The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Lingering Questions about the NFC West

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

What lingering questions about the NFC West remain from the 2023 season? Shawn Syed of SumerSports joins Robert Mays to talk about the Cardinals, Rams, Seahawks and 49ers.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube 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. Good show for you guys today. We're continuing our lingering questions series. We've done six divisions so far. This is our seventh. We're doing the NFC West today.

For those of you who haven't listened to other shows in this series, I wanted to go back and just look at some of the questions that we felt like were unanswered from the 2023 season. That's for a variety of reasons. We're going to talk about the Cardinals today. I don't think. a lot of people watch a lot of Arizona Cardinals football down the back half of the

2023 season. So what that run game looked like when they were succeeding? What Dr. McBride looked like? We're going to talk a little bit about that today. I don't think a lot of people watched the Arizona Cardinals defense last year. What was the Cardinals defense? So those are the types of things we've been digging into with pretty much every single division. We're hitting the NFC

West today with my friend Sean Siyadh from Sumer Sports. Does a great job over there. You know, does a ton of film stuff on Twitter and, you know, somebody that watches a ton of football and really was excited to get his insight on all of the teams in the NFC West and what he was taking a look at. So let's get to it. Joining us now for the seventh of eight shows we're doing for this lingering question series.

It is Sean Siyadh from Sumer Sports. Sean, how you doing, man? Robert, I'm doing great. I'm so glad that we got the NFC West to talk about. I think such an interesting division. I'm excited to get into it. Yeah, I saved a good one for you. As I was going through my list of people I wanted to have on for these and I tried to zero

went on like the seven or eight biggest film nerds that I could think of. You were definitely on that short list. So I was excited to include you and very happy that you got a very interesting division. Even the quote unquote bad teams in this division are some of the, I mean, there's really only one like quote unquote bad team in this division. But the bad team in this division is one of the ones I was most looking forward to as part of this exercise because they were interesting in a bad way or bad in an interesting way. And I think that's exactly what makes for a ripe discussion when you're looking at it

through this lens. So let's start with that team because I really wanted to dig into the Arizona Cardinals as part of this entire thing. What is your lingering question from 2023 about the Arizona Cardinals? You know, teams that just don't have that many expectations, they're so fun to watch because, you know, when we get to Seattle, like, I was getting frustrated just watching Gino run around. But in Arizona, just throw whatever you want at the wall.

I think on offense. It's so true. It's the best. And on offense, when Kyle Burr returned, they were second in the league in rushing EPA for play. They used a ton of different personnel. They really undressed the Cowboys and the Eagles. And it felt like there was the bones of something there.

So my learning question for the Cardinals is how many of those kind of fun offensive scheme wrinkles that Arizona showed in 2023, how many of those can become the foundation for a competitive offense on a winning team? All right. So let's explore that road. What of those wrinkles? which of those wrinkles do you think is more than an oddity or a curiosity moving forward as you kind of graft it on to the 2024 Cardinals?

Robert, I'm just a sucker for a team that uses heavy personnel really well. I don't know. I don't think it's an old school thing. If anything, I feel like it's more hipster now. You bring out two tight ends in the run game. Latcher, they led the league in 13 personnel. And when Murray was back, they were ninth and 12 personnel. I was watching the film.

I assumed, okay, Collar Murray is going to be this huge kind of bump. But really, you know, James Connor, I feel like was a huge beneficiary where linebackers have to flow over just a little bit extra. And Connor ended up leading the league and mistackle. So that heavy personnel, and I think Drew Petsig has a chance to just solidify himself as an upper, upper tier offensive coordinator this season. So from the start, you know, that heavy personnel, but then finding ways, hey, we're going to spread you out, for example, in that Cowboys game and still be able to kind of run on you.

And I look at this. And I think that obviously the offensive line and the talent level on the offensive line was a concern last year and is a concern moving forward. And they drafted Isaiah Adams in the third round. I think he'll probably have a pretty good chance to start fairly early. They go out and get Jonah Williams in free agency. They move Paris Johnson over to the left side. In theory, the offensive line should be improved.

Outside of that, is this just as simple as we're going to plug Marvin Harrison, Jr. into the offensive equation we had last year and profit? Or do you think that there are things they'll have to tweak, things they'll have to change, considering the offensive and past catching personnel specifically? I mean, there are worse players to plug into your offense than Marvin Harrison Jr. That is for sure. I think that I'm going to be interested to see just like, what does Tray McBride's usage look like? Because I just keep convincing myself.

Like, I keep falling deeper and deeper in love with the idea of Tray McBride here, where he's a willing enough blocker. And teams now, I think, on offense, just do a better job of making sure your tight end is blocking down the line of scrimmage with leverage instead of seeing like a tied end one-on-one with Miles Garrett. And McBride, he was second in the league in yards per round. route run. He had a higher on catch, on target catch percentage than George Kittle. You can get them in all these different routes. So I mean, I think if you throw him in, you're getting some development there. My concern becomes a little bit like just Kyle Murray, he just doesn't really love the kind of intermediate middle of the field area. He had three of his interceptions in that area last year and that kind of 10 to 20 between the, uh, the kind of hash is between the numbers

area? So I don't know. Is Drew Petzig going to be able to access that area with Kyler? One of the things I really enjoyed watching the way they used Trey McBride last year is that these aren't just like underneath tight end targets. These are vertical sort of targets. I mean, he's an integral piece in high value touches within that offense. And I wonder how that calculus changes when you draft the tight end or excuse me, when you draft a wide receiver in the top five. Like, is he going to be a focus in that area the same way he was last year? That's almost more of a fantasy concern than it is like a real life football concern. but how McBride's usage and deployment within the offense might shift when you have a,

hopefully a true blue number one receiver in the mix, that's one of my big questions as I look at this year's Cardinals and what it might look like. Yeah, I think they should occupy a little bit different areas of the field. I think a lot of times they liked having, you know, that kind of Y, Y wing set to one side, two receivers open to the other side. Like you're literally splitting the field in half at some point and let Harrison work one way, let Trey McBride work the other way. And you have to think that, you know, if you have another.

guy in there that's able to stretch that field vertical, you can, you can attack every single part of the field. And it's funny to think, think about the Arizona Cardinals who are not favorites to win this division in any way, but I don't know. I mean, they're going to be at the top of my offensive watch list, certainly early in the season. When you're talking about Drew Petsing and his chance to be kind of one of the top or, I don't know, let's not throw a number on it. One of the guys from a play calling perspective, somebody who's consistently lifting his group and his offense as a whole. What do you think is, are the things that he needs? to do, they can kind of take him to that next level, in your opinion?

I think having the consistency with Kyler Murray and continuing to kind of meld these concepts that, you know, they feel a little bit spready, but you can get them into kind of power formation. So, for example, last year, they would run this kind of read option with two tight ends ends to one side. And it's just, I was like, oh, that's really, that's a thoughtful way to use a concept that your quarterback is comfortable with, but include your personality in that kind of heavy set. So I keep thinking about that middle of the field area, you know, I would love to just see open guys there. I feel like then we say, hey, you know, maybe this is more on the quarterback than the play caller. But after, you know, you think about that Cowboys game, that Eagles game also

just really, really, like, I think the word undressing is so true where you have a play caller that is just manipulating a team formationally. And I would love to continue to see that. We're talking about until we're blue in the face how many times teams are going to play light boxes. And, you know, I want to see a, we'd like to see Petsig maybe get a win in some wins and division this year. Watching their run game last year, what was striking to me is that when you have the diversity in the run game that this team brought to the table, it's usually a manifestation of the talent that you have up front.

The Browns are like this. The Lions are like this. The Browns and the Lions have two of the best offensive lines in the league when healthy. One of the reasons you can play that way when you're Cleveland, which is where Drew Pritzing was before he came to Arizona, is that you have Joel Botonio and Wyatt Teller. You have one of the most, if not the most expensive guard groups in the entire league. They didn't have that in Arizona, and it didn't stop them from throwing an insane amount of shit against the wall and just seeing what stuck. I think the only team to have two pullers on a higher number of run plays in the NFL last year than the Cardinals was the Ravens.

