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00:00It's finally past three o'clock on Wednesday.
00:02Yeah.
00:03We can figure out what the hell happened last week.
00:06And we can start getting excited about this week.
00:08Well, you got to check me now because I want to almost jump right to it because it is time
00:13on the River Islands guest line to go to the executive producer of NFL Films who breaks
00:18it down like none other and joins us every single week.
00:21And that is Greg Cosell.
00:23And I'm fighting the desire to immediately go to the fact that Drake Greenlaw is playing
00:29football tomorrow and what that means.
00:31But I'll hold it, Greg, we'll push that off.
00:34How are you doing first and foremost?
00:36I'm doing great, but we don't really have any idea what that means.
00:39He hasn't played football in a long time.
00:40Correct.
00:41But I would like to know historically what that has meant for Fred Warner when Drake
00:46Greenlaw is also on the field with him.
00:48Well, you know, it's really funny.
00:50Every once in a while I do a ton of draft work and every once in a while, you know,
00:53I get one right, you know, or I try anyway.
00:56And I loved him coming out of college.
00:59And everybody said he was too small because, you know, he's not a big guy.
01:03And it's turned out that he's been kind of what I thought he'd be based on his college
01:07tape.
01:08So I really love him as a player.
01:09I just don't know in his first game back after not playing, you know, since the first half
01:14of the Super Bowl or whatever it was that, you know, number one, we don't know how many
01:18snaps he'll play.
01:19And it's just hard to know the answer to that.
01:21But I love the player.
01:22Yeah, I like the pick.
01:23And I love the player as well, Greg.
01:26I can't help but think about Devondre Campbell in this moment, because I thought looking
01:30at the film that he had his best game of the season against Chicago.
01:34What did you see from the Bears game from Campbell?
01:37Well, the Bears are not a very good offense, but no, Campbell played well.
01:43I thought that the defense played well.
01:46Obviously, they played extremely well because the Bears had four yards in the first half.
01:51So they did a really good job with their front.
01:54The linebackers played well.
01:56They just looked like they were much faster than the Bears.
01:59They, you know, sometimes you watch tape and it just looks like one team is playing at
02:03one speed and the opposing team is playing at a much slower speed.
02:07That's exactly what that game looked like with the 49ers defense versus the Bears offense.
02:13Greg, there's been a lot.
02:14This won't surprise you.
02:15A lot of conversation about Debo Samuel this week, actually every week for that matter.
02:19But he tweeted yesterday something that got everybody going or maybe it was a couple of
02:24days ago.
02:25But he essentially indicated, no, I'm playing just fine.
02:28I'm just not getting the ball.
02:31And you can interpret that a bunch of ways.
02:33But I guess the question I want to ask you is when you see the struggles for Debo Samuel's
02:37numbers, do you see a player who's not performing as well?
02:42Or do you see a scheme that's not performing as well?
02:46I would probably say the second one.
02:48I mean, we've talked about that.
02:51I thought this game, for instance, even though he didn't necessarily have a ton of catches,
02:55I thought this game schematically was just high-level brilliance by Kyle Shanahan.
03:03They just ate up those zone coverage concepts of the Bears, particularly in the first half.
03:08And that was just the competitive phase essentially ended after the first half.
03:12I mean, Purdy threw for .258 in the first half.
03:16And I thought that what they did with their route concepts, with their use of shifts and
03:20motions, was just sheer brilliance.
03:23I mean, it looked like he knew exactly what he was going to get from the defense, which
03:28was probably true, by the way.
03:30And they just broke it down.
03:32And then the Bears played high-percentage zone in the first half, and it looked easy.
03:39Talk to me about one of the few times they did play man and they sent Isaac Garendo out
03:43on a wheel route.
03:44It seemed like Brock Purdy was able to diagnose that pre-snap.
03:49I mean, even though that may not have been the play design, threw a great ball in that play.
03:54Yeah, I think it might not have been man across the board, but I think he read the situation
04:02to the boundary.
04:04Because he read the coverage to the boundary knowing that Sanborn would have to run with
04:08Garendo.
04:09Okay?
04:10Just, you know, that's what he saw and he was right.
04:12So my guess is he did audible to that once he read that.
04:17And so he was able to take advantage of the fact that Sanborn, who doesn't play many snaps,
04:23they were in 21 personnel.
