Games with Names - Julian Edelman Breaks Down EVERYTHING in an NFL Playbook

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

Julian Edelman explains what it was like learning and NFL Playbook with the New England Patriots, including everything that was in a playbook and the steps he took to know it front to back for gamedays.Support the show: http://www.gameswithnames.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, Here's the Thing. I talk to composer Mark Shaman. It's about the hang. It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that you're with. You know, Rob and I was always a great hang. And director Morgan Neville. Film School teaches you all the wrong things about making documentary.

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It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was hiring. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Mark keep coming to, he's like, you know, I love you, dog.

You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What is it like to learn an NFL playbook? What's it like to learn an NFL playbook? Well, it's, it's, you're back when I came in, they give you the three-inch binder. I was actually a binder back then, right?

Three-inch binder, which is the big boy, or what is that, right? And three inches is huge. Three inches is a big one. It's massive. Yeah. And so they would give you that. And there'd be a table of contents. There'd be, I mean, it was laid out profession.

This was the pros, you know. And you had like at the top, you had special teams slots. Then you had the offense install slots. And then when you get into offense install slots, that would break down to, you know, a whole bunch of, bunch of things from formations, personnel groups, splits, informations. They would have protections. They'd have all the site adjustment rules. They'd have all the hot adjustment rules. It'd have everything. Everything was broken down fundamentally on there. Like, you could find it in the,

in the playbook. Now, it's transferred now to the iPad, which it's probably way cleaner and way awesome. And I remember we did that later in my career for the younger guys that were coming in. But I mean, it's just, it's literally like the encyclopedia of everything that the offense is about. I mean, it goes, you have, we have an example up right here. That's exactly how it looks. It'll have the basic. And then it'll have like the defensive line. They'll have like how each play goes against each line. It'll break down each coverage. It'll break down everything that the defense does.

So you can commute like what did Gruden say? Recognition communicate execution RCE. So you'd have to recognize what's going on after you learned your formation personnel group split potential motion,

potential shift. Like all those things. That's in the beginning and then it goes into how things change against the defense. I mean, it's a it's a it's a literally it has every single bit of information that the coach will explain to you and it's much like the textbooks when we were kids where you could read that and if you could do that it'd be great but i i was always a guy that would you know i had to study it i would look at it while we were the installing it while the coach was addressing the classroom you know you would

go through your playbook and you would kind of highlight. And then for me, a lot of guys for like guys like me, receivers, the receivers always, I was a guy that used flashcards for personnel groups because there's like 60 different personnel groups. So, you know, on Rangers, that's what is said before the play. That tells everyone who they are. Rangers, the personnel group. Our Rangers in 11 personnel group were example.

Danny goes to the F, I go to the Z, LaFelle's on the X, and Gronks at the Y. So there's three receivers, one tight end, and then whoever is in the backfield is in the backfield. Then you would have regular. Regular was a 12. So then regular puts me at Z, LaFelle at X, and then there'd be two tight ends that would come in. So you'd have to go over that. So I would always flashcard personnel groups and formation. because if you fucked that up, you weren't getting a rep.

How often are you shifting between these? Like, so is it beginning? When do you find out that you're like the Z and Ranger? Or that's how often does that change? That's how often does that find that out through the coaches? Like weekly? Weekly. So if they'll give you a group of personnel groups that we're going to highlight this week,

we're going to use these six personnel groups. Rangers, sub, half, and another one. Regular or something? No, regular is a two. Those are all 11 personnel groups. Okay. So these are all, these could be the same.

This is, there's three receivers, one tight end and one running back. Like regular, sub half, Rangers, Army, Marines. Those, those tell like every guy which spot they have to go into. So you could make a play for a guy instead of changing the whole concept you could just change the personnel group. So if you're trying to get what's is, you're trying to get Danny at the F,

instead of putting him at the F, you just change the personnel group and say now Danny goes, you know what I mean? Right, that makes sense. And then tag it from there. Tag it from there. You would never tag.

You just say Rangers. Okay. And that would tell everyone where we all go. I'm at F, I'm at Z. He's at X. He's at X. All right. And half.

I'm at, I'm at F. he's at Z half again I'm at F but maybe half and sub everyone's in the same spot but the tight ends change there's a new tight end in you know what I mean so the personnel groups are fucking they were a bitch to learn and then there's a formations so then the formations

they would break it down all right guys we'll have these eight formations and these personnel groups and then we could have these seven empties and empties were, you know, whenever, you know, the quarterback is empty and there's five guys on the line of scrimmage, five receivers. And so, like, you'd have to learn where,

what each formation was because you'd have to put the F in here, the X goes outside, like if you're an empty, and it was just a whole lot of studying. And so once you got those down, then you'd have to learn defenses because when you, things could change or, you know, then you learn your concepts. So you go personnel groups, formations, and then you learn concepts.

