Green Light with Chris Long - Tennessee Titans' Brian Callahan, JC Latham & Mike Borgonzi Talk Cam Ward, Joint Practices & The Titans' 2025 Outlook!

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Green Light and Chris Long X The Tennessee Titans! Fresh off the plane from Titans training camp, Chris has a couple of tremendous conversations with a few Titans. First, Head Coach Brian Callahan talks Cam Ward's Leadership, working with his dad, OL Coach Bill Callahan, and building his teams' grit and intensity. Then, tackle JC Latham talks about playing right tackle and teaming with Dan Moore Jr and going against Jeffery Simmons. Then General Manager Mike Borgonzi previews the Titans roster, hypes up the squad and talks why Tennessee LOVED Cam Ward! (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:53) Brian Callahan on Cam Ward's Leadership, Working With His Dad & Titans 2025 Season Outlook (00:29:12) JC Latham on Titans OLine and Jeffery Simmons' Defensive Abilities (00:38:38) Titans GM Mike Borgonzi on the Titans Roster, Cam Ward's Intangibles and Joint Practices Have some interesting takes, some codebreaks or just want to talk to the Green Light Crew? We want to hear from you. Call into the Green Light Hotline and give us your hottest takes, your biggest gripes and general thoughts. Day and night, this hotline is open. Green Light Hotline: ‪[phone]‬ Also, check out our paddling partners at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Appomattox River Company ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠to get your canoes, kayaks and paddleboards so you're set to hit the river this summer. Green Light's ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where you can catch all the latest GL action: Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First and foremost, there's a drive. Yeah. There's an internal drive to be great, which you can't teach, you can't coach that. He has that. There was never any point during the season last year where you could say our team didn't show up to play. I'm proud of that. That's a testament to the type of people we have. And it's been maybe the coolest thing that I'll probably ever get to do with my coaching

careers, be able to go to work with him every day. But then I put a game, he went out with all the D-Line at dinner, you know. I don't know how many quarterbacks do that. That's big. But Cam's got that ability. I'm going to go see that sled in a couple of minutes. I can't wait. Are you going to film it?

Are you going to film it? We'll send it to you. I can't wait. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast presented by BetMGM. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code Greenlight, and you will get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BetMGM. Here's how it works. Download the BetmGM app and sign up using bonus code Greenlight.

Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. If that bet loses, you will receive up to $1,500 in bonus bet. Just make sure you use bonus code greenlight when you sign up. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. The fellas are back from our training camp tour. We hit the Tennessee Titans. And we've got a couple of interviews from that training camp for you today. First, we got head coach Brian Callahan.

You want to know what's going on in the field at Titans training camp? Brian has all the answers. He talks about Cam Ward's leadership and how that man has taken the reins of the quarterback position and led by example. He talks about working with his dad. offensive line coach Bill Callahan bringing him over, being uncertain about working together first, and now Brian says it's the most fun he's ever had coaching. Andy talks about the grit his team plays with, how last year you couldn't say they weren't in any of the games they

played in. They showed up for each and every one of them, a fact that he's proud of. Then we talked to J.C. Latham that the Titans right tackle. He talks about Dan Moore, playing against Jeff Simmons, and one word that describes Cam Ward. And then Chris talks to Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi. You want an in-depth look of the Titans roster and what it takes to be a high-level front office executive across the NFL. This is your guy. A great interview with a couple Titans here. We've got some great training camp conversations coming to you all this weekend and next week. Please stay tuned. Don't miss any of them. Make sure you're subscribed. Like all the content. And we'll catch you when we catch it.

Another head ball coach on the Greenlight Pod. This is Brian Callahan. obviously part of a football family. We have that in common. The only thing for me is I never got to actually say, hey, Dad, you're working for me. That's the first thing I want to talk about is what's it like, you know, pragmatically for you being like, who's the best O-Line mine I could find?

Well, I just called Dad. Yeah, and he just shows up. Yeah, what was that like? It was cool. It was, you know, we had had a couple of conversations in the previous hiring cycle about potentially working together. If something worked out, I'd interviewed for two or three jobs. and that go-round he was like you know i just don't think it's the right thing i don't think it's

right for me or for you i want you to have your own thing i don't you know so i went to the next cycle and fortunate enough to interview a few more times and everyone would always ask me you know so uh your dad and uh i'd like no really i mean he's we've kind of talked about it's not happening and then i end up getting the job here in tennessee and i called them and i was like well how about now? Now that it's real, what do you think? He should be interested. And he was like, I don't know.

He was really happy in Cleveland. He loved working for Kevin. He liked his line there and everything. He's like, I'll think about it. I was like, oh, okay. That's cool, dad. Yeah, but I think it was all for the right reasons. I'm glad we had to hash it out.

And he decided that he'd like to come here and make it work. And it's been maybe the coolest thing that I can, I'll probably ever get to do in my coaching careers, be able to go to work with him every day. such a special thing. I mean, that's just really cool. And I love the quote. I heard him say, or maybe it was you relaying it that he said, what if you don't like my coaching style? Yeah. I mean, it was a real thing. He's like, I'm not for everybody. Yeah. And he's, you know, what if, what if I'm not your cup of tea? What if we don't get along?

And then the reality of it is, is like, you know, what if you have to fire me? I'm like, I don't think I'm going to. It's great. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. Hell yeah, yeah. But it was, you know, but they're all things that you have to, like, work through and talk about. And we just kind of came to the conclusion that why not? We get along so well. We communicate well together.

It's been so much fun to be able to see him work on a daily basis. I'd never work with my dad prior in my coaching career. And so to be able to see that and see him in action, I've obviously known, and I've seen him when I was younger, but I've never got to see him do what he does so well. And that's been really awesome. As a son, to see your dad do his thing, pretty sweet well yeah like i remember being a kid and going to like raiders training camp and like

we got the can gatorade which was like my favorite thing the gatorade in the actual it's like a treat oh yeah it's a delicacy and there were awesome things about going to camp but like the coolest part was seeing your dad work but i was at an age where i didn't really i couldn't appreciate it and you get this you know this this this cool opportunity i guess so it's been it's been a dream come true as far as just father son yeah professional relationship all that stuff has been as good as i could ever I want to see Olga and Bertha, the two sleds. Can you tell me about those sleds? Yeah.

I'm going to go outside and I'm going to try to move them. I had Mike Waffle, and he was a big, Bill guy, and he had his sled. He named his sled. So explain to the people at home the challenges that Olga and Bertha create for offensive a lot of him. He developed this sled that was based more on leverage and you're fit on the person. Yeah. And so if you just do like the old sleds,

if you try to pick it up, just pick it up off the ground and drive it, it'll tip and you won't be able to drive it. Yep. So you have to be able to have the right positioning, the right body, and you've got to really squeeze your elbows in and clamp on it and drive it, and you got to be able to hold that. Yeah. But if you don't get it off the ground at the right angle, it won't move.

