Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How the Vikings' offense and defense maximize talent ft. PFF's Seth Galina

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

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First, the players who were forced to sit out due to those false positive COVID tests all back on the field after another round of testing returned all negative tests across the NFL. And I know that this is being looked at as pretty much a disaster for the NFL, and I get it, but the fact that they were able to turn it around so quickly and get the right results should actually give you some confidence that they can retest quickly if there's another rash of strange results across the league before a game. I mean, that's the nightmare scenario for them,

but they were able to resolve it and get guys back in 24 hours. I also think that it's really, really good news that we have zero outbreaks so far in camp. Of course, this conversation not going away as the NFL tries to do this without a bubble, but so far the players appear to be being responsible. They're testing every single day, and even when there was a problem, they took care of it in fairly quick fashion. I think that's all extremely good news for our chances to play week one and beyond. Nothing new so far on the Daniil Hunter front.

On Sunday, Mike Zimmer gave a very vague, he's getting better. That's not great for Vikings fans, but I still do not have my hand over the panic button. Yet, when it comes to Daniil Hunter, he's a guy who generally stays in pretty darn good shape. And I think if there's anyone who could just jump right back on the field when it's time to play the Packers and be fine, it's probably Daniil Hunter. You do not need to panic until we get to that point, until he shows up on an actual injury report.

No reason to be nervous yet. Still, the closer we get, the fact that he hasn't practiced, worth continuing to keep an eye on. The Vikings also continue to use Chad Beebe in the mix, along with Justin Jefferson, when they use a slot receiver with the first team, which is interesting. And it suggests to me that Chad Beebe is making a case to stay on this team. Also, Alexander Hollins, another big touchdown in one-on-ones, running past Chris Boyd. And it seems like every single day, Alexander Hollins, another big touchdown in one-on-ones running past Chris Boyd. And it seems like every single day Alexander Hollins is doing this.

And the fact that he was able to get his body and NFL shape this offseason and then play the way he has so far in training camp says to me that he has a chance also to make the 53-man roster. But it's a very tight battle because, I mean, do you push Tajay Sharp out? Do you keep Alexander Hollins on the practice squad? You know receivers get hurt throughout the year, and they can do that, so I wouldn't be shocked if that ends up being the result. So I don't know if Alexander Hollins is necessarily pushing Sharp for a job,

but maybe because he has performed really well in this camp. Also, the farther we go without Justin Jefferson locked into a first-team spot, especially that number two, makes me think that the B.C. Johnson thing is for real, that he's going to be the number two wide receiver, and then Justin Jefferson will start out as a slot guy and maybe be mixed around here and there early in the season, and then we'll see how that role evolves, or if B.C. Johnson becomes the next guy that the Vikings found

all the way at the bottom of the NFL draft or undrafted, who turns into a very good receiver. It's trending that way so far, the way that B.C. Johnson has looked in camp. Also, yesterday, Arif Ashan and I talked about whether Ezra Cleveland would play guard by week five, and we were both in agreement that that would probably happen. But then, on Monday's practice, he was working with the third team. So we haven't figured out what is exactly going on, but now we can figure that he's not in the mix to be a starter. He's not in this competition to be

a starter right away. And we'll see if he stays with the threes once they decide between Dakota Dozier and Avion Collins. And I don't know, maybe we'll have to change our predictions about when he'll go in, maybe later in the season or maybe not at all. But that's going to leave a lot of questions if he doesn't play at all at left guard this year of why they wanted to have him make that position change rather than just staying at tackle and getting all these training camp reps so another thing to keep an eye on all right let's get to my conversation with pro football focuses

