Commanders Versus Seahawks Week 3 Preview

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1:24It'll just work when I get there. So many reasons to join Team Mobile. Find yours at T-Mobile.com

2:54and get ready for this game against Seattle. I know that this is random and there are teams that every year like the Niners or the Chargers that have equal or worse injury situations. But at what point do you and I'm sure they already have? Look at everything.

3:54Look at how you do things. I mean, do straight years of this, it seems like it's kind of crazy. Is it just bad luck? I mean, I think it is. I always hear working straight in conditioning. I talk to some of the guys on the staff from different staffs around the league. One of the things is you do all this different stuff. You track the high speed yardage. You track the accelerations, decelerations. You track the lifts. You track the intensity. You do the red, yellow, green kind of in terms of HRV, all that stuff. And ultimately, you're playing a sport where you're running really fast. You're stopping really quick and you're hitting people really hard. So as much as you want to try to control all those variables, you can't. Because then I'll say this too, as much as you think you can control the players' life, you control practice, you control all these stimuli. The players do stuff on their own. And so when you look at long-term recovery, it's nutrition and sleep. And as you know, Grant, you've covered the league for a long time. I played for a long time, but around it still. These guys are young guys. And they don't always handle themselves in the most professional way,

4:55when it comes to those things. And so as much as you want to try and manage variables, they're human beings. There's a randomness to them. So again, as smart and as intelligent and as well-tracked, as I think the staff here is on the strength staff side, like there's things you can't control. And I think you see some of that stuff in some of these injuries. Yeah, that's well said. All right, let's dive into the Seahawks, who are two and O who have won now a game and changed without a quarterback. Because Sam Darnold went down. We did get word that he's going to return to practice this week. He's elevated at least now to being in question. I wonder if they don't just push him back one more week, but he's at least going to be on the practice field. So there's a chance he returns. Drew Locke was excellent without him. But I actually want to start on the defensive side of the ball. Because I think that's the story for the Seahawks. They are a team like Washington. Then at the same time, the commanders hired Dan Quinn. They were interviewing Mike McDonald, by the way. They hired Mike McDonald, who has become the defensive savant in the NFL.

5:56He is to defense what Kyle Shanahan or Ben Johnson are too often. He does it different. He does it better. He's got this elite, awesome scheme that he runs. So what is it? I mean, what makes Mike McDonald such a beloved, revered figure? Yeah. I think that's a really good question, Grant. Because when you look at him, they do some exciting, exotic stuff. But they also just run basic coverages. And they just do it better than everybody else. I think on the last show, we talked about like a cover three. They were running and you're like, oh, look at the spacing on this cover three. It looks like man coverage because they're so tight to batching concepts. Or look at this run stunt on first down. Like look at how tight the three technique is. Look at how downhill witherspoon is. Look at how the linebacker feathers over the top. And so as much as I want to say, they're doing really innovative stuff. Like sometimes they're just doing stuff that everybody else does. And they just do it better. Like they just are better coach. They understand the hot map a little bit better in terms of wrong concept.

6:58They understand how to match those concepts. We talked about early in the season how Philadelphia does a really good job of this. It kind of feels like they've turned the fader up on that a little bit, which I didn't think was possible. Like they are better at it than Philadelphia. And I think a little bit of it is because they have witherspoon in the defense, man. He is just a Tasmanian devil. Like there's a bunch of plays where he is the flat player to a side. They have a three level throw. And usually three level throws, he doesn't matter how good of a coverage team you are. It'll break it because you're overloading zones. And so this dude, buzzes under the corner is able to make the tackle in the flat. And they just do that. And you're like, they can't do that for four quarters. And they just do it down after, down after, down after. Or, hey, we're going to like play light boxes all the time. Like you can't do that all the time in the NFL. But they got these horses up front that are just beaten double teams and sitting people down. And it's just, and it's just the, I think it's for Mcdonald, there's two things. One, it's the consistency with which he's coaching it. And two, it's the feel in game for when to throw a different pitch.

8:00Like he has this great kind of innate savantness to him where it's like, Hey, man, I'm going to call a run, a run blitz on second and five. And the nickel's going to blitz. And it's going to be a tackle for loss. And you're like, why did you call that there? Like that's usually a passing down. Like what, what in your little CPU of a brain made you do that? And so I think that's the thing that sticks out to me is like, he just has a really good feel. I've heard he's a very analytic person. Analytics driven person in terms of percentages, all that kind of stuff. But he seems to kind of be one of these coordinators. Like Kyle, like Sean, that just seems to be able to bet right consistently and get you in a bad spot in addition to being extremely well coached in the back end. Yeah, he's impressive. Everything about him just screams special. I watched their hard knock series on HBO this year. And I was kind of smitten with his personality. He's very authentic. He's a little bit awkward, honestly. But like there's a little bit of like mad scientist to him. He's kind of nerdy.

