Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Deep dive: Why Gary Kubiak's offense works for the Vikings

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Sage and Matthew Coller break down the Kubiak offense into five parts to explain its success. The running game, personnel, play-action, screens and timely play calling.  Why does Kubiak's offense need the run game to set up the passing attack? How do the Vikings use bigger personnel groups to gain mismatches over defenses? Why has Kirk Cousins been so successful with Kubiak's play-action scheme?  Make sure you read Matthew Coller's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Hey everybody, welcome into another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar with you. And I want to remind you to go to purpleinsider.com. That's where you can subscribe to all of my written work covering the Minnesota Vikings. And if you could rate and review this podcast, that would be a major, major help. It allows other Vikings fans to find this podcast when they go searching and type in Vikings in whatever podcast app they're using. If you rate and review, this will be the first

one that comes up. So it is greatly appreciated. All right, we welcome in former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels. What is new, Sage? 93 degree heat in Omaha is new with serious winds last night. I thought my house was going to blow over, obviously. Living in Omaha has been interesting for me because I'm not from this part of the country, I'm from eastern Iowa. And I feel like if I just go on the interstate and I look at the the flags at like the car dealerships like the big American flags that they always have and if it's coming from the north it's like 35 degrees if it's coming from the south it's like 95 degrees it's just like you know it's coming from North Dakota or it's coming from Texas and Oklahoma and so you've got those Oklahoma winds and it is uh it is steamy uh in Omaha. And I just got done mowing my yard, which is a very sweaty and dirty job in the summertime.

Well, I make it a priority to not complain about the heat at any point when living in Minnesota, even though it does get really hot. And even though it gets really humid at times, i'm just not ever going to bring up not enjoying it because you know the winter time uh the wind does drive me crazy because then i can't play basketball outside without the three-pointers flying all over the place so well it's like white man can't jump you gotta judge that wind like at dennis beach with wesley snipes and and woody harrelson you gotta judge the wind you know I can if it's at my back, but if it's swirling, then it just ruins the entire experience.

So I, too, have not been able to go out for a couple of days because of how windy it is to play basketball. So a hard life that I'm living in. You know, since this is a football show and we're talking about the wind, let me tell you, as a former quarterback, I was not good at throwing in windy conditions. Like the more your ball, your football like rotates, the more it spins, the better it fights through the wind.

So it's not necessarily always like a strong arm. It's a lot of times it's how many rotations can you get. And I just wasn't a quarterback. Like Peyton Manning gets very few rotations, as you know, on a lot of his throws. Eli was great from that aspect. Other than other guys, the ball really spins and cuts through the air. And when I would go into a game, there was always like –

there was the magic three that always like sort of freaked me out. There was wet, like if it snowed or it was raining, that's bad for a quarterback. The wind is bad for a quarterback. And then the cold, like, and then there's the trifecta, which is like 38 degrees, windy, cold, and like sleeting and raining or whatever. That is just the worst scenario to throw in. So as a quarterback, you know, playing in Miami for four years, that was big for me.

Playing Houston for three, and particularly Houston being in the AFC South, Jacksonville, Nashville, you know, not cities. And obviously Houston, you know, not cities with terrible weather. And then coming up to the Vikings and playing in a dome, you know, half the year and going to Detroit for at least a game. It is amazing how much wind does affect a quarterback and their stats as they play in their career. Like, I don't know how good Drew Brees is if he has to play in Buffalo his whole career. I'm sure he's still a great player, but I highly doubt he puts up the type of stats that he puts up in that Superdome. I always wondered about that because every year around draft time, especially with a place like Buffalo, they'll talk about, well, you know, this guy's got huge hands and a big arm, so he should be able to throw in the swirling winds. But you have huge hands,

and you had a big arm, and yet it was a problem. I never thought of it as being the rotation of the ball that can help you throw in the wind because there are some guys where it just doesn't seem to matter at all. Yeah, some guys in the tightness of your spiral. I mean, that's – and some guys have – you know, it is amazing that Peyton Manning, one of the great quarterbacks of all time, probably threw half of his touchdown passes with some sort of wobble on the football. He just wasn't – you know, like Warren Moon and some of the great throwers

of all time farb i almost never throw saw far throw a ball that wasn't a super tight spiral i remember mark trustman who was my quarterbacks coach in miami for a year uh former head coach of the bears uh he was the offensive coordinator for steve young uh for a year or two back going back to those 49er days he said i never saw steve Young not throw a perfect spiral and it's just the ball came out perfect every single time and other guys don't so yeah the bad weather it's got less to do with like strong arm and and those things are more to do with like just you know how the how the ball comes off your hands and those types of things and so you know you just rarely