Seth Galina joining me from pro football focus Sethina. He is the senior college football analyst, but also does NFL film pieces that are among the most informative and fascinating to me. What's up, Seth? What's going on? Well, what's going on is, thank God, there were a bunch of tests that were false for the NFL. So we continue to talk about football as if it's definitely going to happen and be fine. So that's good. Unfortunately, had to miss a practice because we weren't allowed inside. So, you know, it was the first time life has been a little weird since this all started, but we're good. We're moving on here. You didn't want to go hop in a tree and climb like and

kind of look over the fence or something like that? Well, you know, it was funny you say that because where the Vikings facility used to be at Winter Park, you could, if you walked up a few, like we used to be in a building across the road, so we would have to run across the road, like in wintertime and stuff to go over to the facility. But if you went up a few stories, you could kind of peek

inside of the facility if you wanted to. I mean, you couldn't really learn a whole lot. But if you were into that, I remember going up there once to record a podcast. I was like, well, you can actually see right in there if you want to. But that's another story. And maybe I shouldn't have revealed that. What I wanted to talk with you, Seth, about is a great piece you wrote about deep crossing routes. Now, I know that maybe people don't go, oh my gosh, deep crossing routes, like break them down on audio version. But what it says something about what the Vikings do offensively and what they're capable of defensively about deep crossing routes that gives them a chance to win and I think help them be successful on offense last year.

So maybe you can start with just the increase in crossing routes and the success of crossing routes last year and how that relates to what Gary Kubiak likes to do. Well, so when I talk about or when I wrote about deep crossing routes basically uh what I looked up was any route that it's to a certain degree it's any route that crosses the center let's say uh from one side of the field to the other that is targeted above 10 yards so pretty you know keep it like as vague as possible here you know there's a lot of technique that goes into it you know how do you get across the field there's all these like you know sharks in the middle of the field there's uh you know like landmines you got to go around this guy you

got to go underneath this guy above this guy but at the end of the day you need to get across the field and what that does is it you know and what i wrote in the article was against man coverage now you're just running away from because you know when you're playing against man coverage the cornerback or the safety or the slot or you know the sam is going to be either outside of you or inside of you and usually man coverage in the nfl the guy's going to be outside of you so if you can now run across away away from him, you can be able to get separation. And again, zone coverage, you get the idea of, well, no one's going to see you because you're ending up in a zone all the way across the field, and that player who is supposed to be covering that zone

is never even thinking about you. So that's kind of like how it kind of gets open and one of the things that i saw when i was looking through the data was that there's been an increase of these routes being thrown over you know the time that we have data for and one of the reasons is because the nfl has turned into a one high safety cover three cover one uh you cover three zone coverage cover one is man-to-man league you know and it starts with the Seahawks in uh in the Pete Carroll era and kind of just just been spread I mean that's kind of how it works in the NFL teams do well with one thing first their coaches get hired to go to other teams,

and then the scheme spreads that way. And then other teams just say, like, hey, they're doing good. Let's do that too. So that's what we get. And so you see, like, the rate of these routes that are being targeted has gone through the roof over the past few years, and that's probably why. And we see a lot of Kubiak and Shanahan influenced offenses

the 49ers hit specifically on a really impressive crossing round in the game against the Vikings where it was brilliantly executed even though Anthony Barr was almost able to get back and get there and it just fits so well on the offensive side, Kirk Cousins' skill set. And I think that that's what it's about to me when I read your piece and I look at some of the points about what you're doing as a receiver, what you're doing as a quarterback. It really fits perfectly with opportunities to bootleg Kirk Cousins. It's a route that takes a long time to develop, so you have to be able to protect him somehow whether that's moving him away or just being really good in the offensive line which they're not but when you give Cousins time and space to step and throw he can be as accurate as anyone and that's the I think the key point on a

lot of these throws is they have to be accurate and they're usually quite a ways down the field but if you have a quarterback who can make that throw you can hit on them all the time yeah and i mean like so the thing with cousins is you know we don't have to get into whether he's a good quarterback or bad quarterback or average or this or that but i the thing with cousins is when i was coaching quarterbacks i would use this tape a lot because there's a like uh i don't know what to say there's like a cleanliness to his game in terms of his uh you know the way he moves his footwork and all all that type of stuff now is he is he perfect obviously not but like you said if you give him this time and then he's so uh rigid i i would say and i don't mean that in a bad way he's so rigid in his footwork and his

reads and stuff like that, that he'll get the ball to the receivers. Obviously it helps that you have, you know, in his career in Minnesota, he's had two great receivers. Now maybe one and a half great receivers. I'm an LSU fan, so I think. One of them will find out. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think it works so well with Cousins.

