The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Biggest QB Questions of 2023

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Chase Daniel officially joins The Athletic and TAFS for your weekly deep dive on all things quarterback with one of the most experienced veteran QBs the NFL has seen. To kick off the show, Robert and Chase dig into Chase's Top 5 QB Questions heading into 2023, from Justin Fields' development, to Kellen Moore's impact on Justin Herbert, Dak and Mike McCarthy, Sean Payton and Russell Wilson and more.0:00-18:02 Justin Herbert / Chargers18:02-28:49 Dak Prescott / Cowboys28:49-38:51 Jordan Love / Packers38:51-48:08 Aaron Rodgers / Jets48:08-57:31 Justin Fields / Bears57:31-1:07:52 Russell Wilson / BroncosSubscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6gWjMSDj7-8j3iCc2ZGo3gSponsored by LinkedIn - Right now, you can try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at linkedin.com/MAYS23 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Join me today is the newest member of the Athletic Football Show family. I'm very excited to say, it's Chase Daniel. Chase, how you doing, man? What's going on, man? How you doing?

Glad I could join you, man. This is going to be fun. I am very excited to have you here. For people who do not know, for people who didn't see any sort of announcement on Twitter earlier today, We are going to be doing this weekly. You're going to be joining us every single week, providing some quarterback perspective. It's something that we absolutely wanted just to dedicate one show every single week during the season to the quarterback position. There are 32 starting quarterbacks in the league.

There's so much to dig into every single week. And we wanted the view, the insight, the perspective from somebody who has your background. Played 14 years in the league, seven different teams. You've played with and four some of the best quarterbacks and coaches in the NFL. And I cannot wait for people to get your view on everything that's happening in the league every single week during the year. Yeah, this is such a cool platform too. You know, we talked about this. When you first reached out, I was like, dude, this is awesome.

Like, I like where your head's at. I like where the athletics heads at. And that's something I've always loved truly about the athletic is like you guys and now me, because I'm part of the team, we dive really deep into the actual game of football. It's not this fluff. It's not this pomp and circumstance. It is literally like, here are the X's and O's. We're not going to get too crazy with it, but we are going to dive deep. And what better position in all of sports than to dive deep on in the quarterback room?

We're going to talk coaches, offensive philosophies, offensive coordinators. Are you an offensive head coach, defensive head coach, how that controls the team? I mean, just everything. It's a weekly show. And I'm pumped to be part of it, honestly. So appreciate you guys. Let me join. I'm very excited.

It also was nice. You and I are both Mizzu guys. So we share that. We were at Mizzu at the same time, which is kind of wild to think about. The fact that I was watching you. We had, I've never told, I haven't told you this, but we had a rule. I think it was during the 08 season when things were really starting to roll, right? In 07 and 08, where when you guys were playing some of the, let's say the easier teams on the schedule early on in the season,

if we were up by three touchdowns by halftime, all of my friends and I very drunkenly would go to C.C's pizza. that was a, if it was a three score lead by halftime, we would go to CCC's. And during that stretch of Mizzou football, there were a lot of three score half time leads before we got to the end of the second quarter. 07, 08. I mean, like, dude, you, yeah. And then don't forget the word that you said drunkenly. Like, there you go, because only a person that's drunk could eat at Cici's pizza.

And I remember we went to that CCC's pizza. It was north of town. It was. Northeast of town. Yeah. We've been there before, too. So it's sort of wild to think that, yeah, I mean, now, you know, so many years later, I mean, I graduated in 2009. And I was 2010.

Yep. Yeah. So 14, 15 years later, here we are talking football, talking quarterbacks. I'm sure we'll talk about a lot of that. We'll talk about the highs and the lows of Missouri football from 2005 to 2008, fairly often on this show. But we're not going to do that today. We're going to save that for a different episode. I wanted to start this because we're heading into the season with just some big picture discussion about the,

the biggest questions we have around the position heading into the year. Nate and I sometimes do quarterbacks in new places. We do a quarterback-centric show heading into the season. There aren't a ton of those. So I wanted to kind of broaden this a little bit and bring you into it to just ask the biggest quarterback questions that we have heading into 2023. There have been some high-profile coordinator changes. There are some guys who've changed teams.

And I want to explore all of that before we head into the year. And I wanted to ask you what your biggest quarterback questions are. So let's start with a situation you're very familiar with after playing the last two years with Justin Herbert and the Chargers. Your number one quarterback question heading into 2023 is what? Yeah. People think I might be a little biased or confident or whatever you might seem because I was with the Chargers the last two years. But without a doubt, when you sent me this, the number one thing that came to mind is what will the Justin Herbert led Chargers offense look like under Kelmore? And that's the big question for me. What is the number one element that you're looking for?

Just the number one question, number one aspect of this offense that you're curious about before we get into week one. Well, I mean, what is it going to look like? Is Brandon Staley going to have his hand in it? He had his hand in Joe Lombardi's offense, but he let Joe sort of, hey, do his own thing. But Brandon was always in meetings. And now, you know, you look at the hire of Kell and Moore, how is that going to impact what this offense looks like because the biggest thing, and another thing is what we talked about earlier before the show is also the run game.

That's Joe Lombardi is my guy. Like he is probably the number one guy that I've always relied on, that I've always stayed close with, that I've always loved being around. And I like him. He's O.C. in Denver right now. But, you know, the run game struggled a little last year. So the run game and Staley, I think, for sure.

Let's start with the run game because when I was there early in camp, I was there on the first day of training camp and talking to players, coaches there. The run game is the first thing that came up. We want to talk about Justin Herbert and the missiles and them pushing the ball down field. That's all well and good. We'll get to that. But the run game was the biggest topic of conversation with people who were there. So I wanted to ask you, what do you think the issues were with how the run game was built under Joe Lombardi over the last couple years? And specifically last year when they really struggled to run the ball in early downs. I guess when you guys really struggle to run the ball in early downs. Yeah, I mean, I was there.

I was there the last few years and both years, Joe Lombardi was the O.C. And yeah, listen, you know, the first year, we didn't struggle as much as we did the second year. So 2021, you're coming in, you got a new offense. You have pretty much, you're bringing over Sean Payton's offense from New Orleans. And I was in that offense for five years.

so I'm very aware of it. And then, you know, you sort of do some run game stuff in the first year that might not match up with what we did in New Orleans because we have Austin Echler, because we have different types of runners, right? Austin's not necessarily, he can and he's shown the past two years. He's not necessarily a right beneath the tackles in between the tackles type runner. And so we had to get a little creative the first year. I think we finished middle of the pack. And then last year, last year was a struggle.

And I don't, I, it's so hard to, to tell you like, hey, usually this is what happened. It was just a bunch of different things. It was maybe our offensive line not, um, necessarily being on the right angle. It might be the running back missing. Uh, if we say, hey, on this off tackle run, we need you to hit the outside leg of the tight end, okay? But hey, on this run, we go back and watch, you hit the inside leg of the tight end. A lot of people don't understand out there that those.

small, minute details make a huge difference, especially in the run game. And so I think that what last year was probably our biggest takeaway from the run game not working is, I don't think there was enough of it. And I think that, you know, Austin Eccler, and when I say enough of it, I don't know if we ran the ball enough. It's hard on first down. If you're a play caller, think Joe Lombardi, if you run the ball on first down and you're second and 10, like 40, 50 percent of the time you call it, you're probably not going to call a lot of runs on first down. You're probably going to call quick game, right? And then you put offense in second and long.

