The Ringer NFL Show - How Do Quarterbacks Get Better?

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Kevin is joined by Fox Sports and The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman to discuss Josh Allen’s improvement, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, and Urban Meyer. Then he talks with former Bills executive Jim Monos about how to build around young QBs.  Host: Kevin Clark  Guests: Bruce Feldman and Jim Monos Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, this is Warren Sharp, NFL analyst over at Sharp Football Analysis. I want to welcome you to The Ringer Gambling Show. Join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays each week during the NFL season with guests Chris Vernon, Ben Solac, and Joe House to guide you through the NFL betting landscape. We'll be talking spreads, game totals, parlays, player props, futures, and much, much more. Be sure to follow the Ringer Gambling Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringer NFL show. our podcast network. I'm Kevin Carr. Great show today. The question, how do quarterbacks get better?

To answer this question, we bring in Bruce Feldman. He works at Fox and the Athletic. He has studied the quarterback position. He wrote a book on it called The QB more than just about anybody in media. He has been to countless camps and he understands exactly how to get from the high school level to the quarterback level to the pro level. He's talked to thousands of coaches, quarterbacks themselves obviously and some really, really, really good insight on just how that pipeline works and how a quarterback

goes from bad to good, good to great and just a very interesting discussion there. And then Jim Monos, a former NFL executive joins us again for a really interesting insight into how a quarterback gets better by the people around him and how you build a team around a quarterback to actually make them better.

Everybody says, hey, you got to go all in a quarterback. Hey, you've got to make life easy for a quarterback. I wanted to know was what does that even mean from a team building standpoint? Really interesting insight there from Jim. Let's get to Bruce. Bruce Feldman, he works for the athletic. He works for Fox.

He is one of the best football journalists anywhere. What's going on, Bruce? Good to be on with you. I appreciate the kind words from one Miami guides for another, albeit an older one. Let's not talk about that. This is a no Mani Dia zone. This is no Miami zone.

We could do the whole, we could do 90 minutes on the ills of that program. Maybe I'll sneak a question at the end. But I want to talk about a couple of things. things you've written over the past couple of years. The first thing is you wrote a piece over the summer with Jordan Palmer and that included Josh Allen, that included Joe Burrow, and that included a really interesting study on how quarterbacks get better. And that's what we're talking about here today. Before that, you wrote a book called the QB about the quarterback position in general and

everything that's changed about it, the pipeline of quarterbacks just from basically when they start in Pop Warner to high school to elite 11 camps to college, to pro now, which is totally changed. I want to get into all of this stuff because if you understand it, it informs so much about modern quarterbacking. But I want to start with Josh Hound. And he's a guy who has done things that you're not supposed to do. He got more accurate. He got so much better from year two to year three, let alone year one to year two. You've studied this. You've spent time around him and the people who've helped him get better. What kind of lessons can you learn when a quarterback gets that good over a three, four, five-year period, Bruce? To be honest, I'd like to think.

think he's still an outlier in this regard. He's obviously an outlier in terms of size and ridiculous arm strength. But count me in as one of the many people who was really skeptical of the scouting buzz on him coming out of college when he was at Wyoming. He wasn't really, they didn't play a lot of top level competition. And when they did, he was not very good. And he did have some decent players on the offensive side of the ball, especially his junior year, guys who played in the NFL. But the thing I'd always heard from a lot of not just, you know, people who cover the sport, but people who are like coach it and are and have succeeded at a high level have talked about you really can't get that much more accurate, they believe.

You can get a little more accurate, but not significantly more accurate. And so I was very skeptical when he came out because we've seen plenty of guys with big arms who just don't translate in the NFL. and his rookie year, my TV crew at Fox Sports, ended up actually doing a Bill's Lions game late in the year. And they didn't have much. It was basically Robert Foster was his, like, top weapon. And, you know, Robert Foster was a guy who was like a size speed guy at Alabama.

I really never did anything. And it was Josh Allen kind of putting the team on his back as a rookie, at least the offense. And I remember coming back talking to a couple college guys, I know. And I was like, Josh Allen may be a lot better than we expected. You know, just from being around the bills late in the year, his rookie year. And then as we've seen, and you mentioned the story that I went and spent time with Jordan Palmer there. Like, obviously, Jordan Palmer spent a ton of time with Josh Allen starting in his draft prep.

And some of the things that Jordan had told me that they did to really kind of unwire some of his, I guess, natural tendencies of how he played quarterback to change it. And I thought it was kind of fascinating some of the work that they've really done there. There's a lot of really good biomechanics guys out there. Tom House to me is the legend of this. But there's a bunch of other guys who've learned kind of some of those things from Tom. And I think Jordan Palmer's been very good at incorporating science to help. And a lot of the technology as much as anything to help guys kind of understand, okay, this is kind of, I feel it, but this is the tango.

evidence to it. And I think he's done a really good job of messaging it and connected with Josh Allen. And we've seen it grow. And I think, you know, not to say all other quarterbacks don't work really hard, but I think he has really bought into this in a significant way to the point when I was there, you know, it was probably six weeks before the season. They were working on one specific part of his game that, you know, I wasn't able to, because they didn't want me to mention exactly what kind of throw it was. We can get this part. This is a difference between being second or third for the MVP,

being the MVP, and the bill's converting on a third and long in the playoffs to go to the Super Bowl and win a Super Bowl. And so that part has been really fascinating to see in addition to all the other stuff he does. Do you don't have to confirm this? Did it involve in breaking routes? Because Josh Allen told me that.

