Speaker 1: Welcome in two Bucks Insider presented by Verizon Casey Phillips.
Speaker 1: Here was senior writer and editor Scott Smith, And we
Speaker 1: have an offensive coordinator to talk about, and did his one,
Speaker 1: Liam Cohen. He's gotten introduced to the media this week
Speaker 1: at his first press conference, met some of the players
Speaker 1: around the building. So tell me for you initial thoughts
Speaker 1: on what this hiring means to the team and to
Speaker 1: the offense.
Speaker 2: Well, the Bucks did a very thorough search. I think
Speaker 2: they interviewed seven candidates and Liam was near the end,
Speaker 2: but I think they had planned on interviewing them all along.
Speaker 2: It was just how they were handling it at the
Speaker 2: University of Kentucky, and I think they felt he was well.
Speaker 2: Coach said he was the best fit for what they
Speaker 2: wanted to do offensively. So Coach Bowles and his staff
Speaker 2: went into this search with an idea of the offensive
Speaker 2: philosophy that they wanted to follow, and they felt that
Speaker 2: Liam was the best choice to probably provide some bit
Speaker 2: of continuity between what they were doing last year under
Speaker 2: Dave Canalis. A lot of good things, but how do
Speaker 2: you continue that when you're coordinators and changing systems and
Speaker 2: that starting over from ground zero? And now you have
Speaker 2: a guy that has a lot of the same sort
Speaker 2: of background as Dave Canals working with Sean McBay and
Speaker 2: the Rams. Dave Canos didn't do that, but Shane Waldron
Speaker 2: and the connection and all that. So I think it
Speaker 2: was the best way to have continuity, but also a
Speaker 2: guy that they felt really had the same philosophy as
Speaker 2: to how to run an offense.
Speaker 1: And part of that philosophy is something he talked about
Speaker 1: in his press conference. And I think it's probably gonna
Speaker 1: make a lot of the players pretty happy.
Speaker 3: Excuge, man, when you have playmakers, life's a lot more fun.
Speaker 3: I mean, like I said, you can call any play
Speaker 3: in the world. But when you can just call a
Speaker 3: slant or a hitch or an omaha and the ball
Speaker 3: could potentially go in the end zone, er you call
Speaker 3: a go ball in those fifty to fifties are now
Speaker 3: eighty twenties or seventy thirties, that's not anything I can coach.
Speaker 3: And so when you have those type of players, man,
Speaker 3: the game is a lot more fun. And that's ultimately
Speaker 3: what football is, right, It's about like it's about players,
Speaker 3: not plays. But if we can put them in the
Speaker 3: position to be successful with talent, you know, usually good
Speaker 3: things happen. So I couldn't be more excited to get
Speaker 3: to work with those guys. Man, they seem like really
Speaker 3: good people and workers, just like everybody that I've heard
Speaker 3: in this building. So really excited to get to work
Speaker 3: with those guys.
Speaker 1: So players not plays, which is interesting from a play
Speaker 1: caller too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think what he's saying is the job
Speaker 2: of an offensive offensive coordinator is not to wow everybody
Speaker 2: with your play design and your play calling. Improve that
Speaker 2: no matter who you ghet the ball to, you can
Speaker 2: make you can run an offense. It's not about you,
Speaker 2: even though it is yours. And that was important to
Speaker 2: him that this is his, whether good or bad, it
Speaker 2: the buck stops with him. The job is to get
Speaker 2: the ball to your best playmakers as much as possible,
Speaker 2: and especially in key moments. And he said at one
Speaker 2: point that when he's in a game, he has a
Speaker 2: play calling you know, the play call sheet that they
Speaker 2: all hold up on the back. He has boxes for
Speaker 2: those players and he can look at that and go, Okay,
Speaker 2: we haven't done this to him. We need to get
Speaker 2: the ball to him this many times. We need to
Speaker 2: get to him, you know what I'm saying. So it's
Speaker 2: a reminder to him to get the ball in the
Speaker 2: hands of and when you have Mike Evans and Chris
Speaker 2: Godwin and Rashad White and Kate Ott and even it's
Speaker 2: a good idea, right yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And even he was saying it almost didn't matter
Speaker 1: what the defenses would be or the coverages would be.
