Peloton are a global leader in connective fitness and wellness, encouraging anyone, anywhere to find their power. But they've got more than just bikes in their locker. There's the Peloton Tread, strength training, even yoga and meditation classes. And you can take your exercise with you wherever you go on the Peloton app.
But I do like the bike. I like the fact that I can take a class with an instructor and there's a leaderboard so you can track your progress with other members of the Peloton community. There are loads of programs that target specific areas like marathon training or even ones with scenic routes that you can cycle along to.
I like to mix it up a bit by going for a ride through New York. And it's a time for sticking with your resolutions, isn't it? I'm trying to use my Peloton to achieve my fitness goals. peloton find your push find your power visit onepeloton.co.uk today Peloton now has up to £450 off selected Peloton Bike Plus and Tread packages at onepeloton.co.uk. Offer ends 21st January 2025. Internet connection and Peloton all-access membership at £39 per month required. Terms apply. See onepeloton.co.uk.
Okay. Hello, I'm Ian McIntosh and I'm the host of the Daily Football Briefing. What is the Daily Football Briefing? It's a special 10-minute daily show designed to bring you up to speed with the most important stories from across the football world. Except on Monday mornings when it's...
15 minutes and we tried to cram in the results, standings and stories from the top 10 leagues on the planet. Or at least the top 10 leagues that I run on a football manager save. Follow this show today and you'll never miss another big story again, whether it's news that The Athletic has just broken David Arnstein.
What happened? News from outside the Premier League that other podcasts might ignore. That is a difficult one to explain, so let's go bit by bit. Or it's Champions League week and you just need someone to put it all into context. It's made for a very useful away point in a difficult game. Welcome to The Athletic Football Show.
I'm Robert Mays. Part one of our divisional round preview is here. Me and Derek Klassen broke down both of the Saturday games. The Texans in their traditional Saturday afternoon slot heading to Kansas City to take on the Chiefs. Washington going to...
Detroit, and what I hope is a high-scoring, entertaining affair. It is the best football weekend of the year, and to give it all the space it deserves, we broke down this preview into two parts. Let's dig into the Saturday games with Derek right now. Oh, Derek, we made it. We made it to the best football weekend of the year. I think pretty unequivocally.
Wildcard weekend is fun. There are more games. You obviously get the Monday game. It takes up a larger portion of your weekend, and that's great. A full weekend of playoff football is excellent. When we get to the final eight teams on divisional round weekend, that's really when things start to come together. I always look forward to this weekend in a way I look forward to pretty much no other football weekend of the year.
this is when you can start to feel like all right almost all of these teams you can see the path to them making it to the end whereas wild card weekend you're really having to squint at a lot of these guys um and i think this weekend is fun too because we've got some matchups that i think coming into the year we probably could have predicted like raven's bills totally makes sense but then you've got some other weird ones like washington
and ending up where we are. So I think it's like a really good mix of stuff that we could not have seen before this season and also matchups that I think we were all praying for as soon as we saw the schedule. So just so you guys know, this is going to be the Saturday games on this episode. And then we're going to do the Sunday games on a separate episode. So if you're listening to this out of order.
The other episode for the other two games should be available in your feed right now. So just a heads up depending on when you're doing this and how you're sequencing it. So let's start with the first game on Saturday. All these games presented to you by BetMGM. Texans at Chiefs. Chiefs are eight and a half point favorites in this game. As we head into this one, I think it's just important to remember.
just important to acknowledge that our memories can be a little bit short when it comes to this stuff. I think I'm tempted to look at this game and be like, oh, man, look at that Texans defense last week. They played so well, and could they have another outing like that? And you kind of get a little bit distracted by how exciting the Bills-Ravens matchup is. And I think it's easy to kind of forget about.
what this Chiefs team is because we didn't see them play last week. And then you look at the line and it's just like, oh yeah, the Chiefs could potentially win this by double digits. This is a Texans team that has struggled to play the way they want to for most of this season.
Yeah, and I would say that line feels pretty right to me. You know, almost into double digits feels pretty okay to me. And again, like you said, short memory, you would think it feels weird coming off of how well the Houston Texans played last week against the Chargers, but... Getting no bye week Greg Roman with like zero pass, like one pass catcher on the Los Angeles Chargers versus bye week Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes with like an even better offensive line, especially along the interior.
Yeah, man, this is probably, there's still the 5-10% chance the Houston Texans defense completely takes over, but I'm going to guess that it doesn't look quite as dominant as it did last week. I don't think we're going to get, you know, eight unblocked pressures or whatever it was from Will Anderson the way that... we did last week. Well, let's start with when the Chiefs have the ball because we just saw this matchup.
like a month ago. I mean, this was a week 16 game that everyone got to watch. It was one of those first Saturday games. And so we have a pretty good idea of what this chief's offense wants to do against the Houston Texans. So when you're looking at this side of the ball,
What is the first thing that you are focusing on? I think when you watch the good games that the Houston Texans defense has versus the ones where they look like they're spinning a little bit and they look like they're getting beat a little bit.
