Grant and Danny
Mel Kiper Wants To Ban 2-Deep Coverage
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Tickets are on sale. 1974, honored with a $19.74 ticket, 50 years of caps, hockey for tickets and more event info. Go to thefandc.com/events. I will be there because I can't get enough of the caps. I love that. Like of my waking hours, like AKA, like when I'm conscious, you know, thinking about like as a one or two year old, I can't be held accountable for my fandom. But the instant I could perceive things in the world, I've been a caps fan. So that's like 80 some percent of their existence. I have cared about the Washington Capitol. That's pretty cool. My son who's three on Sunday last weekend. So I was at the ex watching the Giants and the commander sadly, but I was getting picks and videos. He went out and played some hockey at a caps clinic for young kids. So this was just on shoes running around, although he has been out on the ice at the St. James learning how to ice skate. But he really likes watching hockey and says he wants to play hockey. Now my fear is that we become that family, but travel hockey family, which I really don't have a whole lot of interest in. Like I think it'd be the cutest thing in the world and whatever he wants to do. I'll try to support him. But I got, I don't know that we got the time. I know we don't have the money. I'm not sure that we have the energy. So it doesn't really seem like a fit for the Paulson. Apparently those hockey rings are broken at like reasonable times. You got to get on early. You got to be there at six in the morning, early in the travels insane. Our guy Logan Paulson, who by the way, Logan's an incredible human being. Logan Paulson. Do you remember the bit I used to do with him when we started every single segment on Grant and Danny when I would ask him the same question every week. You remember what it was? Yeah. Do you know how to ice skate? Yeah. The bit was he had never ice skated in his life. I saw him at training camp. He's now in a men's hockey league ice skating in a hockey league. You taught himself how to ice skate well enough that he plays in a weekly competitive league in ash. I got to tell you, if I was just a regular Joe who's skating up and down the ice, trying to get some exercise, I don't know that I want old Logan Paulson hunting me. I don't think you want him leaning on you in the corner. Yeah. Like there's Logan Paulson on the forecheck. Oh, I know what you're saying. He's fine. I know that's the point. Yeah. He just decided to teach himself. He's like, you know what? I don't think it's because of the bit we did on the air. His son's super into hockey. I think it is. I think you inspired him. I don't think so. He just said, I'm going to teach myself to ice skate. No, and I'm going to play a little hockey. And that was like a good defenseman in hockey and some men's. Yeah. The old world class athlete able to pick up another sport. Why? Amazing, right? But anyway, he's got a son who's really, really good, but they travel a lot. I don't know, man. Like, I certainly want my kid to be happy playing whatever he's playing, and I want to be the supportive dad. Eric Pickle is incredible. And I'd like to be that at some point when you go to all your kids games. The difference is he's got a bunch of D1 athletes. I'm not sure if I'm going to have those. We'll see how it goes. But just the fact that he's interested enough that he wanted to go do some drills. He was the smallest kid out there. He got a stick that we played with in the basement the next day. It's kind of cute. That's awesome. But yeah, the hockey trap, all the travel sports are that bleep and saying, for whatever reason, hockey's like, yeah, the tournaments in, you know, the one of the faraway provinces of Canada, and it starts tomorrow and it's $10,000 go. Yeah, it's that one is especially nuts. Before we get to our discussion on cover two being banned in the NFL, that's what some analysts want, which I find hysterical. Carlos has been waiting in Savannah Park. What's up, Carlos? Hey, guys. Look, you know how ESPN usually does like a country pool and then they select everyone. They do their own selection. Well, the country pool is going to be 99.7% bangles. And then the rest of them are going to pick the bandwidth as well, except for one person, which is the point three, Alex Smith is going to come out and say, give me the commanders to win the game. And, and, and I just think, you know, put the mortgage on the bangles. But, you know, I'm, and look, I'm a, I'm a DC, I'm a commander's fan, like everyone else at all. But let's wake up, man. Danny, I love your Ashberg syndrome. You know, I have that too. But let's, uh, let's do realistic, man. Thanks for the call. Thanks, dude. Appreciate you. Yeah. So I thought Ashberg's syndrome meant you just swallow whatever they give you, like every pill, no matter what. And you think it's good? He confused us. I think he's saying I have it because I think oh, I got you. Hang in the game. Yeah. I would say I don't, but that's always good. Like I like balancing it out because I get called a hater old day. I want to like the goal and it's frustrating at times, but it's to argue with everybody on either side of exactly. I always know that I'm doing a good job. If simultaneously in my feed, I've got people calling me a hater and a homer. That's a good tell. You know, you, you hate the team. You love the team. You have, I