The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - PTFO - Lost in Translation: Why You Can’t Understand the NFL

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

There is nothing America loves more but understands less than the NFL, whose coaches, players, and analysts love jargon. But as Pablo discovered earlier this summer, you should be careful calling out this burgeoning fetish for linguistic complexity. So today, ahead of tonight’s season-opener in Kansas City, we ask former quarterback and NFL scout Nate Tice, the host of Football 301, to break the code — and finally explain how jocks got revenge on the nerds, taking over a national conversation. And how much Spider 2 is actually in your Y-Banana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Green left, twins. E short tight pass, 37 buster nudge. Y flutisting, X spear kill. 53 tight left. Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. In the NFL, there is no margin for error. One mistake can change the outcome of a game. Science proves quality sleep can help boost reaction time, recovery time, and overall athletic performance. As the official Sleep Wellness Partner of the NFL, Sleep Number's mission is to provide

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save 50% on the Sleep Number Limited Edition Smart Bed. Plus, special financing for a limited time. Only at a Sleep Number store or sleepnumber.com. Sleep Number, official sleep and wellness partner of the NFL. See store for details. Yeah, I didn't know Nate if you would want to even be seen with me at this point on camera at all, frankly, after what I said. Why? You came after, you came after my career Is that okay? So you said my career is not there's no need For someone to explain we do not need this in this world right now There is enough sports out there sports media to consume. We don't need that niche Bullshit nate

so, okay, so I It's it's something that I am gonna have to do some work to clarify what my actual intention was when I went and co-hosted Dan LeBattard's show in Dan's absence and said stuff like this. Can I express an observation about how we've evolved at talking about sports? Because we've gotten to a point where jargon, where being confusing and

extremely technical has become mainstream. And I just want to know when we decided this was a thing. It's not often where I have to like, uh, text a friend or someone who I considered a friend and be like, uh, just FYI, this was not about you. Yeah. Because I felt the walls closing in. I really did. I saw the quote.

I actually listened to the whole thing. I know that's a foreign concept for a lot of people is listening to the entire clip. I did grind the tape. The audio tape. But I did grind it and I listened. I think Dan Orlovsky is really good at what he does. I think he's the guy who was probably the best at the

telestration and the breaking down and the dissection. But it just feels like a lot of people nodding at something that they think they should be impressed by as opposed to actually knowing what's happening. It's like you're a nerd that came to sports and now you're like sports are too nerdy. I just think we fetishize. I know what it is.

I became a um a an anti-intellectual avatar which is a weird position for me specifically to be in. There's a pavos word pavos dictionary account isn't there? Yes ptictionary. You dummy. Alright, so if today feels like a national holiday, it obviously should. Because the Kansas City Chiefs are hosting the Baltimore Ravens in an NFL regular season game which means that the biggest and most popular television show in America, by far, is back. And the fact that it is the biggest and most popular television show in America is of course obvious by now, but it's still kind of stunning to me. Cause I would argue that nobody watches anything more

that they understand less. Because jargon, when it comes to how we talk about football has truly never been more mainstream. Among not just coaches and players, but fans and broadcasters, we have never heard as many people – I would submit – trying to speak in literal code. And some of this is a function now of the internet and that fragmentation of media. But it is everywhere, as you will see this season, turning jocks into nerds. And now nerds, apparently, into jocks. Which I was accused of being, while co-hosting the Levitard show this summer.

Leading to articles and headlines and yeah, people accusing me of being quote, anti-intellectualism incarnate. End quote. Or as respected quarterbacks coach Quincy Avery called my general position, quote, quite possibly the weirdest take from a really smart person. End quote. And so what I wanted to do today was call up a really smart football guy who might have been threatened by my position. Nate Tice, an NFL analyst at Yahoo and the NFL Network, who himself is a former NFL scout and a college quarterback, and also the son of Mike Tice, the former head coach of the Vikings. And I wanted to start by playing Nate, who also has a couple of other key qualities that we'll

discuss. This clip, this clip of future Patriots quarterback Drake May interviewing with the Giants on HBO's Hard Knocks. Because this is the thing that triggered me in the first place. Because this is the thing that triggered me in the first place. We end up saying corner flag, but it's like an angle is an angle. You got me on that Then you use Rita to the right Linda to the left. It was a flip formation good Read it the right Linda to the left 72 five-man protection slide to the will so if the strength of the formation is right Which what formation is that again? Yeah, good enough, right? Yeah, right. He's he's there The wheels over there the line would slide there. We'd say 72 Rita 72 Rita gotcha My cynicism is that so much of this stuff is just like terminology karaoke, right?