see a great rowing quarterback in terrible conditions statistically and I think that even adds to the mystique of Tom Brady that he has done this playing in New England playing uh you know at MetLife Stadium where they got to go to the Jets playing in Buffalo uh he has not had uh the Drew Breeze type of weather or the Phillip Rivers type of weather Dan Marino I remember playing before we were playing the bills and drew blood. So was the quarterback for Buffalo at the time. And we're warming up, you know, it says like two and a half hours before the game getting loose. And,

and he was, I think he was playing catch with somebody next to me that I knew maybe it was like Kelly Holcomb or something. I was talking to Kelly and, and a blood. So it was like, man, Marino had it so good all these years, you walk out here and I'm already loose. Like, I haven't even thrown a ball, and I feel like I could play right now. You know, where in those colder weather games,

you feel like you have to keep your arm loose and your body loose or else you sort of freeze up, and you just can't throw the football with the effectiveness that you'd like to have as a quarterback. Of course you would be talking to Kelly Holcomb, another great journeyman who goes in the all-time great journeyman lists. The last quarterback for the Cleveland Browns to start a playoff game. That is right. And what a playoff game. What a Cleveland Browns-y playoff game that was. I remember it so well. I think he threw for 475 in the snow. Butch Davis, the head coach,

I believe. Yep, that's right. And obviously, Jim Couch was the actual quarterback, but then Kelly sort of led him to the playoffs, or I don't remember how the whole season went. Couch got hurt, I think. Yeah, but he was just on fire. Now, if it is snowing a little bit, or even sprinkling a little bit, and there's no wind, sometimes it's easier to throw a football. Like, the football gets a little bit and there's no wind sometimes it's easier to throw a football like the football gets a little bit of moisture on it gets a little bit of good gets a good grip to it um and

it's almost easier to throw a football with with then like super dry conditions which as we all know you get like in november uh december january in like the upper midwest it doesn't just get cold it gets dry but sometimes a little moistened in the air, like a little bit of snow. In that game, it was snowing, especially in the second half. I remember big snowflakes coming down and Kelly Holcomb was on fire in that football game in that playoff loss for the Browns. Well, I remember them being up by a couple of scores and I was working at McDonald's

at the time as a teenager and I left for work thinking, hey, that's so great that the Browns are going to win a playoff game. Awesome. They take down the Steelers. They just returned a couple of years ago, and then Kelly Holcomb. You know, I already loved journeyman quarterbacks by that point. And then I, you know, you didn't have Twitter to check at work. So five or six hours later, I returned from running a cash register at McDonald's to only find out that somehow the Cleveland Browns blew it. And I used

to play with them on those Madden games back then. So I knew all their players and I wanted them to win. And what a crushing memory that was. I remember being about, I think I was playing for the Dolphins and we were playing Buffalo andlly holcomb was started for them uh and i believe beat us um and uh i remember before the game playing you know warming up again and i remember looking over and he had like gray hair he was like 32 years old and he had like a lot of gray hair and i was maybe 26 or something going like man what is that why does kelly like not do something about when i was 32 i think i had just as much gray hair as kelly hokum i'm telling you that's what happens to you when you're a quarterback all the stress and anxiety and and all those things uh end up getting

to you i think and give a lot of quarterbacks that to make look like they're 45 years old and they're actually in their early 30s well let's talk about a man who was a backup quarterback who still has jet black hair and Gary Kubiak. And what I wanted to do today is – Do you think it's real? Do I want to say no? I mean, do I blame the guy if he wants to keep the jet black look? Right? He's got a great head of hair.

I am jealous. He does, but the thing was that it was a little bit of a different color, and it might have just aged well. I don't know. Because I was going back and watching some old NFL films and watching some old Denver Broncos. The NFL film yearbooks on the Denver Broncos teams when Kubiak is there, all so great.

And it looks like it may have changed colors a little bit throughout the years, but it was always a good main. I mean, he's still got the you know, the thickness to it. So congratulations to him. I hope I had the same thing. I'm starting to lose a little up top already. A little. You know, it's really interesting going back to those 49ers, you know,

teams and – I'm sorry, Broncos teams. But, you know, Kubiak came to the 49ers with Shanahan to the Broncos. And, you know, they won two Super Bowls. They were in the playoffs nearly every single year. Didn't matter even, you know, before and after Elway. And how long it took for Gary Kubiak, one of the most respected guys in the NFL, to get a head coaching job.