And then, like you said, the type of scheme that they run with all the outside zone, Vikings were ran the most outside zone in terms of number of plays. And then in terms of percentage of their run plays being outside zone, about half of their run plays were outside zone. And we have it at 48%. So once you get defense, and that's how most of these deep crossing routes are targeted in the NFL as opposed to college, it's a little different. But so you're showing the defense that hard, that wide zone. Like, oh, you better get on your horse. If you're a linebacker, you better get on your horse, down safety or something. You better get on your horse if you're a linebacker you better get on or down safety or something you better get on your horse and run to the sideline or else we're going

to gas you um so now you pull the ball and you know the world is your oyster now you're pulling the ball and you're you're having that receiver who was, you know, to the side of where the outside zone was going. Now he's coming across the field in the opposite direction. So now you've got to, you know, if you're a linebacker, you're running to your left, all of a sudden you've got to put your foot in the ground, plant, turn around. You know, we call it the technical term is roboting.

So you've got to turn, put your foot in the ground technical term is is is roboting so you got to turn put your foot in the ground turn robot find somebody like you know what i mean like and that guy is running at full speed already it's just a tough deal for the the guy who it puts under pressure the most is you know say like the the the linebacker on the weak side of the play not necessarily the will linebacker or the weak side linebacker but the linebacker on the weak side of the play. Not necessarily the will linebacker or the weak side linebacker, but the linebacker who is, who is the, the, the linebacker who's away from where the run is going and that, and yeah, Kubiak and Shanahan and McVay, those are your top guys. And, and, you know,

the Arthur Smith in Tennessee, you know, coming from that same tree, LeFleur a little bit less because they're trying to do what they, what Rodgers wants to do on offense there. But, yeah, so those teams are always going to be the deep crossing, you know, the big deep crossing teams. And they do it because of that wide zone action because it's so hard in a defense to have to play both at the same time. Yeah, I think when the Vikings play Tennessee,

they're going to be like the Spider-Man meme, just your offense is our offense. And that's Tajay Sharp has actually fit in kind of nicely in Vikings camp so far. And I think that's partly because he comes from the exact same offense where he's asked to do a lot of the same things. I want to circle back to your Kirk Cousins point, because I think that with Cousins, you're supposed to have this blazing hot take. You're supposed to say like, he's terrible and he's soft and he never steps up on Monday night football and trade him and things like that,

where you can acknowledge the weaknesses that he has, like not being able to go off schedule but the on schedule stuff that he does is about as good as anyone does those on schedule things in the NFL and if you can create more situations where he can do that I think that this is Gary Kubiak's thing for a lot of quarterbacks he's worked with for his entire career Brian Greasy or Matt Schaub these These are not special athletes. These are not guys who are going to take off and run for 20 yards or escape the pass rush very well.

But he just fits this so perfectly into the profile of a guy who can do perfect footwork, set up at the exact right spot, have the timing work perfectly. And when you have really good wide receivers who are going to be at the exact yardage that they need to be, I mean, it's a perfect marriage for him last year to have his best career year. And it tells me that he can continue doing that over to this year.

Yeah. I mean, like you said, that off the, the Kubiak offense wherever he's been has been, has allowed quarterbacks to always have their best years under him it's crazy um i don't know if we want to get into the john elwood hall of fame discussion maybe that's for another maybe that's for another day but yeah i think i think like i said it's always hard like as a quarterback coach or as a former quarterback coach i have all these biases where i'm like oh if he looks like the guy that I'm trying to teach my teenagers to be, then I'll like him. And that's kind of like good around him, it's fantastic. Because like you said, he understands how to get to his points.

He understands, you know, right, left, and this and that, whatever. Problem is, I always go back to the Bears game in Chicago last season where it was like, even off play action, he just like, he was like, I know I'm getting touched here. Like, I know I'm going to get touched on this play. And then let me just dump it down. Let me dump it down. And people were open down the field.

