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Cody Alexander joined Shan and Bobby to discuss the Cowboys trading for Joey Porter Jr. Alexander broke down the trade's compensation, Porter's fit in the defense, Christian Parker's defensive philosophy, and more.
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00:00Because we got breaking news. In case you're just waking up with us, the Dallas Cowboys trade for Joey Porter
00:05Jr.
00:06They give up a 2028 second round pick and a sixth rounder as well.
00:12No contract extension happening as of now.
00:16Bobby, introduce our special guest.
00:18Yeah, we got Cody Alexander here with us.
00:20He is the founder of Match Quarters, which is, best way to describe it would be like the premier defensive
00:26football think tank.
00:27A lot of coaches read it, professional, college, everything else.
00:30But he is the czar of defensive philosophy.
00:33Yeah, my coaching buddy right now in Maryland, he's all geeking out with Cody on the fan cam, Twitch, and
00:38YouTube.
00:38Good morning, man. Thank you for joining us.
00:40Yeah, thanks for having me on, guys.
00:41Your immediate reaction to the trade overall?
00:45This needed to happen. This is something that I think solidifies the boundary.
00:50This is a defense that needed a boundary corner.
00:53And now it kind of adjusts everybody else.
00:55So now you have somebody that can lock down the boundary and you can kind of figure out everything else.
01:01I know if you brought in a safety, now he has to recalibrate, learn the whole system.
01:05This actually just locks everything down.
01:07And I think Porter is a good addition.
01:10Cody, whenever people talk about the, we discussed a little bit this morning, but just the boundary and field corner
01:15stuff.
01:16I think for some people, they hear that and they just go like, okay, well, what's the difference?
01:20Like, aren't you just a corner?
01:21What are you looking for?
01:22Maybe specifically to kind of the Parker Fangio concepts, but what are you looking for when you're trying to find
01:29the right person for a boundary corner versus a field corner?
01:32Right. So it used to be you traveled with your guy.
01:35And then the NFL transitioned really in the last 10 years to primarily zone defense.
01:40And the reason why is because offenses are moving their best guys around.
01:45So what you can typically do is you are still going to get the best isolation and put your best
01:52receiver to the boundary or in the NFL, since everything's in the middle of the field, the weak side.
01:58So away from the passing strength and really at every level of football, that's typically where you're going to see
02:03that.
02:04So where are you going to put your best corner, your best man corner?
02:08You're going to put him into the boundary or away from your nickel because that's primarily where that isolation is.
02:17This is a defense that wants to run quarters.
02:19This is a defense that wants to run match cover three.
02:21This is a defense that wants to run their cover eight with cover two to the passing strength quarters away.
02:28What do all of those things going to ask that boundary corner to do?
02:31Play man cover.
02:32So you don't think, Cody, some of the worries about Christian Parker's zone not fitting Joey Porter should have us
02:40too worked up?
02:42No, I don't think so.
02:43And really, to be honest with you, the Steelers, this is one of those things, too, where I think there's
02:48a disconnect of what the Steelers actually were doing the past couple of years.
02:52This was a zone defense the past couple of years.
02:53This wasn't the five-man rush with cover one behind it that we are so used to seeing from the
02:59Steelers in the previous decade.
03:00This was mostly a cover three team with Tampa two.
03:03That's what Tomlin kind of grew up in in coaching.
03:06He kind of pivoted back to that as the as offense has changed.
03:10So I think he will be fine.
03:12He'll be into the boundary most of the time.
03:14He has the same press rates as what you are seeing right now from the corners on Dallas.
03:19And I think it makes him easy.
03:21The other thing, too, is corner, you're essentially told what to do on every down.
03:26And a lot of the mechanisms for man coverage or, you know, all those coverages that I just talked about,
03:33those are kind of universal techniques.
03:35So he's not going to have to kind of figure out.
03:38It'll be like, how do we do stacks when two receivers get close?
03:42Or what does our bunch check if they put three receivers into the boundary?
03:45Those will be things that he has to do.
03:47And I think he'll be fine with that.
03:48Cody Alexander from Match Quarters joining us on short notice with the breaking news.
03:52Joey Porter Jr. is a Cowboy.
03:55You know, Cody, in leading up and previewing this possibility, we were all kind of like, second round pick feels
04:01a little rich.
04:02He's a good player.
04:03He's not a great player.
04:04And I'm really worried and probably wouldn't want to pay him $30 million.
04:08To that you say what in terms of the value that the Cowboys gave up?
04:14I just think it's one of those deals.
04:16It's like receiver.
04:17It's like an edge.
04:18This is the price that you pay to have a boundary corner.
04:20I think with him, there has been some inconsistencies.
04:24He'll have a game where he just kind of gives things up.
04:26But then there's other games where it's like, wait, I don't remember a receiver catching the ball on him.
04:31And if you really break it down, so if you look at a couple, you know, he has a less
04:36than 50% completion rate last year.
04:39Even if you go back to last year, he had, you know, double digit pass breakups.
04:43I think he had two interceptions.
