The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Russell Wilson’s QB coach Jake Heaps on “Let Russ Cook”, a Buffalo Bills Team Visit with Matthew Fairburn, and examining the Arizona Cardinals Offense in Ted Nguyen’s Film School

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

To kick things off, Robert talks to Jake Heaps, Russell Wilson’s personal QB coach, about the “Let Russ Cook” movement, Russell’s evolution into arguably the best player in the league, honing his off-platform skills, and much more.Then, in this week’s team visit, The Athletic’s Buffalo Bills writer Matthew Fairburn joins the show to discuss the team going 1-2 over their last three games, following a 4-0 start to the season, Josh Allen’s play in recent weeks, how the underperforming defense can turn things around heading down the stretch, and more.Finally, in Ted Nguyen’s Film School, the guys break down the Arizona Cardinals Offense, including the differences between Kliff Kingsbury’s NFL playbook and what his Air Raid scheme looked like in college, what defines the team’s passing game, Kyler Murray’s comfort level in this offense, and more.Get a year’s subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. We have a great show for you today. Matthew Fairburn, who covers the Bills, is going to be here a little bit later to do our weekly team visit. Talk about Josh Allen, what that team has looked like for the first half of the year. Ted Wynn is going to join us later to talk about the Arizona Cardinals' offense.

As part of Ted Wins Film School, we're going to talk about Cliff Kingsbury's background, what his offense looks like in the NFL, how those things kind of diverge, and what this team has looked like. during their 5 and 2 start. But before we do any of that, coming into the year, Russell Wilson was a pretty big topic of conversation around football circles.

The Let Russ Cook movement had been pretty much everywhere and people encouraging the Seahawks to throw the ball a little bit more. And we have seen it. Russell Wilson, in some ways, has owned this season so far. He has 22 touchdown passes. He's on course to break the record. He leads the NFL in tons of advanced numbers. It really does feel like he's been the,

the best player in football through the first seven weeks. And because of that, I wanted to have on Russell's personal quarterback coach, the head coach of his quarterback academy, somebody who's played with him in the NFL. Jake keeps, Jake, thank you so much for doing this, man. I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. I was fired up to come on with you and excited to talk and dive a little bit deeper into what's been going on here with Russell.

I just feel like he really has Owen the years so far. I mean, he's doing it in prime time. He's just in the forefront of our minds as football fans. And this was a chance to really just dive into all things Russell Wilson. I mean, what is the best player in the NFL? How did he get to this point, the best player in the NFL this season? How did he get to this point? So let's just go back through some of your background.

You met Russell and were on the Seahawks with him when? I was on the Seahawks with him my second year in the NFL. So I was 2016. And then I was on and off the roster. through the season in 2016 and then was a part of the roster in 2017, the offseason, ended up getting cut, and then quickly transitioned into this role with Russell being his personal QB coach. So a very unique path.

And, you know, Russell, in that short time, him and I really became close and also really had the same alignment and thought process and attitude and competitive. this and all this stuff. And so, you know, I think he was, you know, for me, being a guy trying to crack the roster, trying to beat him into the facility every single day. And I would do it a lot of the time and, you know, try and, you know, beat him at the playbook. And that was his, I believe it was his sixth year in the league at that point, you know, just trying to beat him with the answers and just, you know, being somebody that would be competitive with him and push him, I think he looked at that and respected that a lot. And so it's been really fun to,

to kind of grow this thing and to be in year three in this role with him, it's been a lot of fun. So the thing I'm most interested in, I wrote about this last year at the Ringer when he was on kind of a hot streak at the beginning of the season. It feels like Russell Wilson has been a lot of different players over the course of his career. Early on, they had that run-heavy approach. He was really just the cap, you know, the guy who kept the train on the tracks with that offense. He wasn't asking to do a ton.

And then there was that 2015 season where they really had to think, throw the ball a lot in the second half of the year. They really opened things up. And I think that's when we got a glimpse of his ceiling as a passer. And then over the last couple of years, it just feels like he's taking another step forward. If you look at Mike Sandoz's quarterback tears before the season, it was Russell and Patrick Mahomes right there at the top. You can make an argument that outside of Mahomes, he was the best player in the NFL. So if I asked you, what do you think the biggest difference is between what Russell Wilson was when you met him in 2016 as a quarterback versus what he is now? What would you say the biggest differences? Yeah, it's a great.

question because I'm of the firm belief that Russell could have been doing this from the very get-go. You see the way that quarterbacks are introduced into the league now. It's very different than even back in 2012, right? The idea that a quarterback of his height, his stature, his style of play could thrive and succeed in the NFL, when you go back and look at all the comps, you go back and look at all the draft grades and scouting reports, I mean, widely negative. Then you look at Kyler Murray. He gets drafted number one. overall with the same similar background and attributes. And so, and he's, and he actually has a former first round pick the year before traded

away to acquire a short quarterback who can run around and hire a quarterback coach and guru to be the head coach who runs an air raid system and what he did in college. So just to give that perspective and that framework of how much the game has changed and the evaluation process has changed in eight years, it's dramatic. And so the evolution for Russell, I think, has taken different steps with how the roster for the Seahawks has changed and the necessary changes that needed to go along the way for them to get to this point. And for them and Pete Carroll to finally let Russ cook, right? That phrase that, as you mentioned, you've heard all off season. You had a group where he didn't need to be the focal point.

They had Marshawn Lynch. They had an unbelievable running game. They had a legendary defense to go down as one of the best of all time. And Russell still in those moments had to create special play, special moments to help them get to those Super Bowls, right? And I think 2015, as you said, was the first time that you saw truly that he could be amongst the elite in the pocket. And when I met him in 2016, he was always a very good player.

I mean, do things that couldn't even think of or dream of as a quarterback with my skill set, man, I wish I could do what he could do. And the difference was, though, is I think that from the pocket, he wasn't necessarily as refined or wasn't asked to be as refined in the pocket. They didn't put as much on him in those situations. And so you see the evolution of Russell in 2018, when Brian Schopenhauer got here, 2019 and now 2020, you started to have this relationship there between offensive coordinator and quarterback where the offensive coordinator was willing and able to give him the reins of the offense that was putting more responsibility and trust in him and saying, hey, I will let you change things at the line of scrimmage.

I'm willing to take in your feedback and your thought process into this. You're not a young player anymore. This is your team. This is, you know, this is an opportunity that I haven't had in quite some time. for Brian Schottenheimer's case. And I think there was a mutual respect and appreciation between the two, not that there wasn't before, but just a different relationship. And Russell is obsessive. Robert, he is as obsessive as I have a person I've ever met. It's, you know, from the moment he wakes up to the time he goes to bed, it's with a purpose. It's crazy. I mean, it's almost machine-like,

but it's just because he wants to maximize every single day. I mean, it's scheduled out. It's well thought of. It's, you know, from what he's doing in business and life to his preparation during the week. I mean, it's crazy. So when he got that opportunity, that's all Russell needed because he wanted to be so good and so obsessive with these little opportunities that Brian Schottheimer gave him. He came back and he did even more than what was expected.

