The Kevin Sheehan Show - Thom Talib & Cooley's Alex Grade

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

Kevin and Thom open the show disagreeing on just about everything from Aqib Talib to Alex Smith. Then Cooley jumped in with his "Film Breakdown" of the offense from Sunday's loss to the Lions.  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. Today's show, which is a combo sports fix and a Cooley film breakdown, is sponsored today by Window Nation. By 2. Get to free. No limit.

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Harley and Aaron are great. By the way, they opened up this really good deli in Columbia, Tommy. Your old stretch. Really? Yeah, your old neck of the woods. And we got, in fact, we got a bunch of, of sandwiches from there on Sunday. I didn't even tell Harley that we were going over there,

but Mikey and Mel's famous deli shop, which is in Fulton, Maryland, Maple Lawn Boulevard in Fulton, Maryland. I know exactly where it is. That's great. That's a great new area. Yeah, so they opened up Mikey and Mel's famous deli shop. I don't want to get them confused with Windor Nation. They're serial entrepreneurs, both brothers.

It's why I love them. They're really smart. But anyway, Window Nation, one of the top three window companies in America. I promise you, if you're thinking about new windows or your windows are too old, call them at 866.9 Nation. You'll get too free for every two you buy. You can't beat that deal. Tommy's here from the Fortress of Solitude in Frederick, Maryland, and I am right here in our studios in Bethesda. And I guess we can...

Wait a minute. How are you feeling? I feel great. because I'm thinking you must have been pretty sick. I wasn't sick. I had no voice. I know you keep saying that, but I think you had to be really sick. Don't tell me what I had to be, okay?

On your radio show yesterday. You're not the boss of me, you whiny little butt. You declared that a key to leave was a star in the making. Now, anyone who would say, that would have to have some kind of illness. Oh my God, I loved him. Oh my God. He's the worst, the worst I have ever heard. That's so funny. I tweeted out that that Washington football is a couple games away from having Pee Wee Herman as their color analysts for their Fox games. It's funny because Kooley and I talked about this yesterday. It's obviously such a subjective thing. And I know you're

talking about, I guess, John Orand, because John Orand, I guess, listened to the radio show and I talked about Talib and he wrote something about how others also believe that he is a star in the making, including some of the broadcasters at Fox, who did, I guess, practice games with him or whatever. I haven't read John's whole story because he just sent it to me early this morning, but it's such a subjective thing, these things, just like listening to us, very subjective because I guarantee you you'll find somebody that will say to somebody, oh, man, I love it. love Tommy and Sheehan on that podcast and somebody will say, are you nuts? Yeah, but you see, some people are right.

Some people are wrong. But I... Here's why. Here's the attraction of Talib. And I'll never understand this about analysts and people's infatuation with them. Awful announcing wrote this about them. Those looking for in-depth analysis and breakdowns of certain plays weren't getting it from Talib.

Oh, my God. At least not in this debut broadcast. That's exactly what you did get. No, you got nothing like that. Oh, my. You got nothing like that. What are you talking about? That's all you did get was X's and O's analysis.

I loved it. No, here's what you got. But Talib made up for it with exuberance familiar to anyone watching an NFL game with friends and fellow fans. He offered nothing in terms of insight to tell you, to teach. you something that you didn't already know. Oh, my God. I mean, besides calling everybody by their first name throughout the whole game, all he did

was this attraction was it was just like sitting there watching it with my buddy. That was the attraction. Yeah, I mean, I just completely disagree. He was terrible. Tell me, once insight, tell me something you learn from watching the game. I know you know a lot about football. That's right. You know, from years of watching and on TV.

And playing professionally. So tell me what he taught you. Well, this is my measure. What's your measure? That's my, my measure is tell me something I don't know. Tell me something I don't know. Well, let me start. That's what you're there for.

Let me start with this. First of all, it is obviously very subjective. It's a matter of personal taste. It's a matter of what you're looking for. It's a matter of a lot of things. there was a massive response, you know, to him, which is why Orand wrote about it. A lot of people couldn't stand it. A lot of people loved it.

There wasn't a massive response. Six people watched the broadcast. Okay. The game only went to like, you know, 7% of the country or 8% of the country or whatever. But given that it only went to a limited number of people, there was a response. Like, he generated a response. You know, a lot of these guys, you don't even know who it is and you're not even asking who it is. So I didn't like it to start with. I was like, oh my God, who is this? And as the game went on,

I'm like, he is really giving you excellent insight in a very unique way. It sounds like... You better go back and watch it. Oh, I mean, Cooley and I did 10 minutes in this. Cooley actually had the same reaction. He goes, at first, I'm like, oh, my God. And then Cooley said, good Lord, does he know the game? And he really provided, you know, phenomenal insight in a way that. was very much player driven, right? Because he was leveraging, he was calling people by their first names, and he knows so many people, you know, and so many people in these games that he does,

if he gets to do more games, he will be super familiar with. And, you know, like, to me, I do, well, we just have a disagreement on his, this style to me was actually became fun and funny at times. But more importantly, he was giving you excellent, defensive insight. Zero.

What they were in, what coverages they were in, why the coverages were being played, why Del Rio. I don't know what you're talking about. That's all he did do, Tommy. I don't know what you're talking about. That's not what he did. I mean, at one point, Heli goes, you know, you've talked a lot about cover two and cover three.

I heard you talk, I heard you just, you know, just mentioned an inverted cover two. Can you explain that? So I don't know what game you were watching. I heard that. You've got hearing issues. There you go. There you go. You picked out the point where he explained the bat.

Then they spent time talking about cover four and various other things. Whatever. Look, I can't even believe you were watching the game. I mean, I think if you weren't on this podcast, you would have just been calling old friends from your Rolodex or watching. By the way, I did watch the first episode. I did watch the first episode of the Queen's Gambit, and I cannot wait to get to the next one. It's pretty good. I cannot wait to get the next one.

It's really good. I am shocked that you even watch the game. Look, you feel the way you feel. You're not going to change my mind, but you know what? Just like Alex Smith, I may change my mind next week. I mean, it could easily change here in a matter of minutes. As it went on, it's funny, my son was watching the game in the other room. And at one point early in the game, he goes, Dad, who is this calling the game?

First of all, that was so odd because my sons never even care about who's calling the game. So I think what Talib did do with this very limited audience, he certainly generated a response. And you know what? That's something that you can't knock one way or the other. No, you can. That's the Rob Dibble School broadcast. Noelle, in this day and age, where literally these guys have become commodities, with the exception of a few of them, you have to, you've got to generate some sort of response, and I think he did that.

I know that half the people probably read this and said, oh, my God, what game was he watching? And half of the people said, oh, my God, I agree. Because we talked about this, Cooley and I did, and we got a lot of responses on Twitter going, oh, my God, the guy was phenomenal. And yes, Cooley's point, and I made this point too, which is opposite of your point. I think the one thing he's got to get coached up on is getting away from too much of the X's and O's conversation. Because, well, I mean, that's exactly what, you know, here's a part, and I just pulled up the Oran's story. Talib was not polished.

He was not cookie cutter, and that seems to be why viewers warm to him. It was clear that he was having fun paired with the always solid Dan Helly, who, by the way, not only is just solid, Helly's good. Helly's really good. All right. But anyway. Maybe you had the wrong game up. Anyway, Oran...

Danny Villanueva was playing in my game. So, Orand writes, Talib did get bogged down in X's nose on occasion. And then he has a quote in here for me from the radio show yesterday. His analysis was really good. And I thought as a personality, he was outstanding. Yeah, I liked him. I think that's, I think what they will coach him up on if he gets more opportunities.

And I know for whatever reason this sailed right over your head is I think he just got way too technical into the X's and O's, which by the way. Yeah, that's it. It was over my head. I couldn't do the math of cover two, cover three, and cover four. Well, it was too hard for me. Look, not everybody's as brilliant as you are and as informed as you are and, you know, being able to identify. cover two from inverted cover two. But, you know, I think, and I told Cooley this, I said, you know, part of me when you started

on games, I thought you got a little bit too X's and O's bogged down to the point where much of the audience it was sailing over their heads. And I would think that's even the case more so on television. But that would be the one thing, and it sounds to me like Oran picked up on this, that that's the one thing they've thought they might have to coach him out of him. He's going to get more opportunities. You watch. Oh, I know he is.

But this is the Rob Dibble School Broadcasting. I don't know what that means. Well, no, it's not all for anything of real insight, but make it seem like you're sitting there with your buddy watching the game. A God only knows why people would like that. I mean, why would you want to be, why would you want your friend in the booth? It's just going on. I mean, look, if you would.

had said to me, I just couldn't stand the personality and the very unpolished nature of the way he was delivering or communicating. I would have said, okay, it's just a matter of taste. The fact that you don't think he was providing insight and an analysis on what you were watching defensively anyway, it does make me wonder whether or not we were watching the same game, because that's the one criticism that most of the people had of him, is that he was too, as, as, as, as, you know, as Orand wrote, bogged down in the X's and O's. So I don't know what you're talking about. He didn't even get past D or F in the alphabet, let alone X's and O.

I'll tell you what, for a guy that was pretty controversial during his career, and I don't know, actually, I don't know if this is true or not. He played on a bunch of teams, right? So he must have not been the easiest person on each one of these teams because he was a legit talent, a real talent. But he came off to me as very likable. And I think that's a big part of, you know, the secret here. Of course it is. Yeah. Of course it is.

That's always been your problem. It's always been your problem. Anyway, we'll get Tommy's thoughts on the game from Sunday and on Alex Smith. Right after this word from one of our sponsors. On the podcast, you haven't had a chance to. to weigh in on Sunday's game. Tell me what you thought about Sunday's game. It was fun to watch, wasn't it?

Wasn't it fun? Wasn't it fun to watch Alex Smith throw 55 times? I thought it was fun. Drop back 60 times in the game, yeah. You know, I mean, who would have predicted that, you know? I mean, it's a great story. The coach said it's a great story. Did he say it was a great story?

Yes. Oh, was that yesterday? after the game. Oh, really? He said it's a great story. It is. How can you argue with that? It is a great story.

I mean, there were some people who didn't think he'd ever step on a football field, let alone go back the past 55 times in a game. Right. Yeah, me. I had him waived two weeks ago. So it's a great story. And that's what you're going to have to be happy with. A great story.

That's what you're going to have to take to the bank every week. It's a great story until it's not, by the way, until it's not a great story. What does that? It won't be at some point. What does that mean? Well, he's going to get hurt. Nobody lasts very long behind center for this team. I mean, nobody, since your guy, since Kirk left, nobody lasts very long.

Right. Alex Smith lasted the longest 10 games before he got hurt in a 10th game. What did you think of his performance on Sunday? Here's what I think. I think that just like the Giants, the week before, the Lions got off to an early lead, led 17 to 3 at halftime. It came out in the second half and said, Alex Smith can't beat us in a half.

He can't score enough points. He can't move the ball enough in the limited possessions he'll have to beat us at this point. I think the Giants felt the same way coming out to second half. Now, the lions being lions, you know, didn't exactly pull it off the way the Giants did and almost screwed it up. But I just think that teams, particularly if they get a lead, are looking at Washington and saying, you know, Alex Smith can check down up and down the field all he wants. He's not going to be able to score 20 points and a half. Now, he did this time. He did this time, but generally, most of the time, he's not going to be able to beat you.

I think that the Lions just felt that Alex Smith can throw the ball if he wants. He's not going to beat us, just like the Giants did. And he almost did. But he didn't. Right. But he almost did. But he didn't. Right.

But was it his fault that they didn't? Well, whose fault was the first half? I'm not sure. Not his. Okay. Okay, tell me whose it was. Well, it was defensively. It was special teams.

It was a kicker that missed a kick. It was a coach who decided not to kick. It was a receiver who fumbled the football. It was a defense that couldn't get a stop. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you don't put, like last week, you can certainly put the end of the game on Alex Smith, but you wouldn't have been at the end of the game without Alex Smith, right? I mean, without him playing well in the second half.

But you wouldn't have been at the end of the game. in that situation, if the Giants didn't say he can't beat us. And then at the end of the game, the Giants finally put pressure on them and resulted in two interceptions. The Lions never did that because the lions are actually more self-destructive than Washington is. Right. So they just said to themselves, he can't beat us. And that's why he nearly did.

I think their strategy was that that offense with him running it, just can't generate. God, you should have listened to Talib's analysis of their defense. You might have learned something. Yeah. Yeah, I thought he was exceptional. And I can't believe the seven or eight days since, you know, before the giant game, 10 days now. And where we are in this conversation, I think it's actually really interesting, which this team always provides very interesting fodder in conversation.

because 10 days ago, two weeks ago, right here in this podcast, I made the case for them to waive him, which I thought was a pretty reasonable case. Not only do I not think that they are going to waive him, I think there's a decent chance he's going to be the starting quarterback next year. I'm not in favor of that. I'm not. I'm still not in favor of that, especially for the money, like if they keep him as a $24 million cap number next year.

