The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Dak Prescott Contract, Plus Trent Dilfer | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: September 13, 2019

Russillo examines the Dak Prescott contract discussion (5:35). Then he talks with Trent Dilfer about his take on Lamar Jackson’s Week 1 performance in the new Ravens offense, the rifts that can occur between players and coaches, the Air Raid offense, "diva" wide receivers, Trent's first year coaching at the Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, Tennessee, and more (20:18). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up? It's Friday, the Ryan Rosillo podcast from The Ringer. And just want to remind everybody in partnership with our presenting sponsor this season for the Ryan Rosillo podcast, our great friends. It says good friends. It doesn't even specify what level of friendship we have. It says with our friends. I'm going to say with our great friends at Belvedere Vodka, join us for a live podcast in Atlantic City for Monday Night Football at the new Moneyline Bar and Book at the Borgata on Monday, September 16th at 7 Eastern.

We'll be enjoying cocktails made with Belvedere Vodka, the first super premium all-natural vodka, watching the Browns versus the Jets, and talking some football. Hey, send me another mono-joke tweet, by the way. Oh, really? Sam Darnold, was he making out? Send. Do more of those.

Look, the first couple were good, I'll admit, but it's just this is me complaining about something where I really don't care that much. I'm just pointing out that I'm making, but it's just this. This is me complaining about something where I really don't care that much. I'm just pointing out that I'm making fun of it. And I could also see how I should be taking the L on this one. Be like, you know what? That's kind of the game, Marcelo.

I'm in the content business. I have to come up with a mono sex joke. Like, oh, this is because of the sex? Because of the sex part? That's how he got mono? Because he's a quarterback and he's young and he's with the Jets? Because of the sex part that's how he got mono because he's because he's a quarterback and he's young and he's with the jets because of the because of the sex part got it okay so um we have trent dilfer head coach trent dilfer lipscomb academy nashville high school two and one

they smash glencliffe so i want to talk about all the offensive stuff that we're seeing battling with offensive coordinators see if he has any good stories for us trent's one of my favorite talkers he's really good talker so uh we're gonna do some of that stuff with him and then uh yeah this weekend i'm headed out to ac the flight situation to make sure i can still watch all the football i should have just done it on Saturday. And by the way, I should have done a little bit more college ball today or this week, but it just kind of worked out this way that we went NFL heavy with Chris, and then Trent was available on Friday.

So I'll likely have a college football guest 100% next week, and there's just a lot of college ball stuff that I want to talk about. But I don't know if it's 45 straight minutes of me kind of thing. But I've seen this a little bit on the Texas LSU thing, which, again, I was there, where it's, hey, how good is LSU's defense? Because anytime an SEC team gives up a ton of points, it's just the whole thing. We pick our tribes.

If you're in the non-SEC tribe, SEC school that's good defensively, historically, which LSU is, and they give up a million points. It's like, I don't know what's happening here. And then if you hate the Big 12, and then you go, oh, you know, typical Big 12, get absolutely diced in the fourth quarter. I feel like that game is not the one. Now, maybe those two teams will be disappointing on defense. That would surprise me.

Orlando at Texas is really good. I don't think they have the depth for DBU. I think it's a little weird to call yourself DBU when there's just not a ton of defensive backs being drafted out of the Big 12 in general, but historically Texas has had a lot. LSU has had a lot. David Pollock on the sideline goes to me,

he goes, you know who DBU is? Alabama. And I was like, wow, you know what? That actually might be accurate. So I need to do some more research on that. But Orlando, the D coordinator at Texas, really good. Roach, the defensive lineman, was a name you heard really all night on that Saturday night. So we'll see where Texas' defense is.

The point that I'm trying to make is that if you're sitting here after two weeks going, both of those defenses are bad because it was a shootout, especially late. That town couldn't have been hotter. By the way, I don't know what's going on with the air conditioning locker room thing. I was in the locker room the day before. All I can tell you, my reports are that it smelled like death. It wasn't necessarily hot. It just smelled terrible.

But everyone was cramping up. LSU had all those guys falling down. And I know Texas fans think that they were doing it on purpose to slow down Texas momentum. That's just not what I believed. And I saw guys that were on the sideline. Two guys went slow down Texas momentum. That's just not what I believed in. I saw guys that were on the sideline. Two guys went to the locker room. Another guy was on the trainer's table. And then for Texas, they held up, I thought, on the ground,

and then they didn't. I just think it's one of those games where it's so hot. It was so hot for days. It did cool off once the sun went down. There was a little Texas breeze, so it wasn't oppressively hot that night of the game. But I just think you had kids on both sides that were absolutely spent in a very physical football game. Because it feels like Texas is a little bit more SEC built, if that makes any sense, without the depth.

Because I still don't think Texas has the depth of, say, an LSU. But I like both teams. I think both teams are going to be good I wouldn't worry about it you know this is still a Texas team that put it on Georgia and ran it down their throats so I think they can play physical with anybody but I just I've read a bunch of stuff this week that has said oh well you know both those teams you know well let's see about their defenses I really feel strong about this that that was a conditions thing more than it is maybe both defenses are terrible. So, you know, there's just something to think about. Speaking of things to think about, I know it's a pay site,

but Bruce Feldman's Mike Leach piece for The Athletic, where it's basically this oral history of Mike Leach and hiring his entire staff going back to his first year in Lubbock. It is absolutely terrific. I mean, it's the kind of stuff where you're like, man, this is why Bruce Feldman is one of my favorites. So go ahead. I know people are going to get mad at me about the paywall and the advertisement for it. I'm just telling you, one of my buddies did an awesome job on an article. I want to talk a little bit in today's opening rant.

This might be once a week. It could be three a week. Who knows? It just depends on how hot your boy feels. So the Dak Prescott stuff needs to stop. And we do this all the time. It's still 2019. We are bad with NFL contracts. We act outraged or maybe we're an NFL reporter and an agent says something to us and then they want us to say it on TV. And then we're like, cool.

