The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: Ted Nguyen talks defensive & offensive scheme, quality control, team nicknames & more

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

The Athletic's football film guru Ted Nguyen is this week's special guest, answering your emails and voicemails with Robert Mays. What groups around the NFL deserve Legion of Boom-esque nicknames? How important is scheme to WR success? How has the Browns defensive scheme been changing? What's on the horizon for Josh McDaniels in Oakland? All that and more with Ted on a new Athletic Football Show 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, June 14th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, the Athletic Zone, Ted Nguyen. Ted, how you doing, man? Good. How are you?

I'm doing great. Appreciate you doing this. Always good to chat about some scheme stuff, and I'm really excited to have you as a part of our weekly mailbag this week. Yeah, I'm excited to get started. Let's do this. So I solicited questions from you guys sincerely appreciate. appreciate you giving us some stuff to chew on, including some, you know, it's Ted's here.

I mean, his Twitter handle is literally FB film analysis, so we need to get some film analysis going here. So here we go. Max Rumison, Rumison, Max Rumazin is what we're going with. Says, big fan of the show, saw your tweet about a scheme-focused episode and thought I'd ask about my favorite team's defensive scheme, the Browns. With the drama surrounding the offense, it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle, that the Browns D played great D down the stretch, even with the offense, putting them in bad positions. For example, Packers game on Christmas. 21 to 24 points came after Baker interceptions.

Further following the Cardinals game in week six, they gave up more than 26 points in a game once, 45 versus the Pats. Let's ignore that one, even with the struggling offense. Can you run through what changed schematically that helped the defense improve through the year and what is your expectation of this defense in the next year with most of the key personnel and coaches returning? I wanted to hear what you had to say about this, Ted, because I dug into some of the numbers and I watched a little.

bit, but I'm wondering if you saw anything with the Browns over the course of the year that you thought really made a huge difference. All right. So here's what I'll say about this. I looked back at a lot of the numbers associated with the Browns, and nothing changed drastically from a schematic perspective. So if you look at the way that the Browns approached their defense, they were kind of in their own territory when it came to some things they did. No one used more quarters on first down last year than the brass. The last place Joe Woods was before coming to Cleveland was in San Francisco, where they kind of transition from that more Seattle-based cover three defense to a lot of

quarters on early downs. If you look at the Jets, they did a decent amount of that last year. And Salas kind of made that transition. Joe Woods did a lot of the same stuff. They played 93 snaps of quarters on first down, which was by far the most in the NFL. There was a bigger gap between the Browns and the number two team in the league than there was between number two and number 11. That's how drastic they were in terms of leading the league in quarters on early downs.

It was about 20% of the time. That happened over the course of the season. That didn't really change. On third down, they played a little bit more man-coverage over the second half of the year. But there wasn't anything like, oh, there was this huge philosophical shift in their success. So over the first half of the season, they were 20th in drop-back EPA. So like our listener points out here, they were a lot better in the second half of the season. They were eighth in dropback EPA from weeks 10 through 18.

But I think that was more about just not giving up huge plays than it was anything schematic. Because their success rate in the first nine weeks of the season against dropbacks was sixth. So that gap, we usually have a huge EPA and you're doing pretty good in success rate. That's big, big plays. Think about how many coverage busts you saw from the Browns in the first half of the season. That started going away in the second half of the season. They were third in drop back success rate and eighth in drop back EPA from weeks 10 through 18. So I think instead of just having it be some huge philosophical shift, it's just a defense getting less leaky over the course of the season.

And that's not surprising at all. I talked to someone there last year and they said that it's a certain point, maybe it was during the buy or at some point during the year. They started having more walkthroughs as a team on defense just to work on communication stuff. because when you are introducing a lot of new defensive personnel, which they were, John Johnson, Troy Hill, Greg Newsom, a lot of new guys on the back end, J.O.K. You're going to have some of those communication issues. So it's not surprising that that happened. And that's what I think really went down is that they were communicating better.

They were giving up fewer big plays. John Johnson really settled into his role. Newsom played a little bit more on the slot over the final month of the season. Just the natural progression you see from a group of new defenders playing with each other and finding their role. So in terms of last season, that's the observation that I made. Ted, I don't know if you saw anything from the Browns over the course of the year that you felt like it was a big change, but I don't think there really was anything substantial.

Yeah, I was going to say that, you know, when you are playing so much man-match coverage, it involves a ton of communication and you're, you know, switching, you know, you're passing off a man to another guy. Sometimes it's like playing cover zero, you know, so if you have a bus, in those type of coverages, it can lead to wide open guys and huge plays. So I think just over the course of the season, getting used to each other, being able to communicate like you talked about, and just really getting comfortable with those coverages and passing guys off and that sort of deal, you're going to give up less big plays.