I don't know that it's a path that leads to the kind of winning that you should be striving for, which is a Super Bowl, actually. In this franchise's case, you know, I'll just take the occasional playoff win, you know, at this point since it's been 15 years since the last one. And I don't know that that's, that he's a path to that. So I'm not necessarily in favor of it, but I think the last eight, nine days have changed their opinion. Ron Rivera saying yesterday on if Alex Smith could be the long-term quarterback, well, possibly. You've got to look at how much longer you think he can play, how much longer he does want to play. If so, is he a part of your plan?

Again, that's something we as a coaching staff and an organization have to talk about, most certainly, if this continues and if he continues to play at this high level, which he did play at a high level on Sunday. If you didn't think he played at a high level. He played at a limited level. No, he played at a very high level. on Sunday. And that's not... He's a limited quarterback

and a limited offense. He's not as limited as we thought 10 days ago. Well, as you thought. He's the same... Oh, was I the only person that thought that Rams game? It was an indication that he couldn't play anymore? He's the same Alex Smith as he was before he got hurt. That may be...

The same guy. That may be true. That may be true. Although this offense seems to be a better fit. for him. And they've got... Better fit for him, but still limited. Yeah, okay, limited that way. I'm sorry. Like, you know what's funny about this is you were right. And yet now you aren't taking that to another, you know, extending that. You were right when you said, if all things were equal and Alex Smith was healthy and could protect himself and there wasn't an issue with the health, he would beat out Dwayne Haskin.

in a fair contest, you're 100% right with this group. I didn't think that you were right. This group. This group, I never thought that the path to success was with Alex Smith. That's fine. That's fine. But what we saw Sunday wasn't the limited Alex Smith that we saw in 2018. That was better than anything we saw in 2018.

Tommy? It was. That's the part that was so shocking. The only thing that you can see is, is he's not quite as mobile as he used to be, but he's certainly mobile enough. Okay. I mean, he got out of,

he got sacked twice on 60 dropbacks. That's pretty impressive. And a lot of those were him avoiding the sacks, right? They were both in the first half, I believe. I forget. Both the sacks, yeah. There may have been one in the second half. I don't think so, but there may have been,

but I don't think they were. certainly the first sack was the one that knocked him out of Gilgareg. He was under much more pressure in the first half than he was in the second half. Okay, that's how you see it. Actually, I think he was under more pressure when they lost Lucas and switched Moses to the left and moved sharp in at right tackle. I actually think he was under more duress then. But he was sacked and out of field goal range. If the point you're trying to make is Detroit wasn't trying, well, certainly when it got to 24 to 17, they were trying.

Well, they just weren't, they weren't very good at it. Right. Unlike the giants who forced the two interceptions, they weren't very good at it. Yeah. Do you think they believe that he, do you think right now he's in the running to be the starting quarterback at the beginning of 2021? Well, you know, I mean, I still think their guy is Kyle Allen. But I still think, like you, their best chance to win games, even limited games, is a healthy Kyle Allen. I agree with that.

I think that Kyle Allen could have produced similar results on Sunday. I do believe that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think he'd be tougher to defend for a defense because he is mobile. as opposed to Alex Smith. But look, if you're a coach, Alex Smith is a dream.

What are you talking about? I mean, the guy's inspiring. He makes you want to show up for work every day. He's the first guy in the building. He works hard. Everybody loves Alex Smith. He is a coach's dream. So if you're Ron Rivera, of course,

given this group or given the limited group right now of Dwayne Haskins and Alex Smith, who would you rather win with? What would be more fun to win games with, Alex Smith or Dwayne Haskins? By the way, did you ever get to Daryl Green's comments that Dwayne Haskins was suffering from arrogance? You know what? I think he had said that before, though. When I read that a week ago or whatever, I'm pretty sure he said that at one point last year. Well, that's stunning.

when you think about it. I mean, Daryl Green is, it's, it's, royalty. Right. Darrell Green is one of,

one of them, one of them, made members, a high-ranking made member. Right. For this organization. He is a buffalo, you know,

through and through. Yes. And to have him put this on him, I thought was really stunning and just flew right under the radar. Maybe you're right. Maybe he said it before.

No, no, I, I did see that. And I, and I mentioned it, I just don't remember, I think I said, I think Daryl Greens had criticism of him in the past. He may have, but my point is, Alice Smith is a lot more fun to win with. He's a lot more fun to go to war with than Dwayne Haskins is, obviously. So I think there's every chance that, Dwayne, that Alex Smith could be the starter next year,

especially if they have questions about Kyle Allen's health going into the season. He's a lot more fun. You're, you're, you're, you really, you ate breakfast this morning. And, um, I don't know what you had, but you're, like, I'm trying to, if I were trying to take notes during this conversation, I'd say sarcasm. No, serious. Um, was so off, like, not even close. Uh, actually kind of right. I, what are you doing this morning?

What the hell is wrong with you? I'm not sick. What is wrong with you? I'm not sick like you have been obviously. I'm not sick. I had a voice issue on and off and I just needed a day so that I didn't lose my voice completely. That's all. Did I have a, I had a slight cough.

Okay. I'm fine. What the hell's wrong with you? I mean, you watch the game Sunday. And by the way, by the way, Wayne Haskins will be back at quarterback before the end of the year. Well, I think there's a chance that Alex could get hurt too. I'm not rooting for it, but, you know. No, I'm not rooting for it either.

Let me make it clear. I hope it doesn't happen to this guy. Because it's apparently all the fun would end if he got hurt. Apparently all the fun would end. I mean, this fun thing. I said it's fun. It's fun for the coach. I mean, you know, coaches have a different interest than fans, obviously.

Yeah. I mean, this was one of the reasons why, Jay Brun loved Colt McCoy. He was more fun to win with. That was his quarterback. He did what he did. He ran the program the way you wanted to run. I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the owner one time.

Can you imagine the owner watching Sunday's game? I told you guys. I told you Alex could do it. Ron, Ron, let me just tell you something. I've got all my guys in Hollywood. I've already gotten the first script. You've got to keep playing him. You've got to keep playing it.

God, he's got to win this week. Can he win on Thanksgiving Day again? our arch rivals. That would be the final scene. And you know, let's face it, that when I predicted 3 and 13, which is looking better and better every week, the third win is the Dallas game. I think it might be their fourth win. I think they're going to win Sunday. I don't know why I think that they're favored over Cincinnati. Cincinnati's been getting respect from Vegas. We got respect last week. They're only a six and a half point dog at Pittsburgh.

Anyway, look, netting it out, stop, stop. Just stop for a second, because I don't want to hear about fun. I don't want to hear about, you know, what were you watching? I think that Alex Smith had, I'm not so sure about what you said about Kyle Allen, although I wouldn't just, I'm not sure about any of this. I think they liked Kyle Allen and I think they liked Alex Smith. And I think what's been very clear here over the last month, given the results, regardless of competition. I mean, they are the best third down offense in the league over the last four games. I think they've known all along, and Scott Turner in particular is known all along.

Dwayne is a road to nowhere. We can't do anything, you know, with him. Alex can run our offense, and he's young, and who knows, but Alex is, Alex is not young. But Alex can really run our offense if we can get him on the field and he can protect himself. And, you know, and by the way, he's a terrific leader and mentor and all of that. Yes. So they're actually in a spot right now that they like other than that they can't win a game. Right. But offensively, they like what they've become.

They are. And, you know, I imagine in this building, in that building over there, this counts for a lot because it's such a well of poison. But I bet most of the people feel good coming to work every day with Alex Smith. It's a quarterback. even if they lose. I think you're being serious, right? Are you being serious? Yeah, okay.

Because Cooley 100% agrees with that. Cooley basically said, look, here's the bottom line, and he said this before. You know, players need to see what's drawn up and game planned really work in the games for them to get excited and for them to believe. And unfortunately, for Dwayne, whether it was the offseason, new offense, whatever, not being a good fit, that wasn't possible. Remember, you know, when RG3 was having those issues in 2013, and Cooley at one point came in and said, I can't even evaluate the other players, nor can they, because the quarterbacking is so awful. And I'm not saying Dwayne got to that level, because

that was some really bad shit at the end of 2013 from a quarterbacking standpoint, but they couldn't evaluate these players. They couldn't tell if Isaiah Wright could play or Cam Sims could really play. And now, because they, you know, they, they, they, they, they snap the ball 87 times on Sunday on offense, you know, because they keep making third downs. They keep the ball. They possess the ball. So they're, at the very least, what they're able to do while losing close games is they're able to keep their players interested and they're able to evaluate what they have. For one half. For what? For one half. Well, that's not really true, because they were pretty efficient offensively in the first half.

It just didn't produce points, which is a problem. I understand that. But it's not like, you know, Tressway was out there punting the entire half. Tressway's been the least busiest punter in the league over the last month. So, you know, the turnovers, obviously, what's really hurt them, the last, they've lost three games over their last four by a grand total of seven points. And they've all been, they've all been self-inflicted losses. This is how I know you were sick because you tweeted on Sunday that statistic as an indication that they don't suck.

They don't suck. Kevin, that's the very definition of sucking. No. Using to the giant twice and the lions by a small margin is the very definition of sucking. Okay. The context for this was to use Doc's line, you know, that he's always used. At least they don't suck. they don't suck.

They're not a good team, though. That was not meant to really generate the reaction that it did. But they don't, which was fabulous. We get every dummy on the planet. It was not meant to be a tweet that said, look at how good they are they keep losing close games. No. The point is that they actually,

there are several teams that are much worse than them in the league. The Lions? No, the Lions, see, it's funny, I was having this conversation with Ben Standing this morning. For some reason, people who don't watch the league, you're being one of them, came out of that game saying, they lost to the Lions. The Lions aren't a good team, but the Lions are far from a terrible team. I mean, I've watched the Lions several times this year. Are the Bengals a terrible team?

No, the Bengals are actually the Bengals are pretty capable too. You know, the terrible teams, the Jets are terrible. Okay, the Cowboys are terrible. Yes. Right now, Jacksonville's pretty terrible, but they're at least capable offensively at times to make plays. Those are the three terrible teams in the NFL. The teams that have bad records that aren't terrible, and Vegas will tell you this. You can look at the point spreads of these games, and Vegas will tell you.

you who's really terrible. Like, I think Dallas is a nine-point favorite to the Vikings this weekend or eight-point favorite. Washington will probably be favored over them on Thanksgiving Day. And they should be because that's their third win. If they wind up pre and 13, like I predicted, will you declare them terrible? But the bad record teams, just like Minnesota at one in five, and I said to you or somebody, I go, you can tell just by what Vegas thinks.

They're not a terrible team. They're a capable team, and they've won three games in a row. And, you know, also they should have beaten Seattle and they should have beaten Tennessee, two very good teams. But the teams that have bad records that people, that don't suck. I'm not saying they're good teams. I'm just saying they don't suck. Like Houston's two and seven.

But if Houston ends up beating a good team or winning three more games, no one in Vegas that handicaps and odds make. among the odds makers is going to be surprised because they're capable. The Giants are 3 and 7. The Giants do not suck at all. Their losses are all basically super close losses. They very easily could be on like a seven-game win streak when you look at how they lost some of these games, but they're not, which is why they're not a good team, but they don't suck.

You understand the difference, right? No, no. Here's what I understand. Houston with their record sucks because they have much better talent than their record shows. And when you underachieve, you suck. I think that's a different definition to suck. I'll agree with that definition. My point is, is like on Sunday, like the week before, like when they had Tennessee dead to write and ended up losing an overtime game,

you can't suck and then on any given Sunday you wouldn't be surprised if they won a game against a good team. At this point, even at 1 in 5, I said about Minnesota, look, their record sucks, but I'm not going to be surprised if they beat good teams and they win games. And with Washington, that's the way I feel, even though they haven't produced that result yet. And maybe they won't. all right but over the last four weeks I've my my assessment would be they're not a good team at all but they also don't suck they're capable of being a competitive NFL team which really at times

during the first four or five weeks they were not now their schedule was tougher and the teams they were playing were tougher there's no doubt about that but anyway I don't you know I don't why we're getting involved in this. You're just reading my tweets and trying to pick on me here, which is fine. I did want to get... I'm worried about you. You shouldn't be. I'm worried about it. Based on, you know, indications are from this podcast that you haven't gotten better. All right, close out question on this Alex Smith topic, because it's really not going much further, and it hasn't gone anywhere anyway since we started it. Will Alex Smith be the starter in Washington to start the 2021 season?

