The Ringer NFL Show - Is Kyler Murray Going to Win the MVP Award?

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

Kevin is joined by ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss to discuss the Cardinals’ success this season, Kyler Murray as a leader, and their chances as a Super Bowl contender. Then he talks with former NFL head coach Marc Trestman on what he’s seen in Kyler Murray thus far, why younger QBs succeed, and the differences between college and NFL coaches. Host: Kevin Clark  Guests: Josh Weinfuss and Marc Trestman 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 Rener NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, awesome show today. The big question, is Kyler Murray going to win MVP?

To answer that question, I'm joined by Josh Weinfist, who covers the Arizona Cardinals for ESPN. We talk about Kyler, his rise, Cliff, how that team was built, the NFC West, other NFC contenders, the MVP race. Then Mark Tresman, longtime coach joins me. He did intensive tape study of Kyler of the Cliff Kingsbury offense, as well as really good nuggets on Justin Herbert, some of the other MVP candidates,

really interesting kind of insight on the Bears team, the he coached 2013 and 2014. I love both these conversations, and let's get to it. All right, Josh Weinfis, ESPN, Arizona Cardinals writer, longtime Arizona Cardinals writer. Josh, you're covering a good team right now. I don't know what this feels like.

It's happening like a team this good. It's only happened one other time. That was 2015 with, you know, Bruce Ariens, Carson Palmer and David Johnson coming on to the scene. So other than that, I mean, there's been some bad football here the last few years. So it's kind of nice. There's been some real bad football. And now there's some of the most exciting football anywhere on the planet right now. And I want to start here.

So the big question for this episode is can Kylo Murray win the MVP? And I want to start at the beginning. The decision to draft Kyler Murray when they already had Josh Rosen, I mean, we've, we've, we've we saw the memes many years ago. The Josh is our guy thing which still kind of gets recirculated all the time because Cliff Kingsbury gave Josh Rosen vote of confidence around the time

he took the job. But how did the franchise view Kyler Murray when they got that first overall pick and sort of did they know he was going to be this special? Is that why they made this move, Josh? So they didn't really know anything until they hired Kingsbury, which was about nine, ten days after that season ended.

So they came off of a three and 13 year with Steve Wilts in 2018. He earns a disaster, right? He's a defensive-minded head coach. He changed the entire scheme from a three-four to four-three. They had Rosen. They had Sam Bradford for first, like, three games, like three-quarters, whatever it was.

And it was just an utter mess, right? Wilkes didn't get along with the front office, all sorts of stuff. So then obviously they fired him hired Club Kingsbury. And I think that they didn't care who, like, at that point, when they fired Wilkes and that kind of like week and a half and they were doing their coaching search.

I don't think that they even pay attention with the first pick. They wanted to get their coach in place and kind of let him make that decision. But I think the second that they signed Kingsbury to a contract, that first pick was signed sealed and delivered, right? They knew.

He knew who he wanted. He had wanted Tyler since he was 15 and couldn't get him in Texas Tech because the kid was an all-world talent and he went to obviously to A&M and Oklahoma. So, you know, they wanted to pair Kingsbury up the quarterback of his choice and the quarterback of his choice was obviously

Tyler Browne. Wow, that's fascinating. The Kingsbury hire, and I want to kind of, again, go back in time here, the Kingsbury hire was strange because he took a college office of a coordinator job and all of a sudden he's an NFL head coach. I don't necessarily want to get him nuts and bolts

of why that hire has happened, why that hire happened that's been well documented. But Cliff's evolution as a pro coach has been what? What do we need to know about Cliff arriving in the NFL, a place, listen, he was an NFL player. It's not like, and we had Bruce Feldman on a couple of weeks ago, and he was talking about the incident, Urban Meyer and some of the other guys is that if you've been in the NFL for one day, you understand the beast to a little bit more. Urban Meyer had not been. But the journey to him becoming at least a, I mean, he's undefeated head coach right now going into Thursday night football.

What has been the kind of the tent pulls of that journey? So first of up, it's really funny that you bring up the whole idea that Kingfury had NFL experience compared to those other coaches. So I was standing in Whole Foods together, talking to my dad. And I brought up that exact point because he understands just the NFL way of life. He understands what guys are going through. And I think that's helped him immensely relate to a locker room. Whereas guys like Sabin and Urban Meyer and Matt Rule, like they probably understand it to a degree, but not having lived it, not having under, you know, kind of had to go through that, that idea that you can get

cut every day. Like, you need to put food on your table and all that stuff. Like, these are grown men in Kingsbury understand that. So I think over the three years, that's really helped them quite a bit. But what's really kind of evolved with him is his understanding of NFL offensive football. He came in, from what I understand, and he had all these plays who wanted to do. And basically, the coaches who had been around for a while were like, no, no, no, no, like went across the board.

It was like, these aren't going to work because you just can't do this in the NFL, whether it's because of the hash marks or because of the athleticism, you know, guys are going sidelines to sideline a lot easier and a lot better here than they are in college. So a lot of the, you know, the schemes that he wants to run, all the fancy stuff, like, just wasn't going to work. And Kingsbury, we heard a lot the first year as he was trying to be too cute with his play calling and played in time. And it was true, you know, but I think what we've seen as him kind of understand that, you know, the NFL game is vastly different than the college game.

