The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - 92.5FM Denver's Altitude Sports Radio Andy Lindahl Joins The Show

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

92.5FM Denver's Altitude Sports Radio Andy Lindahl Joins The Show 

Andy Lindahl, one half of the powerful three to six squad. You can listen to at 92.5 altitude sports radio. Their good friend, Jesse, is my road engineer when I do with Rockets Games in Denver. And Andy joins us here for I believe the second time on the Matt Thomas Show, Ross. Andy, how the hell are you? I'm good. You guys, look, I'm all about that. We do a Sky Friday.

Have you ever heard of Sky music? Are you familiar with that genre? We do that every Friday. Yeah, but is it like real Scott? Is it real Sky or is it like, no doubt? No, no, we've got, do you like less than Jake? We actually paid the guy from less than Jake to do the theme song. Oh, wow.

So we've got like a whole legit thing going. Yeah, the listeners insisted. We're like, dude, we're not paying for that. They said we would, so they did. It's been like a five-year deal. So there you go. Because Scott does so well, he'll make you a jingle. That tells you all you need to know.

Yeah, we don't pay for anything. So our guests come for cheesecake slices on the show. So we'll be sending you something as a guest on our show. Hey, first of all, I think sports radio, us making predictions, our audiences don't care, but that's neither here nor there unless there's like something vested into it. I am not making a prediction about this game intentionally because I can't figure out how the Texans offensive line is going to not give up nine sacks this week. Conversely, no disrespect to Bonnix having a good season,

but the defense that you saw last week against Dallas is atrocious. They're getting a massive upgrade in terms of who they're seeing with the Houston, Texans team on Sunday afternoon. Listen, you're not going to upset me. Bo Nix has had about five or six good quarters this year. I'll be honest with you. This is why I don't tweet during games. We were three quarters into the Giants game, and that was just one quarter prior to the cowboy game of that magical fourth quarter, where I was like, you may have to bench this guy.

They couldn't get a first down. He could make a right read. He was over. He's developed this habit when he's pressured, which to your point, the Cowboys couldn't do at all last week. He was like he was picking out Halloween candy in the aisle there last week. I mean, he had no worries in the world. But when he was pressured against the Giants and some teams previous,

he was like running up into the pocket doing like this shot put throw. He kept overthrowing receivers. He couldn't hit a deep ball. They couldn't hit a deep play. And the offense was drawing booze. from the crowded in power during that Giants game for most of the day. And I still can't explain what the hell the fourth quarter was. I know Brian Daibold is not the smartest guy in the NFL,

should never had Jackson Dart throwing on the interception that ultimately led to the momentum they needed to turn things around. But if you go back and watch that game, and all you need to do is watch the fourth quarter, it's inexplicable how they got done what they got done to score 32. This is not a big play, you know, fast-moving offense. They are dink and dunk. They are college-like.

they are organ-like, because that's what Bow Nix does best. And when he's pressured, he tends to make not always the best decision. And he doesn't love, I think he and C.J. Stroud are dealing with the same thing. Or when they drop back into the zone and the windows are the NFL kind of tight windows you've got to throw into,

I'm not sure the guy loves throwing to him. So to be honest with you guys, I don't know what to expect either. I was last with my partner, Nate, and I said, we might get a 9-to-6 game. And it may just depend on which defense turns the other offense over deep enough he can kick a field goal. Well, I know the Niners this past week. tried, Andy, to get into that ball control against the Texas defense, and they were hardly

on the field. So when you're telling me that Bo Nix is going to try to make these longer drives, I'm presuming you're saying this, is the Broncos offense got enough components to go, 10 plays 80 yards, take four or five minutes off the clock to keep the defense guessing a little bit? Sometimes it does, and here's what happens. And the Giants, I know Burns from the Giants was complaining about this, their defensive, one of their front, linebacker and whatever it was.

one of the rush guys get upset that they decided to drop eight. And if you drop eight against Bo, he will run against you if you give him the lanes. Now, he's not going to put him in him, I'm not painting him as that. But he'll pick up five, six, seven yards. He'll hook slide down. He doesn't take a lot of hits. And sometimes that's what fool's defenses. They're going to try to run a lot of screenplays.

Sean, and I think it's from the influence of Davis Webb, the quarterback coach who works in this thing, too. Davis Webb has brought some college influence to Sean Payton's offense, where they had a great play design last week where everybody ran to the left side of the field and the running back RJ Harvey just kind of snuck out behind the line of scrimmage on a screen pass. And by the time the Cowboys, and again, it's the Cowboys, take that into effect. By the time the Cowboys realized where Harvey was, everybody had run to the wrong side of the field. All Bow had to do is give a simple training camp like pass to Harvey.

And he walked in with no tacklers in sight. So they're going to try to get you with some motion. But look, I don't know what they do well because against the good defenses, they haven't done anything, anything at all. How they beat the Philadelphia Eagles was a little bit mystifying, too. That game also sucked for three quarters. And then they got 17 straight points and found a way to pull that one out. They just, if you let them have a little life at the end because you drop back into pre-vent stuff, they're going to eat you alive. But both offenses are struggling to move the ball and no one's, you know, feeling prevent like,

then I don't know where anybody gets their offense from, frankly, looking at these two squads. Andy Lindahl with us here on a sports talk 790 and your the frustration and your voice kind of points me to my next question, Andy, or our next question. How do you feel about Sean Payton? Because, I mean, the results pretty good did make the playoffs last year. But it sounds like maybe you're kind of frustrated with some of the results that still have borne out under his tenure. Well, but the whole thing is just kind of, I will tell you this. So I was a Bronco sideline reporter for a decade. And during that decade, I covered the Tim Tebow season.

