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Trend or Trouble? How the Buffalo Bills Defense Fits the Modern NFL | DC · Disguised Coverage

0:00
Speaker 1: It's thirty eight.
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Speaker 2: All bills can win In here, Wake puts it down,
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Speaker 2: the kick is on the way and dock m.
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Speaker 3: The bell good one? How the hell that one.
0:11
Speaker 2: Home?
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Speaker 3: How one? They were a party one not party way? Incredible?
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Speaker 1: Why not combat by my bell?
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Speaker 3: Jacksonville's perfect record on the line right here.
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Speaker 2: Quick.
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Speaker 3: Kicking, look excited.
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Speaker 2: Touchdown Kyle Williams touchdound amazing, unbelievable. They puttied william who's
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Speaker 2: has to full back and he scores a touchdown.
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Speaker 1: It's wealthier to face tackle. What's good?
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Speaker 4: Folks, Family, Friends, loved ones, Enemies, Friendemies, Wizard which is Muggles, mugblots,
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Speaker 4: people of Middle Earth. To another episode of Disguised Coverage.
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Speaker 4: on YouTube or whichever podcasting Apple platform you're listening to
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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Anthony Prohaska.
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Speaker 4: Find me on Twitter at pro Underscore Underscore ant that's
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Speaker 4: pro two underscores a n T. Find me on blue
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Speaker 4: sky at pro ant. No underscores there, just p r
1:47
Speaker 4: oh A n T. In this offline recorded edition of
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Speaker 4: Disguise Coverage, we are going to be diving into high
1:56
Speaker 4: level conversation about scheme and structure and meta in today's NFL,
2:02
Speaker 4: mainly on the defensive side of the ball, tying in
2:04
Speaker 4: some offensive pieces as well, and all putting that against
2:08
Speaker 4: kind of the backdrop or the landscape of where the
2:10
Speaker 4: Buffalo Bills defense fits into that in terms of their identity,
2:14
Speaker 4: their philosophy, their structure, the body types they have, the
2:18
Speaker 4: archetypes they lean into, skill sets, traits, all of that.
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Speaker 4: And as you folks know, we are normally live every
2:24
Speaker 4: Tuesday night, nine pm Eastern, and anytime we deviate from
2:28
Speaker 4: that schedule it's usually not even usually it's likely and
2:32
Speaker 4: or most definitely due to accommodating a tremendous guest.
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Speaker 1: And with that being said.
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Speaker 4: I welcome to the show, mister Cody Alexander, creator of
2:43
Speaker 4: match quarters dot com, host of the Let's Talkball podcast.
2:46
Speaker 4: If you folks don't know who Cody is, honestly and sincerely,
2:50
Speaker 4: this phrase gets thrown around too much like the whole ball.
2:52
Speaker 4: Nowherre aspect but you are one of the absolute best
2:55
Speaker 4: when it comes to anything and everything football knowledge, scheme, structure,
3:00
Speaker 4: go to for a multitude of people across the space casually, professionally,
3:05
Speaker 4: and you're also one of the kindest people in the
3:07
Speaker 4: world as well. So I appreciate you taking the time.
3:09
Speaker 4: I'm pumped heavy on Welcome to the show.
3:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
3:12
Speaker 4: Man, it's funny we were talking offline kind of having
3:15
Speaker 4: this conversation about the Bills defense because it's been it's
3:19
Speaker 4: been a group that's been questioned so much this year,
3:21
Speaker 4: especially from a run defense standpoint, but they poured all
3:24
Speaker 4: these resources into it in the off season and now
3:27
Speaker 4: here we sit the day after they had a pretty
3:30
Speaker 4: good showing against the Eagles. But regardless, we're going to
3:33
Speaker 4: kind of talk about this Bill's defense, but within the
3:36
Speaker 4: larger scope and conversation of NFL defenses and where we
3:41
Speaker 4: sit right now.
3:42
Speaker 1: Kind of on both sides of the ball.
3:44
Speaker 4: And so bring up our first topic here, Cody, I
3:46
Speaker 4: know you love kind of the the Matthew McConaughey, rusting
3:49
Speaker 4: Cole can gift with the whole time as a flat
3:51
Speaker 4: circle people use at a time. Time is a flat circle,
3:54
Speaker 4: what is old is new? Let's kind of set the
3:56
Speaker 4: table for this conversation. Where are we now in terms
4:00
Speaker 4: of you know, defensive meta structure, like where the pendulum
4:04
Speaker 4: has swung?
4:05
Speaker 1: Where are we?
4:06
Speaker 4: How did we get here based on what offenses were
4:08
Speaker 4: doing and how defense has kind of tried to take
4:10
Speaker 4: the power back recently.
4:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you remember, if you're old enough and
4:15
Speaker 3: you remember back to the nineties, Okay, so this is
4:18
Speaker 3: the last I think this was the last time that
4:21
Speaker 3: we had a collection of quarterbacks kind of similar to
4:24
Speaker 3: what we have today in terms of it. I don't
4:27
Speaker 3: know if again, I'm I'm about to turn forty here
4:30
Speaker 3: here in a couple of days. I remember the Quarterback
4:33
Speaker 3: Club with John Elway, Troy Aikman. I mean, you got
4:37
Speaker 3: everybody in there, and you would kind of be able
4:40
Speaker 3: to see them. Steve Young like you just who's who? Right,
4:44
Speaker 3: Warre Moon, Like those are the guys I grew up with,
4:46
Speaker 3: and so their era they that was very pass heavy.
4:50
Speaker 3: We kind of forget about the you know, in an
4:54
Speaker 3: aspect of it, right, Like you know, if you watch
4:56
Speaker 3: the Lway documentary that just came out earlier, you're yeah,
4:59
Speaker 3: he through for twenty five. He through twenty five times.
5:02
Speaker 3: That was a lot in the nineties, right, Like, that's
5:05
Speaker 3: that's a lot, right, So what you saw was a
5:08
Speaker 3: lot of too Like again again, where do we get
5:11
Speaker 3: kind of this match coverage aspect that we have heard
5:15
Speaker 3: it gets thrown around a lot, especially the Saban Belichick
5:18
Speaker 3: rip Liz match, this match cover three. You know the
5:21
Speaker 3: famous quote of if you zone drop against Dan Marino,
5:25
Speaker 3: you know he's just kind of throw darts, you know
5:27
Speaker 3: that whole deal. So they had to kind of tighten
5:30
Speaker 3: up things. We get this tightening up, we get a
5:33
Speaker 3: lot more Cover one, people start beating up receivers at
5:36
Speaker 3: the line of scrimmage. This is where, really, to me,
5:39
Speaker 3: we have yet to come out of that. I think
5:41
Speaker 3: we're starting to transition. People don't talk about off ball
5:44
Speaker 3: and on ball corners. I know I've talked with you
5:47
Speaker 3: guys before about like Ben for being kind of an
5:49
Speaker 3: off ball on ball guy. How do how does he
5:52
Speaker 3: compare to other corners? So what ends up happening is
5:57
Speaker 3: that we go through this weird period where teams start
6:01
Speaker 3: getting into like the three yards in a cloud of dust,
6:05
Speaker 3: like we're okay, fine, you're gonna run Tampa two, You're
6:08
Speaker 3: gonna put basically a two hundred and twenty pound linebacker
6:11
Speaker 3: out there. We're gonna get into I formation and we're
6:14
Speaker 3: just going power. I think where we're at now, because look,
6:18
Speaker 3: the NFL sickle. In fact, if you're interested in this,
6:20
Speaker 3: I wrote a book back in twenty eighteen called Hybrids
6:22
Speaker 3: The Making of a Modern Defense, and I kind of
6:24
Speaker 3: covered the history of defensive football from the advent of motion,
6:29
Speaker 3: which would by the way, was in Cincinnati tight end
6:33
Speaker 3: lines up on the wrong side of the ball. He
6:35
Speaker 3: realizes it and right before the snap moves to the
6:38
Speaker 3: other side. You have the raiders going from one side
6:41
Speaker 3: to the other. And Bill Watchers looked at his quarterback.
