September 1, 2025 • 55 mins
Legendary linebacker London Fletcher joins Bram Weinstein as they take a deep dive into the Washington Commanders upcoming 2025 Season. They breakdown what we can expect to see of the offense led by phenom Jayden Daniels, if there will be a sophomore slump, and how the new weapons like Deebo Samuel fits into Kilff Kingsbury's scheme. Logan Paulsen stops by to chat about Joe Whitt Jr. and how future Hall of Famers Von Miller and Bobby Wagner are the lynchpin to Washington's success. Get Your Commanders Tickets Here: https://bit.ly/3SpwKU3 Hosts: Bram Weinstein, London Fletcher Guests: Logan Paulsen Producer: Jason Johnson The views and opinions expressed by our analysts and/or hosts are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Washington Commanders or any of their representatives.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on the Booth Review, London. You're going to
tell us what you think of the d in twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh yeah, the defensive line, the big boys, they will
lead the charge to a rebap defense.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Fletch.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
This is an offensive driven league with media talk about
offense and how we stave off statistical regression.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And we're all going to talk about what a successful
season looks like this year. Coming up. Welcome into our
second edition, the Week one edition, our Labor Day edition
of the Booth Review podcast. I'm bram weyitside with Big
Fletch London Fletcher. Were brought to you by Microsoft co
Pilot PC powering a Better Game. It is here. The
long off season is over Week one, London.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I can't wait. You know what, I don't think the
off season was that long, Bron. I mean, it felt
like it feels like it flew by. One minute we
were calling the game in the NFC Championship and next
thing you know, we're here ready for Week one and
I'm looking forward to seeing this defense get after the
not only the Giants, but just play all season long.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
What I've learned is I get older, is I need
more hobbies in the offseason because I get bored, so
like that's that's that's the problem. I'm hitting around like
truly my thumbs waiting for this to happen. You're out
there playing golf, So I got to take up something
here to get ready to all right, I'm ready for
the show. Yeah, all right. Let's talk about the defense
as a whole, and let's start with just the overarching theme,
(01:25):
which was Joe Witt dan Quinn stated on the record,
they are going to be a much more of defense
play the style as they put it, that we got
accustomed to, I think most recently in Dallas, where they
would bring a lot of heat. They became turnover machines.
At times a top five defense, they were flipping eight
(01:45):
games upside down. So let's just let me just get
your just general thoughts stylistically, what do you expect from
the commanders this year.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I expect them to be like Joe Witt Washington playing
like Q Wantsington to play a ton of man man
on the back end. I think they had to requisite
corners to be able to play man and man defense.
You go out, you draft Trey Amos, now you allow
now you move Sam Steel into the nickel position. You
have a healthy Mashan Lattimore and that's going to be key.
(02:16):
So those guys are really excel and being able to
play man and man coverage. Also, I think getting a
Will Harris who's a really versatile safety, a guy you
can also play at the dime dime spot and pass
the situation. So they had the guys that can play
man and man on the back end, bring pressure and
the von Miller. You went out and you got javon Kinlong.
(02:36):
You needed to get bigger in the trenches. They did that.
You don't have. Now you got guys where you don't
have to play like the two gaping style. You can
play more downhill. You can get more more plays in
the backfield, more negative artist plays, be more disruptive, put
a lot of pressure on the quarterback and that hopefully
will lead to more turner was either with forced fumbles
(02:57):
or quarterback throwing Aaron passes.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, I want to stay on the corners. Like I
don't think there is a unit on this team when
we were talking at this time last year to getting
set for this season that is more improved than that
group overall from where they were and who was on
the field a year ago when they had their opener
against Tampa versus what I think looks like a healthy
(03:20):
Marshaw Lattimore. Trey Amos has looked the part from day one.
It was in the spring where we were going that
guy's day one starter Sandrastill, who is consistently around the ball,
moves to what they believe is going to be his
most natural and successful position, and they're deep with people
like Jonathan Jones. This unit, to me is probably the
(03:42):
biggest improvement that they've made, I think over the course
of a year, to flip it from what was I
think a liability a year ago to what might be
the strength of the defense.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
And it is crazy that you say a liability where
you look on paper they were the third ranked pass defense,
but how much of that was because they were so
bad against the run where teams just ran the ball
a little bit more against them. And you mentioned I'm
glad you mentioned Jonathan Jones. That's another guy I failed
to mention, but he very underrated signing as well. And
(04:15):
the thing that this group has, especially at the cornerback position,
a ton of versatility. You have Jones and Sander still
that both can play inside and outside. So if you
have an injury situation or whatever the case may be,
those guys have the ability to play both the nickel position,
go cover slots, or they can go outside. Trey Amos
(04:38):
a bigger receipt, bigger defensive back. What I liked about
him was his poison balls downfield. Oftentimes you see a
defensive back start to panic, especially when the ball is
down the field. They panic, they started to get grabby,
and they create unnecessary pass interference plays. And there were
(04:59):
times in the in the preseason and also throughout training camp, well,
he's making forcing incompletions because he just so poised, doesn't panic.
He'll come up with that size, he'll tackle on the
run game, and he can get his hands on the football.
So that's as you mentioned, this is probably not probably,
this is the biggest improved unit on the football team.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I want to get into the run defense two overall,
because there was clearly a priority to get bigger upfront
and to try to be better generally against the run.
But just look at our division for a minute here
with the addition of George Pickens to Dallas, so they
got Pickens in the lamb, that's an incredible duo, whether
they Dallas can run the ball really well to be seen.
Malik Neighbors, I would argue, might be the best receiver
(05:45):
in the entire league or the most uncoverable one in
our division. And then you've got the duo, right, You've
got the duo of Brown and Smith to go along
with that incredible rush game in Philadelphia. But if you
think about, like yes, the run game, run defense needed
to be improved, look at the receivers that Washington is
lining up against week to week. To win the division.
(06:05):
They have to have a strong corner unit to really
have a shot this year.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
They really do. And you know, it's a situation where
you don't get a bye week, so to speak. There's
not a situation, especially within the division, where all right,
you got you know one one team may have one guy,
but as you mentioned, most of these teams have two guys.
We're seeing we don't know just yet who's gonna be
that other guy. In addition to Neighbors and with the
(06:31):
New York Giants, but as you mentioned, he's trying to
guard him one on one. He's creating problems for guys
and he's only a second year player. But you need
those guys. You need to be able to say, hey,
we we can feel comfortable playing man the man against
these guys in And I also want guys, the people
(06:51):
that are watching this to understand, You're not gonna completely
shed down these wide receivers that you face week in
and week out. You're not going to hold a guy
like aj Brown to two receptions for fifteen yards. And
you just got to understand, limit the big plays, limit
the explosives, and allow us to be able to maybe
(07:13):
force the quarterback to hold the football a little bit longer,
take longer to allow the pass rush to get home
and put pressure on quarterbacks.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The other person off the secondary I want to stay
there for a minute. That I want to mention is
Klon Martin, who has gotten a lot of accolades from
the coaching staff. Throughout the off season, dan Quinn and
Joe would have talked about development of leadership and named
him as one of the people that has really grown
as a leader. He started making some really big plays.
At the end of last year, we found out he
(07:44):
had both shoulders that needed to be repaired, so he
was playing through a lot of pain last year. Obviously
had one of those all time moments in Detroit with
the pick six. But his development seems to be key too,
because they keep talking about this ball is life. We
have what looks to be three corners that if they
if the ball comes near them, they can catch it.
Now it's different than what they had in the past.
(08:05):
Kwan is capable of making these plays as well.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
He is. And with Kwan his rookie year, he had
so much versatility coming out of Illinois, and you were
kind of trying to figure him out, like is he
a safety? Is he a nico? What is he? He's
really found at home as the free safety in this defense.
You love him as a general back in the back end.
(08:30):
He communicates, he carries himself like a much more mature player,
like he doesn't seem like a third year player. One
of the most underrated aspects of his game is his
ability to make tackles in the open field. There were
so many times last season where runs would get out
and Kwan would come up and make sure tackles that
(08:52):
you don't you know. Now, it's not going to show
up in the stat line as an interception or pass defense,
but it's a game a touchdown, save and tackle it's
a limiting, limiting a run to twelve yards as opposed
to thirty yards things like that, to where you can,
you know, live to fight and play another down. I
really love the maturation of his game. I think he
(09:13):
has he has Pro Bowl potential, and hopefully he'll get
that recognition. But he's definitely one of those guys that
you love the potential that he has and the skills
that he brings to this defense.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
All right, let me stay on the pass defense. Vers
we'll get into the rush defense a little bit. But
the front is going to be what they're going to do.
They're gonna be more aggressive, they're going to bring more people,
They're going to try to get some game changing plays.
I think the hope is that this goes along with
a better rush defense on first and second down, It
gets teams more in third and longs and gives them
the opportunity to try to make these plays. That said,
(09:47):
von Miller's here, but at his age price point, I mean,
I think it'd be it's unfair to go, well, he'll
be a fifteen SAC player again. I don't think that's
fair to kind of put that on him. As you
kind of look across the board you could stay. It'll
make the case that that game changing edge rusher. The
people that quinn Witt used in Dallas, Michael Parsons, DeMarcus
(10:07):
Lawrence come to mind that we're game changing type players
may or may not be on this roster right now.
So as you think about like who's gonna get the sacks,
where's the pressure coming from? How do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think you're gonna have a bunch of guys, maybe
let's call it three or four guys, but around eight
or nine sacks on this defense. I think Vonon, you know,
is a guy who can get you eight to ten sacks.
Doris Armstrong is a guy that can get you eight
to ten sacks. Frankie Louvio, I think he'll be a
ten to twelve sacked type of guy. You got Ken
(10:41):
law who can get you, who'll probably get you eight
or nine sacks. And then the Ron Payin's gonna be
a guy who's gonna probably get you let's call it
four to six sacks. So you got you got some
guys collectively that can get to the quarterback. I don't
know that you'll have a fifteen sacked type of guy.
A sixteen sacked type of guy. But they'll be able
(11:02):
to generate pressure on the quarterback. Even even last year
they they had forty three sacks, which was, you know,
not terrible. It was eleft time for eleventh in the
National Football League. And I feel like we have better
pass rushes this season. And think about this, when you
can put the type of speed that you can put
(11:23):
on the field. You got von Miller at one edge,
louisvo at another edge, put dorn Armstrong over a guard.
Put either Ken Law or Duryan Payne over attack on
guard as well. That's some guys that can get out
to the quarterback. Those are some guys that can get
out to the quarterback.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I mean, you already said it, Like I was going
to ask you who you think is gonna lead the
team in sacks. I think it's gonna be Louvu at
the end of the year. Like I actually think he's
the one that's going to end up with double digits
of all of these names out there.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah no. And the thing that what he finished with
last year, was it eight sacks or not? I can't
I can't recall right off hand. But what I do
like about what I do like about Louis is He's
gonna benefit so much from Von not only teams, you know,
kind of not being able to kind of slide protection,
(12:16):
no chip him a little bit, but also Louisu learning
from Vin and Voon being able to give him some
some like pointers and saying and learning how to rush
the passes. And not only that, I think they'll move
him around, maybe put him over a center. Can you
imagine lining Louvu up, head up over a center and
using his quickness of speed at the snap, much like
(12:38):
the Cowboys use use Michael Parsons and and you can
put you put that type of speed and quickness in
the inside. Those guards are used to dealing with that
type of speed.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Him, George Armstrong had a tremendous camp. We saw him
move inside. He did this in Dallas too, but we
saw him move inside stand up position as well on
the inside. I think there's a lot of creativity here.
Den Pain at times has been slid outside. Let's see
how they utilize Von Miller and in what packages and
the depth across the board on the front is a
(13:15):
big storyline here coming into I'm going to be really
interested to see what these packages look like of these players.
