The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: Halftime adjustments, how players handle playoff losses, inside exit interviews, Kyle Shanahan's bad luck & more with Mitchell Schwartz

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

As the Bengals and Rams head to the Super Bowl, Mitchell Schwartz is here to react to the Chiefs loss and answer listener Mailbag questions with Robert Mays as they discuss the Bengals and halftime adjustments, how players handle losing in the playoffs, what the process of exit interviews entails. if Kyle Shanahan can overcome his current reputation of not winning the big one, if owners even matter in the NFL and more as we look ahead to the Super Bowl. 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. Today is Tuesday, February 1st. Joining me today, it's my good friend, Mr. Schwartz. Mitch, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing pretty good. It was a weekend of football.

Really only a day of football, but it was quite a day of football. When the second game was about to start yesterday, I made a joke about how I wasn't ready. I truly was not ready. I was not prepared to watch another football game after the one that we watched yesterday afternoon. I can't even imagine how you feel. Did you go home right after the game and watch? Oh, I didn't go to the game. You weren't there? No.

Oh, my God. That's probably a good thing. So I don't usually go to games. Like, I prefer sitting at home and watching. I think you get to watch it better. I know you with your two TVs and your two-minute rewinds and stuff. But I just think you get a better viewing capability. and like, I mean, not to sound dushy, but like I've lived through winning a Super Bowl,

so it's not like I need to be there for the atmosphere. You know, like I've felt those things while I was on the field. So I don't necessarily feel like I need to go there. You know, I'm not connected enough or whatever to, like, be getting a suite every time or getting these other situations. So I'm not. Which you probably should be. Yeah, I know, but I'm not.

I'm also kind of cheap, so I wouldn't necessarily want to pay for AFC championship game sweet tickets. So, yeah, I just kind of sit at home. I'm comfortable. I got my lazy boy. I got food and snacks. And about midway through the second half, I started panic eating there and stress eating. What were you eating? What were you shoveling into your mouth?

So I went with, I found some bread. We had some bread in the freezer and some bread in the fridge. So I toasted it up, some butter, some salt. So that was good for a little bit. It turns out Brooke had bought me like a Korean noodle dish from Trader Joe's, one of those frozen ones that you reheat. So I reheated that. We really had like no flavor, but I added,

there's a local guy here at James, I think James Chang, he has his own chili oils. So I've got a couple of batches of those. So I added a bunch of the chili oil to save the day. So that was kind of the extent of it. We didn't have too many binge quality things around. I did not open the jar of peanut butter, which is usually my downfall.

I'm proud of myself for that. I, yesterday at some point in the second quarter, of the second game, I realized that I hadn't eaten all day. I just hadn't had time to eat because I didn't want to miss any of the game. And there was a point in the second game was like, I have to go to the bathroom so badly. And I just wasn't willing to prime myself from the TV because I watch, I rewatch stuff during commercial breaks. Right.

So even when there's a commercial break, I feel like I can't leave because I'm going to miss something. So that was the type of day it was yesterday. It was just nonstop, constant, overwhelming. I finally went upstairs at one point during the fantasy championship game. I was like, I have to microwave some soup. I have to eat something or I'm going to pass out. Yeah.

So my dog is very regimented, the older one, cupcake, and when he eats. And so he wakes up, he has his breakfast. He gets a snack. We call it his midday snack. But realistically, he starts barking anywhere from like 1130 to 12 for it. We try to feed him about one or two because it's based is out for dinner a little better. better otherwise he just like gets hungry at 2.30 if we give him a snack at 1130. So he was sleeping. He was super comfortable. He was quiet. And I realized that like 1 30, 145. I'm like man, Cupcake's going to wake up

like right when this game starts. He's going to start barking. I'm going to have to go feed him. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should wake him up. I'm like preemptily give him food. And so I always have that battle when games are at specific times of like, well, my dog is going require me to go upstairs, take them out, give them some food, and that is, you know, a 10-minute process or whatever. So, yeah, I try to pre-plan those things as well. It was good to be at home yesterday and kind of take it all in. We're going to get to a ton of questions today. We're going to use a couple of the questions as little entry points to talk about the games that we saw yesterday. We're recording this on Monday afternoon, obviously. Let's get to our first one here from

Ryan. He said, people always talk about halftime adjustments, but every team has a million coaches and tablets to watch every play at any time. How often are adjustments made in-game? How often are adjustments made in-game rather than halftime. And on top of that, when the Bengals started dropping eight into coverage in the second half, why couldn't the Chiefs adjust to that at any point? So obviously, adjustments happen at any point in the game. We've talked about this before. It's not just halftime adjustment because you don't typically have time. The Bengals did make a half-time adjustment, though, yesterday. I mean, they started trotting out a lot more man coverage and a lot more drop eight looks after the half, and the Chiefs did struggle to adapt to that.

What did you make of just the second half performance by Kansas City offensively? Well, it obviously wasn't the greatest. I will say, I'm not sure the Bengals, I feel like everyone's talking about this whole halftime adjustment thing. It's like, okay, so do you want them to keep doing the same thing they did in the first half that led to 21 points and a drive that got down to the one yard line? Like, I don't think that it's this, oh, they made this halftime adjustment and it really worked and changed the tenor of the game. It's like, yeah, they adjusted because they were getting destroyed. They were giving up eight and a half yards of play. there were all these other negative outcomes.

So I think it would be foolish to not try something different. I'm not sure that they went into the game and said, all right, we got this plan for the first half, and then we've got this adjustment for the second half, and we're going to spring it on them. Because in the first quarter, they were rushing eight guys. And I was tweeting, or sorry, they were rushing three guys and dropping eight.

And I was tweeting, the chiefs are going to thank the Bengals every single time Trey Hendrickson drops into coverage. And now the adjustment to me is that they stopped dropping him into coverage. They had him rushing, so they were either running on third downs, the three-down looks, where they had two edge guys and a nose tackle, and the guys dropping were two linebackers that were mugged up into the A&B gaps, or on the nickel situations where they had four defense alignment, it tended to be Hubbard that was dropping, and he's the lesser of the two rushers,

and so Hendrickson had a few pressures and a couple sacks, and Hubbard is a little bit better in space probably, and I think that was also the biggest thing. So it wasn't necessarily that they just dropped eight into coverage because we see teams do all the time. It typically doesn't work. It was that they were dropping to the spots they assumed Kansas City was going to throw the ball. And that was correct because guys weren't coming open. But they also had guys with eyes on Pat. And they knew when the three-man rush, the protection would hold up.

