The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The state of NFL stats and a Falcons-Eagles recap with Amazon's Sam Schwartzstein; QB Counseling for Bryce Young and the Panthers with Steven Ruiz

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

There is a permanent statistical revolution going on in the NFL, and there is no end in sight. Amazon Thursday Night Football's analytics expert Sam Schwartzstein joins Robert Mays on this episode of The Athletic Football Show to detail what you're seeing on the Prime TNF broadcasts, and why you're seeing what you're seeing. After that, noted Panthers fan Steven Ruiz from The Ringer joins Robert to go through some QB Counseling for Bryce Young.RundownFalcons-Eagles recapThe state of stats in the NFLQB Counseling for Bryce Young and the PanthersHost: Robert MaysWith: Sam Schwartzstein and Steven RuizExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Sam on X: @schwartzsteinsFollow Steven on X: @theStevenRuizTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Brought to you by Thursday Night Football only on Prime Video. I'm Robert Mays. Really enjoyed today's show. This is kind of the first iteration of the midweek show that we're going to be doing over the course of the year. Week one is always weird, so Sando and I just kind of dug into what we thought was real and not real last week. But each week on Wednesdays, we're going to have hopefully a couple guests digging into a bunch of NFL topics. So today, first off, we had Sam Schwarstein, who is the analytic expert on Prime Video.

Come on and recap the Monday Night game. And then we dug into a bunch of different topics. We talked about the state of player tracking and some of the things that they're trying to do over there on Prime video. And then we dug into a couple of different segments that we're going to try to do on every midweek show. And just a really good conversation that hit a bunch of different stuff. Excited for you guys to hear that. We also had our first installment of what we're calling quarterback counseling with my buddy, Stephen Ruiz from the ringer, who happens to be a very big Panthers fan.

So when the situation calls for it, we're going to have this midweek show be a second. safe space for people to come on and talk through some of their feelings about the quarterback on the team that they root for. We did this once last year before getting rid of the midweek show. So we're going to bring it back because I just love people who are fans and are in football media getting to dig through some of this stuff and work some of it out. And we want to provide them a platform to do that. So really enjoyed my conversations with Sam and with Stephen. Let's get to it. Joining us now from the Amazon Prime Thursday night broadcast, the TNF expert himself at Sam Schwarzstein. Sam, how you doing, man? Good, Robert. Thanks for having me back on.

Very good to have you. Excited to start digging into these midweek shows, which are kind of a new prospect for us. You know, we haven't really done them in this format before, and I'm very excited to be doing them all season. We're going to start all of these, like we did last week with Mike Sando, with a Monday Night Football Recap. And I feel like what happened last night, there's a lot for you to help us digest because some of the decision-making that happened late in the game. So we're just going to dig right into that. The Falcons come back. They beat the Eagles in very exciting fashion. It's a miserable loss for Philadelphia. But let's just kick this off with some of the decision making by the Eagles in that final drive. Let's just lay it out and what they were looking at in that moment. You're

up by three with 146 to go on the plus 10 and the other team has no timeouts. You're looking at third and three and you've been able to run the ball very consistently in the entire game. So put yourself in that moment, if you're Nick Siriani, what sort of thoughts should be going through your mind as you're trying to decide what you're dialing up on that third and three call? Yeah, I think I'm moving off of what I think

happened is Kellamore went to his third and three to medium, his third and medium part of his little play card, and he's found a great play that he loved, they loved in practice, and they ran it. You probably should have just had a re-look in the mirror at their identity and go,

hey, we got a short yardage team. We are the short yardage team. Maybe we just kind of close this game out, best case scenario, and play the field position game. I think what, you know, the three point lead is a very funny lead to have. And it's the one where you can't lose on another team getting a field goal. And that's, it's a unique one to have. Two and three are very different. As we saw the two point lead in the Bengals' Chiefs game. Now the three point lead, you have an out to force the other two. team to be conservative. He probably should have just said, we have a team identity to stick to not throw the ball. Now, on that pass, there was an 87% completion probability according to the

next gen stats. So when they threw the ball, if you would have said, you have an 87% chance to win the game here by running this play, they probably still take it every time. But the results are the results. It changes how we view everything. Yeah, it's not a bad play call. If he catches that ball, as Sequant said after the game, if I catch that ball, the game is over. Like, this is on me to a degree, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. But you're looking at a minute and 43. The other team has no timeouts. You essentially, we're talking about 87%.

Isn't that the success rate on the tush push or is it at 87% on fourth and one? So you have an 87% chance to get a fourth and one if you gain two yards on third and three. And I think a lot of people would say, well, you're going to go for it on fourth and one when you're up by a field goal inside the other team's 10 instead of taking the field goal and going up six. and this is what you're talking about. That three-point lead, I think there is probably some people in the analytics community who actually think that is a safer lead for you not to lose the game in regulation than winning by six, because that six-point lead is falsely secure because it instills like a certain level

of aggression in the other team because they know they need to go down and score a touchdown. Whether the Eagles should have allowed them to do that is an entirely different conversation, but I've been really interested in the discourse around this over the last year or so as people have gotten better numbers and more of a sense of what leads are actually safe and which ones aren't in those moments. And being up by six with like a minute and 40 seconds to go is actually not that good of a place to be. Yes. Yeah. The six, you want to do seven, you want to do eight because it's that win probability models are that exactly what they say they are, likelihood to win, right? And so it's not, you're trying to win the game more often than not

and it's not a lose the game or tie the game. When you have a chance to have the other team tie. That's really nice versus now the other team has to go win. And I think that's the thing that people haven't figured out yet, including what field goals mean on those inside the 10 is it's a 20-yard penalty when you make it. You're giving them in a great field position. And play calling is completely different backed up. You know who does not want to drop back? A team that has an opportunity for a safety, anything time you have to have the quarterback in your own end zone, which can happen when you fail. And so that's a large part of it is this field position battle is so important that even when you make the field goal, you're making their subsequent game winning drive easier.

Even if they have to drive, it's almost the same amount of yards, driving from their own 10 down to the opponent's 40 to try and get that game time field goal from now a 30 to go and scoring, it's a very similar type of gameplay that the team has of total yards that they have to gain. And there are two different factors here. If you had run the ball on third down, you're clicking down at least probably 40 seconds before you're going to do anything on forked down. So now you're looking at probably a minute, a little bit less than a minute to go when the other team has no timeouts. And they're backed up a little bit further. And we've seen this start to creep up when a team is only down three in that situation.

In their minds, even if they probably still could go down and score a touchdown like we saw the Falcons do, that's not how we see teams approach those situations. In their mind, they're operating as though if I get three, the game is tied and we can take it overtime. And we can talk about whether teams should be thinking that way and what's going to happen next as we get a little bit savvier with some of these numbers. But when they kicked that field goal, I thought it was so interesting that the win probability numbers went down because of all the different factors that we're talking about here. Right. And that's why we have the model do a lot of the calculations for us. You know, at first I was like, yeah, some of the problem with

the wind probability models is, hey, it's a, it was 99%. Right. But not all 99%. win probabilities are created equal. Would you rather be up three touchdowns with 10 minutes left to go in the fourth quarter or up three points with one minute left, right? Though both likely in the 99, 95 percentile win probability, but not of all of them are created equal, one or two or three random things that could happen, mistakes, like all of a sudden that Kirk Cousins just being able to throw the ball wide open to Donald Moody.

I think you, you know, every Donald Moody play is exactly the same Donald Moody play. You know, like, it is like, it reminds me of all the others. Like, it is, it's one of those things to where you have to be very more, much more consistent in some plays to get, come back versus the fluke plays can happen in some of these models. So sometimes, like everyone talks about the go for due to down eight scenario, but if you actually look at the win probability models, they don't really care. What you do because you're like, you're likely to lose the game, right? We know if you want to win the game and you have. ever choose to go for two, you should definitely go for it earlier. But win probability models will often shift from like, you go from a 13% chance to a 14% chance.

Yeah, because you're down two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Probably doesn't matter at the end of the day. Exactly. And so like a lot of this is like if they made the field goal, who cares? They still had an 85% win probability. Like you're okay with that. Like some of these decisions we harp on, they're not like, I wouldn't say this is a malpractice to do it. Like they should have.

They should know their team. but in a vacuum, it's like, they still should have won. You know, Vic Fangio is my favorite defensive coordinator. He was my coordinator in college. You know, like, he probably isn't happy with his performance on that drive either. So let's talk about that. And let's just talk about what our takeaways were from these two teams independently of what happened at the end of the game because it's week two.

We're still learning who these teams are, who they want to be, how they want to operate. And obviously, week one was fraught territory for both of them, let's say. The Eagles win that game in Brazil on a shitty field. we're talking about Jordan Love more than we're talking about the Eagles. The Falcons lose in a way that is troubling in week one and the ways that they were using Kirk Cousins and how uncomfortable he looked. My big takeaway from Eagles losing that game wasn't necessarily the decision making at the end. It's that the defense looks like it is not in a great spot. You still have a quarterback who doesn't feel and doesn't seem overly comfortable.

