The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Lingering Questions about the AFC South

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Our series on lingering questions about the 2023 season continues as Robert Mays and Dan Pizzuta of The 33rd Team dig deep into the AFC South. 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. We are rolling on today with our lingering questions series about every division in the NFL. Going to be digging into the AFC South today. I have so much to talk about. I mean, think about where this division was a year ago, maybe 14 months ago. CJ Strah was drafted.

Anthony Richardson wasn't drafted. Very different feel to what is happening in the AFC South today. compared to the run-up to the 20-23 season. So a lot of stuff to dig into today. One bit of housekeeping before we get to our next guest, Dan Pizzuta. This is running on the 23rd of May. I am on vacation right now in Japan. This is coming to you from the past.

Be on the lookout next week for another one of these shows that will be running on Thursday the 30th. Starting the week of the 3rd of June, I will be back on full-time. We're back to our regularly scheduled programming, but only one more podcast, from me over the next week or so. So I just wanted to give you guys a heads about what you're looking out for.

For now, though, let's get to Dan. Let's get to the AFC South. Joining me now from the 33rd team, I think his first appearance on the athletic football show, which I'm very excited about. It is my friend Dan Pizzuta. Dan, how you doing, man? I'm doing well. I'm very excited to be here.

As someone who was in the crowd at the 2015, Grantland's show in Brooklyn. It is very cool to be here. So I've now podcasted with you, podcasted with Barnwell, podcasted with Mina, who was the guest there. Yeah. Just like Josh Goldman, I need to find a way to podcast with. And then it's like I've hit the infinity gauntlet of like the people who were at that show. So yeah, this is a very cool for me.

Thank you for having me on. I'm excited. I appreciate you being here. That was a fun night. It was at we did it at the knitting factory in Brooklyn. And it was almost 10 years ago now. That was before Mina worked for ESPN. So she was just a person on the football internet

who we wanted to come hang out with us that night and do the show with us. And it's crazy to think about it now. Barnwell's, the story of Barnwell likes to tell about that is he was asking me what I was going to wear. And I think I told him, I was like, I'll wear something nice. So he wore like a cardigan and I just wore a metallic a t-shirt. And he was not happy about that

because he thought we were dressing a little bit nicer for the show. And that was nine years ago. So I would have been 27. That might have been what dress. dressing nice was for me at that stage of my life was wearing a Metallica t-shirt to that show. So this is a nice full-circle moment. I'm glad we get to do this then. Yeah, I'm excited. I am excited to do this division because I think that there is a lot of stuff to dig into. And I think this division specifically is pretty ripe for this sort of analysis

and this sort of look back because these teams had waves, right? The Colts were really exciting at the beginning of the year and then no one pay attention to the Colts for half the year. they were a playoff team or on the break of making the playoffs. The Titans were terrible. So even though Will Levis was a hugely important piece for this franchise, I don't think many people watched a lot of Titans football to get a gauge on how Will Levis played. And even though the Texans were in every single storyline and were a hugely visible team last year, I think now it's time to lend some additional scrutiny into who they were

because they're trying to level up. So it's easy to get excited about C.J. Stroud and some of the surface level stuff about this team, but it's like, okay, now let's really look under the hood and see what this is, because now you're trying to go from being the exciting upstart to a team that's trying to win Super Bowls. So I feel like this division has a lot of ground that we can cover today. Yeah, it is a very interesting division. And, you know, I've done the football, formerly football outsiders, Almanac, now FTN, Almanac. So two years ago, I think I did the Texans and Titans.

And my role, I think, was just to, like, serve as information for people to use on, like, preview podcasts because no one was thinking about the Texans and the Titans in that time. Last year, I did the Jaguars as one of my chapters, too. So it's, like, the kind of sort of interesting pieces that went into those teams at that point. But, like, now this is an actual, like, interesting division where things are happening. Even if some of these teams might not be great, there's, there's, there's,

something to talk about, which has not been the case for this division for a while. That's absolutely true. And we're going to start with a team that I think for a lot of people from the outside might think is the least interesting team, but that's where my notes are. So this is what we're doing. What is your lingering question from the 2023 season about the Tennessee Titans? My lingering question is just kind of it. The Titans are hard to kind of look back on because everything they did was new. And that's always going to be a challenge with this exercise. and picking and choosing, or which new coordinators can we talk about

versus who was on the roster last year. That's something, as I've conceived of this, I've realized we have to work through as we're doing the shows. Especially, like, it's not even worth talking about this defense, right? Because like, every piece on that is new, that entire thing. So, like, my question is kind of, like, looking at what was on this team,

like, the pieces in place on offense. Like, how were they? Right? Like, we went into last season, And I think the prevailing conventional wisdom was like D'Andre Hopkins was washed after Arizona. So, like, how did he play? Chica Cuaco was, like, really great in, like, a small sample. During his rookie season, kind of had a bigger role here.

So, like, I just kind of wanted to look at what these offensive pieces really were. Some of the offensive line, too. And it was hidden miss, I think, as I dove into this. I will say that DeAndre Hopkins watch thing, absolutely not. He was, I thought he was awesome last year for what he had to do. I did not think he was as bad as some people thought he would and kind of aging out and couldn't separate anymore. But I think he kind of blew away by expectations going back and watching him too. That's interesting. Why would you say that?

What specific elements of his game kind of stuck out to you as you went back and studied it? I think just the way he can still move and separate. And especially at the deeper levels of the field. He still ended up being like 21st in yards per route run. I think he just still has all of that kind of old man game a little bit to like be as shifty as he can be. Still knows the nuances of route running, especially on the outside. I think he was used in the slot a little more too, which was exciting more than he was

in Arizona, which of course, like that was to stand on one side of the field and do that. And I think that kind of played into the perception of what he was, his role in that offense. But when you kind of just look at what he was able to do, like there's still speed there. He was still winning deep. I think his numbers probably would have been better if there were more accurate targets in some places. And I think we'll get to that later. So I think Hopkins can still be like this focal point of the offense. I think is going to help now that, you know, Calvin Ridley is going to be like a, you know, one or one B. However, you want to put him there. So I was impressed by Hopkins. A Conquo was kind of.

Let's stick on Hopkins first second because I want to talk about this because I think there are a lot of layers to this that I find interesting. When you look at what they did this offseason, I think part of the reason it's worth zooming in on these three or four guys specifically is they did so much new.

So it's so easy to get distracted by Calvin Ridley and now Tyler Boyd is here and they drafted J.C. Latham in the first round and they gave Louis-Cloid Cushmore that huge deal. So Loretta than getting distracted by the shiny new stuff, what does the stuff that was previously here actually look like and what are we working with with hopkins the slot stuff i'm so glad that you mentioned it because

when i went back and watched three or four games i actually thought that was his best work from last year is when he was working from the slot and able to kind of feel out zone coverages over the middle of the field he ran 99 slot routes last year 2.72 yards per route run from the slot here here are the guys ahead of him on that list from the slot last year brandon iuk tyriek hill Nico Collins, Justin Jefferson, DJ Moore. That's it on slot routes specifically. The reason that I'm kind of bummed about this is because with Tyler Boyd there now,

you have to bump Hopkins out to a full-time outside player again. And I understand why they did this. Tyler Boyd is perfectly made. He knows the offense. He'll be a great piece to kind of translate things to everybody else. You know that Calvin Ridley is your Z. We can talk about Ridley a little bit. I find it really interesting that Nick Holtz,

their offensive coordinator was in Jacksonville last year. So I think he has a sense of the lessons the Jags learned about Ridley's usage. But if you look at those two roles, then Hopkins now projects just your ex-receiver in that trio. And it's kind of a bummer to me. He can still do it. But I was actually excited about maybe him growing into something different as he got older. And I think their other moves preclude him from kind of sliding into that newer role as he ages. Yeah, that was kind of my.

disappointment too. And kind of like that's what I thought, even if people thought he like wasn't as good as he was in Arizona, I thought maybe you move him into the slot. He could be like that power slot kind of guy. And that's kind of, there were parts in Arizona where he like did that on a very, very small sample. But I kind of thought those were some of his like more intriguing parts too. So yeah, that died. That stood out to me when I was watching him. And that is kind of disappointing in Boyd because Boyd is really a slot only type of guy. So if he. So if he's, that stood out to me when I was watching him. And that is kind of disappointing in Boyd because Boyd is really a slot only type of guy. So if he. So if he. So I think he had this highest slot percentage of any receiver in the league last year. It was like 81% of his routes. It was actually, excuse me, he was the third highest. He was 80% last year. Yeah. So, you know, maybe he's not quite on the field as often as he might have been in Cincinnati, where maybe you can, you know, switch up some of this, you know, the personnel a little bit.