All these other coaches getting jobs. And I don't know if it was because, you know, Mike Shanahan was, I assume, mostly the play caller during a lot of that era. job all these other coaches getting jobs and I don't know if it was because you know Mike Shanahan was I assume mostly the play caller during a lot of that era um as like in the offensive coordinator slash head coach but Kubiak being the coordinator but it just sort of blows my mind now where you'll have a guy uh like with uh the Bengals uh where a guy's the quarterbacks coach uh just for Sean McVay. You know, he had that short time with Sean McVay, and he gets that head coaching job so quickly, and how long Gary Kubiak

had to wait to get his first shot as a head coach with the Houston Texans. And I think it's one of the reasons that Mike Zimmer and Kubiak connect on a lot of levels. I mean, you have the offensive guy who's been proven over many, many years, and the defensive guy, but both of them took a very, very long time to get their opportunity and then have taken advantage of it since they got that opportunity. Kubiak wins the Super Bowl, but also you look at the Houston Texans teams throughout those years and how much he got out of Matt Schaub and how good those offenses were, a consistently competitive team with Kubiak as a head coach. And then when you get Peyton Manning in Denver, it certainly helps you take it to the next level. But he's always been successful anywhere he's gone with his offenses outperforming expectations, and that was even for last year. And that's what I wanted to talk about on this episode, Sage, is why that is. Because we hear it, we see it, we look at the numbers, we say, wow, you know, Kirk Cousins, highest quarterback rating. Brianrian greasy was taking the playoffs jake plumber was abysmal

in arizona slash phoenix and then he goes to denver and there i think they made an afc championship game with him 2004 i believe right so so everybody performs better even joe flacco in 2014 with kubiak as his OC has one of his highest rated career years. So I've made a list of five reasons why that is, five things that play into Kubiak's success, and I want you to help me break them down. So let's get started. The first thing that I have is a creative run game. Now, we could talk about the merits of running the ball on, say, like second and 10, not the most efficient play. We talk about all the time how analytics always point toward, hey, you should be passing more. The expected points added are a lot higher. But the success

of Kubiak's passing game all starts with the running game. And where it really stood out to me last year compared to 2018, Sage, was what the offensive line is doing on run plays and how that works together with play action. Yeah, you know, it's interesting as we talk about Kubiak and also Zimmer. They're, you know, in a lot of ways they're different. Like they have definitely different personalities, but in a lot of ways they're the same. And they both have consistently over the course of their careers had good offenses and defenses. You know, is it Socrates or Aristotle that said, like, you are what you consistently

do? Is that right? Something like that? One of those guys? And those guys have both been consistently good. And Kubiak, I think, and I've always, when I played for him in 06, 07, and 08, and, you know, occasionally he would play catch with the quarterbacks. You know, when you play catch with Gary Kubiak,

you know you're not playing catch with Dan Marino or John Elway. You know, you're playing – he throws like the third-string quarterback on your team, you know. And he wasn't a great thrower of the football. He's not – he wasn't a great athlete. And so I think his mindset – and I always sort of thought this with like you know Jason Garrett who became a head coach and you know coordinator then head coach uh you know a lot of backup quarterbacks for some reason get into coaching and I think always have been pretty

good head coaches but they know how hard it is to play the position especially when you're not super talented like Gary wasn't you know he saw John John Elway and he knew for a fact he couldn't do what Elway could do. If there was a game that Gary had to play in, he didn't want to throw the ball 55 times. Elway was probably fine with it, but Gary didn't want to do that, right? So I think a guy like Gary Kubiak, he looks at an offense, he looks at a quarterback and does, how can I make the job easier for the quarterback? I don't know if there's a tougher job in sports than playing quarterback in the nfl um doesn't not necessarily athleticism but the actual job itself and the um the responsibility

that the ball touches your hands every single play and you have to make all the checks and audibles and the catastrophes that can happen. If you don't have the right quarterback, we all see bad quarterback play. We don't always see really good quarterback play. And I think Kubiak tried to make the job as easy as possible. And the easiest thing for a quarterback to do is the running game. And we brought up on our podcast and shows over the years, and in particular, like this last year as an example, that Dallas Cowboys game, you know, how the Vikings won that game in the fourth quarter was by handing the ball off. That's the easiest thing for Kirk Cousins to do. It was the easiest thing for John Elway to do.

And if you can make that job easier for a quarterback, instead of harder on a quarterback, you're giving yourself a better chance to be successful. And then what they do in the running game is they try to find ways to get – so if you look at a defense, everyone is responsible for a gap. You know, if you lined up everybody along the defensive line, the linebackers, all those things, you put them on the line next to the offense, everyone sort of has a gap along the line, A gap, B gap, C gap, D gap, et cetera. And if you can get somebody out of the gap, you have now basically created a hole in the defense.

And so what they try to do, especially with the outside zone, is to sort of outflank them and maybe get somebody reached to get a guard who has somebody on the outside of him and get across his face now he's out of that gap that he is responsible for. That defensive tackle is responsible for the gap between the tackle and the guard. Well, if you can reach him as a guard, he is no longer in that spot. And that's a lot of times where these big holes open up. It's not fancy. It's not punishing.

