The Kevin Sheehan Show - WFT's Worst Mistake Was Their Last Mistake

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

Cooley and Kevin today with Cooley's "Film Breakdown" which included a discussion about the final Lions' completion and how badly it was either called and/or executed. His grading also included the worst grade of the year for Chase Young. Chase Hughes/NBCSports Washington jumped on with Kevin to talk Wizards-Rockets Wall for Westbrook and the NBA Draft.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheyen Show. Here's Kevin. All right, a Cooley film breakdown today of the defense from the Lions game. I'm also, when Cooley gets done, I'm going to have Chase Hughes on the show to talk about this story that broke overnight, about the Rockets and the Wizards talking about a John Wall for Russell Westbrook trade. I had Tommy Shepard, the Wizards GM on the show today.

Chris Miller from NBC Sports Washington on the show today. I'd urge you to go listen to both of those. Shepard was great. Chris, did you get to meet? I know you met Ernie a couple times, I think. Did you ever meet Tommy, Shepard, their GM? I didn't. I think I only met Ernie once.

Okay. Tommy is such a good dude. I mean, just a great guy, and I'm hoping for the best for him as the GM. He's a basketball lifer. He really knows it. And, you know, I think he's listened to our shows over the years. So I think he's a big fan of, you know, just sports radio in general in town and had a good conversation with him.

The bottom line is he didn't deny that there were talks. But anyway, Chase Hughes from NBC Sports Washington at the end of the podcast. For a quick 10 minutes to get his thoughts on at the NBA draft tonight. Also, I had Jalen Smith, Stick Smith, Maryland's Power Forward, who just blew up this year. It's a shame that he didn't get a chance to play in the tournament, but he's expected to be a lottery pick tonight in the NBA draft. Had him on the show. Really, you know, I've never had them on the show, Cooley. I'm just going to tell you right now because people have told me how smart, how poised, you know, what a great humble kid he is. He was a phenomenal guest for, you know, a 19 or a 20-year-old. You know, I mean, sometimes you get some of these really young players on as a guest. It can be a disaster. It can be, one-word answers. It can be brutal. Yeah, but God, Sticks was fabulous, so I'd urge you to go listen to that on the radio show as well.

Are you ready for a much easier defensive film breakdown, I would assume, with what, 22 plays that Detroit ran? I didn't. I didn't do it. You didn't do it? No, I just got tired and I didn't want to. All right, well, what do you want to talk about? You know, what's really funny about that? I remember there was a... As a... What? Fescent hunting. I want to talk about pheasant hunting.

I'd like to hear about your pheasant hunting, but I do remember a couple of those days on radio. You're like, nah, I just didn't get to it. We'll do it tomorrow. I'm like, well, it's sort of one of these... Not a couple. It's sort of, it's sort of one of these, what we like to call in the trade a benchmark.

Like, you know, Wednesdays at 7.30 a.m. is the Cooley film breakdown. All the program directors in radio will tell you. You need to be consistent. You got to have benchmarks. Like, everybody need... Everybody will know that Wednesdays at 7.30 is Cooley's defensive film breakdown. Tuesdays at 730 is Cooley's offensive film breakdown.

Fridays at 8.30 is Shee's smell test, et cetera, et cetera. And you're supposed to be consistent with that. Did you do it or not? I got a what do you got. Okay. Let's start with that. The last drive of the game was awful. I mean, it was just absolute horse crap, man. Like the first play, you're in quarters coverage and you give up a pretty easy throw.

I understand that. John Allen actually has a near sack on that play. They get the ball 10, 15 yards down the field, no big deal. They got like 12 seconds left. You should be in good shape. The next play, they go over the top and you and I blame Troy Apkey, but it's not just Troy Apkey. It's Kendall Fuller.

They're in quarters coverage. What the hell is Kendall Fuller doing? He's squatting on a corner route and you got to have your underneath coverage take care of that corner out. It's like, what do you think they're going to do here, buddy? is Matt Stafford. That ball should have been caught by Cephas. And then Chase Young's obviously frustrated

because T.J. Hawkinson is locking him down. And so he's pushing Stafford in the back well after the ball's thrown. And you're like, dude, what is the worst case scenario here? What is, situationally, what do we want to do? Definitely not get a penalty. Like, it's not the time to take out your frustration. I'm playing like shit all day.

Right. Bad time. Bad, bad time. Ooh, there was a hint. There was a hint right there about the grade for Chase Young. Yeah, there you go. And then Kevin. Yeah.

It's first in 10 at the 50 yard line. They go six-man pressure. A six-man pressure. And Bostick goes away from the three-receiver side. Now, I'm assuming that he was coached to go away from the three-receiver side. receiver side, but at the 50 yard line with six seconds left in the game, both the tight end and the receiver in the slot are literally uncovered. You can't, if you're going to go six-man pressure, you can't play soft coverage behind it.

Right, because it's coming out quickly. All they need to get is a fucking field goal. Right. Like, they don't have, it's not a hell Mary situation. Paul's going to be out of his hand at one second. Exactly. If you want to go six-man pressure. I mean, I looked at this because, you know, in the game, I'm like, why are they so wide open?

Now, maybe they blew. So here's the one thing that I think possibly could have happened. They blew the communication. Now, Holcomb blitzes from the defensive right side. Bostic drops behind Holcomb. Camera curl blitzes from nowhere from depth. And it's like, I think that curl was probably supposed to play zone underneath coverage, which still at that point put you in like a 44 B. look so you have four deep two underneath. Why in God's name would you play two underneath?

Like I would never do. I would have played. Here's what I would have played. And this is, I'm going to tell, this is a whiny butt thing. And I'm going to tell somebody how to do their job. But when you don't want to give up seven yards, you play two over the top and you drop six underneath and you rush three. You drop six underneath. Right. You drop. all your dudes, because at that point, Stafford then has to take more time. Exactly. And if you were to have got six underneath, we're going to do one or two things. He's going to try to take a true shot down the field deep,

and you're going to depend on a safety, making a play, which is a little risky for us. Right. Or he's going to throw a ball out of bounds right now. He doesn't have time to pick apart coverage with six seconds in the game. Like, you don't play pre-vent. you play six you drop six at eight yards and you rally to everything in front of you it's going to be a two to three yard gain at best the ball is going to be on the 47 yard line let's call it even if they fall forward that's a 64 yarder yeah it's a 64 yarder i'd way rather take my chances with the 64 yarder yeah than what they got they gave up 10 yards it was nine but yeah you know it's so funny it's so funny it's should have been 10. He was touched right at the four. He wasn't touched until he got to the 40 yard line. So it's interesting because the lead up to this, we had the argument yesterday about you

think Sim should have turned it up field to try to get a first down. I think it was the right thing to go out of bounds rather than. I didn't say I think he should have. I said I was interested in what would have happened if he would have turned up a field. Well, if he, if he, I don't like, I think that you would have got another playoff. And I also think for a fact, with the time they had left on the clock that they would have been able to rush their field goal unit on. Well, that's what you would have had to do because it would have been fourth down. Not if you got a first down. I know.

I understand that. But they're all standing there on the sideline. Ready to go. 99. 99 out of 100 times. The direction on that is we have no timeouts left. We would like better field goal position. The ball's going to go to the outside.

You got to get out of bounds. And Alex, if nothing's there, you're going to have to throw it away. and we're going to kick the super long kick from where we are on fourth and 15. They got 11 yards, they got out of bounds. I bring it up only because if they had done what you were curious about, then there would have been no Detroit drive to follow. But then again, the kicker who isn't very good right now may have been so rushed, he may have missed the kick anyway.

But then my next point on that in the lead-up to what you just went through is the thing that I was frustrated about in the moment, I would have squib kicked. I would have kicked it and I would have forced a return to burn five, six seconds off the clock. And that way, you know, Stafford, even if he's starting at the 30 instead of the 25, has two snaps. 16 seconds is three to four snaps, you know, depending on how you play it. Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but I'm going to give you the reason you don't squib kick it. Okay. They just fall on.

Okay. That's fine. Unless you can really squib kick it all the way, all the way through. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a squib that hits, you know, at the 20-yard line, the 18-yard line, and bounces run and forces a return. Why would you not just kick a high hang-time kick? Okay.

Well, you could just kick a high kick too. Yes, you could do that as well. I mean, how many returns for touchdowns don't get in that? I know. Like, seriously, if you're going to play the percentages, you kick a high hang time kick and you're going to take five seconds off the clock, minimum. Yeah, on a return, yes, you probably will. So my point is, do something to force a return and some time off the clock. But what you just described, I think, for any of you out there, Cooley did such a phenomenal job. because on the play that got them into the 59-yard attempt, instead of trying to kick a 67-yard attempt or a 64-yard attempt,

they blitzed. And if you blitz, you are expecting the ball and trying to force the ball quickly out of the quarterback's hands, which is why you should be covering the receivers tightly rather than giving them all that room. If you play underneath and you're only rushing three, then it's going to take the quarterback more time to find somebody open, even though he isn't being pressured,

and they're only six seconds left, and he's probably going to be forced to throw it away so that he doesn't burn another attempt. Or throw it, you know, and it's going to be really tight as to whether or not they can get the time out. And what they did do, and I pulled it up as you were talking about it, they rushed six, and they're playing soft coverage. It was the easiest thing of all time.

And here's the thing I would ask, old, you know, old whiny butt and, you know, coach JDR, is, was there any discussion that the kicker on the other side at the 50-yard line might have already been in range? Because I contend that if he had thrown in complete and there had been time left, the dude was coming out to kick a 67-yarder. They would have tried a 67-yard field goal indoors with Prater.

He has that kind of leg. Now, I don't, you know, would have been... Well, if you're really concerned, that he's going to, if you're really concerned that he's going to get a 67-yard field goal. And keep in mind, you had some time to decide what you wanted to do here. This wasn't a hurry-up situation. Because of the penalty before. After the penalty before.

Right. If you're going to blitz, if you're going to blitz, don't blitz from depth. Right. And play off. Right. You're never going to get there. The ball's going to, he's going to get rid of the ball. He has to do because there's six seconds.

If you're going to blitz, let's get immediate A-Gap pressure in his face and get our hands up and try to bat a ball or try to force an incompletion. If you're going to blitz, if you're worried about that kick, if you think you want to get there. The other thing about dropping six, there's a really good chance that you can hold him up for a second and a half. Right. Like if he throws something right into coverage and you don't let him get to the ground, games over. Right. Or it's over time. Yeah.

Or. No, this was a. Or if he gets it out. bad call. Or if he gets it out real quickly and you're playing tight, who knows, maybe you get a little pick six. But anyway. Now, in all honesty, I think that Cameron Curl.

Fucked it up. I don't think he should. I don't think he's blitzing here. Because if he is, I mean, Apke's walking over to back it up from depth. But if it is, this is as unsound as you get defensively. you can't play four deep one underneath. Right. Like, someone, if this is the design to blitz here, someone botches.