There was concepts that were two-man concepts, and there was three-man concepts. So like Reed, Reed was an in-cut from by one, and number two has an option route to the outside. And so conceptually, you were trying to high-low this backer. So that's Reed. Now, a three-man concept, or ICE is another one. ice was where this guy has an in-cut and this guy has a cross-rout so that you'd learn those two man's and there would be three-man concepts and so you're basically learning how you're building in your mind how the quarterback calls the play so first thing you're going to hear is

personnel group then you're going to hear formation then you got to learn your protections because after your formations and concepts you got to learn the protections because the protections could, it could change your route. If you are a side adjusting or if you're depending on if you can get it protected, the receivers would have to know because if it's only a five-man protection, there could be a hot and a side adjustment if you're in an empty. So you'd have to, you'd have to see where the mic point is and communicate with the quarterback.

The quarterback was set, he would set the protection. He go, Mike 52, which is the front side backer. Or you go, check easy, check easy. We're going to mic 54. He changed the protection. And he would look at me and he'd say, Jules. So that makes him the mic. He's the mic.

He's the will. Or the will, or the Sam. And then the next guy would be a different slot, the jack, you know, to Jack. And so then he would look at me and say, these two. If those two guys came, if he said two, then I'd have to break my side adjustment. Now, if he looked at me, Tom could look at me and he could say, hey, Jules, if he did that, that means one or the other.

If any one of those guys come, you got a break. But if they said to it, you got to go when the two guys come. And sometimes they would come and one guy would jack out. So you'd have to get en route. All right. And then so another one, he can look at you and he can sit there and you see your guy on your face coming. But Tom would change protection. all the way over here.

So he'd make that guy the mic who's on over me, the star or whatever. And he would sit there and you go, Jules, you're locked. So if he, regardless, no matter what, whoever came, you're locked on the route. So that's when you'd have to study your protections. So you go,

personnel group, formations, concepts, protections. And that's kind of, then you'd break into how defense was involved. So if you're locked on the route, that means you run the route. No matter what, it's the plague call route. You run it as is drawn up, okay. You mentioned site adjustment and hot, what, explain the front of that? Hot is to the strong side.

Okay. So when the Sam, Mike and Sam come, that's a hot. Okay. The side adjustments to the weak side. So it'd be like a will and a weak safety. So like if this guy, if, so you have your Mike, Sam, Will, right? You always see the quarterback making the point. So what he can do is though he could change.

Well, we always think that this guy is the mic, right? Because he's near the tight end and the strong side of the passing strength. Yeah. Well, he could change and make that guy the mic. Yeah. So then it would make him the mic, the guy to the right of him, who is the star, would be the Sam. Yeah.

Meaning that the lion can get it protected. And then this guy who we think is that looks like the mic is now the will. Okay. So the lion could take care of the mic. Mike Will and Sam. You know, that's when other guys get involved, that's when, that's when side adjustments and hot,

hot, uh, get involved. So then side adjustment is like a, to the weak side. It's to the weak side. It's a changing the route based off of the formation. A hot and a side adjust could be the same kind of thing for the receiver,

but it's just telling which side they go. So if it's, it's to the passing strength, that's a hot. If it's the passing, so if, so if I'm sitting here, right?

And we got. We make him the mic. He's the Sam. So whoever comes off here, you're hot. So you're going to fill that space where they were? Depending on what the hot is. It could be a burst. You have to like a five-yard hitch, full speed.

You can't lollygaggag it because then they sniff that and they'll break. So you've got to come off the ball hard every time. That was like the number one coaching point to any kind of side adjustment or hot. You got to come off because defense is fucking smart. Oh, yeah. You know, they'll sniff that bullshit out if you come lollygagging off and then they break and it's a pick six. Because they got a guy coming to that area. But if you're sprinting, that guy doesn't know where you're going.

So he'll, he would be all scared and he'll be less hesitant or less aggressive to break. So getting back, strength is hot. So to our strong side, right? So this guy, we make him the mic. Anyone come off that, Sam, you're hot. anyone coming off the will, you're citing. And then you just have to read if they're coming.