The ones where they're handling themselves well are the ones where they can get into pure past scenarios. You can unleash Will Anderson Jr. You can unleash Daniel Hunter. You can let your corners who are very good and on the other side of Derek Sinley, Kamari Lasseter has been playing really well. So like.
You can just let those guys go win. You can win purely on talent. When they struggle, it's teams that can really get after them in the ground game and keep them out of those pure pass situations. You think about what the Ravens were able to do.
And I don't think Kansas City's run game is obviously nearly as good or nearly as explosive as Baltimore's, but just those teams that can dictate things on the ground. And again, to me, it goes back to Andy Reid getting an extra week to prepare for this type of thing against the Houston Texans.
Defense in front that they can look like cats chasing lasers sometimes. And I think that Andy Reid is kind of the perfect offensive coordinator, offensive mind to go take advantage of that. If you look back at the last game. Kareem Hunt actually was pretty efficient on the ground down to down. Pacheco wasn't.
So in the end, it was kind of a mixed bag in terms of how efficiently they were able to run the ball. But we know this Chiefs team can. We know that at least they are efficient on the ground compared to some of the other offenses, like the Chargers specifically, that Houston's really able to take advantage of. Any other aspects of this front for the Texans against the offensive line for the Chiefs that you feel like you're going to be focusing on?
I mean, last week, I think we saw just how Joe all last week had his worst game of the season, which was it was a complete shock to me. And I think you saw like the. absolute limit the true upper end potential of having two true ace pass rushers and what have we said kind of about this Kansas City offense all season it's like okay the interior is really good they can run efficiently
When you get them into pure pass, these tackles kind of struggle, and they've really struggled to figure out what they want to do at left tackle. Juwan Taylor's been up and down at right tackle. So again, if there's any world where Houston's front can really do what they want to do, it has to be off the edge.
It doesn't sound like they have a firm answer of what's going to happen at left tackle. If you listen to Andy Reid talk about it this week, I think a lot of different options were on the table, whether that was Joe Tooney playing out there and Caliendo playing at left guard, whether that was DJ Humphries.
back into the lineup. He said he liked some of what he saw from Humphreys in week 18, but I still don't think we have an answer to that question, which going into a divisional round game, not knowing who your left tackle is going to be, that's something to pay attention to. But here's what I'll say. Even if left tackle has been kind of a black hole for the Chiefs throughout this entire season, no matter who's been playing out there, this coaching staff...
is so good and has been so good when they can focus on one guy they have to help or one edge player that they have to neutralize. In this game, you at least have to worry about two. So that's a different set of considerations. Having only one guy where you have to consistently be...
Having a tight end to that side and just influencing a little bit, chipping to that side. I think the intentionality with a lot of the game plans you've seen from the Chiefs in recent years, I have faith that even if personnel-wise that's a disadvantage for them, just by virtue of... the game plan they're trotting out they can try to marginalize what that matchup advantage looks like for the Texans I completely agree and honestly when you watch
Especially when you compare it to, again, last week against the Chargers. Sure, they won some one-on-ones, but also they got a million unblocked pressures. Again, with Andy Reid coming off of a bye week and what you just said with how well they understand how to chip and where they really need to give themselves help.
I don't think we're going to get quite as many of those. So I think it's going to have to be. All right, Will Anderson Jr., go beat Juwan Taylor 10 times this game. And that's on the table. But if you're only winning on one side. Patrick Mahomes is one of the five, six quarterbacks you trust to pretty consistently beat one guy in the pocket. And that's where this starts to get a little bit tricky for them.
I'm really curious. The thing I'm most interested in is what sort of change-ups we might see from the Texans' defense that make the picture a little bit blurrier for Mahomes in this game. They played 47% man coverage in that game. And I understand that at first glance.
You're not really afraid of the pass catchers. It's a solid group, but it's not a group where it's like, oh man, this guy is a problem in man coverage. Let's challenge these guys versus challenging Mahomes or Kelsey in zone. Okay, I get that. The problem is the Chiefs did such a... great job in that game.
of creating little tells about what they were going to be getting down to down, whether that was with formations, we're an empty, the running backs at number one, the linebackers out there. Okay. We think it's man or with shifts in motions before the play. All right. You're going with him in motion. I feel pretty good. that it's man coverage. On plays where Mahomes used motion, any kind of motion last game, he was 24 of 30 for 216 yards with a 54.5% drop back success rate. Like, that's like...
just Lamar levels from this season. That's how efficient they were. And they did a phenomenal job, especially against man of getting the ball out of his hands. He had a 2.35 second. time to throw against man coverage while being blitzed on 62% of those plays. So I get why you'd lean into that if you were the Texans, but I think the Chiefs showed such a good handle on how they wanted to attack those looks. What are your change-ups in this game? Are you going to be sending a guy in motion?
Are you going to be sending somebody with the guy in motion and then dropping back in playing zone? Are you going to try to catch him two, three, four times in ways you couldn't in the previous matchup? And is that going to be enough? I don't know, but I don't think they can come out and do the exact same thing.