There's no way any, any dec coordinator would call this. There's got to be, I'd be interested to have jet. Don't criticize the defensive coordinator for this. Certainly not on Twitter. Has he discussed it? Has he talked about this call at any point? He talks on Thursday. he talks tomorrow the defensive court so i mean one just some advice to jack if cameron curl botched it

you eat it do not sell out of course anybody that botched this play you know what this do you say i should here's the answer to this question for del rio it was a bad call on my part i felt like i could get some pressure i didn't communicate properly to my defense offense what I wanted. I should have played soft coverage underneath. No, no, no, no. What do you, I mean, just take it, just take it yourself. Okay, what's the answer? First of all, let me just say this.

I don't think he's the kind of guy that will throw somebody under the bus. I actually think he is a stand-up guy in that respect. But I think what you say is we didn't execute. We didn't execute and they got off play. It was unfortunate and we heard ourselves there. and we cost us, you know, we cost the team a chance to win. Next question. Will you get into detail about what happened?

Will you get into detail about what happened? I will not. No. I will not. No, I'm not going to get into detail about what happened, but I should have played six. I should have played six underneath. Well, I certainly, if I were going to blitz, if I were going to send two extra rushers, I'm going to play tight.

But don't you think on some level, if you're playing tight coverage, you worry about the quick throw and the break tackle and you're gone. I think what you just said, you play six underneath. Yeah, you just play six underneath two over the top, and you are expecting the quick throw, and if he breaks one, there's a safety over the top. Now, really two safety.

Now, let me. So, I mean, you could at least, you could at least go with hindsight. I might have called something different. Here's what you can't consider here, and they didn't play it this way, which you cannot consider a possibility with six seconds left,

Prater as the kicker and the ball at midfield is that they're going to throw a Hail Mary on that play. That's not the play. There's no team that's going to have that as the plan, even though they're only six seconds. Everybody understands what you can get done in two to four seconds, especially if you're going to play soft coverage. And they have timeouts left. You know, that's the other key. You know, they had timeouts left. If they didn't, then it would have been a completely different situation. Anyway, all right. That's all I did. That was your what do you got.

Let's get your film. I didn't do anymore. I was busy. Are you serious? It's a lie. I know. Is there anybody less depend or more dependable? No.

Ever not do it? No, that's so true. I mean, when I joked about it on radio, there was maybe one day, one day, and I had to give you the lecture about benchmarks. And you're like, oh, okay, whatever. All right, I promise I won't do it again. Pull the audio. Up next, Cooley's defensive film breakdown.

We've already started with the critical moment in the game, but you'll get all of the grades for the defensive players right after this word from one of our sponsors. We're going in-depth, play-by-play. The Cooley Film Breakdown. Here's Cooley and Kevin. Defensive film breakdown for the Washington football team versus the Detroit Football Lions. I you're just you make me laugh because I say to you it's I mean there's nobody more dependable and you're like you're you're so right but you thought for one second like there's still that

there's still that shadow of a doubt you're like no you didn't I didn't call me coolly might have doing something else no because you would have called you actually know you actually do know that I'm busy right now I do know you're busy you know that I have something going on I know right now I do I do know you have something going on but I also and this is really important for some of you to know out there. Cooley really is incredibly dependable. You know, people like, you know, Galdi and me and Zabe, who have worked with Cooley closely have said that over the years.

You know, Cooley had this reputation as a player and, you know, a wild personality, but nobody was more committed and nobody was more dependable and mature. And, by the way, without ego than Cooley in terms of, you know, ex-athletes that we worked with. Actually, we were lucky with all of them. But, you know, I had most of my experience with you in Rigo, actually. And Rigo's good. And Rigo is very similar in that way. So, but I know that you're very busy right now, but I also didn't really buy it because I think you would have called me to say, hey, I can't get this done right now.

Let's do this on Thursday. And I would have said, fine. All right, let's get started. Nobody cares about this. What's your, start with your defensive wine. So this was really interesting. Before we said, I always start with an overarching theme. Yeah.

Go with your. overarching theme, although we just had sort of the theme, which was Jack Del Rio or Rivera, really messed up the final, or Cameron Curl messed up the final play before the field goal. Okay, here's the initial thought process. That wasn't the overarching theme. That was just a definitive moment. They really got gashed by Detroit. Yeah. And this was a new defensive look that they've had from any point in this year. Now, last week I told you, they ran some bear defense, but they didn't play the jam front, so it wasn't really the true buddy Ryan bare defense.

They got beat by some of the Gapskin stuff. The jam front is where you have someone cover each guard and the center. It makes it hard to double team people. When you cover every offensive lineman up. Right. And that's really buddy Ryan's was a jam front where then he put his strong side linebacker directly over the tight end or a strong safety at times. and then another defensive end outside the tight end to maintain that edge.

They played jam front all day. Kev, they played five down with two backers. That's a three-fourfront. They played a three-four front in this game. Just their ends had their hand in the ground. They had a lot. Allen, Payne, settle, all inside, and then both defensive ends outside with hand in the ground. More than seven or eight plays.

That's a three-four front. With hand in the ground. you said. So the only difference from a three, four would be that you would essentially say the ends would be stand-up ends. They were just three-point stance, hand-in-the-ground ends. Well, I didn't, but I, okay, so I'm a little bit confused on this. I haven't watched what you've watched.

I know why they did it. I'm going to trust you on this, but they didn't have a lot of snaps for linebackers in this game. KPL didn't even play that much. Because they played a five down front. Yeah, but a three four is a three down front with four linebackers. It's not really a three, okay, sure. And instead we'll consider Chase Young and Ryan Kerrigan linebackers, not defensive ends. Okay.

It's a five down front. A three four is a five down front. There are five guys on the line of scrimmage in the box. A three four is a five down front. Right. It doesn't matter who plays what. Right. Because of the two outs.

linebackers are lining up right there on that outside of either, you know, the tackle or the tight end. Right. And the difference is we say we're a three-fourfront, so now we qualify Ryan Kerrigan as a outside linebacker. Right. We say we're a four-three front and we qualify Ryan Kerrigan as a defensive end. I mean, I'm looking at the first snap of the game. It looks like we're in a four, it looks like we are in a, um, we're in a four-three. With the safety in the box. They played some four-three front. Okay. Kev, they played multiple fronts in this game. They played what you would call the bear defense front. But look at the third snap of the game.

Go to play number three. Look at the third snap of the game. Okay. You have Chase Young, Jonathan Allen, Dron Payne as a nose, Tim Settle as your right end, and Montes Swed as your outside player. That's a five down front.

That is a three, four front. I mean, this would be just like a three, four shade. Yeah, but it looks like Payne's, playing more one technique than zero technique. He is, but you don't have, like a three, four front can play multiple shades. That's true. Their interior three players. This is a five down front.

Understood. It's amazing. So here's why they did it, in my opinion. Because in a four down front, your linebackers have got to be gap, gap sound players. Right. And they're getting too many double teams up to guys like Bostick who can't get off a double team, who can't get off a block of a lineman climbing to a second level. So they did this to try to free up Bostick and stuff.

of these situations and try to free up Holcomb in some of these situations. They also played five down a lot of the time where they put Cole Holcomb as the fifth guy down at the line of scrimmage. It's really interesting because they didn't stop the run. Right. And I think it's hard when you start playing some of these, I guess, nuisance fronts or different fronts because you're now talking about responsibilities that you haven't played all year.

Right. It's almost like they're throwing too much at them. Is that what you're suggesting? Maybe. I mean, you're throwing a lot at them. I don't know. They're playing things differently than the way they've played it. So I'm watching a swift run, which I'm sure you'll get to, the one that he hurtled somebody. It was a 16-yard run. He hurtled the Schazer. Yeah, and they're clearly in a five-man front with Young and it looks like sweat on the other side. Now they have their hand in the dirt, so it's a five-man front. It's not technically a three-four, but they're lining up like it would be a three-four.

The only difference is their hands in the dirt. Exactly right. And even still, even at that, you get a double team with the right guard and center, and Bostick sees the downhill action to the back to that side and tries to sit and looks like he's going to kind of fill the hole. And then he stops and he waits for the center to come off on him. And then as soon as the center comes off on him that play, walks him three, yards out of the hole and Swift cuts behind it and now is he on the second level and he hurdles

to Schezer Everett and you're like, dude, Swift had a plan for the Shazer. Like he just got jumped, dude. By the way, Swift is really impressive. I just want to mention that. And I thought he would be coming out of Georgia. They just have they have backs, man. All right.

So they played. So I just thought it was really interesting that you changed your front. I mean, where I think this is interesting is they haven't been like an elite defense where they're really devastating people. And I think a big part of it is because in the run game, you're getting some poor backer fits. Now I saw a thing where it was like Trevor Madage said the linebackers are soft.

Bostick's not soft. He's indecisive. There's a big difference in my opinion. I don't see Bostick as a soft player. I see him as an indecisive player who's not a good block shed linebacker. So I don't think they're soft. I think there's just too much indecision. And again, I still think there's some massive question marks at that position.

We'll get to Bostick. He played a little bit better in this game, and he did play way more aggressive in terms of coming down and hale to fit gaps. But that was an interesting thought. My other thought to this game, God, Stafford's a good quarterback. I've always liked him. I totally agree with you. But, you know, he basically got hurt in that game. He's now questionable for the upcoming game.

The injury was his finger. It was a finger or hand injury. I mean, we saw it during the game when he was shaking it off, but it was injured. I got to look it up with the injury was. I read it and I can remember. Here's one you know. I'm going to try to explain really. Partially torn thumb ligament.

Ooh. Yeah. Not a finger, a thumb. I'll explain to you one of my favorite Stafford plays from this game, and I want you to pull this up. It's in the second quarter with a minute 14 left. It's a first in 10 and the ball's on the 31. Okay.

So the lions go three receivers to the left in an empty set, and they have a stack set on their right. Yep, I see it. Really, Stafford right here sees what he's got as a single high safety. So he knows he's going to work the left side. And on the left side, the tight end's going to run a five-yard, sit down, feet and stone route. Well, that's what we always used to call it. You turn around five-yard, sit, feet and stone route.

then you're going to have a 12-yard. Not a five-yard button-hook. No, no, no, button-hook. You do not come back to the quarterback. You do not hook back. You sit there, and behind him, you're going to have an eight-to-14-yard speed-cut roll in. And the other thing I love is they just sit a receiver down wide outside as a checkdown, and that guy holds that corner out there long enough.

The tight end sits in stone. The quarterback's essential read is to read the linebacker, which is Bostic in this situation. if he plays close to the tight end, you throw the ball over to the dig. If he plays deep and gets depth of dig, you just dump it to the tight end. There was a year like 2010 or 11 where I caught like 20 of these balls.

I mean, they would always slough off to the dig. The thing that I think is great with Stafford here, his concern isn't necessarily bostic, and this is where quarterback plays gets smart. He knows he's got a high-low bostic, but his concern is the next backer inside, who becomes Holcomb. Holcomb's kind of on the hash.

