The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Monday Mailbag: Models for offensive progress, building a running back room, elite position coaches, and more; Plus, DeAndre Hopkins signs with the Titans

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Mitchell Schwartz sits in for Nate Tice on this mailbag edition of The Athletic Football Show. He and Robert Mays tackle questions on models for offensive progress, best builds for a running back room, the traits that set elite position coaches apart from the rest, and more. Robert also welcomes on Titans beat writer Joe Rexrode to discuss the DeAndre Hopkins signing.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Mitch on Twitter: @MitchSchwartz71Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeThis episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/MAYS and get on your way to being your best self. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. To the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. We have our mailbag with Mitchell Schwartz coming a little bit later in the show. But we had some news yesterday that we had to address. So Joe Rex Road, who covers the Titans for us here at The Athletic, is going to join us to discuss DeAndre Hopkins signing a two-year contract with Tennessee, what this means for what the

Titans are trying to accomplish in the short term, what they're trying to accomplish in the long-term. I think it's a really interesting decision based on kind of the different pathways the Titans could have followed coming into this year. We did an entire podcast, Nate and I, back in the spring, about what we would do with the Titans who kind of felt like a blank slate in certain ways as they could move on from Ryan Tannehill as they had a new general manager coming in. They were almost an exercise and, you know, the different divergent paths the team could take. And everything they've done this offseason kind of punctuated by this DeAndre Hopkins move, I think tells you exactly what the Titans are trying to be. 2023 and maybe a little bit in 2024. So we're going to chat with Joe and Mitch. Let's get to it.

All right. Joining us now, Joe Rex Road, who covers the Titans for the athletic. Joe, very excited to get your thoughts on this. Big day, big piece of news for the Tennessee Titans today. They signed DeAndre Hopkins to a two-year, $26 million deal worth up to $32 million in incentives. What are your initial thoughts on DeAndre Hopkins heading to Tennessee? Well, I think, you know, I think the Titans.

were probably in the lead for a long time here. And I'd love to know some of the other offers, but I'm going to guess that nothing came close to this. And look, they had to proceed this way. I mean, I think you can look back. I even go back to like draft, the last draft presser, you know, with Mike Vrable. Vrable in particular, Rancarton thought I had Mike Brabel,

but, you know, they had gone through the draft and free agency. You know, they basically picked up Chris Moore, and they got, you know, Colton Dowell in the seventh round. But it was somewhat stunning for a team with a receiver room like theirs to do as little as they did. And Vrable, some people took it as a promise. I didn't take it quite that strong. But he kind of said, we got, we're going to figure this out.

You look back at what he said that day and you kind of have the sense that this was the plan all along. And it makes sense. Obviously, Vrable spent four years with him there. And although Titans fans have a long list of formerly great players who then came here and, watch their careers fade immediately. They had to do this. They had to do this.

I was surprised, and the background that he has with Deider Hopkins, you're talking about them in Houston together. When Mike Frable was in Houston, obviously, J.O.Hopkins was there. The only piece of it that's really surprising for me is that they would be willing to go down this road with not only an aging receiver, but an aging receiver who pretty famously does not love to practice after the way that the Julio Jones experience went in Tennessee. That was the only thing. I was like, oh, man, I can't believe they're running this back after how awful that seemed to go for that entire season.

Yeah, no, I hear you. But, you know, the difference, of course, I mean, when that happened, like, Vrable's, I think trepidation was pretty obvious. Like, he was, like, that first day, he's like, yeah, I called Sabin and talked to him for a long time. And he's like, I don't know. Like, you could tell he wasn't sure. And you have all these years together in Houston. So I'm assuming there's a good relationship and a little bit better understanding of how someone takes. You, Vrabel is, for his, you know, hard nose and kind of old schoolies, he is kind of a new age coach.

He gives these guys a favorite player. He hasn't been that long since he played. Exactly. And ultimately it comes down to production for him. So, you know, he gives, I mean, Ben Jones, and I know it's, like, injury related, but, like, that's maybe Vrable's favorite player ever here in Tennessee. And I swear he practiced, like, three times the last two seasons, you know? Again, it's like, just get it to Sunday, Ben. out there and give me what you got Sunday. But, I mean, Hopkins, you know, knows this offense. He also

knows Tim Kelly. So I don't think that's, you know, going to be a big concern. It's, look, even the Julio year, if he's able to actually stay healthy and not constantly retweak the hamstring, it's okay. It's an all right year, but he's not. So it's eerily similar, you know, when you look at the production of those two guys in their age, the year before they came here, but obviously the Titans need a different outcome. The most interesting element of this to me, and I tweeted about this a little bit earlier today is essentially what it says about the Titans timeline and their plan. They're trying to straddle two different realities, it feels like. You know you're taking a step back.

You have to take a step back. You've pushed all your chips into the middle with the way that you've restructured the Derek Henry contract, the Ryan Tannehill contract. That version of this team is coming to an end. Both of those guys are going to be free agents next year. You're moving on. But you have this defense where you've committed real resources to kind of your core of young defensive players.

You give out the Jeffrey Simmons extension this year. you've already paid a money hooker. You've already paid Kevin Byard. You've already paid Harold Landry. So you have this defense that's probably too good for you to tank. And then you have Ryan Tannahill still on the roster. If you were going to go the other route where you were going to really strip this thing down to the studs, you probably needed to do that back in February, March. You needed to move on from Tannenhill. You needed to kind of move on for maybe a couple of these older guys, maybe release Kevin Byard, whatever you end up doing. They don't do that. They kind of keep all that intact. So now you're almost so far toward the direction of we want to stay competitive now that you feel compelled to continue down that road. And the Hopkins signing feels like the next step in that, but then you have Will Levis

waiting in the wings. So again, they're trying to straddle these kind of two different timelines where you are turning the page. There's no denying that. You picked a quarterback in the top 40, but you also are trying to stay competitive in the moment. And I just think that's really difficult to balance. I agree.

And, you know, it's like once, I mean, obviously, I think some inquiries were made on Tana Hill and Henry, right? I mean, I think they looked a lot of different things. We know that they tried to get fired to take a pay cut. But you're absolutely right, Robert. It's like, I mean, I still feel like this is the last hurrah year. It's like, you know, say goodbye to Derek and say goodbye to Ryan, but especially Derek. I mean, he's such a special beloved player in this town.

And I don't see, I don't see how he's, you know, not somewhere else next year. But I tell you what, what if they, what if this works out, Hopkins is healthy all year, the defense is salty. Landry comes back healthy. Best case, the offensive line is okay. I can't get much better than okay at this point. I think even that's an optimistic viewpoint. That's a little bit

rosy in my opinion personally. I'm with you. I mean, that is the biggest question. But if a lot of things break their way, what if they win the division, like win a playoff game and Tannahill plays great? I still think Tannahill around the league is a little bit undervalued and even last year.

Like the circumstances were horrific. What if he's really good, wins a playoff game, and now you're sitting there, like you said, you've now taken a, you took Levis, you know, high in the second, but he also took Willis before that in the third round. You've done so much to look toward during the page, but what if it's like, how could you not try again? You know, it's really fascinating. It would have to be incredibly compelling evidence, but I think that if you're the Titans, you have to keep an open mind on that, right? And also, what does Levis prove to be this year? Here's my thought about this,

is that by signing DeAndre Hopkins, you just stay a little bit more competitive in 2023, but you're not really going to do anything. You know, this probably doesn't make you better than Jacksonville, and it definitely doesn't make you better than the real contenders in the AFC. This kind of feels like a message that we're just going to try to win consistently every single year. So by going out and getting a guy like this, you have no other avenues to get a receiver like this,

this offseason, probably next off season, which I think is why it's a little bit justifiable. So we're going to stay competitive. We're never going to tear this thing down. We're going to consistently try to win as many games as we can. And in 2023, that probably means, even if things go well, even if that timeline that you're discussing ends up unfolding, maybe this team wins eight or nine games. Because I still think the offensive line is bad enough that that's probably not, that's

probably where the ceiling is. There are position groups on this team that are questionable enough where I don't think they're going to be super, super competitive. But by staying competitive, by kind of just like, this is the culture we have here, this is who we are, when you turn the page into next year, you have, You have one year of Will Levis in the building. DeAndre Hopkins is still here. So you're almost just ready to hit the ground running next year when you're turning the page to a cheaper quarterback. Even if you're paying DeAndre Hopkins $15 million, you've got $90 million in cap space.