And we can talk about Cousins in a second. But how much that Eagles defense struggled, both on that final drive and in just general situations, run defense, what Bejohn Robinson was able to do over the course of that game. If I'm an Eagles fan, I'm probably more worried about what the defense looked like over those four quarters than I am about Nick Siriani's decision making at the end of that game. Yeah, modern football has stopped the run now because running ball has gotten so much more effective than a head. Listen, we could talk about that if you want to because it is the little inflection

point that we have reached is incredible. And I'm sure we're going to talk about it all season. Yeah. And you still have to get after the passer, especially with four people, right? Like, because if you, if you can get them to hold on the ball, every quarterback so much better in the quick throws and being able to diagnose a defense. And they struggled at both. I thought like, you know, I really enjoyed this kind of offense. I know a few of the offensive linemen on the Atlanta Falcons. And, you know, they want to go forward. And that second half when they started out, it was like eight straight plays to Bejan Robinson and every fantasy owner that's been projecting like, yes, this is what we want to do. We want to see this. It's like, oh, my goodness. No, where's, where's Jail and Krovenson? And it was like, where's Jail and Carter, right? Where's Zach Bond from last week that had, you know, with 20 tackles in week one? Like, where are they? I think that we need to, like, those two things that are very important to a Fangio style defense. You can't just do all smoke and mirrors on third down.

You have to stop them in first down. The number that jumped out to me that is, again, pretty troubling. So far the season through two games, the Eagles have allowed seven and a half yards per carry when they're lined up in two deep shells, according to next gen stats, which that's the Vic Fangio world, right? And teams are averaging point. 3-1 EPA per rush on those plays. Just for context, there are two defenses in the league who are out allowing that level of EPA on throws, let alone running plays. And that's what teams have done against the Eagles in those two high looks over the first two weeks. If you can't stop the run in two high looks at a Vic Fangio defense, everything else becomes inconsequential.

And so far, that has proven to be a problem for this iteration of the Eagles. Wow. I do not want to be in their mediums. At Stanford, when we had Vic Fangio, we called him Lord Fangio. And on a staff with Jim Harbaugh, Chester McLaughlin, Steve was Nuski, he was somehow the scariest. So I don't want to be in their medium room today. If you're going to be built the way that they're built and you go out and you spend a ton of money on Bryceoff and he's going to be more of a full-time player than he was on the Jets, I can understand

where you would have some issues stopping the run. Like you're undersized up front. But if you're going to be built this way, you better get after the quarterback. Like that becomes a non-negotiable aspect of this sort of. of roster construction when you spent first round picks on Nolan Smith, all that money on Bryce Huff. You have Josh Swett on a big contract. You drafted Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis in the first round.

If this is going to be your plan, you can't put what you did on the field on Monday night and over the first two games of your Philadelphia. Yeah, I think, you know, you want to project players out from how they've performed in the past. That's a lot of analytics, right? But Bryce Huff did not want to play on anything but third down. He's proving that he still likes, he loves getting paid every down money, but still is performing at a third down only player. I feel like the Jalen Carter, Chris Littstrom part of last night had to be just, you were salivating watching that.

I mean, going back and watching some of it this morning, like, that is a heavyweight battle. And I think that a lot of people are wondering why Jalen Carter wasn't showing up in some of those moments. And the answer is he was playing against one of the best guards and probably one of the best players in the NFL for all 60 of those minutes. And a guy who is known for his speed. Chris Lindstrom, I used to do a big man relay every week trying to find the fastest offensive lineman. He showed up every week, right? And it's mostly for when you're chasing out interceptions.

Mark Smarrioto was helping him out a lot with that. He's an athlete, and he can play. And he's got what was impressing me was his use of his hands, right? So you're going to have Jalen Carter, who every great NFL player has a one move they can go to when times are tough. They have a fastball. he wants to do the jab OLA, he wants to do the arm over, and it wasn't beating Chris Lindstrom. His ability to get his hands on him early,

and then when they wanted to, they're running at him. And the story's out on Jalen Carter, if he's not having fun, it's not going to be fun for everybody. The mistakes come in and running at him, getting him on the backside cutoff on a lot of that zone plays, that was a huge part of what the Falcons were doing coming the second half. I'll talk about the quarterbacks just very briefly before we move on. I thought that Jalen Hertz actually looked pretty good in this game,

and it looked pretty comfortable in this game. Even the couple moments where we saw some emotion from him, I was like, okay, like they had to settle for two field goals in big moments. You have the Sequin drop, and then you have that great pass breakup at the goal wide by Jesse Bates that saves another touchdown. The Eagles absolutely could have won this game going away. And I've come away from the first two games and what they've trotted out on offense, even if it's still a little bit disjointed.

They didn't have A.J. Brown last night. I'm actually pretty excited about what this group and what J.1 hurts within this offense can look like over the course of the season. I don't know how you feel about it. Yeah, I still think they can only ask him to do what he can do. He's still not going to be the focal point of the offense. If I were them, I would just be like, we want a 60-40 rush rate. I want to look at what they have done in the run game

and try and elevate that to a higher percent of their plays and really focus on make him convert for us. Let's get in third and manageable as much as possible. I still think they're going to struggle with the Blitz. It's been the jury for them for a while with Jason Kelsey. coming out and Cam Jorgans going in, now all on Jalen Hertz. I think there's some solves there that they need to figure out. I would focus on finding Devonte Smith with AJ Brown out, right?

And he did a great job of that last week. A lot of Britain Covey in that game, though. I think it probably could have a little bit more Devante Smith than we did. Yeah. And I think a few of the other teams use motion as a way to get these designer plays where they're focused on, hey, we're going to put, get the guy, motion, we're going to throw them the ball and just give him a chance. I think they've got to get it to their playmakers more often using that kind of concepts.

But if they're going to be a team that runs the ball, they lost on a two-minute drive by Kirk Cousins, who looked like a shell of himself coming in. So I think if they can focus on just keeping these games and controlling the clock, that's going to be huge from that. That's such a football guy thing for me to say. But I love this offensive line. I love 365 Jordan Maillata, you know, as an opportunity to win their games for them. Listen, though, if this defense is going to continue to be a concern, then shortening these games the best way that you can becomes a priority, or at least it should be a priority. And when you can run the ball, like they're probably going to be able to run the ball, I think that's worth bringing up. I also like some of the stuff we saw from Jaywin Hertz just using his legs last night. As a scrambler, particularly, like, that was huge. And seeing him be a little bit more dynamic was nice. But we talked about this, I think it was during our preview show last week where some of the zone redesigns against the Packers, I want those in the trash can. Like, those are just no longer efficient plays.

but you look at some of like the gap scheme quarterback draw stuff that they were doing last night where they're actually adding extra bodies to it. That's how you can really weaponize Jalen Hertz as a runner. So I think that they're still figuring out what the right menu looks like. But when you have the guys that they have, I think ultimately you're probably going to land in a pretty good place. So I love talking Jalen Hertz as a runner for this reason. Mike Gundy did one of my favorite press conferences in history when Jalen Hertz is at Oklahoma. He listed off all the Hysmen and all American running backs that Oklahoma had. in their wishbone era.

And then he just was like, and then he did Jalen Hertz's stats. And it's like, this is just a wishbone guy. His usage rate is through the roof. Billy Sims ain't got nothing on Jail it Hertz. And really that's kind of what you want to do is you want to like add his leverage and strength like you're doing on the tush push to every play. Quarterback power, go plus one with extra blocker. And you have Sequin who can be the extra guy.

The Reed stuff, you know, you put him in at risk. and he probably wants to be able to lower his shoulders much more than run away from somebody. This isn't a Kaepernick-Zone-Reed type of player. This is a guy who wants to get his head down. Let's bring more to the party than less. Yeah, I'm totally with you. And I did like some of the stuff that they did with that yesterday. Last thing I wanted to talk about before we move on here,

you mentioned that Kirk Cousins looks like a shell of himself coming into this game. I thought last night was kind of a mixed bag. There were a lot of moments where there are balls dying as he's trying to push it outside of the numbers. Some decisions where I think he just did. didn't feel comfortable letting some stuff rip. I mean, that ball he sailed into the 10th row when they were down inside the 10. There were guys open on that play. If he hangs on Kyle Pitts, that's probably a touchdown.

I think some of the condensed window stuff over the course of last night, he just isn't making those throws with conviction right now for one reason or another. I did like some of the stuff obviously we saw on the two-minute row, but even that, it just feels like this is a guy over the last couple years who his arm strength really showed up. I mean, he was really throwing the shit out of the ball. And I just feel like we're looking at a different guy right now. And I don't know if that's a physical problem.

And I don't know if that's an authority conviction. I feel confident in what I'm able to do problem. I will say that the final two-minute drill in some of those throws make me a little bit more encouraged about where this can go over the course of the year. But I'm still not exactly sure how to feel through two games. I think what Kirk Cousins did great that I like a lot in a quarterback as an avid Andrew Luck fan was when things got tough, he found TY. Hilton. You know, Kirk, Kirk did a really good job finding Justin Jefferson. And it was, it seemed like it was Ray Ray and McLeod for a little bit last night, you know. And so I think you want to find, let's find Drake London a lot and when things break down and trust your arm in those capacities.

And I think he's still trying to gel with the team because when he's able to find and just go, I'm going to go out my number one the whole time, I think that solves a lot of problems for Kirk and his processing, right? Like this, he's probably not liking the word he plays, going back to this Shanahan-style offense, probably wants, you know, to be able to just simplify the game. And that's why the two-minute drill was easier for him because it was simple. It was pick a side, go to a side, find a guy. All right, we can wrap that up. Let's get to what we wanted to chat about with you today.

