Speaker 1: NFL Explained is a production of the NFL in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. Hello, beautiful people, that's like my
Speaker 1: m ROV introduction. I'm trying my best. Did I bring
Speaker 1: it like you would? Your voice conveys way more emotion
Speaker 1: than mine does, but I was trying to do the
Speaker 1: intro like you would do it. It's a brand new
Speaker 1: edition of NFL Explained, Mike Yam Michael robinsons with me.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to match your energy level and your positivity,
Speaker 1: So I promise. As we are teasing head coaches and
Speaker 1: saying they won't really do anything, I'm going to say
Speaker 1: it would a smile on people can hear the smile
Speaker 1: through the sound waves through the airways. Man. But I'm
Speaker 1: doing great. It's another football week. Can't wait to talk
Speaker 1: some Yes. Well, part of that conversation, and I'm touching
Speaker 1: on it a little bit, is the fact of we
Speaker 1: watch all these games. We see these head coaches on
Speaker 1: the sidelines, and I know what you're thinking, like, what
Speaker 1: are these dudes actually do? Right? Like it's game day.
Speaker 1: They got coordinators, they got you know, different dudes run
Speaker 1: around the position coaches. The whole thing. We've all seen
Speaker 1: hard knocks. We've seen how big the coaches rooms actually are.
Speaker 1: It feels like they're just dudes. Like CEO is almost
Speaker 1: just saying, hey, point one direction, get this done for me.
Speaker 1: It's getting a little bit more CEO ish as we
Speaker 1: you know, evolved. But I'm glad I get to talk
Speaker 1: about it today. I can finally say what I want
Speaker 1: to say about head coaches. But get fined, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You know, when you're a player, you
Speaker 1: can find you say some negative things about the head coach.
Speaker 1: Ye do we do? We beg you're going And I've
Speaker 1: heard from you. You've actually gotten phone calls after some
Speaker 1: of the things that you've said about head coaches in
Speaker 1: commercial breaks. But I'm not even getting paid by him anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm in the media and I still get the call.
Speaker 1: And you and you told that coach you can't find
Speaker 1: me this time, not gonna happen. Look, and there's some
Speaker 1: coaches that are out there. You've got the old heads,
Speaker 1: the O g so to speak to belichicks of the
Speaker 1: world that certainly come to mind. You got the mcveighs.
Speaker 1: On the other side, it feels like it runs gamut
Speaker 1: in terms of personality style. The whole thing. Is there
Speaker 1: really a need though, I think that almost might because
Speaker 1: we always hear this phrase like, oh, they're professionals out there,
Speaker 1: do you actually, like really need a head coach? I
Speaker 1: know that sounds sort of ridiculous because of what we're
Speaker 1: used to, but like to not really know some of
Speaker 1: the intricacies, I think someone might ask that question. I'll
Speaker 1: start by saying this, I believe, Mike, that every human
Speaker 1: being walking the planet needs a coach. So I'll start
Speaker 1: by saying that because some days we wake up some
Speaker 1: days we are motivated, some days we you know, we're
Speaker 1: wake up on the bad hone, the wrong side of
Speaker 1: the pillow. Sometimes sometimes you just need somebody to help,
Speaker 1: uh kindle that fire that's already inside of you said,
Speaker 1: you need to try to help bring it out, and
Speaker 1: a head coaching football is no different, right. It helps
Speaker 1: provide direction. And again, I only play for a few
Speaker 1: head coaches in the National Football League, so my experience
Speaker 1: is a little limited. But I'll talk about Pete Carroll
Speaker 1: because I know a lot of our listeners know exactly
Speaker 1: who Pete Carroll is. He provided direction for us, and
Speaker 1: I know that's very simple and you know whatever, But
Speaker 1: it's a lot of different layers to it. He had
Speaker 1: different messaging. So I was with the Seattle Seas from
Speaker 1: my last season was season four seasons and the messaging,
Speaker 1: especially early in the season in when I first got there,
Speaker 1: was totally different than the messaging he was saying in
Speaker 1: the season when we had the quarterback, we knew our
Speaker 1: defense worked, we had the running back, and Beast was
Speaker 1: a generational like we had of all the pieces in.
Speaker 1: He was more talking like, hey, guys, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: a thorn in some people's behinds. Man the like, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna be a hard out. I know I just
Speaker 1: got here. And I'm talking to Pete Carroll. He's like,
Speaker 1: I know, I just got here. I know where we
Speaker 1: broke all they broke. We broke a record for like
Speaker 1: transactions like two or some transactions during like I don't know,
Speaker 1: training camp or something like that. It was a lot, right,
Speaker 1: we were getting guys in and out of the locker room.
Speaker 1: We should actually play a game in the locker room,
Speaker 1: like all right, we're gonna guess who's going to walk
Speaker 1: through here today. It was that many guys going in
Speaker 1: and out of the line. We would we would try
Speaker 1: to guess it, but that was the messaging in better
Speaker 1: by the way coming in and going out. Absolutely yeah um.
Speaker 1: And we went to the playoffs with the seven and
Speaker 1: nine record eleven. It changed a little bit because our
Speaker 1: team was a little bit better. We still didn't quite
Speaker 1: find the quarterback. We found our quarterback. We knew that
Speaker 1: the league was on notice, we knew that we were
Speaker 1: one of the best teams in the league. We knew
Speaker 1: that this was kind of our time, and Pete provided
Speaker 1: that direction. He told us where we needed to go,
Speaker 1: and obviously we responded to it. How often did you
Speaker 1: see coaches being willing to evolve? Because I I'm looking
Speaker 1: at you and you're telling me about some of your
Speaker 1: experiences in the NFL. I'm thinking back to one of
Speaker 1: our previous episodes when we talk about evolutions of offenses
Speaker 1: and quarterbacks, and you know the story in your recruiting
Speaker 1: process at Penn State dual threat or you were a
Speaker 1: real dual threat quarterback, and that wasn't something that Joe Paterno,
Speaker 1: for example, it was used to seeing. I think about
Speaker 1: him as old school as it really gets, and yet
Speaker 1: he was willing to make those changes. The adaptability factor
Speaker 1: are the more experienced guys less willing to make those changes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because doing what they've done in the past got them
Speaker 1: to where they are. So they're like, well, why would
Speaker 1: I change when that version of myself has elevated me
Speaker 1: to get in the job of my dreams being a
Speaker 1: head coach on whatever level that that that may be.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, deadlines force change. Deadlines force change.
