00:00they are, in a way, facing a very similar week
00:05to what the Atlanta Falcons fans and franchise are dealing with.
00:10One side of the ball was pretty good, and that would be their offense,
00:14and the other side was absolutely awful, and that is their defense.
00:19They're just dealing with it on the flip side of what we're kind of dealing with.
00:23So you lose a game in which you had high hopes of making something happen,
00:29but you come away disappointed, and now both teams are kind of coming into week two.
00:33Like, which version are we going to get?
00:35And he kind of mentions there the fact that things got into a little bit of a shootout.
00:39I was unimpressed, not even necessarily with the schematics of their defense,
00:44but some of the effort you saw in tackling and other things,
00:47and that will not stay that way.
00:49It doesn't in the NFL.
00:50We all know that when you get to week two of an NFL season,
00:53almost everything that happened in week one bounces back the other way
00:56eventually at some point.
00:57I just hope it doesn't happen here,
00:59and I hope it lends itself to Bajon and whoever is playing quarterback
01:03to have in a week.
01:03I always feel like Tony Dungy was talking about this.
01:07I think he was tweeting about it.
01:08I was reading some comments by him about how sloppy NFL play is in weeks one, two, three,
01:15and how a lot of it has to do with, and we've talked about it, I think,
01:19on this show, I feel like we've talked about it ad nauseum,
01:21the limitations you can now have in practice as a staff to practice tackle
01:28under the ground.
01:28You only get so many padded practices.
01:30You only get so many practices where you tackle to the ground.
01:32If guys go down on the ground in a non-padded practice or a non-tackling,
01:38you know, one where it's been denoted that you're going to do that,
01:42you can, if someone turns it in, you can be fined for that, right?
01:45You know, you can file a report, lose draft picks.
01:47I do believe that they were, they fell to some of those things where it was sloppy
01:55because of that.
01:56But Everett was a little bit on the defensive hot seat from the fan base's standpoint.
02:01The defense has not been near as good as he has had in the past.
02:09And funny, though, the game that Carolina played on Sunday is there were eight red zone
02:13possessions in that game, all eight, where they were on offense or defense,
02:18all eight resulted in touchdowns.
02:20They were four for four, and Chicago was four for four against them in the red area.
02:26Were they one team in the NFL that did not make it to the red area last week?
02:31Yeah, and I said this the other day, and I'm going to say it again.
02:34When you go back to the last two seasons plus last week,
02:39Jairo Evro, who was obviously held over as the defensive coordinator under Dave Canales
02:43when Dave Canales signed.
02:44It was a lot like we did here with Jeff Olbert.
02:46They are 32nd in those games in total defense in that time span.
02:52And it has not been good.
02:54There's been a ton of injuries.
02:55But when you look at a team that was more or less healthy defensively,
03:00and that was the product you put on the field, you're right.
03:02A lot of people want Evro to have to take a step back.
03:07So yesterday at practice, Billy Bowman, Kendall Daniels, Chris Lindstrom
03:11were all limited participants in practice.
03:13Chris Lindstrom, of course, was in concussion protocol earlier in the week.
03:16With that in mind, how nervous are you about Kyle Hinton potentially having to block Derek Brown
03:20if Chris Lindstrom cannot play?
03:24I am more okay with it based on his experience.
03:30And he's been with this team a few years, and he's been with these guys up front.
03:34But if I'm not mistaken, Mike, Bergeron missed two games last year,
03:39and I want to say that one of those was against Tampa.
03:43Not 100% positive.
03:45I'd have to go back and check.
03:48Tampa also has some meat eaters up front.
03:52And I'm going to tell you something.
03:53This defensive line is pretty big.
03:56And Bobby Brown did not practice yesterday or Wednesday due to a back issue.
04:02Look, I expect Bobby Brown to play.
04:04I do too.
04:06But if he was somehow not to play, that would not be a bad thing.
04:10But they've got Hunter's 315, Bobby Brown's 330, Derek Brown, who we're very familiar with, 330,
04:17Cam Jackson, we talked about him yesterday, 340 in the middle of that defense.
04:24So it's funny because last week I asked Mike, how do you attack, or you might ask him,
04:29when one of us asked Mike, how do you attack a defense like Pittsburgh?
04:32He's so big.
04:32And he's like, well, funny, it's wide zone, which is what they've kind of going away from
04:37with gap scheme.
