Hugh Millen Joins Softy and Dick.

Hugh Millen joins the show to talk about the Suer Bowl, the snub of Mike Holmgren in the HOF, and much more.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, we're back at the Emerald Quink Casino hanging

(00:02):
out all night long. I have a little more at
four with their friend Hu mill And joining us right
now post Super Bowl edition. And Hugh, I don't care
where you live, Seattle, Miami, Dallas, Omaha, no matter where
you live. That was an absolute purd of a football game,
unless you're a Philadelphia Eagle fan as you enjoy Super Sunday,
My friend.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Not really, No, I thought it was. You know, I
don't know how anybody could have expected. We've seen a
lot of matchups through the years, particularly like back in
the eighties, you know where you say, okay, the the
better team, the better roster, beats the team that has
the better quarterback. But I thought we'd kind of got
away from those kind of blowouts. But indeed it was

(00:45):
a stinker. But credit the Eagles. They had two first
year coordinators, one on each side of the ball, and
in a game where I thought Spagnola and Andy Reid
were the talk, and justifiably so. I think those coaches

(01:06):
on each side of the ball for Philadelphia, they were
just the better prepared team and certainly the more talented roster.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Well, yeah, it was a flashback for me, Hugh to
like when I was ten, eleven, twelve thirty, and fourteen
years old. Like every one of those Super Bowls was crappy.
But the first thing I got to ask you about,
and I thought about you watching the beginning of that game,
when Mahomes was just getting swarmed under. Tell me about
the lack of a quick game and why we didn't
see more of the quick game.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, there was efforts to get the ball on the
quick game. Hell, the first two plays of the game
were designed runs, and post snap Mahomes decides to throw
the quick game. I got a completion kind of on
a little seam route at the on play number one,
and then he threw a swinger oute, a bubble out

(01:53):
out to the left and Cooper dejene and made a
great tackle in space. But you know they were trying
to get to this and then coming out of the
goal line, uh back backed up. Everything that they were
trying was the quick game. But a couple of things.
First of all, Kelsey looked sluggish on his little whip routes.
It just kind of looks like an old man.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, hey, Hugh, hey, Hugh, let me remember quick because
Booger McFarland said yesterday it was the worst game he's
ever seen Kelsey play.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
Do you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what uh what Burger said.
You know how he elaborated on it, but he you know,
he dropped the pass early on on his back hip.
That's a pass. He's got a catch, took a smack
for it. That was in a four under four deep,
so there's a drop eight coverage and there was a
window in there and it was a little behind, but
he's got to make that play. And then he was sluggish.

(02:44):
As I said, the times where he's running the control
the control outs, they're not sending him down the field.
They're not sending him much more than five or six
yards down the field. And and that's fine, you know,
because he doesn't have the speed, but he also doesn't
have the quickness to separate from those inside defenders and
he kind of telegraphs where he's going. That was a factor.

(03:05):
You saw the Eagles. They were really trying to nail
down from the top down. When they're playing their fangio
what's called quarters coverage. A lot of time those corners
will say, okay, I've got the widest receiver in the
formation from the line of scrimmage to the back of
the end zone. He's all mine up the up the sideline.

(03:26):
And so a lot of times those guys are reluctant
to really trigger down on the quick game on those hitches.
But that's how they were playing. They you know, they
got quin Quinnon Mitchell and and you know he was
he was you know, he was kind of almost pitching
a tent right and and not giving depth. And then
you also saw times where okay, they would they would

(03:48):
roll coverage to the boundary and Pat Mahomes he's on
the left hash he wants to get the quick game
on the left side. But it's like Fangio's in the huddle.
He says, Hey, they're gonna try and do the quick
game to the boundary side. Let's leave the field side
free access and let's close the boundary. And so I
just felt like watching that tape, I felt like it

(04:12):
was two weeks to prepare for the Super Bowl. I
felt like the Eagles had two months, right, and the
Chiefs had two days.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well how much credit because you mentioned the coaches and
I don't know, maybe we'll get to a point one
day where the MVP can be given to a coach, right,
I mean, maybe there should be an award coming out
of that game that just goes to a coach. You know,
why not, you know, honor one of the coaches on
the winning side, And if you did it, you'd probably
give it to Fangio. But how much credit are you
in the mood to give Nick Siriani for what he's

(04:41):
done in Philadelphia? I mean, I'll just tell you he's
fifty seven and twenty six overall in four years, with
two conference championships and now a title. How much credit
should we be giving Nick Siriani?