9:01He's like a very buff nerd. But like he is authentically himself to his players. Before we get into, you know, deeper into their personal and things, you mentioned that they do basic things very well, which I'm sure is true. The one thing I will point out is this was last year I was talking to Kirk Cousins about them. And I want to say he had just played them. I don't remember. But he talked about them disguising their coverages in a way that he had not seen before or maybe just better. And he's like, to me, that's their secret sauce. It's like their cover three looks not like cover three. You realize that it's cover three. And like he said that this is what everyone in the league should be trying to do now. I think that it's just hard to do it the way they do it. But what is so good about how they disguise things or what do they have that no one else has in that regard? So it kind of goes back to this big fan because you know, big fan's you to me is like the catalyst or like the stump of the tree that's

10:03like creating all these different branches. And they always want to kind of start in a midfield open structure, right? And they I don't again, I don't know what you draw it. Would it be easier to draw? Yeah. Okay. So basically what they do is they start like if this is the offensive line here, down here at the bottom, just do like a little square and then that's the old line. What they'll do is they'll start kind of in a midfield open structure. So you got a safety and a safety and the corners will be kind of in an off ball position. And so what they do a really good job of is they hold this positioning for a really long time in the down. And so just as an example like this is very basic, but like a lot of teams will kind of go. Let's say there's three receivers over here. You got the Y, the F, the Z. They'll rotate to a single high structure and this guy will relate to this player over here. So they're getting to single high, right? But they're holding it for a really long time and then getting this relations. So if you get across, he's going to match this. A mic doesn't have to carry, right? And you get the nickel that's going to carry this vertical here, right?

11:04So what they it just to me, it's the way that they hold their stuff, which is really good. And when they hold it that long, it makes it really, really challenging in my opinion. To for the quarterback to know stuff and then they have these really fast players. So like a lot of people run this like midfield open. We're going to relate to number three, but the way that they get to it, it almost feels like it's man coverage. So all the air that is traditionally associated with like zone coverages is just totally gone. And they do this a bunch of different ways, right? Sometimes they'll start in single high. They'll rotate the other way and it's this late, late rotation. And then like you talked about the pattern of getting to some of these positions is a little bit different. Like this is a very traditional midfield open to single high rotation. But some of the other stuff is a little bit different. And it's just enough of a different pitch to put you in a different spot. Is that coaching or is that players? So to me, I would say that it is kind of a combination of both. The one thing I'd say about this is like, for a minute, I'm like, oh, it's players.

12:07Like you look at the defensive line and they're all a bunch of these physical studs that are like getting downhill and spitting stuff up. And then you get to the linebackers and you get to the safeties and you're like, actually, these guys are just like, they're not like big names. Like they're playing in this defense really well. Or you look at their linebackers, for example. And I don't know if anybody in the league can name one of their linebackers outside of Ernest Jones. He's doing a good job. But the other guys are just, they're guys, but they fit runs fast. They know the coverages. They relate to stuff really well. The communication is super high. It's just a really well coached group. And so when I look at that, I say to myself, well, it's not like they have horses in the same way Philadelphia does. Like you got this great defensive line. You got one of the best linebackers in the league. You get the best nickel, one of the best nickels in the league. You got two of the best corners in the league. It's like, you move back and you're kind of like, I don't know some of these players. I've never heard of them. They don't have a name, right? And so to me, it's coaching. It's got to be coaching. You got to give a lot of credit there in terms of how he's getting these guys to buy in and communicate.

13:07And he's kind of the guy that started this. We talked about a little bit this offseason with the Rante Jones, this like modular coaching system, where it's like, we coach a front and we coach a pressure independently. So we can match all of our fronts with all of our pressures. We can match all of our coverages with all of our blitzes and all of our fronts. And so they have a lot of play volume. But apparently, I've never heard it installed this way. But apparently makes it really easy to keep the details of everything kind of incontinuity across the front, across the defense while you're making these subtle changes, which I think is kind of cool. Yeah. So then I guess what I wonder is, why don't we're teams copy it? Are they trying to? They just don't do it as well. Like if it is a, you know, if it's not necessarily about the players, like this should be what everyone's doing. It works every week at a dominant level. They're tough suffocating another team. So I'll tell you this, man, like everybody wants to be, it's not a McVeigh.

14:08Everyone wants to be Kyle Shanahan, but not everyone can do it. Not everyone can coach it that way. Not everyone can call it that way. And like we talked about it. To me, that's the answer. It is the coaching. McDonald is special. Like, and again, like this defense is good. Like we've seen it. Like Vic Fangio runs it like a version of this. Very good, right? Mike McDonald runs a version of it. It's different, but it's very, very good. And it's, to me, it's the details. It's the, it's the insane detail that he obviously coaches with, but also just like Kyle or Sean or any of these great offensive minds, the ability to call the right play in the right moment is also something that I think he has. I've never really noticed it with a defensive play collar, but I really notice it with him. Are they better off because they've already played Philly defensively for this match? I think so. I think they are better, but it's, to me, this is like, I think Philly is amazing. We've talked about that a lot. I just think this group is better. I think they're faster.

