The Kevin Sheehan Show - Washington-Ravens Recap

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Cooley and Kevin recap Washington's 31-17 loss to the Ravens. Ron Rivera quizzed his quarterback in the 4th quarter unconventionally. How did Dwayne do? Lots of conversation about how long Haskins has before Rivera decides to move on. The guys talked about some of the other NFL games and Jimmy Butler's brilliant performance last night in the NBA Finals. 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 want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. Three score game. You've got to, I would take the points. We'll see what happens. Haskins throws it to the nine-yard line. That's just not going to work. And they come away with no points when they still need three scores. That was an interesting play there in the fourth quarter. That fourth and goal going forth from the 13-yard line. But what followed after the game, the explanation, was even more interesting. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to a lot of things. It's a Cooley and Kevin Monday here on the podcast following a 31 to 17 loss to the Baltimore Ravens to fall to one and three and out of first place, Cooley, because the Eagles last night beat the 49ers 25 to 20.

And they, with their first win of the year in week four, are in sole possession of first place in the NFC East. How are you? I'm great. What we're going to get what we watched yesterday what did we watch you We all expected to watch what we watched it's just some of the some of it's hard to watch Vegas got it right 14 is where the game went off actually went off at 14 and a half in some spots right before kickoff What was the final score I gave you on Friday? 40 I don't know what you gave me on Friday because I took so many final scores because I I'll get it in a minute.

Yeah. I gave out 27 to 17. I know that. I gave out 27 to 17, which was pretty damn close, but it also implied in the final score a Washington cover. Now, if you bet Washington, you actually may have covered plus 14 and a half, but you probably pushed unless you played the game late in the week. Vegas got it right. I forget what your score prediction was. It was right.

I think I had it at 14. but it might have been 3319. It might have been 33, 17, something around there. Okay. Well, I was within two points. Actually, I think you said 30 to 17 now that I think about it, because I remember that we were really close on our final score prediction. Somebody, I can go back and listen to it and figure it out.

I wrote it down. I have it. Okay. I wrote it down. Whatever. It was a winning weekend for the smell test, actually. It was not a lock of the week winner, which I warned you about. You did give out the Rams, right, minus the 13 and a half?

Yeah, lock of the week loser. I'm in, actually, right now my locks of the week are tied for first place in the NFC East. Yes, they are. I was seven and five on the smell test. I'm going to tell you real quickly, though, Cooley, a smell test pick that I did not give out, but I played last night. The Eagles game was really wild in watching the point spread because you had, you know, you had some issues as to who was going to be available and who wasn't. in this game, to make a long story short, the line went all the way up to nine, nine and a half

in the one o'clock window of games yesterday. And then it started to slowly come down. And then by about seven o'clock, it was eight and a half. And then five minutes before kickoff, it went to seven and a half. There was massive sharp money on Philadelphia late. I was communicating with someone I know very well, who lives, let's just say, in a warm tropical locale in the Caribbean. And I said, what's going on with his game? And he just said major late move, sharp move on the Eagles. So I placed, listen to the wagers that I placed. I placed a wager in Philadelphia plus the seven and a half, which, by the way, was a bad

number at that point, but I went with the late sharp steam. I placed a wager in Philadelphia on the month. money line to win the game. And then, because I was so confident in this late action, and by the way, I kept thinking, Philadelphia's defense is good and it's Mullins. And I know you like Mullins, but you like Bethard more. I know you do. I know you like Bethard more. I also went, stick with me here, everybody, so you understand this. I went with a first half bet on the Eagles plus four and a half and a first half money line bet on the Eagles as well. Now, the money line game bet was plus 280 and then the points spread bet was plus seven and

half. The first half money line on the Eagles was plus 215 and the first half line was plus four and a half. I won all four of those wagers. By the way, to get myself back to even after just a horrendous start to the season, not only on the smell test, but also, so personally. And I got everything back last night on the first half and the game. And you know how I got it back on the first half? I was going to win Philadelphia plus four and a half to begin with. But Cooley, Doug Peterson went for two after their first score and they got it. And it was 8-0, and then it was 8 to 7. And then I needed a fumble late in a half as well. But I got the first half Moneyline Eagles bet on an 8 to 7 score.

Anyway, I was super happy with the result last night, even though it meant that our Washington football team fell out of sole possession of first place. We're going to talk about other NFL games. I really thought Carson Wentz was really, really good last night. The numbers will never reflect how tough he was and how many plays he made. By the way, under tremendous scrutiny. in Philadelphia. You and I have talked about this many times, and I've explained it to you because I don't even think you were aware of this for, you know, when you were in your playing career.

The Philadelphia media and fan base is as difficult as any in pro sports. They were calling for Carson Wentz to be traded or benched this week. And I thought Wentz was really good with a real limited group of people out there at wide receiver in particular. But they pulled off the win. Anyway, I wanted to share that little gambling story with you because I know you like the gambling stories. I do like the gambling story. And while you shared that story, I got my score. 3116 I gave you on Friday.

That's pretty good. Wow. I know that 3117 would be the common score. I just, the way Ron coaches, I think I was thinking not touchdowns and two-point conversions, but like somehow a botched two-point conversion and then a failed goal. And that's pretty close, though. Yeah, pretty close. All right, let's get to our game take right after this word from one of our sponsors.

All right, let's get to the game take, Coley. And what we're going to do, we've started this last week, I think, or maybe the week before, you're going to do your uhs and ums. And then I will do a complete what I liked, what I didn't like with a couple of other observations. We are going to spend some time as well on the reports that came out at the end of the week. And then prior to the game yesterday about Dwayne Haskins, I made the case, I think, on Thursday, Cooley, maybe with you on Friday about how nice it was that the organization wasn't leaking stuff anymore. And then we had the report from JP on Friday and then Rappaport head sources.

You know, typical shit show that this organization is right back to where it typically is after a quarter of this season. Lots going on on the Dwayne Haskins front. We'll have plenty of time for that. but why don't you start with a few of your ms if there are any and your go ahead so I told you last week that I would organize these because I was all over the place

yeah I have two what are you got before we get to them both involving the same thing I sat yesterday with my computer while I watched the game and I typed up a play by play you know how you can get the game book on NFL.com or any stats.

I tap my own game book with descriptions of every play. Okay. That's a weird thing to do, man. It's just, it's a weird thing for someone to do. No, it isn't. It's sort of, it's been part of your job to a certain degree. I can't just sit there and watch the game. I have to do something else.

Okay. Well, let's get started. So I have a lot of those. Secondly, this is another quick thought. And it came from last night's game. I keep saying that we need to get the ball down the field. And it implies over and over and over in this Ravens game. You've got to find a way to get the ball down the field.

And I just, I don't want to hear about it. When you talk about our receivers or who we have on offense, fucking Travis Fulgroom, who just got picked up on waivers from Green Bay, gets deep against the 49ers. He did. Go ball for a touchdown that went struck a dime. Okay. Fulgram.

Fulgram. We're okay. Or we just can't find receivers, one or the other. But people can get downfield, Kev. You find ways to get the ball downfield. You have receivers that can run, get the ball downfield. Period. All right.

I mean, I think when I get to my game take, I'm going to disagree with you a little bit, but go ahead. Yeah, well, Fulgram, deep on the 49ers. one of the best past defenses. Understood. That was the one deep ball they got the entire game. Everything else was a lot of screens and a lot of get rid of it last night in that game. I came up with, I think 11 is, 12 is.

Oh, boy. Starting at the bottom. I thought James Lofton was horrible. Who? James Lofton. Oh, calling the game? Yeah. Who was he calling the game with?

Catalan, that guy? It was certainly their D crew. I'll go through a couple examples. First of all, there's a third and 12 that Lamar Jackson runs a quarterback draw on earlier. And the announcers have no idea that it's quarterback draw. They're trying to credit Washington's pressure. Gus Edwards or whoever the back was, is straight lead blocking. Yeah, I saw that.

I saw that. I saw that exactly. It's a total quarterback draw. It's a total quarterback draw. Yeah. There's a third and six for Washington, again, early in the game. I quit writing these down because it was just driving me nuts, and I knew this was going to be nitpicky.

You can hear definitively, Haskins say Lester, Lester, which means he's calling out the line slides. They're in an empty set, okay? Baltimore's bringing more than you can block, and I think it's Judah comes unblocked off Dwayne Haskins right side, and he gets a set. Jude on you. 3rd and 6.

Quarterback's making the calls here. So Lofton says that offensive line is going to have to get over the sideline and figure out how they're going to communicate. Tech quarterback. How about the quarterback called the line slide at the line of scrimmage? You heard it. You could hear it. Lester, you could hear the line slide. We got some, even Bodie agrees.

Even Bodie agrees with that. Yeah, Bodie agrees with that. Here's another one. A little play that I thought he hit Gibson on a show. shallow crosser. Play ends. This is one of my favorites. I love this one.

Boney! Quiet! Little play that he hits Gibson. Lofton pulls out the old 269x sneak. That's what that play was. That's exactly what that play was. That's the only West Coast play I remembered from being in a West Coast offense.

West Coast doesn't use numbers. That's Correale. West Coast is all of Burbage. Oh, God. I'm just like, throughout the game consistently. Oh, I love this. They love it. They're calling out the fake punt.

Like, you got to watch, we got to make sure in this area of the field that Baltimore doesn't. They called that out. He called that before it happened. What are you going to say that? I'm going to explain this a million times. You know why they call it? Because they sit there and watch practice on Friday.

Right. I understand. And they're like, oh, punter is. a ball. Note that down that around the 40, the punter threw the ball. All right. Um, 11. Yeah. They're down after Terry gets it down to the goal line on a good throw. It took him over a minute to score from the goal line. I know. Good point. Excellent. Over a minute to score from the goal line. The game's not over. And it takes them over a minute to score from the goal line. And then as another side from that they're all high-fiving and laughing and pat and duane on the back on the sideline i it's

a caller pointed that out to me 17 okay i mean it wasn't a huge they weren't going nuts doing celebrations but it it wasn't dismay wasn't doing selfies it's just a not just i'm not saying it was dwayne i'm putting it more on everyone on the bench okay number 10 on the i list going from 12 to 1. It's right after the McKissick fumble. It's the next play. It's an incredible throw by Jackson to Hollywood Brown. Jackson's running right, throwing across his body,

gets down to the two-yard line, the one-yard line. They ruled it a touchdown. I was hyped because I got some fantasy points there. But seriously, the transition defense on the next play. Yeah. Yeah. Number nine on the e-yck list. We're counting.

it down. Landon Collins gets stiff-armed by Lamar Jackson on the longest run of Lamar Jackson's career. Look, I'm not going to discount that Lamar Jackson is hard to tackle, Kevin. I'm just not. But this is Landon Collins, the guy we paid $70 million to tackle. You cannot keep missing tackles. You're missing three, four, five a game. And you're getting stiff-armed by a quarterback. You didn't get juke. If he got a big-time juke or a spin move, whatever. That's a little. Lamar Jackson, you got stiff-armed by quarterback. That's going to be a hard film to watch right there. Yeah.

