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92.9 The Game Atlanta Falcons Color Analyst Dave Archer feels there are reasons to believe in a better offensive showing during the Week 2 home opener.
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00:00how are you great good to be back with you guys looking forward to this weekend here
00:04mercedes-benz stadium yeah definitely it'd be fun to get in front of the home fans and get out there
00:09against the divisional opponent and all that and when they do um i know everyone's wondering the
00:14same thing when they do who do you think will be playing quarterback on sunday yeah right now i
00:18probably would lean in and we're going to find out here in about 20 minutes if there is some kind
00:22kind of behind the scenes thing going on with the quarterback i know there's been a lot of
00:26discussion them announcing that cooper rush was going to do a presser afterward is that just a
00:31placeholder for you know i don't i don't know all that stuff a little idiosyncrasies that go into
00:36that kind of crap i i think that um i i'm anticipating it being cooper uh based on what we've
00:42kind of heard from michael over the last week or so about you know where he is comfort zone wise
00:49i
00:49mean it would be great if he you know watched that game monday night and saw patrick mahomes out there
00:54running around so wait a minute i can go do that you know and the next thing you know he
00:57he says i'm ready to roll so um i don't know that and we'll find out here in about 20
01:01minutes
01:01hey what did you see from the game did it look like cooper rush because i know he woke up
01:05saturday
01:05with the back spasm did look like he was moving like he was like something was going on with him
01:10well it's certainly from a from a move the quarterback standpoint randy you know uh you know some of the
01:16bootleg stuff little waggle stuff maybe move him off his spot there was there was a limitation to that
01:22did that did that mean that he was unable to move i don't know that he's overly athletic anyway
01:28randy so it's not like you're going to get you know you're not going to get him moving around like
01:32caleb williams or any of these guys that we're kind of seeing now in the game really the guy we're
01:37going
01:37to see this weekend and in in bryce young who's not a great runner but he's like a modern day
01:42friend
01:43tarkenton the guy running around trying to stay alive slide in the pocket didn't see the the pocket
01:48awareness was the part that bothered me more than anything else randy because it worked there were
01:53some moments you know as well as i do slid one way or the other and and just kind of
01:58stay you know
01:59stayed out of arm's way and when you do get out of the pocket he makes the huge mistake when
02:03he gets
02:04out of the pocket and and overthrows the throw down the middle that's picked off that ultimately leads
02:09to a pittsburgh touchdown you got to minimize the damage to that point i got to be able to trust
02:14you
02:14that when you get out of the pocket you're going to throw the ball away you know run with it
02:18whatever
02:18um and he made it he made a bad mistake there so um i getting back to your original question
02:25was he
02:25limited because we heard about the back spasms what uh saturday morning or whatever it was
02:31he didn't seem to indicate that there was anything going on with the back but again i think you're
02:35talking about a guy that's going to be moving around very much anyway yeah and i heard you ask him
02:39about the the back afterwards and he said it you know he was okay so um it ultimately didn't seem
02:45like that was too much of a factor uh but hopefully hopefully a week removed from any of the back
02:50spasm stuff he'll feel a little bit better if it is him coming up on sunday plus you'd have to
02:54think
02:54too if it is like a full week of preparation for him and the coaching staff knowing it's going to
02:59be
02:59him versus last week where they didn't know until two got hurt on thursday that would have to help too
03:04wouldn't it yeah i would think so and it's it's a good point you get all the reps
03:09potentially or the the majority of the reps with the first team there's a lot going on here you
03:15know you're talking about a guy you signed on july the 29th so he didn't get any of the offseason
03:19stuff he got limited stuff in training camp albeit you know when you start talking about what you what
03:25you got in training camp very basic stuff and now all of a sudden he's working with a new team
03:29a new
03:30offensive system um so there's a lot to digest there and then all of a sudden you're asking him
03:34you know to do things at the line of scrimmage which i think he did a couple of good things
03:38at the
03:39line of scrimmage change some things you know flip some plays over i thought from a preparation
03:44standpoint when you talk about his limited week i thought he did some of those things the right way
03:48um and but he he was reluctant to squeeze the trigger and i think that you're wondering and
03:54kind of getting back to your original point here does that week of looking at tape and feeling the
04:00game pressure and feeling the game speed does he stand in there and squeeze the trigger on some of
04:05these throws because he had a couple guys i would say three or four times he had guys on in
04:10cuts
04:10that he could have turned it loose he turned it loose on time and stood in there he could have
04:15he
04:15could have made a couple of plays so does he learn from that experience does that help him for this
04:19week we can only hope if it goes back to dave the the same quarterback depth as last sunday was