And he'd see a lot of space and he'd try to start running the ball. And they had guys spying him so he couldn't take off running. He tried to run a bunch of times, but there was always someone there. And that's when he started doing the circling behind the line trying to find someone else. So it wasn't necessarily just that dropping it was the right thing to do. It was spot dropping them to the right spots. And then also having guys available to catch Pat as he tried to break the pocket. They had the spy on him and then they were playing with like two robbers in the middle of the field at a lot of most of the second half.

And they were coming from different spots. I mean, you watch on the sack where Mahomes was running all the way around. It was Mike Thomas, number 31, who was down in the box before the snap. And by the time the play happens, he's 20 yards deep. in the post. And they were doing that with tons of different guys. And it worked. It was just one of those games where they were pressing all the right buttons and it was just the variety was enough. It was a nice combination of a conservative coverage, obviously, because you're dropping eight, but also playing sticky man coverage with a lot of those guys while having a couple people just

roaming around. It just worked out extremely well. It's just one of those things that hit them flush. Yeah. And I would say, I don't think any defensive coordinator is going to say, okay, we really like this game plan. We think it's going to be the one that works. We're not going to run it in the first half and we're going to spring it on the Kansas City Chiefs who just came off this historic game. Right. So this wasn't the thing that they thought was going to win the game. They came out running the defense they thought was going to be most successful. It didn't work and now they had a really good plan B. But again, I think we're giving a little too much credit for saying, oh, they made these wholesale adjustments because they were getting destroyed and obviously their first choice at what they wanted

to run on defense wasn't working at all. So they do deserve a lot of credit. I'm not taking away credit to them or the coaching staff or whatever like i've tweeted since i've talked about they won that game it was a really good performance by them they earned that victory they earned the first victory and they definitely deserved to be in the super bowl um but i think this idea of second half adjustments and this specific game being the example i'm not quite so sure of that and to uh the emailer's point i would say adjustments are happening all the time in the NFL half times like 12 minutes and realistically you have like eight minutes of actual time to think and to do stuff before. So there's the process of getting to the locker room.

So the coaches can't really do stuff until they're all together in a room. Then they have to figure out what the adjustments are going to be. Then they have to come tell you. And then you got to go take the field like four minutes before half time is over. So there is a very small window. And I think it's less about, you know, oh, we're going to do this wholesale change. Now maybe, you know, the chiefs a lot of the times come out. You're facing a zone heavy team.

They say, oh, screw it. We're going to play man coverage. And so at halftime, the coach gets up there, whether it's Coach Reed or Bianome, whoever and says, hey, guys, they're playing us, and way more man than we expected. And we're going to run these plays because we like them against man. That's an adjustment. But they're also running those plays in the second quarter. You're just not making the definitive statement to the whole team in one specific situation.

Like, hey, guys, this is what we're seeing. And this is how we're going to handle the second half. On the sideline, in the second quarter, you're saying, hey, they've been playing us in a lot of man. We're going to start smircling this stuff in. And you're like, okay. So there are adjustments that happen. every single drive, you're watching the plays, you're watching the tablets, you're evaluating, you know, the coaches are taking in what the players are saying from what's on the field.

And then halftime is more of the kind of total regrouping. Everyone gets to hear the same message from the same person, but it's not this like wholesale change necessarily. Yeah, there was playing more man coverage and then they were playing more man coverage versions of it while dropping eight guys. I think part of it is we're getting obliterated. We have to do something different. And the other part of it is I'm sure they felt comfortable doing it partially because of the way the game was being officiated.

When you saw what was happening over the first half, then you know what? Let's be more aggressive. If the game is going to be called this way, we can make that we can force them into some tougher throws. Because right now the way that we're playing, this soft, they're just going to burn us down the entire half if we continue to do this. And I think they deserve credit for that. Yeah, absolutely. It's, again, we're giving credit. We're not necessarily taking away credit or saying any of these things.

Like, the Bengals played an awesome game. They obviously pushed, like you said, all the right buttons, and it was a very good performance. And Kansas City's offense kept up a pretty historic pace in the first half, and it seemed like a continuation of the Buffalo game. And then the second half, I think the biggest credit you can give to Sinci is that you couldn't quite put your finger on what wasn't working in real time. And it was like, this doesn't, it feels wrong for the chief's perspective. Like it's not working. We're not quite sure why.

It's hard to figure it out. And it was really just, you know, since he was taking away all the throws, they had guys covered really well. They dropped guys to the right spots. They took away, you know, running lanes with the quarterback. Like they did all these things that in real time, it was hard to say this is the one specific reason that it's happening. And I think that's part of the reason that Kansas City wasn't able to break out of it is

it didn't necessarily feel like, okay, we need a specific answer for this one drop-aid coverage, you know, coach. dial it up by the best of him. He's got answers for that in the playbook. So it's a credit to them that they were able to take something away. And again, it wasn't like, oh, well, the passers just absolutely lit them up and like, all right, front, like, all right, O line, let's just block better and, you know, give Pat time and he'll be good down the field. Like, it wasn't that one specific thing. It was kind of a total victory for that defense and being able to shut him down. So to me, that was the impressive part. Is there anything else that jumped out to you,

about that game. Anything just you felt it was particularly interesting that you wanted to hit that I'm sure we didn't hit last night because you watched it in a much different way than I certainly do. You know, I think we kind of talked about it. I was pretty surprised that the Bengals just kept running inefficiently on first down. I know that's been hit a few times and I think it was something mixing. It had like 21 carries and 16 of those were on first downs. But it just kept seeming like they put themselves in these bad situations and Burrow was able to get out of it. I'd say on I mean, for the most part, Kansas City's pass rush wasn't as good as it was at the end of the season or in the first couple games. You know, Ingram had that one drive.

He really turned it on. Chris had some pressures throughout the game and obviously wasn't able to get one or two of the sacks that we thought he would. But given the mismatch of, you know, offensive line and defensive line, I think we expected, or at least I expected the Kansas City D line to get to burrow to hit him more to have a bigger impact on the game. and we saw it in the first matchup and we saw it in a few other playoff games since he played as Burrow and the team is winning despite giving up a bunch of pressure.

I think the stats out there today like 59 pressures in three games or something so this is weirdly an offense that's able to give a pressure and it just hasn't totally affected them and they keep winning out there in the Super Bowl. So the Chiefs were getting pressure I just expected them to get pressure

and to get to Burrow and to hit him a little more and to have a couple sacks and maybe a strip sack and force a turnover off of it and that didn't happen. So to me, the big turnaround for the Chiefs defense was the front four and the impact they had on the game. And while they were getting pressure and having some impact, you know, it wasn't enough to really change the tenor of the game.

Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. I completely agree about the early down runs because it just feels like you're wasting a down. Do you think when your offensive line is totally overmatched and you're concerned about game swinging splash plays when you're throwing the ball, interceptions, strip sacks like you just mentioned. It's a way to insulate your offense and your quarterback from total disaster. Yeah, it's a way to insulate them, but it's also a way to make things more difficult.

So a pass rush is going to rush harder on third and eight than they are in first and ten. On first and ten, the offense can do all sorts of things on third and eight. For the most part, they're going to throw the ball. Now it might be a screen. We saw a couple of those hit. It might be a run. You typically don't run on third and eight unless you're going to go for it on fourth and four. For the most part, the pass rush is going to rush harder on third and eighth than first and ten.

So running inefficiently, we've talked about this all year on first down, sets your bad offense a lineup for worse situations on third down when the pass rush is more keyed in to be better. So offense of coordinators think that. That's why they run the ball early downs. They try to make things simpler and easier and try to give the offense, quote unquote, easier plays. But it's at the detriment of what happens later in the drive, what happens a couple of plays later. and it's probably not the right thing to do, especially when you've got a passing offense like

the Bengals doing a quarterback like Brough who's shown that he's able to make things happen on any down. So if you kind of flip the script a little bit and you just say, all right, well, throw on first down, there's probably 65% chance you're getting positive yards. The other 35% your second and 10. Well, how many of those runs are getting better than second and eight anyway? So I just think odds-wise you're better off, you know, sprinkling a few more passes or get into more spread formations. It was more that they just got under center

every time and ran runs from under center and they had very few play actions from under center. So it wasn't like oh, they're in spread and now they're running a trap or they're running this cool little scheme off of their passing game. It was just under center obvious runs and then they were getting quasi

stuffed and leading to long second and third down. So it was more it wasn't necessarily that they ran. I think it was more how they ran and that's more the idea behind it. The way we characterized it last night, they used it more than Nate and I thought at first glance. I looked at some of the numbers today.

I think Burrow was like five of ten on play action, and there were some negative plays in that. Snee interception was a first down play action, but I agree. I mean, just the overall, if you look at the pie chart of what they chose to do on first down, I would swing it further the other way.

But I've had people come at me this morning about, you criticize the early down runs. It's not one of the reasons that they almost lost the game. It's like, am I losing my mind? It definitely is one of the reasons they struggled on offense in the first half. Yeah, so my other point, and I made this on Twitter, is at some point in, I don't know if it was the first quarter, maybe the second quarter, definitely first half. As I said, since each should just say screw it, they should throw the ball almost every time. They should throw it 60 plus times and tire the Chief's defensive line out that way.

I know we talk about bodybloods and all those things. I think defense lines get more worn down by pass. rushing and by pass rushing uptempo in those two-minute drives and things of that nature. So I thought- Look at what happened in the final two minutes of the divisional round game. Right, right. Everybody was gassed. Exactly. And so, I mean, we saw it in the Super Bowl, the Atlanta Patriots game.

I think most defensive linemen would tell you three all-out pass rushes versus three run stops. Like, they're going to be more tired after the pass rushes, let alone we saw, you know, Pat running all around. And now Hendrickson's running around. These guys are chasing him and how exhausting that gets. So obviously flipside borough is doing similar to KC. So if they went a little bit more up tempo and they threw the ball more and they just said, all right, you guys are going to pass rush us 60 times.

The first 35 might not be the greatest. But the last 25, we're going to gain protection by exhaustion. I don't know why more OCs and more coaches don't go to that. I think it's why I do know why. It's a bit high risk, high reward because you're going up tempo and it's kind of the Chip Kelly stuff that once it stops working, now your defense is on the field for 38 minutes. and all those things, but he was doing it with the run game, and so it's a little bit different there. I just thought one way Cincinnati could have combated their offensive line disadvantage was to

actually throw the wall more and tire the Chiefs out through that manner. And it did seem like towards the end of the game, you know, the Chiefs, I mean, both sides, both defensive lines are going to be gassed by the end of a game like that. That's what you have those runs that break through near the end. I mean, it's not, we run on first down the whole game, and it worked later because we did it early. I mean, that's silly. It's the end of a really hard-fought game in overtime, and guys just wear it down.

That's how it is. The last thing I want to ask you about this game, what do you make of the Chiefs not running the ball more often in short-yard second-and-third-down situations in the second-half when they were dropping eight that much, and they had so much success every single time they handed the ball off? Yeah, so I looked at that a little bit. I was actually looking at first down runs.

I think before the Bengals tied the game at 21-21, and then at that point there was only like one or two more times the chiefs touched the ball and one of those was the drive at the end to tie the game so i kind of threw that one out but until the game was tied the chiefs ran the ball i think on four out of the five first downs and so that people say oh a coach doesn't run the ball doesn't run the ball it's like well he ran the ball in 80 percent of the first downs i noticed that when i looked at the box score today too yeah and to your point i think the it was like seven six four four in terms of length of carry so they got into those good second and medium second and shorts and at that point if it's second and

you can go ahead and say, yeah, we should have run the ball more, or it was effective, whatever. But I feel like second and four is a down in distance, so we all think the pass is awesome, because then you're still going to have third and four. It's still a manageable third down. I think putting the ball in Mahomes' hands is a pretty good idea, a majority of the time.

And I think I went back and looked, and of those second downs, one of them was a completed pass for a first down. One of them was a jet sweep to make goal for first down. One of them was a throw to Tyreek that hit him in the hands, and it was contested, but it's a play we've seen make before. Like, one of them was an incomplete pass,

and I forget what happened on the fifth. So, like, they still converted at least 40% of those second and shorts. One of the passes hit a guy's hands, and you're looking at one or two other incompletion. So it's not like on second down, you're looking at the outcomes as being like, oh, well, that was disastrous either. So I think, you know, we kind of get into this with nitpicking,

like, well, they should have done this thing on this specific play. I think if you look at the totality of it, they ran the ball more often on first down they were efficient they got to second and mediums they sprinkled in a mixture of plays some successful some not and the drop eight stuff to me was more on on third down than it was necessarily on the run situation so um i'm not sure how valid of a criticism you know that specifically is yeah it's fun you look at it there were a lot of second and six sort of scenarios so in the fourth quarter their first drive four yard run on first down incompletion on and second down, sacked by Hendrickson on third down.

