The Kevin Sheehan Show - Stinging Loss in Detroit

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Cooley and Kevin with a total recap of Washington's 30-27 loss in Detroit. Is Alex Smith now a long-term consideration? Plenty on the rest of the NFL and the Masters too. 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. From Matt Prater. Welcome in if you're joining us from the Green Bay game tied to 27. Matt Prater,

attempting the game-winning field goal from 59 yards out. Looks like a knuckler. And it's through. Lyons win. First home win of the season for Detroit. What a league. And that ended it, 30 to 27, Matt Prater's 59-yard field goal at the gun. And what was Cooley, for me, you know, I haven't gotten worked up about a lot of these games.

I haven't felt it, you know, in a few years. That one, it's hard for me to explain, but it really stung. Like, I really wanted to see overtime, and I wanted to see them win that game. but they didn't. They lost another close one here. During this stretch of games, remember that Ron Rivera said was a chance to make hay

during this portion of the schedule, they are one and three during this portion. With a couple of games left, Bengals and Cowboys before the schedule gets harder. Good morning. How are you? Good morning.

Good morning. I'm good. Good afternoon to those listening in the afternoon and good evening to those of you who are listening in the evening. Happy tomorrow for everybody that's listening on Tuesday. Right. Happy Thanksgiving to those that go back and listen to this show the day before Thanksgiving.

That's always a possibility. You know what? You said you had a what do you got? I've got a what do you got real quickly? Do you know that when I look at the numbers of the podcast, I'm always surprised at how many older podcasts get listened to like three weeks after the fact or three months after the fact? It's weird. because I don't know, some of them maybe people are going back to say, oh, remember when they beat the Cowboys?

I want to listen to that show again, I guess. I don't know. Or maybe they just missed it or they're just going through the catalog and they're like, huh, I wonder what Cooley said that day about this. I'm going to go back and listen. Anyway. Wonder how Kevin's smell test did last Friday. You did send me a text at one point, just laughing.

And I was 0 for 4 at one point Saturday. And then it turned around a little bit. I got Temple barely on the backdoor cover late. And then I was three and two yesterday, but God, the Arizona ending, they didn't kick the extra point. Oh, my gosh. And that costs me that one. That cost me a four-in-one day in the pros yesterday. DeAndre Hopkins, though.

Oh, and I-500. So good. Did you ever play that game? 500? Oh, yeah, absolutely. That was the epitome of 500 right there. That really was. Here comes.

Everybody just start mauling each other. Who's going to make the catch? That was a killer points. It was two and a half. And I played it at two and a half too. And it's really strange. But because I've got the gambling mentality and I've been through this before

and I've lost games this way before and I've won games this way before. But when they lined up and they threw it late, you know, and when it was completed, I yelled to my son. I'm like, they're not going to kick the extra point. Watch. They're going to take a knee. They're not going to kick the extra point with one second or two seconds left

and risk a block and a return. And there they were taking the knee for a two-point win instead of an extra point, three-point win, which made a difference for some. Anyway. Yeah, for some. Yeah. What was your...

Oh, you'll like this. Okay. I'll make this really quick. We're doing this on Zoom, so it's imperative that I have my computer. I come into work here today, and I have my computer. My dog chewed my cord up. Right before you text me, I sent the link. My computer's going to die.

My cords chewed up. So I went out to my truck. I found a filet knife for filet fish. I cut the cord in half. It's an iMac. within the cord, there's gold wires. And then inside the gold wires, there's another white plastic tube. I stripped both wires, rewired it together.

I'm going to send you a picture of this. It works. I spliced the computer wire. I'm so freaking proud of myself. You are. I'm going to send this to you. I mean, this is amazing. This was innovation out of necessity.

You were a problem. No doubt. And when it comes to certain kinds of problem solvers, like I think if this were one of those survival shows where, you know, I got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. I would certainly before getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere to see if I could survive, I would definitely talk to you about what I would need and how I would do things. I wouldn't know. Yeah, you would. This is sending to you in a second. I mean, come on, man. When you see this, it's sent.

When you see this, you'll be incredibly impressed. Hold on. I've literally used a dull fillet knife with fish scales on it. Put the wires apart, spliced them together. I got power to the computer. You know, you have so many issues like this. I got a puppy. You shoot the cord.

What am I supposed to do? This happens to people all the time. It's got to. My son chewed my other cord, and I thought it was ruined. I had two. He chewed the other cord this week. I'm like, at least I got a backup. I didn't think about it because I had a backup.

Today I said, shit, I got to do something here, or we're not going to have a show. So? Sometimes it's your dog, your puppy. Sometimes it's your son and or daughter, and sometimes it is you. I'm not making excuses here. Let's be clear about that. But you're able to solve the problem.

I mean, good for you. Yeah, that's all it's about. Solving problems. You know, this picture that you sent me, it just reminded me of something. And I'm going to tell this story. It's a little bit of inside baseball, and nobody's going to really care of that much. But when Cooley and I were doing the show together, occasionally we would do it together at our Redskins Park studio. Cooley did it there every day.

And there was a person there in the organization whose name shall remain nameless. But we walked in one morning. and the chords were basically tied in knots, the headphone cords, every single chord that you could possibly think of that would put our show on live on the air. They weren't tangled. They were tied purposefully into knots. This is the God's honest truth, people. Do you know who did that?

I think I do know who did that. I'm pretty sure I know who did that. because that person had gotten into a significant argument with CJ the day before, and that person was basically the kind of guy that had a couple of screws loose to begin with. And so this was all part and parcel to what I've talked about in the past, which was the relationship that we had when the team, when Red Zebra owned us, but really the team was significantly involved, was outrageously antagonistic and made no sense to any of us at the radio station, but I won't bore you with that.

But in an attempt to sabotage our show one morning, somebody came into our studio and tied a bunch of chords together. This is the God's honest truth. I remember walking in, and I'm like, and I'm like, what's, what are you doing? And I'm trying to untie these things. Look at this shit. And you said something like, I'll never forget, you said something like, damn it, Zabe, because Zabe had been in there the night before. I'm like, this isn't Zabe. This is, look at their tied and knots. Somebody made an effort to tie these things into knots.

This isn't a tangled job. And you're like, yeah, you're right. This is ridiculous. And we did not get onto the air. Our show started at 7 a.m. And we weren't on the air until about 7.15. Do you remember that? Like Greg had to carry the first 15 minutes of the show.

And part of me was so pleased that that had happened because of all the days that you were like, can't you get your stuff together in that studio? What are you doing? Just messing around. Nothing ever works. And you show up, I'm like, this is what happens. It's not me.

I leave everything the way I found it. It's not me. I know. Part of me was so pleased that you had to come and see that, that day, because there was some hurdle that went on in that studio at least once a week. Once a week.

And it didn't need to. It's so simple. It was really, I'm still to this day, I just don't, I still will never understand why they disliked us so much. I think I know who it was and I don't think it's who you think it was. Oh, I'm pretty sure I know who it was. I can tell you this, it's the same person that I told on one occasion when I was doing a live interview on the air and he walked in three times and tried to disrupt the interview and was

giving me the hurry up sign after four minutes of the interview that I basically told don't ever do that again in the middle of an interview that was out now I know now I think you're talking about somebody else yeah it was that person it was that could be that person was so dumb to begin with I mean so effing dumb but beyond that you know had a had a screw or two loose and definitely was part and parcel of the group that said whatever we can do to fuck the radio station let's Let's do it when it's not obvious. I think it was someone below the person you're talking about. Oh, okay. Maybe.

But I don't know. This is irrelevant. It's so irrelevant. We're going to get to our game take, Kooley's and Ms. From the game yesterday, but as we often do, we get sidetracked. But that's what that picture reminded me of of what you were splicing together, except what you're trying to splice together was a lot cleaner than what we walked into that morning. I'll never forget that morning. I was like, you, you guys have to be

kidding me. Um, but they weren't, uh, and whatever. Uh, you know, it's like one of those things, we, we miss the first 10 minutes of the show or 12 minutes, 15 minutes of the show. And it's like, my father-in-law always uses this expression. He's like, eh, you know what? Nobody died. And nobody did die that day. Uh, we're all breathing. It wasn't really in the larger scheme of things that important. Um, but it was weird. Uh, all right. Uh, all right. Uh, I wanted to, before we get to our game take, I just wanted to start with one thing. And that is the Patriots Ravens game from last night. Did you watch it or not?

Yeah, I watched a lot of it. And then I watched a lot of the highlights from the stuff I missed. So that game last night, which, look, I was invested in that game. I gave the Patriots out plus seven on the smell test. I played them. I played them on the money line last night. I just had a sense that they were going to play well. First of all, the weather was horrible as it was.

Yeah, as it was on the East Coast. That front came through. We got it too here where it was just a downpour and the winds kicked in. You saw it in Pittsburgh. You saw it earlier in the day in Cleveland. Anyway, that was a game in which I was so impressed with Bill Belichick and the Patriots and their championship medal, their intensity, their urgency. I haven't seen a team come out that urgently and play that physical all year long.

They were flying around, gang tackling everybody. The hitting was so fierce. And then they would line it up and run Damien Harris, the rookie from Alabama. and he just refused to go down on first or second or even third contact. That is what you, I mean, to me, when you have an organization like New England that's been a dynasty, and they are massively limited this year, you know, in so many different ways. And yet somehow they came back and they won that game Monday night against a bad team. And here they are short week because they played Monday night football against one of the best teams in the NFL on a

terrible weather night with no home field advantage because New England's one of those places that doesn't let anybody in. And to see that kind of effort, and by the way, Baltimore responded too. I mean, Baltimore was, I mean, there were, what was the Minuski saying about cracking skulls? Oh, yeah, taking names and cracking skulls. Yeah, and, you know, doing something with iron, whatever that was. Oh, yeah.

That game. Smelting iron? That game was so. tense start to finish in an old-fashioned way in which I just walked away. I'm like, you know, and I'll tell you what, like, Bella Chick and the Patriot dynasty, I'm not comparing what the skins were back in the day with Joe to what the Patriots have done. I mean, you know, the Patriots are a true dynasty. But what Joe did in 12 seasons from 81 through 92 was even their teams that, like,

they had teams coolly that didn't make the playoffs. Not many, but Joe had two, ten, and six teams not make the playoffs. But they, in their season in 1988, after they won the Super Bowl against the Broncos, and they came back that next year, and it was one of the worst seasons, regular seasons, Joe had as a head coach in 88. They went seven and nine that year. But at the end of the year, like they're playing teams that are good. on the road, Philadelphia and Cincinnati.

And these are two games I'll never forget. Washington, for the most part, is out of the playoff picture. And it was this championship, you know, like we're not going down. Our season may be over, but this is about an organization. This is about a culture. And Washington beat Philadelphia. I'll never forget. It was a really tough loss for the Eagles that year because they were on their way to the playoffs.

that year, and Washington goes in and wins on a last second field goal 20 to 19. Then they're playing the Bengals, another team that's going to the playoffs. And they're running back in that game was Jamie Morris. And I'm going to say that Jamie Morris got the ball 47 times in that game. And I'm looking it up as I'm going through pro football reference here, because I want to get the exact number. Jamie Morris, they just lined it up and they said, we're the defending champions, MFers. You guys are going to the playoffs. We may not be, but we're not, we're going to, and they went in there, here it is.