15:08I think they're, they're more like someone. I think you might have said this or Fletch minus said it. It feels like they're playing with 12 guys on the field just because of how quickly they get to stuff. Like they're in Philly, like you have Zach Bon, you have Cooper D'Agin, you have these great underneath hook players and it does. Like the air is out really quick. Here, it's even quicker because I think witherspoon's faster. I think Ernest Jones is very quick, right? And the other thing about them is their rush. Their four-man rush is excellent right now and it's exactly what you want for this kind of defense. So that's where I wanted to get into the personnel is we've talked about the secondary a little bit. Nick Heaman worries working his way back. He got into a game. He's a really awesome player. We can come back to him. And in the secondary, they do have Julian Love, who people know from his time in the division. Devin Witterspoon's one of the better corners in the league. Just got paid an unbelievable amount of money. But you got to start up front with them. Leonard Williams is just playing like a madman. Byron Murphy who's a first-round pick is a super talented player. Jaren Reed who's bounced all over the places.

16:10A nice big body run stuffer. The Marcus Lawrence, the longtime cowboy is still a pretty effective player, especially in the passing game. I mean, that says, good a group up front as you're going to find right now. Yeah, and I think the other guy you got to throw in there because he plays a lot is a derrickall kind of that long-armed edge rusher like his. Is what are their best pass rushers? Yeah, and his ability to compress pockets. New Chen, New Chen in Wo Su is another guy that again is kind of in that same mold, like an edge hybrid linebacker piece. But the way that they play is very, is fun to watch. Like they're not these super technical, like, you know, it's not the Von Miller hyperbendy edge rushers. It's like, we are going to stand out here and run through your face. In the run game, in the past game, you mentioned the two defensive tackles. Jaren Reed, Byron Murphy, man, they are stout, they are physical, they are violent. Leonard Williams, I don't know if it's the 99, but when I was watching,

17:12I got shades of like, Prime JJ Wat. He's playing End and debowing tackles. He's playing three technique and doing the quick swim thing and making tackles for loss. He's the spinner on third down and absolutely annihilating centers and guards on these pick games. And it's not like they're getting these crazy quick wins, but the pocket just compresses so quickly because they're all kind of these power rushers. And again, the coverage is so quick to match stuff up. There's not these quick outlet throws the way a lot of teams have them, especially in zone coverage. Like one of the things about the Fangio system, about zone coverage in general is usually because you're kind of hot mapping, you know, that 10 to 15 yard area in the field, you can get the ball to the flat really quickly and get the ball out. But these dudes rally like rabbit dogs. Like there's so many clips where you get the ball out and Ernest Jones is popping the running back and it looks like the running back is going to break out. And then with her spoon flies in and then Leonard Williams is coming out of the stack

18:13and it's just like an explosion. You're like, oh, like one of those ones you kind of got to look away from. And so I do think they like that front is just really fun to watch because of the physicality, the violence they play with and they do seem to have kind of waves of past rushers. Like you're like, oh, Leonard Williams is out. But then they bring in Riley Mills, who is this kid from Notre Dame. Well, I wasn't familiar with, but he'll make a play for you, right? Mike Morris, number 94 for them. He's a rotational guy, but he'll pop in and make a play and you're just like, why? Like these guys, I like these guys coming out, but they're definitely playing better than I thought they'd be in the league. And again, I think a little bit of a scheme, right? But it's got lots got to be coaching in terms of developing these guys. And it just is the relentless kind of, oh, starters are out. Let's take a breath. No, these guys are good too. Oh, the starters are back in and this they can kind of like waves on a beach approach here, especially with the physical violence that they play with. Sounds like a fun matchup. Yeah. Let's talk about how the commanders are going to move the ball and what they've got to do

19:16to try to upset Seattle. We'll also get into the other side of the football, when the Seattle has the football Washington's defense. We'll do that next on Take Command. Welcome back to Take Command. We gave you a deep dive on the Seattle defense. I want to get into the commanders side of the match up a little bit here. So how are they going to move the football? We just talked about how good this defense is. How would you attack it? You got a backup quarterback in Marcus Mariotto, but he is a top five backup quarterback probably in football. The expectation when he plays is that you can still operate. So how do they do that? Yeah. So I think one thing is you got to be committed to running the football on some level. And they'll, I just talked about how physically violent they are and how good they are at top of the run. There are times where you can get them and it looks a little soft and here's a four yard run.