I wonder if you kind of are feeling the same
way I am. I'm not sure what combinations of players,
especially in the third down, third to medium, third and
long situations, what combination of the players are we going
to see out there? From Joe Witt, You'll.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
See you'll see a variety of different combinations. It may
be a situation where you have, for what you would
consider edge rushers on the field at one time, and
maybe they call it like their NASCAR package or whatever
they whatever they would call it, where it's just four
edge rushers and you're you don't you just don't know
(13:58):
who's gonna line up where you got it to a
ton of speed on the field, and let's get out
to the quarterback. Dietrich Wise he can he can get
out to the quarterback as well. I think also from
from a blitzing standpoint, having Sander Steele and covering the slot,
he'll be really good in the in the in the
pressure package as well. Those are that's something else to consider.
(14:21):
And then Bobby Bobby Wagers can get out of the quarterback.
How can we forget Bobby Bobby had about what four
or five sacks last season as well, and even when
he didn't get sacks, he was able to beat a
lot of running backs and put pressure on quarterback. So
that's another another added element to the pass rush.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
So like, there were two things I think that they
could change about last year that they would One was
getting the ball more often. They preach ball his life.
I think they feel like with the personnel that they have,
specifically specifically the ball skills of the back end and
hopefully getting them in a position to make those types
of plays, they feel pretty confident that that's going to
be different this year. The other one is the run defense.
(15:01):
The run defense was among the worst in the NFL.
They went out of their way to get bigger, Like
this is what will be extremely noticeable about them when
it starts the season if you haven't been paying close attention.
Dietrich Wise is big, Javon Kinlaw is huge. They have
others in terms of depth that are veterans that are large,
(15:23):
hole blocking people in the middle of the line, and
so all of that. From just from a pure size perspective,
they're much bigger than they were. But why do you
think that'll translate to them being better as a rush defense,
As a whole.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
I just think being able to play more what did
you call single gap type defense, being able to penetrate
as opposed to there's a different when you can when
you know you have one gap, you can be more
aggressive as a linebacker. You can play downhill, really get
double tamed blocks off of the defensive tackles a lot faster.
(16:02):
Last year there was a lot of we call two
gaping or playing like kind of a gap and a half,
and you're when you do that type of style, those
double teams stay on the tackles a lot longer and
the defensive ends in some cases, and that that forces
that allows penetration or movement by the offensive line. They're
able to get movement on those defensive linemen and linemen
(16:26):
are playing in your lap a lot more. But by
you playing more gap defense, one gap defense, now you
can play downhill, play a lot of be a lot
more to disruptive, playing that opponent's backfield a lot more,
and that that should be better. Also, setting the edge
is harder, whether it's from a defensive end standpoint or not.
And it's not just about the defensive ends. Your corners
(16:50):
have to be willing tacklers and understand where they fit
in the run game. Making sure you get that ball
back to your pursuit come from inside out. Sending hard
edge is not allowing, you know, those holes to get wider.
And you know, you look at the big run against
the against the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Eagles had against
(17:12):
us the opening game, open play of the playoffs for them,
poor run fits not fit properly on that UH and
soft edge. And that's why that's how Sa Kwon Barkley
was able to take that thing to the house.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
All right, let me talk about one specific player too,
is want to get your opinion on him having seen
him now for the summer, Javon Kinlaw, who was a
major signing for this team, drafted by the front office
that Adam Peters was with in San Francisco, had injuries
the first couple of years of his career, ended up
going to the Jets, had a year, became a free agent.
(17:51):
Comes here. The first thing they said about him was
you haven't seen the best of him. And throughout the
course of the summer, and he is immovable. There are
moments where he blows up plays like that. You wouldn't
believe that one person is blowing up plays. I think
what people want to see from him is consistency. Is
(18:13):
this going to occur over and over and over or
are there just moments? So what have you noticed? I mean,
he didn't play much in the preseason, but what have
you noticed about kin Law here in his first offseason
with the team?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
The first thing you mentioned is health, And I think
a lot of oftentimes people don't realize how much health
plays a part in how productive you are. And you
mentioned him dealing with some injuries in his first couple
of years, and he was a first round draft pick
and San Francisco and he kind of got set back
a little bit. The size, the snap, the power, the
(18:48):
disruption that he's able to create. There's gonna be times
where he's disruptive and it won't be Hey, Ken Law
made attack, or Ken Law made the sack. Is kin
Law was o disruptive that somebody else was able to
play off of him make a tackle for a loss,
give sack, get a TfL things like that. But I'll
(19:10):
tell you what. There was a couple of times in
the game against the Cincinnati Bengos in the run game
where the power that he was able to control the
guards with and get and disregard them, get off blocks,
make tackles at or you know, a yard past the
line of scrimmage. That's what you wanted in a defensive tackle.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Overall, I can't believe I'm saying this off of the
camp because of who the quarterback is on this team.
How good the offense was a year ago, the additions
we're going to get into the offense with Logan in
a minute, Laramie tunsl Deebo, Samuel namely you know that
are coming here. The additions that were made. You know,
I just kind of felt like the offense was going
to become just much more formidable immediately for a lot
(19:54):
of reasons. You know, they didn't really practice together throughout
the course of the summer, and it's fair to say
like it wasn't clicking for a while there. And you know,
I assume that everything with number five and Cliff and
all that it's gonna work out. But if they start
a little bit slower, Like I am more bullish about
what the defense looks like early in the season, I
(20:15):
don't think everybody on the outside realizes how improved it
is stylistically, what it's going to look like. How much
deeper they are, how them with the propensity to get turnovers.
It's very different than it was a year ago. Like,
I have a feeling that this defense is going to
surprise a lot of people when we get into the
real games, and it's.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And it's all going to be predicated on their ability
to stop the run. And when I say stop the run,
you have to you have to have teams operating consistently
for from call it third and four or more. Ideally
you want to be third and five or more to
(20:56):
aren a right to rush the passer. If you're in
a bus third and three started, two started once. Defensively,
it's gonna be tough to get off the field forced
paws and get the ball back to that offense. But
you get them at third and five, thirty six, thirty
sevens Now you can really unleash your pass rush. You
(21:17):
can you can have you'll have more impactful plays, whether
it be sacks, force fumbles, interception opportunities, plays to be
made in the passing game. So you have to It's
all predicated on what you're able to do stopping and run,
especially on first and second down.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, I mean the last couple of years in Dallas,
we saw this firsthand. They had a top five defense
and they had like Trayvon Diggs had a season where
he broke a single season record for picks for Dallas.
They broke the single season record for pick sixes with
Deron Bland. Like that whole ball is life thing is
what became the real game changer for the Allas defenses
(22:01):
under Quinn and Wit. I'm hoping we get that here.
And I feel like with the corners that we have now,
if they can generate the type of disruptive pass rush
and to your point, get teams more into third and
medium and long with a better rush defense, I think
we got a shot at a lot more turnovers. And
if that's happening with this quarterback, I think it's gonna
(22:24):
it's going to increase the probability of them having yet
another season double digit wins, back to the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
All of that. Oh yeah, absolutely, And and you know,
getting vision on the quarterback. It's so they're what I
what I like here. They've been playing a lot more
cover too. They did it a lot last year and
they're gonna have their you know, man and man is
gonna probably be the lead dog, lead coverage for this group,
but also when they're able to play cover too, and
(22:52):
they have a bunch of creative ways that they get
into your their cover two drops. It's not just your
traditional hey corners playing the UH the flask linebackers playing
what you call the post technique, middle linebacker run the scenes,
and safeties playing two D. They might have a safety
becoming the middle of the field run guid. They might
(23:14):
have two defensive ends drop and become the two poachers
they've been and rushed Bobby and stuff like that. And
they got a bunch of different creative ways to get
into that that cover too. I call it morphing into
that cover to coverage and morphing into your zoo reads
and I mean zone coverage. Even even your your robber
techniques where you're showing there too high shell on your
(23:37):
you got one of those safeties kind of playing that
that high hole, intermediate type UH area, middle of the field,
reading the quarterback on, looking for endbreaking rounds, being able
to make interceptions and get PBUs so they're there. This
is having this group, this unit is going to allow
(23:57):
Joe Wick and to play the style of defense that
they play and play so well when they were in Dallas. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Last year, at this time when we walked into the season,
I think people were I was genuinely surprised at how
effective the offense was early in the year. I think
it's going to be the invers this year. I think
teams are going to be very surprised early how much
more effective the defense actually is going to be this year.
Everyone knows about Jayden Daniels, has expectations of Jade and Daniels,
the offense, all that stuff. I don't think I think
they're being overlooked here, and so I think that's going
(24:28):
to be an interesting part for the first month of
the season if you see a much more effective defense.
But let's turn our attention to the offense. Time to
bring in. On game day, Logan and I or London
and I are in the booths. Logan's down on the
field for this purpose of the booth review. We put
them on the bench. So we're going to get Logan
Calson from the line to get in on the offense.
He joins us from the Big Bear AI Command Center studio.
(24:52):
There he is, Bucket had an all. Hello, mister Paulson,
how are you.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I'm good guys, how are you guys doing that?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
That was a really fun you'll listen to regarding the defense,
learned a lot as always.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
All right, you guys doing great.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Let's get into the offense logan. Let me start just
kind of big picture here. Do you think stylistically that
Cliff Kingsbury is thinking with the addition specifically of tunsl
for the offensive line, Debo as a movable part and
explosive playmaker, the offense looks very different from it did
(25:30):
a year ago.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I don't know if it looks different.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I think what an addition like Deebo allows you to
do is emphasize stuff that you already want to be
good at and emphasize offensive principles that carry good offenses.
And what I mean by that is when you look
at offenses like Kyle Shanahan three years ago, like what
they're able to do is kind of have a low
average depth of target with a high separation number and
then a large yards after the catch number. So like
(25:53):
when I think about what Deebo does does so well
and did so well in that offense, is taking as
an example like we saw in the Baltimore game, all
these kind of like little bubble screens, pre snap reads
like where we're getting favorable numbers, we're getting nickel pressure,
we'll get two over two, we get one blocker and
then one runner, and a guy like Debo is going
to maximize that.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Look.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
So while whoever's catching that screen in the Baltimore game
catches that ball for three yards, Debo can maybe make
it ten, maybe makes it fifteen, and all of a sudden,
this other element that I think is kind of important
in modern offenses is finding explosive plays. So the way
you'd characterize the way PFF characterizes that is a run
over ten yards and a pass play over twenty yards. Right,
(26:34):
So I think bringing that addition, because of his skill set,
allows you to lean more into kind of quote unquote
modern offensive statistical efficiency. And I know, Fletch, I said statistics.
You're going to freak out now.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
But like that's what that's what I think this allows
you to do.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Look, actually, was I was. You did a great job
of breaking it all down.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I was like, you know what this is, this is.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Some great analytics stuff. Yeah, I was. I was okay
with it.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
I think because you got steel coming in now, man,
you're getting your gutting, you're pulled over to the dark side.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Now you're.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
With your explanation of the the I guess you call
it the short targets and then being able to create
yack yards yards I have to catch the things like that.
That was a great breakdown explanation though, what we can
what we can expect from this offense, especially when it
comes to Debo and even probably like a guy like
(27:29):
the Jalen Lange as well.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think when you
look at like, one of the reasons like o Z
was so effective in this offense last year is like
he's a kind of Deebo Samuel Light, right, He's got
like this great contact balance he can kind of find
he doesn't run every route on the route tree, but
can run a bunch of them. And so I think
you just kind of evolve that position. You know, if
you guys like Pokemon, he went from stage one to
stage two Pokemon, you know, bulbosor to blastoids or whatever
(27:53):
we're talking.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Get we get all kind of all kind of references.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Made a record round reference, spam a red around front
reference last week, so I can make a Pokemon reference.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
No, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
It's crazy like for years and years and years, people
like me who never played, we used all this statistical
stuff to like back up our arguments or and when
I say it, it just makes me a football nerder. I
don't know what I'm talking about. Logan says that it's
it's all true, it's the gospel.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
So well, hold on, hold on, holdld out, Brad. I'm
just so, let's here's the deal. Analytics have always been
a part of the game from a play calling, game
plan and standpoint. Like, we just didn't call it analytics.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
We call it percentages, ortistic statistics, or we used to
call it a hit chart, like, hey, they're in this
personnel groupinge this don of distance, wherever they're are on
the on the football field, there's a high probability.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Let's call it an eighty percent they're going to run
the football. And these are the these are year three
top runs, especially if they get in this formation. Things
like that. Now they just called it analytics now, and
it's a great way for the nerds to all of
a sudden be a part of part of the game,
a part of a part of sports man. It's taken over.
