Two on the move Darling deep speedways, Peace do hell.
From the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
He's got my add hands in the playoffs. What is up, Dolphans And welcome to the Drive Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield. And on today's show, it is RAMS Preview Day, a big Monday night football showdown, and we desperately need a win. Let's go ahead and get into the matchup because I have a lot for you guys. I'm excited about this football team for the first time in about a month and a half. Let's go ahead
and jump right in. From the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex, this is the Drive Time Podcast. Hey Daffy, we didn't make the Week ten picks just yet, but also your boys still rolling on the picks this year. I went believe it was eleven and four, pulling it up right now eleven and four in week nine. That brings us to one oh two and thirty six on
the season. And we'll have the rest of the picks for you guys on tomorrow's episode, which also features an extended interview with the Great Kyle Krabs, which is also available for you tonight on Dolphins HQ. At least part of that, we talked about a lot of stuff about this Dolphins team and kind of followed on the theme this week that I've had with talking about the rest of this season, but also what's next down the line
for the Dolphins in the near future. So for the picks tonight, we finally get a good Thursday night football game again, which is awesome, and I'm taking the Ravens over the Bengals. I just think this is the Ravens year. I think they play their stinkers against lesser teams and get losses that way. I think they will show up in a big way and destroy a very bad Bengals defense with Lamar and Joe Burrows.
That's the pick for Thursday Night.
And you kind of want the Ravens to win if you still believe the Dolphins can go on a run, because we need teams like the Bengals, the Steelers, the Chargers, the Jets, the Broncos. At the Broncos stink, Bet Colts. Colts kind of stink too. You need those teams to lose games, so you can get yourself back to the end of the race at ten and seven, and you probably won't have our many tiebreakers because we lost a lot of games against the AFC over the first half of the season.
So there you go.
Let's go ahead and talk Dolphins and Rams. It's an eight to fifteen kickoff. That means it's Monday night football from SOFI Stadium in Los Angeles. Can the Dolphins get over their primetime woes, their primetime hump, which is another I guess hurdle for this team to overcome amid many hurdles they have to overcome down the stretch.
So the Rams intro.
We last played these dudes when they had the quarterback from the NFC's current number one seed, and we got after Jared Goff that day. That's where we'll pick up the changes to the Rams, because yes, they they do have the same head coach dating back to twenty seventeen, but they hit the current iteration of their team around that twenty twenty one season, Matthew Stafford's first year. There
also the year they hoisted a Lombardi Trophy. And shoot, the Rams are actually a great example of the segment I did to close Yesterday's show in twenty seventeen eleven and five in a wildcard playoff loss, twenty eighteen, thirteen and three, Super Bowl loss twenty nineteen, nine and seven, and missed the playoffs altogether, then a ten and six divisional round loss, a twelve and five Super Bowl championship after changing quarterbacks, a five and twelve year after that
when the quarterback misses most of the season, and then last year kind of a similar start to that they had to this year, but they got back, got back on things and went won ten games and including or lost in the wildcard round, I should say. And then this year they had serious injuries across the offense, like multiple offensive linemen at the same position going down, their top two receivers going down. They get the playmakers back the offensive line, We'll see what it looks like comes
Monday night. But getting those guys back, they won three straight games and are now four and four, and it's been a pivot in terms of their approach to team building. For the Rams, they were the original F them picks team, right, I mean, I think Less Sneed has a mug on his desk somewhere that says F THEMN picks they didn't pick in the first round from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty three, via trades to go up to get Jared Goff in twenty sixteen, a trade for Brandon Cooks in
twenty eighteen, traded out in twenty nineteen. They traded a first round pick for Jayalen Ramsey in twenty twenty, and I believe twenty one as well, and then twenty two and twenty three they gave up those picks for Matthew Stafford and now their twenty twenty four first rounder is probably the front runner at the midway point for defensive Rookie of the Year. And that's part of their pivot, the part of the pivot for their build, and it's
not that far from us. They have established franchise cornerstones at key parts like quarterback, two ride receivers, and really three because two to Atwells a baller, they get a great fit for the run scheme in Kyron Williams, and
they prioritize tackle play over interior play. But the real difference is they pivoted the last couple of years, which is an uncommon trait for Shanahan Tree offense is sinking resources into the guard position in a second round draft pick in Steve Avila and a massive free agent contract to Jonah Jackson. Both of those guys have been down most of the season and just had their practice windows opened up. For what it's worth, we'll see if they
play Monday night. Sean mcvace, how they have a chance to play in the game against Miami. The defense was, in all honesty, kind of a brilliant plan where it sort of was a soft rebuild on that side of the football, and they just loaded up that side with forty No, it wasn't forty rookies on defense, that was a total number.
