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00:00So we are going to try to ask great questions right now on the River Islands guest line
00:05with our absolute favorite, NFL Films executive producer Greg Cosell.
00:11Hello Greg, how are you this week?
00:13Gentlemen, what's happening?
00:15You know what, less urgent football than we thought.
00:18That's how I'll answer that.
00:21Yeah, I guess it's not likely they'll be in the playoffs, huh?
00:26It is highly unlikely, Greg.
00:29Yeah, it is highly unlikely.
00:31Listen, we definitely want to go over the Rams game that was almost a week ago.
00:36Also talk out some things about not just the Niner quarterback, but some other quarterbacks
00:40around the league who are making news right now.
00:42But can we start with this?
00:44For a lot of 49er fans, the moment that the season really kind of ended was when Brock
00:51Purdy threw that deep interception in the end zone against the Rams when they were already
00:55in field goal range.
00:57We want to play for you what Kyle Shanahan said today about that interception, because
01:03it felt like he was kind of taking some of the blame away from Brock, and then get your
01:07breakdown of the play.
01:08You mean the play where Jennings was illegal contacted twice?
01:14Ah, so first of all, you've jumped Shanahan.
01:19So that's great.
01:20Listen to Kyle, and then I'd love to hear more about that.
01:23Here it is.
01:24Okay.
01:25Yeah, I don't think Brock's an extreme aggressive guy in terms of you guys don't see him throw
01:27a lot of picks.
01:28He doesn't throw into double coverage much.
01:29When it's single safety, you want to hold the middle third player and throw a double
01:33move on the outside corner.
01:34You'd love to be able to check whether he's got a chance or not.
01:38But when he did look out there, the guy squatted, and then he bumped him, which is ICT.
01:42You know, you can't hit him 12 yards down the field, which stopped Juwan.
01:48And then he's got a pass rush coming at him.
01:50So it's really easy to say with a clicker in your hand and stuff when he's not on top,
01:55then look out there, see a guy at a dead stop, and then have a two technique coming right
01:59at you.
02:00I mean, he's going to let that go.
02:01And once you coach, so in the heat of battle, I always tell the receivers, worst case scenario
02:07in situations like that is offensive PI.
02:09It's never a pick.
02:10I don't care if you have to tackle the guy.
02:12So the first thing I look at is does Juwan stop on the play because he's got to protect
02:15Brock and so we can at least survive it and have a chance to overcome the penalty.
02:19And he couldn't get to it once he stopped him there at the 12 yard spot, couldn't catch
02:23back up.
02:24And yeah, I'd love Brock to check it down, but the protection has got to be a little
02:28bit better for him to see all that.
02:30And the corner did stop.
02:31So it was just an unfortunate play.
02:32Okay.
02:33So when Kyle refers to an ICT, he's saying basically the same thing you just did, which
02:37is that it's an illegal contact penalty.
02:39So Greg, what's your breakdown?
02:41It sounds like you, you agree with his.
02:43The only thing I would say is if you're going to throw a stutter go, it's hard to throw
02:49a stutter go against a bailed corner.
02:51And Williams was bailed.
02:52He was playing nine yards off.
02:54So again, you know, Kyle could disagree with that and, and Hey, he certainly knows more
02:58than I do, but that's the only thing I would say.
03:00But the bottom line is Jennings was illegal contacted twice.
03:05He was illegal contacted by, uh, by Quentin Lake on his initial STEM and then he was absolutely
03:10illegal contacted by Williams.
03:12So you know, we can debate whether Brock should have thrown it or not, but you're, you're
03:17not throwing it expecting the illegal contact.
03:19So, um, but that, that's a fact.
03:22I mean, I'm, I happen to be looking at the play again right now while we're talking.
03:25So he was illegal contacted twice.
03:26So the only thing I would say is, and I don't know how it's coached.
03:30Um, I know coaches deal with it differently, but some coaches will say you're not going
03:35to throw a stutter go versus a bailed corner.