Similar to the drive before that, or excuse me, the drive before that was the interception. That's second and three, which is an RPO that gets picked. I mean, that's just, that happens. Yeah, so that was one of the other ones that I forgot. So that was a second down play that is just a screwy play. And obviously it happened a few times with the Chiefs this year, but kind of a weird one. The first drive of the third quarter, second and six after a four-yard first down run. That's what you're talking about, the incompletion to Tyreek, and then the incompletion.

to Travis when flowers right there, which was a nice throw and just a nice defensive play. Drive after that, another second and six, two incompletions punt. So there were a lot of second and sixes, and you could go either way on that. It's just, you just look at it. It's like, oh, man, they were just having so much success running the ball.

And a couple of those second and six plays are six-yard runs or five-yard runs. You hand it off on third down. And it's hard not to put the ball into the hands of arguably the best player on the planet. advantageous down and distant situations when that's always who you've been. It's easy to go back and second guess it now, but you just look at what the complexion of the game was and how easily they were running the ball in certain moments and what the

Bengals were doing on those second and third down passing situations. We can re-legislate it a hundred different times. It's easy to do with games like this, but it just feels like turning the dials one way or the other, and this just doesn't happen. Yeah, it's hard to do that because when you look at all the neutral situation, you know, what's more efficient, you're passing, what's better to do, you know,

the Chiefs are always in the top two or three of throwing the ball in neutral situations. And we all applaud them all the time for doing that. Because they're immensely efficient at it. They're the best offense in the league. Exactly. So to go back and say they had four bad second and medium plays and now we got to nitpick each individual one,

I mean, I think that's when you get a little bit too far into the weeds. If you look at the totality of it, like this style of offense has produced one of the greatest four-year stretches of offense of all time. Four of those plays, of the four plays, like two of them didn't work out properly. And I think it's, you know, not a great thing to go ahead and say that, like, it was specifically a wrong call because two plays out of a 4,000 sample didn't quite work out the way we wanted. So, yeah, you can pick. You can say, oh, the run game was more efficient, whatever, whatever.

But again, it's like an attitude and a mindset changed that if he was more inclined to think that way, maybe all these other things that happened before wouldn't have been as good because that would have been the mindset that led to less success earlier. So that's why I don't like getting into these specific like these things should have changed because we didn't like the outcome situations. Yeah, it's a couple bounces of the ball. When Nate said it last night, sometimes the best shooter on the planet goes four for 20 in game seven. Sometimes it just happens. And that's kind of how it felt last night. All right, let's get to our next question here.

I think Timo Roscoe or Tim Roscoe, one of those two, because it was all smushed together. So there's no doubt Kyle Shanahan is one of the best play callers in the league. But he's been part of three playoff losses where his team was leading by 10 points late in the game. Is it bad luck or is there a common denominator? What do you think about this? Well, there's a common denominator, but I don't know. There's certainly a common denominator. Is there a common denominator where he is at fault, a through line of his being at fault?

Right, that's the thing I don't necessarily agree with. So my thing with the Super Bowl, the play that really swung it was the missed... You were involved in one of these games. I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, I won one of those games. So if you want to go chronology, so you go back to the Super Bowl, it was the running back missing a blitz pickup on like two jet, which is one of the only pass protections he runs in situations, and the running back has very defined responsibilities.

And so if you want to say that like, I remember that was he too aggressive? Was he running? Was he throwing the ball too much? This and that. I thought it was nonsense. If he gets a piece of high tower was a touchdown. Right. Exactly.

So that's a player making a bad play that leads to a bad outcome in a string of bad outcomes in that game. So I don't put that one on Kyle at all. I think he smartly stayed aggressive. He realized Brady was going to score every time and he was trying to maximize points. Now there are certain times in that game. It's been legislated a bunch. Maybe he could have run the ball better or done this.

on that. But for the most part, and we just talked about not boiling it down to one specific play, but in this instance, like if the guy does his job and just gets in the way of the linebacker he's supposed to block, the Falcons score touchdown and they probably win the Super Bowl. So that doesn't happen. Two years ago, we were, I like to think, the better team. We had a pretty awesome quarterback and team. I'd say the common denominator of the last two times for Shanahan is the quarterback, more than it being Kyle. I think we've talked about. We've talked to talked about it last week, like, he's a limitation on the team. And yeah, you can get out to big leads and stuff, but it rears its ugly head. And you can say that the safety for the Niners should

have picked Stafford off, but Jimmy should have thrown like three picks himself earlier in the game. So I think those things kind of negate themselves. If anything, I think we should be talking about, I know you guys did, but the fourth down calls and his inability to just keep the offense on the field in those situations. I don't know if he scarred from that Super Bowl and people said he was too aggressive then and now he wants to be more traditional now. But I was hoping the outcome of that game was him saying, all right, maybe I need to reevaluate what I do in between the 50 and the plus 40 and maybe I should start going for it more. And he was just like, no, I never even thought to go for it. It was pretty easy punt for me and I do it again. And I was hoping that would be the outcome. So to the

guy's point. I don't think Kyle is the reason that they're blowing these games. I think there's other things to be in these situations in two Super Bowls to have, you know, what, a 25 point lead and a 10 point lead. And then to be in an AFC championship with this team and with this quarterback, I think is much more of a testament to him and what he's able to do than saying that he's a detriment for, you know, blowing these leads. I have long thought that Kyle Shanahan is, if not the best offensive coach in football, than one of the best two or three. Been very vocal about that for many years. That 2016 Falcons team is one of my favorite teams, one of my favorite offenses that I've ever gotten to watch. Around midseason, when they were 500, I was pretty adamant that I thought they were going to the Super Bowl because of what they looked like on offense.

And they did. And they were a couple bounces of the ball away from winning that Super Bowl. He got to San Francisco. Whenever his quarterback has been healthy, they have been a really, really good offense. Even when his quarterback hasn't been healthy, Nick Mullins is in the top 10 in yards per attempt since he got to work with Kyle Shanahan. If he continues to make these sorts of game management decisions, he's putting his team at a disadvantage. It's just that simple. It really is.

You can love Kyle Shanahan and the edges he creates for the Niners as much as you want. And I do. but when we've reached a world where if you're going to consistently do this, other teams are too good. You can't just waste edges. You can't just give another team a better chance to win the game with these sorts of decisions and hope to continuously win tight games in the playoffs. It's just going to be harder.

You're making it harder on yourself. For all of the ways he makes it easier on his players, he's making the game harder on his team when he does this sort of stuff. So it's interesting as you're saying that we've kind of all talked about and seen on social media. McVeigh wasn't great in game management yesterday. He was not. So is this going to be like the lasting legacy of the Shanahan McVeigh tree that maybe they're all brilliant offensive minds and they know how to script offenses and stuff? But they're all like really concerned on fourth down and like just don't understand how to manage games.

