The Best And Worst Defensive Back Plays Of The NFL's Week 4 With Darius Butler

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for everything DB with Darius Butler! Let's get right to it. As Hitman talked about Devon Witherspoon having a great rookie year so far, top five, top six pick. You'll see Daniel Jones just stare this down. When you get down here in this red area, as a DB you want to be, you want to guard this goal line like your life depends on it. You see him. Don't sink. I hate that as a DB coach or the DB guy. Don't ever sink in the end zone. Always stay on that goal line. He's going to look right at you. Stick route. He's going to bounce back. Boom. Get it in your hand. Make something special happen. What you going to do with it? He does. Get to the crib. House call. Oh, Danny. Got to cut back. Paris Campbell fast. Got to outrun him. Danny for the Rook on prime time. Let's get to the next one. Is Danny Dimes a problem? Danny Dimes a problem, but he ain't the only problem there. There's a lot of problems. The old lines, terrible health, but you can't stare down guys, which he does. And I can't blame him because you barely can get to the second, third guy when you. This was the one that Dable threw the Microsoft Surface. What are you looking at? Because it was a guy, I think it was Waller that came late at the back of the end zone, but you know. Weatherspoon was saying he was wide open also, but he really wasn't. What do you think about that? It's a different view. Like AQ says, everybody's got the answers in the AC and the clicker in their hands, but that, I wouldn't say it's necessarily wide open. Bobby Wags is in the window, but with Weatherspoon sitting right there, you know that flat defender is there. You can't just throw it right at him. Hey, this Weatherspoon kid's a real deal. He's special. Coming out, I think in the house of comps, it was a Vontae Davis in a Winfield. He was great on draft night. He was five overall, I think, right? Yeah. Five overall out of Illinois. This is now, last year, there was two rookie corners in a Pro Bowl. So this guy probably going to be another rookie corner. Why is this happening? I mean, they're good. They're just coming in ready to play. Sauce came in ready to play last year, Stingley. He went, what, three last year, and he's been banged up. Guys are coming. Woolin, Tariq Woolin was a fifth round pick, sixth round pick. He's had damn near all pro season. Guys are just coming in ready to play. Speaking of ready to play, Micah Hott and his whole Buffalo Bills defense. They obviously studied film. Sean McDermott got them flying around. They're multiple. They play zone. They play man. They blitz. Right here, they're in the zone coverage. It's two deep shell coverage. And you can tell Milano, one of the best coverage linebackers in the league. Tool wants Tariq early, right off that quick motion. He wants him early. Milano said, you know what? Every drop, I'm going to try to get some hands on 10 when I can. He gets hands on him early. Tool goes backside, and because of Terrell Bernard, if you rewind a little bit, watch four three. Incredible. Two deep. So you got two deep. He's the middle run through. Relating to number three, the passing strength up top. He's going to get under this number three receiver so that Tool has to put air on it. And if you put air on it, the safety on the back end, got to make the play on the ball, which Micah Hott does. We talked about it, I think, on Monday, how comfortable he looks with the ball in his hands. I love when the DB put that thing on one hand like that. He's very, very comfortable with the football. But yeah, everybody been on the same page. Underneath defenders, I talked about it earlier, Miami does a great job of having short routes but hitting this intermediate window. Milano's getting his reroute, and then the safety's being when they are. Tips and overthrows, talk about it all the time. This is an overthrow. Got to catch the ones they throw to you. Obviously, not everyone's as good as the Bills, but do you think they perfectly put the book out there on how you beat the Dolphins? Nah. I wouldn't say the book is out because, like you said, what the Bills have on defense personnel wise, you got Bernard, who's been unbelievable this year, Matt Milano, and then you got a group of guys up front that rotate and get after the quarterback. So I think it had been touched pretty much three times all season, four times this week. So notice what they were in right there as well, empty, not a back in the backfield. All their success in the past game this year has come off play action. When they get behind, they got to go to this and it comes dropping. Oh, maybe that's the book. Interesting. Yeah. Get a lead. Maybe that's the book. Maybe that is it. Did this ever have a chance, D-Butt? Did this ball ever have a chance? This ball, he doesn't have it here. Sorry. Did this ball ever have a chance, A.J.? You don't have to run it back. No, I couldn't hear him. But no, he couldn't do it. The only way he could do it, he could