If you can't confirm it, you don't have to confirm it. We're moving on. I will say. The only thing I will say is there is a throw that Patrick Mahomes is very good at with Tyree Kill. Oh, okay. That's the little tweaking of just kind of how Josh Allen's body kind of works on this one specific throw, that they really kind of spent a lot of time, and he spent a lot of time, repping and repping and and really fine-tuning.

That's fascinating. The technology part of it's so interesting because that's not just Josh Allen, that's every quarterback now, and that doesn't, that's not just NFL quarterbacks. That's college quarterbacks, the high school quarterbacks, that's quarterback's in eighth grade, something you've written about in the past. I'm curious, technologically, the difference between now and 10 years ago for a quarterback trying to get better, whether that's Josh Allen, Joe Burrow,

or some seventh grader is what? A lot of the messaging is different. So I remember this story and I share, I mentioned it to Jordan Palmer when I was there. And look, I've spent a ton of time around a lot of these private QB coaches. That was a big part of that QB book was how that industry has just exploded. And now you can't find, you can't like go 10 feet without tripping over a private quarterback coach somewhere, right? And I think a lot of them have legit expertise at their brain.

But some of the stuff that has been, you know, you look at some of the. things that Tom House, he's really the godfather of the biomechanics, you know, people may know his story by now. He was the former, you know, middle reliever in baseball in the 70s. And he's brilliant in terms of some of the things he did. And Drew Brees was the first big name quarterback to buy in, thanks to Cam Cameron in that relationship. And now Tom Brady's a big proponent of it and a bunch of other guys are. But when you even see like the front side arm that, you know, like as our buddy Seth Wickersham has been talking is like, yeah, it's kind of the Brady Cross kind of thing. Not like they always cross on the receiver. This is, you know, that part. And what's interesting

is I was saying to Jordan something. There is a clunky expression. When I say clunky, it's like kind of a term that's really not not something you'd want to say in this day and age about a shorter person. But there was a thing that old quarterback coaches used to teach. And it was basically where your front arm would kind of shoot. back. And it was like, you know, people would have different way to saying like, oh, well, so and so in the mouth, make him spit his gum out, that kind of thing. And now it's like kind of counter to that. So the point where I remember in the QB book, Trent Dilfer was talking about if guys had, you know, dry fit, you know, where they could just kind of hold their hands here and almost like pinch the collar

to get them in the habit of keeping that up. And different things about what you do, like, in terms of your back hip and where the explosion comes. And then there's, there's a lot of other stuff. And, you know, a lot of these guys, you know, to me, so many of this generation kind of was wowed by Aaron Rogers and the off platform stuff. And now you're seeing it to a, you know, larger degree with Mahomes, too. And it's fascinating because I think there's a lot of quarterback coaches and college coaches who are like, this may, you know, there may be some things that like, yeah, Patrick can get

away with it. You don't not need to be doing this and practicing this. And so there's probably, it's going to swing the other way where some of these things. things happen and maybe they shouldn't. But like I think Mahomes is a great example of a guy who has, you know, for so long we've talked about great arm strength. But I think that's a little bit of a misnomer. Patrick Mahomes has an incredibly strong core. And he's been doing, you know, some of it is his baseball training. A lot of it's with this, with his, you know, private, physical coach Bobby Stroop down in

Texas for years. So he has incredibly strong core and that gives him the balance and the stability to do some really freaky stuff as a thrower. And I think so some of those other things, like I said, just the element of hey, this guy's a strong arm. No, there's probably a lot more that actually is going into it more than just the juice that comes out of the right arm usually.

So with Allen in particular, so you spent time with Burrow, obviously, Borough's always been accurate. Vision has been a superpower, getting guys out into routes, so he'll just get them into empty sets and then he'll find a guy. That part is interesting to me, but I want to stick on Alan just for one second because so you think that his gains in accuracy

are the exception, not the rule. This is not repeatable for the next guy, really, right? I think it's hard to, I mean, we're talking about a guy who was in like the low 50s, mid-50s to last year he was like around 70. And Jordan Palmer thinks I know he's not, you know, he's in the low mid-60s now as good as he's playing.

he thinks he'll be up in the mid-70s. And some of that is like, you know, circumstantial a little bit. But I think just the gains of the accuracy, I think guys will get more accurate. And I think they can certainly get, their numbers can go up depending on what kind of systems they're in and what kind of throws they're making consistently.

