The Ringer NFL Show - Warren Sharp’s Thoughts on the 2020 Season, Plus Opt-outs and College Football’s Future | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

Warren Sharp joins The Ringer’s Kevin Clark to discuss the contenders we’re not talking about enough, best play-callers in the league, what’s the most unstoppable play, and much more (0:50). Then Kevin is joined by The Ringer’s Kaelen Jones to discuss the players who opted out of the NFL and college football seasons (39:58). Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Warren Sharp and Kaelen Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sports are finally back, and the only way to celebrate the return is with Buffalo Wild Wings, where the wings come in 24 sauces and seasonings. When you watch at home, make sure you watch with a wing bundle. Sports are back, and there's no better way to watch than with Buffalo Wild Wings. It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark. Great show today. We have Kaelin Jones, Ringer staff writer, to talk about the non-wave of opt-out on Thursday afternoon.

The deadline has come and gone. Chadius White has opted in. A couple of the big names who were rumored to be on the fence opted in as well. And players like Donta Hightower, C.J. Mosley, Eddie Goldman, Patrick Chung, who did opt out in the last week, remained the biggest name. So we'll get to that. But first, Warren Sharp, football guru, analytics expert. A lot of things. What is your actual job title?

When people say, when you're at a barbecue, whenever that happens again, and people say, what do you do? What do you say, Warren Sharp? Yeah, I try to avoid the question. I try to just tell them my... You just bail? You just go get another drink? I analyzed the NFL. I mean, in the past, I used to be able to just tell them I'm an engineer, but I quit that job.

So now I just tell them I analyze the NFL. And they kind of leave me alone because I do have a variety of different things that I do, whether I'm working for, you know, on the media side, whether I'm working for teams, whether I'm working, you know, on my website. So, yep, I just pretty much say I work in the NFL. related to I will tell I will tell this story I don't know if I've ever told this story before I don't know if I've told you but I was having a conversation with the GM two years ago and I mentioned your reports and that GM and I said if I were a GM I would look very seriously at hiring Warren Sharp and the GM said to me I'd love to hire Warren Sharp why don't you tell Warren Sharp to come work for us which is I think the best that is the best reaction I've ever gotten from a GM when dropping an analytics person's name. And I do it a lot. I do it a lot. And I, I, whenever, there are a lot of GMs who are extremely receptive to outside work and outside projects and stuff like scouring

internet. And so I recommend people or articles a lot to those guys. And Warren Sharpies, one of the, if not the most popular person in, in that sort of genre. Warren, I want to ask you, as a predictive person, as someone who looks at this season very analytically, and you have a guide that came out in the last couple of weeks, which is one of the top of the line looks at the upcoming season. This is the strangest season in our lifetimes. When you're predicting this now in August, knowing all the variables we know now, how does your look at this 2020 season change and what variables are you considering most heavily aside from just obviously general health of superstars?

Well, I want to see what teams are doing differently that they can control because we know that there's certain rules that are implemented that all the players the teams have to follow. But teams also have the ability to control different aspects. I saw a report just today where John Gruden said they split their coaching staff into two

parts and each one's coaching different people on the roster and then they're going to recombine them. There's a lot of ability for different coaches to be able to get involved and make changes, especially head coaches obviously, to make changes to what

they're doing this season that not everybody in the league has experienced doing and not anybody in the league has done before. And anytime that there's change and questions and people doing different things, that creates opportunity. So I want to see which teams are creating the best opportunities for themselves by which the way that they're preparing for the start of the season. And then the way that they're executing the season itself in terms of working with the team, working with the players, how they're conducting meeting.

You know, there's different teams I've been talking to that some aren't huddling right now. You know, I don't know if that's very common or a lot of teams are doing that. But there's just so many different interesting things that teams are doing. And I think it creates opportunities for edges. I think it's fascinating. And, you know, Joe Judge said this a couple weeks ago with the Giants, where you're saying you're essentially evaluating who would be able to take over if, God forbid, he got it or another coach got it and who would be able to be elevated.

And I've actually heard that from a number of coaches, as far as, you know, you always have lists of cornerbacks and safeties and centers in case there's injuries. Well, now there are coaches who have said that you have lists of, hey, if we need a quality, if we need to bump everybody up, we need a random quality control coach in week nine, we have one. But one of the things that Joe Judge said was that aside from sort of making those list is that who on the staff could be bumped up internally. And I know, you know, Jason Gareth, It's not the most popular guy, but, you know, if God forbid there was a problem, you have Freddie Kitchens on that staff who's who has called plays and all that stuff.

You have Jason Garrett, who has been a head coach for a long time. And you start looking at the depth of things. And this is one thing that coaches are being brutally honest with. And that stuff might matter for a two-week span. So it'll be really interesting to see how this all works. Are you expecting anything to change Warren from a scheme standpoint? Do you expect it to be simplified? Do you expect there to be one-scentry?

scheme that works over another or are more complicated schemes going to be at a disadvantage? Is there anything you can pinpoint as far as that goes, Warren? Well, the one thing I would expect to see, I think we have made a lot of the coaches, and I'm not saying this is wrong. They're doing the right thing, but they're becoming ultra-paranoid with their precautions. And like I said, not necessarily bad thing, but with this no huddle, especially with most stadiums having no audience in the stadium or those that will significantly reduce, you're going to have the opportunity to actually do what you're practicing.