They had twenty six.
Udfas last year and fourteen draft picks and a healthy chunk of that was on the defensive side. And through that they uncover Kobe Turner, they get Puka Nakua, and they also have developed some solid role players from that
group as well. And that's the beauty of continuity with their scheme is it's easier to identify what you need and how to develop that a post to the perpetual cycle of resets that we've seen so many NFL teams enact over the last several years, and the Dolphins are the forefront of that, right when you have systems in place and continuity in place. And I know they replace their defensive coordinator with Chrishula taking over for ahe Morris,
who've got a head coaching job this offseason. I get that, but it was a similar scheme as we'll talk about here as we go forward, and Morris was a continuation of the stay scheme previous to that.
So I think there's something to that.
I hope that Anthony Weaver's here for a long time and they develop someone under his wing to continue that, because I think that you can be the best version of your program when you have that continuity in terms of the way you see things. Because that continuity between general manager and head coach and assistant coaches, it all jives, it all works together. It's the Patty's Bucks, right. The money keeps going in circles, It keeps the economy going.
Just don't take your financial advice from Dennis Reynolds and Ronald McDonald. So that's how they got here. They go four and four, they're a half game back in the NFC West. They're fresh off and emotional victory in overtime on the road against their biggest division rivals, which if you are watching the team you're playing the following week,
that is the exact result you want. It's typically tough to come back from a game like that and get back up for a game against a team across the conference that doesn't really impact your standings as much as a game in your division does. And it's opposite of us because we just lost that exact same game on the road against a tough division rival, in a game that kind of could have kept our season really alive at this point.
But we'll see what happens.
Even with that trend, it doesn't matter much without the x's and o's. So let's go ahead and dive into that Rams offense. From a schematic standpoint, you have one of the best play sequencers in the NFL calling plays for one of the one of the game's top players at the position, especially in terms of anticipation, the way he sees the field and playing ahead of schedule on the defense.
It's still a.
Lot of the same principles that made him kind of the first boy genius of the way of many boy geniuses as coaches. Right Sean McVeigh, the sub forty head coach with a fresh look at how to move the football. He was eleven personnel exclusive coming into the league, but that came as a result of drafting Cooper Cup because the great Jordan rod Reeg from The Athletic had talked
about this. I believe on the Heat the Call podcast if I'm not mistaken, they drafted Gerald Everett twenty five picks ahead of Cooper Cup after drafting Tyler Higbee in the fourth round the year prior, and the plan was to be a twelve heavy based offense and the only way to get their sensational rookie receiver on the field was to run more eleven personnel, so they adapted accordingly,
and I think this defines their entire offense. They've dressed up their core concepts to adjust to the personnel that they have, and at this stage, the freedom of having high draft picks again and a clear defined picture of what they want on offense, McVeigh doesn't have to do much adjusting, but rather round out the offense with the pieces that he wants for it. And that's why I want to find one of these great coaches. And I think that aside from a five game run, or whatever
it was to open the year. I think that's where McDaniel was and is and can be hopefully. I think that we're on the right track to getting back to that, and that's what I want. I want to have a guy here for twenty years that can, you know, whether the storms and continue to build his program. They run eleven personnel this year eighty two percent of the time, and again that's Coop Cooper cup Nikua and two to two at will. That's what they should be playing because
those really good players. They run twelve personnel seventeen percent of the time and then thirteen personnel zero point six percent of the time, and that's like the breadth of their entire offensive operation.
But the way they.
Operate damn near everything from condensed formations. I'll never forget asking Brian Flores about a team that runs most of their formations all into the numbers, and he was.
Like, didn't want to give me an answer to that.
