The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - 10 breakthrough players for 2021 with Nate Tice, Buccaneers camp with Greg Auman & Tampa's offensive evolution with Byron Leftwich & Bruce Arians

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Robert Mays and Nate Tice each bring 5 names to the table of players that could have breakout seasons in 2021, from a few different CBs to watch out for, potential defensive threats & more, they reveal their lists live on the show and dive into some of Robert's observations from Jets camp. Then The Athletic's Greg Auman stops through with Robert to dig into the Super Bowl champs' attempt at a back-to-back, Byron Leftwich brings us some insight on the offensive playcalling and Robert ends the show with a convo with Bucs head coach Bruce Arians. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome. The athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's my good friend Nate Tyson. How you doing, buddy? Good.

New day. New background for you. There it is again. We have different artwork, different hotel artwork. We get to get to go paracottetras. Are you going to the same, like, brand from Cated City? Like our same company. I mean, I am a supporter of the Marriott Hotel chain as a proud NFL writer.

I think that's what we all are. I'm an Alpharetta, Georgia. currently. I just drove six hours from Jacksonville. That drive is pretty brutal. Not going to lie to you. I'm a little bit tired right now, but that's okay because the people need their podcasts. I was at Jags Camp today. We will include some stuff from Jack's camp a little bit later this week. I had some conversations there that I think people might find interesting. I liked watching Trevor Lawrence today. He is gigantic. You forget. Daryl Bivel mentioned this. to me, he's one of the people I talked to down there, you forget how big he is. Yeah. When he moves around the way that he does, you forget just how statu-esque in like the way that he towers over you. Like, he's the size of the David.

It's fucking incredible. I was just not ready for that watching him out there. And it was fun. It was just fun to watch him sling it around because he can really sling it around. Is that Mr. That's Mr. U, Mr. 6-6 quarterback, too, you know? I know. I know.

Well, when Justin Herbert becomes a superstar this year, I'm going to have to eat all of that stuff. And then Lawrence is just going to be next. We'll just call it 6-7 now. It's a new age. All right. Later in the show, we're going to check in from Bucks Camp. I was there earlier this weekend. We sat down with our athletic Bucks writer Greg Elman.

We've a really fun conversation with him. I also talked briefly with Byron Lefwich and Bruce Ariens about how that offense found their stride down the stretch last season. We're going to include that on yesterday's show, but me and Lindsay went a little long, so that'll be there for you guys. Today, we're just going to talk for an hour about that Justin Fields throw that you posted on Twitter earlier today. I would love to.

That was great. I know who caught it too. So that would be interesting to talk about as well. So a lot of buzz from camps today. Trey Lance worked with the ones. There was a brawdering Giants camp with and they did gassers afterwards, which just feels so on brand for them. So on brand for them.

Quentin Nelson is out with the same foot injury that Carson Wentz has. That's a real thing. But I think if we start talking about every single injury that happens over the course of camp, that's all we're going to talk about. Yeah. I think that there, it's best for them to punt. on the first half of this season. Like, I'm not even kidding.

I think you try Jacob Eason out there. If you win two games, you win two games. Like, I feel like you have to take that approach here, because if you start making panic moves, then I don't think that's going to bode well for anyone. Philip Rivers told Sam Farmer that he'd be open to coming back and playing. It's a lot for my heart to handle today. Right before we just recorded this, too, that you got that news.

So that's a little bit of excitement. Right before we just recorded this, there's a lot of stuff going on. What we are really going to talk about today, though, are some breakout candidates for this NFL season. We're going to do 10 guys. And obviously, we've talked about some bigger names over the course of this entire spring and summer. Justin Herbert, Quinn and Williams, Darnel Savage.

Those are guys we think can be all pro type players. This is a little bit further down the list. You'll see kind of what trance of guys we're talking about as we get into the list a little bit. We were going to do this last week. We didn't because the All-22 wasn't up. It's still not up. So we're just going to do it anyway.

So, again, we're not going to build a day. dig into this in some of the ways we would typically like to, but I still think we have enough of a feel for these guys where we're going to be able to do it. Before we do that, though, do you want to talk about Jets Camp? What about it? We haven't talked about it yet. I was there on Saturday.

So let's dig into that for 10 minutes before we actually get into this list. I love to. So I want to start, the reason I want to talk to you about this is because of Elijah Moore. Oh, yeah. Ballplayer. So all of the buzz about Elijah Moore, coming out of Jets camp is amazing.

And I was incredibly impressed. This all comes with the standard caveats of there was no pads on yet. And Sala was quick to remind people of that. And multiple offensive coaches I've talked to both at camps and on the phone over the last few days. You ask you so and so look good. It's like, well, yeah, but. And there's always that yeah, but.

So all the necessary qualifiers in place, he looks like a real dude. I mean, Sala came out today and O'Connor Hughes asked him why he thought. he slipped in the second round. He said, if you had told me we would have gotten all three of those guys, I would ask you what you were smoking. And there's a reason for that. And the more thing, he played such a vast majority of his snaps in the slot at Old Miss.

But watching him in practice, and I know that it's early, but they're scheming stuff up for him. And he's playing outside. And it just feels like he's going to be a huge part of their offense. Corey Davis is locked in as that one B receiver that just that, rock within that system, digging safeties out, running those kind of outbreakers off play action that we know he does so well. He is the definition of reliable with some flesh, right? Like that is what Corey Davis is.

Yeah. I think Elijah Moore is a true playmaker and is going to be that for them, maybe from day one. Well, and that's what I loved about him. It was the size is the obvious caveat with him, obviously. But it's just that he was just a ball player. And like that guy I compared him to, and of course, you're going to love it. of love him is Brandon Cooks. And it's just exactly right.

He's that smaller, smaller stature, but can play outside and be your real guy. He's a real receiver, like a real, almost like a ball winner outside, but like a real route runner and just actually has great feel. And like he has good hands.

Just does all the receiver things well. And yeah, he did line up a lot in the slot. But when he was on the outside, it wasn't like, oh my God, he's awful out there. It was like,

no, he's winning. He's breaking off corners. He's running them off, running comebacks, running glance routes, drift routes, if you want to call him.

But it's just like, it's so cool to hear you saying that they're dialing stuff up for him because that's what Lang Kiffin did. Link Kiffin just fed him. It was just like, this is our best player, which that was another thing why I keep saying like he's a ball player was that no matter where they lined him up, he never hesitated. It was never like, you can tell he's like, I'm guessing on what this play is. And it's like, so you can tell he's probably in the books a lot because they lined them, they lined them up everywhere.

I mean, I mean, everywhere, cross the formation, in the backfield everywhere. And so it's just also, if he's doing the jet sweep type of stuff that he did in college and if they're going to get creative with that, it's like just look at some. I bet they're going to. I would assume they're going to. So maybe some Debo, Samuel stuff. You know, that's an easy transition to any type of that. Any of that type of stuff because he is good with the ball in his hands. He's a fun player.

He's great. The biggest play of the day, they were lined up in a two by two set. They motion a guy from left to right. So he was a single receiver back on that left side and they ran a boot. And when he had come back on the post. I mean, that play is for him. That is dialed up for him. There's another play where he was the second guy in a stack

where somebody else was running off and somebody else was the clear-out guy and he was the guy who was the number one option on the play. They threw a screen to him. He's lining up all over the place. This dude is going to be a huge part of the offense. There is no barrier to him being the best skill position player they have because Corey Davis is not really that.

He's just a really good player. That shiny, shiny part of the offense, that role is still available. and I think he's going to play it. That's a good way to put it. Zach Wilson, again, necessary caveats early in camp, no pads, whatever. Did the stuff you saw from Zach Wilson at BYU, some out of structure stuff. Really, watching him flip the ball is really cool.

He can do some off-platform stuff. The thing that impressed me most, not afraid to put the ball into traffic. Some young quarterbacks, especially in camp, really timid. He was putting the ball up in contested catch situations. And what was interesting was that I think Mims is going to have a small role in this offense than he would with some other teams just because, one, the way they play to the fact that Moore and Davis are now there. And this was not the coaching staff that drafted him. But both him and Kew and Cole are really good contested catch guys. So you kind of have these different receivers for different situations with the Jets.

I think the Moore and Davis and two receivers sets, they'll be the starters than crowder in the slot a little bit. but Mims and Cole almost can play that Kendrick Bourne role on third down for the Niners where he could do some stuff where it's tight man coverage. You need somebody just go get it or make a play in a high leverage moment. They have those guys too. I'm really interested in the scope position talent that they have. And I think that Wilson showed he's not afraid to put the ball to those guys and give them a chance when I was there at least.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what he did at BYU. I mean, he gave his guys chances. That's we did all the time. And that was the, that was kind of the, is this a bug or feature kind of thing? Or this is a plus or a minus kind of thing? Is that good that he keeps doing that? Or like, is he getting lucky?

But it's like, no, but it's a good thing. No, I get what you're saying. But that's like what you have to figure out when you're watching these types of guys. Like it's just his receivers dunking on somebody. But no, that's what you loved about Wilson was you threw the beautiful deep ball. It's cool that the jets, you know, following, you know, especially the floor going there as well, following their receiver room is built like a basketball team. It's that it's a starting lineup.

I mean, they have the guards. They have Mims as the center or. power forward, however you want to look at it. But it's like, it makes sense. They have a little bit of everything. And that's where, like you're saying with the Kendrick Bourne, they have those situational role players that they like to highlight. Because that's what that Shanahan type offense is.

