The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Reviewing the 2021 QB class heading into year two

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Where do the 2021 rookie QBs stand after one season? Robert Mays and Nate Tice look back at the film and discuss what we’ve learned, both good and bad, from Trevor Lawrence, Zac Wilson, Justin Fields, Mac Jones, Davis Mills and Trey Lance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today's Friday, May 20th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's my good friend Nate Tyson. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing well.

I'm glad you saved the date because I have zero clue. I don't know when we're doing these. I don't know when they come out. But that felt good. Part of the reason for that is it's been kind of a wonky week. I wanted to talk about some scheduling before we got into today's show. So today's show is running on Friday. I leave for Mexico tomorrow, Saturday.

We still have shows coming out next week. We did this magical thing called recording stuff early. So just because I am taking a break doesn't mean you guys need to take a break from the podcast. So next week we'll have our Tuesday mailbag with Deontay. We will also have our non-quarterback draft with me, you and Lindsay. That will be coming on Thursday. And then Lindsay will be hosting her own show on Friday. So we will, I'm around for the most part.

Through the magic of recording and banking stuff early, but not the entire week. So you guys will still have three podcasts next week. I was very important for me to get all of that to you, even though I'm going to be gone. So hope you guys are excited about that. I think we had a ton of fun doing the non-quarterback draft. I think you guys will really enjoy that. As we alluded to yesterday, we're talking about the rookie quarterbacks today. It's one of the shows that when we were thinking about off-season programming and the conversations we wanted to have,

it was one of the things at the top. It was like, I'm putting a pin in every Justin Fields question. I get in the mailbag every time someone asks about Zach Wilson because we're actually going to dig into this. And it actually dovetled very nicely. You were writing about this exact same subject very soon on the athletic. So you got to double dip your prep. I'm always looking out for you.

But we're just going to go through these guys individually. Talk about what we liked. Talk about what we didn't like. We're going to go in draft order with one exception. We're not going to spend a ton of time on Tray Lance. Trail Lance started a game and change. Not as much to dig into. I think the sample size is small enough where sweeping conclusions are.

probably the wrong way to go as early as to Tray Lance's rookie year, but you still watched him and we're still going to chat about that. So let's do this. I mean, it's, there's a lot to chew chew on here, my friend. It's great. It was ugly, but I, it just on a general level. I wasn't as disappointed as I thought I was going to be going back through everybody. When you look at the numbers, it's a bloodbath. It is so bad. So I'm staring at them right now, okay? 31 quarterbacks in the NFL had at least 250 pass attempts last year. Okay. 31 in EPA per drop back, Zach Wilson.

Yeah. 30. Sam Donald. He's always there. Yeah, there he is. 29. Justin Fields. 28.

Trevor Lawrence. 27, Ben Rathesberger. 26 Davis Mills. Nice. So we got all these guys clumped down here at the bottom. I think it's hard to play quarterback in the NFL. I think it's really, really hard. And all of these guys, you know, Mack Jones is the exception.

He drafted in the middle of the first round. Trey Lance didn't play, but if he had played, his team traded an exorbitant amount to go up and get him. All the rest of these guys were drafted by terrible football teams. There are reasons that the Jags are picking first overall, the Jets are picking second overall, and we'll get into this as it relates to Lawrence. The Jax problems went beyond the town as well. I mean, just a nightmareish situation. And Justin Fields, even though the Bears had stumbled into a 500-ish record the year before, the offensive talent was not good.

No. And the offensive coaching is not been good. They've been a very bad offense for the last several seasons under Matinee game with that regime. And you saw the lack of help and the lack of a plan there. And I mean, the Texans are barely a football team last year. They're almost one this year. But last year they were barely a football team. We'll dig into some of that.

But when you have no help, no support system for the most part, and that's what all these guys were last season, it's really, really hard to play quarterback well. And I think that was proven out in the number. But again, looking into what it actually was like on a down-to-down basis and some of the flashes that we saw. I think there's some reasons for optimism, some for pessimism. Not all these guys are going to work out, but a lot to dig into. So let's start with Trevor Lawrence. So when you went back and you watched Trevor Lawrence last year, you didn't have to go back and watch much.

You were pretty routinely watching some Jaguars football last season. I've been prepping for this pot for a year now for nine months. Let's start with what you liked. What were the things about Trevor Lawrence's game as a rookie? You're like, you know what? I can hang my hat on that. I feel pretty good about that. In advance understanding of what's being run as far as play call and play concept and timing

and also an incredible amount of twitchiness for such a long athlete. And that twitchiness doesn't just come up as a runner because he is a legit guy that can get to the edge on his own replay. And you can see the Jaguar is leaning into that near the end of the game. of the season, especially in third and fourth down situations or him as a scrambler. But also in the pocket is it's so much fun to watch him operate in the pocket because he has that, I should say rare, but that what you want to see in the quarterbacks where they can get moved off the launch point. When you're taught as a quarterback, everything's perfect.

You know, you take a three step drop, a five step drop, a seven step drop, you know, one out of the gun, three out of the gun, five out of the gun. And everything's perfect. Straight line, hitch, one, throw. Okay, good job. All right. Now you're going to get the number two. okay hitch one to two boom you never even have to move off the landmark it's great

Trevor has that awesome ability that he can sidestep in the pocket when there's a rush coming down the barrel and still stay on time and get to two and three and he's doing that as a rookie and sometimes you see guys do this and it's glimpses of it Justin we'll talk about the other guys these other guys you see glimpses of it Trevor's doing it like every down every snap oh the fundamentals are great on top of that is that he can deliver all the throws he can make those rare, excellent throws where he's truly throwing a guy open. The Patriots, he had two throws that were incredible because he's just kind of saying, fuck it and letting it go.

There was a lot of that. Yeah. And he's like, you know what? I'm just going to try to make a play. I mean, there's nothing else happening here. I'm just going to try to make a play. And watching him, the twitchiness with the size, it reminds me, Justin Herbert, where you can just flip your hips and get back to something where a guy at that height

typically isn't able to. And I was, this is a weird thing to say. I expected to be more impressed with the arm when I went back. There weren't as many wow throws. But the fact that the pocket presence and awareness and operation was as good as it was, I'm almost more encouraged that that was my takeaway. That it wasn't just splash throw here, splash throw there. It's, I'm doing the right things.

My eyes are in the right place. I'm playing on time and I'm gone. We've mentioned the stat as it relates to him a couple times. I think it's really important. 30 quarterbacks last year took 50% of their team's dropbacks. He was 25th in the percentage of his pressures that turned into sex. 14.1%. Guys below him on this list.

Kurt Cousins, who's pretty good at that. I think he's very good at playing at time. Tompherst on time. Mahomes is at a whole different level. And then Jalen Hertz and Josh Al, both of whom can make a lot of things happen outside of structure and get away from trouble because of the way that they can move. That be him being that high on that list or that low, depending on how you want to rank it,

is really encouraging. Really. Because even if the numbers aren't there as a passer and their passing game was garbage, I think that really speaks to how in control and in command he was in some of those scenarios where a lot of stuff was going wrong. Yes. And it's the O line. I would say the Jaguars O line was average.

Like they were like middle line, but they got pretty. as they played better teams, especially the interior where we get very leaky. They also got hurt last year. They were dinged up by the end of the year. So you saw them just, they were under siege at a certain point. This team was a wreck. We haven't even talked about the receivers yet. But it's, that's what in operating on time, but that's what's, that's so cool that

the guys that he's listed with. Like, Kirk Cousins is the epitome of operating on time. That's how he wins. Like that is Kirk Cousins game. You do not want Kirk Cousins to create. Trevor is able to do that already to, I would say to Kirk's level. Kirk's pretty excellent at it, but near there as a rookie, but also he has the athletic ability of a Josh Allen. Like he's not as big and thick as Josh Allen is, but he can run, I mean, just as well,

as far as speedwise and twitchiness. And that is, yeah, that's what was so encouraging with him. And that's, it's kind of weird. I agree with you about the wow throws. That was even when I studied them last year was my one negative on him was that his deep ball wasn't great. It was more, it was more above average. Like it's a very liney. He doesn't put the, he doesn't, he doesn't, he can't throw out 70, 80 yards like some of these big arm guys are. That's, that's an excellent ability that you want to see if you're making these guys perfect. But his is more like above average. Like, it's fine. He has to win by throwing it on time. And then, you know, he can get it there. But that is, I agree with that. It's not that overwhelming, beautiful moonball that some of these guys

throw. He can drive throws, which is really nice. That's the cool stuff. We talked about on the QB draft, we talked about Stafford, making guys right. Trevor had to do this. All all year because the receiver talent was so bad. It's a combination of how bad they were. It was a combo of drops, bad routes, not separating, mistakes. I mean, just when you'd watch them running the same route all the time. You'd watch plays unfold and it's like you can't, he's in a position to fail here. Yep.

I mean, guys are trying to run up the rail up the sideline and then a guy supposedly coming up the seam and then run right next to each other. It's like, you're fucked. Like there's just nothing you can do in that scenario as a quarterback. And it's like, all right, then why is he pushing the ball into traffic so often? Why? I mean, it's because at a certain point, you have to try to make something happen. You're an awful team. And it just nothing looks right.

No one's in the right spots. So you're inherently going to put more balls into harm's way because of the spacing of the players on the field. Yep. He had a clip against the Titans. And they ran, it was third down, like third, four, third and five. They ran mesh. So mesh is two crossers, a little bit, middle sit behind it, about 10 to 12 yards. It's the sloppiest and slowest mesh of all.

time because the split is wrong from one of the receivers. He was too wide. So it took too long to create the mesh. So that's already one mistake. The guys run into each other. So that's mistake number two. Mistake number three is the guy tripped. So, okay, that's already three things.