Nobody has a tighter pre snap split in terms of those ones to either side being in close on the inside part of the numbers on the field than the LA Rams. But when they've had their biggest pivot or where they've had their biggest pivot I should say from other Shanahan style offenses is they run a lot of gap scheme. In fact, they've tilted in favor of gap, albeit a small favor ninety six gap scheme to ninety
zone runs. And comparatively, the other teams in that tree, the Dolphins, it's one ten zone to eighty two man. The Niners is crazy tilted one forty five zone to fifty one man scheme runs, the Packers one thirty nine
to one oh five in favor of zone. In fact, all these teams are in favor of zone one oh seven to seventy two for the Vikings and then eighty nine to eighty two for the Bengals, which is funny, that's that close because he is a Shannon, or rather a McVeigh offshoot from the Rams tree, not so much the the Shanahan tree from the Washington days. Right, it's all cyclical. The money keeps moving in circles, in circles, Patty's Bucks. Get these shafty tens out of my street
in front of Patty's Pub. In fact, and this is a bit of conjecture, but I think it would be more heavily tilted for the Rams if they were just healthier. Like I said earlier, they invested high resources into Steve Avila, who I freaking love his game from TCU. Jonah Jackson thought he was a big overpay and Kevin Dottson Inside a player they traded for last year and gave a contract extension too because he played well enough to get that.
And those guys, if you can bind for thirteen miss games this year, and the backups at those positions have also missed games. So you see him like practice squad guys, street free agents player for this Frams offensive line, and of course we draw them when we are at our
most banged up. If we could have gotten some of these teams at different at various points of the season, and if we had you know, lost tu for a more difficult stretch run of the season, like if we lost two of for like Cardinals, Bills, Rams and Raiders and went one on three in that stretch and then wiped the floor with the Seahawks, Titans and Colts. Sometimes it just comes down to luck and when you have guys available versus when you don't, who you play and
when you play them. So that's my frustration they're gonna get Joe Noteboom back at right tackle. I imagine he slots into that position because Rob Havenstein will miss the game according to Sean McVay. So if they don't get a Villa and Jackson back, you could be talking about a line that is still down four of the original five opening day starters or at least two of them.
And either way, they're going to have to kind of build continuity in the fly because they're going to be a new offensive line combination almost no matter what happens throughout the course of practice this week.
How do you attack it?
The best way to shut this run game down is to put relentless pressure on the edge. In every single sense of the way attack. They're nasty splits. And it's not oh again, you got a big old nasty so and so from eastbound and down. I'm talking about nasty splits, meaning your alignment is tight to the tight end, like a receiver who lines up one gap off the tight end.
That's a nasty split.
When you bunch in tight to the formation, that is what is termed a nasty split. I know it sounds weird. Sometimes football terms are weird, but that's what it's called and then condensed formations. You have to attack it with physicality. Basically, you need to play on their side of the line of scrimmage and don't allow them to get up field and your outside shoulder and hook you back inside and win the edge. And you have to pressure the bootlegs
in the misdirection game with that same upfield pressure. So you need to basically create a wall on the outside of the tackle box that the defensive that the defensive end can kind of play up and down and turn things back inside into your linebackers into a beef of your defensive line. Think about how Ogbah pursued that Josh Allen quarterback sweep last week where he attacked upfield with width and strung that thing out and got the tackle on it. Wish we could have done that to Kyler
Murray and won that football game, But I digress. You'll have that on Stafford too, And the best part is you can actually get Stafford to the ground sometimes opposed to Alan and Murray, who are just two of the hardest quarterbacks to sack in this league, and for completely different reasons, like it's hilarious, how it's you know, Murray kind of has that like where he runs away from you and Josh Allen's just like big strong boy can't
bring me down. And so spoiler, one of our keys will be generate pressure with four and that that doesn't
mean never blitzing as we've seen. But you know, Weaver does a good job with sim pressures and bringing just four, but doing it from those sim pressure looks where I can have six in the rush count and I can back two off of one side and force a left tackle to have no work and overload one side with pressure and replace that with my zones on the back end and coverage, and you have the same coverage principles and hopefully a similar confused protection scheme despite sending two less rushers.
That's the idea.
I think the Seahawks kind of gave you a blueprint, which is fitting, isn't it, because they got Mike McDonald there and then us in consecutive weeks. It's two pillars of the former Ravens defense the last couple of years, which was the best defense in the league at shutting down these Shanahan based offenses.
And you know, one of the.
Best traits of those defenses is the ability to run different fronts, And I'm reading the Seahawks postgame dispatch from some of my favorite Seahawks writers about how they were able to limit the rams to thirteen points offensively in regulation, and it was a major adjustment to more bear tight and double eagle fronts, and without getting two in depth on that, it essentially gets five men down on the
line of scrimmage in various ways. A bear front will have a two to a zero and a two technique that is going to be head up over the guard, center and guard.
