The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Sizing up the new playcallers across the NFL in 2022

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

When a team has a new playcaller, it doesn't matter if you're a Super Bowl favorite like the Bills or a team just looking to get by like the Bears, the intrigue is going to be there. Some new playercallers this season, like Josh McDaniels and Doug Pederson, are known commodities. Others, like, say, Ken Dorsey and Luke Getsy, are just beginning their playcalling careers. Robert Mays and Nate Tice run through them in detail on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today is Thursday, August 25th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, it's my good friend Nate Tice. Nate, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing really well. I really am.

Only one more preseason game to get through. That's only one more game. I have to scour some third-string quarterback and third-string practice squad receiver for the bucks that I kind of sort of like. So I'm ready for the rest of. real games, but no, this has been a fun exercise the last couple of weeks to actually talk about some of this stuff and see maybe some tangible results with these preseason games.

I don't know, geeky stuff that I like. We're getting close, man. We are getting close. Today was officially my last trip to see a team. I went to Hallis Hall today and talk with some people, went to visit the Bears a little bit, and that'll be it. And we're getting into the end of these travels. And one of the shows I wanted to kind of stick at the end here was one about first year

play callers because I wanted to wait until I was done visiting with a lot of these guys actually and then a lot of the buildings where they work. It's like you had a plan. It's almost like I had a plan. I don't often have a plan, but sometimes I have the whispers of a plan. I guess that's what I would call this. So that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about just some first year offensive play callers around the league because I think there are a ton of interesting guys to dig into. We've talked about a few of these people in some shape over the last few weeks. We're not going to talk about Mike McDaniel in Miami today because during the Tyree Kill conversation I had with Seth on the new superstars, a new situation show, which you guys absolutely should go listen to. We really dug into the structure of the Dolphins offense and what we think it might look like way beyond Tyree Kill. So I'm not going to rehash a lot of that. Some of the conversation we're going to have about Ken Dorsey. We touched in our top 10 offenses show. Eventually when you're doing a podcast every single day, some of this stuff is going to be retread. But I do think. that there's more meat on the bone with Ken Dorsey and a lot of these other guys that we're

going to talk about. I think we have eight offensive play callers. And I'm counting guys that weren't the full-time play caller all of last season. So their first full season as the offensive coordinator or play caller for their teams. And that's so we can include Ben Johnson from Detroit, who I got to spend a little bit of time with when I went up there to visit the Lions in early August. So let's start with Ken Dorsey just because I think he's in the spotlight more than really any of these other guys just because of the expectations that we've lumped both on the bills and their offense. And when we did that Topson offenses show earlier this week, I was comfortable saying that they

were going to be the best offense in football and he's never called plays in the NFL before. So I understand the risks there. But I also think that a lot of the reasons that they wanted to promote him, a lot of the reasons they didn't go outside the building, is that they wanted to carry over a majority of what this offense was from the last couple of years of Brian Dable's tenure there. So when you're thinking about Ken Dorsey stepping in as the offensive coordinator there, what are the first couple questions that come to mind for you? Well, I remember with Ken Dorsey first, he was a scout after he finished playing,

and then he was Cam Newton's quarterback coach. And so those are like my two. And of course, the old Miami teams when he was a player, University of Miami when he was He has a fascinating background. Right. Even among NFL offensive coordinators, he has a fascinating background. The thing I remember the story about Ken Dorsey. He was on the best college football team ever. Ever. He was insane. He was insane. Like that team was, yeah. But the stat I remember him as a player was actually from his high school career. He didn't get sacked like a single time his senior year of high school. And that was like the big thing that the Miami coaches were like, hey, there's something to this guy.

And we found out, yeah, didn't get sacked a single time in high school, which is pretty absurd actually when you think about it. Think about kind of high school offensive lines. But I think he's a very smart guy. Seems like he has a pretty good sense. humor like he called himself he like to say that he isn't too much of a psychopath which is kind of funny um but there is something to that background he had with cam and i think with that background is a good and like i'm saying good and bad thing but more of uh like what how much to push that run game for the running quarterback aspect and how much to kind of pull away maybe they're taking too many hits maybe he's seen too many like of the bad side of doing that so i think that that does matter um i know it's a two game sample size i like what you mentioned that the continuity is such an important thing, especially when you have a star quarterback like this, a true elite quarterback,

is I think they realized the limitations they ran to last year, which we've referenced to about the bills, but also what are the good things that we did as this bill's offense? What did you like, Josh? Okay, Josh, when we were in quarterback meetings, he kind of always would complain about this play. Okay, that one's out. That one's out. Okay, but Josh maybe really like this play. Okay, what's leaning into that? He kind of has that connection. I'm assuming most quarterback coaches and the the quarterbacks usually do. Otherwise those quarterback coaches kind of get ran out of there. because the quarterback usually has some say in it. But I know it's a two-game sample size, but comparing last year to this year for the preseason

is just their differences in how much you're using like 21 and 12 personnel, which was referenced before. Last year, they ran the third least amount of times, 21 and 12 personnel combined. So either two tight ends or a fullback. This number is bumped up to 21%. Like just, you know, a little bit of an increase right there. And I think just because of that, they are realizing, hey, let's mix this up. Let's mix up our looks.

We can't go so spread heavy. And I think just in these glimpses of the preseason games, I think there's a couple tweaks that they've done already. I'm referencing on the top 10 offenses pod. They were my number two offense, so I'm just as optimistic about him as you are. But they had some protection tweaks, some stuff that was limiting them last year. I think that's a really cool sight to see. Like I know, again, it's small sample sizes, but it's like, ooh, I think he understands what they were running into last year, figuratively and literally. And now they kind of are going to have those tweaks while keeping kind of that core identity of, hey, let's spread it out.

chuck it with Josh Allen. Let's do it, baby. Let's get all these guys like run after the catch. So I like it. I think he's tweaking it the right way. Talk about the protection stuff. The biggest change, I think, for this team offensively is Aaron Kromer coming in to be their offensive line coach. Absolutely. So the last job he had full time was with the ramps during the early McVeigh years. That's wide zone, baby. I mean, that's where he comes from. I think they'll do a little bit more of that, running the ball under center. If you look at the players that they signed in free agency, Roger Saffold comes from Tennessee, where they did a ton of that over the last few years.

Even Quees and Barry, their backup right tackle was on the Titans last year, so you can kind of pick up those little things. And personnel-wise, I think you're exactly right. I think they're going to do a lot of the stuff they did last year late in the season. But I also think that if the situation calls for it, they don't mind trotting out there with Stefan Diggs, Isaiah and McKenzie, Gabe Davis and Khalil Shakir, and let's just fling this thing around the yard. I think they want to be able to do all of it.

So I assume they're going to try to take as much as they can from who they were over the last couple years. Small tweaks. Every coach has different opinions about, all right, what if we put Dawson Knox at the number one spot here rather than number two? What does that do to a defense?

I think those are the things that you're going to see along with a little bit of a more varied run game because of a Cromer's background. Talking to Dorsey, one of the things I found really interesting is that because they had to incorporate some new coaches onto their staff, offensive line coach went to the Giants,

and he was the quarterback's coach, obviously, right? So Joe Brady comes in as their quarterbacks coach. And Aaron Kramer comes in as the lion coach. So instead of really intentionally seeking out new ideas from studies around the league, they incorporated a lot of new ideas from the new perspective that they were getting from the assistance that they were bringing in. So it's a way to tweak what you're doing, but you're kind of doing it from inside the house. And I think that's a lot of what they did this year, which I think is really interesting. And I think that there's a lot of value in that because these are guys coming in,

like, why do you do it this way? Why are the rules this way? Why do you call it this? And that's a way to kind of push it forward in a sense that may not seem obvious at first glance. And sometimes when you get those new coaches, even if it's just one new coach, sometimes you see like, oh, we brought in one new offensive line coach or we brought in the new quarterback coach.

I'm just giving a basic example. Sometimes when they do that self-scout at the end of the season, those kind of coaching meetings lead to so much change because like you said, it's just that fresh perspective where they make them explain the definition of everything. That's exactly what it was, as far as I understand it. That's, oh, that's a good place. So what are the rules on that? Well, this is how we read it.

And then you, because it happens everywhere. Even the best coaches, like, things just get bastardized as years go on, especially if you have repeat continuity with players and coaches. And why did you call it that? Oh, shoot. We called it that because David Boston ran it like 2002. Like, you know, like that's, you forget the original definition. So I think that's what you can see it already happening in these games, which is, thank God, they play some of their starters.

Like, thank you. So I can actually take some of this bills, like as opposed to some of these teams I watch. I'm like, I don't know how much they're using. But they're running more under center stuff, which I think you're talking about the personnel they already have. That matches so much because Moss and Singletary is so much better as traditional runners. Shoulders to the line of scrimmage, downhill. Let me work juke. Don't let me make me work laterally and the vertically.

Neither of them are great out. Running out of shotgun, you mean? Yes. Same discussion as CEH with the chiefs. Much better as a downhill runner, traditional runner. But that, it just makes sense that that's where the tweaks from the continuity, Dorsey goes, well, we like that because we did this, but then a guy like Joe Brady or Kromer can go, well, your rules are shit.

