Dubin: Falcons Should Make A Quarterback Change

Jared, thank you for the time, how are you? I'm doing fine, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you, thank you, thank you. I guess right out of the gate some of the the larger news that we got today, unfortunately had to deal with a quarterback who got knocked out today, Trevor Lawrence, facing that concussion Aziz Al-Shaheer suspended right now for three games, apparently he will appear. If you're the Jacksonville Jaguars and Doug Peterson is likely done and Trevor Lawrence is already dealing with a shoulder, are we going to see Trevor Lawrence again this year or should they just wait till next? I mean I would wait until next year, I'm also not, you know, coaching for my job and that's not, we can't say the same about Doug Peterson. I can't imagine that anything that could happen down the stretch of the season would result in him keeping that job but stranger things have happened. Jared Dubin here with us, when you talk about quarterbacks and keeping their jobs, we saw following things given the disaster that is Ibra Flus and we know with Caleb Williams in the building they're probably going to want to go with an offensive-minded coach. What are your thoughts on what Chicago will do with that vacant position in the summertime or the spring I should say? I would be looking for an offensive head coach, I'm pretty surprised and I was pretty surprised at the time that they brought Ibra Flus back and didn't just go with an offensive head coach to start Caleb Williams career. Now three times in a row that they're going to be hiring a new coach after the first season of a top draft picks career at quarterback and that's just, you don't want to do things that way and Caleb is going to have to get, you know, a whole new system, most likely all new coaching staff going into year two of his career, any progress that he has down the stretch of this season unless Thomas Brown gets the head coaching job which, you know, we've seen interim guys get coaching jobs before, doesn't necessarily work out so well.

Look at the Raiders with Antonio Pierce, you know, so unless Thomas Brown gets a full-time job he's gonna have to learn a whole new offense again and they just should have done this last year probably. Well we know that Caleb Williams was elected number one overall, he's not in the conversation for rookie of the year, that is pretty much at the hands and or feet of Bo Nix and Jaden Daniels and they're dealing with quote-unquote quarterback whisperers, Cliff Kingsbury, Sean Payton. What do you think about the performance of both of these QBs and who do you think might have the edge in rookie of the year? Yeah, I mean I think that Daniels probably has the edge, he's been better on balance for the entire season. There were a few weeks there where Nix's best stretch of the season coincided with Daniels's worst stretch of the season but I think we've seen that with the exception of the few games after he suffered that rib injury that he missed I think pretty much the entire game against the Panthers and then sort of struggled a little bit for the next few games.

Daniels has just been you know unbelievable, one of the best quarterbacks in the league in all of the other games and you know Nix has played well but I think Daniels just played at a higher level. Yeah Jared Dubin is here with us from CBS Sports, unfortunately you know we could look at one team as well over the weekend they are they're probably done their quarterback was he's still going to land a big old deal I'm talking about the 49ers and Purdy and losing Christian McCaffrey. Can we go ahead and put a fork in the 49ers they're done right? Yeah I mean I think so obviously the thing is though they're only like what is it a game and a half a game back two games back whatever it is in the division like they've got a bunch of division games down the stretch like if you get to nine and eight ten and seven and you win the NFC West maybe but they also don't look like a team that's about to reel off five straight wins. Well most certainly well if we flip it over to the AFC side another team not looking too good happens to be the Baltimore Ravens the defensive backs are not stopping any or anything and now they have an issue with with Justin Tucker not being able to farm the middle of the uprights. Do you have confidence that the Ravens will turn it around or do they have too many issues on defense and then with the kicker?

Yeah I mean I think the good thing is the defense has at least played a little bit better recently you know they until sort of the end of that game against the Eagles they were doing a pretty good job before Saquon sort of ran them over toward toward the end of the game and so that's that's somewhat encouraging. Justin Tucker I wouldn't be surprised if he sort of suffered one of those fake injuries that teams give players I don't know what else you could do other than you know trust that a guy who has been the most accurate kicker in NFL history for most of his career is going to start making his kicks again you know most of his misses are in these last several weeks of the year I think he's like seven for 12 in the last five games or something along those lines a lot of the misses granted are you know pretty deep kicks I think all five of his missed field goals are from 47 yards or further but he's also missed a couple extra points in there and that's not characteristic and it's just sort of snowballing I don't really know what to do there. Well if you were John Harbaugh would you keep him in is that the safest option would you hold on or would you look elsewhere? I mean I'm not like cutting him the guy has been too good for too long and obviously is such a big part of their team but I would say like hey is any part of your body bothering you do you want to like still be sitting down for a couple weeks get you healthy and see what's going on there like there's got to be something that you could do because you can't keep sending them out there where you know you need these points like if he had made his two field goals an extra point when the Ravens were going on that last drive they would have been down by seven and they would have been driving to tie the game.

Well let's talk about the team that beat them since we want to talk about trust. We saw what took place last year with the Eagles and now they've added Saquon the offense is rolling home and eventually they'll get Devante Smith back as well. Do you trust Nick Sirianni? How do you feel about the Eagles overall?