Now, if Holcomb, if Stafford were just to look left at this, then he would pull Holcomb left into that dig. Right, but he looks right to pull him away from it. So he takes one, two, three, four, plant, and then after plant, he is going to feel and sense Bostic within his throwing motion. You know what I'm saying? Like he never, he is throwing this ball.

ball, he is, like, as he's winding up, he's making the decision. Is it Hawkinson or is it the dig behind a Jones? Dude, that is really good quarterback play. Like, that is manipulating underneath coverage with your drop in eyes and then making an incredibly quick decision to get the ball down the field to Jones. This is what you look for with quarterbacks. Like, if you have guys that can make those split-second decisions like that, but it can also manipulate coverage and they know how to manipulate coverage.

It's awesome. Now, had this been too deep, two high safeties, I'm assuming that he would have dropped back, looked down the middle or looked a little bit to the right, and he would work the other, he would work the right side of the field. Or he could have thrown to his outlet checkdown over on the left side. You can still, yeah, well, not in too deep because there would have been a corner sitting.

Oh, that's right. Flat on it. But, you know, you can still work this combination in too deep. You're just essentially adding. another underneath the fender. So he would probably work the high, low, flat to the right, either corner flat. This is a really good combination.

I wrote this down. I love this out of empty. It gives answers to everything. But watching Stafford do this is awesome. And throughout the game, there are a lot of times where he can hold backers and he can hold some of the underneath coverage to make some big time throws. And then at that, Kiv, like he knows where he wants to go with the ball.

He missed a couple throws in this game down the field that I think probably could have been completed. But ball was out quick throughout. We had one sack. The best pass rushing defense in the NFL got one sack on a safety blitz and it was Cameron Curl. Yeah. Well, he got the ball out quickly like you said. So, I mean, the other thing I thought was interesting is the Lions end up putting up 30. But even at that, I think they could have scored more points. They didn't go with as much run action as I thought they could have to that jam front. They probably didn't expect us to do that. And so there wasn't necessarily a big game plan, but I thought they could have thrown

way more drop back to intermediate throws based on the way we were playing, and they could have went with way more boot and and play action stuff. Actually, maybe not boot, but boots hard when you have two-edge control players. Anyways, I thought Stafford was, you know, it's funny. We watch a lot of, I watch a lot of film,

but I watch in the NFL, much more Washington film. Yeah. And so you see good quarterback play like this, and I think you just get a little bit excited about a guy like Stafford. So anyone in Detroit that thinks that he might not be the guy or he's handcuffing them, no. He's, he's not. If he's healthy, he's one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the league. I completely agree with you. Certainly he's in that conversation. I've always felt that way.

Remember when we had the conversation and I remember for whatever reason, people said, So who would you take you in? Stafford or Kirk? And I said, I would take Stafford. I've always liked Stafford. Plus, he's a gamer, man. The big problem with Stafford is he just doesn't stay healthy. He's hurt a lot. I mean, I want to pull up his numbers to see how many games he's missed over the course of his career. Obviously, last year he got hurt really in the midst of maybe what could have been his best career year. But if you look through his overall career, it's been the last last year was the first year. My fault.

Last year was the first year he didn't play 16 games since his second year when he got hurt. That's right. 2010, he was out pretty much the whole year. 2019, he was out the second half of the season. But it does seem, doesn't it seem to you that Stafford's always banged up? I guess. I don't know why, because you just explained that he's not. Well, he's played in those 60, he played 16 games for eight straight years.

So he's not very banged up. But I think he always played hurt, which would speak to the kind of gamer he is and his toughness. Look, this is a dude that's thrown for basically 5,000 yards twice, you know? Last year, I do. Last year he was on pace for 38 touchdowns, 10 picks, and 5,000 plus yards again when he got hurt in the eighth game of the year. All right. I mean, if there was anything that the Lions wanted to do to get rid of Stafford, there will be a big market for Stafford. agree with you. The other thing I think about Stafford, and I guess part of this is watching, you know,

what he's done against us. But if you were to say you have a minute 30 and you got to go down and score points, oh, he's great. Where would he, like, it would be Drew Breeze and then Stafford. He's been, he's been very good at that. Excellent. Well, I mean, look, there are a lot of guys that are excellent at that. I mean, I would start, you know, would you mind having Patrick Mahomes in that situation? Would you mind having Russell Wilson in that situation? What about Brady? What about Rogers? What about, you know, Ryan? There are a lot of guys you'd feel good about it. But I agree with Stafford. I agree with Stafford's really good at it. I think I'd take Stafford over Wilson because Wilson, I think, throws some panic balls that become

bad plays. You know, I think Stafford has a very high, number of fourth quarter, you know, drives to take the lead. Because I remember, you know, a few years back looking it up, and cousins' numbers were very high on that, which totally defeated, you know, the narrative that he couldn't do it. But Stafford's numbers were very high. And I've got a fourth quarter comebacks, right? So, yeah, he's had, so in- You should have had one in week one, remember when DeAndre Swift dropped a wide-open

touchdown against the Bears at the last play of the game. Pro Football reference, fourth quarter comebacks are defined as must be an offensive scoring drive in the fourth quarter with the team trailing by one score, though not necessarily a drive to take the lead. Only games ending in a win or tie are included. He's got 30 of those in his career. And that's a pretty good number. Now, game winning drives led by quarterback are defined by must be an offensive scoring drive in the fourth quarter or overtime that puts the winning team ahead for the last time. He's had 37 of those. So that's that those are those are really good numbers. Like I'll pull up.

What was the other quarterback that you initially came up with? Breeze, I think. If I had to pick one quarterback, it would be Drew Breeze. All right. So I'm going to run a two minute. Obviously, Breeze has had a longer career, obviously. Oh, but your team's got to suck a little bit. Like, Tom Brady probably has less two-minute comebacks.

That's true. There were a lot of games that they blew people out. Breeze has 36 of the fourth quarter comebacks to 30 for Stafford, and 53 of the game-winning drives to 37. He's also been in the league a lot longer and has played a lot more games. Let me find somebody that would match up more with his, you know, figure 2008, 2009. You know who had a lot? I think Eli had a lot.

Romo had more than you would think, believe it or not. Aaron Rogers, because basically, even though Rogers started earlier in his career, his first year really starting was 2008. So Rogers has 17 fourth quarter comebacks, 25 game winning drives. Far fewer than Stafford. They've also had better teams and probably fewer opportunities. That's a good point. So anyway, there you go.

I would take Stafford over, Roger. Yeah. I'm not suggesting No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't take Stafford over In a two minute drive. I wouldn't. I wouldn't.

I wouldn't even question it. Okay. I think Stafford is excellent. I think Aaron Rogers is, I think Aaron Rogers is, I think Stafford's excellent in that spot too. If you told me I had to choose one, I would take Aaron Rogers. Well, I understand. You're taking what you think is a better quarterback. I think he's also an outstanding two-minute quarterback.

And by the way, knows. It's so aware of everything. Trust me. I'm not saying that he's not that. By no means. I just, I don't know. You watch Stafford do this, and he's so quick with the ball. Manning had a lot too, man.

Eli Manning had a lot of game-winning drives. I remember seeing, I remember that staff. And it helped that they suck. They helped that they sucked a lot of years. Yeah, or played a lot of close games. Yes, right, that they weren't a dominant team. No doubt. Because Tom Brady.

That changes it. Okay. This is what we do. sometimes we just start chasing this rabbit down the hole for an hour. Actually, Bradd, I mean, Bradd, Bradd is played a lot of games. Brady's played a lot of games, obviously, and has had a lot of game-winning drives. I mean, a lot. 47, not as many as Breeze, 38 fourth-quarter comebacks, but these aren't comparable numbers

Stafford because of the number of games these guys have played. Stafford, on an average per year, probably has a higher average than any of those guys. So Stafford's been really good at it, no doubt. All right, let's get to the film breakdown. We might as well start that now. I kind of want to do a top 10 list here. You know who I'd like, Brett Fav. But he may throw it to the other team too.

Yeah, he's a competitor, though. He wants to win. The greatest two-minute quarterback of all time, Ken Stabler. Stabler. Or Roger Staubeck. Staubeck was phenomenal. All right, let's go.

the greatest of all time is Drew Breeze so we're not even going to debate that he just is film breakdown he's still playing he is although not for the next not for the next month oh is he out a month with those ribs two to three weeks minimum they said I mean he's got a punctured lung a collapsed lung

I guess would be different than punctured punctured is a right of dirt this guy he's got a rubs of dirt on it what'd you say he's got to rub some dirt on it just rub some dirt on it it'll be all right come on you're fine

we'll give you a little flack jacket all right let's do some film all right Chase Young yeah the positives there's a relentless rush effort

from Chase Young there is he's a go get him guy man he's he's gonna play hard he has a good bull rush with power and he can shed and fall off inside late has a solid up and under pressure. There's a play in the fourth quarter

that I think ends up being completed on a button hook. I wrote button hook four times in my notes for you today. Stafford's really good. He had Chase Young and John Allen right in his face and he's thrown in time, in rhythm, hitting the hook, doesn't care about pressure, change our angle a little bit, make a play. There was also that boot late in the game

where he forces a bounce pass, that it's just an awesome redirect and his speed to get into the quarterback's face is really good. We are a very tough defense to boot because Chase Young and Montez Sweets are so athletic. They're so athletic and have so much length on the edge. We are a tough boot team. The negatives, multiple times blocked by Hawkinson,

no get off. Ball goes inside, lose gap control and C gap. I mean, like Hawkinson's a pretty damn good blocker, though, I'll say that. The first Adrian Peterson run, the first one, he bounces outside. I actually made this suggestion to you last week. I said, if Chase Young feels like you go make a play inside once he's controlling it

tied end, then go make it inside. Well, he went inside and Adrian Peterson, boop bounces outside. Nobody is, like, AP is really good at that.

You're bouncing it, yeah. Bouncing those tight run plays, like just that subtle patience, like, I'm not going to hit the hole just yet. He's very good at getting like just about a yard from that hole. hesitating and then if he wants to put his head down, he can still get yards, but he can still jump cut and bounce outside. Right.

Poor end tackle stunt, too much of an outside. Like when you're an end tackle stunt, you're trying to, you're the end, you got to collapse the edge so you get Duran Payne looping and wrapping tight behind it. And it's like you give yourself up in that situation. But sometimes when you completely give yourself up, they almost omit you and you get inside and you get pressure. Not a commitment to that.

that was on really if you wanted to watch that one that's on the fuller cover two invert touchdown that got over the top like on the 30 yard lineish or whatever it was pulling guard coming at him he's jumping inside of it way too quick and they ended up having a bounce play where it was a counter bounce play and he gets pinned like it's tough for those dns like you can't play up the field when you get a pulling guard but you can't just avoid underneath like he's got to attack that aggressively and try to push that knocked that offensive lineman pulling back into the backfield. Had a wise screen at him that really didn't end up being a, actually it was a penalty. I think Holcomb drew a hold, but there was a wise screen at him, Hawkinson's screen. No feel for that. And then late in the game, really stupid play to push Dafford in the back. And we mentioned it.

It's terrible situational awareness. You've got to be able to think through these things. I think it was frustrated because he's been getting blocked by Hawkinson all day. Hawkinson did a really good job of blocking Chase Young for a solid two and a half, three seconds before young kind of got off underneath. We said they had a plan for him. There wasn't a massive plan for Chase Young. Not like last week.