03:38But I don't know Kyle's philosophy on that.
03:40Well, as I'm looking at the play myself, Greg letter of the law.
03:43Yes.
03:44Uh, the first reroute happens at the six yard mark.
03:47So if we want to like picnics and talk about the five yard bump, this occurs about a yard
03:52beyond that.
03:53Well, the ball's at the, uh, 33.
03:56Okay.
03:57I'm looking at it right now.
03:58He gets con right.
03:59He gets contacted.
04:00Yeah.
04:01That's close.
04:02It's, it's, it's like the 27 or so it could be, but it could be called normally.
04:05By the way, normally that's called cause he gets pushed pretty good by Lake.
04:09Okay.
04:10I mean, it's not like a little love tap.
04:12He gets pushed off his route.
04:14And then, but clearly, clearly Williams with his right hand, illegal contacts and you can't
04:19do that.
04:20Well, that to me, they look to be like, you know, two way hand fighting.
04:24Jennings is extending his arm as well, but that's neither here nor there.
04:27My question to you is more a general one about what you see on the film about checkdowns
04:33because it seemed to me in this game that Brock had three or four opportunities to check
04:37it down, but he's too married to the deep throat.
04:40Did you see instances in this game where he could have taken checkdowns?
04:45You know, that's a whole, we're not going to know the answer to that cause we don't
04:50know how that's coached.
04:51And let me just say a couple of things, and this is not a defensive Brock Purdy who, by
04:55the way, I'll tell you what I said in my notes.
04:57So people understand that this is not a defensive Brock Purdy because I did say that Purdy has
05:02not been as decisive turning the ball loose with the kind of timing and anticipation throws
05:07that have been his strength since he became the starter in his rookie season, that there
05:10have been times he's been tentative and that has resulted in throws we have seen him make
05:15sometimes not being attempted.
05:17So this is not a defensive Brock Purdy, okay?
05:20But there's a couple of things that we'd be having a totally different conversation that
05:25have nothing to do with Purdy.
05:27If Samuel doesn't drop that ball, that may have been a touchdown, okay?
05:31And we might be having a totally different conversation about the game.
05:34You know the play I'm talking about on 3rd and 10 from the 29-yard line all the way through
05:38the third quarter.
05:40And Samuel's physicality totally beat Williams on the in-breaker and Purdy put the ball right
05:45on him and he had run after catch.
05:47Now whether he scores or not, we don't know, but he certainly gets into the low red zone.
05:51So we might be having a different conversation.
05:54Now obviously he made a poor throw and it was a missed opportunity when he missed Pearsall
05:59wide open on the deep post on the 1st and 10 shot play.
06:03He underthrew that badly.
06:04That should have been a walk-in touchdown.
06:06And that's one that he just missed.
06:08He underthrew it by quite a bit.
06:10He just missed it.
06:12I also thought that he also had Samuel on a middle seam on 2nd and 20 from deep in their
06:18territory, but he left the throw short and that allowed Kitchens to undercut it.
06:22I thought that could have been a better throw as well.
06:25But the checkdowns, that's something you have to understand how that's coached.
06:30How he's coached to look at what he's looking at and when to come to a checkdown.
06:34Yeah, and that's hard to, I guess, know unless you're in the room because I'm looking at
06:38that same play, Greg, 2nd and 20.
06:40And my notes on that one, you know, your notes better than my notes, but my notes, right,
06:44I wrote down that Garendo was open on that throw, 2nd and 20 to Debo, and that's why
06:48I was asking you about the checkdowns because it seems like there's a lot more available
06:52that he took last year that he's not taking this year.
06:57That's a hard question to answer.
06:59And like I said, it's hard to know because don't forget when you call a vertical route,
07:04you're starting with the vertical route.
07:06You're not starting with the checkdowns, right?
07:08So if you feel that the vertical route is there, okay, and all you can say is what's
07:14in the quarterback's head.
