The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - PFF’s Sam Monson calls in, a Bears Team Visit with Adam Jahns, the evolution of Sean McVay’s Offense in Ted Nguyen’s Film School, and more

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

To kick things off, Robert and PFF’s Sam Monson hop into their time machine to travel back to the beginning of the summer, before they made their predictions for the season, and tell themselves a few things they’d want to know about the first three weeks of NFL football.Then, in this week’s team visit, The Athletic’s Chicago Bears writer Adam Jahns joins the show to discuss the beginning of the Nick Foles Era as the team’s newly installed starting QB, why Mitchell Trubisky lost his job, how the 3-0 Bears’ gameplan will be impacted with Foles under center, and much more.Finally, Ted Nguyen helps Robert close out the show as they break down the evolution of the Rams’ offense under Sean McVay, highlighting the differences from 2018 through Week 3 of 2020, Jared Goff’s impressive stat line, and more.Get a yearly subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Really fun show for you guys today. Later in the show, we're going to be joined by Adam Johnson from The Athletic to do our team visit with the Chicago Bears, who I'm not sure if you've heard, just made a somewhat significant quarterback change. After that, Tideon Wynn is going to join us to break down the evolution. of the Rams offense under Sean McVeigh, what it looked like when it was taken league by storm,

what it looked like in its kind of dull middle period, and what they've done this year to kind of get back to the upper echelon of NFL teams. Before we do any of that, though, my good friend Sam Monson for Pro Football Focus is here to do a fun little exercise that I thought would be worth doing three weeks in. We'll talk about that in a second. First of all, Sam, how you doing?

Doing good. That's why we bought PFF.com, so we don't have to stumble over Pro Football Focus all the whole time. I probably should have said that. That would probably be easier. But so we're going to break, we're going to do something that I would ask, you know, I had this idea before the season started where I was thinking about doing this about three weeks in where you take, I think three weeks is a good time to do this because week one, you can be

suppressed. Week two is an overreaction to week one all the time? Week three tends to be a trend. So I thought this would be the right time to go back in time a little bit. If we had a time machine and you could go back to before the season started, let's say August 15th, before you made all of your preseason predictions, what are the two or three things that you would tell yourself? So we each picked a couple, and I want to start with you.

If you could go back, I just watched Back to the Future, which probably inspired this, but if you could go back to just the middle of August and tell yourself one thing, what would it be? Yeah, I like this, because even just coming out of Monday Night Football this week,

watching that game, I was like, I cannot believe how badly I screwed up the prediction for this game. I thought the Ravens were the perfect team to actually, you know, neutralize a lot of what Kansas City did, went completely the other direction. So just that game made me want to go back and reverse everything I'd said before. And that's not even— The stakes aren't high enough there, though. That's only one game.

You need to go way—a much bigger picture with these because if we're going to be changing time and really playing with time travel as an idea here, you need stuff that's going to have the biggest possible impact. So the first one has got to be the Seattle. Seattle Seahawks in 2020 will actually permit Russell Wilson to cook, to be the Russell Wilson that he's been for the last couple of years. And it hasn't really mattered because they've been so intent on establishing the run and grinding Chris Carson into the ground. It's ridiculous looking at some of these numbers. Even if we thought, and I did this on Barnwell's podcast last week, and we've talked about it a lot on this show. And I actually picked the Seahawks to win the NFC West. So this isn't one of mine because I thought they were going to be a really good team.

maybe not to this extent. But when you look at it, even if you thought they'd let them cook a little bit more, where they're, I don't know, a top 10 offense in terms of early down pass frequency, that would be a drastic shift in what we've seen in years past. They are number two in the NFL, not number five, not number eight, not number 10. Number two, and that's only because of what the chiefs did yesterday. Coming into that game, they were number one. They are throwing the ball on more than 60% of their early downs.

So I wanted to ask you this, because you can, you can, guys do such a granular look at players and every play what they do well what they don't i know that a lot of people have probably said god what if they would have done this years ago is someone who's probably watched a lot of the nitty gritty of russell wilson play when do you think this version of the seahawks offense was first possible 2018 the last two years i think russell wilson has been a different guy and that's why some of this you know the big he's probably going to win MVP this year if for no other reason than everybody seems to have decided that it's been a travesty up until now that he hasn't, you know, or that he's only, he hasn't had a vote, right? That's the big thing that Russell

Wilson has never even had an MVP vote. That's so silly, though, because you only vote for one person. It's not a ballot. Like, well, who would, would you have voted for Russell Wilson instead of Lamar Jackson last year or Patrick Mahomes the year before? I just never understood that. Yeah, it's, it's kind of silly because on the one hand, I agree with you that you can make a very strong case that in no single year, should he have won MVP, therefore logically, you shouldn't have any votes. On the other hand,

when you look at the list of people that have had votes over that time, you know, compared with those guys, then Russell Wilson definitely deserves a vote. The Bobby Wagner vote is pretty egregious, yeah. Bobby Wagner has an MVP vote, and Russell Wilson hasn't. At no point in the Seattle Seahawks history

has Wagner ever been more important to the team's success than Wilson, and Wagner might be the best linebacker in the game. It's just, it's not comparable. But I think the point is that now everyone's like, well, Wilson's getting screwed. He's underrated. Even Bill Belichick says he's underrated. So we're going to have to swing it back in the other direction and give the guy MVP. That's the stamp of approval, right?

That's when you know it's for sure is when Bill Belichick's coming out and driving narratives. That's when they start to stick. And I think he might be right. Like that's the silly thing about it is I think he probably is still underrated. But for a lot of his career, he's been like, he's been this guy for sort of 80% of the time. and then he would have the bad Russell Wilson game. And it was almost used as the reason that they don't play the way they're playing now. It's like, well, we can't give him the ball 40 times because that's when he has the bad Russell game and we lose.

And like the Seahawks almost use that as a reason not to do it. But for the past two seasons, he hasn't had those bad games. It's just been like this Russell Wilson for the whole time. And his numbers have been insane. Like we, you know, grade every throw on a sort of scale plus two to minus two. And the top end of the scale, we call big time throws because we let Steve name things. And that's the biggest part of our demise. You should hear the name of this podcast is the athletic football show after I've had the

Grantland NFL podcast and the Ringer NFL show. And all of the segments in my shows are terribly named. So I'm not one to throw stones here. You clearly just use the same marketing department as the Washington football team. That's okay. That's fine. But we let Steve loose naming things. So we came up with big time throws.

And for the last two years, Wilson has the most in the NFL. And he leads the NFL by one from Patrick Mahomes, right? Now you think, well, Patrick Mahomes has missed some time, so that makes sense. But because they've like held Russell Wilson back so much, even with missed games, Mahomes has like a hundred more attempts than Wilson. Wilson still leads him in terms of big time throws. So he's been that guy. And then unlike some of these other guys that make a ton of big time throws,

he's on the Rogers end of the spectrum of they don't come with. mistakes. He rarely, rarely puts the ball in harm's way. And those two things together, they're like the simplest way of doing it, but it's a sort of more advanced touchdown interception ratio. What's crazy is just how far we've gone on the other direction. The fact that you say 2018, I think is particularly telling because I was at that Cowboys Seahawks playoff game that year. And I just remember sitting there thinking, this is a crime, the way that they're using him and how often they're just slamming the ball into the line of scrimmage on first down. Remember after that year, how there was discussion about whether they should trade him rather than pay him because

of just how poorly they were misusing him. I think I even said that. If you're going to pay a guy $35 million a year, you can't use him this way justifiably. Because if you do that, he's not worth it. And to go from what they were in 2018 to what they are now is crazy. And you mentioning the games in which he's thrown a bunch of passes and how that might be an argument against it, I think that's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way because when you're throwing a bunch, you're probably coming back. You're probably not in the right spots to be dictating the game.

Now, the coolest part about this is it's early downs. You know, they're not getting to third down. They're throwing so much on first and second down that they're crushing people before they're even in those high leverage situations. If you look at the numbers, he's currently completing 80.7% of his passes

on first and second down for over nine yards per attempt. And his completion percentage above expectation is 9.7%. It's 77 to 67, which is nuts. And then if you go to third day, down, he's only completing 55.6% of his passes. So they're just avoiding third down all together, and that's probably what they should have been doing for years. That's what I think people don't realize about that is you're not just affecting those downs. You're not just sort of giving him some more

good plays early on, letting him pass the ball more. It's like a force multiplier on second down and third down, that you're not, you're improving the situation he had across the board, and he was already really good in the bad situation. So think what you're doing to him by, just helping him out on first downs. I also think that the offensive line has played a lot better. The other parts of this offense that have allowed it to happen in ways that I might not have expected. Metcalf has clearly taken a step forward.

