The day two on this, as we record this at 9 o'clock on Monday morning, and after we spent all night writing about it, and my God, I've watched the end of this game, like the Zapruder film.
I've watched it 300 times, and I've listened to all the interviews, and I think what's unsatisfying is like, almost like the Kennedy assassination.
There's no like definitive answer, like, who Made the mistake because Dan Quinn's saying it's my fault.
I should have clocked it earlier, which is true.
They shouldn't have even been in that position, they shouldn't have even ran that play.
Jaden Daniels is saying, oh, it's a, you know, I gotta bring that up in the huddle.
The players are saying that someone in the huddle said they had no timeouts.
So what the hell happened?
And if you missed it, Giants 27, Commander's 27, clock management issues are how we're gonna start the show, and then we're gonna get into the review of the weekend.
But this game literally, the commanders just kept running plays and didn't stop the clock.
The, the clock ran out in overtime and it was a tie game.
Yeah, I mean, the problem is that, like, this is something that It shouldn't catch anybody by surprise when something like this happens, you know, and you should be drilling this in practice over and over again.
And I can tell you for a fact, like the commanders, like their focus, this is what's crazy about it is their focus during training camp was on generating game-like situations.
Like they were constantly in game-like situations to try to get Devonte Jones and David Blau up to speed and ready to call it, you know, for the first time as NFL coordinators, so.
Um, there's really no great excuse, and if you ask me who it's on, it's on everybody.
It's on everybody.
I mean, Listen, like, I think anybody who, there's the complicated stuff in football and there's the simplest, simple stuff in football.
And I think a part of like having poise and being trained is mastering the simple stuff so you can tackle the complicated stuff, right?
And this is the simple stuff that anybody, I mean, you don't have to have ever played a snap of the game to understand, OK, like, There's 10 amount of time left, and I can't put myself in a situation where if Like the, the, the clock is running.
I've got to hit the deck.
And unfortunately, it, it felt like there was a lot of panic in general there, you know, at the very end, which that falls on Dan Quinn.
Um, there's no question about it, and I think DQ would take the blame for it, and he did, and he did.
It falls on Jaden Daniels.
You are the, the battleship commander, you know, and someone said it in the huddle, who said it in the huddle, right?
Who said it in the huddle?
Was it you?
Because if it was you, I, like I think this is less likely to happen.
And also you're less likely to make the mistake yourself, you know.
So it's just like the overall command of the situation.
I, like, it's got to be better.
And to me, it's, It's, it's hard to excuse this one away.
And now, you know, the Giants wind up escaping, coming back from a two-touchdown deficit in horrible conditions, and I think they're a game and a half up in the field in that division now, right?
Isn't that insane?
Yeah, I think that so, and the, and the commanders could have pulled into a tie with, uh, the Cowboys and Eagles, but they're in, in last place, and Um, Is that the worst division in the league?
Um, I think the NFC South would have something to say about it, but, but the Panthers have come around.
The Falcons come better.
Falcons look better.
Um, that is, and we'll get to that, um, because we're gonna talk about the Falcons.
I, I feel like they deserve, uh, a little bit of a broader conversation.
We're gonna hit that at the back end of the show, but I, I, I'll, I'll ask you this, and the reason that I think this is so important is Because the, the, the anger in the vitriol behind this was so real and, you know, you had Magic Johnson tweeting about it, I know and, and Magic Johnson is, is in, in like, in like classic Magic Johnson terms too, right?
Yeah, he's a, he's a part owner of the, of the commanders, and if you got Twitter page, he just said something like, oh man, we should have just kicked the field goal.
Why did we do this?
And, uh, at the same time, I think we could all fairly say, and there's a difference between us stating a fact and what we would do with Dan Quinn personally, knowing the job that he did with the Falcons, knowing the relationships he has with the players.
I'm not the owner of the Commanders, but I, I think it was fair to say that he was on thin ice going into this one.
and I wonder if a very, very embarrassing High profile loss like that does anything to change how we're looking at this thing long term.
I think the only thing probably saving him there is there's no obvious interim candidate on that, right, on that roster.
I think it's like.
Obviously, like there's a lot of pressure on a lot of people in that building this year, um, you know, even the players, like I said, Jaden, Jaden's plan to have his option picked up to be extended after this year to get life-changing money, um , you know, and, and, and the questions that exist now on Jaden Daniels did not exist two years ago, you know.
And like, I think you are starting to ask that big picture question of what you do after this year, and whether or not you extend them.