But I still think the Josh Allen example, and maybe I hope I'm proven wrong, but I think that's still going to be an aberration. I think there are going to be a lot of teams who still will fall in love with a guy who can throw it 70 yards. And it just cannot be accurate on third and 11 enough to be a really good quarterback. Or the issue is going to be, and to me, this is a challenge. And there's another big guy with a big arm who's, you know, who's, I think, a second year quarterback now in Jacob Easton,

you know, four or five star quarterback. He has a big arm. But I think there's a lot of other things that need to go into play in the position, how well they see the field, how comfortable they are in the pocket with, you know, the presence they have. And it's not to say Jacob Isson can't make, you know, gains and get a lot better. But I think there are going to be still going to be guys out there. It's like, whoa, this guy has a wow arm. And yet there's something is missing.

And I think that the hardest thing for, from everything I had heard on that QB book going into it was for people to get a real sense of what do they see when the bullets start flying, fast and how can they, how do they see it? From everything I've heard from talking to a ton of coaches right up to now has always been, you know, it's one thing to be really good in seven on seven in practice. And it's another thing to be able to do it in games. And that's the part that people really have a hard time evaluating is who can really see it when it's happening. I want to talk about the seven on seven thing here in a second, but I want to ask about

Burrow, which is another part of your reporting from the summer. Burrow was worked on his velocity. there were very specific, pretty high-tech things that he was just really trying to get into with mechanics. And I'm curious, Joe Burrow, the NFL player, having seen him now for, you know, essentially, we saw him through November last year, and obviously the first couple weeks this year,

he went toe-to-to-to-with Rogers on Sunday. What is his ceiling? And if you redrafted right now, and you were the GM somehow, would you rather have him or Justin Herbert? Oh, man, that's a tough one. Yeah. So I think I'll be surprised if Joe Burrow doesn't win a Super Bowl as a quarterback in the NFL.

Oh, okay. I would put money on it. I mean, I was around him a ton when I worked on the Ogeron book at LSU years ago. And I was amazed that he is as close to a player coach as you will ever see in college football. there was a lot of really good things that went on at LSU and helped that team win a national title. Joe Brady was a good fit. Obviously, they recruited great receivers.

You know, Justin Jefferson, people saw how good he was last year when he broke into the NFL. I think Jamar is ridiculously talented. He's special. And Terris Marshall was good. And obviously Clyde is really good and fit in that system. How he operated, like there's a lot of stuff that they would do. like he got them out as much out of what LSU used to be more than any any offensive coach did.

You know, he wants to go get five, I don't want Max Protect. I want five guys out and I'm going to solve it. Like put it on me because I think, you know, there was a scene in the flip the script book I did a year ago where he goes take his visit to LSU. Remember at that point, like Urban Meyer didn't want him to be this, you know, didn't choose him to be the starting quarterback. They chose, you know, Dwayne Haskins, who had a good year. But I mean, to me, Joe Burrow is just so different. And when he's in, when he's with all these LSU coaches, and they had like 17 guys in the room,

Ojaron said, as they're watching him break down film, it didn't take me long to know who's the smartest guy in the room. And you got a lot of guys who coached in the NFL and coached at high level. And he's talking about the guy who really has never played in college football much. And he was just wowed by how savvy he was. And I think a couple of things people don't give him enough credit for. They know he's smart. I don't think they realize he, to me,

I think when people talk about Peyton Manning smart, I think that's what this guy's going to be. Also, he's really athletic. He was a great high school basketball player. You can see the running ability. He will make plays with his legs. He's not going to be Lamar, you know, like that. But he will make enough plays with his legs moving the football

that I think he is going to be a difference maker. Now, I hate the part where you ask me about Herbert, because Herbert has the only thing Justin Herbert, did not have coming out of college where I think there was a little hesitance. There was early on in his career. I remember Willie Taggart, who was the coach there at Oregon for a year, said he talked about in spring. He said we had to get Justin out of like hanging his head if he makes a bad play in practice.

Everybody else around you is kind of you're the quarterback. They're taking your cues. And Justin Herbert is the nicest guy I think I've ever covered in college football, right? I mean, he is, he's a brilliant kid, you know, at a 4-1. or whatever GPA in biology, you know, and everything and he's humble and all those things where sometimes, and you know this, a lot of, a lot of times we think of the quarterback has this swagger and this edge to him. Maybe the quarterback's not, you know, doesn't mind kind of being a jerk because that may be required to be in the leader. And you wonder, like, was, you know,

the only thing hesitant was, because you knew he can run, you know, he's huge. And you knew he had Josh Allen-like arm. The thing you wondered was, was he almost too, nice to be great in the NFL. How will he take over the leadership? And man, I love that, you know, I live in an L.A. I think it's awesome that this guy is going to be a huge star here because he checks every box in terms of like what he is as a human being. So I, again, I don't, I think quarterback and coach, I think they probably have a good chance of winning Super Bowls, right? You know, and there's some star power on that roster in certain spots.