I think more the plan was to run it. Not like last week. It was more to run at Chase Young if there was even that type of plan than to run at Montez Sweat. I think they were effective in blocking Chase. I think that he got out of gap more times than you would have wanted him to.

And I also think Kevin that he played in a little bit of a different role because of that three, four type of look than he'd had in the past eight games. it was an adjustment for Young. He was a D. He was doubled on that final, on the play that he got the penalty on.

Yeah, the running back came to the outside of Hawkinson, but the back never touched him. Yeah, but he was accounting. You almost, when you're, when you're, but when you're, no, I understand that, but, you know, the way I would coach that if I was an offense is when you're going to double a guy like Chase Young, I'm going to leave the running back really heavy inside, you know.

Right. And I'm going to let Hawkinson's set square a little bit, and you're just going to say, hey, look, you cannot get beat on a hard loop outside rush. You got help with the back on the inside. The back just went outside, never touched him, and Chase did get inside. Montes Sweat. Yeah. Good fight through, we just talked about pulling guard. Good fight through those pull guard, seal blocks, get in on tackles, button press,

knock them back a little bit, get in on tackles. Long arms, good length, good leverage, really good there. I thought great speed rush, good bull rush. balls out a bunch of times very quick or I thought Montez-Swatt had a chance to have three or four quarterback hits or sacks in this game but Stafford good with getting the ball out. His stunts were excellent, especially when he had blitz off the edge. Some of his, some of the games, they call them games like those end tackle stunts. They say D-D-line games.

Some of the games not as good with D-tackles, but one of the interior stunts, they had KPL coming off the outside on a blitz. A really good job. Drew a holding penalty on that. particular play. Of course, they overcame that. Right? Yeah. Very quickly.

Yeah. Very quickly. Wing tight ends, really, or double team tight ends, he's dominant. And, you know, you see other guys get moved, and he's not going to get moved by two tight ends. He's dominant. The negatives, I mean, maybe one or two times too far up field on. some run plays that end up cutting back underneath. And I can see that he wants to play boot.

Like I can see he's just drooling. Like, come on, Stafford, I dare you. Pull that sucker. Pull it. But really, I thought solid, consistent in this game. No big plays. He had good pressures. He was very good in gap control throughout the entire game.

I thought Montes-Wet was an A-minus. I'd like to see him make a play or two or three plays to really get into that true A category. But I thought he was very consistent. Okay. Deron Payne. The positives. Look, the guy can eat double teams and he's not going to give up a ton of movement.

Some real quickness to redirect the plays. Great redirect the wide screen we were talking about. Like, watch the redirect of Durant Payne there and get back into the play and the speed to get back into the play. It's a holding, but, you know, his redirect on that play and speed to get to Hawkinson is excellent. And, you know, even for a guy that I think at times, comes off slow off the ball. I think he'd come off the ball harder. He's so powerful that he can push guys back into the play,

especially when he's playing over the center. I do love pain playing over the center. Okay, I was going to ask you. In that five-man front, I mean, he's not playing directly over the center in a lot of them. I'm watching him. He's playing closer to one-text. Shade technique.

Okay, fine. But, you know, remember one of my recommendations was that John Allen not be the one technique. Right. That pain be the one technique. In the four down fronts this week, you know, who played shade? Four down fronts, not five. Duron Payne. They move Jonathan back out to three tech.

Do you like him as a nose? I mean, he's the, obviously the most qualified nose they've had here since, you know, the whole three-four thing that started in 2010. Yeah. I mean, again, how we classify this just depends on how we classify our front. And since we're not a three-down front or a three-four front, he's a, in this game he's a shade detackle. Okay.

I think the reason they played him with width is because that's the way you play Aaron Donald. And if he is your best potential monster, then you would play him at the three technique. They were trying to probably give him the advantage to be that guy. There are plays he'll make in the backfield, Kev, but he's not Aaron Donald. He does not have those quicks.

he's got a good recovery speed, he's got good strength. He's very athletic, but he does not have those quicks, in my opinion, to be the three tech, which means I do like him as the nose or shade detackle, in my opinion. He was a B in this game. Okay. Jonathan Allen. Yeah. He has a little bit more quicks and is the three technique.

Yeah. And that's what he played in this game. Man, I thought positives hold point when he had to leverage low hat winner, multiple times. Really good up tilled speed rush. Now, forced quarterback out of the pocket. He's got speed. He's got good moves to beat an offensive guard, especially when he rushes outside of the offensive guard. They stunted a lot, especially in that five-down look. When he's stunting in the run game, he is off the ball quick, and he's got a knack to get himself in on plays. There's a couple plays in a row in the second

quarter, about the seven-and-a-half-minute mark where he's stunted and making a play for two, and then he's again, stunting making a play for zero. You're like, this dude is in some stuff, man. I mean, ultimately, there were a couple plays

where you could say maybe torched and turned a little bit and got out of gap one or two times, but mostly for me, I thought Jonathan Allen played like a monster in the run game. He had some really good individual effort wins in the past rush situations. And almost sack, almost that first play that last drive,

Allen was, I mean, it was a great little two-hand swat and beat the guard. The first play of the three-play drive? Yeah. At the end? Alan, Alan's in the back.

Like, he's, if that ball's not out immediately, that's a sack. I thought Jonathan Allen was an A in this game. Wow. Tim Settle played 27 plays. Really, he's good with hands. You know, he's a good hand guy and fall off late into a lot of the things. He can create great upfield penetration in the run game, did in this game, especially with stunts.

He's not moved. and really pretty stout when it comes to getting double team. And even off of that, he's got some good shed, fall off, make tackles. I think he's really, I think one of the questions with Settle was, will he play with the relentless effort? That was one of the concerns coming out of Virginia Tech was that he's a kind of one-place spark player.

But I think Settle since he's been here has played with a really, really good effort. again, there are a couple of plays where he's turned and moved a little bit, but very consistent, I thought, in this game, and ultimately even had a couple decent pressures. I wouldn't say pressure, but rushes. Tim Settle was an A-minus. Ryan Kerrigan, in this game, the KPL penalty, man, that was a great rip-rush stunt by Kerrigan to really free up that edge

and free Bostic on that play. That was a very good rush. We say we only had one sack. We did have two sacks. That was a sack. Right. Do they record, they don't record that as a sack today?

No, it's a penalty. That sucks for Bostic. Yeah, he smacked him. Well, Bostic didn't, but KPL sure did. And more importantly, I mean, just like the second and 20 screen, these are opportunities to get off the field. Like instead of, you know, getting more plays where you then get gashed and people remember getting gashed and getting scored on.

but they had to play good enough there to get off the field, except for KPL lowered his helmet and went after Stafford's helmet, which is stupid. Yeah, I was going to save that for KPL, so I just will. Back to Kerrigan. Yeah. And run game, hold the point, turn runs inside, pretty good. Stunt penetration in the run game, really good.

And some solid pressures, really, to get in the face of Stafford a couple times, some solid bulrush pressures where he's pushing their right tackle back into the face and into the lap of Stafford. The negatives, the two-tide-end situation, he can get moved that way, as Joe Gibbs would say. If he wants to go that way, let him go that way and move him that way. Right. And the thing with Ryan is I think he's just been a part of a two-gap defense a lot,

and it's just like, dude, get low, take your gap, then dominate two tight ends. Play on the other side of the line of scrimmage. I know he's got the ability to do that. And then some of the rush stuff, like, I wrote this down. even with the idea of the back chipping him, he's going to slow down his rush. He does not want to get chipped.

I was questioning this, though, on the particular play I was talking about, it was a third and ten in the second quarter. It was a good stop, and it looked like a pass breakup by Darby outside on the offensive right. Did Kerrigan tip that ball? It looked like the ball came off weird.

It's hard to see in the film clip, but I don't know. Did Kerry? He might have had a tip. I'm watching a pass breakup on a third down. I'm watching it right now. Like he slows way down as the back comes at him. It's like, no, don't chip me.

I mean, he got his hands up. I can't tell from. Yeah, it looks. It's hard to tell on the film. You'd have to almost go back to the TV copy and see if they had a better cut of that. But as I was having some criticism of the actual rush getting double teamed,

I think that he does a pretty good job of maybe deflecting that ball. Maybe not. Ryan Carrigan was at B. Ryan Anderson played eight plays in this game, had no impact on the game, was not a positive impact on the game. At that point, he'd be a C minus D plus kind of guy. So you recap your defensive front. Chase Young did not play well. He was a D in this ballgame.

Montes Sweat was excellent. I gave him an A minus. Duran Payne. What did I grade to pain? I didn't think I gave you great for pain, did I? No, you did. You gave pain and B. Yeah.

Pain was a B. Jonathan Allen was, I thought, excellent in this game. Jonathan Allen was an A. Tim Settle was really pretty consistent on 27 plays in this game was an A-minus. Ryan Kerrigan was a B. Ryan Anderson, C-minus. You know, as you look at this defense, they're getting, and I'm going to get to this with the linebackers,

they do have the idea that they can control the line of scrimmage, but there's just, you're going to hear this from Del Rio, and you're going to hear this from Rivera again, and you're going to hear about gap integrity. And there's just some lack of gap integrity. and you know you've got to define it by either guys aren't your upfront guys aren't truly penetrating to get into the backfield to change that back's path or change the course you know they're getting out leveraged with a lot of gap scheme and counter runs and that's how everyone's going to keep attacking them they're not going to run zone at them they're going to run that gap scheme stuff at them because their backers don't fit and fail quick enough they did make a concerted effort and it was shown this week with bostick trying to attack the line of scrimmage right now with holcomb trying to be in at the line of scrimmage right now. And even, you know,

Shandhi on Hamilton, who played four plays, made a play in the backfield. It was clear that there was a decisive point, coaching point to say attack as a linebacker when you see run. It was also clear to see that this week in some of the run action stuff, they were very caught up in the backfield on run action plays. And I think you basically said,

we're going to attack the run. Right. If they beat us, if they start beating us with some run action stuff, we will adjust to that. But ultimately, there was more aggressiveness. Let's get to the linebackers,

heaven, unless you have something else. Nope. We'll do linebackers, then we'll do a commercial break, and then we'll finish up with the secondary. Start with the linebackers. Bostick, you weren't a lot? Only two of them really played a lot. Give me Bostick first. He played every single snap.

You want the good or the bad? I want the bad first. No, I went the good first. You want the good first? Yeah, for Bostick. He played fast. Uh, tell me. Good look up tight end on run action pass early in the game and a really good pattern match to a tight end.