And then you're like, actually, you sound like you don't know what you're talking about. And you may just be repeating what the agent said to you. And look, it happens. It happens it happens agents are smart uh they know that giving information to people on tv or radio shows you know it's it's kind of hard to like double check it but then you know if you end up getting burnt like stop listening to that agent all the time but the dac stuff there are truths and there are realities in his contract situation. Dak has made in base salary $450,000, $540,000, $630,000. And this year, in the fourth year of this, he makes $2 million. So he was a fourth-round draft pick back in 2016.

He had a four-year deal for $2.7 million. And that's back when we were like, we have no idea if Dak Prescott is going to be any good. And then guess what? He's the starter, the Romo things over. And he has a really good year. Some numbers there for a rookie where you go, wow,

some rookies haven't really done this stuff. Now, is it because Dak was amazing? Is it opening up of offenses? You know, it's, it's a bunch of different factors, but here's what we know.

The early results were good. Whenever you're, there's an unknown, know, it's a bunch of different factors. Here's what we know. The early results were good. Whenever there's an unknown, especially when it's a fourth-round guy, and you watch and you think, hey, this could actually work and he could be a starter here for 10 years, that's as big a win as you can have, okay? When you don't have a guy and you think you could be in quarterback purgatory, think about some of the fan bases that have had decade-long runs of no answers at that

position just to have Dak, fourth rounder, have it work, boom, done. Now, what I'll see is I'll see people on TV go like, hey, he makes less than 38 other quarterbacks. He does. That's not fair. Okay, well, let's examine that. Dallas spends, so we factor in the $2 million for Dak this year. Dallas spends $2.7 million on quarterbacks total. That's what they spend at the position total as a team that's last in the league, and you have 21 teams spending over $20 million total on the position. Now, that's not a huge surprise because most of these guys, once you're in and you get that second contract, you're going to make that kind of money. Jared Goff just signed for a massive, massive number. I i mean if we want to do real dollars for

this year some of the guys that are making more money than than dac colt mccoy deshaun kaiser rg3 matt barkley's making more mason rudolph's making more i think will greer actually makes more matt schaub is making more cj bethard's making more case Case Keenum, absolutely. Ryan Finley. Jared Stidham's making more. Nate Sudfield's in the seven figures. Yeah, Nate, get it. AJ McCarron. Josh Dobbs. Ryan Griffin.

Easton Stick. Easton Stick is making 19 grand more. And that's a backup that you've never heard of unless you listen to the Backup Quarterback podcast. So as I say all those names, and I've seen this happen on television, it's just outrageous, this is outrageous, this is outrage. Okay, well, let's go back and examine a couple things. Do you remember when Sam Bradford got 50 million guaranteed before he'd ever taken a snap? Do you remember that?

And then guess what happened? They went in the new CBA, we got to figure this out. We can't have rookies coming in totally unproven, making more than vets have ever seen. And let's spread that money out a little bit. And now I've heard arguments saying that since they've done that and smashed down the guaranteed money in the rookie contracts, now we're looking at guys getting like 15 million guaranteed, 12 million guaranteed, right? Since they've done that, the argument was the money would be spread out all over the place. And then I've heard counters that be like, well, that money's actually not being spent anywhere.

And there's this carryover with the salary cap. And some of that stuff is kind of true. But I asked Eric Winston about that specifically when he was on with DeMora Smith this past summer with dual threat. And I go, what's going on with that? He goes, well, wait a minute. If everybody's arguing that the best way to win is to have a quarterback on a rookie contract so that you can spread the money out everywhere else then doesn't that mean that actually the veterans are getting the rest of that money so i don't really know who to believe on that one but it was a really good point by eric winston and it should

also mean that dallas should be as deep as anybody everywhere else if they're spending the less at quarterback of any other team in the nfl so when Bradford got all that money, and let's not forget, if we were 10 years later on the old rookie guaranteed money system, we would be looking at Justin Herbert making $100 million guaranteed before he ever played a snap of NFL football. Is that what you want? Because I thought no one wanted that. But if that's what you want, then we can go back to the old system

where we can give quarterbacks a ton of money. We can give top draft picks a ton of money before they ever play again. And likely, yes, in some way, depending on how you want to look at the math, the money would be coming away from some of those vets. But then you say, well, Ryan, wait a minute. Dak Prescott's a fourth rounder.

We all remember Russell Wilson. Russell was a third rounder and he was the greatest bargain in team sports in the entire country. I can't even think of who would be more important than this guy at 390,000, 526,000, 662,000. He would have made 1.5 in his fourth year, but in the fourth year, Seattle's like, screw it. And this happens. The golf contract is a very good example of this, where even though I didn't like the Rams and the the girly deal i like their approach and saying we hold off on doing the big deal for a guy that we know we want to resign because we want to see what other vets are out there what

are the possible moves we are we have this rainy day fund and then if there's nothing out there that we think is all that great we've messed with the numbers we pay a ton of money in that first year we did that for golf and seattle did something very similar where they jumped it a year where they didn't have to do it, where Dallas is now paying Dak in his fourth year, the money that Russell Wilson ended up getting hooked up on his new contract. So if you go back and look at the Russell Wilson thing, it's like, oh, they actually went a year earlier on that. And Dallas could have done that. Dallas didn't. But is it so bad to want to go, and I'm afraid of where this one goes here but is it so bad to go hey you know what the team just made a really good draft pick and they were right everybody else is wrong and

those are the rules on the salary and credit to the team for taking a guy in the fourth round who's good enough to start and likely be named to a pro bowl because 18 of the 32 quarterbacks make the pro bowl every year I don't think that that's something that should be punished. Now, do you want to come up with some new thing where we go, well, wait a minute, what if you're a fourth rounder and you're a quarterback, but you start a ton of games and maybe you're named to a Pro Bowl? Can we completely change the contract language for rookie contracts if a quarterback ends up doing that, but we're only going to do it for quarterbacks? I'm open to it. I'm open.