He's doing some subtle stuff that I just did not expect from him. I've said that on this show and elsewhere that I just was wrong about how good he would be. And I've been impressed with the offensive line. I mean, Brandon Shell is holding up reasonably well. I mean, they're getting performance from guys that are not top-tier offensive linemen. And if you look at some of this, it's not as if Russell's chair. changed his stripes totally. He still, I think, has the third highest time to throw rate in the league after Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. So he's needed other parts of this to come together,

and they've all come together in the right way. Yeah. And though I think a lot of that, again, has sort of happened already. It's just that now we're seeing evidence of it. So when Dwayne Brown came in, that offensive line like overnight clicked into a different era that it had been before. And from that point on, I think Russell Wilson was as big a part of the line struggles as the offensive line itself. But that's just, that's how he plays, right? It's not, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that the line will always look a little bit worse because Russell Wilson is the quarterback. And they're going to be plays where he essentially invites pressure to create something off the back of it. And if you're just, if you're not really paying attention to what's

going on, it's just, well, there's more pressure on Wilson. So I think generally it's, it's the same thing. They just increased the number of passing plays that they're letting him have. And like, he's always been comfortable with that. Yeah, it is all comfortable. together in a pretty incredible way. Another one that's come together, another situation that's really settled itself over the last couple months here. And the first thing I would have wished I had known is that Aaron Rogers has found some balance in his life, man.

Beyond the play, I was watching that game on Sunday night and hearing Mike Tariko talk about the conversation he had with Rogers, did you catch this where they were talking about the book that he had read? Yeah. And it was about just the meaning of the universe and all this stuff. I've had conversations with Aaron Rogers pretty much once a year for the last several years of my life. And every time I do, I'm always struck by just how thoughtful he is. Every answer he gives, he's thinking about it. He's really trying to consider what he should be

saying. And we've talked about books and movies and things like that. He's a very thoughtful guy. And to hear him tell Mike Torrico or to inherit second hand that he spent the last few months in kind of isolation like all of us considering some things, really thinking. It's not surprising at all. And it really does feel like he's just in a better place. And that goes whatever is happening outside of football and if you look at the football stuff there's balance. It just seems like this is a perfect mesh of what

Aaron Rogers wants to do and what Matt Lefleur wants to do. So watching Aaron Rogers over the first three games here, what would you say is the element of his game or just what they're doing offensively that's jumped out to you the most? They are so for years it's always been this argument over what is the problem

in Green Bay, right? You had 2011 MVP Aaron Rogers, you had that guy for a while and we haven't really seen it since what, 2014. There's been like five years of varying levels of decline. And it was this debate of what, what's the problem? Is it Mike McCarthy's offense growing stale?

Is it Rogers leaning into the sort of negative traits of his game that have always been there? Like holding on the ball too long, taking sacks, throwing it away. Where's the issue? Or is it the lack of receivers? And then one by one, we've kind of been ticking those off. And even this year, it's like, well, okay, let's, we're not going to get him any.

receiving help. So it's got to be all him. On the other hand, we're also going to start doing some smart things on offense that a lot of other teams do as a matter of course. So pre-snap motion and bunch formations and the kind of things that scheme easier releases for receivers, Rogers has typically been against those things because he likes the static picture pre-snap that knowing where everybody is gives you, right? And he prefers that view of things. But I think part of this sort of self-scouting process he went through in the offseason was saying, well, okay, I might not be as comfortable with it, but you actually benefit more by just causing the defense problems, even if it also means I have to react to what I'm seeing on the fly a bit more. So they've gone

from being like 20 to 25 in terms of free snap motion, bunch formations league wide to being in the top five in both categories this season. So at the same time that Rogers is firing in all cylinders, they're doing smart things to scheme guys open. And I think that's letting him get rid of the ball quicker. So his average time to throw is way faster this year, which is also having an effect. Like I'm writing up our offensive line rankings. The Packers may have had the best pass blocking offensive line in the league for like a decade. And they've usually had the deal with a quarterback that holds onto the ball longer than

almost anybody else. Now Rogers is getting rid of the ball fast. So the line is suddenly in like a vacation mode where like this is amazing. Like we are suddenly pass blocking gods because Rogers is just firing the ball out before anything comes near them. It's incredible how different it is. I mean, I think Bakhtiari, I've talked to him over the years about what it's like to block for Rogers. And it's a whole different animal. It's all he's ever known, but it's completely different than it is blocking for most quarterbacks.

And I think that you're right. And that's kind of what I'm talking about with the balance, where there's the stuff that Matlow Fleur wants on early downs. And then Rogers is just taking over when it's time for him to take over. The amount of just layups within the offense, with misdirection. tight ends coming across the formation. It's the same stuff that you see in the Shanahan offense. It's the exact same kind of easy, high percentage completions that you can get independent of your quarterback.

So now you have those plays independent of your quarterback and Rogers just turning on God mode on third down. He's averaging 11.4 yards per attempt on third down. It's just, it's ridiculous. And you see some of the stuff, even when they're not using play action, you know, there's a couple plays where that big long completion to Lazare down, on the right side, not the one on the left side. That was not out of play action.

Just a perfect quarter's beater. It just seems like there's such a fluidity and such just a harmony between all the elements of what they want to be offensively. And when you have one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play, clearly still having it, I think you see exactly what we've gotten so far. Yeah, I agree. I think what's, so as much as it's probably a more likely scenario that he said did some self-scouting, found some level of inner peace.

much more enjoyed the narrative that he was on like a revenge hate tour because I don't think that's necessarily gone. I think that might still be in play. Those two things can exist at the same time. That was way more fun. You can be at peace while also wanting to stick it to people. That there's nothing wrong with that. You can have a little bit of both kind of pushing on your motivation. My theory with Rogers is that he's motivated by the same things to motivate Tom Brady and Michael Jordan and those, you know, the great players, he's just worse at feeling the slight than those guys are. Like, the last dance was just like an endless sequence of benign things that made Michael Jordan hate you for life. And Tom Brady, like six years after getting drafted and winning Super Bowl and or Super Bowl trophies and all those kinds of things,

is still crying at the idea that like six people were drafted in front of him. Whereas Rogers, you only sort of three things that have ever really rankled him were, you know, the recruiting story, the fact that Alex Smith gets drafted and he slides and then now drafting his replacement. Yeah, it feels like, I don't know, I don't think we're going to be getting a documentary here in about 15 years of Aaron Rogers holding an iPad and just saying now that time it got personal 25 times in a row. I'm not sure we're ever going to be getting that. All right, what's your next one here? What else do you wish you had known a month ago? So heading into the season, I was big on this idea that Deshaun Watson, minus new competition.

might actually be a positive for him, right? You bought into the Bill O'Brien narrative. The Matthew Stafford and the Matthew Stafford Megatron thing, right? You take Megatron away, you remove his crutch. Suddenly he has to become a fundamentally better quarterback and get the ball to where it needs to go, to where it should be going, as opposed to just whenever in doubt,

he even in that guy's direction. So I was peddling that narrative all the way through the offseason. If it's going to happen, it's going to take some time. because Watson has not looked like that. He does not look comfortable right now. You know, he's holding on the ball for an age. When things break down, he doesn't look like he knows where he wants to go with the ball. Even when he's in rhythm, he's got like the 20th best PFF grade right now.

It's just if he's going to become better fundamentally, it's going to take a while to happen. I would love to be in some of those meetings, the offensive meetings for the Texans, as they kind of build their pressure schemes and how they're going to protect. things. Because you watch a game like the Chiefs played against Baltimore yesterday. Baltimore is setting all this heat like they always do, and Mahomes is just casually pitching the ball to the red guy. And that is somewhat a skill in accuracy and being a good quarterback.

That's mostly mental. It's mostly having answers to whatever teams are going to throw at you. I go back and I watch that Steelers game, especially the second half. You have guys not even turning around as they're sending five or six rushers. There just seems to be no hot plan. There seems to be no kind of predetermined plan or predetermined. approach for how they're going to deal with pressure. And that, he's holding out of the ball of the tongue.

