January 16, 2018 • 57 mins
The Guru once again joins the show to recap an absolutely thrilling weekend of playoff football and spin ahead to Championship Sunday. The guys dive deep on ‘The Minneapolis Miracle’ (:48), discuss Pittsburgh’s porous defense (12:07) and praise Philadelphia’s dominant defensive line (8:43). Greg then shares his thoughts on the conference championship games, including how the Patriots will attack Jacksonville’s defense (24:18) and the Quarterback matchup between Case Keenum and Nick Foles (32:01).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on the NFL Films podcast. Oh this is a
good one, PAULI. It starts now, David Roboto at his best,
Welcome back everybody, and the wake of an incredibly thrilling
(00:24):
divisional weekend, we break it down and we spin it forward.
So what should be a very very interesting championship Sunday,
Football's Final four. We're here with the NFL Films Guru
Greg Cosell. I'm Paul, I'm Keith. Let's hit it. Four
(00:50):
games this weekend, Keith, three of them where I would
say very good to great one of them. Man. But
you know what, overall an incredible weekend football. We have
four teams left Football's Final four. Let's dig in, fellas.
All right, First of all, where were you in your house?
We're in the kitchen. Where you were you standing on
the edge of the couch last night with ten seconds
(01:11):
left by to case Keeno. I was actually in my
in my what would I guess be called my man cave.
It's just my TV room where I have my TV.
And my wife was in her area where she watches TV,
which is not where I do. And normally I'm a
very quiet watcher because you know, having been in NFL films.
For thirty eight years, I've seen a little bit of football,
(01:33):
and I tend not to be surprised by most of
what I see, So all of a sudden, when that happened,
I screamed because it was just one of those moments.
And my wife, who rarely ever hears me do that,
because that's not the way I watched sports, yells from
the other room, are you okay? Are you okay? Because
you thought something was wrong, and I said, I just said, no,
this is one of the greatest moments I've seen. And
(01:55):
I said to that's why you watch sports, just for that,
because you never know when something like that is going
to happen. It's great when it does. I screamed during
the National Championship game when Alabama missed the field goal,
and that was late. That was about one am. I
was worried that I that I that I was going
to frighten the whole family right at that point. This one, Um,
(02:18):
it was a crazy moment. It was just you know what,
you're happy for the Vikings, fans and and and big
picture here, We're not going to spend the hour totally
breaking down the games that happened. Um, you know, we're
gonna spend this thing forward, but we would be doing
um the pod and injustice, we did not explain Greg
(02:40):
what what the h double hockey sticks happened out there? Well,
you know what's really interesting, we that was as good
an example of situational football as one could ever have.
You know, we hear that term always, of course with
Bill Belichick and how good he is and how important
it is in the NFL to place situational football. And
(03:02):
obviously Marcus Williams is getting a lot of blame, and
there's plenty to give to Marcus Williams. But I watched
that play and there were two sort of corner routes
that were too close to one another. Really, the route
distribution was not great, and it was meaning the receivers
close together. I thought anyway, you know, again, maybe I'm wrong,
(03:24):
but I thought they were too close together. But anyway,
it was Diggs who kind of ran the deeper one,
and it was Feeling who he might have been five
seven yards away from him, a little shorter, and where
Theeling was. If he catches the ball, they're not even
in field goal range. So Ken Crawley was the corner
to that side. Of the field, and Crawley is sitting
(03:45):
on Theeland's route. So even if Feeling catches the ball,
like I said, he's not in field goal range. So
what I I was watching this and thinking to myself,
why is Crawley not deeper playing Digs? It's irrelevant if
theling catch just the ball, and so of course it's
easy to to rip Marcus Williams and and clearly that's
(04:06):
not the way you want a safety to play that ball.
But I just looked at Ken crawling and thought to myself,
what are you doing? You're you should be deep, you
should be much deeper. Were you asking? Why Feeling? What
are you doing? Why is crawling? I know? But why
isn't Feeling running a deeper round? At that point? He's
not going to run a deeper rout because then he'd
be running the same route as as Digs. Uh So,
(04:29):
but yeah, it was just I mean, it was unbelievable.
You know. The thing is is he went to take
out Dig's legs. That that was his whole premise, because
if he takes out his legs and he falls inbounds,
the game's over. So I'm sure that was his thought process.
Take out his legs and the game's over because then
he couldn't get out of bounce. Right when the reality
(04:49):
is watch him catch the ball and bear hug him
and bring him to the ground, right, don't just make
sure he doesn't get past you and just grab on
hold him for dear life until the cavil he arrives.
The clock will run out. When he caught the ball,
I believe there were four seconds left. I mean, you
could almost theoretically let him catch it, you know, if
you really wanted to. I mean, not that that's the goal,
(05:10):
but you theoretically could have. But no, he went to
take out his legs and you could tell. I mean,
it was unbelievable balanced by Diggs because you know, coming down,
he was expecting when he caught that ball to get
hit immediately. When you talk about situational awareness, When when
the ball was thrown and caught, my immediate reaction was
I'm thinking they just need a field goal and they
(05:30):
really only have time for one play. When he catches
the ball so close to the boundary, immediately started saying,
they're gonna get to kick the field goal, right, That's
what I thought. Next thing, you know, he turns up
the field. So I it's amazing to think Diggs wasn't
so prewired to just step out of bounds that he
almost did, I think. I mean again, we don't know
what was in his head, but for that second, it
looked like he was, well, I'm going to get out
of bounce, and then he realized there was no one
(05:51):
in front of that moment when he realized that he
there was nobody left, which happens, of course in normal speed,
very fast, but when you're watching, there's that pause when
your brain for a second, maybe even in his brain,
who knows where do you think, Wow, there's no one
in front of him, He's going to score a touchdown.
He got to the end You're right, he caught the
ball at four seconds left. If you watched the clock tickdown.
I don't know what yard line he was at, is
(06:12):
probably around the thirty. He got to the end zone
almost with one second left. It was almost like he
ran faster than he ever ran in his entire life.
Two years in a row. Now the Sunday, the late
Sunday divisional window has given us what was the game
lastic finish Rogers versus the Cowboys with sideline passed to
(06:34):
scrambling to his left. So two years in a row
we capped divisional weekend with a signature game. Very different
quarterbacks in those two equations, but but that's a separate pod.
Probably speaking of quarterbacks, we the premise last week that
we lad with was we have two buckets. We have
(06:55):
these superstar future Hall of Fame quarterbacks, and then we
have these other guys. Well low and behold. Three out
of the four other guys one, Well, it's guys. Because
on Twitter, I like to check Twitter while I'm watching
the games. Sometimes it's just fun second screen grank so millennial. Yeah,
(07:18):
you know, I'm a trendy guy. Co se Man came
is hopping. I'm hip now and today I'm a trendy guy.
So anyway, I'd like to check Twitter, and it's funny.
The the the conversation on Twitter was now whether the
cold quarterback thing is overrated, that you really don't need
a star quarterback because now, look, who's all of a sudden.
(07:39):
Yeah I know, I'm just telling you what Twitter said,
fast moving pendulum. They're all these years. Yeah, I'm just
telling you what Twitter said. All right, Well, maybe uh
Rosen and dart On should go back to college. I
think it's I think because this was the week. Well,
here's the thing we didn't lead with last week, de
(08:00):
fense and what we're left with. In addition to three
of these four other quarterbacks, are three of the top
four defenses in the NFL. And I gotta defense wins championships.
Will be back to that now too. Did it ever leave? Greg?
Did it ever leave? And the fourth one, as we
(08:21):
pointed out last week, is I mean, the fourth one
is the bad defense quote unquote is Bill Belichicks? The
one that is we said allows yards, stretches, but to
understand situational. But the Patriots have played at a very
high level of defense, much better a month or so
without questions. They haven't given up points in two months,
and all of a sudden it seems like they have
(08:41):
a pass rush. Yeah, where did that come from? That's
a great question. But that guy they found on the
street number James Harrison, where do you come from? I
don't know. Let's talk about a guy though that we haven't.
We talked about Aaron Donald, We even talked a little
about a bit about Klais Campbell. I want to tell
me all about Fletcher Cox, the guy we haven't talked about,
(09:04):
but was a monster the other night. And if the
Eagles are gonna keep winning, of course their defense is
going to have to lead them, and that guy might
have to lead that defense. Tell me about Fletcher Cox.
If I don't know about him, what do I need
to know? And tell me about what he did the
other night? Well, it's there's not a lot to say
about how good a players you know. That The question
becomes is how do offenses choose to handle him? Because
(09:26):
the Eagles line up when they go to their sub packages,
meaning nickel or dime, what they normally do one of
their main fronts is they're line up with what we
call two three techniques, okay, and what they do is
they bring Brandon Graham inside to d tackle. He's a
very good pass rusher as well. He's not quite dright Freeney,
but he's built like him and he's a very good
(09:47):
pass rusher from the inside. So now you put a
burden on the offensive line. How do they want to protect?
Do they want to slide their center because no one's
covering the center. Do they want to slide their center
to rand and Graham or to Fletcher Cox and So,
for instance, this week, the Falcons for most of the
first half slid to Fletcher Cox because he's a great player,
(10:09):
and then you get Graham one on one with a guard.
If you start sliding to Brandon Graham, you get Cox
one on one with a guard, and the Eagles will
take that all day long. So what really now is
incumbent upon Minnesota. How do they want to handle that?
You know, this week they played Mike Remer's at tackle
at left guard for the first time, and theoretically at
(10:30):
tackle moving into guard should be a better pass protector
than a normal guard. So we'll see how they choose
to handle that. Although I thought I thought they're all
a line, had some struggles in the second half against
the Saints, and in fact, the Saints did a really
good job with a lot of different stunt concepts and
that caused problems for the Vikings. Are the Eagles defense
an ensemble actor or a Cox or Graham, one of
(10:51):
these guys they can sort of wreck a game single
handedly and kind of take over the charge of of
this team. They're both there. They're they're an ensemble act,
but they do have Cox who is capable of wrecking
a game. And Graham is because Graham doesn't get fifteen
seventeen sacks. I'm not sure a lot of people think
about him, but he's a really really good player who
(11:12):
in their defense, is multi positional. Eagles are fascinating to me.
A lot of these players have been there for the
last few years. I guess they're Howie Roseman guys. I mean,
or they chips were there and then the team sort
of dipped and it's the same group. That's sort of
because I know we want to sort of look ahead too.
It's a fascinating matchup because you've got the Eagles are
the third best third down defense in the NFL. The
(11:35):
Vikings are the third best third down offense in the NFL,
and third down, as we know, that's the money down.
That's a critical down. The Vikings this past week we're
ten for seventeen on third down and as I said,
their third best overall in the NFL in the regular season.
So I think third down is a really critical element,
critical aspect to this matchup between the Vikings offense and
(11:58):
Eagles defense. I thought that was so critical. And all
four of the games the third down you they weren't
random either, Bordles converted three huge third downs in the
fourth quarter when the Steelers were just desperate to get
off the field, and that you know, well, you know,
(12:19):
that's what we talked about. You have to be able
to get nine yards on third and so let's look
back to look ahead, because you make a really interesting
point there. The Steelers played almost all zone coverage, and
I was watching that tape and thinking to myself, Wow,
they really went in man when they played New England
and had success. And here they're playing zone. So you
(12:40):
have a quarterback in Bordles who's not a precise ball
placement thrower, and you have receivers who are younger receivers.
So you're playing zone, which to me makes it easier.
If you play man, you're forcing the receivers to have
to win and separate, and you're forcing Bordles to have
to make precision ball placement throws. But they played a
(13:02):
ton of zone and it just to me that it
takes the burden off a little bit. And then of
course the forty yard or too yelled in. I think
Alredi Burns blew that coverage, but hey, maybe I'm wrong,
but he carried Westbrook inside when I don't believe he
should have. Well that's just Greg, Greg. Sorry, you know
we made it twelve minutes. Sorry cause it twelve minutes.
(13:23):
And I can chat Paul, whoa, whoa, Here we go,
Here we go, different, here we go, because you're telling
me what was the percentage her zone versus man? What
were this? I didn't charted, but it seemed like it
was far more zone to me on third down than man. Huh.