I'm more open. I'm willing to try anything now as I get older. Okay. But if you can convince me of that and you want to go ahead and do it, that's fine. But we already know what kind of special reports we're going to have from a reporter that's talking to all the defensive linemen and the receivers and corners and all these guys that think it's total bullshit that they've made some sort of quarterback exception to be able to pay him a certain amount. I mean, should we change it that if you play the position, there's some sort of minimum wage at quarterback that's automatically $5 million a year? Or is it okay to reward a team for, again, drafting a guy that late, being right about it when everybody else is wrong, and then he ends up being a starter? I'd like to think there's still

some reward of having a front office that, And look, Dallas has even admitted that they were lucky on this thing. They wanted different guys that they would have been wrong about, and then the DAC thing works out, it falls in their lap. So I'm not telling you that this is Gil Brandt, Pete Gil Brandt stuff. I'm just saying I think it's okay for a team to go, look, fourth rounders are inexpensive. We have to take a quarterback there, and let's go ahead and do it. I mean, it may not seem fair, right? But a lot of this stuff is unfair. And I don't

like comparing sports, certainly quarterbacks to you being in a cubicle right now. And by the way, let's make sure the volume's down. But I always think about business. If you ever work in pharmaceutical, building your book of business. And in the beginning, it sucks. I was doing this pharmaceutical consulting thing until I was basically fired because I wasn't even supposed to have the job and it was against the law, which is an awesome podcast I'll save for later. It wasn't me though. It was guys that ran this company. They were like, hey, take all these tests and now you're a consultant. Boom, here's your cards and here's your stack of leads. And I knew they were giving me the shit leads. These were not the Glenn Gary leads. They were giving

me the shit leads because I was new and they don't want me to fuck up one of the actually good ones that was worth closing. And you're sitting there and you're going, all right, I got to get to 50 of these before I get to the next thing. Okay. And that's just kind of the actually like good ones that was worth closing and you're sitting there and you're going all right i gotta get to 50 of these before i get to the next thing okay and that's just kind of the way it was and if you're 26 and you're an asshole you go and i'm sorry i'm swearing a ton here but i'm just reminding myself of these days you're sitting there be like oh my god i can't believe i have to do 50 of these shut up just do the 50 and then move on to the next thing and then we'll see where this goes don't make this this a six month plan. Make it a three year plan unless it's so bad that you just can't handle it. Okay. It is the same for really a lot of these businesses where you have to build the book out. You have to do this stuff. And I'm not saying that like Dak Prescott is sitting there cold calling essentially on Sundays trying to

make sure he gets his book of business so that he can get to his fifth year money. But it reminds me a little bit of Boiler Room, right? One of the all-time classics i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up speaking of boiler room i watched it again the other day other than chris khan who i imagine is not afraid of like a close grip tricep superset deal but was there a less intimidating crew of guys that would want to fight you in a jersey bar than jamie kennedy and the other assorted guys like giovanni rabisi who i've always sort of liked but i can't tell if that was a voice he was doing in that movie or if he's just tired and you're like take a fucking nap man and whenever i whenever i look at that fight scene where they beat up like the locals and i get it too like young

guys they're you know especially those dudes were like coked out and stuff and so they're always gonna want to fight but like i can't imagine jamie kennedy stepping to me in an alley and going uh-oh like this is gonna go bad anyway just it was just something I was thinking of the other night watching Boiler Room once again. Okay, so back to Dak. So we have the numbers. We have where he's at. I gave you the list of all the other dudes, and you may be saying, hey, this is still

unfair, but we do do this a lot. We do this a lot in the sports media with the NFL where we'll even look at like money paid out that year and whatever the numbers say, like receivers that get $60 million and then it's like $45 guaranteed, but it's front loaded and maybe the numbers say, like receivers that get $60 million and then it's like $45 guaranteed, but it's front loaded and maybe the second year is front loaded. But then in the third year, let's say the fourth year, the actual cash out is like $2 or $3 million. And we put this list of all these other wide receivers, just like I did with quarterbacks that aren't even close to as good. But we act like that wide receiver is actually only making

$2 million when his annual average salary is like $15 million. We do this all the time, and we need to stop doing it. Yes, Dak makes way less than he should, but those are kind of the rules with fourth-rounders. And if you want to change the rules, I'm open for it, but what we can't do is these segments where we act like it's some complete outrage when, in fact, it's the rules that the players agreed to because they didn't want rookies to keep making all of the veteran money. I thought this was what everybody wanted, but it sounds like it isn't.

Let's get to Trent Dilfer. But before we do that, getting tickets online can be far too complicated with hundreds of sites and varying levels of reliability. It's hard to know who to trust. That's why SeatGeek is the way to go. SeatGeek puts millions of tickets into one place so you can easily find the seats you want for a price you're willing to pay. There's nothing quite like being there in person, and SeatGeek will get you closer to the action for a great value. SeatGeek is designed to make your ticket buying experience easier than ever by searching multiple ticket sites and grading every ticket based on value. SeatGeek helps you immediately identify the best seats that fit your budget. Plus, every purchase is fully guaranteed, so you can shop for tickets at SeatGeek with

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Sorkin. No, I'm serious. Yeah, Sorkin, whatever. Gruden was there, by the way. I was like, hey, John. And he was like, get away from me. I'm like, Ryan Russillo. Ryan Russillo.

And at that point, technically still ESPN. He's like, all right, yeah, good, buddy. And just, you know, he kept it moving. And then I had a guy who recognized we had extra seats, so it was awesome. We all spread out. We had spare seats, and then he bought me a Sam Adams after intermission.

He goes, I'm a really big fan. He was a really nice guy. I forget his name. He was in town on business. He was not with the lady of the night. He was by himself. He was very well behaved, but I thought it was really nice of him

that he's like, I didn't want to bug you. I'm like, you didn't want to bug me during the play? I'm like, well, that's good. But the funny thing is there's people next to us. Anyway, let's get to the SeatGeek thing

because this is a true story. It's like, hey, Ryan, because when they said, hey, SeatGeek wants to sponsor this, I go, I love SeatGeek. I'm 100% in. And this is why. I buy the one ticket,

last minute deal, really wanted to go see it. And then they send me the link, but it's one of those print deals. And that's not up to SeatGeek. It was like up to the seller. And I go, all right, this isn't going to work. And I'm emailing the front desk of the hotel. I'm trying to email it to myself and then print it out from their little office lab there at the hotel.