It apparently are. Do you think it's a play calling thing? Do you feel like it's too much for one person to manage in the moment to be like, I am the decision maker, I am the driver of the offensive choices, all of that, and I have to make these in-game decisions? It feels like it's more complicated than that. Yeah, you would think that they'd be able to compartmentalize. And again, the best coaches, they're having these discussions throughout the week.

So it's not like in the moment, like Kyle's decided if it's fourth and two at the 40, like, that's a pun for me this week. Like some guys overrule that. They go with their gut. You know, I would say Baltimore would go into a game saying we're going to go for it every time in that situation. Maybe you get to a fourth on six and the chart says, and they talked about earlier, we want a punt. But I really like what Lamar's doing and we're going to give him a chance and we're going to go for it. So I don't think that it's too much responsibility or they're trying to think of too many things and find the best plays and stuff.

Also, he had a time out to work with to think about it. And the best thing he could come up with is a stupid draw him off sides play and then take the delay and punt it. So it's not like he didn't have. Time out would have been nice later, huh? Yeah. It's not like he didn't have time to think about it and to come up with his best play for two minutes. So I think that argument, you know, isn't necessarily the best one. It just seems like for whatever reason. I don't know if it's like the structure of the offense that they're so reliant on kind of the old school like run the ball, aggressive mentality, physicality, that that's also part of it is field position and punt the ball and trust your defense and whatever. You just assume for guys that are so aggressive and so willing. to find that, like you said, every single edge that they can on offense. Both these guys spent a ton of capital to upgrade the quarterback position because they needed their offense to be better. And then you go wasting opportunities to prove that on the field. It just, it doesn't make a ton of sense. And it's a little bit perplexing. It's mind-boggling. It's so frustrating. Yeah. I mean, you would think I saw someone's tweet, like, on the first three downs, Kyle's, this demigod that's like

drawing lightning from the sky. And he's like, I've created. the greatest offense of all time with the greatest players and I can do anything I want. And a fourth down, I suck. Let me punt it. And it's like, I've been in those meetings. I know how confident he is in every single play he calls and he draws up. It's weird that he somehow like doesn't have the confidence in those moments. And I would like to think he's going to remedy that this offseason.

But based on one day's worth of quotes, it doesn't seem like that's something he's really willing to entertain. I hope that a new quarterback and more faith in the quarterback will just. drive a different type of decision making. That's what I hope, because I don't want this to be some lasting legacy of what we think about of Kyle Shanahan as a coach. I remember after you guys won that game, I wrote that Kyle was Andy Reid now. That's what it was.

He was the new version of how we used to talk about Andy Reed, where you have this brilliant offensive mind who can't get these decisions right in the biggest moments, these game management decisions. And we can talk about them as these generational play games. callers and these creative people that drove the way we think about the offensive side of the sport and they still can't get it right because of these little blunders. And I don't want that to be the way we talk about him because I just think that he's so good in those other areas and there's just one little thing that they need to clean up. Just the way that team plays. I mean, just the

energy they play with and the effort they play with. It's not just about the designs and what it looks like on a whiteboard. It's the overall feel. He's clearly doing such a good job in the other areas of being a head coach, not just being an offensive play designer. So it's really one thing. It's one box that needs to be checked. Yeah. And one of the things that we kind of joke about is, oh, well, these coaches need to play more Madden. If they played as much Madden as the rest of us did, like they'd understand how to handle these end-of-game situations. But it's like, these guys are all in their 30s. They grew up with Madden. They for sure played it a bunch growing up. And so this is the generation

This isn't Mike Zimmer making these decisions It's a 40-year-old dude who has changed offensive football He's an innovator So yeah again it's it's weird That it goes through the whole tree It's him, it's McVeigh We just talked about Taylor running the ball Way too often on first down

And potentially putting his offense in bad situations LaFleur has been crushed for a few years now For not being more aggressive in these situations For kicking the field goal last year For all these things So it does seem like that tree, for whatever reason, leans way more conservative. Yeah. Guys that are slight branches off of it, like Stefansky doesn't really count, even though he runs offense with similar DNA.

He goes for it on Fort Down all the time. But maybe there's just something about the 2012 Washington staff. If you were on that staff or you worked for somebody directly who was on that staff, it's bled into your thought process. Possibly. I don't know. Maybe Mike Shanahan is really the one that was infecting all of them with punt on fourth down. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Zachary Hamilton says,

just curious about what it's like postgame in the locker room after losing a big game, such as a conference championship game. Well, I'm sure it varies depending on how it was lost. I was particularly interested when it boils down to seemingly one big play, D4 jumping off sides, which you can speak to, Brandon Bostic's on-size kickmuff, and what I'm sure will go down is the tart dropped interception. So what is the mood like? Is it different than a normal locker room after a loss?

How are teammates reacting, having done well enough to seemingly win and then have it slip through their fingers? Just curious since the last several examples. examples I can remember. Just curious. I can speak to one example that he mentioned because I was in that locker room after the game. It was the Brandon Bostic onside kick, but you were in the locker room after the D4 game. Yeah. So it sucks because it's the last game of the year. So obviously it's much different than all the other losses where it's not the end of the year. The further you get in the playoffs, the more it sucks and the more it hurts. And I think we talked about D4 last week. The

players don't think, oh, D, screwed up. He's the reason. But for the most part, that specific player thinks that about his actions. And so that guy's usually distraught. And he's sitting in his locker. He's not moving. He's crying. He's got a towel over his head, whatever else. And now you're going up to that guy being like, dude, it's all right. Like a big reason we're here is because of you. It's not one play. Obviously, whatever you're saying in the moment doesn't really matter. We've all been in situations where we kind of hate ourselves and we think we're at fault. And whatever anyone tells us isn't going to make us feel better. So yeah, it really, it really sucks and you just don't quite know what to do you want to console the guy you're dealing with

your own feelings you're frustrated and disappointed and that's where until i won the super ball i thought the playoffs kind of sucked because you kept playing more football it was more stressful it was more difficult you end of the season with disappointment you didn't get paid quite as much like there were all these kind of negative outcomes that went along with getting to the playoffs now the super bowl makes it all worth it and i can definitely say that after the fact but it just it it it sucks to season. You know, Coach reads quotes today, like, there's only one actually happy team at the end of the season. And it kind of puts it in perspective. Like, everyone's disappointed. And when you've got these expectations and things seem in your grasp, that's where the one play thing comes down is that

it seemed in your grasp, if not for this one thing happening. And I've noticed, especially with Twitter the last day or so, people like to blame certain individuals and like to put everything on this one moment or this one player, this one specific idea. And it just doesn't work that way. That's just not the way this works. So it's really difficult to see in those specific moments. It's a weird mixture of you feel bad for the one guy. There's typically guys who take it harder than others. Everyone's frustrated, disappointed, you're exhausted, you're not really sure what's going to happen in the future. You're nervous. You're like, it's this weird energy. And you can speak on that a little bit from your perspective of seeing it.