No. I don't know what the answer is to that. That sounds what you got? Yeah, I think it's no, but I am certainly not sure about anything involving him anymore. Because there's, I mean, going back to the, you know, the Project 11, oh my God, you know, he'll never play again. Obviously, he's never going to play again. I mean, by the way, we have people in the organization who are used to be media,

people who reported that he was never going to play again. Let's not forget that. I don't think so, but it's certainly in play now. It is definitely more in play than it was. Hey, a couple things, and then I got to get cooling on for the film breakdown, but I wanted to just, did you read any of the stories about Snyder from over the weekend? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. This is shaping up into like a remake of the usual suspects. So I do want for those that don't know what we're talking about real quickly to just summarize. So there was a story in the athletic that Snyder is going after Scott McLuhan's wife in a legal action. I'll read you the first two paragraphs.

Washington football team owner Daniel Snyder is accusing the wife of the team of the team former general manager, Scott McLuhan, of spreading lies about him that he claims. aided the publication of articles in July that, without evidence, links Snyder to sex trafficking and the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And legal papers filed earlier this week, Snyder asked a federal court in Colorado to approve subpoenas for Jessica McLuhan and the company Friday Night Lights LLC, for which she is a legal agent. Snyder has filed four similar cases across the country seeking to subpoena people he believes were behind the articles on new content media's website remember that was the indian website um the info uh m ea w w dot com the information gathered would then potentially support his defamation

lawsuit in india against that website and its owners um and then the other story that came out was the New York Times, this Ken Belson and Catherine Rossman continued to report significantly on Washington. And basically the report is that the three limited partners, the three minority owners, went to federal court filing a suit and asking for the court to allow them to sell their near 40% stake in the team for a reported $900 million, which, Snyder, per their agreement, does not have to allow them to do. I think, you know, we're just seeing all of this continue, and it's just another sign, Tommy, of just how sour the relationship is between him and the minority owners, how desperate he is to at least, you know, come out on the

right side of all of those wild internet rumors that, who knows, Dwight Schar may have been behind. you know, one of his partners, one of the minority owners, because none of that was true, even though everything else in the story that the post wrote, or everything in the post story may have been true and probably was true because it doesn't seem like they're fighting that, right? No, it does not. It's just the smear campaign that went into, you know,

the days leading up to the first post story. We've got the Beth Wilkinson thing getting ready to wrap up, I've heard. I don't know when we'll get the results of it. Do you have any sort of gut feel as to where this is going? Oh. You know, the big question I have about the whole Dwight Schar thing is how does this affect Danny's relationship with Joe Gibbs? Dwight Schar is a close friend of Joe Gibbs. And we know Gibbs has had this relationship.

a good relationship with Dan Snyder. I mean, Gibbs, you know, gave him input on Ron Rivera, help, you know, convince Ron Rivera to take the job. I'm just curious what Gibbs' reaction would be to this flat going on between Schar and Snyder. The other thing is, you know, unless this ends up with Snyder being forced to sell the team, it's only going to hurt Washington fans in the long run. Because, you know, I mean, let's say out of the Wilkinson report, there's enough there to punish the team. Well, that's not going to be punishing the team.

That's going to be punishing the fans. You know, they lose a couple of draft picks. That's going to hurt the fans. You know, so there's only one outcome out of this that would help the fans. And everyone knows it. And I don't think they're going to get. that. I think they're going to get punished. I think I think there'll be some kind of punishment out of this. And I think, you know, it'll just set this franchise, like the salary cap penalty did. I think

this will just set the franchise back again. Yeah, I think, I don't, I mean, I don't know anything. I just have this gut feel that Dan Snyder may not own the team within the next couple of years. and I don't know if it's going to be some sort of smoking gun from the Wilkinson report or something else that, you know, prompts Roger Goodell to go to the other 31 owners to take a vote to oust him or if it gets to the point where to use your favorite expression, the juice ain't worth the squeeze for him and his family to be involved in this. And by the way, you know, I think there's also just the possibility of a major sale. price if he's willing to sell. The problem with the sale price, even the 40% sale price, is as long as Snyder's, you know, involved, the price is depressed. Nobody, nobody's going to pay top dollar to be a minority owner with Dan Snyder being the majority owner. It's just not going to happen. But if he's willing to sell his 60% stake or his family's 60%, roughly 60%

stake, you know, you're going to see, you know, potentially a price tag, you know, $4 billion plus. I mean, and it's going to be one of the largest sales in the history of North American sports. And, you know, I've heard that, you know, and these are all relative descriptions, that his financial situation isn't great with respect to liquidity during, you know, this pandemic and various other things. So I just, this is, you know, you know, You know, he's clearly, you know, on his own right now. His, the league can't stand him. The commissioner can't stand him.

His three minority, you know, shareholders and owners hate his guts. He's got a fan base that has despised him for years. And, you know, it's weird. You know, Cooley pointed this out to me very subtly. He said, you know, God, everybody in the order. organization is talking like, you know, from the new team president, Jason, right, to a lot of people that aren't football people. There's just a lot going on there. That's never been Dan. Like, you know, maybe I, there's this sense, I think, the Cooley has that, you know, some of these

hires and some of the people involved, you know, it's all been league pushed. You know, at some point, you know, he's a battler, I'm sure, and maybe he'll dig his heels in because everybody he wants him out so badly. But I don't know. It can't be pleasant to own this team if you're him. And it can't be pleasant for those that are close to him.

Well, it can't be pleasant. On the other hand, when it's everybody else's fault and you like the persecution if you've got a persecution complex, if you like being, you know, the world is

against me, I'll show that. you know, I'm sure it plays it into his hands. Look, I think Jason Wright was, and it's just, it's not based on any particular knowledge. It's just based on experience. I think the new team president was an NFL influenced higher. Me too. And, I mean, here's the ultimate question.

It does, on the surface, it looks like having Dan Snyder own this team does not. no good to the NFL and only damages them. I mean, he has damaged one of their premier franchises in the backyard of the capital of the United States where the NFL does a lot of business. And they're embarrassed almost every week by the owner of the team in that backyard. On the other hand, owners don't like to get rid of their own because the idea of there but the grace of God go on. Right.

You know, if they can get rid of him, maybe they can get rid of me for being an asshole. Right. No, I know. So it's got to be, you know, something really over the top that they can't, you know, deal with. One last thing that sort of relates to this. There was the story in USA Today yesterday about Darius Geis and the LSU program, LSU MISU MISCOLNs Complaints against students, including top athletes. The story begins with for more than a year, people at the highest levels of the Louisiana State University Athletic Department fielded complaints about their prized running back Darius Geis.

Early in the spring 2016 semester, a member of the LSU diving team told her coach and an athletic department administrator that Geis raped her friend after she'd passed out drunk at a party. That summer, a female student told two senior athletic administrators that Geis took a partially nude photograph of her without her permission and then shared it with a team. team equipment manager and possibly others. Then in April 2017, the Athletic Department received reports of a second rape allegation against Geis, this time by a women's tennis player. Federal laws and LSU's own policies require university officials to take such allegations seriously and report them to the Title IX office for investigation as well to the campus police if the incidents occurred on school property. Yet at each step of the way LSU officials either doubted the women's stories, didn't investigate or didn't call the police allowing Geis to continue his football career.

And it goes on and on to just talk about how outrageous LSU's response was. Obviously, we know what happened to Darius Geis over the summer. He was arrested in early August and charged with counts of strangulation, assault battery, and destruction of property that stemmed from three separate domestic violence incident. that had taken place at his home earlier that year. Finally, he was released by Washington. When I read this yesterday, all I could think about is this, Tommy. My God, I mean, we don't have to go long on this.

But if you guys that have, you know, criticized us for being so negative about the organization and somehow think it hasn't been justified, They seem to be the only team in the NFL that did not know in the 2018 draft that Darius Geis had red flags all over him. Why do you think Darius Geis was dropping like a rock in that draft? This also goes hand in hand, not necessarily with the same allegations at all, but they're just lack of due diligence on beyond, you know, timing a guy in a 40 and watching some football tape. Sue a Cravens, disaster. You're talking about back-to-back years of a second-round pick turning into a disaster of a pick or two out of three years because they are just, they've been stupid. The people running this organization, I mean, you and I both railed on them

for signing Rubin Foster, and ultimately they may have been fine and in their right, and some of the allegations about Foster, you know, may have been wrong. It still didn't make sense in the Me Too era. But the culture in that building, I mean, who's answering for drafting Darius Geis? Do you remember how much they touted themselves for stealing Darius Geis at the end of the second round? Being able to trade back and pick Darius Geis? Why do you think you had a chance to do that? You know, this is all, I mean, this is all easily attributed to Bruce Allen.

So, you know, people can justify it by saying, Well, he was the cancer and we cut the cancer out. I agree. Look, I said this morning, and I don't know if you would agree, but if Jay and Bruce were still here, I don't even know if they would have released him. He would have been on some league list that would have kept him from playing, but he might still be on their roster, on some sort of list.

You're absolutely right. You know, Ron Rivera knew we got to get him the hell out of here. I mean, I think Ron Rivera was in the process of getting rid of him anyway. because I had heard leading up to that arrest that they said at the very least there are major maturity issues with Geis that Rivera doesn't want to have around. And, you know, he was a talent. But my God, you know, just go down the list. And I'm not saying that the allegations or the issues or the transgressions are similar because they're not. It's just one massive mistake in due diligence beyond a football tape or a timed 40.

Sue a Cravens, Darius Geis, Monta Nicholson, my guy, Josh Doxon, who clearly did not love football, and wasn't really that interested in playing professional football. And then, you know, Malcolm Kelly, go back to the worst draft in recent NFL history 2008. That's not recent anymore. When they drafted a guy that couldn't even walk basically in Malcolm Kelly in the second round. And then all the- Fred Davis draft. Yeah, the Fred Davis draft, the Chad Reinhardt draft.

He was the only guy that ended up having a couple. career in the NFL. And then, you know, the quarterback stuff from McNabb with a coach saying, no, to RG3, which the coach said, okay, but you do understand we're going to have to play football in a certain way. To Haskins, and I'm not even getting into all of the, you know, the free agent, you know, clown show, you know, signings of the first decade of Snyder's ownership. But if you want to know why, he, this has been among the worst franchise in sports over the last 20 years, just look at their player acquisition and the people involved. I mean, when you hire Drek, expect to get Drek.

And that's what they've, but then again, who could he have attracted? Not many quality people other than Joe Gibbs and a few others have wanted to actually come here. And if they did, it was for the money. And it didn't last long. Anything else from you? Or should we just circle back Thursday and maybe, you know, you can, come in with a better attitude on Thursday. You know, I think I was smoking hot today,

and I think you should pay me double for what I'm doing today. Really? You're going to have to have, you know what you'll have to do? You'll have to prove to me that you can generate some revenue before I talk about paying you double. All right, I'll talk to you Thursday, and we'll talk about that very exciting continuation of Alex Smith's playing here. And maybe, who knows, maybe we'll get to leave on the game on Sunday,

although I think it's a CBS game. Thank you very much. All right. Coolie's film breakdown right after this word from one of our sponsors. We're going in depth, play by play. The Cooley Film Breakdown. Here's Cooley and Kevin. All right, Cooley's film breakdown of the offense,

and I know it was hard work because there were a lot of offensive snaps. It was just longer. I mean, this is, you know, when you've got 80-something snaps in a game in an NFL game and you're doing the NFL film, doing the team film breakdown for a podcast. It's a lot of efforts. So it's much appreciated going in. I did fail to ask you one quick thing before you get started.

So Tommy and I just argued about Akib to leave for like 20 minutes. Tommy just couldn't stand him, thought that he kept saying, you know, because I was sick a little bit last week, actually just lost my voice. He's like, I'm not sure what you were thinking. You must have still been sick. He was terrible, terrible. And I said, look, it's a subjective thing. I mean, you know, not everybody likes that kind of in-depth analysis. And he said, analysis, that's what he didn't give you any of.

And I said, well, it's a subjective thing. But the one thing you can't say is that he didn't give you analysis, because that's what he was criticized for was too much analysis. Your opinion on Talib was what? Just confirming from yesterday. So for me, he was a guy that grew on me. If I would have formulated an opinion and stuck with it throughout. the game, I would have hated to leave because of some of the timing issues.

I mean, some of the, you know, you know, you know, Alex Smith issues. But I got past it because, one, I thought he was good with analysis, especially on defense. Right. If he wants to continue to get better, he's going to start talking about offense a little bit more than what they're doing. Like at no point did Talib go through the game and go, look at the guard do this and look at But at the same time, I think about when I called a game, which was a bottom game, in your first game, there are four computer screens. I didn't even know you could draw on the one computer screen.