And these swanky ones in Soho, they're not really built for business. Okay. Chili's is the new place to do small business. Soho chic isn't necessarily. So this thing's just, it's not, it's not working. And now I got to get in the cab. I got to get there. I don't want to be late. And I find a seat geek number. It actually was easy to find a customer service number, which is unheard of now. Uh, I was going to make a joke about another company, but I'm not. I get Brian on the blower and Brian's like, what's the problem? I go, dude, you know, I don't know what to do here.

He's like, look, we're going to send you this different version. It's just going to be the barcode thing. He's like, if that doesn't work, call me back immediately. Here's my direct line. He's like, but you should be good to go. I'm going to override the print authorization thing. I'm going to send you this code, just show the phone and you should be a hundred percent. And he's like, let me know if anything happens. He goes, and then if that doesn't work, we'll take another step. He's like, we're in this together. And I was like, yeah, man. Awesome. And guess what? It totally worked. He saved the day because I got in that car going, this isn't going to work. So best of all, my listeners get $10 off their first

SeatGeek purchase. Just download the SeatGeek app and enter the promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N today. That's promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N for $10 off your first SeatGeek purchase. SeatGeek, life's an event. We have tickets. This is kind of where I've started every podcast this week. I did it with Benoit on his film study.

I did it with Chris Long on kind of everything. And that, you know, when we looked at Lamar Jackson last year, a lot of us had different opinions. You wonder about the work. Some people had, you know, our opinions are all over the place after the draft, but to see what he did against the Dolphins and then add in the fact that it's the Dolphins, like what did you see from him? I saw what I figured would be the best answer to get the most out of him, and that is put him in a system that has a real college feel to it, but has a foundation in NFL running principles, physicality, big people. Because what you can do with Lamar is the threat of him as a runner, along with a physical run game and a vertical passing game, it's going to be tough to have the right answers

defensively. When you study Lamar coming out, he was a fantastic vertical passer. He has great arm talent, but he also has great downfield accuracy. He also gets a little more time to have those vertical opportunities because people are so concerned with containing him. Now you put a nice little RPO game in place. You have a physical run presence. Now, defensively, you're always concerned with gap integrity

you're always concerned with containing you're always concerned with making sure you're not going to die a slow death in the run game and you're naturally going to allow Lamar to have a little more time to push the ball down the field and then when they spread you out you're even more stressed out because now there's more grass that you've got to cover and you know, you got to account for the 11th guy,

which is Lamar Jackson. So I really wasn't surprised by the early down success. Now I think, and I'll just jump forward before you even ask the question, the thing you have to look for is must pass. And I've been saying this forever with this kind of new generation of quarterback, this playmaking first and second down phenomena, that every big game is going to be won on a third and six from the pocket in the fourth quarter, either up six or down six. And those are those must-pass situations. And that's what got him in trouble at Louisville. And how much he develops as a passer will determine how good,

how high their ceiling can be as an offense and how good he can be. But on early downs, he's going to be really, really hard to stop. I don't know what the final play-action numbers were for Baltimore in that game. And I imagine when you get out to that kind of lead, maybe you're not as worried about the split on that. But we looked at what Dak did play-action last year and it was a ton more we know about Jared Goff's efficiency in play action I think a lot of us is just regular fans you know we go oh well you know I think I kind of know the answer I want to hear your answer about this more like what is the limitation on how

far you can go and how often you can go to play action and how that impacts what a defense is doing. Because, I mean, the simple thing would be like, oh, just run more of it. But I don't think that that's necessarily a solution. Well, you've got to be really creative with it on early downs. And it's got to be kind of – I use this analogy too often. I know I do. But it's kind of got to be your fastball. You know, your run, run action has to be your fastball,

especially early in the season because you create what we call isolation looks, define looks. You can basically split the field in half. I think that's a little bit of a dumbed-down way of saying it, but you can kind of say, hey, if we action, if we're running the ball well and we action, then we know we can isolate a defender or two. And by doing that, it makes everything a lot more decisive for your quarterback, more decisive for your receivers. You also get defenders kind of playing flat-footed. They may not completely attack the run on run action, but they might flatten their feet

enough to give you an advantage to get into a zone or beat a man concept or whatever it may be. So I think it's really important that the best coordinators invest a lot of time into it because they know it's going to have to be their calling card. Now, as you say that, you also have to say, okay, but we have to have a package. That is, let's call it the drop-back package. It's called the drop-back bucket, where you're completely coordinated as an offensive front, running backs, quarterback on protection. You've got to have pass route schemes that attack multiple coverages. You've got to have blitz beaters. You've got to have an audible package.

You've got to have a hand signal package. You've got to be able to change tempos. You've got to have some, I'll put it this way, the sophistication bucket. So you have to have this offensive sophistication bucket that you've got to lean on in critical moments, that you've got to invest a ton of lonely work into in practice. Even though you've only run it three times in a game, it's got to be something

you have a ton of confidence in. And that's kind of the differentiator between these dynamic first and second down offenses and then these complete offenses. And I think that's why Drew and Tom and Aaron at times and Phillip Rivers, who doesn't get enough credit for these third down things, like the masters in the game, they understand that, yeah, the bulk of our production is going to come off run-run action. But, hey, don't mess around with us because we're sophisticated enough that if we have to drop back and throw it, or if it's third and seven,

we have as much confidence as first and ten, play-action pass with the guy in the flat and the guy in the corner. And that's really the global look at offensive football in the NFL is. And that's what the stats are always shown. That's where you always have to go to that third and five plus stat line. And that's where you'll start seeing over time the guys that are masters at the position, offenses that are sophisticated, and then the others. I would never say the Patriots are simple

because I'm always raving about their adaptability, that the system is that they change whatever it is they're doing more than anybody else. But when you watch what they do against Pittsburgh on a Sunday, say week one, is that arguably one of the most simple approaches offensively that we saw from a team? Well, to be simple on Sunday, you better be really complex during the week.

