Falcons ruling out Tua Tagovailoa 'a very disappointing start to season'

0:00It is to Ximbala alive at Twin Peaks and Buckhead hanging out on a Friday. The news around the NFL is Falcon news and that is Cooper Rush is your starter. We want to talk to Daniel Flick. He covers the Falcons for the AJC and AJC.com. And Daniel, appreciate the time as always, man. The vibe at flowery. That's start there because Kevin's the fanskiadress you guys again. You heard from Cooper Rush yesterday. What's your take on how this is going up there because everybody feels like, oh, it's no big deal. We're calm. We're confident. But are they really? This is a really bizarre situation, man. I ask Kevin today, like, if you ever in your coaching career, have you ever had your quarterback one get hurt late in the week and have to pretty much figure out how you're going to piece it together? He leaned back in his chair. He thought about it. That's a good question. I don't know. And I'm going to guess the answer is probably no. And I asked a lot of his a key is very similar deal guys in years seven as a pro and,

1:03you know, throw out his entire playing group. Have you ever experienced it? He's like, no, I really, I'm pretty sure I haven't. Like it's it's uncharted territory. And the hardest part about this, I think, if you're Cooper Rush, you go into this. Apart from a two minute drive, you know, early in training camp, like the opening week of camp, late July, early August, he hadn't taken a snap with the one since then, prior to yesterday. So now you've got two days in a walk through tomorrow to try to create chemistry, create timing. Make sure everybody knows your cadence and all that stuff. It's just a really hard situation, a really bizarre, really, really bizarre times is probably how I would describe it. Yeah, I know that fans are excited about Jack Strand. So he'd be the backup. Does anyone know who the emergency quarterback is because PENIX is inactive? So it won't be a quarterback. That's the deal. So during Tua and PENIX out today, they cannot play on Sunday. And so in turn, but you also cannot label a non quarterback as your emergency quarterback. So in that case, what Kevin said, we got clarified this after the fact, what Kevin said about them

2:08having a plan, it was not that they have a quarterback necessarily planned as their emergency quarterback. It would in that case be we have, you know, wide receiver or whoever else has played quarterback in his past, he would be our QB3. That's their approach to it. It's not, it won't be to it, it won't be PENIX, it won't be any either of those guys. As Kevin said, hopefully it doesn't happen. And hopefully that's not a problem. But yeah, no, so in the event that it does, it wouldn't be a quarterback. Wait a minute. There's a rush that in the crowd. Matt Ryan is making his way from the owner's box. But no, I mean, and by the way, they kept Jack Strand on this roster for a reason. They see something in Jack Strand or they just envisioned there was going to be so much turn over. Imagine them ever anticipating this would happen to tour. Yeah, no, I think with a vision a little bit, I think envisioning and having an insurance policy is why Cooper rush made the team. I think long term intrigue is why Jack made the team. Like from what I've heard and from what Ian told us last week is that they're very high on on on Jack's upside.

3:10And so I think David Jack is more of an intriguing long term option and kind of see how much, how large of stride he can make this year as a prospect. And in ideal world, he's not playing right like in an ideal world, he's not going to play a game this year. He didn't take a single rep and even like a scout team rep from the end of, you know, preseason up until yesterday. He hadn't done a single rep. He'd done walk through and that's it. So collectively, Jack really has an even harder job than Rush does in the sense that he's taken even fewer snaps. So it'll be interesting to watch out at those. But I really think Jack is primarily just here as a long term guy and they're not really somebody who is, you know, has a chance to start unless Cooper Rush gets hurt. Frost, let's get away from the game for a second. I found the article that you wrote about Kyle Pits very interesting. He's been somewhat of an enigma since he's been here, soft spoken. Mike and I have had him on the show numerous times. He's got a great personality, but he really is very careful and calculated about what

4:11he says. What did you learn about Kyle Pits? I love the line. You know the unicorn, but you don't know Kyle Pits. Yeah, I really appreciate the question. I had a lot of fun writing that. You know, I talked to a lot of people. I talked to his high school coach, his high school trainer, college tight ends coach, a variety of coaches here. I talked to Kyle for 25 minutes and we got into some really cool conversations about his life as a dad. What he enjoys being as you know, how much he enjoys being a dad and how much that's matured him and you know, kind of here in him talk about like, you know, I don't really read much online. He seemed like he sees bad comments. He doesn't really care too much about him. And you can tell he's somebody who's just incredibly smart, but the lines are like the most is one of his trainers nowadays who's in the Bahamas who trained Julio Jones. And that's how he met Kyle, was through Julio. And he said Kyle Pits is the humblest person I know. This is a guy who has been around, you know, pro, he trains pro athletes for a living