Oh man, this guy in year two in 2019 actually can be an offensive coordinator on the field. And so at that point, now you see here in 2020, there's this trust and relationship between those two guys where they're letting him, you know, throw the ball on first and second down. They're letting him, you know, change things at the line of scrimmage. And I think it's through that obsessive nature of Russell Wilson to be the absolute best in whatever challenge or whatever opportunities presented is, why you see him playing at the level he is right now. It's funny. I didn't even think about how the structure of the team, the responsibilities of the line of scrimmage,

all that makes total sense. And I think that between the years is definitely where he's probably made the most changes and where he's really been able to shine. But if you look at even the structure of the roster, right? Like in 2015, when he became this guy, Tyler Lockett was on the team, but Tyler Lockett was not an important player on that team.

I think he had 69 targets that season. He had eight starts. He was a bit player. Doug Baldwin was their number one receiver. Jermaine Curse was on that team. Jimmy Graham played a huge role on that team. So their receiving core that year was mostly possession guys. I mean, Doug Baldwin lived on separation.

He wasn't a stretch-the-field type player. Now, when you've seen this kind of evolution of the offense that they have, you have D.K. on one side, Tyler Lockett on the other side. You've married the best deep ball thrower in the NFL, which we're going to talk about here, with two of the best pure deep threats in the NFL. So when you combine the personnel, the responsibility and control he has at the line of scrimmage and with the offense in general and the autonomy and with his skill set,

it's almost as if everything is started to converge into what we see with him right now. And that's a great point, Robert. And that's something that I think that they've done an outstanding job. And quite honestly, they lucked into, you know, D.K. Metcalf falling all the way late into the second round for them to pick him up. But I will say that D.K. Metcalf, when he came in this league, one of the things that was a knock on him was how raw of a route runner he was. Well, the difference is that, A, the guy has a heart of a champion and one of the hardest workers I've ever been around. I've been around a lot of hard workers. D.K. Metcalf is one of the true hard workers, two true pros in this league.

You marry him with somebody who's obsessive as Russell Wilson and you have that guy to be your mentor. that's where you get this unbelievable talent excelling at a rate that nobody saw coming, right? Nobody anticipated. That's why he fell this far in the draft. So finally, they have this, you know, dynamic one-two combination between Tyler and D.K. And Russell was able to stretch the field unlike anybody else.

I mean, he is able to pinpoint accurately, be able to put the ball anywhere, anywhere on the field. and have great command in doing so. And one of the other aspects of Russell's game is that he's one of the most efficient, one of the most careful quarterbacks in the league. This guy, his touchdown to interception ratio is off the charts. And he has an unbelievable sense and awareness

of when he's throwing the ball downfield, he is still able to see the field like he's throwing short to intermediate. A lot of guys, when they get opportunities to take shots down the field, they're reckless, they're careless. They're, hey, I'm going to put the ball in the air because coach told me to. He's giving me the shot call, right? And he has the discipline and vision to see everything that's still going on at that third level of the field. It's remarkable.

But Robert, I really would say also another thing to Russell's game that he's really improved on since 2018, since we were really able to dive into this and get working on this stuff, is that he is become a true assassin from the pocket. If you look at him mechanically, functionally, he's not taking off and running and scrambling like he used to early in his career. Part of it is he doesn't run a four or five like he used to, like his young fresh legs. And Russ, if you're listening to this, forgive me.

But obviously, he still can make damage. He can do damage with his legs. So that's still a part of his game. But he's not relying on that. it's another tool in the tool belt. And I think for Russell, he has become such a well-rounded quarterback at this stage of his career

that it's difficult for defenses, whatever you want to do, try and keep them in the pocket, try and flush him out. It's pick your poison. It's truly pick your poison at this point. I think that that's truly where Russell has taken him, his gain to the next level,

because he's always had the talent. So the two areas, Robert, that I think he's really dramatically grown in, is his ability and command of the offense and the license to have command of the offense from his coaching staff. That's one. And secondly, is how comfortable he is playing from within the pocket at this stage of his career. And those are two things that we work on dramatically. You know, film work and then also getting him prepared in the pocket is fundamentals, his footwork, getting him ready for every game-like scenario possible.

Those are the things in which he has truly thrived over the last three seasons. I have a question. It might seem a little inside baseball, but there was a throw in the Cardinals game. I think it was to Tyler Lockett just passed the sticks on the right sideline. And it was down near their own goal line. And he was drifting to his right a little bit in the pocket. And the way he holds the ball when he's moving subtly in the pocket now, how high he holds it, is that something.

that's purposeful so he can transition to throwing wall subtly on the move and isn't tucking the ball and running. Do you guys work on that? Because it seems like he's consciously making a decision to not let the ball dip so he's ready to throw on the move. Yeah. So I'm actually glad you noticed this because it's a cool conversation because the answer is yes. It is a thing that we work on. As a quarterback, you always want to remain a threat. You want to remain a dual threat at all times. And Russell is one of those unique true dual threats in this game. But part of being a dual threat is even when you're in scramble mode, that you still can pass the football and be deadly doing so from any platform. I think you've probably heard the term off platform. It's become a huge

thing in the quarterback world is how good are you an off platform? Well, Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes are two of the very best in off platform situations. And Russell, him, keeping the ball here and having his eyes downfield is something that his eyes and awareness he's always had. But in 2017, and this is a part of another interesting discussion about why Russell was so unbelievably great and unbelievably underrated throughout his career, is in 2017, he got this absolute snot beat out of him. He had one of the worst offensive line units in all of football. And Russell, through his career, not having an injury, knock on wood, and not missing a game.

It's truly one of the most remarkable feats that there is because he is constantly played with a group that is not middle of the road, but below average to one of the worst in the league. And so in 2017, Robert, he started to get into bad habits. He started playing a lot of streetball, and the ball was starting to get lower. His release started to get lower. And he still was wildly effective having one of his best seasons statistically,

but it got him into trouble. And so when he brought me on, it was to help refine some of those things and make sure that that doesn't happen again. So that's where you see him now at this stage in his career where he is locked in keeping that ball ready to go, ready to throw, no matter what is going on. And I remember you and I talked about this a little bit, I think, around the draft this year, just how more and more quarterbacks have this built-in off-platform, off-schedual ability. And now guys like you and people like Quincy Avery and Jordan Palmer, you're trying to teach this off-schedulability into quarterbacks through drill work. So almost making the off-sched something that's planned and trying to find that balance. So when you guys are working on that, how do you actively hone that off-schedule skill where you're harnessing this instinct but making it a plan part of a quarterback's game? How do you guys work on that?

trying to make it as difficult as possible. Like honestly, I make him do some of the most absurd things with his body and with his throws because I want to get him comfortable being uncomfortable, right? And he, in his threshold level is higher than, honestly, anybody else in the league. I mean, him and Patrick Mahomes, those two guys, I mean, whatever. Those two guys are right there in terms of their ability to make off-platform throws, make it look easy. So what do I do?

I take it to the extreme. And so now whatever motion, whatever way that he's running in the field straight to the sideline, straight downhill, you know, at a diagonal angle, he can make the throw,

I kid you not, wherever it is, to the left, to the right, deep middle, like we practice all of those throws completely sidearm, not just for fun, but so that I can make sure

that he knows how to connect, his body and his release to hit the target. And he's never going to throw balls going to his left all the way back to his right. Maybe he will at some point. Maybe he'll pull some magic out of his hat. But I want him to know how to get his body to do that and throw it accurately. And that's something that you mentioned those two other guys, Jordan Palmer, Quincy, I think they do a fantastic job, both of them, good buddies of mine, that we're trying to teach that to the common quarterback.