Their preparation is just phenomenal, how they can be so coordinated and so efficient at what they do. And although it looks really simple, there's a lot of complexity in getting 11 guys to do that stuff so seamlessly. Now it helps when you got the go. I get it. You know, everybody goes, well, you have Tom Brady. It shouldn't be that hard.

But, you know, just the fact that they don't have pre-snap penalties, that they win the pre-snap game every single week, that, you know, the subtle little hand gestures you see Tom making, he doesn't have to be animated about it, but that the receivers are tied into making sure their eyes are always looking at Tom to the very last second because he may give him something. To the communication up front, when Pittsburgh changed a front a couple times and was bringing a blitz,

five guys up front all saw it at the same time and kind of peeked out to the left and then made a subtle little call inside to change what they were doing. It's just that the level of communication, coordination, synergy, whatever you want to call it, I'm not smart enough to come up with the best word, but it just blows my mind, especially now that I'm a coach and I'm trying to get people to do it and understand it, it only takes one, only, you know, one link in the chain to be a little, little weak and none of that stuff happens. So that's what blows my mind about the Patriots. And I've talked to Josh

about it. I'm like, Josh, how do you do this? How do you get people so dialed in every single week when you're constantly changing too? and typical patriot answer says we just work harder you know we just that's the expectation and we just work tirelessly at making sure that everybody is dialed in and we don't accept one guy not being dialed in yeah i still want a more complete answer for them on that you know and if you're not going to get it i don't i can't believe that they can just plug in like whenever they lose an offensive lineman i'm like whatever it doesn't matter like they're going to figure it out and and clearly skarnecchia is is a big part of that i've talked about right i mean i've talked about him over and over again

being like you could argue he may be the most underrated human being in the nfl but um to to have a guy like that, you'd be like, just beg to come out of retirement and come fix everybody. I swear they could play with second-string offensive linemen across the board and they would figure it out. I mean, they wouldn't be as talented, but they would figure out a protection. Tom would adjust.

They'd adjust the routes. And one thing I've seen from them, and I think – I'm trying to think which other team. Baltimore, as you mentioned. With everybody trying to spread this out more and more, which I think has made it easier for quarterbacks, will we see some sort of correction and shift? Are we already seeing it with some teams going, you know what, let's just put some bigger bodies out there against these five and six defensive back alignments, these smaller linebackers,

a smaller front? Are we seeing some teams maybe try to get ahead of this and go the other way by going back to power and bigger bodies, double tight ends, the six offensive linemen? Do you think we'll see some more of that coming from teams that feel like, you know what, let's not keep up with everybody else on these spreads. Let's try to attack their weakness and their size on defense. Yes.

I think the answer is going to be both. And again, I'm learning this because I'm coaching now. But I have an air raid coordinator, and he's awesome. He's one of the best in the country. I love this. He sees the whole world through air raid. And then last week, we went into double tights and just hammered our opponent.

I mean, just shredded him. And play action passed out of it. And the lesson I was teaching him was you got to do both and you got to be fluid in a game. Your identity can't just be a Raider. It can't just be big people or can't just be run or just can't be passed. Your identity has to be execution. And there are times when you can do both. If you're a good teacher, you can still have a small package, but have the ability to take advantage of whatever the defense is trying to do against you. So I only tell that story because, yes, and I stole this from the Patriots. I mean, I didn't figure this out on my own.

This is years and years and years of studying the best coordinators, is that the best ones say, oh, okay, we're going to come out. Our plan was to be in 11 personnel today. Oh, wow, they have this blitz that they put in this week or this coverage format that, you know what? 11's not our best tool in the toolkit, so we need to come out in 22. And we'll run them out of this thing in 22 because they're little and they're overloading one side, and now we're in 22 personnel. We're just running right into the teeth of their little guy Blitz

and blowing their DBs up with our fullback or our tight end. Well, now all of a sudden when we jump into 11 in the third quarter, that guy's beat up. He doesn't want to Blitz as hard, or now they're playing a space. And that's what I think you're going to see is with all this focus on the spread, with all this focus on going boundary to boundary, you're seeing smaller

people on defense. And that becomes their base defense. Well, what do they do when all of a sudden you throw two 265-pound tight ends on the field, a fullback, and a 212-pound tailback? Well, they haven't practiced against that. They spent all week long being creative in their, you know,

Keita package or whatever they're calling it. And all of a sudden, you're going to thump time on them. And it's really hard at any level, high school, college, or pros, to adapt to that. Now, that sounds great conceptually, it's really hard to do offensively. It's really hard to have an identity be, um, you know, multifaceted, um, but the best guys find a way to do it. And you're able to teach your guys, Hey, we're going to pick on the pigeon, I guess is the best way to say it. We're going to find their pigeon and we're going to pick on them.

And we're going to have multiple ways of doing it. We can't just do it by coming out in 11 or 10 or spread or whatever, you know, you think is the best way there. We may have to have four or five different tools in our toolbox to pick on this pigeon, but we'll find the right one and we'll take our hammer out and we'll bang the heck out of this pigeon. You brought up Rogers before and we've raved about him in the past for good reason. And then, you know, the last couple of years for Aaron, it's been like, wait a minute, is this guy his own worst enemy sometimes?

Is he so smart that he's actually difficult? You know, like I think we've all been around people who are like, wow, this guy is great at what he does, but he's so aware of that that he's becoming difficult. So then we start doing the Matt LaFleur thing, and we're like, all right, wait a minute. Are these guys on different pages? What's going to happen here with Aaron?

So before I kind of maybe get into that, and I know you can go down that road, what's the most difficult relationship you've had with an offensive coordinator, or maybe it's a head coach? Do you have a story where you look back and you go, that was still on him, or you know what? I should have been better. That was my fault. But I'm sure you've had one. We've all had one where you look back and you go, that was still on him, or I should have been better, that was my fault.

