Did Diggs and/or other WRs run wrong routes Sunday?? Ninko joins! Fans see what they see, but they aren't on the field. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye- Media combine anyone?? #NFL #Patriots
00:00Robert, let me preface this discussion by saying that Wiggy has had the last couple days a real issue with the radio hot take artists or the sub-stack insiders who suggest that Steph Diggs is running the wrong routes, that Mike Rabel doesn't like Josh McDaniels.
00:25I don't know where you stand on that, on either of those topics.
00:30Listen, everyone's entitled to having an opinion on what they're watching.
00:34Fans, fans, right?
00:36Every fan can have an opinion.
00:37Oh, I don't like that or I don't like this.
00:39But at the end of the day, you have no idea.
00:41You have no idea if they're the correct routes, if the way he's running them is right.
00:46I mean, it's almost like we should do a media combine.
00:50So let's get all the media members.
00:52Let's see if they can run a slant, okay?
00:54And let's have – they can run routes on air.
00:56Nobody in front of them, and we'll throw them a nice little slant pass and see if they can correctly put the ball away.
01:02So they have no idea what they're talking about, really.
01:05They're just fans.
01:06They're just fans.
01:07It's fans.
01:07And now you can put them up on a chalkboard and say, here, draw me cover two, draw me cover three.
01:12What routes would beat cover two?
01:15Show me a route that would beat cover three.
01:16If you go from a man to a zone coverage or a zone to a man – show me what you would want to run offensively to beat this.
01:24Now, some guys might have some insight on how to do that because, obviously, you don't have to be a football player to know that.
01:29You could be just great at knowing where the zones are and where the man beaters are, all that stuff.
01:35But coverage indicates how you run a route.
01:39So if I'm running a slant, I'm not going to run the slant into a player.
01:44I have to adjust my routes.
01:46So you can adjust your routes based on what the defense is showing you, and a good receiver has to do that.
01:52Now, what if somebody is the assistant coach of a varsity soccer team?
01:56Leave Shime out of it.
01:58I'm not doing making these critiques this time.
02:00Shime does critique routes.
02:02Soccer – and I must add, soccer is the most frustrating sport of all the sports my children play.
02:07I mean, I literally – my wife asks me every time, can you please leave?
02:11Can you please leave the game?
02:12And sometimes I have to leave the game because it's very frustrating, very frustrating soccer.
02:17You've got to be patient.
02:18I'm not.
02:18Not at all.
02:19And I get – like, the biggest thing I have an issue with is, like, opinions about what you see.
02:26I'm cool because I've got opinions on basketball.
02:28But I would never tell Larry Bird who's saying, oh, this is what he did wrong and saying, oh, no, Bird, you're wrong about that.
02:37Like, I've watched enough, you know, all – you know, all ten tape to know.
02:42It's so – like, that's the thing that frustrates me more than anything else is, like, you're not there.
02:48Like you said –
02:49But isn't what we're talking about with Bedard, not that he – nobody actually thinks he knows what he's talking about.
02:53Yeah, but he's not the only one who does it, though.
02:54But what I'm saying specifically, relating to the conversation we started the show with regarding Mike Vrabel's comments about McDaniels being blown out of proportion by Tommy Curran, according to you guys, there was the theory, first raised by Jones and Keefe, that Bedard was given that as a McDaniels side shooting back at Vrabel.
03:12The reason he posted that on social media was because Vrabel was being attacked for what he said about McDaniels, and that was the other camp.
03:20That was how they interpreted it.
03:21So that's – I'd say that is my biggest issue with when the media says there's a problem with your OC and the head coach on what do we run in here, why don't we run this, why don't we run that.
03:35But last week, when they were winning 10 games in a row, there wasn't anything going on.
03:41Just because they had one game where maybe they didn't run the ball as much as they should have in the second half, there could be a disconnect between the head coach and the offensive coordinator.
03:50I think that's hard to believe, really, honestly.
03:53I assume that that relationship is a respectful relationship in you're a professional, I'm a professional, what do we need to do to make this team better?
04:03And you're always going to have – you're always going to look at a game plan, and you're always going to look back at the tape as a coordinator, as a coach, and say, man, I should have done this differently, or I should have done that differently.
04:15That's why even the coaches are learning from this Buffalo loss.
04:19I guarantee you Josh is like, man, I should have ran this instead of that, and maybe I should have handed the ball off like five, six more times in a second, burn the clock down a little bit more,
04:30because time is our biggest enemy right now, because we have this full second half here, and we're up how many points?
04:37So both sides are learning, the players and the coaches are learning.
04:40Do you feel the same way about the coaches that maybe you feel about the players, where the coaches also bought into that first half performance,
04:46and we're like, all right, we're good here.
04:49We can be conservative on the way we approach defense in the second half.
04:55I think when you have a lead, and I was a part of the biggest comeback ever at the Super Bowl, where you could see the Falcons had that massive lead,
05:06and they weren't running the same offense in the second half as they were in the first half.
05:10They weren't as aggressive in the second half.
05:13So, you know, that's the one aspect of getting a big lead.
05:18And Greg and I talked about the two football guys at McGonagall's in the second half.