Now the whole defensive playbook opens up a little bit, and they're in their third down package. And you don't want that because you got the double-eight. I mean, there's so much stuff that goes on. But I think the underlying theme probably, you know, taken away from being there is just not enough variety, not enough stuff that really fit our guys. And that's something we struggled with last year.

I mean, we have really great running backs. After Austin Eckler, we had Sony Michelle, which was great. He just recently retired. Josh Kelly. I mean, that was one thing we went into the year. Like, hey, I wish we could get a number two running back. And it just wasn't enough. We had to become creative.

And I think once you hit that seven, six games in eight games almost halfway through the season, you're like, man, we stink running the ball. Of course you try to fix it, right? That's the number one thing. That's the number one thing. But then you just say, hey, Justin's on a roll. Like, let's just rely on him. him. And it didn't help, by the way, that we couldn't run the ball while Justin had some cracked

ribs. I'm curious, in 2021, Frank Smith was the offensive line coach. Last offseason, Frank gets hired a way to be the offensive coordinator in Miami. So what do you think him leaving did to the overall plan for the run game? Because it really feels like if it was a little bit more of a focus and it was a little bit more centralized and streamlined in his first year, it feels like that focus may have drifted a little bit after he left. Did you guys feel that? Did you guys feel that just in the plan that you had for the run game in those two seasons comparing them? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, Frank is, you know, I was with Frank crazy. I mean, obviously, this is what we're going to get into every show. Like, I feel like I know 75% league. I was with Frank when he was in New Orleans in 10, 11, when he was an offensive assistant, he was like the quality control guy, which for people watching out there, if you don't know what a quality control guy does, it's just work. All you do is paperwork, film work. You rarely get to coach.

You're sleep deprived. All that stuff. it's awful. And so I would just like, you know, I'd befriend those guys because I'm like, I'm a film nerd. Like I want all your stuff. So me and Frank hit it off. And when Frank came to the charges in 21, first of all, he's just such a smart mind. Like he not only very rarely for the teams I've been on in the 14 years I've been on, do you find an offensive line coach who is really, really good at not only the run game, but the past game and an offense as a whole, right? Usually their bread and butter is just.

just run. Rarely do you see offensive line coaches become offensive coordinators. Well, Frank had that creative mind. And I think what they're doing with Mike and McDaniels and Tua and all those guys down in Miami right now are awesome. But I do think that there was a little bit of a, hey, we lost them. But he was looking to move up and he got that opportunity. Of course you're going to take it because there's only like 32 offensive coordinators in the world. You're going to take that job. And so that was a hard loss on us. And Brandon Nugent came in and did an amazing job, excellent job. But you look at that too. I mean, the run game for last year, they, we, I don't know if they, we, I mean, I guess I'll say they, the Chargers, lost a bunch of offense. I mean, we were starting two rookies

and we lost Rashon Slater. So three of the five offensive linemen were out, like out, just gone. And we dealt with injuries last year. The one constant, which, you know, the reason we weren't historically bad was Austin Echler. I'm curious, the run game, I think, is a big part of this. And not even just the run game, but finding foundational runs and quicker hitting runs. With the way that defenses are playing is the Chargers with all of the two high looks that they're going to get on early downs, I keep almost saying you guys, with all the two high looks that they're going to get on early downs, quick downhill runs, I think are going to be more of a focus.

And then pairing those quick downhill runs with more play action shots. That's one way to do this. But I'm curious what you think the other ways are to push the ball down the field, because we've talked about this all off season. this was one of the issues with the offense last year is that it felt so condensed, it felt so underneath. Justin, who has maybe arguably the biggest arm in the league, had the lowest average depth of target in the league. But this is all theory. So as someone who actually looks at this stuff and has lived this stuff, how do you start building in a more downfield mindset into this offense?

Well, you know, to defend Joe Lombardi, like we would have, I'll bring on one, one, one one week, and I'll bring on and I'll show the people at home a whole play call sheet of what an offensive play caller looks at when he's calling a game. As quarterbacks, we get it. I have mine saved from 2010 on every single game. And with this offense, there's a shots play part of it. And it takes up half the half of a quarter of one page. And it's back and so there's shots downfield. And we were calling them. But a lot of times, whether it wasn't open. right away or maybe there was a mishap in the offensive line play or maybe, you know, you call it against a too high look and you're really thinking on, you know, second and short,

you're going to get a one high man coverage look. So there's a lot that goes into it. It's not just, hey, you just need to push that ball in on the field, but I think the number one thing that the chargers need to do this year. And from what I've seen on social media and what I've heard from Justin, Easton, Stick, the backup, and other players is that, They're practicing it. They're throwing the ball down the field. They don't, they, in, in practice, it started an OTAs. Hey, look, if we get one-on-one with Mike Williams or Keenan Allen or Q their new receiver or Josh Palmer, I mean, they have a so much depth at wide receiver.

We're going to take it. We're going to take the shots down the field. We're going to have fun with it. And if we don't complete it, it's okay. I think that was the biggest thing like for sometimes if you throw, if you throw a go ball down the right side line in practice. training camp. It doesn't matter. Like, if it's complete or if it's not complete, but if it's incomplete, you're like, maybe I'll just take the check down this time. Uh, because I want to have a hire, but I think that mindset is completely thrown out the door. I'm not saying Justin was like

that at all, but I just from my personal experience doing that or maybe it gets intercepted. You're like, yeah, you know, and I'm not just talking about go balls, but go balls are completed like 35. If you're 20 to 30% completion rate on balls 30 plus yards down the field, like you are tops in history of the league. So it's not a high percentage, but there's different things you can do, deep crossers, play action. And I do think, like you said,

it starts running the ball downhill and getting a good play action game off every single run game action you can get. So right, what does that mean? If I have an inside zone left, okay, then I want a play action left inside. zone. If I have an outside zone left, I want a play action zone outside left. I want everything to look the exact same. And I think that's what they've been working on is the fakes of the quarterbacks, the track of the ball carrier, the exact same area. And I think that's something that's super

interesting to me is like, hey, you've got to do it. And to be honest with you, there's not a ton as an offensive play card. There's not a lot of shots down the field. You can get in two deep coverage, whether it's covered two or quarters, which is a rainbow coverage across. There's just not a lot. Right. And that's what they're going to get a lot this year until they prove they can run the ball in light boxes. It's, we always try to do this where I'm asking people, what are you going to draw up where you can kind of take some more shots against too high coverage? And they exist. You can have some big cross country routes that you have to protect, whatever. But inevitably, every single time a coach comes back and says, well, we just need to start running the ball better. If we start running the ball better, then you just get the human nature of guys creeping up. We're going to get different looks. So I think that's definitely at the core of it. And it's also, this is so fun. This is why I wanted to do this with you. We have all these outside theories about why this stuff happens. And then you're actually in the room. And with Justin specifically, one thing we've kind of thrown out on this show as we think about maybe the changes that could come is everything I know about Justin's personality is that he likes making people happy.