Yeah. And if you do get it too high off the ground, it tips. And so it's got to be like perfect positioning for a drive block. What y'all think? You all think I can do it? Okay. All right. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're going to try, we might try it in a little bit. Those, yeah, be careful. That, and when it drops back down. I don't think I can sue you guys. It's on you. I think it's on me. I think I have to sign a waiver. Because there's a lot of excitement around this team.

In my opinion, starts with, you know, you turn the page. You got a new quarterback. And obviously one that, you know, yourself and the GM are excited about. And I kind of wonder, like, it's, I didn't ask. Jeffrey about this because I think he's tired of it because it was blown out of proportion but the fiery exchange between two fishing buddies yeah you know like as a coach you were at joint practice I think when Pennix got into a brawl and you're seeing your guy kind of go back and forth with the biggest baddest man on the roster there's got to be at least a little part of you that's like

oh this is kind of exciting but a lot of you is probably like 70%'s probably like hey don't poke that bear probably more of the latter yeah I do appreciate the end enthusiasm. Cam's, Cam doesn't back down. He is, he is not afraid, which is good. He also hasn't seen Jeff trying to actually tackle him. You know, there's a difference. It's a different. Yeah. But I just, the competitiveness between those two has been great. And Jeff really does function. He's like a big brother to Cam, you know, he puts his arm around him and tries to help him and has been a, the veteran presence you hope your quarterback has and help him ingrain himself in the locker room. help him get to know the defensive guys. That's another important piece of it is that he's got to be

able to reach across the aisle, you know, and not just be the offensive guys. And he actually went to dinner on the road when we were out in Atlanta. The night before the game, he went out with all the D-line to dinner, you know. Yeah. I don't know how many quarterbacks do that. That's big. But Cam's got that ability. And because of Jeff, it's, it's, it makes it easier. But man, they are two high-level alpha competitors. And, you know, sometimes one doesn't like it when the other sets. One alpha is just a little bigger. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, it's hard. for the smaller alpha sometimes to recognize that the throw the other night man and you know catching up on a little preseason tape you know the one that van you'd like to see van catch the ball

but like when you're in that meeting room it's probably like 10% of y'all that's like hey like see van catch the ball the other 90s probably like damn look at that throw yeah it was really impressive it's like and it's and you can nitpick the throw and and you'd love to see maybe a little bit a little bit a little bit more air on it so van can go get it because it was a little bit it was hot Can't get to a hot ball occasionally. Yeah. It's not a bad thing. No.

But it was just, it was just a misfire. But I think he's learned from those. But certainly you look at the throw and the placement and all those things. And it's a high level NFL throw. And those are always exciting. You know, even a, it was an exciting incompletion if there's ever. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say.

I'm looking at it. I'm like, okay. And I've heard y'all talk about this, like his ability to throw people open, like his vision. Yeah. You know, you've been around some great quarterbacks. I've been lucky, yeah. Yeah, like, what are the things that you see in Cam that you're like, aha, like I've seen that from this guy or that guy?

I think first and foremost, there's a drive. Yeah. There's an internal drive to be great, which you can't teach, you can't coach that. You just, that's what he has that. And that ability to translate that into work and learning and performance, I think, is really what separates guys in this league. Yeah, everyone's got talent. But his drive to be good is intense, and I think that you have to have that.

The other part of it is his spatial awareness. He's got this really unique ability to just feel space and defenses, which is what really piqued my interest early on in the evaluation process, is that he just found open players and just knew where they were on the field. And you could see him even in college manipulates some space underneath with his eyes, and that's pretty advanced for a young player. And he's grown even in that regard. since he's been here, but the ability to see space and process fast.

That is, along with having the talent, but that ability mentally to see and feel and know what's happening is really what he shares with some of the really good players. I've had a chance to be around, and that's a really good thing early on to see a guy that can see that things happening and do it really quickly. I thought one of the things Joe was so good at, as a rusher, I'm always looking at how guys move in the pocket. And I was just always so impressed with the way he kept his eyes downfield. You know what I mean?

Cam does the same thing. Yeah. Cam is always looking for a big throw. And that's a really good quality to have. He's never worried about the rush. He doesn't worry about being able to escape. And one of the things that Joe used to make a big thing about all the time is that a free guy's never going to bring him down. He goes, I've never been sacked by a free player.

I've always been able to make that player miss. And there was a confidence in that. Now whether that's true or not, you can verify it. You have to run the tape back. You have to run it back and prove it. But that was just his mindset. And Cam's got that mindset, too, where he feels like I can move and manipulate the pocket. I'm not worried about what's happening.

I'm trying to dagger the ball down the field. And that's a cool mindset to have as a quarterback. Because you were, again, back to Sensi for a second, you had Luana Rumo as your practice mate, right? Yeah. I always am interested in the relationship between the guy on offense and the guy on defense. and when you're structuring your practices, and now you got Dinar, who I've known for a while, and he's a fiery dude.

He's the best. He's the best. But, like, you know, y'all get in these situations where you want something out of practice, I'm sure loop through the kitchen sink at y'all sometimes. Always. Like, so, yeah, maybe not sometimes, always. But, like, what's the conversation like,

hey, I need this period to work on some things, or, hey, bring it on, you know, does it change because you have a young quarterback, and you do have a more, condensed runway to get the learning curve. I think that's been the fun part about this process is I've tried to make practice, especially early on. I tried to make practice on Cam as hard as humanly possible. From pressure, and Donard's got every pressure in the book. And there's days where I just want to look over at him and flip him a bird. And, you know, I just, you know,

he's making it's hard on me today. But that's by design. And I think that's really helped Cam accelerate the learning process where it's just, it's constant conversation. about fronts and pressures and answers and issues and him knowing, because that's the game in the NFL, is can you produce when everyone knows you got to throw it? And on third and eight, can you convert it when you got to have it? And you're going to see some heavy artillery sometimes. And we're going to see it in week one against Denver. And it's going to come up against Lou in Indianapolis.

I mean, it's just the way it is. That's life in the NFL for a quarterback. So having DeNard's system has been really beneficial because of the multiplicity of it, the pressure packages and we've made it intentionally incredibly hard on cam a lot of third down periods where it's just you know it's like pressure after pressure pressure now that's not what the game feels like right you know you get a chance to take you may get three of those pressures in a game maybe but you're going to face seven of them in a row in practice yeah and it's hard and it's all different looks so very intentionally done that way and thenard's got that aggressive style and the multiplicity

and the coverage structure the disguises i think that's really helped accelerate cam's learning process and getting comfortable with what he has to do as an NFL quarterback. Absolutely. It's been great. And then as we've gotten in camp, it might be a conversation. I might ask, Denard, hey, I need to make sure I see this coverage against this route, so Cam can see it. Right.

And Danard likes it because then you get a chance to see the coverage beater. You know, hey, here's a couple things you're going to stress the coverage today. We know that we're going to get them. So I'm not worried about winning or losing the rep. It's more about learning experience. Learning how they're going to attack this coverage. So I got a great working relationship with DeNard. He understands what we're trying to get done from an offensive perspective.

