Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our friend Sean Saya joins us every Tuesday, one of
the authors of these Stats and Schemes newsletter, and you
know sumer sports dot com. We have used their folks
now for a while. If you haven't tried out sumer Brain,
Sean kind of walks you through it and he'll tell
us more about it here in just a few minutes. First, Sean,
what's going on? How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
No?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Nothing much, Yeah, just always enjoying talking about our bangles.
Second place in the AFC. Nor I maybe consider consider
hanging the batter now, Yes, I would, says let's go ahead,
let's go ahead and do that. But doing well, it's
fun to watch a little bit. Joe Blackow, you were right.
You said that Blaco was going to start. I thought
you were being silly, but oh, you certainly know better
(00:41):
than I do.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I am usually not right about anything, but that that
seemed to me like the most likely outcome. I looked
at that game on Sunday, and I've talked about it
here in the last two days. I looked at that
game on Sunday as a preseason game, like, yeah, it'd
be cool if they win, but they're fourteen and a
half point dogs, they have all sorts of defensive issues.
Show me something as the game moves forward that makes
(01:03):
me feel like this Joe Flacco think can work to
an agree And I feel like, as much as a
lot of folks don't want to hear it, mission accomplished.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, I don't want to. You know, we actually don't
have to hang in the banner.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
But I was going in very much ready.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
To look at the film and say, man, like Flacco is,
he has absolutely nothing, there's nothing that can come of
this offense, And I was a little bit surprised there
was definitely some positive there where. Look, Flaho certainly doesn't
have the entire play sheet and like the whole entire
playbook yet, so as weeks go on, you can probably
expand it just a little bit. Obviously hopefully he's able
to stay healthy, but he's able to keep the trains
(01:41):
moving on time. You know, I think you can probably
leave that game feeling decent about it, where you just
look more competent than you did when you had Jake
Browning in that spot. So I'm curious, you know, how
much is that able to continue overall? Like, are you
able to you know, tie him together with the run
game that is actually able to threaten defenses just a
little bit because he can definitely throw the ball deep
down the field.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Off play action.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And you know, I think Jamar Chase is probably pretty
happy about how that one turned out as well.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, no question. They were running a lot of tosses too,
which is not something we typically see here.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I think against defenses that are really up the field,
like you, you're gonna have defenders really trying to attack you,
you can try and like have someone just kind of
hin down on the outside, defender get that ball on
the outside. Of course, you feel comfortable with Chase Brown
running in space. I think it's a it's got to
be a game to game.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Approach, just in terms of the running game.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
It's thought it was going to be, hey, under center,
we're gonna run straight at you at your middle linebacker
up the middle. I think if you if you can
combine sort of spread elements of the offense and you know,
stretch the defense in different directions, that can usually be
a pretty positive thing.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
All right, So if you're if you're Zach Taylor and
Dan Pitcher and you have what Joe Flacco did on
Sunday and now you want to build upon it against
the Steelers. Admittedly with a short week that makes it
slightly more difficult. Where do you begin.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I think it's got to be a quick passing game overall.
I think you've probably be a little bit scared just
about the Steelers pass rush overall. You know, it could
be a situation where you're really spreading things out, like
you're getting into some of those empty sets where you're
gonna be able to see, Okay, Pittsburgh probably not blitzing here,
but the way they play zone coverage, there's gonna be
this open gap I can just take kind of quick
(03:24):
throw underneath. I'm gonna be curious, you know, as defenses
they're seeing more of Flacco, like it's probably gonna it's
like a threes in layups kind of approach those quick
throws underneath some of those deep.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Shots over the top.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
So you still want to find ways to get those
one on one isolation throws because you're gonna just win
those flat out kind of often with Jamar Chase. But
I'm curious just how creative can you be in terms
of ways to get the ball out of Flacco's hands
as quick as possible.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
If he's going to be decisive.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
You know, he's not gonna want to hang out in
the pocket for four seconds.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
He's not gonna want to run around there. He doesn't
have to because if.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
He's able to get rid of the ball quick, then
I think you can get some one of those consistent
drives against the Steelers team, who Yeah, I don't love
their offense or defend the thing is certainly a positive
unit overall.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, I want to ask you about them here in
just the second, Sean sayed sumer sports dot Com. The
Stats and Scheme newsletter is an absolute must shows up
in your inbox multiple times per week. I thought, and
this is I guess more just about personnel. I thought
in the second half of that game there was a
level of proficiency from the offensive line that if that continues,
(04:29):
and you're being reasonable if you assume it won't, but
if that continues, could sort of, I don't know, at
the very least gives Joe Flacco a chance because we've
talked about as immobility for so long.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, I mean kind of surprising, right when you think
about this game. As you mentioned, the Packers were a
huge favorite. I think the overall pressure percentage was only
around like twenty five percent, which on the grand scale,
that is not like a super super high percentage. And
sometimes that even happened where Flacco did hold on the
ball just maybe a little bit further.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
You're trying to develop something as well, So if you
can build on a positive performance, that that could be good,
because you know, the Packers as a team are funky because.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
At some point they look like literally guaranteed Super Bowl champions,
and at some point they look like a team that
doesn't deserve to even be in the playoffs, like they
really do run hot and cold. But I think from
this game you can take some of those positives where
Mo it feels like that we haven't been able to
do that all the time this year, so maybe it's
a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Rose colored glasses.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
But taking a low pressure number overall and moving that forward,
you know, that can be something that you can certainly
build around for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You said you don't love Pittsburgh's offense. Why not?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So I think for Aaron Rodgers at this point in
his career, he's gonna be a low time to throw
a quarterback, so he's gonna get rid of the ball
pretty quickly, You're gonna see a lot of underneath throws.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Overall, it feels like they're winning some of these games
based on.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
I mean one and obviously like plays on their defense
or like big yards after catch plays from DK Metcalf
or these. He thinks that feel just not as repeatable.