(29:20):
So I'm just I'm able to really decipher it and
put it to my old layman's words what Logan and
you guys just explained.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
So it's so funny Fletch gives me such a hard
time for all this analytics stuff. But like when Fletch played,
he was like the first analytics guy, right. He was
the guy that could remember all the first down percentages.
He can remember the runs they had, like and and
again that's what makes good players good is they're able
to kind of internalize and then digest that information in
the production on the field. But yeah, like he gives
(29:49):
me a hard time for it, but don't let don't
get it twisted. He was a big analytics guy before us.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
He was the first I think, no way, go ahead,
Londed no no, no, I just and Brand and Logan.
For me, it's just I don't want the nerves to
take over my game. You know.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
It's funny though, I was talking to my son about
this the other day, and you know, like with baseball,
analytics have kind of like ruined quote unquote, with basketball,
it's kind of ruined. I do think in some ways
like it's made football better, right, it's kind of diversified
the offenses. You see, it's kind of said, oh, you know,
we can't run you know, college offenses.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
But it just increases offenses of efficiency.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Right, you see a running quarterback Now, I think that's
analytically driven in a lot of ways. Right, you see
kind of the advent of finding these explosive play action shots.
And then a couple of years ago, I remember FLUS
you were like, oh, we can't run the football. It's
not you know, a what is it the it's not
an efficient play. And all of a sudden, because they
can't really define why running makes it easier for the quarterback,
they've kind of backtracked that model little bit and you're
(30:48):
seeing running come back in a vogue. So I think
even though analytics are kind of infecting modern NFL football,
I think it's really interesting because they can't define all
the parameters. And that's what makes it so fun to
talk about analytics with regards to football.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
There's too many moving parts. This isn't baseball. This isn't
baseball where you can run data sheet and analytic report
on this pitcher versus this hitter or this hitter has
trouble with this particular pitch in this particular location and
if you can execute that, you're probably going to have
success and start talking about launch angles something like that.
Every single play is twenty two people in the field
(31:22):
that all need to do the right thing at the
right time to make anything work. The analytics help accentuate
maybe some more tendencies that you should do or some
pathways to success. It still doesn't change the fact that
there are too many people that could either make it
successful or screw it up all at the same time.
But I think that's why the analytics are what they are.
And like, I've known London long enough that I know
(31:44):
like he's buying into the analytics, but in the end
he's like, how about I just go punch somebody in
the mouth and I'll show you where.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Absolutely, so, yeah, yeah, Digresa. Let's talk about the offense
as a whole. You mentioned deebo Jalen Lane's an interesting
one too. We can come back to him. Let me
get to the run game with you, which what early
in the season last year was really successful. There were
numerous two hundred plus yard collective rush days for this team. Obviously,
(32:16):
Brian Robinson was a big change for them. We're going
to see what Bill is for this offense. Austin Eckler
comes back, as you kind of think through the run
game with the new offensive line and the group that
they have and add in Deebo to whatever degree that is,
add in Jayden, how are you thinking about collectively the
rush game this year?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
I think, you know, obviously with the additions on the
offensive line Larry Tunsall, Brandon Coleman guard, and then kind
of the depth pieces of Wiley and Ala Griddy, I
think they're just again they're trying to maximize or provide
more clarity on the offense that they ran last year.
And so we talk about We've fetched I've talked about this,
I've talked about z Bram like the idea.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Of statistical regression in certain.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Categories, right, So like the idea that I'm not going
to be as efficient on fourth down this year or
eight percent is going to drop a little bit, Right,
So with defense, you see that manifesting in a you know,
we got to be better on first down, right, because
if we're better on first down, then we can be
more efficient on third down. And there's like a ripple
and a trickle down effect. I see that same thing
happening honestly with the offensive side of the football. If
(33:16):
we can make sure our first and second down runs
are even like one yard more efficient, so all of
a sudden, we're in second and six as opposed to
third or second and seven.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Now the playbook opens up.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
We increase our offensive efficiency because statistically, as we get
closer to that first down marker, it becomes easier to
get a first down. So I think that's what you're
looking at there, is if we can maximize the efficiency
of some of our runs by increasing the efficiency of
some of our personnel. And again, like that to me
is what you're trying to get to, right, if you're
trying to stave off statistical regression by becoming more efficient
(33:50):
running the football. So low leverage, low stress on the quarterback,
higher efficiency. Again, so when I got to throw my
pitch with Jayden Daniels, when I got to have him
be a here on third and five, when I got
to have him get a first down on fourth and two, like,
we've got all those plays at our disposal, because again,
our first time efficiency is more effective.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, all right, now let me break this down into
Lamber's time. We got we got better, he Jason laughing
in the office line. We got better in the trench.
So Larry me Tosso, now you got him excellent pass protective,
underrated run of blocker. But you may you move Brandon Kuman,
(34:33):
a big body, bigger body into that left guard position.
He's gonna roll great, be honest. He got he got
u banged up down the stretch and the run game
started to suffer a little bit, but tough as nails,
really good run blocker Andrew Wiley until Sam Cosby comes back,
He's going to be a really good run blocker. He
(34:55):
had he had his moment some you know where he
struggled little bit at times with pass pro, but as
a unlocker he was very good. So now you've got
him in that interior running the football, I mean helping
run run the ball. Josh Connery, hell of an athlete.
He's going to be a really good run run blocker.
(35:16):
So all this and efficiency is one thing, and all listen,
but at the end of the day, we got better
in the damn trenches.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
And I think the other interesting thing, I think that's
a really succinct way of putting in fletch.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And I was trying to sound smart. Yeah, we got
better than trenches, right, We're going to be more efficient.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
The other thing, too, is like the type of players
that they've gotten, right, They've gotten more athletic people, and
everyone thinks so for run blocking it's this bigger, hulking,
lean on you type of guy. But I think with
this system, because of all the pulling, that athletic dexterity
is something that's going to make us more efficient, right,
you know, Coleman pulling the perimeter. We saw how athletic
conor condly could be in that New England game with
(35:54):
some of that tight zone footw're getting the second level
outside zone. It just adds you to It allows you
to be a little bit more effective with that stuff
and a little bit more diverse when you get those
athletic kind of live bodies in there.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
So I think that's a great point by you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Job wanted the best robot home preach.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Now now we're talking tight ends.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
Let's get let's get that thing going right, I mean,
just in terms what he allows you to do.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Let me ask you this logan. Just because the offensive
line as a group essentially didn't really practice much together
like the last few weeks of camp for a variety
of reasons. Brandon Coleman was out. I thought it was
a really good sign that he elected to play in
that last preseason game, as he said he wanted some
reps and left guards he had missed some time. Laramie
Tunsell he has been dinged up a little bit. We're
(36:39):
presuming he's going to be fine, but didn't practice a ton.
Then when we saw him in New England joint practice,
he looked like Laramie Tunsseell. We're still waiting on Sam
Cosmy open question about who starts at right tackle to
start the season, who's the right guard when we start
the season. As you kind of think about where this
offense will go when presumably we get health back and
(36:59):
reps together, how are you thinking about the beginning of
the season and then what ultimately it looks like when
we get the gang back together.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think
it's a really good concern. On some level too. I
will say I'm not concerned about Laramie at all. I think,
you know, I played with him in Houston. This is
kind of like part of his process, Like he's not
super involved.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
In the off season. He kind of trains on his own.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
I don't have any He's played so much football, I'm
not worried abou him missing any time. The Coleman one
is interesting because he is moving to a new position.
He hasn't gotten a ton of reps there. I think
the athleticism, the length, the size, like Fletch alluded to,
make me feel a little bit more comfortable. And the
fact that he's flanked by be Hodish and by Laramie
Tunsel makes me think that those two veterans should be
(37:39):
able to get communicated in anything they need to get
communicated to him. And then I think the other thing
that makes me feel good, and Fletch can speak to
this too, is just having backups with experience. And I've
said this a million times, I'm going to say at
a million and one. When you've got guys with that
level of experience, you don't have to worry about them
coming in and not knowing because, again with young players,
one of the concerns is, hey, they just don't know,
(38:01):
like how we're targeting this.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
They don't know how we're going to block this protection
versus this cross dog.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Right, And so when you get guys that have done it,
They've seen a million reps, they've been in a bunch
of different systems. It makes me feel so much better.
And again, like whoever's playing on the right side, Let's
say it's Wiley and Alleghretty they started last year, right,
so I don't need to be worried about that.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Right.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
Let's say Connorley comes in, He's going to be playing
next to Wiley or Alleghretty who's playing a ton of football.
So I love that they've kind of been able to
bracket and kind of pair these younger players in these
weaker spots with guys who played a lot of football.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
What do you think, Lennon as they get the line together, Oh.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh no, that's this excellent stuff. Logan did it. He
did such a great job breaking it down.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
I didn't have anything else as speechless.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, no, it's uh And I think I think what
they even once Cosmy comes back and we don't know
when that's going to be, there may be a kind
of a Remember last year they were doing this kind
of platoon at the tackle spole with with a Brady
do that this year?
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I don't have a good feel for it.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Do you think they do I'm just saying they might
just to just to maybe get him before. You don't
want to just throw him in the fire. I don't
think you want to just throwing them in the fire
playing Hey, go play sixty five snaps a game, especially
if you don't have to, if he doesn't have to,
cause you feel really good about the guys that you have,
and hey, we can we can kind of bring him
(39:26):
along a little bit somewhat slowly, so to speak, and
then hey, maybe we're these four games into it now,
he's full board. Let him go and just cut it loose.
If that's a you know, the way they feel like,
I feel like doing it.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
And he's interesting too, because I feel like and he's
just getting like he kind of had a slow start
to camp, but he's just kind of hitting this like
really nice growth curve. And so I'm kind of like,
what's he going to be in thirteen days or you know,
a week when the game starts in right, Like, is
he ready to go by then? And so I think
that's another thing that makes that situation a little bit
hard to read.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
But man, I love his athleticism. I love his upside.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
It's just about kind of where you think he's at
in his developmental curve.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I guess developmental arc.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Yeah, they're the I don't know how much the coaches
think about the matchups, but early, you know, this is
gonna be Welcome to the NFL. Like that's Brian Burns
came on, Thibodeau, Abdul Carter, week three is Max Crosby,
Like this is these are elite of the elite defensive
ends Burns and Crosby specifically that he could be lining
(40:30):
up against. So I don't know how they think about matchups,
but it is going to be and listen, welcome to
the NFL. You're going to be playing elite players. But
they've got like top tier Pro Bowl, All Pro caliber
at rush ends that are they're going to be facing
early in the season this year.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Yeah, and I think that's obviously concerning from a talent standpoint. Sorry, Lennon,
I just couldn't help myself. I got superduced up there anyway.
Oh No, So, like like with Cliff for example, I
think he's shown like that's the one thing that's great
about Cliffs. He's shown an ability to call a game
with limitations at the offensive line, Like whether it's our
chip packages, whether it's our kind of leaning into heavy rundowns,
(41:06):
whether it's the RPO stuff, whether it's the compilation of
the quick game, which Jade and Daniels we having even
talked about. Jay Daniels is so excellent managing because he's
got that quick release. So I do think Cliff he
does a good job of being aware, in my opinion
of the thing that's the hardest to do in the
offense outside of playing quarterback is play offensive line.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
So how do I make sure those guys.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
I have to make sure the quarterback's comfortable, but I
also have to make sure the offensive line is comfortable.
And I think you saw like they didn't. I think
they went through like a couple of weeks where they
didn't give up a last year and you probably remember this, Bram.