It's when you're in there after those games, and we used to be able to go in the locker room, it's probably never coming back, but you used to be able to go to the locker room after games. I was there after the Brandon Bostic dropped onside kick. And I'll never forget it. I'll never forget walking in there, and there was the visitor locker room in Seattle.

And there was these big visitor locker rooms in Seattle, these big visitor lockers in Seattle. And he had climbed all the way inside the locker. You couldn't even see him. All you could see, he was wearing yellow shoes and you could see like the two inches of the tip of his shoes pointing out of the bottom of the locker. He was trying to disappear. And that's how hard he was taking it. And I remember seeing Corey Winsley and talking him for a second after that game and just how broken those guys were because you felt how close they were.

And Brandon Bostic obviously has talked about this since. I mean, it did a number on him. The reaction to that game and all the hate that he endured after that game, which sucks. but in the moment when you're in that locker room, it's pretty devastating. And the Super Bowl was a weird situation because it's not a normal setup. You're not necessarily in a visitor locker room. Sometimes you are, sometimes you're not.

I remember being in the Rams visiting locker room after they lost to the Patriots. And never forget Jared Goff talking to Sean Mannion and just trying to, they clearly were just like going through it. It's like, what the fuck just happened? And talking through it. Jared would just beat to hell. I mean, he got absolutely annihilated in that game. And the last one I remember was the Falcons after the 28 to 3 game.

They weren't even in a locker room. It was like a makeshift locker room off to the side. And I was walking around there and just towels getting thrown in bins and crying children. I mean, it's real. I mean, those moments after you lose a game like that, people take it really, really hard. just kind of a pall that falls over everybody and it's palpable and it's a very human thing. I mean, I think that's why I like going still is that beyond seeing what's on the field, being able to kind of see those reactions in that moment and understand how people process losses

like that and what it means to guys and how important it is, all of those things. I mean, I'm going to the Super Bowl next week and I'm going for that reason. You want to be able to kind of feel the gravity of it all and I can promise you guys that are playing in those games, they feel it. Yeah, and that's something I think the fans don't see or they're not as exposed to is a lot of the times fans are like, oh, I wish they cared as much as we did, and they think that they're the only ones that give a crap when teams lose, and it's like, you've never been through what we've been through, and you've never really seen that guy breaking down crying.

Like, if you think it means a lot to you, who has nothing invested except money and emotions, and like we're literally putting our bodies in our lively. through it. Like, how do you think we feel in the moment? So, yeah, it's, you're able to speak more eloquently as a former writer. So that was good of you to put it in better terms than I did. But, yeah, it sucks. And guys are down there's former writer. Thank you very much. I thought you like that. And yeah, it just, it sucks. And there's, it's, it's hard to articulate it, um, in a better way than that. But guys are like literally broken and it takes them a while to come back from it. And of course, the greatest thing that guys want to see is their Twitter.

her timeline and everyone giving them crap and hate mail and death threats and stuff. So it just kind of leads into the worst outcome of what social media and what kind of human social interaction has become. And it just kind of feeds on itself and just becomes worse and worse. So Brandon Lovessee asked a question for you that I was curious about. He said, what does the end of a season look like for a player? We hear about people doing exit interviews, but what does it actually look like? And is it different if you're injured, making plans with medical staff or going into free

agency. Yeah, so every team has this like exit day. It's typically the Monday after or the day after the last game of the year, you know, for the teams that lost on Saturdays, like it would be on the Sunday. So you get back, you go in the building, the head coach gives a speech and says, thank you for everything. It was a great year or a shitty year. I don't know, whatever. It was a year. This is kind of what happened. And I appreciate all your hard work and, you know, things are different every year. not all you're going to be here. Just, you know, the reality of football. Typically, from there you kind of break up.

The offensive coordinator says a similar speech. The defensive coordinator gives the defense a similar speech. And then you're usually supposed to meet with the head coach, your position group's coordinator, and your position group coach. I said that a little clunky. But essentially, you're meeting with, you know, as an offensive player, I'm meeting with the head coach, the offensive coordinator, and your position coach.

And you kind of have an end of the year thing and just kind of run. through stuff and that's where it kind of sucks. Is it a breakdown of your play? Is it your plan, the plan for you? What is said in that meeting? It depends on the coach. It depends. It's kind of dependent.

So when you see the head coach, I mean, he's meeting with like 90 guys that day. So he tends to keep it a little bit. A little bit, yeah. He tends to keep it a little bit quicker, obviously depending on what guy you are. He kind of speeds things up or takes a little bit more time. That's where having 10 years nice because anyone that tries to walk your way,

you're like, dude, I got eight years. You got six. I'm next. When you're on an older team and there's a lot of older guys, the head coach one could take a while. With your actual position coach, that's probably where you talk about. Like you had a good year individually. I thought you played really well.

Like I'm looking forward to next year. Or, I mean, half the time the coach asked you, like, are you even under contract for next year? Because like, they don't really know the contract stuff. So they want to know if you're. That's really funny. I know the contract stuff. Yeah. But as a coach, I mean, they're not really tied into how many years you got left in the

guaranteed money and stuff. I would want to know that if I were. coaching a group of professional athletes what their contract situation was. I don't know. I would want all the context involved about what a guy's motivations would be and where he was in his process. I mean, it's readily available information. You can look it up in 10 seconds on the internet.

I know, but I think they're so invested and it's the day after and they're dealing with kind of the loss too. So it's just more confirmation of, oh yeah, you're here next year. You're not. These are your plans, whatever. So with your actual coach, you'll kind of go over a synopsis of the season. when you're planning who should be on the offensive line and what the group looks like. Don't you want to know if your right tackle is going to be a free agent in two years?

When you're thinking about who they're going to draft and I don't know. This just seems like institutional knowledge. The offensive line coach isn't the one who's giving out contracts and putting the team together. I understand that. But when he's asking, when they're soliciting his feedback on the draft or on potential free agents, isn't it important to know what the complexion of your line is going to look like for that year, the next year. I don't know.

This seems crazy to me. Yeah, I'm not sure. So you're saying I should play a different player because one guy's got one year left and one guys got two years left? Not at all. But if I'm looking at a guy in the third round and like, this is a prospect. Well, what's our plan for that prospect? When is the guy he could potentially replace hitting free agency?

