The Kevin Sheehan Show - Run Over In Philly

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Kevin solo today with his recap of Washington's 27-17 loss to the Eagles in Philadelphia. Additionally, Kevin briefly addressed "Benchgate" and the report that the three NFL rescheduled games were oh so close to being cancelled.  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. It's going to keep the offense on for a fourth and nine. Gilbert. Hit as he tries to throw. The ball popping out.

Ricky Seals Jones wanted to scoop it and advance it. It is no good for Seals Jones to make that move. And the Eagles defense forces the turnover on downs. Here's a question for you to ponder at the beginning of this podcast today. Would Washington have been better off playing the game on Sunday at its originally scheduled 1 p.m. Sunday time. I say that because knowing what we know now, Garrett Gilbert had to start the game last night. He would have started on Sunday. They would have had Brandon Sheriff in the game.

They sorely missed him last night. The pass rush was relentless by Philadelphia. Washington couldn't run the football. not saying that that was the biggest issue. We'll get to the biggest issue, and probably most of you know what it was last night. But they would have had Brandon Sheriff. They wouldn't have had Matt Ionitis, but they would have had a lot of the guys that they ended up playing with last night because a lot of those guys cleared COVID protocol before Sunday. They also would have had seven coaches. They also would have had Jalen Hertz without extra days to prepare for the game.

You know, Friday, he was designated as a game time decision. By Sunday, he was the starter. Those extra days helped him get healthier. You would have also had a full week to prepare for the Cowboys after the game on Sunday. Whatever. They lost the game. 27 to 17. The Eagles go to 500 at 7 and 7.

Washington falls to 6 and 8. They are a game behind the Vikings, Eagles, and Saints now for that seventh spot in the NFC playoffs. They've got to run the table. They've got to win all three. hope. I declared last week that if they won three out of the final four, it was a virtual lock that they would get that seven spot because of their conference record and because of the favorable tie-breaking situations that they had with the other teams that were involved. But that was before the Saints beat the Buccaneers and the Vikings beat the Bears and now the Eagles

beat Washington. But that could have been the one loss. I still think there's a chance if they run the table when all three to get in. And I, you know, I think it's a decent chance for them to get in at nine and eight. But it's not the lock that it was before. And boy, last night wasn't a mathematical elimination game, but it kind of felt that way when it was over. You know, last night's game is one of those games that really isn't that hard to analyze, but it's hard to say how much of what we saw is because of what they went through last week. They got several key players back, but they started a quarterback who had been with them for four days. Garrett Gilbert, you know, wasn't the biggest part of the problem last night, but he was far from the solution. You know,

we waited all day yesterday, hoping to get some good news on either Kyle Allen or Taylor Heineke or both. They obviously would have had a better chance to be produced. on offense with one of those two guys, but that good news never came. You know, the bad news continued to come in. No Cam Curl last night, hoping to get him off the list, didn't get him off the list. We knew that Brandon Sheriff likely wasn't going to be off the list because he had tested positive so recently. But with neither of the two quarterbacks available, their chances were greatly diminished. You know, the boys in the desert often tell the tale on this thing.

And I was watching this yesterday. It was very interesting. I was sitting here in my studio. I was kind of, I had to do what we call some radio hits, you know, where you go on as a guest in some other markets. And that happens a lot for all of us that do this during football season, you know, or typically in preparation for like a big game, you'll go on with the opposing city. That's why we get people on, you know, so far this week we had Merrill Reese on the radio show.

We had Zach Berman on the podcast. So anyway, whatever, I'm boring you. The bottom line is I was sitting here in the studio pretty much all day yesterday after doing the radio show and the podcast. And I was checking the point spreads on the two games last night because I just had this hunch that the Taylor Heineke, Kyle Allen News, was going to come from, you know, Shefter, Rappaport, somebody like that, or you were going to see it in a quick and sudden point spread move. And I swear to you, and I think it was like at 2 o'clock, 2.15, you can check my Twitter. I forget when I tweeted it out.

But it went from Philadelphia minus 6.5 to Philadelphia minus 8.5. No news had been publicly disseminated on the COVID testing on the players and whether or not they were going to be eligible for the game last night or not. But once I saw that, I knew that somebody out there, somebody in the no, in the gambling no, knew that neither quarterback had passed their latest COVID test, and it was going to be Garrett Gilbert. You don't see a line jump like that unless, more times than not.

It's major quarterback news. So the line went from six and a half to eight and a half. And then when it was officially announced, it went from eight and a half to ten. Philadelphia went off as a ten-point favorite last night. And by the way, not very surprisingly, if you follow these things, Philly won by exactly ten points.

