The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: Taunting rule, Tom Brady vs. Bill Belichick, Frank Reich's value & Thanksgiving food power rankings with Mitchell Schwartz

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

Super Bowl champ Mitchell Schwartz returns to open this week's Mailbag with Robert Mays as the taunting rule reared it's ugly head again in week 11. Hear a player's perspective on the impact on the game, plus Tom Brady's value vs. Bill Belichick's value, Bills concerns, Justin Fields' development, where Frank Reich ranks in the coaching hierarchy & more before Mitchell and Robert rank their favorite Thanksgiving foods, with a few surprises along the way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Today's Tuesday, November 23rd. I'm Robert Mays. A few quick things to get out of the way before we get started today. I wanted to remind you guys, the Athletics Black Friday sale is going on. If you go to theathletic.com slash football show, it's a dollar a month for the next 12 months. If you have not subscribed to the Athletic yet, I don't know what you're doing.

This is your best chance to get it. It's the best deal that we do. please go get your athletic subscription. I'm going to be writing a couple times over the next few weeks as we get toward the end of the season. If that is enough to convince you, please let it happen. If not, there are so many other great writers of the athletic. I encourage you to go grab a subscription. Just a programming note.

We're going to have the mailbag with Mitch today. Tomorrow, Nate and Sheel are going to be joining me for just the Thanksgiving preview. We're going to dig into the three games, do a little bit of a betting guide, try to make what is not that interesting a set of games a little bit more interesting with the ways that you can spend your money. Thursday, Lindsay's going to join me for a special Thanksgiving episode, and then Friday, normal programming, Friday 5, pick segment. So we're still going to have five shows a week coming to you guys if you want to check it out.

If you're going to be sitting there cooking or waiting for Thanksgiving to start, we will have plenty of stuff for you to listen to. For now, though, I'm thrilled to welcome my good friend, Mitchell Schwartz. Mitch, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. This is a very good week to be a large person, so I'm excited. We're going to get into some first. food takes later because the things that you and I are on the same wavelength with is football

and food. You love watches. That's just an area where I don't have a lot of expertise or interest. But football and food, those are the two places where you and I really vibe. So we're going to dig into the food takes in this a little bit later in the show. All right. Well, I'll try not just elevate all over the microphone until then, but I'm getting excited thinking about Thursday.

All right. Let's get to our first voicemail here. Robert, I'm just calling to check in to see how you're doing as a Bears fan. I myself heard the cries of fire Matt and Aggie in the stands. I agree. Just asking, just doing a checkup, I imagine you're getting dozens of calls of people making sure you're okay. I'm one of them. I listen to this show all the time.

The Bears can't do anything. I'm sorry. Have a good one. My name is Drew. I wanted to thank Drew for that. I wanted to thank Drew for checking in my well-being. I'm doing fine. It was unfortunate yesterday, and it's especially unfortunate for this week if we don't

get to watch Justin Fields on Thanksgiving because you're running out of reasons to watch the Bears. I'm resigned to whatever the outcomes are this year. For me, it's about how does Justin Fields look and how does this set up for the future? It's tough. You come into these scenarios and you kind of look at it. It's like, all right, how are we going to change the course of an entire organization? And is there going to be, like in your case, Mitch and Andy Reed?

Is there going to be a Sean McVeigh? Is there going to be this next great coach that you can find? That's the thing that I'm thinking about now. And I think those are hard to stumble onto, but that's kind of where I am, is what does the next phase of this look like and how does Justin Fields look? So a game like yesterday, while depressing and not fun to watch, that stuff can't drag me down anymore. Well, it has to start with the O line, right?

Like they've got this awesome quarterback and everyone's excited about him. And we've seen what bad offensive lines can do to quarterbacks. I mean, that literally ruined Andrew Luck's career. And we knew coming into the season, O-Line was a bit of a question mark to put it lightly. And, you know, it's kind of lived up to the billing. And, of course, the one guy they drafted to, you know, kind of take over a tackle, has a bad back. And he has surgery. And I thought he was out for the year, but he might be coming back.

And so to me, if you're, you know, head coach and or GM who take over, you know, presuming that they clean house, you know, don't look at that as a focal point to, you know, having a emphasis on what do we do to make fields better? Number one, protect him. I mean, we've seen this year in Indianapolis, you know, Wence looks a lot better behind a good offensive line and, you know, partially a scheme that also protects him as well. But like that good offensive line, he didn't have that last year and he looked terrible and he played terrible.

And now he's comfortable and they're protecting him and, you know, they're saying ahead of the sticks. And so, you know, I think whoever's coming in, that's got to be the priority. But the caller, I mean, he just sounded like so defeated and just like, I don't even know what to say anymore. I just hope you're doing okay. That's how it is. And that's why I have not allowed myself to get to that place.

It's like, listen, you hope you have a quarterback to build around it. I think we'll probably touch on this in some ways over the course of this show. And it's been a constant theme over the entire season so far. You need to build a hospitable environment for your quarterback in any way possible. That is a way to sustain success in the NFL. Look at what's happening with Mack Jones. look at what's happening with Carson Wentz. Look at what's happening with so many teams around the league.

When you have Sean McVey and Matthew Stafford and what they've been able to do, even if there are some dips over the last couple weeks, you need to do everything you can to build that environment for yourself. The Bears have not done that by virtue of the players that they've gotten, by virtue of the coaching stat that they've built. My mind now is already there. My mind is on to how are they going to build that environment? Who are the people who are going to be in charge to make that happen?

How do you find those people? So the down points during a loss to the Ravens in the middle of the season when Lamar Jackson and half of the Ravens team isn't even playing, I try not to engage with that because my mind is already on what is going to happen in the middle of January, what the list of people should look like, what the consideration should look like. I'm already there. Whether that's fast forwarding a little bit too much, that's the emotional place that I've reached with myself. Yeah, I mean, you're clearly trying to protect yourself there, not living in a lot. the moment at all. You kind of just said, all right, you know, I have zero expectation so they can only make me feel better than what I expect of them. Are you looking towards, you know, I'd imagine most Bears fans want a change of scenery? Are you looking for, you know, the offensive guru to come in?

Or are you looking for, you know, we talked about a couple weeks ago what you wanted to head coach? I know you lean towards, you know, kind of the schematic guy. But at this point, do you think they need kind of a discipline culture guy and just sets the tone, you know, kind of writes the ship for a bit, tries to find maybe that hot young, you know, OC to kind of groom fields and then, you know, figured out in a few years. I lean toward the offensive-minded head coach and the offensive-minded play calling head coach, still, because I think even if you look at all of the examples of the specific examples that have worked out, even if they're not necessarily quarterback gurus and they're guys that

have kind of created an overall feeling and an overall just tone as an organization. A lot of those guys happen to be offensive-minded head coaches, like the McVeves. You know, it's not even just the play-calling aspect of it. I just think that that's the tone you want with the organization as things currently stand. Even with Andy, it's not as if the play-calling was the selling point of it. I think it was having that guy at the center of it all and having him be the one that pushes the buttons and kind of sets the course of your organization. I want that to be the ethos behind how you build a team and a franchise in 2021, 2022.

It's we're going to be an offensive-minded team. We're going to do everything we can to set the quarterback up for success. That to me, I think, is the most important thing. Even a team like Cleveland where Kevin Stefansky is there and you hear the way they talk about roster building, everything else about how they're trying to make this thing happen. It's quarterback offense first. And that to me is what I want. I want that guy who's going to.

understand that directive in that goal and do everything they can do to make that happen. Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like in this specific moment, you almost are hoping for someone who's been there, done that, like has shown they can, you know, kind of write the ship with an offensive lean. And my mind kind of went to like Doug Peterson. You know, I know it's, again, the same system and, you know, another coach read disciple and stuff. But like, you know, he won the Super Bowl in Philly. He's been a guy who's been the driving force in the organization. And he obviously is an offensive coordinator and a former quarterback and understands it all kind of starts there. And it's all a function of what that guy can do and what you surround him with.