Like, you know, or they go, oh, no, that's great. Oh, we also did it like this. And they had some more variety with that. No, I love that. As opposed to going to a coaching clinic, just have one of the coaching clinics come work for you. I mean, that's basically what you're doing. Brady said that they asked so many questions that I think that Dorsey's started getting annoyed in the early stages of the meetings because they were just sitting there

peppering him with stuff, which I think makes total sense because when you walk into an offense that's been so good, you want to know how it works. And I do think that's a majority of what those conversations looked like. I'm not going to say specifics, but I asked him where he was kind of looking for ideas this year. And he mentioned an NFL run game and a college passing game. And the reason that I want to point that out is it's fascinating with the bills because when you're looking at other teams, if they're trying to steal ideas from around the NFL, they look to their tree first, right? It's like, all right, they run similar kinds of stuff, so this will fit what we do. The bills don't have an offense, like, so you can steal an idea from anywhere.

And that's why it just feels like the world is their oyster when it comes to incorporating new ideas and new plays. I can watch a high school team, and I can steal this, and I can watch a college team and randomly steal this. And I can watch an RPO from some random college and like, well, we can do this because our quarterback is an alien. And I just thought that was so interesting that the breadth of what's available to them is so incredibly wide that they almost have to pair themselves down intentionally. That's such a good example.

I mean, that's so funny because remember, they're doing Cole Beasley running shoot routes. Yes. For a year or two. Like that was like their bread and butter was, hey, Colby'sly, go read it on third down. And then they had some RPO stuff, which is from everywhere. and then they're trying to incorporate some, like, lead, like, zone plays with the tight, with Dawson knocks back into the box, like, which is kind of out of college. Like, yeah, it's just, I exactly see that.

And like you say, though, you're able to run anything you want when you have an a old and it makes it just, if he can read everything out and if he doesn't read it out perfectly, then go still create a play. It's a lot of fun to dial up some ballplays because you have a good, uh, room for error when the guy can make a play out of anything. So let's move on to a guy that, is kind of connected to this, and that's Mike Kafka with the Giants. Are you surprised that Brian Daibble is not calling plays for the Giants?

A little, but I also kind of like that. I always like that kind of self-awareness new head coaches have, like about going like, hey, I got enough on my plate first-time head coach. Like, I can't, I kind of like being maybe he has, obviously he's going to have his thumb on the offense. It's not like he's going to not know what the game plan is. But I kind of like that. I like that self-awareness.

I really do from a first-time head coach. But it is interesting. It is interesting for him to go like, nope, I'm not doing it. Like, I kind of like it. I think it was an intentional way to kind of have his presence be felt all over the building and a bunch of different types of meetings early on. Right. And they're really trying to change everything about the way that that organization operates.

And I think that having the head coach show his face at every area of the building, every defensive meetings, all of that stuff. I do think there's value in it. And I totally understand how that happened. So they brought over. Shane Tierney and Bobby Johnson were on the bill's staff last year. She was the assistant quarterbacks coach and Bobby, who you know very well was offensive line coach.

There now, Shane is the quarterback's coach and Bobby's the offensive line coach for the Giants. And so with Daibu kind of bouncing around into being the head coach, those two guys kind of helped translate the offense to Kafka early on. They were like the one run game, one pass game, like this is what we do. Because it's so interesting to me that you see so many, and this to speak. to what we're just talking about, how the breadth of it is so wide in what the bills were last year. And I assume what Daible ultimately wants to be. A lot of these guys that are offensive head coaches will pick a coordinator, whoever, from their coaching tree and from that system.

Their one else runs the bill system. So there's not a lot of value in him picking another coach that does the exact same thing on offense. So they looked at what the chiefs are doing. They're like. And now you can incorporate. And that's what it feels like, right? So now you can incorporate some of those ideas. So the way that I understand it is that those two guys kind of fed the offense to Kafka.

When that process was over, he fed the chief's offense to them. And so now you have these two kind of buckets of ideas working in concert with one another. And that sounds pretty fucking cool to me. Yeah, that is kind of cool. I love that. I love merging of ideas. And especially that's what's cool because like you said, they're not the same family. So it's not like they come over and go, oh, you're still running snag?

Are you still running a lion? Like they're saying the same language. It's like, oh, what was that thing you guys were doing on third down when you're putting this guy at this spot? What did you guys call that? Oh, wow, we don't run that. How'd you protect it? And you get into these awesome discussions because then also a guy like Bobby Johnson,

office line coach goes, oh, well, you guys protected it like that. Well, we can do this play out of that as well. Like you, it's fun. That's kind of like a little bit of like from the coaching side. Like those months of like late January, if you haven't made the playoffs in February, when you're doing the self-skirts. out review stuff can be really fun because it can be, well, also can be really frustrating when you're like, wow, we ran that 24 times. Why didn't we run that 50 times last year? Because

like you have some concepts that are awesome. So if you get guys from different looks or different trees, it can be even more interesting going, well, this was good. This was good. It also seems like really great in February. And then when you get into August, you're like, well, that didn't work. Like that could happen as well. And honestly, watching their first couple games, again, I'm trying to take a little bit like grain of salt to a kilogram of salt. It's always hard to know. But I like looking, you know, seeing the first day five installs and stuff, or first five days of install that they usually run in these preseason games. And they're running everything like boots, play actions, drop back, quick game, RPO's where they're reading the second level. They're doing everything.

So a lot of under center, but then also under center 11 personnel with three receivers, just a little bit of everything. So that was just like the most notable thing for me watching this was like, okay, it looks like they're trying to see what sticks and what works for their personnel. Talking to people there just about the major differences between what the chiefs do and what the bills do, like you said, they're cousins. They have a lot of similarities and how spread out it is and how vertical it is. The bill is just played with tempo in kind of a more robust way than a lot of other offenses in the league do. And we'll get into this with another person we're going to talk about as part of this conversation. But I think that's a theme for really, really smart offensive coaches. It's let's be able to change how fast and slow we're going, but we can have pretty much anything in the offense.

at our disposal when we're playing fast. Because a lot of the time the menu when you're playing no huddle is shrunk. You only have five or six things that you can go to. But I think some of these really good coaches are trying to make sure in any way possible, whether it's code words or trying to lump things into families where we can get to a huge portion of our offense while playing with tempo because their menu on defense still has to be small if we're playing fast. And they can't substitute if we're playing fast.

So just one way, like we said, many, many times to kind of hold the pen last is to be able to play that quickly and do so much stuff out of it. Yeah. And that was always the, we've talked about this before, the thing with Chip Kelly was everyone was like, oh, he plays so fast. It was like, yes, they can't, they can the Eagles and the Oregon ducks back in the day. It was more that they punched you three times with jabs. And then they're like, oh, below punch. Like, we're just going to sit here and not throw anything. And then you can't do anything.

And then we just take our time. And actually, we're going to get to the perfect. play here. And that's what the Rams. That's what was so cool with the Rams when McVey first got there was that they're doing motions and stuff out of no huddle. And that popped my brain back in 2017. That's exactly what this is too.

It's because most teams when they're doing that, they can't motion because you have so few plays that you're stationary when you're doing no huddle. And so and the bills did a ton of that last year too. They're in different personnel. They're in different formations. They're motioning and having all that stuff of your disposal is pretty awesome. And it's interesting because. Because Kafka is going to be a first-time play caller who is new to the language of his offense.

Yeah. And so he's translating his. He's going from Portuguese and Spanish. Like, that's what he has to do. So there were flashcards involved as far as I understand this about learning new language. Northwestern guy. And what's interesting about his background is that if you look at his stops, go to, go to Mike Kafka's Wikipedia page.

He played in a different team every year in the NFL. Yeah. Literally every single year. So he was a backup or a practice squad guy for a different team. team every single season. So he had to learn all of these different offenses as a backup quarterback, which is a really valuable experience when you're having to do this. So, I mean, it really is like something where he's physically had to kind of train himself

to be like, what's the play call? How do I read this very quickly? Even the actual rhythms of it physically are different because he's never had to do it before in this specific language. So it's a really interesting challenge. And the fact that I think Daibel was so willing to hand it over to him is probably an indication of the confidence that he has in his ability to do this. I was Mike Kafka as a scout team quarterback in Wisconsin in 2009.

So I had to be him for a week when we played Northwestern. It was great too because it was spread it out quick game over slant flat, stick, every play. And it was awesome. In 2009, no one was ready for that. So it was like my favorite week. I had to be him. And then the Hawaii ran a similar offense a couple weeks later. I think they were running shoot still.

And it was awesome. Because like in scout team, when you're under center, your center and guard are getting blown up every play. So, like, being a gun and getting the ball out really quick every time, I'd have to worry about O'Brien Schofield and JJ Watt, you know, clotheslining me. So it was a lot of fun. So I have fond memories of Mike Kaffka, Northwestern, even though he beat us that year. What do you think of their personnel offensively?