04:25So the Bears on that particular play, because the Bears played mostly nickel, even versus
04:3121 personnel and even versus two tight ends.
04:34But on that given play, and I'm sure that's exactly what Purdy noticed, it was the third
04:39possession of the game.
04:41They were in three linebackers.
04:44They were in their base 4-3 defense and Sanborn was to that side.
04:48So he saw that.
04:50Now he had to make a difficult throw because the left tackle Moore actually made a mistake.
04:56He did not block the defensive end.
04:58Instead, he expanded for the blitzer Bayard, which is wrong.
05:01He should be blocking the first level defensive end and that forced Purdy to have to throw
05:05it off balance.
05:06It was a lot like there was a play like that to McCaffrey last year, as I recall.
05:11Indeed, there was.
05:12Yeah, absolutely.
05:13Greg Cosell with us with it and dibs every single week, NFL Films.
05:16Greg, while we're on the topic of Garendo, just a big opportunity for him to kind of
05:21take a lead back.
05:23What did you think of the way he performed?
05:24Yeah, and I think he fits because he's kind of one cut because he's he's downhill.
05:29He's a velocity runner.
05:31He's a speed runner.
05:32You wouldn't call him shifty, but it's it's that one cut hit it with speed.
05:36So he fits the system really, really well.
05:39And he's got a lot of juice and he's got good size.
05:42He's a big man.
05:43He's got a small back.
05:44But I think, you know, with this particular zone run scheme and I thought in this game,
05:49I thought that Kyle sort of went back to basics to the zone run game as the foundation of
05:55the offense with the play action pass game working off that.
05:59And Garendo is at his best, as I said, as a one cut downhill runner with burst velocity.
06:05And again, you know, talking about the the the play action pass game, I mean, Purdy was
06:10ridiculously good in the play action pass game in the first half.
06:15He was eight for eight for one hundred thirty two yards on play action.
06:18And seven of those passes came from under center and four of them came out of twenty
06:23one personnel.
06:24So to me, Kyle went back to basics.
06:26And part of the basics that I saw, Greg, was the screen game, especially with George Kittle.
06:30What did you make of those passes to Kittle and how it worked against a very aggressive
06:35bear defense?
06:36Yeah, they clearly wanted to get Kittle in space.
06:39And that's you know, that was one way to do it.
06:42And they did it twice, as I recall.
06:43Correct.
06:44I think they did it twice.
06:47And they did it on their first possession where with the thirty three yarder, which
06:51was and I thought, you know, it's funny you talk about backs on that particular play,
06:55on that first possession, the thirty three yarder.
06:57I thought Garendo did a terrific job because he abandoned the play fake to pick up the
07:02blitzing Gordon.
07:03And that's what they teach backs.
07:05Don't just go through the play fake if there's somebody who's going to run by you.
07:10You know, so he abandoned the play fake.
07:11He picked up the blitzing Gordon and that allowed the play to happen.
07:15Then I'm trying to remember the second one.
07:19But anyway, there were two screens to Kittle, which were very, very successful.
07:22Oh, it was the middle screen.
07:23It was the middle screen, which is another that's always been one of my favorite plays,
07:27the middle screen.
07:28And Purdy.
07:29See, that to me is the details and the nuance of playing quarterback, because I thought
07:32Purdy did an outstanding job showing drop back footwork.
07:37And when I watched that play multiple times, what that did is it got the linebackers, Edmonds
07:42and Edwards, to drop into their zone coverage responsibilities because they saw it as a
07:46drop back pass.
07:48And then they were set up and taken out of it as far as the screen game.
07:52So that was really, really good job by Purdy.
07:55Greg, let's talk a little bit more about Purdy, because over the last month, it's been a little
08:00bit of a mixed bag.
08:01You have had some write some comments about how it hasn't been as effective.
08:06He has not played as well this year.
08:08And then there was the injury and the snow game.
08:11What about this one?
08:12And what did you see different, if anything, this time around?
08:16Well, I think they're schematics that always help a quarterback.
08:19I mean, that's the case with any quarterback, whether we think they're great, average or
08:24not great.
08:25You know, it's always it's coaching and scheme as well.
08:28And as I said, they went back to basics.
08:29They put them under center.
08:31They went with the play action pass game, which was really, really effective.
08:36And he was very decisive in everything he did in this game.
08:39And, you know, getting the ball to Kittle on those screens, those are no read throws.