6:43
Speaker 3: Coach is like, I think we got something like all
6:47
Speaker 3: of this comes to now. I think where we're at
6:49
Speaker 3: now though we're I call this the post spread era,
6:52
Speaker 3: and I think it's perfect. Like if you're like, well,
6:54
Speaker 3: wait a second, we literally just started and you're correct,
6:56
Speaker 3: we didn't even make it a full decade, Like you
6:59
Speaker 3: could probably argue twenty seventeen Eagles is really the first
7:02
Speaker 3: spread team to win an NFL Super Bowl. They ran
7:06
Speaker 3: with Nick Foles, they ran a bunch of RPOs. They
7:09
Speaker 3: were out of the gun a lot of times. And
7:11
Speaker 3: then you see twenty eighteen we had the Rams play
7:14
Speaker 3: the Chiefs in basically a basketball game that kind of
7:17
Speaker 3: broke the NFL. You see all the wonkiness in the
7:21
Speaker 3: coverage ratings from eighteen to nineteen. As people are trying
7:24
Speaker 3: to figure this out, we have the too High Revolution
7:27
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, which, by the way, all the old
7:29
Speaker 3: hats speaking of this topic, all the old hats are
7:31
Speaker 3: telling you, hey, this is nineteen eighty nine. Jims More,
7:34
Speaker 3: Jim Moore, Saints Defense. You're right, all these guys are
7:38
Speaker 3: from that era. Dick Lebow, Dom Capers, I'm gonna throw
7:41
Speaker 3: a bunch of old old names of it. Well, the
7:44
Speaker 3: difference now is is that the spread won So the
7:48
Speaker 3: trickle up of the spread and the spacing and the
7:51
Speaker 3: passing and kind of understanding what we're trying to do
7:54
Speaker 3: passing wise and motion now kind of raising the bar
7:59
Speaker 3: for these we've kind of gotten to that point now
8:02
Speaker 3: where everybody understands that passing is much more efficient than running.
8:07
Speaker 3: In fact, you can argue probably the first person to
8:12
Speaker 3: realize this was Bill Belichick. I hate to say his name,
8:16
Speaker 3: is he the name that we don't speak right, Sorry
8:20
Speaker 3: I dropped his name anyway. The nineties Giants when they
8:23
Speaker 3: played the Bills on that gun, you know, the fun
8:27
Speaker 3: gun and all that stuff that you know was if
8:30
Speaker 3: the famous quote of if Thurman Thomas rushes for one
8:33
Speaker 3: hundred yards will win the Super Bowl. And so that
8:36
Speaker 3: thought process took almost thirty years to mature. But we're
8:40
Speaker 3: there at that point now where we're seeing teams like
8:43
Speaker 3: the Chargers essentially say we're gonna play nothing but nickel
8:46
Speaker 3: and dime, the Rams where we're going to play almost
8:49
Speaker 3: forty percent of our defense in dime. But they're doing
8:53
Speaker 3: it in different ways. And I think what's happened now
8:56
Speaker 3: with the Bills and that's why we're I'm on here
8:59
Speaker 3: to talk to you about. It's kind of like that meta
9:01
Speaker 3: flip of where we were built to beat the Chiefs
9:04
Speaker 3: and the Bengals, which if you watch, Bengals can't decide
9:08
Speaker 3: if they want to run the ball or not. The
9:09
Speaker 3: Chiefs can't decide.
9:11
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, looks shotgun the race.
9:15
Speaker 3: Like I have my buddy Felix who does Let's talk
9:18
Speaker 3: About podcast and he's a Chief fan. I'm from Kansas
9:20
Speaker 3: City so like I grew up in it, so I
9:21
Speaker 3: keep tabs on it all the time. But yeah, the
9:23
Speaker 3: big deal there is like can we just get under
9:25
Speaker 3: center and hand the ball off like you know we're today,
9:27
Speaker 3: which is hilarious in twenty twenty five. That's kind of
9:31
Speaker 3: where this evolution has brought in us. And it's really
9:34
Speaker 3: flipped really quickly. I think just because the assimilation of
9:37
Speaker 3: information and I think analytics really being involved within the
9:41
Speaker 3: decision making, people are now able to kind of realize
9:44
Speaker 3: really quickly when metas shift, when things become efficient, when
9:48
Speaker 3: things become deficient. And so now we get it. But
9:51
Speaker 3: I'll finish with this and then we can go on.
9:54
Speaker 3: But the Rams and the Seahawks are running twelve and
9:57
Speaker 3: thirteen personnel at a higher clip than anybody to throw
10:01
Speaker 3: the ball. And if that doesn't answer you where we
10:03
Speaker 3: are modern football, I don't know what does.
10:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Rams one is so stark, especially with so
10:10
Speaker 4: what are we in twenty twenty five last offseason, So
10:13
Speaker 4: the season off season going into twenty twenty four, once
10:16
Speaker 4: the Bills traded Digs, I had already been kind of
10:20
Speaker 4: they saw the metrics and the analytics of a lot
10:22
Speaker 4: of the best offenses in the league were really going
10:24
Speaker 4: condensed formations, and it was the Lions, and it was
10:27
Speaker 4: the Rams and the Texans when CJ.
10:28
Speaker 1: Stroud had that breakout rookie year.