I mean, it's such a weird kind of hodgepodge of guys. I mean, they love Wandoe Robinson. I assume he was going to be a big piece of what they do, but he's a very specific type of player, right? Slot only. Yeah, he's going to be slot only. That's what he's going to do. And then you have Colin Johnson, who would 6-6 mammoth receiver,

who apparently was having a really good camp towards Achilles today. Sterling Shepherd is still hurt. Kenny Gallaudet has apparently been abysmal, which if anyone watched Kenny Gallaudet last year, I don't think that's the most surprising thing in the world. So I'm interested in the setup of how the staff is and what the system is and all of that stuff,

I don't know how I feel about how good they'll be this year. I mean, it's always going to be a transition year. And we'll see what they get out of Cadarius, Tony, who was very good in flashes last year, but has struggled to stay on the field. There's so many questions about who's going to be on the field and how successful they're going to be. But I think that the way that they're setting this up,

it's certainly more about 2023 than it is about 2022. Right. I think it's, hey, what's going to, our office align right? You know, they invests out of the Evan Deal. Andrew Thomas looks great. Like, he looks so good. That's where you can build optimism. Because if you have two tackles, two guys you drafted in the top 10,

you've got to feel pretty good about that. And then I think Feliciano's hurt right now. They have a lot of interior offensive line injuries. You'd hope that those guys can get healthy. But from left to right, I think it's Andrew Thomas, then Shane Lemieux, who only played, I think, one game last year, but they feel okay about Feliciano would be the starting center. They have Mark Lewinsky at right guard,

and they have Evan Eil at right tackle. I'm doing all of this from memory, by the way. I'm not looking at this at all. And then so they drafted a third round, they have a third round pick that is a backup guard right now. And theoretically, if Fisiana were to move on, they could move Lumuda Center

and they could have that third round picks up in. So they have that group under contract for multiple years. And I think that they've done a pretty good job of building that with the right resources, but not overstretching themselves. because they didn't have the resources to stretch themselves. They didn't have any money to spend in free agency. So I think that could be a group that goes from being kind of a punchline a couple years ago

to a group that is at the very worst functional. And at best, if you're painting a rosy picture, it could be a strength for them over the next couple seasons if both of those tackles develop and you can piece it together inside. Absolutely. And other personnel, too, you hit up on the receivers, but like Seqwan looks a lot better. So, I mean, they're having them run choice routes and stuff. So I think maybe- He's a good football player.

Yeah, just because he wasn't deserving of the second overall pick and he's had trouble staying healthy, doesn't mean that when Saquan Barkley is playing football, he's not good at it. He's one of the greatest prospects I've ever watched. It's just that he just got hurt. Like, that's all it is. And he got drafted second. So now everyone wants to bash him for it. It's not his fault.

He got drafted second. That's how sick he was in college. So, yeah, I mean, but he looks good. Like he really does. I mean, I'm telling you, they, if they feed him, I, I, I, I'm all around or all about it. And especially if they want to just use Daniel New Jones as just a hammerhead.

Like just run the single wing with those two. Like just go wildcat basically, wild giant. Like I think that's what they might have to lead it to this year. But it might be fun. I think they're going to be creative. I think they're going to try and throw a bunch of different shit at the wall. But I mean that as a compliment.

I mean that they're going to try and figure out what sticks for their personnel and what they can build on. It's a rebuilding year for it. It's a youth year, which I honestly, I'm into that though. I like, I too.

They have a good coaching because they have a good coaching staff. It's like watching the Falcons last year. It's like these players are not good, but I'm at least interested in what you're trying to accomplish and how it all fits together. I guarantee you that it's going to be week six and the giants are going to be one in five or two and four and we're going to go and be like, you want to talk about the giants? Like they're doing some kind of cool stuff and no one is going to care about it in America except me and you in the 28 minute segment that we do about the giants in week six. that's a Friday pod week six just just get ready for it

I can't believe anybody listens to this podcast I seriously cannot believe it they play they played the Cowboys week three I already know that because I just on Monday night so that will be a that'll be a nice trial by fire for their young offense tackles with tomorrow's Lawrence and Michael Parsons we're going to be trotting out some some reaction pods to some prime time games this year to spoiler alert so maybe that'll be one of the first ones that we do we'll just go deep on the Giants offense on a Monday night game for everybody. All right.

Oh, no. There's a week two Thursday night game that looks pretty juicy too. Yeah, that one seems okay. That one seems pretty good. I'm sure we might be tuned into that one, considering Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes are involved. All right. Let's move on to our next one here.

Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota. We talked about this a little bit yesterday with Seth when we were talking about Justin Jefferson and kind of how he's being used. But I don't think you really have to use a lot of imagination for what this is going to be. I think it's going to be a lot of what we've seen from the Rams over the last couple years. The pieces make sense. You know, this is a team that the Rams is 83% 11 personnel last year is the highest rate in the league. Vikings were in the bottom three. But the Vikings 11 best players on offense include three receivers in a tight end.

And so I think that it actually makes a lot of sense. And if you think about the three receivers that Minnesota will be able to trot out and 11 personnel, and I'm sorry to not include Amir Smith-Marcette in this, but for right now I'm sticking with the three. It's okay. KJ Osborne played 409 snaps out wide last year, 362 in the slot. Justin Jefferson is going to play inside a ton for this team this year. We know Adam Thielen can do it. They can move these guys into any spot they want.

And that's cool. I just think it all makes a lot more sense than it typically does for a coaching staff walking into a group of players that they didn't choose. And I'm actually really excited because, again, small sample size, but they're 10th this year and 11 personnel in preseason so far. They're right around the Chargers, Bucks, Chiefs, and Packers, which are very 11 personnel heavy teams. Last year, they're eighth and heavy personnel, which is, you know, 22, 13,

a lot of fullbacks and tight ends, all that stuff. They haven't used a snap of that in preseason so far, not one single snap of it. And they were eighth last year in the entire league. So, okay, okay. I think they know who their, where their bread's going to be buttered as a team. But I love how this team's fitting together. And when I watch their practice, I was like, oh, Okay, you guys are fully leading into that.

2019-ish Rams look. That's kind of what I'm going, like what I was seeing right there. It's not just Jefferson. And I'm glad you brought up the slot snaps because it's not just Jefferson doing the Cooper Cup stuff. It's the one doing the Robert Woods stuff. Like that is, it's both of them. They both when I was at practice. I'm not like giving away anything because you're going to see it is they're both getting jet sweeps.

Like they're not just running the motion. They're actually getting the ball. Like that Robert Woods and Cooper Cup had plenty of carries those first few years as Rams players. It was like an exaggerated flex bone offense. Like that's what the range is running. You got to do it just often enough to make people honest. Keep them honest.

But all the stuff that comes off of it. So if you fake the jet sweep, you run the jet sweep, then you run the zone play off of it. Then you run the windback off of it because all the three of your receivers can block. KJ. Osborne was doing chip stuff like a tight end last year. Like they trusted them to do that. So you have three good blocking receivers.

Okay. And then you're going to do the screen stuff off of it, the play action stuff off of it. it's going to look a lot like those Jared Gough Rams almost just souped up quarterback, a better quarterback. And, you know, really good receivers, though. I really do think that. And I hope Delvin Cook catches 25 screen passes this year. And it's going to be great.

It's the best looks for him. And all those checkdowns, I've already mentioned before, the Todd Gurley checkdowns down to sideline. Like, okay, I like this. Like, I got more excited about it as I've thought about how these pieces fit together. And how you got to look at it is, KJ. Osborne is almost in that Brandon Cook's role, which is like, it's that he's an. X, not like how we traditionally think of an X, but as a guy that's going to be the vertical, vertical type of guy.

When Kyle Shanahan came to the Falcons, I want to talk about it because this is how good Justin Jefferson is. Justice Jefferson was a monster last year on deep throws. No one's received more deep throws than Justin Jefferson last year, and he was very good on them. So, okay, well, do we want to take that away? Well, what else is Justin Jefferson good at? Everything. Everything.

So my, everything. So my story is that when Cali-Shanan came to the Falcons, he's going over the personnel, and then he's bringing up the blaze route, which is just a post and it over. They run it all the time. And someone asks him, who's the best at the post route? And he goes, well,

Julio would be our best guy. And then someone goes, who would be the best at the over route? And he goes, well, Julio would be the best guy at that too. And that's what he goes, that's my conundrum is he's good at both. So I don't know which one I want to put him on,

like from play to play. But the post doesn't get those routes as much. And why I'm bringing up the post is because on this play action looks. And Kirk Cousin's a great ball thrower. It's all post over his deep. deep corners, corners, and they were practicing this over and over at the practice I was at, an individual and team. So, okay, so we have KJ Osborne taking the top off.

We have Justin Jefferson getting those valuable overrouts or vice versa. It's like, ooh, this could be really spicy. I think those offense could be like they're creating some big, big chunks. They're modernizing what they were doing the last couple of years. They're just turning the dial up even more and modernizing the look. So the idea of mixing the receivers up is really interesting. I was talking to somebody on their staff and he's looking. literally listing off all the different combinations you could use out of a three by one.