No one told me. And so someone after the game was like, you could have drawn and shown what guys were doing and what things. I'm like, oh, that would have been nice to know in the pre-production meetings. We should have went to the stadium for our first game the day before and explained to me what all the monitors were. I look at some of these guys that are doing a really good job, like Collinsworth and stuff pre-snap. Like they have individual cutups.

Like they provide some of these things basically and put them in front of your face is a close up. It's hard if you're just trying to watch the field. Right. To give real analysis. But that said, Akib grew on me a bunch. He did. I thought he was fun.

And to me, look, look, this is what I look for. And by, and you know this, Kevin. I basically did this job for seven years. Yeah. I did do this job for seven years. I'm critical of a lot of these guys. Yeah, you have been. You don't like, you don't like, you don't like to.

I should have probably self-evaluated more because I would have been very critical of myself, but I don't like hearing my own voice, so I don't do that. But I look at it like this. Do you get the feeling that you're listening to a couple guys watch a game and tell you about it at a high enough level and enjoy a game? I got that feeling. I got that feeling that that Taleb enjoyed the game,

enjoyed the conversation with Hellie, gave me analysis of what was going on, and even a lot of it for me, even being defensive, I can get a real feel for it. You know, I don't, there are certain things if you want to be really critical. Like,

I don't want you to sit there and tell me when Alex Smith knows the coverage, he's a great quarterback. Well, fuck. Everyone that knows the coverage can be a great quarterback. You don't have to tell me that. Is he grows?

He'll start to learn like, hey, why did Alex Smith work this side of the field? And he'll learn to start asking those questions. Like, hey, what are you working in some of these concepts? The analysis part was good. On defense. Plenty of analysis. Yeah, it was just, you're right. It's a good point.

It was like all about defense, which obviously he knows. All right. Anyway, let's get to this film breakdown because I want you to get through it. The good news is I'm looking at, you know, all of the snap counts, and there are a lot of snap counts. But the truth is, not a lot of players played on offense either. Not nearly as many. Like, there are a couple players you probably won't even count. So we have fewer players.

So let's get to it. We'll start with the quarterback, Alex Smith. Well, to your point. Yeah, like Logan Thomas played 87 out of 88 snaps. Exactly. There was 91 snaps on my film cut up. 91. I don't know how many games I've done with this, that you got 91 snaps.

None. Not a pro game. College games. Yeah. College games, you can get that. Okay, so I actually did this for you, and you're going to like this because I kept count. This is the way I recorded Alex, before we get into any of the positive and negatives. I gave accurate throws, adequate throws, adequate throws, inadequate throws,

inaccurate throws. And I wrote down the opportunities where I thought he missed open receivers down the field. All right. Out of the game, I thought he was accurate. 38 throws out of 55 he completed 55 or he attempted 55 balls 35 or 35 or 35 I thought were accurate throws okay I thought nine were adequate throws now keep in mind my numbers are going to be a little bit off because I graded penalty throws and plays that don't count in the stat book okay I thought he was inaccurate 11 times two of those were

batted balls and three of them were throwaways so I mean I'm gonna put that in the inaccurate but At the same time, it's not. Right. Some of that may have been a good play. And then I thought throughout the game, he missed six opportunities for open wide receivers, and we'll discuss some of those things. Okay. The negatives from Alex.

By the way, is 35 accurate throws out of 55 attempts? I don't know what that. Here's what I liked about Alex Smith. Is that a good percentage? Yeah, I think he was very accurate in this game. And here's what I like about the accuracy is I think. he was accurate to the middle of the field down the field for the most part accurate or adequate you know catchable ball is it catchable yes and i thought as he made throws down the field

he made some very good throws down the field attacking the defense um the negatives throughout this game got that block attempt on the reverse was horseshit i know i mean just bump him just a little bit just shade him and it's probably a big play yeah i think it probably probably would have it would have been a positive play, not a negative play. Right. Took a sack in the red zone on the first drive. I thought he had a crosser wide open. It was that third down where they're in field goal range.

Yep. It's a literal jail break. It's piss poor protection. I mean, Rueh's beat up front. Both your tackles are beat off the sides. There's nowhere to go. But they're bringing pressure. I mean, they're coming with pressure.

I still thought as soon as possible, boom, crosser in front of your face. where you want to go with that ball. And essentially, I'm saying that because you're saying to yourself as a quarterback, what can I not do here in field goal range? At the edge of field goal range, I can't take a sack in this situation. Right. And so for me, that was one where he just, just dump it. He's going to take a hit, though.

I'll just mention throughout the game, I thought many times he was too quick to get, especially to the swing routes, to the running backs. They're not necessarily checkdowns. They're part of the pass route combination. but when you have what they have what they call a lot, which is spacing throughout the middle of the field, where you got guys sitting at five yards on that numbers,

five yards in the middle of the field. I thought he was too quick to get that ball out to the running backs and the checkdown. For me, high low, that coverage a little bit longer. Some of those cases, I think he probably would have got to the spacing route,

which is a sure five yards. Like, you throw that over in your five yards for sure before those guys have an opportunity to run after the catch. You throw that quick dump to the back, and I get it that it gives him a chance to run after. But I don't think he let coverage sluff off enough on some of those situations. Took a sack on the second drive. It's a first and 10 at the 22-yard line. He's hot off of both sides.

He's just got to have the ball out in that situation. Checkdowns a couple times too quick. You can pull this play up as we're sitting here. talking about this. It's a second seven on the second drive. The ball's at the Washington 29 yard line. So pull this thing up. They're going Logan Thomas vertical down the middle of the field. Personally, I think Thomas comes open in the middle of the field on the crosser as he clears the Mike linebacker and he dumps it off right now. And it's like, yeah, I get it. Like, let's take positive plays and I like taking positive plays and there's nothing wrong with what he did right here.

It's not a big downgrade, but I thought there was an opportunity to get the ball to Thomas in the middle of the field there and you get a little bit bigger play in that situation. Granted, it's a tough throw, but to me, Alex can make those types of throws. By the way, this will be one of the plays that you grade very well for McKissick. Yeah, no, there's no doubt about that. He missed McKissick on the out and up, the third and five that he overthroth. I will say this, though. All the little things that McKissick is. Kissick is done, catching some of those outrout, catching some of those shallow crosses.

You get into man-to-man coverage and dial up that out and up in that situation. That was a great play call in that timing. It should have been a touchdown. Bad ball deep to Darby, 45 seconds left in the game. I thought that was a checkdown opportunity. That was a risky throw down the field. Not to Darby. I wrote Darby.

Darby used to wear 84. It's not Darby. Bedette. Yeah. Darby. Yeah. and took a delay a game in the fourth quarter. Right.

Some of the missed open receivers, and I'll just go through this with you with some of these plays. Yep. There's a second and nine at the Washington 17 yard line. It's 555 in the first quarter. Looks like they're playing what is a cover two invert. I'm not exactly sure if they're playing two invert or if they're just playing three.

Truffant is sitting hard on Terry McLaren. McKissick has motioned out of the backfield and he goes screaming up the sideline. There is nobody that's going to cover him. Literally nobody. I'm not finding. Maybe it might be the second quarter then. Go to the second quarter.

For some reason, I didn't write quarter. But it's a second nine at their 17-yard line. I don't see any way. that anybody's going to cover McKissick up the sideline. The ball's out quick, but at the same time, Truffant is dead flat-footed. Not sure if he's a three-player squatting on Terry there or if he's actually kind of that inverted cover two player,

but there's no way that they play McKissick. Oh, yeah, I see that. You see what I'm talking about there? Yep. And that's, again, just one of those instances where you're like, just let it play out just a half-second longer. Right. Missed McKissick in the flat on a third and seven in the red zone in the third quarter took a sack.

Yeah, right. Everybody, I think, remembers that play. A key pointed that play out. Just can't take a sack there. You had McKissick. It's probably a score. Yeah. Fourth quarter, eight minutes and 43 seconds.

There's a first and ten. Wait, the third and seven. So this was the second sack of the day for Smith at 24 to three as they're driving. This was prior to the fourth and 13. Yeah, you, boy, you know, there were a couple times where he, like in that case, a little bit of happy feet in the pocket, right? Yeah, so there were three or four instances that I thought he did a really good job getting out of the pocket.

And I wrote this down in some of the positives is if he doesn't have what he likes with his initial one read, he just gets out of the pocket. He can sense that he can get to the edge. And so he's working off script a little bit. But that's Alex Smith. That's what Alex has been his entire career. That's not Philip Rivers. Right.

He's been watching Philip Rivers film, but he still can't convince himself that he needs to sit in the pocket just a little bit longer. He is going to get outside of the pocket. He makes plays outside of the pocket. There's a, so back to some of the misses, a fourth quarter, eight minutes, 43 seconds. It's a first and 10 at the Washington 34. Again, it looks to me like, well, they're playing a cover two,

and the middle linebackers playing the middle of the field. I thought he hung long enough on Logan Thomas, who's running a crossing route over the middle of the field, that he could have made a throw over the top of that Mike linebacker to right. Now, the backer is dropping with some depth, but Wright is screaming up the seam, splitting the two safeties. And if he just gives a little air on that ball over the backer, there's just backers can't play that ball.

I just, there's no way that that's going to play that ball. It reminded me of when Todd, Collins came into the ballgame for the first time in my fourth season. Right. Late in the year. We had coached this. It's a little bit different concept. Logan Thomas, for us at that point, would have ran about a 12-yard sit-down route to

try to hold that backer. So it's a high low. It's not a crosser. And then if that backer sat at all, the scene behind it was the throw. And we had talked about that and talked about that a year and a half. Never got in the ball. and I'm bending that seaman and here it comes. I'm like, oh, that's the way we coach this thing.

So Jason wouldn't throw it, but Todd Collins did. Todd Collins, it was one of the first throws he made when he came into the game. And I was like, that's how I was coached. Same exact concept. Do you remember he were playing? Do you remember the game? Chicago. Yeah, Chicago on a Thursday night.

By the way, it was cold as shit that night. I do remember that game. And I was hung over. Yeah. You were hungover for the game. Not really. It was a night game, so I was fine. We drink some wine at Baderati's the night before the game, and some of the offensive line.

Okay, great. But if you see this play, if you think you can get it over the backer, you can let me know because I think he can. Yes, I saw it. There was an off-script throw that he threw to McKissick. It was actually a pretty good throw. I thought he panicked flushed a little bit. McKissig dropped it down about the three yard line going into the score.

To me on that play in the fourth quarter, he looks left. He's looking at a corner route. He doesn't have it. Terry McLaren's wide open in the flat. Just throw the flat. Like read the high low, throw the flat. I thought panic flush. That's one of your happy feet type of plays.

And then late in the game, it's a second and ten. You've got to pull this one up. It's a second and ten with a minute and 11 left in the game. This is a tough one for me. me to really say true missed opportunity by the quarterback. The right tackle sharp gets beat pretty quick. But my God, Stephen Sims Jr. is wide open on a deep end in the middle of the field. And the way they run these ends, they roll everything. They speed cut everything. And I think if he lets that ball go and it's got any accuracy on it, Sims scores. And they go ahead in this game.

Right. It's like, and that's one of those ones where you look at Sharp and you're like, dude, could you, I know you just came in the game, but like one half second more. Because Smith wants to throw this. He's been completing this pass throughout the completed four or five of these throughout the game. Right. And I think he should have let it go. So I made a note during the game that I don't think I mentioned to you yesterday. I thought when they lost Lucas and Moses went to left tackle and Sharp came in,

all of a sudden there was more pressure on Smith from that right side. You think so? Yeah. Yeah. So I thought he dealt with all. a lot of a lot more pressure there at the end of the game, you know, and in the second half after they lost Lucas than they, then he had in the first half.

Yeah. Yeah. There was, it was, that's not deniable, Kevin. Yeah. That's what I thought. Okay, go ahead. So that was that.

Some of the inaccurate throws, a couple he's hit while throwing, you know. And another one is on a screen pass that he said, that he's hit, Rue gets beat. That's early in the game. We talked about the out. up. He had an overthrow to Sims on a go ball in the fourth quarter. Cam Sims through the go ball, the Sims. Make it a 50-50 ball for me. I'd love to see Cam Sims have a chance to go up and get it. He kind of overthrew it to the sideline. But really, and maybe one missed a swing to McKissick in the

fourth quarter as well with a minute left in the game. I didn't think he was incredibly inaccurate in this game. Let's go through some of the positives. First of all, the overesteads. First of all, the overarching theme is that Alex Smith can distribute the ball. There's no doubt about it. And his timing, I thought, was 80% of the time very good in this game. 60% of the time, it works every time. Great touch ball on a corner or a banana route to Terry McLaurin on the first drive. Good throw kind of towards the corner.

knows when to leave the pocket early and he knows what side he wants to flush it's i said that's just alex uh i want you i'll get to this in a second um awesome awesome on a first and 10 six minutes and 55 seconds in the third quarter this is um this was an interesting play they're at the washington 43 it's a first and 10 he looks out to 10 They have a RPO bubble. They're going to try to bubble to the left to Isaiah right. Nobody is covering Terry McLaurin. There's nobody out there.