It's a very I mean, we have a tight front, but it's called bear. It's very tight.
You really pack in those those gaps inside, and then the edges are walked down off the edge of the line of scrimmage where tight goes zero technique, double two eye technique even tighter, and then double four eye techniques, which is inside the shoulder of the tackle. So you're playing basically five guys to four gaps on the interior run game. And then double eagle just moves those edges back outside the tackle to get you into the sea gaps on either side. And that's the only real difference
between double eagle and bear. So either way it's putting your beef upfront on the offense on the defensive line.
And what does it do.
It allows you to get a hat in every gap against man's scheme and makes doubles and catching climbs tougher to sift through for their zone schemes. But it does open up some more of the edge and the running game. But I think that's the play because of their run scheme being more inside zone and duo based, which are
similar types of running. It looks similar on tape if you don't know what to look for, and they do have the ability to get their wide runs from those inside zone and duo looks, as well as run the toss runs where they toss it to the back and he winds that track and then winds it back inside to sell the outside location and take the track back inside.
Are you confused yet? I hope you are.
Let's keep it rolling on the other side here, picking up with the Big Three versus the Rams offense, and then we'll turn the page and talk about the Rams defense against Tua and the Dolphins offense. That's all next Drive Time podcast, your host, Travis Wingfield. Brought to you by I donation. We went pretty in depth there on the scheme and how to attack it. So these portions will be shorter, and the Big Three starts with playing
big upfront with emphasis on gap control. And I think this is the type of offense that you hire in Anthony Weaver four. And by that I'm I mean his ability to adjust with multiplicity upfront. I think we're gonna get Zach Seeler back this week, and I think you could make a case that his absence the last two weeks might have been worth the one and three point losses that you endured, but nothing we can do about that now.
And returning in this game.
I think gives you what you need to be able to control things enough upfront to get enough stops. And I guess I should just clarify I was told that he will play, so hopefully that is the case. It's tough to forecast this without knowing who will play against Seattle. It was Alaric Jackson, Justin de Dick d Ditch, Sorry, Bo Limmer, Kevin Dotson, and Rob Havenstein. Now Havenstein's gonna miss the game. According to McVeigh and Joe Noteboom jumps back in at right tackle, which is where he was
going to start the year. They have had Warren McLendon in that spot, but he's not. He's not really doing the job so to speak. On opening day it was note Boom at left tackle, a Villa jack Jonah Jackson, Dotson, McClendon, and Havnstein was out then too, so he's missed some time all year long.
Now.
Jackson has never played center at this level, so I think if he does return for the rookie Limmer, who has played well, I think it's fair to think there could be some growing pains to get things sorted out against your rush games, to get your protections against those four man sim pressures, and maybe even the center and quarterback exchange. Maybe somebody else can lose a damn quarterback center exchange besides us for once and do it against us.
So rather than trying to decide for the matchups I like the most, I think this is the key. You're going to likely have a new combination of offensive linemen. In fact, you definitely will because Noboom hasn't played right tackle this year, and we get we have veterans that execute rush games, stunts and slants and twists so well to the point that I think it's a great matchup for both Zach and kalais inside and then off the edge.
You know, I think we saw chops speed show up a few times, but it was his speed to power that gave Dion Dawkins the most problems. I don't think Alaric jackson Is can be bothered by that, though, because he has been really good in the running game, and he seems to have a pretty good understanding for how guys want to set him up in pass rush, and I just don't think CHOP's there yet to get a
guy like him exposed. It is a fun matchup. I think the keys here are playing a line that looks like some version of Seiler, Campbell, Ogba and Bowser with shoot.
I guess.
I guess Chop pass to factor in there somewhere, because who else is it going to be?
I mean, Quintin.
Bell, no, uh, Duke Riley like you, You're you're digging into that part of your edge edge depth here.
Yeah.