We know the outside zone stuff, we're getting a little more varied now. But then on situational downs, they totally change it up. And they dial up one guy. And they're like, hey, get us this first down either underneath or we're taking a shot over the top. That's kind of how they went about it. So it's kind of cool how this meshing of parts that's happening there. I am still high on MIMS though. especially if he's going to get some chances.

Here's my thing. I think he's going to be a role player within that offense. Where he was drafted and some of the skills that he has, you'd hope that he's going to be more than that. I think with the way they're building that team, and again, regime change, expectations change. I think he's going to be more of a role player

than he is going to be a potential star just by the way they deploy him and the other guys that they have. Other thing was really, really cool to watch. Again, no pets. I keep saying that, but important to remember. It wasn't who was winning or losing the battle. It was watching them go against each other even when it's not full contact. Beckton and Lawson.

Nice. And I asked Mackay Beckton about this and we were talking to him after practice. There is no better education for a second year left tackle than playing against Carl Lawson every single day. Because while Lawson isn't the most physically dominant, Russia in the league, everything else, his plan is so layered and he has so many different things he can go to and the compliments work so well. It's an incredible resource to have to play against that guy all the time. On consecutive plays, he went to that little stab chop that he does, where he goes with a long arm and then chops down, which you have to have really good hands to deal with that. And then the next play, he goes straight inside.

And so that's on back-to-back plays where you really have to be thinking as a left tackle. And Beckton was saying he talks to him after every single play. Why did you do that? Why didn't you do this? And that education, that's accelerated stuff. Like, that is going to be really, really good for him. and it was just very cool to watch that happen in real time. Oh, yeah.

And also just like you're saying, speeding it up, like just all of a sudden he now knows what the good bar is like every single day. It's not like he doesn't get to take a playoff now in practice. Like when they're good versus good, it's like he gets live fastball reps all the time. And that, yeah, I totally agree. That's seeing a good edge rush or just get any lineman. I mean, well, Aaron Donald doesn't count because he was just unblockable. But like a lot of a lot of most good defense alignment, it's just like that's so good

offense line because it's like, oh, I wasn't used to that. Oh, I haven't seen that move before. Or, oh, okay, now I got to rep at it. So now I know how that feels as opposed to like, oh, shoot, I'm not going to see that till week three. And, oh, man, I'm so worried about X move or Y move, whatever move they might have in the toolbox. And the guy like Carl Lawson's great, like you said, he always has a plan. So it's like it all of a sudden it's like being a hitter.

And all of a sudden you get this great junkball pitcher on your team. It's like having a hit off Greg Maddox every single day. Yeah. That's what it feels like, which is that is. That is, there's no better education than that. And he has Morgan Moses in that hustle now. I love having an eight year veteran paired with your second year left tackle, his success is a huge part of your trajectory as a franchise.

I just think they have set him up for success. And that I love to watch that. And put a left guard next to him too. Like, hey, we're taking enough. And they're going to build that chemistry for years and years and years and years. Yeah. I am very excited about what's happening there. I'm not going to put it any other way.

I think that they're in really good. shape. The last thing I thought was really cool. This is just like a little nerdy thing. Watching them do their defensive install, they were working on defending that jet motion all go

HP seam. And that, that, before his brother runs. And it was very, very cool to watch a defense rep the communication on those sorts of plays

because that is becoming, especially in such a zone heavy defense, having to understand, all right, when they change the passing strength, when they change the numbers right before the snap happens, how do we have to change route distributions, everything else.

It was very, very cool to watch them rep that. I really wanted to ask Saul about that, and I got pulled away to talk to another assistant during his press conference. I was the beat writer for the day. So I had like 10 questions I wanted to ask him that I typically wouldn't in that situation. And that was one of them. And I was kind of bummed. But it was just really neat to be like, oh, yeah, that's exactly the type of stuff you should be

working on. And it's really cool to watch them do that. That's what you're going to see because every team's running it now. I mean, I've seen four teams running it. it just this past week. Teams I haven't seen run it before. It's just hilarious. And that's just camp videos. But it's, but it's, but that's seeing that it's like what we, we like, we're ogling about with the Rams last year. Just watching everybody be on a string and just carrying and passing off. I'm on three, two, one, four and pushing and all the, all the terminology they use and undercalls and

just everything they do. It's so cool. Um, especially when you got to do that dozens and dozens and dozens of times. And that's what it is. That's the practice. And, that's it. It's like, it's like choreography. It's just like, all right, this is the first time, quarter tempo, half tempo, all right, now in practice. Okay, now we're ready for it in game, and that's exactly what practices. It's just like offensive line blocking or quarterbacks thrown a route to a receiver. Like, everything is just timing and just, and pattern-based, and everything in football is just built that way. And that's what's really cool when you start kind of getting into these little pockets of the game. Yeah, they, obviously, their secondary

is a ton of new pieces. The Marcus Joyner seems like it's going to start for them at safety. they have two very young corners in Bryce Hall and Bless Austin. Both of them are big. You know, it's an interesting group. Like if that secondary comes together, the rest of that defense is full of dudes. They have Frankl Myers on one side and Lawson on the other side, which I think are really good complimentary pieces. Because Frankl Myers is really stout and he can be a really good run defender. He's a perfect left end.

And then Lawson is just your fucking go get it, baby. So it's, I, it was fun to watch them. I just think that they're going to be really well coach. Quinn and Williams. Quinn and Williams. Yeah. I mean, they have. And Sheldon Rankins is there now.

Sheldon Rankins, yep. They have some really interesting players. So fun stop. Definitely wanted to chat about it. I'm glad. Let's get into our breakthrough guys here. And let me start it off with one darnel Mooney. There we go.

Speaking of Bears' excitement here, I just think he's going to be a really good player. You know, I was from the start last year, he looked so promising as the Bears potential number two receiver. And he emerged as that in the second half of the season. but it's hard to really evaluate any offensive players on that team with the way that the quarterback play was. I mean, you know Alan Robinson is good, but here's the stat for you, okay?

Darno Mooney last season got 23 deep targets tied for 15th in the NFL. 23. How many do you think we're completed? Oh, no. Six. Very nice of you. Four. Oh.

Four of 23 deep targets last year were completed. And that is not Darno Mooney. fault. He had two drops on 94 targets last season. So here are the reasons of much better hands than you would think for us, quote unquote, speed-stir. Incredible hands. Yes. His ability to go get the ball.

He plays so much bigger than 510-1-175. And obviously contested catch situations did a really good job. The ball he caught against Darnall Savage late in the season in that Packer game where he's coming back across his body, that was normal. That kind of stuff is happening all the time. He comes back to the ball and high points it. And he does that on vertical routes where he's coming back down. So comebacks, curls, Diggs even when he's having to sell something vertical.

He does really good job at that kind of stuff. I don't want to compare him to Stefan Diggs because Diggs is so much better. But there are little tiny bits of his game that remind me of the way that Stefan Diggs plays. Yeah, he's such a better route runner than you would think. Like that's the thing. Exactly. If you saw his profile. As a speed guy.

Yeah. You see his profile. You're like, oh, he's a speed guy. It takes the top off. And then you watch him. And you're like, oh, my God, this guy can catch. He's a receiver. Like, he's an actual, like, and he compliments Alan Robinson so well.

I totally agree. And so he had 61 catches for 631 yards last season. They trade Anthony Miller. So now he is full time, day one, number two receiver. Everything out of camp. People are very excited about him. The franchise is really excited about him. I think he has a chance to be a really, really solid guy.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he was up that 1,000-yard range this season, especially if Justin Fields, plays a majority of the games, and they have somebody who could push the ball down the field. Matt Harmon, who does reception, had him at 70% success rate against man coverage last season, which is in the 66%tile.

And that says a rookie at 175 pounds. Not as good against press, which you're not surprising for a guy of that size, but again, a rookie, a fifth round pick, I think he has a chance to be a really, really good NFL player. All right. your first guy. All right. We're going with a favorite just talk we even mentioned somewhat with the Rams defense. I'm going with Jordan Fuller. Uh, safety of Ohio State. Yeah. And love it. Love it.

And you, you predicted it too. And that's what, when we're prepping in. We've talked, I mean, one of our kind of themes of the offseason, I'll keep kind of talking about it is just modern safety play. And Jordan Fuller kind of epitomizes that kind of how, you know, we've talked, I've talked Simmons from the Broncos. I've talked Darnell Savage many of times. And they're a little more athletic than Fuller, but what Fuller represents is kind of the size and the IQ that kind of a modern safety has. Seeing the game the way he does. It's exactly right.

Top down and he plays with that size where he's not, because they have to fill the run at that safety position like that. There's coming from depth. No fear doing that. Just the IQ to feel for space. And I remember kind of like watching the Rams defense, you know, early in season. We mentioned him a bunch of times and just all of a sudden he made the play against the Cowboys on the crosser, uh, to CD Lamb, I believe.

it was and you made the play i think it was fourth down uh week one and i was like man they start they're starting a six round rookie they must be desperate you know that's like your first thought when you see that's what you think but he's playing over rap that was the thing and that's why you should pay attention because like they drafted tail a rap really high and this guy's playing over him when rap is healthy and that's when you kind of like okay well there's got to be a reason you don't just do that on a whim and you look at this you know speed he's a four six guy but he plays so fast because he's so mentally sharp and that's why it's having a guy like that's just unlocks other things because he covers up for other guys.

And you're not in those types of defense. And I'm hoping Rahim kind of does the same stuff as defense coordinator there now. By all accounts, he is going to keep a lot of that stuff. Jordan Rodriguez has written a lot about that. I do feel like that's going to be the case there. I'm going to ask some questions about that when I'm there next week because I'm very curious about what that plan is. Great. And Jordan does an awesome job covering the ramp.

