Deep Dive on Third Downs, Christian Wilkins Production, Responding to Adversity and Post Game Show Discussion

Christian Wilkins third season production. Plus we'll play a segment from the post game show if we have time, and we'll hear from the coordinators and their Tuesday media availability from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Drivetime podcastamipice. We are presented by Auto Nation and we're gonna dive right into this story that I wrote from Miami Dolphins dot Com on the top

news story on Tuesday. We do top News every Tuesday and Friday here on Miami Dolphins dot Com, and usually the Tuesday piece kind of coincides with the podcast and gives us a chance to look at something outside the framework of what happened in the previous game or the upcoming game and just kind of give us a general bird's eye view of something that I personally find interesting.

If you ever have any ideas for the deep Dive Wednesday that you want me to look into, send me your ideas on Twitter at Wingfield NFL and I'll see what you guys got and see if it jives with what I want to do for the podcast. But you guys are the podcast as well, so I want to hear from you and get your input on this. But today we're talking about third down and it's called the money down for a reason. The outcomes of third downs have the third biggest swing and win probability than any

play in football. The other two, of course turnovers and scoring plays. But turnovers and scoring plays makeup for eight nine ten plays a game, where third down snaps are roughly thirty place per game on average. It's a sixty minute collection on those third down plays of these mini battles within the game to determine the ultimate victor of the quote unquote war. And I hate using war as

an analogy and football, but you get what I'm saying. Thus, the money down where players and coaches really earned their salt, where complementary football is magnified. You convert on third down. That helps keep the defense fresh, It helps keep your special teams kind of gearing up, ready to go. It just helps everything. And defensively, it gets your punt return team on the field, It gets your offense ready and

back on the field for the ensuing drive. So it's very complimentary when you can execute on third down, both offensively and defensively. Now, not been our year defensively in this regard. Last year certainly was, and you saw the impact that had and how Miami was able to become victorious and ten of their sixteen football games due large part to the defense finding a way to get so many stops on the third down. We we had games last year where the opposed the opposition had like one

or two conversions. I'm thinking about the Jets game for instance. I think it took him to the fourth quarter to convert a third down, and a couple of those games against the Jets last year. But back to the offense, Miami's third down production this year has increased exponentially over the last two weeks, from thirty five point four percent in weeks one through five, up to sixty four point

three percent in weeks six and seven. So I asked coach Eric Studisville, the co offensive coordinator here in Miami, about the uptick. And no, this is not erlick Bachman taking the uptick from Jared's indiscretions, going behind Richard's back to pay for a click farm to give them the uptick. We're talking about real substantial production here. So I asked coach about the uptick and what they can attribute to that production. Here is Coach Studisville on Miami's increased third

down performance the last couple of weeks. Well, I hope it's an increased emphasis in it, you know, which we're talking about all the time. You know, coach talks about that with the team, that that's an important situational football um parameter for us to address. So we constantly talk about that, He talks about it, he addresses it. We spend a lot of time on third down talking about what we want to execute, how we want to do

things on third down. And I think then it goes it becomes a credit to the players where they're studying and buying in and they're executing then when we call those things. So I think it's a it's a whole philosophy that starts with flow all the way down to everybody that, hey, we understand the importance of that third down situation and we have to be better to be able to stay on the field to get more plays to continue drives. So there you go. You have them

talking about the complementary aspect. They're staying on the field, helps your defense, helps your special teams. When you can do that as an offense, if you have the football, they're not going to put points in the board, right unless they pick six or scoop and score you. But how often does that happen? So, and just a quick

aside here on that coach Studentsville commentary. He also was asked about the running game, and he talks about how they want to be efficient and effective, and he complimented the offensive line and the tight ends. But where I found coaches comments interesting as he talked about the running back position, how at times he thought they ran it well, but he thought it was too inconsistent and guys missing cuts,

