The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Lessons learned from the NFL's best offenses of 2022

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

What lessons can we take from last season's best offenses and apply to this season? Robert Mays and Nate Tice are joined by Ben Solak of The Ringer to answer that question on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceFollow Ben on Twitter: @BenjaminSolakSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeThis episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/MAYS and get on your way to being your best self. 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. Great show for you guys today. One of my favorites that we do every year. I think this is the third year that we've done it. We are digging into the lessons we can learn from rewatching the best offenses or studying the best offenses from the NFL last season.

I have two wonderful guests to help break this down with me today. First of all, it's my good friend, Nate Tice. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing very well. I'm still a little sweaty for my workout, even though I showered. And I'm also just, you know, hot and bothered about this episode, our guests that we have on for this episode. I think we're all going to bring some fastballs and some heat.

So I'm fired up, but overall doing very, very well, excited for this show, of course. When we were trying to figure out who to have on as our third here, I think that this person that joins us for this show has to reach a certain level of, like, NFL loserdom, just like a real nerd. And I am so, so thrilled to welcome from. the ringer. It's our buddy Ben Solac. Ben, thank you very much for joining us. Take that as the highest compliment, my friend. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think I like it. I think I appreciate it. It's going to be back on. It's going to be back on with Nate. The last like two times I've been on, I've been a Nate replacement. I'm just, I'm just Robert's backup. I'm just Robert's backup

Tice over here. Just like, who's going to kind of do the same thing? Just not as good. Just kind of stick them in there for a game, keep the ship afloat. No one noticed either. They're like, oh, that same voice. Like they sound exactly to say. No one noticed, Ben. It was perfect. The last time you were on this show, you went on an epic rant about, I think it was the Arizona Cardinals. So I think that.

And lo and behold, baby. It was great. Vindication. It was great. That's how we had to bring you back on. You were still warmed up throwing 103. Let's get you back in it. Yeah, we need a, we need a repeat performance of some kind.

So if you can go on a similar sort of rant today, that'd be fantastic. Yeah, top offenses pod does not necessarily lend itself conducive to Arizona Cardinals stock, but I'll try to shoehorn it in. We're just going to go through these ones. One by one. We each came with like three to four. So we'll end this with, you know, around 10 total takeaways that we had from rewatching some of these offenses.

Ben, you were the guest today. I'm going to let you go first. When you dug into this, what is the first thing that you came away with? Yeah, I think last season for me was a eye opener on quarterback mobility. I just, I'm full on movement pill, baby. No more pocket passers, no more statues, unless you're like, we'll keep a couple of them. Like we'll keep like Trevor and like Dack post foot because they're really sick at like just ripping it and checking it down and just like doing the good old fashioned quarterback stuff. Trevor Grodd nerd out about.

But from a winning perspective, I need mobility. I'm all the way there. When you look at expected points added on a dropback and you start to split those dropbacks by the results of what happens, was a pass actually attempted? Was the quarterback sack? Did this quarterback have to throw the ball away? did the quarterback scramble. Right now in the league, the most valuable play by a mile,

by a mile, is the quarterback scramble. It's almost twice as valuable as a quarterback designed run almost four times as valuable as an actual drop-back pass attempt. Not like all drop-backs, no, like when he actually gets to throw the football

the thing quarterbacks are supposed to do, that is not nearly, not nearly as valuable by expected points at it, as a scramble is. And there's a lot that goes into that. Scambles tend to come on third downs, and, you know, they can be done situationally, you get a good Aaron Rogers scramble,

like Aaron Rogers, EPA per scrambles through the roof. Kirk Cousins is through the roof. And it's like, yeah, these guys aren't actually scramblers. But fundamentally, I think we're seeing a shift in how quarterback decision-making works, right? We're seeing guys like a Kirk Cousins realize, okay, it's really acceptable for me to just scoot for four yards on second and seven, scoop for four yards on third and three. Hey, scoot for four yards on third and five. because just that, that positive gain,

just the fact that I'm guaranteeing a positive. I'm not putting the ball out in the air where an incompletion is possible, interception is possible, the old coach adage of like, you throw a pass, two, three things gonna happen and two of them are bad. Like, no, you're just kind of tuck and run, get positive yardage and put your offense in a position

to get a manageable third down or a manageable fourth down. Like that, it's more than the Justin Fields is. It's more than the Jalen Hertz's. And certainly those guys are up there. But it's the fact that that scramble rates are just up league wide. we had 4.6% of all dropbacks last season ended in a scramble. It's almost double what it was 10 years ago. Justin Fields did a lot of the work there. He did, but still, like, overall,

scramble rates are going up from a league-wide perspective. And so I think that that change in quarterback paradigm has a huge impact on when we start looking at our top offenses, right? And when we see by EPA, overall, we see the chiefs at one and the bills at two and the Eagles at three, and then the Niners at four, skip that really quick. But then Bengals at four. five, Jaguars, at eight, Giants at nine, Daniel Jones. Yes, yeah, that was about to break up. Five percent scramble rate. Five percent scramble rate.

Last year, ten percent scramble rate. Like, that's the thing that changed for him. His errors per attempt went down. His explosive play rate went down. But boy, oh, boy, that scramble rate went up. So when I see these top offenses, I am just dialed in on how willing these quarterbacks are to move out of the pocket relative to how willing they were 10, 10, 20 years ago.

To me, like, that's the frontier right now in terms of quarterback play. Nate, I think the total EPA. generated on scrambles wasn't Mahomes one and Josh Allen was two over the course of the entire season. I think Josh Allen was one. And then Mahomes was two. Yeah, somewhere up there. Yeah. Mahomes is up there.

Mahomes is just, he's like, he's picks and chooses his spots. Well, that's why he's so efficient. He's taking the Aaron Rogers mantle, what, what Ben was just talking about, that third down dagger scramble. I mean, we saw it in the Super Bowl. Yeah. Yeah. Those, his are timely while Josh Allen is like, he has like, what, 80 scrambles or something

ridiculous, 50-something scrambles. And like, almost all, like 80% of them were successful. something ridiculous. I really like this because, yes, we have seen this, and this is why prospect scouting of quarterbacks now, it's do they have the ability to create? And creating can mean extending the place or scrambling, like Ben's talking about.

The third read is dead. That's kind of how I've got it. The third read sitting in the pocket, get to your third read is now scrambling. So we, yeah, that's where it is. I'm kind of copy pasting a take that I have a steam release on our ring around NFL show, but that's exactly how I framed is. I was like, okay, if scramble rates are doubling from 10 years ago,

what's having, right? What's being lost? And it's that third read. It's just, we don't, we don't do peer progressions here anymore. Like, we don't, we've moved on from this. We're just, we're just, we're, we're scramble guys now. Yeah. That's what it is.

It's, it's not going, okay, one to two, to three, to four. And once in a while it happens. Like, you do, you do have those situations. Dak Prescott has done that. There's several guys that will do that. But you watch all these guys play. And it's pre-snap, confirm, post-snap, get to one, sometimes get to two. And then it's like, create, go into creation mode.

And now it's more accepted. It used to me coaches were so frustrated by that. They'd be like, oh, no, no, no, you got to get to your third read. No, you can't panic and look at the rush. And now coaches are like, no, go, go. This is just what Ben's saying. They look at the same exact thing and see how devastating that is. And how so much, so many defenses, and this will be a theme for a couple points I'll have,

is how defense is now more match-based and playing rules and eyes are on the receivers so much. That's why scrambles are so much more devastating, too. The perfect example was Daniel Jones against the Vikings, where all those linebackers of DBs, we're looking two to one and how do we relate to number three and number four, yada, yada, yada. And there goes Daniel Jones just running for five, seven, eight, nine, ten yards. And that's exactly. So it's just more athletic quarterbacks on top of defense is not keying the quarterback as much because they're not zone dropping. We're as much.

They still do. But the eyes aren't on the quarterback as they much as they used to be. It's almost like even though it's match quote unquote zone coverage, those play out more like man and how that used to be. And that used to be a no-no. You don't play man against the scramble quarterbacks. Well, now everyone's doing it like 80% of the time. Everything becomes a certain point in the down. And so that's just, it's just kind of a cool thing watching just two different variables kind of merge into this point.

And that's what we're seeing. But no, this is a great point because that's just the position now. Everyone is so big and athletic. And now it's a prerequisite as opposed to an outlier that it used to be. You use two words there that I want to attach to. One was dagger and one was devastating. And you think about what the bills and chiefs were and some of those numbers on third down when, It's like there's no way they can keep this going.

Well, maybe with this kind of quarterback, you can be that heartbreaking on third down because you have one more thing that you can do to convert third and nine, to convert third and 12. It's just one more area where you can just break a defense's soul on third and law. And that's what both of those teams did better than anyone else in the league. And maybe we're going to see more of that as the quarterback body types and skill sets continue to change and evolve a little bit. Absolutely. Even a guy like Joe Burrow is scramble a little bit more. Like they just, just a little uptake.

