they had already missed the fourth and two, and then the Eagles went down and turned it into a two-score lead.

And this is, you know, this is a very uneducated guess. This is a poke at what happened. So they've gone down by more than one score. They had failed on the fourth and two. There are five minutes to go in the game. and Philly all night long has taken away his ability to go down the field, even a little bit, you know, especially to Terry, who at that point had one catch, you know, and maybe one target. I think he wanted to throw the ball down the field to Terry, because that's what he looked at from the snap.

And Philadelphia fooled him. They showed, a blanket chip did, the safety who picked off the pass, showed like he was going to, double Terry, and Jaden gets off Terry, wants to throw it deep, but comes back to a level shorter with Noah Brown. Still more of a downfield throw because Fangio took away a lot of the downfield stuff. And Blankenship baited him in to the throw because he knew, you know, that he'd look at Terry, and once he looked at Terry, he made the move back to Brown and picked it off. You know, and all the while, all the while, here was the part that, you know, really convinced me he had just gotten frustrated. As was the case much of the night, which is why there weren't many balls to the receivers, Philly played Jaden to throw underneath, to throw the checkdown a lot of the time.

They were fine with that. And the checkdown to Echler on that play that he threw the interception was wide open. And he should have taken it. He had taken it earlier. But in that moment, down 19. to 10, he was frustrated over not being able to push it down the field all night long. He wanted it so badly, he wanted to get it to Terry, even though he didn't throw it to Terry because he looked in that direction and there was a double. He never looked at Eckler. He came back to Brown. Eckler is there for a catch in a 10-plus yard play, probably. He forced it. He got fooled by it. And it was kind of the culmination of a night being frustrated By the way, he was being played.

And the way his own team played around him. A couple of the really bad plays from Jaden. The first one was that drive after Philly missed that second field goal, that 51-yarder, and they had good field position at their own 41. He had already taken a sack on 1st and 10, and it was 2nd and 14. This is a bad play by Jaden, and it's a bad game management play by Jaden. They need a good play on second and 14 to give them a chance on third down. You're not getting the full 14 last night against Philadelphia.

They're rushing four, they're dropping seven excellent players into coverage, and Vic Fangio is not letting you get 14, all right? They're playing zone, and they did it a lot of the night for rushing. Why? Because they can with their personnel. And there's an immediate breakdown in past protection, but there are two to three short underneath throws he can make that are wide open. But he wants to go down field and he gets sacked.

Should have taken the underneath throw. He had two options minimum. It would have been seven, eight, nine yards. It would have set up, you know, third and five, third and six. That was a big drive. Instead of third and five or third and six, it was third and 22. They had to punt. And then on this play, I don't know what happened.

happened on this throw. This was one of the worst throws of the season for him. Noah Brown is open on a second nine with just over four minutes to go in the second quarter. They're at the Philly 46. He's got time. He steps up. He makes a terrible throw that lands like two and a half yards short of Brown into the dirt. Could Brown have gone to the ground and tried to pull it in? Maybe, but probably not. I thought it was one of the worst throws I've seen to an open receiver, and there weren't many of those last night, but Noah Brown was open, you know, mid-level, medium distance, and he just dirted it almost. He had several other throws that were just off target. A few completions weren't exactly thrown in the best spot. He struggled last night with accuracy, and the inaccurate throws for the most part were always short of, the target. It's not like he was high and long. The inaccurate throws actually for me,

you know, that's more curious to me than the lack of rushing yards, you know? So I don't, I can't explain that part of it. You know, that's where when somebody says he didn't look right, I think he didn't look right more on those throws than he did on the runs or the lack of runs. he just also didn't take what was there at times. You know, he's been such a good patient, you know, game manager when it's called for it. And up 10-6 at their own 45-yard line in the third quarter, he's got a third down in five. All right, they've got the ball up again. They had the ball up several times in the first place, in the first half, excuse me.

Ertz, who had a great game, is wide open at the sticks. He's got to get rid of it immediately. he should have seen it, he should have, third and five, Ertz, they're again playing too deep, and they're letting you throw underneath, and he's got to get rid of it immediately, and he's sacked by Nolan Smith, who destroyed Brandon Coleman, which was a theme,

you know, a recurring theme last night. That's in previous weeks, that ball's out, boom, and it wasn't. There were plays where he probably got confused by his own team, as I implied earlier. There was a third quarter, third, and four before the field goal on their opening drive of the second half that made it 10 to 3. It's the ball that landed at Terry's feet. Everybody's like, what was that?

Well, when you go back and look at that play, there's kind of a pick from Ertz to free up Terry on a crosser on third and four underneath. and Echler is running right into Terry. What's he doing? Somebody effed up the route. I'm not sure, but you can see, Jaden's like, wait a minute, what are we doing here?

And he throws one at the feet of Terry because you got a defender that Echler's bringing into the picture, and it almost looks like they're going to collide. So clearly a mix-up, and, you know, you'll hear Jay talk about, you know, some of the routes, you know, people were too close to each other. And I think he's right. That was a perfect example of it. Receivers just weren't open that much. Terry got locked down at times by that rookie Mitchell, who really looked good. The pass pro wasn't good. Coleman really struggled. Jalen Carter was incredibly disruptive inside.

Jaden made some better throws than maybe I gave him credit for last night. Let me give you a couple of second quarter, third and four, really good throw to Ertz versus Mitchell to move the sticks. There's a second and ten. Maybe the drive when they're down 12 to 10, that's the best Jaden looked all night, right? Had the two throws to Bates and had a really good throw to Ertz on second and 10. It is a back shoulder, the DB, or maybe it was a linebackers coming over, and it's just a perfectly placed ball. I think it was a 15 or 16-yard game gain.

