00:00I've never seen anything like this.
00:01I legitimately mean that.
00:04You could make the case equally on three different people and four
00:12that they would be starting this weekend.
00:14You could make the case.
00:16I've never seen anything like that.
00:19I would just say three.
00:20I don't know how many times I walked away from Twitter yesterday.
00:30I think the one that bothered me the most was I kept hearing,
00:33Cooper Rush is an NFL quarterback at this point.
00:35I just want to scream to the mountaintops,
00:39yeah, he wasn't until July 29th or whatever the date was
00:45when he got signed the first day of training camp.
00:48He was out of the league.
00:51We started a third-string quarterback and lost by seven points on Sunday.
01:00I just keep going back to that, and people are like,
01:02he's terrible, and I'm like, guys, he literally was brought in here
01:08because Trevor Simeon had an injury as camp started.
01:12I'm not trying to destroy Cooper when I say that.
01:15I'm just trying to say let's have a little bit of freaking perspective
01:19of what happened on Sunday and how it pertains to the quarterback position.
01:23The guy also had back spasms Saturday and didn't even think there was a chance
01:29that it was in doubt that he actually even started the game.
01:34I couldn't be more with you.
01:36And, you know, it's not the fact that, you know, you might have him going forward.
01:43It's just what you dealt with this past weekend.
01:46And Cooper Rush was already up against it, you know,
01:49and I got some pushback yesterday that was, hey, you know,
01:52they've mishandled the quarterback.
01:53And I'm like, nobody involved planned on this, okay?
01:57Like, nobody thought, oh, let's go out there and make sure.
02:00I mean, if you include Simeon throughout the offseason,
02:03you're down to your fourth option in week one.
02:06It honestly reminds me of, do you remember a few years back,
02:09it was probably five years ago, the Saints had to play Ian Book
02:13after signing him off the street, like on a Thursday night football game,
02:16and he had literally been there two days and had no idea what he was doing.
02:19That's kind of like the Josh Dobbs things in Minnesota a few years ago.
02:21Yeah, touche.
02:23But I believe Ian Book might have been a rookie at the point.
02:26I might be wrong about that.
02:28I think he was.
02:29I think you're right.
02:30It's reminiscent of that.
02:31Like, the fact that this defense played well enough
02:34to keep it within the touchdown, it's mind-boggling.
02:38I'm very curious how people actually think they mishandled it.
02:42Because hear me out for a second.
02:43I'm not saying that they've handled the situation correctly
02:46the last five or six years, but new regime comes in,
02:51and they move on from Kirk, which is what, financially speaking,
02:55had to be done, and what Kirk wanted, I think, too.
03:01You go with Penix and say, our plan is to have him healthy by the start of the season.
03:06That's what everything Michael Penix was saying out of his own mouth,
03:10that he'd be ready week one.
03:12You bring in Tua to essentially, air quote, compete,
03:16but I think we always thought that it would be the backup,
03:20and you had Trevor Simeon all through the spring and into camp.
03:25And then, Mike, you laid it out, Simeon gets hurt, you bring in Cooper Rush,
03:29you did sign an undrafted guy.
03:31So, I don't really know how you mishandled it,
03:35because the team didn't prepare.
03:37I mean, they prepared and planned by keeping four quarterbacks
03:41in case Penix wasn't ready,
03:43and you had a backup to the backup in case something happened to Tua, right?
03:48So, you did everything you could,
03:53but there's only about 20 starting caliber quarterbacks in the league,
03:58maybe 25 in the league overall.
04:03So, when you're down to the third option,
04:07so, what, the 70th-something maybe quarterback in the league,
04:11that's where you were Sunday.
04:14The other updates we got yesterday was Chris Lindstrom is in concussion protocol,
04:18and Deshaun Hand is out after tearing his quad.
04:21But it is another season,
04:23so we've got to bring back the good, bad, and the ugly
04:25when it comes to this Falcons game.
04:28However, if we start with the good right now,
04:29it'll just be negative Nancy the rest of the show.
04:31So, we're going to start with the bad right here.
04:34From Sunday's game, where would you start with the bad?
04:37Mine starts right there, and it's the quarterback clarity.
04:39And it really doesn't have as much to do with the game
04:42as it just does the activities over the last week.
04:44We still don't know.
04:45And we have absolutely, you guys know,
04:48I've been beating this drum since a year ago.
04:50It's like you've got to know what the quarterback position is.
04:54And we are further away now than we've ever been somehow after one week.
04:58So, that was my bad coming off the weekend's game
05:00is the quarterback clarity, not only did it become clearer,
05:05it's more foggy than it's ever been.
05:07And it's frustrating, I think, for Falcons fans
05:09and everybody that's involved.
05:11Yeah, I had Cooper as bad.
05:15I actually think you're closer to clarity
05:17in that quarterback position, believe it or not.
05:21Because I think you know who's not it.
05:23And I think Penix is,
05:26what happens with him the next few weeks,
05:28to me, will be a very telling
05:31in how things are handled.
05:32I would say that the bad for me,
05:35and I'm not trying to start a fight
05:38with my good friend and co-worker over here,
05:41but the offensive line to me was bad.
05:43The first half, you couldn't open any lanes in a run game.
05:46The second half, you got a little bit better.
05:49But it was so bad at the point,
05:51and I know that some of this is just schematically speaking,
05:55but you had to bring in an extra offensive lineman
05:57multiple times in Michael Jarrell
05:58because you weren't getting much of a push.
06:00You had six holding calls.
06:03Now, one of those was on special teams.
06:05So let's just go with five.
06:06And one of those was declined.
06:09But, excuse me, two of those was declined.
06:12But three of those holding penalties
06:15stalled drives out.
06:17And when you are behind the eight ball
06:20with your third string quarterback,
06:22the passing game is faltering,
06:24and you do get big chunk gains,
06:26they cannot be wiped away by holding penalties
06:29that then kill the drives.
06:30Okay?
06:31That is just absolutely bad.
06:34And that's supposed to be a position.
06:37I don't want to say necessarily of strength
06:39because I do know there have been a little bit of changes
06:40schematically and at right tackle.
06:42But it's supposed to be a position that you can,
06:45that is solid, that you can lean on when necessary.
06:47Feel free to weigh in on this on Twitter at 929MorningShift.
06:51We'll get a thread started with the good, bad, and the ugly,
06:53and we'll get to the good at 7 o'clock.
06:55Coming up, Lane Kiffin returns to Oxford this weekend.
06:58We'll get into that.
06:59More college football, and we've got a Mac drop.
07:01It's the return of everyone's favorite game.
07:03Name that Falcon between Mike playing for the Falcons
07:06and Bo traveling with the team.
07:07It should be a walk in the park.
07:08It's next on Sports Radio, 92.9 The Game,
07:11and the Odyssey app.
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