Speaker 5 (04:53):
Well, for me, I give him a ton of credit.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
I look and say, hey, they lost six of the
last seven games last here, then lost the playoff game.
He came in a little bit in battle. Maybe there
was a feeling that they had a better roster and
they were under underachieving. They were two and two at
the start of this year. You go into a buy
and you say, wow, this guy's on shaky ground for
his job. And then what they want.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
It was eleven to last twelve or sixteen, last seven,
I don't know what. I don't know maybe Dick do
the math for me. Well, I know it was a
lot too a little to just one loss, but but yeah,
I would I would be curious to know how how
central he was in the decision to bring in Fangio
and to bring in Kellen Moore, because if he was

(05:39):
the guy that was pulling that trigger those triggers, I
should say plurality there, I would be even more impressed.
But you know, he got everybody to play for themselves
and and and and play for each other. And and
they had a little bit of a blip when aj

(05:59):
Brown was arking about not getting the ball too much.
Well that's a style question they had. But somehow they
weathered that storm. And then you just throw on the
tape and look how doggone prepared they were in this
game yesterday. As I said, I just I could not
have envisioned the degree to which the Eagles would out
coach the Chiefs.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, no, couldn't. They're sixteen and one in the last seventeen,
so it's pretty impressive. You was Mahomes seeing ghosts yesterday
and kind of running into trouble or was he truly
swarmed under? And how close are those like scrambled tendencies
scouting scouted. It's not something we commonly hear about, but
it looked like the Eagles front four knew where Mahomes

(06:40):
was going to slide before he ever slid.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, I think they had a game plan. They never
rushed five or more at any play they had by
my count. No, I didn't watch all of the end
of the fourth quarter in the sense that I was
tabulating this, but when it mattered, they had twice where
they had only a three man rush, and one of
those featured a simulated pressure with a middle linebacker coming.

(07:06):
But they're dropping into an eight man zone, so it
was primarily a four man rush, and they said, okay,
let's have the ends bull rush. There's a couple of
ways you can try and win the defensive end. They
can try and run the hoop and if you've got
a defensive end who can do that and then literally do
a speed rush, get up out of his stance and

(07:29):
beat with speed around the edge.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
Hey, that's great.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Guys like Dwight Freeney have specialized heye start up the
field and then spin move into the B gap. The
Eagles were doing neither of those. They just said, look,
we're gonna we are gonna squeeze the pocket on bull rushes,
always bull rushes. So and don't get higher than Mahomes
because then he'll dip in and out of the pocket.
And so the length of the arm length where he

(07:57):
had Joe Toney, the left guard who had slid out.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
I looked it up.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
He some over three inches shorter arm length. It looked
like thirteen inches when you saw him. They're losing those battles.
And so the arm length of the defensive ends and
the speed. But again they converted speed to power and
they did bull rush and then the defensive tackles. They

(08:23):
also said, hey, don't try and swim and go win
on your own. You got to stay center cut on
your offensive lineman, be in a position to respond either
way to Mahomes. So it was a team They got
him to buy into the team pass rush element where
they squeezed and yeah, Dick, to answer your question, I
thought he did get a little spook there. I thought

(08:45):
he prematurely got out of the passing position. So when
those tackles were closing in on him fast, he wanted
to step up, and in the manner I described, they
just had too much athleticism at the defensive tackle bas
and and they were quickie and edgy enough, and because
they were two gapping on their pass rush, they were

(09:06):
able to fall left or right, inside or outside to
get my hoomes. So it was definitely a concerted effort,
a team effort with the four man rush.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Well, Hugh Mellin's with us a little more at four.
And I gotta tell you, guys, there really is no
controversy from this game to even talk about. I mean,
the first driver of the game, A J. Brown gets
the offensive pass interference call, which I thought was a
terrible call. I mean, I think was it Pereira was
doing the fox stuff. He thought it was kind of
a no call. Just let it go. I mean, you know,
we tend to forget they were at the chief eighteen
yard line the very first drive. I feel like the

(09:35):
Eagles could have put up fifty on these guys if
they wanted to in the game yesterday. But outside of that,
it was such a you know, slobber knocker, just ass
kicking by Philadelphia that there wasn't any concho.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
There was a PI that called against Kansas City later, Yeah,
in that.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
First quarter that, yeah, they were both in the right drive.
I mean, yeah, I mean it just really kind of
nothing though.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
I mean, just you know, for it to be real controversial,
they got to be kind of late in the game
at least you I was even second away in the
second corner. So I mean, did you think that was
the right call on AJ Brown to start that first drive?