Here it is. Jamie Morris, I was two carries off. 45 carries, 152 yards. By the way, that's not a great yards for average, but he was 452. and they lost the game late on a field goal in overtime, okay? But it was just like, I'm watching this game last night. I'm like, that's a winning organization. Both of them are, the Ravens and the Patriots.

But I'm like, damn, that Belichick, man. Seven point underdogs, nobody giving them a chance at home. The weather's shitty. Nobody's there. And yet Cam played one of his better games and smarter games. and they were hitting defensively. I mean, they crumpled Lamar Jackson into a heap multiple times during that game, and Jackson really is spectacular.

Their running game is spectacular. But I just, that was one of the most entertaining start-to-finish games of the year. It's what I love, maybe more than anything in football, is a real hard-hitting game where both teams, especially one of them, is super desperate. And they held on for the win. The final drive for the Ravens started in the worst possible elements of the night. The monsoon literally came in as Baltimore took over down 2317 with a chance with like, you know,

a minute and a half left in the game or whatever. And they just never had a chance because it was raining sideways and it was incredible. You couldn't even see the field at the end of the game. If you weren't up watching it, for those of you that weren't, go find, if you can, just the last Baltimore drive. You can barely see the field. I just thought I was so impressed with what the Patriots did. And I wouldn't count them out. I would not count them out. All of a sudden, they're four and five. They play, you know, I was looking at their schedule earlier. They play the Texans. They still have like the Chargers and they still play the Bills and the

dolphins and the Jets again. Like I would not count them out yet. I'm totally with you. Now, this was such a fun game just because it's two teams that went back to the 60s football. It's amazing. It's like time is a flat circle and professional sports and everything that starts to come around goes around. And the Patriots right now are really an innovative run team out of necessity. It's the only thing they can do. Yeah. I mean, and in this game, in this particular game, there's third and eights that they're running quarterback sweep.

Because you can't throw the ball. I know. Massive downpour. And Newton had 11 carries for 21 yards, but there are instances where Baltimore is on third and longs, like, we know you're going to run it. And New England says, we're going to, yep, that's it. But God, they controlled the line of scrimmage. That dude Harris was aggressive.

He hit holes the Patriots, offensive line, controlled the line of scrimmage against a really good Baltimore front. Like you said, Baltimore, like Lamar Jackson still made plays, man. God, did you see? Oh, one thing from that. Did you see Boyle's broken leg? Yeah, that was ugly. Oh, my gosh.

Was it a broken leg? Do we know that? Well, if you look at Twitter, they're like, oh, my God, Nick Boyle's leg just snapped to back off. I mean, I know he's out for the year. I didn't know if it was a knee or a broken leg. It was ugly. I have no.

It was super ugly. But it was amazing to watch two teams. One, I think Baltimore with Greg Roman and Harbaugh built a team that essentially is supposed to be that. Like they were creative in their innovation, but then you at on the same page have another team in Belichick who has done it in any different way over the last 15, 20 years. Like the multitude of offenses they've run, the personnel's that they've ended up having to have on the field, the types of schemes, the types of systems. Like their innovation is amazing. I got to give you with Josh McDaniels a ton of credit because you really understand like this is who we are.

this is what we are right now and this is what we have to be and it's not going to be a team that scores 30 points every week. That's just not us anymore. Cam's not at that level. He doesn't have those weapons. And so we're going to run the ball.

And then you get this downpour. And I think the downpour helped him because there's no way, I know they have field turf, but there's no way that helps Lamar Jackson with his ability to run the football. And they did a good job on Lamar. They really did.

You know, and then that's what you have to do is you have to try to control all of him. as much as you can control him. Still, I mean, he's got 55 yards on the ground. He threw for 249, but I thought they did a good enough job at not letting him just completely destroy a game. So it was really fun to watch two teams play. Basically, Kevin, like, what is opposite of Kansas City Chiefs football?

Right. What is opposite of the norm right now in the NFL? Just smash mouth football. It's so true what you said about, like, third and long. Like, they basically just ran Cam. Like it's like we can't throw it to get it. And the weather was part of the story, but Baltimore's defense is part of that story. You know, the other thing, the other thought I had at the end of the game was a thought that

I think I'm going to be proven wrong about at some point down the road. And that is if Baltimore gets behind Lamar Jackson can't bring him back throwing the football, Lamar Jackson can bring Baltimore back doing anything because every single play is a potential big play with Lamar Jackson on the field. whether it's running, scrambling, running to throw. Like, I think that that is going to be proven to be a very limited and false narrative on him. Now, he's going to have to show it a couple of times, but the one thing that I kept thinking about is I'm watching him.

It's like, how can you say they're ever out of it when as long as he's on the field, a touchdown on the next play is possible? No matter what the score is. I agree with you, but having the, The versatility of the run game on first and second down in the fourth quarter is paramount for them. You know, if you can put them in a one-dimensional pass situation, and especially for a team that would be a good zone coverage type of team where they're going to keep everything in front of them, obviously a touchdown can happen on every play.

But if you're a decent tackling zone coverage team, you should be able to contain that. Did you see the two-man rushes with nine in coverage against him at the end? where he's sitting there for like seven seconds in the pocket. Yes. And Pellechick is on the sideline. Like, I dare you to throw it. And then he still, he still was able on one of them to scramble for like 15 yards and get out of bound. He had nine seconds.

Then he bumped up into the line of scrimmage. And then here he goes out. Yeah. Like, here comes another Patriot defender and another Patriot. He's still out running these dudes. No, he's, he's amazing. But if you take the huge play from him, I don't know if he can score on every play. And that's honestly, that was kind of a blueprint from a couple years ago.

Remember, the Chargers played them. And they were one of the first teams to say, we're just going to put six DBs on the field. Right. And you might gash us some in the run game, but you're not going to beat us with the huge play with Lamar. One last. And then that's what that's what Belichick started to do was put more DPs on the field, rush less. Say, scramble's not going to kill us. Scramble game is not going to break down our past defense.

Yeah, he's so much fun to watch, though. But I'm very intrigued with how the Patriots play the rest of the way. Maybe last night we'll look back and say they gave it everything they had and they beat Baltimore and they just aren't good enough. And certainly you look at their talent and it's not good enough. They don't have enough weapons offensively, although I love Harris as a back. I love Burkhead as a back. One last thing from the game.

You know, J.C. Jackson had another interception. He leads the league interceptions now. I mean, it's weird, but it's one of those things. He played at Maryland. And I guess it's just because they stunk that I wasn't paying anywhere near enough attention. But I can't believe that he's developed into this good of a player. I didn't think he would be that good of a player. guess. But he really is a good cover guy, an excellent cover guy, really is.

Do you just have to be there? Yeah, you have to be there. You want to get MF every down. Right. I mean, the one interception was a heck of a play. It was a bad throw into double coverage, but it was still a heck of a play to go get that ball. All right. Let's get to our game take right after this word from one of our sponsors. Time for Coolies, uh, and ums, and then I'll get to my game take. I'll let you start.

Go ahead. Obviously, you start with the biggest, which is the roughing the passer by Chase Young. Yeah. Dude, I get it. It's a stupid penalty. Shubs him in the back. 50-50 call. We've seen a lot less.

We've seen a lot less. Correct. Correct. But it's probably the right call. He did shove him in the back. I agree with you. definitively after the ball was. thrown. It's an it's an idiotic penalty. Um, the other thing is like Quentin Seifas is

wide open behind your boy Apke. How how is Quinn Cephas fucking wide open down the field? I have no idea. I mean, I do. They're sitting on sticks or they're sitting on field goal range in that instance. Yeah, but I still needed what? Like they still needed about 20 yards to get into field goal range so you're sitting at 20 yards. I love taking a shot right there. That was brilliant by the Lions. I pointed this out again that before the season started or after the first game, you said, I love Troy. He's a great guy, he's a great kid. He's an athlete. He'll come up and hit you, but he doesn't have really good spatial sense, which leads to him taking terrible angles and not having a sense for depth and depth perception and all of that. And my God was that prophetic. I mean,

You nailed that early in the year. And it's amazing. Can you imagine if Apki in for Everett gets beat on a 60-yard touchdown pass? I mean, it would have been 65 yards, actually. At the end of the game, when you're up, when you're tied and you're just, you know, that would have been awful. Even if he makes the play and he gets beat for a 60-yard bomb. Yeah. Well, that's a touchdown.

I mean, even if the dude falls down, I mean, if he just catches it. I thought Quinn Seafus should have caught that ball. I thought he stopped running. Yeah. Seafus clearly misjudged the ball. But Chase Young deserve the – that's not going to be a penalty that they're – that's going to get called 50% of the time. That's not like an egregious – Yeah, and it was a dumb, dumb, dumb move.

I mean – I don't know what to tell you, you know? Tell Chase Young to play above the line type of football. Play above the line. Chase. Exactly. Urban Meyerism. He'll know what that means. Poor mistake.

And I hated that. I hated the fact that they just gave the easy catch. It was six seconds left. Six seconds left. Press them. You know what they're going to do. They want to throw a quick ball now and get down. Everybody knows what they want to do.

They want to throw a quick ball, get down, call timeout, two seconds, one second, kick a field goal. Press them. Why are you going to play off? and allow an easy 10-yard reception. It made literally no sense to me. In that moment, I'm like, get up in their face. Press them. You know, it's one of those things where if you can just disrupt timing,

yeah. Then the place, you're going to run the clock out. Exactly. Or you're going to make Stafford just chuck it out of bounds or, you know, throw it into the turf. Right. Their hope, their whole, and the thing is, is they're going to say to Stafford, hey, you have one second to make this decision.

And if the decision isn't made, that ball goes as far as you can throw that ball into the stands. Get rid of it. They just get up on them and press them. It was ridiculous. Coley, this is bad coaching here because there are a couple of things to factor in, okay? You're playing soft and you know that six seconds, their goal with timeouts left is to get that five to eight yard play to get into field range.

another part of this, too. You've got Matt Prater, who's their kicker. He's got a 64-yarder and he's the longest kick in NFL history. He has the distance. I'm telling you right now, had they played it correctly and forced an incompletion, I think they would have lined up and kicked a 67-yarder from the 50-yard line. I think they would have attempted that. But there's a big difference between that, though. Big difference between 67 and 59. You're damn right. It's still Washington, he would have made the 67-yarder. But, I mean, the right play is not to allow a nine-yard reception to Jones, who is wide open. That's a bad job.

A bad job by Del Rio and Reo. Are you afraid they're going to throw a hellmerry? Yeah. They're not going to throw a hellmerry with six seconds. Maybe Del Rio will tell us, you know, to stop our whining butts. And nobody's the boss of him. I'm going to tell him how to do his damn job right now. But that was a bad job right there at the end.

Terrible job. Totally agree with you. Batched it. Batched by Del Rio. and I think it was ultimately probably a panic call after the young penalty like, what? Oh, just don't give up points. Wait, no, we, I mean, don't give up yards. I don't know what to do.

Just play football. Yeah, exactly. No, Kevin, I mean, I hated that. I hated watching that play. I mean, it's like, Akeep Taleb sitting there like, all they want to do here is they want to get. Speaking of that, loved, I actually, Akip Taleb was an acquired taste throughout the game for me. me if you watch the game on television.