10:30
Speaker 4: But then he also looked at the body types that
10:33
Speaker 4: like the Rams and Lions had, for example, and they
10:36
Speaker 4: were running all this eleven personnel and it was like, yeah,
10:39
Speaker 4: they're running eleven personnel and they got good pass catches,
10:41
Speaker 4: but those dudes can also block their butts off, like
10:43
Speaker 4: Pooka kim block and Cooper Cup kim block, and Josh
10:46
Speaker 4: Reynolds kim block, and I'm on Ross saying Brown can
10:48
Speaker 4: block and all these dudes. And it was so funny
10:51
Speaker 4: to see the Rams like be in that world where
10:53
Speaker 4: they could dictate so much out of eleven. And here
10:57
Speaker 4: we are two years later and the Rams are like, no, no,
11:00
Speaker 4: we're just gonna do thirteen and we're gonna do to
11:02
Speaker 4: see them leaning into and then their run game isn't
11:06
Speaker 4: even the most elaborate. It's just like, well, when we run,
11:08
Speaker 4: we're gonna run duo and then we're gonna weaponize the
11:11
Speaker 4: hell out of our tight ends that aren't even like
11:14
Speaker 4: crazy monsters. It's like Higbee and Davis Allen and Ferguson
11:17
Speaker 4: from Oregon and the way they just attack, and it's
11:22
Speaker 4: so fun to chart that and see that, and I
11:24
Speaker 4: think in relation to the Bills, it's so funny because
11:27
Speaker 4: the Bills last year they trade Stafon Diggs. And then
11:31
Speaker 4: part of the reason I did that study is because
11:33
Speaker 4: I see, Okay, they bring in Matt Collins, then they
11:36
Speaker 4: draft you know, Kean Coleman, and it's moving towards more
11:40
Speaker 4: of these bigger body types at wide receiver and you've
11:44
Speaker 4: got Dalton Kink and you've got Dawson Knox. And my
11:46
Speaker 4: thinking is like, okay, they've seen the league trends, which
11:49
Speaker 4: are condensed formations, bigger body types where you can put
11:53
Speaker 4: defenses into run, pass, conflict, you can dictate with personnel.
11:56
Speaker 4: You have an eleven personnel group and you can run
11:58
Speaker 4: out of, but also pass out of a twelve personnel
12:00
Speaker 4: grouping you can run out of and also pass out of.
12:03
Speaker 1: And then the.
12:04
Speaker 4: Bills they have Josh Allen has an MVP year, they
12:06
Speaker 4: have all the success last year, a lot of six
12:08
Speaker 4: offensive lineman sets. Last year, we're the kind of leaning
12:11
Speaker 4: into that further. And then this year they replaced the
12:13
Speaker 4: six offensive lineman stuff by drafting Jackson hawes On at
12:17
Speaker 4: Georgia Tech, who kind of is like an offensive lineman,
12:20
Speaker 4: but obviously you can catch and do much more. He's
12:22
Speaker 4: much more viable as a pass catcher, but that notion
12:25
Speaker 4: is still there of kind of having the you still
12:29
Speaker 4: want to pass the football, but the run game is
12:31
Speaker 4: a primary table setter. It is your jump off point
12:34
Speaker 4: or in the Bills case, an absolute must have. Where
12:37
Speaker 4: they almost sank, swung the pendulum too far and forgot
12:39
Speaker 4: about receivers on the outside. Conversation for another time, but
12:42
Speaker 4: what I think is so funny with that, especially in
12:44
Speaker 4: relation to the defense, The Bills offense in one offseason
12:49
Speaker 4: last year rebuilt themselves. They went from more of a
12:53
Speaker 4: spread team chuck it around, to we're gonna run the football.
12:57
Speaker 4: We're gonna mash you and not just run it.
12:59
Speaker 1: We're going to run do what. We're gonna run at you, like.
13:02
Speaker 4: At you type of downhill runs. They remade their offense
13:06
Speaker 4: in one offseason schematically in body types to be in
13:09
Speaker 4: line with offensive trends.
13:12
Speaker 1: They built their.
13:13
Speaker 4: Offense to eat defenses like the ones that they the
13:17
Speaker 4: one that they currently have and I think it's so
13:20
Speaker 4: ironic that they leaned into the meta offensively but kind
13:24
Speaker 4: of stayed away from it defensively and didn't necessarily address it.
13:28
Speaker 4: And you were on with Brett Coleman last week, tremendous
13:30
Speaker 4: episode if folks haven't seen that, dive into that, and
13:33
Speaker 4: you said something that made my well, you said a
13:35
Speaker 4: ton of things that made my ears perk up, but
13:36
Speaker 4: you said something that I've echoed in similar sentiments. And
13:40
Speaker 4: I say all that and what I just said, and
13:41
Speaker 4: say that to kind of set the table for this
13:43
Speaker 4: next topic. Here you said, quote, the Bills have a
13:46
Speaker 4: defensive scheme that really isn't built to survive in today's
13:50
Speaker 4: game in twenty twenty five. And I think that ties
13:53
Speaker 4: in again to what the offense did, but the defense
13:56
Speaker 4: kind of stayed where it was. Let's talk about that
13:58
Speaker 4: a bit, you know, in terms of what the Bill's
14:00
Speaker 4: defense is schematically and how you not even alluded to
14:03
Speaker 4: I you said, you know, they're really they really aren't
14:05
Speaker 4: built to survive in today's game in twenty twenty five.
14:07
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's really difficult to walk away with
14:10
Speaker 3: some of the players that you have on the roster,
14:13
Speaker 3: especially like at certain levels, Like you know, Bernard is
14:17
Speaker 3: so good when he's healthy as kind of that covers
14:20
Speaker 3: linebacker Milano really has been when healthy has been good.
14:24
Speaker 3: You know, you get cold Bishop early in the draft
14:28
Speaker 3: and that's gonna walk away from I think if there's
14:30
Speaker 3: one area where you kind of have lost out, and
14:34
Speaker 3: that's really because you lost two big time veterans and
14:37
Speaker 3: you kind of kind of been wandering through the land
14:39
Speaker 3: to try and find that, is it safety. I think
14:42
Speaker 3: you have kind of hit on, you know, a field corner,
14:45
Speaker 3: but you definitely have a boundary corner in ben Ford.
14:49
Speaker 3: So you look at it like on the back end,
14:52
Speaker 3: you're passing. That's why the passing is so much better
14:55
Speaker 3: with the Bills this year. It's just because they have
14:58
Speaker 3: the guys like you. Really it's very difficult to find
15:01
Speaker 3: a favorable matchup against the Bills in the back end
15:05
Speaker 3: unless you can kind of maybe pick on one of
15:08
Speaker 3: the safeties. And so what ends up happening for a
15:11
Speaker 3: lot of these teams is they're like, well, we're going
15:13
Speaker 3: to run the ball. And you started seeing this last
15:16
Speaker 3: year where the Bills for a long time and really
15:20
Speaker 3: mc under McDermott, McDermott and they will tell you this too.
15:23
Speaker 3: Even like Ron Rivera, Ron Rivera was a long time
15:25
Speaker 3: Where McDermott comes from is it was a long time
15:28
Speaker 3: quarters guy for a very long time, kind of one
15:30
Speaker 3: of the only guys running quarters. And that actually tracks
15:34
Speaker 3: historically with Rivera. When he comes to the building, he
15:36
Speaker 3: wants to play a lot of too high, okay, But
15:39
Speaker 3: when he comes to the Bills, it's perfect time, right
15:41
Speaker 3: Because the NFL's kind of flipping more to a spread world.