But the offense wasn't the biggest culprit in the loss. Garrett Gilbert wasn't the biggest problem or issue. The defense was. Or another way to look at this would be that Philly's offense was outstanding. And I think it was a combination of both. I think Washington wasn't right defensively, didn't play well defensively, but I also think that Philly's offense has done this to many people. I've been mentioning this all week long or all last week in preparation for this game. That I very much emphasize the fact that the Eagles can really run the football, that the Eagles are more dynamic than you think.

They are better than you think. And they've got a quarterback that really creates quite the rushing attack. They are the number one rush offense in the league. He is their leading rusher on the team, or he was going into last. night. I'm a Jalen Hertz fan. I know that a lot of Philadelphia people and a lot of people say, well, you know, just too many boneheaded mistakes. Okay. Hasn't even started a full season yet. What did he start last year? Two games, three games at the end of the year. So now he's got 14. So he has. Now he's got kind of a full season under his belt. But actually, Gardner Minch who started a game,

right? The last Eagles game. Anyway, I just thought that Philadelphia, even if Washington at full strength was going to be a problem to deal with. You know, when you rush for 250 yards against the Saints and you blow that, you blow that defense out, when you rush for 2.30 against the Broncos and that defense on the road and you win going away, there's something to what the Eagles are doing right now. They have won five out of their last seven games. Their only losses were to the Chargers at the gun on a Hopkins field goal, and they lost a game where they turned the ball over four times in the Meadowlands against the Giants.

They still had a chance at the end, but Jalen Rager dropped two touchdown passes. I thought that Jalen Hertz last night had one of the best games I've seen him play as a pro. You know, they've got weapons on that team. They've got a very good offensive line led by Lane Johnson. They're a dangerous team right now. They have been. Hertz is the key, though. because he's prone to big mistakes. He's prone to making some bad decisions at times as a passer. He isn't always on time. He's not always accurate, but he was last night,

and he is part of an 11-on-11 running game. This dual-threat option, they had a lot of RPO, they had a lot of throws off the read-option looks. They're a dynamic offensive team that does have the ability to have self-inflicted damage caused by the quarterback. But that quarterback is, I would not be giving up on him if I were a Philadelphia Eagle fan. As a Washington fan, you don't want him, I'll take him. Let me see where this goes with him.

By the way, G.C. Siriani get on him when he fumbled on that drive that Collins picked up, fumbled it again, Washington got it back. Washington's defense wasn't good, okay? I'm not going to sit here and just lavish praise on Philadelphia's offense for the entire show. Washington's defense wasn't good. You know, they could have slowed that team down a little bit, but they didn't. They didn't have a good performance last night. Again, a little bit dicey on being super critical because they were obviously affected by the week that they had.

You know, even getting some of the players back that they got back on defense, many of those players didn't practice because of COVID. Allen, Two Hill, Ionitis. You know, others were limited due to injury like Holcomb. And then there were some injuries during the game. Jackson, Collins. Smith Williams didn't play because of asthma, even though he cleared protocol and was activated. Wise. Wise got hurt during the game.

Tim Settle didn't play. He came off the COVID list, but they had him inactive. They didn't have Fuller or Curl to begin with. man, they got gutted, though. They got gutted by Philly's offense. The Eagles owned Washington up front, and I'm not just talking about the front four. I'm talking about the front seven. I'll get to some of this more and more detail in my game take.

They did what they wanted to do after the first quarter of that game. I mean, the first quarter was a great opportunity for Washington. You know, we talked about they're going to need plus two in the turnover margin. Gibson's going to have to have a big game. They're going to stop the run. ultimately they did not do, but the early portion of that game and that 10-0 start was, I'm not going to, you know, anybody that says they saw what was coming after that, I think, you know, you may have known Philadelphia was better,

you may have known Garrett Gilbert really wasn't capable of, you know, having a good enough game for them to win. But at 10-0 with the momentum they had, they had the ball up 10-0. But the game was really decided at the line of scrimmage on defense for Washington, where they got beat like a drum by a team that's done it to a lot of others as well. I was impressed with Philadelphia coming into the game. I was even more impressed going out. They've got a legit rushing attack. They've got a legit 11-on-11 dual-threat quarterback rushing attack. I actually think Philadelphia has the best chance of the remaining teams at 7-7, the 3-7 and 7 teams, Vikings, Saints and Eagles. I think the Eagles have the best chance to win out.