It's like, all right. So if I put the Y as the single receiver that I can put the Z, the F, and the X in this spot and this spot. And I can do it. He literally was doing the math in his head about how many combinations there were, which is like, that's exciting. If you're a Vikings fan, that's a cool thing to hear. And then you're talking about, because it's fascinating to me, this offense theoretically shares DNA with the offense that they've run over the last several years. If you trace it all the way back, right? Gary Kubiak coach for Mike Shanahan,

and Mike Shanahan was Sean McVeigh's boss and da-da-da-da-da. Like it all is connected in some way. But they're very different, and I think there are a few really important distinctions. In Minnesota, the last few years, we talked about this a little bit in relation to Jimmy Gropolo with Seth yesterday. Kirk is getting so many.

I think Kirk Cousins led the league in dropbacks with seven or eight players in the box last season, which makes total sense when you think about how heavy their personnel was. The Vikings are getting tons of cover three and cover one single high coverages because teams have to walk somebody down. So when you're playing like that, you can call pass plays that are specifically designed to attack those coverages because you know for the most part what coverage is you're going to get. If you're an 11 personnel, and this is what the Rams had to kind of transition to over the last couple years, they couldn't call plays designed to beat specific coverages anymore because, Now the meta on NFL defense is, if we're playing shell coverage, it could be any coverage. So we can't dial up plays that are specifically designed to attack cover three or specifically

designed to attack cover one. So instead of doing that, you have what they call pure progression passing rates. So now you're not reading a specific defender or specific coverage. You're reading an area of the field. You're reading windows. And that has been a transition for Kirk because they were doing so many coverage beaters over the last couple years. So that is a big one, and I think that there's going to be more on his plate this year.

Because you see it, right? Think of how many times with a Sean McVeigh tree offense, they come to the line of scrimmage, quarterback puts his hands on his helmet and he goes, can, can, can. And that's, you have multiple plays in the huddle and you get to choose between them. I think that Kirk is going to have more freedom this year to do some of that stuff. Whether that's a good or bad thing, we will ultimately see. But I think if you're trying to figure out where are the differences here, those are a couple of the big differences between what they did over the last couple years and what they

might do this year in a way that might not seem obvious because the offenses come from the same tree. Yeah. They're both reptiles, ones a snake and one's a crockdow. That's kind of like, wow, you got to look at it. And when these, I like you brought the Can Can example up is, especially with a truly Kyle Shanahan and truly Sean McVay, not just their tree, but just truly those two, what they're so good that is on those can, those package plays, when you package two plays together.

I called a kill or alert. Those are two, they use can because they have another play in the can. But it's what those plays is they'll shift in motion. They'll truly package two plays with formation shifts and motions as well. Most offenses would just be like, do's right, run play, kill, pass play. And no one moves. It's just based on the shell. The quarterback's looking at it.

It might be just a down safety. It might be a front. they truly go, whole formation shift in motion play with another formation shift in motion play. And it's a lot of verbiage, but they are so good at it because they practice it so much that they get used to it. So they'll like, if you even watch the Rams last year with Stafford, they'd be in an empty look and then they'd kill it and then guys would switch spots. And because they're, but they're just getting to the next play. And but that takes words and verbiage and people actually be on the same page. It takes coaching to do that.

But I'm excited to do it because then you get. into the perfect look, even if, like you're saying, it's pure progression play. Premier plays is how they call it is what they call. Yeah. Get it to get to the platinum answer instead of the gold or silver answer. Like, let's get it. So the like, oh, the running cover three, let's run sail as opposed to, oh, four verts. And we don't, we don't really trust Kirk cousins with a bender. Let's get them thrown to the outside or throwing a post. Like, just little tweaks like that, but it takes good coaching and good, you know, awareness of what defense is trying to do against you, which I do think the staff has. I know this stuff sounds dense. I know.

I think one of the things that we're trying to do here, why are good offenses good? What truly makes them different? All of the plays are the same, right? All theoretically, all the plays and all the offenses are the same. It's not about some mad scientists going into some dark room somewhere and drawing up something on a napkin that no one has ever seen before. It's about doing these little tiny tweaks that just make the game easier

for your quarterback, for your players, all that stuff. And we talk about the tempo with the bills. And the first team that you mentioned was the Rams. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw the Vikings playing with a little tempo this year doing that to kind of change the dials a little bit, making the picture a little bit harder for the defense. So again, it's all stuff that at first glance, like, oh, they're running the Kubiak offense. Yeah. But that's not it. It's not at all.

The snake crocodile thing is great because now this offense has legs. This offense can walk around now. literally they have legs and I think it's important to kind of figure out what that means and how it's going to look right and that's another thing it's like why we talk about oh receivers that can block it's not just because we're being corny and trying to be tough guys and talk about that it's because now they can stay in that personnel with three receivers and no one has to come off oh we can't have him blocking that guy now these receivers can do that this all this stuff ties in together it's versatility and it all ties in together and that's why it's so cool when you see teams do it well

And that's why we gush about what McVeigh has done the last few years. And it's cool when other teams start to do it as well. I'm excited about this offense. Every time I think about it, I get more excited about it. A month ago, I wasn't. A month ago, I was like, oh, that's cool. Let's watch Justin Jefferson, whatever. And then more, I'm telling you, when I went to practice, not just because their

beautiful new facility that I wish my dad had in Minnesota. Is it insane? It's insane, dude, especially coming from what winter. You went to Winter Park. Yeah. I've been to Winter Park, which is essentially a trailer in a parking lot. Yes. Yeah, it really is.

Winter Park was built in 1962 and it looked like it was built in 1966. There's a Viking ship outside and then it is a trailer in a parking lot. Took a Christmas picture there when I was like nine years old on that little Viking ship, me and my sister. That was our Christmas card for a year at one time. I thought memories of Winter Park, but I was even talking to a couple of reporters there that I haven't seen in like 15 years. And when I went to that practice, they're like, this is weird. And by Winter Park, my dad changed. They had two racquetball courts.

and they used to not have a press room. So my dad closed down one of the racquetball courts and made that the press room. Like with no revamp or anything, it was just literally the racquetball court and it was like with some desks in there. So that gives you a nice, now they have like this beautiful majestic room with a fridge and snacks and everything. So it's seven TVs in there. So it's a little different now in Minnesota.

The thing is huge. You can get lost in there. I mean, you truly can get lost in that. It's a campus. It's the biggest one that I think I've ever been. Last thing that we have not mentioned, they're excited about the offensive line. because they've had to tweak some stuff. Again, some of the details are different.

There's a lot of wide zone, outside zone over the last couple years. The Rams run game is a little bit more varied than that. They teach it a little bit differently than that. So Chris Cooper is their offensive line coach. He was the assistant offensive line coach under Mike Munchak for the last couple of years in Denver. And I think that the ways that they're-protejay you want to steal from. That's exactly right. And I think the ways that they're doing some stuff,

there are some tweaks that they've kind of had to reprogram their offensive line. And they're very happy with how quickly those guys have. picked it up. And we'll see what Ed Ingram, their second round pick, if he can come in and play pretty early. I think they're happy with the way that he's just approached things and everything they've gotten from him so far. If Christian Derisaw can take a step forward. I mean, again, I'm running out of reasons to not think that this can be a top eight, top tenish offense. And I was tempted to throw them in when we did that exercise earlier in a week. And as I sit here, marinate on it a little bit more, I kind of regret not doing it. I wish I had

shot my shot. I wish I kept the bangles out. We got our made it really. upset a bunch of people. Oh my God. They came after me today when I tweeted about Justin Herbert and Joe Lombardi. And also I got bagels fans yelling at me. So that was fun. But no, it's the, I'm totally with you. It's a team I get more excited about as I see the pieces fitting together.

Maybe I just had to see them in practice until I go like, oh, yeah, maybe I'm not that smart. So maybe I just had to see it visually. I don't know. I think they're going to be. I wish I shot my shot too and put them at the top 10. But I'm glad we gave them a little honorable mention here. So next one, let's get to Doug Peterson, because.

you're a well-adjusted person who's watched a bunch of Jaguars preseason tape. So I'm curious. What have you seen from what Doug Peterson has done with the Jags and how it might align with what they did in Philadelphia over the last few years? You know, we were talking about with Josh Allen and the Bills and they can run anything. And it looks like Doug Peterson and that staff are going, hey, we can run anything with this dude. Let's try it. Like they did. It's preseason.

They're already doing some pretty cool stuff. I want to say cool stuff, but kind of a grab bag. It's a little bit of greatest hits. You see some RPO's. there, which Trevor's finite. He did a little bit in college, not Tom, but a little bit. And he's so quick to wait, you can get it out. Tons of Nakeds and play action, which I like, get him on the move, take advantage of

his athleticism, him being Trevor. But they also ran like a weak side choice route with Christian Kirk, which I didn't know Doug ran. Like, I don't remember him running that much with the Eagles. That might just been who he had. But there's like a shot. There's so many teams doing that though now. I'm sure that every offense you watch.

Like he didn't coach last year. So I'm sure he's watching tons of football. and how many offenses have that as a staple concept in who they are right now. It's all over the place. So you're just watching 100 times by accident. So I have to assume that that was part of him just digging into what offensive football that looked like over the last year or so. Absolutely.