08:43I mean, those those are just basic plays.
08:45There are no read throws.
08:46So, you know, but they got him, I think, in his comfort zone because Purdy can do certain
08:52things well.
08:53But we're not talking about, you know, Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes in terms of overall
08:56talent.
08:57So, you know, he needs the system to be defined and he can operate the system at a high level.
09:03And that's what this game was.
09:05It seemed like the system was designed to get Kittle the ball a lot.
09:08You mentioned the screens and down the middle, but also Jawan Jennings.
09:12When you look at the film, were you seeing most of the plays first read throws by Brock
09:17Purdy where he didn't have to get off his primary based on what the Bears are doing
09:21defensively?
09:22Yeah, I would say that that's fair.
09:24And I think that's coaching.
09:25I think that that's every coach wants that to be the case.
09:28It doesn't always happen, obviously, for multiple reasons.
09:32But that's what you're trying to do.
09:34Every coach, when they call a play, calls a play with a purpose.
09:38They don't just randomly call plays.
09:40And the defense often dictates, because coaches pretty much know what other coaches do.
09:45Coaches coach against coaches more than people.
09:48There are very few people in the NFL that change the way you're going to play.
09:53There's not many of those guys.
09:54So coaches coach against coaches.
09:57And you know, I think that Kyle had a great feel for what he was going to get from the
10:03Bears defense, and he attacked it about as well as you could attack any defense.
10:07Greg, let's let's transition a little bit to tomorrow night.
10:11And first start with this, Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay.
10:15They know one another so, so well.
10:17And we get to see it at least twice a year.
10:21In the past, when these two have matched up, you know, what do you what do you sort of
10:26notice about about how they try to attack each other?
10:29And I think as you've said, they know what each other they know what they're gonna do.
10:33They do.
10:34But they also have you know, they're not going to dramatically look, I can't speak to the
10:39small tweaks.
10:40That's you'd have to I'd have to be sitting in the meeting rooms to know the little things,
10:44the little changes that they're going to make.
10:46So I'm going to be honest and say, I'm not going to know that.
10:49But they're not going to dramatically change who they are.
10:52So when you talk about the Rams offense, you know what you're going to get.
10:56You're going to get a lot of motion.
10:58You're going to get Stafford under center with play action.
11:01I think he's thrown the most play action passes under center other than Jared Goff.
11:06That's not going to change.
11:07They're not all of a sudden going to become a different offense.
11:10You're going to get the run game, of course.
11:12I mean, this past week, Williams, I think had 29 carries, even though he only averaged
11:18about three yards a rush, he had 29 carries.
11:21So you know that you know what you're going to get, you're going to get a lot of reduced
11:25splits.
11:27So it's just a matter of how you handle that.
11:30Is Nick Sorensen going to make adjustments just based on, hey, I know what we're going
11:36to get.
11:37We're going to have to do these things better.
11:38Maybe we'll adjust in a certain way to try to deal with it.
11:40But that's what you're going to get.
11:42Now I think DeMarcus Robinson might be out this week, from what I'm reading.
11:45So he's become a really important player in their offense.
11:49Yeah, questionable is the official listing here, as we said, about 26 hours away from
11:53kick.
11:55I can't get over, Greg, the fact that they run so much 11 personnel.
11:58But what they're doing now with Puka Nikua, describe to our listeners just how different
12:03it is now with Puka becoming really wide receiver one for this Rams offense.
12:08Yeah, and Puka fits that really, really well.
12:10Because with all the motion that they run, with Nikua, with Kup, is they get free access
12:15off the ball.
12:17Nikua is, he's not explosive in the sense that he's straight line fast, but he's very
12:22powerful.
12:24There's a physical presence to the way in which he moves, and he's terrific run after
12:28catch.
12:29So when you get free access off the ball, they can get him the ball.
12:32They don't ask him to win a lot, let's say one on one outside the numbers, because that's
12:37not really his game.
12:38But they get him the ball, often on the move.
12:41We often talk about that when Samuel's at his best, how do you want to get Samuel the
12:45ball?
12:46You want to get him the ball in space on the move.
12:48Nikua is that guy.
12:50And he's such a physical player.
12:52You need a lot of bodies to get him down.
12:55And the key thing, and the Bills this past week could not really generate any meaningful
13:00pressure on Stafford.