It's not just hanging in the pocket for that extra to have four seconds. It's three seconds or less. Do your damage to three seconds or less. You know the guy who actually typifies this for me the most, which doesn't count for like top offenses, but just as the guy that is most interesting to me is Kenny Pickett. Remember when Pickett came out of Pitt? And everybody was like, this guy from the pocket, maybe the processing.

And we were all like, what? No, it's the creation. That's what, that's like, yeah, that's what you'd expect a quarterback that looks like Kenny. He was built like Kenny with his athletic tools at a university like Pitt to do 10 years ago. But put on the film. We ain't playing that ball anymore. We're playing running around and Craveball. And that's why it's so devastating is because you beat the Steelers.

You covered up Deonti Johnson. You bracketed George Biggins. You got everybody dialed up. And then freaking Kenny Pickett goes and creates a second play, a second reaction play, an out of structure play. And that guy didn't used to do it. You used to know when you were playing Vic and knowing you were playing Cam and Cap that this was going to happen to you.

Now you've got to deal with it with the 20th overall pick out of Pitt running a 4-7? Like what? Why is this now? out a thing, but that's, that's the expansion of this, this paradigm of this way of thinking of, yeah, we're going to let our quarterback scramble. All right, Nate, what's your first one here, bud? It's let a rip. Okay, efficiency is the name of the game. That is, I used to be explosive play pill. Yeah, I know, right? This is, I got kind of, you know, there's some correlation here that I like, and I was just start right, I'm going to start with passing success rate, and all these stats will be

on first and second down. So that is just, so I don't have to keep repeating myself, all these stats are about to be on first and second down. But last year, 13 of the 14 playoff teams finished above average, had above average passing success rate on first and second down. The Ravens were the only one. And if Lamar was healthy, probably would have been a little bit of the uptake there. Chargers and Eagles were slightly above average, but everyone was above the league average rate. Only seven of the 14 playoff teams finished above average an explosive play rate. And with the Bengals finishing right at average. And this really gets into kind of now just passing the ball efficiency-wise, but also running the ball efficiency-wise.

And this is, of course, this was what I was going to throw out here, because this is the first thing that came to mind when we were doing this exercise. This is also, you got to look at teams that, not only just making the playoffs, teams that had the top 10, 12-ish offenses are top eight, but also teams that win a playoff game. Like, even this stat in 2021, five to six teams that won a playoff game, however above averaging this, they're also lower in the explosive play rate. But if you look at running the ball, 11 of the top 12 offenses last year and weighted DVOA, so I'm going to wait.

I did weighted with a lot of the DVOA stats, had a run game in the top half of the league by success rate. The Giants were the only one that had a below average run game. All six top offenses had an above average run game. All six of the eight teams that won a playoff game had an above average run game. The final four teams all had an above average run game. Passing success, all above average as well. And then let's look at 2021.

And there's going to be points with this, but I'm just laying this all out. 2021, all six teams that won a playoff game because both of the number one teams lost, and above average success rate for running the ball. All the final four teams, again, Chiefs, Rams, foreigners, and Bengals, all above average. So all these teams,

this is why this matters and not explosive play rate is because just how defenses are playing. I was going to ask you, do you think this is a result of just the shift that's happened on defense? Absolutely. I think the Bengals abided that more than anybody.

Everybody. Yes, yes, anybody. And just like even teams that we think of as explosive also have these numbers that are hitting these benchmarks. Even a team like the Bengals in 2021, which were such an outlier statistically throughout the whole season, they break a lot of rules.

Their run game, though, was above average. Their past game wasn't very efficient. It was explosive. But then this past year in 2022, they revamped all that. But even in 2021, the top 15 teams in Way to DVOA all at above average run games. So why, I'm not just saying there's just one magic bullet here. All the top teams have to find their way to do this. Have to be able to run the ball efficiently and pass.

ball efficiently. And that's how defense are playing in the quote unquote modern NFL. This is, this is what you have to do. They're blitzing less so they're not letting themselves get gashed. They're playing the softer coverages. The safeties are out of the box. So the run game is more varied now. There's not just outside zone became the meta because it was loaded boxes. Everybody's playing man and cover three. So there's eight man boxes when you're in heavy personnel or seven man boxes when you're in 11 personnel. And they just kept loading the box. So outside zone was the safest run play that had answers to all that. So now, The meta is having a varied run game, varied being just a wide variety, inside zone,

counter, power, even draw plays. Like if you watch the Cowboys run draw plays on second down, it's like, it's magic. Watch them against the Packers. It's so nice. And why that all matters is because now you're making third downs easier. And all these defenses are just building you to make a mistake. They just are daring you to make a mistake. They want you to throw into the Lions Den.

But instead, you have to nickel and dime. You have to nickel and dime that once a while, throw a haymaker. And that's what it is. a jab game now. And if you just look at all the top teams last year, the Chiefs, teams were flooding the passing lanes, the Bengals, AFC championship games, the epitome of it, flooding the passing lanes, dropping eight, and then they're trying to run RPO's and Mahomes is taught, I'm going to throw that.

And said that in 2022, they're like, nope, we're going to hand a ball off on theirs now. And look what happened. They had a fantastic year last year, won the Super Bowl. Defenses were treating Kelsey like a receiver. Okay, we're going to load up on tight ends. We're around 13 percent. We're going to pound the rock. Watch this past Super Bowl against Eagles.

I'll get more to that a sec. like bills working more under center, working more changing up their personnel groupings. Also, fairing up their run game as well, hitting a little bit of everything. Bengals, of course, that we talked about. The Bengals stats are hilarious, just even going from,

they were 31% shotgun run rate, weeks 1 through 4. They doubled it in the last two thirds of the season. And just because they just combined their offense to find an efficient run game. Eagles, of course, extensive run concepts. They run everything under the sun, RPO, run game, everything.

And all those stats, by the way, that I brought up running those were all running back success rate that that was not including the quarterback yes so have to find the traditional runs that work lines they have an extensive run game 49ers shanahan no run they run outside zone as much when they do run it it's lead outside zone because it's just what has to be run now there's no more of that single back outside zone that we saw with like the ramps in 2018 using motion to change the mat the dolphins spamming rPO place the browns with the good offense line the jags a little lower on the numbers but had an explosive run game that they were as the second half of the season became very efficient or way way

way more efficient so just long long winded way to say that every team to have a winning team the winning formula is to be have a high success rate in passing the ball and have a high success rate in running the ball because that's every time in the playoffs or any time in the playoffs you might have to pivot to one or the other and that's where you just see with these top offenses and also the most successful teams that make the final four that was looking at the bengal stats while you were talking. So the Bengals in 2021 were fourth and explosive pass rate. They were 21st last year. They were a better offense last year. Loads better. And so I think they embodied that shift as much as anybody because they, it was pretty extreme what teams started doing against them. So if you're

going to start playing that way, can you be a little bit more efficient on offense? Ben, when you hear that, when you, when you hear that all of that information that just came at you, what is your kind of number one thought about? Yeah. Let me, let me, let me, let me, let me. The wall of sound. I just threw at you guys. Sorry about that. Let me put the old writer's touch on this one, cut to the point. The good offenses are good at it. Like, it's the long, like, they're good at everything, right? It's, we, it would be nice, neat and tidy if the best passing offenses were the best

passing offenses and they were for the whole season and then they got to the playoffs and they always won. It's just not the case. Like, one of the takes that I left on the cutting room floor in terms of like bringing to this pod was like, you got to be able to change your identity in season, right? Like, when I think about the bills of the last two years, I just think about how every four weeks I've pitched, can I write a piece about how the bills are still doing the same stuff

and it's not working? And they're like, no, you did it four weeks ago. I'm like, yeah, okay, that's fair. But it's just like we got the spread stuff and we're trying to make the one-on-one stuff work. And you have like a ton of conflating information here. You have the misses it running back and you have some offensive line injuries

and you have the Josh Allen injury from last year. But you look at the bills and you just go, why with such a good offense, with such a dynamic quarterback, are you missing the mark in the playoffs? and I feel like I can't trust you, and it's because you feel one-dimensional, right? Like, if you're going to be the team that runs through January,

you've got to be able to win in a variety of ways, right? It was also why, like, it was challenging to take the Giants and the Vikings seriously last year, right? Like, wind differential or point differential and, you know, Pythagorean wins put aside. You just watch them and go, okay, well, if you can solve the Justin Jefferson problem here or the quarterback run problem there,

they really can't get you a different way, right? And then you go and you look at the, the Eagles and the Chiefs, and you go, well, shoot, the Eagles just have stars everywhere, and the Chiefs have a quarterback who makes stars out of whoever he throws the football to. Like, there's just, there's such a variety. And so, again, like, it is such a tempting simplification in a passing league where we know that the past is more valuable to run. We know the passing numbers are growing up. We know the pass on first and 10. Like, we know all this. We're positive of it. It's so tempting to take that all the way to a conclusive point and say,

this is the thing that matters, but there's a water's edge. There's a point where you get beyond it. it's all of a sudden you have to be able to do something else in order to endure in order to survive and in order to beat those really, really, really, really talented teams that you meet in January. Yeah. You can't just throw one pitch over and over. Some teams do have that unhittable fastball and it's like, holy crap. But then all of a sudden you get into the playoffs.

