Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreigner and Hutch. Tales of the tape for week three. Weird game. Weird tape. Jake Hutchinson, would you like to join in on the weird brigade?
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Weird team. Weird time to be alive, folks.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Is it ever? Is it ever 36, 30.
We're not going to spend much time getting into Kyle's galaxy brain stuff that he did in the fourth quarter with the play calling, which against a better team might burn him, but we're just not going to get into it too much because it worked out so therefore it was the right decisions at all times. And when you have Brock Purdy.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: I mean, like when you have Brock Purdy as your quarterback, you can maybe make some silly decisions and get away with it. And you're playing the Cardinals, so I will say I.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: It's a weird place to start, but like George Kittle just every second half just is like, oh, I'm Travis Kelsey now where I'm just gonna sit.
I'm gonna sit for. I'm just gonna wait. Yeah. I'm gonna release and sit five yards and then I'm gonna run for another five.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: They call. They call it the Houdini route where he blocks the defense, shows itself, and then he like works his way through traffic and whoop on the other side.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I was trying to figure out. They hit him twice in a row and it's. It's sort of like. It's basically just a little like, sit. I think it's technically an option, but there's no real option. It's just face one way and then open your hips up the other direction.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Is that lucky route? I think Kyle called it a lucky route.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: That might be right. I. I can't. I. Every team calls everything different. And then people are like, you didn't call it the right thing. I'm like, all right, I'm not a coach.
Don't know.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: They didn't can the play they Oscar did, Jake.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Right, right, right, right.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: So that as Kittle's recipe after like every game now it's just like, all right, go release six yards and then flip your hips open and Brock will check it down to you and you'll run for another four or five. Yeah, it's really effective.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: It's. It's a really good play. I think the Chiefs have won several Super Bowls basically just running that play in the second half of games.
I thought Kittle looked incredible in this game. Right. Like, hard to find bad reps from Kittle. The fact that that man tore his Achilles this calendar year is Neil attache. You got yourself Some business, buddy. You nailed it on that one. And obviously doing the hard part.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Just like fundamentally important. I love Debo. Like by the way, a record, in case you didn't know.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: The most receiving yards without a reception.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: And Josh Dubow, who obviously was looking that up. It's Josh Duba. Josh Dubao, internationally renowned for having weird stats on Twitter. I sit, you know, sit two seats away from him in the press box. And I was, I was. I kind of have a better setup than I think most. I have like the iPad with NFL Jesus. I have my game notes app which pulls from a lot of data sources and kind of combines them. So I was able to get all that really fast. So I'm kind of laying out like what the deal was for everybody. And then me and Josh are like collaborating on like how do you score that?
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Right?
[00:03:14] Speaker A: We're like the official scores of the game. Because by the way, the in it
[00:03:19] Speaker B: was breaking a lot of data sources. Like they didn't. Yeah. Every time that happens, they don't know how to, how to tabulate it.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Well, just for full transparency, let's take you into the press box here for a second because you haven't been to a game yet this year, but you'll find out in due time here they're just winging it with the announcements. They're. They're just winging it. They're making stuff up, they're mispronouncing names. It's brutal. So now we have to kind of do it ourselves, which is fine because we're very capable and frankly, probably we're already, you know, doing it anyway. But yeah, when it came out as 80 yards, it was a six yard pass. You lose the yardage of the lateral. So it's only a two. It's like a two yard pass to Evans, who is actually six yards deep because you can't have more than the yardage of the touchdown. 80 yard touchdown. And when they did then that orbit motion, I think it was fourth quarter. Yeah, fourth quarter to Debo.
My initial response was that better have been backwards.
There's. If that was a forwards pass, I'm never going to forgive them.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: It would have been, would have been devastating. It's like when you have score gummy and then somebody kicks an extra or like, you know, just screws it up and takes a field goal they don't need.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Also, we don't promote betting on this site, but we are cognizant of certain aspects of the game, if you will. And you, you do do what you will in your own time. But the late game ebb and flow of that one was rough for anyone who had had eight and a half. Either way, just a brutal. A brutal beat for all parties involved.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it went probably what, probably 15 points higher total than we expected, but it was pretty much. It ended up being about right. I just didn't expect it to get that loose. And both teams were kind of like, whatever. Like in the fourth quarter, they were just like, okay, we're tired.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Please don't make us do this anymore.
Okay, so a bunch of stuff that we could start with. What I guess is your main tactical takeaway from the game.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: The 49ers can't. Still can't defend duo. And the only way they can is if they bring a safety down into the box, which. Which they really didn't want to do. And then when they did, it usually worked pretty well.
But that forces them to, like, usually play cover three.
And for Arizona, you know, that's great because they. Their entire game plan is mainly to, like, throw it to Michael Wilson in the flat or get it to Trey McBride, but, like, a lot of outbreakers, and then Marvin Harrison just doesn't exist.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Yeah.
It did feel as if maybe Mike Leflore knew a little bit too much about the 49ers coming into this game, where it's like, okay, they.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: He what?
[00:06:08] Speaker A: You know, they watch the tape rolls. Watch the tape that. You know, they're very good coaches, and they were.
They were looking at it and they're going like, okay, they can't handle duo. So we're going to run a lot of Duo. It's like, yeah, but you guys don't really do that.