Speaker 1: We know that in business. We know that anytime there's
Speaker 1: a you know, the trade deadline, you hear nothing about
Speaker 1: a damn trade and then all of a sudden, twenty
Speaker 1: four hours before the trade deadline comes all of these
Speaker 1: speculation things, you know, stuff starts to happen. And even
Speaker 1: with Joe Paternal, I think the change happened because, first
Speaker 1: of all, college football changed, and then I think it
Speaker 1: was pressure from the board of trust and he's the
Speaker 1: fire I think there was pressure. There's pressure from front
Speaker 1: offices and owners on head coaches, whether you're young or
Speaker 1: the year old, but especially because we talk about some
Speaker 1: of the older ones, you better change or you lose
Speaker 1: your job. You see what I'm saying that that that
Speaker 1: that that deadline is the losing your job part. And
Speaker 1: when you get nine and will say threatened. But when
Speaker 1: you get presented with that type of the situation, head
Speaker 1: coaches are in one of those situations, whether they're like
Speaker 1: I either gotta get with the program or die sticking
Speaker 1: with my program, which most of them evolved. Well, m Rob,
Speaker 1: you know the younger guys, Pete Carroll as you made reference,
Speaker 1: who is not necessarily a young guy anymore but has
Speaker 1: sort of that that young way about him and obviously
Speaker 1: came from USC, Joe pa Turner, sort of the old
Speaker 1: school mentality. I want to take you through some new
Speaker 1: head coaches. Thirty two head coaches in the NFL. Ten
Speaker 1: of the thirty two are in the first year with
Speaker 1: their teams. Mike McDaniel, Brian Dayball, not I Reflus, Nathaniel Hackett,
Speaker 1: Kevin O'Connell, Todd Bowles, Doug Peterson, Dennis Allen, Lovey Smith,
Speaker 1: and Josh McDaniels, just to name those guys that are
Speaker 1: out there. Okay, so there's a physical goal appearance for
Speaker 1: some of the coaches in the league. They just look young,
Speaker 1: and guess what, because they are young. As of this season,
Speaker 1: the average age of an NFL coaches forty nine point
Speaker 1: two years old. There are nineteen coaches over forty and
Speaker 1: thirteen under that age. Yeah, let's start with the offseason
Speaker 1: where the NFL coaches have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: letter schedule, though, because I think it's important for us
Speaker 1: to kind of dive into what a lot of these
Speaker 1: guys are doing on a regular basis offseason. You're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's light. No, it's still kind of busy here. You've
Speaker 1: got staffing issues that you need to address, coaches that
Speaker 1: are leaving, moving on, guys that you need to replace
Speaker 1: them with. You're sitting down with your general manager talking
Speaker 1: about free agents, draft strategy. My lord, I know the
Speaker 1: conversations that happened in this building around the draft, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty epic. There's only one head coach who has
Speaker 1: the role of GM that title and coach. That's Bill Belichick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've done that before. We heard that some of the
Speaker 1: most successful early head coaches that were also GMS early
Speaker 1: Curly Lambeau, Paul Brown. I know you like that one.
Speaker 1: George Hallis, Vince Lombardi shout out for Ham University. Bill Parcels,
Speaker 1: by the way, notoriously said about being a coach GM cool.
Speaker 1: They want you to cook the dinner. They can at
Speaker 1: least let you buy the groceries. Perfect. Yeah, I'm also
Speaker 1: the dude that doesn't want to buy the groceries but
Speaker 1: definitely wants to eat and doesn't want to cook. That's
Speaker 1: my role. I do go to the grocery shopping at
Speaker 1: my household. There seems to be a little bit of
Speaker 1: a weird disconnect when there comes to the general manager
Speaker 1: that makes personnel decisions and a coach that just has
Speaker 1: to deal with it and make the best of it.
Speaker 1: Pete Carroll and you brought him up earlier in this podcast,
Speaker 1: he's not GM slash coach. He's the executive vice president
Speaker 1: of football Operations. Basically, what that means he actually has
Speaker 1: a huge say in personnel as the guy that's on
Speaker 1: the sidelines m rob that also has a saying who's
Speaker 1: on his team. Is there a benefit to what they're
Speaker 1: doing up there. It is a small benefit, just being
Speaker 1: that you do want your head coach who represents the
Speaker 1: coaching staff, and that you want those guys involved in
Speaker 1: the scenael decisions because those are the guys who have
Speaker 1: to deal with the personnel on a day to day
Speaker 1: basis and make the schemes come off the paper into reality,
Speaker 1: and that involves, you know, dealing with the players during
Speaker 1: with personnel. So I do think that's a good set up.
Speaker 1: I look at it as like this. I know you
Speaker 1: just explained all that business stuff, you know, and I
Speaker 1: get it. You know, we live in the Western world,
Speaker 1: and you know we gotta have it as capitalism, and
Speaker 1: you've got titles and all that type of stuff. From
Speaker 1: a player's standpoint, this would it looks like to me,
Speaker 1: It looks like a good cop bad cops. This looks
Speaker 1: like an opportunity during negotiations, during whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna use Pete and John because those
Speaker 1: my guys, those guys I know. But I'm talking about
Speaker 1: all gms and head coaches and which head coaches who
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a business role as well.