Number eight, just the inability to start fast as a team, punt, fumbled punt, first three possessions, and it got worse. Got to be able to start ball games by scoring points. You have to. Yeah, I know. Number eight. They're number seven on the, the i list fourth and nine the fake punt uh we kind of talked about it they're calling it out

that doesn't mean the announcers are smarter they just they've seen practice but who in the holy hell is fabian covering well it wasn't like he was completely fooled by it was he no but they're in safe punt and sam cook is not throwing a dart out there he throw a pretty good ball i'm not discounting that it was a pretty good ball but And where's a Fabian Moreau that jumped a pick against Carson Wentz four weeks ago? He's not playing any defensive snaps anymore. Yeah, he's just out there not covering fake punts. I mean, you know Baltimore is a fake punt team.

You have to know that Sam Cook can throw the ball. They're in safe punt. You don't care about a return. They're punting from midfield. The chances are that ball is going to land or be fair caught somewhere inside the 20. You know, he threw that ball before the receiver came out. How did the break? It's such a good throw.

It was good. Oh, man. That hurt him. Yeah. Number six. Eh. McKissick fumble. It's a checkdown on the second and 11.

He's fighting for extra yards. It's a big play by Humphreys. And if you were watching later in the game, Humphreys almost caused another fumble. I think on right on the 17 play drive. Humphreys is a pretty good punchout corner. Oh, he's good. A lot of times when it's receivers, I understand you get it punched out.

I don't agree or I don't like it. But running backs usually practice ball security. That hurt them bad. Really bad. Number five, the complete understanding by Scott Turner that we cannot get the ball down the field. Remember last year when we played the Miami Dolphins in Miami? Yeah. Out came Josh Rosen.

and they threw about 100 screen passes in the first half. Yeah. Because they could not get the ball down on the field because Josh Rosen could not see down the field. And then they benched him for Fitzpatrick. And Fitzpatrick came in and almost well in the game. That's what our offense looked like yesterday. A lot of it. There was at least 10 slip screens.

Oh, yeah. They worked. You got to credit Scott Turner. I'm not discounting. This is not a slight on Scott Turner. this is more of a he knows we have to do this. Right. Yeah.

The funny thing is that's going to be my number one what I liked because I think he schemed up a way for them to move the football. But your, your, uh, is, oh, he knows we can't throw the football down the field. No, he did. He did. He schemed up a way to move the ball. I mean, he certainly did that. DeWain's inconsistency to pressure.

He never knew where they were coming from. We talked about that first line call he makes. You make a full line slide left and you got six guys coming. You have to throw hot. You have five protecting and empty. Six are coming. You can't eat that sack. You knew you turned him free.

Yeah. The 18-yard sack in the long 17-play drive. You can't take that sack. He even started to run right, and if he just continues right out of the pocket, he's going to escape the pocket. Yeah. And he starts two steps right. And then he pivots back left.

And it looks like he's carrying like 20 pound ankle brake, ankle weights around his, around his feet. Yes. He looked like lead foot there. I mean, he couldn't move. He didn't move well in the pocket. Now, we'll describe the film breakdown and throughout today that there were some throws, and there were a couple things that he did where he stepped up in the pocket. But he was devastated by pressure.

It ended the play for him. Couldn't move. And he couldn't slide. And he panicked a little bit. And he took a couple bad sacks. He took a 12-yard sack. He took an 18-yard sack. He did not throw the ball well under pressure.

Got an 18-yard sack is about as much without fumbling the ball or a bad snap that sales over your head. It's hard to take an 18-yard sack. This really, well, it is until you realize that you're going to try to get out of the pocket on the right side and then just don't want to run right. Yeah. This is becoming more and more evident to me. When he breaks out on the right side and takes off, we'll start having the discussion that he can go both ways. I would practice that this week.

I would seriously practice that this week. That might be a long list of the is to practice. He needs to flush right or be able to flush right. I mean, and even when flushing right, it's awkward. Like, you know it's awkward when the announcers are pointing out that it's awkward. There was a fourth and two that he rolled right. And the announcers like, that's a weird, awkward long windup. You just want that ball to zip out, I mean, you complete it.

That roll right is just an awkward jump. Strange release. It's not comfortable throwing moving to his right. No, he doesn't run right. But he did complete that one. It was complete. You know, you were right.

Number two, yeah, the Ron Rivera game management. Oh, boy. After going for it on a fourth and 13, which was fascinating, like, it's a situation where you can make it a two-score game,

but you choose to go for it. I mean, maybe just understanding that Baltimore's going, to score a touchdown on the next position or score a field goal on the next position. I'm not sure. It's 28 to 10. Well, was it right there? 28 to 10.

You needed points. Fourth and 13, you're probably not going to get. You then choose to punt on the next drive in a fourth and 10 situation at midfield. Oh, my God. I forgot about that. That's such a good pickup. It wasn't even fourth and 10. It was like fourth and six.

So we're grab bagging at when we do or do not want to go for it? That is such a great pickup. Like that's one of those. I'm actually really upset that I didn't pick up on that. But I think at that point I had pretty much checked out of really paying attention because there were like five minutes left. I'm going to guess somewhere around five minutes left. But it was like fourth and six minutes.

It was fourth and ten. No, it was less than that, Cooley. I'm positive. much. So they completed, on that drive, they completed a slant to McLaurin. It was an incomplete throw to Inman. There was a second and 10 screen, and on third and 10, the ball was batted by Cleas Campbell. Fourth and 10, I wrote not going for it at midfield, question mark. I just pulled it up. It's fourth and six at the 45. Okay. So they got four yards on the screen. They got four yards on the screen to Enman. So that makes it even worse. We're not

going to go for it at midfield down. But we were going to go for it. He was this really fascinating, are we in R&D mode or are we not in R&D mode? Like, okay, we got a chance maybe. How do I feel? What's it? Like it was like someone was reading him the ESP and win percentages. And they're like, as soon as you get under 10, R&D mode. But if you're above 10, you got to call your timeouts.

Because he did call his timeouts late. Well, he did. Yeah. I mean, wasn't concerned about injuries there. wasn't concerned about R&D there. I think, I don't know, Cooley, go ahead. I want you to continue because, as you said, the whole thing is fascinating. And it's curious.

And it's also much of the explanation, which we will play for you, the explanation on the 4th and 13, when I get to my game take, is nonsensical. But continue. Well, none of the decisions were sensible. I don't know if you've ever watched I told you to watch the show Brockmeyer I watched like that first I watched a couple over the weekend and it was I had kind of thought of Ron

with one of these quotes personally when I stare into the gaping yawn of oblivion I bawled my fists up and take a swing but you don't I mean well good for you good for you take a swing man yeah you went forward on you did take a swing

and then on fourth and six you don't that was strange. The end of the half, I get the ball back after a huge Kendall Fuller interception. Yeah. After a first and 10 completion of McKissick, a timeout,

a second 10 screen, which is, I hate that call because it's going to be tough to get a ball out of bounds. They don't call timeout, and then they're hurrying up. They're trying to make a play. They're trying to get to the ball.

It's almost a disaster. Almost. Jesus. And then he lets his offense actually hurry up. The ball's going to be snapped with six seconds if Duane gets it off. If they don't call a timeout within the one second between seven and six, they're running a play there and the house over.

The lack of a, okay, first of all, the lack of utilizing hurry up through the first five weeks and not calling time out and trying to get into games is now putting them a situation where they haven't run hurry up. And so the play after the McKissick train is just go spike the ball or take a time out the second he's tackled in bounds. Of course. Of course. Okay, we're going to take it.

We're going to run another play here. If that plays in a second, that next plays down, we've got to spike it. We probably at that point would have chance for one more shot at the end zone and then kick a field goal. Total disarray confusion. It was bad. Well, McKissick had no sense. On the first play, he could easily get out of bounds and stop the clock and not have to burn a time out. Easily.

And he did. It was like he took a hit there on the side. Yeah. It was almost like the week again. against Arizona, or Cleveland, I forget now, when they were telling him to stay inbounds to let the clock run out. They're really confused. This is really, this is where, like, I haven't said it this directly, but I'll say it now. This is going to be the ugly gift that keeps on giving, A, because he wasn't very good at this, but it's been so bad and so ridiculously explained. I think he's just not with it right now.

And it's the most important thing is his health. But I wonder if there's any consideration to taking a leave of absence right now. He needs to be healthy. You saw, they showed him at going into the third quarter sitting on the bench. And he looked completely exhausted. But I know he's an inspiration to his team too. So there's that. And I don't, I want him to do what's best for him and his family.

At the same time, we got to be here talking about games. and there have been, there just has been, even this terrible announcing crew of Catalan and Lofton, you know, they understood the ridiculous explanations in clock management gaffes of the last couple of weeks. And we just had more yesterday. The end of the first half, you know, there's, by the way, you know, if you're a quarterback or I'm quarterback in that situation, we're like, no, no, no, we're not going to run another play coach. We didn't take it at 17 seconds. Let's just let this thing run down to two seconds.

We'll call the timeout, send out old Dustin to kick the field goal. If you ask me to run a play here, we're going to end up with no points. What's better, Cooley? No points or points at the end of the half. When you're trying to win the game. Somebody figured it out on the sideline at the very last second because it was very close to the ball being snapped and the timeout being granted. Did the timeout? Did the wrong call the time out?

