- 11 minutes ago
Logan Paulsen joins the show to recap the Commanders week one loss and describe why he believes Washington has the blueprint on how to beat Dallas in week two.
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00:00what's up lo what's up man you guys doing all right we're good i uh i left philadelphia
00:06encouraged by things i saw but discouraged they couldn't figure out the win how did you leave
00:12philadelphia yeah i mean i think it's the same exact vote you know like i just i've been saying
00:17this all week it felt like kind of there was adults in the room a little bit defensively you
00:22know like last year was such a struggle and i'd be mitch and you guys have covered this team for
00:25a long time like it just felt like there wasn't enough horses there wasn't schematically something
00:30there and then watching the game uh against philly i was like oh my gosh like love this pressure look
00:35at this physicality look at that tackle look at this aggressiveness look at this great third down
00:39call here look at the way they ran this stunt and you know like that was just awesome and so
00:43again
00:44like it happens in a loss so it's hard to be like oh this is great everything's sunshine and rainbows
00:48because you want to win the game but i do think like being a process oriented person i look at
00:52that
00:52and i said to myself okay there is a foundation here that we haven't seen for a couple years and
00:56i'm excited to see where it goes and i think it's going to lead to more wins down the road
01:00obviously
01:01and i think this team has a shot to do something uh that hasn't done in a couple years here
01:04so i'm
01:05excited about it a lot of guys on defense did some good things but which person you think stood out
01:09and impressed you the most i mean like you said they all kind of did i'd probably say nick cross
01:15man i
01:16think nick cross just the the physicality that he played with how fast he is like again like when
01:22he's at near around the line of scrimmage like he's a problem man like especially like when he's
01:27kind of playing the nickel like he's going to draw a receiver like in a blocking situation and like
01:32he's just an extra hat to the football and so like you know you hear he had over 100 and
01:36over 120
01:36tackles last year in indy and you're like how did he do that but watching the film last year of
01:40him
01:40in indy watching him in this first game like he just got it man some people just instinctively have
01:45a good feel for stopping the run and tackling and i think he's one of those guys it's because he's
01:49a
01:49terp take that jumi um i would i would add i wanted to ask you about a pair of rookies
01:55how impressed were you by the debuts of antonio williams and sunny styles and even josh josephs
02:00to a lesser extent yeah yeah i mean i think impressed is probably because i mean you but
02:05you guys have been out of practice like i've seen sunny styles like for the last two months like doing
02:10stuff in practice i'm like that's gonna be a problem on sundays and so like you know this preseason
02:15thing talking about what's he gonna be is he a bust all this stuff i just was like i couldn't
02:19i couldn't fathom it man because like in practice i'm like there's periods where he has multiple sacks
02:24and a 10 play clip right and so like to see him get utilized in a way that we saw
02:30him being utilized
02:31all summer i just it was like yeah this is what we saw and it was good i was happy
02:35for him as a
02:35player that he got to do some of the things we've seen and kind of shut everybody up so in
02:40terms of
02:40surprise i'm not that surprised about sunny styles antonio williams like we've talked about like i
02:45watched a ton of football him like in college really dynamic smooth receiver he's probably a
02:51little bit more surprising because i felt like and maybe you guys would disagree with me like i
02:54felt like he kind of started slow in camp and obviously has the joint practice where he makes
02:58some nice plays has the ball as the detroit preseason game where he makes good plays but i felt
03:02like he was a little bit quieter in the offseason and obviously to come back and do what he did
03:06like
03:06those are all traits and qualities you've seen from him in one-on-ones individual but in the
03:10team setting i was like oh he's never he's not going to tell it looks and so for him to
03:14get that
03:14i think maybe slightly more surprised with williams not because i didn't think that was in the bag just
03:19because we hadn't seen him utilized that way yeah i i the conversation that was kind of percolating
03:25around sunny styles in august was stupid to be clear um i really liked williams going back to like
03:33otas and then you were right like he or he was kind of dealing with that he missed some time
03:38and then
03:38he came back i i tell me if i'm wrong because i'm sure you've sat and watched it and re
03:43-watched