Speaker 4 (10:06):
There?

Speaker 2 (10:06):
No, no, I think that now. He did graze the
face mask, but I think the operative word there is Gray's.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
I thought it was incidental enough. But you know, they
came back and they made up for it. On a
poor read by Jalen Hurts, real simple mirrored concept what's
called a smash concept, corner routes by boat on both
sides from the slot, and then these little what's called
thin routes five yard end routes, slash slant routes coming in.

(10:35):
And McDuffie was out there in the corner and it
was just wide open. Hey, throw it to AJ Brown
right in front of He's wide open, and Hurts misread it.
He tried to throw the sail route. The tight end
was was trying to throttle down in the hole as
he should have been. And McDuffie, you know, one of
the best DB's in the NFL was what the term

(10:56):
is sinking. He was getting depth and squeezing in on
that that that sailor out. I mean, if I was
an official, I would have never bailed out Hurts in
that regard.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
But I think it was a little bit of a
makeup that next series.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
No question about it.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
What was Mahomes seeing on the rollout to the right
throw back to the left pick? I mean that just
I mean, I didn't even see anybody in the area.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Well, it's a four deep three under zone, and Cooper
dejene is the flat defender in that meaning to the
sideline and shallow. He's got deep help behind him. As
you know here from a chief perspective, they're saying, hey,
we got to get Patrick out of the pocket. We're
just you know, we can't block inside the pocket. So

(11:37):
this was I believe a third was it about third
and fifteen? It was third and long right, And so
now they block with the tight end on the edge,
and now he's they have a flood concept deep, intermediate
and shallow towards the sideline.

Speaker 5 (11:53):
Dick.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Okay, so now those are Mahomes's reads, but he doesn't
want to throw the shall the shallow because you're not
going to get the first down on third and fifteen.
So he goes to his fourth read in the progression,
which is a backside intermediate crossing route. And Dejene a
former quarterback in high school, you know, all world basketball player,

(12:18):
one hundred meters sprint champion, long jump champion, the best
all around athlete I've ever scouted in twenty six years
of the draft, Like, I've never seen a guy. I've
seen a lot of great duel or maybe three sport.

Speaker 5 (12:33):
Guys, but it's usually a dual sport.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
But there's a lot of guys I say, hey, this
guy averaged twenty two points and eight rebounds in heights
that I see that a lot. I don't see three
more sports. And so this guy had fifty nine touchdowns
his senior year alone, like twenty four rushing, and so
he just has an incredible football IQ. He read the situation,
he knew the concept as a former quarterback, and he

(12:57):
just said, hey, I got I got a feeling I'm
gonna all back into the middle field. He read Mahomes's
eyes and he just played it coyly. I mean, played
like a twelve year veteran. But it's because I think
of his his all around athletic background just you know't
just led him to the play and then once he
caught it, of course he made a great play to
get in the enze.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
I would have given him the MVP of the game
if I were voting. I mean, I get Jalen Hurt's fine, great, whatever,
But that defense is the story. And I think the
Jeane's picked six it reminded me almost of the exact
same scenario Rock good Smith had to pick six in
twenty thirteen, almost the same time. It was twenty two
zip versus seventeen zips. So I think is the you know,
to kind of represent the defense. I would have given

(13:37):
Cooper Dejen the MVP. But hey, here, before you go,
Josh Swet, Josh, Josh sweat too, you have two and
a half sacks exactly before you.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Go and and and bumping Tooney into Mahomes. That's my
home second interception. I mean, he was materially involved in
that play.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
Mike Holmgren got dropped again Thursday night. Where you think.

Speaker 5 (13:57):
What I was, I was Doune Davut and I talked
to him.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
I mean, we must have had double digit conversations off
air about this, and I just felt like this was
the year. And I don't have an answer for you.
I really don't. I mean, I have the spreadsheet. I wasn't.
I could have pulled it up here. But if you
imagine him as as an NFL Hall of Famer, oh,

(14:21):
I do have it, Okay. So if you imagine home
Grewn as the twenty fifth Hall of Fame coach, okay,
And now put him in and say, well, how does
he rank out of twenty five. This is how he'd
be in years. So obviously the lower number, the closer
to one, that'd be first place. So we want to

(14:41):
hear low numbers, not high. He'd be tenth in years,
he'd be eighth in games eighth and wins fourteenth, and
win loss percentage twelfth in games over five five hundred. Again,
this is out of twenty five Hall of Fame coaches.
If he right fourth in years in the playoff, third
in games in the playoff, fifth in playoff wins eighteenth

(15:03):
and win lost percentage in the playoffs. Average rank in
the division third, championship seventeenth, Super Bowls ranked tenth, Conference
championships ranked sixth, the aggregate of those is seventh. If
you take all of those and let's say they're all equal.
I'm not saying they are, but if they were all equal,
he ranked seventh out of twenty fifth.