Speaker 1: Hey man, who gonna play bad cop? Today? Who gonna
Speaker 1: play a good cop? You know, where's the price point? Okay,
Speaker 1: this is where we want to sign them from. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell him how much we love him in
Speaker 1: this that in the third you're gonna hit him with
Speaker 1: the business side, and when he gets upset, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: get him over here with me. Tell them how much
Speaker 1: I love him and you, and they just go and
Speaker 1: they do the dance. And I think it's it's good
Speaker 1: to be able to have somebody who exclusively looks at personnel,
Speaker 1: being that general manager role. And it also, again from
Speaker 1: a coaching standpoint, who has to deal with the player
Speaker 1: every day, gives somebody to blame stuff on. Hey man,
Speaker 1: it's just john Man, it's Johnson. He wanted to let
Speaker 1: you go. That won't me. Man, I love you, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. That's a good card backup dynamic.
Speaker 1: It does make some sense, but it also strikes me
Speaker 1: as really difficult to balance both of those roles because
Speaker 1: that's a lot of responsibility. You gotta delegate, man, but
Speaker 1: then you're not your fingertips aren't on everything then, And
Speaker 1: it's only twenty four hours in a day, but you
Speaker 1: gotta sleep for eight hours. That gives you sixty. I mean,
Speaker 1: you got family, it's only it's only limited. So you
Speaker 1: have to be able to do the research on your
Speaker 1: coaching staff to know that the guys you have around
Speaker 1: you are going to do the work. That's why you
Speaker 1: see so many guys take their homies and friends that
Speaker 1: get into the level job. They just got rocket up
Speaker 1: the organizations because it's all about trust against human relationships.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the NFL Explained podcast. Okay, so, as
Speaker 1: far as the responsibilities are concerned, I mentioned the staffing
Speaker 1: issues that are there. You got league meetings, you got
Speaker 1: offseason programs, strength and conditioning workouts in April early May,
Speaker 1: you got the Rookie Football Development Program, rookie Minicamp in
Speaker 1: mid May. You got voluntary O t A s in
Speaker 1: May and June, you got mandatory minicamp in June. How
Speaker 1: important is the head coach when it comes to those
Speaker 1: activities like infseason. Yeah? Oh man, Like they're not you know,
Speaker 1: taking you through those workouts the coaches they put I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you see Pete Carrot throwing the football around,
Speaker 1: but they're not really doing nothing for real. They just
Speaker 1: you know, they're just having a good time and whatever.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, just like I started off
Speaker 1: the podcast and saying, they still provide direction. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we may not meet every day with the head coach
Speaker 1: in the off season, but we do meet every week,
Speaker 1: and that one meeting that when big team meeting will
Speaker 1: have a week. Yeah, the coach will talk about the goals.
Speaker 1: They'll talk about, Hey, man, we got some fat guys
Speaker 1: I'm looking at I'm looking at the weights coming in. Man,
Speaker 1: you need to stop your extracrict activity or we got
Speaker 1: the draft coming up. You know what I'm saying. These
Speaker 1: are the holes in our roster. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: these are the needs. We just again putting everybody on point,
Speaker 1: making sure everybody's focusing on the right thing. And then schedule,
Speaker 1: that's so important. Like football players just need to know
Speaker 1: the schedule. The schedule is probably the most posted thing
Speaker 1: on any NFL locker room, is on every TV, It's
Speaker 1: on everything. When do I gotta go in for workouts?
Speaker 1: When do I gotta talk to my coach? When do
Speaker 1: I got treatment? And when can I get the hell
Speaker 1: out of this building so I go see my family?
Speaker 1: I mean in the coach is vitolin setting those landmarks
Speaker 1: and setting the schedule very important. Rex Ryan obviously was
Speaker 1: a former head coach. He actually said his biggest regret
Speaker 1: in coaching was missing the birth of one of his children.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, I missed that one not recommended. That's
Speaker 1: my biggest regret in coaching. That's you know, like this
Speaker 1: is a labor, love, and a lot of I won't
Speaker 1: miss my sons. Yeah, we got to a certain point.
Speaker 1: We were playing Tennessee hous with four to nine. As
Speaker 1: we're playing Tennessee that Sunday and the doctor, we talked,
Speaker 1: if we get to Tuesday that week and he ain't here,
Speaker 1: we didn't do it. Tuesday came, We walked in, We
Speaker 1: was partying, we had the music on. We induced he
Speaker 1: came when we had him come, ye part Now I
Speaker 1: don't have children. I can't imagine how many people who
Speaker 1: are listening to this post. You had music going going.
Speaker 1: I got a whole video I edited and everything that
Speaker 1: does sound like a type of move here. Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about your typical Monday through Saturday for
Speaker 1: an NFL coach. He got a ton of meetings various people.
Speaker 1: You got full team meetings almost on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: They're sitting in on offensive defenses and special team meetings,
Speaker 1: position group meeting. Most have regular conversations with their team
Speaker 1: owners along with front office executives. Most meet regularly with
Speaker 1: player leadership committees. Uh and Rob, you know about that
Speaker 1: because I know you were that dude. Various meetings with others.
Speaker 1: He got training staff, strength and conditioning coaches, you got
Speaker 1: quarterback gurus that it might be helping out. You've got
Speaker 1: obligations to the media that you have to go and do.
