Speaker 1: Well hope. The NFL Daily on Greg Rosenthal Beyond Lucky Today,
Speaker 1: to be joined by Jordan Rodrigg of The Athletic with
Speaker 1: Me in the studio, the Chris Westling Podcast Studio and
Speaker 1: somewhere in the Sonny environs of Las Vegas. Nate Tice
Speaker 1: of Yahoo Sports. I'm really excited about this show. You know,
Speaker 1: we've we've been doing it a little bit here and
Speaker 1: as you hopefully have learned if you're a listener, we're
Speaker 1: going to have a bunch of different flavors of this show.
Speaker 1: Different shows, we'll have different flavors. And this show's flavor,
Speaker 1: Nate is dork that That's that's our flavor.
Speaker 2: Let's let's get.
Speaker 3: Let's get.
Speaker 2: It's good to see about it.
Speaker 1: You look, you look very rested, and you look you
Speaker 1: look handsome, and I haven't seen you since since the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl in a little bit.
Speaker 4: Getting the wife hasn't killed me yet. Like that, That's
Speaker 4: what's going on. That's why I I think I have
Speaker 4: a lot of takes pent up, and maybe that's what
Speaker 4: I'm going with. I'm bursting at the scenes with takes.
Speaker 4: That was that was a very fun Is that from
Speaker 4: like the NFL films are ive there.
Speaker 2: We're gonna leaning hard into NFL films.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's not the autumn wind. That was like
Speaker 4: the gramble to it like beforehand, it was a summer wind.
Speaker 4: I can't do that either. That's not true, but it's
Speaker 4: but no, I'm happy to be here. I I usually
Speaker 4: get like nerd or anything, but one time I got
Speaker 4: described as like it was. Actually it was an old
Speaker 4: co host with Dane and I din brug Or. He
Speaker 4: was like, oh, our draft geeks, and I felt like
Speaker 4: I almost got insulted there. It was like, yeah, yeah, geek,
Speaker 4: you know, you know that's a step below nerd.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: You're none of those things.
Speaker 1: You're you're a tall, strapping uh former D one athlete
Speaker 1: and you know, back up to Russell Wilson. So that's
Speaker 1: more at least athletically as far as I know, Jordan
Speaker 1: than me, or you have accomplished.
Speaker 5: As far as you know, I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 5: you don't know, you don't know all about that.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you back in the studio. To Jordan,
Speaker 1: you're here obviously for our first show, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to get you back for this show because I just
Speaker 1: felt like you and Nate are the two perfect people
Speaker 1: to talk about, like what's coming next, what we're interested
Speaker 1: in terms of NFL schemes. That's why today is the
Speaker 1: flavor of dork. And I mean that in the best
Speaker 1: way possible, Like I love this stuff and it's a
Speaker 1: good time of year. I think to talk about what
Speaker 1: trends we've seen maybe on the field, and what we're
Speaker 1: looking forward to. And I left it pretty open ended.
Speaker 2: Nate.
Speaker 1: I know you have a piece coming up on Yahoo's
Speaker 1: Sports about this, so you are very well prepped. You
Speaker 1: also have a podcast coming up on Yahoo's Sports in
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, so I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 1: listening to that. But it can be league wide, it
Speaker 1: can be a specific team, it can be coach, it
Speaker 1: can be anything.
Speaker 2: In Jordan, I want you to get this going well.
Speaker 5: I'm excited to start because I'm going to steal Nate's
Speaker 5: answer from him immediately. You know what I'm going to say,
Speaker 5: I think, so okay. At the same time, ready one
Speaker 5: three pistol.
Speaker 6: The rams, Oh your rams pistol. I was gonna say,
Speaker 6: rams pistol. Okay, So okay, I know you're gonna point.
Speaker 6: I knew you're gonna bring someone's gonna bring this up.
Speaker 6: So I have a bullet point on this. So I'm ready.
Speaker 6: I'm ready for the pistol.
Speaker 5: Well, okay, so I'm not gonna be the person who
Speaker 5: comes on here and talks about the Rams all the time.
Speaker 5: I do want the listeners to know that we're talking
Speaker 5: about a lot of different things. But this was extremely
Speaker 5: fascinating to watch and cover. Last year, the Rams started
Speaker 5: deploying a significant amount significant amounts of the pistol formation,
Speaker 5: especially in the latter half of the season. They ended
Speaker 5: up with like about one hundred snaps by all said
Speaker 5: and done.
Speaker 7: They didn't just start it after the bye.
Speaker 5: You saw a little like test of concept earlier in
Speaker 5: the season, but they really sort of spammed it later
Speaker 5: in the season. It basically allowed Matthew Stafford to do
Speaker 5: what he likes, which is be a shotgun quarterback and
Speaker 5: a drop back quarterback, while also having the entire run
Speaker 5: menu at his disposal, because the under center run menu
Speaker 5: was you can keep that in the play sheet and
Speaker 5: in the call sheet if you're in the pistol, even
Speaker 5: though you're in sort of what looks a little bit
Speaker 5: like the gun with the running back immediately behind the quarterback.
Speaker 5: What was really good about this was it kind of
Speaker 5: helped them get back to some of their zone runs. Nate,
Speaker 5: I know you wrote really well about this over Yahoo.
Speaker 5: I love that piece that you wrote. It was super
Speaker 5: helpful and like parsing some of this that we were
Speaker 5: watching last year. I think it's next because it works.
Speaker 5: I think you're going to see a lot of teams
Speaker 5: using it because it works. The Dolphins used it a lot,
Speaker 5: the Falcons used it a lot. But when you see
Speaker 5: those teams that you know, Dolphins and Rams specifically that
Speaker 5: other teams are studying their cutups and their their run
Speaker 5: packages and their sequencing and all of that, you're gonna
Speaker 5: see teams copy. And I think this is a really
Speaker 5: good example of being able to blend this concept, specifically
Speaker 5: to not only keep your entire menu open to you,
Speaker 5: to not give tells to aggressive defenses, but also to
Speaker 5: kind of just keep adding things back in.
Speaker 7: Once they shifted to.
Speaker 5: Like the duo team for the first time in the
Speaker 5: last several years, they were able to get.
