January 6, 2025 • 60 mins
Legendary Linebacker London Fletcher and Bram Weinstein try and catch their breath after another spectacular Commanders victory - this time in a 23-19 win over the Dallas Cowboys to end the regular season. They discuss how Dan Quinn’s detailed coaching has the team ready for any situation. Then, it’s all about Marcus Mariota and how he was able to provide some magic in Jerry World. Next, Big Fletch gives out his Commanders Heavyweight Championship Belt as Terry McLaurin vies for the title with his record breaking performance. Finally, it’s a preview of the rematch in Tampa Bay against the Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs on Sunday Night Football!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On this edition of The Booth Review. How about some
Marcus magic in Dallas London.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, and we got a new contender for Big Fletch's
Heavyweight Commands Championship belt.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And we've got a playoff game to get ready for
a rematch from week one against Tampa.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You ready come on?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Playoffs all coming up next on The Booth Review.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome into the regular season ending playoff preview edition of
The Booth Review Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I'm Bram Wystein with Big Fletch, London Fletcher.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We are brought to you by Microsoft Surface Powering a
better game and we're both remote London of courses at
home and Charlotte. I didn't come into the studio today
because we're all snow me's this week with all the snow,
and I got to tell you London, we pulled off
two buzzer beaters yesterday Marcus Mario and Terry McLaurin and
the pilot who got us back from Dallas before there
(00:58):
was a flake on.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
The ground last night. It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hey, that's true to form, man, Would you expect anything
less from this team? And obviously that pilot just getting in,
getting you guys in safely. That was the main thing
that I'm glad to hear that you're safe at your home. Now,
I will say this, man, brav you say you tell
me you're tough, and you could toughing it out and
(01:22):
head to the park and record from the studio.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I could, but I don't know how much you remember
about the plowing services of the Washington, DC metro area.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
They weren't gonna let me get to the park.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So that's that's a DMV issue that needs to be
dealt with, not a me issue.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Right, okay, all right, anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
To the flight crew once again, they fall under the
DQ mantra of anybody anywhere, any time got us back
in time to do this show, so I appreciate that.
All Right, we got a lot to talk about today. Obviously,
we know who the playoff opponent is, Tampa. We saw
them in week ones. Will get to a lot of
that today, but let's start with what happened in Dallas,
(02:03):
which is the end of the season was on the nose,
true to form. Magic again it is every week. It's uncanny,
it's amazing. I've never seen a team as clutch as
this throughout the course of a season.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
No, not at all, And what for four straight games
that have come down to the final play and just
the way this season has gone. And you mentioned the
magic in this particular game. We've gone accustomed to it
being Jade and Daniels producing at the end of the games,
but it was Mariyoda coming in out off the bench,
(02:40):
coming out of the bullpen, and really the offense didn't
have anything going in the first half, and he came
in and was able to really spark and he made
some plays, you know, the touchdown run, the fourth down
play that he made right before throwing the touchdown of
Terry Man. He made some outstanding plays defensively, we'll get
(03:01):
it to that, and how they were able to you know,
the parks they played and helping us get that victory yesterday.
But another great finish. If you're watching the Commander's fan, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Let's go backwards.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I want to start with the last drive so again,
and I want to say this first because now they're
at the end of the season and I don't think
it's been acknowledged yet that for all these things to happen,
obviously the players have to make great plays and the
decisions have to be made quickly and efficiently. Which is
what I want to get to here for a second.
Like this team made a big deal of bringing in
(03:37):
people to support the staff, to make game management decisions,
to make time management decisions. Dan Quinn's been open about
talking about this type of stuff. Dave Guardy was brought
in as a rules expert to help them understand the
officiating crews that they're working with, the game conditions they're
working with. And I think that the payoff of that
(03:57):
has been obvious because it's, you know, like to credit
the players. Obviously they have to execute all this stuff
and do these things, but the way that they've handled
all of these late game situations have allowed them the
opportunity to execute it. And yesterday was perfect example of it,
where they got one time out. They know they have
to use it before they probably really where they want to.
(04:21):
They know they only have one play, they know they
have to spike the ball. They know that they can't
actually like regroup and take a time out and think
about what they want to do. They call themselves into
a one on one with their best receiver and execute
the play. The operation deserves some credit here because they're
not just it's not miracles every week that they're winning
(04:43):
by they're executing properly, and it starts on the sideline
and up in the booth. Who's ever is working with
them to get through all these endgame situations as well.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, well, go back. You've talked about going back, go
back to back in the early winter when Josh Are
had this press conference and he talked about winning on
the fringes because everybody's operating from the same salary cap.
They talked about winning on the fringes outside, so things
that what it's from an analytical analytics standpoint, nutrition standpoints,
(05:16):
sports and science. In this instance, we're talking about you
mentioned bringing in somebody to work with the game management
piece of it, the times, all those types of things
that they've hired and brought into onto staff to assist
in those processes, and they practice these situations all the time.
(05:36):
DQ talked about that, how they practice these scenarios all
the time, so it's not like you don't get it
to yesterday's game and that's the first time you've practiced
these scenarios. They practiced these things in mini camps, training camp.
They still continue to practice these scenarios in the regular season,
so when the moment comes it's not too big for
(05:57):
them because they've done it so many times. They've hurts
for these moments so many times. I'm sure they called
two plays. Hey, this to play, we're gonna have to
spike it, We'll have to call this time out, whatever
this case may be. And there was no question in
my mind that Terry was going to be the guy
who got that ball at the he was going to
(06:19):
get the opportunity. I look at it like this, you're
gonna give your guy, your best player, a chance to
win the game. Or obviously, if we didn't he didn't
catch it, you kick the field going and we go
to overtime. But the kolos to them in the operation
and them just being ready to execute because they've done
these things so many times prior to yesterday.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, it's funny you said this in the air and
it's the truth of it too. How many times did
Marcus Mario to actually practice that throw to Terry McLaurin
over the last what six months? It had to be rare,
Like when was he ever getting reps with him? And
he never was.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It's amazing, very rare.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And we talked to Terry about it and he mentioned
when we interviewed him in the post game, and he
talked about how earlier in the game, him and Marcus
they tried the same play and the ball was a
little bit flat or whatever it did, they didn't connect.
It was the timing was a little off. They got
(07:20):
to the sideline and Terry talked about, hey, what he
can do better for Marcus, and Marcus talked about, hey,
what he could do better to give Terry an opportunity
a better shot. So young guys even working it out
on the sideline, but throughout the course of the week,
your backup quarterback is I've been on teams where the
backup quarterback may not get one rep with the with
(07:42):
the starters doing the practice week, and then there's times
where he may get two reps in a particular period,
two reps out of a out of twelve plays or
whatever the case may be. So there's not gonna be
a situation where these guys have worked over and over
and over and over again to develop this type of time,
if that type of test throw, and for the kudos
(08:05):
to those guys to be able to pull it out
and make that adjustment from the first time that they
missed to obviously the game winner.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, and again, I just want to reiterate, like, this
doesn't happen over and over unless the entire operation is
prepared for these moments, like how many times with any
other example? We had one two weeks ago against Atlanta
where Rahie Morris is answering a lot of questions about
time management in both as against Washington for the usage
of timeouts or really the lack of usage of timeouts
(08:33):
that put them in adverse conditions and when they didn't
necessarily have to, or the more pronounced ones like the
Bears ones where they made no sense what they were
doing at the end of games and they lost games
because of it. People were fired over decisions that were made.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
There.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
This time management stuff, oftentimes it may not help you
win a lot of games. I think it has in
this case. Oftentimes it will prevent you from losing. And
in either case, like they just deserve a lot of
credit for being prepared for literally anything, because that's all
we've seen this year is literally anything could.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Happen anything, and that that that piece of it, and
it's not easy for I know a lot of fans
will look at these scenarios and say, man, he's the
head coach. You've been hired as the head coach for
a reason. You should understand these things. And it's so
much that goes into a football game in terms of
(09:29):
all the different things that you have to make sure
you address, You wrap the attention of details, the end
of game situation, the end of half situations, the all
the different things. I mean, we can look at it.
Even yesterday with Mike McCarthy, he has some questionable made
some questionable decisions end of half and also even at
(09:51):
the end of the game where they were think on
a fortune one, yeah, they and they opted to to
take a delay of game and punt as opposed to
maybe go for it. So they're they're these things are
not easy. But for the entire organization and everybody who's
involved with these elements, and you know, hey, we're going
(10:11):
to study the heck out of these scenarios and and
this is how we want to We got this much time,
these too, these timeouts, This is sittence in there. This
is when you want to call the time out. All
those types of things that you that you look for.
And even I think there was a situation where it
was I believe it was Austin Eckler or somebody the
(10:34):
the it was a play to him. I think a
run or or a swing pass didn't gain any yards.
But the best thing Austin did was he got out
of bounds and that saved time. That saved ay, you know,
having to call the time out, all those type of things.
So even for the players to understand, like, hey, I
gotta get yards, aren't the of the utmost importance. The
(10:56):
time is of the utmost importance.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You know, I don't want to get sidetracked, but I
do since you mentioned the Cowboys things, there was an
inconsistency to that, which I think also like this team
is very consistent in how they want to approach things.
How many times during the season do we go, oh,
they're going for that, Like there was just no question
that they would because you just kind of knew as
things materialize, this is who they are. This is what
they're going to do. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work,
(11:21):
but this is who we are. So at the end
of the first half, Dallas goes for a fourth and
goal at the two with no time left for a
in lieu of a chip shot field goal. Washington makes
a great defensive play forces Trey Lance to reverse field,
doesn't get enough on the ball incomplete pass to Rico Dawele.
So the defense stood up in the red zone defense,
which I'll get into, which I think is really the
reason why they ended up winning yesterday, was a big
(11:42):
part of it. But then at the end of the
second half, they get extremely conservative, like they were throwing
caution to the win going for touchdowns at the end
of one half, when their winning time moment was to
go for.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
That fourth down.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I couldn't believe they actually punted it back to us.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I don't I don't understand it either. Again, you're you're
not playing for anything, why not go for it? But
that's a Dallas issue. I don't know if they won't
like even at the end of half. Is it a
situation where you're trying to get Trey last these these reps.
Is it you want to get him to see how
(12:21):
he operates in these type of situations. I don't know
if that was the case, But the decision to not
go forward at the end of the game for it
and what I'm I'm grateful and thankful that they that
they opted to do that, because you know, gave a
gave us a great chance. But and and they also
could have been looking at it like, hey, for the
most part, you know, the defense has done a good job.
(12:45):
We we're gonna lean on our defense and see if
they can close out this game and get a victory
for it. So these are these are questions that that
Dallas has to answer, Mike, Mike McCarthy has to answer.
But you know, from our standpoint, I'm glad they opted
to do that, and and and fortunate the way our
guys executed in that situations.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So these shows and these discussions go full circle. Sometimes
I want to go back to the fourth and one
play that Mariota made. So a few years ago when
he was the quarterback of the Falcons, came here, they
were getting set to play the Commanders and in you know,
reviewing them and getting set to play them. There's one
(13:24):
thing the superpower of his he's amazing at and I
would put him in the class with a couple of
others since zone read became a big deal in the NFL.
He Jalen Hurts a few years ago when they did
this often and Daniel Jones are amazing at the fake
on the zone read and keeping it. And yesterday in
(13:46):
a pivotal moment when they needed to have it, he
pulled down the superpower so much so that you could
see on tape one of the Cowboys members of the
secondary celebrating thinking they got to stop on fourth down,
and all of a sudden going, oh, you know what,
he's free and running down the field and looked like
(14:06):
he was going to score.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
He pulled off. This was old Mariota.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
He was amazing at this when he was a regular starter.
It was the most dangerous thing about his game was
the zone read keep because he is unbelievable at that
fake and they got it at just the right time yesterday.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Man, he's a you know how they talk about the
ten thousand hours type of situation where you become an
expert at something you need to be you know, have
ten thousand hours. Marcus Mariota probably has, let's call it
thirty or forty thousand hours of expertise and running the
zone read, going all the way back to his days
at Oregon, running under Chip Kelly and running that office.
