Three wins in three weeks and no rebuild: Scott Heilig puts a date on All Strong's promise

Scott Heilig says he stood through the whole fourth quarter the night Christian McCaffrey carried his team past IR Kings. I believe him. It is the kind of detail an owner gives you when he has decided to talk, and on Sunday night, with his Week 7 lineup finished and a Monday game still to play, the All Strong owner decided to talk.

For a week I had sent him questions about the Watson trade, the offense, the tight end spot and the Diablo race. Sunday night he answered all of them, on the record, in a voice that sounds exactly like a man who would trade two players for a receiver in the middle of the night. Some of his answers settle things. Some are slogans. All of them are worth hearing, so let's go through them.

Start with the trade. "I wanted a receiver who can win a game by himself next to Amon-Ra," Heilig said of Christian Watson, "and I paid real players to get him because that's what it costs." Devin Bush and Chris Bell went to Injury Prone. He isn't pretending it was cheap, and I respect that more than the usual talk about value.

What is Watson's job? "Simple," Heilig said. "He's my starter at receiver opposite Amon-Ra and he runs past people."

That is the clearest answer I have had to the question I've been asking all week, which is who the third option in this offense is. The owner's answer, more or less: Watson isn't the third option. He's the second receiver, and stop overthinking it. Sunday made for a neat test. Watson's Packers played at Amon-Ra St. Brown's Lions, so the two receivers Heilig has built around were on the same field, on opposite sidelines. Watson was limited in practice during the week but carried no game designation.

Then he pushed back on me, which was fair. I have written that this is an offense two players deep. "Christian McCaffrey and Amon-Ra St. Brown are the best one-two in this league," Heilig said, "and I'll take that problem every week. Today Michael Penix made it three."

Part of that lands. I already admitted after Week 6 that St. Brown's bye made the offense look thinner than it is. Here is where I don't move: All Strong scored 547.5 points over the first six weeks, the fewest in the Diablo, and two great players haven't changed that number by themselves. As for Penix making it three on Sunday, that is Heilig's read of a game I can't check until the box score is posted. When it is, I will. It's a nice twist either way: Penix's Falcons were playing McCaffrey's 49ers.

At tight end, where Darren Waller started in Week 6, played nearly half of Carolina's snaps and didn't catch a pass, Heilig named someone else. "T.J. Hockenson is back and he's my guy," he said. "I'm always looking to get better there, and that's all I'll say about that."

Hockenson practiced fully all week and was off the injury report. Notice who Heilig named and who he didn't. That tells me which tight end he trusts. It doesn't tell me what Waller was asked to do, and "always looking to get better" isn't a move until All Strong makes one. I won't write it as one.

His backfield answer was the bluntest thing he said. On picking up Brian Robinson Jr.: "Charbonnet was out and I wasn't going to sit around waiting for Seattle. Brian's a pro, and he was on my roster for exactly that kind of week."

The awkward part is that Sunday turned out to be exactly that kind of week, and neither of them played. Robinson was inactive for Atlanta. Zach Charbonnet, back off the PUP list since Friday, was ruled out with a knee injury and inactive for Seattle's night game against Kansas City. Both of the insurance policies sat out the same Sunday.

Then the question I have carried since the week Julian Love started at defensive back while Amani Hooker sat. "I rank on production every week," Heilig said. "Amani Hooker put up 12.5 on my bench and he became my DB starter. That's not a controversy; that's how All Strong works."

I'll take that one at face value. It's a rule, it's simple, and the lineup will show every Sunday whether he keeps to it. That is the kind of answer I wish I got more often.

On Kamehameha, he stopped short of calling the game. "My guys are done," he said, and Jeff Carrico "needs Dak to have the game of his life on Monday night. I'll be watching every snap. Ask me again Tuesday." Dallas plays at Philadelphia on Monday night, so this isn't over, and I'm not calling a game that hasn't finished either. I'll ask him Tuesday.

That leaves the race. All Strong came into the week 3-3, two games behind the Fumblers.

"3-3 is a starting line, not a finish line," Heilig said. "Mikey's enjoying the view from the top, and we see the Fumblers again. I don't play for a wild card; All Strong plays to win the division and the Baller Bowl. Next three weeks I want three wins, and I'll make whatever move I have to make to get them. All Strong doesn't rebuild."

The next three are Fifth Quarter at home, then a trip to Michael Paden II's Fumblers, then Likely 2 Punt on the road.

Here's my take. I have about as much patience for team slogans as a dentist has for cavities, and "All Strong doesn't rebuild" is a slogan. But Heilig attached it to something you can grade: three wins in three weeks, and whatever move it takes. That's a promise with a date on it.

The fair version of his argument goes like this: two stars, a quarterback getting hot, a deep threat who runs past people and a tight end back from injury. Put that way it sounds like a good team, not a thin one. My version is the one in the points column. One of us will look wrong by Week 10, and the box scores will settle it, not either of us.

He finished one answer with three words: "We're not done." On that much, we agree.