How does he play into our future plans? All of those things seem like they would be good to know. Yeah. I guess I'm saying that that's a different scenario than the day after the season and just like, hey, are you under contract for next year? Like, they might know it, they might not. They're just maybe reminding themselves. But like the team building stuff that happens from, I don't know, right now until

August is very different than what happens from August to the end of the year. I guess so. I just thought it would be something they would know offhand. Yeah, I mean, again, it's not. I'm not saying anyone coach in particular, but like I've had coaches say like, hey, are you under contract for next year? Like, they don't always know that specific thing in that specific moment. So yeah, you kind of talk to all the coaches.

It's kind of, what are your plans this? year what are you going to do blah blah like do you have any vacations kind of stuff like that again it just takes on kind of the tenor of the guy you're talking to and then you do meet with the medical staff um you sign a piece of paper it either says that you're healthy enough to play football or not healthy enough to play football so the majority of people you sign the paper you're healthy enough you don't really have any outstanding injuries and you go on your way and you're fine for the guys who actually are hurt like me last year you signed a thing that says no i'm not healthy enough to play football right now I was at the point where I hadn't 100%.

I don't think we had planned the surgery yet because, I mean, I had worked the whole year to not have surgery. I kind of knew at that point, like it was the last hope and we kind of exhausted all the cures short of surgery. So I was trying to figure out what was next, surgery, my future, all that stuff. And they were just like, yeah, we'll do whatever you want to do. You've talked to the surgeon before so you can schedule with him, you can schedule with whoever. it's pretty open-ended and there are guys who signed future contracts that day you know the guys who are becoming free agents or the practice squad guys so it's a bit of a combination of all those things but you see the medical staff you do kind of an end of year checkup um it's more player driven like yeah

I'm fine I'm going to sign this if you don't think you are you want an MRI on something you can tell them you can get that done you sign the piece of paper saying you're healthy or you're not and then you meet with all the staff individually that are the ones that are the ones that you're you would talk to you on a day-to-day basis. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Ed Wood says, I ask this for all the lions,

Washington, Browns, Jags, and Jets fans out there. Does ownership really matter in the NFL? The Bengals have had what has been universally agreed upon as a bottom three to five owner

and they are now in the Super Bowl. The Giants have what is universally praised as one of the best owners in the NFL. We can talk about that if we want to. And they've had the worst record in the NFL for half a decade. So is ownership really important or is it some imaginable metric

the fans end up rating because it's not really measurable. How do you feel about this? Ownership definitely matters. How much does it matter? How much do you feel it? I think it matters a good deal because I only have two experiences with ownership. And essentially what the owner does and the way he builds the power structure allows for one clear vision and everyone to work on the same path or it doesn't. And that was a problem in Cleveland for a while is that the business guy was trying to,

to Haslam about football stuff and the GM was here and the coach was here and they were all trying to jump each other and there wasn't like a clear this is the order of operations this is who's in charge of these things. It's a clear line of command. I've only got one guy reporting to me because this guy reports to this guy to this guy to this guy then it gets to me. I can't remember maybe a couple years ago. I think there was a scenario where like three guys were independently reporting to an owner. This isn't the Browns. I think it was someone else that we all crushed on Twitter. But like they had set it up. like the GM, the head coach and like the director of personnel,

we're all like independently reporting to the owner. And it's just like, well, that's not sustainable. So now he's got three different guys with three different voices trying to blame the other two. Yeah. So those things don't tend to work. So I think the owner having an idea of how it's supposed to run, delineating that power, figuring it out, like that is real. That has an impact.

I would say that also leads to longstanding success. some of the i mean we tend to say owners are poor when their team suck and they keep firing guys so there probably is an element to some level of skill in finding talent acquiring talent and setting themselves they're setting them up to succeed in the best way possible and to cincinnati's point like they're only in the spot because they sucked two straight years and they got the number one overall pick and then the top five wide receiver like that's for the most part why they're here and they for the first time ever like started actually paying free agents for the last couple years and yeah maybe it wasn't

25 million dollar contracts but they gave DJ Reeder a pretty high contract they signed some other quality guys and they started spending money so since he's here because they sucked and they got two special guys whether that ownership wants to spend the money to make the next 15 years of the Joe Burrow experience what the city wants it to be I think that's going to be

the big thing that we just don't know you would think that they would go into this year and say every single resource we have goes into the offensive line and whenever we have leftover keeps bolstering the defense align. Again, whether the owner is willing to do that, we don't know. Like, he's different than every other owner and that every other owner, I think, is independently wealthy and bought the team where the Brown family, like, started the Bengals and, like, that's their one business and their one operation.

And so I think for them, like, that's the thing that makes them money. So from my understanding, that's why their situation is different and why they haven't spent as much money is because, like, that's the family, net worth. The team is the net worth and their revenues are their revenues where everyone else is wealthy independently. They can say, all right, the team is operating on this thing. And if we make zero money, like it's still an asset for me. It's still growing. And I've got this $4 billion elsewhere. So that's why, from my knowledge, why the Cincinnati thing is different and why they haven't spent money in the past. I just hope that they changed the future. And I think ownership's bad.

And literally for that one reason because they just haven't spent money. That's always been the thing, is that they're cheap. It doesn't resemble other dysfunctional teams in the way that we would typically think. Marvin Lewis was there for a long, long time. They haven't filtered through coaches. Duke Tobin, who is their de facto general manager in their front office, has been there for a long time. They've done a decent job of building some rosters over the last decade or so.

They had a dry spell in the draft. You look at what happened to them in the kind of 2014-2015 realm in the draft and just how many offensive linemen they've. missed on over the course of a four to five year period. That was their swoon. But other than that, the main criticisms are financial and the way they spend money on free agents and on staffs. If you just look at their scouting staff compared to other teams around the league, and I think it's gotten a little bit better. But that was always the way that people would talk about the Bengals. You would talk to people in the NFL and they would treat the Bengals and discuss the

bangles like their own unique entity that did not apply to the rest to the ways that the rest of the teams operated. That's how the tenor of those conversations around the team, that's what they are. Recently, that has changed a little bit. They have spent on free agents in a way that they never had in the past. They have been willing to throw around some money. I mean, they have one of the most expensive defenses in football this year, I think, number one, because of how much money they've spent in free agency.