are missing gaps and leaving me on the bone. In the running game, we talked about the four Smiths tackles in the yards after contact average here on the podcast every single Tuesday when we do the PFF and next Gen stats rundown and yeah, I mean the numbers, back up the film and back up what coach says. They're about how I do believe there are more yards to be had in the running game from the running back. So interesting comment there. But back to the third down

conversion stuff. That third down conversion rate in weeks six and seven ranks second in the National Football League over that span among teams who played two games. There's a couple of teams. I think the Jets and the Bills are ahead of Miami, but they both played one game over that stretch of time. In terms of the two weeks span, Arizona is the only team that has a better third down conversion rate among teams that played both weeks then Miami and quarterback to a Tonga, Bloa has

been especially sharp on the money down. He's completed sixteen of twenty three third down passes for one hundred and seventy three yards, a touchdown pass and thirteen total conversions, two of those with his legs. Since he came back off the injured reserve, and the average distance to gain on those third downs it's not cheap seven point two yards. So thirteen conversions out of twenty three from the quarterback

position with an average of seven point two yards. That takes away your third and one conversion from Jacobe Brissette. I think there was a third and one conversion from Malcolm Brown two weeks ago. There was a third and two conversion from Savan Akhmed this week. So strictly in the passing numbers, that's what you get. Seven point two

yards to go and you're over fifty percent. If you look at league averages, third and seven or longer is well below So to A playing about fifteen percent above board with third down conversions over the last two weeks compared to the average across the league based upon distance to gain, was that way too much info? I hope it made sense. Other teams convert third and seven plus or the average in the NFL, and third seven plus

is about the last two weeks from Miami. The passing game, third and seven plus about fifty five, So not a bad place to be. And so I wanted to go through and chart all those dropbacks from two A Toungo Byaloa twenty three in total here, and I charted the result of all of them when there was a pressure, a hurry, or a hit, whether the pass was completed, whether or not they converted the first down, and how

many yards they had to gain. I'm not going to go through the results of all twenty three individual plays there, but I'll give you the cumulative results here. Fifteen total pressures on those twenty three dropbacks. No sacks, so that's great, No third down sacks. Six QB hits on the twenty three drop backs, so one of every four he gets hit, and about oh gosh, math um a little over half

the time he's pressured. So when he's pressured, he's nine for twelve on these third down looks and eight for fifteen conversion because the three rush attempts two of them were converted, one of them was not. But eight for fifteen with an average distance of six point to two yards. That's right about in that four conversion range right across the league, and the Dolphins are over once again in that regard. When he's not pressured, five for eight completion,

four for eight conversions. Now that's only fifty percent obviously, but the average distance seven point five yards, so once again well above board as far as average conversion right across the National Football League. And then when the uh when when he's hit when he's hit back there, Sorry, I'm trying to read some stuff here in numbers, and it doesn't go very well for your boy when I

do both those things together. But four for seven converting when he's hit on third downs with an average distance of six point one four yards, So it's been good regardless of distance to gain. If the early down success is not there, they still have a fighting chance to convert. And this goes back to what we talked about all the time right on this podcast locked on Dolphins and everything I've done in my football career so far, or

I guess media football analysts career. Every time you watch a quarterback the most, if you're trying to evaluate the town on the tape, you look at the real you look at his third and six plus And what I just told you is that third and six pluses went two has kind of been at his best. On top of the fact that we don't really talk about him ever missing layups. So those two things working together, to me paint a very positive picture, and to kind of

piggyback off that point, what is third and long. It's adversity, right, It's a tough situation. The team has to put their best forward for their best foot forward to get a completion, to get a conversion, and keep their offense on the field. It's the big moment in the game that requires your

focus and execution in a difficult spot. And so I wanted to look at some of the factors that contribute to being a resilient player or team and the I was looking at the volatility of third down production as one of the key factors for teams across the league that contributes to the ups and downs of an NFL season, because every team has them for the most part, right