And that is kind of the current state of where we are with NFL analytics and specifically some of the player tracking data that you guys are working with on the Thursday night football broadcast. I'm just curious on a big picture level. Now that you've had a couple years to sit with this stuff. and understand what the data is and what you can do with it. What would you say has probably been the biggest light bulb moment you've had so far about the applications of these things and where you guys can potentially take it? I know the defensive alerts thing has been a game changer for the broadcast,

but I'm wondering outside of that, is there anything else that comes to mind for you? So I think when the tracking data first got in, we wanted to see how well we can measure the things we see. And now we're focused on how do we blend football expertise with now the things that we can see. And so that's where defensive alerts comes in. We've announced defensive vulnerabilities or attack zones. We've announced our pressure probability, our pressure alert model.

And these are all features that are taking just tracking data, but then pumping it through our AI that can then now expose that hitting game of football. And what's great about what we're doing is we're going through a level of NFL expertise. My network is viewing these plays. We're reviewing all these plays. We've worked with partners to make sure that it fits that football mindset. It is a different way to now view how the game through that lens that allows you to see the game how a football expert would. And so where tracking data was is let's measure some of the key things about players that we wouldn't able to know. And there's great ways that we can, you know, hey, Marvin Harrison's miles per hour became a huge.

huge subject of conversation for it. It sure did. These things can lead us down bad rabbit holes, dude. Not all data is good data. There's so much context that you need to do. Oh, we're going to talk about that in a second. Yeah. And the context that is important is so important.

And that's a big thing about what I love, you know, from our show runner Alex Strand, Betsy Raleigh, my boss, on down to Scott Carp and our producer is all about context. And we're adding a layer of context on what we're trying to do to give the viewer a better view and experience. And so that's everything we do, whether we're highlighting blitzers or whether we're highlighting vulnerable spots

of the defense or who's going to likely get a pressure. And then what's great is I'll get calls from teams that are asking me questions. How does this work? I can't tell you that. But we can start talking about different things that'll expose new ways to look at the game. Sean Payton talked about it as his new view,

he has a different view on blitzing because of what he saw defensive alerts to. Because a lot of the times it fits normal football guy rules. But then there's times where to reveal a player. I was like, I have no idea why this player is highlighted. And then he blitzes. Yeah, I had a moment like that when I was going back and rewatching some of it where when a guy is covered up, right, like when you have a safety stacked over a slot corner, we know this, right? Like if you're capped, those are the moments where a quarterback can probably identify if you're blitzing. But there was a situation where the slot corner was

capped by a safety. But then the corner was also highlighted in red. And I'm sitting there like, I have absolutely no idea how you would even begin. to figure out that that guy is a likely blitzer and then he came. So some of the stuff that you guys are doing, I'm sure the teams can take away some things from that and try to reverse engineered as best they can. I'm sure they're probably going to have some difficulties in doing that without the AI that you guys are working with. But the fact that those sorts of light bulbs are going off for people like Sean Payton

probably tells you that you're somewhat on the right track. Yeah, I think like that's a big goal with this is like I'm a huge proponent of pushing the game forward. And like I don't know if we're going to have the best answer for everything. right like and there are some things last year we introduced a stat called cubi difficulty index qbdi and we really doubled down this year on let's not stay let's not do more numbers let's do more visualizations let's show people ways that they can we have the all 22 canvas on prime vision we can show every player in the field so now most of my film study is less about you know what

analytics can i fit in but can i get a tendency read on what a defense is trying to do and how the offense can exploit it, and then we're able to then select those individual players to hopefully let you see that same thing. And I will not say everything correctly. There will be teams. I'll go out there tomorrow or this week, and I might say New England is 85% run if they're under center, and then they're going to throw two bonds on play action, right? Like, everyone has the same analytics. Both teams are using analytics to predict what the other's going to do, and you'll use that against them. But it's still a fun part of the game. Playing against type is exactly what you should be doing as an NFL coach, just because those

tendency, just because you're going against those tendencies doesn't mean coming into the game. Those tendencies didn't exist. It feels like we've gotten to a moment where this sort of analysis when it comes to pressure and pre-snap looks is going to be more important than it's been since I started covering the NFL. I mean, it's been, you know, 12, 13 years. And I can't remember a time where teams were trying to manipulate protections and not even bringing guys, right, but like lining up and cover zero looks and then ejecting out of them.

Brian Flores is clearly at the forefront of this. But I think that we're seeing more and more teams. trying to emulate that. I went to 21 training camps over the course of July and August. And I always ask coaches, like, who did you watch this offseason? Who did you like? And pretty much every single defensive coach that I talked to was like, well, I had to go back and watch what Brian Flores did in Minnesota. So I feel like we're just going to be seeing that have more influence, even if it's extreme, right? They're living in a place where very few people are going to try to live. Like, those are very deep waters. But I still feel like that sort of

influence is going to start creeping around the league because the Ravens did that to an extent last year, not to the same extent, but they want to live in that sort of world. So how you can manipulate what people are looking at before the snap and just essentially fuck with what the offensive linemen are doing. I think that that's going to be a really fun thing to watch. And it feels like you guys are trying to make sure that you're keeping pace with that as the league leans more into it. Yeah, when I was playing center and I wanted to a half slide right, I could point to

a guy and say, Ricky, Ricky, Ricky, and we'd all be good. Defense didn't care. That is not football anymore. They're seeing these points. They're seeing their calls. You know, we have the Patriots, Jets, this week. And when you see the center point somewhere, the entire Patriots defense will then change after they see the point.

You know, it is like, if you're an offensive lineman right now, I can't imagine playing in this league based on what some teams are doing pre-snap. Post-nap, what you saw the Falcons doing last night is they're running like two-way go twists, where they're not all called games and twists up front where defensive tackle and D.N. They're letting the defensive tackles run to the edge. And then the D.N. gets to choose whether or not he wants to go inside or outside. And I would come to the sideline and go, coach, they're not allowed to do that. That's not fair.

And I feel like we're going to be having a conversation all year about why offenses are struggling. It started last year, and I think the volume is only going to get turned up on that. And when I've tried to answer that question for people, there's like 17 different reasons, but what you just mentioned is such a huge part of it. Because we've been in a place in the NFL, let's say 10 years ago when Mike Zimmer was the head coach of the Vikings, where they're in those double mug looks, the center does the point, and the other linebacker says, okay, now I'm the one that's coming. But that was the layer of complexity that we reached. And you watch what Flores was doing on Sunday. They're lined up in a cover zero look, so it's not just mugged up. They eject into cover two, and they're running stunts with both sides of the line at the same.

time. So now there's like six or seven different layers added on to the type of defensive stuff that we were getting a decade ago. And so when you're trying to figure out, trying to articulate, well, why aren't offenses as good as they've been over the last 10 years? It's like, well, just watch, just watch all the things that they're having to deal with right now. It's an actual living nightmare. Yeah, and you can't just do the high school answer of just run QB power at it. You know, like, like, this was so solvable of Harbaugh and Stanford. It would just be like, you know what, we had three plays at the line of scrimmage for every single down in distance. A regular play, kill and alert.

But then every single time we could get to what we called Power King, which was a long edge, so five bodies to the center with a wing. And we can run Power King into every formation. This is, you can't do that in the NFL. You know, you can't just think, you know. You can't do that in the NFL yet. There's a chance that maybe the cycle's coming all the way back around where the league and we're kind of drifting toward that direction.

But maybe there's a moment like two or three years from now where some of those old Stanford tapes from like 2011, that's what the NFL is going to feel like because it has to. Yeah, I mean, that's what Harbaugh would do, because we'd come out and we'd have all these weird things. We were the pro-style team, not spreading everyone out and all this stuff. And it was like, well, if you ever, if you ever in trouble, Andrew, just pull the rip cord.

Let's get out of here. Just went back into it. Now that we, the other kind of interesting transition and, you know, pivot moment that we've seen this offseason with analytics and the NFL is the fact that this stuff is now available to the public a lot of it through NFL Pro. Like if you're just a general NFL fan, this is not an NFL pro ad, but if you're a general NFL fan, you can just go to NFL pro, pay your 1499 a month or whatever it is and you have access to all of this stuff. And I think that there are good things that will come from that. I feel like we are truly in a golden age of just

fan fluency and how much the general NFL fan knows about their team in the league in general. And as somebody who is trying to interact with those fans. It's a very cool moment to be in. So there's definitely positives that come with this. As someone in the analytics community, what are maybe some of the drawbacks that you potentially see with all of this information that is now out there and available to everybody?