13:02And look, you guys have seen Stafford for years.
13:04He's arguably a Hall of Fame quarterback.
13:07When he is clean in the pocket, he still may be the best pure thrower in the league.
13:11It's just so pretty to watch.
13:13So you need to get pressure on Matthew Stafford.
13:15It's interesting you brought Debo's name up, because as you were describing Puka's game,
13:19I'm sitting here thinking, gosh, it sounds like he's talking about Debo.
13:23And Puka got five carries in this game last week.
13:26How would you compare those two players and currently how the teams are deploying them?
13:32Well, yeah, Puka did get some carries.
13:37That was probably a little thing they added situationally.
13:39I don't know if he's going to be used the way the 49ers have used Samuel over these
13:44last number of years, where wherever they are on the field, they could put him in the
13:47backfield and run him on base running plays.
13:50I doubt you'll see Nakua doing that.
13:52I think the way they would run him would be purely situational, as they did last week.
13:59You know, I think they're similar, but they're different.
14:01And that's true of a lot of players.
14:03I mean, I think as a pure receiver, Nakua might have a little more to him.
14:11But they are pretty similar.
14:14But they're both physical.
14:15They're both incredibly strong.
14:17They're both really good run after catch.
14:21You're right about Nakua.
14:22It seems like he's become receiver number one within the context of their offense.
14:26But if Robinson doesn't go, you're going to see a lot of Atwell.
14:29And while Atwell's not a volume target necessarily, you've got to be careful about him because
14:34he brings speed.
14:36And clearly we saw last week that the Niners made a change in the secondary.
14:40They benched Brown and it was Hufanga and Mustafa.
14:44And Mustafa is just nuts when it comes to playing the run.
14:47And he's out, Greg.
14:48He's out.
14:49That got announced today.
14:50So we would love to hear...
14:51Oh, he's out for tomorrow.
14:52Okay, so it'll be Brown again.
14:53Yeah, so what do you see with Jair Brown right now?
14:56Because a lot of fans are concerned.
14:58Well, obviously they are too because they benched him.
15:02So look, I don't think he's a bad player.
15:04I don't think you're putting in a guy that can't play.
15:06But obviously they didn't feel he was doing what needed to be done in order to stay on
15:11the field when Hufanga came back.
15:13So I think there's a concern that he's struggled a bit with his recognition and therefore his
15:20reaction time has been a beat slower than you'd ideally like.
15:23I think his eyes at times have been in the wrong place.
15:26So this is a tough offense to play against.
15:30There's a ton of motion.
15:31You have to decide how you want to deal with the motion.
15:34To me, again, I'm not Nick Sorensen or Kyle Shanahan, so I don't know their thoughts,
15:38but I don't think you want to have to do a lot of communication.
15:42You might see a lot of two shell, two high safety structure because that balances your
15:47defense and you don't have to worry about changing strength of offense with motion because
15:51the defense is balanced with two high safeties.
15:55So my guess is you might see a good amount of that.
15:58And you look at what happened the first time these two teams met and Kyron Williams had
16:02his way on the ground, especially in the second half.
16:05And then you look at the last game where the Niners defensive front was dominant against
16:09the Bears.
16:10Could we take that with a grain of salt because Chicago's offensive line is not very good?
16:16And wasn't that first game week three or so?
16:17That was early in the season.
16:19I think both these teams are totally different right now.
16:22So again, I'm not saying that the coaches are not going to watch that game because it's
16:25head to head and they always do that.
16:28But as I said, coaches coach against coaches.
16:30So they're always looking for concepts that they anticipate that they'll get and that
16:34they pretty much know they'll get.
16:36But I think in terms of how the teams play, like for instance, it'll be very interesting
16:41to see how the Rams play on defense because the 49ers play a ton of base personnel.
16:46Because the Rams have evolved over the course of the season.
16:49They play a ton of big nickel now with three safeties.
16:52The rookie kitchens has become a big factor.
16:55They haven't played a snap of what I would call conventional nickel with three corners
17:02in the last probably two, three weeks.
17:05So their defense in terms of the use and deployment of personnel is totally different
17:09than it was week three.
17:10They were not playing McCullough at all week three.
17:13And now he's a foundational piece of their sub defenses.
17:16I don't know if there's anything we can take from that one that applies tomorrow night.
17:20I mean, Greg, there was no Kittle.