03:43it i also think some of antonio williams getting so much work was the attention being paid to terry
03:48mcloran to make sure he didn't kill philly like he has so many times in the past yeah i mean
03:54i think
03:54that's obviously part of it and i think antonio williams is just you know when you play the slot
03:57like the the way i look at the receiver position now it's like you got to be kind of really
04:03special on
04:03the perimeter to win consistently but when you look at the last couple guys who've been
04:08excellent in the league you know your cooper cups your uh jackson smith and jig was even
04:12justin uh justin jefferson to a certain extent like they win predominantly from the slot and a
04:16big part of that is you just get better matchups and so for antonio williams to kind of be able
04:21to
04:21work in the slot there i think you're just naturally going to draw a better coverage relationship to the
04:25defender and so yeah like the fact that he can play outside williams but he can also play inside i
04:30think
04:30is just going to only help him moving forward in addition to how the philadelphia eagles were
04:35playing terry mcloran i think all those things kind of co-combined to make him have a kind of a
04:40big
04:40first game looking at y'all offense started off a little slow but then they got it going especially
04:44in the fourth quarter what did you all see with the offense throughout yeah i mean i think the thing
04:49people forget like for some reason that philly's like really good like in defensively they're really
04:54good and and their and their coverage structures are really good like i'm not just saying that like
04:58they're one of the when i watch them week in and week out like as obviously in the division we
05:02have
05:02a lot of crossover games i'm always blown away with how consistent they are in the back end like
05:07that's a group of guys that have played a lot together they're good athletes they're good football
05:11players the way they can pass stuff off the way they communicate things the way zach vaughn and
05:16cooper dejean under underneath his hook players are able to kind of take the air out of coverage
05:21concepts i think it's just really impressive so you know i think they deserve a lot of credit
05:25also i felt like jay daniels was kind of finding sea leagues like he wasn't quite on the same page
05:30with stefan diggs on a couple and he was like was that a big deal yeah absolutely it is a
05:34big deal
05:34because like you know there's a couple of those second and longs that we don't get converted or we
05:39don't get to a third manageable and that just makes it harder to stay on rhythm and you're operating
05:43in those third and ten third long situations because of those kind of uh those drops those
05:50incompletions on uh on second and ten in a part of the call sheet that's really tough to manage and
05:55so as the game went on obviously as you move into the fourth quarter that efficiency goes up and when
06:00that efficiency goes up like the offense looks great everyone's in a rhythm all that stuff's good
06:04but i really think credit to philly but also like there were some self-inflicted wounds in that first
06:08half that really kind of made the offensive a little sluggish i agree with that so what did you not
06:14like from from the philly game i i think for me the slow start offensively which kind of touched on
06:20there which i kind of think was to be expected in a way and then the explosive plays defensively
06:25you just got to button that up yeah i think offensively it's got to just be the just just
06:30the newness how it felt kind of new there was just a lack of consistency um from jayden from the
06:36receiving group from the offensive line in certain instances and i thought the offensive line played
06:40will played pretty well overall but it just kind of took turns kind of like oh i didn't get open
06:45here
06:46i threw this ball away or here's a pressure that jayden daniels has to vacate on
06:49so cleaning up some of those details there i think is important i think just generally staying
06:54a little bit more efficient on first and second down is going to be a big deal for this group
06:58moving forward whether that's you know quick game running the football finding that rhythm early is
07:03going to be a big deal and then you said it like the defensive stuff like the big plays i
07:06mean that's
07:07really the thing right and um it's the difference between winning and losing and like the fact that
07:11philly only scored 24 points having given up five or six big explosive plays in critical moments in the
07:17game um is kind of a testament to how well they played outside those five plays but really like
07:21that's it can we you know button up a little bit tighter can we be more on the details can
07:27we
07:27just kind of have that mental focus to play you know 60 minutes of football and i'm sure that stuff
07:33that deronte jones is talking with the boys about today and the conversations i've had um as a player