They did the first time around and feel good about it. And we have to remember, too, the first time around, I get them wanting to play man, especially because it was one. That's just obviously what they.
They've been done for a lot of the season, especially on pure passing downs. But also it was Hollywood Brown's first game back in the lineup. So you didn't know exactly what you were going to get from him. You didn't know exactly how the Chiefs were going to want to use him. Now that we've seen a little bit more film, it might make more sense to change.
I think what we've seen in the past that can work against Chiefs teams is if you can... not have to blitz you can maybe mix in some of this drop eight stuff you can keep eyes on the quarterback as much as possible all of that is like good and well and it makes sense in theory that's the complete antithesis of what
D'Amico Ryans wants his defense to be. And I just I really struggle to imagine that being part of the game plan here other than like maybe one or two just completely bizarre change up plays. I think what you mentioned with them. maybe trying to send guys in motion and then having them fall off into zone coverage. This is something that we saw, you know, back in, I think it was week 12 when the Rams and Eagles played. And we'll talk about that game at some point.
The Eagles did that a lot to the Rams and every now and then it was catching them. Can you maybe do that to Mahomes? I still don't know. I still don't know if that's a good enough answer because I think the best way to utilize these players is these corners specifically is to just let them win.
But that might be their only changeup available. A couple more things I wanted to hit. You mentioned the corner specifically. I think one of the biggest questions for me and one of the differences, probably the biggest difference personnel-wise for this Texans secondary in this game compared to the first matchup. The first time around...
Jeff Okuda was healthy and he played on the outside and Kamari Lasseter actually played inside. While last week with Okuda back healthy, they kept Kamari Lasseter outside and put... Miles Bryant inside. I think that's the best version of this Texan secondary. And the Chiefs did do a good job of picking on Okuda a few different times in that game. So that's one key difference. Two stats that I'll give you before we get to the other side of the ball.
Mahomes this year, and this is a super, super, super small sample, but I wanted to throw it out there because I thought it was kind of crazy. Against zone blitzes on third down, they were 10 dropbacks this year for the Chiefs. He was sacked on five of those plays. Half of them. So if that's one of the change-ups, where you're playing a ton of man on third down, but maybe you send some pressure.
but it's a zone pressure. Can you get an unblocked pressure? Christian Harris had a sack in that last game. Can you get a couple of those splash plays in ways that they might not be expecting? And the last thing that I'll mention, because I think multiple times in the first game, the first couple of drives, especially backbreaking scrambles. And that's another thing you have to worry about when playing man against my homes. The Texans are 30th in the NFL.
in both EPA allowed and success rate against quarterback scrambles. So just one more thing to keep an eye on on that side of the ball when you're kind of taking it in. I think I really like the zone point, the zone blitzing point. We've seen D'Amico Ryans. I feel like he did that a little bit more in San Francisco. I think with the corners that he has here, he feels a little bit more comfortable just playing some of the man stuff. But I do think specifically in this matchup, that would be.
a good thing because you see in the playoffs not in every single playoff game but in a lot of playoff games it'll be this one little weird weakness that you're pointing out right like this where it's only been a handful of snaps over the course of the season but it gets magnified on the biggest stage against a really good defense
there's a chance that they could they could try to do that and then again that ties back into the scrambling point if you're playing zone you just have eyes on the quarterback whereas when everyone's in man coverage and you've got a five-man pressure there's nobody watching the quarterback he's he's gonna make one guy miss and he's gonna leave
If you look at the numbers, Mahomes is like success rate and stuff against main coverage on third down this year is preposterous. It's like 55%. And so I understand that approach because it's a strength of yours as a team and you feel like you could challenge the receivers, but.
Maybe a couple of tweaks heading into this one based on how the first matchup went. Let's get to the other side of the ball. The number one thing you're looking for when the Texans have the ball in this game. It sounds simple. Anyone can say this, but like somebody other than Nico Collins has to make a play.
on this pass catching court like somebody else has to do it we've seen what what is your faith what is your your confidence level in that happening like 10 it's not very high it's just i'm sorry especially without tank dell and i think specifically when we think about
the the rematch of this game I think that that's really important you know Tank Dell I think has been before he went out he was a little bit up and down this season they probably didn't get the production out of him that they were hoping
In that game specifically, he was really useful. They had hit him on like a deep over. Obviously, they hit him on that deep touchdown where he gets injured. He was a very obvious explosive piece for them, especially running away from man coverage that they could go to outside of Nico.
Collins they don't have anybody else on the roster who is that level explosive at any other skill position like not at tight end not at running back not at any of their other receiver spots so I think if their only option is how many times can we hit nico collins on a post or a glance or a dig if that's the entire offense i think they're going to really struggle so they need to find some other way to get explosive gains in this game
I feel the same way. And if you look back at the first game, it was those tank Dell explosives, and then it was Nico Collins winning one-on-one matchups on the outside. And the corner group for the Chiefs might be different in this game. Because last time around, it was Josh Williams on one side, Nazzy Johnson on the other, with Trent McDuffie in the slot. Jalen Watson's potentially back in this game.