You know, they play the Giants this weekend. They come here on January 2nd, and then they finish with the Cowboys in a game that Dallas may not need. You know, Dallas is going to be going for the number one seat. Ironically, you know, it could come down to one of those situations where Washington, needs Philadelphia to lose or somebody needs Philly to lose and they may be playing Dallas with Dallas having nothing to play for or Dallas might have the number one seed to play for in that final game. If they do have the number one seed to play for in their final game, it more than likely means they won this coming week against Washington, where they are now

an 11-point favorite in the Sunday night game against the skins. Yeah, I think Philly's a team to keep an eye on. And I think that they're, I would predict that they end up being in the postseason as the seven seed behind San Francisco and either Arizona or Los Angeles, whoever doesn't win the NFC West. By the way, the 49ers still have a chance in the NFC West. So the skins are in that position where they've got to run the table. They're in that position, you know, where you least expect. expect it, expect it, you know, kind of a thing in the NFL, but I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't expect a run of three straight games. I think that's the biggest issue more than

anything else. You know, can they actually win three in a row against Dallas, Philly, and the Giants? Probably not. I mean, again, maybe it happens, but I think the playoff talk for now has to be dropped because they got to get healthy. The news this week will be, will be, will they get their quarterbacks back? Hopefully they will. They need them because last night was not the answer. And if I suggested or anybody else suggested that it wouldn't be any different, we were wrong.

I don't think I suggested that Garrett Gilbert was no different than, you know, Allen or Heineke. I did suggest that Allen wouldn't be that much different than Heineke. But Gilbert was. But again, not his fault necessarily. But it was a... It was a beatdown in many ways. It was a beat down not the same way last week was, really,

but I'll get into that in more detail with my game take. So let's do that. Let's take a quick break, a couple of words from a few of our sponsors, and then I will get to the game take from Washington's 10-point loss at Philadelphia. Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Take. The Game Take today, presented by MyBooky, go to mybooky.com or mybooky.orgie. a.g. Use my promo code

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code. If something's already written in the promo code, just erase it and write Kevin D.C. They'll double your initial deposit all the way up to $1,000. All right, let me start with the things that I liked. from the game last night, then I'll get to the things that I did not like, and then a few other observations from the game. I'll start with this. I think it's the second straight week that I have said, you know, the effort was there. Last week, I think it was they didn't quit. You know,

Ben Standig was on the radio show this morning. He said, you know, they're plucky. They are. They're Spunky. They're resilient. There is something about this coaching staff, the players on the roster. After the adversity of the last week, they were, you know, they were resilient to a certain degree. And they didn't make excuses afterwards. You know, their leaders don't. John Allen, just watch him. Just a, I just, he is my favorite player on the team.

And they got shredded last night, although I didn't think he was terrible, and I didn't think Duran Payne was terrible either. I'll get to that here momentarily. But they're tough, they're resilient. You know, I think it starts with the head coach. I do think, given this organization's situation, I think they got about as good as they could have got with Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio and some of the people on that staff. And what they understand from a character standpoint is required to, you know,

to have, you know, a winning atmosphere anyway. And they were up against it. And yet they came out last night and they get two turnovers. One of them pretty lucky, obviously early on. But they're up 10-0 in this game. They were down 20 to 17 with still like 12 minutes, 11 minutes to go in the game. They were essentially one Philly mistake. You know, a Jalen Hertz mistake away from having a legit,

chance to steal it at the end. You know, Philly on that drive where they ended up going from 20 to 17 to up 2717. You know, they had a third and six at midfield. Washington gets the ball back. They've got the ball down three with a chance in a game that really for two quarters seemed like they really didn't have a chance. It was different than last week. Last week they got blown out, Okay, this game was never until, you know, the Eagles kicked that field goal at 17 to 10. It was never a two-score game. Washington was up two scores. I just, you know, they had that third and six at midfield, you know, at 20 to 17, and I thought Hertz did a great job of checking into a bubble screen to Rager that went for 34 yards.

And then the next play was the touchdown pass to Ward for the clincher. The team just, there's something about this team and this roster of players that I think, you know, there's a pride. There is an energy level always, and even when they're up against it, you're not going to get a fold performance. You're not going to get them to fold. You're not going to get them to throw in the towel. No turnovers last night with really no legitimate practice time with everybody there. Two penalties total on the night. On the list of things that I liked, I liked just sort of the effort and the, as Ben

Standing said, the pluckiness of the team. I liked Antonio Gibson early. I mean, ultimately he got injured early in the game. He wasn't the same. There wasn't much room for him to be the same anyway. But do you know on those two scoring, on the first two drives, the drive where they had a first down, then they punted. And then after the Collins interception off the Goddard, you know, drop off the heel of his foot, Gibson touched the ball for Washington on nine of its first 11

snaps offensively. It was pretty clear what the game plan was, 24 and lots of them. And I loved it. I loved it. He had 46 yards on nine touches on those first two drives. So, you know, just over five yards per touch. The rest of the game, listen to this, 12 touches for 19 yards. So he hurt his toe. He was questionable to return. He came back. They needed him healthy.

They also needed to be better offensively in other spots as well. But early on, I loved the plan to just feed Gibson. The opening play of the game was a run extension throw where he, you know, jukeed a defender and got 18, 19 yards. I liked DeAndre Carter in this game, and maybe I'm sort of, because he was one of my keys to a win, and I've been talking a lot about him getting more touches, and he still didn't get enough for me. But DeAndre Carter touched the ball three times on offense for 24 yards.