Can you sing the song? Can you say the words? But as someone who knows the notes, who has sung them himself, what does that mean? Translate that for me, please. That is, well, gun is shotgun. If you don't say gun, you're under center. Dolphin, a D word means two by two,

meaning two eligible receivers are on each side of the formation. There's three by one, which are T words, so trips, trio, triple. T words are three by one, tells different guys to line up anywhere. So D, dolphin, right. Right tells the tight end, the Y,

that he's going to the right. The Z always follows the Y, so the Z and Y go right. Then X is always opposite of the call. The X receiver goes opposite of that. Dolphin probably tells him, because it's two by two. The F, which would be the slot receiver, goes into the slot away from the call. So that's just formation.

72, so again, this counts, they use numbers for the protection. So the seven is a type of protection. The two means it goes to the right. So the, and usually you tag the running back. So 72 means that the back is going to be aligned to the right and his protection is working to the right or his route is working to the right. And this looks like to me five man protection based on just how the drawing was. So 72 means five man protection, running backs working right.

The offensive line work opposite of that. So when he was saying Rita and Linda, that's what he was saying too. Linda means offensive line called sliding left, Rita would mean sliding right. So then we get into the concept and cause it's two by two, you generally have to tag both

sides you tag this two-man concept on the left and this two-man concept on the right depends on the offense which one you do first this one they seem to be tagging the X side first so it's float float and they you hear him talk about a little bit he goes well that's corner corner out you know flag is a different term for corner bloat lag out flag, out, bloat, and so that's probably how they came to that. Ivan in offenses floats a formation and not a play call, so again, gets into different offenses.

Tundra means two unders, you hear Drake talking about that. An under route is a five yards and in, or a cross route, which is exactly what it sounds like, three to five yards and you run across the formation. Oh, and they said H angle. Angle is the run it back angle route. And then even Drake says, you know, that one's pretty explainable.

That is fucking insane, Nate. What I appreciate is the degree of difficulty. I do not underestimate that. What I am suspicious of is the way in which people are fawning over this without knowing anything. I think they're more like me. I mean, there's a lot of people who are just like, oh, this sounds good. And I'm like, shouldn't we move past the whole, like, you know, being the, it's, it's

I know. Jonathan Lipnicki and Jerry Maguire. It's just like, we're all marveling at the kid with the big vocabulary. I'm like, we should probably also strive to know why this is so impressive beyond the fact that it's hard. Football, more than any other sport, is gonna have a ton of jargon because of play calls and there's no universal term and there's infinite ways to do things. Yes, there are rules for formation and different things you can do, but you're drawing lines in the sand.

So you have to have some universal terms or is the second outside step and inside, what do we call that? Slant. Okay, that's pretty universal. Everyone knows kind of what a slant is. But what I have noticed is a lot of people have gotten their hands on real deal playbooks,

Kyle Shanahan playbooks, and they're pretty easy to get actually. Pretty shocking for me entering media to realize how easy it was to get my hands on some playbooks and they're easy to get actually. Pretty shocking for me entering media to realize how easy it was to get my hands on some playbooks. Oh, some black market PDFs. Oh yeah, yeah, the black market, yeah, black market nerdum for sports, for football is pretty good right now, it's booming,

business is a booming. But when going through that, I understood where it's fun learning a different offense and I think this is what's something that's been misconstrued a little bit with football even is that there's more than one way to do things. And I think sometimes when a thing happens with football, a play happens, I'm one of the biggest persons

that does this is goes, hey, this is what this is. This is what that play was that just happened. You just watched on Monday Night Football. But what I have noticed is people use the term, the nickname for it, which if I've always found if you need a definition for the definition, you know, you need to use the word to describe the word, that doesn't work.

That's not gonna make anyone smarter. I feel like we got to a point where it's like, I recognize that play from Shanahan. It's like, that's a leak. And it's like, yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, it was a cool touchdown. Why did it happen? Why did they call it?

There's a Rick and Morty line that nailed this. Rick makes a joke and he says, man, that guy is the Red Grin Grumbolt of pretending he knows what's going on. Oh, you agree, huh? You like that Red Grin Grumbolt reference? Well, guess what? I made him up.