like even the Chiefs right now. Personally, I would never worry if I was the Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes and the skill players they have on offense, regardless of how the defense is playing, regardless of how you know protection can have breakdowns, whatever the case may be. I just wouldn't worry about it because I think I know they're gonna be okay come January. But look at the value there and right now compared to the peaks they've been

enjoying all the Patrick Mahomes era. It's true for every team. Every Super Bowl champion can look back to a certain stretch of the season where they were not thought of as a Super Bowl team at that time. Go back to the Bucks last year a perfect example of that. Or a lot of the Patriots rings, even I mean some of them were dominant throughout, but some of the Patriots rings you look back and it's like they had

some struggles there at certain moments of the season. Like there, I think their second ring in two thousand three was the famous Lawyer Malloy release, and then he goes to Buffalo and they beat him by the thirty four points on opening Day, and then New England lost like one more game the rest of the way. The point is you're gonna have peaks and valleys in the season, and one of the biggest contributing factors to that is your

third down conversion rate. So I looked at a team who has the most unique four week experience in the National Football League right now, the Tennessee Titans, who over that four weeks span they've had a buyer. They beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in there, but they beat the Chiefs and the Bills and lost to the New York Jets, who are one in six but taking out both of last year's AFC Championship contender or representatives. And the biggest

difference their third down production. They were twelve for twenty five on third downs and the two victories and just five for nineteen and the loss to the Jets, so more than double their production there on third downs. So you consider the perception of the Titans in the eyes of fans and media and public and you know, national perception after that Week five loss that this team can't go anywhere, right because they lost to a bad football team.

But the only way to flip that script was to perform against that adversity and just basically say, we don't care what your power rankings, what you're talking points on talk shows are. We have to go out and accomplish on the football field what we think is true that

we are a contender. And they did beat Kansas City and Buffalo, And that brings us back to the where the tangent takes us back to Miami, who have endured plenty of in game affliction this season, but have responded to give the team an opportunity to snatch victory, even though they did not snatch said victory. The roadblock from Miami these last two weeks has been the turnover and to stretch it further, including the Week one interception to a tongue of Blowa has been picked off three times

in the second half this season. Three of his four picks have been in the second half of games, and head coach Brian Flores said he likes the way his quarterback in this particular question. Durham Smyth as well responded to the turnover on Sunday against Atlanta, and we played it on the show for you yesterday, so I won't play it again, but I'll tell you what he said. He says he thinks two of wishes he had that

one back, and Durham does as well. But when you look at it that way, there are some other places we could have gone with the football. What I like most about that was Towah's response, Durham's response and being able to turn it around and create some positive plays after that mishap. End quote following the three second half interceptions this season, and this came from at vbs uh

Sports on Twitter I believe was his name. Tongue of Vloa has completed twenty one of twenty four passes for two forty six yards, three touchdowns and a passer rating of one after the pick in the second half in three games, and the three passes that were incomplete were drops from Pro Football Focus what I mean. Yeah, so while the turnaround hasn't impacted the wind column, it's a positive sign moving forward. And one more stat before I flipped over to the other side of the football and

talk some defense here, I saw Chris Kaufman. You guys know who he is. Pulled us up. He's at C K Parrott on Twitter. He did a stat head search, which is what I used also, so good company there to find out the Tongue of Bola was the highest rated passer in the fourth quarter in the NFL from two thousand twenty one current date minimum nine attempts. So any quarterback that has a decent chunk of sample size in the fourth quarter over the last how many years

is that? Oh? For fourteen twenty seven years two as the highest passer rating of any ever other quarterbacks ever played in that stretch in the fourth quarter with minimum

ninety attempts, it's one eleven point six. It's an eight yards per attempt average, and his a n y average, which is any play that includes sacks and passes seven point nine yards per play in the fourth quarter when two was under center and taking snaps to throw the football or to scramble, seventy eight point five percent completion, seven touchdowns, three picks, and just three sacks on a