Dolphins. Yeah, the dolphins are the best examples for the last year. The dolphins ran one play. Yeah, right? The muddy play. And they ran it with Skyler Thompson against the Buffalo Bills and almost beat them. And that's the thing is if you throw 105, you throw 105. It's just really hard to throw 105.

Nate, when did we start getting excited about the dolphins a little bit, though? It was that Buffalo game at Buffalo. And when you saw them run the ball against Buffalo the way that they did, it was like, okay. And that's why I'm excited to see what their counterpunch is this show in a quarterback. Because we didn't really get to see them figure out that problem with their starting quarterback in the lineup. Yep. And that's the thing, too, what I just thought was so cool. What I think is so cool about run games in the last year or two is, like, Shanahan is the epitome of it is how everyone's changing.

up with a running. It's not like I referenced it in that wall of sound I just threw out you guys, but it's not just outside zone. It's inside zone. It's counter. It's GT counter. It's pin pull. I'm throwing a bunch of run concept names at you, but just long story short of it. They're varied. That's the takeaway. They're varied. They're varied. You're not just using the color blue. Now we're using turquoise and white and brown and everything. And I think that's just really awesome because you could see the fingerprint of the offensive coordinator and the run game and the offensive line coach on the offense and understanding what the defenses are doing. And, and I think. And And why that it's happening, and I referenced it at the beginning of my long elongated point, was that there's no safety in the box anymore.

And because of that, it changes the math and you can get to more runs. It just changes the math for everything. We say change the math because of the quarterback running the ball. But if you're just handed off to the running back, now you can get to more runs. And I think the ones that were quickest to do that, Bengals didn't week five. Shanahan did it last year. Other teams were buried up. If you watch the Rams at the beginning of the year, they're still running the same zone plays and just getting their asses kick.

they had the worst run game in the league. The teams that were quick to do that realize, oh, this is, this is what we have to do. And I think more caught on as a season went along. And I think more teams are going to do it this year. All right. My first one here, the best offenses in the league make defenses they play against extreme and predictable. And I came to this when I was watching the Niners just put the Seahawks in a fucking body bag in the playoffs with all these cover three beaters. And it's just like, man, just eating on these plays.

And I looked it up on. early downs this season, the Niners got cover three on 52.7% of their dropbacks. They were second in the NFL. Two teams were kind of in their own zip code. It was the Bears and the Niners. The Bears got that because the Bears did not throw the ball on early downs. They just decided not to do it. The Niners throw it all the time.

And it didn't really, not as, you know, their pass rate isn't like up there in the NFL, but they throw it enough where if you're going to give them the answers to the test and give Kyle Shanahan those answers, he's going to make you pay for it. and consistently they did. Okay, the Niners saw the 31st highest percentage of man coverage on early downs. The Miami Dolphins were dead last. Teams did not play man against the dolphins. 14.2% of the Dolphins dropbacks came against man coverage.

It was dead last in the NFL. The Niners were at a bottom five rate. The Raiders, who were also a top 10 offense by EPA per play, were at a bottom five rate. Teams did not blitz the Bengals. 15.9% of their dropbacks were blitz last season, which was dead last in the NFL. The chiefs got either man or cover three on 62% of their third downs. That's a huge number to know percentage-wise. This is probably what's coming.

The Raiders who saw the second most cover two in the NFL on early downs, and I think the second or third highest percentage of two high coverages in early downs, had a 44.5% rushing success rate on early downs, which was the highest rate in the NFL. So if you can make teams one dimensional, either with the personnel that you have like Miami did. Teams didn't want to play man-covers against Miami because of all the motion and the receivers. Teams don't play a man against the Niners because all of the motion. They play a lot of cover three and they have a lot of heavy boxes because they play 21 personnel. Or if you can change the way the defense is play against you because you have a singular player.

The Raiders get a ton of two high coverages because Devante Adams exists. The Vikings get a ton of two high coverages because Justin Jefferson exists. The Bengals get a lot of them because of the way they played the year before. If something about the players that you have or the way that you deploy those players makes defense is really, really easy for you to plan against, it makes your job much easier. And you see that with all the best offenses in the NFL in one shape or form. Yeah, especially when you have a monster quarterback because that's, that's, it's cheating. It's having the, it's having the answers to the test when you, when you're not getting fooled at all and you can just grip it and rip it. And sometimes that maybe you can that why I say don't have to get to the third read, sometimes if you know a pre-snap, there's no need.

It's one, two, let's go, baby. Let's let's let this ball go. No, but make it a predictable. What's the term you've always used, hold the pen last? Yeah. That's a huge, huge thing. Especially now, especially with defense is holding stuff until the snap of the ball. And when you can still, okay, wow, okay, we have no idea what they're going to get to is it's cover six, is it cover two, is it cover three.

But it all of a sudden, if you could just go, well, every time we're in this, they're running quarters or every time when they do it's to run a cover two, it's cheating, especially if you have a bonafy, quarterback that some of these teams do. I think it's helpful to frame this in the conversation of how we talk about the best defensive coordinators. We talk about the best defensive coordinators as the guys who solve the problem in front of them on Sunday. Now the guys who, okay, I run this stuff. This is my system.

Now the guys are like, you know, I'm going to blitz this and I'm going to dictate. But we talk about the best DCs as the guys who go, all right, like I got to look like this one week when I play the dolphins. I look like this next week when I play the Titans and I got to be able to do everything in the middle. This is your Bill Belichicks. This is your Lou and Arumos with the Bengals, right? this is your Vic Fangio's with the Broncos previously and now with the Dolphins.

Accordingly, the best offenses are the ones who force defenses to really work to solve those problems, right? Because if you're not playing a bill and you're not playing a big Lou, you're playing, you know, not some run-of-the-mill DC, but even like quality DCs, guys who have good systems, Brian Floreses and D&Ps and Gus Bradley's, well, I know the button's to press, brother. Like, I know your checks, right? I know your rules. There's a, you know, they, um, Gus Bradley has a check for the, the, the special route, which is called the special route because it was special to beating Gus Bradley's defense. Like this is just how it got named was to address these, these particular coverage checks,

cover three, three by one, we're going to beat this, we're going to beat that. Like, it's all a game of beaters, right? It's all game, we know what you're going to do. You're talking about Ogo special? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So over, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. are, yeah, exactly. The over-out over three where like the rule for the lineback or whatever is, is called special, right? That's how it's like written in their playbooks. It's like, well, we see this a lot and it's for this coverage, right?

The level of specificity, once you step back and you draw it out and you get that 50,000-foot view, you realize, okay, the best offenses are the ones who paint defense into predictable spots and the best defenses are the ones who are comfortable changing their identity to become unpredictable and to survive in those difficult circumstances. And so, yeah, the hold the pen lasts is the, that's the nut graph of it, right? That's the long and the short of it. You got to be dictating. I have a, my next point.

I know Ben's up next, but it's taking that point as my like, my end point's the exact same, but getting there in a different way. So we'll get there in a second. And what's your next one? You can go. I don't care about. No, no, no, no, you go. There's three of us here.

We snake drafting this? You can roll with that if you want to. If it's connected, just throw it out there. Yeah, it's just, just throw it out there. Yeah. It's just more, you know, my, I realize I forgot to. It's like Ben's not going to understand any movie reference I throw out of anyways. I'll understand.

I was going to say, a million motions is cool, but you know what's cooler? A billion motions. And this is to the point of holding the pen last. Not everything has to be no huddle. Not everything has to be pace. You know how you get to a lot of motions? You got to huddle because you got to talk and you got to explain it. You got to embrace the verbiage.

Social network. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. I knew I knew it. Cookety Clack. I knew I knew it. I've seen the social show.

It's a very good film. David Fincher, but I had to Google it to remember where it was from. So the actor is Justin Timberlake. And so he was in this band called insane. He used to be a pop singer. He used to be a pop singer. He's bringing sexy bad. He's bringing sexy bad.