So this almost just feels like an intermediary season onto the plan that they're actually trying to see through and they're actually trying to execute while just staying competitive and making sure we're one of these places, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, all of those sorts of teams that. we're just going to compete every single year, and we're just going to try to jump from between era to era. And I think what the Ravens did with Lamar Jackson, in my opinion, is the best case scenario for this, where you never have to bottom out to find your quarterback of the future. You can kind of just nimbly jump from one stage to the next, and you just are consistently competitive the entire time, and that's the culture that you're building in your building. That's kind of what it feels like to me.

I think that's well put. And obviously, Vrable, I mean, look, I don't think you can find. find too many people in the NFL who are going to be pro tanking in any way, right? But like Mike Vrable, I mean, it eats at his soul every single loss, right? And I do think he wants to set that a certain baseline. That said, I could make a strong case to win three games this year and get Marvin Harrison Jr. next year and really take a step. But hey, that's not going to happen. So the two argument, the argument for tearing it down is that it gives you a pathway to a quarterback. That's typically the most important thing. That argument isn't really that important

here because they've hopefully found their quarterback. They went out and got him this year. But not tanking or not tearing it down for one single season, you do cut off pathways to difference-making players at the top of the draft. And this is still a team that no matter what the Andre Dillard guaranteed money is into next year, which it's more than I thought it was, by the way, you still need a left tackle. You still need a couple stud offensive linemen. You can still use another receiver. So I think there is an argument for that, but they just don't, they're not built that way. They were never going to be built that way. So I think this move kind of speaks that. I also think I was a little bit interested in the urgency to go get the quarterback this

offseason. The fact that it felt like they really wanted to come out of this draft with a quarterback, my thought was kind of, well, why? Why do you have to have it now? And I think the Hopkins move actually shines a little bit more light on that, because now as you're trying to kind of, again, straddle these two worlds, the quarterback is hopefully going to be in year two next year, and you can hit the ground running. You're not worried about having a rookie quarterback at the center of everything. next season when you still have this young core players. So I think that having him be in the second year, you got another year in the building. You have just hopefully he maybe gets on the field a little bit this year.

It just more definitely able or allows them to kind of transition from mindset, from like how to plan to plan if he's in year two next year compared to year one. Yeah, and of course, if Hopkins is good, it is healthy and can give you a couple good years, that could be a nice group. I mean, there's a lot of internal excitement about Trailing Berks, Chicka Conco, guys are nice young players. I think you could see both of them take pretty big steps. Tai J. Spears, I'm very intrigued by what he's going to be. And I wonder if even more than just a weapon out of the backfield, you know, more of like the primary replacement for Derek Henry.

He's a very exciting player right now. And obviously we'll see on the timeline of his career. But you could see how if those things keep progressing, and especially again, if Hopkins is able to be solid here for the nice couple years, Levis could have a nice situation if they, yeah, they've got a lot of fixing still to do up front. If he does have to play, if he has to play this year, they want him to play this year. Having a guy like DeAndre Hopkins makes you feel much better about the situation that you're dropping Will Levis into. I think it allows or kind of creates a scenario where these are positive reps. This is positive experience for him where the state of the offensive line and the state of the receiving core before you make this sort of move. I think it's clearly negative.

I still think the line is a big concern, but I think that this helps his development potentially and you give him a piece next year for when he actually is ready to play. And this team has $90 million in cap space next season. Even if Hopkins eats into that by $15 million, you've still got some resources to rebuild the offensive line a little bit, and you've paid most of your key contributors on defense. So again, trying to just hit the ground running next season, make sure that you can jump between what we used to be with Ryan Tannahill

and what we want to be with Levis. If Levis ends up working, then I think that they can do this. But the question is whether or not that's actually going to happen. And right now the question is, can he surpass Malik Willis, who was a little bit better than him during the spring? I don't think that's a big surprise, but that's all the talk around Nashville. I'm with you on O'Concoe. I think he was a really exciting player last year. I think the Trelon Burks being able to slide into more of a just like one B role or like a complimentary role of Hopkins is kind of your number one receiver.

I think actually makes more sense considering Traylin Berks' skill set. The question about Hopkins becomes, what is he now? At this stage of things, what is he? You know, there are teams around the league that if you look at the, some of the GPS tracking data, all of that, he's slowed down a little bit. I think his game lends to that. He can still be an effective player, even if he's lost the step just based on the style to what he plays with. But yeah, I mean, it just sends such a message that we are never going to take a conscious step back with Mike Frable as our head coach. We're going to try to just power

our way through what would typically be a retooling season. And there are downsides that come with that. It's really hard to break out of that eight, nine win mold when you're not getting out. And, you're not getting access to game-changing players at the top of the draft, but we've seen other teams try to do it. We've seen other consistently competitive teams in the AFC try to do it, and that's exactly the balancing act that the Titans seem to be trying to pull off. So here we go. Right. And like you said, Robert, I mean, ultimately comes down to Levis. If Levis is what they hope he is, then it shouldn't be long, and they can bridge that gap. He's got to be great, or you're going to be stuck in that mediocrity. That's exactly right. Again, it's, if you have

found your quarterback than any concern about sticking around in the middle preventing you from going out and getting a guy at that position, it no longer matters. And that's the biggest concern with these teams who are lingering in the middle. The Steelers are doing it right now, right? You go get a Kenny Pickett in the middle of the first round because you have no other avenues to really go out and get that guy. What does that reality ultimately end up looking like for you? Most teams have either had to trade up in the first round to get their guy or they've stumbled into a situation like the Lamar Jackson deal in Baltimore. I think that has to be what the Titans are hoping, is that this guy fell for reasons that maybe we really don't understand. He actually

is a first round town. We can build around him as a high level quarterback. And again, we're able to kind of maneuver this in a way that we never had to draft in the top five for us to kind of rebound and turn the page in a positive way. So it's going to be fascinating. I'm not surprised at all based on who's in charge and who kind of dictates things in that building. But it is a difficult balancing act to pull off. Joe, really, really appreciate the time here on a Sunday night. Thank you for joining us. We will talk to you very soon. Okay. Thanks, buddy. Thanks love for having me, Robert. All right. It's time to get to our mailbag with Mitchell Schwartz. Let's do this. It's our good friend Mitchell Schwartz. Mitch, how are you doing

bud? I'm doing good. I don't know whether to take that as save the best for last or ran out of people to have on. So just that was the last choice. Not, that's not true at all. I was doing them with Nate because we wanted to schedule them very easily. But then Nate's on paternity leave, and you were definitely the person I would want to be doing this with if I wasn't doing it with him. So you should take it as a real compliment. All right. We'll go with best for last. All right.

We have some good questions. Really appreciate everyone who sent them in. Really appreciate everyone who sent them in all summer. Just a heads up that starting next Monday, we'll be in like preseason mode. I'll be on the road already for camps. Camps start. I think on July 26th is the official day that a lot of teams report. So we're here.

We made it. We made it through the doldrums of the offseason. and essentially we've got a bunch of really good kind of big picture shows coming your guys's way over the next week or so just some questions that when we're not tied into the schedule and we haven't quite gotten to camp yet thought we could take a step back and really consider in a just a fun way with really good guess so we have three of those coming your way for the rest of the week but starting next week it will be preview time and very excited to get into that but wanted to use our last little bit here to kind of step back answer some big picture stuff

and let's start with Trevor Doyle, who says, with the recent trend in interior defensive lines seemingly turning itself into a premium position, do you see any other position groups that could have been previously looked at not as non-premium, see a similar boom as defensive tackle? I wanted to start with this one because the Quinn and Williams news came out earlier this week. Obviously, we weren't doing shows because the play callers was going. If you have not listened to all five episodes of Jordan's series, I highly encourage you to go do that.

But that news came out late last week, and I wanted to use this as kind of a chance to dig into both that and this conversation widely about defensive tackle. So first and foremost, I wanted to get your take the Quinn and Williams contract and some of these defensive tackle contracts that have been handed out. And the fact that we have now more defensive tackles making $20 million a year than defensive ends.

What do you think about this shift and kind of this group getting paid the way that they have? I think it's great. I'm actually more surprised that the number's not higher. Yeah. I think the big thing for me is that obviously, I don't know, if pain was maybe the first.

one to sign at kind of that 22-ish range. But I was surprised that, I mean, people are going to say Donald is 31 a year, 30 a year. Obviously, he's the outlier. But I would have expected, like, a bigger jump to get that gap in between him as opposed to just, like, kind of the normal increase year-to-year based on the salary cap and the inflation, which it seems like the defensive tackle position is at because Quinnin just signs, and he's at 24-year, and Donald is still over 30. And that's a really big jump.