You really are your father's children. Think for yourselves. Don't be sheep. And so the two of us, I will disclose my psychological priors here, right? So I'm the son of doctors. And when I listened to that stuff, and I did not go into anything resembling medical school, spoiler alert, dropped out of the first like intro to biology lecture, knowing I could not hang with these people. Listening to Drake May, though, it reminded me of physicians who will say like the Latin

words for body parts as opposed to what a patient might understand. As if to keep it from the patient's understanding. And so Nate, the reason why you are my preferred translator here and my guide into jargon is because you have a, I think, specific set of both skills and also inherited psychological traumas, perhaps, from the way you grew up. So for people who did not listen to your previous episode with us, which was one of my favorites,

about your relationship and your roommate experience with Russell Wilson at Wisconsin, as you say, you were a quarterback there. I wanna go back in time to when you first learned jargon and if you could explain it in the context of your family. I would especially appreciate how your brain came to caught into all of this stuff. So my dad was a long time coach.

My uncle was a coach. They both played in the NFL for over a decade. My uncle played for 10 years. My dad played for 14 years. They both got into coaching. I have another uncle that's a current college coach at the University of Kansas. I've been around it and it kind of for me,

it was just one of those going to practice. You hear the terms? I was a ball boy at seven years old. I'm reading a script, basically how they put out practice I used to have to spot the ball, but then I started learning with those terms meant Seattle meant double slants Seattle on a defense means something different Seattle on offense means some for a different offense means something completely different But because I learned that at seven nine eleven, then I got into my high school offense Then I got into my college offense. I got to two colleges, one at UCF

and then at Wisconsin under Paul Christ. They called the same things two different ways. Because I've been exposed to so many different ways to call a million ways to skin one cat, I kind of just realized that. I was around this football stuff and I realized different people called the same thing the different ways that I was like, oh, that's cool.

Why do you call it that? Like Like I'm trying to like let people know how sometimes these intricacies, these little minor things matter a lot and are really cool. Like why does something happen? How did that happen? And that's really for me, that's, that's my, I love learning about things. I love reading, reading about things. I love what kind of micro histories on something. I'm reading one on a fricking salt right now. It's just- By the way, you reading a literal history of salt does again sort of fit with the tenor of what we're trying to discern here. But I also want to point out that it is in fact

really cool when smart people can nerd out about stuff in a way that builds a connection that wasn't able to be, or wasn't encouraged to be showcased, certainly when I was growing up, consuming media, right? So I want to establish kind of like the polarities of football coverage, because historically, when I was growing up, Nate, mainstream football coverage was so vibes based.

It was about, does this guy, it was clutchness, purity tests. But we've never ever said Peyton Manning and thought immediately clutch. If I say MJ, clutch. If I say Jeter, clutch. If I say Brady, clutch. If I say Montana, clutch.

If I say- It was who wants it more and all of that shit Of course is reductive and and as a guy who also enjoys and this is why I think I became somebody who people felt betrayed by as a guy who also enjoys analytics, I also know the other end of the equation the other polarity is is Jargon in a way that gate keeps. For me, it does remind me of another one of your interests, which is another reason why I wanna have you on here, which is you also love board games.

I do, I disgustingly so. How would you characterize your love of board games, Nate? Obsession, borderline. I didn't realize how much I like board games. I played like many people got into Catan in like the mid, early mid 2010s. Settlers of Catan. Settlers of Catan.

Just Catan now, though. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah, they dropped the settlers off, you know? It's just Seal, just Facebook, it's cleaner. I really like competition. I really like kind of puzzly stuff and trying to figure something out maybe make it most efficient have some strategy with it and Or games kind of just This clicked for me and then all of a sudden I got into that started going

What are the games that can I get and then I realized there's a whole world of modern board games out there. Board game geek, I highly recommend for a lot of people, but I own about a hundred games. And I try to- Jesus Christ. I know. Some of them are like party games. No, that's not a hack. Guessing games, you know, monikers, these things.

But then some are a little more deaf war games. There's one game I have called 1960, the making of the president. It's a two player game. One person's JFK's campaign manager, one person's Nixon's campaign manager. It's like a, it's like a tactics war game. You'd love it. But I do. I have interested in that.