Speaker 5 (15:23):
Like, we're not sitting there calling out.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Numbers like twenty third, twenty four, twenty fifth, twenty second,
twenty third.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
We're not doing that.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
He's an aggregat of the seventh highest ranked coach. So
to me, listen, if you took a three fifty seven
magnum and put it right between my eyebrows and said,
give me an argument for why Mike Holmgren is not
a Hall of Famer. I look at it, put my
palms in the air. I say, I guess you're gonna
have to pull the trigger. I can't think of one. Well,
but on that one, what.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Did Sando say today that he'll get in. It's just
relaxed weight. He'll be fine.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
I mean, Sando.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Sando talked today about it was it was the process
and not about the Hall. Feels about Mike Hongrid, he
said he is. He left the meeting with the committee
prior to the vote convinced that Mike was going to
get in, but then in parsing out the numbers and
these new voting rules and having a player.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
Competing with the coach, and he.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Said players are always gonna get favoritism over the coach.
He said, that's when he started to get worried. Not
because the Hall doesn't think he's a Hall of Famer.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Well, if you're Gritch and Homegrin, how does that sound
to you? Of Courll So you know, I mean it's
like what I mean, you know, at at worst point,
you know, he's he's seventy six years old. I would
just like him to be able to have great years
with his grandkids and his kids where he is not
a you know, wanna Bee or or will be or

(16:48):
potentially Hall of Famer.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
He deserves to doug On Bee in.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
There, yes now and you know right yeah, yeah, yeah.
So with Bill Walsh guy in a in a book,
Bill Walsh, I hope I can pull that one up.
He said, Mike Holmgren in this book, Mike Holmgren is
the greatest offensive mind I have ever known. That's right there,

(17:12):
a quote right in and writ in a book by
Bill Walsh. Bill Walsh is on Mount Rushmore of the
history of the NFL. In any capacity, Like, if there's
only four guys based on their impact in the Hall
of Fame.

Speaker 5 (17:25):
Bill Walsh would be one of them.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, and and and that's what he says about Mike Holmgren.
The whole thing is ludicrous. And and so now we're hearing, Okay,
well you might have to wait for Bilichick what he's
gonna be.

Speaker 5 (17:35):
We're gonna be pushing eighty now.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
And then read maybe and you read, well, what Dick
just said is perfect.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
This is lip service. I mean, I'm sorry. I like
Mike a lot. I think all of us really like
Mike a lot. But uh, to me, I'm sorry, I'm
not buying any of it. It's it's all a croc
all of it, this this new math stuff. Sell that
to somebody else because they're telling me real but but
but nobody mentioned that at all until the week until

(18:00):
Thursday night. Going into Thursday night, nobody was sitting around.
You know why we were sitting around nervous.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
About this because he hadn't heard anything.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Exactly, because nobody had knocked on his door. And we
knew that that nobody had knocked on his door. Well,
you know, we were nervous. So this idea that well,
you can only vote for three, So you're telling me
that at least eleven people on the fifty person committee
either a did not vote for anybody besides starting Sharp,
or B voted for two.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
Of these other three idiots.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
I'm not buying this huge.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
I'm gonna give you five names real quick.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
I mentioned Homegren on the aggregate of all those and
that's just out of Pro Football Reference. I didn't cherry
pick that. Those are all of the stats out of
Pro Football Reference. I'm gonna give you a five. Remember now,
I said Homegren is the aggregate seventh best.

Speaker 5 (18:49):
You got Bill Coward.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Ninth, ranked ninth, Marvel Levy fifteenth, Tony Doungee twelfth, Dick
Vermeil twenty first, and Don Corey yelled twenty four. Yeah,
like Mike Hongrin is dunking on these guys who are
in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Right, Yeah, you're right, all right, Well I'm gonna I'm
gonna pop a blood vessel.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
So I'm gonna let this go for now. The fact
you've lasted this long today is very impressive.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Well, I took Friday off and I blew up on
social media, so you know whatever, All right, you great
stuff man.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
We'll talk on Friday, but I appreciate the spell