And, yeah, when Donald's fully healthy, you could maybe see. say that he provides 20% more value or 25% however you want to do that math. But I don't know that that's really the way things go. And I'm sure Chris Jones is going to be an interesting test case to see because I think he has that second guy kind of in between Donald and Williams or whoever you want to put a number three. But I love that these guys are getting paid. They affect the game in a really big way. I'm just surprised that they're not getting more money, frankly. And so I hope Chris, you know, can do it for the position. It feels like this gap has been closing for a while. And I think it probably starts with what Aaron Donald was doing and how he was affecting the game.

But maybe this is just my layman's brain looking at it. But as somebody who has to deal with these guys or had to deal with these guys on a week-to-week basis, in your mind, does an elite defensive tackle as a pass-rusher have any less of an impact on a game or on a game plan than an elite edge rusher does? Or should that gap be closed? I think they have the same impact in terms of the game planning perspective. I know there have been some studies. I think PFF did one a few years ago, which I always used in my favor as a tackle. tackle, but essentially, defensive ends are still getting pressure at like a slightly quicker

rate. And for the most part, when they do get pressure, more of those pressures turn into turnovers, which makes them theoretically more valuable because the defensive end getting pressure around the corner could lead to more strip sacks, more fumbles, which leads to turnovers. Also, you know, being able to get a hand on the elbow of the quarterback as you're going around could lead to those tipped or deflected weird, wonky passes that safeties and linebackers love to scoop up. So some of the data states that even if, you know, they're getting pressure at a similar

rate, theoretically, the defensive end is a little bit more valuable because of the turnover potential. But I think that the biggest difference is just defensive tackles are so much more skilled than they used to be and they're being relied on to rush the passer and as weapons, where in the past it was more, you know, run defense and be stabbed up the middle and protect your linebackers. And, you know, if we've got a worn sap or one of these guys that can actually get after the quarterback, that's great. that's like an insane luxury to have,

but it wasn't necessarily the expectation that they could produce at the level of defensive ends. And I think now it's becoming the expectation that you at least have one, you know, quote unquote, three tech who can get up the field, you know, beat guards. And, you know, we're also seeing defensive ends move to that position on past rush situations,

which, you know, probably goes back 15 years-ish to, I think Spags was, I think Spags and the Giants were kind of the first ones that we remember as teams that put defensive ends over guards to get some pressure. So I think that kind of started the shift like, hey, why are we just punting on these two interior positions when we could affect the quarterback? And that kind of start of the trend. And now defensive tackles are getting as much pressure. And dude, going into a game, I mean, guards are used to like a certain type of quickness, athleticism, body, all those things.

Going against a guy like Donald, who is truly the outlier at, you know, six feet, six one and two 80 and completely shredded and looks, you know, almost more like a linebacker on the field than he does a defensive tackle. It's just such a different aesthetic for them and a different feel for them. And that's why defensive ends are more effective over guards sometimes because it's so different. And so that's a huge thing, too, is just changing up the expectation for what the guy, you know, you're rushing against is used to seeing where offensive tackles, we see, you know, all the body types and we're used to that kind of speed, that kind of quickness. And some guys handle it better than others. But for guards, it's such a stark difference difference from what they're used to and what they've historically had to deal with. So these defensive tackles, man, they're, they're awesome. I mean, half the time we'd go into a week, and I'd be like, I'm so thankful.

I'm not a guard this week. I'm happy being out of your tackle. I'll block my guy all day. You guys have fun on the inside. It feels like if you have, if this guy can be the centerpiece of your pass rush, if you can build your defensive line around him, that should be the box you have to check when you're asking whether or not it's worth paying him this amount of money. And with a guy like Chris Jones and with some of these defensive tackles,

the answer is absolutely yes. Like some of the numbers with Dexter Lawrence as an interior like zero. or one technique last year, and the pressures he was getting from that position. He was the best pass rusher on the Giants. He weighs 340 pounds, but you can still be that now at that position. And I think that's part of the consideration. And I think maybe a little bit of the gap between the two is that it's easier to get doubled as a defensive tackle.

You can just slide the center that way consistently, whereas an edge rusher, it's about chipping and maybe it's a little bit less effective. But if you're double teaming or you're sliding the center, Chris Jones's way every single time, that's affecting the game in a different way. and kind of shifting your resources. So I just think on a bunch of different levels, they're changing the game as much as anybody. And I don't know if this is necessarily true.

I'd like to see some of the data on this, but I was talking to someone this week about how you build a defensive line and how you think about getting after the passer. And it changes depending on the quarterback and how you build your offensive line too, right? If you have one of these guys like Tom Brady that's going to get rid of the ball instantly and wants to step up in the pocket,

it's more important to worry about interior pressure. And I wonder with some of these more mobile quarterbacks that are able to escape the pocket so easily that having an edge rusher that is your kind of dominant player on the defensive line is maybe less important than a defensive tackle because you want to keep these guys in the pocket more than you want to necessarily have your hair on fire coming off the edge. I'd like to see more data on that, but the changing athleticism and the changing kind of skill set at quarterback, I think definitely has some effect on what you should be looking for as you're building that position group. So I think the way I'm thinking of it as you're saying and

maybe the next step in that line of thought is, are defensive ends going to be, you know, more valuable or however you want to phrase it, if they can win with power more than speed up the field? I think that's it. Right. So you get into the Nick Bosa and guys who, you know, can compress the pocket while also getting pressure. And, of course, they can win outside, but they're less reliant on winning outside where, you know, 25% they can win outside, but 75% they've, you know, gone too far up the field and opened up this huge lane for the quarterback.

I feel like that is probably going to be the way teams start to go. And I'd imagine there's more GMs and smart teams that are trying to combo one inside guy with one outside guy and with particular files, especially watching Pittsburgh and what Watt and Hayward are able to do when you've got the dominant bull rush force in the NFL on the inside. And you've got the guy who can bend the corner and maybe bend the rules on where he's allowed to line up. No bitterness at all from your side of it. No, I didn't face him, you know, before he started to push the boundaries. I faced him when he was younger.

But yeah, I think that may be, you know, the inefficiency that we see going forward is not necessarily we need this guy or that guy, but we need people that complement each other. Because if you've got, you know, you say Chris Jones, a quick and, I mean, for as big as he is, he is shifting up to kind of beat guards on the outside. And if you've got these three texts who are thinking they're, you know, huge athletes and they're going to do all these swim moves and outside hand moves, and they're not good enough to beat the guard, but also like get to the pocket at six, seven yards. They're doing the same thing an edge rusher is doing when he just sprints up the field. They're opening this massive

gap in the middle of the field, and especially as teams are, you know, going to two high looks, so maybe they're running a little bit more two man with these mobile quarterbacks. That's just asking to get, you know, a QB rush on a third and eight for a first down, and that's demoralizing as a defense. The question that Trevor asked, is there any other non-premium positions, quote-unquote, that could see a similar boom as this? My answer would probably be tight end if there was going to be one because I think that there are some parallels between edge rushers and defensive tackles and tight-ins and receivers in the sense that you can build your passing game through a tight end, the same way you can build your pass-rush through a defensive tackle. But other than that, I think it's difficult because to me the question is when we're talking about non-premium positions and premium positions is how much is the game affected when you win by yourself?

And if you're a defensive tackle, if you win on a given play, the play can be over. Like you can affect the play solely alone. And there are only so many positions for which that is true. And I think the defensive tackle falls into that category. I think tight end can fall into that category. Obviously quarterback play has something to do with that. But I don't think that the list is very long. So tight end would be my guess or the thing I would throw out there, but I'm not sure what you think.

