Adam Hogue

It's another example of this next man up and maybe it not being that big of a drop off as you would maybe think.

And you could even make the argument in this case that it might be a little bit of an upgrade from a speed standpoint.

Now, the depth, if something more were to happen, now you're starting to run out of guys a little bit.

And Ruben Hippolyte, who was a fourth round pick, who again brings the speed, but really looks pretty lost out there earlier this year when he did get playing time.

That would make you probably nervous once you go to the next man up at this point.

But it was a fourth-round pick, and we've seen examples of this throughout the season.

They are developing guys behind the scenes.

It's been a great...

thing that this coaching staff has been able to do this year is bring guys along.

They seemingly have a good development plan for some of these younger guys.

So just because we haven't seen Ruben Hippolyte in a long time, if he's thrown into action, the way this season's gone, it might not go well, but you at least got to give him the benefit of the doubt that it could go well.

Well, I am going to push back a little bit because I don't think they win that game last week without what the defensive line was actually able to do in the fourth quarter.

And now I didn't see it coming.

I was shocked by it.

But I think Austin Booker has been slowly getting better and improving.

Is he still quite where you want one of your starting defensive ends to be?

Probably not, but...

you know, he's causing quite a bit of disruption.

And the way Montez Sweat played in the fourth quarter, both against the run and the pass, that was the Montez Sweat that we saw here a couple of years ago when they first traded for him.

So I don't know if it was just, you know, getting spooked that the season was actually over and having to kick it into another gear.