So I'm not 100% worried about, boy, but yeah, yeah, it is a bummer because I think that is a very exciting piece for DeAndre Hopkins that We kind of saw him get to expand on last year. And yeah, the hesitancy is whether that's going to continue. But again, like he was still really good on the outside. But like I said, the slop part is a lot more exciting about what he was able to. It was just tantalizing. It was like, ooh, the old man game to me translates very well to that move inside as you get a little bit deeper into your career.

So the fact that we may not see as much of that, it's just like a little thing. I was like, ah, I wish we had gotten that. But we're not going to, is my guess. So when you went back and you watched Ococcoqo in year two versus kind of what the small sample looked like in year one, what were your impressions of him? So some of what was exciting was still there, but I think they struggled with his role a little bit.

I think they kind of saw what he was able to do kind of after the catch and kind of tried to force him to be this slot type of guy. And he spent way more time in a slot last year than he did in his rookie season. And even during college, like during college he was at Maryland, He was like this kind of, you know, gadgety hback type of guy. And I think what's going to help, I think, with Boyd now in the slot is the Conquot was probably going to get to move back into kind of more in-line and maybe move into the backfield a little more.

And I think kind of having that type of, you know, versatility being able to like hide him a little bit and get him into, you know, routes in a different way than kind of just standing straight in the slot. And I think that's kind of where he struggled and why the yards after the catch and stuff weren't quite as, you know, prominent as they were during his rookie year. So it's in that where he just kind of like, he had less than a yard per round run from the slot last year. And that's where he was, you know, playing a whole bunch. So when I think you kind of move him back to kind of the role he had his rookie year,

I think that's probably going to help. But how they tried to kind of deploy him because they didn't really have like the greatest slot weapons, you know, that's why Hopkins was playing there a little more. So they kind of force a Conquo, I think, into that position. a little more than he probably should have. So that was a little discouraging, but I'm not totally sure that's going to continue going forward because I think there's a natural place

for him to move back into some of the stuff he was doing. He's a weird player, and I don't mean that as a negative. I just think that the ways that you have to deploy him to get the most out of him are very specific. One of the things I've really liked that they did over the last two years is they'd line him up in the backfield and he'd run vertical routes as a fullback. and so few guys have that skill set

to have the juice to threaten defenses that way, but he can't. But the Bengals didn't really do that. That's just not how their usage is of those kind of H-back-type players. So that is like, all right. And for the most part, tight ends in the Bengals offense

have been underneath targets from the slot where you can take advantage of one-on-one matchups because of how resources have to be devoted to the receivers. And we just said, that's not really what he does.

So I'm trying to conceive of yak opportunities and some easy completions that they can give him, that to me feels like the most reasonable deployment of him. Because I think, and we'll get to this with the Levis conversation, people are going to spend a lot of time this off season, trying to conceive of what the Titans' offense is going to look like. And I think they're going to look at what the Bengals did

over the last couple years with Burrow, and I think that's wrong. What you should do is you should look at what the Bengals did with Jake Browning for the last half of last season, where it's a lot more manufactured, it's a lot more play action, it's a lot more movement throws. So, well, Conkwell, on some of those slide routes, on some of those underneath completions off play action, where you can get him some catch and run opportunities, that's the usage that makes the most sense to me, but that still isn't the player and the upside we had in mind after watching him as a rookie. Yeah, and it's interesting because, you know, they didn't really make another move at tight end. So, like, I'm sure they know this, but the fact that they didn't really kind of bring in, you know, a Bengals, tight end.

of guy, I feel like they could potentially have an idea for what that role could be. And having some of those shallow crossers are probably a way that is going to get him on the move. But yeah, it is interesting. And again, like with Ribly now, with Boyd, with Hopkins, he's probably now the fourth option after he was, you know, at points to number two last year with, you know, I don't know how deep we want to get into like Traylon Burks. who just kind of... I don't think we have to spend much time getting deep into it, man.

I think the Bengals have told us. Yeah. If there's someone who really feels lost in that offense and not really finding a role, like it was Burke. So again, like, Ococco was kind of serving

as the number two for some of that. He's now going to be the three at best on some snaps and a four. So I think, you know, diving too deep into like how his role is going to be. And I think that'll fit him more as kind of, you know,

fewer targets, you know, more concentrated, on kind of opening up that space, especially when you hopefully have some other guys, you know, opening up some space down the field, and he can kind of work that underneath area. And that's the catch and run is kind of where he can win to.

And the last guy we really wanted to talk about was Skoronski, just because for me, he is the perfect player to talk about an exercise like this. Because what you're doing is the offseason starts, you look at a depth chart, you see what a team is going to potentially do. And in your mind, it's like, oh, well, Peter Skoronsky,

he was the 11th pick in the draft. I'm sure he played fine last year. That's a building block to move forward with. If you asked a casual NFL fan how Peter Skoronsky, the 11th pick in the draft, played last season, no one would be able to tell you. This is not an indictment. This is just how it works when you're studying the NFL.

So he's the type of guy that is the perfect player to kind of go back and do a little bit of a deeper dive on when you're trying to understand exactly what this team is moving forward. Yeah, and I wouldn't blame anyone for it. There's probably very diehard NFL fans, if you ask them how Peter Skoronsky played, would not be able to tell you. So it was tough because I think it was going to be hard for anyone

to really play well individually on this offensive line because just the group as a whole was not good. It was the worst offensive line in the league. We can say that. I think we can pretty comfortably say that. Yes. So I think that kind of that group of what those guys were, made it hard for just any one single player to play well.

So, you know, there were, I think, some flashes of what made him picked where he was. But again, there was a lot of blown blocks, which again, like the quarterback kind of can make it a little harder on offensive linemen too. So, you know, I think he had like a 4% blown block rate per SIS, which, you know, is not great for, especially an interior player. And again, you know, switching over from tackle a little bit. So I can see what is there that, you know, and now you have Bill Callahan there, which I'm going to just be like, no, okay, I trust what that is going to be. And that's kind of where I fell here. Like the play obviously was not great last year. But again, like you have good coaching.

I think this is a system that is probably going to fit him. So like that's kind of where I fell in where Skoronsky and some of the other guys that are, you know, going to be coming back. you know, if a, you know, a Dylan Redun's is going to, you know, be starting at tackle two. Again, some rough spots, but again, probably some of the best offensive line coaching that you can get. So there's some hope. They have to piece together the right side and how they're going to piece together the right side, I think is still a big question. My guess is it's some combination of Sadiq Charles and Radens at right guard and Petitreira back at right tackle now that he has the full season. That's not ideal, but that's a Bill Callahan bet.

the hope is the left side of the line can be so good even in 2024 and then moving forward that you can live with a little bit of a downturn on the right side. I'm with you on Skoranski. Going back and watching a few games is a mixed bag. You know, and I think there's a few things that lead to that. One, the guy's appendix bursts two weeks into the season. So he misses three games. And from people talking to people there and people who kind of know the offensive line

community and his workouts, he really struggled with functional strength on the way back. And for a rookie, that's just so difficult. When you're not trusting your body, it can short circuit everything else. And we talk about this with guys who move inside from tackle to guard. Things happen so much faster. And when you watched Skoranski last year, you can feel the speed, whether it's on a stunt or whether it's somebody crossing his face on a run play. It's just unfolding so much quicker.

And by the end of the season, you see moments where it's like, oh, he's just so impressive physically. You can understand what the upside looks like here, but he never quite got there. I think a lot of people are looking at the Bill Callahan thing for J.C. Latham, who's this moldable ball of clay. But I'm almost as excited about what Bill Callahan can do with Peter Scorotky as I am about what he can do with J.C. Latham. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you kind of have those, you know, two potential building box. And again, like, there's a reason Scorosky was drafted where he was. Like, he does have that physical talent.

And it is clear on, you know, a number of plays. So when you have some, something like that. And again, I just think it was so hard to judge what that offensive line was going to be just as a group with the quarterback play behind it, not necessarily helping it to a point. But I still think the arrow is going to be pointing up on Skoronsky as up and down as that rookie season might have been. I hear you trying to get there. So let's get there. My question about the Titans, and I stole the good one. I will admit, I stole the good one here. how did Will Levis actually play last season? If a quarterback falls in the forest, but no one's around to hear it, did the quarterback make a sound? That's what we're talking about with Will Levis in Tennessee last year.