So that's where my mind when, as you were talking, is kind of, you know, the offensive leaning guy, but also someone who has done it in an organization and kind of been the focal point. You know, we are looking for kind of that new, you know, offensive coordinator to become the head coach. But it is a gamble when you're, you know, asking a guy who's never been a head coach to step into that role, especially with a piece like few. fields and so, you know, potentially trying to find a guy who's done it before and then circumstances just kind of changed them in a little bit. That one, you know, could be kind of interesting. I don't know how you feel about that specific idea. I think it's a really interesting name because I was kind of sitting there and thinking about it today. And I totally agree with you because the way we do this, right, where we just look at whoever the hot shot coordinator is and we say, all right, that's

the next guy, you know, Kellyn Moore, for example. Kellyn Moore has done a fantastic job coordinating the Cowboys offense. Obviously they had a terrible night against the Chiefs, but watching that offense this year and just so many different answers and the way that they've constructed that thing, on an X's nose level, it's amazing. I have no idea if Kellan Morris set up to be a head coach. I have no idea if he has the temperament and the vision. And again, is that guy that can kind of set an overall tone and course of an organization? I don't know. I've had one 10 minute conversation with the man in my life. And I think you've seen it. You've seen proof of concept with Doug Peterson. I think that's a tenuous situation with another chief's former offensive coordinator,

the same offense, all of that. But I understand where your mind is at because we've actually seen it work. The other guy that I was thinking about today, and I understand the downside, I understand he may not take any job that's thrown at him. But has this year changed the way you think about Josh McDaniels? We've seen them create an environment that's extremely hospital to a quarterback that isn't Tom Brady. Like, I think this year is a feather in his cap in a way that previous seasons haven't been. Well, with him, it's not whether he accepts the job.

It's whether he shows up a couple of days later. I mean, you know, it's got to be said. But no, I don't think so. I think it, you know, kind of confirms what we knew about him for the past 20 years. You know, last year he changed the offense. He completely put it in Cam's hands, you know, a lot of QB runs. You know, it doesn't look anything like it does in 2021 or 2019. You know, Cam physically didn't really have the ability to, you know, throw the ball downfield,

throw it accurately. You know, so that's something that, you know, McDaniels had to work around. They also clearly didn't have the personnel. You know, they went out and spent a bunch of money to upgrade the personnel. And so, you know, I think this is what we all kind of knew about him. It's more of a confirmation of, you know, what we knew and just seeing it on this level with a different quarterback. You know, there's, of course, always the questions of, is it Brady or is it McDaniels or is it Belichick? You know, this is just, again, another confirmation of McDaniels, really being a good football mind. But I would say, say my thoughts on him haven't changed from, you know, 20, 20 or 2019. I guess we're just in the,

to me, we're in the point where he's not really in that category. It seems like the Patriots are paying him a lot of money to stay there as an OC. He's kind of accepted that role. He knows that whenever Belichick steps away, he's probably heir apparent. And he's done it before he's been a head coach. I think he understands the value of the fit and being in the right situation. I mean, I made the joke, but to be fair, he read the indie situation correctly. Like luck stepped away luck retired it was you know kind of a tough couple years there i don't know that mcdaniels would have you know brought wens in he didn't have the personal connection like reg did and um you know wouldn't necessarily or even rivers i mean who knows what that's solution would have been because

part of the rivers thing was the right connection and them working together in the past yeah so i mean as much as you know macdaino's kind of let the rest of the league down with you know backing out of that it does seem like he read the situation correctly and played it out i just think of him is, again, he's the New England offensive coordinator. He knows that. The league knows that. He's getting paid very well to do that. And they've got a good thing up there. He trusts it. And he'll take over when, you know, Belichick finally says goodbye. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the way he saw it. And that's kind of what I mean. Does he even want another job? But I just feel like he's somebody that should come up more often.

As we're thinking about these options and if you're trying to make a swing, what he's done with Mac Jones this year, I think has been extremely impressive. And I do think again, he came up a lot. And then he backed out of a deal. Sure. But that's what I, yes, I understand that. But I just, again, I think that if you're listing off guys, I think his name should be involved. I think you should at least kick the tires on it and see where he's at. I mean, we have seen so many misguided attempts to find the next guy.

And I think there are worse places to look than him. Yeah. I mean, he took Tebow to the playoffs and won a playoff game against a Pittsburgh defense with Tebow. And, you know, there were games that year. They were attempting six passes on the season. And so, again, he's able to adapt the scheme to the personnel and the quarterback that he has. He's shown that his whole career. It is an intriguing name.

I just think he's so entrenched in New England that, you know, as you said, he gets overlooked in these conversations because you don't really think of him as a name that's available. All right. Let's get to our next question here. Eric Sunni sent us an email. He said, love the show. Here are my questions for you and Mitch. What's your take on taunting? Specifically, what's your take on this change to the rule for taunting?

A five-yard penalty, no automatic first. down, two infractions still causes disqualification. This would maintain the norm against taunting that the league wants, but it avoids the outsized impact it's having in many situations. So he goes on to kind of explain that a little bit more, but I wanted to ask you about this in the shadow of what happened

yesterday. We have a situation in the late slate of games and then the Sunday night game, where Clyde Edwards O'Lear gets a 15-yard penalty creating a 48-yard extra point for waving at a defensive player. A few hours later, Cam Hayward does something, I don't know if

I'm calling it a punch. Like, he fell on Justin Herbert after Justin Herbert was on the ground. He was not penalized. This goes completely overlooked. We've talked about taunting a little bit on the show and about the impact that the refs have had on the season, the story that the referees have been, which is my least favorite thing in the world. I hate talking about the refs.

I hate talking about the way games are officiated, but they've inserted themselves into the narrative of what this NFL season has been. So as somebody who has been on the field, who has been in the league, what has it been like for you to watch just the overall discourse about taunting and the way that taunting has impacted games and outcomes this year unfold? Well, it sucks to see because it's taking away from the game itself and from all the good things that do happen. You know, football is an emotional game. You need to, you know, be wired a certain way and especially in the moment to, you know, perform that way. And the physicality of the game requires that. And so seeing guys get penalized because they point at someone or because they're doing

these kind of smaller infractions that, you know, in the last 125 years of sports have never been considered, you know, over the top. Now all of a sudden, these very minor things are considered infractions. That's the tough part is, you know, for the most part, we all have a sense of what a true unsports malic conduct looks like or when a guy goes too far or, you know, in the cases that says something that the guy the guy shouldn't say and the ref you know penalizes him and seem like in the chief's game maybe you know trey smith said something unsavory to the ref and you know he got an unsportsman like on that one but in the general sense of like you're okay with two oversized human slamming into

each other for 70 plays in a row but you know a little bit wave to a guy or appointed him or hey man i got you on that one and get in his face you know that's where the line is too far I just don't agree with that at all. So I think changing the rules to become agreeable with the way the league wants it refereed. I don't agree with that. I think an unsportsmanlike penalty should be a severe penalty. It should be the 15 yards. It should be a first down.

And it should also be for a very unsportsman-like play, you know, pointing on someone's face isn't unsportsman-like. There's just too many examples of guys playing with emotion. getting excited. And I get that the league doesn't want it to be like me versus you. You know, you don't want to essentially celebrate at someone. That's, I think, what they're basically trying to weed out. But like, we've just seen it go too far. And I wish, you know, they would reverse course on that for the most part. Any rule that they've enforced or that they've changed that's gone too far over the top and there's been this much negative sentiment towards they've changed

midseason. If at every reason, they're doubling and tripling down on this particular rule. And, you know, you've seen a lot of coaches be frustrated with it. And a lot of people just kind of and party line answers. So I wish that would change. I'm not really sure why it's not. I know all the platitudes they're telling us about why they put the rule in and what it's supposed to protect. But I just don't think that's realistic.

And again, you know, coaches are allowed to do whatever they want, show up reps on the sidelines, cuss people out, show up their own players. Like that's okay. Look at what your team was doing last night on the sideline. Those guys were dancing in like a menacing, organized way. It was great. I'm super into it. during a timeout too.