But with Russell, it's so fun because now I add, you can look at my Instagram feed and Russell's Instagram feed over the off season. We not only were doing that, but I was having him throw over goalposts, a guy who's literally, you know, six inches behind the goalposts and him having to do that off platform off schedule and drop it over a goalpost. So I wanted to talk to you about this because that is the coolest part of his game to me right now. I want to talk about the moonballs in a second, but the trajectory on short throws, the one that jumps out from this last game is the little one he dropped into Lockett

in the back of the end zone. I mean, that just is an impossible throw when you're thinking about the area he has to put it in. But it's even beyond that, when he's moving and then in other areas of the field, other guys like Matthew Stafford, for example, and even Mahomes to a certain degree, they do a lot of changing their arm angles

to throw the ball around people. Russell, it feels like he shortens up his motion. it keeps it more compact and almost like pushes it over people. So the way he's doing those throws and changing that trajectory on those shorter plays is almost unlike anybody in the league. So that's something you guys actively work on is him shortening and tightening up that motion on shorter throws because he almost pushes the ball on shorter throws where other guys will still have that elongated release and can get in trouble a little bit. And it's almost, it's really funny because him and Mahomes both come from that baseball background. But Mahomes has that like whip approach to it. Russell does it.

His body is so compact. You wouldn't even know that he played baseball. Yeah. And that's something that he has that in his game. And that's where I was saying in 2017, referring to that, that was the low point for him. That was the point where,

hey, I'm still operating. I'm still able to get away with it. But it's just not my best right now. And we refine that and change that. And you notice, I'm glad you noticed that as well, because Russell has the unique ability to even make his release that much quicker, right?

As you said, you know, pushing the ball out and almost kind of shot putting the ball. Those are things that we work on, high stress situations. And so as my job to get him ready, to get one of the best in the world ready, it's such a fun, unique task and opportunity because you get so much into the details, into the weeds of what you're talking about. It's like, man, I don't know if he's ever going to get in the situation, but I want him to at least go through it so that we know how to get it done. And often, you know, often or sure enough, these situations pop up.

And it's one of the coolest conversations. You know, Russ comes back and says, hey, did you see that play? You know, hey, that was that work that we did in the off season. You know, so all these things are pre-planned. They're not necessarily things that happened by accident. And, you know, obviously Russell has had this God-given ability. clearly he's been playing at a high level before I even got there. So I don't want to make it sound like I came in here and just totally changed his game. That's not it at all. But we've just

looked for ways to help. I've looked for ways to help get him 1% better, 2% better each and every single offseason. And you have somebody who's so obsessive with wanting to get better and wanted to find an edge that he's willing to do all of those things. And you see the result that you're seeing right now. So it's just a really fun partnership, relationship. And we're still pushing and trying to get even better. So explain to me the mechanics and just the logistics of the goalpost thing. Where is he standing in relation to it? How far are the throws he's trying to simulate?

Just walk me through what that actually looks like. I know that's difficult in an audio medium, but I'm very curious. Right. So really what it is, is what we call at the quarterback level is, are you a thrower or are you a passer? Russell Wilson is a passer. and what that means is that he can put any trajectory, any touch, he can rip the ball, he can put, he can layer the ball, he can throw any type of ball that you want.

And Russell, as you can see, you know, some guys get labeled as, hey, this guy's got a stronger arm than Russell Wilson. I would argue that Russell has one of these strongest arms in the league. You know, I mean, a legit top 10, top five, I would even say top five arm, but he doesn't go to that that tool bag every time. He's not a flamethrower. He's a passer. And so one of the things that I do to accentuate that is to add the goalpost to that or add a soccer goal to it so that we can work on those touch passes or those layered passes, whether he's trying to rip a seam ball, whether he's throwing a corner, a dig. And so we do it in a variety of different ways. And so there's not exactly a set part or a set mark, but basically every throw that you can imagine,

I have him practice doing all three levels of trajectory. Fastball, we call it a one, two, and a three. One ball is a line drive, driving right through the guy. You know, that's your fastball. A two ball is it's got nice layer and trajectory, but it's in between. You can get it up and over the linebackers into that second level of the defense. And finally, that moon ball that you're talking about, that three ball, you know, so we work on all of those. And really the goalposts is to help really refine and help him have great command of that two ball. And that is the ball that more often than not is what every quarterback in the league needs to be able to throw is a two ball, as a layered ball and not necessarily a fast ball. Yeah, that's the whole shot in cover two.

that's the deep dig over a linebacker on play action, the throws that you just see all the time, that guys that can't feather it like that have trouble with every once in a while. And then the deep ball, like the one to lock it last Sunday. I mean, I posted it on Twitter today. It's ridiculous.

I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable because it reminds me in a way of Rogers on those Hill Marys when he's putting it as high as he possibly can for a practical reason. So how, I mean, there's not even and something you could put on the field that's high enough to challenge him practically. So how do you work on throws like that?

Just understanding that needs to be the trajectory on that sort of ball, what drills or what work can you do and what does he do to hone that? I have drills that I use for the average common quarterback for the guy who's trying to, you know, go college to pro or vice versa any stage of his career. But that's one of the God-given abilities that Russell just came with. And one of the things that I'll say about that is Russell is such a visual guy that one of the keys to that is, A, trusting that you're going to throw it to the right spot. And as quarterbacks, sometimes we get so hyper focused on dropping it in, right, that throw to lock it. Quarterbacks, as they're throwing it go, I need to drop a perfect ball here.

And so they lead them too much or they sell it short. They just overthink the throw. Russell has such inherent trust in everybody down the field and such confidence in himself. And he just lets it go. He lets the guy get to the spot. And so sometimes you'll see maybe Russell, for example, D.K. Metcalf, D.K. Mattcalf's touchdown in the Patriots game was Stefan Gilmore. You remember he had to slow down that corner just an air on that.

on that ball. Well, that was by design. That wasn't Russell just throwing it short. He was making sure that he gave D.K. Metcalfe a chance. That's a calculated decision. And so with Tyler Lockett's the same thing. Just give him a chance. And so what Russ does better than anybody else is he sees the spot.

He looks out at the spot more than he does the receiver itself. So once he knows that he has the matchup and the look and the safety is flat-footed, He's looking at that spot. He is not looking anywhere near that receiver. And his ability to connect his, his fingertip to his eyes and translate that into the throw that he wants is something that's truly unique and special. And I've only seen a handful of guys be able to have anywhere near the same type of ability to put that touch and command down field like Russell does.

This may be a strange question. And you can't do it without being inside his head. But how do it? How have you seen the difference in his vision manifest? What does he see that other guys don't, even outside of that spot thing? I know that's a convoluted question, but it almost feels like he's just seeing different dimensions

than other people probably are when he's watching stuff come at him. Some of the craziest things that I've seen is, like, for example, he comes out of a play action pass. He's rolling to, it's a half roll to his right. So I'm trying to say this so people can follow and visualize what I'm saying here, is, you know, he's doing a play action pass. He has doing a half roll to his right. And there's Tyler Lockett running a deep cross from right to left down the field.

You have a corner to that left side who is supposed to be playing the tight end, right? He's supposed to be somewhere near the line of scrimmage. And the corner goes off script and sees Tyler coming around and reacts and goes deep, right? A lot of quarterbacks throw that interception. Because they think, and they only see the receiver, and they think, man, I've got a wide open guy right here. I'm just letting go. And Russell will see this guy out of the corner of his eye as he's making this throw and settle Tyler down in a window where that corner can't make the play. And so you talk about seeing it in a different way and seeing the field in different dimensions.

