Mike Macdonald Needs to Trust Sam Darnold More, With Jacson Bevens

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Sheil Kapadia here. Seahawks Cardinals was not that entertaining for like three plus quarters, but man, what a finish. Seahawks hang on 2320. What did we learn? What are our big takeaways? What do we think about these teams going forward to talk about it all? I'm thrilled to welcome in my friend Jackson Bevins, who hosts the Cigar Thoughts podcast. I've joined him on that many a time. Now he's returning the favor and joining me. He's been talking Seahawks. He's been talking NFL for a long, long time. Jackson, how is the heart rate after that ending for the Seattle Seahawks?

0:40Oh, there's never a doubt, baby. Never a doubt. No, of course, man. The Seahawks are incapable of playing a normal game. So, you know, once a week, my heart is used to it at this point. But it's calming down now once that kick went through the uprights. There you go. Calming down now. Three and one. If you're a Seahawks fan, you have to be excited. I did, but I have a take that I want to lead off with that. I wonder if Jackson's going to tell me, oh, you got, you got to shut up with that. Don't, that can't be the first thing we talk about, or if he's going to agree with me. So let's take a break.

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3:32All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. All right, Jackson, I'm going to lead us off. And here is actually my big take. And part of me can't believe, I can't believe the words that are about to come out of my mouth here, but here goes. I think if the Seahawks want to win big, Mike McDonald actually needs to trust Sam Darnold more was one of my big takeaways from this football game. Let me explain. Let me explain before you yell at me. Seahawks, I thought, almost blew this game and it really shouldn't have been close. But if you've watched McDonald through the first four weeks of the season, I think it's pretty clear how he wants to play.

4:05It's like he wants to win with his defense. He wants to make sure Sam Darnold is not losing games for him. It cost him in week one in that 49ers game. We all remember that. He got conservative. I thought it almost cost him in this game. You know, there's a fourth and two in the third quarter. He kicks a field goal. Then in a one score game, it's 2013 with 404 left. Earlier in the drive, Sam Darnold had delivered a beautiful ball to Jackson Smith and Jigba down the right sideline. It's 39. I'm thinking, all right, what's Darnold going to do here? You know, step on the throat, put him away. And they run the football and they settle for a 53 yard field goal that they end up missing that allows the Cardinals back in the game there.

4:49And then even on that final drive, Jackson, I'm looking, they have a timeout there at the Arizona 38. I'm thinking, all right, you know, Donald's been nails here. Give him one more chance for a completion. Get closer. They hand the football off to Zach Charbonnet who had a heck of a run, honestly, to just gain whatever it was, four or five yards. And they kick a 52 yarder. So I'm adding all those things up and I'm looking at it and it's like, these are suboptimal decisions. It worked in this game, but barely. And I feel like I don't know that it's going to work in the long run. Again, I can't believe I'm saying it.

5:21Am I nuts or do you agree with any part of that? Well, listen, if anyone was going to disagree with you about trusting Sam Darnold more, it would be me because I am famously skeptical about the decision to move from Geno Smith to Sam Darnold. But you know what? Darnold played really well in this game. And their best drives were when they were letting it rip. It's not like, I mean, Seattle's running game is better than it's been in a few years right now, early in the season. But it's not like it's dominant. It's not like they're just getting yards at will. It's still very, very hit and miss. They had a lot of runs for loss yardage.

5:58And so for them to just turtle up when they had proof of concept that letting the passing game go is working, especially against this Cardinals defense has been very good against the run against everybody this season. it was really frustrating they had a chance to put the hammer down on this team you mentioned settling for a long field goal uh you know when it was 20 to 13 they also had a chance to make it 24 to 13 and not even have that be an issue but they didn't put the ball in sam darnold's hands and to me and i say this as someone who so far sam darnold he's doing his thing like i i'm not a take lock guy.

6:41I want to be wrong. I've been very public about wanting to be wrong about Sam Darnold. So far, he's looking good, but they're passing offenses at Jackson Smith and Jigba passing offense. And in the second half, he was completely uncoverable and Sam Darnold threw him a lot of trust balls. And then, and twice on those final two drives, he came through with big third down long completions. And then they just went away from it and they got bailed out, but I am with you, I'd like to see them step on the throat. It's very interesting because I think McDonald is such an interesting coach because it's not like he's ignorant to the game.