Speaker 1: Back into some of their even just explain to the
Speaker 1: listers what pistol is in general.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So pistol is when I mean it literally looks
Speaker 5: like a pistol. It's when the running back is lined
Speaker 5: up directly behind the quarterback, and the quarterback is in
Speaker 5: this case, you know what, four steps or so behind
Speaker 5: the center. So instead of purely under center, where you
Speaker 5: also see the running back lined up behind the quarterback,
Speaker 5: the quarterback has some space between the center and himself,
Speaker 5: and instead of the shotgun where the running back is
Speaker 5: off to one side of the quarterback, this sort of
Speaker 5: blends the two together, and by doing so, the defenders
Speaker 5: can't really tell which direction the running back is going
Speaker 5: to go, and it's a little bit closer to formation,
Speaker 5: so the play can develop quicker than if it were
Speaker 5: just a pure shotgun.
Speaker 7: And if the back was offset, then.
Speaker 5: The defender has a tell not only for some of
Speaker 5: the blitz and the pickups and things like that, but
Speaker 5: also which direction and maybe the gaps are gonna unfold
Speaker 5: because the running back is literally to one side, and
Speaker 5: then you know, you can keep running things like play action.
Speaker 5: A lot of coaches don't like to run Nate, you
Speaker 5: can elaborate on this. A lot of coaches don't like
Speaker 5: to run a full play action menu out of shotgun.
Speaker 5: It just it limits them, but pistol you have a
Speaker 5: full menu open to yourself and then you can also
Speaker 5: get to some zone stuff a little bit easier that way,
Speaker 5: because again, you're not just on one side of the
Speaker 5: quarterback as the running back.
Speaker 1: And I love that the Rams and we've seen this
Speaker 1: with the entire Sean McVay career in Los Angeles, but
Speaker 1: even with Matthew Stafford, who's such an established quarterback and
Speaker 1: as things that he does well, like, they change what
Speaker 1: they do a lot, and they don't stay static. You
Speaker 1: can't stay static, and it's pretty cool, nay. I know
Speaker 1: Stafford's one of your favorite quarterbacks to see him evolving
Speaker 1: and doing stuff that you haven't seen before. It's not
Speaker 1: like they're the first team to ever run pistol. But
Speaker 1: the league is just different now than it used to.
Speaker 1: I mean the pistol uh, of course, fame created by
Speaker 1: Tyler Thinkpan in Kansas City. Now, I'm just saying, I
Speaker 1: know that was kind of a fun one and obviously
Speaker 1: Kaepernick with the forty nine ers.
Speaker 5: Yeah, people have done it like this isn't new. I
Speaker 5: don't say it's next because it's new. It's not new,
Speaker 5: but it's all you see it a lot in the college.
Speaker 1: Everything, everything in the NFL has been done some way before.
Speaker 1: But the way you're talking about marrying the running game, Like,
Speaker 1: what what gets you going about this?
Speaker 2: Watching Stafford in this evolution, Nate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's yeah, it's merging two worlds like Jordan was
Speaker 4: kind of alluding to. And I thought the most important
Speaker 4: part is that defenses are really smart now, like they
Speaker 4: I mean, they've been smart before, but like I think
Speaker 4: they're just the level of defensive plays higher than ever.
Speaker 4: And when teams, i mean, shoot, when Payton Manning was
Speaker 4: with the Colts, like they were like the first team
Speaker 4: to be fifty percent.
Speaker 3: Shotgun and that was insane at the time.
Speaker 4: That was like crazy, they were fifty percent, and now
Speaker 4: most of the teams are over easily over fifty. Some
Speaker 4: teams are over ninety percent of the shotgun. And okay,
Speaker 4: when we have standard runs, Okay, if the running back
Speaker 4: is too away from the tight end, it's all based
Speaker 4: on where the tight end is and where the running
Speaker 4: back is. So if he's away from the tight end,
Speaker 4: they only could run this run, this run, this run. Okay,
Speaker 4: if we can limit it to rock paper scissors, and
Speaker 4: they only run rock and paper. Okay, we can really
Speaker 4: make it easier on our defenders. So when you get
Speaker 4: to the pistol, it just opens up the menu like
Speaker 4: Jordan was loosed to. And you saw that with the
Speaker 4: Colin Kaepernick stuff when he was at Nevada, and then
Speaker 4: the forty Niners kind of copied it because they wanted
Speaker 4: to get the QB run game involved. So now instead
Speaker 4: of just everything being zone read, now you can kind
Speaker 4: of get same side looks so because the running back
Speaker 4: is downhill and where the quarterback is reading is to
Speaker 4: a different side than would be on zone. And then
Speaker 4: you got to the next time we really saw a
Speaker 4: lot of pistol was Peyton Mannings last year with the
Speaker 4: Broncos because Gary Kuback wanted to run zone and Peyton
Speaker 4: was too old to be under center, so they went
Speaker 4: to so they went to the pistol, so they.
Speaker 3: Moved them back to make it easier. That's our real thing.
Speaker 5: That sounds a bit familiar, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So it's flexible. If if like.
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick kind of out of them as an NFL
Speaker 1: play and Peyton Manning.
Speaker 3: Kind of that's it.
Speaker 5: You don't have to be able to move as a
Speaker 5: quarterback for this to work is what Nate's getting at.
Speaker 3: Here you're cheating four yards.
Speaker 4: But I when you get and this is where I
Speaker 4: think it's what's cool with the Rams version is I
Speaker 4: always think of pistol. It's like, oh, it's to open
Speaker 4: up the QB run game a little bit. That's why
Speaker 4: you can just open up some more of the stuff.
Speaker 4: But when you watch it with Stafford, and like Jordan
Speaker 4: was saying, the drop back passing game, it's now creating
Speaker 4: under centered looks out of pistol. So it's easier on Stafford.
Speaker 4: But it doesn't have to be under center. But now
Speaker 4: you're taking away the taels for the defense because now
Speaker 4: if he's in what they call a home position, which
Speaker 4: is like an I formation position, but now it's shotgun,
Speaker 4: you know, pistol.
Speaker 3: Now the defense can't. I can't.
Speaker 4: This linebacker doesn't know if I blitz or not because
Speaker 4: I don't know if the running back's releasing to my
Speaker 4: side on his route. We don't know if the run
Speaker 4: game is this So it's really the first and second
Speaker 4: down looks that this is where I thought the Rams
Speaker 4: really cranked it.
Speaker 3: Up the Ravens game. I'm sure Jordan can speak to
Speaker 3: like that game.
Speaker 4: You saw it a lot because they're trying to mess
Speaker 4: with defenses there blitz happy and simulated pressure appy because
Speaker 4: they're trying to those guys now can't key in on
Speaker 4: some like Okay, the back's away from the tight end.
Speaker 4: I'm Patrick Queen. I know I'm blitzing now. Okay, well
Speaker 4: now he's behind the quarterback. All right, we gotta wait
Speaker 4: till the snap of the ball to see what side
Speaker 4: he goes. So you're just creating half seconds and then
Speaker 4: those add up over.