Yeah. First and foremost, I think what Kagan Abdu, Bill Smith, and the whole team at the NFL and GS has done, it's like, it's just remarkable. It's such a fun, fun product to use, and they've done a great job. And it's how teams,

I always go to, it's how teams break down film, right? You know, you think, oh, analytics is not, I think football is the ultimate analytics sport, and teams will break down every piece of film from data. And so I like that people can now be like teams. But there is some context that comes involved with it that you need to have. So where people are trying to, hey, find the perfect stat that's now going to be the silver bullet stat, you might not have that, right? I think taking two weeks of data on CPOE, completion percentage, completion probability

over expected. You know, don't look at a data sample size of three on those. All these pitfalls I've had as well. So I'm not saying that these are just anyone can anyone go down there. It's a process for everybody that, like from the first moment that you started digging into numbers like this, you know, 10 years ago when we had access to them. I think a lot of the same mistakes that people in this world were making back then are probably the same mistakes that people getting their first access and first exposure to this

stuff are probably going to be making over the course of this year. Yeah. And I think it's very fun, though, and they can only help expand what's going on. I think what is also cool is where you talk about inflection points with running the ball. A lot of our coaches that are still on Twitter, right? A lot of these young coaches that are now getting into coordinator positions had Twitter accounts, and they will see these things. And so this is to people who are listening that,

want to get into the football space, this is the easiest way to get into because unless you played football at a really high level, it's really hard to get a football job. And so if you're looking to get into it, break down some analytics, post on Twitter, a coach will probably find it. I'm going to be honest with you. We have a lot of young coaches that are going to be on there looking for the next great thing. And so it is a really cool point for you to start doing your own research. I totally agree with that.

And I think that one of the other things that's worth chewing on as we've arrived in this moment is just how flat the information world has become in the NFL. And the statistics part of that is huge. I can't even tell you how much I get exposed to not random, but just smaller Twitter accounts who have started digging into some of these numbers and coming up with interesting conclusions. And if you are interested in that world, I absolutely think that's a space that you should be trying to access. But this is also, this also applies to just the way the film works now. And I think that it's led to so much interesting stuff on both sides of the ball, especially in the running game. You know, we talked about this last week with me and Derek when we were discussing

this moment in defense and how I think that some of the stuff that's happening on defense now is as interesting, as dynamic, and as complex is what offenses looked like eight to ten years ago. The running game is the part of offenses that I think you could make the same point about. Like some of the designs and what teams are trying to do with these gap scheme runs, I can't remember more wild shit being trotted out on NFL Sundays. And I think part of the reason for that is that you can watch a run scheme that works. And you could say, I kind of like that. And then you can immediately pull up every single instance of that as an NFL coach and watch them in 10 minutes.

So that sort of access. And again, the world just being so flat that you can click into that stuff immediately. I think it's really pointing us to what is potentially a golden age for creativity in the league because everyone has everything at their fingertips all the time. I think something that gets lost in analytics is that it's really hard to measure coaching, specifically position coaching. And we were fortunate last night to see Jeff Stoutland, who is a game changer as a position coach. The offensive line is biased, but I think that coach is the most impact. And when you talk about taking a scheme, let's say you want to install duo into your team. Hey, we have a bunch of new linemen here.

Easiest play to kind of install as duo, it's double teams across the board. There are like four different ways to teach a double team on duo. You can be shoulder, shoulder, you can attack the hip, you can have an escape route. There are so many different ways. And now is the access to film and the access to data to see, hey, which are the highest performing teams? And you can find a trend on a technique level basis by looking at the film and looking at who's outperforming other teens.

And you go, hey, maybe this team's outperforming because the back's reading the mic better. Or this team's performing because they're escaping the guard. Instead of trying to double team Jalen Carter, they're going to just try and get him to turn his shoulders. Like different cool things that you can do now that you've access to both the film and the data. Yeah, it's going to be a really fun thing to keep an eye on over the course of this year. And even two weeks in, I just feel like there's so much fun stuff happening right now. And definitely going to keep our ear to the ground and see what's going to pop up over the next 15, 18 weeks here. We're going to hit our first break.

And then we're going to be back with a couple of the segments that we're going to be trotting out on this midweek show. So stick with us. All right. First thing we want to do here, I want to do this on all of the midweek shows with our guests because I want to tap into both your football knowledge and your football. curiosity. So our tentative title for this, which is probably bad, but I don't really care at this point. We're calling this the ball knower, okay? And I'm going to ask you three questions two weeks into the season. The first question is, after two games of the 2024 season, what is something that you know you know about the NFL, like already something that you believe deep in your

soul to be true? Jumbo personnel packages are going to be game changers. I know this. I've studied it for our now, our New England game. Buffalo was big in jumbo. Teams are building their defenses to stop 11 personnel. So all the extra. So you hear about this 53-man roster, then you have to bring 44 to the game. How many extra de-Lyman are you bringing?

How many extra linebackers are you bringing? If you can now as an offense, because you have to carry eight offensive linemen for every game, use them. The team is built to stop nickel or 11 personnel, three-wide receiver offense, you already have the personnel. You have that advantage.

Are they going to get out of what they practice, which is all nickel defense? Are they going to go down to base, which they don't want to be in? I think if teams can leverage Jumbo, you think that's exactly what you know? No, I think Jumbo is now going to be one of the main things teams trot out.

I love that. Alec Anderson, who has been the six offensive linemen for the bills that they put out there in those situations, he's been awesome. Like, he's actually moving people in those looks. And again, watching the bills tap into being that sort of team, has been so rewarding. Like, after, think about what the bills felt like in like 2020.

And they were good. It was a fun team to watch. But this is a spread offense in 2020 where it's built around like Cole Beasley. And now they're using six offensive linemen at one of the highest rates in the league and just beating people into dust with those looks. So I'm 100% on board with this because I do think that there's something to be gained in those looks. And I feel like teams that are embracing it are already finding some of the benefits from it. And one of the things is someone who used to operate like football leagues and try to make sure we have, how much practice time are we allowed to have? You make a team have to practice against Jumbo and how are you going to choose to do it?

You see what the Chargers are doing. They're doing a little bit differently. So a lot of teams will sub in an extra lineman and that guy will play tight end. The Chargers are subbing in an extra lineman but moving Rashon, Slater and Joe Walt next to each other. And Slater will play the tight end. And so that's a completely different thing. Now you're putting your two best offensive linemen at the point of attack. And they'll even have a tight end back there in an unbalanced formation.

Right. So now you're having a tight at and a fullback who is a defensive lineman. Right. So all of these things start to get muddled in a very fun way when you're the Chargers. So now you're spending at least an hour and a half with your coaching staff prepping this game. How do we defend this? Then you're spending at least 30 minutes every practice. practice to defend this.

And the Chargers might run it three times in the game. You're definitely lucky if they only run it three times because if they're running it more, then you're in trouble. But that is a big part of this game is how do you manipulate practice time with what you can do offensively in person? Wildcat is a very similar style thing. But this is actually a more replicatable and can get some of your better players who are normally off the field based on how roster construction works, your backup offensive

linemen, you can get them on the field and perform. The other part of the run game that is something I'm keeping my eye on. I haven't really dug into the numbers. There's some things that have popped up. I think last year there were probably like four or five teams with positive rushing EPA against 12 personnel while we're using 12 personnel because we're living in a nickel league. And theoretically, if you're in 12 personnel, you should be able to run the ball more effectively.

Over the last couple of years, that's kind of been true, but also not really. I think that most defenses have been in a place where they're happy if you're trying to grind them down when they're a nickel when you're in 12 personnel. Because for the most part, they're still. mildly efficient to inefficient plays. But I think a lot of teams have started to be really creative with how they're using those two tight end looks where we got guys slicing across the formation. We got more guys inserting.

It's not just using your flexed off second tight end to go block the nickel. And so I feel like we've gotten to a place where if we're going to be a nickel 80% of the time and you're going to have two tight ends on the field, you need better answers to be able to establish yourself on the ground. And through two weeks, I think that I've seen a lot of examiner. of teams really taking that to heart and trying to bake it into who they want to be as an offense. Absolutely. All right.

So that's something you know you know. What is something you think you know through two weeks of the NFL season? I think the numbers are down because we don't have Hall of Fame quarterbacks across the league anymore. I think this is the case. So passing yards down, I don't know how much of it was Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and Drew Breeze and that middle class of quarterbacks that lit up the scoreboard. How much of that was all this different time? But I think we miss that part of the game as some of these superstar quarterbacks.

I don't know if some of these young guys with the everyone chasing Mahomes and having to do the rookie contract thing, so many rookies starting, is that what's holding us back? You know, it could be the too high. It could be average starting field positions higher. So, hey, you're going to do it. Or fewer drives, run game, making fewer plays. I don't know what the exact number is, but it could just be a talent thing that we had a really great talent pool of quarterbacks playing at that time.

I alluded to it earlier when talking about the reasons for this and how it's so multifaceted that it's hard to land on one conclusion. I think that the too high part of it and just defense is being harder to get a beat on, I do think that's part of it. I think the defenses are just more dynamic and better coach than they were 10 years ago. That's not an interesting answer, but I do think that it's true. But the quarterback part of this is undeniably a huge factor. and looking at the aggregate statistics.

If you take the best five to eight quarterbacks in the league, I still think quarterback play is very, very good. And I think on average, if you took the average 28-year-old veteran quarterback who's been in the league for five years, I think that player, the median performance from that guy, is probably higher than it's been for most of NFL history because of how much guys threw the ball when they were younger and how much capacity there is as passers. but the problem is how many 28-year-old veteran quarterbacks do we have in the NFL? If you look at the way the position was constructed 14 years ago, right?

