The Ringer NFL Show - Super Bowl X’s and O’s With Warren Sharp | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

NFL analyst Warren Sharp sits down with us on radio row to talk about Kyle Shanahan and Andy Reid trying to outsmart one another, the weaknesses and strengths on both sides of the ball for each team, what will swing this game, each team's most underrated unit, and more. Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Guests: Warren Sharp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This Wednesday on the site, we are releasing our 2020 NFL draft guide, where you can find all things draft related leading up to the first round on April 23rd, including scouting reports on each prospect by Danny Kelly and much more. We'll be updating it regularly with new analysis that takes all the latest developments into account. You can check that out on Wednesday on the Ringer.com. To the Ringer NFL show, I'm Robert May is joined as always by Kevin Clark. I'm how you, but I'm ready to geek out with one.

Warren Sharp. This is a fascinating scenario. We are in the middle of radio row. There's so much going on and Warren Sharp is sitting next to us. Warren, thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, it's awesome. You guys have one of the best podcasts out there. Certainly my favorite from a football exes and those perspective breaking things down

and I mean, I'm not saying that's just because I'm on your show. The stuff you guys write at the ringer, too. It's just ridiculous. That's very nice of you to say. So we're doing so much Super Bowl talk this week. Yesterday we talked about some specific players. We talked about story lines, essentially the narrative around the game a lot. We want to dig into some of the

numbers and the mechanics of how this is going to go with you because you did an exhaustive Super Bowl preview that is so incredibly useful. How many pages? 45. It's ridiculous. It's more information than anyone should ever need. It's the exact right amount. 44, he can't cram it all right. I love it, but it's more information than anyone would ever need about a single football game. Absolutely. We're going to talk about both sides of the ball. Kevin, I'm going to kick it to you first. As you kind of pick his brain about the stuff he studied, thought about, what are the things

that jump out to you first and what do you want to know? My favorite Warren Sharp Heat Check was before we went on, I said, what do you want to talk about? And he said, I can talk about anything. Which is an amazing thing. He's got it. He's right. He's right. He is broken down every single part of this game. I'm fast... I'll tell

you one thing. When I'm doing work for teams, it's nowhere close to this because you don't have time. They need something, you know, very quickly. Yeah. And so let's do that first. I'm actually curious about that.

So when they ask you to do that, what is the time frame and what kind of stuff are you usually thinking about? So in the past before this season, I was getting stats on Sunday night after the game and I was having a report issued by noon the next day. But I guess some of the teams, they found the information compelling

and they start doing their game. game planning the Friday and Saturday before the game for the next week, right? So they wanted my stuff on like Thursday night, Friday. It's obviously not going to include the stats from the game that they would just be playing, but they wanted that in advance so then they could start their advanced work already having my stuff in pocket. Is that more play choice, formation? Like what kind of stuff you feel like you're focusing on?

General, like sometimes it's even tempo. It's philosophy. It's basically everything. that I can try to isolate to give them, giving them the biggest edge in this upcoming game, and then narrowing that down to, like, the top most actionable items and presenting that extremely straightforward with some data to support it if they want to see that, but trying to just, you know, they're so busy, they've got their own analytics departments. A lot of them, they know what they're doing. So let's extend that hypothetical. If you were working for the chiefs,

for instance, how would you attack and how do you stop this 49ers attack with Kyle Shanahan at the height of his play calling prowess with, you know, they ran the ball 42 times and it seemed to never stop working. Play action never stops working for them. Motion always works. If you're the chiefs, you defeat this Niners offense. How? Well, one of the ways that you can always defeat an opposing offense that's kind of as counterintuitive is with your own offense. And if your own offense is on point, then that opposing offense suddenly they're at a position of weakness, and they have to be a little bit more reactionary. And so I think it starts with what the chief's offense is doing. And I actually think that, again, another little counterintuitive element,

everybody is so scared of this 49ers pass rush. And that's the biggest thing we're talking about. It's the best defense in the league. They've got the best pass rush in the league, pressure with four, et cetera, et cetera. They have not played very many teams that want to pass the ball a lot, that do pass the ball a lot. And I actually think a great strategy for the chiefs would be pass even more than what you currently do. You're already the most pass-heavy team in the NFL the first three-quarters of the game. One of the highest rates in the last 20 years. However, tire out this pass rush, pass on them a lot early, use tempo, keep that defensive line from rotating in and out.