He's the one who returned sexy. He's the one who returned sexy. Called a pop singer like a 65-year-old man. Ben's too young and I'm 70 years old now. He's a bubble gum pop guy. Yeah. Yeah. So the.

man. So I looked at no huddle rates because the chiefs being were normally low last year in no huddle. They huddled all the time. So all these rates are outside of two minutes in each half. I looked on true media. So the first 28 minutes of each half. So just looking at the top 10 teams and weighted DVOA, only two even finished above average and no huddle rates. And that was the Eagles and the Giants.

And I'll talk about those in a sec. Chiefs are 32nd, 409th, bills were 15th, but below average. average. Bengals 31st, Lions 24th, Eagle's second, Giants fifth, Jags 20th, Packers 28th, Dolphins 27th. So not only they low, they're low end. They're not even middle of the pack. And why does that matter? Because again, if you want to get multiple players moving before the snap, and this is the thing. It went from having one little shift in motion or one little jet motion to now two motions, to a shift and then two motions. If you watch the 40-9, it blows my mind how they're able to never get a delay a game with how much they move guys around. And that speaks

to Kyle Shanhan. That's like his thing. But getting multiple guys moving before the snap. And if you look at motion rates, dolphins, we'll do motion at the snap. I had both. But motion at the snap, dolphins were first. Packers 8th. Jack, 16th.

Okay. Lions, ninth. Okay. Bills, 18th, middle of the pack. 49ers 6th. Chiefs 13th. So all these teams, there's, I believe there's only two of them that are below the median number.

And that was the Eagles were dead last in motion rate, motion rate overall in 27th, motion up the snap and bangles were 30 first. Yeah. And why I think that is they have these awesome receiving groups. So they don't need to make these crazy plays and create coverage busts or do anything. Because they have guys that could just fucking win. You know, it's funny. They also are at the top of the league in two by two formations.

It's just like we don't need to do anything crazy. We're going to balance it out. We're going to find the match. We're going to destroy you. Bengals don't. Bengals huddle all the time and don't motion, which should be suicide in the modern NFL. But they got some dudes. So let's just line up and go.

But really all those teams and why I think that is, I believe you guys had a kiddle on. This kind of sparked some thoughts on over at the ringer. And why this matters is because, okay, everyone's got these checks. And again, this is coming from match coverages where everybody has these rules. This is two. This is number three. This is speed at four, all these things, or four at the snap, whatever you want to say. But 49ers are a great example.

They'll start in an eye formation. Typical eye formation. They'll shift to two by two. So, okay, that's already a change for the defense. All right, we're going from pro set to two by two. And then they motion again at the snap and it creates a one by three at the snap of the ball. All of it on the fly. And they do it over and over and over again.

And more offenses are doing that over and over and over again. It's not just a one or two or three time thing. It's no, half our plays are going to feature something like this. And what that is is you might have some great defenses. All it takes is one guy to bust. And it's dagger city. And that is what I think teams are going to lean more into. magic's not just some pixie dust you can just throw on it, but you can weaponize it.

And more teams are weaponizing it. And I think it's not going away. I think there's a, yes, there's a cap to how much motion you can use, but I think it's more like not just having a motion check in the box, it's having multiple motions or multiple shifts to really mess with the defenses. And I think that's just going to be a trend that's going to keep going. So this is also one of mine. And the way that I phrased it is, the best offenses in the league use purposeful motion to create space, confusion, and angles.

It's purposeful motion. It's not just motion for motion's sake. And I had similar sort of numbers, but a little bit different. So if you look at percentage of pass plays with motion, okay, the guys are the top of the league, two was at 70%. Which is insane, okay? 70%. The Niners guys combined were at 68.7%. Mahomes was at 62%.

Those are the three highest rates in the NFL. And then a couple other guys up near the top of the league, golf was at 47.2, Trevor Lawrence was at 43. six quarterbacks in the NFL had a positive play percentage. So expected points of Puv Zero on passing plays with motion. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, the two Niners guys, Tua and Jared Gough. Those are the most efficient passing teams in the NFL. It's such a good list because it's like the absolute superheroes and then the usual suspects. And Trevor Lawrence was just below that.

Trevor Lawrence was like seventh. It's superheroes and Twitter battles. It's the two categories right there. but there's there's proof in the numbers. And it's not, that's just not throwing the numbers out. You watch it. It's very,

you can just watch it. Because you see why. It goes back. It's the purposeful thing to me. It's the communication that it forces. And then there was a couple examples that I wanted to bring up. There was a play, the dolphins are playing the Browns.

And this is just a perfect example to me because it's not, it's nothing crazy. They were in a two by two formation. Tyreek was the number one receiver to the right side. He motions all the way across the formation. So now Mike is sick. He is the number one receiver, but he's in line, okay?

So the cover three corner on that side has to stay with him as he bends across the field. Well, the distance now created between the outside corner and an inline tight end, you win before the ball is even snapped. And it's a very simple thing. The chiefs do that a couple different times. There was a kiddle play against Washington where that exact same thing happened, where the space that's created is no longer tenable. Or you do it the opposite way, where your slot receiver is now your number one receiver after you motion the widest receiver to the other side of the field. And then there's too much space for the inside corner to. to deal with that space to the sideline. So you're really just creating space and confusion before the snap consistently.

And the best offenses do that all the time. Like the Chiefs have better players than everyone with Kelsey and Mahomes. The Chiefs do this constantly. Just constantly. It's just one little angle here, one little bit of confusion here. Oh, Kelsey's motioning inside, the motioning back out at the snap is he the number one receiver. It's the number two receiver. Much of touchdowns in the Super Bowl.

Yeah. At the goal line. The Eagles defense. Yeah. They're right. Oh, we got pass out. Go, go, go. And then touchdown.

Just a walk in touchdown. You're creating traffic. You're creating confusion about the number counts, whether it's two by two, three by one. What number is he? Is he the number three receiver now when the ball is snapped? And this is stuff that's not new. Teams have been doing this. But when you go back and you watch all the offenses, it's impossible to ignore.

Because you see the Niners, you see the dolphins and you see the chiefs. And it's like, holy shit. And then the lions are right there. These offenses that have really good players, but some of them that don't. Some of them where it is a little bells and whistles. and when you have an offensive coordinator and a staff that knows, again, how to purposefully weaponize this stuff, it makes such a huge difference. And it's undeniable when you go back and study it. I think the lions and the Jax are great examples.

Yeah, so the Jax are as well. Yes. Right. They're great examples of how they use it. Right. Whenever I think about motion, especially when I think about those Eagles and Bengals teams that aren't high in motion rates, you think about the fact that motion changes responsibilities, right? Like when you move as an offense, you're changing which defensive players are,

responsible for whom. And many teams weaponize that as a foundational part of their offense, right? We're talking Niners, we're talking Rams, we're talking lines, we're talking whomever, yeah. We're going to change who defensive players are responsible for at the snap, and that's going to make our blocking assignments easier. It's going to make getting our design touches easier. We're going to create confusion. We're going to break rules. Nate, you brought up how many defenses are match coverage oriented in the modern NFL. Match coverage is about distribution. Who's the receiver closest to the sideline? Who's the next close to the sideline? Who's the innermost receiver?

we start moving cats at the snap but it's going to change who's got who and you have to be on the same page. You've got now four defensive backbodies, five defensive backbodies, trying to suss out which three receivers are going where with moving bodies and a ton of confusion. Then you have those Eagles and the Bengals teams.

Well, the Eagles live with RPO's. The Eagles don't benefit from changing who's responsible for whom at the snap because after the snap, Jalen Hertz is going to go, okay, now I'm putting a guy in conflict, now I'm making you choose two different, ways to go. I'm taking you the nickel back. I'm taking you the

outside linebacker. Making you pick. Are you going to come fill the run or are you going to stay and cover with the slam from AJ Brown? Whatever you don't do, I'm going to do. It does not benefit them to have Jaylen Hertz have to try to figure out who that guy is over the second before the snap. Just line up, let Jaylen Hertz sit and gun and go

that dude. I don't care what the other 10 guys do. I don't care about that guy. And the Bengals with Joe Burrow. When we talk about Burrow, we talk about feel. We talk about processing. We talk about a guy who was just ludicrously correct, ludicrously fast and obnoxious amount of the time. And Burroughs not even like the greatest pre-snap processor, but it's post-snap where

he just feels space. He just, oh, that corner was just a little bit late to get on that dig. Oh, that, that safety is just a little bit too close to the hash to get to that deep nine ball, that turkey hole, right? He's just such a good, it's a good post-snap feel. So why would we confuse our dude, right? The purposeful aspect of the motion, Robert, is so important. A lot of, a lot of teams think of Pete Manning.

And Aaron Rogers. That's why Aaron Rogers used to hate it. I mean, he was just like, I just want to stick of this. But you need, you need a supercomputer quarterback to do that. Or you need just an accentuated talent advantage on top of the RPAs, and that's what the Eagles have. Yeah. Like, you need one of those two things to be able to live that way. And that explains both the Eagles and the Bengals and the Colts had Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wade.