07:15We're not in Purdy's head, but when you call routes where you have a, you know, deep to
07:20short concept ending with a checkdown, the checkdown is the last thing, not the first
07:25thing.
07:26Greg Cosell, NFL Films is with us.
07:29I'm glad you brought up Ricky Pearsall, even though you're just kind of talking through
07:31a play because we've talked about him with you before, and there's been a lot of discomfort
07:38from the fan base at how few opportunities Ricky's gotten, and I think people want to
07:43know is that because of the way Ricky is running routes or the offense?
07:49What have you seen with him as his games develop?
07:53Well, let me ask you this.
07:56If Purdy didn't underthrow that ball, would we be having this conversation?
08:01Not this early in the conversation.
08:07You know, it's funny.
08:08I made it a point to watch Pearsall closely because you guys ask me about him every week,
08:12and he wins on some routes.
08:13You know, sometimes the ball's not thrown.
08:15He obviously won on the 16-yarder on second and nine midway through the fourth quarter
08:20where he beat Witherspoon on the in-breaker, and actually Purdy had a move in the pocket
08:24on that play, which was really good pocket movement making an off-platform throw, and
08:28then he obviously on that deep ball, I forget who he ran by, but he just ran by him with
08:34speed, and that should have been a walk-in touchdown.
08:37So no, I don't, you know.
08:39The other factor, too, is you have to remember he's a rookie, okay?
08:43Think back to a lot of rookie receivers.
08:45Was Brandon Ayuk a big-time stud in his rookie season?
08:48No, not a big-time stud.
08:51No.
08:52You got to, you know, you have to understand these things that sometimes it takes time.
08:56I can go back in history and talk about a lot of receivers that have become good, and
09:01no one's, look, no one's going to put Pearsall ever, you know, in the category of the Jamar's
09:05Chases or the Justin Jeffersons or the, you know, Devontae Adams, who, by the way, also
09:09struggled in his rookie year, but, you know, so I don't think there's a problem with rookie
09:14Pearsall.
09:15When you look at this Niner offense, and particularly the passing game, do you see an offense that
09:19struggles against man, and if so, what are the reasons that you see on film that has
09:25led the passing offense to struggle against man coverage?
09:28I mean, I think at times the receivers do struggle to get open overall, and by the way,
09:34there's really not a lot of speed on this offense.
09:36I mean, you could argue Pearsall's the fastest guy on the offense, and, you know, he's a
09:40rookie receiver.
09:41This is an offense that lacks speed, so there's really no speed, and keep in mind, it's not
09:47just the pass game.
09:48This is an offense that has not run the ball this year the same way that they've run it
09:52in the past, and really, that's the starting point of this offense.
09:56Everything kind of works off that.
09:58As good as Purdy has been throughout his short career, he's still in many ways a quarterback
10:04that needs a multidimensional offense.
10:08I hate to use the word system quarterback.
10:12Everybody is a system quarterback, by the way, but, you know, he needs a complete offense.
10:19He's not Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes.
10:22I was having this conversation with people, and they play Miami this week, with the guys
10:27who work with me on the matchup show, and I was talking about Tua, and you guys know
10:31Mike McDaniel, obviously, and I know him as well, and I think we all have tremendous respect
10:35for him, but Tua's dropping back 40 times a game this year.
10:39That's way too many.
10:40He's a system quarterback.
10:41You can't do that.
10:42They have no run game in Miami.
10:44No real run game.
10:46Everything is space.
10:47Let's get guys in space.
10:49Sometimes you have to line up and run the ball.
10:51The Niners do, but they've not had much success, certainly, in the last five, six, seven weeks,
10:58and by success, I mean sustaining success.
11:01Is there a big play every once in a while?
11:03Yes, but I'm talking about the kind of success that allows you to stay on schedule as an
11:07offense and keep your playbook totally open, and you dictate to the defense, and you control
11:12the pace and tempo of the game.