He touched it a fourth time, and it was called back for a penalty. He also had in the game two kickoff returns and averaged 33 and a half yards on each of those kickoff returns. He didn't have any punt returns in the game, but Philadelphia only punted twice in the game. But I like D'Andre Carter and without Curtis Samuel and now with J.D. McKissick, uninsured reserve, I think Carter's got to be a guy that you get more touches to. You know, you get the ball more often too. I want him to return more kicks. He still didn't return every kickoff that he could have returned,

and he didn't have a chance on a punt return. But this guy's been really, really close to breaking some big ones, and these are going to be big plays in games. And, you know, three touches, 24 yards on offense, you know, this is a guy that I want to see continue to get more touches. I like DeAndre Carter. I thought he was good in this game. The no turnovers, the two penalties are on the list of things that I liked from the game.

And then I'm going to hit you with two more here that you're going to be like, huh? Did you watch the game? Do you know how bad they were defensively? I do. But there were two players that just stuck out. And upon further review, I may say to you, I was wrong about their performances. They didn't play well. But Duran Payne and John Allen in the game.

Duran Payne in particular. Let me focus on Duran Payne. Because Duran Payne in this game played on 94% of the snaps. I'm pulling up the snap count here because I want to make sure I am right on that. On defense, Duran Payne played on 92% of the snaps. 92%. That's got to be a high for. any of the detackles this year. I know some of the ends, like young early in the year,

and maybe even sweat have had 90% of the snap games, but Washington's done a lot of rotating in that defensive front. And, you know, they got a lot of the players back. You know, they got ionitis back. They got, you know, Alan was already back. They had wise back, even though he got hurt. They had the ability, Two Hill was back to be more rotational up front. But Payne and Alan I could be corrected on this, but it seemed like, my God, they were double-teamed a lot of the night. And with that, you know, if you're going to take up double teams, everybody behind you or next to you has to make some plays. And I think ultimately the defense, which I will get to here momentarily, I think that the front four wasn't great. Okay, I'm not suggesting they were great, but I thought Allen and Payne, and Alan, by the

the way he played 83% of the snaps last night. I thought they took up a lot of double teams, man. And, you know, Allen still had a sack, and Payne still had some pressures against a really difficult team to check, too. So they were on my list of things that I liked. I guess subject to sort of an upon further review. And I'll see if I can get to watching that game a little bit on the All-22.

a little bit later today. But I think both of those players are good players. I think Matt I and I is a good player. I think their tackles were in pretty good shape with the tackles. All right, list of things that I did not like from the game. We start with the defense overall. It got completely, you know, shredded, you know, it was gutted, it was torched, it was dismantled last night. Philadelphia had 27 points in the game. They had 519 yards, and both of those numbers should have been much higher. You know, Goddard dropped two balls, one on the first third down of the game, which ended up going off his heel and being intercepted by landing Collins, and it should have been a pick six, but they whistled it dead. It looked like it hit the ground. And Washington ended up

scoring a touchdown on that drive anyway, so they didn't lose in terms of points. But Goddard, you know, that play was going for 20 plus yards, if not more. He had a screen, which was a 20, 25, 30-yard play. I mean, they could have ended up with a lot more points and a lot more yards in this game. They were 7 of 13 on third down, and again, could have been better on third down if Goddard hadn't dropped the two balls. The defense really struggled in coverage in particular, and they struggled at linebacker. They struggled, obviously, to stop the run, nearly six yards per carry. Eagles have been doing this against a lot of teams, okay? Not just Washington, good defensive teams like New Orleans and Denver.

They seemed to be late in coverage, especially in some of their zone drops. You know, if you go back to the pass on the second drive for Philadelphia after they're already down 7, nothing after the first turnover, and before what would be their second turnover, Hertz finds Goddert, you know, in between, you know, in that hole in the zone beyond the linebackers and in front of the safeties. And it looked like Holcomb and Davis were up on the line. of scrimmage, like fake blitzing, and they just didn't drop to the levels to the depth that they needed to drop to, and it left a big hole. I thought that they had a really bad night defensively, and I don't think that's going out on a limb very much. I think most of you

would agree with that. Sure, they were missing curl and Fuller in particular. Settle didn't play, even though he was activated to the regular roster. He was not activated for the game. That's weird to me. Settle is a talent. and I get this sense that there is, there's a rift between Settle and the coaching staff. I shouldn't say a rift. There's just something there that the coaching staff doesn't love because Settle's snap counts haven't been that high

unless it's been necessary because of injury. And then they brought them, they got them off the COVID list and they deactivated him before the game. On the list of things that I didn't like, you know, they were very limited last night offensively. You know, I saw a lot of people, oh, Gilbert, he's not that bad. You know, Gilbert wasn't the problem. And he wasn't the number one problem last night by a long shot.