(14:46):
So this is his world. He is an expert. He
can teach a pH lead level class and a higher
I don't know what's beyond a PhD. But he can
teach that type of class in the art of running
the zone, read the fake, and the ability. The Cowboys
had two guys they are ready to to stop that
(15:07):
that run play. One guy took the dive for the
running back and and another guy was there for Mariota.
But his ability to manipulate them getting getting loose and he's, uh,
let's call it maybe six years ago. I think Marcus scores.
But yeah, father Time is undefeated. So he got everything
(15:28):
he could got out of that out of that that
run play. But situation on wheareness an understanding hang and
this guy crashes down and you gotta you gotta make
that decision. He has to make that decision and a
split second when they hand the ball off to a
running to the running back or keep it.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
He's another one too. Like this season is about a
lot of things like rebirth, recalibration, whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
They want to call it. Everything's new.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
There were a lot of established, really good veteran some
that are going to be in the Hall of Fame
who decided to come here and he's one of them
that was sold and a couple of years ago, you know,
he left Atlanta early when he lost his job, the
last starting job that he had. You know, he's openly
I read a piece in the Washington Post where he
(16:15):
kind of opened up about needing to find the joy
of the game again. Zach Ertz the last couple of
weeks has talked about finding rekindling the joy of the
game by playing here again. We've talked a lot this
season about Bobby Wagner. He'd never played on the East Coast.
He was sold on Dan Quinn and Joe Whitten wanting
to come here to play. He's played like he's been
(16:36):
a leader on this team, a heartbeat of the team.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Austin Eckler came back.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
From what was a scary hit you know, about four
weeks ago, played yesterday. He gives me a lot of
hope for the rush offense now that he's available again.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Moving in to the postseason.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
There's a lot of stories here, but Marcus Marioti symbolizes
a lot to me too. I was so happy for him.
Like everybody saw that clip from a week ago, we're
right before the pass to zach Ertz to beat the Falcons,
He's the one standing there trying to get jade, you know,
stand up, get your win. Together one more play, make
it happen, win it for us. And I was like
it felt so right that when they showed the sideline
(17:12):
after Mariota does it, there's Jayden two arms up cheering
for his guy. I mean, this is a team in
every sense of the word, and like we have this
amazing rookie, We've got this new coach preaching something that
they've bought into, and we've got these veterans, some of
them that have been around the block wondering what's left
for them in the sport and doing things like this
(17:32):
because they love playing again. It's just the whole thing
is just such an incredible story, really.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It is, and it's a true testament to Dan Quinn.
You know, DQ and had Peter. They identified the players
and a lot of these players were guys that they
had intimate knowledge of. Some of the guys that they
brought in from Dallas. Brian Johnson worked with Mariota in Philadelphia,
so he knew him. Cliff Kingsbury had to connect with
(18:00):
with Zach erz O z with was with Quinn and
in Atlanta, so and Bobby Wagner had been with DQ
and also with the Ken Norton junior, the linebacker coach.
So a lot of them, a lot of the veteran
guys were they had intimate knowledge, they had worked with
these guys before. They knew what type of players they got.
These guys were. More importantly, they knew what type of
(18:21):
locker room guys they they are. They knew what type
of role they were playing building the type of culture
that they wanted to they want to build in Washington,
and that's extremely important. There's a lot of guys who
you know, you see the every time some guys released,
whether it's a think about the kid, uh, the Ante Johnson,
(18:42):
good football player for for he was with the Firk Steelers.
Guy went to Carolina, went to Baltimore Knights in Houston,
he just released everybody, Hey, we need a receiver, go
pick him. I don't know thet Johnson personally, but maybe
Washington is like, you know, this is not this guy
is not going to be a good fit for what
(19:03):
we want to do and how we want to operate
the culture that we want to bring in, the type
of guy that we want to have on our locker room.
And I'm just saying this from that standpoint. Again, I
don't know Deontae Johnson, great talent and heck of a
football player, but you have to make sure you got
the right guys. It's not just all about having the
most talented football team. You have to have the right
players and right people. Yes, if you to build it
(19:26):
the right way.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
There's a lot of everything going on here for the
history of the franchise. Like there's this famous George Allen
quote from back in the seventies where you hear him
yelling like, fifty three men together can't lose. And this
feels this way about this team. I talked about this
couple of weeks ago with you, like I got to
cover the Joe Gibbs team's two point zero, you know,
the second time around when he was coaching here and
you were here too, and you know, and this is
(19:49):
what people talked about with him that he always said this.
He was one of his lines he always said, he goes,
you have to pick people, he goes, that's a really
hard thing to do, you know, you have to pick
people to play.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And to your.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Point, like I got to give the front office credit,
like they have circled people that they wanted to bring
in here. They heard a lot of things about them.
You know, zach Ertz can't play anymore. Even they admitted
last week we weren't sure he'd be more than just
a red zone threat or a third down threat. It
materialized into something more than that. Everyone said Austin Eckler
didn't have anything left in the tank. He clearly does.
(20:23):
Anthony Lynn knows him, knows what he can be for
this team. They knew what Bobby Wagner could be. You're
not just picking anybody to phill holes. You have to
pick people who want to be there, want to be
part of it, who are going to buy into this.
And that never gets old and it is always always
the secret to the teams that win. Go look at
what's happening in Detroit. This happened there a few years ago,
(20:45):
and it's turned into them being a juggernaut.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Now. No, you're right off. Even going back to I'll
throw myself in the mix. The reason I ended up
in Washington was because Greg Williams was my head coach
and Buffalo Low, Jerry Gray was my defensive coordinator. Jerry,
so Greg comes to Washington, he becomes the defensive coordinator there.
Jerry Gray is the coach and the secondary and there
(21:11):
was the other guys on the on the staff, you know,
Danny Smith, who's a great special teams coach. They knew
me from Buffalo, Steve Jackson, safety's coach. They knew me
from Buffalo, and they knew what that defense was missing
and they had identified they knew, like, hey, what we're
missing London Fletcher will provide that and more and you know,
(21:34):
so it's it's a it's a when you when you
have people that are going to advocate for you, they
know what you what you're about. And it's just even
even if you look at the guys who are holdovers
who they hadn't worked with. I know the roster has
been changed over a lot, but there are guys main stage,
whether it's Terry de Rod Payne, Johnston Allen, some of
(21:55):
the guys that that uh, you know we were here before,
Sam Cosme, guys who were holdovers from the previous regime,
but you identify I know that these are core guys
that we can build with. These are still the type
of players that we know will be a part of
our culture and can be a part of something something special.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
And one of those is Terry.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It needs to be mentioned three seconds left in the season,
he sets a franchise record with his thirteenth receiving touchdown.
No receiver in the history of the franchise had ever
done that before. He was tied with four others, two
of them are in the Hall of Fame, Charlie Taylor
and Bobby Mitchell. And then there's this stat and this
is amazing. He's one of four wide receivers ever to
have seventy five plus receptions and one thousand plus receiving
(22:43):
yards in five of their first six seasons. The other
three names are Brandon Marshall, Tory Holt, and the great
Randy Moss. You know, it's funny, like, clearly he's someone
who's going to join you in the Ring of Fame
here one day. I mean, that's just no doubt in
my mind that that's going to happen. And then, you know,
will he ever get a Hall of Fame candidacy? You know,
if he does, and he might have the numbers that
(23:05):
would support that. By the end of all of it,
I'm gonna point to you not only numbers like that,
but go and here are the list of quarterbacks he
played with that.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Right there, that right there should be like okay, let's
staff his uh let's staff. This with Terry because I
played with Toy. Toy was a rookie when I when
I was with the Saint Louis Ras and we went
to the I played well three seasons with Toy, and
so I know I know the quarterbacks that that he
(23:35):
was catching balls from. One of them is in uh
In Shrine and Cat and Kirk Warner, but and Brandon
Marshall and t O. I mean not t O, but
Brandon Marshall and also Brandy Moss. They've played with some
good quarterbacks and nobody has had the list of quarterbacks
like Terry McCloy. No disrespect to anybody, but well you
(23:58):
go down the list, man, I don't. I don't, even
though heck you you probably know how many quarterbacks is
it has been. But I'll say this, If Terry and
Jaden can have man a long career, whether it's eight, nine,
ten years together, whatever the case might be, and Terry
(24:19):
doesn't look like to be slowing down, if those guys
can build a nice resume together, then I think we'll
be in the conversation because Terry's gonna put up great numbers,
and then we'll be like, okay, yeah, let's get him
measure for his his jacket.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Okay, let's get to a couple other things that are
kind of like the hanging chad for me of the
game yesterday. Well, I want to mention we're taping this
before dan Quinn does his Monday afternoon day after press conference.
I'm certain he's going to address this.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Again.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It wasn't addressed completely I think the day after the
game because again, amazing win, amazing comeback, twelfth.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Win of the season, hadn't done that since nineteen anyone.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
There was a lot there to talk about heading into
the playoffs and the waiting for the for the playoff
picture to materialize to now know we're playing Tampa. So
what did you make of the decision at the time
to make a switch at quarterback at half?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Well, I was I was a little confused as to
why they did it. I didn't know because it it
looked like at that point it looked like didn't look
like Jaden took a hit or anything like that, or
it was like, you know, what's going on? Still still
close ballgame was six street ballgame at that point in time,
So you're wondering, what was this about was it a
(25:37):
situation where you know, you're like, Okay, we're gonna preserve him.
We want to we want to make sure and ensure
that he's healthy at hole when it comes time to
to play next week, whoever we're playing in the playoffs.
I was wondering if that was the case, and I
was like, did they did They just weren't happy with
(25:57):
the offense the way it was rolling, you know, So
all these scenarios are coming up, and I'm in my mind,
I'm also saying, I don't think it was a situation where,
you know, the offense not playing well where you can
look at and say, hey man, that was a Jade
not being on point, because there were protection issue, there
were all kind of things that were happening. He had
(26:18):
a couple off target throws to to Terry in particular.
But so there's a lot of different scenarios running through
my mind and I wanted to hear what the reasoning
was behind it as well.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
This is the second time too. I think I said
this during the broadcast with you. I don't know why
this is a bad matchup for them, but it is
because it's the second time now that they played Dallas
this year and got off to a really slow start,
couldn't really protect the quarterback early in either game.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Ojiggi Zoo had a big game.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Against Some the first time around, Michael Parsons had two
sacks on the opening drive. There was consistent pressure. They
haven't been able to get the run game going against them.
So I don't know what you're seeing against Dallas or
whatever Dallas is doing, but it was it has stunted
them twice now in both of those games.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, and first, I think it starts first and foremost
with just not consistently winning the the matchups up front
and in the trench, especially from from the offensive line standpoint,
in terms of being able to run the football. So
there there's too many occasions where, whether you go back
to the game at Northwest Federal Stadium or the game
(27:26):
yesterday Dallas, we just haven't been able to run the
football against them consistently enough. And we've been operating in
too many second and obvious passing situations or third and longer.
And the thing that they do, they have this great
guy man some there's some guys that you have no
answer to, and and that's Michael Parsons too. He's going
(27:50):
to win his one on one battles. And there's they
do a great job of you moving him around. They're
not just hey, he's going to be at defensive and
we can ship him with a running back, we can
slide the protection to him. We do all those types
of different things. They lined him up on his second sack,
they lined him up over to Michael Dieter, the center,
(28:11):
and so Michael Dieter, you know, a good football player,
but that's asking a lot to have him try to
block Michael Parkson one on one and it's a and
it's a third and I can't remember the Donard this,
but it was a third and longer situation. So you
know he's going to have to he's gonna hold the
ball a little bit longer to let those those routes develop.
(28:33):
So that's that's between not being able to establish the
run to operate in a lot more third and threes
or less, and being in too many third loans, and
also them having a great football player. I'll go back
to this though, as relates to Jayden, and Dan talked
about Jayden having some soreness in his leg. I went
(28:55):
back and it looked like he might have taken a
shot to the thigh air area earlier than that ball game,
so that that that thigh bruise if that's the if
it was a if it turns out that it was
a he just said leg. He didn't say what part,
but it looks like he takes a shot to his leg,
and particularly I think it might be in a thigh
(29:17):
area and that could have gotten worse on him as
the game progressed, especially you're going to halftime. You got
a ten twelve minute you know, period where that thing
is stiffen up on you. So I think it was
more of a byproduct of that and dam being true
to for harm, like, hey he got some legs. Ordon,
They're they're getting after the quarterback. We're going to need
to have a mobile quarterback. And it became operate fully
(29:40):
and functional, function fully like he needs to be. Then
you know we got we got markets here for a reason.