And I think that's where like, you don't like the elite, elite, elite probably don't have games like that. But with that said, I think they are, I think he's more than good enough you know you know we put quarterbacks in tears like so i'd say he's in that good enough to win with a quarterback and then you do have those games where he'll put the team on his back i do think you have those games so like i'm i'm a fan like i said i have my biases about like what a quarterback uh you know his what a quarterback's footwork looks like and stuff like that um so so i'm like always going to be a kirk apologist i think but the system works for him and uh and yeah i'm just

i like i like kirk i don't know what else to say. Get back to the conversation in just a minute, but first I have to tell you about something very cool from our friends at Soda Stick. You probably know them for Minnesota sports-inspired hats and shirts and hoodies that are screen printed in Minnesota, but Soda Stick also has artwork as well. You're going to want to check out their Man Cave prints, 20 by 24 prints representing everything Minnesota sports, from awesome throwback logos to legendary plays at first base to famous disgusting acts in Green Bay. They are on sale now for just $35.

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or like the San Francisco game where he throws, I think, 37 passes for 160 yards or something in that range. It's just he has those games, especially against top defenses, with interior rush. It's like we know exactly what his kryptonite is because if you interior rush Deshaun Watson or Patrick Mahomes or somebody more mobile Aaron Rogers in his day he'll just scoot out of the way and make a really good throw if it's Cousins he just doesn't have that capability and the Vikings they don't exactly have Will Shields playing right and left guard here I mean that's it's almost like they built it anti to protect him from the

best thing that he does or the worst thing that he does I mean if that makes sense like you have a center who doesn't pass block well you have two replacement level guards you've got these good tackles but you know they're not like amazing tackles so he doesn't step up in the pocket well if Riley Reif gets beat with speed the ball's right there it's like sort of we see these perfect storm games that can stop him um but uh anyway I don't know if you have a reaction to that well I was just thinking you know when I when when I always think about guard play being super important to a quarterback and I don't really want to compare Kirk Cousins to Drew Brees. But, you know, when Brees came to New Orleans, man, it's been so long.

I'm talking about 13, 14 years ago, whatever it's been. They went out and they found guards who could play. Jarry Evans, Carl Nix. I forget who the center was at that time. But, I mean, the titles were good, too. I'm not saying the titles weren't good, but they really created this pocket for a guy who's not going to be like the quarterback that you mentioned, which is, like, the ability to escape out of, you know, horizontally.

And Breeze is able to always step up in the pocket. Again, I don't want to compare the two but but that ability to always have that clean stuff in front of him where the guards are where the interior pressure comes from really helped Breeze and then obviously the rest is history to a certain degree what could he do it without great guard play yes because he's your Breeze but you know it definitely helped a lot especially in those early days in new orleans but you identified exactly what mike zimmer has about drew breeze and needing good interior line play because zimmer against new orleans and some key

downs put everson griffin and daniel hunter over their guards and uh they had no answer whatsoever for that as most people wouldn't if you move everson Griffin or Daniil Hunter over the guards. But before, when the Vikings have shut down or slowed down Breeze better than other teams, it was Tom Johnson or it was Sheldon Richardson. And Linval Joseph, at his best, could pressure up the middle or at the very least create push. Even if he doesn't get a PFF pressure, he's pushing that guard back into the lap of drew breeze and i think that's a great point that i know that pff has found outside pressure is worth

more than inside pressure and part of that is expected points added are going to be shaped by turnovers a lot and sacks a lot but when you go quarterback to quarterback, that specific thing for these two examples, I think, really says something like that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses that goes game to game. So you're not going to build a team just to stop Drew Brees or just to stop Kirk Cousins, but if you can do it with Akeem Hicks, for example, or Kenny Clark, for example, he's going to have a lot of problems. I wanted to circle back on the deep crosser bit because on the defensive side, there's something about the Vikings team building that helps them defend this, and that's linebackers.

They paid Anthony Barr probably too much. I understand that. But there's a play against San Francisco where Jimmy Garoppolo hits Emmanuel Sanders on a deep crossing route, and Anthony Barr plays it as brilliantly as you possibly can. Like he robots around, like you described, it is what it sounds like and just runs straight back and is, is right there to make the play.