The defense was. You know, you give up 519 yards and another 50% plus, you know, third down conversion percentage night. And really, Philly, you know, the damage that was done to Philly was done by Philly to themselves. But they weren't very good on offense either. You know, after the Gibson, you know, nine touches and 11 snaps, they basically produced very little except for, you know, one bombed it to McLaurin, which was underthrown, and, you know, a long DPI, which was, you know, a little bit fortunate. They were limited in many ways because the offensive line didn't play great. You know, They didn't have Brandon Sheriff.

But the quarterback wasn't very good, guys. Okay? I mean, this was a guy that really, you could see why he is an emergency option for teams. He does not feel pass rush very instinctively. You know, he's a big dude. I'm sure, you know, he's got an arm. It's not an accurate arm, you know, on the drive in which they didn't score a touchdown, even though he threw a perfect ball to Adam Humphrey.

I'll get to that in a moment. You know, he missed Ricky Seals Jones on, I think, the second down player. Maybe it was the first and goal, I forget, on that drive that ended in field goal. He, I mean, go back and look at the opening drive, the second and ten after their first, first down, and look at him panic in the pocket and just throw to an empty spot incomplete. I thought actually that could have been grounding in that particular spot. he's not very good. I mean, they need Taylor Heineke or Kyle Allen to have a chance offensively.

I think the biggest thing with him is he just doesn't really instinctively feel the pressure. You know, he seems oblivious to it, and he's not, you know, able to extend at all. And, you know, look, a lot of it is he had only been there for four days. I understand that. You know, even Sanchez, who good God was annoying on the broadcast last night, Stop talking about yourself in your days in Philadelphia and your days in Washington. Analyze the game. Because I actually think there were a couple of points that he made that were pretty good.

And he made a point about Garrett Gilbert on a third down. It was a third and two, and he threw to McLorne, but he had to wait in Sanchez's mind. He had to wait until McLorne was open because he wasn't exactly sure if McLaurin was going to sit it down there. And so that hesitating, that momentary hesitation, cost him a completion because the defender was able to recover and bat it down. So, yeah, Sanchez was annoying. I know a lot of you think he was totally anti-Washington. I didn't really feel that.

But, God, it was too much about himself. And he talked about that night where he came in for Colt McCoy on that Monday night. And he was terrible for us. Terrible. I mean, let's hope we get, you know, Greg Olson back. although Sunday nights NBC. So you get Michaels and Collinsworth, if you want that. Or maybe Torrico in Collinsworth.

Tariko did the game the other day, the Tampa game. So offensively, they were limited. They were unable to run the football after the first drive. They didn't have a quarterback that was dynamic enough to extend plays under heavy pressure a lot of the night. He couldn't throw in timing. he held on to the ball too long. There were some completions there.

And then when he had one of his best throws of the night, Adam Humphreys dropped it. That should have been a touchdown and a 14 to nothing lead. Really? And, you know, even the throw to Bates that set up the touchdown that made it 20 to 17, ooh, a little bit late and Slay kind of read it and almost got a hand on it. I like Bates a little bit. Anyway, offensively, too limited, defensively major problem last night.

It was a bad night, and I'm going to point one other thing out on the list of things that I didn't like. And some of you this morning said that was really the least of our issues. And others said, I noticed it too. So Tressway, his first two punts were nearly blocked. Like they had a breakdown in punt protection. Both of that first punt and that second punt in the first half is so close to being blocked. I felt like the Philadelphia Special Teams coach saw something in their punt protection and identified an opportunity to block a punt,

and they were really close on the first two. So I thought that that was a negative last night, even though Tressway always ends up having a big night. And then this is really nitpicking, but did anybody else notice on the 22-yard field goal that was made by Brian Johnson, how low the ball was? You see occasionally on a long field goal,

a truly low kick that has a chance to get blocked. Remember, he had an extra point blocked in the Dallas game when they cut it to 2720. That field goal from 22 yards out, God, that was low. It barely cleared the arms of people on the line of scrimmage. And it seemed, and maybe it was just the camera angle, that it didn't clear the crossbar by much. It was a 22-yard field goal. I really like this kid, Brian Johnson, and I know a lot of people in town who know the family, and know him, and my youngest son knows, you know, one of the brothers or something.

I don't know. Everybody knows everybody in this town. And Bryant's from here, and he went to Gonzaga. And I had him on the radio show, and he was a phenomenal guest. But, man, that 22-yard kick, I bet he would tell you that ball's got to elevate much faster. Because if he keeps kicking balls that low, like he did in the Dallas extra point on the Dallas extra point late in that game, we're going to see some more blocked kicks. I mean, how many block kicks can one team have in a season?