Like it wasn't just the sidelines. They were like Crystal's dancing like over the ball while the cowboys were in the huddle. So like, yeah. Which by the way, totally in support of that. But if we're talking about it in this way, it's ridiculous that you can do one thing and not the other. Yeah.

I mean, it's like when, you know, the league went towards the dropping the head rule, which is a good rule I'm all for in player safety, not spearing other guys, not dropping your head, not doing anything unsafe. But guys drop their head on almost every single play. And so having to pick and choose the severity of it happening, you know, makes it very difficult. In this specific instance, there's just so many examples where guys haven't crossed the line. It's not becoming confrontational. It's just like, this is what happened.

I'm excited. I'm going to celebrate. Like, I got you on this one. And then if the defender gets you on the next, like, okay, but we just don't really see brawls in the NFL. Like the Miles Garrett thing was a very isolated incident. You know, that that just doesn't happen that often. I mean, we see fights in, like, training camp. but on field like things getting taken over the top that almost never happens and it also

almost never gets you know escalated because of one of these unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that they're enforcing this year like that's not the trigger i think that there's a way to do it that again creates a lesser impact on the outcome of a game if you get a sad the cash is mars situation perfect example it should not be a automatic first down it should not be 15 yards an automatic first down if you want to ding a guy five yards if you want to find a someone for this, I think that's totally fine. If you want to create a deterrent to moments like that happening, fine. Don't let it be the focal point of a game.

Don't let it determine the outcome of a game or help determine the outcome of a game. This happens in a playoff game where you get a sack on third down. You get a taunting penalty. The other team gets an automatic first down. That's devastating. That is the worst possible scenario for me as it relates to this and as it relates to the emphasis on it. just overall, I think that we need to consider some of that stuff.

I was thinking about it with roughing the passer yesterday. Like the idea that if you get a roughing call on an interception, it's an automatic first down and 15 yards, even that feels a little bit outsized to me, let alone waving at someone and having it swing an entire drive. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely with you. It just, I think you're saying that these are the rules we have to work around them. And I'm saying that the rule shouldn't be this way. Like if you are being on sportsmanlike and you're taunting, it should be egregious and egregious enough to warrant something like that. So, yeah, it's just like trying to come up with a new system because the NFL is enforced a rule enforcing, you know, refs and players to handle it in such a manner.

Like, I don't like that idea. And so I guess I'm kind of considering that a non-starter. Yeah, the roughing stuff's interesting because, you know, you can't hit the quarterback in the face, except apparently if you're a Cowboys defense alignment and you decide to dive at Mahomes three seconds after the play's over. But if you hit a quarterback in the face with your hand because you're trying to block a pass and momentum just takes it and you barely graze the guy's face mask, that's a 15-yard penalty, automatic first down. There should be some nuance of that. There should be some way to have lesser penalties like you're saying. So there's just so many areas we can look at that we can probably make better in regards to refereeing.

As you said, you know, no one really loves talking about it. because it very rarely happens in a positive manner anyway, and you'd like to just speak about the players, the outcome, you know, all the good stuff that's happening. I don't know why it seems like the NFL doesn't care about this. It's just, it's weird for them to, you know, not care to this level. And it's just strange. It's something that I really, for the most part, whenever something happens,

I understand the intent behind it and the reasoning and all that. This is an example that I just don't get the overarching theory and the reason why they're doubling and tripling down it, like I said, it just doesn't make sense to me. I totally agree. I mean, again, the fact that we have to spend oxygen on this and the fact that it's become a dominant storyline is awful. I mean, I cannot understand why the NFL would want to create attention around this and to bring attention to it in the way that they have. It makes no sense to me on any single level. All right, let's get to our next voicemail.

Hey, Robert. This is Taylor. Long-time listener. first-time caller. My question is, why does it seem like all college offensive linemen where knee braces on both of their knees, where in the NFL, it doesn't seem like any or very few NFL offensive linemen where the knee braces. I thought this would be a good question that you're having Mitchell on this week and

hoping to get some insight from you. All right. Thanks. This is a perfect example of a question. when I throw out that you're going to come on, using the opportunity. You have an all-pro offensive linemen who can literally answer any aspect of the sport and the way that offensive linemen exist. This is a perfect way to take advantage of that.

What is your response? Yeah, so the reason is most colleges require that the offensive linemen wear them. The idea being, you know, you're 18 years old, your body's not as strong, you're not as developed, and the knee brace is supposed to protect you, you know, typically those are more for, like the bigger ACL injuries. I'm going to provide some MCL as well. That's typically if you're getting, you know, hit from the outside, your knee collapses in. That's where the MCL gets hurt. You know, if your knee goes in a different direction, it's, you know, typically ACL. So colleges have the idea that, you know, college kids aren't quite as advanced. We're not quite as strong. Our bodies

can't protect ourselves. And the knee braces provide an element of protection that we otherwise couldn't provide ourselves. There's interesting data that says it's actually not true. And you're potentially, you know, limiting the body and its ability to protect itself and it starts relying on the knee brace and then, you know, your kind of sensory feedback doesn't, you know, protect yourself and it doesn't allow that area to get stronger. So there is, you know, different science on it. In the NFL, I think the Patriots did it for a while where they, you know, required guys to do knee braces. Probably not a surprise that of all the teams. They were the ones requiring it. I feel like Dallas, potentially at one point, a lot of guys wore knee braces as well, so I don't know if that was a team-wide thing.

But yeah, for the most part, it's just, you know, your program says this is a prerequisite. This is what you got to do. You do it. Guys get to the NFL. For the most part, you're just so happy to be out of them because they are like bulky and cumbersome. You know, it takes a little bit of adjustment for some guys because you're so used to it that it's like weird to not have them on. You don't feel like protected. You feel kind of like naked out there.

But for the most part, guys can't wait to shed them. And once they get to the NFL, they're like, screw this. And for the most part, the guys that wear a single knee brace, you know, they've had an injury there and they're just kind of protecting it long term. As, you know, the caller smartly pointed out, it's very rare to see, you know, a guy with two knee braces on doing it just to protect himself. And you almost never see a full team wearing up. You obviously, you famously avoided injury for a really, really a long time. How many consecutive snaps did you play? It was like, it was almost 8,000.

which is how many seasons? That was through eight and a half seasons. Do you feel like there is a method to avoiding catastrophic injury as an offensive lineman? Is it awareness? Is it flexibility? Is it pure luck? I mean, obviously you played with Joe Thomas, who also famously avoided injury for a really,

really a long time. If you're not wearing a knee brace, if you're not doing anything in terms of equipment to help yourself, is there any way at that position you can give yourself a little bit of? better chance to avoid injury. There is. I do have to correct myself. The snap streak was broken in my A season, so it was like seven and a half years. And then my back injury was in my nine seasons after eight and a half years. So like basically seven and a half seasons without missing a snap. There are ways to kind of like

maneuver your way around, you know, injuries like that. Definitely flexibility helps. Alex Mack is like the most flexible offense alignment I've ever seen because he was a wrestler. and he would wake up at like 3 a.m. and his calf fell tight and he'd jump out of bed and stretch his calf for 15 minutes and go back to bed. Like he was neurotic about stretching and stuff. And he could do the splits at, you know, 6, 4, 310. It's pretty insane to see.

But I always had the theory. I mean, it quasi got borne out. I mean, I'm not like proud of saying this. But like, he was so flexible that if he did get hurt, it'd probably have to be like something traumatic because he could, you know, kind of gumby his way out of, you know, a traditional pile or he feels people at his feet. Maybe his leg gets caught a weird way. He broke his legament, right?

I mean, it wasn't a ligament injury. He literally snapped his leg in half. Right, because, you know, typically he'd be able to, again, kind of maneuver around it. If 900 pounds falls on a single leg at the wrong angle, like, that's going to happen. And so there are ways to work around getting hurt. I mean, there was a period where I feel like people criticize Joe for not, you know, run blocking hard enough. Or, you know, you kind of like peek back and make sure the pile is not by you. I mean, he has a pretty good sense about that.