7:18He talked about it after that 49ers game. In my ear, they were saying, that's a go. I chose not to go. And I wondered in that moment, was that a learning thing? Was that a, all right, if it comes up again, I'm going to do it differently. It doesn't seem like he wants to do it differently. And I get it. He's a defensive coach. He's an awesome defensive coach. The defense is really, really good. And so I understand you want to trust that. And I'm not even saying like throw it 40 times a game. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying in these kind of key moments in a game where it's just like you can either gain an edge.

7:51You know, he's always saying the chasing edges thing, right? That's been his slogan. It's like those are, you know, some of those decisions you made, you're not chasing edges there. You're kind of going overboard here. And I think it's impossible to have this conversation without having the Darnold conversation. I think you and I were probably in the same spot with this going into the season. I was very skeptical of this Sam Darnold, Clint Kubiak relationship. I thought it's not going to look the same as it did in Minnesota. Now, we have four weeks here, Jackson. And so I'm going to I'm taking the L on my preseason take.

8:26Now, I want to hear where you are in a second. but I'm taking the L because I really thought there was a low floor for this offense. Like I thought there was a chance it was going to be a disaster that Darnold was going to look more like the guy we saw earlier in his career. And that just hasn't been the case through four weeks. I'm not saying it's amazing. He's elite. This offense is incredible, but what I do like a lot is that they are producing explosive plays at a very high rate. And you mentioned it. That's impressive when you really only have one wide receiver you can lean on right now, uh, 21 % of their pass plays have resulted in an explosive completion.

9:01That's the highest rate in the entire NFL. And I thought Darnold looked really good today. Like you said, 18 for 26, 242 yards. He made some big time throws in this game. And so I'm already one month in backing off of my preseason take that watch out. This offense could be really bad. Are you willing to go that far? Let's get the state of where Jackson is with Sam Darnold four weeks into the season. Yeah, I'm pretty confident in saying this offense is not going to be really bad. I think that, you know, I don't think a top five offense is within this team's range of outcomes, but it doesn't need to be because they're allowing 17 points per game.

9:42They gave up 20 today, and that's the highest that they've allowed all season. And 14 of it came in the final, what, seven, eight minutes of this game. And so you don't need Sam Darnold and the rest of this offense to go out and score 35, at least so far to win. And, and I think that that's where the art has to step into the science in the equation with Mike McDonald, because the way that he's coaching about chasing edges in the non high leverage situations about squeezing the sponge with the clock in the game with defense and running. and all of the things that every coach wants to do, but very few are actually able or willing to do.

10:28Can you in that moment then say, okay, I actually need to step out of that and be more aggressive. And I wonder if he got spooked by going forward on fourth and one early in the game and getting stuffed and saying, hey, maybe we don't have that advantage the way that I would like to in this game. But I think Sam Darnold is absolutely capable of leading an offense that's going to win games when they're only giving up 17. And I don't mean that as like a backhanded compliment. Like there is real value in having a quarterback that isn't going to give that away. Week one. Yes. But week one's crazy for every NFL team.

11:07Last three weeks, he's been really good in eight halves of football so far. I think he's had five good ones and I'll take that. Yeah. Yeah. He has exceeded my expectations. And if, you know, long time listeners of the show will be like, Sheil, we had the same conversation last year where I was just hanging on. I was going, well, he's done it for four weeks for the Vikings. All right. He's done it for six weeks. All right. He's done it for eight weeks. And I felt like it was just going to flip at some point and flipped, but it was, you know, it's the last, it's the last two games of the season.

11:37They had already won 14 games. So that's a different, um, that's a different animal. I mean, his teams are 17 and in their last 21 games. I saw them flash that stat on the screen. And I was looking at the advanced stats, you know, right before we came on Jackson. And again, it's a four game sample. So I don't want to get carried away, but EPA per pass play and success rate. He's actually performing better this year with the Seahawks with Clint Kubiak than he did last year with Kevin O 'Connell and Justin Jefferson and the QB whisper. And it's like, so I don't know if that's going to last the rest of the way, but he looks confident.

12:13He was making big time throws and he was avoiding those big mistakes. So I feel like, you know, if you're a Seahawks fan, you feel good about how this experiment's going so far. The Seahawks have only run, I think like 15 % of their plays when they've been behind so far this year. And so that opens up a lot of opportunities that those weren't game scripts Minnesota was in last year. It was a lot of shootouts. It was a lot of high scoring games. It was a lot of defenses expecting the pass and how you perform passing against the defense that is expecting the pass because it's tied or it's high scoring or you're behind is different than when you're playing big stack poker and you have more chips than the other guy and you can just lean on them.