But I'm sure you've had one, we've all had one, where you go, I'm just not on the same page, and it's just not going to put us in as good a position on Sundays as we need to be. Oh my gosh, one of the biggest regrets of my career is 05 in Cleveland. I had come off the Achilles tear. I had lost my son. I had fought and clawed and scraped back just in life. And Tim Roscoe agrees to trade me out of Seattle where I'm going to be a backup quarterback for the rest of my career to hassle back to be the sacrificial lamb in Cleveland because they were rebuilding, but I also had studied a bunch of their film. I'm like, they got the pieces offensively to be pretty darn good, and I'm in the best shape of my life, and I'm throwing it great, and I've learned

a ton of football in Seattle, and I'm ready to rock, and I get this trade to happen. I go to Cleveland. You can ask anybody who's on that team. Man, we had such high expectations. That offseason was a great offseason. We had talent. We had two really good guys. Aaron Shade and Steve Hyde. We had a really good receiver in Antonio Bryant. We had good runners.

We had a really good offensive line. And I was ready to rock. And I get there. And the offensive coaching staff I was fired up about, but they had hired Maurice Carthon as their offense coordinator. And it took me about six days to realize I've never been around a guy that was more out over his skis ever. I mean, I mean, I was shell shocked by how little he knew and how unprepared he was for this job. And it was a constant uphill battle.

And the good thing is we had enough veterans that we knew, and we had other really good offensive coaches, Terry Hrabisky and Rip Shear, guys that really understood offensive football. So we had enough to kind of put a Band-Aid on it. But it blew me away that there were people in the NFL that could get coordinator jobs that I knew more as a rookie in Tampa than this guy I knew 20 years into coaching. And to this day, I've said it publicly, I don't care. I'm not trying to be a jerk.

He's the single worst coach I've ever been around, especially as a coordinator position. And it really was unfair to so many of us on that offense because we just didn't have a chance. You'd go into a game plan, you'd have two drop-back passes and three play actions because that's's what the plan was and we're we're making stuff up in the game um to try to be productive and it was just it was i was shell shocked to see that that could happen at the nfl level because we always watch and this is something

i want to get to with chris at some point like i'd love to do almost a podcast where we talk about a week of okay what's okay, what's Tuesday? What's the install? How are you feeling? And then, you know, I really don't love the, this guy outcoached the other guy. Cause I think most of us can't tell. I'm sure you can. And, but it doesn't mean that's always what happened when a guy lost or the halftime adjustment thing where you go like, take me into the locker room.

Like, would there be any discussion about hey we're going to do this we're going to block this differently hey we need to go a little deeper in the playbook on this i mean this sounds actually horrible it was horrible i mean literally be at halftime like told you like what are we going to do now we have no answer we'll run the ball if we run the ball everything's better huh. Huh. Sounds like 1932. Like, come on, man. Like, you know, this was a, this is why you work hard on Sunday nights after the game and Monday reviewing last week's film and Monday night grinding until three in the morning

and come up with a plan and Tuesday installing a plan and teaching a plan on Wednesday and making adjustments Wednesday afternoon because certain things don't fit and having the intellectual capacity to kind of move on Thursday to create a great red zone, short yardage, two-minute package, then Friday detailing it out. Like, this is our job. This is what we do. You can't just throw some crap up against the whiteboard and see what sticks

and think that that's going to work, you know, when you're going on the road and playing somebody like to have no audible package to, you know, how does that happen though? Like how, I mean, listen, you should get, get like Aaron Shea or Steve Hyden. Can't tell it. Cause he's still coaching. Like you need to get guys that are out of football that have the, you know, what's to say these things publicly like

they could tell some great stories of me in meetings like you're wrong you're wrong mo that's not cover four that's cover six no it's not like dude you're wrong like you're the coordinator you don't even know this coverage and standing up and means going, okay, so what are we supposed to do when they're bringing four a week and you're not allowing me to make a lucky call and slide the center left. Oh, just, just throw it quicker. I'm like, okay, throw quicker to who because that guy doesn't know it's four a week. Um, I mean, we would make stuff up. I'm luckily we were better. So the great thing about it was we kind of put lipstick on the pig,

where all of us just took it on our own shoulders and said, well, okay, if it's not part of the plan, then we'll just make it up. And we had, like I said, the rest of that staff, where Romeo did a great job, was the rest of that offensive staff was really, really good. So it kind of became this behind-the-scenes, trying to make up for the coordinator's deficiencies by constantly creating our own little iterations

of this piece-of-crap offense and giving us tools in our toolbox, I'll use that analogy again, to kind of get through some of the storms. So we'd be on the field, and I would look at Shea and give him a little hand signal or something, and they would bring a blitz, and he would know what I was thinking, and we'd throw a hot and get a first down.

But that wasn't in the plan that week. That was just stuff we made up as we were going. What's the most outdated offense right now in the NFL? I'm putting you on the spot week one. Maybe wait until week four or five to ask me that question. Because, again, I don't watch a ton of preseason. Even when I was in ESPN, I told people, I'm not going to watch much preseason.

You don't really learn that much. It's great for fans to get excited and all that stuff. You don't learn a whole lot. I mean, I watch almost every game Sunday. I was actually kind of pretty impressed with some of these old archaic guys that have kind of come up to, up to date with some, I think the more Saturday flavor you have, it doesn't have to be Saturday offense, but more Saturday flavor you have kind of shows that you're on, you're willing to grow and bend a little bit as a, as a, as a

coordinator. I saw a lot of that Sunday, but give me four or five weeks because what will happen is guys will revert back to what they know best. And as they start to revert back to, you know, ISO versus an under front because everybody runs ISO to the bubble, then it tells me that they haven't found other creative ways of attacking the bubble. When teams are still running square outs from basic splits instead of spraying their square outs because it puts the corner in more of a

bind. He's having to turn his hips. Spray means when you line up tight and burst out. It puts the corner in a really tough position to break on any out breaking route. When I start seeing more of that, I'm like, okay, these guys are adapting. But when they go back to their old ways, just going three-by-one wide splits, running their same old stuff, it tells me there's been somewhat of a laziness in their offseason,

and they're not willing to kind of bend and stretch on new ways of attacking people on defense. So if you could play for any coach right now, I feel like Belichick's going to be the answer. But if Belichick's one who's two you're like a head coach yeah head coach i mean imagine you're not i mean yeah i like i'm really a big frank reich fan um i'm a big sean mcveigh fan like everybody else um if you want kind of a sleeper. I think Bruce Arians would be a blast to play for. I've always really respected Bruce. Talked to him a lot on the phone when I was at ESPN.