I'm just already talking about the mesh portion, which is supposed to be the easiest thing you do with football. And then the middle sit, which is supposed to be at 10 to 12 yards, ran it at seven. So it's three guys within three yards of each other when it's supposed to be this great separation triangle. And he still completed it and put the ball on the. money on time. And that's, that's throwing a guy open. That is no matter, even with all the mistakes around you, you're still finding a throw. And Trevor's doing that as the rookie. He was like

the calming presence of this team, which is what you want of your franchise freaking quarterback. But it's like, oh my God, you guys put a lot on this dude. You guys really are like making it hard as possible. He's their own backline digs in the end zone to Tavon Austin, five foot eight Tavon Austin. Like just putting guys in position. Levinzky's Shinald's having to run like these intricate routes. And it was a lot. Option routes. Option routes. Option routes.

Going back and watching the Colts game at the end of the year, option routes to LeViscianold, go balls in traffic to Laquan Shredwell. And are the receivers on the team good now? No, but Christian Kirk is a far cry from the types of things he was thrown to last year. So that's important. One note on the accuracy, I wanted to look up the number because it struck me when I was reading through this.

In PFF's QB annual that they do, a lot of really good, just raw data in there. on throws a 20 plus air yards last season, the NFL average for on target throws is 42%. Trevor Lawrence was 34%. So really far off what you might expect in terms of his accuracy as a deep ball thrower last year. So again, just not kind of disjointed from what you might expect.

Based on what he was as a prospect, because we talked about him as this kind of otherworldly thrower when in reality, kind of the finer points of the position or what he did well as a rookie. My comparison when he came out last year was supercharged Matt Ryan. And that's, that's kind of like a better twitchier Matt Ryan. Matt Ryan's deep balls die. They go 40 yards and it's like, could they float up there and they drive? And that's kind of how Trevor's does a little bit, you know, maybe a little more strength. But that's, you know, he has a lot of

that to his game. There was another instance. I just have to bring this up because he had an interception against the Falcons. And this is kind of a great snapshot of what happened to Trevor last year. Even the mistakes. That's why the stats were way underwhelming was, It was Marvin Jones is covered. They did a shift and the tight end shifts over. And so you have to have two guys on the ball. Seven offensive players have to be on the ball. Just offensive formation rules in the NFL.

And he's covering the tight end after the shift. And right before the snap of the ball, he realizes that he's covering the tight end. This is a veteran, mind you. So it's a little disappointing. And he takes a half step back to get off the line, does not cover the tight end. So snap the ball, legal formation gets blown because he's not set. He has a set per pause for a second. Trevor is not noticing that.

He thinks he's fine. Takes the drop, throws the route. Marvin Jones doesn't come off the ball because he's like, oh, shit, it's a dead play. And so he doesn't, like, then there's an interception. It's an easy interception to the back of the end zone. Trevor's looking around going like, where the hell is my receiver go? And that is what happened to Trevor. It just kept happening.

Those types of plays just kept happening. It was like everyone else is making his life impossible. The head coach is making his life impossible. And he's still trying to do the right thing. So that made me more optimistic about what can happen with a, a little bit more competency around him. All right. So that's the positive spin.

There was a lot of bad stuff, though. Yes, there was. So even if the circumstances improve, what gives you pause? What are you still worried about, even if we can build in some progress from the things around him potentially this year? Some of the, the deep ball is one of them. I would say sometimes he can be a little too quick as he goes to one, two, to three, which is a lot of guys will have this issue.

Well, they'll go one, two, to three. And then they're like, okay, I'm going to scramble. And I think he could be chill out. And I get it that he was trying to operate with a quick clock because the offense align and everything, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But still, chill out. Relax. Get to one. Get to one.

Give it a second. Let it develop. So I think that's, that's a little, that's my one, like, kind of like if I were coaching him up, I'd really instill at him. It's like, chill out. And that could be, again, it might be circumstantial, but also might just be him. You know, that might be just his clock. So those are some of the things that was kind of just maybe a little concerning. I think of those some of those interceptions, like I said before, it was.

I'm saying eff it and trying to squeeze it in, understanding that his team sucks. I know this is the pessimist side, but the optimist side for me real quick, too, is his how unflappable he is, unflappable or inflappable? Unflappable, I think. Unflappable, thank you. Unflappable he is. Some people might say that's aloof, but then seeing how, I think he's psycho competitive, I saw this guy getting a fight at a YMCA basketball game.

And he's also handling these press conferences better than his head coach is supposed to be. So that's where I was like, I'm combining those two and going, this guy, gets it as far as mentality. So I know that's optimistic side, but I know we're supposed to be on the negative side, but I have to throw that in there too. It's important to mention. It absolutely is. Just quick thing. I wanted to look up the numbers on it. Yeah. So Brandon Linder only played nine games last year. So they had a backup center in there for half of the season. Tyler ended up playing a decent amount for them. Ben Barch had

played a ton of guard because AJ Can only played four games last year. By the end of this season, Cam Robinson wasn't playing. So Walker Litter was playing. near the end of the year and there was some pressure off that left side. I mean, by the end of the season, this was the offensive line coming into the year for the Jags, we looked at it. They brought back five stars and it's like, all right, you can survive with that. Like, that's fine. But that was with all those guys were around. Healthy.

And then those guys started dropping and the situation changed a little bit. So I think it's easy to remember coming into the season, the offensive line wasn't an abject problem, as it might be for some other teams in this position. but that group did not look the same by the end of the year that it did at the beginning. Yeah, it was it was leaky. Leaky is the word I'm going to use for it. Very leaky, especially up the middle. And that stinks as a quarterback having to sidestep every single snap. And hopefully that improves this year because they have used resources to shore some of that stuff up.

Brandon Shurf is there now. They drafted Luke Fortner in the third round. I assume he will have a chance to start at center immediately for them. Linda only played half the season last year. you know if Fortner's a rookie, they can get 17 games of just decent level center play. I think that would be good for them. And then we know about the Christian Kirk edition and everything else going on here. The one, you mentioned the two quick example.

And there was a play against the Colts who was down near the goal line. They ran a little whip to Levisquistich, Chal. And he was open. And he came off of it instantly and tried to go to the corner to Marvin Jones. And you see that a little bit too often enough where it's like, eh, just stick out at a little. bit longer, my man. But when you're not, when you're not comfortable or confident in the play design, in your protection, in anything, it's really hard to sit there and play the position and check all the boxes all of the time. And I think that you saw that with him. Yeah. And that's the thing. He's

going to go on it. And there's going to be another guy we talk about. I'll say that he's going to be the inverse of this is that it's better to have a guy. It's better to rein in a guy who wants to push the ball than to do the opposite. And we'll talk about other guys in this class that regards for both ways. But I would much rather have that quarterback trying shit than a guy going like, check down, check down, check down, check down, check down. Hey, please once hit the high of the high, low, low. Don't just keep it into the low, low, low.

But sometimes with Trevor, it's like, just take the low. Just take it. It's seven yards. You're going to be good. But again, it might be a comfort thing. So we'll see. And I think, I think just by default, it'll be a better situation as far as like just play calling as well because I can't get in the course.

And I want to talk about the outlook a little bit. Yeah. Elements of the type of offense we expect to see from Doug Peterson that you feel good about pairing with Trevor Lawrence, what aspects of that offense do you think will lend to him kind of taking a step forward this year just in the circumstances around him? I think they're a little more creativity as far as how they use their guys. I think what some of what the last staff was doing, it looked like very basic NFL concepts. Like I could tell you exactly what they're running on third down.

It's like a bunch of middle stops. I think Peterson has a little more creativity to his game. They're going to run way too much snag. I can already tell you with that, that with 100% certainty. What snag? Snag is a three-man concept. And so you'll outside guy, this is general. You can dress it up in different ways.

But you have an inside hitch, which is so an outside guy is sprinting to the inside, running a hitch at five yards. The inside guy is running a corner. And then the third guy, usually the running back or someone else is running a flat or a swing. So you're building a triangle. And it's a classic concept. Chris Peterson or Doug Peterson freaking loves it. And he's going to run it a million different ways. I've always been wondering if that's just a Nick Foles, Carson Wentz thing, or if that's actually what he prefers. But I don't know, he ran it a lot. So I'm curious if he still throws that in there.

But it's good. It's a good sound concept. I've seen Trevor Lawrence read it out because he ran it last year. So you'll see a lot of that. I think you'll see a lot more five-step concepts. So you're going to see a lot more of these not so much quick game. I know they did some RPO's actually pretty good RPO's because he's so quick. That's huge portion of what they did at Clemson. Yeah. Yes. Oh, my God.

Clemson offense. If we want to talk about bad offenses. But that's that was encouraging Trevor Lawrence. And some people who knocked it. They're like, well, he ran a simplistic offense. And it's like, yeah, but how he operated in it was awesome. Because he would just go boom, boom, boom. And handle protections.

And he would advance it as much as possible. So whatever Peterson throws at him, he's going to be able to handle. How I would look at what Trevor is like he can run. whatever you want to run with him. I actually think this is okay because it's going to be a lot more intermediate game, which is I think is where Trevor's going to live in. A lot of seam balls, a lot of digs, you know, like the basic digs, 12 to 15 yards, not the deep digs.

A lot more kind of like 10, a lot of that 10 to 15 yard range is where like Peterson likes to attack. It's kind of that traditional more West Coasty. And that's where he looked best throwing the football last year. I mean, those seam balls and throws over the middle of the fields. We talked about on the quarterback show a little bit, but worth bringing up again. There was a play that he ran.

against the Colts again. It was in the second quarter. It was play action from the gun, and they kind of reset the pocket to the right. So play action, roll a little bit to the right, and he had his eyes to the left, and he pulled everybody that way

and snapped back to a throw-up to see. We'll talk about that twitchiness. And it's that area, like, give me 10 to 20 yards right in the middle of the field where he can really let it rip. And that's where he looks best. So I would love to see them attack the intermediate areas of the field a little bit more as part of that offense.