15:44
Speaker 3: Quarterbacks are getting paid fifty sixty million dollars. They're not
15:47
Speaker 3: getting paid to the handoff to running backs. We go
15:49
Speaker 3: through the whole deal of like running backs don't matter.
15:51
Speaker 3: They got to have a meeting about getting paid. Like
15:53
Speaker 3: we go through this whole, We go through the whole.
15:56
Speaker 4: Cole Comet is making more than Saquon Barkley's Like wait.
16:00
Speaker 3: A second, so I think, like for what happened with
16:03
Speaker 3: the Bills, you start seeing this last year where they
16:05
Speaker 3: start saying, you know what, Cole Bishop played a lot
16:08
Speaker 3: of down safety and a lot of man covers at Utah.
16:11
Speaker 3: We know he can do that. Well, what can we
16:14
Speaker 3: do then we can get him close? Taron Johnson when
16:16
Speaker 3: healthy is one of the better nickels. He can fit
16:18
Speaker 3: the run. That's never really been an issue. You can
16:21
Speaker 3: mitigate some of those things, like for overhangs, with some
16:25
Speaker 3: movement inside to get guys in there. The problem that
16:28
Speaker 3: I think you find when you start getting guys like
16:30
Speaker 3: a von Miller, you start getting guys like a Bosa.
16:34
Speaker 3: They don't necessarily want to dip inside, right, they don't.
16:37
Speaker 3: That's not their whole deal. I mean even von Miller
16:39
Speaker 3: told you know, I know that story came out a
16:41
Speaker 3: couple I think about a couple of weeks ago where
16:43
Speaker 3: he was like, you know, I really wanted to go
16:44
Speaker 3: to Denver kind of be the last deal. But you know,
16:48
Speaker 3: they don't need a three point shooter. They need a
16:50
Speaker 3: guy that can play the full game, right, They need
16:52
Speaker 3: the three and the D. They don't need the just
16:55
Speaker 3: a guy that's going to hang. Hey, go in there,
16:58
Speaker 3: shoot your ten threes, get us up, you know, and
17:01
Speaker 3: then get out of the game. Like that's not really
17:03
Speaker 3: what they needed. And so what ends up happening is
17:05
Speaker 3: like to answer some of the issues you just don't
17:08
Speaker 3: have that I think also too, when you look at this,
17:11
Speaker 3: a lot of the guys that you have inside are
17:15
Speaker 3: what you would call quick threes right there, guy, They're
17:17
Speaker 3: really more pass rushers. Like even like Ed Oliver is
17:20
Speaker 3: as good as he is, he needs to play on
17:22
Speaker 3: the outside of the guard like and it would be
17:23
Speaker 3: nice sometimes if you could push him out to a
17:25
Speaker 3: five kind of like the Chiefs do with Chris Jones,
17:28
Speaker 3: you know, but guys like a Chris Jones or Quinn
17:32
Speaker 3: Williams that those guys are very very rare, And there's
17:36
Speaker 3: even been points with Chris Jones of like, hey man,
17:38
Speaker 3: we need you to play run defense every once in
17:40
Speaker 3: a while. You can't just swim through and just get
17:42
Speaker 3: trapped every time, right, Like you can't just pick which
17:46
Speaker 3: days you want to. Oh hey, I got to turn
17:47
Speaker 3: it on this game. Okay, I'm gonna stop the run.
17:49
Speaker 3: Like we need to be more like Max Crosby and
17:51
Speaker 3: Miles Garrett, where you just are like, I'm gonna destroy everything.
17:54
Speaker 1: All the time, no matter what.
17:56
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. Run pass, I'm gonna destroy, it doesn't
17:58
Speaker 3: really matter. And so what I think, I think what
18:00
Speaker 3: has happened is you you're going moving more towards under center,
18:05
Speaker 3: which is going to change the trajectory of your inside
18:08
Speaker 3: look at all the top defenses. Right now, go look
18:10
Speaker 3: at I mean, there's a reason why, you know, Jerry,
18:14
Speaker 3: I'm in Dallas, so here's this all the time. But like,
18:16
Speaker 3: there's a reason why Jerry Jones is pounding the table
18:18
Speaker 3: and saying we're better off because we got two inside guys,
18:21
Speaker 3: right and really you could argue they have three. And
18:23
Speaker 3: so what you look at Seattle is a great example
18:27
Speaker 3: of this of where and then you just played the Eagles,
18:30
Speaker 3: which is another great example of like, when you have
18:33
Speaker 3: two inside guys like that, you're you're changing the math
18:37
Speaker 3: for everybody. You're either creating one on ones on the
18:40
Speaker 3: outside for your elite your elite defensive ends, or you're
18:44
Speaker 3: wasting numbers on the inside so that you don't get
18:47
Speaker 3: your lighter linebackers, which you guys tend to have. You
18:52
Speaker 3: don't they don't have a guard, a three hundred and
18:54
Speaker 3: thirty pound guard in their face every time, because let's
18:56
Speaker 3: be honest, like they're not gonna win that matchup very often.
19:00
Speaker 3: That's gonna be that's a hard matchup for them. And
19:02
Speaker 3: if and you know, there's an argument too to be
19:04
Speaker 3: said that the NFL can only take what they get
19:07
Speaker 3: from the college level and one of the things that
19:10
Speaker 3: you see one of my good friends, Joey, he's a
19:14
Speaker 3: he's an analyst guy, but he kind of did this
19:17
Speaker 3: deal with NFL Draft and it's just kind of seeing
19:21
Speaker 3: how like the weight of the linebacker has gone down
19:26
Speaker 3: like below two fifty easily. Like I think last year
19:28
Speaker 3: they didn't even had the average was like two thirty one,
19:31
Speaker 3: so they didn't even have anybody like at two forty five.
19:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got even like Harold Perkins' first year at LSU,
19:37
Speaker 1: he's this like speedy edge rusher and then like the
19:39
Speaker 1: next year like we're gonna move to off ball and
19:41
Speaker 1: it's like he's so small and that's why. Like so
19:43
Speaker 1: you've got CJ.
19:43
Speaker 4: Allen and Georgia who's still kind of built like a monster,
19:46
Speaker 4: and you've got like Hill in Texas, like some of
19:48
Speaker 4: these dudes who can still move.
19:49
Speaker 1: But they're still thumpers.
19:51
Speaker 4: That's such an interesting you know, I think like dichotomy
19:55
Speaker 4: now because you can't it's not just all these like
19:58
Speaker 4: spread coverage line and not everybody has a Fred Warner
20:02
Speaker 4: who's a unicorn and kind of can do whatever.
20:03
Speaker 3: And like that's the other thing, like you can't your draft.