07:38with coaches in the past and like it's it's it's super relevant because in college football you can get
07:43away with a lot in high school football you can get away with more and the nfl as be much
07:47knows
07:47like you can't get away with any kind of mental lapses because they're just too darn good i think
07:53we just saw a little bit of that defensively so hopefully this week against dallas they can clean
07:56that up yeah we're talking with our buddy logan paulson you can check him out on the take command
08:01podcast check out all of his work with the commanders and you can certainly listen to him a part of
08:06the
08:06commander's radio broadcast i'm guessing you have looked at dallas what do you think um their opener
08:14was pretty sluggish i don't think they look very good the defense got abused how much of that opener
08:19was real how much of that do you think was kind of week one nobody knows anything yet uh yeah
08:25so i
08:26think that that is an offensive driven football team dallas and i'm not saying anything like
08:30groundbreaking when i say that but when the offense is a little bit sluggish the defense isn't going to
08:35be good enough to win a game flow where they're where the other team is up right like they just
08:40are not good enough like because they they are they're much improved from a personnel standpoint
08:45last year they looked a little bit more sound than they did at points last year but it's a new
08:50defense
08:50and it's this vick fangio defense and we just talked about like how you know they're you know vick
08:55fangio and philadelphia eagles and he's such a good job in the back end like the level of detail that
08:59philly
09:00has is not there in dallas so the throwing windows are a little bit bigger the timing
09:05is a little bit off and certain passes off like in their match coverage and then you look at the
09:09front and i think there's some solid pieces in the front but it's definitely not what philly is so
09:13it is this weird thing to watch where it's like it's like a low definition version of philly like
09:18the personnel is not as good that they're not on the details and i'm not saying they're not going to
09:22get there but i think about jayden daniels when he has played over the course of his career you know
09:26obviously rookie year and then a point last year when he plays against teams that are not bad in coverage
09:31but loose like this in coverage like he has a history of dissecting them so i think that this
09:36is going to be a really favorable matchup for jayden and his offense to kind of get right stay on
09:41rhythm keep schedule because if you watch the giants game like jackson dart i don't really consider him
09:45as like this great on time you know read you out kind of guy but like there was enough space
09:51in the coverages that he was able to exploit that so i think that's what i would say defensively
09:56offensively i think you know they scare the hell out of me and i don't think they were the best
10:00version of themselves week one i think like the thing that made them really good last year was
10:05this really dynamic screen game they ran the football well there was play action stuff and
10:09in this game they were like let's get an 11 and put a lot on deck prescott's plate because we
10:13can't
10:13run the football because the giants stopped the run so you know that's how i kind of view what they
10:18were doing honestly we had two uh guys make their debut and uh dorante jones and also david ball
10:23how did you think both of those guys fare shoot man i thought dorante jones did a really nice job
10:29and
10:29you know a little bit that's the personnel and guys just playing with reckless abandon but he has
10:33a fact he has a role in that and role in creating that culture that motivation i love some of
10:38the
10:38blitzes he came with i love some of the disguises they came with you know i'm sure he has a
10:42couple
10:42calls here and there that he would want back you know certain situations like he had a tendency in
10:47third and long situations to be a little bit less aggressive which i'm sure is very common for
10:51defensive coordinators in general because you're trying to defend the sticks and you end up getting
10:55burned on a couple of those but like do you maybe turn the fader up this week or do you
11:00coach that a
11:00little bit differently this week but overall man i was really impressed and david blau man like i
11:04thought you know like there was a lot of adversity for him like the like i said the offense wasn't
11:08on
11:08schedule but to make that decision to go to that hurry up to kind of change your perspective to help
11:13the offense kind of find their legs get some plays strung together those are tough decisions in game
11:18because your face is right up against the glass so for him to have the maturity to kind of step
11:22back and