He hasn't played. Do they feel comfortable putting him out there? If that's a one-on-one matchup for the Texans, is that something you could take advantage of? But those Nico Collins chunk plays, I think, become incredibly important. The Texans struggle to run the ball efficiently the first time around between these two teams.
I also think just structurally, who the Chiefs are is a problem for who the Texans want to be. C.J. Stroud this year, 34th among 39 quarterbacks in EPA per dropback on play action against split safety looks. What do the Chiefs do? That's how they live is in those split safety looks. And on the other side, the Chiefs were second in the league in success rate on play action throws to the middle of the field. Who the Chiefs are and how they're structured is specifically a problem.
for who this Texans team is and who they want to be. And that's before we even get to all the funky shit you can throw at them to test their pass protection that's been an issue all year. And the coverage stuff that you just brought up, we saw it in the last game. Like, this isn't theory against... Uh, cover two, cover four and cover six in the last game. CJ strived was 10 of 19 for 77 yards and two picks. And we all remember the one where.
the two safeties remember are like rotating between the snap and they're like crisscrossing and they love that they love doing stupid like that all the time spags that's like his favorite thing to do But even on that, I think the theory on that play is like, OK, the safeties, you're trying to make the quarterback's head spin about where they're going. The reason that interception actually happens is they're playing trail coverage underneath both of the two outside receivers.
Because the trail coverage is so good on Nico Collins on his like kind of deep post route, CJ Stroud has to put that ball up and over and he just throws it right to the safety. So it's not that he didn't know the safety was there. It's just that they are capping. that route and the coverage underneath was so good that it forces that type of throw so the fact that they were able to do that all game
And then CJ Stroud is actually kind of good against single high coverages in this game. I think we're going to see a lot of the two high stuff that Spags wants to do ultimately. And then, like you said, really, really works against this Houston offense.
you need some big high variance moments in this game. If you're the Texans offense, I think you need a couple of explosives, hopefully to Collins. That's your best route to getting them. And then CJ Stroud as a scrambler and as a play extender has become.
almost a necessary component of this offense when they're doing anything positive this year because they've been able to do so few things consistently on schedule. Even the Dalton Schultz touchdown the first game, that's him extending to his right and making a play outside of the pocket. So if we're not going to get...
two, three big explosive scrambles from CJ Stroud or a couple of big plays outside of the pocket where he's making something happen, whether it's him dropping the ball again or not. like he did last week against the Chargers. I don't know. However you get there, that's your business. But I do think we're going to have to see a couple of those if the Texans are going to keep pace.
I agree. And because the only time he really was scrambling in the last game was in like the two minute drill. And they started to get some yards there. And he actually did have a couple of decent carries.
He's going to have to do that a couple more times outside of the two-minute drill, like when the game is actually, you know, you're on a normal pace of the game to keep this one a little bit close. One just kind of schematic personnel thing that I think is worth pointing out. The last time these two teams played... The Texans used like 10 plays of 21 personnel. And that was the first time all year they had really done that. Last year, they used a ton of it.
But Andrew Beck wasn't even on the roster, and he's been on the practice squad for the most part. But against Kansas City specifically, he played a lot. And I'm wondering if that's because they think that's the best way to keep the Chiefs in base defense. which limits some of the crazy pressure stuff they're willing to do. The Chiefs play a base 75% of the time against 21 personnel this year. It's really the only...
automatic lever you can pull to make them play that way. So I wonder if that was something that was just kind of a one-off or if that's actually an element that the Texans think is a good route for them against this Chiefs team specifically.
From a coverage and blitz perspective, it might tone them down a little bit. I think what I find interesting is that... because you can put leo chanel on the line of scrimmage because at times you can put your tranquil on the line of scrimmage some of their base fronts can end up looking really weird just by virtue of how you can move some of these players around like even george carloftis can like bump into like a tighter
You can put Tranquil outside of him. So I think even if they get them into the base, into base defense, the Chiefs actually have a lot of good ways to just load the line of scrimmage and completely shut out the run game. And then you can do some like weird zone drops from there. I still have some degree of faith that the Chiefs will be fine there, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is something the Texans try to go back to. The supporting piece you are really looking for in this game is who?
To me, it's the Chiefs edge players, whether it's George Karloftis, Mike Dana, whoever it is. And for me, it's not so much in, you know, rushing the passer. To me, it is specifically on the ground game because this is a Houston Texans run game.
Fairly simple. They like to do a lot of their zone stuff. And so if you can collapse the edge and really make sure these plays aren't going anywhere, because one of the Houston's big runs that they got in this last game was they were able to pop one on the edge to the left side. Mixon was able to get it. So if they can just complete.
prevent that, really force them into a lot of pure pass. Can't imagine this Houston offense is going to have a very good day. I'm also tangentially thinking about an edge guy, and that's because I'm thinking about
whoever's going to get the one-on-ones in that Texans front, whether it's Hunter, whether it's Will Anderson against Jawan Taylor. So at Jawan Taylor having a big game, if he's going to be left on an island against one of those guys as they send extra help to the left side, if he gives up... five, six pressures in this game in the same way that Joe all did last week. I think that to me is the quickest path.
to the Texans keeping pace here. If he's really good and the left tackle is really the only area of concern for them, I think that's going to make things really difficult for Houston to kind of keep up in this game. Alright, before we move on to our next game, we're going to take a quick break. Hey, it's Lauren Dragon from Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from The New York Times, and I test headphones.