Speaker 1: Can't you just get one zoom going and just be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a rap no, because that you know that that
Speaker 1: leadership committee. Uh yeah, I've been on a lot of them,
Speaker 1: and you'd be surprised some of the things that have
Speaker 1: been You haven't seen that show first forty eight when
Speaker 1: he put the spotlight on the criminal and then they
Speaker 1: start asking them questions and then you stop seeing them
Speaker 1: shaking and start folding a way. Man, it'd be a
Speaker 1: bunch of telling on people in the meeting. Sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: be like, may shut up, Mike. I have taken more
Speaker 1: fines in those meetings because I will not tell on
Speaker 1: my teammates. I have personally taken the fine because I
Speaker 1: will not tell on my teammates' golden take. Did I
Speaker 1: said that out loud? He was it out? He was
Speaker 1: actually up here. Yeah, he did a show. He held
Speaker 1: me ten thousand dollars and I and I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: say what it was for on this podcast, but maybe
Speaker 1: snitching man, because you know the coach be like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Man? You know what's going on with
Speaker 1: the team. Do we need to go? Do we need
Speaker 1: to take the pads off? You know me, I'm full
Speaker 1: back away say yeah, may take the pass off and
Speaker 1: take paths on my defensive lineman. They hurt my officsive linement.
Speaker 1: They heard the quarterback got touched last week. Take the paths,
Speaker 1: you know what's stuff like that. But man, guys be snitching.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna talk about and again you are listening.
Speaker 1: Can you give me an example. You're not gonna call
Speaker 1: anyone out our listeners can guess. I've only played for
Speaker 1: two teams, Mike, Okay, it's not very hard. I only
Speaker 1: played for the Services before the nine US and the
Speaker 1: Seattle Seahawks. Man, I've been a part of a meeting
Speaker 1: man with this dude, and in that meeting and coach saying, hey, man,
Speaker 1: so what's going on? And he just started spitting all
Speaker 1: the types of stuff to the point where guys are like, dude,
Speaker 1: shut up. Yep, I'm not gonna say who the guy was.
Speaker 1: I played with a lot of different guys than that.
Speaker 1: To the football league, Mike. I'm just saying sometimes that
Speaker 1: turns into a big title tell fest. But head coaches
Speaker 1: in season, let's see whyhould transition back. We steer this
Speaker 1: thing back. Head coaches in season. Look, man, you think
Speaker 1: they're meeting with they they have staff meetings early every day,
Speaker 1: right because think about it. I talked about the head coach.
Speaker 1: I'm a professional talker. This is what I do. Okay,
Speaker 1: coaches have to set the direction and so every part
Speaker 1: of that football building has to be on the same page.
Speaker 1: And we want our super Bowl in Seattle. Every I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the janitor, which was ended up being beast
Speaker 1: most uncle. The janitor knew what we were trying to do.
Speaker 1: We wanted to dynastay. Everybody was on the same page.
Speaker 1: You have staff meetings with everybody in the organization. You
Speaker 1: got the medical staff, everybody, nutritions, everybody talking everything. Then
Speaker 1: you have a straight coaches meeting. You gotta talk about
Speaker 1: the coaches, how the issues from medical staff, How does
Speaker 1: that going on with the game plan this week? That's
Speaker 1: gonna affect the personnel changes that could possibly happen. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about this happening on Monday, when Tuesdays when you
Speaker 1: bring in players in to work them out, to see
Speaker 1: if they could be on your roster for that week.
Speaker 1: So again, and that's before the team and we talked
Speaker 1: about the team meeting where the coach actually has to
Speaker 1: you know, talk to the team and the players and
Speaker 1: things like that. So it's a lot that goes on
Speaker 1: and Mike, usually team meetings, which is the last of
Speaker 1: the meetings I'm talking about teamings, usually happen eight o'clock
Speaker 1: in the all. So what I'm saying is there's a
Speaker 1: lot that goes on before that meeting that the head
Speaker 1: coach has to go through. One thing you haven't mentioned
Speaker 1: is film study. And that's all I ever hear about
Speaker 1: from a player's perspective or the players that don't do it,
Speaker 1: which we don't need to get into. That was chronicles
Speaker 1: before the season started. But also the coaches take me
Speaker 1: through that. So a head coach looks at film. A
Speaker 1: lot of times, a head coach is looking at those
Speaker 1: looking at tape and stuff when players have to be
Speaker 1: in other areas. Players may be going through their position meetings,
Speaker 1: players may be going through workouts, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 1: with the head coach and have to be there. That's
Speaker 1: when he's going through his tape that's when he's set
Speaker 1: in a direction. That's when he's saying, Okay, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know we're playing a high flying offense, we might have
Speaker 1: to run the ball a little bit more. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying called the play. I'm saying, set the philosophical
Speaker 1: direction for that week. That's what the head coach is
Speaker 1: doing when he's watching tape and things like that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: tape was all over the place. Position coaches and coordinators
Speaker 1: probably watch a little bit more tape, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, because again, they're the ones dealing directly with
Speaker 1: the player. Given the player the tools and his tool
Speaker 1: belt so that the guy can go out there and
Speaker 1: do his job. And then there's practice. Oh yeah, there's practice.
Speaker 1: We just got the practice. Yeah. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: been talking forever and we just got the practice. We
Speaker 1: did practice. Generally, we're talking about Wednesday through Saturday. If
Speaker 1: it's a road week, a little different because of travel
Speaker 1: on either Friday or Saturday. There's a full practice on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and then the practices actually get shorter as the week
Speaker 1: progress is there and then you got essentially no pads
Speaker 1: on Saturday. Why even bother all I hear about from well,
Speaker 1: the full pad deal, like, why are we in pads
Speaker 1: this much? And I know it's been cut down, but
Speaker 1: all I keep hearing about is dudes struggling to get
Speaker 1: out of bed. The pain that's They're like, why even
Speaker 1: bother going is there? Really is okay? When I decided
Speaker 1: to play for a long time ago, when I got
Speaker 1: a scholarship to go to Penn State, when I got
Speaker 1: drafted and decided to sign that signing bonus and cash
Speaker 1: that check, I signed up for eggs and pains and
Speaker 1: getting out the bed slow and all that. I know
Speaker 1: exactly what I signed up for. I'll make an example
Speaker 1: like this. So, Mike, you're a great host, bro. Amazing,
Speaker 1: like the way you are able to handle ideas. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I see the teleprompt to be breaking on t A
Speaker 1: and you still be handled it doing all your things.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, all seriously, but you're able to do that
Speaker 1: right because you had reps. You had the reps of
Speaker 1: messing up a few times. Not doing it is perfectly
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. And so now you've gotten to
Speaker 1: a point where you know, I do my thing. Even
Speaker 1: if I do mess up, I ain't really mess up
Speaker 1: because you know what I'm saying that's that's what I do.