There's also, but nobody open. And these things just start to pile up and pile up. I just, it doesn't feel like they have any idea of what they want to be doing offensively. And I think that's what they needed. They needed a clearly crystallized vision for how they were going to play without Hopkins. And it just feels like it's the same old stuff without their best player. Yeah. And I think honestly the Steelers let them off the hook.

Like they came into that game blitzing 68% of the time over the first two weeks. Like, that's insane. The Ravens led the league last year, I think, at 55%. They were the only team above 45%. So the Steelers were doing that. And Watson was at his least comfortable when you were sending pressure at him and things broke down. And yet for some reason, they dialed it completely back to like 25%. Basically, you know, didn't blitz them compared to what they'd done the first two weeks.

And consequently, Deshaun Watson showed some signs of life and the Texans almost won that game. I think if they'd done what they did to, you know, Jeff Driscoll, Drew Locke and the quarterbacks they'd faced over the first two weeks. I know Watson is way more capable of punishing you for that than those guys are, but that was how you caused the Texans offense problems this season. Yeah, even in the second half, it didn't seem like they were sending a lot. There were tiny little things. They were just throwing them off.

There was a one play with a tight end shipped T.J. Watt off the right tackle and it almost led to a sack. There were so many players, just like, man, this offensive line is not playing very well right now. And there's nobody open. So I think that their issues are coming from a lot of different directions. All right, mine, this is a big one for me, considering I picked this team to win the Super Bowl. I would love to have known a month ago that the Saints were just going to look old.

And we can, Drew Breeze is obviously at the center of that, but you can tick off a lot of guys on that team that are on the back half of their careers that have not played very well so far. So when you're watching Drew Breeze, do you feel like this is it? Is he just washed or are there kind of some sparks that have shown you that there are reasons for hope? this so Sunday night football I saw the first sparks that said okay it might not be completely over yet but the first two weeks I almost didn't see anything at all and the scary thing is that this has been coming for a while like Drew Brie's late in the year the last two seasons has looked like this

but it's been hard to do anything about it because like the first three months of every season he looks like Superman right um but and last year I think was more concerning because he had like the five-week sabbatical in the middle of the season, right? So you've got five weeks with an injured thumb where you're not throwing. So if the arm is ever going to survive to the end of the season, it should have been last year, and it still fell away. So that I think was pretty concerning. But for that guy to be there like week one and two, and, you know, against the Packers, he at least showed that he still has the ability to fire the ball into a tight window, down the seam, into some traffic and put some zip on it. And it still got there. He did that,

like back-to-back plays before the half. It's at least. still there. So I think there is something to work with. But when you watch the Saints against the Packers, I mean, the funny thing about all this is like they're scoring 30 points. They're still winning games, bar that one. And it was Taysom Hill that cost on that one, not Drew Brees. So it's hard to go too overboard with it. But that looked like a game plan that was designed around protecting a quarterback, not one that was designed around, hey, we've got a Hall of Fame quarterback. Let's let him you know, cook, let's let him lead the charge. And I think that you could have that game plan against the Packers.

That game plan is not going to work against teams that are better in the middle of the field that can cover up in Camara with any sort of competency and also tackle. The Packers are set up to fail against that gameplay. And I thought, even if we didn't have this down the field dominant offense, I said this after week one, there was still enough talent top to bottom on that roster that they could win ugly games. And now I'm starting to question that, just that prospect in general, the talent from top to bottom because you have guys all across that team that just don't look like the same people.

Manuel Sanders struggled to separate. Jared Cook is 33 years old. Malcolm Jenkins has gotten picked on. They absolutely shredded him in that Raiders game. And Cameron Jordan is a very good player, but he hasn't dominated in the way that he's capable. If he has seven pressures through three games, you compare that to a guy like Khalil Mack or T.J. Watt, who are up near 20, and they just don't have that many truly blued-ship players in terms of the way they're playing right now. And that concerns me if they don't have a quarterback that can lift the rest of the roster up anymore. Yeah, I agree. I mean, the whole thing was predicated on the basis that, look, we're assembling this, the best roster in the NFL. And then Drew Breeze is the guy that can take us all the way. They haven't had the best roster in the NFL through the first three weeks.

And Drew Reese doesn't look capable of taking them all the way. So you've suddenly gone from what I think was most people's Super Bowl pick or one of them to the saints playing the way they're playing can't beat the best. best teams in the NFL, whether it's the hackers, whether it's the chiefs, the Ravens, whoever it is, they're not winning that game unless something dramatic changes. And I don't know that through Rees, I don't know that that's coming back. I don't think you can reclaim what he's lost, at which point they're heading at some stage for very real conversation to be had about what do they do at quarterback. You look at some of the other offenses that have dominated this season so far. And it's just such a contrast between that and the Saints. Think about just some of the plays you've seen from Russell Wilson, the plays you've seen from Rogers, that throw to a lizard,

what you've seen from Holmes last night and previously. And Drew Breeze doesn't need to be that guy. He hasn't been that guy for several years. But it is such a stark contrast to watch those offenses and their ability to flip the field in a single play and just get these huge chunk gains where they terrify you and then watch the Saints where if they're going to get there, they're going to do it methodically and they're going to have to do it consistently. It's just such a different style of offense. And one, you have an answer for it. The other, you don't.

And I think the Saints are firmly in that first camp right now. Yeah, the best offenses in the NFL right now are built around the quarterback. The Saints offense is built around Alvin Kamara breaking tackles after the catch. And as much as he's really good at that, it's just not, like, that's not sustainable. Nobody, that's not going to work for 16 games plus the playoffs. Yeah. And even beyond Kamara, it's just you really realize. how little explosive receiver talent there is on this team.

And Thomas is a unique player. We don't have to litigate the Michael Thomas discussion that has happened several times. But the way that their skill position players are combined, that group in general, they've been able to survive with it and thrive with it at times, even though it is unique. This year, I just feel like the needle they've threaded in years past

is getting harder and harder and smaller and smaller. All right, let's get to your last one here. What last thing do you wish you would know? known a month ago. If I had known that Carson Wins was going to forget how to play football, that would have been helpful in my preseason predictions. What did you say the Eagles were going to do? I don't, I think I had Dallas winning the division, so it's not like a total disaster, but I thought, like I thought the Eagles would be competitive and I think I put them in the postseason as a wild card spot. Thankfully, I did not do that. So I got lucky. I picked the Cardinals to make

the playoffs. I did a couple of things that I'm actually pretty happy about. I did not pick the Rams. The Rams would be on this list for me, but we're going to talk a lot about the Rams with Ted here in a little bit. So when you watch Wentz, we've had a lot of Wentz discussions on the show in the last couple weeks. We had our Eagles riders on. Me and Nate talked about it on Sunday night. What has jumped out to you just about how different he looks this year? I think he's broken. Yeah.

I think he's making decisions that are okay. He just can't get the ball where it needs to go anymore. And, you know, Steve described it as like a golfer with the Yips or whatever. It feels like that for sure. I don't know how you fix that because there's no like obvious there's no spot in the season where you can break a guy down, you know, rebuild his mechanics from the ground up and start over and get him back to wherever he was supposed to be. Like it's week on week. It's routine. If you can't throw the ball to the guy that's open and that you've diagnosed as the correct target on the play, I don't know how to fix that. And, you know, Wence has got double the number of turnover worthy plays that anybody else in the NFL has through three weeks. He's the only quarterback graded worse than him with us right now is Haskins. And Haskins only drop below him this week because of that disaster against Cleveland.

Like he is basically the worst quarterback in the NFL right now. And there's no reason for it. Do you, are there any kind of glimmers of hope? Are there any things that you've seen where it's like, man, maybe a little bit more of this, a little bit less of that? Or is it just kind of fundamentally wrong right now? I think it is genuinely, it's fundamentally broken. And that I think is why you're seeing like Doug Peterson getting.

testy with the media. Real testy. Because he knows there's no answer to this, right? The, like the questions they are asking are the ones he doesn't have an answer to, right? Why is Carson Wentz missing chip shots? And his answer to that is to get, like, annoyed at the question because he knows it's the right question to ask. It's like, that's what I've been asking for the last three weeks in the building and

nobody has a good answer for me. Like, there is zero reason why this guy has suddenly gone from being, you know, a decent top band quarterback to, I mean, right now he's not viable. Like, people are clamoring for Jalen Hertz, and I don't know that that will fix anything, but at the moment, Wence is essentially forcing them to make that call at some stage. And it's almost impossible to do when you consider the contract and everything else. They have to play this out as long as they possibly can. You have to exhaust every single avenue to make sure that he's salvageable.

