Latest / The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views / TABLE TALK: NFL Team Building
Transcript
- 0:00Hey, everybody, it's Jeff. We wanted to let you know that we
- 0:02recorded this podcast episode on Monday, November twenty seven, twenty twenty three,
- 0:06so by the time you hear this, some things may have changed, but
- 0:08we hope you enjoyed the show. All right, everybody, you're listening to
- 0:25Table Talk here at the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest running weekly
- 0:29Philly sports podcast show in the world. That's right over ten and a half
- 0:32years strong. We got a great discussion coming your way on Table Talk this
- 0:35week. We're gonna be getting into a book that our guest wrote and the
- 0:42ins and outs of team building within the National Football League. That's right.
- 0:47You know this gentleman. He's been on the show before. He was a
- 0:50great guest, but we wanted to get his book out there a little bit
- 0:55more, not only in the world of Philly sports, but the sports world
- 0:58in general, just because he's been diving into what team building really means and
- 1:03how teams are successful and not successful in the NFL as it pertains to team
- 1:08buildings, So something we don't talk a lot about, but we're certainly going
- 1:11to be getting into it during this Table Talk show. So let's get right
- 1:15to that discussion now. And it is great to have back on the show.
- 1:18I absolutely love talking to him, and specifically about his book that is
- 1:23out now, The Inches we Need, and you can head on over to
- 1:26The Inches we Need dot Com to check out the book, order it and
- 1:30it's really a great, great concept, and again I love having them on.
- 1:36Dave Archibald, how you doing, buddy, It's good to have you
- 1:38back on the show. I'm doing great, Jeff, awesome to be here.
- 1:42It's great to have you and folks, if you're not following Dave on
- 1:45Twitter at Dave Archie, you can get all the stuff that he's doing over
- 1:49there on Twitter. But I know you're doing some writing as well aside from
- 1:52the book, Dave, so tell everybody where they can find you on the
- 1:55interwebs out there. Yeah, I've been writing for NFL spin Zone and I've
- 2:00been doing a series of off season previews going from mostly from the worst teams
- 2:07to the best. So I won't get to the Eagles for a while,
- 2:08but you know, yeah, where the Eagles are a ten and one team
- 2:14and they're getting criticism that they're not blowing out teams like they did last year.
- 2:17Yet they're ten and one. Anyway, that's a subject for a different
- 2:21time for sure, and we're definitely looking forward to that content from you in
- 2:24the future, Dave. But if you can, like I said, you
- 2:28know, we wanted to promote your book here the inches we need tell us
- 2:31about your book and how it distinguishes itself from you know, other football based
- 2:37books, and you know why you just decided to write it in the first
- 2:40place. I think I think those questions kind of go together because I think
- 2:46I decided to write it because the book I wanted to read didn't exist.
- 2:52There are a lot of great books on team building, but largely from looking
- 2:57at one team or one person's experience. You know, the Michael hollybooks are
- 3:02great, Bill Walsh's Finding the Winning Edge, Michae Lombardi's book, Bill Pollian's.
- 3:08I really wanted to build an all encompassing look at team building, and
- 3:14that was difficult to do because there are a lot of different successful approaches.