Yeah, I think you're going to see a lot of benders, a lot of corners, which is great, which is, so I think there's going to be some nice synergy as what Peterson likes to run and what Trevor's good at. Trevor, I really think you can run anything with him. Like I, he, we talk about not having the deep balls. So you're like, okay, maybe not an Ariens offense, but actually, I think he would be fantastic in the Ariens offense. Because that's, that's the areas you attack, those 10 to 25 yard, or 15 to 25 yard areas. That's why it's so hard. That's everything we've talked about with Trevor Lawrence, the pocket movement, the understanding of the concept, throwing that over the middle 10 to 20 yards.

That's the hard shit for quarterbacks. That's the hard stuff. So he can hit threes. So we just need to hit layups. That's really what it is. It's making it easier. But that's why I'm so excited about him and think that the, I mean, the arrow I think is just hugely pointing up. All right.

Let's get to Zach Wilson here. Let's start with the good. What did you like when you went back and watched Jack Wilson from last season? Incredible arm talent and creation. ability. That was what people got excited about him coming out of BYU, and that's also we'll get to the negatives about it. But ability to create, throw on the run, he can,

when his feet are sound and he knows where he's going with it. And again, we'll talk about some negatives. It's, I mean, he's, that arm town's ridiculous. Driving the throws. The release is like how quickly he can get the ball out on throws over the middle of the field is, and even in a phone booth. It doesn't require a lot of space to do it. It's all torque.

He's all tort. It's got that little Roger. I'm not comparing him to Rogers, but that's that same thing, that tight torqueness to his throws. And it's, yeah, he's like, yeah, it just whips out of there. He loves throwing benders and glances. Glant to me is a short skinny post on the outside. And those routes, when you see him in rhythm and calm, it's, oh, my God.

It's like you see the talent that he has. And that's what I liked. The Bucks game was a great. That was his best game. There's so many examples of that in that game, by the way. Arches where you have an in-breaker and then one behind it. He hit one for a touchdown or inside the five-yard line. Inside the five-yard line.

Yeah. It was right inside the five-yard line. And he reads that out very well. And when he's attacking that area of the field, it can look really good. I watched that whole game this morning. And I was very impressed. I was like, this looks great. Not the splashy plays like in the Titans game, but just the process of playing the position.

Yes. So one thing after watching that game, and then I watched that game, I watched the Saints game and one other game. Oh, it's rough. It's bad. It's really bad. So when I went back and I watched, I was curious about this. I was like, all right.

I wonder what his numbers are against man coverage and against zone coverage. Okay? So it's bad against man. He was comfortably, comfortably dead last in the NFL and EPA per dropback against man coverage. He took 25 sacks against man coverage last year. no one else in the league took more than 18. He took the most sacks on the 18th most man coverage dropbacks. And man is supposed to be a great scramble opportunity too.

That's actually, that's a little scary. 16.8% sack rate against man coverage last season. And I think some of that is receiving talent. Receivers, yeah. The guys are not getting open. You watch it. I mean, especially near the end of the year where Elijah Moore was hurt. I try to ignore those games because it's like, you don't want to dog this guy.

It's key. Cole and it's some guy named Smith number 16. I don't even know who that is. I mean, it's pretty brutal. And the tight ends are wearing numbers that's like, I don't want to deal with this. And you saw that. And I would have to assume that with better receiver play this year,

when you can line up Garrett Wilson and Elijah Moore from the beginning of the season, also just jump ball opportunities in 50-50 balls. There were a couple throws he had to Cole and other guys where it's like, go make a play. Go make a play. And that's what Garrett Wilson does really well. So that's what I would hope in some of those tight-covered situations is a little bit better. So the man stuff is brutal.

It's really, really bad. Against zone coverage, his numbers are much better. So against the bucks, there was a lot of cover three. And he's attacking it. He was 15th in the NFL in EPA per drive-back against cover three last year. Smallish sample size. You know, it's like 100-ish dropbacks, whatever. It's only one year.

Not enough. I don't want to make these huge decorations about it. But watching it, I was like, he clearly is much more comfortable reading out zone coverage than he is playing against man when the guys are playing sticky sticky man and the Saints game there was a decent amount of that and the numbers do bear that out where he actually was better last year

against static zones than he was when teams were playing man against him and the blitzing was also pretty rough and we can get into that a little bit later but oh yeah he that bucks game is that's what I was thinking about I was like against zone he looks like he he looks pretty comfortable and like when he can read that stuff out it's looks good when he's playing

on time and and the game is not being sped up for him. And the routes that he likes to throw on time, it makes sense against zone. When I said, the glances and the benders against zone, that's easy because you're throwing to a pocket, you're throwing to, or a space, open space. If you play soccer or basketball, you're passing to the space, you're not passing to where the guy is, you're passing to where they will be. And that's where it shows up.

So that makes a ton of sense. And even he would throw, like they would run drive, drive as a crosser with a basic dig, basic 12 to 15 yards behind it. And he could actually read those out pretty well. because it's all in front of them and he could throw it to a spot. He could throw it to that spot and anticipate that, which is good. Again, that is good because guess what? What do we see a lot more in the NFL now?

What coverage is? I mean, it's just what he's going to face, like he's going to face kind of some versions of robber and some version of quarters, you know, of those types of defenses. So, you know, it's good that he has, at least has answers to one of them. Yeah, they ran dagger against the cover three look against the box. It was the same kind of idea, right? It's coming right behind it. And it was beautiful.

It was beautiful. Yep, and it's just like, oh, that looks great. Like, that looks exactly how you want it to look. But those are fewer and further between that you might like, especially against teams that are going to. Especially if you just take out the box game, you watch any other game. It's a lot more, it's a lot more inconsistencies than in that one. Let's get to that. All right.

After you went back and you watched him, what worries you? Because the numbers are, I mean, you look at it. He was dead last in the NFL in a lot of categories, okay? He was dead last in EPA per play per dropback, comfortably, right? The difference between him and Darnold at number 30 is the same as the difference between Darnold and number 24 and Daniel Jones. I mean, it's a pretty big gap. And then the other one, completion percentage over expectation, negative 10.3, which was by far the worst mark in the entire league. The difference between him and number two there is the same as the difference between him and number two guy and the number nine guy.

Okay. And so that's the problem is there, it's not. like we'll talk about Justin Fields in a little bit. Justin Fields is like the degree of difficulty is off the charts with everything he's trying to do all of the time and that's part of the problem. Yes. With Wilson, it wasn't that way and it still looked hard for him. And that's the concern is that there were some layups.

Going back and watching, I was actually kind of encouraged by what the Jets offense looked like structurally with no talents. Same. It's a fun offense to watch. They're doing some good stuff. The running game is actually like kind of well designed. And I mean, they're giving the ball to some guy named Walter and, like, a bunch of other people. It's like, plug Breece Hall in there.

We can huff and puff about value all we want, but I actually think it's going to look pretty good. Breece Hall and Michael Carter, it's sick. Like, Michael Carter is good. It's just that he's small and that he's going to get hurt all the time. But Bruce Hall and Michael Carter is going to be a sick one-two punch because that, what they were, all the gadget stuff. They ran like five gadget plays a game. And all of them had to. They had to.

Especially down in the red zone, I think it's a little bit worrying. that they felt like they had to lean on the gimmicky bullshit as much as they did. I was like, I was wondering if we get into this. Yeah. I was like, I don't know about this.

Like, it feels like we're running a lot of weird plays inside the 10. That's fine. Let the QB figure it out. I know. With the Bucks game was his best example of it because if you watch other games, he, you can tell that you get your core concepts in training camp and you install,

install one through five, blah, then we put reds on plays in. And then game plays in. And then game plays. the game plan, it's going to change. You can tell which plays Wilson has repped and which plays are new to him. Because there are plays that he is coast to coast looking at those eyes.

There's a difference between checking the safety. The rule of thumb usually is you check the backside safety because where they rotate is going to tell you where they go. Defense smart safeties know that and they toy with you. But that's just the base rule. So that is different than checking the safety and then go into the front side. with Wilson, it's these concepts. They'll run a quick game concept like spacing. Spacing's a bunch of hitches with a swing.

And he'll be left to right as soon as the snap of the ball because he's guessing. And there's other plays where that comes up. And it's all related. And he's a rookie quarterback. And they probably, it's Shannon had offenses can be very wordy. That's what before runs there. It's a very, it could be very wordy. It can be a lot, especially if you're diagramming and tagging all these guys as opposed to at

BYU, their offense was seriously like right. You know, right, six man, 62. Like, and that was it. Like, it's simple, simple, simple offense. So now he's getting into 20-word plays. And when his eyes are bad, his footwork gets, I wouldn't say lazy, but late. He can be very elongated with his footwork, which then makes him late on the throw, which makes him then feel like he has to spray a throw in or gun to throw in and then the ball goes anywhere.

And you have no idea where it's going. It's all connected. So I think really for him, it's mental. And that makes sense. He's a rookie. He's a rookie. He's thrown in there. He's getting, hey, you're the guy.

Good luck. And the situation is not perfect. So a lot of this stuff. And the situation was perfect so often in college. Yes. It was so clean. The protection was so good. We talked about this pre-draft where I'm watching whole games.

Whole games. He doesn't have to move. Yep. He doesn't have to navigate traffic for entire games within the pocket because their offensive line was so much better than the competition they were playing against. And that's just not the case. No. When you're playing with, I mean, by the time we got to the end of the season, it was not good.

Some of the guys he was playing with up front. So I think that's just important to remember is that the circumstances look so different than they did at BYU. But that was part of our concern coming into the draft. So it's not like the snuck up on us. That's what it was scaring me. Not scaring me. But I was trying to kind of like throw that over people last year was kind of going, he's a project. Like he is not like coming in and going to be like,

know what's going on. And that's what he looked like. He looked like a project. And you can see, that's why the Bucks game was so encouraging, because it wasn't the flash play and then three plays of shit. It was like a flash play. Okay. And a play where he found the checkdown. A play where he's throwing on time. And he hits number two. And it's the dagger concept like you brought up. Or I think right before that he hit a checkdown on the same drive. And it's like, that's good. That's quarterbacking. There's a difference between having an arm, being a thrower and being an athlete, than being a quarterback. And I think that's why that Bucks game was so encouraging.