A couple of other observations from the game as I look through my notes. So there was a, there were a couple of things. There was a third and one that Washington had when the score was 10 to 3 in the first half. and the guy Avery looked like he beat the snap and was off sides and then they nailed Gibson for a loss on third and one. And I think Washington was looking around saying, where's the flag? Where's the flag?

I was. But when they went back and showed that, I think he timed it perfectly. And I think the movement towards the line of scrimmage was because he lined up a little bit in back of maybe where he normally would line. up. So the movement and then timing it perfectly made and created the illusion maybe that he was off sides. I don't think he was off sides. There was another possession in the third quarter

when Washington was up 17 to 10 and Philadelphia was driving and they had a field goal on a fourth and six and Washington was off sides. And I was surprised Philadelphia. kept the points on the board. But I think it was the right decision, even though I am pretty convinced that analytically, the analytics people probably said, oh, this is a terrible decision. It's now fourth and one. You take those points off the board and you go for it. But I was thinking in the moment that the only chance Washington had was to make a big play and then to get the ball back down 1710. Like if they somehow came up with a stop and there was no indication that they could have gotten a stop on fourth and one. So that's, you know, another reason that the context would

have been, well, you go for it if you're Philadelphia. It's fourth and one. You haven't been stopped running the football. Let's run it. Let's go in and get a touchdown and go up 24 to 10 instead of 20 to 10. But I really felt in the moment like the only spark Washington could have gotten that could have, you know, put them back into the game was a big stop there, no point. 1710. We've got the ball. And I thought Siriani made the right decision. Also, at the end of the first half, where is it here, at the end of the first half, Philadelphia on the Jalen Hertz touchdown that tied it 10 to 10. They lined up to go for two when it was 10 to 10. All right, this was Philadelphia long drive, minute 29 to go. Philadelphia has all three timeouts left. They're also going to get the ball to start the third quarter.

and they lined up to go for two, and they did it as a bluff to try to get Washington to jump. And I think if Washington had jumped and they had moved the ball half the distance to the goal, that they then would have gone for the two, you know, at 10 to 9 for some reason. But Washington didn't jump, and then Philadelphia called a time out. And then they went out and kicked the PAT. Well, if you're Philadelphia, you know, you're thinking Washington, now has struggled, man. They've punted like three straight times, something like that. We have kind of figured it out a little bit. We're going to score here. We're going to use our three timeouts.

We're going to get the ball back again. We're going to score again, maybe a field goal. Then we're going to get the ball at the beginning of the first half, and the route is on. But when they called that first time out and we're left with only two timeouts, it then was going to be much harder to get the ball back with enough time to do anything with it. And actually, Washington, you know, it a moot point because they drove the ball into Philadelphia territory and then Gilbert got sacked at the end of the half with 21 seconds left and they never ran another play. It was a shame because they were, you know, a completion and a quick, you know, clocking of the ball away from maybe a long field goal attempt to take the lead at halftime. Instead, they went in at 10 to 10.

Anyway, there were a couple of other things that I wanted to mention. You know, Miles Sanders, who rushed for 131 yards in the game on 18 carries, he also had two catches for 15 yards. Do you know that he does not have a touchdown this year? As good as he is, Miles Sanders does not have a touchdown. Now, he missed a couple of games, but he's got, he's averaging 5.5 yards per He's got 709 yards in 11 games played. So they're at 14.

So he missed three games this year. And he doesn't have a touchdown. And on one of his long runs, I thought that he ran into the last defender instead of running away from the defender. And I thought he could have scored. I thought there was another one down near the goal line before one of the Jalen Hertz touchdown sneaks

where I thought he could have scored on the play. he's good. They've got good backs. Like Sanders is really good. Jordan Howard's a really tough inside good vision runner. Last night they didn't use Boston Scott at all. Jalen Hertz had another eight carries for 38 yards. And they use other guys occasionally in their run game too. You know, their receivers, Rager in particular,

but they didn't use him last night at all. So anyway, I think that's, It, you know, the, some of, many people got on Montez sweat for pounding his chest after the sack of Jalen Hertz in the first quarter that caused the fumble that Landy Collins picked up that ultimately led to another score, a field goal and a 10-0 lead. If you watch that play, like he did what any defensive, you know, player does after sack, you know, he got up, it wasn't going to be a true demonstrative, crazy kind of celebration. and he pounded his chest real quickly and then realized the ball had come out, Landing Collins had it, and he hustled his ass down the field to try to block. And then he was there in the vicinity when Landon Collins was stripped by Rager and the ball was loose on the ground again. I just didn't think that was worth, you know, that was worth criticizing him over.

All right, that's pretty much it. Jared Patterson got some carries. He fumbled the ball. Patterson did, but they recovered that ball on that fumble. Look, they were up against it last night. Big thing to overcome what they had gone through during the week before. And, you know, they didn't embarrass themselves. Nobody did on offense, including the quarterback.