I know. But it is something that I love rules as well. And I love definitions and I love and I think that's why I like rules because it says, well, you can do this with this and the most brilliant games There's one game. I love called carcass on there's other games where I love when they give you like two three rules and Then they leave it up to you They say there's only a couple rules you have to follow but how creative can you get with those and so that's where kind of Those games click for me because that's like wow there's creativity in some of this stuff that maybe you other people on top with

Some of the strategy and everything right but that but this all sounds like football to me now. The desire. Strategy, jargon, yes. And the desire to have people to want to play with you. Like the social aspect, and this is where I'm like trying to figure out like, okay, how do we broaden the net of understanding? I do think the first step to broadening the net of understanding to lifting the gate or lowering the drawbridge, whatever my tortured metaphor of

choice happens to be, I do want to establish for people who are not initiated into the very basics of the vocabulary here, Nate, how complicated it can get. Yes. How do you begin to explain how hard it is actually to be fluent in all of these dialects? I grew up around it. And a lot of it is just a Rolodex. And it's just a, I've heard other people using this

and I clicked for me and it's hard for me to go, yeah, you can learn that in a year or six months. You can learn some things and learn a lot of the definitions and all those, but it's hard to just use it fluently, like a native speaker, and I'm a native speaker. And again, not trying to hype myself up here, but this is just how it goes.

But it's like if someone learned Spanish and then, hola, adios, and you goto, you're using all these words, but it's like if someone learned Spanish and then you know, hola adios And you goto you're using all these words But you're not just gonna go I'm not gonna go into Mexico or Spain and you go goto goto goto hola hola Adios, the adios You guys got what I meant, right? That to me as a native speaker sometimes when I see jargon getting thrown out there, especially football jargon. I'm like Okay, I'm not gonna call you out,

but it's like, you're not using it right. Or you're using it right, but wrong. Like it's in the right. You forgot the enye. You forgot the accent mark. So many people go, oh, McVeigh's great. But why is he great? Like what does he do specifically?

Once then now the person could go to the bar and he's 1% smarter than his buddy because he didn't just say McVeigh is great. He says, actually they run like a power run here. That's pretty cool. Boom, oh my God, John's so much smarter than Mike at the bar. It's that balance though.

It's the ones that have to explain it and the ones that do or don't wanna gate keep that do wanna explain all these things. But again, it's just that it's not always perfect. So it gets a little edgy and it gets a little full of it, up its own ass a little bit. ["Street Dance of the Year"] Welcome to the Offensive Line.

You guys, on this podcast, we're going to make some picks, talk some s***, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agar. So here's how this show's gonna work, okay? We're gonna run through the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories like,

no offense. No offense, Travis Kelce, but you gotta step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably

bitter. Is it Brandon Iyuk, T Higgins, or Devontae Adams? Plus on Thursdays we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondery Plus where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday Night Football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in. Follow the offensive line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can access bonus episodes and listen ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So the up its own ass part.

I do think there is something to being in awe of what you don't understand and respecting it as an order of magnitude that is different from your sort of capacity to translate it. And there is one, I just want to play one clip because when I talk about performing difficulty, I think about how Drew Brees basically sounded like, sort of like a Sotheby's auctioneer at one point. You might recall him talking to Mike Tirico about Sean Payton's offense.

There's some very long plays. There's a lot of verbiage at times. Give me one. It could be green left, twins, east short tight pass, 37-buster nudge, Y flutisting, X spear kill, 33 tight left. So just as a matter of translation, Nate,

when he says that, do you understand it? Yeah, most of it, I can translate it. Cause even in football, there's different translations. There's different dialects. So like I've never been in a Sean Payton offense, so it's not literal, but I could tell you it's a doubles laugh to be like a two by two formation D equals two by two meaning two eligible receivers on each side. He had a kill play there and I think the last play 33 I didn't hear the term

that's a run play. 33 is a run direction and type the first three is the type of run and which back sometimes so you could go to the two back or the three back. All football terminology is is to get everyone lined up. Even like the term kill play. I just want to clarify that for the lay person. That means what? You package multiple plays together

and the quarterback based on the defensive look goes from one play, that's the first play called and then you kill it, kill that play, forget it to the next play that's called in that huddle. So you go like sword kill 34 Bob, I'm just making up ones, but it's just the first place to pass, it might be a look, might be a certain box count,

might be a certain defense we're looking for, might be, oh shoot, we can't block, Micah Parsons on this play, so we have to run it away from him, could be any of these types of things. But again, different translations. I call it kill, other places call other places called can meaning you have another play in the can What I think about is not just okay out of my depth again. I also wonder if all of this is

Deliberate like it feels like you're describing a system that is almost daring you to misunderstand it. Or to confuse it. And is that... Is this because the point is to speak in code? Is the point so that you can't actually understand it if you were to overhear it? Or what... How do you explain why the language evolved this way? Well, Sean Payton is a great example right there, because his play calls are going to be really wordy. It was a lot easier when it was just a standard run play. I write 35 Bob, that's a lead or zone play.