So in the second half, Mahomes is able to have. have a lot more success. In addition, two other areas with this past rush, if you want to dive into it, we can. But they are actually league average on early downs. They get all their pressure, I mean, like a 10% above NFL average on third down. And they're also very bad inside of the red zone, which is why the red zone defense ranks 25th in the league. So I'm curious about that side of the ball, because I want to talk about something you wrote about was so surprising to me. But it makes sense when you think about the actual schematics of the defense. The Niners are very bad against play action.

And the Chiefs actually use a lot of play action, even though they don't run the ball a lot. So on those early downs, do you think that the Chiefs would be well served to use a ton of play action, slow down the pass rush even more, and have that be kind of the basis of their early down approach on offense? I would prefer that. Look, the 49ers are, a lot of teams have tried to approach them by running the ball a little bit more. because from a rankings perspective, the past defense is a little bit better

than the run defense. But I think you can't change your stripes if you're the chiefs. You don't want to say, oh, well, like, let's just attack their run defense and let's make that our core philosophy. Andy Reid does not want to be sitting on his couch 20 years from now looking back at this Super Bowl

and say, man, I ran the ball too much here, right? You've got Patrick Mahomes, a quarterback. You got three wide receivers that are legitimately the best in the NFL, three wide set. I don't think that there's a better, more dangerous three-wide set in the league. The speed is staggering. The speed is staggering. It's overwhelmed.

And all the misdirection, look, that 49ers defense, as you say, they don't rush a lot of guys, typically. But they flow really well, and they're a quick defense. They're so aggressive. That is the defining aspect of who they are defensive. Absolutely. So if you can get them by pre-snap motion or the play action, which is basically post-snap motion, get them to hesitate a split second in what they want to do or get them stepping that wrong way

with the element of a pre-snap motion. A guy's running here up. We got to motion this guy out. Well, are we sure that we're lined up on this guy? And boom, at that moment, the ball snapped. The plays go in the other direction. Two guys are thinking about what's going on over here. Like, that's a huge edge for Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

It's such a commentary on how often you need to run the ball, right? We're talking about how you need to use more play action against that team. That's the smart way to do it. it's not about running the ball in first and 10. It's every once in a while on second and two, just run it. Run it six times, and you're still going to be able to do what you want to do. That dynamic and that split is just something that's such an important factor in today's NFL. And I'm curiously how often they'll run it just to give it credence if they want to use a little bit more play action than they do.

I agree. And the other interesting thing is, you know, from Robert Salas' perspective, they play a lot of cover three. play a lot of zone, you know, like I think 77% of their early down snaps are either cover three, a little bit cover four. Patrick Mahomes is really good against zone, especially throws the ball a little bit deeper down the field, finds those holes in the zone. How well does that play action, slow down that pass rush or manipulate him so he can make those deeper drops and hit those play action elements. So I think from an early down perspective, that's key. And the biggest thing we talked about on third down, right, that's where the 49ers pass rush is at its peak.

Holmes has a 3.3% sack rate on third downs. One of the best in the NFL. When he scrambles the ball on third down so far this season, I don't think he's been sacked. I'm sorry, I don't think he's not scrambled for a first time. I'm pretty sure he has 100% success rate when he runs the ball on those third down plays. So he's just outstanding. I know that you're a wealth of information. We could talk for hours and hours and hours about the granular parts of this game. But I need a hot take question here for one game from a play calling standpoint, Kyle Shanhan or Andy Reed. Kyle Shanahan. I know what he's saying. I was, me and him on the same boat here. I was asked before the Super Bowl last year. I was asked after the Super Bowl last year because Sean McVeigh was the

hot topic, you know, heading into the Super Bowl. And I will pound this Kyle Shanahan gavel right now. First of all, my answer to those questions before the Super Bowl, after the Super Bowl, were Kyle Shanahan. It was not Sean McFey. Now, I'm not trying to slight Sean McVey in the least, right? Sean McVeyer Washed. I'm just saying Kyle Shanahan. But think about how much we were talking about

Sean McVe at this time last season. Everything was Sean McVeigh. Oh my God, he's so brilliant, everything about it. And again, I'm not trying to slight him. But I feel like the media in general is not talking about Kyle Shanahan. Heading into this game the same way because he was running the ball a ton

and because there wasn't anything flashy about the way that they were winning those games. And if he had decided, I feel very confident they would have dominated that Packer's secondary if they decided to pass the ball, but he did not need to do that. I have a couple of theories on why there's not as much Shanahan momentum. And number one, he's interesting conversation. Number one, fascinated by it. He's that he's older. He was not 31 years old when he was hired.

