Kirk Cousins was excited to talk advanced ball 🧠 (via @atlantafalcons/TT)

Kirk Cousins was excited to talk advanced ball 🧠 (via @atlantafalcons/TT)

you thought of this week’s conversation about progression versus coverage reads and all that? >> No, but I’d love to get into it. I I can get on this soap box if you want me to. Like I can get on this. >> This is what we’re >> because I live the transfer. I lived the the jump, >> right? >> So I came into the league, even at Michigan State, it was UC coverage and you pick a side and you basically take five eligibles down to two down to your checkown. And so you cut the field in half and it was I got single high. I’m going, you know, outside the red line to inside to my back. you’re really only thinking about three eligibles because these other two over here were meant for split safety and I got single high and so it kind of protected you and then sometimes you would alert that other side if you got pressure. So you’d be like I’m working this route versus split safety or pressure if I get single high no pressure then I got to work the other side. So that was everything was, you know, single high, split safety, pressure, quarters, off, bump, man, zone, all these things. But what happened was defenses got so good at disguising it that I would be so stressed going into games going, the whole game plan’s built on is it single high or split safety, and I can’t see if it’s single high or split safety. Like these defenses are just making it muddy until I’m three steps into my drop. So it’s coaches started to realize like if we ask the quarterback to do that, it’s it’s going to be really hard because defenses know that’s the game we’re playing. they’re not going to let us play it. So then it started to become let’s just give you pure progressions and let’s just go 1 2 3 4 5 and then um you know that has its pros and cons. I remember when Kevin Oonnell was bringing a lot of pure progression reads back to him with me from LA back to Minnesota. It was like whoa like I got to get back to the dagger backside after already exhausting this progression. Like that’s a lot. I mean my mind like I’m used to kind of simplifying it and cutting the field in half. So, you know, had to kind of work through that and get to where that was more natural. And then there’s a lot of positives of it, too, where you’re not stressing as much during the week about what if I can’t see coverage because you say, “Well, it’s okay. I don’t have to see coverage.” You know, seeing it can be a benefit, but it’s more after the snap, where are they going? And I can just kind of progress through. But there’s no doubt with the way the pass rush is, if you truly try to go one, two, three, four, five, you’re going to get sack fumbled a lot. So, there’s still a level of, yeah, it’s pure progression, but like I gotta rule him out pretty quick here so I can get to the backside because that guy’s coming around the hump

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