And the Browns were actually third. So you have this group of journeymen and Yelta Frohold who was on the back of the Browns roster for a while before being thrust in the lineup in 2022. and they're running the same bag of stuff that a team like the Lions does who has committed more resources to their offensive line than virtually any team in the league. So that's what's interesting is that they were able to kind of do things that are typically more reserved for talented teams. And I wonder with a bigger injection of talent, what does that ultimately look like? And I thought he really did a good job, like implementing these concepts that Iler was using when he was at Oklahoma, where you're, it looks. looks like you're running read option, but then the running back kind of pops out and blocks that edge defender. So it's like it has the feel of a regular run play, but hey, now this is like a more

college kind of concept. So to me, at least watching the film, it seems like he's someone that's open-minded to concepts that that his team understands. And yeah, if you go from having all this fun already, now we throw some extra talent in it. Like I think Marvin Harrison, Jr., obviously he's not going to be Devante Adams in year one. But I think of how many times the Raiders face that, you know, cover two shell and how much space that opened up for Josh Jacobs, if you're years ago. So hopefully, you know, Arizona can kind of do that as well. Yeah, you look at the group that they have and Greg Dorch, Michael Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Jr., like the skill sets make sense. They have Zach Paskell who can be that kind of big blocking slot for you. And then bring

Tip Ryman in next to Tray McBride. It makes sense. Tip Ryman weighs 270 pounds. Like if Tray McBride is going to be somebody you need to lean on as a pass catcher, if you look at the collection of skill sets within their skill position group, it actually does track. And that's why I'm very curious to see what it ultimately looks like. All right. Let's get to the other side of the ball because this to me was like a black box. We watched the Cardinals offense as part of this show last year because, you know, I've known Drew for years.

I really respect the way he goes about the job. I think that he was an interesting name when he got the job to be an offensive coordinator. And I think that he really acquitted himself very well in year one without a lot of talent. And that's even before Kyler got there. on defense, there's no Kyler Murray walking through that door on defense. There's not even a Shrey McBride

walking through that door on defense. I don't think many people spent a ton of time watching the Cardinals defense last season. So my question was pretty simply, what was the Cardinals defense last season and what can we take from that group moving forward? And you look at it, I appreciate teams with next to no talent

on one side of the ball who just say, we're going to do the weirdest shit imaginable. Like, that's what we know we have to do. And if you look at the Cardinals, we're talking like extreme rates in a couple of specific areas, almost similar to what a team like the Vikings did last year, where it's like, we have no talent, so we're just going to turn up these dials as much as we possibly can. The Cardinals ran quarters coverage last year on 30.4% of their snaps. There was only one other team above 25% in that five-year span.

Last year's Texans and the 2022 Jets were the only other team. above 20%. So that's how much of an outlier this group was. But then you look at some of the ways that they did it and they were getting to it in all these funky, with all these funky mechanisms, they would have like a five high shell to start a play. And then they drop Buddha Baker down into like a hook curl sort of area. And he would play like a linebacker because they'd only have one linebacker on the field. So they're doing that kind of stuff consistently. their edges dropped almost as much as any other team in the NFL. We'd made that joke, and we'll talk about this,

with guys like Michael Hoyt and the way the Rams were using their edges last year. Among players of at least 20% of their team's snaps on defense, Dennis Gardak, Zaven Collins, and B.J.O. Jolari, all ranked in the top five in the percentage of their snaps when they dropped back into coverage. All of them were around like 30%. And the only other two guys in that mix were Michael Hoyt and Andrew Van Ginkle, who is now part of that.

weird-ass Vikings defense. So that's what this team was. It was just a lot of oddies, a lot of things where it's like, we know we can't just line up and play. So we have to do some weird stuff. The end result was them being the worst defense in the NFL. So I don't know how much of this stuff worked or how much of this stuff you can carry over. But from a general schematic level, that was my takeaway from watching the Cardinals defense last

year. Rob, I love that you bury the lead there at the end with them being statistically one of the worst defense, but I agree with you. Not a lot of people watched the Cardinals defense last year, but I can tell you for certain, a lot of high school coaches did because they're also trying to solve some of the issues, whether it's lack of defensive personnel or you want to be able to stop the zone run game while still out being safe, having numbers kind of back in the past game. So a lot of high school coaches, I can tell you that they really watched a lot of it.

But I enjoyed it. Frankly, I enjoyed it. And it might just be a, hey, low expectations thing, but kind of watching the Texans game back where, yeah, they're going to run quarters. They're going to get to it from these pretty funky ways. But you'll see the safeties kind of turn in and face each other when they're expecting a crossing route coming the other way. And that's something that, like when I turn the Ravens film on for the last few years,

that's something you see from them. And I love that. So it's like, all right, well, you have a fundamental that's kind of in there. And then you hope that there's an infusion of talent. Now is, is Fred Warner walking through the door? Certainly not. The lineback and core, you know, it is certainly what it is. like the idea that you're just manipulating defense of personnel.

So I don't know, whatever the training camp practices is like who can be a little bit weirder today. It feels like that might be the leading way there. We're going to have a similar conversation with the Rams. And again, two defenses that we didn't, I don't think a lot of people watched at length last season. And I learned a lot about when going back to watch them. And it really helped put their off seasons into context for me.

Because when I went back and watched the Cardinals defense and then you look at the way they spent money this off season, going out to get guys. as like Ballal Nichols or Justin Jones. And I was kind of like, okay, like these are rotational defensive players that they're spending sticker prices on each guy now on his third or fourth contract. It's like, what is that really going to do for you? And then you look at the level of talent that they were dealing with on the interior of the defensive line last year.

It's like, oh, okay, that makes a lot more sense. You go out and sign Mack Wilson and free agency. And all right, he's going to be a starter for you. And you look at what was happening next to Kaiser White last. year. And like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. The same thing goes with the deep and its back depth that they built this offseason in the draft.

I mean, they took a lot of swings in the second, third, middle rounds to kind of build out that group. And I think it really does align with the weaknesses you saw in their personnel. So where I kind of had some questions about, is this really what you guys needed? Is this really the best way to wield all of that flexibility and free agency? I actually do think it was a smart way to build out kind of the connective tissue of the roster when you consider how weak some of those areas were last year. Yeah, you think that the only way is up.

You're hoping that you're not going to end up in that 29, 30, 31 kind of amongst a lot of those rankings. And certainly this team is going to be offense led if that offense, you know, ends up pushing that top 12 kind of range in a few metrics. Defense just has to be league average, right, Robert? They don't have to be world beaters this year. So I like that you mention that just having pieces that can raise the floor just enough, you know just enough that when we're watching, we can watch some of those fun pastic snaps,

because hopefully this year they're not just going to run over that same way in the run game. And that you look at its really specific weaknesses. Like the interior of the defensive line, they have two to three new starters in that area this year makes total sense. I think, I thought Antonio Hamilton actually gave them some decent snaps last year and outside corner. And I understand why there wasn't a market for Antonio Hamilton and free agency this year. He's 31 years old. He's been a journeyman. But I'm actually kind of intrigued about him being in the mix for that second outside corner.

spot in Atlanta after going back to watch him. But on the other side of Antonio Hamilton, the cornerback room was just a vortex last season. So going out, and again, Sean Murphy Bunting is a perfect example. Like, I don't think you can get overly excited about that, but putting in capable NFL players to some of these spots is going to go a long way. But beyond some of the guys that were on, that are new on the roster, I was actually pretty impressed with a couple of the pieces that some guys I was sort of familiar with,

other guys that wasn't necessarily that familiar with. Jaylen Thompson, who they signed to a contract extension, I believe last year, he's a real player at safety. Jalen Thompson is a good NFL player, and that's somebody you can build with moving forward. Another guy that I was more impressed with than I expected to be, and he got a decent amount of snaps to them last year, is this guy, Victor Demukhiji, who is like a rotational edge player, and he's got a little bit to him. He's never going to be like a full-time starter for you, but now you go draft Darius Robinson in the first round. you theoretically have more depth. You can slide some of these guys into a more rotational role.