(13:44):
And that just on there down or throughout down. I
would say throughout the game they played pre dominant, but
that's hard to tell in some ways. For this reason
is that the Jaguars lined up in base some form
of base personnel, meaning that they were not three wide
receivers on the field on a high percentage of snaps.
Leonard Fournett had twenty five rushes in the game. Twenty
(14:06):
four of them came out of some version of base personnel,
meeting a fallback, two tight ends, three tight ends. Only
one run had eleven personnel and that came in the
fourth quarter. So exploit get inside Keith Butler's head. The
Steelers defensive corn and Tomlin, Well, what is the thing,
what's the theory on why we're gonna play zone against
(14:29):
this offense, is it too better? Well, be able to
stack against Fournet and the running game. I think they're
a little safer against the past because Bordles isn't gonna
beat us. What is the thinking there? Well, first of all,
as you know, cause they're foundationally a zone coverage team,
they did play man against New England team, but I
think that's because they viewed New England as the the
(14:52):
the aberration so to speak, you know, the different kind
of team that they had a beat. But I think
when all said and done, there have found d Shian
zone coverage defense. That's what they are. So I don't
think they viewed the Jacksonville offense as an offense that
they had to change anything that they do as their
staple or their foundation. Did they blitz a lot very much? No,
(15:16):
but again it's all that based personnel. Most teams blitz.
They did blitz some as the game progressed. They didn't
play dime six defensive backs, which they've been they've played
a lot this year until the third quarter, just because
the game didn't lend itself to that. Uh And William
Gay is their sixth defensive back. As you know, so
they blitzed someone. They did that because they Mike Hilton
(15:37):
off the slot has blitzed a lot this year, and
that's what they did. But they didn't blitz a lot
in this game because the game didn't play. There wasn't
a lot of level personnel. They weren't they weren't in
their sub packages a lot, right, So you didn't get
that Hilton off the slot. No, you didn't see that. No,
that was It was an odd game for the Steelers,
and of course they lost, so they don't view it
as odd. But because they got down so quick, the
(16:00):
game had an odd dynamic too. I thought watching live
the game had an odd dynamic watching it. Uh. The
game I was reminded of was when the Steelers went
to Indianapolis in two thousand five and came out throwing
the ball with a second fumble game. But they if
you remember, they came out Ben play action as a
(16:23):
not very well established quarterback at that point, and they
came out slinging and stunned the Colts and took a
big league and the Colts and Peyton Manning had to
play catch up all game. Obviously, that one didn't go
crazy into this game Jacksonville. They started the game with
a Leonard four net five yard run and the next
three plays were all play action, out of base personnel
(16:43):
easy throws. Look, it was evident watching the tape, and
I know Borels deserves credit. He did not turn the
ball over and that's critical, and he had his own
read run. He had a few scrambles, but those next
three throws were classic examples of how they wanted to play.
They want to limit his exposure. They were all play
action easy throws. Some had misdirection, some had boot action.
(17:05):
But they're trying to limit his exposure as a passer.
I mean, this is not a hard game plan to predict. No,
And that's why when they play New England this week,
a team that plays way more man man is their foundation.
A couple of things will interest me. Number one, can
Borders make throws if he has to? Number two, will
they spy him in certain situations, because if you play man,
(17:27):
you don't want him to be able to then to
just run. And the Patriots have used spies this year
when they feel it's appropriate. Um and the key thing
in Belichick will harp on this all week about playing
with your eyes because all the misdirection stuff that they
try to do with play action boot to make sure
you don't let your eyes get ahead of themselves. I mean,
I see what you did. They're spinning it forward to
(17:48):
New England. And I know that's the premise of this
hour because I also I don't want to I don't
want you to be sad, you know, I want you
to be happy. He's doing better than I thought would be.
Now look, I'm all for it, and and and and
just here's here's where I am on this thing before
we move on from the Steelers this weekend, not playing
(18:09):
the home sitting home, I know are are rabid. Audience
is waiting to hear where I am on this thing. Um,
there is a certain evident sloppiness and and and and
questionable situational I don't want to call it intelligence, but
(18:32):
for lack of a better word, that have been evident
throughout the season. Just look, I think you get what
you deserve in January. Your weaknesses eventually bubble up and
and they catch you. And I think the things that
that that have crept up with the Steelers and big
(18:54):
spots over these last several years. What you saw after
the Jeff Jesse James overturn again New England when they
weren't ready, they didn't have two plays ready. Tomlin's telling
them on the sideline, we gotta get we gotta get
second play, and it wasn't you know, it's clear that
Ben didn't walk on the field quite knowing the situation
(19:15):
as explicitly as you would want him to. That kind
of thing I was reminded of when they score a
touchdown to make it forty two to thirty five and
the shot on the sideline, the special team's coach Danny
Smith is running around and it just looked like it
was chaos on the Steelers sideline, like they just had
a long drive to get down the field to score
(19:38):
with two eights. Should know exactly what you're going to
by the time that ball crosses the goal line. Levian
Bell scored on that little lateral. There's kind of a
neat play. Everyone should understand. Are we on side kicking
or not? What's the on side kick? And it just
looked like there was a moment of chaos. So your
kid chaos, no question that you should based on. Hey,
(20:00):
if we score at this time in the game, we're
doing this. If we scored this time of the game,
we're doing this. If we score at this time of
the game, we're doing this. And see that should all
be worked out during the week. That shouldn't be a
decision that that you're first thinking about there. But we
don't know if it was or wasn't. But you're saying,
but they're they're they're marching down the field like that.
(20:21):
It's got to be somebody's job during that drive to say,
all right, we score it with this much left on
the clock, what are we doing. You know you got
two time out. Theoretically, the theoretically the head coach in
that situation and say, hey, we score under this amount
of time, we're gonna kick it off. If we score
under this amount of time, we're gonna on side kick.
(20:41):
Whether you agree or disagree with the call, that should
be determined. But you know that's what Belichick's got a
guy up there, Ernie, Ernie at on me and god
knows how many other guys up there. You need a guy,
You need a guy. Everybody needs everybody. Somebody said, you
need a guy to move this forward because you have
answer to work out the Steelers king, that's it. I
need five minutes. Spiel's got to get this off my
(21:02):
chest and then we could talk about Championship Sunday the
whole rest of the hour. It's the Alleghany the minute.
That's where we're. Five minutes is all I needed. That's it,
all right, Let's talk about the Jaguars defense. Okay, they're awesome,
would you like to talk? I love watching them. They're fast,
they're fearless, they didn't care that they're playing the Steelers.
(21:23):
From the sound we've heard, they did give up forty
two points. Well, a lot of great individual price. I
mean that would say, Okay, I'll give you credit here
because only by the grace of Antonio Brown's acrobatics were
there that many points scored by the Steelers. Because the
coverage that was on top of him as he was
making those catches and Ben was putting incredible balls on
his hands, well were amazing. There's one thing to discuss here,
(21:47):
which and I don't know what his injury status is,
but they lost Gibson in that game, right Gibson. Do
you know if he's Outshawn Gibson. We do not know
yet because I think he's a vital piece of you know,
people never talk about him be because you know, they
have a lot of other great players. He's a really
good player. He's predominantly been the tight end matchup when
(22:07):
they play cover one, meaning man coverage. Um, so you know,
obviously I don't know whether he's in or out, but
he's an important piece to that defense. What what did
tell go on? What what makes him so well? Like
I said, he matches up, he's throughout the season, he's
been there. They're tight end matchup when they play man. Plus,
(22:27):
he has really excellent deep safety ability. I mean when
they signed him from Cleveland. He was actually a very
good player in Cleveland on some bad teams obviously, but
he was predominantly a free safety when they signed him,
and he was a very good free safety who could
read quarterbacks and routes he led. He might have led
the league interceptions one year. I think he had seven
(22:48):
or eight one year. So he's a very versatile safety.
And I think if he does not play, that's a
meaningful loss against New England. Well, particularly, I mean who's
covering Gronkowski And that's gonna be an interesting question because
they have players they probably feel can I mean, Miles
Jack is very athletic and he's two forty five pounds.
(23:11):
Gibson has been their tight end matchup. Barry Church has
at times matched up to tight ends as sort of
the a more traditional strong safety. So you know, we'll see, uh,
you know, they could They could easily believe in this
game that they have two really good corners who can
match up man to man on the outside, and that
(23:31):
they could have different double team concepts on Gronkowski depending
on where he lines up. I mean, if he's split wide,
it'll be hard to double him. But when he's more
inside the formation, they may have some double team concepts.
It's simple, right, You've got to not let Gronkowski beat you.
You take care of him if you're Jacksonville, and then
we'll worry about everything else next. Seems to me he's
(23:53):
their most dangerous weapon is but we talked the guy
we talked about last week, Dion Lewis. Um it seemed
as if the Patriots offense, like the ignition got turned
on on Saturday night against Tennessee when they went to
Dion Lewis. It was like they had the first couple
of drives last month, six weeks of the season, both
(24:16):
as a runner and as a receiver. But in that game,
it took them a little while to get going. You
had a couple early drives, Brady wasn't quite engaged, and
then Dion Lewis boom like a thirty yards screen and
then just Dion here, he's he's a jitterbug and he
just sort of take the thing into gear. I think
what you're going to see a lot of is this
(24:36):
is a fast flow defense they're playing against. I think
at times they get ahead of themselves. I think at
times they don't play with their eyes real well. And
I think you're gonna see a lot of misdirection concepts,
a lot of spread concepts. You're gonna you're gonna get
They're going to try to get this defense to have
to see things, see a lot of things, and react
to a lot of things because they're very reactive, particularly
(24:59):
tell Vin Smith, Miles Jack. You know when they're in
their nickel and it's and it's Miles Jack and Smith.
Obviously those guys are very fast and very athletic. But
I think they're going to feel that they can get
them moving in directions that the Patriots would like them
to move. But ultimately it is not the right way
to move if you're Jacksonville. I guess Jacksonville has the
speed to neutralize that kind of a player. But he's
(25:24):
almost become like the security blanket that Edelman was last year. Lewis. Yeah,
just Cooks too, that don't forget. I mean someone's got
will they travel with Cooks? You know, I don't know
because Ramsey doesn't always travel. He didn't travel with Brown
on every snap this week, so he's not necessarily going
to travel. They feel very good about Boyer. I mean, look,
(25:46):
boy A theoretically got beat on two touchdowns, but it's
not as if he was beat where you you know,
you you went, Wow, he's nowhere near Antonio Brown. I
mean he wasn't you know, beat, So boy is a
good corner. Yeah, I mean it was interesting to pay Atriots.
Wide receivers did not make much of an impact in
that game. No, they did not. And then look, one
of the great things about the Patriots, and it's why
(26:07):
they're the Patriots is they can you know, and we
always just talk about Brady and obviously he's great, that's
not the point. But they can win in a variety
of ways using different people. They don't just have one
way that they have to wine, you know. So that's
that's what makes them so interesting. Now granted you could say,
well that's because a Brady and he can do anything,
(26:27):
and maybe it is. But the point is they don't
just line up and say, well, are often starts with
this and if we don't do that, boy, we're in trouble.
They can go about it in many different ways depending
on the opponent. We always with Brady talk about while
you have to get to him with the four man
pass rush, and you've got to pressure them up the middle,
which everybody talks about it. This defense seems particularly well
(26:50):
suited to give that a shot, yes, and and Belichick
will know that. And my guess is you'll see a
lot of quicker game stuff, like I said, maybe some
horizontal stuff. So the ball comes out and particularly early,
because the last thing that they want to have happened
is Brady get hit early. But it's hard to imagine
the ball coming out any quicker than Saturday night. It
(27:10):
struck me it's amazing how quickly it comes out. Well
because the Titans, by the way, and I know it
didn't show up in that game because of the way
the Patriots played, But the Titans have a very good
pass rush as well. They were I think third or
fourth in the league in sacks and and obviously Belichick
and his staff knew that. So you want the ball
to come out the last. They do not want Brady
(27:31):
hit early because Brady, as great as he is, you
mean early in the game or early in the early
and then drop early in the game. And and look
every quarterback. Hey, I remember when I first started working
with Ron Jaworski here and one of the first things
he told me, and I've never forgotten, is he said,
no quarterback likes to get hit. And you know, Brady
is just like just like Peyton Manning. You know, everybody
(27:52):
said that's it's It's true with Brady. The last thing
the Patriots want is Brady to take shots early in
the game. It's not like our old friend Jim Kelly.