11:22say okay we need to throw a different pitch i thought was was great by him again and he's
11:26going to have the same thing that dorante jones has here's some calls maybe we can work on correcting
11:31and work on doing a better job with but overall i think it's a good first first outing for both
11:36of
11:36them for different reasons and i think they're just going to continue to grow and mature um as the
11:40season goes on and i'm excited to see where they go because this i think is a pretty good starting
11:43point for both those young coordinators or not young coordinators but first time coordinators
11:47coordinators yeah if you'd like to follow logan you can do so at logan paulsen nfl p-a-u-l
11:54-s-e-n
11:55logan paulsen nfl um you said that there's things offensively dallas does that make you nervous i
12:03think when you have pickens and lamb on the outside that's enough to make you nervous and i don't think
12:09washington's corners played particularly well last week uh rasul douglas looked impressive in in
12:15limited snap counts dan quinn was was honest about his evaluation of sammer still's play week one
12:23what did you see there and how does mikey get back on track yeah i mean that's that's a good
12:29question
12:29and like you said like you know i'm sure he had a couple plays you know uh that's probably putting
12:34it kindly that he would want back and i think when you're looking at and you know be can attest
12:39to
12:39this as well like when you're doing something at a super high level and like playing nfl football like
12:44a lot of people say oh you've got to do more i personally found when i was in a little
12:48bit of
12:49a rut playing it's like you do less like you focus you try to narrow your focus right so how
12:54are my
12:54eyes on this how's my pedal on this like go back to the basics a little bit and really make
13:00sure
13:00you're honing in on the little details as much as possible and you're not and you know like not
13:05losing yourself to the big picture of what the defense is presenting so i or in his case the offense
13:11so i think that's something i would say is like you know we've seen him play good football here
13:15as a washington commander we've seen him play good football in college i think he's a good competitive
13:20tough individual who's got good leadership skills and has a knack for playing the football obviously
13:24we didn't see that week one but like you know part of playing corner part of being an nfl football
13:29player is how you adjust this adversity now you modify what you're doing and so i really think like
13:34if he kind of he's gonna have to take a lot of responsibility here take extreme ownership narrow the focus
13:39lock in and i think he can because i think we've seen him do it in the past for sure
13:44um i think
13:46you know looking at this game a lot of it will come down to the pass rush against dak do
13:52you believe
13:52what is getting dorance armstrong back do for this team because he was absolutely on fire to start the
13:59year last year yeah that's a great question man and it's one that i'm kind of curious to see how
14:04they
14:04deploy him because like last week i thought it was cool to see you know maybe not your main name
14:10i got obviously had a good game kelevan chase on sunny styles but like charles many had a great game
14:15tim set up a great game the ron pain did some good stuff on some stuff and some twists and
14:19kinlaw the
14:20ability of that group just to kind of as a collective play so well um in terms of like some
14:26of the rush
14:27patterns and stopping the run i thought was great and then you just add dude who you know i think
14:31i
14:31forget because you know dorance dorance was hurt last year but you know i bumped into him in the
14:34preseason like he's a big strong dude man and like adding another physical body to that front
14:40a guy that plays with the right kind of you know attacking mindset is just a is an exciting proposition
14:47if you're a commanders fan so i think the one thing i'd say you know coming off of the philly
14:51game
14:51is like how do we just make sure a little bit tighter with our rush lanes and i think having
14:55a power
14:56rusher or a guy that can play with power like dorance is only going to help in that regard
15:00we got some news breaking from the commanders um including jordan mcgee third year linebacker
15:07going to the injured reserve um you know it was one of these years where bobby finally kind of
15:13stepping aside you thought mcgee had a real opportunity to take over in the middle of the
15:18linebacking room then the draft falls they get sunny styles and now he's hurt again it's just been
15:24just been bad luck for mcgee since he's arrived in washington i feel like
15:29yeah it has been tough and you know it's so funny like because i remember watching his college
15:34feeling being like oh this guy's a stud and that happens so often because i do it on my drive
15:37to
15:37the draft show and you're watching you know 300 prospects sometimes like oh this guy if he's in