And I love what he does defensively, too. So I think we're all better for it. How do you fit your, like when you hear a coach say, we fit the system to the personnel. And I wonder what the calculus is when you walk in the building specifically with the run game. Yeah. You know, what style of running football team are going to be?

Yeah. Do you base that on your offensive lineman? Do you base it on the back? Is it some combination? Or does the way you get into your passing game off of that, factor in a lot. I think it all factors in. First and foremost is what are you,

what's your strength up front? Are you more athletic? Are you bigger and more powerful? What are we going to be? And obviously with Zeitler and Lloyd and JC, I mean, we're big. There's some big dudes on our front. We're big and strong offensive front at the moment.

And, you know, my dad's always been a very heavy gap scheme. You know, duo and gap scheme, but he's also an expert in that kind of mid-zone game that we do. So we're pretty multiple in the run game, I think. We were multiple last year to varying degrees of success. But we got a center like Lloyd that's athletic, and he can pull. We've got a power side with JC and Zitler. I think Pete's a really good polar as well.

So all those gap scheme variations and all the things off of it, I mean, we have every run you could possibly put in it. But I think they do a really good job of teaching it. My dad and his crew are the offensive line guys at Jonesy and Scotty. They really do a good job with that group. and we'll lean into the things as we get that group jelling closer here and into the season, you start to lean on what you're really good at. But we're going to do a little bit of everything, which is good.

And it helps the play action game on top of it. No question. And JC switching to right, you know, it's not a, it's certainly not a demotion in my eyes. It's like a, hey, go do what you're comfortable doing. Because, you know, I was a left end, and when they put me on the right, it felt like I was, you know, playing with my off hand. you know, it's that different for some guys, and I think it probably just worked out with Dan, but like how did that conversation go?

And then how does J.C. look out there at right tackle? First of the foremost, it really would happen to J.C. is, you know, it goes from right to left. He played pretty good at left tackle. He wasn't, he did not have a bad season. No, no, no, no. He's very capable of being a left tackle. Yeah.

He got a little bit overweight as a second half of the season went along. I think he learned as a rookie that how, what do I want to look like? And I think he was, he was admitted, self-admittedly embarrassed by how he finished the season. And so he lost a ton of weight. He lost probably 25 to 30 pounds.

Wow. Over the course of the off season. It's impressive. In Nashville? Live in Nashville and lose weight? Simmons did the same thing, he said. They've been, Jaycee's been super disciplined.

He knows what kind of pro he wants to be. And he's really grown up, which has been fun to watch that maturation process. And I told him at the end of the year, look, we're going to try to improve our line to the best of our ability. Yeah. And that could involve you move. moving to the right side. Right.

I don't think it really mattered to him. Right. If he did or he didn't, I just know he is more comfortable on the right. He's looked really good over the course of the preseason. You could just tell the comfort of being in that right-handed stance and being on the right side is just more natural to him. And so when we had a chance to bring in Dan, who's only played left tackle, it was an easy switch.

So really we felt like we improved two positions in the same time, at once, yeah, without having to sign two players. And at the end of the day, you know, most guys, the reality of it is, is they just want to make sure they get paid accordingly, right? Yeah. You get moved from the left tackle, the right tackle. They just want to make sure that. But anymore, all tackles get paid.

Well, nowadays, like, some of the best tackles on the planet, well, in my opinion, I mean, Lane's my buddy, but I think there's, I mean, it's hard to find anybody who's been better than him over a five-year stretch. And, you know, a lot of the best rushers are rushing on the left and that sort of thing. You know, like, when we were younger, it was like, hey, your left tackle and your right end, that's the battle. But now it's really everyone's got two rushers and you need two tackles. That's exactly.

And a lot of teams and now it's like, hey, you need three rushers. So when it comes to rushers, man, like, what do you think the easiest way to affect a rusher is? Is it the run game? Is it the chips? Is it varying the chip looks? I think it's all of it. Everything in the run game is, there's a factor of how do you affect the backside? Yeah.

You know, how do you affect the free end? Whether you're running the wide zone and you're stabbing at him or you're running the fly motion. you're running the sift blocks is really how many different ways can you affect the backside of the fly motion works and it's let me tell you and then you you mix in a you mix in a crack block here and there yeah we don't like that either no one likes that on the other side but it's just it's just a matter of how many different variations can you give that and in the actual rush game you know it's most tackles need help sometimes and so that chip game's important we spend a lot of time teaching it we spend a lot of time using it we used it a lot last year pretty effectively but you just

as many times you got to make them play through two people. It also always amazes me, and I see it around the league where, you know, like the chip and the tackle aren't on the same page and actually, you know, the tackle will say, hey, man, I didn't know you were coming or, you know, the tackle might set improperly and. Some tackles don't like it. Yeah, some tackles actually don't prefer having the help. And most of the time, it's not because they don't need the help. It's because they don't really understand what is happening. Yes. And so we spend, we detail those, that chip.

I mean, we have, not to give away too much information. No. We have calls and techniques, and they know when they're set in versus outside versus inside. The whole thing is dialed in. There's not a detail that we miss. So we don't, again, we're just trying to put ourselves in the best possible situation to handle the rushers. Because at the end of the day, the rushers nowadays are so much more athletic and bigger and faster and stronger almost than every tackle. So you got to be able to help the right way.

Yeah, no question. So when you were in Sincere, I think from night. 2019, I think y'all are 2 and 14, and I've been on teams like that, and it can feel hopeless. And then a couple years later, you're in the Super Bowl. Besides the players, what changes? You got to have the right makeup as a team. And that's the one thing I love about our team last year. And, I mean, even when things got hard, their group of guys, they buckled up and they played, and they played hard.

I mean, there was never any point during the season last year. where you could say our team didn't show up to play. I would agree with that. And I'm proud of that. That's a testament to the type of people we have. And we fought. We were in games, you know, those games that got away from us because we did some dumb things. We turned the ball over too much.

There's too many penalties. And so we refocused on all those things over the course of this entire off season. It's been a huge point of emphasis for us. But the makeup of the team, which is even in Cincinnati, it was the same way. I mean, we came out of that year knowing that we had the right. makeup, we just need to add more players. And I think that's where we're at now. We've added more players. We got the right makeup. This team likes each other. They like being together. They like to compete. And I know when we go play on Sundays, they're going to play and they're going to play hard

and we're going to play physical. And look, if we don't win the game, we don't win the game. But if we can eliminate the things that lost us the games over the course of last year, especially the close games, we should be in a much better position. Well, when you go back and, you know, like, I watch y'all play all year. Like there's games where it's like, it's a young team you're at that stage in the build but like you could make it it's always powerful when you show a team you're like look how close you were to be in you know nine and eight or 10 and seven or whatever it is like i thought y'all pissed joe burrow off worse than anybody you see the netflix documentary he looked mad didn't he was mad he was mad for sure but there's like

i hate moral victories as much as you do but like they are they demonstrate something about where the team can be yeah and i think I think if I felt like, you know, the team had had any sort of like fracture or tap out or anything like that, that would have been disappointing. But what encourages me for where we're at and where we've grown over the course of a year, and now we're year two in all of our systems and we're year two with a lot of our veteran players is I know what I know what they are. I know what we're going to look like. And I'm really confident in the style of play. And I'm confident in how we play with our systems. And then again, we've got to go do it. That's that standoff.

all, you know, we got to go show up. But there's a lot of things that I'm encouraged by when it comes to the type of leadership we have, the type of players we have, and then we got to play a better brand of football than we did a year ago and not lose games. We lost too many games last year. And that's been a pretty strong emphasis for us over the course of the offseason program and training camp. I want to ask you about working for John Gruden.