Right. That's what he likes to do. He's that kind of guy. And so you're in this offense where I'm sure he's watching tons of Drew Brees tape and the way that Joe is teaching it, make the right play. And he's consistently, maybe too quickly sometimes, getting to the right play, even if it's. Not the most exciting answer, not the most high upside answer. So now the fact that the mindset, apparently, has changed even from the beginning of, the right play is great, but like, let's make the big play.

Let's make the big play more often. The fact that that is actually what's going on in the discourse with that team right now makes me very excited because that's one of the kind of pet little theories we had. And I think that that could lead to some real excitement down the road. Well, and you look at Kellan Moore, too, right, where he came from in Dallas. And we'll talk Dallas later. But like Dallas is Kellyn Moore. Every year Kellyn Moore's had a chance to be an opposite corner,

they've finished like top eight in a lot of top fives in the league in total offense. So this team is going to put up points and offense, right? Like they got to score touchdowns in the red zone, which actually was something we were really good at the past few years, was actually when we enter the red zone, which is the 20 yard line and then we're scoring touchdowns. And we're not kicking field goals. And this team has to do that.

And if they stay, I mean, we're not going to talk a lot about defense, but if they stay healthy on defense and they are able to play like they did down the stretch last year, it's going to be a very interesting and hopefully really, really good year for the Chargers. We did our Chargers preview last night, ran on the feed this morning on Friday. And I'm all in on the offense, just because I'm all in on Justin. I think that we forget based on him being hurt a little bit last year and the disappointing season overall, statistically, just how good he is. Like, I'm all in.

The defense is one of those things where I'm not talking myself into it yet. I've done it too many times, Chase. I've done it too many times with the Chargers. Everyone has about the Chargers. Exactly. So I'm just not doing it again. All right. Let's go from where Kellamore is right now to the team that Kellamore left this offseason.

So what is your second big quarterback question that you're curious about heading into the season? Dak Prescott and Mike McCarthy's offense. And how different will it look from last year to this year? So when I was there, again, pretty early in camp, or third day. I was talking to people there. And the answer that I got is that somewhere around like 70% of the offense would stay the same. And there would be about 30% that would be new. And some of that is protections. Some of that is some of the play action designs that they were going to use. But I wanted to ask you, what does this look like in practice? When you have a quarterback who's really worked with

the same offensive system, his entire career, the continuity with Jason Garrett, two Kell and Moore, Mike keeping Kell and Moore. I think that in large part is to make sure that DAC is getting all the stuff he's comfortable with, being able to operate within a system he deeply understands. So what does the process actually look like of maintaining some of that stuff and bringing in some other new elements when you're a new coaching staff? Yeah. And I think, and what I would probably think is happening down there in Dallas based on what I've heard and what I know about commingling offenses together is that the 70% and the 30% right, 70% old, 30% new, is it's all the same terminology. And that to me is what I think is the

most important thing for a quarterback like deck Prescott, who has had that continuity in offense. It's been the same since he's been there. And he's, you know, he got heard a couple of years last year or two years ago and has been working his way back. And I think that's probably why they made the move. It's like, hey, we need some new age stuff. But honestly, that's my, that's my, that's, like my question is like, is it going to be new age because you have Mike McCarthy and then you have as offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. Those are old school coaches. Right? So the 30% of new stuff, it's probably stuff you could go back and watch some Andy Reid type stuff, right? Like back in his Philly days or Brian Schottonheimer. Just deep West Coast stuff. Yeah. And honestly,

if you look at the game, it just goes in circles, right? Like one year spread works, the next year you see more. It's just, it's constantly evolving, especially with what defenses are doing. I mean, defense coordinators these days are crazy. It's just like they don't even have a defense. I just throw stuff at you left and right. And so that's probably what I'm excited about watching is like that 30% that's new. All right. It's going to be called the same thing, but it might be different concepts.

I think it's like, how do we approach third down? The strategy on coaching staff. How do, okay, this is how we're going to approach third down. If just for instance, say Kellyn Moore on third down, which we call Money Down, which is the most important down in football, in my opinion, for offense and defense, if Kellyn Moore went in and he said to his coaches, the offensive coaching staff, he said, hey, this is going to be our strategy, our plan for third down, and it's going to change weekly.

But we're going to list plays on our play call sheet. We're going to say third and two to three. Okay, that's one section. Third and four to six. That's another. Third and seven to ten, that's another. And third and 11 plus, that is the final section. Mike McCarthy, I don't know this. Mike McCarthy might say, hey, no. Okay, third in one to four is how we're going to approach it. Third and five to eight is how we're approach it. And then nine plus is how we approach it. Like those different strategies change on how you call a game offensively,

right? Mike hasn't called a game since 2018. Yeah. 20, 2018? So, 2018. It's a long time. And Mike is an offensive genius, but the game has changed tremendously in these last five, six years. And so those are the types of things that I'm going to be looking for is like, hey, and I don't think you'll necessarily know, but I think those are all things being talked about in the building. Hey, Red Zone. Okay, we used to start at the 20 yard line red zone. Well, if you look at the last five years, Red Zone defenses have really started planning for plus 13, which means a 13 yard line going in. So that's when the defensive play callers,

it's like the 13, 14, 15 yard. That's when defensive play callers start their red zone on their call sheet. Okay, so it's not the, so 20 to the 15 now is not reds. So there's a lot of intricacies, right? Like, okay, now we have to start a red zone. So Mike might start his red zone at the 15 yard line now. And it might be 15 to the 10, 10 to the 5, 5 of the goal line.

And you have your goal in offense. There's so many different things at play here. And it might not just be that third. percent is just plates or just terminology because I bet it's not. I bet it's how he envisions calling a game in his head and he's going to have to go do it. I mean, he hasn't done it in five, six years. We talked about this when we were discussing the bills last week going from Leslie Frazier to Sean McDermott, which is kind of a similar situation, right, where you have the same general philosophy on that side of the ball, but you have the head coach coming in and calling it now.

And even if the playbook is the same, it will be expressed differently just because a different guy is calling it, a different guy's in charge of when to pull the levers and how. And there's really no way for us to know what that's going to look like because, like you said, it's been five years since he's done this. So even if he's picking from 70% of the same menu, what it will actually look like in practice, how many runs, how often they're running, that's what feels like it'll be different, even if a lot of the structure, terminology, everything else carries over. Totally agree. Yeah. Do you think this will be a good or bad thing for Dak Prescott? I know it's hard to say, but I'm curious what your general feeling is as we head into this.

The general feeling, I think, is good. And let me tell you why I think that. I think it's good because I don't know what year this is for DAC, 7, 8. Year 8, 2016 was a rookie year. So it was close. So I'm not saying this about Dak because I don't know and I haven't talked to him about it, but sometimes as a quarterback in general, a superstar, we're talking superstar quarterbacks here. they get so comfortable in an offense that they just, I wouldn't say go through the motions because

every single person starter prepares and Dax's one of the best in the league, in my opinion, still other than injuries. But when you're preparing like that, you sort of might say, hey, okay, I know, I know this. Like, I know this dagger, shallow concept, like the back of my hand, why do I need to study it more? Why do I need to this? And you sort of skip it and you, go on to like third down, new stuff, cool stuff. I think this is going to be good for Dak because he's going to have to get back in the playbook. He's going to have to look after, hey, things he might have skipped through. Like, I know I do it. I do it when I was in the league. Like in my 10th, 11th, 12th year, I'm like, okay, stick spacing. I've run it a thousand times.