I don't think he's ever called a game. He called the game with Hellie. It started out really bad for me. Like, it's not Alex Smith. It's not, like, his name is, it ends with a TH. I understand, you know, it doesn't matter what background you're from. I don't like when people in Wyoming call my daughter Solone. Her name's Sloan.

It's one syllable. Freaking Hillbilly stuff to call her Solone. Well, Alex Smith is pronounced Smith, not Smith. Okay. there's no F's. But that said, I felt like Akim Tali did a really good job and was really pretty smart. I know he stumbled through some things, but I enjoyed the broadcast. And normally I don't.

So it's exactly what I said on radio. Early in the game, I was like, and then by the end of the game, I was like, wow, he is good. He's entertaining. Hellie does a Helly's really good He's really solid And I think I hope Heli keeps getting games

You know yesterday was one of those weird days Because of the Masters CBS didn't have that many games So they had to add Cruise to the Fox stable To cover all the games that were on Fox yesterday And so that's why You know Heli got this game with Talib

And it was Talib's first game And I was You know it's funny There was a lot of of, look, this stuff is so subjective, as we know, but there was a lot of differing opinion on Talib. I liked him. I think he's going to be really good at it.

I think he's going to be really good at it. Same. I mean, as far as the football acumen and the excitement for the game, I thought it was there. Again, yeah, there's some ums and you nose and some fumbling through some things, but that's a guy that's doing his first game. that's obviously a little bit nervous. And to me, he didn't miss anything.

No. No, I just, I thought he was good. I thought situationally he and Helly were both very good. I don't know. You know what I thought too? I don't really care about the broadcast much, but most of the time, and I'm only saying this because most of the time, especially with us being the five team most weeks, the five broadcasting, right, the bottom of the bucket.

I can't stand guys. And this started off with me thinking, like I wrote some of the things he said down. I was going to joke about it. And then as it went on, I like this dude. I know, I did too. And you know what? I really thought, like he was getting very much into major X's and O's stuff defensively that could have sailed over the heads of a lot of people. Even Helly, you know, a couple times, you know, and I think Helly understood this, right? It's like you've mentioned cover three, you've mentioned cover two, you mentioned cover four. You know, he goes, I haven't heard cover four mentioned a lot. And then he goes through yet. It's very much, I think, how you call a game. You get very into, you know, football talk and strategy and what you're seeing because you're a player that just played recently and you really understand what you're looking at.

And I enjoy that. It may not be for everybody, but beyond that, Talib had a lot of personality, too. I thought he had a lot of personality. I thought he was really good. No, it turned for me. there was a moment where I think Washington almost scored, and he said, if they score here, we got what I came for. A ball game. You're like, I got like just dude.

Yeah, me too. I don't know exactly, but I thought he was good. Yep. I mean, he'll get better. So anyways, that was one of the things that I love from this game. The thing that you really have to take away more than anything is Alex Smith was terrific. Thank you. I mean, I loved Alex Smith in this game.

Thank you. there were points in this game where what he was like 12 for 12 string and completions together and not just checkdowns you know he was efficient with the ball he knew where he wanted to go with the ball um god he ended up throwing 55 passes for 390 i think he dropped back 60 times in the game two weeks in a row the guy that shouldn't bring you back into a ball game brought you back into a ball game. I thought Alex was absolutely awesome. And, you know, they kind of went through the leg thing that he'd had. I'd been telling you he'd got this apparatus that makes it so his leg actually works. Right. They didn't. Which is weird that it's even allowed, but he has drop foot. One of his

nerves is dead, so he's got to have something that'll lift his toe up when he runs. But, you know, he gets out of, he's still athletic. He's not, there's no burst, but he still knows when he's got to get out of the pocket and move. No doubt. I mean, there's a couple times where you see that he's like, I got to go and he, the normal mind frame of Alex, he knows he's going to get out of the pocket and all of a sudden he's not, which is going to take him some time to adjust to. And I also thought it was funny. They're like, he's been watching a lot of Philip Rivers film. Yeah. Quarterback of anyone. Yeah, because he's the least mobile. But Alex actually looks and looked yesterday much more mobile than Rivers has ever looked. No, there's no doubt about it. I thought

he had a live arm. I thought he made some big throws in this ballgame. I thought he was smart with the football. I mean, it's two weeks in a row and you look at a couple interceptions that he's going to get better from and is in a rusty game back off the bench.

I don't know what to tell. I mean, I totally agree. I'm not going to sit here and suggest that it's the guaranteed answer after two weeks, but God, we sure flipped the script from two and a half weeks ago when you wanted him cut. When I get to my game take, I'm going to spend a little bit more time on this.

You continue. I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. All right. Okay. I like, I thought this team, the team showed resilience. I thought that they, obviously, they out played the Lions, but they could have, they could have batt out of this game. They didn't. Terry McLaurin was great again. That's just so obvious and so apparent. I was wondering and I was going to look at this if I and see if I could find this anywhere. But if I was Desmond Truffant, I would almost tweet. Terry McLaurin's one of the best receivers in the NFL because Terry owned Frickin Desmond Truffant.

He ate him up, mixed him up, ate him up, did whatever he wanted to do to Truffant. Could have went to Terry Moore in this game if they wanted to because there was nothing that I thought Truffant could do. He only ends up with 95 yards, but I thought they could have gotten more. The one penalty on the last third down was a garbage penalty on Truffant. They shouldn't have called that. is a slant. It was a fourth down.

It was a fourth down slant. It was a total gift. Great defensive play. Total gift. I didn't like to fumble from Terry. I don't. Is that ball moving? It could.

I felt like it was not an overturnable call on replay. I think the call on the field had to stand. No. And I think that this is a team that's going to have to really do some work on ball security. Yep. You know, they're a big time turnover team. It has killed them throughout the season.

Sims had a bad fumble that we ended up recovering. Right. But I mean, no picks, but the ball security thing's an issue. You can't fumble twice in every game. And I feel like if you go through the box scores from every game, there's at least a fumble or two. You can't fumbling in everything. Sims fumbled too, and they were lucky to get that one back.

Exactly. I think was it McLorn who recovered that fumble? I forget Sims' fumbled. Yeah, I think Terry recovered. the fumble. Yeah. Johnny on the spot. Right. Um, okay. I thought Logan Thomas was good. I thought Isaiah Wright was good. I thought Cam Sims was good. I, obviously, I loved McKissick. They were really pretty good on offense. You know, I mean, Logan Thomas, 66 yards. Isaiah right, 59 yards. Isaiah Wright is pretty good with the ball in his hands as well. I like Isaiah

right with the ball in his hands. Cam Sims really showing something. He's kind of coming on. Yep. And you can see him playing with a little bit more confidence. I still believe Kevin that Cam Sims is a guy that can get downfield a little bit more. And because they got down, they probably didn't get to some of their run action pass stuff. Right. But I still believe that he's got a little bit of a burst downfield. Sims made some plays in this game, although we mentioned the fumble. I thought Gibson was okay.

McKissick, I keep saying, we got to get McKissick carries. McKissick had eight carries for six yards. I know. He did have a big loss on our reverse. Yeah, exactly, in that second and two reverse. which I didn't love on that second and too. I thought Danny Johnson was good as a kickoff return guy. If you can get some big returns and change field position a little bit,

that's going to be instrumental to this offense having success, is operating in all three phases of the game. If you can operate on special teams, and I think I've almost ruled out special teams because they've just been so mediocre in a lot of the special team stuff, not bad, but just a mediocre team. Do they get any big punt returns? Not really. Do they ever have like a fake punt or big play?

on special teams? No, not really. Have they had any big returns in the last three years? Not really. But it's not, it hasn't killed them so much. But the phase of special teams, it's got to help this team. Well, they're kickers. And they're kickers. Their kickers the biggest problem. Well, and I'm going to get to that when I get to my negatives. I like the aggressive mindset defensively. I do. I like the blitzes. I think Jack Del Rio is getting better at designing and creating blitzes for this particular group of guys. And the timing of some of the blitzes that they have with KPL or Bostic or curl is getting better defensively. They're really getting better at surprising some people and getting free rushers. That's something we haven't seen in a long time. The negatives that I thought from this game, they've got to be better run defense.

They just have to be a better run defense. And it was funny. you're you know heli and talib talked to everybody and they Rivera very clearly said we're our linebackers are bad right now they're not filling their gap I mean he spent some time listening to our podcast last week when we did the film breakdown and I explained exactly what that was before anybody else said that no but no seriously it was so bad last week with a couple of those gap fits and linebackers that you know anybody would have saw it right but linebacker play is still a

a problem for them. I think Bostick's a problem from them. Huge problem. The KPL hit on Stafford was a boneheaded play. He was down. It was helmet to helmet. He's going to get a big fine for that one. I thought Kendall Fuller struggled big time in this game. He played some safety, didn't he? No, not really. I thought he did.

I don't think he did much. I thought on one of those touchdowns, he was in a year. Well, no, he was not. He was playing corner. I'm surprised you say that because, you know, two weeks of ago we spent like 20 minutes with me explaining inverted cover two to you. Yeah. Where the cornerback plays the deep half. And so that touchdown that he gave up, he's playing deep half.

And he really shades to the middle of the field too much. And that's what led me to believe that he was playing free shot into the glory hole. Yeah. Well, that's precisely like he was playing the middle of the field. And he wasn't playing a receiver. Right. He was trying to split the difference between the two, but he really shaped. too far on the inside.

Was I uncoachable on your inverted two, cover two instruction? He was a corner that ended up assuming what is a common safety responsibility, but he lined up as a corner. The other part of that first touchdown, given up, was the back went away from that side. They went two vertical receivers to the left side. And I don't think Morland needs to fall off on anything there. I thought Morland could have continued to carry that.

it's not normal the Marvin Jones touchdown yeah the 27 yarder are you talking about the the long one no no excuse me excuse me the the inverted two one the long one was all fuller yeah the yeah the second one right yeah but i thought morland could have carried that all the way you know that's we also had this big conversation of you have responsibility but you could also go make a play yeah if you're covered two corner you're essentially responsible for the flat area zero to 15 yards outside the numbers on the side he was on. Well, I mean, essentially, if nobody has any potential of attacking that zone, which they didn't because you had two vertical carrying receivers, go make a play.

Right. And if he would have dropped off two yards deeper, because you saw it, like, if you watch it again, you can see him turn and flatten. He doesn't need to because there's nobody to flattened. Yeah, I'm watching it right now. So you could, he could have bailed into that and two yards deeper, he gets a pick. So it is on Kendall Fuller, but at the same time, Jimmy Morland could have went and made a play right there in my belief. That was a third and ten play, too.

Yeah, that was a third and ten play. Look, they're a good defense, but there's nothing about them that's a great defense right now. Right. And they have the talent to be a great defense, although just keep in mind, they lack a couple key positions for a Rivera defense. They lack a true Mike linebacker or middle linebacker, and that's a big time hole in a big time problem for them. They lack a true safety or really essentially maybe two safeties, although I think curls coming along. My belief is that Kendall Fuller should still play free safety and you should move Moreland outside to corner because of a lot of their coverage schemes like Akeb described, they're playing a lot of cover two or excuse me, a lot of cover three or a lot of cover four. Well, Moreland's a good

outside play eyes corner. It's good enough. I think Fuller's better in the middle of the field. I think they're lacking in the middle of the field. They played Fabian Row a little bit yesterday. I mean, we haven't seen him a little bit. I'm surprised. And that was what? After Everett got hurt?