And when you give up less big plays, obviously, you know, the number is going to start to look better. I'm pretty sure if you look at the week one tape from 2020 and the week one tape from 2021, the only two Brown starting defenders to be in both of those lineups were Miles Garrett and Denzel Ward. That's it. That's a ton of turnover on that side of the ball. This year, get everybody back. Everybody is coming back.

They re-signed Devee and Clowny. Corner is really the only position where you might have a little bit of turnover. Troy Hill was traded back to the Rams. We'll see how those spots end up shaking out. And you don't have to have a good answer right now. They could, as we're going to talk about a little bit later, use some more thrills. safety looks with Delpit Johnson and Ronnie Harrison, who's also back. They could move Greg Newsom into the slot like they did late and last season,

have Martin Emerson, one of their rookies, play a little bit on the outside. Greedy Williams is still on this team. They've got a bunch of options on the back end. On the front end, really, the interior of the defensive line is the only place where they're going to have a decent amount of turnover. And that group was an awesome last year. So I have pretty big expectations from this group this year. Year two with the same defensive coordinator, year two together,

and they've got pretty decent depth at really important spots on the back end. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was a top 10 defense. I don't know how you feel about that. Oh, yeah, I agree. If you cut down those big plays and you have good communication in a secondary with that pass rush with Miles Garrett and I struggle saying his name, but JOK coming into a second year, you know, he's a big-time playmaker. So I think I wouldn't be surprised at all of the Browns were a top 10 defense, like you said.

So many young players, so many potential ascending players. It's a really good group. And we haven't talked much about it because of obviously everything going out with the offense, which I think is what we should be spending most of our time and energy on. But this defense quietly has a chance to be really, really good this year, in my opinion. All right. Let's get to our next question here. It's our first voicemail.

Can you want to cue this up for us? Hey Robert, Big fans The Grantland Days This is Garrick from Texas Longtime Chargers fan And I have a weird question about scheme When it comes to base defense As we know, base defense has moved towards more nickel

sets just as the general go-to But I'm wondering specifically about the evolution of using three safeties on the field more and more I can see like the Chargers drafting players like JT Woods in the third round and thinking maybe we go into more of a three safety look at our base defense with Derwin playing a sort of hybrid safety linebacker role on those first down run plays to sort of help sure up our run defense while JT and Adderly play deep safety roaming coverage. Thank you as always. You guys do great stuff.

I appreciate it. The timing on this is very good, Ted, because you recently talked about this in one of your mailbags and the draft gave us a lot of break. crumbs as it relates to this specific topic. So what do you think about the future of three safety looks and specifically with the chargers and how they're emblematic of that shift? Yeah, I think obviously we keep moving towards more of a passing league. So you're going to see teams put more of an emphasis on stopping to pass. And I think that we're going to start seeing more three safety looks because defenses started doing that in college with Iowa State's system being kind of popularized.

And when you look at the draft, you see teams that already had two good safeties, adding a third safety early in a draft. You know, the Ravens added Kyle Hamilton to their safety group that they already had with Chuck Clark and Marcus Williams. The Bengals drafted Dax Hill, to add to Jesse Bates and Vaughn Bell. And their defensive coordinator, Lou Annamarro. How do you say his last name again? Anirumo.

Anna Rumo even talked about using more three safety. packages and the Chargers drafted J.T. Woods, who I really liked coming into the draft. And Brandon Staley said in the press conference after that they wanted a guy that could play deep so they could move Derwin James into the box or move him around. And I think he'll be used as a nickel kind of like what Staley did with Jalen Ramsey. You'll see him play some dime linebacker at times, I'm sure. I think just getting more safety involved because of their versatility is beneficial for defenses. They could cover, they could do different things. But at the same time, they're also a good tackler. So you're not losing a ton in run defense and in the Tappling

department. So I think that's mostly how we're going to see the third safety being used as kind of an extra nickel and maybe a dime linebacker at times. And maybe we'll see some teams get creative with three safety usages like Iowa State and then, you know, starting those three deep safety shells and kind of shift coverages and make things tougher for deep. defenses. I think things tougher for quarterbacks to read. But I think mostly just getting that extra body in the field that can tackle and be a good run defender, but also add to your past coverage is why we're going to see more three safety packages. I want to talk about that and moving into the nickel and the benefits that gives you. But talk a little bit more about the Iowa

state approach. So what would they, what were they doing with their three safety looks that was different than maybe some other teams in college that some NFL teams could look at and maybe steal from? Well, they would just start with a three deep safety shell. So you'll see three safeties deep and they'll kind of shift their coverages. So they could play cover two from that and have two deep safeties play half. And that middle safety kind of play that hole where traditionally a middle linebacker would play. Or they could play cover three with three safeties playing deep and the corners playing up in the flats. Or they can have two safeties kind of play the hook underneath and have the corners drop into the deep third.