It's just it forces defenses to play sound gap defense. But then on top of it, the play action, the bootleg stuff, because the defense is so focused on being gap sounds, and then you don't actually hand the ball off. Now there are these big crevices and holes in the defense. And the easiest thing to do for a quarterback is to be out on the edge with no one around you, throwing to people who are wide open or even just fairly open, you know, and because again, the defense has to play that run scheme or in the play action type stuff, the defensive line isn't just rushing the quarterback, they have to play the run first too, which allows the quarterback to be back there for three, four or five seconds and actually have a chance to throw the ball deeper down the field.

The hardest thing to do, I always say in offensive football, the hardest thing to do is to drop back pass of all the things. The easiest thing to do is to run the ball if you can. And then after that, it's, you know, play action and three-step drop, get the ball out quick, even the screen, you know, and screens. Those types of things are all easy things for the quarterback to do. Easy completions. Can't really screw those up too much.

And if it's not there, you just throw a ball away and you move on to the next play. The hardest thing to do is, whether it's in shock or under center, to drop back seven steps, hold on the ball for four or five seconds, and try to find somebody down the field. It's hard for the offensive line. It's hard for the quarterback. And so in Kubiak's offense, he tries to minimize those types of plays. Got to tell you about a new sponsor for the show. It is SodaStick.

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Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. Yeah, and just to your point, that's where when you, if you do a little search on Pro Football Reference and look at who the best quarterbacks are on third down and long, it's usually the best quarterbacks in the NFL, the guys with the best arm, best accuracy, mobility, all those things, because that's the hardest spot, and that's where they truly shine. You can't paint over that, but you can avoid getting into those situations, and I think that that's something that the Vikings did tremendously well under Kubiak,

is you can only run play action when you're really able to run play action. If you run it on third and 12, that's not going to help you a whole heck of a lot, or second and 17 if you get sacked. But what the Vikings did last year is found themselves in second and four pretty often, or ran play action on first down. But I think if you have success on first down, it's just like one of those old school things that shines true forever, is that you might get the other team's base personnel in on a second and short if you get six or seven yards

and then you add a dynamic running back to the mix. It's worth putting a lot of emphasis on a creative and a successful running game and fitting your offensive line to work with the running game because it always seems to set you up in those situations to eventually run play action. And on top of it, we talk about the runs, as you're saying, a lot of second fours last year, but there's also a lot of second eights and second nines. And as those don't seem great, you wouldn't believe how many teams have second 13, second 14, you know, and where there's penetration by a defensive tackle or a linebacker shoots a gap and there's a three or four yard, you know, tackle for loss. And Kubiak and Kyle Shanahan, who is our offensive coordinator, you know,

he would talk about that, you know, runs of two are not failures. You know, we all, you know, they always say you want runs of four or five yards and you want that average, but runs of twos aren't necessarily bad because a run of two yards now leaves it second and eight. The next time you get a first down, you might fake the run and the defense has to play that gap because they want to stop the run first. And now you have a chance to throw the ball 40 or 50 yards down the field or even 20 yards down the field. So it's not about necessarily great runs it's about not having negative runs because there's nothing worse than second for the 13 14 or holding penalty so it's really a lot of

the emphasis of the offense is staying out of negative situations the second longs the third longs because you go third and 15 unless you have pat mahomes or russell wilson or maybe aaron rogers it's you know second 10 plus it's it's really really hard to get a first down it just is unless you have a really special quarterback so unless you have that which the vikings don't uh and kubiak has rarely had that in his career you have to minimize those long negative situations uh whether it's on second and third down or even first down, first and 20, those are bad too. So staying away from holding penalties, staying away from defensive penetration, and that zone scheme, the simplicity of it, sometimes I think is the

greatest strength because everyone really knows what they're doing. And they know all the ins and outs of that more basic scheme. And, you know, there's the element of, and so well used during those Rams years where they were the number one offense of making run plays look exactly the same as pass plays. So as you mentioned, you know, maybe one first and 10, you hand it off. And the next first and 10, it's the exact same look from everybody, except for this time it's a pass and the receivers leave the line of scrimmage the same, the offensive line blocks the same and the fact that they're moving laterally in the blocks a lot of times allows them to not you know get a legal man downfield or anything like that and give the true look of how they're

exploding out of their stances so when people say you know hey the running game doesn't matter anymore in the Kubiak offense it really does because that's how you get explosive plays, which we will touch on in a minute. But I want to shift to number two on my list, which is personnel mismatches. And Irv Smith played a role in this last year. The Vikings, the Ravens, and the 49ers are the only three teams that regularly used fullbacks or multiple tight ends. Almost every other team used three wide receivers more often. Now, part of that for the Vikings might have been personnel. They did not have three great wide receivers in it any time last year, and I'm sure that if they had Washington's receivers from the late 80s, they'd be playing Ricky Sanders and Art Monk and Gary Clark, but in this case, they don't have that, or if it was, you know, Jake Reed, Chris Carter, and Randy Moss, they'd be playing three

receivers, trust me, but in this case, they've got two tight ends that are useful a fullback that is useful and what that does sage is a lot of times it forces defenses to be in personnel packages that they're usually not in when they're playing every other team in the league that uses three wide receivers more often than fullbacks or tight ends. Well, and Kubiak looks at that second tight end position, both tight ends, but also that second tight end position as a mixed tight end slash you're sort of the slot receiver in a lot of ways, whether you're on the line of scrimmage or you're, you know, four or five yards from the tackle out in the true slot, that second tight end has to be sort of a hybrid player. And, you know, the thing about with the Vikings tight end has to be sort of a hybrid player.