- 3:20So I tried to tie the successful team building strategies I saw into these broader
- 3:27principles and then really developed those through quotes and references and case studies throughout the
- 3:35book, so you could dig in on stuff like the Rams trading away their
- 3:39first round picks every year and seeing, okay, what are the pieces of
- 3:44that that worked well, what did they do to compliment that approach that was
- 3:47smart? And then what were the drawbacks to doing that, which I think
- 3:52we saw last year when they endowed giving away the sixth overall pick yep,
- 3:57and really kind of explore as many different angles as I could on a lot
- 4:02of different examples, developing those court principles and let the reader learn and draw
- 4:08their own conclusions. Well, when you look at the case studies that you
- 4:12did with regard to the book, what do you are there any or is
- 4:16there one maybe that was really prevalent to you that really stood out which was
- 4:21really really interesting in terms of you know that case study with regard to team
- 4:27building, do you is there one that really sticks out to you? One
- 4:33I like because it develops a lot of the court principles directly is the Seattle
- 4:38Seahawks, because they built that legion of boom defense pretty inexpensively. I mean
- 4:46a lot of those guys who were laid around picks, Richard Sherman, Cam
- 4:48Chancellor, Brandon Browner, they fished out of the Canadian Football League and what
- 4:56ended up happening to them. So I think that that really the success they
- 5:01had really shows a lot of the core principles because they had something they were
- 5:06doing that was different than other teams. They really had a consistent approach to
- 5:12the kinds of defensive those big defensive backs they were looking for that no one
- 5:15else was looking for, those spark measurables guys in the late rounds that no
- 5:23one was looking for. And the other piece that's interesting to me is it
- 5:28didn't endure beyond that great four or five year stretch in part because so many
- 5:33other teams started copying them or their coaches got hired elsewhere, and now they
- 5:39couldn't find the discounts on those kind of players because instead of them being the
- 5:42only team that was looking for them, now you got six or seven teams
- 5:45looking for them. Yes, So I think as far as examples go,
- 5:49and there's a lot of interesting examples in the book, but I think that
- 5:54one really encompasses a lot of those core principles. I think that's interesting.
- 5:59We're going to get into this specific principle and just a little bit called change
- 6:03and adapt. You know, something that you have discussed and written about as
- 6:09well. We're gonna get into that in a little bit, but that's certainly
- 6:12what you're talking about with regard to the Seattle Seahawks and other teams adapting to
- 6:16the league changing over the course of years. But like I said, we'll
- 6:20get to that in just a bit. But I'm wondering, you know,
- 6:23as we look at this current NFL season, we see some teams falter,
- 6:28we see some teams succeed. I mean when you look at a team like
- 6:30the Philadelphia Eagles who are ten and one, and then a team like the
- 6:33Carolina Panthers, who are one in ten and they just fired their head coach
- 6:38about half an hour before we jumped on this podcast here, I think it's
- 6:43safe to assume that the ten and one teams are more successful strictly because of
- 6:47team building, Dave, Or could it just be that the Eagles are more
- 6:51talented team than the Panthers, or maybe is it a combination of both.
- 6:57You know, what are your thoughts with regard to this, Well, I
- 7:00think talent is a part of team building and assembling talent. The Panthers I
- 7:08think did some good things in this offseason. You know, Frank Reich was
- 7:12a well respected higher obviously did great things in Philadelphia. I imagine Eagles fans
- 7:16think of him fondly, and he had a good track record In Indianapolis.
- 7:20They built a really respected coaching staff behind him, with some young up and
- 7:28comers as the coordinators and some veteran position coaches and assistants. I think,
- 7:34you know, a couple of different things they kind of create. You know,
- 7:39it's getting near the holidays, so I'm reminded of the o Henry story
- 7:44Gift to the MAGII. Do you remember that one where the wife sells her
- 7:48hair to buy a chain for her husband's pocket watch, but he sells his
- 7:54pocket watch to buy her combs. And it was kind of the same thing
- 7:57for the Panthers. They they really wanted a quarterback, and to get the
- 8:01quarterback, they had to give away the only good receiver they had in DJ
- 8:07Moore, And they gave away what looks like it's going to be the first
- 8:11pick or certainly a top five pick. So how are they going to build
- 8:16a support staff around around Bryce Young? And it's obviously a big contrast from
- 8:22Philadelphia, where I think Jalen Hurts get inserted to a situation where they already
- 8:28had a very good offensive line, one of the best in the league,
- 8:31and then they really hammered wide receiver and built infrastructure around him. Yep.