So they just do a bunch of different things where it just makes it a little harder for quarterbacks to understand where these defensive backs are going to be. As it relates to the NFL and what we've seen over the last few years, I'm fascinated by the changing body types that we're seeing in the slot now. Cooper Cup being the best example, the ultimate example. He's a 6-2 dude who can run routes like a typical slot receiver, but you can use him in combination blocks like a tight end, which the Rams did last. year. He's a unicorn. He's in his own category when it comes to this. But you see other players, AJ Brown spent a third of his snaps in the slot last year, 33% is a 220-pound guy. I think the Falcons will use Drake London in the slot a decent amount this year with Kyle Pitts on the outside. The way the Packers use their slot receivers, where you have Alan Lazard playing in that

spot a lot. Zach Pascal, favorite on this show. There's the power slot idea becoming more and more prevalent. Chris Godwin is an example of that. If you've got a 215 pound receiver in that spot who wants to hit people, putting an 180 pound corner in the nickel on early downs, you're asking yourself for trouble. It's not the most important thing, but it's a matchup advantage for the offense if you can play an 11 personnel and knock that guy around if nickel defense is based defense now. If you answer those looks with a 205 pound Jalen Ramsey or a 210 pound safety, now you're fighting fire with fire and you don't have to worry about that as much anymore. You can still play past defense because you've only got two linebackers on the field, but now your nickel defender is not a matchup problem for their super-sized nickel player as a receiver.

So I just think this is a natural answer to what we're seeing from the growing evolution literally from players in the slot on offense. Yeah, and it's not just an advantage in a passing game. You know, the reason why Chris Godwin and Cooper Cup are so effective in the slot is because they're plus run blockers too. So, you know, when you have guys that could run block like tight end, almost like tight ends like those guys, and you're asking your 180 pound nickel to kind of, you know, get into a run fit. That's an advantage for the offense too. So when you have that bigger body in there, you don't give up as much in the run defense department as well. All right.

Next one here, Tyler Faber says, we often hear how the most effective offenses scheme their wide receivers open. Andy Reid, Matt LaFleur, Kyle Shanahan, Josh McDaniels, etc. They all have rubber routes, crossers, clear outs, and all the route designs you two show and explain well in your articles and podcasts. How much does a great scheme still need a great receiver to open up other guys? This is something we'll probably learn a lot from the Packers this season. If you scheme receivers open, why is receiver value ballooning instead of falling off? Similar to running back value, whatever would agree, running back blocking schemes is more important than who's in the backfield. Recent Super Bowl teams like the Patriots, Seahawks, Ravens, and Eagles all won without a

tier one receiver. So thanks for considering my question. I've learned so much from you guys. Ted's breakdowns are some of my favorite pieces on the internet. Really appreciate that, Tyler. What do you think about this? I wouldn't say the best schemers, scheme receivers open often. I mean, Rug Rap certainly help against man-to-man situations. But we're seeing a lot of teams use condensed formations to avoid press. I think the best coaches know how to move their players around and create one-on-one situations and create mismatches. And when you're able to do that, you still need your guy to win on a consistent basis. That's why you need that guy that, you know, could just windows one-on-ones, windows 50-50 situations. And, you know, there are times when you just

need your receiver to beat a good corner, you know, as we see him time and time again. So good schemers will create more opportunities. But at the end of the day, you need that guy that guy that could just win those matchups. There's only so much a defense can do. There are only so many guys you can answer a problem with. There's only so many ways you can line up. So, the traditional way and the need for having a true number one receiver is in a three by one set, if you have a guy that's isolated and they're not going to truly double team him, you're in trouble. If you have that guy, you're in trouble.