Now, Bownix in this offense is not as bad as Tim Tebow and whatever, you know, I mean, you want to talk about really putting some together the NFL have never seen. And that was based off a run game with Willis McGahey that was unstoppable. But some of the stories I can tell you that I've heard, it's for another day. But that thing was a dysfunctional mess and always found a way to pull together in the fourth quarter. Again, the Broncos aren't to that level. But look, you guys got to make a decision with something. C.J. Stroud sooner, we're going to have to make it too.

Is this long-term sustainable? You know? And there's just too many times where I see it's ugly. They can't pick up a first down sometimes. They can't move the ball at all. Sean won't commit to the run. Listen, the way the Broncos could get this thing done is run the football. J.K. Dobbins looks more like the Baltimore vintage pre-injury J.K. Dobbins than what we saw last year with the Chargers.

And we saw him twice, so I know what he looked like. He's better from whatever that. had the catastrophic injury that got him, you know, separated from the Ravens to begin with, but he's really good at running the zone stuff. Now, there's the flying the ointment, right? One of the reasons why I think the Texans did what they did against the Niners, because I've seen it when the Texans kicked the Broncos butt when Kubiak was coach, and Shanahan was there with the Broncos is give inside knowledge of the system.

So when the Broncos try to go wide zone, your guys are going to know what they're looking at. And they're probably going to know where those cutback lanes are. And Dobbins is feasted off the cutback line. lanes. So, but Sean doesn't like, like Sean, Sean is every modern offensive coach in the NFL. No matter how well you're running the football, he's got to show you the cool past plays he's drawn up. And sometimes he gets so stuttering. The calls come in late. He's late to set on what personnel though he wants in there. I mean, trust me, there have been plenty of games where it's just been so maddening to watch. And if you guys get that, get that this Sunday, I'm not going to be

surprised if the Broncos lose this game. All right. Lysol left your run. let's talk about what does scare folks here that are following this game a little bit. It's the fact that the Broncos lead the league in sacks. When you watch a game, is it just intense pressure? Is it maybe the offensive lines of the opponents? I mean, it could be a combination of both. But, you know, somebody's got to be on top of that list. And right now, Denver's front seven is getting to the quarterback very often so far this year.

Yeah, listen, Nick Benito's legit. And I know he's probably not a household name. But again, I was lucky to cover the career Vaughn Miller start to finish. Nick Benito has that same first step, Vaughn Miller does. Now, I'm not telling you the same guy. Vaughn had this unbelievable bend to his body where he could just duck under the first punch, a tackle would throw, get around the edge and cause havoc.

But Bonito, he can get off, and he gets real good at guessing snap counts. If you're late in the clock, he'll get off and your tackle won't have a chance. I've seen tackles this year just pitch a shutout, not even getting their hand on him. And then the guy on the other side, Jonathan Cooper, who a lot of people don't know, but he went to Ohio State. He's developed into a really great punch. So if Benito chases you from one side to the other, Cooper's going to be there waiting. They've got Zach Allen, who's been a mini JJ Watt.

You know, maybe you've seen JJ giving a shout out to Zach. They played together in Arizona. He's very complimentary of Zach's game. Zach has been an absolute diamond in the rough fine for them in free agency. John Franklin Myers is another guy that can be a problem. The run stoppers, Malcolm Roach and DJ Jones. They've got a fearsome front seven. we're wondering about in Denver is, you know, and I laugh because we still have some people in

town that want to try to banning the drum that the Broncos should have drafted Justin Fields years ago instead of taking Pat Surtan, who's the defensive player of the year, because people just don't understand what a good cornerback can do for you. I'm sure you guys deal with that too, is stinging. Right. I mean, listen, things change. You guys know the educated fan, I'm sure there's plenty in Houston that see it. When you're allowed to say this guy is taking that guy out, And we had the stat this week. The Broncos with Certan in the game have not allowed a number one receiver a touchdown this year. And that's guys like Michael Pittman and last week to C.D. Lamb and on and on and go look at the list.

They haven't exactly played a bunch of scrubs, AJ Brown. So, but that's a lot of Certan. Now he's gone. I don't know that he's going to be able. He's been able to walk up. He'll get with two yards of your top receiver. He'll jam him. And already the quarterback's got to look elsewhere.

And then if the three-step drop becomes a five-step drop, that's how that pass rush is getting home. are they going to have the same effectiveness killing the quick pass? I don't know. The thing that hurts you guys is Dalton Schultz. I don't know if he's going to play or not but Ty didn't still have given this defense a little bit of problem. Ty Warren, the Rooking Indy was a nightmare for him. The kid

that's making a name for himself with the Chargers ate them up when they played a few weeks ago. So Schultz can go, that'll be a feather in your cap. If he doesn't, again, I think we could be looking at a lot of 1960s football or nothing happens on. Yeah, Schultz is on the practice field. So tell your folks back and

remember that is the case he is at least working out with the boys today. Andy, thank you very much for the time and we really appreciate it. And tell all my friends at Altitude, I said, hello, we're looking forward to Rockets Nuggets, maybe a Western Conference finals, I'm hoping. Oh, yeah, that'll be good. And it's going to be a fun basketball season. We'll see if it's a fun football game Sunday. You guys have a safe Halloween. Thank you, my friend. Andy Lindahl, 92.5 Altitude Sports Radio.