11:14Greg, I'm looking forward to getting back to the Miami Dolphins further in this conversation.
11:18Tyreek Hill said something today that we can discuss, but what about this?
11:23Both Jerry Rice and Steve Young publicly stated this week Kyle Shanahan, who has done this
11:30before, needs to reinvent himself.
11:34Do you agree with that statement, and what does that mean to you?
11:39I don't know what it means because I don't know what it means to them.
11:43Can you give me more information about it?
11:47The context of the conversation is that it's sort of along the lines of what Dibbs was
11:53just saying with the man defense and how it is getting the 49er offense to struggle, and
11:58so Kyle Shanahan, maybe the league looked at him all offseason, and maybe they found
12:04some weak points, and they were helped by injuries and all of that stuff, but it's time
12:08for Kyle to kind of maybe evolve that offense a little bit.
12:12Do you agree with that?
12:14I think that coaches are always looking to do that, and by the way, this is not the first
12:19time that the league would be looking at Kyle Shanahan's offense.
12:22He's been coaching in the league for a long time and doing a lot of the same things in
12:27terms of what he does.
12:29All coaches have kind of a template of what they do.
12:33Now, can they add to that?
12:35Can they adjust?
12:36Sure.
12:37And if they're talking about maybe making some adjustments, I can understand that.
12:41I think every coach, let's put it this way, my guess is Kyle's trying to do that anyway,
12:46whether they're successful or not, we're not going to know the answer to that, but there
12:52are certain things that you have to be able to do, and if those things don't happen, like
12:56if they can't run the ball, okay, let's just say if they can't run the ball, it's going
13:01to be really hard to have a consistent offense, because as good as Purdy can be as a certain
13:06kind of quarterback, he's not going to take over a game in the way that Mahomes or Allen
13:12or Lamar Jackson can.
13:14He can't do that.
13:15So they need to be able to run the ball.
13:18Now, if you want to talk about whether he's got to change his run game, that's a different
13:24question and there's not a thousand things you can do in the run game.
13:28And one thing that you mentioned earlier about space in Miami, and I look at this Niner offense,
13:32Greg, and they don't utilize the width of the field very often, is that what you see
13:37on film?
13:38Does it become easier to defend an offense when you have so many tight splits offensively?
13:47Not necessarily.
13:48The Rams are a tight split offense.
13:50So that's, again, every situation is different.
13:53There's no hard and fast rule.
13:56You know, that's why these answers, there's no specific answer here to, you know, there's
14:01not one thing, oh, if Shanahan does this, we'll be good to go.
14:05There's no specific answer.
14:06The Rams are a reduced split offense and they're very good at it.
14:10You know, a lot of teams run reduced splits and have success.
14:14So it's, you know, that's a hard question to answer.
14:18But the one thing they do lack is speed and they have really, you know, so in some ways
14:24the offense is somewhat condensed and it's condensed because they just don't have any
14:28speed.
14:30Greg, getting Dre Greenlaw back out on the field, I think for a while he was out there,
14:35was invigorating for fans.
14:37He maybe looked better than people thought, but I wonder what specifically you saw on
14:40film.
14:41Yeah, he looked pretty good.
14:42I mean, and he looked good right from the start.
14:45You know, he, cause I mean, obviously he's, he's a very, he's a rangy player.
14:49He's a, he's a movement player.
14:52He's an aggressive player.
14:53He's a competitive player.
14:54No, I thought, I thought that he looked pretty good.
14:57You know, this game was an odd game because the Rams controlled the ball for more than
15:0235 minutes, but they were only four for 15 on third down.
15:06Those two things normally don't go together.
15:08Yeah.
15:09And you look at what they did in the second half and it feels like a blueprint for the
15:12season where Kyron Williams was able to just run up in the A and the B gap and have his
15:18way on the ground.
15:19When you look at the film, is that a glaring weakness of this defense for the 49ers, their
15:23inability to control the action between the guards?
15:26But he didn't have his way.