Just no huddle and spread things out and get things in a lot quicker, get to the line at scrimmage quicker. What we saw with the Buffalo Bills last season with Brian Daibald and Josh Allen implementing that, we could see a little bit more of that into the 2020 season, I think. Other than that, I don't really think that there's going to be any major scheme changes as a result of COVID. I just think you're going to be able to communicate easier and people may go with a little bit more no huddle. Not that they're doing it during the games because they're worried about spreading.

But I think at that point, they've already practiced it so much. There's no detriment to doing it during the game because there's no crowd noise issue that you may just see that spill over. Yeah, and you wonder how that changes communication with the line and scrimmage when everybody can hear everything and you don't have the crowd there. I think it's a really interesting thing to watch. And unfortunately, it's something that teams are going to be dealing with all season because there will not be large crowds throughout the season. I think that the optimism that there could be or the optimism there has been throughout the summer is looking less and less likely. All right, let's get into actual football now. Give us a team, Warren.

And I read your book cover to cover and I found it fascinating. give us a team we aren't talking about enough as contenders. Okay, well, if we're first going to, we first have to sort of define what we think as the world of contenders. And if we define that, it's the teams that tend to have like the best odds out in Las Vegas, then that makes the most sense, I would think.

So we got to pick a team that's outside of that bracket. Now, I will couch my response by sharing this interesting nugget to you. But I'm going to go a little bit around this nugget, but I just want to get this into the pod here because I haven't shared this on Twitter anywhere else yet. Here we go. This is a nugget-friendly pod, Warren Sharp. Go ahead.

In four of the last five seasons, the NFC champion was lined between 20 to 1 and 40 to 1 before the season. And four of those five years, that team was not above 500 the prior year. So we're talking, we're not talking like some teams do a little bit better. And we're talking about fairly heavy long shots, 20 to 40 to 1.

So who are some of those teams? Well, obviously last year we know San Francisco won. They were 20 to 1. In 2017, Philadelphia won the NFC. They were 20 to 1. In 2016, Atlanta won. They were 40 to 1. And in 2015, Carolina won.

They were 30 to 1. So those are the four teams in the last five years that we're able to do that. So there's a world that exists based on the odds in Vegas, where there's four teams that are qualifiers. for this little formula here this year. The Arizona Cardinals are at 20 to 1. The Atlanta Falcons are at 25 to 1. The Chicago Bears are at 25 to 1

and the Detroit Lions are at 40 to 1. If you were going to ask me of those 4 teams, I would probably go with the Arizona Cardinals. Yes. But I don't really want to talk about them for this answer because I want to go over to a team in the AFC. So I gave you some good a good nugget, I think, that's relevant if you want to take some long shot odds on betting some teams in the NFC to have like some smart long shots. But the team I would rather talk about would be the Cleveland Brown.

Okay. I've been pumping them up as a post-hyped team. And one of the things that we've talked about a lot over the summer, I've talked to a lot of people inside the NFL, outside the NFL, is how we're almost always with hype a year early on teams instead of a year late. We see the ingredients. And then you get in a situation where the talent is there, and that's why we hyped them up. But then the team gets to see their holes, and then they get a year to address that.

And with Cleveland, that was the offensive line last year. And so I'm intrigued to see what you think is the case you made for Cleveland Warren. So with the Cleveland Browns is very easy. Baker Mayfield, since he came into the NFL, has struggled with spread personnel, whether it's 11, whether it's 10, when they stick three plus wide receivers out on the field, he has performed very poorly. Now, to get to this answer,

I do think we need to take a step back to what the 2019 season looked like and exactly, as you were indicating, a year too early. Everybody tends to hype the quarterback entering year two because of the big jump most QBs make from their rookie season to their sophomore season. So we looked at Baker Mayfield, always going to take a big leap.

These guys, the Cleveland Browns, we're the favorite. People forget that the favorites to win the AFC North last season. The Baltimore Ravens were actually the third place team projected to finish third in that division. Amazing. Everybody was betting on Baker. Everybody was betting on the Cleveland Browns. Why did they like the Browns?

Well, because they thought Freddie Kitchens was going to be the real deal, as was Baker Mayfield. Freddie Kitchens, remember, took over after Hugh Jackson was fired. The prior season, he filled in for last few games of the year, did some different things, started to use a little bit more heavy personnel. a little bit more 12, a little bit more 21, and the team performed better because Baker was performing better, and so we thought that would carry over. But one key acquisition in the front office was made

that I don't think enough people talk about, that was the acquisition of offensive coordinator, Todd Monkin. Todd Monkin has an air raid background, which is spread them out, a lot of wide receivers out on the field, and we're going to perform. There is some speculation that the team was, struggling because they weren't using enough Todd Monkin. But the fact of the matter is both internally as well as what I can see from just looking at the data,

I found the team was using a lot more Todd Monkin than they probably should have. Through the first, I believe it was nine weeks of the season, 86% of their passes, 86% of their dropback came from 11 personnel. That was one of the highest rates of any team in the NFL, mirrored what they were doing in the preseason because in the preseason I track what teams are doing from a personnel perspective, and 85% of their passes came from 11 personnel in the preseason. So these are pretty high rates for them, and they carried that over onto the season, and it was a disaster for Baker Mayfield. What we get this year is the perfect

coach for Baker Mayfield, in my opinion, and that's Kevin Stefansky. He used the least, number one, least amount of 11 personnel last season of any offensive play caller in the NFL. they used a lot more 12 and 21. So we know he wants to use that, but then we had to get a little bit of buy-in from the team. And we saw their GM Andrew Barry do that for him. He went out and in free agency, he got the tight end, Austin Hooper from the Atlanta Falcons.