It still work, don't get me wrong. And then they're like, well, then they're going to have to come down and cover three. And they can't defend both Wilson and McBride. So the Niners tried their best to take away McBride.
I think they did a pretty good job, all things considered. And so it was just Wilson, Wilson, Wilson, which was fantastic as someone who. About 20 minutes. Well, 20 minutes before game started yesterday, took Michael Wilson out of his fantasy.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: I mean, there's a reason Renardo green had, like, 13 tackles. Right, right. He was just like, to the flat, to the flat, to the flat. He had to flip his hips, like, three times every play and then just get downhill. He's like, another five yard or another, and it's like. And Raheem Morris is like, I don't care. Like, yeah, that's Fine.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: You guys are down by 14.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: And I also think.
I don't know that, like, the league is going to move back to Tampa too. But, like, there's a lot of data that suggests basically, like, if you don't have offenses, if you don't have explosive plays, like, it's much harder to have touchdowns and just be a high scoring offense because one requires more plays. And anytime it takes longer, like once you get into the red zone, it just gets difficult. Space gets condensed. Like you need explosive plays. And the 49ers are great at developing those.
And they just. It was not an explosive play game at all. It's just for Arizona, like, for the most part, it's just like dink and dink and dink and Dink. Yeah.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Which makes sense given that Jacoby Brissette treats every snap as if it's like an existential crisis. Like, I gotta get rid of this thing as fast as possible because he just doesn't trust his line.
I thought. I thought the Niners actually had a really nice pass rush game considering their personnel. Yeah, I thought Ogbo was good. I really like Khalid Kareem.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Kevin Givens had at least one rep where he just ran over the left guard.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Kevin Givens looked like very nice in this game. Now, again, you're going to get points of diminishing returns on all these dudes. I think that that showed up in both directions with Keon White, where, like, when Keon White flashed, it was like, hell yeah, brother, this is great. And then when he flashed, it was like, oh, no, get Keon White off the field. But that's the Keon White experience and you're trying to mitigate it, but you don't have the personnel to mitigate it right now.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: They also do the thing with, like, I said it before, but like, the five man front, like, doesn't really help them against duo. It actually feels like a disadvantage because really you're getting attacked at the second level and you need people to like funnel into the gaps and it just puts like five guys on the line that like one gap gets taken out of the play and now you have one less second level defender. And they don't usually replace it with the safety, so it just takes longer for someone to get there. And that happened early and Raheem adjusted a couple times.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah, well, like, tactically speaking, let's just. Again, everything stems from Sean McVeigh. Like, why did McVeigh become the duo God over these last couple years?
Obviously the. The move away from wide zone for the Rams was not just these last two years. He'd been looking for different ways to do it, but it was because teams, specifically, if we go back to the golf super bowl against the Patriots, they're like, we're just going to make this line, defensive line as wide as we can. Have fun with your outside zone. And so he had to come up with a counter for it. And it took years of refinement and, you know, then 13 personnel and all this stuff. It's not like they weren't doing 12 personnel before that to figure out like, okay, fine, you want to take away outside, you want to go wide with five or six and you have another guy who can crash in.
We're just going to take it up the middle and we're not looking for explosive runs, we're going for successful runs. And then what we're doing then is we are going to set ourselves up for deep shots. Going to your point on explosive play, it does.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: It does a couple things. It wears on a defense and it forces them to like, either account for it. And if they're not going to account for it, personnel wise, you can do the thing of taking small plays and then waiting for them to adjust. But it like just keeps you on schedule in terms of like having manageable downs and like you said, like setting you up for a shot play.
I will also note, you know, Michael Wilson was great as an insert blocker and they had like Higgins do that a couple times. And there's one play I noticed where they're like, kendrick, Bourne, go do it again. And Fred Warner went unblocked on that play for a three yard stop. It was more line of scrimmage.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: It was more than one. There was also one. And we were actually, I was enjoying a couple other players on the play, but then you kind of look out of your corner of your eye and Upton Stout picked up Kendrick Bourne and threw him to the ground. It's like, what are we, what are we doing?
[00:10:50] Speaker B: By the way, it's like James Harden in transition defense where he's like, he's
[00:10:56] Speaker A: really, really bad at him. We saw it on tape coming in, but it's like Mike Leflore can't not do that because Wilson's, you know, you want Wilson out in, in information.
You really can't block with Trey McBride all that well.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: And then the right person does some good stuff. But, like, not like there's a reason they usually need like another tight end.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: There's a reason that Higgins comes into the game. It's to tell everyone hey, we're running the ball. But yeah. Stout also had a one on one against Higgins and stood Higgins up. I think he's given up like a foot and £100 and just still stood him up. I, I really, I really enjoyed Upton Stout and I hope that the football gods have blessed him in the way that they've cursed everybody else on this 49ers roster.
That would make me real, real sad.
Standouts?