And that's how it typically was for a very long time. And then when you see teams truly double a guy, that's when things open up. Because if you have three receivers on the other side and you have to keep that safety on the lone receiver side over the top, that's not enough guys on the other side to defend three players. somebody's going to be open eventually. So that's hugely important. And then like you said, even if we're not lined up in those traditional three-by-one formations anymore, if you have a true number one receiver that you think can play from the slot

and you can't really press him and you can't really double-team him, then that guy's going to consistently win matchups. There are plenty of scenarios where you're going to be able to scheme guys open with rubrouts and all of that. But eventually, similar to what we talk about with quarterbacks on this show, you need a receiver who's going to get you a bucket. You need a guy who's just going to be able to win a one-on-one matchup at some point. And that's why when you watch a guy like Devante Adams, even though everyone in the building knows he's going to get the ball in certain situations,

there's still nothing a defense can really do about it because he's going to win that win on one-on-one matchup so consistently. Yeah, and you can't double a receiver on every snap, especially on early downs too. So, you know, that's one of the ways that Adams get the ball so much is they know when they're going to get that one-on-one. and they're going to go to them every single time. And, you know, interestingly, you know, now that, now you're seeing more, like you talked about earlier, you're seeing more number one guys playing a slot, too. So it's a little different than how it used to be where the number one guys were always outside.

The Rams are able to do a good job of isolating cup in those choice routes. And he, you know, he destroys guys on those choice routes, and which is why, you know, you want those number one guys that could really destroy matchups. like he does. And when you watch guys like that, there's something to be said. There's so much to be said about just having a feel for the way to attack open space and the way to change what you're trying to do based on the way the teams are playing against you.

What Cooper Cup can do based on coverage structures and altering routes in the moment and the way that Adams can do some of that stuff where even if the defense is right, those guys make it wrong so often by the way they adjust things or the way that they can play back shoulder balls. Another really good example is the way the bill's offense changed when Stefan Diggs got there. The amount of hitches and comebacks Stefan Diggs caught in single coverage because there's just no good answer. If you want to play over the top and you're worried about that vertical push, he's going to have everything underneath the entire game. There's nothing schemed up about that. That's just the guy being really, really good at the position.

And when you can drop that sort of presence into your offense, there's really no overstating how important that is. is to allowing other guys to crush you as well because of the attention somebody like that takes up. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, an interesting thing is there is starting to become a divide, you know, with teams that are willing to pay those number one guys a lot of money and the teams that are more willing to look to the draft because of, you know, all these good wide receiver classes coming up. There's absolutely something to be said about the surplus at the position. I think having a really, really good receiver is as important as it's ever been, but there might be more good receivers than there have ever been. So I don't think it's devaluing the position and their impact by saying you can move on from that guy and have it be the right move.

I just think that it's a supply and demand issue more than that. Yeah, but it'll be interesting to see which teams are willing to pay those really top flight number one guys, does huge contracts and which teams are willing just to move on because we're starting to see that kind of play out. All right. Jake Bond says, how difficult is it to transition a veteran team to a new defensive scheme? Example, the Vikings are transitioning from a decade of Zimmer style scheme to a Fangio scheme. Do you keep some of the stuff that worked really well, i.e. the Zimmer pressure packages?

What do you think about this? How difficult do you think it is for guys that have learned one way of defense a la Harrison Smith or some of the other guys in that defense to change midstream? after eight to ten years of learning the same thing? I think it depends on how big the coverage shift is going to be. You know, like we talked about the Browns, how they had to get used to playing those match coverages and needing that time together and limiting those explosive plays.

But, you know, for the Vikings example, specifically, I don't think it's going to be too different of a transition. Zimmer played a ton of quarters and man-match coverages. And that Fangio type of scheme involved, a lot of man-match coverages and a lot of split safety looks. So I don't think it's going to be that different. And also you have to think about personnel too. You know, if you have a team that's used to playing a ton of zone

and, you know, spent years collecting all these zone coverage guys and then all of a sudden you're going to a more man-based scheme, that's going to take a while to transition as far as personnel and teaching your guys. I would say the bigger transition for the Vikings instead of coverages is going to be what they're doing up front. They were a four-man front for so, so long, and now you're moving to a world where they're going to be more multiple at front. A guy like Zadaria Smith is a perfect example of bringing a guy into the fold who's going to really change the dynamic of what you look like up there. So I think it's more about their front structures and how they play that stuff that's going to be on the back end. Yeah, it's going to be a transition moving to odd space, uh, odd space, uh, odd space.

defense. You know, I mean, if you look at what happened to the charges last year, you know, they were a single gap team under Gus Bradley for so long. And all of a sudden, you moved to this Brandon Staley gap in half. And there's definitely a talent issue there too. But, you know, it was a difficult for resistant for them, to say to least. How long do you think it takes a defense to really settle in? Do you think that you can have a pretty big philosophical shift in one year and had it click immediately for a team? Or do you think it takes longer than that? I think it depends on personnel as well. You know, like if you don't have the right personnel to run the system that you want, then, you know, you might not even, you might not ever get to a place

that you want in that year until you're able to get better personnel. But generally, I think, you know, when you have good coaching, you see those defenses start to really pick things up towards the end of the year. So I think it can be done within a year. And we've seen examples of defense is really starting to gel together towards the end of the season. The Rams from 2020 are obviously the best example of a team that year one of a new coordinator just took off like a rocket. I think that might be an outlier.