Those are the types of throws that don't show up on ESPN or, you know, they're not the sidearm throw or the sexy. throw, but it's that type of stuff that just makes him so difficult to defend. And so even when you do something off script, he's got this unique sense about him to help him stay away from harm. The other thing that I would say as well is that as he's on the run, I've seen time and time again as he's running to the line of scrimmage, he has a unique ability to track guys and be able to make throws, you know, going to. his left and throw to his right in ways that everybody else just simply can't. And I think that that's another aspect of his baseball background, to be quite honest with you, Robert, that really

comes through. Yeah, I mean, there's stuff that just pops up where you're like, yep, okay, that's, that's unique. So I'm looking at it right now. He, his OBP, his, on base plus flugging his last year at NC State was 929. And he walked 18 times in 47 games. He, he walked 18 times in 47 games. which doesn't seem like that much. I'm just wondering how discerning his ability to feel the strike zone was and the ability to kind of see stuff out of the corner of his eye. Because we talk about that with baseball players, right? Guys just see the ball differently.

That's the prerequisite to being a great hitter. And it just feels like that probably translates here where he's just seeing things at a slightly different speed and picking up on, you know, spatial stuff that other people just aren't. You can see that manifest in the way that he plays the position. Yes, absolutely. And that is one of the rare traits that he has. I think you nailed it perfectly with that aspect,

but especially now. The game is slowed down for him so much. It's really scary. He knows and anticipates what's going to happen. He does an outstanding job with that. And his spatial awareness is fantastic. And so that spatial awareness allows him to buy extra time. It allows him to see a lane and to be able to go through it before it really even developed.

You know, one of the other things that Russell does to use that to his advantage is when he gets in situations that are chaotic, right? Fourth quarter, prime time situations where everything is speeding up and going so fast around him, he's able to slow things down and process things at a different pace than everybody else. You and I, our heart is racing. Yeah. You're thinking about the moment. We're thinking about, you know, our legacy. see, right? Like our natural mindset is to go into this realm and Russell was able to put himself in a different place. And that calm and that center and that focused mindset really helps him

to be able to stay in connection to what's actually important rather than the storyline of the game. So no matter what's going on, you can never count this guy out. I mean, you see last Sunday gets two chances in overtime, that is an absolute rarity that I would pretty much guarantee that he would never miss out on again, right? Yeah, that's what I was to say. I don't know what that ever is going to happen again. It's just one of those things that, and late game records and all of that stuff is typically random.

We know that. It's a lot of luck. It's a lot of bounces of the ball. But I don't think it's an accident that they've been able to pull out so many of these. It's just because, like you said, he's such a. sound player. And that's one of the most impressive things about him.

Even physically, he's just sturdier than people think he is. And it's just one of those things that when you're spectacular like he's been, I think it's easy to forget how reliable he also is. And that's been the biggest change for me is that those off-scheduled players that defined who he was early in his career, like you said, where it was a little streetballish, it was a little improvisation heavy. Now it's just one of these things that there are very few sure. bets in professional football right now than this guy making the right choice and the right

throw in the right moment. Exactly. And that's truly when you become elite. That's when you become dangerous. And when you operate at that level, you're the best in the game. You truly are. And when I come back to this thought is when you do that with a consistent offensive line that's not that's toward the bottom of the league, I mean, you've got to be a one tough dude. You got to be one tough dude and B, you just have to be able to mentally believe that the next play is going to be the best one. And that's such a difficult thing to do at the quarterback position. He does it better than anybody else. And so when you get in those situations, it's not by accident that he generally is going to come out on top and get everybody else around him to buy in and believe in that.

And I liken it to this. And I know that this is Russell's also his mind. mindset is people don't realize how cutthroat Russell Wilson is. Like people don't really understand. Like they see, oh, Russ is this nice guy. Is this nice guy? Yeah. Yeah, it's chipper all the time. He's so positive.

Yep. Exactly. Like, he is. Don't get me wrong. He is one of the genuinely good human beings in this world. But when it comes to crunch time and it comes to winning games, this is one of the most savage, most intense competitors you'll ever be around. And when it's crunch time and the game's on the line, he wants you to fear him.

He wants to walk on the field. And I'm sure there's sound bites you can pull up of him saying this is he wants to be feared. He wants to be likened to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant in crunch time that you know when the ball is in his hands, it's game over. When the ball is in his hands, it's almost a deflating feeling because you know what's about to happen next. And that's the mentality that he has in those moments and that belief in himself. And I think that that mentality has manifested itself even more so here into 2020. And that's why despite everything else that's going around, Pete Carroll has finally said, okay, I'm going to let you go.

I'm going to let you do this. And him and Brian Schottheimer and this offensive staff have done a tremendous job. But Russell's taking that killer mindset and that attitude into first and second down and early in games. And you're seeing this offense be the number one offense in football right now in total yards and points per game. It feels like he is on his way to that first MVP award. If things keep going away, they're going right now, I think it's going to be hard to keep it away from him. Just one more note before we get out of here. He's completing 74.6% of his passes despite having the ninth highest average yards per target in the entire NFL.

That should be impossible. That's not overstating it. That should be impossible. His completion percentage, by expectation, according to next-gen stat, should be 63.9. He's at 74.6. It's a 10.8 percentage point difference. No one else in the league in that stat is above 6%.

I mean, I don't know what else there is to really say. He has been the best quarterback in the NFL this season, even when you consider what guys like Aaron Rogers have done, what Don Brady is doing, what Patrick Mahomes is doing. There is nobody playing at a higher level than Russell Wilson. And I'm really glad we got to dig into this. Jake, sincerely, thank you. you so much for the time. I thought this is fascinating. I hope other people will too.

And we'll catch up with you down the road, man. Absolutely. Thanks for the time. It was a blast talking some ball with you. And hopefully we'll be catching up here real soon. All right. It's time for this week's team visit. And I thought it was time to chat some Buffalo bills. After the first month of the year, I was kind of slow playing it because I figured, oh, they'll be so good. They'll be relevant down the stretch. But the recent stumbles, I think, have made them pretty interesting because I think it's time to kind of sit back and say, what is this team really? And that's why I wanted to have my buddy, Matthew Fairburn, on. Matt, how you doing, bud? Oh, I'm doing well. How are you, Robert? I'm great. We've known each

other for how many years now. It's been a while. It would have been 2014. I was a senior in college, and you were kind enough to answer a message for me when I was at the NFL scouting combine. So anybody who's listening who's wondering if Robert is as nice as he seems on this podcast, he's even nicer in person. He was very gracious. And ever since then, I've just kept bugging you until we became friends. We have the same professors and stuff in Missouri. So I knew them, you know, I knew you from them a little bit. And yeah, we've kept in touch for a long time. And it's been fun for this team to become one of the most talked about relevant teams in the NFL because it's the team you cover. And I always enjoy when those things align with my buddies. So

I want to get into really how the shift has happened here over the last few weeks. So a month into the year, I mean, it seemed like they were ready to throw a parade in Buffalo. I'm sure people were just at home jumping through their own coffee tables, just celebratory Elmo's wings by the 10 pound bags. I guarantee you everyone was in a very good mood. I assume everything has shifted a little bit here over the past three weeks. If you were kind of taking a temperature of where the Bill's fan base is now compared to what they were, maybe in the middle of October, what would you say the differences are? There is a lot more angst. That is for sure. It is, you know, look, this team has had four and no starts before. It's had, you know, five and two

starts before. They've gotten off to the hot starts. They've been teased so many times. And what made that first month of the season different was they had an offense. They had an offense that was playing modern era football. They were passing the ball all over the yard. They were throwing the ball deep. They had a quarterback who looked like, you know, probably the best quarterback they've had since the 90s. And, you know, that was what was getting people excited. Now, you know, the defense starts slipping up. They get a little bit of a sobering reminder of what the elite teams and the AFC look like when they played the Titans and the Chiefs. And, yeah, they've come back down to earth a little bit. And especially after that first half against the Jets, it was reaching all-time panic

levels, especially for a four-and-two team that has on the whole been pretty good this year. It caused quite a bit of anxiety. And now, you know, when people look at the big picture, they're five and two. The rest of the AFC East is not very good. The Patriots are two and four. They look very beatable. So all of their big-picture goals are still in front of them. But I think people look at those games against the Titans and Chiefs and say, what is the upside of this team? What is the potential? Like you said, what are they? Are they a playoff team again, or are they better than that?

