The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Tying up loose ends from the 2021 NFL season + Rams camp visit with Jourdan Rodrigue

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

What lingering questions from the 2021 NFL season still need to be discussed? Robert Mays, Nate Tice and Diante Lee talk about the Cowboys’ offense, the adoption of Brandon Staley’s defense across the league, the shift in the Eagles’ offense and much more. Then, The Athletic’s Rams’ reporter Jourdan Rodrigue joins Robert live from Irvine, CA for the first training camp check-in. They discuss the vibe surrounding the defending champs, the new faces on the field and the top questions heading into the season. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today's Thursday, July 28th. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. A little bit later, our Rams writer at the Athletic, Jordan Roderick, is going to be joining us. I'm on the road.

I am in Los Angeles. I was sitting in the sun talking to Jordan about what was happening at Rams camp. We're going to be doing a ton of that over the next month or so. I have an entire training camp to her plan. And I'm going to chat with our athletic writer at all of those stops. Really excited for you guys to have those conversations, hear those conversations. They have insight that really no one else has.

They're with these teams every single day. Some of the nuggets that you'll be able to pick up on during those chats, really, really excited about that. Before we do that, though, before we turn the page to the 2022 season, I wanted to tie up some loose ends from the 2021 season. We have these questions sometimes down the stretch as the season's ending as we're getting into the playoffs that we just never answer because the playoffs start and you're getting into the playoff matchups. You're like, oh, how are the Bengals going to attack the Titans? And you just totally forget that certain teams shitted out at the end of the year or there are certain things that were huge conversation points that we just stopped talking about. And by the time July rolls around, you realize we just never addressed any of those things. So before we started the 2022 outlook, I wanted to take one more look back and answer some lingering questions I had about the 2021 season.

Here to help me do that to my good buddies. First of all, the athletic zone, Nate Tice. Nate, how you doing, man? I'm doing well. Now I get the hotel room backdrop changes every day. We talk. Every day. And I get the angle like you're sending a hostage video.

Like, so that's pretty good. The video is not nearly as good with the mic in my face as I sit in a hotel room. Yeah, I feel like you're about to list off some demands. But it's, no, but this is the athletic football show. Our league year doesn't start yet. Our 2022 league year hasn't started yet. So let's take one last glimpse of 2021. So now I'm excited to do this.

And I'm excited for the other guy that's joining us today. Also joining us today, my man, Deonté Lee. Deonté, what's going on, bud? I'm good, man. Trying to enjoy the last little bit of a non-hectic, non-insane, a bit of 2022 that I'll have left because it's going to be a full spread from here until, what, the holiday season, basically. And then we got playoff football right after that. So I'm doing well, man, doing well. It's funny. So Camp means August, or August means camp to me. And so when Meena Kimes did the whole, like, favorite months ranking or whatever that everyone was talking about. And I understood why August was so low. Because that's like, to me, that means training camp starts. I mean, summer was over.

I don't have it, August. Yeah. I don't have, August is not a thing for me in my life. And having to explain that to my fiancee every single year is always fun. I've had this conversation a couple different times over the last two days. But last year, I think I did 17 teams over the course of a month. And when it was over, I was talking to Casey and it's like, you know what? Maybe not again.

You know, that's a lot. And I have a house and a dog and a partner and I like all those things. And the idea of staying and I won't say any hotel brands because I don't want to offend anyone. But staying at a mid-tier hotel when I was 25 years old was the most luxurious thing on planet Earth. It was like, oh my God, I'm eating room service. I was like McCauley Colkin and Home Alone too. Don't have to make my bad. It's how every single road trip felt it hits a little different at 34 than it did at 24.

But every year I forget that. June rolls around the idea of camp starts to come up. It's like, oh, hell yeah, I'll do a month. I'll do 18 teams or whatever. And now I'm two days in, I'm like, oh, my back and all the sun I'm getting. It's very fun, but I always bite off more than I can chew. Oh, yeah. Got to get camp legs.

That's what Dea said. Yeah, exactly. Hey, as a backup quarterback, hey, I had to get into two. When I had to, like, signal in those reps, take my five reps a day and signal for another 25, 50, I'll be like, oh, man, I got to get loose. Get my legs loose is more than anything. For me, Friday, I'm up in L.A. to cover Paxheld Media Day, then I am literally sprinting back home for the first fall camp practice for the high school team that I coach. So I am going to be just as tired, I'm sure, in the next 72 hours as I'm sure Robert is today. Today was my big day.

Today I did the rams in the, or the chargers in the morning and the Rams in the afternoon. This is the only day on the entire trip that I will be doing two practices in a single day. So I had my two a day today. Yeah. This is my one two a day. They took those out of the old CBA, man. You don't have to do it anymore. I thought we'd legislated this out of my schedule, but apparently not.

All right. I'm really excited to dig into this stuff. And thankfully, you guys did more than four hours of independent study to get into this podcast. So we're going to go through, I don't know, a half dozen of these. And these were ideas that we all kind of came up with together, just things that, yeah, you know, we should talk more about that. We didn't dress that enough near the end of the season. And, Nate, I want to start with the Cowboys offense because this is a great. group that we were really excited about at times last season.

When they were rolling and things were looking good, they were playing as well as anybody. I think down the stretch fell off a little bit. Obviously struggled in the playoff game against the Niners. And before we look at this version of the Cowboys offense, some of the personnel changes that have happened, I wanted to go back and just do a little bit of a post-mortem on what happened down the stretch, where there are failings and struggles from the Cowboys offense that we think are just inherent to what they are, and that's why they might carry over to this year,

or were there things that we thought could be solved and maybe were more isolated to who they were last season? So when you went back and you were watching Dallas's offense down the stretch, what really jumped out to you? Man, it was, I said this on the pre-show, guys, but I go back and watch this Cowboys offense, and I'm so ready to get disappointed again and so ready to really lay into them on this segment, know I'm geared up for it. You know, got, 48 hours of prep to kind of really sink my teeth into this. And I watch it. I'm like, man, they do a lot of nice shit.

Man, oh, man. Look at that concept. That's good. Man, look at that process like this. Oh, yeah, that's good. That's good run scheme right there. And watching it, though, I get the same frustrations where they have a lot of good stuff. But it's when you put together a game plan.

It's like, do you have stuff that's like, you're like, this is five stars. Like, I'm really excited to run this highlighted. Okay, this is four stars. You kind of rank your calls. It feels like the Cowboys have too many good plays that they like because they'll run successful stuff. Why I'm saying this is they run all these nice plays that are efficient, that sometimes are explosive, and then they never get back to it. It seems like they are very scared. And this is not so much players.

And this actually matters because a lot of the main characters are returning this next year. So, you know, same Mike McCarthy, Kellyn Moore, same quarterback, same kind of main skill guys. I know Mario Cooper's gone, but I'll get to that in a sec. But it's when you watch this team, it's that they almost got too cute. They want to run that they have the 7-0 linemen looks where they have to use extra offensive linemen playing double fullback and tight end. Cool at first, but then they're trying to run play action out of it. They're trying to run drop back stuff.

And it's like, it was too cute. And it's a, it's, they were thrown too many knuckle balls. And it's like, okay, that's fine. Just go back to the fastball, the stuff that's working or just repeat a run call. I thought early in the year they weren't scared to do that. They had some cute sprinkle stuff in, but they were staying with the stuff that worked. And I thought, even looking back, it's where DAC is a super weapon, DAC is a, in the sense that if you take out play actions and screens and just do true

dropbacks, DAC is a machine. Since 2019, he's the third best quarterback by EPA. He's tied with Aaron Rogers and Deshaun Watson. The only one's head of him or Mahomes and Burris. He is a machine. He does the hard shit really well. But the concepts on these play action, we've talked about this, Robert, how this offense can feel very static and feel very just condensed. And it lays in the numbers.

That's not just eye test. Dax numbers have dropped every year when he's throwing more 20 or more yards. If you're just looking at throws on the outside, I'll bring up the stat a couple times. When you're just throwing go balls, 22 yards or more on the outside, outside the numbers, Dax numbers have dropped. Some of that's because of Michael Gallup's injury. Some of that's just what they're running. And I think that just,

It's kind of a concept and it's a play call thing as well as maybe Dax's aggressiveness. That'll bring up to maybe some of the scramble itself. But yeah, that's what it just feels. I felt static and tight. I want to revisit that in a second. Go ahead, Diantay. I mean, I was just going to follow up what Nate said with the question at the risk of sounding like a Cowboys Apologist. Like, are we having this discussion at all about the 2021 Cowboys of Gallup and Jarwin don't get hurt?

Right. Or if Dack doesn't get banged up. If Dax's calf is healthy. Like, if you look at a lot of their month by month splits, like there is a very, clear drop-off and who this offense is after Jarwin and Gallup get hurt. Like personnel usage, they started going to a lot more like under center and play action stuff on early downs coming out of, you know, those guys being hurt. So I do wonder if there's a bit of we can't generate the kind of offense that we usually

would, like maybe after the catch or based on the formation without some of our best guys. So I do wonder like, did they just lose a fastball because of personnel? And then I guess from there it just kind of opens up a discussion on, well, they didn't really address any of like a talent deficiency. If anything, they'd probably lost more talent than they restock the coverage with. So I am kind of interested to know like where they're going to address these issues if they can at all. I'm wondering, Dei, is somebody who would have to deep game plan for Dallas's offense? Would it be hard?

Is their offensive challenge? Do they present challenges for defensive coaches consistently in your mind with the structure of the offense? because at times, like Nate alluded to, they have seen static to me. So does that static feel extend to if you had to game plan for this team? I would say the version of the Cowboys that we got in December and January wouldn't be the hardest to game plan against. And I think a lot of that kind of goes into like blitz rates. So if you look at the first two months of the year, their blitz rate that they were seeing

was about what you'd expect for an NFL offense, kind of in the mid-teens-ish on passing downs or excuse me against passing plays and then the last two months it was like 21 and 22 percent which is way way up like to an extreme degree and the only reason why you can do that is because you know that the offense doesn't have the threat of mixing in a lot of different personnel groupings that will make certain pressures not be as viable or take a lot of investment in order to make work in terms of losing playmakers like a guy like gallop who can work inside and out and that changes things for cd lamb i know where cd lamb is going to line up if you don't have a gallop on the field, if you don't have an Amari Cooper on the field.