So it's when you don't need a freak athlete because if you're going to live in that too high world, you're not going to be in man. So you don't need that guy to cover a tight end. You don't need him to cover a back. And he's not a post safety either. He's not going to be sitting there in the middle of the field. Exactly. He doesn't have to be sitting in middle of the field covering numbers to numbers,

hash to hash, you know, sideline to sideline. Like he doesn't have to do that. So it's just, that's what having this where you just get these two good players now, as opposed to the freak, just one guy that comes around once every five years,

it's so much easier to play these types of defense. I shouldn't say easier, but it's much better to find these types of bodies where these guys are just so smart and it's so much more fun. we're talking about defense is playing on a string, having a guy like Jordan Fuller lets the defense play on a string. And that's why they give them the green dot because that's what these guys are. They're like modern middle linebackers just playing from depth. And it's really cool to watch the transition kind of happening in front of our eyes a little bit.

I'll be curious to see how many safeties get that green dot over the next year or two. The Browns are not going to give it to John Johnson. I asked about that. And it does seem like they're going to keep it with their Mike linebacker. But Jordan Fuller has it now. And there is another safety that has now, isn't there? Derwin James. Derwin James. That's right.

Derwin James has it with the charge, which makes all the sense in the world. So those are two guys. And I think we're going to see more and more of that over the next year or two as we see these types of defenses. Like John Johnson doesn't have it because the staff made that decision. But they said he absolutely could have. He is capable of doing that. And I think even considering it signals a shift in what we've compared to what we've seen

in years past. Jordan Fuller to me is the perfect example. It's not devaluing the position. it's understanding that you don't have to draft them high. Those two things can be true at the same time. The Rams value their safeties, but he's not this physical marvel that you have to draft in the top 10 because Jordan wrote a great story about this,

Jordan Roder again, about how they found him. And it's really drilling down on the IQ stuff and how you see the game and how you watch routes distribute. That's how that staff in the Rams and how the Chargers, that's how they evaluate the position. They're going to start a play. as they have draft interviews with guys. And as soon as the route starts to distribute,

they're going to press pause and be like, what's happening here? Because that's it. If you can see it, you can play safety in that defense. And I just think he's the perfect example of that. And I think we're going to hear about him a lot more. I think him and Terrell Burgess are going to be the safeties for that team.

And I think that while losing John Johnson sucks, I think they're still going to be just fine. Yeah. And yeah, like we said, there's a reason he was starting so early as a rookie, he's a six-round rookie. It's like, obviously, he's got to be pretty smart to play that position. And man, it's just, it is really cool. It's almost like we've had a discussion where we're talking about,

who are receivers for the draft a little bit. And we talked about the receiver value and all that. And it's kind of, you take the freak of freaks in the top 10 to top 12. But then, then you kind of, it's not devaluing the position. It's more that you can find that type of player in the later first,

the second to third rounds than you would think. That's just more, it's just a shifting and thinking. It's, yeah, the freaks of nature in the top 10, duh. But,

you know, the other guys is that you find, you can find them in different. spots. And that's what's so cool is just more more styles of play, get to play that position. Because we just got pigeonholed for about five years. Everybody was trying to find that Earl Thomas, which there's really only one Earl Thomas. So it was a little hard to like play that type of defense with that, you know, that position needed, that kind of apex spot. It's funny. I want to talk about a couple other guys later that I do. I think similarly, they fill archetypes. And I think that's

why we're going to talk about them more. I'll get to a couple of those guys. My next guy is Trayvon Dix. He had such a rough start to the season last year, and I think that's burned into people's minds. But if you watch over the second half of the season, he was dinged up a little bit, but starting with that Washington game they played, and then the Philly game right after that, I don't know the exact numbers on this. And again, I couldn't go back and watch it, which is super annoying. But it does feel like they were playing more off down the second half of the year. And I think if you saw some of the big plays that he made, he was able to kind of see some stuff unfold and then break down on the ball.

And I think it helped him get a lot more comfortable rather than having to play press and getting a little bit tied up. And, you know, that Travis Folgum touched out in the first Philly game that was kind of, he was memeified because of it. I think that type, that style of play didn't suit him that well early in the season. When he was playing a little bit more off, I thought he looked a lot better and just, again, more comfortable seeing the game unfold in a way that was beneficial to his development. And the reports out of Cowboys Camp are really good.

And I'll be curious to see in that Quinn, defense, how much he's going to be playing up on in receivers faces, how much they're going to let him play off. And there have been a couple clips of C.D. Lamb mossing him. But the coverage on those plays is amazing. Yeah. C.D. Lam is just making plays. Yeah. So it really does seem like, and all by every report is that he is having a really good training camp. And that's not surprising to me. Even before I read that stuff today, he was on my list. I was just like, oh, I wonder how he looks. Yeah. But this is based on how we look during the second half of the season. So I really do think he's

going to be a pretty good player. And I think that it's going to be tough in some people's minds to overcome that early start to his rookie year. But he looked like a different guy down the second half of the year. Yeah. And I mean, rookie up there with like quarterback as like one of the hardest positions for a rookie to play. You know, a corner, I should say, playing with quarterback. And that's the thing is that when you, especially with the Cowboys, they became kind of a meme of a team early on, you know, all these blowout all their defenses. Yes. One of the worst defenses of all time. You know, that always happens. especially when people just tune out on some teams after four weeks.

It just kind of is what it is, just the narrative of the NFL season. So that's the thing is you kind of miss growth some of these guys on these bad, quote-unquote, bad units, like have. There might be a D-Liaman, it might be a linebacker, might be a corner. But that's a position that, you know, a lot of guys grow throughout the rookie season and then usually take a nice leap into their second season. And like you're saying, like playing off and mixing it up, playing up there and man, like, or press, I should say, like going from, he played at Bama to, what he's now going to be running with Dan Quinn's defense. There is going to be some similarities. Like, you know, more single high, too high, we can get it all that. But as far as corner play, as far as playing off and how they're reading the quarterback and reading the receiver's

routes and all that, he's going to have some nice overlap. And so it's going to be nice. He's going to have the natural second year progression, but then he's going to have maybe a little more familiarity with what he wants to run and what, or what they want to run and what they want him to do at that position. So it's going to be cool. I think, I think it's perfect. He's got the great size. He's got long arms. So it makes a ton of sense. He's a great fit for what they want, what I think is going to be more of a traditional Seattle cover three that Dan Quinn's going to run. I also am interested Joe Witt Jr. is the secondary coach there now. He was with the Packers for about 10 years when Charles Wilson was there. Al Harris was there. That's when Tramon Williams was there. I mean, he's

been around for a long time. He was with the Browns where Denzel Ward was playing really well early in his career. So he's coached some really good players. And I just think that's only going to help Trayvon Diggs' development, having a guy like that there. And Al Harris is their assistant secondary coach. I saw that. I just think that's really, I think that's a good education for a young quarterback. Man, three mentions of Al Harris, like two months by us.

That's awesome. Way to go. Listen, mid-2000s Packers get a lot of love on this show. It just by accident almost. All right, who's your next guy? I'm going to go with, I'm going to get his name right. Justin Madibuque. Ah?

Madibut. I knew he was going to make his way out to this list. I just knew it to. And honestly, it's because I, what about him? What about, what about what about him do you like? He never even came to my like radar until like week 16 or something real late in December. And he's on the Ravens, by the way, for people who don't know. Yes, the Ravens.

He's a defensive libel for the Ravens. We're going to get better at this. Defense to tackle for the Ravens. Okay. So what I really liked with him, he had strong hands. Like the first play that really flashed he came from, he was banged up early in the year. He played a little bit and then he caught COVID. And so he didn't really get a lot of time until the end of this season.

and which is tough for any rookie. But like he had a great snap against Wyatt Teller, and that's very pop for the first time. It was like week 14, 15, somewhere around there. And he had a two-hand swipe on him, knocked him down. And it was legit. It wasn't like Wyatt Teller tripped. You know, like, you're looking for those.

I was trying to, you know, I always edge towards the offense alignment. Oh, he got stepped on or something. So I was like, okay, that's no. And he kept his balance. He just kept keeping his balance in the rotation. He was never on the ground. And that's something I've gotten, I've learned over the years from, is if you're looking for line athleticism is like,

especially offensive line is how many times they end up on the ground. And he just keeps his balance. He had good feet, he has strong hands. And it's just like he just has these flash plays. And then you get into the playoffs. He had a game against the Titans. And he's playing against the run really well. And he's playing rugged, chasing balls down. He's actually making some plays. And it makes a lot of sense. What the Ravens do is more about having a bunch of some of all their parts. And he's not going to be the highlight of their attention or of any offensive lines attentions with who else they have. So he's going to get these one-on-one opportunities. And I've seen him against the best. and he's able to hold his own. And that's as a rookie banged up, COVID, all those things. So I just really think this guy's going to send just in a limited amount of time that, you know, even in the games he did play, it was a limited amount of snaps, you know, 15 to 20 snaps, still disrupting stuff and just making play. So I just really think he's a guy that's going to take a big leap this next year. What a raven that guy is.

Like just one of, on the assembly line of useful defensive players that they have. My second note is typical Raven pick just needs another. breakout or another breakout with more consistent snaps. Here comes the cop pick. Yeah, exactly. In two years, in two years, he's going to sign a $12 million a year deal with somebody. They're going to get a fourth round pick. They're going to pick the next Justin Montaguay.