It takes a perfect throw and a perfect route to get it done. But if you have linebackers in Eric Hendricks, Eric Wilson and Anthony Barr who run four fives and he's got the length too and can get back there on the league's most popular route or one of the routes that's working the most, there's a lot of value there. And it's to say that the Vikings did the right thing with the linebackers that they've targeted. Yeah, so there's a quote that I'm going to butcher right now uh about bobby wagner and it has to do with the reason why he makes you know 100 million dollars or whatever uh when he signed the whatever whenever his last contract was was literally because he could do that because he

could go and play the run and then turn get his head around and be athletic enough and smart enough to find the route that needed to that needs to be covered that's his responsibility now because everything changes once the play action happens it's not like oh let me just uh it's not you know when you're playing against a drop back pass you're usually turning to the outside and then you're finding that your your slot receiver or the wide receiver to your side. You're turning, you're doing your zone and stuff like that. With this, it's like, no, now you're running to the inside, and then you've got to turn your whole body to the inside and find the guy.

Like I said, put in the ground, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, Bobby Wagner making all that money because of that particular thing. And again, it goes back to, well, the Seahawks were one of the, I would say one of the first teams to play, you know, one high. But they were one of the teams that, you know, played a huge percentage of their snaps in one high. So teams tried to attack them that way. And then now you talk about the two linebackers that Minnesota has, and they were both fantastic last year. Like they can do that. They can turn, run, find the target because that's who all these offenses

are attacking is, like I said, the player on the weak side of the linebacking crew. They're going to put them in a spin cycle every time. And there's so much things that they do. I mean, McVay is so good at going through his, like, kind of play calling progressions shanna had to and even kubiak too like of keeping that player off balance like it's a run okay no it's a run it's a fake run and then we're gonna hit you with that deep crossing route and then it's like oh no it's a fake run

fake deep crossing route and we're gonna hit you with a screen or something like that. So having those guys has been tremendous for them. The other thing I wanted to add was, and you can tell me if I'm wrong here, but I know that the Vikings ended up playing a lot of too high safeties last year. And whether that was a case of not trusting the cornerbacks or saying, hey, we have two good safeties, so let's use them, whatever it was, that also helps the face of the safety because he's in the middle of the field with two yeah he can cross the first safety but now there's another safety sitting there and he has protection from the corner to his side so I think that's also helped them play the routes better than the league average let's say and you also have one of the most brilliant safeties in the NFL too that can

show you how he's going to play it but that can show you how he's going to play it but that might not be how he's going to play it because with too high you're you're reading the safety because usually there's a vertical route and so does he go with that or does he come up and then you read that but Harrison Smith has the ability to wait a long time to show you that because he probably recognizes what you're doing from what he's seen on film but I think that this is a staple of Zimmer to play too high and this is why he loves to have someone like Linval Joseph or why they paid so much for Michael Pierce because if you can stop the run with four up front and your linebackers then you could play two deep safeties and the other part of it too is if you have two all-around great safeties in Anthony

Harris and Harrison Smith they can get up into their gaps quickly if they're reading run and not make mistakes on play action because they're just really really smart players so keeping Anthony Harris on that franchise tag I think was really important for the Vikings and what they're going to be this year because those guys have so much value. And that's kind of where I was going to go with this, Seth, is that the linebackers, I think, are, because of these types of routes and this type of offense increasing in its popularity, linebackers might be more valuable than we've given them credit for in recent years, especially if they can cover.

And safeties, I think with them, too, that we kind of look at safeties and the Vikings have at times, Oh, well, we'll just kind of this UDFA guy he'll play next to Harrison Smith and it's fine. But I think it's important for them to pay for Anthony Harris and important for them to pay for Eric Hendricks and pay for Anthony bar, because these are big plays.

These are explosive plays against you. And these guys prevent those on a weekly basis. One of the things that I noticed when watching the Vikings defense recently, especially when they played in too high, was the different roles that they gave. And this is, I mean, look, I haven't watched every defense in depth over the past, you know, 10 years or whatever, but I would imagine this is probably true for a lot of defenses, but it hit me while watching the Vikings was when they're playing too high,

Harrison Smith is always going to be the weak side safety, and Harris last year was the strong side safety, meaning if there's a slot receiver on the field, if there's speed to one side of the formation, that's where you want a guy like Harris. To the tight end side or to the one receiver side, if it's a trip formation, now you have Harrison Smith. And what I think that does is allow Smith to,

I don't want to say freelance, but because he's over the tight end, and there's obviously going to be a lot of plays where the tight end does not release for a route, now he can be Harrison Smith. So if he feels like he needs to double cover that number one receiver to the weak side, bang, got it. If he feels that something is going to come across the field from that speed side, like I said, bang, I got it.