We do have some examples. So the Rams from 2020 are a really good example. Go back to the early days of Fangio in the NFL. I guess the early days of this. stretch. I mean, he was with the Saints in like the 80s, but coming back to the NFL about a decade ago, the Niners were 17th in defensive DVOA in 2010, the year before Harbour and Fangio got there. They were third in 2011, which was their first year there. Weirdly, 2011 is a couple examples of this. The Texans that year, that was the first year of Wade Phillips in Houston. They went from

30th in defensive DVOA in 2010 to 7th that year. And what's more impressive about that is that was the lockout year. So they didn't even have a full off season to put all that stuff in and you had those teams taking a huge, huge jump. The Seahawks went from 29th in 2010 to 10th in 2011. A couple pretty important guys were drafted that year that ended up playing on that team. So personnel, scheme change. We have seen it in the past. I tend to think it takes at least a year and into the back half of that year, just like we talked about. Because even back then, when you're looking at some of these teams, more spot drop zone. I mean, just the amount of communication that you have to have now because of all of the

match coverage that teams are playing. I just think that the Rams, it's easy to look at them and say, well, we can do that too. If we just bring in this scheme, we'll have this huge change. I just don't think it's that easy. They have Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey. Most teams do not. And I don't think it's that much more complicated than having those two guys. You need that to have that microwave success that a team like that had.

Yeah, agree. And I think if you do want to look for an example like that, look for a team that has good defensive personnel but bad coaching. And as soon as they bring in a good coach, they'll probably take off that year. All right. Kent, can you care about our next voicemail here? Hey, Robert, Nate, Mike, everyone over there, Lindsay, really love the show. Addicted to the podcast, which is goodness. This is Mike from Miami. A quick follow-up question to a mailbag question from a previous week. where a caller asked, what is the worst quarterback you could win a Super Bowl with? And I think you misinterpreted the question, honestly. I think he was saying if you are, I don't know, pick the team, Kansas City, Buffalo, what have you, a top echelon team, could you win with Daniel Jones?

Could you win with Baker Mayfield? Could you win with, I don't know, take your pick, Tua? I think you get the gist. So I think that is how I interpreted the question. and if I did get it wrong, well, here's a new one for you, a new twist on the same one. So thanks a lot,

and hopefully I'll hear this answered on an upcoming now back. All right, I did. We did answer this in terms of guys on teams right now that, okay, like Jalen Hertz and James Winston for this year, we're a couple of our answers. On a more theoretical level, I would take this a different direction.

So talking more about history and just guys that we've seen, who do you think is? the worst quality of starting quarterback that if everything else broke right for you could potentially win a Super Bowl? Nick Foles. That's not a bad answer, actually. But he played extremely well during that stretch. That's the problem.

But, well, you know, I kind of thought about this. And you look at Jimmy Garoppolo, who almost won a Super Bowl with the Niners and got into the championship game last year. Then you look at Jared Goff. who made the Super Bowl with the Rams, but, you know, just got completely shut down by that Patriots defense. So those guys can you get, get you to the big game? But as we've seen, when, you know, it comes down to the, you know, fourth quarter and you need that guy to get you a bucket, they just have failed on a consistent basis. So I think you need a guy that is a little

bit above the class of, you know, the Jimmy Garoppelos and Jared Gough. So, you know, I think if you put Derek Carr into, you know, the Niners team, that Niners, I think they could win a Super Bowl. You know, he can't, he can't, he doesn't win you, can't get, can't you get a bucket as consistently as a guy like Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, but he can do that at times. He's good in the fourth quarter. So I think that is kind of the baseline as the, you know, quarterback that's not quite top tier that can win you a Super Bowl. Jimmy Garopla was the first name that I thought about because it was that 2019 team. We're talking about everything else going right. That 2019 team had a lot going for it. Their defense was incredible. You have the perfect play caller. You have some skill

position guys that can create something out of nothing. And they were two, three plays. away from winning that Super Bowl. So I still think a couple bounces of the ball, he's good enough in those exact circumstances to win you one. So I think he's clearly in that tier. Like if you get, again, a couple more breaks, he can win you one. I'm going one step further down. And I'm going, if we're going back in time a little bit, the 2018 Bears, if a couple other