And then we're just going to keep on rolling. Sure, sure, sure. Constant. All right. So speaking of good hands on the defensive wine, my next guy is Dexter Lawrence, but I have two giants. So here's the reason, Dexter Lawrence is a first round pick. I'm not telling anybody that Dexter Lawrence exists that didn't know that, right?

But he had 30 pressures last year, really good pocket pusher as a pass rusher. But I think that as more and more teams start playing with these types of tight fronts, using your resources along your front to steal back some gaps, having guys play one and a half gaps or two gaps, we're going to start talking more and paying attention more to these defensive linemen that are very good with their hands, that are very good with leverage, they're very good at locking guys out.

He is that. And I think that along with the splash plays, he's just going to be the type of guy and more people are paying attention to. I know I'm paying attention to that archetype of player more than I would have two or three years ago because I understand their value more than I would have two or three years ago.

If you look at the way the giants have built their front, I think we're going to see a lot of Lawrence crashing and having your O'Jolari loop around in the way we saw Leonard Floyd did last year, right? Some of that weird front mechanic stuff, the Rams are doing, the Giants are built to do that. Edginess. Exactly. And I think Lawrence does that. So I just think he's the type of guy that's going to be more and more important as the league changes to these

sorts of front structures. And the Giants have already done it. Giants are running tight fronts last year where they only have one edge rush around the field because they have all these body types with Williams and Tomlinson and Lawrence last year. So I just think that that guy is going to raise and profile in our heads. So he's one of mine. And then Xavier McKinney is the other one. Nice.

So he played six games last year. Again, perfect modern defender. He played, I want to say like 250 snaps last season. He had almost exactly the same number at free safety in the slot corner. And what can you do? You can switch him in Logan Ryan. So that ability for them to be a little bit unpredictable. and move guys around.

That's exactly what we thought he would do coming out of Alabama, and that's exactly what it looks like he's going to do. So just a movable piece in that secondary, really instinctual moves very well. A guy who was, it was a bummer when he got hurt coming into last season, but when he did get that chance late in the year, he looked really good. And I just think as we talk more about and pay more attention to that Giants defense,

both of these guys are only going to get more and more pub as the season goes on. Yeah, I mean, we talked about, we watched when we were bringing down the Giants defense a little bit a couple of weeks ago and just like, okay, they might just be in cover two a bunch, but they varied up. They just have that little tweaks on just everything they do. And having versatile players that just makes it just looks so much better when you have a guy like that that can just, all right, where is it going to be out? Like you said, can you be deep? Is he going to be up there in the actual apex position in the slot? You know, something of that sort. And like Dexter Lawrence and Leonard Williams are great.

if you're going to be in those tight mint fronts, which is basically a 3-4 defense out of nickel personnel, a 3-3-5, you're going to need those 3-4-type bodies, those kind of high-grade defenders. And having guys that are big bodies, that might not be just the gap shooters, that are going to get 12 sacks,

but it's like they're going to get their 4.5, 5, and a half, six and a half sacks, but they're going to also just not let the defense move the ball. Like, they're just going to eat stuff up and just let all the other stuff flow around them. And then also just like settle the line of scrimmage and just set the edge. or set the middle, however they want to do it, not let the guys climb to the second level.

Just having guys like that, just not only just having one, but two of them. So that's four offense alignment right there or three offense alignment in a tight end. They're just eating up with two guys. And that's, you know, that's awesome when that, if you especially want, we're talking about modernization of some of these positions. So it's kind of just fun. You're talking about some old traits, but now they're tweaked for 2021. And that's what's cool. But it's like seeing with some of these guys getting some shine.

And like you said, I hope Dexter Lawrence gets a lot of shine this next upcoming year. I feel like you will be. We're going to talk a lot about the Giants defense here. I think co-ing it is season and then when the season starts. So I feel like there's going to be a lot of time for that. All right, who's your next guy? My next guy is going to be, we're talking, who said first round picks. So I got to keep that train going.

I'm going with AJ Terrell. See, I want to hear about this, though, because I will readily admit I did not watch AJ Terrell last year. Like I know very little about how AJ Terrell played last season. So I would like you to lay this out for me. Yeah. And it's kind of fun. Like a lot of times you watch some of these.

young guys. I was talking about, you know, with the Cowboys defense. You talk, maybe watch some of the bad defenses because you're watching a really good offense and Ohio AJ Trowell kind of came. It came to my attention when they played the box. So, and then the Chiefs as well. Actually, chiefs, I think it was week 15 or 16 as well. So he made a really nice play against Tyrick Hill. But he's going to stay under under the radar anyways, just to do a narrative. Like I said, the bad defense. And Falcons probably are going to be lukewarm at best on defense. But he has a potential really does to be a top tier. corner, like a true number one corner.

What's your favorite trait that he has? Just size and ball skills. I mean, I'm always going to be a sucker for that. And that's what it is. It's ball skills. It's his body positioning. I should say ball skills. I should just say body positioning because that is what he does best.

The clip with Tyree Kill, the interception against off of Mahomes, just everything about it. He's running step for step. He realizes, you know, he's not going to stay all the way with Tyree Hill. So he starts slowing down. He just realizes he's near the end zone. It's like an outfield are coming up on the warning track. And it's just hot, high points the ball. And it's, yeah.

And it's like that awareness that it was like, oh, that's awesome. And he has physicalness to him. Like he has, he just keeps saying ball skills. Like he forced three fumbles. He's not scared to tackle. Like he had a game where he had over a dozen tackles at the corner position. Like he's just a ball player. And that's kind of like the trend of the show a little bit.

But just that good size and length and just actually knows how to play football. Physical tackler, ball skills can run with guys. He's good athlete. it's yeah he's going to be really fun i'm very curious to see how he plays in this next year especially well i think i'm just curious to watch the falcons in general um just for a lot of reasons uh but it's i'm really curious baby you get to watch more dn p's third down stuff and this would be that's what would be great because he's he had like i said he has the ball skill so if that like kind of creeper defense like it's going to be he might be in the post he might be deep you know deep half you might be all over the

place and it's going to be cool to watch him or manned up with like a number one number one receiver but he's a good player it's going to be fun to watch him year two. I'm going to be there tomorrow. I hope that we get to see some of him and Calvin Ridley playing against each other. Oh, yeah. I love to watch that a little bit during practice. I assume it'll happen at some point.

Yeah. All right. I'm cheating again here and I'm putting two guys from the same team. I'm really excited to watch Antonio Gibson in year two. I think that he made huge strides from the beginning of last season to where he was at the end. He had 33 career carries. Yeah.

In college. I mean, he didn't know how to play running back. It was crazy. See, the physical profiles, undeniable, right? 235, 4-3-something 40. Forget how big he is. Huge. Huge.

So that, I was talking to somebody there recently. I was talking about where he made strides and what he could be in this year in his second season. And they just said, understanding and feel for the position. If you watch some of the zone runs especially, making really early cuts early last season, not pressing the hole, not making guys commit, and just not trusting. himself, not trusting what he's seeing. By the end of the year, real strong, obvious improvement in that area. Yeah.

Now it's just, can he hit that final gear? And I'm talking literally, can he hit that final gear? Where he trusts what he's seeing so much that he just puts his foot in the ground and goes. When he gets to the second level, he just starts running by and through people. Because I think that's the question now. I think he's trusting what he's seeing at the first level. I don't think he's trusting how to get where he wants to at the second level. If he becomes that home run hitter,

he could be a really, really special back. And I think that we're going to see him more as a receiver this year. I don't know if he'll have 80 catches because McKissick does have a role in that offense, but I still think we'll see more of Gibson as a past catcher because you can just expand how much you want to include him in the offense. And I think their offensive line is going to be pretty good. No, they're going to figure it out. They have Leno there and out left tackle.

He's going to be the left tackle there. I think Cosmi is going to start the season. season probably as the second left tackle with Cornelius Lucas there, I think Cosme will eventually be the starting right tackle. And you think about his movement skills and just that group of five, I think will crystallize at some point during the season to be an above average and typically potentially good offensive line. And you put a guy like Antonio Gibson behind them, I think he has a chance to be an excellent running back in his second season. Yeah. And like I said, you forget how big he is and just how if he's getting into getting a feel for especially like a zone scheme or anything like that,

Getting to the second level, he's going to not only have to get used to the first cut on his own. He's going to get up onto the safety. And that's where he has to learn the second cut on the safety. Because if you ever see a running back drill, it's one movement, two movements. You know, that's what he's going to have to get used to. So now if he's getting comfortable with that first movement. And like you said, then it goes from those intermediate to now home runs. He's turning those doubles into triples and home runs.

