The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Lessons learned from this season's final four teams (and the Lions)

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

No team advances to its Conference Championship Game by accident. They get there through a combination of players, coaches, scheme and the way they were built. So what lessons can we learn from the Chiefs, Eagles, Bills and Commanders—and the Lions, let's be real—this season that we can apply to finding winners in future years? Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and old friend Nate Tice dig into that question on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenWith: Nate TiceExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Nate on Bluesky: @natetice.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Nate on X: @Nate_TiceTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays, special show for you guys today. We've done the show every year for at least the last three or four years. I always love taking some time after the conference championship games to talk about the final four teams and the lessons that we can learn from them, whether it's how they're built, what their coaches look like, some of the strategy that they employed. So we're going to do that again this year. Derek is here to help me do that, his first time doing this one, which we're very excited about.

But we've always done this as a three-man podcast. Over the last couple years, it was me and Nate and Bill Barnwell. So we're doing that again, and Nate is back to help us with that. So our old buddy Nate Tice here to help with the lessons from the Final Four. Let's get to me, Derek, and Nate right now. All right. Waiting into our lessons from the Final Four episode that has become a mainstay on the athletic football show over the last few years. We've done this as a three-man weave in the past. I think the last couple years, it was me and Nate and Barnwell. And so when I was thinking about how to do the show this year, we had to do a three-man weave again. And what better

way to do that than by including somebody who's done it before. So I have two people helping me go through the lessons we're learning from these teams. First of all, my co-host here at the athletic football show, Sarah Klesson, Derek, how you doing, man? I'm doing fantastic. This is a wonderful get the band back to moment together a little bit. I mean, we did a handful of shows together before last summer, so I'm very excited for this. Also joining us today from Yahoo Sports and the Football 301 podcast. It's our old friend Nate Tice. Nate, how you doing, buddy? I am doing wonderful. I was really, you said, hey, maybe you want to come back on the show? And I was like, oh, I'm curious which one you want to go. How about the lessons of the Final Four teams? Like, that's fitting. That is

perfect. Like you said, it used to be Barnwell. Here, I am now back. I am thrilled now to be back here, seeing Beller in the green room, seeing you, Robert, seeing Derek, very happy to be here, very happy to get through this. And also, it's nice not hosting. It's nice, and it's nice, you know, But having you set me up for here, I get to score some buckets right now. I don't have to pass and get past it 20 times. I only take a couple shots. So very excited to be back here. Listen, I can't tell you how jealous of that I am.

I'm looking forward to draft time when we get a third man in the booth here. And I can just tee Dane and Derek up for every single show. And I have to do way less thinking because I'm much better in that role than the one I'm currently playing. We have to do this show right. And that's why I figured that we would have you do it. We'd have the three men we part of it because I love doing the show every single year. I think there are a lot of fun,

interesting, relevant conversations. Derek, you're actually the newcomer to this exercise, so I'm going to give you the floor and have you lay out your first one. As you thought about the final four teams left in the NFL this year, the four teams playing on Championship Sunday, what is the first lesson you felt like you could learn from those teams, either individually or collectively? So I went collectively for the first one. And I also, I want to point out a lot of these are probably going to be like how you team build and how you scheme and all this other stuff. And I think a lot of that is important. One of the other things I really took away from this season was that not turning the ball over is incredibly, incredibly valuable. So the way I'll

frame this is over the last five years, so since the 2020 season from week 10 and on, the bottom five teams in turnover rate, three of them were in the conference championships this year. It was Kansas City, the Eagles, and the Buffalo Bills. The only exception was Washington. but I think we all know that they were kind of a weird and fortunate team in the way that they got here in some ways. And so all of these teams just committing to controlling the ball, not turning it over. Obviously, some of that is fumble luck, but these are also teams that just didn't throw interceptions and very obviously committed to not having their passing game throw interceptions. And so I just thought not committing to not turning the ball over, especially with if explosives are going to be harder to come by on offense, then flip the paradigm completely and be like, okay, then we're just going to keep the ball forever.

And I think that that's what a lot of these really good teams committed to. So that was kind of one of the things I just really started to hone in on as I looked at why all of these teams got here. I really like that one because I have like all of my points can transition from that point in some way, shape or form. So I'm trying to pick and choose which one that I like transition nicely here. But I agree with this. And I would even say kind of a mini lesson before I get into like my real real maybe first lesson or something is Jane Daniels has, made me really think hard about my QB e-vows. Not that, like, I miss something or anything, but just strengths can overcome, if you

have the true strengths, which to me is Jane Daniels accuracy to the outside underneath and his legs and his creation ability, that can overcome blemishes and weaknesses. I know that sounds obvious, but such a sliding scale. And I know you guys have probably have plenty of conversations about Jane Daniels this year. We had a ton of time. It's about how you weigh them, though, right? And I think that's the thing. And I've fallen into the same pitfall.

And I appreciate you saying that because I think that I've looked at it in a similar way. Yeah. And I think that's where Daniels and going off what Derek just said there, his lack of putting the ball in harm's way is more than anything he did. And maybe I chased the dragon of the high end plays, which I still think you need. But really having that high floor of not making a mistake keeps you in games. Like even taking a sack and Jane Daniels, I thought, did a great job, especially compared to college, of not taking truly bad sacks. And there's a difference between a sack of one yard and a sack of 14 yards. You know, not every sack is built the same.

And I thought he would do a lot of times because he's such a good athlete is mitigate on those sacks. It's like, yeah, he got sacked, but it was only for two yards. It wasn't a drive ender. But also on top of that was just he never really, oh, yeah, maybe I want to push him right there. Guess what? He's not getting these crazy tipped balls because he's not putting the ball in harm's way. And he's taking care of the ball. And guess what?

Because their defense wasn't great. They were able to stay in a lot of games because they didn't give up. short fields. They go for long drives of efficient drives. Defenses are going, sure, gain four yards on us. And Jane goes, okay, like, I'll do that. We're going for it on Fort Dow. This is great.

It really changed a lot. Maybe if it's a one year thing, I don't know if it's a long term lesson, but I did think that Daniels, my eval of him and the system he was in and this, like kind of NFL ecosystem right now, this can work if you don't turn the ball over. So kind of just kind of, you know, dovetailing off of Derek's point. I wanted to get to one of my points about a workable QB. If you have the strengths and you don't have those real bad blemishes, you can do a lot with it. Turning the ball over thing, I think, is really one of the most enduring parts of football discourse, period.

In Ben Johnson's opening press conference, he said something that I found so interesting. He said, quarterback efficiency is actually a better metric for winning right now than turnover ratio is. And that's the first time in like 30 years, there's been something. more important than turnover ratio. And it's an enduring element of this. And Derek, you and I talked about this heading into the AFC championship game. It really felt like we got a game between two of the five most electrifying quarterbacks any of us had ever seen.

And it felt like the team that made the fewest mistakes was going to win the game. And the fact that it's all come back to that point, I think is really relevant. I remember talking to a head coach. And Nate, you and I talked about this on a show a couple years ago. I asked the head coach point blank, you could have one of two, things heading into the season. You are entirely healthy the entire year. Not a single player on your team gets hurt or you'll never turn the ball over, which would you choose? And without thinking, he's like, never turn the ball over. Wouldn't even be a conversation because the percentages would

tell you how important that is in teams winning and losing. And I think the quarterback efficiency thing has made it sort of a neck and neck proposition for what is the most important aspect of winning and losing. But the turnover thing never changes. As errors change, as the game changes, as how teams are trying to win changes, that part stays the same and that's never really going away. Oh, I got, I got more old coaching adages that I'm going to apply. If you want me to jump right into it. Let's get to it. Let's just go as old school as possible here.

What's your first one? Don't turn the ball over and run the ball. Running the ball is still. And I think I brought this up every year I've done this show. But it is holding steady. It is, the threshold for me was 39% rushing success rate. and I might even bump it up to 40% just because of what you're given now this year

and maybe it's a nice round number and it makes sense. But if you look at rushing success rate, no filters here, no first down, no running back or anything. Just true rushing success rate on true media. Commanders ranked second in the NFL this year. Bills ranked sixth in the NFL this year.