While it's also pretty similar, right, he's pretty, in Kyler Murray's offensive system, which he's run since the eighth grade, which actually his high school coach got from Kingsbury during a coach's clinic down the Lubbock. So he's putting in kind of what Murray has already known, kind of what Murray ran in college, and just kind of pair that with a running game

because he understands you have to run the football in the NFL to win. And that evolution over three years is kind of what we've seen now. And an offense is just, it's really hard to stop. He has the players that he needs to run it. We have a running game that kind of is just dominant at times. And we're just seeing it all kind of blossom into this beautiful flower of the seven-old season. All right. So it's interesting to me because going into this season, I believe I use the phrase, pray for Cliff,

because I thought that the Rams are going to be really good, and they are. The Seahawks are going to be better. Obviously, we didn't know the Russell Wilson situation. And I thought that the Niners would at least be a playoff team, maybe like a seventh seat, right? or maybe Tray Lance hits or maybe Gropolo plays better. I remember the reports in August

were, ooh, Garapolo is playing lights out, but so is Trey Lance. Turns out neither of them are playing lights out. But it just seemed like the Cardinals were going to be a good team with a good quarterback,

and they were just going to get absolutely destroyed by a bunch of teams that were better than them. And if the Cardinals were in the AFC South, it would be a different story, right? But here they are going on Thursday night as the best team in the division. And I'm curious,

did they see this coming or are they a little bit surprised right now? If you ask them, they saw this coming. Of course, I mean, they're like, oh, we're going to go on the Super Bowl. Did they see this coming in July or did they see this in October looking back on July? I think that they knew they were going to be good, right? I think when you added the pieces that they added, they knew what holes they had after last year. And, you know, I've been saying this a lot lately. Last year they were, you know, excuse upon, they were House of Cards.

They had a couple of good pieces, you know, but there wasn't a foundation to this team. And going out and getting AJ Green, with drafting Rondale Moore, getting James Conner. I think that really solidified this offense into what it is today. Because now, you know, and, you know, it sounds cliche, but a defense can't cover all these guys, right? You can't double-team Gondrey Hopkins and have your number two receiver be, or their number two receiver, and E.J. Green kind of run wild. And if you're going to cover him, then Christian Kirk's of it. you know, there's just so many weapons,

and they go four wide, they go five wide, they have a running league that can go 99 yards. So they knew what pieces they had, and they knew that they had the personnel to be good. And then let's talk about defense, because I think the defense is really kind of as big of a part of the story, but it's getting overlooked of the nationally

because of how good Tyler's playing. I mean, you add JJ Watt, which honestly nobody really knew what he had when they signed him in March. You know, you draft Savin Collins, which was head scratching because you already you drafted Isaiah Simmons last year. And you had Jordan Hicks on the roster. But somehow it went from Jordan Hicks wanting out to this three-man unit

coexisting at a very high level together. You know, I'll see Chandler Jones and brought back Marcus Golden last year. So they have a lot of pieces on defense that are, they're complimenting each other very well because now what you're seeing is Chandler Jones on one side, Marcus Golden on the other, and JJ Watt up the middle. He's playing at a very high level, even if his numbers don't show. They are great on third down and they're great at stopping Team 4th. from scoring. But when you have a team that's

scoring 30 points a game, like, that's a great recipe. So they knew they had the pieces. I don't think they expected this team to be this good at this point, right? I think they probably thought it would take, you know, four or five games to get going, but all of a sudden they dominate the Titans week one, and it's kind of not, you know,

they're often running from that. All right. So what I like about your answer is you said that no one's talking enough but the defense nationally. They're only talking about Kyler. So I'm going to ask you five Kyler questions in a row. All right, so take take me inside the leap here because Kyla Murray's playing like an MVP candidate.

And it's been unbelievable to watch. And some of that, as you said, is the offense around him, is Rondell Moore is just certain other guys around him taking the leap. And, you know, even though Rodney Hudson's banged up, somebody like him, you know, we had Giumano's on the pot a couple of weeks ago. And he was saying that when he talks to when he's in head coaching a job interview, Sometimes they say rank the positions that you prioritize. And so often when you're maximizing your quarterback, center is where you start, especially with the young quarterback protection, all that sort of help. But if you're at a point to a couple of things, okay, this is happening, his greatness,

his leap here is happening because of blank. Where do we start, Judge? His ability to check in and out of place. So we really didn't see that for the first couple of years. And we're seeing a ton this year. He has a much better understanding of, A, what the Cardinals are doing, B, what Cliff is thinking, and see what defenses are trying to do to him. So when he's step with the line of scrimmage, you know, he's been checking in and out of a time all year, right?

Just, whether it's plays, whether it's blocking schemes, whatever it is. Some of that is from Rodney Hudson, who's playing out of very, he was playing a very high level before he got hurt too. And that helped him, that helped Tyler quite a bit. Before this, he was playing behind a very young center in Mason Cole and now with the Vikings. and that just wasn't, that wasn't a good recipe for a young Corvette to develop. But now he has a veteran center. But we're seeing Kyler kind of that understand, right? He's taking that mental jump, just as much he's taking a physical jump.