Sweat is actually conductive because of the saline content in it. So we basically make our own fake sweat and spray it over and over on these headphones to see what happens to them over time. This is 85 dB of airplane noise. We're going to put on some noise-canceling headphones and see how well they actually block out the sounds. Put them on the ground and kick them over there. Okay. Go. are they broken no i have 3136 entries in my database
kids work out running does it have a connector that's lightning or usbc what version of bluetooth is it does it have fxhd we have ones that track at wire cutter we do the work so you don't have to for independent product reviews and recommendations for the real world come visit us at nytimes.com slash wire cutter. We even have one that's solar powered.
Before getting to Washington Lions, I want to tell you guys about what's happening on Until Saturday, the Athletics College Football Podcast. They've got you covered for the College Football National Championship game between Notre Dame and Ohio State. David Ubbin, Chris Fanini, and Damian Harris bring you bold predictions, behind-the-scenes access, and exclusive interviews, including one with ESPN's Paul Feinbaum.
The guys will be in Atlanta all weekend and we'll have instant reaction podcasts on YouTube immediately following Monday's championship. Subscribe to Until Saturday on your favorite podcast platform or YouTube. All right, let's get to our next one here. Washington at the Lions on Saturday night. The Lions are eight and a half point favorites in this game. These are two teams that are at very different points along their timeline.
This game and this postseason specifically feels incredibly important for the Lions. You go back to that conversation Dan Campbell had after the NFC Championship game last year where he says, I... I want to think that we'll be back here, but it's really, really hard. You need breaks. You need luck. You need so many things to go your way. That hasn't necessarily been the story of this Lions season. They've been so injured that they've actually had to overcome a lot to get here.
But as you project this moving forward, there's a chance Ben Johnson's gone next year. There's a chance Aaron Glenn's gone next year. When you are good for a long time, you start running into challenges for... staying that good and i think the lions are in that part in that kind of era and in that stretch of their who they are as a franchise and so winning this game winning the games you should in route to trying to get that super bowl when you're in that
period is really, really important. And on the other side, This is a house money game for Washington. Like you always want to win playoff games. And I'm sure a lot of Washington's fans based on what they've seen from Jaden Daniels and what they've seen this entire year, believe they can win this game. And I think that's completely justifiable, but if they don't.
You still have to feel pretty darn good about what this Washington season has looked like. You cannot say that, I don't think, about the Lions. I think in terms of stakes. These are probably the two teams that are on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum, right? I mean, that's right. Like you have the Lions, who they've been building to this for four years. And each year they've taken one more step, right? And last year was the one, yeah, where you get to the championship.
game and you're like don't know if we can get back here and then this season I think they've been an incredible team and this is their chance to to get back to that spot give yourself a chance to go to the Super Bowl all that stuff there's so much and then like you said They're probably going to lose a lot of these guys. Whether they win or lose this game, probably both coordinators or at least one.
is going to end up out of the door, and you're probably not going to be the same team this year. I'm guessing both. I'm also guessing both. I would really like to see both get a head coaching job, as much as that would suck for Detroit, obviously. And then Washington, like you said, it's a house money game. If they lose this game, nobody feels any worse about how their season has gone. Where if Detroit loses this...
They have everything to lose by losing this game. So I think it's in terms of the stakes and like the pressure that both teams are playing with could not be any different. If the Lions lose this game, hug the Detroit Lions fan in your life because I don't think they're going to take that very well. Why I think that's important. And this is like the ultimate vibes conversation, but just stick with me for a second. Washington going into this game.
with nothing to lose and having a quarterback like Jaden Daniels. That to me is a kind of a scary recipe. You're playing free, you're playing loose, and you have a quarterback who could be one of those guys that's just immensely frustrating over the course of a day. And I feel like Washington's best path here is to win in a shootout.
even if I think it's remote compared to the other outcomes, I'm not taking that off the table. Like there is a version of this game that is really scary for the lions in part because of what the quarterback on the other side is capable of.
And the worst thing about this Lions defense, and we'll get into this a little bit more when we really get to get into both sides of the ball. The worst problem with this Lions defense is they will give up explosives. So if you have a free and loose Jaden Daniels and he gets...
Five or six of those plays, this is how you end up into a shootout. Let's get to that side of the ball because I think that's kind of where this conversation has to start. What is the number one thing you were looking for when Washington has the ball in this game?