And everybody around here is ready for them to be better than that. And that's the biggest question, because even if they can win the AFC East, after that first month of the season, I think that fan base probably had designs on more than just winning the AFC East and the Patriots first down year in however long. So when you're looking at the offense, because I think that's where you have to start, I mean, we were doing a lot as a football watching public. A lot of Josh Allen Mayaculpos were happening here around the end of September. And now that's probably slowed down a bit.

Do you think there's anything drastically different about, one, the way he's played over the last three games? And two, about the way the offense has kind of gone about things over the last three games. Is there a huge change that you can pinpoint that maybe has led to this stumbling a little bit? I think it probably starts with the way defenses are playing against them. You know, you've got a lot of two high safeties, a lot more zone coverage. I mean, teams were playing man coverage a lot against them early in the season. And Brian Daibel was just running crossing patterns and carving up, you know, every defense they faced, it seemed like. And now teams are getting a little wiser.

They're playing some zone coverage. I think early in the year, frankly, teams probably looked at it and said, all right, Josh Allen sucked throwing the ball deep last year. Let's see if he can do it. And once he started to hit on deep passes at an extremely high rate, in the first four weeks of the season, he was 21 for 27 for 585 yards on passes. In the last three weeks, he's five for 20 for 110 yards on those passes. So teams are just taking away the deep part of the field on them. And I think the challenge they're facing is they're saying, look,

beat us with long drives, beat us with short passes, and if you have to make a long drive where you're having to complete 10 passes or 7 to 10 passes, we're going to bet that you're going to make a mistake at some point. And the Titans were right about that, the Chiefs were right about that. He was patient against the Jets and kind of got it done, but it was the Jets. So I think that is a big part of what's happening. And John Brown hasn't been healthy. John Brown's a really good receiver. He's a, you know, now they're number two. and a really good number two to have, frankly. So I think those two things are a big deal.

And he was bound to cool off. He was bound to bounce back to a little bit more of the mean and kind of be a little bit more. He wasn't going to keep up the pace he had in the first month of the season. But I think teams are also figuring out how to play against them. And now it's up to, you know, Josh and Brian Daibald to kind of figure out an answer to it. That's exactly what I've seen. Teams is playing a lot of soft zone.

I think the Titans did a really good job of, mixing stuff up pre-snap. A lot of people talked about that. You look at the numbers. He was 17th in EPA per play over the last three weeks compared to fourth over the first four weeks. And it's a huge drop-off. So you're trying to pinpoint what it is. And I feel like the most encouraging part when I went back and watched those games, the last three games today, is that it's not as if the accuracy has taken this huge fall. He's not regressed in that area back to the guy he was over the last couple seasons. Even some of those deep balls you were talking about, I mean, he had some throws against the chiefs under pressure into traffic.

There were perfect balls down the field. They just weren't completed. So the ball is going where he wants it to go, which I feel like that should make Bill's fans breathe a little easier. The problem is teams are taking away the first three that he has. So less man covers, there are just fewer defined choices and just playing a little softer and making him play quarterback. And that's the question is what does this offense look like when he has to play quarterback? One of the other things I noticed that I thought was really smart. Two teams did this.

The Chiefs and the Jets did this. They were crushing teams on play action on early downs over the first four weeks. It was one of the biggest parts of their offense. And now both the Jets and the Chiefs were bringing slot pressure on first down to essentially take away that stuff and have the boots go right into the slot corner. So that's kind of where teams are at now. They're being aggressive toward the bills on early downs to take away some of those shots. And then on later downs, they're sitting back and making them play.

So it's just this give and take that we see from every team over the course of a season. Can the bills figure out what their counterpunch is now that teams have figured out what this version of Josh Allen really is? Yeah, I think the big point that you make there that's I should be encouraging for Bill's fans is that the fact that he's dropped down to 17th in EPA over the last three weeks, he didn't drop down to 30th. He didn't drop down to 25th. And it's not to lower the bar for this guy because I do think the bar should be

high. It should be, you know, when you pick a guy in the top 10, you want him to be in the top five in EPA. You want him to be crushing those deep passes and really, you know, being in the MVP conversation the way that he probably was early in the season. But his bad games, his bad moments aren't nearly as bad as they used to be and the accuracy is part of it, the command within the offense. Even this game against the Jets, he had two passes that should have been picked off in the first half, but for the most part, he was taking what the Jets gave him. He wasn't forcing it. He had a few plays that could have been touchdowns. One, if Tyler Croft doesn't trip into a Daniel Jones running down the sideline. It's a beautiful throw.

You know, and he's, so that each week there's been some of those throws, right, Robert, that you watch these games and you're like, man, I can't believe he did that. And I think that's an encouraging sign, you know, the regression was going to happen, 100%. But, you know, but. You know, you know, But the fact that that first month of the season is even in him at all, I think a lot of people questioned, myself included. I wasn't sure he had that level of play in him. And so, like you said, you find a counterpunch. You get John Brown back in the lineup.

You get Dawson Knox rolling once he can get healthy. You know, if they had a running game, that would probably help as well. They're getting hardly anything out of their running back. So there are some answers within this offense. but if this basically the last three weeks teams have done similar things each week and it seems to be working so they do need they need to find a counter pretty quickly here i think it's just about recalibrating expectations after the first month it was so easy to expect him to be the best quarterback in the NFL to a certain degree on every single play because he almost was i mean he

looked like that guy for the first month of the season and now i think it's kind of taking a step back from that, being like, all right, this is still a guy who's young and learning and learning how to play quarterback and how to do it well. There are moments in that game that one where he slipped out of pressure and hit Beasley late in the down was beautiful. And there's just one of those things. It's like, all right, we forget how athletic he is. He's not dropping his eyes and trying to run. He's still trying to play quarterback a little bit. He had another one on the move, I think the digs down the right sideline where the arm talent, you just forget how crazy it is sometimes. these things are flashes that are still promising,

even if the finished product isn't where it was over the first month. I think there's a lot to like. And the running game that you brought up, I think, is a good transition from here because there were some throws in that game against the Jets that were open. Beasley was open for a touchdown, that won the digs that was a little bit late on that little dagger across the field in the red zone. That was a play where if he had a little bit more time, he hits that. So I think watching that game and the last couple games on offense,

as much as he's not played as well, the offensive line to me has been a little bit of a problem. They've been banged up. What have you seen from that group here over the first six games, seven games of the season? And do you think that they'll take a little bit of a step forward as they get a little bit healthier? Yeah, it's been very much a mixed bag for the offensive line through seven games here. They've moved a lot of things around as an offensive line nerd that you are. I'm sure you've thought a lot about how this offseason would impact offensive line play. I wrote a story about that talking to Bill's offensive line coach Bobby Johnson and a few other

offensive line types, just about not being able to practice the way you want to, not having preseason games. All of that kind of impacted how they settled, you know, competitions and things like that. They finally settled on Cody Ford as the left guard. Then he gets hurt. They were without John Feliciano for the first seven games. they might get them back this weekend. So, you know, they had to cut Quentin Spain because he was all upset about his role after he got benched for Cody Ford.