That was well done. I'll tell you what, the touchdown throw was a good throw. The two-point conversion may have been the play that indicated, okay, he's still able to extend and move around and create, and that was an impressive play. You know, his rushing yards last night, seven for 18, and it wasn't good. And we understand that based on what we've seen. But I actually thought there were three plays where he ran the ball,

where he looked more like Jaden and not, you know, the perceived or maybe realistic reality hurt version of Jaden. I'll fast forward to the one that I just mentioned, two-point conversion. I mean, watch him on that play, how he ducks pressure. and extends and comes back and throws to Ertz in the back of the end zone. The first QB counter, and I hate these QB counters, I just don't like to see him run into piles, and that should be an indication of what they think about his health. If they're really concerned about his ribs,

they shouldn't be running these quarterback counters. But the first quarterback counter went for five yards, and it was a good run, slippery run by him. He had a scramble for a five-yard gain. of bounds on that final drive, you know, the one that started with four and a half minutes to go, where it looked like Jaden. But, you know, I'll concede that some of the getting away from some of the pressure, some of it wasn't easy. Some of it's because Philadelphia's players, you know, sweat and Graham and Carter and Davis and these guys are good, Smith, they're good. And they're

athletic. Yeah. Look, upon further review, it was not a good night at all for him. He had a big part in it, for sure. But man, there wasn't a ton for him. The O-line didn't protect. And when you can rush four and drop seven and all 11 players on your defense, because they are playing defense at a very high level the Eagles are,

it's not easy. It isn't for anybody. D-plus. Pass protection on the list of things I didn't like. I mean, Brandon Coleman got absolutely abused. Kingsbury, you know, I put on the list. Look, receivers running in that same general area, I don't know what was going on. I don't know if he could have made it easier for him.

You'll hear me ask Jay, and you'll hear Jay's answer. But again, Philly's good, and it's not, you know, it wasn't easy for them. I don't think it's a case of people catching up with Cliff right now. I don't think that was it. But, you know, I think overall, when your offense bogs down as much as it did, some of it probably was on his inability to kind of figure it out. Second half defense was on the list of things I didn't like. Philly had it four times, scored three touchdowns, rolled up 270 yards on 28 plays.

270 yards on 28 plays. You know, I had somebody call this morning and say, the defense was great through three quarters. They only gave up six points. That's misleading. The defense was outstanding in the first half from my perspective. You know, Philly had a lot to do with some of the results in the first half. They missed two field goals.

They dropped passes. They had a couple of key penalties. They, you know, they self-destructed in the first half. But I thought the defense was solid in the first half. But the reason that they only scored three points and only had six at the end of the third quarter is that they took the opening drive that they had in the third quarter and kicked a field goal. And they were in the midst of a second long drive that would be the first of three touchdown drives and 270 yards in the making.

No, the defense gave up 9.6 yards per play in the second half. It was not a good defensive effort. I do think, however, that they were starting to run out of gas to a certain degree. I think that that's true. On the list of things that I didn't like, I mentioned this last night, look, they handled the final four and a half minutes brutally. You know, you're down 16, you got a chance. You know, you're still in it mathematically with four and a half minutes to go.

We know, you know, teams aren't going to give up down 16. when they understand the math, two touchdowns to two-point conversions, could potentially tie it. But they, you know, ran the ball too much down the stretch, especially in that three-minute to two-minute warning stretch. I don't know why they're running the football back-to-back. You know, it's true, and somebody tweeted this to me, they're in a shell defense.

They could actually potentially score on a run play or they could get a big chunk play. I get that. I totally get that. And I'm not saying that you can't run the football as you're trying to score urgently and quickly, you know, and that it is dangerous to really force stuff into those shell coverages. I get that completely. However, when you go McNichols for six, McNichols for minus four on a second one to a third and five McNichols for three, and you're, run two plays in 58 seconds without calling one of your two timeouts, that's not well done. That's poorly done. And you at that point needed to start throwing the football or throwing it, you know, getting it underneath and getting it out of bounds or use a time out there. Bottom line is they're down 26 to 10 and they go on a drive that takes 15 plays 70 yards and four minutes and 10 seconds, leaving 28 seconds left on the clock,

and they didn't use a timeout. And they took both timeouts with them to the locker room. It was poorly done, period. You know, how would it have been done differently? You know, there's probably not, the scenario in which you don't have to kick an on-side kick is that you have at least one of those timeouts prior to the two-minute warning. You know, so with 255 to go when they started running McNichols on back-to-back plays, when he lost the four yards and before the third and five, maybe you call a timeout right there.

You know, and it's 25 to go, 254 to go, 250 to go, 250 to go. And now you call a pass play on third and five to try to get the first down. And then you get up and you try to run another play and hopefully it's into the end zone, you know, at that point. Because if you can score before the two-minute warning and have at least one timeout left, you can kick the onside kick, you know, but if you don't get it, you're going to have a chance, potentially, with the two-minute warning and one time out to get the ball back with, say, a minute 10 to go if you get a stop. Down eight.

The whole thing was handled improperly. It really was. And Kirk Herb Street and Al Michaels were oblivious to the whole thing. I talked about that last night. embarrassing how completely oblivious they were to the fact that it was a 16-point game. And Michaels used to be the absolute best at that. All right, a couple of things real quickly, and then we'll get to Jay. Quan Martin's forced fumble on that big throw to Goddard. That's a really good play, really good punch out. The one eagle that was down there recovered it.

