Fantasy Football Daily - NFL First Read | Week 3 X's and Bros with Former NFL Scout Scott DiBenedetto

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Starting point is 00:00:24 Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca. slash yes terms and conditions apply what's up guys brett whitefield here first read will be exclusive to its own personal feed on thursdays all season long so if you love the show and you want more follow the link in our description below it's a hundred percent free like the feed leave a five-ser review and rock with us all year long here's a five-minute preview of today's exclusive episode let's transition here thanks again to scott but i want to i want to talk malique willis and matt la florida Joe. You know, they have a juicy game coming against the Titans here. But I just was blown away these two the other day. And I, we didn't talk about it on the last show in the review show. I didn't really, like I had watched the tape, but I didn't realize how good Malik Willis actually played. I dove in, gosh, this late last night, early morning and just felt like I had to talk about it today. So, I don't know. It was exciting. I think Matt LaFleur right now, Joe, I'm not, I'm not necessarily willing to call him the best play caller or best play designer in the league, but he might be my favorite.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Because in this game, for example, he installed probably eight to ten new plays that I've never seen the Packers run. And he's just, he's setting up Malique Willis for success. And you and I on our very first show, and I think we continued to talk on our second show, we brought up this topic of nature versus nurture for quarterbacks. And we highlighted how important nurture is, right? Nature's important. You need to have. skill you need to be uh you know there's some raw traits that are just unteachable malik has some of those too by the way but nurture is by far the most important thing for a quarterback and this was really the first experience we got with malique willis in a positive environment where he's not playing for a

Starting point is 00:02:13 you know a square head and mike rable and an offense that's antiquated and then now with la for not only has he got a great play caller good offensive line good weapons around him and it worked It worked really, really well. Now, the stat sheet, you know, you look at 170 yards, no biggie, right? But when you actually go throw for throw and watch every single play, it freaking worked. And I was blown away, man. Tough situation for Malik Willis in Tennessee. Obviously, he didn't play well.

Starting point is 00:02:39 Yeah. But did you ever get a sense that Mike Vrable had an ounce of belief in that guy ever? Like, the way that he talked about him was very concerning to me. And for all the concerns that I've communicated about Will Levis as a fit with Brian Callahan, Malik Willis is worse. He's a worse fit. Right. Like, I mean, absolute nightmare in terms of round peg, square a hole type situation, man. Like West Coast offense for Malik Willis, who, I mean, what he ran at Liberty is what's really been detrimental to his acclamation to the next level. Because like you mentioned, he's got physical tools. The guy's got a hose for an arm.

Starting point is 00:03:15 He can run. He's electric, right? There's physical upside here. But I don't think Tennessee was a great place for him to realize his potential. And going somewhere like Green Bay with a coach like Matt LaFleur, who I think can help put him in a position to be successful. I think you saw the early returns on that. And look, Green Bay, the youngest team in the NFL last year, kind of like the same deal with a very unproven group of players, whether it's the quarterback and Jordan Love last year or the supporting cast, just rookies and second year players all over the place. And so, yes, I think in the nature versus nurture conversation, Malik Willis, and look, there's a lot of career left for Malik Willis. Nobody's anointing him as a starting caliber player.

Starting point is 00:04:04 But I think you can really identify both situations. And even in a very quick period of time, Malik Willis being able to play his best football. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with, okay, we only asked him to throw the ball 14 times. We ran the ball a million times with Josh Jacobs. Indy can't stop anybody in terms of the run defense. Like it was a bit of a perfect storm situation, but the confidence that Malik Willis is going to gain from a performance like that is a big deal. And I think there's for high performing athletes,

Starting point is 00:04:37 players that are consistently good, the common denominator between all of them is they have a level of confidence. And hopefully this is a good step for Malik Willis in developing that to launch his career forward. You nailed it. And I don't want to get too granular here. some of the play calling, but I just, I want to mention, you know, Green Bay traditionally has not been an RPO heavy team. They don't even really run Zone Reed, even though Jordan Love has an element of mobility to him. But they had a zone read install in this game where a lot of three-by-one

Starting point is 00:05:06 sets where they're letting, you know, Willis Reed a backside edge defender, and then he's got a past concept to his left or his right on the three side. And then he is the green light to run the ball as well. So it's a three-level. And in some of these past concepts were nice and simple, they're allowing him to make a pre-snap read where he's not necessarily having to process coverage in the moment. He had some dropbacks like that too, but this wasn't a heavy drop-back game. He wasn't hitting seven-step a lot. You know, it was more quick game, RPO, screen. And the accuracy Malik Willis displayed, I thought, was excellent.

Starting point is 00:05:42 And it just shows you how good LaFlor is. Some of these stats are insane. He had a 93% catchable ball rate. He missed one throw the entire day. Oh, small sample, of course. But that's a massive departure from the Maliklis we saw in Tennessee, right, where there was moments he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. 57.1% accurate throw rate, meaning that's the highest bucket of accuracy where not only is it a good throw, it's the perfect throw, it's the perfect throw for the situation. And then my favorite stat of the day, plus 13.2% completion percentage over expectation.

Starting point is 00:06:14 And why that's important is because in the moments, you know, Malik was kind of playing with guardrails from, most of the game, right? A lot of these schemes were designed to, to maximize him and not put too much on his shoulders. But in those moments where they needed a big play, he hit him. I mean, he had two deep balls in this game where it is seven step. He does have to read the defense, does have to get through a progression. And he goes one to two to three hits Romeo dubs on one. And then one to two to three hits Don Tavian Wicks on one. And Wicks dropped it. But both both good throws, both the right, correct read, you know, in third down plays that one, one was a big play for the offense, and one would have been a big play for the offense.

Fantasy Football Daily - NFL First Read | Week 3 X's and Bros with Former NFL Scout Scott DiBenedetto

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