But yeah, man. But having said that, it's there's a lot of fat. There's a lot of eyes that he has to work on and just trusting the play and not guessing. And I think that's, you know, that's just going to come with reps. He just needs those live bullet reps, more understanding the playbook. And that's what this whole spring's for. That's what this whole summer's for. So that's always, it's all connected.

But eyes, footwork and timing, he just really has to improve in and hone in. He has to trim a lot of fat to his game. He can get pretty laxadaisical with some stuff too. Hangs in there. Just spraying balls that are supposed to be checkdowns and he gets lazy with his footwork and the ball just goes. He just turns his feet. Yeah. It's all arm.

Yep. And just dirt's it. There was a couple examples of that. Talking about the time, loved this number when I was looking at it because it felt like even when the teams brought heat, which they did a lot against him. Because if he's playing fairly well against static zone coverages and doesn't play very well against man, why don't we crank it up even more? And I think teams did that. So he was at the sixth highest rate in the league last year is 29% of his dropbacks. On those plays, his time to throw when blitzed was 2.87 seconds.

Okay. No one else in the league was higher than 2.72. Okay. So he's hanging on to it even as guys are coming. And that speaks to a lot of balls to play like that. Yeah, I was going to say. But that is not how you want to do that. That's where your decision making needs to be sped up, not slowed down.

So the fact that he's really hanging on to it when teams are bringing extra heat, not good. And the results were very bad. He was the worst quarterback in the league on a per play basis when blitz last year. It was it. It was the old baptism by fire. But from just, you know, this is the NFL. They're going to hone in on what you're not good against. And they're just going to keep pounding away at it.

And for him, it's pressure and changing pictures. I think that's it's suicide to just run a static coverage against any quarterback. And just expect them to not make a mistake. make a mistake, you know, just betting on that. So I think with Wilson, yeah, that's what it is. That speaks to not having a plan. It's because when you get a typical five-step, seven-step pass concept or even a quick game, it is, hey, if they bring cover two, this is where your number one throw is. If they bring three, this is your throw.

If they're man, this is your throw. Sometimes you have multiple answers. Usually you always have an answer against pressure or a preferred answer against pressure. That says to me, even just looking at a stat, without even if you have to watch them, that he didn't have a plan sometimes. Was that the pressure came and he's gone, who comes open? Oh, there you are.

Okay, or, oh, I'm going to run around and hope someone comes open. So that's what it is. He just needs better plans on these plays. So Chuma Udoga is the guy I was talking about when, at the end of the year, when guys weren't playing like the upfront. It was, he played 41 snaps in the Bucks game. And he had to come in at left tackle. And there were just some plays where clearly he's just at the after the place.

He's like, I don't know what you expect me to do, man. And it's, that's kind of how it felt at times when, you know, Obviously, at that point, that's when Fanta's out. We know that Fanta didn't play last year. So I was trying to figure out, like, who's number 70 that looks like he just was out of his depth for a little bit? I got, I'm not trying to make fun of him. No, no. There were just some moments in that game where it's like, I, there's nothing I can do.

Like, there's just, there's nothing I can do. I should not be out here in the situation. What do you expect for me? That's so funny. I felt bad for him. I honestly did. So you hope that this year, okay, year two of the system, a system that I thought looked okay? It times last year.

So you have year two of that with that, with that offensive play caller. Same coaching staff, same play caller. You know this. And you talk to offensive play callers. I was talking to somebody the other day is a head coach who calls plays. And we were talking about individual players on his team. He's like, I know them so much better now. You know, as you move through the seasons and it's the ways that you can dial stuff up for people

because of your knowledge of their skill set, what they like, what they don't, just everything gets so much better in year two, especially. with that offense. Look at what happened, and I'm not comparing these two situations, even with really good players in Atlanta, really good players. The 2015 Falcons were middle-of-the-road offense. Average. That really, really slid in the second half of the season.

They let the world on fire the next year and year two. It takes a while with this offensive system to really get it down. Think about the Packers. You're one with Matt LaFleur and what your two ended up looking like. it changes even when the players are good. The just players weren't very good last year. Right. So now you have, go ahead.

Oh, no, I was going to say, it's just that they, we talk about you have a menu and they're just honing in what you like. Do you like chicken? Do you like steak? Do you like fish? Like that's what, that is the real life example of this. It's like they have a buffet and they're just honing in and going, oh, they like chicken with a little cilantro on it.

Like, you know, like they, they know now what to add in what makes it easier for your picture. But yeah, that's just, that's what happens with it, with, with, with, offenses. And so you have year two. And obviously we, I don't want to talk about this too much because it's just sad. But the fact that his quarterback coach passed away during training camp last year and just all of the volatility with that and not having a veteran presence in that room, it has to have an impact on you. As somebody that was as respected as Greg Gnapp was in his history of working with guys, I mean, I had to imagine it was a huge part of what their plan for him was going to be. And for that

to be thrown in disarray when it was. I mean, it's a huge roadblock to your own development. So you'd hope that year two, you know, their situation there, it's, you can mean on that a little bit more, just the staff in general because they know what it's going to look like going in. And then the players around him, I mean, you have another offseason where they have spent a ton of resources. If Bechton can play and be there their entire year, now Fant moves up to be your right tackle. And it's just the slotting changes. Having Lake and Tomlinson there now instead of Dan Feeney and those little tiny upgrades

that you make. We talked about Garrett Wilson. Yes. What Garrett Wilson can do in traffic, it was incredibly impressive for a man his size. I mean, it just doesn't really make sense all the time. It's one of the best parts of his game. He's a yak monster, just the things they can do with him, and then you get 16, 15 games from Elijah Moore. Corey Davis is still there even though he probably won't be there next year.

We talked about the tight ends. Breece Hall is there now. The players, they're not superstars. I don't know if any of them will be even Wilson in Year 1 as a top 10 pick, but there are useful players. players all over the place. Even if you lose a couple guys, there's still going to be useful players all over the place with the tight ends thrown in there too.

So the circumstances personnel-wise are significantly better than they were last season, especially near the end of the year. Yeah. And that's the thing is when you have better talent in theory, your depth should be better because now it's like you can withstand. Say now they have three usable tight ends because they draft a record from Ohio State. And just, yeah, that helps. It's just going to help the offense out.

You don't have to live in a certain way if you have enough talent to get to. You can get, hey, this team is bad when they're a nickel or sub. So, okay, let's run a bunch of three wides. Hey, this team's bad. Uh, their base defense. Okay, let's get the tight ends on the field. They are going to make his life easier. And yeah, it's just the natural progression that a lot of these guys face.

Some guys take leaps. Some guys take steps. I think no matter what, he's going to take a step forward. And yeah, it's just honing in on what he's good at. And now they have the playmakers that can kind of like, whatever LaFleur wants to throw at them, it's like they can do it. And that's just going to help Zach Wilson,

that he's going to benefit from that. And the other side of this is that if the receiving talent gets better, you would hope that teams just aren't willing to live in man coverage against them. Yeah. The way that they were last year. And that's a simple thing. And they ran into this with Donald, too. Darnal was garbage against man coverage and play for the Jets.

I mean, the sack rates and everything else were right in line with what Zach Wilson did last year. I mean, it's surrounding talent, I think, plays a factor in that. that Elijah Moore wasn't a monster. He had 1.85 yards per route run against man coverage last year for the season. It's 44th in the league, but he played 11 games last year. You know, you get 15 out of that. And you get Garrett Wilson, just all of these different factors that I think will just contribute to him being in a much better position this time around. Yeah.

And it's nice when you get a guy like Garrett Wilson. And Elijah Moore is more like a creation of ball. He obviously is okay. He's fine. It's more of that. He's like a big receiver in the small man's body. but like Garrett Wilson can take one of those little underneath routes and take it to take it to the house on any snap. That's just going to help.

It makes your job easier when you just throw a little bubble or throw a little screen and all of sense of 70 or a touchdown. So that's going to help a lot. Instead of DeBrexton Berrios. Which of the Baxter Barrios. All the love necessary to Braxton Barrios. We actually did some decent stuff for them last year. There's a lot of plays for him. Exactly.

Some of these dialed up plays going to Garrett Wilson instead of Braxton Barrios. I think will be better for everybody. including Braxton Berrios. Yes. All right. Here we go. I'm scared to dig into this, but I think we have to. It's time.

All right. Let's talk about Justin Fields. Okay. Let's do it. What did you like as you went back and watched Justin Fields from last year? Big game, Hunter. It's everything I love in Cuba. It is both intoxicating and infuriating.

It really is. I mean, there's times when he's running and scramble. Like, I said this in the QB draft. He, it looks like a high. school or the best player in a high school field when they're just bigger and faster in everybody and he has that to him that san francisco touchdown oh he's faster in everybody and you forget that he's what six four two 30 you know he's like six three two 20 yeah okay okay he's still a big man he's not i'm going i'm going paul bunyan on him it's just exaggerate he'll be seven foot

300 by the end of this conversation but god but i hope he's seven foot 300 by the end of this season but that's all it matters to me he has a thing where he gets tackled and josh allen does this also going to be a negative too. It's like save yourself some hits, but he will get tackled and it's because he's so big and strong. He gets pulled down to his knees and it doesn't look like it looks awkward almost, but they get right off. There's so many of those slides look awkward.

Like it worries me. It's say like it doesn't matter. It worries me. No, it's scary. It's scary because Josh Allen does the same thing and I'm always like, ugh. Josh feels smoother to me in those situations though. And he's also like 20 pounds heavier. That's the thing.

227 at the combine. He's not a small man. But no, he's a big. 6.3, 227. And that's a big guy. It's a big man. We talked about this with other quarterbacks. You watch guys that want to move around and want to scramble.