They have not lined up right. He looks to Terry like, dude, turn around. Terry never looks. Terry kind of just jogs down field. It's really weird. Normally when nobody lines up over you, you're like, you, hello, hello, I'm open. Yo, yeah, red seven.

Yeah. Hot route. but he gets back to right on the bubble so quick that it actually works in the RPO timing it's kind of on the hip of right but God it's a heck of a job by Alex with his feet going from right all the way to the left to open up and make that throw in a bubble that's big time man deep hook in the middle of the field to Logan Thomas on a oh yeah fourth and 13 yeah the thing I loved about this is he's great with his eyes on this play. He really starts to look left and look like he's going to throw vertical. And then he drives the ball plants and drives the ball in Logan

Tom. It's a little bit low, but that's where I'd want the ball if I was Logan in that situation. I thought it was a good throw. Huge tight window throw to Cam Sims on a deep in at the end of the third quarter in Washington territory, big time throw right at the end of the third quarter to Cam Sims. Great job rolling right. And multiple times through this game. Is that the one that Sims? broke the tackle on and got the first down. No, no. I'm sorry. And that was a good throw, and that's in some of my accurate throws. Right.

Really good job rolling right. Off script to Logan Thomas. They had a four verts on. Logan reacts. Good ball to find Logan Thomas. Great ball placement on an angle route in the fourth quarter down in the red zone to get it to Gibson. These are smart throws by Alex Smith. Gibson comes out of the backfield to the right. He cuts right inside the first. first backer and there's a middle backer waiting in the middle of the field. Smith puts it low right in the middle of kind of his belly. So he's not going to take that big hit and allows him to kind of turn it up and get up field.

That's huge. Good throw. Big throw to Sims Jr. On a corner route in the fourth quarter. He stepped up in the pocket. That was the one that they had to get out of bounds on. Yeah. That was awesome.

To set up a field goal. Yeah. Right. Right after that back to back, two big plays in a row. a huge throw to Logan Thomas on Verz. This is not to set up the field goal. This is to set up the last touchdown. Oh, okay.

My fault. Yeah, he hits Sims on a corner route. It's over the cover two corner. It's a great ball. It's a great fit in there. Huge throw the next play to Logan Thomas. It's not a perfect ball up the seam on Verts, but it's a catchable ball that Logan gets up the seam.

And you got back-to-back big plays down the field. That was huge. Man, big-time throw on a corner. her out on that last drive on a third and 13 to Terry McLaurin. Terry's wide open, so it's not a tough, tough throw, but still big to step up and get the ball to Terry. Huge throw to Sims on a dig late in the game, 53 seconds late in the game. He steps up in the pocket, and at this point, he knows Sharp's going to get beat, so he steps

up and drifts left just a little bit in the pocket, knows he's going to have trouble off his right side and makes a big, big throw down the field to Sims. That was him, I mean, him truly extending the play to make a play. And he was close to being sacked. I mean, he's moving and he, I mean, he makes a perfect throw to Sims. That was such a big, but that was third and ten. Yeah, that was a third and ten play. That was big time.

It was a huge catch by Sims. Yeah, great catch by Sims. He's a great, great catch by Sims. Last couple, I mean, good throw on a second and ten and hits McKissick on a shallow route, pressure in his face on that last drive. And then on a third and 15 after a delay a game, which I did right in there. He took a delay a game without hurting.

I don't know if I said that, but you did. That cost them. And I don't know if I emphasized how impactful that was. Yeah. Because on that third and 15, Sims would have gotten the first down. And it's a good throw in a speed out. Quickly before we sum this up, just since we're on that play,

I don't like Sims just running out of bounds at 12 yards. You have to. You don't have any timeouts left. And if it's fourth down, then you're rushing the field goal team out to try to kick a game time. They're prepared to rush the field goal team out. I understand that. It's like a eight-second operation.

The field goal team's city. It's not eight seconds. It's not more than 11 if you do it right. It's 11 to 12 the way New England does it. and the way to practice it. You had 16 seconds. I don't know. I mean, it's just one of those.

What do you want to do? If he turns it up, he's got to get the first down so you can go in and spike it. But you're taking it. I think he would have gotten the first down. There is. So the point is almost moot because nobody should score with 16 seconds left. Well, I mean, if your point is, if your point is. His scoring drive was 16 seconds left.

If your point is you wanted to have a few more snaps to throw to the end zone to try to win it, I definitely disagree with you there. On 3rd and 15, once you took that delay a game penalty, and you're snapping it with 26 seconds left, you either have to get something quick over the middle and rush your field goal team out, or you got to get what they got, which was perfect, which was Sims for 11 yards and out of bounds.

If Sims turns that up field, and by the way, that's a rather long play, that's going to be an 8, 9 second play, you're rushing with 14, 15 seconds and rushing a kicker, by the way, who's already got an issue. It depends on what you're doing. If he turns it up field and you get the first down,

then you can go spike it. Then you can go spike the ball. But you can't take it. But you can't take it. I think it's an interesting conversation, at least to be had. If you and I were coaching together, I would say zero chance. Tell him to get the fuck out of bounds

and let's get the kicker who we barely even trust at this point without time. with time, let's give him some time to get out there and get set up the right way. I think the delay a game, just real quickly, on the play before, because I noted this, he looked gassed on that last drive. That was a, wasn't that a 17-play drive that ended up in a field goal? Was it 17 plays? I forget if that was the 17 player.

It was a long drive that ended up a field goal. And they don't count penalties on that drive, right? He looked gassed, and I think he, it's a bad delay a game penalty to take. There's no doubt about that. That last drive was 17 plays, 66 yards. You know, and it's in hurry up. It's two minutes, 21 seconds in the length of the drive. They need a field goal, obviously.

I think that it's actually a 20 play drive. When you count the penalties, right. That you're not going to give. Yeah, right. play drive. Yeah, you didn't, yeah, you didn't mention the gift fourth and four true font, which was ridiculous. Oh, and that was not a, so here's the crazy thing about that. That's an ill-advised throw, but that's on Terry. Terry's done that twice this year now, where when you have a slant and you have a flat corner, you can't start to play behind him.

You can't second window behind him. The quarterback is trusting that you cross his face. There's nobody else open on that play. Just, just if you want to go look at that, and forth. I'm looking at it right now. He's working. So they have flat slant on the right and they have two slants on the left. If the quarterback sees two high safeties, he's going to work the two slants on the left. That's just he's going to work that combination. It's a terrible call. I mean, here's what I would have done if I was Turner in that instance. I would have called the flat slant side to Terry's side. So if you do get cover three or one high, then he, you're going to work Terry.

But, God, if you get covered too, I would want to work Cam Sims or somebody that the other team hasn't seen run 100 slants in critical situations. Like, everybody's sitting on the slant from Terry. You're right. So I think that's one that you probably just flip the script and go the other way. I mean, it's a, you can call it either way. Coolie. the third and 10, which they did not have the replay of during the game,

that Truffant gets called on McLorn again on an incomplete pass, would have set up fourth and 10? What would, you talk about two gifts on that final drive. Fifs. I mean, there's no contact. Are we sure that this was called on Truffon? Someone wanted Washington to cover. I mean, that's...

Remember, Talib said he thought it was on somebody else. Exactly. So I'm looking at it across the board. It was called on Truffant against McLaren. There's no chance this is defensive holding because there's no contact. There's literally no contact. And so I'm looking around the field. I don't see it anywhere else. It was called on Trufant. That Truffant isn't even sure. He's like, wait a minute. Well, that flag's obviously not on me. Who else was holding? That isn't. We didn't see that replay. Fox did not have that replay. That is a terrible call. That is terrible. It's also, I mean, he puts his hand on his back. So Sims is running a clear through the middle of the field.

Here comes McClorn. Terry's running an in-break. I mean, there's contact, but you can't even see. There's a left hand that's like resting on his back left shoulder, but there's nothing to impede progress. There's no hold. It was called holding. There's no hold.

You know the funny thing on that third and ten? Alex steps up in the pocket, avoids around Switzer. He could have easily run. Yeah. He could have probably, if he takes off on the angle that he starts up in the pocket, he could have probably run for 15. Probably should have ran that ball. I don't know about that.

He could have run for 10. He would have gotten a first down. Not with drop foot. He's not that slow. I know he's not. but I don't know that he gets 10. I guarantee he gets 10. I bet my dog on it.

All right. Continue. So look, here's the funny thing, too, when I look at this offense, they're at Cori-L-style offense, like a Norv Turner, Cori-L down-the-field offense, at least systematically the way it was created.

This is so West Coast. Right. They are so, West Coast. Now, Alex, throughout the game, he made throws on all levels, which I like. I still think they got to find ways to make more throws down the field. I do. I think that there's got to be some ways to get some more combinations where you're getting down the field.

I also think they probably should have done a better job protecting sharp in the last part of that game. Yeah. To me, not protecting sharp a little bit more coming in out of nowhere is like, dude, I mean, you're just going to turn him loose. one on one. And the lines did a good job. They understood Sharp was in. And so they brought a tackle, a detackle over to that side a lot of the time.

So Sheriff had to protect that side. But still, man, like I'd slide Ruey hard to the right. I'd let Rueh and Sheriff both try to handle that tackle. And I'd say, I'm going to put it all on Switzer to pick up that backside detackle. Like, I'd rather put it all on Switzer in those situations than just turn Sharp free. There was a lot of pressure on that last drive. Yeah, a lot of pressure on that last drive.

drive. Look, Alex was 38 to 55 for 390 yards. He made multiple big throws in this game. He missed a couple. Okay. He missed a couple. The thing is when you look at it, you're not going to truly downgrade a dude for this, but out of the 38 completions, 25 of them were not tough throws. Right. Which means they're going a good job of scheming people open. It also means that his timing is excellent. Yeah. And his rhythm. is excellent in this offense. I thought Alex was B plus in this game. B plus.

Okay. I thought he was a B plus in this ballgame. Made some big plays for him. All right. It's hard for me to see him as an A in this game. But B plus is, you know what you can do with B plus quarterback? You win a Super Bowl.

You can get to a Super Bowl, quarterback that does that. There's, to me, there's no doubt about it. Let's get to the skill positions. Yep. Start with Terry. Do we always start with Terry? Yeah, that's fine.

The negatives. Fumble at the end of the half on a short in-rout. Catch. Oh, by the way, I didn't go through a lot of the quick completions with Alex. He was accurate. He was good. You know, within seven yards, for the most part, he completed 90%. That fumbled by Terry killed him.

Yeah. They had a couple drives down there. I mean, they had, they should have 17 points in the first half of that ballgame. Exactly. I talked about Terry being left uncovered and not looking. Alex tries to go to him. It's weird. We've been an easy catch. I don't understand why wouldn't look. The Cam Sims' little whip route where he gets yards after the catch. Yeah.

The third down, the big play. both Terry and Isaiah Wright quit don't be a spectator man Cam Sims ends up getting fucking blown up by 59 as he comes out of that first broken tackle you have two receivers his boys you know his unit

sitting there watching him Terry's a Ohio State guy so this is what I'd say to Terry four to six A to B buddy 4 to 6 a to B. It's 4 to 6 seconds, point A to point B. Relentless effort. It's an Urban Meyer thing.

Oh, it is? He understands. If they were watching film, Urban Meyer would have said, 4 to 6A to B. What are we doing here? That's exactly what he would have said. Okay.

Let your guy down, man. You know, that's, at times Terry's been a great blocker, but, and I know that you, it's, you brand 90 plays or at that point, a ton of plays. But that just can't happen. Just go, go find somebody to block.

It's the NFL. I'm looking for the third and five. I'm looking for the play. It's a third and five. Was it a third down completion to Sims? Yeah, it was a third and five completion to Cam Sims. I didn't actually write the play down. I should have written.

I remember the play. I just, I'm having a hard time finding. Yeah, no, I understand. So whatever. Whatever. I mean, you can go find it later and watch it, but you got both right and Sims watching. Or excuse me, right and McLaurin watching. There's a third and five, two minutes and two seconds in the fourth quarter.