04:25and
04:25obviously the young fella is one hit away from getting in the game is it's the point you think
04:30and we'll probably ask kevin this tomorrow when we're up there try to get him some kind of reps this
04:34week in practice well he'll get some he'll get some reps certainly if it's if it is the kind of
04:40the the layout we had going to the game where jack's the backup there's no question he'll get
04:45he'll get some limited and it's not going to be a lot you know how it is randy you get
04:4925 scripted
04:50plays in practice and he might get four you know one of those kind of deals now do you expand
04:55that
04:56if you expand it to give him a few more then all of a sudden cooper's not getting what he
05:00needs to
05:00prepare so it's kind of a double-edged sword a little bit but yes he'll get he'll get some reps
05:05you know as well as i do he'll get some seven on seven reps at the back end of the
05:09script and he'll
05:10get some he'll get some team reps for three days at the back end of that script as well so
05:14you're
05:15talking about ultimately what are we talking about randy you know as well as you're probably talking
05:19about yeah 10 11 12 plays maximum for the week so does that prepare him um if he happened to
05:27have to
05:27get in the game there's no question they have to pare things down significantly he's not seeing
05:32some of the stuff that you're going to see at the national football league level to expect him
05:36to flip formations or to flip plays or to to re re realign what you're going to do protection wise
05:42that's probably not realistic so you things get pared down significantly i know that a lot of people
05:47say hey put the kid in and all this kind of stuff there's a lot of stuff that you're going
05:51to leave on
05:52the table that you can't call and can't do just because he's not ready to do that yet
05:56dave archer joins us here on the midday show with andy and randy on wednesdays talking falcons football
06:01uh like arch mentioned kevin stifanski meets with the media in about 15 minutes so very likely we
06:06will get the answer to the question of who will start at quarterback on sunday um obviously calling
06:11the game and then probably going back and looking at some of it as well arch what would you say
06:14was
06:15the the biggest reason why the offensive line struggled the way they did well i mean give
06:20pittsburgh credit uh andy that's a that's a decent front it's a veteran front you talk about two guys on
06:25the edge and highsmith and watt their problems the hayward in the interior is a problem big dude
06:30that's played the game a long time obviously one of those guys that doesn't get much of a rush next
06:35thing you know he's got his hand in the air he batted down he batted down three balls that would
06:39have been completions i mean uh rush turned it loose to the right guys and he just does a good
06:44job of tracking that um hopefully cooper can do a better job of maybe changing his arm angle
06:49understanding it guys are kind of mush rushing him in a little bit in the middle a little bit and
06:54maybe
06:54throw it away from where they can't bat it down so maybe he learns a little bit from that as
06:58well
06:59and then their linebacker core is good wilson and queen can play so their front seven's pretty good
07:04and they had they'd done a good job of addressing their secondary they brought in jaquan bresker
07:08who from from the bears who's an outstanding player very similar player that jalen ramsey is
07:14and those two guys were playing in that you know that third that second level and floating to the
07:19third level so they that's a that's a pretty good defense so but i think that if you get back
07:25to
07:25the offensive line play i mean it's about finishing plays and if you haven't played very much which we
07:31didn't play them a lot in the preseason this gets back to that whole thing do you play them do
07:36you get
07:36them banged up in preseason or do you have them fresh for the regular season you got to finish plays
07:40and randy you know maybe you can talk about this after after i get off when you finish plays in
07:46the
07:46play in the in blocking it's one thing to do thud tempo in practice where you engage you go a
07:51step
07:52and then you turn them loose because you don't want to hurt your own players it's another thing
07:55to go five seconds or four seconds into a run play where you're at the second level and you're trying
08:00to dive to get a guy or you're you're in pass protection you're you're at three and a half four
08:05seconds and you're trying to stay with a guy you don't get that in practice and they didn't do it
08:10in
08:10the preseason very much at all anyway as far as playing goes so there was a little bit of new
08:15indoctrination back to the game i thought pittsburgh had a problem with our guys you know that's a
08:19pittsburgh offense it's not a bad offense everybody wants to point oh well they're not very good on
08:23offense either how about giving our defense some credit too our defense got after them pretty good
08:28and it was a team it was a game where neither offense was overly efficient uh what about the the
08:34uh the special two i know folk he i mean i know he missed the first two but he didn't
08:37make the
08:37second two i thought that their penalty on the zachariah uh return was crap how about what did you
08:43think as far as the the teams were in overall in the game yeah i thought the teams showed some
08:49promise randy i thought you had the big return by zachariah that got called back you had a really
08:53good return that got out to about the right the minus 40 45 yard line on the brian robinson return