Speaker 1: That it was like, sometimes sometimes you're just gonna get
Speaker 1: You're gonna try and get it to them. Who cares
Speaker 1: what they're doing. We want to get it into our
Speaker 1: play caller's hands, which is great. And one of those
Speaker 1: players that he hopes is maybe making some plays for
Speaker 1: him is Baker Mayfield because they do have some familiarity
Speaker 1: with each other. Right.
Speaker 2: Baker Mayfield was claimed by the Rams in that twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two season where Liam Cohen was the Rams offensive coordinator.
Speaker 2: He wasn't a play caller. That was the year after
Speaker 2: they won the Super Bowl. Matt Stafford got hurt, Cooper
Speaker 2: Cupp got hurt, They started four different quarterbacks. It was
Speaker 2: just kind of a lost season offensively, and by the
Speaker 2: time they claimed Baker off waivers in early December, they
Speaker 2: weren't having a lot of fun, and Liam said Baker
Speaker 2: immediately brought the fun back to the whole team, he
Speaker 2: brought competitiveness back on the practice field, and those two
Speaker 2: in a pretty short amount of time formed a pretty
Speaker 2: good relationship. And so Liam coming here, he said it
Speaker 2: was one of the attractions that he had a shot.
Speaker 2: Now he's the potential to work with Baker Mayfield because
Speaker 2: as we know, he's a pending free agent, so a
Speaker 2: new contract has to be done before that happens. But
Speaker 2: I think Liam came here with an optimism that it
Speaker 2: would happen. And of course Baker has said on multiplications
Speaker 2: that he likes it here and would like to stay here.
Speaker 2: So hopefully they can work that out because that was
Speaker 2: a draw for Liam Cohen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I know, but not only is he
Speaker 1: going to be planning to put Baker in the best spot,
Speaker 1: he definitely does still want to continue the emphasis on
Speaker 1: the run game that the team had been working on
Speaker 1: and the growth in that area. So what did you
Speaker 1: hear about how he wants to continue the growth there?
Speaker 2: Well, Dave Canalis wanted to have a balanced offense, and
Speaker 2: to his credit, he did in terms of play calling.
Speaker 2: He kept it very bounced and he stuck to his
Speaker 2: word that he would not abandon the run. But at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, the Bucks run offense was
Speaker 2: still at the bottom of the league in terms of
Speaker 2: yards per game. So how do you fix that. There's
Speaker 2: a number of ways, but one I found intriguing that
Speaker 2: Liam Cohen said that hopefully the Bucks could get to
Speaker 2: is giving the quarterback and the center a little bit
Speaker 2: more autonomy at the line of scrimmage before the snap.
Speaker 2: So you have a lot of plays that he said,
Speaker 2: were on a can, which means you have on the
Speaker 2: front of the can, like a can of soda. On
Speaker 2: the front of the can, you have the play you
Speaker 2: want to run on the back of the can. There's
Speaker 2: a companion play that you can go to that one instead,
Speaker 2: and the Rams have that on ninety five percent of
Speaker 2: their plays. Liam said he didn't know if how soon
Speaker 2: the Bucks could get to that, but if you can
Speaker 2: have your quarterback out there recognizing defenses, understanding what the
Speaker 2: defenses are trying to do to you, and being able
Speaker 2: to put your run plays against better looks, that will
Speaker 2: improve the game. So it may take a little while
Speaker 2: to get there, but that could help quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And I know you mentioned that Liam Cohen, You mentioned
Speaker 1: Kentucky and the Rams, and some of these stops tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about his path to this point.
Speaker 2: So he had three years on Sean mcvay's staff, I
Speaker 2: think there would be eight twenty eighteen to twenty twenty
Speaker 2: and a couple positions like assistant wide receiver, assistant quarterback,
Speaker 2: and then he got hired by Kentucky to be their
Speaker 2: offensive coordinator, which is something he always wanted to do,
Speaker 2: have his own offense call plays. But then the Rams
Speaker 2: were interested in hiring him back, and he went back
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles in twenty twenty two because, as he said,
Speaker 2: he wanted to help out his friend Sean McVay and
Speaker 2: he wanted to be involved in that. But when he
Speaker 2: was there in Los Angeles, he realized what he was missing,
Speaker 2: that he wanted to be a play caller, that he
Speaker 2: wanted to be running an offense that was his. So
Speaker 2: when he got a shot to go back to Kentucky,
Speaker 2: that's why he did that. But now this opportunity arrives
Speaker 2: and it's really his lifelong dream to be calling plays
Speaker 2: in the NFL.