He was one of those guys that just taught me a lot of football. When I had questions about stuff, he'd be a guy that would kind of coach me up on some things. The longer you're away from being a player, I don't care how smart these guys and how smart you think they are uh whether it's lewis or matthew or mooch or dion or whoever it is marty whoever's on tv that you respect um you lose your fastball when you're away from the game you better be talking to coaches you better be talking to players because every year out of the meeting room the dumberumber you get. And, uh, so I really

worked super hard when I was on TV of making sure I was talking to the right people that were keeping me up to speed that, okay, my eye says this, am I right here? Um, you know, I've been studying film. Am I looking at the right things? Like, why in the heck did you do this? I never did this in my career. And Bruce was one of those guys that is usually ahead of the times. I think Andy Reid's the guy that's always three years ahead of everybody. Those guys would be fun to play for. Hey, more from Trent in a second, but getting into debt is easy. Getting out of debt is hard, especially if your FICO score isn't great.

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This can work for me. I want to talk a little bit about receivers here. You know, there's the Antonio Brown football stuff, the unprofessionalism, and then there's the serious stuff, which I have no idea on. I'm not taking sides. I don't know what to say.

I've already talked about it Wednesday, so I'm not asking about that. You know, the Odell thing is, I don't think it's the end of the world, but I think in fairness, like it's mildly annoying that every time with Odell it's something and then he thinks it's the rest of the world out to get him. I mean, I don't care about his watch. I really don't, but he does. to get him. I mean, I don't care about his watch. I really don't, but he does. What was the, what was the most difficult, like wide receiver thing that you had? I don't know. Like I feel free to answer on these guys today where it just, the receiver diva thing seems to be at another level.

But I don't want to just sound like an old guy, but it does. So feel free to comment on that. And then I'd love to hear kind of you trying to get on the same page with a receiver that may have been difficult for you when you were playing yeah i'm not the best person here because i didn't really play with any game changing receivers in my career the two best i played with were daryl jackson in seattle and antonio bryant who was actually a should have been an all pro um um, his, his emotional, um, stuff kind of got in the way. Sometimes it's got over emotionally.

It was not a bad guy. It's a great guy. Um, and a great teammate just was over emotional and it got him in trouble. So I didn't really play with an Odell or an Antonio Brown or a Chad Ocho Cinco, or, you know, one of these guys that's considered a, a diva. Um, Daryl had tendencies at times.

Antonio had tendencies at times, you know, when I played with Shannon in Baltimore and Ben coats, they were already, you know, hall of famers or multi-time all pros. And they kind of been there, done that.

And they had settled a little bit, but I always say this. It's usually if been there, done that, and they had settled a little bit. But I always say this. It's usually if a receiver is being a massive distraction, where it's become toxic, I would point to the quarterback that he has some culpability in it. That is our job. Our job is to deal with high-mainten maintenance, complex, over-the-top situations. That's why it's such a hard job. It's not throwing. It's not just picking up protections. It's not just studying hard. It's relationships. You are the centerpiece of the organization. You are the centerpiece of the organization. You're the when they let a receiver destroy the culture of

their team because that's your job and if that means hanging out with them at 11 o'clock at night making sure you stay out of trouble if that means sitting by his locker and doing life with him if that means meeting him where he's at that means I did a lot of things with receivers, a lot of things that were outside of my comfort zone that weren't part of who I am. I went to places that I don't necessarily want to be at, but I tried to meet them where they were at and be a friend, have a relationship with them, develop trust with them. So that when I ripped them or when I held them accountable, they trusted me. And the same way I let them do that with me, that I had this ongoing thing with receivers

that I learned kind of in Seattle where I said, okay, listen, if we're going to hold each other accountable, that's not a one-way street. So if I get on you about something, know that you can get on me about something. So I had no problem if I overthrew a slant route and Daryl Jackson met me with fire in his eyes in the huddle and just ripped me a new one because he needed to let it out. You know, he just smoked a guy on a slant and here's his dumb quarterback that overthrows him or throws in the dirt or something. He needs to let that out. So what we always said was, Hey, come to our quiet place, which is our huddle. out. So what we always said was, Hey, come to our quiet place, which is our huddle. And what gets said in here stays in here. And we shredded people and each other, like we held it, we held each

other accountable. And I think what that did was it developed a trust, developed a bond, and then they weren't, you know, they weren't holding it in and then having to vent somewhere else. Kind of a long winded deal for for answer i'm sorry but you know i i think quarterbacks i think quarterbacks need to own a little bit of this okay but you just i'm going to follow up a little bit you kind of laughed a little bit when you said i went places i didn't want to go what are we talking about here were you were you at like chloe in downtown denver being like the only like dude like how what are we talking about here like what were you going out with guys that you wouldn't normally hang out with socially yeah yeah you have to meet

people where they're at man I mean it's it's part of the job like you gotta you gotta be I'm not the guy that says listen okay I'll give a different I'll take me out of it. I have a couple friends that are quarterbacks in the NFL that have awesome faith. They just choose not to... They're not going to be at a bar. They're not going to be seen drinking in public. They're not going to ever do anything

that compromises maybe where they stand with their faith. But those guys still have to meet these players that aren't living the same type of life where they're at. And they can't be so pious and snobby. And I don't know another word where they can't, you know,

meet a guy just where he's at in life. Some of these guys are 22, 23, 24 years old. They're not even close to figuring life. Some of these guys are 22, 23, 24 years old. They're not even close to figuring life out yet. And you're 30, 31, 32, you have kids, you know, a bunch of other responsibilities. You're living a different type of mature lifestyle. It doesn't mean you can't go to dinner with them. Doesn't mean you can't go out with them on a night. Doesn't mean you can't invite them to be part of your kind of vibe.

There's a lot of things you can do relationally that develops a trust and understanding within a team that really goes a long way. And I did those things. I mean, I had four kids when I was, I don't even remember when we had Delaney. She was born in 2002. So my sixth year in the league, seventh year in the league, I don't even remember when we had Delaney. She was born in 2002. So my sixth year in the league, seventh year in the league, I had four kids.

