Hugh Millen joins Softy and Dick

More at 4 with Hugh Millen as he breaks down the Seahawks loss to the Buccaneers on Sunday.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, joining us right now on the radio program

(00:03):
A little more at four. You'll hear him tomorrow with
Ian for an Assa on Hardcore Football. It was on
the morning show today and uh, you know, I was pleased,
I think, with what we got out of Hugh this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
But it was in the postgame show of Hot Actually, yeah,
let's not go crazy. I thought he was just okay, right,
you did not listen to the postgame show because I
know where you were.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
That's correct, you were at the baseball I did not
hear the postgame. Actually I was at Jimmy's with you,
but I couldn't hear the count. But I I I thought, Hugh,
you were excellent this morning and excellent last night.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
But I want a little.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
More, and well it's more excellent a little more at four.
But hey, before we talk football, can we ask you
about making babies? Can you chime in on that for
a second, because you because you've made two of them,
he's an expert. You've made two of them, just two,
but yeah, two that you know of Josh Josh Naylor
German and.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
What happened there.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
But Josh Naylor is not with the team right now
because his wife is having a baby. We don't know
if he's going to be there or not for Game
three tomorrow. How do you process that, as an ex
professional athlete and a sports fan of this baseball team,
that the Mariners may lose one of their most important
players because his wife's having a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, well, first of all, I would just say everything's personal,
and you know, you just kind of stay in your lane.
And so what I expressed to you, in my opinion,
I'm not judging anybody else I had. I knew that.
I was pretty firm about what my answer would be.
But I asked my wife, my only wife, and we've
got two kids, and I was at her side for

(01:41):
both of the birth of both of them, and I said, hey,
if I was still playing and I had a playoff
game and I had to be on the road and
miss the birth of our first son, how would you
feel about that? And her response is, well, I think
it would be more important for you to be playing
and just get to me as fast as you possibly can.

(02:04):
And I thought that's what she would say. I wasn't certain,
and that's what I would say. I would I would look,
unless you're gonna tell me there's a really really high
probability of issues happening with the baby or the mom
and not. You know, look, I know that's a possibility.
You can't say it's it's certainly something more than zero.
But for me, I would play and then I would

(02:27):
want to just get there as soon as possible, or
even if you're just there for a couple of hours,
you know the birth, be with your bride, be with
your your baby, and then get on a plane and
go fulfill your duty. Now, undoubtedly there's people who do
not agree with that, and I respect the opposite take.

(02:49):
But you asked me how we would handle that. That's
how our family would handle that. R.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Hugh.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
I made a comment last hour. I wanted to see
if you agree or disagree. I said, I felt better
by how the Seahawks game went because the offense was
the one that exploded, and I feel like the defense
overall is a better unit than the offense, and I
feel they will get it together, and I feel better
than had we lost a thirteen to ten knockdown, drag

(03:16):
out fight type game where you're really concerned about the offense.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Would you agree with that? Ye? Yeah, I think that's
a rational take. I mean what's the most important thing
that a football organization can do, arguably find your quarterback
right And and I think there's a lot of evidence
that's pouring in that a fresh twenty eight year old
check his birthday. You know, Sam Darnold has several more
good years in his physical prime. He's learning how to

(03:40):
play the game. You know, he's a skilled guy. He's
got the leadership. And and so if you want to
if you want to say there's a reason to leave
that stadium, it's like, man, we might have our dude
like for like you know significant you know, maybe a
five year quarterback here or possibly more, but you know, three, four, five,
six years guys. So yeah, I think that's rational. And

(04:02):
I will just say this, it was awful. I've got
a lot of details. I've been breaking this tape down.
Mike McDonald he just got you know, he got I
want to say clowned, but he definitely got out coached.
He got out processed by Baker Mayfield in terms of
Baker Mayfield's recognition and and uh, you know, you know,

(04:24):
there's just a like like a litany every single thing
that can go wrong, and pass defense went wrong, and
I mean literally, man, and man breakdowns, zone breakdowns, two
deep defense breakdowns, single high breakdowns, uh past past uh
normal four man rush nonexistent. When you blitz, I mean