This is all my, does he really, what times does his alarm go off in the morning? Is he really? That's a real thing. I mean, he gets up early and he's in the office by, you know, four o'clock. Yeah. That's a real thing. That's who he is. He's always been out. So y'all are, y'all coaches, man, respectfully, are some of the unhealthiest people on the planet? I mean, like, how many hours of sleep are y'all doing here in this building? You know, I do try to, I have done it long enough and I've gotten more efficient over the years.

There's just certain things that take time. Yeah. And there's just time on task and it does require a lot of time. But, I have definitely worked really hard at the keeping yourself healthy. There's something about the right amount of sleep that matters. Because I learned some lessons early in my career too where you spend two nights in the week at the office and you're up until two in the morning and you get on the field and you're worthless. You're gasped. You're not thinking. Yeah.

And that's the most important part, right? Being in the meeting room and teaching and being on the field. So I've certainly adapted how I operate over the years. I'm not a real morning person. I get, I get, you know, I'm like a 630, 645 guy, but I can go late if I need to. I can do the night time routine, but I try to keep it, I try to keep at least reasonable. Well, that's good. It's good to hear your normal human being at the end of the day because, like, Jeff Fisher, he used to do sleep in Thursdays.

He'd surprise us with one every now and again, and dudes would go nuts. He'd announce it, and dudes would go nuts. Because sleep is a weapon. Let's see what we talk about, like, rest and recovery for your team. How do you build out your week late in the season still trying to get the work done? But get guys kind of back by Sunday. Do you have any like tricks of the trade that you've learned picked up over the years? I just I just think how you how your week ramps, you know, Wednesdays for us are generally a, especially by the end of the season.

They're almost become walk-through tempo. And then Thursdays are still like it's the longer practice. It's a hard day. It's usually when we do our pads. You know, the pads come off at a certain point anyway at that point in a year. Fridays are your traditional kind of fast Friday. And so you just, you have a small undulation in the week as far as ramp up to work, wrap down Saturdays your walk through and you roll to players as the year goes on and try

to get them out of the building a little earlier at every kind of as the weeks go by. So they're hopefully by the end of the year, you know, starting to get dark and all that stuff. And, you know, by 4 o'clock. And you try to get them out in that like 4 o'clock hour before dinner. Keep the mind fresh and keep their bodies fresh. But the rest is it's critically important. No question. I'm glad the coaches today.

paying attention to that. I think even the training camp schedules the way that we do it, you know, it's not what it used to be. No. And I was talking to Morgan Cox the other day, you know, he was, he was, he was giggling about the pre-CBA training camps. Only a few people know what a two-a-day was like. A real two-a-day. We were looking at, he had his old schedule from Baltimore and it was like the first off-day in training camp was after the first pre-season game. And that was like, it was like, it was like 15 days of two-a-day pads. And it's almost like, how these guys even make it out of camp? I don't know how my dad's generation did it. You know what I mean? Like, you know,

And, you know, it's every generation we get a little smarter. But I wonder if you notice when the pads come off later in the year, is there a group that you have to stay on a little bit more to maintain their technique? Yeah, I mean, the trenches is always going to be the one. Because there is something about the routine of practice and being in pads and the routine of it all. But there's that technique you can't lose. And it's more so like in pass protection and stuff with handles on the pads and strike points and all that stuff. that you don't get, which you're not wearing the pads.

So you've got to manage that a little bit. But hopefully by that point you played so much football that, you know, you don't have to do as much. That's it. Part of it is to the practice also goes in with your install. So if you have a core of something you're good at, you know, you can dress it up, but you're still doing the same things you've been doing for weeks and weeks and weeks. And so you don't necessarily have as much mental game planning strain

where you can go out and do some things with your eyes closed. Yep. No question. There's a balance. That's the mix. The older guys need less. The younger guys need more. You don't want to put the, it's like a dance.

Yeah. So last thing, when you look at your schedule and it comes out, like, what's the first thing you tend to look at as a head coach? And then also this year specifically what jumped out at you. Yeah. The first thing I look for is a short weeks. Yeah. When's your buy week?

When's the short weeks? Yeah. When's your, where are your stress points? Like, are you playing on a Monday night on the West Coast? Are you playing? You got a long travel. You know, how much travel do you have? Just the logistical stuff first.

But then I always just look at the first month. You know, I couldn't tell you who we play in December right now. Right. I just don't even, it doesn't matter. That's something that's for us media people. It doesn't matter. Yeah. I look at the first month.

Yeah. And, you know, where are you open and then what's that first month look like? Because that's where you're trying to find out everything about your team, too. Is it, you know, what kind of team do you have and what kind of challenges you're going to face early? And we face two really, really stiff challenges at Denver and home against L.A. Just to open the season and then back that up with two divisional games in the first month. So really excited about it. We're going to find out.

out who we are real fast. And it's going to be very challenging, but I'm excited about the challenge. That's the fun part. You know, going on the road to Denver, they got a heck of a team. And then coming back home against the Rams who are perennially in the playoffs and seeing Stafford still out there balling. It's unbelievable. He's almost our age. I know. He's still doing it. But yeah, so we- It must be the mattress. You know he's in these mattress commercials. I got to get that mattress. I got to get the mattress too. Coach, I appreciate you so much. spending time with us.

Good luck this year, man. I'm going to go see that sled in a couple minutes. I can't wait. Are you going to film it? Are you going to film it? Yeah, we're going to film it. We'll send it to you. I can't wait.

They keep sending me big guys here. We had Jeffrey Simmons and now J.C. Latham. How's it going, man? It's going good, man. Excite to be here. How's it? I'm surprised the hat fits your head, dude. That's fucking amazing.

That's amazing. That's cool. You see that, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You feel cool out there in camp probably. Yeah.

