00:00John Lopez, it looks like there's steam coming out of your ears.
00:02There is steam coming out of my ears.
00:04And, you know, we're going to talk about the game,
00:06but it's no longer about just the game.
00:08There's an old saying out there that I've always kind of adhered to.
00:14The rats, the rats are the first ones to jump off of a sinking ship
00:19because they're down in the bowels, they're down in the dark,
00:21and they know before anybody else.
00:23What you just saw was Nick Casario start to bail.
00:26What you just heard was Nick Casario bailing,
00:29talking about next year a lot, talking about the offseason, looking forward.
00:33That's fine, I get it.
00:35But it wasn't even particularly subtle, and I'm damn near shaking I'm so mad at this.
00:43Your general manager just put it all on the players.
00:45He just put it all on the players.
00:47Let me give you some examples because occasionally as I'm keeping notes,
00:50I'll highlight them in blue, the ones that I think are significant.
00:53Are you sure you were highlighting blue or were you highlighting in white?
00:55Because there's a lot more blue than white over there.
00:57Look at this.
00:59Because he said things like, one of the worst penalized teams in the league,
01:03one of the worst tackling teams in the league.
01:05Technically correct.
01:06Some need to play more, some need to play less.
01:09Okay.
01:10That's on the players.
01:11Making sure we have the right people in the building.
01:15If we don't, we've got to get other people.
01:18A lot of them probably will tell you they can play better too.
01:23We have enough scheme.
01:25If you don't reroute the receiver at the line of scrimmage, is that a scheme issue?
01:30Or is it a player issue?
01:32If we're playing with the wrong leverage or two off the receiver, which by the way,
01:36that might be a little bit of a shot at D'Amico,
01:38I don't think that's the result of the coordinator not making a good call.
01:43Time and time again, he's putting it on the players.
01:45Whose freaking job is it to get these players?
01:48Whose job is it?
01:49There's more.
01:50Some of our good players or better players probably haven't played as well as they're capable of.
01:56Again, whose job is it to bring these players into this building and has been spending money
02:02and draft picks and resources and making trades with second round picks?
02:08How about this?
02:09When he was talking about the defense,
02:10You either want to throw your body on somebody or we're not driving, we're not finishing.
02:17It's about physical toughness and there's a certain mental toughness.
02:22You've seen some of our better players making some of those errors.
02:26You're looking at the player's mentality.
02:28How about this coming up here?
02:29Some have it and some don't.
02:32The rats are bailing from the sinking ship.
02:36And Nick Casario, there are no more excuses.
02:39It's you, brother.
02:40It's you.
02:42100%.
02:42This is not, I mean, that's about as weak of a performance as your general manager has ever put out
02:49there.
02:49Flat out.
02:50What I find interesting is that, as you very well detailed,
02:54there's a lot of harsh words or strong words when it comes to the on-the-field level players not
03:00doing enough.
03:01When it comes back to, right, talking about the ways, as you mentioned, like the grocery buying, right,
03:07the actual players, it then becomes about, well, you know, the process and we're just trying to get as good
03:12players in.
03:13The thing that felt the most damning to me, John Lopez, a shout-out to DJ Biennemi,
03:17asking about the offensive line and how, you know, with the amount of resources that has been put into that
03:22position on the field,
03:24he asked Nick Casario pretty directly,
03:25how would you explain why you have not been able to find, like, fairly consistent results?
03:31Why you have not been able to get to a place with an offensive line where you can depend on
03:35it to be pretty consistent in both pass and run?
03:37And his first words out of his mouth, Nick Casario, was, I don't have a good answer.
03:41And it felt like he was short-circuiting to me because he went to, you know,
03:44you try to put the guys out there that you feel are the best.
03:47Sometimes it's a match-up situation he went to.
03:49It's like, sometimes that guy's just better than your guy.
03:51And all of it just felt like, well, I don't really have a good, I mean, literally, the words was,
03:56I don't have a good answer for that.
03:58And it just felt like, have you ever played one of those games where you're matching cards as you flip
04:02them over?
04:02Yeah.
04:02I love this.
04:03I love this 30 minutes of an interview or of a press conference because there was enough time with a
04:08lot of different things
04:09where you got answers in different places.
04:11And if you tried to flip one from one part and flip one from the other, you go, these things
04:15don't,
04:16like, these things don't connect.
04:17These things don't match.
04:18And it felt like so much of this came down to evaluation, whether it was evaluation of self,
04:23where you're talking about offensive line and you cannot correctly identify over a five, six-year period
04:29why you have not been able to get to a place.
04:31It feels like that shows up in a lot of places where an incapability of evaluating yourself properly
04:37has gotten you to this place.
04:38He's talking about it being a week-to-week league.
04:40They talk about how one year does not compare to the next.