Well, yeah. Yeah. We have to, but the quarterback in our system, we had Tom Brady. So he was the ultimate reminder. And he,

when he was dishing out his protections and getting stuff, he would tell you. And the good quarterbacks do that. If you look at like Peyton Manning and all those boys, they would sit there, all right,

I'm locking you, I'm locking you, because he changed a protection and it's it's a fat the protections are the most fascinating things. That's why offense alignment, like they have, not only do they have to be choreographed

in such a great manner together as one, like they're dancing, but they have to be able to see shit, body language of the guys, they got to be able to break down the defensive fronts because things change. The protections change if there's a three down or a four down. Like that's when we got to start,

you know what I mean? But that's more of the defensive offensive offensive. line. You really only need to know the backers. Now, if it's a run play, are you a part of the protection call too? Or how does that, how does that work? So run play on certain run plays, uh, depending on the mic call, you would always have like the six man in the box. Right? So the six man on the box or is it the seventh? It'd either be the strong, the strong safety coming down or the star. or it would be that corner.

If that, if that, if, if, if one of the safeties dropped into the box, you'd be responsible if it was a six or seven, Scott, Chattio's going to kill me. So, but a lot of the times, if the course, on certain plays, run plays, the quarterback would lock you on, on your guy over your face because they have a line, like on a trap play or something, you wouldn't come down to get the force because we're having a line and come and pull to get him or the line is adjusting up to that guy. You know, you'd always, for the most part of most of the time for receivers, they're blocking skill guys, safety's corners.

Now, when you see the guys on the bunches, the receivers on the bunch, a lot of times you're seeing with like the Lions, San Francisco, they'll have their receiver, St. Brown, he'll set the edge and he'll take out of the end and then they'll pull the tackle and the guard on those toss traps. But like that's, those are like one-off plays and they'd have to be condensed down.

You're not really going in and getting linebackers because that's usually for the line. There are certain occasions where like in Seattle, the Seattle Super Bowl on the backside of this, I forgot the run play, but there was a backside play where I would go up and I I I would the the linebacker would be in my face and I would go up and go to the safety like and you could fully get them but then there'd be times where they could lock you and you'd have to just get in the if you're in the back side you'd have to get in his way and get in his way because to to cut him off for the front side of the run. But most of the time you're playing you're you're going against the smaller guys unless it's one of those specialty plays. The playbook I mean this and everything for the.

the offense align. And you have everyone's, you have all of it. You have all of it. Okay. So you could go through the offensive line part and see, you know, the shades. Because like they have a bunch of stuff on like, on, you know, they divide the guy, one, two, three, what shades they are.

And you could learn all that. You know, the, I mean, it's, it's like an encyclopedia of everything fundamentally. They have in your playbook, they have a whole. section on just your, the cadence and the snap counts. Wow. You know what I mean? The going on two, going on three, color this, color that, you know, um, gold calls or, uh, you know, to change plays. There's an audible section. How you, every way to communicate anything, it was in the playbook. That's incredible. You know, what if you got, say how much was getting added or like, say you install a play from week six.

Those are all the fundamentals. Now, once you get in, this is all training camp. Right, right. And there's a lot of his test to see who can retain what. And you won't even have to get, if you listen to the coaches, you're not just going to sit there and be a guy that, I mean, they're smart guys that will sit there and read the playbook and they can digest it. But if you go along with the coaching, you know, that'll help you the most.

You're paying attention to class. You don't have to read the book. You don't have to go do home. work. Well, it's good to reference it. You know what I mean? It's just like school. It's fucking just like school. That's crazy to think. There's some guys that can sit there and read the formations and do it.

I mean, I had to put them on flashcards and concepts. And me and Hoyer would sit and bounce them off of each other because when you're young football player, a lot of the a lot of the evaluation of you is how much you can retain.

How much can you take from the classroom to the drills to the team periods. That's like, that's the huge, like one of the biggest evaluation processes of these young football players. Because once you get to the regular, to get to your point, once you get to the regular season,

that's all fundamental. Now new plays, game plan plays come in. And so you're going to have to be able to install 10, 15 new plays each week, potentially on what that team's weaknesses are. Are those getting sheets to go into the playbook? Those are, yeah, so each week on a Wednesday, so you have your big ass book. And then when you come in, then you get back in the day, they would give you sheets just like those sheets. And you'd have all your past concepts on there, all your run concepts, the install for that week's prep. And so some of it could carry over to some of the stuff that we already learned in training camp and in the install. But some of it can be completely new and completely. different. But if you lean on your fundamentals of what you've learned in training camp,

you'd be able to communicate and understand it because it'll still be this. It could be the same, it'll be the same language, but it could be a different concept or a different protection or a different personnel group that's incorporated into it. So it's just like finding out the puzzle. So to simplify the playbook, the organization of it, you mentioned personnel, you mentioned formation protection concepts? Concepts. You'd have snap counts. Snap counts.