Speaker 1: And one of the interesting things about the Bucks offense
Speaker 1: in recent years is how Chris Godwin has been used
Speaker 1: outside slot. We've seen he can have success anywhere. He's
Speaker 1: an incredibly talented wide receiver. What insight have we gotten
Speaker 1: into how this new offensive coordinator wants to use it.
Speaker 2: It looks like Liam Cohen will want to use Godwin
Speaker 2: a lot more like he was in the Tom Brady
Speaker 2: era when he was really a weapon in the slot.
Speaker 2: And he just says he can be such a weapon
Speaker 2: in there. And as you said, last year, Dave Canalis
Speaker 2: decided to use him a lot of different ways and
Speaker 2: a lot more outside and it still worked. He still
Speaker 2: had roughly the same amount of yards as a year before.
Speaker 2: But if you look at some of the numbers, you
Speaker 2: can see that he's had so much, so much success
Speaker 2: working out of the slot. And look at the percentages
Speaker 2: in the percentage calumn there, that's the number of percentage
Speaker 2: of plays that Chris ran out of the slot or
Speaker 2: tied against the line, because we know what a great
Speaker 2: run blocker he is when he's there. See the big
Speaker 2: drop from seventy two percent to thirty nine percent, And
Speaker 2: if you look at it, his catch percentage went way
Speaker 2: down and his yak went way down. Now, that's a
Speaker 2: function of the different type of plays that you're running.
Speaker 2: But if you look at that year in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: when he caught seventy percent, i mean, played seventy percent
Speaker 2: in the slaughter tight almost eighty yards per game and
Speaker 2: six orn and thirteen yak, which was among league leaders.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of thing that Chris Godwin can do.
Speaker 2: And Liam doesn't have to just guess from looking at
Speaker 2: a few pieces of tape. He could look at three
Speaker 2: years and know that this can work.
Speaker 1: That's going to be interesting. Well, not only did the
Speaker 1: Bucks hire a new offensive coordinator, but they had a
Speaker 1: couple guys having fun at the Pro Bowl and make
Speaker 1: it some making some moves. At the Pro Bowl, we
Speaker 1: had some stars out there. We had Baker Mayfield and
Speaker 1: Tristan Wurf's, who of course are just little besties stepbrothers
Speaker 1: photo re enactment. I loved everything about watching the two
Speaker 1: of them have so much fun at the Pro Bowl games.
Speaker 1: And then they both did really well in their respective
Speaker 1: areas that we saw Baker just lighten it up in
Speaker 1: the game. And then we also saw and of course
Speaker 1: hears him getting the offensive MVP of the games, and
Speaker 1: we saw Tristan using that strength that we know him
Speaker 1: so well for to help the NFC win the Move
Speaker 1: the Chains event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the move chains when where they had to move
Speaker 2: all this weight off and then go to the other
Speaker 2: side and pull the sled together. Tristan was the first
Speaker 2: one done. He was just waiting on the other side
Speaker 2: for his other guys. But then they managed to win,
Speaker 2: and then Baker won the precision precision Passing event. And
Speaker 2: then it was a little bit confusing to me when
Speaker 2: I was looking back at it, because I saw the
Speaker 2: end of the flag football game and I saw the
Speaker 2: score and the NFC seemed to win, and then I
Speaker 2: look at the box score in the AFC one. But
Speaker 2: it's because it was a composite score, so you get
Speaker 2: points for winning the different events, right, Yes, I didn't
Speaker 2: quite quite realize that at first. So, because he won
Speaker 2: Precision Passing and got the NC a bunch of points,
Speaker 2: and then he had some big touchdown passes in the
Speaker 2: flag football game, he was the overall of MV which
Speaker 2: is cool. It's kind of like a nice little cap
Speaker 2: on this comeback season. Yes, for a Baker who exceeded
Speaker 2: almost everybody's externally expectations, during the season and then you see, oh,
Speaker 2: Baker Mayfields in the Pro Bowl, and then yeah, Baker
Speaker 2: Mayfield's in the Pro Bowl. He's also the Star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. That was great for him and
Speaker 1: for Tristan as well. So you know, we've hired the
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator. Another open spot we ended up having to
Speaker 1: fill with special teams coordinator as Keith Armstrong retired. So
Speaker 1: where do we kind of stand at this point with
Speaker 1: that job and what his retirement could mean.