Jim Kelly once told me that, Hey, I want to
take that first shot that gets me in the game.
I don't think Tom Brady feels that way. If I'm
a Jaguars fan, what gives me what's my number one
source of hope heading to heading up there to slay
(28:15):
the dragon? Well, I think it has to be a
defensive game for them because offensively, quite honestly, they can
really only win one way, and that's with the run games,
the foundation and working off that, as I said a
while ago, to limit Bordles exposure. I mean, Bartles may
(28:36):
have had two straight dropbacks in this game this past week,
you know, when it was learning long. Other than that,
there's no straight drop backs. It's play action, it's boot action,
it's some kind of multiple backfield action, it's easy throws.
You know. It's they're not asking him to do a
lot even when they throw the ball. So it's they're
really trying to limit what he's asked to do within
(29:00):
the context of lining up with base personnel and and
running the football. And if they can't have some success
running the ball, it'll be difficult. Is for Nett healthy? Well,
he got hurt again this week, UMF for Net to me,
(29:22):
and I really like for Nett when he came out
and he certainly had a solid rookie season. Um he
almost to me, he embraces contact, he looks for it.
He enjoys the physical part of the game. He's a
great finisher. There are times when I watch him though,
where I think his vision needs to get a little
better where there's a place to cut into and he
(29:44):
doesn't do it because I think he really likes the
physicality and he likes to just drive into people. And
maybe he'll learn that. But I thought he left some
yards on the field this weekend. I just thought he
wasn't the same player after the injury. I thought he
did not have I mean, I mean that eighteen yard touchdown.
I mean that the burst and velocity he showed on
(30:07):
that that's that's special. And the leaping ability on the
first touchdown, he looked like he took off from the
four yard line. So the Jags are not gonna ask
Bordles to do too much. I don't think they can
because the last thing they want to have happened in
a game like this is just turned the ball over early.
So what they're hoping because they have to be realistic
now again, they're gonna look at the game against Pittsburgh
(30:29):
and and think, well, wow, we can come in and
maybe we can score. But they had a great first drive,
as Cosnos with with those three consecutive passes, which were
all the kinds of passes I just spoke about. Those
were low risk plays for the very low risk plays
for the quarterback, and they were able to score. If
they can do that, then they can set a tempo.
But they're not going to ask Bortles early in the
(30:52):
game to take five steps, seven steps straight, straight drops
and and try to stick balls eighteen yards down the field.
That's not going to happen. Um. Well, I was gonna
say this is the part of the show where we
might want to mention Doug Morone, who I mean, he
painted a little bit of a masterpiece there Sunday to
to dominate that football game. They really dominated, I mean
(31:15):
take away were absolutely ridiculous touchdown passes by Roethlisberger to
his superstars. And you got to give them a ton
of credit for that opening drive, as I said, because
it got Bordles comfortable and it got the Steelers defense
a little shaky. I had a question about that opening drive.
They essentially passed their way down the field. They had
(31:36):
first in gold from roughly the seven yard line, and
then they buckled down and ran it four times. It
was as if they didn't want Boardles to give away
at least three. Well, that that's quite a jackal on
high act. Even on that first drive. I've been given
the confidence of those few places. Though Paul, as I said,
we're a low risk, they weren't. It wasn't like they
were putting the ball in boardles hands. They were all
(31:59):
out of base person and now they all had some
form of run action. I think two of them had
boot action. They were very low risk, basic one read throws.
Were they any anything that he called at the line
or were they all pre don't think so. You know, again,
I never know that for sure, but I think they
were called plays. All right, Let's talk about the other
side of the bracket then, and the other two quarterbacks
(32:20):
and what they're going to be asked to do, or
what the Eagles and the Vikings are willing to ask
their two quarterbacks Falls and Keena, because as we said
last week, you can't hide your quarterback. In January, we
started the show talking about the situations that evolved during
a game that players have to play their way out
of if their teams are going to win. What are
the Eagles and Vikings willing to ask Nick Foles in
(32:41):
case Keenum to do in order to advance to the
Super Bowl. Well, I thought what Doug Peterson did this
past week was brilliant, and people might not think so
because they only scored fifteen points, but I thought it
was absolutely phenomenal because again, his throws too, were pretty
for the most part, with a few exceptions and give
falls a ton of credit, were very basic throws. It
(33:02):
was a lot of what they call RPOs run pass option,
where he was reading a second level linebacker based on
his fake in the backfield, and if the linebacker moved
a certain way, he knew he had the throw. But
they were slamm throws. These are not difficult. The throws
themselves are not difficult, and they did a great job
with that. They had that field goal drive in the
third quarter where Foals I think, was five for seven
(33:24):
for seventy yards. He did hit one big third down
to Jeffrey where he climbed the pocket beautifully and made
an excellent throw, and you need some of those. But
for the most part, they played this game fairly close
to the best Offensively. It was a perfect example of
how rushing yardage doesn't necessarily correlate to controlling the game. Running.
(33:46):
Their three backs had twenty five carries for seventy nine yards,
But when you watch the game both live and when
I watched it on tape, they were clear times in
the game where you felt as if the Eagles run
game was controlling the game, even though the yard wasn't
a big number. Well here's a number the last three
quarters of that game. Eagles pass attempts, twelve rush attempts. Yeah,
(34:10):
that was very, very surprising, very and it was not
difficult throws. I mean, that's the thing. That's why I
think Doug Peterson did a great, great job because they
did that. It was a function again if the defense.
They were playing a very fast flow, reactive defense, and
some of those were screens. They were a great screen team,
(34:30):
a great screen team, and they had that thirty two
yard to j h i Uh in the fourth quarter.
I think that's set up their final field goal drive. Uh.
And they set that up with a nine yard screen
I think on their second possession of the game. So, yes,
these were they were not difficult throws. But you have
to give false credit because when you do drop back,
you still have to complete passes. Did the game that
(34:52):
Peterson call this weekend reflected departure from what he was
doing with Carson Wentz. Well, they're not asking fALS to
make the kinds of throws that Wentz gets asked to make.
In fact, he missed one and it was a third
down throw to Burton. I forget when it happened in
the game, but Burton was wide open on a corner
route and he just he overthrew him. So Peterson's evolved,
(35:14):
He's he's rolling with what he has. As we said
that Dance of the Girl has your understanding that both
the strengths of your your talent and the limitations of
your talent. And that's what coaching is. I mean, Nick
Foles is a professional quarterback. He's played in this league,
but you have to understand that there's certain things he
can't do well. So all these throws had a quick
(35:36):
almost all of them had a quick game element, meaning
that it was a quick drop and the ball came
out fast. Because one thing fALS has shown not to
be great at is the longer he's in the pocket,
the less effective he is. So you want the ball
to come out, so you're trying to design pass game
concepts where the ball can come out. Now what they
did in this game, is it different than their typical
(36:00):
offense that they would have run with with went Well,
I think it is, but we'll never know that. But
I think it is because it's like we were talking about,
you have to figure this out during the week. We're
not going to be able to run all night against
this defense and helped to win. Uh so we better
figure out a way to to to have it. But
we're gonna reasonable pass. We're gonna have to throw the ball.
(36:21):
So how do we best go about throwing the ball
without exposing our quarterback? That's basically the premise. We're gonna
here's here's the guy we got, let's figure out how
to put him in a position. It's just like we
talked about with Bartles, same deal. This is the guy.
This is you know you danced with the girl who
brung you. This is the guy who brung you. So
now he's going to have to throw. So how do
(36:42):
we maximize the efficiency of the quarterback? All right? Same
question for Keenam now because now he's beyond that. Now
he's on the road, but he's beyond that. He's explain
he's more advanced as a quarterback right now. I'm not
saying he's Tom Brady or Drew Brees, but you can
line up and play with case Keenum at this point,
you don't have to you don't have to minimize your
(37:02):
concepts because of Keenum. Uh Greg laid out last week
that that he told us Enim has had a very
very good season. He's accurate, he's he's there, he can move,
he's making winning plays. He did it, I mean lost
in that final throw. And again not just that throw
that that reflects and his representative of Case Keenum. But
(37:25):
that was not a five yard throw. Now, he that
ball had to be thrown down the field with accuracy,
and it was totally agree and with the game, with
the season on the line, it was a big time throw.
There was a big time throw. And if that throw
was made by quarterbacks we tend to think of as winners,
we'd be raving about Case Keenum. But because the narrative
(37:45):
in many ways has already been written in the minds
of many about Keenum, that he's a journeyman backup, I
haven't heard him spoken about a lot today. People are
talking about digs far more than Keenum and the mis
tackle and the mis tackle correct well, until so so,
Keenum had two would be game winning drives there that
obviously the right, but prior to that insane finish where
(38:07):
we had great throw on that one as well to
feeling I think on a third day that throw is unbelievable.
Unbelievable throw. And another throw which I think was also
in the fourth quarter to Jarius right for I think
twenty seven yards to the other sideline, and this is
after Also he had a terrible intersect that really turned
the game when it was sevent seven. And again, a
(38:30):
trait you're looking for is the short memory, a spot
like that, make the mistake, get back on the field
and don't compound. I won't rehash Keenum's traits because we
did that last week. But he's played far better than
the perception of him. He's played really solid NFL quarterback
(38:52):
and he's he's not just a journeyman backup. I would
urge everyone to go back to all our thing. I
mentioned this last week, but show eight, season two of
Amazon's All or Nothing, produced by our crew here at
NFL Films, we went and shot an interview with case
(39:13):
Kingdom and his wife in the suburbs of Minneapolis after
he signed with the Vikings as a third string quarterback,
and there was nothing in his face that day that
would have indicated Yeah, about nine months from now, I'll
be playing for a trip to the Super Bowl here
(39:36):
in Minnesota. You know, he was he was a guy
who always believed in himself, clearly thought he could be
a starter in this league. But to see where he
has gone from in a span of less than a year,
it's a great, great story. He's a good guy. Uh,
you know, he was great with us, but you know
(39:58):
that's that's beside the point. But the kind of guy
that's very, very easy to root for. We have a
lot of that in this NFC Championship game. We really
do with Zimmer, uh, with with Peterson, with a lot
of the Eagles players who have been terrific in the
community off the field. This NFC game is is full
of good stories, good people. Uh. There there're no but
(40:21):
either team wins. There's a lot a lot of good
stories you're gonna be hearing about in those two weeks
leading up to the Super Bowl. Zimmers the guy I
thought of first as the play was happening, because not
only is in Minnesota, which is a hard luck football town,
but here's Zimmer, a guy who's who's only been there
four years. Two years ago they host that home playoff
game they got the game winning I think it's like
(40:42):
a twenty seven yard field that Blair Walsh. We had
a great shot of Zimmer on the sideline just he
hung his head in reaction like he just was so incredulous.
But here it is two years later, that play saves
their season where they're the number two seeds. They have
had this incredible year. He's built an amazing defense. I know,
by the way, here's a guy that's I think sixty
(41:02):
one years old. He waited thirty five years before he
became a head coach. And now we're in this era
where we forget, you know, we have the the mcveigh's
and the mc daniels and the even going back to
when when Gruden did it was still kind of real
or still kind of new. But you had Raheem Morris,
you had Eric Mangini, had all these the young thirty
something coordinators. Mike Zimmer coached thirty five years longer than
(41:24):
McVeigh was even alive before he got to be a
head coach. And now he's the fruits of that labor.
Is he's one game away from being in the super Bowl,
and that miraculous play as he knows after spending his
life in football, makes the razor thin difference between being
home this week because if if that play didn't happen
a lot a lot of well, the talk would have
been about Drew Brees, obviously, but but the fact that
they had given up that that seventeens year old lead
(41:45):
when their defense is supposed to be so and not
supposed to be it was phenomenal and it still is,
but that would have been the talk, is there? So?