don't do the Ashberg syndrome thing, but whatever that is, you know, I think it just means you're a mark, basically. Sure. Not me. I don't, but I think they can hang with the bangles. Again, it has very little to do with Washington and a lot more to do with Cincinnati. And I hope that come Tuesday, we're able to talk about the bangles. How much trouble would that be? Because if the bangles play their best game and Washington plays their best game, then the bangles are probably 10 points better than the commanders. You need your a game and probably there like C minus game. And now it's coming down to a field goal at the horn. And we already know Austin cyber don't miss. You talk about special teams player of the week, Austin, I'm talking about chip shot villain. I'm talking about chips shot chippy, seven field goals from 45 and in just a bunch of extra points or closer Austin cyber does not miss. And he won't miss again. Although we never talked about this. If I could pat myself on the back real quick, Oh, please, last week I predicted an Austin cyber game winner at the horn going into the commanders and the Giants. If you remember, did you actually predict that? I predicted the, the point was actually a little, I think I said 2320. Well, that is not exactly right. 2018 or whatever the hell it was. So it wasn't exact. And I did not say they would not score any touchdown. So I didn't have the game script completely correct. But I did say an Austin cyber game winner at the horn. I would take a victory lap. I would stand up and walk around one time. That's a victory lap. Might have to do that. You earned it. Thank you. Okay, let's get to this cover two discussion. If we could. This was a wacky on ESPN today. You know, on baseball, they got rid of the ability to shift your defense to make it easier to hit two weeks into passing offenses being down. Mel Kuiper today became the latest analyst on ESPN. He's not the only one, but he is the most vocal to say that we need to do something and change some rules to make passing more ubiquitous again. We haven't been able to pass for like three hours and people just can't help themselves. Listen to what Mel Kuiper said this morning on get up. Well, I grew up with the best of the national footballing 60s, 70s into the 80s. You're talking about deep shots, right? The go route, the nine route post. You've been about Terry Bradshaw and a Super Bowl hitting John Stallworth. You see Leroy Irvin diving, right? Just off his fingertips. There's the receiver. They laid it out there, right? Hit the receiver in stride. 65 yard touchdown. It's a beautiful thing to watch. That's what I want to see brought back to the national football league. Okay. Check down Kings, bubble screen sensations, boring football. Uh-uh. Game manager. I get it. But I want to see those deep shots. That's what the NFL was built on. I grew up with John United's Fran Tarkington, Ken Staebler, Daryl Amadica. You know, he's talking about quarterback, Joe Name. That's it. We're just right. Brett Farb, when he was doing what he did, Burke Jones with the Baltimore Colts. You think about those quarterbacks who would throw the ball down the field. I'd say what Bradshaw did was Stallworth and Swan, Roger Stallback. That's what I want to see brought back. Say, well, you can't do that, right? We got a five yard rule with the the quarterbacks, right? The melt blunt rule, right? Now with the push thing with hurts, you got to be a yard back now. So don't tell me you can't have those safeties closer to the line of scrimmage than they are. I was in games where I'm thinking, hey, too high. They're out now with space too. I couldn't even find us that they're playing with nine guys, right? What are the other two? Oh, the other two. They're so dang on far back and even though they're part of damn play. I'm telling you, we got to change this thing and we got to have, hey, you can warn them. Don't forget, they come up. Hey, guys, you got to get up a little bit, right? You're too far back. Worn those safeties, but you got to figure out competition. Somebody dando, somebody's got to figure out what that depth is, but it's too far back right now. The NFL is being ruined by these two high safety. It sounded like Caliendo was doing a kite person. You know, that was the most kite I've ever heard him. The part that's hilarious is when he starts saying the quarterbacks he liked, he named 30, a normal, you know, normally just to drive your point home, you're like, I grew up in a day where Patrick Mahomes was slinging it downfield. Yeah, Drew Breeze hooking up with Devory Henderson or whatever. He named 36 guys in a row of decades. What about 19, that's 72 way out of them. 1973. There was this guy, 1974 at this guy, 75 with two guys, 76 with three guys, 77 with four guys, five minutes later. 