And the thing about with the Vikings tight end situation is that Irv Smith is a very good run blocker, but he also has that athleticism to be sort of a slot guy. There's also things with tight ends that you can know. If you have three wide receivers and you put the receivers two on the right and one on the left or two on the left or one on the right, the way the defense moves around, you can't always tell if it's man or zone. They have that nickel will linebacker in the game. And so you don't always know man or zone. When you have a tight end in there and maybe put the tight end on the outside or a fullback on the outside, the defense a lot of times has to tell you. If you see a strong safety or a linebacker walked out to on Kyle Rudolph who was playing

sort of like the he's out by the numbers and he's on the outside you know it's some sort of man-to-man coverage if Richard Sherman is guarding Kyle Rudolph on the outside you know it's zone coverage and so it really helps the quarterback anticipate because he really does know man zone and those are very very little helpful keys that allow a quarterback to not think too much, not to react too much, but really know exactly what the defense is giving them. So on top of it, I think with the use of the fullback and that sort of that running game that the Vikings do, and a lot of other, and some other teams do, is that linebackers now, because of the college game, where everyone is spreading it out, it's shotgun all the time,

it's our PO this, and linebackers have to play in so much space, they don't like C.J. Hamm having to meet C.J. Hamm in the hole if you're like a Will linebacker. That's an ugly business right there. If you don't realize the nastiness of a will linebacker and a fullback leading up in the hole right near the line of scrimmage, because the job of the linebacker is to meet the fullback on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

The job of the fullback is to do the same thing, meet the linebacker on the other side of the line of scrimmage. So that's an extremely violent play for those two players. And those linebackers nowadays there's they're not trained that way from the college and high school range they're trained to run and to play in space and be more lateral and not downhill and and and and again that linebacker stepping up opens up these big cavities in the section in the secondary so now back to the question about mismatches you know there's a lot of ways to find mismatches in this league and with what this offense does. You know, he also

sees a lot of times, like on those play-action plays, there might be a mismatch as far as a tight end, say Rudolph or Smith, having to block a probable defense. That's a mismatch. But what Gary will do is he'll take that mismatch and use it against the defense. He knows that the offense is at a disadvantage, so that's when he'll call a play action, and that turns into some sort of delay tight end screen. So that defensive end feels like he just beat Kyle Rudolph. That's great. Rudolph flips around. You throw him the ball.

You get your tackle and your guard out in front, lead block him. That's wonderful. So don't rush the passer too much when you think you've got advantage on the tight end. So Kubiak sometimes uses the disadvantage as an advantage in his offense. And another point I wanted to circle back on with the fullbacks is sometimes you can make that an additional sort of telltale for the linebackers on play action.

So a lot of times when i was watching film last year you would see cj ham goes one way and you'd watch the linebacker almost like they were on you know fishing line connected them or something the linebacker goes right with them and then here's the receiver coming on a crossing route right behind that linebacker wide open because the linebacker has been keyed in on which direction the fullback is going so now he's out of position to defend a passing play and there's really nothing you can do is that linebacker because if you don't follow the fullback and they hand it off he's going to lead block and they're going to blow right through a hole for a big gain especially with Delvin Cook but if you do follow him then they're going to throw right behind you. I do think off the NFL offenses nowadays,

they are doing a better and better job of forcing linebackers to make decisions. And rather than just, they can just focus in and they can go, you know, balls to the wall downhill and do the, and whatever that they do. But now you, there's, there's a lot of indecision that the jet sweeps and the play action and the bootlegs and the run, and it all looks the same. And that confusion, again, it can either just get them out of the gap

or if they are overly decisive and they're too aggressive, now you've created some space right behind them for a big window and some sort of RPO or the play action game. So making these linebackers constantly make decisions all game and confusing them is definitely a part of this offense. And number three on my list is the play actions. And we saw it be so successful. The Vikings went from one of the bottom half teams in play action percentage to one of

the most teams using play action in the NFL, which was a simple math decision. Other than even if you didn't have Gary, you looked at the numbers for Kirk Cousins over his career with play action, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. It's perfectly made for him to execute. It just fits so well his skill set. He doesn't have to roll all over the place on his own or go off schedule. He can follow it just to a tee and the play will open things up for you. And he

executed it so well last year. Can you explain why it works so well for Kirk Cousins specifically? And just, I mean, why teams still haven't figured out a way to stop this? Like defenses, this is the innovation of the league, right? And yet still, here's Kubiak running some old school play from the 90s, and yet the guy is still open. And we saw last year, specifically, Stephon Diggs was the beneficiary of a lot of big plays off of play action. Because when you walk into a defensive room in the National Football League, maybe not college as much, but definitely in the national football league, you walk into a defensive coordinator's office. It is number one goal for a game. Stop the run.