People saw the Thursday night game against the Steelers, and they saw the Monday night game against the dolphins, which there was a lot to like in those games. But if you really dig in, I said it was a mixed bag for Skoranski. It was certainly a mixed bag for Will Levis. How did Will Levis's performance in the games that you watched line up with what your expectations might have been. So I feel like he was, in some ways, both complimentary and derogatory, kind of exactly what I expected of what he was kind of in college. He had an absolutely insane passing profile, like 36.1% of his throws between 1 to 10

air yards, which is just, like, that's unreal for an NFL quarterback. The last quarterback to be lower was like a rookie season, Josh Allen. And like that wasn't a real, that wasn't a real quarterback season either. I remember that offense very well. It was just bombs to Robert Foster. That was the 2018 Bills. Yeah. And so that's kind of what Levis was without some of the more impressive type of Josh Allen things that were there.

So I think the biggest thing that really stuck out to me was the, and it was kind of the biggest concern of his coming in was some of the pocket presence, which just kind of felt like at times it just was non-existent, which is kind of can really feel like a fatal flaw to me. While there was some good throws, it just kind of felt like when he was in the pocket, it just didn't always feel pressure kind of led to a bunch of hits. He was hit on over a quarter of his dropbacks, which is absolutely insane rate to be doing. So there were like a lot of stacks where he just like didn't feel stuff coming. And I think again that, you know, made the offensive line feel a little worse. He was kind of hanging in there, just a little more than

he should. So it was stuff like that. And then there's the, you know, the scattershot type of throws that there are big throws. And like you can play a cut up of Will Levis that like you could post on Twitter and be like, Will Levis made some throws last year. But if you kind of, you know, what this exercise is, if you go back and look at kind of the grand scheme of things. I really question, like, how this can work in a more sustained type of, you know, environment because I kind of feel like the lack of kind of the pocket movement and stuff like that. That was my biggest concern going in, and I think it heightened my concern kind of going back and watching it. The 25% of hits, the percent of dropbacks were he was hit last year, just for context,

he was at 25.5% no one else in the league was above 20.4%. That is a massive gap between him and the next guy on that list. And you could feel that when you watched it. He wanted punishment, it felt like, on some of these plays. He's jumping into people. He's hanging in the pocket.

And I do think, again, after talking to people there, that really did endear him to people in the building and on the roster. And I think that there's some benefit to that. But you also want your quarterback to take care of himself. So my question with this is, is it a chicken or the egg thing? How much is he exacerbating the problem because of the lack of pocket presence? And how much is the offensive line hurting him here?

Because he was pressured at the third highest rate in the league, according to PFF. The only guys that were higher were Justin Fields and Daniel Jones. Justin Fields doesn't count because of how long he holds onto the ball. So Daniel Jones was really the only person with a humane time to throw who was pressured more last year than Willis. That will hopefully be better this year. but you still worry about what he's like when pressure actually starts to set in because he just, I'm with you.

The feel is not there. I think he did a very good job of getting some throws off in tight pockets. He's a more creative thrower than I might have expected him to be coming out of Kentucky. The arm angle, some of the things he can do getting the ball off, he's so strong that I think that also

really presents itself when you watch him. But I would also be worried that some of his feel for pressure, a feel for those spaces and how he tries to subtly move around, I think that is cause for concern, yes. Yeah, and like you kind of go back to Daniel Jones.

Like that was always my biggest worry about him. It's just like oblivious to pressure. And again, like sometimes that looks super cool because there's a throw he makes when there's a guy in his face because he doesn't know he's there. So he's not bracing for it. He's just making that throw that

he was going to make in the first place. And I think you kind of saw the way the Giants really did a good job in 2022 was, you know, they moved the pocket for him. They, like, did not allow him to get hit because, like, he was never standing still long enough to do that. So I don't know if that's, like, kind of the thing that you're going to do with lettuce. Kind of, like you said, it could be like a Jake Browning type of thing. One of the things I did stand out is he seemed really comfortable in empty. And that was kind of the one place where he was able to kind of manage the pocket, get the ball out quickly, which he did not do in really any other situation.

So I'd be interested to see what that kind of looks like because you're coming from the Bengals who originally like with Burroughs kind of very early seasons, they used that empty package to kind of protect him from the offensive line to allow him to. allow him to be able to, you know, kind of command everything's going on, use some of that horizontal spacing, and kind of protect from that offensive line. And, of course, Burroughs just great from empty too. You also kind of have the Stafford empty stuff that just, you know, again, we'll let us not Matthew Stafford, but you just have like... He can sling the shit out of the ball, though.

He does have a really good arm. So you just have some of that vertical stuff from empty when everything is spread out also. that I think they can kind of work in there. And I think Levis just the other day when they were doing, when they were going into some of their OTAs, he was talking about Callahan had him watching, you know, some Burrow and some Stafford stuff that,

you know, quarterbacks that he's worked with in the past. So I would be interested to see how that empty game develops because it did look like that was where he was most comfortable. And he was seventh in EPA per play out of empty last year. So, you know, I think like that could be a thing. again, like, it's interesting. Like, he,

the way he does, like, put his body in danger was, like, I was kind of concerned, like, he didn't scramble often, but when he did, he treated third downs like it was the goal line. Like, there were, there were, like, multiple third downs. It's so true, where he's just launching himself over the marker. Yeah, that are, like, the 30-yard line, and he's, like, jumping and leaping. And he had, like, an Elway spin on, on,

one of them. And it's like, man, it's like third and six. Like, you can come up a yard short. It's okay. You might go for it on fourth. So, like, it's just that kind of, that kind of reckless abandon is how his game was just in general. You know, he was 11th in EPA to play from a clean pocket. So, like, in the pocket, no pressure. So, like, there are pieces of that offense and his play where you're like, this looks good. But what happens when the pocket is not like that? that is really concerned. I think like, and, you know,

it's a deeper conversation about, like, quarterback play and what we're looking at for some of these guys and how they develop. But, like, I think we're kind of seeing what you can do

out of structure and under pressure. It's kind of how you really, like, just kind of separate yourself from what you can do in an offense. And that kind of just really remains the biggest question I have. I was looking at some of the other numbers.

He was 21st in EPA per dropback just ahead of Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence, 31st and dropback success rate. And I totally, that makes sense, right? Think about what the Titans' offense was last year. You get your scattered three or four shots sprinkled in there over the course of a game,

but down to down, there's a lot left to be desired about the passing game, and that's how they felt. And I think the plan, the best plan, I think the plan that makes the most sense, if you look at what the Bengals did with Browning last year, is let's just try to keep him in the most rigid box that we can while he figures the rest of this out.

Because he looks damn good throwing the ball over the middle off-play action, man. I mean, that is what he does best, which isn't and shouldn't be surprising. That's what Kentucky's offense was when he was there. It was the Rams offense. He worked with Liam Cohen, who's now in Tampa Bay. So I think that trying to lean into as much of that as you can and really just take as much off of his plate as you possibly can, I think that is the best plan for him. Because the nuts and bolts of it and how he looks throwing the football, it can be exceptional at times. So I think trying to make him as comfortable as possible and limiting the asks of him, I think is the right way to approach this.

And we'll see how it goes. Yeah, I think so. It's certainly interesting. You know, that's going to be, I think, one way or another, one of the most interesting offenses in the league. Let's get to the Houston Texans. What is your lingering question about the 2023 Houston Texans? A team that is hard to do this about because we watched a lot of Texans football and paid a lot of attention to the Texans last year. Yeah, so my lingering question is, you know, we've kind of, we've gone crazy over that offense.

And C.J. Shroud was great. There was a lot of good going on. A 10th weighted past DVOA by the end of the season. Bobby Sloick, like five head coaching interviews and was kind of, you know, seen as, you know, potential just kind of like immediate head coaching candidate. So, like, kind of my lingering question is, like, was, is Bobby Slovak already? like one of the guys for as a play caller or, you know, is there like a little more to kind of investigate? Because I think we remember, you know, that that Ravens game, they were, they were just running on every first down, could not get a yard. And it was second along. It just kind of seemed like they were, you know, continually kind of running into problems on their own. And it was kind of a, you know, a play calling thing. So is Bobby Sloick like this guy that we kind of like have

already propped him up to be. Or like, or do we like, does he need maybe another year or so of seasoning? And I think my, my answer was yes. I think to you, is he the guy? Does he need more? Yes. So like there was all of the elements of like the Shanahan stuff that we really like there. It was spat all over this offense, the way they used play action, the way they were

able to move linebackers horizontally and vertically. you know, like the wildcar game against Cleveland, just the way they were able to, you know, one of the best defenses in the league last year. They had them on a string in the entire game. Absolutely. The deep touchdown to Dalton Schultz that he had early in the game with Stroud boots right. They get everyone flowing to that side.