Eagles ranked ninth in the NFL this year. The Chiefs ranked 11th, drop out week 18, they were 10th, all above 40%. 41.3 for the Chiefs, 41.5 for the Eagles, 44 for the bills. 45.1 for the commanders, run the ball, Paul. Like, that is what you got to do. And I think it just only holds up with how defenses play these days.

If they're going to give it to you, all right, let's not just get four yards. Let's get six. Like, what's, and that's where the, I mean, there are maybe lessons with running back paying running backs and everything. But I think just a commitment to the run game, you don't have to be great. You don't have to be amazing. You have to be above a certain threshold. Because when it comes to playoff time, they're going to take away all the other things. And that's going to be a later point for me.

got to be have some consistency in your offense. And that I think is running the ball and being able to do it in different ways. All these teams did it in a different way too. Commanders with their stuff, the QB run game, the spread stuff, motion, crazy, everything. Bills. I started calling it spread bully, bully spread. I still don't know what I called it right. But hey, we're just going to go spread out with Josh Allen.

Then we're going to come in. We're going to go sixth offense. So I'm going to punch you in the mouth. Eagles with their stuff, Jeff Stoutland, Sequin, and the chiefs with their kind of more West Coast run game. You just got to find a way to do it. There's no one perfect way, but you have to be able to pull that card and play it once you get to the playoff time. Especially, look at the weather.

I mean, we have so many snow games this year. That's why you have to be able to do that. That's not going away. To me, it's about flexibility. Yeah. It's just, can you pivot into that sort of team when you need to do it? And we've had this conversation about the bills for how long when they weren't able to do that. Yes.

I think that those light bulb moments for the bills and the other team out there, even though they're not a part of this conversation is the Rams, where you had these teams in, 2020 and 2021 who couldn't do it. And they were just like, we got to find a way, man. Like, we got to find a way to get back to it. And they did. And it just made them so much more dangerous. Just think about the Bill's ability in that game against the Ravens where even a team that's really good at defending the run.

It's like, we don't care. We just want to mitigate risk. We want to be able to control the game and play the way that we want to play. And so this is one of mine like almost verbatim. It's like it's related to another one that I have. But are you built to run the ball? Like, are you built to run the ball? And you can do it in a bunch of different way.

is you had success rate, mine was EPA per play. Washington, Buffalo, and Eagles all are top three in rushing EPA per play this season. The chiefs were eighth. And so you can do it in a bunch of different ways. And I think that offensive line infrastructure is very important. That's another one of my points that I'm going to make. But also having a back that can get the meat that's left on the bow. And so if you've built the rushing infrastructure, and I think the bills already had done that, the Eagles had already done that. The Ravens had already done that, obviously. The Eagles and Ravens add the running back to kind of get everything that's left on the bone. The bills get a leveling up from the running back that finally is able to get what's left

on the bone. So all of these different elements of who you are running the ball, stylistically, personnel, running back talent come together to give you an option in the playoffs to either control games or in the case of the Eagles, that becomes your explosive element. And for the Ravens, it was that a lot over the course of the year. So finding a lot of different pads on the ground to be able to tap into when we get to this point in the calendar, I think it is undeniably a part of this conversation, Derek. I figured this was going to be a thread that we all pulled at. So I'm glad that we did. I'm so glad to you bring up the Rams 2021 team because that was really the last time over this handful of years where it felt like you could get away with not having a very good run game. I think at that point in the NFL, 2021 was kind of the last year where. it felt like you could reliably throw yourself out of a hole, out of a deficit.

Now I think the league is more about how do we find all of these ways to not get in a deficit in the first place to where that doesn't have to be a problem? Okay, well, if you can run the ball consistently and control the pace of the game, that is the way to do it. Over the last three seasons, all of the conference championship teams have been top 11 in rushing success rate except for the 2023 chiefs, which like when that, When this version of the Chiefs, yeah, it was the best. We should stop including them in any of these conversations statistically for the regular season.

I've started comparing, comparing, I actually had one of my notes is forget every Chief's stat. That was actually one of my joking ones. But it's, it's, I've been comparing them to the mid-90s rockets when they won the finals with Akeem. It's because every statistical analysis goes, it's this. You have to make top 10 offense, top 10 defense. Well, except unless you're like the 1996 using rockets or 90, you know, like they're the one exception to every rule. but yeah, keep going Derek, sorry. Yeah, no, but I mean, it's just like, it's perfect.

And that Chiefs team, it was, you have Patrick Mahomes, and it was the best that Chief's defense has ever played. So, like, they were kind of cheesing it in a way. And so I think it just says so much that the only team that has been an exception to that was one of the best Chiefs teams that we've seen. So I just think it has become so obvious that the league offense is becoming about taking control, not giving the defense's chances, limiting volatility because they're not giving you some of the explosives.

So you kind of got to take control back of the game. Running the ball is the easiest way to do that. Running the ball has always been important, obviously, in the postseason. But I think now with the way that the league is moving, it's almost more important than ever to be able to do it, especially at this stage in the calendar. You mentioned the fewer drives too. That makes your first point even more valuable. A turnover, because if you only get eight drives and you turn the ball over once, you're done.

Right. Yep, that's it. It's not 10, 11, 12. I wish I had the numbers about average drives teams get right now. But to me, anecdotally, it feels like teams have fewer drives now. So that makes turnover just that much more, you know, more a bigger part of the pie of what happens in the game. I also think just how specific the game plans can get in the playoffs and how much funky stuff can get thrown at you pressure wise. If you're putting yourself in a lot of third and eight situations, you're just asking spags to take advantage of you.

And if you can avoid that all together. And the other thing is the bill specifically, watching how they ran the ball near the end of the year was just so funny. It was just like, we're just going to get in these tight formations, even when we're an 11 personnel and just have Mack Hollins be like another tight end. And we're just going to run the ball straight downhill at you over and over and over again. That's defense proof. It doesn't matter what the defense is doing if all 22 guys are packed into like a five by five square. If you can reliably move the ball that way, that's football at its purest form. There's no better path to the end zone than that.

That's been Sean McVeigh's entire philosophy since he started taking jobs. Yes. He's like, wad this shit up and we're good. Like, I mean, but seriously, though, how good defenses are and how much pass rush, how pass rush, all the stuff, the simulates and everything, what are the lines, like, the lines do more than anybody? The Eagles, too. I think they have the highest run rates on third down is because they just said, oh, that's cute. We're going to steamroll you.

Hey, cool Rams defense. That worked great against the Vikings. We're the Eagles. We're just going to run all over your light bodies. If you can pull the card, it's a great card to play. And the other part of this, this isn't one of mine, but it could be. If you look at the teams that were playing last weekend, they play with four downs. The best teams in the league now play with four downs.

It's a lot easier to run the ball on third and five if you know you're going for it on fourth and two. And think about all these teams, the Lions, Washington, Washington. The bills are, the bills don't get talked about this, but about it in that way. The bills go forward and fourth down all the time. Like, they're so aggressive on fort down. So the teams that are willing to play that way and they know they're going for it on fourth and one from their own 40 and out, that makes it much more of a viable path to run the ball against some of those looks because you're using every down available to you. That's, and that's how the commander's offense was this year. It was like so many, it was third nine and they're throwing it and Jane's

thrown underneath. I'm like, and it's like, and it's like, like fourth and he was like oh because he knows he's going for it on fourth and three like oh again it's a that team the commanders i'm sure it did for you guys too they popped my brain this here and i mean that complimentary and i mean that really it was like man this you know there are some things to learn from this team just of how they go not take everything from it but there are some things they did this year that have changed my thinking my first one here is adjacent to the running the ballpoint you have to find a way to maximize your offensive line and you You can do that in a bunch of different ways.

You can spend a lot of draft capital on it, and most of the teams here have done that. You know, I keep saying the lions. The lions are like kind of next to this conversation for me. They're the sort of team that can get here. But if you look at the chiefs have a second round pick at center, they have the most expensive guard in the league. They have a right tackle. They paid a shitload of money. Trey Smith is about to get paid a ton of money, even though he's a sixth round pick.