They didn't give up a sack to an edge rusher
like Miles Garrett play. He didn't have a pressure and obviously,
like Cliff, had an awareness with the chip, help with
the slide, help with the quick game of how to
(41:47):
mitigate that. And so that makes me feel very confident
that going into some of these matchups, it puts more
pressure on Cliff, no doubt, but that we can manage
some of those issues.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
And some of that in fair enough too. Our quarterback
is so rich, ridiculously elusive that there were moments where
he escaped out of situations as well.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Yeah, just real quick, I was I wasn't talking about
platooning Connolly. I was talking about once Confmee comes back,
maybe they bring him along a little bit where where
it's cosme and maybe it's Andrew Wiley kind of platooning
at that guard spot, you know, a little bit longer Now,
I wasn't. I wasn't talking about connedy hell Connley. I mean,
(42:26):
he's looked excellent to me. But now you you they understand.
You mentioned the chip packages and all those types of things.
And again there's also the ability the run game and
how that really slows down a pass rush. The I
think we can be better in the screen game to
running backs. We didn't really excels as much with the
(42:48):
true screens to running backs as I'm sure they probably
would like to have, And maybe they're looking to really
wrap that up where it's not just always the bubble
screens that we can we can get more production out
of the screens to the running backs. That also slows
down the pass rush and that gates some of the
pressure packages and things like that by defenses.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I do want to talk about Jayden in a minute,
but one more topic before we get to him, and
that is Terry McLaurin, who did not practice with the
team throughout the course of the summer, but obviously expected
to be back ramp up for the Giants and then
a quick turnaround to play Green Bay. He did not
practice with the team throughout the summer. Do you have
any sense of whether that would affect the volume of
(43:32):
plays that he has used early in the season.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
I mean, I just think about how Dan has handled
injuries so far and guys that are in return to play,
and obviously this is an injury. But like he's very fastidious.
We have a very excellent Chad Angle Heart shout out Chad.
He does a great job with him the director of
kind of return to play stuff here of managing these things.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
They're very analytical.
Speaker 4 (43:53):
They have greatly comprehensive test protocols. So I think they're
going to be hyper aware honestly of Terry and his
kind of return to the offense. And so if I'm Cliff,
if I'm you know, Dan. I'm really kind of trying
to make sure that we kind of manage some of
those high speed numbers early on and kind of maybe
give him a package. And again, like when you think
(44:13):
about what he brings to the offense and what this
offense did so well last year was kind of finding
explosive plays.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
He was a big part of that.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
And so how do we still kind of make sure
the offense has teeth in terms of explosive plays down
the field early in the season. I think it's the
best way is to kind of package it up, limit
his total play volume, but make sure that we're getting
impact from him in those specific moments.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
The good thing is he'll have five or six practices
prior to the game against the Giants, and you know
you can kind of logan touched on it about the
return to play, and they'll wrap him up, maybe push
him a little bit harder early than dialing back a
little bit, then wrap him up a little bit just
(44:57):
to see how his body is responded to all those
types of I don't expect Terry to go out and
play nine of the snaps in the game against the Giants.
I'm not sure even if he had training cap and
he played ninety percent of the snap just because of
you know, some of the different personnel groups they may
want to employee or deploy in that game against the Giants.
(45:21):
So can we expecting to play I would think, you know,
seventy seventy to seventy five eighty percent of the snaps.
I think that's fair to say he can. He can
go out there and do that until your point logan,
you're you're kind of scheming it up to where you're
not going to have him running you know, eight goal
balls or you know, five go balls in the game.
It might be a couple of slot phase where there's
(45:43):
a deep throat it's one or two go balls in
a game, and a couple of slants and you know
bubble screens and things like that that he can he
can excel after the catch.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
But I think that, yeah, well, I think kind of
goes back to like the debo thing. It's like again
like that in terms of laying cards on the table
and what this offense does well, it's terry making explosive opportunities.
It's yards after the catch from Deebo Samuel, it's the
contested catches from Noah Brown, and so even if that's
not one hundred percent, Like again, like Cliff's a smart dude,
(46:13):
he'll figure it out. But how do we make sure
we get like, hey, this is the play action shot
on third and two. We got to get Terry in
here at X for this play because we're going to
run this heavy play action hit this post over the top,
like we need him in there for that. So, like,
that's what I'm saying is just be selective about when
you're throwing your fastball. You know, it's like a picture
with like a little lebow tendonitis. Right, I still got
the fastball. I'm just not going to throw it as
(46:34):
much as maybe I would normally do.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Okay, all right, let me get last thing.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Jayden.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
We haven't really addressed much on him year two, the
addition of Tunsel. In my point of view, like I
believe the protection is going to be better this year
for them. What I loved about Jayden a year ago
coming in was that, you know, listen, he is an
unbelievable athlete, and I think what we saw in his
rookie year is his his instincts are extraordinary, and because
(47:04):
of that, there are these superman moments that occurred multiple times.
But I look at this and I go, he's a
pass first quarterback kind of always was when he was
coming out. And if he gets better protection and he's
throwing the ball from a better pocket five to ten
more times a game, we're looking at a four thousand
to forty five hundred yard passer this year, let alone
(47:27):
an effective runner who might not have the same amount
on the ground, but that might not be the worst thing.
How much do you really want to expose him to
running the ball all that much? So I wonder if
you kind of see it the same way that I
actually think his passing stats are likely with the additions
that they've had to take an exponential leap from where
they were a year ago.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Yeah, I think when you look at again, Jane Daniels
is the thing that drives this vehicle here, right, And
so when you look at some of the things that
he I want to like, it's hard to talk about
this because he had such a good year, but things
that he's struggled with. It's throwing from an unclean pocket.
Like he's a good mover, but the subtlety of pocket
movement is still something that he's working on.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
When you watch it on film.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
Right, So what I would say is, now you've eliminated
the thing that kind of makes him uncomfortable there in
the backfield. And again, I think you brought up a
great point, like he wants to he wants to throw
the football, right, I think that's one of the things
that makes him specially he's a tremendous athlete that can
throw the football. So by limiting again his exposure to
the thing that makes him uncomfortable, I think you should
see more efficiency there, right. And so yeah, I told
(48:27):
I absolutely agree with that take, and I just think
it's just we talked about this earlier. In terms of
the offense. How do you stave off statistical regression? This
is a big one to me because if you can
make the quarterback more comfortable. The other thing that I
think is often overlooked here is you've made now Cliff
more comfortable. And what I mean by that is instead
of having to use all these chip protections, now we
can get five guys into the route and Fledg can
(48:49):
speak to this. That puts so much more stress on
the defense. We can create, we can stretch zones more,
we can overload zones in a way that we couldn't
before all because the part better and which is again
going to increase Jane Daniel's efficiency. So I think I
think the protection is a huge element. I think it's
always been a huge element, and a big part of
it is bringing the right people in and Laramie Tunseel's
(49:10):
that guy.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah know, the the chipping and being able to get
five guys out in the route or even even four
guys out in the round says like you said, it's
going to open up the zones. You know, if you
want to go to your spread package and they playing
man and man on some third and shorter situations, He's
going to be able to identify the matchups that he
(49:33):
wants to take advantage of. Logan you you touched on
the Hey, maybe you know, not being as comfortable when
when the pocket isn't as clean. So I'm thinking he's
going to be That's one of the things they probably
worked on him with so they're in the offseason, hey,
because it's not going to always be clean, making sure
he's improved in at that element when the pocket is
(49:55):
not clean. Like you said, maybe it's a subtle, subtle
side step here or there, stepping up here there things
like that Tom Brady, for he comes to mind Brady
wasn't Boba at all, but he just had this unique
instinct to be able to just move to the left,
to the right, stuff like that, just to avoid the
(50:15):
rush and step up in the pocket deliver deliver throws
when the pocket wasn't cleaned. So that's I think with Jaden,
there's also going to be an evolution of the offense.
They're gonna put more concepts in the passing game. They're
going to enhance that because for one, you got better
players too. This is his second year and offense, clip
(50:35):
is going to add more to that passing game with
more concepts to that defenses now have to deal with.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
Yeah, And I think that's a great point because not
only is it you know, Jaden, but now like it
kind of to piggyback on that cliff point, like now
we can get into like it's five step from under
center traditional drops. We're kind of attacking the middle of
the field. And we talked about earlier how like chunk
plays in offense are so valuable and the reason that
middle area at fifteen to twenty yard area of the
field is considered such an important quarterback metric is because
(51:05):
it's an easy way to find these explosive chunks and
so the fact that we can protect it better if
we can get Jayden to see that area of the
field more through better protection, like, that's another way the
offense takes a step forward. So it's really like, to me,
the Laramie tunsl addition is the move of the offseason
because now we don't have to chip one side, we
get more guys out, we can work slides away, we
(51:27):
can trust him to win his one on one in.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
A way that we haven't had a guy here.
Speaker 4 (51:30):
And quite honestly, not to besmirch anybody else here, but
really there's only like five or six guys in the
NFL that can do that. You just say out there, hey,
win this one on one matchup, like that's what makes
him so special. And it just opens up so much
the offense because again, like getting better in the trenches
is an understatement, it allows you to run the football
and allows you to pass protect and that makes the quarterback,
(51:51):
makes the runners, makes the receivers all better.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, I'm with you. The tunsl was the move of
the offseason. The trickle down effect of them acquiring him
to what it did to across the board on the line,
to what it allows them to do. I think it
just can't be overstated. That was the literal move of
the offseason to me. All right, before I let you
guys go, since we're here it's week one, just give
me a general sense, London will start with you. What
(52:15):
does the successful season look like for the Commanders this year.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Successful season looks like come on man, week one, Na man, listen.
Successful season looks like making the playoffs, you know, winning
ten plus games. I think that's uh. I think ten
is the is a low bar low the floor for
(52:39):
this this group, you know, win a ten games. I
don't we we improved the rouster so much. I don't
know that we will win necessarily more games, but it's
gonna look better. And that's why I said, I think
ten is the floor for this team. Win in a
win in another playoff game, that would be a successful
season for us, and just continue to see the development
(53:02):
and improvement of jaded dangs and also a lot of
the young, young talented football players on this group. On
this team.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Yeah, I have to agree with Fletch.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
I think you know, last year there was a little
bit of serendipity, a little bit of luck to some
of the wins. Anytime you're winning one score games, you know,
eight of them in a row or whatever, it was like,
that's got to get a little Obviously, you're very talented,
you practice those situations, but you got to be a
little bit lucky as well. So I think like just
making sure you've tipped the deck in a way that
(53:30):
allows you to be a little bit more dominant, a
little bit more assertive offensively and defensively. You guys did
a great job talking about defensively how they can be
more efficient. We just talked about how offensively you can
be more efficient. I think, and again hopefully that manifests
into a playoff win, playoff birth, ten plus win season.
I think that those are all good metrics, but I
think just kind of being able to stave off some
(53:50):
of those areas that normally regress with some of the
additions and some of the schematic changes, I think that's
a successful season.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
I mean, the weirdest stat in the NFL is that
nobody is won the NFC's back to back keepers in
twenty part years. So if that's gonna if that's gonna hold.
I'd like to think that we're in pole position to
leap frog Philadelphia, and if that's the case, not only
in the playoffs. So we have home playoff games at
least to start with. So i'd like to see that.
That would like, you know, and the Eagles have a
lot to say and Giants Cowboys too, but the Eagles
(54:18):
are gonna have a lot to say about that. I
would like to see what that looks like, see what
our crowd looks like in January, if we could have
a home playoff game as opposed to what we did
on the road, which is memories of a lifetime. But
I want to see it in front of our home
fans and I'm hoping that's what we get this year too.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Absolutely all right, guys. Can you imagine it's been a
we haven't hosted a home playoff game with a full stadium.
It's been quite a while, man.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
You think that Yeah, the one, yeah, the one we
did where they won the nfcast at seven and nine.
There was nobody here. It was the pandemic. It was
like dystopian, dystopian world. Yeah, yeah, it was crazy, all right, guys.