A lot of guys do as well. That's, you know, wasn't really a valid criticism of them ever. But there is kind of like a football sense that you get. There's also just keeping your feet moving. You know, a lot of guys get hurt towards the end of plays when they've kind of let up. They're not really certain that the ball carrier is still running. And then, you know, there's eight guys in a scrum trying to tackle a ball carrier. And all of a sudden, you're standing flat-footed and the pile falls on you.

You know, that's where, you know, an ankle or a leg can get rolled up on. But for the most part, I mean, it's just luck. Like, it's luck. You know, I didn't have that 900 pounds fall in my leg the same way Alex did. You know, my brother had a similar thing. He was playing right tackle and, you know, the running back and two guys fell on him from the inside. And for whatever reason, I just never had that happen at that specific angle. Like, I'm not flexible.

I'm, you know, pretty stiff and pretty tight. I don't bend well. I'm not a great athlete. and so I wouldn't have, you know, kind of the physical ability to avoid injury the way, you know, an Alex McWood or Joe Thomas's body control. So at the end of the day, I think Lux's the biggest factor in it. But there are, like I said, little things where, you know, you kind of feel a mass around you or you feel the pilot going down and, you know, your block is kind of inconsequential. Maybe you, you know, jump and just fall on it. Typically, guys will do that around contract time

because they don't want to, you know, get anything rolled up on. You're kind of peeking back a little bit more. there was a play where I'm pretty sure it was my contract here in Cleveland you know I was doing that a little bit and Derek Wolf was a guy who liked to finish people over piles and he you know I kind of gave up on the play and there are people around me I don't you know want to get rolled up and he was finishing me and you know I kind of like went limp and just accepted my fate but he finished me into like Shane Ray's knee and tore his MCL and like you know those are you know kind of friendly fire plays where Shane Ray thinks the place over he's just kind of standing there his guy has is like kind of pushing me like super late in the play and I fall into it. So yeah, typically if you're standing still around a pile, that's kind of the worst case scenario. Are there guys, I'm not saying that he was, but are there guys that you had to kind of have your antenna up because you know they're dirty?

Like you know that there are guys when you're playing against them. You have to be well aware that you got to have your head on a swivel the entire game because something shitty is going to happen to you if you don't. Yeah, for sure. you can kind of tell those guys on film I think Wolf just didn't like playing me I never saw that stuff on film but it seemed like whenever we went against each other and it seemed to be a lot

especially once I got to Kansas City you know he just didn't necessarily love me and some guys just get frustrated when they get blocked or you know they just don't like certain things happening and you know kind of act out after the play but he was never someone that I watched on film and said like oh that guy's dirty or whatever

they're just kind of like you know little things that happened to you in particular. But yeah, there are guys that are dirty. There are guys that, you know, take shots at the end of plays. You know, some guys love, you know, kind of jogging after the ball and, you know, no alignment's next to them and they kind of give him an elbow to the back and, you know, hope the guy falls down. There are certainly players like that.

And you're very aware because that guy also typically does that to the ball carrier or the quarterback or whoever else. And so you want to make sure that guy is, you know, eyes on him at all time, someone between him and, you know, the valuable guys on your team. All right, let's get to our next one here. Tony Gossi asks, with how well the Patriots been playing recently, we know that Brady versus Belichick discussion is going to come back to the season. Can we have the discussion now to get it out of the way?

Basically, I see it as Belichick is one of if not the best at taking away an opponent's strengths and taking advantage of their weaknesses. What I think Mack Jones is proving is he does not need the most gifted quarterback as long as they can see things Belichick sees and have enough ability to pull off the plan. Brady, or maybe not the best that anyone's skill a quarterback can have, is good enough at every part of the position that the entire playbook is always open to him. He never need to have an offensive system built around him because he can run almost every offensive system. So the answer is one of the most adaptable coaches combined with one of the most adaptable quarterbacks to make a great team.

They're both showing that can succeed without the other. But with each other, they can unlock the best of both. How do you parse the Brady-Belichick dynamic and where credit is due? Because it's been a really knotty conversation over the last 12 months. It seems to go back and forth every single week. I know Ras Solo plays that game where the legacy rankings are always on his mind. I've never really talked about it at length on the show, but it is something that interests me too. So my gut on that one is that Belichick was much more necessary for Brady, you know, the first five to 10 years.

And then as Brady was established, you know, he became, I wouldn't say more necessary than Belichick. But, you know, we've seen all these quarterbacks once they're established, like their prowess kind of takes over what a team needs. And, you know, they kind of transcend. as the guy said, any sort of scheme or whatever, like Brady could do it all in some McDaniels and whoever else could kind of do whatever they wanted because Brady had that ability. You know, there are interesting stories and snippets you hear every now and again of, you know, Belichick, you know, the first few years sitting down with Brady, like watching other teams' defensive film with him, showing him what to look for.

I think they did that all the way through. I mean, I think that was like a, maybe not all the way, but I think that was a staple of how they interacted for most of his time there. Right. And so if you're saying, you know, Brady's biggest selling point is the mental ability and his ability to, you know, know what the defense is doing, know what's coming, and you trace it back to Belichick taking a couple hours out of a week or even, you know, 30 or 45 minutes daily to tutor his quarterback on what to look for and how to read defenses, then, you know, you kind of tell me who, you know, is in charge of, you know, kind of what's going

on in the mind there. So I would say they both had a big impact on. each other. It does seem like, you know, Belichick was doing a lot, you know, more so than maybe other defensive-minded, especially coaches to tutor his quarterback and get him up to speed. And then once Brady had that, you know, kind of level of upper echelon, you know, elite, Hall of Fame level, you know, mental capabilities, you know, maybe Belichick could take a step back and allow Brady to operate on his own. But it's a type of thing that, I mean, neither is where they are without the other. You know, obviously Brady had a little bit more success last year. year. This year, you know, Belichick is looking awesome and, you know, he's really transformed that

team. And, you know, as we were talking about McGaingas earlier, like, I think Belichick has kind of confirmed everything we knew about him and, you know, it wasn't just Brady and it wasn't having that quarterback. So it's been cool to see. I mean, a lot of people hate New England and, you know, that team, that quarterback, that hit coach. I respect the 20 years of everything they're able to do. You know, you just don't see stuff like that. And I always lean towards. appreciating greatness and wanting to see, you know, greatness over parity. And so, um, I've always had a lot of respect for, for those guys and what they do. And, you know, I, again, I like the Rusilla thing. It's kind of funny people trying to like rank them and say who had

more influence on the other. Like they're both brilliant. They're both, you know, top three worst case at what they do in the world all time. Um, let's just appreciate both of them independently. I think that you, the point you said about that first stretch, of their time together is really important. I'm reading Seth Wicker-Shams book right now and kind of talking about the 2003, 2004 seasons, and you look at some of the stats and just the numbers that Brady was putting up back then, even if he was playing quarterback fairly well. I mean, it was still a defense first team. They still had to kind of shepherd Brady through that early stage of his career for them to win Super Bowls. And it kind of makes you think about when

quarterback's peak, right? And there's a chapter early in that book about Peyton Manning and about all the struggles that Peyton Manning had. And then you get to think about, to like the 2004 season, and then that era, there's this breakthrough, like, year in five and six of Peyton Manning where they take over. With Brady, think about what that 2007 season looked like. And that stretch at the beginning, when you have a quarterback, a coaching staff and a system offensively, defensively, just the rest of the roster, that can insulate that quarterback and kind of create an incubator for that time.