Is there anything that you can compare this to in terms of a young quarterback that kind of just hits his skid like this. I mean, I'm thinking a little bit about what Baker Mayfield had last year with all those really bad habits that he started to develop. You have the entire off season to kind of put him within a structure that's conducive to his success. Is there anything else that is comparable for you? The Baker Mayfield thing is definitely, I think, a reasonable comp. Like Mayfield always had those negative parts of his game. I don't think quarterbacks, well, actually, with the exception, potentially of whence, I don't think quarterbacks generally develop new flaws, right?

They just lean into ones that were already there and get stuck in a rut and head off in the wrong direction. Like Mayfield at Oklahoma always tended to sort of run away from clean pockets and play hero ball a little bit too much. It's just that it was such a small part of his game. It felt like nitpicking to even bring it up. And then the worst the offensive line got and the worse he played, the more he leaned into that.

And it's skewed off into being this giant problem. but it was sort of slow. It was piece by piece and he just kind of kept going. Wentz, it's just like overnight has just forgotten how to throw the ball. And there's these hideous passes coming out, just terrible accuracy going all over the place. I honestly can't think of a time. The closest thing it reminds me of is actually like a different sport. It's soccer where suddenly a striker just immediately loses the incredible goal scoring touch that he had.

like Fernando Torres for years was this incredible goal score for Athletico, then Liverpool, and then almost immediately just he was still young enough, just stopped, just was no longer that player anymore. And that feels like what's happened to Wence, except he's even younger with even less reason for it to have happened. It's interesting. It's a good comparison because Torres was just this physical phenom, right? I mean, just like built in this way that you don't see very often at that position in the same way that Wentz is. So you have this guy, it's like, this is everything, is everything you'd want for a guy at this spot. If you can just put it together and we thought it happened with Wentz in a short little period,

and now it's completely falling apart. I mean, it's one of the weird things I can remember happening with the quarterback because even last year, right, there were questions about the supporting cast, how they were constructed offensively, all of this stuff. But I don't think anyone said, oh, Wence is definitely the problem here. I don't know how they'll get anywhere with him. Well, I think a few people did, but it was almost immediately countered by everybody going, but his number one receiver is Greg Ward.

Wentz was playing badly towards the end of last year, but you almost had to throw all of it out by saying, look, the guy's throwing to an AAF receiver as his number one guy, everybody on this roster is hurt. Like, he doesn't have a shot. So I think it was,

it's fair, like retroactively when you're looking back and you're sort of saying, could we have seen this coming? I think you can point to those games and say, you know, you can make the argument that this has been here for longer than we thought it was. but you at least have to factor in that he just had no help last season.

Whereas now, like, that isn't the case. He's got help now and he's still playing at this level. It's a good point. I think a lot of people were trying to make excuses last year, whether it was guys not finishing routes, things like that with ball placement. You're right. If we had been looking at it with a little clearer eyes,

maybe people would have known, we want to go back a month. The Eagles probably want to go back about a year and a half now and see if they could take back that one's contract. All right, Sam, thank you very much for doing this. I will actually be on your guys' show. on Thursday. So we're doing a little bit of a home and home this week. Really appreciate the time, buddy. This was great. And I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow. Sounds good. Thanks for having me.

This football season will be different. And Pepsi is here to get you ready for game day no matter how you watch. I know typically if I were having friends over, I'd just watch in the living room on the couch, you know, comfortable, not an option this year. The Bears game on Thursday is a national game against the bucks. We're planning to watch outside with blankets. It's just a different year overall. And Pepsi is the refreshment you need to power through game day and become a member of the League of Football Watchers. These passionate fans are the real generational talent that Pepsi fuels. Because Pepsi isn't made for those who play the game.

It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi made for football watching. All right. It's time for this week's team visit, and I had to do this. We had to talk to Adam Johns, who covers the Bears for the Athletic, because, I mean, it's Nick Foll's time. What a huge week. It's been a monumental few days in Chicago Bears football as the Tribisky era.

I would guess comes to an Ed. Adam, how you doing? Good. Yes, it's the Nick Foles era. The sun was out here earlier in Chicago. I don't know where it went, you know, but it was raining the past couple of days. So maybe that's an omen of sorts. It's a little bit cloudy, but you can see it starting to peek through the clouds. And I think that's actually probably a pretty good way to describe what the Nick Foles era might be for the bears here. So were you at, you were at home on Sunday, I assume, right? Correct. Yes. So you're watching the game, which had to be weird in and of itself, just watching the game on TV. but Nick Foles comes into the game. He walks into the huddle, you see him under center or in the shotgun or whatever that first play was.

I actually think it was under center because I noticed that. What was your first thought when you saw that Nick Foles was in? That's a sweet visor. I thought the same thing, so I'm glad we're on the same page. Yeah, I'm like, wow, that's cool. It looks cool. But I couldn't, like, when Chubisky threw that interception, I'm like, oh, that is an awful pass.

We'll get to that. Yeah, like Nagy must be hot. And then you see Foles, you know, come on to the field, and you're almost like, I can't believe he did it. He actually did it. Like, in-game. I thought maybe if this were going to happen, maybe post-game. At 2-0 in-game.

Yes, with a fourth quarter comeback already on his resume this year. Trubisky obviously did that against the Lions in week one. So you're thinking, like, all right, like, you know, Trubisky's playing poorly enough or we can have this discussion. And I was literally texting Kevin Fishpane, like, at halftime. after the Anthony Miller miss where I'm like, hey, I'm going to write about Nick Foles. And then here it comes in the third quarter where you're like, oh, I'm definitely writing about Nick Foles now as he takes the field with his sweet visor, which he removed eventually.

But yeah, what a story. So before we talk about the timing, the decision, everything else, which you've written about, and I think there's tons of stuff to get into there, let's go back a little bit. Because I want to go to the end of training camp and how the initial Trubisky decision was made and why. I came on the Hodge and John show before the season started, which if you're a Bears fan, you're not listening to Adam and Adam do their podcast for the athletic. You absolutely should be.

But I came on before the season started and the tone of the conversation that we had was fairly dower. I was deflated when it seemed like Mitch was going to win that job because you did so much to go out and get Nick Fulce. You traded a fourth round pick. You gave him $20 million guaranteed. You made, at least financially, a multi-year commitment to this person. and for the status quo to win out before the season started

was a little bit disheartening for somebody who was hoping that there would be some significant changes and they'd go in a different direction because I was kind of out on the direction that they had been taking. So it seems right now, watching that game, like Nick Folles is a better quarterback than Mitchell Trabisky. So what in your mind is the reason that if they knew they wanted to eventually do this anyway,

why not do it at the beginning of the season? You know, I've thought about this actually quite a bit, since, well, really, since he won it. And I think the Bears always thought that Nick Foles would be better. They just weren't seeing it in camp. And I think there was, it's a layered thing, right? The pandemic changed everything. Nick Foles didn't have OTAs, right?

Everything is condensed. There's no preseason. So what you're left with is this limited amount of information where it's these practice tapes. And we all know Trubisky is a pretty good practice player. And you got this grading system that John D. Filippo had come up with where he wants to advance where, you know, third down throws or throws under pressure carry more weight, right? They tried to make this as, I don't know, as scientific. Yeah, as scientific as possible, given, you know, how limited their actual resources for information weren't. So, like, I'm almost of the opinion now that if there was a preseason, like Nick Foles is your starter week one.

Like if this wasn't a pandemic changed offseason, that Nick Foles is your starter of week one. But what you had was Nick Foles coming in late after no OTAs without any work with his receivers, his new receivers, his new teammates. And Chubisky already having that report with these guys and looking okay in camp. Where Nick Foles did have his moments, we were like, oh, that was an ugly ball, you know, thrown into double coverage. You know, he's lucky he didn't get that picked up. we saw those things from Nick Foles.