Like drop, found the tight end. Okay. Didn't run the wrong way. No, a couple times he does, but we'll get to that. Uh, great blitz timing on the staff, Stafford sack. Really good. KPO stupid penalty. Uh, good force, a quick decision on a scramble in zone coverage. Uh, it was the awkward Stafford flip play.

he sees him coming out and really great job forcing a quick decision there by Stafford. If he doesn't come up and force a quick decision, Fuller is playing an inverted two and the receiver got well over the top of Fuller on that awkward step. Awkward flip play. That's a touchdown. Yeah, the flip play, it looked like he wanted the receiver to, like it was a bad flip because they could have gotten some yards off that. Without Bostick in his face, he's going to get his eyes down the field. he's going to see that he had a receiver outside six yards beyond coverage and he's going to throw

easy lob ball for a touchdown right it is the lions though they may have dropped it they have more drops than anyone in the league so you never know much better at immediate gap fits that's bostic you know the first ap bounce run he actually he's in there you know he's got a chance he doesn't make the tackle i would say it's a tough tackle to make and you'd want him to get that down but god he's at least hitting it into the line of scrimmage right you know and you you pull it up and you can see that there's some clear mistakes made outside of that, but it's nice that he's forcing that bounce right now. Shouldn't have been a big game.

Really good. There's a third and ten in the third quarter. He reroutes Hawkinson, pattern matches, falls back into the dig in the middle of the field, and you're like, interesting, interesting. I like it. Later in the grant, I think this was actually after a, a play where he kind of got beat, but I wrote great rally to the ball

and making a tackle outside. The numbers, looks like he's playing with a buron. As coach Joe would say. Yeah. Oh, man. I got to redirect here for a minute. McDonough he used to always say

that we got to play like our ass is on fire. And I remember one day it was a motivational speech that he told this entire story about how his fraternity used to, to make guys put a roll of toilet paper in between their butt cheeks. You told me a story before, yeah. Three foot. And then they would light it.

And they would have to, like, if they got to a certain point in a bear, in a bear crawl, we're like, really? This is the story you're going to tell us pregame. Right. That's funny. Oh, coach. I just love a little coaching. We've got to play like our ass is on fire.

Well, it's not, coach. There's no toilet paper hanging out of my behind right now. Old Irish McDonaghan. It's hard for me to pretend that there is. And even if there is, I'm not going to play. If there's a roll of toilet, flaming toilet paper, I'm probably going to go find some water and put it out. I'm going to certainly.

I'm going to certainly stop, drop, and roll at the very least. At the very least, I'm going to quit the bear crawl and roll. Yeah. No one's going to paddle me on the football field for doing that. This isn't the frat house coach. Okay. I'm looking at pictures of old McDonaheyhe. You can find one with his...

Coach D. With his finger and his belly. I bet you he was a bunch of fun after the game with the other coaches. All right, go ahead. Actually, he probably was. No, I'm sure he was. I'm almost positive of it. Bostic.

Bostic. Yeah. The negatives. Better with immediate gap fits, but still gets easily washed out of holes. He's just, he's not a good take-on offense and lineman linebacker. He's poor shed and poor fit to the. the lineman. He's got to take guys on with his hands. Like, he is a shoulder into one side of alignment kind of guy. And if you watch the game, you're going to see it over and over and over again.

Like, just let's do the physics of this. That guy's six, five-ish, definitely over 300 pounds. You're 6-3 around 240. You put your shoulder into him and not physically put your shoulder into him. And Bostick's going to widen his base. He's going to get his feet outside shoulder with and then lean his shoulder into a guy. What is physics going to tell you here? Like it's going to tell you that the offensive lineman is going to kick the shit out of you. That's what it's going to tell you. Okay. But better immediate gap fits. There's a couple of situations with some of the zone stuff, like early in the game, camera curl's got to carry as an underneath defender of vertical tight end. so he's got to carry that.

And then it's a run action play where only AP goes out to the flat. He's got a flat replace. He is literally AP is the only potential eligible receiver on Bostic's side of the hash. And Bostick is sitting on the hash looking at Stafford. Like KPL had to carry that. Like there's nobody else out there anyway. Nobody's coming to the middle of the field. And if they do, Holcomb's right there on the other side of me.

I'm not responsible to sit on the hash and cover fucking air. It's an easy nine-yard throwout to the flat to Adrian Peterson. You're like, who's going to get him? Oh, man. I mean, they must be pulling their hair out on the line backing. The Cephas drop on the play action drift drought. Yeah. I mean, it's just a poor reaction to run action pass.

I mean, that's just really what it is. The second and 20 screen, we've talked. talked about this Monday for a while. Please help me with why they sent pressure on second and 20 like that. Because Del Rio likes to blitz? He does like to blitz. He thought he'd get him in a third and 27 situation? I don't know why you send pressure there.

I'd like third and 15 or third and 12. I'll take that. I don't know exactly why you're sending pressure there. But if you are sending pressure, you better have answers for screen because second 20s a really common screen down. Yeah. So, KP, again,

I've watched this. KPL, you'd love, or not KPL, camera curl, you'd love him to feel that. The back sets up like he's going to block curl. Right.

And then he doesn't even really touch him. I think you'd love curl to fill that. But Curl's the first guy off the edge, and he's flying up the field. Bostic has to see the screen. Yeah, he's got to be. He's delayed a second. I mean,

like, That's just... I mean, that's just bad instincts. If Boston... It's just bad instincts. If he's got a sense at second and 20, uh-oh, look at what's going on here. The... We're getting quick pressure.

It's a screen. I can see the lineman popping out. If he gets over there, it's just Stafford throwing it into the ground and it's third and 20. He throws it at the, you know, at the feet incomplete. But Boston had no idea. Blinders. I'm going to get him.

I'm going to get Stafford here. Mm-hmm. Good God. Blinders. He's got to see that. They're lucky it didn't score. Now, again, oh, if Kendall Fuller doesn't come flying over from the other side of the field to make a really good tackle, it does score because as he breaks that out, Jimmy Morland kind of gets off a block, and then he just sits there waiting like, which way are you going to go? And he has literally no chance of making that tackle. Swift jukees him out of his freaking socks. And as that ball cuts back, I mean, there is only Kendall Fuller. You know, that's a sixer right there. That play drives me now. I decided I was going to call touchdowns today. Sixers.

I actually made a decision. Sixers. No one's called it that. Oh, here comes a sixer. Here comes an old sixer. No, I'm going to call him. We stopped the sixer. Barely, thank courtesy of Kendall Ford.

Great tackle. But that play really drove me nuts. I just, we've all watched enough football to know second and 20, screen draw. See, I would, personally, one of the reasons I kind of like Gary Kubiak as an OC, I love using a lot of screens on first down and on second and four or, you know, on third and five or third and six. I don't, especially when you have a back that can make people miss and is decisive and has good vision. But second and 20, you know it's coming.

What are you doing? So I love Andy Reid. I think he's a great screen caller. Yeah, him too. Creative. Anyway. Yeah, anyway. Third and four, 11 minutes left in the third quarter.

There's an easy completion on a sit-down route to the tight end right in front of Bostic. Who are you covering, dude? Like, where are you dropping? Yeah. I just, those plays drive me nuts. It must be harder than I think for linebackers to pattern match. It just must be. Oh, one more thing.

Well, you were talking, I thought of this. On the second and 20 screen, I'll bet you anything Rivera is sitting on the side, and I'm like, Luke Keechley would have never let that happen. Well, you said the other day, I mean, what's missing more than anything in the Rivera defense is a middle linebacker. And I played that on the radio show, because I thought that's really interesting because because coaches who are known for being defensive coaches or coaches, Like the guy that they need to make it happen, they're going to go get that guy.

Like he's not going into 2021 without that guy. That is an absolute lock that they address the middle linebacker position in the offseason. And I'm assuming that it's not Ruben Foster. So to me, that's why this draft, you've got a guy like Micah Parsons from Penn State who could be available to them early, you know, in the first six, seven picks. and that's why I'm not so sure quarterbacks on the table early and that maybe Alex and Kyle are both back next year. But anyway, continue.

Last couple things. Wait on the running back at the line of scrimmage equals get blocked. I mean, he still did it a couple times. Way overrun the spin route on the touchdown in the third quarter. I mean, you're just not going to put them on man coverage in that situation. That's just you just can't do it. It fell down. That was a nice little route.

That was swift, right? Yeah. And then late in the game On the touchdown, you mean. Yeah. Yeah, it was swift. Yeah, it was swift. Bostick, I think, actually had his best grade in a while, though.

He was a C-minus. Okay. Holcomb. So here's an interesting thought, though. Like, when I watch, this is, one thing I hate when I do these film breakdowns, and we have been tough on Bostick, we really have. I love Bostick. I know what you're saying.

You know what I mean? Like, I enjoy him as a guy. Like I think he's a great dude, and I'm sure he's a great leader. And I'm sure there's aspects of what he does in terms of getting the defense and stuff lined up that are important to you. I think he's a great dude. But my middle linebacker has to be better instinctually. And he is not. And at the point that he is not an instinctual player at linebacker, I'm going to look to somebody else.

I just am. Yeah. He's not an instinctual player. He's right now not just a guy. he's below JAG as a player. And for me, it's like, look, there's guys. Like, I haven't seen a ton out of Sean Dion that's showed me that he's the guy, right? Right.

The one thing I personally know about Sean Dionne Hamilton is he's incredibly bright. Sean DeYoung of Hamilton was a valedictorian in high school. Well, there's something to that. And if it's just about getting guys lined up and wanting to know that you can call the defense, like, how could he not handle that? Right. And maybe he comes in. and starts making some plays.

Like, it's hard to play four plays a game. It's hard to play 10 plays a game. What about Davis? Dude, Davis can't run. Yeah. And that's a position. They've got to have a guy that can run right now. I think they saw that in a couple of the early games.

Like, Davis just can't run anymore. I don't know, Kev. I mean, to me, it's something they got to find. Well, you've already made this suggestion. You'd play Holcomb there. Well, I wouldn't play Holcomb in the bear. Like, I would, if I was going to use that bare defense that they've been doing, granted, Bostick struggles to get off blocks, I just put them over the tight end. But then at that, they're asking them to man cover the tight end.

And as soon as you get Bostick and man coverage on a tight end, they're going to say that we have a premier matchup, and then they're going to attack that matchup. I don't know what I would do with Bostick. I don't think I would have him on the field. I have, okay, you're a two-win team. You don't have a lot to lose. Well, you could fall out of the division race. Actually, I don't know that it's possible even to fall out of this division race before like middle of December. But anyway.

Positive from Cole Holcomb. Yeah. Really good rally to tackle on a screenplay out in space. I like his pressure on a, as a blitzer on the KPL. I keep calling camera curl KPL because his name starts with Canada. But good pressure by Holcomb. Really good take on too. holding penalty on the Y screen,

aggressive run fits. He does not let double teams get to him. He attacks the double teams. Holcomb again, he played a ton more at the line of scrimmage. I don't see him as an at the line of scrimmage bear defender. That's bear like the Chicago Bears. Right. That's why they call it that.

But I don't think that's his best fit. I don't like him playing there. It's not his best fit. It's not where I want him. I want him playing with a little bit of space where he can attack the line of scrimmage from five yards. A couple times guessing. playing behind blocks one of the counter bounce plays early the AP one he's he's guessing there he's

playing behind a block uh the Cephas drop play really poor reaction to play to play action or he's a blitzer it I mean he might have been a blitzer it's just either he's beaten by action or he's blitzing on that play if he is blitzing on that play it's real bad by Boston um give up an easy throw to the flat he's out leverage quick he's a quarters defender at one point in the flat um eyes man like Hawkinson immediate release to the flat. You are four deep, three underneath. As you're three underneath, he's the left defensive side. You got from basically the hash to the flat.