That's usually at the beginning. You'd have splits for receivers. What is that? Splits are, so in certain formations, in certain plays, and certain concepts. So like on a, say ice, if you're the outside receiver,

which ice is an in-cut and a crosser, if you're the outside receiver on ice, you have to have a plus. four split from the number. Yards? Yes. Then there was also a plus two split on certain concepts. Then there was, sometimes there was a minus two split.

And then when you get into like certain formation buzzwords like nasty, nasty tells everyone that you're condensed. So then you'd have those in the playbook on buzzwords for, buzzwords for formation splitting. You'd have, then you'd have a whole section on movement. So movement is shifts and motions.

So for us, if you heard, if the suffix was ING, ing, then you're coming in. If the suffix was AP app, you're coming across. So if you're the F and you hear Fing, you're just coming in for a pass play. Oh, because the thing is F-I-N-G. The F-I-N-G.

The F-I-N-G. So if you hear Zing, the Z-ing, the Y is. What if you're-H-F-F-F-F-E-Y is? You're going the other-A-B. FAP, because it's AP, right? FAP would be a cross for a block, for like a run play. FAP. If it's FACAC-AC, then you're going to, you're going to.

going across for a past play or something. Okay. Then there was Zing, uh, uh, Zig IG. You hear a lot of that with the slot. That's going into the, uh, guard and back out. So that's a formation indicator.

You're seeing what kind of coverage you can get. Then there would be the Y shift. All that's telling you is when you hear a, your, your, your letter and shift, you're starting on another, the other side and you're shifting over.

and we're resetting the play to that. If you hear H. Home, that's just telling the home is one of those buzzwords for a shift for the H. Home, he's coming from all the way outside the receiver back into the home spot. So there'd be a whole freaking table of content or what is it?

A chapter on that. Yeah. You know, so I mean, it goes into everything. What else beyond that? I want to hear all the different segments. There was Fing, fack there is

a fing fack fap uh zig or zig there was

Z shift then there was H home you could use all the other letters for that um you have

I'm probably missing one yeah that's you'd have there and there was probably a couple others then there was there would be what was this

there's a fast one a fast motion we started doing that so you know that's that Mike McDaniel like Mike McDaniel there'd be the fast it's like a rabbit zing or there there's there are certain buzzwords

for that if I heard it I would I'd be able to do it what other like chapters outside of like movement so we got personnel formation protection concept snap count splits movements movements and motion motions.

So it's like it's a misnomer that there's actual plays in the playbook. Then you go concepts. And then concepts. Then concepts in routes. So then you'd have, you'd have every single route, you know, like a go route,

a in-cut. Then there was the 14-yard incut, the 12-yard in-cut, the 20-yard-in-cut. There was, you know, there was the stopper route, which is a 25-yard,

like comeback, but you break, you open in and come back down the line. There was a comeback at 16. There was a comeback at 14. There was a 10 yard out. There was a five yard out or, you know, six to 12. Usually, you know, you have your slot routes, which were, you know, then there's tosser, two slants. There's hook, which is a three-man concept.

The three has the hook. The two has the diagonal. It's something that you always see And the guy has an M-O-R, which is must outside release, go on the outside. I mean, we're going off to just the knowledge of my brain and, you know. A lot of knowledge, baby.

I mean, how... See, I'm always curious going back to a lot of these. Like, some of these often that don't ID the mic is crazy to me. Happy Pride Month, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space. To celebrate your existence. IHartRadio is proud. to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival and we won't stop.

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What's up, fam, it's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows, without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs.

I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man,

hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think a lot of them do.

It's just who, depending on who's identifying the mic. Okay. It's either, sometimes it's the center. Yeah. And a lot of systems. Right. Like a lot of the younger quarterbacks in the West Coast systems from what I've been told. Right.

What I heard, the center makes the call. Okay. That makes sense. But then, and then you hear some of these ones where like, I mean, of course the Patriots are the outlier here and what you know more than anybody. but like how simplistic are some of these off. Like, you know what I mean? You hear some of these where like a guy comes from like a really simple system

and it's like how different is that from like the most simple NFL one to like the Patriots? I would say simpler offenses are just offenses that don't try to get into the right play and call a play and run that play. And there's no there's no adaptation to that play according to what the defense is doing. Which do exist in the year 2026. in the NFL. Which do exist. Okay, that's crazy.

