The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Keefer and the Beats: The Lions rise, the Rams rebound, and the Raiders confound

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Any list of best teams in the NFL this season has to include the Detroit Lions. Any list of 3-3 teams, meanwhile, has to include the Rams and Raiders. The list of guests on this week's Keefer and the Beats includes all of The Athletic reporters who cover those teams. Colton Pouncy (Lions), Jourdan Rodrigue (Rams) and Tashan Reed (Raiders) join Zak Keefer on this episode to break down their teams one-third of the way through the season.Follow Zak on Twitter: @zkeeferFollow Colton on Twitter: @colton_pouncyFollow Jourdan on Twitter: @JourdanRodrigueFollow Tashan on Twitter: @tashanreedSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeThis episode is brought to you 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's Kiefer and the Beats. Welcome back to the athletic football show. This is Zach Kiefer, and this is week six of Kiefer and the Beats. Sunday across the league, the story was backup quarterbacks. One in Cleveland, PJ Walker, who's been cut 11 times in this league, and at one point was the best player in the XFL, helped the Browns hand the 49ers their first loss of the season. Then a few hours later, up the road in the Meadowlands, Zach Wilson and the Jets beat the, the Eagles for the first time in franchise history, giving Philly its first loss of the year.

Even Tyrod Taylor almost helped the Giants upset the bills last night. So no more unbeatens. And so far it feels like a year of parity. 13 teams right now in the AFC are at 500 or better. And ironically enough, the two teams in last place at 1 and 5 are led by Super Bowl winning head coaches. That's the Patriots and the Broncos. But a full month and a half into the season, we're seeing teams start to really reveal who they are, even if the final score on Sunday doesn't tell the full story. So on today's show, we're going to go a little bit behind the scenes and find out who these teams are from the beat writers that are there every day.

We will start with one of the best teams in football, and this is not a joke. It's the Detroit Lions. They're five and one. One of the best offenses in the league in a very, very good top 10 defense. And when you consider that that franchise hasn't won a playoff game since 1991, that city deserves it. That's going to be fun in Detroit over the next couple of months.

We brought in Colton Pouncy, our Detroit Lions beat rider, to share some insight into Jared Golf, O.C. Ben Johnson, and a little bit of a side of Dan Campbell that not a lot of people are paying attention to. From there, we'll head to L.A., where Jordan Rodriguez offers us some really interesting insight into the 3-3 Rams and the changes she's seen in Sean McVeigh. This was a really fascinating conversation about a coach who, really had to ask himself some tough questions after last season, and a lot of ways is still looking to find those answers.

But again, a team that won the Super Bowl two years ago, then bottomed out last season, Sean McVeigh's had to answer a lot of tough questions about himself, and I think that's going to continue into the months that come. And Jordan has fascinating perspective on all of that. She's been there every day as well. Finally, we'll head to Las Vegas, where Josh McDaniels and his Raiders are 3 and 3,

after an ugly, unconvincing win over the lowly Patriots. The star receiver Devante Adams is clearly frustrated. The QB's banged up. The offense is awful. And our beat writer, Tashon Reed, will give us a win to, into owner Mark Davis and where he's at, the Derek Carrick card, a Jimmy Garoppolo move, and how the Raiders can climb out of the state of perpetual mediocrity.

It feels like they've been in for quite some time. Really, really, really, really enjoy talking with all three of the beatwriters this afternoon. and we've got tons of great insight on those teams coming up next. Let's dig in. All right, first up from Detroit, Michigan. Colt Pouttsy, who covers the Lions for us. Colton, the Lions are 5-1. They are among the best teams in football.

That sounds like a crazy statement. It would have been a crazy statement for a lot of years before that. Let's just jump right in. Why is this team 5-1 right now? Yeah, I mean, it's so shocking to me when you say that. But I guess, you know, watching them the last really 16 games, almost a full season's worth, they're 13 and 3 year in their last 16 games. I think that's a product of, you know, some young players maturing and I think finding

themselves and establishing an identity under Dan Campbell. You know, they want to play defense. They haven't always been able to play good defense, but they are this year because they've added some pieces in free agency, some of the young guys like Aidan Hutchinson. He's stepping up and taking a leap. So their defense is really coming along. And then offensively, you know, we've seen what they've been able to do under Ben Johnson, with Jared Gough, a quarterback leading the way, Amarov St. Brown, the running backs.

So this really looks like a complete football team on both sides. Like their top ten in offense, top ten defense. Not many teams can say that at the moment, and it's early, but they're doing exactly what they wanted to do, and they're getting off to the start that they wanted. It doesn't feel like a fluke. It doesn't feel like they're just hot early and they're going to fade late. We'll see what happens. But like you said, I mean, they're fourth in yards per game behind the Dolphins, Eagles, and Chargers.

Really good offenses. is their fourth in points scored behind the Dolphins, 49ers, and Bills. Again, elite teams. Their second in plays of 20 yards or more, the only team, obviously, being the dolphins. So Ben Johnson's crushing it. Before we get into Jared Goff and Dan Campbell and the rest, let's talk about what it's like to cover this team because Detroit has, I mean, let's just get the elephant out in the room.

They haven't won a playoff game since 1991, which is just crazy to me. How different has it been covering this? this Lions as opposed to the lions we've known for a long time. Yeah, I mean, even last year, that was my first year on the beat. They got off to a one and six start. They always get off to a one and six start, right. It seems like it, right? But at that point, we were talking about, you know, Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud,

like, who's the quarterback going to be? Like, who's the next guy. So there was real talk in town about who they were going to go after as opposed to golf. When you're in the pole position for the number one spot, yeah, I think it was fair to look at it at the time. But then, man, man. they totally turned it around last year, really the second half. Jared golf was really efficient with the ball, wasn't turning it over as much. Some of the young pieces on defense started to grow and come along.

And I think they just carried that over. Like they found a way to win. They found a way to start closing games. Because even when they were losing those games, it wasn't like they were losing 42 to 7. You know, they were tight games, one score games. They just couldn't get over the top because they had young guys that didn't know how to win. So Dan Campbell that whole time kind of kept the faith, kept the messes the same. saying we're close guys we're so close we're doing everything we need to do just got to get over

the hump there and once we get that under our belts we'll know we can always point back to this is how you close in the fourth quarter this is how you win a game and that's what they've been able to do um so you look at them this year went into the offseason with so much confidence about the team that that could be um that could be scary for a young team like you never know how they're going to navigate those water especially with who they opened up with right on the road in Kansas city no doubt um but they've kept their message consistent like we haven't done anything yet we went nine and eight last year. This is the year where we have to take that leap forward and prove ourselves to the NFL, and that's kind of what they've done so far this year.