That's really important. And that's happened with all great quarterbacks, right? Not all, but for most of them, think about. Ben Rathesberger's early part of his career. Think about Russell Wilson's early part of his career. It's almost like two different careers. You have your incubation period where you need the rest of the organization and the roster to lift you. And then you have the period where you emerge as this fully formed quarterback that can carry everything. And I feel like Belichick was supremely important at that stage. Parsing it is nearly impossible. I think that the end result and kind of the conclusion that I come to is it's an unparalleled, of success in any team sport in the history of us watching and engaging with sports. And that only happens because they push themselves to those points. Talking about Josh McDaniels and talking about Mack Jones, it kind of brings me to that

place of you need a system and you need an atmosphere that's going to get the most out of your quarterback. And New England built that, right? We only saw it with Brady, but I think that what you're seeing with Mac Jones is just confirmation of what that environment can do for you at that position. And when you combine that with arguably the greatest defensive, arguably the most adaptive defensive coach in NFL history, you can have all of these different kinds of Patriots teams that have won.

This year, to me, one of the biggest lessons I've learned watching the NFL this year is you have to be able to do it multiple ways. You have to. You have to be able to have pivot points where if a team is playing you this way, we need to be able to win left-handed. and the Patriots have shown that over and over and over again. I think this year has almost given me more of an appreciation for those playoff stretches where they would throw the ball 60 times against the Broncos and then run it 50 times the next week against the Colts.

This season, weirdly enough, has made me appreciate those of the Garrett Blunt games more than I ever did in the moment. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, the parody is just a ridiculous thing. And, you know, there are coaches that can adapt to it. And I think that's been one of the Belichick hallmarks this whole career. You know, as an offense, you go into the game. And you could see anyone of like six different systems. And so you could, you know, watch the previous week.

And, you know, they're playing Baltimore. And so they're playing a true, you know, old school three, four defense and two gaping and all this stuff. And, you know, maybe, oh, against these formations, these are similar formations that will run. So, you know, that's what we're going to see. and you go into the game and they play you in nickel the whole time and they only have two linebackers on the field and you know 40 linemen and you just never quite know what you're going to get and so there is that element of the first quarter figuring out how he's going to play you and as you said similarly the offense being adaptable you know we've seen obviously the chiefs and the bills and

you know kind of the proliferation of the two high defenses and taking away what they do and you know adjusting but what new england does is they do that before the game even starts you know they've gone into the week and said all right we're going to do all right we're going to do all all these different things. And between the opponent's weaknesses and our strengths, this is the best way to win this particular week. I think a lot of coaches have an idea of what to expect from a team, know how they'd like to attack him, and then the game starts, that defense does something different, and maybe they

have to adjust on the fly. But I think most people will tell you, you know, that staff throughout the past 20 years has, you know, adapted during the week more than anyone else. And, you know, as the league has trended defensively towards these, you know, kind of hybrid players who can, you know, be a linebacker who covers, you know, a tight end and a receiver and a running back and also can play downhill. And you want these guys to play these hybrid roles. Being able offensively to have a hybrid offense that can change week to week as well is pretty special because most teams and especially offensive lines, they have an identity and a thing that they do best. And to be able to say, all right, this week it's going to be 60 throws. Next week it's going to be 45 runs.

the week after it's going to be, you know, heavy play action and quick game, you know, that's pretty rare. And so it's always been cool to see. And, you know, as you said, anyone who, you know, watches New England or follows them and, you know, doesn't have an appreciation for that coaching staff, you know, they're just kidding themselves. They're just straight haters. It's really interesting to me the idea of dictating the game defensively. Because defense, if you think about it just conceptually, it feels reactionary, right? You're reacting to what the offense is doing. And I think the best defenses in the league do this in some form. They dictate the game to you.

And if you look at that too high kind of Fangio world, they dictate the game to you in two different ways. One, they're kind of daring you to run the ball, which is what we've seen against the chiefs. We've seen against the bills. That's a way of dictating by saying, all right, here's this light box. Let's run into it. You're also dictating the quarterback by spinning and kind of changing the picture and all of that. With Belichick, but it's all exists in kind of its own zip code, right? Like you're dictating within a certain kind of conservative approach.

With Belichick, the answer is almost seen more extreme, where you're dictating in such pronounced ways that you're forcing offenses to swing more wildly. And those two different philosophies of we're going to dictate in kind of a passive way and we're going to dictate in sort of an aggressive way. I don't know if one is right, but I think that the Belichick kind of school of this, I was talking to Van Gogh about this recently. about how the Patriots ability to kind of push you that far in one direction is one of their greatest virtues. And a lot of the defenses that we've seen and a lot of the trends we've seen defensively aren't necessarily like that.

Again, I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer, but I think the two different ways of going about it are kind of fascinating. Yeah, so as you're saying that, the thing I'm thinking is this is exactly what offensive line play is. You know, most offense alignment, especially in past protection, they have this idea that, you know, basically what they do with their hands is how they, dictate what the rush is going to be like. But you're doing all that with your pass set. You know, you can set the tone for what the defense alignment can do based on your body positioning where you are. And that dictates a rush, like more than what you do with your hands. And so, you know, kind of like what you're saying is there's two ways to go about it. Like there's the quote unquote, like passive way of just where you're moving and all the things you're doing before contact,

how that dictates a rush for the rusher. And then there's the aggressive way putting your on a guy. And so not enough offense alignment, like understand, you know, the passive way to dictate a rush. I think similar to what you're saying, like not enough teams understand, you know, the passive way to dictate the terms of engagement for, you know, offense, defense, special teams. All right. We got a couple more we want to get to here. Let's get to our next voicemail. Hey, guys. This is Spencer from Toronto. I went to my first build game yesterday in about two years because I was able to finally drive across the border. You can go to $150,000. a test to be able to come back home, and I saw that abomination of a game, and I am very

concerned and worried, and I'm thinking that this bill team is not what we thought it was going to be. If it was the chiefs of the box, I think, okay, well, they'll figure it out, but don't exactly have the track record with the bills as other teams do. So should I be concerned that they may have a one-game playoff appearance of Wild Card and lose, or can they still win the division and win a few games in the playoffs? hopefully you can give me some hope. So I wanted to answer this with you because we've talked about the bills and some of their struggles on offense on the show over the last few weeks, right?

Again, this is a team that I don't feel like has had that pivot, that secondary option where if teams are going to approach us this way, we have a counterpunch. So as someone who's played against them recently, did you play last year when you guys played them in the regular season? Yeah, that was the game I got hurt. So thanks for bringing that up, Robert. Sorry, buddy. But obviously you're around as you guys play them in the AFC championship game. You have an understanding of maybe the way that you guys as a team and as a roster viewed them. So when you're watching them kind of struggle this year, do you think that it's inevitable that they're going to get out of this?

Or do you feel like there are aspects of what they are as a team that are going to be hard for them to fix? At this moment, it does seem like it's going to be difficult to fix. You know, last year we went into, I think it was that week six game. and we knew that we could definitely, you know, get after them on the offensive line. You know, they were not really fueling it up front. You know, I think that week they made, you know, a personnel move or two, and that was coming off a week where they had, you know, been pretty poor before. And so they're trying to shake things up.

Typically, that's a defense that, you know, like to play some man coverage. The linebackers played very tight to the line of scrimmage. They like to be physical, you know, kind of take you off double team blocks. That game was almost like a cover two game. They played really soft. The linebackers were, you know, six or seven yards deep. They basically said, we're not going to allow any long passes. And I think we ran for like 255 yards on him.

And so that was like, okay, you're going to give us the running lanes. You know, we're going to go ahead and run the ball all game. And this is going to be a lot of fun. And offensively, you know, they didn't do too much. Our defense had a good game. You know, it was a little rainy and misty. And, you know, Alan didn't play super well. And I remember thinking like, huh, their offense had been doing pretty well.