- 8:39I think the other thing you have to look at here is ownership. You
- 8:43know, Jeffrey Lurry is a great reputation. He's someone who's giving he holds
- 8:48him to high standards, but he's always giving them resources and support. And
- 8:52you know, whenever I look at a coach fired less than a year in
- 8:56and there's no like scandals. Yeah, I got I gotta think, like,
- 9:01you know, how much patience is ownership showing how much commitment do they
- 9:05have to seeing the vision through. I think Tepper has already built something of
- 9:09a reputation for meddling. Yeah, and he's been willing to spend I mean,
- 9:16this coaching staff had to be expensive to put together. He paid Matt
- 9:18Rule a ton of money. But you wonder if he's giving that some of
- 9:24those advantages away by plugging himself into the process too much. Absolutely, It's
- 9:30a good segue into the next topic I wanted to get into with you,
- 9:33Dave, which basically is, you know, we look at team building and
- 9:37when we know you know, we reflect on your book the inches we need.
- 9:41Do you think that team building really manifests itself in the NFL within the
- 9:45front offices or the actual team themselves, like the players, whether they're in
- 9:50the locker room or whether they're going out to dinner once or twice a week
- 9:54with each other or doing whatever it is outside the confines of the locker room
- 10:00to really enhance their relationships. And I remember when you were on before we
- 10:03talked specifically about the building of relationships, you know, between coaches and players,
- 10:09relationships in general, and how important that is to the world of team
- 10:13building here. But you know, I do wonder because I look at Howie
- 10:16Roseman, who has been an exceptional GM, and front office guy Jeffrey Lurry,
- 10:22he was meddling a few years ago, and I think he's kind of
- 10:24taken a step back from that. And I think when you see owners meddling
- 10:28a little too much, the things got to go off the rail. So
- 10:31I'm wondering, like, where you actually think the team building within the NFL
- 10:35really manifests itself. Is it within the front offices or is with actually the
- 10:39players and perhaps coaches do or maybe a combination. What are your thoughts.
- 10:43I think a big you know, one of the core principles is alignment.
- 10:48I mean, it's all gonna be, it's all gonna work together. I've
- 10:52an anecdote in there about when Belichick took over the Browns and even like the
- 10:56coaching staff, I mean the college scouting and the pro scouting, who were
- 11:01all doing scouting, they didn't have the same system. Yeah, so that
- 11:05was one of the first things you had to do is build that kind of
- 11:09system. So I think, you know, within your front office, you've
- 11:11got to be aligned. Within the between the front office and the coaching staff,
- 11:16you've got to be aligned. And then you know, the players follow
- 11:22from that. I mean, the players are the only ones on the field.
- 11:24So ultimately, everything you know, the front office or the coaching staff
- 11:30does has to manifest itself in the players on the field, or it's it's
- 11:33not gonna it's not going to be successful. And so I think probably the
- 11:39immediate impacts or more, you know, in the front office and staff,
- 11:45but that's gotta that's got to end up manifesting itself on the field too,
- 11:48or you know, it's not it's not going to produce wins and losses.