But, I mean, the guy that I'm, I don't know if I would, I'm not, I've seen too much from Joe Burr to say the other guy, no matter who the other guy is. Wow, that's fascinating. Herbert in particular is a literal franchise savior because I don't think people, and maybe they did, realize how bad it was going to be with the Chargers franchise in that stadium if they didn't have Buzz immediately. And Herbert has created that buzz to the point that actually there's a lot more Chargers fans in LA than anticipated. But it's interesting.

All right. So I want to talk about something that you touched on in your book, you've touched on in your reporting, and that the pipeline now has changed so much that these young guys are ready sooner than ever. And we've seen this 10 times over the past decade. I mean, I think you look at a guy like RG3, who was kind of suggesting what was to come in 2012 when they used the Baylor playbook, the Shanahan's knew exactly kind of what to do with him and he had immediate success.

That's been repeated over and over again, whether that's with Justin Herbert, whether that's with obviously Mahomes in his second year. We've seen so many, Lamar Jackson at the end of his first year, beginning of his second year, we've seen so many of these guys so ready, so young. And I'm curious what you point to. Is that kind of the 10,000-hour theory of football

where these guys are not only using technology but playing seven on sevens, throwing more at the high school level than they ever had before. I mean, Andy Reid said this to me before, but they used to complain so much about these guys not throwing at all when they were in college.

And it was, oh, they're throwing too much, but then they just end up seeing thousands and thousands of defenses by the time that they're 20 years old. I'm curious what kind of the unifying theory of these guys being so ready, so young is, Bruce? I think it's a unique position where a little bit like baseball. Like I feel like baseball is a reps sport.

And, you know, you don't have to be, you know, you don't have to be the freakiest athlete to be a really, really good baseball player. And I'm not saying like, you know, Kyler's got obviously blessed and Patrick is blessed. And so is Josh Allen and physical traits. But I think that because it's such a reps position that a lot of these guys have had thousands of reps before they're in games because competitive seven on seven is different.

I think now than, you know, like they're just getting a lot of it. It's almost a year-round. It's not to say that because we see plenty of these quarterbacks are, you know, are really good because they played other sports. I mean, Mahomes definitely, I would go, I would say Burrow, you know, big-time basketball player. You see it, Kyler obviously big-time baseball player. You see them play other sports. But I think when it comes down to it in the off-season. for quarterback, it's like flight hours for them. And I think what certainly helps, you mentioned, you know, Andy Reid, if a quarterback goes into a system where the coach, I think, is very adaptable and kind of realize I got something special. Now, let me showcase it as opposed to get out of the way

kind of thing. I think that then that's an ideal situation, right? So I don't know how many quarterbacks, and you know, you could speak on this probably better than I can because you're so much more versus in the NFL now, but than I am. But I don't know how many quarterbacks, if you threw them into a less than ideal situation, they would still flourish. You know, I'm guessing Aaron Rogers, because he's so, so gifted, probably would, you know, flourish in almost anywhere he went. But I think there's a bunch of guys where if, you know, if you put Patrick someplace else

with a coach who wasn't so open mind where he didn't have a year behind, behind Alex Smith to learn, he was kind of thrown into it. you know, there's just missed some missing pieces. I'm not sure if, you know, I definitely don't think he would be as great as he is now. So I think it's a lot of factors that go into it. But I really think it's,

it's all the hours kind of in the cockpit of operating and having to go fast because there aren't too many guys I can think of. Like there's a quarterback at UCLA now, Dorian Thompson Robinson. He's a bright kid. He can run. He's got, you know, plenty of juice in his arm.

But he really only played quarterback in high school, one year. He went to Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas, which is a big time high school program. He was behind a very hyped recruit, and he played receiver. Then he played quarterback. He played a decent amount over the first three years of his career with Chip Kelly at UCLA. But it's not like he had a ton of that before he got to college. So I think there are guys where you're like, okay, this guy keeps showing up or they really have it. And I think that helps because it's just you know, it's a different game because it's faster, but how quickly does your mind work?

What do you see? I mean, I think the vision part with quarterbacks is so critical and how you can process. And if you just don't have a lot of experience at it, I think it's hard for them to make that transition. Non-quarterback question for you. So Urban Meyer is in football hell right now. I think there's a lot of things we could talk about here,

but I want to just just the big picture question. do you think that there's going to be a chilling effect in either direction that college coaches are not going to want to go to the pros after seeing sort of a rash of failures over the past few years or the NFL owners are going to say no more college stuff or is Urban Meyer just an outlier because a lot of this is on him alone. I think it'll make people a little more cautious but I think they will evaluate okay this guy Urban Meyer was obviously wildly successful.

There were certainly issues off the field culture-wise with him. But he won three national titles, and he won everywhere he went. The thing that I think you will have people probably be a little more scrutinizing is they'll drill down deeper on it, I think. You know, you look at Ryan Day at Ohio State. He's more of a hands-on offensive coach than certainly Urban was, as, you know, later in his career.