After Ever got hurt? I don't remember when. I just know I saw him on the field a couple times yesterday. And I don't know. I mean, I like... I think the prophetic thing that I said to you last week was off a question you asked me and the answer was would you or the question was would you sign eric reed i'm like what are you going to do when the chaser goes down right girl goes down yeah exactly and it's like well i guess apta will go in but is that what you want no they can't want that well you benched a guy if you benched him do you want that they should have signed ericreed

yeah yep so that's kind of my takeaways from this game i mean the the other big is you're not out of it God, that would have been a, that would have been, I mean, they're finding ways to lose games right now. And I know that they're trying to preach a culture of winning and they're trying to set a standard of getting better every day. And some of it you see, you know, this team plays hard, it works hard. There's some togetherness that I see with the team, like some play for each other stuff because they'll battle back. But they just, they find ways to lose games, Kev. Yeah. They got to start finding ways to win games.

All right. My game take right after this word from one of our sponsors. All right. My list of things that I liked and my list of things that I didn't like in a couple of other observations. I just want to start with this two things that you talked about. Number one, I think it's really important for people with respect to this season. And I'll get more into detail here in a moment. But you said, you know, Rivera's missing some pieces. He doesn't have his middle linebacker. And so you're not going to have the great defense this year. And I think it was the worst defense. game in many ways of the season yesterday, which I'll get into in more detail. And then one of the first things you said, and I was so, I was really, really curious to how you were going to view Alex Smith's performance. I'm glad you said what you said, because you know I value your opinion

and you're going to hear what I said on radio right now on the podcast, and man, did I take some heat for it? But anyway, I'll start with Alex Smith, because to me, it was a wow. performance. He was really exceptional in this game, and God was I so wrong two weeks ago to have said they should waive him, thinking that, first of all, this is a path to nowhere. And that's a bigger picture conversation. I want to focus on the game. We can come back to that. But that he couldn't do it. I was dead wrong. You know, after watching him in the second half last week and yesterday in his first start to finish game since the injury in 2018. I'm starting to think that 2018's offense where Alex wasn't very good and the offense wasn't very good was just the wrong fit

offensively for Alex with Jay. You know, this offense seems to work. I mean, he was in command. He was decisive, quick reads, quick throws. They seem to have checkdown opportunities coolly on almost every play, whether it's a back, you know, underneath, or whether it's a wide receiver essentially standing where they line up. You know, it just seems that Scott Turner's offense seems to be a better fit for Alex Smith than the offense Jay was running two years ago. But anyway, let me get to yesterday. I just can't. I mean, go ahead. Go ahead. No. I was just going to say it's funny because I've had a lot of conversations with Jay, obviously, when he was the head coach and after he was gone.

And one of the, I think, really interesting ones was he said, my offense really got away from me. And I was busy. I'm a head coach. I got a lot of people in my ear. And this offseason, he revamped his entire offense, at least the language and the way he wanted to call things. Right. So when you said, it was, it was not an offense that was fitting of Alex Smith. I don't know if it was an offense that was fitting of a lot of quarterbacks.

I don't think it was a quarterback friendly offense at the point. They had gotten to. But he had a quarterback friendly offense. I think even Jay recognized that and kind of in that self-scout mode said, man, I didn't do a good enough job. Well, when Sean was there, the two of them together had a quarterback friendly offense for Kirk. And it fitted what Kirk did well. And one of the things I remember after the trade, we said, you know, Alex Smith does a lot of the things that Kirk does. well, you know, read it quickly, get it out quickly, and let's go. And that's not what they did that year.

I'll never forget the Indianapolis home opener, and it's like they're sitting in soft zone, and it could have been a complete pitch and catch down the field every single time, and they never did it. They never went to Quick Game. Anyway, I can't tell you how impressed I was with Alex Smith yesterday, blown away impressed. You know, and it's not the, you know, what I said last week, which is, look, he sailed over the low expectation bar that was in place coming in off the bench. It was different. This was, this was him knowing exactly where to go, knowing exactly how to get there quickly, moving better than I would have ever expected, extending plays, getting flushed and making throws on the move, avoiding sacks that looked like they were imminent. On the first drive of

the game, he's pressured, he flushes out, easily gets away, picks up five yards, runs out of bounds. You know, they gave them some balance in the game early, but when they were behind by three scores, they got very one-dimensional. By the way, as an aside, getting down three touchdowns in that game was not his fault, obviously. He wasn't perfect in this game. When you drop back 60 times in a game, you're not going to be perfect. You know, he had one really bad play in the game, and that was taking the sack on that drive when they have, you know, they're in the red zone and they end up out of field goal range. Although, to be honest with you...

They got beat off both edges. Yeah, to be honest with you, they shouldn't have been out of field goal range. That's a 55-yard or indoors, and the coach decided to punt. And I made the comment, if you don't have a kicker that's healthy enough to kick a 54-55-yard or indoors, well, then he shouldn't have suited up for the game. But anyway, I... It was a guy that just... There were a couple of other plays real quickly.

on the negative. The third and eight when they got blitzed in the red zone and he missed, he missed McKissick over in the flat. He also missed McKissick on the deep ball that could have been a touchdown. But again, I mean, if you're going to take 60 dropbacks, there are going to be a few that you miss. Everybody misses a few. Everybody misses them. Yeah. Karen Rogers misses throws. He was 38 to 55 for 390 yards, no interception, sacked only twice. He had three balls flat out dropped. Okay, Sims dropped one. McKissick actually dropped two. As I mentioned, he missed McKissick in the flat on that third and eight in the red zone before a field goal, I think it was before the missed field goal, and miss McKissick on what could have been a touchdown.

22 of Alex's 38 completions resulted in first downs. 22 of his throws move the chains. You can nitpick some of the throws. When you throw it 55 times, not all of them are going to be perfect, but you know what? The majority of them were. And to me, the second half was a clinic that he put on. He threw for 271, and I don't want to get hung up in a yardage because it's not about stats. He was five for seven on third down throws for conversions, two for two on fourth down.

One of those was the fourth and 13, which we'll get to in a minute. And the other one was the Truffant PI on Terry late, which was a gift. I'll concede that. As you said, he also did something yesterday in the second half. that he did last week in the second half, that most of us thought he couldn't do. He couldn't do it when he was healthy. And that was facing a big deficit.

He strapped them to his back and gave them a chance to win the game. They were down 20 to 3 last week, and the only reason they had a chance to win that game before he did throw two back-breaking picks at the end, I understand that. But the only reason that he had a chance to fail in crunched, is because he got him to crunch time.

Yesterday they're down 24 to 3, you know, and he gets them back into a game and did everything he could to give them a chance to win the game in overtime, and they should have gone to overtime. He led three straight drives for touchdowns, making one big throw after another. He was in total control until Cooley at the very end.

He looked gas to me. He looked exhausted to me at the end. They all did. Yeah, they all did. But still, he was the lead actor in this comeback. Unfortunately, the defense, the coaching weren't very good at the very end. It's a shame. It's a damn shame.

We didn't get to see him in overtime because he was on the verge of having one of the having one of the all-time memorable Washington football team games in terms of a comeback. By the way, I mentioned the Jeff Rutledge game. Some of you know the reference. Many of you don't. They were down 38 to 14 at Detroit in 1990. Stan Humphreys got hurt. Jeff Rutledge came in, let him back down 24 to a 38-38-38 tie, and they won the game in overtime, 4138. He threw for like 360 off the bench or something. Anyway, I loved Alex Smith in this game.

I absolutely loved him. I was so wrong two weeks ago when I said that I thought it made sense to wave him. I was wrong. He proved yesterday. And even in the second half last one, week. Beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is he back, but he's capable of playing football at a pretty high level, an acceptable starting level in the NFL. So I'm happy for him from that standpoint. Now, the bigger picture on the quarterback situation, and if Alex Smith fits into the long-term picture or the next year picture or the year after that, I don't think so personally, because I don't know that it's a path that leads you into like serious contention for a Super Bowl, which is the goal here.

And he's getting older. And I think he's also going to be vulnerable to injury. I hope not. And I don't want him to get hurt. But I'll tell you what, I would be very curious as to what they think. Because what's very clear is when they benched Dwayne, they knew for sure that Kyle Allen and Alex Smith were going to be much better for them in their offense than Dwayne was.

You know, we'll have plenty of time to delve it. into the Alex Smith, is he a part of their future or not? My lean right now is no. I'm going to stick with that. I don't think it's a path that leads to a promised land. But it doesn't mean that I wasn't blown away yesterday. And I'm very surprised by those that don't feel the same way. And you're entitled to your opinion, and it's a subjective thing.

And I think that a lot of you said, well, the reason they were down 24-3, is they didn't, you know, he took a sack and he missed McKissick. And, well, they also had a fumble in, you know, in a scoring opportunity and a missed field goal in a scoring opportunity. And the defense got torched. So, you know, you're not going to score on every drive in every game. They ended up having nine drives. They scored on four of them.

And really, they should have scored on six of them, all right, because they missed a field goal, a chip shot field goal. And they had a fumble, you know, in a scoring position. position, that's unbelievable productivity, which leads me to number two. The offense overall is on the list of things that I liked. You know, there were mistakes, you know, but last week, like the weeks before, the offense has, the offense has been moving the ball for a month now. Now, it hasn't produced enough points for all those yards. I understand that. You know, the turnovers, the self-inflicted mistakes, the missed field goals, you know, and all of that stuff, leads.

to less points. They had 34 first downs in the game yesterday. They had 464 yards in the game yesterday. They scored 27 points in the game yesterday, and it should have been a minimum of 30 if the kicker doesn't miss a chip shot. 43 yards is a chip shot. And the McLaren fumble, but, you know, these are all part of the game, but they did score 27 points. The starting slow thing that people are obsessed about, you know, you know, okay, it's true. They've been behind. They've been behind a lot in the first half of their games this year. They're the only team in the NFL, not to score on an opening drive. I know. But, you know, every, but, you know, every game's been different. Like, you can't just chalk it up to, oh, well, they come out flat every game. They

weren't flat yesterday. They weren't flat last week. The initial drive is Scott Turner's first 20 sucks. Well, but, but I thought they did it. Okay. But the point is, is that flat would be, oh my God. I mean, here's the punter again. Tressway has gone from being one of the busiest punters in the league during the first five games of the year to one of the least busiest in the last four games.

Now, some of that's turnover related, certainly. But their third down offense, coolly, a very critical stat in this, in this NFL. they were 7 of 15 yesterday. That's now 27 of 53 over the last four games. That's 51% on third down over the last four games. That is, I guarantee you, I haven't looked because I don't have the ability to snapshot it in four game. But that's going to be top five in the league in the last four weeks. They're four for five on their fourth down opportunities in their last four games.

And they have dominated time of possession and play count in four games. They are doing things offensively that should lead to, better results. Now, you can get hung up in, all I give a shit about is did they win the game or did they lose the game? You know, and look, there is definitely a place in a time for judging franchises and coaches and teams on nothing but wins and losses. But my personal view is it makes you sound tough, but it's limited. It's incredibly limited when you consider the context of this organization. It's an organization that always loses for starters. It's an organization that no one expected to win this year in the first year of a new staff and a new regime. Without, you know,

an answer at the most important position, nobody had them winning more than five or six games this year. Nobody did. So let's use context here, which is first year and what you're looking for in a first year of a regime is you're not changed. judging them on wins and losses. That's so limited. You know, again, it sounds really super tough, but what you're looking for is a hint. You're looking for a glimmer.