Speaking of that leap, you wrote a really, really good story early on in training camp or before the season started about Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell. They are basically leading this charge, leading this turnaround, and they were introduced via text message, which is wild. But Campbell had an interesting quote in it. He said, I know this. We need to be competing for a division championship next year. And this is what he said at the end of last season. That's what Brad and I set out to do. Now, in that division, Aaron Rogers and the Packers have owned it for a long time. Minnesota won it last year. Chicago can't seem to get out of their own way. At that time, did that sound like a crazy statement? Or did you really feel like the era was pointing up? And if so,

why? Why were you starting to believe in this team, even when the results weren't quite there yet? Yeah, you know, that quote really stuck out to me. It was kind of the first time that they've acknowledge their timeline, their goals. To acknowledge that publicly is a big deal for them. Right. They said the quiet part out loud a little bit there. So, you know, when you hear that, your ears kind of perk up. But just based on the way they finished winning eight of their final 10 games, you know,

they went five and one in the NFC North last year and they finished nine and eight. So if they were to carry some of that order this year, you get some new players, another year of growth, you know, you can start to see the pieces coming together. So I think that was sort of the confidence there that Dan saw at the end of the season. You know, they finished that season. going on the road, you know, taking out Aaron Rogers, preventing the Packers for making the playoffs. I think that was sort of the symbolic passing of the torch.

Not really passing. They just took it. They grabbed it, you know. And so I think that's kind of set up everything for this year and their expectations and their goals and kind of the mindset that they've taken into 2023. So we've heard a lot about Dan Campbell taking over. This is his third year.

And now they're the team that everyone's chasing, right, in the NFC North, which is crazy to say. And he had this really good quote. our focus still has got to be that we're not hunted, we're on the hunt. How does Campbell's we're on the hunt message, right, in mindset and very unique coaching style sunk in with his players? Do they feel that? Have you seen that?

Because when they hired him, everyone made jokes about the kneecaps comment, but a couple of years later, it's very obvious, this dude can coach. Yeah. I think Dan's best trait attribute, whatever you want to call it, as a head coach, is his ability to motivate and catch the attention to block. he's done that even when they were one in six these guys were still you know eyes drawn to him there's no rolling of the eyes like it was you're our guy you're going to lead us we're going to figure this out none of that even when it even like when it's hard to do that because players

smell BS from a mile away they do and they can um but just be in the locker room there was maybe it was the fact that was a young group and they haven't really done anything in the week so they were trusting him but the same time you know he has their respect this is the guy that's sort of you know bill parcels disciple he's been through it he's one guy he's one guy and he's one games before in the past as an assistant and kind of has a vision for how he wants this thing to go and he told him to take time they got to put in the work but if they stuck around and believed in him then he would get them to where they want to go so that was kind of the message last year you're so close you're on the right track and then they kind of started winning some games and carry that over

this off season and you know I think just his ability to kind of get the attention of every single player young old veteran you know rookie they all gravitate to that dude and you see in the post game locker and videos that the lines put out every single eyes on him when he was passing out game balls when he's making these speeches um he's sort of this leader of men type but i'd also feel like there's this national perception of him everyone remembers the kneecap joke and you know the biting and the comments everything but gamble knows exes and knows too like don't get a twist that he is a guy that knows the game has been around it for a long time he kind of likes the fact that people think he's a sort of meathead character kind of plays into a little bit so he plays into that okay

no doubt and so players see both sides they see the the game, the X's and O is the aggressive mentality on the field. They also see the locker room stuff and how he's able to relate with every single player. So, you know, people make jokes about him, but I'm telling you, like, Dan has the attention of this locker room and it's a reason why they're in the spot that they are right now. I'm not sure Jared Goff is an MVP candidate, but I'm not sure that he's not. I mean, like you said, and we're stretching this back to late last season. I mean, 4,400 passing yards over his last 17 games, 29 touchdowns and 4.5.

four picks, and the lions are 13 and four. I mean, that's, that's right up there with that elite quarterback play that we talk about with Allen and Mahomes and all those guys. And he doesn't do what those guys do necessarily, but his team is winning. A couple weeks ago, you wrote that Aidan Hutchinson was this team's MVP. Who's the best player on this team? And that's a bad question, because it doesn't really matter. But is it golf?

Is it Hutchinson? Like, where are they getting lifted the most on a team that a lot of people had counting out a couple years ago. Yeah, you know, when I wrote that, that was kind of before golf had two of his better games as a lion, really. It always happens that way. Right? So that made me look a little bad there.

But, you know, golf's playing really good football. And, like, when you look about, we talk about the MVP conversation, you know, this early in the season, a lot of it is quarterback wins and stats. And, you know, the guys are leading their team and put up numbers tend to be in the conversation. But, man, golf has been everything this team is needed. He's efficient with the football. gets the ball out to his playmakers. He's making some tight window throws this year or two

that he probably wasn't even making at this time a year ago. So I think that's a level of comfort that he has in the offense, trusting his guys to be even able to attempt those passes now versus last year. It kind of tells you the growth of this offense in year or two under Ben Johnson and just where golf is as a quarterback right now. He's a much more mature player than he was during his time in L.A. Why do you say that?

You know, I think he was kind of playing on, you know, on eggshells in L.A., especially towards the end there. He was turning the ball over a lot. Sean McVeigh is very, you know, he wants things done a certain way. Yeah, Jordan Redrigue is on the same podcast today. We talked a lot about that very thing. There you go. So I think maybe he was kind of playing on the edge a little bit.

And here, Ben Johnson is very collaborative in how he wants the offense, you know, run. He's reached out to golf and said, hey, what did you like about your, you know, the play call sheet in L.A.? how can we make you as comfortable as possible here in Detroit? So they've worked together to kind of craft this offense around golf's skill set and his strengths. And so I think that's why someone goes wrong, whether it's Campbell or Ben Johnson, you know, it's not the end of the world, you get back out there and you make the next play. That's sort of the mentality out here. So I think he's playing comfortably.