Speaker 1: Time, and just from a layman's point of view, for me,
Speaker 1: it's like the pistol accomplishes both things. It's like it's
Speaker 1: in between in a way that you can really do everything,
Speaker 1: and it's exciting and I love that you have just
Speaker 1: like an absolute fireballer behind center still and seeing the
Speaker 1: best of Matthew Stafford. I just hope he stays healthy
Speaker 1: and I just hope he is like he was last year,
Speaker 1: because when that was all happening and my daughter's a ramstand,
Speaker 1: I just had this feeling. I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: actually think they have like a non insignificant chance to
Speaker 1: win the Super Bowl this year, Like things have to
Speaker 1: go right but if you played the NFC playoffs out,
Speaker 1: I think they make the Super Bowl like a couple
Speaker 1: times at least, and it just didn't happen for them.
Speaker 2: They lost a close game.
Speaker 1: It's like, I just hope they can have Stafford at
Speaker 1: this age that healthy and playing that well all season again.
Speaker 1: And I'm hopeful and we look forward to that. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, I want you guys all to listen to
Speaker 1: these just beautiful commercials. We will be back off to
Speaker 1: the back and we're finally going to get to all
Speaker 1: of Nate's points. He has so many points back on
Speaker 1: NFL daily, and we've reached the portion of the program
Speaker 1: where it's just time to let Nate cook.
Speaker 2: We just we got to hear it. We got to
Speaker 2: hear what you got.
Speaker 1: What's your best scheme?
Speaker 2: Know that you want to.
Speaker 4: Start with This was gonna be my two strike pitch. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but I'll start the bat the bat with it. This
Speaker 4: is I see your two safety looks. I see the
Speaker 4: top down defenses, and I raise you three safety looks.
Speaker 3: Not just I'm not talking just big Nickel. I'm talking
Speaker 3: three safety shells.
Speaker 4: And I know there is a large British fan base
Speaker 4: of this show, but they would love to know that
Speaker 4: this is very much like the three center back looks
Speaker 4: that you're seeing in soccer, you know, they've seen the
Speaker 4: last five ten years kind of proliferate a little bit.
Speaker 4: But the two defenses that I think are either going
Speaker 4: to be the best examples of this. There might be
Speaker 4: others that maybe I'm just not focusing on, maybe like
Speaker 4: the Raiders or something. But the Cardinals defense with defensive
Speaker 4: coordinator Nick Ralis, who's thirty years old, and actually I
Speaker 4: went to high school with his two brothers, which is
Speaker 4: the small world and his brother's former we wrestler uh name.
Speaker 5: So this like marries your world very well. Basically, it's
Speaker 5: so weird.
Speaker 4: It's so weird, like a little Nick is a defensive
Speaker 4: coordinator in the NFL, Like great for him, and he's
Speaker 4: doing a lot of fun stuff, so it's ky.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But and then also Shane bon and defense coordinat for
Speaker 4: the Giants. So I think these two are the best
Speaker 4: examples of what I'm going to be talking about here.
Speaker 4: But Jordan, you guys, you already hinted at this point,
Speaker 4: so it's perfect. We're talking about micro reactions before the snap.
Speaker 4: So the Shanahan offenses especially, so the teams that do
Speaker 4: the best the Packers Rams forty nine Ers, the Falcons
Speaker 4: last year, which maybe the Steelers this year, the Dolphins,
Speaker 4: these teams that have really weaponized motion, the Cardinals offense
Speaker 4: that they're trying to get you hot at the snap
Speaker 4: of the ball, gets you out, leverage, gets you out
Speaker 4: of position, you being the defense, getting all eleven defenders
Speaker 4: off of the same page. And how defenses kind of
Speaker 4: counteracted that is quarters cover four two safety looks.
Speaker 3: We've talked a lot about it, you.
Speaker 4: Know, talked a lot that there's been rise and fall
Speaker 4: of another head coach already who ran actually a couple
Speaker 4: of them that were the leaders of this type of coverage.
Speaker 3: But the ones that I think kind of took this
Speaker 3: and kind.
Speaker 2: Of are you talking about here someone that worked right.
Speaker 3: Maybe the other Los Angeles team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you can put Brandon Staley's name out there, the.
Speaker 3: Salification that came and went.
Speaker 4: But so what they were trying to do with the
Speaker 4: quarters looks was is top down, keep everything in front
Speaker 4: of us. We can adjust their two safeties and if
Speaker 4: you want a motion, you want to shift, our safeties
Speaker 4: will kind of be a safety, you know.
Speaker 3: Fill in from the back, fill in from top down.
Speaker 4: We're not going from the line of scrimmage backwards now,
Speaker 4: we're going from the safety spots downwards. And when we
Speaker 4: watched this Cardinals defense and the Titans defense last year,
Speaker 4: who boned was defense Cordinaio of NOL Giants. They were
Speaker 4: taking guys like Buddha Baker and he was a true
Speaker 4: what I would call monster back, which is fine ball,
Speaker 4: the sea ball, get ball kind of player, like a
Speaker 4: true rover, a guy that could just move around Bob Sandy.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what they did was they really though.
Speaker 4: What they did was rather than have the slot player
Speaker 4: or the other linebacker by the mic, you know, linebacker,
Speaker 4: and rather than have him as a safety all the
Speaker 4: way back, they kind of put them in between the
Speaker 4: linebacker and the safety. This is kind of in between spot.
Speaker 4: And what that allows them to do is now, rather
Speaker 4: than having a guy from the line scrimmage work backwards
Speaker 4: or now we have to bump everybody because of a
Speaker 4: motion at the snap of the ball, Budda Baker, whoever
Speaker 4: this roving player is, he can fill in where they're
Speaker 4: away from the motion towards the motion. He can move
Speaker 4: be a slot player, he could be a Tampa tuo
Speaker 4: player like Brian Urlacker, he could be the deep safety,
Speaker 4: he could be a blitzer. So they created this kind
Speaker 4: of motion piece, this move piece, and the Titans were
Speaker 4: doing this a little bit last year. Roger McCreary was
Speaker 4: an interesting player. He's doing a little bit of this
Speaker 4: and the safeties they had in Tennessee last year. So
Speaker 4: it's it's really interesting. I'm curious and more defenses copy it.
Speaker 4: The Cardinals had one of the worst defenses last year.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I want I want to kind of
Speaker 1: bring that up that like these two defenses, you know,
Speaker 1: not that effective, but they weren't.
Speaker 5: The process was clear. We've covered this. I were terrible.