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Who standouts? Honestly, Sebastian Valdez for me and because it's, it's tough because like, I want to be very cautious about praising him because it, he's a guy that, you know, fans just like eat up. I thought he was.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Why do you think? Just because he's new and different and
[00:11:56] Speaker B: yeah, anything that's different. And it's like, why isn't the practice squad guy getting up? It's, it's always like fans are frothing for that.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yet no one said that about McKinley Jackson.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: He was very good. He was very good. He held up a couple times against double teams. I saw him shed. And then they played him at 5 tech a few times, which was awfully fun.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: I can't remember who said it in the comments. I do apologize. But last night I was checking it before going to bed and they. Somebody in the comments said, when I saw Sebastian Valdez lined up as a 5 tech, I did the Leo DiCaprio meme and it's like, hell yeah, brother.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: This is what we're about.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: I don't know that he has any game plan or like technique. It's just forklift. It's just he's strong and then it's. And then it's a forklift.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: He's kind of, he's kind of like what CJ west was promised to be coming into this year, except much smaller and shorter.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: It's just like. Is that. It's like if you squint, you're like, is that Bizarro Bosa? Like you could, you could convince yourself
[00:12:51] Speaker A: he does have the V shape.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And there is just like enough torque in his game. He really did shed some blocks.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: It was awesome.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: In very impressive ways.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: I thought the line played up across the board. I didn't have that many bad reps there. I mean, obviously duo still washed dudes out in OSAs. We know the issue with OSA. OSA should only be a pass rusher.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: He does. He's not specific in the run game, but it's not consistent. You don't necessarily know any. And he's big enough and strong. Enough that, like, typically he provides like a net mediocre at least. Sure. There's sometimes he gets washed out and there's sometimes, like, he's really stout. It's just. It's not consistent. And part of that is, like, the scheme and like, the way they coach players to attack. It's like sometimes what they need to do and what their coach to do are at odds with each other.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: It also, yeah, it very much feels like a. Okay, I'm only doing this, this play. I'm only doing that, that play. And there's understandably not a lot of like, oh, no, actually they're running it and I need to ship. Like, no, there's. He probably has some pretty clear tells that if I get down to the dirty. Be obvious. Like, he knows it's a run play. This is what he's going to do here.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah. By the way, I was. I was coming back from camping, so I like, I didn't see the roster moves and the, you know, and what had happened before. And I was like, okay, surely they've, like, promoted a defensive end and it was just four defensive tackles. And I look and I'm like, there's Valami Fahoko, Naquan Jones, Sebastian Valdez. Oh, Kevin Gibbons back. I'm like, what?
[00:14:20] Speaker A: I told you it was gonna happen. I told you that they were gonna try to rebuild the shittiest version of the Seattle defensive front. Just all push, no actual pass rush.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: And here's the other aspect of it. In watching it and obviously having the context of the Arizona offensive line coming into this game, like, you got away with it for this week. I don't know if I would.
I do. I do not know if I would. I would try the same tactics again, but there was a lot of tight mint front, a lot of, you know, 4.04.
Raheem was kind of on his. Brandon Staley in this game, which I enjoyed and I thought was a good. A good move kind of almost through the. Throughout the Cardinals, what the Cardinals see every week in practice and kind of looked like that at times.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a little bit of an element later. It went on to just be like, they're not going to beat us by just doing. They don't have enough time to beat us. And maybe that's not a great approach.
But it did feel like in the fourth quarter they just went. There's not enough time for them to.
To finish this off real quick.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: David, last night I said didn't like Valdez. I don't Know if I said didn't like, I had him graded out as even I was excited to watch the tape. He looked much, much better on tape than he did in. In the fog of war. And it. That's what's usually going to happen for interior linemen who don't have a specific flash play. You're looking now for the nuance, the responsibilities. Very difficult to catch live. And we're not getting, like, good TV copy in person to check out what happened on the line.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Tough. By the way, Matthew Judon has been signed to the practice squad.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: What is old is new again.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Remember when they were a player whose name we all know echoes in lore?
It's just like any. Any of those guys that are available as, like, mercenaries. Right. You're like, there's a reason they're still available.
Maybe he's got some juice left. I don't remember him being that helpful in the run game. No. But that's not. You just kind of need anyone who's got any pedigree at this point, and I.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Especially if it's a practice squad thing. So you can get him in there and be like, oh, no, we've. We've made a terrible mistake, which we will find out if they did with Brandon Cooks or not, and we'll hold on to that for a little bit later on.
Talk to me about the safeties. And there was a little bit of rotation yesterday. They wanted to get Malik Mustafa involved. I liked what I saw from Malik Mustafa live.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I did, too.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: What. Where are we at?
[00:16:48] Speaker B: I think they wanted tape of Malik Mustafa paired with both safeties because in the second quarter they went Siegel and Mustafa for one drive.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: And the very next drive they went Mustafa and Jair Brown. Right. Which I liked less.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Was that a Jair Brown thing?
[00:17:07] Speaker B: He.
I was not impressed by him this week.