If you look at where Buffalo is, multiple second round picks along the offensive line, they've spent on those guys to keep them on big extensions. The Eagles, it's obvious. I mean, the Eagles have two first round picks on their offensive line. They have a second round pick at center. So there are a lot of heavy investments here. You can do it with scheme. And I think that's what Washington did better than arguably any team in the league this year.

Washington's ability to get the most out of its offensive line, schematically in the run game, just the angles and the movement, all the eye candy was beautiful all year. And I thought they did a great job of helping the tackle specifically in past protection throughout the entire season. Like the fact that Washington's line played like a slightly above average unit for most of the year, given the talent that they had coming into the year, is a minor miracle. I thought they would be the worst offensive line in the league.

Several people did. Pretty safe bottom 10 at least. Yes. Yeah. I thought it was pretty obvious. for me to say. I'm not even trying to throw him under the bus here. I'm trying to use this as an example of somebody who thinks about this critically and with really clear eyes. Brandon Thorne came into the season and said they would be the worst offensive line in football, like the worst

offensive line in the league. And he has no, he doesn't want to think that about anybody. He's trying to get that out of his mind. And so the fact that somebody who spends more time studying this than anybody was willing to land in that place and what Washington was able to do with that group, it's a Miracle. Like, Cliff and Bobby Johnson deserve so much credit for that. So that's schematic in a way. And the other thing is development. I don't think we can overstate how important the development has been for these

individual teams and their offensive line groups. Like, I, the Spencer Brown thing, I just keep coming back to it. Like, Spencer Brown was an objectively bad player for the bills two years ago. Last year, you started to see some of the flashes. And then this year, he was a weapon. And why I think him specifically is so interesting. interesting. His play style, I don't think they're the best tackle duo in the league, but I enjoy watching him and Dion Dawkins more than any other two tackles in football because they have really cool toolboxes in past protection specifically the way that they play. And they're allowed to play that way. Like Aaron Cromer, I think, there's like an individuality that in a freedom that you can play within that system. And it's allowed those guys to thrive. And so you have Cromer and Buffalo. You have Jeff Stalwell and Philadelphia. You have Andy Heck in Kansas City. who listen to Mitchell Swartz talk about his time with Andy Heck.

Like if you have the guy, the scheme and the talent to get the most out of this position group, you're cooking. Like it is almost an undeniable aspect of this. Now, you and I've talked a lot about how much draft capital you have to spend here. And I think that it's, that's a viable path to getting there. But you can do it in other ways if you have some of these other elements as well, even though it might be a more circuitous route to really good offensive line play. It's not even just because this team, and I'm sure this has been a topic of conversation,

is you can't just like throw draft picks at it and go, okay, we're solved. We have a second rounder there. Look at the Texans. The coaching and scheme matters so much because that I've never been more frustrated with the team than Texans probably this year in their offensive line. It's just that I thought everybody got worse. And these are second round picks, first round picks, free agents, trades. It's like they had, if you just looked at it, you're like, oh, this should be a fine

unit right here and they have depth. They just dropped in another second rounder for depth. No. And so the coaching matters. It's not just throwing, it's the plan like you just said. For the Eagles had, not only just had a center succession plan for several years, they, okay, their center can't play. Well, we have a left guard that can also play center. And we have Tyler Steen, was it ideal? No, Landon Dickerson made sure everyone knew that he was hurt on Sunday, trust me. But a little slow with those double mugs landed. But then Tyler Steen, who is their left guard, he can play tackle. Mackay Beckton, who's their right guard, was drafted to be a franchise left tackle.

And I know that's the ideal version, but you're trying to go for the ideal version. You're trying to go for the best version of that. It takes investment, takes coaching. It takes a plan. My dad's old philosophy, you know, being a line coach, was you have to take alignment every year in the draft. Yeah. And you can't just say, oh, we want depth there and then not invest in it. And so whether it's paying an offensive line coach a ton of money or investing in the line

or a whole plan. There has to be something there. I'm so glad you bring up the word plan because that to me was what it really came down to with a lot of these offensive lines. Obviously, Philly has done this forever. But them having the succession plan with Cam Juergens behind Jason Kelsey is obviously smart. But then them going and signing Mackay Beckton to play right guard is when you have an undersized

center, this is something they did for years with Jason Kelsey. Yeah, man, go get the 350 pound next to it. Yeah, and put him right next to him. and it kind of eases the issues that you might otherwise have with that. And then obviously they can take those swings on those project reclamation project type guys, specifically because they have Jeff Stoutland. And so I think their plan and understanding there was good. The Bills signing David Edwards.

David Edwards had played admirably at times under Sean McVeigh with the Rams. And what did the Bills run game kind of become this year? What Sean McVeigh and the Rams have done this year. And so that was just great foresight on their part. And then I thought Washington going and signing Tyler Biotish, you're bringing in a rookie quarterback. You don't know how he's going to take to the new offense to a new league. Go get a veteran center who knows how to do this. Is Biotic the best center in the league?

No. But if he's just above average and can help everything feel a little bit more calm for him, I think that's why you kind of saw Daniels take to things pretty quickly or it's like a part of the equation, right? So I just thought all of these offensive lines did such a good job of understanding what they needed coming into the year and making the right bets to get there. You mean you don't want your rookie quarterback on the road to be making every protection call like the Chicago Bears? It's not a bad way to live, which I thought was a strength and I realized, no, this isn't good.

This is not what you want to do to your rookie quarterback. I was worried about it from the start. Just because I felt like he was drowning a little bit. And I think that you felt that because of what was being asked of him, the bear, I was going to bring up the bears, not to make like a bear such a conversation, but this idea of talent versus a plan, people are going to roast polls for what he came into the season with. Is it the best offensive line in the world? No, but it looks demonstrably worse because you have absolutely no protection plan the entire year.

I hope they go out and add one or two pieces to that group heading into next year. If they didn't and you had Ben Johnson and Declan Doyle is their offensive coordinator who came from the Broncos, go watch the Broncos pass protect this year. Yeah. They'd be fine. They wouldn't be a good group, but they could live that. that way. And I think that's the difference. You can have a group that's Tyler Biotish and Nick Allegretty and Andrew Wiley and a rookie left tackle when you have a multiplier in the run game and in

your protection scheme. You can live that way. And tempo and movement and everything. Shannon, we've talked so many years and now it feels so funny like just the transition of how Shanahan offenses are talked about. That was the gift of the Shanahan offenses was the guardrails or training wheels for the quarterback. And it made offensive alignments lives easier because they don't to drop back and pass protect 30 plus times bootleg, bootleg, which is easier on the offense line. So again, a plan that makes sense for the weaknesses and strains. The other guy didn't mention it same vein as Spencer Brown is Milata, right?

You can bet on a Milata because you have a Jeff Stout one. These guys who are just these, go look at Spencer Brown's combined numbers. You can bet on these freaky, freaky athlete dudes if you have the right coach to develop them. And I think we have a couple examples of that, the teams that played last weekend. All right, before we get to the rest of these here, we are going to take a quick break. All right, Derek, what is your next one here? So I'm going to start by going back to a point I made a little bit earlier where if defenses are going to take away our explosive ability and they're going to try to up the volatility scale in their favor and try to get turnovers and try to bring the blitz and all that other stuff, the offensive's job needs to be to not let them get the explosives. And so I think if you look at all of the top quarterbacks this year, they all did incredibly.

well against the Blitz. And this was a talking point that we had coming into the year with some of these quarterbacks. I know Lamar didn't make the top four, but it was a huge talking point for him, and he obviously took a huge step for what they did. Josh Allen was fantastic against the blitz. Mahomes was fantastic against the blitz. And Jalen Hertz, who one of his biggest talking points for years, especially last year, was his inability to beat the Blitz. And this year, I thought the offense did a considerably better job of giving him answers, and he did a better job of throwing them. So all four of the quarterbacks in championship weekend were top seven in EPA per dropback against the Blitz. And some of them did it in different ways.