Speaker 5: The process was clear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see what they're trying to do.
Speaker 4: And I think more defenses are going to copy that
Speaker 4: because we have seen more weaponized slot players. Brian Branch,
Speaker 4: Devn Weatherspoon, Kyle Hamilton. You know, you saw a little
Speaker 4: bit this with the Ravens last year. But I think
Speaker 4: this kind of like true move that guy into the
Speaker 4: middle of the field and into that in between area
Speaker 4: that I think is going to get copied a little
Speaker 4: bit more might might be the whole major of the
Speaker 4: defense outside of these two or maybe a couple of others.
Speaker 4: But I think more teams are going to go, hey,
Speaker 4: this gets our best guys out there. And I think
Speaker 4: it's a great answer to all that motion stuff, all
Speaker 4: the other things, and it doesn't make you predictable. And
Speaker 4: this is the last thing. I watching the Cardinals defense
Speaker 4: against the forty nine ers. It was in Arizona. That
Speaker 4: was kind of a game that was kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I see what you're doing here. It takes It changes
Speaker 4: the pre snap and post snapbook for the quarterback. He
Speaker 4: can't just go Okay, it's cover two. Oh, it's single high. Oh,
Speaker 4: it's man coverage. Now he has to go all right,
Speaker 4: where's Buddha Baker going? Wait, where's the other safety going?
Speaker 3: Again?
Speaker 4: We just talked about micro reactions. Those little quarter a
Speaker 4: half seconds add up. It helps the defensive pass rush
Speaker 4: get there and maybe make the quarterback gouts at a
Speaker 4: wrong spot, or maybe it hold on to the ball
Speaker 4: for a half second. So I just see this kind
Speaker 4: of freedom of the defense and these funky move looks.
Speaker 4: This is the motion for the defense. The motion is
Speaker 4: shifting of offense. This is their version on defense, and
Speaker 4: I think everyone you can see more and more of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I call that because it's kind of it's evolving,
Speaker 5: right because you've seen a lot of teams put their
Speaker 5: hybrid safety or their hybrid corner in a bigger nickel.
Speaker 5: You see, the Star was really popular. I mean it's again,
Speaker 5: the Star has been around forever. I'm not saying it's new,
Speaker 5: but it was repopularized a couple of years ago. But
Speaker 5: I kind of call this the shooting Star because they
Speaker 5: can float like they can float across like they can
Speaker 5: they're not confined necessarily to the rest.
Speaker 2: Of the who are good examples of that.
Speaker 5: I mean, we're going to see We're probably going to
Speaker 5: see it, you know, like we're yeah, I mean, we're
Speaker 5: probably going to see more.
Speaker 7: I would think, like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll see, we'll see more of these guys, like
Speaker 4: I mean, the slot because it's just happening what's in
Speaker 4: college and we just get these guys propping up into
Speaker 4: the NFL.
Speaker 3: So I mean, shoot, just last year the rookie and
Speaker 3: second year players.
Speaker 4: Last year, there was just all these slot guys and
Speaker 4: like so they're all dynamic blitzers, they're all good in coverage.
Speaker 4: They're all good tacklers. So it's become like not it's
Speaker 4: called the star and certain defenses, but the sloth and
Speaker 4: nickel whatever. But it's literally becoming a star position, like
Speaker 4: where you put your most dynamic player because they can
Speaker 4: they could just do so much.
Speaker 7: We love a double meeting. We love a double rather.
Speaker 4: Than so what they said was, rather than have our
Speaker 4: star just only be in the slot and kind of
Speaker 4: be predictable that he only could do three things, all right,
Speaker 4: let's move them like a helicopter. Let's move them to
Speaker 4: the middle so where he can rove any any spot
Speaker 4: that we need him. Our reagon's gonna call them a
Speaker 4: sweeper like in soccer.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 4: It doesn't work perfect, but it works close enough for
Speaker 4: kind of what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And we've seen more three safety looks just in general,
Speaker 1: certainly that the Cowboys with Dan Quinn and the Patriots
Speaker 1: last year, and it just makes sense. And this is
Speaker 1: a show about big league wide trends and adjusting and
Speaker 1: how the game is always evolving. And part of the
Speaker 1: issues with with modern defense is just these linebackers get
Speaker 1: getting attacked and in coverage, and so one solution is
Speaker 1: just have another safety be that linebacker essentially. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I don't understand it as well as you guys do,
Speaker 1: but that's essentially it's a lighter, faster league, but you
Speaker 1: still need to have the physicality to hold up in
Speaker 1: the running game, and this is one possibility for that.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about, like, do you think
Speaker 1: the and I know you were well really quick thinking
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, help mine.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, Nate, you got me thinking about Like I
Speaker 5: remember when the idea for non coverage confined nickel players
Speaker 5: is to make them an unavoidable player, so the quarterback
Speaker 5: sees them and automatically looks elsewhere, which, to Nate's point,
Speaker 5: forces a little bit of hesitation. So I think that
Speaker 5: is also one part of it that you've seen in
Speaker 5: defense is already in the way that they move and
Speaker 5: manipulate you know, whoever.
Speaker 7: The slot player is.
Speaker 5: But with this, it's really interesting because they literally can
Speaker 5: like orbit the front seven essentially, and these teams that
Speaker 5: really capitalize on the middle of the field, while they
Speaker 5: can also like sort of float shooting star like they
Speaker 5: can float sort of pre snap. When I was mentioning
Speaker 5: the walk around defense, I mean you mentioned the Cardinals.
Speaker 5: When you know, the walk around, it kind of just like, oh,
Speaker 5: we're shuffling around, and all of a sudden they're in
Speaker 5: their snap look versus necessarily rotating post snap. They kind
Speaker 5: of were moving and sort of like, oh, is there
Speaker 5: a game here today? And then all of a sudden, boom,
Speaker 5: they're in this look. And then the quarterback's like, oh,
Speaker 5: the player in the void where I was looking is in.
Speaker 7: That void, So I got to look elsewhere.
Speaker 5: And it's all about the quarterback always says, make the
Speaker 5: defense hesitate just a little bit longer.
Speaker 7: Well, this is Tonate's point.
Speaker 5: Making the offense, allegedly and in their hopes, hesitate just
Speaker 5: a little bit longer. Look deeper in the progression, look
Speaker 5: somewhere else, look for the layup, look for something that
Speaker 5: is not targeting that player. As long as that proof
Speaker 5: of concept is there, they can make the play on
Speaker 5: the ball there, you know, And like to that point,
Speaker 5: I do think we're going to see more of that.