So I almost think that in the spirit of the competition, like the honest competition, the Bears said they wanted to have. They almost had to give Trubisky the nod because of how even or uneven it looked for Nick Fult. Right? Like he didn't go out and win the job, whereas Mitch didn't go out and so much lose that job. Now, that may sound, you know, frustrating, you know, for Bears fans, because you saw what Nick Foles did in Atlanta, but I do think it was just a layered process that changed dramatically

because of the pandemic, no OTAs, no preseason, and all of those limitations that came with it. I understand it, and I've been very harsh on just the choices they've made for a while now in Chicago and the process that they've taken in a few different ways. I get how we got here. Do I watch what Cam Newton is doing in New England and get a little bit frustrated because not only was somebody available for not a fourth round pick, but the limited amount of guys they wanted to bring in because they wanted to give

Trubisky a fair shot to try to win the job. You had to take a half measure because you couldn't bury him right away, and that's what signing at Cam Newton would have been. I think that's a bad reason, and I think that starting Chubisky at the beginning of the season when he's probably at lesser quarterback, and we're one or two plays away from them being one and two and having them be behind the eight ball, even if it's worked out, I question the process as to how it's worked.

But now we're here. So now it's, they're 3 and O, and we'll see where it happens from here. But why do you think ultimately they made the choice to yank Trubisky when they did? Because if they wanted to yank him, if they thought this was going to happen anyway, the first half against Detroit was way worse than he played against Atlanta. So it just felt like the timing was a little bit strange. The pick was bad. The Miller throw was bad.

I think personally that the seed might have been planted on that goal ball to Tareke Cohen down the left sideline. If you watch that on All 22, it hits Nagy. And his body language was not very good. Are you saying that's not good? Maybe he was throwing it too nagging. And maybe he was. So that was the second time in three plays where he threw a goal ball out of bounds that had no chance of being completed. So I feel like a lot of different things kind of might have could have compounded to create this decision.

But in your mind, was the interception just the backbreaker? Do you think there were things that kind of led up to this? Yeah, I think the interception, and I tweeted. about this because Alan Robinson was wide open on that player. We'll talk about it. What was coming open, yes. So, like, that's the breaking point for Nagy. But, like, I think people would understand there's a lot of things that had to lead up to get to that breaking point.

Like, you know, quarterbacks can be forgiven of interceptions. Like, you know, even the best ones get tricked every once in a while. But this is Trubisky we're talking about. This is a whole, let's go back to the word information again, like in having more resources at their disposal. Now, Nagy had two games of uneven play that he had scrutinized against the Giants and against the lions, where you saw misthrows, where you saw the Bears be down on third downs, where you saw miss a red zone opportunities. Again, that played out against the Falcons as well. So it's almost like leading up to this, you know, and to me,

I thought about that Anthony Miller deep shot. Like, you know, a lot of people will get on Nagy for his play calls. But I've always thought this. You can almost find this in almost every game where Nagy dials up a great play for Trubisky. He actually gets great blocking. The receivers actually run the right routes. He actually makes the right read, but he doesn't make the right throw, or the throw isn't completed. Like that is the Anthony Miller play. And there are a litany of examples of that in the Nagy era for Trubisky. So many deep crossing routes. So many deep crossing routes just airmailed. Last year, this year, he has never been able to hit them with any subvenile consistency. Right. So when Nagy sees that, I mean, that's a game-changing play. They go

into halftime. And they discuss fetching Trubisky. And there's one more shot given. First possession, third quarter, ugly interception thrown into zone coverage. So yes, that was the breaking point. But you have to realize, like, I think everybody who's listening has to realize there was a lot of things building up to that. And it was more than just the Falcons game. It was stuff from the Giants game, stuff from the Lions game, stuff from last year, in terms of missing shots that are there for the quarterback to hit. It's the plays that people don't notice, I think, that are ones that probably started to pile up for Nagy. There was a play in the Giants game.

There was a couple plays in the Giants game, actually, where they're playing off hard play action. Robinson does a great job to shake James Bradbury in space. He's coming across the field, Trivice. He doesn't even look his way. And you can clearly tell by the body language that he was part of the progression. And those plays are there all the time. On the interception, if you watch it, it's actually a really cool play. They had kind of a triple stack to the right, which made it really hard for the Falcons to identify

one, two three. They have two crossing routes come to kind of keep the hook defenders up. And they have Miller, I think, run a clear out straight from the point spot on the trips. And then Robinson was deep in behind it. It's a great cover two beater. It was perfectly designed. And he doesn't let the Robinson come open. He throws it to Graham, who sits down because he's supposed to sit down in

that zone and he throws it right to the flat defender who he should have known was there. It's just a mistake on several different levels. But not throwing that ball to Robinson on that play is almost more egregious than throwing the interception. And those plays just really started to pile up. So this is not surprising to me as someone who's watched what was acceptable but uninspired play from Trubisky over the first three weeks. So now that Foles was in there, what were your initial impressions?

Because if I had to draw one kind of contrast between the two in that game, it's the Foles is giving his guys chances to make plays. You think about even the Robinson interception is a good example, but there are so many from that second half that he played. There was the back shoulder throw to whims down the right sideline that could have been completed. He hit Mooney on what should have been a completion down the right sideline near the goal line. There was another back shoulder throw eventually to, I think, Mooney again on the right

side. And Trubisky's problem, beyond just the bad decision making and the inaccuracy, is that he wasn't even giving guys an opportunity. He had the second worst bad throw percentage in the league after Dwayne. Haskins. So if I'm thinking about it, it's that Folls seems to be processing well, doing very good job at the line of scrimmage and giving his weapon shots to make plays. Would you say there are any other areas where you notice kind of a big chasm between

the two in that limited Foles action that we saw? You hit on a lot of the areas that I saw. Like, watching on TV, it felt different. Like, I don't know how that makes sense because we are just states apart, right? You know, like, but maybe it was the game situation, but it was the, maybe it was quick processing, the decision making, right? And I know some of those plays weren't pretty. There was a blown up screenplay that was thrown out of bounds to Tariq Cohen,

and, you know, there were some short runs too. So it wasn't all. I think that play is fine. The Tariq Cohen screen launched that shit's 20 feet out of bounds. It's first down. Live to play another play. That one's okay to me. Yes, essentially throwing it away.

So it wasn't, I'm just trying to get to the point where the offensive execution wasn't perfect across the board. But the execution of the quarterback play was significantly better. It's the quick processing. It's the fourth down throw on the first read that Ted Gin Jr. You guys have been in league since 1980. It's the corner route to him on fourth and six, I believe, where he's the first read in the progression.

And it's almost instantaneous to a speedy receiver running to the corner. The ball was thrown before he even hit his break. And it's the exact type of going left to right throw that Trubisky failed to make all the time. I know the exact throw that you're talking about. Matt Nagy called it the biggest throw of the game. And I'd actually, you know, argue that, you know, that there's other plays that are maybe even more important to, you know, like the. Just look at like Alan Robertson's real touchdown. I'm not the one that should not have been overturned, you know, the real one.

So it's a 37-yard score. That ball is out right when he breaks. It's a curl route, you know, not exactly, you know, at advance play. But the ball is right there. And what you saw was a star receiver turn around and make a big play for his quarterback. And I've always just wondered, you know, with Trubisky, like, why aren't his guys making plays for him like that? You know, but sometimes it's the speed, getting the ball where it's supposed to be at a certain

time that allows that opening for your receiver to make that play, you know? And just a side note on that, like, I looked up the yak yards that Alan Robinson had against the Falcons. He had 60. That is his most by far, not by far, but is most as a bear's receiver and is most since 2015 with the Jaguars. So Alan Robinson immediately stands to benefit from a guy like Nick Foles who can get the ball out on time. So even beyond the guys he's throwing the ball to, you said energy, and I think that's a really good word. I'm sure that you've seen at times where when Chubisky's playing poorly, then the offense is just completely D.O.A.

that energy seeps into the rest of the locker room. I think you saw it a lot last season. Guys just really disheartened on the defensive side of the ball. And it's hard to keep playing, you know, pin your ears back, you know, balls to the wall, let's go after this when you know you have no shot on offense. Do you feel like having even a reasonable, somewhat dependable quarterback play

will translate to the rest of that locker room and the energy the rest of that team brings in some way? Yeah, and I think Foles brings like an extra vibe. Like, everybody knows he's a championship. I see it too, man. Already it's weird. You know, like it's, like it's, what's the best way to characterize it? Like, okay, so let's go back to Tripiski for a second.

So he gets benched and you actually see on the sideline there on the broadcast, defensive players go up to him. Jimmy Graham go up to him. So I think this guy is a generally liked player in that locker room. Liked and respected are two different things though. Yes. Isn't that the thing? Yes.