5:13like this is his job is livelihood. He's trained numerous Atlanta players in the past present and you know, players from around the league. And I thought it was a really carried weight that you hear things of that from guys who are around pro athletes all the time. We're talking about a Kyle will come in and have a conversation with even like the normal people in their gym because they have a private section in their gym and a public section and Kyle will go into the public and just talk to people. So I learned a lot about Kyle in that sense because you know, you, you, you land this job and you read comments online about he's not a hard worker. He's lazy, whatever. There's a big misconception about Kyle Pits, I think. And so what I really learned about this and that a lot of those people were wrong. He does work hard. He cares and he's a really good dude. So he expressed a lot of appreciation to me for writing it and I really, you know, enjoyed that aspect of it as well. No, he's a fun guy to talk to his Carl mentioned. We've always felt as we're talking with Daniel flick, our man flick from the AJC who's up at Falcons every day. You know, just a lot of this was unfortunately that injury, which kind of lingered from 22 into 23 and then we see, you know, against Tampa, he can look like one of the best players

6:15in the league. You know, we just got to hopefully that with this offense, it's sustainable. All right, brother, with the game this weekend, what about the past rush? Does all brick have to dial up blitzes or can I've been saying all week to Carl? The OGs, the guys that we've assembled in lieu of Jalen Walker and certainly without Pearson the suspension. Are we going to be able to have past rush without a blitz? I really don't think so. I asked Rick about that yesterday, what's your plan for it? He said that they're hoping they don't have to blitz. He's hoping they, but obviously you always hope that. And he said, you know, last year they went in and they were incredibly blitzed every the first half of the year. And then similar younger guys came on late and it allowed them to, you know, rush more with a more, you know, usual rush package and not have to blitz as much so they're rate drop. I think they're going to have to come out and be very blitzed every this year. And I'm sure you guys saw a little bit out at Camp 2, like they've put their, you know, off-ball linebackers on the ball. They've split them down. I think we'll see their linebackers rush and blitz quite a bit and line up in a lot of spots. I think they'll bring corner pressure a couple times. I think they'll, I think they'll be aggressive with it.

7:16So I think it's a past rush collectively that'll be similar to last year where especially when Pierce comes back, you'll be able to see the unit gel. You'll see them get more pressure as a group. There's a lot of new faces. I mean, they, you know, you, you only bring back 28% of your sacks from last year. You sign a ton of new guys trade for a couple. They're going to, it's going to take time to get forward or rush as one. So I think you're going to have to bring more. I think you got to also lean into the fact that your back end is really, really good. That's kind of the strength of your team, really. So you've got to trust those guys to win one-on-one matchups and say, hey, I'm not sure about our past rush, but if we light them up and we bring, you know, pretty heavy pressures, that might be a way that you can kind of, you know, have a little bit of an edge. How do the Falcons win this game? Run on the football. You're going to have to, right? You can't go into this now and say, we're going to pass our way to a win. You just can't do it. Not with who per rush, not with a guy that threw four picks in two starts last year. You can't do it. So they're going to have to run the ball while they're going to have to control line

8:18of scrimmage. Time of risk. They have to have a heck of a game calling it. And they're going to have to find ways. They've talked a lot this off season about, hey, we think we've got run-beaters for every defensive concept. You can throw it at us. Well, you're going to get a whole lot of heavy boxes this week. You got to go prove it. So I think you got to run the ball while you've got a control line of scrimmage and you have to figure out a way to make Aaron Rogers a little bit uncomfortable, however that can be. All right, man. Always a pleasure. Daniel, enjoy as much as we can. You're doing a great job, man. And we will certainly get a chance to catch up with you as this season moves forward. What's the phrase you used? Weird? As we started this conversation with the school, it is the most unusual. Yes, bizarre. It's a great word to state what's going on. I think Dan, just as we're saying goodbye, give me odds on Michael Peneck's starting next week against Carolina. Oh, goodness. Give me 25 to one. I'll go for how much? How much? Out of 100, I'll put out a percentage rate, Mike. I'll go 45%. Okay. All right. Gives me hope.

9:18That's more than what I expected. More than I thought. I think there's a sound. About the man in the mirror, Carl. I'm talking to the man. Come on, Mikey. Get out there. Daniel, Flake, man. Appreciate you. Absolutely, guys. I appreciate you too. No doubt. There it is at flowery. And again, Kevin's the fanski talking to the media today saying, hey, we got a plan. Boy, let's hope so. I'm with him with the time he resplays calling thing. And look, again, it's not that Cooper Rush can't win games. Everybody's like, oh, I've watched Cooper Rush. I've watched the Cowboys. I know what this is about. But Mike, you got to put them in positive situations. My buddy coach Jimmy goes, come on, you guys. Buck up. You know, there's our world beaters. It's just it's so disappointing. I mean, I'm beyond the, you know, the fact that Mike can't go. I knew there was a level of competency with Pekis, but again, Cooper is nine and seven as a starter. It's just you heard from Daniel Flake. You got no reps. Yeah. Oh, and two last year with the Ravens, right? As a starter when Lamar was out. Right.

10:19Okay. I mean, like, with some weapons, correct. All right. We're coming back. We got to get to the picks of the week. Oh, what's it going to look like? What? What? Games on tap. Find out who Mike likes. Find out who Day Day likes. Find out who O likes coming up on Sports Radio 92 9 the game.