That could have been a massive play. There was a stretch in the first half, and even in the second half, where they had the ball with the lead three times in the first half. And you had the field position, which I talked about the one sack on second and 14, that he should have definitely taken the checkdown. But the real crucial miss was that dropped past by Echler on the tip. It was tipped, but that's a third nine at the Philadelphia 46 with four and a half minutes to go. Up, by the way, seven to nothing. If he catches that, he probably gets the first down the way he's been,

running after the catch. But if he doesn't, you're in a fourth and go for it situation. You're in a fourth and two, you know, at the Philadelphia 39-yard line, 38-yard line. And more clock is running, too. I thought that was crucial that they didn't get anything out of the three drives. One of them started deep in their own territory, like at the seven or six-yard line. I don't blame them for that one, but they had the one at the 41 that they went backwards on. And then they were in Philly territory. And that third and nine, you know, Jaden hit Echler, you know, found him, threw it underneath short of the sticks, but it was the right play. And it got tipped and Echler still should have caught it. And I think he would have

moved the sticks on that. And then in the second half, they had the ball, you know, up 10 to 6. And, you know, had the ball out near midfield when Jaden took a sack. And that was the third and five that I talked about. So missed opportunities there for sure. Bates had a first down on the play before the second and one, and then the third and one and the fourth and two. The foot may have been out, but I think the ball was ahead of the sticks. So that first and ten, which was followed by a second and inches,

which was followed by a third and one, which then set up the fourth and two, thought Bates had the first down. I didn't like all the pulling last night with Jalen Carter in the game. I think when you've got a dominant player like him on the interior and you're pulling your interior linemen over and over again, doesn't it just make it so much easier for him to get to the backfield? Just, you know, a thought.

By the way, I didn't think Jalen Hertz was that great last night. I like Jalen Hertz. Sequin Barclay was the absolute stud for them. God, is he good? All right, we will end with the fourth and two. So my feeling is this, and then we'll get to Jay Gruden. And I said it last night, and I don't feel any differently. The two plays that preceded it where you went backwards,

minus one yard on second and third and third down. And you've got a chance with essentially a chip shot field goal for the lead with eight minutes to go. I'm kicking the field goal there. Context says we just struggled on back-to-back plays. You know, I don't feel great about my offense tonight. I may feel really good about my fourth and two play, and I've been really good on fourth and two this year, but I'm kicking the field goal.

Not to mention their kickers already missed three times. three times. So if they come down and he's got to kick a field goal again, he's going to be feeling it, you know, for sure. So I would have kicked the field goal and taken a 13 to 12 lead with eight minutes to go in the biggest regular season game on the road that you've had in a long time. His reasoning was he felt like he needed a touchdown, that this was a game where he was going to be aggressive. They felt like they needed the touchdown. I think he felt like the defense was starting to bend and maybe on. the verge of breaking. By the way, he was right on that point. And so there was a reasonable thought of, let's go get the touchdown. He also mentioned we would have eaten more clock. I think that's, I think those are good reasons. I'm glad the reasoning isn't some of the Ron Rivera, you know,

gobbly gook that we heard last year. You know, that that was always frustrating when he would just, you know, give you word salads after reasonable questions looking for. what the thought process was. Yeah. So I would have kicked the field goal. And I would have put my defense back out there, which by the way, was the best part of the team last night. All right.

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Nation or visitwindonation.com. Joining me right now is the former head coach of the Washington Redskins. Jay Gruden is with me every Friday during football season, usually to preview the upcoming game, but this is the loan opportunity to hear from Jay in the immediate aftermath of a game. and so I'll just start by kind of giving you the floor. Why'd they lose last night? Well, I think there's a lot of reasons. I think they ran out of gas defensively, obviously, in the fourth quarter, and I think the inefficiencies on offense really hurt them.

They really couldn't get any going with the wide-outs, no splash plays, and they just had trouble moving the ball with some consistency, and then they put their defense out on the field too often, and they got worn out. Why weren't they able to be consistent? why weren't they able to move the football like they have in the past against Philly last night? I have a combination of pretty good covers, pretty good pass rush by Philadelphia, give them credit first.

And then, you know, they didn't have a lot of concepts that were working against that defense. A lot of guys in the same spot on key situations, you know, third down, they had Echler on a little arrow route right into a shallow cross. So they had guys in the same spot concepts. I think they might have messed up a little bit. Pass protection wasn't great. and then Jaden missed a couple throws. So it was a combination.

You can't put your finger at one thing. It wasn't a line. It wasn't Jaden. It wasn't Kingsbury. It was just a combination. One time it might have been a bad call. One time it might have been bad protection. One time might have been a bad throw.

So I just never got really in sync. And sometimes that happens on a Thursday night. This was clearly, right, Jaden's worst game of the year. You agree with that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. So what? It is a toughest place to play.

Philadelphia is a tough place to play in a short week. It was crowded. NFC East game is his introduction to a division rival game on the road. And it's not easy. They played a Giants earlier, but it's not quite the same thing. All right. So let's talk about his health. What do you think he's going through right now?

Do you think he's 100% healthy or not? I don't think he is. To be honest with you, I think there's some lingering pain there. I can tell by the way he's running his when he used to attack. defenses with his legs and get after people. Now he's taken probably the safe way out and sliding a little bit sooner and get down, which is fine, protecting himself. But I just think he still has some pain right there.

It's limited in that extra gift that he has, that athleticism that really makes him who he is, the special player that he is. He's a little bit of that has taken away with his injury. I thought from my seat, a fan seat, that this was the first game that he looked confused. He looked completely unsure of himself, throwing the football as much as anything else. I'm wondering if you felt the same way. Yeah, there really wasn't, you know, if you put the film on, there's not like their guys open that he should have thrown the ball, too. There's a lot of really good coverage back there and a lot of concepts that just weren't getting people open.

Like I said, this guy's in the same spot. Guy just running across the field. People were trailing him. So he didn't have a lot of guys wide open. He missed the thrower here or there. but for most part Philadelphia did a really good job against the schemes that Cliff was trying to throw at him and I think that was part of it. I don't think he really felt like he could stick a scint as to grant a drive a ball. He missed a couple, but it wasn't like it was a, even for guys all over the place or a lot of guys open to be honest.