04:38Funny enough, you have another defense, a bunch of big dudes up front.
04:42Can you execute some wide zone stuff with gap scheme mixed in to keep them off balance?
04:47Yeah, and I'll be curious to see if they try to operate the wide zone from under center.
04:50Like, that's the one thing last week that you didn't really get much of is some of the
04:54wide zone from under center, which I expected, and that's how wide zone.
04:57Remember, I've said it until I'm blue in the face.
04:59It's the Peyton Manning, the Edron James outside zone stuff is how this whole offense has been
05:04created over the years.
05:06And I'm with you.
05:07Kyle Hinton, I don't know about last year with Matthew Bergeron, but I do know that he
05:10started at Carolina two years ago when Chris Lindstrom was injured.
05:14And so he's, and I can't remember if Derrick Brown was injured for that game too, but he's
05:18been in these situations.
05:19He is a veteran swing interior guard that knows how to step up in these situations.
05:24And we, you know, saw him during training camp, man.
05:27Looks like he's in good shape and ready to go.
05:28What do you want to see more of from the offense on Sunday?
05:31More play action passing?
05:34Yeah.
05:35Yes.
05:36Um, but it's, it's, it's a bigger picture.
05:39I want to see the quarterback be a moving target and a lot of things go into that.
05:44And you heard Kevin Stefanski say it earlier.
05:46It's like, we've got to stay ahead of the chains, right?
05:49We got it.
05:49We can't have the penalties that put us behind the chains and all of a sudden we're facing third
05:53and 18 it's, it's really hard to make the quarterback a moving target on third and 18, right?
05:58It's like, nobody's buying the fake handoff on the play action on third and 18 you're throwing
06:03the ball, right?
06:04But I think you have to find ways to make Cooper rush more comfortable and make this offensive
06:10line more comfortable within the scheme.
06:12And I think a lot of that is rollout protections, bootleg protections, play action protections,
06:17whatever else you have to do to make him more comfortable and make him a moving target.
06:22Yeah.
06:22That's, that's exactly what I'll be looking for on Sunday.
06:24Yeah.
06:25They're going to, you know, you saw at times last week, correct me if I'm wrong, but they
06:30were stacking the box early, early and down and an early situation on down like first
06:35and second down.
06:38Loosen that defense up.
06:39You've, I don't care if, um, like don't put the ball in harm's way, but you're not going
06:44to hurt my feelings.
06:45If you play action and take a shot and, and if it's not there, you still throw it and you
06:50throw it, you know, where it's just uncatchable, right?
06:52Like right out of bounds.
06:54Don't, don't get a, don't get a grounding call.
06:57Be intelligent about that decision, but you're going to have to loosen that defense up that
07:01that the film is out.
07:03You were 12 of 22 and I don't think you pushed the ball downfield more than twice.
07:07Um, and one of those, you had it and it was under thrown.
07:11So that's, that's one thing I need, I want the receivers and I don't, I'm not going to
07:15blame it all on the receivers.
07:16I do think they went elementary with some of the route concepts.
07:19Um, and, and just, but they can't, you can't, I don't with Cooper in there and with, well,
07:25the offensive line played last week, these concepts, uh, that these routes, they can't
07:29be just, you know, stationary routes where you just go eight, nine yards downfield and
07:35turn around.
07:36I'm with you.
07:36I would expect everything to be a little bit more elevated this week, whether it's Cooper
07:39rush or Michael panics.
07:40I mean, Cooper rush has had a little bit more time, more practice.
07:43They could do a little bit more.
07:44I completely agree.
07:45And it's one of the things I'm holding my breath over it.
07:49Um, because I think we've all understood that sometimes you expect things to happen and
07:54you get through the game and you're like, what was that?
07:56Um, so yeah, I mean, but I'm with you.
07:58I expect an elevated, um, just not quite as simplistic.
08:04Right.
08:04And I said this the other day, it was almost as if you said, give me a composite of 10
08:09offensive
08:09plays and AI spits out just 10 normal plays.
08:12And that's like, all right, that's what we ran.
08:14We should actually do that and see what it spits out.
08:16Yeah.
08:16It might, you know what I mean?
08:17The draw up, draw up a playbook of 10 plays.
08:20Yeah.
08:20We should see.
08:21I'm down.
Comments