It's always the number one goal because there's nothing worse than allowing a team to just bleed you to death and pound the ball down your throat and take the ball away from your offense, control the game. It's like a nightmare for defensive coordinator if you can't stop the run. So the focus on stopping the run first allows them. So this is like no matter how the game changes over time, this is going to be a true sort of standard forever. It's just like a truce of the game.

Either stop the run or try to stop the pass. And you want to stop the run first but force the team to pass but with the play action type stuff there are big chunks you can get and that's another difference between dropping back and i've always said when a quarterback drops back the linebackers drop back when a quarterback fakes the run the linebackers step up and you can get big chunks when it's linebacker safeties, whoever it might be stepping up and playing that gap first. It's hard to get big chunks in the NFL. It's hard to drop back and throw the ball 30 or 40 yards down the field, unless maybe you have just a one-on-one on the outside of what you're just

basically throwing it up to your outside receiver and say, okay, it's 50, 50, they call them 50, 50 balls for a reason. But these big chunk plays you can get in these big cavities and holes in the defense really make the life of a quarterback, their job much, much easier. All right. Before we continue the discussion, I have to tell you about BetOnline. There is no shortage of action going on right now in our exclusive partner, BetOnline. NASCAR is back, and BetOnline has hundreds of other games, events, and sports to get in on.

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to receive your new welcome bonus and check out all the action. BetOnline, your online wagering solution. I think it's a great point about the mentality though because you look at that nfc championship game and the packers get run over in that game there is nothing more emasculating as a defensive coordinator than watching your defense just get trucked and jimmy garoppolo has to throw seven passes and you lose the game by a lot i mean there's nothing worse than that. And what's interesting about the Packers. Real quick, real quick.

Two years back to back, by the way, because New England the year before did the exact same thing to Kansas City. I don't know what their rushing yards were, but I think it was like 39 to 21 time possession. And the best way to beat Pat Mahomes is to, for Pat Mahomes is not to have the football. And it's the same thing they did with the 49ers and the Packers and that NFC championship game this year. Yeah. And I remember they came right out in the, I think it was the divisional game, the Patriots did and ran on almost every single play against the Chargers. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're, they're crushing the Chargers because they just absolutely could not stop their run game. So there is, there's a lot of value in it still as an offense to be able to just smack down the defense

and then force them to pay attention to that play action because that is a huge fear. And the Packers used more dime packages last year than anybody else in the NFL. And I think they were actually going in the right direction with that to try and stop play actions. And they had the best success against Kubiak's offense in all of last year. And I think those two things are connected. But if you find someone who can

run you over, there isn't going to be a whole lot you could do about it. So, you know, one thing we talked about last year with the Vikings playing the Packers twice is in their style of defense, their, you know, outside linebacker defensive end types uh you know zadarius smith those such as they play on the outside they don't usually get in sort of tighter to the line of scrimmage so they're a lot of times they are the contained player and if you watch that uh for the for the vikings games that's where the vikings really struggle with the bootleg type stuff because the defensive ends are wide they're up the field they got the contain and the vikings probably didn't run the ball enough and

just say, you know, we're just going to continue to run the game, run the ball. And when those defensive ends are upfield, those are the best things you want in that running game, because now you can just have that zone scheme with the cutbacks underneath them and those types of things. And then what, what the 49ers did is they saw that and they said, we're not going to do what the Vikings did. We're just going to keep running the ball right up.

And they ran a lot of inside zone in those games. They weren't trying to get outside of Z'Darrius Smith and the defensive end outside linebacker types for the Packers. They were happy running the ball inside and forcing safeties and even corners to try to make those tackles on the replace blocks when the receivers are blocked to safeties. Now the corners have to make these blocks. They were getting confused of who's inside, who's outside, and it really sort of pointed out a major flaw in that Green Bay defense. Well, it's a great point because when you look at the first game

with the Vikings and Packers, the Vikings were in a position to win that largely because they ran the ball for an entire drive to set them up. And Kirk Cousins made an ill-advised decision to lose the game. If they keep handing it off, they probably end up winning. And then the second game, Mike Boone is the starting running back and not Delvin Cook. And the offensive line did not perform very well. Usually Delvin is able to still do something with that, break a couple of tackles, make big plays. The same expectation is not there for Mike Boone. And when they struggled to run the ball a bit, they were unable to play off of that.