Let's go with him.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
You know I mentioned earlier, you know, I you know,
we want to see I think getting Austin Eckler back
is going to be a big deal for this team
for the run game. I want to read you Brian
Roberts's numbers since the twenty one carries sixty five yards
in the win over New Orleans, ten for twenty four
win over the Eagles, thirteen for sixty win over the Falcons.
(30:09):
That's four point six of carry that's pretty good. Just
five for ten against Dallas. Again, the offense was really
slow moving, but the rush offense. The team that ended
up top five rush offense numerous times early in the
season as a team, they went over two hundred yards
rushing over and over and it was part of the
reason why they kept winning time of possession. They were
(30:30):
gashing people, they were having the fast starts they were
looking for overall, Like, what are you seeing with the
run game and why is it outside of the unscripted
stuff that Jayden and Marcus did yesterday, what are you
seeing with the run game right now?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
What is It's a combination of a lot of different things. It's,
you know, first and foremost, not winning enough at the
at the point of attack and not getting enough movement.
You want to have their defensive line moving back, you know,
yard two yards, three yards. So there's too many times
where running backs are getting contact at or behind the
line of scriviage. There's some issues where sometimes they aren't
(31:06):
ideaing or targeting the right guy and uh in a
rough place especially, we run a lot of counters and
things where we're pulling line and pulling tight ends pulling.
So you have to know and be on the same
page of hey, who's you're going to block once the
once you get to that next level, the second level.
Not enough times we're not coming off of some of
(31:27):
our double team blocks working up to the to the
second level quick enough. So there's been things like that,
And it's also maybe the running back not seeing seeing
the being patient enough to allow these blocks to develop,
bouncing outside too quickly, when have you be just to
here here a little bit more patient. Dallas running back
(31:49):
did a great job of this yesterday. Rico o'donald. He
was very patient letting his blocks develop him There were
times where you know he's so patient, you think he's
going one way and then it creasures you goods back
into a to a whole that's a whole developed. So
maybe not having enough patience from a from a running
back standpoint, let those blocks develop, let let the offensive
(32:11):
line get moving. So it's not just one thing, it's
multiple things that has really hampered us in the games.
We haven't been able to run the ball effectively in
these last you know, let's call it last with the
exception last week when we rushed for what to uh
to sixteen haven't.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Been that was seven from Jayden and that was a
lot of unscripted scramble runs. And even like that was
you know, that includes all sorts of unscrambled like scrambles
that he's just making.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
He also had some success in the design run plays
and in his own reads and stuff like that, but
that throwout last week and throw out Tennessee, and we
really haven't had a lot of success outside of date
Jaden running the football. Yeah, I mean liketic in seven weeks.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, I mean like early in the season.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Like the reason why I was buying in big time
was won their winning games late. So they're showing this
propensity to win late. Jade is showing this obvious talent
that he can literally do anything. He's beyond his years.
And then there's always this in January, a run game
travels Like they had the number three rush offense for
the season in Washington history, like two thousand, six hundred
(33:20):
and nineteen yards, like a crazy number that they had.
But the vast majority of that was coming early in
the season. They were winning. They remember, they were dominating
time of possession against certain teams. They were holding the
holding the ball for they had the most ten plus
play drives for a long period of time in the season.
They were winning time of possession by a large margin
(33:40):
for the majority of the season. A lot of those
early fourth down conversions were because it was all fourth
and ones that were like it was their own version
of kind of tush push, like they were able to
extend all these drives. And remember early too, when they
talk about those slow starts, we always talked about they
were constantly in second and six, second and five constantly.
That's not been happening the last few weeks.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, And I hate to be a bear of bad news.
Tampa Bays the fourth ranked run defense International Football League.
They they only give up about ninety eight yards per
game Russian and and and even to dig deeper into that,
their last three games, Brah, take a guess, what do
you think they've allowed per per game rushing over the
(34:22):
over their last three game Take a guess.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I don't know, but I do know that Alvin Kamara
wasn't playing yesterday that part.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Take a guess. Take a guess with fifty fifty forty
four point seven. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, they've traditionally been great against the run. Where their
issue is going to be next week, and we'll get
into it a minute, is they're depleted in their secondary.
They've got a lot of injuries on the back end.
They're down to like third string, fourth string safeties, things
like that. Their corners have been hurt. So we may
be asking Jayden in the pass offense to kind of
be supermanaged this week.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
All right, So I'm glad you mentioned that their passes
defense is not that great. They're twenty ninth in the league.
That's right defense.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
So yeah, well, I mean like they play. Actually it's funny,
you know London they play. We talked about this at
the beginning of the season, like Todd Bowles is Todd
Bowles like they're going to blitz they do that. That
is not really In fact, it ended up this year
not really being in fashion of what a lot of
the NFL teams were doing.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Especially early.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Remember, everybody was complaining that everyone was dropping everybody back,
and everyone was screaming that they need to change a
rule because they couldn'tbody could hit a big play. Things
have changed a little bit here, but they pressure and
so they were kind of out of style early in
the season, and now that they have all these injuries
on the back end, they're playing with fire, like bringing
all those blitz packages with corners and safeties that are
(35:50):
deep down on their depth chart. Good luck was seventeen
and the way Diami's playing or the way Zakias is
playing right now, good luck with that. If you're not
going to get home against our guy.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah, no, you're right about that. And you know they
some guys do what they do and that's just this
is kind of their their DNA as a as a
defense coordinator, Todd Bowles, he's the that's always been as
Matra to be high pressure, bring a lot of pressure,
and regardless sometimes when you don't, when you're depleted at
(36:24):
in the secondary, being more aggressive actually is the answer,
because you're saying, hey, I know, my guys probably are
going to be able to cover long enough so to
try to play zone coverage or and they don't have
like some some top end rush guys, they don't have it.
They don't have a Micah Parsis somebody that they can
consistently say hey, go out win you're one on one match,
(36:47):
as we can play coverage behind you. We don't have
to bring pressure. They have to bring pressure. They blitz
the second most in the International Football League, behind the
Minnesota Vikings, and that's just who they are. They Uh,
that's how they feel like. They have to kind of
win the when the when the drives, when the when
that down is to bring pressure, limit the ability for
(37:11):
a quarterback to sit back there and pat the football.
Because they don't have just a dominant pass rusher two
they got it. They have to get five to six
man pressures.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
So the other thing from yesterday that I want to
get to before we move on move on to the
playoffs was I think the team was saved by the
red zone defense. Yesterday Dallas moved the ball effectively, got
into the red zone six times, only ended up scoring
one touchdown.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I agree with you about Rico Dowdell.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Actually second half of the season, he was actually very
good for them, very productive. He rushed for over eight
hundred yards in the second half of the season. He
wasn't scoring a lot of touchdowns he did yesterday. I
think that's a difference for them in the red zone.
They don't seem to have a finisher anymore, kind of
like what Zeke used to be for their team. Dabble's
very good in between the twenties, but they don't really
have a finisher down there. That kind of materialized a
(37:59):
little bit yesterday. I think Lance's inexperience also probably helped
Washington a little bit inside the twenties. But I want
to give credit where credits due. The red zone defense,
which has struggled this year, is ranked among the five
words in the league. Really stepped up yesterday and gave
the offense a chance to pull it out yesterday.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
That one holding up to one touchdown and six tries.
That's that's our standard. You play that type of RedZone defense,
you're going to be be the majority of teams, especially
on on flip side, we're scoring in the reds on
our ability to score touchdowns in the red zone, we're
gonna We're gonna be teams the thing that and I
(38:40):
know Joe Whitt is not happy about it. You mentioned
Dallas being able to move to football against us. Some
of it was we're still not playing to run to
the level we need to. And you you you want
to you want to win a role playoff game and
you touched on them. You got to be able to
run the football. You got to be able to stop
the run. And also you know your defense has to
(39:02):
make get some turnovers. But those are two and not
just if you want to win a role playoff game,
got to be able to run the football, Gotta be
able to stop the run. The reason you need to
be able to run the football because most of the
hostile environment, you don't want the crowd to be able
to affect and impact your your offense when in passing
the situation obvious pass the situation. You don't want to
(39:24):
be in a bunch of third long situation and it
also takes the crowd out of the out of the
game and it wears down a defense if you can
lean on those guys run the football effectively. So that's
part of why you need a bit of run the ball.
But you know, going going into a place, going into
hostile ar, you got to be able to stop that
rub especially on the road, and get after the defense,
(39:47):
get after that that quarterback and be able to get
some turnovers. It's hard to get to rest the passer
and get turnovers when you're where you're when. They had
a bunch of thirty and one thirty two thirdy threes.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
That opener feels like eight years ago now, But one
of the keys to the loss was Tampa Bay scored
almost every time they got into the red zone. Baker Mayfield,
Mike Evans had their way, Chris Godwould had a good game.
Obviously he won't be playing in this one. We only
saw the beginning stages of Bucky Irving. He was a
backup at that point. In the opener, Rashad White was
the lead back. Bucky Irving now has become the lead
(40:20):
back for them. Had an outstanding rookie season, most rush
yards by any rookie in the NFL. They actually have
a legitimate run game, first time in a while that
Tampa Bay's kind of been like that. They're a diverse offense,
they prolifically score. Baker Mayfield had forty one touchdown passes
this year. Like they can score. So I'm expecting somewhat
(40:40):
of a track meet here unless things change, which at
this point in the season, I got a hard time
buying that Washington turns around, it becomes like a top
ten run defense all overnight.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I'm hoping I do outside this though you remember it this.
We had probably five, six seven opportunities to set Baker
in that game, and he was able to elude and
loud the rush and he made a lot of players
just being able to escape escape the rush, and you
know you you do that, and that's that's a different
ball game. Jaden is light years ahead of where he
(41:14):
was from week one to week nine to where we're
at right now. We're a better football team. I think
Tampa's a better football team. So they've dealt with some injuries.
We're dealing with some injuries. I'm looking forward to this game.
I think it's gonna be a fun game. There'll be opportunities,
especially if Tampa. I know they're gonna change some things up.
But in that first game, there were opportunities for Jaden
(41:37):
to make some plays in a passing game that for
him at that stage, you didn't feel comfortable taking taking
some chances on maybe a tight one to throw or
throwing a guy open. He's coming from from the collegiate
level where a lot of these guys are throwing to
two receivers that are a lot more wild. Uh, they're
(41:58):
a lot they're wide open as in the NFL, those
windows that that separation is gonna be a lot closer
anticipation throws. He's a much better scrambler and keeping his
eyes down down the field. I know they that's something
they harp on and and uh contention constantly wrap him
and practice of being remain in the passer outside of
(42:19):
the pocket. So Jaden Jayden is light years ahead of
where he was. And defensively, we're gonna have to We're
going to definitely have to run the ball, I mean
stopped and run better. Because Tapa red the ball effectively.
It gets us. That was kind of the startup when
we dealt with the trap blocks and and all those
the outside runs that we had a lot of extreme
(42:39):
difficult stopping in that game.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, I think the other thing is just to point
out and we learned this earlier. You mentioned it, like
they didn't wrap up Baker Mayfield. They god have five
sacks in that game and just didn't wrap him up
behind the line of scrimmage. What you'll see with him
this year too, there's a little bit of like the
the Josh Allen. Most quarterbacks slide or avoid contact. He
doesn't like he leans into it and almost welcomes it.
(43:05):
So you know, you like, you have to be careful
because if you touch the quarterback the wrong way, you
get a fifteen yard penalty. But he invites it and
he doesn't mind the contact. You got to know who
you're playing here. Like Jamee's gonna go down, he's gonna
go out of a bounds. Most quarterbacks will avoid the contact.