It's just anytime he's coming from depth because a lot of the times in duo, it's like his gap, but he's coming from depth. And like, with Siegel, you can kind of pull that off because he's fast enough to it.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: I don't necessarily know it that it's like, the right way to defend it. And they might just need to do more of like, kind of what Arizona has done where you sort of rotate the safeties and there's one roving. They kind of just played Buddha Baker, by the way, as like, a Tampa to, like, deep middle defender.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Like, and they just kind of let him do whatever he wanted. They did a lot of, like, poaching anyway, I'm getting off track with the 4 stuff. I think they went, this is the right game to test and just see, like, where is Malik at? Like, who does he pair best with? And what does our defense look like with both players? How is that different? Which I think is really smart and
[00:18:02] Speaker A: I think you get away with it.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: I think it just looks better with Siegel and Mustafa, which I. I think is. Is how it should turn out. The only thing is, like, again, Jair is probably the headiest, although, like, Siegel's a pretty sharp guy, but, like, in terms of speaking and communication was part of the reason that Shair Brown just, like, played so much last year. So, like, I don't know how they reckon with that. I don't remember Malik being a very good communicator. No.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: In fact, I know for a fact that they're not concerned about his ability to speak up and recognize, but that he doesn't. And this is. This is going to come across, like, very terrible and coded, but, like, he's got a pretty heavy Southern accent and, like, it just does it. It's in, like, the lowest voice known to man, and it just doesn't really cut through. Like, I don't know how to properly explain that, but when you're yelling stuff out, you kind of want a Sean McVeigh voice, if you will. Like, you just want it to be like, oh, my God, what is that? Well, you got the message. You might not liked how it hit your ears, but you got the message. And like, Mustafa, his just natural accent apparently did not lend itself for him to be barking stuff out. People were getting muddled information.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: It's also like, that should be the pairing next year. I mean, it's getting way ahead of ourselves. Way ahead of ourselves.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Yeah, but I'm the idea given up. I've given up because we've. We've talked about this for how three years now that Jair Brown should just be a Sam linebacker and that you bring him in. As I would say, the best way to do it would be like, big dime. So not big nickel, because you want your nickel back on the field right now in Upton Stout. So it'd be big dime, which is effectively a three safety look, in which one guy's not playing safety. You just put him in the box.
They have not experimented with that. They didn't have the opportunity to experiment with that even if they wanted to in preseason because Mustafa wasn't there.
I fear again that the situation is going to be such to where they, like, we really liked what we saw from Malik Mustafa. Let's give ourselves less Marquis Siegel lessons. Even though Siegel is playing well, there's no overt reason why he should be the one to come off the field. He's been the better safety in my estimation. When two guys are effectively playing the same role this year and I don't know if Jair Brown's got like compromising photos or something, but they, they, every defensive coordinator seems to love them and yet the tape is pretty obvious. They are open about the tape not being great all the time.
I haven't heard Raheem like go off on some wonderful tangent about how much he loves Jair Brown and this is what he does for us. He always tries to clump in all the safeties together and he's someone who'll give praise individually.
I, I legitimately do not.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Horrible. It's just there's like a noticeable difference in terms of like how fast people fill.
And I also think, and he also just got destroyed on one play, one on one by McBride.
Like it was, he just got flat footed and opened his hips up the wrong way and McBride just destroyed him inside and it was like an 18 yarder. And granted it's Trey McBride, but like I don't know if you're going to be a great safety and call yourself a top five safety, like, well, show a manageable rep like that.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: That's we're turning, it's almost like Pajemski esque now to where it's like when you talk this big game and then you're like good, but not that people will hold that against you. So like I don't the context.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: I've always been very pro Pajamski.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Well, that shows your, your general ball knowledge, which is if I see that, if I see him pick up a dribble one more time in the key, I'm gonna lose it. I'm gonna lose it. Warriors media day was a blast.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: So incredibly frustrating player.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: But usually why you're into it, it's a masochism thing.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah. This goes back to when I, when I was debating Russell Westbrook versus Moses Moody. When Moody was getting like five minutes a game, I was like, I'll take Moses Moody all day. I just want, I just want gamers,
[00:22:01] Speaker A: you know, and you don't want Russell Westbrook, the ultimate gamer.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: He's not a gamer.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Not at that stage of his career.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: We do not have enough time to get into that element of things.
So I, I, I have, I think almost fewer answers today at safety than I did at the beginning of camp just because now there's a third person. And nobody seems to have entrenched themselves in any way, shape or form, which I guess is maybe what we should have presumed all along.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: But I'm pretty. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I'm pretty astounded. I feel like Siegel's been like, has done almost nothing wrong.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Right.
He hasn't been challenged in. In the past game yet, but.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: And JSN is going to do that. Let me promise you. And Waddle will be interesting. I mean, the doll. The Broncos offense is so strange.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: You could probably. I have not watched Broncos tape yet. My suspicion, my hypothesis going into Broncos tape is that you can run a lot of COVID three against them. That is my suspicion. I could be wildly wrong and just a total idiot. Let me know.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I gotta. I gotta re. Watch. I wa. It's tough because, like, you watch the game, but you're like, I didn't see the coverage. You're like, it was bonix. Terrible. Yes.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Or I listened to the game on the radio. So clearly I'm not the person to be. Tales of the tape as told by the Denver Broncos radio crew on koa. They actually do a really nice job, but I felt like I was watching the whole thing the way that they were describing stuff. But yeah, the safety situation is questionable. What'd you make of the linebackers yesterday?
[00:23:34] Speaker B: I was kind of. I thought Fred was a little jumpy at times and he, you know, sometimes would get excited and almost, you know, take himself out of the play because they would climb second level. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna shoot this gap, even if it's not necessarily the right gap, which Fred always knows which is the right one. He's just also, like, I don't know if someone's gonna fill quickly enough. And if I get here as fast as I know I can.
