00:00All right, so I wanted to get to the keys to the game.
00:04My fear all along was we would hit the bye at a disappointing,
00:13I was thinking 2-4 maybe.
00:19Obviously worse than that.
00:22I think I originally had them going 3-3 at the bye,
00:27originally before the season.
00:30Of course, you'd start to adjust that as games go along,
00:33and you start off 0-2.
00:35What have you?
00:39But this was kind of my fear.
00:411-4-1.
00:42Everybody thinks the season's over.
00:48And your really only realistic chance is to win a lousy division.
00:56Now, the NFC South is just as bad.
01:02But that's not the division we care about here.
01:05So, you have a celebrity steel cage, barbed wire, dog collar match on Sunday night football.
01:13Again, nobody has been able to explain, outside of AI-generated bot rules,
01:19that the NFL doesn't list,
01:22why this game is still on Sunday night.
01:26It shouldn't be, again, it should be played at 4 o'clock in the morning in, like, Zimbabwe.
01:37But, it is what it is.
01:40And we've got to figure out how they win this game.
01:42So, number one, I think we all know they have to play 55 minutes of good quality football.
01:53Again, I've been saying that all week.
01:55Nobody should expect 60 minutes.
02:01I mean, you can expect 60 minutes, but it's a television show on CBS, usually at about 7 o'clock.
02:07Like, maybe if you want 60 good minutes, you can watch that right before the Commanders game.
02:14Ha, ha, ha.
02:15Funny, funny, funny.
02:17But nobody should expect 60 good minutes.
02:21Um, sorry, I mean, listen, to have a lot of faith in this team is blind faith.
02:29It's not smart faith.
02:31Like, they could surprise us all, but the chances of that, with the way this season is going,
02:40and, again, it's more than just this season, it's all of last season as well,
02:45the chances of us being like, wow, they came out and laid a 40-burger on the Eagles
02:54and won 40-3 or whatever, and it was coasting, smooth sailing.
03:01The chances of that are impossible to believe.
03:05But they don't need to do that.
03:07They just need a win.
03:10As ugly as it might be, as not sexy as even a 17-16 type of win would be,
03:20even though they wouldn't cover the number, who cares?
03:24That would just be like, okay, a temporary tourniquet stopgap to the bleeding, right?
03:33And, by the way, I don't think they're gushing blood.
03:36I think they're streaming blood.
03:40I think they're leaking.
03:42Or oil, right, if you want to use that as your comparative analogy.
03:47I don't think they're gushing oil out of their oil pan underneath their car,
03:52and your engine's going to seize in two minutes.
03:55I think they're leaking oil.
03:58I don't think we're at a gushing oil standpoint, at a gushing blood standpoint.
04:06I think it can be tightened up, stopped, prevented, limited, whatever, by a tourniquet, by whatever.
04:14That's where I think we're at.
04:16So even if, again, they don't cover the number, but they win by a point, two points, three points, whatever
04:21it is,
04:22and people go, ugh, that was ugly.
04:25They're going to get smacked around by the Rams.
04:26Listen, at least it buys you one more week of relevancy.
04:32At least.
04:34And then you never know in this league.
04:36Every week is different.
04:37Every game is different.
04:39Every situation is different.
04:43So, you have that.
04:4555 good minutes is what we're asking for.
04:49Not impossible, hard to define, but you'll know it when you see it.
04:56We know this has been a problem.
04:58Good first half, lousy second half in overtime.
05:01Bad first half, good second half, what have you.
05:05Sometimes it's in between.
05:07All the numbers point to a team that plays about, eh, 20 to 25 good minutes.
05:14Not even very good minutes.
05:17And then plays 30, 35, depending on the length of the game, overtime, 40.
05:23Lousy minutes.
05:25Right?
05:25That's what the evidence points to.
05:27That's what the data points to.
05:28That's what our eyes see.
05:29What have you.
05:30So, 55 good minutes.
05:31That's key number one.
05:32For me, key number two, they have got to be able to run the football against this Eagles front,
05:40which got gashed by the Dallas Cowboys, who don't like to run the football,
05:45and who have two interior defensive tackles that seemingly don't want to play right now
05:50and are going opposite directions and not getting set and all that stuff.
05:55Now, hopefully, they haven't found a motivational chip this week during practice,
06:01but you might have the opportunity to not only run to the perimeter and the edges in this game,
06:06even though you don't have Bill,
06:07you might not have the opportunity to run through gas-sized lanes,
06:13Lincoln Tunnel-sized lanes.
06:15And because of that, I think Jaden Daniels will be the leading rusher again for the commanders.
06:23But I also think Jeremy McNichols, from a run perspective,
06:31somebody with some physicality and some toughness up the middle could bust one.
06:38You know, 25, 30, 35 yards, somewhere in that range.
06:41Remember the touchdown call back in San Francisco because of the Chris Paul face mess?
06:46That was to the left edge, perimeter, what have you.
06:49I'm talking about up the middle, Jeremy McNichols gets the ball,
06:54whether it's at a pistol, gun, under center, whatever it might be,
06:57and he makes one guy miss the parting of the seas, and whew!
07:02Whether it's a touchdown or not doesn't matter.
07:04Whether it sets up a touchdown, hopefully it does one way or the other.
07:07I think the commanders need to rush for over 150 yards in this game.
07:16Between Jaden Daniels, Jeremy McNichols, and then a sprinkle of Rashad White,
07:20a sprinkle of Austin Eckler.
07:23150 rushing yards.
07:26And taking advantage of what the tape shows,
07:30a lazy, uninterested front that used to be dominant.
07:34Again, we'll see how excited they are to play on Sunday night.
07:37After getting their teeth kicked in all week and ambushed last Monday night,
07:43I'm sure they will be more prideful.
07:48But, you know, again, that's football.
07:50But the commanders need to take advantage of that if they can.
07:55And they should, right?
07:57That should be there.
07:59Should.
08:00Not definite, should.
08:02All right, so that's two keys for me.
08:04They play 55 great minutes or really good minutes and be able to rush for 150-plus yards.
08:11Jaden and Jeremy McNichols.
08:13Hopefully McNichols pops one 25, 30 yards.
08:16Jaden maybe pops one up the middle or around edge, what have you.
08:22But, again, the tape shows an uninterested duo last Monday night.
08:27And they might be tired come the late third quarter, fourth quarter,
08:31playing two games in five and a half days.
08:34Ant, before the top of the hour, you got one?
08:37A key for you?
08:38I do have a key indeed.
08:42Indeed, I think off of you saying, like, they need to play a full 55 minutes,
08:48definitely, like, limiting those pre-snap penalties and things of that nature.
08:54Like, I definitely do want to see a clean game.
08:56But I think defensively, I think we got to get out to Tanner McKee.
09:01He's not really pushing the ball down the field.
09:05I noted that his yards per pass attempt at 5.3.
09:08So he's looking to get the ball out quickly.
09:10And Durante, like, he pointed to that as well.
09:12So I just think our corners, like, they got to be aware.
09:16I think this is an opportunity for us to create possibly two more turnovers.
09:20I know the last four games we've come up with eight.
09:24So continuing with the defensive aggressiveness and, you know,
09:28being able to capitalize in moments in games.
09:30So I think defensively we create two or three takeaways in this game.