15:42the right situation could be awesome and mcgee was one of those guys for me when he came out and
15:47i think
15:48the other the thing the longer i've done the drafting is the more important you realize like health is
15:52which is something that players can oftentimes not control and it's just a flip of the coin and like
15:58i played for a long time be played for a long time and i've been around guys who are immensely
16:02talented
16:03but just could not get out of the training room for whatever for one reason or another and like
16:08sometimes it's stuff that they're doing sometimes it's stuff that's totally outside their control but
16:12like it's just it's a feature of playing a violent game like football and it's unlucky and so hopefully
16:18he gets healthy soon and hopefully he's back on the grass because i do think he's a is a good
16:23football player that could add value to this team i agree with that man that's a bummer he's a good
16:27guy too um what do you how do you so logan i i very loudly thought washington was going to
16:34win in philly
16:35i i said it to philadelphia television and radio stations they didn't like that i said it and i kept
16:41saying it and i think that game was was there for them i really do yeah i do not share
16:47that confidence
16:48going to dallas i'm curious and who the hell knows what's going to happen it's football the
16:52crazy things happen every week what do you think happens this week in dallas yeah i mean after
16:58it's one game so we'll see and like nothing will lie to you worse than week one of an nfl
17:03football
17:03season i just think that there's going to be much more opportunity for this team offensively versus
17:08dallas defense and that gets me excited because one of the things like like if this if the if the
17:15flow of the game is such that the offense is possessing the football you can put a lot of
17:20pressure on dac prescott to do but dac prescott things like i think dac prescott's a top five
17:24quarterback in the league but he does do things with the football that are historically unsafe
17:29and he'll turn the football over in critical moments like he did against the giants and so like what
17:33did the giants do well they stopped the run on first and second down they forced them into third
17:38long situations dac had to make a lot of plays from the pocket those two edge rushes from the giants
17:43were absolutely fantastic burns and bill carter were awesome the coverage structures they ran the
17:48blitzes they brought put him in a little bit of pressure he couldn't see the field super well
17:52and i look at like what washington did week one and there's a lot of carry over there that how
17:56they
17:57did it was different you know deronte jones's pressure run first and second down they're they're
18:01upsetting the pocket on in terms of play action and disrupting the run they're creating a lot of
18:06negative plays the forcing jailer hurts in the longer down of distances i think that's the same thing
18:10and if you can capitalize on those longer down the distances then you got a shot to win this
18:15football game so i actually feel like especially after watching dallas week one again which will
18:19lie to you tremendously i think there's going to be more air for the offense and i think there's a
18:23roadmap that was laid out by the giants that this team can easily follow and probably execute at a
18:29high level in the defense side of the football and just to establish some serious physicality early
18:35i i think so man i think that's like when you look at especially how the defense played for the
18:40giants like they were playing a different sport than the dallas cowboys offense specifically in the
18:45front and again like one of the things that that that oc there whose first year was there last year
18:50did a great job of is like multiple personnels multiple you know formations different screens
18:57different play actions and because of how they played them the run game was dead on arrival and so
19:02all of this game plan that they had put in obviously just didn't exist so i think like if you
19:08could do
19:08that same thing stop the run establish yourself like and again i think dac can beat you from the
19:14pocket which is a crazy thing to say like you want him the ball in his hand but after seeing
19:18that like
19:18and seeing the pressure that this defense was able to create route one like dac didn't handle the
19:23pressure extremely well right and he has not done a lot in the preseason like he's a veteran he's going
19:27to figure it out but hopefully it's not this week against the commanders because of the packages
19:32and the pressures that dorante johns is bringing all right logan we appreciate your time brother
19:37always appreciate your insight man thank you for the time always great talking to you guys have a great
19:42rest of the day
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