(04:46):
I gotta I gotta photo. I'll send you guys. Uh Uh.
The Seahawks run a two D two deep three under zone,
Like what in the hell that's gotta be a freaking
bust And and so I looked it up in the NFL. Well,
there's actually been five of them this year in all
the NFL, and twenty three last time, so so less
than one play per season per team. So that is

(05:07):
a very uncommon deal. But if you're gonna run, I
know this. If you're I've never been on team that
played a two deep three under. There's just too many holes, right,
you got to play zone was seven, maybe with six,
but you never play zone with five guys. But if
you're gonna do it, you better get home and get
home quick. And tyo tyo Kotta gets blocked by the
running back and you got you got our our boy

(05:29):
tyree He he runs up the back of Okada and
runs right. It's like the butt fumble. It's like two
dogs humping at the dog park, Like like, don't take
that picture. Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry, you know what. And
it was a seventeen yard game, that's how bad they played,
you know, And so yeah, it was just uh, you know,

(05:52):
you got to laugh to keep from crying about how
poor they were on past defense. Well, and there's a
couple of things for me.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
First of all, I want to get you to specifically
talk about what the hell happened on that fifty seven
yard bomb to a Mecca.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, I mean give him credit.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
This guy's a stud seven for seven, a buck sixty three,
couple of touchdowns. And I agree with what you said
this morning about Baker being maybe the MVP of the NFL.
I was gonna ask a Friday if we had you on,
which we did not, because a baseball who the MVP is.
And we may have just seen the guy honestly on
on on Sunday in Seattle, but that play specifically, and
then number two, with Dick's editing on the show, we
say look injuries to the secondary, which I get. But

(06:28):
I also believed and have thought for a while now
that the star of the show was supposed to be
McDonald's scheme in some ways, regardless of who's out there.
And I realized that there's at some point you're gonna
lose so many guys it's gonna be impossible. But I'm
not as apt as Dick is to give injuries to
give him a pass because how banged up they were yesterday.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Well, there's there's signs and evidence to support both viewpoints.
You know that you have asked about the fifth Ffty
seven yarder. Okay, so the Seahawks were rolling the coverage
to be on top of Pritcher to help him. That
was on a three receivers of trips, right, and you're
getting you're trying to get Kobe Bryant over the top

(07:12):
and Okada mostly to the middle of the field. But
that leaves Josh job on the single side where a
Mecca was the ex receiver. He's running the sixth step,
third inside step out and up and it's just one
on one, and you know he gets behind and Okada
is he is what's called poaching. He's looking for the

(07:34):
third inside guy from the opposite side of the formation,
so he's not in a position to help. And then
you've got a five step drop from shotgun by Baker
Mayfield plus three hitches that is the equivalent of seven
steps from under the center. That is a exceedingly long
time to hold the ball and he wasn't even close

(07:55):
to being protectioned. It just wide open. He wasn't close
to being touched. And them left to right the pass
rushers were Nuoso, Leonard Williams, Murphy and boy Mofy.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, I mean that's arguing your league, your four, that's
your four best.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
And they didn't they I mean, they didn't even give
get where where they could breathe on him. Uh you know,
you could have had a golf driver in their hands
and they couldn't have touched Bake Baker Mayfield reaching one
hand out with a driver, you know when you do
your penalty strokes, and you got to go to two
club links. They weren't even two club links from Baker Mayfield.

(08:36):
And so yeah, you know, just major break. So yes,
there was a scheme component trying to help a you know,
a deep reserve corner, but there was there was other
elements as well, and and uh you know, but yeah,
just on and on how Tampa Bay was able to
take advantage.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, they were watching the replay right now. Isn't that
Buccaneer's line supposed to be banged up by the way,
I think.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
They attack up. Yeah, Trisian Worf was on that. There
the six guys, yeah yeah, the right guard, Tristan Wurf's
the left tackle is a very good player, but he's
not the pr pup. He hadn't been his point performed
as well the right tackles. In his sixth year. His
grade by PFF had declined in every single season down
to thirty six. Going into this game. Wow, I mean,