Yeah, like I can do something.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: It feels like somebody who's watched now two weeks prior of bad duo tape and basically said, I'll do it myself. And sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought Greenlaw was pretty good.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: He was awesome in the first half.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: I mean, again, he's like incredibly important for teams that run duo and anything that's trying to attack the 49ers linebackers because, like, a couple times a game, he's going to destroy somebody and fill in a way that can, like actually deal with a second level block. Yeah.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: But then they. Then they got him in coverage. Once they brought that.
That other safety down, and now they're in cover three.
Now there was a lot of Greenlaw in coverage on. I think it was that first or second drive of the third quarter, and that is not good. It's a bad situation, all things considered. And he hurts his quad and they take him out and they put him back in for a play and then say, what the hell are we doing? They take him back out again.
Garrett Walla was kind of meh, which I guess is better than you should expect from a backup. But certainly the game wasn't on the linebacking core. And it's all connected in one shape or form. I thought the corners played really well. And even Jack Jones had his moments, though he also had moments the other way.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Yeah, Jack Jones is just. I mean, what's the next name?
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Swashbuckler, baby.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: Rock him.
Action Jack. Like, it's either really sick or terrible.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: I like that. Did you just make up Action Jack?
[00:25:26] Speaker B: No, I think that's what T Rock.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Oh, T Rock. Oh, man. Action Jackson over here.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm not afraid to say it, but every time you're at camp and there's a day he shows up and he's like in a three point stance and he's like, hey, brother. To every guy on the field. One of my favorite. One of my favorite things, they're like, is he in the huddle? What's hap. What's happening here?
[00:25:46] Speaker A: I mean, seeing how many men they were down, I'm sure that a call was made like, t Rock, can you give us five. Can you give us five reps?
[00:25:53] Speaker B: I got your brother.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: I don't know if I could do it anymore, but we'll give it a go.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: I'm honestly surprised I made the joke, but, like, I'm so honestly surprised they weren't like, hey, Ronnie Blair, how you doing? Yeah, get off.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: Switch the pads again. It worked for this game. When you have Valdez playing well and you're able to get what you got. But the Arizona offensive line is. Is really, really rough. Mean.
It always has been, probably always will be. Who's to say?
And then Brissette does not stand and deliver, save for four or five times a game.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah, he misses some stuff too, where they're. They did have some stuff open that he didn't hit because he's kind of like, I'm throwing it to the flat every time.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: I ain't killing myself for this shit.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: That's the General Jacoby.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: A little late stage. Big Ben because he's like, still good at like navigating the pocket and hard to take down.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Much better arm than late stage Big Ben, but very much the same pocket presence. Just get this thing out. Kind of. Kind of a larger Rogers at this point, just.
We're just moving. We're moving on. We're matriculating the football as you will.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: It's interesting. We. I mean, we talked about at the beginning of the year sort of like predicting that it would all go sideways potentially, like with this aging roster. And of course it has immediately. So it's like as much as we can talk about scheme. It's like, do they have enough to survive or does it not matter because they did the same thing last year and sort of survived. And can they, like, I guess the question is like, can they win the division if they're just sort of perpetually almost dead?
[00:27:28] Speaker A: We'll have a very good answer to that in two weeks.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: I mean, it's.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: It's like I think the Seattle defense is going to throttle them. And I also think Darnold. I just trust nothing about that. I don't trust Jadarian Price, even though I think he's going to present some problems.
Like, I think. I think that could just be a really tough game for both teams in like an ugly, ugly way.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: No one feels good.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: It's almost as if that's how most division games go. Save for 49ers Rams, where it's just.
I guess it didn't. None of. There was no aspect of anything to glean positively from the second and the third Seahawks games last year for the first of.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: The Rams are like, we have to try now. And like the whole weird Puka thing where it's like it's a hip, it's a groin, it's. Is Puka actually injured
[00:28:18] Speaker A: with you right now?
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Very strange.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Let's get into the offensive side of things. We don't need to analyze Brock any deeper. Very, very good.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: He threw one really, really, really, really bad ball that should have been picked off towards Evans where he didn't see. I talked. We talked about it before. Like the Poach safety who just cheated and cheated and cheated and he stared it down.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. So that was bad. Quadruple coverage.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: He's. He's defaulting to looking to Evans a lot. So I wonder if Evans misses a game like, how that changes. Also, I think it was the first play of the game that Evans got hurt on because you're right, Buddha clocked him in the side and he went down. He's like, okay. And then Buddha did it again, like a three or I think like three plays before he, like, came out.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: So the one that I pinpointed because I wasn't going all the way back to the first play thinking that's a very long time between it was the think it was a third and four was over the middle.
Just kind of a post route.
Purdy gets it to him, catches it, goes down.
And this is right before the two minute warning at the two, by the
[00:29:35] Speaker B: way, Evans, update from Rapture Data, which is kind of, I think, what we expected.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: I honestly expected it to be worse.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: You thought it was like a spleen injury cleaner. Kobe spleener.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Well done. The way. The way that he was incapable of breathing. Breathing, which seems bad, led me to indicate that something had broken or because there, listen, everything's different.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: I bet he broke a rip.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: That ain't day to day, buddy. That's a week to week. But, I mean, I suppose you could be day to day.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: I mean, I remember I Talked to Mike McGlinchey who just played through, you know, broken ribs all season.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: It's unbelievable.
Did you hear about Joe Burrow, who had kind of like a dislocated rib and he got hit so hard by Will Anderson?