things go right, is Mitchell Trubisky good enough with that defense to potentially win you a couple more games? Maybe not. but one more year back in time Blake Bortles in 2017 with that Jaguars team goes to the AFC championship game I think if you have

a lightning and a bottle defense like the best defense in the league Buzz saw dominant can slow down pretty much anybody they play which very rarely happens there's like one or two of those defenses a year maybe you could have a guy in that Trubisky Bortles

on a rookie contract tier of quarterbacks, and you get lucky on your way to winning a Super Bowl. I think a guy like that can do it, but you literally need everything to go your way, and we have not seen that happen in a long time. Yeah, see, I think we're looking at this a little differently. You're looking at it as like every break has to, you know, happen for this guy to win.

I'm thinking like, you know, maybe this guy could win it, win this for you four out of ten times or something like that. I think that Jimmy Garoppolo is right in that range for that to potentially happen. And maybe one step down from there. But once in 15 tries, could the 2018 Bears have won the Super Bowl with Metro Trubisky? Maybe. Could the 2017 Jaguars have won one with Blake Bortles?

Maybe. So I do think that you can have a pretty bad quarterback if everything else goes right. But there's a reason we haven't seen that happen in a long time. Yeah. I mean, you need a top flight defense, top flight running game, and a lot of luck to to break your way. Yeah, that's why building a team with that model in mind is not the right way to do it, but it can happen to you maybe once. All right. Next question here, our friend Bobby Peters asks, what McDaniels Patriots concepts are you most excited for the Raiders to use in 2020, Ted?

Yeah, I thought about this question and Bobby Peters, he writes these fantastic guides that breaks out all these team plays. So you should check out his Twitter and his It's Amazon where all these books are listed if you're interested in that. I'm trying to see if there's one right in front of me or not. I usually have at least like two of them in this room. But unfortunately. I got a few in that bookshelf right in my basement right now. He just put out one about the Browns.

It's really, really interesting. I highly encourage you guys to go check those out. Anyway. Yeah, so I thought about this question. And, you know, I don't think it's one or two concepts that I'm really excited to play to see happen. But I think just seeing car in an actual system, it is exciting to me because, you know, I think John Gruden was the best offensive coordinator he's ever had.

But Grunner's philosophy is more like we're going to run these 200, you know, we're going to go into a game with these 200 plays in our game plan and see what works. And, you know, to me, there's certain things that are good about that philosophy, but I believe in more of a Sean McVade's type of philosophy where we're going to run our plays and we're going to have our constraint plays in case the defense takes this away. And I like that philosophy better. And, you know, the Patriots obviously are very systematic in what they do. And, you know, I think one of the reasons why the Raiders had troubles adjusting in some of the second halfs of games under that Gruden eras because they weren't systematic enough. So I'm really excited to see Carr play in the system, which I think really fits his skill set. Also, you know, we've talked to, I think whenever teams end up getting two tight ends, we always harken back. to what the Patriots did with Grancowski and Aaron Hernandez,

but we never really see it play out the way that we think it would play out like it did back then. But I really think the Raiders have two of the better tight ends in the league with Darren Waller and Foster Moreau. So I'm excited to see if they could really implement a two tight-end set that is effective and it's kind of like that Gronkin-Hernandez type of system they had back then. one of the play he mentioned and I think this is what I'm more interested in and more excited about the play he mentions called hoss why juke which is one of the famous empty plays that the Patriots run and it's you have hitches on the outside seams on the inside and then the guy the number three

receiver runs a little juke route so it's a little stutter over the middle of the field the cool thing about that play is the Patriots run forever a lot pretty much everyone runs it but the Patriots have famously done it they've had so many different guys on that juke out depending on what their personnel was. Aaron Hernandez ran that at times. West Welker ran that at times. And the coolest part about what the Raider skill position group looks like right now, they can do that again.

Darren Waller can do that if they want him to. Devante Adams is really, really good from the slot if you want Hunter Renfro to do that. So that's what I can't wait, is to wait to see. How are they going to use these guys and play with expectations positionally with some of them and where they're all going to line up? because the Patriots had such a good job of that where you had five spots and you could change out the pieces depending on who was on the team and what sort of matchups you wanted to exploit. And now the Raiders potentially have three plus matchup guys that they could use in all of those different ways. And I think that's going to be really fun to watch.