- 11:52Yeah, absolutely something. There's a team we're going to talk about in a
- 11:56little bit, and that is the New England Patriots. I'm gonna ask you
- 12:00about them a little bit. But what I find interesting about looking at the
- 12:03Patriots today and reflecting on that dynasty is how I actually thought for years and
- 12:09years that Robert Craft and through Bill Belichick as well, just understood team building
- 12:15to such a great extent. And I think perhaps perhaps we are seeing now
- 12:20that you know what, maybe they didn't. Maybe it really was Tom Brady
- 12:24that was the glue holding everything together for all those years because of his greatness
- 12:31in so many ways. As much as it pains me to say that,
- 12:33quite frankly, but you know, I wonder if sometimes we get a little
- 12:37fooled, you know, we may get fooled as fans like I was thinking
- 12:39that it was Robert Craft and really Bill Belichick able to take a team and
- 12:45create that dynasty, and of course they were part of it. But we
- 12:48look at what's happening with the New England Patriots now. They can't figure out
- 12:52their quarterback situation. They've got just a number of adverse issues on the field,
- 12:58and you know, the things that are happening, of course, behind
- 13:00the scenes of where the direction of this team is going to go in the
- 13:03future. Dave, And I don't know. I'm not sure now if Robert
- 13:07Kraft and even Bill Belichick have a really great grasp on team building. Quite
- 13:13frankly, and maybe I'm out of line with regard to, you know,
- 13:15my hypothesis here, but you know, what are your thoughts with regard to
- 13:18that. Jeff, First, I'm a Patriots fan, so this, oh,
- 13:24like a dagger in my home. I'm so sorry. I swear to
- 13:26God, I forgot. I completely forgot that you're a Patriots fan, so,
- 13:30gosh sorry. I think, first of all, it's definitely easier if
- 13:35you have Tom Brady, right, I mean, oh yeah, He's going
- 13:39to make a lot work better. You don't have to continually spend resources chasing
- 13:43a quarterback, which is I think something that plagues a lot of teams and
- 13:48looks like it's going to be plaguing the Patriots now. But I do think,
- 13:52you know, Belichick and Craft or been the model for a lot of
- 13:58these teams, holding principles, especially changing and adapting the ways. The Patriots
- 14:03moved from three four to four to three in back from July to one high
- 14:07and back. I think that's fair being innovative. It's spread and two tight
- 14:11ends. But and I think, you know, people criticize the Belichick coaching
- 14:18tree, but his GM tree actually is pretty successful. I think with you
- 14:22know, Dematroff came from there, and then Less Snead came from Dematrof and
- 14:31Jason light who won a Super Bowl a few years ago. And even if
- 14:33you look at some of the scouting departments that were built out of former Patriots
- 14:39and Ravens, which I mean Nausie Newsome grew under Belichick. Obviously he's the
- 14:45best example I think you've seen. You know, you look at San Francisco,
- 14:52right, they have a great well John Lynch was never a scout.
- 14:56Who's their top scout. It's Adam Peters. Where did he start? New
- 14:58England? And so I think they're I think their approach has been very successful,
- 15:05not just Tom Brady, but you Belichick's seventy one years old. Yeah,
- 15:09most people are retired by now. And you know, again we'll talk
- 15:13about him a little later, but maybe he's not the best one to be
- 15:20changing and adapting at this point in his career. I think that's interesting for
- 15:24sure, And yeah, let's definitely get into him in a little bit here
- 15:26and again, folks, we're talking to Dave Archibald. Find him on Twitter
- 15:31at Dave Archie. He's a great, great follow and we keep talking hearing
- 15:35about that phrase change and adapt. It's something that I'm hoping you can get
- 15:39into a little bit more here as it relates to you know, what we've
- 15:43seen in the NFL. You know, something you've written about in your book,
- 15:46Dave. You know, how do you see NFL teams adapting to change
- 15:50more and more as we are here in twenty twenty three? And I would
- 15:56imagine a lot of teams out there are looking at the Philadelphia Eagles perhaps at
- 16:02this particular point in time, being that they have had back to back seasons
- 16:04where they're ten and one. They're doing something right at least in twenty twenty
- 16:10two and twenty twenty three here. So how are teams changing and adapting as
- 16:17we're moving along here? I recently hosted a Zoom team building round table and
- 16:25one of the things we discussed is defensive trends. And I think a lot
- 16:29of the interesting things happening are defensive now. It's been a little bit of
- 16:33a down year for offense, and I think as you've seen the offenses develop,
- 16:38there is a lot of throwing out of heavy personnel and running out of
- 16:44light you know, light formations and personnel, and so I think there are
- 16:48a couple of different adaptations that we're seeing. One is these hybrid defensive players
- 16:53who are maybe they're kind of slot corners, they're sort of safeties, they're
- 16:57sort of linebackers, but they've got to be able to defend, you know,
- 17:03receivers in the slot who may or may not be traditional slot receivers,
- 17:07tight ends, running backs, but they've also got to play run gaps.