It doesn't mean you don't go to a Halloween party and dress up and be silly and go to the after party with them and hang out and let them know you're also still a real guy. You don't have to compromise your values or your integrity, but you do need to meet everybody where they're at in their life and kind of let them understand that you care about them as much as you care about everybody else. You know, as we went through all this stuff, I was surprised because I heard Brandon Stokely was a huge prick, and I thought maybe that that was tough to deal with. I'm kidding. I mean, talk about a diva. Boy, was he a diva.

Brandon Stokely, a.k.a. The Slot Machine. I don't know if a lot of people knew his nickname out there, but I didn't. I just found it out today. I got one more for you, Trent, and we'll let you go, all right? Yeah. Okay, let's talk Lipscomb Academy. You come out, start of the season, put it on Glencliff 66-8.

You are not the type of guy to be like, whatever, this is high school. I played in the Super Bowl. I'm good. Were you a nervous wreck when this thing became real now that you're coaching high school? Yeah, I told the kid that pregame talk I was pretty simple I said no matter how nervous any one of you are right now I'm more nervous and I showed him my palms my palms were literally sweaty and I told him a story about Jim Sweeney was my college football coach and my first start against UNLV where I was so nervous I couldn't even call the plays and Jim pulled me aside put

his arm around me and he said, Hey Trent, did you ever know that nerves can be a superpower? And I went, what? He goes, he goes, yeah. He says, nerves mean that you care more about it than anybody else. And if you can channel that into a superpower, then you're unstoppable. And it worked. That psychological warfare worked with me. I went out, I think I rushed for three touchdowns. I think I threw another one. And that worked. That psychological warfare worked with me. I went out, I think I rushed for three touchdowns. I think I threw another one. That's what I told the boys. I'm like, listen, we've been here seven months. We've changed the world here in middle Tennessee. We got a barber shop. We got the best strength, the weight room in the country at the best strength

coach. We got a 3000 foot sound stage. You know, we had an academic coach, nutritionist. We got the best uniforms. We got the state, we have all this stuff. We had an academic coach, a nutritionist. We got the best uniforms. We have all this stuff, and you're all probably going to be like, what are we going to do now with it? We've won three games in three years. I said, you're going to turn into a superpower. We're going to go out there, and you're going to do things you've never done before. I promise you, you're going to go out there tonight,

and you're going to do stuff you've never done in your athletic life before. You're going to believe the same thing I believe in Jim Sweeney told me that that's when you're nervous, it's a superpower. And we were up 59, zero 13 minutes into the game. And I was like, they're getting it. You know, they're starting to get, now we got a long ways to go, dude. I mean, we got long ways to go. Uh, but it's so cool to see a bunch of kids that were kind of broken, you know, three games in three years, a community that really didn't care about football in a division where there's some great coaches and some great teams. And these boys in this community are really learning what it looks like to,

to play good football and to crush life off the field and to crush academics and, and to, you know, as we say, to, to be set apart, to be, to live uncommon lives and play an uncommon style of football. So we're on our way, but we got a long ways to go, man. I was reading stuff last night from the kids and I don't say this just cause you're on, but some of the kids quotes were like, they, they got me a little emotional and these kids were so smart and impressive in some of the quotes. Cause I remember one kid saying like, yeah, well, you know, we've basically been getting our brains beaten in here the last few years and it felt really cool to win,

you know? And it was a pure, like think of a teenage kid going, you know, it was really cool to win, man. And I'm like, God, and I have this huge smile on my face. Listen to you talk about it. Are they over the Trent Dilfer's an NFL guy thing or are they? Yeah, that took him a while and I get that. I knew that was going to be one of the challenges, right? Uh, and you know me, I don't rock the Superbowl ring. I think you've maybe seen me in it once or twice. It's stuck in my underwear drawer for 18 years. Um, but I rock it every day cause I want them to see it. They love it because it stands for something more than just me winning a Super Bowl. It stands for what we're trying to do, which is pursue excellence in every area of our life. And, you know, I think the coolest thing

about winning is they're getting wins off the field too that they haven't had. You know, they're winning in all the areas that we wanted them to win in. They're winning in their relationships. They're winning in dealing with their fears. This generation is scared to death. They're scared to death because everything they do is out there. They don't know how to cope with a lot of their fears. So we've confronted fear. And we've told them, hey, courage isn't the absence of fear.

It's the absence of yourself. We've dealt with some big, big, big things, and they're getting wins off the field as well. It makes these wins on the field feel better, and hopefully we get another one tonight. I'm seeing them daily. Some of these kids that are developmental kids, but they're winning in ways they've never won before. That's kind of the beauty of this. This is why I did this thing. I stepped out of retirement and went into, you know, this, whatever this is, to get wins that go beyond the field.

And we're starting to see them happen every day, which is really, really cool. I'd encourage anybody that wants to dip their toe into coaching to have the courage to do it. Because I avoided it for years. I turned down all those college and pro things. And I'm so glad that I had the courage to do it because I avoided it for years I turned down all those college and pro things and I'm so glad that I had the courage to do this because I'm super uncomfortable and I make one-tenth of what I used to make and I live in the upstairs guest bedroom of an older couple and my family's living in Austin and you know I got 35 coaches working for me and every day I'm overwhelmed by it but uh it's the best it the best outside of raising kids is the best

thing I've ever done. They're 2-1 and Lipscomb Academy's headed to Franklin, Tennessee for a night one against Page so good luck in that one and I have the biggest, like I said, I have the biggest smile on my face listening to you talk about this because I know how deep down this is

something you knew you were supposed to do man so good luck alright? Thanks brother, appreciate you okay that'll do it for the first week uh this was awesome the numbers are killer uh thank you so much and we'll be back next week with chris long and monday night we'll be live from atlantic city my first time ever and i kind of want to go to karma or some of those other spots they saw on the TV shows. Okay, check it out. Subscribe to the Rosillo podcast here on the Ring of Reign Review. Thanks, everybody.

Have a great weekend. Thank you.