I think you want to go big, big pieces, and maybe you sacrifice some in the individual pass rush flexibility. But Seeler and Campbell can play off the those are all edge players, so I don't really know exactly what it looks like. But I think all those guys have
to play a lot in this game. I think you have to get knocked back and reset the line of scrimmage and force the back to bubble and change tracks, because if you put pressure on the perimeter of the pocket and the quarterback stays inside, you can get some pass rush that way, just by basically hemming him in and not letting him do all the you know, the shortstop, drop the arm, angle and the elbow and throw those balls off the side of his hip like a freaking
gun slinger. He is so impressive and so tough to stop. Number two in my Big three is attacking the point of attack against the eligibles off the edge. We can keep this brief because I touched down it already, but I think you have to play wide from this spot and trust the interior can win one on ones and hold the point of attack against doubles to free up
those linebackers to run and hit. But I really I look really strong here at Ogba and Bowser with important roles to kind of play into the tackle, reset them a step or two, keep that outside arm free, and just help funnel things back inside funnel to your help, Hopefully we tackle better this week at safety and everywhere
in general, but mostly at safety. I think if you play with a combination of Brooks and then longer Walker, I think it might be more Walker this week because he's more suited to do this B gap to B gap stuff where you occasionally mug them up and show pressure and drop guys into coverage. And either way Walker and d Long it's not one of their game, Jordan Brooks more so. But the ability to get to the sideline for a guy like Jordan Brooks as well as
play that interior gap pressure is a big deal. And if you can do that and win there and create some situations where you get them behind the it makes them have more true drop back passes, and that's where they really struggle. Like the pass block efficiency scores on true drop backs for them are all well below league average, So starters and backups let go after him.
That way.
If you get in third and Long, I think you
can win this game pretty handily. The issue here is the screen game and the quick outside game, whether that's to the running back of the receivers, and they'll get Puka on some carries and screens as well, not to mention two to at Well, And that's where I think that Brooks has just this really tough task to sort of sort through the false keys they throw at him, but also be able to maintain that presence inside while getting to the perimeter when they do bring Atwell or
Nakua around or they swing it to Williams in the passing game. I could see that putting more on Walker's plate too, given his ability in those B gap to B gap roles to play more of a downhill physical presence. My third thing is just to get pressure with four. You might have noticed we haven't really mentioned the passing game Stafford and those receivers or or cornerbacks, which kind of is the marquee matchup on this side of the ball.
But I still in the trenches because their whole scheme is built off that running game, just like it is here. And why they really turn things around last year was discovering Kyron Williams's ability to do multiple things. And they prefer, you know, upfront and in the run game to tee up the passing game. And that's why they went heavy in the offseason after some big time offensive line a free agency and Jonah Jackson with the Estepa Villa pick
two years ago. We'll see about Cater's availability, but I think regardless of it being him or Cam Smith, I think you still put Jalen Ramsey inside a lot, especially inside the numbers and in tight to those you know, nasty splits we talked about. They often don't even run
receivers wide of the numbers. But I just want Ramsey to be involved as both like the naked boot blitzer when they want to pull Stafford back against the flow of the play off that backside as much as we possibly can and extend that track backwards, because I don't think that he can win that track the way Anthony Richardson did, the way Kyler Murray did, the way Josh Allen often does, and just be a factor against the run well, because you have to have him go knock
out a Colby Parkinson or a Cooper Cup in the blocking game, and they love to use that rap block. They love, love, love it, Like think about Julian Hill coming across the formation in motion and picking off the outside linebacker.
The physicality. They run that stuff more than we do. They love it.
I think the receiver's ability to block is a big strength, and I think we can really help disrupt that. And then after all of that, there's the passing game to contend with. It probably comes down to you really need Ramsey and Fuller to just play a really good football game against really good receivers. But the best way you can help them is to cause those issues up front
with their lack of game experience. Together on the offensive line, game them to death with those different rush fronts, sim pressure them to death and force their protection to have guys blocking air. Make it so Joe Noteboom doesn't get communicated with his right guard and he's blocking nobody, and we have four on three on the other side of the offensive line, and for Stafford to throw into trail
tech and funnels. As I do think this is a game where you could play more man coverage to force Stafford to hold the ball longer and not pick apart your zone coverages. Stafford's mobility is one of his best trades, but he's not going to run for big games, so you can play for man coverage. He wants to create to throw, which makes plastering all so difficult as well. Tough task this week man I didn't even mention DeMarcus Robinson,
who caught the game winning touchdown on Sunday. Tyler Johnson made the big play when they were backed up in overtime on a ball that could have been picked off Colby Parkinson's a nice f piece for them, and old friend Hunter Long kind of plays the durham smythe role and plays it kind of similarly.
It's a really good offense.