- 17:11That's a lot of different, diverse responsibilities. I think we're seeing more of
- 17:15those players in the NFL and more teams using them interestingly. But the other
- 17:22thing I think is kind of coming back to some of these big bodies up
- 17:26front. We both watched the Eagles game last night. I think the story
- 17:34of the game kind of was the Josh Allen scrambles in overtime and Jordan Davis,
- 17:42who is a first round pick two years ago, he chases him out
- 17:47of bounds and it ends up being it looked when he took off it looked
- 17:49like a first down, and he ended up only getting the four or five
- 17:55yards and they ended up having to settle for the field goal. And then
- 17:57Jalen Hurts similar kind of look, you know, a spread look, and
- 18:03the Bills open the middle of the field and he just ran for the touchdown
- 18:07in overtime. If teams are going to use these spread concepts, and you
- 18:14know, necessarily the defense is going to have to spread out in response,
- 18:18You've only got six guys in the box. You're going to have to figure
- 18:22out how you're going to defend the run with six guys in the box,
- 18:25especially with some of these mobile quarterbacks like Allen and Hurts. And I think
- 18:30one of the solutions is if you have big guys like Jordan Davis and Jalen
- 18:34Carter who can control two gaps and you know, change the map defensively against
- 18:42the run game. That's and I don't think anyone understands that better than the
- 18:47Eagles on both sides the ball, the way that they use Hurts as a
- 18:49runner and the way, you know, the way they've used their first round
- 18:52picks the last couple of years. Yeah, and the other thing I wanted
- 18:55to talk about is special teams because the rule changes I think have reduced the
- 19:03impact of returners and coverage players. But you only really take advantage of that
- 19:11if your punter and your kicker can take the ball out of those guys' hands
- 19:15and kickoffs and punts. And the other thing is there are more fifty plus
- 19:22yard field goals now than there ever have been. And again we saw that
- 19:27yesterday Jake Elliott hits that fifty nine yarder at the end of regulation. Eagles
- 19:33lose that game. Ten years ago, no one is kicking fifty nine yarders.
- 19:37Yeah, but you know that if you have really good specialists, that's
- 19:44absolutely a weapon nowadays. Absolutely. I love where you're going with that.
- 19:48And it's interesting to think if the running back game is where a running game,
- 19:52I should say, with regard to running backs is going to, you
- 19:56know, quote make a resurgence at some point down the road based on how
- 20:00defenses need to adapt to the to these spread offenses. I think it's a
- 20:06really interesting topic. And uh, as we're moving along here, Dave,
- 20:11I wanted to talk about some teams that are team building the right way,
- 20:15some teams that are team building the wrong way. So I got a few
- 20:18teams here for you, and I'd like for you to let us know if
- 20:22they're team building the right way or their team building the wrong way. And
- 20:26just a brief explanation as to why let's start off with the New York Jets
- 20:30here are they team building the right way or the wrong way at this point?
- 20:36Well, first I should point out, you know, Joe Douglas.