And they know it, you know? and they want to be there for their teammate, but they also know that teammates not giving them the best chance to win right now. And the Foles brings, like, he's genuinely like two. But then to see him operate on the sideline, like his first game, like you saw that clip, right? Like he is going from his receivers to receivers to his running backs to darn on Moody. I mean, he's talking to everybody on there,

to hear what he said about his conversation in the huddle with Anthony Miller on the game winning throw, where he's telling him to run to the L. that stuck with me because we never heard that type of communication from Trabiski. Knowing before they even walk to the line of scrimmage what he wants to do, given what he thinks the defense might do to him. That is, you know, we asked Alan Robinson about that today. And again, you know, they want to be kind to their teammate.

But you could just sense from these guys that, okay, this guy. guy has been here before. He knows what he's seeing. He knows where the ball is supposed to go. And there's a different level of confidence that comes with it. You people can't see me, but I'm just smiling because I thought the exact same thing when I heard that story about the L. And I wanted to see with this team, the players and the coaches could be with a quarterback that projects confidence and that instills confidence in everyone else. And I think that's what I've always wanted to see with Nagy. When you have a guy that you feel like is not short-circuiting you as a play caller, as a planner, everything

else. I think Nakey's done a fantastic job this year with the offense they built around Trubisky. A lot of under-center play action, more running the ball, giving him to find reeds, setting him up to succeed in ways they did in last year. But with Foles, now, you don't feel like you have to be doing everything you can to prop up your quarterback. Can your quarterback prop you up in a way that you haven't had in the last couple years? So when you're thinking about what the offense might look like now structurally with Foles, do you think we're still going to see as much under-center play action stuff as we did over the first three, two and have games, or do you think it's going to be more back into the shotgun, RPO, the system

that we saw in the past when the quarterback play maybe wasn't as much of a question? Well, from camp, I think I just saw too much under center stuff in camp to believe that it's going to be completely taken out of the playbook. They also used it with Foles in the second half. Yes. So they came out with it again. Yeah. I almost believe that's inserting that as much as it was for Trubisky, that's also for

your personnel is up front. Like it just seems to work better for that offensive line and for what David Montgomery is. So, yeah, there's more to it than Trubisky. So I don't think that's going to decrease. Nagy said himself that the play calling will not change. Or maybe the, to me it's like the freedom. Like they used the word ad-living or Jimmy Graham used the word ad-living

to describe what Nick Foles was doing up there. I don't know. Like I know all quarterbacks go up there with certain calls and kills and whatnot. I just think Nick Foles is going to be afforded a bit more to do what he wants up there based on what he sees because he's earned that in a sense. And Trubisky, I think has, let's be honest,

probably had that type of freedom, you know, taken away from him a bit, you know. So I do think... He was still not even calling protections last year, wasn't he? Wasn't that part of the problem when they had Daniels playing center because Trubisky wasn't calling the protections and Daniels needed to do it? in his first year of playing center and it was just kind of a mess.

I mean, I think that's a huge indictment. And I think that says a lot about the difference just mentally between those two guys. Correct. That's why Cody Whitehaer was back in center last year. And while he became, he doesn't, Cody Whitehaer deserves to be stuck in a spot for once in his career. I'm fine keeping him there for now. But I do think that really speaks to just the mental gap between those two guys and the level of command they have at the line of scrimmage. Yes, yes.

So absolutely. So to go back to how this offense is going to, I don't know, function and look differently, I think it goes back to the nitpicking of Matt Nagy's play calls, where he draws up things that work so well in practice and he gets the right coverages. He predicts what he wants from the defense or he gets the look that he wants from the defense and then Trubisky misses those throws. I think Nick Foles will hit at least half of those throws that Trabis. Bisckey missed, which would significantly improve the offense in several areas.

Look, no one's asking him to be an all pro here. But if you get improved quarterback play, you know, where you have a quarterback, you know, who flirts with good QBRs and passer ratings around 100 every week, you know, the Bears will happily take that. The one that make it, just make the easy plays. Make the plays that are there. That's the biggest difference, I think, between Foles and Jambisky right now is getting them into good spots, giving your guys a chance to make plays, and making the

the layups, making the throws that you should just be able to make in your sleep and trusting just the overall structure of the offense. So now, like you said, you don't expect him to be an all pro. I don't expect him to be an all pro either. I think you'll be better than Trubisky. I don't know how much better. If you're just thinking about now, the outlook for 2020 of the 3-0 Chicago Bears, what do you think the rest of the season could look like for this team in terms of their ceiling? I don't know about you, but I always thought these first three games were winnable. I didn't expect them to have 17. It's been weird. But yes, I thought they were probably winnable.

So now they're getting into like the thick of it. The Colts are a pretty good team. The Buccaneers are getting better. You got the Rams, the Red Hat Rams, you know, or maybe not so Red Hat anymore. But they look better than they were. They're a very good team. Yes.

Yes. So they're looming in a couple weeks. So we'll see how good they are. You know, I'm kind of concerned about the defensive picks. I do think Nick Foles will be an upgrade. But there's some reasons to think this defense is. not as good as maybe we thought they were. You know, there's some leakiness to them.

What concerns you? What spots? Because I went back and watched a good chunk of the defense today against Atlanta, because I hadn't watched much of their all 22, because I've been so kind of worried about the offense. What areas do you think could hold the defense back? They're fourth in passing DVOA through four games, but that's with the Lions team that without Kenny Gallaudet,

Daniel Jones, and then the Falcons, without Julio Jones. So I think that's all the stuff you have to take into account. So what areas of the defense do you feel like? could hold them back from being, let's say, a top five unit for the rest of the year. I thought it was a significant step in the right direction that Cleo Mack and Akeem Hicks, especially played as well as they did against the Falcons, absolutely dominant. I think the secondary is kind of shown that it's a strength to the first three weeks.

Like Jalen Johnson, the Bears have something there. And Kyle Fuller looks like he's playing in another Pro Bowl level. Same with Eddie Jackson. And to Sean Gibson is a nice fine addition there too, you know, a good interception at the end. To me, it's what's happening in the middle, Robert. Like the inconsistent play from Danny Treveithin and Roquan Smith, the latter maybe being the more frustrating thing for the bears. Like there are plays, you watch the All-22 against the Falcons,

there are plays run plays by the Falcons where Rokwant Smith looks like he's on skates, you know, to use that cliche where he's going backward and it does not look good. You know, Danny Chervathen, I think he was better against the Falcons than he was. in the previous two weeks, but, you know, there's still a level of concern there. So if I have to point out one position, one area on that defense where, hey, you have to be better like now. It's the middle linebackers because that's where you just need better defensive plays there. You know, we talked to Lance Briggs on Tuesday for the Hogan John's podcast, and we asked about Roquant Smith, and he's just like, you, you, you'll have,

want to either see, you know, game-changing takeaway plays. You know, of course, him and Briggs and Erlocker made a ton of those, you know, turnovers, takeaways, right? Or you want to see the guy just pile up tackle after tackle after tackle. Being in the right spot all the time. Yes, we're not just talking about eight tackles and some of those are shared. You want like 12, 15 tackles a game where this guy's making a serious impact for this defense.

And after three weeks, Robert, I just don't think we're seeing it. He's really inconsistent. There are so many plays where it does look like he's lost out there. And then others where he's snuffed out Todd Gurley on the flat-on-one one play where you can just see how well he moves. And when he's playing with some sort of conviction and authority, the athleticism is undeniable. But I would agree that he just seems like he's all over the place.

Trevathan's been a little inconsistent. The front is playing unbelievable. I mean, Mac is just a monster right now. The sack numbers have not been there, but there are plays where he's in the backfield in the second and a half, but a seven-yard drop from a quarterback, which is much shallower than he should be, and he's almost making plays. We are a matter of time before he just destroys a game if he keeps playing like this.

I've loved Jalen Johnson. There was one play in the second half where he was with Calvin Ridley one-on-one, deep down the field on a play-action throw, just step for step. He's been great. I love what they're doing with Kyle Fuller. I also like some of the schematic stuff they're doing. On third and, like, medium and short, they're playing a lot of cover one and just sticky man

and letting Fuller and Johnson just kind of push people around and having Eddie Jackson as the robber player in the middle to kind of make plays, I think that's a really smart way to use your personnel. The one question I have beyond just the linebackers right now is depth. When you watch what that defense looks like when Mack is not on the field, it is rough. They have absolutely no depth at outside linebacker, and the secondary is the exact same way.