So I think that what we saw, the way that the season ended for them, I would say if you're looking for something to maybe have a bit of a yellow flag up about, it's not having Amari Cooper now, losing one of their two really good tight ends. And I think, you know, them losing a bit of the explosiveness in the run game, which I think a lot of that came as a product of all the changes in personnel that they could get to and the different motions and different looks that they could use like Nate was kind of referencing. If they don't have that, then are we just left with the same kind of Mike McCarthy offense and not a Kellan Moore offense that we've complained about at the end of Aaron Rogers's tenure early in Mike McCarthy's tenure as a head coach here in Dallas? Like those are the kinds of questions that I have right now because to Nate's point, you lose some of this variety.

And now what are you asking your quarterback to do to make it up with his arm? And that's taking more deep shots, more vertical passes, taking more chances. And when a defense knows that that's what you're going to do, I can send more. pressure because you got to drop deeper. It's going to take you longer to progress. You're going to be staring at one receiver a little bit longer than you would. There's not going to be the same kind of variety in the offense. And that's ultimately what San Francisco was able to use against them in order to end their season in the wild card round. That's maybe last year the fact that they had to be a little monotonous with the way

that they were approaching things. It's not their fault because of injuries. But now their personnel deficiencies are there. Right. This is just their reality. Exactly. They're stepping into that sort of world. So, Nate, you mentioned the aggressiveness that DAC maybe wasn't playing with at times last year. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that they're struggling to create explosive plays or he's not seeking those out quite as often? Because it does feel like that. It does feel like that element to their offense, whether it's Gallup or some other reason, has kind of been sapped away.

Do you think that's something they can get back? Yeah. It's all in the structure of the offense. That's why I like the offense is and why I always am a sucker for it is because the concepts they run have layers. They have the high, medium, low reads, which is when you build drop back game or play action game, that's what you want. It's not a lot of gimmicky stuff, even though I've mentioned like the 70 line stuff. That's more of just a variety of shit that they're trying to get to. Like even looking at this, it's not even just like in the, because it's the same offense.

It's the same play caller. It's the same offense. Like Kellan Moore's running Scott Linhan stuff. Like, it's not that crazy. The empty, like the air yards is all tighter. His air yards on play action was nine and a half yards in 2019. It was six yards last year. On play action, his air yards were six yards.

That is tight. Air yards out of empty, nine and a half yards in 2019, six and a half yards last year. Tight. Everything is just tight. And I want to keep saying that it's Gallup, but I think it's sometimes, Dak is his own worst enemy and the fact that he tries to be the machine. And it's kind of what I'm getting at here. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, uh,

this is the, this thing I always bring up with, Dak is his scrambling rate. And, and, and I, I, I, I, I, I know he's not the fastest guy in the road. But probably now he runs more of a four seven to change four or eight type, but he's a thick and he's a, uh, great vision as a runner. I mean, we always saw it at Mississippi state is that his success rate has gone down. He's scrambled about the same rate. Three, three, low three percent of his dropbacks or, yeah, his dropbacks, he's scrambled on. But his success rate has gone from 76 percent to 50 percent.

So it's just that he's not getting those easy yards. They're never hitting the easy button. All the explosives, like we always talk about supposed to play as being like, you know, 20-ish yards. All theirs are they caught at 16 and they got four. It wasn't that they generated 45 yards in the air and it's a touchdown. Boom, boom, boom. way, way to go. Like, so it's just that they're not taking those easy button. And it's great.

It's awesome to watch. But that's why you have a bunch of ebbs and flows. When they're hot, like against Washington, remember that game when they bloom out of the freaking water. It's, it's the best offense to watch because it's just all this like perfect, perfectly designed stuff operated with a machine at quarterback. But now Dax's not taking those easy yards. And that that can really hinder the offense when, you know, not everything's getting dialed up perfectly. So Nate is an offensive minded guy. Like, the same way that Robert, I guess, kind of posed the question to me is, how do you go about addressing this now with the roster that they have? Is it putting more on the running back's

shoulders in terms of generating plays on early downs to make it easier for you on third? Or do you have to ask DAC to be a different kind of quarterback? Or maybe not a different kind of quarterback, but to do lean more into, you know, some different things in his tool belt than what he had, what we know him to use, you know, over the last two to three seasons. Yeah, I think it's just that he has to take the chances. Or I think the design is that they have to vary the guys up. They have to move guys. CD is a monster in the slot.

So we're going to see more and more of that this year, I think. And that's where with a Mari Cooper in that offense, I always felt they had some saminess with him and CD. They're both Zs that can come down into the slot. So I think that's going to be some addition by subtraction. But Mari was their yak guy. I think Jalen Tolbert, the guy they drafted in the third round from South Alabama, is exceptional on intermediate deep passes.

So I think I'm hoping that that's where they can create, but that's relying on a third round rookie, which is never really a thing you want to bet on a lot. So I think some of it has to be some. Dak is who he is. Like this is what he likes to attack. This is the offense he's been in his whole career more or less. I think it's that they have to tweak some things.

They have to move guys in better spots and tell him, hey, let it loose. Throw some grenades. It happens. Shit happens sometimes. I'm wondering, Nate, I mean, it sounds a little bit. like some of the stuff we've talked about with Derek Carr in the past,

where he reads it out so quickly and so efficiently that he's getting to less ambitious throws a little bit too often. Would you say that there's some overlap there? There is. And you know who DAC is tied with on Scramble Rate? Derek Carr. And it's kind of, and I think it's outside the pocket rate. I looked at that number two.

They were the exact same. They were like, but DAC, I was thicker and a better athlete than Derek. I mean, Derek's actually a little faster than what I think we all give him credit for. But it's like that's kind of the same thing is that DAC wants to be this machine from the pocket. They watch Peyton Manning their whole lives. They think they watch Tom Brady. They think that's the way to go about it.

But you know, kind of use your legs a little bit more. Be the athlete, be the big arm and take those chances. So I think that's what it is. And just like Derek kind of got unlocked a little bit, unleashing some of these throws. I think they need the same thing. But you need guys that actually get down the field as well. If you're trying to spin it optimistically,

maybe a year removed from that injury and then if he's healthier, the calf, even little lingering things, you get that stuff in the rear view, maybe confidence in his body, ability to move around a little bit more. Maybe we do see that element come back a little bit this year. Because I think without it, you see the limitations of who they are offensively. Yep. And I think that's exactly right, though, is that they, he said, I mean, they all say they're in the best shape of their lives, but he said this is the healthiest I felt since two years ago before the first injury. in 2020. So it's, that's what you're betting on.

You're betting on that he says kind of, you know, fuck it sometimes and really takes, and realizes he doesn't have to be perfect and be that machine and just be, you know, just loosen up. Just play football sometimes. I think that's what you'd have to tell Dak,

but I mean, that's kind of like in his DNA a little bit. I mean, the bottom line is that that offense needs it. Like, if you go back and watch that wild card game and just see the lack of mobility or the lack of willingness to take off when, when the pocket.

was crushed or his first or second look wasn't there. This offense is just not going to be able to operate if he's not a little bit more willing to let it rip or get out the pocket and try to extend. Yep. All right, let's move on. I want to try to answer a question that we talked about a ton this time last year. Think about the amount of hours we spent trying to project what the stalification of the NFL would look like on defense.

as more teams started adopting this Brandon Stahlio, Vic Fangio style of playing defense. I mean, I remember spending so long on it, so many conversations during training camp in 2021. So De Ante, I wanted to ask you, what did it ultimately look like? How many teams did this? How many teams were adopting these principles? Was it the wave that we might have expected by the time the season ended? If you were trying to characterize what that movement was in 2021, what would it be? I would say that this year would probably be more of the year to evaluate it by that metric.

If we're keeping it very focused on like odd front split safety defenses. I think a lot of, if we're looking at it just through that lens, a lot of the teams that were living in that world had defensive coordinators or defensive minds there that came from that tree. There wasn't as much dabbling, I would say, as you might have expected, right? You had Sean Desai in Chicago, and that defense kind of was what that defense was. You have Joe Barry and what was an excellent Green Bay defense. You have, you had Seattle kind of in between, I guess you could kind of say, you know, having Clint hurt there. Looking at the numbers this year, I was surprised at how much they aligned with this group and not another group.

Yes. So I think with Desai going there now and then Carl Scott also going there, right. I think a lot of people have written and said, well, you know, Seattle going to adopt more of these principles this year. They started doing it last year. Yes. If you look at the underlying numbers. And Clint Hurt is kind of from that out of front tree. So I think that it was, they were really just trying to fit some square pegs in the round holes.

I don't know if Ken Norton Jr. was really the guy to usher in that change. So you can see them trying some things up front, but the back end wasn't all the way together. or they will be dropping guys who probably don't need to be dropped into coverage, just to make the picture work, you know? So they have that kind of like awkward transitional phase. And I think this year will obviously be much closer to what it needs to be. But I would say like a lot of the other teams, if we're going to expand it more to just the too high stuff, then yeah, that's all over the league.

But specifically that odd front, mint front type personnel, you know, 335 or something to that effect, where you're playing gap and a half on the inside with two deep safeties to really keep linebackers at the second level and safeties deep. There's not as much of that outside of the Fangio tree. I think that this year we're going to see a team like the Eagles, right? And Jonathan Gannon trying to adopt it. You're going to see, I think, the Raiders probably try to adopt a little bit as that. If you're looking at their personnel, I think that it'll fit it pretty well based on what they

have at the edge and some of the difficulties I think they're going to have covering guys on the perimeter. I think that would really fit them. think we're going to just start seeing that a lot more across the board. So that's kind of where my mind is at is that 2022 will be, I think, the watershed moment when we talk about the NFL being a copycat league. I love this shit, man. This is exactly how I was trying to separate them when I was doing my notes for this. So last year, if you look at the list, I would say Rams, Packers, Chargers, Broncos Bears. Those are like the five teams and then maybe Seattle and like a little dabble.

This year, you have the Rams, the Packers, the Chargers, the Broncos, the Vikings with Ed Donatel there, the Eagles, the Seahawks, the Ravens, I think, are going to adopt a lot of these principles because they're an odd front team and I think they're going to try to take on a lot of this identity. And you just mentioned the Raiders. So now we have, we have almost twice as many teams that I think are going to do this exact thing. But like you mentioned, tell me if I'm wrong characterizing it this way. I think with the two high stuff and just the shell coverage movement that's happened in the league, I would split it up into two camps. One would be the two high light box varied front structures camp, which is the teams we just talked about. And the other is kind of the quarters heavy four-man front teams, which would be the Niners, the Jets, the Browns, the Bills, Washington, and last year's Vikings. Right.