No, my mind goes to tight end, especially being so close to Travis Kelsey and see the impact he has. And you've got receivers making 25, 26 a year. And he's making 14 or 15 at the top end. And he's got as much value as all those guys. That's for sure. And we saw that last year after, you know, Tyreek goes and gets the highest contract and the offense keeps on humming because Travis is still there. So I think tight end, I understand why the market hasn't jumped as. much. I mean, partially because teams are just refusing to do it. But also because, you know,

they've gotten burned a few times with some first rounders and some other guys who were supposed to. It's injury stuff too for me. I think that's another consideration. I think that it's not about just impact on the game. If you look at the injury history at that position, I think that's part of the reason that the running back market is as slow as it is. Even if the impact on a game for an individual season or for an individual game can be really high for a given running back, it's just that those guys get hurt so much. And we've seen that at tight end consistently too. And I just think it's important to remember that. Yeah. You know, if you had asked this question a few years ago, I would have said right tackle, because that market was kind of like tight ends are, you know, 50 to 60 percent of the

receiver market. Right tackle was always 50 to 60 percent of the left tackle market. But lately, that thing has jumped and, you know, it's pretty similar. Tunzel makes 25 and Jawan Taylor makes 20. So, you know, we're up at about 80 percent. So I think the right tackle market in the past three years when I stop making money has, you know, very, very quickly shot up and started making the money that we deserve. So that's one that personally I'm glad to see is not a contender for one of these lists. Yeah, all the other premium positions or non-premium positions, you're just a part of a whole, like safety. I don't see it happening. Guard, I don't see it happening. Offensive line, period. Guards are making 21 a year. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah,

it's creeping up there. But I think that for the only all-line position would be center at this point. Yeah, that's right. But I think a lot of the, there are. is a reason that most of these are lagging behind. I think the defensive tackle getting close to defensive end and edge rusher makes a lot of sense. I think with some of these other ones, it doesn't make quite as much sense. All right. Next question here. This is from Max Savitar, who's a Jets fan currently living in Prague. And it's a long question. I want to boil it down kind of simply here. He was asking how we see offensive progress in the NFL, how we make sense of it and how we would categorize it. And the three models he laid out are essentially that

progress is linear. He was listening to Jordan's series and the idea that Shanahan was talking about combing his dad's system and new plays from other sources and McDaniel's learning from all these new databases that improve offensive tracking. So essentially, offense just gets better over time. It's a linear trajectory. That's option one. The other option is it's dialectical.

Offenses create plans. Defenses respond. They expose the weaknesses of the design and new offenses incorporate successes of previous systems so they can kind of keep moving forward. So essentially, even if it's not a straight line, offense is constantly progressing in the correct direction. It's moving consistently even if it's not on some linear trajectory. And the other one is that it's all paradigm-based. We can't compare offenses across eras because they all set out to solve different problems within those eras.

So these offenses last year that are best suited to exploit light boxes with efficient running games to counter the defenses that are existing. offenses don't get better or worse. Instead, they just kind of respond to what is being presented to that. So I wanted to ask you, what do you think is kind of the shape of offensive progress in the NFL as you think about it across eras? I think it just gets to figuring out what's inefficient and trying to close those holes and just trying to do the things that are more efficient. I don't know if it's just kind of the money ball philosophy that you're looking at things. But do you think that's era specific or do you think that offenses are consistently getting? more efficient over time.

I think everyone is getting consistently more efficient over time because as offenses do, then defenses have to as well. And so I do think they go hand in hand. So let me frame it this way. Is the advantage that offenses have, is that consistently growing over time or do you think that is pretty static? I think it's been growing over the last few years in a nonlinear fashion because the inefficiency was running the ball and tight spaces and not utilizing the entire space of the

field. And so realizing that that was as important as it is opened up the field in a way that we really haven't seen and being able to now have quarterbacks that are a bit more mobile and it's less of 10 on 11, a little bit more of 11 on 11. I think that was a pretty big offensive jump that kind of skewed things in the offensive direction combined with some rules changes, obviously. but I do think that it was a non-linear jump to realize that space is that important and the stress that you can put on a defense with space and then with some kind of smart people.

So I do think we've seen a non-linear jump. Yeah, I think that it kind of is era-specific. And I think that we see small jumps and we see defenses counteract it. And then we kind of see things stay the same. Like I'm not sure that offenses have consistently gained a bigger advantage over the last, let's say, 20 years, like in modern football. And that's kind of what we have data for. So I was looking at the biggest EPA per dropback season since 2000. And if you look at it, two of the top four are Peyton Manning in 2004 and 2005.

So I think part of that explanation, and then Tom Brady's right there in 2007. And I think that era, those kind of several years after that really famous Patriots Colts game, that's where we have the rule starts to become more in favor of the offense. So I think you can kind of explain that jump right there. And then in 2018, you have the Patrick Mahomes season. in 2019, you have that Lamar Jackson season. But then now we have this new kind of version of defenses creep in, where you have more of the umbrella looks and you have all the stuff that you're going to talk about in her series.

And now offenses are kind of going back to running the ball. And it does feel cyclical. So even if the arrow is slightly pointed up in terms of the slight advantage that offenses are gaining, I think it's really, I think it's mostly flat. I think it is based on the errors that you're playing in kind of the cycles that exist, because if you look at it over time, I don't think offenses are necessarily becoming more efficient because I think that defenses have figured out ways to slow them down

in any given era. When Peyton Manning was doing this shit in 2004-2005, he's just shredding spot-drop zone. That's what that offense is doing. That doesn't exist anymore. Like, defenses have figured out a way to catch up, even if there have been little moments over the last 15, 20 years, little two, three-year pockets where it seemed like the offense was so far ahead

of what defenses were doing. Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it. It's just conceptually, it seems like offense has jumped so much in the last decade or so that I think it's more the counting stats especially because, you know, again, Peyton had his years. Brady had his 50 touchdown year or whatever, like, 07 or whatever the year that was. So, like, we've had massive offensive seasons. They've just been somewhat outliers, but you look at the 5,000-yard QB seasons even pre-17 games. You look at, you know, a guy like Stafford compared to, I don't know, someone from 30 years ago and you just look at the counting stats like the yards, the touchdowns, the lack of interceptions,

all those things are so different and so much, you know, greater in the right direction, that it's hard to think that, like, maybe offense and defense are actually kind of improving at the same rate because, you know, again, as Peyton started to do his thing, defense is adapted, then, you know, the three, four came around once more. That became the dominant defensive structure. and then, you know, I feel like Kyle, again, kind of solved that one from how do we run on this, you know, it used to be that in a true three, four, with two gaping fronts, you know, you kind of realized that we can't really run outside because everything's covered and they box it and everything

kind of funnels in. So we've got to be really strong up the middle and it's all about, you know, getting our push off the ball. And then Kyle comes in and goes, no, it's actually the C gaps. We got to just attack the C gaps. And he showed you how. And then we just ran the crap out of the ball and attack the C gaps on Pittsburgh. And we're like, oh, yeah, I guess we can run for 150 on him, pretty.

good. So again, I think it's, you know, there are times where it seems like offense is this far ahead because the numbers are so different than what we're used to. And it's the same as, you know, contracts and really any sport. The numbers are getting so large, but you're used to 20 years ago, a guy making five or 10 million and now a quarterback's making 52, 53 million. I think that's gone up pretty linearly over time. It just feels so much grander. I think the two areas where there actually has been tangible progress and it's important to point out. One, coaches front offices, everyone else understands what the dials should look like for an efficient offense. You should throw the ball more. Throwing the ball is the basis of efficiency. I think

everyone now understands that and the structure of most offenses are in line with that. So I think that more teams are programmed for efficiency in terms of how they're structured than they would have been 20 years ago. And I think that's just a rise of the influence of analytics around the league. I think that is real. The other thing that's real is that we just have more. throwing at lower levels. So the quality of quarterback play and of past catching play, I think, is much better than it was a couple decades ago because guys are just doing this so much more than they were. And when they were 15, 16 years old, the amount of reps has just increased so much that

I think that has kind of increased. Those are the two things that I would say. But I don't think there's anything structurally about like the way offenses are built or how they attack defenses that has been progressing in that way. I think it's more the foundational aspects of how certain elements of offensive football are played, whether it's run-pass ratios or just the quality of past catching options and quarterbacks. Yeah, and there's genius level OCs or head coaches who are offensive play callers in every era and in every decade. And so you look over the last 20 years and it's, you know, Andy Reid and Sean Payton and you go back before and it's, you know,

home grin and, you know, Walsh before that. And so every 10 years has two or three guys who are generational, you know, offensive structures who can kind of push the boundaries of what offenses can do. Everyone tries to copy them and then the bad ones aren't able to. And then the good defenses figure out how to do it. And then that's kind of the evolution cycle. But I think to your point, when I was thinking about it, you know, over the last 15 years, it's one, throw the ball more. That's kind of the main thing. You know, two, throw the ball shorter more often, make it easier on your guys to have the ball control.