So, you know, if he sees the safety shade one way, he's going, you know, he'll check into a throw to DeAndre, whatever it is. But that's allowed him to kind of take control of his offense. So whatever Cliff calls, Kyler has that freedom to go into whatever he wants, whatever he's comfortable with. And every one of their plays has three options. It's a run, it's a pass. It's a Kyler keeper. So he's able to kind of just do what he wants out there. And I think what we're seeing is we're seeing that guy that was great in high school,

that was great in college, now be able to have that ownership and that freedom and do what he wants in the field. And now he's doing that end of the out of. Wow. That was fascinating. I didn't anticipate that. You know, with Kyler and, you know, his, we're going to talk about this a little bit later with Mark Trussman. But with Kyler and his athleticism, I think. that sometimes people don't realize how good of a passer he's been.

And you see that now, I mean, like, to be honest, I don't think AJ Green has a lot left, but he looks like he has a lot left when Kyler Murray makes him look good. And with the Hopkins thing, with the Kirk, thing, I mean, there's just so many options, as you said, in the offense. And I'm curious, you know, how they built this receiving core and what they had kind of in mind when they were putting it together. I mean, obviously, if you can get DeAndre Hopkins,

you get DeAndre Hopkins. But how did they view sort of the accumulation of these assets to build around Kyler? And how did they maximize him from just a personnel standpoint? They've been trying to do this for three years, right? So his rookie year, in 19, they drafted Andy Isabella and Kishan Johnson. Johnson's not in the team anymore. And they drafted one more. Hassan Baller, I think it was.

They cut him pretty early on. I think it made four year two. Kishon Johnson was cup for this season, and Andy Isabella has barely been active this year. So they were trying to put these options around him, and they just haven't panned out. So then obviously you trade for D'Andre Hopkins, to get him for David Johnson and a bag of footballs, basically. And then this year, I think they realized last year that after him,

there really wasn't much. You know, Larry Fitzgerald, as great as he was, he just wasn't that anymore. He was good for five yards, you know, great in the locker room, all that stuff. But he just wasn't producing the way they needed him to on the field. So once you're able to move on from him, it seemed like there was kind of a weight lift off this team.

And you saw, you know, Christian Kirk moved back into the spot when she played in college. He's flourishing there. They needed a really, really good number two. And like, you brought up the fact that E.J. Green might not have a lot left in him. But playing alongside Gondrey Hopkins and with a quarterback like Tyler, he looks like he has a ton left in him. He's been making plays when he needed to, you know, like Tyler dropped that 41-yard pass to him across the field on Sunday. And it was like, I mean, you put it right in his breadbasket. It was like, this dropped it right in there.

It was incredible. So, Tyler is making these guys good, right? They're obviously really good receivers. I should say he's making them look great at times. So they wanted to put the right pieces around him, veterans, guys that can fit specific roles. And then, you know, so you have, you know, Dandre is your number one, AJ's your number two, Christian Kurtz are number three. And Ronnie Lamar is kind of your, you know, your four, but he can kind of do a little bit of everything. And then they're running out Chase Edmonds out of the back.

So they wanted to surround him with the pieces that he needs to run this version of the Rade quote unquote and be able to kind of check into things I go talking about and make defenses not have a clue who's going to have the big game and they've done that. And given them talent, but each guy's different. Each guy brings their own unique set of skills

and that gives Kyle the ability to kind of use each guy in specific situations. And I think obviously it's worked. Who did the Cardinals, and maybe there's no answer here. But obviously with the Rams being as good as they are, but then they won by 17 points a couple of weeks ago, they would consider that the biggest threat. Is this in Europe,

you're around them every day, is this a Super Bowl team? Like is this a, is this a Super Bowl level team, or is this a like 7 and O, it's nice, they might make the playoffs kind of thing. You've been around,

I mean, obviously we talked about it a little bit earlier. You were around the Carson Palmer, Rosarians teams that got to their conference championship game. We're competing for Super Bowls. Is this that kind of team, or is this team like a year away? No, this is a super.

Bowl team, and this is a team that could that can't just not get it. They could win the Super Bowl at this point, I think. But, and this is a huge caveat. I know we hear it from every single team, but it's even more important with the Cardinals. Tyler Murray needs to stay out. Because if he's not able to play at his level,

this team is not, it's a playoff team that's not a Super Bowl team. He makes it a Super Bowl caliber team and a team able to win the Lombardi trophy in February 8, so far, where they've obviously already won once. So, I tweeted this up for the season because I wanted to kind of, honestly, between us and everyone that's listening, I wanted to recognize this out there. This offense reminded me a lot of 2015, but it has better pieces.

And that was after training camp. That was before the season started because you can see what Kyler, how Kyler developed. You can see what he was looking at in De Ivory Hopkins. You kind of saw in training camp how good AJ Green was looking for me, what, 33. And then you saw the little pieces here and there. You know, you saw, you know, I think a major story that's kind of falling way under the radar. And I'm not surprised is that Chase Edmonds has become a very, very good task catcher out of the back field. So that's added a whole other different dynamics to this team.