So that's a great point. And it's fascinating now how defenses have to make this decision. Are we going to let teams run over us a little bit in order to try and stop those play actions? And, you know, something that we probably haven't talked about enough is when Kubiak likes to go on first sound. And first sound is interesting because the linemen love it. They get to go up to the line. They don't have to make a lot of calls. I mean, again, the simplicity of these running games mean that the linemen and the fullbacks, they know what they're doing. And there's only so many fronts defense can throw at them. And so the simpler you are in offense, the more handle you have on all the various things that defense can do to you. And so a lot of times the Vikings would go on first sound in that running

game. You get up there, you get your hand in the in the ground uh kirk walks up to the line set hut and they just go and offenses love it you can get uh you sort of you can sort of step on the toes of the defense before they're sort of ready they're trying to get lined up they're trying to see where everyone is and next you know that ball is snapped but when they are what they also do with the play action stuff since the quarterback knows that he has usually a tight end blocking as far as pass protection the fullback is part of the pass protection even the tailback is usually scanning for a safety or a secondary player if they somehow blitz off the off the corner or blitz the strong safety comes down and blitz or something so you have eight man protection

which means you're not really worried about a blitz being hot. There are really, there are no hots in full back tight end that full play action protection. So you can also walk up to the line and do those play actions on first sound. It's hard to just drop back going on the first sound or on, on the quick or whatever you want to call it, because the line has to, you know, they're concerned about if they blitz this guy and they blitz this guy and who are we going to Mike that. And there's all this that goes on there with the play action stuff. And then

also the bootleg stuff. First sound is a big advantage for an offense because you don't have to do too much sort of untangling of the schematics of the defense. That is something that I didn't think about at all, but the number of times now coming to my mind where they went right to the line of scrimmage, I just thought of it as, oh, they want to play up-tempo, but that makes sense for why they would want to do that. All right, two more things on my list. One is screens, and the other is timely play calling. Screens I don't think needs a huge explanation, Sage,

but they're really successful with them. So why is the Kubiak offense work with screens? Last year, Kirk Cousins averaged eight yards an attempt when throwing behind the line of scrimmage, which is pretty much unheard of. Yeah, so there's a lot of types of screens. You have what you call like a bubble screen, which is usually a guy in the slot and you throw it to the slot guy and he's, you know, the outside receiver is trying to block the corner and they're trying to out flank the defense, out leverage the defense. That's a certain type of screen.

Then they're all different. You've got your running back screens where, say, the quarterback will just drop back, and then the running back will sort of float out to the left or the right, and the lineman will be out in front. Then you've got play-action type screens, sometimes to a running back, and then sometimes, as I said before, to the tight end. And, you know, in this scheme, it's important for an offensive line to be very athletic

and very quick uh and not and to do that it's hard to get you know brian mckinney and phil lobeholt guys they're 350 360 pounds they're usually just not quick enough to get those cutoff blocks and things like that so a lot of times as we all know, I think San Francisco number one in the league last year and Vikings number two as far as the lightest offensive lines. But the sort of the counterpoint to that is they struggle and just straight up drop back pass protection. It's just hard if you're a 295 pound left tackle to have sort of the strength and the girth to take on these, you know, super explosive defensive ends. And so to counteract that, sort of the strength and the girth to take on these, you know, super explosive defensive ends. And so to counteract that, sort of the struggle of this offense is drop back pass and the offensive line of pass protection is to then slow down that pass rush

with having them be more and more concerned about screens. And the more of a pass rush team they are, the more screens Gary Kubiak will call. All right, last thing is timely play calling. You would be able to explain this a lot better than me, but I'll just give you the example that pops out in my mind from last year. End of the Detroit game, they are going back and forth with Matt Stafford. He's playing really well. He's kind of shredding the Vikings defense, and they need one drive to put away Detroit, and they could have run three times, punted away, and see if Detroit comes back down, and instead, they go with a play action. They launch it to Stephon Diggs.

Huge game, game over. Just like that. And I know that it was Kevin Stefanski and not Gary Kubiak calling that play. But Gary Kubiak over his career, I think there's just a certain thing that is a feel for the game. Knowing when you've got a little bit of that weak spot, having the first half to assess, all right, this is how they're playing, these different looks and things like that,

and then adapting to how you make those play calls. I was talking to Steve Berline about this with Gary Kubiak, and he said it just was amazing when he was playing for Kubiak how many times he had the perfect feel for when a safety was cheating a little bit on a certain concept or something like that, and then you pick the right time to run it later in the game for when a safety was cheating a little bit on a certain concept or something like that, and then you pick the right time to run it later in the game to put a dagger in your opponent's back with a big play or something like that. I don't know what it is. Some guys just seem to have that sense more than others for offensive coordinators. Yeah, I think doing it for a long

time really helps, you know, Gary with that. You know, one thing he would always talk about is, you know, at the end of the day, at the end of the game to win a game, somebody has to make a play. You rarely can just win a game by being super conservative time and time again. And again, as you were talking about in that game last year, where the Vikings and a lot of teams would just hand the ball off because, you know, the defense is completely set up. They know, but they got to get the ball back. We got to stop the run. They're going to load up in the box. The linebacker is going to be super aggressive and downhill.