And that's just going to come with confidence. And the fact, like, he's built like Ryan Matthews. Do you remember Ryan Matthews? Yeah, I loved watching Ryan Matthews when he was healthy. Oh, so. Good. So one of all-time, like all-bust teams guys. Like, we played against him. He's at Fresno. Oh, my God. But he, but that's how he's built. And it's, he doesn't have that running backness to him like Ryan Matthews because he was just an all-around complete back. But I think Antonio Gibson has that size and that athleticism to maybe have flashes of that. And he just has to get more comfortable to get to that kind of level. But also having that past catching ability, being a receiver by trade, it's, you know, it's only going to get unlocked, especially as it gets more comfortable as a true runner. And the defense has to be a, to honor him. Now they have to honor that if he's on the field to actually run the ball. Now he can split out. They can do whatever they want and getting creative. Scott Turner is going

like be fine with that because that could just create some really cool stuff with interchanging some guys and yeah, a whole bunch of stuff, fun stuff for the Washington offense. And another guy I want to mention is Logan Thomas. I know it's weird to say a 30 year old tight end who just got paid could be breaking out. They're very excited about him because now it's so hard to judge their past catchers from last season because of the quarterback play. He had 72 catches for 670 yards, which seems pretty good, but I think he's going to be even better this year. Apparently, he's just playing with a ton of confidence because last year was his first full year. This is his first year as a full-time tight end. And now

he just apparently has such a good feel for what they're doing and his role in the offense, everything else. So there is a hole right now for that fourth tight end spot in the NFL, right? Like, you got the big three and there's a little bit of a lot. And there's a little bit of a void after that. And I think there is a potential for Logan Thomas to be that next guy by the end of this season. Like you talk about Waller and Kelsey and Kittal and that's it. And then obviously Kyle Pitts is his own thing. But can Logan Thomas be at the top of that second tier? I think that could happen by the time this season is over, even at age 30. He has a potential. But I mean, he's got to have to be a no fan. And actually, yeah, it's a good point. It's a good point. And actually one of my next guys are

to talk about. All right. That's a great transition. Who's your next guy here? Hold on real quick. Well, story. I saw Logan Thomas in college. I think he was a couple years younger to me.

But he played the first time I ever saw him throw a ball is against Miami, University of Miami. And you know, when the normal starting quarterback gets hurt, you're like, oh, here comes a run play. Or like here, you know, here comes a big leg, maybe. They just dialed up like, post, like, like glancer out for him. When he just dropped about like 150 yards. Oh, my God.

It was just a rocket. And I coached with a guy named Spencer Whipple. He's with the Cardinals now at Pitt. He told me the story. And he goes, yeah, we thought that the whole stadium. And all of a sudden you just saw this missile just knocked this guy over. And so he was like, who the hell was that guy? It was Logan Thomas.

But yeah, just, yeah, it's times a flat circle. Here he comes 30 years old. Here he is starting tight end for Washington. It's funny how that works. But talking about another guy that I think could have said to the tight end position. It is our producer will be happy. Kent is Blake Jarwin. And Blake Jarwin is a tight end for the Dallas Cowboys.

I'm being better at this, naming who these guys are. Thank you very much. We're going to be good. by the end of the year we'll be good. But, you know, if we did this show last year, if we were, me and you had this podcast at this time last year, I would have mentioned him for that podcast. Yeah, we talked about him.

I mean, I talked about him coming into last season. I was all about Blade Jarwin last year. Oh, and I just, in watching him again in 2019, just watching the old stuff, I think I retweeted something, but also just going through some clips I have saved.

And it's just like, I mean, he's really good. And luckily, he was a week one tour in ACL. So it's like he's got the full year to come back from it. But he's big. He's athletic. he's got good hands he's entering his prime i think he's 27 years old he's actually a good route runner for his size like you think he's just going to be this big wide but straight line why but no he's got feel and he can bend and he's got you know he can

catching range and on the shorter intermediate stuff such a good tie-down for deck such a really good just a really really good connection of their skill sets in terms of where he can attack up the seam and like that's exactly where jarman can do a lot of damage and honestly if they what's so great and talking you that. I jokingly started as a buzzword, but I keep using it, but it's just synergy. It's like, if they isolate him because he can actually run stuff and do the one by three stuff, like, you know, the picture of the Kelsey formation, that unlocks C.D. Lamb to put him in the slot in the number three spot, you know, and just operate from the middle because that's what he does best. And then let's Amari Cooper go from the number one two spot and let's Michael Gallup go from

the other outside spot. It's just like, just because he can do that unlocks other guys. And that's always fun, that multiplier effect of having a guy that has a skill set that, let's other good players do what they're best at. It's just really cool. I think CD Lamb is too obvious to be included here. We should mention CD Lamb on this show, though. It seems, again, I don't want to get too, I don't want to get too tied up in training camp videos.

And I just, I'm trying not to. CD Lamb could be a monster this year. Like, CD Lamb could be one of the most productive receivers in the league this year. I would not be surprised if he was just their alpha number one dude by the time this season was over. He's just, I mean, the chemistry he had with DAC early last year. It was like, it was so evident.

They put him in that number three spot where a tight end usually lines up. And he's just overrouts and seam benders and all that stuff. And it was just like, they had a feel from that 15 or 20 yard range. They have a nice feel already. That was as a rookie week two, three, four before Dak got hurt. Hopefully he's healthy right now too. I'm crossing myself every day. But it's just, you know, but I agree.

CD, I think it's just going to be incredible this year. I think a lot of those second year receivers, I think he could have a big year. I think you could be really good this year. I'm excited to watch those guys. Chanel. Yep. I mean, Judy.

I mean, there's a whole plethora of them. All of those guys, again, almost seem too obvious. That's why I didn't include any of them here. But those second year receivers, I think definitely deserve mention here. My guy, again, this is contrast to the first round receivers. My next guy is Kevin Dotson, the guard from the Steelers, who was a fourth round pick last season. Only had 358 snaps last year, but when you saw him in pinch hit duty, I mean, the game he had against the Eagles was so impressive.

And he's going against Fletcher Cox, but also Brandon Graham inside in that game, and mixing up sets and really trusting himself to get to his spot and hunker down against Cox, who is one of the best bull rushes in the league. But then when he was playing against Graham, he quick sets him so he doesn't get momentum. I mean, just a real advanced feel for the position, it seems like, for somebody who was mostly known as a run blocker. And during his last year at Louisiana, Lafayette, and he was the second guy to Robert Hunt.

Like, people didn't talk or think about him as much, even on his own offensive line in college. And it just seems like that guy has a chance to be one of the better young guards in the NFL for an offensive line that desperately needs him to develop and be really good early. Yeah. And he's built like every Steelers guard we've seen for 20 years. You know, he's just, right? He looks like a Steelers guard.

You're like, yep, that's a Steelers guard right there. But it's very telling that he played both guard spots as a rookie, that they trusted them to play both sides. And I know it's like, people just think it's mad and oh, it's left side, right side. It's like, no, no, that's the shit's hard, especially when you're young. And the fact that he can do that, he's got good feet. I mean, I actually. And again, it's not just feet.

It's not just foot quickness. It's understanding how to get to his spot and set up and just everything. Exactly. It's just more about moving with confidence. then it is being this ultra athlete. And at that position, that's what matters most. I was so impressed at what he did last season. And I'm very excited to watch him in year two.

Yeah. All right. He's going to be a fun one. Who's your last guy here? Last guy. Honorable mentioned, we're talking about those second year receivers. Another one is Quintes Cephas from the Lions. But I didn't think the Lions weren't, weren't any mention than that.

You have a contractual obligation to mention that. Yeah. But it was just, I don't think the Lions were worth mentioned as a breakout anywhere. Fun, fun story. I was talking to Marvin Jones today. And I was talking about free agency and where he was going to go. And he was kind of like, yeah, us guys in Detroit, we kind of saw the writing on the wall. I think we knew that they were going to be tossing the money around.

It was probably time to be looking for houses somewhere else. Just wait. You kind of know, you get to get the feeling kind of like what regime's coming in or kind of what's going on. So yeah, that makes a ton of sense. But yeah. But yeah. No, that's why Quintas Cephas is an opportunity. Have you ever, have you seen their offensive depth chart sometimes?

It's kind of like, oh, no, offensive lines. I mean, I'm a Ross St. Brown. It's going to get a lot of run there as a rookie. Big and soft. That's what they're going for. All right. So back to breakout candidates other than Quintess, Cephas. I'll go with Jeffrey Simmons, another first rounder, gosh, dang it.

But a defense of tackle for the Titans. And Simmons came on last year. And I mean, they better hope you're right. That's what I, that's what I have. said, I think he has it in them, but God, they really need, they really need them to be a big time player to be tolerable on defense. I mean, badly. And with, with Simmons, he, he, he, he, he's not the gap shooting defensive tackle. He's big and rugged. He, he plays more of that. I love rugged. Rugged. Rugged is an amazing adjective. Isn't it? Oh, I got that from old coach.

Like, he always described, if that was his compliment, it wasn't that a guy's good. It's like, but if he goes, he's rugged, that meant, oh, I love this guy. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Every coach has a little quirk like that, like, especially they're all like gruff coach. But yeah, he's rugged. But that's what he is. Like he's more like, uh, not saying this scale of a player, but a tier of a player,

but more like Kevin Williams type, you know, more of disruptive as opposed, not gas shooting disruptive, but more of like, disrub, bar fighter at the, at the line's scrimmage. Just tossing people around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just pushing guys, knocking them over. And that's what's, he has to be good for them to be good or just be tolerable.

Uh, not even just good. Just, just average on defense. And he's a monster. athlete. And the thing is he was banged up his rookie year. They draft him. That's why he dropped a little bit. It was because of the injury. And then, you know, it goes through a COVID year. And it's like, okay, maybe he's going to ascend his third year. That's just

natural for all these players. But now it's like he got a true year, a true offseason, a true year of reps. He got his legs underneath him. So I'm very excited to see him maybe take a big leap this next year in his third season. So yeah, Jeffrey Simmons, defense tackle, Titans. There we go. I got to start giving

numbers now, too. Maybe it's just a rugged defense. defensive tackle for the Titans. We're going to start using that. That's going to be one of the buzzwords on the show. I love it. That's all we got,

because we got a lot of the stuff to get to do. We got to get to Greg. We got to get to the box coaches. This was very fun. You and I will be back on Friday. You're doubled-up in this week because of the original way I made the schedule, and that's just how it's going to go. So we'll be back on Friday.