Lamar Jackson, I know we got things up last year, does such a good job of avoiding the flush shots. Russell Wilson, for years, did such a good job of avoiding those flush shots. Just duck out of bounds. Just slide. it the awkwardness either when he's trying to go out of bounds or when he's taking on contact and when he tries to slide it genuinely concerns me oh yeah he he's the king of the trick shots like he'll even throw like a check down he'll jump and like thrown like no trying to do like a trick and it's like don't do that because that because you jump your hit hurts 10 times more and those

add up it's like that one might not do anything but several of them a game they just add up it's just like it's just physics it just is and that I mean, we're talking about the negatives right now, but I'll talk about the positives, right? It's that trick shot ability, every floor, or every floor, every throw that you could possibly imagine he can make. And that's, that is what's so amazing about him. What, what's so appealing about him? As far as taking the top off, throwing a deep ball. He has one against the Steelers.

And I call this one pylon or pylon corner. At Wisconsin, we called it Bucky's locker room because we had a little shop there in the corner. and that was the corner that you aim for. So we called a Bucky's locker room route. And you only run that route if you, because usually you run it. It's a 77 concept. Seven is a corner in on the route tree. So 77 is what, two corners.

One has to go high. One has to go low. They're running the deep old school version with him against the Steelers. And he actually throws the top one. You usually run that play to throw the short corner. And he, yep, to good one. That's an available throw. And he's putting, he puts a,

places it just perfectly right in there. And it's just, it's gorgeous. And on the next play, he can run. Quick game's not great for him. But he can throw a throw right over the middle and pin it in on a guy and put it on their chest and make those tight throws. Those are all available. And on top of it, he's such a good athlete.

He can create, he can flip his hips and throw on when he's going to the left. And it's just, it's very appealing because it's like everything's available. But I'll get to the negatives in a sec. But it's just that's the appeal of Justin Fields. that just that big game to him, just that every throw, those big throws, those big scrambles, it's every play he can create an explosive. His accuracy numbers are bad when you look at the aggregate total. I think he was 32nd in the league in percentage of uncatchable throws.

I think that's just dirt and balls and throwaways and just like even deeper balls were just like, I'm just chucking this shit out of balance. He's not open. It's whatever. I would rather have, it's not good, right? It's not, you don't want the dead last and catchable ball rate. But it's not like accuracy is a consistent problem. It's not like every throw is, that's a little bit behind him.

That's a little bit high. That's a little bit this. There are so many accurate throws. Like the percentage of really good throws is still very good, even if the total picture is, if you just look at a percentage, would tell you he's inaccurate. So that's why it's very important to go back and watch the throws. Yes. It's like a doctor, like they say with the doctors and health rates are like successful. surgery rates. It's like the ones that have the high ones are probably going to not take the more

difficult surgeries. I'm talking out of my ass right here. But it's, but the ones that take the more difficult surgeries will have a lower success rate. Same kind of line of thinking here. He, he goes for the difficult throws, sometimes to his detriment. And then yeah, the accuracy is going to, you know, have some negative effects on that. I have some numbers as they relate to the big game hunter stuff. Oh, okay. This shit is crazy. All right. Oh, he does. We talked about this in the quarterback show. He had the fourth high. big throw, big time throw rate in the NFL last year, according to PFF, which is, it's what you want. You know, he really, really does.

I mean, that is, if you're talking yourself into him, that's where you would start. It goes beyond that, though. Okay. Off play action last season. The number is 12.7. And it's, it is two stats. Off play action last season, the average 12.7 air yards per attempt. No one else in the league was above 11.3.

29.8% of his throws off play action last year when at least 28 yards in the air. Love it. No one else in the league cracks 20%. Amazing. Off play action, still 12.7. He had a big time throw rate of 12.7%. So 12% of his play action throws were big time type throws. It's the highest in the league by 3.2 percentage points.

There's a bigger gap between him and James Winston at number two than there is between James Winston and the number nine guy. Of course it's James, by the way. If you let him load up, it's almost like you shouldn't encourage him when they use play action. Because he's going to take those opportunities every single time. Okay. And it is cool to watch. Some of those throws, I posted the one to Jimmy Graham today up the seam against the Steelers where he just puts it on his ear.

And he takes a shot as he does it. and that that ability to place the ball in that sort of tight window with traffic around you, it's really impressive. I mean, the splash throws are wildly encouraging. And that's really fun. Yep. But we talked about,

and the scrambling and the athleticism and being able to make stuff happen on the move, that's a gift. It's a great runner already. It's so nice, okay? But talking about play action rates, okay? On play action passes last year. He took a sack. 16.7% of the time.

It felt like that, so I'm not shocked. It's, I mean, just by far the highest rate in the league. And they're all for like 10 yards too, like negative 12. And that's the problem. The bad plays are bad. And they are catastrophically bad. That's the word I use yesterday and that's the word I'll continue to use. He was 10th in the NFL in EPA per attempt off play action.

He was 22nd in EPA per drop back because of how much value they lost on sacks on those plays. Sounds about right. And that's the gap. That's the gap, right? It's when he, when it looks good, you can give him the chance and the ball gets off, it can be beautiful. But there are some bad, bad stuff in that other range of things, the other range of

outcomes that even if you want to be optimistic, it's hard to ignore that stuff a year in here. Yeah, he, some of the negatives I have with him is, well, first off, he's just got to speed everything up a hair. And I think he did get a little better. But he did, but it's still crazy. It's still just. Everything is a hair slope all the time.

Yes, I know, especially a quick game. That's why you saw it come up so much because quick game is not his thing. Like it's just, he can deliver the ball accurately, but it's like he just has a longer release. It's just that's that ties, it's all connected. That's why Trevor Lawrence is so impressive that he's able to do it so tall. But what Justin feels too is that he, I think he, I think he's pretty cerebral. I think they didn't have them do protection stuff too much. But I think I think he shows a decent understanding.

I think he's a little better. He's in between Zach Wilson and Trevor as far as I would say understanding. It's a good way to kind of compare to these guys. But sometimes he's gone, I'm going there hell or high water. And I do not give a shit what you do. I don't care if my receiver is three yards short on a route, which did happen a lot. But I don't care. I'm throwing it.

And I'm going to try and make this throw. Okay. I love, again, I'd rather have the QB think that way. But again, you have to kind of, you got to wean it out of them. It's there are times, yes, it's a third and nine of close game and fourth quarter. Yes, you have to do that. But sometimes it's Farmer Fran from Waterboy. It's, you know, you got to play another day.

Like you, you know, you got to do it. Like you just do. And that's what he kind of has like learned. It's not, you don't always have to do the trick shot. You don't always have to go for the throat. I love it. But sometimes you just got to live to the next series. You got to live to the next down.

It's second and 12. Don't take a sack and make it third and 22. Second and 12, throw it away. Dirt it. Get to the line of scrimmage. No, do the simple things. And he does it sometimes, but it's just got to be more consistent. He can hit the threes.

And I keep making these comparisons. He can easily hit the threes. He can make the most difficult hand in his face. He can make the ISO ball, you know, like, you know, 15 foot or 18 footer. sometimes, hey, just get to the line, you know, go, go drive to the line, get a free throw out of it. Like, he just has to get that part of this game into him just to make his life easier. They did not help him as much as I would like for a young quarterback to say the least. And not just with how, I mean, the structure of the offense isn't great.

It was like, there's nobody. That offense is so awful, especially after watching the Jets and what they were doing for Wilson. You watch what the Bears offense was. I know we we we we you talk about the Bears a ton and I I know I've knocked them too but it's brutal once you start reviewing all these teams again and taking a step away and looking back it's it's they did not make his life easy that is an antiquated offense that they ran sorry 18 screen passes last year 18 all right and you say oh well he didn't start that many games in six starts Mike Glennon and Trevor Simeon each through 22.

6.2% of his passes last year were screens. The only guys with fewer were Teddy Bridgewater and Lamar Jackson. It's not everything, but it's just a small example of like, just give the guy a layup. Yes. Make your life easy. Two more times a game. Make his life a little bit easier.

And play action is the same. With a quarterback who's clearly struggling. Okay. Just spam the easy buttons a little bit. Yes. Just spam them. And they didn't even do that, right? we just talked about it.

10th in the NFL and EPA per dropback on play on, on the paper attempt on play action. It was 26th of 38 quarterbacks in play action drop back rate last year. I was going to ask. Okay. And that's what seems like. And those are the easy. That's the easy button.

And that's the easy way to create explosives. Yes. And that's what was Zach Wilson's screen rate at? So Wilson was 13th in the NFL last year. 11% of his of his passes were screens compared to 6.3 for Justin Fields. Okay. Back Jones was a 10.2. You know, that was the 19th highest rate in the last rate.

league among 38 quarterbacks, but it's still considerably higher than what the Bears were doing for Justin Fields. So just, just help them out a little bit more, just a little bit more. And as we get to what the outlook might be for this year, Aaron Rogers last season, Aaron Rogers, okay, the best quarterback in the league, perhaps, like two-time reigning MVP. You know how many screen passes Aaron Rogers through last year? How many dropbacks? Oh, no. 89. 89 compared to 18 for Justin Fields. The only quarterback to throw a higher percentage of his passes as screens last season in the league was Kyler Murray. Ah. Because they.

So much sense. Because there's 17 wide receiver screens a game. Cardinals offense. Air raid, maybe. So that's, I'm really, really hoping that in this version, and I think the Packers in a vacuum, they would have run more play action if Aaron wanted to run more play action, right? Like, it's more RPO's and just like the version of their offense. The greatest hits offense.

It's built around what he does. I would love to see them. We talk about this a little bit yesterday. I didn't want to dig too far into it. Let's spam the easy button when you don't have a lot of help. We have protection concerns, receiving talent concerns. You're one in the offense. Just insulate your guy here.