Did what? Did Ron actually call the timeout? I have no idea who actually called the time out. Somebody from the sideline figured it out. They're like, if we run this play, the clock will run out and we will get no points. And they did call the time out just in time, but it was barely in time. You know it was barely in time. One of the assistant athletic trainers drops the Gatorade thing and starts sprinting to the sideline,

he's like, I can't do it. Time out. They're like, water boy. What, what do you? Well, thank you. Thank you, Waterboy, for doing that. That was actually the right move. Don't do it again, though. He might need to take a break, and I'm not suggesting that he take a break. Like, if he wants to be a part of inspiring on the sideline, then then go inspire on the sideline. Just don't make decisions right now. Or maybe be in the booth. Why not? Where you can stay hydrated and be comfortable, and, you know, the pressure. of these games for somebody who's battling what he's, look, I can't speak to any. This is ridiculous. No, I don't want to say anything either because, but he's, but he's, but he's clearly not a hundred

percent right now and well, if he is, it's not good. No, it isn't. This is true. If he's a hundred percent with it, they're not the right decisions in a lot of these situations. No. The last thing on the list. Pretty much everything on that 17 play drive. Now, I'm going to say everything after they crossed midfield. They had a couple pretty good throws to Terry. But you don't have nine minutes down 28 to 10 going in to the fourth quarter there. It's 3110 at that point, right? I think it was 2810 at that point because they ended up not scoring.

And I think Baltimore ran the ball down the field, gashed them late. Yeah, you're right. 2810, correct. Well, only because I have my. No, you're right. That's why they should have taken the field going. worth and gold. I'm sorry. Yes. Continue. But I mean, all the way down,

you're in the third and two, you're in four down situation and they throw an incompletion. It forces, he forces a ball to right on a covered shallow cross. Like, I'm sitting there going, you know you're in four down situation. You can probably run the ball for a first down here. I'm not suggesting that I want to waste more time, but I'm suggesting in that play that I really don't want fourth and two. I mean, I'd almost rather,

you got to look to run the ball. But it's like, I literally wrote at the beginning in Bull, you pretty much are done with balance on offense here. Duane has to take over the game, throwing the ball down the field. You can't have seven screens and knick-knack your way down the field. There's no matriculation here, okay? Right.

There's none. And you get down the field and then- I mean, the drive starts in the third quarter, Cooley. I'm aware of that, but you're down 18 points. I understand. How many more possessions are you going to get? Right. And the funny thing, they tended to operate better and hurry up,

But go ahead. They did tend to operate a little bit better. But, I mean, it's all the way down to Isaiah, right almost fumbles in the red zone. Humphreys almost pops it out. They false start the next play, which puts them into first 15, first and 15. And then James Lofton suggests that first and 15 is better, gives you more space to throw the ball into the end zone. Would entirely disagree with. He takes the shitty sack 18-yard loss.

Can't run right. I mean, the second and 33, they get a screen to McKissick that gets him like 11-yard. yards. But then the third and 22, you're throwing a check down. And then you decide to go for it on fourth and forever, fourth and 13. And he throws the ball underneath at the seven yards. What are we doing? We're going to get into this in more, and even greater detail. We'll play the Rivera sound from the post game, which is really quite remarkable. You are familiar with what he said after the game, right? I didn't listen to what he said. Oh, oh, oh, please, please. I want to hear what he said because I, oh, this is going to be good. This is going to be good. But I mean, it was like, let's all get the

brown paper bags out and let's even drop big smiley faces on them. Just, just to understand, or as Brockmeyer would say, to add a little whimsy to the proceedings. You know, whimsy. I love whimsy. So those are my idiots. Was, was, um, was, uh, was Brock Meyer Was that Hank his area? No. Yeah. Oh, it was? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's what I like from the game. I didn't, I got nine. I tried to get 10. I got nine. Well, nine's it then. Number nine. Man, I called the score on Friday.

I'm pretty good about that. I'm late in the game. I'm like, I am right on this thing, man. This is great. I looked at yesterday, which I didn't remember. I'm like, if they missed this field goal, or this P. T. Go down 31. 16. I'd be a genius.

Number seven. I only got eight. That's what it is. I only got eight. Terry McLaren and Dwayne do seem to have a connection. Yeah. They do. Number six. There's only one penalty. Two in the game, but yeah, none in the first half. One real impactful one. The first one, the first penalty was Chase Ruey's false star. That's right.

Number five. You know, honestly, the defense didn't do. a bad job stopping the run. I gave up the long one to Lamar on third and five. I agree. But for the most part, when you were watching that game, if you take away the last drive where Baltimore started at the seven-yard line, went all the way down and got a field goal on essentially run, run, run, run, run. They averaged under four yards of carry.

Granted, I get that Lamar had the long run and it ended up being over four. but if you're watching the game and the flow of the game, I thought they did a pretty good job stopping the run. And in number four, I honestly thought they did a pretty good job controlling Jackson in the pocket. I did too. I thought they put pressure on Jackson. I thought that there were really no huge impactful scrambles in the game.

There were quarterback draws. There weren't quarterback. Like, he didn't truly kill you with his legs and kill you in the pocket. He made some big throws. And that's what he's capable. of doing, but it wasn't one of those games where they're going to look back and say, we had no answers. They had some answers for what they were doing with Jackson.

They got after him. It was good film for anybody else watching moving forward. Right. Number three, Kendall Fuller's interceptions were big. The one at the end of the half gave him a chance right there at the end of the half to almost get back into the game. they've ever down 21-7 yeah

they could go down and score a touchdown you make it 21-14 big also you don't make a play there and there's a chance you go down 24-7 the game's over right and I love the pick

Robert comes in first throw he throws a pick at FedEx Field did you see his tweet after the game no oh my God hold on let me get it for you because this one was rich this was really rich Um, uh, bear with me.

Where is it? Um, it's here somewhere. Oh, here it is. Uh, shortly after the game at 4.19 p.m. yesterday, which that game ended, I don't know, 355 or something. So it was about 25 minutes after the game. Great team win. Thankful to be blessed with the opportunity to help close it out. Thanks, Lamar Jackson. Did, when you- Anybody watching that game right there after to the, after Terry scored, they're like, are they going to pull Lamar back in? God, how great would that have been?

Oh, my God, I was thinking about that, actually. Anybody watching the game was thinking about it, like, did they pull him too early? Right. He's the closer. It's not just Gus Edwards that's the closer for them. It's Robert Griffin, the third. Yeah, they brought him in as a closer. Number two.

Antonio Gibson has real versatility. Yes, he does. We talked about this last week. I've been talking about it. You've got to get the backs, more touches, receivers and Gibson was good they split him out they got him looks as a receiver

he caught the ball fluidly I thought he ran the ball impactfully I thought throughout the day you know it doesn't it's not going to look like it because he averaged 3.5 yards to carry but I thought he had some impactful runs in this game I mean it wasn't like they just stuffed

them in the run game I think Antonio Gibson's a good player I think he's going to become a very good player me too and if he's got that type of versatility. And that's, that's awesome. And you can use them both in the backfield. That's the, that's the other thing.

That first touchdown that Gibson had, I think McKissick and Gibson were both in the backfield. Number one. Honestly, it's pretty good early start to the season. You know, we're right there almost in first place in the division through four games, right where you want to be. You know, before Philly, I thought Philly was going to lose. They would have sole possession of first place.

And one and three. Okay. That was sarcasm. But seriously, the one to all of this is you can win the division. I don't think they want to. They want to. No. He's not interested in that right now.

It's all R&D. They want to. Well, if they want to, then a lot of the stories that came out and even Ron's answer, which will get to as well, about whether or not Dwayne would start against the Rams, I think if that's really in play in his mind, then my guess is we're going to see a quarterback change pretty soon. All right. So we ended up with eight or nine?

Mms. Eight. You find more, if you find more, I want to hear it. All right. Well, we'll get to my game take right after this word from one of our sponsors. I love doing this with you, first of all. And I really do, and I miss not having the chance to do it with you, you know, right afterwards first thing in the morning.

We're doing it first thing in the morning, but it's three. after three hours of radio because... Well, it's first thing in the morning for me. It is first thing in the morning for you. Because I just, first of all, there's so many things that we agree on. But we don't always, and there are a couple things that we disagree on. But a couple of the things, you're going to be proud of me on something, because I mentioned it during the game and I mentioned it this morning, during the game,

meaning I think on Twitter, I think I did. I can't remember if I did or didn't. But just that first third and six, Matthew Judon, Sack, I remember Cooley telling me, years ago, when you go empty, there's going to be a free rusher, and the responsibility for that free rusher is the quarterbacks. And I remember the first time you said that to me, and I was like, what do you mean? The quarterback can't block the, he's got the ball in his hands. No, that's his responsibility to know where it's coming from and to deal with it. And so I knew that the Judon sack was on Dwayne. I knew it. Now, I didn't hear the Lester as he slid the offensive line to the left

for Lester. You can hear it, though. Yeah, but I did know that empty set, somebody's going to be free, and the responsibility is the quarterbacks. I also think that was a great observation on the fourth and sixth that they punted at midfield with 431 to go, and they went for the fourth and 13, which, by the way, was probably like a 5% probability play. So let me start with this on the list of things that I liked, because there were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

seven things that I liked. You had about the same. I love it. I know. And then on the list of things that I didn't like, it was really like a list of five, but a couple of them are pretty long. I'll start with the things I liked. I thought Scott Turner's game plan and play calling gave them a chance, gave an inexperienced quarterback and an inexperienced offense, a chance to move the ball.

I told you on Friday that I felt like one of the keys was they needed to shorten the game and they needed to shorten the game by making first downs on offense and possessing the ball. And I, in thinking about Baltimore and thinking about Dwayne and the skill position players and the offensive line, etc, I think he came up with a way to make them comfortable, to make Dwayne comfortable, and they moved the football. You know, I know a lot of people want more downfield throws. it's hard against Baltimore unless you've got Mahomes and Tyreek Hill. I love some of the stuff that Turner was doing with the bubbles and the run extension throws.

I call it more of a run extension because they're throwing that swing pass. It's behind the line of scrimmage. Some of them were laterals, actually. Oh, it's weird. Yeah, and it's just an extension of the run game. They're getting the ball into their playmaker's hands, and they have more playmakers than I think we thought over the summer. And I liked some of the third and long, empty set bubbles.

They actually were really productive on those plays. They had a third and ten early. If Cam Sims doesn't wimp out, he gets 10 yards. And then they went for the fourth down anyway and got it. Oh, I did like that. I did like they went for it. Yeah. And then you had a third and 11 bubble, which Gibson took 40 yards.

I think they turned, you know, what he knew Dwayne would be comfortable with. He knew who their playmakers were, and he knows that Baltimore's well-coached and aggressive, and I think he turned it against them. I'm okay moving the football if you're going to move the football, and it's going to end with points, and I understand it did not. But I'm okay. I think part of that game plan was to possess the football. They had a plus-14 play advantage in the first half and a seven-plus-minute time of possession advantage in the first half. You know, I like Scott Turner in what he's doing. I think since the second half of the Arizona game, he has figured some things out, and he has this offense as well prepared as it can be, because there are limitations, clearly.