If any of these guys get hurt, they're in a bad way, and they've been extremely healthy thus far, which is a huge contrast to what you've seen from other guys around the league. So we'll see what happens. As currently constructed, I think they're really good. They have a couple flaws, but if anybody goes down, then I think it can go south in a really big hurry. Yeah, I think Robert Quinn can be better.

He had a good game against the Giants. He was a little bit quieter last week against Jake Matthews. So I agree with you. I think part of that still, probably maybe him getting up to speed after the injury and everything he had that slowed down his training camp. But you're right. You're already down Eddie Goldman. I know that's partly to blame, too, for some of these big runs.

The Bears have allowed. The run defense has been bad. Yep. Yeah. Belaal Nichols has, he has his moments too. I think he's a good player, good solid starter. You're still waiting for those flash plays from Roy Robertson Harris, but I'm wondering when the blitzing linebackers are kind of unleashed by Chuck Pagano.

You know, maybe that happens against Philip Rivers. But you're right, just in terms of depth and maybe the expectations. that the Bears have created for themselves defensively. There's reasons to be concerned about what we've seen over three weeks. I think they're going to be all right. I think that they could be a top five unit. They stay relatively healthy. I think that the overall talent on the back end and the front end can really carry you.

And now the question is how far the offense can go. This is a team that's 3 and 0. I don't think they're a real 3 and 0. But I also think we could see a much different version of them over the next 13 weeks than we saw over the first three. So we'll see what happens. This is the period on the end of the Mitchell, Trubisky era, which is kind of crazy to think about. But it always felt like we were headed this direction, and here we are. So, Adam, thank you very, very much for doing this. I really appreciate

the time. Always great to get your insight. If you guys haven't, please check out the Hose and Johns podcast on The Athletic. They do a great job breaking down everything, Chicago Bears. Please check out Adam's work on the Athletic. It is completely indispensable for Bears fans like me and everybody else. So, Adam, thanks a lot and we'll talk to you soon, bud. Anytime. See you, Robert. Talking about erectile dysfunction isn't easy. Usually, men just brush it off or blame themselves saying things like, I lost my mojo, or they avoided all together with excuses like, I had a long day at work, or sorry, honey, I'm just not feeling it. But with Roman, it's easy to talk about. With a real healthcare professional who can prescribe real medication,

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the 17-18 kind of run that culminated in a trip to the Super Bowl, they were the hottest thing in football. Last year, they fall back to Earth a little bit. And I wondered, all right, now that we're kind of in round three here, what do they look like? The answer is, very good. Three weeks into the year, the Rams lead the NFL and offensive DVOA after a fantastic performance against the bills, even in a loss. Jared Goff is averaging 9.59 yards per attempt, which is the number one mark in the league.

Ridiculous. They have looked excellent. And I want to talk about not only what they're doing this year, but going back a little bit. We're trying to use this segment as a way to do a little bit of a history lesson and get into some of the motivations behind this stuff, why it works, why it doesn't. So let's go back to 2018, let's say, on their way to the Super Bowl. So as this Rams offense and the way they do it is kind of taking the league by storm, what jumped out to you about it? What was different about their approach compared to some of the other coaches from that Kubi-X-Shanahan tree? Yeah, like you said, this offense is based on the outside zone.

And of course, with the outside zone comes a heavy play action game. And it's very convincing the best play actions come from outside zone because the blocking from outside zone and the blocking for a boot looks exactly the same. So it's very hard for the defense to tell whether it's a runner pass. McVeigh put his own spin on it by going all in on this kind of wingtie style outside zone offense with a lot of condensed formations using jet motion on almost every single play. And they put a huge emphasis on making everything look the same in the first few steps of the play. So outside zone, quarterback turns around, hands the ball off to the running back.

And the first three seconds, you don't know whether it's actually going to be a run or it's going to pull that ball back and it's going to look like a play action. And when they did actually run a play action play, they were going for shots. Like they're either running a regular bootleg or they're going for shot plays down the field. And they connected on a ton of them in 2018, which made the offense extremely explosive. And then after that, they had their screen game, which is extremely explosive. And it's so hard to defend because, one, when linebackers are coming up towards the run, they're taking a few steps up. When they notice play action, they take a few steps up.

And then they have to run, they have to sprint back into their zones. And then when they sprint back into zones, all of a sudden you throw a screen. screen, they have to come back up. So all that sort of confusion was a Sean McVeigh offense, which was why it was so tough to defend. What are those condensed formations doing? When you say condensed formations, that's wide receivers close to the rest of the formation. So you have guys like Cooper Cup, Robert Woods, and back in those days, Brandon Cooks, really close to the formation. So that's not something you typically see with a ton of other offenses from this trade, not to that extent.

This was extreme. So what does that extreme or what has it done for this offense over time? What benefits does it give you? A couple things. First, early on in 2018, they ran a ton of 11 personnel, almost exclusively all 11 personnel. And with Cooper Cup and Robert Woods, they were still good at blocking that it was almost like having extra tight ends on the field. So having those guys close to the line of scrimmage really involved them in a run game. and run blocking is one of the things they were really good at.

Also, with the condensed formations, it made them impossible to press because you can't press guys that are that close to each other because you want to avoid rubs. So when they look for wide receivers, they aren't looking for that big X wide receiver that you typically see on other teams. They could look for those small slot guys because they're not really afraid of them getting pressed too much because they're in those condensed formations.

The 11 personnel thing is so interesting because I've had conversations with people about this over the years. I wrote a story at the ringer two years ago about how they were really just doing everything out of 11 personnel. And the funniest part about the 11 personnel approach is that it was an accident. McVeigh got there. It wasn't like he was hell bent on saying, we're going to have three receivers on the field. They found out that the best way they could play their offense was with those guys just based on the personnel they had on their team. So they kind of stumbled into it. And here's a conversation actually I had with Rams offensive line coach Aaron Cromer in 2008.

about that very idea. At the time, it was a case where that was our best personnel group. Yeah. It was the most talent we have, and it's still the most talent group we have. So then what we did was find a way to gain back numbers in the running game to be able to run the ball out of 11 personnel. But here's the thing. I mean, no matter what you do, if you put 21 or 12 personnel,

and you're going to hear about this eight-man box. Well, you only have seven blockers. So you have to manipulate, or. handle the force patterns of the extra guy, no matter what personnel group you get into. So what we have done here as a group is decided that that's the best group we have. And that's the fastest way to move fast is use your fastest guys. So we see this team really take over football.

And I feel like probably, I don't know what you would say, but to me the high point of that offense was that game they played against the Vikings in prime time in week four of that season. where Jared Goff just tore down the Viking secondary. And that's when the Vikings defense was actually very good. I was at that game, and it really felt like we were watching something. And then you saw in the second half of that season, the offense slowed down a little bit. I think the Bears game they played that year was the start of it.

They struggled a little bit against the Eagles. And then things really hit a wall when they played against the Patriots in the Super Bowl. What did you see from defenses kind of in that stretch that slowed this offense down and kind of started throwing questions at it, that McVeigh didn't necessarily have answers to. Actually, it started getting slowed down a week before that with the Lions. And that's when they started getting, you know, eventually they beat the Lions, but in the first half, they really struggled to move the ball against the Lions.

And what teams were doing was they were just moving a bunch of guys up to the line of scrimmage and playing soft zone behind it. So it's tough to run outside zone when there's a bunch of guys on the line of scrimmage because outside zones based on getting combo blocks, and you can't combo blocks when there's too many guys in the line. It just becomes a bunch of single blocks, and that's harder to do. And with the soft coverage, you couldn't get those shot plays that they were so used to getting. So in that Bears game, you talked about,

Vic Fangio ran a little 6-1, which is six guys on the line of scrimmage with one line backer. He ran it a little bit. He didn't do it a ton, but it obviously worked. worked and Belichick solid and he used it in the Super Bowl. He made some adjustments to it. And it basically answered all of the problems that Sean McVeigh's offense gives to defenses because there's a defensive end and then they put two edge players outside of those ends. So when you do that, it's really hard to run to the edge.

You can't run your fly sweeps because you have two guys over there. It's hard to run bootlegs because you have two guys that potentially sack the quarterback as soon as he turns around. and they don't have to react to the jet motion. There's only one linebacker, and they don't have to bump over and do all those things that cause all sorts of problems. So they just didn't have answer for it in the Super Bowl, and it kind of started, you know,

it rolled over to 2019 because a bunch of teams started copying that formula. You saw the Saints run a 6-1. He saw the Browns do it, Seahawks. And I think they had some answers to it, but in 2019, the offensive line just wasn't nearly as good as it was in 2018. Also, in that year, they started using a little 12 personnel,

using their tight ends a little bit more too. But you just didn't see them hit a rhythm like they did in the past. And I think it's the 6-1 thing and not having to worry about jet motion and all those other things. I think that's really interesting because the offense as built was predicated on discipline and about messing with your discipline as a defense by all. those moving parts, getting your eyes to go places that you don't want them to go. And by lining up in that 6-1, you're almost negating that.