That's somebody I was impressed with. And I honestly thought that BJ O'Jolari for wing 240 pounds was a lot more game to play the run than I expected him to be. So that's why it's fun to do this exercise because you go back and it's like, oh, that guy's kind of interesting. That guy's kind of interesting.

And you get a glimpse of maybe what this group can be as they start to add more talent. It all starts to kind of come together in a different way. Yeah. And of course, we've spent how many years, you know, talking about, Boudi Baker in just a really unique role last year. I think you hope that, you know, his play,

whatever kind of locker room attitude he has, that can sort of elevate those young pieces as well. And then you look at the depth chart, you're like, oh, Kairas Tonga, like I've seen him make some plays for the Vikings, and you're just adding on piece by piece solely but surely to be a competent defense, where we can be excited about the offense

and then just not discouraged by the defense, but I'm sure some of the other teams we talk about, they're going to do their best to make it pretty hard on these guys. And the last stat I was going to throw out there, they dropped eight the second most times in the league last year. The only team to do it more than them was the Minnesota Vikings. So when you're talking about teams just throwing as much weirdness as they can at you because they know they don't have the horses, that was Nick Rawls, the defensive coordinator and those Arizona Cardinals from last year. Let's get to our next one here. The Los Angeles Rams.

What is your lingering question from 2023 about the Los Angeles Rams? Yeah, with the Rams, obviously Puku and Nakua just such a fun story, such an unconstitutional. unbelievable season. He was so important to the Rams offense. He played that at a zero receiver spot and consistently caught intermediate inbreakers on the backside of concepts. He didn't really overlap with Cooper Cups roll. And obviously, you know, it helps when you get a Matthew Stafford heater season. And then in the run game, I mean, he's he's moving people around. He is a willing blocker. He can flip numbers in an instant. So after that crazy season, I just want to know, you know, what is Pukunuku's next step going to be? And what does that mean for the evolution of the

Rams offense. So when you said you wanted to talk about this, I was really interested in it because I was wondering why, because he played so well. But I understand being like, okay, this is the version we got as a rookie where he does kind of this hyper-specific role that really not a lot of other players or receivers in the NFL or even almost asked to do. How can he kind of take a step from that niche version of himself within this offense, even if his production was great, to being maybe a fully fledged, like one of the best

receivers in the league type guy? I assume that's what you were talking about when you're saying, all right, what is the next step for him to kind of move outside of that role? And I'm curious where you think he goes from here. Well, even just asking the question, I think if he could play the same role, that's totally fine.

But my, really, Robert, it's a way to ask the Cooper Cup question because I, I don't know what we're going to see. Yeah, I don't know what we're going to see from Cup going forward.

I would love nothing more than for him to be healthy. Like, if you could drop 21-21 Cooper Cup and this, how fun would that be? I think this is like Cups first offseason where he's going into the offseason healthy. Stafford just, he has it, right? I'm just not really concerned there.

And like I said, it's not a place where Couguin and Cooper Cup are occupying the same role. But I mean, Nukui, he was able to be just like a target vacuum at times last year. So for me, it's like, hey, if Cup is, you know, is he like looking a little bit at that receiver cliff, then, you know, what does McVeigh do for the offense? Where when Kevin O'Connell had Justin Jefferson, you know, they changed a lot of their verbiage and move things around in different ways because they didn't want Jefferson just to be in the Cooper Cup role.

So is it something where like, hey, like Pugatiku is going to be moving around, even more than it was last year, taking up a different kind of way. So Robert, you know, I obviously don't want to talk about injuries and health and things like that, but I feel like my thought on this question is more like,

you know, does he have to continue to just like, you know, take a little bit off of Cooper Cup? So let's do, let's play two kind of pads here. Let's walk down two different paths. let's say Cooper Cup is an expected version with one more year of mileage from the guy that we saw a couple of years ago. He's 80% of 2021-2020-2 Cooper Cup. What do you think that means for the Pukinakua role within this offense? I think at that point it can kind of stay exactly the same.

I think that, you know, they have a vert. They will have vertical stretch receivers. Obviously, I know McVeigh would have loved to have Brock Bowers there. But, you know, maybe that Pugua Naku is, he's the primary. target. He's the first option on some of these concepts as opposed to, hey, I can look at Cups, see if he wins kind of on that shake 101 and turn back to Nekua. And going through the film, that was what was almost a little crazy for me is like he is eating up all of these numbers. And he's on the backside a lot of time. Like, it's not that that this is being run specifically

for him. Now, Stafford does a lot to manipulate that. I know, make he can probably feel with decent confidence that that role is going to be open. But, you know, if you go from being the backside receiver to say, hey, you know, you are the primary target. You're not just an alert. like that touchdown against the eagles where he's just running vertical, just like right by a guy for six points. So, you know, Sean McPay, you know,

let us know. I'd love to see what happens. Okay, so let's play the other one. Let's say Cooper Cup is either significantly diminished or misses time, and extensive time into this season. What do you think that means for the sort of usage and deployment we would see from Puka Nakua moving forward?

Yeah, I think at that point then, it feels like Nukua becomes more of like, hey, we're going to use this guy on that specific, like outside to inside motion or even just like across the formation and and be able to use that kind of running start to make him the primary target on some of these things where you know you see two to at while running like down the the seahawks secondary just free kind of off that motion so it feels

like at that point then you know mcvay knows obviously he has an extremely talented player we're going to see him in the run game obviously a ton we have to for them to be able to do what they want to do but then maybe it means for the offense that they are just continue to lean into that downhill gap scheme run game and maybe the time total dropbacks goes down a little bit. You know, Stafford, it's not like he was in the top five in total dropbacks this year. And I would expect him to almost maybe even continue to fall at that point. It's funny that you point out that touchdown against the Eagles, because that's the type of play

and the type of moment where it's like, okay, if he can establish himself even a little bit in that area of the field where you have to respect him as any sort of vertical presence. And I know that's not how he's mostly used. But if that's just a bag or a club that he can have in his bag moving forward, then things become really, really interesting. Because he was used in such a specific way last year. I was looking at the numbers. He ran 115 in-cuts last season, according to PFF.

That was the most in the NFL, like pretty clearly the most in the NFL. And then there were a lot of corner routes relative to other guys at the position. Like, that's mostly what happened is he was running in-cuts, corner routes, crossers and screens. So if there's any sort of extension of his game where he can be in scattered moments, kind of vertical outside of the number sort of threat when necessary, then I think that's like the one layer we haven't really seen yet. But with the other guys within the offense, whether it's to Marcus Robinson, two, two,

et well, whatever, when everyone is healthy, he doesn't necessarily need to play that role. But that's the one thing we really haven't seen from him if we're looking for something to expand just maybe a little bit. Yeah. And I don't necessarily expect him to be running choice routes like Cooper Cup is and really giving that shake. Because like you said, that, you know, that's not what he's asked to do. and you hope that the Rams, you know, they certainly lean into like biometric and health data and things like that.