Speaker 5: I think we're going to see more of that because
Speaker 5: everything in this league is built around stopping the pass
Speaker 5: and now adjusting to the pre snap eye candy and
Speaker 5: the pre snap movement in ways that aren't just you know,
Speaker 5: playing landmarks as a defense because you can't necessarily always
Speaker 5: play the motion itself, but you can still understand the
Speaker 5: tendencies of the offense of where that ball is going
Speaker 5: to end up on the field. But teams are even
Speaker 5: messing with that now too, so you have to you
Speaker 5: have to have these players.
Speaker 1: I feel like if you want good pr as a
Speaker 1: defensive coordinator, you just do like the walk around defense,
Speaker 1: you know, because you.
Speaker 2: Always get you always get popped for that.
Speaker 1: That's like every couple of years, someone gets super into
Speaker 1: it for four games just because they're desperate and Belichick
Speaker 1: actually everyone's taking their little turn with it. But if
Speaker 1: you do the walk around defense where everything looks crazy
Speaker 1: before the snap, you get a lot of pop I
Speaker 1: want to ask you, guys, how you think the then
Speaker 1: they get on that's you know, the Patriots are gonna
Speaker 1: because they had big players, they wouldn't do it too much.
Speaker 1: It just it just sprinkle it in every once in
Speaker 1: a while to mess with.
Speaker 3: You, but you don't use it all the top.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you think?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: I guess?
Speaker 1: And this could you know, lead to just another thing
Speaker 1: to talk about because we know it's a trend because
Speaker 1: all you have to do is look at the coaching
Speaker 1: staffs around the league. How do you think the Mike
Speaker 1: McDonald defensive tree plays into this but also just is
Speaker 1: going to play into this season, because I think for
Speaker 1: most fans out there, it's flown a little under the
Speaker 1: radar that Mike McDonald, who did about it as good
Speaker 1: a job as any defensive coordinator over the last two
Speaker 1: years in the NFL, coming from Michigan and going to
Speaker 1: the Ravens. Everyone knows he got hired in Seattle, but
Speaker 1: then okay, so there's one style of his defense there,
Speaker 1: and then in Baltimore he gets replaced by Zachary Orr
Speaker 1: and so there's one there. And then we go to
Speaker 1: the Titans and we got a Ravens assistant Dinard Wilson there,
Speaker 1: and then we go to the Dolphins and they hired
Speaker 1: Anthony Weaver another one of those. So literally four coordinators
Speaker 1: from the exact same staff, who you know was very effective,
Speaker 1: and we're doing things a little bit differently than a
Speaker 1: lot of the league are suddenly running teams. So that's
Speaker 1: you know, an eighth of the league is now this
Speaker 1: Mike McDonald defense. How do you think that's going to
Speaker 1: affect things like what are they going to look like?
Speaker 1: And related to everything we're talking about too with all
Speaker 1: the safeties.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think i'd love to hear Nate's breakdown
Speaker 5: of why this defense has popularized so suddenly and so
Speaker 5: as these things do, if it works against high powered offenses,
Speaker 5: if it stops high powered offenses, you're gonna hire.
Speaker 1: I basically having because Mike McDonald like beat the Shannonhan
Speaker 1: Tree a couple times in prime time, so like owners
Speaker 1: and stuff, but.
Speaker 2: Also all right, let's do that.
Speaker 7: His defense looks smart and it looks sick.
Speaker 2: Right, No it doesn't. I'm not saying he didn't deserve it.
Speaker 1: I just mean, like in big spots when people were watching,
Speaker 1: he slowed down the most unstoppable offenses in football, and
Speaker 1: so own exactly. It's got that complicated. Owners and coaches
Speaker 1: are just like, let's get that, but four seems.
Speaker 2: Like a lot.
Speaker 5: I think what's what's super interesting is you've you've seen
Speaker 5: some of these coaches and Mike McDaniel being one of
Speaker 5: these coaches literally walk out of the Fangio system era
Speaker 5: it's still ongoing whatever, but like walk out of that
Speaker 5: and into right very quickly.
Speaker 1: He was a little late on the trend, and now
Speaker 1: we'll see if he's early one.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then and the Chargers of Jesse Mintera. So
Speaker 4: do the Ravens Ravens Michigan double resume builder, the harbor
Speaker 4: harboralization of your resume. No, I think with this and
Speaker 4: it's hard to just go like, it's not like this
Speaker 4: defense is the Tampa two or the Seahawks Cover three
Speaker 4: or the dick Lebau you know zone blitzing scheme, you know,
Speaker 4: blitzberg stuff. It's everything that that is the gift of
Speaker 4: this defense. And I think, what Mike McDonald, mcdianel McDonald,
Speaker 4: this is gonna be it.
Speaker 3: God, too many Mikes, too many Irishmen and Scotch.
Speaker 4: But no, it's I think with that kind of that defense,
Speaker 4: it's a kaleidoscope scheme. That's kind of what I always
Speaker 4: get to why it's so hard on modern offense. This
Speaker 4: is just what I was getting to with the three
Speaker 4: safety stuff, is that you're trying to just cause those hesitations.
Speaker 3: So you're just is this Cover two? Is this man?
Speaker 4: Is this Cover three? Is this a blitz? Is this
Speaker 4: is simulated? So all the things, everything looks the same.
Speaker 4: You know in baseball they call pitch tunneling. You know,
Speaker 4: it's the same thing. To the quarterback, it's like that
Speaker 4: is the same safety.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 4: I've seen all five snaps and then, but it's been
Speaker 4: five different coverages. All that is you wish everybody could
Speaker 4: do that. What that takes is a lot of good
Speaker 4: coaching and a lot of detail orientation. So I want
Speaker 4: to say that this defense can work when you have
Speaker 4: the guy that can write it, when you have the
Speaker 4: author and you have the guy that's coaching it like
Speaker 4: the Seahawks do. When that kind of thinking spreads, that's
Speaker 4: where I get a little worried. Where it's kind of going,
Speaker 4: All right, do you guys all have you know Roquan Smith.
Speaker 4: Do you guys all have Kyle Hamilton? Do you all
Speaker 4: have Justin Mattabike? Do you have Jadavian Clowney on his
Speaker 4: best year? Do you have Marlin Humphrey tackling? All right, Well,
Speaker 4: you have different personnel. How are you going to use it?
Speaker 4: Because this defense is supposed to be adaptable to its personnel.
Speaker 4: If you're going to point at one thing that maybe
Speaker 4: they major in, it's the simulated pressures, which you know,
Speaker 4: just is the they only blitzed for or rush for,
Speaker 4: but it's the non traditional four you know, makes it
Speaker 4: look like a blitz. That's maybe what their fastball is.