20:07
Speaker 3: Your draft can't be like, well we'll just draft Fred
20:09
Speaker 3: Warner or like here in Dallas like oh well we'll
20:12
Speaker 3: just go draft have the same draft of Michael Parsons
20:14
Speaker 3: and Osa, like we'll get those two guys. Again. Well,
20:18
Speaker 3: that's great, but you're living in You're not living in reality.
20:21
Speaker 3: I think that that's what's happened with the Bills scheme.
20:24
Speaker 3: And to your point though about look, you have an
20:27
Speaker 3: absolute superhero for a quarterback, fix the offense first DEFENSI
20:32
Speaker 3: will trail. I think that's kind of the other thing.
20:34
Speaker 3: But I do agree with you, like this offseason really
20:37
Speaker 3: needs to have a look. We we started running a
20:40
Speaker 3: lot more close post coverages. We got away from what
20:43
Speaker 3: we were really good at. We moved more to cover
20:46
Speaker 3: three to help that. But my argument, I said this
20:49
Speaker 3: to Brett on the show, is that when you go
20:52
Speaker 3: cover three, that's great, and yeah, you assume that you
20:57
Speaker 3: have a loaded box right there, but offense is now
21:00
Speaker 3: know that they if you're gonna play match coverage, they're
21:03
Speaker 3: gonna now have RPOs move guys out, motions are gonna
21:07
Speaker 3: move guys. So you really have to be good at
21:09
Speaker 3: playing with the six man box. I've been pounding that
21:12
Speaker 3: table now for several years. Everybody that's an old school
21:15
Speaker 3: box count guy, like well cover three really is eight
21:18
Speaker 3: man spacing. That's great, But if you're playing match coverage
21:22
Speaker 3: and they vacate, you're playing with six. So there's no
21:25
Speaker 3: difference between your the way that you're playing and a
21:28
Speaker 3: quarters team that's playing. In fact, i'd argue that a
21:30
Speaker 3: quarters team has better options because they have two Halsh safeties. Yeah,
21:34
Speaker 3: they can really have players.
21:36
Speaker 4: Especially against a team like the Bills, where like it's
21:38
Speaker 4: it's a quick exit motion and someone's getting pulled and
21:40
Speaker 4: then the quarterback is kind of given that read, so
21:42
Speaker 4: the backside edge is still kind of held, and all
21:44
Speaker 4: of a sudden, the numbers that you had just got
21:47
Speaker 4: dropped by two. And now you don't have that box
21:50
Speaker 4: numbers advantage, even though you're in single high and even
21:52
Speaker 4: though you're in it to have numbers in the box
21:54
Speaker 4: and stop the run.
21:56
Speaker 3: Right, And so what you end up doing is you
21:58
Speaker 3: developed you basically developed it defense that goes horizontal really well.
22:02
Speaker 3: And then what's happened now is teams are and you've
22:04
Speaker 3: made You've already mentioned you said due like three or
22:07
Speaker 3: four times already in this deal. So it's like, what
22:09
Speaker 3: is duo just it's downhill. It's basically power without a poll. Right,
22:13
Speaker 3: So then you start adding in you you mentioned the Rams.
22:16
Speaker 3: The Rams are running a ton of gap scheme, and
22:19
Speaker 3: so like gap just needs your pulling a line, your alignment,
22:21
Speaker 3: you're creating an extra gap. Well when you're light. That
22:25
Speaker 3: now exacerbates your problems because what you're finding out is
22:29
Speaker 3: that okay, uh, they're running at us. We can't get
22:33
Speaker 3: game control. I think you guys in the Chargers are
22:35
Speaker 3: really kind of in this weird spot where we're elite
22:38
Speaker 3: at the pass, but we're not very good at the run.
22:42
Speaker 3: Where I think the Chargers are a little bit ahead
22:44
Speaker 3: of you just because they've got Derwin James and I
22:46
Speaker 3: think tier Tart is really it's kind of an understated nose, uh,
22:50
Speaker 3: and kind of where they are right now. Their edges
22:53
Speaker 3: are really just really good at defending the run, and
22:55
Speaker 3: so you kind of have this where they're kind of
22:58
Speaker 3: about middle of the road, but they give up almost
23:01
Speaker 3: four and a half yards per carry. I just wrote
23:03
Speaker 3: about it on Match Quarters. Kind of like he's basically
23:06
Speaker 3: if there's one unique defense, what's funny is like not
23:11
Speaker 3: the Vikings. The Vikings are just wild. That's an outlier.
23:14
Speaker 3: They don't They're on a completely different planet. He's playing
23:16
Speaker 3: a different game than everybody else. But like, if you
23:18
Speaker 3: just want to look at around the NFL, who are
23:20
Speaker 3: the unique defense? You have the Lions who don't want
23:23
Speaker 3: to do anything other than base and then you have
23:26
Speaker 3: both LA teams running nothing but light packages. But they're
23:30
Speaker 3: doing it in two completely different ways. The Rams are
23:32
Speaker 3: doing it with five man front, yeah, and then the
23:34
Speaker 3: Chargers are doing it with four down, but they also
23:37
Speaker 3: have an alien in Nickels, so it's kind of and
23:38
Speaker 3: then you could argue too. Like the other one is
23:42
Speaker 3: probably the Texans who are just I call them the
23:45
Speaker 3: ass Whooper defense. It's like there is no scheme. It's
23:49
Speaker 3: just we run Nickel wide nine. We played every three
23:52
Speaker 3: man and quarters.
23:53
Speaker 4: It's just like, hey, good, so here's what you're gonna do.
23:56
Speaker 4: You can cry and block our guys on the front.
23:58
Speaker 4: And it's not just Anderson and Hunter who are both assassins.
24:01
Speaker 4: They've got guy like Autry can move, Rankins can move
24:04
Speaker 4: seventy two whose name I always screw up is good
24:06
Speaker 4: against the run, like Derek Barnett is pulling out spin
24:09
Speaker 4: moves and ice picking dudes to death, and it's like,
24:12
Speaker 4: good luck with the front and then I hope your
24:15
Speaker 4: receivers can beat Derek Stingley and Kamari Lassiter and then
24:19
Speaker 4: to to and al Shaiir are just flying around ready
24:22
Speaker 4: to take people's heads off. And yeah, it's so fun
24:24
Speaker 4: with them because there's nothing schematically like creative. It's very
24:29
Speaker 4: much just like we're gonna beat the hell out of you,
24:32
Speaker 4: and good luck trying to beat us. And that's it's
24:35
Speaker 4: it is.
24:36
Speaker 3: The Olds, like every old hat in the it's just
24:38
Speaker 3: like nodding their head yep, just running hit, yeah, tackle,
24:42
Speaker 3: good fundamentals. The beat blocks Football is not hard. Young
24:45
Speaker 3: guys make it difficult. Yeah. The Texans are like every
24:48
Speaker 3: old man's team, Like they're like my dad's favorite team, right,
24:51
Speaker 3: It's like they just want to see that and so
24:53
Speaker 3: like to go back to the Bills though, like that's
24:55
Speaker 3: kind of where the Bills are in between they're trying
24:58
Speaker 3: to figure out. They play more bass than they've ever
25:00
Speaker 3: played this year, and I think that's part of it.