One of the things that I think seemed really true, and you tell me if you agree, and it's been coming the last few weeks, but they haven't played great teams necessarily or great quarterbacks. I mean, they did face Joe Burrow. But Philly's really good defensively, aren't they? Yeah, they're pretty good. They're getting better. I think their weakness early this season was their secondary,

but Quignon Mitchell's starting to play really, really good. And obviously, Darius Clay is a better guy. He's doing good. And I think the addition of the rookie from Iowa, he's in a slot, he's a really good player. So they've shorted up their secondary. And then obviously we know what Jalen Carter can do on the inside. And now they've got some edge pressure a little bit,

the combination of sweat, and obviously the other guys gave them some problems. So they have the interior push. They're getting a little bit of edge pressure, and they've got really good coverage right now. So, yeah, the Eagles are a dangerous team moving forward. What would you have done differently on offense last night? I'm a different. I don't know a lot of these concepts at the run-in.

I don't know that they've done a really good job for the first eight, nine games of the season. I can't question that or doubt what they've done. Last night was not their best game as far as call and plays. That's for sure. They had a lot of guys in the same spot. They had some run concepts. They missed some targets. Nothing really clicked for them last night.

Everything was a struggle. And I think part of that is what Philadelphia did to them. They condensed the edges. They didn't allow it to get outside. They did a really good job on the inside zones with their big defensive tackle. But differently, I don't know. I would have done a lot of things differently, but they might not have work either. Well, yeah, because essentially what you're saying, let me make sure I'm clear.

how he designs his, you know, plays, his offense is just much different than the way you designed yours. Yeah, yeah, we come from different systems. Yeah, there are some things that I just not familiar with. This guy's running all over the place. He's done a visit. It's a very successful. It's work for him in his career as a coach. It's just something that I'm not familiar.

There's some concepts that are carryover concepts, a three-level throw type things that we all run, everybody run. But some of the drop-back game is just some things that I'm not familiar with. I do things different. That's all. it's not a negative towards Cliff. He's done a great job. You know, just from

a high level, do you think they ran the ball enough last night? They tried, yeah. You know, they didn't have a lot of opportunities. Philadelphia held on the ball seemed like a long time. There's not a lot of big plays in that game. A lot of, you know, steel position, punts. And when you don't get any big plays,

it's hard to stick with the run as much. But, you know, B-Rob had 16 carries. You know, Nichols had three. Echler had two. I mean, that's 20 carry, 25 carries, and Jaden had a couple. So they only had the ball for, I mean, maybe 60 plays, 55 plays. It's really hard to get things going if you don't maintain drives. I think third downs they weren't very good on.

Typically, they're really good on third and fourth down. They weren't as good last night. Two situations. Let's go to the fourth and two when they were down 12 to 10. Would you have kicked the field goal or would you have gone for it? I would kick field goal to go up one, but they've been so successful. on fourth down with Jaden his legs. I think they're what, 12 for 12 or 12 for 13 or something like that.

But I don't really fault that decision, but I would have rather gone up by one. But maybe the fact they have a new kicker in two is not a gimmick for him on the road either. So I think they probably felt like the percentages of going forward on fourth and two of the pose of a kick in a few. We'll probably higher with Jaden with the ball in his hands. Unfortunately, Bobble to snap. He would have got the first down if he done Bobble Snap. Yeah, the two plays before it that generated negative one yard,

you know, the two runs, they went from second and inches to fourth and two. That would have been, that would have been for me, I would have been like, yeah, the last two plays were stuffed. We're going to take the lead here. Yeah, that has a lot to do with it, too, yeah. And maybe they thought that since they were stuffed, the ends were crashing down, that they get Jaden out on the corner. I think the third down on two play or third and one play, the defensive event just crashed hard,

and they didn't block them, and he just stuffed the running game. So I think they thought they could get outside, which they probably would have if he doesn't. doesn't bottle the snap with the guard doesn't have the ball out of the fans. So, you know, the first and ten play, I don't know why the damn tight end ran out of bound. The yard short of the first down, it kind of bothered me. But, yeah, I mean, you can't hold them. I think Dan Quinn had done a great job of the decisions all year.

But myself personally, fourth quarter of defense wasn't playing terrible. It wasn't like Faconne was gashed them up until that. It was after that when he started cashed them. But to go up by one point in the fourth quarter on the road, I think I would have preferred that. But that was no guarantee with a new kicker. Um, frustrating for me was the way they handled the last four minutes. There was no urgency. They ran the ball too much.

And when they finally scored, they had two timeouts left and there were 28 seconds left in the game. And they converted the two-point conversion. Um, were you watching that, uh, wondering what they were doing or had you checked out at that point? I was watching that and I was wondering the same thing. That the sense of urgency, when you're down to scores, you got to get on. You got to try to make sure you don't have to do it.

onside kick. Try to kick off and get the ball back and use your timeouts with the punt. Onside kicks are such a rare commodity nowadays. But then once they got under two minutes, then you knew they had to do the on-side kick thing. But yeah, I just think the sense of urgency wasn't quite there. I think it was probably the first situation in that type of situation, being down, having to throw, having to come back down two scores. And I think it's a learning experience for everybody, you know, with a young offense, young quarterback. I want to go back to what you were saying about the offense last night and just ask you, you know, as it relates to Kingsbury, one of the criticisms even before this season started is that Kingsbury's offenses, you know, pretty much wherever he's been, coordinator or head coach, started quickly and faded late. Is that a concern for you? Well, are they figuring it out?

That's true. Is that true? To a certain degree, it's been true, yes. Yeah, a lot to wait to see. I think, you know, he had good quarterbacks before in his history. I mean, Kyle Murray is a good player. So, you know, a lot to wait and see how people adjust to his offense. I think part of the reason we've got to give Jaden another week or so, I can't wait for them to get the buy week.