So things may be shifting there a little bit. and the way we talk about that overall ownership structure may change because of that. So I think ownership does matter. And I think without the tweaks that the Bengals were willing to make in their approach, they're not in this position. They built this defense entirely through free agency. Yeah. And it's, again, it's easier to just like start spending more money, especially when you go

through two years where finally you convince ownership to spend more and then it reaps rewards. And you're like, see, this is working. and now you're going to have all this merch money and you're going to have all these sales and season tickets can go through the roof. That's your borough money. Yeah, so now you're going to have more revenue coming in. So maybe you're looking at the ledger,

you're like, ah, we do have an extra $50 million. You guys can go spend in their free agency. So I'm hopeful that this is the start of showing ownership that like this stuff's worth it. We can gain edges this way. You know, it's yielding on-field success. And for guys who are really concerned about money, like the thing that you want is to make sure your money's

being spent in a way to make more money and they're making more money with their success, with their playoffs, and with everything they're going to sell because of it. Yeah, the last couple of years have definitely been a change in the way that they approach things. I think that some of the younger members of the family are in the inner circle now and their decision-making group. And I don't know the ins and outs of it necessarily. It's something that maybe we'll hit with what Paul Deiner and I have talked about a little bit on this show in the past.

I think it's relevant to how the Bengals got here. And it's something that I'm sure we'll dig into over the next couple weeks. All right. Next question here. Jacob Grimm asked a question that I've kind of hinted at in the past in a joking way on this show. So why do so many coordinators want to take a head coaching job? It feels as if it's presented as this inevitability where every successful OC or DC is regarded as the next head hot shot coach candidate. Imagine Kyle Shanahan just designing offenses and not making game decisions seems preferable. Working in Kansas City as an offensive coordinator sounds fun as hell. It may just be a limited perception, but I would love to hear your and Mitch's insights. I think this is particularly relevant because Josh McDaniels reportedly made $4 million a year to be the Patriots offensive coordinator, which seems like a great gig.

But I'm assuming that it's about money. I mean, if you're making $4 million compared to $8 million, even as the highest paid coordinator in the league, that's a ton of money. It's a huge difference. And these guys have egos. I mean, you're driven by wanting to be the best in your field, by wanting to be that guy that is regarded as one of the best coaches in the league. sure that plays a part in it. What's your initial reaction to this? Those two things. I think it's really that simple. You know, for the most part, so there are two different types of people. There are the people that have long-term goals and say, I want to be at this

spot in five years. I want to be at this spot in 10 years. My goal is to be in head coach. Those people sound great and envious of those people. Yeah, that's not me. And there's people that are just like, all right, this is what I'm doing right now and we'll see where it goes. And I think both those guys kind of end up in the same spot. And once you're an offensive coordinator, it's like, all right, well, all these other things, head coach is the next step. And now it's really exciting. And now I'm this much closer to being the guy that runs the team. And it's just, it's exciting. I think people like having more responsibility. They like being the one in charge. They like thinking of themselves as this special entity that can transform, you know, corporations and

things of that nature. So to your point, yeah, I mean, money and ego are really at the core of it. And unfortunately I don't have too much more to have than that and I think you hit it pretty well. I mean there are a lot of guys I think that have done a great job of sitting in those roles and doing well with it. Dick Leboe. Dick Leboe was a defense coordinator for 11 years

after he was a head coach for three and I can understand wanting to just be a defensive coordinator. Pete Carmichael has been the Saints Offensive coordinator for a decade and that seems like a really nice job. Lee Phillips, especially later in his career, he like stumbled into these head coaching jobs. He was the interim in Denver and then he got the job and he was on the staff in Dallas and

then he just got elevated and it always seemed like he was better suited to just be a defensive coordinator. Personality wise, all that stuff. Fangio. Fangio just should have been a defensive coordinator for however long. But when you've done this for 40 years and you want to see if you can do it, I'm sure that there's something pulling you to that highest stage. Yeah. So there's one specific thing that we didn't touch on, which is the McDaniel, the Eric Bannamy, these other guys, like, yeah, your offensive coordinator and title, but your head coach is the designer. And Shanahan's calling the plays. Coach Reed's calling the plays.

McVeigh's calling the plays. So, yeah, it's really fun to be the offensive coordinator under these masterminds, but Josh McDaniels is different because he's got a defensive head coach and he is the one in full control of the offense. He's designing it. He's calling the plays. He has autonomy. These other guys don't have autonomy.

me. So if you're coming from an offensive scheme where the head coach really is a coordinator, the step up to being a head coach is like, hey, this is finally my own thing. I get to fully own it in a way I never have before. And that's an exciting piece. And yeah, I mean, I was thinking as well, like the guys who become fulfilled and just say I'm a career coordinator, they do it after they get their chance to be a head coach and say, you know what, this kind of sucked. There's a lot of administrative stuff. I think Dan Quinn was just talking about it. I mean, I know there's probably other reasons why he didn't take a job. But like, he was like, yeah, sometimes I see all the shit McCarthy's got to deal with. I'm like, have fun, buddy. I'm going to go coach the defense. I don't blame him at all. This is

how I'm wired personally. So I completely understand that thought process. Right. But usually you jump to that next level that you think you wanted. You realize, you know what, maybe this isn't for me. You take the step back and then you're content making two or three million a year being a coordinator. Like it just very seldom happens where guys are just like, nope, I want to be a career coordinator. I mean, I personally can't think of an instance where a guy's been a career coordinator and just shown like zero interest in being a head coach. and never entertained it and just knows from the get-go that's something they don't want. I don't know how many interviews he's had, but Carmichael would be the best example of that to me. Yeah, I think honestly position coaches that happens more often, like offensive line coaches especially.

But like, yeah, I love the offensive line. These are a great group of guys. Like, I don't want the responsibility of doing the whole offense. I don't want to have to do the whole passing game. I don't want to call play. It's like, I really like this unit. I like this group. I like the intricacies of it.

Like, I'm happy doing it. And I think that's more common. and then a coordinator just saying, nope, I'm good on head coach. All right, guys. That's all we got for today. We'll be back next week, doing some Super Bowl mail bag stuff,

I assume, if that's okay with you. Yeah, I'll be in LA, so we've got to figure out schedules. Nice. All right, so slight change for this week, schedule-wise, though. Lindsay and I are going to be coming to you guys tomorrow, Wednesday. We're going to talk about just the head coach hiring cycle,

some of the moves that have been made. You know, we haven't talked about some of those, the Brian Dable decision, the Josh McDaniels decision. We wanted to save that for the chat with Lindsay. And then Dane and Lance and me are actually going to be doing a draft podcast from Mobile, Alabama at the Senior Bowl for Thursday. So just keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, please rate and review the podcast

on your podcast platform of choice. Really appreciate that. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathetic.com slash football show. Really appreciate guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the athletic football show.