He went out and traded for the fullback, Andy Janovich, from the Denver Broncos. We were able to convince David and Joku to stay and not request the trade, like he tried to get out of there, but then they convinced him to stay. So we've got two very reasonable tight ends in there. We've got a fullback. We still have our two great running backs and Nick Chubb and Creamhunt.

So they get their two running backs, their fullback, their two tight ends. Now we can do everything that we want from a schematic standpoint, mirroring what the coach wants. But we've got to give our quarterback a little bit more protection. So they went out at free agency. They get their right tackle, new Jack Conklin from the Titans. They bring in a less tackle draft him number 10 overall from the Crens of Ties. So they've got their tackles, solved hopefully. They've got extra heavy personnel on the roster.

And then the last, like, icing on the cake, for me at least, is this team, people don't study strength of schedule enough, in my opinion. This team played the number one most difficult schedule of opposing defenses of any team in the NFL last season. They played the number three most difficult schedule of opposing past defenses. That's what Baker Mayfield had to go up against last year. This year, they're scheduled to play the number one, easiest schedule of opposing past defenses. So you go from number three toughest to number one, easiest.

That's the icing with everything else that's happened for this team from a personal and coaching standpoint. I see them making a big jump and I see that spilling over how good they're going to be or more efficient they will be offensively, spilling over onto the defense and making the defense's life a little bit easier and in turn they'll look a little bit better as well. Now, they're still only forecast to finish third place in the AFC North this year. but I think they're going to be a strong playoff contender. And if they get into the dance, you know, you never know what could happen at that point.

But I think they're being a little bit overlooked right now on national scale. They also hired Ryan Grigson. Yes, they did. Yes, they did. No further comment. Hey, listen, if you can hire an XGM and put him in a role, you know, I remember people thinking Ryan Grigson when he got hired was a really good hire. So I'm sure that there are things he does well. you can put them in position to exceed.

Be like Belichick in the front office, right? Just put guys in position to do what they do best. Don't give them anything they can't handle. That's my philosophy. I 100% agree. There's certain things that I think Ryan Grigson is probably very good at. And if Andrew Barry and company get him doing those things, it's definitely an asset, in my opinion.

Put them in positions to concede. All right. Big picture. We talked about schemes. Maybe things are a little bit different this year. but when you think about what this season will look like, is there a trend that we're going to be seeing that Chris Collinsworth's going to be talking about in week four

without Michaels like it was with the RPO two years ago and say, Al, I'll tell you, these teams keep going to blank. What is the trend this season we're going to be talking about? Well, okay, I've got two for you. I've got two for you. The first one relates to more motion. And the reason I think we're going to see more motion, I'm not going to dive in deep on this one,

but the reason I think we're going to see more emotion is because teams are now able to capture that data a little bit better. It's more prominently discussed with probably their own analytics departments that they're starting off as well as in the community of analytic people that have bigger voices that help change the way that the NFL is playing and adopting some certain strategies. And it's very clear that both pre-snap motion, and post-nap motion through the form of play action,

definitely raise the ceiling on offenses. And I think we're going to see more of that pretty much across the board. Some teams are still going to miss the boat on it. That's natural. It's going to take a little while for it to get too prevalent. But I just think we're going to see more of that in 2020. The thing that I would rather discuss a little bit more

because I think the motion thing is somewhat, I mean, it seems pretty elementary and obvious to me, is a shift that we saw a little bit last year that nobody really is discussing in my opinion and I think it's going to carry on to this season and that is a shift more towards heavier personnel. And we have to take a step back to think about what we thought of at the end of the 2018 season.

At the end of the 2018 season, Sean McVeigh's Rams ran all the way to the Super Bowl, right? they ended up losing in the big game, but they got all the way to the Super Bowl, and they used a ton of 11 personnel. And I think the 65% of all snaps on offense that season came from 11 personnel. And what I think a lot of people expected was going to happen was that we were going to see the shift then, that more offenses are going to go the same exact way, more teams are going to get to line of scrimge quickly, use a lot more spread personnel, use a lot more wide receivers out on the field, and do what Sean McBae did. But what we found is that 65% of snaps using 11 dropped all the way down to 60% last year.