So the Vikings offense did go dead for a while
there in the second half. Is there anything you could
glean looking at the tape? Well, it was an odd
second half. They didn't go dead, and it's the way
you're thinking of it. They started out with a long
(42:07):
drive to start the third quarter, and I think they
missed a field goal. I forget what howe about missed
a field goal? Yeah, it was a long drive. And
then the Saints followed with a long drive. So the
second possession for the Vikings didn't start until one minute
and remained in the third quarter. Cause so it seemed
(42:28):
that way, but they really didn't go dead. It's just
the game altered because that the Saints started to move
the ball with some sustainability on offense, and then he
makes the two drives, so Kingdom's ready to go. Yeah,
he's just been really good. Is there anything where do
you start on this game? Now? Uh, you know, we've we've, we've,
we've hit a few different points on this. But this
(42:49):
NFC game is is not one that anybody expected. No,
and I think barring special teams plays turnovers, I would
expect it would not be a high scoring game because
I think both the fenses are very very good. The
Vikings don't have a consistent run game, although they have
to try to run the ball like they do every week.
I mean, Otavius Murray did have nineteen brushes this week,
(43:10):
only fifty yards, but he did carry nineteen times. They'll
have a tough go running the ball against the Eagles defense.
I think that the Eagles will have a real tough
time running the ball against the Vikings defense. This is
a really good defense, despite what Breeze did to them.
You know, obviously he's Drew Brees. I think the Eagles
will really struggle offensively to move the ball on any
(43:33):
kind of consistent basis. So I think this becomes almost
a Doug Peterson game in how we can try to
create some offense. We have another safety injury potentially in
this game if Sendejo doesn't yes who I've been talking
about him for two years. I love Sendejo and because
of Harrison Smith, he does not get much credit at all.
(43:53):
I think you can make the argument that could be
the best safety duo in the NFL if he cannot play.
You know what, do we know what his injury? He
went off for a concussion. You know, he kind of
got knocked out on well. They do have a guy
interption to play with the random Mike Thomas ran into. Yeah,
it was an it was an accidental player. Actually, they
(44:13):
bringing Anthony Harris, number forty one from Virginia, who's actually
a really solid player. They're very fortunate because this guy
is a solid player that the issue he had coming
out of Virginia is that he was kind of an
in between kind of player. He was only about a
hun pounds and he looks at when you look at him,
there's not a lot of size to him and girth,
(44:36):
but he's actually a pretty good player. Now, maybe that
limits some of the things they can do. I can't
speak to that ad percent because he hasn't quite played
enough for me to know specifically how they use him,
but they're they're not putting in a guy who can't play.
I'm interested in the Eagles. I was so impressed by
the Eagles defense, and I kept thinking the weapons that
they were contending with last week relative to what they
(44:59):
it seems like, as much as you can gage it
on paper, the Vikings aren't bringing the offensive weapons here
that the Falcons did. Good receivers, I mean, obviously Julio
is great, but Theelan and digs are really really good,
and Kyle Rudolph's quality tight end um The Eagles are
are a single high safety defense. They play that a
(45:19):
high percentage of the time, more zone than man. They
don't match up, so Mills is the left corner, Darby
is the right corner. When they do play man, it's
normally Malcolm Jenkins on the tight end, so he'll be
on Kyle Rudolph when they do play man to man coverage.
I think a wild card in this game is McKinnon.
(45:40):
I really like McKinnon in the past game, and I
think again, it's not that he's gonna catch nine balls
for a hundred twenty yards, but This is not going
to be that kind of game anyway. So I think
McKinnon could be an intriguing wild card in the past
game this Yeah, it could be ten six. He never
(46:00):
tuck the whole way defensive football on the unlikely of
the two of the playoffs here in January. One matchup
that the Eagles are going to have to seriously consider
how they want to handle is their left tackle of
eye tie against Griffin. Because again, quick game stuff, you
(46:22):
don't need to do anything because the ball would be out.
But if it gets into a situation where they need
deeper drops, you know, second and long, third and long,
whatever the situation demands, they're going to have to either
chip or keep some bodies in, which, of course then
limit your pass game because the past games about numbers.
You'd like to have five guys out. But if you
can't do that, you can't do that because protection must
(46:44):
come first. What did you see if j Agi this
past weekend? He seemed to me to be less explosive
and dynamic, and I remember him in my end. He's
not explosive, He's he's relentless, he's physical, he's powerful, He's
not explosives. He's and I'm really surprised because he was
good at this at Boise State. But he doesn't catch
(47:04):
the ball very well in the NFL, and he hasn't,
but he was good at it in college. But he's
a tough, physical inside runner. I actually thought and spoke
about it, and I obviously was wrong. I thought it
would have been a Legarrett Blunt game. They made a
Giant Blunt. He was the feature back pounding it up inside.
The Eagles have a really multiple run game. Now. I
(47:24):
charted and and I can't recite every single one because
they were about ten of them. They are about ten
different runs the Eagles ran in that game. This week,
they have a really multiple run game. You described the
gis powerful and big and strong, relentless, relentless. What's the
distinction then, between him and Blunt? Um, Giant's got quicker feet.
(47:45):
I mean, he's not explosive the way you think of explosive,
but he's got quicker feet than Blunt. But I thought
this would be a Blunt game because I thought they'd
attack downhill, which they did, but they used a Giant
instead of Blunt. Okay, any final you know, last week,
one thing we said to look for was the Falcons
red zone offense. We've been talking about them for the
(48:08):
entire and I think the first drive of the game,
the last drive drive, and those two two trips to
the red zone did them in in the end. They
struggled with it all season. To go back to where
we started here. Your weaknesses are eventually going to crop
up and bite you somewhere along the way here in January.
(48:29):
What is going to crop up and bite one of
these teams? What what can we look for that this
team or that team's got to overcome on Sunday to
get to Minneapolis. You talked about the red zone. This
last game against Pittsburgh. They got to the red zone
five times. They scored five touchdowns. Now we all know
(48:52):
and this is not profound, but it's it relates to
the game. You can't beat New England by kicking field goals, Nope.
So then you get into play calling and and there's
a number of things that happened in the red zone,
depending on whether you're in the far red zone, the
high red zone meeting between the ten and the twenty,
or the tight red zone meeting the ten to the
goal line. We saw that time he behind in touchdown
(49:15):
which that was an awesome an awesome play called given
the way they played the entire game. See, that was
a great place. So let's let's do this. This was
this was the touchdown, a fourth quarter touchdown. And are
they in the high red zone? Yes, it was fourteen
yard touchdowndown And it was they lined up in the
straight I two personnel meeting, two backs, two tight ends.
(49:37):
They've been lining up in that all game. It was
a second down play, not a third down play. They
showed straight is so run action, which they've done probably
ten twelve times in the game. And Williams and Golden
hit that so hard because everything about the player looked
like run and they just sneaked. Um, they snuck behind
(49:59):
in through on the short seem that's an old West
Coast play. Williams ended up on his face. I think
Golden did about three pirouetts. Somebody was Williams. It might
have been Williams who went and literally tried to tackle
from that. Yeah. Yeah, I just ended up in the
backfield on his face. I mean, they so got that
defense on. That was a great place. So in the
(50:22):
red zone, you're dealing with a number of issues. You're
dealing with can you line up and run the ball
with physicality? Um, then you talk about plays that have
a a deception m direction element to them, Like the
week before when Atlanta scored in the red zone to
beat the Rams with the Julio Jones play, that was
a misdirection deception play. You know, this week when they
didn't score, they pretty much said, we have Julio Jones.
(50:45):
He's better than anyone who can cover him. So we're
gonna basically call a one receiver route and our guys
better than your guy. And it didn't work out. That's
but that's what they essentially called on fourth down. There
was no there was no you know, with the Eagles.
Everybody made a big deal about all the Eagles knew
the play. The Falcons didn't care that they knew the play.
They had Julio Jones. They thought he's better than Jalen Mills.
(51:08):
We're just gonna throw We're just gonna throw it to
Julio Jones. I mean, there are worst ideas. No, no,
I'm not. I'm not saying they were wrong. I'm saying
that this whole debate about all the Eagles knew the
play is irrelevant. The Falcons. Didn't care whether the Eagles
new the play. That was the matchup. Stop it right.
I'm just glad that we added to our vocabulary again
last week. We had what second reaction this week, now
(51:29):
we have the high, the high red zone and the tight.
I didn't know that we had now two zones within
the red two sectors. Did you know r p O.
That was a new one for me, Paul, everybody knows
r PO. Just trying to keep up here because but yeah, so,
I mean, red zone always becomes critical. Look, all you
have to do is look at the Steelers Jags game
to talk about red zone and third down because I
(51:52):
would bet all of us I know, I did did
not think that if Jacksonville were to win that game.
I thought it would be a seventeen game. No one
would see saw Jacksonville winning that game. So so you
get to third down. They were eight for fourteen on
third down. You go to the red zone, five trips,
five touchdowns. Tom Tomlin's now got playoff defeats to Tim
(52:12):
Tebow and Bortles on his ledger. That's that's a tough
I'll let you handle that. That's tough. He's got. He's
got a lot of work to do. Is there anything else?
Uh a f C or NFC. I think we're I
think the way we need to finish this this week. Um.
Having added to our vocabulary, is you know, is there
(52:36):
an official name for the for the miracle in Minneapolis. Oh,
I've heard Minneapolis miracle, Minnesota miracle with six and there's
oh with six. That's pretty good. I mean it's pretty mean,
but it's pretty good. I don't think that because you
don't usually name a miracle after somebody's mistakes for the Yeah,
(52:56):
you don't. I don't. I can't think of any miracles
named on the on the steak what and they've been
seven heaven. I guess that's the name of the play.
That's not that's not sticking. I think it's gonna be
the because the radio guy the Vikings Turn Paul Allen
immediately called at the Minneapolis a miracle twice because that's
(53:17):
gonna be in all our highlights, and then radio call
is going to be played a thousand times. That's gonna live. Yeah,
I mean we're gonna, we're gonna be We're gonna be
making it. Uh, it's gonna be plastered across your television.
I mean, that's one of the greatest plays ever given
the moment, because wasn't that the first play in playoff history,
the first walk off touchdown for the fourth quarter and
(53:39):
postseason history? And it's can we just underscored again? It's Minnesota.
They have the chance to host the Super Bowl, a
franchise that has had more playoff, more heart defeat. It's
almost happy about here, Paul, because again with the way
it was ten degrees with a wind chill of minus
six during the game, the game's inside. Yeah, but you
have to get there, all fellas. We got one more Sunday,
(54:02):
and I'm pretty excited this Championships Sunday. You're feeling good. Yeah,
you know, I know that cook As I said, I
was looking at Twitter. So everybody has pretty much decided
that Brady's winning the Super Bowl again because of the
other three quarterbacks. But you know what, I guess that's
why they played the games, because we didn't think Jacksonville
was going to be here, did we? It is it is,
as my my brother termed it, the Velvet Gauntlet for
(54:24):
for Brady. If the mark the Mariota bordles the full
slash keeno. But you made a great point about case
Keenum that you know, nine months ago you're interviewing him
when he signs with Minnesota's a third string quarterback. And
now he's not only playing in the NFC Championship Game,
but had a really good season. Hey, fifteen years ago,
(54:47):
that was that was tom Brady was a backup. Nobody
thought Tom Brady was beating Kurt Warner in the super Dome.
That is correct, February two thousand two. So you are,
and things possible. But it is a striking march to
a potential sixth Lombardi for the greatest of all time.
(55:09):
That would be pretty impressive. Boy, that's hard to do.
Tom Brady, tom Brady and three guys. Good luck Jacksonville.
You're gonna need it. Well, no faith, no, I look,
I think Jacksonville is is a really good football team.
They are and they're really really well coached. Uh, the
(55:30):
talent on that defense is really good, spectacular. Let's enjoy
some defensive football, folks. It's great. It's great to see
we've got all caught up in the quarterbacks in the
passing game these last few years. I mean, the Broncos
did it with defense two years ago and and the
and the Panthers had a great defense. The Seattle defense
was tremendous. I think three of the last four years
(55:53):
the number one overall scoring defense won the Super Bowl,
and here we have three of the top four. So
again we're looking at at a potentially defensive dominated team
winning the Super Bowl. So the conclusion is defense still
wins championships or can get you to one anyway. All right, kids,
(56:18):
Thanks Greg? Alright, that was fun hit. It got one
more of these to go, PAULI, Greg, one more of
these next week setting up the Super Bowl. Thanks Rich,
Thanks Mike, our producer and our engineer. Let's get ready
(56:41):
for championships Sunday. People. Follow NFL Films on Twitter, on Instagram,
on YouTube, on all your favorite social channels. Follow Greg
Costell at greg COSL on Twitter. Catch the NFL Matchup
Show on ESPN this weekend, and tune in next week
for another NFL Films hood where we will break down
championships and look forward to Super Bowl. Thanks everyone. M
Today on the NFL Films podcast. Oh this is a
good one, PAULI. It starts now, David Roboto at his best,
Welcome back everybody, and the wake of an incredibly thrilling
(00:24):
divisional weekend, we break it down and we spin it forward.