In a way, I think it sort of mirrors where the, where the, the Texans were with CJ Stroud last year at this point, you know, like where it's, you've seen like the, the ceiling.
But you've also seen the floor.
And now you have to kind of figure out how much you trust where you're going with them.
And moments like this can wind up being flashpoints for, for teams, for coaches, for players.
Um, you just don't have your crap together.
And I think, Look, here, here's the thing, right?
I remember having this conversation with Chip Kelly, and this is like the 2nd straight week I'm bringing up Chip.
So please, I love Chip.
You can bring up Chip whenever you want on this show, um, but like I remember having this conversation with him.
About like lessons he learned, uh, from his time in the NFL and like, I believe, like this was after, you know, he was fired by the Eagles and he went to the 49ers.
And one thing he said about his time with the Eagles is, we did not spend enough time on situational football.
He was like, I was in college and he was like, and you knew in college, like you were gonna win 8 of your games by 30, you know.
And so it gave you time to like kind of work on all this big picture stuff and you didn't have to worry about the situational stuff quite as much.
He's like, when I got to the NFL I realized that those 567 plays are everything.
Those 567 plays are the difference between winning and losing.
And in a lot of cases, those 5 or 6 or 7 plays determine whether or not you're seen as a good coach or not.
Crazy as that sounds.
And you're handling of those situations because the talent disparity in the NFL is closer than people think from team to team.
There isn't a lot of bad players in the NFL.
There aren't a lot of people who are overmatched in the NFL.
And so, you know, where's the difference?
The difference is on 3rd down, the difference is in the red zone, and the difference is at the end of games.
And so, That's why these things become bigger picture questions, you know, is how, how you're, you're, you're viewing this from an ownership perspective, and you're looking at it from an ownership perspective, and the way you're looking at it is, it's this guy's job to help me win on the margins.
And like this is an example of, of, of, of, of there being loose ends when it comes to that.
Here's why it sucks, because I've arrived at the conclusion, and, you know, I, I'm not sure what your ultimate take on this is.
I mean, I know we said like, yes, it's, it's a little bit of everybody's fault.
It's a lot of bit Jaden Daniels' fault, like, and, and, and every time I go through all the checklist, uh, you know, the play call in the huddle is.
Take the snap If you don't have what you like, throw the ball away.
Like that's the call.
That, that's exactly what it is.
That's how they block it.
If you look at how they're blocking it, like they're blocking it so that JJ is not there if it's not one step out, if it's not there, fired out of bounds, right?
Yeah, it's going in the 3rd row.
And so to me, and, and I think what's disappointing about it, the more that I think about it, um.
Is the fact that There's only one thing you can't do, and he did that.
And, and, and after the game, you know what I mean, like there's only one thing you really can't do.
The word salad coming from Jaden was so weird because he says it's from the top down and then.
And, and, and, and, and you can maybe say in that moment he's just still rattled, right, and he's not gonna be a great orator, but like, the initial, the, the thing is like, he, he didn't really, he wasn't convincing enough to me to be like, no, no, no , that, I messed that up, that's totally on me.
Like, to leave it in a gray area where it's like, where you even kind of put it onto Dan Quinn's plate, it seems awesome to me tough, that's a tough one too.
That's a really, like, so two things on Jaden Daniels, a positive and a negative, right?
I think we saw something similar to this in the first game of the season.
Right from Drake May, where the decision he made at the end of that Seattle game was so horrific that it like left a mark for a couple of weeks, right, where he threw like the one like they, they had a chance.
All they, all they had to do, all they had to do was force overtime, right, in that situation, and if they score a touchdown, that's a bonus, and he threw it into a team meeting into a Seattle team meeting, you know what I mean like, and So, like, the positive is, like, yeah, that left a little bit of a mark with Drake May, but he's come out of it, like good.
So you can come out of this and you can learn from it .
The flip side is what you just said, which is, I I always, I always think with the quarterback, right?
And I think this is like part of the, part of the price of being the highest paid, the highest profile, you, the, the access that you get playing that position, the benefits you get, put all that stuff that comes along with playing that position is that it's on you, right?
So I remember the old Tom Brady saying, which was, when we lose, it's me, when we win, it's we.
And I know that sounds corny and everything, but there's a reality to it.
That's how you win your locker room.
That's how you have your coaches fighting for you.
That ultimately, I think, is such a big part of playing the position, right?
Like, Can you imagine Patrick Mahomes saying that?
I can't even envision him saying it.
You know what I mean?
Like, I can't even, I can't even envision Patrick Mahomes saying something that leaves something vague like that, right?