It's like, yeah, that's how you can live in that world. But you're talking about the past game, the run game stuff too. It's that you're changing the gaps. That's what the four and iron stuff is such a pain. Lion stuff. And Lyons too. Yeah, yeah. I watch so much lions.

They'll do it with the six-o-lime in, like a bunch of psychos. Yeah, and they'll hand the ball off to him Monraa, too, right? They'll give it to them. And then they'll say, we're going to, we're going to change where this ball's going, or what gap is going into, we're going to change the look? Like, it's a headache and a half, man. It is. And you're just, you're changing their rules at the snap.

And so your coach is better, that's the thing, that's a classic line. It's like, doesn't matter how much the coaches now. It's how much the players know. So those coaches, game playing against these teams are probably just going, when this happens, you have the D-gap now and you've got to hit the hole. and then one guy misses it one time and it's a big play for the offense. It's beautiful. I think this is an important thing to consider.

Is the motion making it easier for you and harder for the defense? If the answer to that first question is no, then don't do it. And I think for the Bengals, the answers probably no. The game's not becoming easier for you by using it. So if it is, then just use it as much as you can. And that's what the dolphins and the Niners and other teams do. Don't really need design plays to get Jamar Chase and T. Higgins open. They can just win.

It's really nice. And I think that's why you get so much discourse that's like, why isn't my team using motion more? Like, there were questions about why Shane Stuyken wasn't using motion more during the season. And it's like, all right, we didn't know at the time. Eagles were going to be like 13 and 0 at some point or whatever they were. They're like, 9 and 1, I can't remember. But it was like, hey, like this, this office is an habit of motion needs to have more motion. Yeah.

And because generally, we find that offenses that are elevating lower level quarterbacks, offenses that are elevating lower level talent are doing so with motion. Like, it is a, it is a floor razor. It is a rising tide. It lifts the boats. But you get to a point where you get into a point where you get into. a juice squeeze conversation, right? Are we getting out what we're putting in?

And I think Aaron Rogers is such an interesting guy to talk about because, Robert, you brought up back when he used to hate motion. That guy was on part of my take this season, being like, why are we always motioning? I want to go to no model. Dude, you're back to your back MVP. This worked. You're going to claw that static offense from his cold dead fingers. I promise you that.

Right. And so it's, you want to control everything. Yeah. You get to a point with an elite level quarterback and certainly like elite level wide receivers, where the the the the the you get into that juice squeeze conversation and some of the and some of those star talents want to start to wonder hey I'm actually getting anything out of this can I just sit know where the seven defensive guys are going to be dropping and then beat them because I can do that and it's simpler and it's easier and it's nicer for me and so that's why I think you see all like

so much football discourse is like everybody needs to be running more motion yeah I would say the average team needs to be running more motion but there are absolutely exception that's why I wanted to use the purposeful word because I didn't want this to be like more motion more motion more motion. That's a That's a 2019 football internet conversation that we don't need to be having. It's not just little sprinkled us.

Go for a fourth down. Go for it to two always and play action and motion. That's the success for winning football. But like that even Chiefs fan. Don't tell Mike McDaniel. Mike McDaniel's listening to this right now. I've been like, what are you talking about?

I'm killing it over here. Even Chiefs fans like they're like, why don't we go no huddle more? It's like you guys have like a juggernaut. You guys should slow this game down and kick their ass on every single play. And that's what they do. But also that's how you get into game. plan stuff red zone third down or designer replays you can't do it no huddle that that's why the rams

stuff in 2018 always fascinated me because they would be doing jet motion out no huddle i'm like how do you get to that they had terms for it yeah code words yeah yeah yeah which i hadn't seen before i thought that was pretty sweet uh and then but now more teams do it but then the chiefs it was like andy re designs it's so heavily designery every week that they have to huddle and go you have this you have this you shift and this is the formation ready break and that that's kind of why they have to do it. So I don't know. I don't know why they're complaining about that. You guys did pretty well last year, Chiefs fans. Ben, what's your next one? Don't throw to not star players. All right? Like, I just, there's no, like, the double negative is honestly the best way to put it. It's not throw to star players.

It's like, just stop doing it to the other guys. I, I, I had this sensation in the middle of the season. This was a time of which Tyreek Hill was being targeted on like 34% of his routes run, middle of the season for the dolphins, which was just like ludicrously high number. When Tua was on the field, it was literally three out of every eight routes that Tyreek Hill was running. He was getting targeted,

which is just like astronomically high. It's the randy ratio for anyone that remembers the 2002 Vikings. He was leading the league in yards per route run, and it was like, wow, this is crazy. Like no one thought Tyree Hill. He's leaving Patrick Holmes. He's at such a high volume. This is incredible.

And then Jalen Waddle was fourth in the league in yards per route run. And it was just like, okay, this isn't even math. They're on the field at the same time. You can't have two targets on a play. Like, how is this happening? And you just started to look at the level of target density you were getting from teams like the dolphins. Teams like the Eagles with AJ Brown and Devante Smith and Thorndall Scott are in there as well. Teams like the Rams who had Cooper Cup and Tyler Higby going at a very high rate, obviously, before Cup's injury.

And you're just realizing, okay, teams are really force-feeding their dudes at a level that feels high, right? It feels remarkable. you go and you look into the data, it's actually not as compelling, right? There were 18 players this year who were targeted on at least 25% of their routes, which was the high of the last few years. 21, it was 17, 2020, it was 17, 2019, it was 12,

2018, it was 14. 2017, it was 13. It's like, all right, like this is, yeah, like this may, I'm feeling this out right? Like, this is about as high it's ever been. In those mid-20tens, these suckers were nuts, man. Like, there were 20 players. There were 22 players who had, who had target rates of this,

high and then true media's data stops so it feels like you know we had a peak and we have a valley and now we're heading another peak so from like a volume perspective it doesn't seem that like all right that many more teams that many more players are really actually getting thrown the ball that much more like maybe i'm just making this up like okay it's kind of a little bit more than a previous years but maybe this is just like the natural loles and swells of the NFL and then you start looking at just how much these guys are targeted and that's where it starts to make sense right uh a j Brown and Devante Smith together. The Eagles are hilarious.

Combined, accounted for 55.6% of the team's targets. That is the second highest number since 2013. Only, does anybody have a guess since 2013? It was like Julio and somebody else? So, 2015 Falcons, no. The 2014 Houston Texans with Andre Johnson and young DeAndre Hopkins threw the ball. So I would have to.

I would too. Yeah, buddy. Um, there's the, uh, Brandon Marshall, also and Jeffrey Bears are really up here. There's a couple of, uh, Peyton Broncos teams, Marius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, uh, that are up here, which makes sense. Uh, and so, yeah, so like, like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, B. The. The. The, the, the, the, the, the, Bounde Spitts with Eagles were through the route. Run, you also get Tyreek Hill and, and J.L. Waddle over 50% combined. Like, in, uh, on a, on a play in which those guys are running, are both running a route, flip a coin.

If it's heads, the ball's going to one of the two of them. Like, that's banana. This is the first season we've had with two dudes, with two pairs, I should say, over 50% of of their team's targets since 2018, right? This is the extremely high ceiling of this volume. We are pushing it, pushing it. Like, yeah, throw it your talented guys, but do it even more than we were doing previously. We're cooking these numbers up. And it is intuitive when you think about how the wide receiver position has changed and the usage

of wide receiver has changed. Like, AJ Brown was the second round draft pick because everybody was like, okay, we're like 6-2-25, but he doesn't really play the X. So, like, do we know how to use him? And it turns out big, mad, fast and strong. Like, we're really good at using receivers these days. Devondi spent 6 foot 170. Like, all right, can you work?

Yeah, we're really good at getting receivers off of press. Like, oh, what if he gets pressed? Guys, we can hide dudes. Like, we know how to, like, and we just said the Eagles don't use motion, but we know how to set guys up. And for the dolphins, it's, we know how to move guys around. Tyra kills the number one to this side. Now he's number one to that side.

He's wheeling, and he's in a stack, and he's releasing with momentum. I'm like, we just have so many ways to open up receivers that you don't have to live in this era where it was like, all right, line them up, read out the coverage. And if it turns out that Austin Colley's the best option, then don't throw it to Marvin Harrison, Regie Wayne. Like, now we've moved. The third reads dead. Yeah, exactly.