I can't wait. Giants Week one packers week two, so
we're gonna have a very busy first week of the
booth review. I can't wait to do the game on Sunday.
(55:05):
So for London Logan, I'm Bram, we'll talk to you
on Monday. After Week one and the Giants Game Booth
Review was filmed at the Big Bear AI Command Center Studio.
Big Bear AI offers mission ready AI for a rapidly
evolving world, proudly protecting the Washington Commanders and its fans.
Coming up on the Booth Review, London. You're going to
tell us what you think of the d in twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh yeah, the defensive line, the big boys, they will
lead the charge to a rebap defense.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Fletch.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
This is an offensive driven league with media talk about
offense and how we stave off statistical regression.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And we're all going to talk about what a successful
season looks like this year. Coming up. Welcome into our
second edition, the Week one edition, our Labor Day edition
of the Booth Review podcast. I'm bram weyitside with Big
Fletch London Fletcher. Were brought to you by Microsoft co
Pilot PC powering a Better Game. It is here. The
long off season is over Week one, London.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I can't wait. You know what, I don't think the
off season was that long, Bron. I mean, it felt
like it feels like it flew by. One minute we
were calling the game in the NFC Championship and next
thing you know, we're here ready for Week one and
I'm looking forward to seeing this defense get after the
not only the Giants, but just play all season long.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
What I've learned is I get older, is I need
more hobbies in the offseason because I get bored, so
like that's that's that's the problem. I'm hitting around like
truly my thumbs waiting for this to happen. You're out
there playing golf, So I got to take up something
here to get ready to all right, I'm ready for
the show. Yeah, all right. Let's talk about the defense
as a whole, and let's start with just the overarching theme,
(01:25):
which was Joe Witt dan Quinn stated on the record,
they are going to be a much more of defense
play the style as they put it, that we got
accustomed to, I think most recently in Dallas, where they
would bring a lot of heat. They became turnover machines.
At times a top five defense, they were flipping eight
(01:45):
games upside down. So let's just let me just get
your just general thoughts stylistically, what do you expect from
the commanders this year.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I expect them to be like Joe Witt Washington playing
like Q Wantsington to play a ton of man man
on the back end. I think they had to requisite
corners to be able to play man and man defense.
You go out, you draft Trey Amos, now you allow
now you move Sam Steel into the nickel position. You
have a healthy Mashan Lattimore and that's going to be key.
(02:16):
So those guys are really excel and being able to
play man and man coverage. Also, I think getting a
Will Harris who's a really versatile safety, a guy you
can also play at the dime dime spot and pass
the situation. So they had the guys that can play
man and man on the back end, bring pressure and
the von Miller. You went out and you got javon Kinlong.
(02:36):
You needed to get bigger in the trenches. They did that.
You don't have. Now you got guys where you don't
have to play like the two gaping style. You can
play more downhill. You can get more more plays in
the backfield, more negative artist plays, be more disruptive, put
a lot of pressure on the quarterback and that hopefully
will lead to more turner was either with forced fumbles
(02:57):
or quarterback throwing Aaron passes.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, I want to stay on the corners. Like I
don't think there is a unit on this team when
we were talking at this time last year to getting
set for this season that is more improved than that
group overall from where they were and who was on
the field a year ago when they had their opener
against Tampa versus what I think looks like a healthy
(03:20):
Marshaw Lattimore. Trey Amos has looked the part from day one.
It was in the spring where we were going that
guy's day one starter Sandrastill, who is consistently around the ball,
moves to what they believe is going to be his
most natural and successful position, and they're deep with people
like Jonathan Jones. This unit, to me is probably the
(03:42):
biggest improvement that they've made, I think over the course
of a year, to flip it from what was I
think a liability a year ago to what might be
the strength of the defense.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
And it is crazy that you say a liability where
you look on paper they were the third ranked pass defense,
but how much of that was because they were so
bad against the run where teams just ran the ball
a little bit more against them. And you mentioned I'm
glad you mentioned Jonathan Jones. That's another guy I failed
to mention, but he very underrated signing as well. And
(04:15):
the thing that this group has, especially at the cornerback position,
a ton of versatility. You have Jones and Sander still
that both can play inside and outside. So if you
have an injury situation or whatever the case may be,
those guys have the ability to play both the nickel position,
go cover slots, or they can go outside. Trey Amos
(04:38):
a bigger receipt, bigger defensive back. What I liked about
him was his poison balls downfield. Oftentimes you see a
defensive back start to panic, especially when the ball is
down the field. They panic, they started to get grabby,
and they create unnecessary pass interference plays. And there were
(04:59):
times in the in the preseason and also throughout training camp, well,
he's making forcing incompletions because he just so poised, doesn't panic.
He'll come up with that size, he'll tackle on the
run game, and he can get his hands on the football.
So that's as you mentioned, this is probably not probably,
this is the biggest improved unit on the football team.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I want to get into the run defense two overall,
because there was clearly a priority to get bigger upfront
and to try to be better generally against the run.
But just look at our division for a minute here
with the addition of George Pickens to Dallas, so they
got Pickens in the lamb, that's an incredible duo, whether
they Dallas can run the ball really well to be seen.
Malik Neighbors, I would argue, might be the best receiver
(05:45):
in the entire league or the most uncoverable one in
our division. And then you've got the duo, right, You've
got the duo of Brown and Smith to go along
with that incredible rush game in Philadelphia. But if you
think about, like yes, the run game, run defense needed
to be improved, look at the receivers that Washington is
lining up against week to week. To win the division.
(06:05):
They have to have a strong corner unit to really
have a shot this year.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
They really do. And you know, it's a situation where
you don't get a bye week, so to speak. There's
not a situation, especially within the division, where all right,
you got you know one one team may have one guy,
but as you mentioned, most of these teams have two guys.
We're seeing we don't know just yet who's gonna be
that other guy. In addition to Neighbors and with the
(06:31):
New York Giants, but as you mentioned, he's trying to
guard him one on one. He's creating problems for guys
and he's only a second year player. But you need
those guys. You need to be able to say, hey,
we we can feel comfortable playing man the man against
these guys in And I also want guys, the people
(06:51):
that are watching this to understand, You're not gonna completely
shed down these wide receivers that you face week in
and week out. You're not going to hold a guy
like aj Brown to two receptions for fifteen yards. And
you just got to understand, limit the big plays, limit
the explosives, and allow us to be able to maybe
(07:13):
force the quarterback to hold the football a little bit longer,
take longer to allow the pass rush to get home
and put pressure on quarterbacks.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The other person off the secondary I want to stay
there for a minute. That I want to mention is
Klon Martin, who has gotten a lot of accolades from
the coaching staff. Throughout the off season, dan Quinn and
Joe would have talked about development of leadership and named
him as one of the people that has really grown
as a leader. He started making some really big plays.
At the end of last year, we found out he
(07:44):
had both shoulders that needed to be repaired, so he
was playing through a lot of pain last year. Obviously
had one of those all time moments in Detroit with
the pick six. But his development seems to be key too,
because they keep talking about this ball is life. We
have what looks to be three corners that if they
if the ball comes near them, they can catch it.
Now it's different than what they had in the past.
(08:05):
Kwan is capable of making these plays as well.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
He is. And with Kwan his rookie year, he had
so much versatility coming out of Illinois, and you were
kind of trying to figure him out, like is he
a safety? Is he a nico? What is he? He's
really found at home as the free safety in this defense.
You love him as a general back in the back end.
(08:30):
He communicates, he carries himself like a much more mature player,
like he doesn't seem like a third year player. One
of the most underrated aspects of his game is his
ability to make tackles in the open field. There were
so many times last season where runs would get out
and Kwan would come up and make sure tackles that
(08:52):
you don't you know. Now, it's not going to show
up in the stat line as an interception or pass defense,
but it's a game a touchdown, save and tackle it's
a limiting, limiting a run to twelve yards as opposed
to thirty yards things like that, to where you can,
you know, live to fight and play another down. I
really love the maturation of his game. I think he
(09:13):
has he has Pro Bowl potential, and hopefully he'll get
that recognition. But he's definitely one of those guys that
you love the potential that he has and the skills
that he brings to this defense.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
All right, let me stay on the pass defense. Vers
we'll get into the rush defense a little bit. But
the front is going to be what they're going to do.
They're gonna be more aggressive, they're going to bring more people,
They're going to try to get some game changing plays.
I think the hope is that this goes along with
a better rush defense on first and second down, It
gets teams more in third and longs and gives them
the opportunity to try to make these plays. That said,
(09:47):
von Miller's here, but at his age price point, I mean,
I think it'd be it's unfair to go, well, he'll
be a fifteen SAC player again. I don't think that's
fair to kind of put that on him. As you
kind of look across the board you could stay. It'll
make the case that that game changing edge rusher. The
people that quinn Witt used in Dallas, Michael Parsons, DeMarcus
(10:07):
Lawrence come to mind that we're game changing type players
may or may not be on this roster right now.
So as you think about like who's gonna get the sacks,
where's the pressure coming from? How do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think you're gonna have a bunch of guys, maybe
let's call it three or four guys, but around eight
or nine sacks on this defense. I think Vonon, you know,
is a guy who can get you eight to ten sacks.
Doris Armstrong is a guy that can get you eight
to ten sacks. Frankie Louvio, I think he'll be a
ten to twelve sacked type of guy. You got Ken
(10:41):
law who can get you, who'll probably get you eight
or nine sacks. And then the Ron Payin's gonna be
a guy who's gonna probably get you let's call it
four to six sacks. So you got you got some
guys collectively that can get to the quarterback. I don't
know that you'll have a fifteen sacked type of guy.
A sixteen sacked type of guy. But they'll be able
(11:02):
to generate pressure on the quarterback. Even even last year
they they had forty three sacks, which was, you know,
not terrible. It was eleft time for eleventh in the
National Football League. And I feel like we have better
pass rushes this season. And think about this, when you
can put the type of speed that you can put
(11:23):
on the field. You got von Miller at one edge,
louisvo at another edge, put dorn Armstrong over a guard.
Put either Ken Law or Duryan Payne over attack on
guard as well. That's some guys that can get out
to the quarterback. Those are some guys that can get
out to the quarterback.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I mean, you already said it, Like I was going
to ask you who you think is gonna lead the
team in sacks. I think it's gonna be Louvu at
the end of the year. Like I actually think he's
the one that's going to end up with double digits
of all of these names out there.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah no. And the thing that what he finished with
last year, was it eight sacks or not? I can't
I can't recall right off hand. But what I do
like about what I do like about Louis is He's
gonna benefit so much from Von not only teams, you know,
kind of not being able to kind of slide protection,
(12:16):
no chip him a little bit, but also Louisu learning
from Vin and Voon being able to give him some
some like pointers and saying and learning how to rush
the passes. And not only that, I think they'll move
him around, maybe put him over a center. Can you
imagine lining Louvu up, head up over a center and
using his quickness of speed at the snap, much like
(12:38):
the Cowboys use use Michael Parsons and and you can
put you put that type of speed and quickness in
the inside. Those guards are used to dealing with that
type of speed.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Him, George Armstrong had a tremendous camp. We saw him
move inside. He did this in Dallas too, but we
saw him move inside stand up position as well on
the inside. I think there's a lot of creativity here.
Den Pain at times has been slid outside. Let's see
how they utilize Von Miller and in what packages and
the depth across the board on the front is a
(13:15):
big storyline here coming into I'm going to be really
interested to see what these packages look like of these players.
I wonder if you kind of are feeling the same
way I am. I'm not sure what combinations of players,
especially in the third down, third to medium, third and
long situations, what combination of the players are we going
to see out there? From Joe Witt, You'll.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
See you'll see a variety of different combinations. It may
be a situation where you have, for what you would
consider edge rushers on the field at one time, and
maybe they call it like their NASCAR package or whatever
they whatever they would call it, where it's just four
edge rushers and you're you don't you just don't know
(13:58):
who's gonna line up where you got it to a
ton of speed on the field, and let's get out
to the quarterback. Dietrich Wise he can he can get
out to the quarterback as well. I think also from
from a blitzing standpoint, having Sander Steele and covering the slot,
he'll be really good in the in the in the
pressure package as well. Those are that's something else to consider.