Like the hair on your ears or your neck. man, when you get a good haircut? It took a while to get used to it. Every time I put my helmet on, when you have dread, you kind of got to put it to the back. So whenever I had a helmet on, after I got my haircut,

I keep trying to do that, and I had to realize I don't got hair no more. Looks good, man. And coach was saying you lost some weight this off. You've been honing in on the nutrition and all that stuff. So that's awesome, man. I mean, and also, I just want to say,

as a guy who preferred playing left end, I totally understand the difference between left and right tackle. 100%. And when I used to, and I'm not saying you didn't look good at left tackle, but when I'd go over to right end,

I felt sometimes like totally out of whack. Yeah, yeah. How much better do you feel at right tackle and how you were training with Dan Moore and then he called just like, hey, I'm coming out there. Yeah, that was a funny time. Yeah, so first talking about, you know,

the position change. Yeah. When Dan got the call, I think I had known for about literally like a week or two. Yeah. And, you know, it's a whole bunch of guys there, Rashad Slater, Peter, Skronsky, everybody's there. So, you know, I'm trying to, excuse me, so I'm trying to really, like, communicate with the guys, pick their brains.

Trey Smith, he just got off, you know, the Super Bowl loss to the Eagles. So I'm just picking everybody's brains about how their seasons were and the successes and, you know, things that they wish they would have done differently, especially going in the year, too. And then, you know, I was rocking with Dan. He was more of an outgoing person. I always had a smile in his face. Really cool, dude. And one day he just wasn't there. So I was kind of like, you know, make sure he was all good.

And that's when they're like, oh, yeah, he's actually, you know, taking a visit to Tennessee to see if it's a fit and, you know, see if he gets a contract. And then two days later, he shows up. He's like, yeah, I'm coming over there. And he's like, yeah, so you got to play right now. So I was like, okay, well, you know, finding out from him was pretty funny. It kind of sparked our relationship. So we started talking and hanging out a lot more. But, yeah, I mean, playing right, it's kind of like riding the bike again, especially having so much experience from college.

especially at that level of Alabama going against those guys. I mean, you know, it took me a little bit to get into the group of things. So obviously playing left from, you know, when I got drafted back in April, starting in May when we started OTAs all the way until January, playing left. You kind of everything is wired that way. And then so having to go back to right wasn't as easy a transition. But like I said, you know, if you don't ride a bike for a whole year, as soon as you hop back on and kind of just everything starts to flow.

Now, playing with Coach Bill, he has a. immense repertoire of things he wants you to do. So, you know, the mechanics and the movements were something I was trying to get used to, but the feel of it was there still. And then obviously just honing on my skills this all season. Bill's a legend in the O-line game.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm going out to see Bertha and Olga after this. Man, that's a beast right there. Yeah. And actually in Dallas, they have one similar, and it's like, it's not as tilted. So I remember pushing it for the first time and I messed up and everybody's saying, oh, you do this all the time over there in Tennessee? I'm like, nah, the one over there is not the same.

The one over there is hunched over. You got to get underneath it to drive it. This one's a little easier. Yeah. I got a shot. Yeah. I might do my back out there. So I'm hoping to get workers' comp or something.

So back to the diet thing. Are you a pescatarian? Did I hear that? Well, I didn't transition fully. But originally when I got on the diet, it was pestatorian, basically, like a whole bunch of fish. This shit gets old. It does, but I mean, my chef was amazing.

A good chef. Yeah, so he, you know, shout out Connor because he just, he did such a great job at keeping everything fresh. I'll halibate, trout, salmon, you know, whatever it might be, finding new ways to, you know, be creative with it. I know one thing that he, so I don't like sweep, I don't like sweet potatoes before. And the first meal he made for me had sweet potatoes in it. And it was, it was amazing. And I knew, like, I was like, okay, we can, I can rock with this. And then he even took it to.

the next step to make me like a protein bowl with like a lot of sweet potatoes in it. I'm like, all right. I know you can make it good, but I don't know if I'm like that much sweet potatoes. And even then, like, it was off the chain. We were sleeping on sweet potatoes, bro. Right. I was. I mean, it was never, like, I guess I don't know.

Maybe it was the fast food chain or whatever, wherever I was at when I tried it, like the sweet potato fries. I never liked it. I never did. Good ones. Right. But when he made the sweet potatoes, just like, whatever it might be how he made it. I mean, it blew me away. And, you know, and he also made something called, um, smell.

Cache cauliflower is kind of like a texture of smashed potatoes but or potatoes, but only cauliflower. So it's a lot healthier for you. So, yeah, I mean, he's so creative and, you know, he makes healthy kind of fun and enjoyable a lot. So, you know, I love him. I need his card, man. Yeah, he just opened up his Instagram. So I got to.

All right. Shout out. Yeah. So you're also a dude that you don't wear gloves, do you? I did. I did now, but I didn't before. You didn't before? Yeah.

What, like, what, because to me, I'm always like, you know, that's psycho shit, dude, like this guy, I'm like, this guy's crazy. Yeah. You know, like, when I see a guy's not wearing gloves, I'm like, man, that's, that's, he might be a sicko. Like, like, what changed for you where you were like, I got to get some gloves? Yeah. But for one, in college, it was kind of just me covering a guy up and just, you know, once I got my hands on them, it was pretty much over with. So it wasn't a lot of, you know, hand, hand fights and counters and everything there. in the NFL with a level of talent that obviously have risen,

it required me to use my hands a lot more. And then, you know, if you're using your hands a lot more, a lot more chance for things to get scratched or cut or bruised, whatever it might be. And I remember we joint practice with the Seahawks. And up until this point, I didn't wear gloves. And I remember I went to strike somebody and my hand got just completely cut up down the middle of my finger.

And it was pretty bad. And I, like, bending it started to hurt. So then they were like, it's why you got to wear gloves. Yeah, so I started wearing gloves then. I feel good though. Whenever it rains, I use it as my excuse to take the gloves off. That's the only time it sucks. Yeah.

It's when it's raining. What do you think is the hardest thing about learning to use your hands at the pro level? I just think kind of, we call it, we have a drill for it. So we call it catch the fly. I think, you know, with guys are moving so fast, you have to have the, not only the hand speed, but the anticipation and also just the gauge of knowing, you know, where your strike distance. is to be able to, you know, strike a guy and land it.

And, you know, his speed rush is extremely hard because, you know, since they're a speed rusher, they don't want to be touched. So, you know, you're not really going to get a knockout blow if you try to punch them. But a guy who, you know, rushes with power, you can get that knockout blow. So, you know, gauging your punches, knowing that if you're going against a speed guy, you might not get that kill shot on them. So you might have to hit them one time and then refit and keep going and play like there. If it's a power guy knowing that you have to time it up just right to stop his power

because if you throw too late, you know, you might get a little pushback in the pocket. So just the different, I guess, moves and mechanics that you can do with hand flow in it, especially. Have you had a welcome to the NFL moment yet? Yeah, I said I had a couple. Yeah, it's usually a couple. I remember having a couple. One of them, I remember it was against Jeff, but it was against AK, but Jeff kind of caused it. So in college, like, you didn't see a lot of stunts in college.