You hope that they know exactly how Cooper Cup is doing through the offseason. You hope that they can, you know, either delode him or, you know, figure out the ways that, hey, he's going to be his absolute best on Sunday. But, Robert, you know, in Los Angeles, I'm just, I'm just thinking about, like, the team chefs. Because for them to add that much beef up front, like that is, that is going to be, I think, a lot of fun where Nekua, you know, exactly like you said, if he can get just, you know, right in a little bit vertical, then what do you do as a defense when they add that much weight, little weight inside, they can run at you, they can throw Stafford and hit every single blade of grass on the field at that point. Yeah, when I was going back and rewatching a lot of the Pukinakua targets from last year, that ability to hold up and the integrity of the pocket and the interior is just so crucial to this team specifically

because of Stafford's willingness to go to the backside on that stuff. It almost becomes a very simple equation. If he has time, this team becomes terrifying. And so overly committing and overinvesting in the interior of the offensive line specifically in order to make sure you're checking that box as part of this equation on offense, I understand it. Like they paid a premium for it. But if you can keep that guy insulated and give him time and space to work,

you can really do whatever you want on offense. because of the things he can access compared to other quarterback. So this is another moment where going back to watch it, it was almost a reminder or a confirmation that the way they went this offseason

and the direction they went align with what you want to see from this offense. And of course, from a team building perspective, it's not like they're, you know, they're not throwing a ton of money

at people on the defensive end. They, you know, they're kind of, they're going to keep filling resources in on that side of the ball. And, you know, I'd like that the Rams, they are to me, like, what actual balance is and should be. And it's just not a 50% run, 50% pass.

But if you were going to play a light box, they're going to run the ball down your throat. If you have to, if you can't stop them, if you're going to have to roll downhill, get another safety, make that box a little bit heavier, they can throw the ball over the field on you. So when we think about, like, when we get to Mike McDonald, he's the Shanahan stopper. He wasn't the ram stopper by any means. Yeah, those are going to be very fun games that I'm very. much looking forward to both this year and moving forward. But I'm with you. And I think that their ability to kind of had this new, modern, revamped version of that

marriage between the run and the past that now aligns with every other element of their offense. There was a disconnect between those things from the time that Matthew Stafford got there, 21, 22, even though they were throwing the ball with a ton of efficiency, they did not figure out who they wanted to be on the ground until last year. And I think you saw that cohesion between the, the running game and the way they want to throw the ball finally come together again. And to me, it led to the most interesting version of the Rams offense that we've seen

since probably like 2017 when it first came on the scene. So very excited to see where they take that moving forward. You alluded to this, the lack of resources spent on the Los Angeles Rams defense. This is a group that, similar to the Cardinals last year, outside of one of the greatest defensive players of all time, not a lot of proven talent otherwise on that depth chart. And my question now in a post-Aren Donald world is, what sort of building blocks do the Rams have on defense? Like, who can we count on moving forward and what does this group actually look like? And that starts with what they did upfront in the draft last year.

And obviously, Kobe Turner was somebody that got a ton of love for potential defensive player of the year, or excuse me, defensive rookie of the year. He was a really productive player last season. And going back and watching it, my takeaway from this group specifically is that, the play style and the mindset you're going to get from a group of Kobe Turner, Jared Verse potentially, and Braden Fiske, like that group as a whole, I cannot wait to watch just from a mindset and attitude sort of standpoint. Like Jared Verse is an ass kicker. And the energy and burst that Kobe Turner plays with, that group, even if it's going to be

young, even if there's probably going to be some gaps, they have to fill it along the way. I am very, very excited to watch them as a collection of pieces next year. Robert, Byron Young of them was so easy to just continue another player. I feel like just falling in love with. Like, there were a bunch of times when I was watching their tape and I was just, you know, let me like see what the run scheme is. And then you just see Byron Young just like a lightning boat, like get your attention. And sure he can clean some things up like in terms of pass rush moves. And then like you said, you have, you're going to have verse on the outside where it feels like those guys are going to be able to turn a lot of those, you know, runs inside.

And you have, you know, Jones in the, in the middle that's going to be able to clean it up. And Turner and Young were they were towards the top of the leaderboard in terms of rookie sacks. And you hope that that can translate to now just the league-wide leaderboard in sacks. But the concern, obviously, you lose Erron Donald. You're losing a big piece. But the way that offenses are going to prepare for that defense is going to look markedly different because you don't have to, hey, the center is going to slide to Aaron Donald every single time no matter what. And where the Rams wanted to be five down, you're going to get into

man-to-man protection, Aaron Allen's going to run this loop and you're going to freak out, that's not there anymore. So I'm interested in terms of, well, are you comfortable with those guys winning one-on-one and where they had a lot of those quick pressures last year? I don't think it was necessarily just because you're not maybe getting things slid to you. They're obviously talented. I think they're good at it. But what the drop-off is going to be and you hope that their year-two development, particularly is able to make up some of that. It was interesting because I was looking at some of the double team rate stats, and a lot of this is automated, right?

So it's just based on tracking data. And Kobe Turner's was higher than Aaron Donald's. And I'm watching games, the Baltimore game specifically. And at the snap, Tyler Lindervalm has a hand on Kobe Turner's like a nose or a one technique, but he's sliding to Aaron Donald's side. And I think because Kobe Turner was lined up as a one or a shade on so many of his snaps, that kind of cranks that number up. a little bit. So I do think that that's a little bit misleading in terms of how much attention

was actually being paid to him last year compared to Aaron Donald. So when his numbers or if his numbers kind of dipped down a little bit this year, it's just something to keep in mind. Like the numbers say one thing, but I think ultimately it's important to remember how much attention was actually being paid to number 99 last season and how much that changes the complexion of what this group might look like next year. Yeah, we'll miss talking about Aaron Donald for sure. But I am interested in that. the Rams, they've talked a little bit about, hey, we're going to get Fisk and Verse together because, you know, they fit the run kind of together. It helps that Fisk by himself is just,

I think he just has like a good understanding of this is the gap I need to be into. This is how I leverage into the other gap. I think from a high level, it makes sense. You have people that are comfortable playing next to each other in that kind of, you know, into your exterior role. And you know, hopefully you're, you're able to make a work. Obviously, get the McVeigh video talking about Byron Murphy. McVeigh is just like us, Robert. he wants Byron Murphy, he wants Brock Bowers. He's just, he just want me to go to football. My biggest question about the VERS deployment specifically is that, again, this is a group

that Michael Hoyt's dropping into coverage like 35% of the time. Byron Young was at a more humane level. It was on like a fifth of his snaps, which that aligns with more traditional usage for edge guys within a defense. But Jared Verst did not drop into coverage last year playing for Florida State. Like, that was not part of his game. So I wonder if they kind of drift away from that a little bit more now as the personnel and the players specifically have changed. That's something we're not going to know until we actually see it in practice.

But the group they have now, it just feels like it might lead them to a more traditional deployment than what we saw from this group in 2023. Yeah, I'm always concerned for these teams that it's like the third dilution for your defensive coordinator. So there's a real question with Chris Shula there. Of course, he was the John Carroll defensive coordinator before Brandon Staley was there. He's been with McVeigh for a really long time. A lot of the structures should probably stay the same. I do think you make a really good point in that, you know, maybe you look a little bit more normal and we change some of those kind of dropout rates.

But, you know, you don't get the, you don't get the Aeronah 101 one-on every single time. You know, what's the what's the plan now? And like I said, the third coordinator dilution. So we'll talk about it with another team as well, but that's always always worries me. Going to the back half of the defense, again, when you, you look at the moves they made this off season, it all starts to make a lot of sense. Because I thought that they got decent safety play. Jordan Fuller is a solid player.

If you even if he struggled to stay healthy, he's no longer there anymore. They lost 1,000 snaps from Jordan Fuller last year, and they got 500 snaps from John Johnson last year. And they have to replace those somewhere along the way. And then you look at what they did in the market. They go out and sign camcourle and free agency, and they draft Cam Kitchens in the third round. So now you have two guys that I think do fit the split safety world. that this team wants to live in,

and then you still have Russ yeast, you still have Quentin Lake. You know, Russ played a little bit of safety, a little bit of nickel corner for them last year. Quentin Lake was their primary nickel corner. They have a decent amount of flexibility if all those pieces come together at safety. Outside corner to me was probably the most worrisome spot for them last year.

If you look at this team as a whole, I think that a lot of their numbers bear out the way that they were coached and what this team felt like. They were 12th in dropback success rate last year, but they were 20th in EPA per dropback because they ranked 23rd an explosive play rate or loud. And you look at some of the busts that they had,

especially again outside with guys like Akela Weatherspoon and when Kobe Duran was playing and when Derry and Kendrick had was getting a lot of snaps early in the season. So them going out and signing Darius Williams and free agency, going out and getting Trey White, it all makes sense when you consider what this group looked like last year.