Terry flattens a shallow. He catches the ball. He flattens a shallow too much. He's downhill on that angle and it doesn't allow him to turn up. On those, their crossers, they're really trying hard to have a mesh with another crossing route from the other side to pick. And when they try to get that mesh point, they start to flatten back downhill. He didn't even need the mesh point, and he should have continued uphill. It ended up being illegal hands of the face or illegal hands on Cornelius Lucas,

but it wouldn't have been a first down. The fourth and five slant, you cannot go behind the corner at Truffant. That should have never been past interference. It probably should have been a pick by Truvant. Right. You know, the sad thing is if Trufant picks it, he's not going to get past interference on that way. Right. The positives from Terry McLaren.

First drive, run action pass. Really good on what John Gruden would call the banana route. It's a nice little stutter at this top of the stem and then break out and separate. It was huge. Fly sweep was awesome. You know, great cut behind the tight ends. You watch that fly sweep again,

and he cuts back a second time down the field. If he doesn't cut back, I think he's got a chance at a foot race, or at least a stiff arm for a touchdown. Still, excellent breaking tackles after the catch on underneath routes. Cut a wide open slant in the game. Good finish after that.

cut another slant a little bit later in the game went to the ground on probably didn't need to go to the ground to secure the catch but he rolls forward and gets a first down really a huge play on the third and 13 in the fourth quarter i mean he just the corner route he runs against trufant is is awesome man he stacks him at the line of scrimmage and breaks him off and then gets yards after the catch and goes out of bounds there third and 13 was huge then late on the game 41 seconds left runs a shallow route gets up the field gets out of bounds of bounds stop the clock big time play by terry mcclorn um he's truly a one receiver yeah he really is a one receiver terry was a b plus in this game okay isaiah right the negatives uh poor speed cut uh at times some of the the roll speed cut he loses ground there's not enough separation in one-on-one when i mean lose ground he drifts up the field a little bit too much on a couple of the speeds uh there was a duo type of play where he's got a tight landmark it's bull crap sustained he ends up letting his guy tackle the back for a one yard gain it's not enough effort mr simon on the back side of blocking zone um this was a play that gibson breaks out um he he's on the backside

of a zone play and he's running in trying to attack a linebacker like you're a receiver you don't have linebackers you have corners and safeties you don't need to run in there and try to to block a linebacker. That's accounted for. If he goes up field and just gets on a safety, he has a chance to get the guy he's got to get. That said, after he doesn't get the linebacker, he stops and then watches Gibson, break tackles and then get drilled. Four to six, A to B, buddy. I love that Urban Meyer thing. It's such a fit into, it's like, we all said, we're going to go four, four to six seconds from point A to point B. You went two to three A, didn't get to B.

Yeah. Like it's the easiest thing ever, 4 to 6A to B. Like, why are we quitting? Yeah. You want them to block for you and you have the ball? I think you do. Some of the positives from right. I do think he's got some speed.

And, you know, even though I sit there and say like a couple of the times on roll cuts, maybe drift a little bit, there's some, there's one that he makes the second play of the game on a deep dagger catch that Smith threw a pretty good ball, a little behind him. but it's a heck of a roll cut into the middle of the field. Good finish through contact on a number of balls that he caught, especially those little ones outside the numbers. I love that little checkdown outside the numbers. I think it's so smart. I think there were three completions where you have a couple guys going vertical.

And instead of even running the hitch route, you just set them down right where they're at. They just turn and they set. And coverage drops. And if the quarterback's got to check it down, he knows he's got a guy. It's hard outside in the flat. I love that.

that really became popular in college in the last five or six years and especially with some of the short quarterbacks. Right. So instead of having running backs be the checkdown, a lot of the time, the quarterback can't see the running back or they can't see the checkdown around the tackle box. So you just give your checkdown to the receiver wide outside.

And for some reason, they forget about them. They do. They leave those guys open and it ends up being an easy two to three, if not five to six. Good focus on a ball that was batted later in the game. You remember the ball that was batted. I mean, I don't think that's a tough catch, but good focus. A couple of those bubbles, you did a pretty good job, getting up the field.

One of them I mentioned Alex, tried to get to Terry late or early, and it was a little bit late. It was kind of a bad ball. He bubbled it a little bit, but good securing that ball and making a play. And then late in the fourth quarter in the Redso, great effort at the pylon after he had a nice hurdle play on a bubble as well. I like Isaiah Wright. I like him with the ball in his hands.

I think he's a guy that's going to get better. He was a B in this game. Stephen Sims Jr. Catches a stick out at the end of the half. Fumble can't happen. It just can't happen. He does have some ball security issues. He does.

He really has some ball security issues. Bubble in the game can't make one guy miss in space. He had a one-on-one opportunity. He gets tackled as he's run to the sideline. there's a whip route in the fourth quarter balls a little bit behind him can't keep his feet and run ends up tripping to the ground four yard gain he dropped a shallow on a second and 15 in the fourth quarter yep and then he makes that catch on the third and 15 and it's like just score dude just score don't go out of bounds he did the right thing um a couple of positives huge corner route in the fourth quarter great speed great depth on the break big play in the game and the thing about can't like even for a little dude, he will go in and fight and try to block. Like, they actually inserted him on a duo play. I hate that, by the way.

They had a duo play early in the game where they asked Cam Sims to block the edge on the right side and they inserted Stephen Sims Jr. to a safety. Like, dude, I mean, those one insert receiver, maybe. Two, you're asking for trouble. Don't do that. Cam, Sim, oh, Stephen Sims Jr. was a C-minus in this game. Okay.

Cam Sims. Yeah. The negatives. Second two of the 22. Oh, you got to pull this play up. This is awesome by Detroit. It's a second two at the Detroit 22. They're going into score.

There's eight minutes and 55 seconds. I think this is a first quarter play. Right, first quarter of them. I got it. He lines up in a tight set. He's got his feet exchanged like that's the way you do it. when you're going to block. I told you last week he crossed his feet up the wrong way last time.

They made him change this time. He lines up tight to the line of scrimmage. 30 comes down for Detroit, and it's so smart. 30 actually sees the feet switch by Cam Sims, which essentially means he's going to try to crack the defensive end. 30 blocks Cam down, and the defensive end peels outside, and then 30 goes up the field. It's brilliant on toss.

like when you get that crack receiver sometimes it's hard for the defensive end to see a lot of times with the crack receiver the guy over them starts to go down and they get cracked from the outside and then you got an edge on toss. This is so good. Hashtag film study.

This is really good by 30. Yeah. Like really, really good way to play toss. I'm not downgrading Sims really for this play. I just wanted to note it. It's Okuda who makes the play. Yeah. So, yeah, Okuda comes down,

knock Sims down. So Sims can't get it. his block on the defensive end. As he knocks Sims down, no one can get to Okuda, and then Okuda goes up the field and makes the play. Yeah. It was really sweet. One of the duo plays, he motions to the other side.

He's trying to hold off the edge against 41. It's a tough ass for any receiver, but he lets his momentum carry too far outside of 41, and 41 slips inside of him. I mean, really the negatives for Sims were like run game stuff. So, and at times, I think Sims still did a good job blocking. Like, effort was absolutely there when they asked him to, to block even at the line of scrimmage.

Great on the third and four second effort on that little snag route, that little in and out, the burger, as Peyton Manning we call it. A really good job through contact. Actually, I mean, I would just, like, I would play with Cam Sims. There's toughness to him. Yeah. Great job recovering the fumble that Sims had at the end of the first half. It was Cam Sims that recovered the fumble.

Late in the game, he catches a flat route, turns it up. I mean, a lot of these guys just break to the sideline. I mean, he was a fight for yards type of guy. I love it. He had a huge play on a dig route with 55 seconds left in the third quarter or in the fourth quarter. That dig route he caught was so big in the middle of the field. It was so big for them.

I thought, you know, even watching on film, you're like they're going to go score touchdown here they got some stuff going yeah cam sims junior was a b in this game okay logan thomas yeah uh the negatives which are not much for him in this game allow one cross face on that dive duo play he's one-on-one with defensive and he allows him too far inside had a false start on a fourth and eight down in the red zone i can't even believe they caught that he barely barely well that was the one before the fourth and 13 that he caught yeah he totally redeemed himself yeah had a chance at a catch down the field that Alex Smith overthrew him I don't know if I mentioned this with Alex but Alex Smith overthrew him he goes up with one hand

he really initially does it initially does a great job slipping the defender and then stacking him vertical I think you got to attack that with two hands I think he almost got to die for that play Like that's just such an impossible play That one-handed snag like that I think he had a chance to open it up and kind of die for that play Not a huge negative Fourth quarter Verts landmark

How is that how is that a false start on Logan Thomas I'm looking at it right now? They showed it on the TV copy and I remember watching it in the game And his chest barely moves You can see it like the time Like I said I don't know how they caught that It's probably for the better Yeah it made the fourth and 13

give you more field to work. Yeah, exactly. Some of the landmarks on his routes, like a vertical landmark up the scene. You've got to get to the edge of the numbers. And especially when he, as soon as he tries to slip somebody, he loses his landmark.

And then really, and this happened throughout the game, there's just not enough twitch at the top of routes, especially when he's running crossing routes. There's not enough twitch to him. There's not enough shake right at the top or sell at the top of routes. And it's hard for him to give a guy a winner in man-to-man coverage, especially on the crossing route.

the positives. I'll be quick with the positives here with Logan Thomas. I thought he was excellent in the run game. I thought he was so much better. Great footwork, great releases, like an arc release and an outside defender. It made me so happy to see this. Shooting hands and running feet through contact, much, much better. Physical kickout blocks is a polar.

One, I mean, just absolutely blew up a cut block on the backside of a defensive end. feet over head on that play. Really good blocking out in space on some of the bubbles. Great sustain out in space. We know the big catch you made on the fourth and 13. Good working with Alex Smith off script on some of these plays. Made some good catches. Did a good job getting vertical up the field on a lot of the catches.

I thought he was decisive with getting whip and turn around on any of the overrouts. I thought Logan Thomas was an A-minus in this game. I really, I was pretty impressed with Logan Thomas. I think this may be the first tight end during your film breakdown era that you have been excited about the blocking. He's gotten better this year. He really has. Okay. Who's next?

Logan Thomas was an A-minus in this ballgame. So essentially to sum up as we get to the backs, Terry McLaurin was a B-plus. Isaiah Wright was a B. Stephen Sims Jr. was a C-minus. Cam Sims was a B. Logan Thomas was an A-minus. And that A-minus is a big trend upward. Like he is not that he doesn't have any of that Jordan Reed to him.

And I don't know if he's got enough in his bag right now to be Zach Ertz. But if I was Logan Thomas, I would really start watching like 2017-2018-2018 Zachert's film. Because that's who he's got to be. Like he's got to be that I'm going to use my initial movement, my state. the first part of the stem of my route to really try to push DBs and really control their leverage because, and even Ertz, Ertz is not like real slippery at the top.

He just gets guys out of place with this initial first three or four steps. Logan Thomas should watch Zach Ertz. If I was coaching Logan Thomas, that's what I'd pull up. That's who I think he can be. I would love it if he became Zachert. Sorry, running backs. Antonio Gibson.

Um, 13 carries, 35 yards. He had four receptions in this game. You know, the fourth play of the game. I think that there's a big run opportunity. I thought he misses the hole. It still ends up being a four-yard play, but I thought there was a big run opportunity on that play. Um, a little bit later, uh, I want you to pull this up.

So first and 10 on the second drive, but 22 yard line. I thought he had really good patience out of gun to continue to continue to, to push to the front side edge. But then I thought he missed a cut back, the second cut. Like he makes one cut, and then I think if he makes that second cut, and I wrote, man, he could really become that two, three cut back where you're stringing those cuts together. That really would make him excellent. And then as I said that, he did it in the third quarter.

Like in the third quarter, he ends up same type of play going to the right. I see what you're talking about. Do you know what I mean on that play? But unless you're going to come back to this play, I thought the play two plays before where he got seven yards and a play where he should have gotten three was one of his best plays of the day. Yeah, no, I mean, absolutely.

He's very powerful. He's got a lot of power, and he's got a, I think he surprises people with speed when he gets to the edge. Yeah. I think they see him as kind of that power back. he is almost Marshawn Lynch like yeah it wasn't the play two plays earlier it was on there it was the first it was on their

field drive that I'm talking about okay I think it was or maybe it was their first drive the game I don't know it was their first drive of the game first drive of the game when he had a seven years run yeah it's a first and 10 at the 21 yard line really good patience to get to the edge you could feel out of gun front side zone run that's what I wrote down um

the protection stuff. He can't cut. He can't cut block. We talked about this last week where he's coming across the formation to protect away from the quarterback. Starts on the left side of the quarterback and he's going to the right side to end protecting against any blitz.