Third Reed's dead. You only need two guys. Yeah, exactly. It, um, it's, you can just dial up the name play. You can just so easily dial up the A.J. Brown play. Dial up the Tyreek Hill play. Dial up the Devonte Adams play who led the league in team target show this year, almost 33% dial up the Justin Jefferson play oh he's double covered shucks like we're just good at this man

and so as we've gotten so much better at getting wide receivers to be talented in the league finding different body types that working different roles as gotten so much better at opening receivers with a variety of routes and a variety of motions and a variety of deployments there's just like who was the eagles wide receiver three this year quez wakins walkins right and then who was the dolphins wide receiver three this year is Trent shirfield like yeah we we don't need to be around with this position anymore, man. We can really feed it to those top guys and benefit from it. It would crack me up because especially the end of the season was teams that played the

Eagles figured out you don't have to cover the back. Like the Cowboys did it checkdowns. And it was there's 185 players last year that read 200 more routes. Ques Watkins was 168th in Target Chair. Miles Sanders was 181st. And Jack Stoll was 185th. He was dead last. And the Jack Stole thing was always great because I'd be building DFS

lineup. I'm like, maybe this is the game that Jacksville gets that touchdown. He just never did. Shane Steinstein just didn't give a who, man. The only one to finish below Trey McKitty in a target chair in the NFL, but to say it's something. So this is interesting because I understand where you're coming from, Ben, and I think that's correct.

And we've, the way that I framed that idea in a way on this show is, in order to have an elite passing game, you need someone to build the passing game through. And I think that's, you see that percentage of, like, the targets per route run. That's so high for those guys. Devante Adams, AJ Brown, Tyree Kill, the guys that were traded last off season, and that we built the passing game through those guys. But one of my points was kind of piggybacking off this a little bit, the best offenses in the league have secondary receiving options that can take advantage

of the one-on-one matchups presented to them. And if you look at EPA per target, the leaders in the NFL, Dallas got it was number one. Number one in the NFL. Listen, that little, that stupid little delay tight end screen every single time. Just a free first down, corner rods and screens. Corner rods and screens. It's so obnoxious.

And the best thing is you could call it because they only ever put Dallas in line to run it. And just you can't not respect it. Like it's AJ and Devante going down the field and it's a play action fakes. You have to step up for the back and just Dallas guard just turns around, makes one guy miss. Oh, it's such a fun fun fun. It's like one. It's like one.

He was one. Okay. Who do you think was number two in EPA per target in the NFL last season? Like T. Higgins. J.1. J.1 Waddle was number two. Juju Smith, Schuster was number. number four.

Okay, other guys in the top 12. Devante Smith. George Kittle was 13th. T. Higgins was 14th. So all of these teams have a secondary receiving option that when put in these sorts of positions can take advantage of these matchups. And honestly, the one, I would take it a small step further from there. I was thinking of it a lot inside.

Like, if you're given a one-on-one matchup inside from the slot, do you have a guy that could take advantage of that? Waddle was second at EPA per target out of the slot last year. C.D. Lam was. was 8th. Juju was 11th. MVS was 15th and Kelsey was 16th. Devante Smith was 12th. Iuke, Tyler Boyd, and George Kittle were all in the top 20. And one of the points I was when I was thinking about this was watching George Kittle just cook Washington. The backside safety, the linebackers, just when those guys were put in one-on-one situations, do you have a guy that

could take advantage of that, often from a slot alignment? And then one of the other really good examples of that is I'm on Ross St. Brown. Even though he's the number one receiver on the Lions, if you look at the things they design for him to get him in one-on-one situations, especially on third down, he's just cooking people. So it can be your quote, number one receiver, but from

that sort of inside alignment as a second where most secondary receivers line up, do you have a guy that can consistently take advantage of those one-on-one matchups? And that's what you guys are both referring to, is that offenses have gotten so good at just moving guys around. I think Devante Adams, with the Packers,

was the funniest one. He was also really good from the slot last year when they put him there, even though they did that often. The Packers one was hilarious, though, it was like his target chair when he was in the slot was hilarious. It was like, if he was in there, yeah, yeah, the ball is going there. But back of the day, like, honestly, in the early 2000s, that wasn't, everyone was kind of static where you lined up. We might motion you to a bunch, you know, or a stack, you know, but it wasn't like, you were the X. You're going to be lined up as the loan receiver a lot. You are, you know, Michael Irvin, I guarantee you.

probably had like 20 slot routes his entire life. Like it was all just, right, I sewed receiver. And then even with Randy Moss and all these other guys, like most of them were just outside guys that once in a while would come inside. But now it's like third down.

And with the Packers, Devonte Adams is at number three. He's at number two. I think that's awesome. And again, I think that's just, coaches becoming a lot better at it and also just players becoming better. And just knowing that this is,

these are the asks of the current NFL. When you're in 11 personnel a lot, guys can move around a little bit more than, when you were back when everyone was 21 or 12 and you're in your static X and Z spots on the outside. And the Chiefs and the Lions last that I wanted to throw out, both of them cracked a 61% success rate on passes to the slot last season. For context, the Chiefs were at 53% on all their passes. The Lions were at 47.7. So when teams are throwing to the slot when they get those matchups, it has typically been the most successful sort of pass play that you can do in the NFL right now. The other thing that I always look at when I look at that second and third receiving option is like third and fourth. success rate because so much of the NFL right now is like it's third down get on

Devante and like well yeah but if you have that second guy for the the Raiders hunter renfro 58% first down or touchdown conversion rate on third and fourth down that's 12th in the league that's that's that that's that's the dude right that's that's that second player that second option has to be the guy on that down zay jones was 13th in the league behind uh whatever his name is christian kirk uh George kiddle ninth in the league juan jennings 14th in the league right for the Eagles. Dallas Goddard, first in the league on third down, obnoxious, so annoying. Devonte Smith, 15th in the league, right?

Darius Slayton was fourth in the league. Jujis was second in the league. Like, these are the dudes. Yeah, exactly. Do you have that? Because like when you go and you look at first down conversion rate on all downs, you're finding your own Monras and you're finding your Aja Browns. You find these guys.

Once you get to those late downs, defense is are really good at taking away the first guy, right? If his name's not Cooper Cup, who was absurdly high in this list, then defenses are really good at taking away. But again, he was lining up inside. so often that it was hard to double him or hard to shift coverage his way in a traditional way. Again, if you have an inside guy, it helps a little bit. Yeah, so much of that second receiver conversation is like, who is the guy who gets you that bucket on that late down and keeps those sticks moving?

Like, when you tell the story of how the Raiders were a top 10 offense, despite the fact that like anybody could have watched Derek Karmman, like, this is not good. A lot of that is Hunter Renfro picking up those first downs. And Matt Collins, Matt Collins' efficiency per target last year was absolutely insane. All those dicks, man. Yeah, don't get me started on this Falcon's offense for 2023, baby. This is why, oh, yeah, kept it right place. This is why I like Kendrick Bourne a few years ago.

He was a third down monster and a red zone monster. Just because those points, it was like, this is, defenses are designing to stop him and he's still succeeding because that's such a, it's a skill. I love the points you guys bring up because it's so true. The one other team that I wanted to mention, because I think in the second half of the year, they really embodied this. T.J. Hawkinson, his numbers per target in the second half of the season when he went to Minnesota were fantastic. And so it all kind of clicked into place for them when they traded for him.

And they were a top 10 passing offense in the back half of the season. So I think so many of these teams just have that guy like, all right, by virtue of the way that teams are going to give resources to Justin Jefferson, there is going to be a one-on-one matchup every single time we line up. And now T.J. Hawkinson is the guy in Minnesota that can take advantage of those. And they have Jordan Addison now. Jordan Edison. Yes. Six teams last year had at least two guys with the team target percentage over 20%. So I was looking for those teams that really had that like two star build. One of them was the Vikings.

T.J. Hawkinson accounted for over 20% of the team's targets. He was a lion for the first half of the season. That usage in the second half is bananas. Oh, no. And I love the third, fourth down point because that's exactly where he was stepping up. Because that, yeah, what you guys are saying is. It's so true because that's, they're going to take away your number one option. Everyone knows who the number one option is unless you have another guy that can be,

they just have to be efficient. Again, efficiency is the name of the game. Just keep turning those chains. And everyone, it's cool that teams are finding different ways to get to these guys. Who's next date? Yeah, sure. I can go. I'm going to go with, yeah, I'll go with versatility is king.

And I think just speaking about what we're just talking about, guys moving to the slot, Amman Ross St. Brown getting handoffs, everything like that, three down running backs that can split down pass protect, which is the Bijan Robinson value, that's supposed value that we might see. Receivers that could take handoff, Christian Watson with the Packers, something. Any, every team's got a guy, Sky Moore might become that with the chiefs, or Cadarius, Tony, Amarer, St. Brown, we brought up.