And if he can play a little more, you know, Vikings fans, like something to look at is just look at the way that Harris will start a play. I mean, I know the broadcast film always zooms in away from the safeties, but if you can ever see it, watch the way that Harrison Smith plays flat-footed, even though he's at 12 yards or 15 yards or whatever, he's kind of flat-footed reading everything, while Harris, because he's on the speed side, has to start right away on a snap.

He's got to get that. He's got to go because there's an NFL receiver right in front of him, right? So I think that's interesting, the way that they split responsibilities on, you know, on that team. And like you said, now you have a guy like Harris who's very good to complement and really let Harrison Smith play a little freer because he has such a guy, a good quality guy opposite of him.

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I think it speaks to the point that we were making about Kirk Cousins, which is when you have great coaches, you find the exact right way to use these players. And I don't think it's any mistake that the Vikings have had so many undrafted free agents. I mean, Harrison Smith's a first-round pick and an all-world player and is probably good with anyone, but he's great with Mike Zimmer and Anthony Harris is really, really good with Mike Zimmer and Tom Johnson was a UDFA and Eric Wilson has become a good player. And he's, I think that it goes to, speaks to if you put these guys in the right position,

there's so many details to that, that we don't even fully understand, like how assignments work, how keys work on a week-to-week basis, what those would be. And they love to tell us how little we know about that stuff at times. But I think that you can, I think you can watch it and you can see it. Like this is why this works so well for these particular players. Because if you had Harrison Smith man coverage with guys, I don't think that that would be a very good matchup for him. But in this particular role, he's as good as anybody in the NFL. Yeah, I mean, he's because those type of guys are just smart. You know what I mean? And they just understand.

One of the cool things that I noticed was he's all around pre-snap. He's jumping up. He shows like he's blitzing. He shows like he's coming to tight end. He shows that he's a linebacker. Then he goes back and comes forward, all that stuff. So just a guy that's able to play around disguise. I mean, they love disguising stuff. Zimmer loves disguising his blitzes and stuff. So having that player there as a leader of your defense has been tremendous for them.

So let me ask you this. What is your take on how defenses will adapt if NFL teams and the Vikings have to worry about this? Last year, they throw a pick on a deep crosser where the opposite side cornerback was able to, this was against Green Bay, just kind of hang there and wait, and the route comes all the way over for him now I think the route is not supposed to get there I don't think it was a great throw but Kirk Cousins threw an interception to Cameron Dantzler on that same look in practice and uh

surprisingly the Vikings tweeted it out which I like oh you're tweeting out your starting quarterback throwing a pick I guess he he better be secure with that. But, you know, I wonder how you think that defenses adapt to this because after they read your piece, and I know they do, they've got to be thinking and they watched film two all offseason. That's what Mike Zimmer said. I asked him earlier this offseason, like around where we would have had OTAs, said, like, well, how are offenses, you know, advancing this year? Have you seen anything on film? And he said, you know,

I've actually seen more defenses changing their reads and keys and coverages to, to advance to some of these things. So how will defenses cover these better and what will the Vikings offense have to deal with? I think it's probably in two parts. So the first part is like you said so if you know these interceptions like you said the one kirk threw against green bay where the cornerback from the opposite side is coming over and i wrote about that a bit in my article where at the nfl level you can do this you know i sometimes i bring this back to where i was coaching i'm like nah

i can't absolutely not i'm teaching my guys to do this but at the, sometimes I bring this back to where I was coaching. I'm like, no, I can't. Absolutely not. I'm teaching my guys to do this. But at the NFL level, you have super smart players. And you can tell, like, even if you're in one high, you can tell that safety. When you see that crosser coming, that's yours. Don't let it cross your face. And what happens is now the safety comes down so you're thinking that