You saw Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes a little more dink and dunk. They were a little bit more willing to take the short stuff underneath, get to their quick options, and kind of let drives go out that way. You watch Jaden Daniels and Jalen Hertz. They were a little bit more willing to unleash the ball down the field and scramble. Jane Daniels had 19 scrambles against the blitz this year. Jalen Hurts had 12. They were the top two in the league. So I just think finding any way to beat the blitz and not let the defense's injection of volatility get to you,

that I think went a really, really long way for all of these teams this season. And that used to be, especially with like Lamar was that was like his bugaboo, was that bunch you could blitz them. It was. I mean, shoot, the infamous Thursday night game against Brian Flores, which I'll never forget, because that game is burn into my brain. It says how much cover zero they brought because they just said, we don't respect your protection scheme and we don't respect how your quarterback's going to answer this.

And they did. And they just brought cover zero over and over, which is stuff. I want to replay that one because it's like a comical game playing. But Jane Daniels did not perform like a rookie against the Blitz. And I mean, that was a compliment. I thought going into that Bucks game, this was not the car. Usually it was like, oh, Todd Bulls, Blitzing the rookie quarterback. And then I watched the Blitzes.

I'm like, Jay and Daniels is torching him, so good luck. Have fun with it because he's going to find an answer. Because if you're not sound with you, blitzing is chaos. You know, it can be to create chaos for the offense, but also can be create chaos for the defense. Guy doesn't get their blitz lane. If it's so exotic and a scramble lane, I should say, contain lane, if a guy's looping around on one of these exotic blitzes, is he get there in time or is he get

wotted up and the quarterback just escapes the pocket? Like, they have to be more disciplined because these quarterbacks are so athletic. All four of these guys can devastate you with their legs. I mean, you've got four of the best scrambleers in the NFL. So yeah, I think that that is, whether it's with your mind or your legs, having an answer is huge. And I think all these guys did have answers. I want to compliment hurts too, because that used to just be the thing to do, just bullets them and flush them left. And then now he's actually doing some things and finding better answers. This is another example to me, what we were talking about with the run game. How can you

pivot to certain answers in every situation? And scrambling is one of the one of the ones. of those things too. These were the four quarterbacks who added the most value on scrambles in the NFL this year are the four guys who played on championship weekend. So being able to scramble when you need to, being able to run the ball when you need to, what can you shift into and how can you find answers no matter what the defense is doing against you? Derek, we talked about this a little bit earlier in the season. I have like a running, just the screeds of an insane man about like my thoughts about the season, just like it's a running list. And so at one point middle of the year, I was looking at the Ravens numbers against the Blitz and how different

they felt compared to previous years because they were kind of the defining offense of the year. And if you go back over the last like five years, the team that wins the Super Bowl or becomes like the offense of the season is always in the top two against the Blitz. So the Rams, remember when they won the Super Bowl? They were shredding it. Stafford was on a fucking heater against the Blitz the entire year. They went to end every point and said, okay, bring it. So that was 2021.

That was Matthew Stafford against that season. 2020, the Chiefs were number three in the NFL. Mahomes is always one of these. The Niners were number one last year in the NFL when EPA dropped back against the Blitz when they were the offense of the year. And then the Ravens were number two when I made this list. The top three when I made this like eight weeks into the season, Washington, the Ravens and the Lions. The Lions are also fantastic against the Blitz. And theirs is a mix of offensive line talent and just.

incredible protection plans and just how buttoned up it was. Everyone's going to the right place every single time. Can you guys tell how excited I am about the guy that devised the stuff for the Lions potentially coaching the team that I root for? I bet you are. That element of it, being able to do that against the Blitz, it is a through line not only for these four teams, but the teams that have either gotten to or won the Super Bowl in each of the last like five seasons.

Yeah. And even we just talked about the scrambling part, like watching how CJ Stroud play in the playoffs. he started scrambling more than he's ever had because it's like oh you again ability to pivot it's like even your quarterback's ability to pivot and play a different style matters too so i thought that was interesting and i think too like you mentioned all the different ways that these teams were beating the blitz in 2021 with stafford like you mentioned it was just an empty it's like okay we'll we'll have five you'll bring five or six it doesn't matter our guy's going to beat it um and then you have like this year like with the lions it's because they splock it up so well that they're

able to do it. They do it with more bodies. And then you talk about the 49ers when they had Christian McCaffrey and really started to pump him into the offense. It's because he was the ultimate underneath beater against any defense that if you brought extra bodies, he was going to turn six into 12 somehow. And so the way to beat the Blitz, there's not necessarily one way you have to do it. You got to find something to be able to sustain you through the playoffs. Washington did the Rams thing. Washington was just an empty all the time. He could see where guys were coming from from depth and was quick enough to beat it, which for a rookie is just absolutely absurd. It's absurd. Nate, what is your next one here? Man, I don't know which one I want to go here, because they're kind of the same thing.

So, but they're both like meaty enough to be a point. But it's, it's explosive passes, which is the compliment to running the ball, which is something I've talked about on this particular episode every year. The threshold I always look at at 14% explosive pass rate. Chiefs and commanders kind of screw that for me this year. Chiefs don't count, but, uh, the commanders, were only 22nd in this threshold or in this rating and below that 14% threshold but I did think it was interesting.

So maybe this is not the final four teams. That's it. But there is one that I won't say about stopping explosive passes. But 14 teams make the playoffs every year. This is the rank an explosive pass rate in the NFL this year. Ravens 1st, Lions,

second, Vikings, third, Bill's fourth, Packers, 5th, Eagles 6th, bucks, 8th, Rams 9th, Texans, 10th, Chargers 12th, all above 14% there. Steelers were in 15th. Only team in the top 10 to not make the playoffs this year was the 49ers in 7th. The Falcons were in 11th.

They're the only team above 14% that didn't make the playoffs as well. But they were both, that team was close to making the playoffs. This is something you need to have. The commanders again were like I said, shifting my brain a little bit. They still could get those Terry McCororne and I Miami Brown go balls. It's just that they weren't, this is one of their method of attack and the chiefs are always the anomaly. But I thought... Also, so many scrambles.

Like, the scramble value as part of that equation changes the calculus a little bit. Because these are just passes as opposed to dropbacks, which is, that's a law. That's, I got to build that filter in there, true media. But I thought that what was interesting is something we've already touched on. So I always think explosive passes, you have to generate explosive passes or explosive play somehow. It could be your run game. It could be your pass game. Could be scrambling.

There's some way you have to get there. Because even when we saw against. the Eagles for the commanders. Once they get behind, it's like, all right, that 17-play drive is great once a neutral game situation. But, okay, we got to get chunks now. We got to start these drives have to be five plays and not 14. But stopping explosive passes is very real, which is exactly what the ecosystem of the NFL is now. The defense is Eagles ranked first in explosive pass rate allowed. Chiefs were fifth. Bills were 11th. The commanders were ranked 11th after they made some defensive changes in the back half of the year.

they're not there in the bottom 10 throughout the whole year but this also ties into not just you know cloud coverages and stopping over the top stuff which is a part of it but tackling and limiting explosive plays that way too the teams that ranked the rankings of yak over expected thank you keegan abdu from next gen stats uh chiefs first eagles second bills sixth commanders 15th which isn't bad considering where their defense was ranked this year and then so again it's not just limiting the plays with soft zone coverage, tackling. The fundamentals of football have almost come back full circle. They've never really gone away.

But now there's such a priority to have and having size and having guys that can make these plays in space and limit the big plays over the top or underneath. I think this is just very real. It's how you create those explosive plays and how you stop them. And I think the proof is into putting that the best teams were finding explosive plays and the best ones were also stopping it. The tackling is such a good. point. These were not top four teams, but if we all remember, one of the most explosives

games of the season was the Bucks against the Saints, and it wasn't because they were throwing the ball down the field. It was because the Saints couldn't tackle anybody run a pass on the sideline up the middle, didn't matter. And so you have to be able to, it is such a basic, like, no-duh type of thing to tackle, but you really do see year-in and year out. The teams that tackle the best are typically the ones that are the best at limiting explosives. I mean, the Belichick teams like, we want to bring up scheme and all this stuff for Belichick. And obviously, that's a part of it. But half of it was like they just don't make mental errors and they tackle you. Like sometimes it's that simple. I told you, coaching coaching adages. I wasn't sure which

one to go down after your first point. That's why I was like, I mean, this is, but this is the stuff that stood out to me. I just, the, the Justin Reed signing and Robert and I talked about this years ago. It was kind of funny. A few subplots of conversations kind of really came to light this year. The Justin Reed signing. The bill's getting blocky receivers and at you run. Like all these things kind of came to fruition. And I always thought that Justin Reed signing because guess who was on that Saints defense you just talked about, Derek?