Did we ever hear Josh Allen blame Sean McDermott?
Right.
Or even, or even.
Or even put it in a position where you could interpret it that way, right?
And that's the thing that bugs me a little bit like about this is like, was that a mistake or were you trying to be slick.
You know what I mean, Right.
Like, and that, that bothers me a little bit too, and just.
You know, you start to put some of the pieces together here, and it's easy, it's getting easier to get yourself to a place where you see, OK, like there's a little bit of growing up that needs to happen here, right.
Um, all right, let's pivot on, uh, to, uh, we're each gonna take two games, but I'm gonna start with the Eagles and Jaguars because, well, that's another one in the same category, right?
Obviously ended in the same category, and, and so this game was wild to me because, so if you were like me and you're kind of watching.
NFL Sunday from start to finish, uh, the Jaguars win 17 to 19.
The Eagles get into field goal position and they kick a, effectively a game-winning field goal.
It's 17-16.
And I'm sitting there and I'm like, OK, cool.
Let me get my TV set up, you know, I'm, I'm looking around and I'm, I'm getting the Giants over here, and then I'm getting the laptop set up so that I know, you know, all my games that I wanna watch.
And then, I turned around and I, I just pull up ESPN and I was like, wait, the Jaguars?
The hell did the Jaguars win the game?
Like, I thought it was over.
And so he, he, I'll put these into two different buckets though, because Nick Siriani's getting absolutely waxed for this today.
Um, and he kicked to the Jaguars, um, and then the Jaguars returned the ball to a spot where Cam Little could hit the kick in overtime or hit the kick and, and, and right as the buzzer goes off and the Jaguars win.
Talk about the rest of the game in a second.
But I think that Siriani is being lumped in with the commanders, and I don't think that's fair because didn't we just get, didn't we just get killed?
Didn't we just kill Brian Schottenheimer for not doing exactly what Nick Siriani did exactly like which is it, you know what I mean?
Like, like that's actually a kind of a tough decision, you know what I mean?
But I think we just got done freaking smoking Brian Schottenheimer.
For not doing what Nick Siriani did in London, right, and force them to return it.
No, no, no, no, don't.
I mean, it's just and.
I would love to see if we, maybe somebody can put together some compilation video of people killing Schottenheimer.
Would it be 1 week ago or 2 weeks ago for this and then killing Siriani today for it, yeah, and Zach Berman, who I love, covers the Eagles, um.
Very good friend of mine, he brought up a great point that a couple of weeks ago, the Eagles were in a tight situation against the Titans, and Siriani did the opposite.
He kicked the ball out of bounds because he wanted to specifically avoid the returner uh for Tennessee because they were having a hard time with him or whatever, and you can say, yes, I mean, the Eagles did give up a return score in this game, so shouldn't they be in the same frame of mind.
But here's what Siriani's thinking.
In this.
And I'm not necessarily a Siriani defender, I, I think Nick is a fine coach, but like, In the back of Nick's mind, Cam Little can hit a 70-yard field goal, right ?
And, and he has repeatedly.
And so, do you want to spot him at the 35.
With a chance for the Jags to get one quick playoff, then you would need down 15 yards, like 15 yards or so.
You need an immediate 15 yards and a spike, which you could get in 5 or 6 seconds , probably, right?
It'd be tight, but you could maybe get that in 5.
Did they have a timeout?
Now I'm not remembering.
I don't believe so, OK, um, but.
That's what you're trying to avoid, right?
And, and I get it.
Like I, I think I, if I was sitting in that situation.
I would have probably been thinking the same thing, where I'm more worried about Cam Little and, and knowing that.
He can hit that long of a field goal, cause that to me just seems like the more obvious threat.
Now, again, you can argue that Siriani's coverage team wasn't good all day, and, and so he should have had his eyes out for that.
However, um, You know, it's a tough situation, right?
And it's not like this is what he always does.
I mean, it's opponent specific.
So, but either way I was out of timeouts, by the way, I just looked it up.
They were out of timeouts.
OK, so, you know, this drops the Eagles to 2 and 3.
The Jaguars are up to 4 and 1, This.
I, I wanna ask you this, OK?
And I, and I know where I stand on this, and I know that there's, this is like the Tua thing, where there's two camps, and it's like Democrat and Republican, you're not allowed to cross sides here.
But At what point are we gonna stop saying, wow, Sean Mannion is a lot like Kevin Petullo and start saying, well, Jalen Hurts has been here for both of these guys, you know what I mean?