Like just for some people know, that's like a Sean Payton, Norv Turner play. Like you want to know how LT got a lot of catches, Alvin Kamarro's got a lot of catches, or Darren Sprole's got a lot of catches. It's running that play. Weakside choice. You just put a guy on the week. side. So towards the boundary, he runs a choice route. You can run out, run an angle route or you can sit right of the middle ball. Camar is amazing. What receivers have done that over the last couple years if you're thinking about it?

Michael Thomas of the Saints was a really good one. Keenan Allen. Cooper Cup is another one that's really good at it. Those are kind of the ones that come to mind. Michael Thomas, they just spam the crap out of it. Like, Sean Peyton always runs it. Like he just, he tabs the guy. He's like, you are my choice runner. So it was Sproles for a little bit. Like he just kind of, tinkers which guy is running. It could be a tight end receiver or running back, but it's nice when you have a running back do it or someone you can get matched up on a linebacker

because those linebackers are just like shitting their pants. They're just like, oh my God, this guy's going to juke me. This guy's going to juke me and they do usually, so it's really funny. But those are the guys, like Cooper Cops is probably the best one at it right now. I think the 49ers have run out with Debo a little bit, not a ton, but they've done it.

I've seen them sprinkled it in a little bit. But with the Jaguar's stuff, it's a grab bag. they're letting Trevor handle everything. I mean, they're letting him attack vertically. He's pinning the ball on guys. Zay Jones and Trevor actually have really good chemistry, it looks like, which is not what I was expecting going into this season.

But they do. They don't have a ton of team speed. But, man, I kind of like what they're doing. They understand that Trevor can do what he can. They're going to attack over the intermediate. They're doing a couple shots off play action. Just some good, like, sound NFL offensive ball. looking at their staff area.

I didn't realize Mike McCoy was their quarterback's coach, which if you're looking back at Keenan Allen run a weakside choice routes, Mike McCoy was in San Diego for a good long while. Jim Bob Cooter is their passing game coordinator. This is an interesting collection of people. Press Taylor's office coordinator, which shouldn't be surprised. He was with Doug in Philadelphia. But other than that,

guys from a lot of different places. That's why it's a grab bag. It looks like, it looks like the, I mean, this iPhone was, like it's not like this does not look like the Carson Wentz, Doug Peterson offense at all. Like, yeah, there's a couple of RPO's that they ran. But it's a ton of undercenter because Trevor can handle it. So they're trying to do some under center stuff.

So it's not just gun, gun, gun, gun, gun with him. I don't know. I think they, I liked it. I have no real qualms of what they're trying to do. Still just have qualms with the team speed and having way too many sock guys. That's really more what it's about. So I'm wondering about the sock guy thing because if you look at it, one of the hallmarks of those Doug Peterson offenses in Philadelphia, 32.

4% 12 personnel during his tenure there. No one else in the league was above 26%. It's a pretty huge gap between them and number two over that stretch. But if you look at it, dig one layer deeper in those numbers. He actually cranked it up a lot in the last couple of years that he was there. It was down like 25% in the first couple seasons of his tenure. They draft Goddard in 2018 and fail to find a single wide receiver that's playable. So I think it was a lot more of it.

They ran 12 personnel on 46% of their place in 2019. 46%. That's so funny. That's what happens when you're drafted, Jay J.J.R. Saga, White side, and then Dallas got it. It's like, well, which button am I going to press? Which best five out there? Yeah, I think Dallas, you got it.

So that's what I want to see what it is this year. Because you look at their personnel and they have Dan Arnold, they have Evan Ingram, they have Chris Mannhirts who can block. You know, and they have a couple guys. theoretically if you wanted to move tight end with Ingram or Arnold and a more traditional blocking tight end with Manharts, you do have those two profiles on the roster. But what does that mean for Christian Kirk, who we like as a slot player more than slot only? So it's like, he's he outside now.

What is it? Just how the pieces fit together. I don't, not necessarily criticizing it. I'm just curious to see how it ultimately shakes out what they want to be. Yeah, they have guys that, I think that's the knock with their offenses. is they have a guys that are good at one specific role, as opposed to we can move them all around. So they, it's really. The opposite of the Vikings.

Right. Yes. Yes, exactly. And so I think that's what it is is that, okay, how are you going to get these guys in the best spots? But I have to talk about one Trevor play, like in the preseason against the Steelers. I will let you happen. Thank you. It was, oh, my God, man.

It was mesh. So two crossers and should be nice and simple. Old vehicles play? Yep. Everyone runs mesh. And yes, especially Doug. Doug used to run like two consulates a ton. Mesh was one of them.

Another was Snag. Snag is the inside hitch, corner and a flat. But runs Mesh, third down. Trevor knows he's going to the crosser and it's starting to come open. But then he sees Mika Fitzpatrick kind of hanging in like the hook curl area. So right before he's about to throw out, he shifts his head and shoulders to look at the middle field. And I know he did this to look, Mika off because there's no route going that way, that way. And Trevor's way too smart to be guessing.

So he just flips it, make it bites into the middle. and then he flips back and throws across her easy first down doesn't matter if the guy can't create any yards after the catch it was Marvin jones he got like two yards but they got the first but it was like it should have just been a normal mesh play throw tackle barely get the first instead he's like he just Trevor's little eye tweak got like five extra yards and it's like that's what good quarterbacks do they create five yards for you on every throw oh but i lost it especially he got minka of all people oh just even better it was great you are such a fucking weirdo. I love you. God damn. You were such a fucking weirdo. It was awesome. I saved that play on streamable. I couldn't wait to tweet it. I've made a weird decision in my life. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Let's talk about Pep Hamilton in Houston. I almost forgot him. The Texans are just I don't, I'm not trying to be me. I just don't understand anything about them. I reached out to a coach who had coached with Pep in the NFL. And I asked him, I was like, what do you think the offense is going to look like?

This is not a joke. He literally sent back the shrug emoji. Not trying to be mean. He did send an explanation after that, but I think that speaks to how much of a black box this kind of is. Because we have not seen Pat Hamilton call an offense since he was the Colts offensive coordinator eight years ago, seven years ago, 2014, 2015. So he took over that job in 2013 when Bruce Ariens got hired away because he had work

with Andrew Lock at Stanford, all that. he was the quarterbacks coach with the Chargers in 2020, and then he was a quarterback's coach with the Texans in 2021. So you'd assume it's going to be a blend of things they did last year. They did carry over some of their staff, but not as much as you might think, and some of the stuff that he used to do back when he was a coordinator for the Colts. What that ultimately looks like in practice,

I truly have no idea. Do you have any idea? No, I'm glad you didn't either, because my notes for this is hilarious. I just started listing off where he's been. I was like, so he's a hardball guy at Stanford and Michigan, but he was also Chad Pennington's quarterback coach with the Jets under Herm Edwards.

He was, he worked with Nathaniel Hackett's dad, Paul Hackett, as a quarterback coach. He was an assistant for Norv Turner. And then QB coach for Anthony Lynn. Like he's kind of some interesting influences around. I know he likes to attack vertically.

Like that is kind of what they, They like to be in heavier personnel, like at Stanford, those old Stanford teams. They had Ertz, speaking of those Eagles tight ends, but Ertz, Kobe Fleener and Levine Tololo, and they were just getting to be 12 and 13 personnel like all the time, but they would be attacking vertically from it. They'd be like it was almost like what the Charter or the Raiders did the last couple years under Gruden. You know, all the tight condensileks with all the tight ends and stuff, but then they would run play action deep. That's kind of what it more or less looks like. I mean, I'm into that.

I enjoy that type of offense. I am too. I know, but can they do it with this personnel grouping is my issue. It's, it's Davis Mills, you know, looked fine as a rookie. There's some stuff that like you can take, take him run with. But there's also there's some glimmers where I just want to see him improve upon. He's not really a creation guy. He's not really launched the ball down the field type of guy. He was dead last in the EPA per scramble last year in the entire NFL. Like movement is not his strong suit. He also like he was. neck. Yeah, I know, neck. And he's at the knees. He's a goofy. He's all neck. Not a lot of movement.

You had, you had Mike Glennon for a couple of years in Chicago and you're like, no more. No more long neck giraffe. You don't see a lot of scrambling in creation from the all neck quarterbacks. This is not how it works. I know. Mine's medium size. That's, I was a medium scrambler.

So, but it's, no, he, so Davis Mills. I've seen the video. I've seen a touchdown video. I'm so glad of Richard Pound. So there is, this is why I tweeted the stat, by the way. I was looking this up. So Justin Herbert, Ben Rothelberger, tied for a percentage of their past attempts. I went 20 or more air yards last year, which people were like, I thought I was knocking Justin Herbert.

I was knocking Joe Lombardi for that. That's actually what that tweet was about. The guy, the third guy that was tied for that number was Davis Mills. And the thing is, Mills was league average by EPA, like for those types of throws while Herbert was top three. You know, so that's the difference is if you're not going to take a ton of deep shots, you better make him worth it. It's the Jimmy G. Conundrum.