Yeah. And it's not just that play that, you know, has that kind of option route that the Patriot system has a ton of different option routes, a ton of different route conversion type of routes. I'll say it again. They have a ton of different route conversions in their offense that are built in. And to run those plays, you need guys that understand leverage, understand coverages. And you have three guys on a team that really does that well in Devante Adams, Hunter Renfro, and Darren Waller. So it's going to be really fun to see once they could really get everything together.

the value we can argue about till we're blue in the face, giving up all of those picks and then paying him a top of the market deal as a 29, 30-year-old receiver. But for the exact reason you said, going to get arguably a smartest receiver in the entire league and Devante Adams and dropping him that into the system, even if other teams might look at the surplus of receivers available in the draft and say, we're going to pay this guy $2 million a year. I'd much rather take my chances in the draft over paying one receiver $28 million. Think about how many young receivers we have seen drown in the Patriot system because they can't figure that shit out. So a veteran who understands all of that I think is arguably more important and more crucial to what the Patriots want to do and how that system works than really any other offense in the NFL, arguably. Yeah, it's going to be fun. And I don't think Adams has ever had two other receivers as talented as Renfro and Darren Waller playing. Not when he's been the clear number one, clearly.

Yeah. I mean, it's when Jordan Nelson was with him, but that was at a different point in Devante Adams' career. Yep. All right. Next one here. Alex Pennington says, I've been wondering what all the coaches on a staff actually do. I understand what an offensive line coach does, but what about a quality control coach or an offensive and defensive coordinator who doesn't call play?

Quality control coach, we've talked about a decent amount on this show. You're really just gathering information and, you know, breaking down certain types of tape and helping put together certain packages and, you know, binders of stuff for coaches over the course of the day. You can ask Nate all about that if you ever want to. I'm interested in the side of this with an offensive or defensive coordinator who doesn't call plays. What is your sense of what role those guys have day to day? Because I have an answer, but I'm curious what you think. A side note on the quality control coach.

I was at a Niners mini camp. And one of my buddies who was a quality control coach there, he was running routes against the starting defense and catching passes from Kyle Shanahan. So there's that part of the job responsibility. But yeah, I mean, as far as the coordinators that don't call plays, just because they don't, you know, calling plays isn't just like you're thinking, you know, it's not like Madden where you have the whole playbook available to you.

while you're calling plays on each down, you know, during the week, you're coming up with plays that you'll call in certain situations. So, you know, in the second along and, you know, with this much time left or whatever, you know, we have this list of plays we're going to call. And I think the coordinator that doesn't call play is going to help put that game plan together and help create those lists for the coach who's actually going to call the plays. And meetings are a huge part of this. A lot of play calling head coaches don't run. offensive meetings. So in those situations, like Cleveland, for example,

Alex Van Pelt handles the offensive meetings for the most part, and even though Stefansky calls the place. So you have a ton of examples of that all over the place with teams. I think Kyle Shanahan is another really good example. He comes into the process fairly late when it comes to game planning. I remember talking to Kyle, you know, a couple years ago where, you know, maybe Wednesday they'll have Kyle come in and be more part of the offensive process and a part of that dialogue where the offensive coaches outside of him will handle it until that point.

So you have plenty of examples of this of coordinators around the league who don't call plays, but ultimately are in charge of the offense for multiple days during the week, including some of the meetings. All right. Next one here, Aaron Polton and asks, there have been a number of examples of position groups that have had their own nickname, Legion of Boom, the Purple People Eaters, the Steel Curt in the New York Sack Exchange are all examples. What current position group or unit do you think is most deserving?

of a nickname and what should it be? I'm terrible at naming things, so I'm not going to suggest many nicknames here, but let's come up with the group that we feel like deserves a nickname the most. Of any position group in the league, who do you think most deserves their own nickname? I don't know if this group really deserves it

because they haven't really played together quite yet, but I think the dolphin skill players who are ridiculously fast with Waddle, Hill, Wilson, and Mostert. I think somebody could come up with a good nickname for that group. That is a really good one. Mine is the Bengals receiving corps.

They're young, first couple years together. I feel like that one's going to be. You could drum up a lot of excitement for that. A couple other options I went through, the Niners defensive front, but they have so many guys that have changed out of it. Buckner's been in and out of there. It's really just Armstead and Bosa, who are the consistent pieces there. And that's part of the issue here is that I think there's so much turnover in the NFL right

now with so many players being able to hit free agency and just the amount of roster changes that we see from year to year, it's hard to have a unit that sticks together for so long that they deserve their own nickname. But think about how excited we were about the Broncos secondary last year. And those groups just don't tend to stick together for very long anymore. So it's difficult to gain enough traction where you deserve your own longstanding nickname. Yeah, no, I agree. And I think one group that has been together a little while, the bill's secondary.