This guy won't. Actually he invites it.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
He wants to smoke, Yes, he does.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
You like that, I can see the smile on your face.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, I would say this, that's part of playing with
an age two. How he's I think his teammates rally
around him doing that type of thing that's risky because
you catch, you get caught by a linebacker or a
defensive alignment, and he's too valuable. But they feed off
(43:51):
of that when he's he's running around, making a play,
taking on a linebacker, doing all those types of things,
taking on a second safety or whatever and hopping up
and you know, doing his celebration afterwards. But it's definitely
a risk reward type of scenario. But yeah, I would
I would love that as a as a linebacker for
(44:12):
the quarterback and knowing that he's not gonna slide, that
he's gonna he's going to go and try to run
me over or try to get all he can out
of that play.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
One more player before I forget from yesterday, because I
just wanted to mention. Early in the half, boy Washington
really just couldn't move the ball. It was sixty five
yards or something like that. At halftime, that's all they
were able to manage. But one guy who really stood
out was Dimmi Brown, who had really he had missed
the week before. Was really kind of a spark plug
for them. They were looking for ways to get him
the ball. He was coming through for them, and I
just want to say this to him, like in my book,
(44:44):
you have your first career touchdown pass that I believe
in my world that happened. So I feel bad that
officially that did not happen for you.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yesterday, great play call, I mean great play costs came
up and the ivy threw. I'll say this, the ball
was a little it's a little different. It came out
a little different with the because he's left he's lefty,
and it wasn't like a tight spirro and Oz, you
(45:18):
you don't want to talk about how difficult it is
to look up and try to locate the football, and
this has this funky rotation on it. And so I mean,
you could tell that that Oz was having, you know,
a little bit of trouble tracking that that ball when
he five years before it got to him, you could
tell he was like, not not all the way shirt,
And it's almost like an outfielder. There's a deep flyball
(45:42):
flyout and you're like, man, I think I got it.
Next thing you know, it drops and he just had
trouble tracking it. So if you want to if you
want to say that was a touchdown in your book.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Gets a touchdown passed there? What he did, that's I'll
hear you on it. Here's what I'll say about that
place in general. It's very distracting.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
There a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
There's a lot of things happening there.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah, I will say this, though they did he did
provide juice to the offense. There was a I've watched
some of the offense earlier in the day and there
was a screen the threw to him. Man, he was
one block away. He actually had the block it just
the alignment. The defensive did a nice job running to
(46:29):
the running to the football. He actually was a Mozzie Smith.
He came out of there and he was falling. Mozzi
made this tag. If Mozzi doesn't make this tackle his play,
I think the amy with his speed, he's going to
score because he looked like I'm not sure if the
safeties would have had the right angle to catch him,
but he did provide sparking and juice to the offense yesterday.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
I tell you to just play there like that stadium
was amazing. I love it, but I don't know how
you guys keep any kind of focus in that.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Place, the big screen.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Even even Logan and during a time out, was like,
I think Netflix is here shooting season two of the
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader show. And he's standing there and like,
obviously that's what he's looking at at the moment, Like,
I don't know, world, you keep your head on straight
in that stadium.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Logan was looking at the Netflix Netflix camera and that's
what you have to do. You have to be a
professional when you're going to that into any environment, be
a pro.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
I told him, though He's like, I think the Netflix
cameras are here, and I don't want to be in
that and I go they don't want you.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
In it either. They're not focusing on you. They want
you out of the shot.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
The blurry him.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yeah, They're like, you're just adding extra work to like
get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
All right.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
So and now what I hope is not gonna be
the last time, because I'm I'm confident we're going down
to Tampa. We'll be doing this again next week talking
about whatever the next opponent is. For the final time
in the regular season. It is time for Big Fletch's
Heavyweight Commander Championship Belt presented by Northwest Federal Credit Union
where trust matters. The rating champ was Jade Daniels because
(48:17):
of all the magic acts that he had pulled. I
got a feeling he's in trouble of retaining the pulp
this week because there's other contenders.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
He is he is man. It was uh, you know, Jada,
he was Indee's the writing champion yesterday. He wasn't able
to go to distance and so there was there were
some challengers. There was some couple of strong challengers and contenders,
but I had to choose one. Marcus Mariota was was
(48:45):
a you know, a considered ration and he did he
did some great things in that ball game. But the
guy that I'm gonna choose to be the contender for
Big Fletch's Heavyweight Commanders Championship Belt, I'm gonna go with
Terry McLaurin. Terry had eight receptions sixty two yards on
(49:09):
twelve targets, obviously the game winner that he had a
vicecript on that on that catch, and Jaden, the numbers
just don't allow him to retain the bell. So without
further ado and no Heavyweight Championship command this big question bell,
(49:36):
howevern't you want to call it this for? He also
set the franchise record the receiver touchdowns with that game
win a touchdown, broke the franchise record or set a
new franchise record. So the bell goes from Jaden. Here wee, Terry,
(49:58):
there we three.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Whatever you want to call it's your championship belt. And
you're like, whatever you want to call.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
It, the Big Pletcher's Heavyweight Championship Commander's built Commander's Heavyweight
Championship Belt. Yeah, rolls right off, and I'll have what
I call them in front of me.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Oh man, All right, before we go, let's talk about
the playoffs A little bit you had experience playing in them.
What is the big difference because this is now. I
mean a lot of the players on this team have
a lot of experience doing it. Eckler played in them,
or number of the players here have done it. But
for the group that's been here, this is new and
for this organization's first time in four years. So what
(50:42):
do you think Number one is the big difference between
regular season and playoff football?
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Well, there's gonna be the intensity definitely ramps up. It's
just that's how it is. You look at even preseason
of regular season, there's a different intensity, but from regular
season to postseason, the intensity, the attention to detail has
to be a lot greater. The stakes are a lot higher.
You have to be ultra focused because there's going to
(51:08):
be so many, you know, a lot more interviews you
have to do. The media obligations kind of wrap up
a little bit where guys who are used to hiding
from the medium, they won't necessarily have that ability to
do that because they will have to, you know, be
available to the media. So there's more responsibility you have
(51:28):
to deal with and just understanding that, yes, a playoff game,
but once Steve the ball is snapped and the ball
is kicked off. It's still the game of football is
still the same game. So don't go in and try
to do too much. Oftentimes you'll see guys, like especially
defensive players, trying to do too much. I want to
(51:52):
make a play. I want to make a splash play.
Everybody's watching. I want to make anterception, I want to
make a sack, and they neglect their responsibility and don't
completely carry out their responsibility or try to make a
play that's not their play to be made. So you
have to be focused to attention to details. Let the
players come to you. They'll come to you by doing
(52:13):
your job first and foremost. And so the main thing
is not trying to do too much. And I'm sure
you have enough guys with experience. D Qey's coaching super Bowl,
he's won the Super Bowl. Well, I think he was
with Seattle when they won Super Bowl and they've done
it a long time. You know, Bobby Wagner's has all
this playoff experience, Zach Ertz super Bowl winning players. So
(52:36):
you have a lot of guys with playoff experience to
reiterate that message of just not trying to do too
much and stay focused on the attention to details.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Last few weeks when I talked to Dan Quinn to
get ready for the broadcast specifically against Dallas, specifically against Philadelphia. Okay,
so teams that they're your rivals, this will be the
second time around with them. These are teams also that
are kind of new torious for getting into extracurriculars and
potentially goading you into penalties. Right, And he had talked
openly about They've talked a lot about the penalties, Like,
(53:09):
he doesn't he's not bothered by anything in game that's
physical and if there's a mistake that's made, whatever, but
it's done in the act of playing. What they don't
like our presnat penalties, and they don't like these retaliatory
penalties they had won yesterday against Dallas, Dron Payne got
into one on a special team's play that led to
a different kickoff. Right, he wants to avoid all that stuff.
(53:30):
I don't walk into this worried openly about that because
of the opponent.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
With one exception.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
So Marshaun Lattimore and Mike Evans do not like each
other like and this goes back for years. It'll be
detailed at nauseum throughout the week. If he is going
to indeed play, which sounded like he's tracking towards being
healthy and hopefully they need him. I think hopefully playing.
This is going to be an interesting storyline to watch.
(53:57):
Mike Evans has been kicked out of games against the
Saints when he and Marshawn Latimore get into it. So
that is going to be something to watch very closely
this weekend.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
No, absolutely, and I hope Marshawn is out there playing.
The seems like they know how to get under each other.
Scared a little bit. They they've had all those battles
when they were playing in the same division, the NFC South,
But it'll be it'll be a great individual battle if
(54:28):
that If that's the case, where where Marshaun is out there,
and I'm sure the the Todd Todd Bowles is talking
to Mike Evan said, Hey, if Marshawn plays, you got
to keep you got to maintain your composure. You can't
go out here and get fifteen yard personal file penners.
You can't risk being ejected from that football game. So
(54:50):
you know that's that's the conversation that that you you'll
definitely want to have with your guys. You wanted to
play with the intensity, play with their heads a little bit,
but don't cross the line because it can be too
costly for your football team.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
And the last one, I just want to point out
a matchup like people aren't going to be thinking about him.
Chris Godmin's not out there. Jalen McMillan is a high
draft pick of theirs. We had heard because we went
into the opener against them from their people. They were
telling us they loved him coming out of college. They
were convinced he was going to be a high level
Number three. Godwin gets hurt, he and de facto becomes
(55:23):
their number two. Last five games of the season, he
has scored a touchdown in each one of them and
has seven over five games.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
He's a problem. So it's not just Mike Evans.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
They target this guy heavily and he's been scoring a ton.
We got to pay a lot of attention to him
this weekend.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, that they definitely haven't pay a lot of attention.
I'll say this though, if you're able to have mar
Shawn out there and you know he can match up
with Mike Evans, that will allow you to do some things.
Maybe roll some coverage to a Jaylen McMillan, see is
he able to deal with the pressure having coverage role
(56:02):
to him? He's a he's a rookie. Rookies, are you
gonna being to deal with that type of added attention
that that you may get if we if we say, hey,
we don't have to have extra resources committed to stopping
Mike Evans. If Marshawn is able to play, now we
can deploy a little bit more at resources to make
(56:23):
sure we x you out and see if Tapa Bacon
can get productivity out of their third receiver, their third
pass catcher. So it's it. It'll be a great, great
game planning week for the for the defensive coaches, for
the offensive coaches. And that's the beauty of this game.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Man.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
That's what I missed. Like people ask me all the time,
like what do you miss and but the thing that
I probably missed the most is the the game plan
and piece of a where you're studying Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
even Saturday the opponent and trying to figure out what
they do well, how you can combat that, things that
(57:03):
you can do against them to cause them problems. You're
you're constantly kind of putting your defense against certain plays
and like, Okay, they do this, we can do that
and vice versa. That's that's that's the piece that I
missed the most is the game planning piece. And that's
the beauty of this great game we have that we play.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
What do you think either team can get out of
rewatching week one against one another?
Speaker 2 (57:29):
They'll get a lot of it. Yeah, they'll definitely get
a lot of it. I think, as I mentioned with
Jaden that being his first NFL start, he's going to
get a ton out of it because from a defensive standpoint,
there's only so many coverages that you can throw at somebody.
So a lot of the coverages that that ty of
played in that game, there'll be a lot of the
(57:49):
coverage they play in this game. So Jaden will have
better answers and know, you know, how to deal with
those those coverages this time around. Matchups individual matchups that hey,
you may whether it's Tyler Biadis knowing how to deal
with Vida Veya a second time around, or some of
the some of the different blitz packages that blitz looks
(58:12):
that they look they threw at your pressure looks from
a standpoint of on the other side of the flip
side us dealing with the stopping their run in the
ways that they attacked us from a run game. Also
probably maybe having a better or different type of mindset
of how to rush Baker Mayfield that game we talked
(58:33):
about them, you know, probably should have had about five
six sacks and not being able to corrab Baker. So
having played him already once and realizing, hey, okay, maybe
I need to slow it down a here, a half
a step as I get closer to him. So having
those that that Week one match up and being able
to look at that film, it's gonna it's gonna be
(58:55):
big for both teams. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
And then the last thing really is you know, if
I didn't know any better the way that this team
ends every game, I would think they're doing it on purpose.
So if this game doesn't come down to the last possession, or,
in the case of this team, the last play, that
would actually be a surprise to me.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Oh man, you know what, Man, I don't know how
many more things I can.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
I mean, the fact that we don't have a sponsor
for blood pressure pills is amazing to me.