- 20:38I think Eagles fans should think of him fondly too. I belise, yeah,
- 20:44I don't. I don't know if people realize this. I don't think
- 20:47I realized this until I started researching the book. But the Eagles had a
- 20:52ton of front office turnover between the end of the read years and uh,
- 20:56you know when how we got back into power post Chip Kelly and Joe Douglas
- 21:02had a big hand in rebuilding that that scouting staff. But I mean his
- 21:07Jets tenure hasn't been the best. Let's say, Zach Wilson certainly didn't deliver,
- 21:15and I think Wilson struggled so much that it kind of clouded the perception
- 21:23of the supporting cast. I think there was this idea like, oh,
- 21:26just plug in Aaron Rodgers and this is going to be a great team,
- 21:30and I think if you look at them, you know, the defense is
- 21:33still quite good, but the offensive line is pretty bad. I don't think
- 21:38they have a lot of receivers outside of Garrett Wilson, you know. I
- 21:42obviously it's it's very much a struggle with Zach Wilson. It was a Tim
- 21:48Boyle who started last game. But I don't think this would have been a
- 21:53great offense even with Aaron Rodgers. I think there's still quite a bit of
- 21:56work to do, and there's some question at this point as to whether Joe
- 22:02Douglas is going to be the person to see it through. All right,
- 22:04Well, let's move on to a team we were just talking about a few
- 22:07minutes ago, your New England Patriots. Are they team building the right way
- 22:11here or do you think they're going in the wrong direction? What do you
- 22:15think? Well, it's pretty tough at two and nine to argue that they're
- 22:18going in the right direction. I think. I think one of the things
- 22:25that happened is historically they were able to It's kind of what we talked about
- 22:30with the Legion of Boom just on the offensive side. I mean, they
- 22:33had a great run of offenses and it was largely by investing in less valued
- 22:37positions. Like they always had great slot receivers. They always had great tight
- 22:44ends, especially the last you know, half of the decade with Gronkowski and
- 22:48Aaron Hernandez for a little while. But you know, I think a lot
- 22:55of the league has caught up to that. I think the tight ends,
- 22:59the top tight ends are making a lot more money. The top slot receivers
- 23:03are making a ton more money and getting drafted higher. It's harder to find
- 23:07values there. And I don't think they've made the adjustments to find a new
- 23:15inch. They need, you know, a new competitive edge anywhere on offense.
- 23:18They tried to go with the two tight end thing by paying Hunter Henry
- 23:22and Johnny Smith a lot of money. That didn't work out. And you
- 23:29know, for a long time they were ahead of the league. They were
- 23:33just like two steps ahead of everybody. And now I think they're two steps
- 23:37behind. Like I said before, Belichick's seventy one seventy two. For all
- 23:41his greatness over the years, it's tough to maintain at that age, and
- 23:47ye, you know, I'm not sure he's the right person to be making
- 23:49the decisions moving forward. All right, let's move on to the Chicago Bears.
- 23:55Here a team that you know, I thought was going to be giving
- 23:56us a little bit more this year. And of course Justin f Yields dealing
- 24:00with an injury, hasn't necessarily developed. How use NFL fans wanted to see
- 24:04him develop. But what do you think? Are they building the right way
- 24:07or the wrong way here? So I just wrote them up for NFL spin
- 24:14Zone in my off season preview, and I think after I wrote it,
- 24:17I said to the Slack channel there, I was like, this is the
- 24:18first team I think I've written about that. I don't hate what they're doing.
- 24:25I actually think they're set up pretty well, even though obviously the on
- 24:30field results haven't been there under Ryan Poles and Fields has a lot of questions.
- 24:37But they've got that first round pick from Carolina that's looking like that's going
- 24:41to be a really high pick. They're gonna have another high pick. Their
- 24:45cap situation is really good. They added DJ Moore, who looks like a
- 24:48centerpiece Montes Sweat. Maybe they overpaid, but he should be probably their best
- 24:56defensive player. And they've got a lot of young guys from their past couple
- 25:00drafts who are contributing and not a lot of guys that they need to re
- 25:03sign. They've got real holes, But that's almost easier to deal with than
- 25:11if you've a bunch of okay guys that you've got to upgrade. You know,
- 25:14it's a lot easier to go from terrible to average than it is to
- 25:17go from average to excellence. And a lot of what they need to do
- 25:22is go from terrible to average. Yep, they've still got to get quarterback,
- 25:26right. I think the fields experiment has probably played out at this point.
- 25:32And Matt Aberflus, I mean, his calling card is supposed to be
- 25:38defense, and their defense is bottom of the barrel, so I think they
- 25:42might need to make a move there. But I like a lot of what
- 25:47Ryan Poles has done, and I think they're set up where with a few
- 25:51right moves, they can you know, maybe not twenty twenty four, but
- 25:53they can set themselves up for twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six. Yeah,
- 25:57it'll be interesting to see for sure. I got a couple more teams
- 26:00for you here, Dave. Next, the dirty, dirty Dallas Cowboys.
