The Ringer NFL Show - Super Bowl Week With Dan Orlovsky, Warren Sharp, Danny Kelly, and Bryan Curtis | The Ringer NFL Show (Ep. 393)

Episode Date: January 31, 2019

Robert Mays and Kevin Clark link up with Dan Orlovsky to discuss the Rams offense versus the Patriots defense (1:50), Warren Sharp on all things statistical analysis (15:50), Danny Kelly to give his keys to the matchup (29:15), and Bryan Curtis on the media buzz leading up to kickoff (43:00). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. We just launched a brand new golf podcast called Fairway Rowland, where Joe House is joined by a rotating cast of Ringer and golf world personalities every week. They'll break down the latest in golf headlines and news from social media, keep up with everything Tiger Woods, and delve into the world of golf gambling. The first episode was just released earlier this week with new episodes being published every Monday going forward. You can download and subscribe to Fairway Rowland on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, it's Robert Mayes. Welcome to a very special ringer NFL show. We are here at the Super Bowl, me and Kevin Clark, and we got a chance to talk to a bunch of different people about their thoughts about the game, some ringer folks, some non-ringer folks. So coming up, you're going to hear me talking to Dan Orlovsky about the Rams offense playing against the Patriots defense. You're going to hear Kevin talking to Warren Sharp about all things statistical analysis when it comes to this game. And I'm going to be chatting with Danny Kelly and Brian Curtis about how their weeks have gone. what they're looking forward to,

everything that has to do with what's going to go down on Sunday and what we've been dealing with all week here on Radio Row, all the weird stuff going on, all the people walking around. So please stay tuned and enjoy that. Just a heads up, we're going to be getting into a lot of very specific football analytical terms on this podcast, 11 personnel, 12 personnel, 21 personnel,

just stuff that has to do with formations. So you know going in, 11 means three wide receivers and one tight end and one back. 12 means two tight ends, one back and two receivers. 21 personnel means two backs, two receivers, and one tight end. This is all going to make more sense

when you start listening to the Rams and Patriots specific sections, but we just want you to know that going in. All right, guys, enjoy the show. And I am thrilled now to welcome Dan Orlovsky from ESPN, who I'm not sure there's anybody else I'd rather talk to about quarterback play. And he happens to know one of the quarterbacks in this game pretty well, considering he spent some time

with Jared golf in Los Angeles. Dan, how are you? I'm fantastic, man. Super Bowl Week. So there's not many people that are in a bad mood this week. That is true. I probably will be in a bad mood by Thursday because this week gets long, but I'm pretty pumped right now.

So let's get right into this. I want to chat with you just about what you think the Rams will do to the Belichick's kind of little tweaks that he's going to make. The way he's going to attack them, how are the Rams going to react? And I think that's on a golf side and a McVeigh side. So let's start with Sean. And just I think what the simple thing and the straightforward,

approach from any defense or any schematic choice against the Rams is, we want to take away the play action, what to make you play in your dropback game. Do you feel like that's what the Patriots are going to try to do first and foremost? If they do, what do you think the Rams response has to be? Well, look at it. So when you look at the Patriots defense, you just see size. Like they actually kind of in that in the box area of the tackle box, using Van Nuoy and High Tower is really kind of hybrid lineback. defender, defensive end, D-Lyman.

So the first thing I expect is the Rams to utilize a ton of stuff to the perimeter, whether they're toss cracks, whether it's the jet sweeps. I mean, they're going to push the ball to the perimeters and utilize their speed and say, we're going to be faster than you, New England. We're not going to run just downhill at you.

And so I expect that to be a big part of the game plan. I know the thinking is, all right, we're going to make sure that we take away the play action game against the ramp. But that's also, you're also challenging or daring Sean McVeigh to run the football. I would be surprised if McVeigh came out

and just decided, all right, let's play these first two drives out and we're going to run on first and second down. Like we're going to, we're going to be patient and stubborn with the run to the outside of first and second down because if you're going to try and play slow on the back end, versus to play action,

I'm going to prove to you early on, I want to run the football. And Sean McVeigh to just be very smart and calculated how he wants to use the run game. Listen, New England's going to line up and get in the face of the Rams receivers, play man to man,

and my expectation is they're going to go Jared Gough. You've got to make 30, 25 to 30 very accurate throws versus man coverage. We're not going to give you zone completion. We're going to play man coverage. We're going to beat you up at the line of scrimmage, and we don't think that you can make 25 very accurate throws over the course of the game.

And that's the big challenge for Jared. Can you be finite accurate versus man coverage all game? And I totally agree. And that's kind of, I feel like, been the challenge for the Rams all season. It's when they make golf beat you as a dropback passer and against man coverage, especially when you have to be more pinpoint with your throws. Can he do it?

And there are times in this season where he struggled. You know, there have been stretches where he has not played very well. And I think the Bears game is an example, but he wasn't very sharp the week before that against Detroit. And then you go to what he was last week. And I think that's where you can start to build a little bit of hope. And you can be, there were signs of encouragement. You can be excited about the way he looked because I don't know if I've ever seen him make more big time throws in a game where everything wasn't coming easily.

You know, that Vikings game this year, he was raining fire from everywhere, but they were just destroying them. In a game where it's been a slog, I was so impressed with him last week because he was able to make those throws under duress. Are you encouraged by what he looked like last week, and does that make you think maybe he can do it again even against the Belichick defense? You mentioned the Minnesota game. Yes, that was a gash fest, but it's still required throw. Like, it still required him making those throws. And I look at the brand new Cook touchdown where you can't run it out to the guy out to Cooks and throw it better.

I look at the Green Bay throw to Robert Wood on a get playing man-to-man defense, and he's running a crosser. And I watch his ball get out of his hand and place perfectly in time. And so he's done it. The big thing, Robert, you mentioned the word slog. Like, that's what Belichick's going to want to do is just basically turning it into this ugly fest. And so Jared's mindset has got to be, I don't really want to be consumed with completion. It's man-to-man defense. They're going to be lower anyway.

