00:00106.7 The Fan, Toby Altizer sitting in for JP today alongside Brian Mitchell.
00:05The Commanders made an addition to their secondary yesterday, adding Rasul Douglas to the mix.
00:12You look around at the top needs for this team.
00:15I think for a majority of people, they would be debating between DB and wide receiver.
00:20For the people that are thinking DB, they went out and addressed it, signing Rasul Douglas for a one-year
00:26deal.
00:26What do you make of the signing?
00:27I like it.
00:28I think it's a good signing.
00:31I think getting someone with some experience to help out on the back end.
00:35Yeah, and I remember when he first showed up in Green Bay, he was really effective for them in that
00:42first season.
00:43Played at an all-pro caliber level.
00:45And I don't know if he's still got that in him necessarily, but he's someone that can help out, has
00:50had some success in this league.
00:52And you look at that corner room, and there's just not a lot of guys that you feel overly confident
00:59in.
00:59Trey Amos, you know, you hope that he can bounce back from the injury and be a good player for
01:06you.
01:06But, you know, that's still, you know, to be determined.
01:09Mikey Sandmer still has been up and down through his two seasons.
01:12And then you start getting behind those couple of guys, and, you know, there's just not tons of guys that
01:17inspire confidence.
01:19I like Amik.
01:20Listen, I watched him play some one-on-one matchups against Justin Jefferson.
01:25And that kid stood his ground the whole game.
01:28I think he won that battle.
01:30And if I, listen, just his tenacity, his competitiveness, I take that over a lot of the guys that come
01:38in with hype.
01:39You watch him play, and I'm talking, he brings it every game.
01:45If a guy is giving me upper-level effort, you can expect some production from that.
01:52There's some people that don't give you that effort.
01:54Yeah.
01:55He does.
01:56He's not the biggest guy.
01:57But he has that dog in him.
01:59Like Doc always said, he got some rule in him.
02:01He definitely does have the dog in him.
02:03He's a fun guy to listen to at practice and walking around.
02:06He's just got a lot of personality.
02:08So I think he's good for that back end.
02:11He's similar to Mikey, I think, in terms of size and the way that they play the game.
02:15But hopefully that's something that maybe you can rub off a little bit on Sam Ristil and he can improve.
02:20But I'm curious to see with this secondary, because you just look at the game.
02:25At the corner room, even though they signed Rasul Douglas, I wouldn't say that it's great.
02:29But Nick Cross is going to play a big role this year, obviously, as safety brought over.
02:33Will Harris, Juan Martin.
02:35They've got some guys that could potentially step up and play better.
02:38But this is where, to me, this type of a scheme where they're going to be a little bit more
02:45aggressive, hopefully that helps out the back end.
02:48Because they're going to show different looks, try to confuse the quarterback.
02:51But they're going to blitz a lot.
02:53Yeah, I think when you make a quarterback speed up, you make him make some mistakes.
02:58But for me, Mikey last year, what, four interceptions it was, five interceptions, whatever, without a pass rush.
03:08He took a step back from what he did the first year.
03:12He was playing outside.
03:13He had the sideline as a boundary to help him out some.
03:17He moved inside.
03:19And you give a receiver a two-way go, they're going to get some opportunities.
03:23And when you don't get no pressure on the quarterback, like we were not getting last year, that receiver is
03:28going to get open.
03:31I believe this year, and I'm expecting a better pass rush, and I think the cornerback or the defensive backfield
03:37will be better, will play better.
03:39You can't have a great defensive backfield with a subpar pass rush.
03:45And last year, the pass rush was subpar.
03:47And I know the players would never say it, but I watched it, and I'm looking, and receivers are running
03:53forever.
03:54You're going to get open, because they can't get to the quarterback.
03:57And that was a big problem last year for a lot of guys on that back end.
04:01Yeah, I mean, realistically, you can only cover for so long.
04:03And if you're not going to get pressure on the quarterback, even if you don't get the sack, at least
04:08make him move off of his spot, at least make him do something, and think about it.
04:12They weren't able to do that.
04:13Nope.
04:14And this year, that's going to be the focus, because they are going to blitz a lot.
04:19I mean, if you just look back at last year, and see if I can pull up the numbers, we
04:23just assume that Durante Jones is going to run Brian Flores' scheme.
04:26We'll see if it's...
04:27Give me some version of it.
04:28There's going to be some similarities there.
04:30But if you just look at the amounts that the Vikings blitzed compared to everyone else around the league, it
04:40was so much higher than anybody else.
04:42I can't pull up the numbers right now.
04:43I don't expect him to do it as much as Flores did, because I think also, in this scheme here,
04:50they're expecting O-A to be able to bring a level of pass.
04:54By the way, seeing him out at practice, he is so much bigger than I thought.
05:01The way I describe him to people that ask is, you know how Kinlaw looks for the D tackles?
05:06O-Way looks that way for the defensive ends.
05:08He's not as big as Kinlaw, obviously, but you're like, holy smokes.
05:11Yeah, they're expecting to get some rush from him.
05:14And I think when you look at...
05:17Oh, man.
05:19I hurt last year.
05:20Oh, Doran's Armstrong.
05:21Doran's.