Passings. Yeah. And then number three was, I think, kind of the play action revolution, which to me has been the last five years. I think now we're into the kind of sequencing, throwing more on first downs, being smarter about, you know, kind of how we call the plays less than, well, at the end of the day, 62% has to be passes. So just make sure you get to that number. Now it's about how do we get to 62 to 65% passing, especially in those neutral situations. So I think that's going to be, you know, the thing over the next three or four years, it really picks up a lot of steam with, you know, the smart. guys who they're already doing it. It's just the recognition of what they're doing. And then again,

defenses will start to counter that and they'll start to play per pass more on first down. That'll get less efficient. And then as we saw last year, the run game is starting to become more efficient as defenses are favor in the past. So yeah, it's, it's fun to track these things. It seems like every two or three years, there's the new kind of fun thing that the quote unquote, smart people are figuring out on offense. Yeah. And I think that the rules, that's the last thing to point out, the rules consistently have been slanted in favor of the offense. And that is something that you have to point out. Beyond the illegal contact stuff,

or mentioning that with the Patriots and the Colts, not being able to hit people over the middle anymore, et cetera, stuff like that. Player safety, and it's not one you can roll back. Exactly. So that's going to be moving in the same direction all the time.

But again, I think these are more rule-based. These are more mindset-based. These are more, it's more math-based. It's not schematic evolution that is staying ahead of defenses. Because I think that defensive coaches, And I would argue that offensive coaching in the league is probably the best that it's ever been just because guys are fighting uphill less often.

Like I think the guys are just more open-minded. Guys are willing to embrace things. The level of the information, the access to information is better than it's ever been. But that's also true for defense. I think the same thing is happening on the defensive side of the ball. So I don't think we have, even though we have this like you were kind of alluding to, it's kind of collection of undercutt offensive coaches. I think that defensive coaches are probably also having access to all that information.

So I don't think that gives them an inherent edge. Yeah, and I don't know, I just feel like this is kind of the normal amount of good offensive coaches. I mean, 20 years ago when we thought, you know, run and a little bit of play action and some quick game on early downs and figuring out how to throw on third down was the smart thing. I mean, I feel like there were a lot of coordinators that were doing that at a pretty good level. It's just the delineation of the guys who keep thinking that that's the right way to do it versus the people who are smart enough to adapt and to change. And, you know, I think that's not to get back to talking about myself and Andy Reid, but like with Coach Reed, I think he has the perception of kind of old school and all that. But he's had about the most modern and progressive offense, you know, over the last 20 years. And every time that, I mean, he comes from a West Coast base and you would never look at that offense and without really knowing what's going on. Be like, oh, no, that's a West Coast offense. Like it's so far from the original West Coast offense. But day one of install, we still talk about 24 protection and 22 and Red Right and all these. you know, plays and formations that don't get run anymore because that's the way the West Coast install goes. It's just these smart coaches break from that earlier than everybody else, and then

they become the trendsetters. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Adam Iraq says, how would you build a running back room if you were a GM? Would you pay up for a guy to take 75% of the snaps? Would you throw three million dollars, a few million dollars at a couple solid vets, draft one every year and let them walk in free agency, any other strategies? I'm fascinated by how teams are approaching this after Sequin, Barkley, and other backs were opined. about the shifting value of the position. I've talked about this 10,000 times over the last like five years. I don't think I've ever talked to you about it.

How would you build a running back room if you were a GM and you were in charge? So mostly with late round draft picks and free agents, I think you want to get, you know, two or three guys into the building every year and just see who plays well in the preseason and see who's got it. I would not take them in, you know, in the first three or four rounds. I'd wait till day three of the draft. You can sign a veteran every now and again. You know, I think it might be specific on this coach had coached before, or you notice, again, getting into inefficiencies, maybe, you know, this guy played for Chip Kelly in college.

And so he's really good at, you know, shotgun runs of a specific nature. And that's what your offense is leaning into and you want to kind of meld those two ideas together. But to me, the way teams run into issues is when they draft guys high who then perform, you kind of get to. it's stuck, like having to give a guy a contract. Yeah. Both because of the expectation of what's to come and also because fans love running backs and first and even second round running backs are exciting. You know, every year a team drafts guys high and, you know, fans love their first and

second rounders, especially if they're running backs and they get to see them make exciting plays every week. And so you get to like Zeke, you get to Sequin, you get to these guys who maybe if they were sixth rounders with similar production would be okay taking the six to eight million dollar contract that I don't think is going to hurt anybody if you give out that kind of contract to a running back. But you can't do that because they were a first rounder or they were a second rounder and they've performed close enough to the expectation and everyone's excited about him.

And that's when the business side of football becomes hard because you can't just draft a first round running back every three years and just keep letting them walk. Like I think that's relatively bad business. It's also a bad culture, right? I mean, that's just going to be a rough situation in the building. if a guy's playing well and you're just constantly shitting on them out the door every every three or four years. Right, because I still think players probably think running backs are more important than,

you know, analysts do or people who study it. And of course, they're your friends, so you want to see them get paid. And so, yeah, I think drafting a guy in the first round, kind of having this weird standoff, do we pick up the fifth year option, do we franchise tag him, we got to play hardball, we're not going to pay him 16 a year. I just don't think that's really good for anybody. So if I was doing it, you know, fifth, sixth, seventh rounder of choice, you know, obviously bring in a couple free agents. And I would just prioritize either speed or like competitive toughness.

Because those are the things that you can't really change. You can't make a running back like want contact in the NFL if you didn't want contact and was okay, dishing it out in college. So I think that's a trait that's really, you know, valuable to have in the building. And then, you know, of course you can't coach speed, I'm into a degree. So just getting guys like that in and seeing who adapts to the offense, who doesn't, you know, I think most teams are able to, you know, have a running back who stays on the roster. And even if it's in a special team's role for a year or two until he grows into a running back role, that's the way I would do it. Because, again, when those guys, if they're playing really well and they're at the top of the, you know, rushing just statistics and all that stuff, giving them top dollar maybe isn't quite as important for the running back himself because he doesn't.

and need the $16 million contract to validate what he's done. And just the fans don't have that expectation that, like, this is our first rounder and I've loved him for so long. Like, I'm just thinking about Pacheco with the chiefs, like, eventually in two or three years. What happens if he keeps producing at the level that he does? But he's a sixth rounder. It wasn't like, you know, you drafted Clyde, and then Clyde was everything you hoped, and now the chiefs are in the same spot that the Giants are with Seekwan.

So that's the way I do it. I look at the examples that I feel like have worked out. It's a lot of guys who are drafted in the second round based on traits, right? Like Nick Chubb being the best example. I don't think the Nick Chub contract is a massive mistake from the Brown side of it. It was three for 36 with $20 million guaranteed. And I think he's kind of the perfect example of he's in a really good situation. But every single metric tells you how much better he makes the Browns running game compared

to what's actually there. Like there is no meat left on the bone because Nick Chub is the running back for the Browns. So I think that's kind of the sweet spot for me. If you draft a guy in the second round that's kind of all explosion and he can be like the centerpiece of your running game and really add to what he's not just getting what's there. And I know that's very hard. It's a tough needle to thread. But like I would take a guy in the second round if I felt like he was that sort of player.

And then I would try to compliment that with someone in the later rounds who is just a kind of dirty work guy. Like what Somaget P. Ryan was for the Bengals last year. Somebody who's really good in protection, who's solid as a past protector, who I can just rely on in those sorts of situations. It's what the Bears did with Roshan Johnson this year. Like, take a guy in the fourth round who can just be a very solid option in all of those kind of ancillary aspects of the offense

and pair those two guys together. That's what I would try to do. So my pushback would be, if you feel confident enough in yourself to draft the right guy in the second round, why don't you feel confident enough to draft the right guy in the first round? I think it's the fifth-year option element to it. Like, having that for certain positions is more valuable than having it for others. So that's why I just don't think it's necessary for running backs.

Yeah, I mean, that's fair. I was just kind of going down the line of are you overconfident in your ability to pick the second rounder that's going to be valuable enough to make that a worthy pick? I don't really have any data on that. This is all anecdotal. Like, this is mostly just based on. No, no, that's what I'm saying. This is your particular, you were saying, if I identified the guy with the traits and the fit and all that stuff. And I was just kind of going down the GM role of do you feel confident enough to actually trust that over, you know, the general rule of thumb, which is.

Probably not. If I were doing this, I probably wouldn't draft them in the second round. But I think that there are enough of examples where I think, all right, I'm comfortable enough by doing that. I wouldn't say I would never draft one in the second round. So here's my question for you. As somebody who's in the league and has had to think about these sorts of things, the players union, all that, how do you think other players would react if there was some sort of like financial

program put in place to kind of prop up what's been happening to the running back position? I think if you explained it. in the right way, guys would be on board. You'd have to kind of make sure that it wasn't like you're taking less money or you're getting less money to give to these other guys when, you know, theoretically they play football the same way you do and they're eligible for whatever contract. I think it's an interesting concept. I don't know the feasibility of it.