I want to make sure that I'm being as accurate as I can on, you know, if I miss out in front of the guy by a foot, that's fine. But I want to challenge myself to make those perfect throws that you can get in man where a guy can run away. And so I have tons of faith and confidence in his ability to do it. The biggest thing is not going to be the physical to me. They can still use their play action game. they don't necessarily need to be turned straight to a dropback team. The biggest thing is going to be him mentally, if he goes through that stretch of, man, that's two straight incompletions that were good balls,

but not great balls, and they get, when we get to hand on it, will he still just stare down the barrel and chuck it? Like, will he still have the confidence to throw ropes that are going to be necessary? That'll be the great storyline for me when it comes to golf. because I'm telling you, Belichick is sitting there and going, there's no way, there's no way that Jared Goff is going to beat me if we play sticky coverage. That's the big thing for me.

I'm with you. And that's why it was so nice to see how he played against DeWollins because there were those tough moments in the first half. There were those plays where they're playing that sticky coverage, they're in receivers' pockets, and good throws are not getting completed. And to still see him stick that ball into Cooks down the left sideline at the end of the half, after struggling for most of the first two quarters, that's what you want to see.

You want to see him just completely barrel through those tough times. He has the mental capacity to do that. He has the personality to do that. And I think that we're overrated, we're kind of underrating that right now. No doubt about it. And that's spot on. And I've said this.

And people asked me, what was my, what was my take on Jared Goss? I said, physically, his greatest attributes, a very natural thrower of the football. And I said, but the greatest talent that he has, is he has no memory. And people kind of took it as a bad thing, and I said, no, no, this is a good thing.

He has no memory, whether it's going good or whether it's going bad, because I had seen stretches in camp. You'd have a three or four-place stretch where you'd go, what in the world was that? But then he would have a run of 10 plays where it was just perfect. And we saw that against New Orleans last week where didn't matter the start. It didn't matter things were going good.

He was just going to be in the moment because he had no memory. of what happened before then, and he was just running the plate. And that's going to become huge in the Super Bowl. You know, there's a lot of conversation and a lot of talk right now and probably justifiably so about New England

and how good they've looked and the defense. I get all that. I do believe that there's a little bit of, maybe not a lack of respect, being paid to the Rams and their offense. Their only offense in the NFL this year, top five in both the run and pass. And so I don't know if it's as simple as like, oh, man, New England's just playing so good.

Like the Rams are built very similar to who the Eagles were last year. And they gave New England fit. And they're built very similar to what Atlanta was years ago. And they gave New England fit. And so I'm of the belief that the Rams are going to be a problem pre-snap with New England and how they're going to handle all the Jet Suite. and all the motions and all the personnel potential, you know, switches, there's matchup problems for that defense that how do you handle,

how do you handle Gurleyan, man? Like, those are two guys to me that have got, are going to be huge keys. I feel like, again, with New England's personnel, they're probably going to have to be a nickel the entire game if the Rams are going to play a lot of 11 because they don't have three linebackers that can play coverage with. that team if they keep them out there. And if they're going to play a nickel the entire game,

I could see, like you're saying, McVeigh pretty much going with the idea of, we're going to run it. We're going to run it until you stop us. My problem is, I feel like if you're relying on the stuff to the perimeter and you're relying on the running game, in a way, I feel like that's what defenses want the Rams to do. Even if they're getting five yards of carry,

I still feel like they're less dangerous if they're running the ball at you. Maybe that's just anecdotal and I'm wrong. But if I could pick a version of who they'd be, I'd rather have them beat me with the running game, then beat me with chunk plays down the field in the passing game. There's no doubt. Yeah, I mean, you want Sean McBay, and that's where the Rams went from that lion

and really the Bears and Eagles stretch this year. It was teams decided to say, okay, we're not going to give you those huge chunk play actions. We're going to give you the run. And Sean McBay kind of struggles with being stubborn with the run. But here's the thing. If New Wing is going to line up a nickel and play Nicola

game and challenge the Rams to beat them with the run, they can. That's the thing. That's why it's so important to understand this is the top five rushing unit this year in the NFL. And so if you want to play that game

with them, and Sean's able enough and willing enough to be patient, they'll go beat you with it. And that's the challenge that if New England's going to face is this is not a one-dimensional unit. This is not a one-dimensional.

offense or if we take this away, you're beating us left-handed, which is the narrative for the Patriot. That's not this team. And so that's for me, like, people are forgetting about that and aren't talking about it enough. And if they're going to play nickel, one, the ram should run for 200 yards, two, that goes back to this point. Who covers Todd Gurley and man to man? like who covers one of the better receiving backs in the NFL and man to man. Is it Patrick Chung? That's fine because then that puts a tight end on a linebacker. And if you put a linebacker on Gurley, it's not happening.

He'll have eight catches for 100 yards. Yeah, those guys, that's where they struggle. I mean, for as good as Van Nuay and Hightower have been in the ways they've used them in the playoffs, last week they were blitzing. They were stunting. They were being those hybrid players. And if you put them as a hybrid between a defensive end and a linebacker, they can succeed. If you put them as a hybrid between

a safety and a linebacker, they're going to struggle. And I do feel like that's where you can get some conflict if you're McVeigh. Absolutely. That's where, you know, like, I'm going to be interested. How does New England handle that tempo? Because if the Rams play with a little bit of tempo and New England

gets into a man-to-man defense with that 11 personnel, like, what happens if they break their formation and flex Gurley out? Because I'm telling you, Gurley's got elite speed down the field. And so that's, That's good, but what, and especially if they hurt them early on, Rob, like, maybe New England's going to go, man, we can't do this.

We got to go to dime. And that's when the run game becomes even bigger. So I said this for two years now, teams that are multiple on offense with personnel, because there are issues for defenses. And that's why I said, who were the falcons? They were multiple. Who were the Eagles? They were multiple.

And the Rams are multiple. and they are going to give New England some conversation and consternation of how they want to handle third, fourth, and fifth receiver options, essentially. You're talking about this is getting me very excited about this game already. It's too far away for me to be this pumped up. I got to control myself here a little bit. All right, man, that's all I got for you. I sincerely appreciate it.

Thank you so much for the time. This is always fun. And hopefully we'll chat again sometime this week. later on. Always a pleasure, boss. Thanks, Dan. You got it, brother. You know what's not smart?