You're taking those assignments off the table because your defense can be static before the snap. So all the bells and whistles, all of those things that typically would try to put you in spots you don't want to be in, it doesn't matter because you don't have to react to the stimuli there. Last year, when they were still struggling a little bit, what sort of counters did you see from McVeigh, even if the offensive line didn't allow them to work, that showed that he understood he needed to do a little something different. Well, they were using a little more tight end, so they were diversifying their personnel

packages a little bit. And, you know, with those condensed formations, you don't get a lot of space. So that's why it was okay for teams to get away with just playing soft zones against them because they didn't really have to worry about the quick game because when you're condensed, you don't have to worry about quick slants. You don't have to worry about hitches. the only real quick route you can run is an out route. And if they know an out route's coming, they can sit on those out routes.

And that's because you're lined up so far inside that you can't run an in-breaking route necessarily because you're already there. That's why you don't have to worry about it, right? Yeah, exactly. And they're running some play action to try to take advantage that space outside. But golf just wasn't hitting those throws consistently of last year. But it seems like he's really honed in on hitting those outside throws and just his timing with some in-breaking throws is just so much stronger this year.

And they really, their screen game was not nearly as effective last season as it has been in the past. And that's one of the answers to that 6-1 front is to be able to hit screens. And this season, they actually uptick their screen game by 5%. 16% of their plays are screens now. And they've been pretty explosive for them too. Why do you think they went away from the screen game so dramatically last year? Because they were down near the bottom of the league, I think, in running back screens last season. They hired wide receiver screens. They ran a ton of those.

They always will. I mean, that's a huge part of their game. But they did not run nearly as many running back passes as they did when Todd Gurley was really clicking. And I understand maybe there were some health issues there last year. But do you think there was anything schematic that was preventing them from wanting to do that more? I think part of it is just Todd Gurley's help because I think he, I think he, he was the only running back that they could really trust in a passing game, you know, because Malcolm Brown is a good running back, but I don't think he's a guy that they want to pass to.

Sarah Henderson was a rookie. Yeah, yeah. And they were the team that threw least to running backs in 2019, which is a huge drop off from what they used to do. Because, you know, Todd Gurley was running fade routes. He's running drag routes and all those things when that offense was really clicking. So that's another element that was really missing this offense that they didn't have last year. So now they've gone back to this green game. You see them doing it all the time.

There's play action screen wrinkles that they were doing a ton in 2018 that are really working for them again. But that's something they went back to. What's something that's new? What are the new elements of this offense that you've seen from three weeks that you feel like it allowed them to click? That's more run game diversity. So they're not running a huge percentage more of gap scheme, but they have more gap scheme plays. So back in 2018, they're, And even 2019, their only real gap scheme play was duo, which is kind of like a man principle mixed with a zone principle.

But this year, you know, they're lining up in eye formations, which they never did. And, you know, they're using a tight end as their fullback. But, you know, it's still an eye formation. So they're lining up Gerald Everett as a fullback. And they're running some counter, F counters with them, which the Niners and Kyle Shanahan has a lot of success with. because when teams load up on that outside zone or they're overreacting, they just hit him with the counter and they go for big plays. And they haven't really hit a lot of big plays off those counters yet.

But they're still getting decent yardage and it's still, you know, it's another thing for defenses to have to worry about to defend. It also seems like they're running some counters with the wide receivers coming back across the formation. They have a lead play with Cooper Cup as the lead blocker now. And I think that's so funny because it's similar. It's working for the same reason. that the Rams are so good in 2018, right?

It's things that we've seen before packaged in a slightly different way. So like you're saying, you have those F counterplays with Gerald Everett at tight end or at fullback. You have lead plays coming across the formation that we see from every single team, but instead of a tight end, it's Cooper Cup. So they can stay true to their identity, but still have enough different approaches to kind of keep you off balance. Yeah, and that's been a huge play for them too this season.

And then one of the touchdowns against the Buffalo Bills was a brilliantly designed play action off of that Cooper Cup lead counterplay that they have, too. So it's just, it's not huge changes to the offense, but these little changes that they use and they, it's just tough on linebackers in her eyes. So it's not wholesale changes, but it's enough to diversify their offense to just make it that much tougher to defend. So what you've seen from golf, he's hitting outbreaking routes, in a way that he wasn't before. There were a couple throws in that Bill's game were just incredibly impressive. One to Gerald Everett down.

There was a deep kind of throw outside the numbers on the right side that is maybe the best throw I've seen him make all season. And other stuff beyond just the physical ability that Gough has shown, his ball placement, whatever, it seems like mentally and his control with the line of scrimmage and the overall autonomy they're giving him has changed a little bit. I know there was a play in the Bill's game that you wanted to point out. What have you seen from their ability to kind of make changes pre-snap,

just with golf on his own that might be different from what it's been in years past. Yeah, so not every team's going to come out and line up in a six-one against the Rams, but they'll bring a bunch of guys up to the line of scrimmage and have that kind of similar effect. So the bills did that early on. I think it might have been on the first drive. They brought seven guys up to the line of scrimmage right on the line of scrimmage, and the Rams are in one of their condensed formations.

Goff saw it. He made a check. You can see him hand signaling with his hands on his helmet. And then they shifted into a spread formation, got into the gun. They ran a flood concept. Gough hit a perfect out route for 14 yards. It wasn't a huge play. But that kind of play changes how a defense is going to line up against you because they don't want that to happen again.

So, you know, me and you talked about it. If they did that stuff in the Super Bowl, they might have won a Super Bowl because they might have gotten the Patriots to get off of their 6th 1. So those little changes in making a defense adjust to you is huge for this style of offense. And you see it. It's changes that are big on a long-term level and a short-term level. So you have these kind of big evolutionary changes where you have more counter runs, more gap scheme runs, different sorts of screens now back into the equation. And then you have these changes on a more micro level where on a play-to-play basis,

maybe they're a little bit more flexible than they've been in the past. So that's what's interesting to me about watching an offense evolve over time, is that you have these principles that really speak to who you are, and you stick to those principles, but you manage to add just enough wrinkles to keep people off balance. And it does really feel like three games into the year, we've reached that point with the Rams, where it's not as if they've made these wholesale changes

from what made them great two years ago. It's just that they've stuck with those principles and those philosophies, but done just enough to advance them, and to keep defenses off balance. Yeah, exactly. And like we talked about, McVeigh is his offense, it's different from other offenses because he just doesn't run a ton of concepts. You just see the same stuff over and over again,

but every time you adjust, he has something else to hit you with. And now he has an adjustment for the adjustments that defenses came up against his offense. So it's just a really interesting chess match. And it's something that we're going to see continue. I can't wait to watch what they do. They're just the, again, it's kind of the next step. Goff is using play action on 50% of his throws. Their running game looks so much better with the line healthy.

Darrell Henderson is giving them a lot of pop. You know, just that explosive element they seemed to lack last year when Gurley was plotting and Malcolm Brown was the other guy and they didn't seem comfortable playing Henderson a lot. It just feels like this is a version of the offense that was always possible even as they were figuring stuff out. And they've reached a pretty dangerous level. I mean, I think they're playing as well as any offense in the NFL right now. Yeah, and they scored a ton of points against a really good Buffalo builds of defense as well. And I think Henderson's ability to catch the ball is really going to complete this offense.

I mean, it threw a fade to him, which you know, you don't typically see for running backs too. So it's exciting to see where this offense is going to go. I'm looking forward to it. Ted, as always, buddy, thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate it. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. We did a great episode. Johnst for coming on to talk about the Bears.

Thank you to Sam Monson from PFF. Talk about the things we would have gone back and changed a little bit if we could. As always, please rate and review the show on your podcast platform of choice. It would be very helpful to me and I would really appreciate it. We will be back tomorrow with Lindsay Jones to preview week three and to talk about some of the COVID concerns that have crept up this week in the NFL. Until then, though, really appreciate it. Talk to you guys soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.

Thank you.