25:02
Speaker 3: They play more cover three than they've probably ever played.
25:05
Speaker 4: Probably way more dime than they ever have too because
25:07
Speaker 4: they're trying to find an identity as well on passing
25:09
Speaker 4: down in distances.
25:11
Speaker 3: So it's just kind of like that mixed back. I
25:14
Speaker 3: really think you need a nose at some point, whether
25:17
Speaker 3: it's gonna be a shift to where you can walk
25:20
Speaker 3: A lot of the big trend right now in four
25:22
Speaker 3: down is just having a guy that you can walk down.
25:25
Speaker 3: I don't think you have a linebacker right now that
25:27
Speaker 3: you feel comfortable walking down that can play an edge.
25:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's so funny with somebody that the things
25:35
Speaker 4: you said. I'm very happy that you have aligned with
25:37
Speaker 4: a lot of my thinking, but it's just funny seeing
25:42
Speaker 4: how they've built their I shouldn't say built to your point, like, okay,
25:46
Speaker 4: to adjust the offense first, but then they put so
25:49
Speaker 4: many resources into the defense and the one that still
25:51
Speaker 4: gets me, and you mentioned it right away with a nose,
25:53
Speaker 4: like they take Max Harrison in the first round, and
25:57
Speaker 4: then in the second round they take t J. Sanders,
25:59
Speaker 4: they try to purtigious handers, and then they take Dean
26:01
Speaker 4: Walker from Kentucky in the fourth who even though Dion
26:03
Speaker 4: Walker is a mountain of a man and has played
26:05
Speaker 4: much better run defense this year than I ever would
26:07
Speaker 4: have given him credit for. He was still a mountain
26:10
Speaker 4: of a man that played a finesse, kind of penetrating
26:12
Speaker 4: game at Kentucky. He's lining up anywhere from a zero
26:15
Speaker 4: all the way up to like a five and sometimes
26:17
Speaker 4: wider than that, but more as a rusher. He's a rusher,
26:19
Speaker 4: he's a penetrator. They've used him more as a one
26:22
Speaker 4: tech if this year because they've had to, and again
26:24
Speaker 4: he's shown up better than I thought he would. But
26:27
Speaker 4: according to Tylee Williams, defensive tackle from Ohio State who
26:30
Speaker 4: went to the Lions, he says that the Bills told
26:33
Speaker 4: him if he was there at the end of round one,
26:35
Speaker 4: the Bills were taking him. So I hear that after
26:38
Speaker 4: night one and I'm like, oh, they are going to
26:41
Speaker 4: go for more of like the one tech, Like they
26:43
Speaker 4: are going to go for a little more size, but
26:44
Speaker 4: more of that skill set that trade more you know,
26:47
Speaker 4: displacement mitigation and kind of body eater. And so then
26:52
Speaker 4: they trade up in the second round and I'm like, oh,
26:55
Speaker 4: is it gonna be for Alfred Collins from Texas? Like
26:56
Speaker 4: he doesn't give you much as a rusher, but okay,
26:59
Speaker 4: spacey people, leader, It's like no t J. Sanders and
27:02
Speaker 4: then Dean Walker. Also we signed Larry Ogan Jobey in
27:05
Speaker 4: the offseason, and everything is just so like lean into
27:08
Speaker 4: the threes, like quick threes. Like you said, it's all
27:10
Speaker 4: like three TECH pieces. And then even day Kwon Jones,
27:14
Speaker 4: who's there starting one tech coming into the year, it
27:16
Speaker 4: was gonna be him next to Ed Oliver, they've both been.
27:18
Speaker 1: Banged up, but Oliver goes down, they.
27:21
Speaker 4: Start putting Walker more at one. They have day Kwon
27:25
Speaker 4: Jones play the three and Jones a sweet at it.
27:27
Speaker 4: Why because he was a three everywhere else he was
27:30
Speaker 4: so even like they're starting one Tech is still more
27:33
Speaker 4: of a three, and I don't think that's that's necessarily
27:36
Speaker 4: terrible and in of itself. And Brandon Bean's on the
27:38
Speaker 4: record saying it a bunch like they value inside Russian,
27:41
Speaker 4: those are the guys that get paid more, and it's
27:43
Speaker 4: harder to find inside Russian.
27:45
Speaker 1: I get that, but.
27:46
Speaker 4: Constructing your interior defensive line solely out of those guys,
27:51
Speaker 4: and also having smaller linebackers and a smaller nickel in
27:57
Speaker 4: Taron Johnson, even though Johnson's awesome, but he's been banged
28:00
Speaker 4: this year, Like you alluded to, it just creates this
28:03
Speaker 4: spine where you have guys who struggle to get off blocks,
28:06
Speaker 4: struggle with block deconstruction, and that's part of why they
28:10
Speaker 4: have They're historically bad this year for yards after contact.
28:13
Speaker 1: They're not terrible with yards before contact.
28:16
Speaker 4: They're not getting blown off the ball, but they're getting
28:18
Speaker 4: moved and they're not getting.
28:20
Speaker 1: Off blocks, so they're just able to get arms or shoulders.
28:22
Speaker 4: And then you add in struggles from the second level
28:24
Speaker 4: when Taylor Rap was coming down earlier in the year, Cold
28:26
Speaker 4: Bishop was coming down earlier in the year. And then
28:29
Speaker 4: I think the single high stuff is so funny that
28:31
Speaker 4: you mentioned in funny in a bad way, because coming
28:33
Speaker 4: into this year, the safeties are going to be Taylor
28:36
Speaker 4: rapping Cold Bishop and Taylor Rap. If he's your single
28:39
Speaker 4: high post safety, he's got some of the processing. He
28:43
Speaker 4: doesn't have the wheels, he doesn't have the range, he
28:44
Speaker 4: doesn't have.
28:45
Speaker 1: The foot speed.
28:46
Speaker 4: If Cold Bishop is in the post, he's got the
28:48
Speaker 4: rains in the athleticism, but he's still working out his angles,
28:51
Speaker 4: he's still working out his processing. Because him and Sioni Vaki,
28:55
Speaker 4: the other safety at Utah a couple of years ago,
28:57
Speaker 4: were some of the most fun dudes to watch, but
29:00
Speaker 4: they were more like big nickel monster men Apex, where
29:03
Speaker 4: they were all in and around the box and line
29:05
Speaker 4: of scrimmage, matching with tight ends, running backs, blitzing.
29:08
Speaker 1: That's where Cole Bishop said his best.