And I think he's finding a way to move the football. And I thought a key to the game, as I mentioned on Friday, again, was to possess the football and they did in the first half. The second thing on my list of things that I liked is you've sort of alluded to it. You know, the first half, that was very close to becoming a much and being a much more competitive score at halftime. And I'm not delusional on this, all right? I know that Baltimore is a much better team. But they were, oh so close, Washington was, to putting real game pressure on the Ravens as a 14-point favorite in the first. half. They had 14 first downs in the first half. That's a lot in a half. They didn't commit a penalty.

They held, as you mentioned, Baltimore's vaunted rushing attack. If you take away, and it's hard to do, but take away the play that Jackson made on the third and four zone read keeper for 50 yards, which by the way, he has, you know, that's what he does. He's the former MVP. He's really fucking good. They held the rest of that offense, the rest of that rushing attack in the first half, to 30 yards on 11 carries, 2.7 yards per carry. I kept thinking as I'm watching this game, they're good on defense and they're going to keep getting better. There's nothing about these last three games giving up 30 plus points where I'm thinking that the defense is oversold in my own mind. I think it's good. And I think Baltimore was uncomfortable. I think they made Jackson uncomfortable.

The bottom line is the first half came down to four plays. The fumble, the strip fumble by Humphrey, the Jackson run, the missed field goal, and the fake punt. Now, those are four huge plays, huge impactful plays in the game. I understand that. But every other aspect of the game, I thought they were well prepared. I thought they were playing. with Baltimore, and it went 21-10 at halftime, but it could have been closer. On my list of... Well, likely it should have been 21-13. You're two feet away from 21-13.

Yes, you are. Maybe even less than that. He's got to, you know what, 54-yarders in this league, I'm sorry. They're better than 60% now in this league. He's got to get better. I don't trust Hopkins as a kicker. I haven't for years. I think his kickoffs are trustworthy, but, you know,

In 2016, he really blew, you know, a couple of games that they certainly had a chance to win. You mentioned Gibson. He's on my list of things that I like. You know, Cooley, he's much more powerful than I would have thought when I think about Memphis and that league's running backs and wide receivers. I always think finesse. He's powerful. His vision and patience is getting better. The versatility. You know, you mentioned a couple of weeks ago he catches with his chest. I actually think he's got good hands. He looked like he did. Yeah. I mean, they got him 17 touches in the game for 128 yards. I really like him. I think I'm really recognizing now why it was hard for them publicly to contain

their excitement over the summer about him. He can play as Ken Terry McLaren, who just gets open and is really good after the catch. He had a career best 10 catches yesterday on 14 targets. You know, at least two of the balls. One of them was behind him. I still think he could have caught it. Sort of. Yeah.

But I mean, those are two, the narrative of offseason narrative, the offseason narrative, the offseason narrative that Washington had the worst skill position talent in the league is false. McLorn, Gibson, McKissick are good players. like they are good players. And they're good enough. I mean, I'm not putting them into the top half of the league of skilled position players, obviously. Okay. But they're not the worst.

I want to know where we put them, though. I don't know. I'd have to think about it. It's not the worst. It's nowhere near the worst. They've got two legit playmakers in Gibson and McLaren. And I think Sims Jr. is the third. He was inactive yesterday.

And I'd like to see him get more touches. still am more impressed with Sims Jr. healthy than I am with Isaiah Wright, although I think Wright's got a little something to him maybe. Also in my list of things that I liked. I know that when we get to your defensive film breakdown, this is a risk saying this because you may say he took too many plays off, which you said, Duran Payne just to me when he is on the field is a factor. Like even if he's not making the tackle, he seems to be freeing up linebackers to make the tackle. His best plays are better than any other defensive players plays with the exception of Chase Young. And I just think that he's so gifted in their plays where it looks like he's unblockable.

And then I'm sure there are going to be other plays that you identify that he wasn't very good. He was obviously the reason Griffin threw the interception. You know, he hit Griffin right when he threw it. I just like pain. And I know sweat maybe wasn't anywhere near what he was against Cleveland, but I still think I love the confidence that he's playing with this year. The motor is there that I saw at Mississippi State. By the way, I thought the horse collar penalty on him was bullshit.

I did not think that was a horse collar penalty. I don't have those calls anyway. Kendall Fuller, obviously, the two interceptions was on the list of things that I liked as well. He was, as you mentioned, really good last week, and he was pretty good yesterday. All right, here are the list of things that I did not like from the game. I think that at 2110, I legitimately at halftime thought, hmm, they're hanging with this team. It could have been a different score, but it wasn't because Baltimore made the big plays. But it's going to have to be a quick stop and a score on the first.

drive, like if they're going to really put pressure on Baltimore, who probably as a 14-point favorite playing this team, you know, they really thumb their nose at the organization, Bashati and all of them, because they know how much better they are than this organization. Remember a few years ago when Harbaugh outwardly, you know, recruited Washington football fans to become Ravens fans. Anyway, the first possession in the second half on defense, and the first possession of the second half on offense were bad. And I thought they were the worst two possessions of the game for the defense and the offense. And it was crucial because that was your opportunity to perhaps get back into it.

The first possession defensively, you know, there were plays to be had and they didn't make the plays. And Baltimore did. They had chances to get off the field a couple of times. There was a third and long one, and Edwards got. got an easy three to four yards. In fact, there were a couple of runs in that drive that looked different than the runs by the running backs in the first half. They had Jackson in that second and 12 where he makes a great play and finds Brown. After Tim Settle's sack. Right. And then the touchdown pass came on a second nine.

Like they were doing a good job on early downs, which is hard to do against Baltimore. So they had a chance to get stops. They couldn't, you know, I'll concede as every should. It's not easy against Lamar Jackson. But instead of getting them off the field, it was a 10 play, 75-yard, time-sucking drive, and it's 28 to 10, and it sort of feels like at that point, the game's over. I mean, seriously, just to go off of that, seven minutes and 22 seconds, I wrote two notes in this drive. The defense is doing a good job of containing Lamar Jackson. the defense is also doing a good job of containing the run. They just couldn't make a play.

They couldn't make a play. Like a second and eight, first down to Nick Boyle. They had a third and one run for a first down. A second and 12, a big play to Marquis Brown. And then, yeah, you said the second nine, the touchdown of Mark Andrews was like, he's a single side receiver. Three guys around him. Right.

Apki, Darby, and Chandee on Hamilton. Where are they? Great threat. But in hindsight, you look at it. it again, you're like, that was an awesome drive by Baltimore. It was. They made big plays. It was.

I'm probably too critical, but I needed a play there. I needed a play from the defense. You had to have a play. They didn't make a play. You're absolutely right. That drive was a dagger. And then the following offensive possession, first one of the third quarter, this was to me the most uncomfortable Dwayne looked.

I thought he was completely lost. They get a first down on the first two plays with Gibson. And then he misses Barbara on a first and ten checkdown where he sails it over his head by a mile. So bad. So ugly right there. Then on second down, by the way, also I get these. I can't stand the people that are like, throw the ball down the field. Stop with these checkdowns.

First down checkdowns are fine. Four yards on a checkdown would be if he hits Barber there and you get four yards. Five, six yards maybe. Great. Yes. And he air mailed it. Then it's second and 10, and he clearly doesn't feel the pressure, and he doesn't do a good job to extend the play. He looks completely befuddled, and he throws, you know, he could have pulled the trigger, I think, quickly.

I think it was in men, you'll tell me. And then he turned. I wrote down, it looked like guys were open, and I basically threw it away into the- to McClaren's feet. Yeah. And he was, you could tell, like, I don't know if it was a combination of, is he pressing or is he confused? Martin Dale's a phenomenal defensive coordinator. Was he seeing something completely different now that it confused him?

And then you get the third and ten. He feels the pressure. He dumps the check down to McKissick quickly. And they punt the ball. You know how many guys they rushed on that third and ten? Not as many as he thought. Two. Was it only two?

He thought they were coming, man. It looked like they were bringing five or six, but everyone came two steps up to field and bailed. They brought two. Martin Dale's good, man. And they're good defensively. But, you know, the other thing, too, real quickly, and I'll get to more of a complete thing on Dwayne. He last year, I thought, had this sense of playmaking and urgency and escapeability that

I didn't think he had at Ohio State, but I thought he had more of last year. We really haven't seen it this year. On the list of things that I didn't like, I've already sort of mentioned it. The four first half plays were killers. Humphrey makes a great play. he just got a massive contract extension. Hopkins, you know, the miss field goal. You know, Sam Cook seven for seven in his career on fake punt throws for 82 yards. That throw was great. And the zone read by Jackson, you know, all of those plays were hurtful. But I also,

they're not, the next thing, they're not getting anything from their return game. Nothing from kickoff returns or punt returns. They only had one punt return and Stroman left the game after that thing. And then Isaiah Wright had a 10-year-old. kickoff return and a 20-yard kickoff return, two kickoff returns for an average of 15 yards per. They're getting nothing. They are near the bottom of the league in return yardage right now out of their special teams. All right. I want to get to the fourth and 13. And then, well, actually, I want to come back to the end of the first half for a moment. I wanted to just, and then I want us to grade Haskins as well, or just get a first thought, not your actual film grade. But before I get to the constructive criticism

of the game management and clock management, I was, and I was watching that pregame man, all of those cutouts of all of his friends and family members and people from around the league in that coach's corner area of FedEx Field. That was really nice. And that was really moving. And everybody's wearing these Rivera strong shirts. The players, I do think Cooley, really like him and really respect him. That's the sense I get from afar. Now, let's get to evaluating what's been going on here. And yesterday was a total S show at the end of the first half. We've pretty much gone through it. But my God, you know, when you get an interception and a gift like that, And you're at the Baltimore 37-yard line, and there are 30 seconds left, and you've got two timeouts. I understand you certainly don't want to get anything worse than three, but you also have to think at 21 to 7 about a touchdown, and you've got two timeouts left. McKissick makes the first mistake. You've got to get out of bounds, son. You've got to have some situational awareness.