He's like 40, though. I understand that, but there's a lot of 40-year-old coaches. There's a lot of 40-year-old coaches. He can be standing here right now. No one would even think about it. wear flatbrim hats. I do not. So who looks like him more? It's mostly just so I don't have to do my hair.

Okay. That's the reason. Well, beyond that, I think the golf reclamation project was so stunning to everybody. That's true. John McVeigh a ton of initial capital. And then the LA thing. And also, he's more charismatic. Sean talks well.

He's about to be on the NFL countdown. But no, they don't have the same personality. They don't have the same politician aspects. The other thing is, Kyle Shanahan has more or less been in our lives for like decade. Yeah, people didn't pay attention. I know, but it's like a slow burn. It wasn't anything.

Sean McBade was like, this guy is in Washington all of a sudden he's the head coach, and okay. Listen, that was a miracle worker. I've been on this for a long time. I know you have. I've been banging the drum. I remember when you came on in the summer and we were talking about Kyle, and it's just people don't know it. And I think that one of the other reasons, and

I think the reason you appreciate him so much is the same way that I do. So Sean, it was a lot of, there was some pre-step motion element to it, but a lot of it was stagnant in terms of formation, approach, everything. But Kyle does so much stuff where he's layering his approach to it. And I think you and I appreciate football in the same way. It's all about play action, formational diversity, and motion.

And he uses all of them in a way that no other team outside of the Ravens does. So I think that you and I are on the exact same page when it's like, he makes it so much harder on defensive coordinators than anyone else does, and that's why he's just the best of it. he's he's outstanding and i think if you say if you say the name kyle shanahan to the average person right and you say this name shan mcvay before last year's super bowl right they would think one thing about sean chile they would think about the blown lead in the super bowl that's the big that's the closest thing that we come to with kail shanahan and the other thing that we think about when we think

about khao shanen is like well like he's having to build around jimmy g he has to do all he has to run the ball so much and it's absolutely what you said Kyle calls plays that he thinks are going to win on a per play basis. And when he's gaining 8.1 yards per carry on first down runs in the first half of the game against the Packers, you'd be damn sure that he's going to continue to call those. So it's not as if he has to work around Jimmy G when we get to talk about that side of the ball. They're going to be just fine with whatever Kyle draws up for Jimmy to throw. So I want to talk to you about that side of the ball because another thing you had in your breakdown was so interesting.

to me. The chiefs have been so bad against pre-snap motion when they have to defend their run. And the Niners use it 70% of the time. It's the highest rate in the league. He's so good at understanding how motion gives his quarterback information and manipulates a defense. As I think about this game on that side, the number one factor to me is how the middle of the field defenders for the chiefs, Sorensen, Hitchens, whoever is it, Damien Wilson, all of that, how they're going to deal with having to move side to side. As you think about that sign, is that the most important thing as you think about it on both a run and pass level? 100%. That right there, I know they lost Juan Thornhill, but the linebackers are the weakness of that Chief's defense by far. And the Chiefs

defense actually is better than people think. I talk about the 49ers being the number one best pass rush on third downs. You know who number two is? The Chiefs. They have the second best sack rate on third downs in the NFL. So you got two. two teams where the offenses absolutely must be efficient on early downs to avoid those third and obvious past situations on third down. So be efficient on early downs. But you're right, that is the weakness. And if you can get those guys, they know they're the weakness.

If you can get those guys to second guess themselves ahead of the staff, thinking more than playing, I mean, defense is just, you got to be able to react. When you're playing an offense like Andy Reid's or like Kyle's, like you sure is how better have studied up what you need to know and be able to just get out there and react quickly. And if they can get you a half step behind or thinking about something else when you should just be reacting,

they've already got you beat and you don't even know it yet. What's the most underrated unit in this game? Ooh, maybe some one of the special teams. I don't know because I love both these offenses so I don't think either's underrated. I haven't thought about the kicking game for a single second over the last. The Patriots aren't in it.

So we haven't had a bell in a five minute answer on the... Even though Robbie Gold is very important to me. He's one of my favorite people in the history of the world, but I haven't thought about it for two seconds. I'm the same way. Yeah, so I mean, that, I think the reason I say that is because I think this game's going to be so close.