(14:21):
And then Bobby Bobby Wagers can get out of the quarterback.
How can we forget Bobby Bobby had about what four
or five sacks last season as well, and even when
he didn't get sacks, he was able to beat a
lot of running backs and put pressure on quarterback. So
that's another another added element to the pass rush.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
So like, there were two things I think that they
could change about last year that they would One was
getting the ball more often. They preach ball his life.
I think they feel like with the personnel that they have,
specifically specifically the ball skills of the back end and
hopefully getting them in a position to make those types
of plays, they feel pretty confident that that's going to
be different this year. The other one is the run defense.
(15:01):
The run defense was among the worst in the NFL.
They went out of their way to get bigger, Like
this is what will be extremely noticeable about them when
it starts the season if you haven't been paying close attention.
Dietrich Wise is big, Javon Kinlaw is huge. They have
others in terms of depth that are veterans that are large,
(15:23):
hole blocking people in the middle of the line, and
so all of that. From just from a pure size perspective,
they're much bigger than they were. But why do you
think that'll translate to them being better as a rush defense,
As a whole.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
I just think being able to play more what did
you call single gap type defense, being able to penetrate
as opposed to there's a different when you can when
you know you have one gap, you can be more
aggressive as a linebacker. You can play downhill, really get
double tamed blocks off of the defensive tackles a lot faster.
(16:02):
Last year there was a lot of we call two
gaping or playing like kind of a gap and a half,
and you're when you do that type of style, those
double teams stay on the tackles a lot longer and
the defensive ends in some cases, and that that forces
that allows penetration or movement by the offensive line. They're
able to get movement on those defensive linemen and linemen
(16:26):
are playing in your lap a lot more. But by
you playing more gap defense, one gap defense, now you
can play downhill, play a lot of be a lot
more to disruptive, playing that opponent's backfield a lot more,
and that that should be better. Also, setting the edge
is harder, whether it's from a defensive end standpoint or not.
And it's not just about the defensive ends. Your corners
(16:50):
have to be willing tacklers and understand where they fit
in the run game. Making sure you get that ball
back to your pursuit come from inside out. Sending hard
edge is not allowing, you know, those holes to get wider.
And you know, you look at the big run against
the against the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Eagles had against
(17:12):
us the opening game, open play of the playoffs for them,
poor run fits not fit properly on that UH and
soft edge. And that's why that's how Sa Kwon Barkley
was able to take that thing to the house.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
All right, let me talk about one specific player too,
is want to get your opinion on him having seen
him now for the summer, Javon Kinlaw, who was a
major signing for this team, drafted by the front office
that Adam Peters was with in San Francisco, had injuries
the first couple of years of his career, ended up
going to the Jets, had a year, became a free agent.
(17:51):
Comes here. The first thing they said about him was
you haven't seen the best of him. And throughout the
course of the summer, and he is immovable. There are
moments where he blows up plays like that. You wouldn't
believe that one person is blowing up plays. I think
what people want to see from him is consistency. Is
(18:13):
this going to occur over and over and over or
are there just moments? So what have you noticed? I mean,
he didn't play much in the preseason, but what have
you noticed about kin Law here in his first offseason
with the team?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
The first thing you mentioned is health, And I think
a lot of oftentimes people don't realize how much health
plays a part in how productive you are. And you
mentioned him dealing with some injuries in his first couple
of years, and he was a first round draft pick
and San Francisco and he kind of got set back
a little bit. The size, the snap, the power, the
(18:48):
disruption that he's able to create. There's gonna be times
where he's disruptive and it won't be Hey, Ken Law
made attack, or Ken Law made the sack. Is kin
Law was o disruptive that somebody else was able to
play off of him make a tackle for a loss,
give sack, get a TfL things like that. But I'll
(19:10):
tell you what. There was a couple of times in
the game against the Cincinnati Bengos in the run game
where the power that he was able to control the
guards with and get and disregard them, get off blocks,
make tackles at or you know, a yard past the
line of scrimmage. That's what you wanted in a defensive tackle.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Overall, I can't believe I'm saying this off of the
camp because of who the quarterback is on this team.
How good the offense was a year ago, the additions
we're going to get into the offense with Logan in
a minute, Laramie tunsl Deebo, Samuel namely you know that
are coming here. The additions that were made. You know,
I just kind of felt like the offense was going
to become just much more formidable immediately for a lot
(19:54):
of reasons. You know, they didn't really practice together throughout
the course of the summer, and it's fair to say
like it wasn't clicking for a while there. And you know,
I assume that everything with number five and Cliff and
all that it's gonna work out. But if they start
a little bit slower, Like I am more bullish about
what the defense looks like early in the season, I
(20:15):
don't think everybody on the outside realizes how improved it
is stylistically, what it's going to look like. How much
deeper they are, how them with the propensity to get turnovers.
It's very different than it was a year ago. Like,
I have a feeling that this defense is going to
surprise a lot of people when we get into the
real games, and it's.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And it's all going to be predicated on their ability
to stop the run. And when I say stop the run,
you have to you have to have teams operating consistently
for from call it third and four or more. Ideally
you want to be third and five or more to
(20:56):
aren a right to rush the passer. If you're in
a bus third and three started, two started once. Defensively,
it's gonna be tough to get off the field forced
paws and get the ball back to that offense. But
you get them at third and five, thirty six, thirty
sevens Now you can really unleash your pass rush. You
(21:17):
can you can have you'll have more impactful plays, whether
it be sacks, force fumbles, interception opportunities, plays to be
made in the passing game. So you have to It's
all predicated on what you're able to do stopping and run,
especially on first and second down.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, I mean the last couple of years in Dallas,
we saw this firsthand. They had a top five defense
and they had like Trayvon Diggs had a season where
he broke a single season record for picks for Dallas.
They broke the single season record for pick sixes with
Deron Bland. Like that whole ball is life thing is
what became the real game changer for the Allas defenses
(22:01):
under Quinn and Wit. I'm hoping we get that here.
And I feel like with the corners that we have now,
if they can generate the type of disruptive pass rush
and to your point, get teams more into third and
medium and long with a better rush defense, I think
we got a shot at a lot more turnovers. And
if that's happening with this quarterback, I think it's gonna
(22:24):
it's going to increase the probability of them having yet
another season double digit wins, back to the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
All of that. Oh yeah, absolutely, And and you know,
getting vision on the quarterback. It's so they're what I
what I like here. They've been playing a lot more
cover too. They did it a lot last year and
they're gonna have their you know, man and man is
gonna probably be the lead dog, lead coverage for this group,
but also when they're able to play cover too, and
(22:52):
they have a bunch of creative ways that they get
into your their cover two drops. It's not just your
traditional hey corners playing the UH the flask linebackers playing
what you call the post technique, middle linebacker run the scenes,
and safeties playing two D. They might have a safety
becoming the middle of the field run guid. They might
(23:14):
have two defensive ends drop and become the two poachers
they've been and rushed Bobby and stuff like that. And
they got a bunch of different creative ways to get
into that that cover too. I call it morphing into
that cover to coverage and morphing into your zoo reads
and I mean zone coverage. Even even your your robber
techniques where you're showing there too high shell on your
(23:37):
you got one of those safeties kind of playing that
that high hole, intermediate type UH area, middle of the field,
reading the quarterback on, looking for endbreaking rounds, being able
to make interceptions and get PBUs so they're there. This
is having this group, this unit is going to allow
(23:57):
Joe Wick and to play the style of defense that
they play and play so well when they were in Dallas. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Last year, at this time when we walked into the season,
I think people were I was genuinely surprised at how
effective the offense was early in the year. I think
it's going to be the invers this year. I think
teams are going to be very surprised early how much
more effective the defense actually is going to be this year.
Everyone knows about Jayden Daniels, has expectations of Jade and Daniels,
the offense, all that stuff. I don't think I think
they're being overlooked here, and so I think that's going
(24:28):
to be an interesting part for the first month of
the season if you see a much more effective defense.
But let's turn our attention to the offense. Time to
bring in. On game day, Logan and I or London
and I are in the booths. Logan's down on the
field for this purpose of the booth review. We put
them on the bench. So we're going to get Logan
Calson from the line to get in on the offense.
He joins us from the Big Bear AI Command Center studio.
(24:52):
There he is, Bucket had an all. Hello, mister Paulson,
how are you.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I'm good guys, how are you guys doing that?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
That was a really fun you'll listen to regarding the defense,
learned a lot as always.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
All right, you guys doing great.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Let's get into the offense logan. Let me start just
kind of big picture here. Do you think stylistically that
Cliff Kingsbury is thinking with the addition specifically of tunsl
for the offensive line, Debo as a movable part and
explosive playmaker, the offense looks very different from it did
(25:30):
a year ago.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I don't know if it looks different.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I think what an addition like Deebo allows you to
do is emphasize stuff that you already want to be
good at and emphasize offensive principles that carry good offenses.
And what I mean by that is when you look
at offenses like Kyle Shanahan three years ago, like what
they're able to do is kind of have a low
average depth of target with a high separation number and
then a large yards after the catch number. So like
(25:53):
when I think about what Deebo does does so well
and did so well in that offense, is taking as
an example like we saw in the Baltimore game, all
these kind of like little bubble screens, pre snap reads
like where we're getting favorable numbers, we're getting nickel pressure,
we'll get two over two, we get one blocker and
then one runner, and a guy like Debo is going
to maximize that.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Look.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
So while whoever's catching that screen in the Baltimore game
catches that ball for three yards, Debo can maybe make
it ten, maybe makes it fifteen, and all of a sudden,
this other element that I think is kind of important
in modern offenses is finding explosive plays. So the way
you'd characterize the way PFF characterizes that is a run
over ten yards and a pass play over twenty yards. Right,
(26:34):
So I think bringing that addition, because of his skill set,
allows you to lean more into kind of quote unquote
modern offensive statistical efficiency. And I know, Fletch, I said statistics.
You're going to freak out now.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
But like that's what that's what I think this allows
you to do.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Look, actually, was I was. You did a great job
of breaking it all down.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I was like, you know what this is, this is.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Some great analytics stuff. Yeah, I was. I was okay
with it.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
I think because you got steel coming in now, man,
you're getting your gutting, you're pulled over to the dark side.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Now you're.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
With your explanation of the the I guess you call
it the short targets and then being able to create
yack yards yards I have to catch the things like that.
That was a great breakdown explanation though, what we can
what we can expect from this offense, especially when it
comes to Debo and even probably like a guy like
(27:29):
the Jalen Lange as well.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think when you
look at like, one of the reasons like o Z
was so effective in this offense last year is like
he's a kind of Deebo Samuel Light, right, He's got
like this great contact balance he can kind of find
he doesn't run every route on the route tree, but
can run a bunch of them. And so I think
you just kind of evolve that position. You know, if
you guys like Pokemon, he went from stage one to
stage two Pokemon, you know, bulbosor to blastoids or whatever
(27:53):
we're talking.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Get we get all kind of all kind of references.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Made a record round reference, spam a red around front
reference last week, so I can make a Pokemon reference.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
No, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
It's crazy like for years and years and years, people
like me who never played, we used all this statistical
stuff to like back up our arguments or and when
I say it, it just makes me a football nerder. I
don't know what I'm talking about. Logan says that it's
it's all true, it's the gospel.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
So well, hold on, hold on, holdld out, Brad. I'm
just so, let's here's the deal. Analytics have always been
a part of the game from a play calling, game
plan and standpoint. Like, we just didn't call it analytics.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
We call it percentages, ortistic statistics, or we used to
call it a hit chart, like, hey, they're in this
personnel groupinge this don of distance, wherever they're are on
the on the football field, there's a high probability.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Let's call it an eighty percent they're going to run
the football. And these are the these are year three
top runs, especially if they get in this formation. Things
like that. Now they just called it analytics now, and
it's a great way for the nerds to all of
a sudden be a part of part of the game,
a part of a part of sports man. It's taken over.