So what should be a very very interesting championship Sunday,
Football's Final four. We're here with the NFL Films Guru
Greg Cosell. I'm Paul, I'm Keith. Let's hit it. Four
(00:50):
games this weekend, Keith, three of them where I would
say very good to great one of them. Man. But
you know what, overall an incredible weekend football. We have
four teams left Football's Final four. Let's dig in, fellas.
All right, First of all, where were you in your house?
We're in the kitchen. Where you were you standing on
the edge of the couch last night with ten seconds
(01:11):
left by to case Keeno. I was actually in my
in my what would I guess be called my man cave.
It's just my TV room where I have my TV.
And my wife was in her area where she watches TV,
which is not where I do. And normally I'm a
very quiet watcher because you know, having been in NFL films.
For thirty eight years, I've seen a little bit of football,
(01:33):
and I tend not to be surprised by most of
what I see, So all of a sudden, when that happened,
I screamed because it was just one of those moments.
And my wife, who rarely ever hears me do that,
because that's not the way I watched sports, yells from
the other room, are you okay? Are you okay? Because
you thought something was wrong, and I said, I just said, no,
this is one of the greatest moments I've seen. And
(01:55):
I said to that's why you watch sports, just for that,
because you never know when something like that is going
to happen. It's great when it does. I screamed during
the National Championship game when Alabama missed the field goal,
and that was late. That was about one am. I
was worried that I that I that I was going
to frighten the whole family right at that point. This one, Um,
(02:18):
it was a crazy moment. It was just you know what,
you're happy for the Vikings, fans and and and big
picture here, We're not going to spend the hour totally
breaking down the games that happened. Um, you know, we're
gonna spend this thing forward, but we would be doing
um the pod and injustice, we did not explain Greg
(02:40):
what what the h double hockey sticks happened out there? Well,
you know what's really interesting, we that was as good
an example of situational football as one could ever have.
You know, we hear that term always, of course with
Bill Belichick and how good he is and how important
it is in the NFL to place situational football. And
(03:02):
obviously Marcus Williams is getting a lot of blame, and
there's plenty to give to Marcus Williams. But I watched
that play and there were two sort of corner routes
that were too close to one another. Really, the route
distribution was not great, and it was meaning the receivers
close together. I thought anyway, you know, again, maybe I'm wrong,
(03:24):
but I thought they were too close together. But anyway,
it was Diggs who kind of ran the deeper one,
and it was Feeling who he might have been five
seven yards away from him, a little shorter, and where
Theeling was. If he catches the ball, they're not even
in field goal range. So Ken Crawley was the corner
to that side. Of the field, and Crawley is sitting
(03:45):
on Theeland's route. So even if Feeling catches the ball,
like I said, he's not in field goal range. So
what I I was watching this and thinking to myself,
why is Crawley not deeper playing Digs? It's irrelevant if
theling catch just the ball, and so of course it's
easy to to rip Marcus Williams and and clearly that's
(04:06):
not the way you want a safety to play that ball.
But I just looked at Ken crawling and thought to myself,
what are you doing? You're you should be deep, you
should be much deeper. Were you asking? Why Feeling? What
are you doing? Why is crawling? I know? But why
isn't Feeling running a deeper round? At that point? He's
not going to run a deeper rout because then he'd
be running the same route as as Digs. Uh So,
(04:29):
but yeah, it was just I mean, it was unbelievable.
You know. The thing is is he went to take
out Dig's legs. That that was his whole premise, because
if he takes out his legs and he falls inbounds,
the game's over. So I'm sure that was his thought process.
Take out his legs and the game's over because then
he couldn't get out of bounce. Right when the reality
(04:49):
is watch him catch the ball and bear hug him
and bring him to the ground, right, don't just make
sure he doesn't get past you and just grab on
hold him for dear life until the cavil he arrives.
The clock will run out. When he caught the ball,
I believe there were four seconds left. I mean, you
could almost theoretically let him catch it, you know, if
you really wanted to. I mean, not that that's the goal,
(05:10):
but you theoretically could have. But no, he went to
take out his legs and you could tell. I mean,
it was unbelievable balanced by Diggs because you know, coming down,
he was expecting when he caught that ball to get
hit immediately. When you talk about situational awareness, When when
the ball was thrown and caught, my immediate reaction was
I'm thinking they just need a field goal and they
(05:30):
really only have time for one play. When he catches
the ball so close to the boundary, immediately started saying,
they're gonna get to kick the field goal, right, That's
what I thought. Next thing, you know, he turns up
the field. So I it's amazing to think Diggs wasn't
so prewired to just step out of bounds that he
almost did, I think. I mean again, we don't know
what was in his head, but for that second, it
looked like he was, well, I'm going to get out
of bounce, and then he realized there was no one
(05:51):
in front of that moment when he realized that he
there was nobody left, which happens, of course in normal speed,
very fast, but when you're watching, there's that pause when
your brain for a second, maybe even in his brain,
who knows where do you think, Wow, there's no one
in front of him, He's going to score a touchdown.
He got to the end You're right, he caught the
ball at four seconds left. If you watched the clock tickdown.
I don't know what yard line he was at, is
(06:12):
probably around the thirty. He got to the end zone
almost with one second left. It was almost like he
ran faster than he ever ran in his entire life.
Two years in a row. Now the Sunday, the late
Sunday divisional window has given us what was the game
lastic finish Rogers versus the Cowboys with sideline passed to
(06:34):
scrambling to his left. So two years in a row
we capped divisional weekend with a signature game. Very different
quarterbacks in those two equations, but but that's a separate pod.
Probably speaking of quarterbacks, we the premise last week that
we lad with was we have two buckets. We have
(06:55):
these superstar future Hall of Fame quarterbacks, and then we
have these other guys. Well low and behold. Three out
of the four other guys one, Well, it's guys. Because
on Twitter, I like to check Twitter while I'm watching
the games. Sometimes it's just fun second screen grank so millennial. Yeah,
(07:18):
you know, I'm a trendy guy. Co se Man came
is hopping. I'm hip now and today I'm a trendy guy.
So anyway, I'd like to check Twitter, and it's funny.
The the the conversation on Twitter was now whether the
cold quarterback thing is overrated, that you really don't need
a star quarterback because now, look, who's all of a sudden.
(07:39):
Yeah I know, I'm just telling you what Twitter said,
fast moving pendulum. They're all these years. Yeah, I'm just
telling you what Twitter said. All right, Well, maybe uh
Rosen and dart On should go back to college. I
think it's I think because this was the week. Well,
here's the thing we didn't lead with last week, de
(08:00):
fense and what we're left with. In addition to three
of these four other quarterbacks, are three of the top
four defenses in the NFL. And I gotta defense wins championships.
Will be back to that now too. Did it ever leave? Greg?
Did it ever leave? And the fourth one, as we
(08:21):
pointed out last week, is I mean, the fourth one
is the bad defense quote unquote is Bill Belichicks? The
one that is we said allows yards, stretches, but to
understand situational. But the Patriots have played at a very
high level of defense, much better a month or so
without questions. They haven't given up points in two months,
and all of a sudden it seems like they have
(08:41):
a pass rush. Yeah, where did that come from? That's
a great question. But that guy they found on the
street number James Harrison, where do you come from? I
don't know. Let's talk about a guy though that we haven't.
We talked about Aaron Donald, We even talked a little
about a bit about Klais Campbell. I want to tell
me all about Fletcher Cox, the guy we haven't talked about,
(09:04):
but was a monster the other night. And if the
Eagles are gonna keep winning, of course their defense is
going to have to lead them, and that guy might
have to lead that defense. Tell me about Fletcher Cox.
If I don't know about him, what do I need
to know? And tell me about what he did the
other night? Well, it's there's not a lot to say
about how good a players you know. That The question
becomes is how do offenses choose to handle him? Because
(09:26):
the Eagles line up when they go to their sub packages,
meaning nickel or dime, what they normally do one of
their main fronts is they're line up with what we
call two three techniques, okay, and what they do is
they bring Brandon Graham inside to d tackle. He's a
very good pass rusher as well. He's not quite dright Freeney,
but he's built like him and he's a very good
(09:47):
pass rusher from the inside. So now you put a
burden on the offensive line. How do they want to protect?
Do they want to slide their center because no one's
covering the center. Do they want to slide their center
to rand and Graham or to Fletcher Cox and So,
for instance, this week, the Falcons for most of the
first half slid to Fletcher Cox because he's a great player,
(10:09):
and then you get Graham one on one with a guard.
If you start sliding to Brandon Graham, you get Cox
one on one with a guard, and the Eagles will
take that all day long. So what really now is
incumbent upon Minnesota. How do they want to handle that?
You know, this week they played Mike Remer's at tackle
at left guard for the first time, and theoretically at
(10:30):
tackle moving into guard should be a better pass protector
than a normal guard. So we'll see how they choose
to handle that. Although I thought I thought they're all
a line, had some struggles in the second half against
the Saints, and in fact, the Saints did a really
good job with a lot of different stunt concepts and
that caused problems for the Vikings. Are the Eagles defense
an ensemble actor or a Cox or Graham, one of
(10:51):
these guys they can sort of wreck a game single
handedly and kind of take over the charge of of
this team. They're both there. They're they're an ensemble act,
but they do have Cox who is capable of wrecking
a game. And Graham is because Graham doesn't get fifteen
seventeen sacks. I'm not sure a lot of people think
about him, but he's a really really good player who
(11:12):
in their defense, is multi positional. Eagles are fascinating to me.
A lot of these players have been there for the
last few years. I guess they're Howie Roseman guys. I mean,
or they chips were there and then the team sort
of dipped and it's the same group. That's sort of
because I know we want to sort of look ahead too.
It's a fascinating matchup because you've got the Eagles are
the third best third down defense in the NFL. The
(11:35):
Vikings are the third best third down offense in the NFL,
and third down, as we know, that's the money down.
That's a critical down. The Vikings this past week we're
ten for seventeen on third down and as I said,
their third best overall in the NFL in the regular season.
So I think third down is a really critical element,
critical aspect to this matchup between the Vikings offense and
(11:58):
Eagles defense. I thought that was so critical. And all
four of the games the third down you they weren't
random either, Bordles converted three huge third downs in the
fourth quarter when the Steelers were just desperate to get
off the field, and that you know, well, you know,
(12:19):
that's what we talked about. You have to be able
to get nine yards on third and so let's look
back to look ahead, because you make a really interesting
point there. The Steelers played almost all zone coverage, and
I was watching that tape and thinking to myself, Wow,
they really went in man when they played New England
and had success. And here they're playing zone. So you
(12:40):
have a quarterback in Bordles who's not a precise ball
placement thrower, and you have receivers who are younger receivers.
So you're playing zone, which to me makes it easier.
If you play man, you're forcing the receivers to have
to win and separate, and you're forcing Bordles to have
to make precision ball placement throws. But they played a
(13:02):
ton of zone and it just to me that it
takes the burden off a little bit. And then of
course the forty yard or too yelled in. I think
Alredi Burns blew that coverage, but hey, maybe I'm wrong,
but he carried Westbrook inside when I don't believe he
should have. Well that's just Greg, Greg. Sorry, you know
we made it twelve minutes. Sorry cause it twelve minutes.
(13:23):
And I can chat Paul, whoa, whoa, Here we go,
Here we go, different, here we go, because you're telling
me what was the percentage her zone versus man? What
were this? I didn't charted, but it seemed like it
was far more zone to me on third down than man. Huh.
(13:44):
And that just on there down or throughout down. I
would say throughout the game they played pre dominant, but
that's hard to tell in some ways. For this reason
is that the Jaguars lined up in base some form
of base personnel, meaning that they were not three wide
receivers on the field on a high percentage of snaps.