Like, I do not, I don't even want to see it. Like, let me see the third down, the red zone, the cool stuff. But I just think he's probably going to, it's a big year for this. them. It's a big year for Dallas in general every year. They've always been really good. They've never taken that next step. And I think, I think you might see some growing pains on how DAC sees it and how Mike sees it, right? Because as a play caller and a quarterback, I don't care what you say, it's the most important position in all of sports, that relationship between the quarterback and the play caller. They have to be on the same page. And one thing is I've been around, and like Andy Reid take, for instance, Andy Reid, and I think Mike's along this tree is

Andy Reed would say to Alex Smith, the three years I was there, Alex, if you don't like any of these plays, he'd show the massive play calls. You'd everyone seen it. If you don't like any of these plays, it's out. I don't care if I love it. I don't care if we came up with it. I don't care, whatever.

It's out. Like, if you don't like it, it's out. And I think that's what Mike's going to do with Dallas and Dak. And I think that's really, that's really cool as a quarterback to have that because some some coaches like, no, you're going to run it, you're going to call it. This is how it is. Like, you have to do it. I don't get that vibe with Mike and Dallas.

Kellyn Moore took over as the quarterback coach there in 2018. Okay? So that's five years. So the years three through seven of Dax career, Kellynmore was the voice that he heard. Kellyn Moore is the perspective that he got. So you go from quarterback coach to offensive coordinator. And that is the way that they talk about it,

the way that they see it. When you have two different people looking at the same film, they're going to see it in a different way. So just a different perspective, whether that's Mike's or Brian Schottenheimer's or Scott Tolzeen, who's now their quarterback coach, three new different perspectives that he's going to have in his ear

the way that he's looking at things. It could be good. This could also be a be careful what you wish for sort of thing. You're trying to move on. You're trying to improve. Kellyn Moore has a very good reputation around the league.

That was one of the questions I was asking a lot of coaches and people in front offices this summer. I was like, do you think Kellyn Moore is good? Because I think we just take for granted that he's a good offensive coordinator and that's his reputation. I wanted to kind of interrogate that a little bit

and he does have a very good rating around the NFL. So they move on from this guy who is well regarded and you move on to Mike McCarthy and Brian Schottenheimer in this group. And this, again, could be a be careful what you wish for sort of conclusion that we reach here in Dallas. Yeah. And that's when Kellan was on the market. And he's on the market for like less than 12 hours before Brandon State they scooped in. But like that to me, when I heard that news, that to me was probably the most surprising news I have heard in the NFL in the last couple years in terms of coaching. I don't call it a firing. It's probably like, hey, like, you know, it was a, you got fired.

A mutual parting of the ways is how they were described. Yeah, it was firing. You got, you fired, you fired him for, you know, reasons unknown. But the dude is, I mean, has been in, uh, head coaching interviews for the last two or three years, like is going to take that next step. And I think this is a good step for him in LA. All right. Let's talk about. about a team that Mike McCarthy certainly knows very well, and that's the Green Bay Packers. I kind of forced this one on you after spending some time in Green Bay this week because I wanted to talk about it. What do you think, this is my question. We'll throw in one of mine here.

What do you think we will get from a Jordan Love led offense in Green Bay this season? Oh my gosh. Yeah, you didn't force it on me. I liked it. I had a different one. But honestly, who the hell knows? Who knows? Who knows what's going to happen?

The dude hasn't played a lot. He played last year in the Philly game a little bit. The sample size is small. He played well in the Philly game when Aaron went to the locker room. But I mean, everything I've heard, and you're the inside. You've been to these places. Everything I've heard is he's really taking the next step in his leadership and his quarterback acumen, how he handles it.

And it's going to be way different than sitting for two, three years. And then you're the guy for 17 games, right? It's going to be different. Now, I don't know what, I mean, I don't know what it's going to look. That's the thing. Like, when I kept thinking about this, it's like, hey, I told you, when we were talking about this specifically, I said, we won't know until four or five games in the year what this is going to look like.

And their offense as an identity, they won't know what it looks like for six, seven weeks, eight weeks. They're going to be trying new things. They're going to be doing what good offenses do and game planning each week. But defenses in this league, you might get. get, that's, that's my question. It's like, you, you might think you're going to get a high number of cover three snaps in this game. Take for Seattle, the old Seattle cover three, right?

That's what, and then all of a sudden they come out and play man coverage and 90% of your play call sheet is for cover three. You're like, dang, like that happens a lot. This reminds me of a game specifically I was talking to somebody about this summer. Remember two years ago when the bills were this high fly in offense in 2021? And I think it was 2020. I can't remember which year that Josh Allen took off. They were this high-flying offense in 2020.

They're breaking passing records in Buffalo. Stefan Diggs looks great. They come out in week one against Pittsburgh the next year and they try to do the same stuff. And Pittsburgh just sits there in a two deep shell the entire game. And they had no idea what to do. And the bills were great.

2021 bills offense was great. But week one is always such a wrench where you have no idea what teams are going to do against you and it can lead to some pretty disastrous results. Offensive coordinators hate weeks one through for because offensive coordinators around the league, you look and almost all of them take four game breakdowns. And then they make their game plan around the four game defensive breakdowns, maybe five. So when you have one game to look at, say the week two, you have one

game to look at. And you're like, this offense that I'm watching trying to prepare for this defense, right? If I'm, if I'm Dallas and I'm watching just say, I don't know, the Ravens offense against the Chiefs. And I'm playing the Chiefs next week. And I'm watching the Ravens. I'm like, we do nothing like the Ravens do. Like nothing. So what am I? And they and the Chiefs play them on defense completely different than they would play everyone else. There's so many of these different things. You're like, what do I do? Like I got to go back to last year, especially if it's a new coordinator or a new coordinator like McIntarindale went to the Giants last year. You go back and all you're watching is Baltimore and you forget that you have to actually watch the players for

York and break them down too. So it's it's just a evolving door of who the hell knows what's going to happen. Well, welcome to media, my friend, because you're going to have to do that after week one. You're going to have to try to discern what's real and what's not from what we just watched. And two weeks later, you're going to look like an absolute moron. So yes, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I know. I'm looking forward to look like a moron because I think I know what I'm doing, but who knows. I'm curious what some of just the different buttons they're going to press on offense look like. And one of the things that was brought up when I was asking about this is just remember, it's not just the quarterback who's new. We have a lot of new skill sets on offense.