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This rating comes from hiring sites on Trust Pilot with over 1,000 reviews. Right now, our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address, ZipRecruiter.com slash Ringer NFL. If you love this show, show your support for it and ZipRecruiter by going to ZipRecruiter.com Slagr-N-FL. ZipRecruiter.com slash R-I-N-FL. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Okay, we're here with Warren Sharp.

Warren, how would you describe yourself? Analytics guru. Definitely analytics. I'll say it. You're one of the smartest analytic minds, certainly working outside of a football facility at this point. Maybe one of the best analytic minds, period, in football. You have a Super Bowl guide.

You published it. It is out now. If you look at this matchup, what are the first couple of things that jump out to you as far as what will determine who wins this game? I think one of the first things is what do the Rams do? Do they stick with 11 personnel, especially when they're passing the football, or do they modify a little bit to go more 12 personnel? I think they should go a little bit more 12 personnel. They started moving in that direction a little bit

later in the season, but the Patriots defense is allowing over two yards per attempt more, more when they use 12 personnel. And the Rams are so 11 personnel heavy that they may be reluctant to, but it certainly is in their best interest to go that route when they're when they have the football, but they do need to run more from 11. The way that you beat the Patriots is spread them out, run the football from 11. The reason I'm focusing in on the Rams is because for the Patriots, it's a lot easier for them to just do what they do. They're already going to have a number of edges from the standard personnel that they use and, you know, the play calling that they implement. I think the Rams are going to need to be a little bit more creative. If they make those creative decisions

plus EV decisions before kick off and implement a better game plan, I think they've got a great shot to win this game outright. You know, I think that a lot of people focus on the game plans Bill Belichick employees because he essentially creates a new team every Sunday. If you're looking at a way for Belichick to attack this Sean McVeigh offense, I think that's the coaching matchup everyone's looking at. Is it physicality in the secondary? What specifically do you think Belichick will hone in on with this offense? Well, the Rams are very bad against 21 personnel runs. So do what they've been doing. They had a lot of success running 21 personnel against the Chiefs last week.

I don't see a reason why they would stop doing that. But the Rams have been, I guess, better and making adjustments over the last few weeks at getting stronger against the run. So I think with the area to attack, you don't really want to be throwing the ball a lot on third down against this Rams pass rush. So what I would suggest is to attack the Rams secondary on first down passes, go a little bit deeper down the field. Definitely use play action.

because both these teams are pretty similar. Their defenses are very good if you don't use play action at getting pressure on the quarterback. But both defenses struggle when you use play action against them. So I do think that a strong Sony-Michel run game offset by a little bit of play action, especially on first down, throw the ball deeper down the field.

Those are some of the things that Bill Belichick should look to incorporate. What is impressed you most about Sean McVehan as coaching job? Because I think at this point we've reached over-saturation with how much we praise Sean McVeigh. But I think it really is incredible, sort of the offensive he's built, sustainable, what he's turned Jared Goff into. When you start diving into this Rams offense,

and just the year they've put together, the two years they put together under Sean McVeigh, what stands out to you just as far as how impressive they've been? Definitely the creativity in terms of how they implement the 11 personnel because they're so heavy with like 96% of their plays are from 11 personnel. So some coaches would probably run into walls. Like, you know, we're using so much of this person.

now we're only dialing up the same plays over and over. He does so much with personnel, not the groupings, but the formations in the way that he deploys them. He's also so creative with the sweeps and the motions that he incorporates, both pre-snap and post-snap. You know, he'll have fake reverse after the snap that really holds defenders there. So he gets a lot of opportunities where it's 11 on 10, not by like read option, but by other methods that he's incorporating into the offense. I think the other thing is just, that he's so flexible and willing to experiment with things. I love the fact that he's aggressive with getting his team to line and scrimmage quickly.

I think that's going to be a big factor in this game because remember, against the Saints, they couldn't communicate very well before the snap. So oftentimes they were getting to the line of scrimmage, but they still couldn't snap it until the very end of the play clock. They couldn't get a lot of that tempo going. I think that that could be with less crowd noise in this game, a big opportunity for them to have an edge. They can either choose to go very quickly or they can choose to audible into great play,

and I think that's going to be a lot easier for them this game. So I just very impressed by the creativity that Sean McVeigh's implemented. Probably a broad question, but how many quarterbacks do you think could do what Jared Goff is doing in Sean McVeigh's offense? I think that there's a fair number of quarterbacks around the league that probably could implement this offense. He's just such a quarterback-friendly coach. Like every stop that he's been on, he's been able to coach up those quarterbacks. the good thing about golf is he's poised under pressure, like he's poised in the pocket.

But I think he can get rattled if he's got guys coming around his feet, like some of his accuracy issues will start to show and rear their head. I think that there's probably a fair number of quarterbacks. Like, there's definitely a mismatch at the quarterback position in this game to put it nicely. So I don't want to say too much more negative about him because he's executing the offense well, but I do think it could be replicated by a number of other guys. This has been such a strange season. Even in the context of the passing boom and the offensive boom, this was an incredible season.

More touchdown scored this year than any season in history. And beyond that, even running the ball, it was the highest yards per rush in the history of football. What trend sticks out to you this year that you think is really going to be meaningful down the line as far as just what we've seen from these offenses? And how is the sport changing when you kind of run the numbers this year? what stands out to you just as far as the trend of the year, I guess? That's a great question. Difficult for me to put my finger on it right now because I've been so in the moment researching on a weekly basis for what we're going to do the very next week.

And I'll definitely be able to kind of dig into that more maybe in the offseason and get back with you. But I think one of the key things that has changed this year more so than years past has been the aggressive nature of teams offensively, coaches willing to make those decisions where they're going for it more on fourth down. They're less conservative. And I think we've sort of crossed a barrier in a sense where previously around the league, we would have the press and the media after the game criticizing the coaches for going

for it. Why did you choose to do that? Why don't you just get the points? But now we're almost getting close to that point where coaches are going to get criticized or question, why didn't you go for it? And I think that's a big difference and that's something that's happened. I mean, there were a lot of questions about Sean McVeigh. Why didn't he go for it on that fourth down?