Man. Let's go ahead and conclude with this. I don't like our chances on this side of the ball. I like the idea, the concept of going big and heavy upfront to try to create some situations where you can get stops based upon stopping their running game, and then hopefully they have miscues and protection or offensive penalties that get them behind the chains and force them two punt.
But I think the only way we hold them under twenty eight points is if they enact those self inflicted wounds to put themselves in subpar drop back situations that they just can't handle. But I think they'll score plenty. Can we do enough on offense? We'll talk about that next to Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. We've covered the Rams offense
against the Miami Dolphins defense. Let's go ahead and do an entire segment here on the Rams defense against two and the Dolphins offense. I didn't even get into the scheme and how to attack it here because I just think that the three big points are plenty enough to cover this here. And number one is to play connected on the offensive line, because I watched the Seahawks tape
and their O line has struggled all year long. Help cut our tape against them and you'll see that rush games just breaking things down for them on a consistent basis. But regardless, that is a staple for the Rams offense. They love to spread things out in pass rush situations and then operate their games and hope to break your seals in protection. That's why I think you have to play connected on the offensive line, and luckily for us, Aaron Brewer has. And this might be a little bit hyperbolic.
I'm sure there's been one out there somewhere, but I cannot recall a single time where he busted a game pick up on the film Slade is this year. He is so active, he's always finding work, and that continuity we've developed pays off in a game like this, I think we have the experience at the key spots to handle their best pass rushers in one on one situations. Jared Vers is awesome, but buddy, you get to Ron
Armstead this week. Young Blood Byron Young has length, but I don't think has the quickness to get Austin Jackson in the area where he has struggled, which is set over, set upfield, stab cross step, sorry, stab upfield, cross step over back inside and force him to redirect and he can kind of get back on his heels that way.
I like both of our tackles to be able to handle protection slide ISOs where they draw the edge one on one, and that will allow us to really clamp inside against a pretty good interior with Kobe Turner and with Braden Fisk the other rookie they're inside that played
with Jared Vers last year. But I think those guys are all playing one on two since you might get the ops against either Liam or Rob Jones here and there, but you're gonna wind up getting help from my favorite center of the entire AFC, as Brewer just tends to find himself a rack of ribs and put those rushers on their backside. I think we can play another clean pass protection game in the sense in that sense, which
typically leads to high offensive totals. They also love to kick Verse inside as a nosebacker to try to maximize confusion, and I'm curious if they'll do that in rundowns too, because that is the best way I take away Brewer's best Trait just cover him up with a zero technique
and try to remove his athletic ability. But that creates vulnerabilities off the edge, which we can exploit as well with really good outside zone runners in both Raheem Moster and Debon h Chan and quite frankly Jalen Wright as well. So watch for the runway shortening quickset by Tron Armstead.
It's his best move, and I think it thwarts what Jared Vers does best by rushing from that wide nine alignment where he can utilize space to get you leaning and then use the combination of his quickness, his power and his pass rush arsenal because he's so polished to get you off balance and use that against you. But to Ron Armstead so good at shortening that runway and forcing you to win in a foam booth against him, which he's tough to do that against. I just want
to mention one other player real quick. Michael Hoyt stood out on tape watching these guys. He plays with good pace and recognition to take away angles off the edge both in the run and pass game. I think it's important for the tight ends to be physical with him, and quite frankly, I hate that matchup of him on durham smyth Number two is to incorporate motions in similar
fashion for both the run in the pass game. We know this is a high volume motion offense, and I think you lean even heavier into that this week with how they want to play, They're going to use the blueprint of pass iterations of the Brandon Staley Raheem Morris to now Chris Shula defense, who does enough of the same principles for this defense to look similar to pass coordinators, and that means pressing up trying to disrupt timing on
the perimeter. But you can really mess with that with your motion game, especially if you can get your run
and pass looks off the same motion looks. I think you can invite their wide spacing inside and incorporate your athletic ability up front to a tack that second level and get you know the bang and bend back lanes where you stretch it out wide and then you bang it up off the sea gap or bend it back into the the you know, the opposite a gap and create that overflow and then go back against the grain on the inside run game, while also keeping their rushers thinking,
you know, thinking opposed to playing fast and upfield to generate a good deal of those immediate throws where they just can't get after the quarterback. I actually think you kind of have an opportunity for a converse game script from last week where we ran and through short game to open up the intermedia and deep passing game. I believe all of Tua's twenty plus yard throws came in
the second half of that game, if I'm not mistaken. I think you can soften them up with some of those hook throws, some of those digs and glances as they try to run sim pressures and cover the hooks with backers who were mugged up and already at a disadvantage to get their depth in those positions. I mentioned Michael Hoyt.