So let's go back to like 2009, 2010, which is right before the current CBA was put into place. There are so many guys who were starters in that version of the NFL that just wouldn't be starters in the current NFL. There are three names that come to mind because I was just looking at this. Matt Schaub, Matt Castle, David Gerard. like those three guys just wouldn't start in 2024 in the NFL. A team would not trade a second round pick for Matt Schaub in the final year of his rookie deal and then make him their starting quarterback on an extension. It just wouldn't happen because the potential surplus value that you could get from just drafting a guy in the second round,

you'd rather draft Will Levis and just see how that goes than trade a second round pick and give a contract extension to Matt Schaub. And two of our highest performing quarterbacks. Baker Mayfield and Gino Smith are that kind of middle class quarterback. And both these guys are super high picks, right? So it's like a little bit different than like the old school Kurt Warner, Jake the loams, these guys that you want to like throw in there. These guys are that middle class of quarterback and they got time to develop. Like are they still taking that same chance on Gino Smith?

And he's probably the most fun watch. And you got to see his maturity of him. If you go back and watch some of that Jets film and Giants film compared to what he just did last week where that overtime series against New England was one of the most fun to watch, a guy of total command of an offense manipulating it at a very, very good defense. That was that middle class of quarterback that we might not be getting any more across the league. And it's just we have two guys who perform it really well, but who knows how many teams are going to take that chance. But that middle class of quarterback contracts didn't exist for a huge chunk of the last 10 years.

So you have Baker over the next two seasons, Baker, if you average out the cap hits, Baker is going to be making about $20 million a year against the cap. It's $7 million this year. It's $36 next year. If you look at Gino, we're talking about a similar range. You can make a very serious argument that the level those guys are playing. That is as big of a bargain as what you would be getting from probably bad quarterback play on a rookie quarterback contract.

So is this going to be a space where teams can actually find more value than they could at the quarterback position in an old world where these contracts didn't exist. I'm not there yet, just because I think that we only have two examples of this. There's a chance that Gino gets an extension this year for like $55 million and just torpedoes this entire discussion. But I do think it's worth thinking about and considering because I think those guys are two perfect examples. Like, Darnold, right?

Let's say Darnold plays really well over the course of this year. And we see a different version of Sam Darnold at 28 than we did at 24 because this is a shocker, guys. Quarterbacks get better. as they age. Like, quarterbacks at 28 are going to be better players than they were at 24. So do we get to a place where a team is looking at Sam Darnold after this season and saying,

you know what? Sam Darnold at like $22 million a year is probably a better answer for us than just taking a shot on some unknown rookie or trying to pay a guy at the top of the market. I'm not, I don't know. I don't know what the year will bring for Sam Darnold, but I do think it's a more interesting conversation than it was five years ago. Yeah, I think if you're not going to run air raid in the NFL, like real air raid, forcing a guy like Caleb Williams, I'm sorry, but forcing a guy Caleb Williams to run.

Not ready to play action. You know, like it's harder transition in general when you're moving that kind of player. So we're taking a lot of the unique players. We're having more wide receivers on the field as offenses in college football running more wide receivers. But the offenses haven't transitioned completely. And the play styles haven't. So, you know, I think, you know, Ryan Grubbs, what he's doing in Seattle, kind of blending the two together. They ran tempo a lot last week, not just because it's collegiate style, but because they were trying to keep New England in certain personnel groupings.

But, you know, he's blending the two. And you want to be able to do that to make sure you can lean into what your quarterback's, especially if you're going to say, I'm going to go to the young quarterback route. Because Bo Nix might be 24 years old, but he's played an Oregon offense and an Auburn offense that are nothing like what he's doing with Sean Payton right now. last one here. We got what you know you know. We got what you think you know. What is something you still want to know two weeks into the season as you kind of look forward to week three?

Who are the Saints? Can this continue? You're stealing mine for this for our preview show next week. I hate this. I'm sorry. Keep going. It's just, it's just like, is this going to continue? Or are we going to get lulled to sleep like we did with Miami last year of,

hey, this team's gone nuclear twice. they had the game plan, you know, how different is football, or both the games if they don't hit the bomb to Shaheed early, right? Like, it's not a, it's not, are they going to keep doing it until they hit it in games? Because they've hit it twice. But those kind of game changing style plays, 50-yard bombs, completely change a game on its face. And so I want to know if this is going to be consistent, are they going to have the same personal rooms? We really don't have a read on what they like to do in the end of game because they haven't played. a close game yet. We don't know who they are. All their data's messed up because of how early

they've closed out games. They're using play action on like 45% of their dropbacks. Over the course of the season, it's just not sustainable. We've gotten to a place where having two-man routes over and over and over again against teams that are probably going to play more too high coverages against you than what they saw against Dallas last week, who was just terrified of getting run on. There's a lot of stuff that we have to figure out. And it's been very exciting so far, but I'm 100% with you. I've got some questions and I've got some stats that I'm going to try out when we have this conversation with Derek on Thursday. But I'm not surprised to hear you say that. I think that's probably the question on a lot of people's minds two weeks into the year is

how real is this and how much can they sustain this when they probably have to do a little bit something different offensively over the course of the year. Yeah, every offseason I look at the point differential net points to try and help like, hey, what are some premier games we want to go after? And the Saints were seventh and net points, but didn't make the playoffs. Right. So they And net points is a larger predictor of success year to year than your win-loss record, right? It's why we see major drop-offs from two years ago, Vikings to last year Vikings. But there's so many things that take place, injuries, fluke plays, whatever. But I was like, this team, or am I just being fooled by the data right now?

They're actually not good. One or two games could be the outlier. But, you know, it was something coming into the season. I want to see who they are with a real coordinator. And Derek Carr has always had the deep ball, but was like, was the deep ball Devante Adams when they came over to the Raiders? Was that the reason why they were so good? Hey, they look good right now, but I don't know if this is real.

Yeah, I'm excited to dig into that and to learn a little bit more about them as we had a little bit deeper into the year. Last thing I wanted to do with you here, we're going to try to do this every week because, you know, most people that are in our positions, from the time that we wake up on Monday morning through the time that the games happen again on Sunday, we're just rewatching stuff that happened the previous weekend. There's no way to watch everything. and there's no way to talk about everything in the way that we want to by the time you get to Sunday night. So each week on these Wednesday shows, we're going to be doing something that we're just going to call upon further review. So as you got to go back and rewatch something from last week, what did you find yourself watching and what were some of your favorite takeaways as you got to dig into it?

So I went in to prepping for our Thursday night game, New England, New York Jets. I went into it going, I've got to figure out this defense on. What are they doing? What's the tell when Jelani Tavai is on the ball? And there just is none. But then what stood out was Keon White. And there have been a lot of cutups of how he's getting through. And as I talked to different teams across the league, I'm like, hey, how do you prep for this team?

They go, 99's a problem. Every single one of the guys is like 909's a problem. And he's doing all of this at 280. And he's beaten every single position on the offensive line. Every single one. It's incredible. You try to figure out where he's lining up on any given plays in mystery. let alone where Tavai is going to be.

So that's the problem is, you know, you go into a thing you're trying to figure, okay, how do I pick the protection where I'm going to slide? What's my key read? Am I going to Dugger 23? Am I going to Vi? That's how I prepped it. And then I go, oh, no, I'm going to go Aaron Donald's Lulz's on 99. Right?

I'm just going to find 99. But he's all over the place. And then it could mess you up on what your protection is for the extra blitzer. And so I think there's a play where he's just dropping into, he's like the Tampa dropper, weirdly enough. And that it was a good play for Seattle. But it's still like, He could literally be anywhere on any given play.

And for somebody that's 280 to be in that sort of position, I think, speaks to what the Patriots are trying to do on defense. Yeah, every team's like, he's 280. He's a problem. Why is he doing this at 280? And it's like, yeah, man, I, I, you don't know where he's going to be. And the diversity of moves for a second year guy, right? He has a fastball with his hand swipe.

He wants to do that. But he'll go inside, he'll go outside, he'll go through you. I don't want to block him. I'm happy I get to be on TV doing it because if I had to block him, I'd probably just call for help every time. Like it's just really, it's a tough one. You're got to,

the coordinator is probably going to go up to Aaron before and go, hey, we're quick pass. And Hack, it's going to be like, it's quick passes or just go down. But it's, we don't have a plan. Yeah, I think I'm probably the 40th person in football media to say something along these lines over the past 72 hours, but he's been one of my favorite players to watch over the first two weeks.

I mean, he's just an absolute monster, and the ways that they're trying to use him are incredibly fun. So something to keep an eye on on Thursday night when you guys were watching that game. Anything else from a Patriots Jets study that you felt like was particularly notable, like little sprinkles, little morsels you can give us before that broadcast on Thursday? Aaron Rogers' arm is still generational. Like, it's still crazy how he can do 40-yard handoffs, you know, like some of his throws. he leans on three throws right now though slant flat and go balls are over 50% of his if his throws yeah like he he just he has his favorites that he's going to do and that is how he's going to play the game uh focus on just that and he leads the NFL and go balls and they still struggle with explosives you know but that is where they're going to make it but when he does it it sure looks pretty i'll tell you that so i went back and i watched the jets offense over the last day or so because that was just a game that I just didn't get to. There were 10 early games on Sunday, which is the whole

different rant that I can go on if I wanted to, but that's just one that did not get enough TV time. And after the way that they played against the Niners, I was like, okay, I'm going to sit with the Jets offense, just going to see where we are two weeks into the season. And I don't know how you felt going back and rewatching. I actually was pretty encouraged by what I saw from them on Sunday. There are some things that are worrying, but I also think there are some things to build on. And I'm with you with Rogers. I mean, he's really leaning into that sort of stuff. It's a lot of flat routes to the back. Like that's what they're leaning on is a huge part of the offense.