Why did he settle for the field goal? And, you know, in years past, maybe that wouldn't have been asked. So I think coaches are getting more aggressive. There's still a lot of more room for improvement that they need. But it's a great question. I'll have to dig into it a little bit more. When you think about just this Super Bowl matchup, I think Aaron Donald is the guy certainly on the defensive side of the ball that everyone focuses on.

A lot of people say he's the best player in football. When you dig into it and you look at your research, how much of an impact is Aaron Donald actually have game in and game out, and is he sort of the game wrecker that everyone says he is to be? Well, I think he definitely is. There's no doubt about it, like from a statistical perspective in from watching the film, he is that game record. The interesting part will be, will he have that type of impact in this game? Because you know Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are figuring out how they're going to neutralize him as much as possible. They've got a great offensive line. They've got a great offensive line coach in Dante Scarnikia. They're going to figure out ways

to minimize Donald's impact in this game. You can't be allowing him to get past that line and start pressuring Tom Brady because he's going to get the ball out quickly. I have no doubt about that. That's where some of the play action things could play a big role. If you kind of neutralize Donald so that he's thinking about something else, as opposed to just, I'm straight lining to the quarterback. I'm using my swim move or whatever move that he intends to use.

So he is definitely as good as advertised, if not better. I mean, I think the guy, he's a specimen, but he's also an incredible player and producer on the field. Do you think when you look at sort of the Sean McVeigh effect around the league, Zach Taylor is going to get a head coaching job after this game. People like Cliff Kingsbury are going to do it. And I think there's going to be more McVeigh offenses being run next year. And you talk so much about the personnel groupings and the creativity there. Do you think that that's the kind of thing you can replicate or is it just personnel with them?

is the McVeigh effect actually going to work next year when there's five, six, seven guys trying to be Sean McVey? Or is Sean McVeigh just a play calling unicorn? He's definitely special with the way that he picks the plays that he's going to call. In terms of the personnel, I don't think that other teams should try to replicate that 11 because he mainly is doing that in my opinion because of the guys that he has. He doesn't have this stud tight end. So he's going to use more 11 personnel to get his best 11 players out on the field. I think that other coordinators that start calling plays elsewhere need to coach to those players' skill sets.

I actually, I mean, we know this from research, that using 12 personnel technically is more efficient when you pass the football than using 11 personnel. They also, you know, throwing to the tight end is one of the biggest skeleton keys around the league. There aren't a lot of great tight ends, but there's a lot of good efficiency that can be gained when you pass the tight ends. And the Rams don't really have a chance to unlock that much, not just from 11 personnel, out, but they just don't have those tight ends to do it.

So I think other teams and other coaches that they're pulling from the McVeigh coaching tree will still have success if they emulate one of the biggest principles that McVeigh does, which is coach to your player's strengths. And if they can do that, then they could have some success. Like, I was a little bit disappointed with the job that they did in Tennessee this past year. They actually ran the ball more often and ran it less successfully than the exotic smash mouth the prior two years with Malarkey. So I know that they had some issues with Marcus Mario da and health and that sort of thing,

but even when he was healthy, they were still not calling a great offense. So I hope that the tree does well, but they're going to need to not just stick with 11 that they learn from McBay, but choose to coach the strengths of the players they have. I'll do the cheap talk radio thing and ask you for your prediction now. Well, I think the game's actually going to start off slower than what a lot of people probably think when you got two explosive offenses out there. So for that reason, I actually took under 28 points in the first half of the game.

That was, it's not on a 27 and a half. I still think that there's a little bit of value there, but not nearly as much as if you had the 28, but it's still worth something. I think the Patriots obviously have a tendency to start out slow in these games, and I doubt that Sean McVeigh is going to have Jared Gough throwing the ball down the field a lot early in the game. I think that there's a great chance, though, that the Rams are going to keep this far more competitive. If you look at the bet splits, if you look at the public opinion, probably

everybody who's picking the game around here, everybody's so heavily on the New England Patriots, it has the potential to be the most lopsided bet Super Bowl of all time. And I could tell you that in the history of the Super Bowl and betting in Las Vegas, they've actually only lost on two Super Bowls. So this easily could be the third, but chances are that the Rams are going to be able to keep this game very close. We saw the Patriots struggle last season, ultimately lost that game. They trailed at halftime. We saw them down 28. to three against the Atlanta Falcons. They're a great team. They're a better team probably than they were last year because they have Edelman in this game. They didn't have him last game.

They also lost cooks, what, in the first quarter of last game. So they're going to be stronger offensively, but I don't think Ronk is quite as healthy. So I think there's definite opportunities for the Rams. I just hope that they come up with a very good game plan from the start and maximize coaching some of the efficiency strengths on weakness matchups that they're going to have here because there are areas that you can attack with the Patriots. Score prediction? If I had to give a prediction, I probably say 3027. And I actually think the Rams can pull this game out. Wow. What's the one thing you're watching? If you say the Rams, if the Rams do blank successfully, they'll win in that scenario. What is that? What did they do to win if it ends up being 3027? I think they're getting production from Todd Gurley, which they obviously didn't have. So is he healthy? Is he not? If he's healthy, they're getting production from him.

they need production out of the past game from Todd Gurley. If they can't get it from Todd Gurley, C.J. Anderson's not going to give it to you. They're going to need to get it from their third running back, which is, I think, the rookie from Tennessee. So they've got to get production in the passing game from running backs. And more importantly, of course, you can't have any turnovers. And defensively, you've got to get a little bit of pressure on Tom Brady. So the Patriots are very good. They're the number one offense in the NFL at throwing to their slot, which is Edelman.

