00:00Dan Quinn, in his post-bi-week press conference yesterday, was talking about Jaden Daniels and the offense
00:08and eventually got around to a big message about his team six games into the season.
00:15And he said, quote, as the first part of the season goes, there's some trial and some error.
00:22But now that we're this far along, no more trial.
00:27Closed quote.
00:29That was him yesterday during, you know, sort of a newsless press conference.
00:36Other than what I mentioned earlier, Javon Kinlaw, somebody to watch this week, Traylon Brooks as well for Sunday night.
00:41But he was essentially saying there's no more room for anything other than winning.
00:49You know, no more room for, you know, new coordinator learning curve talk.
00:53No more room for needing to explain in very awkward ways in-game mismanagement errors.
01:02No more room for pre-snap penalty discussion.
01:07No more room for injury talk.
01:09You know, the team right now is a rat trapped in a corner and there's only one way to get
01:16out of it.
01:17And that is to start swinging.
01:20The good news is that if some of the swings connect, they still have time to, you know, work their
01:28way back from the corner of the room into the center of the room.
01:32You know, they've got 11 games remaining.
01:3511.
01:36That's nearly two-thirds of the season.
01:39Two-thirds.
01:4064.8% to be exact.
01:42Not exactly 66.6% left.
01:46But nearly two-thirds of the season left to make everyone forget the first third of the season that came
01:54before it.
01:55Two full months of football.
01:58We're still in October.
02:00I know this is a sprint this season.
02:03You know, the college football season even more so.
02:05But the NFL season flies by.
02:07We are four days away from Halloween.
02:09I get it.
02:11But we still have two full months of football left.
02:15November and December.
02:16And a few weeks of regular season football in January to boot.
02:21So, two and a half months really left in the regular season.
02:27We haven't gotten to any of the major holidays yet of fall or early winter.
02:33We haven't gotten to Halloween.
02:35Four days away from it.
02:36And their next game actually comes the day after Halloween.
02:39But this season is still, relatively speaking, young.
02:45The bulk of it lies ahead.
02:47And I did say last week it seems kind of silly to look at the state of the division race
02:54and talk about it being, you know, gettable.
02:57Talk about it being within reach when you haven't won a game in a month.
03:02It's actually a month to the day.
03:04They beat Seattle September 27th.
03:07Today is October 27th.
03:09But for them, that has to be the goal.
03:13You need goals.
03:14You need achievable goals.
03:16The division is the jackpot.
03:19It's the payoff.
03:21That's what is still, very much still, in their control.
03:28The Eagles are on life support.
03:31Dallas can't stop anybody.
03:33And the Giants, you know, are the closest thing to a team in the division that has an identity or
03:41has developed an identity.
03:42And, look, they've got some mojo because they've got, you know, a Super Bowl winning head coach who has clearly
03:50put his, you know, imprint on this new football team.
03:56But they're far from perfect.
03:57They're flawed in a lot of ways.
03:59And we don't know yet, even though he played great on Sunday against a good team in Houston on the
04:06road.
04:06We're not sure that J.J. McCarthy is the answer quite yet.
04:10But the division is the prize.
04:13And as ridiculous as it sounds to say it, 1-4-1, it's not out of reach.
04:20And I would imagine that Quinn is saying this.
04:24You know, like, look, we have gotten close in a lot of these games.
04:32And we haven't played our way out of it yet.
04:35And there are nearly two-thirds of the season, you know, remaining.
04:39And you don't, I don't think, you know, you take that step as a coach to say the schedule lightens
04:45up a little bit compared to what it's been.
04:47But however he decides to communicate it, you're trapped in a corner.
04:54You've got to come out swinging.
04:56And it's not just for pride.
05:00There is actually a prize at the end of this.
05:04A division title and a home playoff game in mid-January.
05:12So that is there, okay?
05:15You can't deny that it's not available to them.
05:20You know, there are years in which you'd look at the team and say, oh, that's a bad football team.
05:25You'd look at the division and you'd say, oh, my God.
05:27They're clearly the worst.
05:29You're going to have three wild cards out of the division because every one of the other three teams at
05:34this point is five and two and four and three or whatever.
05:38My question to you at 301-230-0980 is how do they get it done?
05:48What type of team do they need to morph into over the final 11 games to get, for them, the
05:58goal, the ultimate payoff of a division title?