And with that play, that's it. We have no shifting emotions. Now everybody's shifting emotion in every play. Those need words. You have to tell this player to go to the left and that's before we might even get to the formation. Then we get to the formation. Now we got the guy's shifting emotion. Now we got to give the protection call. And that's before we might even get to the formation. Then we get to the formation. Now we got the guys shifting and motioning.

Now we gotta give the protection call. So that's another word. Now we gotta give the pass concept. That's another word. We might have to give the cadence. You know, maybe we do this on two. That's another word, another verbiage. So you might just be telling one guy

to shift across the formation, and it'll take 14 words to get there. The millennials have taken over as all these guys. They understand, hey, let's not go crazy here. Sometimes it's those coaches showing off like a Sean Payton going like, look how much I know. That's what I was gonna ask. I figured, old West Coast guys, yes.

Yes, it was absolutely to show off. I heard about these old Raiders coaches. They would keep their play calls from one week to the next. So by the end of the season, they would have 800 play call sheets that the players had to know and you're running 60 plays a game. There's yes, you need a menu, but you need more of that. It was it used to be.

I really believe there's a big way to show off. But then you get into Michael Leach, who just goes right 92 and that's it. That's the play call. So, again, it's different ways to do it. But NFL is complicated. That's why you need more words. It's just to get everybody lined up perfectly. Right.

So hold on. So, so, so the broad, the broad theory of why it's so complicated to, to call a play is because it's actually the simplest version that a lot of coaches can come up with. That's like the origin story is that directions for everybody. I need to say this quickly because there's a time pressure. So how often is it that the non-quarterbacks are f***ing up because of this very jargon problem?

More than you think. And that's what's frustrating when you literally tell the person what they're doing and they still mess it up.. More than you think. And that's what's frustrating when you literally tell the person what they're doing and they still mess it up. But more than you think. And I would even say in college, I'll be lower on some guys because I can realize that they're maybe short on a route, that they're guessing on some stuff.

But NFL is pretty good. Like the coaches will get through to the players, players, it's their job. And so by that level, you have to have a certain threshold of intelligence. But most times when something looks wonky, it's their job. And so by that level, you have to have a certain threshold of intelligence, but most times when something looks wonky, it's because the receiver was wrong. So to go back to those coaches in the West Coast offense,

right, so I should point out in the history of, in my personal understanding of NFL media coverage history, John Gruden, who is a practitioner, of course, of the West Coast offense, the most public face of it when it came to being a Broadcaster I mean all started with in spider to why banana? Take a six-step setup and you're throwing the ball to the fullback On spider to why banana? Yeah Why banana eight to ten yards depending how clean he gets off?

Today we're gonna run him on a corner route. Strong right slot. To right. Z right. Spider two. Spider two, Y, Banana, Z over. And you're going to call it like it's your favorite play you've ever gotten in your life.

Like it's, oh man, strong right slot, Z right. Spider two, Y, Banana, Z over. I remember this because it was like the first, uh, burst of jargon that went viral. You're right. Spider-2-Y-Banana-Z over. I remember this because it was like the first burst of jargon that went viral. You're right. Yeah. It was a meme because he was teaching Marcus Mariotto and Mariotto's sitting there and Gruden begins to, again, in a way that was fun, was nerding out about his favorite play. And to you, Spider2YBanana, when you see it as now this cultural artifact,

like the patient zero of the term that everybody would like begin to almost repeat to themselves as a part joke, but also a demonstration that I'm in the club. I know, I now know what this is. What is that play in your mind? How do you explain it? What is, like, is it funny that that play in your mind? How do you explain it? What is, like is it funny that that became the thing?

Yeah, it is. Cause it's a, it's like a short yardage play, but you'll have a corner route, which is a high angle route, a flat route, which is a short route to the sideline, flat, and then a route coming over from the opposite side. It's a safe play. And I, it's kind of funny for me that he says that's his favorite play because it's like,

oh yeah, everyone runs that. It's kind of like a gimme play. Like you usually run it for younger quarterbacks or because it's just such, it's simple to read. Boom, boom, you look to one side, one, two, three. But I think also that it's kind of always a, it's kind of like one of those always works because you only usually call it like the two yard line

or you call it third and one. And usually you're hitting that flat route. You're not even hitting the Y banana You're hitting like the full back on the flat. So it's like a quick hitting little first down So and you're saying that the banana the Y banana isn't even actually the thing that you mostly are you mostly in it? No, it's not the I've been I've been living a lie If I if you threw it ten times, I say you throw the banana once or twice It's only taken me about 20 years to understand what the fuck was happening in that viral clip I've been living a lie. If you threw it 10 times, I'd say you throw the banana once or twice. It's only taken me about 20 years to understand what the was happening in that viral clip.