Schultz fakes the corner and then ends up running the post. So Stroud's throwing a, throw all the way across the field. And it's wide open. just like there was stuff like that all over the place. But then we kind of come back to you, you know, some of those early down runs. And it was a place where it kind of felt like they were obviously coming from this Shanahan scheme, you have, you want to marry the pass with the run. But it kind of felt like they were, they were trying a little too hard to establish the run

a little bit. And I think the biggest thing with Floic and I think the offense in general is there were not a lot of immediate problem-solving answers. I think it took a little bit for them to get there. I was talking to someone from Houston at the Combine, and he kind of said, like, even as we realized, like, how good shroud was, I think it took a little bit for us to really embrace what that was and really put more of the offense on his shoulders.

And I think you can kind of see that as this season kind of went along. So it was one of those things where I think Shroud bailed out the offense at times, especially kind of on third downs a little bit. But again, I guess you can do that when you have a guy like Stroud. You can let him kind of bail you out. And so I think there's going to be a little more because they did eventually get the answers, right? It was just kind of slow in the way.

Like you kind of think after the buy maybe is when you would have done that. their first game out of the buy, they were completely shut down by the Panthers. And that was just, we're going to play too high. We're not going to let Stroud through deep. But then immediately after, he had a 7.5A dot in that game. But then there was nothing below 9.4 until week 14. So, like, they kind of figured out a way after that game to be able to, you know, push the ball down the field. So I think it's one thing where they did figure it out.

It just, it wasn't quickly. It's never really in-game. And I think it kind of maybe took like a week or so. after. So, again, I'm positive on what they can do. And I think another full season of kind of knowing what this offense is going to be is going to definitely help them a lot. There's so much I like in the structure. The quarterback is incredible. So it's like, yes, Bobby Slowick is a guy. Yes, this, you know, another year or two is probably going to help. I think that's right. I think having an entire off season to kind of figure out, all right, what is the right ratio of all of this stuff? It

reminds me a lot of watching early Kyle Shanahan teams, which should necessarily be a surprise, right? I was talking to somebody on their staff during the combine. It was the same way that you were. And we're talking about just what SLOC was bringing to the role and to that side of the ball. And this assistant was just telling me how there's such an expectation for how you play and how you practice. And that is something that came from San Francisco. You watch the way that those were seen. This has been something I'm going to harp on a lot, I think, over the next year, because it keeps coming up. I can watch how receivers block, and I can tell you how good the offense is. And it's not because receiver blocking is foundational to certain things succeeding. It's just

because this is how you teach things, and this is the standard that you bring to this side of the ball. And when you watch the Texans this year, guys are playing with their fucking hair on fire. And so that style and that mentality, that almost becomes the most important thing that you can instill in year one of a new system. They have that in droves. I mean, they have so much of that in the way that they play. But those early Shanahan teams,

if you go back and you look at it, pre McCaffrey, they weren't these monsters running the football necessarily. There were stretches where they had that, but there were a lot of those couple years, big stretches of those couple years, where they were not the most efficient running team,

but they still were poking and prodding because it's in service of the larger mission. You can live with a little bit of inefficiency on the ground if it's going to help your play action game and if it's going to inform just what defenses expect out of you in certain situations. And sometimes that's hard because you're pulling back and you're looking at the numbers and it's just like, eh, stop doing this. Like this is not helping you. But I do think that there are kind of ineffitable qualities to it that do lead to a greater efficiency overall. That doesn't mean you

can't find a better ratio. So I think that ultimately is going to be the challenge for them. It's now that we can kind of take a step back and prune certain things and be a little bit more intentional about certain things, what are the details of this from down to down look like? And I have faith in their ability to figure it out. Yeah, absolutely. And when you kind of get to the run game too, like they took steps to make that better because it wasn't just inefficient running. Like this was, I think, easily the worst run game in the league between the kind of the way they had to, you know,

shift things on the offensive line. There were so many injuries. Yeah, it was. And they were trying to do too much, it felt like. I mean, they were doing all these different types of runs, and I get it, you know, that that's the world we live in now. You can't just be a zone team anymore. You've got to have all these layers to it.

But when you're dealing with, I mean, I couldn't even tell you how many offensive line combinations they used the last year. It felt like they had six left guards over the course of the year. I was trying to piece it together today. I was like, well, Titus Howard was there for a while, and then Joe Scrugg was there for a while. And then Michael Dieter was playing center. but the Scruggs was supposed to be the center and George Van was playing right tackle

but then Charlie Heck was playing right tackle it was just impossible to keep track of it all and when you have this run game with all these moving parts it's almost impossible for that to be successful when you don't really know who's going to be playing up front from week to week. Yeah and I think that was one of the biggest things for this offense

and kind of why some of the run game stuff was so frustrating just because Like it was literally running into a brick wall on first down sometimes. So I do think the way they are going to use this offseason and kind of see what Stroud was able to do. I think we are going to see a more quarterback-driven type of offense that we're still going to see all the fun things of the Shanahan stuff. But I think this is going to be like a CJ Stroud-led type of thing.

And if we see that, I think this offense is like really going to take off. I do think Slovak in, you know, the way the plays are designed, the way there's openings, the way that are answers for everything. It kind of feels like that that is this thing that is very exciting about this offense. And I think that's really what's going to take off this year. The other thing going back and watching their offense last year that stuck out to me outside of Stroud just being ridiculous, which he is. Nico Collins is incredible.

Like I just, and what's so fun about the Nico Collins-Straud pairing is that they're married. The marriage is perfect. They're perfect for each other. Because Stroud's ball placement on those throws over the middle of the field and Collins' ability to pluck them away from his body and continue moving outfield on those throws, he's a yak monster. He's a 6-4 yak monster because of the synergy he has

with his quarterback on those plays. That's incredible. And watching his ability to separate with initial releases and how he uses his hands at the line of scrimmage, he's an awesome player. Like, I am so excited to watch that pairing specifically get to grow and continue to grow because of how well they already seem made for each other. So that was another just fun little wrinkle about going back and getting to watch the Texans

a little bit. Yeah, that's absolutely it. I had that in my notes, too, of how good Nico Collins was. Like, he was 30 yards per route run, and, like, that was not fake. Like, that was not manufactured in a way that we might see, like, some other, you know, players that have really high rates like that. He was, it's so, so good. To every level of the field, just beating guys on the outside.

I think we'll talk about, you know, the Indianapolis, the secondary a little bit. But the end of the year, are he just, you know, running past, you know, Juju Brent's on like multiple occasions. It's just there are so many ways for him to win. And again, like, shroud finds him at every, yeah, he was one of, and I think that made me more optimistic about this upon Diggs pairing two, where like Diggs does not have to be the guy even remotely

in this offense in order for it to work whether Stefan Diggs is you know like whether he's excited about that not sure but like for this offense to work like he does not have to be that guy because Nico Collins I at least 100% that guy. I also wanted to go back and watch Diggs a little bit in preparation for this

because I do think that's a small lingering question about the Texans like what the hell happened with Stefan Diggs at the end of last year here to tell you Stefan Diggs can still play even if the production was not if you're watching him on a per play basis, here's how I'll frame this. When Stefan Diggs wants to get open,

he is still very capable of getting open. So I think the biggest question for the Texans is, does Stefan Diggs want to get open for the Texans? If the answer is yes, I think everyone will be very happy about them making that move. Yeah, I believe so too. Yeah, you kind of, look at it, it was weird just usage in general

in like the route he was getting asked to run by the end of the year. So that was kind of probably what played into him not wanting to get open all the time because he wasn't always getting asked to. But I think in this offense, he will be. I think it'll definitely fit his skill set a little more with, I think he can be like one of that, the really great season he had in 2021.

I think when he was like just kind of using all his vertical stems and breaking them off and curls and comebacks, and they just kind of spam that. I think I could see that as a piece that he does really well in this offense. Well, Collins and, you know, he got Tankdale coming back. Like, this is going to be a fun offense that I think is going to find a way to get everyone involved. Similar to the Titans conversation, I'm wondering how the rolls shake out because Tank Dell, even though he's tiny, was an outside player last year. And Nico Collins is an X.