Tyron Matthew. Yeah. And that's who the chiefs got rid of to get Justin Reed in there because they wanted to tackle better and limit this explosive place. And I think just this year kind of really saw it happening with the best teams. It's funny watching the Chiefs Bill's game over again this morning. I'm about halfway through it. And one of my main takeaways about why the Chiefs were able to do what they were offensively,

the bills tackled like garbage in the first quarter of that game. The angles were terrible, guys playing from depth. It was so bad. It's like at the end of the day, we can talk about like, oh, they got out schemed and this and that. Like, they just played some bad football at the most important time of the year. And sometimes it really is that simple. You mean a juju-Smiths-Schuster and a Travis Kelsey explosive catch. It's like not doing it for you.

Travis Kelsey with the slowest spin move I've ever seen. God bless him. And the season he had, I think, was impressive all things considered. But, like, I was worried about Demar Hamill in the whole year when it came to, like, closing speed, athleticism in space, all that stuff. And in the most important game of the year, that's what Andy Reid is going to do. He's going to find, like, Cole Bishop and DeMar Hamlin and Tair Eelham in this situation. And he's going to make it very not fun for you. The game effectively ends because I say,

Pacheco runs over Cole Bishop in the open field. Like, not close. He had a chance to stop him before the sticks. And the game's probably over at that point anyway. But he completely runs through his face-mack. Games over. My next one here is so dumb, but I'm going to do it anyway. Okay.

This seems so stupid and self-evident. But we've done the show in the past, and I don't really think we've talked about it in these terms. Transcendent quarterbacks are the teams that win in. January. And the reason that I say this is because I'm looking at this from the vantage point of somebody who's team was hiring a head coach this offseason. And you want to look at what's worked and what hasn't and what lessons you can learn from around the NFL. It's like, what kind of offensive coordinator do you hire? What position groups do you pay? How do you do this? How

do you do that? We're doing the show. I obviously think those conversations are important. But when you have one of these quarterbacks, those conversations matter less. Like they just matter less and they have to change. So when you look at the way that teams allocate resources to a certain position group, should we think that your team can skimp on receiving talent because the bills and chiefs do? Or is that something where what happens with Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes are different conversations than what should happen from everybody else? And I think that why this feels important now is I don't know if Jaden Daniels is already like the fifth best quarterback in the league. That doesn't really matter to me. But I think in some ways,

he's on his way to being one of these players where what he is papers over certain weaknesses you can have in other elements of your roster. And so that's kind of where I land with this is that we're going to look at percentages over time of what types of coaches with what types of backgrounds win games and win Super Bowls. And part of me wants to be like, don't look at Sean McDermott's background when figuring out why the bills are successful. Don't look at John Harbaugh's background when you're trying to figure out why the Ravens are successful.

They're good coaches because they're good coaches, but they have the aliens. And when you have one of those guys, everything else starts to matter, not less, but in a slightly different way. And I think that was one of my big takeaways from this group is that like, we can try to figure out the details and the pie charts of how you're paying people and all that until the cows come home. Having one of the dudes is probably the most important factor in you getting to this weekend. I think to me the team that really is like a good thing to put against this is actually the Green Bay Packers.

Because they are a team that doesn't have star talent at the receiver position. They don't have star talent at the offensive line. But it's a lot of good enough. And when you have a Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson, a lot of good enough will get you into this spot where you can go to a conference championship game. When you have a quarterback who is like I like Jordan Love, he's good. He's not one of those guys. And so when you're dropping down a lot. level, you end up in a spot where it's like, you're always in the game, but getting over the

hump is a lot harder when you don't have that one guy who can do it for you. I love this so much because, and I think that it's piecing together two different things. I would say, is the Ravens offensive line that demonstrably better than the Packers' offensive line? No, they have the Lamar. Oh, no. The same tierish. Yeah, it's like the same tier.

And then is the Bill's receiving core, demonstrable. monsterably better than the Packers receiving core. Not really. Probably not. I think we collectively like Coleil Shakir, but I don't think they're in a vastly different tier. But because the bills have Josh Allen, it all feels very, very different. And it changes the calculus everywhere else. So I think that's a perfect guy to throw out there, Derek, because Jordan Love is a good quarterback.

He is not one of these guys. And it changes everything about the way we feel about how everything. else is constructed. Absolutely does. I mean, it comes down even to, like we, we think of even man coverage. Oh, okay, well, that's on the receivers to win in man coverage and all that. Where the quarterback goes with the ball matters too against man coverage. Because a lot of times, it's not just defaulting to a go ball.

A lot of times beating man coverage is making a big boy throw, throwing with a little hole defender or robber or somebody over the middle as you're trying to throw a guy with anticipation and everything. So I think that too. I mean, I just watch, you know, one of my blemishes to bring up Jane Daniels again was going in. I was like, man, you know, it doesn't really work over the middle. And I've been really seeing this limit a lot of quarterbacks. Guess what?

He can do it, though, because I'm watching him against man coverage against the Eagles last week. And there he is. I know this is when the game was kind of getting out of hand. He's hitting Ertz. He's hitting guys working over the middle because he's beating man coverage. He's not just defaulting to the go ball. So I think that's maybe what it is for me and my brain. Because I actually, I had a shower thought about the same exact thing.

thing. It's like, what do elite quarterbacks need and what do good quarterbacks need? It's different. And it's important to acknowledge that difference. It's a big difference. We just think, oh, the receiver's going to do this. It's like, maybe it's more good enough receivers than you need a line for the elite quarterbacks. And then the good quarterbacks is like, yeah, you need a little bit of everything, but you need an ace. Because sometimes you have to make the decision easy for them. All right. It's man. Ooh, I got three choices. Do I go to Jane Reed here? Do I go to Wix here? Do I go to Tucker Kraft? If I got A.J. Brown. If I got C.D. Lamb. If I got Nico Collin, if I got a dude out there, like a top, top, top receiver, okay, I can just go there and beat man coverage that way. I don't know. I think there is something to pull out this thread, which is why we're doing it. The last point I'll make about Jaden Daniels, and again, putting him not in the same tiers with other guys yet. But when you think about the complexion of the playoffs over the last like four or five years in the respective conferences, for the most part, the AFC has been filled with the AILA. in quarterbacks. Those are the guys who get there at the end and you feel their presence, but they almost mute each other because they're playing against one another.

So there isn't a stark contrast between the two teams. But then you look at the NFC over the last four or five years. And the teams that have gotten to the end in the NFC are the well-calibrated machines. They're the lions. They're the Niners. The Rams are like kind of in the middle because Stafford was on a heater. But I think they probably are more in the well-calibrated machine bucket. but then you bring Jaden Daniels into the equation and he feels different than the

quarterbacks we had gotten in the NFC playoffs for a little while. Even if he's not as good as those other guys yet, he feels like a different sort of force than the NFC quarterbacks have felt like over the last four or five years. And I think making that distinction with him and the other guys, that was what kind of pushed this over the line for me is that like Jaden Daniels does feel different than a lot of the like good quarterbacks dropped into good machines that we've seen in the NFC recently. And I think that there should be a way and a reason that we acknowledge that and figuring out what you need to get to this point.

I think that's a good point though, because I don't know if today I would say Jaden Daniels is better than what I've seen from peak, Dak Prescott or even like the best of Jordan Love, I think at his best moments. But there is an element of when you're watching Dayton Daniels where he drows back and you're like, what if? What if he just does something completely insane here? Whereas for as good as I think some of the other. their NFC quarterbacks are like golf and Prescott, just don't get that feeling quite as much with

those guys, whereas Daniels, even if you want some things to still get cleaned up and get some more help around him, he does already have that like, I don't know, like get ready for the ride type of feeling to him. This the scrambling part of it, I think is big with that. I think the two things we've already talked about. It's the beating the blitz and the scrambling part of it. If you throw those two things and Purdy had those in like 65% of what Jaden Daniels has. He had passing grades. Yes. But those passing grades were even enough to make him feel a little bit different than the NFC quarterbacks that we had seen over the last couple years.