But I want to get to something that a friend of mine, Seth Wickersham, quoted for me, because I was talking to him also, he's an excellent football author, journalist. And he reminded me that Bill Polian once said something to Michael Lewis. Bill Polian, the famous GM of the Colts, Michael Lewis, of course, author of Moneyball. And what Polian told Michael Lewis was that if you wanted to know why a play worked or

didn't, he would talk to every starter and every coach and he still would not have clarity. And I want to get to this notion, which you've alluded to before, which is that intention for the play seems like an underrated part of decoding what's actually happening here. Like, what were they trying to do? Which isn't discernible based on just the film and even the full dictionary of terms available to you. Right.

Yeah, I think when you look at a past concept in a play, and I think this is where too is that that's why when you learn the why, it's not always the result. There's so much in the process of football that a lot of it comes down to timing and anticipation. Those are words that get thrown around way too much. But in a passing game, everything's tied together. And I know we think of discipline as like training and like hard practices, but discipline as far as rules, then I think people realize, and I think that's again, why I try to emphasize where people are like, well, why didn't you just throw it to this wide open guy?

It's like, well, physics is the quarterbacks looking to the right, the receivers all the way to the left, well, why didn't you look left? Because of this coverage, this concept. Again, that's getting, you have to get five steps to explain that, but I feel like if you just get one more step, then this concept. Again, that's getting, you have to get five steps to explain that. But I feel like if you just get one more step, then it kind of just, oh, okay, maybe I won't understand

that just because the guy's wide open, why didn't the quarterback throw to him? Because there's so many rules. I think that's where I have fun with it and trying to break it down. And that's also where the cool things come. Because then you see defenders breaking rules. A Mike Parsons, I'll refer to him again.

They call him better Bs, which is you better be right. Meaning a defender has to be in a certain spot, but he's gone, I bet you're going to, JJ Wiley used to do this all the time. I bet you're going to run right here. So I'm going to knife inside and go rogue. I make the play. People go, wow, what a hell of a play.

If I were coaching a high school footballer, I'd probably be ticked off. But then that's what makes Micah Parsons cooler is because you understand the rules that he just broke. This comes down to the board game thing I said, you get three roles and you can stretch them differently. That's what makes it cool. That's why Mahomes, I would never use Mahomes as teaching tape. He breaks rules. He does stuff that no one else can do, but he also understands the rules and that's also an underrated thing with him. So it's I think that's what I I've really tried to find joy in it. I do find joy in it personally

I try to share it is that when you see those little things and go like well that was cool and that's why it's so cool because even if the guy didn't make the sack or the guy didn't score a touchdown here or It's just a five-yard rushing play. There's some little cool things that happen to make that five yards because of all these rules that are getting broken or not broken or there is discipline or something like that. How do stop losses work on Kraken? Let's say I have a birthday party on Wednesday night, but an important meeting Thursday morning. So sensible me pre-books a taxi for 10pm with alerts.

Voila! I won't be getting carried away and staying out till 2. That's stop loss orders on Kraken. An easy way to plan ahead. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. So much of the way that the language and the strategy has evolved clearly relies on human brains and mouths and the ability to perform a recitation under pressure and then actually do the thing that the recitation is demanding and I wonder if this is ever going to change like technologically Nate right so oh yeah

currently it just for people who again don't know like the quarterback needs to be the guy who tells his teammates this is what we're doing because there isn't the currently there's no rule that allows a coach to put microphones and and earpieces and everyone's helmets but it feels like if you're designing football in the 21st century that's a solution to help make all of this that much more legible. Yeah.

Yeah. What is your, is that, is that as, as again, as, as a coach's son, as a quarterback, is that something that you want like some technological innovation there or no, are you, are you in the mode of like, it's still actually better the way that it's happening right now? I, I kind of that it's happening right now. I kind of like how it goes right now

because when you give some maybe coaches and stuff shortcuts, it long-term leads to a worse product and worse ball because they're not actually learning. They're not actually doing what they're supposed to be doing. And maybe this is just, I'm the oldest 34 year old to go over me. And maybe some of this is just some curmudgeon in me going like, no, this is how we always did it.