And I think, you know, the way the lines are operating right now with the success they've had on offense, golf has a lot to do with that. And so does Ben Johnson, but got someone out there making the throws, you know. I think he needs more credit than he's getting. I would agree. And Ben Johnson feels like a star in the making. He's going to get some head coaching calls this coming cycle. Now, he had some interviews last year.

Did you ever get a good answer for why he pulled out of some of those coaching interviews? You know, one thing he told us, we sat down with him at the Combine for a little bit, some of the local beat riders for a luncheon with him. And he just mentioned that, you know, talking is over with his family. And, you know, the opportunity to do something special here in Detroit that hasn't really been done was super, feeling to him. I think he also understood, you know, hey, I'm going to get other opportunities. That's not something he said to us, but I think you kind of sense that, hey, when you're a young offensive coach having this success, yeah, the phone's going to ring.

Yeah, especially if you repeat it and they were making plans to improve the offense. You know, he talked in February of last year about, this year, I should say, about improving the run game and getting more explosive plays and things like that. So he was already talking about ways the offense could get better. And you're kind of looking at them now and they're just because they were last year, if not better. So the opportunities will still be there for him in the future. But to win in Detroit, the way that they are right now, and we'll see what ultimately happens.

But just be five in one in a city and you see it buzzing. And, you know, you like and you enjoy going to work with the people that you work with. And, you know, it's a whole deal. I think he's just having fun. And he understands, like, there'll be other opportunities in the future. Can't blame them. Detroit's got to be loving this. They deserve it.

They've lost for so long. This has got to be so much fun. Last thing, and I'll get you out of here. I know it's a busy Monday and there's a million things to do. But when it comes to Detroit as the spotlight intensifies, right? Campbell's going to be in the coach of the year talk. Ben Johnson's going to get rumored about this opening and this opening, etc. Why are they going to live up to all the pressure and why do they have some flaws that might come back to haunt them when they get into these big moments in December and January?

And then, you know, hopefully a playoff run, right? Or hopefully a playoff game at the very least. you know, why is this team set up to handle that well? And what concerns should this team possibly have about being in that spotlight for the first time in a long time? Yeah, you know, I guess the first thing is you just never know how a team's going to handle that spotlight, right, until they go out and they do it. So it's on them to kind of prove that they're built for it. But, you know, just being around these guys and talking to them in the locker room and, you know, you hear stuff from Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes, they just think that they've acquired, you know, the right type of players or the right type of mentality. like they're wired the right the right way um that's all strategic like it goes back to their draft

process um a lot of the the guys they brought in are these hard nose like we don't we don't care about anything we just want to play football and just have fun out there and young dan tables right and they're sort of just blind to the history of this franchise which is like honestly if you're going to build yeah if you're going to build a team that can win in this city with you know decades of losing under your belt, you need to have some young guys that are just wired the right way and don't care about any of that stuff in the past and won't let it affect them. So I think that's what they've done by and large. And you're seeing it play out on the field. These are guys who just love football. That's what Brad Holmes says. We're getting football players, not guys to play football.

So that's sort of the mentality and that's all been strategic. And I think, you know, we'll see how they ultimately handle it down the road. But for now, so far so good. And, you know, they're having a good time. It's awesome. It's awesome to watch. And it's a great story. And we will be chatting with you again because this team, as of right now, doesn't look like it's going anywhere. And it's going to be a really fun story to follow as the NFL season inches towards the playoffs the next couple months. But thanks for hopping on, Colton, on a busy Monday. And thankfully, thankfully you got back from Tampa Bay in one piece. That was scary for a second. I didn't know. But we made it one piece. And yeah,

thanks for having me on, Zach. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks, ma'am. All right. Next up from Los Angeles, California. Jordan, how you doing? I'm good, Zach. It's nice to see you. How are you? It's good. It's been, I think this is six weeks and we haven't had you on yet. But we've got a lot more material to cover, which will be fun when we talk about the Los Angeles Rams. And a back and forth kind of weird season so far, three and three doesn't even begin to tell the story. You know, they came out, they whooped the Seahawks in week one. They lost one score games to the 49ers and the Bengals. They won against the buzzer at the buzzer against the Colts, right after building that huge lead, lost the Eagles last week. And then yesterday was interesting. and your story was interesting because they were pretty terrible in the first half, and they were down 9 to 6 to a pretty bad Arizona team. What did you learn after the game about their shift and approach that was kind of revealing about where this team is at? And maybe what Sean McVeigh is going on in his mind.

Yeah, big granular and big question, both at the same time, Zach, as you're so good at doing, because so yesterday what I learned is, oh, yes, this team can adjust in the second, in the second halves of games. because earlier in the season, other than that Seattle game, which turned out to be a little bit of a consistency outlier in terms of what they were doing half over half, this was one of the worst second half teams scoring wise in football on the offensive side. They were in all of these games, including against these undefeated, like, behemoths in the Eagles and the 49ers. They were in the Bengals game down to the wire, but they could not produce in the second halves of games. And specifically in Sundays win, you know, 20 points in the second half. And they did so by running the ball really effectively and with a frequency that is certainly

not a tendency of a Sean McVeigh team post-Todd-Gurley era. And it certainly is not a tendency at all when this team is down by three points. They were down three at the half. They run the ball at the fourth least frequency rate in the N. NFL when they are down by three points. And they totally broke that tendency in the second half came out, had a nine consecutive run drive. And one of those was a scramble at the end by Matthew Stafford. And then the cap, the touchdown was a pass to Cooper Cup on third and nine. And it just was you could feel the, you could literally up in the press box. You could feel the

linemen setting into their pads and like hunkering down. You could feel the energy. You could feel them start to collect their identity together in the middle of that drive. And I think for a coach like Sean McBay, who is very much a quote, and this is his quote, a feel and flow of the game guy when discussing the logic he uses to make decisions, this is a wake up call in a good way for him. I think it was a huge lesson for him in how connected he is with his team, in what is possible when you do the thing that maybe it's not in your tendency or pattern to do, but it's the thing that is needed. And that's something that in 2022, when Sean was going through what he went through mentally as well as what the team was going through, those things were so interconnected with him

because he is so, this team is like, it's like his veins and his bones at this point. Everything operates for it to function around him and within him. And to have something like that where they came into the game wanting to run the ball, but then got quote unquote talked out of looks, which means, you know, I've always the quarterback gets the two looks at the two calls of the line of scrimmage with the coach. The coach and the quarterback can decide to can those and go into different passing downs, different things like that because of what the Cardinals were doing pre-snap to shift their fronts.