Let's run 35% of our dropbacks as play action. Let's run five screens a game. You know, that's a lot. That's a huge number. But not for the Packers. They ran 90 of them and it's 17 games. So just span the easy shit for him as they get through this year. Taylor his decision making.

Don't allow him to sit there and pat the ball and try to hunt things. This is what's available to you if it's not their run. And just that's what I want. I just want them to try to insulate him as much as possible with how the offense is structured this year. Just get to the finish line. Let's turn down the percentage of catastrophic plays. Let's keep the splash pays about where they are. And that is a fine, successful 2020 season to me.

Yes. And that's what I wrote down is hopefully more PA and play action. You know, let him show off his arm strength and accuracy and then keep it simple. Because play action typically is one to two to check down. That's what it is or one to two to scramble because guys are down the field more. And that's, again, to knock what they were doing last year, because I'm never going to miss an opportunity to do this, is that that was Nagy's thinking and that offensive staff's thinking. and it's antiquated thinking because they had a poor offense line and not great receivers, how they thought it was helping was going quick game and get the ball out.

And we talked about this during the season. They thought that's old thinking. Defensees now know that. So they're like, okay. They want you to do. They want you to do that. And that I get it. I understand that, but that's 10 years ago in that, hey, we're on quick game, get the ball out,

save some hits on the QB. Remember the Browns game? I don't actually. I'm sure you're trying to, you know, like that from your memory. but that is like what they were trying to do and that's wrong now. Yes, you sprinkle a couple in, but sprint outs, it's naked. That's what helps you out is moving the pocket, play action because you're getting more protectors in there.

And that is what, you know, hopefully that they lean into more this year. Even just like last little stat here, if you're running, I got this from next gen stats is when you're running a three step, five step, seven step concept, seven step is play action because that's just what the footwork is. seven step yards per carry when you're scrambling is 8.5 yards. If it's three step quick game, it's 5.4 yards. So right there, just three yards, just because the defense is pushing. Now, if you look at the explosive play rate, three-step concept, if you're scrambling,

it's a 15% scramble rate or explosive play rate when you're scrambling. If you run seven-step, it's 34% scramble rate or explosive play rate when you're- get them on the move. Get them on a move. 37% first down-scramble rate and seven-step, 32% on quick game. So it's just get the guys down the field. So it opens everything else up for your offense. And I think that's what they have to lean into this year.

I don't need them to run some highly sophisticated, like you're reading all this stuff out type of offense this year with the talent that they have. It should look like the training wheels on. It should look like the 2009 saints when we talked about the old Sean Payton offense. Just a ton of play action. That's what it should look like. I want the training wheels to be the size of like Mack truck tires. That's completely fine with me based on the talent around him.

what it looked like last year, everything. That's fine. Okay. Let's get to Mac Jones. Okay. Yeah. What did you like when you went back and watched Mac Jones from last year? Just a ball plopping machine.

Like that guy is crazy, honestly. It's like it's all levels of the field too. Deep balls are beautiful. Like the corner routes he throws. It's rare. Crossing routes. It's, it's kind of crazy. It's how everything is right where you want it to be.

I hate using this word, but it's rare. Like it. rewatching him and seeing what he does. Like his ball placement is outstanding. It really is. It's just accuracy, timing. It's just fun. He understands what he is,

better for worse, but he just knows that. And so he knows he has to go one, boom, boom, boom, boom. And he can do it as a rookie already. And that's pretty cool to see a quarterback operate that way. But yeah, accuracy, timing. That's the Mac Jones experience because that's how he wins and it's really,

really fun. just about his processing. What jumps out to you? What sort of concepts did they lean on? What do you think he did well? Just walk me through to some of the mental stuff you saw him do outside of the ball placement that you really liked. So they liked, they were in play action. They were very heavy personnel.

And that's why I'm curious to see what happens this next year. But very heavy personnel. They made it easy for him. They did everything you should do for a rookie quarterback. They made it real nice and easy. You only have to throw a ball 20-something times or three times if you're playing the bills in zero-degree weather. I would say on third down, when you actually got to see him operate as a quarterback, they really like to run low mirrored concepts or not mirror concepts.

A lot of concepts were the slot guys, either a tight end and a slot guy or run an outbreakers and then you have something coming behind it. So it would either be an outbreak or the inside guy, almost like a deep stick and then running a dig behind it or a vertical behind it and letting him just operate on the half field. And it's not because I think he's, I don't think they're trying to make him dumb or anything or dumb it down for him. I think what they were doing is make all these concepts

split field reads. So, hey, if it's too high, if it's single high, if it's pressure, he knew exactly where to go with the ball. And that's where I kind of saw a lot of. He really knew

where they anticipate, if a team brought a pressure on him, where to find that hole. Because if you're, when someone's trying to gash you, there's an area that can be gashed. You just have to find it. And I thought that's what he did really well.

It was he would throw these a lot of Hunter Henry, like 70-yard little out-routs. or Kendrick Bourne, another shoutout, a little 7-yard out route. I think that's what he did really well. And that's what they kind of leaned into on passing downs. A lot of stuff that comes into his face. So if he had to go cross field, it was single high.

We have a seam and a stop route. And then if it's too high, I'm going to run the, I'm going to run drive with a crosser and a dig. So I think that's what they did. There's a lot of single high, two high reads for him. So he was blitzed at the second highest rate in the league last year. The only quarterback blitzed more last year was Lamar Jackson. some of the numbers associated with Lamar just I don't want to go on a tangent but pretty interesting so he was horrendous last season when you look at like EPA per dropback when they played man and blitzed what weren't teams doing for the first several years of Lamar Jackson's career because they were afraid of getting gas they weren't playing manner blitzing yeah and so it seems teams like figured out last year we can do this and they don't have an answer yeah if the dolphins game is a perfect example yeah we can do this and they don't have an answer so team kept doing it and they didn't have an answer.

Well, they gamed their protection and not just the dolphins, other teams, the Bengals did it to them too. It was at Baltimore. I still remember this. And they would just get them because the Ravens kept going empty and getting very spready last year with their spread formations. And they would just line up the guys on the line scrimmage because if you're an empty or in five-man protection, you have five offense alignment.

So they would just game the protection. So they got a free runner every single time. And I think we joked about it. It's like, this was like the option offense. It was like either, you know, it was. It was that was what Lamar was doing. He was reading the end guy, except it was a pass instead of pitching the option pitch. That's what every play turned into.

So it was I get it. They was just like, hey, what's this game? We know what they're doing on this protection. And of course, Greg Roman had no adjustment for it in the passing game. That's not a strong suit. So his number is against the blitz, even if getting blitz that often, we're fine. Middle of the road stuff, you know, like the guy missed right in the middle of the pack. One number that jumped out to me, I think is cause for opt.

as it relates to what Mac Jones's ceiling could potentially be. You know, he had the fifth highest average depth of target in the league when Blitz last season? He knows where to go with it. He and he did a much better job than I thought or would have thought before I went back and watched it of extending plays outside the pocket. Ducking out, getting outside of the pocket. And if, so we talked about this with Burrow yesterday. We were talking about, all right, how does Burrow find his explosives even if he doesn't have this wild arm? And that's how Burrough does it.

His Burroughs ability to navigate the pocket and to extend in subtler ways is more impressive than Mac Jones is. And bounce off tacklers. Yeah. It's a little bit different. Yeah. But I do. Mac Jones was much better than I thought before I went back and watched about finding that space and about pushing the ball down the field when teams bring extra pressure. And if teams are going to look at him and say he's a statue, let's bring other guys, can this be a way where they can find some big plays in the passing game in year two?

And that's, that's what I would, if I were a Patriots fan and I was trying to really talk myself into Mac Jones eventually being a top five, top 10 quarterback, making a burrow-esque leap, that is the area I would go to first. Like, how are we going to find our explosives? He has that mindset when teams pressure him. And I think that's almost a necessity if we're looking at what the next stage of this could be if things go well. Yep. I, and I literally, my verbatim, what I wrote was like, a little better as a. runner when things break down than I expected. And that is, I completely agree.

He actually scrambled for first downs. And that's, that is, was one of my big knocks on them is that, oh, I don't see that operational on an athlete in him. How is he going to create? Well, he already flashed it. That's cool. That's really cool to see. He's so competitive too.

And I think I talked about this last year was, I remember Josh McDaniels had a chill calm him down, which is like crazy to think about because Josh McDaniels is so hard on this quarterbacks and the fact that he was going, hey, Mack, are you? chill out, man. You don't have to yell at me. Like, that was cool. Like, that stuff's cool. That stuff is like palatable, like even just watching as a neutral fan. But yeah, no, I agree. That ability to create and that aggressiveness, it's that controlled aggression. And that's what you want with your quarterback. And that's what Barroso good at is that he understands it. Like I said, when team blitzes you, you have an answer against every coverage.

When a team blitzes you, you hopefully your answer is to gash him to get him out of it. And the fact that he can find that, even with maybe not the speediest offensive guys that year, hopefully with a little more speed around them now, that those plays become even more explosive for them. What worries you? Because I think there's a lot to like. My concern is that there's a lot to like and there'll be the same things to like for a long time.

Is Mack Jones 96% of what Mack Jones is going to be? And what constraints did that create for the Patriots offense late in the season? And are those constraints going to be what we see moving forward? or can things grow from here? That's where I'm kind of sitting with this. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about the, we were talking about Zach Wilson. They ran all those gadget plays.

And we're like, okay, is that, like, what is that an indictment on him? There's a reason they only threw the ball three times in that Buffalo Bills game. And that, that is just because. Even the second Bills game, they're running the ball on like third and seven. It's not just that one game.