dred and eight team plays for negative twenty yards. So that's why you're You're any average play yards per play comes up like that, not a bad stat to hang your hat on their fourth quarter production. It's where games are one and lost. On the other side of the ball. There are some signs of progress as well, like the trajectory of Christian Wilkins career, durable, dependable, versatile defensive lineman who play as hard as anybody in the league and

creates chances for his teammates. Now the counting stats, which I'm not crazy about using those without context, but contextually it matches the film. The counting stats are now there too to match up what he's been doing for this team for three years now. So I asked Josh Boyer what difference in his game. Do you see that has caused the uptick in the statistical production for Christian Wilkins. Here's coach, Well, I think Christians always played with great effort.

I think it it starts with that. And uh, I think he's doing, uh, you know, a good job of working on his fundamentals and his techniques to put himself in position to make plays. And then when he does and when he has opportunities, he's been able to make those plays. So I think that's kind of a byproduct of him knowing and understanding the system a little bit better him No. One and understanding his techniques and fundamentals

a little bit better. And you know, and also when when you know those things, you know when you can take chances that are probably going to be in your favor. And I think he's done it very well. I have so many takes off of that answer from coach, which was great, by the way, I thought from Coach Boyer there.

But we talked on the podcast yesterday about the scanning the social segment about players kind of hitting that second, third and fourth year and that's when their play begins to really start to take off after you know X amount of games, Mike Kasiki, you know, twenty four games in his career, has a ninety four yard game and then starts scoring touchdowns or having eight yards or like every other week. He's doing this after twenty four games of you know, three and four catches for forty yards

on average throughout the course of his career. Xavian Howard midway through his second year as a pro, just starts picking off everybody and then turns into that for the rest of his career. I don't have to go over them all again. You heard it on yesterday's podcast. You've heard it several times from me. But what does that tell you? I mean, what is Peyton Manning on the paint and Eli broadcast telling you how much he hates learning a new system because you just don't have that

natural reactionary feel to the system to know. If I'm looking front side here and I don't have that, the picture I see tells me what I have on the back side, and I can get to it without thinking. I can just feel it, let that thing rip. So it works for quarterbacks. You heard coach with the telling tell you about how it works for defensive tackles, Like when I watch the tape on defensive line, and I'm always kind of intrigued, like, how do you like when

they fire off the snap? You have to like shock the guy, you have to be able to peak the running back. Like there's so much going on that if you don't play reactionary style football, you have no chance to succeed. And so when you hear him talk about Christian really developing those fundamentals and technique and really trusting in them and them kind of becoming second nature, then he can maybe take a chance on, you know, jumping a gap or whatever the case may be. And I

think you're seeing that that play out. I think there's so much to learn from that with regards to how guys can progress in their career. And it's evident to me. It's it's evident that you just need to give guys time sometimes to develop. It's not gonna happen overnight. When it does, great, it's fantastic. A couple of guys do it every single year, but it's an only a couple

of guys. But what I'm most concerned about is how their longevity and sustainability and consistency can be not just throughout the rookie contract, but into that second contract, which if they perform and produce and develop the way you want them to, they then earn that. And I think you've seen that with so many players here that it makes me ask the question, why are you so impatient with others? And I'm just talking, you know, kind of

little pining to the masses out there. Why would you question the development of others when you've seen it works so many times with other guys on the roster here. So that's kind of my thought. And back to the effort of Christian Wilkins. It was evident on the first quarter, or on a first quarter play in the game on Sunday. Screen passes in the NFL or football in general are said to be defensive ends plays. It measures their motors to get up the field, chase the quarterback, only to

retrace back outside and then flag down the receiver. Now on this um, wasn't Calvin Ridley, was Russell gauge reception. Wilkins retraces outside, then retraces back inside and helps finish off the ball carrier by landing on the pile there after the fact or you know, as he's going down he puts the last hit there on Russell gauge, and I say defense events to make a point that it's even more impressive when a defensive tackle does it. So