So they just had all those pieces. You saw Kylie's maturity. I mean, he said one thing this year. And he would basically, I don't see the media's had a bad relationship with him. But it hasn't been fantastic, right? He's laughed at some of our questions. if he doesn't like the question, he was giving us short answers.

And that's changed this year. At one point, he said, I understand what you guys are trying to do. I understand you guys have a job. And, like, that would never come out of his mouth the first two years.

So we're seeing this maturity as a human being as a man and as a player. And I think between that and all the weapons and all the pieces, it's just kind of, this is a super world caliber team. And like I said, this team could win the Super Bowl this year.

All right, what's one thing we don't know about Kyle and Murray? Like, because I think a lot of times, Josh, like a guy gets famous. We know everything about Aaron Rogers now. We know every single thing about Russell Wilson. In fact, we just learned that Russell Wilson, if he can't play, just kind of runs around the field doing mental reps or whatever.

So we're learning things about, I guess we're learning new things all the time. But we know a hell of a lot about the star quarterback's in this league. We just read Seth's Wickersham's book. You learned a hell a lot more about Tom Brady than you did. Kyla Murray is going to be on that level in a couple of years. he's getting to that level now. What are we going to be talking about in two years in Cala Murray? I don't know we're going to be talking about it two years.

Well, we probably will because he probably... We're talking about now. We can start the narrative. Whatever narrative you want to start right now, we will just start it. He loves video games. He is like this, whatever... He's a gamer. He might be our first gamer MVP.

100%. I mean, he's part of the Face Clan, which is a massive gaming team, community, corporation, kind of whatever you want to call it. after every win this year, he has gone home and turned on his Twitch stream to play games. And he's about a thousand people watching him

and kind of he's showing his side of him and he actually likes it. I talked about the story coming out on Thursday before the Thursday night game against the Packers about how he loves to stream and kind of what we've learned from watching his stream over the last kind of month, month and a half, the first seven weeks, if you will. He wants people to get to know him underneath that home. He wants to show his personality.

league. And he does that by playing video games with his boys. You know, a lot of the guys he plays with are guys that he grew up with. Guys he's in middle school, high school, all this stuff. Some guys from Oklahoma, once in a while we'll see Cardinal pop on there. But he just, that's his way of decompressing. You can see he's incredibly competitive on the game. And he actually told me that he yells more. I think he's been on the field. So we're seeing a different side of him. And I think this is kind of a new wave. Like we're going to see, there's a lot of guys that play video game from the NFL. So I start, so I think, you know, more guys that kind of see what Tyler's doing and letting people and I think we're going to see more of it. And I think we're going to start getting unique access to these guys that we would never have gotten elsewhere. All right. A couple more for you.

Number one, if Kyle and Murray wins the MVP, it's because of what? What does he need to do for the next? How many weeks for us in season 10? Because I think that there's a conversation here with there's a lot of kind of upper cross quarterbacks right now, maybe three or four. What does he need to do to separate? himself. He needs to keep winning. He needs to bring this franchise to a level they've never been to him. If they win this week,

they start eating out for the first time in franchise history. And then, you know, he needs to prove that he's, I think there's this common misperception of him that he's just be running quarterback with an arm. Like you pointed out earlier, he has an incredible arm, right? He has, he could be a dropback passer if he really wanted to,

but he also knows that his legs can get him out of a lot of trouble, which they have. And we've seen the marriage of both. We've seen him use of legs to get out of trouble, then drop dying. right? He can do both. So I think if he keeps that up and they keep winning, I mean, I don't want to say it to me a no-brainer, but I don't know.

I think Josh Allen might be the closest competition at this point, maybe Brady, but I think that, you know, I think he's going to make it very, he's not a very strong case to be the MVP. Pro Bowl Focus had a piece today kind of rating the MVP candidates, and they had Stafford, Murray, Prescott, Brady. And I think that's probably the four right now. And barring any sort of crazy thing in the next 10 weeks, I think that's right.

One more for you. As a leader, and that's the big thing with the young quarterbacks thing, and just sort of a commander locker room thing, is he more of a, and listen, this, this, one of the things that NFL teams have adjusted over the past 10 years is the coach always wanted the rah-rah guy, the kind of, you know, varsity blue speech kind of quarterback in the halftime or whatever. and I think most people realize a lot of that doesn't necessarily matter you know and there's different types of leadership and all that stuff since we don't know a ton about Kyla Murray on the NFL level because he doesn't play a lot of Saturday night games doesn't play a lot of Monday night games that that piece is what he is he's more of spoken than he was as a rookie

but he's still not he's not that Rairod guy right but he is a guy that is going to cheer to you out if you screw up. He'll do it in a practice, he'll do it on the field. But he's been able to win the trust of guys in the locker room from rookies to the vets because of his approach.

He's more of a, I'll show you kind of guy. He'll lead by example. He's very competitive. And guys know that he will, especially the offensive linemen, they know he will make him look right. Or they'll make him, he will make them look right.