Like if you're no huddle, if you, cause the XFL did this a couple of years ago where they had the communication to all of the skill players. The offensive line did not. That could lead to some weirdness, some walkiness to some like, I think some tempo abuse, you know, no huddling and everyone lines up and just goes, goes, goes. P puts the defensive at a disadvantage. I like having a lot more pressure on maybe the quarterback and the play caller and the teachings that they have to do as opposed to maybe giving

them a crutch a little bit to like where they all can just hear the play call. I think some of that too, some of these OCs are terrible on the headset and maybe I don't want them talking to the receiver because they get emotional. That's like a big thing that's Like a real big thing with uh with with with coaches and those usually explain explain how common it is that a coach would be so Mad at you that he would be inarticulate Way more common than you think it depends on the coach I mean, let's say I'm a see me a delay gamesbaugh and the Chargers get this year. That's part of it a little bit.

Paul Chris who was very calm on game day, I was the backup quarterback so I was the one signaling plays. Thank God no one else could hear what he was saying sometimes because a lot of those players would be like, this guy hates me because if something bad happened, he'd let out just like an explicit, like just, ah, this guy can never catch the ball. So I kind of don't want that

because I know some of these coaches are. That's another thing that I think it's misconstrued is that it's like, oh, get the play call and it's simple. We already heard how long the play call is for a coach to a player, player reiterate to the other players I just think that I like that and I kind of want to kind of keep that going So maybe it's just maybe the oldness of me, right? So some of the degree of difficulty here

it sounds like also in your voice of detecting a You enjoy the masochism of it on some level the challenge and. And I think about like in Major League Baseball, there's a system called PitchCom now. It's a proprietary push button player wearable transmitter that allows players on the field to communicate plays to each other without using any physical signs or verbal communication. Every player wearing receiver actually hears the same instructions in their very own chosen language. And so there's the ability to actually speak literal foreign languages. Spanish and everything, yeah.

And be fluent in the foreign language of, you know, calling a baseball game. For you, I feel like there's a loss of romance there. There's a loss of a certain lore when it comes to the shortcut. A little bit. Like rule-bending and finding ways to be best at the rules given, I do like those aspects of sports. There's abuses of systems and everything, especially in baseball.

College football, I mean, there's more people that steal signals than you would think, like as far as, cause they don't have the headset comps, they're working on it right now, which I think is huge. Yeah, that's a big thing too, where these teams, everyone's like, wow, this offense coordinator is brilliant. It's like, yeah, they steal every play. Like, that's a big thing too, where these teams, everyone's like, wow, this offense coordinator is brilliant. It's like, yeah, they steal every play.

Like, I would be good too if I knew I was coming. But even that, right? I like it. To decode a very basic thing is like, why do college football coaches have on the sideline? Oregon did this famously. At the University of Oregon, signs have made their way onto the football field.

Coaches created a new signal board play calling system this past spring after concerns the Ducks hand signals were compromised last season. What we have on those boards, each four coordinates means something to our guys. One picture will tell us the formation, the play and the snap count. And all 11 guys in the field know what we're gonna run.

Why do they have a poster board with four quadrants on it? It's because they're anticipating in the way that football we're gonna run. Why do they have a poster board with four quadrants on it? It's because they're anticipating in the way that football is also a tactical, almost military campaign that someone is trying to break their code. It anticipates stealing actually. Yeah, it does. Because that's what you do.

These guys, they gotta change it up and they'll have 40 dummy signalers. But again, I like that. And again, and there's another part of me that goes, yeah, you're cheating or yeah, you're kind of gaming the system. You know, you're not really doing true football, but that's the game. Like those are the rules given. You have to signal the play.