It's like, yeah, he's super effective at him, but he only throws 20 a year. Like, you know, so if we're going to get this vertically based offense, okay, we want our quarterback to take a couple more shots. And they have Brandon Cooks, who's really good in those intermediate deep breaths. Brandon Cooks is kind of good overall, like just everything you asked him to do. Nico Collins is kind of a ball winner type. But then after that, tight ends is a little dicey. You know, they like Brevin Jordan, who I'm a little lower on.

I was around Farrow Brown. He was a practice squad guy with us with a radar. he's a good blocker. That's about it. So I'm curious. They don't have a ton of overwhelming talent. They don't have a lot of depth, but he's a good coach.

So I know they're going to make the most of the guys they have, but it's going to be, I think it's going to be a grab bag offense. Hopefully they've been so basic this preseason. Like they've had like four plays with Davis Mills in there where it's like third and seven and they just run a run play. Like just a basic power play. And it's like, oh, well, thanks.

Thanks, PEP. Thanks for showing me what you got. So I think they're going to opposite where they don't want to show anything this preseason. I was watching a press conference of his from June. I don't know what I can pick up from this. It's a 20 minute session where he's answering a bunch of questions. They're building it through the players. That's what they're doing. Looking at what the players do well and that's what they're going to do. So love coach speak.

A lot of a lot of insight there. I do think that that may be more relevant than it could be elsewhere just because they might not have a system that they feel totally drawn to. George Warhop is their offensive line coach. He was in Jacksonville recently. He's been in a ton of different systems. His quarterbacks coach, Ted White, was with Pep and. the XFL. That was the last place he was. Then he was in Maryland the last season. I mean, it really is a collection of seemingly disparate parts. And that's not a criticism. I think that it's going to be a Frankenstein monster of different sort of ideas. Yeah. And they had this young running back, Damien Pierce, who looks great. And he's a bowling ball. Like he does,

he's not scared of contact. So, you know, I think they're going to try and beat some teams up a little bit. Their old line's okay. Actually, I really do think that. So maybe just beat some teams up in the run game and run some play action shots like i think that's what they're going to lean into i have i've no idea though that's just a guess damien pierce went eighth in our rookie draft in my keeper league earlier this week eighth amian pierce hype getting completely out of control i understood it in the moment but still pretty rich for damien pierce here's like what late second last like a month ago like somewhere around there i don't know i feel pretty good about my rshaud white selection every day every day i had the 17th pick and i absolutely

hated it because all those guys were gone. I was desperately trying to trade out of it. I just couldn't make it happen. Rookie drafts earlier so much better because. Oh, yes. When you're early on guys before the hype picks up. Oh, yeah, it's helped so much. Like, that's how you get out Pierce in a late second. I was staring at

Zamir White or Alec Pierce. And I was like, the home run swing with Samir White based on the way my team is built is worth it. And like it's paying running backs and what they cost in my league. No one gives a shit about any of this. But this is the way of the way. Except for our producer. Michael, this is the most perked up I've seen Michael, our producer.

This is like any of our discussions as soon as we talk fantasy. Speaking of fantasy and Beller, I get roped in to a Chicago Media League that I have to draft in tomorrow. It's a super flex league. I've never done it. These guys are stealing, they're stealing $50 for me. Like that's all that there is to this. They asked me to come so they could steal $50 from me. And they could just be like, doesn't this guy cover the league?

I guarantee you that's what it is. It's for 50 bucks and it's for shits and giggles for them to make fun of me later. Which is totally fine because they knew I'd bite. I'm not scared to compete. At least they're saying you're a good hang. You know, at least they're saying like, we want to hang out, Robert. I'm not hanging anyone out to dry here. I'm not hanging anyone out to dry here.

You can believe what you believe whatever. I do not believe you. And little do they know I am not a good hang. And they're going to regret this on every single level. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Let's talk about Luke Getsy in Chicago. Luke Getzzi came from Green Bay.

He was their quarterbacks coach over the last couple of years. years and I believe passing game coordinator the last couple seasons. It's actually his second stint in Green Bay. He was in Green Bay with Mike McCarthy before that. His college coach when he was at Pitt was on the staff with Mike McCarthy in New Orleans in the early 2000s. So that's how all of this kind of stuff happens. So his background is fascinating because he comes from that true blue Mike McCarthy

side of things. And then he goes for a year to work for Joe Moorhead at Mississippi. state, which is just, I mean, that's like shoot RPO's into your eyeballs, college stuff. I know you just said like, hey, we're explaining stuff because there's only some ways you can draw a line on a paper. Joe Moorhead like takes that to the endth degree. Like he is awesome. He's awesome. He's a mad scientist. Joe Morhead is a fantastic person. I have very much enjoyed my football conversations with Joe Moorhead. Oh no, Matt Canada is the warrior version of Joe. Joe Moore

Go look up Joe Moore heads Wikipedia page and all the different places that he's been it is a roller coaster He's been a million different spots But he coached Chris Guy

When at Penn State That's I've talked to Joe before Because I profiled Chris Guy When a couple years ago Before the Super Bowl And he was his offensive coordinator At Penn State When Godin was just going off

And then he spent some time in Oregon Now he's the head coach Atkron I mean there's just a million different things happening here So I think, for the most part, if you're trying to read the tea leaves, the bears are going to run a lot of the stuff that the Packers did over the last couple years. I think that's the baseline of who they want to be offensively.

Even some of the assistants, Chris Morgan, their offensive line coach, Shanahan guy, so he's very familiar with that zone scheme. You look at what they did over their couple preseason games. That completion he had against the Seahawks on that nationally televised one on the boot, I think you're going to see they're going to build a plan out of boot legs. I truly believe that's what's going to happen. It's just going to be a ton of motion, a ton of play action, trying to protect their quarterback, but also just because that's who they want to be on offense.

That's my best guess. Yeah, I totally agree. Watching their practice, even their cadence is the exact same cadence that the Packers have used for years and years, which I was cracking up. And that's what I took away. I've made, I've got a couple shows now talking about this. So it's kind of funny how much I, from one practice of hearing cadence in one game now is they're really, it kind of speaks to their coaching. you can tell a lot going to practices and just how much fat there is in a practice.

Our guys kind of messing around is, you know, are they wasted plays? You know, is they're just kind of like, you know, oh, it's a lot of repeating the calls. And when I went to that Bears practice, I was kind of, I was, again, another team I was more optimistic after I visited there because just the coaching that was going on. They really were emphasizing in drills. And I know that Keynes example, I just brought up, Chris Morgan's in the offensive line drills using the same cadence that Justin Fields, Aaron Rogers. uses. A lot of times, if you listen to all the line coaches, they do their own thing. My dad, no matter where he went, his cadence was set hit in drills. He didn't give a shit if it was white 80, green 80. No, it did not matter. He used the same one for 30 years, whatever it was.

So that little kind of like emphasis they were using, I mean, who's the king of getting guys to drop, getting guys to jump off sides and get in free plays, Aaron Rogers, the king. As the best ever user of cadence is Aaron Rogers. And I've already seen Justin Fields get a guy against the Seahawks on fourth down because he used a false cadence. I saw in practice. They had a defender jumped off sides and he hit a deep shot to Byron Pringle on a free play. I know that sounds like small things. Like, oh, that only happened once or twice a game.

This is an offense that needs to create an explosive play any way they can. So that's why you're speaking with the boot game. I think they really understand what they are. The boot heavy stuff because that's how they're going to generate explosive plays. Chris Morgan is a Shane and guy, like you mentioned, a lot of zone stuff. but they're running zone, then they run the bootlegs off the zone, the play action off the zone. And then they're also doing the zone read with Justin Fields because he runs a 4-4 and change

at 225 pounds. So why not use them? So like I don't know. I was a lot more, they don't have a ton of talent. Don't get me wrong. But at least I see the base being built there. And even just like a small thing, which I thought was really cool was they're doing,

I saw the Packers do that the following day. But they're doing just a boot drill or I'm sorry, a running back quarterback drill. So a lot of times when you're an individual drill, individual drills. With the quarterback of the running back, it's kind of you take the period off as a quarterback. You just hand the ball off and, you know, carry out your boot fake. You don't have to think much. This little tweak that they were doing that I've seen more teams do, and this just speaks to their coaching. And Luke gets he was the lead on this was, they would hand the ball off and then the coach would flip the quarterback the ball and he'd work on a boot. So he was going to a two for one

practice rep. And I thought that was just, I know that just sounds one small example, but that is kind of what this whole team was doing, offense and defense, was these, a lot of emphasis on the fun of mental mental and stealing reps and teaching, actual coaching, not just ball plays. Like, everything had a good plan to it. And that's why I wanted to speak to the play action game, the boot game, all tying in together. So it might be ugly sometimes, but I do think they're trying to establish a good rule base for their guys, for their players. Having a conversation with somebody there today, I was asking about kind of the way the

defenses are playing a lot of that boot action now, because a lot of a coaching, a lot of coaching points on defense now are, we don't give a shit about the running back. We do not care about you chase the quarterback. side. Go get the quarterback. And it has led to some ugly results on naked plays. And you have teams really just abandoning a lot of them. But if you think about that, and I keep going back to this one completion because it's all I have, the one completion to go commit in their preseason game is all I got.