And then he's taking the goal ball to Mike Williams down the left sideline. He's loving his slot fades when he gets those opportunities. Like he threw several of them against the Niners. That's always something he's liked to do. So I think that some more diversity in what they're trying to do in the passing game would be helpful. My concern about that is I don't think that they have the guys to lean into more stuff. So like remember they had the kind of alert throw to Lazard when he just ran by a guy and it's like he's open. that's not Alan Lazzard's game.

Like that's not the type of guy who you need on that sort of route. They had like a big rap route to Mike Williams on a high low with Garrett Wilson. That's not Mike Williams's game. So one of my big takeaways, and this is not revelatory considering all the discussions people had about them coming into the year, they need one more guy. Like in that past catching room, they need one more guy. Mike Williams is what he is, but they need one more piece that's a little bit more explosive and has like a somewhat more diversified skill set for all of this to properly

come together. Yeah, I think probably the other thing I'm really excited for, and I think something we're going to show on Prime Vision is how much time he spends at the line of scrimmage, too. If you want an old school quarterback now, they run motion 52% of the time. Crazy to think that it's one of the lowest in the NFL is 52% of the time. It's motion. League average is like 30%.

It's a lot of shifts though, right? Well, the way we diversify is how much motion is that snap, which is only 30% versus motion in general. And it's just a focus on, are they getting a man's own read? but he'll check two, three times fake dummy counts because he's doing the muddle huddle. If you watch their choir huddle, all the offensive line is facing the line of scrimmage so they can get up to the ball faster instead of turning around. Little minor things like that that he's still doing from his Green Bay days where he's reading the defense a lot.

But the defenses have changed so much just in the past two years, you know, of him playing. So you still see him processing. That's why they're having a lot of early timeouts, delay a games. because he's still going to that process. But when he gets the ball out quick, he's one of the best in the NFL. And they've been on schedule. Well,

their success rates high when passing. It's just that they need to get some of those explosives still. And I think a lot of the things they've been able to do, to me, the best thing that they've done throwing the ball is when they've been in empty. Like, just spreading things out and letting him kind of go to work. And we talk about some of the slot phase

they were able to hit from some of those looks. But so far, they've had a 60% success rate on empty dropbacks. They've only had 10 of them, right? Like, this is a minuscule sample size. But he's seven if not. for 83 yards on those plays. And it just feels like he's able to pick on some of the matchups a little bit better when

the picture is very clear for him. So I would expect them to just keep leaning into that sort of stuff as a way to create matchups. But so far, that's been, I think, the best thing they've done while throwing the ball. Probably the last thing. We could talk all day about this, but I want to see some diversity in what their canned plays are. So what Nathaniel Hackett does is they go up to a line of scrimmage and sometimes they'll

multiple plays and they will can a play, meaning they'll go to their second. second play. I want to see diversity that it's not just going to be an outside zone or outside run because that's kind of the story right now. Teams watch, not just the all 22, they watch the TV copy to get that audio. They want to hear what the parabolic picks up. I want to see them do some dummy stuff, especially on the short week, getting an opportunity to get a big play off of their killing alert system when he's at the line of scrimmage. I just, I feel like it's very telegraphed a lot of what they're trying to do, and that makes football extremely hard in 24. Yeah, and I think there's a couple other areas I think that are worth hitting on before we get out of here.

Their run game has not been very good. They're 28th in rushing success rate through two games. I do think that there's some meat on the bone there. Like, I just feel like a lot of the issues that they're having is timing angles with tight ends. They're trying to get those plays where the tight ends are motioning out and helping kick out. Like, that's stuff that just with more time on task. I think that will look a little bit sharper than it does right now. And the same thing goes for the offensive line.

Like, guys are really struggling to figure out like, all right, when am I supposed to come off of this combo? if he's going to dart inside, what am I supposed to do? I don't think that it's a disaster by any stretch. I just feel like some little things are a tiny bit off right now with everything about their running game. And when you look at the backs that they have and the guys they have up front, I think over the course of the year, I actually have a lot of faith in that getting considerably better than what it looks like right now.

Yeah, and choosing to run into good looks. Braylon Allen's run into much more light boxes than Brees Hall has. They're telegraphing, their runs. I feel like they're seeing heavy boxes and they go, we can get the outside zone against the heavy box. And that's going to be who we are. I just, I want to see some more diversity on when they choose to run, how they choose to run. And like you said, like, let's just, it comes down to blocking a lot of the time and having some some jelling technique there.

The other one other note that I thought, just like this is anecdotal when I was watching them and the numbers do bear this out. Every time they've tried to hit a shot off play action, it's been a disaster. Like it's because Rogers hasn't wanted to hang on it for long enough, or they miss, like, they're trying to seal the backside and they miss something, or Rogers floats in the pocket in a way that he doesn't need to. And so that came up over and over again every single time they try to take a shot. Because Gary Wilson was open on several of those. They're trying to get him the ball on those plays.

And for one reason or another, it just kind of crumbles. The only teams in the NFL with a worse EPA per dropback through two games on play action than the Jets have been the Broncos and the Panthers. Wow. So every single time that they've tried to do it has been very bad. sample small sample size siren right it's been two games but so far those have not been positive place for the jets you bring up a good point because he he did look off a couple of them right which is like if if you're Ian Rogers and uh kegan abd from njs did a ton of cool stuff on where

his launch point and sack point is we have some cool graphs so hopefully we'll get to show this week but like you're not moving he is a statue back there right now you'd want to get rid of the ball you don't want to hold on to him and have an opportunity to get hit even if you're going to airmail it. So him looking off a few of those wide open throws that you know he can make, it is interesting to see how much comfort he needs to get to be able to get back to that version of himself. I am very excited to see what happens with the backs, though. They're slowly coming to the realization that the backs are probably their second and third best offensive players. And that's never a good place to be. Like you're trying to figure out that it's hard to incorporate that

collection of skill position players into cohesive offense in 2024. Because if you're putting two backs on the field together. There are only so many things that you can do. But that's why that Braille and Allen touchdown was so beautiful. Right. So like earlier in that drive, they had a split back look where they threw the swing to Breece Hall. And so for the touchdown, they fake the swing and then throw a screen back back to Brayle and Allen for a touchdown. So I don't know how many different things you can tap into with that personnel on the field together. But watching them sort through it because they realize what they have in those two guys, that's going to be a fun process as we go through the season. The beauty of covering to Aaron Rogers game, because

he tells you. He said that he had an argument with Nathaniel Hackett during the week about wanting to run more two-back sets. Nathaniel Hackett didn't like it. And then they argued about it on the sideline. He got the play in. And we get to hear the story about when it worked. Right. So like, but, you know, it is funny that like, hey, they're figuring, they're drawing some stuff up in the sand too over there. You know, not everything is as telegraphed as maybe I would like it to be or like, or put together. But it is interesting, you know, football can come down to do we have our best guys on the field. Some people would probably be jealous of folks that have TV jobs because they get to be on TV and obviously it's a high profile thing. All I care about with being on television is getting to be

a part of production meetings. It's truly like the only thing I would want with a television job. I would just sit in the meetings and never be on TV. So if any television network out there, if you will just fly me out and let me sit at the meeting, I will do work for you. That's the only compensation that I want. I'm just putting that out into the ether. Yeah, now with a lot of East Coast games, and I'm not traveling to the games. We have our own studio in the Amazon office. It's awesome to not move out of the truck. You can do those at 6.30 in the morning with me if you would like to.

I'm happy to do them. Very happy to do them. Sam Schwartzstein, sincerely appreciate the time, my friend. Always very good to chat with you. Really enjoyed this, and hopefully we'll do it again very soon. Thanks, man. We're going to take one more break, and then we're going to be back with our first edition of quarterback counseling with noted Panthers fans.

Stephen Ruiz, who's had an interesting week to say the least. Joining us now, one of our old pals from The Ringer, and for our purposes here, a noted Panthers fan at Stephen, how you feeling, buddy? I think last time I came on the show, I thank you for not bringing me on to talk about the Panthers. And then it's out. So I guess this time I got to say, fuck you, pal. The best part about this is we plan to do this a week ago.

Like, we had already scheduled to have this conversation after week one. And then he gets benched yesterday and obviously it adds a whole new layer to this discussion. So this is a safe space and I want you to know that. And I want everyone who comes into this chair to know that each and every week. How are you feeling? How you feel it after the way the last 24 hours of so have unfolded? I'm feeling. I'm in a weird spot because I guess there was some hope that the Panthers could figure things out, put a better team around Bryce.

And things would at least look better. I never thought they would look great in Carolina with him, but I thought it could look better. And apparently it looks worse. It looks way worse. It looks unviable at the moment. So I'm kind of relieved that we're actually going to get a full measure of the rest of this team. Because the last year and a half has been about evaluating Bryce. Now we can evaluate the rest of the roster and get a real look at what they are because Bryce was not giving us the chance to do that.

I had some hope that it could get better. After going back and watching the tape last year, there were enough moments where I was like, okay. Like when he's getting the ball out of his hands quickly, like his arm strength isn't that bad, the accuracy is there. Like as the way, just how quickly he was processing things. I was like, okay, like there's something to work with here. If you put him in a slightly better situation, maybe we could get to a place where he is a functional NFL quarterback who can be, you know, the 18th best quarterback in the league. And if you can build the right team around a guy like that on a rookie contract, you can be a competitive team. That quickly just flew out the door.