But the Rams, Nicole Colby Roman, number one. defense against slot receivers from 11 personnel. So you got number one offense versus number one defense. If the Rams win this game, they're going to do well defending the slot and not let the number one offense of the Patriots with Edelman beat them. They have to do that. Otherwise, Tom Brady is going to throw a million times to Edelman. Warren Sharp, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Kevin. I am joined now by the ringers own Danny Kelly. Danny, we are awkwardly sitting on the same bed in a hotel room right now because there's nowhere else to sit in this room. It's

Lovely. It's romantic. How has your Super Bowl week been? Have you enjoyed it? It's been a while since you've been here. Yeah. I haven't been to the Super Bowl week since, I guess, it was in Phoenix, 2014. That was my first Super Bowl. The end of the 2013 season, yeah. So is this as wonderful as you remember? Oh, man. Yeah, it's great. It's really fun. It's really exhausting. There's so much to do and so much to see, so much work to do. But yeah, just having a blast and kind of getting to see how it all works. It's been fun. We've seen a lot of stuff. I've seen some weird.

stuff. Radio Row is always a trip. Not nearly as strange as it was last year when it was in the Mall of America and anyone could go. I just remember being there trying to get some food and there's just huge crowd of people being obsessed with whoever was walking by. And I was like, who could that possibly be? And it was Jenny McCarthy. Oh, really? That's awesome. Like why? Like why? It's 2018. I don't understand how this could create this sort of commotion. We were in the aquarium last night. We saw Jermaine Dupree. saw Jermaine Dupree today. Germain's around.

He's making appearances, I guess. Okay, so we're going to just dig into this game. Yeah. And I want to pick your brain more than anything about what you are interested in. What elements of this game do you think are going to define it? So the first thing that comes to mind when in your estimation is going to determine the outcome of this game, what would you say? I would say it's going to be how the Patriots deal with Donald and Sue on the interior. I just think, I know it's a cliche, and I know that we've been saying this for years.

now for decades, really. If Sue and Donald can disrupt the pocket and get Brady out of source, I think that's going to be huge for the outcome of this game. Clearly, the Patriots have done an amazing job of protecting him, keeping him clean. You know, he hasn't been sacked in the playoffs. He's only been hit three times. They have that quick action passing game going on. They've got the run game really clicking.

But I think if the Patriots can continue to do that and keep Brady clean, like, I think that they'll have a very good chance of winning this game. They'll have a very good chance of controlling the clock and kind of doing what they've the last two games and keeping the ball out of the Rams' offense's hands, which is, you know, exactly what they want to do. So I think to me, that is going to be what I'm watching early on, how they deal with that, how they deal with Donald and whether Sue can keep playing at a high level. I think Sue might be the most important player in the game. Yeah, I mean, he's a huge ex-factorbacks. I mean, outside of the quarterbacks, if we're doing non-quarterbacks,

I feel like he might be the most important player. I'm writing about him on Friday, and that's kind of the deal is he's actually, I think, I look this up. He has more pressures on the postseason than any other player, including Donald. Well, because teams are going to slide to Donald. Donald is getting double-teamed. That means Sue, and I talked to Sue the other day at the immediate thing, and I was just asking him where he likes to rush

the most. So there's like three tech, nose tackle or outside, because they swing them outside every once in a while. He said that as long as he's getting single team, as long as he's not getting double-team, he doesn't care. Yeah. And I think that's exactly, you know, what's going to happen because, frankly, Donald is a better, you know,

Donald is a more dangerous player to the Patriots. Of course. And so Sue has to really step up. If he can do that, and like I said, if he can disrupt the pocket, get Brady off his game, you know, Brady does not deal with interior pressure well generally if they have, if he has, you know, if the past rush has time to get home. So I think that is a huge, huge X factor and it's going to be something I'm going to be watching really closely. So what interests me, I don't really do this because it kind of takes you out of what you want to do past protection wise. But I'll be curious to see if the Patriots use grunk in past protection a little bit more.

often in order to help the tackles put a hand on Donald so you don't necessarily have to slide the center that way and give Sue those one-on-ones. Yeah, that's interesting. So what are you going to do to kind of dedicate more resources to your past protection in order to not give Sue those one-on-one battles? Because if you leave both of those guys one-on-one, the way Sue's playing right now, it could lead to problems. And I'm curious to see if we're going to see more kind of six-and-seven-man protections from the Patriots as a way to kind of combat that. Yeah, I think that could be something they do, you know, like the max-protect thing. And Gronk is so big. He's like a tackle. He's like an extra tackle out there. I think he's,

he's one of the few tight ends that you can really trust to, like, block against defensive ends. Absolutely. And so, yeah, that's going to be a huge part of it. I mean, again, they're going to still do their thing where they're getting the ball out of Brady's hands in two and a half seconds or less. They've designed plays. They've designed schemes where they're having

picks, you know, they're stacking the receivers, getting guys open really, really quickly. They have a great grasp on man and zone beaters to get guys open really quickly. And frankly, they're just picking defenses apart. They're totally content. to dink and duck their way down the field because Brady's so good at executing. But I think, you know, it's, I think the max protect thing is going to be important if they want to

take shots down the field. And other than that, I think, you know, it's going to be really interesting to see what kind of schemes that Belichick and McDaniels come up with because, you know, this defense can cause some problems. What interests me, you said he's content to dink and dunk down the field and they're so patient and they're just going to hammer what works over and over again. And I'm curious if the Rams are going to be able to commit to the same. sort of idea because in my mind, the best defensive game plans against the Rams this season have been the ones that have ignored the motions. They've ignored the playoff. They've said,

we don't care. If you want to run for six yards, run for six yards. We don't want to have you hit a 20-yard-chunk play on us. I'm thinking of the Cameron Jordan play when he busted through the line last week and he was like, oh, fuck it. Like, I don't even care if you're trying to hand the Todd Garley. That can only hurt us so badly. So when you're doing that, when you're doing that, you're ignoring the play fake, you can run the ball if you want to. And I'm really curious to see if McFagia is going to sit there and say, I'm going to run it. I'm going to run it and I'm going to run it and I'm going to run it because it's hard to do. It's hard to commit to this slow burn type of offense. The Patriots do it through the passing game. And they also have done it through the running

game. The Patriots are fine. The Patriots don't care. They're not like, yeah, you know what, I'm bored. They've been here before. That's exactly right. And Brady is, he's not going to be worried about that. And I'm curious to see if that's where. They get antsy or whatever. Exactly. If they get a little fidgety because they haven't been here before. And it's like, all, this is a Super Bowl. Let's go. And that's not necessarily what it is. It's how can you get 10 yards every single time you get the ball in every single possession? Right, right. I mean, that's the thing. It's, it's such a silly way to frame it. And it may seem kind of simple and straightforward, but that's really what this is about no matter how you do it. And sometimes you have to do it in boring ways.

Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a really interesting thing because, you know, there's several pillars of the Rams offense, but one of them is misdirection. And if you just completely ignore that, I mean, they are going to get chunk plays probably from like end around, things like that. But they're not getting, like you said, the 30-yard play action bombs down the field or whatever. And so leave it up to the Patriots to design a brilliant way to defend this team because that's exactly what they did against the Chiefs. Obviously, the Chiefs, you know, they ended up getting points and all that, but taking away Tyree Kill, bracketing him and then playing man defense on Kelsey. I just, you know, they came up with a really brilliant defensive plan and I can't wait to see kind of what they draw up to get to take the Rams out of it. So, you know, maybe it's going to be a defensive game.

Maybe it'll end up being like a big 12th game like we saw last year in the Super Bowl. Who knows? But I think the schematics are going to be just super fascinating to watch early on. You know, you're going to kind of see, I think, early on that style of game we're about to get. I'm really interested to see how the feeling out process goes over the first like 15 plays. Yeah. Because I think that it's, you know, the first 15 are often, you're 15 that. you really want to set the tone with in terms of your best place.

You want to come out strong. But I feel like this game is going to be a lot of how do they react when we do this. If the Patriots use more 12, how are the Patriots going to treat? If the Rams come out and 11 start running the ball, or the Patriots are going to be sticking nickel and be okay with that. So I feel like there's a lot of answers that need to be gathered on those plays, as much as those are your best plays, let's try to get some yards. Yeah.

The other thing I'm going to be really interested in watching is kind of how much hurry up both offenses use. you know, because both teams are so good at mixing tempo and having, you know, being able to speed things up, get to the line really quick. Like the Rams do it perfectly. They just run to the line, get set, and go. Yep. And obviously the Patriots have been doing that for years. Brady's a master at executing and, you know, the no huddle offense and reading the defense and all that. And so I think the way that these teams use the hurry up, the no huddle stuff, I think is going to be key because, like you said, you get the defense into a situation where you can take advantage of some things. Well, it's also the hurry up. It plays into these two teams almost as much as anybody, not because of their efficiency with the types of plays they run, but with the personnel involved. Because with the Patriots, if you're sitting there in 21 and you got James Devon on the field, but then you split them out and you're trying to throw the ball out of that. We've seen them do that for years. And you do that most efficiently when you are playing fast. With the Rams, it's the same kind of deal. It may be the same personnel. It may be just 11 all the time, but the way they use players in that scheme is so interesting. And I feel like when we talk about Sue on one side of the ball,

and the guy on the other side of the ball for the Rams to me is going to be girly. And I know that's silly, but I am just so curious to see how the Rams use him. Are they going to put him in a slot? Is it going to be a girly game? Yeah, and just in the ways they do it

because there are two things I feel like that stick out with what Todd Gurley can do and what the Patriots might struggle with. One, they're not as good on runs to the outside as they are and runs up to the middle. We've seen when C.J. Anderson is in the game right now for the Rams. They want to run these power players inside. That's their game.

It's power and inside zone runs. When Gurley's in the game, they want to hit the perimeter. That's the goal. They want to use his speed. So are they going to do that more often because they feel like the Patriots are susceptible to it? The other side of it is, we've seen these linebackers for the Patriots, right? Hightower, Van Nuoy, all those guys. Blitz.

They've affected the game close to the line of scrimmage. They're not as good in coverage. If you're going to make them go out and say, all right, you get to cover Todd Gurley now, how is that going to go? And I feel like the Rams are going to do everything they can to make that real out. make that reality. Yeah, do you think that the Rams

are going to try to get the Patriots in sort of their more base looks? Because the Patriots have the defensive personnel to like go dime or nickel. Yep.

But then I think then you have the worry of the Rams are just content to run the ball, which is like what they've done. I mean, you wrote about it earlier this year. It's like,

I think maybe it was Aaron Cromer said, we get teams out of base pretty quick. Be real fast. That's exactly right. And so what are they going to do? And if the Patriots are going to sit in nickel and you feel like you can't throw it,

but you want to a little bit, do the Rams use more 12 to throw the ball than they usually do? Warren Sharp, I was reading, who's on the podcast today with Kevin, I was reading his game preview earlier today, and the Rams are just excellent throwing out of 12 in the red zone. Are they going to try to do that in other areas of the field? Do they feel like that's something they can replicate because it's not something they do very often? So, I mean, that's what this game is all about. It's all about, it's matchups. It's matchups. It's tendency breaking.

It's all that stuff that both of these staffs are extremely good at. Yeah. And I mean, who has the tiniest edges when it all comes down to it. I tend to lean toward the dude who's done it for 20 years, but we should not underrate the fact that Wade Phillips was doing it for 40 years. Right. And Sean McVeigh is pretty darn good at it. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, it's a schematic football just like kind of, it's like a nerds dream in terms of a Super Bowl like matchup because it's both, both guys are incredible tacticians. Yep. And so, yeah, I just can't wait to see how it goes. All right, buddy. That's all we got. I really appreciate it.

We'll be talking to you later this week for about a bottle of, all kinds of stuff. All right, sounds good. See you. Clean up your remote control clutter in time for the Super Bowl with Control Center by Cato. Plug in your streamer,

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Be the MVP of your Super Bowl party with Control Center. So you can finally get off AV duty and bring back the joy to watching TV. I've told you guys this before. There is no one worse than me at technology. I have 10,000 remotes in my house, or at least I used to. I lose them every 10 minutes. I had no idea what controlled what. Now everything is centralized.

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This is amazing. This is media Disneyland for me. It's incredible. So just to get a lot of people behind the curtain a little tiny bit. So when we're here, when it's me and Kevin and Danny and Roger, the media availability stuff for the teams, that's where we're working. Right. We're talking to people and really good conversations. It's always really good access we've discussed in the past.

We're in the media center working and typing and transcribing. That's where you're on your grind. That's what I'm grinding. It is hilarious to watch. You're just like in a mode as we're kind of just talking to each other about nonsense. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

That's where, that's my game. Yes. That's what I'm looking around. and going, I'm watching, you know, just like you're studying RPO's, whatever you're studying, I'm watching like, how did that guy walk up to that player? Or what is this weird radio transactions going on? Yeah. Absolutely.