That's going to be important for Jaden to heal. He'll get totally back to 100% where he can really attack defense on his legs as well because that's, like I said before, that's like one of his special attributes. you take that away, and now he's an average quarterback, but you add that element, he's a superstar, so we've got to get that element back, number one. But as far as Cliff is concerned, I don't know if that's true or not. I know that Philadelphia had a really good plan for the soft mess,

and there wasn't a lot there for Jay to do. He missed a couple throws, but if you go back and watch the film, I'm not like, well, this guy's wide open, this guy's wide open. There's not a lot of guys open. Defensively, what did you think? I think they battled early. I just think they ran out of gas. You know, they're on a field a lot,

and then they had a couple really bad plays. You know, the long touchdown to Saquan on the backside was awful. Percy was absolutely on the ground twice. He was back. He had to cut back. He's one of the guys. He's on the ground. There was a bad play by a couple guys on the backside, which gave him a huge hole.

And you'd give Saquan a huge hole. It's a wrap. They did a pretty good job for the most part before those two long runs back to back. Yeah, they did. Philly's good on both sides. sides of the ball. You know, you, did you have a chance to coach against, oh, yeah, you coached against Barclay. He had some of his big games against us when he was a giant overall. Where is he right now among running backs in the league?

Well, he's number one, or number one. I think his ability to catch the ball, too. I know he dropped the ball early in a season on a fourth down or whatever it was. Yeah. It cost him a game, but the ability to do both. I mean, he caught a little check down and ran for 50 yards last night. Right. I think he's probably the top back in the league, him and Derek Henry, and obviously McCaffrey, when he's 100 percent, those guys are the top three. But, I mean, if you're starting a team from scratch, you can take any back out there.

He'd probably take him first, I would think. Yeah, he's definitely, those are the three. I think that, you know, come to mind for most. How good is Jalen Carter? He's really good. He's a problem up in the inside. And that's part of the reason why they're so good. Now, they get incredible push with those defense alignment, which allows their ends to get up the field.

And just it's hard for quarterback to set their feet and see him. He's a huge human. And it's a huge human. He's a huge human. For a quarterback to scour his progress. For a quarterback to, you know, go through his progression, you see his six-foot-six guy right, your face, man. He got to get off of it. Yeah, it disrupts timing.

It disrupts everything. So seven and four, Phillies at eight and two. so they're a game and a half back and Philly's got one in hand head to head. You know, there's still plenty of season left. You know, Philly's still got seven to play. They got to play Baltimore and Pittsburgh still. They got to come here. Washington's schedule, you know, really if you look at it,

they're only going to be an underdog more likely than not in one more game. And that might be Philadelphia at home. So just do you still view this team as a playoff team? Oh, 100%. 100%. 100%. Yeah, I think once you know,

you get the buy week, get her way back healthy and, you know, they got some winnable games. Obviously, Atlanta's going to be a tough one for them, but, you know,

they should be able to take Dallas is going to be tough. I don't care who's playing quarterback. It's always tough. You know, you know, we went down there and beat Dallas on Monday night.

We were the shits of Colt McCoy, and not a quarterback drawled. You never know what's going to happen in that game. So I wouldn't take those two games lightly. But, yeah, I definitely view this team. as a playoff team, I think their defense will get better and better.

And I just think Jaden, when he gets more healthy, he can attack defenses with his athleticism. I think that puts them as contenders for the NFC East, not just the playoffs. That Dallas Monday night game, you guys went down as basically a double-digit underdog. And that had to be for you, I'm thinking, one of the most memorable wins of your head coaching crew. That was a good one, yeah. My brother was doing the game, too, on Monday Night Football. That was pretty cool. Oh, that's right.

But yeah, yeah. I love games like that where nobody gives you a chance to go in and get the big win. I remember Breeland making a couple of big plays in the secondary. Yeah, it was fun. That was a good game. All right. Let's quickly go through a couple. I mean, this is a big Sunday coming up. Early window, Ravens and Steelers. What do you think? Yeah, that's going to be a good one. I think Ravens are better. I think the Ravens take care of business. And Lamar is just Lamar. I think he's just going to prove that, you know, this is going to be an MVP-type game for him. him and he's going to show what he's made of and they're going to go in town in Pittsburgh and

whoop them. I love Baltimore's squad, by the way. You love Baltimore's. I'm not a big fan of I love their team. I'm not a big fan of Deiote Johnson pick up, but I do like Baltimore. By the way, we didn't get a chance to talk about last Sunday because we were focused on last night, but are you impressed with what Russell Wilson's doing in Pittsburgh? Yeah, yeah. He is doing a really good job. You know, he's right around 50, percent, but he's, it's the big plays. And that's what teams got to have nowadays. You look at the game last night with Washington, without the ability to have a big play

when you're playing good defenses, it's hard to go 15 plays in 80 yards every time or 75 yards. You've got to get a 30-40-yard gainers every mound in a bomb. And that's what Russell gives them, you know, the Wancheroonies, the moonball, three or four of those a game. And with the way they're playing defense, hell, they're going to be tough to beat. You know, I talked about this the other day in the show that, that I was listening to Nick Siriani actually in his press conference on Wednesday, I think.

And he said something that you hear all the time now from coaches. But I don't think you heard it all the time 10 years ago. And that is just explosive plays. Explosive plays produced on offense. Explosive plays aloud on defense. Is it my imagination or has that become much more of a fun? focus for coaches in 2024 than maybe it was in 2014? Well, I think it's always been a focus.

I mean, the ability to get explosive plays and eliminate explosive plays, I think, are the keys. Obviously, there are some situational type things that are important, red zone, third down, and all that stuff. But like I said before, there's not a lot of teams. I think Kansas City is probably one of the few teams that can go 14, 15 plays a drive consistently. And they're number one in time of possession.