I mean, we're two games into the year, and it's not like there's consternation about what he is. He's been benched 18 games into his career. So where were you in terms of how much actual hope you had coming into the season compared to somebody like me or I know Derek was kind of in the same place that I was? I mean, I had given up on the idea that he would be the type of player you want when you pick a guy with the number one pick. I had given up on that idea well before he was drafted, actually, like just looking at his college shape and wondering how this would translate to a, a league that's dominated by big, fast, strong athletes. And he is clearly not that. Like, no matter how you evaluate his film in college or how you've evaluated in

Carolina, that stands out. That's objectively true, is that he's undersized, he doesn't have the strongest arm. He probably has a bottom 10 arm in this league. And then on top of that, he plays small. Like, you see quarterbacks like Kyler Murray, who are able to put the games on their own terms because of athleticism and arm strength. He just can't do that. And with a player like that, I don't think it takes a large sample size to,

kind of come to the conclusion that Carolina seems to have come to this week. What was the moment for you where you kind of knew it was over? Oh, that's a good question. Honestly, it was this offseason when I watched that Packers game? Because I remember watching that Packers game in real time. You came into the season knowing it was over. Yeah, yeah. I went on Bill Simmons pod a couple weeks ago and I said,

Bryce Young is getting benched this year. Bill asked me for my top five hottest takes, and that was my first one, was that Bryce Young is getting bench this year. I did not think it would happen in September. I thought it would happen in November, but it did happen. But yeah, I'd given up on any hope because I don't, I look at his game. I come through the stats and I try to find one thing to like kind of glom on to, one thing to cling to where you can be like, we could build around this.

And there's nothing. There's literally nothing. The one thing I found was he is pretty efficient under center play action. So pretty much like the Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVeigh stuff. The problem with that is you need a certain environment on author. You need a certain game script to be able to run that over and over and over again, as evidenced by the fact that they've only done it twice this year. And I will say this, on the two that they've run it, he threw a pick on the very first play of the season. And then he overthrew Deonté Johnson. He was wide open. So it hasn't even worked when they've done it this year.

The play action stuff, some of it where they would do it naked and leave somebody unblocked, those are the moments where I was just like, oh, this is just not going to work. Because he does not have the athleticism to avoid guys in those moments. and him trying to throw the ball over an unblocked Khalil Mack, and those plays where he's literally having to jump in the air to make some of these things happen, even if you were spinning it positively, and you're like, okay, he plays on his toes, and it looks weird, but he was able to do it in college, and maybe there's a chance he can do it in the NFL. The amount of times last week and over the first two weeks where he's tried to jump in the air

to get the ball over somebody, and you combine that with some of the bizarre decision-making and the pick that he threw on Sunday, that was probably the moment for me where I was just like, oh, his brain is just melted. Yeah. Like there's nothing about that throw that would lead you to that decision based on what the play is trying to accomplish and what the defense looks like. So if we're at a place where physically he's outmatched and he's at a spot where he's just not trusting anything that he's seeing, you can just feel the whole enterprise start

to crumble. And that feels like kind of what we were seeing on Sunday and just like the moment that we'd arrived at. Yeah, this was the worst game yet for me, from like a purely, evaluation standpoint, this was the first time when I was like, this, this just won't work ever in the NFL, no matter what's around him, like, to your point. And the jumping thing, like, for me, that was new. I've been watching him for the last year and a half. I hadn't seen him start to jump. And I wonder if that's, like, just him being like, all right, I've tried everything else to kind of work

around my height, my limitations. Now I just got to start jumping. And, like, it didn't work. He wasn't able to throw the passes accurately. There was a fourth and two where he has a check down wide open to move the sticks. He has to jump to get the throw over the line and he throws it in the back of his center's helmet. Like at that moment, I think I sent out a tweet like, Dave Conallis has no choice. He has to bench him. You can't do this to the locker room. You can't subject the locker room to this. There's a clip from Sunday's game where Adam Thieland's running like a crosser. He's like, it's three by one. He's the furthest inside receiver. He's the number three receiver. It's cover one. The guy in the middle of the field doesn't run with him. So he's wide open. Bryce has a pocket,

but he's sitting there. He's kind of dancing in the pocket, happy feet, doesn't see it. And you could just see the frustration on Thielen's face. He looks at the sideline. He, like grabs his helmet. He, like, throws his arms up in frustration. And at that point, it's just like, how can you be Dave Canales and look at the locker room and be like, we're going to continue to play this guy?

You just can't. Even if this is the right choice because of all those reasons. And I get it. And I actually think that the Panthers' willingness to move forward with this and willingness to just say, this is a sunk cost. There's nothing else we can do about it. because there's no coming back from this, right? You can spin it however you want to.

There's no coming back from this. Even if it's the right decision, how do you feel about landing in this place? This is a guy they traded two first round picks for, DJ Moore, what is probably going to be like the 34th pick in this year's draft, and they passed on CJ Stroud to do this. We're talking about, if you consider all of it,

the price, the performance, the fact that we knew 18 games into the year that it was the right decision to move on, from him and the opportunity cost, this is probably one of the most catastrophic picks that we have seen in the NFL in the modern era. I hate to pile on here, but like, how are you processing that part of it, even if moving on from him and moving on to Andy Dalton was probably the right decision in the moment? To me, that's not the worst part, actually. That is not the worst part to me. The worst part is that they did that for a prospect who was a historical outlier. Like, you had to

have, you tried to outsmart everyone else. Outsmart the history of this. league that has told us that big, strong quarterbacks are the ones you want and just look at the league over the last couple years to make that decision and do all that stuff you just said and give up all those resources to make that decision, that's the part that's so frustrating for me. And that's the part that has me feeling like there's no hope for the future. Like a bad owner. I lived in the Washington, D.C. area my whole life. So I lived through the entire Daniel Snyder era.

I still vaguely remember him taking over the team in, I think it was 1998, 1997. And I saw it firsthand, like, what that can do to a fan base. I don't see any, I live in Washington, D.C. I don't see any commander's jerseys around the city. I don't see any. I don't ever hear people talking about the team in the grocery store. I don't ever hear them talking about the team at the bar. The city just doesn't seem to care about the commanders.

And I think Carolina is like sprinting towards that future because of Dave Tepper and because of this common theme of him just being impatient. And him thinking that he has all the answers and that his life experience and his success in another field that has nothing to do with football is applicable to this situation. And if you read like any account of that process, that pre-draft process, it's all over. Like David Tepper's experience and him applying it to this situation is all over that process for the Panthers. And you could just see that it was going to end up like this. It was going to be bad because of the reasons they were making these decisions.

I'm smiling right now. And I'm a terrible therapist, the fact that I'm enjoying this. but this is exactly the tone that I was seeking out when we saw we would try to decide that we were going to do this segment. We probably should have told people, I probably should have explored this at the beginning. Why are you a Panthers fan? Because I, like, have you seen my tweets? Have you seen my takes of a natural contrarian? And I grew up in a household full of Washington fans. Like my parents had season tickets, their parents had season tickets. Like everyone loved Washington around me. And I didn't.

And like the Panthers were a newish team around then. They had cool colors. I don't have a better explanation than that. That's a perfectly good answer because I think colors were in 1996 when the Panthers launch or 1995 or whatever it was, I was like nine years old. Colors were a dominating force in like which teams I thought were interesting and which teams I thought weren't. In that bright blue color? Oh, the 90s kids were a sucker for that color. I was, I was drunk.

I mean, a Panther starter jacket is like exactly what you would have wanted to be wearing. Like the Hornets. I mean, like that, that color was very in vogue in the mid-90s. So I completely understand that. Okay. So let's take the temper of all of this into account. And let's think about what the next couple stages of this might look like. Stage one, what do you think the offense will look like with Andy Dalton?

And do you actually have hope that this can look like a functioning NFL unit with a change of quarterback? I do. I really do. And maybe I'm naive. And maybe that's a Panthers fan that's still in me, like trying to be hopeful and optimistic about the future. But like whenever I've seen Andy Dalton play over the last couple of years, years. He's not a bad quarterback. I think he's probably a good quarterback. I don't think he's like a top 20 quarterback, but he's right on that fringe. And the one thing he's going to do is execute the

offense. And you see the team try to execute this offense. And guys, some guys are getting open. I think the offensive line is doing a decent job. I think Bryce Young was the least pressured quarterback by pressure rate last week. And then you see receivers getting open. Like, I think there is a functional offense in there. The wide receiver core isn't bad. It's not like the Chargers receiving court. Deonti Johnson, we've seen him play well with other bad quarterbacks. Adam Thieland is playing good football and played good football last year. Xavier Leggett was a first round pick. Mingo was a second round pick. These are guys with pedigree. They have talent on this team. They splurge in free agency to bolster the interior line to help Bryce Young. He's not taking

advantage of it. So the pieces are there. That's why I'm so interested to see Dalton play, which is not a sentence I ever thought I would be saying in 2024. But here we are. Thanks. Dave. One of the most troubling things for me when I went back and watched the game is how good the past protection was. And not just against like four-man rushes. They're sorting through pressure looks, like Chuba Hubbard's going to the right place as part of like the past protection plans.