Some teams, you know, like Georgia, LSU, whatever it might be, they might, you know, have a more, but it wasn't never to the degree, like, where you had to, I mean, you watch it and you can pick it up just like that. Yeah, they're easy stuff. Exactly. And the NFL, it's a plethora of things that teams do. Some teams like to blitz and bluff, whatever it might be. Some teams like to have designated blitzers, designated pressures, especially in certain areas. So you really got to hone into all of that. But coming from college, like I said, whenever it was a Y3, there was a high chance.

it was stunt. Yeah. So I would like, I would drag hand and, um, pick up the T.E. and boom, stunts over.

Um, my coach would tell me all the time, Bill, he was like, man, don't drag hand, don't drag hand. Cause not only does it slow you down,

um, you just worry about getting on the end and the guard will snap it off. And, uh, me being a rookie, you know, thinking I, I knew what was coming.

I dragged hand and Jeff grabbed my arm and pulled it towards him. And AK just rushed straight up the field. Yeah. That's, that's such a good. It was a really smart, really smart move because I was leaving it out there. And so that was kind of my, like, you know, welcome to him. Don't fall for the coffee house.

You know the coffee house. They drop and then act like they dropped and then they blew it. Or the game where Jalen Carter did it in Philly at the end of the playoff game where, you know, you look up and all of a sudden you think they're running games. And he just goes right out. All right. All right. So last thing, one word answer. Cam Ward's personality in one word.

And one word. I probably have to say influential. That's probably the best word that I can describe it. Influential for sure. That's damn good. It's good to be influential. You got to be a leader. Hey, have a great year, man. Thanks for taking the time. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure been here. All right. I'm here with Titans general manager, Mike Borgonzi. We just spent a lot of time outside kind of watching practice. And I guess my first question is always, what is a GM do in camp, Dave? day to day. Do you feel like the hay's in the barn and now you're observing or what's your what's your kind of day to day out here? Yeah, I mean we're still evaluating the roster right now but you know right now we're, I've been watching preseason film here for the last two weeks just kind of buried in that, just watching every team, every player, you know, compare them to what we have in the roster right

now. You kind of do the mock 53s, what you practice squad is going to look like and then it's just you know a whole pro department's watching all these teams right now. So it's a lot of tape work right now. Yeah. What would you consider the dog days of being a GM? Like what part of the calendar? The dog day? I mean, it's probably right before the draft, you know. Right before the draft, for sure.

Yeah. That's, uh, you know, it's, I always say like in personnel, it's, it's a marathon. Yeah. I mean, it's the whole year. And then you get through with the regular season, you know, hopefully you get in the playoffs, but it's right into free agency, college all-star games, draft. And then, you know, cycle starts over right after the draft. So, yeah.

It's fun though. I wouldn't want to do anything else. So for the people listening, he doesn't have a Nashville accent. He's actually from a town over from my pops. Yeah. And Mass. So we were talking about Foxborough and that sort of stuff. He's got a history in Kansas City.

We'll get to that in a minute. But I just, I'm really, you know, I get interested with, you know, when you're doing joint practices as you've been for the past like 10 days, you're all on the road doing that. I'm sure that's really helpful for you. It's helped for the players. They get different looks, that sort of thing. What do you as a GM want to get out of that? Well, you want to see the, I mean, you know,

you get into the dog there's a camp and you're going against each other all the time. And you go there to do the joint practices. The competition picks up a little bit, right? Yeah. You want to see them versus different people. And then you also get a chance to evaluate the other team, too. I mean, where they're doing that as well. But, you know, we really didn't do,

Andy didn't do it in Kansas City, the joint practices. So really, I think I had one before that. It was 2010 when Todd Hill. was there with Arizona. But this was like the first time I've actually been through the joint practices on the road. So I thought it was great though. Yeah. What was Andy's thinking? He was like, you know, I think Andy just kind of wanted to get his work in. He didn't really want anything to really disrupt the practice what he was doing. So I think that was his approach. And he's been doing it for so long. And, you know, I think that's, it's work for him, obviously. So absolutely.

What's the dance leading up to a preseason game when it comes to, and one of the hardest things about being the media, and I'm sure, you know, certainly your job is sometimes not knowing how long they're going to play their ones or when the twos are going to come in and who are ones are going to be working against. Is that a conversation that you can kind of collaborate with the other coaches, especially in joint practice? Do you know what's coming? Or is it always a surprise? Yeah, no, I think Coach Callahan, you know, it talks to those guys with joint practices. knowing like is the first group going to go out now Atlanta they had enough work with their first group so but for us you know you know obviously with cam the rookie quarterback and a lot of new pieces I think the more repetitions in a game like atmosphere I mean so it really depends on the team

I think too but especially for us those those reps are invaluable for a rookie quarterback as well so yeah and and you know I kind I kind of wonder like at what point in camp for different positions you start to feel like you have a handle on the thing. I mean, like, you've been in this a long time back in my day. You know, when we had two a days and we had longer camps and that sort of thing, I feel like, you know, you probably had as a talent evaluator a longer runway to figure out what you got. Yeah. You know, is there a point in camp now where you're like, all right, I know what I have?

And does it vary positionally because they have different development rates? Well, for me, I mean, this is my first time with this team in camp. Yeah. So, of course, you watched them on film last year, but you want to see how they compete and practice. And so for me, it's been really the whole camp. Now, it's a little different when I was in Kansas City, where we had a lot of continuity.

Yeah. A lot of the same guys back every year, because we had the rookies and some free agents every once in a while. But, you know, it is a little harder though now, just especially, you know, with the less padded practices, we don't have doubles anymore. For me, it's like I'm evaluating this team, this roster, right up until the last cut for me.

Mm-hmm. With the quarterback, Cam Ward, I mean, that's obviously so much goes into making that decision. It's kind of like a franchise altering thing one way or another. And so there's a lot of pressure on him in year one. And when you guys had Mahomes in Kansas City, he had the luxury of waiting a little bit, but Cam's going to play. What do you think the most important consideration is when it comes to being ready

for week one with these young quarterbacks? Well, I think you want to make sure you have the protection right. So, you know, in terms of the offensive line, I think we did that in free agency. You know, getting Dan Moore, you know, was a proven guy for, you know, four years in Pittsburgh and then moving J-C to the right, we got Zitler. It was 35 years old. Stud.

It's a stud. So protection number one, and then just, you know, for these guys come out of college, it's just like, can they spit the play call out? Yeah. Can they get in the huddle, look these guys in the eyes and have confidence that they know what they're doing? Yeah.

And then all the different protection calls with these young quarterbacks. You wanna make sure they're ready for that. And I think it's been great going against Denard's defense. You know, went to, you know, with Todd and Tampa and then Rahim and Atlanta, seeing all these different pressure looks. So just making sure that they're ready for all that. And there's always going to be stuff that pops up that they're going to have to learn on the fly.

Yeah. But you want to just make sure they have the mental part of the game down first before they get in that huddle week one. Talk about what you love about Cam Ward and his maturity and that sort of thing. but when you watch this tape before you get to know the person yeah what made you fall in love with the player well i think it was you know the arm talent you know he certainly had that um the arm angles um and you know he had this great like spatial awareness too we got to throw guys open and and you know i would be careful to compare him to pat but yeah um but you know some of the

physical abilities the arm strength some of the spatial awareness stuff um really jump jumped out to me when I started to watch him. And then, you know, I hadn't really met him because we were in the quarterback market in Kansas City here. So my first off. That's an area you're a little rusty on. We were good there. So, of course, I watched them in the fall. I'd watch all these quarterbacks and was intrigued by him.