So Daniel's having both of those like cranked up a notch. Again, I don't think he's in the same tier as those guys are, but he shares some of the same traits. And I think that's what makes him feel a little bit different as we're considering the entire pool at the position in that conference. You can just look at his division. He's a better runner than Dac. You know, Dag is a unique runner anyways, but then he's also a better thrower to me than hurts.

And I think that's, so much better of a processor immediately. Oh, there's the two point play. Okay, just watch the two point play. He scores on the option touchdown against the Eagles. And then they run a two point play.

It's an RPO gets covered right away. And I think he hits Zekees, just a half set, like a second way. It's a little bit of creation. Should have been a legal man downfield, but that's besides the point. throws it, but how quickly he registers guys coming up and throw.

Hertz could never do that in a million years. And I've seen enough to make that proclamation where it's like how quick the reaction was to that guy's coming open to me operating to throw the ball. Is it true anticipation like we say, you could call it that? But it was just that little bit of there's no fat to it. And I think that's where Hertz always has that delay with him as a thrower and everything. So it's like he's just such a fun, fun mix of styles that I'm really just, you don't really see this. It's just this underneath accuracy with a freaky, freaky athletic running around. It's like, what if Randall Cunningham could actually throw the ball?

Like that is kind of what he kind of feels like to me. It's kind of interesting. I want to ask you guys both this because you both studied him before the draft. And this seems like as good a time as any to have like a truncated version of this conversation. This idea of how quickly you're processing stuff and how quickly you're seeing stuff is a I think is difficult to garner just from basic film study if you're not really spending time with the guys and figuring out how they see the game. So as you go back and are viewing Jayden Daniels' 2023 film through the lens we have with him now, Derek, where there elements

of things he was doing at LSU that maybe you were a signal we should have paid a little bit more attention to from the processing side of it? Like this is something that I don't know the answer to and I'm genuinely curious about it. So at least for me, I thought he was a very fast processor, especially in quick game and when he got blitzed. And even on a lot of his deep throwing decisions, he was very quick to just like, all right, one, two, three balls out. I'm not going to think about this and linger. My issue with him as a processor was, especially over the middle of the field, he would just turn down throws. I mean, there were two, three throws a game. I remember specifically some against Florida where he's got neighbors or Brian Thomas on a huge dig right over the

middle. He looks at it and just says, no, I'm going to take off. And because the plays worked out so well, I think a lot of people were willing to paper over it. But it was one thing that I kind of got hung up on. And so I do think that this year as a rookie, he got better about not turning down those throws, I think especially over the second half of the season. And so to me, I think I still feel confident about what I saw and what his issues were in college. But I think what has really got me to come around on him is he so quickly started to make progress on those areas of concerns that I had, particularly, again, over the middle of the field. What would your answer to that being, just in terms of how you saw him back then in that

specific area? I would echo a little bit what Derek said. I think for me, it was like, I really liked him. I liked why we did. Even at Arizona State, I liked things. It was just the red flags were very red. And that was like where I was like, man, are you taking this number two? I loved him maybe if you, you know, where like the Broncos took Knicks or something.

like that. That was where I'd be more comfortable, like that early teens for him. But like number two was like a little scary for me. The thing that was so interesting to me was like he scrambles a lot. Highest scramble rate and record and true media's database. He takes a lot of sacks. Doesn't throw over the middle. Okay. Is he going to be another Justin Fields? Is he going to be another those are the same red flags that those guys had and he was older. So I was like, all right, are you going to get better at this? And this is bringing back to my original point. This is kind of what was one of my points, I guess, is his strength. again, the accuracy stuff on the outside. I was like, what would happen if you don't have true matchups out there?

True, because that doesn't happen all the time in the NFL. Terry, of course. Hard for you to say that about Diombe Brown and Elameda Zakias. You're two of your favorites, shitting on them here. You know how much the commanders have worked? There's so many, there's coaches on staff. I really like Bobby Ingram's the receiver coach. I worked with him.

I know Bobby. Bobby Johnson I worked with all these guys. And I'm like, why was I just so out on you guys? They brought in Noah Brown. They brought in like blocking receivers. All these guys. I'm like, yeah, I love this. And I'm like, nah, now I push aside.

But I think the outside accuracy is not just a thing he does. It's a strength. It's a something he thrives in. It's what makes him good. It's like saying a guy that shoots a lot of 18 footers in basketball, oh, well, that's an inefficient shot. Guess what he makes all of them? And he shoots above and he's shooting 58% on him.

Oh, okay, then that's fine. Chris Paul shoots that way. Chris Paul and Matt Ryan, I don't remember that. Well, comparison, it's not the way I want to live, but he can live that way. So again, that's where, and even some of the sack stuff, I thought the first half year, especially before he heard his ribs, was that he was really not taking a lot of sacks. And his pressure to sack rate was super low. It kind of tapered off in the second half of the year, but still was manageable. It wasn't a 12% sack rate like Fields was. It wasn't like because he's, because he's more underneath, I always thought those sacks would cripple him.

And they would just be like, oh, one sack drives done, boom, that's it. Because he attacks so much underneath. He showed me that, yeah, he's skinny, but he doesn't get hit. He was able to come out of the pocket. He's able to break tackles, which is something I feel like I didn't give him enough credit for. I think a word, we were talking about the quarterbacks with Dane, I said, oh, he's not really creative runner.

So I'm kind of a little worried that he's skinny in the NFL. He's under 205. That scares me. He's going to get brought down right away. He's showing long-term health is always going to be something I'm going to keep my eye on with him. But how he was able to break tackles, not get hit, not get blown up, not take those terrible sacks. That was just something that I thought was really impressive. And then maybe his professionalism as a quarterback, being a true quarterback, maybe I didn't give him him enough credit for.

And he also improved on it. So especially after week one against the bucks, I was like, that's kind of what I pictured with him. And three weeks later, I was like, oh, shoot, okay. Oh, wow, nice throw over the middle there. Oh, wow, wow, you just broke another. Oh, wow, you didn't take a sack the whole game with insert name here at guard and left tack. You know what I mean? It was a lot of things his strengths were stronger than I think I gave him credit for.

And I think that's a good lesson that if you have those and you can live that way, yeah, you can make it as a quarterback. When you say I'm not, I didn't fully calculate how, like, how strong his strengths would be. I thought he was good at all the stuff he's good at now. but the difference between it being an A level trait and an S level trait goes a long way. Like I thought in terms of the way that he played, he would be a lot like Tyrod Taylor. Really good deep passer, pretty good at beating the Blitz, generally a guy who doesn't put the ball in harm's way. He's going to take some sacks and not throw the middle of the field. But he's even better at the things that Tyrod was good at.

And he's not as bad at some of the issues Tyrod had with taking sacks and not throwing the middle of the field. So it's just he's really bridged everything in a way that's really. really, really impressive for a young player. My last comp for him was fast Teddy Bridgewater. And it's like, that's kind of just, it just Washington fans thought it was a diss. People forget how good Teddy was, man. I know. And he was a dart thrower.

And so I think that's where got to see him in the playoffs, though. There he was out there. But no, I thought that, and that was a compliment because I thought his accuracy was so good. It was more about the frame. And then, of course, Jane has the creativity and the scrambling strengths that are just, you know, one of the league's best. the two things I would say to this. One, the strengths overwhelming the weaknesses. The thing I was most worried about, and he hasn't really done this in the NFL, he's not a creative player from the pocket.

He doesn't move around the pocket. Like, he does not step up or slide or move in the pocket. And the fact that he doesn't do that and it doesn't really matter is insane. And it's because of his ability to escape almost immediately and how quickly he gets rid of the ball. So that kind of like shifted something in my brain where I was just like, holy shit. Like, you don't need to do this if you can move as quickly mentally that he does. And so the other part of this is I've had the same kind of Fields Hertz conversations in my brain when we were watching him. And this is where I'm wondering how the gap gets bridged a little bit.