Are the teams that I would kind of throw into that group. So there are kind of two teams adopting the light box variety of things, but we'll just with a different structure up front and less variety on the back end. So I think there are kind of two movements happening simultaneously here. Yeah, I would 100% agree with that. And I think that that just goes to show that, you know, there's just more than one way to skin the cat, right? We're all trying to get to the same end, which is eliminating vertical passing plays,

especially on play actions and all early downs. and just that teams are going to kind of adopt what I think that their personnel allows them to. This is something that we've obviously, I've talked a lot with you and with Nate on the side and a lot of my other football friends on the side when you look at Brandon Staley, particularly last season, right? To the point of something being sound on a whiteboard, I think that everything in terms of how they wanted to fit the run makes sense. When you look at what they were trying to do, it's just harder to do when your four-eye is in your linebacker's lap. You know, it's a little bit tougher to do, you know. So that's kind of what I was looking at is that I think that now you see more of these guys starting to spread across the league.

Same thing that happened with the Shanahan tree. You're going to see more linebackers coaches become defensive coordinators. More safety's coaches become defensive coordinators. A lot of these guys are just going to start sprinkling out across the league. And we're just going to see more of these ideas spread out. And eventually that is going to be the two worlds, the same way that it used to be odd front, Belichick style, where you're stunning and getting in a single high or just lining up in Legion of Boom style

Overfront Cover 1, you know, or barefront type of stuff. This is what these are the two worlds we're going to have, I think, over the next half decade. You're either going to be four man, game in the front, the way the Natives talked about and playing a ton of quarters, or you're going to be doing more of the light box odd front stuff, quarter quarter half,

cover 8, which is quarter quarter half, but you're playing cover 2 to the trip side or to where all the receivers are at. You're going to see more of that as, well. So those are the two worlds that the NFL is moving to defensively. And I think that this is going to be the year where guys like a wink Martindale who is still coordinating or, you know, philosophies like that, whereas blitz have a odd front or, you know, sending a bunch of pressure out of four down or playing more bare front looks. A lot of that stuff is going to start going out

the window, I think. We're going to see much more of what you were describing, Robert. Yeah. I think for me as an offensive guy, I look at are you running robber or are you running three buzz week? Right. You know, three buzz being the safety inserts down with 49ers and Nassau, you know, and now they run currently with Ryan's. But that's kind of like how and it's subtle differences. I should say subtle, but like just little things are different with those two ones. One's match zone and one's man. And it's just those that's like the past, like Fangio, you watched the Broncos last year. It's kind of cool too.

And you didn't ask me, Robert, but it's got it cool too like just with the Shanahan offense as that sprinkles throughout the league. week, everyone gets their little flavors, just a little bit different. And that's what's, that's where the cool shit happens. Because you even watch Fangio's last year, he's like, I got an all pro rookie basically. Like, what's wrong man? Like, screw this. They ran a shitload of it. Screw it.

Let's run robber every snap because you aren't getting open on the outside and we're going to wad up the middle with a bunch of bodies. Like that's what they were doing. And like that, but it's just the tweaks. And then you watch, you know, the Rams are kind of such a hybrid with Rahim, Morris there. But it's like, they're running it. that's more of the six and quarters, you know, a six being half and quarters, you know, that's the tweak. And it's just, it's funny, like just little tweaks to all of it. But no, it's also just like a,

this is just my overarching thing is also you see the shift and personnel happening now is also after an emphasis, I think all the Seahawks guys spread throughout the league. It was, oh, long corners and a whole bunch of pass rushers. Everybody has to pass rush. Everybody has to pass rush. And now, yes, pass rushing is always going to be prime. But now it's like, you know, these, plugging guys in the middle are kind of useful. Like we we kind of need some bodies. We need some beef in the middle again. After I think it got lighter.

I think now we're finding the balance of personnel again, which I think is always really cool to see the trends in that way as well. I think that's probably a distinction between these two types of teams that we're talking about, right? Because the reason that the Niners can survive this way is just the penetration that they can get. It's the havoc wreakers that they have up front. So those teams, I think, are still going to prioritize those more explosively. body types, guys that can get penetration in the backfield, where the odd front teams,

more space eaters are going to be a part of those plans. Yes. Yeah. And that's classic 43 versus 34. Exactly. Now it's just, now it's just out of subpersonnel. Right. That's what it is now.

But the last thing I want to say here, too, is we've talked about safeties now are more effective than ever, because now you need two dudes back there. I just thought this was interesting is that 13 different safeties got an all pro vote last year. And I think, I just think it's just everybody goes, I think, you know, voters voters are hit and miss you know they they can they see everybody sees the game game differently that's that's that's that's my way to say it right now but the fact that enough people thought that's how many guys were affecting the game that they deserve an all pro vote kind of speaks to

what positions affecting the game that's 13 different guys so i think that also is tied in with this because it's also just usage of personnel with so i think that's also interesting too is that also people are like hey safeties are useful and they enough to get all pro votes. So I thought that was cool. I think that number's probably going to keep trending up too. The more we hear from guys out of, you know, training camp is, hey, our best safety, we want them closer to the line of scrimmage. That's all I keep hearing from guys. Derwin James, closer to the line of scrimmage. Chuck Clark, Kyle Hamilton, closer to the line of scrimmage, all these teams that have these tweener type bodies, Jamal Adams, closer to

the line of scrimmage, all these guys, like, I just keep hearing this over and over again. And the more that we get these guys playing as slot defenders means the more production, A, because you're closer to the ball. And B, just a higher snap count, right? So you're just going to get more exposure. It's harder to get the ball away from these players who are the playmaker types, quote, unquote. So I definitely see that that's kind of where the league is going as well. You know, the same way in the NBA, the wings become, you know, the new meta.

That is a new standard. The safety, tweener type safety is going to become the team or teams are going to look for one of those on their roster. They're not going to leave an off season without having at least one of those guys on roster. And if they get three of them that they're going to be. stoked. Right. Exactly. I love this stat.

I was looking at some slot numbers recently. Last season, 29 different safeties in the NFL played at least 100 covered snaps in the slot. That's a great stat. In 2013, in 2013, it was 13. So that number has doubled in less than a decade. The number of safety seeing that many snaps in the slot. And that's happening.

You look at just every, that is one of the trends. we, I think we're going to harp on all season is these three safety looks. Two things, two days into trading camp, I could just already tell, are going to be just schematic storylines throughout the year. Sim pressures and Sim fire zones and three safety looks. We're going to be talking about it all year. Those are the things that are tied together. Those are tied together.

Yes. Watch your safety freaking blitzing than some five, nine hundred, 80 pound corner. Yes. That tied in together. All right. Speaking of defensive trends, I want to talk about two guys that I think were two of the best defensive coaches in football last year, two of the hottest, in my opinion, names in defensive coaching. And that's Rahim Morris and Domeico Ryans.

By the time we got to the end of last season, we were gushing about the way that the Niners defense was structured. D'Amico Ryans was getting head coaching offers, he was getting a lot of different looks, ultimately didn't end up taking them. But as we move into this season, I want to go back. and kind of drill down on what made those guys really, really good near the end, because I think it'll help us understand what those teams are going to look like this year. So I want to start with the Rams, Deontay. In the back half of the season, I really think that Rahim Morris put his stamp on that version of

the Rams defense. Because like Nate alluded to, it's going to be different flavors. You know, he came in and learned a system that wasn't necessarily his and tried to figure it out in real time. and I think did an incredible job at it. By the end of the season, they had just a different identity than they had had under Brandon Staley. What really jumped out to you about that?

What do you think they were by the end of the year that may have been a little bit different than they had been in 2020? I would say it's flexibility up front, which I think speaks to Rahim Morris' his best attributes, which is understanding his personnel, what is defense needed in the moment and how to address that. So, you know, I'm sure that, you know, this is something that we've covered at the athletic, not only with our Rams beats riders, but here on this show, guys like Greg Gaines and Aishon Robinson, right? Like, you bring guys like that on the field when it becomes of the utmost importance that you're not giving up runs in the interior, right?

The uses of Jalen Ramsey, you know, this is something that I tracked that PFF that I really enjoyed. Anytime he was in the slot, maybe not every time, but certainly a high degree. they were going to play middle of the field close. They were playing cover one and cover three because he's in the slot so Darius Williams is not. And the only reason why you'd put your best corner in the slot when it's Jalen Freaking Ramsey is because you need a good tackler there, right? And that to me was something else that stood out. And then when he was outside, you saw more of the quarter's coverage, quarter, quarter halves, things like that.

They would put him on their offense's best receiver and their role coverage opposite. Or if they felt like, you know, they wanted to go Dion principle and use him on the second best receiver and roll a, roll of safety over the top for Darius Williams, you know, to cover the number one receiver. That was something else that they had, you know, in their package as well. And then the last thing, you know, and it'll always just stick out to me was the end of their playoff run, being able to get into those, you know, to your point about simulated pressures and simulated looks, getting into those five down looks where you're walking a

linebacker up over a guard to make to make, that an offense has like the hardest decision to make, which is, do we just go five, oh, and deal with? you know, meaning we're going man-on-man protection and just deal with, you know, whatever stunts and twist? Or do we slide to Aaron Donald and take the risk that they're actually running real pressure? And now we're blitzing a linebacker through an open B gap. And he's right in the back slap, right? And we're going to flush the quarterback out.

So it's all just personnel. Which happened all the time in the Super Bowl. Oh, my. Like Joe Burrow had no chance. blowing up Joe Mixon. Like the sit from the back half of the third quarter all the way through the end of the game. It was like any time they got in the third down, you knew exactly what was coming. and the Bengals just couldn't block it.

And it's of no fault to their own. You would just be a nutcase to slide the protection away from Aeron Donald. You know, it just kind of is what it is. And you don't go full slide in the NFL unless it's max protection. And even then, more teams more teams more often than not. And Nate can speak to this. We'll just go seven-man, double chip, checkdown, then go full slide. Because it still leaves tight ends and running backs on ad rushers, which is what you don't want.

So I think that that's really Rahim Morris's stamp. it's an acute awareness of what personnel he has available to him and using them to the best of their abilities. They don't run a ton of concepts. They don't have a ton of different pressure paths. More often than not, you know where the bodies are and what they're going to do. It's just using the bodies as they need to be used. And that's what we saw in the playoff run. Really, I guess you could say over the last three to four weeks of the regular season before that as well.

It reminds me a little bit of how we used to talk about their offense in 2017, 20, 2018, where it's only four, five, six things, but they do it so well. And those four, five, or six things can express themselves in so many different ways when the play actually starts that it's really, really hard to deal with. Because those five-o looks, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's really only two different ways they line up that way. Either it's five-o across where the linebackers walk down over the center or they overload one side and the linebackers with one defensive alignment on the other. Those are really the only two separate looks you get out of that package. but that can be a lot of different stuff when the play actually starts. Right.