I mean... Isn't that the whole thing with the Patriots offense? But sometimes when you got guys... So that's the fine line. Right. When you got guys... What a coach's job is to do

is to make the player as fast as you can. And sometimes when you flood the guy's minds with too much, then they're thinking they're not going to be able to play. Totally. So, you know, it's harder to get a lot of these complex...

advantages and complexities of change during play, during pre-snap, during post-snap, because a lot, you know, then a lot of guys got to be on the same page at the same time. And sometimes a lot of teams don't have the luxury of that guy gets hurt, young guys on offense, young quarterback can't get it up. Like, that's very hard to do.

Right. So personnel is going to dictate so much of that. Personnel dictates what you can do. That makes subtle sense. Was there a specific point? player concept when you first started that just fried your brain or just couldn't, it was the hardest one to grasp?

They used to have this thing called the wiggle route and I used to hate it. And West was really good at it. The wiggle route was like, in a West Coast system is called like the basic. The basic is they would do like but it was different than the basic. The basic is like a 12 yard incut.

It's usually the slot guy he runs a 12 yard speed in cut and he goes. Well, the wiggle route was kind of like that 10 to 12 yard inclet. And you could, but a verse man, you had to break it down and give him something at the top and break flat to downhill. If it was one man.

If it was cover five, which is two man, you could run the in-cut, but if he was walling you off, you could pull it out. All right. And then if it was zone, and it was,

To Tampa, you would find the zone. So there was like three different things. And I always struggled on like the cover five one. I don't know because I always wanted to whip it out. But if you could win in, you could keep it going. And there's a lot of indecision. And that's the worst thing for a quarterback to see in a route. So you know what I mean?

So you had three routes. And, you know, it took me time to like figure out how to do it. So the wiggle route The old wiggle And then there was like the queue route Which was kind of like the outside version Which the old cue was If it was rolled

rolled Roled meaning Covered 2 You had This guy was letting you go And there's a half field safety You run You run the bow route

Where you get inside You reset your vertical stem To about 14 and then you hit a high seven and let the quarterback flatten you in between the half-field safety and the flat zone defender, right, versus cover three.

It was like a, I think it was like a curl route. And then if it was man, if it was man, you press, You had to get inside and then you'd run and then you'd hit like an inside stutter where you could take it. It's almost like a post corner. It was just, it was the same kind of three routes with in one route according to coverage. And it was before like I was comfortable reading coverage post. I mean, I was always actually pretty good at reading coverage. It was just the running of the route for me.

and being able to make them all look the same and not dictating. Because like these dbs, man, they know they're bullshit readers. They can read it. You know what I mean? They could feel if you're hesitating at something, they feel it and they break and they make the plays.

They're extraordinary athletes. Was there a moment where you feel like it clicked or like when you felt like, oh, I can actually use my physicality versus my, like, became instinct versus like thinking through it? I mean, I would say after like my third, my third year, like it was just clicking in spurts, kind of like my golf game. You know what I mean?

And then by the year of three, you know, I had enough reps of actual feeling it in practice, you know, doing it in the offseason with Tom. the amount of reps that I had at that point helped me because I felt every situation at that point. You weren't topping the ball or slicing that thing in the woods. Yeah. I got one last question.

Unless you got anything else. I think to Kyler's last question, a quick follow up, but like at what point not only were you grasping that thing, were you and Tom like mind-melded like full, his brain's my brain? Like we're seeing the field the exact same way. That's like probably year five.

Okay. Or four or five, when Wilker left. Right. Get those extra first team route. Yeah, that. And it was, you know, he had to start trusting me. It's hard for those guys, you know, when you have a guy, when you're a quarterback, you know, and regardless. Water flows downhill.

Water flows downhill. One other one guy guy. I swear, I was trying to look this up over here. I swear, I remember, maybe my mind's playing tricks on me. I swear someone on the Patriots left their playbook at the hotel on the road in like a preseason game against a $5,000 fine. $5,000. I was just going to ask, what's a penalty?

It could be conduct detrimental. That could be like a $35,000. Wow. Yeah. Because you'd bring on the road with you, right? Oh, yeah. And that thing. But when you're in, when you're like now with the iPads and stuff.

When do they switch to the iPad? I want to say like my fourth year. Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah. Third, fourth year. Or Microsoft Surface. D.M.