And like, and, and, and at what point is it a Jalen issue and at what point is it a run game offensive line talent issue?
Uh, this is one of the worst second half offenses ever.
Um, and it's been every single week this team just runs out of gas, runs out of ideas, runs out of efficacy on offense.
I, I don't know what to say about it.
Here's the thing, like, I, I just, there's part of me that looks at this and says when you hire Sean Mannion, who had coached for 2 years to be your coordinator, you have to build in the fact that it's gonna take some time and On top of that, like Sean Mannion is coming from a system that demands a lot of detail, right?
And it demands the quarterback play a certain way.
And I think it's fair to question the fit.
Now, I think the Eagles blew through those stop signs because they wanted that run game, right?
Like they wanted, they wanted to fix the run game and they felt like going to that family of coaches to get the run game made sense.
But what good does it do to hire somebody like that if 5 games in, it's like, let's fire him, you know what I mean?
Like you never gave him the chance to grow into the role.
So what were you doing hiring somebody like that in the first place?
That's the question.
Was he a fit for your quarterback, like all of it, right?
And so, I.
I don't know, man.
Like, I thought the Eagles were gonna level off before the year, and now I look at their, and I thought they actually battled yesterday.
Like I give them credit.
Like that was a wild offensive line situation.
You lose Drew Kendall, right?
Like, so he's not out there.
I mean, you're, you got two guys in your offensive line that are making their first start.
You got a rookie in another , in another one of those spots, um.
You know, you don't have your, your all-pro running back .
There are, I mean, I, I like, like, I give, I, I actually think like on balance the coaching staff did a really good job of managing that game and being in a position to beat a really good Jaguars team.
They had, I don't know how this sustains though, like I just, you know, their dead cap situation, right?
Like I.
I'm gonna have a story on this.
You know, they have almost $300 million in dead cap just sitting out there right now.
I mean, I just like, like it's, uh, you know, and I know they're fighting back against the idea of like , we don't need to, we don't need to tear it down to the studs.
Um.
And I think a lot of people deserve a lot of credit.
The money's been well spent the last decade.
They, and you won a Super Bowl.
It's all that matters.
They won 2 Super Bowls over the last decade.
They went to 3.
They were a constant contender.
All of it was worth it.
All of it.
But you, you, you've spent the money generally in the right places.
Your owner has opened his wallet and has been willing to spend cash over cap year after year after year.
I just don't know what the vision is for this year's team, where it's like, yes.
We're, we're gonna be in it at the end.
I, I, I don't know where, I don't know where you're looking at this and saying this isn't the time to start looking.
3 years down the road, because I mean, the The cap's the cap, you know.
And again, I don't criticize them for the approach in doing it.
But there's going to come a time when you're gonna have to deal with it.
And especially if the owners got their way in the CBA negotiations.
So, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens because there's a lot of money tied up in players who are not on the team anymore, and there's a lot of damage coming over the next couple of years that's They can keep kicking that can down the road, but eventually, eventually it's gonna catch up with them.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's for now.
I, I will say this, or that's for later, but for now I, I still think Dallas is the best team in that division, but I like maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm nuts.
Like the ball doesn't go through Jake Ferguson's hands on Thursday night.
You know, maybe we're talking about the Cowboys being 3 and 2, and now they're only a half game back and I mean, I'm not wild about where Christian Parker and that defense are, but no one in that division is running away with it, you know.
Here's what's the Giants are interesting because the Giants are just tough as hell and reflect Harbaugh right now, but like we'll see how long they can make it last with the quarterback situation.
But here's what's weird about the Eagles against the Rams and against the Jaguars.
They had a 97%.
Win probability in both of those games very late in the game.
The Eagles could be 4 and 1, and like, you know, like, like 4 or 5 plays happen differently, and we're talking about how Nick Siriani's a miracle worker with this offensive line situation and this injury situation, and, you know, they averaged 1.2 yards per carry.
They can't get to the pass, they, they, they, they can't rush the passer.
Their running back is hurt.
They, like I, again, I, I.
I think they deserve a lot of credit for for yesterday for hanging in there.
I just, I, I don't know where the path out is for this year's team, and I don't think that's necessarily even anybody's fault, you know.
Like sometimes but the Manion fault that the Manion hire to me only makes sense if it's for 2 years from now.
Like that's where it makes sense, right?
Like, uh, I mean, yeah, if you're like hoping for maybe not a Coach in waiting situation or like uh I don't know.
I mean, but whatever it is, I, I think they got um they gotta figure it out.