He wasn't good, and I can definitely see why he's an emergency option, okay? and they need one of their other two quarterbacks, hopefully Heineke back for Sunday night against Dallas. They were shredded at the line of scrimmage on defense, but again, the lack of real practice, the lack of having some of these players available. You know, I think they miss Cam Curl a lot, for sure. But Philadelphia also gets some credit.

You know, again, I'm impressed with Philadelphia offensively, very, very impressed with Philadelphia offensively. All right, when we come back, one last thing as it relates to the game last night. And it deals with a subject that came about before the game began. And it's kind of silly and at the same time, it's kind of important. It's next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This last segment of the show is presented by my good friends at Window Nation. If you've been thinking about new windows, please give Windonation a shot.

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$86690 Nation or windownation.com. All right, two things, actually three things to end the show. Number one is this. Did you see the NFLPA report from earlier this morning? The NFLPA president, J.C. Treter, he is the starting center for the Cleveland Browns. He said today that the NFL was very close to canceling the Washington Philadelphia game. the Cleveland Vegas game and the Rams Seattle game because of the COVID outbreaks. Instead, they rescheduled the games, as we know, and all three of them were played.

Cleveland, Vegas on Monday, you know, late afternoon evening, and then Washington, Philly and Seattle, L.A. last night. By the way, the Rams won that game 20 to 10. Treader came out and talked about this situation because he said that he was criticized by Raiders players, the opponent for the Browns. K.J. Wright, Casey Hayward were among those that said their starting center is our NFL players association player president and how convenient that they're able to reschedule this game instead of playing it with all of their COVID cases. Well, J.C. Treader mentioned that because he said, I'm not so sure that everybody under

understands what would have happened had we not played the game. No one would have gotten paid. I was fighting for the same thing for Browns players as I was for the Raiders players, and that was for everybody to get paid. And I do think a lot of players didn't really understand that if they were the opponent of a team that was forced to forfeit a game, they didn't get paid either. The Browns played the game on Monday with 22 players on the COVID list. But Treader said, I don't worry about standings. I don't worry about record. I don't worry about those things as president.

I worry about making sure our guys get paid. That was my concern. There was another report also, I think, from Charles Robinson at Yahoo, that the NFL was seriously considering on Friday before they ended up rescheduling, canceling those three games and forfeiting the teams with the outbreaks. And then, by the way, not paying either of the teams. I really have a hard time believing that the NFL wasn't figuring out a way, more of a solution to play the games than not play the games.

You know, they got through every game last year. One of these games was a big television spot. They moved it. The Cleveland Vegas game was a standalone TV thing on Saturday. They got them played. And now we've got a different testing mechanism. and different testing protocol moving forward. So we're going to see, you know, a lot of players test positive,

but they're going to be able to test back in much faster. But that would have been wild had it happened. I really, I don't know, for the life of me, I can't imagine that Roger Goodell and the 32 owners were sitting there saying, yep, we may need to forfeit these games. We may need to cancel them. We may end up with, you know, six teams that play 16 games. and the other 26 playing 17.

I don't think they were going to do that. This isn't, you know, this isn't August 2020. It is December 2021. And I think, you know, there are solutions, which I think the NFL's worked out a little bit. All right, the other two things that I wanted to get to. Back to the Washington football team. So yesterday, Mitch Tishler, who is at NBC Sports Washington, He works with J.P. Finley and Pete Haley.

And those guys do a great job covering the team. He tweeted out something that Tom brought up on the podcast yesterday. He tweeted out a picture of Washington's benches on their sideline for the game last night in Philadelphia. They had brought in their own benches like Dallas did last week. Logoed team benches their own. They have the right to do that. Dallas did it last week. Dallas became the first and only team this year to do that, their own logoed cowboy benches.

And remember, Dallas said they did it because Seattle had a bad experience with the benches when they were here for the Monday night game, which was the last home game before the Dallas game last Sunday. And, you know, it got a lot of attention. And Dallas, you know, that was kind of a bold move. You know, Dallas bringing in their own benches. Oh, it's heightened the rivalry, the whole thing, whatever. So when Mitch Tishler sent this picture out, he wrote the following. We have a bench update. Washington football reached out to dragon seats. Dragon seats, by the way, parenthetically, is the manufacturer of these benches. Washington football reached out to dragon seats on Monday following the Dallas game and are planning to use them for the rest of the season, in Philadelphia,

in Dallas, and in New York. So this got a lot of of attention. Tommy mentioned it to me yesterday. I, you know, I wasn't that moved one way or the other. I'm not sure why they did it, why they're following what Dallas did, but it's a weird thing. But it became an issue, and it became a bigger story when Ron Rivera, to me anyway, when Ron Rivera was asked about it in the post-game interview following the game last night in Philadelphia, he was asked about these benches that they brought in. Listen to his answer. not the main storyline, but the benches you guys brought in, what was supposed to start behind that?