1982 at this guy, 1991, we had this guy, 19. That was the most. He was so turned up. Good. But that's, you know, he's appeared on a morning show. He's not taking it. You got to turn your eye take up. They let the tiger out of the cage. I think having said that, even though I think that the point is silly and I'll explain why in a minute, I kind of found his point at the end a little bit interesting, which is to say, if you go to games, you will be at one on Monday night, which you were going to see is there are snaps where the safeties are playing on a different field. It's like the line of scrimmage is the 20 and their heels are on the 46 or on the snap. And that is pretty extreme. His point is let's have a rule where they got to be closer to the line because then you're going to get the deep shots. Then you're going to get the explosives and the big plays and it's better for the consumer. No, thank you. But if your point is as simple as, if you just cut to the chase of let's not have guys 25 yards off the ball at the snap, it doesn't sound as crazy as the idea that you want to change the rules to get passing back in the game after a couple of weeks that were down for passers. Yeah. So the analogy for baseball, I just want to offer this because some I've seen some people comment said, well, they didn't baseball. Why can't they do it in football? It doesn't work for me. And here's why. Directing a baseball that's thrown 100 miles an hour with a round bat and a very small surface serrated to make contact is a fool's errand. Good luck directionally hitting. This is not, you know, Joe Peppato in the 1950s against, you know, slack job, McGarnacle, you know, who's throwing spitballs. This is the different time making contact as a godsend at this stage. So yes, it needs to be easier to hit. It's correcting a problem. Right now, whether you like shifts or not, the premise makes sense. You can control where the football goes when you have control of the football. And the other sport, the defense has the ball. In football, if I want to run to the right, I'm not bound by some defender deciding where or not where the play goes. I control where the play goes. They must react to me. So it's not the same. Number one, number two, there have been multiple innovations and changes in the way football has gone in this live chess match. Thousands of times over the wildcat was going to change the game until it didn't. Then it was read option. The next adaptation for defense, the Tampa two, what, what, how will anyone ever throw a Ford pass against the Tampa two? Oh, you mean a middle linebacker run straight back in the middle of the field? How can you stop that? Offensive minds, guys with, you know, that are younger and more handsome with more flat tops, get into a lab and come up with stuff. And then they get promoted. And then there's a new cycle. We're in a cycle right now where, yes, two high safeties are ruining some of these deep shots. I bet you something comes out of it. I bet you they figure it out. But also there is open real estate to take advantage of now. That's the gig, right? I mean, in other words, I think your point is great because the argument that was silly was, well, if they shift, just blunt or, you know, if they shift, just hit the other way, impossible. You just do that real quick. What are you just doing? But if they play that deep, then you do have the underneath stuff. We're seeing that to an extreme. And you do have some of them. Either the bubbles, the smokes at the line of scrimmage, the hitches, the stops, the slants, some of that other stuff. There are areas of the field. I don't even think they're trying to take away. Always like the nine routes in the posts. Because if you watch, that stuff is often available. What the two safeties being so hired trying to take away is what the whole league was, which is those in breaking digs like that 17 to 20 area right now has gotten a little more crowded. How often did you see this? It's the play action shot. Justin Jefferson over the last few years making a living. There's a million guys. It's that 17 yard. I call it a diva like that square in, right? That's what they're taking away. You still see sometimes you get guys open down the field on the post and quarterbacks haven't really hit on those or you're not normally looking for those because they aren't open that often. But two responses to the conversation I saw today online that I wanted to plug in a Hyundai EV and the extraordinary happens. It's not just the ultra fast charging capability and long range in the Ionic 5 and Ionic 6 or the adventure seeking spirit of the Kona electric or the groundbreaking 601 horsepower Ionic 5N. And it's not just the comfort in knowing that every Hyundai EV is backed by a 10 year, 100,000 mile limited electric battery warranty. Hyundai's EVs transform a low home into a loud adventure. They bring color to your journey and turn energy into main character energy. So forget everything you thought you knew about EVs and turn the extraordinary into something truly electrifying. There's joy in every journey. EPA estimated a three to three mile driving range for 2024. Ionic 5SC SEL limited rear wheel drive and 30061 mile driving range for 2024. Ionic 6SC long range rear wheel drive with fully charged battery estimated range varies for other models and trims and depends on battery capacity temperature options and other factors. Limited battery warranty covers defects and materials for 10 years or 100,000 miles whichever occurs first. Sea owners manual for complete warranty details and limitations visit Hyundai USA.com or call five six two three one four six oh three for more details. Three. One was from our buddy Jay Gruden. Remind me dearest to ask Jay about this on Monday when he joins us. He'll be with us ahead of Monday Night Football. He said Mulk Kuiper just said two high safety should be outlawed. He does know you can still play cover two with two corners playing D path. Maybe a corner and a nickel playing a D path. Stick to the draft mail. So Jay was like salty. That's right. Which