05:23Doran's was playing well prior to getting hurt.
05:25You get that level of pass rush, then you may not have to blitz as much.
05:29Yeah.
05:29But when you get that level of pass rush and you begin to bring a little pressure while dropping him
05:34out,
05:35he's quite going to throw it straight in the lap.
05:36You know?
05:37You see a lot of that happening in the league, but they have the opportunity to make a major step
05:44defensively
05:45because I believe the signing, Leo Chanel, another guy, a linebacker that can do some things,
05:51they've added people in positions that I think is going to help them out
05:54to where all that pressure won't be on those cornerbacks to hold up so long.
05:59Yeah.
06:00I mean, that's what you're hoping is that's going to help out the back end
06:02because there are still question marks about the guys on the back end.
06:06But I also think this type of a scheme, I'm hoping this is a year,
06:10because this is kind of a big season for a guy like Mike Sammer still going into year three
06:14to kind of decide what his future is, whether it's a he's going to be a big part of this
06:18team going forward
06:19or if this is something that, you know, maybe that last year of his rookie contract becomes a true evaluation,
06:25whether he's going to be here in the future or not.
06:28But I think for him, I think this style of defense where you're going to rely a lot on the
06:36smarts of your players
06:39and their ability to understand how to get to their spots because they're going to disguise different things.
06:45Yeah.
06:45The inherent nature of a disguise, B-Mitch, is you're out of position to start the play.
06:49But you've got to be able to get to that position.
06:51But if you understand how you're going to go about this and understand the route concepts and everything going on
06:56so that you can slow stuff down and figure stuff out, I'm excited to see how he does in this
07:01sort of a scheme.
07:02And I think that's why getting guys like a Rasul Douglas, a guy like an Amik Robertson,
07:06some vets in there to help out with some of these young guys,
07:09I think if they do their job correctly on the defensive side of the football this year,
07:13that unit, even though there's question marks, plays above what its talent on paper is.
07:19Part of the problem is just making people – a defense, their job is to make you hold on to
07:26or get rid of quicker.
07:28They don't want you to do anything in rhythm.
07:30So if a defense can make a quarterback hold the ball a little longer and he starts patting it,
07:35that's playing into their hands.
07:36Or make you want to throw something quicker than you can.
07:40So, like, quarterback got to let it go before that receiver gets to his depth and get out.
07:43So, if they can get that going, you'll see positive things happening on the defensive side.
07:50And if I see the defense getting off the field a lot more,
07:54and I believe the ball is in Jaden's hand more,
07:58I believe Jaden is going to lead whatever he has out there.
08:03Well, and that's the big key, is even though I think that they could use a little bit more help
08:08for Jaden on the offensive side of the football, a big thing that's going to help them
08:11is just being able to get off the field and not make him feel like he has to play Superman.
08:15Because I think that's part of why he ended up in the spot he was last season,
08:18where I don't think he was as sharp as he was in his rookie season.
08:22I think also part of the reason that he maybe left himself open to injury a little bit more last
08:26season
08:27is he felt like he had to go do a little bit more.
08:29Similar to that last year when he won the Heisman at LSU,
08:32if you watch his highlights, you'd see, okay, he makes a great play,
08:35and then you see the next time he's on the field, there's seven more points for the other team.
08:38He was constantly chasing it, and he was spectacular.
08:41But he had to do a little bit of that last year.
08:43The thing with the salary cap, you're trying to spend equally.
08:49And that's very hard to do.
08:52But what happens is when you get a certain level of talent on one side,
08:57at a lower rate right now, like Jaden, you can spend more over here.
09:02Because you always believe that guy can bring the people up.
09:04Like, you're trying to get an equal thing, but you never can do that.
09:08That's why a lot of times people go, well, they got to spend some money to help Jaden.
09:11I think when you're spending on the defense side, you're helping Jaden.
09:15You know, like JP asked me earlier, maybe a few weeks ago,
09:19what do you think is the biggest thing that's going to be able to help Jaden out this year?
09:22I said the defense.
09:24And it sounds crazy when you ask me about helping a quarterback.
09:27Like I said, the defense, because when you think about Tom Brady when he was playing,
09:32or Joe Montana when he was playing, the thing that helped him out,
09:35they had more and more possessions.
09:38And when those guys with that level of ability has that many possessions,
09:43they are going to cook you over time.
09:46If you believe that he can get more possessions,
09:50and they get a chance to start working with this thing,
09:52I believe he can get back to the form he had in 2024.
09:56Instead of last year where it was like, you got to outscore this other team,
10:00because they're going to score 30.
10:01They're going to score 27.
10:02You got to outscore them.
10:04That's a different mindset.
10:05Nah.
10:07Now, as Joe Gibbs said, three touchdowns, one field goal.
10:11You can do that, you should win a football game.
10:14You can average 24, 25 a game, you should be winning some football games.
10:18Yeah.
10:18Another thing too, last year, the Jets only had four takeaways.
10:22The commanders only had 10.
10:24So if you can get a couple more takeaways.
10:25Mikey had as many as the Jets.
10:28The Jets had no interceptions.
10:29And he had a down year.
10:31I don't even know how you go through an entire season with no interceptions,
10:33but the Jets somehow did it.
Comments