And we saw some efficiencies out of 12 and 21 that probably would surprise a lot of people when they're thinking of, oh, the best offenses get three wide receivers. We need to pass. We'll get three wide receivers out there. That's the most efficient thing to do because that's what teams do when they need to pass. But the reality is like 21 personnel, for example, that's generally, typically speaking, a fullback out on the field with a running back as a lead blocker, a 21 personnel saw the number one highest efficiency

based upon EPA per pass attempt per play. Let's talk about overall offense. Number one efficiency in EPA, number one in success rate, number one in yards per play. And then if you look at teams that use the highest rate of 21 personnel, five of the six teams that led the league and usage of 21 personnel went to the playoffs,

both Super Bowl teams, sorry, not both Super Bowl teams, but the 49ers were number one. They went to the Super Bowl. The Vikings were number two. They obviously made the playoffs. The Ravens had the best record in the NFL last season. The Broncos were number four, the only team that doesn't qualify to make the playoffs. Number five and number six are the Patriots and the same. And there were a lot of teams that actually shifted 21 teams in the NFL last season,

used at least 1% more snaps from 12 personnel than they did in 2018. 21 teams out of 32, used a little bit more 12 personnel with an extra tight end out on the football field. So I think we're going to see a continuance of this, but more people might notice it and pick up on it and discuss it. I'm a junkie for a little bit heavier personnel. Not that I don't love it when you have the roster to be able to, to put wide receivers out there and spread the field and take advantage of matchups.

And I know they do that a little bit more often in college sometimes. But I just think in the NFL, when you do something different and you do it well, this is something, as a quote I've said on your podcast several times as I've joined, that makes it very difficult for opposing defenses. And when they have to start dealing with a fullback out on the field, especially a fullback that can catch the ball a little bit out of the backfield, he doesn't have to be quite as good as, you know, the very best in the NFL. but a guy who can just do a little bit of catching out of the backfield,

it's just a huge matchup advantage for your offense. Al, I'll tell you, every team's doing that heavy personnel. That's week four. Look forward to it. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. Sports are finally back, and the only way to celebrate the returns with Buffalo Wild Wings. There's no fans in the crowd,

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So order at Buffalo Wild Wings.com or through the Buffalo Wild Wings app because Now more than ever, we need sports and sports needs us. At participating locations for a limited time, bundles only for takeout or delivery through Buffalo Wild Wing's app or website and not valid with any other offer. So one of the things that happens every year worn is everyone looks at the breakout team from the year before and tries to rip them off. And oftentimes they learn the wrong lessons. And I think that actually, if you look at the chiefs, trying to learn much from the

Chiefs is a bit of a fool's Aaron in the sense that they have the most talented quarterback in football and one of the best player callers in football. And if you're trying to be the chiefs in 2020 and you don't have those ingredients, good luck. I think maybe there's more to learn at least spiritually from the Ravens

who figured out what to do with their team basically changed directions entirely. And it's something we heard about a lot because you know, Albert Brewer had their report that the Patriots thought about taking Lamar Jackson but knew that they'd have to basically change everything they did offensively. And the Ravens selected Lamar Jackson and then decided to do the thing Brewer is describing

and change everything and build the best setup around him and all that stuff. And so if you're looking for a guide on how to build a football team right now, you look at least in theory to the Ravens and what they did. When you look, and you wrote about this in your Ravens chapter of your book, when you look at lessons that teams can take from the Ravens in 2019, team, where do you start? Well, number one, I think it's just a wholesale buy-in to what your team does best, what the players do the best and then do that thing. You have to start from a good foundation, like every building has to be built with a solid foundation. You have to have solid

offensive principles and strategies there, right? Like, we're going to be aggressive on force down when we should. But apart from some of the basic tenets of what you need to build into any offense. I think you have to really cater to the personnel that you have on your team. The Baltimore Ravens wholesale went into everything that would make Lamar Jackson better last season. And they increased pre-scent motion and play action. And they, you know, they were leaders of the NFL and both of those things, if not number one, in the top few teams. They were very aggressive with how they wanted to try to just play the game of football in general, understanding that teams that have a lead at halftime

typically win about 80% of their games. Now, the interesting subject of that is we hear so many different coaches in the NFL talk about turnover margin. We need to win the turnover battle this game. Well, if you win the turnover battle, you're winning about 81% of your game. If you have a lead at halftime,

you're likewise winning very close to that same number. But no coach out there, with the exception of the Raven, and we're focused on taking a big lead into halftime as quickly as possible. Getting up on the score, the first is forcing out opposing offense to change their philosophy completely. So Baltimore did that. They changed everything to their strengths of their players to Lamar Jackson specifically.

Now, like you said, it's going to be difficult for teams to duplicate their formula for success because nobody has Lamar Jackson in the NFL. But you do have the ability to establish them basically. principles, some of which you can take from the Ravens, which were pre-snap, post-knit motion, leads at halftime. These are some of the force down aggressiveness. These are some of the things that we're going to try to work into our offense. And then we're going to design this offense to the strengths of our team.