I love. But his point is so we're going to outlaw two high safeties. I could still get to that with a bunch of different look. You run quarters. You can do whatever you want. It's not like I just have to have guys before the line of scrimmage standing there. So his point is okay. I'll just line up different and I can still give you that look. Kurt Warner had something that I thought was insightful too. He said listen to this cover two combo on ESPN and here's what I find that's interesting. You have cover three equals three guys deep cover four four guys deep cover two only two guys deep. So idea you can't threaten two guys downfield as well as three or four is crazy. Maybe hard to get behind them. But a lot more gaps in the second level which is kind of my point. Yes. Like they're giving you something. Dan Orlovsky responded that and said agree in the best way to attack those gaps in the past game. Displace the underneath guys via play action. Which why aren't teams doing that? The Saints are more than anybody. They score on every possession. I don't know if I want to copy what they're doing with all the points. Like 41% of plays have been designed runs. The highest rate since 2008. Some of this is self-inflicted because I think teams are just deciding. Look at this. Look at this light box. Look at this nickel corner back up here. Let's run it. So we'll take four. Well good. That's what I want you to do. Take four. Instead of ramming your head against the wall a little bit and actually but here's what happens when you're running at 40% of the time which is believe it or not a lot on design carries. Now under center play action drop back game. I've got some of that stuff back with the linebackers creeping up. So I just think it's really interesting that the immediate response today is let's get rid of two high safeties and get the downfield pass back in football. There's no need to fix something that isn't broken. Maybe throwing down the field right now is broken or damaged. So make them adjust. Eat them alive underneath. Move the football on the ground and they adjust or maybe they'll decide death by paper cuts better than death by gas. Maybe they're okay with that because it is true defensively and this is why I would always have played this way. You're not hitting a home run against me. You're not beating me down the field and you're not going to score on a four play to your drive. What I will give you if you're willing to do it is 13 plays and 75 yards five at a time or whatever because it's a decent bet that something will derail that drive that's often reflected whether it's a hold whether it's an illegal formation Ryan Grant whether it's you know an eligible receiver downfield which we're now seeing a million times over with these RPOs. We've seen that dozens of times over the first couple of weeks it feels like a million things can derail a drive just you know somebody doesn't go the right spot or my defense actually makes a play God forbid that the more plays that you're running as a defense. I know it's kind of intuitive because we always talk about the defense wanting to get off the field but making the offense run more plays statistically to me is better for a defense. You know what I mean? Like I obviously you look at what Washington did with the control of all for 38 minutes. I don't mean that but I would much rather keep everything in front of me and never give you anything easy. Right? It's all it's all if you have to chip away something's going to go wrong unless you have a great defense you could stop everything. If I've got to give something up it would be that League wide through two weeks via Orlovski who came on the show last week after two weeks of football going into tonight 69 passing touchdowns the fewest since 2006 that was the our graduated high school 7.1 average target depth. So that's ADOT you're throwing the ball on average seven yards downfield the lowest on record. Now we have not been tracking that forever but think about that Danny. Since we've been tracking that statistically we have never seen passes this short consistently 41 design run plays as I mentioned the highest since 2008 16 years ago 30 second time of possession per play. This is the slowest offenses have operated since 2008 meaning you're snapping on average with 10 seconds left on the play clock. That part's interesting to me. Why is that do you think? I think maybe running more than passing could have something to do with that also a short passing game as opposed to a deeper passing game because everyone's closer to the huddle. So maybe you don't know. That's a good thought running back from downfield. So that helps with tempo. But that's interesting since 2008 which is the last year we ran this much. This is the slowest offenses have operated. Yeah that I would have thought it would go the opposite direction. And here's why. Basically finding. Sorry. I'm wondering if I missed this. I'm just reading this here 30 second TOP per play. I wonder if I'm misthinking about this. I'm viewing that as that as it takes 30 seconds per play. But I think what it's actually saying is if you take the time of possession on a series and divide it by play it's 30 seconds which is actually different. Do you understand what I'm saying? No. Now I'm confused. So I thought I was working on a theory but now I'm back to square zero. Here's what I think they're saying. I think the point is teams are holding the