There's another one in this game where he literally falls down at their feet. It's just kind of like he tries to just get on his hands and knees, like a slow motion play. I would stop right now if I was. Randy Jordan, I would say you're not, you're done cut bocky. You can't do it. Like hit him in the chin. Right. That's, until he starts hitting dudes, nobody's going to slow down for him.

Nobody's going to slow down for that cut. They're going to just go and say you can't fall down and play, play, push him down and then play the cut. He can't cut. You can't let him do it anymore. It's three games in a row that I've seen the weakest shit cut blocks I've ever seen in my life. Well, the last week's got Kyle Allen hurt, you thought. It did, and another one had a chance to get Alex hurt. And I just, and it's, and he did it in Dallas.

Is that why he's playing 30 snaps less than McKissick? I don't know exactly what it is. He played 30 snaps less than McKissick. No. Well, I think the big thing is McKissick is definitely that third down back. And as they got down 24-3 in this game, they got out of some of their packages. They even had some three-back packages, which I thought was. awesome. Yeah, on a third and one, they ran Barbara with some action in the backfield with

three of them. Right. Right. Um, there's a zone run play. I want you to pull this up. I want you to pull this play up. It's a first and 10 in the third quarter. Uh, they're going in. They're at the 14 yard line. There's four minutes and 55 seconds. So I mentioned that he had good patience to push front side. And sometimes Kev, things are called different. Sometimes you have tight zone calls and sometimes you have wide zone calls. It depends on what hole they call the back. To me, the way the line operates here, it looks like more of a wide zone call.

So what happens is he's running the left across the quarterback. and Switzer is uncovered, starts to arc out towards the linebacker, 59 on his side. Well, Gibson never presses that edge. And then 59 just falls off immediately, falls back early into the hole and he's there to make a play. And Switzer almost doesn't get a hand on him. Now, Switzer turns to try to maybe pin a little bit too early. But for me, if you get your back to really push that two more steps, and I just, just wrote push one more gap front side before you make that first cut.

Like even though you see it, push one more gap and really open that thing up, it puts the defenders on the offensive line. You got to put them on your offensive line. Now, they could have called this real tight zone and it could be purely swipes or should have just attacked more vertical. But at the same time, I just think a little bit more patience. And that said, I've seen it on a couple of plays, even in this game. but if you're what if you pull this play up going in at the 14 yard line in the third quarter you can see what

I'm talking about where switzer starts on an angle and he has no chance to get that blockmate right and then the last thing I wrote with the negatives with gibson he's got to be a better ball fake guy he has he's any of the play action stuff he's horrendous like your job is to be an actor make it this could be fun kev you know what I mean like if I was the back and you were going to run action fake to me, I would carry out that fake for like seven yards. I would be making cuts, jukeing people. He takes the half-assed fake that, I mean, there's even one where Alex really tries to stick it out to him. And he veers away from Alex and you're like, where are you going? Yeah, we got to, you want them to believe that you have the ball. The idea of run action fake is to create the idea

of run action. If you don't look like you have the ball, it does nothing for us. he's bad at this he's bad at run action fakes so the couple things he could clean up before we get to the positives one i think he's you can't he can't cut block anymore like this is and this is really easy to simplify for a rookie okay you're done cut blocking you're done you're not doing that you want a cut block you will not be on the field two go have some fun with your run action fake like seriously make things matter these are little details little details little details little Details matter in football games, and he is not a detailed person when it comes to these fakes. It's half-assed.

And the thing about it is, it's easy. Right. It's so easy to carry out a run fake. You have no responsibility. Go be Brad Pitt. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know.

He put the cigarettes in his hat and river runs through it, and he's catching that fish swimming down the river. Like, there's no way he had a real fish on, but he's man. He probably stunt double. You know what? You are quite the fisherman. You are quite the fisherman, the father said. They were in awe of Brad Pitt as a fisherman. But of course, he had drinking and gambling issues,

which eventually took him out of this life much earlier than anticipated. Because you know what? He was a hell of a journalist. He was a hell of a newspaper reporter. Oh, he was a great newspaper reporter. I love that movie. That's one of my favorite movies ever. It's one of it's just a hell of a journalist.

a beautiful movie, too. Everything about it is. But anyway, continue. That's great. I mean, go be Tristan in Legends of the Fall. Legend of the Fall. Yeah. That's a good movie, too. God, Anthony Hopkins is great in that movie. Oh, he's so good in that movie. Don't let you, if you have young kids, that's actually not a very kid-friendly movie. I remember that as being like a beautiful, wholesome movie. It's not, there's some brutality to that thing. Don't let your kid watch that movie. There's a lot of brutality in that. Yeah, that was a bad movie. Who's the female in that movie? Because I don't think she's ever really done a lot of things.

What's her name? Her name is Julia Osmond. Julia Osmond? Yeah, she was in the curious case of Benjamin Button. Oh, okay. She didn't become a big star, though. That was a big-time movie, Legends of the Fall. and you know she obviously was torn between you know basically three brothers um and she loved tristan

more than any of them obviously but i don't think that i don't think she ever became a big star after that movie maybe i'm wrong julia orm or not osirmond ormond yeah ormond yeah ormond and um yeah great movie anyway uh what else let's go Um, she was also in the barber of Siberia. You know, Henry Thomas, who played Sam, who was killed, you know, he's the brother that was killed in World War I. You never pull Henry Thomas out of that. Well, the reason Henry Thomas is also, um, uh, Henry Thomas is in Legends of the Fall playing the brother that dies in World War I. But he is also in, um, in gangs of New York, which.

Oh, you know what he was? Which is one of my favorite all-time movies. It's a great Scorsesee movie. Yeah. He was the kid in E.T. He was the kid in E.T. Of course. Of course he was.

But that's been bugging me for like two weeks since I watched that movie. I just thought of it. But anyway. Okay. So we were on Gibson. Yeah. Gibson was, oh, the positives from Gibson. Look, I do think he's getting better feel as a runner.

I think he's getting more patience as. the runner. And I think he's got a burst when he gets to the edge. I think he surprises some people. I think he's got natural hands as a running back out of the flat. He's a good tackle break dude. He proved in one of the plays I talked about, he can string three cuts together. And to me, that's what a great back does is they string three cuts together. And they make you miss on multiple levels. And I'm seeing that from Gibson. You know, I shouldn't be surprised. He scored like every third time he touched the ball at Memphis. So, right.

The touchdown he had, the first one, he sees daylight. He probably could have cut that back, but he sees daylight. He knows he's going to get it in and he knows he's got power. And that second touchdown, that bounce run in the fourth quarter. Good run. That's the surprise people, the edge with a burst. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought. Yeah, that was, I love that run. And he, you know, he was, there was no chance he was going to get caught. Yeah. No chance. What was Gibson? C-plus. Okay.

McKissor. Jady McKissick. Alex Smith had an off-script throw that he threw down at the three-yard line. I thought it was a drop. I did too. I thought so, too. I thought that was a catchable ball by McKissick, and you know what? He's had a few drops this year.

He's had quite a few targets, too. Yes. I mean, it's catch percentage still pretty good. Probably. There's another throw that I didn't mention with Alex, but McKissick runs a five-yard spot route and Alex throws it out towards the sideline away from McKissick.

I thought McKissick should have broke away from the defender. A lot of times with those routes, you can work away from the defender on quarterback eyes. Like it's a definitive, we want you to set up your spot here. And a lot of times they don't want you to work hard out early, especially with the back swinging out. But man, he had the defender inside of him,

and Alex threw it back outside of him, and I thought he should have worked away. He kind of got stuck right there. He's an okay pass protector. He was okay running the football in this game, although there were a couple big plays, or not big plays, but important plays, where he just, he'll hit it up inside.

And he's back, even on a gap scheme plays. He's not afraid for a small guy to go hit it up inside. he's not powerful. He's not going to break a lot of tackles up inside, but he'll go hit it up in there. Third one at the end of the half was a really good play by McKissick. And, you know, there's a nice on the touchdown play. There's a third and one in the fourth quarter that's a tight zone play that he gets.

I mean, you like a back that'll hit it up in there on third and one and get the first down. Sure. The positives, look, how many catches does he have that he makes a guy miss? A lot. A lot. I mean, how many four-yard plays does he turn into eight, ten, twelve? and it's just it's big time I actually want you to pull up the third and one

at the end of the half before we move on any further because I just wanted to talk about something that I saw that I think they should implement and since I know that Ron and Scott Turner listen to this podcast I'll look forward to seeing this in the game plan next week he's not kidding I sort of I'm not kidding I know somebody listens to it

because so many things it's way to coincidental to all right what do you want me to look at at the third and one so there's a third and one right at the end of the half yeah they didn't have to snap it there you know i i made a note of that they could have you know let it go to the two minute warning because if if you miss it there you know they're probably going to go for it anyway but if you get a loss now you're punting and you're giving detroit you know potentially more time but whatever um by the way so terry comes flying across the formation um Alex, if they RPO that play, which I saw, I think I saw for the first time last year, shoot, who was it?

It was Notre Dame's opener last year. They were playing, I don't know, someone. Oh, they were playing Louisville. Louisville had that real fast quarterback probably still do this year. And they'd RPO and then they'd boot off of RPO. as Terry flies across the field, they have one cornerback sitting outside wide playing cover two. Right. They have a vertical route taking off the top.

And essentially, that cornerback would be responsible for playing the vertical route, Terry and Alex. There are three options if they were to boot. If that backer, that you would be reading to the. boot side. If he crashes down on run at all or any edge player comes down on run, he keeps it. Who is stopping boot? He could keep it and run. He could dump it to Terry or if that corner chooses to come up a little bit and play either Terry or Alex, he's got a shot down the sideline. It's not, it's doable because I've seen teams do it. You just have to be careful. Your linemen aren't downfield. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. Um,

Um, but you just, you, you coach to really, if you want to RPO boot, really take care of the first level first. Spend a lot of time on the double team. And for that, it's third and one, right? So you do want to take care of the first level first. It's just more lateral on the zone play from your offensive line. And you just coach them not to climb early. Like it's like a two count before you climb to the second level. And by the way, they'll never call that.

Like you've got to be so far downfield to call. I want to mention one other thing. I love the idea, and maybe we'll end up seeing that, and it'll end up being a big play, and then we'll be able to say, look at what they just did against the Bengals. I want to just mention one thing about that play, because I didn't mention it in the broadcast. So a lot of teams in this situation will really, they will, it's a third and one with basically the clock getting to the two-minute warning, and they don't have to snap the ball. For whatever reason, they decided they wanted to snap the ball real quickly in this spot and get the third and one play off, but they didn't have to. There were 11 seconds left

on the play clock and you're down. A lot of teams now will get up there and they'll use that opportunity to try to draw the off sides, you know, with Cadence. And they ran the play. They got the first down. Good for them. But this is another example. I just don't think Rivera is a very good in-game strategist. There's a lot of things that are going on in the league that I don't see them doing as much of. That is down 14-3, clock heading to the two-minute warning, third and one. Now, maybe they just felt like this is the defense they want to run this third and one play against. It can't be. Okay.

And what you would call it jam front. They covered both guards in the center. This is not, I mean, this is really what? a seven-man box to a six-man deal. Like, and this is where you have that RPO off of it from. But, yeah, no, I'm with you completely. Like, they didn't have to run a play there, and they could have taken that opportunity. Third and one defense geared up to try to get a big stop to draw the off-sides.

But it never occurred to them to do that, clearly. No, it didn't occur to them. I don't know. This is, I just think that there's options off of this. I hear you where you're coming from, though. No, but I know what you're saying, and I bet we're going to see something, because that RPO, and he keeps that,

he's got options with McLorn, he's got options with Sims, and, you know, you don't want him to have the option really in this stuff to run it, right? I mean, you don't want Alex Smith to be a read option keeper. You don't want him to be a hoopkeeper either. No, but that's why I'm suggesting that you give him a flat throw. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Right, sure. He's not just alone. Right. All right. And by the way, I don't care if I, If it's third and one, I don't care if it's Alex Smith.

I just want to get the first down. Get one yard and fall down. But I don't even want to see him slide with the apparatus that he has. Do you want to just see him go out there and just take a tumble? Could he do that? I don't know. But do you know what I'm saying? This apparatus?

I know exactly what you're saying. I don't know that a slide would be comfortable to watch. I think if he kept it on that read option third and one and he could turn it up field for five yards, I guess he would just have to do one of those things where he just sort of crumpled. and went down, like knees to the ground and then face to the ground. Or maybe he could just put his arms up and see, I give up. I'm down. He's got a robotic leg.

He's fine. Okay. If he can't slide, he can't play, and they're not going to qualify him to play. Okay. Have you seen him slide yet in any of his activity here through the Rams game, through the Giants game, through the Lions game? He's not had a slide yet opportunity. I don't know.