So if you're trying to build it around not just the quarterback, but everything else around the quarterback, the amount of athleticism and speed that this offense now has with its skill position group with all the youth is just different than it's looked like over the last couple years. So that element is going to be different. So my guess is we see more motion, more of just the traditional kind of shanky. Vanahan-esque stuff that maybe Rogers was a little bit apprehensive about. And they try to just let the structure of the offense lift the quarterback more than they have over the last couple years with Aaron because when you have a Hall of Fame guy who loves having the remote in his hand, that's not how you want to play. But when you have a first year quarterback and all this youth at the scope position spots,

I think the coach having a little bit more say about how the offense dictates to the guys around him is probably going to be the approach we see a little bit more often. Yeah, I think that's spot on. And I think it's, it's, listen, it's, this is, this is LaFleur's offense now. Before it was errands and LaFleur's. There's a big difference, right? LaFleur's going to go back, I think, to a little bit of the Shanahan days and say, hey, good. That's what Shanahan made this whole offense. This whole offensive tree is like good versus all. There should be a place to go with the ball every single time, okay, that you're on offense. And we're going to find it. It's not just, hey, here's a cover two meter. I hope it works for us three. No, it's all. GVA, which we say good versus all plays. And that's as quarterback. It's just like, you're sweeping the board. You're left to right. You're right to left. Now, Shanahan's reading that offense is a little bit different in terms of how you read. It's a lot of half fields pre-snap, get into it. But you look at it, I mean, he's been in this offense. He's going to year four of this offense, right? So he knows

what it's going to be. Now, how is it going to portray itself on the field? And I think they've had a really good sample size Jordan has of this whole OTAs, right, these organized team activities, it was him running it. This whole training camp, this whole preseason. He's looked good in preseason, but preseason, who knows? Yeah, it makes bags. It's good to play well because it builds common. Yes. It's better to play well than it is to play poorly. And if you play, if you're playing against the twos and you're the ones and you play poorly, you're just going to have your self-confidence and your confidence is going to go down. So at least he has confidence going into the year. And so, yeah, I think it's going to, I think it's going to be good because LaFer is going to do exactly what he wants to do because Jordan Love doesn't have the pool that, you know, say Aaron Rogers did and say, ah, I don't want to call that player. You know, we see him on the field. Aaron Rogers last year a couple times like, no, like, I don't want to, I don't want that play. You know, stuff like that. Jordan's not going to do it. George's going to run the offense. So obviously, as a, as a signal caller, you have to play well. But a lot of these Shanahan style offenses, they get people open. And they get people open. They, they

get people wide open. And so I'm not necessarily saying you have to have a dog at quarterback. I think Jordan's going to do good. But it sort of can hide maybe weaknesses and quarterbacks and different offenses can't do. I'm interested in just the dynamics within the offense. Because like you mentioned, you said with the leadership stuff and like kind of his voice within the locker room. What's interesting to me is that even though he's going to be in year one as a starter, he is the most experienced member of the Green Bay Packers offense. Wow. As far as how much time he's. he's spent in the in the system when you look at the quarterback in the skill position players every other guy that is going to be a major contributor for them at the skill position spots is

either a rookie or a second year player so even though he's never been the full time starter and he's played in like two games in his NFL career he has at least one more year of experience knowing this system than all of the guys who are going to be playing the skill spots for them which is crazy yeah that's wild that's wild to me and yeah i mean it's they're going to go really good or really bad. I don't think there's any in between, especially in an offense like that, it is very wordy. It's a lot expected out of the skill position groups, a lot of option routes, break in, break out, sit. So I guarantee you that's what they're working on.

It's reading stuff and being able to post-snap reads for receivers based on what teams are doing against you. And for young players, that's so much to handle. Especially, yeah. I mean, there's going to be some growing pains, of course. But, I mean, who knows? What do we know? We think we know. They could go out the first four games and light the world on fire because no one knows what to expect.

So defense acquaintances are like, oh my gosh, we never saw this come. We didn't do this coming. Like that's what they have to their advantage. I think it's going to be a little bit more stop and go. I think that they're going to struggle. I think that there are going to be some moments where it looks rough. But that's okay. You know, we haven't had our big picture Packers discussion yet, but this is going to be one of the kind of pillars of it is that they're in this mode where they've built this team with no barriers to

tree for the young players. There's no free agent receiver making $8 million a year who's going to take snaps away from Jaden Reed in the slot. That's purposeful because they know we're not winning the Super Bowl this year anyway. We might as well get these young guys every single snap that they can get and just kind of live with the highs and the lows. Luke Musgrave is a really good athlete at tight end. I cannot wait to watch him. Luke Musgrave is going to struggle as a blocker hit the first time he's got to go line up against miles garrett or whoever in week one of an NFL game and block that one of the hardest positions on offense is tied in that is going to happen so it understanding that going in even if they have a good offensive line and even if he's more

experienced or more seasoned mentally than a first year starter typically would be so many of the other aspects of this are unknowns and they're volatile and we i think that there's going to be a little bit of everything early on, but that's okay because I think that that development and that progress is the number one priority for them. Yeah, I agree. Totally. All right. I'm sensing a bit of a theme here, but let's go from Jordan Love to the guy he's replacing in Green Bay. What is your next big quarterback question that you have heading into the year? Aaron Rogers, man. We got to talk about Aaron Rogers, right? Jets fans are everywhere. They're going to love it. And they're only going to see this. Joe, we have to do it, talk about Aaron Rogers.

And they're only going to, they're going to clip out this little eight-minute combo we have about Aaron Rogers. But how will he look in a Hackett-led offense? We talked about this a little bit in our Jets preview. But the Rogers-Lefluhrer partnership always kind of felt like it was built on this wary compromise, right? Where Rogers has, he liked his old static world where he could do all this work before the snap.

And you had LeFleur wanting to come in with all this motion and all these different things. that minimize the impact a quarterback can have before the snap, like we talked about. Now, he's going back to this place where I think he's going to get to shape the offensive universe that exists with the Jets. So there's no doubt. So I wanted to ask you about the input and the role that a veteran quarterback can have in doing that. Because you played with Drew Breeze in New Orleans. And when you got to New Orleans in 2009, this is year four of Sean Payton and Drew Breeze.

And this is right before Drew starts smashing records. and becoming like a undeniable Hall of Fame sort of quarterback. You got back to New Orleans in 2017. What was the difference in Drew's input and kind of the way he shaped the offense, even in the offseason, from 2009 to 2017? Oh, it's drastically changed. And I would say it's a little bit of a different comparison. And here's why that Drew Breeze, Sean Payton, New Orleans offense from 06 to 2020,

21, whenever his last year was there. That offense has changed so much. There's some key components of it, but it constantly, constantly evolved. Like when I was there, my last year, my first trip around the sun in New Orleans was 2012, went around Casey for three, Philly for one, back to New Orleans and 17, so four years later, I came in and I'm like, dude, like 50% of his offense is like changed new, way more words added. And I think that's what made New Orleans and Sean Payton so freaking good on offenses. I'm telling you we talked about it, but I'm telling you every single week of 2017, it was like a brand new offense. The wording was the same, but I mean, there was no core concepts. And that's sometimes if you have veteran guys,

That's a dangerous way to live without the right guys. It is. It is, but you had veteran guys who had been in the system and involved with the system forever. And that's what made that offense so good. It was, hey, we're thinking we're facing a Seattle three team. Sean Payton's going to put in about 55 Seattle cover three beaters. Or if we're facing like a quarter team,

he's going to put in 55 quarters. Like it is truly based on what that offense and defense does on the other team. Now, you go back to Aaron Roder, and Nathaniel Hackett, I think that Rogers, without a doubt, you hit it right on. He does his best work at the line of scrimmage. But if you look at that offense in Green Bay with McCarthy, when he was getting to do what he wanted to do, and they were so good at it, if you really go back, study it and look at the film, it's not super complicated. It's really not compared to other offenses in the league. They throw Dragon Lion, which you're like, what's Dragon Lion?