Speaker 4: But I think what this defense is and what they
Speaker 4: kind of what the scheme, the theory, the whatever you
Speaker 4: want philosophy of this defense is is that they run
Speaker 4: everything well. They are sure with five six pitches that
Speaker 4: they can throw on any ADDI pitch count. That's what
Speaker 4: they are. But again, when the brain drain happens a
Speaker 4: little bit, that gets.
Speaker 3: Me a little worried.
Speaker 4: When people are like, I'm going to copy that defense,
Speaker 4: it's like, are you okay, We'll see how you do
Speaker 4: with that personnel and without the mastermind maybe behind it.
Speaker 4: So guys like Jesse Minter I have a little trust
Speaker 4: in because what I saw, he did, what he did
Speaker 4: in college at Michigan. He has some proof of concept.
Speaker 4: Other guys that haven't called play we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 2: But also they might have their own thing.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is it's very hard to predict
Speaker 1: who has their own ideas that have contributed to what
Speaker 1: happened before. But they're different people, they're different coaches. It's
Speaker 1: like you know, Flores's Belichick's had successful people leave and
Speaker 1: unsuccessful people believe. And Floris is his own, Like you
Speaker 1: can see the Belichick influence on Flores, but he is
Speaker 1: very much his own guy. And I tend to think
Speaker 1: Zachary or is the best bet because he's the one
Speaker 1: the Ravens chose, and the Ravens are smart, so they
Speaker 1: could have chosen smart team Bernard Wilson or Anthony Weaver.
Speaker 1: They had a year's long job interviews for all of them, right,
Speaker 1: and so I just tend to trust that they made
Speaker 1: a good choice of those three. But the other two
Speaker 1: might also be great everyone, and they might be great
Speaker 1: at different things. Anthony Weaver was a guy I know,
Speaker 1: a team seriously considered for head coaching jobs and as
Speaker 1: a leader.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, well I've heard about war is great
Speaker 4: then yeah, so I will say that.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I mean, I think all of these guys,
Speaker 5: as you said, as you guys both said, have the
Speaker 5: potential to be outstanding. The main thing that we see
Speaker 5: over and over again when systems are borrowed offense defense,
Speaker 5: now special teams, because now we'll have you know, little
Speaker 5: schematic twists on the different special teams things, but the
Speaker 5: teachability of it, how you can communicate and build progression
Speaker 5: and evolution in that defense while simultaneously game planning while
Speaker 5: you're in the heat of a season. It's a teaching progression,
Speaker 5: progression that is usually very specific to the teacher. You know,
Speaker 5: we heard reporting last year of some of the things
Speaker 5: with Brandon Staley was the teachability in terms of the
Speaker 5: progression of concepts wasn't necessarily there the way that it
Speaker 5: was in that one year in Los Angeles. And so
Speaker 5: that's always the kind of red flag that you look for,
Speaker 5: is like it's not just does it work, Yes, it
Speaker 5: works generally speaking, this this works, that worked. How can
Speaker 5: you apply it to a wide variety of people in
Speaker 5: a way that builds a natural progression over time to
Speaker 5: where you're you're trimming fat Chris Vassar, who is a
Speaker 5: good defense great defensive analyst, and I read and listened.
Speaker 7: To a lot of his stuff. He had a really
Speaker 7: great quote about.
Speaker 5: Mike McDonald, who he knows, he knows really well and
Speaker 5: has worked with, and he said, this defense's best pieces
Speaker 5: aren't the front structure or the coverages, but the structure
Speaker 5: that encapsulates it.
Speaker 7: It's not the calls.
Speaker 5: It's the ability to have a lot of tools with
Speaker 5: less teaching, so you're never surprised you're stuck. So it's
Speaker 5: like a no waste defense or defensive philosophy of teaching
Speaker 5: specifically less so talking about scheme specific stuff, but it
Speaker 5: is it is no waste in the sense that the
Speaker 5: things that click with your players, you keep those things,
Speaker 5: and you remove the things that don't, and you evolve
Speaker 5: and adjust your own structure underneath your general philosophy to
Speaker 5: be malleable to what your players can do and are
Speaker 5: actually and you're not yourself sticking to what works just
Speaker 5: because you think it works and because it has worked before.
Speaker 5: So I think that's where Mike McDonald has the potentially
Speaker 5: be special. But people who have worked under him for
Speaker 5: a while, I think for multiple years that's going to
Speaker 5: be the key thing is watching how he's done that,
Speaker 5: watching how he's organized and bucketed information and disseminated that
Speaker 5: information in pieces that build progression. To me, that makes
Speaker 5: or breaks a scheme like this, And that's the same
Speaker 5: for offense. But with something like this, where we think
Speaker 5: it might be new, it could I mean knew it's bought,
Speaker 5: you know, everything again, Everything cycles around, But when we
Speaker 5: think it could be the next wave, it's actually just
Speaker 5: going to be how it's taught less.
Speaker 7: So what it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, teaching could be like the new money bough you know.
Speaker 1: Seriously, it just seems like that's honestly a huge area
Speaker 1: for NFL teams to take advantage of that they don't
Speaker 1: that they just don't. They say they don't have time
Speaker 1: to do it, but to figure out how to quickly
Speaker 1: and concisely teach NFL players things they need to learn,
Speaker 1: starting with like fundamentals and just very specifically what they
Speaker 1: need to do. And I think that's probably lacking, and
Speaker 1: you're right, it's very easy to imagine. That's harder when
Speaker 1: you're a head coach rather than a defensive coordinator. I
Speaker 1: think that might have tripped up Brandon Stalely or maybe
Speaker 1: he just wasn't always connecting on that teaching level or
Speaker 1: having the right players that he needed to be able
Speaker 1: to teach. But that's on them. Breaking football is complicated.
Speaker 1: That's what this show has been all about. It really is,
Speaker 1: and I love it. Like it's the middle of July
Speaker 1: and to me, this is the perfect time to get
Speaker 1: into this stuff and hopefully make you guys smarter. We're
Speaker 1: going to take one quick break and we're going to
Speaker 1: do a speed round and have a.
Speaker 2: Little after dinner man.
Speaker 1: Back on NFL Daily and we're gonna try these are
Speaker 1: complicated things, they're big concepts. Well, we're gonna try to
Speaker 1: hit a few quickly and then we'll wrap things up.