As soon as someone attacks the flat, you need to address that problem. If you don't, they're going to throw it out there. Right. Learn from KPL, man. Watch him go attack the flats. Watched too far by Hawkinson inside, push out a gap as the bear defender. Hawkinson's pretty good. I think

By the way, you know, you've mentioned so much about the 46 the last two weeks. That's what we're running. I understand that. You know, Rivera played for Buddy Ryan and played on those Bears teams, you know, and for the whole thing. I think the biggest problem is that they had Mike Singleton.

And we have John Boster, Ganderer, you know, somebody else filling in. It really helps if you've got Singletary. And, oh, by the way, Richard Dent, although that should be Chase Young, and Doug Plank and, you know, safety. I mean, they don't have the personnel right now behind their front four. So anyway, continue. No, they absolutely don't. I mean, I actually think playing KPL, if I do this again, I'm going to slap myself in the face.

Playing camera curl as that bear defender would be better than playing Holcomb. Right. So here's my suggestion of the week, see if we get it done. If you want to keep the same personnel on the field and you want to stay in a bare defense, play Holcomb back in the box and put KPL over the tight end. He's an aggressive run defender who can stay in gap and take on a block by a tight end. He's also a guy that can play man coverage on a tight end. I think Holcomb's a better run player from space or from off. I would play Holcomb back and I would play KPL as your bear defender if you want to stay in that.

Man, there's a bubble screen late that he jumps inside Marvin Jones on a bubble screen game. gets picked or pinned and it's like dude you got you got play through a receiver you cannot take a side on a receiver it's just you you you're willing to play through an offensive tackle you better knock the snot out of a receiver which never happens like snot really never comes out yeah hopefully not especially especially during these times we want snop bubbles I've been hit really hard I've never had a bubble come out of my nose and then a tackle underneath on a second and 20 in the fourth quarter. There's an underneath throw.

Should have been a gain of four. It ends up gaining 13 in the fourth quarter. Holcomb was not good in this game. He was a D plus. Okay. KPL played 14 plays. Obviously, we understand the stupidity of the penalty on Stafford. This is what I wrote, though.

Instead of just saying, like, stupid play, man, go for the ball. Right. The quarterback's wrapped up. He ain't going anywhere. Like he's going to do one of two things. He's going to go down or he's going to get a little bit anxious with that ball and maybe even try to throw it out. And as late as he was, attack the ball, address the football.

Turnovers are better than sacks. You're going to get that penalty that is going to get called every single time. He literally speared Stafford. I know he did. God. Now, it was so it was frustrating because Stafford was fighting to try to keep the play alive. he didn't go down right away with Bostick's tackle. And so he's open to be hit, but you can't lead with your helmet on and towards his helmet.

Just go in there. It's frustrating because it's like clinic the way we were taught to play football. Although part of me thinks that even if there wasn't helmet to helmet just in this day and age, because Stafford was fighting but probably perceived to be down that they may have flagged it anyway, but whatever. I just, it doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. I get it that you want to just nail somebody,

but not the quarterback. Not anymore. No. You think that's why he only had 14 snaps or whatever he had in the game? No, I think it had more to do with the fact that they wanted to play five down front and have settle on the field more than KPL. Essentially, that's, I think, the big part of it. There's a second and one.

He's outrun to the flat in the fourth quarter. or poor eyes flat out leverages them quick. It's a good rally to make a tackle, but it's too much of a gain. Look, he's a good tackling guy. He's got speed. He shows that speed. That's who he is. He's a flat playing.

Like, he's a quarters defending flat player. That's what I see is KPL. Definitely a weak side linebacker, which is what they have him playing at. I like him in his role. He's a good blitzer. He's got good speed. He's not a man-to-man type of player. He's a zone underneath player who plays hook flat.

He was a C-minus in this game. 14 plays really probably should have just given him a F because the one impactful play he really had was a big one. I'm glad you didn't. Did you grade Dionne Hamilton or not? Deon Hamilton had four plays. If you want to grade him, he was an A. Really? He had kind of a couple plays where you could see good instincts and then he had the one play in the backfield.

I mean, if you, it's hard for the way I grade, it's hard. You can't get to an A on four plays. Right. Well, you just did. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back and finish up with the secondary. All right, let's finish up the film breakdown with Cooley's grading of the secondary. Start with Kendall Fuller.

Positives. Great trail motion. There are trails a motion great on a second down and long. Comes up with a good tackle. You get to a third nine, big situation. Really big tackle on the screen across the field to save the sixer. to save the sixer. Yeah.

Early in the game, he lets the counter bounce outside. It's the third play of the game. He overruns it. He's definitely contained. It definitely bounces outside. That can't happen. The first touchdown, it's all you, buddy. Yeah, beat on all those underneath routes last week.

What do you think is going to happen next week? We're going to give you a little nod. We're going to give you a little takeoff. We expect that you don't want to get beat on the underneath routes. And so we're going to get some double move stuff. And it wasn't even much of a double move. So that was really not a very good play by Kendall Fuller. everyone saw it very clear uh i wrote this um third and four 44 seconds in the first quarter

it's the awkward stafford flip play he's a two invert player if the quarterback sees this over the top he's going to give up another touchdown right there now the butterfly effect is he probably wouldn't give it up the second cover two invert touchdown which we'll get to uh the the second one that he gives up. Yeah. He, he, they're playing, we went through this a bunch of times. They're playing cover two. Talib did a great job too with the corners. Yeah, right. And then you have inside help in the middle of the field. It's two invert really, two sky. I don't know why they call it sky, but they do. A lot of people call it too sky. Um, he just drops too far inside. His, his initial landmark drop takes him almost head up with the number two receiver or the slot guy. Right. Right. And,

And really, you got a drop to split the difference right there. You got some help in the middle of the field vertical initially, with Bostick being the Tampa linebacker there. It's just a poor drop. It's really what it is. He knows what he's doing. He just gets a loss a little bit too far inside, and he can't come back outside to make that play.

Third quarter, he gives up a comeback. He really gets spun on the comeback on a run-action pass. It's an easy throw and catch. she's got to stay closer and into the hip of the receiver and be able to close it right there. I'm getting the feeling that he was afraid about, afraid of getting run by at that point in the game. Fourth quarter, again, there's a bounce play. Can't happen.

He loses contain. It's 17 yards out the gate. Was that the third and one? Yeah, third and one in the fourth quarter. Another bounce play. And if, man, if you want to play five solid up front on the line of scrimmage and control the line of scrimmage, your corners have got to be able to control. that bounce stuff. He cannot give that up.

It's twice in the game. We gave up big plays to those bounce situations. Is his job there to contain? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. You got seven guys playing inside the box. Like, keep it inside. I mean, they went down and scored a

field goal on that drive, right? Yeah. They did. The deep ball in the fourth quarter that CFS didn't get to. That we thought was apt to. That can't happen. It is Apki. It's Apki and it's Kendall Fuller. They're

in quarters coverage. Essentially the guys over the top down the sideline, which if you want to really count quarters, then that's definitely Fuller. That's definitely Fuller's quarter of the field. I mean, it's terrible

by Apke, but still the ball leads him back out into the outside. Look, in that particular play, they have a corner route. And that corner route really, that deep out is if you can get that corner back to sit down just a little bit, man, let's take a shot. And that's what they did. What do you always, how do you always describe in quarters coverage, you know, like Fuller's got

the guy running the route towards the sideline and he's got Cephists going down the field. And he's supposed to like basically split the middle there, right? how have you described that to me in the past no no i mean there's a different there's a lot of different ways you could play this okay like you could say quarters lock it which would mean that if the number one guy outside starts to go out you're going to let the the corner drive on it which would lock the safety but you're being quarters prevent in this situation which means your underneath coverage should get enough depth to easily take away the corner route.

I see that. Which Morland does. Which Morland does a great job of. And Kendall Fuller has no business keeping his eyes on that corner out. Got it. I'm sure that in a quarters prevent look, which they're in, it's very clear that Kendall Fuller gets caught up in the wash there. Right. He was a D.

D minus. Wow. He was not good in this game. Ronald Darby. Yeah. The positives, really good drive out of his back pedal on a third and ten in the second quarter. As a pass breakup, it's a big play. So Lee broke that down really well about the way he stopped playing and drove.

Like he said he played that perfectly. Yeah, great transition. Another pass break up on a corner. Corner route on a third and nine. Hawkinson runs the corner. Does a great job getting in on that. and it's a pass breakup. Early in the game,

they run a scissors combination, a corner and a post. It's cover three. As a cover three player, the corner's going to get into your third. Shays, the single high was ready to pass off and take the post for him.

The ball was thrown incomplete on the corner route, but it was open. He's got to be able to feel that two-man combination with the post in the corner. The Cephas drop play. Yeah. I almost want to go through this again a few times because it's just not a sound defense for this situation.

If Holcomb's a blitzer, and I think he is, it makes it three deep, three underneath, what a lot of coaches would call 33B, 33 blitz. Three, three blitz. Okay. So if you're going to do that, you're taking a dude out of the middle of the field. in early first and 10 type of situations, which means you got big holes in the middle of the field. I think in that situation,

you've got to do a better job of locking the in-break. So essentially, you're going to take your corner, Darby in this situation, and say you're going to lock any in-breaking route. Now, there's nobody coming back out that's going to threaten his third in this situation. But even at that, if there is, I'm going to say I'm going to have to lock my underneath the fender,

who I think would be Cameron Currell. right here or Holcomb, one of the two. Like anything goes vertical behind it, we're going to have to lock that too. But it's almost turning a 33 zone look into, you know, some man-match concept. But if you don't lock him, how are you going to stop that play? Don't tell me linebacker depth because I'm going to tell you right now, the way I was coached and the way that play was installed is we're not even going to look at the linebacker. we'll give a hard enough run action that he will never turn around to get himself into that play.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's how Shanahan coached it is we never even got to look at this dude. He'll never play it. And then oddly enough, like four weeks later, we were playing the Rams and that linebacker turns around. He's running helmet facing the goal line away from the quarterback and throws his hand up and ball hits his hand and then it gets tipped and picked. You're like, how the hell does this happen? Like he's got his helmet, the back of his head's facing the quarterback.

You're like, well, they got it. If you are a dropping line. If you are a dropping linebacker and you can read the eyes, wouldn't you always throw your arms up as much in jump? Well, you knowing that it's on the way? Because he was not looking, unless he had eyes in the back of his head in that play, he wasn't going to read eyes. Looking, reading receiver's eyes.

Oh, I think the linebacker in that situation was just running feverishly to wherever he was supposed to be like, oh, no, I got to get back. Throws his arms up, ball hits at his hand. You're like, come on with this. You never worry about the linebacker on that play. The guy's going to drift into a hole in the middle of the field. It's the quarterback's job to throw it around the linebacker. With the run action stuff, that plays so quick hitting, the quarterback's going to hit his fifth step and it's out.