Speaker 1: Same thing with football players. They need the work with
Speaker 1: full pads on because that's what the game is played
Speaker 1: in full pads. You know what I'm saying, Um, I
Speaker 1: get taken care of the player. I get that the
Speaker 1: rules have kind of parred down a little bit where
Speaker 1: you're not in pads every week, or you don't have
Speaker 1: to be in pads every week. And yes, you do
Speaker 1: have to take some of the hits off the guys.
Speaker 1: But look, I played fullback and we had a podcast
Speaker 1: before I said, I used to tell some of the
Speaker 1: scout guys, hey, look bro, I know we don't have
Speaker 1: passed today, but I need you to go put on
Speaker 1: your path because I need that work at the end
Speaker 1: of practice. You gotta get laded up. Football is a
Speaker 1: physical sport. You cannot play the game of football without
Speaker 1: doing physical activities, and that's practicing with your pads on.
Speaker 1: It's also interesting too, because I've heard this over the years,
Speaker 1: and not to make this a college thing, because I
Speaker 1: know it does happen occasionally in the pros, but I'll
Speaker 1: reference it because I know first half when USC and
Speaker 1: Willie would be made. First off, I'm bringing this up.
Speaker 1: But when US was dealing with a lot of sanctions,
Speaker 1: they were low on numbers and to combatant, they weren't
Speaker 1: tackling in practice. And then all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: saw tackling become an issue in some of their games
Speaker 1: because just dudes weren't doing that during the course of
Speaker 1: the week. So I think what you're speaking to in
Speaker 1: terms of reps is a real thing. Early on in
Speaker 1: football seasons, we mike you hear man, We see Twitter,
Speaker 1: we see social media. We got to deal with it
Speaker 1: on some of the shows here at NFL Network had
Speaker 1: of fans are like, oh man, it's going on. My
Speaker 1: guys are missing. We see it every week. The first
Speaker 1: six weeks of the season are essentially preseason. It's essentially
Speaker 1: guys getting enough game reps to master the craft. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm with you there. One other note, by the way,
Speaker 1: on coaches and their schedules, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people watch Thursday Night Football on Amazon. What's fascinating
Speaker 1: to me is the amount of times that you hear
Speaker 1: Al Michael's and Herb Street talk about the meetings that
Speaker 1: they're having with players and coaches. That is a huge
Speaker 1: part of the broadcast and part of their responsibility ahead
Speaker 1: of the game to give you some intel, talk to
Speaker 1: you about some things off the records and things really
Speaker 1: some things on the record, to get a sense of
Speaker 1: what's about to happen during the course of the week.
Speaker 1: The point is, coach is pretty damn busy coming up
Speaker 1: next here. I don't know what you're thinking. They're getting paid, right,
Speaker 1: it's all about the Benjamin's find out about those page
Speaker 1: checks a little bit more. Will we come back here
Speaker 1: on the NFL Explained podcast Welcome back to the NFL
Speaker 1: Explained Podcasts. I made reference to it in our last episodes.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with sliding into the d m s. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. At Real Mike rob at Mike Underscore. Yeam,
Speaker 1: we've been getting questions from you. I'm legit excited. We've
Speaker 1: gotten some good ones so far. If there's a topic
Speaker 1: or a question you want answered, I promise we will
Speaker 1: work it into our mail bag episodes. So keep some
Speaker 1: of those comments and those questions coming our way. But
Speaker 1: I had made reference to some of the cash and
Speaker 1: the checks, Like at the end of the day, everyone
Speaker 1: knows a lot of these players are making serious money.
Speaker 1: I mean We're always referring to a lot of those contracts,
Speaker 1: but NFL coaching allies not always released to the public.
Speaker 1: So we put together, we got a little bit of data,
Speaker 1: we know some people who know some people. UH put
Speaker 1: together in NFL head coaching salary, sort of list a
Speaker 1: couple of notable contracts and just sort of some sources
Speaker 1: that we really trust. The average coach three to four
Speaker 1: million per year on the low end and over ten
Speaker 1: million a year on the high end. Pete Carroll not
Speaker 1: that we need to be blowing up anyone's salaries, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna do it anyway, signed an extension eleven plus
Speaker 1: mill in December of our guy Ian Rappaport, he said
Speaker 1: he signed another five year extension to make him one
Speaker 1: of the most highly compensated, if not the highest paid
Speaker 1: coach in the NFL. That five year extension that was
Speaker 1: reported by Adam Schefter in eighteen. Rappaport had those original numbers.
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Zach Taylor he signed an undisclosed extension this offseason
Speaker 1: after being one of the lowest paid NFL coaches at
Speaker 1: three point seven five million dollars per year. That's according
Speaker 1: to Schefiters. Yeah, it's nice toning that and look, I
Speaker 1: know people are like, Mike, did you just say three
Speaker 1: point seven five? That's all. If the most important position
Speaker 1: is the quarterback position, and that guy's salary is ballooning
Speaker 1: around forty million per and you're supposed to be one
Speaker 1: of those guys that can make those guys one of
Speaker 1: the best in the league, I think you should make
Speaker 1: more than three and a half million. Get to a
Speaker 1: super Bowl that help get you that raise. David Culley
Speaker 1: at Houston signy fully guaranteed four year, twenty two million
Speaker 1: dollar contract, fired after one season, bring me the cash,
Speaker 1: ship me my bread and didn't fire me. You were
Speaker 1: here from me for the next three years. Money well spent,
Speaker 1: I would say yes, especially the ones that have a
Speaker 1: proven track record, like the ones you know obviously, the Belichecks,
Speaker 1: the Pete Carroll's, the guys that have been proven to
Speaker 1: go places and when I think they should, especially when
Speaker 1: you look at the TV money, the ballooning salaries of players.