We're going to be talking about some coaches on Friday. We're going to change gears a little bit. Again, we're going to get to some of the Jaguar stuff that I got today. But until then, thanks for joining us, buddy. We'll talk to you a little bit down the road. Sounds good. I'm very excited now to welcome the athletics box writer, something we've had on the show multiple times,

because I don't know if you guys know, but this team won the Super Bowl last year. Greg, how you doing, buddy? Doing well. Good to have you here. Good to have a national presence here at Box training camp. Don't be silly. Don't be silly.

This is nice because we're in an air-conditioned trailer in Tampa, and I don't know if, no, people know this. It's warm in Tampa in August. It turns out in the summer months, the temperature goes up, and it's blazing hot. It's funny when we get to ask the northern players like Brady and Grong, what it's like. Not so much so

when you're standing in direct sun watching a two hours of practice. Well, as a 78 year old retiree, Tom Brady asked for this and he's used to this. So now he has no room to complain. He wanted this. This is the climate he's accepted. Yeah, lots of things different all of a sudden between Boston and the summertime

and, you know, August and Tampa where he is now. We've reached a point in Mike travels where I have no idea where I am. I have no, the logos are the only thing that lets me know which team is which, and I have no idea what day of the week it is. But this does feel different because every other stop, even with rosters that are Super Bowl

caliber, indie Cleveland, Buffalo, that's a Cleveland and Buffalo. There's still questions, right? Who's the second corner? How does the depth shake out at this position, all of that stuff? That doesn't exist here. There's no who fills this role. There's no this. This team is ready made.

It's the exact same guys that it was a year ago. And it almost makes for a strain. training camp experience in that way. It really is because all the normal things that you ask about and you monitor on a daily basis, they're still there. They're unwavering. There's not even guys getting a look. Yeah.

It's kind of like there's so many not only accepted started roles, but even the backups, even the twos are probably. I'll see a change at the second string guard. Again, this is just barely on the cusp of the 53. And it's like, oh, wow, I got to check on that. It's so weird. It's a large position to be in. As a team to be pondering, oh, gosh, we're not sure who 52 or 503.

or 53 are on this team. But the first 46, 47 guys are pretty set in stone. And they're back from a championship team. I had a conversation with someone on the personnel side today. And they just said, we didn't think this version would probably be possible. You'd hope that maybe it's six or six of the seven. But can we do this? But ownership made concessions where this team was allowed to make some financial choices they

hadn't made in the past. And this was possible in part because of that. Because when you look at, even when they were spending some money and free agency, over the last five, six, seven years, the cap was very clean. They never pushed money into future years. And that allowed them to have this opening where if we get good,

if we have a Super Bowl caliber roster, can we do some of this trickery? Can we do some of these things that the Saints have done and everything else? And they did, and that allowed them to have this team in place in a way that no one could have predicted. It's really cool.

And that for the longest time, they were the model for not just, not really frugality, but just careful spending. Yes. Where like a year ago, they had like $88,000 in dead cap space. Okay, you're talking about a $200 million cap and it's like, here's the change in the couch that covers the dead space.

And now what Jason Light said that makes sense is that they did that so they could do this. So when you get to a time where you have a very specific window with a 44-year-old quarterback and a 69-year-old head coach and you want to win now and you want to do it again, you can do that. So what they've done is they've borrowed like $55 million from future cap seasons to finance this team to keep everybody there. It's neat. You talked about like four out of five, maybe four out of six. You know, I think everybody thought, okay, they'll do what they can to keep Shack Barrett. Godwin and Barrett seemed like a tough thing to pull off. Right, right. And like the franchise tag made that possible. Of course Godwin isn't on the franchise tag.

He might be making $20 million a year in Indy or somewhere else. But all the people that you thought would be like acceptable losses. Like, I'm pretty sure Fernette's going to make too much money. They don't bring it back. Antonio Brown, it was really neat and it worked out well, but he's going to want more money. he's going to go somewhere else. Got a ring. Great stay.

Thanks again. And all those types state. Even the backup types, even like the D-Line had, you know, Indomacan Sue who could have retired or signed elsewhere as he's done numerous off-seasons. All those guys came back. So there's so many positions where it's almost at the detriment of some of the young talent that they're excited about. But you won a Super Bowl with those other guys.

How can you not want them back and trust that everybody's going to just beat Father time for a year and do it again? The one thing now, and again, the person I talked to today, it's a good practice is one where everyone's healthy. Health is the number one thing. And that's, you look, I wrote about this a few weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago, time is a construct at this point about how they brought back everyone and how unprecedented it was. And whether that was the biggest step in them doing this again, luck is the biggest step in them doing this again. You need the breaks. And at this point, that is the number one concern.

And that might seem like a dumb thing to talk about or dumb thing to focus on. but that now becomes the biggest thing. Because if they stay healthy, they absolutely are going to be in the same positions again. And they had the expectations of a champion. That's the strange thing. You go from a team that hadn't been to the playoffs in 13 years and any progress is seen as victory. Now it's like the big question I have for fans this summer is like, what constitutes success for this team? Like what would they have to do?

You know that nobody's repeated as champs for 17 years. Can you expect that? And they do for the most part. And it's crazy. But like you said, I think when you wrote that piece, early in the summer, you said they were like number one in the league in games lost in adjusted games lost. And it's like I think I don't even know that I was aware of it as it happened because they had a couple of prominent injuries where they lost OJ Howard a month into the season. They lost Vita Vaya for the whole second half of the season.

And they got Vita back and he was a huge part of the playoffs. But those were two big things. But you forget that that's almost it. A couple L.A. Marpec games here in there. There's like the secondary each, I think all the corners each missed like. two games over the course of the year, but that was it. Like there was not even needing to go on IR for three weeks. And that's what they need again, especially when, again,

Gronk is two years removed from his retirement and Brady is at an age where no one has done this again. That's where it starts. So, yeah, every practice to see, you know, is it a Veterans Day for O.J. Howard? Is Levante David okay? There's a lot of, in guys like Levante and Will Goldston and Sue and Steve McClendon, 30-somethings. It's not just Brady obviously. Those guys been around for as long as I've been doing this.

Yeah. And that's, they have to not act their age in terms of their bodies holding up and persisting the same way they did last year. The one thing, just because I'm here, I feel like I'd want to say something about watching Tom Brady practice is so interesting. I mean, just the ball placement, how exacting he is. And Kyle Trask mentioned that when he was talking about what it's like to be around. Brady is a young quarterback. And just the attention to detail. It really does stand out. And I know that that's, people have said that a million different times, but you notice it when you're watching him play. And I feel like when you get that proximity to it, it's hard not to appreciate it. And it's, it's like it's funny in that we,

so much of this off season was his knee, his knee, and is he wearing a sleeve? And he doesn't look like he has any problems at all. He punted a ball out of frustration today at full, like in full go because he took a sack during 11 and 11 drills. Right. I think he's okay. Right. And yeah, it's like I'm watching, he's golfing in big sky. And again, like things you might not do if you're worried about your knee. Yeah, no. So I mean, physically, he's there and again it's scary to think that he could be better physically at 44 than he was at 43 just from not having this knee to hear him go through all the stuff that he and Alex Guerrero were doing taping it overnight, taping it in the morning, maintaining all the while not being on an injury report, mind you. But all the work he had to do just to get his knee okay to practice, he doesn't have that right now. And if he can keep himself healthier than he was last year, that's not something you expect from a 44-year-old. And it's also interesting because along with that, to figure out ways can't how this team can be better. They found their stride on offense down the second half of the season.

I think that I talked to Bruce Aaron about it a little bit today, just the conversation that him and Tom had during that biweek. They're going to golf. They couldn't. So they had to have it over the phone. And they just said, we need to find ways to get big chunks. We need to find ways to have this offense be explosive, but in ways that Tom is comfortable with.

And they played with some protection things. They played with more play action. And they hit it. They found the right mix of stuff. and Byron had a sense of how to call plays. And that was over the last two months. Now, that's where they start. That process is already done.

You know the comfort levels and everything else. And it might seem crazy to say, can this team be better than it was last year. But offensively, it absolutely can be. If they're healthy, they should. Yeah. Which is wild. Well, it's like you take, again, it's like they talk about everybody back. Not everybody's back and healthy right now.

So again, you had O.J. Howard who. And O.J. Howard for the year. Antonio Brown for the whole year, Gio Bernard is another piece that they did. didn't have last year where what are you going to do on third and five if you get five eligible out there you're going to have one in four net be running routes like that's the thing there are little layers to this team offensively that just weren't available and they've tried it's neat and they've still identified those few holes on that roster from last year and they got almost nothing from lachan mccoy last year and again as a third back maybe you don't need to get that much but bernard

should be much more impactful in that role than even i think what they wanted mccoy to be if he's a catch guy. And if he makes them a better third down offense, that's a big thing for this team. They weren't necessarily good at that, especially in the first half of last year. So yeah, I think they found little things. There's no huge high dollar contract they've added, but they've found ways we're on paper. They should be better. Bernard is an ad. Brown for the whole year is a different wrinkle. And then on defense, I think the big thing is what Joe Tryon is going to give them its depth. You know, the starters are all the same. We know that. They, from what I have gab,

are very, very excited about what he has looked like. He looks like the real deal that they drafted at the end of the first round and just being able to, again, drop a piece like that in, even if he's getting 10 snaps a game. That's the question. When you go all the way of the mountaintop, how are you going to be a little bit different, a little bit better, a little bit more dynamic in these quiet ways?

And he feels like a way for them to do that on defense. Yeah, he's exciting because JPP and Shackbert don't come off the field, much more so that probably any other pass rushers, outside pass rushers in the league. I think that, but I want to say JPP was second in snap rate among edge guys in the NFL last year after Watt. And I think Leonard Freud was right there. But they were like right there in the top three or four.