You also have to be coached to do that. So that forces Rivera to take the first time out. Balls at the Baltimore 25-yard line with 23 seconds left. This is the only call I don't like from Turner. This little swing pass to McKissick is not going to get you the yards to give you a better opportunity at a touchdown. Now, maybe Cooley, they're just not confident in Haskins. Maybe that's another signal that they're afraid Dwayne's going to give it away down there. But at the end of that play, you either call a quick timeout

or you just let the clock go down to two seconds and kick the field goal. And it was the, it was complete disarray and lack of understanding of what the hell was going on. Dwayne didn't know. He's trying to run a play. The coaching staff is trying to hurry him up. You just have to know this. These are the things where I love, you know, when we get listeners saying, oh, you know more than they do. Yeah, I do.

I do. And so does coolly. Okay, I do. I knew when they didn't take the time out with 17 seconds left, they were not going to line up and run a play and have time to kick a field goal more likely than not. And nobody else seemed to know it until somebody did it at the very last second. It's a very close call as to whether or not that ball was snapped or they got the timeout. Anyway, disaster and utter embarrassment averted at the last second they get the field goal. So now we get to the fourth and goal at the Baltimore 13-yard line. By the way, I want to just mention all these things. I've said this in the past. These are important things.

These are the fine line things in NFL games that determine, you know, one to two games a year. Either way, that can be the difference between going to the playoffs or not. I'm not talking about this team this year. But in general, the coaches that do this well, they have a slightly higher percentage chance of success. There are too many coaches that don't know how to do this. And we have another coach in Ron Rivera, who I like is a coach,

but this is not his strength. It's just not. The fourth and goal at the 13, I'm going to play you his explanation. Under any circumstance, if the goal is to win the game, in any circumstance, if the goal is to win the game, you have to kick. the field goal on fourth and goal from the 13 with 12 minutes to go in the game down 2810. Now, if it's fourth and goal at the Baltimore 5-yard line or 4-yard line or 2-yard line or 1-yard line, I'm all for taking a chance there, especially when you consider you might give up more

points to them. You know, it's a 3-score game if you kick, you know, you can turn it into a 2-score game, but that assumes that they don't score again. So I don't mind a 4th and goal from the 6 or the 4 or the 2 were the one. Fourth and goal at the Baltimore 13. Are you kidding me? That is such a low probability play against a defense like that. And the only way you're going to score is if you've got a quarterback that is so good at extending the play, where you can get people open after the original play won't produce anybody open, and he can run around and extend, extend, and get somebody loose somewhere. And that's not our guy right now. now. So that was a losing proposition from the jump. The coach knew it. The offensive coordinator

knew it. My wife knew it that they're not going to score from fourth and goal from the 13. Could they get a penalty? I guess. The explanation of it, though, is just remarkable. Here it is. Coach, I'm interested to hear your thought process on the score was 2810. You decided to go for it on fourth and 13. Yep. It was a three-scored game. Why decide to go for right there, as opposed to kick a field goal, knowing that you still need to score three scores?

You needed two touchdowns in the field goal. Honestly, my mindset at that point was situational awareness. I wanted to see what he was going to do and how he was going to react. I truly did. Scott asked me, and I said, no, let's see how he handles it. And Scott, he told him, hey, you got to put this ball in the end zone or a position and go into the end zone. again, this is, you know, a little bit of the maturation process that he has to go to.

And if I've got to create situations like that, so he's growing and learning, then I will. That was an unbelievable answer to what they were doing there on 4th and 13 Cooley. He was testing him on his situational awareness. He was giving him an in-game quiz. You know, would he throw it into the end zone to give him a chance or not? how about first of all, you coach him up in practice on that one and kick the field goal during the game? It's an incredible answer. And when he says that he wants to find out whether or not Dwayne would be aware of what he needed to do as some sort of R&D thing on Dwayne,

but then he says that Scott Turner gave him the answer. I mean, it's unbelievable. So we're giving in-game quizzes, but we're giving him the answer before. he takes the quiz, which really means that Dwayne failed this miserably. Like he was told, we're testing you, oh, here are the answers. And then he still checked it down to Isaiah right for five yards and turns it over to Baltimore. I don't know, man. This is where I am completely confused as to what we're doing here.

Are we trying to win games or are we in R&D mode? If we're trying to develop, well, then let's develop him with a legitimate quiz where he doesn't have the answer. Because you know what he did? He exposed Dwayne. He exposed him. We gave him the answer and he failed it miserably. And he told everybody about it. I don't know what the hell is going on.

It's very, very curious all of this. The not taking timeouts the previous two weeks and saying, I don't want people to get hurt, but running plays anyway. to here we are with an in-game quiz on fourth and goal from the 13, but the offensive coordinator is giving him the answer before the quiz, and yet Dwayne is still checking it down. And by the way, Dwayne said afterwards, Dwayne said he was hoping that Baltimore would play more match-up, but they were all waiting for it.

Really? Of course they were. It was fourth and goal from the 13. I think the coach The coach put him into a position where he couldn't succeed. The coach put him into a position to see if he'd throw it into the end zone or near the end zone, told him to do it, and he didn't do it. There is a lot of stuff going on here, man. A lot of stuff.

I don't, this is not his guy. He's not a Dwayne fan right now. personally think the sack that he took pissed Ron off. I think Ron was so upset at that 18-yard sack that he just left him out there and exposed him. And by the way, exposed the coach again a little bit. I mean, as to, are we trying to win the game or are we trying to expose our quarterback? Or what are we doing? Or maybe we're just confused? I don't know, Coolly, what the answer is. But I've never heard of essentially giving in-game quizzes on fourth and goal from the 13 at 28 to 10. I mean, everybody in the world knows the answer to that one. It's a hard play.

It's a near impossible play. And the ball's going to go into the end zone. Do you really need to quiz your guy? But then again, I guess you do because he threw it down underneath Isaiah Wright for four yards. I mean, Isaiah Wright failed the quiz too. You've got to pitch that ball. You got to pitch it around. You got to toss it around. It's not a quiz. It's the easiest answer of all time. The game's over if the ball doesn't at least give someone a chance to score.

I don't. I mean, he literally stayed on a 14 against a six right there. Like, no, no. Really? And I'm sure with the way. Well, you do. Let's not make. Well, you do stand on 14 against a 6.

Sorry, he's still on 14 against a 10. Yeah, I felt that quiz. Yeah, I'm pretty good actually. But that explanation really, you need my help every once in a while. Went right over my head. It's, you're in the huddle at that moment saying to your guys, somebody's going to have to make a play. I got to get this ball to the goal line.

Like, somebody's got to find a way to make a player on the goal line because I'm throwing it in the end zone. The other thing I'm doing if I'm Scott Turner, like this is what actually makes it a quiz. This was like back to some of the Kirk Cousins checkdown stuff. It reminded me of Dallas, a third and forever. He throws a checkdown to Chris Thompson with no timeouts, and they end the game right there.

Right. But it was like if you caught it in the rain, whatever. Go ahead. But at the same time, I don't think it was raining that day. It was. No. Yeah. If you want to win the game right there, put everybody in the end zone.

If you're the play caller and you're even concerned that he might fail the quiz, then don't let him fail the quiz. Like, everybody's in the end zone. Let's play 500, boys. Here we go. Let's throw it on up there. 400, 500. Throw it up there.

I mean, and I'm sure Scott Turner was like, hey, look, Ron, I just, I think we don't even him an option we just put it over the round's like no no no no this is a quiz Scott this is an important moment in a young player's development we need him to understand situational awareness it's fourth and 13 he's got to understand that you you got to throw the ball and Scott's like yeah I know but everyone understands that right yeah didn't everybody know that fourth and goal from the 13 it's not a quiz that's a stupid like and then like the discussion of all of this is But here are the two answers. Okay.

Ron's asked about the fourth and 13. The proper answer is, I felt at the moment that Baltimore would score, Lamar Jackson and the running game is amazing. I thought we needed seven or eight. Yeah. I understand that kicking a field goal is right, play in most situations,

but my feel was that Baltimore would score. And then to Duane, the answer is not, I hoped they would play matchup. Like, everybody on fourth and 13 is dropping A into the end zone. They just are. the proper answer for Dwayne is I have to throw that ball in the end zone.

Yeah. That's it. Let's not even try to entertain either of these two answers. It's not a quiz. And we're also not quizzing our court. We'll quiz our quarterback on that play on freaking Tuesday. Exactly. That quiz is over on Tuesday.

I mean, the fact that Scott Turner is even going to mention, like, of course I told Dwayne to throw the ball on the end zone. Like, no shit you did. I just think it's funny that the coach, said, I just decided I really wanted to see how Dwayne would handle this. If he would know, you know, essentially saying if he would know that he needed to throw it in. But then I had my offensive coordinator tell him what the answer was before the play. Like I, it's more like my offensive coordinator had this discussion with me, said, I got to put everybody in the end

on like I just discussed. And then Ron was like, no, I didn't want to quiz. So the offensive coordinator promptly turns around and walks to the quarterback. He's like, look, this is actually a pop quiz, but I'm going to make it. not a pop quiz. I'm going to make it just a, like a, you know, you can see the answers online quiz. Like, you have to throw this ball in the end zone. Just so you know, Ron's testing you.

And Duane's like, I don't know. I mean, don't really want to throw a pick here. I threw three picks last week. That was bad. I got criticized for that. So I don't know about that. I mean, what do you want to do? This is ridiculous.

I didn't text you all day. I text you at the end of that drive, and I said everything about this drive is awful. On so many levels, everything was awful. on coaching levels, plane levels, management situational levels, everything about that drive was loser. Yeah, I don't, you know, your explanation, like if he had said, look, it was 28 to 10, there were 12 minutes to go. I really felt like we were going to need 31 points to, you know, be, have a chance. I think I really felt like we were going to need three touchdowns that Baltimore was good enough.

Our defense was wearing down. it had played great, you know, he could build it up, but that we weren't going to hold him to 28. I mean, it's not the way you think about it. But if that were the explanation, I would be like, okay, he's, you know, he thought based on the context that he wasn't going to shut Baltimore out the rest of the way and get into overtime at 28, 28. And he had to go for it on fourth and goal from the 13. The problem with fourth and goal from the 13 is it's such a low probability, especially with a quarterback that's uncomfortable and isn't extending.

You know, we know from watching football that in the red zone, it's the quarterbacks on third down, you know, and, you know, more than five or six that it can extend and give their receivers time to sort of get open and make guys cover for longer period of time. That's where you end up getting the touchdown throws. You don't typically get them off whatever your plan play is, you know? So, I mean, hell, on fourth and goal from the 13, I think they should have won a draw. In hindsight, that may have had a better chance of scoring. But the whole thing just, you know, and now we get into, you know, the reports before the game because we're right back to where we typically are with this franchise, and that is leaks and controversy and Dwayne's agent sent out a tweet late last night.