the vertical route that's paired with the crossing route is going to be open but what they do is they tell the corner who like started on the receiver who ran the crossing route now that route left you you're in zone that route's gone from you. You don't just stand there with nothing to do because there's no routes to that side. Look, you know, like, you understand route concepts. You understand what the offense is trying to do. Now you can get high and try and eliminate and kind of double team with your cornerback friend the deep route and so that's either doing that with the safety either or you know passing it off with the the cornerback to that side and having the safety take the post and the cornerback who was covering the vertical post drop down and and kill the cross, stuff like that. Those are probably, like, if you're in one high,

those are definitely the ways you're going to deal with it. Obviously, then offenses have progressions off that. They're going to see your safety come down. They're going to do this. They're going to do that, whatever. The Vikings have a couple plays last year to Devontae. The Packers have a few plays to Devontae Adams where they show you they're running the crosser and then he bangs it back out

and the corner is a no man's land, that type of thing. So if you're in one high, those are probably the type of things you're going to do. Like in a sense, you're not just going to play your zone. You're going to say, hey, I see this route. I have to go attack it

because I know that this concept is coming. And the other thing is this team's playing more too high. And like you said, that means that your front six or front seven people have to be really stout against the run because you don't have that extra safety hanging around in the box. So I do think we are in the nascent stages of a return to too high of safety. It's not going to look like what we all remember and heard about when we were, you know, in the 2000s and the late 90s

with the Tampa 2 defense. I think it'll be more of a quarters look, and Zimmer has been one of the guys on the forefront of that, to tell you the truth, for a few years, him and McDermott in, in Buffalo. So I think that's what we're going to see to try and curb those defenses. The issue is you get like, you know, the issue is you have to stop the run and that wide zone stuff that everyone's running now, it's tough, it's tough to do.

You're going to get gashed if you you stay in if you stay in too high a lot and you gotta live with that sometimes I think that's like it's like the psychology that needs to change like hey we're gonna play too high it's not the end of the world if once in a while we we take a seven yard game you know in our face basically it's like we gotta live with that stuff that's yeah that's exactly um I think Packers' approach on defense from last year, and it got them real good in the NFC Championship game because you give up seven, but you can't give up like 47 on those handoffs. Yeah.

But they played that way against the Vikings where they said, okay, try to beat us with those things if we have two deep safeties or if we put our defensive ends really wide or outside lineback ends really wide or outside linebackers really wide from where we rush from that makes it a little harder for you especially with uh riley reef not being the quickest so you put somebody wide on them zadaria smith preston smith and they can explode around him plus kenny clark rushing up the middle uh it's going to make life very difficult and i think that that's another Kirk Cousins kryptonite is too,

too high safety because I remember just sitting there at us bank stadium and seeing single high, single high, like Eagle, the Eagles are a great example and thinking, are you, did you guys game plan at all for this team? Like this. And they were so afraid of Delvin cook. This is a point for Delvin cook. They were afraid of Delvin cook. And you could see that their whole thing was, we're going to stop Delvin cook. We're going to stop Delvin Cook. This is a point for Delvin Cook. They were afraid of Delvin Cook, and you could see that their whole thing was, we're going to stop Delvin Cook, we're going to stop Delvin Cook. But if you give up a 40-yard touchdown to Stephon Diggs, it doesn't matter if you slow down

Delvin Cook for that day. So I agree with you that there's psychology that, you know, football, I don't want to get run over, we're not going to get physically out-physicaled and all that stuff. But, you know, stopping 30 and 40 yard passes is generally more important than seven or eight yard runs. So anyway, before we wrap up, Seth, very insightful football talk here about as football as it can get. I wanted to, I wanted to ask you about the college football season and your take, because you guys at Pff just launched the most ridiculously in-depth analytical anything you could ever dream of for uh college football and

of course the virus so i mean i'm i'm rooting for you is the best that i can say that they figure out some way to play or they have time here to work it out in the spring yeah i mean it's weird it's weird to say like i'm rooting for college football to happen in the fall even though i'm like well maybe that's not a good thing because my you know my i'm part of the labor force that needs college football to happen even though i don't believe maybe that it i would say that it should. I think if we can get it to a spot where it's safe enough to play, then obviously I'm for it.