But the thing is, with the iPads, they have more power. The team. Oh, so they would collect iPad, like during camp and shit, they would collect the iPads after games or during games. You know what I mean? They would collect, there would be a fucking big ass, like, home thing,

and you'd have to go and turn your iPad, and, you know, there'd be a coach coming, hey, you don't, you didn't turn your iPad and. Like it updates stuff. better. Or they could just wipe you. They can also keep track of how much you're using. Oh,

they keep track of how much you're using. Big brother. Oh, gosh. Can you go to like websites and stuff on it or no? No. It's pretty long. I mean, my boy Jared had my shit.

I had my, jail break. Jail broke. Jared, shout out. Angry birds on there. No, I just, you know what jail broke was?

Me being able to look at the news. There we go. Like the fact that I can look at the news. We couldn't even get on Google. Oh, my God. You'd be there getting on news and be like, oh, shit, hell yeah. Get to see some articles. Just reading, keep it up with the world, baby.

That's hilarious. And one last question. So you were a quarterback in college. And then so now, though, the playbook, with the iPads, it's so awesome because you could go through all your thing. And then you could see it. You could press a button and see an example of the play. Yeah.

Oh, with the footage. Oh, that's huge. Yeah. So, yeah. It's a little bit more of like, a multimedia experience. It's insane now. You have it all on your iPad. So you were a quarterback in college. Do you remember like, remember a specifically complicated play from your time at Kent State? I've been trying to do that. And I remember like,

I don't remember the plague calling, but it was a West Coast. So there was like 84. I'd have a protection or 73 or I'd have a 60s, there were 60s 70s and 80s. 80s were like, I was fully protected. Then there'd be some, like, kind of get open, wide, shallow look. It was like a West Coast spread. I've really, I got to call up old Dougie fresh. Who should get him on the show? Doug Martin, yeah, I should.

Shout out, we should. I think he's at Elon right now. Let's go, baby. Let's make a trip down to Phoenix. Let's go over to Burlington, North Carolina and pull up on him. His wife's, she used to kill it in the real estate world. She's like killing it. She's probably running Burlington right now.

Probably. I love it. Shout out. You don't remember like a play call? Like you, you, I just remember, I remember the concept. I remember my favorite concept was poker. I don't remember like, because, dude, after hearing all, it just gets wiped out. It gets wiped because I've heard.

And then I remember doing that, but like, because early in my, my, early in my career, the protections were messing with me. Because 70s, we used to have a thing called scat protection, whereas five man. protection only and that was the same as like your your 70s protection so like I had a lot of that or 80s was the same as my 60s in college so then I kind of wiped it yeah you know what I mean can you give us a quick John Gruden-esque play call I don't really I mean from the Patriots from the Patriots you could go like sub home home to Fing home home it could be home F right Fing

right 134 Fbo ICE Alert Ride 130 or alert

34 Gap or or something or you could there the thing is it gets wordy when you would

get like two or three play calls I bet so you got to do is say two fucking plays alert and so

and by the time you're in it you can just know when I hear the play call when Tom would say I heard I would hear the

protection I'd hear the concept and then there'd be a couple buzzwords. You know, you're sitting in the huddle. You're here. All right. All right. I got a thing.

Right. You know what I mean? No, that's when you're like. And how to say the play would be in the playbook. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like right there.

Home, what I say, I told you the H started out. Home to F right. So wherever he is, he's, we got to get to F right, which is the formation. And then Finging, telling me to Fing in. Right. 134, which is the protection, play action, F, bow, ice, alert, ride 130, or alert 34, alerting to just the run if it was two safeties. You know, I mean, she got a wayboard.

I'm not a fucking, I love that. Yeah. I was never like, I mean, I, you know, I was never like, you hear all these backup quarterbacks like Hoydog and Orlowski, like those guys, they could recite their whole thing because they were communicating it. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I remember that struggle from when I turned to quarterback to receiver, hearing a play was different than saying the play.

Yeah. Like it took me a while to learn how to hear the play and know what to do than when I used to when you say the play. You know what I mean? Oh, for sure. It is so stupid for me. But I mean, the backup quarterbacks, they were always like, they had to know, everything.

Yeah, and they're getting mental reps like crazy. They're getting mental reps. You're not out there running a slant with a clipboard in your hand. Yeah. And you know what I mean? And when she get out, I mean, if I were to go back for, like, that's why I love going back. You know, you go to the Patriots, you can go to their meeting.