I mean, I've tried to think. I don't know either, but I'm just trying to think of like what the solutions would be because the trajectory we're on now, it just sucks. Like knowing that it's probably best to just chew these. guys up and spit them out and how cold that feels. I just think that we should be thinking about potential creative solutions to kind of rectify that. I don't know what it looks like, but something like that where there's just like, I don't know, a fund. Like there's some sort of like running back pension fund. It gets to like the player performance. I mean, we have that for

guys who are on rookie contracts or guys who are on minimum contracts where it's an inverse scale of what your cap number is and how much time you play. And then you get paid in accordance to you know, if you're basically playing more than your contract would make it seem like you should be playing. And that number's gone up in the last few years a lot with the new CBA. So there are guys making like five, six, seven hundred thousand dollars. If, you know, you're on a rookie contract and you play the full season, you play a thousand snaps, you know, you're basically getting a second minimum contract coming your way. So I think that would probably be the model of it because we already have evidence. But again, the player performance, I think comes from ourselves. So we as the players

Union have decided, instead of paying ourselves in a traditional manner, you know, making the salary cap higher and just letting the market run its course, we've decided to take, you know, $4 million or $5 million, whatever that amount is and pay ourselves and pay our lowest members or our lowest, you know, earning members who play the most more money. So it would probably start down that road and just figuring out how the, the dollars work on that. But it is an interesting idea and yeah i mean for how much punishment they take for how you know injured they get and obviously eight and ten million dollars is a lot of money per year but it's all relative and when it's compared to you know agent peterson making 12 million dollars 12 years ago or whatever and seeing how

much more money other positions are making now and the running backs aren't um there's definitely something creative we can do to make sure that the guys who are producing um get paid and they don't have all their production on you know the two or three years where they're making the absolute least and then they get screwed at the end of it. I should talk to somebody that is with the union and what they think about that. That's something I'll table and consider doing later because I do think it's an interesting conversation. All right. Next one here.

Alex Reddle says, question for Mitchell. It seems like you played during the start and eventual winning out of analytics rated to run pass efficiencies like we alluded to before. Would the terms or numbers be brought up in the locker room or in game plans so that on Sunday you'd be thinking about what was more efficient in a certain situation or players just focus on what they need to do into. I know the answer to this framing of the question, so I'm going to slightly refame the question. How aware are players of certain analytical aspects of the game plan?

Like, how aware are you guys of some of that self-scout and some of that advanced scout things about other teams when it comes down to the actual nuts and bolt and numbers of it? I would say not vary, especially when you're going down kind of the run-pass ratio route. I would say you understand that, you know, we think that these things are going to be better because we like the match up against whatever they're doing and we think this is a good way to attack him. So you kind of understand there's like a built-in, obviously these are the hand-selected plays for this week. So we think that there's an advantage to running them. You know, sometimes you'll get notes on, yeah, outside zone against these guys and this personnel is, you know, really efficient for other teams. So we're going to lean into that this week. That might be a way to frame it. I would say no one's talking about run pass ratios in particular. I know you reframe the question, but just to kind of hit on that, I will say when you're on a team that throws the ball a lot, you sure know that. And, you know, maybe you get that first 15 on Saturday night and there's nine passes on there. And you talk about that with your own buddies.

Man, there's a lot of passes on this one and they're not naked. They're shots down the field. So things like that. You know, you know, the building that you're in. you know the DNA of the offensive coordinator who's calling the plays, and you know if you're leaning more into the pass or leaning more into the run. But in terms of the granular, these are the efficiency numbers. This is why we're doing that.

You don't get too far down that road because it's just, it's not really information you need. You know, you are given the information and the information is more block this guy and, you know, he's expected to do this thing on this play and this is your expectation. knowing that, you know, outside zone from 21 personnel is, you know, 64% efficient as opposed to inside zone and being at 42% efficient. Like, that's not going to make me block any differently on game day. So that stuff is just less important on a week-to-week level. I was going to ask you, do you feel like players should be more engaged or do you feel like players could get something out of going to the research department or the analyst department more often than they do to kind of glean some of this information? but it sounds like you don't think that there would be a ton of things to gain from that.

I don't because I think those people who care enough to want to know or maybe already asking the questions or already talking to their coaches about, hey, they're doing this this week. Like, why do we like doing that? Or they're kind of already framing it that way. And again, I think that's where the good coaches become good coaches, is they're able to talk about, you know, hey guys, we're going to run this this week. I know it's a little different than we're used to, but we really like the matchup and they run this coverage. and so we like this particular route combination.

You know, that's giving you the why of why it's happening this week. And I remember when McVeigh first got to the Rams, that was, I think, the big talking point. He was kind of empowering them with information and sharing more about why he's calling the plays that he is, why he has certain things in the game plan. So I do think the better coaches kind of share with the players more. But there is an element of like you just don't need to know certain things.

And I've talked about it before. We like certainties. And so, you know, if a team blitzes 80% of the time on a certain thing, you know, that's enough to prepare for it. But if you're preparing for it and you get that 20% and the guy beats you because you're leaning in a certain direction because you're expecting it, you're just never going to trust that again. So there is that element that like this information is more just probabilities and it's more framed in that way. It's not really, again, giving you information to, you know, kind of tangibly affect what you're seeing on the field. All right. Next one here. Ryan Kerr says in a recent, I love this question, actually. In a recent episode, you discussed how Buffalo attempted to gain an edge as a small market team by spending on things that don't count towards a salary cap, like team facilities. Carolina seems to be doing something similar with its coaching spending. The recent NFLPA polling seems to be capturing this in team report cards too. So how would you prioritize non-player spending if you felt compelled to gain an edge and say a smaller market? Would you focus on scouting and coaching to find and develop talent, spend on team facilities, and amenities to attract free agents or convince homegrown talent to stay.

Do you think there are other advantages you could chase? A world-class medical team or positioning yourself to be at the forefront of technology and analytics. I really wanted to get your perspective on this because I feel like you would have some very good thoughts on what you think teams could improve on in like the kind of ancillary ways that they could spend money. Medical staff is by far the most important thing. We go into every season and we pick our favorite teams and this and that and it comes down

For the most part, to who's healthy once the playoffs roll around. You know, Buffalo last year was the best team in football for five weeks, and then their team got decimated by injuries, and they were no longer the best team after their star pass rusher got hurt, and their quarterback hurt his elbow, and a few other injuries happened. For the most part, the chiefs over the last five years have been one of the healthiest teams. It's not the healthiest team, and so when you go into a playoff stretch and you have Pat Mahomes, and even as we're saying now,

how hurt he can be and still fight through it, but you got Kelsey healthy, and you got Chris Jones, mostly healthy. I think health is just far and away the most important thing, making sure guys are as healthy as they are throughout the year, having good plans for them. If guys do get injured, you know, having the right program in place to get them back on the field, but also do it in a way that is smart and in a way that, you know, doesn't jeopardize. I think the old school kind of idea of, we got to get back out there and maybe you have a sprained ankle, you go out there a week or two too, too early, and you play on it and you're playing fine, but you're 85% and you're never going

get better than 85% because he didn't let it rest enough. Similar with soft tissue injuries, I think that's come a long, long way, understanding the impact of soft tissue injuries and the rate of re-injury if a guy comes back too early and as stupid as it sounds, how simple a solution hydration can be. So I would put as much money as possible into getting the best medical staff and the best medical science. How possible is that, though? How possible is it to spend, use resources to prevent injuries?

I think it's very possible. I think if you bring in outside people and just say like, hey, watch what's happening for a month who aren't used to the football world. I think they would have a lot of thoughts on what's happening and what should be happening and all those types of things. You know, even something as simple as what the food looks like on Saturday nights at hotels before games. You know, I don't know if you want to put nutrition into kind of the medical world, but, you know, guys wolfing down, chicken, wings and pizza and burgers and ice cream. You know, is that the best thing for the body? Obviously not.

But, you know, I think there's just a lot of ways to, again, we talked about offensive efficiency, you know, probably making the week or the work week more efficient from a health and recovery perspective. And the hardest thing to get players to do is more stuff than they're used to or more things that feel like, oh man, I'm being forced to do this. So the chiefs are really good about doing kind of body screenings, figuring out, oh, this guy's got tight hips or this guy's got a tight shoulder. And then you've got these programs that are more designed to help with mobility, help with strengthening and try to basically improve on physical weaknesses so that things don't fall out of place. But it's really hard to get us to do that, even if it's 10 minutes in a day because it just feels like it's an additional thing you're being asked to do.