You know, our defense had a really good game. And then going into the playoffs, game, you know, the defense wasn't fixed that there wasn't any new personnel. You know, I feel like we felt that we were going to get after him on offense. And, you know, although the offense had a pretty good sense that, again, we could get after Allen and, you know, kind of affect him. And, you know, Spags was able to do that with the blitzes and dial it up. And so, you know, a team that we definitely respected, but also felt like, you know, there are some weaknesses and we match up really well. And they went into this offseason. They knew their defensive line needed to be overhauled. I think

they spent two or three draft picks on that and some higher picks as well. But offensively, it's just kind of status quo and things don't look that good. And, you know, they've got digs, but do they really have that many other guys besides him? You know, obviously Beasley had himself quite the offseason and, you know, he hasn't been producing quite as well. You know, Allen, people were worried that, you know, they gave him this monster contract and he really has only had one good season and one, you know, quote unquote accurate season as a quarterback. the offense aligns pretty much the same and you know that was a group that played well last year but they didn't necessarily run the ball well unless Alan was involved in that and you don't want your quarterback to be the focal point of the offense when you are you know a dropback team it's not the

ravens and so yeah I'm I'm worried about them now you know that I think they're you know they've got some pieces but it seems like as you said they haven't taken the step this evolution they haven't really figured out how everything pieces together you know as best as they can and it'll be interesting to see if they can figure that out over the next few weeks. Do you think it's possible to go an entire season as an offense without the league catching up to you, where you can stay one step ahead enough and you can kind of jump on people for a 16, 17 game sample? And then as a team has an entire offseason to look at what you were, then they find an answer. Do you think it can last an entire season?

I think it can, but the flip side of that is how often does that offense not come out and perform all the next year, you know? That's my question. Yeah. We've seen it. Like we've, we've seen teams that are really good. You can have a really good year in the NFL. Like you can be a top five offense.

You can be a 12 win team. Sustaining it is the concern. Sustaining it is the trouble. That's what's really, really, really hard about the NFL. Can you do it year and year out as you need that slight bit of evolution? Like when you guys would think about an offseason, when you guys would think about your offense,

how consciously did you think about if, transitioning, tweaking because you knew how teams would respond to you. Oh, that was the whole point of the off season. It was, you know, figuring out what the base offense was going to look like, how it was going to be tweaked from, you know, year to year. Obviously, like the base stuff is the base stuff. You're not going to, you know, go under an entire overhaul of, you know, there's our inside zone plays. These are outside zone. These are our, you know, core pass principles.

But those can get tweaked. The formations can be tweaked. You know, there's a lot of self-scouting and, you know, scouting other colleges and teams. and finding some cool things. And so that's what the offseason is for. And yeah, if a team isn't, you know, looking towards, you know, the previous year figuring out what they can do, how to adjust, you know, a lot of the times you look towards the colleges, as I said, and other teams,

and you find different formation, a different wrinkle, you know, it's all the same stuff. It's just disguised a little bit better. And so if you're going into the year and saying, oh, well, we were awesome last year, all this stuff worked, you don't want to do that, you know, the following year. A team is going to, you know, scratch you and catch up. And so that's, I think, the brilliance of, you know, Coach Reed or McVeigh or Shanahan is, for the most part, it's a lot of the same principles. They just disguise it and make it, you know, look a little different. You know, we've seen the 49ers the past couple of weeks.

They're doing all these same run plays. And it's all the same stuff we were doing in, you know, 2014. The difference is he's now doing it, you know, without necessarily the fullback or, you know, the fullback's coming in motion. And he's, you know, sprinting across the line of scrimmage at the snap. And so it's all the same play. It's, you know, 19 Zapp and, you know, 18. team force and all that stuff. It's just he's found the wrinkle, the disguise to make it look like it's not happening and to give his guys that little bit of an advantage. And so that's what all

the best offenses are doing. To your point, you know, I don't know that you can quote unquote get solved. But the bills are kind of making a case for it. So this will be interesting to see, you know, if they can change over the last two months and if there's, you know, noticeable difference in scheme or is it just, you know, we've got to execute better and, you know, the coach is kind of harp on the execution point. I'm curious, as a past first team, which you were for most of your time in Kansas City, especially after Pat got there, right? Can you flip that physicality switch? Is that difficult to do when it isn't really in the bones of who you are as an offense?

Well, you can. It's just, it's on the coordinator to call it. You know, a team loses its physicality if they don't do it that often. I mean, not to be a, you got to use it to, or if you don't use it, you lose it. but like if the offense doesn't get, you know, 40 runs in a game, then it's not going to be great at it. Like the Eagles flipped that switch three weeks ago, and now it's a sudden the best running team,

the NFL scene in a while. And so it's very possible to do it, to commit to it. The bills just aren't doing it. And so, you know, physicality and running the ball well, like that confidence breeds more success, more confidence, especially if your run game is, you know, shotgun stuff and RPO's and it's a little bit softer and not quite as downhill. And, you know, if you call 14 RPO's in a game and the quarterback throws 11 of them,

you know, it doesn't really feel like you ran the ball 14 times, even though there were 14 runs called for the offensive line. And so, you know, the coordinator has to stick with it. You've got to run the ball. You've got to let the guys up front get confident and, you know, have fun, double-teaming defense alignment and kicking ass. And then from there, let that confidence grow. All right.

Last email here before we get to a Thanksgiving-based question. Brian Haza asked, The Colts are in the top 10 EPA on offense for the third time in four years with Frank Reich's fourth starting quarterback. Their 10th in DVOA and ranked second in EPA per play on offense since their horrendous three and oh start. In light of where the Colts are and the trajectory they're on, where does Frank Reich fall in the coaching offensive mind hierarchy?

Thanks, love the show, and thanks for not piling on once. I'm curious what you think about this because I definitely kind of stood back and was considering this yesterday even before Brian sent the question. I mean, it's up there now. I think he was like weirdly two or three years ago. He was seen as a top four or five offensive mind. I think it was still kind of Reed McVeigh-Shannahan. Reich was right in there with like number four, number five. He was seen as a guy who, you know, kind of blended a different systems. You know, he wasn't a guy that was, you know, traditionally West Coast or traditionally this. I think, you know, he had the experience in Philly to get exposed to the Andy Reid offense. You know,

he had come from a couple other systems. And so he was someone that was able to blend all these things and have success with it. You know, the past couple years, the offenses, I think, have looked good in Indy, but they haven't been, you know, lighting the league on fire. You know, it seems like that has been more with, you know, offensive line play and, you know, quarterbacks and the surrounding talent and their best receiver gets hurt a bunch. And so, you know, his, you know, Lester, kind of slipped a little bit, but I think people that would watch it would notice like, oh, he's doing a lot of really cool stuff. He's got some, you know, run schemes, you know, today in particular, everyone's, showing all the way on plays that, you know, he's running and some cool stuff that most people don't

run. And, you know, Philly was doing that five years ago and you thought, oh, maybe he was Peterson, but it seems like, oh, it probably was Reich because that's been his staple to have these kind of schemes in. So, you know, I think he's definitely back up there in top five or six or seven conversation. I think, as I said, the top three, you know, it seems pretty steady that it's, it's Reed, it's Shanahan, it's McVeigh. Those seem to be the consensus. Top three, you know, Sean Payton in there. I'm going to say, Sean Payton should be in there. I feel like, again, this year's kind of dropped the luster a little bit, even though it's not necessarily his fault for, you know, not having those, those quarterbacks, but. Or receivers. Yeah, I mean, it does help

to have guys who get open to, to throw the ball to, I suppose. But yeah, it seems like that's a pretty settled top four. So Rike is right in there. I mean, I would say he's, you know, one of the next guys to get slotted. As you said, you know, McDaniels, you know, probably has a little bit more track record. So you'd probably put him in the top five as well. And I mean, man, what a top five to try to crack. I mean, could you imagine being, you know, the up and coming, uh, coordinator? And it's like, yeah, I'm going to be a top five offensive coordinator. And it's like, Andy Reid, Sean McVeigh, Kyle Shanahan, Sean Payton, Josh McDaniels. Like, I'm sure I'm for getting someone too.