So similar to the Cardinals, when you go back and kind of peel back the layers of what this defense was, who they're trying to be kind of comes in to focus a little bit better. And if you're going to be a defense that you have to figure out ways to match routes and pass things off to each other, having experience there helps. Obviously,

a rookie safety that's going to be big to bring him in and then make sure that he can understand all the verbiage and understand what, like, what do we want to actually look like against what certain offenses are bringing? But I mean, can't curl someone in Washington. We're just like,

like, out of there. Get him somewhere we can really enjoy it. I really like watching Cam Crow whether he's kind of holding that intermediate area or whether he's dropping deep. So I like the idea of we're going to be fast. We're going to be young up front. On the back end, we're going to be a little bit more

seasoned and figure out the best ways to match whatever an offense shows us. I think that's exactly right. I think that kind of the chaos and that feeling of that group up front is something that I'm excited to watch. The thing that was interesting to me, watching this defense from last year, I thought Ernest Jones played well. And I think

that he really does add a lot to this group and has a pretty unique skill set. They've been pretty upfront about the fact that they're not interested in giving him a contract extension before this season starts. And I don't know what that means about him. I don't know what that means about the way they see this defense. It almost feels like a statement on how they value the position more than how they think about him specifically because I thought he played well enough to be a potential foundational piece of this moving forward.

and they don't seem to think that. So I feel like that was a little bit curious in the way that Les Needs talked about that publicly when you kind of compare it to the way that Ernest Jones actually played last year. Yeah, and that linebacker room as a whole, that's a spot where it feels like maybe they bring in a veteran or kind of find someone else to fill in there.

And when you're, if you just separate defensive line linebackers and secondary, let's throw some money in the secondary. We've thrown some resources at the front line. And then that second level, that's where it kind of gets iffy. but if you're playing like five down with just one linebacker, you literally need less people to be in that spot.

So you maybe just, you need a little bit less depth. So if you can find someone that is able to track that ball carrier as much as you need, you hope those defensive linemen can just, just eat up offensive linemen and play after play, you know, it always bums me out when guys don't get paid. I'd love for all these guys who just get paid a ton of money.

But at some point, yeah, it's a salary capably great. It's interesting because you look at the way the Rams played and the way the Cardinals played, those five down fronts are one of the reasons. reasons that you need to drop those edge guys so consistently. And Michael Hoyt was not enjoying that lifestyle last year. You think back to the Detroit game specifically in the playoffs, but even in other moments, like that was a lot to ask, a 300-pound guy to do consistently.

And I understand you want to create those one-on-once from Merrondon. But I wonder if both the Rams and the Cardinals maybe drift away from some of those five-one penny looks to more traditional nickel for two fronts, because, again, it puts a little bit less pressure on those guys in coverage and a guy like Jared verse who probably doesn't want to be there anyway, is that the way to potentially get the best out of somebody like that? Robert, I don't like this idea that, you know, you add talent and then you get more normal. If anything, you know, add talent to your team and just like keep on leaning into the weird. We need, we need more weird stuff.

How many times are we going to, well, like 49ers? How many times are we just going to get your four to kind of nickel? Let's, let's increase the weird in 2024. Let's get to our next one here. Seattle Seahawks. What is your lingering question from 23 about the Seattle Seahawks? The Seattle Seahawks,

it was defensively just a full on disappointment. They were like around 28th in a lot of the defensive metrics. The Pete Carroll error just comes to an unceremonious close. It feels like they tried a few things. They try and add some like Fangio influence

to how they fit the run, but they just didn't have enough juice. The defense was, it was tough to watch. You know, the Cardinals were fun to watch. This one was a tough one. But now you bring in the superstar defensive head coach in Mike McDonald. So I really want to know how many of the issues that they face on defense, how many those can just be solved by a coaching change? And what do you think is the answer to that? Well, Robert, I feel like we don't necessarily have to answer it because they added so many pieces on defense. But to me, it's like it's just an important understanding of, well, what does Mike McDonald actually like bring to a team and a defense specifically? Like we talk about, okay, like this is his naming structure and these things.

I think he's just, he is such a good in-game play car. We think about all those different Bengals games where it's like, why is this guy dropping specifically to that spot? You know, certainly it's because of, of the players on the defense, but it feels like McDonald is someone who has such a good grasp on that. And then they had a, they had Byron Murphy,

who I think he's going to have a ton of fun. You had Jerome Baker, who's like, he was Vic Fangio's like missile last year where he would just get thrown into the offensive line, kind of like McDonald used Patrick Queen. you get a full season of Leonard Williams. You still have concerns on the edge. So I just need to see the run fit a little bit better in Seattle.

And it feels like talent from a talent perspective and hopefully from a coaching perspective, they're able to take care of a lot of that. Talk more about that the naming structure and kind of the ways that this defense is built and sort of the benefits that that gives them. Because I think that that's been talked about in some like football nerd circles, but I don't know if it's necessarily been brought to a broader public understanding. and I think it should be because of how popular this defense has gotten. So just walk people through what you mean by that.

So something that they do is like they, if you imagine, hey, there's 11 defensive players on a chalkboard, you can write the position like linebacker, linebacker defensive end, or you can just put like an X in the position and say Leonard Williams has this quote where it's like, oh, I lined up at like all six spots on the defensive line.

So like you're learning like a specific pressure path like from all, like what the position or what the X on the chalkboard is doing. now you can just kind of get plugged in there. And the way that the name of the like the front changes, that is going to, it's just like a little bit easier to learn. And to me, the first response to that is like,

well, why doesn't every team just do this? Why is this so, so phenomenal where these players are literally coming out and saying, you know, like no one's ever caught it like this. And I certainly think it's more prevalent at the college level, but at the college level,

but just like a way, I think, for players to, like you can run the same exact pressure at a 40 different looks just because I think he goes at a higher level a little bit before he kind of teaches the specifics. You talked about Byron Murphy, a couple of the other guys on his defense. When you think about the style of play we saw from Baltimore last year, and even if he's not bringing that over as a one-to-one sort of comparison or Xerox copy, I'm sure there will be a ton

of shared DNA from what that Baltimore defense looked like. Which players from last year's group that aren't new additions do you think benefit the most from this sort of change on that side of the ball? I mean, Rob, you're just throwing me a softball. Like Witherspoon is going to be, I think, so much fun. Where Devin Witherspoon, you can maybe use him in like some sort of Kyle Hamilton role where he has like, like, the dude wants to fit the run. Like, he wants to, he wants to do that. I think that not a lot of people are kind of like that on the outside.

But if you want to slot him in at the nickel position when you're in that, that nickel look or if you have to bump back outside, kind of even regular looks. Like it feels like, hey, this is a player that is going to be able to be moved around a whole. whole bunch. And then I also think, you know, Leonard Williams, obviously there for not the whole entire season, but a player up front where, I don't, Mike McDonald has the magic where he doesn't need these great defense events to create pressure, but having a great guy on the interior is good. So between Witherspoon and Williams, you know, maybe I'll let you take your pick of the two there. I think it's Witherspoon just because we've seen him do so many interesting things with guys in that position before. And obviously, Devin Witherspoon is a different skill set than Kyle Hamilton.