So I think the combination of all of that, has been kind of highly developing as a leader. He goes out to dinner with the offensive line every week. He picked up the tab last week. He knows what he needs to do to get guys to believe in him, and he's been doing it. You know, he was, like I think, very quiet first year when we had at Lodromaxus,

didn't really talk to a lot of guys, kind of kept his head down, and then we started to see him coming out of his show. And I asked him about that once, and he tried to contest that. He's like, I don't really have a show. And I was like, well, you do, what I see, from what we see on a day-to-day basis, you've become, you've had more of a personality show the last couple of years. And what he said to me was that if he knows you, if he's comfortable with you,

that personality will be there. But if he doesn't know you, then he's going to kind of go into that shell like a little permit and just wait until he's comfortable with you. And I think that's pretty common in society, right? I mean, who's just totally open and and verbose and all those other stuff with guys that just met. So I think early on, that's what we saw out of him. And now he's more comfortable with guys. And he understands his role in his team, right?

He loves being the face of the franchise. The guys who, the guy, I'll just interrupt you for a second. The guys who are really robust and like out there as soon as they get there are normally the frauds who get found out pretty quickly. Anyway, go ahead. I agree with you. I agree with you. But the one thing that I think really stood out to me this year is he, he's, love, love, what Aaron Rogers

said in his big press conference to start training camp, right? He loved the idea. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. That's not good for Arizona. Honestly, I think it empowered Tyler to a point. Because, you know, he's always wanted to have some sort of say and personnel. But now he feels like, this is my team. I know what we need to win. Now we're talking. He wants, like, he loves texting Kingsbury and GM Steve Kine about guys

He even said, he's like, I will shoot. Basically, he'll shoot his shop, right? He'll be like, I want this guy. I want this guy. He's like, it doesn't happen. It's out of my control. But he's like, I'm going to let them know who I want and what I want because I'm out there. I understand what we need, what we're missing, what we have better than anybody.

And I agree with them, right? So I think we're starting to see that leadership kind of improve and develop over every single aspect of facet of him as a person, him as a player. And we're kind of, I mean, we're literally watching him. return development in front of our eyes. Unbelievable. He's, Kylo Murray's on Twitch. Josh Weinfuss is on ESPN. You can find both of those guys there.

Thanks for joining us, buddy. Thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it. All right. Mark Trussman, a long time, coach, head coach, offensive coordinator at many different levels of football. We are excited for him to break down offenses, quarterbacks, coaching, all of it.

Mark, what's going on, buddy? That's a lot to ask, Kevin. and I'll do the best I can, but thanks for me out today. I'm appreciative the opportunity to catch up with you. Yeah, I know. This will be really fun. So I wanted to start the theme of the episode, big picture, is is Kyler Morgan and Win MVP?

And I think that there is something really interesting about when a quarterback makes the leap, about why he made the leap and kind of everything that went right for him. And we're seeing a guy right now who is playing as good as anybody in the league. I'm curious, When you watch the tape, Mark, you see what from Kyler, first of all, and then we'll get into the Cardinals' offense. Yeah, I think we should start with the big picture, Kevin, and just talk about what's going on around him. Three years with the same coach, familiarity with the offense.

Steve Kime has done a tremendous job of adding some difference making and game-wrecking pieces on both sides of the ball. They also play continuity football in Arizona, where the defense is matching a lot of the things the offense is doing. The run to pass in Arizona is 50-50, 49-51. That's a little unusual for the NFL. So, you know, we're Trevor Lawrence is in a 60-40 pass to run. Kyler's in a 50-50 pass to run or run to pass. that helps him a lot.

He also doesn't change protections at the line of scrimmage. And what they've done for him, if they've made it very much a quarterback-friendly offense from that side of it, and I'll be interesting when the Packers see that, how they maybe incorporate some things defensively to confuse the line to get to him. 50% or more of the passes have been on or near the line of scrimmage. The last three weeks,

they're 80% on third down. They've converted all their fourth downs over the year, 100%. So there's a lot of big pictures things going out. He's also always in the gun. So they don't have to work on being under center. Their play action comes from under the gun. But then the progression over the last three weeks has been very visible. Three weeks ago, they came out against the 49ers,

and they didn't throw a pass beyond 10 yards until late in the game. they won a close game. It was really a high school offense, but then there has been a big progression over the last three weeks. Nothing's really original and nothing's complex, but they're starting to run more play action passes, more NFL, I would say productive NFL concepts, nothing complex, but more up the field, deeper crossing routes,

outside lane throws, and things like that. So I just wanted to get the big picture is, you know, this is a guy who has everything going for him around him. And really as a 50-50 run to pass team, they're not expecting him to have to win the game. That's obviously they're playing as a team in my opinion. But then you look to the player and you cannot be more excited. There's a guy that just let's talk about mechanics. His footwork in the pocket is impeccable. as good as anybody in the league.