But like that is an awesome, you know, five guys of coordinator. So I think Reich's right up there with them. You know, he's shown he has the confidence to, again, adapt systems to quarterbacks. I'm not going to say he like fixed Carson Wentz or whatever, but like the offense he's built this year has been really good. You know, it's made once a better version of himself for sure. And it seems like he's able to get good seasons out of quarterback. So he got a good Phil Rivers year despite, you know, physical decline.

you got a pretty good percent year all things considered and so he's definitely up there and it's a again a cool system and like a fun offense to watch you know there are offenses that are really good and you're kind of boring and a little bit monotonous and stuff but like right does just enough of a little bit of everything that it's it's a fun watch because it blends a lot of things to me it speaks to the conversation we're having before about building an environment that's hospitable to your quarterback and for me it's not about who's one of the one of the one who's two, who's three, who's four, is five. It's what is the top tier?

What is the group of guys that I can trust? If I give you the keys to this, you were going to get the most out of this offense and the most out of the most important player on the offense. He's clearly in that group. When we were talking about Carson Wentz this spring and when people were discussing Carson Wentz going to the Bears, and I was like, absolutely not.

Like giving up real draft capital to go get Carson Wentz, if you're the Chicago Bears, is a nightmare decision. It is a horrendous choice if it involved a first round pick, which I think it would have. If you're the Colts, it's not. Because Frank Reich is in that group of people, whether it's seven people, whether it's eight people, whatever, that small roundtable of guys who you can implicitly trust to get the most out of their offense. He is firmly in that group. And that's why, even if you can argue that the Carson Wentz choice was not the best one for the Colts,

if it creates a ceiling for them that trading up for a Mac Jones or Justin Fields or whoever does not, that's a conversation for later on. He is among that group of guys that can get the most out of their quarterback. To have three top ten quarterbacks or three top ten offenses with three different quarterbacks in four years is fucking ridiculous. Like that is insane to be able to do that. And like you said, it's because he has so many different answers. He can go to so many different things. The reason the Colts traded for Carson Wentz is because their general manager had that implicit

trust in Frank Wright to get the most out of the quarterback. If that's the guy that he wanted, they had a feeling that he could get the most out of them, that he could fix him like you said. And he has. So that to me is the answer. It's not where does he stack up in the hierarchy. If you're listing them off, one through 10, where does he? see fall. That to me is really difficult and it's almost beside the point. I think you have to be

at the table of the guys. And I think that this season, if we needed it, which I don't think I did, is proof that Frank Reich deserves a seat at that table. Yeah, I mean, that's a much better way to frame the conversation than I was doing in terms of ranking it. Just, you know, is he a guy? I love rankings. So don't you're talking to a rankings guy. This is a ranking business. We got to rank. Yes. Yeah, but I mean, it gets back into like the tiers of anything or, you know, what makes the top quarterback. You know, it's essentially who are the guys you trust to, you know, make the difficult, you know, throws and, you know, make the plays when you need to. And, you know, to your point as, you know, the offensive mind, you know, who's going to devise a system,

get the most out of the most important position and then put everything else around him to, you know, maximize not only that quarterback, but the rest of the offense. Obviously maximizing the quarterback usually maximizes the offense. But, you know, I think those can be a little bit separate. You know, you could theoretically, you know, build around a quarterback and make life easy on him to the detriment of your offense. And that just hasn't been the case. And so, again, Reich's been a guy over the past, you know, six or seven years who, you know, a lot of people have said good things about and, you know, have praised his, you know, mind and what he's able to do in terms of, you know, scheme and getting the most out of guys. And, you know, again, it seems like this is almost a weird year of, like, confirmation of, you know,

all these things that we knew to be true, you know, kind of showing that they are true and that we weren't crazy. Being able to get the most out of your offensive players is a real thing. Look at the team like the Colts. Look at their offense, okay?

Look at guys that they've brought in. They're always the best versions of themselves within that offense. They signed Mark Lewinsky off the street, and now he is a real player for them. All of the homegrown offensive linemen that they've drafted, the guys they've developed,

in-house. Michael Pittman is one of their draft picks. Jonathan Taylor is one of their draft picks. Nahim Hines is one of their draft picks. The offensive guys, they've built around, they've lifted them up. The Rams are the same way. Think about how many homegrown pieces and think about how we've watched guys blossom under Sean McVeigh. You guys did it in Kansas City. Think about the core of that team and what it's looked like. Just random offensive linemen being able to sign them off the street and plug them in and have it work because the environment gets the most out of those guys. guys. Those types of environments are real. If you have one of them, that's the way you have the best chance to succeed in the NFL. It goes back to the first conversation we had about the Bears. You need to do everything in your power to build that environment, to have that be the type of place that you've created as an NFL franchise. And Frank Reich has firmly done that. And again,

I don't know what the ceiling is for the Colts, but I do know that that's the exact type of setup you need to be consistently relevant in the NFL in 2021. Yeah, I'm totally with you on that. On the flip side, you know, I see it a lot. Obviously, I'm, you know, offensive line skewed and I tend to view things in that vein. But I feel like I see so many defensive coordinators and defense aligned coaches that, you know, again, the flip side is attacking the team's weakness and understanding, you know, how to put your players in the best position to succeed.

Now, I think defenses don't target offense alignment enough and like move guys around in the line and try to find the weak link and, you know, attack that guy or attack, you know, whatever technique it is they're using. Like, there's so many times I think, oh, this is a good week for this player to play on that side. And it's not, you know, I'm a guy that doesn't like to, you know, flip offensive linemen or I wouldn't, you know, flip a right defensive end, you know, say Everson Griffin, who's used to play on one side and hunters on the other, like, I wouldn't flip those guys depending on matchups if they're not used to it. But when you have guys who can play both sides and you say, all right, well, this is the weaker tackle and I'm going to put my better pass

rush or over the weaker tackle. It just doesn't seem to happen, like, ever. Like, I'd go into weeks afraid, like, a team was going to say, oh, you know, we like this guy over you better because he matches up. And it just, like, doesn't seem like that happens. And I think, you know, that's an area that, you know, teams could potentially look towards, you know, for individual matchups. And, you know, obviously with the offense line being that important, like, understanding

weaknesses on the O line and how to attack them with simple personnel changes, it just seems like that doesn't happen enough. Are you referring to you not having to block Nicomoso one time during the Super Bowl? No, not in particular. I was very happy about that one. Dude, I spent so much time worrying about that. Literally, one play that he was on my side, I would have had to block him, was a third and one. We ran option and Pat optioned off of him.

So I got lucky with that one. But no, it's situations like that where it's like, you know, which guy's going to match up against the other one better? and I don't want to see this guy or I think that a team should play this particular defense tackle over the left guard instead of the right guard and stuff like that. And I just think teams don't do those simple things enough to put themselves in a better position and again get pressure on the quarterback and win the game. All right. Our last one here, Kent, go to the last voicemail for me if you could.

We skipped around a bunch because we went long on some of these things, but it was fun. Hello, gentlemen. I have a simple question. Power rank your top five Thanksgiving food. All right, thanks. All right, putting you on the spot. This cannot receive the same treatment as offensive coaches. You actually do need to rank these.

Number one, gravy. There's something about, like, gravy brings the whole meal together. I could do Thanksgiving. I could do it without the turkey. Let's be real. Like, we can all do it without the turkey. It's nice that it's there. but turkey is a vehicle for gravy and for cranberry sauce.

If you had to make a meal with like turkey and green bean casserole and sweet potatoes and whatever else, you could do that. But like to me, the gravy is the thing that brings it all together and it's like the thing I get most excited for because you don't normally have like gravy. It's just not normally part of something that you would eat. And so it's like very special towards Thanksgiving for me. And like I know it sounds weird and you're laughing at me this whole time. You know what?

I'm not laughing you at all. it's a totally reasonable thing. I don't eat gravy. It's not that I don't like it. Gravy's fine. Like, if you put gravy on something for me, it's totally fine. I think the one area where I would want gravy as part of my Thanksgiving meal is turkey because I just think the turkey is dry and it's not my favorite thing to eat.