So now I'm, like, rooting for college football, but I'm, like, kind of feel guilty about it, and that's a problem for a whole other discussion. But, so, yeah, I hope – like I said, I hope it happens. Seems like we have a cost-for-poly game this Saturday, I believe. Austin Peay versus Central Arkansas is this Saturday. What are the mascots on those teams? You're going to have to cut this while I go look it up on Google.

I'm going to look it up. I think Austin Peay is actually a good team. They weren't very good for a while, and they brought in the coach who is coaching Charlotte now, and he kind of turned the program around. I think they're pretty good. I could be thinking about a different team, but, yeah, Austin Peay. The Governors.

It's great. The Governors. Yeah. The Governors, yeah. What an awesome nickname. Who are they playing? Central Arkansas. Central Arkansas.

All right, keep talking. So, yeah, I think that – I hope the SEC looks like it's going forward. What's that? Oh, Bears. Ah, screw them. All right, go Governors. Yeah, I hope it happens. I'm down.

I want to watch football. If it's done safely, I'm I hope it happens I'm down I want to watch football if it's done safely I'm super into it uh even if there's no Big Ten and Pac-12 and and Mac and I think in Mountain West too it's gonna it's gonna be different um but I think one of the cool things is and this is definitely uh you know me being like overly optimistic but one of the cool things is like you know if there is football you know saturdays or when you just have the three major conferences playing really and and you know the acc has some good teams aac has some good teams in there too all eyeballs are going to be on those guys like it's going to be wild like that's all anyone's going to be watching is, you know,

you're going to have two games at noon, two at three 30, two at seven, at eight, whatever. So I think that'll be cool. Just like the amount of eyeballs on each game, it's going to be like an NFL type season where everyone's going to know about these guys. So that, that'll be cool. And yeah, for, for the sake of, for the sake of me selfishly yes football let's go uh you and i are in the very same place or at least that i was until the nfl proved that they could kind of bubble eyes themselves for now but just for weeks it was really nervous and i did a podcast with

mark scofield i'm sure you know him um about is it, are we pushing too hard to do this? Is it really safe? And, but the guy who just started a website covering the Minnesota Vikings in a podcast really needs this to happen. So I definitely know the moral conflict that you were in. But you should tell everyone about this, the PFF college coverage, because it's insanity. I mean, basically everything that you've come to count on for PFF NFL, you guys are giving to them now on the college side and more. Yeah, so you can go and get our college football product, which is the exact same as our NFL

products that you've come to know and love. You can get just the grades, and unfortunately I don't have the prices in front of me, but you can get just the grades on a monthly or annual basis. And then you can get, for a little more, you can get the grades plus the advanced stats, again, on a monthly or annual basis. So the grades are our go-to thing with the grades but after that you have you know pass locations you have you know receiver stuff

you have pressure stuff you have all that stuff that we give you with college football so i mean like if you're you're in the college football you got you have to like if you if you know what you get on the nfl side you got to go get the cultural stuff and it just so happens that it comes with either subscription comes with our cultural pretty magazine that we put together that came out last week that has a lot a lot of good stuff i might have slandered the minnesota quarterback just a tad even though i do like him i do like him uh um but yeah besides that I think it's it's really good it's beautiful looking like I you know I had nothing to do with the you know I wrote a lot of words for it but I had nothing to do with the um the the design of it that's all

an Andrew Russell and and it's beautiful honestly it's beautiful so I highly recommend it well I know that uh Chris Collinsworth that was one of the things just when he became involved with PFF that he wanted to go after was the college football angle. And you guys have really just gone farther than anyone could have ever expected. And if you're a draft nut, you absolutely want to do it. So you guys are doing awesome work. I love your stuff. But please don't stop doing NFL film pieces if you can set, because they're really good and I appreciate them and I learned a lot from

them. So great to have you on the show. You are one of those people that's PFF Seth. So you fell right in line with the others. If people want to find you there, you're great on Twitter. So I highly encourage people to follow you there. And thanks so much for your time, man. Thank you. This is great.

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