Christian to get out there and do that. I put the video up on Twitter, so go check it out if you haven't seen it already. But just fantastic hustle, effort, effort play there from Christian Wilkins, which has always been there,

but so too. Now are the counting stats. He has two secs, He has six QB hits, He has four tackles for loss and thirty three total tackles, which pro rates over a seventeen game schedule to five sacks, fifteen quarterback hits, ten tackles for loss, eighty eighty total tackles, and all of those numbers would obliterate wilkins previous career best marks. All right, those are my deep dives. We

heard from the Dolphins coordinators today as well. So I want to go ahead and play a few of those highlights before we get out of here, and we'll see if we have time for a post game show segment for you guys on the backside. Let's go ahead and start here with Josh Boyer, and you guys know I've been impressed with Javon Hollands play, and he's been playing a lot of ball the last couple of weekscent of the snaps. The last two weeks, I asked coach, what's

your take on on rookie Javon Hall And here's coach. Yeah. Again, I think it starts with Javon from day one. I mean, he's come in, he's worked extremely hard, he loves football. Uh, he loves the process he's working at, Uh you know, better understanding, um you know, how he fits in the scheme and the multiple things that he can do. And I think, uh, you know, we're seeing that that growth and um you know, hopefully that that will continue for us.

Um you know, and uh, he definitely has some playmaking ability and um you know, and again it's our job to try to put him in spots where where where he can make those plays. So one more question here

for coach Boyer from yours. Truly, I wanted to ask him about how you dictate matchups and how you adjust to matchups throughout the course of the game, because we saw Kyle Pitts draw multiple different defenders in this game and obviously was the guy that you kind of want to focus on on the Falcon's office is to try to minimize what he can do. So I asked coach about the process of pre game matchup determining and then in game adjustments and how you make those terminations in

the process for getting to those determinations. So I asked coach, Here's coach. Well, yeah, I mean, I think we're very aware of matchups going in and uh, you know, we always have contingency plans if if it doesn't go the way, um, you know, if it's not going in our favor, and um, you know again Atlanta, you know, like Arthur Smith does a great job with his scheme and has you know, you know, tend to twelve different personnel groupings where they

can move guys all around. So it makes it a little bit hard saying Okay, we're gonna put this guy here in this set or this guy in here, because then it could give you a bad matchup somewhere else that you're not really um, you know, fired up about. But uh, you know, obviously, um, you know, Pitts is a good player. He's improven, and you know, I think I think he is a bright future in this league.

Definitely has a bright future. One more question here for Coach Crossman, the Dolphins special teams coordinator, who I asked about the block field goal. Just said, you know, you run this formation all the time and you don't see a lot of blocks when they have. And I'm just curious from your expertise, because again, special team is not my area of expertise, not that any of this is, but definitely less so than offense and defense. Just wanted to ask coach educate me what happened on that play,

and just real quick before I play it. I kind of stumbled over the question to him, so I asked him about what you wanted to get accomplished. You didn't get accomplished. You're gonna hear him talk about scoring points. So that's my bad for asking the question that way. But here's Coach Crossman. I'll answer it in two parts. Number one, the goal is to score, you know, and the way we teach it, you know, that's the one playing football where it's sole purpose is to score points.

Every other play has whether it's you know one offensive defense ors or strengths weaknesses to it, or that play is to score points. And we didn't get that done. And it was strictly a matter of about poor technique. We've got to make sure we're sound with our technique and fundamentals in every play, and we didn't get it done there and we paid the consequence. Yep, you gotta go ahead and make those blocks. We're gonna kick those field goals and be successful on those particular plays. So

good stuff there from the Dolphins coaches. Very educational and always will take advantage of the opportunity to talk to those guys trying to learn more football and relay it to you guys here on the Drive Time Podcast. Let's go ahead and get out of here on this Wednesday edition of the Drive Time Podcast. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, tuned in. We're eevery to get your podcast from Go ahead and leave us a rating, leave us a review.