And then when I got in here, you know, I watched them, went back, watched all his game in Miami, Washington State. He went back to Incarnate Word, watch those games as well. And then Cali did the same thing with his staff, too. And then we kind of get together before the combine's like, you know, I think this is the guy, but we haven't met him yet. So first opportunity was at the combine to meet him. And, you know, you can tell he's a confident kid. And he was smart. You can tell, you know, he's had a lot of reps in college.

Right. That's the thing. With a rookie, say, linemen or whatever, I remember being a high pick and being an edge player and, you know, you walk in and you let the veterans lead. You try to figure your end of the bargain out. Yeah. But it's like when you're a quarterback, you have to lead. You know, it's like, I don't care if you're 21 years old. You've got to walk in and lead.

What are the things that you've specifically seen from him out there on the grass to tell you he's ready to jump down some guy's shit or get somebody lined up? Yeah, I mean, I've seen it now. But I think the thing about Cam is he's got good awareness. So he knew that he had to come in and prove himself first. You know, prove himself is the work ethic. You know, he was every day in the off season at 5, 5.30 in the morning with these guys. And then once he got in the huddle, these guys could tell that he's been put in the work.

You know, he could line guys up. He knew the play calls. So, and then as, you know, as we got through camp here, he started taking a lot of reps with the ones here. You know, then I think he began to, you know, start to lead at that point. You know, he's always had that in him, obviously. But I think he was smart enough to know that, listen, I got to prove myself to these guys. I don't know what I'm doing here first. And I think he's done a nice job with that.

Is there something that, like, you really want to ask a quarterback when you get into those pre-draft meetings? Like, is there like a non-football question that's like indicative of character or something like that where you're trying to glean what type of person the quarterback is? Is there an avenue you go down? Yeah, it's kind of the leadership part. You know, how do you get guys, how do you pull guys along? That's the biggest thing. And a lot of the times it's how they, how they can create relationships with other guys in the team,

not just the offensive side of the ball, it's a defense side of the ball. And that was the thing that we learned with Cam was that the guys loved them, both sides of the wall. And that's an important part. You can have all the physical tools in the world if you can't lead at that position, it's hard. Yeah, I hear he's like Jeffrey Simmons fishing buddy.

I saw that on Instagram. I was like, so you're like, They fishing next to the facility here? I'm not sure with it. Yeah. But how important is it, too, to, like, you talk about the protection. I also think about, like, when you guys sign Lockett, in my mind, I'm like, okay, that makes a lot of sense.

Not only can the guy play, find soft spots in zones, heady player, but, like, he's going to be a really positive influence. Yeah. I mean, I've known Locke for a long time, and we did a lot of work on him, coming out of Kansas State and just knowing the type of guy is, you know, and for us is, you know, lock knows that it's that second play sometimes. And a lot of these quarterbacks now, it is a second play. They scramble and get open.

And you saw Lockett doing that. You know, he's done it through his whole career with Russell. Yeah. And he was still doing it last year on tape. So we thought that would be just a good calming, present veteran type guy that he could have trust in. And how about the rookies? You got D.K. and I omenr.

Yeah. Am I saying his name right, guys? I was starting. I'm in. Yeah. These rookies are getting harder and harder to, you know what I mean? So, yeah, where's this is the Smiths of the world? But these guys, how are they looking in training camp?

I mean, you know, and what do you want to see out of a young wide receiver? They look good so far. You know, it's like any other rookie they're learning every day. But I tell you what, this rookie class is the way they've come in and worked from day one and OTAs and prepared. Yeah. So it's like this, you want to see the guys like assignments. Like are they putting the work in, you know, watching the tape?

And that's what's been impressive about. to me about these guys, even Garner Helm, a tight end. These guys are prepared. And the veterans take notice of that as well, as you know. So they continue to get better. But, you know, as we go along here, we're just looking for more growth with them. But they're going to be in the mix here. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's exciting the prospect of everybody growing up together. Yeah. You know, that's got to really mean something. Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, even when, you know, I know Kelsey had been in the league for a few years before Pat got there. But having guys like, you know, Kels and Tyreek

and that connection they had for years. Yeah. That takes time, that type of rapport. And to bring these guys in together, same class, is exciting for that, you know. Yeah, no question. I mean, like, if things work out, it's like you've got this five, 10-year run with guys.

Yeah. It's exciting. You've got a number of guys from, obviously, you got your Jeffrey Simmons of the world, Mississippi State Machine down there. And then you've got your small, school guys and one of the most notably who we talked about is one of my favorite players in lead Ligerius Sneed who goes you know Louisiana Tech you find him in the third round you talked about how

much Spags loved him yeah I don't blame him and and um I kind of wonder what are the considerations when you are scouting a guy at a smaller school as opposed to you know like howie roseman he's just looking at the Georgia and Bama rosters I don't think he's doing anything else in Philly like that's he's like oh okay these teams are good? I bet there's good players of these teams. What's your count? He's picking the right ones. Yeah. Well, he's picking enough of them, even if one doesn't work out, he's like, oh, we're still pretty good. What's the calculus for you when you're like, when you're walking into a smaller school and looking at a guy? It's the athletic traits. Yeah. Can these guys develop? Can they get,

you know, if it's an offense and defense alignment, can they get bigger? Yeah. Um, you know, you know, if they're at, you know, if we get them in the league, can we, can we get them on a meal plan where they're, you know, they're in every day, you know, with the nutritionists getting getting bigger. And it's really the traits that you look for. Like Ligarius was long and fast. Right. And he played corner.

You played safety. And he was smart. And, you know, you saw the upside there with them. There's a lot of those mid to late round picks sometimes when you're going through those smaller schools, you're looking for traits. Yeah. We had Duvene, offensive lineman there out of McGill at one time. We drafted them in the fifth round, I think.

But you could see the traits, but the doctor? The doctor. Hell yeah. Yeah. But you could see the traits with them coming out and like, you know, and it's developing. And you draft the guys, you need to develop them, especially with those small school guys. You know, there's so much more room to grow.

Yeah. And if you have those physical traits and you have good coaching, you know, you can get those guys to reach the ceiling. Yeah. Yeah. So you kind of look at it a little bit more glass half full. with the guys. Yeah. Because, hey, shoot, they could be eating 500 calories a day. Yeah. You know, messed up, you know, strength and conditioning may be set up. Like, you just never know. Yeah.