Leonard Fournett had twenty five rushes in the game. Twenty
(14:06):
four of them came out of some version of base personnel,
meeting a fallback, two tight ends, three tight ends. Only
one run had eleven personnel and that came in the
fourth quarter. So exploit get inside Keith Butler's head. The
Steelers defensive corn and Tomlin, Well, what is the thing,
what's the theory on why we're gonna play zone against
(14:29):
this offense, is it too better? Well, be able to
stack against Fournet and the running game. I think they're
a little safer against the past because Bordles isn't gonna
beat us. What is the thinking there? Well, first of all,
as you know, cause they're foundationally a zone coverage team,
they did play man against New England team, but I
think that's because they viewed New England as the the
(14:52):
the aberration so to speak, you know, the different kind
of team that they had a beat. But I think
when all said and done, there have found d Shian
zone coverage defense. That's what they are. So I don't
think they viewed the Jacksonville offense as an offense that
they had to change anything that they do as their
staple or their foundation. Did they blitz a lot very much? No,
(15:16):
but again it's all that based personnel. Most teams blitz.
They did blitz some as the game progressed. They didn't
play dime six defensive backs, which they've been they've played
a lot this year until the third quarter, just because
the game didn't lend itself to that. Uh And William
Gay is their sixth defensive back. As you know, so
they blitzed someone. They did that because they Mike Hilton
(15:37):
off the slot has blitzed a lot this year, and
that's what they did. But they didn't blitz a lot
in this game because the game didn't play. There wasn't
a lot of level personnel. They weren't they weren't in
their sub packages a lot, right, So you didn't get
that Hilton off the slot. No, you didn't see that. No,
that was It was an odd game for the Steelers,
and of course they lost, so they don't view it
as odd. But because they got down so quick, the
(16:00):
game had an odd dynamic too. I thought watching live
the game had an odd dynamic watching it. Uh. The
game I was reminded of was when the Steelers went
to Indianapolis in two thousand five and came out throwing
the ball with a second fumble game. But they if
you remember, they came out Ben play action as a
(16:23):
not very well established quarterback at that point, and they
came out slinging and stunned the Colts and took a
big league and the Colts and Peyton Manning had to
play catch up all game. Obviously, that one didn't go
crazy into this game Jacksonville. They started the game with
a Leonard four net five yard run and the next
three plays were all play action, out of base personnel
(16:43):
easy throws. Look, it was evident watching the tape, and
I know Borels deserves credit. He did not turn the
ball over and that's critical, and he had his own
read run. He had a few scrambles, but those next
three throws were classic examples of how they wanted to play.
They want to limit his exposure. They were all play
action easy throws. Some had misdirection, some had boot action.
(17:05):
But they're trying to limit his exposure as a passer.
I mean, this is not a hard game plan to predict. No,
And that's why when they play New England this week,
a team that plays way more man man is their foundation.
A couple of things will interest me. Number one, can
Borders make throws if he has to? Number two, will
they spy him in certain situations, because if you play man,
(17:27):
you don't want him to be able to then to
just run. And the Patriots have used spies this year
when they feel it's appropriate. Um and the key thing
in Belichick will harp on this all week about playing
with your eyes because all the misdirection stuff that they
try to do with play action boot to make sure
you don't let your eyes get ahead of themselves. I mean,
I see what you did. They're spinning it forward to
(17:48):
New England. And I know that's the premise of this
hour because I also I don't want to I don't
want you to be sad, you know, I want you
to be happy. He's doing better than I thought would be.
Now look, I'm all for it, and and and and
just here's here's where I am on this thing before
we move on from the Steelers this weekend, not playing
(18:09):
the home sitting home, I know are are rabid. Audience
is waiting to hear where I am on this thing. Um,
there is a certain evident sloppiness and and and and
questionable situational I don't want to call it intelligence, but
(18:32):
for lack of a better word, that have been evident
throughout the season. Just look, I think you get what
you deserve in January. Your weaknesses eventually bubble up and
and they catch you. And I think the things that
that that have crept up with the Steelers and big
(18:54):
spots over these last several years. What you saw after
the Jeff Jesse James overturn again New England when they
weren't ready, they didn't have two plays ready. Tomlin's telling
them on the sideline, we gotta get we gotta get
second play, and it wasn't you know, it's clear that
Ben didn't walk on the field quite knowing the situation
(19:15):
as explicitly as you would want him to. That kind
of thing I was reminded of when they score a
touchdown to make it forty two to thirty five and
the shot on the sideline, the special team's coach Danny
Smith is running around and it just looked like it
was chaos on the Steelers sideline, like they just had
a long drive to get down the field to score
(19:38):
with two eights. Should know exactly what you're going to
by the time that ball crosses the goal line. Levian
Bell scored on that little lateral. There's kind of a
neat play. Everyone should understand. Are we on side kicking
or not? What's the on side kick? And it just
looked like there was a moment of chaos. So your
kid chaos, no question that you should based on. Hey,
(20:00):
if we score at this time in the game, we're
doing this. If we scored this time of the game,
we're doing this. If we score at this time of
the game, we're doing this. And see that should all
be worked out during the week. That shouldn't be a
decision that that you're first thinking about there. But we
don't know if it was or wasn't. But you're saying,
but they're they're they're marching down the field like that.
(20:21):
It's got to be somebody's job during that drive to say,
all right, we score it with this much left on
the clock, what are we doing. You know you got
two time out. Theoretically, the theoretically the head coach in
that situation and say, hey, we score under this amount
of time, we're gonna kick it off. If we score
under this amount of time, we're gonna on side kick.
(20:41):
Whether you agree or disagree with the call, that should
be determined. But you know that's what Belichick's got a
guy up there, Ernie, Ernie at on me and god
knows how many other guys up there. You need a guy,
You need a guy. Everybody needs everybody. Somebody said, you
need a guy to move this forward because you have
answer to work out the Steelers king, that's it. I
need five minutes. Spiel's got to get this off my
(21:02):
chest and then we could talk about Championship Sunday the
whole rest of the hour. It's the Alleghany the minute.
That's where we're. Five minutes is all I needed. That's it,
all right, Let's talk about the Jaguars defense. Okay, they're awesome,
would you like to talk? I love watching them. They're fast,
they're fearless, they didn't care that they're playing the Steelers.
(21:23):
From the sound we've heard, they did give up forty
two points. Well, a lot of great individual price. I
mean that would say, Okay, I'll give you credit here
because only by the grace of Antonio Brown's acrobatics were
there that many points scored by the Steelers. Because the
coverage that was on top of him as he was
making those catches and Ben was putting incredible balls on
his hands, well were amazing. There's one thing to discuss here,
(21:47):
which and I don't know what his injury status is,
but they lost Gibson in that game, right Gibson. Do
you know if he's Outshawn Gibson. We do not know
yet because I think he's a vital piece of you know,
people never talk about him be because you know, they
have a lot of other great players. He's a really
good player. He's predominantly been the tight end matchup when
(22:07):
they play cover one, meaning man coverage. Um, so you know,
obviously I don't know whether he's in or out, but
he's an important piece to that defense. What what did
tell go on? What what makes him so well? Like
I said, he matches up, he's throughout the season, he's
been there. They're tight end matchup when they play man. Plus,
(22:27):
he has really excellent deep safety ability. I mean when
they signed him from Cleveland. He was actually a very
good player in Cleveland on some bad teams obviously, but
he was predominantly a free safety when they signed him,
and he was a very good free safety who could
read quarterbacks and routes he led. He might have led
the league interceptions one year. I think he had seven
(22:48):
or eight one year. So he's a very versatile safety.
And I think if he does not play, that's a
meaningful loss against New England. Well, particularly, I mean who's
covering Gronkowski And that's gonna be an interesting question because
they have players they probably feel can I mean, Miles
Jack is very athletic and he's two forty five pounds.
(23:11):
Gibson has been their tight end matchup. Barry Church has
at times matched up to tight ends as sort of
the a more traditional strong safety. So you know, we'll see, uh,
you know, they could They could easily believe in this
game that they have two really good corners who can
match up man to man on the outside, and that
(23:31):
they could have different double team concepts on Gronkowski depending
on where he lines up. I mean, if he's split wide,
it'll be hard to double him. But when he's more
inside the formation, they may have some double team concepts.
It's simple, right, You've got to not let Gronkowski beat you.
You take care of him if you're Jacksonville, and then
we'll worry about everything else next. Seems to me he's
(23:53):
their most dangerous weapon is but we talked the guy
we talked about last week, Dion Lewis. Um it seemed
as if the Patriots offense, like the ignition got turned
on on Saturday night against Tennessee when they went to
Dion Lewis. It was like they had the first couple
of drives last month, six weeks of the season, both
(24:16):
as a runner and as a receiver. But in that game,
it took them a little while to get going. You
had a couple early drives, Brady wasn't quite engaged, and
then Dion Lewis boom like a thirty yards screen and
then just Dion here, he's he's a jitterbug and he
just sort of take the thing into gear. I think
what you're going to see a lot of is this
(24:36):
is a fast flow defense they're playing against. I think
at times they get ahead of themselves. I think at
times they don't play with their eyes real well. And
I think you're gonna see a lot of misdirection concepts,
a lot of spread concepts. You're gonna you're gonna get
They're going to try to get this defense to have
to see things, see a lot of things, and react
to a lot of things because they're very reactive, particularly
(24:59):
tell Vin Smith, Miles Jack. You know when they're in
their nickel and it's and it's Miles Jack and Smith.
Obviously those guys are very fast and very athletic. But
I think they're going to feel that they can get
them moving in directions that the Patriots would like them
to move. But ultimately it is not the right way
to move if you're Jacksonville. I guess Jacksonville has the
speed to neutralize that kind of a player. But he's
(25:24):
almost become like the security blanket that Edelman was last year. Lewis. Yeah,
just Cooks too, that don't forget. I mean someone's got
will they travel with Cooks? You know, I don't know
because Ramsey doesn't always travel. He didn't travel with Brown
on every snap this week, so he's not necessarily going
to travel. They feel very good about Boyer. I mean, look,
(25:46):
boy A theoretically got beat on two touchdowns, but it's
not as if he was beat where you you know,
you you went, Wow, he's nowhere near Antonio Brown. I
mean he wasn't you know, beat, So boy is a
good corner. Yeah, I mean it was interesting to pay Atriots.
Wide receivers did not make much of an impact in
that game. No, they did not. And then look, one
of the great things about the Patriots, and it's why
(26:07):
they're the Patriots is they can you know, and we
always just talk about Brady and obviously he's great, that's
not the point. But they can win in a variety
of ways using different people. They don't just have one
way that they have to wine, you know. So that's
that's what makes them so interesting. Now granted you could say,
well that's because a Brady and he can do anything,
(26:27):
and maybe it is. But the point is they don't
just line up and say, well, are often starts with
this and if we don't do that, boy, we're in trouble.
They can go about it in many different ways depending
on the opponent. We always with Brady talk about while
you have to get to him with the four man
pass rush, and you've got to pressure them up the middle,
which everybody talks about it. This defense seems particularly well
(26:50):
suited to give that a shot, yes, and and Belichick
will know that. And my guess is you'll see a
lot of quicker game stuff, like I said, maybe some
horizontal stuff. So the ball comes out and particularly early,
because the last thing that they want to have happened
is Brady get hit early. But it's hard to imagine
the ball coming out any quicker than Saturday night. It
(27:10):
struck me it's amazing how quickly it comes out. Well
because the Titans, by the way, and I know it
didn't show up in that game because of the way
the Patriots played, But the Titans have a very good
pass rush as well. They were I think third or
fourth in the league in sacks and and obviously Belichick
and his staff knew that. So you want the ball
to come out the last. They do not want Brady
(27:31):
hit early because Brady, as great as he is, you
mean early in the game or early in the early
and then drop early in the game. And and look
every quarterback. Hey, I remember when I first started working
with Ron Jaworski here and one of the first things
he told me, and I've never forgotten, is he said,
no quarterback likes to get hit. And you know, Brady
is just like just like Peyton Manning. You know, everybody
(27:52):
said that's it's It's true with Brady. The last thing
the Patriots want is Brady to take shots early in
the game. It's not like our old friend Jim Kelly.
Jim Kelly once told me that, Hey, I want to
take that first shot that gets me in the game.