It's all I ask of you on this free podcast to help us grow up those charts and get more exposure to more Dolphins fans out there. Follow me on Twitter at Wingfield NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the Fish Tank podcast. Jay Williams episode is out right now. You can check out the media availabilities on YouTube, the Mimi Dolphins channel and of course Miami Dolphins dot Com, my written content and all the other

content on a football team until next time. Fins up, Caroline, He's coming out, and guys, I want to pick it right back up. Or We left off the end of that last segment there because we were starting to get cranking there and we had to go to the break. But I want to go back into two as press conference here because there was so much meat on the bone that we didn't quite cover yet. Jews talked about the Big Boy League and the idea of all these

trade rumors. I mean, here we are, Seth, you talked about a game thirteen, and he's at the press conference post game after a gut gut wrenching loss and a great performance, and he's talking about outside noise and juice.

I don't want to, you know, go into the rumors or anything like that, but I want to ask you about, as a player in the Big Boy League, mentality distractions, like where do they actually come into play, where do they actually start to impact a team or a player, Just from your perspective, can you give us some insight on that? Well, you know, think about it. Man, it's it's I played in a different world when it comes to the outside distractions, you know, when it comes to

social media and Twitter and all that stuff. You know, it wasn't as prevalent when when I was playing in big you know, that's a big word like, man, that's prevalent um. It's it's tough. It really is tough. But these guys have to have but you know, thick skin, because think about it, to a play at the highest

level football. I can't imagine the pressure he had playing, you know, at Bama, playing for Nick Saban and all the big games he had to play in, and all the different situations of guys coming in the Jalen hurts being there at one point, you know, and then taking this place. It's all kinds of opper all kinds of times when there's a lot of outside noise and a lot of outside pressure. And so when you get to this level, it doesn't change. It's just it's just ramped

up a little bit. But they've been in those situations before. He didn't go to some small college you know that's in you know, central Ohio somewhere, you know, So I get it, and I think what what most players should do when they hear the outside noise and it's about them, is ramp up their preparation. Ramp up there, you know, their their week of getting ready for a game, and then ramp up their game play. And I think that

too has done that. The two picks, yeah, they're terrible pick last week whatever or whatever happened last week, you know, not good stuff. But at the same time, though, we I see I'm seeing an impressive tool myself. I've seen some really good things. But when you make big mistakes, all the other stuff you did does not mad. It really doesn't matter, man, So be a big boy. You know I'm reading stuff right now. Quarterback is not our problem right now. I'm gonna tell you that right now.

Repeat myself. Quarterback is not the Dolphins problem right now. Up front. We're having some trouble defense having told making some stops, and wide receivers are not being on the field or not making plays in the good opportunity. Quarterbacks not our issue right now. So it is today and set this question post to you as well. We gonna want you because to both way and is today what you saw last week, what you've seen over the culmination

of his thirteen starts and where he's grown. And I mean, I really think the last couple of games we've seen a better version of what to it was last season, even coming off that hip injury. Is what you're seeing and the growth and the trajectory and that you know, you talk about big, big boy football, that fourth quarter is about as big it gets. Is that enough for you to say, all right, let's build around this guy

and make it better. Because there have been breakdowns on the offensive line, there's been drop passes on the receiving core, the lowest rushing toll in the league. Is this the guy that you look at and say, with what he's doing right now, if I put better pieces around him and really give him a chance, we can go in a bunch of football games. You're asking me, or you're asking anybody that wants to jump in. I mean, that's like,

that's what that is, the magic question. And I feel like that's what they attempted to do coming into this season. But if guys are not on the field, or guys are under performing or regressing, then it's hard to truly know what you have. I couldn't agree more. And that's that's where will Fuller having four catches for twenty six yards comes big into play ten million dollar receiver in the off season, and this was a free agent cropt we looked at, you know, Kenny Golladay's name was in

the mix, that Curtis Samuel was a possible option. You wind up with Will Fuller, who when he's healthy, when he's played in his career, has been one of the best big play receivers and just pure best one on one match winners in the league. He's not been out there. So I just wondered, Juice, like, because what is the rest of this? He's gonna be about it one and six. I mean, you're still alive technically, but you know, it's tough for fans to get behind the idea of a

playoff push. I just want to know what should you be looking at because right now, with a quarterback playing the way he did today and last week, minus you know, the mistakes and everything, I guess you can't say that