Speaker 2 (59:29):
Oh absolutely, but don't speak too soon. We might have one. Yes,
we're watching fan. Do you have high blood pressure? We're
watching your your team play such as such. We're here
for you.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to read a disclaimer. If you
listen to this broadcast, it could affect your health. It's
pretty wild, all right. It's been an amazing season. Can't
wait for the playoffs. I'll see you in Tampa, London.
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Let's go.
On this edition of The Booth Review. How about some
Marcus magic in Dallas London.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, and we got a new contender for Big Fletch's
Heavyweight Commands Championship belt.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And we've got a playoff game to get ready for
a rematch from week one against Tampa.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You ready come on?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Playoffs all coming up next on The Booth Review.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome into the regular season ending playoff preview edition of
The Booth Review Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I'm Bram Wystein with Big Fletch, London Fletcher.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We are brought to you by Microsoft Surface Powering a
better game and we're both remote London of courses at
home and Charlotte. I didn't come into the studio today
because we're all snow me's this week with all the snow,
and I got to tell you London, we pulled off
two buzzer beaters yesterday Marcus Mario and Terry McLaurin and
the pilot who got us back from Dallas before there
(00:58):
was a flake on.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
The ground last night. It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hey, that's true to form, man, Would you expect anything
less from this team? And obviously that pilot just getting in,
getting you guys in safely. That was the main thing
that I'm glad to hear that you're safe at your home. Now,
I will say this, man, brav you say you tell
me you're tough, and you could toughing it out and
(01:22):
head to the park and record from the studio.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I could, but I don't know how much you remember
about the plowing services of the Washington, DC metro area.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
They weren't gonna let me get to the park.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So that's that's a DMV issue that needs to be
dealt with, not a me issue.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Right, okay, all right, anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
To the flight crew once again, they fall under the
DQ mantra of anybody anywhere, any time got us back
in time to do this show, so I appreciate that.
All Right, we got a lot to talk about today. Obviously,
we know who the playoff opponent is, Tampa. We saw
them in week ones. Will get to a lot of
that today, but let's start with what happened in Dallas,
(02:03):
which is the end of the season was on the nose,
true to form. Magic again it is every week. It's uncanny,
it's amazing. I've never seen a team as clutch as
this throughout the course of a season.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
No, not at all, And what for four straight games
that have come down to the final play and just
the way this season has gone. And you mentioned the
magic in this particular game. We've gone accustomed to it
being Jade and Daniels producing at the end of the games,
but it was Mariyoda coming in out off the bench,
(02:40):
coming out of the bullpen, and really the offense didn't
have anything going in the first half, and he came
in and was able to really spark and he made
some plays, you know, the touchdown run, the fourth down
play that he made right before throwing the touchdown of
Terry Man. He made some outstanding plays defensively, we'll get
(03:01):
it to that, and how they were able to you know,
the parks they played and helping us get that victory yesterday.
But another great finish. If you're watching the Commander's fan, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Let's go backwards.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I want to start with the last drive so again,
and I want to say this first because now they're
at the end of the season and I don't think
it's been acknowledged yet that for all these things to happen,
obviously the players have to make great plays and the
decisions have to be made quickly and efficiently. Which is
what I want to get to here for a second.
Like this team made a big deal of bringing in
(03:37):
people to support the staff, to make game management decisions,
to make time management decisions. Dan Quinn's been open about
talking about this type of stuff. Dave Guardy was brought
in as a rules expert to help them understand the
officiating crews that they're working with, the game conditions they're
working with. And I think that the payoff of that
(03:57):
has been obvious because it's, you know, like to credit
the players. Obviously they have to execute all this stuff
and do these things, but the way that they've handled
all of these late game situations have allowed them the
opportunity to execute it. And yesterday was perfect example of it,
where they got one time out. They know they have
to use it before they probably really where they want to.
(04:21):
They know they only have one play, they know they
have to spike the ball. They know that they can't
actually like regroup and take a time out and think
about what they want to do. They call themselves into
a one on one with their best receiver and execute
the play. The operation deserves some credit here because they're
not just it's not miracles every week that they're winning
(04:43):
by they're executing properly, and it starts on the sideline
and up in the booth. Who's ever is working with
them to get through all these endgame situations as well.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, well, go back. You've talked about going back, go
back to back in the early winter when Josh Are
had this press conference and he talked about winning on
the fringes because everybody's operating from the same salary cap.
They talked about winning on the fringes outside, so things
that what it's from an analytical analytics standpoint, nutrition standpoints,
(05:16):
sports and science. In this instance, we're talking about you
mentioned bringing in somebody to work with the game management
piece of it, the times, all those types of things
that they've hired and brought into onto staff to assist
in those processes, and they practice these situations all the time.
(05:36):
DQ talked about that, how they practice these scenarios all
the time, so it's not like you don't get it
to yesterday's game and that's the first time you've practiced
these scenarios. They practiced these things in mini camps, training camp.
They still continue to practice these scenarios in the regular season,
so when the moment comes it's not too big for
(05:57):
them because they've done it so many times. They've hurts
for these moments so many times. I'm sure they called
two plays. Hey, this to play, we're gonna have to
spike it, We'll have to call this time out, whatever
this case may be. And there was no question in
my mind that Terry was going to be the guy
who got that ball at the he was going to
(06:19):
get the opportunity. I look at it like this, you're
gonna give your guy, your best player, a chance to
win the game. Or obviously, if we didn't he didn't
catch it, you kick the field going and we go
to overtime. But the kolos to them in the operation
and them just being ready to execute because they've done
these things so many times prior to yesterday.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, it's funny you said this in the air and
it's the truth of it too. How many times did
Marcus Mario to actually practice that throw to Terry McLaurin
over the last what six months? It had to be rare,
Like when was he ever getting reps with him? And
he never was.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It's amazing, very rare.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And we talked to Terry about it and he mentioned
when we interviewed him in the post game, and he
talked about how earlier in the game, him and Marcus
they tried the same play and the ball was a
little bit flat or whatever it did, they didn't connect.
It was the timing was a little off. They got
(07:20):
to the sideline and Terry talked about, hey, what he
can do better for Marcus, and Marcus talked about, hey,
what he could do better to give Terry an opportunity
a better shot. So young guys even working it out
on the sideline, but throughout the course of the week,
your backup quarterback is I've been on teams where the
backup quarterback may not get one rep with the with
(07:42):
the starters doing the practice week, and then there's times
where he may get two reps in a particular period,
two reps out of a out of twelve plays or
whatever the case may be. So there's not gonna be
a situation where these guys have worked over and over
and over and over again to develop this type of time,
if that type of test throw, and for the kudos
(08:05):
to those guys to be able to pull it out
and make that adjustment from the first time that they
missed to obviously the game winner.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, and again, I just want to reiterate, like, this
doesn't happen over and over unless the entire operation is
prepared for these moments, like how many times with any
other example? We had one two weeks ago against Atlanta
where Rahie Morris is answering a lot of questions about
time management in both as against Washington for the usage
of timeouts or really the lack of usage of timeouts
(08:33):
that put them in adverse conditions and when they didn't
necessarily have to, or the more pronounced ones like the
Bears ones where they made no sense what they were
doing at the end of games and they lost games
because of it. People were fired over decisions that were made.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
There.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
This time management stuff, oftentimes it may not help you
win a lot of games. I think it has in
this case. Oftentimes it will prevent you from losing. And
in either case, like they just deserve a lot of
credit for being prepared for literally anything, because that's all
we've seen this year is literally anything could.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Happen anything, and that that that piece of it, and
it's not easy for I know a lot of fans
will look at these scenarios and say, man, he's the
head coach. You've been hired as the head coach for
a reason. You should understand these things. And it's so
much that goes into a football game in terms of
(09:29):
all the different things that you have to make sure
you address, You wrap the attention of details, the end
of game situation, the end of half situations, the all
the different things. I mean, we can look at it.
Even yesterday with Mike McCarthy, he has some questionable made
some questionable decisions end of half and also even at
(09:51):
the end of the game where they were think on
a fortune one, yeah, they and they opted to to
take a delay of game and punt as opposed to
maybe go for it. So they're they're these things are
not easy. But for the entire organization and everybody who's
involved with these elements, and you know, hey, we're going
(10:11):
to study the heck out of these scenarios and and
this is how we want to We got this much time,
these too, these timeouts, This is sittence in there. This
is when you want to call the time out. All
those types of things that you that you look for.
And even I think there was a situation where it
was I believe it was Austin Eckler or somebody the
(10:34):
the it was a play to him. I think a
run or or a swing pass didn't gain any yards.
But the best thing Austin did was he got out
of bounds and that saved time. That saved ay, you know,
having to call the time out, all those type of things.
So even for the players to understand, like, hey, I
gotta get yards, aren't the of the utmost importance. The
(10:56):
time is of the utmost importance.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You know, I don't want to get sidetracked, but I
do since you mentioned the Cowboys things, there was an
inconsistency to that, which I think also like this team
is very consistent in how they want to approach things.
How many times during the season do we go, oh,
they're going for that, Like there was just no question
that they would because you just kind of knew as
things materialize, this is who they are. This is what
they're going to do. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work,
(11:21):
but this is who we are. So at the end
of the first half, Dallas goes for a fourth and
goal at the two with no time left for a
in lieu of a chip shot field goal. Washington makes
a great defensive play forces Trey Lance to reverse field,
doesn't get enough on the ball incomplete pass to Rico Dawele.
So the defense stood up in the red zone defense,
which I'll get into, which I think is really the
reason why they ended up winning yesterday, was a big
(11:42):
part of it. But then at the end of the
second half, they get extremely conservative, like they were throwing
caution to the win going for touchdowns at the end
of one half, when their winning time moment was to
go for.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
That fourth down.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I couldn't believe they actually punted it back to us.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I don't I don't understand it either. Again, you're you're
not playing for anything, why not go for it? But
that's a Dallas issue. I don't know if they won't
like even at the end of half. Is it a
situation where you're trying to get Trey last these these reps.
Is it you want to get him to see how
(12:21):
he operates in these type of situations. I don't know
if that was the case, But the decision to not
go forward at the end of the game for it
and what I'm I'm grateful and thankful that they that
they opted to do that, because you know, gave a
gave us a great chance. But and and they also
could have been looking at it like, hey, for the
most part, you know, the defense has done a good job.
(12:45):
We we're gonna lean on our defense and see if
they can close out this game and get a victory
for it. So these are these are questions that that
Dallas has to answer, Mike, Mike McCarthy has to answer.
But you know, from our standpoint, I'm glad they opted
to do that, and and and fortunate the way our
guys executed in that situations.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So these shows and these discussions go full circle. Sometimes
I want to go back to the fourth and one
play that Mariota made. So a few years ago when
he was the quarterback of the Falcons, came here, they
were getting set to play the Commanders and in you know,
reviewing them and getting set to play them. There's one
(13:24):
thing the superpower of his he's amazing at and I
would put him in the class with a couple of
others since zone read became a big deal in the NFL.
He Jalen Hurts a few years ago when they did
this often and Daniel Jones are amazing at the fake
on the zone read and keeping it. And yesterday in
(13:46):
a pivotal moment when they needed to have it, he
pulled down the superpower so much so that you could
see on tape one of the Cowboys members of the
secondary celebrating thinking they got to stop on fourth down,
and all of a sudden going, oh, you know what,
he's free and running down the field and looked like
(14:06):
he was going to score.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
He pulled off. This was old Mariota.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
He was amazing at this when he was a regular starter.
It was the most dangerous thing about his game was
the zone read keep because he is unbelievable at that
fake and they got it at just the right time yesterday.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Man, he's a you know how they talk about the
ten thousand hours type of situation where you become an
expert at something you need to be you know, have
ten thousand hours. Marcus Mariota probably has, let's call it
thirty or forty thousand hours of expertise and running the
zone read, going all the way back to his days
at Oregon, running under Chip Kelly and running that office.
(14:46):
So this is his world. He is an expert. He
can teach a pH lead level class and a higher
I don't know what's beyond a PhD. But he can
teach that type of class in the art of running
the zone, read the fake, and the ability. The Cowboys
had two guys they are ready to to stop that
(15:07):
that run play. One guy took the dive for the
running back and and another guy was there for Mariota.
But his ability to manipulate them getting getting loose and he's, uh,
let's call it maybe six years ago. I think Marcus scores.