Speaker 1: It's been great to spend this Monday morning with you.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's be real, it's not Monday morning. It
Speaker 1: went out in the feed like overnight. We obviously taped
Speaker 1: it before. Let's talk about twelve first and now, just
Speaker 1: because this is obviously not like a new thing, but
Speaker 1: it did pop up a little more in fun places
Speaker 1: last year. You know, it is the second most common
Speaker 1: you know, personnel usage. It was relatively at a high,
Speaker 1: not that it had a huge spike last year, but
Speaker 1: it was one of the highest years of the last
Speaker 1: ten years. But the team that used it the most
Speaker 1: was the Packers and it was just very effective with
Speaker 1: Luke Musgrave and Tuck our Craft and it was just
Speaker 1: like awesome. And I think they're going to expand on that.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've seen it. We've seen too as
Speaker 1: the NFL evolves and we've seen different times when it's
Speaker 1: more popular than others. Obviously, you know the Gronk, Aaron
Speaker 1: Hernandez when they really came out like that offense was
Speaker 1: had a lot of new elements, but really the way
Speaker 1: they use those two tight ends was a specific part
Speaker 1: of it. And I think about, again, we're talking about
Speaker 1: lighter defenses, how can you take advantage of them?
Speaker 2: This is one way.
Speaker 1: And I think of the Packers and Lafleur, who had
Speaker 1: the Laflorissance last year just cooking, and I think of
Speaker 1: the Bills.
Speaker 2: With Kaid and Dawson Knox.
Speaker 1: I think of the Raiders this year with Michael Mayer
Speaker 1: and Brock Brock of course.
Speaker 7: And your favorite name I know already.
Speaker 1: I know, and Mark Andrews and Isaiah likely in Baltimore
Speaker 1: and so those are also those are all really compelling teams.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious just how how they're going to be used.
Speaker 1: And I think I think they're at least it's going
Speaker 1: to be ticking up, and especially the Packers are going
Speaker 1: to be funny one.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they love that, I think. And Nate I think
Speaker 7: can speak on this too.
Speaker 5: It's like teams don't like to sub especially if they
Speaker 5: want to go fast, and so I think you might
Speaker 5: be onto something with an increase in a specific personnel
Speaker 5: usage increasing in that way, because if it's working, they're
Speaker 5: going to want to move the ball down the field.
Speaker 5: They don't want to sub back and get another receiver
Speaker 5: on the field float those guys in and out.
Speaker 7: They're going to want to just go right.
Speaker 5: And I think that's another step in this that will
Speaker 5: buy proxy increase the percentage of snaps that you do
Speaker 5: see with those teams, and with more teams who are
Speaker 5: running twelve personnels, they're not going to want to sub
Speaker 5: and you see it with like you know, I remember
Speaker 5: Matt Lafore was talking last year about how he always
Speaker 5: was fascinated with the way that you know, some of
Speaker 5: his cohorts used the larger receivers to kind of be
Speaker 5: hybrid full back tight end guys who are doing some
Speaker 5: of the same type of disguises and blocking looks and
Speaker 5: basically making everything go all these different personnels go out
Speaker 5: of eleven personnel. And I know Nate's classic joke that
Speaker 5: I'll always take with me everywhere was you call it
Speaker 5: eleven and a half personnel between eleven and twelve and
Speaker 5: so but I think that with some of these coaches
Speaker 5: who do like that because you don't have to sub,
Speaker 5: you can go fast and you don't have to bring
Speaker 5: guys on and off the field. What what coaches like now
Speaker 5: is that you can capitalize against smaller, lighter defenders. You
Speaker 5: can again find find the similar voids in the field
Speaker 5: the way that we've talked about this entire show, and
Speaker 5: you don't have to sub if you have multiple tight
Speaker 5: ends who are capable of maybe you don't have three
Speaker 5: receivers you want to keep on the field and your
Speaker 5: and your twelve works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look at these teams, Ravens, Raiders like
Speaker 1: those second tight ends. I mean it's why I think,
Speaker 1: Nate not to cut you off, but I know you're
Speaker 1: getting I know, we care to uh like uh, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I think you were. You know when they
Speaker 1: drafted Bowers like you thought it makes sense because those
Speaker 1: two tight ends work together and they don't have a
Speaker 1: third receiver.
Speaker 4: Now now they I want them on the Rams. That's
Speaker 4: where rams, I know. And I was I couldn't believe.
Speaker 4: I almost manifested that. I was like, yeah, I was
Speaker 4: giddy about that for a minute.
Speaker 3: Well are the Rams gonna run more twelve because they
Speaker 3: signed Kobe Parkinson, so.
Speaker 7: I've believe they're gonna run more twelve.
Speaker 3: I think so too.
Speaker 2: Tyler off a serious injury that might take a while.
Speaker 5: Nobody sleeps David fantasy for people, don't sleep on David Allen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he had a good moments last year and again
Speaker 4: against the Ravens.
Speaker 1: Let's wrap up this show, uh with you, Jordan, and
Speaker 1: you're going to give us our after dinner mint today.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I like the concept of the after dinner mint
Speaker 5: that you introduced on the in the debut of the show.
Speaker 5: And I was a little nervous when you asked me
Speaker 5: to do it because mine are I gravitate toward earnestness
Speaker 5: and bittersweetness, Right, those are the Those are the spaces
Speaker 5: I like to be in. And I think about training
Speaker 5: camps opening like you think about what the bubble of
Speaker 5: camp really means. It is a space where the players
Speaker 5: and the coaches are all It's all very raw and real,
Speaker 5: and you're there's no hiding from anybody. You are who
Speaker 5: you are in that space for two three weeks. You
Speaker 5: learn a lot about each other and you work really
Speaker 5: hard and there's a lot of pain, and I remember,
Speaker 5: I think about some of the things that we pass
Speaker 5: to each other and some of the experiences that we
Speaker 5: passed to each other as humans. And I remember a
Speaker 5: young man named Austin O'Connor who would went out to
Speaker 5: Carolina Panther's training camp in Spartanburg every single year with
Speaker 5: his dad, and sadly his dad passed away so several
Speaker 5: years ago, and he decided that he was going to
Speaker 5: take his father's ashes and spread them all over the
Speaker 5: world where they'd taken trips. And one of those places
Speaker 5: was he traveled to Spartanburg and he made the same
Speaker 5: drive that they did, and he went out to the
Speaker 5: field very very early in the morning.
Speaker 7: And I want to paint the.
Speaker 5: Picture of Spartanburg there, because it is unlike any other
Speaker 5: place to have a football practice.
Speaker 7: There's like this.