I want to get to all of that. I read that. Anyway, we're going to get to all of that right after this word from my bookie. MyBooky.ag is so reliable. You can trust them. You're going to get paid if you win. You're going to get fair lines. You're going to get fair pricing.

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He's our guy. We're sticking with him. He's going to learn. He publicly backed him. And then it was a few hours into Monday morning or into Monday afternoon where he, you know, mentioned there is a cutoff point. He mentioned, you know, we have to make sure because the others deserve better. And then as the week went along, there were more in more stories that started to come out. And there I was like a dope on Wednesday or Thursday saying, hey, they've done such a great job, not leaking stuff like last year. This is a more functional situation than it's been in recent years. And I do agree with that. I think Ron's intentions are the right intentions. With that said, on Friday, J.P. Finley reported that sources told him that Dwayne had been approached by Ron and other coaches and told, you better get it together or we could make a change.

And then yesterday morning before the 1 o'clock games, there's the story from Ian Rappaport. Man Rappaport seems to have himself dialed in at times with this organization. He doesn't always get it right. But he reported that Haskins, that sources tell him that Haskins is entering a critical stretch for his own development and must improve greatly for him to keep the job. In fact, he said there's a chance if it goes particularly badly today, meaning yesterday, Haskins could be pulled at some point in favor of Kyle Allen, who was with Ron Rivera in Carolina. Rappaport said Washington's next five games, oh, here it is, while four

games into a season could be considered early to move on from a player thought to be the franchise quarterback of the future, the urgency Rappaport writes, comes not just because of Haskins' performance, some of it comes because of the schedule. Washington's next five games are against the Rams, the Giants, twice, the Cowboys, and the Lions. And the thinking is that improved quarterback play could help them take advantage of a window of opportunity. Rappaport continues, it's possible Allen is the quarterback in place to see if that can happen. So that came out during the morning hours leading up to the 1 o'clock window games. Then after the game, Ron Rivera was asked about by London, Fletcher, and Scott Jackson on our postgame show about whether or not he would be the starting quarterback next week against the Rams.

And here is what Ron Rivera said. Coach, did you look at this Rams game next week? You know, is your mindset that is Dwayne's game or is that something you guys are going to talk about? Well, you know, it's Dwayne's game going into this week and we'll see how things unfold. But again, this is about growing and learning and developing as a football team. That was Cooley a lukewarm endorsement for Dwayne starting this week against the Rams. That is not, he's my quarterback. We are not going to make a change anytime soon.

Dwayne's got to get better. He's got to get more situationally aware. You know, I felt like that was sort of lukewarm. What did you think? Yeah, I think it's lukewarm as well. I think there's a disconnect between Ron and Duane in terms of how Duane's playing as well. Because if you look at what Duane said after the game and you watch his postgame press or Zoom conference, it was kind of like they played soft. I did a better job taking what the defense gave me, blah, blah, blah.

I feel better about how I threw the ball. Kevin, and statistically, you could look at this thing and you could say, and 32, 45, 71%, complete a lot more balls, 314 yards. Statistically, you could say, in fact, he played better. When I look at the game how I felt without watching it on a film, essentially I felt like he made five or six good throws on the day. The rest were easy completions or misses. He had way too many misses.

he still was inaccurate at times. I thought he looked like he was stuck in the mud in the pocket. He still can't move a roll right. And he doesn't trust what he's seeing downfield. So he's late to a bunch of the stuff underneath, taking what the defense is giving him, getting less yards on some of the underneath stuff. I mean, I'm almost going to guarantee you.

I know there's over 100 yards in screen passes, at least. Gibson had 40-some on one screen pass. Right. Those are not big completions. That is also not taking what the defense is giving you. That's throwing the ball to a screening, back or receiver. Okay.

So I just, I can't imagine that this is going to be a B grade. I'm assuming it's going to be worse than that. I'm also assuming that they know that. I just don't think Dwayne thinks that. So in the, then when you look at it even more, here's my other thought process for Rivera in general.

Kyle Allen better play damn, damn good if you bench Dwayne Haskins, the 15th overall pick. who really, including you and me, I believe, everybody wants to see succeed. You are early into his career. You're going to read the agent's tweet at some point here because I'm sure you have it up. You can make a lot of arguments for lack of weapons, but at some point you have to say, what is your guy? I just, my problem is I just don't know Kyle Allen's the guy.

And so if you make that switch right now, you're punting on Duane this early in the season. If you thought, like there's a lot of toughness to it. I don't think Duane played very well. I thought he was okay. He hasn't been inept. He didn't impress me at all. He didn't impress me at all. But he hasn't been inept. He hasn't been the worst quarterback like we've ever seen.

Like, there are occasional plays that he makes. By the way, arm strength is not his problem. No. There are other problems, but that's not the problem. He can sling it. Yeah, I agree with you on all of that. I just think right now to have any more than a loopwarm endorsement is a lie to your team. So, I mean, essentially, if I'm wrong in this situation, we're not even going to discuss who I'm playing or not playing week in a week out.

My answer to this is always going to be that's a decision that I'm going to make for my team and with my team. And if there's ever a decision made on anything, you'll find out after the decision's been made. No, wrong, wrong. not that once you do that it is now everybody's talking about how the coach wouldn't commit to Dwayne for the starting job next week against the Rams. I think the better way is to lie. I'm not ever ever discussing pending decisions based on the quarterback. But the quarterback is a completely separate conversation than any other conversation. I understand. I'm not saying just this week in general. I just don't think reports are going out to

Ian Rappaport and J.P. Finley that there's a timetable on that. this. I'm just going to say Duane's our guy right now. Well, Duane's agent tweeted out the following last night. David Mulageta from Athletes First, big agency.

You know them? Do you know him? It's my agency. I thought that was your agency. Do you know him? I don't know David Muligeda. Okay. He tweeted out the following last night. It was a retweet of Rappaport's story. Amazing this is the narrative.

coming out of D.C. A young quarterback 10 starts total over two seasons, who is in a brand new system with no offseason in said new system, a young offensive line, limited weapons on offense, and only three games into the NFL season. Yet he is the one that must play well. I mean, coolly, come on. Like, does it ever stop here? Agents criticizing, you know, coaching staff, defending, you know, their client. stories being leaked. I mean, we are 25% into the season, a quarter into this new era of coach-centric Ron, who, by the way, has got so much on his plate right now, so much, including cancer. And here we are again. I just, I think, here's what I, I'm going to tell you

exactly what I think. I think he doesn't like Dwayne. I don't think he likes Dwayne, and I don't think he wants Dwayne to be the quarterback. But I think, that he told Dan that I'm going to give Dwayne every opportunity to win this job. Me personally, I don't know how you come to that conclusion after four games, but that's because I'm watching the games. I'm not at practice and I'm not in the meeting rooms. And so their perspective is obviously much deeper in terms of information. But I don't think Ron wants Dwayne Haskins to be his quarterback.

So this is RG4. Let's see, RG3. Then we had our, yeah, this is RG4. This is the exact same situation that Jay Gruden had when he stepped in to coach Robert Griffin. Yeah, it's RG3 the second. Yeah, RG4 is an easier way for me to do it. Okay, that's fine. I just, I think there's something to Dwayne, but I haven't seen as much of it in the four games this.

year, as I saw in some of the games last year. But here's, you know this, right? And Shanahan used to tell me this all the time. You can't fool the locker room. And if that's an issue right now and the defense believes they have a chance to win, you know, part of me would be like, hey, coach, what the hell are you doing to help us win? How about giving us a chance to get back out on the field defensively down two scores, see if we can't get a turnover? But beyond that, I mean, You can't fool the locker room, and at some point, you know, the R&D thing is going to grow old for people when you're sitting there a half game out of first in the division. So I just don't think, I think I've just come to the conclusion on this, like very much a conclusion. Ron doesn't like him, doesn't want him, he wants to move on.

Let's keep in mind, he didn't just go sign Kyle Allen. he spent a fifth rounder on Kyle Allen to ensure that nobody else got Kyle Allen. And I'm not saying there was a feverish market for Kyle Allen, but there were probably opportunities where Kyle Allen could have gone somewhere and back somebody up and gotten paid. And they traded a fifth rounder and gave him, what did they give him a year or whatever it was, a two-year deal? I forget what they gave Kyle Allen.

But they brought him in there because, Ron probably guessed that at some point he was going to have to move on from Duane. He might have, but I think signing, they needed another quarterback because Alex wasn't going to be the guy and to have a guy that's been in your system as a backup, something that you want. But they spent a fifth rounder on him. They could have gotten anybody to just come in that was, you know, upright and healthy to be the backup. I think just as importantly, the idea that he didn't sign Cam Newton meant that he had to at least try to commit to Dwayne as a head coach early. Yeah. Because one of the best things

for Dwayne could have been watching Cam Newton play for one year. Right. Could have been. But one of the best things for Dwayne. And so this idea that culture changing Ron has now got to come in here and have a quarterback controversy means that he was told, we believe in you wholeheartedly. We love you. But we also love Dwayne. And that's the one thing you're going to abide by, at least for now. He's your guy for now. Do you think that's true? Well, it's certainly playing out to look like it's true. In understanding Rivera a little bit, I would love to say no.

I would love to say he's going to do what he wants to do with the football team. I also think that if you were to bench him after this game, the owner would look at the stat line and look at some of the couple of the big throws and go glass half full all the way on someone he loves, someone he drafted. I wonder how much the owner is even paying attention with all the things that he's got in his world right now. He's paying attention. No question about it. I know, but what you just suggested, which I'm not naive enough to think doesn't exist as a possibility,

is why we're doomed. You know, it just will never, ever, ever be a situation that is conducive to winning. You know, if there was a quid pro quo with, Ron Rivera, I'm going to pay you. We're going to have a coach-centric system. However, I need your commitment that you're going to give Dwayne a fair shot to be our franchise quarterback because I believe he's a franchise quarterback. Instead of saying, this is your job, it's coach-centric, you do whatever the hell you want to do. I am out of the football decision. I believe in you as a head coach. Joe Gibbs believes in you and a head coach. I think you can run this

football side of the organization and I'm handing it off to you. But if it wasn't that, we're doomed. We're just doomed. You know, it's just, it's never, ever going to work. He doesn't know anything, the owner. Nothing about football. That's been proven over and over again. You know what hasn't been reported? How much money Ron Rivera got paid? I wonder if there was such a massive offer made that Ron wasn't even going to wait to see if he got the giant job. Absolutely. We had a first round grade on Dwayne and Carolina.