(29:20):
So I'm just I'm able to really decipher it and
put it to my old layman's words what Logan and
you guys just explained.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
So it's so funny Fletch gives me such a hard
time for all this analytics stuff. But like when Fletch played,
he was like the first analytics guy, right. He was
the guy that could remember all the first down percentages.
He can remember the runs they had, like and and
again that's what makes good players good is they're able
to kind of internalize and then digest that information in
the production on the field. But yeah, like he gives
(29:49):
me a hard time for it, but don't let don't
get it twisted. He was a big analytics guy before us.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
He was the first I think, no way, go ahead,
Londed no no, no, I just and Brand and Logan.
For me, it's just I don't want the nerves to
take over my game. You know.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
It's funny though, I was talking to my son about
this the other day, and you know, like with baseball,
analytics have kind of like ruined quote unquote, with basketball,
it's kind of ruined. I do think in some ways
like it's made football better, right, it's kind of diversified
the offenses. You see, it's kind of said, oh, you know,
we can't run you know, college offenses.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
But it just increases offenses of efficiency.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Right, you see a running quarterback Now, I think that's
analytically driven in a lot of ways. Right, you see
kind of the advent of finding these explosive play action shots.
And then a couple of years ago, I remember FLUS
you were like, oh, we can't run the football. It's
not you know, a what is it the it's not
an efficient play. And all of a sudden, because they
can't really define why running makes it easier for the quarterback,
they've kind of backtracked that model little bit and you're
(30:48):
seeing running come back in a vogue. So I think
even though analytics are kind of infecting modern NFL football,
I think it's really interesting because they can't define all
the parameters. And that's what makes it so fun to
talk about analytics with regards to football.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
There's too many moving parts. This isn't baseball. This isn't
baseball where you can run data sheet and analytic report
on this pitcher versus this hitter or this hitter has
trouble with this particular pitch in this particular location and
if you can execute that, you're probably going to have
success and start talking about launch angles something like that.
Every single play is twenty two people in the field
(31:22):
that all need to do the right thing at the
right time to make anything work. The analytics help accentuate
maybe some more tendencies that you should do or some
pathways to success. It still doesn't change the fact that
there are too many people that could either make it
successful or screw it up all at the same time.
But I think that's why the analytics are what they are.
And like, I've known London long enough that I know
(31:44):
like he's buying into the analytics, but in the end
he's like, how about I just go punch somebody in
the mouth and I'll show you where.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Absolutely, so, yeah, yeah, Digresa. Let's talk about the offense
as a whole. You mentioned deebo Jalen Lane's an interesting
one too. We can come back to him. Let me
get to the run game with you, which what early
in the season last year was really successful. There were
numerous two hundred plus yard collective rush days for this team. Obviously,
(32:16):
Brian Robinson was a big change for them. We're going
to see what Bill is for this offense. Austin Eckler
comes back, as you kind of think through the run
game with the new offensive line and the group that
they have and add in Deebo to whatever degree that is,
add in Jayden, how are you thinking about collectively the
rush game this year?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
I think, you know, obviously with the additions on the
offensive line Larry Tunsall, Brandon Coleman guard, and then kind
of the depth pieces of Wiley and Ala Griddy, I
think they're just again they're trying to maximize or provide
more clarity on the offense that they ran last year.
And so we talk about We've fetched I've talked about this,
I've talked about z Bram like the idea.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Of statistical regression in certain.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Categories, right, So like the idea that I'm not going
to be as efficient on fourth down this year or
eight percent is going to drop a little bit, Right,
So with defense, you see that manifesting in a you know,
we got to be better on first down, right, because
if we're better on first down, then we can be
more efficient on third down. And there's like a ripple
and a trickle down effect. I see that same thing
happening honestly with the offensive side of the football. If
(33:16):
we can make sure our first and second down runs
are even like one yard more efficient, so all of
a sudden, we're in second and six as opposed to
third or second and seven.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Now the playbook opens up.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
We increase our offensive efficiency because statistically, as we get
closer to that first down marker, it becomes easier to
get a first down. So I think that's what you're
looking at there, is if we can maximize the efficiency
of some of our runs by increasing the efficiency of
some of our personnel. And again, like that to me
is what you're trying to get to, right, if you're
trying to stave off statistical regression by becoming more efficient
(33:50):
running the football. So low leverage, low stress on the quarterback,
higher efficiency. Again, so when I got to throw my
pitch with Jayden Daniels, when I got to have him
be a here on third and five, when I got
to have him get a first down on fourth and two, like,
we've got all those plays at our disposal, because again,
our first time efficiency is more effective.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, all right, now let me break this down into
Lamber's time. We got we got better, he Jason laughing
in the office line. We got better in the trench.
So Larry me Tosso, now you got him excellent pass protective,
underrated run of blocker. But you may you move Brandon Kuman,
(34:33):
a big body, bigger body into that left guard position.
He's gonna roll great, be honest. He got he got
u banged up down the stretch and the run game
started to suffer a little bit, but tough as nails,
really good run blocker Andrew Wiley until Sam Cosby comes back,
He's going to be a really good run blocker. He
(34:55):
had he had his moment some you know where he
struggled little bit at times with pass pro, but as
a unlocker he was very good. So now you've got
him in that interior running the football, I mean helping
run run the ball. Josh Connery, hell of an athlete.
He's going to be a really good run run blocker.
(35:16):
So all this and efficiency is one thing, and all listen,
but at the end of the day, we got better
in the damn trenches.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
And I think the other interesting thing, I think that's
a really succinct way of putting in fletch.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And I was trying to sound smart. Yeah, we got
better than trenches, right, We're going to be more efficient.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
The other thing, too, is like the type of players
that they've gotten, right, They've gotten more athletic people, and
everyone thinks so for run blocking it's this bigger, hulking,
lean on you type of guy. But I think with
this system, because of all the pulling, that athletic dexterity
is something that's going to make us more efficient, right,
you know, Coleman pulling the perimeter. We saw how athletic
conor condly could be in that New England game with
(35:54):
some of that tight zone footw're getting the second level
outside zone. It just adds you to It allows you
to be a little bit more effective with that stuff
and a little bit more diverse when you get those
athletic kind of live bodies in there.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
So I think that's a great point by you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Job wanted the best robot home preach.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Now now we're talking tight ends.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
Let's get let's get that thing going right, I mean,
just in terms what he allows you to do.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Let me ask you this logan. Just because the offensive
line as a group essentially didn't really practice much together
like the last few weeks of camp for a variety
of reasons. Brandon Coleman was out. I thought it was
a really good sign that he elected to play in
that last preseason game, as he said he wanted some
reps and left guards he had missed some time. Laramie
Tunsell he has been dinged up a little bit. We're
(36:39):
presuming he's going to be fine, but didn't practice a ton.
Then when we saw him in New England joint practice,
he looked like Laramie Tunsseell. We're still waiting on Sam
Cosmy open question about who starts at right tackle to
start the season, who's the right guard when we start
the season. As you kind of think about where this
offense will go when presumably we get health back and
(36:59):
reps together, how are you thinking about the beginning of
the season and then what ultimately it looks like when
we get the gang back together.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think
it's a really good concern. On some level too. I
will say I'm not concerned about Laramie at all. I think,
you know, I played with him in Houston. This is
kind of like part of his process, Like he's not
super involved.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
In the off season. He kind of trains on his own.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
I don't have any He's played so much football, I'm
not worried abou him missing any time. The Coleman one
is interesting because he is moving to a new position.
He hasn't gotten a ton of reps there. I think
the athleticism, the length, the size, like Fletch alluded to,
make me feel a little bit more comfortable. And the
fact that he's flanked by be Hodish and by Laramie
Tunsel makes me think that those two veterans should be
(37:39):
able to get communicated in anything they need to get
communicated to him. And then I think the other thing
that makes me feel good, and Fletch can speak to
this too, is just having backups with experience. And I've
said this a million times, I'm going to say at
a million and one. When you've got guys with that
level of experience, you don't have to worry about them
coming in and not knowing because, again with young players,
one of the concerns is, hey, they just don't know,
(38:01):
like how we're targeting this.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
They don't know how we're going to block this protection
versus this cross dog.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Right, And so when you get guys that have done it,
They've seen a million reps, they've been in a bunch
of different systems. It makes me feel so much better.
And again, like whoever's playing on the right side, Let's
say it's Wiley and Alleghretty they started last year, right,
so I don't need to be worried about that.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Right.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
Let's say Connorley comes in, He's going to be playing
next to Wiley or Alleghretty who's playing a ton of football.
So I love that they've kind of been able to
bracket and kind of pair these younger players in these
weaker spots with guys who played a lot of football.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
What do you think, Lennon as they get the line together, Oh.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh no, that's this excellent stuff. Logan did it. He
did such a great job breaking it down.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
I didn't have anything else as speechless.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, no, it's uh And I think I think what
they even once Cosmy comes back and we don't know
when that's going to be, there may be a kind
of a Remember last year they were doing this kind
of platoon at the tackle spole with with a Brady
do that this year?
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I don't have a good feel for it.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Do you think they do I'm just saying they might
just to just to maybe get him before. You don't
want to just throw him in the fire. I don't
think you want to just throwing them in the fire
playing Hey, go play sixty five snaps a game, especially
if you don't have to, if he doesn't have to,
cause you feel really good about the guys that you have,
and hey, we can we can kind of bring him
(39:26):
along a little bit somewhat slowly, so to speak, and
then hey, maybe we're these four games into it now,
he's full board. Let him go and just cut it loose.
If that's a you know, the way they feel like,
I feel like doing it.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
And he's interesting too, because I feel like and he's
just getting like he kind of had a slow start
to camp, but he's just kind of hitting this like
really nice growth curve. And so I'm kind of like,
what's he going to be in thirteen days or you know,
a week when the game starts in right, Like, is
he ready to go by then? And so I think
that's another thing that makes that situation a little bit
hard to read.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
But man, I love his athleticism. I love his upside.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
It's just about kind of where you think he's at
in his developmental curve.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I guess developmental arc.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Yeah, they're the I don't know how much the coaches
think about the matchups, but early, you know, this is
gonna be Welcome to the NFL. Like that's Brian Burns
came on, Thibodeau, Abdul Carter, week three is Max Crosby,
Like this is these are elite of the elite defensive
ends Burns and Crosby specifically that he could be lining
(40:30):
up against. So I don't know how they think about matchups,
but it is going to be and listen, welcome to
the NFL. You're going to be playing elite players. But
they've got like top tier Pro Bowl, All Pro caliber
at rush ends that are they're going to be facing
early in the season this year.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Yeah, and I think that's obviously concerning from a talent standpoint. Sorry, Lennon,
I just couldn't help myself. I got superduced up there anyway.
Oh No, So, like like with Cliff for example, I
think he's shown like that's the one thing that's great
about Cliffs. He's shown an ability to call a game
with limitations at the offensive line, Like whether it's our
chip packages, whether it's our kind of leaning into heavy rundowns,
(41:06):
whether it's the RPO stuff, whether it's the compilation of
the quick game, which Jade and Daniels we having even
talked about. Jay Daniels is so excellent managing because he's
got that quick release. So I do think Cliff he
does a good job of being aware, in my opinion
of the thing that's the hardest to do in the
offense outside of playing quarterback is play offensive line.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
So how do I make sure those guys.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
I have to make sure the quarterback's comfortable, but I
also have to make sure the offensive line is comfortable.
And I think you saw like they didn't. I think
they went through like a couple of weeks where they
didn't give up a last year and you probably remember this, Bram.