But they're not, I thought of that one too, but they're not like a headline grabbing group, you know? I don't, they're so solid all around, but I don't think people are really rushing to give Micah Hyde, a Micahehyl led group a nickname, even though they're really good. I mean, I just think that you need a lot of sizz as a group to warrant something like this. the bills are so good together and it's more than the sum of the parts, but the parts have to be thrilling to warrant this type of attention. That's why the bill, or excuse me, the Bengals receiving corps, it's like, all right, this one I feel like we could get there with, just because all of those guys individually are so good,

even independent of what they are together. Yeah, or maybe the commander's four-man rush, if they could get things back together, you know, get back on track, I mean. that would have been my answer at this point last year. And then they disappointed all of us. So the other one that I was thinking about, we could have done this three or four years ago, would have been the Eagles offensive line.

Because that group was together for a while, where it's Lane Johnson, Jason Peters, Brandon Brooks, Jason Kelsey, and whoever your other guard happens to be. So that group, I think, would have been the most deserving in a slightly different era. But right now there aren't that many groups that have been together for that long. so it gets tough.

All right. Last one here. I enjoyed this and I figured you'd have some interesting insight on this as a Raiders, a guy who pays a lot of attention to the Raiders. Eric Brignac asks, this being the deep off season, I figured you'd appreciate a really weird one. If you were the Raiders, how much draft capital would you be willing to trade

in exchange from Mahomes, Herbert, and Wilson all being transported to the NFC? All right. I think if, to get them out of the division and just maybe place an average quarterback in place of those guys, I would give up at least every first and second round pick for the rest of Mahomes and Herbert's career. First and second round picks.

For the rest of their career, because I think the impact difference, the difference between Mahomes and Herbert and an average quarterback is worth two very good starters at any position, I think. Assuming you're going to get good quarterback play from Derr Carr, I think you could win if you just have average quarterbacks play for the Chiefs and the Chargers at Broncos. You're probably right.

I was going to say like four first round picks. Like your next four first round picks would you give them up to have all of those guys put in a different conference? But you might be right that it's a first and second round pick if you're actually thinking about the tangible impact and value of what those guys are over an average. replacement. Yeah, exactly. And then you'll always have, you know, we, I hear you guys talking about Derek Carr a ton

as is a guy that's just, you know, a little out of that top, you know, tier of quarterbacks. But if you have, you know, you'll have a quarterback advantage over those guys for, you know, the rest of the time Derek Carr is playing. So I do think it's, it's worth that. I mean, it's just, you know, my opinion of Mahomes and Herbert is that high, where I think the difference between them and average quarterback is. is worth that much. It's a really good answer. It's hard to argue with that based on how good those guys are. Because Derrick Carr being the fourth best, or depending on what you think of Russell Wilson at this stage, the third best quarterback in his own division,

says much more about the division than it says about Derek Carr, because I think Derek Carr is pretty good. I think if you drop Derek Carr into most divisions in the NFL, he'd probably be the second best or best quarterback when you think about it. I mean, the AFC South, for example. Would Derek Carr be the best quarterback in the AFC South right now? He's better than Davis Mills. He's better than Matt Ryan at this point of his career. And he's better than Ryan Tannahill. And the fourth is...

That's it. Oh, oh. Yeah. Well, it'd be the Jacks. And he's better than Trevor Lawrence at this stage. So he'd be the best quarterback in the AFC South. If you dropped him into the NFC North right now, He'd probably be the second best quarterback behind Aaron Rogers, right?

Would you rather have Derek Car than Kirk Cousins? Yes. So he'd be the second best quarterback in that division. If you dropped him into the NFC East, he'd be the second best quarterback behind Dak Prescott probably. You could make an argument that he'd be in the company. Pretty much every other division in the league, he'd probably be the second best quarterback at the very worst, and now he might be the fourth best quarterback in the

AFC West. It's a really shitty spot for the Raiders to be in here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we'll see how things shake out. But, yeah, just having to play Mahomes twice a year. And then you see Herbert come in and just light the league up the way he has. It's a difficult spot for the Raiders. All right.

That's all we got. Ted, thank you very, very much for hopping on to do this, my friends. Always get a chat with you. Yeah, no problem. That was fun. All right, guys, we will be back a little bit later this week. We're going to do the show that I've been mentioning for the last week and a half. Nate and I are going to talk about Lamar Jackson and Kyle Murray on Wednesday.

Very excited to do that. Please come back and check that out. If you could, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. It would mean a lot to me. Take some time in the offseason to let us know that you like it. Really, really appreciate that. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show.

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