And I actually think that it's going to come down to both of these play callers, making the right play or the most aggressive play at the right point in time. Managing the clock. Managing the clock, are you going to go for a fourth down or not? I hope it doesn't come down to that. Listen, both of these...

An Andy read clock mistake is the last thing I want. The Niners head coach just had some clock issues in the past as well. Hey, let's not do that. And the other thing, they're a little bit conservative. Sometimes I see the 49ers in the first half on fourth down be a little bit conservative, right? And I want these guys, I know Mahomes can come from behind to win a game. But you can't play like, if you're Andy Reed, like, well, we're okay. I've heard Andy come out and say, our goal is to be more aggressive in the first quarter and not get into these for my heart.

He literally said, like, for my heart, I can't let this happen. And then on the reverse, Kyle also needs to be a little bit more aggressive with some of those fourth down decisions. But the aggressiveness goes beyond that. It goes to just like every single play, you need to come out and figure out how I'm going to attack these guys. And there's some setting up to be done in the first quarter, getting the defense. Kyle will have a three-yard run just for the sake. Yeah, yeah. He'll really do it.

Figure out what you're going to do. Figure out how you're going to defend this. And then he's going to attack you later. So I don't care if the first quarter, the first 10 minutes, here's a little bit of sparring and feeling the opponent out. But we need some real good uppercuts coming early in this game because that's the type of game it's going to be. It's going to be a heavyweight bout between two offensive juggernauts,

and they can't afford to make mistakes or take things for granted. Are you seeing like a 45-42 type situation? No, because I do. what I want. I just want all the points. I would love that. I would absolutely love that. No doubt. A one score game where we're getting upwards of like 70 to 80 points would be

fabulous. That's what I want though. I absolutely want that. After last year especially, I can't endure that again. But I do think like look if the 49ers get into situations on these third downs where they are obvious past situations Jimmy G does eat sacks the Chief's second best pass rush in the game. I think it's interesting when you get into the red zone.

Kansas City has had their share of red zone issues offensively. They aren't as good as they've been in the past. Because they're predicated on space. And that's the thing. When it shrinks, it's much harder for them to do what makes them great. Because the speed is negated. Now what they've done, which I think is the analytically correct decision in general, is this season they've run the ball more in the red zone than they've done in the past.

And it's actually worked out well for them. But the thing is, the 49ers run defense is actually pretty damn good in the red zone. It's their past defense. And here's another crazy stat. To three wides in the red zone, you know where the 49ers defense ranks in success rate? It was last, right? Dead last in the NFL when you space out in three wide receiver sets in the red zone. No, I read the first three.

What I did is I brought all the highlights to the front because I knew nobody was going to read the whole thing unless you're psyched. The whole thing. So I definitely think that that's going to be an issue too. Like, will Andy maybe pass the ball a little bit more than they've been running just because it's our matchup edge? The thing with Patrick Mahomes is and pre-step motion and play action, he doesn't need that to succeed. He's got such even splits without that.

His splits with or without play action doesn't matter. He's that guy who trumps everything when it comes to that. It's so interesting to me because everything we've talked. we've talked about today, they are such different offenses, right? So Dan O'Lofsky tweeted about this today, where he was talking about how, you know, it's more about who covers Kelsey and who covers Kittle. And that's, the reason that's true is that Kittal lines, or Kelsey lines up so many places. And the chiefs don't need motion, right? The chiefs don't need to run the ball, all of that stuff. So they do things in very separate ways, but the lessons we learn

are still the same. It's all. about stressing people vertically and horizontally and in terms of anticipation, and it's about dominating people on early downs. So what we learn from these teams is the exact same stuff, but they do it in completely opposite ways. And I think that it's such a perfect way to think about and learn about the game, the fact that that's true. Absolutely. The interesting nugget about the pre-stop motion and the play action for the chiefs with Patrick Murombs, while he doesn't need it, what Andy needs to realize is this is a definite weakness of the Niners defense. They are the best in the NFL when teams are not running play action on them. So I know you don't

need it for Mahomes to succeed. It's not a crutch that he needs, but it is definitely a weakness for that defense. So you got to take advantage of that. You got to make sure that you're calling more than your season average because it's such a weakness of that opponent. is there whether that's coach player unit weather whatever it is is there something that you think swings this game that we're not talking about enough well it's it's what happens on those third downs with mahomes his ability to avoid those it is a turnover you're not going to go for it on a fourth and if you're if you're in a third in any situation where you're passing the ball you are not going for it on fourth down if you take a sack like you can have a four