It doesn't feel like, okay, well, we're going to take away 15 minutes of this work and we're going to add 15 minutes of this work. It just feels like, well, shit, we're doing all the other stuff that we're normally doing, but now we're also doing 15 minutes of body work, even though the time frame is the same. So even something as simple as, you know, getting with, you know, a really good sports med team that can kind of get players and teams to buy in on doing really simple, dumb stuff like that that isn't actually dumb. That's really smart. Yeah, I just think there's a really big opportunity for teams to get as good as they are medically. I mean, what there were the reports a few years ago. I mean, Dallas's big thing was they started dynamic stretching before practice instead of static stretching, which for, you know, people who are into that world, like the data has been out there for forever.

I was doing that in high school. It's 25 years ago. Exactly. And yet the Dallas Cowboys. I'm not that old. 20 years ago. We're doing static stretching and then we're starting football practice, which, you know, is the worst thing you could do. So, like, yeah, there are huge advancements to be made because, you know, as much as we talk about, you know, coaching staffs and analytic staffs and how progressive they can be, there are still those teams that don't do that stuff as much.

And there are tons of medical staffs that are kind of stuck in their ways. And, hey, this is the way we've always done it. It's worked for us. And I've seen, you know, X amount of ankle sprains and I know how to treat them and I know when to get guys on the field. But there might be some better medicine. There might be some different viewpoints. There might be different ways to do that. And I just think health of players is the most important thing in determining who gets to the playoffs and who wins the Super Bowl.

So every resource I could put into that I would. And again, the wrong answer is making the facility nicer to attract free agents. The thing that attracts free agents is money. So you can talk to the owners about that. But putting money into a locker room just to make the players feel a little better about themselves. I don't think that actually leads to anything on the field. the conditioning and the health stuff is interesting because I think the Eagles or the team I would always look at with stuff like this. Like, what are the Eagles spending money on?

Because they are willing to throw around whatever. And they're usually at the forefront of a lot of this stuff. What did the Eagles do a couple years ago? They hired the Rams player performance staff because no one on the Rams got hurt for like three years. So I'm assuming they gave them a shitload of money to come in and start overseeing what the Eagles were doing on that side of it. And the Eagles are doing a little bit of that when Chip Kelly was here. But very recently they hired the two guys who were essentially in charge of strength and conditioning for the rims.

And they are now in charge of strength conditioning for the Eagles. Yeah. And just to jump in, I mean, for the most part, you got one main strength coach. You got a few assistant strength coaches. You just don't have the volume of strength coaches to necessarily do too many different things. You know, for the most part, you and I are going to be given relatively similar lifting programs. You know, we're going to have.

That's terrifying. Yeah, that is. Three sets of bench for eight reps. It's just, you know, I can theoretically do more than you. I don't know. I don't really work out these days than you do. I think you still can. I think you can still probably bench more than me.

As long as it weighs as much as a golf club, I'll be all right. But, no, so essentially, you know, I'm a slow plotting, you know, tractor and you're this, you know, souped up muscle car. And we're basically being given the same oil and the same engine. And that shouldn't be the case. You know, we require very different things to do our positions. And so even something as simple. as that, I think teams are getting better and smarter about. Because for the most part, everyone's

got the same lift and everyone's got the same conditioning and everyone's got the same, you know, program and just hiring maybe two or three more strength coaches so that, you know, this guy's in charge of the big guys and this guy's in charge of, you know, the DBs and the receivers and this guy's in charge of the tight ends and the linebackers and having three separate programs that are designed for their specific needs and their specific body types, you know, I think, could be something that teams start to do a lot more of and something that, again, sounds really simple, but should be in practice more than it is. The health stuff, I think is a really good example.

I would just spend money on the roster. Like, I would just be willing to spend anything I needed to in terms of cash to consistently win. Like, am I spending up to the salary cap in cash every single year because I want to win? And my team's in that position. Oh, you're allowed to spend more than the salary cap and cash. That's what I'm saying? Can I just throw around money?

Like what's happening in Cleveland right now, you know, other teams that have consistently been like, we're going to win. Like we're going to try to win every single year. And we talked about that a little bit with Brad Spielberger. I think that is an advantage you can consistently give yourself if you want to throw cash around in team building. I would just pay coaches whatever. Like if I would pay Bill Callahan just $10 million a year. I'd be like here, here's, here's 10 million dollars. And I think that the Panthers have tried to do that a little bit in the way that they built that staff this year. And would Adjero ever have gone there if he wasn't making what he's making? would Vic Fangio have gone to Miami if he wasn't making $4 or $5 million to be the defensive coordinator? Probably not.

But those guys are now getting paid that, so they decided to go to those teams. And I think that's an advantage. So the coaching staff, the medical facilities, spending cash on the roster. And then I think there's probably some advantage to be gained from just building out like a robust analytics staff. If you're willing to spend money on that and you're willing to just turn over every rock in terms of problem solving with how you're spending resources, even how coaching analytics can help you prepare and those sorts of advantages that you can kind of create. So support staff in general on the analytics side, I think is another area where I'd be like,

you know what? If money's no object, I'll throw it around who gives a shit. Would you hire D. Podesta or Theo Epstein first? Probably neither. I don't think either of one of those guys is necessary. I think I'd go a little bit more football specific if I was building out those steps. Do you hire Joe Madden or Terry Francona to be your head coach?

I just think that they're, you know, obviously it's not the most important thing. The teams that have invested in analytics aren't necessarily the most successful teams in the league, but I think the Eagles have done a very, they've benefited from it. I think that other teams consistently have benefited from it. So if you are willing to spend the money, I think you might as well try to just be at the forefront of problem solving. Yeah, I think you can get an advantage in really all of those categories, especially the ones you listed off. It's just if I was going to do the one thing that I think has the biggest advantage, I think it's keeping guys healthy. I think that's totally fair.

Most of my time and energy would go into figuring out the best way to keep guys healthy. All right. Talking about elite position coaches, lead offensive line coaches that you pay $10 million. Killian Markworth says, certain coaches like Dante Scarnacki are seen as a fix-all for their group. I'm curious what separates elite position coaches from the others. How do some coaches seem to be capable of developing undervalued talent while others don't? I'm going to let you take this one. Yeah, so there's an element of the have to understand the techniques that actually work for what you're doing. I think that's the most obvious answer. You know, for people that kind of keep up with the O-Line Masterminds thing and

they kind of listen to offense alignment talking about the position that listened to me talking about stuff, you know, the last time I think I was on, Marshall was on as well, and going through how bad offensive line coaches can be. There's just a base element of like the better ones understand the position better. They understand the techniques that they're going to require to use for success. And that is part of it. I don't think that's nearly even half of what's part of it. I think the biggest thing that those coaches do is they figure out how to teach guys and they figure out kind of the motivational tactics of each of their players because it's different for everybody. I'm somebody that doesn't take well to being yelled at to being, you know, kind of degraded or

to be made, you know, to feel worse. Not that many people are, but there are some guys that love like that confrontation of a coach yelling at you and you kind of need to hear that. That wasn't me. And so, you know, when I would have a bad few plays or a bad quarter or whatever, you know, Andy Heck, who's one of the better O-Line coaches in the NFL, understood that yelling at me wasn't going to do anything. You know, he had to talk to me and just say like, Mitch, it's all right. Like, you know, let's be positive.

Let's, you know, even if you got to fake it, like just pretend to be positive and that'll kind become your state of mind and let's go play some more football. And he would talk to Fisher in a different way. and he would talk to Mitch Morris in a different way, and he would understand each of our personalities how we had to be coached. And, you know, there are guys that in any position group or on any team especially, but even usually within a position group, for these better coaches, they maybe don't get on X player as much as they get on some other guys.

And then some resentment can grow because, like, man, he's always getting on me, but this person has never hear it. Well, maybe it's because the coach understands that you need to hear that, and that motivates you, and that other guy can't handle that. And that used to be a sign of mental weakness, but now we realize that people have different learning styles. And so I think understanding those learning styles and figuring out how to teach guys and motivate them and coax them into buying into the technique that you know works and that does work, I think

is by far the biggest element of being a good coach. And, you know, again, even from the teaching perspective of just getting the playbook into a guy's head, some guys need. to read a piece of paper and study it and memorize every single rule and that's how they do it. Some guys need to see every play drawn up against every defense they're expected to see and they just keep looking at that and whether they memorize those or whether they have it enough times in their head that it becomes a mental picture. That's what they need.