04:45You know, his QB rating, which I know people don't necessarily pay attention, but actually at the corner spot, it
04:50actually is a metric that kind of tells you whether they do.
04:53He actually has one of the lower QB ratings in the league.
04:57So I think if you look at the metrics, you want him to just start playing consistently.
05:02I think that was one of the things with the Steelers.
05:04It was just kind of like, hey, we need you to play a little bit more consistently.
05:07I think here, hey, we have a very defined role for you.
05:10You're going to play into the boundary.
05:12We're going to lean into your strengths, which is man coverage.
05:14And I think that to me is why you made this move.
05:19Cody, when you look at one of the few criticisms we're getting, everybody generally pretty happy getting Joey Porter this
05:25morning.
05:25One of the few things you're hearing from some people is you spent your resources on the wrong thing.
05:31You needed to get an edge rusher.
05:33That's what Dallas really needed.
05:34When you look at Dallas through the first three weeks and what you've seen from Christian Parker, and it's not
05:39like a carbon copy of Fangio, but some of the Fangio influence that's in there.
05:44Do you agree with the take that prioritization should have been the edge rusher?
05:49Or do you think no, but getting the boundary corner was the more important thing right now for them?
05:52So this defense is coverage first based.
05:55And I think that's kind of the thing that people are going to have to wrap around.
06:00We've been so long here in Dallas that everything was front based.
06:04It was the engine is basically we're going to get to the quarterback.
06:09You know, you have Micah Parsons.
06:11It was this big engine that created a lot of pressure and then kind of waterfalled back to the secondary.
06:18This is a secondary first base defense.
06:20Everything is predicated off the coverage.
06:23This defense wants to answer problems with coverage.
06:26They don't want to answer it with allocating more to the front.
06:30So I think if you look at it, you have to.
06:34The other thing, too, is you have some you have some young guys that, you know, have to develop.
06:39My thing is, is on the back half of the year.
06:41That's where you're going to start seeing the growth in the front.
06:44As these these young guys kind of integrate, they figure out what we can and can't do up front.
06:49But the secondary needs to get figured out because that's the number one priority in this defense is to answer
06:54problems with coverage.
06:56Porter gives you that boundary corner, which now you can allocate other numbers.
07:00Remember, you're trying to solve a math problem when what with essentially one less guy than the offense.
07:06Say that's that's what you are as a defense.
07:08So when I can lock one guy down, that changes the math for me on the back end.
07:13And that's what Parker is doing now that he has Porter.
07:16Yeah, Cody, I know that you're very smart and very intelligent.
07:20And this is a big get for us with breaking news, but I'm still having a hard time wrapping my
07:24my mind around the pass rush.
07:27I don't believe the pieces are there outside of as a rock who and Quinn in.
07:30And I'm like, yeah, it's nice to cover for an extra second, second and a half.
07:35But I don't believe that that is going to help, you know, stop the Lamar Jackson all day throw to
07:40Zay Flowers or these other guys that you're going up against.
07:43So how am I going to get my sacks, which they only have two right now?
07:47Yeah, no, that is a major issue. And this is one of the things when you historically look at this
07:52defensive tree, the Fangio system, when it does not have a pass rush, it really and even above average pass
08:00rush, it's going to struggle.
08:02So, yes, I do think you need to get the linebackers probably a little bit more active in the blitzing.
08:08The blitz rates probably are going to have to get up, which, again, getting Porter is going to be more
08:14important than bringing in another guy.
08:16So, you know, one of the things that I the bar hand to me has really shown up in the
08:21blitz game, even if it's not necessarily getting sacks, are you creating pressure?
08:25Are you creating isolation? So those are some things that I think that you can see.
08:30I think you were right on it. Like Rashawn Gary as kind of this big five, you know, a big
08:36D in a big edge hasn't really produced.
08:40So on early downs, it's really those later downs. You're going to have to find that mix of guys that's
08:45going to be able to give you a little bit of juice.
08:47Cody Alexander, defensive guru for match quarters, joining us here on 105.3 The Fan.
08:52Cody, to that point, and we've referenced this a little bit, Christian Parker had given an interview five years ago,
09:00I think something like that,
09:00where he had talked about the idea of, you know, two primary ways that you can mess with a quarterback.
09:06You can speed him up, get him pass rush, or you can mess with his eyes, basically mess with his
09:11brain with what you're doing.
09:13So Parker talked about, hey, I want to zero up.
09:15I don't want to even show leverage pre-snap necessarily, because I want to give the quarterback as few things
09:21to eliminate when he walks up to the line of scrimmage as possible.
09:24I know at Match Quarters, you guys are about, like, trying to make things digestible.
09:28Can you just explain for people at home the overall philosophy of why the Fangio scheme believes, hey, if you
09:35do things this way,
09:36it's more beneficial to base your defense in coverage rather than just trying to go wild, wink Martindale, and send
09:42the house?
09:43Right. So I'm going to use an offensive analogy to help you with defense.
09:47So last year, one of the biggest things was Ben Johnson essentially made every single down a coin flip.
09:53You didn't know if it was going to be a run or a pass.
09:56That was one of the things that everybody talked about.