They didn't give up a sack to an edge rusher
like Miles Garrett play. He didn't have a pressure and obviously,
like Cliff, had an awareness with the chip, help with
the slide, help with the quick game of how to
(41:47):
mitigate that. And so that makes me feel very confident
that going into some of these matchups, it puts more
pressure on Cliff, no doubt, but that we can manage
some of those issues.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
And some of that in fair enough too. Our quarterback
is so rich, ridiculously elusive that there were moments where
he escaped out of situations as well.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Yeah, just real quick, I was I wasn't talking about
platooning Connolly. I was talking about once Confmee comes back,
maybe they bring him along a little bit where where
it's cosme and maybe it's Andrew Wiley kind of platooning
at that guard spot, you know, a little bit longer Now,
I wasn't. I wasn't talking about connedy hell Connley. I mean,
(42:26):
he's looked excellent to me. But now you you they understand.
You mentioned the chip packages and all those types of things.
And again there's also the ability the run game and
how that really slows down a pass rush. The I
think we can be better in the screen game to
running backs. We didn't really excels as much with the
(42:48):
true screens to running backs as I'm sure they probably
would like to have, And maybe they're looking to really
wrap that up where it's not just always the bubble
screens that we can we can get more production out
of the screens to the running backs. That also slows
down the pass rush and that gates some of the
pressure packages and things like that by defenses.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I do want to talk about Jayden in a minute,
but one more topic before we get to him, and
that is Terry McLaurin, who did not practice with the
team throughout the course of the summer, but obviously expected
to be back ramp up for the Giants and then
a quick turnaround to play Green Bay. He did not
practice with the team throughout the summer. Do you have
any sense of whether that would affect the volume of
(43:32):
plays that he has used early in the season.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
I mean, I just think about how Dan has handled
injuries so far and guys that are in return to play,
and obviously this is an injury. But like he's very fastidious.
We have a very excellent Chad Angle Heart shout out Chad.
He does a great job with him the director of
kind of return to play stuff here of managing these things.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
They're very analytical.
Speaker 4 (43:53):
They have greatly comprehensive test protocols. So I think they're
going to be hyper aware honestly of Terry and his
kind of return to the offense. And so if I'm Cliff,
if I'm you know, Dan. I'm really kind of trying
to make sure that we kind of manage some of
those high speed numbers early on and kind of maybe
give him a package. And again, like when you think
(44:13):
about what he brings to the offense and what this
offense did so well last year was kind of finding
explosive plays.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
He was a big part of that.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
And so how do we still kind of make sure
the offense has teeth in terms of explosive plays down
the field early in the season. I think it's the
best way is to kind of package it up, limit
his total play volume, but make sure that we're getting
impact from him in those specific moments.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
The good thing is he'll have five or six practices
prior to the game against the Giants, and you know
you can kind of logan touched on it about the
return to play, and they'll wrap him up, maybe push
him a little bit harder early than dialing back a
little bit, then wrap him up a little bit just
(44:57):
to see how his body is responded to all those
types of I don't expect Terry to go out and
play nine of the snaps in the game against the Giants.
I'm not sure even if he had training cap and
he played ninety percent of the snap just because of
you know, some of the different personnel groups they may
want to employee or deploy in that game against the Giants.
(45:21):
So can we expecting to play I would think, you know,
seventy seventy to seventy five eighty percent of the snaps.
I think that's fair to say he can. He can
go out there and do that until your point logan,
you're you're kind of scheming it up to where you're
not going to have him running you know, eight goal
balls or you know, five go balls in the game.
It might be a couple of slot phase where there's
(45:43):
a deep throat it's one or two go balls in
a game, and a couple of slants and you know
bubble screens and things like that that he can he
can excel after the catch.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
But I think that, yeah, well, I think kind of
goes back to like the debo thing. It's like again
like that in terms of laying cards on the table
and what this offense does well, it's terry making explosive opportunities.
It's yards after the catch from Deebo Samuel, it's the
contested catches from Noah Brown, and so even if that's
not one hundred percent, Like again, like Cliff's a smart dude,
(46:13):
he'll figure it out. But how do we make sure
we get like, hey, this is the play action shot
on third and two. We got to get Terry in
here at X for this play because we're going to
run this heavy play action hit this post over the top,
like we need him in there for that. So, like,
that's what I'm saying is just be selective about when
you're throwing your fastball. You know, it's like a picture
with like a little lebow tendonitis. Right, I still got
the fastball. I'm just not going to throw it as
(46:34):
much as maybe I would normally do.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Okay, all right, let me get last thing.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Jayden.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
We haven't really addressed much on him year two, the
addition of Tunsel. In my point of view, like I
believe the protection is going to be better this year
for them. What I loved about Jayden a year ago
coming in was that, you know, listen, he is an
unbelievable athlete, and I think what we saw in his
rookie year is his his instincts are extraordinary, and because
(47:04):
of that, there are these superman moments that occurred multiple times.
But I look at this and I go, he's a
pass first quarterback kind of always was when he was
coming out. And if he gets better protection and he's
throwing the ball from a better pocket five to ten
more times a game, we're looking at a four thousand
to forty five hundred yard passer this year, let alone
(47:27):
an effective runner who might not have the same amount
on the ground, but that might not be the worst thing.
How much do you really want to expose him to
running the ball all that much? So I wonder if
you kind of see it the same way that I
actually think his passing stats are likely with the additions
that they've had to take an exponential leap from where
they were a year ago.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Yeah, I think when you look at again, Jane Daniels
is the thing that drives this vehicle here, right, And
so when you look at some of the things that
he I want to like, it's hard to talk about
this because he had such a good year, but things
that he's struggled with. It's throwing from an unclean pocket.
Like he's a good mover, but the subtlety of pocket
movement is still something that he's working on.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
When you watch it on film.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
Right, So what I would say is, now you've eliminated
the thing that kind of makes him uncomfortable there in
the backfield. And again, I think you brought up a
great point, like he wants to he wants to throw
the football, right, I think that's one of the things
that makes him specially he's a tremendous athlete that can
throw the football. So by limiting again his exposure to
the thing that makes him uncomfortable, I think you should
see more efficiency there, right. And so yeah, I told
(48:27):
I absolutely agree with that take, and I just think
it's just we talked about this earlier. In terms of
the offense. How do you stave off statistical regression? This
is a big one to me because if you can
make the quarterback more comfortable. The other thing that I
think is often overlooked here is you've made now Cliff
more comfortable. And what I mean by that is instead
of having to use all these chip protections, now we
can get five guys into the route and Fledg can
(48:49):
speak to this. That puts so much more stress on
the defense. We can create, we can stretch zones more,
we can overload zones in a way that we couldn't
before all because the part better and which is again
going to increase Jane Daniel's efficiency. So I think I
think the protection is a huge element. I think it's
always been a huge element, and a big part of
it is bringing the right people in and Laramie Tunseel's
(49:10):
that guy.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah know, the the chipping and being able to get
five guys out in the route or even even four
guys out in the round says like you said, it's
going to open up the zones. You know, if you
want to go to your spread package and they playing
man and man on some third and shorter situations, He's
going to be able to identify the matchups that he
(49:33):
wants to take advantage of. Logan you you touched on
the Hey, maybe you know, not being as comfortable when
when the pocket isn't as clean. So I'm thinking he's
going to be That's one of the things they probably
worked on him with so they're in the offseason, hey,
because it's not going to always be clean, making sure
he's improved in at that element when the pocket is
(49:55):
not clean. Like you said, maybe it's a subtle, subtle
side step here or there, stepping up here there things
like that Tom Brady, for he comes to mind Brady
wasn't Boba at all, but he just had this unique
instinct to be able to just move to the left,
to the right, stuff like that, just to avoid the
(50:15):
rush and step up in the pocket deliver deliver throws
when the pocket wasn't cleaned. So that's I think with Jaden,
there's also going to be an evolution of the offense.
They're gonna put more concepts in the passing game. They're
going to enhance that because for one, you got better
players too. This is his second year and offense, clip
(50:35):
is going to add more to that passing game with
more concepts to that defenses now have to deal with.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
Yeah, And I think that's a great point because not
only is it you know, Jaden, but now like it
kind of to piggyback on that cliff point, like now
we can get into like it's five step from under
center traditional drops. We're kind of attacking the middle of
the field. And we talked about earlier how like chunk
plays in offense are so valuable and the reason that
middle area at fifteen to twenty yard area of the
field is considered such an important quarterback metric is because
(51:05):
it's an easy way to find these explosive chunks and
so the fact that we can protect it better if
we can get Jayden to see that area of the
field more through better protection, like, that's another way the
offense takes a step forward. So it's really like, to me,
the Laramie tunsl addition is the move of the offseason
because now we don't have to chip one side, we
get more guys out, we can work slides away, we
(51:27):
can trust him to win his one on one in.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
A way that we haven't had a guy here.
Speaker 4 (51:30):
And quite honestly, not to besmirch anybody else here, but
really there's only like five or six guys in the
NFL that can do that. You just say out there, hey,
win this one on one matchup, like that's what makes
him so special. And it just opens up so much
the offense because again, like getting better in the trenches
is an understatement, it allows you to run the football
and allows you to pass protect and that makes the quarterback,
(51:51):
makes the runners, makes the receivers all better.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, I'm with you. The tunsl was the move of
the offseason. The trickle down effect of them acquiring him
to what it did to across the board on the line,
to what it allows them to do. I think it
just can't be overstated. That was the literal move of
the offseason to me. All right, before I let you
guys go, since we're here it's week one, just give
me a general sense, London will start with you. What
(52:15):
does the successful season look like for the Commanders this year.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Successful season looks like come on man, week one, Na man, listen.
Successful season looks like making the playoffs, you know, winning
ten plus games. I think that's uh. I think ten
is the is a low bar low the floor for
(52:39):
this this group, you know, win a ten games. I
don't we we improved the rouster so much. I don't
know that we will win necessarily more games, but it's
gonna look better. And that's why I said, I think
ten is the floor for this team. Win in a
win in another playoff game, that would be a successful
season for us, and just continue to see the development
(53:02):
and improvement of jaded dangs and also a lot of
the young, young talented football players on this group. On
this team.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Yeah, I have to agree with Fletch.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
I think you know, last year there was a little
bit of serendipity, a little bit of luck to some
of the wins. Anytime you're winning one score games, you know,
eight of them in a row or whatever, it was like,
that's got to get a little Obviously, you're very talented,
you practice those situations, but you got to be a
little bit lucky as well. So I think like just
making sure you've tipped the deck in a way that
(53:30):
allows you to be a little bit more dominant, a
little bit more assertive offensively and defensively. You guys did
a great job talking about defensively how they can be
more efficient. We just talked about how offensively you can
be more efficient. I think, and again hopefully that manifests
into a playoff win, playoff birth, ten plus win season.
I think that those are all good metrics, but I
think just kind of being able to stave off some
(53:50):
of those areas that normally regress with some of the
additions and some of the schematic changes, I think that's
a successful season.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
I mean, the weirdest stat in the NFL is that
nobody is won the NFC's back to back keepers in
twenty part years. So if that's gonna if that's gonna hold.
I'd like to think that we're in pole position to
leap frog Philadelphia, and if that's the case, not only
in the playoffs. So we have home playoff games at
least to start with. So i'd like to see that.
That would like, you know, and the Eagles have a
lot to say and Giants Cowboys too, but the Eagles
(54:18):
are gonna have a lot to say about that. I
would like to see what that looks like, see what
our crowd looks like in January, if we could have
a home playoff game as opposed to what we did
on the road, which is memories of a lifetime. But
I want to see it in front of our home
fans and I'm hoping that's what we get this year too.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Absolutely all right, guys. Can you imagine it's been a
we haven't hosted a home playoff game with a full stadium.
It's been quite a while, man.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
You think that Yeah, the one, yeah, the one we
did where they won the nfcast at seven and nine.
There was nobody here. It was the pandemic. It was
like dystopian, dystopian world. Yeah, yeah, it was crazy, all right, guys.
I can't wait. Giants Week one packers week two, so
we're gonna have a very busy first week of the
booth review. I can't wait to do the game on Sunday.
(55:05):
So for London Logan, I'm Bram, we'll talk to you
on Monday. After Week one and the Giants Game Booth
Review was filmed at the Big Bear AI Command Center Studio.
Big Bear AI offers mission ready AI for a rapidly
evolving world, proudly protecting the Washington Commanders and its fans.
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