They're number one in third down. and they've been doing it. But everybody else needs the ability to get a big strike here and there. Because, you know, the longer you're on the field, often you're probably going to screw up with a holding call or something like that. But, yeah, explosive plays have always been a focus at least was for us. We always try to dial up, you know, our top. We always, the night before the game,

we star our top five explosive plays that we were going to call in the game. We had to call, you know. So trying to get those is very important. I guess maybe the way to have asked it is, was that something that was measured as much? Like your plus in explosive plays or your minus an explosive place? Never did that, but they were very glaring the next day when you're watching Phil. You know what I mean? So, yeah, they would always come up after the fact that here's why, you know, we probably lost or here's one of the reasons why we won or whatever.

But, yeah, it's a critical part of the game. You look at every team's won this year. there's always three or four explosive plays that are critical. What were the first things you looked at when, you know, Tony, Wiley handed you the stat sheet before you met with the media after a game? Usually, well, I usually knew pretty much why we lost or won. Turnovers are number one, obviously past protection. How many sacks we gave up or how many sacks we got was always important to me.

And then obviously the quarterback, his percentage and all that stuff, that's quarterback, and rushing yards. Russian yards gain and rushing yards against all of them. Russian yards, quarterback's percentage, and then obviously turnovers and third down. Yeah, third downs. All right, Chiefs Bill's late window Sunday. Chiefs Bill's late window. I think Buffalo is going to take care of business this week.

I think the left tackle for Kansas City is a major issue. I don't know what they're doing there. But that was a turnstile last week. I mean, I don't care how good you're going to be able to lock a little bit. That guy was terrible. So I'm going to lean on the bills. Speaking of left tackles, the rookie Brandon Coleman has struggled the last two games. He has, yeah.

I mean, he's a rookie. Yeah. He's a pretty good player. You know, he says it's not going to get any easier for moving down. I mean, Michael Parsons coming to town a couple times. There's some other guys that are going to rush. But I think he's done a pretty good job for what they expected from him. I don't know how long, you know, the other tackles hurt.

But, you know, they were doing a good job with a substituting early to see. But now it's his job. So he'll get better, though. He's got good feet. He's a big, strong guy. All right. You won your lock of the week last week. You had the Patriots on the road.

That was ugly for Chicago. What do you make of that situation firing the Shane Waldron? You worked with Shane, right? You know him pretty well. I did. Yeah. Yeah, he went, you know, we let him go to L.A. with John to be an offensive coordinator

or whatever it was and then he went on to Seattle and then I think he underachieved at Seattle and then Chicago hired them and obviously they're underachieving now. The offensive line play is not very good. I think Keenan Allen's loss of step and they're not using him in the right way. He's more of a spot guy

and underneath guy. DJ Moore looks uninterested. Cole Komet's not a separation type guy. He's not very fast. He's just a big plug and then obviously the rookie he's more of a 50-50 guy. They're not giving them any opportunities. So yeah, they're not very good. They're in their running games. Thanks. You didn't mention the quarterback. You didn't mention the quarterback.

He's not good. He's not good right now. I mean, he's got talent, but he's not good. He's got no confidence in what he sees. He's looking at the line. He's, you know, he's got sack nine, he can't get sack nine times for God's sake. Pull the ball away once in a while, Caleb. Jesus, not that hard. Goat away. Just hold the ball. It's fat. And sometimes he doesn't have a chance. Sometimes the guys are in their right away. He had four or five times he could avoid them. Yeah, I was looking at something the other day, which was surprising that the bears are basically top five in the fewest turnovers.

And I'm like, well, yeah, because he's getting sacked nine times a game. He's not putting the ball up in harm's way. He's taking the big sacks. I mean, what's worse, truly? When you've got a quarterback that holds on to it, maybe it's part him, part offensive line, part receivers not getting open. but do you ever get to the point where it's like, you know what, I don't care if you throw an interception. Just unload the ball.

Throw it. I think sacks are the worst. I'd rather have a ball thrown in a dirt or not an interception, though. Sacks are better than interceptions. Come on. But yeah, but yeah, I can't stand sacks. But I know Lyman hate sacks, line coach, everybody's looked at you. It got brutal, brutal.

You got to throw the ball away. Number one. I had to come to Jesus meeting. we had a quarterback in preseason run out of bounce for a three-yard loss. He could have just flip it out of bounds for an incomplete pass. We didn't want to hurt a stats. We had a nice long. Really?

You're going to tell us who it was? No, I'm okay. You're sure you figure that one out. I'm going to go back and check out all these backup quarterbacks you had in preseason. All right. Lock of the week, five and four, because we took away the one that, you know, didn't make it to air. So you won last week. You're back on the winning side right now.

Who do you got this week? I think I said the money line, too. That would have been a nice money line. Yeah, would have been. Oh, you listen to them. Yeah, yeah, I think you did say. They've got a chance to win this game outright. Yep.

There's a couple games that are kind of interesting. I could go back, give Chicago Bears and take the Packers. They're only like six. I think the Packers are going to whip the hell out of them. I'm not a big bear fan right now, by the way, I'm talking. I don't think their defense is very good. I think that's my number one pick right now. I just looking at the surly slate, I haven't seen the injury ports yet, but right now, if I had to pick the Packers are in a position to make a move, and the Bears are free-fallen.

And Thomas Brown is calling plays. He's called plays at Carolina for a year. He got canned out of there. He's not very good. So I'm going to stick with the Green Bay Packers and go against the Bears. I know it's at Chicago, but it'll be a home field advantage for Green Bay. It won't be for Chicago. Five and a half is really what the number. numbers in most places, so I'll give you the Packers minus the five and a half. So if it goes to overtime and they score a touchdown, you're a winner. You don't push.