29:10
Speaker 4: He's developed the you know farther, you know the farther
29:13
Speaker 4: he's gone from the line of scrimmage this year and
29:14
Speaker 4: made some plays. But then it was like, Okay, you're
29:17
Speaker 4: getting run on. You don't have the spine to mitigate
29:20
Speaker 4: the run. Then you also have to walk a safety
29:22
Speaker 4: down and you're putting one of those safeties in the post,
29:25
Speaker 4: and neither of your safeties are built to live in
29:27
Speaker 4: the post. And then, and you mentioned this with Brett,
29:31
Speaker 4: you're playing single high. But then some of their their
29:34
Speaker 4: gap integrity was poor, so now they're getting gassed when
29:36
Speaker 4: they're in single high. They don't have that extra third
29:38
Speaker 4: layer to help them out. Then you're pairing it with
29:41
Speaker 4: a single high safety that's coming off the top who's
29:43
Speaker 4: not taking a proper angle, and all these things start
29:46
Speaker 4: compounding and it leads to a spot where I understand
29:50
Speaker 4: the Bills philosophy, and it ties into everything you've said
29:53
Speaker 4: so far, which is still like, even though the run
29:55
Speaker 4: is a primary piece, limit the pass. The pass is
29:58
Speaker 4: still kind of number one. And the Bills they want
30:01
Speaker 4: to limit explosives. Nothing gets behind us. That's why they
30:04
Speaker 4: want with two high coverages so much for years. But
30:07
Speaker 4: you can be that way, you just can't be like
30:10
Speaker 4: completely all versus the run.
30:13
Speaker 1: And that's what they've been, like it's the pendulum swung
30:16
Speaker 1: so far.
30:17
Speaker 4: And that kind of leads into like my, my, you know,
30:20
Speaker 4: you mentioned it a bunch, but like kind of the
30:21
Speaker 4: next topic with it that I want to get into here,
30:24
Speaker 4: and it ties into the Bills, like kind of the
30:26
Speaker 4: ideal body types or skill sets or traits you need
30:29
Speaker 4: to have defensively today because I think so much of
30:33
Speaker 4: like I think the nickel position because of the spread
30:36
Speaker 4: and how the game started to move true Nichols and
30:40
Speaker 4: everybody started moving to nickel. But like true Nichols, who
30:43
Speaker 4: could fit the run and play coverage became so valuable,
30:46
Speaker 4: like Mike Hilton in Cincinnati, Kenny Moore in Indianapolis, Taron.
30:49
Speaker 1: Johnson for the Bills.
30:50
Speaker 4: But now you're starting to get true like twelve personnel,
30:56
Speaker 4: true thirteen or true twenty one or twenty two and
30:59
Speaker 4: if you're not able to match that with the run,
31:00
Speaker 4: teams are gonna mash you even though they still can
31:02
Speaker 4: pass out of it. And now they're using personnel to
31:06
Speaker 4: dictate so much to defenses and situation is coming into play,
31:11
Speaker 4: and I think the Bills at all of that are
31:13
Speaker 4: kind of like, like you said, caught in this in
31:15
Speaker 4: between where they don't have the body types or the
31:19
Speaker 4: scheme to kind of hang with the run because everything
31:23
Speaker 4: is so you know, four down over front, one gap penetrating.
31:27
Speaker 4: We might get a tackle for loss, or you might
31:28
Speaker 4: gash us for fifteen yards and we'll play that risk
31:31
Speaker 4: and reward type of strategy, which has worked for them
31:34
Speaker 4: in the past, but just with where the game is going,
31:36
Speaker 4: it's so questionable for them, And so I kick it
31:40
Speaker 4: to you now, like the the ideal body types, skill sets,
31:44
Speaker 4: traits to have defensively, I'm gonna say this multiple times
31:46
Speaker 4: as we go through these next topics, like there's no
31:48
Speaker 4: one right way to build the defense. You've mentioned it
31:51
Speaker 4: several times already, Like defenses get into similar results differently.
31:54
Speaker 4: But when you look at certain body types or skill
31:57
Speaker 4: sets or traits that NFL defenses should have, Now, what
32:01
Speaker 4: are they where are they, like, what do you think
32:03
Speaker 4: is premium or priority to kind of allow defenses to
32:07
Speaker 4: counter what offenses have kind of done now to take
32:10
Speaker 4: some of the power back.
32:11
Speaker 3: Well, all start. Probably the team just in terms of
32:14
Speaker 3: just stylistically are similar is probably the Chargers. And so
32:20
Speaker 3: what's the biggest difference between the Chargers and you guys?
32:24
Speaker 3: And I think it's a little bit more of they
32:27
Speaker 3: have bigger bodies inside. I mean last year Punaford and
32:31
Speaker 3: tier Tart were in there the entire time. Anytime they
32:34
Speaker 3: were nickel, they had two noses. Now you're not going
32:37
Speaker 3: to get a pass rush. And so again I think
32:38
Speaker 3: it goes back to gms have beliefs and systems and
32:44
Speaker 3: like you said, being really they value and you can
32:46
Speaker 3: tell this because the whole roster is this way. They
32:48
Speaker 3: really value into your pass rush yep. And so at
32:52
Speaker 3: the end of the day, though, you have to start thinking, okay,
32:54
Speaker 3: well we need to add a guy that on early
32:58
Speaker 3: downs or when we need to play base, we can
33:01
Speaker 3: put a nose and he could just sit on top
33:03
Speaker 3: of the center and you don't have to necessarily get
33:07
Speaker 3: into a bear front or a five man front. You
33:10
Speaker 3: can do different things to do that, you can play
33:13
Speaker 3: walk a guy down, which I think again goes back
33:16
Speaker 3: to what's kind of the new trend that we're seeing.
33:18
Speaker 3: I mean, you just saw it really in The Eagles,
33:21
Speaker 3: where Bond and Jihad Campbell can both walk down to
33:25
Speaker 3: the edge. Now, Bond a lot of times is a
33:27
Speaker 3: grab I call him a grab me player. He's gonna
33:30
Speaker 3: grab a tight end to the flat. He's gonna grab
33:32
Speaker 3: a running back to the flat. He's not really a
33:34
Speaker 3: pass rusher. He's there more to change the structure he
33:36
Speaker 3: can hold up. If he needs to on the edge,
33:39
Speaker 3: you're gonna put it. You're not necessarily gonna put him
33:40
Speaker 3: on a tight end. I think you have to have
33:43
Speaker 3: rooms within a rooms nowadays, like you almost have to
33:46
Speaker 3: have like I need a big five, I need a guy.
33:49
Speaker 3: I think Bosa can transition into this. I think like
33:52
Speaker 3: as he gets older, I see him he could easily
33:54
Speaker 3: become like a DeMarcus Lawrence where I just look in
33:58
Speaker 3: I'm an immovable object because I'm an absolute alien of
34:01
Speaker 3: a human being, and I want to rush the passer.
34:03
Speaker 3: But I also understand that that's kind of like too
34:06
Speaker 3: far gone for me. I still think he's pretty good
34:08
Speaker 3: at rushing the past, but I think we're long gone
34:11
Speaker 3: for I don't think we're going to see an eighteen
34:13
Speaker 3: SAX season out of him, just you know what I mean.