I know. And that's, that it's, you got to take these signs. That's why you're, they are around these guys, lot more. So that's why you're trying to like piece together. It's like a little detective work on it. But some of those balls do loop in there. I just watched him against the jacks. He's throwing a stop

route. It's perfectly on time. And the corner couldn't even tell you his name because he's not worth knowing was trying to drive on it. And he like almost got there even though he drove on the ball late because the ball just looped in there. And that is your concern is that he doesn't have that. Everything has to be on time because he doesn't. His room for error is so small. And that's always like you say, is this 96% of them? It might be. And I still think that's an above average to good quarterback. It's just that, yeah, he's not that room for error. Everything has to be operated perfectly. And now we don't know who the offense coordinator is. What does the offensive scheme wacky and not sound? And he doesn't have the answers that maybe Josh McDaniels gave him at times

for better for worse. So also just the size is a little meh. We talked about, you know, he looks tiny out there. He like he looks, he's a small. small we built guy as far as frame. And sometimes when, you know, getting pulled down in the pocket and everything, so that's always going to be a knock on him. You know, that's just the opposite. Bringing up Burrow again, his burrow was so big and he could bounce off guys. Sometimes you wish he wouldn't take the hits.

But I think that's always just going to be the concerns in the back of your head. It's just that room for error is always going to be small for him. But on the flip side, the glass hat full is, well, this, you know, MF is on time every single place. So who cares? He's going to maximize whatever it's called. who cares. So that's, you know, the Evan flow of that. I think it's easy again to say, like, all right, can he take the Burrow leap?

What would that look like? If I, I think that's the pathway to him being a top five, top 10 quarterback is similar to whatever the pie chart of what makes Joe Burrow great. That's what you would hope that the pie chart ends up looking like for Mack Jones. Right. There are a few different things, though. He is not as elusive as Joe Burrow is. Right. Even if the play extension is there a little bit more than I thought it was going to be.

it's not to that borough low. And if it is 65% of that, is that good enough eventually to be the type of, I can solve this problem in a way that devastates you quarterback. Because that's what we talk about. It's the get you a bucket thing or this, it's the, what can you do to solve a problem that the defense presents to you in a way that can create an explosive play for you, not just get you out of a bad one. All the best quarterbacks in the league can do that.

And Joe Burrough is involved in that. Those traits that he has, even if there are echoes of what Burrow has, are they pronounced enough to get to that level? I have my concerns. The other part of this is Joe Burrow has Jamar Chase and Joe Burrow has T. Higgins. They're a huge part of the Bengals' ability to play like that when pressured, when things broke down a little bit, it's having otherworldly talents at receiver. It's having the arguably the top pass catching, easily the best pass catching do like under 25 in the NFL.

Yeah. The Patriots don't have that. So that's part of my worry here is that we look at, all right, it's year two. You had all this money theoretically with a rookie quarterback contract. Spent a lot of it in year one. Didn't have a lot more now. Didn't have a top five pick. Eventually traded out of the first round and picked a guard.

And then you drafted a very fast receiver, but it's not like a guy you can construe as your number one receiver. So now we're looking at this and it's like, all right, it's the same as last year's team with the worst offensive line. probably with Taekwon Thornton now dropped in there Devante Parker dropped in there so the receivers are going to be better I mean there were some one-on-one to kill Harry plays it's just like holy shit I just stiff hey he became a hell of a picksetter on like just pitting D-Ns on those run plays though so if you're choosing the optimistic view I think it's looking at there was a play against Buffalo the first Buffalo game second Buffalo game

where Mac Jones correctly sees his one-on-one one matchup, tries to throw like a little contested back shoulder ball to Nick O'Harrie. He was open. You got to go make that play in that situation. And the ball bounces off his hands and it's like, whatever. Devante Parker is not the best receiver in the league. That's why Devante Parker is now there. It's to go make that exact play when lined up as that lone X receiver.

So you inject a player that can win a few more of those contested balls on the outside and you drop some speed into it. Is that enough to take this thing to the next level if Mack Jones is already most of what he is going to be. Yeah. And that to me is the most important question. And I don't know if the answer is yes. I agree.

Yeah. And that's that's no, I have not too much to add because I completely agree. The offensive line helped him out so much. There is, I mean, just watch him against the Jags. I know the Jacks are one terrible last year, but he's just chilling in the pocket. He's just hanging. He looked like Zach Wilson at BYU, just hanging out. He also helps his offensive line, though, because,

He did move a little better than I thought he was going to. He is in the exact same spot on every single drop back. Every time. He never, it's funny, ever drifts. It's a good thing. That helps your offensive line.

Yes. He never, ever drifts left or right. It's wild to watch. His feet are, he is like calm almost awake where it's scary, like, because he's just like,

just every, I know we can see this right now, but he's just kind of hanging flat footy. He's just like, okay, all right, ball. And he gets the ball out super quick. Yeah.

Isn't it funny too watching him? Like, he kind of like fades away as he throws. like he's kind of like he feels like he's on it looks like he's on a heat check he's like yeah like you know listen throwing dice at the table he's the greatest quarterback of all time and I really respect him for it I like it it looks like he's throwing dice at the table it's funny but but no talk about the bangles too it's that and this is why there's more pressure I think on Zach Taylor just not just to repeat what they did but also they just have to inject a little bit

more in that offense as far as scheme wise I think because that's what how you can get away with running more of a simplistic scheme of really freaking good players. And that's why you can run 989. 99 is literally the easiest play you can run. It's two go balls and a middle go ball, basically, inside post. Why you can run that five, six times a game is because you got guys that can win 50-50 balls every single time. So that helps. That really helps.

But on the flip side, looking at with the Patriots, and that's my big thing with him with a less dominant line, more speed on the field, does he use the speed? and I think he has that in him because watching him at Alabama with the plethora receivers that he played with, they ran a lot of down-the-field RPO's, but he was fine throwing it to Waddle. I mean, he was fine pushing it to, you know, Judy. Like he was fine, get that ball out. And that's why he played against Michigan when Tua got hurt in the bowl game. I think it was his first or second start. First play or first drive, throws a freaking post.

He's willing to throw it. But I want to see it now. His arm strength isn't great, but he throws a nice deep ball. And it's on target. It gets out in time. So he gives himself room to work with. And that's what he maximizes what he's given. So I'm curious to see with a little different type of talent around him, how he does that this year.

So having just that like alert, like over the top speed obviously is helpful with a guy like Thornton. What else? Just structurally, what do you think adding that speed element could do for everything else? We talk about speed as an ingredient. What other areas do you think that their offense can take a step forward just by him being on the field? And like run fast in a straight line. Taekwan. Yeah.

No, seriously. And that, that's where, when people say take the top off the defense, we think of all the moon balls. But really, it's just taking the top off. So the safeties have to respect it. And now the safeties can't drive. And that's where you open up the intermediate. It's just you're threatening down the field.

And now defenses can't constrain down the, or down on the run game and on intermediate short throws. Randy Moss is like the best gravity that he would bring was, yes, he'd be a glorified decoy sometimes. But teams had to run cover two against my dad's Vikings all the time. And you know what's great to wait to do against cover two? Run the freaking ball. So it's that really, that's tied in together.

You look at all the Vikings DVOA rushing stats from those times. They're top five every single year. Didn't matter who was running. Ontario Smith, Mueldey Moore. That's what it opens up is because now the safeties can't fill the run. And as we know, what defenses are doing nowadays, that's how you have to beat it. You have to beat them over the top or running the ball. And that's why I think a lot of offenses are going to lean.

that way. So I think getting speed on the field for Mack Jones and that he's willing to throw it will make him respect it. So now you can hit Kendrick Born on an over. You can hit Hunter Henry on a sitting over the middle of 15 yards. You can hit deep digs now because now all that intermediate stuff's opened up. Yeah, I was talking to somebody in a front office recently about this, but just that idea of speed is an ingredient. Like where can you get it? And we're discussing like, all right, what is the threshold you need to pass as a player to be the speed guy in an offense? And And Landonov is kind of, does the defense think the ball will go his way? Yes.

Do they think that the ball will have? It's almost like a shooter, right? Yeah. If you're a shooter in basketball, you can stand outside the three point line. If no one thinks you're going to shoot the ball or you're a threat to make one, no one's going to give a shit. You can put a fast guy out there. If they're not willing to activate that guy, it doesn't matter. So by virtue of how good of a player he is or by virtue of the quarterback willing to throw that ball,

that's how it starts to matter. And it feels like Thornton is a little bit more than a speed threat and Mac Jones is willing to throw that ball. And I think that ultimately becomes important when you think about, all right, how does the offense look different this year with the players they now have? And that's why guys like an MVES. That's why I compared to the 3 and D guys because they take the top ball and then the D part is that they block. And that's what you want of these guys. Tyco on Thornton's about a buck 77. So, you know, I don't think the D portion is going to be there.

But yeah, I think that's what he's going to be. He's that corner shooter and you give him those five threes a game and you got to respect it. And that's in theory, that's what you want to do with those guys. Yeah, the Patriots have been looking at DVOA numbers when Randy Moss is in the team. They're second DVOA rushing in 2007. Yeah. Who's the running back on that team? Lawrence Moroni.

I mean, it. Shout out. Lawrence Maroni. It doesn't really matter. It all ties them together. And that's what, I mean, you know, we're not talking about, but that's what I think what the chiefs realized. They're like, okay, what's, we talked about a little bit on the quarterback show. but now it's, hey, let's take the top off or it's run the ball.

And that's how you're going to attack these defenses now. They want to come, they want to play top down and tackle you. So that's how you beat it. All right. We're going to run through these next guys a little quicker. I mean, Davis Mills, when you went back and watched Davis Mills, what did you like about it? Another good understanding of what's being run. He's got a really nice polished mechanics and polished footwork and all that.

I'd say solid arm strength. I would say solid. I wouldn't say good, great, but solid. He can make the throw. So he can do what he has to do. More accurate than I thought he was going to be. He puts it where he wants to. It doesn't know wow yet, but it's like, all right, that ball is, that's where you want to put that ball.

He has a pro level arm and pro level accuracy. Like everything about his pro size. Like, I get it. Like I, that's what, when I graded him, that's what I was like he looks like a NFL quarterback. Like. And if you could, if that guy's built in the third round and you don't have a team, might as well. Why not? Like, I know.