I think we're going to give this a chance. It's the Jay Gruden thing. The difference is Jay Gruden didn't have any other options. Kyle Allen, by the way, is still sitting there with one year left, and it's this year at $675,000. He's got one year left. But, I mean, go back to the camp. Cam Newton said a one-year contract for under $2 million. There was only one team willing to give it to him.

I mean, his injury. But that was for a quarterback. That's nearly free. I know. So, I mean, if I'm wrong, playing Kyle Allen is a massive risk right now. It might not be to your team. It might not be to winning games. But if Kyle Allen doesn't play while, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're,

going to be scrutinized so big time by whom the owner everybody in dc that there are a lot of people that'll scrutinize this you can't just bench your 15th overall pick well you can't you're next guy better play better i coolly look if they know and they know more than i do and they are there every day. If they know that this guy just doesn't have anywhere near what you have to have to be a legitimate starting quarterback in the NFL, then move on from him now. Cut, cut bait right now. I don't care if you think Kyle Allen's the answer or not. If you think Kyle Allen gives you a better chance to win games this year and devaluate your players because you have decided you're moving on from Dwayne Haskins, even if Kyle Allen's not the guy and you're going to address that

offseason, just go for it. If you think that Kyle Allen doesn't really give you that much better of a chance to win, then play Dwayne Haskins' 16 games. Let's see after 16. Because if Alan's not going to give you a significant advantage or significant upgrade, then why not just play Dwayne and avoid the scrutiny and avoid all the criticism and be able to say at the end of the year, I gave him a fair shot. And now we're going to move on. We're going to play in 16 games and we're going to decide exactly where we want to go. The only reason you wouldn't do that, I guess, is if Ron and Scott Turner actually think Kyle Allen might be the guy next year. Well, that's what I'm saying. If they don't think Kyle Allen is going to give him much more of a chance, then stick with Dwayne.

If they're done with Dwayne and they actually think there's a chance Kyle Allen could compete for the starting job next year, then they should go to him right now. They absolutely should. And I hope he has the ability to do that if that's the conclusion they've come to. Look, it's not just the Cleveland game or situational football or any of that. This guy's had a gut on Dwayne for a while now. You know, he challenged him in the off season. You know, he's tried to be the public face and the, you know, for a while has been positive and, you know, but There have been too many subtle hints here over the last week that this just isn't his guy. But again, I wouldn't, if he's not my guy and I don't have a guy right now,

I'm just going to let it play out with him and make the change at the end of the year. But if I think Kyle gives us a better chance to win and might even be a guy that we want to keep around and sign to compete next year, if we don't get exactly who we want to get, then I'm putting, Kyle in Allen in now. By the way, I want to make this clear. That's not what I want. I want to see Dwayne play 16 games because I actually think there's something to him, even though I haven't seen it here in recent weeks. And I'll admit that.

Yeah, but you'd say that, but both of us, I mean, there was something you saw last year, but both of us, what we're getting right now is what both of us saw pre-draft. No doubt. What I saw yesterday was Ohio. Ohio State throwing the ball at the line of scrimmage and letting playmakers make plays. And by the way, throwing for 300 plus yards. Now, they didn't score on any of those plays. It would have been nice had they scored because, you know, you would have seen, you know,

Paris Campbell and McLaren and some of the other guys at Ohio State against Northwestern. Take those things to the house. No, I mean, what you saw was exactly Ohio State. This was what Ohio State was. It was over 5,000 yards passing in his senior season, with over 3,500 of those yards being thrown within five yards of the line of scrimmage and yard after catch. That's what is stat line really was.

If you look at air yards at Ohio State, it wasn't massive. A lot of the yards were big plays after the catch. I think this coming week is going to be really interesting to see what's, said, I'd be surprised if they start Kyle Allen against the Rams, I would. But I will tell you this, this team better show up and play a close game against the Rams because the Giants had a legit chance to beat the Rams in the fourth quarter. Now, Daniel Jones wasn't good, and he threw a backbreaking pick at the end of the game after he got him down close to a potential opportunity to score and tie.

but they, you know, the Giants, that's a 10-9 game in the fourth quarter. So you better, you better be in, this is a better chance to win the game than yesterday was, I think, going in. Yeah, I think it's a better chance to win the game than going in, but I just, I still don't think they win this game. Right. I just, I don't think they win the game. And here's kind of my stance at the end of the.

this with the way. If there was a timeline and it was set three weeks from now, it didn't change. He didn't get a week. Maybe he didn't lose a week. Maybe he did. Maybe situationally they just didn't like what he did. But I think ultimately he didn't gain any ground by the way he played. I agree with that. Like if he needed a good game yesterday, it wasn't a good game, but it was far from a bad game, which he had last week. Sometimes you have to risk having a bad game to have a good game. I understand that, but I do. And you liked the three downfield throws that were intercepted last week.

You liked him taking the chances and hopefully learning from him. Yesterday, you saw a game plan that gave them a chance to move the ball and keep it away from Lamar Jackson, which is what happened in the first half. I just, they got, they were on the wrong side of three or four key plays, unfortunately. I'll just, I'll go back again. If your offensive coordinator knows that we need to throw 16 screen passes to move the ball. It's, there's something to it. I get it. I get it.

I do, there are, there are some things about this team that make me think that it can be competitive in games. Much more so than last year. that's not saying much. I'll concede that point. Let's finish up with just talking about a little bit about some of the games around the league yesterday. The game last night, I know we sort of started with that. That was a hard hitting, you know, fast defensive player game, Philadelphia and San Francisco. I mean, both of those teams so limited offensively with missing so many pieces. I do like watching some of the defensive players on both of those teams, including Philadelphia. Cooley, there's God, why am I blanking on the guy's name?

This guy, Avery, the pass rusher, 58, I love him. I think he's a second-year guy, maybe. I don't know if you watched him at all. I think Philadelphia does a good job with personnel. And clearly with Schwartz, they do a good job of scheming things up defensively. And then the guy that I love in San Francisco, not that I'm just discovering him because he was, you know, a beast last year. But there are two guys in particular. Eric Armstead and Fred Warner are just great players. I mean, BOS is obviously the player that's being missed just like Chase Young was missed yesterday for us.

But man, does San Francisco have some speed in their front seven? That's fun to watch. Oh, they're awesome. upstead. Armstead was really good. It was interesting because I watched that game, and Lane Johnson was in and out of that game. We can tell the difference for Armstead. Fred Warner was a beast in Seattle. He's a beast for San Francisco.

But either of those guys, you know, their starters ever, I mean, they're ballers everywhere. It was crazy, it's crazy for me to watch some of the play of some of these other teams, you know? I'm watching like a George Kittle.

I watch George Kittle. I love that dude. You know, he had 15 targets. He had 15 receptions. That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. But Philly, you know, Philly's interesting. Philly's a really good defense.

For a team that was one, two, and one, they were going into the game like seventh against the run, ninth against the pass. they've been essentially killed by just turnovers. And I thought Carson Wentz played better in this game. You know, in the second half made plays. Like one of his biggest plays, they actually ended up having a defensive holding

that resulted in a first down in a really second and long situation or third and long. Scrambles all around. He eludes armstead, gets out of the pocket, makes a hell of a throw. Like, Wynes can make plays. If Wence doesn't turn in the, ball over, they have a chance. And when you want to talk about lack of weapons, I mean, my God,

I know. Philly has a lack of weapons. Right now, their only real weapon is hurts. And they just blanket it hurts. Well, there's, my house standards are good back, but they blanket it hurts. Everybody's hurt. Jackson's hurt. Jeffries hurt. Goddard's hurt. They had nothing to pull out a win here was so big for. a huge win for them. I mean, but the other side had Mullins, who was just terrible last night.

I mean... Well, it's funny, but you say that and Mullins was 18 and 26 for 200 yards. Statline, you just looked at it, I know he threw two picks. Statline doesn't say that, but God, Mollins was overwhelmed. rushing picks.

He also had a fumble. He was overwhelmed by that defense. And Beatherd comes in, and he incomplated his last four throws, but he was 14 to 15. before the last four throws. He looked much better in this game. You loved him from the beginning.

I mean, when they drafted him, you thought he could be a starter. I thought Bethard was good at Iowa. I thought he was good when he came in. I cannot believe that they went with Mollins over Betherd to start the thing, but Betherd will be the guy, I'm sure, for now, and we'll get a good look at Betherd the rest of the season.

I think he'll give him a chance on offense. That was a fun game to watch. It really was a fun game to watch. Yeah, I was, and I'm going to end with Jimmy Butler's performance here in three minutes after we talk about a couple of other NFL games. But I was flipping back and forth, and I enjoyed the Philadelphia, San Francisco game last night as well. It wasn't, you know, a beautiful game offensively, but the defenses were really interesting to watch. And I thought Carson Wentz was a winner last night. Like, I think he played with a desperation, some of the runs and some of the creating and the extending of plays.

I mean, there were moments where I thought Philadelphia's. Philadelphia had no chance of moving the football, but they were moving the football. And he was making plays. Do you know, Philadelphia in that game had only 267 yards of total offense. But yet, in watching that game, I thought Carson Wentz made so many winning plays. So many. And it was an offense that essentially was limited to boot legs. Yeah.

It was boot after boot after boot. Yeah, lots of screens. But Wednesday didn't make it happen. The Cowboys are awful on defense. I mean, it's so bad for them on defense. But this game, our game was long over, while this game was still very much in play. Cleveland was in the midst of blowing a 27-point fourth quarter lead. It was 41-14.

And like the Cowboys did against the Falcons and even the Seahawks to a lesser extent, all of a sudden in the fourth quarter, they scored three straight-time. touchdowns, three two-point conversions, 24 points unanswered, and it's 41 to 38, Cooley, and there is still 342 left in the game. And then I thought it was very interesting with all of the momentum. McCarthy decides to pooch, sort of a pooch kind of a kick from Zerline. They still had two timeouts left as well. I thought he should have kicked the ball out of the end zone, played defense and they would have had a chance with all the momentum. Instead, the next play, first play, Beckham on a reverse,

avoids a big loss in the backfield and ends up taking it 50 yards for a touchdown game. And then somehow avoids nine other tacklers on the way. He did that. That's for sure. It looked like he was slowing down and all of a sudden, nope, he's taken off. How bad is Dallas's defense? I mean, and why are they so bad? Well, it's a new scheme.