And they just said, you know what? Okay, screw what they're doing. We're going to do what we're going to do. And that's not something you often see. You see in the passing game frequently with Sean McVeigh with the way he can scheme up voids and things like that. But in the run game specifically, you don't really see that from a Sean McFaile team. And I think it was a huge moment for him, for some of the vets, but also for the young players, of which there are many on this roster, to feel like the person at the helm is, can hear them, can feel what they need and what they want.

And that collective confidence running the ball, as we know, is not always the most efficient or effective play in that third quarter it was for the Rams. It's not always that way. But it's that feel that a young team especially really needed to feel that connectivity. It was really important. It was a huge moment, a defining moment that maybe end up defining down the stretch for them. It almost felt like Sean McVeigh was surprised at the revelation. And then you wrote about how much the players responded to it, Stafford, having studied. Like, these guys loved it.

And you forget in a passing league how much linemen freaking love to block. They weren't able to do this last year. They weren't able to run. They weren't able to protect last year. I want to ask you this, after such different seasons, you go back to 2021, they make the run of the Super Bowl, they win the whole thing. 2022, I thought Stafford played really well. No one noticed, but the line kind of fell apart.

Completely different season. Chong McVeigh goes through all these questions. Where are they at now in terms of the direction of the team? Because it feels like after two polar opposite seasons, they could be going in a number of different ways. Yeah, they're growing. This was a team that in the in the off season, they went through the front office and the T in the coaching staff, not that they don't want to use the word rebuild, but they went through

a partial rebuild. They basically sacramed. I was going to ask you reload, rebuild, revamp. What do you want to use? Yeah. I'm calling it a setup year. That's my word. But for some reason, they like the alliteration.

If you're like a coach, you have to speak in, you know, those other, like known words and whatnot. But anyway, so I call it a setup year because really what they did. was they overhauled their entire defensive roster, only three players with any relevant starting experience on that side, one of them being Aaron Donald, and then filled it up with rookies, with cheap rookies, with cheap players. Overhauled, this also does not get talked about, overhauled their entire special teams unit started, but for the sake of starting to beef up their offensive line and keeping some of their core offensive players, Matthew Stafford Cooper Cup,

cup intact. And the idea was, okay, if the offense can lift a young defense in the meantime, as that young defense grows, Sean McVeigh has always operated the philosophy that the, the defense is complementary to the offense. And a top 10 offense can lift a top 20 defense. And then that defense will start to come along as the season progresses. That's how since he hired Brandon Staley in 20, that's how he's operated. This defense is coming along faster than expected, and that's the coaching of Rahim Morris at defensive coordinator. This offense was not producing as much as initially expected half over half.

And that was in part, you know, Cooper Cup injury, and then you're changing your game plan. The emergence of Puka Nakua has been awesome for them. But they had to change things around. This is a team that was not running the ball consistently, despite totally overhauling their run game, They're a gap team now. They run more gap than almost any other team in the league, shifting away from Shaw McVeigh's wide and mid-zone roots. This was a team that went through,

even though the personnel did not largely change on offense, they went through an identity shift. And so that was going to take a little bit of time, I think, for the play caller to settle into. And maybe out kicked his coverage a little bit in terms of the expectation of what it was going to be right away out of the gate, especially after that Seattle game. A game like this,

where the defense is taking the ball away, guys who households have not heard of, you know, Christian Roseboom, undrafted free agent and side linebacker taking the ball away, Byron Young forcing a fumble, Quentin Lake and Kobe Turner recovering it, all young players, rookies and second year players and undrafted free agents. They're coming along faster than expected, and the offense is also getting itself back into this identity. So this is a setup year where, side, there's like $75 million in dead money to contend with. But they incurred it all at once. So this is a team that's looking at 2024. It's looking at 2025 in terms of when they can start

taking those big swings and acquiring more stars like they had in the past. But as they shifted this offseason, it was very much a, you know, go out and compete and see what happens with the belief internally and those on the outside, including myself, frankly. We're like, are you serious? You think you're going to be better than this? And they are. They're better than what most people expected. And they're developing faster, especially on the sides they overhauled, faster than people expected.

Three and three. And if you look at the schedule, Pittsburgh, winnable, Dallas, possibly winnable, Green Bay coming up. And then after that, after the buy, there's a lot of winnable games. And obviously, they got the 49ers in Week 18. is the rebuild a little bit further along than most anticipated? It sounds like it is. Is this sustainable? And going back to the original question where we started,

is perhaps a shift in Sean McVeigh's approach being more flexible on the fly, something that could pay off down the line? Because this is a different team with a different identity than what he's had in the past. Yeah, I think for him and for Matthew Stafford, Matthew Stafford is kind of, I think he's in that space where he's, like, I'm ready to just go to try it, to try it. He's totally cool with it yesterday. He's like living his best life right now, frankly. Like he's, and it's funny because Well, you win that Super Bowl and everything's different. But, but they surround, but I think they're

having so much fun together because it's like they're just trying stuff. They've been doing this on defense. You know, if you go look at what Rahim Morris is doing with some of his pressure packages, some of it out of necessity because they don't have developed pass rushers outside of Aaron Donald. Byron Young's going to be a dude for them, but but still has some growing to do. Some of the way they're just trying stuff. They're like they're like doing like coffee house pressures and stuff with Aaron Donald as a wide nine. Like they're doing all these different things. They're running super tight aggressive coverages with, uh, and like a super tight match zone out of a cover three with with with with witherspoon, you know, and like it's work. And it's work. They're just trying stuff.