Some guys don't even look at the playbook. All they look at is film and that's what makes it work. Some guys can sit in a classroom for three hours absorb absolutely nothing and then they get the field and they need walkthroughs and they need practice to like feel what it feels like and to understand the spacing. And some guys are just, you know, kind of analytical and they can conceptualize your talking and take that in. And I know there's, you know, we could go off on learning styles and all that and I probably butcher that to a small extent. But guys learn in all those different ways. Some, you know, combine four or five of those. Some are predominantly one or two. And so maybe a coach

who played football loves to get the playbook and look at all the rules. And look at all the rules. and know every single rule in every single page. And that's the way he teaches all his guys. But three out of his five linemen don't learn that way. And they don't watch enough film and they don't get enough walkthrough time to, you know, learn the way they need to to make these things become part of who they are. And so they don't have to think when they're on the field. And so, again, it gets back to understanding how guys learn and what motivates them

and adapting that to every single person on an individual level, but then also keeping the feeling that everyone is getting taught the same way that there's no special treatment, all those things. So it's a really fine line to walk and that's why there's so few like truly league coaches because I think that's a difficult skill to combine understanding all those things about the mental side of it, but then also having the physical knowledge of the techniques that are working on the field. In terms of like when it's the whole offense, when you get outside the position coach kind of dynamic in the position coach interaction, have you seen teams kind of construct it around the way the quarterback wants to learn? Is that typically the way that it's been tailored if you've seen it tailored in the past? Yeah, I mean, everything is a little bit around the quarterback.

I'd say for the most part, it's just how the play caller, you know, whether it's the head coach or the offense coordinator, how they like to do it. So some teams love doing as much together as possible, let's just say, as an offense. And so offense alignment hate that because I don't want to be in there for pass install. do not want to be in there on Monday morning watching film as an offense. You know, I'd rather be in the offensive line room for two reasons. One, because I just don't want to waste time while the receivers go over what they're doing, but I also don't want to have all my bad plays shown to the room and, you know, have my coach talk about my bad play in front of everybody.

So I think it's, you know, molded to what the quarterback needs, you know, to a degree, but it's also just some guys come up from systems where, you know, we have offensive install. we cover everything that the O-line needs to know, so runs, screens, you know, maybe a few special plays, O-line leaves, and then all the rest of the guys get the same coaching points for the pass install, and then after that they break up and they go over their individual points from there. Some guys like having the offense together more than that, some like watching film together, so I don't know that the quarterback, you know, is going to have the preference on whether the install gets put in with the O-line in the room or not,

and whether, you know, the day after the game you're watching film together. But I do think, obviously, it's maximizing the quarterback first and everything falls from there. So understanding what makes him tick and what makes him. And maybe he's a guy that, like, you've got to say, hey, Pat, come to the front of the room and teach us this play. Because you've already taught him in your room and he already understands that play. But, of course, the mastery of the position is being able to teach it to others.

So maybe, like, he needs the, hey, I'm going to show you guys. what I'm thinking on this play, and he can almost install it in his words and in his vision, and then you get a more well-rounded view of, you know, the offensive play. So I think for the most part, coaches have their structure. They understand how they like to install and which units are part of, you know, which groups. But everything, you know, probably should be tailored around how the quarterback is going to learn the best and then how he's going to connect with his line and his skill guys to, you know, function and how they can get on the same page the quickest. Last one here.

We should have probably done this when we were talking about the running backs, but I think it was a really good question. Jonathan Mannion says, Offensive linemen share one franchise tag, which has led to guards and centers rarely, if ever, being tagged, and their salaries naturally climbing. Would it make sense for wide receivers, tight ends, and running backs to share a tag as well? We've seen this with Jimmy Graham or the three running backs who all got tagged this year for less than Jacoby Myers is making. Do you think this would help running backs get paid at least closer to their production? What do you think of this? I think it's a really interesting idea.

It is. I mean, I think the way he's going is basically saying teams wouldn't want a franchise tag the running backs. And so more running backs would theoretically hit-free agency and then maybe be in line to get true market deals. I think that could be pretty interesting. I wonder if that leads to more first-round running backs being taken so they could have the fifth year instead of having the franchise tag option. Yeah, I don't know. That becomes one of those things. that I don't know if owners care enough to like negate that,

but they would push us on something because I feel like the players association would have to negotiate for that. And even though the owners probably don't care because it doesn't really impact, you know, the bottom line or how they meet out the money, because we're asking for it, they're going to push back against it and then we have to give up something substantive to get that. And that's probably not worth it.

But I do think that combined with our earlier running back discussion, you know, two possible ways to, you know, get them, more money. This could be almost a simpler version of what we were talking about earlier. I think that just changes to the franchise tag in general and remember talking to people with the union a few years ago about why the NFLPA isn't necessarily motivated to eliminate the franchise tag. It's mostly just because it doesn't affect enough players. The fact that it's four or five guys a year, they're just more important kind of tasks out there and more important priorities to handle. So I think that's one of the reasons maybe why it wouldn't happen is that the

franchise tag isn't necessarily high on their priorities. list, but I think this is a very good solution. If you are a franchise player, you should just be a franchise player. It shouldn't really matter what position you play, maybe outside of quarterback. But if we did like quarterback and non-quarterback offensive player and then just defensive franchise tag, I actually think that would be a good idea. And it should just be higher. We should just figure out what metric makes sense. But something along these lines, I actually do think is really interesting and does have a lot of merit. So I don't love the idea of it just because it deviates from, you know, market value.

But it's also good because, again, it would get the people with less market value maybe to free agency quicker and they'd have more ability to make more money and then readjust the markets in that way. So even though I might not like the idea of, you know, lumping guys with a $12 million spread and potential earnings together, if it, again, benefits the players who need that kind of assistance to then make more money, I think that's a definite net positive. So the more I'm talking and thinking about it, I think that could make a ton of sense to help those markets kind of even out. I guess my thing is, if you're a franchise tag player, you are an exceptional player.

You kind of transcend what other players that maybe even your position around the league are getting paid. That being said, it's based on what the top 10 gets paid. So that's the basis of how the franchise tag gets decided. So maybe that's not the best argument. But I do think that kind of just understanding that you are a certain tier of player if this is being applied to you and thinking about it that way in terms of how these guys should get compensated. I think there is some value to that. Is franchise top five or top ten? Because the transitional tag is... It might be top five. I think it's top five. I think franchise is top five. I think franchise is top five. But the way I fall in the franchise tag is if it's eliminated, that's great for the top end of the market.

teams aren't going to be spending more money total. That's the thing. Like, you know, eliminating the franchise tag just makes it so you don't have to pay one guy on your team more money. That, you know, that's really just that simple. It's just the franchise tag has gone away from the purpose of it, the original purpose, which was essentially to give your team more time to negotiate the long-term contract with that one specific player.

Correct. And it's not supposed to be applied to hold on to a guy's right. to limit their ability to make money. It's supposed to be like, we need more time to make this long contract work. Especially at running back, where every year is so important to have one more year where you can't hit the open market. And the argument at other positions is, well, you're getting paid so much money on that given year that eventually the guarantees and everything else, it's going to catch up.

Like, you're going to make the same amount of money in the long run most likely, even if you get hurt in that given season. But for running backs, it's just not applicable. All of the arguments as to why the franchise tag isn't as bad for other positions doesn't hold true for running backs. And I think that's why it's important to bring up. Yeah, again, it's just the tag is being used against players to suppress their market. And that wasn't the original intent of it. And there's really no solution unless the tag goes away.

And again, to your point, like the reason the players don't fight hard enough for is because it affects eight to ten guys a year who are making the most money. So it's not something when you look at a 2000 person player base and you look at the last few CBAs and they're mostly all oriented towards spreading the money out more to get the guys who play less amount of time and who make less money more money so that when they retire, they're in a better position, you know, giving up some sort of major chip or some sort of financial concession to further help out the guys who make 20 to 30 plus million a year doesn't become the highest priority. So I understand why it's there and to get back to the question.

It could be a pretty cool tool to, you know, roll, you know, skill guys into one thing, just the way alignment are into one thing and to, you know, hopefully allow running backs to hit the open market earlier and to be, you know, stifled a little bit less. All right. That's all we got. Mitch, thank you very much for the time, my friend. It's always good to chat with you. Same. Thanks for having me. Guys, thank you very much for the questions.

Thank you for sending them in all summer. We had a really good time doing these. The only reason we do them. because I feel like the questions are consistently good and get us thinking. So thank you to everyone who set one in. But we're here now. We are very close to the season. So we're going to have a few more pods over the next week or so.

Some of our big picture of discussions before we get into the meat of training camp next week. So please continue to check out those shows. We're going to have them on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before football GM and our regular scheduled programming gets back on track over the next couple weeks here. So please come back and check out our show on Wednesday. day for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.