So they're playing Brian Winters and Ike Bucker at their guard spots. And it went about as as you would expect when you have those two in there. So it's not great up front. But to your point, Josh Allen's really good at making them look good in pass protection. And, you know, Darrell Williams has been really good on right tackle. but I'm not sure there's too many quarterbacks in the league right now, better at escaping sacks, both with his feet and just being quick and, you know, escaping the pocket. But also, he's really hard to bring down, like, really tough.

And when he does get brought down, you know, you see, like, if you go back and watch that Rams game, there's a play where Aaron Donald just whips him to the ground and it looks really violent, but you're like, that is the only way you can bring this guy down because. And it's Aaron Donald. Right. I haven't had the exact player talking about. It's like if you take it easy, if you think, oh, I shouldn't hit him hard because I might get called for a penalty here. He's going to get away from it.

And like you said, keep his eyes down field and find something because of that arm talent. So I think the offensive line will settle in. They have some pretty good pieces. I think Ford belongs at guard. I think John Feliciano is a real underrated player. It brings a lot in terms of his mentality, just his energy. That's exactly right. You know, guys love playing with him.

That is, I think, if they're missing that up front, you can. see it in the run game. And forward moving to guard, you know, that was always going to be something that took a little while. That takes a little out of stick. Cohesion on the interior is so important. But Feliciano is an ass kicker. And when you have one of those guys, it just changes the entire dynamic of the way you're playing, especially on the ground. And the Allen, the pressure point is a really good one. I looked up some of the numbers. So the bills of the fifth highest pressure rate in the league over the last three weeks, 42.3% of dropbacks. He's been sacked three times. That's remarkable.

The sack percentage, I believe, is under six. Everyone else with pressure rate in the top 10 is above 15%. And sacks are a quarterback stat is a quarterback skill. And he is exhibiting that skill with flying colors right now. But I also think we have to take into account how much more pressure there's been over the last two weeks and what role that's played in him dropping off a little bit. Because like I said, with the throw to Beasley and the throw to digs against the Jets, those are throws that could be open if he has time.

And right now with that group banged up, he just doesn't have it. So with Felicia and getting back, I'll be curious to see how much better that group is overall, especially on the ground. So speaking of the ground game, watching their defense, that to me is the most surprising part of this team. Because when I was thinking about their ceiling in 2020, it was almost a given that the defense was a top five to seven units. It's like, oh, the defense will be good. How good can the offense be? And the defense has been really underperforming. And I think we saw it over the last couple weeks.

The chiefs ran the ball extremely well. and the Jets actually ran the ball decently well in spurts. So when you're looking at this defense right now, where do you think their major deficiencies are, especially compared to what they were supposed to be coming into the year? Yeah, it's weird because my answer would be their deficiencies are kind of all over the place. And coming into the year, I couldn't really point out an obvious deficiency with this group. They have a problem at cornerback right now because Josh Norman and Levi Wallace are both hurt.

Dane Jackson played pretty well. I don't think Tredavius White has played quite up to the level that we're accustomed to seeing from him. But in the running game, it's interesting. After that Chiefs game, Sean McDermott kind of explained it away as like, oh, you've got to pick your poison against the Chiefs. And, you know, we were we were trying to limit the big plays and you're going to give up some of that. Well, they gave up 245 rushing yards. I mean, you know, that's hardly part of any game plan. And Patrick Mahomes still completed 80% of his past.

is for two touchdowns. So they didn't really take that away either. I think, you know, there's a few things. You know, Star Latulet, Tulay opted out, and, you know, they're missing that nose tackle presence in the middle. Harrison Phillips has been a healthy scratch because he simply hasn't played well. They don't really have a one technique that is getting the job done. Ed Oliver is starting to come to life, but was underperforming through the first six

games. Really, the entire defensive line. It's surprising that it's the highest paid defensive line. line in football by percentage of the salary cap because they don't have, you know, outside of Jerry Hughes, who I would consider kind of an underrated star, they don't have that marquee pass rusher that you think about. They just have a lot of big contracts. Trent Murphy, Quentin Jefferson, Vernon Butler, Mario Addison, Jerry Hughes gets paid well. And so they have a big percentage of their cap tied up in that group and they're getting pushed around a little bit. Finally, they started to

to get themselves together in the second half of that Jets game, allowing only four total yards in the second half. But I also think the big thing on defense, kind of like on offense, once they get Matt Milano back full time, he was back, you know, part time last week. I think he's the most important player on their defense and one of the better linebackers in football, still unsigned in his contract year here. He's been hurt. And when he's out, Tremaine Edmonds is worse. Tremaine Edmins hasn't played well this year, but Milano is kind of the eraser on that defense who makes up for a lot of the other deficiencies in the front seven. I've always been somebody who, when people talk about run defense, and he's not a good run defender or their run defense isn't very good. But I usually

hand-wave it. It's like, well, whatever. It's 2020 who gives a shit if you can play run defense. But every once in a while, you really see it come up and you really see it as a problem. And I think that the bills are having trouble because they're not playing, well with the players they are fielding, and the way they play already makes them vulnerable against the run. This is a team that wants to be a nickel most of the time. And they, like you just said, without Latua way, this is a team of past rushers, Oliver, Quentin Jefferson, Hughes, Mario Addison, all of these guys are built to get after the quarterback. They're undersized. They're quick. And when you combine that with playing nickel most

of the time and Edmonds really not taking a step forward and missing Milano, that's how all this stuff starts to pile up. And you just watch them play and they just get washed out and guys aren't playing with authority. And I think that that combination has really become an issue. What do you think about Chedabius White so far this year? Do you think that it's just a matter of not being comfortable with the guys around him?

Because they play so much zone and I assume that it's just a matter of really trusting the people that you're playing with, everything else. Nobody on that defense really looks like the guy they've been in years past. Even like on the back end, it feels like Jordan Porter and Michael Hyder playing okay. But I just expected so much

out of that back end, even with them being a little bit dinged up. Yeah, they've lacked big plays all across the defense. And I think, you know, that's a big part of it. You have a defensive line that you want to be a pass rushing unit. And up until last week, they were pretty mediocre as pass rushers. And that can affect the back end in a big way. The Tredavius White question is an interesting one, because like you said, they play so much zone coverage that sometimes it's hard to figure out, you know, how well he's playing. It's almost the Josh Norman effect in Carolina, where he was certainly a star because of his ball skills and the big plays that he made. But you wondered, right, if they're playing so much his own coverage, what value does that have?