But I think Ryan Day is coached in the NFL. He knows what that world. is, you know, Jeff Hathley at Boston College, by the way, another guy who came, came through Ohio State for a little bit. He coached with the Niners. He coached in the NFL. He knows what that world is. Urban didn't. And Urban, like, having been around him quite a bit, he deal, like, he's a very different guy. Like, he's just, he's wildly unpredictable. He deals in absolutes, like, in ways that almost no one else I know is in terms of, like, everything is awesome or it's crap. You know, it's kind of like there is very little middle ground in how he sees things. And,

you know, a lot of times I saw, you know, I followed the coverage a lot of, you know, his transition there. And it obviously was rocky even before, you know, he flew on the plane, you know, home to Columbus. But I think, you know, people made reference to Jimmy Johnson. And yeah, Jimmy Johnson won a, you know, won a title at Miami. And then he had a rocky start with the Cowboys and obviously won Super Bowls. What I think is different. and it's first of all, they are very different personalities, how they relate to people. But the other thing that was significant to me is Jimmy Johnson, when he was in Oklahoma State, had a couple of three and eight seasons.

Urban Meyer never, as a head coach, dealt with any significant losses, right? He's already on the biggest losing streak of his career as a head coach. And the closest thing to it, the only time he had lost numerous games in a row, was his last year at Florida when he went into retirement. and went off to ESPN to go do TV the first time. So I think how he deals with failure, we can talk a lot. And this comes up, you know, this came up just the other day. I did a game, two as younger brothers, a talented quarterback at Maryland.

And one of the things that the staff was talking about was just getting him used to, you know, when things go bad, how do you bounce back from it? That's not just a quarterback and a college athlete thing. That's, in this case, that's the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, right? things are going bad and he did something that apparently no one has ever seen an NFL head coach do. He didn't fly back with the team and then he put himself and everyone around him in a really precarious and surprisingly awkward situation where he's in a bar that seems like it's better lit than some delivery rooms and he's doing stuff that you're like, I can't believe A, he did it and B, I can't believe there weren't

people around them and go, we got to get coach out of here. Yeah. No, it's interesting. The losing thing is so fascinating because I remember being in the end zone when the Miami Northwestern, that whole, you know, that whole class came in. Jaguarious and those guys were walking off the field. They just lost to North Carolina their freshman year. And they looked absolutely deject. And I was like, you better get used to who lives in North Carolina, buddy.

But somebody said one of the players was like, we just don't lose. That's just not something we do. And now they went up a level and they lost. And they didn't, you know, all these Miami. recruits had no idea how to process it. And it's something that we don't think about enough, just the ability to process losses at the next level. Last thing for you,

you know, this whole thing is about getting better at quarterback. NFL owners will throw money at anybody if they think that a college coach can help the quarterback. And that's why I think you'll, you'll see people try to go back to Lincoln Riley year after year after year. If you're pointing to a couple of college coaches who you think will either eventually be in the NFL or eventually have to turn down the NFL five times,

where do you start, Bruce? I actually think it's the guy who followed Urban Meyer to me, Ryan Day. He is, his temperament is really good. He has a good feel for offense. I think that you've seen, he's really flipped. Ohio State obviously had really good playmakers, but it was Braxton Miller, more dual threat guys. And now we're seeing, certainly with C.J. Stroud now,

but you're also seeing how it carries over to the receiver room. Like, look, credit to Brian Hartline. He's a former Ohio State player in the NFL receiver. who's the receiver coach, and they're recruiting big-time players, but I think it's the way they're coaching them. These guys are really good in the details. And I think people are taking note of that.

To me, he would be a top of the list guy, I think because it is about their kind of relationships. He's very hands-on coaching quarterbacks. And look, obviously, Dwayne Haskins has been a huge disappointment in the NFL. And maybe he'll flip it now that he's, you know, I don't say been humbled, but, you know, hit close to rock bottom. But I think Ryan Day would be a guy because getting back to the point about urban, I think there's going to be a lot of people.

It's not to say, because Lincoln's never been in the NFL, but Lincoln is really smart. I don't know when he would be tempted to go, okay, I've done all I can do in Norman. You know, I think the thing that people don't quite give enough credit to, especially when they talk about him as an NFL guy, is he knows he works for what is considered the best athletic. director in college, athletics, and Joe Castiglione. He's got a really, really good situation. Now, was he ever going to want to scratch the itch and say, hey, I've been to the playoff, but I never won a national title. What, you know, is it time? Because I think he knows that they've gotten better on defense since he hired Alex Grinch. They still have work to do. But I think those are the two guys who you would most look at and say, all right, I could see, you know,

one guy who's been in the NFL, the other guy hasn't. But in terms of Lincoln, he has taken elements of the air raid and he has still been able to incorporate a run game, which is something you know, Leach never really was able to do. And I think we're never even really wanted to do. I think in the case of Lincoln, he is, he's very smart at kind of keeping things digestible. You know, so to me, those are the top two guys. It's not to say there aren't other guys who the NFL will look at. I mean, to me, where you have like Matt Rule, Matt Campbell, to me has a lot of similarity to Matt Rule where he's just really good at developing players and creating a culture and I think he's authentic. Sometimes you hear about creating a culture

and some of those guys, it's more lip service. It wasn't with Matt Rule. It's not with Matt Campbell. The difference is Matt Rule had a little bit of time with the Giants in the NFL, whereas Matt Campbell hasn't. But I think he would, if he ever wants to do it, I could see, and I know there's been NFL interested in him, I could definitely see him moving up. that regard. I promised myself I wouldn't do it, but I'll just leave it at this. Who's coaching Miami next year? I don't know. Unlike the LSU situation, I think, I still think there's a road where because man, he has got an $8 million buyout and it's really costly. You know Miami's financial situation. You know, like can you make a plea to Mario