He's got great feet. And I'm talking about athleticism at all yet, but he has tremendous feet, and he is being coached to do it a certain way, and he's showing that he's coachable. A quick three is a quick three. A rock and throw is a rock and throw. Three big, too quick, you know,

and the gun is equivalent of a seventh step, and his right foot's at nine and a half yards. So all of his mechanics coincide with the depths of the routes. he's as good as anybody with that. The thing I really like about him when he's in the pocket, he's an excellent pocket passer, a tip of the ball and the V in the neck, the ball is up and out. It's a beautiful, smooth motion is that his eyes are always up. He's always working the pocket and looking to complete,

when he gets those true NFL concepts where there's a deep over with a flat and a check, he's reading through it, he's playing with a quiet mind, and he's staying in the pocket as long as he can. and when he climbs or when he slides, his eyes are always up. He's looking to finish progressions and looking down the field to make the throws and looking to run last. He plays with an incredible, quiet, and confident demeanor. I would bet he doesn't have to take a shower after games. That's how calm.

And yet, he's take over the three weeks, he has taken some hits. And there are things that defenses are going to test him on by pushing the middle of the pocket, whereas height could be a disadvantage, and he plays well in the pocket. They'll push the pocket in the Browns and the 49ers did a good job of containing him and keeping him in the pocket to make the throws. He was not a difference maker against the 49ers, but he did show on the last couple plays of the game his ability to drop back and throw the ball down the field. He completed balls that he should have completed, and he made plays, you know, fades and things. things like that, I drop him back and throwing out of the pockets.

So he's a lot to get excited about, but he's also playing, he's one guy in 22 or 53, and they're using the whole team to win games. And yes, he is a difference maker with his feet and his legs, but he's one heck of a quarterback. And we'll continue to grow, but the game isn't on his shoulders until it has to be. And when it has to be, he's making the plays. Mark, we talked briefly yesterday about what we were going to talk about today, and you mentioned that you'd recruited Russell Wilson out of high school when you were at NC State. You didn't coach him by the time that he was starting for the Wolf Pack.

But I'm curious when a quarterback doesn't have the size advantage, and listen, things have changed so much over the last 20 years. I remember the reason Drew Brees dropped to the second round was because he wasn't six feet tall. Russell Wilson dropped to the third round. Kyle Murray was the first overall pick. And part of that, you know, Baker was all. Also, not prototypical size, who was the first overall pick, but things have changed so much. I'm curious, is that the game changing?

Is that just front offices realizing the smaller guy can be good? Is that scheme changes? Why are shorter quarterbacks? And listen, Justin Herbert's doing great at 6-6. But why are shorter quarterbacks thriving now than maybe they weren't 20 years ago? Well, that's, you know, five generations ago, Fran Tarkinan was one of the best quarterbacks. And he was Russell's size. he was barely to six feet tall.

And when I recruited Russell Wilson, really that's who I thought he would be. And the only reason, as I told you yesterday, I gave Russell a first round, Gary and Charisman Football Intelligence and a third round grade. I'm talking high school, but projecting him as a college player as a third round pick because I was afraid to say that a 5-10 quarterback could play in the NFL. But the fact is it's proven that they can, that they can stand in the pocket and throw the ball. And I think that going to your question, it's more like when you're a coordinator today, you would give anything if your quarterback could extend a play and make a first down on third down

a couple of times a game with his legs or his athleticism. That goes a long way to extending drives and making plays. And I think that that's more what coordinators are looking for. Justin Herbert can do it. You know, Tanna Hill can do it. That can do it. You know, around the league, there's just sufficient enough to either do it well or do it, what I would call sufficiently enough to get it done.

Let's kind of go around. We talked a little bit about Cliff's offense here and kind of how everything has changed as far as Cliff was a college coach a couple of years ago. He took a job as a college coordinator before he took the job in Arizona in the same offseason. when you look at how offenses have changed and incorporating a little more college concepts over the past couple of years and you're a guy, you straddled that line a handful of times.

Not only were you a college coordinator, you were an NFL head coach, you were in Canada as a head coach. I'm curious, the biggest change over the past, you know, a few years as far as that goes, has been what, Mark? Yeah, I think the biggest change is what teams are doing with, number one, misdirection. There's a lot more motion, a lot more ghost, a lot more just moving people around at the snap of the ball to create misdirection from a defense standpoint.

More teams are in the gun more. More teams aren't going traditional under center on first down and then in the gun on second and third down. They can be in the gun and empty on the first play of the game for the minus 10. everybody is using the entire offense on all four downs. So I don't see, when I'm watching, you know, Cliffs' offense, they are a traditional NFL offense out of the gun. You know, they're not using a lot of motion, a lot of, there's a little bit of it.

But the plays that they are running are universal NFL plays. And around the league, you know, you probably see, I mean, there's four or five teams, you know, Kansas City is one of them. And I just say that they do a good job with their research. searching development. They go back into college and high school and find these little nuanced boutique plays and they're not afraid to throw them out there. But most of the teams are running conventional plays. There's a lot more bubbles to take the beat off the quarterback. That's really evident when you watch, you know, certainly the Cardinals. But, you know, Aaron Rogers has used

in the last five, six years. They're a lot more evident. And that comes from the colleges. Yeah. No, and it's fascinating to sort of see that evolution. You know, looking at your resume, Mark, one thing that stands out to me is at the NFL level, at the NFL level, you've not had a ton of young quarterbacks. The last NFL stop was in Baltimore. You had Joe Flacco. Jay Cutler, obviously was mid-career. Even going back, yeah, he had Rich Gannon with the Raiders.