So what the Lions want to do on defense is very simple. They want to play as much man coverage as possible, and they want to throw a lot of bodies at the problem. They are a team that likes to play a lot of man coverage with five or more rushers. They've done it more than any other team in the NFL. They had 118.
snaps of it over the course of the regular season which was again the most in the NFL I think only two other teams even hit 100 snaps of that when you look at Jaden Daniels against that split specifically man coverage with at least five rushers
This is where you can get some of his bad plays and some of his inconsistencies. He has the third highest sack rate at 15.3% in that split. The only two guys higher than him are Caleb Williams and Will Levis, who are both just notorious sack takers in those scenarios. Sounds about right. Exactly. It's the usual suspects. Yeah, yeah. The show wouldn't be complete without me catching a stray on the way to us finishing it. Right, a little Caleb Williams jab I had too. And then the other thing too.
He, Jaden Daniels, has about a 42% success rate in this split, which is not terrible, but it's a little bit below average, which is... He's typically above average in success rate in almost any other split that you look at and in general. And then I even took out red zone plays because obviously red zone stuff can get a little bit weird.
And his success rate drops even further to 38%, which is like the 10th worst in the league. So this to me is a really good, it's a tough matchup for what Washington wants to do and be on offense versus...
What the Lions have built this thing to do for the past three years. The Lions are about as far away from the Bucs defense as you could possibly be. That Bucs defense is one of the worst man coverage teams in the league. They don't want to play that way. The Lions want to play that way, and they're very, very good at it. And I think the number I looked at, Jane Daniels this year is 25th in the league, according to NextGenStats and EPA per drop bag against Mann, if you remove scrambles. If you...
prevent him from scrambling. This is just not a team that's really built to play against teams who are very capable in man coverage. They don't have a lot of really good receiving talent. And even some of the levers that they want to pull structurally, all the quads formation.
they use they've used more than any team in the league all the receiver screens they throw they throw a ton of them those are things that are more efficient against zone defenses and so i just think that this is a bad matchup structurally for the way we what we've seen Washington's offense be all year, the Lions just aren't the sort of team that's going to allow them to play the way that they want to throwing the ball. And you mentioned that Bucs defense that...
You know, they don't really have the corners to run in man coverage. It's not how they're built. Obviously, the pass rush doesn't really help them out. They actually did fairly well in man coverage in that game. It was zone where they were mostly getting shredded. When I went back and charted Jaden Daniels against the Bucs.
He was only accurate on four of 11 passes against man coverage against the Bucks, which is, again, this is not what they were built to do. Now you've got a Lions defense, which, again, they've built this thing to. play exactly man coverage with all these extra rushers for the past three, four years now. And I think they are operating on a level that is different than it's ever been. So I think it's a really tough matchup in that sense. It's interesting you bring up the...
How all of the levers Washington wants to pull are really good against zone specifically. I think that kind of is where you see the college influence from Cliff Kingsbury specifically. Like you get a lot more of that zone type coverage.
at the college game, especially what they were doing in the Big 12, which is where he spent a lot of his time. So it kind of makes sense that that is where they really operate. And that's where they're really well do really well. Whereas in the NFL, you typically see from the best defenses, they just want to go play. man and they trust that their players are better college secondaries usually don't have the guys for that so it definitely makes sense that this is where he's built the offense
When I was going back and watching old Washington games to get ready for this, the game I focused on was the Pittsburgh game. Because that was a team, they played 60% man coverage against Jaden Daniels in that game. Pittsburgh is comfortable living that way. And the other part of it that I was curious about...
Pittsburgh doesn't let teams scramble despite playing a lot of man coverage. So I wanted to see what the blueprint might look like for how you can play a lot of man against Jaden Daniels, but not let him scramble seven times for 80 yards, because I think that's one of the best pads to Washington winning. this game. And what happened was the Steelers do a great job, and this is why they allow so few of them, period. They crush the pocket.
Like there's such a synchronicity between all of their pass rushers and there's so much discipline for pass rush lanes that there isn't a lot of space. And if you look at this Lions pass rush specifically over the last like. Month, six weeks. Nate pointed this out this week a couple times. The Lions have the highest pressure rate in the league since week 11.
Which you wouldn't necessarily think. Yes. And you wouldn't necessarily think that because they don't really have any stars there. But those pressure numbers are player tracking related. And when you watch the Lions. They have all these guys who are like 270, 280. Levi Onzerike, Josh Pascal, these tweener players and their pocket crushers. So you see them just kind of like slowly constricting that space. And I think that those are pressures, even if you're not turning them into sack.
And against Jaden Daniels specifically, I actually think that style of an entire defensive line is probably the way you want to do this. The Steelers did a good job of pairing it with... hug rushes from one of the linebackers where either you have your man coverage on the back or you're
Just kind of just sitting there waiting to see what Daniels is going to do. You're not spying eight yards off the line of scrimmage. You're playing closer to the line of scrimmage, but you're ready for him to escape to his right because that's what he wants to do. So pairing that pocket crushing style with a linebacker.