He does some of the same stuff that Ernest Jones did for them last year, where he would rush the edge but also play like an off ball linebacker position, and their nickel and their nickel packages to kind of look like Andrew Van Ginkle in some senses. But I think this is a game where you can push the shell back just with the presence of Reek and Waddle
and hit some of those longer developing crossing routes. Go look at Smith and Jigbun the Seahawks game doing that last week, and then if they adjust, get back to more of the perimeter attacking and processing through that lifted coverage the way Tua did against Buffalo. I do think this is where we see ten and seventeen get back into the box score in a big way.
And I'll tell you why here in one second.
And our third key is to execute in the red zone, just because I think this will be an offensive battle. If we can trade threes for sevens, well that's pretty self explanatory. We've been awesome on offense since Tua came back. But there are you know, three plays and sequences you can point to and say that's where they could have gotten more. The obvious one is the fumble last week, So red zone execution and ball security, but I don't
think we have to. I don't think we can have drives go into the plus side of the field with that points like that fumble, and I don't think we can penetrate the red zone and come up with less than seven like we've done a couple of times the last couple of weeks. And that's the next play here. The third and one stuff on Raheem Moster last week on that offset up back dive that was just don't like it. But the other run game stuff on third
down work. So just having a feel for what's working and go with it in those critical spots, as vague as that might sound. The other one being the end of the first half sequence against the Cardinals. I've covered it in you know, a million times here, the second down run to the third down fade. Just hated that whole sequence. So finding ways to turn those three point
situations into seven point situations. And you know, I know this incorporates the down weeks of offense, but our fifty percent red zone conversion rate right now is twenty seventh in the NFL, and that's the same conversion rate their defense Allows, which is good for tenth best in the NFL, and the guys you can go after on that back end. They just traded Trey White, who was playing a lot
for them, but you could tell it wasn't working. So Kobe Durant, Darius Williams or the starting corps and the perimeter. Akella Witherspoon plays inside. Then Quinton Lake and Cameron curl are both best suited to play down low, but they do bring a Cameron Kitchen sometime to play in the post. I just think they're young, inexperience and can kind of have some bust on that back end, and the Seahawks did some deep shots against that as a result of that.
Quite frankly, I don't think fairly highly of their back six at all, and that's why I focus so much on the guys up front, Tchroy Reider and Christian rose Boom or linebackers I think you can go after. I feel the same way about both safeties and kind of the cornerbacks for that matter as well, especially when you have Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle. I think Darius Williams is slowing down at this point of his career. I
think Kobe Durant doesn't move that well. In fact, both of them are below the forty percent tile threshold in the short shuttle, which spells lack of change of direction. They do have pretty good long speed, but I'll take Tyreek and Jalen against anybody's long speed. I just don't think they're gonna be able to handle switches and motion pre snap that Well. What's at stake? Well, are you
looking to enjoy Offhins football from now to Thanksgiving? Because you haven't got a chance to really enjoy it the last two months. Really, But if you win this game, you're gonna win three in a row and then you'll have a chance to get over five hundred on Turkey Day. Lose this one, you have to win the final eight games to have a shot, and that seems even more
unlikely than winning eight of nine, seems like. So yeah, you know, no big deal, just the entire season and again, off a tough loss, them off a huge overtime win. This is just a spot that you have to win in That's how it goes my range of outcomes. I think it'll be a close game either way. I'm a little bit worried about primetime because we always kind of shrink in those spots, but we'll see nothing to lose this week's maybe they go in a different direction.
I think it's close.
I think the skim, the skims, the schemes, and the team's coaches are similar enough to where it keeps it close through familiarity. I think it's gonna be tight late, and I think the last team with the football will win the game. I think it's gonna be thirty one twenty seven, with like three minutes left, Tua gets the football back and takes us down for the win. Thirty four thirty one. Keys to victory play connected on the offensive line. Do not let them win with the rush games.
That's how they beat you. Number two you have to get pressure on Stafford with your four man rushes. And number three you must reset the line of scrimmage and set the hardest edges so hard you've ever set in your entire life. That's it for my time tomorrow. Kyle Krabs joins us. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get.
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