Right. 83 receptions for 1,300 yards, 2012, Robert Griffin, that one play. It's a good play. They run, the one I said, Kendall Fuller's got to close on the corner route or the comeback. Yeah. We didn't get in the hip. It's a run action, two players to the left side, their man-to-man coverage, so Darby traveled. The inside receiver is selling a deep crossing route and then whipping back out of that.

He way overruns the crossing route. It wouldn't have mattered who Stafford threw the ball to. They were both open. And that's one of those things where you're like, okay, let's grade a corner on pro football focus. Well, no ball, so no grade. Like, no, he got smoked. Right. He shit his pants trying to cover the crosser.

And they whipped out of it. That's a bad play. Yeah. So I graded it at a bad play. And then late in the game, fourth quarter, second and 11, really slow break on the old button hook. So when you talk about the ability to drag it, in transition, as you mentioned, Taleb said, there's also plays where it's not great drive and transition, which makes him a decent cover corner, not an elite cover corner. He's a C plus in this game.

Jimmy Morland, 22 plays will be quick with this. I thought better as a dropping corner underneath, really the first two invert that Fuller gave up the touchdown. I thought Morland did a great job dropping to real depth to take anything away and help fuller out there. I don't know, man. It was pretty good. Great tackle on an Amandola screen on the Amandola handoff that was not a penalty. That was a weird call. No, that would that.

Yeah, they called it a forward lateral or an illegal forward pass. It was it was not. It was backwards. He handed it off to him backwards very obviously. Yeah, I agree. Deep shot on a third and two in the third. quarter they threw a deep ball the Jones on the third and two really good in the hip pocket of Jones right there gives no chance a couple negatives miss big time on the second and 20 screen like

you got to go make a play there you cannot wait for him to come to you he's a big dude yeah and then a miss tackle on the touchdown by dandre swift in the third quarter the one where he's to beat bostic um that's a big back bro like that's not a favorable matchup I mean he didn't turn it down it wasn't There wasn't a business decision made, but he got trucked. Right. Jimmy Moreland was a B-minus. You've actually graded him pretty well in the last few weeks. I was just checking that because there was a couple of games where you were down on him,

but he's bounced back in your eyes. Yeah. He hasn't played much. I think he should be outside, and I still think Kendall Fuller should be playing safety. Did a heck of a job with some cover two looks. No, I'm just kidding. DeShazer, 32 plays before. he was injured. How injured is he? Do you know? You get the report on that?

I don't have that. You know, we'll know today when we get the injury report to see if he practiced. They need him, though. He got hurtled. He got hurtled, man. My swift. Don't put your head down. Don't put your head down to tackle. You know what's funny about that? If he hits the running back, he's leading with his helmet. They're not going to call that. No. But that's, when you get hurtled, you are leading with your helmet. That is the only way you get hurtled. Unless the guy's got a six-foot vertical. Right.

That vert by Swift was pretty sweet, though. I'll bet that Swift planned that. Based on the way DeShazer comes down and the way he tackles, I'll bet you Swift said as soon as I get to that second level, I'm jumping 22. Right. I bet it was planned. Late drive on a dig in one of these plays where they're throwing a dig to the middle of the field.

no real potential vertical threats in the middle of the field. And I thought this a couple times in this game, too passive with too much depth on some of his drops as a single high safety. Like, trust what you see. Drive on balls. And then the screen, the second 20 screen, that was a shitty angle he took. And he overruns the screen completely. He has no chance to make a play. Shays was a C-minus on 32 plays, which leaves us with just,

Cameron Curl. Oh, Fabian played eight plays. He had no, he was nothing. Yeah, but he played at least. One play. There was a play who's out leveraged to the flat. He played at least. You think he feels like he played. Pretty sore today. You do, you do have Apki in here. Did you, did you evaluate? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I evaluated Apke. You know, there's a couple plays. Like I just mentioned where Morland was in the hip on the third and two. deep shot. Like, Apke's in great position there, playing over the top. The deep ball in the fourth quarter can't happen. Right. You know, 27 plays for Apke, not a big impact player in this game, but could have been one. Yeah. Very close.

Apke was also a C-minus. All right. And curl. And it gets us to Cameron Curl. Cameron Curl was my second highest note player for whatever that means. I took more notes on Bostick and Curl than anybody else, which means they had a lot of impacts in positive or negative way that were notable. The positives.

Wheel route by Hawkinson early in the game. Really good job running with him. No catch. Good play. Great tackle on a screen on a first and 20 in the fourth quarter. They did realize that on the distance of about 20 yards, they're going to try to throw screens after they give them the big one. Right.

Good job playing a boot, flat route in the fourth quarter. It's the one where Chase Young got in his face, forced the bounce pass, but, you know, Curls right there. Good job with crushing and inserting wide receiver on a run play in the box, knock him back, make a tackle. The positives from Curle essentially summing this up for me is he plays tenacious, man. He makes tackles all over the field. He's pretty consistent for the most part.

and aggressive in the run game and some of his fits. As we get to the negatives, I'm just going to start with this again. He's just really raw. Yeah. But you like him. Yeah, I do. The Cephas drop ball, we keep mentioned in this play, it was a bad defensive play.

It's why I keep going to a lot of people out of position. But he's got to get depth in his drop and take away the dig. So they run that deep in-off run action and they run a flat player out behind it late. I think it's the back that took the fake. And he buzzes the flat hard. And it's like you're really, especially in 33 with the blitz, if it is. 33B. You're a hook flat defender at that point.

You're not just a flat defender. So you get some depth, not as much width. And then just you got to be able to drive on that flat. But if they get us, like that's why. one of those ones where you go, they got us with a good call here. If they get us with a good call, we want to tackle the back for a five-yard game.

We don't want to give up the deep in for 25-yard game. Right. That's kind of the principle. We're hoping to get something else. They got us with a good call. Let's give up the underneath throw because we're playing smart. Held move by Stafford eyes too much in zone coverage. I said,

you got to understand route combinations and trust yourself a little bit more and be able to pass off some of the things to the next defender inside. That's some of the trust things. You feel a vertical inside threat, but you got someone still going to the flat and Stafford's not looking flat. But you've got to be able to trust some of the combinations. I would have loved to have seen him have more feel on the second and 20 screen, the deep one.

Look, that's an instinct feel play because he's definitely a blitzer. He thinks he's going to get past the back. usually the back's going to touch you at least if they're going to protect at least try to touch you like he as soon as you like I love when guy this happens it didn't happen with curl like the back doesn't touch him they take two steps and they're like whoa wait wait wait wait wait wait there's a reason something just happened here I'm not that free and I'll bet in part it was three or four of these blitzes in the last week took a couple games he has been free he has been unblocked they have got him free rushes.

Not this time, pal. Oh, in the positives, I did mention that he had a big sack. Yeah, he did. He missed, and then he gets back in on a third and seven blitz. I somehow got into my bottom section of my notes, the negative area, but that was a good play. Out leverage as a flat player in the fourth quarter, he's caught inside. Again, that goes back to eyes and feel. Gives up an easy nine-yard gain, getting stuck on an inside receiver.

and you have another defender inside to take that over. A third and one bounce in the fourth quarter. He's also part of that. You know, we talked about Kendall Fuller, giving up that bounce play. The receiver comes down tight, and he's really what the receiver's job there is to go with the most dangerous man, and they call that push and crack.

So he's going to, the receiver's job is kind of push at the corner and then crack the safety. Curl's better than that, man. It's not, that receiver's really not doing a heck of a job cracking on curl. Again, it's more on Fuller, but Curl's got to be better than that too. He should see that a little bit earlier and play through that block. And then really the next play, he had a miss tackle on a chance to make a tackle for about a two-yard gain inside.

There's some things I like about Curl. There's some things I don't. He was a C in this game. So that pretty much wraps your secondary. Curl C, Darby C plus, Jimmy Morland, B minus, Kendall Fuller, D minus. DeShazer Everett C-Mines, Troy Apke, C-minus. All right, I've got one question for you right after I tell you about my bookie. We've still got college football left.

We've got a lot of opportunities for you to bet college football, pro football, the rest of the way. I would suggest if you don't have an online book, you're looking for another to comparison shop. Go to MyBooky. Whether you're a first-time customer or have been playing with My Boogie for years, There's no shortage of value to be found in the thousands of game lines, unique prop bets, and contests that My Booky offers every week. Sign up or get reloaded today. Find an edge, make your bet, and get paid.

They also boost and boast a fully fledged casino, giving you access to all the classic table, slot, and card games you'd expect to find at your local spot. And the best part is, at My Bookie, the doors never closed. So you can continue to build your bankroll, even after the same. stadium lights have gone out. Make the right play and sign up today at MyBooky and when you do use my promo code, Kevin D.C. to get your deposit matched halfway all the way up to a thousand bucks. The terms are simple. You put in $200, they'll match you with another $100 in your account. If you're already planning to bet this season, this is free betting money. It's a winning season at

my bookie. So come join in on the fun and win some cash while you're at it. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. All right, here's the one question for you and then you're out of here. And we'll bring in Chase Hughes to talk about Walden Westbrook. Have they missed Landon Collins the last two weeks? Kevin, I think it's a really good question about missing Landon Collins. I'm not so sure that the biggest issue has been the strong safety position. I mean, there are things that camera curls done really well. It's just when I've, when I've looked at Landon Collins, like, you miss a great player. You miss the good Landon Collins. And there were some parts of games where he was excellent. But I can't say that that's definitively a problem or the problem they've had on defense.

If he's great, yeah, you miss him. Absolutely. But when he's been average, no, camera curls been fine in some of these situations. So it's a tough question really for me to answer because I I just like I like him poorly. I like him in the box. I like him in, you know, as a run box safety as just a more aggressive presence. See, but that's the thing. The thing is, is that's what Cameron Curl is. I understand that, but they've. And he's been really impactful as an aggressive down-in-the-box type of player.

Yeah, you're right. And yet, what's really interesting is DeShazer Everett, who's played free safety, is maybe their most intimidating defender and their back seven. I think he is anyway, and he's their free safety, which is fine. But sometimes I think Everett

would make a good box safety too. Well, see, that's kind of what I said a week ago, is I think Everett is more of a box safety, and if you have Everett as more of a box safety type of player, Fuller plays free. What do you do with Fuller plays free, and then Curl plays your nickel guy. instead of and really instead of a guy like kPL i think you get better coverage out of a guy like

camera curl i don't know there's there's some things that i think they can tinker with and toy with the one i would say to you don't get enamored with the fact that you're a top 10 defense right now right like you've you've got really good players and because of your consistent front there's a lot of things in versatility that you can have defensively. Like, let's not get overwhelmed with the fact that we're a great defense. We're not a great defense. They're an okay defense. And that's what they are.

They're a talented okay defense at this point, in my opinion. Like, so tinker with it. You're two and seven. What's no idea to lose? Like, go find your best, go find your best role players in certain situations as you move to next year. But I guess, I guess they got to win, you know, three of the next. five games here to keep themselves alive, according to the staff.