I mean, this is, we talk about what the Falcons might be doing. You know, if they works out with Ritter. If not, let's reset it. same what the Texas did with their throwdown. Now they have Pep Hamilton with him, and Pep Pep Hamilton is going to maximize whatever quarterback he has. So I'm actually curious to see that pairing a little bit. But yeah, I think that's what I liked about.

He really understands what's being run. And to see that a rookie quarterback, every snap and understanding coverage is and everything, it's him and Zach Wilson could be any more opposite. I think just says what they can do, like the ceiling of it, but how they understand what they are. And that's kind of how I can compare Davis Mills there. Do you think he could be a long-term starter in the league? Do you think this could work out for the Texas? Do you think it's more than like pie in the sky dream?

It's a little pie in the sky. But I think there's more glimpses than I was expecting. More, I was like, okay, that was real. He had an inside fade against the 49ers. That was beautiful and doing it on time. And I was like, okay, that's very real. I'd say the negative with him sometimes is that he's a bit of a checkdown Charlie. And that he is, trust me, I was a checkdown Charlie as a player.

So I lived in this world. is that sometimes you wish him, hey, you're on a crap team. I get it. You're a rookie starter, but you know, squeeze it in there. You can hit the high on the high, low. Like, he would go to the low a little too much for my liking. So I would think this next year, I want to see him drive the ball and take more chances. And they're annoying under the starter this year.

So I think he should have the confidence to be able to do that. So put it this way. Going into the year, I would have put it at 1% that I see this guy as like, okay, yeah, I can see this guy being a good starter. Now it's a little more than that. Now it's, you know, 10 to 20 percent. I'm just making up numbers. But a lot more, I see more glimpses.

I see the argument for it. Even if I don't, there's still some stuff maybe not there for me yet. Ugly offense. Ugly offense. Public players. So I was curious about just how bad of a position he was in on second down consistently. Oh, man. Because you go back and watch and it seemed like so often.

It's second and 11, second and 12. Every first down, it's like, yeah. So, okay. You got numbers for this? On first down last season, the Houston Texans had a rushing success rate of 16.7%. You're kidding. No one else in the league was below 25.

Yeah, I was going to say like 30 is bad. 42 of their 205 first down runs went for negative yardage or no game. It's one out of five. They get, oh my God. More than half, 108 of those 205 runs gained two yards or less. More than half. Okay, this is my favorite one. Their first down runs gained a first down 4.4% of the time.

So just think about that, okay? If they ran the ball 100 times on first down, they gained 10 yards four of those hundred times. That's remarkable. Only one other team in the league was below 10%. That's remarkable, actually. It's truly hard to be that bad running the ball. It's hard.

It is. It is. And so you would hope, right? The drafts Kenyon Green. They bring in a couple guys. They draft the running back. It's, is their offense just a little bit better in terms of the help this season? You know, I think Nico Collins has some flashes last year. Brandon Cooks is there.

is the offensive line. They signed AJ Cannon and free agency. Laramie Tunsell was hurt by the end of the season. So just so many places incrementally along the offensive line, you'll hopefully get better. They drafted John Metjee in the second round, even if he has a lower ceiling, probably is going to be a useful NFL player in the very least.

So it just seems like, I mean, they signed Marlon Mack in free agency, and then they also drafted Damien Pierce. This team has acquired three running backs every single off season. over the last like five years it seems like but so you'd hope that the help is a little bit better and that they're just not staring down the barrel every single second down because it seemed like that was pretty much every single drive last year that's funny that's what i test felt like that i felt like a lot of second and 12s a lot of the second and 10 second of 12s and i really do i think

pet hamilton's one of the better minds in this league especially what makes you say that oh man well just look at history not just with just with jesson herbert quarterback coach but also you know working with Andrew Luck and everything, but just being around him. I've seen Hamilton work and operate. I think he understands one of his best understandings or best things that he brings is he knows how to trim the fat of what the quarterback's good at. When he was in the XFL too with the Washington defenders, I think his quarterback was Cardale Jones.

And that offense looked completely different than an Andrew Luck offense that he ran at Stanford over the Colts or what he now, what he ran in San Diego. I know Anthony Lynn was called more or less, that was his offense. It's kind of a smorgas board. But I think he's really good at honing in what the quarterback's good at. And I think he expects a lot of his quarterbacks. He expects you to be smart.

But he knows how to teach it. And not a lot of quarterback coaches, I think, not a lot. I should say not a lot. Some of the bad ones I've been around, they kind of like throw it at you. And they're like, okay, but they don't understand themselves. So they're like, yeah, he figured it out. But I'm talking about protections. I'm talking about running the offense, throwing more onto their menu.

And I think PEP is so smart, such a smart guy that he has the entire menu. We talk about menus. We talked about the buffet. That whole thing's available to his brain. And he's very good at picking and choosing. This guy likes cherries and strawberries. Okay, let's put it on there. Like, I think that's what his greatest gift is, is honing in all that stuff, trimming fat.

And I think that's what he's good at. We've had a lot of food metaphors in the show today. I love it. I'm very, very hungry. I'm ready to go grab a meal after this. All right, very quickly. Yes. Give me two minutes on Trey Lance, the two Trey Lanski.

that we got. Oh, big arm and tough, legit good athlete. His motion and anticipation improved a little bit, but it's still, still has got a way to go. I think this would be a perfect example to narrow it down against the Texans. His second start, the Arizona game was actually a little better than I remember, but, you know, but still wasn't great. But the Texans game was actually like a legit start against the defense, is that he ran,

they ran double slants one time backed up and he just didn't feel comfortable throwing the outside slant for whatever reason. Didn't see it, whatever. It wasn't clean. Should have thrown it, though. But what he did was he created off it. He about he up and out of the pocket, throws it to Brandon Iuk. I rungs and scrambles for, or runs after the catch for 30 yards.

Cool. Okay. That's the creation part of them. Then the second time they were in the exact same concept the next quarter. I think the next drive. Exact same concept, double slants. He rips the outside slant. It was good.

But I could tell he was going there hell or high water because probably the coaches go, throw the freaking slant. Like they were like screaming it. I can tell because he did not look at anything on that play. He just looked right at it and threw it. And that's him in a nutshell. He creates. He's big.

He can bounce off a tackle. But you have no idea what you're getting mentally with him. And I'm not saying he's dumb or anything. I'm just saying this guy went from FCS one year starting to the freaking NFL. And that again, it's a shenan offense. We just talked about how complicated that offense is. Yeah. A lot of verbiage.

And yeah, they try to make it easy on him. I also think, too, is he doesn't have to be a hero, just how Justin Fields is a little bit. I think Trey Lance is sometimes he's trying to run over these guys. And again, that's the FCS going up to the NFL. He thinks he can get the angle. And he is a good athlete. But guess what?

He's going against very good athletes who can also tackle. There's one play Justin Reed song. Justin Reed, Jordan Reed, Justin Reed, Justin Reed, Justin Reed, whoever signed with the chiefs from the Texans and safety, he saws them all. Because it was like, oh, this guy caught me and he's big enough to tackle me. Like you could tell Tray Lance was not expecting that. So don't have to be a hero. Take the easy plays.

More than anyone, he has to take the easy throws. I think he is a big game hunter, but doesn't know that he's a big game hunter. I think he's just figuring out how to play quarterback. That's really is. But he does have the tools that are very, they're interesting. And especially the improvement he showed that second start against the Texans. Even in that game, you can see him anticipating a little better. It's like, oh, yeah, especially with the Flash plays as well.

But he is just a bundle of tools. and I have no idea how the 49ers think about him, but he's interesting. He really is. He's an interesting player. All right, we just did 90 minutes on six guys. So I think it's time to wrap this up. That was fun.

I wanted to do this for a while. I think it was important to go back and really study them and get a sense of where they were, where they could go. Because think about how much oxygen and energy we spent on this class coming into the draft. And it was disappointing. It was not the immediate results we've gotten

from some other rookie quarterbacks recently, but this is what we're, what rookie quarterbacks often look like. This is even in a world where playing offense and playing quarterback is easier. It's still really fucking hard. And defense is struck back last year. That was the story of last year is defense is struck back hard. And I mean, the highest QBR in the league was under 70.

I think the leader is 68 or 69, whatever. I think Brady, Rogers, whatever one. But it was under 70. Usually we have three or four guys that were over 70. So they got plopped in with a lot of expectations, a few of them on very bad teams. And they were going against defenses that were pissed off for letting offenses take advantage of them for a few years. So it was a perfect storm of bad stats. Even little things.

Justin Herbert, his rookie year, Joe, bro, his rookie year. Guess what there weren't? Crowds. Just little tiny things. I mean, it's so. That matters, though. It's just little tiny stuff that just, I feel like playing quarterback was a little bit harder last year than it had been over the last couple years. Can you imagine Trey Lance going from the Fargo Dome to a raucous crowd?

Like, you know, like, it's. In the NFL, like bloodthirsty NFL crowds, it's a different animal. All right. That's all we got. As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, we will have three pods next week. Same schedule Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, Friday. Me and DeAte will be doing the mailbag on Tuesday. The reason I mentioned this is that if when the non-quarterback draft runs and you guys want to tell me how much of a moron I am or why I'm wrong about this, I will not be around.

So I will not be around to answer any of those criticisms. But you are more than welcome to levy them. I encourage you to do so. So please enjoy the mailbag, the not quarterback draft. Both those will be coming out next week. Lindsay will be hosting on Friday. I'm going to try to do some relaxing, which I'm very bad at. But my fiance is trying to encourage me how to get better.

Please enjoy your weekend. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. Sincerely appreciate that. Please subscribe to The Athletic.com slash football show. as we mentioned, Nate is going to read about these guys. Yeah. It comes out to next week. So please go read that.

The only way you can do that is if you get a subscription to The Athletic. Theatholic.com slash football show. We'll be back on Tuesday. Until then, talk to you guys soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.