But yeah, father Time is undefeated. So he got everything
(15:28):
he could got out of that out of that that
run play. But situation on wheareness an understanding hang and
this guy crashes down and you gotta you gotta make
that decision. He has to make that decision and a
split second when they hand the ball off to a
running to the running back or keep it.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
He's another one too. Like this season is about a
lot of things like rebirth, recalibration, whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
They want to call it. Everything's new.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
There were a lot of established, really good veteran some
that are going to be in the Hall of Fame
who decided to come here and he's one of them
that was sold and a couple of years ago, you know,
he left Atlanta early when he lost his job, the
last starting job that he had. You know, he's openly
I read a piece in the Washington Post where he
(16:15):
kind of opened up about needing to find the joy
of the game again. Zach Ertz the last couple of
weeks has talked about finding rekindling the joy of the
game by playing here again. We've talked a lot this
season about Bobby Wagner. He'd never played on the East Coast.
He was sold on Dan Quinn and Joe Whitten wanting
to come here to play. He's played like he's been
(16:36):
a leader on this team, a heartbeat of the team.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Austin Eckler came back.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
From what was a scary hit you know, about four
weeks ago, played yesterday. He gives me a lot of
hope for the rush offense now that he's available again.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Moving in to the postseason.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
There's a lot of stories here, but Marcus Marioti symbolizes
a lot to me too. I was so happy for him.
Like everybody saw that clip from a week ago, we're
right before the pass to zach Ertz to beat the Falcons,
He's the one standing there trying to get jade, you know,
stand up, get your win. Together one more play, make
it happen, win it for us. And I was like
it felt so right that when they showed the sideline
(17:12):
after Mariota does it, there's Jayden two arms up cheering
for his guy. I mean, this is a team in
every sense of the word, and like we have this
amazing rookie, We've got this new coach preaching something that
they've bought into, and we've got these veterans, some of
them that have been around the block wondering what's left
for them in the sport and doing things like this
(17:32):
because they love playing again. It's just the whole thing
is just such an incredible story, really.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It is, and it's a true testament to Dan Quinn.
You know, DQ and had Peter. They identified the players
and a lot of these players were guys that they
had intimate knowledge of. Some of the guys that they
brought in from Dallas. Brian Johnson worked with Mariota in Philadelphia,
so he knew him. Cliff Kingsbury had to connect with
(18:00):
with Zach erz O z with was with Quinn and
in Atlanta, so and Bobby Wagner had been with DQ
and also with the Ken Norton junior, the linebacker coach.
So a lot of them, a lot of the veteran
guys were they had intimate knowledge, they had worked with
these guys before. They knew what type of players they got.
These guys were. More importantly, they knew what type of
(18:21):
locker room guys they they are. They knew what type
of role they were playing building the type of culture
that they wanted to they want to build in Washington,
and that's extremely important. There's a lot of guys who
you know, you see the every time some guys released,
whether it's a think about the kid, uh, the Ante Johnson,
(18:42):
good football player for for he was with the Firk Steelers.
Guy went to Carolina, went to Baltimore Knights in Houston,
he just released everybody, Hey, we need a receiver, go
pick him. I don't know thet Johnson personally, but maybe
Washington is like, you know, this is not this guy
is not going to be a good fit for what
(19:03):
we want to do and how we want to operate
the culture that we want to bring in, the type
of guy that we want to have on our locker room.
And I'm just saying this from that standpoint. Again, I
don't know Deontae Johnson, great talent and heck of a
football player, but you have to make sure you got
the right guys. It's not just all about having the
most talented football team. You have to have the right
players and right people. Yes, if you to build it
(19:26):
the right way.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
There's a lot of everything going on here for the
history of the franchise. Like there's this famous George Allen
quote from back in the seventies where you hear him
yelling like, fifty three men together can't lose. And this
feels this way about this team. I talked about this
couple of weeks ago with you, like I got to
cover the Joe Gibbs team's two point zero, you know,
the second time around when he was coaching here and
you were here too, and you know, and this is
(19:49):
what people talked about with him that he always said this.
He was one of his lines he always said, he goes,
you have to pick people, he goes, that's a really
hard thing to do, you know, you have to pick
people to play.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And to your.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Point, like I got to give the front office credit,
like they have circled people that they wanted to bring
in here. They heard a lot of things about them.
You know, zach Ertz can't play anymore. Even they admitted
last week we weren't sure he'd be more than just
a red zone threat or a third down threat. It
materialized into something more than that. Everyone said Austin Eckler
didn't have anything left in the tank. He clearly does.
(20:23):
Anthony Lynn knows him, knows what he can be for
this team. They knew what Bobby Wagner could be. You're
not just picking anybody to phill holes. You have to
pick people who want to be there, want to be
part of it, who are going to buy into this.
And that never gets old and it is always always
the secret to the teams that win. Go look at
what's happening in Detroit. This happened there a few years ago,
(20:45):
and it's turned into them being a juggernaut.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Now. No, you're right off. Even going back to I'll
throw myself in the mix. The reason I ended up
in Washington was because Greg Williams was my head coach
and Buffalo Low, Jerry Gray was my defensive coordinator. Jerry,
so Greg comes to Washington, he becomes the defensive coordinator there.
Jerry Gray is the coach and the secondary and there
(21:11):
was the other guys on the on the staff, you know,
Danny Smith, who's a great special teams coach. They knew
me from Buffalo, Steve Jackson, safety's coach. They knew me
from Buffalo, and they knew what that defense was missing
and they had identified they knew, like, hey, what we're
missing London Fletcher will provide that and more and you know,
(21:34):
so it's it's a it's a when you when you
have people that are going to advocate for you, they
know what you what you're about. And it's just even
even if you look at the guys who are holdovers
who they hadn't worked with. I know the roster has
been changed over a lot, but there are guys main stage,
whether it's Terry de Rod Payne, Johnston Allen, some of
(21:55):
the guys that that uh, you know we were here before,
Sam Cosme, guys who were holdovers from the previous regime,
but you identify I know that these are core guys
that we can build with. These are still the type
of players that we know will be a part of
our culture and can be a part of something something special.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
And one of those is Terry.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It needs to be mentioned three seconds left in the season,
he sets a franchise record with his thirteenth receiving touchdown.
No receiver in the history of the franchise had ever
done that before. He was tied with four others, two
of them are in the Hall of Fame, Charlie Taylor
and Bobby Mitchell. And then there's this stat and this
is amazing. He's one of four wide receivers ever to
have seventy five plus receptions and one thousand plus receiving
(22:43):
yards in five of their first six seasons. The other
three names are Brandon Marshall, Tory Holt, and the great
Randy Moss. You know, it's funny, like, clearly he's someone
who's going to join you in the Ring of Fame
here one day. I mean, that's just no doubt in
my mind that that's going to happen. And then, you know,
will he ever get a Hall of Fame candidacy? You know,
if he does, and he might have the numbers that
(23:05):
would support that. By the end of all of it,
I'm gonna point to you not only numbers like that,
but go and here are the list of quarterbacks he
played with that.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Right there, that right there should be like okay, let's
staff his uh let's staff. This with Terry because I
played with Toy. Toy was a rookie when I when
I was with the Saint Louis Ras and we went
to the I played well three seasons with Toy, and
so I know I know the quarterbacks that that he
(23:35):
was catching balls from. One of them is in uh
In Shrine and Cat and Kirk Warner, but and Brandon
Marshall and t O. I mean not t O, but
Brandon Marshall and also Brandy Moss. They've played with some
good quarterbacks and nobody has had the list of quarterbacks
like Terry McCloy. No disrespect to anybody, but well you
(23:58):
go down the list, man, I don't. I don't, even
though heck you you probably know how many quarterbacks is
it has been. But I'll say this, If Terry and
Jaden can have man a long career, whether it's eight, nine,
ten years together, whatever the case might be, and Terry
(24:19):
doesn't look like to be slowing down, if those guys
can build a nice resume together, then I think we'll
be in the conversation because Terry's gonna put up great numbers,
and then we'll be like, okay, yeah, let's get him
measure for his his jacket.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Okay, let's get to a couple other things that are
kind of like the hanging chad for me of the
game yesterday. Well, I want to mention we're taping this
before dan Quinn does his Monday afternoon day after press conference.
I'm certain he's going to address this.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Again.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It wasn't addressed completely I think the day after the
game because again, amazing win, amazing comeback, twelfth.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Win of the season, hadn't done that since nineteen anyone.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
There was a lot there to talk about heading into
the playoffs and the waiting for the for the playoff
picture to materialize to now know we're playing Tampa. So
what did you make of the decision at the time
to make a switch at quarterback at half?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Well, I was I was a little confused as to
why they did it. I didn't know because it it
looked like at that point it looked like didn't look
like Jaden took a hit or anything like that, or
it was like, you know, what's going on? Still still
close ballgame was six street ballgame at that point in time,
So you're wondering, what was this about was it a
(25:37):
situation where you know, you're like, Okay, we're gonna preserve him.
We want to we want to make sure and ensure
that he's healthy at hole when it comes time to
to play next week, whoever we're playing in the playoffs.
I was wondering if that was the case, and I
was like, did they did They just weren't happy with
(25:57):
the offense the way it was rolling, you know, So
all these scenarios are coming up, and I'm in my mind,
I'm also saying, I don't think it was a situation where,
you know, the offense not playing well where you can
look at and say, hey man, that was a Jade
not being on point, because there were protection issue, there
were all kind of things that were happening. He had
(26:18):
a couple off target throws to to Terry in particular.
But so there's a lot of different scenarios running through
my mind and I wanted to hear what the reasoning
was behind it as well.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
This is the second time too. I think I said
this during the broadcast with you. I don't know why
this is a bad matchup for them, but it is
because it's the second time now that they played Dallas
this year and got off to a really slow start,
couldn't really protect the quarterback early in either game.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Ojiggi Zoo had a big game.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Against Some the first time around, Michael Parsons had two
sacks on the opening drive. There was consistent pressure. They
haven't been able to get the run game going against them.
So I don't know what you're seeing against Dallas or
whatever Dallas is doing, but it was it has stunted
them twice now in both of those games.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, and first, I think it starts first and foremost
with just not consistently winning the the matchups up front
and in the trench, especially from from the offensive line standpoint,
in terms of being able to run the football. So
there there's too many occasions where, whether you go back
to the game at Northwest Federal Stadium or the game
(27:26):
yesterday Dallas, we just haven't been able to run the
football against them consistently enough. And we've been operating in
too many second and obvious passing situations or third and longer.
And the thing that they do, they have this great
guy man some there's some guys that you have no
answer to, and and that's Michael Parsons too. He's going
(27:50):
to win his one on one battles. And there's they
do a great job of you moving him around. They're
not just hey, he's going to be at defensive and
we can ship him with a running back, we can
slide the protection to him. We do all those types
of different things. They lined him up on his second sack,
they lined him up over to Michael Dieter, the center,
(28:11):
and so Michael Dieter, you know, a good football player,
but that's asking a lot to have him try to
block Michael Parkson one on one and it's a and
it's a third and I can't remember the Donard this,
but it was a third and longer situation. So you
know he's going to have to he's gonna hold the
ball a little bit longer to let those those routes develop.
(28:33):
So that's that's between not being able to establish the
run to operate in a lot more third and threes
or less, and being in too many third loans, and
also them having a great football player. I'll go back
to this though, as relates to Jayden, and Dan talked
about Jayden having some soreness in his leg. I went
(28:55):
back and it looked like he might have taken a
shot to the thigh air area earlier than that ball game,
so that that that thigh bruise if that's the if
it was a if it turns out that it was
a he just said leg. He didn't say what part,
but it looks like he takes a shot to his leg,
and particularly I think it might be in a thigh
(29:17):
area and that could have gotten worse on him as
the game progressed, especially you're going to halftime. You got
a ten twelve minute you know, period where that thing
is stiffen up on you. So I think it was
more of a byproduct of that and dam being true
to for harm, like, hey he got some legs. Ordon,
They're they're getting after the quarterback. We're going to need
to have a mobile quarterback. And it became operate fully
(29:40):
and functional, function fully like he needs to be. Then
you know we got we got markets here for a reason.