06:03So, describe it any way you want.
06:05But what type of team do they have to become?
06:09Because I don't think they're that team right now.
06:12But this isn't December.
06:16There aren't five games left and you're mathematically still alive.
06:20This is still within your control.
06:22You don't have to start rooting for anybody else to lose at this point.
06:27This is in your control right now.
06:31I wrote down five things that I thought have to happen for this team to make a run.
06:38And, by the way, I'll quantify what the run needs to be.
06:42Eleven games, they have to win a minimum of seven of those games and, more likely than not, eight of
06:51those games.
06:53Eight, eight, and one probably has them in it until the final two weeks if, you know, they're sitting there
06:59at, you know, eight, seven, and one getting ready to play Dallas or six, eight, and one and two wins
07:05would get it.
07:05They're probably in it.
07:07Nine, seven, and one probably gives them the division.
07:13My question to you is, what type of team do they have to become?
07:20Describe it any way you want to describe it.
07:22I'm going to give you my top five things that have to happen for them to achieve that goal.
07:30See, we're being positive today, people.
07:33301-230-0980.
07:36Number one for me is the easiest of all the things you should be thinking about when you think about
07:44what does this team need to do to make a run.
07:47The quarterback, Jaden Daniels, has to play in all 11.
07:51He is the best football player on the field for them.
07:55He's the biggest difference maker.
07:57He has elite-level traits and talent.
08:01You know, something that I said to Ben, I think, yesterday on the show, and I really would urge those
08:08of you that, you know, have or have had second thoughts over the last season and six games of this
08:17season about what Jaden Daniels is.
08:20He has not played three consecutive games since his rookie season.
08:28He's only played in back-to-back games, start to finish healthy twice.
08:36That's just no way to, you know, live and breathe and evolve as a young quarterback when you're out of
08:46the lineup as much as he's been.
08:49So, the quarterback's played two games in a row, and Sunday could be the first time since 2024, if he
08:59starts the game and finishes the game healthy, that he's played three consecutive games since his rookie season.
09:10He's got to play in all 11, period, end of discussion.
09:14Without him, everything else could be great.
09:16Everything else could be massively improved, and they're still only going to win another four or five games max.
09:24That's the easy part.
09:25The other parts, to me, are really, really crucial for it to happen around him.
09:31And I'm not going to start on that side of the ball.
09:34To me, number two is the defense has to be what it kind of has been already, which is a
09:43better-than-average run-stopping team.
09:47They have to be a team that stops the run.
09:53They're going to play teams, you know, the rest of the way that are going to want to run the
09:59football.
09:59The Rams, the Eagles this weekend, if Saquon Barkley is healthy, with that young quarterback, they have to run the
10:07football.
10:08They ran it against Dallas, which is why they had a lead.
10:11You've got to shut down the run on Sunday.
10:14The Giants are going to want to run the football.
10:18The Texans and the Falcons and the Vikings and the Jags are all going to want to run the football.
10:26I think it's going to be, I think it's impossible, no matter how great Jaden is, if he were to
10:33become that over the final 11 games or play that way.
10:36I think stopping the run is critical.
10:41I think if they don't run the football on offense, they can still have success offensively.
10:47Harder, but they can still have success.
10:50They don't have a chance of being successful on defense if they haven't done what they've done so far, for
10:56the most part, and that is be a solid to really, you know, an average to better than average run
11:04-stopping team.
11:06I've been encouraged by that.
11:08Yeah, the 49ers had some big runs, some chunk runs, Jonathan Taylor late.
11:13But for the most part, Washington's been a solid run-stopping team.
11:18That has to continue.
11:19That's number two on my list of the five things that have to happen if they're going to make a
11:26run.
11:27Number three is, again, on the defensive side of the ball, somebody's got to step up as a consistent pass
11:35rusher.
11:37Owe hasn't been that yet.
11:39Chason's been that a bit more.
11:40Or Armstrong needs to potentially be that.
11:44But they have to have the ability to rush the passer without extra man pressure.
11:51They have to.
11:53Somebody's got to step up as a pass rusher.
11:55That's why they paid Owe.
11:56They didn't pay Owe to be an edge run-stopper.
11:59It's nice that he's pretty decent at that, but he has to make plays.
12:05He's got to deflect balls.