Steve Young at one point, you were the quarterbacks coach, an offensive coordinator for. And I'm curious, you know, when you think about young quarterbacks now, going off with Kyler, going off so much of the success, some of these guys of Admo's came in, second year was so good. is it easier now to be a young quarterback than it was, you know, even, even just a few years ago because of not all the scheme changes, but then the rule changes because of the college game and the way that it's played. But when the NFL Cowers coming into is more conducive to being a successful young quarterback? I think that's a really hard question.

And this is really not a strong opinion. But I think that quarterbacks drafted in the first round should play right away. Right. I think that there's always the anomaly that they don't have to play because there's a great player in front of them. But I think you've got to get out there and get him playing as quickly as you can. The youngest quarterback really I had was Jake Plummer. And he was in his second or third year at the time. And I didn't do a very good job.

Initially, I tried to protect him. And as soon as we started throwing the ball more and going to no huddle and doing no – and letting him use his gifts, his athleticism and his arm talent, You know, we use the running game to keep them honest, but, you know, just letting them go was was the way to go. So I'm not the best expert on this because I haven't worked with, you know, any of these young guys. But, you know, I think part of it is they're more trained up. They're getting more offseason training. They're working with quarterback coaches.

They're learning offenses in the offseason through the training sessions that they have. And they're just more developed and highly evolved, I think, now than they ever have been before. and they're throwing the ball more than ever, you know, in college. You know, we talked a little bit yesterday briefly about kind of what you think about the current crop of head coaches. And, you know, obviously Cliff Kingsbury missed time with COVID and all that stuff. And so it's been a little bit stunted there. But I'm curious. And you are, is it true?

I read this. Are you teaching a class University of Miami on leadership? Yeah, this past off season, I taught a leadership course at the law school there. where I graduated. Now we're talking. And I was on an advisory board there for the last five or six years. And they asked me to do a class virtually last year. And now we've taken it up a notch and what we're doing it on campus this year.

That's great. I went to versus Miami. I was all over that subway in the law school there. That's my only tie to the law school. There's a great subway there. All right. So when you're looking at the current crop of coaches in the NFL, it's a younger group, kind of like the quarterbacks.

but are there any coaches right now who stand out to you as sort of, you know, obviously we know the Belichick's and the Reeds and the hard balls, but there are any coaches right now, they're maybe not talking enough about, Mark? I think that it's, you know, I just, as we talked yesterday, you know, there's signs that things are changing. I mean, I like the way Pete Carroll came out the other day and showed vulnerable. I think vulnerability is key, you know, to leadership today. Leadership is more horizontal. I'll talk about that in a second where it does it. We've seen coaches. just go out with COVID and teams continue to win. The fans did it last year and who's a great young coach. It happened with Cliff. But Pete came out and said, you know, I may not be the coach. You know, I have been without Russell. That's vulnerability.

We need more of that. That, you know, it's not just about us as leaders. I think a young coach Staley has really done a good job. His comments on John Gruden were epic, in my opinion, the way he expressed himself as a, young leader and understanding conceptually, you know, what John had done and, and did it in a really classy way. I thought that was, you know, really impressive. You know, I think that, you know, for young coaches, it's about, you know, having people around them an inner circle that

they can count on and, and utilize. And, you know, the number one probably rule on leadership is just to listen better. But the world is changing, you know, the Cardinals prove they could win without cliff. That's not. That's not a knock against Cliff. It's just saying that, you know, you can lead from any role. And the Raiders have done the same. Players can take on leadership roles. Coaches can take on leadership roles.

It's much more horizontal. That doesn't mean, you know, if you're the coordinator, you got the 51% rule. If you're the head coach, you got the 51% rule. But, you know, the leaders that allow power and opportunity to go to the people they lead, leads to better locker rooms. You know, and I think you see that going on, you know, throughout the league. You saw it with the Cardinals this past a couple weeks when Cliff was out. You saw how the Browns handled it last year when Kevin Stefanski was out.

Everybody just took accountability and had an opportunity to lead from wherever they were within the organization. And that's where things are going. That's fascinating. You were the head coach of the 2013 and 2014 Bears. That was interesting locker room. Jay Cutler, Marty Bennett was on that team. a lot of big personalities. What did you learn about football and trying to manage that?

And were there things that stick out to you, mistakes, things you wish you could take back or have back, whatever? Yeah, I think that, you know, I did, you know, I made mistakes, no doubt about it. And there were some perceptions that have come out of, you know, Chicago that really aren't reality. And I just have just had to live with that. But, you know, going into it, you know, I really respected Lovie Smith.

you know, I didn't think he deserved to get fired. I think they were 10 and six that year. So I went into an organization where, you know, I coached a little bit differently. A lot of the concepts that I truly believe in that are being used now in football, you know, we were using then. But I didn't really pay attention to some of the stronger personalities were on the team.