(09:21):
how do you not get something going? And then now
he's got to get exotic McDonald because he's not getting
a good stable four man rush, so things like you
know when I said Baker Mayfield out processed. I'll just
give you two quick examples. So they try and do
what's called the Tampa two where the Seahawks are in
too deep and then there's a whole player in the middle,

(09:41):
usually the middle linebacker, but they Mike McDonald wants confused
Baker Mayfield a little bit. So he's gonna have Ernest
Jones who's in the middle. He's gonna run out to
the to the over the slot what's called the curl zone,
and you're gonna have Kobe Bryant, who's over the curl.
He's gonna fly to the middle to be the Tampa
two whole player. Well, there's gonna be a moment where

(10:02):
they're out of position. Guess what. They just turn around.
They do a seven yard hitch. Baker me for Boom
just pops it on him. It was as if he
was in the huddle. There's another one, uh, the second
one of two that I'll describe what's called cover two invert.
You're rolling the coverage to one side and then to
this strong side to Baker Mayfield's left. You're taking the corner.
Josh Job, he's lined up like a cornerback, but he's

(10:23):
gonna run back to play become the new safety. He's
gonna play like a safety. And then Tayo Katta, who's
over the slot, he's gonna run out and he's gonna
be I put the term cloud in in quotation marks
because safeties aren't can't be cloud. But he's gonna he's
gonna take the role. So you're you're inverting the responsibilities
of the corner in the safety. Well, if you had
said you know in jeopardy, you know in jeopardy where

(10:45):
they have mostly they just pop out the answers, and
as fast as you can get him out, that's the
guy who wins. But they have what the double jeopardy
round where one person take gets to take a long time.
So if they could have said freeze and then con
over with a whiteboard on this sideline and said, okay, Baker,
they're about to do cover two invert. How do you
think we want to handle? They said, well, how about

(11:06):
if we just take this receiver, widen him out, then
do a little curl right there, because we'll be right
in that little crease where they're momentarily out of position.
Se Ye, yeah, let's do that, And that's their double
jeopardy answer. Well, guess what now, snap the ball. That's
what happens. Like they were just every time, you know,
when one of the few times that Ernest Jones, who's

(11:27):
usually the middle linebacker, they go three deep, three under,
he's the coral flat player, meaning he's the widest underneath player.
He's hardly ever in that position. Well, they do a
boot leg out to the left and they got Kate
Otton going into the middle and then back out to
the sale and then you say, well, who's the guy
who should have been covered? Well, it's Ernest Jones. Well,
Ernest Jones is not the mid hook player. He's the

(11:48):
curl flat player, which he never is. Well, he covers
it like trash. And it's like it's like the Tampa
Bay new Well, the one time they're gonna take the
middle linebacker and take play them, not in the middle,
he's gonna be a crol flat player. Well, let's let's
run a little sale. Let's go in like a boomerang,
just like a boomerang route the uh more. You know,
if you're drawing it up on the on the on

(12:09):
the on the playground, run a boomerang route and and
it's wide open. Kott in his twenty seven yards like
it was just that type every day. So when Mike
McDonald stepped up to that podium and he said, put
this on me, yeah, uh uh, this is this is
all on me. I've got to be better. I could.
He knows all that stuff happened. I wish the guy

(12:29):
at montleag would take that kind of accountability. But that's
a topic for another segment. But my credit Mike McDonald,
he knew that that Tampa Bay and their their their rookie,
their first year offensive coordinator and a veteran quarterback who
if you had to vote tomorrow, the rationale would say
that Baker Mayfield is the MVP of the NFL because
he's one of uh, there's no undefeated teams. He's a

(12:50):
he's the quarterback of a four and one team. All
four of those wins have been fourth quarter comebacks, and
three of them have been in the last minute. You
tell me, present to me an argument of somebody who
who deserves the MVP more than Baker Mayfield. We saw
all of that yesterday.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
First good chance to see Nick em Emon worry before
he went out. Eighty one PFF grade second highest on
the defense.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Do you agree with that grade?