Well, the bills put the value on Trudevius White. They made him the highest paid cornerback in the NFL. He's since been surpassed by Jalen Ramsey. But he doesn't play a lot of man-to-man coverage where he's taking a guy away. They did well against Tyree Kill. But I've always found that those best performances where they're a racing. a receiver, there's a scheme element to it that helps out Tredavius White. And when he's getting noticed, when he's being considered, you know, like last year, one of the best players at his

position in football, it has to do with whether he's taking the ball away. And whether he's making plays on the football when he gets his opportunities. I just don't know. We're in an era where the shutdown corner has kind of fallen off a little bit. There's not the same amount of shut down corners that we're used to seeing 10 years ago. Maybe it's the rules. Maybe it's the way teams are playing. Maybe, I don't know, the lack of crowds is making it tougher on defenses. But I think Tradavius White hasn't been bad. He just hasn't been all pro highest paid corner in the league good either. It's one of those things where when defenses, everything has to work together. And I feel like part of their issue has been up front, this is a unit that because they're so quick, because the pieces are a

bit interchangeable. They're really good when they stunt. Having guys twist and having Jefferson, you know, in the TE with Jerry Hughes, that kind of stuff. Addison's really good at that and just change your direction. You can't do that as much when it's third and two because you can't stop the run. Because if you do that, teams are going to run right into stunts and you're going to be screwed. So it just feels like they can't get right early in series and that is really preventing

them from playing the way they want to late and down. So I think it just starts to compile where. if you can't stop teams early on, you can't get to those passing situations and get after the quarterback the way that you want to. So it just feels like there's something off. They can't play with the style and really lock into exactly the type of defense they wanted to be. And I think it's really hurt them as they try to find their footing. Yeah, I think that's a really good point because the ingredients are all there for this to still be that defense that we're used to seeing. I don't think they're going to be a top five defense in the league this year. Maybe they could

flirt with the top 10, top 12, top half of the league. But there is an element of something's just off. All those, everything you just talked about on the defensive line, let's remember that these are new players playing with one another. Mario Addison, Quentin Jefferson, Vernon Butler, AJ Epinessa, all new guys to this defensive line, again, without, you know, that full training camp. And I think there is, you know, even when they've gotten in third and long, that was kind of the problem too early in the year. They were allowing a ridiculous percentage of third and long conversions from teams. Look at the Chiefs game in particular. They had a couple of them bite them. In the Tennessee game, they had a few of them bite them. So even when they have gotten

in those situations, they haven't really taken advantage. I mean, outside of Jerry Hughes, who's been a bit of a monster as a pass rusher this year, they're lacking, you know, that push in the pocket, even when they have the advantageous situations. And so, So I think there's, you know, hopefully the hope in that building right now is that that second half against the Jets reminds them what that feels like and get some of that, that confidence rolling because they needed it. They needed a half like that because I think they were starting to wonder as a group, whether they would admit it or not, they were starting to wonder whether they had, you know,

kind of gone over the hill a little bit and lost what they had in 2019. The best part about this for them is that they have the room to figure this stuff out. With the division essentially being theirs for the taking, there's just less urgency. And I believe in that staff, the talent that they have, and what they've shown at times this year, for them to figure it out. And I think that because they have the wiggle room to do that, everyone over there can breathe a little bit easier. All right, man, this was great. I really appreciate it. It's always good to talk to you.

And hopefully we'll be able to see each other a little bit down the road here. Thanks so much for having me. Good chatting with you. All right. It's time for this week's edition of Ted's film school. Ted, I wanted to kind of take a step back here and look at the Cardinals offense. This is a team that came off a thrilling primetime win right in the thick of the playoff hunt in the NFC. They're sitting at five and two right now. I mean, when you look at the NFC playoff picture, that's looking pretty good. The Rams obviously are going to be pushing for a wild card spot. The bears are five and two, but after last night, I have no idea. how you can feel good about them being around down the stretch. You know, the Saints are another team that we expect to be there. But the Cardinals are very much in the thick of it. So I wanted to look at what their offenses looked like this season, but also just some of Cliff Kingsbury's history and how the NFL version of his system

kind of diverges a little bit from what they were in college. So you've written about this extensively, you know, coming into last year, I remember reading some of your work about what Cliff's offense looked like at Texas Tech and his background. So if you were trying to synthesize what Cliff Kingsbury's air raid offense was on the college level, how would you describe it? Well, he, you know, he's from the Mike Leach tree, obviously. He's heavily influenced by Mike Leach. So with Mike Leach and the old school air raid offense, they have their staples. And I think talking to Drew Hollinshead, who is an assistant coach for Mike Leach.

He had a pretty interesting quote that I thought summed up the air raid. and it's old school philosophy pretty well. He said, I think the best way to describe our offense is probably that it's not just an offense. It's truly a philosophy. It's a simplicity. We don't have a ton of concepts. But we believe in being able to rep everything we do every single day and being better

at running it than the defense is at stopping it. So I think, you know, with the air raid offense and with Mike Leach, you know, there's stories of them just repping, you know, four verts over and over. and over again and just being able to, you know, divert a little bit based on what the defense is doing. But yeah, they just don't run a ton of concepts. But I think even in college, when Cliff Kingsbury put his own spin on it, they weren't just doing those old air raid concepts that he was, you know, he was kind of creating his own thing. He was borrowing plays from other offenses. But there was still the air raid staple concepts there.

So I think when he went to the NFL, he took that to a whole other level and just started borrowing plays from all over to place, kind of tailoring his offense very specifically to his opponents. I remember talking to Cliff last summer. I was writing about him and Kyler, and I did a series at the ringer about all of the new play callers in the NFL because 15 new teams had first year play callers coming into the 2019 season. It was kind of the Sean McVeigh effect.

where everyone was chasing that new young hot shot play caller in a lot of cases was the head coach. And I was asking him just about the way he did things versus the way that Lincoln Riley did things and some of the differences you see. And we were talking about how it's really just about grafting those concepts onto your personnel. The philosophy is the same and the overall approach

and motivation and goals are the same. But you have to do it based on the players that you have. And at Oklahoma, Lincoln Riley used a ton of 12 personnel. a lot of tight ends. They did some new cool stuff in the run game where Cliff wasn't doing as much stuff like that. So now as you're watching a year and a half into this experiment of him bringing his approach to the NFL,

where would you say it most diverges from what he was on the college level? The big thing is just how well they're able to run the ball and diversity in the run game, I think is pretty surprising. They're starting, or they did last year, they started using a lot of two-back stuff, not just with a fullback and running back, with two actual running backs with

Kenyon Drake and last year when they had David Johnson. This year, they're kind of mixing it up with Drake and Edmund. So obviously Drake is hurt now. But I think hiring Sean Cougler, their offensive line coach, was a really big hire for Cliff because he's one of the best offensive line coaches in the league, I think. And I think that you're starting to see a lot of those staple stealer runs that he had that Coogler ran when he was with the Steelers. Now he's infusing it with this air raid system. You're seeing some duo. You're seeing a lot of counter, which they were really good at when he was with the Steelers mixed in there.

It's kind of interesting. Coming into, like you said, everyone thought it was going to be heavy 10 personnel. That was going to define their offense. And they do use 10 personnel more than any other team in the NFL. 23% of their snaps this year have been out of 10 personnel. the next closest team is at 17%, which is Buffalo, which is not surprising because both of those teams run a lot of empty. But then you look at some of the other aspects of this.