13:00And then all of a sudden you can surprise them with a big shot down the field. That is what the Kubiak system was doing last year in New Orleans before all the injuries hit. And so, yeah, it is an advantageous position for a quarterback to be in, but you still got to perform and Sam Darnold's performing. Okay, let's take a break. So I want to come back and just get your sense of like expectations for this team. Are you allowing your mind to wander to those, you know, weird places of January and February? Or are you keeping it in check and being like, everybody settle down? So let's take a break and come back and talk about that.

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15:05The result, less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com slash Spotify. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. So they're three and one, Jackson. They entered the week with the highest point differential in the NFL. They beat the Steelers by two touchdowns. They crushed the Saints. This game, honestly, the final score is 23-20. It wasn't that close for, what, 54 minutes of the game? It felt like they were the far superior team. Where is your, as a long time Seahawks fan, where is your mind?

15:42Are you like, well, Hey, NFC is wide open. You know, anything can happen. Are you like, all right, I like where it's going so far. I'm trying to just go week by week. Take us inside the psyche. Cause we know, you know, Danny Kelly at the ringer for a long time. We know, you know, Mina Kime. So we know some of the group chats that you're potentially on here. What is your feeling right now? You know, just this week, we did our show with Brady Henderson from ESPN. And we talked about like, the question I asked him at the end of the show was, when does the Seahawks season end? And this is before this past game.

16:17But we both thought Seattle would win this game. And he and I had the same answer. And it was like, if we win a million dollars, if we get exactly right, it ends in the divisional round, which is progress. So like, am I allowing myself to dream? yeah because I think that this team is good enough to be in the final eight and once you get to the final eight now you're talking about winning a series of coin flips and I think Seattle is good enough to get to that point so sure I'll let myself dream but also even with my misgivings about some of the offseason moves I still thought this was a 10-win team because I was looking at what I thought was the top five defense.

16:59And so far, that's what they've been by just about every measure. I think that one of the craziest stats that I've heard about any team this season is that Seattle has the highest pressure rate in the NFL and are blitzing at the 31st highest rate. They are manufacturing elite pressure on opposing offenses without a marquee edge rusher and without blitzing. And that is the hallmark of a Mike McDonald defense when it's clicking. So if that trend continues, and if you're not relying on a Myles Garrett or a Micah Parsons to essentially put the opposing offense off of their mark, and you can do it with all different kinds of guys, then it opens up so much.

17:47You can keep seven guys to cover five in coverage, and that is game script proof. You get to have your entire back half of the defense playing with their eyes forward instead of their eyes back. And so that is why I saw this as a 10 win team anyway. And yeah, I'm starting to entertain thoughts of them being a little bit better than that. Now that we see the offense being as efficient as they are. Yeah, I had them as the top defense in the NFL coming into the season. I really thought they had a chance to kind of make that leap. It's been very good. The corner play at times makes me a little nervous.

18:19You know, Rick Woolen gets called for a couple of pass interferences. But to your point, that is the McDonald's like sort of superpower is just coming up with ways with those simulate. Hey, we're only rushing for you don't know which four are coming and we're going to break down your protections. And all of a sudden we're going to have a free rusher. And we've seen that pretty consistently through the first month of the season. So, yeah, the defense is really, really good. Like you said, you didn't need the offense to be top five. You need them to kind of reach a certain threshold. And they've reached that threshold so far.

18:50I mean, Jackson Smith and Jigba is just like, I mean, it's got to be amazing to just root for him every week. At the end of the season, I think people are going to be forced to have a really honest conversation about where JSN ranks in the pantheon of NFL receivers. Because he's not doing it with elite quarterback play. He's getting good quarterback play. He's not doing it with elite quarterback play. And he's not doing it in a high volume offense. But he is dominating targets. He went without a target in the first half and he was coming in with a 40 % target share on the season. Number one in the NFL.

19:25And then in the second half, it was just like, well, trying to do all the other stuff isn't working. Yeah. Let's just build the whole plane out of Jackson Smith and Jigba. And that's what the second half was. And they won. Yeah. Such a huge heads up play there at the end, the catch and then twisting out of bounds. They don't have to use the timeout. That was a terrific play. the stutter go on the third down where Sam Darnold just lays up a beautiful ball for him down the right sideline. So yeah, he has been an awesome player so far this season. All right, let's finish with the other team. Yep.