just throw that one away because that Terrell Bernard was in such a great spot. Like that receiver, if you got like a big 6'6", tight end running down the middle of the field, maybe. But you put that arrow in it, which 4'3", makes him do it, and you can see him communicating. So they're on the same page, but you're not getting that ball to Chosen at all. Maybe if you lead them this way, but then you got that other backside safety you got to worry about. And you can kind of see Tua's already got a clock on him. You see Rousseau coming off the backside. And then when this defense gets, I know they lost Trey White, which is a big piece, but when you add Von Miller to that front, I mean, I don't know. Jordan Poirier tuning up there. Poirier coming back. Yeah, I only expect this defense to get better for sure. Here's a win in London. Hey, quick game. Now, this is when you talk about quarterbacks who, young quarterbacks, they're not going to do much that comes off the script. You're going to kind of, Darius Wood has been in the league for a long time. He anticipates this. He know, AJ, you know this route, slant flat up top, stick route down bottom. This is like day one install, preseason, game one type stuff from Ritter and his offense. Three deep defense, but this corner say, you know what, I'm taking the chance. Even though it's a post safety in the middle field, I'm taking the chance. Slant flat. I'm jumping this slant and I'm cribbing it. Boom. Great play from Darius Wood, anticipating that formation, the motion, and when you'll see it from the back copy, Ritter is no, you know, look off, and this is a quick game. So, he got to get back to his, you know, back foot, make this throw quick, but as a corner, if you're anticipating this, like, hey, this is the one. You get this B-john motion, and I mean, it's like everything's going to snap, look, throw, back. Boom. You've watched the tape. What do you think about Daffin Ritter? Do you think he's the guy in Atlanta? Still young. If you ask me right now, I wouldn't say he's the guy long term, but it is very early. He can definitely turn things around. Now, I like his coach. I like Artie Smith a lot. I like the personnel. I mean, John New Smith had a big day, the tight end they brought over. Where's the production? Kyle Pitts, Drake London, you obviously hit a home run with B-john, so you got to get more production. The Joker hasn't really been involved yet. You got to get more production out of those, but it always starts with the quarterback. We talked about it yesterday. It always starts with that position. All right, so, kind of theme of the week, that was a good D. Now, we're on to bad D. You guys had a front row seat to one of them, but bunches, man, bunches. Pause. Let me rewind it a little bit. Communication is the key to defending and being in the right place with bunch sets on offense. The reason why offenses get into bunches is to create confusion for the defense. Most of this communication you want done during the week, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. You're talking through it, and you already know. We can all be on the same page of what we're going to do once we get into, once we're facing a bunch. This is third and seven, I believe, and you can see the nickel right here. He's signaling to his guys, right? Now, as a nickel, if you rewind it all the way to the beginning, as a nickel, and I played nickel for a lot of my career, coming out of the huddle, we're already going over, hey, if we get the bunch, we're going to this. Because right now, we're in a formation where this guy down here is off the ball. He's looking inside. If I'm a nickel, I already know he's motioning it down. Latimore's been around for a while. He should know as well. Before this guy even comes inside these numbers, we should already know what we're doing once they get into it, right? They're talking about the two-man. Now, it becomes a three-man game. He'll go behind his back, signal to the safety. He gets it to the corner, but pause it. Right now, the rules are messed up, right? Because they kind of zoned it out, but he's matching it. He's matching a one. He's kind of matching a two, and he's sitting in there. When he put that signal behind it, to me, that's like a spot call where you're almost zoning everything off. You take low inside corner, you got deep. Safety, you got deep as well. These guys get matchy. They cut Chris Godwin loose, which run in a late return route. Baker sits in the pocket, makes something happen, gets the ball on him, big play. That's how it happens. As a DC, you feel good about your call, but now the players on the field have to make the right adjustments to what's coming on the field. Is Godwin back? Godwin's good. Godwin's back. He's back. He's playing more outside this year than previous years, been playing more inside, but he's back. And Baker's, he's been great on third down. You see a lot of these throws on tape, too, where he's standing there taking hits and still delivering the ball. Baker, super smart. Yeah. Isn't it? That