It's either hug rushing or making sure he's responsible for the quarterback. I think that's probably the best blueprint in this game if you're the Lions. Yeah, you don't want to give him any escape.
any escape routes like zero like because again that is probably the the way that he's going to beat you and the other thing to me too is for as much as I've praised Jaden Daniels ability to throw over the middle of the field especially compared to what I thought he was going to be coming out of college I would much rather just pull my linebacker out of the middle of the field let him come in and hug rush
and really help out with not letting Jaden Daniels get out of the pocket, I would rather dare Daniels to beat me over the intermediate middle part of the field than let him run around and be a better athlete than every other guy I have on the field. So I think from that sense, it certainly makes a lot of sense.
Honestly, too, the other thing about him throwing in the middle of the field, part of why it's worked is I think he's better at anticipating zones and throwing into windows than I thought. He's really, really good at it. Yes. Against man coverage where you've got to just like beat the guy. One, Daniels has struggled a little bit there, but also other than McLaurin, they just don't have guys who beat man coverage that consistently. So even...
If Daniels is willing to make those throws, how open are a lot of them even going to be? So that's why I think this, again, everything the Lions want to do just makes perfect sense here. And I think that's what...
makes McLaurin such a huge part of this. Like, McLaurin has to have a big game, in my opinion, for the Lions to get, for Washington to get where they want to go. And if you look at something as simple as, like, the percentage of targets and the share in man versus zone, McLaurin's at, like... 26% of team targets against man and like 20 in zone where it's him and Ertz and Zaccheaus and they're all kind of squeezed together against man coverage.
Daniels knows that's where he needs to turn. That can be on slants, that can be on goal balls, like you mentioned. I feel like that's going to be their path forward, is Daniels scrambling a couple chunks to McLaurin, and then the last thing we have to mention here, can they run the ball efficiently?
Because if this team can get whatever they want on the ground, which I don't think is the easiest task against this Lions team, but that is one side of this that has to be mentioned. Because when they're rolling, that is a viable path for them in a way it might not be for some other teams. I honestly think because the Lions play so much bass and have all of these big bodies-
I actually do have a good amount of faith that they're going to be able to defend the run. But there is a world where if they can get enough of these moving pieces and force these 280 pounders to play in space or really run across the formation and stuff like that, maybe that's how you can get them.
Aaron Glenn really loves having as many big bodies on the field, and I don't really trust Washington's ability to move those players. So it's going to have to be a big Jaden Daniels day on the ground if they're going to win that way. All right, guys, before we move on, let's take a quick break. At Betfair, we're here for those who look at football differently.
Those who notice when the team of Galacticos, with a packed European and domestic schedule, might be about to underestimate the well-rested, well-drilled mid-table team. Build the bet you want with a completely free ACCA or betbuilder on Football this weekend. Betfair. Play different. The other side of the ball. Number one thing you are looking for in this game when the Lions have the ball.
So I'm going to recycle my talking point from last week with the Bucs, where I said the Bucs are kind of the Bud Light version of the Detroit Lions. I think now you're getting the real deal. And to me, the biggest issue with Washington's front is I think when you get four hands. on bodies especially with potentially deron pain not being fully healthy i know he had like a finger issue i think if they can get four hands on a lot of these bodies and really start to move them i think
Detroit is going to consistently get in the down in distances that unlock the entire playbook for Ben Johnson to do whatever he wants and for Jared Goff to feel as comfortable as he wants. And that's really going to allow them to attack what Washington wants to do.
in coverage, which is funny enough, a lot of five-man rushes with man coverage. You know who's really good at beating that is Eamon Ross St. Brown because Ben Johnson knows how to scheme him up. So I just kind of like on the other side of the ball, I just feel like this is such a perfect matchup for the way that... Detroit has built their offense.
Worth mentioning, Kevin Zeitler not practicing. So you remove him from the offensive line. This team has done a phenomenal job over the last couple years of being able to paper over a single offensive line injury. It's very hard to notice when they're missing one piece specifically. So they're more prone to get over something like that than a lot of other teams are, but it's at least worth mentioning. You talk about the man coverage part of this, and it's funny that Washington –
By the end, they just arrive back where Dan Quinn wants to be. And that's not even a criticism. This is who they want to be. Early in the year, I think they felt like they really had to hide the corners when Michael Davis was playing out there on the outside. They were playing a little bit more cover, too, than they did when he was in Dallas.
they figured out their secondary and they popped Mikey Sainer still out there, they've been able to play a little bit more man and I think kind of be the defense that he probably envisioned in a vacuum. Well, the problem is if you're playing 31% man coverage against the Lions, You're asking for a really long day. The Lions this year, according to NextGen, .64 EPA per dropback. I know that means nothing, but the reason that's crazy is it's about twice what Lamar Jackson does down to down.
And the gap between the Lions and the Eagles at number two is as big as the gap between the Eagles and the Bears, who are 23rd. You didn't even have to tell me they were at 23rd. As soon as you said the Bears, I was like, okay, this is a ridiculous gap between the two.