And I wish I would have spent more time with them. I spent a lot of time with a lot of the players, but not enough time with the guys that were, think we're the decorated veterans and realizing the loyalty they had. I wish I would have done that differently. I think that that really goes to it. In the first year, we had a hell of a year. And, you know, we lost on fourth downs to Aaron Rogers, which teams have done in the past. And we just couldn't do it again. You know, we were 13 and 13, you know, at one point in time. And then we went on a major losing streak and, you know, people have their own opinions and why it happened.

And I take responsibility for that. But just a better job listening and trying to understand what I was getting myself into, I think instead of getting caught up and how I wanted it to be, the players that were new and younger got it very quickly. The ones that were older, it was more difficult for them to understand. And then when we started to lose at the end, we just couldn't, we just couldn't hold it together. perceptively, reality-wise, I think we could have.

Yeah, no, and it's interesting because you've coached college players, great college players, and you've coached great NFL players as well, obviously. And one thing that I think has reared it's had as far as from leadership standpoint has been Urban Meyer over the past couple of weeks and people talking about how you can't coach college players like NFL players and vice versa, obviously. And that jump, and Cliff is doing it as well, that Cliff understood the NFL level because he played in it. But with a difference between coaching college players and strong veteran NFL players is what, Mark?

Well, I think that everything starts with trust. You know, everything starts with having relationships. So I don't look at it being different. I mean, I don't have enough experience at the college level. The thing I know in college, when you coach them, the most important thing in their life is necessary football. That's what I did really love about college football. you had to deal with the other aspects of it. When you walk into an NFL locker room, it's all about football, but it's still all about

relationships. It's still all about developing trust. It's all about not just saying how you doing, but what are your hopes and dreams? What do you care about? What can I do for you? How can I help you get better? And it starts with knowing your science. You have to be able to take the complexity in science of football, which isn't just

blocking and tackling. It's a lot more than that. It's taking science and making it simple for the players. And players have to believe that you can help them master their craft. That's number one. Whether it's through your coordinators, whether it's administratively, whatever it is, they have to believe that whatever position you're in, you can help them master their craft and take a complex game and make it simple so they can execute during the chaos of a game. That's the big difference to me. Fascinating. The big picture question on this in our podcast, Mark, was, can Kyler win the MVP? Or is Kyle Merr going to be

the MVP? You've watched a lot of tape of Kyler, but you've watched also some of the other candidates, whether that's Matthew Stafford, Doc Prescott, Tom Brady. At the end of the year, looking off of what you've seen, who do you think is going to have the best 2021, 2021 season mark?

Boy, that's, we know the season is fluid. So we just have to face it on seven games. And when you go down the line, you just You know, everybody wants to coach Justin Herbert. You know, I talked about this, you know, a couple weeks ago on a podcast. There's nuances to coaching the Mahomes of the world. There's nuances to, you know, Russell Wilson's of the world.

The guys that make things happen that are so amazing, they have this amazing it factor. But if you tell Justin Herbert to take five quick plan and throw or take three big, two quick and hitch, second hitch to the wide and kick it out to the flare control, that's what shows up on tape. and then he runs. So I just look at him as just being a joy of watch. I mean, it's, you know, Dack is certainly proven early on that he's right in. And Aaron Rogers is impeccable.

You know, Josh Allen, to me, is, you know, continues to, you know, he's going to play well at the end of the season here. Those are the guys that just pop in my mind. And, you know, I think Tannenhill's done a great job of managing this football team. And doing, you know, he's won as many games as any of them. and won as many in the fourth quarter. I think he, because of Henry, his play has been understated. That's fascinating.

With Herbert in particular, you know, 6-6, great vision can make all the throws. I mean, it looks like he doesn't even make a bad pass. It's just really unbelievable to see how he started his career so far, right, Mark? Yeah, and you said of Herbert, right? Yeah. Yeah, I just, I'm amazed at how flawless he is with drops, reads, and progression. And again, he's got the luxury of Joe Lombardi there, you know, who was, you know, with the, with Breeze and the Saints for such a long time. So the offenses they're running, it's not any kind of experiment.

He is putting on tape exactly what Drew Breeze did. And he's got all Drew Breese tape to learn from, which is he's in an optimal position. Wow. Mark Trussman, longtime NFL coach, longtime college coach, University of Miami law. not professor, lecturer. Adjunct professor. Adjunct professor. I love that.

That was awesome insight. Thank you so much for doing. But I'm telling them to call me, Mark. I'm not ready to. They can call you coach too, right? Yeah, they can do that. They can always do that. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Mark. Kevin, you do a great job. Keep up the great work both on the podcast and in your writing. It's gunning edge, great stuff. Awesome. I appreciate that, man. That means the world. Thank you so much.

Yeah, you take care. here. Three, two, one. All right. Thank you to Josh and Mark for joining us. Next up on this feed will be Nora and Mallory for the Thursday show. I will be back next Tuesday for a trade deadline special. Really looking forward to that. It'll be a live reaction to whatever happens. And if there's nothing that happens, we'll talk about that too. Thank you to Stefan Anderson for production help with additional productions provision by Arjuna Rample. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.