20:18Oh, here's a three yard run and you're staying ahead of the sticks. I think the thing for me is again, we talked about Mike McDonald's feel as a play collar. You have to be ready when he says, oh, those are two kind of, you know, fastballs right down the middle and here comes the change up. And you are swinging for the fences because you think you got to beat on them. And you just got to be ready for that. Like, can you stay, can you call a game if you're David Blau with enough variance to kind of keep him unsettled? And that's really hard to do because you have to stay on schedule, right? You have to stay in a positive down in distance because in third and long, they're going to, they're going to do their thing and press the pocket and play good coverage. And you're going to have to make a tight window throw. But like, that's what I would say is in addition to running the football, like, what is your, what is the thing you feel most confident about? Is it moving the pocket? Is it quick game? Is it RPO based? Like, that's what I would kind of look at here and say like, there has to be something else besides the run game to keep you on schedule offensively.

21:22And as a play collar, you have to be ready for that. Hey, man, he's run cover three twice. It's been pretty vanilla all of a sudden now or in this like, nickel pressure world. We run the mic through and we have to make sure we're accounting for that as a play collar. The other thing I'd say too is I think their worst personnel is when all three of their line backers are on the field together. So Drake Thomas, Ernest Jones and Patrick O'Connell is the other guy that plays for them in like kind of their base defensive front. Arizona did a decent job of getting them out of their nickel personnel with 13 personnel at moments. But again, that's one of the issues when you have a guy like Nick Mnwari or Devon with a spoon is like, you can stay in nickel because those guys are really good versus like an out players. So what's the tool I would say to regulate them? Is there something you can do? And if you have that, let's lean into that. And then let's find something in addition to the run game to help the offense stay on schedule. I gave a couple examples there. Again, I think all of them are kind of tough because of how smart they play. But those are some things I would look at if I'm the offensive play collar this week.

22:24Yeah, so I'm wondering like, what's your message to Marcus Mariota? He's going up against the team that's number one in defense, 3.75 yards per play, number one against the pass, 4.08 yards per play. They made Drake May, who almost won the MVP award last year, looked really bad in week one. And then they held the guy that threw for a million yards in week one to Kobe Prasette in down to one of the lowest totals of the week last week. So what's his mindset like in terms of what he's looking for, the shots he has to take, when he has to take them? Yeah, I think that's the interesting thing is, is be ready to throw tight window throws. And then I think that's the sweet science of quarterbacking in my opinion is, I like the way you said that is like, yes, you have to be aggressive, but you don't, you have to be situationally aware of when you need to be aggressive. So I think like that's part of this too is, you know, Marcus and Jaden are really good players, but they tend to be a little bit reserved when it comes to tight window throws.

23:26This week I'd say like, let's turn that up a little bit and just be ready for some tight windows. Like the one thing about Jacobi that I appreciated in watching the Arizona game, is there's a couple times where I was like, I probably wouldn't throw that because, you know, you've got the tight end, you get the tight end running like a return route. There's like, there's like a, wither spoons breaking on the ball, but that's literally the only place to go and he fires one in there, you know, uh, uh, McBride is a great job catching the football, it's kind of a bang, bang play, but we got to first down. And so like, that's what this thing looks like is there's never going to be anybody like wide open schematically. That's just not how this thing works, right? The other thing I'd say too is, did you go back and watch the week one performance or that Drake made that a great job of just taking what was there. Here's a check down for three. Here's a scramble for five. Here's a run from the gun for a first down and they just did that over and over again. And I felt like Drake made got unsettled when he started pressing for big plays. So a couple of things that are important to note here. One is game flow. Two is they'll give you stuff, right? They're going to rally to it and they're going to make a tackle, but you have to be

24:29okay with a five yard game of four totally agree. Yeah. And that was the one thing I had kind of jotted down to say was you have to take your layups. Yeah. To me, that's where Meg got in trouble. They have four interceptions, which is an NFL high. Part of that is you're going to have to throw into small windows as you just said. Sometimes when that happens, a ball gets tipped, you get picked, whatever, but you cannot force it against this defense. And it's almost like taking an SAT test. You know, everyone can sit there and write their name and it defeats you by the end because you're just tired and exhausted. Right. Right. And it's like by the third, fourth quarter, you could see it with Drake May is going a check down, check down middle of the field, check down, took my 18 yards, whatever. But he wanted, he got a little greedy. He's like, let's let's open this thing up. You don't need to open it up. You know, if you they were in the lead in that spot, right? So I think that's maybe what I would drive home to mark as if I'm in the room with them is like we don't need to try to hit home runs here. This is a bunting get on base take walks game.

25:32I think that's right. I think but also like in that game, the New England games specifically, like they run that flea flicker in the second quarter, third, first quarter. I don't know exactly when it was like when we called X play X, we got to hit it. Like when we get our like the batting analogy, I think it's great. We're just trying to get on base, get contacts. But when when we get our pitch, we got to swing and we got to hit it, right? Because in this game, like I kind of think of it, like you need probably, this is not like a novel thing. I probably need five explosives. You know, how do you get those five explosives? Like probably a trick play, maybe a big run, which again, they're not going to those aren't going to come easy, right? Maybe break a tackle on something, get a 15, you know, like you need five of them. We're going to be able to scheme up three of them. Those other two have to come from natural game flow. And so when we call the double pass, right? Just as an example from the Dallas game, within 12 Williams, we got to hit that thing. We have to hit those, right? And so again, another part of this in terms of managing approach and we'll