15:28Only 11 of his 29 carries gained four or more yards.
15:32That's what's so strange about the game.
15:33He didn't have his way.
15:34That's a very low percentage.
15:36So it was a very odd game.
15:38Don't forget he had 29 carries for 108 yards.
15:41And like I said, only 11 of them gained four or more yards.
15:44So it was a very strange game in that, in that regard.
15:48Yeah.
15:49And I'm looking at his runs though in the fourth quarter and five of those 11 came in
15:52the fourth quarter.
15:53Yeah.
15:54Yeah.
15:55So it's surprising about a second half Niner defense that has struggled routinely in the
16:00late game scenarios against that very thing.
16:03Yeah.
16:04And, and, and obviously in a close game like that, you know, that's where you want to shut
16:07them, shut them down.
16:09But, but you know, and don't forget that was the nature of that game where those five runs,
16:15you know, that probably gained six or seven yards seemed like huge, huge plays because
16:20the score was nine, six.
16:22Yeah.
16:23I know you sell NFL films.
16:24Definitely want to ask you about this week's opponent, Miami and, and I know two has been
16:29in and out.
16:30And so that's the obvious answer to some degree.
16:33But Tyree kill, for example, this morning tweeted, it's time for me to go coach.
16:38I don't know how to translate exactly what, what he means by that.
16:42My guess is it's time for me to cook, right?
16:45It's time for me to get more.
16:47I, what, what do you see with that offense?
16:50Cause he had such that generational year last year and it just hasn't, it hasn't been there
16:55this year.
16:56What do you see?
16:57Um, well, number one, I think they throw it too much.
17:00Number two, I think that teams, um, tactically are doing some things to take away those in
17:05breakers.
17:06See two is a phenomenal window thrower, but he's a specific kind of quarterback and he's
17:13a pure timing rhythm player who works between the numbers and between the hashes.
17:18And some teams obviously do a better job than others.
17:22That's always true in the league, even though everybody knows what he is, some teams just
17:26are better equipped to handle it than others with how they approach it.
17:29Um, for instance, last week that the Texans did a really good job with a, with a, a tactic
17:34that they use.
17:35Other teams have done a really good job at times, but beyond that, there's not two is
17:41very specific.
17:43He's you know, he's very good at what he is, but he's not more than that.
17:49And when it is working, they just eat up yards and yards and yards because they get a ton
17:53of run after catch.
17:55You know, they may have to try to, uh, go more vertical and take some shots and try
18:00to push those corners back because, and we don't know if waddle is going to go this week
18:04that remains to be seen.
18:05But certainly Hill, you know, he can run by people, but it's, you don't run by people
18:1010 times a game.
18:12So you know, they may have to think through just some, but the other thing is that the
18:16run game, you know, it's so funny.
18:18Everybody talks.
18:19It's a passing league.
18:20It's a passing league and you need a great quarterback and you know, obviously no one's
18:23going to say that that's not true, but you know, at some point you got to line up and
18:27run the ball and, and they don't line up and just run the ball.
18:31Everything is about space and they have all this speed with a chain, even the back, they
18:35drafted from Tennessee, right?
18:37It's all speed, but they don't really line up and run the ball.
18:40Yeah.
18:41The teams that have run the ball, the six most in the NFL are all in current playoff
18:45spots.
18:47When you look at the Miami defense, Greg, what do they do from a scheme standpoint that
18:51the 49ers are going to have to try to counteract?
18:53Yeah, they haven't been good as good this year, you know, as they, as they were in the
18:57past.
18:58So, you know, they, they struggled a bit.
19:01So defensively, you know, from a coverage perspective, I mean, look, the bottom line
19:06is they're going to have to, they're going to have to try to run and get their run game
19:09working because if they can't get their run game working, it's going to be really, really
19:14hard.
19:15It's going to be really, really hard to play if they can't get their run game going because,
19:20you know, they're sort of built on being able to do that.
