- 2 weeks ago
Kevin Sheehan dissects the follow-up press conference comments from head coach Dan Quinn and quarterback Jayden Daniels regarding the catastrophic overtime clock-management sequence against the New York Giants, breaking down the exact headset communication, the math behind the clock runoff, and serving up his definitive "Pie Chart of Blame".
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00:00All right, so this was Dan Quinn yesterday. We finally got a little bit more, I wouldn't call
00:10it super specific, but if you listen to this answer and you speak Dan Quinn, I think you know
00:17what he was saying. Nikki Javala asked him exactly what the play call into the headset
00:23of Jaden Daniels was. Here's what Quinn said. Are you able to say what exactly was the call in the
00:30headset to Jaden right before that final play? Yeah, just to play, if you execute it quickly,
00:37Nikki, then you can get back on the ball and clock it. So the execution of subbing and the slowness
00:42of that to go is entirely too long. Hindsight, don't sub, we can get back on the ball with the
00:47same group and do the same outcome, but it wasn't anything unorthodox or unusual. Our execution
00:55as an entire group in that 56 seconds down to when we weren't able to get it clocked,
01:03that's not the play selection, but yet the execution of all of it. Yeah, later on in the press conference
01:12about that final play, he said, you know, so we now know that an actual play was called. We knew
01:19that
01:19anyway based on what happened post-snap and that David Blau made the call. As we discussed yesterday,
01:28it was a call that included, you know, a sub-substitution group. 13 personnel came out onto the field,
01:37all right, one back, three tight ends, and the 11 personnel came off the field. There was a longer
01:43huddle. There was a longer snap count. There was motion, pre-snap motion. By the way,
01:50sin it in motion going one way and then coming back the other. And Quinn said that essentially what
01:58they hoped to do was snap that ball, and he was more specific later on in the presser when he
02:05said
02:05that the idea would have been to snap it with 25 or 26 seconds left on the clock, and then
02:12you're in
02:13a good spot. Sure, if you snap it with 25, 26 seconds on the clock and you run a play,
02:18and by the way,
02:20it's not incomplete or there's not a penalty, then the clock will roll and then you can get up to
02:25the
02:25line of scrimmage and you can clock it with three seconds to go and kick your game winner.
02:30Um, so I think he's still missing the biggest mistake in the entire sequence. The biggest mistake
02:42in the entire sequence, unless I don't know something about Drew Stevens and his condition
02:48in that moment, no one has said anything about that. So I'm assuming that a 41-42 yard field goal
02:55for him,
02:55he's got a big leg, is considered to be, you know, a 90% plus probability as it is around
03:02the league.
03:03It is a chip shot in 2026. Pretty much anything inside 45 yards now is. Certainly anything inside
03:1040 yards is. This was going to be a 41 or 42 yard field goal with the ball resting on
03:17the 24 yard line.
03:18By the way, just as an aside, years ago, it was always seven yards. Teams always went seven yards
03:26back on a field goal. So if the ball was at the 24, that's a 41 yard field goal. The
03:31ball gets put
03:32down at the 31. Now there are teams that will go eight yards back. Um, and the, the purpose of
03:39that,
03:40there's not, there's, there's a slight difference. The difference is if they've got a kicker that gets
03:45the ball up quickly, seven yards is fine. If it's not up quickly, eight yards is better. So 41, 42
03:54yard
03:54field goals, why I offer both of those up as options with the ball at the 24 yard line. Um,
04:03the biggest mistake was calling it actual play. You don't call a play. You've gotten to where you need
04:10to get when you took over after the fumble with a minute, 46 seconds left. And after the Rashad white
04:18run on first down, you were already at the 26, you Burks got you to where you needed to be
04:24at the 26, but at 55 seconds with the clock stopped because Burks went out of bounds.
04:30Yeah. You're going to run another play to get the clock rolling. That was smart.