Cristobal and say your whole family's here, you can raise the kids in South Florida, and nobody cares more about being in South Florida in the coaching world than you do. Yeah, it's going to probably cost you money. And yeah, I know you think you're going to win it, have a national title team in 2022 and 2023. You know, like I could see Miami finding the money if Mario Cristobal, because his buyout, I think, is $9 million.

And obviously, Mannies is a significant. That's a lot of money for Miami. Miami's not Auburn when it comes to boosters. After that, you know, like Mark Stoops, who was at Miami when, you know, when they had Ed Reed and when they were really good, Mark Stoops has done an amazing job at Kentucky, you could say, not you or me,

but if you're a Miami person, you could say, look, you don't have to deal with Georgia in your division. You don't have to deal with Alabama in the other division. You know, it's like, you know what the ACC's are like. You can win big here.

You know what this place was like. His buyouts not big, but, you know, Mark Stoops has a chance to win 11 games. Kentucky will throw a lot of money to keep them, and I think a lot of other places will go after them. After those,

you know, after those two names, I'm not sure there's, it feels like there's any great answers. Do you look and say, hey, we're going to bring Billy Napier from ULL. Are you going to bring Jamie Chadwell from coastal Carolina? Those guys are good coaches and they've done well on the Sunbelt. But as you know, Miami is a different deal. And I'd be lying if I said I knew there was somebody else out there beyond the two names I mentioned, the one guy who financially, I'm not sure it makes sense for him to leave and the other guy and Mark Stoops, I don't know if he's going to get

seemingly better offers. I saw a headline the other day. the Barcelona president was hoping Messi would just play for free this year. That was the only way he could play is if he didn't make a dime. That's where we're out with Krista Ball. Julio Frank has to just be like, oh, maybe Mario would just come for the goodness of his heart, which is the most depressing pitch I've ever heard. Bruce Feldman, Athletic, Fox.

The book that we mentioned is the QB, but his reporting in the year's sense has also been enlightening. Thanks for joining us. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks. All right. Jim Monos, former Bill's, executive, former Eagles executive. Saints for a while. He is making a triumphant return

to the ring around NFL show. What's going on, Jim? Kevin, how you doing, man? It's been a while. All right. So we're doing something on how a quarterback gets better. And we just had Bruce Feldman on. We went through everything, both technologically, both, you know, just how a quarterback gets more accurate and practices it and the gurus they can have and the seven-on-sevenths and all that stuff. But I want to talk to you about it from a personnel standpoint.

Yeah. You did overlap with, with Sean McDermott in Buffalo. You sort of understood what he was building. You're obviously still in Buffalo. You study it very, very well. Worked with Andy Reed, worked with some of the smartest guys around. And I'm curious,

if you're to point to a couple of things about how a quarterback gets better from an offensive personnel standpoint, where would you rank the most important things as far as offensive lines, skill guys, just take it anywhere you want to go. No, it's interesting, Kevin. When we interviewed to hire for the head coach

for Buffalo, Sean McDermott, Anthony Lynn, a couple other guys. That question comes up. Obviously, you have them rank their positions in order. Like, what's your fit? You know, number one position, obviously quarterback. After quarterback, how do you want this bill? Every coach had it pretty different.

The one common position, though, that every coach had was offensive center, which I found fascinating because value-wise in a draft, you know, obviously you can take, there's been centers go, you know, the Alex Max, Eric Woods we had in Buffalo, first round centers who they do make a world of difference for a young quarterback. They take pressure off a young quarterback as far as calling protections, helping out with, you wouldn't believe how much they help out in the film room with the other offense alignment. So that was one thing that I learned going through that process that how valuable a center really is. We always think of tackles as the value on the offensive line, but centers are important. Now, you still have to assign those values.