So what does Diggs do with that? Because I think part of Diggs's fall off last year down the stretch is they were using him in the slot on like more than a third of his snaps. And that's just not his game. That's just not where he's best. So I wonder how much he's going to play in the slot for the Texans because of those other guys. So just what the alignments and roles look like within that offense, just be something I'll be keeping my eye on as we see the first couple games of that Houston receiving core. My Texans question, I think it's, you know, again, we did so much studying of this team. It's not the most important question.

But this is a Derek Stingley and Jalen Petrie question masquerading as a larger one. when you look back at the Texans team building strategy over the last few years, they trade Deshawn Watson, they get all these picks. The 2020 draft feels like the first one that kind of had to be transformational and foundational for where the Texans were going. So how did it go? That's my lingering question. It's like, what was that draft actually when you look at the hall in the way that those guys have played? I think Stingley's a start. He was banged up at times last year, but when he got back on the field, even if there were a couple hiccups, I think that guy's going to be one of the best corner.

in the league. He is a special skill set. We've seen it. I think he has been as advertised. Other first round pick in that draft, Kenyon Green did not play a single snap for them last year, a single one. And Titus Howard, who was a first round pick, got an extension, was supposed to be the right tackle for this team. When he got back in the lineup last year, he played left guard for them. So does that mean, with Shaq Mason already on the roster, you spent a second round pick on Ju Scrokes to play center, are you going to want to keep Titus Howard at guard? And does that mean that Kenyon Green just isn't a starter for you after playing one season, really, as a first round pick?

Listening to Nick Casario, talk about him recently, he gave one of the like, every guy guy as an opportunity answers. And I just don't think that's what you want. They drafted Blake Fisher in the second round. He's a tackle. Charlie Heck, who's a backup for them, played last year. So it really does seem like Kenyon Green as a first round. pick in his third season might be the odd man out of that rotation.

That's not great. We get to the second round. John Mechie, there's a reason they had to trade for Stefan Dix, right? Like, there's a reason for that. John Macchie was a second round pick among 125 receivers of 25 targets last year. He finished 100 in yards per outrun. When you are making big splashy moves for guys at your position, you're probably edging out even a guy who was drafted in the second round a couple years ago.

and that's how it feels with METI. Jalen Petrie, up and down, right? There are elements to his game that I find very interesting and very intriguing. He led all safeties and run stops last year for PFF. He will fly to the ball. Problem. He will fly to the ball.

That is also part of the issue. He missed a lot of tackles. I saw DeAndre Hopkins roast him on double moves twice in those games against the Titans. I love DeAndre Hopkins with all of my soul. 2023 DeAndre Hopkins is not Tyreek Hill. Like him beating you on vertical routes

is not exactly what you want. So I think Petrie has been a solid player. I think they've tried to figure out what his usage should be and role should be. But I don't think he's more than an average to somewhat plus starter at this point.

And then you go a little bit further down. Christian Harris is a third round pick and linebacker. He has not come along. I think last year they hoped he would come along a little bit faster. You give a guy some grace. That position could take a little while

in terms of development. It's a new system. But they paid as these Al Shire. Again, it's just one of those moments where these guys who should be cheap for you, you're having to spend money at those position groups, and the same is true for running back. Because they did not get what they wanted to out of Damien Pierce, that's why you have to go get a Joe Mixon and then give him that contract.

So I think that this, why this is important and instructive is that it's when we're looking at the Texans now and figuring out where they've had to spend and how they've had to allocate some resources, C.J. Stroud is going to paper over a lot. of shortcomings elsewhere. And I think that is kind of the conclusion that I reached when looking back at the last couple drafts. Yeah, and that kind of stood out to me,

kind of when you sent this and like, you kind of framed it as like 2020 was kind of the first foundational piece. And it kind of felt like they slow played that draft because they knew they also had two firsts on picks in 2023. At that point, they still had two first in 2024. So they didn't like completely jump headfirst into some of the stuff. And going back to just, I think we need to like just sit in where Houston was in 2022. They wanted to make Josh McAllen the head coach.

Like that was a thing. And then the Brian Fores lawsuit happened. And they were like, well, maybe we can't hire a guy with absolutely no coaching experience. And, you know, I think Josh McAllen has done good things. I'm excited for what he can do in Minnesota this year. But they had interviewed him in back-to-back years. They had just come off David Cully. Lovie Smith was not in their initial interview process.

And then all of a sudden he was the head coach. So Houston was just an interview. And this was when they were still giving like one-year deals to all of these veteran players. This was a team that was 16th in snap-weighted age in 2022. So like this was not a young rebuilding team. And to a point where it still really isn't, they were older this year. They were seventh in snap weighted age in 2023. So this is not really this like we're built off rookies type of off or type of team just in general.

And I think that's the important point to make is that there is somewhat of a runway because you have Stroud because you have him on a rookie deal. Obviously Collins has been good, but he's about to get paid. So there are not that many guys on this roster who are these cost controlled young pieces that you can build on. And as we think about their window and how much urgency they should have over the next couple years, I think that's an important thing to keep in the back of your mind. Yeah. And I think it's going to be more important, like, except for these upcoming rookie classes, because they're going to have to fill in there as like, this was really their first

year that they got to really kind of shape the roster in a way of guys that are kind of going to be around, you know, kind of knowing that they just had to nail one of those drafts. And again, like the 2023 draft was it, obviously, with Trout. A trade off for Will Anderson, which again, was a risky move, but Will Anderson was fantastic. So you do have those foundational pieces there. And then you can start kind of building on, like in Aziz Austroir is like, I think one of the more fun linebackers in the league. And I think is going to be a lot of fun. In the offense, you kind of look at what else they were able to do, bring in like building that defensive line with Anderson, some of the free agents that they've

brought it was, it's going to be a lot of fun, but like, this is not like the young kind of upstart roster that you kind of think. And like you said, some of those misses there, like, again, Stingley is, again, I agree with you that he's like a star, but, you know, nine games played in 2022, 11 in 2023, like that, that is a concern when you're missing guys. I like Mario Manister, who they brought in. But if he like he doesn't start, there are other outside corners right now or either going to be Jeff Akuta, who again, like, it's a guy, teams continue trying to take the swing on, just hasn't clicked. CJ Henderson, they brought into just like has not been one of the worst corners in the

league, just kind of from the time he was, I think, the ninth overall pick in that. So you are running a little close to the sun in some of these places. But again, like that, not to say that I'm down on what Houston is going to be, but when you kind of had a draft class like this, and again, like going back to Mechi, you know, great that he's back on the field after, you know, came back from the leukemia, like, super exciting. But again, they, like, they traded up for him for, like, a pretty aggressive price in that second round. Again, like, they weren't a team that should have really been using, like, that, those type of resources on a guy who is maybe going to be, like, their wide receiver three in that season. And again, they traded one of the picks, they traded 68th pick, ended up being Martin Emerson, who, you know, probably could have helped on this team a little bit.

It's a weird team to mention that against though because they cooked Martin Emerson in the playoffs last year. But overall, yes, I think it's a point well taken. I'll be curious to see what happens with Lasseter. There are a team people that think he's a nickel only. And so if he is, then he's your nickel corner here. They still have Desmond King on the roster, but Desmond King's getting a little bit older.

It really does feel like it's, we're going to crack that pool queue in half and we're going to have tryouts for that other outside corner spot, which have Akuta and C.J. Henderson, which we'll see how that goes. Yeah, I mean, that's, Not super exciting for me because I just, I, I've lived the, the Akuta experience and kind of thinking, yeah, sure, he'll bounce back. And I like what he's going to do in Atlanta. And just it hasn't happened. So again, you're just, it's a very small, kind of, you know, margin of error here in some of these spots. And it's kind of, you know, from, you know, being aggressive on on trade ups like METI. But again, like that's also ends up being the philosophy that gets you willing.

Anderson because you are being aggressive to trade up. So a hit and miss in some of this stuff. So I think this is going to shape and I think it does make some of their future roster building a little more important than it might be for a team that was kind of flushed with some of these draft picks that we had like starting with that 2020 draft. That'll be good. I mean, because I think their quarterback is good. I think their offense is good.