It's like a slant and a flat and two slants on each side. They run quick game a ton. And where do the big plays come when he scrambles that out of the pocket? Now, obviously, they have heavy play action under the center game, which they're really, really good at. But if you look, it's the same concepts. They're going to have some new stuff that they run. They're a deeper receiver there at New York. But you look, and it blows my mind because when I'm watching defenses that player in Rodgers,

because we're studying film, we're getting ready to. for the next week. I'm like, you know, just dink, dump, dink, he doesn't throw a lot of interceptions. He takes a lot of sacks. That's part of the offense. That's how it goes. Hey, we would rather you take a sack and throw a pick. He just doesn't throw a lot of picks. He threw 12 last year. He was like double the most he's had in forever. It's insane. So that's something that he's never done. So you look at the offense. So I think it's going to be really good. I think it's going to be easier than some people think for that offense to, it must say the offense, the receivers, the skill players to pick up the actual hackett in Aaron's offense. I think it's going to be a lot

easier for them to pick up. I think if they're going to play pretty well, because they got some, they got some dogs outside. I'm excited to watch what Garrett Wilson feels like in this offense. All those slants, all that quick game stuff. He just has, he's so dynamic with the ball in his hands, his release game already at the stage of his career. He's so violent. That type of skill set with the way that Aaron wants to play. I'm really excited to watch that. I wanted to ask you, though, So we have this offense that he's gotten to shape. His buddy is the offensive coordinator. Randall Cobb is on this team.

Alan Lazard came with him. If you were the backup quarterback on that team and you saw all of this placating that they were doing to this guy coming in, how would you feel about that? Is that just the cost of doing business with the guy who's at this stage of his career and you understand that you take that sort of leeway with the benefits? Or is that something where it can go the wrong way as well, similar to what we saw in Denver? last year. It can definitely go the wrong way. I mean, there's no doubt about it. But if I'm a backup there, I love it. I'm like, dude, we got, we got Aaron freaking Rogers coming to play for us. That's enough. Like, like, I'm sorry. Like, like, people want to like get on, but like he wants to

feel comfortable there. He's got his boy. And when I say his boy, Nathan O'Hackett is his guy, like his favorite coach of all time, right? And then you have all these young, because it got a pretty young core group of guys. Offensive line, we'll see how they go, but the ball gets out so quickly in offense. I don't think it'll matter. I think they'll be able to cover that up. But dude, if I'm there, I'm like, I get to learn for two years, maybe three, I don't know, under Aaron and see how he goes about things and he's, see his wizardry at work. Like, come on, man. Like, yeah, like I'm all in. I'm 100% for it, without a doubt. Based on what we've been able to glean from Hard Knocks. That seems to be the general philosophy and the general mindset of the guys there where they're looking at it. It's like, holy shit. And that is real, right? That's beyond the actual uptick and quarterback play that you get when you make this sort of move. Level of belief that gets lifted from every single person in the building. You heard Jeff Oldbrick say it during that first episode of the show where he showed a clip of a play and he goes, that guy plays for us. And I think that has to have real tangible impact, especially on a team that's very very

very young to kind of immediately instill that belief where the quarterback that we now have has all these skins on the wall, we can do anything. That has to have some real impact. Well, it does without a doubt. And you look at who it is of all people. It's Aaron Rogers. And he took so much money away. I mean, you never see that from his contract to be able to make this deal work so they could go out and get Dalvin Cook. So they could go out and get other people as the trade deadline approaches, which they will, because they're all in. They have to to be all in for these next few years because their defense is excellent. They're not good. They are

excellent. And with A. Raj out there, sure, there'll be a little growing pains. They'll get the going, but I'm really excited to see how this works, and especially because Aaron Rogers is playing in a preseason game, too, which is like first time and ever. I don't know how I feel about that, but

it probably won't look great. He'll be in for a couple plays and be out, but this is probably, I mean, you could put this up there for me in terms of just pure joy of like this is my favorite question that we've had like without a doubt of this show like it's Aaron Rogers what he's going to look like because a lot of people a lot of people don't understand he probably numbers wise had his worst stretch of a career a little bit there last

year he only threw for 3,700 yards 26 touchdowns a lot but 12 picks 91 rating it's like his second or third lowest rating which says a lot because rating 91 is pretty good but it's not what we expected of usual Aaron Rogers MVP Aaron Rogers. And so yeah, it's going to be, there's a lot of play. I'm excited about it. Well, the last time that people were trying to dig his grave as a quarterback in the league, it was near the end of the McCarthy era. And even in 2018, 2019, when the floor got there, and it was a little uneven.

And then he won two MVPs. So him being bought in and him really caring about this, I think, is a real superpower. And it feels like if he's going to go in that, that direction, they could be better than people anticipate. All right. I agree. Let's go to a team and a fan base that I think probably has a new sense of hope with Aaron Rogers out of town. Your next big quarterback question for 2023 is. Justin Fields, does he take the next step in year three like Jaylen Hertz did?

You mentioned Jaylen Hertz and the plan that the Eagles had for Jaylon Hertz. They go out and they trade for AJ Brown and they drop him into this offense. So you have this run-heavy approach in the previous. season. You go inquire a true number one receiver. Devote Smith is a very

good player, but a superstar level receiver. And then the overall complexion of the offense changes. And we've heard the story a million times. They open it up.

They start throwing the ball more. Jalen Hertz turns into an MVP candidate that the Eagles pay with barely even blinking. The Bears get DJ Moore as part of that trade for the number one pick. And I don't think DJ Moore is

AJ Brown, but DJ Moore is a good receiver and he's a much better receiver than anybody who was on that team last year. 100%. We've seen this over the last five years. Teams doing this consistently and it working. Bill's trading for Stefan Biggs and what that did to Josh Al. The Eagles trading for AJ Brown and what that did to J.1 Hertz. The Dolphins trading for Tyree Kill and what that's done to Tua. Jamar Chase getting to Cincinnati with the fifth overall pick. I'm wondering, what does it actually do? If you're a quarterback within an offense and you acquire a receiver like this that's truly a number one option, what are the tangible differences? playing the position with a guy like that

versus not having a guy like that. When I have a play that is not suitable for the defense, if I'm at the line of scrimmage and I got a play called and I'm like looking at my receivers, I don't like you, don't like you, I guess you're okay. But the defense is like,

hey, everything's covered. I don't have anyone to throw it to you. I got to run around and check it down, which he did a lot of last year. He did a lot of running around. A lot of running around. This year, it's like,

okay, look that way. No. DJ Moore. Yes. Like, come on. Let's go. So I think it's, I think it's so much more than just having a guy. Like DJ Moore, you said good receiver. I think he's a really good receiver.