He's built differently than Kyle Hamilton. He'll be deployed differently than Kyle Hamilton. but the creativity with guys close to the ball and different ways to allow them to impact the game, I think that absolutely applies to somebody with Devin Wuther Spoon's talent and the way that they want to play him. When I think about this team, I think about the last three or four years

of the Seattle defensive arc because you had a very specific way of playing under P. Carroll for a very long time. And the Seahawks tried to move away from that. I mean, they tried pretty consciously, to move away from that over the last several seasons. Going out and getting a guy like Sean Desai with his background in that Fangio world and having him be kind of that de facto defensive coordinator on the back end two years ago,

they wanted to innovate and they wanted to evolve. The problem is it always felt like they were dabbling in it rather than actually doing any wholesale changes. And when you watch the defense, it always felt like a group that was like cosplay as like a modern defense that was aligned with like the defensive meta in the NFL. So instead of that, they now just went straight to the source. Like, this is now the way and the system that a lot of teams want to steal from and a lot of teams are going to. I mean, this is a group that last year, the Ravens, and I guess you could kind of say the Giants,

where the two teams in the NFL running this Baltimore system. It manifested very differently from Wink Martindale than it did for Mike McDonald, but the DNA of those two defenses is the same. Now, I think you have five or six teams that are going to be taking that. model of defense and trying to run it this year. You have Baltimore, you have Seattle, you have Los Angeles, the Chargers with Jesse Minter, you have the dolphins with Anthony Weaver who's coming over from Baltimore, you still have the Ravens, and you have Derard Wilson and Tennessee. That's not an accident.

So the Seahawks, instead of saying, well, I like this, so I want to try to pluck a few of these things, but at the core of it, we still have Pete. Now you have the guy who is at the forefront of this. You're not trying to pluck anything. You have the guy who's actually the trailblazer, and I wonder what that ultimately means for this team. And what I do like about McDonald is, like you said, I think you make a good point about the Seattle being like a jumble of different parts

the last few years kind of schematically. Like McDonald, he's slimmed this thing down. Like, he's really, really slimmed down, like all the Wink Martin Dell stuff. And they're not going to run the craziest coverages. Like, you're going to see cover three. You're going to see cover four. It's going to be dressed up like 15 different ways. the end of the day, you're going to get what you get.

And if those are your coverages, you can get your players to be absolutely fantastic at those, deploy them at the right time. So you hope that that streamlining of that process across all these teams. I think, you know, that helps in terms of, okay, you're installing a new defense, but, you know, through training camp, it could be a little bit easier because you're teaching these things that, you know, they've been doing for an extremely long time and cutting some of that fat off the defense while making it feel like there is a lot through the way that you have your little counterpunches, you have your rotations.

That's something I think is just going to be great this year. I wouldn't be surprised, and I think we should warn people about what this might look like early on. I don't think this is going to be one of the best defenses in the league or a markedly improved unit from day one necessarily. We actually talked about this. I think Kimmer-Witchell was specifically, but I was talking to somebody recently about what the Baltimore defense looked like in year one under Mike McDonald. I mean, that Dolphins game, that game looms large in my mind. They're trying a bunch of funky things and getting to coverages in a weird way. and they're getting absolutely lit up

because they didn't understand who they were or who they were supposed to be. And I think with any defense that has this much complexity to it and when you're trying to do this many different things, you're going to have a feeling out period. And I think that that's exactly what's going to happen for this group the same way it happened

for year one with McDonald in Baltimore. Yeah, I'm sure McDonald's after that game in Miami was probably a little bit more worried. And if you could tell them, hey, this is where it's all going to go and we're all going to be writing these articles about the McDonald's system. that would be that would be really fun.

And across the other teams that are using it this year, it feels like every year, Robert, we get into that, well, this is like, like, the thing on defense. And for me,

so many times, it really comes down to, like, who is the one calling the play on it? And I, I really think that the focus, like, around,

hey, well, what is McDonald's system? For me, it feels like it's kind of, like, blurred out. Like,

this guy is a special, special play caller. I think he knows when to dial up pressure, and obviously how to dial up pressure, understanding, what the offensive blocking scheme is, is something that every defensive coordinator probably knows, but when to pull that trigger,

when to actually be that aggressive is different. So I have a concern that next year, it's a different, whatever, a system. And then we remember, hey, well, this is a McDonald thing, not just quote the system. I think 100% agree with that. I think that there's an example every year for guys that you're just trying to pluck them off the tree

and it doesn't necessarily go the way that you want to. The example from two years ago, I would say, is that everyone wanted that Fangio kind of sort of style on defense. That's what everybody was chasing. And that's what the Vikings were chasing when Kevin O'Connell got hired and he brought it at Adonatel to be his defensive coordinator. Just because you have the same structures and you have the same words that you use to describe

things doesn't mean that all of those guys who run that defense are set up to succeed as play callers. And instead, they go the entire opposite direction by going and hiring Brian Flores. But when you have a guy who's better at calling plays, you can run a different sort of system. So of the five, six teams that are doing this, with four of them having new defensive play callers from that system, there's probably going to be one or two of those that doesn't work out. Those are hard to pinpoint before we get there. But ultimately, that's the sort of hit rate you typically see in situations like this. And then with McDonald, obviously, he's the

head coach. So he's, he's certainly going to start calling plays on defense. But you wonder, obviously, you get whatever is going on on the offensive end, which of course we'll talk about. And something that I've loved about McDonald, certainly at Michigan and Baltimore, he's just a part of the wave of coaches that is going to use a ton of data in their game planning, and kind of everything from there that they're, I'm sure, in Seattle, they maybe had to do a little bit work in terms of, well, what do we add in terms of, like, tendencies and things like that. But I think he trusts that data and someone that is able to use that as a weapon,

and I'm sure that'll continue in Seattle. Mine for the Seahawks is kind of an extension to the conversation we had about St. Shane Waldron back when we did the NFC North podcast, but essentially why did this offense sputter last year and what can we learn from that? And I was looking at the offensive line continuity data specifically that you guys have at Sumer and I was looking at the top 32 offense like the 32 teams and the percentage of their snaps at the same offensive five same five offensive linemen play. The Seahawks weren't even on the list because they were so far down.

17% of their snaps last year included their starting five offensive linemen. That's a good place to start when you're wondering why this team struggled last year. I thought that Gino Smith played some really good football last year, and the growth that he's shown in his ability to manage pressure and the pocket is as good as anybody I can remember. Because I truly think that that area of your game specifically, the feel you have for that space, your ability to kind of extend play is not hang out of the ball too long. I think that's mostly something you have or you don't. I think learning that is really difficult. This was a guy a couple years ago who had a really high pressure to sacrate. He took a lot of sacks at various points in his career.

And that was not the case last year. Like he mitigated that pressure way better than you would have thought 20-20 Geno Smith ever could have. And so if they get a little bit healthier and a little bit better along the offensive line, I think that goes a long way for this offense being more consistent. They went out and signed Lake and Tomlinson and free agency. They drafted Christian Haynes fairly early in the draft. I think it was in the third round.

He'll have a chance to start this year. And Lake and Tomlinson has started a lot of games for a lot of teams, even if he took a little bit of a dip when he went to the Jets. I think that was true for pretty much everyone who played along the offensive line for the Jets over the last couple years. So improved health and just better players and more consistency in that group, I think, goes a long way. You can look at a ton of these. I mean, there's so many different places to look at this. Gino ranked fourth in the percentage of his throws that came outside the numbers last year.

They had the widest formation average in the NFL last year. The throws that they were asking him to make, this is a high wire act. There's a high degree of difficulty in what you were asking from the quarterback specifically within this offense. And it's not like Ryan Grubb is going to run this conservative underneath offense. You watched Washington last year, they pushed the ball down the field. And I don't want to take that away from Gino because I do think that. his accuracy, especially pushing the ball, is one of the things that really stands out about him.