They're also second in the NFL in usage of 12 personnel. It's a 30% of their snaps. So it really is unlike any other team in the league, but it's unlike any other team in the league in a way that I don't think a lot of people would have anticipated. Yeah, last year, if you go back to looking at week one against the Cardinals of Lions in his very first game. I think he wanted to use a lot of 10 personnel,

but they just didn't have that much receiver depth like they would have wanted to if you're going to be a team that uses a ton of 10 personnel. So they started mixing in a lot of 12 personnel. This year, they're using Dan Arnold in some interesting ways. You're using him as a fullback in some plays. So I think he's just doing a good job of just playing to his personnel strength. What route concepts or what just concepts in the passing game that they've used this year have jumped out to? Are there any things that they seem to go to fairly often?

Because I know that they're using Hopkins on the backside of those three-by-one sets and really just leaning on that two-man game with Kyler. But overall, just the structure of it, what kind of defines their passing game? It's an old air raid staple, but they have a ton of variations of mesh. they'll run mesh with double wheel. They'll run mesh where they have Kirk motion over, which puts, because like you said, they keep Hopkins to the left.

But when they want them to play slot, they'll motion Kirk over, and that way he becomes the, Kirk becomes the outside guy and Hopkins becomes the inside guy. They'll run mesh that way. I think in that Seahawks game, I'll surprise to see that their timing with Mesh was a little off still. I think I was surprised by how well Hopkins and Murray has played together so

far. But with some of the option routes and some of the route conversions for the other receivers, I think Murray is still a little off with his other guys like Isabella and Kirk. So that's something they have to work on. But yeah, I'm seeing a ton of mesh. They love double posts with a deep over there. And, you know, with Kingsbury, you see some unique route concepts that you don't really see that often, too. And he does a good job tailoring to his opponents, like in that Seahawks game. The Seahawks actually run a little more cover two than people realize now. They had a great concept out of empty that I haven't seen before where a slot guy runs the curl, the outside guy runs a corner route to hold the corner, and they run a deep over there to kind of put that hook

defender in conflict. And yeah, I think that's another thing that Kingsbury does that air raid guys typically don't do is he'll, you know, if he sees a cool play that he wants to install, he's going to install it. And a good example is that that too is like that that touchdown to D'Andre Hopkins where they fake the check with me. And then they end up throwing the, throwing to the fade when they surprise the defense with the quick snap. And after the game, Kingsbury said he got that play from Ohio State. And it's so funny that you say that because I think that's really defined what he's been over the last couple years is an ability to adapt, an ability to use other people's ideas.

The Niners run that windback play where the fullback will start one direction and kind of come back the other way. And the Cardinals ran that multiple times last year. And it's just straight out of the 49ers playbook. So I feel like they're still kind of in this feeling out process. You know, it's a year two, but I really do think that he's open-minded enough to say, what's going to work for us? How can we get the most out of our players?

It doesn't feel like they have a cohesive understanding of what they want this offense to be quite yet. And I don't mean that as a negative statement. I think that I trust that their ability to figure all of this out. It just feels like they're still in that growing period where it's like, all right, this works for us, this doesn't work for us. They're trying to figure out how much to use Kyler's legs, because it almost feels like those scrambles are a part of their passing game now.

It's a little bit muddled and a little bit jumbled, but not in a way that's really harming them that much, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does because it feels like their offense is more like a collection of plays rather than a systematic type of offense, like, you know, with the Rams.

They're going to run outside zone. They're going to run boot, and then they're going to run their shot plays off of it and they're going to run some running back screens. But with them, it just doesn't feel like there's that cohesive sort of sequencing that you see with these other more systematic play callers. And a good example of that is, I think they want a good play action game, but their offense isn't really an under center straight up running offense. So their play action doesn't really match up with the type of run game they have. So I agree with you. I think,

they're still trying to figure out how their system is going to look from a macro perspective. You mentioned that where they motion Kirk out to the left and they have Hopkins in the slot. I loved one of those plays they ran against the Seahawks. They did that exact thing. I want to say it might have been out of empty. And Hopkins ran like a deep bench route to the sideline while Kirk cleared out the corner on that side. It was like, oh man, okay, they're using, they're trying to find creative ways to use Hopkins. The other kind of ingredient that I feel like when I watch them play,

it just seems like it could open up so much for them is using Isabella to clear stuff out from the slot. When he's in the game, he's so fast and teams have to pay so much attention to him that there's a ton of space that gets created in the deeper and intermediate areas of the field. But part of the problem is I think that they don't really trust their offensive line to hold up very long right now because they don't have a lot of longer developing routes within the fabric of their offense. So again, it just seems like they're trying to figure out the right ways to play while also protecting Kyler both physically and protecting him from a schematic standpoint. Yeah, I think part of that is their offensive line talent is, I mean,

how would you describe their offensive line talent? I think it's like a little above average, but I mean, I think they're doing the right things as far as their protections are getting it right. They're not missing assignments, but their talent just isn't there yet for a longer developing passing game. What would you say has jumped out to you just about Kyler's strengths and weaknesses

as a passer so far? Do you feel like there are things, even as he's figuring it out and relying a lot on his legs this year? Are there things in the passing game that you think he's doing well? When he knows where he wants to go with the ball, he's extremely accurate.

The armed talent jumps off the page. He obviously can buy time with his legs, and he's just so much more confident in his ability to scramble and still avoid big hits. But to me, it just seems like the timing is still a little off with this offense, especially when he has to get off his first read and move to a second or third read. It seems like the timing is just not quite there yet. And I don't know if it's because, you know, he doesn't trust his other guys as much as he does DeAndre Hopkins. but yeah, just is still, I mean, the Seahawks game is probably the best, one of his best games as far as just being a passer that he's had into pros.

But the other games this season, he just doesn't seem like he has a great rhythm right now. Yeah, it's the encouraging thing about this team right now is that I don't feel like they found a rhythm. I don't think they know exactly what they want their passing game to look like or how things complement one another or how all the pieces fit quite yet, but they're still five and two. and they've been able to lean on their talent in this way. Even like the little completion he had to chase Edmonds against the Seahawks, it was a little slant out of empty. Edmonds took it like 27 yards. Hopkins is doing stuff where he's just taking over as a boundary receiver.

Kyle is making stuff happen as a scrambler. They've been able to survive because they have these talented guys right now. And when you're not playing as well as you can play and you're still five and two, that's something that you have to feel pretty damn good about. So I'll just be curious to see over the second half of this season, almost like what happened last year, where they started to find a different version of their offense when they knew what they wanted to be. They knew what their personnel was. How that unfolds over the second half of this season, I think is definitely going to be something worth paying attention to. Yeah, I think you're right.

It looks a lot like last year, but I think Diadria Hopkins obviously adds a explosive element they didn't have last year. So they're scoring more points. But I just think that they're just still a little discombobulated, trying to figure themselves out. and I think the hope was that they were going to do it by this year. But I think with the Cardinals' defensive improvement, they have time to kind of figure out who they're going to be. It's definitely something to be, that's worth paying attention to over the second half of the season here

is what this offense ends up looking like and whether or not it can be good enough by the end of the season for them to potentially be dangerous in the playoffs. So Ted, thanks very much, man. Always good to talk to you. And we'll talk to you later and appreciate it. All right. Talk to you soon. All right, guys.

that's all we got for today. Thank you so much to Jay Keeps for doing that deep dive on Russell Wilson. That was a blast. Thank you to Matthew Fairburn for talking all things bills. And as always, thank you to Ted. We will be back tomorrow, Lindsay Jones and I, breaking down all things week eight, along with some fake trades that we would like to see before the deadline. I love fake trades more than I love most things. So I'm really looking forward to that. Until then, thank you so much for listening to The Athletic Football Show. We'll talk to you later.