26:35talk about this with the defense in a second is you also have to be in a game flow that you can do that, right? Like what you see with a lot of these games, the Arizona games specifically, is the game starts to get out of reach, like so it's seven to seven. It's seven to 14. And you're like, okay, we can still manage the game and all of a sudden it's seven to 21. And you see guys and defenses and teams having to be more aggressive. It's the same thing Philly does is they kind of stay your good, your good, your good, and then you're not good. And then all of a sudden you have to be really aggressive. And it's just not going to work versus teams. So that's where the defense also becomes a big part of this. I don't know how much it matters if Darnold plays versus if Drew Locke plays, which isn't to say that Darnold's not a better player, but if he comes back a little rusty or you know 90% or whatever, maybe that waters down the gap between him and Locke who played really well against Arizona anyway. But I'd always rather play against the backup of a way less reps, especially when the starter played at the top 10 level and won the Super Bowl last year. So we'll

27:35see maybe you get Locke again. He is going to potentially give you some chances to get the football. I mean, when you have a backup quarterback in there is a bit of a gunslinger. You wouldn't have known it against Arizona because things came pretty easily. But he's going to put the ball in harm's way. Washington does not have a takeaway yet defensively. That's not going to fly in a game like this. If you just line up and play, you know, 10 possessions against 10 possessions or whatever, or God forbid you turn the ball over once or twice and don't get any, like you can't win this game. So I think that you talk about taking advantage of openings. I mean, if Drew Locke is starting, or Sam Darnold for that matter, who has missed a couple weeks now of practices and whatever. And the balls and harms way are you get a chance to get your hands on the ball. This is one of those where it's all the more important to make sure you take advantage of any chance you get to have two games in now and still no takeaways is discouraging after that was such a problem last year and was the emphasis, frankly, of the offseason defensively. Yeah. And again, they had the one versus Dallas.

28:36It gets called back because the fall starts. So I do think I kind of think you threw that up because it was like I was wondering about that too. But fletch is like, I don't know if you noticed it. Tomato. I think that was like an Aaron Rogers free play jump ball situation. But maybe maybe who knows. But again, I do think you'll get more of them in this defense than we did last year, which is the goal, right? Which isn't hard to do because there wasn't that many last year. But but I agree with you. Like this is a game where turning the ball like you, I don't want to say have to play a perfect game, but you just have to be on the peasy cues quite honestly, right? You just have to be very detailed when it comes to like you need a good return game. You need good defensive production. You need offensively to possess the football and find managed or down. All those things like it is going to be a I'm the way you set it is you just they wear you down mentally. And I've said this about like in high school football all the time. The team that can play better for longer is going to win the game. Just more consistent. And I think that's what you're looking at here is like, can you go out and do this really hard boring thing for 60 minutes? And

29:39a lot of teams, most teams can't do it. But when you look at good defenses, like look at Vic Fangio, look at the Seattle Seahawks, what's another good defense? I can't think of one off the time ahead. Like Minnesota is different because they're they do it the other way. They just pressure the hell out of you. But those teams are basically like we are going to play better coverage and rush more consistently with more rush continuity than you can play offensively for four quarters. And that's what they do. And so if I'm David Blow, I'm doing exactly what you talked about. Hey, check down run game. Where can we find our easy answers? Hey, it's third and sixth. We need kind of a big play here. Marcus, be a little bit more aggressive. Turn the fader up. Like those are the moments that are going to define this game 100%. Yeah, I think there's definitely something to that. As far as Washington's offense goes, what do we think about the run game so far? I thought Bill was pretty effective early against Philly. Had less running room was running very physically, but not a whole lot doing in week two. Rashad White was the much more effective make you misplayer,

30:41which I was personally surprised by. I've been hard on the idea. Just going back to Tampa that that's not his bag, but you mentioned the running game being important. It's not like they've had a ton of space to operate with here. How did they get it going? You might also not have sent Cosme, remember? It was dealing with what looked like a pretty serious concussion. We don't know yet. And Brandon Coleman's also on the injury report with a finger now. You'd have to tell me, but it's an o-line and not knowing what the finger injury is. I mean, you could put a club on that. I would imagine and play, but I don't know what I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, but I heard that it wasn't a fracture. Usually, the problem with a fracture with an o-line is you tend to need a surgery. They put a screw in, they put something on there, and then because you've got an open wound, they don't want you to play. That would be two weeks until that thing heals up and you put a club on it, you go play. The other thing that could be going on is you tear, I did this one, you tear a ligament in the finger, and you lose a little bit of the grip strength, you lose a little bit of the flexion, but you just buddy tape that thing, you put a brace on it, a lot of offense by my