And when one of those five guys is Aaron Donald and you have to figure out the math every single time in that way, that's a cheat code. You're now dictating the game to the offense consistently in a way that very few defenses can hold the pen like that. Right. And the thing that it really accomplished that gave Cincinnati fits was now Samaj-Peron and Joe Mixen have to stay in the protection. They can't leave. And now it's, you know, it's our best pass for. and you're minus one in the route distribution. Chances are,

defenses are going to win an NFL level defense that can perform at a Super Bowl caliber level is probably going to beat you under those circumstances, right? So that was kind of how they unlocked, I think, the second half of that, that game, and really just what they were doing down the stretch of the season. And I would be remiss if we didn't mention the fact that when they go into those overload looks, you want to know who the edge rusher is away from the overload side? It's Von fucking Miller, okay? Yeah.

So, again, have fun with this. Okay, it's Von Miller on your left tackle. You have a linebacker lined up over a guard. And Aaron Donald is lined up over the other guard. And now your second best edge rusher, Leonard Floyd, is on the same side as Aaron Donald to run all the twists, stunts and games that you can think up. Have fun. Have fun with that.

That's the misconception, too, is like when defense aligns, ring games, you know, twists and stunts and all that, is that you want the best guy as the looper. No, you want the best guy penetrating. It's a penetrator. And knocking shit over and dominoing guys. And so then he gets a two for one. And so when you have, like you said, Von Miller is the lone guy, Ernest Jones, who actually is a damn good pass rusher when he does want to come.

So you're occupying the back. That's a, well, sidebar on that real quick. But then now you have Aaron Donald on the other side with the three-man side. It's just, it's a pain in the ass for the offense. When those five-o looks that you guys alluded to what the offense is doing, it's five one-on-ones. But if a linebacker drops out, Ernest Jones is over the left guard where the running back is right there to the quarterback's left, his offense left. If he looks at it, if that guy doesn't come,

the runback still has the honor it and go, one Mississippi, oh shit, you're not coming. Okay, now I'm releasing in the route. And this is something that brilliant that these, these three, three-five defenses, the tight mint fronts that you alluded to, this is tie in at our last point, talking about the kind of these staley defenses,

just with the fronts, the three-down fronts, is that they'll bring one of the linebackers sometimes up the middle. And what that does, and so, yes, you're only creating a four-man rush, but the pain in the ass with this, and you see this more in college, is that now that back can't get out. So yes, you're only rushing four, and this is some pressures do,

but we're past protecting with six. We are wasting a guy. Really, we're wasting two guys. And now, and still there's one-on-ones created. Guys are getting occupied, but now you have seven guys in coverage against four guys running routes. That's not fun. That's not ideal.

Like you want all five guys to threaten and stretch these zones if you're going to run zone coverages. That's the time that this does. And Rahim going from a. cover two, you know, disciple to cover through Dan Quinn to coaching receivers under Dan Quinn to now running this type of defense. That's a hodgepodge of everything. It's really cool to just see him go, hey, this is what we're good at. Let's freaking run it.

I think it's made him a really, really good defensive football coach. Yes. And he and I talked about it at length yesterday. I was just asking him, what do you think is the most important aspect of having worked in all of those different systems? And it's just having answers to a bunch of different problems because you've had to figure that out. And he didn't just go to Dan Quinn. He worked under Jim Haslin. Like Dick Leboe Fire Zone shit.

I was about to say, yeah, like just Blitz Heavy 3, 4. So he's seen it all. He's seen every world that has been here. And it's so cool to watch them kind of throw shit against the wall and see what sticks because he has that background. So now, if we're spinning it forward a little bit and I don't want to go too far down this road, but you remove Von Miller from that equipment. Right. And you put in Bobby Wagner.

So now you have Ernest Joe's and Bobby Waggner. as part of that, both of whom are really good pass rushers. So now do we see more looks where those guys are walked down? And maybe there's more sim pressures out of two linebackers mugged up. Who's coming? Who's not? How can we manipulate the defense this way? And you have a new flavor on that defense compared to what they were last year for a team

that is very good at constantly evolving. And I think that's going to be the fascinating thing to watch this year is, even if they don't have that second edge rusher, now they got two linebackers. It used to be for years when Staley was there and even last year, how can we get these linebackers off the field? Yeah. How can we play with one? Now, I think you're going to see a lot more, too, and the way they use those guys I think is going to be a little bit different. Because like you alluded to, Nate, Ernest Jones is a really good blitzer.

And the length that he has is very real. So that's going to be really cool to watch. Now cooking, it's like those Bears teams with Erlacker and Bray and even the old Bucks teams, the Blitz packages, they do with the double mug stuff. It's what Zimmer was. Zimmer was going to say, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Week one, I completely expected to look like Zimmer third down packages.

Zimmer pressures all day long. But with, with Aaron Donald just one-on-one, spring and heat. That's the other little, that's the other little sprinkling they get to do with it. Right. So let's let's talk about Damiko Ryan. Because I think that with him. We just spent 10 minutes on Rahim. I think we're all more excited to talk about Damiko Rai.

Exactly. Which is funny. Just to preface this, guys. And it's funny because we talk about Rahim Morris. He has tons of experience. We've seen Rahim Morris as a coach who's a very young head coach, but just in so many different places and so many different roles. Damiko Ryans, this is very new.

His coaching career is very young. So when you were watching Domingo Ryans near the end of last season, Diatte and watching that defense, what do you think was the hallmark of who they were by the end? It's something that's supported by the stats. And just like Nate, I always think about football and NBA corollaries. So like in the NBA, right? Like two stats that you want to look at in conjunction That'll tell you if you have a contending team on the defensive end

It's the percentage of makes you allow at the rim And the amount of attempts you give up from three So if you give up a low percentage it makes at the rim And your running teams off the three point line Chances are you're going to be a really good defensive team In the NFL, what I'm going to be looking at now is the threshold Is the amount of snaps you play with two high safety shells Or two high coverages and your pressure rate

those are going to be the two things that I look at. And one of the few teams that was in the top 10 in both were the San Francisco 49ers. And it is very evident when you turn it on and watch them play. That coverage variety that Nate was talking about in terms of is it quarters? Is it three buzz when we're in three by one? That creates a lot of problems. I'm not going to step on. Explain three buzz very quickly because you guys have both mentioned it.

And I want people to have a better understanding of it before we just move on. So it would just be you're dropping what would be a safety. into a linebacker spot. I would say you'd have to look at it from like X's on a chalkboard and I don't want to install the coverage on the podcast. But basically you're drop you would be dropping a safety into what would be a linebacker spot when you traditionally think of cover three. A safety is taking a hook drop, which is just one of those underneath droppers on the

inside of the coverage. That's what you're doing in three buzz. And you can do that. You can rotate a strong, rotated weak. But what you see in cover four world now is rotated week. So it would be three week buzz like Nate was saying. And the reason why that causes offense's problems is until that safety on the strong side takes the middle of the field, it looks exactly like quarters. It looks exactly like there's no difference between the two except, you know, at the end when you get the route distribution and you actually have the safety take in the middle of the field.

That variety gives you that beat of quarterback. Okay, I need to take a second to let this distribute and make sure that I'm seeing what I'm seeing. Well, guess what? In that second, it's Eric Arnestead and Nick Bosa, you know, coming, you know, running like a bad out of hell at you. You know, that's not fun. You know, you have Samson Ebukam, who they continue to make productive last year. You had Arden Key, who was productive in a way that I didn't expect last year. So you take those two things together.

They're not giving up a bunch of explosive plays because of what they're doing in coverage. And they've got four that can get home more often than not. It's hard to get those early down explosive plays like we've been harping on for as long as I've been working here. And then we'll get to, you know, I'll hand this off to Nate. But what that really allows you to do is on third and five, third and six, third and seven where the offense can do a lot in the passing game. You can start designing some really, really nice pressures to get after the quarterback and speed up his clock after he's been programmed to think, okay, I need to wait. I need to wait. I need to see this distribute.

I don't want to rush myself. These pressures now speed up your clock and they have all these different. ways to get Fred Warner, to get Jimmy Ward, to get Jaquist guitar, all these guys after the quarterback in these really creative ways that I found to be really impressive. I started laughing. I know we're not on video for people to listen right now, but it's, it's, I started laughing when you brought the rushing before. I thought I was going to look at this because it, the 49ers defense is burning in my brain

going at those playoff games and week 18, uh, for I think to play the Rams. Yeah, week 18. Those games are burning in my brain. And I was like, man, they must have cranked up. up the blitzes like that's what I oh man they must have cranked up they didn't crank up shit they just got a lot better at it like they it's the same blitz they blitz less on third and fourth down than they did during the regular season I was that's not what I was expecting right it was just that they got pressure from 40% of those blitzes to 50% in the playoffs which so they went from league

average and went way up but they're they were league average this year in EPA when they only rushed four okay but once it got to the playoffs they would have been a top three unit it so they just they pinned they got healthy they pinned their ears backs and they started and you alluded this dante is that they started to we're going to we mentioned this a couple times now is running those defensive line games when you're rushing for this is your way to create consternation on the offense they're the best at it because they fire off the ball these guys are all dominoing why i just mentioned that with aaron donald dominoing now imagine all four guys trying to do that just not earholing guys left and right the cowboys won that first third down the cowboys had it protected the left

guard, I want to say it was Connor Williams, left guard isn't expecting the outside guy to loop all the way around from his weak side. So he's not like, he's looking out for a blitzer. And all of soon he's like, oh, shit, that's my guy that's coming from the opposite DN spot. Like that offensive line, the good offensive line coaches will run these games, every possible game that these guys can run. It was so cool watching this this mix of we're not hitting you. We're not hitting you. We're not hitting you. We're running quarters. We're running three buzz. We're rushing for, rushing for. Watch this freaking. lits, we just throw at you that we're rotating everyone to the weak side, dropping everyone. I mean, it's Wade Phillips shit. Yep. And that's where his background, D'emico Ryan's his background. It makes sense that he can go into that grab bag of Wade Phillips of these funky pressures that they bring on third down. It's such a cool balance.

And on the flip side, if you look at those fronts, first and second down, you look at how the 49ers play and one, all they're, they're so spread out. It's like air raid offense aligned, but for defense aligned. They're just so spread out. And you look at and you're like, we could gash this all day. We could run the ball and gash it. But just as those odd teams create, they don't let you get angles. You know, they don't want you to get double teams.