There's no, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, yeah, there's no fear. And watch, and watch how they, they, they compete in games, offense and defense. They, this is not a, a team that believes it will be bad or is bad. This is a team that is, is tough and, and plays, again, not recklessly, but without fear. And it's really interesting to watch because that permeates, I think that permeates into a coaching staff of, of a Sean McBay who had to rediscover why he loves to coach. And I think he's never been, you go look at everything he's ever done in his impressive resume. He's never been a guy who is, who is without, with abandon. Like he's never been somebody who's loose, you know, he's very constricted.

He's very like, this is the plan. And the plan can be incredible. It can work and blow the doors off of people. But when it doesn't, you can feel the tension coming out of his like, out of his spike on the top of his. head, right? Like you can feel it. Yeah. And so can his team. But this, this is different because this is a, this is a guy who's turning into, who's developing into, I think, watching these incremental changes and these decisions and him, him troubleshoot himself in real time this year, along with his young team, along with the quarterback who is, is also

wanting to create that space for all of these young guys to grow. It's not just for the young, it's also for the young coach who's still kind of a guy. It's crazy to say that. Yeah. And he's and I think and it's it's it's really interesting. A game like yesterday tells me, um, he kind of just said, fine. You know what? I, I, I don't know if this is going to work, but it feels right. And I'm going to do it. And launching into the unknown is not something we've seen Sean McBay do. And I think that's really important. His team feels it. And I think it's, it's a thing that, um, if he can build on it. That's an if because, you know, people are human. And if they can on it collectively, I think it's really important because this is a team that can compete down the stretch. If they stay healthy, this is a team that believes it will compete down the stretch.

I doubt you would have been saying that during training camp. Now, Puka Nusua has been incredible for them. He's breaking rookie records. Cooper Cup, man. I love watching that dude play. Looked like he picked up right where he left off yesterday. Still good. Still good. I'll let you out of here on this. And you kind of touched on this a little bit, but this is fascinating to me from this end is because you wrote a long story about Sean McVeigh's, for lack of a better phrase, inner demons, inner anguish, the mental slog he had to climb out of after last season, decided to come back. How is he and is he a different coach right now than he was last year or two years ago? Because two years ago, the weight of expectations, you could feel that and you could hear that

in his voice when he was talking. Last year, it kind of all fell apart. This year, like you said, there's something freeing about having expectations removed from you and maybe something getting him closer to the game. Do you feel that? Do you see that? And when you're in the locker room, how does this team feel differently byproduct-wise from their head coach's new approach, maybe? Yeah, I have a, I think one really one really concrete example of that. It's something I've been the spring when he decided to come back and then they started making these big changes as a staff. And it was before previously it was a very top heavy roster. It was a core of solidified stars.

And those were McVeigh's guys. Like that was, you know, your game planning with all of those people. Your game, you're in, you know, you're interacting the most through the day with, with all of those people. And when this roster overhauls the way that it did and there are so many young, young, um, players who need coaching, who need development, it has forced, but also I think subconsciously he wanted it this way. It has forced Sean to dig deeper into the roster as a coach and spend, you know, I'm at every practice, you know, 360 days a year or whatever, like not that they practice that much, but you know what I mean? Like coaching different parts of the roster

deeper, interacting more deeply with the young players. even if there's no guarantee they're going to be there for a long time. Coaching to coach. Coaching to coach. Yeah, coaching to coach. Coaching on the defensive side. Having his, having an open door policy for people to come in and talk to him, having sessions where he's getting feedback from young players.

He started doing this after he really kind of went off the rails last season. He started doing this at the very end of the year and has carried it through, found connection there, found a tether back to what he loves about coaching. And that's what he's doing on a really holistic level through this entire locker room. And it's also something, by the way, that he's asking others on his staff to keep him accountable for. And I think that that's the, you know, he went out and hired a bunch of people that he believes in, he likes, he trusts, who can, who can do those things, who are also in it for coaching, you know, coaching to coach. And I think that that's this, that is the most concrete example.

I'm seeing him, um, leave the offensive side of the field sometimes to other people in order to spend time with the viz events and Rahim Morris. Would he have ever done that before? No. I mean, he, he, he done it in spurt like training camp, whatever. This is, this is carried through. Like this is, this is a consistency there, um, that is, is tangible. And I think that it's fascinating. You know, people ask, people would kind of jokingly come, you know,

float through training camp all summer and, and kind of ask him jokingly, like, how do you remember everyone's names? Or do you know everyone's names? Things like that. And he'd kind of, you know, defer the standard response and response. But it's like, no, yeah, they taped everyone's names on their helmets. Like, he, you know, he really made a con. They do it at rookie camp, right.

You know, like they, but everybody on the roster. And it was, and it was like very, um, conscious effort to really, um, dive deeper into the entire roster than he had previously, even if it meant letting go of certain other things that he'd always held on very tightly to. Couldn't have been easy. But did Aaron Donald have his name taped across his helmet? Like one of the top, what, 18 players of all time? Like, hey, that's 99.

So sometimes they do the little shelving, you know, the one of the sound. That's great. That's right. Yeah. So I'm like, maybe that's a way that we kind of covertly don't need Aaron's name on his helmet. But it would hide the time. But it was, it was fascinating. Like, you know, it's just there's a tangible shift in going back to his roots, I think, of why this. But I think that that's always going to come with having that serious conversation with oneself of don't let that other stuff start creeping in. And that's, that takes a lot of, um, discipline, I think, personally, of having that conversation with yourself constantly, am I getting away from this? Am I getting away? How can I return to this? And I think that that's something that is very noticeable for people who are around the building, for myself, who's around the building all the time. That's something that is incredibly noticeable from him this year. I remember having a conversation with a head coach one time who had been a, had been a D.C. and a head coach. and he preferred the coordinator job.

And he said this because he said, the reason is because when you're a head coach, you spend so much time managing. And he's like, if I could just be on the field 90 minutes a day and coach, I would do that. But I can't when you're the head coach. And this isn't the same type of thing.