I mean, I was with the Eagles and Saints where we had centers that weren't high picks, you know, undrafted guys. So quarterbacks can make up for that as well. But I'm just saying it is important to some coaches. I feel like pass rush has to be pivotal in crossability. As soon as you have a franchise quarterback, you can, those franchise quarterbacks, they're going to make other guys on the offense better. They have a way of doing that. Drew Breeze, when we're in the New Orleans, Philadelphia. I mean, yes, we had great skill players around.

them. But they weren't necessarily, you know, the big time names that you hear. I mean, you piece it together a little bit. Kind of what Buffalo is done after they went out and got digs. They really done a nice job of piecing together weapons around. They each have a role in that offense that I find fascinating. I think what they've done is amazing. But we did that in New Orleans the same way on offense, where you had your deep threatened every Henderson. Marcus Colston was your big target. Robert Meacham, big fast target. So you always had an obviously tight ends were huge. And you see Dawson Knox right now for Buffalo,

his third year emerging as a weapon. And that is going to change that offense, because that was the one thing they were missing was a big tight end. And they drafted him and developed him, which they've done a great job of. It's fascinating. You know, the center thing I find interesting because people have been talking about Rodney Hudson in Arizona

the last couple weeks as a guy who has really helped out Kyla Murray. And if you're looking at the reasons Kyler has gone from really good to really great over the past couple of weeks, people have pointed out Hudson as a really great acquisition there. I'm curious, Jim, if you, you know, have been worked with Sean Payton,

Andy Reid, Sean McDermott, and then just studying the league, what's the best job around a team-building job around a quarterback you've ever seen since you've been in the league? It doesn't have to be somebody that you worked with. But when you say this is the blueprint, what is it? Well, I'm going to go with the Saints

because we did win a Super Bowl And we did, you know, I came in there in 2005 when it was a complete mess, Aaron Brooks. And we kind of did build that thing straight up. You know, Coach Peyton went out and identified Drew Breeze. And then he had a plan. Now, the defense is big. You know, my personal philosophy after learning for Coach Peyton and seeing how it was done, get your quarterback and then build your defense.

Because defense you're going to be in every game. Quarterback should put you over the top. So I think that to me was always the philosophy I went used. And in Buffalo, where we went wrong was, you know, obviously we were trying with E.J. Manuel, Tyrod Taylor. Yeah. But our defenses were good enough, unfortunately. You know, we had playoff caliber defenses. We just didn't have the other part.

So defense to me, defense to me is huge. I just feel like I would invest, invest, invest, invest in defense as much as I could once I had the quarterback in place. Of course. Assembling a group of skill guys around a quarterback is so unbelievably important. And obviously you have to keep them upright. And it's something that Bean and I have talked about is sort of the way that they had Josh Allen and built around him was they, first of all, they had him take his lumps early in that first year. I think they had $60 million in dead cap. But then they got him upright the next year with the O line.

The next year they get the skill guys and they're off to the races. What's something we don't think enough about when we're assembling the skill guys, whether that's trying to get easy completions or the deep threat or whatever. When you're trying to put together skill guys, where do you start, Jim? So for me with the skill guys, running backs have to have, you want two of them if you can, just like the bills are doing right now. We did it in New Orleans, Deuce McAllister, Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush. Give different styles of running back. Don't always have the same guy coming in.

Buffalo's doing that now with Moss and Singletary a little bit. So running back, I would say, have different styles. Receivers, other big guys are never going to be great route runners, right? We know that. But, man, what Buffalo has done, I love. Coach Payton used to say this. all the time. How many guys can just get off the ball, free release, and run deep and run

by everybody? We always care about the 40 times so much. That's not necessarily everything you should pay attention to. Route running toughness and hands goes forever. Look at Diggs. Emmanuel Sanders, Cole Beasley. These guys all run routes right now. Catch the ball. Make yards after

the catch. You know, that is, that's invaluable. And then obviously, I think you've got to find a tight end who is reliable, catches the ball. So each position, I think you have to specifically define But to just look off size and speed, be careful on that. You really have to define that specific value. How do they uncover themselves as receivers and tight ends?

Can they be, can they get the ball and make something happen? Yeah, we talk so much about making life easy for the quarterback. You know, this guy's a safety valve. From actually just an acquisition and personnel standpoint, what does that mean? Does that mean just guys in the slot who can get open? Does that mean tight ends who can just be your safety valve whenever? when you're looking for those sort of players, who are you looking for?

What are some good examples, Jim? Yeah, and I think a safety valve is that. I think it's a guy that you just know, hey, he's going to be, quarterbacks need to know, they need to know you're going to be in the right spot. When I come off my first read, second read, that safety valve on that play,

every play has a different safety valve, right? So on that play, I need to know you're going to be there because I'm not going to have time to look. I need to be able to one, two is not there, three, I'm throwing it because I know you're going to be at that spot. Breeze was unbelievable with that. Unbelievable. The guy I would use was Lance Moore in that offense for us,

where he always knew exactly where Moore was going to be, and Moore would always catch the ball, run the right route. And I just, I feel like that's how the bills are right now, too, where you see Josh Allen, he knows exactly when to dump the ball off, who's going to be there. He's really using, he used Moss a really nice job the other night, you know, thrown to him. So I think you saw it last night too with the Colts.

You know, I thought the Colts had a great game plan last night to, they really were just checking out. I mean, his two touchdown passes, one was the high school school, swing route and then a jump ball that, you know, just the big boy play. So it wasn't like he was dumping. He was, he was just going down the field. So I think you have to have those styles. What's a team right now that's building in a really smart way around a young quarterback? Chargers. Love what they did. Slater, that picket left tackle is so good right now. And I'm watching tape on the Bengals. I was just watching this morning. He's getting hit a lot still.