But them signing Daniel Hunter to that two-year deal, it's not an accident. They're going to try to make this thing happen in the next couple of years. And I don't blame them for that. But I think, like you mentioned, the margin for error and the plane you're trying to land, whatever mixed metaphor you want to throw out there, it becomes a challenge when you're giving yourself not that much wiggle room. All right. Let's get to the Indianapolis Colts.

And I think probably one of the topics we were most looking forward to discussing on this show. What is your lingering question about the 2023 Indianapolis Colts? All right. 98 dropbacks, 84 pass attempts. what was the Anthony Richardson experience and was this offense sustainable? Because what happens in there is you get one

a concussion that knocked him out of a game, he comes back, that next game, shoulder injury that ends his season. So we really did not get a lot of the Anthony Richardson offense that I think a lot of us were excited to see. And then we get a Gardner-Minshu-led offense that it was coming and all of a sudden is on the brink of playoffs at the end of the season.

So I want to go back. So what was Anthony Richardson and what did that offense look like? And is it something that we can potentially sustain going forward? And I will say yes. Anthony Richardson was more exciting than I remembered. It was something. And just to go to the injuries. I don't think they were like crazy he was putting himself in danger from running.

The concussion, like he kind of gets pushed when he's crossing the end zone on a run, but he's like trying to do a backer roll to like softly land himself and that's when he hits his head. So it's not like he took a big hit. And then the shoulder injury just kind of is the worst possible landing spot that he did. But I don't think he really like put himself in a lot of danger in some of those hits. So it's not something that I'm really concerned about going forward. It was that, like, your takeaway from the way he kind of controlled himself there? Yeah, I think that there are moments where he can protect himself a little bit more.

And I think that that mostly comes from being able to play on time more often. Because that was my biggest takeaway from the passing game overall. There are throws, accuracy issues aside. And there are some sprays. There are going to be some sprays, especially throwing to his left. He can get a little bit antsy and there can be some. issues. But outside of that, there are moments where I'm just like, ah, throw it, throw it, throw it. And that's, that crept up a little bit more than I wanted

to. And I think his, not inability, but a lack of experience kind of betraying him in that area specifically, where it's not coming out as quickly as it should, that got him into a little bit more trouble than you want to see. That's something that hopefully will come with more experience and more maturation. I don't think it's something that's necessarily endemic to who he is as a quarterback. The other side of it is, the, you know, the, you know, you know, you usage on the design runs. Or do we have to throttle that down a little bit? I don't think you necessarily do.

It's not like it was some outlier compared to a lot of these other mobile quarterbacks who are central pieces to their run game. He had a 14.7% design rush rate last year. That is right in line with what Lamar Jackson's done the last four years. That's in line with what J-1 Hertz has done the past four years. So I feel like the way they used him in that area is the way they can continue to use him. I guess I'd like to see it a little bit more selective, where instead of using him as a short yardage guy or in the natural progression of your run game, just let's hone out

explosive place. Let's try to get him on the perimeter. I know he got hurt on one of those, which is funny, but let's try to have that be the way that you're building this thing, not trying to find mildly efficient run plays with your quarterback when you could take a little bit more damage off of him. I guess that was where I landed with the running specifically. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And again, he was a guy that was, you know, going to try to scramble also. So he did kind of run him. You know, I think he did protect himself kind of well with some of those scrambles, though.

I don't think he got hit on scrambles more than I would want him to. And his scramble rate wasn't that bad. I mean, he's 7.1% scramble rate. That's lower than Mahomes, lower than Josh Allen, lower than Jalen Hertz. I mean, he's not taking off to run that often. And when he's scrambling slash moving around the pocket, I actually like the style that he's moving with. He's keeping his eyes down field.

He's not pulling the rib cord that quickly. So I don't mind the way that he approached the position. Yeah. And I think one of the things that stood out to me was there was a, it didn't always translate to plays going well. But I think he just had a feel in the pocket that kind of did feel like he was always under control. It was kind of like the, it was the anti-levis. You know, there was a lot of movement.

He was, you know, kind of move it around a lot. But it always felt like he was in control of what was happening. And even though he had like a high pressure to sack rate, he wasn't really taking a lot of hits standing in the pocket either. Like a bunch of his sacks were like he's getting pushed out of bounds for a gain of like zero or negative one when he's trying to like scramble out. Like he wasn't getting like blindsided in the pocket. really at any point. He had the game against the Rams. Aaron Donald was in his face all the time.

I was about to say this. You almost have to throw out some of the overall stats because a quarter of his season was more than a quarter of a season because he missed half of the two games. He played four games. He missed half of two of those games. A huge chunk of his snaps this year came in that Rams game. Aaron Donald ruined the football game.

Blake Freeland, who was a fourth-round pick, developmental swing tackle for them last year. God bless him. him. He had to start that game against Aaron Donald. And fucking Brahim Morris is just putting Aaron Donald over this fourth round rookie for the entire game.

Going back and watching it, I just felt bad for the guy. Like, he had absolutely no shot. And in a lot of ways, it ruined the ability to process what that offense was in the course of an NFL game because it was getting ruined so often. Yeah, but

that was definitely the case early in the game. And then all of a sudden, the fourth quarter, Anthony Richardson just starts making some bat-shake crazy throws, like, while Donald is... It is laugh, yeah. There's one that I tweeted out, where he just... Donald is in his face, and Richardson is like, in the grasp, does not have any feet on the ground, I believe, and just, like, throws 40 yards in the air a strike to Michael Pittman.

From the end zone view, it doesn't get the catch, because I'm... believe the camera operator was just like, oh, there's no way the ball is going this far. Like, there's no possible way that's happening on this throw. And it does. So, like, they come back in that game and make it the closer than it was. Like, it was a blowout for most of that game. But again, like, he kept himself kind of under control. There's still some things that are, like, he just makes some throws, man, that are like so impressive. Just, you know, and not a large sample of just throws overall. But there's like, you just, you kind of watch him and just be, okay, I get this and I get what this can be.

And then you kind of look at the way Shane Steichen kind of built an offense around what Gardner Minchew could do. And I think you take some of that short area stuff that Minchew was, you know, also good at, I get in quotes. The things that he was capable of doing. Yes, much better way to put it short. And I think you take some of that, then you put it in with what Richardson can do

kind of getting this ball down the field. And I think that that's going to be a very well-structured offense. Like I trust Shane Steichen a lot. Like when we kind of talk about some of who the guys are in play calling, I think Stikin kind of off the bat, I think I was really impressed with what he did. And continually, like with making a Gardner-Minshoe offense, at least passable.

Like it wasn't great. And you look at a lot of metrics. Like there was not a lot. There is, you have a very different view of the cold offense. If you just kind of like kind of, like kind of saw the end results, or you actually like watched Gardner Minchu from down to down. Like they are very different experiences. So what he was able to do to kind of build that offense

around him, I think it's going to be, you know, really exciting of what they can potentially do with Richardson, with a, you know, a full year and another like off season that Richardson kind of gets to really, you know, dive into. And I, you know, was kind of looking at some things. Like, they kept Richardson very involved in, you know, some of the game planning and, you know, being in those meeting. So he got some of that. He didn't miss out for being out for most of the year. So I think that is a very good learning thing.

And Stuyken, again, is just one of those guys that, like, I really trust to figure out what the strengths of this offense should be and just kind of build something around that. I'm sure people will look at the Rams box score specifically. I'm pretty sure he finished 11 of 25 in that game. And people are going to be like, are you guys kidding? He was 11 of 25. Let me say this.

it was an impressive 11 of 25 game. There are a couple drops by running backs. There are a couple throws along the sideline that are one inch off from being caught, whether it's off a fingertip or a foot not getting in bounds. There's so much to like even with a stat line like that. I know that sounds silly, but I do think that if you actually peel it back one layer,

you can talk yourself into a lot of what you're seeing. I mean, there were three or four throws in that game against the Rams. You may have thrown to Josh Downs up the seam that just you could hear, it was like a jet engine. You could hear it when that ball gets thrown. And then he made a throw on the move to Moeally Cox

rolling to his right. That's just like, holy shit. And it was a boot and he just finds him on the crosser. And there aren't that many people who can physically do that stuff. And when you combine that with the feel he has for the pocket,

even if the accuracy is a little bit hit or miss here or there, I just think with a little bit more time, a little bit more refinement, you can get yourself there with him and get yourself very excited about what this offense can look like.