When I was talking to people at Washington camp, I mentioned this. I was just like, oh, like, I think he has some strengths of some of these guys. And they were immediately like, he's 10 times the processor, like 10 times. And I was like, oh, okay, was he framed that way as a prospect? Like, was I just missing that? I might have been that I just, I didn't pay attention to a lot of people labeling him that way. But it feels like there was something about his evaluation that people in our position that aren't spending time with him and aren't really being able to understand how he's seeing

A to B to C. There was, there was a gap. There was something missing in how we were seeing him. And I just wonder in the future how we, potentially fill some of that stuff in because I do think that was a slight miscalculation by most people in the process. I think I waved away when I talked to some people that did interview him and they all said, well, you know, the guy that's probably most pro ready is Daniels.

I was like, really? The guy that has the highest scramble rate is the most pro ready? Okay. That threw a million slot fades in college. He's the most pro ready. I guess he was. It was a bunch of stop routes and slot fades. Okay, sure, I guess.

I like him. He seems cool in interviews and stuff. but wow, that's interesting. And then it was like, oh, got it. Like, I get, you see how quickly he's finding answers and stuff. So it's like, it's one of those again. Like, you know, those starts did add up for him. They were a good thing for him, maybe as opposed to a red flag for other

quarterbacks that's been in the past. And maybe that's another thing we have to reconsider. Is this idea of spending more time in college as being a negative for somebody like him, somebody like Bo Nix? Do we have to untangle that a little bit as we think about what these guys can be when they come into the league? Charles, Charles McDonald, who I do football 301 with says, he said too he's like I think I have to change the sliding scale for old

quarterbacks if you're an at you're good enough athlete you have good enough traits and we got NIL COVID transfer rules got to change that in our brain a little bit if you have the gifts the actual traits as opposed to being like oh he started five years and he oh it's another Hanuky you know it's a different conversation can he picket about jane daniels yeah Kenny picket might be the one like the one the bad example of this All right, before we move on, we're going to take one more quick break. I think it's your turn, Derek, as we took that Jaden Daniels hallway off of our original conversation. I blew through all my points because I can't shut up, as you guys know.

So I already did mine. So let's go, Derek. That's the way, that's exactly what we brought you on here for, Nade. I think it was perfect. So for me, again, this one is a little bit more abstract. And it's not necessarily a lesson about how these teams built them. but more about how we view some of these teams and some of these coaches. I think this bunch of coordinators was a really, really good reminder that just because a guy failed,

even miserably as a head coach doesn't mean that he can't be a really, really good coordinator again. Spaggs is the obvious one. He was a failed head coach and then he bounced around for a little bit, landed back with the chiefs, and he's been probably the best defensive play caller outside of Bell Belichick over the past 10 years. But then you have the Eagles bringing in Fangio, who his head coaching tenure didn't really work out. And he has immediately, in year one with this Philly team, been incredible again after what I think some people thought last year was like an up and down year with the Miami Dolphins. And then you have Cliff Kingsbury, who he even kind of said himself, didn't maybe take

all of the responsibilities of being a head coach very well. And I think it was a lot on his plate. You let him just go call ball plays for a quarterback's dynamic as Jane Daniels. Boom. He's back to being a guy who I think people are very close. really respect on that side of the ball. And the reason I bring all this up is I think it does apply to a little bit of what we're seeing with this year's coaching search. Dennis Allen gets fired from the Saints. Now he's going to go be a defensive coordinator for the Bears.

I think he could be, exactly. I think he could be fantastic in the same way that Fangio has been for the Eagles. And then Robert Sala going back to the 49ers. He was, I thought, a good head coach who got fired pretty wrongly. But now he's going back to the 49ers where we're, you've seen him have success before. So I just thought that this coaching cycle and this kind of group of teams here that made the conference championships were just a good reminder of maybe a guy was trashed as a head coach. Maybe he can still call ball plays. And some guys are just cut out for that.

Cliff and you maybe not want the mad scientist to run your team, but lock him in a room, dark room. And may only come up some ideas like, Clint. By the way, he's happy to sit in that dark room for like 16 hours a day. Yes. And same with like Spacks. Like, okay, maybe not run the team and deal with the owners and talk to. okay and deal with who we're cutting on this.

Just on call up some ballplays and teaches coaches how they install them and go from there. It's not the worst thing. It's like not everyone's cut to be a head coach, but some guys can be phenomenal coordinators. We have never seen Cliff Kingsbury as just a coordinator. I actually just had this conversation on our show with Matt Harmon and we're talking about Chip Kelly. We've never seen Chip Kelly as an NFL coordinator.

Just head coach. That's interesting to me. So it's just like another one. And I think his name's going to be back here. So, but just that. again, I have to reconfigure that too. Everybody has a glass ceiling and somewhere that they stopped. What is it the Peter principle?

You know, like some of that. Some of the guys have that. And that's a very real thing for NFL coaches. And that's why I think sometimes when this is happening, Spaggs is a different conversation. He's done it for long enough now where I think he probably deserves another shot at it. But with these guys, like Cliff especially, it's just like, just leave him alone for like two years. Just like let him do this. He seems to be enjoying himself.

we're all enjoying it. Like there's no reason to take this away from Jaden Daniels and the football watching community. Just let it happen. He's still getting paid by Arizona. He doesn't need the money. He's doing fine. Don't ship him back to Bangkok.

That man had a thousand yard stare by the time it was over in Arizona. He seems to be having a good time. Let him enjoy himself for a little bit. If we want to have the discussion in three years because we're out of coaching candidates, that's fine. But you don't have to send him. to New Orleans right now. Nobody wants that for anybody. I always think back to, you know, Paul Chris is one of my biggest mentors and taught me a lot

about football. And when he was a coordinator with Wisconsin, he comes in one day. His eyes are bloodshot. Huge rings under his eyes. It's like day five of camp. You know, Paul's a pro. It's not like he was out late or something like that. So I'm just kind of like, huh. And then he just goes, red zone day, boys. I was cooking last night. That's exactly how you want your coordinators to be. He was like, let's score some touchdowns today. Like, you know, it was just funny. You could tell he's been up all night. That's amazing.

Like, he was real. And this was training camp day five. And I saw a cliff throughout this year with those rings under his eyes. But it was the happy rings under his eyes. It was not, oh, my God, I'm about to get fired in 24 hours. It was more like, all right, I got this thing cooked up on third and five. Let's see how it goes. Oh, you know, fist pump.

Like that's, that's the look. He had the right kind of thousand yards stare, I guess. And I think they just putting a bow on this conversation specific. you can take it wider. Coordinators are so important. Like getting the coordinator decisions right and the coordinator hires right can make or break your entire season. Philly had a nice influx of talent this year, but getting those jobs correct has gone a long way in allowing them to get back to this place. Washington getting Cliff Kingsbury instead of, I don't know, throw out your failed offensive coordinator this year.

They were playing with them. Okay. Instead of one of those guys, that goes a long way. for this team. Ryan Grubb? Why? Yes, right? College guy coming here.

I would have been more optimistic about Grub than Cliff, which is like that's I felt the exact same way, the exact same way. And I think the, and I think this is the cliff being a first time OC point is so, so great. And we've talked about this a little bit, Derek, when we did that long conversation about situation and how we misunderstand quarterback situation way too often. When we haven't seen these guys be OCs or when they're changing, when their circumstances are changing enough. Going from Gino to a rookie Caleb Williams is a very big change in circumstances for an offensive coordinator.

It's not entirely predictable to know how that's going to go. I think we need to embrace a lot more and admit a lot more about the uncertainty we have about what sort of multiplier these guys are these guys. For Cliff to be such a definitive one and for some of these other guys like Ryan Grubb to not be that, it's hard to know. It's just so difficult to get a sense of that coming into the year. And we know the chiefs are like this. Getting spags has been huge, but I think you can apply a similar lesson to a lot of these teams. Joe Brady and what he did with the offense.

There's so many examples of this. I have one more. And again, this is going to seem like a very simple one, but it just kept punching me in the face as these guys were punching people in the face last weekend. Your defensive line needs dudes. Yes. Yes. You will never feel their preference.

presence more than you will in these games. And if you look at resource allocation, the bills, Washington, and the chiefs were all top six in defensive line spending this year, all three of them. The Philly was not for two specific reasons. One, their highest paid players in the defensive line are not defensive linemen. Josh Sweat is a linebacker, if you look at how they're paid. And all of their first round picks are on rookie contracts. They have three first round picks.