He's a very good point. And probably one of the most underrated aspects of that trade when they, when they traded out was, hey, oh yeah, by the way, just add DJ more to that. And I'm like, DJ more? Like, yes. Like, come on. And you saw what he did on like a little screen in preseason, took it 60 yards. Like the confidence level that Justin will have going in this year with a true number one will be so much more and so much higher than what he had going into it last year,

if that makes sense. Because it's so hard to explain. Like I'm trying to, I've been talking two minutes about it. It's as a quarterback, if you feel like a guy you have that you can really, really trust. And I'm going to throw it to this guy. And he might be double covered right here, but I know the worst thing is going to happen is it's not going to get intercepted. Okay, we're good.

Like the dude, like, in DJ Moore, I'm not saying he's a top five receiver, but he's up there and he's going to get a, if I'm fantasy, which I don't really play a lot of fantasy, right? I'm picking. I'm going to pick DJ Moore because they might have throw it a ton in Chicago, but they're going to be throwing to that guy. And that's all those things you're talking about where it's hard to really describe it. When I was asking people about this last fall, I was digging around on this because I just

find it so interesting. What actually changes? So if we're trying to diagnose the aspects that get better when you bring this guy in with the quarterback, what is it? And confidence and trust are the two words that came up the most, where it's not just this, you can't really, it's no math equation. You know, there's no science behind it. But the confidence in the trust, yes.

And the confidence in the trust that get kind of just lifted when you bring in this sort of guy can really change the way that a guy approaches the position. And I think that is the story you have to tell yourself if you were a Bears fan like I am, is that all of the timing issues, all of the sack issues, just that kind of internal timing mechanism in the pocket that he has struggled with those over the last couple years. If you give him someone on the outside where if it's a 50-50 decision or a 60-40 decision that he wouldn't have made last year, he's quickly making it now because of who the number one receiver in the progression is, that is what you have to believe

if you think he's going to take the next step. He's trusting. There's no doubt. He's trusting that something bad is not going to happen. And listen, I know the media, and I guess I'm part of the media because of the show, but the outside media is like so, you know, bullish on Justin Field.

He's going to be, okay, I get it. And I do think that there is going to be a significant, I mean, at least what I've seen around young quarterbacks is the first year is so hard. I mean, it's almost impossible to play at a high level the very first year, unless you're like, you know, Justin Herbert, amazing offense player, rookie the year or whatever. The jump from first year to second year is big. The jump, in my opinion, from what I've seen from second to third year, and especially with Luke Getzi's offense is going to be huge for Justin.

because Justin now knows what Luke expects out of them in this offense. And the sack issues, like, I don't have an issue with sacks. I have an issue with turning the football over. That's what I have. And so it's better to take a sack than to throw a pick. And, yeah, I would agree the pocket presence is out of – but like when I was at NFL Network last year, and we were studying, we had them for a couple Monday night games, and we had them early in the season.

we, whatever it was. And then I think we had them late in the season. Maybe it was a third, whatever, is one of the primetime games. And we talked about it. And I'd tell you what, it was the distinct change. I think it was the Patriots game.

Yeah, so they had their mini-buy, they played against Washington on a Thursday. And then they had a mini-bye, I think, before they played the Patriots. And that's where we saw a little bit of a shift. It was the Patriots on a Monday night. Just more quarterback run game. Yes.

Yes. So it was very similar, again, of what the Eagles did, where you have this quarterback, we don't know, similar to the conversation we're having earlier. We're five, six weeks into the season. Now we know what we are. Now we know what we have to do. They pivot to this more run-heavy quarterback,

run-heavy version of the offense, and you get to see his physical gifts really shine. The question now becomes, if we're talking about the sequence of events that happen in Philly, do you get the next stage of the sequence? Can they move outside of that and step forward as a passing game to really take the ceiling off this thing? Well, and that's a great question.

and shocker, but your quarterback is only as good as the other 10 players. That's like the only sport in the world that if you're a golf, single sport, baseball, I can be a single player on the team as a hitter and change the course of a game. Football, you can't do it. That's why football is great. You cannot do it. You have to have 10 other people on that field doing the exact same thing on what you expect every single snap.

And if that doesn't happen, guess what? And your quarterback's going to look like crap. If he doesn't. And guess what? If everyone does it, right? And it's, he's going to look like a genius. So they support staff.

He's got to have his support system around him play really well. They have to raise the level of play. And that hopefully will happen. They've done a good job of building this offense and getting the right pieces in there to at least give him a chance. You know, it's a rookie right tackle. It's so many things that are unknowns beyond Justin Fields. But if you look at the guys on this offense now,

compared to what the offense looked like at this time last year, year. It is vastly different. They've done everything they can to try to get an answer on him. The last thing I wanted to ask you about this, specifically, you go to year one to year two of a system. We hear about this all the time. What actually changes? What do you understand better? What is the biggest jump from year one to year two in a system for a quarterback? Without a doubt, it's what is expected out of you. And what is the DNA, the true being of what you are. as an offense. It changes from year to year, but there's not a lot of turnover on offense. I don't think Chicago, but it's what we are as an offense and what we are really good at and what we're not so

good at. Let's make our strengths even stronger. Let's make our weaknesses in the middle ground. Because weaknesses might not necessarily be scheme. It might be players. But as long as you can get to the middle ground and make your strengths even stronger, I think that's the biggest thing is like Justin knows he's been in a full season, in a full meeting room schedule with Luke and the quarterback coach and all these guys on, this is what a season for us looks like. And specifically of the Chicago Bears, the last part of last season,

I think was really good for them offensively. In terms of really good, meaning like what they started at to what they got to. Yes. And let's build off that. Right? I don't want to just like really, what they started to what they got to was like really,

really good. And I think you're going to continue to see that grow. We got one more here. And it's one that I really, wanted to talk to you about based on your background. Your final big quarterback question for the 2023 season is. Russell Wilson and Sean Payton, how will they pair together in the first year? You said to me when we were planning this that you think that Sean has completely transformed

the organization and that it started from the beginning with Russell. What does that mean? In what ways do you think that's happened based on what you've heard based on you knowing Sean? I'd love to hear more about that. Well, I mean, you just take first and foremost hack it as a head coach. And it's very well documented about what Russell brought in, his chef, his own private meeting room, alienated himself. And just pretty much everything he wanted he got. I like Russell.

I live right down the road from Russell. But that is something you just can't do. You can't do it as a starter. You can't have that type of just like, hey, I'm going to alienate myself. I'm going to have my own meeting room up with the coaches. I'm going to have my, I don't think he had his own locker room, but I'm going to have all my guys in. My guys are only going to work on me. Like, that is, I've never seen it.

That to me is going a little far. I know Russell did it with the right intentions, but the intentions did not turn out the way he probably wanted it to. And so then you look at Sean coming in. I was with Sean for five years. No nonsense. No nonsense. Like Bill Parcell's disciple. Like strict, but fun. And really just doesn't care what you think because there's a hierarchy and I'm, I'm the top of the top. Like, and you're down here. Not necessarily saying that because you're looking down on him. Just saying, hey, this is how it works. There is steps and levels to this. I'm at the top. All of this. Look, I'm sure.

sure he had a great conversation with him, but this is not going to work. You will not. And I think Russell probably looking back on it probably is like, ah, yeah, I can see how that was misconstrued. I can see how that everyone wants to give them crap about it. I don't want to give him crap. I think that he was probably doing it in his best interest. But I think when Sean came in, Sean probably sat down with him like, I know Sean can and just like, this ain't going to fly. Like, sorry. Like just in just unapologetic because Sean knows what it takes to win a championship. obviously. It knows what it takes. And the intangibles of it, I would say, are just as important as the tangible part of playing quarterback. I wanted to just ask you on a baseline level what it's like to play in a Sean Peyton offense and what it's like to play quarterback in a Sean Peyton offense.