But with McVeigh, it's like you kind of return to why you're here in the first place. And it's easy, believe it or not, for head coaches to get away from the actual coaching part of the job because they have so much on their plate, so much roster turnover, especially in LA. And that's the fascinating part because I think it's going to get harder as the season rolls on because it's easy to fall back into those old habits. Yeah. And it's such a good point, Zach. You know, this staff has rolled through assistance year after

year after year because everybody's going and getting the jobs. And a lot of times I'll have conversations with these assistants and, and they'll say, you know, this opportunity is coming open. This job is coming open for head coach. And I, you know, I think I have a real shot. And, and I'm like, do you want to be a head coach? Well, yeah. Okay, why? And you would be really interested in hearing some of the responses because it is true. That job stinks. I'm sorry. I know you make millions of dollars, whatever, but like that job stinks. You don't get to enjoy it very much. Yeah. And you don't get to, if you're in it for a lot. Actually, so many people in this league are in it to coach, to be, to connect with people, to help people grow and become, you know, best,

the best versions of that so many people are. And it's so, it's so, you've sat back and watched it so many times. I've sat back and watched it so many times how people lose it. And when it's lost, you think, will they ever get that back? And a lot of times it takes either a huge perspective shift, the way that what Sean went through in 2022 and had, by the way, the luxury of continuity from this front office who knew what he was going through and gave him. Very rare. Usually you lose a job, you know, exactly. And they. And they. And. perspective and gave him the space to work through it and the resources and support to work through it. But then also on the other side of it, you know, you see some people lose it and they don't get it back until they go back into the quote unquote perceived lower seat, which actually is more a lot of times more fulfilling.

And, you know, when people say, I want this head coach, are you insane? Is usually my response because that job's my opinion. That job stinks. Despite all the money, the name and the money and, you know. You know, the fame and the glory and the praise. Yeah. Right. Well, this veered into an interesting segue from the 23 Rams into the inner workings of Sean McVeigh's head. So who better to have on than Jordan Rodriguez?

Thanks for joining us. And because of everything we just discussed, this is going to be a really fascinating team to watch down the line. And maybe they'll keep, for lack of a better phrase, overachieving this year. But they're going to be fun to watch. And we'll see if Sean McVeigh can keep evolving as the season peels on. But thanks, Jordan. Thanks, Zach, for having me. All right, coming to us from Las Vegas is our Las Vegas beat writer.

Tashon Reed. Tishan, how you doing, ma'am? Pretty good, man. How you doing? Not too bad. The Raiders are such an interesting team. Six and 11 last year, Josh McDaniel's first year. They won yesterday.

But I want to start here with the best player on this team, and that's Devante Adams. He's voiced his frustrations in the last couple of weeks before we get into the quarter. quarterback before we get into the coach. Where's Devante Adams right now with his belief in where the Raiders are going? Yeah, I mean, obviously this isn't what he signed up for. And he was pretty, he's been pretty candid about this. I mean, he talked to ESPN's Paul Gutierrez before the Packers game last week. And, you know, kind of said, you know, obviously, you know, he came here to play with Derrick

Carr and thought that they had a chance to compete. And in their first season, they go 6 and 11. Carr gets benched to gets cut after the season. So, you know, clearly he thought he was going to be. going to be able to compete with this team. It was kind of a heartwarming story for him, reuniting with, you know, the Raiders, a team that he grew up rooting for as a kid growing up in a Bay Area. And it's kind of just been, you know, in terms of team results, has been a disaster so far. Obviously, he had a great season last year. It was the first team, all pro, still one of the

best receivers in the league. The stats are still up there with the best of him this year. But at this point in this career, I mean, he's over 30 years old. He wants to win. And they don't seem particularly close to winning at the level that he does. He doesn't want to. And he got used to that with the Packers. I mean, every year. year they're winning double-digit games they're in the playoffs and so this is a pretty dramatic turnaround for them like i know they're three and three right now but you have to look at those wins you know they're against the broncos the packers and then the Patriots and so not exactly like murder is row in terms of the opponents that they beat so far this year and so you understand how you know

he still might be a little bit skeptical about their prospects this season he's a guy that he's a hard worker he's always going to you know play hard and fight through injury i mean that game against the Patriots yesterday. He got lit up something crazy going over the middle and he hardly missed any time. So he's not, you know, taking any shortcuts or, you know, half-hassing it at all with the team. But I don't think he's all that happy right now. One of my favorite questions to ask Beat Riders after a game is what's the most interesting thing you saw or heard in a locker room? Sounds like the best player wasn't even in there yesterday. Is that right? Yeah. And that's a, after a win. Yeah, that was the most interesting thing was he, I mean, he left

pretty much before the locker room was open. As you know, players don't necessarily have to stay in there, you know, to talk to us. They're supposed to. They're supposed to, but there's always a handful that somehow seemed to make their way out of there.

But yeah, him leaving early definitely was notable, you know, especially, like you said, coming off a win. I mean, he only had five targets in this game. And then last week against the Packers,

he only had four catches. And after that Packers win, I mean, you know, in the locker room, he voiced, you know, this wasn't exactly how he planned on it going. And, you know, during his midweek press conference, he always talks every week. You know, he's saying that, you know, he doesn't really care about throwing, you know,

spreading the ball around to 10 different people if they only score, you know, 17 points or whatever it was. And, you know, he feels like obviously he's the best receiver in the league and that throwing him to ball a lot is a sound game plan to turn the offense around. And, you know, we saw on this one that didn't happen again. And so, you know, even though they won, you know, you could see him being frustrated with his involvement. And, you know, just a chart for moving forward.

I mean, the offense has struggled mightily throughout these first six games. I mean, they're terrible. Yeah, I mean, they scored 21 points yesterday technically, but two of those points were on a safety. So the offense still has not scored. They haven't scored 20 all year on offense. Yeah. And I'm not counting the safety because that ain't the offense. Yeah, so it's been pretty miserable on offense, which I don't think even those who

were skeptical about the Raers of season probably didn't expect that to be the case. And I'm sure he didn't either. Yeah, so that's a good pivot point into the head coach because he's an offensive guy, A lot of success in New England, including his last year in New England, which everyone kind of glosses over. But that was Mack Jones' best year when Josh McDaniels left New England to come to the Raiders. And there's a lot of talent on this roster. They added Adams. They got Jacobs.