But the other thing when you watch that Washington team is all of the bunches, all of the stacks, all of the underneath stuff, especially on third down. The Seahawks struggled so much on third down against man coverage last year. Because that's just not the skill sets or the ways that the, that's not the skill sets of the receivers, and that's not the way the receivers were used. Again, this is a lot of outside the numbers, you go to work sort of offense. and having JSN, I think a lot of people are going to get excited about McCaff and Lockett and the vertical aspects of this. When I watched the way that Washington used McMillan last year and use some of those underneath options within that offense,

and I think about JSN's skill set, that's actually the version of this I'm most excited to see because I think that there is alignment there that hasn't necessarily been talked about the same way people have thought about Gino and DK and all of the downfield aspects of this. Yeah, I think that's an important in that is I just like concerned about Cooper Cup like Rob, I'm scared for Tyler Lockett. I think that

I wouldn't be surprised of Jason. I think he should be probably second in Target share in that offense. I think Lockett's advanced numbers unfortunately didn't look that great. His specific numbers like outside against man coverage were not great. He was like 53rd overall and ESPN's receiver score

and like in 2022 when you get like hey Metcalf and Lockett or like like real like two kind of edge of the number one receiver kind of conversation and then lock it kind of drops off you're going to get that natural variance when you're a team that is is throwing the ball down field like that so i mean jason he absolutely has i think avoid to be able to fill and we think of uh right grub like at washington he had an awesome offensive line and he i think he was able to do a lot of fun stuff because his quarterback had a really low pressure to sacrate and he had an off a great offensive line and i worry about that and it's crazy like we go year to year

where probably two years or after last year, we're like, oh, the C-offs, they hit on their tackle spots. Like, these guys are set up front outside of some of the interior holes to fill. And, like, what's A. Lucas going to be? You know, is Charles Cross,

hopefully, is he going to be able to stay healthy? And that just, like, undoing so many of the fun things that, like, what is Grub going to do? Is he going to have, like, the signs up on the sidelines? Are we going to be, like, a real college, up-tempo off-offencing? That's going to be something fun. But none of that's fun when you're just, like,

at a 40% pressure rate. and your quarterback's kind of running around all the time. It starts with the offensive line, and it starts with the ability to protect within this, with an all-very offense, but I think for the reasons that you're talking about and how the verticality they want to bring, it becomes really important to this group specifically.

And the other side of it, when you think about this team up front, I wonder about the connection between the way they want to throw the ball and the way they're able to run the ball. Because this is going to be spread out the same way that it was last year. But if you look at these teams that are at the forefront

of offensive football in the NFL, it's not an accident that there are a lot of these teams playing with condensed formations because you can do anything out of them. There's such an unpredictability for, all right, are they going to run or throw out of this look? I have absolutely no idea. And Seattle last year, with how spread out they were, their offense could get siloed from time to time.

There were tells formationally in what they were ultimately going to do. And I think connecting the way they want to throw it with the way they want to run it, knowing that they're going to spread it out, the way that Ryan Grubb likes to, I think that becomes one of the biggest challenges for this team on offense. And I'll be curious to see how they ultimately solve that. Yeah, you hope that a lot of these college teams that are like super, super spread. Do you think of University of Tennessee? A lot of their run game is going to be gap scheme oriented instead of just running inside zone kind of downhill there.

And so if you think that you can get like, hey, let's get these guys pulling around a little bit. That's kind of how we take advantage of that. Because I like the you mentioned condensed formations. We're going to talk about that in a second, certainly, because you can force cornerbacks into the run and cornerbacks, you know, Robert, if you were a cornerback, if our cornerback, we'd probably go to attack all that much either,

thinking about these guys. So maybe, you know, Grub, he's seen a bunch at the college level, so you hope that maybe it's, you know, we're going to have to run just a little more counter than we did last year and get downhill that way,

as opposed to being kind of like a horizontal inside zone, Stresh kind of team. I mean, you think about the Ravens and what they were in the last few years when they were spread out, it was mostly a gaps game run. You can do that,

but it helps to have a quarterback who you can have be a part of the running game, to flip the numbers for you, and it helps to have an offensive line built to play that way. And I don't necessarily know if the Seahawks have

either of those things. So there are just layers of difficulty in pairing the run in the past together when you're going to be as spread out as this team probably is going to be in 2024. So I'm bullish on this.

I just think that the skill sets of the players and specifically the quarterback aligns well with the style that they want to play. I just think that there are a couple nuances and details to be figured out to unlock this group overall. the JSN thing looming very large for me.

But I do think the best version of this is a very competitive, very fun offense from the start that maybe makes this team a little bit better than people are anticipating this year. If Gino Smith lead three years in a row with the highest big time throw percentage for deep passes, like we got a we got we got to build him something because I mean, he never met a downfield throw. There's already a shrine for Gino in my office right now. Like I don't, I'm telling you, and I think, you know, this is something that I've wrestled with when we've talked about Shane Waldron specifically on this show,

and now that he's the offensive coordinator for my team, I think there were moments over the last couple years when I got blinded by how much I liked watching Gino play, and I was conflating that with enjoying the structure of the Seahawks offense. But if we ignore the second part of that, it's just about the aesthetics of playing the position. There are not that many guys I like watching play quarterback in the NFL right now more than Gino.

You mentioned Matthew Stafford and like the no-fucks given style that he's bringing to the table. days, he's in that conversation, but it's a short list and Gino is certainly involved in that discussion. Yeah, Gino is just, and he'll send a reply on Twitter, too. So, you know, that's always good. You want to get those quarterbacks on Twitter ASAP. And my, the best thing that you can be as a quarterback in the NFL, in my opinion, is somebody that's like on the other side of some sort of life-changing event where you found an inner piece and you no longer worry about anything anymore. Matthew Stafford toils away in Denver, or in Detroit for a decade, right?

He goes through all these different iterations of the Lions franchise. He goes to Los Angeles. He wins a Super Bowl. He's made an ungodly amount of money playing football in the NFL. So now he doesn't care. There's nothing to be lost for Matthew Stafford now. This is all gravy on the Matthew Stafford career, financially, legacy, all that stuff. And he plays that way now. Gino is a backup for however long. He's left for dead in the NFL world. He finally gets his chance again. He gets paid.

So now he's going from making a million bucks, two million bucks a year to making whatever he made guaranteed, like $40 million. That is a man with nothing left to lose anymore. And he is playing like it. So that's what I want. I want all of these guys that have this sort of arm talent to come out on the other side of some sort of transformative life experience.

because it leads to the mindset I want from my quarterbacks. Yeah, unfortunately, we're going to hopefully don't have to have the similar conversation with Lawrence and Herbert. That scares me. You know what?

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's been too easy for Trevor Lawrence his entire life. And that's why he does not play with a reckless abandon that I want him to. Yeah, his rookie season a real walk in the park there.

It's a good point. It's a very good point. All right, last one here. We're talking about the San Francisco 49ers. We only had one for the Niners, in part, similar to the Chiefs conversation when we did the Chiefs, we watched the Niners play 21 football games. Every single person watched the Niners last four games.

To me, there aren't that many lingering questions about the Niners. They clearly thought there were some struggles on defense that needed to be fixed. So they fired their defensive coordinator in order to kind of get back to basics, have somebody in there who understood the system, understood the players, kind of came from that family. There aren't that many lingering questions I have about that because they've tried to answer. answer that with who's running the defense. But you had one about the offense that you wanted to talk about. So what was your lingering

question from 2023 about the Niners? Yeah, the 49ers offense was awesome last year. They'll probably be number one. I think an overall offense again this year. I think I was like, picking through all the stats, like, how do I cherry pick this to make this look bad in some sort of way? And the one

way, the one way to lower lower Brock pretty stat rankings is like you find the narrow win probability situations in the second half. that's like when he drops from like first and everything to like 37th out of 37th and qualifiers for an EPA per play. And to me that matches what we see on film where it's like there's just like three to five plays like every few games where it's like backbreaking waste, even when the defense drops

interceptions. So obviously this team has Super Bowl expectations. This is like it is a nitpick, but I think it's an important one. It's like where does the downfield passing game go from here, particularly when they're in tight game situations where they don't get that just great benefit of having a good game script. So for trying to find the cause of this why those struggles arise

in those sort of game situations, where would you start? So I think a little bit is in terms of like, well, this is how the past game is structured where a lot of the times, like McCaffrey just totally unlocks this offense in a different way. And if you're going to run like

Kittles kind of running an option route one way and now McCaffrey's running an option route the other way, that is like a short to intermediate area kind of passing. That's not not, hey, let's go run something 20 yards down the field. So a little bit kind of structurally where, I don't know, Robert, if you told me that we have to throw winning 12 games in the regular season away for winning a Super Bowl, maybe you do that.