08:59on the kickoff return so i thought you had a couple positives yeah the the penalty call on josh
09:04woods he's not even in the play he's on the back side of the play and they call him holding
09:09zachariah branches 40 yards from him on the other side of the field it's just you know ridiculous
09:14but anyway you can't do that they're going to call it you got to be aware of that but uh
09:18i think
09:19there's a lot of promise there i said on twitter coming back i think i was talking to one of
09:23the
09:23fans i said hey you get ready zachariah branch is going to take a couple back this year do you
09:27think
09:29what's that get him on offense yeah i'd like to see him touch it you know we only had we
09:33only had
09:34we had what he had 57 plays bajon touched it 30 times i think 29 or 30 times and that'll
09:40be one of
09:40the things that i think they'd like to attack obviously get bajon going and bajon was a problem
09:44for him he had 173 yards of offense um but you do need to be a little bit more diverse
09:50get more guys
09:51involved in and some of that had to do with you know let's convert on third down you had a
09:55third
09:55and one didn't get it third and two didn't get it um you had a couple plays where you did
10:00get the
10:01third down and it got banged back because of a penalty and it took you out of situation i wrote
10:05down guys i watched the tape field position wise we took over the ball at the minus 43 or better
10:12so
10:12that's our own 43 or better on nine different occasions nine times we had a half field opportunity
10:19and we ended up with one touchdown that was on the plus 25 after you got the fumble recovery
10:23and two field goals that was it that's all we got out of it so you got to be better
10:27if you're going to be given that kind of field position you got to be better
10:31um i like you just mentioned kind of the play breakdown and this may be part of the answer
10:35to it but they had no problem getting the ball to bajon which is what we wanted what do they
10:38need
10:39to do to get drake and kyle more involved on sunday well it was some of it has to do
10:43with cooper's got
10:44to trust himself and turn it loose and then if you get an opportunity and randy i know was salivating
10:48we got kyle in behind them on the team route and and he didn't get it to him he just
10:53underthrows
10:54it rams he's able to get back bat the ball down and jump up and down and cross his arms
10:58and all this
10:58kind of crap and he was beat down the middle three about probably step two or three steps beyond
11:03it's at least going to be a catch in a probably a 40 45 yard play and who knows kyle
11:08may score on
11:08the play so those those kind of you in you know we talk about all the time you're going to
11:13get four
11:14or five opportunities to maybe make a play that's a difference making play that was one of those you
11:19have to hit it and i thought that play affected him a little bit and i'm talking about cooper is
11:24he got
11:25a little bit more tentative with the ball in turning it loose i think he was so conscious
11:29about not turning the ball over that he didn't take some of those you know those window shots
11:34uh randy you get you get that little bang it post just in behind the linebacker he had a couple
11:39opportunities to stick those in there but you got to trust yourself to turn it loose again hopefully
11:44the the reps he got this week and what he saw on tape allows him freeze him up mentally hey
11:49i've got
11:49that throw i can make that throw uh what about these panthers obviously they put up 37 but gave up
11:54damn near 100 against the bears what you uh what you see about this team right now as they
12:01are familiar foes in the division well did you know bryce is probably the key bryce feels very
12:07comfortable mercedes mid-stadium for whatever reason he had a monster day last year uh you know i got
12:12over harkens back to his alabama days or whatever but uh he seems to feel very comfortable here through
12:17for 450 yards last time he was here um about 270 of that came in the second half remember this
12:23is the
12:23game michael pennix gets hurt in last year pennix was 11 of 12 in the first half for 163 yards
12:32and
12:32john robinson had a hundred just under 100 yards rushing and two touchdowns atlanta led this game
12:3721 to 10 at the half last year and then the wheels fell off and and carolina ended up winning
12:42an
12:43overtime a field goal in overtime so i think you could go toe-to-toe with them i wouldn't be
12:47overly
12:47concerned i mean the ebb and flow scoring and all that kind of stuff certainly carolina feels much
12:52looser offensively i think liam cohen has kind of found his niche a little bit with what he can do
12:57with bryce young they have helped him a little bit along the offensive line but they didn't run it
13:01very well now can you do what chicago did chicago ran for 291 yards in the game is that a
13:07little bit
13:08of a misnomer i think four of the runs would have equated to 150 yards of their plays the quarterback
13:14caleb williams had like 65 yard rushing including a 30 yard touchdown run we're not going to get that
13:19out of the quarterback so can you get that from from zachariah branch as you mentioned bring some
13:24other guys involved in it and go get them can move the football against these guys so it should be
13:29a
13:29should be a classic you know nfc south classic matchup large will be tuned in thanks so much
13:34great to be with you guys y'all take care dave archer there atlanta falcons radio network analyst
13:39obviously former falcons quarterback as well
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