Like, they let me come sit in on their meetings. Rable let me sit in or whoever the coaches were at the time that I've gotten to sit in on all of them. That's when it refreshes. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, oh shit. Okay, now they're doing this.

You know, and John. getting to sit in Josh meetings. Oh, yeah. McDaniels, you know, I could eat, you could see where the, the, the, the, the, the, the, callings evolve because now that they're making them less wordy,

and they're having buzz words tell, like, a lot of guys what to do. So there, it could be like only three words, but those three words could be protection concept. That's cool. Seeing that evolution's got to be crazy. Yeah. And then we'd have like a NASCAR package in the playbook where it would be that,

or one word would tell everything. So that would be a lot of the things when we were installing weekly, the coaches would say, you know, all right, we're going to do these four NASCAR plays and they'd break them in. We'd only do it for like those three days or two days.

And then they would say, all right, we're adding four more NASCAR plays. So they'd expect you to, you have to already know those ones. And so you're at eight by week, you know, day five. And then after day seven, they'd give you four more NASCAR plays. So you're building your book.

You're building, you know, that's how they would install it. You know? And so cool. Just for the audience, NASCAR is like a hurry up. NASCAR would be no huddle. And then the play calls like one word and you have to know. One word. Everyone goes.

Like you have to know all of it. Man. What's a, one, a word? Like Jordan was like a, Jordan. It wasn't Barclay one too? Barkley was, uh, what was Berkeley? Barkley? Barclay was, um, Charlie Sheen. So the Charlie

Charlie program was a certain protection So we had Charlie Sheen, we had Charles Barkley You got to know you're Charlie I love it Yeah

So there's Mariana Rivera Which was stopper You know On the outside He was the best stopper Of all time We have Jordan

We had Ollie Which was Those were our like Go-toes That we could always run It was a fundamental It was empty Right

Or bonsai right Hoss Z juke, which is, you know, Haas and the Z has a juke route. Jordan would be to the right, Ali would be the same play on the left. You know, you'd have, we had Jordan, and then there'd be like,

man, I'm gonna get exposed for not knowing my play. You know these things. And like this is like you guys were lining up or like you're going from. We can run a play. You're running up. Jordan, Jordan, Jordan. And you just hear John Tommy,

or Tom, we like, Jordan, Jordan NASCAR NASCAR, NASCAR, Jordan. Everyone gets to the line of scrimmage, everyone knows what to do. So, like, someone like Ray Lewis that might have a lot of experience against you guys might have some film, might have some tape on like some of these NASCAR plays. Could. Yeah.

But if you're going fast, they can know what you're doing. But you still got to execute. You still got to execute. That was my thing. Those, this goes back to. And then you could go Jordan, Jordan. And we'd all set up in bonsai. And then he could sit out there and look at us and give us hook.

He could, and we all have to look. and if he goes like that, then it changed all three of us what to do. There was nonverbal comms. Or you can go, what you could do is we call a play in the huddle and you can go Xerox, Xerox, Xerox. And Xerox meant same exact formation.

And there was no play. Making copies. And so you're making copies. And you go sit there and there'd be no place. And then all of a sudden he would get us into a play. Based off of how they line out. Of how they played. That's so tight.

That was called molasses. would be in the pre- there would be a pre-snap a pre-snap menu which motions and all that cadence molasses was there was no play call mo mo so he could sit there what all right it's on mo it's on mo you had you had to hear gold color or like the buzz color for the play to be in so he could sit up there and this is how you try to get the defense to you know kind of show what they were doing he up there why 20 why 20 why 20 Hot, hot, hot. Hard, hard, hard.

Black 88. Like 88. Had hot, hot, hot. So sometimes. And then you go. Gold 30. Gold tells everyone plays on. Goal 30.

He said, Oh, that rocks. Even on those like hard cuts, there might not even be a play call. There could be not play call. It's just, let's see what you got. Let's see what you, we're just trying to get a tell out of the defense.

How often does that happen in a game? I mean, depending on the defense you were playing, who's a disguised defense. Man, if John Gruden just heard, you do that? Oh, the hair on the back of his neck would stand up. White. 20. Why? How, I mean, great call, baby. You wouldn't know, but how often do you think like McDaniels is in Brady's ear on there? He's in there until 15 seconds. So they do that's why a lot of the NASCAR. So that's why that's in, that's, so you, when you, when you got

say you have a really good defensive line. And what NASCAR would do is, NASCAR. If you could, you could run it out a sub, which is three receivers, or you could run it out of regular.