Speaker 1: I mean, if everybody, if all ships arise and truly
Speaker 1: let all ship, I think head coaches should make more.
Speaker 1: And I do think the ones that can go into
Speaker 1: any football situation and help their team, I mean by this.
Speaker 1: You got your Sean mcveigh's, your offensive gurules, you got
Speaker 1: your ta bows, your defensive gurus and play callers. Those guys, Okay,
Speaker 1: to Bowl sees the game, certain leins, Okay, he sees
Speaker 1: the game happening. He's gonna always look at well, how
Speaker 1: can we stop them from doing the positive? You see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Because that's a that's a defensive concept,
Speaker 1: that's a defensive way of thinking. Sean McVeigh is gonna
Speaker 1: always be an attack mode. He's always gonna say, oh,
Speaker 1: they're scoring, Okay, how can we score more? You see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It's a different way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: But when you got that coach and again I had
Speaker 1: your paternal in college, but there's coaches out there in
Speaker 1: the national football they get e Bill Belichick whatever who
Speaker 1: And I know Bill Belichick has a defensive specialty to it,
Speaker 1: but can walk into any situation at halftime. Remember being
Speaker 1: down by two touchdowns. I think it was the Green
Speaker 1: Bay may have been to somebody else with the Seattle Seahawks,
Speaker 1: and Pete Carroll walked into the offensive side and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I know we're down by fourteen points, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: go twenty two personnel with just two tight ends and
Speaker 1: two running backs and one while receiving we're gonna go
Speaker 1: twenty two and twenty one personnel, arrested the game and
Speaker 1: we're gonna win. And we looked like but that goes
Speaker 1: against conventional wisdom. He saw something, he saw that he
Speaker 1: couldn't handle, beast mode. He saw the weak side run
Speaker 1: game out of two tight ends they couldn't handle. Again,
Speaker 1: a coach walking into a football situation and lending his expertise,
Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, if we want
Speaker 1: to lose, it falls on him. That's his job. That's
Speaker 1: you see what I'm saying. So it's always nice from
Speaker 1: a players standpoint to look at a guy and know
Speaker 1: that you have a guy that can walk in any
Speaker 1: situation to help you. If you're listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: well clearly you're listening to this podcast. But if you
Speaker 1: just heard m Rob, well you did hear m Rob.
Speaker 1: M Rob just said twenty two personnel. If that's confusing
Speaker 1: to you, I do encourage people to go back to
Speaker 1: one of our previous episodes where we talked about offensive
Speaker 1: play calling and what that actually entails. It is a
Speaker 1: great recap for anyone here that has been checking out
Speaker 1: the NFL Explained podcast. Game Day sort of an interesting
Speaker 1: scenario he got the morning of your your of course,
Speaker 1: if you're a coach, you're looking at some of the
Speaker 1: game film, that one last look at it. You're probably
Speaker 1: with your family, maybe that pregame meal, going over some
Speaker 1: last minute stuff. Late morning, you go from hotel to
Speaker 1: the stadium, even if you're the home team, because the
Speaker 1: home team also stays at a hotel. Once you get there,
Speaker 1: you're making some determinations on actives and inactives. You're meeting
Speaker 1: with your coaches, players, game officials, announcers as well. From
Speaker 1: an inactive active selection. What goes into that if you're
Speaker 1: a head coach, man first and foremost as injuries, Like
Speaker 1: most guys are active or inactive based off of health.
Speaker 1: Can they you know, can they physically go out there
Speaker 1: and help the team and do their job and be
Speaker 1: the best version of themselves. Yeah, you have guys that
Speaker 1: are part of the fifty three man roster that you
Speaker 1: already know, Okay, this guy probably will be inactive. Will
Speaker 1: have them just in case somebody in this position group
Speaker 1: goes down. But injuries determine a lot of those inactives.
Speaker 1: Game plan like, okay, we want to run the football.
Speaker 1: Going back to that example that I said a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier, we're dealing with a high power team offensively,
Speaker 1: we want to run the football because defensively we may
Speaker 1: have some issues stopping the other team. So maybe we
Speaker 1: bring up a running back this week, maybe we put
Speaker 1: down a linebacker this week, and you kind of play
Speaker 1: that chess game. And then last but not least, business man.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if I should be saying
Speaker 1: it on the NFL podcast, but just me and you,
Speaker 1: ain't just me and you, Okay, nobody else here, Okay, cool? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes God may need some catches for a
Speaker 1: certain incenter. Happened and they're like, well, you said what
Speaker 1: about me? You said this about me. We're already losing. Um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be inactive today. We're not gonna You're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to get that bonus. Or Jimmy Garoppolo,
Speaker 1: I mean, what if he was still what if Tree
Speaker 1: Lance was still healthy or whatever, and Jimmy Garoppolo was
Speaker 1: on the team, they probably make him inactive every week.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? So business does play a
Speaker 1: role in its Super Bowl year for the Bucks. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, Tom Brady was aware even Bruce
Speaker 1: Arians had made reference to some guys being close to bonuses.
Speaker 1: They made a concerted effort late in that season get
Speaker 1: those dudes to ras. Sean m does the same thing.