19:56Jackson, the team you have, you know, you, you watch this team a lot over the years. Here, here's my take. That was the perfect Cardinals game. You know, they just tease you a little bit into thinking, Hey, maybe there's something here with those last two drives, but ultimately they end up losing. That's pretty much the story of like the last seven years with the Cardinals. I mean, when they were down 26 and they made, you know, the coaching stuff too with them was not great. They're down 26 in the fourth. They score a touchdown. A lot of coaches in the NFL will go for two there because then you have a chance to take the lead.

20:28If you score that second touchdown, they did not do that. Now, ultimately it didn't end up mattering because the Seahawks kicked the field goal, but I have to be honest. I'm just like pretty much sick of this team. You know, I'm like sick of the hipsters telling me, watch out for the Cardinals. They're good. The things they're doing defensively. I mean, during the broadcast, they called Jonathan Gannon a defensive guru. Jackson, since he took over three year, we have a three year sample here almost. Well, two plus. The Cardinals rank 32nd in defensive success rate. 30, you literally cannot be lower than where they rank in defensive success rate since Gannon took over.

21:05And if you say, well, Well, that's not fair. The first season, he didn't have his guys. Okay. Since the start of last year through four games this year, they ranked 31st. They've bumped up one spot. So I just look at them. You call that progress. Yeah, progress. You would think watching it, you would think the way some people talk about them. Here's what really annoyed me. They're doing a Gannon-Mike McDonald comparison, like two defensive coaches. McDonald's calling his defense. I'm like, Ganon does not belong in the conversation with Mike McDonald when we're talking about, you know, defensive gurus in the NFL.

21:39One of them has a track record. The other doesn't. So to me, there's just no reason to take this team seriously. They're just so inconsistent offensively. The defense is below average. They're a mediocre team and they're going to continue to be a mediocre team. Am I wrong about any of that? Do you want to pile on? Where are you with this Cardinals team? Yeah, you know, you mentioned group chats earlier. I'm in a dynasty fantasy league with some of your contemporaries, all the ringer fantasy football guys, Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, Craig Holbeck, Nate Tice is in that league, a few others. And one of the things I texted to them during this game is the Cardinals are an adolescent franchise.

22:16There are three adults in the room in that division. And then there's a promising, precocious teenager who has moments where you're like, oh, this gets pretty, this gets pretty sharp. And then they remind you that, you know, it's like, did you put on deodorant today? It's like, you know, I went in your room and that's not a grown up room. And that's who the Cardinals are. And until they can mature. And we saw it like, again, we saw moments of excitement and precocity in the fourth quarter. You're down four points. You are, excuse me, 14 points. You've been dominated for four quarters and you come out and you just let it rip.

23:03You should have been letting it rip all game long. You're just letting it rip. All of a sudden you're tied. And then you kick it short. Then you just make the team go 20 yards to beat you. Little stuff like that. Right. Yeah. And top down, it's a low rent, cheap ownership. It's a quarterback who I really like watching, but I'm glad isn't my favorite team's quarterback. it's a head coach that just seems a touch overwhelmed and it's, you're just waiting for their best players to make big plays when the game is on the line and they just don't do it against good teams. That was beautiful. I mean, adolescent French, I'm just going to steal it.

23:46I'm telling you right now, the deodorant thing, that was beautiful. Yeah. I don't know that that I'm like, man, I wish I could come up with stuff. You said it perfectly. Now to their credit, they put together the drives at the, I did not think they were going to score that second touchdown. I was like, this is going to end in some disastrous sack or, and Marvin Harrison jr. What a roller coaster of an evening. I'll be honest. There was a time in the first half where I was like, I should probably text Jackson and be like, we're going to have to leave the show with like, what's going on with Marvin Harrison jr.

24:15I mean, that was a horrible first half. And then he comes back. So good for him. Like, I think we want him to succeed. He's a talented player. He's fun to watch when he saw him, but it was going bad until he bounced back there in the second half. But yeah, you said it. It's like, they're just a tease. They're an adolescent franchise. Like to me, it's just, I just had enough. I'm just tired of people telling me to care about them. You know, it's like, I don't need to care about the Arizona Cardinals. They're going to probably win seven or eight games. If they're lucky, maybe they win nine or they're in the playoff race.

24:46They could, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that they sneak into the playoffs, but like ultimately they're not going to matter. And until that changes, I'm tired of people telling me otherwise. So there you go. Stick them in the AFC South. We can have a conversation. That's right. But this is a big boy division. Can we do that? It feels like that's where they belong. The AFC South. Or yeah, that would be a lot more fun. All right. Jackson Bevins. That was terrific. Check out his podcast, Cigar Thoughts. He is feeling it right now as he should. A nice Thursday night victory. But Jackson, thank you so much for joining us.