Speaker 1 (13:13):
No?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
No, I think there's too many times, and I don't
know that you know PF. I think PFF gets more
right than wrong. I cite them. I don't want to
talk out of both sides of my mouth, but I
don't know what they know. There may be some guy
who played nose tackle on college and he's doing the
grading there. There was too many times where you know
they hit they hit I mentioned twenty seven yards. He's
what's called hold out your five fingers as white as

(13:36):
they can, your your index finger and your ring finger
are the curl defenders in a five hunder two deep zone,
and they go right over the top of the ring
finger the curl zone player, which is Iman Worry for
a twenty seven yard They just dangled the cheese in
front of him and they get a big completion behind

(13:58):
him on the ottum twenty five yard or at the
end of the at the end of the game, the
man to man coverage Ernest Jones and Emon Worri, they're
trying to pass off. They didn't play a lot of
man and man, but but Ernest Jones was covered number three,
which is counting outside in and and Emon Warri was
covering covered number two. Number three goes to the outside,
and so the the communication is Ernest Jones saying, hey,

(14:21):
I'll take final number three. I'm inside, so I'll just
take the inside guy, you take the outside guy. Well
they didn't they didn't communicate that. So Auton is wide
open his man and man, and you got the tight
end totally uncovered in the flat nobody nobody within twenty
yards of him, and and and there's other there's other
instances of Iman Worri just kind of being out of position.

(14:42):
So look, it wasn't awful, but I would not What
do you say it was great? Eighty one eighty one?

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, yeah, no Iron Murphy on the defense No nope.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Okay, okay, not me, nope, yeah, I'm sensing no, okay here,
Mellin's like, no, well no, I thought looked.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
I don't think it was agreed. He's just lead bad.
But I think there he was in the spot of
you know a lot of guys were, you know, like,
remember the tight end the tight end screen. I just
got to get this dick. Remember how how upscited I
was about the tight end screen and you know the
miss tackles, Well, title cotta Actually you know people are
saying he missed the tackle. Well, the offensive tackles. The

(15:21):
screen is out there, he's got to force it back
in inside. So unless you know, if Troy Paulamalo had
been out there, he probably would have sniffed it out
and maybe beat the tackle just by his recognition. But
but I wouldn't say Okata missed the tackle. He forced
it back in. They guy just job, dude, you got
you are the one guy corner. You have got to

(15:42):
keep your outside shoulder free. Don't jump inside the block,
and so his his fundamental mistake out there on the perimeter.
That's that's a four point mistake because because Tampa would
have been kicking a field goal, but instead they get
the first down on third and fourteen, they get a
seventeen yard game and they go down and score. So
just the fundamentals. You watch that tape and people like

(16:03):
that stuff I taught in midget football.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Let me jump in for a second outside sold the
free what yeah, let me jump in?

Speaker 2 (16:10):
What? What? What? What do you want?

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Let me jump in for a second before you go
because we're up against the clock. Uh, is it time
to shelve the Jalen Milroe thing for a while and
just maybe let him kind of watch and learn here
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, you know, first of all, it's in pistol. You
got a bad relationship. It should be a sidecar alignment.
You're not optioning off everybody you're blocking, so you should
have an unmanned block to the end. You're going at
the tight end, which I don't like. I like to
go to the open side because the angles are better,
the flow you're going with the quarterback's non dominant hand.

(16:45):
I mean, let me count the ways that that was
a ill designed, a misguided both play in its construct
and the call first and ten at the what was
it the forty three you're driving? So it was awful.
It was a bad pitch. You give him a double
minus on the pitch. But right now, look, he's played

(17:05):
three plays and the formula that says how many yards
do you get based on the down and distance that
defines the success. I've said it before, I'm not going
to do it again. All three of those plays have
been unsuccessful. They actually haven't even been close to being
successful plays. So we're five weeks into this thing. I
have not seen a single successful play for Milroe. Look,

(17:26):
I think you probably just put this thing in a
red shirt category and just rack it for next year. Agreed.
I agree?

Speaker 1 (17:31):
All right here we great stuff. We will talk later on.
We got Husky football on Friday, so be prepared. We
may try to sneaky in somewhere between now and front.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's okay, so are you ready? All right? Hammereday