And it's one of the most ridiculous season-long performances against man coverage that I can remember since we started looking at some of these advanced numbers like five or six years ago. And now that I think about it with them, it makes perfect sense because they were already good at it when it was...
was just Amon Ross St. Brown and obviously Samuel Porter last year. Now that Jameson Williams has really come online and allowed them to be explosive down the field. Yes. And runaways. Yes, exactly. The fact that they have that now on top of already being good at this, it's scary, man. So, if you know that going in, if you're Dan Quinn and you're Joe Witt Jr., you know that playing man against this team is just a recipe for a potential disaster.
What does the curve ball look like? And we talked about this a lot. Blitzing the lions, you're asking for trouble because if you're going to leave, if you're going to take bodies out of. coverage and you're going to leave holes. They're very good at finding them and their protection plans are so good just consistently across the board.
Teams that have given them some issues are teams that can lean into some simulated pressures where you're not compromising your integrity on the back end, but you're creating some unpredictable situations up front. Maybe you can create a free rusher, things like that. shown a willingness to do that. They don't do it as much as other teams in the league, but...
Every once in a while, they lean into some of these simulated pressures and against the Lions, I do think it might be their best path forward. Can you drop somebody into a zone and get a tipped ball interception? Can you get a free rusher sack somewhere along? the way, you need to create two, three explosive plays for your defense because of how hard this Lions team is to deal with.
I think in theory, that probably is their best bet, because I think playing all the man coverage that they want to play is not going to work when you have a historically good offense against man coverage. And I also think reverting back to some of the cover two stuff, you're just not going to be able to have the bodies in the run game.
to be able to do what you want so you're just going to end up in second and twos all the time anyway and you're just not going to be able to play defense so to me in theory throwing some of these creepers and more of these simulators does make sense my problem with it is
When I think of what the Dan Quinn defense is supposed to be and when they've been good at any stop, whether it's their best versions in Atlanta, whether it's some of what he was doing in Dallas, whether it's some of what they've done this year. To me, that's just not who they are. And that's not to say that. They never have good plays when they're running some of these creepers and simulateds. And I know like Frankie Louvoo specifically has had some good moments doing this, but I just don't.
put him in the same category as like when Spags can do it or Lou Anna Rumo at his best or like Mike McDonald. It's just not their fastball. It's not their nature. Yeah. Yes. I mean, those guys, it's like they were born in the dark. Right. Dan Quinn merely adopted it. That is the perfect way to explain it. And I think against some other offenses, that might be enough against maybe the most like put together, well-schemed offense in the league. Maybe not good enough. And that's my issue.
The number one supporting piece you are keeping an eye on in this game is who? So to me, it's not any it's I mean, there are some guys you could pick for the Lions, but for me, it's Washington because they're obviously the underdog in this game. It's Austin Eckler versus. insert any Lions linebacker like these are just not very good coverage linebackers from the Lions whether
Some of that is because they haven't had their guys healthy. Yeah, it's better with Anzalone back, but it's still not the thing they do best. Right, it's still one of their weakest parts of the defense, because even in years past, this has been an issue for them, like not just this season. So I think them potentially getting Eckler on lock.
whether it's screens check downs every now and then they'll flex him out to receiver and like some of these empty looks just some way to maybe get him going a little bit the lions were dead last in success rate on throws to running backs this year. Some of that is injuries, but just worth mentioning because I think it's a point well taken. My guy here is Z'Darrius Smith, who I know is a bigger name, but I still think that...
How he fits into this game is worth mentioning. When you've seen Washington's struggle in pass protection this year, a lot of it has been... against the interior pieces. And you think about that Micah Parsons game when they slid him inside a lot. Washington has done such a good job this year of helping their tackles with chips and alignment, things like that. That's harder to do on the interior.
Detroit is more than willing to slide Smith inside and have him work against a guard. And I also could see them using some twists and stunts on the offense's left. I don't think you want to do a lot of twists on the other side because... You crash that defensive end inside. And guess what? Number five is going to be...
out of the gate for 20 yards that way. So I think Smith against some of these guards and with some of these twists and stunts potentially, I just think he can be an important movable piece for Detroit's pass rush and just their overall formula on defense.
I think especially on the left side, like you mentioned, is a great point because if it's on the right side, well, right guard Sam Cosme is their best player up front. So I don't know how much you really want to do all your fancy stuff over there. Why not do it over against Allegretti, who's like a replacement level player? And then Brandon Coleman, who's the kind of.
of a rookie who's still trying to figure stuff out so i think specifically using smith for that makes a ton of sense injury stuff worth mentioning bobby wagner not practicing which i think is important for the run defense and if they want to do some of those simulators and use him as a blitzer
Digging into your depth at linebacker against this Lions team is not a fun place to be. On the other side, it sounds like David Montgomery is going to play. And beyond the physicality there, I also think him in pass protection.
if you're going to try some funky stuff, is a potentially important piece for the Lions here. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Again, if that's going to be their curveball and that's their best option, and now you have a really good pass protecting back to keep you out of it, it's tough. All right.
That's all we got for this one. If you guys want to go check out the Sunday games, that is in a separate episode that should be available in your feeds very shortly. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We will be here on Sunday nights recapping all. four of these games until then talk to you guys soon