[00:30:29] Speaker B: It fixed it.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: He said that it popped it back into place.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: How can you dislocate a rib?
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Rip has cartilage all over it. So it kind of jangles it a little bit. And said it popped it back into place. And as a very large man who can pop a lot of stuff, let me tell you, that's real. That's 100 real. We were like, popped it right back where it needs to go.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah. It's also like, even if you feel like a little stitch in your side, you kind of can't breathe.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. It just took. It was like, okay. He couldn't breathe coming off the field. And again, he looked like it was gonna vomit.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Like.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And so when again, you guys don't see this on tv, but from up top, okay, everyone's coming. They're doing the whole thing. They're playing the sad Fox music and TV timeout. The entire TV timeout is taken up by this. He's walking off the field.
He can't get off the field. Yeah, he got to the sideline, thought that he was off the field. Went to a knee again because he couldn't breathe to the point where they had to like kind of tug him off the field fully so they could Restart the game, which is just wonderful visuals that no one on TV saw. And then he. I mean, really, it took another two minutes for him to get to the bench from the sideline.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it looked bad.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: And then, then now they have these canopies over the.
The benches, which is just an affront to journalism also.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: I bet that will change after this month.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Maybe. But if it's going to rain the way that people say it's going to rain, maybe I'd keep those, those tents up.
I'm also not entirely sure. I don't know if the Arizona Cardinals have a tent.
They had a table. I don't know if they purchased a tent.
And just perfect.
I didn't see it. And maybe that's just more to the testament of their health. Meanwhile, the Niners literally needed two tents at several points yesterday. But when he got off the bench to go to the cart, which came around behind the bench, he was still laboring and still unable to get his breath and had to stop halfway on like a little like 15 foot walk. So it's like, oh, boy. Like something's really messed up in there. So day to day. Yeah, I mean, weeks are strange. Part of days.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Strained rib.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: I don't know what it is and
[00:32:43] Speaker B: I don't know that's what the report
[00:32:44] Speaker A: was, that it was strained.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: A rib strain. And he's considered strange.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: Like this content, this podcast content. That's right, strained.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Evans was awesome in the first half. The. The Debo play was sick. The floor is yours to talk about what Larry called the flea flicker in the press conference,
[00:33:03] Speaker B: called it a flea flicker.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: He called the flea flicker. And that's not a flea flicker. Of course Larry knows it's not a flea flicker, but it was.
The problem was he said it and then you're like, oh, that's funny and weird. And then when that happens now, I can't not call it a flea flicker mentally. And so that's just awesome.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Well done. The old hook and ladder.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: The old hook and ladder. Which someone in the comments section, and again, I forgive me, I will start actually writing down these names. Was asking like on the name of the hook and ladder. First off, we're not the people to come to on that. Not yet. Second, I'm pretty sure it's just supposed to be a pun.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah. By the way, I was, I was just curious. Debo 20. 21. Or almost not 21 miles an hour. 20.4 miles per hour. You look good.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Fourth fastest long speed. Long speed for old Debo There Buddha Baker thought he had him and he did not have him. He looked really good there. He, he looks spry again, as I was saying earlier with the defensive lineman, like there are points of diminishing returns, like you're not going to build the whole thing out of them.
But his three yard run where he had the spin move was very nicely done by him. It was never going to be a big play, mainly because someone didn't block and then.
Oh boy.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Should we talk about Jordan Watkins?
[00:34:17] Speaker A: Well, let's do the Debo because you had, you had two kind of chunk plays. Like if you use Debo. The way I put it in my column this morning was if you use Debo like a late inning reliever, he's really, really good. But he can't be your starter anymore. He's not going to give you seven bulldog innings. He's going to come in in a key situation, make a big play. And I, I, I like, I like that form of Debo. The issue now is you have so few wide receivers that it's like, do we have to build the car out of Debo again? Which to then I just say you got a Johnny Holstef the game, but do you have even enough bullpen arms to do that appropriately? Meanwhile, I'm very concerned about the White Sox in the playoffs, regardless of it. Yeah, in this role he looks good. I think the 20 mph speaks volumes. Not a lot of plays you get to just run 80 yards, but like speaks volumes. And I thought McCaffrey looked awesome. I thought he looked really, really good. In terms of what I was saying yesterday, I think really showed up on tape where like the jump cuts are really fluid and he's not losing speed moving forward even though he's jumping horizontally.
I thought the run game had a lot of really solid stuff. And against a weaker run defense that isn't kind of selling out, I think it will have even bigger chunk plays moving forward. And it still had some chunk ones. Let's talk about Watkins. I'll leave, I'll leave this to you for now. What do you think about Watkins?
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah, he ran a nice little skinny post, but first man, not a good blocker, not a good blocker.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: The, the Debo play that I was mentioning, the little three yard spin wasn't like perfectly executed, but Debo was able to get to the second level because he spun and ran directly into the guy that Jordan Watkins was supposed to block but didn't touch.
Just, just ran, ran, looked at him, put his arms out and Never touched him when he was square up on him and had five yards of contact.
This is what the Niners coaches have been seeing on tape. This is why they don't want to play him. And here are the stat numbers. Kadero Hodge played 13 second half snaps as a receiver. He had 27 from scrimmage. 22 of them came in the second half. Watkins had what, three second half snaps?