It's amazing. And everybody's just right there. I don't have to call anybody, I have to email anybody and just walk up right to them. It's amazing. So I'm making like weird jokes about Diamond Dallas Page being on Radio Road, but you're just totally locked in. You're a mad at an mission. I'm making the weird joke and then I'm analyzing what Diamond Dallas Pages presence really

means. So, exactly. So here's my thing. And we said this before the show, and I kind of alluded to it at the beginning. With what's going on on the media side and before this Super Bowl, maybe it's this his recency bias, but it feels like there's more going on on that side of things than there is for a typical Super Bowl. And I'm talking about it in two different ways.

One, just Romo mania. I mean, it's a completely different ballgame. And we'll discuss kind of the history of color guys in the Super Bowl here in a second. And then there's the Godel side. So you went to the Goodell Press conference today. how much of a circus have we reached with this? Because he does not talk anymore. So it becomes just this weird,

like surreal kind of performance art that he has to do when he's up there. Totally. And I think there have been more surreal Goodell Press conferences. In fact, the last Super Bowl, you and I were at together,

which was in the throes of deflategate. Oh my God, that's right. It was really, really weird confrontational. And that was Pat's Seahawks. That was kind of the Pat's revenge tour. That's like two Pat's revenge tours to go. Exactly. I just forget.

I can't keep them all straight. They're going to start counting revenge tours instead of Super Bowls eventually. Exactly. Like, what's called? Just etching them into the wood somewhere. Exactly with all the cities. Yeah. This one was he's been in hiding all year because the NFL or Gidell himself made the strategic

decision that every time he talks, people get really mad. Oh, God. So one way to solve that is for him just not to talk anymore. And you remember there was the Mark Leibovic Tell All that came out early in the season. And so that, and he was a big part of that, not saying anything particularly damning, but just being present in there. And I think he made, you know, it's funny when we saw him, there was a cutaway of him during the Casey New England game the other day. He's sitting in the box and it was kind of like, oh, wow, Roger Goodell exists. Yeah.

You know. And then he goes up there on stage tonight. And it's the same thing. He does not want to answer anything. I mean, you figure there's a moment where if you're him, you're standing on your hind legs and you're going, guys, we blew it in that New Orleans scare. We blew it. The refs aren't bad people.

You know, we can do better, but we blew it and we can't let something like that happen again. But he didn't say that. He didn't say it in that particular way. He just went around and around and around. He defended the refs generally saying referee in the NFL had never been better. You know, these are people of integrity, da, da, da, da. And he just won't, he will never wrap his arms around a moral crusade. Forget Capernick, which also came up today.

I heard. Forget, you know, stuff like, you know, do we need more minority? One big question today was, do we need more minority offensive coordinators and quarterback coaches? Yeah. Because that's now the gateway job to head coach in this era of knowing Sean McVeigh, right? So do we need to do we need to do a better job of representation? He thinks about this stuff.

I'm not convinced he doesn't care about it, but he just completely lacks the ability to stand up there and be like, this is a big deal you need to pay attention to it, to be a moral authority of any kind. And isn't that the biggest difference between him and what we're seeing with Adam Silver right now? Yes. Because not only is Adam Silver considering this stuff, but he's able to articulate his thoughts on it and his thoughtfulness about it in a very pronounced and very purposeful way in a way that Roger McDowell just isn't.

Totally. And I'm not convinced at the end of the day that if we downloaded those two guys, they'd be completely different people. That's what I'm saying, though. That's exactly what I mean. It's just the performative aspects of being a moral leader. And Roger Goodell has just. just decided whether he's afraid he's going to piss off the owners if he does,

whether he's got, where the NFL is just so big that he thinks that's impossible, maybe wrongly, he doesn't do it. And he didn't do it today. Is there anything else just outside of that weird, shady kind of cloak and dagger side that was interesting about that, that you kind of got out of the experience of being in that room today? Out of the thing.

I mean, I think part of it is this kind of questing sense, the media, and I hate to say the words, Donald Trump. Yeah. But there's a sense with Roger Goodell, just like there is in the White House, that if we can just ask him the tough question, and he's going to break down and confess everything and we're going to get some kind of measure, especially with the refereeing in New Orleans. Yeah. And I think they should have put out a state. I still can't believe they didn't put out a public statement about it. It's unbelievable. And his justification today was we've been doing a lot of communicating, meaning he'd talked to Sean Payton. He talked to Gail Benson, the owner of the Saints. Like he had done, made these phone calls. All behind closed doors. everything they do is. Exactly. But, you know, it's like he, all you have to do is just put out press conference and say, I mean, a press release and just say we blew it. Yeah. And he didn't want to do

that. So I think that's the thing. It's like this, the media's quest to get some kind of, to just to get Roger Gail publicly. Yeah. And I just don't, I mean, I just don't think that's ever going to happen in a satisfying way. So there'll be investigations and stuff. But like, you know, publicly, it's never going to be Roger weeping at the podium. Yeah, exactly. Nothing is ever going to go down in the public square. So let's get to Romo because this is something that you have such a better handle on than I do just because you were slightly older than me. Slightly. And I mean that for real.

I mean, it's just it's a difference enough where you've been in a televised Super Bowl era for a decade more than I have just in terms of your general consciousness of it. So is this the most high stakes, highly publicized, fascinating debut or performance by an analyst and especially a color analyst in this game? Yes. and I would take you one step farther, which is the announcer of the Super Bowl has never been as big a storyline in the Super Bowl as Tony Romo is in this. That doesn't mean he's the best ever.