- 26:07What do you think are they building their team the right way? Here?
- 26:11The wrong way? What do you think so, I'm obviously a big fan.
- 26:15I'm my school is Rice University. Okay, the Cowboys vice president of
- 26:22player personnel, Will McLay is a Rice owl, so I got to give
- 26:27that. You have props to him. You know, their team is very
- 26:33good. They have the best point differential in the league. I know they
- 26:36haven't played the best schedule. I think with them, it always seems like
- 26:41they have the star power and the question is do they have enough complimentary pieces
- 26:48to fill it out? And until they make a playoff run, I mean
- 26:53it's hard to have a lot of faith in them. But on paper,
- 26:57I mean they're right up there with uh, you know, Philly and San
- 27:00Francisco as far as as contenders. But you know, we kind of got
- 27:08to see it at this point, I think, yeah, all right.
- 27:11And finally, last team before we get into our last topic, the Minnesota
- 27:15Vikings a team that I always find to be very interesting, quite frankly,
- 27:21because they are a team you think that's always going to get over the hump.
- 27:23They're team building the right way, but sometimes you just have to wonder
- 27:27are they team building the right way or the wrong way? Yeah, it's
- 27:33interesting. You know they hired Kuaisiadolfamensa a couple of years ago, and he's
- 27:37really the first pure analytics higher you know, obviously Howie Roseman and Sashi Brown,
- 27:45a couple others have been analytics savvy, but they came up through the
- 27:49cap side. Quasi Adolfa Mensa is the first guy who actually get hired into
- 27:55and spent most of his career doing analytics. And I think their team building
- 27:59has not especially reflected them through two years. It seems like they're kind of
- 28:07I don't think they've had a ton of room to maneuver in terms of,
- 28:11you know, their cap situation, but I kind of expected them to be
- 28:15more innovative. So I'm interested to see this offseason if we see something more
- 28:22interesting happening. They have a real pivotal offseason. Their highest paid player on
- 28:29both sides the ball, Kirk Cousins and Danil Hunter, are both free agents,
- 28:34so they're very much up in the air. I think they have a
- 28:37great offensive infrastructure. I mean, they have two really good tackles in Christian
- 28:42Dearisa and Brian O'Neil. They have two really good receivers and Justin Jefferson and
- 28:48Jordan Addison. But you know, they need to figure out what quarterback looks
- 28:52like. And I don't know, it'll be interesting. They're definitely what I'm
- 28:57keeping an eye on. Absolutely again, folks, talking to Dave Archibald.
- 29:03The Inches we Need dot Com a great great book on NFL team building.
- 29:07Get it for your your friends, your family during this holiday season. Again,
- 29:12The inches we need and the Inches we need dot Com. Head on
- 29:15over there after you get done listening to this. So I just wanted to
- 29:21end with what we've been most intrigued about here in terms of this NFL season,
- 29:27Dave, you know, an intriguing storyline or what you think is one
- 29:30of the most intriguing, And for me, like, I'm going to go
- 29:32back to a conversation that I had with one of our mutual friends, Mark
- 29:36Schofield from SB Nation. You know, Mark and I talked just a few
- 29:41weeks after after the season started, and he was like, you know,
- 29:44Jeff, you know, we were having a great conversation about where the league
- 29:45was going. He said, I think it's going to be a defensive type
- 29:49of season, and you essentially mentioned that earlier in our discussion here. You
- 29:55know, we are seeing more of a defensive year than an offensive year.