I know, so it has to be factored into the equation. Definitely, You're right, it does, but it just is that is that something that kind of gives you like, Okay, this is what I want to see the rest of the way is because if at the end of the day, if all this season gives you is the answer a quarterback, it's not the worst thing in the world. Right, Yeah, Well,

I think is doing he's making a young quarterback. He's making young a quarterback at that's his age, that hasn't played a full season yet technically in terms of you know, the number of games he started. Is making those type of mistakes, he's making them late, um, like even last week in Jacksonville. You know, big mistake that he made. But at the same time, you know, I feel and to answer the question that you'd ask Seth, I think we do have something we can build from here. We

we do have something we can build on here. And you do have to always, always, always, if you get you a quarterback, you black, you gotta start surrounding with players and guys that can make him better. You know, he's gonna make some guys better. And you see some quarterbacks that made guys better. But you have to put the pieces around him that, you know, to take advantage of his skill set. And I think we're starting to do that. But absent anybody that can get down the

field for him, everything the field is condensed. It's almost like we're playing in the in the red zone all the time, you know, the way defensive players because they're not worried about the deep threat because we don't have anybody there. But two is better served. And we've talked about it before on the short passes here and there, Deacon Dunc. That has happened. And then maybe hopefully take a shot, but who we have to take a shot with? Well wat right in theory, they and you think that,

but we don't. We don't see it in the play and it's but so that's what's gonna ask is that scheme is that skill set of the guys that are out there, is that the Travis saw him in training camp was wild getting deep training camp, there wasn't much of it. It was it was more jachem even I say Ford was going deep and Robert Wilson was. It was more intermediate. And I thought my thought was they're

just not showing this year. They're gonna build that into the rookies repertoire, right, but it has been the case so far. And you also need time, don't you, juice, You need a little extra time to get down field like that. We saw that Ryan's long touchdown past he had all data survey that thing. Yeah, you do, and a lot of times you go some type of max protection, but we're so worried about, you know, for one, protecting too.

Of two, we haven't been to protect anybody. So three you have to keep it kind of short and sweet oft times. And I think that's why you know, you don't have to. We don't have time for any double moves whatever. All even our takeoffs, even the one that Kasiki was pretty quick, it wasn't even like getting time to run down the field. So you're right about that. We're our m O though, and it's probably gonna be this way for a while until we get some guys

up there that can protect. It's gonna be quick game when it comes to passing, you know, or play action or some way of tricking somebody into thinking that is something else. We're not gonna just drop back five seventh step drop or from you know, from shotgun and two or three more steps back and launch its. Yeah. Let me also say this though, four or thirteen yards total yards of net offense right, four thirteen total yards and

he scored twenty eight points. So at some point you gotta stop somebody too, right, I mean this particularly that team that is that that the defense was supposed to be their bread and butter, and you can't give up thirty points a game and expect to win. Bunch how many yards? Right, fourth thirteen total net yards? So last week was four thirty one, and that was the fifth most over the last five years, and they almost match

that again. I would love to know when the last time this team had back to back four Somebody get Brad on the phone. So that's that's something to think about and juiced kind of to your point that you talked about like building around this guy, I think you have to recognize what he is. You have to appreciate him for what he is, right, you talk about the big moments in the fourth quarter, the quick release, the accuracy, the things that he does well. He showed you can