[00:36:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think that was the number.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: Brutal. So, I mean, sorry, it was five and then Cowing had three from scrimmage, something to that effect.
So I, I think because he did look really nice on those two well designed plays and it was a very nice route and catch on that.
That post. The big over was just. Here are two linebackers that can't cover.
Maybe they'll come with you, maybe they won't. That takes some skill too. You have to be fast and separate. He's a very fluid runner. He looks lovely running out in free space. I, I can't see him being used as anything other than a sacrificial X or just a scheme up guy in zone. But he's not your first read on those at any point. He might not. He might even be an alert on most of that.
And then the blocking is really tough. You can't have them on the field. You just straight up can't have them on the field when you're going to run the ball, which I don't know, it's kind of predicating everything in the Kyle Shanahan offense, especially now.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Yeah, they're going to run into some real blocking issues just in terms of like not having the size and people to do it.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah. The run game I think could look pretty rough these next two games.
We'll see. Denver's kind of weird. They sometimes look great and then sometimes look like they can't defend anything. I think.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Well, to be fair, like in this game, as you and I both suggested, they did do some pinpole stuff. There was a lot more gap stuff. They ran a lot. They ran like more duo in this game than they ran at any point this season. At least off the top of my dome. There was a lot of it, particularly early. But they did the thing that we asked them to do, which is just get wide right. You're going up against a 4,4 04 front, the tight front, the mid front, whatever the hell you want to call it.
And it's like we're running outside zone and you're going to bring a sift blocker. You're going to bring use check and we're just going to go cavalry on the outside.
Okay, well, that requires your wide receivers to block.
Hodge did it.
Evans did it, though not perfectly, but Watkins didn't do it and they ran everything away from where cowing was when he was even on the field. Debo does it. Debo is actually a very nice blocker and is, it's always been a super underrated part of his game. You didn't see a lot back in the day because the ball was always in his hands, but really, really good blocker, which is not shocking given, you know, his width as a player and that he's tough as nails. So yeah, that could be a real issue, but I don't know if they're going to be doing that kind of running moving forward. I think they might be more of an inside zone team these next couple of weeks just on the basis of the, the fronts that they're going to play. And again, this is before we get into the tape study of any of those teams, but just what I know about Denver, what I know about Seattle, what I know about Washington, not those Staley esque defenses, they're not going to go wide. I think you try to attack inside zone with those teams. So maybe the wide receiver blocking isn't as important though. It's always vital.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm with you.
Yeah, I think it's going to, I think it's going to be a problem against Seattle. I think they're just going to be, I mean, I've said from the start I'm sort of evaluating the season is like they have to go against Seattle's front and that's two weeks away. And this will be a good test because like Broncos present some different challenges. Right.
But like, I don't know that they can get the displacement they need to deal with that.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that. It's, it's, it's fun for us in a way because now I think every game moving forward because the personnel is so constantly changing, like every game becomes this super bespoke game plan which is going to make some of our predictions just go way off base because there's nothing that we can tie ourselves to week in, week out.
Some teams want to have, have a bunch of really great players. They can do anything they want. Some teams are just finding guys off the street and practice squad to play. So they're like, I guess we have to be a mint front team this week, which is what Raheem Morris did because we don't have any defensive ends that can rush the passer as a primary function.
The offense is going to start to be like that. If this wide receiver situation is as dire as it perhaps could be with Mike Evans being out, they're going to have to.
They're gonna have to maybe show their hand almost, and they're gonna have to really ride Luke Farrell in a lot of ways.
So Kyle.
Kyle better stay on top of his game. I know that you're not as enamored with the play calling yesterday as maybe I was in the moment, but it's not as if he's. No one's. No one's here suggesting that he's bad at this, but he's gonna have to be, really.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: No, it was just. I would say it was his weakest game thus far.
They had a lot of situations where, like, players were sort of occupying the same space and didn't have great answers. And it was like Brock had to go off schedule a lot. Where you're like, on the broadcast, which was a terrible, terrible, terrible broadcast.
[00:41:20] Speaker A: Did you like Moose's Faith family football line?
[00:41:22] Speaker B: I almost vomited. I swear to God. Almost.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Also, do you know Kyle Shanahan just abs.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: I was like, what are you. What are you talking about?
He was bad. He was really.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: He's never been good, but he's a.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: No, he's.
Oh, they gotta move on.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: I mean, he was sure.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: He was not. He was also like, there was a clear, like, OPI situation. He's like, what do you think about this? And they're like, yeah, that's the textbook definition of OPI Moose. He's like, I don't know.
And it was like, what Kevin Coogler. Next one's like, oh, well, you know, tough to say.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: It's unbelievable because Kevin Coogler. So good and right.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: And he's just like, I'm in an uncomfortable spot.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: That's why I do Monday Night Football, so that I can actually get good analysis once a week.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah. He was like, this is the most flustered we've seen. Brock Purdy. And I was looking and I was like, he didn't have anywhere to. To go with the ball on, like, most of those plays. Now. He did have that one that was, like, terrible. Did have, like, kind of a hospital ball in that first play.
Evans. But otherwise, like, didn't have a ton of places to throw the ball and made time and was still pretty sick.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: It was very, very Russ Wilson coded. I know no one likes to hear that, but it was. Let's get to some questions, and we'll get the hell up out of here so we can watch some Broncos tape. Vice really like the play where Fred brushed the line and then pulled out. We all love it when they pull out. It got the guard to commit to the block and then left a free rusher. He was trying. He was trying stuff.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: Yep. Yep. Simulated pressure was. I noted that down.