You know, a team that could definitely help from that in the NFC would be a team like the Seattle Seahawks. They don't have a great O-line. They don't have great running backs, but they do have Russell Wilson. So how can we get the most out of our offense and help our staff? ourselves the best. We're terrible leading at half time. Russ always has to come back in the second half of game. What can we do to optimize that? Well, we can get more aggressive and let it pass more in early downs and try to get leads going into half time using the same

personnel, but knowing that our best element is Russ, let's stop taking out of his, taking the ball out of his hand so much. You mean Mr. Unlimited? Mr. Unlimited. Wow. What a moment that was for everybody. And then cable thanos coming over the top and making Mr. Unlimited into the single most likable meme of the month. What I couldn't believe is so the night before, it was around like 10, 45 or 11 o'clock Eastern Time, I find this video.

And so I knew it was a couple of years old, but I also knew that like based upon Russ's follower count that hardly anybody watched this video, so I put it out there. And, you know, obviously like whatever day that was, August 5th was like Mr. Unlimited, his birthday almost to the world. And then Russ and his team had to come over the top, like he said, and put out like a reaction

video really leaning into the Mr. Unlimited thing. So when did Russell Wilson give himself the Mr. Unlimited nickname? Do we know? Yeah, this was like May of 2018. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. We went to the archives for that. Where did you find the video?

Russ tweeted it out. May of 2018. It was on his time. Nobody ever had seen this. Like the amount of likes and retweets of the video at the time I found it was so small. And so then I just posted the video. I didn't retweet him. I just posted the video clip.

And, you know, that's really when it took off yesterday. So it was absolutely hilarious. I thought it was one of the weirdest videos that I had seen from a professional athlete. But I thought it was worth everybody else checking out as well. And certainly the reaction, if I had known that the reaction was going to be so, ridiculously negative towards Russ for posting this. I maybe would never post it because I am

No, but he was able to eke out a win. It's actually quite similar to the way he plays football. Is that everything was against him for the first three quarters and then he and Capel Thanos made some magic and he was able to eke out a W right there at the end and now Mr. Unlimited is

a good nickname. And they need to lean into that all the way every single down this season. You know, don't limit Russ. If we don't limit Russ in 2020, he not only wins the MVP, but he very well could take Seattle up to the Super Bowl. So that's a long shot team that, you know, not as many people are respecting. And that division is interesting because there's a number of good teams on the on the come-up there.

But I think Russ, this is a solid team with Russ doing kind of the backseat work and coming back at the end and the fourth. If you put more onto his plate early, I think the sky's the limit because he's just that special of a player. Everything's got to go right down the stretch, of course, when you get to the postseason, but the sky's the limit for him. Yeah. I think it's fascinating. You know, one thing I want to go beyond with this is the question that we've debated it many times on this podcast with a variety of different people, and it's who's the best player, play caller in football, and that's it. I think it's Andy Reid, Robert Mays, has made the argument that it's Kyle

Shanahan. Pete Carroll thinks it's Brian Schottenheimer. If you were to give the championship belt to any play caller right now, who do you give it to? Well, see, if we're down the singular belt, I think you and Mays are right there neck and neck. I would say Kyle, in order, like technically speaking, if there is one belt, you got to

in order to be the champ, you got to beat the champ. And Kyle falls short a couple of times in the Super Bowl at the very end. And so I think people hold that against him. I think what Andy, what Andy does to make life easy on his quarterback, nobody else replicates that in the NFL. It's so phenomenal the way he could make life hard on Mahom, if he wants to more frequently. And Mahomes would have even more ridiculous plays on the film reel. But they may not win quite as many games because it would just be more difficult to get down past the finish line.

But the way that Reid did everything with, you know, his prior quarterback and Alex Smith, and then obviously with the success he's had with Patrick Mahomes, I think it's hard to dethrone him. A guy that I just find the most fun, though, is Kyle. So I will put him up there neck and neck with one another because Kyle just the way that he makes so many different things look pretty similar and the flexibility that he has with the same types of personnel and the same guys out there get them to do different things.

He does a good job of making life easy on his quarterback as well, but he's just so creative that I really like that as well. So it's hard for me to separate the two. I think my preference would probably be Kyle right now, given the fact that Andy Reid just won the Super Bowl, and so he already has enough accolades right now. So I would probably lean a little bit towards Kyle, but you won't go wrong with either of them.

And I think if you're looking at a longer duration guy, you're not going to go past Andy Reid. He's definitely done it for the. the longest of anybody in that. What about a play car that we think is underrated? The guy who is obviously no one's on that tier with Andy and Kyle right now, but is there a guy maybe below that tier that we don't give enough credit to? Yeah, I feel a little bit more confident in saying this guy's name,

but I'm going to go with Frank Reich. So, you know, Frank Reich, obviously, he comes to the Indianapolis Colson. And it was a really weird situation where how he comes to the Colts. He comes to the Colts. They didn't want him at first. You know, they were going after Josh McDaniels. That didn't work out. So then they go with Frank Wright.

He comes in and Andrew Luck's rehabbing injuries. You know, he's starting off. Can he even throw the football? What can we do with Andrew Luck? So like, let's just think of the context. The past two years, the only two years that he's coached this team. And keep in mind that he was the offense coordinator in Philadelphia when they won the Super Bowl in 2017, but he comes in 2018.