I don't want to see. So, you know the other thing you haven't seen? I think you see a respect for Alex Smith. Like anytime he gets towards the sideline, they're like, going out. I know. They're not hit. You're right. They are not going to hit Alex Smith.

But they don't care about him in the pocket. They're going after him in the pocket. Yeah. All right. McKissick. McKissick was a B. Payton Barber played 10 plays. He had a couple carries.

He was a C-plus. He missed an opportunity to bounce a duo early in the game. It was the first play of the game. The middle-linebacker hung inside. I thought he could have bounced it outside. I didn't have any other notes from McKissick. So to sum up your running backs, Antonio Gibson, C plus, J.D. McKissick, B, Peyton Barber, C, plus. I do think Antonio Gibson's going to develop into a pretty good back.

I still think there are more uses for Antonio Gibson. What I think is funny was that early in this year, I suggested that Gibson could be an H-back, dude. Gibson can't, he can't block anybody. He's not going to be an H-Bron. Right. I do remember that suggestion. Roll that out. Yeah, rule that one out.

that went out. I also think that it's very interesting. And your point is a good one, that they got into, you know, basically, McKissick is the third down back. They're going to throw the ball primarily in the second half when they got down 24-3. But I think they recognize some of his limitations, too. But I do like him as a runner, even though I think his vision is limited. I think he really finishes runs and ends up getting, he ends up basically falling forward and moving a pile, which is not. not what I thought of when I thought of a running back out of Memphis. But he's big and he's strong. No, I'm with you. It's just half the runs that he ends up finishing for four yards. I'm sitting there going, okay. He could cut it back and go. He got more than expected based on where he took it.

But he took it to the wrong place, so he should have had eight. Understood. Offensive line. And then finished through contact for 12. Offensive line, Cornelius Lucas. Poor technique and footwork, hat placement on outside zone. Beat by speed rush, speed to power. on a third down in the first drive.

A miss a tackle end stunt. It's really too slow athletically to fall back off inside to get to the tackle. It ends up giving up a quarterback hit. Give up and up and under on a third and four in the second quarter. That was the Sims snag route. And it's again a quarterback hit. And what I wrote in some of these past protection stuff, it clarifies. He's really got his chest out over his feet too far.

He's got too much waist bend. And he's in a poor position for an offensive line. an offensive lineman to really recover to that up and under stuff. He's got to get his chest up and back. He's got his chest bent over forward. And you can actually see it. You can see that his chest is out in front of his feet, which essentially doesn't give you much chance to recover.

He's an adequate pass protector at times. He's okay in some gap seam stuff one-on-one. Cornelius Lucas was a D in this game. West Switzer. West Switzer did not play the best game, but continues to continue. used to impress me as a guy that I think is a starting offensive lineman in the NFL. I can work on his footwork, especially when he has double teams with this center on inside stuff.

He is slow when it comes to passing stunts off, and he has slow feet in the past game, especially with anything looping in or out. I mentioned the play that I made you watch where I thought Gibson cut too early, but still, West Switzer's got a good arc out to the linebacker, but the zone doesn't end up pinning guys. You're not pinning or turning guys in zone. He tries to turn and pin him in that situation. It's probably the only thing he could have really done.

But you want to take the guy on the second level. On the angle that you find him, he about blew out Brandon Sheriff's knee on that play because the dude fell back off and just railed into Brandon Sheriff's knee. The positives. I think he's a good one-on-one pass rush guy, especially against Bull Rush. He's stout.

He's really, Kev, turning into a good footwork. guy in the zone game. You can see the movement. You can see the understanding. On the backside of stuff, he fights his balls off to get his hat in front to get cutoffs done, his helmet in front of the defender's opposite shoulder. And I just wrote, this dude is coachable. This dude's doing exactly what they're teaching him to do. He's a C plus in this game. Okay. They're better right now up front with everything they're doing. doing in in terms of technique. They're not perfect yet, but you can see this before I go on to the rest of them. You can see that they are truly getting a feel for some of the zone scheme stuff.

And keep in mind, you're teaching Chase Rueh, Brandon Sheriff, and Morgan Moses, three dudes that did not have those techniques and principles in the last five years. And for the most part, any of them in their NFL career, how to run a system and a scheme that is different than what they've done. it took some time but I think they're getting better. That's give John Matzko their offensive line coach some credit. Yeah, I think John Matzko's really doing a good job. Now, again, there's a lot to improve on, but if I'm looking at them as an offensive line in this system,

I would say to myself at least they're coachable, they're learning, they're growing. Okay. Chase Rui, A beat on a stunt and third down on the first drive, gives up some pressure. That was actually the jail break play. he's beat on a screen early in this game way too fast. Alex has no time to set the thing up.

He's got to bounce past that at the running back. I think in the run game a little bit too much one, two step and then catch the defender instead of running their feet through the defender, especially on double team stuff. You could be more physical when you're attacking with double team downhill. As Joe Gibbs said, you got to move them that way. Got to move them that way. That way. he needs to move him that way i think chase rui is quick enough i think he's athletic enough i think there's just a little bit too much catch that will come with some of those own run stuff there are

times when he can get great movement on zone run stuff uh the touchdown run the initial one or the first touchdown it's awesome movement on that play he's good as a pass protector still a really average as a run blocker but getting better the way i look at it he was a c plus in this game Okay. Brandon Sheriff. Yeah. Some of it, a couple times, poor sustain. A lot of this is still awesome fire off the ball.

And sometimes it's getting bumped off. Like early in the, early in the game, they had a tight double team, him and Morgan Moses. Well, Morgan Moses is essentially humping him up the back instead of getting side to side. And as Brandon Sheriff comes off, he's pushed off because he's falling forward because Morgan's basically pushed him in the back. You got to get hit to hit. a little bit better. But fireoff is really good with Sheriff. Could be better on his fits with double team, especially with Rui.

I think when he's coming down, sometimes he gets high off the ball. And when he gets high off the ball on those double teams, he ends up attacking more of the shoulder area of the defensive tackle. You want to attack the hip area. That's the pendulum point. You get movement when you attack lower on the hip area. And still in some of the zone run stuff, I think he takes a poor angle climbing to the second level.

Again, they were not running a lot of stretch zone stuff, but the coaching point, as I've just mentioned with somebody else before, is you take the guy on the angle that you find them. So if you're going up to the linebacker, the runs to the right, you're on the right side, you're going to that linebacker, and he's flying to the right. Just take him where he wants to go. That's the beauty of the zone scheme.

Take them where they want to go. Let the back make the decision off of that. He wants to continue to try to get and straighten up and push them that way. You're like, okay, I mentioned, you got to take him that way with Ruey, sometimes on some of those tight double teams. But you can take them sideways sometimes in the zone stuff. And Sheriff is,

it's almost like he's too competitive. Like, it's okay. If he runs nine yards to the sideline, you kicked his ass that way too. Right. So I think he tries to straighten guys up a little bit too much. The other thing I think he can do with some of his double teams. And again,

especially with Ruehé, is he's really, in the zone stuff, he's really concentrated on, attacking that first level. It's a one-hand punch. So if the zone runs to the right, Brandon Sheriff's the right guard, and there's somebody splitting him in Rui,

in between the center and guard. Think of his right hand. His right hand should not touch the player of their double teaming going to the right. He should keep that free. He should punch hard with his left hand, stepping to the right, and just try to push that left hand,

push the double team on to Rui. I'm doing this. I'm literally doing this. I'm sure you are. But when you take your right hand, when it's going to the right and you put it back, it turns your right shoulder in, and it does not allow you to take an angle

as you go up to the linebacker. It pivots your body the opposite direction, and it makes it really hard. Sheriff's really trying a little bit too much to help, and it's not helping in a positive way. The positives, really pretty much all positive in this game. I mean, for as many passes they have,

I thought Sheriff was excellent pass protection the entire game. When you watch him shuffle his feet and make movement from punching on the center to then going out and helping to the right tackle, you're like, God, I mean, that quick shuffle, it's awesome. It's uncanny quickness for an offensive lineman. Some of the sustain and cutoff blocks on some of the plays, finishing guys downfield, awesome. On the away from zone plays on the backside of things, I thought he was absolutely excellent.

And some of the downhill run stuff, I thought great movement. throughout. I thought Sheriff was an A. Okay. I mean, I mentioned a couple plays, but I really thought Sheriff played at an A level in this ballgame. Morgan Moses. Played some left tackle, which was fun. I thought I actually did a pretty good job as the left tackle.

The negatives, his double teams, excuse me, his double teams were Sheriff. They are... What did you just do? Did you just belch? No, something got stuck in my throat. Oh. Okay. His double teams are sheriff.

I want to make sure you're okay. We got to get some fly fishing done down at the Blackfoot River there, Norm. Go ahead. The big blackfoot. Let's go. Come on, finish this up. I'm probably going to have to bail you out of jail. Exactly.

Moses is sharp to finish up here. So again, this is my thing with Moses. And as they grow, they're getting better. And there are times that Moses does this. But some of the doubles team stuff with Brandon Sheriff, he's stepping where his left foot goes and almost splits Brandon Sheriff's two feet, and then he kind of humps him up his back, his left hands on the back of Brandon Sheriff, and they're attacking like a little bit of a train look.

That is not the zone scheme system. That is the system that they had been coached. I was fascinated to see that coached as I spent time of practice in the last two years, not knowing that that's the way it'd been coach, but hip to hip is the only way I understand it. You have a double team and you're hip to hip. You are not half your body shadowing the other dude's body. it doesn't help them with the way they want to run the ball,

especially in this system. It does not help them. I do not like it coached that way. Some teams do it. Some teams don't. That's how he's coached. Beat a couple times on some rushes at the end. For me, it's like Moses should never be put on skates,

but he can be put on skates. The positives. I wanted to start with this play. That Gibson bounced touchdown run, the second one Gibson had. Right. Moses is the left tackle. Yeah.

awesome job not holding. If you pull that play up, that play is not designed to get outside. And as Gibson bounces it outside, that is the clinic cut up tape of why you don't hold. Just let him go. Right. Go let the ball carrier make a play.

It's so hard not to hold when you feel that guy really push outside. You know the ball carrier is bouncing outside. Just let him go. Gibson ends up outrunning him. That was a huge play by Moses because when they bounce, when it's not supposed to bounce, you are in a fishbowl for the official to see. If it's the quarterback, if it's Alex on a read option keeper rolling,

you may need to hold, but not when it's Gibson. Not when it's Gibson. Some of the stuff where they're going to his side, they're running plays at his side, God, his first step, open up, shuffle step, and go where he's really starting to arc and move the line of scrimmage is getting good. I mean, they're all being coached, I think, much, much better.

I thought Morgan Moses was a B in this game, and I'll just tell you right now that Sharp was a D-M-Shrap was a D-minus. I mean, he came in, he did his best. Right. Yeah, you could tell. It wasn't like he got beat

without touching guys. Right. You know what I mean? Like, he at least gave a two-second count for the quarterback. It wasn't good. It wasn't good. And, oh, by the way, he had the legal use of hands on the third down in the fourth quarter. Okay.

I have one question and then it's over for the day. This was a long podcast. On Danny Johnson's big, I had Tommy on before you. On Danny Johnson's big kickoff return, I wanted to wait for the coach's thing to come out before I looked at this. He didn't follow it the way he was supposed to be followed, right? I was watching that in the game. I didn't watch film on that.

lot of times they have a counter type of play on their kickoff returns where everything sets up you set up your front line and you're blocking to where it looks like you're going to pin them to where he would be going right and then he has a cutback off of it i'm not sure in watching it i could tell you i could pull it up and tell you based on the way they blocked it but you just don't see it very well on the television copy it looked like a cutback or it looks like the way he ran it it looked designed if it wasn't it's just an awesome feel for space yeah i mean i mean I don't think this was designed. I mean, I don't think this was designed at all.

I mean, I just think he makes the decision. There's going to be nothing there in every Detroit kick coverer is coming down, expecting me to follow where my blockers are. And I'm going to take it the other way and see if I can make a play. It may have, I mean, yeah, it may have been that. It was the best return of the year, and it's a shame they didn't turn it into, you know, anything other than a field goal. at the end of that drive. All right, great job. I know that that was hard because there were so many

offensive snaps. Washington right now over the last month, I think is near the lead leaguer, near the league lead in offensive snaps and time of possession. They're also one of the league leaders in third down conversions over the last month as well. Tomorrow will be easier because there weren't nearly as many defensive snaps in the game. And I think people will be curious to see what you say about their defensive performance because I think a lot of people really blamed the defense more than anything else for the loss. Great job. We'll talk tomorrow. Thanks. All right, that's it for the day. Back tomorrow with Cooley's defensive film breakdown.