That's what they do. They don't want you to get double teams. They fire off the ball. They were fourth in percent of runs that went over five yards or more. Like, that's how good they were against the run. They don't let up big runs. In the playoffs, their rate was less than 25 percent of runs went over five yards or more, which would have led the NFL if that was brought throughout the whole season.

So just with those four guys, on the line of scrimmage, they're kicking ass with these speed guys. It's really, it's chaos. Like you mentioned, Robert earlier. It's just this chaos ball they play.

Not in the sense of what they run. Some of the pressures are funky, but they run sound concepts on first and second down. And they just play so fast. It's just fast, fast, fast, speed, speed, speed. It's so cool.

It is. Because I think a lot of coaches have gone to the odd front stuff because they think it's, it just creates more problems for the offense. It's just harder to, we don't know where guys are going to, to line up. You can play with the front structures and make them hard to account for.

And it just, it really fuck shit up for the offense. Every officer coach will say a good three, four is the hardest defense to prep for. And that's, and yep. And so like I was talking to McVeigh last summer about this. We were talking about just why he liked a lot of the staley stuff or why they incorporated it.

And it's because of that. It's just harder to deal with. But there's always an aside up. But when you play the Niners, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter that there's only four guys and you know where they're going to line up because it's, it's like walking into a hurt. hurricane. And that is why it's so, so cool that there are some teams that because of personnel and because of play style, the rules don't apply to them. Like the ease of playing against a four

down team does not apply to the 49ers because of the way that they're coached because of the players that they have. And when you can snap rules like that over your knee, the advantage that it gives you is just innumerable. Right. Beauty is and simplicity. Like that's what it really is. They don't do too much to confuse their players. Like Deonti, you could probably speak to this better. But when they often shifts strength of personnel or strength of formation, I'm sorry, they don't really flop anything. They don't switch anything around one guy who's moving, K. Juan Williams, the corner of the nickel.

He's the only one moving because they're not, they're not, Fred Warner cleans up a lot. Don't get me wrong. He sorts out a lot. But what they're doing is just letting guys line up and play. And it's, I mean, yes, you need personnel to do that. But it's fun. It's fun to what. We talk about offense is doing this.

We're going to talk about a team that does this on offense, but defense is doing it. It's great. It's the hurricane. I love that analogy, Robert. It is like walking into a hurricane, especially if you're a quarterback in the pocket. And I think the biggest,

the key difference, and it's what Deonté was talking about before with that slight hesitation. Is this three buzz week? Is this quarters? This is different than the heyday of the Seattle three teams, because even though they were going to line up and play fast, you knew what was coming. You knew what they were playing.

Every down. The slight muddiness of the picture with this version of it gives you just enough of an advantage to survive like this and still be a little bit simplistic. Right. It's the evolutionary legion of boom. That's what it is. I mean, sorry. Sorry to cut you off.

Which that's exactly what it is. It's Robert Sella came from that place. That is what it is. That is the next step for it. Well, I've talked about this with Dennis Allen too because he fits in that world when they go quarters to. It's really just all these four down cover four teams. This stuff has always existed in these playbooks.

It's just today in today's NFL when it becomes of the utmost importance, that's what we're seeing. It's still about speed. It's still about players over plays. We're just changing the coverage shell behind it. And to that point of, hey, when we run these pressures or expecting to see more pressures than you did, I was the same way, Nate, like when I was watching some of these playoff games, it was, I guess it blew me away just how targeted some of these pressures were. Yeah.

And a lot of it is like four from a side. And what that means is you're sending two blitzers on one side of the. formation dropping an end on the opposite side and you're just trying to overload the protection. And what they were doing is they're sending four to a side to the side of the back. And that gives you a lot of the exact same things that we were just talking about in terms of getting into those overloaded fronts in the odd world. It's the same idea. You create that stress.

Hey, am I getting just regular shell coverage? Am I getting cover one or am I getting pressure? Because in each of those three worlds, it's very different answers for a quarterback. It's very different answers for an offensive line in terms of protections. It's different for running backs in terms of how I scan in the protection. Can I release? What actual route am I running? Because a lot of times these routes will adjust or your landmarks can adjust based on what you're seeing.

So that to me is really just the hallmark of where we're at on these passing downs in these must convert types of situations. And for a four down team, which we would typically associate with being more static, more predictable, less in terms of variety to still be able to generate this level of production, especially late in the year when everybody in the world has tape on you, all your tendencies are laid out and to still be as destructive as they can be. It speaks to that understanding, again, of what do we need to do schematically to create the most stress for an offense and still allow our fast players to go be fast players. It's a sniper. That's those blitzes, everything they call is like sniping. That's what they're doing on. It's, it's this weird, you know, like mix of chaos up front with

just little snip, little blitzes that they drop in or coverage calls that they drop in. Right. We're going to see a ton of teams adopt these general models and try to steal them, right? And they're going to be people that aren't even from these trees that try to do it. I think the two areas where you can kind of see who knows what they're doing and who doesn't is the way that you coach your guys for attaching to routes as they distribute. Like the rules built into the coverages, that's going to be one hallmark of teams that do this really, really well. And when you watch the Niners, especially that Packers game, it was insane. It was like the secondary was like a living, breathing thing.

So you can tell. All time performance. Hive minds. Yeah. Hive mind is exactly right. It was like watching the 2020 Rams to me where you just see the routes distribute and it's just all of them thinking with one brain. You can tell that's really, really well coached football.

And the other thing that I think you're going to see as an expression of these defensive coaches, even if they're all doing a lot of similar stuff on early downs, is what the pressure packages look like. When you're trying to express yourself on third down, who are you? And I think that's the through line between what Rahim Morris was at the end of last season and what you're talking about with Damiq O'Ryan's on some of those sniping, bomb dropping. Like, I have a GPS type of pressures late in the year. I think that's why the Ravens are so interesting.

Because even if they're going to adopt some of the stuff on early downs, where Mike McDonald comes from and what their DNA has been over the last few years, you can still sprinkle that in. you just have to sprinkle that in and define passing downs. So the flavor that a lot of these teams are going to take on, I think you're going to see that flavor come to fruition on third down. And that's where these two guys, I think, were excellent late in the season. If we're trying to differentiate who's doing this well and who's not,

I think those are the couple areas where we can try to figure it out. I love that. I love that. Third down is where the fun, fun happens. That's, I mean, seriously. It's a different sport. It is. It is. NFL ball is just so,

situational. And my example, and this will be the last one, is that when Vance Joseph, who you did a thing on last year with his Cardinals defense, when he took over for the Broncos as the head coach, so Wade Phillips, they were still doing Wade Phillips' stuff on first and second down. Same kind of quarter shell with a lot of man stuff. Third down, all of a sudden, the blitz package was completely changed. And it was, I mean, Vance's stuff is nuts. Just as crazy. Wade's is crazy, too. But it was totally different. And I love how you put that. It's how you express yourself. That's how you sprinkle it in.

It's like, yeah, first and second hour, we're the same. What do you do on third down? All right. Last one here. I wanted to talk about the shift that the Eagles underwent on offense. I think it's been kind of an object of fascination with football, Twitter. Every so often you see the same group of guys watching the same shit in like June. And I felt like the Eagles run game was that this year for a lot of people.

Everyone went back and started studying it. So, Nate, I wanted to ask you, just as we think about it. the Eagles moving forward. What was that shift last year? What was the identity of their offense by the end of last season? And what do you think we can learn from that? Getting an all pro right tackle back helps. And also just going, hey, our offense line is like elite, like actually elite, not just elite for a single year, but elite for the last half decade. And we have a quarterback that is more efficient as a runner than Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. And also we can design runs for. And I think it's a tweak of understanding, understanding personnel.

I think that's a good theme of good coaching is understanding that with this offense. I think the run game that the Eagles did was so cool in the second half of the year of not only using Jalen Hertz's ability, but just what they were doing with their offense aligned. And it's not just, it's so cool watching different run schemes throughout like going from game to game, opponent to opponent and seeing what fronts are getting played and what runs they tweak. That's why early in the year I like the Cowboys. run game. You watch this Eagles run game. One week, they're running GT, you know, GT counter where the garden tackle pole and Jaylon Hertz is reading it against the giants.

And it's beautiful. The next play, they're running power read with Jaylen Hertz. You know, guards pulling a DN's not blocked and Jaylen Hertz can pull it or they can hand off a jet sweep. But then the next week they're playing the Saints and they're running zone read out of a formation they didn't even play the week before. And it's, I think that's a, I want to speak to the coaches that they didn't run anything like too crazy. I actually didn't think the offense was too motion gimmicky or anything like that. It was really just sound old school concepts, which was really cool, especially in the run game. But it was, I think, uh, they realized Jalen Hertz was this had the second most designed rushes for him,

only behind Lamar, but he was just so damn efficient with them on top of it. We'll talk about scrambling and stuff. But I would say just the design run game with him and just understand what their offense aligned is. And it just opened up the whole whole offense. to just pound away six yards of pop, eight yards of pop, over and over and over in the run game. I was going to say. What do you think it's said about? Oh, go ahead.

Go ahead. No, I'm sure I'm about to answer exactly what you brought up because Nate mentioned one offensive lineman and I was going to mention another. And it's just, it is insane how much you can do in the run game when you have a center like Jason Kelsey. You can do whatever you want to do when you have a center that can pull on pin and pull schemes that can block back on counter and power that can work through doubles in zone schemes. You can do just so much formationally.

You can do a whole bunch in terms of concepts. And that's exactly what it was, especially when they really got hot in that midseason area. They had about six weeks or if they were just running over everybody, even in games that they were losing. And a lot of that, I think, is just leaning on that dominance that they had up front. To the point that they made, it wasn't jet motion every play. It wasn't orbit motions. It wasn't, you know, lining up in these wildcat-esque looks. A lot of just regular old spread football.

It was getting to like nub trips, you know, one by three, as Neda said. They're running like zone read stuff if you saw like 15 years ago in college. Like that's like the two tight end hip slot look. Like they're just running this basic stuff. But it like works. When you have a dominant line. And that's like where football just becomes a math problem, right? That's where football just becomes a numbers game.