I don't think Tom Brady feels that way. If I'm
a Jaguars fan, what gives me what's my number one
source of hope heading to heading up there to slay
(28:15):
the dragon? Well, I think it has to be a
defensive game for them because offensively, quite honestly, they can
really only win one way, and that's with the run games,
the foundation and working off that, as I said a
while ago, to limit Bordles exposure. I mean, Bartles may
(28:36):
have had two straight dropbacks in this game this past week,
you know, when it was learning long. Other than that,
there's no straight drop backs. It's play action, it's boot action,
it's some kind of multiple backfield action, it's easy throws.
You know. It's they're not asking him to do a
lot even when they throw the ball. So it's they're
really trying to limit what he's asked to do within
(29:00):
the context of lining up with base personnel and and
running the football. And if they can't have some success
running the ball, it'll be difficult. Is for Nett healthy? Well,
he got hurt again this week, UMF for Net to me,
(29:22):
and I really like for Nett when he came out
and he certainly had a solid rookie season. Um he
almost to me, he embraces contact, he looks for it.
He enjoys the physical part of the game. He's a
great finisher. There are times when I watch him though,
where I think his vision needs to get a little
better where there's a place to cut into and he
(29:44):
doesn't do it because I think he really likes the
physicality and he likes to just drive into people. And
maybe he'll learn that. But I thought he left some
yards on the field this weekend. I just thought he
wasn't the same player after the injury. I thought he
did not have I mean, I mean that eighteen yard touchdown.
I mean that the burst and velocity he showed on
(30:07):
that that's that's special. And the leaping ability on the
first touchdown, he looked like he took off from the
four yard line. So the Jags are not gonna ask
Bordles to do too much. I don't think they can
because the last thing they want to have happened in
a game like this is just turned the ball over early.
So what they're hoping because they have to be realistic
now again, they're gonna look at the game against Pittsburgh
(30:29):
and and think, well, wow, we can come in and
maybe we can score. But they had a great first drive,
as Cosnos with with those three consecutive passes, which were
all the kinds of passes I just spoke about. Those
were low risk plays for the very low risk plays
for the quarterback, and they were able to score. If
they can do that, then they can set a tempo.
But they're not going to ask Bortles early in the
(30:52):
game to take five steps, seven steps straight, straight drops
and and try to stick balls eighteen yards down the field.
That's not going to happen. Um. Well, I was gonna
say this is the part of the show where we
might want to mention Doug Morone, who I mean, he
painted a little bit of a masterpiece there Sunday to
to dominate that football game. They really dominated, I mean
(31:15):
take away were absolutely ridiculous touchdown passes by Roethlisberger to
his superstars. And you got to give them a ton
of credit for that opening drive, as I said, because
it got Bordles comfortable and it got the Steelers defense
a little shaky. I had a question about that opening drive.
They essentially passed their way down the field. They had
(31:36):
first in gold from roughly the seven yard line, and
then they buckled down and ran it four times. It
was as if they didn't want Boardles to give away
at least three. Well, that that's quite a jackal on
high act. Even on that first drive. I've been given
the confidence of those few places. Though Paul, as I said,
we're a low risk, they weren't. It wasn't like they
were putting the ball in boardles hands. They were all
(31:59):
out of base person and now they all had some
form of run action. I think two of them had
boot action. They were very low risk, basic one read throws.
Were they any anything that he called at the line
or were they all pre don't think so. You know, again,
I never know that for sure, but I think they
were called plays. All right, Let's talk about the other
side of the bracket then, and the other two quarterbacks
(32:20):
and what they're going to be asked to do, or
what the Eagles and the Vikings are willing to ask
their two quarterbacks Falls and Keena, because as we said
last week, you can't hide your quarterback. In January, we
started the show talking about the situations that evolved during
a game that players have to play their way out
of if their teams are going to win. What are
the Eagles and Vikings willing to ask Nick Foles in
(32:41):
case Keenum to do in order to advance to the
Super Bowl. Well, I thought what Doug Peterson did this
past week was brilliant, and people might not think so
because they only scored fifteen points, but I thought it
was absolutely phenomenal because again, his throws too, were pretty
for the most part, with a few exceptions and give
falls a ton of credit, were very basic throws. It
(33:02):
was a lot of what they call RPOs run pass option,
where he was reading a second level linebacker based on
his fake in the backfield, and if the linebacker moved
a certain way, he knew he had the throw. But
they were slamm throws. These are not difficult. The throws
themselves are not difficult, and they did a great job
with that. They had that field goal drive in the
third quarter where Foals I think, was five for seven
(33:24):
for seventy yards. He did hit one big third down
to Jeffrey where he climbed the pocket beautifully and made
an excellent throw, and you need some of those. But
for the most part, they played this game fairly close
to the best Offensively. It was a perfect example of
how rushing yardage doesn't necessarily correlate to controlling the game. Running.
(33:46):
Their three backs had twenty five carries for seventy nine yards,
But when you watch the game both live and when
I watched it on tape, they were clear times in
the game where you felt as if the Eagles run
game was controlling the game, even though the yard wasn't
a big number. Well here's a number the last three
quarters of that game. Eagles pass attempts, twelve rush attempts. Yeah,
(34:10):
that was very, very surprising, very and it was not
difficult throws. I mean, that's the thing. That's why I
think Doug Peterson did a great, great job because they
did that. It was a function again if the defense.
They were playing a very fast flow, reactive defense, and
some of those were screens. They were a great screen team,
(34:30):
a great screen team, and they had that thirty two
yard to j h i Uh in the fourth quarter.
I think that's set up their final field goal drive. Uh.
And they set that up with a nine yard screen
I think on their second possession of the game. So, yes,
these were they were not difficult throws. But you have
to give false credit because when you do drop back,
you still have to complete passes. Did the game that
(34:52):
Peterson call this weekend reflected departure from what he was
doing with Carson Wentz. Well, they're not asking fALS to
make the kinds of throws that Wentz gets asked to make.
In fact, he missed one and it was a third
down throw to Burton. I forget when it happened in
the game, but Burton was wide open on a corner
route and he just he overthrew him. So Peterson's evolved,
(35:14):
He's he's rolling with what he has. As we said
that Dance of the Girl has your understanding that both
the strengths of your your talent and the limitations of
your talent. And that's what coaching is. I mean, Nick
Foles is a professional quarterback. He's played in this league,
but you have to understand that there's certain things he
can't do well. So all these throws had a quick
(35:36):
almost all of them had a quick game element, meaning
that it was a quick drop and the ball came
out fast. Because one thing fALS has shown not to
be great at is the longer he's in the pocket,
the less effective he is. So you want the ball
to come out, so you're trying to design pass game
concepts where the ball can come out. Now what they
did in this game, is it different than their typical
(36:00):
offense that they would have run with with went Well,
I think it is, but we'll never know that. But
I think it is because it's like we were talking about,
you have to figure this out during the week. We're
not going to be able to run all night against
this defense and helped to win. Uh so we better
figure out a way to to to have it. But
we're gonna reasonable pass. We're gonna have to throw the ball.
(36:21):
So how do we best go about throwing the ball
without exposing our quarterback? That's basically the premise. We're gonna
here's here's the guy we got, let's figure out how
to put him in a position. It's just like we
talked about with Bartles, same deal. This is the guy.
This is you know you danced with the girl who
brung you. This is the guy who brung you. So
now he's going to have to throw. So how do
(36:42):
we maximize the efficiency of the quarterback? All right? Same
question for Keenam now because now he's beyond that. Now
he's on the road, but he's beyond that. He's explain
he's more advanced as a quarterback right now. I'm not
saying he's Tom Brady or Drew Brees, but you can
line up and play with case Keenum at this point,
you don't have to you don't have to minimize your
(37:02):
concepts because of Keenum. Uh Greg laid out last week
that that he told us Enim has had a very
very good season. He's accurate, he's he's there, he can move,
he's making winning plays. He did it, I mean lost
in that final throw. And again not just that throw
that that reflects and his representative of Case Keenum. But
(37:25):
that was not a five yard throw. Now, he that
ball had to be thrown down the field with accuracy,
and it was totally agree and with the game, with
the season on the line, it was a big time throw.
There was a big time throw. And if that throw
was made by quarterbacks we tend to think of as winners,
we'd be raving about Case Keenum. But because the narrative
(37:45):
in many ways has already been written in the minds
of many about Keenum, that he's a journeyman backup, I
haven't heard him spoken about a lot today. People are
talking about digs far more than Keenum and the mis
tackle and the mis tackle correct well, until so so,
Keenum had two would be game winning drives there that
obviously the right, but prior to that insane finish where
(38:07):
we had great throw on that one as well to
feeling I think on a third day that throw is unbelievable.
Unbelievable throw. And another throw which I think was also
in the fourth quarter to Jarius right for I think
twenty seven yards to the other sideline, and this is
after Also he had a terrible intersect that really turned
the game when it was sevent seven. And again, a
(38:30):
trait you're looking for is the short memory, a spot
like that, make the mistake, get back on the field
and don't compound. I won't rehash Keenum's traits because we
did that last week. But he's played far better than
the perception of him. He's played really solid NFL quarterback
(38:52):
and he's he's not just a journeyman backup. I would
urge everyone to go back to all our thing. I
mentioned this last week, but show eight, season two of
Amazon's All or Nothing, produced by our crew here at
NFL Films, we went and shot an interview with case
(39:13):
Kingdom and his wife in the suburbs of Minneapolis after
he signed with the Vikings as a third string quarterback,
and there was nothing in his face that day that
would have indicated Yeah, about nine months from now, I'll
be playing for a trip to the Super Bowl here
(39:36):
in Minnesota. You know, he was he was a guy
who always believed in himself, clearly thought he could be
a starter in this league. But to see where he
has gone from in a span of less than a year,
it's a great, great story. He's a good guy. Uh,
you know, he was great with us, but you know
(39:58):
that's that's beside the point. But the kind of guy
that's very, very easy to root for. We have a
lot of that in this NFC Championship game. We really
do with Zimmer, uh, with with Peterson, with a lot
of the Eagles players who have been terrific in the
community off the field. This NFC game is is full
of good stories, good people. Uh. There there're no but
(40:21):
either team wins. There's a lot a lot of good
stories you're gonna be hearing about in those two weeks
leading up to the Super Bowl. Zimmers the guy I
thought of first as the play was happening, because not
only is in Minnesota, which is a hard luck football town,
but here's Zimmer, a guy who's who's only been there
four years. Two years ago they host that home playoff
game they got the game winning I think it's like
(40:42):
a twenty seven yard field that Blair Walsh. We had
a great shot of Zimmer on the sideline just he
hung his head in reaction like he just was so incredulous.
But here it is two years later, that play saves
their season where they're the number two seeds. They have
had this incredible year. He's built an amazing defense. I know,
by the way, here's a guy that's I think sixty
(41:02):
one years old. He waited thirty five years before he
became a head coach. And now we're in this era
where we forget, you know, we have the the mcveigh's
and the mc daniels and the even going back to
when when Gruden did it was still kind of real
or still kind of new. But you had Raheem Morris,
you had Eric Mangini, had all these the young thirty
something coordinators. Mike Zimmer coached thirty five years longer than
(41:24):
McVeigh was even alive before he got to be a
head coach. And now he's the fruits of that labor.
Is he's one game away from being in the super Bowl,
and that miraculous play as he knows after spending his
life in football, makes the razor thin difference between being
home this week because if if that play didn't happen
a lot a lot of well, the talk would have
been about Drew Brees, obviously, but but the fact that
they had given up that that seventeens year old lead
(41:45):
when their defense is supposed to be so and not
supposed to be it was phenomenal and it still is,
but that would have been the talk, is there? So?
So the Vikings offense did go dead for a while
there in the second half. Is there anything you could
glean looking at the tape? Well, it was an odd
second half. They didn't go dead, and it's the way
you're thinking of it. They started out with a long
(42:07):
drive to start the third quarter, and I think they
missed a field goal. I forget what howe about missed
a field goal? Yeah, it was a long drive. And
then the Saints followed with a long drive. So the
second possession for the Vikings didn't start until one minute
and remained in the third quarter. Cause so it seemed
(42:28):
that way, but they really didn't go dead. It's just
the game altered because that the Saints started to move
the ball with some sustainability on offense, and then he
makes the two drives, so Kingdom's ready to go. Yeah,
he's just been really good. Is there anything where do
you start on this game? Now? Uh, you know, we've we've, we've,
we've hit a few different points on this. But this
(42:49):
NFC game is is not one that anybody expected. No,
and I think barring special teams plays turnovers, I would
expect it would not be a high scoring game because
I think both the fenses are very very good. The
Vikings don't have a consistent run game, although they have
to try to run the ball like they do every week.