Speaker 5: Humidity that rises from the ground down there, and it's
Speaker 5: so it's this mist that swirls all around you. And
Speaker 5: so he walked to the edge of the field and
Speaker 5: to the end zone and he, you know, placed some
Speaker 5: of his father's ashes there, and I remember thinking, like
Speaker 5: that's happening. And then all of this, like players were
Speaker 5: having babies in camp their wives are having babies. You know,
Speaker 5: another player's brother passed away during camp. I mean, there
Speaker 5: was so much of existence in life happening in that
Speaker 5: very confined space, and all of those things are part
Speaker 5: of the human experience and what we passed to each other.
Speaker 5: And this is not the mint that you expected. I know, No,
Speaker 5: I love it, but that's what I every year when
Speaker 5: training camp's open, I think of Austin O'Connor. I think
Speaker 5: of his father, and I think of walking through the
Speaker 5: mists that morning and him having that quiet moment and
Speaker 5: passing that into the field, the very field on which
Speaker 5: these players were about to have these very real, very honest,
Speaker 5: very vulnerable, raw hard experiences with each other and build
Speaker 5: a team and camaraderie that they would then pass to
Speaker 5: each other through the rest of that season and beyond.
Speaker 1: And no, I think it's beautiful, and I think you know,
Speaker 1: as people that we've been working in football for a while,
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's the start of the year, it's rebirth,
Speaker 1: it's it's everything. And yeah, rookies are reporting this week
Speaker 1: at a few places. The Texans will be the first
Speaker 1: team to report fully later in the week because they're
Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame game, like it is happening,
Speaker 1: and it's not just like the feeling of like, okay,
Speaker 1: school starting, like we're back. I know, Nate, you feel
Speaker 1: that like that the NFL calendar is just sort of
Speaker 1: your body clock at this point and it's a certain
Speaker 1: sort of fun, innocent excitement. But I love that you
Speaker 1: pointed out the family aspect to it, because like the
Speaker 1: NFL is expensive and training camps affordable, and it's easy
Speaker 1: to go to and for anyone that hasn't gone a
Speaker 1: training camp, and if you have kids or if you don't,
Speaker 1: like it's a great experience because you just see these
Speaker 1: players up close in a way that you would have
Speaker 1: to pay. You couldn't see them up close, like no
Speaker 1: matter how much you paid, if it was during the
Speaker 1: regular season. And the players are cool, they're they're in
Speaker 1: a better mood. You can kind of scout and see
Speaker 1: which days you know that they're maybe doing a little
Speaker 1: extra versus days where uh, they're not going through that much.
Speaker 1: You can find that out if you kind of like
Speaker 1: look look at the beat writers and what the schedule is.
Speaker 1: But you know, my son, like he he can't wait,
Speaker 1: like he's begging to go because I think he has
Speaker 1: more as much or more fun going to watch a
Speaker 1: training camp practice than he does going to a regular
Speaker 1: season game. There there is just kind of a beauty,
Speaker 1: uh and an innocent about it.
Speaker 4: It was my first job. I was doing well training camp,
Speaker 4: ball boy. It was my first job now originally yeah, training, yeah.
Speaker 4: I I always like the equipment guys, man, Like my
Speaker 4: first boss was Dennis Ryan, longtime equipment guy for missing
Speaker 4: the vikings. But uh, it was so for me growing up.
Speaker 4: Camp was At first it was work, and I was
Speaker 4: kind of like, I'm missing all of August, could be
Speaker 4: hanging out my friend and Simon man Cato, Minnesota, staying
Speaker 4: at a college dorm with no air conditioning. And then
Speaker 4: as I got older, like really, once I kind of realized,
Speaker 4: you know the path that I was going down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's never happening for you. At some point you
Speaker 1: just give it up and you're just like, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be that friend here.
Speaker 4: Well yeah right and then yeah, and then camp started,
Speaker 4: and then I started looking forward to camp once I
Speaker 4: hit high school, Like once I like ninth grade or so,
Speaker 4: I hit I was like, oh this is cool. I'm
Speaker 4: reading the script behind these players. So like my memories
Speaker 4: of camp, and I've gone this as I got older,
Speaker 4: maybe away from like the day to day of the game,
Speaker 4: but in my own now media career and being around
Speaker 4: the draft a few times now and seeing what the
Speaker 4: draft's like, is that it's hope. And I think that's
Speaker 4: what's so cool about training camp and the draft is
Speaker 4: that you're selling hope to the fans. And I think
Speaker 4: that's awesome. Not just the fans, I should say to
Speaker 4: the entire organization and to teams and to coaches. Everything's
Speaker 4: a clean slate. Oh they caught us last year, but
Speaker 4: now we got Carl on our team. You know, we
Speaker 4: didn't have Carl last year, but now we do. But
Speaker 4: like you don't know who the secret key is going
Speaker 4: to be. It could be Carl, it could be some
Speaker 4: six round rookie, or could be the number one freaking pick,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what's so cool.
Speaker 4: NFL is not for long in a negative way, but
Speaker 4: it's also the opposite of that is how much you
Speaker 4: can get built up. And I think that's why so
Speaker 4: many quickly too. And I think that Puka Nakua a
Speaker 4: great example. But I think that's what's so cool is
Speaker 4: that you can start seeing those flashes in the draft,
Speaker 4: and then you start seeing him camp, and then you
Speaker 4: start seeing it week one, and if you're a kid
Speaker 4: at twelve years old with your dad watching practice, you go,
Speaker 4: I remember Pooka caught that touchdown and we said he
Speaker 4: was going to be good, you know. And I think
Speaker 4: that's why camp I think has so many special memories
Speaker 4: for people. And I think Greg brought up the best point.
Speaker 4: It's usually very affordable and it's a very fan I
Speaker 4: mean for a lot of people. I mean, yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: but the fans and fan events around him. I'm getting
Speaker 4: to see this from a media perspective because again, I
Speaker 4: was always involved with the game, so I never stepped
Speaker 4: out into the parking lot, you know, And so it's
Speaker 4: kind of gone pretty cool for me to see that
Speaker 4: from a different perspective as I've gotten older, and I
Speaker 4: think it's great.
Speaker 1: Well, it was a great way to take a look
Speaker 1: at a big picture around the league. A lot we're
Speaker 1: looking forward to, and yeah, training camp is coming. I
Speaker 1: hope to have you back on sometime Nate, and obviously
Speaker 1: Jordan loved having you again. That's it for NFL Daily
Speaker 1: Today for Nate Tice In, Jordan Rodriege.
Speaker 2: We will be back on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Excited for this show with Colleen Wolfe back in the
Speaker 1: Chris Westling Podcast studio and Patrick Claybon.
Speaker 2: We will see you then