Speaker 1: Yeah, Um, we weren't able to stop drives. It really
Speaker 1: wasn't big plays. Um, they just methodically moved the ball. Um.
Speaker 1: A couple of times penalties contributed to keeping those drives alive.
Speaker 1: And it's something in our first three games, really, really,
Speaker 1: really I thought did a good job of avoiding penalties
Speaker 1: that kept drives alive. Um. You know, I mean we
Speaker 1: had to roughening the quarterback on the when he slid
Speaker 1: for the extra yards that you know, gave him another
Speaker 1: chunk in there. Um. You know, we tore his helmet
Speaker 1: off on a sack. We had a chance we're gonna
Speaker 1: hold him to a field goal right there. That keeps
Speaker 1: that drive alive. Um. You know. So probably the most
Speaker 1: disappointing thing about that game where some of those uh,
Speaker 1: some of those penalties. Um, you know, his quarterback was hot.
Speaker 1: He made a couple throws under pressure that you know
Speaker 1: he dime shot the ball in there. And uh and
Speaker 1: and there's going to be some of those in the NFL.
Speaker 1: But we can't afford gift teams think things for free.
Speaker 1: And um, we tightened up a lot more in the
Speaker 1: second half and uh, and we're able to play a
Speaker 1: lot better and keep them off, keep them off the
Speaker 1: board until that last field goal. You guys are ready
Speaker 1: to play. So yeah, I mean, I don't think there
Speaker 1: was anything schematically or anything, um, UM, you know from
Speaker 1: a you know, from a you know, from a standpoint
Speaker 1: other than it's the NFL and playing opponents. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously we didn't play our best half of football, gab.
Speaker 1: We've played our worst half of football over the course
Speaker 1: of the season. But like I said, I was I
Speaker 1: was proud of UM the way they responded in the
Speaker 1: second half. UM, some of the adjustments that we were
Speaker 1: able to make. UM came out and and played a
Speaker 1: good half of football. UM. Four sacks, a turnover, you know, disappointing.
Speaker 1: We we we had a chance to maybe sealed a game, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, with A with a better step and H
Speaker 1: intercepting that other ball that almost got intercepted. But a
Speaker 1: loss is a loss, and you know, hopefully we can
Speaker 1: use some of the lessons we learned from that to
Speaker 1: help us win some games down in the future. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that may serve us well
Speaker 1: from that was the fact that we hadn't been in
Speaker 1: a close game before our first three games. Was you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of grinning in the fourth quarter
Speaker 1: on the sideline because the games were sort of out
Speaker 1: of hand, and you know, you're gonna have to play
Speaker 1: tight games in the NFL, and there's some seasoning, there's
Speaker 1: some experience that goes along with that, and hopefully, even
Speaker 1: though we lost the game, hopefully it'll it'll serve us
Speaker 1: over the course of the last three quarters of the season.
Speaker 1: You mean, it was not routine deadline marker to Nickel
Speaker 1: the second temple kind the fact that hadners being a
Speaker 1: lot of players, Yeah, you know, it really wasn't really
Speaker 1: wasn't a plan to rotate in the second half anyway.