I can give you that, but I don't know why they're so bad. They have great players on defense. This game, this was funny, this was one of the first games that I was going to go back and evaluate. Mike Nolan is the defensive coordinator there. Oh, my know people that don't know. Mike Nolan's terrible. That's what it is. I knew that.

Yeah, last week I went back and watched the Rams just dismantle Buffalo's defense in the second half. undress and that was fun to watch because it was Sean but this week I thought I got to go back and see what's going on with Dallas's defense because they cannot be that bad here's the other thing again I'm just going to tell you again we did this last week Ezekiel Elliott had like 10 carries last week now I get the deck they got down and I get the deck press cut through for over 500 yards But Ezekiel Elliott, 12 touches, 54 yards. Yeah. You're not going to win games when your team that can run the ball the way they could run the ball.

If you don't want Cleveland to score 49, Zecchio Elliott's stat lines look more like 24 for 110. You've got to find ways to run the ball in situations early in the game when you're Dallas, because you've got to control the ball. He had another fumble yesterday. He's had a couple of those this year. He has had a couple of fumbles. but I mean it's wild

like they scored 49 points you look at Cleveland Baker Mayfeld threw for 165 I know they rushed Jarvis Llandry had a reverse toss around throw to O'Dell Beckham Beckham had a couple big carries There was another running back for them that we didn't see last week Johnson

Johnson we didn't even see him last week and he had nearly a hundred yards rushing I know isn't that weird you look at that and you're like who fuck is John I don't know who he was I mean, because Chubb only had six carries in the game. I don't know. Did he get hurt? I have no idea. Dallas, real quickly on Prescott, for those that didn't see this, this is actually really

incredible. But it also goes to show you that stats are for losers, basically. But, you know, Dak Prescott, through four games this year, is thrown for 1,690 yards. He is on pace right now through a quarter of the season. to throw for 6,760 yards. 6,760. The all-time mark is Peyton Manning in that first year in Denver. He threw for 5,477 yards. Prescott is on pace to shatter Peyton Manning's record.

Now, I don't know if he'll do it. But the number of, and again, if you're winning games and you're in games and you're not throwing down three scores late to try to get back into games, which is what the Cowboys have essentially been in the last three weeks, you're not going to get to that level. I mean, rarely do you win a game throwing for 400 or more yards? He's thrown in the last three weeks, 454, 772 and 50, 4.02, and they're one and two in those games.

They could so easily be 0 and 4. At the same time, they had a chance to beat Seattle and they had a chance to beat the Rams. Anyway, Cowboys are in trouble clearly right now, but there's a long way to go in the NFC East, man. I mean, anything could happen between Dallas and Philly. And our team, if we were interested in competing for the division, who knows, because they're probably good enough on defense to be in some of these games. But the Cowboys are one and three. There were just two other games I wanted to mention real quickly.

Maybe you have another one. Brady's comeback over the Chargers was unbelievable because he had thrown another pick six. And I was on Twitter and I'm watching people go, Brady's done. I mean, that's the second pick six of the year for Brady. And they're down 21-7 in the first half to the Chargers. And then Brady turns it around and they score 31 points over basically two and a half quarters. And he throws five touchdown passes and for 3.69 on the day. But he did, I think he lost O.J. Howard to an Achilles. Is that right? Did I read that correctly?

I think he did. And then Grunk ended up making maybe like a second catch of the year, a huge catch late in that game. Yeah. Brady, I don't care what anybody else says, 43 years or not. He still has it. I think that team personally is the team in the NFC South that's going to end up winning it. They play the Bears on Thursday night, good Thursday night game. Here's the thing, because I want to just talk about that game. Yeah. He tells me what you've got to find as interesting as anything about that game, especially if you're a Washington fan.

Herbert is essentially a pocket quarterback who's got more mobility than Dwayne. But in three games, look at what Herbert's doing. I know. Herbert made a ton of big throws in that game. And he threw a pick late that was ugly. but those are the mistakes. Like, yeah, you threw a pick late, trying to give yourself a chance to win a game.

I understand that for a rookie quarterback. Like, I thought, because I watched a lot of that game, and then I went back and rewatched a lot of that game. I thought Herbert was really good. I did. I'm impressed by Herbert. And so you're looking at a young player, and you're saying, how long does it take to evaluate?

Well, through three games, what do you think of Herbert? You think a lot about Herbert. Herbert. You think they found a franchise quarterback. Yeah, you do think that. It's really early. I mean, boy, I'm surprised at how well Herbert's played. I also think, you know, I don't know. I mean, there's no, I guess you could say there's a Keenan Allen here, maybe. I don't know. Can you with McLorn? You certainly can't say there's a Hunter Henry here. And you can't say there's an Austin Echler here. I don't. think maybe Gibson is. Ackler got hurt, I think. I'm just, I just pulled up the, boy, they didn't run the football at all. It was all Herbert through the air.

It doesn't get defense. Well, they get to put up 44 on offense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Tank has good defense. I mean, you look at these young quarterbacks, like I see through four games in Burrow.

I mean, Burrough is supposed to be this next savior, but Burrow threw for 300 yards. and a Bengals win over the Jags. It shoot through for 3.51. I know. I know. I look at a lot of these young guys, and you just know earlier. I wanted to mention one other quick game, because you'll appreciate this. I know what game you want to mention. No, I'm not going to mention that game.

Kirk, I'll quickly mention it. Kirk leads the league in air yards intended and air yards per completion. I just, I love the people that think he's checked down Charlie, and he's number of one in the league and both. He's actually having a very good year. They're terrible on defense. They did win a game yesterday. But beyond that, the team that I wanted to mention, I mentioned to you last week, I think this team is better than people believe it is. And I think part of it is because I think this guy, Matt Ruhl and Joe Brady are going to be a really good combination. I think the Panthers are better than people think. And Bridgewater, I've always been sort of a Bridgewater guy. I think he's good.

But Cooley, what running back did I tell you two years ago that I thought that this team should sign when he was a free agent in Seattle and there was no room for him in Seattle? Do you remember? Mike Davis. Davis from South Carolina, who I thought was going to be a really good back. Mike Davis is a good back. They have a good running back. They have, you know, they signed Robbie Anderson. They've got DJ Moore.

They've got Curtis Samuel. They've got a starting quarterback that's playing well. They've got some defensive talent, but they're giving up some yards and some points. They are very quietly two and two. They certainly had a chance in the opener, having the lead late against the Raiders. The Panthers are going to end up being one of those surprise teams as the season goes along that are going to end up being much better than people think. They beat the Cardinals up pretty badly yesterday.

They really did. A Cardinals team that we saw two weeks ago that we thought could contend for the NFC West or certainly a wild card spot in the NFC. Carolina and Matt Rule and Joe Brady is a combination. Joe Brady is going to be a head coach within two years. Okay, let me ask you this. Yeah. Right now, do you take Matt Rule and Joe Brady or do you take Ron Rivera and Scott Turner?

Oh, yeah. I'm, I was impressed with. I know what Carolina chose. I was impressed with Matt Rule and I have been impressed. press with Matt Rule, everywhere he has been. I mean, this guy has won everywhere he's been, including places like Temple. Okay. So, you know, he, Temple, Baylor, and now he's proving it in year one, and he's got this guy, Joe Brady, who is the guy that helped produce an unbelievable, the all-time prolific, you know, offensive prolific season in college football history last year at

LSU. Yeah, I like what they've got going there. And they went out and signed Bridgewater. It was a big deal, but they needed a quarterback. And that team's better than people think. And Mike Davis is a tough, hard-nosed back. I loved him at South Carolina, and they've got themselves a decent back to go with really good skill position players. Robbie Anderson's having a good start. DJ Moore, Samuel. Who's the tight end there? I forget who the tight end is. In Carolina, it was a guy they drafted two years ago, who I actually liked coming out of the draft. Why can't I think of his name right now?

By the way, that guy, I think that guy Burns, remember? Didn't you like Burns from Florida State, the pass rusher? Yeah, thin, undersized a little bit. Yeah. But, you know, like the past rusher, Ian Thomas is the tight end. I don't know who that is. Well, I am, Thomas. Didn't do a whole lot in the game against the Cardinals.

But I liked Thomas. I thought there was something to Thomas. But it burns, I loved. Yeah. Two Monday night games tonight. Everybody tested negative, apparently, for the Chiefs and the Patriots, so we get the two Monday night games. Before we go, I just wanted to mention, and I know you didn't watch this, but for those that did, and it's probably very few of you. Last night, Jimmy Butler had one of the greatest NBA finals individual performances I've ever seen.

He was so good in this game, Cooley. he's such a great competitor to begin with. They were massive underdogs in this game. They were short-handed without Dragic, without Bam out of Bayou. They were nine and a half, ten-point underdogs. Everybody assuming the Lakers would win this series in a sweep. And Butler went for 40 points, 13 assists, 11 rebounds, two block shots, and two steals. He totally controlled the game on both ends of the floor.

And he became the first player since Shaquille O'Neill in the NBA finals to score 40 points without attempting a three-pointer, which is really remarkable. I love Jimmy Butler. I've loved him forever. I know he can be a difficult teammate, but he is one of those competitive badasses. And I love the way after the game, he told Rachel Nichols, I don't care if I score zero. We wanted and we were desperate to win a game and we believe that we're good enough to continue to keep it competitive in this series. one of the great NBA, I didn't hear this, by the way, but not one of my favorite people, Jeff Van Gundy. Jeff Van Gundy said it was the greatest finals performances he's ever witnessed, apparently during the broadcast.

Considering the context that Miami, no one was giving them a chance with two of their key players out. And then LeBron. I love getting to look at LeBron James and said, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. And LeBron James walked off the floor with like 0.7 seconds left when he was on the floor. floor and say they had to put another player out on the out under the floor to finish the game. What a, whatever. How much fun would this be?

I'm going to watch the rest of these games, but how much fun would it be if he could end up taking? I would love it. I would love it. It would be one of the best stories in, really in a one-year turnaround, one of the best stories in professional sports. It would be incredible. All right. Film breakdown tomorrow, offense, defense on Wednesday.

Any other thoughts before we say goodbye for the day? I had fun. Me too. Enjoy the day, everybody.