If you have to honor the. quarterback as a true sixth threat offensively that can touch the football and move it down the field with his legs. You have to account for that differently. So yeah, a whole bunch of teams, especially in the middle of the season. And it also became their undoing, I think, was teams could play a bunch of single high in terms of, you know, dealing with Jalen Hertz as a passer, right? Because he wasn't going to threaten you in a bunch of different ways. But what that means is, the guy who would be responsible for the quarterback is now 18 to 22 yards deep. Well, if you, if you mess up the run fit or if I get a design quarterback run, whereas Jalen Hertz behind a puller,

Jalen hurts behind a running back, or Jalen hurts on a read, you know, because he gets a keep read, well, now you're a number short. You know, I'm unblocked. I have nobody here to come tackle me. And that's what they were able to generate a bunch of explosive offense. So that I think has been, what's really been drawing a lot of the intrigue is we're not in the era where you would just assume that a team could just generate a lot of explosive offense in the run game. And they were able to do that because of what Jalen gave them as a runner and then what that allowed them to do with the rest of their offense around it. I would love to give Eric Acosta some truth serum and ask him, if not for what the Eagles were last year with Jason Kelsey, do you think Tyler Lindervalm would be on your team? Right.

It has to play a big piece. It's the first thing I think about. Because like you said, Deontay, if you have that guy, what can you do? And obviously Baltimore and the quarterback that they have, that's the direct comparison to what the Eagles have. That is the one guy that can do everything that J-1 Hertz can do as a runner. So if we could take the piece we don't have, that center who becomes this real movable piece within our offense that allows us to do so many different things, what could that do for our run game? Are we going to see the Ravens adopt some of those ideas that the Eagles could last year now that they have an offensive line that maybe isn't as good as the Eagles,

but it's in the same zip code as the equals are when they're healthy. And it's even little tweaks that you get. I love that Deonti brought up with just the center stuff is that like they, it was against the giants. It might have been later. It might have been a different game. I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter. But what they did was a tweak on a zone play.

And this matters because you have a center that can pull. You can do this. There's a tweak and it's called wiping. I swear to God, that's what's called. And you can do it when there's a two eye, which is inside shade of the guard. or one technique, you know, nose is over there. But it's a nice kind of like easy block for the guard. So it's still a zone play.

Everybody else runs zone. But the guard in the center basically switch responsibility. So as opposed to doing a double team, it turns into almost like a power play. Almost turns into a, it's an, but it's an adjustment. The Eagles, only, I only saw two teams this past year off top of my head that did it. And the Eagles are one of them. And they did it like, it wasn't just a one off one game thing. I saw about three or four different games.

They did it with Kelsey because he can do it. He can pull. And he's so tiny. I mean this in a good way. He can squeeze his ass in between two blockers and get to the second level. And it's like just because of his ability, they're able to just get to amendments to place. It's not even just getting to different concepts. It's getting to different tweaks.

And it's really cool. Like, I mean, the Saints game was my favorite one to watch because. Incredible. Oh, man. Incredible. Because it speaks to him perfect. And I'm going to be negative on Jalen Hertz. Jalen Hertz wasn't doing much that game as a thrower.

but they in the wrong game i mean it was just gash city and it's because what the saints want to do they want to sit in quarters with four down linemen four guys across the line of scrimmage not even bring it another body on the line of scrimmage to create edginess so all right you're going to sit in that all game and all right we'll just pound the rock over and over and over and over on you and run i think they ran yeah they ran for 242 yards that game they passed for 138 and they won't they scored 40 points i mean so that really that kind of speak to how dominant that run game was that game. Well, and I also, I think so often about just like what Nick Seriani was to start the year

versus what exactly what I was going to say. It's exactly what I was going to say. Like the first four to five weeks of the season when they were trying to do all the quick game and RPO's and the stuff that he did in Indianapolis. And then it was clear. I was like, okay, not only is this not working, this is making us look like maybe the least viable offense in the NFL. And then to be able to take what Jalen does best.

just start attacking in that way. And now all of a sudden, the rest of the offense works. You know, not only were you able to get the most out of Jalen, they got a lot out of Boston Scott. They got a lot out of Miles Sanders when he was out. You know, when those guys are available to you and you have a quarterback who can really function as a runner, you are adding value to your offense. And it was night and day difference in the second half of the year, adding that element

and knowing to delete all of the RPO stuff. So I have to give a lot of credit to Siriani for that. that. And knowing to do that changes my entire opinion of them and staff. 100%. It changes everything about the way that you think about them. We were just talking about it with Rahim Morris. When you have so many different solutions to different problems, that's when you're

a good coach. And for them to do that and understand, you know what, this isn't working. We got to figure this shit out and pivot the way that they did. It's why I wanted to talk about this as part of this conversation. Because tying up that loose end of what they pivoted to, why it worked, that brings us to now what you have a j brown now you have this set of players on offense i feel so much better about their ability to potentially pivot the structure of the offense in a way that's advantageous for them because of what they did last year yep yeah i mean and it's that's why we keep pressure on

hurts because it's like yeah we know this run game could be not only just good but absolutely elite dominant level where it's carrying them to wins i mean i the this he loves throwing those go balls Like that's, that's the stat. He loves throwing goal balls, but that's, I thought he would be, he was pretty good in play action stuff. But what do you attack usually in Deontes? When we run a play action against you, we're trying to get the linebackers up. Yep. And you're trying to attack over that voided middle area of the field.

Hertz, though, throws outside, which is like, so it's this weird disconnect that they have right now. So I'm really curious what they, those, they need to hit in breakers to Brown because that's where you unlock him and get him going, get him running. Hertz last year had the second. fewest amount of throws over the middle of the field. It was him and Russell Wilson. And I mean, it was just hilarious the difference between how many they threw. Like those two were through under 30 of them and like that league average was like 60. So like half of the league average. But those, you got those guys on the move. I think when you see those play action concepts, this is why Dallas got it was unlocked last year is those sale concepts, those corners. And I think that's where

you're going to see Brown on those, selling the overs, working back on these corner routes from the slot or maybe working from outside to do it. But that gets him on the move. He can catch it and get up field, break a tackle, go up the sideline. So I'm curious. That's why I'm very, very curious to see where this past game goes because Hertz does have to get better attacking middle of the field. He has to get better about staying in the pocket.

They have this dominant offensive line. And yet he had the highest percentage of pass attempts that came outside the pocket. So riddle me that, riddle me that, riddle me that Batman. Hey, that was the same story at Oklahoma. It was the same story at Oklahoma. And every down. of his for basically it gets worse and worse every down so it's like like third down he's the highest bail out of the pocket percentage and then on fourth down 50% of his past steps on fourth down

I know there's not a ton but still a decent amount came outside the pocket and that means because he's bailing right means he goes one number one I'm out of there I'm out of there yeah which yes he's a good runner but as we see when they play a team like oh the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the playoffs who big brother them for an entire game you put it on tape now they have to adjust to the adjustment I'm very curious to see that. I'm so glad that you brought it up and framed it this way because my last point on it is that after getting AJ Brown and what we said about Nick Siriani, we are about to get the most open and objective evaluation we could possibly get on the long-term viability of J. Jaylen Hertz is a quarter rack. Yes.

If it can't work with all that they've built up now to accommodate him and the talent that they've added and the ways that they've cleaned up this offensive playbook, if it's not going to work under this context, we have to ask the question of whether or not they need to make a move. I mean, that's just what it is. I can't imagine a better situation for Jalen Hertz, the quarterback now. So again, if it don't work now, I don't know what the context would be in which it will work going forward. All right, we got to get out of here. I should have known better than we'll keep this at a tight 50. minutes and then we'll get to Jordan. I'm fooling myself.

This was great. This is it. We have closed the book officially. On the 2021 season, it is, we are on to 2022. Gentlemen, this was a blast. I have so much fun talking about this shit with you guys. Appreciate the time from both of you. We'll do this again very, very soon.

All right, it's time now to get to our conversation with our Rams writer here at the athletic, Jordan Roderick. All right. I am joined now by our Rams writer at the athletic. One of my favorite football writers, just period. Jordan Roder, Jordan, it's so good to see you. It's great to see you in person. I'm here. This is becoming an annual tradition for us. We find one table off to the side of the practice field after practice and then pray that nothing extremely loud happens behind us. There's always something. So there's currently a golf cart driving

by. Yes. It feels good to be back there, though. Having to deal with slight background noise at all times in this setting, football is back. Always better. Always better than a Zoom function. I'll take it any day of the week. Any day of the week. So it's my first, well, second stop. I was in Minnesota before this very quickly, before camp actually opened. But this is my first time seeing practice, being around practice. It just happens to be that I'm with the defending champions. That wasn't on purpose. Oh, yeah. Okay. I just, I really wasn't. It really wasn't. L.A. is one of my favorite stops on this entire trip because the chargers who open camp tomorrow practice in the morning and the Rams practice in the afternoon. And they're 10 minutes away from each other. It's amazing.

So where some of these drives are six hours, like my, drive from Oxnard to San Francisco will be on Friday. That one's 10 minutes. So L.A. will always be on my camp tour list no matter what. It just happens to be at the Rams won the Super Bowl last year. And you got an enthusiastic honk from the equipment truck as you said that. So there's our, we've checked our box for the day. We've got it. We've figured it out. But yeah, no, it's great to see you. It's always like this atmosphere. To me, you can't beat this playing surface and the fields out here. And it's really fun to be out here. And I was telling you earlier, it's awesome when people come in and you get to catch up with everybody talk ideas as we tend to do um just awesome

awesome to see you so i'm curious how does it feel different around here in this post super super bowl world on day one of camp well for you it's like day three but as camps are opening yeah i live here now uh i'm uh you know it doesn't feel different at all which i think is intentional and by designed you know they have been repeating this sort of turn the page message from the top down since pretty much since the parade ended and then everybody kind of had their breaks and then the spring it felt very fresh, very new. And these guys practiced in the spring,

not like they had just won a world championship, which was interesting to me. And then other than the mental stuff that they were doing in terms of onboarding in that way, instead of doing the physical stuff with the extended season, the shortened off season, they started camp a little bit earlier because they opened the season earlier. So all of those things feel different.

But the demeanor, the mindset, like you could be from another planet, land in Irvine, walk into camp, ask any of these guys any questions. And you probably would not know that they just won the Super Bowl because of how adamant they've been about starting this year over on a completely blank slate. You always hear the cliche, this year is this year, you know, be where your feet are, all of those things. the thing that the Rams are successful at doing, as you know, is sometimes living and manifesting those cliches. And this is actually something that I think they're very terribly gifted at is actually living the things that they say that they're going to do. They're actually doing it.

It does feel like a team that's out here sort of fresh instead of feeling like any sort of lingering celebrations, any lingering, you know, guys who are dragging their feet. coming back, oh, God, you know, we just accomplished this. No, there's some urgency and there's a lot of mental work being done. And I think that's the interesting part. There's turnover in interesting places, right? So if Alan Robinson is here, Bobby Wagner is here, you forget that shit, but until you get around them and Bobby Wagner just sit next to Jalen Ramsey. It's like, oh, yeah, they added a Hall of Fame linebacker this offseason.