You stole the good one with the Colts, so I had to kind of dig a little bit deeper here. My lingering question about the Colts, I just want a ton of time on this. They did nothing at DB this offseason. Nothing. And my question is, is that okay? Is the confidence that they seem to have

in their defensive back room, is that warranted? So you're rolling into this year. Here's who played defensive back for the Colts last year. I think that's a good place to start, okay? early in the season, your starting corners are, like, Juju Brents comes in in week three. It's a second round pick, great. Across from him is Dallas Flowers, who I believe was a college free agent, but was a start

at the beginning of last year. At some point during the season, Jalen Jones, who was a seventh round pick for them last year, gets inserted into the starting lineup, like around week five or so, and he becomes somebody that gets a lot of snaps over the course of the year with Brent's on the other side. Rodney Thomas, who was a seventh round pick for them in 2022, played a lot of. a lot at safety for them, but so did Nick Cross, who's a second year player, and Julian Blackman. So those are

and obviously, we know who Kenny Moore is. We don't have to spend time talking about Kenny Moore. Kenny Moore is a very good slot player. So what happened with the other guys? And here's, I think, what the Colts would tell you about this. Brent is the second round pick. Brinz is going to get every single chance to be that guy, and he

had some good moments, even if it was up and down. On the other side, that's where you could potentially try to add a body on the outside. The guy's available in free. agency. Should there be a Woozier, Kendall Fuller, with Jerry a Sneed via trades, you've had to give up a pick and give a monster contract. I don't think they necessarily saw any of those guys as dramatic enough improvements over what they already had. And a lot of guys that are going to be getting their third

contracts in the case of a Woozier and Kendall Fuller that were worth blocking the possible development of somebody like Jalen Jones on the other side. And I get that. And I think if you watched Jalen Jones last year, there was enough that you saw from him where it's like, okay. Like, I would rather bet on another step forward from him rather than paying for someone we felt like was a modest upgrade. And there are a lot of those corners who are 29, 30 years old, who've had injury problems over the last couple of years that you would be giving a third contract to. So that I understand. At safety, I thought Blackman played really well closer to the ball last year, as opposed to just being a true center fielder. He played closer to

the ball than he ever has consistently. I actually thought it was a good role for him. And he comes back on a modest salary because the safety market tanked. Really, only one guy got money. So that I get, and I do think Nick Cross heading into year three, really, really good athlete.

Shocker is a Colts draft pick. He's only 22. And he was starting to figure it out over the course of last season. So I get it. I think that it's a risk. I think you're aiming for the middle. But I don't necessarily think

that there were a lot of guaranteed long-term upgrades available to you in free agency and them spending their first two picks the way they did. With Latsu in the first round and Mitchell in the second round, I would rather invest in those two position groups and potential improvements in those two position groups than maybe getting an up-ticket corner based on what we had last year. Yeah, that's kind of where I fell coming into this also. Like I understand their thinking in this. Like you said, there wasn't a lot of

free agent upgrades that would have been really worth that investment. I kind of push back on Sneed because they were apparently like the first real rumored interested team.

And I understand kind of balking at that when we all thought like he was going to go for a first round pick. But for him to go eventually for a 2025 third. And for a Colts team that's still $28 million over the cap, again, like you are giving Sneed a top of the market deal, but like it not really because it was only $19 million. We kind of seen the corner market really kind of stagnate at the top there. And you can structure it in a way. Right now he's hitting the cap for $9.9 million for Tennessee.

So like there's certainly a way where like the Colts have this money. Like they, could have had a move like that kind of in their arsenal and they just haven't really ever wanted to pull the trigger on something like that, which I think that was kind of the move that was there for them to make. And I think I would have felt better about

this if they did because then you have that one corner spot there and you can use either you know, Brent or Flowers or Jalen Jones and you can kind of have them compete for the other outside corner spot, which I think probably puts them in a much better spot than having

those three compete for the two outside corner spots. Again, like, this team was fine in coverage last year, but again, like, not something that you really want to, like, double down on. They were, you know, 19th in DBOA against number one receivers, 27th against number twos, and 18th against other receivers. Brent's, if you look at, like, adjusted yards allowed per coverage snap, which kind of just using, like, the PFR formula, which takes touchdowns and interceptions

and kind of puts it into yards per coverage snap. He was 130th among 150 corners with 100 cover snap. So not great. Jaylon Jones was 65th, but he's actually like would have been better with just raw yards per cover snap because he gave up a couple of touchdowns,

no interceptions, but like he was much better. And Flowers was good early in the year and then he has the Achilles injury, misses the rest of the year. So and again, like you can hope that's good, but is he going to return? to full strength, so you're kind of already down a little bit there. So it's tough. I do like what they did as safety. I was very surprised Julian Blackman was not one of the guys that got a little bit

more on the safety market for as the safety market was down. He was a guy I thought did play really well in that spot. He's a guy who can be versatile. He played well near the ball, but again, can move around a bit. So to get him back for the deal that they did was excellent. Also kind of surprised that they did that. I don't disagree with you about Sneat. If it were, it's not my money. If I were in that spot, I probably would have tried to do something aggressive there

because I think he's a really good player. My sense is that they could not get there with the medical stuff. And that's something that is always going to be different from team to team and how much risk each individual team is going to incur for a guy who has concerns about that knee with the top of the market deal.

And I think ultimately that's probably what scared them on. from it. Yeah. So that makes sense. But again, you're just kind of, you're, you're really banking on development in a scheme that is not necessarily going to help these guys out. Again, like, it's still, it's, this team still led the league in, in cover three, 54.5% of their passing place. They wanted two teams who did it over 50% last year. Like, this is, this is still that defense while the rest of the league kind of moves away from that. It's like, this is still, what, it's, is. So you are just, you're really banking on a lot of development. And I think you're kind of

hoping for the high range of that development too, because if they're just kind of the same as what they were, the defense is going to hold you back. There's no doubt about that. I get why they went the direction they did with their first two picks, though. If we're going to say that, you know, the free agent guys are maybe a little bit rich. And again, you get a little bit older, not drafting a quarter in the first couple of rounds. If you look at their defensive line, watching that defense over the last couple of days, there's so much power and strength across the board. Having somebody who is more skilled as a rusher and just like a specialist in that way with Latu, I think makes perfect sense when you look at the players they already have, and they need a guy

like Eddie Mitchell. If you look at what Alec Pierce was, they just don't have somebody who can separate down the field. They don't. And the hope is that Mitchell can be one of those guys as a vertical player. And Steg can talk about it. separation at the top of routes, I mean, what he can do in that area, I think in an ideal world,

he pairs very well with Pittman. So if you can get upgrades from those two position groups and maybe live with middle of the road play in the secondary, I think that's the plan. We'll see how well that comes together. All right, last one here.

We have the same question about the Jags, essentially. We're going to stay in the same general ballpark. What is your lingering question about the 2023 Jaguars? why are you the way you are on offense all right expand on that this this is just

it's an offense that kind of has had the same type of questions for the past three years and while I was like kind of doing some research into like looking up what has gone on with the Jaguar's offense I accidentally clicked on headlines of can the Jaguar's offense be fixed from 2021 and 2022 as I was

doing this. I've had those discussions many times on this program. So this is a familiar place for me. I think my overall question is just the structure of this offense, right? You kind of go back to, we can throw out 2021 because it was just an absolutely insane thing for Jacksonville in all areas. But 2022, this was an offense that just kind of didn't have a lot of juice. And I know you guys talked about this all the time on this show. And it was just something where they didn't have the trust in the offensive line to figure it out. And they didn't really have a way to generate explosives. Eventually, and I kind of, I wrote about this in the FTN almanac last year is midseason, there was a shift. They figured out if we can just do quick game, have Trevor get the ball out

quickly. We can kind of create some stuff after the catch. That's the way we're kind of going to get around some of this stuff because we don't have anyone who's going to win downfield. We can use an Evan Ingram or whatever. So Lawrence kind of upped his like a zero to one step drops from 23% to 31% over the second half of the season, right? And I absolutely hate it. It is gross football. So that like, yeah, so that kind of worked over the second half of the 2020 season.

But we get to 2023, Calvin Ridley is supposed to be the guy who's going to stretch the field, be able to create that vertical element, and it just didn't treat him like that at all. It ended up kind of regressing back to what they kind of use out as a default in 2022. So there's just not a lot of structure to this offense that kind of really builds upon stretching things vertically. and it really just kind of limits what this offense can do. And I'm not sure if the Jaguars or the people in charge of the offense believe that's a problem. Because I think if you go back to Doug Peterson after the season, he had a press conference. And I just want to read this quote because it may be kind of infuriated.