04:42And I'm just sitting here going, maybe you should do a little bit more consideration of how one week impacts
04:47the next one
04:48because I think maybe you find answers where you don't end up committing the same mistakes week-to-week or
04:53year-to-year.
04:53And the thing is, he's already, you know, talking about next year and evaluation and all this other stuff.
04:59He started in 2021.
05:01He's been doing this for five years.
05:03The things that he's done are, there's no more like holdover or carryover from anything that he's done.
05:11He has overhauled the team.
05:13And it's unfathomable because he said that collectively we haven't done the job altogether.
05:21Well, the collective is him.
05:25The collective is him.
05:27And the resources that he's put into this roster and to put it all on the players with no self
05:32-evaluation
05:33and defending the scheme and defending his guys, it's not.
05:37It's on him.
05:39You're never scheming for guys to run open.
05:41As if there's other teams in the league that are scheming to run open.
05:44Well, that's the other thing that I think is very important.
05:46I'm glad you brought that up because he said the reality is he kept going back to this theme of
05:51one-possession games.
05:52Hey, one-possession games.
05:53We were close in a lot of these games.
05:55What did he say?
05:56One and four in one-possession games.
05:59Realistically, should you have even been in a one-possession game based on what the results were last year,
06:04what the expectation was this year?
06:06Well, last year's a different year than this year.
06:07Well, I understand.
06:08He went heavy in on that.
06:09Based on what the expectations were by them of this team.
06:13And shout out to Kim Davis for asking this question.
06:15You always talk about building on last year, building on last year.
06:18And you've fallen flopped.
06:20You've flopped.
06:21Based on what we thought about this team and what they thought about this team,
06:25should the Colts game have even been a one-possession game?
06:28Should the Cowboys game have even been a one-possession game?
06:31Should the Giants have even been a one-possession game?
06:35No.
06:36They're one-possession games that you're crouching and clawing just to be able to stay in it.
06:40And you lost all three of those games.
06:42I mean, it's unfathomable how quickly he is completely bailing.
06:50Completely bailing and in self-preservation mode.
06:54And already talking about next year as if, hey, we've got a plan still, man.
06:57We've still got a plan.
06:58We're going to make the most of our resources.
07:00Find the best guys we can.
07:02And you've had five years to do that.
07:05Yeah, and you also get to it, and this is where it's interesting talking about the Marvin Harrison Jr. portion
07:10of this, right?
07:11Because there was definitely a lot of conversations about trying to get a feel for when you're a team that
07:16has one win at that time
07:19that makes a trade for a wide receiver with a second-round pick in a room where you probably had
07:23some wide receivers,
07:24especially you were anticipating some returning.
07:26And you start getting some of the ideas there.
07:28It's like, well, we just felt comfortable with it.
07:29And, you know, you just try and add good players.
07:31But then again, you take that and you compare that to what you're talking about.
07:35Like, he started talking about, you know, I think Cody Stoots asked a good question trying to get to an
07:40idea of,
07:40do you think that that second-round pick that you ultimately traded for a wide receiver in now a room
07:44where it's crowded,
07:45do you think that could have been basically better used to help acquire another player?
07:48And he got to a place where he started talking about, well, I didn't foresee us using that pick to
07:53acquire another player.
07:54He basically talked about how he's looking at the landscape that is out there
07:58that there probably wouldn't have been a player to acquire.
08:00And that got me thinking, have they been looking at other positions to add to where they cannot find players
08:06to add?
08:07Or is this some level of cover where you go, yeah, no, I'm looking and I'm not seeing anything when
08:11that's not inherently true.
08:13Both of those are not comfortable for me, John.
08:15No, no, and they shouldn't be.
08:16And that's a good point that you make right there because he also kind of hinted about selling.
08:21You know, talking about teams are reaching out.
08:24Those are his words.
08:25You know, teams are reaching out and things like that.
08:27But it is, we've seen this act before.
08:32And you guys know exactly what I'm talking about.
08:35We've seen the act of, we know what we're doing.
08:38It's the players.
08:40Trust me when I tell you that we're doing it the right way.
08:44We have a plan.
08:45Just wait.
08:46It's going to be fantastic.
08:48Ingratiating yourself with the owners, you know, getting into that corner with them and earning their trust and belief.
08:57We've seen this act before.
08:58The only difference is Nick Casario is a little more polished and has a better resume than the act we've
09:04seen before.
09:05Because that's what he's doing.
09:06He's in self-preservation mode.
09:08He is absolutely, you know, sort of aligning himself with ownership and, hey, look, it's not me.
09:15It's the players.
09:17Even taking a couple of little subtle shots at D'Amico Ryan's defense, if you really listen to what he
09:21had to say.
09:22He is bailing, man.
09:24He's bailing.
09:25He's bailing.