You get used to it. You're like, oh, there's Jaylen and Cooper Cup. And, oh, yeah, there's Aaron Donald driving is ridiculously tricked out Bronco. And, you know, awesome. Okay. It's like, you never get used to it. and then you're used to it all the same. The new faces are just always a fun part of camp.

It's like, oh, I forgot that guy's here. Watching Alan Robinson Stretch and Bobby Wagner sitting there. So let's go through some of the stuff that's different in a positive way. Which of those new guys or which tweak on offense or defense do you feel like is going to benefit this team the most? You know, it's hard to quantify. I think it's hard to quantify which one will be more beneficial because I think we can talk about them all. Yeah, you know, I think they both, those two players specifically will be unique. beneficial to the Rams in ways that they haven't had before. And that's the common theme

joining them together. Alan will be beneficial not just because of his mentality. I got to tell you, every day showing up to practice in the spring, every day showing up to training camp so far this year, at least one person who has no reason to be doing so will marvel to me about Alan Robinson. His mind, his physicality, his versatility. They're lining him up everywhere. They will play him everywhere and the attention to detail and the like just the the control and passion that he has for totally ingratiating himself into this culture and this system and he's already taking other players under his wing i mean i'm not kidding every single day somebody who has no reason to do this comes up to me or in mentions and conversation how marvelous this person is and i think that's

i've mixed feelings about this i have mixed feelings about this i have i have mixed feelings about this Robert's face. I forgot out for a second who I was speaking to. I want the best for him, okay? After everything that man has been through on a quarterback level for his entire football life, he deserves this moment. But you saying that makes my heart hurt when I think about the offense in Chicago the last two years. You guys can't see Robert right now. I can see him. And I got to tell you, like, the conflict that just a whole novel, a whole novel was just written across his face just now. But really, it's fascinating because it's, been the story for a lot of guys coming here.

New start, fresh start. Maybe they weren't terribly happy in another place, or maybe they weren't feeling, you know, appreciated, or maybe they just weren't a good fit in general. And you've seen that year over, year, over year coming out and joining this team. You've seen it fail sometimes, sure, but you've also seen it succeed in more ways than not. They just won the Super Bowl with a lot of those guys.

So I think that there's something to be said for that. Then on the other side of it. I don't really think about that. I mean, pretty much every single major building block on this team, comes from a different place. And I'm including Aaron Donald in that. I mean, literally, they're in St. Louis, completely different regime, very different feel.

Jalen comes over here. Cooper Cup is kind of the only guy who was like born and raised in this Rams world. That's like a building block of who they are. Andrew Whitworth before that, Robert Woods, you know, those core culture guys really. And then Cooper, who's been a foundation piece of his own. And I think that's that when Alan came over and I was kind of talking to him sort of off to the side of everything. And, you know, he mentioned so many players who reached out to him about who had, who had spent some time with the Rams that he knew through previous stops or through just NFL circles. And he was just rattling off all of these guys.

Like people talk about this. Guys who told him, yeah, you know what? You're going to go there, you know, get with the training staff and get in the culture, get with Sean, get in that offense. Get with the quarterback, Cooper, like all these guys. And you're going to find parts of yourself that you maybe didn't think existed. maybe hoped existed but never quite access before. So far, that's the general vibe. Now, it is very early in the, uh, in training camp. I, as you know, and listeners of this podcast, whenever I come on, I kind of always offer this caveat. Like, I'm not a hot take person. I despise hot takes. I

despise hot takes. I despise any of that this time of year, especially. I am not kidding about this. Like, this is something that could be very, very special down the road. And I feel the same on the other side about Bobby. It's, again, something new. They've not had a receiver like Alan Robinson before. Yes, he does a lot of things that Cooper Cup can do, which I think people don't quite realize on the outside looking in. I had a coach told me coming into this off season when they were looking at free agent receivers. They saw him as a slot only player at this stage in his career. Because of the way he separates. And he's big body. They saw him as a big body slot. And that's why when the ram signed him,

I was like, oh man, I guess he's going to play a lot of X in that offense. And maybe they see him as a boundary guy, but I assume there's a versatility there that excites them. But the fact that that coach said, I see him as a slot player now and now he's on the same team as Cooper Cup, I think that mix is a little bit more complicated, maybe not in a bad way, that it might seem from the outside in. Yeah, it's their plan. It's supposed to be very orbital. Last year, we talked a lot about this defense and how one section of it orbits around Aaron Donald. The other section of it orbits around Jalen Ramsey. At this point, Cooper Cup and Alan Robinson will orbit around Matthew Stafford and they will orbit around each other and complement each other

in a lot of different ways. So if you're looking at it from maybe like a bird's eye view, it's quite literally lots of concentric circles in terms of the way these guys are rotating around each other and what they're actually doing and in very complimentary ways that I think would behoove, if it were me, would behoove a play designer, not necessarily even a play caller, but the people who designed the plays and collaborate in that regard. That's not something. I mean, the Rams have had very, very gifted receivers, Robert Woods included in that, who have been able to do the types of things demanded of them in that particular time.

But as they continue to expand their offense, they needed a player who would not only be able to do those things that Cooper can do and line up in those variety of ways, but also who is going to be the contested catch guy, who they believe will be the red zone threat. And I think especially as you see the way that he's been worked in, and they've been very public talking about this, he will play everywhere. Just like Cooper Cup. Now, you know, Cooper Cup does a lot of work out of the slot, as we know, but he also does play everywhere. And they expect that of Allen Robinson as well. So on defense, you say, you know, Bobby gives them something a little bit different.

I was talking to Rahim Morris earlier today. And when you want to be really good for a really long time, every year you need a slightly different twist on everything. Your offense needs to be slightly different. defense need to be slightly different. I think back to those Seattle teams and how I think the best player on the Seattle Seahawks defense from like 2013 through from 2012 through 2016 was a different guy every year. Like one year was Sherman. One year was Wagner. One year was Earl Thomas. One year was Michael Bennett. And so this year it feels like they have two guys in Bobby Wagner and Ernest Jones where it's like, okay, maybe this defense is a little bit more linebacker centric than versions of the Rams that

we've seen over the last two or three years. And I think it's important to kind of refresh who you are in that way every year if you want to stay good. I think yes and no, because I do think they are very agile in the way that they've continued to evolve this defense forward. And you will see Bobby Wagner doing a huge variety of things. The things that we've always seen him do, which includes him being their green dot. They've used a safety in the past. Jordan Fuller had it last year the year before.

Eric Weddell famously made all the calls in the Super Bowl with his chest muscle hanging off of the bone. Um, you know, it's they, they're moving back to someone who is a tried and true long time professional and not just a professional, but a master tactician in this particular space. You know, a lot of the defensive players would tell me when Bobby first started doing install work in the spring, but the way he moves, it's like a pocket of Zen moving throughout the middle of the defense. And I think that's really good for a player who's so gifted in Ernest Jones, but who is still so young. Yeah. And also it helps them. They're different players.

you look at them standing next to each other. They both got the size, the physical prototype, but they're long and like Ernest has the long arms to shed and rush the passer if he needs to. Bobby is somebody who you can tell he will be that field, that field general, that commander who will do a variety of things. He's also got some good size. So they're going to be able to do a lot of different things,

but make no mistake about it, this defense still starts and ends with the coverage principles and Aaron Donald, obviously. But the DB is their coverage principles. I think they have a safety group that's pretty underrated in terms of the continuity, in terms of the depth. And it's still, to me, having Bobby in the middle of the field like this further unlocks the things that Jalen is going to be able to do. In what way?

And that communication being so seamless. So like Jalen, you know, a lot of times the Rams had not invested in their inside linebackers. We've talked about a lot in the past. They'd not invested in that position. So some of that lateral movement, you kind of now depend on Jalen Ramsey and the star to fill those spaces. is the Troy Reader maybe just couldn't get. And this is a shout out to Nate Tice, because I know he's going to be looking for that name.

We couldn't get there a Rams segment without a Troy Reader mentioned here. I know he's going to, I know he's looking for that name. So hi, Nate. So it's one of those things where now there's much more of a natural space that's occupied. And I think it allows Jalen to play more freely. But also he's not, you don't have to depend fully on him. If you've got the quote unquote power slots or that situation, the big tight ends, anything.

you don't have to necessarily depend on him always having to stick in that star and basically be an unavoidable player. Now you've got a couple of unavoidable players in the middle of the field who have the size, the long arms, like I said, big hands and the lateral movement and also the savviness to be where they need to be at any given moment to fill up that space. And to me, that just spells more autonomy for Jalen in moving in and out of that star position because he will continue to be versatile. but now you can get a little bit freer with how you deploy him in that way. And you're maybe guessing right on some of his matchups more often than you were last year because if you're technically quote unquote wrong, you've got to still got to deal with Bobby Wagner in the middle and Ernest Jones in the middle. So that to me is really fascinating.

So this is the rosy outlook. These are the things that could be change in a good way. There are some things I'm worried about. And let me list them for you. The offensive line and the turnover there, they gave Joe Noopum a decent contract. I assume they have decent hopes for him, but who knows? Andrew Whitworth is a very, very, very good player that's no longer there. They have some holes on the interior that they've had to fill with guys leaving and third

round picks potentially starting, which could work out, but a question. I don't know who the other edge rusher is on this team, which is something that I'm continuously concerned about. And I think that there are some questions about the cornerback group. So if you were stacking up the things you're most worried about as it relates to the personnel, where would you start? I think when it pertains the offensive line, the biggest thing I'm concerned about his health over everything.

Jonah Boom has played some big time football for them in the past, but at the same time, he's had quite the injury history. So with that left tackle spot, just health in general. In terms of performance production, I'm actually not as worried about the offensive line just because, you know, they're returning Rob Havenstein on the right side, and he's now like the veteran like hulking Sequoia in the room at this point. They love them some big tackles here.

Large human. Yeah, it's like the only person. They could stand next to Andrew or then make him look normal size. And so the way that they chipped out of empty, the way that they did a lot of those things last year, that will continue. So I'm not maybe as worried about that. But in terms of like the pass rush, you know, Justin Hollins, we've seen that he can be very good opposite Leonard Floyd. But he had the injury. We didn't see what he could be at his fullest potential.