And I know this just could be like how well,
like my personal peace in offense is and kind of
how I like, look at what.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Is sustainable overall.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I mean, it's a Thursday night, so obviously that's tough.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
The Steelers should be favorites.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
In that game, but there was like a little bit
of a fund from the Bengals defense, just like a
little bit you get that interception of course against Jordan
Love as well. When I look back to the Steelers game, Okay,
the Jets in Week one, you know, I think we're
all seeing where the Jets are at now. You're able
to beat the Patriots in the game where the Patriots
have five turnovers.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
You're beating the Vikings and the Browns with their backup quarterbacks.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
So you know, I guess maybe the Steelers superpower this
year is they consistently are able to face backup quarterbacks.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So I would love for this to be the upset
week for the Bengals.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It feels like, you know, you can get that offense
a little bit stuck in the mud, maybe create something there.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I you know, this is Pittsburgh's threatening to run away
and hide. I think if they win this game on Thursday,
you almost assume they do. If not, it's feels like,
all right, the division is more wide open. Maybe the
Bengals aren't gonna be a factor. Should fans in Baltimore
give up on them being a factor with the one
in five.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Record, Man, that is tough, right, It's good that for
Baltimore that you have that extra wild card spawn now.
Of course, like you, that's what your eyes are on.
I don't think you're looking at the division win. But
then you look at the schedule the rest of the way.
Bengals twice, the Jets, the Browns, you know, Vikings back
up quarterback Dolphins that are falling apart a little bit there,
(07:32):
and then you know you're still gonna get the Steelers
twice as well. So the Ravens have to pretty much
win eight games like in a row with Lamar Jackson,
and that's possible. It's it is right, So I can't say, hey, look,
we're gonna ignore this just like last year when we
were talking about the Bengals and say, look you can
just you can still get to the playoffs with Joe Burrow,
like we're really close at the end, and like you're
(07:53):
able to win a bunch of games in important spots.
But the way that the defense played, I thought, actually
for the Ravens against them, where now they have Kyle
Howilson been playing closer to the line of scrimmage, not
all the way back at safety, play that sort of
slot corner type role, I think gonna help the physicality
of the defense overall.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So I personally am not, you.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Know, betting my future on the Ravens making the playoffs.
But I'm also not gonna like just like nail the
final nail in that puff and.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yet awesome stuff as always. Uh, let's first talk about
the Stats and Scheme newsletter. For folks who haven't subscribed yet,
what shows up in the ram box.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Appreciate that it's all the advanced data you need. We
built it that if you became head coach of a
team tomorrow, what is all the information that you would
need to see in terms of a matchup, so it's
been fun to write them up. It's been fun to
build a little bit of a different data you can
you know, if you don't understand all the data, we
have a glossary if you do. We also have this
nice color coding you can see, Okay, well this team
is green in this spot and the defense is red
(08:49):
in that spot.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
It's been really fun to work on. We've gotten some.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Good feedback and I think it's pretty helpful, so I
would definitely recommend.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Using it all right usoomer sports dot com the sumer.
I was watching you walk people through it.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
What is it? So it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
It's basically our whole entire database that you can just
pull in a second. So I used to have to
go to like five different sites if I was trying
to pull a specific number, but we have it set
so you can get really really specific advanced charting day
you can look up what is the bangles most common
pass coverage on third downs in the second quarter, and
it's gonna spit out in a few seconds.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
This is exactly what happens. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I think it's a better way to get more people
more data at a higher level.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It's still an open.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Beta, so we're certainly going to have some issues that
kind of pop up here and there. But it's been
fun for me to work on. It's been fun for
me to check things and watch some plays and say, well,
why does the model think it's this coverage, but I
think it's that cartdge.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
It's been cool.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
I would recommend giving it a spin see what.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Should come out.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Maybe you'll also find what are the numbers that are
going to help the Bangals win this week.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Sumersports dot com Sumer always love having you. We'll talk
next week.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Thanks so much, Thanks so much. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
That's our guy, Sean Say had subscribe to the Stats
and Schemes newslettersoomer Sports dot com and take advantage of
Sumer Brain. While you're at it. We're at Oakley Greens.
It's five point thirty on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.