You're looking for just a maybe they're headed in the right direction. And I'm not saying I'm sold on anybody yet. I'm not. I'm not sold on Rivera, even though I do think he's a good coach. I'm certainly not sold on their big social media, Big Mouth Jack Del Rio. All right, just as an aside, I hope they keep their mouths shut this week. I don't want to hear anything about the schedule.

I don't want to hear anything about the next two or three games or the standings or they can make hay. I don't want to hear any of that bullshit. Shut your effing mouth. Don't get sensitive about people criticizing you about anything. And go beat the Bengals. And in the lead up to the Bengals game, just talk about how great. Joe Brow is. Talk about what a great job their coaching staff is doing. They're not. They're not. They won't. I don't want to hear about standings. I don't want to hear about the division.

Okay. Because you know, New York got a big win for us. So I mean, we're right there. Yeah. Philly three wins. New York three. We got a shot. Look, I, I ultimately, you know, after, you know, next year, the year after, it comes down to, are they winning? or not? Are they going to the playoffs or not? But now this first year, you just, you can't, like, think about some of the first years, right? Joe Gibbs's first year, O and five. Marty's first year, O and five. Like, were you really expecting those teams to go to the playoffs? Or were you hoping that they hired a good coach and you wanted to see whether or not the arrow was pointed up? Now, Tommy would say to me, Surgeon General's warning, Surgeon General's warning, and I understand that.

As long as Snyder owns the team, more likely than not, they're going to lose a lot more than they win and they're going to have much more drama and turmoil than less drama and turmoil. Everybody understands that. But viewing this in a very small, you know, as its own entity, the football team, you're looking to see, do they have talent? Have they added good players? Are they being coached well? You know, are they playing hard? They have not given up on this coach. They've not given up on this staff.

You said it earlier. I totally agree with you. You know, you want to see signs of progress. They need two to three players defensively before this defense can really prosper. Look, a lot of people were after me. I had a friend of mine call and say, man, you love this defense, but it sucks. I'm like, no, I love the defensive front. And I like the potential of this defense in the future.

And I think it's vastly improved from where it was last year. And I think it's better coached than it was. But, you know, yesterday was not a good day. And I'll get to that in a little bit more detail here in a moment. But, you know, they need a couple of pieces on defense. They need that middle linebacker that you talked about, Ron Rivera needs. But the bottom line is this team has not quit on the staff, hasn't quit on the season. You can say, look at their opponents that they've played, they suck.

You're right. They're one and three in those games, and their three losses are by a grand total of seven total points. They could easily be on a four-game winning streak. That's easy to say, but they're not because they've made too many mistakes where you can't win games last week, specifically last week, with all the turnovers. But they're a better team. I put out this tweet yesterday, Gully, which I knew would get people a little bit fired up. I said, you know, I know many of you don't care or worse aren't paying attention,

which is true. You can see it in the ratings. And I clearly have more questions than answers about it. anything related to Washington football, but I want to use one of my favorite Doc Walker lines. You know what? At least we're watching a team that doesn't suck. And I don't think they suck. They're not good. It's not a good team. Okay. I'm not suggesting it's a good team. But this is not last year's team. This is not the end of 2017. This is not the 2013 or the 2014 team. Okay, this is a team that already they've been favored more times this year than they were last year.

I'll give you a perfect example. You know who knows that they don't suck? Vegas knows they don't suck. The line was short yesterday. They're favored by anywhere from one to two points over Cincinnati this coming week. They'll be favored over the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day if they give this kind of effort that they've given the last couple of weeks. There are truly horrific teams this year. Washington's not one of them.

They're not a good team, but they're not the Jets, okay? They're not the Jags. They're not the Cowboys. You know, they are, you know, right now they pick fourth in the draft. I understand that. I just, I'm not candying out participation trophies here. It's not what I'm doing. What I'm saying is, yesterday, Alex Smith,

exceptional. The offense has improved dramatically. And I would add McLorn and McKissick, like you did Sims and Gibson, to the list of things that I liked. I thought Scott Turner was more creative with some motion, and they finally did give it to McLorn on that fly sweep. A lot of fly sweep. Yeah. There we go. Right. On it on the podcast right here. Yeah. They changed up tempo. They went up tempo sometimes. I think I heard some changing cadences. is. Well, that's a lot. I think a lot of that's on Alex. Sure. Which is good. Got a fourth and 13? It got, well, I'm going to get to that here.

That was insanity. Insanity. Yeah. You know, I'll wait until you get to it. All right. So here are the things I didn't like, the defense. Couldn't stop the run. Five yards to carry. DeAndre Swift found creases. He's really good at people making, really good at making people miss. The coverages seemed to be at times a little bit too soft and a little bit confusing. that first drive of 92 yards and five plays was embarrassing. It took a minute and 52 seconds and Fuller got beat badly on the touchdown to Hall. They've got a chance to get off the field a couple of times in the game that would have been huge to the outcome.

And KPL lowers his helmet into Stafford when he was about to go down anyway. That would have been a punt rather than whatever it ended up being, I forget. Better field position, worst case. The second touchdown passed to Marvin Jones. You know, on that drives, you know, they left Cephas, wide open who dropped a ball over the middle even before that. Right. But the early third quarter, second and 20, you're going to have to explain this one to me.

Why on second and 20 playing situational football? And you said you like Del Rio's aggressiveness. Why do you blitz on second and 20? And they got screened and it was the perfect timing for a screen against the second and 20 blitz. And it goes for 30 yards or 27 yards, whatever it was. When you're second and 20, that drive should end with a punt. 80% of the time, 75% of the time. And the one thing you can't do is you can't give them the opportunity on a draw or screen on second and 20,

which you know you're going to see 70% of the time give them a chance to get a big playoff of that. I didn't like that at all. They sent six rushers. Now, you may tell me Bostick had the responsibility of Swift on the screen. Or it may have been camera curl. I mean, someone has to. But what are you? So, but here's the thing.

Why are you blitzing there? You heard this as you, you listen to the broadcast. Del Rio's a zone blitz type of guy. But that wasn't his own blitz. I looked at it. Was it man to man behind everything? I'll go back and look to see if it's man behind everything. But they sent, the only thing that would be the question is whether or not Bostick had responsibility for Swift.

Or APL. excuse me, or Curl, who ran right by him. Yeah, but you had. That was the other thing is Curl runs right by Swift, and you're like, dude, he's at least going to touch you, like the second he just lets you go, you're not going to get a free run at the quarterback like that. He's not just going to let you go. You've got to send screen a little bit.

I just. Second 20, everyone should be screaming, draw a screen. Right. And they weren't. They clearly didn't expect it. And that's what bothered me about that play. Like, here it is. Hold on.

at it again right here. So let me just see. Curl's coming on the safety blitz, or, you know, the slot corner blitz. It's clearly a screen, and Swift is doing the thing where he shades curl and then jumps out to the open, and Bostick's coming to you. You've got six pass rushers. It's not his own

blitz. Okay, it's not his own blitz. It could be a zone blitz with six rushers. Hold on for a second. Let me just make sure that the right defense event. Is that Ryan? No, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's, You've got four down linemen all pressuring and you got two extra rushers. And it's a screen and it burns them for 26 yards. I mean, come on, man.

Come on, Jack. I mean, I'm not trying to be a whiny butt here. I'm not trying to be your boss. But, I mean, everybody that watches football knows second 20 screen or draw. I mean, key coaching point on that blitz in a second long situation could have been, hey, if you're flying off the edge and you sense that back is sitting there. of not doing anything, peel. Right.

I mean, you could, that could be Jack, that could be Curl, that could be Bostic. I mean, to me, Curl's the free rusher off the edge in what you're trying to create. And he's probably the guy, he's the guy that's going to hit first from the secondary. So that's the back's protection responsibility. If you were worried about screen, you would have said Curl. No, I can see what you're saying there. There's no doubt. But they, I don't know.

Maybe they didn't. If Curl's going to read screen and play Cricin. situational football, and doesn't run by Swift to Stafford, then Stafford's going to have to throw the ball and kill it at Swift's, you know, legs, you know, and kill the play. So I understand that, you'd have to look at Bostic and tell me if he had responsibilities for Swift as well. Anyway, the point here is, I don't know why you blitz on second and 20. I don't know why with six seconds left you play soft coverage when the kickers got the biggest

leg in the league or one of them. You're a whiny butt. Yeah. And, you know, so let me give you, let me give you one, two other things. Well, Hopkins, obviously, is on the list of things I didn't like. They should have squibed kicked the kickoff with 16 seconds left. I don't like that they kicked it out of the end zone and gave Stafford with three timeouts the 25-yard line without some clock being burned.

You know, 16 seconds left, kick it high, make them return it. Yeah, or swim it down there and let them fumble around with it. get five, six, seven seconds burned off the clock. Just go cover a kick. I mean, if you squib it, they're just going to fall on it. Look, so far what we've learned about Rivera and staff through nine games more than anything else is they're not good in-game strategists. They're not.

They're just not. You know, the fourth and 13 in the third quarter, that's the wrong decision. Oh, well, I mean, it was a bit of a quiz for Alex. It was a quiz for Alex, exactly. Oh my God. Can you imagine if Alex decided not to throw it at least beyond the sticks? Oh, that would have been so much fun to come in. Let's make an excuse. Let's make an excuse for why we've made a boneheaded decision here. I mean, if that doesn't work out, again, you're getting crucified for it.

Well, I mean, that early in the season with Duane. You know the thing I loved about it though as I rethought it? And I think you have to rethink some of these situations. If you have that first down area between the, what was it, the three yard line? Um, yeah, it had to go to about the three yard line, yeah. Naturally, they aren't going to play sticks. They're going to play the goal line. Like, and defensively, if you think about it, you've got to be very clear to tell your dudes.

To play sticks. You got to play sticks here. Interesting. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Yes. When I went back and watched that like three times because I was sitting saying to myself, like, this is a dumb decision. It's a dumb decision.

But if you rethink it a little bit, the natural response of a defensive player would be to play goal line, which gives you three yards of buffer to run those sit-down rounds. Well, I mean, I don't like the decision. I'm trying to kind of cut half full here. But when you do think about it, watch the way they played it. They played goal line. They didn't play sticks. Look, the bottom line is, you know, at 24 to 3, with three minutes to go in the third quarter,

fourth and 13 on a condensed field, you're actually better off kicking the field goal, really. I mean, because 24 to 6, even with that kicker is high probability on a short field goal. And the score remaining 24 to 3 with them having first down after the next play is high probability as well. That's really tough, fourth and 13 on a condensed field. I love your point about playing end zone and goal line versus sticks. Anyway, the bottom line is, like, okay, it's 24-3, whatever, you know? Like, is 24-6 with the way your defense playing? Are you going to get back into it that way?