When you struggle offensively like we did at times, I don't care who's calling the plays. you might as well look at that thing with your eyes closed and just pick a play. I've been there. You're trying to find that one play or spark that it's going to get the offense rolling. With the struggles we had at times, it's a difficult thing to do. Whether it's the run game or pass game, then you look at the amount of turnovers. You go up and down the field, you turn the ball over, you just can't do this. It's not play calling. It's not scheme or the design of plays, just having the urgency of we need to protect the football better. That is insane watching that offense and like saying, Trevor, you need to stop.

throwing picks, which was not... I think that is a diplomatic answer given during a press conference. I do think that, based on my understanding of the situation, they have taken more of a critical eye to what that offense was last year. And I think your point about the explosives is 100% correct. But this is my issue with watching the jacks. And again, this is stuff we've talked about. When you don't trust the offensive line, things start to short circuit.

Because now things get all quick game and get so condensed. that people can just sit on your shit. You go back and you watch their game against the Niners. That's the worst case scenario, where he's just getting the ball quickly every single time, and they're squatting on it so hard, the entire offense starts to feel convinced. And the number you had about the one zero one step drops,

my version of that was Trevor last year through the second most dropbacks of two or fewer seconds in the entire NFL. Only Tua had more than him. They were 24th in EPA per playoff. those plays. So if you're throwing the ball in less than two seconds all the time and you're shitty at it, that's a good place to start if you want to have a bad offense and a hard-to-watch offense. And I think that was right. One of my favorite things about watching this team play is when

they get Trevor on the move off movement throws and play action. He's such a good athlete. He's so good at throwing on the move. Let's have more of that. But the problem is you can't lean into that if you have a gun run game that isn't tied to that sort of under center play action game. So I feel like that's an area where they could do a better job of seeking out some cohesion within the offense. They ran way too much shit last year in the run game and they did way too much of it out of the gun. So if you pair that down with an improved offensive line and you try to tie that paired down under center run game with a play action game that allows you to seek out more explosive plays.

To me, that is the starting point of how you break out of some of this malaise. And I think they do understand that. Maybe I'm overstanding it, but I think they do understand that. Yeah, it's tough because they clearly did not trust either

that offensive line or that run game. They were 32nd in DVOA on second and short, 28th on third and short. It just... They just threw the ball. That's what they did. They threw the ball in those plays. And And again, like you said, that's tough because you can just kind of sit deep. And you kind of look at what they were doing.

They were eight and three at one point. But like the offense still wasn't really that great at that time. So there was a stretch of... Always frustrating even if functional. Yeah. But there was a stretch from weeks 11 to 13, which I think Trevor had his best stretch. I think they went three and one in. that or two and one there was a loss there but it was easily his his best stretch where they were

they had longer developing plays right he was able to sit in the pocket a little more he had a higher a dot than he had in any other game he had a 10.1 a dot in those games 7.8 in all the other ones only 54.5% of his throws were under two and a half seconds it was 66.7% in all other games there were more crossers that he was throwing. He was throwing deep more. And only under 50% of his deep passes were on go routes. It was 60% or 61% in other places. So it was just a very static type of offense.

And that's even the thing that I'm kind of worried about going forward. Even kind of the vertical element that they were able to find was a lot of go routes. And I think one of the biggest kind of red flags of a broken offense is against the blitz if a quarterback is just throwing deep and throw it goes. And that's kind of what Trevor was was doing last year. He had the highest rate of deep passes. And I think Levis was second. They were like one and two. So these are the offenses we're talking about. Like when you don't have easy answers like that. And like that's when you're trying to throw explosives. Okay, these guys are coming. Let's just chuck it deep. Like that's not a functional offense. And that is really,

like it was one of the things that just kind of made you go crazy watching. this offense where it could have been like and Calvin Ridley was really supposed to be that guy and now like you as you have Gabe Davis like Brian Thomas is is fun but again like that's putting a lot on his plate to be that guy as a rookie now so you do have these kind of vertical elements but I'm not totally sure if like those are the pieces that are really going to be the answers to the questions that that you need to solve so that is kind of why I'm still a little down like even if I'm clearly from the personnel that they added, they do realize they need more vertical elements. I'm just not totally sure

with the play calling and the personnel that they actually got in if that is exactly who is going to be able to get to the kind of ideal version of what this offense could potentially be, probably what Trevor is at his best at when he is kind of throwing downfield. I really hope we get some big crossers

from Brian Thomas. That's his role within the offense. The reason and the benefit to having Gabe Davis is, you can pop him outside the numbers and you can move everyone else around and that's what they didn't do with Ridley last year and I think they learned their lesson or at least I hope they did.

So I'm hoping that Brian Thomas isn't just a vertical outside the numbers player for them because if he is, I think they're going to be in trouble. He cannot be that within this offense if we're going to see the best version of this offense.

Yeah, and that's one of the things the crossers just like disappeared from that offense last year. Slants too. There's no catch and run opportunities whatsoever. And again, And I think they have a sense of that.

The question is, can you build a system with that sort of stuff in it around this group of players? Yeah, I think that's my question. And if the play calling is going to be kind of like you said, just kind of in conjunction with what this offense kind of should be. Because there were just, it was scattered all over the place. There was not a lot of connected stuff. Like you said, it was the quick game. It was kind of some of the struggles we saw, and the Bengals were eventually able to kind of fix it, but they had a very unconnected, you know, quick passing game and the run game. They were eventually able to kind of do a lot of stuff out of that, and they were able to kind of fix it.

But again, you're working with, you know, Jamart Chase and T. Higgins in the passing game, which is a much different, you know, type of problem solving that you're able to do. You have slightly easier answers for some of that, and it was kind of fixing the run game on top of it. man, I just, I really want to like what they're doing. Like I, I'm not going to be in like the, the, the, the, the Trevor is absolutely great and he is flawless and he is without fault here. But when you kind of just watch when he was able to kind of do stuff that he was good at, like, it was good stuff. Like, that three game stretch from weeks 11 to 13, like when that is the kind of ideal version of what this offense could be. and then that kind of went away also as the season continued to go along.

I also hope the offensive line improvements go a long way. Bringing in Mitch Morris just as a veteran presence, you hope that helps in protection. I mean, that's been a consistent issue for them. They've obviously had a rotating door at left tackle because guys have been hurt.

Anton Harrison in year two, you'd hope that they can get better play from that group overall. And if you do have a little bit more confidence in that offensive line, does it expand the types of things you can do in your passing game and allow you to push the ball

a little bit more and if things not feel as condensed and just again margin for error you go back to it it's just you have to be perfect when you're playing the way that they were because of the lack of fate they had and their ability to hold up up front and that's just not sustainable so we'll see if they can step outside of that here in what is a very important year for that quarterback that coaching staff and that organization in general dan bezuda really really really appreciate the time sir tell people where they can find whatever you're working on right now. Yeah, so right now you can find me at the 33rd team doing still a whole bunch of offseason content.

You find me coming up in the FTN Almanac. I am doing the NFC North chapters. Nice. Yeah, that is exciting four teams to be diving into at this time. God, this music to my ears, man. The fact that the bears can be included in that, it just is it lumping those teams in together. It's a long time coming, sir. I'll tell you that right now.

Yeah, very exciting. So I have that, in the middle of working on that right now, I believe that's coming out early July, so keep an eye out. Oh, wow, a little early this year, huh? I believe so. I don't want to...

Oh, man, that's fun. Too much, but yeah, that's sometime there. I've been reading the Football Outsiders Almanac since you were a wee one. So it's one of my favorite publications every single year. Me too. The fact that I've been able to do it, this is going to be my fifth one.

So that is... It's super cool, yeah. I mean the first one I bought It was the 2008 version And it had like Namthe Asamo On the cover and we're talking like physical book That I had on my bookshelf I mean I've had that thing

I think Barnwall was already writing For them back then Which would have been very funny It was been years before we started working together But I think 2008 is whatever I think it might even been earlier than that But I wasn't even in football media I was like a college kid

And I just got the football outsider's alman act Because I was an absolute loser So that's where we are Dan Pizzuta, really appreciate the time, sir. We will talk to you very soon. All right, guys, that's all we got. Sincerely appreciate Dan's time. This is going to be running when I'm on vacation,

so I can't really tell you what's coming next. But there will be at least one show on the feed every single week, even while I am gone. And we will be back with you guys very soon. So just keep an eye on your phones and whatever's coming your way. In the meantime, appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.

Thank you.