Andrew Luck is like practicing throwing with a tennis ball in the office, right? So what can he do with this quarterback? How can he change what he's doing to make this offense work? Let's watch Andrew. Let's see what types of plays we can call. You know, he really improved to cut down Andrew Luck. Stack rate did so many different things to help improve Andrew Luck in that 2018 season. And then, of course, expecting to take the next step in 2019, all the,

a sudden a month before the season, Andrew Luck retired. So now he's got to go with Jacoby Brissette as his starting quarterback and what's he going to get out of Jacoby Brissette. And this is a team, you know, here I've got some numbers on this that I don't think a lot of people realize, but surprised me and I wrote about it in the book. The number two team through the first half of the season last year, okay, the number two team, the number one team in the AFC were the New England Patriots. They were undefeated. That's the point. point number one seat. The number two seed in the FACC was not the Chief. It was not the Ravens. It was

the Jacoby Brissette led Indiana Colch, who were the current number two seed projected to get a first round by through the first half of last season. And they were sitting at five and two. They go down the stretch, down the stretch. They take a lead. We talked about how important it was to lead at halftime and these teams tend to win 80% of their games. Over the last nine games of the season, the Colts fled either at half time or entering the fourth quarter in seven of those nine games.

And they still just completely fell apart down the stretch with Jacoby Brissette and ended up obviously posting a losing record and not making the postseason. So I think what Frank has been able to do with, you know, slightly, first with Nick Bowles, right, gets Nick win the Super Bowl. Then he comes back with Andrew Luck, a guy coming off of a massive injury. and does well with him. And then he does good things with Jacobi Brissette. He hasn't hit the ceiling, right?

Because people aren't giving him the credit for the 2017 season, I think, as much as they're giving it to other people, which is good because Doug Peterson's a stud as well. But I think that Frank Reich really has gone under the radar the last two years. Through no fault of his own, you know, his team just hasn't had the best talent there. And I'm really excited to see what he does with Philip Rivers. hopefully everybody's staying healthy on that offense because I think that's the team that

could look really good at me. All right, three quick ones for you. So number one, I think that looking in your book, the thing I found the most interesting per team was what a team's most common play was and kind of delving into that. When you look at those plays across the league, what is the single most effective play from one team in football right now? What is the most unstoppable play from a team or a player in 2019 slash 2020? Well, it's actually something I didn't write up in the book, but it's definitely the case.

And that's just using your quarterback in short yardage situation. I feel like most teams across the league, it almost doesn't matter who the quarterback is. They feel like we can sneak once a game, maybe. You know, like, is it the right situation to call the sneak? Okay, well, let's call it. The sneak is very unstoppable. And if defenses load up to stop the sneak ahead of time, you can easily see that and you can adjust out of it.

It's not something that they're going to catch you by surprise doing. And I think the, you know, get to the line of scrimmage somewhat quickly and then just sneak the ball is literally the most unstoppable play that there is in football. Far too often we're seeing situations where I wrote this up in the book where look at a guy like Ezekiel Elliott. I think over the last two years inside the 10 yard line, Zika has had a 37% success rate on runs inside the 10 yard line. And it's just ridiculous because Zach Prescott, Zika is like 30 out of 39 qualifying running backs in that category. Jack Prescott's up with like a 67% success in those situations.

But they just rarely use them and they're given Zique, you know, four times, five times the number of carries. I think that teams do justifiably get worried about a quarterback and I know like the Patrick Mahomes freak injury that happened last year with the kneecap is going to stick in the back of coach's mind but the other thing that we need to take away from the research is that sneaks and quarterback runs

are actually far more safe for quarterbacks the data backs this up than dropbacks or other types of pass plays in the pocket where stuff's happening around them if they're not controlling. So I think, think more teams need to do that in general. That's fascinating.

All right, real quick. You did over-unders or have done win over-unders the last couple weeks. What team do you feel most confident in going over their Vegas win total this year, Warren? Well, I'm going to go to a team that I talked about before. I don't know if I'd say that this is the most confident, but the Cleveland Brown is eight and a half. I just think that, yeah, a lot of stuff is still going to have to go right for them, but I think that they're redundant enough at several of the heavier personnel positions that they need to be.

I think the coaching staff is solid. And I think this is a team that should be in line to win close to 10 games next year. And it's not going to be easy. Obviously, the AFC North is looking very strong. So that's the biggest fear. But I really think that this is a team that's going to look a lot better. So I don't know if I'd say that to answer your question, they're not necessarily the number one that I'm the most. confident because they already still have a high total

eight and a half, but I still think that this is a team that's going to go over their win total. What about the opposite? Who are you hammering the under on? Well, I haven't actually taken the under. I've been wait, truthfully, I've been waiting for this 4 p.m. deadline to see who's going to off out. Trudevius White is playing.

Tardavius White is playing, so that's really big. I think this 4 p.m. deadline, you know, some people might be like, well, you could just take the under because it's not going to affect things. well, yeah, it absolutely would affect things if a couple of different offensive linemen on a team in your division that you were supposed to lose to decide to opt out. So it definitely plays a factor. But I think there's a number of teams that are going to look worse this year. I'm really concerned about the New York Jets.

I just don't love some of the coaching. Evergreen statement. Yeah, concerned about the Jets is Evergreen. One thing that Cliffsbury did really well with the Arizona Cardinals was adapt his philosophy to two, the players around him. I don't feel like Adam Gase does that enough with the Jets. And they've obviously lost a couple of talents in pieces.