Tight ends that can split up. out or be in the backfield as well. They can lead block. They can split out and be an ISO receiver or they can be a wing guy. But you just go team by team. Everybody's finding their way to be versatile. I mean, outside of maybe the Bengals and the Eagles. But the chiefs, you got Travis Kelsey, of course, you know, ultimate, you know, queen on the chessboard. But then Noah Gray is used as a fullback. He's used in line. He's a wing. He's split out. They'll crank it up even more this year because Andy Reid said, we're not carrying a fullback. So those guys, those Swiss Army knife types, that's when they got into 13 personnel. They get into empty and they just light defenses up. It was one of the coolest things to watch this

past year. Four-niners, 21 personnel death lineup. Everybody's got to do everything in that. I mean, honestly, I'm trying to take one player, Kittles not taking handoffs. But it's like, other than that, everybody else is doing everything. Yeah. The bills with Reggie Gilliam. I mean, but also James Cook and their draft pick this year in the first round, don't Concade. They're going to crank that up. So I'm kind of bridging, you know, kind of the colossus of roads here going with an old take with a new, what I think is going to happen in the future. But even though I have some reservations about Kincaid as an inline blocker, there is something to that versatility and be able to split him out and make defenses declare what they're trying to stop and then taking advantage of that. Bengals, of course, the outlier, the alliance, various personnel groups, all my arrest St.

Brown. It's basically a wingtight end sometimes, just how they use them. Again, bridging into next year, they draft to Jemir Gibbs and Sam Leporta. Sam Leporta gets split out like an ex-receiver at Iowa. I know that doesn't sound like the sexiest thing in the world about one of the worst offenses. How many points for game did Iowa average there, Nathaniel? He had like 35. He had something ridiculous about the percentage of his total, the percentage of the total receiving yards with the team that he accounted for is insane.

It was like 40% or something. I have the number. Just follow him. That's all you had to do. Just follow him. And that ball was going there. It was ridiculous. But that's another thing.

he can move around the formation. Eagles, outlier. The Giants, pony personnel asking Sequin Barkley and Matt Breda to move around, even using Daniel Jones as a battering ram. I was calling him Grom last year from Lord of the Rings. Packers pony personnel. Christian Watson are run plays, Jaguars, Evan Ingram moving everywhere. Dolphins with their 21. They were 21 personnel, 35% of the snaps last year.

Alec Ingold was their like advantage adjuster because they were, we had, they put so much speed on the field of Tyreek and Joe and Waddle. And then teams are like, okay, we're going to match with nickel. We got to get a DB on the field. All right. We got a fullback on the field. So we'll just pound the rock down to your throat. They got to that and they didn't need to lean into it, but they can get to that.

And of course, the team, one of my favorite teams and Ben's already brought it up. And I think we're all very excited about the Falcons. They were 12th and weighted DVOA last year. They are taking this to the extreme. They're doing their own version what the 49ers are doing. So I think that's what versatility is only, it's not going away. These guys are because of college and how these offenses are in the spread systems and everybody being split now and getting motions and blocking. it's just only going to carry over to the NFL,

and I think it's really cool how teams are getting to their different aspects of this. This is very funny because I had a very similar point. I just phrased it differently. So mine was, do you have a personnel group that either expresses itself non-traditionally or teams treat non-traditionally? So it's pretty much the same point with all of those, like kind of the blurred lines with some of those.

The Niners are the first team that I mentioned, right? So the Niners played 20, the teams played base against the Niners on 72.8 percent of the Niners 12 or 20. personnel plays, which is a ton. It's a ton. But the Niners threw the ball 138 times out of 21 personnel last year. Do you know what the league average was? Teams league average pass attempts out of 21 personnel.

Twenty. 34 and a half. Okay. The Niners threw it 138 times. The Dolphins threw it 160 times. So five times the league average in terms of the amount of pass attempts out of 21 personnel. Okay. And the Dolphins, so the 9.

teams played based on 73% of the Niners' 21 personnel plays. They played based on 44% of the Dolphins' 21 personnel plays. So what were the dolphins very good at? When they wanted to run the ball out of 21 personnel, they could. On early downs, the Dolphins ran the ball against Nickel looks out of 21 personnel 98 times. Okay? The league average was 9.8. So literally 10 times as often as any other team.

They had a 46% rushing success rate on those plays. no team in the league had above a 45% Russian success rate for the entire season. And there are so many more examples. My favorite one, so my favorite stat of all of these, on early downs this season, the Chiefs ran the ball out of 13 personnel

47 times. That was the fourth most in the NFL. Okay. What do you think the league average is for the percentage of eight or more man boxes teams face in those situations? 13 personnel in early downs. Like, I mean, a lot.

90. It's 86%. Most of the other teams in the top 10 in total rushing attempts out of 13 were somewhere between 90 and 95%. Yeah, makes sense. Teams played with a loaded box against the Chiefs against 13 personnel at early downs

34% of the time. It's terrified. So less, I mean, terrified of Noah Gray, of course. A third as, and so the Chiefs were dominant when they ran the ball out of 13 on early downs. First and success rate out 13.

47.6% of the rushing success rate in those situations out of 13 on early downs. They were 59.9.7% passing success rate out of 13. Mahomes led the NFL at 53%. So better, Mahomes was better than Mahomes out of 13 personnel and 20% explosive play rate. I'm sorry, pass rate and 14% overall explosive play rate. That's better than the dolphins who led the NFL in passing and overall. So they became the best offense, even though they were a fantastic offense last year, even better

when they got heavier, which is, I thought, like Ben just joked about it. That was a really cool thing, a really cool aspect of their offense last year. Essentially, if you're going to play with 21 and a team responds to you traditionally, can you then destroy them with a non-traditional approach? And that's what the Niners do, right? They can throw the ball to 21 because their 21 isn't really 21. Or if you're going to do it and teams are going to play you a different way, can you do what that personnel group is originally designed to do?

And that's exactly what the chiefs did. So those are kind of two sides of the same coin. And I thought that was definitely one of my biggest takeaways when you go back and watch these teams is the extremes that they can live in because of that. Yeah. Like I said, like I had a versatility thing that was, I was like, all going to bring this one up. And I'm glad I didn't because we all would have had a versatility thing. But it's, it goes back to this idea that you have to be able to change your stripe at some point.

Like someone's going to get wise to the game at some time. And I go to the way the Ravens. Evens defense played the Bengals over the course of that season, where the Bengals changed their identity, offensive identity so much last season and changed the way they run the football and the formations out of which they run it. And then they tried some RPAs and they went back. And like the number one thing that has impressed me about the Brian Callahan,

Zach Taylor combination is their willingness to experiment. They're willingness to try stuff and use their players in different ways because they're still trying to figure out what's exactly home for them. But you just, you see that Ravens team come out and say, we are just going to change the picture every single play. we are going to constantly try to confuse nine. And so long as we're getting him uncomfortable, shotgun run, understand her run, heavy formations,

preformation. We just think that's how we can get to slow you down because that's the tent pole. That's what you live on, right? Teams not blitzing Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, right? Which works well-ish against Mahomes, works a little bit better against Josh Allen. We are going to flood the deep intermediate zones.

We think this is your tent pole. Like at some point, somebody's going to get wise to the game. Sean McVeigh, 2017 into 2018, the Super Bowl against the Patriots. Someone's going to find the game plan. And you have to be ready for the next step. You have to be ready for the head fake. You've got to be able to dribble with your left hand, right? You just cannot drive on your right all the time.

It's like if we widened this to be like the lessons of the last five years, that would be my number one thing. It's just like you've got to be able to dribble with your left hand. Got to be able to pivot. That's the term we've used on here. It's so, so true, especially as the season goes along. And it's just because these coaches, the really good ones, got more tape on you, more data on you and they're gonna they'll fuck you up like if they they are they'll key in on the

smallest things and everyone's like well just run the play again well it's just it loses efficiency the more you use the play it's just how it works that's why sometimes it's really cool when you watch like the Eagles run game and they'll just repeat runs like five times in a row and you're just like well that shouldn't work but it did so good for good for you guys that's awesome but I think just everything we're saying it's just when you if you have that way to pivot and attack in different ways. Like even the Eagles who ran so much 11th personnel last year, they were the best most efficient team out of EPA-wise out of 12 personnel.

Like so they had that ability to find a different way to attack. They never really had to get to it, but they had it. Like they had that in their back pocket. The Eagles super power last year. Like Jalen Hertz gets the headlines and Asia Brown this and that and like the offensive line. I'm going to talk about off the line in a second. Like unbelievable.

But it was whenever like one of us football nerds gets on a pod and talk with the Eagles, what do we start with? every single week they were different. They just showed up and they played the Gus Bradley Colts this way and the next week they played the Vance Joseph Cardinals this way and then the week after that they played the Dan Quinn Cowboys this way.

Like it was just all right, this is the Miles Sanders game, this is the Dallas Goddard game, this is the AJ Brown game, this is the Devaney's fifth game, this is the Jalen Hertz game. They just came at you from too many directions. They were so comfortable changing their stripes

Sunday to Sunday such that, yeah, you look at in a one game scope. You're like, this is the same run concept seven times against the Giants. You can't do this. It's always, it was, whatever the simplest path is, that's the one they were going to choose. I'm going to miss Shane psyching so much, man.