04:36You don't want to put, I know some of you still feel this way. No, you don't want to put
04:41the kicker
04:41in there with 55 seconds and just kick it then like the bills did last night. It worked out for
04:47them. It doesn't mean that they, the idea was the right idea. Um, so the Rashad white gets the clock
04:55rolling. And at that point you did not need to call another play and should not have considered
05:01calling another play. Why? Multiple reasons. Number one, especially calling a pass play,
05:08it could be incomplete and that would stop the clock. Now you're into, all right, on third down,
05:15we're going to take a knee and run the clock down. You could do that on an incomplete pass. That's
05:19fine
05:20too. But you also could have had a turnover. You could have had a penalty. I'm not talking about a
05:26pre-snap penalty because if you snap it at 25 seconds, which was the plan, hideously executed,
05:32and I'll get to why in a moment, but you, you could have, um, you know, at, at 25, if
05:39you,
05:39if you throw, if you throw in complete, if you get a pre-snap penalty, a 10 second runoff at
05:4525
05:45seconds, isn't going to hurt you, but you know what would hurt you? Uh, a holding penalty, uh, an
05:52intentional grounding, like a big penalty, a sack that now puts you into not chip shot range.
06:00Now you're back at the 34 yard line. If it's a holding penalty and it's a 51 yard field goal,
06:06you didn't need to call another play. The only play that you needed to execute was a spike with 12
06:15to 13
06:16seconds left. And again, I say 12 to 13 instead of 10 or nine. And there was a nine second,
06:22uh,
06:23difference in play clock and game clock, because in the event, God forbid you have a pre-snap penalty
06:29with a running clock. There's a 10 second runoff. And if you have the, the, uh, 10 second runoff at
06:3512
06:35seconds, then you've got two seconds left in the game rather than zeros left in the game. And you can
06:40get up and clock it again, hopefully not with another pre-snap penalty and send the kicker out there
06:45five yards back at that point. Now it's typically not, you don't see pre-snap penalties or penalties
06:53called on clock plays, spiking plays, but occasionally you can, you can have an illegal formation on a
07:00clock play. So that's why they should have done it at 12 to 13 seconds, clock it, send them out,
07:06kick it game over, or the giants after the missed kick have eight seconds at the 31 yard line. They
07:13would take over by the way, where the ball was put down. You know, when you miss a field goal,
07:18the team gets the ball at where the ball was put down. So it would have been put down at
07:22the 31.
07:23They would have had eight seconds left. I think, you know, if you're confident in your team,
07:29you could have also taken third down to throw a ball out of bounds, to burn another four seconds,
07:35to make sure that if there's a missed field goal, there's literally no time left, but kick it at 12
07:40to 13
07:40seconds. You're good. And the chances of the giants in eight seconds with no timeouts, getting
07:45into field goal range or slim and none anyway, unless there's a penalty downfield.
07:52Calling the play was the first mistake. Why are we calling a play other than Jaden clock it at 12
08:00to
08:0013 seconds period? That's the play. Why are we calling a play? Why do we need more yards? Why do
08:08we
08:08think the reward of a few extra yards is worth the risk? The risk, not thinking that the clock's going
08:15to run out at that point. The risk is incomplete pass, penalty, sack. Why are you putting that into
08:23play? Turnover. Why are you putting that into play? No play should have been called. So that's the first
08:29mistake. Mistake number two is our first time offensive coordinator, who is just a foot soldier at this
08:36point. He doesn't have clock management responsibilities. And the coach tells him to
08:41call a play, run a play. And he calls a play that took forever to sub, to call in the
08:49huddle and to
08:50snap. He's got to be aware, man. Like, I don't care if you've been in football forever. You got to
08:57have
08:57an understanding. Hey, we don't have a timeout. The coach is saying, let's run one more to try to get
09:02a
09:02few more yards. That's what I'm being asked to do. But we're going to keep the same personnel that's in
09:08the game out there. And we're going to run something really safe. And we're going to make
09:13sure we're at the line of scrimmage ready to snap it at 25 seconds. But he didn't have a clue.
09:21And then, of course, lastly, and I expressed this yesterday, for me, look, I think that the Dan Quinn
09:33mistake is a fatal one. The team's blunder in that spot is fatal, unless they make an absolute
09:41redemptive turnaround story. I said yesterday, eight wins out of the final 12 to get to nine,
09:48seven and one. But that's got to come with a division title and a playoff win or two.