Milt Williams is about to make $20 million a year. free agency. And just having that sort of group, you can't add too much to it. Remember on draft night when Washington took Jerry Newton and we were like, oh, they already have Jonathan Allen and Ron Payne. Like this seems it's like, no, who gives a shit? We're taking one. Yes.

We're taking one. We're going to take one in the top 50 every single year. If your front office just took a defensive lineman with her first, the first and second round pick every single year, I think it would probably be a better team building strategy with what a lot of teams do. I legitimately do. I think it's like a viable way to do this. Like I would draft a,

you mentioned offensive linemen every year. I would draft a defensive lineman in the top 100 every single year if I was a general manager. I wouldn't care about what else was happening. And it's for this reason. We've talked a little bit about this, Nate. With the offensive line, the investment helps,

but it's such a cohesive group and the coaching matters so much that you can get a lot of guys who are B pluses and turn it into an A plus line. Yes. It's not the case with defense. The individual pieces transcend almost everything else. So you need to go out and spend on those guys. And just look at the first round picks on every single one of these teams.

Alan Payne Newton. Newton was a second round pick, but high second round pick. Jones Carl Loftus. Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Jordan Davis, Josh Swackett's paid a lot of money. Ed Oliver, Greg Rousseau, AJ Appanessa was a second round pick. You just got to throw body. they tried but they're

trenches man you have to find those guys and it's like you can't walk into a season and be like our starting four on the defensive line is okay and that we've got like one or two extras it's like you need eight guys you feel good about and unless you have that

it's going to be a problem and the only way to get to eight guys you feel good about is to draft four guys with high leverage picks to get yourself there And all of these teams have done that. Like it just, the presence of those dudes during those games, you just can't ignore it. Like you feel Jalen Carter on like every single play. And it changes the complexion of who the Eagles are.

I had something similar to this where I think you can make a case that the best player on all of these defenses was one of their interior defensive linemen. I think with Jalen Carter and Chris Jones, it's unequivocal. They are obviously the best players on their defense. Probably true of Ed Oliver in Buffalo and then pick your poison between John Allen and Duran Payton in Washington. Like you can make a case that those were the best guys on all their defenses. Maybe it's a coincidence. I'm going to lean towards it not being a coincidence, especially with the way that Carter can take over a game. Chris Jones can take over a game.

I know the bills didn't win, but dude, Ed Oliver was a demon in that conference championship game. Like these guys can really, really affect the game. And it's harder to do some of what, like, even. then go back to the fourth and five call that Spags has to effectively end that conference championship game. They put Chris Jones on one side and then bring all their BS from the other side. You can get away with doing that because Chris Jones is a horror to have to pick up in pass protection. And so I think it's very, I think this was such a great point about the real value that you get of having an A plus all pro type of defensive interior. Well, especially these guys moving around inside,

outside, like Milton Williams. Yeah. But like they're, or Chris Jones. is you just talk about the offensive line. Oh, we get a bunch of B pluses. It's what's the term, weak link system, right? That's kind of like what the offensive line really is. There, it's the onside kick scene from Waterboy. You know, I don't know if I could say it, but he's like, there's the guy shaking, you know, there's my B. Like, I'm going to go after him.

This is what defensive line coaches, defense coordinator is do all week. They go, all right, who's the fish? Who's the fish? Who's the fish? All right. And now these guys aren't just like, oh, I'm a D-N only. It's like, nope, we can move Chris Jones to the punk at Wright. guard, we can kick out Milton Williams over the left tackle because he's not that good.

We'll run a game on him. The Ravens are doing that with Madabike. Matabeeke. Yes, another great example. But moving, it's like, yeah, I don't know if it's a versatility of defensive line is the lesson here. But like that is a thing, I think just with modern football, we don't get, I mean, actually the Eagles have one. So ironically enough, we don't get really true nose tackles much anymore. We get guys that are more versatile.

And I think they all have to have pass-rushing ability. And I'll never forget, we did a show like, what? was it like how to build a Super Bowl winner or how to build a Super Bowl contender? Five pressures. Five pressures. And how many people have tagged me on that? They're keeping track of it. It's been pretty cool, actually. And that's why I reconfigured. But that was, I was going to tie into that is that you get the five pressures. You get a guy that can get five pressures. That's the math you need to win in the playoffs. That five pressure guys, think about which Alon Carter and Chris Jones had been for those two respective teams in the playoffs. You need your five.

And Carlis has gotten them too. You need your five pressure. guy. And I had a team builder this summer tell me just straight away, he's like, I think guards and defensive tackles are more valuable than edge rushers and tackles now. Point blank. I would pay them more than I would pay the other guys. And even if you don't believe that, the fact that the gap has closed so much that people who are in charge of putting together winning rosters believe that in their bones to shift. It is a place that is very different than where we lived five or seven years ago. I'm not going to go through the show without mentioning Graham Barton.

So, I mean, just look at investing in the interior offensive line. Look what can do for your entire team. So yes, I am also with that all the way. Do you have any more, Derek? I'm out. No, I think I'm spent. I think that's all I got here. I think we either, I either got through mine or somebody else got to it.

I threw it and whatever I had left. I vomited as you guys were making your points. I was like, oh, perfect. I'm just going to vomit out my ideas too. So thank you for let me dovetail off of your guys. It's been great. The fact that this had no rhyme or reason to it is the only way we could have done it. So that feels appropriate.

It was really good to see you, buddy. It was really good to have you back here. I really appreciate the time. I know you got a million things on your plate these days. So the fact that you were willing to fit us in means a lot. No, this was perfect. I'm so glad I was this show and see you guys in New Orleans. Yeah.

So you guys see in about a week, very much looking forward to it. I realized I have to start doing laundry and stuff. Because it's like, oh, I'm going to be gone for seven days. I've got three months without a haircut. And I'm like, oh, I need to get a haircut. I can wear it every day. I get to skip that problem with the long hair, thankfully. Yeah, you actually can pull it off.

I'm like, I got Cowlicks, a giant forehead. So it looks like I'm balding. So it's like, yeah, I got that combo going on. Everything about how I planned out the next two weeks of my life was one of those sounded really good at the time sort of things. and now I'm just realizing how aggressive my choices are. And there's really no way to unravel them now. Like I'm going there in two days and we'll be there for 11 nights. We'll see how I make it out on the other side.

I almost did the Mobile to New Orleans back to back. And then I realized I'd be away from home for almost two weeks in Mobile in New Orleans. And I was like, yeah, no, no, no, no. We're backing out. We're backing up. I'm sorry. Sorry, senior role this year or not going this year because I don't know if I could survive. That's a driving distance.

Yeah. no way. You also have a child. I don't have to account for anybody other than myself. I do have a child. That helps a little bit. All right, gentlemen. That was great.

Appreciate all of you guys for listening. We will be back on Friday with our next mailbag. That's what we're doing on Friday. So if you're listening to this on Wednesday, please shoot us a note. If you have questions about how the season went. If you have questions about the off-season, no draft. no draft specific stuff. I have not watched a single draft prospect.

Do not ask me about the draft prospects. Other than specific draft prospects, if you want to start wading into free agency a little bit, I'm comfortable doing that. So if project forward, look back at the season, whatever questions you have, as long as it's not about a specific player

in this year's draft, me and Derek would like to hear it, and we will try to answer it on Friday's show. Also worth mentioning now, I'm just going to do this. I don't know if I'm allowed to. During Super Bowl week, every single day,

that we are there. We are going to have a athletic live stream from Radio Row. 5 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Central. It is going to be a grab bag filled with everything that we're doing that week. All of the athletic talent that's going to be down there. Me, Diana, Derek, Mike Sando, some of our writers, all the people we're interviewing on Radio Row. That's going to be coming your way for an hour, 5 p.m. Eastern every single day on the

athletic football show YouTube page. So if that's something you want to do, you want to feel like you're hanging out with us at the Super Bowl while we're down there, we encourage you to come. We're going to be answering listener questions every single day. I felt like it's a way to get some of you guys involved. So we are very much looking forward to that. It is happening on a scale that we've never done it while we've been down there.

So please come, be a part of it. We would really appreciate that. For now, that is all we've got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.