- 29:57I think from so many teams, defense is really winning games for teams as
- 30:03well. For me, that's one of the most intriguing aspects of this season
- 30:08because of where the NFL wanted to take offenses, and they want offenses to
- 30:12be so dominant, and they have been for quite some time. The passing
- 30:15game. We know the evolution of that particular aspect of the offensive game and
- 30:21what that's meant over the years. But I just think the defensive side of
- 30:25things right now is the most intriguing storyline here in twenty twenty three. So
- 30:29for you, Dave, what's been the most intriguing storyline for you this NFL
- 30:33season thus far? Well, I think I think mine is kind of related
- 30:37to that, and that's the AFC falling off, especially the quarterbacks. I
- 30:45think going into the year, the story was like the NFC is Jalen hurts
- 30:49and maybe Dak and all the other good quarterbacks are in the AFC. And
- 30:53now I'm looking, you know, Rogers is hurt, Joe Burrow is hurt.
- 30:57Justin Herbert's chargers of four and seven, Josh Allen's bills are six and
- 31:02six. I mean the bills of the second best point differential in the AFC
- 31:07and they might not even make the playoffs. It's incredible. Yeah, yeah,
- 31:11it's even the Chiefs. I mean the Chiefs, a lot of what
- 31:15they're doing is with defense. Their offense has really taking a step back.
- 31:18Their complementary receivers aren't there. So, you know, Miami, I think
- 31:23is the one that's that's high flying, and the Ravens too. But I
- 31:29think it's interesting to me that the reality hasn't matched the perception with respect to
- 31:34the strength of the conferences there and in the NFC. I mean, we've
- 31:41got that real Donnybrook. I think forming at the top, the forty nine
- 31:45Ers, the Eagles, the Cowboys, and the Lions. They look they
- 31:49look pretty tough too. I thought they would. I thought, you know,
- 31:53generally I fade teams that like have that big improvement. People seem to
- 31:57think they'll keep improving and a lot of times they fall back to earth.
- 32:00And it's been really cool to see the Lions fuck that trend and continue their
- 32:05upward tjectory. A lot of the rookies they drafted are paying big dividends early,
- 32:10and it's really cool to see it. Absolutely is. It's an interesting
- 32:14NFL season and an interesting book as well, The Inches we Need. Head
- 32:17on over to The Inches we Need dot com. He is Dave Archibald and
- 32:22find him on Twitter at David Archie. Buddy. Thanks so much for coming
- 32:25on jumping on talking NFL team building. Was great to see and let's talk
- 32:30more down the road, my friend. Sounds awesome, Jeff, I had
- 32:32a great time. Thank you. A very interesting conversation with Dave, and
- 32:38I gotta say, it really has been an interesting NFL season. I think
- 32:42a lot of us came into it, and I love the point that he
- 32:44made toward the end of our discussion about how the AFC was supposed to be
- 32:46this powerhouse and it's really not what we're seeing. I mean, especially with
- 32:51regard to the Kansas City Chiefs and that team from a team building perspective,
- 32:55what they hadn't done during the off season, which really is impacting their offense
- 33:00to this day. We saw it with the Philadelphia Eagles game when they were
- 33:05out in Kansas City facing that Chiefs team. The defense absolutely stout, but
- 33:09Patrick Mahomes just having some difficulty with those receivers. You can still see that
- 33:15chemistry not one hundred percent there I don't know if chemistry is always one hundred
- 33:19percent there with any quarterback to receiver, but I mean unless you're Tom Brady.
- 33:22So it's really interesting to see where team building has gone with so many
- 33:27NFL teams during the course of this season and what it means for their futures.
- 33:30So again, thanks so much Dave for jumping on the podcast, and
- 33:34that's going to do it for us this week on Table Talk. We are
- 33:37on the Twitter dot com at Philadelphia PSD. You can follow me at Jeffrey
- 33:40Underscore Warren, and we're on Instagram as well. Search us out there.
- 33:45If anything happens to your podcast feed, head on over to Philadelphia Sports table
- 33:49dot com. We've got all of our shows over there. Take care of
- 33:52folks, we'll catch it next time.