go off script and run the football today. I thought he showed that to you his entire career. But I think you have to recognize that in the current NFL landscape, there are going to be quarterbacks like a Josh Allen, like a Patrick Mahomes who can whip that thing regardless of how they're standing or where their feet are and what kind of platform they throw from, and they can make impressive highlight throws that wind up on ESPN, on social media and gets everybody excited, right, But those plays

are like three or four plays a game tops. The real quarterbacks that win in this sleep, like a Drew Brees or Matt Ryan for a long time, are guys that can sit back there and recognize the defense, tell you the priest the post nap rotation based upon the priest nap read and make it go. And I think two was very good in that area. So maybe you have to build around him just to smidge more than those physically slightly more talented quarterbacks. But every quarterback in

this league has to be supported. Look at Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl last year. He had his offensive line was wiped out and he couldn't do a dang thing just right, right. I mean, it's all about that. I mean it's obviously a cliche, but it's the ultimate team sport, you know. So if you've got a guy that does some things well, you have to surround it with guys that accent what he does and you know, and and protect him as well. And I think toa

is coming along. He really is man, and you know, unfortunately he's gonna be compared to some other guys and the numbers. It's always the way it is. Like we saw some people comparing Wattles numbers to Jamar Chase and Pits numbers. You know, it's it's unfair comparison. It really is. It really is. And it depends on you know the systems you're in and you know your quarterback and things like that. But for the most part, too is too, Too is, And I think he's going to get better.

And if he continues to all right, we talked about the intersepts. If you continue to be as consistent with his throwing and accurate with his throwing and getting the ball to the guys like he's supposed to, it's going to turn into success to turnovers and what killed us. Yeah, and maybe we, you know, if we can start to protect him a little bit better where he's not under the rest and you can sit back there in a clean pocket and make those throws, maybe you see less

of those mistakes. And I'll tell you what. As I'm sitting here looking at the final team book, guys, I have my little pity party early on, and we focused a lot on that second quarter in Galilee. That second quarter I'm gonna's gonna haunt me for a long time. And the turnovers. But the reality is, like I said, four thirteen yards of offense, two throws for four touchdowns, almost three hundred yards. He has over a one quarterback rating even with the two the two turnovers. You can't

give up thirty points. You can't do it. So so I mean, what more can you get? A hundred thirty two yards rushing? Right? We the running offense got killed last week because whatever they had thirty something yards and I und thirty two yards rushing almost pre hire yards passing. Maybe it stop somebody when you need to stop him. I'm totally changing my tomb. Let's throw that. You know what I want to do. Can we throw the whole first hour out? Because the more I'm looking at you

did it, but it was a good hour. But the reality is, if you're a young quarterback, can overcome those mistakes, can overcome all that nonsense all week and still stand tall in there and drive you down the field to score twice in the fourth quarter. If you're getting what you need there, like I said, is not the problem right now? Yes, I think he's the problem. And right you guys talk about you know, I'm standing up like that.

You talked about need to score points. Next week is gonna be a huge test because in a place where we don't win games very often. It's in a place where we get blown out a lot and a lot of difficult buffalo bills on the horizon. I got one more point. Wherefore we go to break and juice. You mentioned this earlier about two of being used to this

moment in the spotlight and the big stage. I I can weigh in on this because I once interviewed a former g A at Bama who was there with two and Nick Saban leading up the draft, and he said, going into that season, after two, I came off the bench and rescued the national championship game, it was a competition quarterback competition with he and Jalen Hurts, right, and Nick Saban the famous I'm not gonna tell you so

quit asking during that time. He said every practice, every rep, every meeting, everybody out there new too was the better quarterback. But because of Jalen Hurts his history with the Bama program, that they were going to give him every chance they had, and to a just answered every every call, every you know bell that he needed to answer. He was there

and up for it. So I'm glad you might. I'm glad you mentioned that, and I felt like it gives some insight to that as well as far as how he kind of approaches and deals with some of the adversity and just things that come with a football game. So we'll talk more about that on the other side of the of the show here