Speaker 1: So it really was an adjustment that we made, um,
Speaker 1: you know, just depending on how that game was going
Speaker 1: to play. They had used a lot of eleven personnel,
Speaker 1: which we traditionally match Nickel with, and we just wanted
Speaker 1: to try to take some of the reps of those
Speaker 1: guys off in second half. We were getting a lot
Speaker 1: of three and ounce. There really was no we need
Speaker 1: first half. There were some long drives and um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to try to keep our guys as fresh
Speaker 1: as we could. So that really that was just to
Speaker 1: get the way the game won. It really wasn't a adjustment,
Speaker 1: I guess you'd say, and the first half was just
Speaker 1: the key. And yeah, we've we've taken that approach, particularly
Speaker 1: with Jordan, and depending on you know, it just depends
Speaker 1: the way the game plays. Um. You know, if an
Speaker 1: opponent chooses to play us in certain personnel packages, then
Speaker 1: you know, we could have some guys play just about
Speaker 1: every snap and some guys played not very much, and
Speaker 1: just trying to find ways to mitigate that and try
Speaker 1: to find ways to keep guys, um, keep guys fresh
Speaker 1: every week. It's a little different. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: think in in that game that was um, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that served us in the second half. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard, it's hard to really say. Maybe maybe those
Speaker 1: guys were able to fly around a little bit more
Speaker 1: in the second half because they had a dozen snaps
Speaker 1: taken off of them or whatever it was in the
Speaker 1: first half. Um, you know, we could find ways to
Speaker 1: get all our guys to contribute. But the bottom line
Speaker 1: is find a way to win. And we didn't do
Speaker 1: a good enough job of that tackling up there. But
Speaker 1: how he's um, no, I thought our leverage was bad
Speaker 1: on a couple of screens. But I don't necessarily I
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily think tackling wasn't um wasn't good. We're gonna
Speaker 1: miss some tackles, and it's because we were an aggressive
Speaker 1: defense that we like to fly and not slow down
Speaker 1: at the ball um. In order to do that, you
Speaker 1: need other guys filling off of you. If you if
Speaker 1: you over coach guys not to miss tackle, if you
Speaker 1: don't fly to the ball, you don't. You don't, you
Speaker 1: don't have big hits and things like that, and it's
Speaker 1: sort of softened up. If you take an approach of
Speaker 1: guys run with their angle and um and aggressively take
Speaker 1: their angle. They're gonna miss sometimes, but you need that.
Speaker 1: That's why team pursued is so important. That's why team
Speaker 1: speed is important. You need other guys to fill off
Speaker 1: of them. I didn't think we did a terrible job
Speaker 1: of tackling. I thought that, particularly on a couple of screens,
Speaker 1: we didn't leverage them well, we didn't attack it fast enough.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't have I wouldn't have said it was tackling. Well,
Speaker 1: that was an angle issue really, not a UM a
Speaker 1: tackling issue. And now that was. That was bad leverage.
Speaker 1: That was bad leverage. Um, but what we want, I mean,
Speaker 1: if we're if we're taking fast leverage and going inside
Speaker 1: out or outside him playing for our help. In that situation,
Speaker 1: he had corner help and he's got to leverage that
Speaker 1: ball there. And um, um, you know, but again if
Speaker 1: if if you play your leverage, usually good leverage teams
Speaker 1: are good tackling teams and if you do miss, there's
Speaker 1: another guy there to clean it up right away. And
Speaker 1: if we're going to be good, that's what we need
Speaker 1: to be. Um. You know, knowing where your help is
Speaker 1: aggressively laying for that is it goes hand in hand
Speaker 1: with flying to the football and goes hand in hand
Speaker 1: to limiting big plays. We've been we've been doing a
Speaker 1: good job on pulling third down and even though we
Speaker 1: technically had a couple of wins on third down, they
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily wins like that play it got to fourth down,
Speaker 1: but we don't stop them on fourth down, so it
Speaker 1: really doesn't count as a third down stop. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was that was another one. As we look back, UM,
Speaker 1: probably like to get him and even bo Allen get
Speaker 1: him some more in there, you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: tough situation. You're down, you give up three touchdowns in
Speaker 1: the first half. You know, it's I'll sort of take
Speaker 1: it back the other way. It's easy to rotate when
Speaker 1: things are going good, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: easy to tag the next guy. Next guy goes in
Speaker 1: and um, you know, and you're on a roll and
Speaker 1: you're getting stops and things like that. When you start
Speaker 1: giving up plays and you start giving up touchdowns, it
Speaker 1: becomes a little bit harder just to you know, to
Speaker 1: get those guys in rotation, you know, just you know,
Speaker 1: for a lot of different reasons. And then in the
Speaker 1: second half there again it fell a little bit to
Speaker 1: the linebackers. In the second half, there really wasn't that
Speaker 1: much of a need to rotate guys because we were
Speaker 1: getting quick stops, we're getting turnovers, we're getting off the
Speaker 1: field and um, and guys were fresh then. But you know,
Speaker 1: traditionally we'd we'd like to get him or theoretically we'd
Speaker 1: like to get him more. And practice doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get Allen iverson in there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I mean, it's all about how
Speaker 1: you perform on Sunday. Um, he's been rushing the passer well. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think that that showed, you know, he was
Speaker 1: able to get to get a sack and uh sort
Speaker 1: of played off a fletch on that one. But he's
Speaker 1: been affecting the passer and he's a key part of
Speaker 1: our defense. Um, and he'll always be involved. You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just Sunday, but really all year, all four games.