You guys got to let me have it. They have two things happening there with end man on the line of scrimmage. They have the tight end who's kind of sitting there for a second holding it down. And then they have the slice route coming back across the formation. Very, very quickly. So you're just trying to give that defensive end or edge man in line of scrimmage. One thing he has to worry about where it's like, there's so much stuff moving in front of me right now.

I can't scream after the quarterback. And I was talking to somebody today. I was like, so do you feel like you have to consciously have someone there to protect that? And they're like, no, it's just about making sure that you have enough variations of the play that they can't just scream after it. So you have a slice route.

You have a tight end blocking. You have all of these different. things where you break tendency. So every time you're doing that, it's not just to make it back to the other way. And I think that is what's so cool about the prospect of this offensive system compared to what the Bears were

over the last couple years. It's a system. Yeah. It's not just ball plays. It's not just a scattered bootleg here or there. It's we have our bases covered because we have eight things we can do off of this action. It all fits together. It's all a part of a bigger hole.

And that was never the case with the Bears offense over the last couple of years. It's exactly the case with the Packers offense and the Rams offense before it, right? Everything is tied into something else. And I think that's very cool. And as far as Justin Fields goes, I think that they're just hitting the reset button as hard as they can, you know, not really focusing on, but he's only been quarterback in the NFL for three quarters of a season. There isn't a lot of them. What do you like and what's kind of stuff can we bring over? I think it's just a hard reset. And that starts from everything with concepts to protections and how he's kind of having to control some of that stuff. And you're seeing it, right? I mean, he changed that protection in

the Kansas City preseason game. He saw that they were in a cover zero look. He brought the tight end in, did all of that stuff right. And I don't think that stuff he could have done in May based on how far behind he was and how ill-equipped he was based on what the old staff kind of gave him. And he's going to have some of that stuff. And he's going to have some of that stuff. And he's going to have, I think it's going to increase over time, but a lot of the motions and the shifts and the ways that they play allows the quarterback to not have to worry about setting protections and things like that. So I think that the personnel, the actual players on the field are a huge, are a concern, right? I mean, I get the receiving core. Like, it's a bunch of guys who can block and it's,

there's a physicality to it. And that's not that important, but that that is like, you can survive with that. I'm worried about the line and all those moving pieces. But I do think the structure of the offense is set up to make life easier on their quarterback as he just learns how to play the position. Yeah. And that emphasis on zone runs is that's to lift the bar, the floor for your offense a line. Zone is the way to kind of make your crap align not as crap. And that it's it just is. It's more of a sum of your parts than having a couple dominant dudes. It's like duo is a run that you run because you have big ass malling offense alignment. Zone is more to kind of like, okay, this is a safer run.

The running back can make us right. There's different. It can hit all across the formation, yada, yada, yada. And I think you've talked about the last couple shows you're talking about how sometimes running the ball helps the KB take a break. The flip for the offense align is, bootlegs helps the old line take a break. They just have marched down the offensive line. They just march down. They have no rules.

They just fake point. They can do whatever they want, but they can just, oh. And when you don't have a great offense aligned, that helps. The Rams offensive line, the smoke and mirrors of it, we talked about just with the Vikings. It's the same idea. It's to make all these looks look the same. So you fake punch, you're hooking, you're jabbing, you're uppercting, you're getting that edge rusher to slow down just a hair. I always use the term T off.

And that's what a lot of good edge rushers do. That's why you want to move the launch point for the quarterback. So Nick Bosa can't just pin his ears back and go, okay, I'm sprinting right to that seven-yard spot, and I'm going to beat this tackle out of his set. Now all of a sudden, he's like, oh, shit, the tight ends come at me. Okay, do I wrong arm them? Do I, am I looping around him? You just make them think, as opposed to just play fast.

And I just want to talk about, too, is that just the Justin Field stuff, the Seahawks. And Seth, actually, Seth Galena, who was just on the show, had a great little breakdown about Justin's one series against the Seahawks. And the play that they got busted on, I think it was third down in the red zone. and they ran a mesh concept. And you can see Fields trying to do the right thing. And you can tell that he doesn't have, he's not to that 301 level that you need to be at as quarterback. He gets, they show a blitz.

He thinks he's hot. He throws the hot answer. And it's like, yes, like, good. That was the gold answer or the silver answer. Like we talk about let's get to the platinum answer. You know, he hit a single, but he has to hit a double or triple because that, that hot throw got blown up because Seahawks ended up not blitzing. And it's one of those where it's like, okay, that was good pre-snap.

Now post snap confirming. And that is, that's what it is. It's now, okay, it's growth from him. So it's like, okay, we did that in preseason. Now the regular season starts. We can have a better, okay, now you hit the gold answer, the platinum answer is, oh, they didn't bring a blitz. Okay, I'm going to just read this play out.

I'm going to hit the dig right across the middle of the field. That's what they're trying to see the blitz before the play, though. The fact that is even seeing the look is a step in the right direction. Like that is progress from where he was at the beginning. He had an answer. He had an answer like that. And it wasn't like a terrible answer. It was more just like the okay answer.

But now let's get to the good answer. But that's progress. From what he was doing last year and what this offense was doing last year, that's so much progress. And it's funny that you say that because that aligns with the conversation I had today about him and that really smart, very, very good in the classroom, understands everything. It's just about, all right, what do I do when the picture changes? I understand what it's supposed to look like. And if this happens and I'm supposed to do this, but if it's muddy, what do you end up doing? If it's not cut and dry, if it's not clear, how do you react?

in real time. That's what the great ones do. And he's 23 years old. It's going to take some time. But I think that all indications are that he has the right makeup to kind of get there at a certain point. I always talk about rules and I'm a sucker for teams of good rules is when it's muddy, when you don't know the answer, the kind of common refrain is what are your rules?

What are your day one install rules? If your rules are crap, like the quarterback or the coaches just kind of wave it over and go, we got players and that helps. Okay, that's fine if you have good players. But defenses are muddying it up snap after snap now. I mean, more than ever. So have good rules. And that's why I want to emphasize what I think this bear staff is trying to do is have good rules.

So once they can actually get to it, they have it. Like, I think that's why I'm more optimistic than maybe I thought even a couple months ago with this is they're trying to make their baseline good. So when they actually do get the talent, they can take real leaps as a team. this is all about surviving this season. And I'm not even really kidding. This is all about like, can we have the 26th best offense in the league and can the quarterback show tangible growth in areas X, Y, and Z before the season is over? When we get to week eight, not only is he identifying what the pressure might look like, but then

it's the second step of when the actual play unfolds, he's making the right decision after that. Right. Like, that's fine. Like, if that's what you're seeing kind of meticulously growing. growing in that way. That is plenty good for what this team is and where they are right now. They have $60 million in dead money. They're spending $160 million in cash on the football team. This is a holding pattern season. This is all about just slowly starting to build a foundation for what this thing is moving forward. I think it's going to be ugly at times, but I don't think it has to be pretty for it to be what we would deem a success.

I agree. Not a lot to say about Josh McDaniels. I don't think we talked a ton about Devante Adams yesterday with Seth. If you look at the staff that the Raiders built, it's New England, guys. Mickle and Barthi, their offensive coordinator was the Pats Wide Receivers Coach for the past couple years. The offensive line coach came straight from New England. They brought Jakub Johnson over to play fullback for this team. The one assistant that I think is interesting, they kept Edgar Bennett, who was the wide receivers coach on those Raiders teams, and also was the offensive coordinator for Devante Adams from 2015 to 2017. I'm not sure that.

Not sure that's an accident. So a lot of guys that are going to bring over New England stuff and somebody who is very familiar with Hunter Renfro and with Devante Adams. So the way that the shape of the staff in Las Vegas makes a lot of sense to me. And I just think that we're going to see New England offense and what that offense has looked like at times, maybe closer to the 2019 version or the latter years of the Brady time rather than what Mack Jones did last year.

but ideas for Devante Adams and what you can do with him because similar to Justin Jefferson, the answer is everything. Yep. I was looking this up because at first I'm like, how are they going to use everybody? Like Hunter Redfro is kind of a slot only. Devante Adams and Darren Waller is not a great blocker. And they brought the fullback over because that's what they want to use, you know, Jacob Johnson.

And then it's kind of just, you look at the numbers and you're just like, oh, yeah, Devante Adams is really freaking good. But this is pretty pretty a lot. I'm overthinking this. Like, I'm sure it's not going to be that crazy of an answer. I think, but I'm just curious of how much they lean into 11 personnel and how much they use a fullback and how they go about it. Like, I just want to see it.

I think it's going to be a kind of cool, like kind of a traditionally based offense in a way, if that makes sense with the fullback usage. But I do want to share one of the like awesome Devante Adams stat just because I found it and I like blew my mind. So Adam's slot routes last year, he gained a first down, not a target, not anything. to first down on 18.8% of his slot routes last year. That means one out of five times that he ran a route. He gained a first down. And that's not third down. No, that's just total.

Just period. 18.8%. The league average is 8.5%. So more than double from the slot. So it's like, and then I looked it up and I was like, okay, maybe he's a little worse from outside. He was the fourth, fourth best EPA per outside target last year. So just use them wherever.