05:23They were like, why did they stop blitzing?
05:25Right.
05:25And then the second half, it seemed like Josh Allen had a lot of time to go, okay, I'm in the pocket, my first read, my second read.
05:33All right, now I'm going to come back to my first read and wait for him to get in the second window or the third window where I can get him the ball where there wasn't.
05:41And we were like, why did they take their foot?
05:43And that's probably part of being in that big lead.
05:46Here's another perfect example.
05:47If that fourth and one play where they threw the ball down the field and the Buffalo Bills got the pass interference and they caught the ball, which looked like it was intercepted.
05:57If that didn't work for that team, say Buffalo turnover on downs right there, everybody would be saying something about, well, why would they throw the ball on fourth and one when they had so much success with the push from behind with Josh Allen for getting one to two yards?
06:12There would be a big uproar and the Buffalo media would be all over Buffalo on that particular play.
06:19So it's a natural thing to question any play that doesn't work.
06:25Any play that doesn't work.
06:26People are going to have a problem with it.
06:27I did that when I think it was like third and one or third and two and they threw like a back shoulder to Matt Collins.
06:33And I'm like, why are you doing that?
06:35Like I hate when a team throws like a goal route or back shoulder on third and one.
06:39I'm like, so I, I, I get, I hate a fade ball.
06:43So I, I hate like a fade with one yard to go, right?
06:47I hate gun runs.
06:49I hate shotgun gun.
06:50So like, say you're on the goal line and you're down on the two yard line.
06:54I hate a team that's in the shotgun formation because you're literally one yard away and now you're six yards away.
07:00And there's a lot of room for error.
07:02If somebody backs, you know, slips a block on the backside, somebody misses a block, it's TFL.
07:06So I think that there's always going to be questions no matter what, depending on if it's a good play.
07:14People forget about it.
07:15Great play, bad play.
07:17Well, why did they call that?
07:18Well, maybe there's an issue between the head coach and the OC and maybe the OC is doing it on purpose because he's doesn't want to listen to that.
07:26It's all bull.
07:27Yes.
07:28Rob, I don't know if you've seen it or not.
07:30But we all love Edelman's Games with Names podcast.
07:35Patricia was on, speaking of brilliant coordinators.
07:38He's a rocket scientist.
07:39My God.
07:41I don't know how he, I don't know how Edelman got through this with a straight face.
07:45Basically, Patricia for 15 minutes explained how he and only he created the three corner goal line package that every player was saying, coach, why do we need this?
07:55And he was saying, believe me, we're going to need it.
07:57And then the clock is ticking down.
07:59And he's trying to get Belichick's attention.
08:01Are they calling a timeout?
08:02Because he didn't want to show the formation and alert Pete Carroll to this unbelievable idea he had.
08:07And then all of a sudden you get Malcolm Goh and he's talking about how basically because of him, Malcolm Butler intercepted the ball.
08:14Well, if it wasn't for Malcolm, he wouldn't be able to talk about the play.
08:17But wasn't it kind of Belichick that coach goes anyway?
08:22Like, was it really Patricia?
08:23I mean, didn't you learn from Bill Belichick defense more than you would learn from Matt Patricia?
08:28Well, at the end of the day, we did practice that particular pick play in practice in preparation for that game because they have shown, they showed that play.
08:38That particular play was on film.
08:39Well, credit really goes to Ernie Adams.
08:41That's true.
08:42I mean, if you really want to give anybody credit, let's give it to the person that deserves it most, Pete Carroll, for not giving it to Marshawn Lynch, for throwing it on the goal line.
08:50So, listen, at the end of the day, offensive coordinators in games like that, I can think back on every big game I've ever been a part of, a lot of the offensive coordinators want the ball to be in the quarterback's hands and for the quarterback to throw the game-winning whatever, touchdown, first down, whatever it may be.
09:10If they handed the ball off to Lynch on that particular play and he scores, Marshawn Lynch is the MVP of that Super Bowl.
09:19It's not Russell Wilson.
09:20If Russell Wilson throws a touchdown pass, Russell Wilson is the MVP of that game.
09:26I never thought about it like that.
09:27Just like if the Falcons, when they were in second down in field goal range, would have just done the smart thing.
09:36And if you ask Shanahan if you could do it all over again, he probably would hand the ball off, play it safe, kick a field goal.
09:42We have no chance of winning that game.
09:44But they get a false start.
09:46They drop back to pass the ball.
09:48Well, if Matt Ryan throws a first down pass to Julio, Matt Ryan is the MVP.
09:55He is the savior in that game.
09:58The OC gets all the glory, gets a head coaching job, which you already got.
10:01So, at the end of the day, a lot of the OCs are trying to have the quarterback be a reflection of their genius, right?
10:10I never thought about it that way.
10:11Instead of situational football and just handing the ball off and taking what the football, like with the rules of football, if you're in field goal range, you never want to go backwards.
10:22You never want to get out of field goal range.
10:24You like your Patriots on Sunday?
10:27Yes.
10:27Against the Ravens, of course I do.
10:29Great to see you.
10:30Great to see you as well.
10:31Won't see you before the holiday, so Merry Christmas to you and the family.
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