That's good. All right. It's going to overtime. It's not going to overtime. Thanks. I'll talk to you next week. Appreciate it. All right, Kevin. Thank you. Yep. Jay Gruden, everybody. We'll finish up the show with my smell test picks for the weekend after these words from a few of our sponsors. Is there anything better when you're a football fan than this time of year? It seems like there are games on around the clock. It's a changing time of year. The weather gets chillier.

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my bookie, which is bet. Right now, they've got everything you need for the fight tonight. Jake Paul, by the way, minus 244. It's actually surprising to me. I don't know why, but I would just figure that Paul would have been against a 58-year-old man, a much bigger favorite than minus 244. But that's what it is. And, you know, they've got all the prop bets that you'd want

if you're interested in the fight. I looked ahead to next week, and my bookie has next week's NFL lines up. and the early number for Washington and Dallas, Washington minus nine and a half. Nine and a half point favorites over the Cowboys, the early line. Now, the Cowboys play Monday night. So Washington off of this mini-bye gets to play the Cowboys off a Monday night game. That's a big benefit.

So I think they're a nine and a half point favorite because Dallas really stinks. and they're going the wrong way. They are seven and a half-point underdogs Monday night at home against the Texans. Tonight, by the way, college hoops, college park, Maryland, a two-point favorite as an unranked team over 15th ranked Marquette. Go figure. That is a bit fishy. I'm not giving out college basketball smell test picks, but Maryland would appear to be the right side. tonight. By the way, Maryland is a five and a half point favorite in football tomorrow night

against Rutgers. Terps need a win in that one to get a fifth win and then have a chance in their final two games to get a sixth win. It won't be easy because they have Iowa and they have Penn State to finish up the year. But if they can beat Rutgers, and Rutgers beat Minnesota last week. If the Terps can beat Rutgers as a five and a half point favorite, then they are at five wins back to 500. And next Saturday would be the game to try to get a win over Iowa at home to get to bowl eligibility. The Terps have gone to three straight bowl games, one three straight bowl games. This has been a tough year. You know, coming off the Leotung of Iloa era. Billy Edwards has been solid at times. They haven't been able to run the football. That's really been the issue

with the Terps, especially in recent weeks. They've got to figure out a way to run the football so that a lot of the other stuff they want to do throwing the football is easier. But Maryland at my bookie, five and a half, actually six-point favorites now, over Rutgers tomorrow night in college park. MyBooky.ag promo code, Kevin, D.C. All right, the smell test won again last week. That's three consecutive winning weeks. Seven and four, I pulled the Miami Dolphins pick on Monday night. Some of you had played it early, so good for you. But keep in mind, and I've been doing this for a couple of years now, follow me on X on Twitter at Kevin Shee in DC because on Saturday, Sundays and Monday nights if I give out the Monday night game, I'll pull a game occasionally if

the line or something happens that's significantly different from when I give it out on Fridays. I don't add games, which I probably should because I end up playing personally more games than I give out on Friday because I get more information in and I probably should do that. but just easier to keep the record intact here and keep track of everything that, you know, if there's a real outlier or a weird situation, like Monday night, the line went to two and a half, and there was a lot of sharp money coming in on the Rams. And so I pulled the dolphins from the smell test. Those of you that played it, great, you won.

I am now a game above 500 for the year, I think, the first time above 500. since, I don't know, week two, something like that. Let's start tomorrow down in Fayetteville, Arkansas, for Arkansas and Texas. This used to be a big rivalry. Arkansas people hate Texas. They are, you know, kind of that inferiority complex situation they have right now and always used to have when they were old Southwest Conference, you know, partners. Arkansas has been in the SEC now for a long time.

Texas just moved to the SEC. This is a big game to have Texas in against them tomorrow. It's a noon kick Eastern, 11 a.m. Fayetteville time tomorrow. And Texas is coming off, you know, a very impressive easy win over Florida. And Arkansas, in their last game against Ole Miss, they gave up 694 yards and 63. points lost 63 to 31. The line opened at 14. It is down to 12. Lots of sharp action on Arkansas. Arkansas remember, you know, handed Tennessee its first loss of the year. They played Texas A&M

tough. It's just their last result. You know, you look at it and say, I mean, 694 yards to Ole Miss. What will Texas do against Arkansas? I'm going to take the Razorbacks, the hogs at home, plus the 12. Texas is a big public favorite. Meantime, Florida is home against LSU. Florida got blown out by Texas. LSU got blown out by Alabama. But Florida has so many injuries. And Florida was a 23-point dog last week at Texas.

How are they only a four-point dog at home tomorrow against LSU? The public thinks it's short. I'll take the Gators plus the four. at home. South Alabama is playing Louisiana. Who's Louisiana? It's the Rage in Cajuns. They are eight and one. They have a very distant long shot possibility if everything, you know, if all hell broke loose in front of them with the non-power leagues. But they are laying a short number against South Alabama at home tomorrow. It's seven and a half. I'll take South Alabama plus the points. I like Wisconsin plus 14.

At home tomorrow night, the line's 13 and a half. I'll buy the half point against number one. Oregon. Madison's a tough place to play. You know, I watched Oregon last week against Maryland. They weren't super impressive, to be honest with you. Maryland, I thought, accounted pretty well for themselves. They just couldn't run the football, which was a problem, but they haven't been able to run it against anybody.

I think Wisconsin keeps it close. I'll take them plus the 14. And then the team, and I know that I've talked about them a lot because I've had the other side against BYU several times. But BYU is a 9-0 football team, and they are playing 3 and 6 Kansas. BYU of the really good teams, highly ranked teams, has been disrespected by the odds makers all season long. I had them as a short – I had Oklahoma State as a short dog, and they covered against BYU three weeks ago. I had UCF as a favorite. Remember, they were favored over BYU.