Let's go with him.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
You know I mentioned earlier, you know, I you know,
we want to see I think getting Austin Eckler back
is going to be a big deal for this team
for the run game. I want to read you Brian
Roberts's numbers since the twenty one carries sixty five yards
in the win over New Orleans, ten for twenty four
win over the Eagles, thirteen for sixty win over the Falcons.
(30:09):
That's four point six of carry that's pretty good. Just
five for ten against Dallas. Again, the offense was really
slow moving, but the rush offense. The team that ended
up top five rush offense numerous times early in the
season as a team, they went over two hundred yards
rushing over and over and it was part of the
reason why they kept winning time of possession. They were
(30:30):
gashing people, they were having the fast starts they were
looking for overall, Like, what are you seeing with the
run game and why is it outside of the unscripted
stuff that Jayden and Marcus did yesterday, what are you
seeing with the run game right now?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
What is It's a combination of a lot of different things. It's,
you know, first and foremost, not winning enough at the
at the point of attack and not getting enough movement.
You want to have their defensive line moving back, you know,
yard two yards, three yards. So there's too many times
where running backs are getting contact at or behind the
line of scriviage. There's some issues where sometimes they aren't
(31:06):
ideaing or targeting the right guy and uh in a
rough place especially, we run a lot of counters and
things where we're pulling line and pulling tight ends pulling.
So you have to know and be on the same
page of hey, who's you're going to block once the
once you get to that next level, the second level.
Not enough times we're not coming off of some of
(31:27):
our double team blocks working up to the to the
second level quick enough. So there's been things like that,
And it's also maybe the running back not seeing seeing
the being patient enough to allow these blocks to develop,
bouncing outside too quickly, when have you be just to
here here a little bit more patient. Dallas running back
(31:49):
did a great job of this yesterday. Rico o'donald. He
was very patient letting his blocks develop him There were
times where you know he's so patient, you think he's
going one way and then it creasures you goods back
into a to a whole that's a whole developed. So
maybe not having enough patience from a from a running
back standpoint, let those blocks develop, let let the offensive
(32:11):
line get moving. So it's not just one thing, it's
multiple things that has really hampered us in the games.
We haven't been able to run the ball effectively in
these last you know, let's call it last with the
exception last week when we rushed for what to uh
to sixteen haven't.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Been that was seven from Jayden and that was a
lot of unscripted scramble runs. And even like that was
you know, that includes all sorts of unscrambled like scrambles
that he's just making.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
He also had some success in the design run plays
and in his own reads and stuff like that, but
that throwout last week and throw out Tennessee, and we
really haven't had a lot of success outside of date
Jaden running the football. Yeah, I mean liketic in seven weeks.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, I mean like early in the season.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Like the reason why I was buying in big time
was won their winning games late. So they're showing this
propensity to win late. Jade is showing this obvious talent
that he can literally do anything. He's beyond his years.
And then there's always this in January, a run game
travels Like they had the number three rush offense for
the season in Washington history, like two thousand, six hundred
(33:20):
and nineteen yards, like a crazy number that they had.
But the vast majority of that was coming early in
the season. They were winning. They remember, they were dominating
time of possession against certain teams. They were holding the
holding the ball for they had the most ten plus
play drives for a long period of time in the season.
They were winning time of possession by a large margin
(33:40):
for the majority of the season. A lot of those
early fourth down conversions were because it was all fourth
and ones that were like it was their own version
of kind of tush push, like they were able to
extend all these drives. And remember early too, when they
talk about those slow starts, we always talked about they
were constantly in second and six, second and five constantly.
That's not been happening the last few weeks.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, And I hate to be a bear of bad news.
Tampa Bays the fourth ranked run defense International Football League.
They they only give up about ninety eight yards per
game Russian and and and even to dig deeper into that,
their last three games, Brah, take a guess, what do
you think they've allowed per per game rushing over the
(34:22):
over their last three game Take a guess.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I don't know, but I do know that Alvin Kamara
wasn't playing yesterday that part.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Take a guess. Take a guess with fifty fifty forty
four point seven. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, they've traditionally been great against the run. Where their
issue is going to be next week, and we'll get
into it a minute, is they're depleted in their secondary.
They've got a lot of injuries on the back end.
They're down to like third string, fourth string safeties, things
like that. Their corners have been hurt. So we may
be asking Jayden in the pass offense to kind of
be supermanaged this week.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
All right, So I'm glad you mentioned that their passes
defense is not that great. They're twenty ninth in the league.
That's right defense.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
So yeah, well, I mean like they play. Actually it's funny,
you know London they play. We talked about this at
the beginning of the season, like Todd Bowles is Todd
Bowles like they're going to blitz they do that. That
is not really In fact, it ended up this year
not really being in fashion of what a lot of
the NFL teams were doing.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Especially early.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Remember, everybody was complaining that everyone was dropping everybody back,
and everyone was screaming that they need to change a
rule because they couldn'tbody could hit a big play. Things
have changed a little bit here, but they pressure and
so they were kind of out of style early in
the season, and now that they have all these injuries
on the back end, they're playing with fire, like bringing
all those blitz packages with corners and safeties that are
(35:50):
deep down on their depth chart. Good luck was seventeen
and the way Diami's playing or the way Zakias is
playing right now, good luck with that. If you're not
going to get home against our guy.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah, no, you're right about that. And you know they
some guys do what they do and that's just this
is kind of their their DNA as a as a
defense coordinator, Todd Bowles, he's the that's always been as
Matra to be high pressure, bring a lot of pressure,
and regardless sometimes when you don't, when you're depleted at
(36:24):
in the secondary, being more aggressive actually is the answer,
because you're saying, hey, I know, my guys probably are
going to be able to cover long enough so to
try to play zone coverage or and they don't have
like some some top end rush guys, they don't have it.
They don't have a Micah Parsis somebody that they can
consistently say hey, go out win you're one on one match,
(36:47):
as we can play coverage behind you. We don't have
to bring pressure. They have to bring pressure. They blitz
the second most in the International Football League, behind the
Minnesota Vikings, and that's just who they are. They Uh,
that's how they feel like. They have to kind of
win the when the when the drives, when the when
that down is to bring pressure, limit the ability for
(37:11):
a quarterback to sit back there and pat the football.
Because they don't have just a dominant pass rusher two
they got it. They have to get five to six
man pressures.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
So the other thing from yesterday that I want to
get to before we move on move on to the
playoffs was I think the team was saved by the
red zone defense. Yesterday Dallas moved the ball effectively, got
into the red zone six times, only ended up scoring
one touchdown.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I agree with you about Rico Dowdell.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Actually second half of the season, he was actually very
good for them, very productive. He rushed for over eight
hundred yards in the second half of the season. He
wasn't scoring a lot of touchdowns he did yesterday. I
think that's a difference for them in the red zone.
They don't seem to have a finisher anymore, kind of
like what Zeke used to be for their team. Dabble's
very good in between the twenties, but they don't really
have a finisher down there. That kind of materialized a
(37:59):
little bit yesterday. I think Lance's inexperience also probably helped
Washington a little bit inside the twenties. But I want
to give credit where credits due. The red zone defense,
which has struggled this year, is ranked among the five
words in the league. Really stepped up yesterday and gave
the offense a chance to pull it out yesterday.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
That one holding up to one touchdown and six tries.
That's that's our standard. You play that type of RedZone defense,
you're going to be be the majority of teams, especially
on on flip side, we're scoring in the reds on
our ability to score touchdowns in the red zone, we're
gonna We're gonna be teams the thing that and I
(38:40):
know Joe Whitt is not happy about it. You mentioned
Dallas being able to move to football against us. Some
of it was we're still not playing to run to
the level we need to. And you you you want
to you want to win a role playoff game and
you touched on them. You got to be able to
run the football. You got to be able to stop
the run. And also you know your defense has to
(39:02):
make get some turnovers. But those are two and not
just if you want to win a role playoff game,
got to be able to run the football, Gotta be
able to stop the run. The reason you need to
be able to run the football because most of the
hostile environment, you don't want the crowd to be able
to affect and impact your your offense when in passing
the situation obvious pass the situation. You don't want to
(39:24):
be in a bunch of third long situation and it
also takes the crowd out of the out of the
game and it wears down a defense if you can
lean on those guys run the football effectively. So that's
part of why you need a bit of run the ball.
But you know, going going into a place, going into
hostile ar, you got to be able to stop that
rub especially on the road, and get after the defense,
(39:47):
get after that that quarterback and be able to get
some turnovers. It's hard to get to rest the passer
and get turnovers when you're where you're when. They had
a bunch of thirty and one thirty two thirdy threes.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
That opener feels like eight years ago now, But one
of the keys to the loss was Tampa Bay scored
almost every time they got into the red zone. Baker Mayfield,
Mike Evans had their way, Chris Godwould had a good game.
Obviously he won't be playing in this one. We only
saw the beginning stages of Bucky Irving. He was a
backup at that point. In the opener, Rashad White was
the lead back. Bucky Irving now has become the lead
(40:20):
back for them. Had an outstanding rookie season, most rush
yards by any rookie in the NFL. They actually have
a legitimate run game, first time in a while that
Tampa Bay's kind of been like that. They're a diverse offense,
they prolifically score. Baker Mayfield had forty one touchdown passes
this year. Like they can score. So I'm expecting somewhat
(40:40):
of a track meet here unless things change, which at
this point in the season, I got a hard time
buying that Washington turns around, it becomes like a top
ten run defense all overnight.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
I'm hoping I do outside this though you remember it this.
We had probably five, six seven opportunities to set Baker
in that game, and he was able to elude and
loud the rush and he made a lot of players
just being able to escape escape the rush, and you
know you you do that, and that's that's a different
ball game. Jaden is light years ahead of where he
(41:14):
was from week one to week nine to where we're
at right now. We're a better football team. I think
Tampa's a better football team. So they've dealt with some injuries.
We're dealing with some injuries. I'm looking forward to this game.
I think it's gonna be a fun game. There'll be opportunities,
especially if Tampa. I know they're gonna change some things up.
But in that first game, there were opportunities for Jaden
(41:37):
to make some plays in a passing game that for
him at that stage, you didn't feel comfortable taking taking
some chances on maybe a tight one to throw or
throwing a guy open. He's coming from from the collegiate
level where a lot of these guys are throwing to
two receivers that are a lot more wild. Uh, they're
(41:58):
a lot they're wide open as in the NFL, those
windows that that separation is gonna be a lot closer
anticipation throws. He's a much better scrambler and keeping his
eyes down down the field. I know they that's something
they harp on and and uh contention constantly wrap him
and practice of being remain in the passer outside of
(42:19):
the pocket. So Jaden Jayden is light years ahead of
where he was. And defensively, we're gonna have to We're
going to definitely have to run the ball, I mean
stopped and run better. Because Tapa red the ball effectively.
It gets us. That was kind of the startup when
we dealt with the trap blocks and and all those
the outside runs that we had a lot of extreme
(42:39):
difficult stopping in that game.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, I think the other thing is just to point
out and we learned this earlier. You mentioned it, like
they didn't wrap up Baker Mayfield. They god have five
sacks in that game and just didn't wrap him up
behind the line of scrimmage. What you'll see with him
this year too, there's a little bit of like the
the Josh Allen. Most quarterbacks slide or avoid contact. He
doesn't like he leans into it and almost welcomes it.
(43:05):
So you know, you like, you have to be careful
because if you touch the quarterback the wrong way, you
get a fifteen yard penalty. But he invites it and
he doesn't mind the contact. You got to know who
you're playing here. Like Jamee's gonna go down, he's gonna
go out of a bounds. Most quarterbacks will avoid the contact.