It's, um, some of these schools have like GA's coaching the positions now, you know, so, you know, the coaching, all that. It's always nice to see them at an all-star game. Yeah. If they're senior bowl or east-west or like that, just to see them at just up a level of competition, but yeah, you, you want to see them in the, in the, in the senior bowl or whatever. But, And Aladejo, we talked a little bit about, you know, your edges and that sort of thing. And your defensive line is one of the strengths, in my opinion, of this team. And if you can get him to play well, man, like, all bets are off, that's going to be fun. What do you look for in a young edge guy?

And what do you think the biggest learning curve is for a rookie end? I feel like I know what I remember, but what do you see? Yeah, you know, it's a lot. Now I face an NFL tackles here. Yeah. You can go, some of these guys go, even the big calls. colleges, you know, they're facing a lesser tackle. I might have four or five sacks versus them.

And I'll start to see the stats there and they got, you know, 12 at the end of the year. But now they're going against NFL tackles. And just like, you know, learning that rush plan takes a while. And so like with a guy like Femi, who, you know, fourth game of the year at UCLA, he was playing Mike lineback and then they moved him to the edge. But we saw out of Femi was, you know, he's got 34 inch arms, big, strong, relentless, can play with power. So we knew right away, you know, this guy's going to be able set the edge.

He's going to have some long arm power. But now it's just about, you know, the more reps you get and study and tape against these tackles and learning all that and the hand usage. You know, it's tough for these. I think it all starts with power, though. That's what I always look for. And some of these guys, now some guys have the freakish get off and bend. It's so rare, though. It's rare.

It's rare that somebody's going to win with that fastball. Right. It's like Von Miller. And even Von Miller. Yeah. There's a lot of power in his game that comes off to speed. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So I'm always looking for, you know, can the guy win down the middle first? Yes. And then, and then are they relentless? Yeah. And then can they improve their rush plan. Yeah. What do you think the most valuable, I mean, like, without giving the secret sauce away at the combine, which is always like something people talk about. Yeah. Like which drills mean a lot, which drills don't. Yeah. Like for defensive linemen, because I have opinions as well, what do you think the metrics are that are the most indicative of success at the combine? For D. Lyman,

Um, you know, it's, it's a lot of the, uh, the changes the footwork too. You want to see, you know, they have feet. Yeah. Footwork drills. Um, you know, the short shuttle we use with defensive alignment a lot. Um, even the, the, the vertical, you know, and the, in the broad, just seeing the power. Yeah. I think broad jumps great.

Yeah. I think the broad jump is always a good one to go out. Yeah. Sometimes you can cheat that vertical sometimes. Oh, yeah. I tried to cheat the vertical. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know about this? With you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know about this? No, so I thought you were almost like, hey, I remember when you cheated the vertical. So in my year, you know how they measure you?

They measure you, they jam your arm against the wall. Like, hey, like, let's see how tall you are. So I measured without gloves. And then I had a glove with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a little tissue paper at the end of it. Yeah, yeah. And then I threw the glove on. And then he busted me right before I went to job. They're like, hey, long, where'd that glove come from?

And I was like, I was like, I. You know, kind of sheepishly took it off. But I still jump 34, I think. So, you know. So it really 32. Well, yeah. But that's really like a 37, if you know what I mean, for me. Yeah.

So, but that, that to me, the broad jumps big. And then the 10 yard burst, obviously. Yeah, it's really the 10 yards you're looking for, really. Yeah. And you're not looking at the 40 for these guys. It's the explosion. I'm glad they're not, because I don't know if I would have been picked. Yeah.

Looking at the damn for. You don't like, yeah, I mean, it's really the 10. I'm not running down a lot of screens on the other side of the field. I'll be in the picture. So, so, you know, help me with one thing here because I'm doing my FC South previews and, you know, not having played in the back end, it's the position I'm learning the most about post-foot post-football career. Yeah. And so I always have to take a little more time on the corners.

Help, help brother out. And what's your corner room look like? What's the situation look like right now? I think Sneed came off here today, PUP. So he's just starting back. And we all know what the player LJ is, so hoping to get him back here at full strength. And then Jarvis Brownlee was a kid

that drafted here last year. And he's really taken a step. Yeah. And he's had a really nice camp here. He's playing in the outside. You can also play in the nickel. You know, Baker, who they had here last year, you know, tall, long,

corner with speed. And then we drafted Marcus Harris, kid out of Cal, and the sixth. And Marcus got some versatility. You can play outside, can lay inside. You know, he's smart, heady. So, you know, feel good about it. We, you know, hoping to get LJ back here full strength. And some of these young guys, I'm excited to see them and they've been developing, which is a good thing. When you say Brownlee made the jump, what specifically is he doing a better job of? Just technique, really? Technique at the line of scrimmage. I discipline a lot of the times, for these young guys. And just the more reps he has at it.

But really, it's just more the technique and the eye discipline for me has really stood out for his growth this year. Yeah, you spend a lot of time with Andy watching him build that program. And he's probably a little bit more involved than most head coaches, right? You're gonna spend a lot of time with him

talking about the roster and that sort of thing. What's the biggest thing you learned about programmatic building in Kansas City? Is it just draft Patrick Mohn's? It's a lot more than that, isn't it? We have, you know, we playoff team there. Yeah, hell yeah, no, I know. Alex, you guys turn Alex Smith.

And Alex Smith, I got a lot of respect for Alex Smith. Yeah, the best. You know, great guy, good quarterback, man. And also Andy had his just chapter in Philly. So it's not just Mahomes, but what is it about that program they beat, they built in Kansas City? I think it's about, you know, trying to get the, it's the culture that Andy builds there where he's, you know, it's a little bit different. different from places I've been, there's a level of respect for everybody in the organization, number one.

He's demanding, but he's fear in that regard. He listens to everybody. And then getting the right type of people, not only the players, but the coaches, personnel staff, people in the building. Like he wouldn't tolerate people that weren't about the team. And if you weren't about the team, you wouldn't be there very long, whether you're a player, coach, front office, you know, person. So that's really the biggest thing I took.

for him, just like the attention of detail that he had for everything. And I remember my, my, I was a pro scout when I first came in and, uh, I get into the the room with the offensive staff and I'm presenting, you know, the weak opponent, you know, for the band scouting. And, and I'm kind of nervous in there. It's, you know, Andy Reid and, you know, and, you know, I'm giving him my evaluations of the players and different schemes and I see him writing stuff down. Yeah.

You know, and I'm like, I. This guy's a first ballot hall fame coach, and he's listening to this young pro-scuad. And that, like, that really, you know, that really hit home for me. Like, you know, respect everybody in the organization. Everybody has a piece of it. So it's all these little things. It's hard to describe culture, and you've been part of, you know, two championship teams, and it's always a little bit different every place.

There's a little different culture. Yeah, a little different spin on it. But they got a lot in common. A lot in common. It's, at the end of the day, it's all about the, team and what's best for the team. Yeah. And those are the things that I really took from Kansas City and worked with Andy.

He said on our pod that he took a play from a janitor. So he was definitely listening to you. He was taking place from janitors. It's unbelievable. Well, Mike, I appreciate it. Yeah, thank for it. Good luck this year. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Thanks for coming out.