You probably are just thinking, our only chances to score three touchdowns. And it did work out. And it not only worked, it seemed to really inspire them. But back to that point, they have not been great, you know, Rivera. And he wasn't in Carolina on, you know, game situation stuff. couple of other quick things, and then we will wrap up our game take here and talk about some of the other games of the day. I honestly, Cooley, I think the second and two reverse on the opening drive is one of those plays. First of all, Alex misses a block that would have made the play go for

a big play. You know, he totally avoided throwing the block. I don't hate the call. They played it well. Okay, good. That's my point. People are killing that call. Like, you know, and I'm I'm like, look, he had him off balance, man. Like, if that works, it's like, is anybody saying, oh, I'm glad that worked because that was a terrible call? No, it was a terrible call because it didn't work. And it knocked them, you know, back when it was second and two. And actually, to be honest with you, I think the second and two after eight yards and

first down is exactly the right time to call that. You seem to have them. And there's a reason. Most times you do that, there's a reason for that. you saw something in the red zone that you liked. I mean, most people don't dial up a reverse in the red zone on second two just to just to do it for fun. That's right. I mean, most coaches have spent some time evaluating why they're going to do that.

And, you know, maybe they didn't get the defense they wanted or, you know, didn't get the look they wanted. But I didn't hate it. What was, I'm trying to think of what the play was before that play. Anyway, it's too bad. It's too bad because Alex actually has a chance. not even to throw a block, but just to shade the guy a little bit that may have, you know, allowed McKissick to get outside of him and turn it into a, at least a level play or a couple. Who was it, Ragland? I think it was Ragland over the end of the edge.

I don't know. Yeah, and I think maybe you say, hey, look, Ragland's a guy that's going to crash down here. We would like this look with him on this side or whatever. I don't know. I mean, the other one is jealous. looking at it right now. I think it's, um, is that Everson Griffin? Did he get traded? He will, he, yeah, no, he's, yes, he plays for Detroit. He did play a lot on. Yeah, it was, it was Griffin, it was Griffin who, uh, Alex Smith needed to, uh, to block. God, I've always loved him as a player. Yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's good pass, I shrew. But yeah, the one that's worse is, you know, at that point in the game, taking the sack. Yeah. Um, the big sack right

there. Anyway. And to your point, I would have kicked a field goal. And again, not to harp on this over and over, but I'll just make it very clear. If you can't kick a field goal there, you can't have that kicker. And as much as he's missed, and I like Hopkins, you got to cut,

you got to let him go. You got to let Hopkins go right now. I mean, no, I'm dead serious. He, this is, he's got to,

he's got to be done. He, it's either him or you got to have somebody else. He kicked the, he kicked the, the field goal that tied the game that should have forced overtime. I'm aware of that, but we cannot afford to miss a field goal

almost every single. single week. I know. It's just not good enough. And so it's either that or you have to reevaluate what you're doing with Hopkins. I mean, a lot of teams even now have hired good former kickers that just spend time with the kicker. I'm sorry. Maybe it's not just the special teams coach. Like maybe you go out and you get a great former kicker and you're like, okay, we want you to just be with this dude. He can do it. I remember Jay when when Hopkins became their kicker saying God, the ball explodes off his foot. Like, you got to see him up close in Ashburn.

I mean, he's the kind of guy that they, you know, special teams coaches and head coaches look for it because the ball explodes off his foot and it gets elevation immediately. He's not a low ball kicker. You know, he's a high ball kicker. And people love that. But he's just missed too many, I mean, I think about the last time they were in Detroit, big game in the 2016 season and, you know, and he missed a kick in that game and he missed two kicks in Dallas that year and he missed the kick in London that year. And it's like, man,

that season should have never come down to that giant game. They should have already clinched that year. He's missed a lot of big kicks, man. A lot of kicks that have really hurt over the years. They don't have a kicking coach. They have a special teams coach, Nate Katzer. Yeah, but how many, how many balls is Nate Katzer? kicked. Well, what is that mean? You know what I'm saying? So what does that mean? Every team should have a kicking coach. A lot of teams do have kicking coaches. They do? Just in addition to a special teams coach, they have a kicking coach? Really? But think of how impactful. Okay, one, you have unlimited funds. You're an NFL organization. Two, there is no limit on the amount of coaches that you can actually

have. Three, the special teams coach is involved with all aspects of special teams. And when they're not involving when it's the punt team what's kicker doing playing with his balls over there on the sideline it's footballs

spinning them you know flipping them up and down doing all kinds of stuff with the balls and to me there's so much valuable time that you could spend

with the kicking coach but I wanted to mention if you wanted to keep Popkins regardless have a kicking coach. Every team should have one. I wanted to mention one other thing. I'm just looking at my notes from the game. You know, so to me, Alex Smith was exceptional and the defense was not. If I were to sum it up in one really good thing and one terrible thing, Alex Smith was exceptional and the defense was much

less than exceptional. You know what the most disappointing drive of the game was? Not the ones that they scored easily on in the first half. It was after they had gotten some stops and Because look, to come back from 24-3 down, you've got to get a couple of stops, too, which they did. But when they finally tied the game at 24-24, they let Detroit just get back into a rhythm. And one of the things I wanted to make sure you agree with me on, they didn't come back from 24-3 down because Detroit was in pre-vent, which I had multiple people tell me on the phone today. They were not in pre-vent up 24-3. Do they get soft? Patricia doesn't play.

No, Patricia has a man-covered aggressive. aggressive blitz defense team. Well, they played a lot of zone yesterday, I thought. They did more than normal, but they still played a lot of man-to-man, and they played man-to-man in the back half of that game as well. The reason they did play more zone was because they were up 24 to 3, which I think you would reevaluate if you were Detroit and say, why did we do what we don't normally do?

Right. So, I mean, look, the bottom line is you have, you had a team that can psychologically get overconfident. Like, that can happen. But their strategy wasn't, let's play pre-vent and give up a lot and let this guy throw for 390 yards. That was not the strategy. But the drive that actually is really disappointing is after they tie it up, they've got all the momentum in the world. And they let Detroit methodically go down the field, you know. And there was one play in particular that drove me crazy.

It was a third and one, and they gave it to Swift on a sweep, and nobody was fucking there. I mean, nobody was. And it went for like 15 yards and it's like... It was the one where he was so frustrated that he didn't stay inbound. Yeah, exactly. That was the one. And, you know, they got back, this was the biggest, this is the biggest drive of the game. If they get another stop, at that point, Detroit's defense has been on the field for 80, you know, whatever it is.

You know, so many plays in the game, they're not, they're gassed. If you get one stop here, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, you know, whatever it is, you know, you're to win the game in regulation. And you give up, you give up, you know, unfortunately a long drive that ends up in a praet or field goal. You know, they were unable to complete a third in nine where I think they, I think they did not blitz on that play. Anyway, oh, that was the play where they played total zone and Stafford, rolled, rolled, rolled,

and then had to throw it away, which I thought was a really good defense and good discipline defense. And then they get the penalty on the kickoff return. I don't know. It was like you had a chance. Like this is the stop now defense. This is the one you've got to make. If you can get them off the field, we win the game because they cannot stop Alex

Smith in this offense right now. I mean, put it this way. They needed three and they started at their own 11 yard line and still got in field goal range. Got a little bit of help. Like four penalties on that drive. They did. They got some help.

They got some help. All right. Here's the last thing I wanted to say about this game. Alex Smith running this offense or essentially any distributor running this offense, especially in a first year offense, is what you just have to have. If first year offense with a new coordinator and new coaching staff cannot afford a quarterback to grow, unless you want to really suck and you want to turn in and transition to stuck next year. And I think you saw it and it proved itself in this game.

Isaiah Wright's making plays. All of a sudden, Cam Sims is making place. You got guys out of the backfield in Gibson and McKissick. you have much more versatility offensively with what you do with formations and protections. McLaren's getting more pause. I mean, it's no, no offense to actually Dwayne in any ways as a player, just to the idea of a developing young quarterback. You have to have some form of offense in place to develop a quarterback. And they didn't.

They did not have an offseason. They did not have OTAs. They had it abbreviated, essentially non. in-person meeting training camp. And it's funny, he may still develop in this league. But God, we've been saying this on this podcast all year. It didn't fit to have Duane. And to me, the idea that he started the first five games really did not help you.

This offense is finally starting to grow. And it started with Kyle Allen and now with Alex Smith. And I'm just, I'm going to tell you over and over and over again, when players see themselves making plays the way they've been designed and coached, they get better. And without being able to make some of those plays, they get frustrated. And to grow, they needed a quarterback who could facilitate and distribute. He is a distributor, man. And he was on as a distributor yesterday. It's a really interesting point you bring up, too, because, like, I don't know if I'm repeating myself, just tell me. But Scott Turner here over the last couple of weeks has also done a really good job of getting

his best playmakers the ball. McClorn, eight touches yesterday, seven catches and the fly sweep for 27 yards. McKissick 15 touches. Gibson 17 touches. Like, you know how many times we would hear Kirk as an example. Okay, my guy. I go where my reads take me. And I understand that there's a lot of that in every quarterbacking position. But man, whatever they're designing, they've got, here's the irony about Alex in 2018 versus Alex now. So he's not as physically gifted, obviously, even though he's much more capable of protecting himself than we ever thought he would be. That was obvious yesterday.

He may, the system's a better fit. We already mentioned that. He actually may have better weapons on this team. I think this is the part that we're learning about this team. McKissick and Gibson and McLaurin definitely and maybe Cam Sims and, you know, Logan Thomas at times. And what did that team have? Paul Richardson, Josh Doxon. It did have Adrian Peterson in the backfield.

It had Chris Thompson. It had... Was 2018 Jordan Reed's final year here where he played healthy? I think it was. Sort of healthy. Sort of healthy. 2017 was his big year. Right. Sort of healthy.

But 2016 was his big year. 2016. Yeah, 2016 was his massive year. He's also not healthy. San Francisco this year. He had a great catch yesterday. Did you see that? Yeah, he's a great player. Oh my God, he had a phenomenal catch yesterday. No, he's

a great player. But I guess my point is that not only is the offense a better fit, but he actually may have, and this is crazy to say, because this was the biggest question mark, one of them, before the year started. He actually might have better weapons. They certainly have a

coordinator that figures out two years ago. Right. Well, here's the other thing that's changing your weapons. Terry McLaurin is a top 10 receiver. I know. And so he's going to dictate coverage, and he's still going to win. And that's what top 10 receivers do. Like you're going to, Terry's only getting better.

One last thing I didn't ask you about. Two things. One, they were obviously planning again for Chase Young. You could see it at times during the game. But at some point, Chase Young, if he's the player, you and I both think he is. And a lot of people think he is. Miles Garrett doesn't let double teams stop him. So what happened yesterday? Because I didn't think he had a very good game at all. Do you remember what I told you last week? I said,

he's playing with so much concern for responsibility. I haven't watched this game on film. Right. But he's playing with so much concern for responsibility. Oh, also, did you see that their left tackle hadn't given up a sack in

like 11 games? I didn't know that. Their left tackle, it's been, it's been 11 games since he's given up a sack, something like that. Well, that would have been more about sweat. He had, I think, a hold on sweat. And they pointed out, like, he'd rather hold than give up a sweat. Oh, yeah, that's a good point. I do remember that.

But it'd been like 11 games. But, yeah, what I saw in Chase Young last week was a guy that's really trying to please in terms of responsibility sound. Like, at times, you're like, he could just go make a play if he wanted to. Well, he's going to have to. I also said he's got to use speed rush more. Right. I don't know. We'll watch this again, but I think that there's something to wanting to speed rush more.