No, doesn't mean he's better than John Madden right now. But John Madden's announcing was never as important to the Super Bowl lead up as Tony Romo's announcing is this year. I'm not seeing this is a top five Super Bowl storyline. He is in Atlanta, as we sit here in your hotel room, a top maybe three get, right? Like if you wanted to sit down and interview anybody this week, I think it'd be like Tom Brady,

you know, Bill Belichick, you know, you could, you want to argue Sean McVeigh and maybe like one member of the Rams on there, but I think it's Tony Romo. You know, like he's not. I would say Tony Romo is higher on that list than any Rams player. Yes, I think that's right. I mean, when we were at meeting at the other night, I was looking around going, if Tony Romo had a had a podium over there, there'd be like, 900 people at it. Well, we saw it yesterday. Yeah. I mean, again, so Brian and I went to the CBS media

availability yesterday. Yes. And typically those things are fairly tame. I mean, the guys sit at tables after they do this big show of putting everyone on stage. And if you want to talk to, like, for example, I wanted to talk to Boomer Asyas in yesterday. I couldn't because there were so many fucking people in this room. And it's the reason for that, I think, is spurred on by the fact that there is this Romo element to this. The CBS media availability at the Super Bowl is a hot ticket in the way it never would be for any other network at any other time in the history of this game. And I'll tell you the difference. Except for the couple of weirdos like me, 99% of people in that on a normal year would be saying, Mr. Analyst, tell me who's

going to win the game. That's exactly. Right. Give me some, give me some Jared Goff stuff. Help me fill up my notebook because what most normal people like yourself would use those for is I'm writing a story about football and you give me a quote or insight or something. about football that I can use, right? Fill up my notebook. People were going in there and they just wanted to ask questions about Tony Romo. I mean, it's like I was standing next to a woman from Inside Edition. It was kind of like waving her microphone in his face.

And finally she gets her chance to talk. And she says, what is your hype song? That was the big question. It's an important question. But I don't believe Trey Eichman was asked that last time. He called Super Bowl. I don't know that for sure. I'm almost 1,000 percent.

Chris Collinsworth was never asked that. I just don't think they are not pop culture people in that way. So what happens on Sunday and how he does and how the game performs ratings-wise, everything else, where do you think the Tony Romo color analyst narrative goes from here over the next 10 days? Backlash? No, I don't know. That's what I'm saying. Is there a way that we go too far with this and it starts to turn in a way that we don't really expect? So we've already had a backlash that we've forgotten about, which was last year's AFC championship game.

because he was super giddy and the game was kind of boring and a blowout in the first half. Here's his big weakness. That's me though, so I understand. I mean, you have the same kind of DNA when you really do. No, you are. And I'll make another point about that. Don't let me forget that in a second. But his big weakness and his producer told me this on the record yesterday,

which is we got to get better when the football isn't great, right? If there is a great game happening and you want somebody telling you how great it is, and then, you know, slicing and dicing the X's nose, he is right now the best possible person for that, just like Madden was in his day. If the game sucks, if we get to 40 to 3 on Sunday, I'm not sure Tony Romo right now has that second gear where he can just be like, hey, you know what?

I'm going to make this entertaining for me. I'm not sure the other A team guys do either at this moment. That's the big difference between. There's a little more cynicism, though, kind of in their bones where they're just like, I'm kind of bored sometimes by this. I'm not as excited as you probably want me to be. So when the game is bad, when the game is bad,

I can kind of have that side to me that Romo doesn't necessarily. To be just an entertainer. Yes. Right. John Madden was one of the best entertainers on television, The Ent, when he was on. Like there was Johnny Carson and there were guys on sitcoms and there was John Madden. And he was in that list, right?

Tony Romo is athlete funny. He is sports funny. He is not actually funny yet. Now, maybe he has this comic side of him that comes out, but he's more winning than funny, right? And that's what I think is an important distinction here. Here's the other thing about Roma that I think is why he is popping out to you and to other people right now. What's happening in that that extra decade that I have on you is that sports fandom has gone and split into basically two. Half of it is super new age analytics.

Maybe not half of it, but let's call it like a chunk of it. It's a significant chunk compared to even where it was five years ago. Totally. And it's people who really understand football at its elemental level. And they know stuff that was just unavailable data when I was a kid. Then there's this second half of fandom that it's just like, dude, I like football. I don't understand all that crap. I don't do mock drafts in that same way.

I don't know who Dane Bruegler is. Right. Like I just, they just exist on the separate plane. Yeah, I don't know what early down success rate means. Right. And football is so. big that it has big chunks of both audiences, right? Basketball, we may say, is even more heavy analytics because it's just a smaller sport. It's also, yeah, the sphere of basketball analytic

coverage and culture and meme culture in basketball is the same sphere. So I think that's the biggest, the most important thing. Now, if we say there's two different worlds, right? What Tony is doing is he is joining those two different worlds, right? It's a really good point. He is good enough at predicting plays and talking about scheme and offense that you're interested in him. And he's winning enough and smiling enough and excitable enough that my mom is interested in it. And that's the trick here, right? He's joined those two separate worlds football. And to me, that's like, that's the big trick, right?

Like, you know, Chris Collinsworth gets, I mean, this is number one show on television, right? It's beside that football. But Chris Collinsworth gets pretty far the way there, but he is still professor football at a level. You know, Tritman gets some of the way there, but he is still this guy. Tony has popped into that second, like, more casual group. And to me, that's, that's the win here for CBS.

And that's why he's such a big deal right now. Awesome. That's all I got for you, buddy. I hope you enjoyed your Super Bowl because it, like, ends tomorrow. I'm going to go back to harassing reporters. I know. I don't know what I'm going to do. Yeah.

My sort of, the final gun sounds for me like on Friday afternoon. Yeah. And then the game is just sort of like, okay. But I wish that were the case for me. That's not true. I'm very excited. On Friday afternoon, I'm pretty much done working. So then I just get excited about the game.

That's when I rev back up. I turn on my own personal. Tony Romo. All right. But thanks a lot. All right. See you. All right, guys.

That's all we got today. Thank you so much to Warren Sherp, to Brian Curtis, to Danny Kelly, to Dan Orlovsky. Really hope you guys enjoyed the show. Hear a couple different voices than ours for a change. Give you some insight that we probably overlooked and definitely would over the rest of this week. Kevin and I will be back tomorrow, though, with our big in-depth Super Bowl preview. We'll try to hit this game from as many angles as we can think of. Thank you so much.

And we'll talk to you later. Clean up your remote control clutter in time for the Super Bowl with Control Center by Kavo. With one universal remote, just say what you want and Control Center will take you straight there. So you can finally get off AV duty and bring back the joy to watching TV. Shop now just in time for Super Bowl Sunday and get 40% off Control Center with promo code NFL. Control Center is available at CAAV-V-O.com and Best Buy. Control Center by Koppo, one remote that does it all. Hotel Tonight makes it easy to book awesome.

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