00:00So let me just tell you something about that last play.
00:02And I think most of you know this.
00:03Some of you don't, at least on social media.
00:07Jaden didn't have a brain fart at the end like he did against the Giants.
00:12This was not him not knowing that this was the last play
00:15or not knowing that there wasn't going to be another play after this play.
00:21I don't know how many ways you can say him not knowing it wasn't the final play,
00:25like in the Giant game.
00:27He knew it was the final play.
00:28He knew there were three seconds.
00:30He knew they were down seven.
00:31This was what was called, people.
00:34Now, real quickly, the league, we've seen an increase,
00:38if you watch the rest of the league, in teams not necessarily in those situations
00:44throwing a Hail Mary.
00:46There are plays designed to throw underneath
00:50and then to line up players in a specific way for pitch opportunities
00:55to try to run it in.
00:56The Dolphins, I think, recently ran that at the end of a half or a game and scored that way.
01:03It's not a given that you're going to see a Hail Mary in those situations in the league anymore.
01:08My preference would have been from the 31-yard line, three seconds to go,
01:14to throw the ball towards the end zone.
01:18Now, Quinn had, bless his heart, he tried to explain it.
01:24But I think I can speak, Quinnese, better than some of you.
01:29Let me play for you, when he was asked about this early in the press conference,
01:34what he said about the final play.
01:38Dan, on that final play, what went into the decision to go with the lateral play
01:42instead of maybe taking a shot directly at the end zone?
01:45Yeah, so there's two plays that you come in.
01:47And so on the first one, you're taking a shot to the end zone, just like you described.
01:52And sometimes to check for that against a team that does what we call a zero blitz or a max
01:58blitz,
01:58you want to, okay, here's the other play where you can't block them all up.
02:02And so they did a good job, this guy's, in showing that one.
02:05So we got to the second play of what would have been like everybody blitzing,
02:09check it down, and move forward from there.
02:13So with eight seconds left, you want two chances at something.
02:17And so to not have those, you know, like, didn't love our execution at our end.
02:24Okay.
02:26So let me take this chronologically.
02:29The play before with eight seconds to go, Stefan Diggs, I believe, I could be wrong,
02:34intentionally doesn't catch the ball on a throw down the middle of the field.
02:38Because if he does, the game will end.
02:41That, to me, was not a higher IQ awareness kind of a play.
02:48Now, they were taking away the sidelines.
02:49They were playing three deep on the goal line on that play.
02:54So, really, your opportunity there with three rushing, three rushing on that play with eight
03:00seconds to go was to take your shot at a Hail Mary there.
03:03You know, keep in mind, with the ball at the 31-yard line, if you extend enough, even with
03:09three on the goal line, you're not going to get a normal play from the 31 against the defense
03:14that the Rams had set up.
03:15It's not like you can go under center, play action, suck the defense up, and hit something
03:20over the top.
03:21You know, that's not going to happen because of the defense that they're playing.
03:25They're playing three on the goal line.
03:27But on that play, if you extend with eight seconds to go, and by the way, I think we've
03:32seen this quarterback do that on this field his rookie year against the Bears.
03:37If he can run around and extend and you treat the eight-second play like, hey, man, we're
03:42getting three here rushing.
03:44This might be our best shot.
03:45You actually, after extending, might be able to throw on a rope.
03:49You're not going to get anything to the sideline for another eight, nine yards because of their
03:54playing sidelines on that play.
03:57They're not going to let you get to the sideline.
03:59I guess there is, you could flood a side and run something underneath out for six yards to
04:04get to the 25-yard line, 24-yard line, and then run the final play.
04:09But the eight-second play probably was the better opportunity to throw something to the
04:14end zone.
04:16What they did on that play, what Jaden decided to do, was not high awareness, in my opinion,
04:21from him.
04:22And Diggs had the higher awareness, if that's what Diggs was doing, which was intentionally
04:27not catching the football.
04:29It was almost intercepted.
04:31Now, he had to contemplate that, I would imagine.
04:35But that got them to the final play with three seconds to go.
04:39And what Quinn explained was that the check to the Hail Mary call is to throw the ball underneath
04:49and try to score that way.
04:52Because they had shown zero before the timeout in the previous play, and they felt like if
04:58they were getting zero blitz, I mean, hell, three and four-man and five-man pressures were
05:03working yesterday, especially with 95 and 90 on the field.
05:07When you have those kinds of players on the field, it's tough for the offensive line.
05:14And the offensive line didn't hold up, for the most part, yesterday against Garrett, anyway.