And I lost that one. BYU took care of business against UCF. And then last week I had Utah plus three and a half. And that one, they lost Utah did by a point. BYU is just, they've been disrespected by the odds makers. The odds makers clearly don't think they're as good as their record indicates. And on Saturday night, tomorrow night, at home against a 3 and 16, they're laying 2.5 points against Kansas.

That line makes no sense. Like a lot of these BYU lines haven't made sense at all. Kansas beat Iowa State last week, and Kansas is much better than their 3 and 6 record indicates. I'll take Kansas, though, by the half point plus 3 in Provo. Let's go to Sunday where I'm just giving you fair warning. You're going to throw up in your mouth a little bit when I give you some of these teams. But it's just the system plays here, the philosophy of major anti-public and going with some of the sharp money. Tennessee's got a good defense. I'm just going to tell you that.

They play Washington in a few weeks here. They're home against Minnesota, the line six. Minnesota barely beat Jacksonville on the road. Sam Darnold's become a turnover machine. I'll take the Titans plus six. The public likes Minnesota. The Browns go to New Orleans. I gave the Saints out last week as a winner.

Outright winner against Atlanta. They were getting three and a half at home. First game, new coach last week, really pumped up. Second week with a new coach sometimes doesn't go as well. I'll take the Browns plus the point on the road in the Superdome. against the Saints. This one, I mean, I just, if you ask me who I thought was going to win the game and buy a lot, I would tell you the team that I'm not going to give out. The Bears plus five and a half are the biggest anti-public side on the board. Green Bay is the biggest public play on Sunday. So on that alone,

and the line really hasn't moved anyway, if not, if anything, it's moved down a little bit, which would indicate some sharp money on Chicago. New O.C. for Caleb Williams. I'll take the Bears plus five and a half at Soldier Field against Green Bay. And then late window, I like the Chargers laying a point and a half against the Bengals on Sunday night football. That's a Sunday night game. The Chargers are, the Bengals are a public play here. I think people think Cincinnati's good. I do too. The Chargers are excellent defensively. And that's it. Arkansas plus St. Florida plus four, South Alabama plus seven and a half, Wisconsin plus 14, Kansas plus three on Saturday.

The Titans plus six, the Browns plus one, the Bears plus five, and the hook. The Chargers minus one and a half on Sunday. Kind of like Dallas a little bit, but I'll handle that one on Monday show if I still like it. I am looking forward to the NFL Sunday. You know, no skins game, and you've got two huge games, Baltimore, Pittsburgh at one, Kansas City and Buffalo at 425. I like Pittsburgh a little bit. You know, I'm kind of into this Russell Wilson in Pittsburgh situation, not because we saw him up close last week and we lost to them. But, you know, keep this in mind.

Russell Wilson, right, was essentially the story written about him was hardly flattering. You know, total diva, players, teammates didn't love them, went to Denver, the head coach couldn't stand him, you know, started talking about, you know, the diva and the office and the entourage and the whole thing. And Mike Tomlin man said, you come here. You're not pulling all that bold. shit. You're not bringing the entourage. You're not having an office. You're not having your own separate shower or locker room. This is the Pittsburgh Steelers. You want to come here. We want you. We think you can help. But you're going to have to adapt. And he has. You know, I mean, I think he has. He's played some of the best football he's played in years. You know, it's funny about Denver last year.

There were a couple of games in which Russ came up big in the fourth quarter. I think back to that Buffalo day night game when Denver went in there and won. And Russ, you know, played some big time ball in the fourth quarter. Look what he did against Washington. Look what he did in the last, you know, couple of games. I like Pittsburgh, actually. Not smell test. Smell test, I'm done. I gave out all my picks. I actually like Pittsburgh, though, a little bit against Baltimore plus the points. You know, all of their games are like, you know, three-point games. Don't they seem like it? I'm going to pull this up real quickly because it seems like every game is 1613, 19, 16, you know, just constant three-point games. And I'm not talking about the end-of-year games where, you know,

starters are sitting. So 17-10, 17-10, 16-13, 16-14, 16-14, 16-13. I knew that there were a bunch of 16-13s, 20 to 19, 19 to 14, 28, 24, 28, 28, 24, 28. 10, 26, 23, 23, 16. I'm just ripping off the scores of the games going back. I'm back into 2017 now. But how about just, you know, going through the last, what would this be, three, five, seven games. 1710, Pittsburgh, 1710, Pittsburgh, 16, 13, Pittsburgh, 16, 13, 14, Baltimore, 16, 13, overtime Pittsburgh, 20 to 19 Pittsburgh. God, Pittsburgh's won a bunch of the games recently against Baltimore. Lamar Jackson's one and three in his career against Pittsburgh.

The surprising part of that is that he's only started four games against the Steelers. But I bet we'll see a game similar to that. I like Pittsburgh's chances Sunday. Again, not a smell test pick. I just like their chances Sunday at home. And I love Baltimore and Lamar Jackson in the season he's having. But that would make Pittsburgh 8 and 2 and drop Baltimore to 7 and 4 if they can win it. And then in the afternoon Chiefs, it builds.

I like the Chiefs, again, not a smell test pick, but if you force me to play it, I'd play Kansas City plus the number. I bet they go in there and all of a sudden they're dynamic offensively when they have to be. Their defense is so good, so good. I would definitely go under in that game. I liked the under last night. You know, the two games that people were expecting shootouts last night in Kansas City, Buffalo, last night stayed under.

I bet that game stays under. But I like the Chiefs a little bit. But again, not part of the smell test. I gave you the picks. Arkansas, Florida, South Alabama, Wisconsin, Kansas, Titans, Browns, Bears, Chargers. All right. A couple of bad results in this, you know, four. Four days stretch, two games, was hoping for better, for sure.

But we've learned a lot. And, you know, like I said in the open, it's hardly a dire situation. That isn't what it is right now. They'll bounce back next Sunday. I feel confident about that. Enjoy your football weekend. I'll be back on Monday.