12:07He's got to force fumbles.
12:08He's got to get sacks and pressures.
12:10Chase on the same.
12:13Number four, they have to continue to win the turnover margin.
12:19They are plus six, second in the league behind Minnesota.
12:22They've only had two giveaways and eight takeaways.
12:29You're not going to make a big run of seven out of 11 or eight out of 11 without winning
12:36the turnover margin.
12:38You know, if you go back, you know, over, you know, the last quarter of a century, you know, the
12:43playoff runs that have all happened after poor starts to the season.
12:48You know, if we go back to 2005, 2007, 2012, 2015, 2020, you'll find in all of those runs at
13:01the end of the season a positive turnover margin.
13:05That this team is not going to overpower people and blow people out.
13:12They need to win on the margins.
13:15And that first margin is turnover margin.
13:19And then five, talking about the margins, they've got to be much better with situational football.
13:28This is a very key element of the game.
13:31These games that they're going to be in over the final 11, if they do morph into a team that
13:39the quarterback's healthy and playing at a high level, they're pretty good at stopping the run.
13:44They develop a pass rusher.
13:46They're winning the turnover margin.
13:47They're still at that point going to have seven or eight games out of the final 11 that come down
13:54to the fourth quarter.
13:55They come down to a key possession.
13:57You know, an opportunity to gain a possession using your timeouts properly, an opportunity to assault a game away, ice
14:08a game with just basic football 101 strategy.
14:14They cannot be a team that punches themselves in the face with a brick and expect to get to the
14:23goal that they're trying to achieve.
14:26Let's face it, they're a 1-4-1 football team, but they should be a 2-4 football team right
14:32now.
14:33Worst case, 2-4.
14:35The Giant game should have been a win, not a tie.
14:40Forget what happened before the end, giving up the two-touchdown lead, all of the things that happened.
14:45They were actually at the end of the game with a win probability of like 90% plus, and they
14:53literally vomited all over themselves.
14:58These are going to be these fine line margins when you're trying to win seven or eight out of the
15:0411, and if Jaden's healthy and plays all 11, if they become or continue to be a better than average
15:11run-stopping team,
15:12if they can develop a more consistent pass rush and somebody becomes a pass rusher on third down where you
15:21don't have to send two extra pass rushers,
15:24if they continue to win on the margins as in turnover margin first, they're still going to be in these
15:31situations over and over again.
15:33Seven or eight of these games, if all of those first four things happen, are going to come down to
15:39our sideline against the other sideline.
15:43What does our coach do when it comes to timeouts, big decisions on fourth down, big decisions on how to
15:52end and close out a game?
15:55You're going to have to win on those margins.
16:003-0-1, 2-3-0, 0-9-80, 3-0-1, 2-3-0, 0-9-80.
16:06We've had a lot of season, man, in six weeks.
16:09We had an opener that came down to a two-point conversion.
16:13We had a week two game that was looking like Jaden Daniels 2024,
16:20and it's about to be 17-17 at halftime, or maybe not,
16:25and he gets his foot stepped on by Chris Paul and falls and dislocates his elbow.
16:30Then, miraculously, they shock Seattle, the defending champions, who are 2-0,
16:36and nine-and-a-half-point favorites with Sam Darnold coming back.
16:41Then in week four, you go to London, and you inexplicably, with a third-string quarterback,
16:48decide to go for a fourth-and-one in your own territory.
16:51That totally flips the game.
16:53I don't know if they win that game.
16:55They would have had a chance to win that game had they played the game a certain way.
17:01And then, of course, the last two games, the Giant game, which was so winnable
17:07and should have been won, and a 49er game that turned out to be winnable
17:13despite another massive head-scratching in-game error, this one by the quarterback.
17:22Still, without that quarterback, the rest of the way, you're not doing anything.
17:27So that's number one.
17:29301-230-0980.
17:32What has to get done?
17:35What does this team need to morph into?
17:38Give me your top two or three things that you think are legitimately within reach of them becoming
17:44that you think gives them a chance to make a run over the last nearly two-thirds of the season.
17:53Feels like we've had two-thirds of the season played already with all of the drama.
18:00But there's a long way to go.
18:03301-230-0980.
18:04Kevin Sheehan Show, The Team 980, and theteam980.com.
18:08Everything on the stage, you may have got me known.