I don't know if you guys knows, Devante Adams is really good of football. wherever you put them. So I think that really helps, even if Renfro is more of a slot only guy, but it's like, okay, well, we can get, we can make that work. Like, we can get into a slot formation where they're both on the same side with Waller as a wing tight end. Like, they can make this work really easily. So I don't know. I think it's going to be kind of cool because it's a, it's a different type of personnel that McDaniels usually has. Other than, you know, Renfro, rentro being a slot guy, but, you know, as far as a true receiving tight end like this, not a gronk type or a Devante Adams who's a true bonafide number one receiver,

not more like, oh, that guy's pretty good. You know, he's not a Kendrick Bourne or Nelson Aguilar, like, or those late Patriots receivers. He's a bonafide dude. So, oh, I'm kind of curious what Josh McDaniels do. Like, how much does he open it up and how much, like, how many explosive plays does he chase with his personnel? I mean, solution to having them both in the slot, line up and empty and just run a

million slot fades like the Packers did. No, I know. I just have rent photos underneath throughout and slot fade with Devante Adams. Works for me. I'm very into that idea. All right. Last one here. Ben Johnson with the Lions.

I got it to go up and spend some time there in early August. And I didn't really know the answer to this. Just asking, what do you believe on offense? Like, what do you want to be? What are you? Because you look at his background. He was in Miami for several different staffs. So he was there when they ran the West Coast offense.

He was there when they ran Peyton Manning's offense with Adam Gase that he brought over. So many different types of things. And then if you look at what they were last season, they kind of did a lot of RAM stuff, where it's just outside zone play action. So I think the basis of it is going to be that, right? Like they want to have just the run game attached to the play action game. And that's really what they want to build it out of, which makes sense, right? think about what Jared Goff has done well, you know, what he's been.

If you look at the second half of last season, the lions were eighth in play action rate on early downs. I have to assume that will continue because of who they want to be. But then it kind of goes off the rails because they have an offensive line that can do all of this different kinds of stuff. And so I'm really interested to see what it ultimately looks like now that they have players that maybe the quarterback trusts a little bit more. Because the other stat that really jumped out to me is that in the second half of last year, only Ben Rathisberger had a shorter A dot than Jared Gough. And Ben Rappesberger run that no-fly zone offense. I was at Lions camp for one day. And Jared Gough is letting it rip out there.

And it's practice, right? But I do think that there is a more established level of trust with his receivers with DJ Chark being out there compared to the guys they had last season. Even that upgrade is important. And I also think that Amon Ross St. Brown is a guy that is going to be playing a little bit deeper than he was last year. I don't think he is a slot only guy within this offense. So be curious to see what it looks like. I mean, I think they did a lot of really interesting stuff over the back half of last season with the players that they had. Yeah.

I mean, you've got to kick ass off into line. Why not use it? And I think it makes sense. I mean, we don't have to spread it out. They don't have to do that. And golf doesn't live in that world. he is a good play action quarterback. I mean, he really is. And I know, Chark, Josh Reynolds right now, but, you know, Cephas when he's healthy, he's coming on the outside, Ammon Ross St. Brown,

they're all physical. So I think no matter, I mean, they're building, this is the Dan Campbell offense as far as personnel. Let's get these ballwitters. It's like I drafted these guys. But then also, you know, Hockinson, you know, the short and intermediate stuff. I don't know. I think they're kind of, like you said, they're going to lean into what they did the second and a half of last year. And then when James and Williams kind of comes back, that'll open things up. Hopefully he comes back midway through the year because that's going to be some real juice. So that's why they better be freaking launching it.

Otherwise, that's, you know, having a portion in the garage and not using it. Like that, that's, that would be shake, shake golf's throat if he doesn't use him. Do you think the lions have the second best offensive line after the Eagles now that the Bucks offensive lines kind of banged up? I mean, I think they're on the podium. Yeah, probably. I mean, it's, it's part, they're absolutely in the conversation. Like, I'm not sure who else I would even put in there.

So why not just, let's just pound it and play action? Like, I think that's their identity. It's really not bad idea. That often was not healthy last year. They had all these guys last season, but they weren't healthy. They didn't play together at all. So now you have this group really healthy from day one. They've had all of training camps together.

Sewell's comfortable on the right side now. Like, it's, I mean, they're, they got some dudes. It's pretty, I mean, they got three bonafide pro bowl contenders on their line, the center, the left guard. right tackle and then I mean now that and the other two are solid like it's not like they're below average players so I don't know if that's a that's a really really outstanding offense a line that the more I think about it's like man they're they're for sure a top three line even if they the Browns are probably in the conversation they lost Nick Harris for the year though

their center's already hurt for the season so and he was stepping in there so I mean that that's every group has like one guy that it's a guy you know like the Colts have two new starters met Prior is playing left tackle for them right now. And with the bucks losing Ryan Jensen, I mean, I think you absolutely could make that argument. Yeah, that's fun. That's, yeah, way to go Detroit. I mean, no city would love an offensive line more than Detroit, I think. I mean, there's so many memes and jokes that they can make up there.

Like, you know, they love that. I will say some of the best stuff that they were doing late last season that I really liked was some of the stuff they did out of 12 personnel with Hawkinson and Brock Wright and getting into those heavier looks and getting teams into baseball. defense and what they could do throwing the ball out of that. And if you do that with St. Brown and Chark as your two outside receivers, it's an interesting collection of guys. It is.

I think they're hard to pin down. I think that it's a little bit of a mystery, but I do think that they were really open-minded last year with some of this stuff. One more note on this, I think is very interesting. They hire Johnny Morton this off-season. So he's bounced around to a bunch of different places. He spent the last few years with John Gruden. prior to that, he was the offensive coordinator for one year with the Jets,

when Josh McCowan actually had a pretty good season there, and Robbie Anderson was doing kind of crazy stuff. Two years before that, he was the wide receivers coach with the Saints. So he's got like an encyclopedia of past plays that he has brought with them. And I think that speaks to again how hard to define this offense might be and just how many different branches they could go down and how many different things they could explore, which I think is what they want the identity of this to be, where it's hard for us to describe it in a single sentence.

Yeah. And it's not like I'm going to go, oh, yeah, let me look at Mark Brunel's offense from eight years ago to see what they do. Like, I'm not like, you know, I can't really look at these former players that's a great point. It's a great point. That's, I mean, maybe from the playing days. The only stat I got to is that, you know, Johnson's got to coax out a few more yards

from golf. Like, he was in 2018, golf was 10th and a dot, like an average depth per target. Like, he can do it. Like, you can push him to do it. So last year, he was six points. something, so almost two yards less. So, you know, it's in there somewhere. So he just got to coax it out.

And maybe a super amazing offensive line with a couple solid weapons around and we'll do it. So I, that's really, I think, that's the button they have to push. All right. That's all we got. I really enjoyed that. That was very fun. It's really, it's really, I really like thinking about this kind of stuff.

Because when these guys are coming in and we don't really know what it's going like and trying to figure out what we, what little hints that we can pick up from the way they built their staffs or where they've been before, I think it's really. cool exercise to do at this time of the year. It's nice to talk to somebody else as opposed to being cooped up in my office watching Dolphins, Bucks, fourth quarter preseason game. So this was nice.

I'm worried about you, man. I'm genuinely worried about you. Now back in the hole. So this is it. This is the last preview show that we're going to have before our division previews get started. We're going to have a really fun show for you guys on Friday. I talked to some former players that have played for the first time head coaches.

in the NFL. So just really cool insight from people who have actually been in the rooms with these guys. We had Blake Bordels on Nathaniel Hackett. Pat DeMarco, who was with Brian Daibal, both in Buffalo and then early on in Kansas City. Pat is a really, really, really smart football person. One of my favorite dudes on the Falcons when I was there. I love it. Just an unstoppable football nerd.

And I think that you guys are really going to enjoy those conversations. We've got a couple more of them. So really excited for you to hear that. And guess what? Monday, NFC North preview. We're here. We got eight division previews coming to you over the next couple of weeks. Me and you are doing the NFC North because we have to.

Yeah. We don't have a choice. That was the first show we did about two years ago around this time was the NFC North preview. And we're back with that exact show next Monday. So really looking forward to that. Really excited for you guys to hear that show tomorrow. In the meantime, could you go rate and review the podcast if you guys like it? It's the beginning of the season.

You know, if you've enjoyed the offseason coverage that we've did, if you've listened for a while, go go give us, you know, some stars and let us know why you like the show. I'd very much appreciate that, especially at this time of year. Please subscribe to the athletic. Nate wrote on Wednesday about some of the veteran breakout players of the preseason. You guys should definitely go check that. It was not a cran.

It was typed in everything. I mean, I truly, I say this a lot. You truly are not going to get this. type of nonsense anywhere else in the football internet, the thing that Nate wrote today. You are not getting other people that are grinding the third quarter of Pittsburgh Steelers

preseason tape and then writing about it. That is one thing you can only get at the athletic.com slash football show is where you can get your subscription. We'll be back tomorrow in the meantime. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.