I mean, Otavius Murray did have nineteen brushes this week,
(43:10):
only fifty yards, but he did carry nineteen times. They'll
have a tough go running the ball against the Eagles defense.
I think that the Eagles will have a real tough
time running the ball against the Vikings defense. This is
a really good defense, despite what Breeze did to them.
You know, obviously he's Drew Brees. I think the Eagles
will really struggle offensively to move the ball on any
(43:33):
kind of consistent basis. So I think this becomes almost
a Doug Peterson game in how we can try to
create some offense. We have another safety injury potentially in
this game if Sendejo doesn't yes who I've been talking
about him for two years. I love Sendejo and because
of Harrison Smith, he does not get much credit at all.
(43:53):
I think you can make the argument that could be
the best safety duo in the NFL if he cannot play.
You know what, do we know what his injury? He
went off for a concussion. You know, he kind of
got knocked out on well. They do have a guy
interption to play with the random Mike Thomas ran into. Yeah,
it was an it was an accidental player. Actually, they
(44:13):
bringing Anthony Harris, number forty one from Virginia, who's actually
a really solid player. They're very fortunate because this guy
is a solid player that the issue he had coming
out of Virginia is that he was kind of an
in between kind of player. He was only about a
hun pounds and he looks at when you look at him,
there's not a lot of size to him and girth,
(44:36):
but he's actually a pretty good player. Now, maybe that
limits some of the things they can do. I can't
speak to that ad percent because he hasn't quite played
enough for me to know specifically how they use him,
but they're they're not putting in a guy who can't play.
I'm interested in the Eagles. I was so impressed by
the Eagles defense, and I kept thinking the weapons that
they were contending with last week relative to what they
(44:59):
it seems like, as much as you can gage it
on paper, the Vikings aren't bringing the offensive weapons here
that the Falcons did. Good receivers, I mean, obviously Julio
is great, but Theelan and digs are really really good,
and Kyle Rudolph's quality tight end um The Eagles are
are a single high safety defense. They play that a
(45:19):
high percentage of the time, more zone than man. They
don't match up, so Mills is the left corner, Darby
is the right corner. When they do play man, it's
normally Malcolm Jenkins on the tight end, so he'll be
on Kyle Rudolph when they do play man to man coverage.
I think a wild card in this game is McKinnon.
(45:40):
I really like McKinnon in the past game, and I
think again, it's not that he's gonna catch nine balls
for a hundred twenty yards, but This is not going
to be that kind of game anyway. So I think
McKinnon could be an intriguing wild card in the past
game this Yeah, it could be ten six. He never
(46:00):
tuck the whole way defensive football on the unlikely of
the two of the playoffs here in January. One matchup
that the Eagles are going to have to seriously consider
how they want to handle is their left tackle of
eye tie against Griffin. Because again, quick game stuff, you
(46:22):
don't need to do anything because the ball would be out.
But if it gets into a situation where they need
deeper drops, you know, second and long, third and long,
whatever the situation demands, they're going to have to either
chip or keep some bodies in, which, of course then
limit your pass game because the past games about numbers.
You'd like to have five guys out. But if you
can't do that, you can't do that because protection must
(46:44):
come first. What did you see if j Agi this
past weekend? He seemed to me to be less explosive
and dynamic, and I remember him in my end. He's
not explosive, He's he's relentless, he's physical, he's powerful, He's
not explosives. He's and I'm really surprised because he was
good at this at Boise State. But he doesn't catch
(47:04):
the ball very well in the NFL, and he hasn't,
but he was good at it in college. But he's
a tough, physical inside runner. I actually thought and spoke
about it, and I obviously was wrong. I thought it
would have been a Legarrett Blunt game. They made a
Giant Blunt. He was the feature back pounding it up inside.
The Eagles have a really multiple run game. Now. I
(47:24):
charted and and I can't recite every single one because
they were about ten of them. They are about ten
different runs the Eagles ran in that game. This week,
they have a really multiple run game. You described the
gis powerful and big and strong, relentless, relentless. What's the
distinction then, between him and Blunt? Um, Giant's got quicker feet.
(47:45):
I mean, he's not explosive the way you think of explosive,
but he's got quicker feet than Blunt. But I thought
this would be a Blunt game because I thought they'd
attack downhill, which they did, but they used a Giant
instead of Blunt. Okay, any final you know, last week,
one thing we said to look for was the Falcons
red zone offense. We've been talking about them for the
(48:08):
entire and I think the first drive of the game,
the last drive drive, and those two two trips to
the red zone did them in in the end. They
struggled with it all season. To go back to where
we started here. Your weaknesses are eventually going to crop
up and bite you somewhere along the way here in January.
(48:29):
What is going to crop up and bite one of
these teams? What what can we look for that this
team or that team's got to overcome on Sunday to
get to Minneapolis. You talked about the red zone. This
last game against Pittsburgh. They got to the red zone
five times. They scored five touchdowns. Now we all know
(48:52):
and this is not profound, but it's it relates to
the game. You can't beat New England by kicking field goals, Nope.
So then you get into play calling and and there's
a number of things that happened in the red zone,
depending on whether you're in the far red zone, the
high red zone meeting between the ten and the twenty,
or the tight red zone meeting the ten to the
goal line. We saw that time he behind in touchdown
(49:15):
which that was an awesome an awesome play called given
the way they played the entire game. See, that was
a great place. So let's let's do this. This was
this was the touchdown, a fourth quarter touchdown. And are
they in the high red zone? Yes, it was fourteen
yard touchdowndown And it was they lined up in the
straight I two personnel meeting, two backs, two tight ends.
(49:37):
They've been lining up in that all game. It was
a second down play, not a third down play. They
showed straight is so run action, which they've done probably
ten twelve times in the game. And Williams and Golden
hit that so hard because everything about the player looked
like run and they just sneaked. Um, they snuck behind
(49:59):
in through on the short seem that's an old West
Coast play. Williams ended up on his face. I think
Golden did about three pirouetts. Somebody was Williams. It might
have been Williams who went and literally tried to tackle
from that. Yeah. Yeah, I just ended up in the
backfield on his face. I mean, they so got that
defense on. That was a great place. So in the
(50:22):
red zone, you're dealing with a number of issues. You're
dealing with can you line up and run the ball
with physicality? Um, then you talk about plays that have
a a deception m direction element to them, Like the
week before when Atlanta scored in the red zone to
beat the Rams with the Julio Jones play, that was
a misdirection deception play. You know, this week when they
didn't score, they pretty much said, we have Julio Jones.
(50:45):
He's better than anyone who can cover him. So we're
gonna basically call a one receiver route and our guys
better than your guy. And it didn't work out. That's
but that's what they essentially called on fourth down. There
was no there was no you know, with the Eagles.
Everybody made a big deal about all the Eagles knew
the play. The Falcons didn't care that they knew the play.
They had Julio Jones. They thought he's better than Jalen Mills.
(51:08):
We're just gonna throw We're just gonna throw it to
Julio Jones. I mean, there are worst ideas. No, no,
I'm not. I'm not saying they were wrong. I'm saying
that this whole debate about all the Eagles knew the
play is irrelevant. The Falcons. Didn't care whether the Eagles
new the play. That was the matchup. Stop it right.
I'm just glad that we added to our vocabulary again
last week. We had what second reaction this week, now
(51:29):
we have the high, the high red zone and the tight.
I didn't know that we had now two zones within
the red two sectors. Did you know r p O.
That was a new one for me, Paul, everybody knows
r PO. Just trying to keep up here because but yeah, so,
I mean, red zone always becomes critical. Look, all you
have to do is look at the Steelers Jags game
to talk about red zone and third down because I
(51:52):
would bet all of us I know, I did did
not think that if Jacksonville were to win that game.
I thought it would be a seventeen game. No one
would see saw Jacksonville winning that game. So so you
get to third down. They were eight for fourteen on
third down. You go to the red zone, five trips,
five touchdowns. Tom Tomlin's now got playoff defeats to Tim
(52:12):
Tebow and Bortles on his ledger. That's that's a tough
I'll let you handle that. That's tough. He's got. He's
got a lot of work to do. Is there anything else?
Uh a f C or NFC. I think we're I
think the way we need to finish this this week. Um.
Having added to our vocabulary, is you know, is there
(52:36):
an official name for the for the miracle in Minneapolis. Oh,
I've heard Minneapolis miracle, Minnesota miracle with six and there's
oh with six. That's pretty good. I mean it's pretty mean,
but it's pretty good. I don't think that because you
don't usually name a miracle after somebody's mistakes for the Yeah,
(52:56):
you don't. I don't. I can't think of any miracles
named on the on the steak what and they've been
seven heaven. I guess that's the name of the play.
That's not that's not sticking. I think it's gonna be
the because the radio guy the Vikings Turn Paul Allen
immediately called at the Minneapolis a miracle twice because that's
(53:17):
gonna be in all our highlights, and then radio call
is going to be played a thousand times. That's gonna live. Yeah,
I mean we're gonna, we're gonna be We're gonna be
making it. Uh, it's gonna be plastered across your television.
I mean, that's one of the greatest plays ever given
the moment, because wasn't that the first play in playoff history,
the first walk off touchdown for the fourth quarter and
(53:39):
postseason history? And it's can we just underscored again? It's Minnesota.
They have the chance to host the Super Bowl, a
franchise that has had more playoff, more heart defeat. It's
almost happy about here, Paul, because again with the way
it was ten degrees with a wind chill of minus
six during the game, the game's inside. Yeah, but you
have to get there, all fellas. We got one more Sunday,
(54:02):
and I'm pretty excited this Championships Sunday. You're feeling good. Yeah,
you know, I know that cook As I said, I
was looking at Twitter. So everybody has pretty much decided
that Brady's winning the Super Bowl again because of the
other three quarterbacks. But you know what, I guess that's
why they played the games, because we didn't think Jacksonville
was going to be here, did we? It is it is,
as my my brother termed it, the Velvet Gauntlet for
(54:24):
for Brady. If the mark the Mariota bordles the full
slash keeno. But you made a great point about case
Keenum that you know, nine months ago you're interviewing him
when he signs with Minnesota's a third string quarterback. And
now he's not only playing in the NFC Championship Game,
but had a really good season. Hey, fifteen years ago,
(54:47):
that was that was tom Brady was a backup. Nobody
thought Tom Brady was beating Kurt Warner in the super Dome.
That is correct, February two thousand two. So you are,
and things possible. But it is a striking march to
a potential sixth Lombardi for the greatest of all time.
(55:09):
That would be pretty impressive. Boy, that's hard to do.
Tom Brady, tom Brady and three guys. Good luck Jacksonville.
You're gonna need it. Well, no faith, no, I look,
I think Jacksonville is is a really good football team.
They are and they're really really well coached. Uh, the
(55:30):
talent on that defense is really good, spectacular. Let's enjoy
some defensive football, folks. It's great. It's great to see
we've got all caught up in the quarterbacks in the
passing game these last few years. I mean, the Broncos
did it with defense two years ago and and the
and the Panthers had a great defense. The Seattle defense
was tremendous. I think three of the last four years
(55:53):
the number one overall scoring defense won the Super Bowl,
and here we have three of the top four. So
again we're looking at at a potentially defensive dominated team
winning the Super Bowl. So the conclusion is defense still
wins championships or can get you to one anyway. All right, kids,
(56:18):
Thanks Greg? Alright, that was fun hit. It got one
more of these to go, PAULI, Greg, one more of
these next week setting up the Super Bowl. Thanks Rich,
Thanks Mike, our producer and our engineer. Let's get ready
(56:41):
for championships Sunday. People. Follow NFL Films on Twitter, on Instagram,
on YouTube, on all your favorite social channels. Follow Greg
Costell at greg COSL on Twitter. Catch the NFL Matchup
Show on ESPN this weekend, and tune in next week
for another NFL Films hood where we will break down
championships and look forward to Super Bowl. Thanks everyone. M
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