But that's hard because then you got guys going in different spots, right? So when you have a good defensive line, fast guys, NASCAR,

what it does is it doesn't allow them to substitute. You're just huge. So, and you can go fast. And so if you get to the line of scrimmage, you get to the line of scrimmage

with the most time as you possibly can, then Tom and, and Josh can communicate. came until 15. So as soon as the other play is done, the 40 o'clock starts. That's a lot of time to talk.

40 o'clock starts, right? So if you're done, say it's a long play downfield, then everyone gets to the line of scrimmage. You use your NASCAR term. All right, we're going, Jordan. All right, we're going, Charles Barkley, Charles Barkley. Everyone gets into Charles Barkley.

You're there with 28 seconds. You got 14 seconds. If you got there in 10 seconds or 12 seconds, if everyone gets the line of scrimmage by 15 seconds, you got 10, 12 seconds to communicate with Josh. So then they could sit there. Tom can't talk to him, but he can hear them. You know, so then we used to do like muddle huddles.

I love that. Muddle is kind of like a fast huddle where we're not getting back to the huddle. We're kind of getting back and we're getting near the line of scrimmage and we're yelling out NASCAR terms. But it's not NASCAR. NASCAR means we're going fast. Yeah. So muddle huddle is different than NASCAR. That would be in the pre.

It's so. It'd be so crazy. The gold term, you have like the buzz terms and black 88s. Black 88 would be on three. Full master class right now. You're saying the kids at Phillipsandover with Ernie are fucked. No, because good coaches. You're able to simplify.

You're going to adapt. They know how to simplify. Good coaches simplify. And a lot of the evaluation of training camp is to try to get guys to be anxious about how much there is to see how much they can, they can handle. and see that, hey, you don't have to know all this. If you listen to the coaching staff, you know, this is what we're going to go over, learn those. You know what I mean? It's all part of everything.

The evaluation process of how you're building your team. 100%. But like to go back to what we said earlier, it's all about like personnel dictates so much of this. Like when you got, when it was you and Dolan, Gronk and Jojo and it was just clicking and you guys could go no huddle so often. Oh, that was the best. That was like the strength of, you know, with Chris Hope. and Malcolm Mitchell and Dola. Like, we weren't like the most explosive group,

but the strength of that team was the smart. Everyone's on the same thing. Everyone was smart. It's the beauty of the Earhart Perkins is when everyone's got it. Everyone's, everyone was on the same page at all times. That was the best to watch. Oh, God, I loved it.

Man, that was awesome. Guys, keep tossing these in there. do people leave comments on YouTube. Maybe we'll get a whiteboard and like pick up, pick a playoff. I gotta get my playbook. I have a playbook. So maybe we should just expose it.

Oh, fire. Let's go. Speaking of exposing in playbooks, I always think back to that. Like when you, go ahead. You remember when Chris, Chris Cooley got in trouble in the early days of like Instagram?

He took a picture. It was like in the preseason like cracking open the playbook and he was studying the playbook naked. So you could see like the tip of his chunk in the Instagram picture. He said like three like penis related like. Yeah, Chris Cooley. What a wild man. Keep going on those.

Sorry, Jules. Who's Chris Cooley? He was a tight end for the redskins for a little while. I remember. He was actually a good play. 47, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why that's in my,

taking up space in my brain. Yeah. Three inch binder. Yeah. That was a good one. Three inch binder. Oh, that was awesome. Let's do more that.

That's fun. Keeps in these. We love pulling back the curtain, man. That was playbook, but that got into a lot of different stuff. And I've always want to know how you don't answer it. We'll do another time. But like,

You guys got to like, how you know personnel from the sidelines when to go in and how it's also signals. Yeah. I'm with you. So like never, I'd be so bad at that. And that goes into like you practice. That's what practices for. You know, like all the receivers are in with the receiver coach on the sideline. All the running backs are with the running backs.

And you have to practice those things. Your communication coming in the field with your signal. There are certain signals half your sub army army. We all had signals at receiver, which probably change, you know, but... Right, you have to cycle through anything that's going to be on tape, signals and whatnot. You know what, but like, it didn't really change that often. Really? So, like, one of those things, like, that's our best shot.

Man against man, we're going to beat you. I mean, yeah, I don't know. The personnel group. It's that time to put on your jersey and wave your flag, whoever you. you root for. Why do I watch the walk up? That's like asking me, why do I breed? And it's beautiful.

The guys are young and cute and fit. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernando Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American Football on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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