09:53I think that it's over for him right now, because I don't think they're going to win eight out of
09:59their final 12. I think it is over. And most of you know this, that while, you know, I was
10:06much more
10:06in favor of an offensive coach being hired in 2024 than a defensive coach, I didn't mind the hiring of
10:12Dan Quinn. And I knew why they wanted to do it. You know, they wanted a guy that had experience
10:20that
10:20could bring in a staff because they had a first time general manager. And I don't think Dan Quinn's
10:25a bad coach. I don't. I think Dan Quinn is a terrific leader culture guy. And let's face it,
10:31our organization was the worst in sports, you know, and Dan Quinn gets some credit for
10:38turn. But these games in the NFL are so thin, the line between winning and losing and things like
10:48this matter in at least three, four, five, six games during the season. He costs them a W on Sunday,
10:58costs them a W. He also costs them a chance to be in the game last week. Now the two
11:04are not
11:05apples to apples, the fourth and one decision and what happened in overtime on Sunday. I'm not,
11:10I'm not saying that, but it was really a very curious call in Indy to go for a fourth and
11:17one
11:18with a third string quarterback in a six, nothing game where all you were doing was taking the reward,
11:24which was a first and 10 from your own 47, which you were probably going to end up punting anyway,
11:29versus the risk, which was giving them the ball in field goal range, because Spencer Schrader is
11:35such a good kicker with a big leg and in a game in which they had generated nothing offensively.
11:42And then, you know, before last Sunday, and I said last Sunday, that's the most heated I've been
11:49with Dan Quinn about an in-game decision, except for the Seattle game last year,
11:55when there was no reason to have Jaden Daniels, A, in the game, and B, if he were in the
12:01game,
12:01there was no reason to call an RPO on a condensed field in the red zone. And he got hurt.
12:09That was stupidity. He admitted it. It was on him. He knew it was dumb after the fact, but in
12:15the moment, it didn't occur to him that, what are we doing? We're down 38 to seven with 10 minutes
12:25to
12:25go. This game is over. Put Marcus in the game, have him hand the ball off the rest of the
12:31way.
12:32We just got our guy back after the last injury. What are we doing?
12:39So Sunday is another, is the worst. It costs them a W. It was clueless. It was incompetent. It was
12:52disqualifying. It doesn't mean that he can't redeem himself, that they can't redeem themselves by going
13:04on a run. They're competitors. They're the ones in the arena. They're going to have chances. This
13:09didn't happen at the end of the season. If it happened at the end of the season, it's over.
13:13If this happened at the end of the season where they were, you know, six and six, seven and seven,
13:19we're into December at this point. And that was a crucial game to keep them alive in the playoff
13:25hunt. He's done. I think it's fatal even in week five, because I don't think they're going to end
13:34up winning eight of their final 12, going nine, seven and one, eking out a division win. Look,
13:40if they, if they go nine, seven and one and lose to a 10 and 17, then you'll just point
13:44back to the
13:45giant game. So in terms of the question that I wanted to ask the pie chart of blame, I'm at
13:5775%
13:58on Quinn. He is the CEO head coach. He's not a coordinator. He's not a play caller.
14:05He has responsibility of when do we, or when don't we go forward on fourth down? When do we go
14:09for
14:09two? When don't we go for two? When are we calling timeouts? When aren't we calling timeouts? You know,
14:15the truth is in 2024, he was pretty good at all of this, you know? Um, but we've had now
14:20the worst
14:21blunder in NFL history. It, it, it, it was a level of ineptitude that is impossible to forget.
14:27It'll go down. It's going to go down as the all-time, you know, one of the top two or
14:32three
14:32all-time blunders in NFL history. He'll be attached to that. He'll be attached to the 28-3
14:37blown Superbowl loss. And he's a good guy and he's a good coach and he is a good leader, a
14:44good
14:44man altogether, according to everybody who's ever been around him. But these games are won and lost
14:52on the thinnest of margins. And you've got to be the guy that's outwitting the other sideline
14:57in those moments, not the one being outwitted more often than not. Um, 75% on him because no play
15:08call other than clocking it with 12 to 13 seconds should have been called unless you wanted to take
15:16a knee with say 25 seconds left and then get up and clock it with three seconds left. I would
15:22have
15:22been okay with that too. You know, at now you would have lost a yard. It would have been at
15:27the 25. Now
15:28it's a 42 or a 43 yard field goal, but you know, this is still chip shot territory. So the
15:36fact that
15:36he said with no timeouts after the Rashad White got the clock running, which was smart. That was what
15:42they needed to do on that play. Hey, we're going to run another play. David call another play. Let's
15:47get some more yards. 75% on him. 12 and a half percents on Blau. Cause let's face it. What
15:54we've
15:54learned about him after this episode is he was kind of clueless. Now he's a foot soldier. Maybe he's not
16:01keeping track of the timeouts. Um, the coach tells him to call a play to get more yards. Uh, and
16:07he calls
16:08a play. It was a play that took forever subbing in and out huddling longer count at the line of
16:16scrimmage under center. By the way, Jaden's foot got stepped on by Chris Paul. Again, did you catch
16:21that? I mean, it wasn't as bad as it was in Dallas that could have thrown them off a little
16:25bit in
16:25terms of his reaction overall to the play, but no, you keep the same personnel out there. You call
16:31something safe. You snap it with 25 seconds to go and you try not to throw an incomplete pass
16:37to stop the clock and not have a penalty and not have a turnover.