Speaker 1: You guys are better in the second half of the
Speaker 1: first half. Um, what do you think's happening there? I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess that's a positive that you're you're finishing strong.
Speaker 1: You think that's you know, I don't really know to
Speaker 1: tell you truth. It's a small sample size. You know.
Speaker 1: I think that if you had your druthers, you'd probably
Speaker 1: rather be better in the second half than the first.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we were crappy in the second half,
Speaker 1: you guys would all be saying that we don't make
Speaker 1: any adjustments, or we're in poor condition, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. You know, an offense sort of finds their way.
Speaker 1: One he's going to blow up. The offense is gonna
Speaker 1: find their way. But I like the personality of our
Speaker 1: defense in that there's been times early in the season.
Speaker 1: We gave up some plays Monday Night Football the opener,
Speaker 1: and we were able to sort of, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't say stopped the bleeding, but we were able to
Speaker 1: get a control and they were able to go out
Speaker 1: and play and one bad play didn't turn into the next.
Speaker 1: There's no dodging the fact that we played a poor
Speaker 1: half of football in the first half. I mean, three drives,
Speaker 1: three touchdowns, penalties, third down conversions. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: a lot not to like in that. But I think
Speaker 1: we've all seen teams or been around teams that that
Speaker 1: twenty one points in the first half could have easily
Speaker 1: led to forty five. But they were prideful and um,
Speaker 1: you know, we found a way to you know, to
Speaker 1: to get things, you know, to get things a little
Speaker 1: bit better in the second half. I'm proud of the
Speaker 1: guys for that. For you, well, it always is you know,
Speaker 1: when you're an attack defense, people are gonna try to
Speaker 1: run the trap, they're gonna try to run the screen,
Speaker 1: they're gonna try to run um draws, you know, and
Speaker 1: that just goes along with the territory. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to be good on those things. Um, we didn't leverage
Speaker 1: them very good. Second half they tried to come back
Speaker 1: to it and we threw it for a loss. But
Speaker 1: first half we didn't play the screen well enough. And
Speaker 1: that's there's a lot of different layers to that. There's
Speaker 1: d line, there's linebackers. Um, there's you know secondary behind it.
Speaker 1: You know Riddick was Um you know he's he's a
Speaker 1: good back out of the backfield. Um, we didn't do
Speaker 1: a good enough job against him. But I think he
Speaker 1: I saw staff before the game where he's over the
Speaker 1: last year's leading the NFL and receptions for running backs.
Speaker 1: It showed in that game. Um, you know, we we
Speaker 1: have another challenge this week. You know Thompson. Thompson is
Speaker 1: a good back out of the backfield also and gives
Speaker 1: us some same things. And UM, you know, I think
Speaker 1: the other the other thing that goes into some of
Speaker 1: those plays, if you defend him well early in the game, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's trap or draw or screen or
Speaker 1: any of those other things. Um, offense has a harder
Speaker 1: time going back to it. When you give up a
Speaker 1: couple of plays earlier, you just know they're going back
Speaker 1: to it. Um, you know, we need to do a
Speaker 1: better job early in the game of getting those plays stopped.
Speaker 1: But how would you evaluated mikel pattersonsider, Well, I mean
Speaker 1: that's sort of the question before I mean, reconsider using him.
Speaker 1: We've we've considered it, and we've got him some reps
Speaker 1: in some of those not only Nickel package, but some
Speaker 1: other packages in there. I don't want to get into
Speaker 1: evaluations or anything else. Defensively, we didn't play well enough
Speaker 1: to win, and mostly due to a poor first half
Speaker 1: of football. Just Washington, the wide receivers presented, that's a
Speaker 1: good offensive skill group. A heavy running back that can
Speaker 1: make yards in between the tackles, runs through contact. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about Matt Jones. You know a complimentary back in Thompson.
Speaker 1: That's Um. That's good on the perimeter. Um. You know
Speaker 1: one of the Marquis tight ends in the NFL. UM.