17:21There was no Debo.
17:22There was no Cooper Cup.
17:23There was no Pucca.
17:25The Rams were missing two offensive linemen.
17:28I mean, yeah, like these rosters tomorrow night, they're totally different.
17:34They're totally different teams right now.
17:36And again, having said that, it's still the coaches.
17:39But in terms of the people that will be on the field, there's going to be a lot of different
17:43people.
17:44And that's just the way it is.
17:45I mean, it's week three probably seems like it happened five years ago.
17:50No doubt.
17:51And you look at these two teams and it seems like every time McVay and Shanahan get together,
17:56it's almost a mirror image offensively of one another.
17:59How much of the Shanahan offense do you see around the league?
18:03We know it's a copycat league, but it seems to me, Greg, that more and more teams are
18:07now emulating what Shanahan does offensively.
18:10Well, yes and no, because one of the things you have to be able to do really well is throw
18:17the ball between the numbers.
18:19And that's hard for quarterbacks.
18:20And it's hard for a lot of young quarterbacks coming into the league because the college
18:24game is not like that at all, because the hash marks are wider and the college game
18:29is played on the on the perimeter.
18:32And the NFL game is often played between the numbers.
18:35So it's, you know, I think teams look at concepts.
18:38They look at the run game element in particular with the 49ers because their run game elements
18:43are really, really good.
18:45And then how they work off that.
18:47They did that exceptionally well this week.
18:49So I think teams look at that.
18:51But you had your quarterback has to be really comfortable throwing the ball in the middle
18:55of the field.
18:56There's a lot of bodies.
18:58And you know, you sometimes young quarterbacks.
19:01I mean, I'll tell you a very quick story.
19:03Kevin O'Connell, before he became a coach, he was in our broadcast boot camp here at
19:07NFL Films.
19:08And I got to know Kevin really well.
19:10And he said to me at a lunch break, you know, he said, hey, let's go watch tape.
19:14I want to watch tape with you.
19:15And we were talking ball.
19:16And you know, he came out of San Diego State and was drafted in the third round.
19:19And he said, man, when I got to the NFL, I dropped back and I thought there were 15 defenders
19:24on the field.
19:25Because you know, all of a sudden, everything happens more in the middle of the field in
19:29the NFL.
19:30And those are harder throws.
19:32So you know, Purdy is really, really good at that.
19:36You know, Garoppolo did a pretty good job with that as well, because that was foundational
19:40to how they played.
19:41But that stuff's hard to do.
19:43Greg, real quick on Nick Sorensen and the defense for the 49ers.
19:47I think with Nick Bosa being out for this period of time, a lot of people have been
19:50expecting him to get more creative and go away from that vanilla sort of just rush for
19:57and see what happens kind of approach.
19:59We still don't know about Nick's status for tomorrow night.
20:03But the defense was so successful, especially in the first half against the Bears.
20:07I wanted to ask if you saw any tweaks about what Sorensen did as opposed to what he'd
20:13been doing in the two, three weeks before.
20:15Well, I'm sure there are tweaks.
20:17But if you're asking me if they started pressuring more, like blitzing more, no, they're not
20:21a heavy blitz team.
20:22And my guess is that's not going to happen.
20:24Now, there were some snaps where they move Floyd around and he became kind of a stand-up
20:28joker.
20:29I think they did that.
20:30You might see more of that.
20:32They use gross matos both inside and outside.
20:35I think you'll continue to see more of that.
20:38So I think you'll see more movement of players in different alignments, in different positions.
20:44But I don't think there'll be a heavy blitz team.
20:46And my guess is they will not be a heavy blitz team against the Rams.
20:49Greg Cosell, NFL Films.
20:51I think we made it through our conversation, it sounds like, without either of us saying
20:55something that stupid.
20:57Well, I mean, you know, the tape pretty much tells you what's going on.
21:04But I got to tell you, the 49er offense this week, this was a clinic, the way Kyle just
21:09broke down that bare defense, which by the way, does not have bad players.
21:14Did you mean the tape of the game or the tape of our show?
21:16Right, both.
21:17Well, both, obviously.
21:18Okay, all right.
21:19There it is.
21:20There it is.
21:21Greg, awesome.
21:22We'll talk to you next week, my friend.
21:23All right, guys, appreciate it.
21:24Thanks.
21:25Greg Cosell, NFL Films.