And again, JPP, 32 years old, coming off his own knee surgery. So those are guys that if you can just scale back a little bit, if you can convince them, you know, hey, let's do 75, let's do 80% of the snaps. That's still a lot for your position. Especially if you want to be playing in February. Right. If you want to have a little bit more left in the tank in the fourth quarter when you get a lot of sacks, that's what Joe Tryon brings, I think. It's not just what he brings, but what he helps those two starters maybe have a little bit more left.

It's so interesting because I think that guys like Tawa Johnson last year, guys like Joe Chion this year, this is an amazing locker room to walk into. If you're a young player, there is no better education than sitting there watching Shaq Barrett and JPP play every day. And that's, there's a reason that franchises stay good. And it's because you have that incubator for young talent. And at least right now, it feels like this place can be that for those younger guys that they're excited about. And they got that at so many positions. There's kind of that that Jedi Paduan kind of thing going on where we're Devin White, part of the reason Devin White is he's a great example. He said two years of Levante David standing next to him every part of the way.

Like corner safety. I'm always surprised because they don't have that. That's a group where it's just exclusively young guys. and they're still finding ways to grow. You just, it's not something you can pull off easily, but they've done that at a lot of positions. I mean, now you see it not even really impacting this year. Ryan Jensen is on the way probably out at center and Robert Hainesie has this year where he probably has no expectation of playing, but we'll learn from those guys.

You kind of have to be preparing for the next cycle even if they're not playing right now. And they've done a really good job of that. I always had this hunch a couple of years ago. And I'm sure other people had asked this question about when they're, they use so many high picks on corners over that two-year stretch, was that intentional? Are they trying to spam the position? Because if you look at holes and dead zones on rosters in the NFL, Buck's secondary play was right there with Jets, pass rusher, bears quarterback, whatever you want to do.

And it was nice to have that confirmation today of that's exactly what we did. We're like, we just need to take dice rolls at this position. And now two, three years later, you have a full. fully functioning secondary as a result of those choices. Right. And it's cool because they've made mistakes. Yes. But they have an amazing young secondary that's entirely on their rookie contract. And MJ Stewart is way out of here.

M.G. Stewart's in Cleveland. Vernon Hargraves. That's yes. Yes. Is 11th overall and gets cut before his rookie deals up. And you still have. But again, you do that by just carpet bombing with, I think it was eight picks in the third

round or higher in four years. Like as many high picks in the secondary as everywhere else on the field. But what you get for. it is this. And it's a limited window because a year from now, Carlton Davis gets paid two years from now, Jamel Dean and Sean Murphy Bunting get paid. But in this window, you have this group where they're all 24, 25 years old and they're playing really well. They'll be, I think people don't expect them to be better, but they'll be better this year. The tone of this conversation is too positive. Let's think about where this could go wrong. Because I think that it's tempting when you have a team

with this amount of talent and this amount of continuity to say, this is all great. Where, as you're thinking about the roster, do you think a tiny little cracks might exist that they need to be thinking about that I should be thinking about. Right. There's definitely still inconsistency in defense. This was a team that lost to the Bears last year. You know, I remember that barely beat the Giants last year on a flag getting pulled up on a two-point conversion at the end of the game. So I think if they have even modest injuries on defense, it creates the potential for them being in like a 31-28 slug fest. But that's it.

I mean, it's inconsistency. It's injuries. There's not, there's not a visible weak spot except the areas where your debts could be exposed. I think, and that makes perfect sense because on offense, let's play out the string to the worst possible outcome. If you lose one of the receivers, you can live because not only do you have more receivers, we can play more 12 personnel.

We have three tight ends. There's more flexibility and versatility there. Even on the offensive line, let's say, one of the interior guys gets hurt, now Hainesie is on the roster and gives you that just worst case scenario, breaking gays for emergency option. On defense, at corner and at safety, it doesn't feel like those options are there in the same way they are on offense. Right. And I would say that because like receivers like the most insulated position they have. It's a gluttonous situation. And it would have said that. Tyler Johnson would start for 80% of the teams in the NFL.

And I would say that before they brought A.B back, it seemed like they had too much. So there are guys they will cut that will play for other NFL teams or receiver. But like you said, they don't have good third tackle right now. They lose a tackle, it's patchwork. If one of the three top corners goes down, as they did all three at times last year, there's a little bit. I mean, Ross Cockrell would be stepping in. It's safety. Mike is my age. So yeah. Yeah. That's safety. If, if, again, they like Mike Edwards, there's a third safety, but there's, there's limited depth at positions. So I think any NFL team is going to say they can't take more than one injury at a position. So that that's that's the that's the nits we're picking right now.

But that's where we are with this team. And that's where we should be. And I think you know coming into it. But again, what I love about this trip and what I love about this time of year is you do get a day to sit and think about each team. And that's what I've gotten to do. And this team looks like how you'd expect them to when you start going down the entire roster and you start really turning over all the positions in your head. It's like, yeah, they are as deep.

They are as talented. They are as versatile as we think. And the schematic stuff, they really, really seem to hone in some on some. on some stuff last year. And there's just no reason for the expectations to not be as sky high as they are right now. The only other thing I'll mention is motivation. And that for so long... That's the number 12 is for though.

Yeah, that's the thing. And you want to say that. And because it's like every guy in this locker room had never been to the playoffs before last year. And now like 45 guys in your 43 will have a ring that they just got. And Brady is the thing. That's the thing. You just have to trust that here, maybe even more so than just in football,

Brady is a guy who's made an entire 20-year career out of winning more rings. That four isn't enough. We won a fifth. And seven isn't enough. We want an eighth. And that has to permeate. That has to be everybody that has won has to say, what was your second title like? And he's like, you know, this, this.

I think you can overstate the Tom Brady effect in all of these things at times. But I also think that in some ways it's underrated. And it's one of those things where when you look at quarterbacks and the guys that have had sustained success for years and years and years. A lot of the time it's because they love the process. They love the minutia of it. They get pleasure out of drilling down and figuring it out and doing all of this. And that rubs off on people. It's not as if Tom Brady's given all these rah-rah speeches about how great it is to win the Super Bowl. But if guys around him appreciate that love of the process and that rubs off on them a tiny little bit where it's like, yeah, it's August 1st. It's hot as shit. I don't want to do this.

but you get a little bit of pleasure out of doing one thing right or getting a little bit better. That's the stuff that allows you to sustain success. Right. It's all the ridiculous drive and competition and attention detail. And it's also confident. I mean, he's such an enormously confident guy. And to hear him talking to Jim Gray and still talking about the teams that didn't get him last year. And there's not as many smart people as you think.

And to compare, I mean, again, he's name dropping Gretzky and Jordan. and he has every right to do that. If anybody can say that as Tom Brady, but he's still doing it. And like I said, I think the confidence that he brings into a locker room immediately just diffuses to the rest of the room and helps with the guys that don't have that instinctively. And that helps right now. Like I said, this will be a confident group,

even under the enormous expectations that come with his team. Enormous expectations, but a group that we've all come to know pretty well over the last year in a group that hasn't had any changes. Again, it's a very, very weird process to go through during camp. I'm sure it has been for you, even in my one day here. It's a little bit strange. And it's like you try to find the newcomers and appreciate what they'll bring and how it'll change things. It'll be a wrinkle.

But it's almost like if you ride a, like for the players, if you ride a roller coaster and you love it, you can ride the roller coaster again two minutes later knowing exactly what. And there will be unexpected turns in this too. They just like what's ahead of them. They don't care. The turns are only so bad. And that's all you can do is an NFL team. All you can do is an NFL team is protect yourself from the worst, worst case scenario.

And if you do that, you've done the right things. And that's exactly what this team is done. I look back and I wonder if the same giddiness and optimism was in New England after so many of his championship teams. Because Brady – This team is more talented than those teams, though. Probably – I mean, it really is. Right. Because Brady – you look at Brady, six seasons in New England coming after Super Bowls, only made the Super Bowl twice, only one at once.

You know, so that's what – that's what his history is. not just NFL players, but Tom Brady, as good at winning titles as you can, is one for six at this. And yet you have this optimism because he's here and because so much is here. I think it's just the talent. I mean, it's there, you'd be hard pressed, even coming into last year, I thought that. I thought this team could win the Super Bowl the moment that Tristan Worfson and Antonin Ophill landed on it. I thought that by you look at all the spots and where they need you guys. And the two real needs heading into that draft were officer tackle like glaring. Like they need to do this. And in my mind, it was defensive play.

You had so many solid players in the back end guys you could rely on, whether it's your Murphy Buntings or your Carlton Davis's or whatever. But you didn't have that just chaos creator shitster that Antoine Winfield is. And when they filled those two roles, I thought they can do this. And now the team is even better and has more talent than it did last May. And what's wild is you forget about those guys like Worf's and Winfield that had no preseason and no offseason and still played at an insanely high level. They should be better in year two.

theoretically. They both should be right there as like pro bowl consideration type players. And then they didn't know that going into last season. Even when they felt like great players and great matches, you didn't know that going into last season. It's always good to be a little bit lucky. And that's exactly what happens when you stumble into the all pro right tackle at the 13th overall pick.

Sometimes you need that. Oh, and a safety in the second round. I mean, that's, you know, Winfield. The top safety on their board, which they will tell you. We did a redraft of last year. And it's like you're going through the draft order. And it's like, you know, you go in thinking like, well, there's no way they're getting worse. And worse, I think worse went fourth to the Giants.