This guy won't. Actually he invites it.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
He wants to smoke, Yes, he does.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
You like that, I can see the smile on your face.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, I would say this, that's part of playing with
an age two. How he's I think his teammates rally
around him doing that type of thing that's risky because
you catch, you get caught by a linebacker or a
defensive alignment, and he's too valuable. But they feed off
(43:51):
of that when he's he's running around, making a play,
taking on a linebacker, doing all those types of things,
taking on a second safety or whatever and hopping up
and you know, doing his celebration afterwards. But it's definitely
a risk reward type of scenario. But yeah, I would
I would love that as a as a linebacker for
(44:12):
the quarterback and knowing that he's not gonna slide, that
he's gonna he's going to go and try to run
me over or try to get all he can out
of that play.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
One more player before I forget from yesterday, because I
just wanted to mention. Early in the half, boy Washington
really just couldn't move the ball. It was sixty five
yards or something like that. At halftime, that's all they
were able to manage. But one guy who really stood
out was Dimmi Brown, who had really he had missed
the week before. Was really kind of a spark plug
for them. They were looking for ways to get him
the ball. He was coming through for them, and I
just want to say this to him, like in my book,
(44:44):
you have your first career touchdown pass that I believe
in my world that happened. So I feel bad that
officially that did not happen for you.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yesterday, great play call, I mean great play costs came
up and the ivy threw. I'll say this, the ball
was a little it's a little different. It came out
a little different with the because he's left he's lefty,
and it wasn't like a tight spirro and Oz, you
(45:18):
you don't want to talk about how difficult it is
to look up and try to locate the football, and
this has this funky rotation on it. And so I mean,
you could tell that that Oz was having, you know,
a little bit of trouble tracking that that ball when
he five years before it got to him, you could
tell he was like, not not all the way shirt,
And it's almost like an outfielder. There's a deep flyball
(45:42):
flyout and you're like, man, I think I got it.
Next thing you know, it drops and he just had
trouble tracking it. So if you want to if you
want to say that was a touchdown in your book.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Gets a touchdown passed there? What he did, that's I'll
hear you on it. Here's what I'll say about that
place in general. It's very distracting.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
There a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
There's a lot of things happening there.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah, I will say this, though they did he did
provide juice to the offense. There was a I've watched
some of the offense earlier in the day and there
was a screen the threw to him. Man, he was
one block away. He actually had the block it just
the alignment. The defensive did a nice job running to
(46:29):
the running to the football. He actually was a Mozzie Smith.
He came out of there and he was falling. Mozzi
made this tag. If Mozzi doesn't make this tackle his play,
I think the amy with his speed, he's going to
score because he looked like I'm not sure if the
safeties would have had the right angle to catch him,
but he did provide sparking and juice to the offense yesterday.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
I tell you to just play there like that stadium
was amazing. I love it, but I don't know how
you guys keep any kind of focus in that.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Place, the big screen.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Even even Logan and during a time out, was like,
I think Netflix is here shooting season two of the
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader show. And he's standing there and like,
obviously that's what he's looking at at the moment, Like,
I don't know, world, you keep your head on straight
in that stadium.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Logan was looking at the Netflix Netflix camera and that's
what you have to do. You have to be a
professional when you're going to that into any environment, be
a pro.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
I told him, though He's like, I think the Netflix
cameras are here, and I don't want to be in
that and I go they don't want you.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
In it either. They're not focusing on you. They want
you out of the shot.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
The blurry him.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yeah, They're like, you're just adding extra work to like
get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
All right.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
So and now what I hope is not gonna be
the last time, because I'm I'm confident we're going down
to Tampa. We'll be doing this again next week talking
about whatever the next opponent is. For the final time
in the regular season. It is time for Big Fletch's
Heavyweight Commander Championship Belt presented by Northwest Federal Credit Union
where trust matters. The rating champ was Jade Daniels because
(48:17):
of all the magic acts that he had pulled. I
got a feeling he's in trouble of retaining the pulp
this week because there's other contenders.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
He is he is man. It was uh, you know, Jada,
he was Indee's the writing champion yesterday. He wasn't able
to go to distance and so there was there were
some challengers. There was some couple of strong challengers and contenders,
but I had to choose one. Marcus Mariota was was
(48:45):
a you know, a considered ration and he did he
did some great things in that ball game. But the
guy that I'm gonna choose to be the contender for
Big Fletch's Heavyweight Commanders Championship Belt, I'm gonna go with
Terry McLaurin. Terry had eight receptions sixty two yards on
(49:09):
twelve targets, obviously the game winner that he had a
vicecript on that on that catch, and Jaden, the numbers
just don't allow him to retain the bell. So without
further ado and no Heavyweight Championship command this big question bell,
(49:36):
howevern't you want to call it this for? He also
set the franchise record the receiver touchdowns with that game
win a touchdown, broke the franchise record or set a
new franchise record. So the bell goes from Jaden. Here wee, Terry,
(49:58):
there we three.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Whatever you want to call it's your championship belt. And
you're like, whatever you want to call.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
It, the Big Pletcher's Heavyweight Championship Commander's built Commander's Heavyweight
Championship Belt. Yeah, rolls right off, and I'll have what
I call them in front of me.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Oh man, All right, before we go, let's talk about
the playoffs A little bit you had experience playing in them.
What is the big difference because this is now. I
mean a lot of the players on this team have
a lot of experience doing it. Eckler played in them,
or number of the players here have done it. But
for the group that's been here, this is new and
for this organization's first time in four years. So what
(50:42):
do you think Number one is the big difference between
regular season and playoff football?
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Well, there's gonna be the intensity definitely ramps up. It's
just that's how it is. You look at even preseason
of regular season, there's a different intensity, but from regular
season to postseason, the intensity, the attention to detail has
to be a lot greater. The stakes are a lot higher.
You have to be ultra focused because there's going to
(51:08):
be so many, you know, a lot more interviews you
have to do. The media obligations kind of wrap up
a little bit where guys who are used to hiding
from the medium, they won't necessarily have that ability to
do that because they will have to, you know, be
available to the media. So there's more responsibility you have
(51:28):
to deal with and just understanding that, yes, a playoff game,
but once Steve the ball is snapped and the ball
is kicked off. It's still the game of football is
still the same game. So don't go in and try
to do too much. Oftentimes you'll see guys, like especially
defensive players, trying to do too much. I want to
(51:52):
make a play. I want to make a splash play.
Everybody's watching. I want to make anterception, I want to
make a sack, and they neglect their responsibility and don't
completely carry out their responsibility or try to make a
play that's not their play to be made. So you
have to be focused to attention to details. Let the
players come to you. They'll come to you by doing
(52:13):
your job first and foremost. And so the main thing
is not trying to do too much. And I'm sure
you have enough guys with experience. D Qey's coaching super Bowl,
he's won the Super Bowl. Well, I think he was
with Seattle when they won Super Bowl and they've done
it a long time. You know, Bobby Wagner's has all
this playoff experience, Zach Ertz super Bowl winning players. So
(52:36):
you have a lot of guys with playoff experience to
reiterate that message of just not trying to do too
much and stay focused on the attention to details.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Last few weeks when I talked to Dan Quinn to
get ready for the broadcast specifically against Dallas, specifically against Philadelphia. Okay,
so teams that they're your rivals, this will be the
second time around with them. These are teams also that
are kind of new torious for getting into extracurriculars and
potentially goading you into penalties. Right, And he had talked
openly about They've talked a lot about the penalties, Like,
(53:09):
he doesn't he's not bothered by anything in game that's
physical and if there's a mistake that's made, whatever, but
it's done in the act of playing. What they don't
like our presnat penalties, and they don't like these retaliatory
penalties they had won yesterday against Dallas, Dron Payne got
into one on a special team's play that led to
a different kickoff. Right, he wants to avoid all that stuff.
(53:30):
I don't walk into this worried openly about that because
of the opponent.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
With one exception.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
So Marshaun Lattimore and Mike Evans do not like each
other like and this goes back for years. It'll be
detailed at nauseum throughout the week. If he is going
to indeed play, which sounded like he's tracking towards being
healthy and hopefully they need him. I think hopefully playing.
This is going to be an interesting storyline to watch.
(53:57):
Mike Evans has been kicked out of games against the
Saints when he and Marshawn Latimore get into it. So
that is going to be something to watch very closely
this weekend.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
No, absolutely, and I hope Marshawn is out there playing.
The seems like they know how to get under each other.
Scared a little bit. They they've had all those battles
when they were playing in the same division, the NFC South,
But it'll be it'll be a great individual battle if
(54:28):
that If that's the case, where where Marshaun is out there,
and I'm sure the the Todd Todd Bowles is talking
to Mike Evan said, Hey, if Marshawn plays, you got
to keep you got to maintain your composure. You can't
go out here and get fifteen yard personal file penners.
You can't risk being ejected from that football game. So
(54:50):
you know that's that's the conversation that that you you'll
definitely want to have with your guys. You wanted to
play with the intensity, play with their heads a little bit,
but don't cross the line because it can be too
costly for your football team.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
And the last one, I just want to point out
a matchup like people aren't going to be thinking about him.
Chris Godmin's not out there. Jalen McMillan is a high
draft pick of theirs. We had heard because we went
into the opener against them from their people. They were
telling us they loved him coming out of college. They
were convinced he was going to be a high level
Number three. Godwin gets hurt, he and de facto becomes
(55:23):
their number two. Last five games of the season, he
has scored a touchdown in each one of them and
has seven over five games.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
He's a problem. So it's not just Mike Evans.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
They target this guy heavily and he's been scoring a ton.
We got to pay a lot of attention to him
this weekend.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, that they definitely haven't pay a lot of attention.
I'll say this though, if you're able to have mar
Shawn out there and you know he can match up
with Mike Evans, that will allow you to do some things.
Maybe roll some coverage to a Jaylen McMillan, see is
he able to deal with the pressure having coverage role
(56:02):
to him? He's a he's a rookie. Rookies, are you
gonna being to deal with that type of added attention
that that you may get if we if we say, hey,
we don't have to have extra resources committed to stopping
Mike Evans. If Marshawn is able to play, now we
can deploy a little bit more at resources to make
(56:23):
sure we x you out and see if Tapa Bacon
can get productivity out of their third receiver, their third
pass catcher. So it's it. It'll be a great, great
game planning week for the for the defensive coaches, for
the offensive coaches. And that's the beauty of this game.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Man.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
That's what I missed. Like people ask me all the time,
like what do you miss and but the thing that
I probably missed the most is the the game plan
and piece of a where you're studying Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
even Saturday the opponent and trying to figure out what
they do well, how you can combat that, things that
(57:03):
you can do against them to cause them problems. You're
you're constantly kind of putting your defense against certain plays
and like, Okay, they do this, we can do that
and vice versa. That's that's that's the piece that I
missed the most is the game planning piece. And that's
the beauty of this great game we have that we play.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
What do you think either team can get out of
rewatching week one against one another?
Speaker 2 (57:29):
They'll get a lot of it. Yeah, they'll definitely get
a lot of it. I think, as I mentioned with
Jaden that being his first NFL start, he's going to
get a ton out of it because from a defensive standpoint,
there's only so many coverages that you can throw at somebody.
So a lot of the coverages that that ty of
played in that game, there'll be a lot of the
(57:49):
coverage they play in this game. So Jaden will have
better answers and know, you know, how to deal with
those those coverages this time around. Matchups individual matchups that hey,
you may whether it's Tyler Biadis knowing how to deal
with Vida Veya a second time around, or some of
the some of the different blitz packages that blitz looks
(58:12):
that they look they threw at your pressure looks from
a standpoint of on the other side of the flip
side us dealing with the stopping their run in the
ways that they attacked us from a run game. Also
probably maybe having a better or different type of mindset
of how to rush Baker Mayfield that game we talked
(58:33):
about them, you know, probably should have had about five
six sacks and not being able to corrab Baker. So
having played him already once and realizing, hey, okay, maybe
I need to slow it down a here, a half
a step as I get closer to him. So having
those that that Week one match up and being able
to look at that film, it's gonna it's gonna be
(58:55):
big for both teams. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
And then the last thing really is you know, if
I didn't know any better the way that this team
ends every game, I would think they're doing it on purpose.
So if this game doesn't come down to the last possession, or,
in the case of this team, the last play, that
would actually be a surprise to me.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Oh man, you know what, Man, I don't know how
many more things I can.
Speaker 1 (59:22):
I mean, the fact that we don't have a sponsor
for blood pressure pills is amazing to me.
Speaker 2 (59:29):
Oh absolutely, but don't speak too soon. We might have one. Yes,
we're watching fan. Do you have high blood pressure? We're
watching your your team play such as such. We're here
for you.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to read a disclaimer. If you
listen to this broadcast, it could affect your health. It's
pretty wild, all right. It's been an amazing season. Can't
wait for the playoffs. I'll see you in Tampa, London.
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Let's go.
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