But they do get the benefit of a lot of their passing game is built around conflicting those linebackers. And when it's third and eight, you know, sometimes conflicting the linebacker isn't enough where you just, they're going to run dagger a lot and you're going to see a green Bay Packer safety just like right there kind of waiting for the ball. So I think at least structurally it's a little bit. And then that leads into like, I don't want to have the Brock 40 conversation with you, Robert.

But like there is a little bit that like we love the really, really high level, like great quarterbacks because you can build the whole entire offense out of them. And to me it's, you know, Kyle Shannon, I think he'll probably tell us by what he shows early in the season, has Pretty made enough of a jump where pretty's not Stafford. He doesn't have to be Stafford. He doesn't have to be Mahomes. He doesn't have to be Josh Allen.

But is Shannon? able to just put a little bit more on his plate. We're now pretty's the one that's able to control the concept. He's the one that knows, hey, we can get into this specific look on third down and then be able to attack a defense like, you know, you'd hope to see, for example, like Matt Stafford 2021. So you think it's more about autonomy and flexibility than it is about necessarily the physical skill set he's bringing into the position compared to those guys?

I mean, he's not bringing the same physical skill set. I don't think that, yeah, that's not controversial in any sort of way. Yeah, he's not. But where the gap exists, I guess, is what I'm asking. Yeah. But some of the throws we think about Miami, like, you can only access some of those throws where you're almost throwing blind. You're catching the ball.

You are throwing you a spot, like based on the structure of the offense, like that quick post is going to be at eight yards. That ball is going to get there. We're going to gain 1,000 yards on this this season. We're also going to throw three interceptions. And that's kind of what you throw there. But I think like Cedestroud in Houston, the back half of the season, it feels like Bobby Slowick kind of turns the keys over to him a little bit more and more.

And I feel comfortable saying Kyle Shannon is a control freak. I don't think he wants to give too much over. But, you know, do you have to try and kind of get that like last bit, that last ceiling? Because, yeah, there are a few plays away from a Super Bowl. It's not that they need to undo every single thing. But we're kind of like nitpick on this. The offensive line is the other thing that I always come back to in those moments. Because, I mean, this has been the case with Shanahan teams forever.

I mean, from the time that we saw the Shanahan offense installed for the first time in the mid-90s, this was always one of the going concerns about why other teams might be a little bit hesitant to adopt it as a lifestyle, because you had these undersized offensive Wyman that were built for this own running game, and they struggle when they had to drop back to pass just because it was an undersized group. Obviously, we've gone through 100 iterations of this since then, and there's a much more gap scheme run involved with Kyle Shanahan specifically in this system overall. But this is still a group that is not oversized and is not overly good when you look at the offensive line as a whole. And they didn't do much to address that this year.

They went and drafted Dominic Poonie in the third round. Colton McIvitts is still here. Most of this group is still in place. So do you think that the makeup of the offensive line and the quality of the offensive line has a role in some of the those struggles when they get into those defined passing situations. Yeah, absolutely. They were like pretty high in terms of quick pressures, which is pressure in the first two and a half seconds of a snap.

And so if I'm going to complain and be like, hey, you guys need to be able to develop more things down the field. And I know we're watching the film and there's just like two hands in Purdy's face. Like, you know, it doesn't matter what your design is if you're not able to do that. And then I like you mentioned, well,

how teams are building their offensive line. Los Angeles looks a little bit different than this, right? They're going to have a lot. And a great point. I always wonder, yeah, it's like how, like your offensive line, I mean, they're, they're so fun running the ball. And they're absolutely excellent at it. But even going forward, like, is it Trent Williams last year?

You know, is like what, how much longer does he have to just kind of play in general? So that's absolutely something. And if, if Kyle, you took the truth ceremony was like, look, I can't do this. I can't develop this because like every like fifth snap, there's just an easy pressure, then that's like a totally legitimate reason to to maybe have some struggles to passing down the field. It's fascinating watching the disconnect between the way the dolphins and the Niners went about building their offensive line this offseason and the way the Rams went about building their offensive line this off season. And obviously, the running games are still structurally different. Even if this is, if you look at these two teams in 2017, right, it's all outside zone all of the time.

They're, both of them have adopted more of a gap scheme mindset. The ramps have leaned into it, I think, more wholesale. And I think having the size and the skill sets they do on the interior. makes more sense than it would for the Niners of the Dolphins. But there's a middle ground to be found. You can meet them halfway, even if you're not going to go all the way to the guard payments that the Rams were willing to make. And the fact that the Niners and the Dolphins both were not willing to even make incremental

improvements to this group when you consider some of the struggles they had to be flexible late in the season, I thought that was notable. And I think it says a lot about these two head coaches and these two play callers and their confidence in their ability to kind of paper over some of that stuff. And then you have whatever is going on with the kind of Ayuk, the Debo-Samuel situations.

I'm sure, like, in eight months, we get, like, some tellwall from one of the great reporters there. Like, literally, how do you pass the targets around? Like, there's contractual situations, obviously, like, that's understandable. Like, how much can Christian McAfee repeat? I just hope he can repeat all of it.

Like, give that guy every single award, put him on the cover of Ben for, for a real good reason. So it's funny that like, obviously I think we're both really optimistic about the 49ers, but this is like the most dire conversation out of the teams in the division

that we just had. Because it's about expectations, right? I mean, when you're a team that's been on the doorstep and you have been one of the best offenses in the NFL, if not the best offense in the NFL for the last two years, and you are a Super Bowl contender,

like that is what your goals are and you fall short, it becomes a little bit more urgent. It becomes a little bit more dire. It's easy to look at this team. and wonder, did they miss their best chance? When their quarterback was making $500,000, Brandon Ayup was on a rookie deal, you know, the absolutely monstrous,

deep offensive line, those things are starting to deteriorate a little bit because that's what happens when players get older, when players get more expensive, and windows change, windows shrink and windows close. And you wonder, is theirs done? Are they going to be able to get back to that level

that they were at over the last couple years? I have a lot of faith in both Kyle Shanahan and in the players on this team, but I think it is a, worthwhile question that I assume we will continue to ask as we get closer to the season. Yeah, I do hope that they also fix some of like particularly Shannon and McVeigh, just like the in-game management. Like I really hope there's just not a lot of conversation about them like botching these,

some of these fourth down calls. McVeigh, like, hired. I got bad news for you, buddy. But we ask ourselves every year, is this the last time that Shannon has going to be there? And then he gets there again. So, you know, maybe you hope for new things. But like, like, make me, he hired an in-game special. right he hired someone from the titans where the titans director of football rn d like he was with

the rand or she was with the rams previously so maybe that there's like some some trust there but yeah i mean these guys are so good let's uh let's finish it all yeah i i did hopefully there are incremental improvements but i wouldn't hold my breath about there being a lot of like big swinging changes there shan siret sincerely appreciate the time sir i tell people where they can read you where they can listen to you what you're working on these days yeah that robert thank you so much i'm on twitter at s s siret Hyatt schemes give at Summersports a follow. Take a look at Simbersports.com.

Keep the higher ups happy there. I have a bunch of things planned for training camp, talking to a bunch of our scouts that we have internally. And Robert, I've been watching a lot of XFL kickoff returns. So stay tuned to the feed. We've got some fun. Very excited about that.

Thank you for taking the time. Really appreciate all of you guys for taking the time to listen. That is all we've got for this week. We'll be back on Tuesday. We've got some fun stuff coming your guys as away over the next few weeks. get into the 4th of July holiday and in our pre-training camp window here. So be on the lookout for that.

We're going to have our normal Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday, Friday schedule next week. So no changes there, potentially going to move some stuff around for the holiday week. But we'll talk about that when we get a little bit closer. For now, that's all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.