09:57Oh, my gosh. If you're a defense, you don't know what to call because you don't know what you're going
10:01to get.
10:01So on the other side of that, this kind of goes back all the way to kind of the early
10:062010s when the spread hit college football.
10:09How are we going to defend it?
10:11Everything has to look kind of we don't want to give any space.
10:15We don't want to give the illusion that there's going to be anything open.
10:18And that's what the Fangio system is going to do.
10:21They're trying to create a coin flip on every single down where that quarterback and that offensive coordinator, when they
10:27get to the ball, they don't know what they're going to get.
10:30So what you're doing is you're offloading all of that mental load from the offensive coordinator and you're putting it
10:38on the quarterback.
10:39And as we know, I mean, we talk about it every week about the NFL, like the lack of quarterback
10:44play.
10:45There's not a lot of elite quarterbacks, you know, even teams with good quarterbacks are trying to say they don't
10:50have a good.
10:50Yeah. So I think what he's trying to do is saying we're not going to give any kind of tell
10:56everybody every time.
10:57Like so if you're a coach out there and you're on huddle, right, every time you get a screenshot or
11:03they're going to they're going to sideline and they're getting there on those on their tablets.
11:07Every time they get to where the ball is snapped, the coverage looks the exact same.
11:13So what you're forcing the quarterback to do is process while the bullets are flying and during the heat of
11:19the game.
11:19And that's what he's talking about is slowing down that process.
11:22Quarterbacks want to have a clearly defined tell.
11:26And when you play the way that Fangio system does, where everything's kind of static and even the first second
11:32of the down looks the exact same, regardless if they're running cover three cover or quarters or they're cover eight.
11:38That's what he's talking about there.
11:40Great explanation.
11:41What type of job do you think that Christian Parker is doing so far?
11:46And are you surprised that this defense is still this bad or you expected it?
11:52Well, I've kind of told everybody that has been around the Cowboys, I've kind of told the model is going
11:57to be the Saints from last year.
11:59The Saints, if you go back and you look at weeks one through nine, were not very good on the
12:03on the front end of the season.
12:05On the back half of the season, they started to figure out some of the young players started getting in.
12:10They started getting really good at fitting the run.
12:11They knew what they could do to create pressure.
12:13You kind of just saw this growth.
12:15And then, you know, that's where they have it.
12:17But I think for the Cowboys, you have to remember that this is a scheme that takes some time.
12:23They've had a disjointed secondary.
12:25I mean, all the injuries to me are all in the secondary.
12:28So it's kind of disjointed.
12:30So it's going to take a little bit of time.
12:32I think he's done a decent job.
12:34I think if you look in the back half of the year, and I know fans want to win now,
12:39and I understand that.
12:39But in my coach brain, it's like, OK, if we can get nine through 18 and we start seeing growth
12:45and we start seeing guys step up and we start identifying where we are, everything starts connecting and we get
12:52some cohesion.
12:53That, to me, is kind of where I want to see the growth.
12:57I think they had some problems against Baltimore with Zay Flowers.
13:00They were getting Zay Flowers as the number three receiver in some of those areas and isolating linebackers.
13:05I think there's some things that guys have missed out on.
13:09I think they find Marquise Bell every single time he's on the field.
13:12I think they hunt him.
13:13Offenses are going to do that all season.
13:16So those are things that he's going to have to deal with and find answers for.
13:20But I think if you look at it, you kind of expected this.
13:24If you really look at it, you kind of expected this.
13:27But I want to start seeing growth as we go through the season.
13:30Cody Alexander, Match Quarters on the Fan Camp Twitch and YouTube here on Sean and RJ.
13:35Cody, how do you think Caleb Downs is playing?
13:37Do you agree with how they are playing him?
13:41And do you think how they're playing him changes with the Porter deal?
13:45I think nothing changes with Porter.
13:49He's fine.
13:50Look, you're looking for a bunch of home run hits from a nickel.
13:54And that's just not going to come.
13:56I think as he gets comfortable in this system and he starts playing more in base, I think that will
14:02start showing up.
14:03The other thing, too, is you have to remember he was supposed to have Jalen Thompson.
14:07Jalen Thompson is hurt.
14:09Now he's got to have play next to Marquise Bell.
14:11That kind of changes some things.
14:13Malik Hooker is hurt.
14:14You know, so there's not some camaraderie.
14:17Again, as things stabilize, I think he's fine.
14:19This is what I expected.
14:20He would play kind of that down safety position or that strong safety position in base.
14:26He would then go to the nickel when they would go into their sub packages.
14:29I think he's fine.
14:30And he's a really good football player.
14:32Absolutely fantastic.
14:34You met all the hype.
14:35You put the fan cam numbers through the roof.
14:37Where can we find you?
14:39Matchquarters.com is where you can find everything that you need from any article on the NFL or any social
14:45media you want to follow and you're on.
14:47It's all at Matchquarters.com.
14:49Thank you so much on the short notice and hopping on the fan cam and the great info.
14:53We'll do it again.
14:53Thank you, Cody.
14:54Appreciate you guys.