That was a very fun one.
I. Yeah, I think they just need to do more of that stuff. And I know it's like, always simulated pressures are just, like, a fun thing to watch and look really good when they work. Yeah.
And so it gets easy to say, let's do more of that. It leaves you, like, pretty unbalanced in a lot of ways. So, like, to make that a stable part of your diet isn't really healthy.
But it was. It did come off really well. And I do think that's something they can incorporate a little bit more of.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: I mean, two things. One, this was clearly a game where both. Both coordinators, Kyle and Raheem were just trying stuff. So that a week or five from now, right. They have it on tape and they can teach off of that, which they very preseason energy. Except we're actually showing plays here.
Interested to see how that manifests moving forward. Like, I feel like this is a tape we'll come back to later on in a more important game, which, again, they're all important, but, like, you know what I'm saying? And then the second thing is the. It's an inverse Bob Salah where last year they start running out of dudes. I mean, they're down. They were down seven of the 10 defensive linemen they started the season with. At one point when. When Halton goes out and Raheem Morris is like, guess we're going to do more. Whereas Bob Sal is like, we will do very much less. And get my agent on the phone.
So I'm fascinated to see if that continues. Real Griff OSA in the huff role of. I wasn't built for this. Three down.
He wasn't. It wasn't built for it. That's not his game. I do appreciate that he was better in this game, knowing that it was coming. I think.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think he's been terrible, but, like, yeah, he's meant to be a disruptor. And now they're like. It's like the Malik Collins thing. I was like, Malik Collins could do, like, one or the other. And they're like, do everything. And he's like, no, no, please stop.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: No. And then he gets to Cleveland. He Has Miles Garrett and suddenly he looks great and then he doesn't have Miles Garrett anymore. He doesn't look great anymore. By the way, Malik Collins. Come home. Come home.
Josie always brings it. Diamador Lenore continues to be the Diamador Lenore of this defense. Complimentary. I like d' Amador Lenore a lot. He's really. Yeah, he's leveled up in my. My book. My very.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: So they still are like, asking. They're putting most of the. The heavier coverage responsibilities on green.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: Yes. Well, I mean, that's just a team that runs a lot of COVID six, but when you are doing boundary side, it's a lot of field boundary stuff, which I loved last year when they did it in the Eagles playoff game. I think that that's the way to, you know, keep Lenore in the action. Talk to d' Amador about this.
We on the record. He was saying that last year he was constantly barking that he wanted to be on the interior more, that he indeed did want to be a Nickelback again and that he's, you know, kind of only doing this for the money and the prestige and. I'm kidding. But he. He likes. He likes being back in the action. This game didn't call for it, but yeah, d' Amador Lenore in this game actually called for it in a weird way because they just kept running to the outside.
So fascinating to see here. Fear for Dieter on Thursday. Why.
But I can see what you mean with walking slow initial acceleration again. Debo had a play where he could totally open it up, but it's all about the torque off the line, baby. We are about quickness and balance when it comes to wide receivers here also,
[00:45:59] Speaker B: like, yeah, he just got like.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: Oh, man, he got bumped off of, like, flat routes.
[00:46:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like. It's like. I remember what like Pearsall would have that his rookie year, where you're like, you have to. You have to fight it and stay vertical and then fight contact and stem off and you can go inside a little bit. But, like, he's getting. He's just like angling his route way too far inside. That's supposed to stem vertically and it's sort of like becoming a crossing route.
[00:46:26] Speaker A: If the tape that I saw against Arizona is any indication, I would try to get your victory laps in on Jordan Watkins as soon as possible because he's going up against the Denver defense, which plays a bunch of press man to man, and Seattle battle, which as evidence with the Ricky Pierce all thing just said, no, little man, you Ain't going anywhere. That's all I'm saying.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: We'll see if there's more of it. I don't, I don't think what they saw will make him want to trust them more. Especially in like the thing where you need to like be an every down player so that the defense.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: You know, doesn't treat you being on
[00:46:59] Speaker A: the field as a tell baseline Kyle Shanahan stuff. Cleeferrell cup by Miami. Another old friend.
To be fair, wouldn't shock me. At the same time, I think we're going for old Raheem friends at this point. I think it's Raheem's old friends we need to move away from the norm.
Texans looking bad. D' Amico likely on the hot seat. What do you think the odds did? No, they're not going to trade.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: No. He's got a fully guaranteed 40 million dollar contract because the Texans are an insane team that doesn't do business the way any other team does.
Everything because they are in Texas, I guess, and have to just be like, we're the most Texas team ever. Let's just fully guarantee contracts and that's guaranteed.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: It's a slogan. Do you spray in the rib wall muscles? Hurts like hell, you can't breathe. But is day to day. We don't know.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: But, but I've had a stitch in my side and I was like, yeah. And that, you know, that's.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: It's a great point from real Griff. I mean how many ribs did.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. Like he probably. I bet he broke a rib. I mean that's based on no reporting and nothing. I'm just saying like I wouldn't be shocked.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Good show, Jake.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: Yeah. We'll be back later this week.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Denver tape.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Be there.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Bye.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Be there.