16:4212 and a half percents on Blau. And then I'm giving Jaden 12 and a half percent, but my 12
16:48and a
16:48half percent on Jaden is, as I described yesterday, more disappointing and more of a concern.
16:58It's less blame. He did what he was told to do. There's only one out for Jaden in this to
17:05look,
17:05you know, like, Hey, he wasn't clueless. And that is if he legitimately thought or was told we have
17:14another timeout left. Now, Chris Paul told Scott Abraham, that's not true. We in the huddle
17:21discuss, not, not discuss, not having timeouts left. But if for whatever reason Blau said to him or
17:28Quince or somebody said, and we have a timeout left, so don't, don't force it. You know,
17:33you, it could have happened. Blau could have said, Hey man, we got a timeout left. Coach wants me to
17:39call another play. If it's not there, just get down and we'll call timeout and send out the field goal
17:45team. Is that possible? Anything's possible at this point, but Jaden, that's the only out for him
17:57to avoid the conversation of, wow, he's so great. He's so insanely talented. But when it comes to
18:07situational football, clueless, because clearly what would have been wonderful to see with our
18:17insanely talented quarterback, who is, you know, the guy that's going to be the field general,
18:23who's going to have the ball in his hands and can erase any dumb, dumb mistake that's made by the
18:29coaches. It would have been great for him to say, yeah, that's not the play call that I needed.
18:37We don't have a timeout. I'm looking at the clock. We're not running this play. I got it. You guys
18:44just
18:45go over and get the field goal team ready. I'm going to go up and spike it with 12 seconds
18:51to go.
18:52That would have been incredible. We would have never known that it was all him.
18:56We would have never known. Although if we had seen the sub package come in,
19:00that would have been noticeable. Like what were they doing subbing in and subbing out
19:05on a play in which they were going to spike it? Do they have a lineup that they want to
19:09spike it with?
19:09Maybe that would have been great. If Jaden said, you guys don't know how to do this.
19:18I do. I'm going to save you from yourselves. I'm going to erase the multiple mistakes that you've
19:25made. Coach, you saying call a play. OC, David, you sending in this play and I'm going to take care
19:33of it. But he didn't. He seemed completely unaware of the situation from the moment the ball,
19:42he came out of the huddle to the moment the ball was snapped to the moment that he went down
19:47where
19:48there was no urgency, no urgency whatsoever. I would love somebody to take him off the hook
19:54because I like him so much to say Blau told him in his ear before the play call call. You've
20:01got one
20:02timeout. If it's not open, just go down and we'll run the clock down and kick the field goal and
20:07call
20:08a timeout. That's the only thing that gets him off the hook. He certainly looked like a guy that
20:13thought there was a timeout left. But if he blanked, if they told him there was no timeouts left,
20:20if they if he knew there weren't any timeouts left and he didn't take control of the situation,
20:26it's an indication that he's not very good at that. And can he get better? Young player,
20:31third year, of course. Will he learn from it? Certainly hope so. There's always been a casual
20:37aspect to Jaden that's very California understood the whole thing. I love him. But there was an
20:46urgency of knowing everything about this situation that a lot of quarterbacks would have had in that
20:52situation. Not every quarterback. A lot of players and a lot of coaches are clueless when it comes to
20:57this stuff. And he appears to be one of them. Your pie chart of blame. I'm at 75 Quinn, 12
21:04and a half
21:04each for Blau and Jaden. Where are you? Phone lines are open 301-230-0980.