And I think Winfield, instead of going whatever, 49th or whatever he did, Winfield was like eighth overall. It's not too bad. That looks pretty good a year later when that's two top 10 picks. And you weren't in the top 10 at all. I'm very excited to watch this team. I'm very excited for the season to start. And I'm very excited to be doing this with you again.

So it's very good to see you. Greg Alman. Thank you very much for that time, my friend. Thanks, man. safe travels. We're here with the box office coordinator byron left coach baron thank you very much for doing this. I really appreciate it. No problem. Thanks for having me. Of course. So I was so interested in just kind of what you guys did down the stretch and how the offense kind of crystallized over the last couple months of the season. So when you guys were going into the buy and I know Bruce talked with

Tom that week, I'm sure you talked to Bruce, what were some of the specific things in that off time that you guys really felt like this is what we want to drill down on? This is. This is is what we're doing well. These are the little tweaks we want to be. Well, it gave us a time to just see, right? We self-scout week in and week out, so we're not surprised by anything from a self-scout standpoint. So we knew what we were doing good and what we weren't doing well. We just wanted to execute better, really. It just really came down to execution. We knew from the beginning that it would take some time, right? We knew that it would take some time, especially as different of a year that it was. We knew it would take some time for us to get to where we

wanted to get at. And we just caught a scratch there really in the middle of the season where we played like some really good football teams and we didn't play our best ball. And when you're in this league and you don't play your best ball against good football teams, you don't win. So, you know, we lost three or four and we went to the by week. We just kind of recovered, really kind of got healthy. We were getting healthy at the same time. And I think that's really the results. Because the work we were doing all the time, you know, we began to execute better as we got a better understanding of what we need to do to execute. What things do you feel like you were doing well? What aspects are like, all right, we want to keep this because we feel like we've honed in on this

even over that stretch where maybe we weren't playing that well overall. Well, at the point, we were still, I think we started the year of six and two. And like, you know, people said we're struggling. So, you know, that's, that just comes with it, right? That just comes with it. But you look at the numbers, you look where we were at the time. The numbers wasn't bad at all, really. We was still winning football games. I'll take six and two out of your first eight, especially with the type of year that we have. And with a bunch of new guys, new quarterback, everything else.

A whole bunch of new stuff. So obviously it was some things to work on that you're always trying to do as you're getting going throughout the year. But, I mean, I think people put more into it than what it really was. It was just us having more time to be around each other, more time for us to practice with each other, more time for us to have a better understanding. And at the end of the year, I knew how to call plays for them.

I knew I knew them well enough to call plays. You guys hear me say it all the time. You can't really call plays for a quarterback until you know the guy well enough. And it took us a couple months to get there, but we had to learn in-game. You know, we had a lot of end-game adjustments that we were doing against really good football teams

that, you know, we were still able to win football games earlier. But things just worked out really. We didn't go do something completely new. Everybody's... There seems like there was little tweaks, you know? Like, I feel like I think the numbers would say, I looked at the PFF numbers, today, you guys were using play action for the first 13 weeks on like 18% of his dropbacks,

which was the 34th rate in the league or something like that. From by to the Super Bowl, I think it was 26% and it was 19th. So it's not a huge difference, but there were little things where you're like, maybe we're going to do this a little bit more. You're just turning the dials a little bit, it felt like. Health got a lot to do with that. Everything run game got a lot to do with that, how you're running the football. So all that tie into each other.

We're smart enough to not pick simple things like I did. We know those things really are really irrelevant sometimes because you got to know the reason why those numbers are that way. Sure. And without knowing that, if you're not inside this building, you really have no clue, right? Of course. So it's a situation where, I mean, there's a lot of different opinions on what happened. My personal opinion is that, I mean, we just got better. We always want to play better football at the end of the year.

You want to play your best football. And I think we did a good job of that coming together only in terms. training camp, only having training camp. I think the guys did a great job of doing what they did and accomplishing what they accomplished. You said you had to learn how to call plays for Tom. What is the most important thing that you learned about how to call plays for him? Well, it's

the way we react, the way that quarterbacks react, okay, it's inside them, right? It's how we react to everything and it's unique to the individual. So you got to know the individual to know how he's going to respond. We're all different that play that position, even though we're trying to get the same job done.

So playing a position, having a awareness of that. I just had to learn what I know he'll do well, what I think he'll see in certain concepts where he'll go with the ball in certain concepts. It was those type of things. Wasn't really X's and O's. It was just on the field stuff because we haven't done that. That's the only thing we hadn't done it. We can ace a test on paper, but we needed the time on grass for us to get better. Were there a couple concepts that you felt like you guys really got comfortable with down the stretch that you'd feel comfortable sharing? Just a couple of things you feel like you'd go to more often? Oh yeah. That's what any quarterback though, right? It was

no difference the year before with James. Sure. You know what I mean? It don't change. The quarterback is the offense. So I tell people that all the time. Whatever the quarterback does well, that's what we'll do. All right, Byron, thank you very much for doing that. I really appreciate it. All right. Now we're here with Bruce Ariens, head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

So when you guys sat down, what do you think were the first main points you wanted to talk about as you guys sat down and kind of re-evaluated everything? How we were going to attack more. And in every phase, if it is a short pass and we've got the right match up. Don't be afraid to take it. And then if it's not there, you know,

just move the sticks. But we had to move the ball down the field more and get bigger chunks than we did. We ended up coming out and doing a great, great job of it the rest of the way. What specific things do you feel like you could go to to get those chunks? Was there a concept or two that you felt like you went to a little bit more off the over those couple months? Everything we do. We got better in protection. He had more time in those situations. receivers did a better job and Byron did a great job of having different ones each week

and everybody been on the same page. In protection, what specifics did you think you guys use a little bit more? And remember that Atlanta game, it felt like Grock was in there for six-man protections a little bit more often. Were there little tiny things, tweaks you felt like you could make that really helped? Yeah, most of it was play action. Gotcha. And then also handling certain blitzes and using Gronk as a blocker,

who's a great blocker. And he's also a great receiver. So it's a little bit of a catch-22. But protection became more important. And then guys were still getting open. Were there aspects of what Tom likes in protection that were different than what you've traditionally done, that you felt like you guys had to mesh those two tastes down the stretch at something?

No, their offense was so, so, so similar to what we do. Gotcha. And it's just verbiage. Okay. You know, they might have said scat right. We say 62. things like that. So in terms of what Byron did over the second half of the season,

he and I were talking about it. He felt like he really got a sense for Tom and what Tom liked. How have you seen him develop as a play caller compared to what he would have been at the beginning of the 2019 season? He's grown and grown. I thought he did an unbelievable job with James. You know, anybody throws for 5,000 and 30 touchdowns. Somebody's doing something right.

Now, he didn't throw 30 interceptions. You know, so Byron's been an excellent play caller ever since he got the job. And he just continues to grow knowing his personnel and how to use his personnel. In terms of how you find that drill down on that, how you figure out how to use a quarterback, what's the most important part of that process as a play call? You've had to do it with a bunch of different guys over your career. What is the biggest thing you have to learn about a quarterback to see eye to eye how you call plays for him? Yeah, and we've always done this, but, you know, Fridays, quarterbacks come up.

They'll pick, you know, we have two 15-place scripts, and they'll put 15 passes up there. The first five they won't call it in the game. Saturday night, we sit down all the third downs, all the red zones, and you pick every single one the way you want it called. And then as we go through that list during a game, you're sitting on a bench. So what do you want next? You want this one? You want their playing this.

So it might be something, hey, we don't have it into playing, but they're playing us this way. Get everybody together next third and eight. This is what we're going to do. How is your role in those meetings different than it was when you were with Carson and when you were calling plays? Does Byron kind of handle those meetings now? What are the voices like in that room? It's Byron and Byron.

I'm not even in there. You're not even in there. I'm not even in there. It's his job and he's done a great job with it. In terms of some of the play action stuff, you said that you guys went to a little bit more. And the percentages say that you use it more down the stretch. Was that a conscious choice? Yes.

It was. So when you had that conversation with Tom, you guys said we probably need to use a little bit more play action than we did over the first three quarters this season. Yeah, and attack more. That's how you attack. I mean, you've got to run the ball. And we ran the ball really well those last eight games, which sets up the play action. Are there aspects just in terms of a couple of route concepts

that you feel like he really liked that you guys used more often over those final two months? No. Like I said, Byron did a great job of mixing them up each week and having, you know, 15 that are going to go over 20 yards and ready to roll, you know, and getting them the right looks in practice. And so everybody was comfortable. Awesome.

All right, guys. Thank you very much to Barner and Leftwood. and to Bruce Ariens for joining the show. Really enjoyed chatting with them. Really enjoyed visiting Bucks Camp. Thank you to Greg. Thank you to Nate. We'll be back on Friday.

Again with Nate, I'm also going to visit Falcons Camp. When you guys are listening this, it'll be today. But we will have a visit from Falcons Camp with Tori McElwany, our Falcons writer, for Friday's show. So please come back and check that out. Until then, please rate and review the podcast. Please do that. If you guys haven't and you like the show, I would really appreciate that. please go rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice.

Also, please subscribe to The Athletic. We have tons of training camp stuff coming to you every single day. If you want to start prepping for your fantasy draft and want to know who's running with the ones, who's getting time, who looks good. Countless, endless training camp recaps on The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show. I've said this a bunch of times. Truly believe it. You cannot properly follow the league at this stage of the count.

without an athletic subscription. So please go do that for me. We will be back on Friday with some more training camp check-ins with more of Nate. Until then, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.