00:00What have you made of Sonny Stiles playing now through three weeks?
00:03Yeah, he's awesome, right?
00:05I mean, like, is he perfect yet?
00:09Is he Lou Keekly?
00:11No, but, like, man, come on.
00:13I mean, you watch that wheel route that he covers out of the backfield.
00:16It's like, come on, man.
00:17I mean, like, that's why you draft guys highly, to be able to do stuff like that.
00:21And then plays where he's flying downhill and he's making run stops
00:25at the line of scrimmage or in the backfield.
00:27Like, that's what you want to see from this player.
00:29I thought I was so shocked at how quickly, and I don't really know why,
00:36people just were, like, ready to jump on Sonny Stiles to say,
00:40oh, see, this is a bad pick.
00:42They shouldn't have picked him this high.
00:44But with some of those preseason plays, it's like, come on, man.
00:46Like, first of all, I think a lot of the people who are pointing that out
00:49do not understand how to play the linebacker position.
00:53Look, I never played linebacker at any level, especially the NFL,
00:56so I'm not going to pretend that I know as good as anybody.
00:59But I'm watching people sort of look at Sonny Stiles and point out some of these plays.
01:03I'm like, what are you talking about?
01:05He's doing what he's supposed to be doing.
01:07Not every – this guy's not going to blow up the play and run through a guard
01:13and get into the backfield on every play.
01:14Sometimes it's about taking the blocker you need to take.
01:17Sometimes it's about setting the edge.
01:19Sometimes it's about making sure that you're spilling guys back more towards the middle,
01:24even if you're not the one to make the tackle.
01:26And then when it comes to zone coverages, I think there's a lot of people
01:29that just don't understand linebacker play well enough.
01:31And I saw – I was just so shocked to see people so ready to jump on Sonny Stiles
01:37in the preseason in ways that sometimes weren't even valid.
01:40So, look, as this early season has gone on, I think he is only getting better.
01:44He's only going to continue to get better in those coverage roles as well.
01:48I think that he is a beast when it comes to attacking downhill and being violent,
01:53being physical, and I'm a huge Sonny Stiles fan.
01:56I had him number three overall on my big board.
01:58I think he's going to be great for this team, and I think he's off to a good start.