Even with Carr, moving to Garoppolo. But their 25th and explosive plays, they're 27th in points. 16 points a game is just not going to get it done. Not in that division, not in this league. What's the vibe on Josh McDaniels, 23 games into his tenure? Because I saw the video a couple weeks ago with some fans. yelling at Mark Davis, and he shouted back, but like, it can't be very positive so far. I don't know if there's any signs of encouragement, are there? I mean, if you're talking from a fan perspective,

I mean, they're pretty much, you know, jumping off ship with this already. You know, you get a lot of those fire McDaniels chance, and, you know, it seems to come up every week. But like you said, me, offense is his thing. That's how he made his name in this league. And the offense just hasn't been up to par. Even last year, while he still had a decent offense, it wasn't the supercharged, high-powered offense that you would expect after making some of the moves that they did. And then this year, they just sharply regressed. And, you know, a lot of it, you know, comes down to personnel decisions that, you know, while GM Dave Ziggler has final say, you know, McDaniels has a ton of influence. And, you know, that that's a collaborative decision to move on from a quarterback like

Derek Carr and go and get Jimmy Garoppolo, a guy that he had, you know, familiarity with from from his Patriot's days. And so far that hasn't panned out for them, you know, obviously. It seems like, if you don't mind me jumping in, like from the outside, it seems like they were so ready to move off Derek Carr. Like, they had been waiting and wanting to do that for a couple years. Is that accurate? Well, I mean, I think, you know, owner Mark Davis had definitely, I mean, anytime you have a quarterback for almost 10 years and you don't want to play off game, like, that's probably, you're probably going to get a little bit impatient and frustrated with what was going on. but, you know, I do think, you know, owner Mark Davis, you know, had some, some interest in moving on from Derek Carr. I wouldn't say that he was sitting there waiting, you know, in the wings to get rid of them.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have given them that extension after McDaniels and Ziggibre were hired last year, right? They could have just, you know, let him go into the final year to deal and been done with it. But, you know, when the last season went how it was, and it's not just the fact that they were only six and 11. It was a lot of those games were one-score losses that they could have won if they had had. had, you know, their quarterback played better at the end of the game. And his last game as a Raider, I mean, against the Steelers, he threw like three interceptions, he was overthrowing players, didn't make any plays. He was just like, you know, that was kind of it.

You know, that's the reason why you want to move on. They felt like there was a ceiling with Derrick Carr, and it wasn't the ceiling that they wanted to have. And that precipitated it moving on. Now, you know, your replacement for him being Jimmy Garoppolo, you know, which is another guy. That's my next question. It's like, is that a step up? Is that a lateral step? Is it a step down?

I mean, the question pertaining to the news today, Jim McGrathos hurt again. He left the game with a back injury yesterday. I had to go to a hospital to get it checked out. They traded for a guy with a serious injury history, and the injuries bitten them already. Where do Raiders fans come down on that decision? I mean, this is something that they knew even before they signed him. I mean, like, excuse me, the reason why he, I mean, he came in to sign his contract and then his press conference just didn't happen and suddenly came back the next day to sign and we later find out, you know,

me and Vic Tafer reported that, you know, he had a broken foot and they knew what he had a broken foot obviously because that's why he missed the last few games with the 49ers, but that it needed surgery. You know, that's what they realized when they brought him in to do his physical. And so they knew even before they officially signed him that he was going to have to have surgery before he ever had the chance to put on that Raiders jersey, and he still signed him. You know, and he was able to recover from that injury and came back in time to start training camp but that was just another sign of this guy's track record i mean he has a long history it's not

any one individual body part is not one of those situations but it's all over it's like he just finds a way to get into every year like you like you wrote today like he's never was it one season he's finished without an injury yeah yeah and i mean you know first week of the season he's in you know he got evaluated for a concussion and week three against the steers he actually did suffer a concussion and misses a game um now he has a back injury and so it's just a variety of different ones and obviously it's not his fault like nobody wants to be hurt or anything like that but yeah you know the risk when you sign a guy like that i mean he is what he is at this point in this career and um they they took a gamble on that you know we'll see it with this one you know he was he was taken to the

hospital at half time of the game yesterday that that was more of a precautionary thing from what i've been able to gather um they still don't know the full extent of the injury we'll see if it's something where maybe it's more short term you know obviously there's a potential it could be long term but um there seems to be a sense that he might have avoided a super serious injury But, you know, even still, like, when he's been healthy, the results haven't been good. I mean, he's had more interceptions than touchdowns right now. He has eight interceptions and seven touchdowns. The pass and offense has looked really limited.

Teams are just loading the box, which, in turn, has made it really difficult for them to run the ball. You know, they had Josh Jacobs be the Russian leader last year. This year, I think, his season high is 77 rushing yards, and he's averaging, like, three yards of carry. And so it's just been on all fronts. The offense has just been a mess. And then, you know, you have to put a lot on that on McDaniels, because, he helped inform a lot of these personnel decisions. And then from a play calling standpoint, I mean, they're struggling a lot on third downs

in the red zone area, even game management stuff. Like that's not necessarily specific to offense. But like yesterday, for example, at the end of the first half, they had three timeouts to two-minute warning hits. They have a Josh Jacobs handoff, then Garoppolo scrambles. It didn't take any timeouts. And they didn't take a timeout until like 40 seconds left. And then they end up, you know, just getting a field go out of it before they end in the first

half. And it's had these weird, you know, things where, I mean, we see this sometimes with offensive play callers that become head coaches. Obviously, Nathaniel Hackett's probably the most notorious one where they just struggle with the head coach stuff of it. And so far, that's continued to be the case with Josh McDaniels in his second stint with the Raiders. And I just think the combination of, you know, some of the personnel changes they've made not working out, the overall offensive results not panning out. And then the game management stuff coinciding with them, you know, losing games. And in this season, obviously, they're 500 right now. But overall his record is still a losing one with the Raiders. I think it's pretty easy to understand

how fans are getting frustrated. But for owner Mark Davis, he's trying to preach patience with it. I do think he's tired of starting over. He's done that a lot since he became the Raiders owner, and he really wants this one to work and to not have to keep looking for a new head coach every three years. And so I still think that they'd be hard pressed to make some sort of coaching change this year. I do think they make it to year three. But we have to see how the rest of the year goes. Obviously, Garapolo's health would play a big factor in that, but if this really goes off the rails and they're one of the five worst teams in the league again or something of that nature, then his hand might be forced.

Yeah, that's the interesting part about this. You mentioned Hackett. Like, he was a first-time head coach. McDaniels is not. He was a head coach of the Broncos and started really well and did not finish really well and didn't make it through his second season. I'll get you out of here on this. You kind of went to a big picture of view.