And honestly, Kev, again, it may be some of this responsibility stuff. Like, hey, you can't go barreling up the field because we're going to open up that gap for the quarterback to step up into. That said, if he goes flying up the field with speed rush and ends up with two sacks a game, maybe you create more turnovers, maybe you create more plays on defense. It's a defense that's sound, but it's not making enough plays. Chase Young's got to make them. Last one. Back to the big picture quarterback situation. So I told you, my lean would be Alex Smith is still not the long-term answer,

and I hope they don't go that route. What's yours, even though I was blown away with his performance yesterday? So I don't think that he's the long-term answer, but he may be that great. answer for drafting a quarterback in the first or second round. I personally still think you draft a quarterback in the first round, in part because you maintain that fifth year option. And so if, especially a quarterback, that's really important. If you want to take a quarterback, you know, and maybe even potentially your guys mid to late round first, so you can trade out of that spot and take a quarterback, Alex is going to be fine for next year. Now, I think Alex is going to provide an answer for not having to pay. Kyle Allen anything, right? Because Kyle Allen's a free agent. If Alex stay selfie. Well, Alex, you save about

14 million if you release him. I don't think you're going to pay Kyle Allen anything next year. I don't think he's going to dictate any real money next year based on that game and a half. I think Kyle Allen would have produced similar results yesterday. I can't say no, but at the same time,

it's hard to say absolutely to that. Look, there's some quarterbacks in this draft, and I'm not going to shy away from drafting the best player in this draft. But at the same time, I mean, you may end up getting one of these guys a little bit later in the first round, which would then buy Alex another year. And you can develop a guy.

No one's better to do it behind Alex, according to Kansas City. Like, Alex's a good teacher. Alex is a good role model. He's a good leader. He's a good teacher. He's, if he's capable of doing what he did comment on a common basis, you pay him. There were a couple of quotes yesterday about Smith from Rivera said the way he distributes the ball, the way he keeps everybody involved. When you're distributing the ball and every player out there realizes you have to be on your game because he may throw you the ball.

You can be the third or fourth option and it doesn't matter. It's sort of what you said. Isaiah Wright said that he was amazed with Smith's calm when they were down yesterday. Very poised, not flustered. Wright said he's admitted that he's himself been flustered at times. with everything coming so fast, but when he looks to Smith, he notices how Smith seems to make everything slow down. Suddenly the game slows down for right as well. And I think, you know, I know sometimes this is a lot of, you know, platitude talk and other, you know, sort of cliche talk

and, you know, lessons, you know, delivered talk. But he is a mentor, you know, and if you, he is, he's really providing an example to anybody willing to listen, you know, and pay attention. And obviously you hope that Dwayne does and Kyle does, all of them do. But I don't know. I mean, I'd like to see this team draft a quarterback. But at the same time, I don't want them to draft a quarterback that they're not convinced about because there's some really good players in this draft. If they end up with the top five pick, top six pick, they could get their middle

linebacker of the future in Micah Parsons. They could get another ridiculous receiver like a Devante Smith or Jamar Chase. They could get their left tackle of the future. Like there's going to be some opportunities in this draft where they're going to be picking to add a really good potential player. And you've got to be careful in the quarterback. You know, the other conversation that we're hearing a lot of today in the last couple of days is, you know, damn it, you know, Chase Young isn't blowing anybody away with numbers.

So why didn't they just take Tua? Why didn't they take Herbert? You know, that was their opportunity to get their quarterback and they didn't do it. That's, I mean, it's an interesting argument. I think Chase Young will eventually blow people away with numbers. Montes Sweat didn't blow anybody away last year at all. Agreed. And you looked at that trade up in the draft and went, why did we do that?

Montezweat has been outstanding this year. And sometimes it takes a little bit of time for these guys to get a feel for the NFL type of linemen that they're playing against. Chase Young is still at this point, to me, dominated against offensive linemen and tight ends in the run game for sure. And he's a guy that they have to plan for in the past game and that they're add an extra dudes to. They're turning the offensive line to.

I mean, as he gets better, I don't see a problem with that. But then you're sitting here saying, look how good freaking Herbert is. I know. God. And you can't win without a quarterback. You got to win without a quarterback. Now, that said, you can win with, I think you win with defense. I mean, obviously, quarterback is paramount, but I think you still win with defense.

And I don't think they're far away from being a pretty good defense. Look, if you told me right now, as much of a Chase Young fan as I am, I don't know. I'm not often. If you told me right now, you can go back and you can take a quarterback or you can take Chase Young, I would take Justin Herbert based on what I've seen this year. but there was some unknown well based up what you've seen this year you would say i would trade eight picks down right yeah i would i would i would trade a couple of picks at number number yeah right you know what i mean because there was so much value in chase young at that number two pick exactly

where herbert go like 20 no no no no no he went he went no he went no he went no he went no he the top 10 right he went in the top 10 right he went uh he went in like number nine hold on i'm going to pull it up right now. Herbert, Herbert. He went six to the charge versus six. Okay. So, you know. Yeah.

I mean, and Tua looked good yesterday. If you were a threat to take a quarterback at two, you know, you could potentially have traded down with Miami to five and let them take Tua. And you could have taken Herbert at five and picked up, remember they had another, didn't Miami have another pick in the first round? they had a couple of picks in the first round. Yeah, they had 18 and 20. You would have had to take him at five.

So five, if you switched spots with Miami at five, you would have known that the chargers were going to take a quarterback. So you would have had to take him at five. And even if you thought they might not, Carolina probably would have taken Herbert at seven. So you had to take a quarterback there. And then Jacksonville was it not. I mean, he wasn't getting past 10. This is all Monday morning quarterbacking stuff.

But anyway. Whatever. I mean, the question is, the question is, what was the value for Chase Young to moved back five spots and it might have been a first next year. Understood. All right, let's talk about a couple of the other games played and then get out for the day. I'm going to save some of the Snyder story stuff from Friday and over the weekend for Wednesday.

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All right, a couple real quick things before we get to around the NFL. Number one is, man, is Dustin Johnson something else to watch. And I watched a lot of the Masters. this weekend. And once, you know, once we got to Washington, Detroit at one, I didn't really watch the finish. Fortunately, it wasn't a close tournament at the end. And you knew Dustin was essentially taking his victory, you know, lap in the final few holes. But that was a record-breaking win, 20 under par, beat Tiger and Jordan Speath's record of 18 under par. What an athlete, man, what a swing. He's a dominant player. And, you know, Cooley, the, the, the fours, funny thing is the stories about him and his brother and how, you know, sort of not bright they are

in the whole thing. It's great for a golfer. On to the next shot. On to the next shot. But, man, they seem to work well together. I mean, I like Dustin Johnson. I like watching him play. I can tell you that.

Hey, what do you think here? I don't know. Just hit it. Swingheart. There's a really, really good story about that. Go ahead. No, I know. I like Dustin Johnson, too.

I think it was exceptional. I mean, he broke records, but you got to keep in mind that course is a different course in November than it is. Yeah. When they normally play the Masters. So I wouldn't care about the record in that instance. But I mean, 20 under to 15 under being the next best. And then, I mean, you go down the list. It was an incredible performance by Dustin Johnson.

And it's just so much fun when he's on. When he's on, nobody hits the ball better than Dustin Johnson. Incredible. By the way, Paulina. She's pretty good-looking, yes. She's not as good-looking as she was... She's not as super hot as she was a few years ago. Here's the story.

I found this story from Bob Herrick, ESPN.com. I'll just give you just a minute of it. The first paragraph, the stories are legendary and not all that flattering. Dustin Johnson and his brother Austin look like an excellent team now, a master's green jacket, and a ridiculously good 2020 golf year.

amid a pandemic and is all the proof you need. But when Dustin decided to hire his brother full-time to be his caddy in 2013, the reviews were not so good. Using a family member as a fill-in on a bag is one thing. To entrust him with what has become a big business gig is quite another. And given some of Johnson's high-profile final round missteps over the years, the move seemed even more curious. The belief was that the carefree, sometimes aloof Johnson, needed a steadying influence and experienced caddy who would guide him through golf's minefields.

You ever hear of that movie, Dumb and Dumber? One prominent player asked during a practice round with Johnson several years ago, he then pointed to Dustin and Austin and smiled. Now, just so you know, for many years now, that's been the word about Dustin and even his brother, not overly brilliant by any stretch of the imagination. But anyway, there were some stories in here real quickly about their relationship early on. Austin said, look, when I started, I was more of a buddy, someone for him to hang out with.

I'm a decent player. I know the game, but being a top caddy, not even close, but I was a sponge. I got close to Bones Mackay, Phil Mickelson's longtime caddy, and other guys, and just tried to be a sponge and learn. And then there's a couple of stories. Johnson said, it's unbelievable having my brother on the bag. He's a big help. He reads Greens a lot for me. He does a great job reading them. I read them too, but he definitely helps. He's really good at that. I just love experiencing all these moments with him. I wouldn't want it any other way. But at times, Dustin fed into the narrative that his brother was more of a hindrance than a help. In 2019, when a new version of the rules of, of golf came out, Dustin noted at the year opening event in Hawaii that he hadn't really studied them yet and that he was asking for a printout of the new rules to make sure that Austin, his brother, had a copy. When asked how he expected that to go, he said probably not very well. And then just two months ago, there was an issue at the U.S. Open in which Austin apparently lost his yardage book.

It seems that the book could fall into the bottom of the bag. Not wanting to dump out all of the clubs, Dustin said they located a backup, but it was from the week before. So Dustin said, yeah, but it worked out well. Dustin said, I don't mind making fun of my brother. He's smarter than you think, said Rory McElroy. And there are a couple of more stories. It's a really good read that Bob Herrick wrote ESPN.com about how The title is how two brothers went from dumb and dumber to winning the masters.

It's an interesting relationship. Come on. He's a great player. He's a great player. And the more you're around golf, do you want somebody that makes you uncomfortable? Do you think Dustin Johnson wants somebody that's going to overanalyze and give him X amount of stats to every shot? Or they're going to say to him, hey, what was your first thought? Dustin's like seven.

He goes, that's what I'm thinking too. Let's, let's nail this sucker. Dustin now all of a sudden is a confident player. All you want to do is get your guy confident and I don't care if it's a brother. You know what is? Get a good fit. It's a good team. You're very confident in your brother.

I have, I think there's some, there's some funniness to the to the dumb and dumber aspect of it. But don't overthink it, man. Be comfortable and go play. And that's what Dustin Johnson did. There was a really good story that I think Nance or somebody was saying. It may have been Saturday. could have been yesterday morning about his brother and said that sometimes, you know, even if they're not exactly 100% sure on the yardage, his brother said or on the right club,

his brother, his younger brother, the caddy Austin said about his brother. He's such a great feel player that I can hand him almost anything and his feel will just make it work. You know, like. I love that. I love that too. You know, but he's an athlete. He's an athlete. Yeah, he's in this in the world of golf where you're creating machines with all of these guys.

And it's so tech involved. Right. I like the Bubba Watson's and I like the Dustin Johnson's and the Phil Mickelson's. And the guys that you go watch. Yeah. Yeah. And just that you just see he's an athlete. Yeah.