Speaker 2: Well, the Bucks have cast a wide net, just like
Speaker 2: they did with the offensive coordinate position. They interviewed six
Speaker 2: people Giants former Giants coordinator Thomas McGahee for former Titans
Speaker 2: coordinator Craig Ackerman. I'm trying to do this for a memory. Yes,
Speaker 2: a Saint's assistant, Phil Galliano, former Seahawks coordinator Larry Izzo Iowa,
Speaker 2: the University of Iowa, special teams coordinator LeVar Woods, and
Speaker 2: of course the internal Canada Keith Tandy, who's done good
Speaker 2: things for the Buccaneers the last four years. Now, there
Speaker 2: are reports that the Buccaneers are close to a decision
Speaker 2: on that, but we don't have any anything official on that,
Speaker 2: so we kind of have to stop there, but these
Speaker 2: are the candidates we've talked about so far.
Speaker 1: All right, well, that's going to be really interesting to
Speaker 1: see how that shakes out. Special teams was an interesting
Speaker 1: group to watch. I mean, Chase McLaughlin had a great
Speaker 1: year and Jake Camarti coming into some talented guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One thing though, that coach Bole said in his day
Speaker 2: after the season into press conferences that we want more
Speaker 2: out of our return game. And Devin Tompkins was like
Speaker 2: fifteenth in the NFC or in the NFL and punt
Speaker 2: return average, so that was fine. But the one thing
Speaker 2: the Buccaneers haven't had any very long time is that
Speaker 2: explosive play on either punts or kickoff returns. You see
Speaker 2: here the last kickoff return touchdown or punt return touchdown
Speaker 2: for the Bucks was twenty ten. That's the biggest draft
Speaker 2: in the NFC NFL right now. As you can see, Wow,
Speaker 2: most teams have had one in the last few years.
Speaker 2: So that's interesting. Some of that I think is luck.
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, you just didn't quite break one. But
Speaker 2: that's something that the Bucks would obviously like to add occasionally,
Speaker 2: a really big explosive play on punter kickoff return.
Speaker 1: So I know we're also going to each week here
Speaker 1: on this show look ahead to the draft and especially
Speaker 1: the first round pick and what we think is a
Speaker 1: potential position that they could address at that spot. So
Speaker 1: I know that we talked about a different one this
Speaker 1: last show that today we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: safety position. So how much do you see this being
Speaker 1: something that they might address that high in the draft.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know first round because if you look
Speaker 2: at the prospects available, the safety position isn't really very
Speaker 2: top heavy, and there's some other needs and Bucks might address,
Speaker 2: but maybe early on Day two because you really don't
Speaker 2: have a lot settled there. Obviously, you have an All Pro,
Speaker 2: first team All Pro. It's a good place to start
Speaker 2: with Antoine Winfield. But at the other spot it was
Speaker 2: really by committee. We used four different guys at safety.
Speaker 2: Antoine pretty much played every snap, of course, because you've
Speaker 2: never take him off the field. But if you look here,
Speaker 2: you had Ryan Neil, who is the main starter, but
Speaker 2: not the entire season. He was good in run support
Speaker 2: for the most part. D Delaney is a ballhawk. That's
Speaker 2: why they brought him in in some place. Keava Meriwether
Speaker 2: was the undrafted rookie is a good tackler out there,
Speaker 2: and then they even tried Zion McCollum because that allowed
Speaker 2: them to put their three best cover guys on the
Speaker 2: field at the same time. But I don't think there's
Speaker 2: necessarily one answer there. And then if you also look
Speaker 2: at the fact that the Bucks have to get Winfield
Speaker 2: in their contract, now, I think that they probably will,
Speaker 2: but that has to be done. Ryan Neil's contract is up,
Speaker 2: de Delaney's contract is up, and Zion McCollum is likely
Speaker 2: to spend most of next year at cornerback, so you
Speaker 2: could really use another impact player and guy that can
Speaker 2: play every down in safety. I think, all.
Speaker 1: Right, well, that is going to do it for us.
Speaker 1: On this edition of Bucks Insider presented by Verizon, stay
Speaker 1: tuned for all of the coverage of our new offensive
Speaker 1: coordinator and some of the other positions the Bucks are
Speaker 1: still looking to fill. On buccaneers dot Com m