They were, I would say probably an A minus around into the A area in terms. of their pass rush before he got hurt. And then the variety of things that they could do with the past rush really blossomed once Von Miller came to town. So for me, my sense on this and just knowing, seeing this team's patterns and how they operate, they don't ever want to just be okay in a phase as important as that. They will be aggressive in moving an A to an A plus. So I think that the window stays open for them in terms of exploring what their options can be ahead of the trade deadline, what a lot of people don't remember, or don't, you know, because it's so early in the preseason out in training camp, people don't remember about their schedule. After the trade deadline,

they see Tom Brady, Aaron Rogers, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Derek Carr, Russell Wilson, and I know I'm forgetting. The fact that you have this memorized is terrifying. Well, I have no life, as you know. So they, so they, these are the quarterbacks they face post trade deadline, specifically post trade deadline. So if you're not sure, if you're not, absolutely certain that you can rush the pass air well into the postseason and also through a gauntlet of quarterbacks who can carve you up if they get the time to do so, then you're, you're going to have a bad time. So that's this team, though, they don't, they don't sit there. They don't stand pat on things like that. That's their agility that I think ultimately helped

them win the Super Bowl was being agile down the stretch and making those decisions, being sort of fearless in making those decisions. And so I have no reason to think that they won't explore something like that. But that's not to say, I don't think Justin Hollins has a lot of potential. I think he does have a lot of potential. I just haven't seen it because he was injured. And then you ask me about the quarterbacks, I'll be fast. I swear, Jalen coming back and being healthy is going to be obviously important. He's on track to do so. But it is a position I'm concerned about in terms of young guys who have to rise to the occasion, a player that I want people to keep an eye on who is a rookie.

And I don't know, you know, this time of year I start exploring, you know, this is what I love though. This is why they're scouting stuff, you know. These are the nuggets I'm after. You know, I love, I love looking in their process and how they find these guys and all this stuff. And Daryon Kendrick, I think, is someone that people need to keep an eye on for not maybe in the immediate for one of the CB2 spots, but somebody who down the road should be

competing for playing time. I think tomorrow I'm just going to go up to Lesneed and be like, listen, this guy in Chicago, you know very, very well. He's unhappy. He had almost 20 sacks last year. First round pick. That's all it'll take. Just call Ryan Poles right now. Those are the sort of things I guarantee you they're already thinking about. What sort of pass rusher could be available in October is this team's the way they operate. I see you, Chicago. I raise you, Danielle Hunter. Kevin O'Connell phone lines open. Daniel Hunter's like 25 years old, though, still. I mean, it feels like that team wants to win football. I'm not sure the Chicago Bears at this stage actually want to win football games. So there might be a little bit more wiggle room there. Anything could happen. Trade deadline approaches and a team, it's like Denver. You know, Denver looked like it could have been, you know, other than the quarterback

question last year, their defense was really good. They had to turn it around. They started losing a bunch of games and Von Miller becomes available. So that's what I mean when I, like they certainly will navigate, I think, that entire outlook, that entire space. And again, that's not to say anything negative about Justin Hollins, who's awesome. But I do think that when they're looking at that post-trade deadline gauntlet of quarterbacks, this team will always be more agile or be more aggressive in pursuit of agility than not.

The last thing I want to talk to you about, it feels the same around here, but there are a lot of different faces on the coaching side, again. And it's going to be an annual thing. As teams around the league and as organizations around the league even more so, want to rep, what's happening here. They're going to have their guys stolen in droves every single off season. I'm looking at Liam Cohen out here as the offensive coordinator who wasn't here last year. Thomas Brown moves to a tight end coach role where he's overseeing a little bit more stuff. He gets elevated. You have a Joe Everrow is gone now and they're trying to replenish some of

the defensive staff. What have they done to maintain this level of success when that brain drain continues to happen here in ways that it doesn't happen with almost any other organization in the NFL right now? Yeah, it's a constant algorithm, I think, because you're always looking for people, if you're Sean, you're always looking for people who can contribute ideas to what's already working well, who can bring something different, but also can fit into the system for the coaches that they have and can fit into the room and can not just get along with everybody, but be somebody who can sort of shoulder the specific expectations and the high demand,

the expectation of how they operate, how their meetings run, someone who fits, but also who is a bit of an outlier in some ways. Add something new but still understands how they operate here. And I think Sean, any- Rehian Morris is a perfect example. Reh-Hen-Moris is a perfect example because he keeps everybody together while still pushing this defense forward into new levels after coming in and learning it for the first time and then not only learning it, you know, to the point of expertise, but also evolving it forward based on specific personnel where I think some coaches would come in and this has happened in the past and

Brandon Staley speaks very well on this. Some coaches could take that system, run it, but it feels like a sort of a shade of itself. It's not real. Yeah. It doesn't feel like the real thing because the guy doesn't maybe teach it in the way that it's designed to be taught as a living thing that breathes, that grows and evolves and changes. is instead, you know, okay, I know this tendency and this technique, so we're going to teach it that way, or I'm going to teach it my way, not the way the system and the players demand. And Rahim came in and was so not malleable because it, you know, he took command of it, but he also allowed it to shape him too. And that was so empowering, I think, for players. And it was for the rest of the coaching staff.

And he spent so much time with the assistants bringing them up with him as well. It was really special. And I think that's the type of when it works like that, it really, really, really, really works and that you know he knew sean from way back obviously but sean also is trying to look for that in new people in people who are younger assistants kind of coming up through the ranks and what i've seen from him now more so i think than in years past is he also people who've been around the chrisulas the thomas browns he is relying on those guys to also expand their into their networks and they now know what he's looking for. He's obviously going to be the guy vetting them

everyone, but they're now sort of expanding that because at a certain point, you're going to run out a freaking coach. Yes. Like that to me, that's like the mortality of it. Like you're going to run out of guys or, you know, or women, maybe one day. Like you're going to run out of people. And so it's like you have to be constantly exploring those different and diverse networks. And especially we've seen this year with with Rahim and then with Thomas. Brown exploring their networks and those people, you know, through some of the, the fellowships that they've been a part of and some of the groups that they've been a part of and empowering those coaches to really pound the table for guys that they believe in. And that's how Rashad Samples gets

hired. And so who's Rashad Samples? Who's the new running backs coach? And he's a Thomas Brown hire. But Sean McVeigh, you know, in the past, maybe he would be, have his direct hand on every single hire. As his, as the culture has grown, as his relationship with the coaches has grown, some of that empowerment that coaches do need, assistant coaches do need, is feeling like they have the trust to go find the guys that Sean McVeigh has always been so good at finding. And I think that's a maybe underrated part of what they've built and why they're able to manage turnover so well. Is this offensive coordinator number four? Oh, gosh. Since 2017?

He had one with Hufloor. He didn't have one for a year. Well, we'll call Waldron the offensive coordinator, even if he wasn't. Yeah. Because I think that he was filling a lot of those responsibilities and kind of was the right hand man. So if it's Lefleur, Waldron, O'Connell, Cohen, is that what it's been so far? Yes. Yeah.

And like, you could probably count, like, the way that their brain trust works is like, you probably compile quarterback's coaches into that group. And you're exactly. Yeah. So it just, I mean, the fact that now we're on offensive coordinator number four in five years. And three DCs in five years, which is also insane. Like not just turning over on one side of the ball, but both sides of the ball is insane. And that's the mark of, in my opinion, an organization that has staying power is when you can have that and continue to be successful

because you've built an ecosystem within your coaching staff that it just constantly replenishes. And talking to Rahim today, and his background is so interesting when you start thinking about it because he came up under Monty Kiffin. So that is a defense that almost feels like a dinosaur, It's a fossil, it's extinct. We don't see that type of system anymore. But then he was in the Pittsburgh system a little bit, figuring out that zone pressure looks, and then he goes to run that Seattle 3 system with Dan Quinn,

and now he comes here. So having that background in all of those different versions of football, you get to kind of pick and choose and build your own menu from it. But I think the through line with all of it, with him and Sean in that vein, is that he said we're nosy. We're a group of nosy football people. And I think that intellectual curiosity,

about what's going on over there and kind of rubbernecking and interesting things around the league. I think that drives the mentality here as it relates to evolution and growth and all of that. I think that's why they continue to be successful. Yeah, I'd agree with that. They're obsessed with learning. And it just so happens that football is a subject that they most excel in. You know, and like they're as he said to me today, he's like, you like reading books probably. He's like, I like learning about other people's defenses.

That's great. I totally understand that. We're on the same page there. Yeah, that's, oh, he's so great. Yeah, it's just, that's what it is. And it's all of them. And that's when, you know, when Sean's got this checklist of people he wants to hire and he's got this notorious list, right, that's constantly changing of, like, people who

are on his list might be on his staff one day. And it's not a tangible thing. So nobody, please put that on on. Find the list. Don't put that on, like, fucking bleach your report or something. Like, it's not what it is. but like it really it's like this constant you know series of names and people that he's checking in on always and not just because he wants to maybe bring them on someday but because he wants to know what they know he's nosy yeah and exactly and so like you know they they're always seeking in that way they're like that on the staff they're also like that in the front office and in the scouting staff and I think when all of that is left is able to operate fully by itself without sort of interfering with each other too much.

That also is what helps make the system go because keep bringing in people with good ideas. And it doesn't have to be the biggest idea, but something that's a good idea that works, that helps, you know, make your system more efficient or productive in a certain way. That's all he looks for. And I think pairing it down for that is part of why he's so good at finding coaches and why these coaches so enjoy doing this with each other and troubleshooting with each other in that way. Jordan it's so good to see you it's so good to start having these conversations again I'm thrilled to be back thank you very very much for joining us and we will talk to you again very soon thank you so much for having me always a pleasure love our annual tradition it's great to see you and thanks for having it's going we're going to keep it going maybe I'll find a way to bring up Chicago again next time accidentally only to watch you slowly wilt and yet also feel bittersweet happiness for this person that's just my state of being you're wilting while feeling a bittersweet happiness about the world All right, guys, that's all we got.

Thank you so much to Jordan for the time. Thank you to Nate and Deontay. We will be back tomorrow with my good friend Bill Barnwell. Really, really excited about that conversation. Excited for you guys to hear it. In the meantime, please rate interview the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. I mean a lot to me. We're about to start the season.

If you like the show, let us know. If you don't, don't do anything. You're fine. Please subscribe to the athletic. Nate wrote a piece this week about the quarterbacks in new places. a spoiler alert, a podcast subject I think we will hit at some point after my training camp tour is over. So please go check that out. That's where you can read Nate and Deontay and all of the great work that they're doing,

the athletic.com slash football show. We'll be back tomorrow in the meantime. Appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.