Make it work. One other quick thing. Dustin Johnson would wire his cord together. I don't think he'd be on the air right now. You saw what Tiger did yesterday, right, on number 12? So for those that missed it, Tiger actually played pretty well this weekend, and then he got to number 12 at Amen Corner yesterday, and he hits it into the water, then he hits it into the water again,

then he hits it into a trap, then he hits it into the water again, and for the first time in his career, he ended up with a double-digit number on a hole. He had a 10 on the par 312 at Augusti yesterday, a 10. He then, after the 10, birdied five of the final six holes to shoot 76 on the day, but he was staring 81 plus, you know, and that to me is, that's a champion, right? I mean, you have the most disastrous hole of your career, and you answer with five birdies and six holes to finish out the masters. and he finished 38th tied for 38th, one under. You know, without that, if he just parsed that, he finishes, you know, at 8 under

and tied, you know, he gets a top 20, top 15 finish. Yeah, but I mean, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Who knows? You know, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doesn't go on that birdie streak. Maybe he doesn't.

Who knows? Butterful effect. Yeah. Meantime, Bryson DiCimbo, who was the story coming into this thing, barely made the cut, ended up finishing tied for 34th, 200. All right. Other NFL games real quickly, we've already talked about the Baltimore New England game.

We talked a little bit about the ending of the Arizona Buffalo game. But just, again, the ending of that, not only Hopkins, but Kyler Murray, buying time to make that throw. Yeah, incredible. Incredible. By the way, that Buffalo, that's huge for New England who got to win. Oh, yeah. Buffalo now fell, if Buffalo wins that game, I mean, it's going to be really tough.

Yeah. especially if the season's abbreviated for New England, have any shot. There's still a couple games back, but game a shot. Here are two games I want to talk about. The Giants are the best team in the NFC East right now. They are. They so are. They're going to win this division.

I think they're going to win the division too. And why are they going to win the division? Because they actually have a good quarterback. They have a good quarterback. And their defense. He made some big throws in that game. And their defense is pretty good, too. Do you know the Eagles in that game were 0 for 9 on third down?

I do for 9. And they had a ton of pressure on Wentz. They had a ton of pressure last week on Washington and the week before. I mean, they caused a fumble that they returned for a touchdown. The Giants, I think, are the best defensive team. Oh, hold on, Coach Del Rio. I don't want to sound like a whiny butt and I don't want to act like I'm your boss. But the Giants have the best defense in the division.

The Eagles have the second best defense in the division, and Washington's defense is probably the third best in the division. But I think the funny thing about the Giants at 3 and 7 is their record could be, we've already talked about this, their record could be much better. They blew a game against the Eagles. They had a chance, they had a flag picked up on a PI on a two-point conversion against Tampa. They lost on a walk-off field goal against Andy Dalton at the end of the cowboy game. but they play after their byweek at Cincinnati, at Seattle. They play Arizona. They play the Browns.

They play the Ravens. Are they going to win the division with a 5 and 11 record? Maybe. Maybe. Can they get to 6 wins? Can they win three more games? Because I think if the Giants get to 6 now, I think they're going to win the division. 6 and 10 is going to do it in the NFC East this year.

I mean, they can Seattle's in a down turn. They can beat the Bengals. They can beat, I think they could beat the Seahawks. The Cardinals, it's a wild card. The Browns depends on what Baker Mayfield shows up in that game. They'll definitely beat the Cowboys in the last game of the season. They win three more games.

Okay. Then that may be all they need. I mean, let me, I actually. Somehow the Eagles are going to win. Somehow the Eagles are going to find a way to get. I think the Eagles win. six games. Well, that would be six, nine, and one, and that would be... I know that, but that means six and ten is not going to win that division.

Right. I mean, but the eagle, look at the Eagles schedule. The Browns, Seahawks, Proetners, Saints, Cardinals, Cowboys, Washington. So they can beat the Cowboys, and they can beat Washington in that last week, but right now I think Washington would... Who knows? Who knows what we'll be at that point in the season? Or if that game, here's the other thing. Who knows if those last two games even get played? You know what I mean? Who knows if they get to, that the Dallas Washington week. I mean, the Giants may win this division at four wins. Right.

Because you get abbreviated, that'd be incredible. But for the purposes of this conversation, we're assuming all 16 games get played at some point. I think the Giants are the best team in the division, but I don't know if that means they're going to win the division. They're definitely on the biggest upward trend. No doubt. I mean, Daniel Jones is playing better football.

Somehow he gets a read option or his own read for, at least 20 yards in every single game around the left edge. You're like, is someone going to decide to play this Zone Reed stuff? But he made some big throws, man. Some big throws. And they had some receiver step up and make some huge plays. I like Golden Jake came back and made a big catch. I like Goleman a lot.

He runs really hard. I think Galman's good back. The other thing, too, is that he just, for the first time in his, in his brief career, had back-to-back games without a turnover. And that's going to be huge for the Giants. If he doesn't turn the ball over, they're going to have a chance to win these games. He's pretty good people, you know. Like, Cooley and I have had these conversations about there's something about him.

Like, I know the turnovers are bad, but there's something about him. He's a young quarterback. There's a lot about him. He was 21 of 28 for 24 yards, rushed nine times for 64 yards, including that 34-Reed option, 34-yard-reed-option keeper for a touchdown. And they beat Philadelphia 27-17 with their defense sacking once, I think, four times. holding the Eagles to zero for nine, zero for nine on third down in that game. The other game that I wanted to talk about was a game that we both, I think, predicted accurately. I just don't think

Seattle's that great anymore. And, you know, I told you Friday, I think we're going to start to see Seattle with some issues. Now, the Rams didn't win the game as decisively as I thought they would. I thought they'd score more against Seattle's defense. But Russell Wilson had three more turnovers in this game. You know, he has gone from the odds on favorite to win the MVP to now turnover machine. A little bit of a turnover machine. And I think Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rogers right now are ahead of him. And it wouldn't surprise me if like a Rathasburger or if Minnesota makes a run Dalvin Cook get into the conversation seriously as well. But Wilson has had some issues, man, here recently. He's now, after the incredible start to the season, in the last two weeks,

he's got five turnovers. And his teams... And some bad ones. It's a bad ones. Yeah, and in three of the last four games, he's got seven interceptions. They have a massive game. This Thursday night game in the NFC West between Seattle and Arizona is a massive game. I mean, that division right now, three teams are six and three. It's hard to sort of predict who's going to win the division, but Arizona, remember, is already beaten Seattle once. If somehow they complete the sweep by winning on Thursday night, they got a big advantage.

I don't know who's going to win that division. I think Seattle's, look, they still have him, and he's still really good, but they've had so many injuries and their defense isn't that good. I think the Rams are going to win this. division. But why didn't they score more points yesterday, Cooley, against Seattle's defense that gives up a lot of points? I didn't watch the game, Kev.

Yeah. I mean, it wasn't a game that I ended up watching. It's one I'd like to go back and watch film on because, you know, golf had 302 yards passing. They didn't run the ball really that well at all. And they didn't, there wasn't a ton of attempts to run the ball. You know? So I don't, I mean, the one thing I think with the Rams, why they don't score a ton of points is who's their one receiver cup he's he's he's not though he's he's not a one reces like he's no i understand that i see you know what i mean so is it reynolds or is it robert woods i mean there's not a like that's the one thing when you look at those shanahan type systems i think the teams that really excel are the one guys that have the true x i think it's

paramount when you are a heavy run action type of team that you got to a guy that can really get over the top. And I don't know if the Rams have it. I'll tell you what they do have. They do have a good defense. They have a really good defense led by the best defensive player in the league. And that's going to give them a chance. I mean, defensively, I don't know where the Rams rank.

I haven't looked at statistically. But, you know, they lost that game to the Dolphins because they gave up, you know, a defensive touchdown to the Dolphins. A special team's touchdown. but their defense is exceptional. Exceptional. They play, I was looking at it, they play the bucks either this coming week. They play the bucks coming up this week.

Okay. Is that the Monday night game a week from tonight? I think it might be, actually, now that I think about it. November 23rd would be the Monday night. Yeah, yeah. They play the bucks, the 49ers, the Cardinals, the Patriots, and they finish with the Jets and Seahawks. Where is that game on next Monday?

Yes, me. Oh, it's at Tampa. Okay, not that that's a massive difference. I'm curious as to what the point spread is. I'm going to say it's Tampa's slightly favored. The Rams in total yards defensively are number two. Tampa three and a half. The Rams defensively are number one in the league in yards per play on defense.

They're number one of the league in yards for play. They're good defensively. So is Tampa. Tampa is good defensively. You know, you might be seeing. Tampa's been, Tampa's had some games where they're not good defensively. You know who isn't good defensively? Green Bay's not good defensively.

You can run on Green Bay. I mean, I'm just thinking about right now, you know, next Monday night could be, could be a preview of the NFC title game. But then again, what's the breeze situation? Because all of a sudden, I mean, look. Right. Now he's got cracked ribs. He'll play with that. Yeah.

If Breeze is out, here's another question. If Breeze is out, who's their backup quarterback? James Winston. Or do they play Taysam Hill? Yeah, no. Remember last year they played Teddy Bridgewater. Yes, they did. And Bridgewater played really well during the day.

I know he did. He was 5 and 0 during the games that Breeze was out. Wasn't he 5 and 0 or 4 and 0, something like that? I think he was. Yeah, I think he was undefeated. Yeah. But do they play? No.

Who do they play? You got to play James. I think you do just because of the versatility of Taysam Hill. Yeah. But I don't know if they do. And how many turnovers does James have a game? Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, Bruce Ariens is a pretty damn good coach. You know, Sean Payton's a pretty damn good coach.

Let's see if he doesn't turn the ball over. Who do they play coming up? They play the Falcons this week. They play the Broncos. Their next three games. Falcons, Broncos, Falcons, Eagles. Yeah, you just play Jamis against those four teams. Like, if you're going to be without Breeze for a few weeks,

it couldn't have worked out better. I mean, the Falcons are certainly capable offensively. Yeah. Any other games from yesterday you want to talk about? I don't think so. I think the dolphins clearly are a team that we have to really pay attention to.

They're really good on defense. The dolphins are a real contender. They're great on defense, and two has really shown some things. And it looks like they have some guys. How about this running back, Ahmed, This dude, I was watching number 26. At first I'm like, is Lamar Miller back on the dolphins?

This dude is so fast, coolly. I mean, unbelievably quick and fast. And he's a rookie from Oregon or Oregon State, I think. It's played in the Pac-12. And I'm watching this game yesterday. The Chargers are pretty good defensively. And he was just so quick every time they handed the ball off to him. I didn't see enough of the game.

It was more, you know, red zones up. The charges are really average on defense. They were hurt, too. They didn't have Bosi yesterday. I had them in the smell test. That did not work out. But the dolphins are very good to defense. Really good.

You know what? He's a good coach. Vrabel, Flores. Yeah, he's a good coach. But Patricia, no, apparently. Not Patricia. Okay. I'm going to end.

I got to go. God, did you see how many 10-point leads that the lines have blown in the last year, Patricia? Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, and it was almost yesterday, too. It's incredible. I know. You know, the Lions actually, I know people will say they're terrible, terrible team. They're not a great team, but they're four and five, and they really, I mean, they blew that opener.

I think I like Stafford. I think I must be the only person that likes Stafford. Like, if he's available. I love Stafford. See, if he's available next year because they don't want to. He's a dude. I think he is too. He gets hurt a lot, though.

All right, we're done for the day. He does get hurt a lot. Back tomorrow, Cooley will have an offensive film breakdown.