One was an opt-out. One was a trade. They're going to be better long-term for that, but I don't think they're going to be as good this season. So that's the team that I've looked at the under, but obviously needed to see a little bit in Wiltsradavis white off-out. Warren Sharp. Thanks for joining us, buddy.

Hey, thanks for having me always, Kevin. Why don't we take a second to talk about Roman? If you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there's a solution. Roman makes it convenient to get customized prescription skincare that really performs. Just grab your phone or computer, complete a free online consultation, and you'll hear back from a U.S. license physician within 24 hours. If appropriate, a doctor will prescribe a custom blended treatment based on your skin type and priorities.

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on to talk about the opt-outs, and then there were almost, after the weekend, almost no significant opt-outs in the NFL. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Obviously, C.J. Mosley is the biggest name. Damien Williams is up there, although with the Chiefs that, from a football standpoint that doesn't necessarily matter. Obviously, the first and foremost concern that all of us have is the health and safety of the people who've dropped out. Families and why they're doing it and all that stuff. But obviously there is a football aspect to it. Kaelin, were you surprised that there weren't bigger names? We saw rumors, you know, Charles Robbins and said the Cameron Hayward at one point was thinking about it. George Kittle, Michael Silver reported, was on the fence at one point just sort of thinking about it because of his contract situation. and a lack of leverage and what opting out could mean for him.

And then Tredavius White, who with the last second, I guess, because he was thinking about it, even as recently as this morning, has opted in. So it seems to me that every crucial player that was rumored to play, not play is going to play. Were you surprised Kaelin there wasn't a bigger name in this opt-out batch? Yeah, I was. You know, I was a little bit shocked just because, again, there's so much to this, right? You know, obviously the health aspect is the biggest one. You know, players obviously have to go out and play in the middle of a pandemic.

I mean, that alone is, you know, reason enough, as you just mentioned, to opt out. But, like, additionally, there's the contract aspect of it, you know. I think Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk brought it up yesterday and pretty solid column. Like, you mentioned how Juan James, you know, his guaranteed contract rolls into 2021 now. For those players who do have contracts that are guaranteed for this year, if they're only playing a certain amount of games, They're not going to be able to recoup the maximum number from that contract in the next year. So it is interesting, both from a holistic, like, health standpoint and from a contractual standpoint for a lot of those guys who have guaranteed contract. I'm kind of surprised that a lot of guys didn't leverage that, you know, with the chance that they had right now.

Yeah, it's fascinating. And I think that there, again, I was surprised by that, you know, Devin McCordy comes out over the weekend and says the, the thought it was a joke that they moved the deadline up. It was supposed to be seven days after the final language was, was agreed upon, and I think it was moved up two or three days. And a lot of that was because, I guess, the NFL was suspicious of players having more time to think about or whatever. I mean, I tend to agree with Devin McCordy that it is a joke to not give players more time. Where do you fall on that and having followed it closely? What did you think about the decision for the NFL to move that up?

I didn't really like it again. I think I kind of side with McCordy here just because again, this is a major decision. We don't know enough about COVID-19, you know, to say that players should be, you know, really playing in the middle of a pandemic. So just we don't even have, we don't have enough of a runway to know how are guys,

you know, once they're practicing, are guys taking it seriously? Or what's going on in the locker room or how team? I mean, it's only been three or four days of facilities. hosting NFL players. It's crazy.

So, I mean, yeah, just from that standpoint alone, like it definitely, you know, I, I talk McCordy, thinking that, you know, players did not have enough time realistically to make such a monumental decision. They're putting their lives at risk, even if it is for, you know, for some a decent paid it. Like, it just, to me, like, there should have been more time, I think, for the players to make such, you know, a decision that not only affects them, but those around them as well. So, Kalen, you covered Texas last year and know a lot more about college football than I do.

And when we're talking about big opt-outs in pro football, it didn't really happen. Big opt-outs in college football happening at an alarming rate. I went to the University of Miami. I identify as the University of my wish them well. I guess you could say. I don't follow it like I used to. There's dozens of reasons for that. One of them is that they're not very good anymore.

But Greg Rousseau, I mean, that's a guy who, if there was going to be a renaissance with Miami this year, it was going to start there. Obviously, the quarterback position is taken care of, but there aren't a ton of positions that I feel totally confident about with Miami. That's a big domino to fall. What has stood out to you, Kaelin, about the college opt-out so far? The fact that we've already had, you know, such a significant name. I mean, Michael Parsons, I think it was Eric Edthold from Yahoo, who reported yesterday and ended up deciding to drop out today or opting out from the college football season today. I mean, I think this is really just to start, especially when you consider the fact that, you know, college football is still on their front as far as, like, logistics for, you know, teams handling COVID-19. They're just now starting to get on the same page.