And they're probably going to try to do that. So they're probably going to try to stick with whatever they've been sticking with. All right. Thanks. Good job. Appreciate it. Talk to you. Talk to you. All right. I want to finish up the podcast today with Chase Hughes, who does a great job covering the Wizards and the NBA for NBC Sports Washington. You can follow him on Twitter at Chase Hughes, NBCS.

for those that haven't followed it very closely last night, the Athletic broke a story that the Wizards and Rockets had conversations about a Russell Westbrook-John-Wall deal. I had Tommy Shepard Chase on the show this morning. He didn't deny the talks. I mean, it was pretty clear that there were conversations. What do you make of that? And then if, you know, the deal were to happen,

and I would bet against it, but it could happen. But what do you make of the reports? What do you make that they're, you know, potentially interested in dealing John, and then, you know, just about who would get the better of that deal? Well, the Wizards have been really quiet about this. And your interview with Tommy, I think represented him confirming that it was true. He said, you know, that's what that was and kind of downplayed it. But it's really fascinating to me, and the more I've thought about it, the more I think I've come to the

realization that this is probably the biggest trade rumor I've ever seen the Wizards be involved in. And I followed them since I was a kid when they were the bullets. and I've always thought, you know, especially in the last couple decades and the last few years, that they've never even really been involved in these type of rumors, much less been involved in a blockbuster trade. So I think my first reaction is that this is a different direction that Tommy Shepard's taking them in, and I think it's a good direction. Even engaging in these discussions tells me that Tommy's going to be more aggressive than Ernie Grunfeld ever was.

And I think you have to be aggressive in the NBA. They've been too risk-averse for many, many years, kind of being beholdenial. into drafting and developing and retaining their own guys, even when they probably should have let some players go, like maybe an Otto Porter Jr., in hindsight. So the fact that they're having this discussion means to me that Tommy's willing to swing big and he's willing to set aside loyalty and a potential deal. And I think that's an important note to make because there's been a really strong reaction from Wizards fans to this rumor because they love John Wall, and I understand it,

John Wall's been a great player, he's a great pillar of the community. But if you look at this objectively, if they don't have to attach much to get Russell Westbrook, then you have to do the trade, you know, all things, I mean, within reason, of course. You're talking about John Wall, yet he's two years younger, but he's coming off a very serious injury. They have the same contract. There's just so much uncertainty there. If you get Russell Westbrook in the Eastern Conference, I know he's 32. I know he's relying on athleticism, but I think you pair him with Beal,

and you're at least the middle-of-the-road playoff team in the Eastern Conference. And if you add some pieces, maybe you can go further than you've been in a long time. You know, I loved your first part of the answer. And I'm kicking myself, Chase, because it's smart. And for a few years, I was very critical always on the air that a guy like Ted Leontas, you know, Mr. Big Tech AOL, you know, entrepreneur, thought so small and didn't think big enough. and I think you made a great point. Now, whether or not Westbrook is really a representation result-wise of the kind of thinking big,

like two years ago I said, I would trade the entire team for Kauai Leonard. Let's start thinking big. You've got to have a top five player in this league to have a chance to win it all. And Beale and Wall together are never going to win a title. They just aren't, in my view. Start thinking big. Start thinking big in terms of free agents. selling yourself so short. I think it's a really interesting point, and I think that that's true.

I think the fact that this is true that these two sides have talked means that Tommy's thinking a little bit bigger. Now, Westbrook Wall, Westbrook, you know, I was always a big Westbrook fan. I still am. I don't think there's anybody that tries harder and competes harder in any professional sport than Russell Westbrook. But I also have come to the conclusion over the years being a big fan. of his that you can't win with him in the postseason. He plays too fast. His mind races too fast. And it's a bad decision, turnover waiting to happen, deal. And by the way, he's just a very inconsistent shooter. I actually think he's got some mental issues when it comes to shooting. He pulls the string on a lot of shots. I think he's become much less confident in his long

range shot. But really good point is I just took too long to, to, to, to, to, to you on that, but I think it really is a reflection maybe of a totally different approach by Shepard. The actual deal itself, I mean, to me, it just comes down to whether or not John Wall can be John Wall again, because if he can, and they know that, you know, I don't know how much they'd actually gain with Westbrook. But if Wall's not going to be physical, John Wall, 100 mile an hour up and down the court speed, athleticism, John Wall, then maybe it ends up being a steal. Yeah, I mean, if Tommy could trade John Wall before he comes back from his injury, I think within

reason, obviously, if they gave up five first round picks, it wouldn't be a good deal. But it'd be a rather extraordinary feat. I mean, I've all along, people will ask me, well, how can they get rid of this contract? I've said, well, you're not going to get rid of it until he proves he's healthy, and he comes back on the floor, and it just proves that he can at least play. And then maybe you can, you know, attack a pick and get rid of him for nothing. If you were able to trade John Wall for a guy in Russell Westbrook, who you just went through all the flaws, and I can't disagree with any of them.

But bottom line is, he just made the all-MBA team. I mean, so he was, by at least one measure, a top 15 guy in the league, and he's probably going to diminish from here. And John Wall is healthy. I think his game will probably age better because of his passing ability. I think he's a bit of a more skilled player than Russell Westbrook, a little bit less reliant on Afghanistan. athleticism, but I think it gets you closer and your base, your floor is higher and you have a more

stable situation. And Russell Westbrook, you know, maybe, you know, that mentality is something that you can put in your core, in your nucleus, and maybe it rubs off on these young players that you're trying to develop around it. So, you know, when you talk about the trades and being aggressive, I think it's become even more so prevalent in the NBA. If you look at the top teams in the NBA, and I'm not even going to go through them all, but you can look at the standings, just about every team at the top of the NBA made a blockbuster trade to get there. I mean, just look at the Lakers with Anthony Davis with what they just did. Sam Presti, Daryl Morey, these guys do won every offseason.

Sometimes it doesn't work out, but they have proven that, you know, just by making trades and pushing things up, you can continue to move yourself forward or at least gain assets. And I think the Wizards would be smart to kind of take that approach to a certain extent. And obviously it would be tough. It would anger fans if you traded the way John Wall. but I think you might put yourself in better position moving forward. All right. Last one on this.

How much do you think Wall's, you know, photo in Brooklyn, the video that surfaced from Brooklyn with, you know, the gang references, which he profusely apologized for, or the situation where he was doing the interview and he was playing spades and wasn't paying attention to Field Yates or whomever. it was that was doing the interview. I forget who it was. Who was doing that interview? I forget who it was. It was Field Yates, yeah. Yeah. Monday night football countdown. Right. So how much of that do you think, I mean,

Shepard was point blank with me saying they were disappointed with the former, obviously. How much do you think that really, with, you know, Ted really focused on culture, the whole thing? How much do you think that's driving them being open-minded about dealing wall? I think there's reason to believe that it's connected. I don't know that there is a direct connection, but what I would say is this, and I think it's related, is that Tommy, I think, has clearly been taking a harder line with that type of behavior than Ernie Grunfeld did.

John Wall, this isn't the first time he's thrown up what appear to be gang signs. He's done it in game for many years, to the point where, like, on Twitter, it's a thing where players have alter egos, and they're Tote Mello, and there's gang sign John Wall, and I'm not going to speculate what the signs mean because I don't know what they mean. But what I noticed was a very distinct difference was the fact that John Wall apologized after that because he didn't apologize previously when he did the exact same thing. And I go back to last off season.

It was right after Tommy Shepard took over, Devin Robinson, who was a two-way guy, who had a lot of potential but didn't really have the right head on his shoulders. He got in a fight with the Philadelphia Eagles player in a club, and immediately they cut him. immediately Tommy released a very strongly worded press release, a statement about it. Right. And that to me said that, okay, Tommy is running this ship very, very differently. Maybe it's still a player's first approach because that's kind of the way things are going in the NBA.

But clearly, he's not going to enable anyone, I think, in terms of the franchise player, they can get away with whatever they want. He sent several messages, and I don't know how many people have picked up on this, but to me it's been a very clear difference from the past. All right. Last one, the draft is tonight. The Wizards have the ninth pick in the first round. What do they do with it? If on Yeko Okonwu is there, I think he's the obvious pick. You know, I always say that they need to go with Best Player available with the way their franchise is and how tenuous everything is. You know, even if it's a point guard like Killian Hayes.

But I think they have to get a rim protector, whether it's a Kongwu or if he's gone, maybe it's precious to Chua of Memphis or Jalen Smith of Maryland. You know, this is the worst defense in the NBA. worse by defensive rating. If you look at other metrics, like, you know, for instance, they gave up the third highest field goal percentage within five feet of the rim. They're one of the worst rebounding teams. They absolutely need help at the big man position. And honestly, I think if John Walters coming back, I think, you know, he will be that he won't be traded. It's going to be a disaster if you put him at the head of this defensive structure. You have to give him some help because he's coming back from a very serious entry and he's going to have to stay in front of literally

the quickest athletes on the planet at the NBA point guard position. If you put someone behind him who will at least make people think twice about driving into the lane, hopefully a wing defender as well, so he has some help. I think that would go a long way. I think that the Wizards need to be thinking in those terms this off season and moving forward.

They've got to build a structure that makes it easier for John Wall and helps preserve his long-term impact, not unlike if you have a rookie quarterback in the NFL and you want to get them in offensive lines, a running game, and a tight end. I think John Wall needs a structure, him because of the investment they've made. They need to preserve that. And I think the rim protect is the best way they can do that. Yeah, there's no doubt. He even healthy at times

would sort of allow people to beat him off the dribble. And, you know, when you had Gortot or you had a guy like Neney who was a bit of an enforcer and you had a Riza as a wing defender, it was different then. But Thomas Bryant can't check me. And so that's a problem. You know, it's funny, I know they like Jalen Smith a lot, and I had him on the radio show this morning. Sticks is a legit, you know, elite college shot blocker and rim protector. He was that in college. He was also a high-volume rebounder and really developed into a stretch four, you know, or five if you had to play him there, with really a very good stroke and long-range stroke.

So that would be interesting. I just think nine, you know, I don't think anybody's expecting him to go nine. I mean, maybe, you know, in the 14 to 18 range. And so if they somehow were able to trade back and get them, that would be interesting. Thanks. You know what? Actually, one last thing, just your quick thoughts on this. I think that the whole Beale getting dealt is not going to happen at all.

I think I believe Tommy at his word that Bradley Beale, they're trying to build something around Beale. don't think, I don't believe Beal is a number one centerpiece, you know, in terms of winning a title. He's a great score, elite score. He's got to be a number two to win a title somewhere. But you agree with that, right, that they're not going to deal Beal. Yeah, I don't think they're going to deal Beal. And honestly, I think if they were going to, they missed the boat because now James Hardin's available. Right. Chris Paul got traded. Paul George might be available. You know, I think if you were to sell high when his value was at the highest, you would have already done that. And we're so close.

to training camp and Tommy has said it in such uncertain terms. I think Bradley Biel will be with the Wizards. I think it's pretty much a guarantee at this point. Chase, thanks so much for jumping on. Really helpful, really good stuff. Appreciate it. Hope you're well. Absolutely, man. Anytime. All right. That's it for the day. Back tomorrow.