I don't know that I necessarily trust Nick Sirianni. I feel really good about the way they're playing right now. I think that the coordinator hires they made this year have worked out obviously really well really really well for them in a way that last season obviously did not you know Vic Sangio he knows what he's doing it turns out you know he's got that secondary especially playing at as high a level as any group in the league and you know even without a couple of their you know top guys on the defensive line they were able to get a bunch of pressure on Lamar Jackson in this past game that defense is just playing at an unbelievable level and the offense there's just so much talent that eventually they get to you even if even if they start off slowly which they have done a lot of times this year like they're going to break a big play eventually and the floodgates are going to open.

Jared Dubin is here with us NFL sports writer for CBS. Safe to say with the Ravens looking like they need to figure some things out are we going to see another Chiefs, Bills, playoff, matchup like what are we looking at in that regard? Yeah I mean I wouldn't be surprised number one and two seeds right now they got obviously a really good chance I would the Bills already clinched their division the Chiefs obviously having a very good chance to win their own division I would imagine like I can't see really any scenario where one of those two teams isn't the number one seed and you know if it's the Chiefs they're going to host the AFC title game where they they've hosted what five or six years in Patrick Mahomes' career and if if the Bills get there I wouldn't be surprised if they were hosting the AFC title game in Kansas City had to travel there. Well let's let's stay on this idea of of trust if we go out to Detroit and I gotta think about Dan Campbell is he gambling all the way to the Super Bowl they're gonna go to the Super Bowl for him to gamble away the opportunity? Yeah I mean I don't know that they necessarily consider it a gamble I think that that's it's part of their strategy like you could say it's just as big of a gamble to give the ball back to the other team as it is to you know try to go for it and keep the ball in your own hands and obviously they've got you know arguably the best offensive line in the league a quarterback that plays incredibly well within the context of that offense two running backs that are playing like you know at worst top 10 guys in the league they've got one of the best slot receivers in the league one of the best explosive receivers you know in terms of being able to make big plays down the field their tight end is really good it makes sense to uh to go for it when they've got the opportunity. And speaking of coaches we've heard Bill Belichick chime in on every and everything possible as he's now a member of the media with about five different shows what is the likelihood that we see him back with a program next year especially given the fact in a lot of cases people are looking for quarterback whispers? I would think that if there's someone willing to give him full control then he'll be back I feel like that was probably a sticking point last year I don't know necessarily how many teams are going to be willing to do that I don't think any teams really should be willing to do that like we saw down the stretch of his time in New England they were still coached well you know particularly on defense the defense was still one of the best in the league they didn't really have the talent on particularly on offense because they just weren't bringing in good enough players on that side of the ball. Well there's a lot of thoughts a lot of words being said about Mike McCarthy and we know even heading into the season final year of his contract it was only last week that Jerry Jones is like hey it's not a foregone conclusion that he won't get an extension uh Dak Prescott is is now sticking his neck out for him do you think Mike McCarthy is going to be the Cowboys head coach in about I don't know six weeks? I'm a Cowboys fan and I don't want him to be the head coach which means he probably will be that you know the fan part of my brain I don't like the thing is I can say that because I'm not advocating for him to lose his job because his contract is up at the end of the season so either way that's that's not necessarily his job so I don't feel all that bad about it but you know I think we've seen during his time there like they gave him a very low bar to clear do better than Jason Garrett did in decades and they have not cleared it they've won you know one playoff game they've been to the second round and that's about it and when you have as much talent on the team as they've had during that time I think we've seen during his time there like he's not bringing much of anything and he's probably taken stuff off the table as a game day coach in terms of his game management and the offense with the exception of you know like a 10-game stretch of last season he's not brought that much there either and that's supposed to be his specialty he's now whipped he would say on two of his three defensive coordinator hires like what value really is he bringing to that job but Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones they would rather win their way and lose their way than admit that they got something wrong that's why you wound up with Jason Garrett being there for 10 years well we know Jerry he hasn't met a decision that he's going to give you an easy answer on a final question for you you talk about you being a Cowboys fan I'm here in Atlanta with all the Falcons fans they're looking at Pennix and they're already sick of Kirk Cousins what do you think they should do especially knowing that Kirk is getting ready to go up to Minneapolis yeah I mean I think it's at the point where you know if you get one more game like what you've seen the last couple weeks like how do you not give Pennix at least a try like the the floor can't be much lower than what we've seen with Cousins and are you really getting that much of a ceiling with what we've seen from Cousins this year like you might as well give the guy who you drafted at number eight overall a chance like it's possible that he could elevate the town around him further than what Cousins has done so far and you know maybe give him one more shot I don't think we're going to see Pennix in there this week certainly especially like do you really want him playing against that Vikings defense in this first start of his career I think that that would be less than ideal but if Cousins goes up there and struggles again like you're still trying to win that division it's you know you got to at least think about it and the thought is certainly there I know everybody in the Falcons organization they hear about it it's talked about constantly here in Atlanta Jared thank you so much for the time where can people follow you and all of your work uh thanks for having me it's uh tbsforce.com slash nfl for all my stuff all of our stuff there and then uh you know I'm still on the old twitter at uh jdubin5 and uh you know if you want to hear my thoughts mostly about like what tv shows I'm watching and then complaining about bad coaching decisions on Sundays that's where I'll be oh my god okay not not a bad deal hey Jared thank you so much for the time appreciate it man thanks for having me have a good night