was, yeah, that was surprising. Yeah. That's stupid. Not that I thought he was, you know, a dumb guy, but- McVay said it, and now Jason Light's saying it. It's like, feels like we have not talked about that enough. Baker's got that high football like you. Yeah. Cleveland, too, where it's a lot of, you know, Ivy League, smart guys, GM. Maybe he was too smart. Yeah. Maybe that's why. Maybe you would think, you know, you would have heard that before, but it's interesting. But he's playing good ball. Maybe it's because he was too smart and he's from Oklahoma and the Ivy Leaguers- Bingo. Probably. Didn't like it. They felt a little disrespect. Putting it together. It was because he planted the flag in Ohio. Oh, when he was at Oklahoma. On the turf field. Yeah. That's where it all started. Once you win a playoff game in Cleveland, that shit- You would think forever. Yeah. He should have a damn statue outside. Instead. That was weird. Stavanski was pissed he wasn't there for it. That was weird, by the way. Very. And then the one you guys saw firsthand. Just a great play. Puka. Puka Nakurada. Obviously the go-to guy on this team, but once again, defensively, you're getting a bunch. This is overtime. This is third and four. And now this is like a, I mean, communication is one thing. You hear it all the time. We're all wrong. We're all right. You're going to have whatever plan, believe a corner got hurt, flowers got hurt. So you're going to have different guys in there, but rewind it to the beginning. You can see communication once again, between a nickel and a corner. And then post-snap, you see communication, which is never good. And also what the Rams do here a great job of is this point guy. Usually the point guy in the bunch is the guy running the deep route. And then the guy off the ball, one of the guys off the ball are the guys running the short routes, but they switch it up. He kind of hesitates and goes shorter and Puka goes deep and you'll see how it causes confusion. Two guys end up on one. You see him communicating pre-snap, right? All right, we're doing this. We're doing this. And then post-snap, it kind of goes to, Hey, we're doing that. And that's not what you, boom. You can't have it. So you end up two on one Stafford. That's the number one guy he's looking at anyway. You see the delay from the point guy. You see Puka going inside. You see Tutu Atwell, you know, clearing it out. Not what you want as a defense. Especially for the game, for the gusto. How hard is that when they stack each other? Hey, how hard is that whenever they stack each other, says AJ? Oh, that's tough. That's really tough. Because once again, they're doing it for a reason. And third and fours, you can anticipate. And once again, though, as a DB, especially as a nickel, that's why usually young guys, you don't put them in there because there's so much communication, so much preparation. That's another reason why Devon Witherspoon getting bumped inside and playing so great is a big deal. But there's so much communication that goes on for that nickel. And for me, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, anytime we're in meetings, anytime we're walkthroughs, anytime we come out of huddle, I want the defense and the DBs and linebacks to get used to hearing my voice. Same thing with linemen. With centers and guards, like you hear those guys talking, hey, he's the mic. Oh, no, he's the mic. Hey, no. Hey, shut up. No, 50. We're going to 50. So, like, you need to have that kind of command over what's going on in the back end if you're that nickel to avoid indecision. Because you got to have conviction about what you're doing. Also, overtime. Guess who's not on the field? Oh, that's weird. Shaq. 5-3. He was intro'd last when he came out starting defense. Intro'd last. Yeah, it's a big deal. Wasn't on the field third down or fourth down. Also a big deal. But ramping up, he's going to be good by mid-November. I mean, that's what they said. That's what Gus Bradley said, right? Yeah. I mean, that's interesting. That's interesting. This is your guy that's making, you know, what, 20 a year, which he earned. Walking turnover every time he's on the field. Yep. And he's, what, he missed all last year, right? And kind of some of the year before, so you would expect him to be back healthy. I guess they're trying to move him along slowly. But, you know, I hate to see that guy to see 5-3 on the field. Agreed. There was third downs, and I'm, like, looking on the field scanning, and I looked at his sideline, and he's standing right there. I'm like, it's third down. There must have been a package. They must have run hurry up. And then there was a fourth down play. Here we go. Yeah, go. This is about, not on the field still. I'm like, what the, this guy just got intro'd last. Yeah. What are we, what the hell is happening? Highest paid players you got. I guess he's still getting back into it. I don't know if he feels that way. I assume he thinks he should be out there. I hope so. But, Colt's got a good football team, and we got a good show.