31:42mouth, like a hard cast up on that finger, especially the pinky when they're punching, and you can play. Like, and so I did it with this one, I did it with this one, like if you talk to El Montgomery, he's done it with literally every single finger in his hand. Like, it's a very common offensive line injury because like when you're holding in the jersey jerks away, you can get that quick force on the ligament or rip. So again, it doesn't sound like it's a fracture, it sounds like it's more of a ligament thing, and as long as you can get stability to the joint, you should be okay. Does will have those like fingers where if you ask him for directions, he points in 10 different ways. Yeah, it's like one of these, like it's like, you know, like, like the prime of holding your finger, but like, the one, the thing that will has, which is crazy, is he tore, like, so I've torn them up high, like in these ones up here, he's torn one like down in the knuckle here, and so he can take his finger and literally bend it like all the way back, because there's nothing holding it there. So that's always a fun little game he'll do with you. If you meet Wil Montgomery, he'll like just whip his finger like around, because it's like not in the joint. He's such a wacky character.

32:46I feel like he's got a lot of run on the show later. We have to bring him on just to do that trick. Yeah, just to get a demo, but long story short is if it's, if it's not no surgery required, he should be able to go this week. And I think you need him to go this week, because he's again, like, going to be a big part of this thing, the run game wise. So, all right. So, but then going back to the run game, if you don't have Cosmi, maybe, like, what does that look like? It definitely is. It's one of those things that coach you kind of like, you got to you got to sit in a dark room for a little bit with the football with the screen on and just kind of click through some plays, because he is the driver of a lot of their offensive line production. Like, I don't think he played as well week two as he did week one, but like I did a film breakdown of him in week one. And they were just like, you know, that that term, like, playmaker on the offensive line, he definitely was that for them. Like, he definitely was able to negate Jalen Carter's ability to rush and play as a run player. Like, so now if that's Goldman, like that changes the paradigm here, pretty significantly. Do you think Goldman would start at guard? Or Wiley, maybe.

33:48But me Wiley, right? Yeah. And I, you feel a little bit more comfortable about Wiley, because he's played, but like, this is, these guys are good on the interior. Like, and they play really well together. So, it definitely becomes like a little bit harder to fight. Like, for example, like, you mentioned white like, or shadow white, they ran like this beautiful Wanda against Dallas. And it's causing me like, ready. And they're driving the shade. He's literally like five yards off the ball. And so you're like, wow, or shot white, what a great cut, man. That's awesome. But it's literally like, you could drive a truck through this thing, because they've just moved this guy off the spot. Is Wanda just basic outside zone? We still want to his outside zone to the open side. So there's no tight in there. So like, you just kind of push everything across. It should cut back. That double team needs to be great. They just washed that thing into the next zip code, right? So you lose some of that physicality when Cosmys not in, right? Especially like, you know, who's good at, like, Byron Murphy's good at like sitting a double team on Wanda. So you got to be a little bit more creative about how you run the football, a little bit more innovative. The other thing too

34:50is Seattle runs the heck out of the football out of multiple tight end, multiple fullback type sets. And you can tell that Seattle's used to seeing that and they're used to stopping the run. And they have the tools and the kind of wherewithal to stop the run. So it's going to be, to me, it's going to be, that's going to be a hard thing to do. And one thing about the Dallas game is they came out and they I thought they did a pretty good job against the run early, but you were able to get some more offensive production because Jayden Daniels is able to extend. That's why I keep kind of harping to this point. Everyone says, run the football. Seattle knows you want to run the football. So how do you kind of work around that is my main question here. And I'm not sure that there's a clear answer at the moment. Yeah, I think that's probably fair. He's Logan Paulson. I'm a grand Paulson take command. All right, we'll give you some final thoughts and our picks to click in this matchup as we continue. All right, Logan, I brought this up a bunch, but I want to drill

35:53down on this more. This is starting even to get a little national attention from the wide receiver guys. When I say wide receiver guys, the people who track and follow wide receiver production, how Antonio Williams, I get that he plays a different position than the army brown, but my opinion that the army brown plays too much and then Antonio Williams does not play enough. So just work with me for a second, you know, he pushed back if he wanted to or whatever. Yeah, if that is in fact, how David Blow felt, how could they do that with Terry with digs and with Williams? How do you get those three guys doing things they're good at on the field in 11 personnel and use the army brown considerably less? Well, I mean, it's easy. You just have a personnel with those three guys when those three guys are in and you put someone at Z, you put someone at F and you say, but who runs the like one of the things you've said and that I agree with is that, you know, the the army role is certainly not Williams's strength. It's not digs his strength. Would Terry go to the the army role? Probably. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how I would treat it. Just in