four-yard gain on a third and seven and go for it on fourth and three. That's not the end of the world. But if you're on that down a third and seven and you get sacked, you're punting. That is a turnover in this game. So who wins the battle on third downs when the Niners passers scoring up against Mahomes? That to me is going to be fascinating. And then it's just in general, like I can't boil it down to one specific thing. But these coaches, we mentioned about like Andy Reid sitting back there 20 years from now. Like, it's very unique to have two offensive play callers that are the head coaches in these games. How their offense performs, makes sense to me. How their offense performs absolutely is going to carry through with them through eternity what they call on these plays. It's

not going to be like a Pete Carroll situation. Like even that play resonates with them. But, like, here, these coaches control everything because they're the signal callers. So I, based on everything you've said and the feeling I'm getting from you, you think it's going to be close, which I think it will be as well, to be a decent amount of points. But in your mind, is Mahomes just too much of an answer to every single question for the chiefs to lose? Because that's the feeling I'm getting from you. He's going to be able to do enough no matter what. It's so fun because you can, how do you bet against that? But at the same time, if this game was played out a hundred times, in my opinion, and I could be totally wrong, but in my,

opinion sitting here with you today, I think the 49ers win more than 50 of those games. I agree. I agree. I think they're the balance that they have and their ability to win this game offensively with their decision making and play calling on offense. You know, we talk about how you slow down that other team. It doesn't just have to be your defense. It could be your own offense. I think it doesn't mean just running the ball. I think people will get confused like that Kyle, oh, we think Kyle's just going to come out. run the ball. He is going to be creative balanced. He saved all these plays that other teams might have had to call when they're trailing in the NFC division around, the NFC championship,

all that stuff still in his arsenal, plus all the other trickeration that he's been able to draw up in the last two weeks. I love the fact that he said, we already, they asked him last week, how is your game playing, your install, we're done with everything, we've already put it all in. Have you scripted up your first 15? That's the last thing. I'm going to do. I'm going to wait until the very end right before the game. We're going to process everything for those first 15.

I'll tell the story later on. I'm writing about this later, but Matt Schaubb, I was talking Matt Schaub this week about just Kyle and working with him and everything else. He told me that usually it's booked on Saturday every other team, it's done. Everything is closed. It's over. The game plan is in, everything.

Kyle would come into the locker room and Matt Ryan Hayden. So Shob had to convince Matt Ryan to let Kyle put stuff in on Sunday morning because he was thinking about it so much on Saturday night. It's just there's always an answer that he's not considered the same way that other people do. And that's this game in a nutshell. The thing that I hate the most about this game, though, is that one of these head coaches is going to lose. I know. One of these play callers is going to lose because I've rooted for Andy for so many years for him to get that elusive Super Bowl win as a head coach.

And Kyle, you know, the thing about Kyle, like I think one of the reasons why he's been overlooked is, What was it? Four and 12, three and 13, like very poor records overall. But, I mean, if you look at the numbers, and I wrote about this in my preview last season,

the 49ers were the only team in the NFL last year. Early down success rate. With Nick Mollins and who is the number two guy. CJ Bethard. CJ Bethard, yeah. They were top 10 in early down success rate, offense and defense, only one of two teams in the NFL to do that last season.

I remember he saying that. They were impressive. That's one of the reasons why this season, I bet them, even though they were projected third place in the NFC West, I bet them to win the NFC West in the offseason, and I bet them to exceed their eight-win total. It's funny now that they were eight-win total.

They're a monster. But they're a juggernaut right now, obviously. But yeah, I just feel bad for either of these coaches because, you know, it sucks. Because I love their philosophy. I love how aggressive Andy is with his passing and his pass-rate in trying to make smart decisions. And Kyle, he's one of my favorite, like guys that,

coaching football in general. They do it the right way. And it's fun to see two teams that do it the right way, and it's unfortunate that one of them has to come up short. I totally agree. All right. Do you have anything else? I feel very educated now.

This is fantastic. I finally understand football after all these years. Thank you so much for doing this, but it's always good to talk to you. And I cannot wait for the rest of the week and for this game to actually help. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, guys. Of course, man.

Thanks so much. All right, guys. As always, thank you so much to listen to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. We'll talk to you later.