He is getting destroyed. And that's a major issue. I know they've invested a little bit, but right now it's not, it's not working. Their offensive line is struggling. Burrow is really under pressure. Herbert, that offensive line is playing really well with the Chargers because they already kind of had the skill guys in place. So that team, that Charger team, I think,

really seems to be like just going that way. I agree. I agree. I mean, it's all the right moves. It's shoring up the offensive line. They already had the skill guys, unlike most of these teams. That's the key is they didn't have to. to go ahead and reach for any, you know, I almost say reach. Like, Jamar Chase obviously is a stud,

but, you know, is that net, you already have Boyd, you already had Higgins, you have some investment already in Cincinnati at receiver mixing it running back. Why not keep, why not take us later, you know, if that, if that would have helped? Yeah, I totally agree with you. How was the timeline change in the rookie quarterback era for, for these guys? Because it seems to me that you kind of need to know what you have at the end of the second year. Um, and you better get players around. that and once you drop the quarterback and you're already you're either spending a high first round pick on a quarterback or you traded a bunch of

first round picks or even kind of harm the timeline a little bit and I'm curious as someone who puts teams together at three different stops. Now that we have this over a decade that we know what the working quarterbacks are, the timeline has changed how? I think timeline is now. As far as get them on

the field, you know, get them out there. The whole Bears thing to me is just confusing I never understood what was going on. Get them out there. Get these guys out there and play. There is no, I think that was the old way. Like when I was in Philly, I saw we tried to bring McNabb along slowly. Doug Peterson was the starter.

The first year we were, you know, when I was in Philly. And anymore, I don't see it. Get them, draft them, see what you have. They'll figure it out and prepare it. Like, I like what the Patriots are doing. I agree with that. Throw him in there. Let's go.

If he knows the offense, let's play. All right. Last thing for you, if there, was one kind of bit of advice or one one thing we don't talk about enough with how a quarterback gets better that you think you know i mean there's so many things and when you're inside the game was so funny i was doing a podcast a couple weeks ago with this guy named colin thompson who plays for the panthers and he was saying that when you watch a game with an NFL player and you you think you know about it it's the worst experience in the world because you know nothing because he was saying that he

he'll watch with his buddies and they'll say oh they're not covering the tight end and it's like no dude they're covering the tight end it's just that you know there's a hundred things they have to to you before you could understand why it looks like they're not covering the tight end. Teams are very rarely not covering the tight end. It just appears that way. I'm curious if someone has been on the inside, if you could impart anything on how to build around a quarterback to an outsider, where would you go with that, Jim?

Kevin, I didn't realize the importance of what you basically are saying. The intelligent has, it has to be off the chart intelligence. They basically need to be able to run an offensive install meeting. The coaches shouldn't even be there. I can remember Breeze. I mean, it was just incredible. I would sit in the offseason in some OTA meetings. And my head would be blown away.

He was the one calling, hey, hey, we ran this route three years ago, Meacham. I need to know you're going to be there. I mean, it was that style. It was that in depth. They go back and you build, they build libraries. These smart quarterbacks, they know every play from every game, coverage. It's off the charts.

And I used to think, oh, come on, how much do they really need to know? it's basically what you said. I mean, it's like sometimes, I mean, we all feel that way sometimes. Like cover the tight end or, you know, I love when people always say, hey, just blitz more on defense. It's like, you know, it's like, come on. There's more to it than just that. And the quarterbacks that are so smart, they take you to the next level. It might not happen year one.

But the coaches know he's the right guy because he's catching on to everything. Hey, what's the most aggravating thing? Is it just what's more, when you hear like, when you're at a sports bar and you hear that, What's the most aggravating thing from random fans? It can be Blitzmore or we got to establish the run. Yeah. Those get me, those always get me like, we got to establish the run. Like, you know, really don't the way the rules are set up.

You really should establish scoring points early by throwing the ball and run the ball later in the game to win the game. But those are the things I always hear. Run the ball, blitz more. You know, that's the common. Absolutely incredible. Jim, honest, thanks for joining us, buddy. Kevin, thank you.

That was great. We can hear you on the PixWi... Let me do this again. Three, two, one. You can hear Jim on the PixWise Let It Bet Show. Is that out right now, Jim? Let's bet it. It's every day.

It's a daily show. And I appear on Mondays. Love it. Listen to them there. Jim, thanks so much, buddy. Thanks, Kevin. That was awesome. All right.

Thank you to Bruce and Jim for joining us. Next up on this feed, Nora and Mallory. We'll tackle the big issues of the week. And then Kaelin, Ben, and Stephen Ruiz, We'll join the feed on Friday. Love all of those people. Cannot wait to listen.

This episode was produced with help by Stefan Anderson with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkopol. This has been the Ringer NFL show on The Ringer Podcast Network.