Speaker 1: Man who need a bonus? Give him a catch? Yeah,
Speaker 1: get your dudes paid. You mentioned some of the in
Speaker 1: game adjustments that come at halftime. You give us an
Speaker 1: example before those big time speeches that we see in
Speaker 1: the movies. Is that a thing? Uh no, not not
Speaker 1: really is you? The speeches, the real good speeches to
Speaker 1: me come from the players or the position coaches, because
Speaker 1: that many and the fire man, I mean, they are
Speaker 1: the ones that are literally going back and forth with
Speaker 1: the opponent. You know what I'm saying. But one thing
Speaker 1: a head coach can do. A head coach can alleviate
Speaker 1: doubt at halftime. If you're doubting your team, if you're
Speaker 1: doubting your opportunity to come back in a game, if
Speaker 1: you're doubting your ability to finish, the head coach makes
Speaker 1: you go. All that know the thirty three rule, Right
Speaker 1: percent of people gonna be leaders three percent of people
Speaker 1: are gonna be able to go either way in thirty three. Look, man,
Speaker 1: I ain't doing it. The head coaches put that bottom
Speaker 1: thirty three, the head coach goes after them, then the
Speaker 1: upper thirty three. During that halftime speech raises all ships
Speaker 1: coin flip. Who's making the call? Usually the head coach
Speaker 1: come yeah. Usually the head coach will come over. I
Speaker 1: know when I was always calling the coin flip, it
Speaker 1: would always be so funny. It would always be the
Speaker 1: head coach find me because out for whatever reason they
Speaker 1: wanted me to talk. Head coach will find me. But
Speaker 1: he would always have the field goal kicker right next
Speaker 1: to him, and the field goals kicker basically look at
Speaker 1: his thumb saying with direction, winds going throwing up grass,
Speaker 1: acting like he's a mediologist. He's talking about whether and
Speaker 1: the angles and degrees and in halftime, in the sunsets
Speaker 1: and instead and uh yeah, but the final one comes
Speaker 1: down to the head coach. Okay, I made reference to
Speaker 1: coaches in their ages. A little bit earlier. We've taken
Speaker 1: people through, generally speaking, what the coaches are doing during
Speaker 1: the week, responsibilities calling plays. You're thinking to yourself, well,
Speaker 1: you've got some coaches who already have coordinators. So who's
Speaker 1: doing what. Here's how I'm gonna break it down for you.
Speaker 1: Thirty two head coaches, eighteen of them call the plays
Speaker 1: on defense or offense. As you could imagine, fourteen of
Speaker 1: those coaches are calling offense, only four calling defense. And
Speaker 1: just so that you have some sort of semblance of
Speaker 1: whose specialty is what, I'll take you through it. Cliff Kingsbury,
Speaker 1: Arthur Smith, Zach Taylor, Kevin Stefanski, Nathaniel Hackett, Moult Floor,
Speaker 1: Frank Reich, Doug Peterson, Andy Reid, Josh McDaniels, Sean McVeigh,
Speaker 1: Mike McDaniel, Kevin O'Connell, Kyle Shinahan. All on the offensive
Speaker 1: side defensively, Love Smith, Brandon Staley, Dennis Allen, Todd Bowles.
Speaker 1: Obvious question put Bill Belichick in that AMPK. They're both
Speaker 1: defensive more sliding to that side. Well, we'll lean that way.
Speaker 1: I think the obvious question here is have the eight
Speaker 1: calling plays? What are you doing? Alright? Mike? You know
Speaker 1: I meditate right then I'll tell you that you actually
Speaker 1: didn't tell me. I feel like I would have. I'm
Speaker 1: really deep when it comes to that and meditation really
Speaker 1: is the ability to stay focused on one thing without
Speaker 1: allowing other stuff in. And your reality comes with what
Speaker 1: you focus on the most stuff. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: The head coach's job is to keep a pulse on
Speaker 1: the team and to remind everyone with the direction and
Speaker 1: the purpose always is he keeps the team focused so
Speaker 1: that the reality that the entire team wants can come
Speaker 1: to fruition. Now, things happen. We're all human, and that
Speaker 1: conscious focus on that goal sometimes gets skewed. You know, somebody,
Speaker 1: you know the media starts talking about their head coaches
Speaker 1: job being up, you know, up for grabs or whatever.
Speaker 1: That can skew his focus and things like that. But
Speaker 1: the good ones stay focused. I love Bill Belichick. Man,
Speaker 1: you hear them here at the press conference. He's the
Speaker 1: same old dude. He may gave you a little half smile,
Speaker 1: but he's the same old dude over and over and over.
Speaker 1: And another thing the head coach does, because it's in
Speaker 1: humans nature, it's the blame it on somebody, right, we
Speaker 1: lose put the finger point the finger, and that's good
Speaker 1: mental health for the players, right, because you don't want
Speaker 1: them to be down on themselves. And that's why you
Speaker 1: always see the good coaches, I e. Sean McVeigh, I
Speaker 1: either Pete Carroll's the Bill Beck that was on me.
Speaker 1: I did that. That was on me. Any decisions that
Speaker 1: they're making that I'm not thinking of during the game.
Speaker 1: And to me, like Brandon Stalley, I just brought his
Speaker 1: damn like he's gotten a lot of heat for like
Speaker 1: those fourth down, fourth down penalty outcomes, whether to go
Speaker 1: for it or not on fourth down. I think you
Speaker 1: would just going there with Brandon Staley whether to kick
Speaker 1: a field goal punt or not. Talk to the Whitehattan
Speaker 1: officials and to make them to wear of their jobs.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm um guarantee the players need are
Speaker 1: being met in armed to do their job effectively, basically
Speaker 1: meaning putting the pressure on the assistant coaches so that
Speaker 1: these guys are armed to do their job again keeping
Speaker 1: everybody focused on the goal at hand. Is there. Look,
Speaker 1: I just mentioned that the some of the coaches that
Speaker 1: we have in the NFL, there's some really high level
Speaker 1: guys that have achieved so much in this league. When
Speaker 1: you reflect back to you that you're playing days or
Speaker 1: guys that you've been around, anyone that comes to mind,
Speaker 1: and you would say, hey, revolutionize the game. Revolutionized the game. Um,
Speaker 1: you hit me. You hear me talk a lot about
Speaker 1: Pete Carroll. I think his approach as far as being
Speaker 1: more of a player coach, always focusing on the positive,
Speaker 1: never really bringing up or highlighting the negativity, was revolutionary.