36:57terms of creating some verticality, that's like probably more aligned with his skill set. And then Terry becomes and Williams, yeah, I mean, I think Terry's kind of been playing the X role anyway when those two guys are in. And so then it's like, well, who do you put where and is it? Here is it Stefan on the perimeter. I actually probably would put Antonio Williams there. I think he's just a little bit more vertical juice than Stefan at the moment in terms of being able to run some of like, because again, the Z's still got to run some kind of vertical rouchery stuff. I think Antonio Williams can do that. That's again, that's probably how I would do it. It would get in some kind of personnel like that and would you want to do more of that? Are you good with how they're doing it? I think I'm good with how I'm doing it because again, I think you get like we talked about like Antonio Williams had opportunities that we just didn't get the ball to him because of pressures because of coverage distribution like that kind of thing. Digs, we talk about the same thing. He's getting these opportunities. He's capitalizing on them. You feel them. Three touchdowns. Everyone's excited about that. And I just think like there's going to be a little bit of up and down to Williams

37:59as production because he's not getting featured. Like just you know, we talked about like how, you know, one week, Deami's going to have an explosive play or Birx is going to have an explosive play. Like those guys because of their role in the offense are going to have that like same thing with Antonio Williams. Like he's going to find moments and opportunities. And again, like you can get Deami off the field in certain situations more. But also, I think it's going to be really game plan specific. So this week it might be a higher priority to get Williams on the field because you need more out running nuance. And I just think like it's going to be a little bit. It's a week to week kind of proposition with that receiver room. And that's one of the benefits of having the depth they have in that room at the moment. Yeah. So and I just want to be clear about something. For me, the issue's not catches in this game or targets even in this game. I'm talking about actual snap count. You know, having your best football players on the field where McLaren was on the field 70% of the time 50 snaps. Deami Brown is your second most used wide receiver right around 40 snaps in this

39:00game. Now digs, I don't want to say he took the fourth quarter off. But as you know, the game got out of reach a little bit. He did a lot less as the game went on. And that's when Williams played a lot more like down to down. So ended up being respectable. He got to 35 snaps. But I would like to see a total through the first three quarters. But I get that Deami does a thing that's helpful vertically for him. He also blocks really well too. I think that's something else to think about. Well, that's interesting. Is he really good as a blocker? I mean, I saw a ball on Miller, but he's very good as a blocker. I mean, and again, like I think Antonio Williams is good as a blocker. But it's also just like, I think the other thing too to acknowledge. And I think this little change is the year goes on. But Deami's played NFL football, you know, Antonio Williams is new for him. And I do think there is a confidence and trust that is hard sometimes for young players to earn. And I think Antonio Williams is earning it like with his larger share. He's up on game days. He's got a role in the offense. But I think as the year goes on, you may see a shift in terms of who's getting what opportunities. And Antonio Williams is playing a lot more. And I think again,

40:04those are the things that I forget about sometimes. But as a coach and I remember when I played, like that part of it is just earning the trust. So I remember when I was in Atlanta, like I was not the best player on the team. Like I was not the best tight end. And I remember the coach said, like you're you're starting. And I was like, why? I mean, you got this player, you got this player. He was like, I just trust you. I trust you to do what you're supposed to do. And that's more valuable to me than the upside of this other player. And I think that's just something to remember with young players. And Antonio Williams might be doing everything right. He might be a pro's pro. It just takes time to earn that equity, quite honestly. You know, that value for coaching stuff. Who are your picks to click in this game? When Washington's got the football offensively against Seattle's defense since we've been talking about that, we'll start there. So for me, it's got to be stuff on digs and Antonio Williams. When Washington has the football, because I think when you look at their route running nuance and feel

41:05versus some of the zone coverage as you're going to see against Seattle, we just talked about how tight they are. But can you protect the thrower? Can you protect the football with the type of route you're running? Can you identify coverage quickly? We just talked about that because we're going to need somebody who's going to win consistently on third down. And I think both those guys have shown an ability to do that. And I think like that's going to be a huge, huge factor in this game. And it's going to be a tough matchup because Wither Spoon is a heck of a football player. He's good at man coverage. He's good in zone. He's a good tackler. And that's the matchup you're probably going to draw when they get into nickel personnel. And can you win that? Because like that's, but like, you have been the driver of this offense. And maybe this is one of those examples where it's like, hey, Antonio Williams, you're going to be in the slot. You're going to draw the Wither Spoon matchup. Digs, you're going to be the Z because if we feel the matchups better or vice versa. So this might be a week where if Antonio Williams and digs are on the field together, digs my draw though with a stream matchup, I want to go to Williams. So like that, I think that's something to look at here is those guys with great feel on third down are going to have a massive impact on this game.