Because everything that we've heard over the years, I remember talking to guys. I've met reference this conversation a bunch of different times. But I was in the Saints locker room, maybe four or five years ago talking to Zach Line, who was the fullback on those teams, just about. Zach's my guy. Just about the details and just about what it's like to play for Sean and how maniacal he is about that stuff. And then you look at what the Broncos looked like last season, all those pre-snap penalties, guys lining it up in the wrong place. Just from a detail approach perspective, how different is Sean Payton compared to a lot of the other offensive coaches around the week? I don't necessarily think he's super different in terms of because most every offensive coordinator grinds, right? It's not the grind level.

It's the mind being able to constantly evolve and constantly attack how defenses are playing. But I think he is very, it's just, it's difficult. Like I'll take friends, I can only talk about my five years there. Like when I first got there in 09, undrafted, I was in Washington, got cut, signed with them. And Chalm was like, hey, listen, you're going to come be the third string behind Drew Brees and Mark Brunell. And I'm like, dude, that's sweet. I get to learn from like these two, like awesome. And when I got there, I was so blown away with the offensive verbiage and the offensive terminology.

And just everything, like I thought that I was, and I was in college like a film rat, like prided myself. And still to this day, like, that's how I made it 14 years. Not just because I, but like, because I enjoyed the process. And when I got there, I was like, oh. Like it took me a year and a half, two years coming out of college to feel really comfortable in offense because it changes weekly. It changes weekly. It's a brand new offense weekly. And that's what makes it so good.

But you better be on your piece and cues. Like, do you better be studying? And so I remember getting there and I was like, I couldn't operate. I was just frozen. I was, I would throw, you know, you'd have a simple like post corner concept on one side and a dig, dagger or a dig stop on the, on the backside. And it's just say, just work pure progression. I'm just go corner to dagger. And I'm like, dagger stop. He's like, what are you doing? Like, that's another thing about Sean. Like, he'll call you out. But it's in a way that makes you respect them. And there's so many different ways to do it. But he's very, not cocky, but confident. in it. And that's what guys, that's what draw guys to him. Like he's, he's probably, not probably. He is the best speaker I've ever heard as a head coach in front of the team. He is the absolute best.

And it's really hard to explain, but he has just a certain way of having that swagger, confidence, cockiness to like meet players as they are. And I think that's really cool. But the offensive side of things is like, I mean, it's just like, I learned the offense the first year. I'm like, okay, I think I got it on Pat. And then you go to OTAs. my second year when I'm trying to win the backup job. And it's like 50% of it still. I'm like, what the hell? Like, he's like, sorry.

Like, we're, I'm like, all right. So I guess there's just got. So like the amount of study in is probably the most I've done in any of the offenses just to actually learn the offense. And Russell's really smart. I think he'll, he'll get it. He'll get it pretty quickly. It's you saying that about just his presence.

I think is so important when we think about what the Broncos needed. I always go back to. that game against the Colts. In the primetime game against the Colts, it was the first game, I think, where the new ownership was there. They had recently bond the team, and they're there, and you see them in the box, and it's just this embarrassing train wreck of an offensive performance

against the Colts team that wasn't very good. It was an embarrassing trade wreck on both sides. Both sides. Yes. It was a disgusting game to watch. But you just get to the end of the year, and then obviously the nightmarish game they had against the Rams that eventually gets Hackett fired.

And even with new, ownership just felt so rudderless and there was nothing to rely on. There was no one who was kind of at the center of all of this. And to bring in someone like him, like you said, that just has this sort of presence and air about him, I think it's the, it was the only thing they could do. It was the only place they could go to write the ship as quickly as they wanted it, right? They had to, they had to hit a home run out of the park higher and they did with Sean, in my opinion. It was an expensive home run, but they hit, they got one. Dude, it doesn't matter. That's the thing. doesn't matter. Like these teams, the NFL made 11.8 billion with a B dollars last year. You think

paying Sean, I don't know, 20 million a year is going to, no, because he's going to get them back eventually to being good. I don't care if it takes two or three years. Like he is the guy. He will do it. He'll get his way. And that's something that's really cool. I mean, obviously like the deep pockets help, but like that's nothing. Come on. Like, it really is. It is nothing. And I think the teams are getting smart about that. There's no salary cap on coaches. You can spend as much as you want. The only thing you're worried about is dynamics, right? If you're paying your offensive line coach more than your offensive coordinator, I think there's probably going to be some questions. But when it's the head coach, and the head coach is clearly the figurehead of the organization, who's going to complain about it?

Yeah, no. And I think when they see Denver play and if they're going to be a playoff team, it'll be like, if they get to the playoffs or a couple games at the end of the year where they're playing for a playoff spot, like it's a win. It's a win, especially with how bad last year was. I just want success for them is just to be serious. Just by the end of the year, are you a serious team? Are people taking you seriously? And if they get to that point, I think that this is a win for them as a season. But I want to ask you, do you think that Russell can get back to? to above average play. Like, is this a Sean fixing him from being one of the worst quarterbacks in the league statistically last year to still pretty rough but passable? Or do you think this is we can be a plus offense with this coach quarterback combination in 2023?

Oh, I think you can be a plus offense without a doubt in 2023. There's no doubt. I think that last year was rough to say the least on many facets for Russell personally. and I just I don't necessarily think I would I would bet against Russell and I know for a fact I wouldn't bet against Sean Payton, Joe Lombardi, those guys, because I've been around it, I've seen it. They have a top six, seven defense. That will help tremendously. Okay, we had some really good defenses in New Orleans when I was there. Not as good as this. So it's going to take some time seeing. and figuring out what they do well as an offense, but if they were able to do that semi-quickly and the defenses are able to keep them in games, I think they're going to surprise some people.

All right. That's all we got. That was fun. Yeah, that was good. It was awesome. It's going to be exciting to keep doing this every single week. Just a reminder, we will be doing this every week during the season. By next week, we'll have a name.

We'll have all that fancy stuff for you guys. Yeah. We are pumped to bring this to you. cannot wait to have these discussions all the way through the year. It's going to be great to just look at some individual quarterback performances from the week, some things that we've seen kind of creep up over, you know, the first quarter of the season, all that different type of stuff. Very excited for people to get your insight and your perspective all the way through the year. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we're looking forward to. This is just a start. Our 10 minutes,

it felt like 20. It was great. All right, guys. That's all we got. Thank you so much for listening. We will be back tomorrow with our next Division preview. If you have not been listening to those, you can check out, I think we've done five or six of them already. We did the AFC West that ran on Friday. Please go check those out. In the meantime, really appreciate you guys listening.

We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.