Speaker 1: And I think his first stint as a head coach,
Speaker 1: the league wasn't ready for it. The second stint, the
Speaker 1: league was ready for the right young person started to
Speaker 1: come through. People may not know this, but Mike Marts
Speaker 1: the par exactly the greatest show on turf for the St.
Speaker 1: Louis Rams. He was my offensive coordinator in San Francisco
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, and I think he revolutionized
Speaker 1: offense with timing and spacing and the quarterback being able
Speaker 1: to hit his last step, let the ball go to
Speaker 1: an area, to a space, and allowing the receiver to
Speaker 1: come into Things like that are now just part of
Speaker 1: everyday vernacular, part of everyday NFL concept. You know what's
Speaker 1: sort of interesting. I keep seeing Kyle Shanahan. I've been
Speaker 1: up to the Bay Area numerous times. I know obviously
Speaker 1: I saw his dad, Mike, what he was able to
Speaker 1: do with the Broncos for a really long period of
Speaker 1: time and have success there. I'm always fascinated by like
Speaker 1: the father sons, like what those calls are on those
Speaker 1: off days, like if Dad's been watching something, It's almost
Speaker 1: like having an additional coat. Like now your staff, the
Speaker 1: Shannon has I'm actually glad you said that. Now they
Speaker 1: have been revolutionary. I've never played with, but you know,
Speaker 1: obviously Bill Walsh, most of the West Coast concepts are
Speaker 1: now just regularly just part of everyday football. Mike Shanahan,
Speaker 1: shan and those guys, that's Shanahan style. That the way
Speaker 1: that you run the football, the way that you coach
Speaker 1: the offensive line, the way that you coach the running
Speaker 1: back to get to a spot and make a decision,
Speaker 1: and then it's easy playing it after that. I do
Speaker 1: think that Shanahan system is revolution as the game. But
Speaker 1: then you have guys like Matt Lafleur who went his
Speaker 1: way with it. You got Sean McVeigh who out leverages
Speaker 1: defenses by motion shifts in the wide receiver diversity that
Speaker 1: he has. That's how he went his way with it.
Speaker 1: Kyle Shanahan and younger Shanahan the way he outleverages defenses
Speaker 1: by not only motions and shifts, but by the ball
Speaker 1: carrier who's carrying the football, and just in the run game.
Speaker 1: I just don't think that there's a better guy at
Speaker 1: out leveraging a defense. So he took that Shanahan, his
Speaker 1: dad Shanahan offense to a whole another direction. I think
Speaker 1: the Shanahan system right now is probably the most revolutionary
Speaker 1: system in today's modern game. Yeah, it's kind of wild
Speaker 1: man like. And I wonder what those conversations are really
Speaker 1: like between those two dudes when they're just talking ball. Like,
Speaker 1: if God's like, dude, I'm proud of you, like this
Speaker 1: is sure he is, But I guarantee you he's challenging
Speaker 1: them that, well, if a defense does this, you can't
Speaker 1: do this and coles hell dad. But if I do
Speaker 1: this in the backfield, my backfield action is this, his
Speaker 1: eyes are gonna go here. It's a big game with
Speaker 1: chess man. Yeah. I remember when I first got to ESPN,
Speaker 1: someone gave me a piece of advice. They said, look,
Speaker 1: you're working with so many different anchors and hosts. Take
Speaker 1: and see what people are doing and use it yourself.
Speaker 1: But like, your own style is gonna morph out of
Speaker 1: that just naturally from just doing your thing. You can't
Speaker 1: mimic and completely copy someone else. And I think the
Speaker 1: way you just described it with a lot of these coaches,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing, right, Like there's some core base
Speaker 1: concepts that are there, and then everyone just sort of
Speaker 1: puts their little pixie dust, their personal pixie dust on it,
Speaker 1: and it becomes their own. It becomes their own. And
Speaker 1: even when you look at if you really study Bill
Speaker 1: Walsh and his story, I mean he talks about it offers.
Speaker 1: I think we may have talked about it here. He
Speaker 1: talked about developing this offense out of desperation. I mean,
Speaker 1: stuff was happening, Injuries was happening, and they had a
Speaker 1: certain quarterback at So that's how the West Coach short
Speaker 1: passing system came to voition Oftentimes as injuries oftentimes, it's
Speaker 1: things that are happening human human beings are very smart.
Speaker 1: Things are happening with their team, and you're just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can I figure this out. That's how the spread
Speaker 1: system went in. That's how read option happened, that's how
Speaker 1: all pos happened. Oh my office line isn't that good? Well,
Speaker 1: everybody blocked down we'll just handle everybody with the ball.
Speaker 1: Handling ball travels faster thing than players, and that's how
Speaker 1: that came to us. I love it. Man, talk about
Speaker 1: this all day, No seriously, and look, we can and
Speaker 1: we will continue to have these types of conversations throughout
Speaker 1: the course of the season. We've been talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about the duties of a head football coach. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed this episode and if you didn't, you just
Speaker 1: get into Mike robs d m at Real and my
Speaker 1: wife said, no at Real, Mic rob at Mike underscore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: NFL head coaches and what they do, explain, no,