19:23Now the Dolphins play very, very little man coverage.
19:27I mean, in fact, they play the lowest percentage of cover one in the NFL.
19:32They're a heavy cover three team.
19:34Now assuming they do the same thing, there's many ways to attack cover three and that's
19:39what you have to do.
19:40You've got to call cover three beaters and then you got to protect, you know, they've
19:44been missing Trent Williams who I guess could well be out again this week.
19:48I don't think he, because I don't think he practiced today, right?
19:50No, he might.
19:51Kyle actually said he might be out for the rest of the year.
19:53Well there you go.
19:54So I mean, that's it.
19:55That's an issue right there.
19:56You know, that changes things too because you know what that does?
19:59That forces you in certain situations to have to help your left tackle and that changes
20:04and limits your pass game.
20:06See all these are factors guys.
20:07It's never one thing and you know, I try to explain that, you know, I've done the matchup
20:11show I created in 1984 and one of the main things I've always hoped that people understand
20:17when they watch the film segments that I do is that there's a lot going on.
20:22There's never one answer.
20:23There's so many variables as to why things work or don't work.
20:27It's, you know, we always focus on the quarterback.
20:29Oh, what's wrong with Brock Purdy?
20:30Oh, must be the play calling.
20:32You know, there's always an easy answer, you know, that, that everybody, you know, fans
20:36in the 700 level feel that they have, that they know the answers.
20:40It's way more detailed and nuanced than that.
20:42Greg, what a perfect segue into the last thing I wanted to ask you, which is to weigh in
20:47on the topic du jour of the week because Brian Baldinger was on our station yesterday and
20:52the guys asked him, what would you tell John Lynch to do about the Brock Purdy contract
20:56talk?
20:57And his answer was, I'd go flip him for Sam Darnold.
21:00Now look, I'm not going to ask you to weigh in on trades or signings or whatever, but
21:05can you tell our audience what you see with Brock this year and what feels like a little
21:11bit of a regression and Sam this year and what feels like a little bit of an elevation?
21:17What's going on there?
21:19Well, Darnold's playing at a really high level.
21:21He's in a really, you know, a different offense than the 49ers.
21:26It's a little more intermediate and vertical based in the way Kevin O'Connell structures
21:31his offense.
21:33He's obviously got really good receivers, but again, you still have to always isolate
21:37the traits of the quarterback.
21:39Darnold is clearly incredibly comfortable this year and one way you know that he's very
21:43comfortable is he's sitting in the pocket, letting the bodies get around him and still
21:49making big time throws.
21:50In the past, if he did that, he just didn't see things clearly.
21:54This year he's seeing things clearly, which I'm sure is a function of Kevin O'Connell
21:59and the way he's being taught.
22:01Obviously he was only in San Francisco as a backup, so we have no idea, you know, what
22:04would have happened if he'd been the starting quarterback and you always have to be careful.
22:08You know, Darnold is a more physically talented quarterback than Purdy.
22:12No one would argue that, so, you know, if he was the Niners quarterback, how would he
22:17run Kyle's offense?
22:19We don't know the answer to that.
22:20He was here, but he didn't play, but he's obviously been very receptive to what Kevin
22:25O'Connell teaches and the structure of that offense and the receivers that they have.
22:30And by the way, a run game that's been better than the 49ers, so there's been a lot of elements
22:35that have really helped Darnold, but he's played at a high level.
22:38Greg, great stuff.
22:41Happy holidays.
22:42We won't talk to you till after.
22:43Thank you as always.
22:44Oh, what, do you guys get time off?
22:46What's going on?
22:47Oh, yeah.
22:48That's the word.
22:49We're going to try.
22:50Hey, I don't get any time off, guys, you know.
22:52All right, then I'll just call you next week on Wednesday.
22:54We can just chat.
22:55All right.
22:56All right.
22:57Okay.
22:58Thanks, guys.
23:00All right.
23:01Greg Cosell, NFL Films.