05:20But to run around for five or six seconds against all-out zero is tough.
05:26So, Jaden thinks he's getting zero.
05:29He ends up getting blitz.
05:30There's five rushing.
05:32All right?
05:32Anytime there's more than four, I think that's, by definition, a blitz.
05:38But it's not all-out blitz.
05:41It's five rushing.
05:42And so, he thought he was getting all-out blitz.
05:45He checked.
05:46But my problem with this play is, it's not coordinated in any way.
05:52Like, where's the pitch coming from?
05:55Where's the throw to chig underneath with the trailer that he's going to pitch to?
06:00Or the guy coming from the other side of the field that he's going to pitch going in the
06:03opposite direction?
06:05We're just throwing underneath and pitching it around like you would on a last play of the
06:10game from your own 25-yard line?
06:12No.
06:13We've got to do better than that on the final play.
06:18So, Jaden knew what the situation was.
06:21For those that literally thought that he had a brain freeze and didn't know it was the final
06:26play and checked it down.
06:27No, the check down was the check on the play to the Hail Mary because he thought more than
06:32five were coming.
06:34But the play itself that they checked to, I don't see what they're trying to do.
06:39I've watched it on the All-22 a number of times.
06:43The league, we've seen an increase of teams not throwing Hail Marys and coming up with
06:48other ways to kind of get a head start with a runner that's a good runner, a fast runner
06:54with a pitch option going down the field after a throw underneath.
06:59They don't have any of that.
07:00The guy that's actually the best pitch option is the quarterback who's sprinting down the
07:06field.
07:07I don't think he was supposed to be the pitch option, although I would love it if he was.
07:15Like, that makes sense to me.
07:17Like, maybe, you know, you throw to the one sideline a lateral and then there's a throw
07:23back to Jaden on the other side of the field.
07:25Now you've got your fastest, most elusive runner with a trailer, with a pitch on.
07:29There's nothing that looks organized about this play.
07:34That's my problem more than anything else.
07:37And with only five rushing, I would have preferred to have seen him run around, create extra time,
07:45and try to throw one into the end zone.
07:47And again, from the 31-yard line, you create enough time extending the play, which he is
07:52great at.
07:53You might get somebody open even against their deep coverage.
07:57And on that final play, they showed too deep, but ran somebody back, you know, sort of
08:01pre-snap.
08:03I just didn't like any part of the final two plays.
08:07But it was not because Jaden Daniels was unaware.
08:10Okay, this was not the end of the Giant game.
08:13Just for those that thought it was.
08:16I think that the second-to-last play was more of a, man, hey, you can't throw the ball with
08:25eight seconds to go, short of the goal line, down the middle of the digs, where if he catches
08:31it, he's going to get tackled inbounds, and the game is going to end.
08:36And then the final play, look, I would have preferred to have seen him run around, make
08:40a play, even if six were rushing, you know, if they are in zero blitz, I understand, look,
08:46you got to get seven pass rushers, potentially, and you're underneath, but you got to have
08:53pitch options.
08:54There was nothing that seemed organized about this play, in my opinion.
08:57Maybe there was sort of a, maybe Jaden was supposed to be the pitch option, but he didn't
09:03say that in his press conference, nor should he have said that, which, let me finish with
09:08this on this play before I get to my game take.
09:10Dan Quinn tries too hard to give people answers, stop pleasing the yucks in front of you, and
09:20I love all those people, almost all of them anyway, and they do a good job.
09:26Your job is not to try to make sure that everybody understands everything about a specific play.
09:33That's too long of an answer.
09:36It's too much information.
09:39You can say something to the effect of, yeah, disappointed, we didn't execute, but there
09:46was an option in there to check it down against a heavy blitz look, and that's what we ended
09:53up doing.
09:54Next question.
09:55Instead, we got nearly two minutes and then trying to put it back together to answer it.
10:01He does not need to get into that much detail.
10:03That would be my advice to him.
10:05You don't have to please all these people.
10:07You just lost a game.
10:09It's a post-game press conference.
10:10We didn't execute.
10:12Jaden was fully aware of the time on the clock.
10:15We all were.
10:16We have a check against heavy expected blitz pressure.
10:22And in the context of the game yesterday, given how much pressure they put on our quarterback,
10:27we didn't want the game to end on a sack at the 45-yard line.
10:31Like, by the way, the previous drive nearly ended on that third down sack by Garrett for
10:37minus 12.
10:41So, that's my two cents on the final two plays.