So that's how I would utilize gravy. But if I made a Thanksgiving plate for the most part, gravy would not be on the plate. I know that I, that's probably wrong of me. There are some food opinions that I have that, like, I'm not a huge thing. huge french fries person for example like i like other sides way more than french fries which i know probably is a wrong food take but gravy is one of those things for me i'm just like i don't need gravy same as like i don't put bacon on my cheeseburger i don't need that like there's some things where the gluttonous option and something that objectively does taste really good is just not on my

radar i mean there are a lot of ways for this podcast to end between us i didn't think your distaste for gravy was going to be it so i like it's broken this might be the last week i do it If you put gravy on mashed potatoes, I would eat it. I would enjoy it. I would be like, oh, this tastes good. But I would never just throw it on myself. It's never something I would add by choice. Yeah, it's just, I mean, it's my number one.

So clearly I feel much more strongly about it than you. So what's your number one then? I love stuffing. Like all kinds, all variations of stuffing. I just think that the different flavors you can throw into it, like stuffing with like a lot of sage and like a lot of different herbs. plus sausage, like just that. Like, I just think that texturally, I love it.

I think it's interesting. I think there's so many of, we made a cornbread stuffing the other day with hatched chili in it. And just like those types of flavors combined with everything else. I just think the number of directions you can take stuffing.

That's why it's number one for me. Are you an in the bird or out of the bird stuffing person? I would put it in the bird. I think in the, I like both. I mean, like, I just like it as a side.

Like just throwing it in the oven. That's fine with me. But I'm fine either way. Yeah, I'm, stuffing is my number three. I love stuffing. It probably used to be my number one. I've slowly moved towards just like appreciating gravy a lot more obviously. And the green bean casserole is number two for me because again, it's like the only time all year I'll eat that. I feel like stuffing like maybe once every four or five months you get it and especially Thanksgiving. But green bean casserole for whatever reason is like something that I never make. I've never, you know, attempted to try and you don't really see. it on, you know, menus at places. And so to me, that one's awesome. I love, you know, the green beans, the cream of mushroom, the crunch of, you know, the crispy onions on top. It kind of hits all the, all the delicious things that I love. But in terms of the stuffing, so obviously I'm into food

and I do research and stuff, and, you know, I was reading an article that said that stuffing is not very safe to stuff the bird with and then eat after because, you know, that cavity is kind of the least warm part of the cooking experience. And so theoretically, it's, you know, taking in all these turkey juices and stuff and it might not get cooked to the 160 or 165 degrees. You need to cook your turkey to. And then you're eating, you know, quasi-raw, you know, turkey stuffing.

So I told my dad this once and, you know, he got a little upset because he's a big time, you know, stuffing on the bird guy. And he's, well, I haven't eaten that my whole life and I've never gotten sick from it. So it's fine. I'm like, I'm just telling you. you like I know you love it in the bird you know that's what it says I just want you to know about it but I'm a green bean cashel number two stuffing number three and stuffing with sausage and baked completely outside of the bird that's how I would do it if I if I were making it myself that's what we did the other

day we like I had people over we've actually made chicken instead of turkey because it was a smaller group I smoked two chickens which I loved I thought it was awesome you and I've talked about this you're not a fan but I smoked two chickens that was what like the main entree was and then we had stuffing mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, like a bunch of other stuff. But we've cooked it in the oven outside of any sort of bird because that's how I would make it. Green bean casserole is my number five. I really like green meat casserole. And it's as I've gotten older, texture is something that I've really come to appreciate with food.

Like when you understand differing textures and adding crunch to something and what it adds to any sort of food, and to me, green meat casserole is a fantastic study in texture. Like the French-fied onions make green bean casserole to me. And that's why I really enjoy it. I do like it a lot. Some sort of sweet potato casserole is my number two. Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite foods. Like, I love sweet potatoes.

There was, I eat like several sweet potatoes a week in various things that I eat. I just think the different things you could do to it, the, I love a sweet potato with like some spice to it. They just sweet potato like roasted with like Chipotle powder and like using that in some way. Like I love those contrast and flavors. So like a sweet potato casserole with some crispy rice, some. some marshmallows, all that stuff. I love me a sweet potato casserole. So that's my number two.

Yeah, that's solid. You gave your first three, right? I did my first three. So you can go with three and however many more you want. I love a mashed potato. Like I just, I understand it's simple, but like the right mashed potatoes, I think are fantastic. Like if you get some, I put garlic in mine. So like roasted garlic in there.

And then if you make the right sort of like herb cream, like if you steep some rosemary, and some time in the cream and you get it really, really herbie with some just white pepper, salt and roasted garlic. Like that to me is like a really, really, really, I don't know. It's just like the texture of it. Like if you get it right smoothness, like I love me a really, really good mashed potato. So that's my three. And then four, my mom makes this.

It's like very specific. It's a broccoli rice cheese casserole. And the reason I love this is that rice is like one of my favorite foods. Like I love rice in all forms. Like I love pie. I love fried rice. I just love all kinds of rice. So anytime I can add like a ricey, cheesy dish to a meal, I'm going to put it in there.

I know that's a hyper-specific kind of esoteric answer, but that's on my list. No, I dig it. And that sounds fantastic. And I would love for that to be on mine. For me, number four is going to be the good old fashioned butter dinner roll. It's such a good one. Like, you know, that's one of the appeals of going to like nice steak houses. or nice restaurants is they bring out a good bread and butter for you.

I feel like there's something about that, like, very specific Thanksgiving dinner roll. You can make the sandwiches out of it. You can, you know, do whatever you need to. That's what I like. As a vehicle for Thanksgiving sandwiches, I'm a big fan of the dinner roll. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I'm not a huge mashed potatoes guy. I feel like they're a vehicle for fat, essentially.

You're just kind of trying to stuff them with as much cream and butter as you can to make them taste palatable. You know, I much would rather, you know, do a French fry or like a gratin or something else because I prefer crunchier potato and mashed potatoes to be good. Have to be pumped with so much fat that you kind of feel disgusting after eating it. But for me, my number five, I'd have to go with the pumpkin pie. You know, I do love a good dessert, even though no one in the history of Thanksgiving, if you're doing it right, has had enough room for dessert, but we all soldier through and, you know, make sure we eat our four slices of pie. So that's one that, you know, these days with the pumpkin craze is less specific to, you know, the end of a Thanksgiving meal. But like, again, it's something I don't make myself. It's something I don't, you know, get to have too often.

And I think it's a great way to, you know, finish the meal and feel like the big guy that I am when I'm, you know, can barely move. And I'm already probably laying down all meeting it. Not a pumpkin pie guy. Well, that's okay. It's a whipped cream. It's a whipped cream delivery system for me. I love whipped cream. Why don't you put gravy on pumpkin pie and then you can just put that whole thing on the trash

and then you can go ahead and gain your five to seven pounds of, you know, Thanksgiving on your mashed potatoes? I will eat pumpkin pie. If there is pumpkin pie available, I will eat it because I do like a lot of whipped cream on my pumpkin pie. But if I were just eating pie and I were ranking pies, pumpkin would be very far down the list. Like, I'd much rather have a pecan pie. I'd much rather have apple pie, a cream pie even over a pumpkin pie.

So it's just, it's far down for me. Is apple pie not an ice cream delivery system to you, though? Or just a straight apple pie? I would, I will put apple pie on ice cream because I do enjoy that. I enjoy like a struzel on an apple pie. So you get some of that crunch. I really enjoy that. So yes, I will do some sort of dairy with my apple pie, but I still think it's better on

its own than pumpkin pie would be. It's funny. I feel like as much as we diverge with food stuff, Thanksgiving meal, like the most opposite we've ever been. Yeah, it is. Which, you know, that's what it is. Thanksgiving is a very personal thing. All right.

Really appreciate you doing this, bud. Always fun to chat with you. We'll be doing this again next week. As I mentioned at the top of the show, please subscribe to The Athletic. Our Black Friday sale is going on for the next week, a dollar a month for the next 12 months. Theathletic.com slash football show.

Please go check that out. We'll be back tomorrow with Nate and Shield, previewing the thanks. giving games, a little twist on the week's schedule. Hope you guys are going to enjoy that. In the meantime, thanks for listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.