The defensive ends are not going to be up the field and pass rushing. They know they have to stop the run first. So all of their resources are committed to stopping the run. That's the perfect time. And you're probably going to get like man to man on the outside. They're going back to those mismatches when the vikings had stefan digs or an adam feeling when you know you're going to get one out of one how can you put your best players in position to be successful so as far as gary kubiak and what people love about him is his scheme and the zone

scheme the plaques and the bootlegs he knows at the end of the day, it comes down to having great players making those clutch plays at the perfect time. But it's a coach's responsibility to know when to call that play, when to call that number, and to have those types of guys step up and putting those guys in the best position possible. And there's nothing you want more than Adam Thielen, the one-on-one with a corner or, you know, dig last year to win a football game. You know, all the things that you have to do to try to run the ball to win,

that's hard to do. It's just very hard to do in the National Football League to say, we want to run the football to close out this game because defenses are completely set to stop you. But if you can just get that one play, that one first down with one of your best players, Cougs has always been great at having those players and calling the guy's number at the right time. And just one more thing I wanted to add before we wrap up in this Kubiak 101 analysis, which has been terrific, Sage, is that you've talked about in the past his ability as a human being to connect with players and to teach what he needs to teach them. I think that's

what takes it all to the next level, that there's a lot of schemes that work, but if you can't connect with the people that you are trying to teach, and if you can't put them in the situations to succeed and analyze what they do best and how they learn all those things, then you're probably not going to make any of this work as great as it all sounds with fullbacks and play actions and everything else. I think him on a personal level, everything I've heard from players, whether it's on or off the record about Kubiak, is that his personality is what has made him one of the great offensive coaches in NFL history. You know, authenticity is a strange thing in coaching because, you know, as we all know, coaches lot of times there's there's a mix of salesmen in there especially like college coaches for recruiting they give great speeches

and rah rah uh but the the ability to connect and to be authentic with your players and have them uh really like you and play for you and and and and play uh hard and and be focused and dedicated um not because just their job, because they actually really like the guy they play for and they want to have that guy have success. There's a couple of years in Houston where we were out of the playoffs. It's the last game of the year. We had nothing to play for. We're eight and seven or something like that.

And we're playing a team that's has a chance to go to the playoffs and we would win with really nothing to play for. Why? Because we wanted Kubiak to keep his job and to get that ninth win. And so there is something about him. It's not because, again, he's not a big salesman. He doesn't blow smoke up a people. I think he's very honest with players. He's very honest. Coaches love playing for him as well.

I mean, Kevin Stefanski, I saw him at the Combine, which seems like seven years ago, by the way. It was like three months ago, four months ago. Just how much respect he had working for Kubz. And I think, you know, those people are rarer and rarer in the world of sports in general. And, you know, Kubik has that ability to connect with people. He would never ask you to do things that he didn't think you could do. He always would say, do what a pro does, you know, and you sort of sit back and go, what does a pro do? When you're growing up, what does a true professional athlete do? You know, do they get enough sleep? Yeah, like a true pro gets enough sleep and they're not out partying at night, right?

A true pro knows exactly what his job is and what he's supposed to do from an X's and O's standpoint. They come to work every single day. They're early. They're not walking in five minutes late for a meeting. Like, what does a true pro do? He doesn't ask you to do more than that. Just in your mind, what do you think of when you think of a professional athlete and how they take, a real professional athlete, and how they take their job seriously and just do that? I think that really, that type of speech really resonates with players. Yeah, and it's

something that maybe not enough teams put an emphasis on, is how you communicate with your players and how you get them to understand the messages that you're trying to convey, and Kubiak is at the top of the list. Sage, this has been outstanding. Anyone who is wondering why does everybody love Kubz? Well, I think they figured it out now after this podcast. He's a good one. He's a good, good one. And you know, he's not, I'm not saying he's not super creative because I think he is creative, but he is not one of these people who's trying to reinvent the wheel. He knows what he does. It works. He knows all the details of it. He knows the sport is about, it's not really just about scheme. It's also about people. And I think that combination has allowed him to be a very, very successful offensive coordinator, core bass coach,

head coach in this league for a long time. All right. Thank you, Sage, for all your time. As always, we will get together again soon. And thank you all for listening to this episode of Purple Insider. Hey, this is Megan Rapinoe. And I'm Sue Bird. We've decided to turn our crazy IG live show into a podcast for your listening pleasure. Enjoy the show. A Touch More. New episodes of A Touch More drop Tuesday only on the Blue Wire Podcast Network.

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