It's really fascinating where this team is at because they kind of just made that short-term play at quarterback, right, for Garapolo. They moved Doc Derrick Carr. But I wonder what the future looks like. Three and three, honestly, it feels like a mirage. Like you said, they beat the Broncos, the Packers, and the Patriots. The Broncos and Patriots are two of the worst teams in football, bar none. Brian Hoyer, he ain't the future.

He ain't the future in Las Vegas, despite yesterday's win. I don't know of Aiden O'Connell is. I doubt it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Raiders fans believe in the guy. But what does the future look like? You know, they drafted 7th this year. They took a defensive end.

Tyree Wilson, no sack. so far, but it's six games into his career, so that's too premature. But they've kind of been in that no man's land where they haven't been high enough to pick a really good quarterback. At what point do they do that? Because it feels like they have to at some point because they keep just, I don't know if Jimmy G is going to be the long-term answer there. And for them to get where they want to go, they're going to have to find that guy. And it doesn't feel like, it feels like they're just spinning their wheels right now. When does this end is my question. Yeah, I don't think this team has a direction right now.

Like I think it's pretty clear that they're... That's a problem. Yeah, it is. It is. I think it's pretty clear they're not good enough to compete on any level. Like you said, they're three and three, but like, again, they haven't beat anybody. The nature of the wins, they've been pulling it out by the skin of their teeth. Like, I do not believe that this is a good football team no matter what their record is.

But the weird thing is, like, you look at their schedule. I mean, they play the Bears this week on the road. Lions is a tough matchup, but then they have the Giants. They have the Jets. That's been so-so. So you can see them coming out of that with a winning record. Yeah. There's some wins there if you play well.

And if you're halfway through the season with a rented record, you're in the playoff hunt. And so it's like a weird situation where like even though I don't think this is a playoff team, like I think they have too much individual talent, whether there's Devante Adams, Max Crosby, Josh Jacobs to really bottom out and be bad unless they have like a catastrophic run of injuries. And so they're kind of stuck in his no man's land. Like I could see them end up being eight and nine, seven and ten, you know, with the 11

is picking the draft and we're kind of back in the same situation last year. They're kind of on this hamster wheel and really the only answer like you said is either to blow it up or somehow suddenly become great and I don't see that the latter option they're happening and so you would you would think at some point like you said they have to get off this you know from Derek card or Jimmy Garoppolo that's kind of the same to your quarterback you would like to give yourself some sort of chance to have a higher ceiling and the draft just makes the most the most sense but if they're not bad enough enough to get in range to take one of those guys. It kind of makes it difficult. Like, obviously, you can, you can make a major trade to move up if you're within range. But, I mean, this

year, you know, you got Caleb Williams and Drake May, like, if a team that needs a quarterback gets one of those top two picks, like, they're not trading out of that, you know? And so, it's kind of hard to see what the solution is here for them to get to a place where there's some growth and some consistent growth, you know, not just a flash year. Obviously, they make the playoffs in 2021 and almost beat the Bengals. And that was kind of a, in 2016, when, you know, Derek, before Derek Carr got hurt, that was another flashpoint moment. So I'm not going to act like this franchise hasn't had any of those, but consistency has escaped them.

And it's really hard to see a path for them to get there right now. They traded for Jimmy Grapegoe last year. They signed him with the foot. Did they want to draft a quarterback, you think, if they had been higher in the draft? Because it was a pretty good quarterback class last year, and this year it looks like it's going to be an incredible quarterback class. Yeah, I don't think they would have done as much as they did on that front in terms of sitting down with Bryce Young, CJ Strass.

Will Levis, Anthony Richardson, like they were really deep in the weeds. Like I think they would have liked to, just the range that they were at, like they would have had to swing a pretty significant trade to move up. And they would have had to be, like, they liked a few guys, but I don't know if they loved a few guys enough

to obviously, once you draft a quarterback that high, like, that's your guy. And if that doesn't work, you're probably getting fired. And so, you know, that was the line that they towed. I mean, they tried to trade up for the number one pick early in an offseason before. They signed Jimmy Garoppolo, you know, with the intention of trying to make a move for Bryce Young. But, you know, obviously the Panthers outbid everybody for that one and gave the Bears the

house and that they can come together. So I think once that happened, they sort of, you know, shifted their viewpoint and turned to a veteran. But I definitely think it's something that they would like to do at some point. And like you said, they drafted Aiden O'Connell. I view him as more of a backup type guy, like a developmental backup. Like I don't know if he's ever going to be like a Gardner Men'shoe type. say, you know, I don't know if he's ever going to be like a full time starter guy. And so I still think they'd be in that market if they had the opportunity to do so. And obviously, you know, as you said,

this upcoming quarterback class is a pretty strong one and a deep one. So like, you know, while you may not be able to get Williams or May, potentially, whether it's a Shador Sanders or, you know, Michael Penix or some of these other, I mean, there's so many guys this year, at least from what we can tell right now. And so, you know, even if you don't have a top five pick, you might still be able to get a guy that that has some upside. And so, you know, we just kind of have to see how it plays out. Like you said, the schedule looks favorable. They could go on a little bit of a run, even though they haven't played great,

consistent football so far. But again, it's the Raiders and not know how much I trust them, man, to be honest. I just don't. I mean, I covered the Jeff Saturday era last year, and there was one win, and it was in Las Vegas. I don't know how much that says about the Raiders, but it ain't good stuff. So thank you to Sean for hopping on, man, and we'll catch up you down the line. Cool, man. Appreciate you having you.

That is a wrap on week six of Keeping the Beats. I want to thank Colton Pouncing in Detroit, Jordan Rodriguez, and L.A. and to Sean Reed in Las Vegas for squeezing in some time on very busy Mondays to chat with us and offer a window into these teams that few can offer. So we really appreciate that. And a hat tip to Colton who had his day completely blown up by travel delays. So shout out to him. He's covering a really fun team right now in Detroit. So it should be fun and we'll check in with him and the others as we progress. So Nate and Robert will have their regular list of shows the rest of this week. Mike Sando and Randy Mueller will have the GM

podcast as well. Can't wait to catch up with you guys after week seven. This was the athletic football show's Kiefer and the Beats.