I couldn't tell you. You know, it just had nothing to do with what happened on the field. I couldn't tell you. It had nothing to do with what happened on the field. Well, he's right about the latter part. Had nothing to do with what happened in the game. But he told you he didn't know why those benches were there. I couldn't tell you on why the team brought their own benches.

If you believe them, and I do, This wasn't his decision. He didn't know about it. So where does that lead you? Well, Ron's the number one decision maker in the football operation. You know, I don't think it was Marty Herney or Martin Mayhew. I don't think it was any of those guys. I don't think an assistant coach did it.

I don't think anybody on the business side did it. Do you think Jason Wright just did it without asking Ron? Who would have done this without telling Ron? Well, there's one answer. Actually, there are two answers. The Snyders. It's right out of their playbook. they're utterly clueless when it comes to things like this.

And if you look at those benches, hell of a marketing opportunity. And they love Jerry. Dan loves and reveres Jerry. Jerry brought in his own benches last week. And they were logoed. What a great marketing opportunity. And it was good for his players. So it must be good for ours.

And by the way, the Dallas game to have them available for Sunday night, Dallas plays indoors. You don't need your own heated benches. you talk about clueless if this is true. I don't know if it is or isn't. I think it is, though. I think Dan Snyder was behind this. I think he ordered the code red on the benches.

I think he on Monday said, if it's good enough for Jera, it's good enough for us. Now, if Ron said, you know, hey, we had an issue in Philadelphia in that last game last year with the benches that they provided, I didn't realize until last week, Dan, that we were able to provide our own benches. Dallas made me aware of that. We could really use them in Philadelphia.

We had an issue and it's going to be chilly. It's not going to be really cold, but it might rain a little bit. And if Dan then said, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. Okay, that's different. Ron didn't know. This was not a football decision. Not a football decision. I hate to give anybody on the other side any kind of run here.

but who cares, I'm going to. There is a blogger of the Dallas Cowboys. It's SB Nation's blog site covering the Cowboys called Blogging the Boys. They tweeted out last night the following. Seriously think about how lame this is. On Monday following the Dallas game, they literally got embarrassed by this, and the very next day reached out to the same company

to try and replicate the very thing that embarrassed them. Total and complete loser franchise. Ron's not a loser. His coaching staff and his players aren't losers, but ownership continues to be utterly clueless and just pathetic. Without a clue. I mean, this is if... Look, I want to make one thing clear.

this is all based on the probability that they were involved in this. And I think that that's probably true. I'm not reporting it. I'm not reporting it. But I think more likely than not, if Ron didn't know where they came from, I think we all have a pretty good idea of who would have done this. Oh, God, help us. I mean, maybe whoever congratulated Jerry for the move last week,

and sent maybe Jerry a text. Maybe Dan can ask that person to send him a text, congratulating him on the same move. So there was one other thing I wanted to just mention real quickly. So all day long yesterday as we waited for the news on Taylor Heineke and Kyle Allen, potentially getting off the COVID list and playing. We were told about, you know, the jet standing by at Dulles. You know, they would have plenty of time to jump on the jet, be in Philadelphia,

you know, be at the stadium to play the game. And we know how, you know, this night. love their jets. And anyway, I didn't give it much thought until shortly before the game last night. You know, Samus Reyes on his Instagram, put out a picture of him, presumably him, sitting on a private jet, across from a chair that was empty with the exception of a pillow that had the Washington football team logo on it, the current Washington football team logo, or whatever that logo is, the W.

And there it was. You know, hey, I'm Samus Reyes. I cleared protocol. I'm not on the COVID list anymore. And look at how great the team is. They're flying me to Philadelphia. And I'm just throwing this out there. He definitely could have decided to do that on his own.

And he could have been asked by somebody on the team to do it. Because we know how much they want you to believe that they'll do anything to win. The irony of all of this, is Samus Reyes was inactive for the game last night. A guy that just got off the COVID list, they put on a private jet, flew him to Philadelphia, where they told him he was inactive for the game. Like, what the hell is he going to Philadelphia for if he's not going to be activated?

Maybe they made the decision when he got there after he worked out or something. That's possible. I don't know. All right. I'm done for the day. back tomorrow with Tommy. No show on Christmas Eve. And we'll see whether or not we'll do a show on Sunday the day after Christmas. Something maybe in the morning to preview the cowboy game.

We'll have much more knowledge at that point about who's playing and who's cleared the list and who hasn't. But for now, tomorrow will be the last show of the week. And we will, as part of that show, preview the cowboy game and pick the Cowboy. game. Have a great rest of the day back tomorrow.