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I do want to salute those, Nate, like who can do two things. They can nerd out with their fellow dungeon masters, right? And they can also, they can also explain the rules to be. And I think, I think about stuff that you've done where I'm like, what I really love, so you interviewed again, one of the big protagonists in the football intelligence discourse in the last year or so has been CJ Stroud. And so CJ Stroud is somebody who we actually did an episode about through the lens of the S2 exam,

which if you did not watch the episode, was a test that was controversial because CJ Stroud had a very bad score on it. And there was a back and forth about, did he actually try? Was he actually just, was he actually just failing a cognitive assessment test. And so at, I believe it was the Super Bowl, you sat down with CJ Stroud and what I loved watching even though I did not understand, again, the vast majority of it, was you were

in the position of almost of exam proctor. I just want you to talk about your process here against right and I can run it through or if you want Sir out here. Yes, so they showed a lot of two man in the In the fringe a loss also with quarters when you see the shroud stuff that was impressive even for me here and I really Seen the nickel and I'm thinking he's gonna back up and play combo which is this they're gonna play like a mini cover too in the sense of quarters and man the outside guy so that's what I originally thought so I snapped the ball and I see this mic I'm looking at this mic yeah and I and I also see this backside wheel kind of cross cut so I'm thinking it's some type of man at this

point but I couldn't tell which type of man I didn't know if he would have dropped in and played lurk or if he could have dropped in to play lurk so I'm thinking it's some type of man at this point but I couldn't tell which type of man I didn't know if he would have dropped in and played lurk or if he could have dropped in to play lurk so I really had to see it true and true. So that's one robber, lurk is one robber. Exactly. That's how we call it. We have to translate it to spanglish every time. All quarterbacks in the NFL are gonna be pretty impressive. Even that Drake May clip, some people are like, every quarterback can do this. It's like yes and no. Like we can all go, I can go on the board

and draw that all up. Once the bullets start flying, eh, maybe not so much. That's where the impressive stuff comes in. But with Stroud and why I found those plays or why I wanted to show him those plays, it wasn't a touchdown. It wasn't a huge gain.

One was like a first down on third, 10, and one was like he beat a blitz on another one. And right away he just grabbed the pen. He was like, yeah, I'm going this. Because I could tell he was like, yeah, this was good stuff, wasn't it? This front side might go, this backside will go, and the shell didn't really change.

And it's hard to see all this at once, so it's kind of like I'm seeing it in segments. You don't say. Right. And then I see this front side might jump really hard inside. So when he jumps hard inside, I'm like, okay, I probably have two men here.

So my reed was one to this back, to Dawn on this inside, like, mini glance, as you can say. And then I have a now route as number two coming by Rob, and then a china for late. And down here, Demiko isn't against going for a first dance already right here, I'm looking for a completion. This is my big takeaway from like the only monocultural institution left in America, which is the NFL,

which is football broadly speaking, which is that you guys are so much nerdy-er than the popular conception of what football players are supposed to be. And I love it when you guys let your freak flags fly. It's cool. I like it. Like this weird, this again, all of the jargon on some level.

I appreciate it. But now we've gotten to the point where it's been so mainstreamed where there is an opportunity to explain why it's impressive as opposed to why it's, why it's jarringly complicated in a way that maybe initially felt impressive. It's the thing of like, okay, I'm interested, but now can you teach me?

Can you, do you want me to sit down at the table with you and play this weirdly elaborate board game that only you guys understand that I thought I'd been watching, but actually really didn't understand this entire time. I think you're finally had to come on the show to connect that that that it makes so much sense. I like board games because I truly like when I see the light bulb go on for people like I really I mean, I think there's 16 cousins on my dad's side. I would say 10 of us have been coaches or teachers.

Like, it's just kind of like what we like to do, but I truly like to see that light bulb come on. That's why I like teaching board games. And I also think it trains me with some of the football stuff. But also, you know, some of that, I don't want to be too mean. Some of the players are boring, you know?

Some of the players are kind of have basic takes, but not with football. And you get them talking about their actual expertise and their actual interests. And you see passion. You see, rather than give them the same answer, they don't want to be here, they want to be working, working out.

There's a diet for football, there's a diet for sports. It just can't always be sugar. So sometimes you need some veggies and fruit to kind of make it all a little bit better. Sometimes it was flavor, could be deep fried. Oh, oh, oh, as I said, look, if nothing else, I want this show, Poblatory finds out to be a show where we melt cheese on your broccoli.

That's exactly it. As someone that went to Wisconsin, or I GA'd at Pitt too, fries in your salad. That's what, as they like to do in Pittsburgh, yeah, let's put some French fries in your garden salad. That's kind of what we're trying to do here. God. Nate Tice, thank you for letting me sit down at the table

that I was a little afraid to ever show my face at again. Thank you for hopping over that gate that I set up. I appreciate you joining me at the table. Thanks so much, Pablo. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time. In the NFL, there is no margin for error. One mistake can change the outcome of a game. Science proves quality sleep can help boost reaction time, recovery time, and overall athletic performance. As the official Sleep Wellness Partner of the NFL, Sleep Number's

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