42:10Yeah, I think I'm going to roll with it's got to be the running game for me to hate something. Like you need to hit it. You mentioned hitting a couple of explosives would be nice. Bill's home run against the Cowboys on Christmas Day might not be coming in this game. Right. 74 yard touchdown. But I'm going to say Bill, I think he's got to be better as a tackle avoid and tackle breaker. He was running really hard and violently when I went back and watched the tape. But it was almost like you need a little bit less and more patience, right? Yeah. It's just running 100 miles an hour into people. That's great. But let's get back to kind of seeing it, feeling it, hopping around at the second level a little bit. I was going to say, yeah, I think there's some of that because in this game, the home run is not going to happen. Like I need a guy who's going to be incredibly consistent on first and second down. Like we cannot be behind the sticks. So like the priority for me this week if I'm a running back is, hey, it's blocked for two. I'm going to get you three. It's blocked for four. I'm going to get

43:11you six. I'm not going to take a loss here. And so can we be patient? Can we bear or head get behind a double team and fall forward? Because like I said, they do a great job on first and second down. But there is a little bit of air. Can I find the air? Can I find the cracks? Can I keep us a little bit ahead of the sticks? Can I get us to second and sixth and we can win, we can win with that effort. I think third and long this week with a backup quarterback in there. I'll be a good one. Again, this defense is a, that's a hellscape. You know what I'm saying? You got to avoid that every week it's bad. I think against the really elite defenses, it's where games become blowouts. So I think the early down success becomes critical. How about Washington's defense against the Seattle offense? We don't know who's going to be a quarterback, but we'll assume for now it's Drew Lock until we hear something else. So to me, this is a, this has to be like Dorante Jones. Like this has to be his game. And it's so important that this defense impacts this game in a dramatic way. And what I mean by that is like when you watch

44:15air is one of the first couple series, like they brought one of Dorante Jones's favorite pressure. Like it would be Nick Cross off the edge. They stunt the five technique and they get a tackle for loss. They're behind the sticks. Again, Seattle's not super equipped outside of JSA until like win a lot of, just as an example, we haven't talked a lot about the defense. JSA had eight past catching first downs out of 12 last week. You know where the ball is going on third down, right? But if you can get them behind the sticks, they don't want to live there. And they're okay punting. They're not going to be overly aggressive on third down, especially a third and long, because they know their defense is excellent. They're okay playing a one possession, one score game because they trust their defense so much. So what I would say Dorante Jones, like let's get in the lab, let's coach these boys up. Let's fit this run. Let's be incredibly violent on first down. Let's get them in man and pour down into this. Because again, they, I've never seen a team probably in the modern NFL that's so committed to running the football. Second in or second and seven, it's a run.

45:16Second and eight, it's a run. Like they want to run the football. They got good tight ends. They got a good fullback. They're going to do it. So put your chin strap on, put your mouthpiece in. Dorante Jones, let's get some run pressures on first down and see if we can get this thing gummed up a little bit for them. Commanders have been outstanding against the run so far. 29% of runs against Washington have been stopped at the line of scrimmager for a loss, which is third best in the NFL. They've got to continue that. All right, let's end this preview pod as we end all of our preview pods with our producer Evan being quizzed on the visiting city. So this is the Seattle Seahawks coming to Northwest stadium. Evan, you embarrassed yourself when we talked about it. Philadelphia, which is right near where you were. You redeemed yourself, I think, last week against Dallas. Did you study up on Seattle at all? Yeah, I did some preliminary studies, but I was also like, I want to, I feel like it'd be, I want to balance the humor with the knowledge, you know? I don't want to knowledge. It won't work. It comes aboard, segment. But I don't want to become too

46:20dull. It's like this guy's got rocks over it. I see you're trying to be in the middle. All right, I'm going to give you some easy ones to start. This is very quick. We'll go rapid fire here. What famous tower was built in 1962 world fairs in Seattle? Is that the space needle? That would be the space needle. Very good. You are one for one. Okay, how about what mountain is visible from Seattle on clear days? It's the highest mountain in the state of Washington. That's rainier because I know that because they're AAA teams to cover rainy. Really? Look at you. Mount Brown here. They got it. If they got a sports connection, I'm good. They got those sports connection on those big Seattle guy over here. I mean, he doesn't know anything about Philly, which is eight minutes from his house, but he's big on Seattle. Big on big on Seattle. All right. What is the nickname commonly associated with Seattle because of the surrounding forests and greenery? I love the face just like. I don't know. You know, like sunshine state. What's the nickname for Seattle?

47:33The forest forest state? Well, it's not a state. We'll start with that. The blank city. Oh, the green city. I don't know. So close. The Emerald City. I was looking for Emerald City. All right. Last last two here. What Grunge Band was closely associated with the Seattle music scene? Do you not know this song? Evan, are you for real? Grunge Band. How old are you Evan? Old you? 26. Oh, my girl. Child is pro. It's not Pearl Jam. I don't. Are they American? I don't even know. Go bank. Oh, all right. He doesn't know the name of the band. He doesn't know it. They're on it. They're on it. Okay. All right. We got you one there, boys. And then last one. What Seattle born guitarist is considered one of the most influential electric guitarist in rock history? I don't know this one. Trado. Um, um, Eric Clapton, big electric guitar guy.

48:39We're looking for Jimmy Hendrix. All right. All right. So that's somewhere in the middle between your performance. The last Dallas and Philly. You started so good. That'll do it for take command. Hopefully the commanders fair a little better when they take on Seattle. Then producer Evan did for Logan. I'm Grant, San Solo.