Speaker 1: You know their leading receiver can play down the field,
Speaker 1: can make play short um plays like a wide receiver.
Speaker 1: And then a lot of different kinds of wide receivers.
Speaker 1: You know crowder I didn't know a lot about crowder
Speaker 1: Um just because he was a rookie last year and
Speaker 1: not being in this division. But that guy's a good player.
Speaker 1: In the slot, makes a lot of plays. He's a
Speaker 1: key part of their third down offense. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we all know DeShawn Jackson and his ability to make
Speaker 1: a big play, and m Pierre Gresson sometimes gets um
Speaker 1: overlooked in that crowd, but he's another guy that can
Speaker 1: move to chain and can make plays. He can run
Speaker 1: after the catch. They have a lot of receivers that
Speaker 1: are different in style. Um, they all fit well together,
Speaker 1: and it's a It's not a situation where you can
Speaker 1: take one guy out and then feel like, Okay, hey
Speaker 1: we can handle we can handle the rest. Everybody's gonna
Speaker 1: have to do their part across the board in some ways,
Speaker 1: a little bit like Pittsburgh. You know, they had a
Speaker 1: lot of different receivers, a lot of different body types,
Speaker 1: and a lot of different guys who use in a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways. Going to go ahead the Cousins, Oh, Kirk, oh,
Speaker 1: I was I was thinking wide receivers. I'm like that
Speaker 1: I missed somebody in there. Um yeah, my son's gonna
Speaker 1: be mad at me because he's a Michigan State fan. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he does a good job of executing
Speaker 1: that offense. And when you look at the different things
Speaker 1: that they do, whether it's stacks and options and running
Speaker 1: the ball and putting them in the right run plays
Speaker 1: and things like that. He has put them in those
Speaker 1: kind of positions. Um does really favor one guy or
Speaker 1: the other. Moves the ball around to a lot of
Speaker 1: different players. He has enough arm strength to attack the
Speaker 1: whole field. Um, he can throw the ball deep over
Speaker 1: the top, and that fits to Sean Jackson. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's going to be probably three or four times in
Speaker 1: the game that they're just going to unleash a deep ball.
Speaker 1: And it's not a forty five yard deep ball that
Speaker 1: think's coming sixty sixty five yards. Um, it's tough. Also,
Speaker 1: he's taken a bunch of hits this year. I mean
Speaker 1: some pretty wicked hits, and he's Um, he's he's got
Speaker 1: back up and played and I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: also he's he's led him to a good record. You know,
Speaker 1: I think when you're a quarterback, that's probably that's not
Speaker 1: probably that's the most important stat Um. You know, he's
Speaker 1: a challenge for him the first few games. What has
Speaker 1: he done to sort of clean that up there, to
Speaker 1: find that accuracy. Yeah, I think any quarterback, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's times, particularly in the opener, they were behind, and
Speaker 1: it's hard when you're behind, UM, and you've got to
Speaker 1: fit balls in that you know, that's the only chance
Speaker 1: to win is to fit the ball in. UM. That's
Speaker 1: not always the situation to be in. But I think
Speaker 1: that as it goes on and they were in closer games,
Speaker 1: he was able to make better decisions. And I think
Speaker 1: that goes hand in hand with the way the games went.
Speaker 1: They got some big guys up front. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they have, you know, a sort of a good blend
Speaker 1: of experience. It starts with the left tackle. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's a Pro Bowl player. UM. You know, I
Speaker 1: think if you talk about offensive line player, you can
Speaker 1: probably start there because you know, teams have ability to
Speaker 1: rely on one guy they think they can you know,
Speaker 1: they can take a rusher out, then they can take
Speaker 1: their scheme other places. UM. You know, I like our
Speaker 1: pass rush. I think that's a great matchup in this game.
Speaker 1: Our ability to generate pass rush, our ability to blitz. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, those kind of things will go a long
Speaker 1: way and determine who to win or this game is.
Speaker 1: And that matchup between old line and D line, it
Speaker 1: doesn't just go to pass game, it's run game. Also,
Speaker 1: they've been able to methodically move those chains. We've been
Speaker 1: good at creating some lost yardage plays. That'll be a
Speaker 1: good battle. Also, that's it, all right, guys,