And the season is supposed to start in, you know, two, three weeks, you know, what originally was scheduling. So, I mean, just from, again, from a holistic standpoint, once, you know, I think that more players understand where they could be drafted and then even those who are high risk or, you know, really what they're risking without being paid at all. I think that we're going to be in line for a bigger wave of college football players hopped out from the college football season. I mean, it's really interesting just because, again, like those guys like Michael Parsons, like Greg Rousseau, like Roshab Bateman, those are guys who are guaranteed.

at least as far as, you know, what draft circles are saying, that they'll be selected in the 2021 NFL draft. And I think you're going to see those names like Trevor Lawrence, Pena, see, well, like, those are guys who have to consider whether they, you know, go out and risk, you know, potentially contracting the virus or even risking, you know, injury for what could be a much better payday in a longer career at the next level. So we'll see.

But I think that this is just a start of what's to come. do you think there will be a college football season? No. I mean, I think it's similar to the NFL. I think that they'll try to, you know, start whatever they can. I think they'll probably get a week or two in. And again, it's just so disorganized at this point and disjointed. I think that the fact of conference is able to, you know, operate in their own way.

I just don't see how there is a college football season that, you know, ends at a reasonable time without any hiccups in the middle of it. Do you haven't covered Texas last year, obviously, when you talk about big football programs and, you know, lucrative football programs and football programs are essentially, I mean, like, there are certain football programs. Texas is one of them where the coach is basically the de facto governor of the state. Okay. Like that it is those. And if you're not from a state like that, I am from Florida. You covered Texas. Like people care so much about college football. And it's really hard to explain to people from. you know, New York City or even LA in some regards where pro football is just, pro sports rather, is king of the Dodgers and Lakers here. It's a little bit different. But what would that do to these lucrative programs, place like Texas, if there is no football season? And what does the future of college football look like if they don't get across the finish line this year? Well, I mean, just in terms of revenue, it's, it's massive, you know, like football,

again, for Texas, I think it accounts from a pretty significant. margin of what they're bringing in for the athletic department. A lot of these schools in, you know, the SEC, for example, you know, a conference that is pushing through the pandemic, you know, at this point, you know, they rely so heavily on college football to, you know, pay for these other sports to be played and generate revenue. So as far as like how it affects the future, I'm not sure, like, to be completely honest. Like, I think it's, I know one. I don't think I don't think anybody knows. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like with COVID-19, it's just. just there's so many unknowns that are going to result from this.

As far as like athletic department shutting down right now and shuddering and, you know, having no way to, you know, bounce back until, you know, there's a potential 20, 21 season. I think the biggest question is whether or not there will be a college football season next year that, you know, that athletic departments are able to bounce back from and recruit any of that revenue that they're missing. So, I mean, it's still early. And again, I don't have all the answers. I don't know if anybody does, but it's definitely interesting and not,

I wouldn't even say fascinating. It's interesting to watch because it's, it sucks in schools like, you know, Yukon, who out there now say, hey, we're not going to be able to play football this year.

Like, it sucks hearing that. Last thing for you, Kayle, do you think having covered college last year and knowing now, obviously you know the pro game really well, but it seems to me that this has been an inflection point. Pack 12 players coming out and writing that player to be in article,

big 10 players. doing it as well. You've seen pockets of players making their voice heard. Do you think that college football is changing almost forever in the sense that players understand the power they have and they're going to use it? Yeah, definitely. I think it's changing for the better in that aspect because I've talked to UCLA players first or I'm running for the ringer. And, you know, they mentioned that, you know, this is just to, you know, start a conversation with those in leadership. And that's what they're already accomplishing. We're seeing Larry Scott sends a formal letter back to the Pact 12 Unity movement. The Big Ten already has, you know, a thousand players

behind their movement saying, hey, we need, you know, we deserve these, you know, really basic benefits, you know, in the middle of a pandemic playing for your school without gaining any revenue. NIL is going to completely change everything. I think the NCAA is very much aware that, you know, the game is changing. Like, I'm not sure. Again, like, there's a lot of moving part. So it's unclear, like, how that looks in the future. But I definitely think you're going to see players get paid. And I don't know how that affects the makeup of the NCAA, whether or not you see, like, conferences decide to move off or, you know, teams formed their own super I'm not sure about all that. But I definitely think that this is just the start. And, you know,

COVID-19 and the social justice movement, everything that's happening this offseason, it will look back on and say that was the starting point, or at least a major starting point, for what's to come in the future. Yep. It is, it is a fascinating time. So to recap NFL optouts, 66 total. That includes C.J. Mosley, Patrick Chung, Donta High Tower, Damon Williams, Juan James, Marcus Cannon, Eddie Goldman, folks like that. Not a, I think the number of optouts might have surprised folks inside football. 66 is a lot. But I also think that, you know, when you saw Danta High Tower, opt out last week and the wave of Patriots players who did it. I think that there was an expectation once that happened within the NFL that there

were going to be maybe more and bigger names. Again, Dante Hato is a really good player. And so interesting in that we didn't get the huge name opt out. And it will be fascinating to see, again, health and safety is first and foremost, but it'll be fascinating to see how a team like the Patriots recover from this. All right. Kaelin Jones, ringer of staff writer. second month for you now?

Are you in the second month? Yeah, I'm mentoring my second month, like, to the date. Wow. Okay, all right. He's opting in for the NFL season 2020. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me now. This has been the ringer NFL show

and the ringer podcast now.