The job that they were doing as an offensive line, especially when you compare it to what they were trotting out last year, it was night and day. And the fact that he was struggling in that sort of environment, that was one of the moments where I was like, oh man, if he can't play when they're actually holding up a front against a defense that's throwing a lot of shit at them, then we're in a really, really bad place. Yeah, and the week before, they did have some protection issues with like sorting out pressures. But Bryce Shug was like at the heart of all that. There's a play where he gives up a free rusher where he has three receivers to his left, one of them's a running back. He has one

receiver two is right. And the numbers are there. Like the Panthers have the numbers to pick up the blitz if it comes from the weak side. And for some reason, Bryce Young motions the back in, puts him on the right side. Now you only have two receivers out to that side with four potential rushers. And of course, they give up a free rusher and he gets hit. He gets walloped. Like, that's on the quarterback. That's one of those clips where you could probably tweet it out and be like, look what the Panthers have Bryce Young dealing with. No, he creates a lot of his own problems. And to your point, last week, when there weren't any of those problems, he found problems. Like, he sought out pressure. He held onto the ball. He patted on the ball.

That's why I'm sick of hearing these people questioning, oh, are the Panthers doing it too soon? Like, why didn't they give them a chance to develop? They never give quarterbacks a chance to develop anymore. If you just watch the tape, you can see there's nothing to develop there. And if you compare his first, like, 18 or so games to other first round picks and you compare his EPA per dropback and his production, the names around him are horrible. It's like Achilles Smith, Joey Harrington. It's like all the busts you've ever heard in your life. it's not too soon to know, especially, like I said, I'm going to keep bringing this up

when you have a historic outlier in terms of size. We've never seen a guy with that skill set and that size thrive at the NFL level or even be viable at the NFL level. We've seen this process play out with other quarterbacks over the last like four or five years where you have an awful rookie season. And part of the reason that you have an awful rookie season is you were drafted number one overall or you were drafted by a team that needed a first run quarterback because the rest of the team is garbage. The infrastructure is crumbling around him, and that's what it was last year. It was an offensive line that was completely out, man.

They had absolutely no one to throw the ball to. Frank Wright gets fired 10 games into the season. So you spend the entire offseason trying to overcorrect and do everything that you can to put things around him to fully understand what he is in a slightly different improved environment. The difference is it typically takes a little bit longer to get that answer. But I think that, like you are, two games was probably. enough for us to understand and get that information about Bryce Young seeing him in an improved

situation. I don't think we're doing a good job of selling like how bad that tape from the Chargers game was. It was unwatchable. It was like they brought a guy down from the stance and asked him to play quarterback for the first time ever. Like, I am not exaggerated when I say, I've never seen a quarterback have to jump to throw a check down over his offensive line. And he did it four times in the game. He's getting worse. And I think like even if the Panthers do plan on trying this again and giving him another chance. I think just for the sake of his own development, he needed to sit on the sideline and stop doing this because obviously he was developing bad habits that we had never seen before, including the jump throws. All right. So you have faith that it can look

better with Andy Dalton. Let's play this out over the next 12 months. What is the best case scenario of how this can unfold with the Panthers and in terms of how they're going to approach, solve the quarterback position in a post-Brice young world? I think it's that you see a competent offense and that the front office realizes they don't have to blow everything up. Like, we're a little closer than we realize. I think that was the problem the first time around when they tried to get Bryce. Like the thinking that offseason was like we're a bad team.

We can't keep putting a bad product out on the field. We have to change things dramatically in order to have fans wanting to come to the games. So let's trade up and draft this quarterback. let's do some other things. Let's bring in the super coaching staff to coach them up and generate excitement. I think the best way to generate excitement is to just feel the good football team. And if this team looks competent, I think fans will start showing up. There'll be more energy in the stadium. I think fans like me will be less pessimistic about the future. And then you could focus your offseason instead of just like trying to shoot a fire hose at all the problems on your

roster. You can hone in on the problems. And maybe not take such a dramatic approach next time. Because last time they had other options that weren't as dramatic. Like, they were talking to Derek Carr. And I know, like, I wasn't excited for the prospect of watching Derek Carr. But in hindsight, it would have been way better than this. And the Panthers would be in a way better spot if they had a competent quarterback at this moment. So that's all I want to see. I just want to see the offense with a competent quarterback.

And I think we had that. And then from there, it's going to be so much easier to decide which path to go down in the offseason. So I think that my next question was going to be what that path would look like ideally for you. but it sounds like you don't know the answer because you don't know how the season is going to play out and what sort of answers they're going to land on. Right. That's why you have to make this move so we can actually evaluate this team. I wouldn't hate if Andy Dalton is the starting quarterback in week one next year because I don't like this quarterback class coming up. I don't think the Panthers are going to have to move up to get a pick again. But I think if you're passing up on the opportunity to move down, that's a lot of opportunity cost there in terms of what you can pick up in draft picks. And that's what I would want to see. So if it's Andy Dalton, a week one. I think a lot of people in Carolina would be pretty bummed by that idea and that prospect. But that's why I just can't see it happening. Like everything we've just said about the owner and everything we've just said about how impatient they can be and that the answer is right away

and wanting to put out a product that people are excited about. It's hard to do that with Andy Dalton as your week one starter, even if Andy Dalton plays well for the rest of the season. No. Especially if you're like the second overall pick next year and there is a chance, even if the quarterbacks are underwhelming, you're in a position to draft one. Yeah, and that's the problem is David Tepper can't, I don't think he can stomach going into a season knowing he's going six and 11, seven and ten. Without some sort of hope to pedal. Like, you can go six and ten if your rookie quarterback that you drafted number one overall looks like a decent player. You can't go six and ten in David Tepper's mind if you have a 38-year-old Andy Dalton Bonder Center.

Right, exactly. It's just not viable. So we know what's going to happen next year. It's going to be Bill Belichick on the sideline. It's probably going to be like Jimmy G as the quarterback and he's going to have Josh McDaniels calling plays. I don't know. Like, it's going to be bad. I just expect it to be bad. It's so fitting that I'm trying to make Andy Dalton like six years older than he is.

And in actuality, he's two months younger than me. It's like, oh, Andy Dalton's like 45 years old. How could you possibly trot him out there and sell that to the fan base? He turns 37 in a month and a half. So I wasn't so far off, but I'm not surprised that I'm making him older than he actually is. Anything else that you want to try to work through here? Anything else you want to get off your chest? Like, this is a place where you can share and we just want you to feel.

better coming out on the other side. Yeah, this is a general statement about quarterback evaluation. Like, I don't think I'm smarter than the rest of the league. I think if you put me in a GM spot, I would just destroy the franchise even faster than David Tepper has destroyed my beloved Carolina Panthers. But can we stop with like the common sense picks to avoid? Like, can we not draft five, ten quarterbacks anymore in the first round? Can we not draft Mack Jones in the first round anymore. Can we not draft Kenny Pickett in the first round anymore? Can we not draft Bo Nix? Like, the amount of rakes this league loves to step on when it comes to drafting quarterbacks in the first round, like obvious ones that you can avoid. It's just astounding to me. And Bryce Young is

the latest one, and he might be the most egregious one. At least, like, he's the worst first overall pick I've ever seen. Jamarcus Russell was big and had a strong arm. At least he was talented. Imagine if he had Bryce Young's work ethic. He would be a good player. I, I, I don't know. I'm at a loss. We had this discussion earlier on the show with Sam Schwartzstein, just talking about the way that the league is seeking out quarterbacks and how, I think, to a certain extent, like the rookie salary scale has made quarterback play around the league worse

because you're so incentivized to try to hit on a Kenny Pickett or try to hit on a Bow Nix or Michael Pennix down. Michael Pennix doesn't really apply, but a Boe Knicks or a Kenny Pickett or some of these other guys that we've seen drafted in the first round, even like going and trying to get Willevis in the second round, is a product of, well, if we pay Will Levis seven, cents, how good can the rest of our team be if we hit on him?

Fifteen years ago, Andy Dalton be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Think about what the Panthers did with Jake Delome. Like, Jake Delon just wouldn't be a starter in the league anymore. The complexion of how the position exists in the NFL has so dramatically changed that teams are going to keep doing this over and over and over again because the finances incentivize them to do it. And so now we've almost backdoored into how the quarterback process should actually look Carolina because Andy Dalton and the way that he can play right now is still probably one of the

best 32 quarterbacks in the world. Yeah, I mean, look at the Saints right now. They're loving life with Derrick Carr. That could have been us, Carolina. That could have been us. Look at Seattle. The chance they took on Gino Smith. And now they might have a top 10 quarterback. And I'm like two weeks away from calling Juno Smith a fringe top five quarterback with the way he's playing. Don't get, don't get me started. I mean, we could do another 30 minutes on Gino. We could do another 30 minutes on that Patriots tape alone. I need a cigarette after watching that that take. I'm happy we can add that on a good note because I know that it's probably been a tough

week for you and probably been a tough couple years for you having to deal with all of this going on in Carolina. But hopefully there are better days ahead. Stephen Ruiz, thank you very much, my friend. Always great to chat with you. And if you ever need to come back on and work through some of your feelings, we're here for you. I appreciate the platform to do that.

All right, guys. That's all we got. Thank you to Sam. Thank you to Stephen. Really enjoyed both of those. We will be back on Friday with our week three preview with me and Derek. Until then, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.