ball longer. I think they're saying if you run 10 plays in X amount of time of possession and they do that math on average you're running a play every 30 seconds which I think is different than snapping the ball every 30 with 10 seconds left on the play. I say okay gotcha. It's like game time versus play clock time. So the 10 plays this year is taking longer than 10 plays 20 years ago. Exactly. Okay in theory. Yeah because I mean to me the thing that you see so much now is we've got a matchup that we like. We're not going to let you substitute. We're not going because the sub package is taken over the game on both sides of the ball by the way. Used to be your offense was your offense and I think I think of Peyton Manning's Colts. There's not a lot of running on off the field. Maybe the running back needs a break but Dallas Clark on one side two receivers on the other and you know one receiver outside of Dallas Clark and let's line up and go. We're calling everything at the line. We're not letting you to get a better matchup. If we if we like Dallas Clark on the guy that you got covering we're going to exploit that until you until you're dead. You sort of saw that take over a little bit. So going to the other direction where it's taking longer is interesting. I don't I could I couldn't answer that. There were fewer blitzes in the first two weeks than we've ever seen while tracking if defensive coordinators were blitzing or there's there's your defensive paradigm for it, right? Yeah, it's like nothing deep man. We're not going to be over ahead. Yeah, we're keeping guys back. We're not sending them downhill and then 46% to high safety percentage the highest on record which is what paper and others are trying to get rid of. Week three Intel coming starting tonight. It will be loading as of about eight twenty when the Jets play the Patriots. We need more games to get more data but I think we've certainly got a trend that we can continue to monitor. All right. Let's get to Nat's baseball ahead of their game with the Cubs at Wrigley Field tonight. Nat's starting lineups and pitching matchups presented by the window man since 1989 the window man has been the educational window company. Get your free no pressure in home estimate at the window man dot com or at their Fairfax showroom behind Patrick Corbett leading off putting shorts up. Hey, Abram is betting second and right field Dylan Cruz batting third in left field. The James Wood batting fourth cleanup hitter Andrés Chaparro batting fifth and third base. I'm going to be similar betting six during the catching cable. Ruiz batting seventh and first base Wanya Pez hitting eighth playing second base. What's up Darren Baker batting ninth and center field. You're going my guy our guy. That's Jacob Young. It's time for your Nat's game day weather presented by Pepco. Today's game day weather is presented by Pepco because they know it's storm season and they know a little prep makes a big difference. Get storm informed at Pepco.com slash storm prep our show meteorologist back after an absence yesterday is Daris Dammer. Mostly clear skies in Chicago. It is kind of steamy at 85 degrees at first pitch. It will stay in the eighties throughout the game. So that stinks you hate to see that in fall. But it'll be a mostly clear night out there in Chicago. Have a good one boys. Let's do this thing. The nat's at a stretch of 13 straight games, 19 games in 20 days to finish out the 20 24 season. They're playing 500 ball six and six over their last 12 13 and 15 over their last 28. So even though it was an ugly couple of days against the Mets, over the last month they had been playing right around 500 baseball as they play out the stretch of the 20 24 season. For our producers, Daris and Ryan, Grant and Danny saying so long a big football Friday tomorrow. We'll get you ready for all of the NFL action in week number three. We'll break down the nat's game tonight. I also want to talk about Shohei Otani who it is 49th home run during our show today. Still based number 50. He is one home run away from a 50 50 season that we'll never see again in our lives. Just so amazing and not getting enough run. Certainly between you and I till tomorrow of Argus. Thank you for coming. Plug in a Hyundai EV and the extraordinary happens. It's not just the ultra fast charging capability in long range in the Ionic five and Ionic six or the adventure seeking spirit of the Kona electric or the groundbreaking 601 horsepower Ionic five and and it's not just the comfort in knowing that every Hyundai EV is backed by a 10 year 100,000 mile limited electric battery warranty. Hyundai's EVs transform a low hum into a loud adventure. They bring color to your journey and turn energy into main character energy. So forget everything you thought you knew about EVs and turn the extraordinary into something true. Electrifying. There's joy in every journey. EPA estimated three to three mile driving range for 2024. Ionic five SCL limited real-wheel drive and three to 61 mile driving range for 2024. Ionic six SC long range real-wheel drive with fully charged battery estimated range varies for other models and trims and depends on battery capacity temperature options and other factors. Limited battery warranty covers defects materials for 10 years or 100,000 miles whichever occurs first. See owner's manual for complete warranty details and limitations visit under usa.com or call 5623144603 for more details.