He's got the goods. He's got the goods. All right. Ben, you got one more? Yeah, I got my last one. And it's a simple one.

It's an obnoxious one. But it was just so, I watched so much lions trying to figure some of this stuff out. And just fundamentally it comes back to you can't do this without an offensive line. You just can't. And it's critical. You can't do this with at least like, you got to have at least like three of the five guys who are good,

who are solid. And like ideally got like four of the five guys who are solid. Like you go and you look at the bottom of the offensive performance list and you find the Laramie Tunsel Texans and you find the Quentin Nelson Colts, right? You find the Rodney Hudson Cardinals and the Broncos who have somebody good whose name, I forget. But like you have, you have guys who have like a big huge contract player at tackle or at guard and it just doesn't cut it.

And then you look at the top of the group and like, yeah, obviously you're going to find your Eagles and you're going to find your lions. Like these guys who have like potentially the best lines in the league. but it's the way that the chiefs just creed's good, Trey's good, Orlando Brown's good, we're going to kind of fill in some of the others. Like if Andrew Wiley's our right tackle,

we can deal with it. They also have the highest paid left guard in the league. Yeah, Joe Judy. Yeah. Joe Judy, thank you. Yeah.

But right, it's like the Jags are an interesting team for it with me here, right? Like the Cam Robinson franchise tag into Joanne Taylor $20 million extension had everybody kind of like, okay, whoa, like what are we doing? Because we all know those guys like, they're not really like,

that high caliber of tackles, but guess what? They're fine, and Brandon Scherff's fine, and Luke Fortner third round center was solid, and that's enough, man. Like, that's, that's, that's, it's going to get it done for you, the bills. Nobody's writing home about Dion Dawkins. Nobody's writing home about Mitch Morris and Roger Saffold signings, but it's enough.

You have to have. Oh, I would, I would, I would, I would contend that point. I, it, to me, like, but, like, that's, that's the rub of it. It's, like, you have to have a functional, bar of performance at the majority of the positions to even consider being in this conversation. If we want to say the bills lost games because their offensive line lacked like real star power, like real like blue chippers and a step down, like very good players, all absolutely agree with you. But the bills are, I don't think are like, uh, like, nukeed by their, their offensive line.

There's like the, the floor drops out on them. The way that it does for teams like, like the Packers at times this year, obviously they were dealing with injuries. the Raiders, right, and the issues they had the Chargers, God, just gracious Almighty the Chargers, right? Like, so, like, you're never going to get into this group unless you clear a functional bar along the offensive line. A majority of your players can start.

And that, like, to me, like, the Bills clear that. And then the Niners, the Niners were the team. I watched the Niners week one, week two, and I was like, yo, Aaron Banks is going to ruin this team. Like, Jake Brandl is, they're going to throw him out of the Bay Area. They're never going to let them back in. And then those guys got their sea legs under them. They held their water for a little bit.

And again, like, they're probably better than the Niners' offensive lines with the last three years. It's ridiculous. I still don't get it. Right, exactly. Like Spencer Burford out of nowhere is just like the 13th best guard. And that's just what you need.

That's like you just got to get that out of the line. And then, yeah, if you have a Trent Williams, you could build a whole running game package out of him. Like, that's sick. But in general, like, I, it's so difficult to ignore when you start looking at these top offenses, how there's functionality across the board for them along the offensive line.

And I would contend the bills are up there. Oh, to me it's not that the bills don't have enough star power. it's that the bills had weak spots. I mean, there were times when Spencer Brown was, like, really concerning, and their right guard play was really concerning. I totally agree with you. I think you need a certain level of functionality and of competence at all five spots. I don't think the bills often reached that to the same degree that some of these other teams did.

I think the Bengals are a good example. Like, go get Alex Kappa. You know, like, that's fine. Like, you just get guys that can play. That's enough. Well, that's, they have the magic eraser at the bills do. Josh Allen, who could, but that's, and the best example of not having an offensive line would be the Bengals from two years. years ago.

Yeah. But the thing was, statistically, it wasn't a good offense. And I don't care what anyone says. That's why it's still that team. It was crazy that they made that run, that they did. And that, but that's, that's like an example that made it far with maybe a less than functional offense line or typical one. Yeah.

The thing with the, the other thing with the bills, as it goes, like, we start folding in some of these other conversations we've had and who's the bill's second wide receiver when Diggs gets gloved up? What's the bill's versatility adjuster? What's their personnel package? They're trying to find it. Like, I agree with you that Spencer Brown was not great. and they stuck him out there,

and I think they hope that that experience would really help him get good in the second half of the season, and that didn't necessarily come to pass. But the chiefs get to hide Andrew Wiley, because they have solutions to some of those other problems, right? Like Wiley, like, the commanders gave Wiley like a three-year extension. Everybody was like, well, yes, of course, good. You watched some Wiley film this year?

Oh, buddy, I don't know what we're giving the money out for. But Sprancer Browning, the bills had other problems that they're trying to solve, and you don't get to hide that guy successfully. whereas the rest of the line, I think, like, for some reason, I've become a huge Dianne's guy. Like, Dawkins is just solid. Like, again, like, you get beat by speed?

Yes, but, like, he holds it down for you. I like the Saffled signing. Like, the bills, if the bills didn't have the Gabriel Davis issues to solve and the Josh Allen elbow issues to solve, I think they have more resources to solve the Spencer Brown problem. Right.

The last point, I was just like, that varied run game point that I brought up earlier, it helps when you have a talented offensive line. And because then you can ask them to do these things. You can pull, then zone block. And then now you've got a down block, you can do those things. And if you look at the teams in my head that had the most varied in a good way, offenses like run game offense, Eagles, of course, the Lions, of course, chiefs,

Packers, all these teams, Browns, these teams, and then the Shanahan guys who are their own thing because they can erase the offense aligned by just by design. But even though the foreign Irish one was decent this year. But it's just that helps. When you have the talent, you can get to the variety of the run package. is and then which I think is needed because of what defenses are doing now. So it all ties together. Try to wrap a little bow on point one and point 42 that we,

that I try to make it on this spot. It was nice that we got to fold in somewhere. Mine were similar enough that I could just kind of piggyback a couple of your guys's points because somehow we made it through this in about 70 minutes, which I did not think would even be almost possible. Benjamin, it's tidy. Really, really appreciate you coming on and joining us for this.

My friend, always good to chat with you. where can people listen to your other football musings these days? Yeah, Ringer NFL show. Every Friday, Steve and I are doing a big off-season thing, which has been a lot of fun. I'm on the ringer affiliate special as well once the eagle season kicks back up for all the birds fans out there. And, yeah, I'm tweeting about my garden and fishing at Benjamin Solek. So swing through, baby. How's that going?

How's your fishing? Any good? Any catches? Fish is going good. Gardening's not as good as you guys can tell by my face, which is covered in poison ivy for the second time in a calendar. year loving that. We're starting my pepper garden soon, so we'll see that goes. For me, it almost feels like it's too late in the summer now.

I didn't do it before the wedding because last year we did it, we planted it right before we went on vacation for 10 days and didn't get a chance to water it and it went all awry. And so this year I was like, I'm not going to be able to do it for the wedding. And then I'm going to be back on June 15th. Then we're traveling a bunch. Now it just doesn't feel worth it. So now it's just like another year that's going to go by where I'm not going to have vegetables in the backyard.

I feel bad about. A nice big container. Get you a squash. Get you a zucchini. June, we're still good. Get a little seedling. put that thing on a trellis, come on now. Everybody should grow one thing a year.

I grow herbs. We grow herbs in the backyard. That's the one thing we have because we use enough of them and it feels worth it. But I think vegetables, we're going to wait one more year. One more year and then really get after it. That's my point. We have a lemon tree going. We have lemons, oranges, lies.

I hate everybody who lives in the South who gets to grow citrus trees. I hate all of you so much. Desert growing is a high difficulty level. So you got to pick a choose what works. I'm going to keep enjoying the Logan Square. Farmer's Market every Sunday. That's what I'm going to keep doing. Gentlemen, really, really appreciate. Appreciate all of you guys for listening. We will be back on Friday with the defensive version of this show. Very excited about that. We have a special guest joining us. Thrill to have

him back. We won't divulge it now. You will see when it comes on on Friday. We'll not have a Thursday show this week. Football GM is off. They will be off for a little while. We're going to resume the Thursday shows next week after Nate takes his little sabbatical. I'm going to hold it down on Thursdays while the football GM guys are off, but not this week. So we will be back on Friday with the defensive lessons for now. Really appreciate it, guys. Listen, we'll talk to you soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.