34:15
Speaker 4: Especially he's not prime Dallas Cowboys DeMarcus Lawrence. But you
34:19
Speaker 4: can still send him inside to pick someone or spay
34:22
Speaker 4: the hell out of something, or beat the hell out
34:23
Speaker 4: of a tight end or a tackle and let some
34:25
Speaker 4: of their other fast following dudes, especially the second level,
34:27
Speaker 4: but even the interior kind of do work alongside with
34:30
Speaker 4: what he provides.
34:31
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, imagine him versus a tight end like line him.
34:34
Speaker 3: I mean, I think for him to be a big
34:36
Speaker 3: five and then you find a way you really need
34:38
Speaker 3: a linebacker. Look, I love Bernard. I'm a Baylor guy
34:41
Speaker 3: as you know, so I huge Bernard fan. The twenty
34:44
Speaker 3: twenty one Baylor team is still one of my favorite
34:46
Speaker 3: teams of all time. Well because it had Petrie and
34:48
Speaker 3: him on it. They could do They literally could do
34:50
Speaker 3: anything that they wanted. And so I think what you
34:54
Speaker 3: the problem is is like I don't want to line
34:56
Speaker 3: him up on the line. I don't think Matt Mulano
34:58
Speaker 3: was built to line up on the line either. I
35:00
Speaker 3: don't think that's his skill set. I think he's a
35:02
Speaker 3: box backer. I think he's a coverage linebacker. So you
35:04
Speaker 3: have two coverage linebackers you really need to either have
35:06
Speaker 3: like you need to go get a Georgia linebacker that
35:09
Speaker 3: really knows how to blitz the a gap, Like I
35:11
Speaker 3: don't know what it is. They all tend to just
35:13
Speaker 3: really be able. You know. They got a guy with
35:16
Speaker 3: the Eagles, they got a guy with the Packers. They
35:18
Speaker 3: kind of are the same dude, and they can do
35:19
Speaker 3: the same things. You know. Then you have a guy
35:23
Speaker 3: that I think like a Ghi Cambell. One of the
35:25
Speaker 3: things with him coming out, people couldn't figure out what
35:28
Speaker 3: they wanted to do, So there were teams that just
35:30
Speaker 3: didn't draft him or didn't even have him on the
35:32
Speaker 3: board because they didn't think that their team had a
35:34
Speaker 3: plan for him.
35:35
Speaker 1: Right.
35:35
Speaker 3: But I think that you can easily there's really nothing
35:38
Speaker 3: to go from a G front where our nose which
35:41
Speaker 3: is what a lot of times with the Bills play,
35:43
Speaker 3: which is nose on the guard to a shade nose.
35:47
Speaker 3: Move that guy like a Bosa maybe in from a
35:50
Speaker 3: five to a four eye and then just go walk
35:53
Speaker 3: a guy down or even some of the guys that
35:55
Speaker 3: you have. I mean, it's nothing to go play on
35:58
Speaker 3: the outside shoulder of a guard or inside shoulder of
36:00
Speaker 3: a tack will kind of get wider head up on
36:02
Speaker 3: a tackle to really protect that guy and then be
36:05
Speaker 3: able to get some into five man spacing things. Five
36:08
Speaker 3: man spacing is not great though. A lot of the
36:11
Speaker 3: coaches who were really high in it, like you can
36:13
Speaker 3: see Vic Tangios, kind of moved away from it. The
36:15
Speaker 3: one team that has not though is Shula, and the
36:18
Speaker 3: reason why is because he's a Wade Phillips guy at heart,
36:22
Speaker 3: and he wants to run a five man front. And
36:24
Speaker 3: who's the best five man front probably is the Denver Broncos.
36:28
Speaker 3: So it's like that those are the same tree guys.
36:31
Speaker 3: So imagine like the Fangio back end with a Wade
36:34
Speaker 3: Phillips pass rush, and that's what you have with the Rams,
36:38
Speaker 3: and I think you have with the Bills. You just
36:40
Speaker 3: need to find a way to get some sort of
36:44
Speaker 3: a workhorse inside not don't go break the bank if
36:49
Speaker 3: for whatever reason, oddly a guy like a Quinn Williams
36:53
Speaker 3: falls to you. The problem with the Bills too, is
36:55
Speaker 3: they're always going to be They're always going to be
36:57
Speaker 3: in the back the back third of the draft. So
37:00
Speaker 3: the premium big guys. You know, God doesn't make a
37:03
Speaker 3: lot of those guys, and that's why they go at
37:05
Speaker 3: the top of the draft, just because when you can
37:07
Speaker 3: get a guy like that, you draft them because they
37:10
Speaker 3: don't there. There just aren't a lot of guys like that,
37:13
Speaker 3: and so I think that you need to find though
37:15
Speaker 3: you can easily find a work horse, and I think
37:18
Speaker 3: that's what you gotta find. You need to find you
37:20
Speaker 3: like an Andrew Billings guy, you know, an another another Baylor.
37:23
Speaker 4: Guy, but like a guy, yeah, another Baylor guy.
37:27
Speaker 3: I remember and too. I watched the Bears play the
37:30
Speaker 3: forty nine ers last night and it's like I always remember, like,
37:32
Speaker 3: oh yeah, that's big, and that's big big, that's big
37:34
Speaker 3: big Billings. So like I, you know, you need a
37:37
Speaker 3: guy like that that can waste. Like if the teams
37:39
Speaker 3: want to get big on you, you can answer that, yeah,
37:42
Speaker 3: he doesn't need he's not playing sixty snaps. He's playing
37:45
Speaker 3: more like twenty five thirty snaps for you. You're keeping
37:48
Speaker 3: them fresh, but you're taking them out on third downs.
37:51
Speaker 3: You got the third down package. That's not the problem.
37:54
Speaker 3: The problem right now is how can we win early downs?
37:57
Speaker 3: And like you said, the difference between you and the
37:59
Speaker 3: Chargers is that the Chargers aren't giving up explosives. Yeah,
38:02
Speaker 3: they're giving up four and a half yards of carry
38:05
Speaker 3: on gap scheme, but they're not giving up the chunk
38:08
Speaker 3: plays that the Bills are, which are backbreakers. Any explosive
38:11
Speaker 3: play in the run game is a backbreaker because you're
38:14
Speaker 3: not that's not ben don't break. And I know that
38:16
Speaker 3: that's a dirty word and people don't want to I
38:19
Speaker 3: know fans don't want to hear that at all, but
38:22
Speaker 3: they know that. To me is the thing though, is
38:25
Speaker 3: like you're making them play more downs, which is going
38:29
Speaker 3: to give you more opportunities to get the ball in
38:31
Speaker 3: your hand. They're gonna make a mistake, they're gonna have
38:34
Speaker 3: a false start, they're gonna have a procedure penalty, they're
38:36
Speaker 3: gonna have a holding. And so the more plays you
38:38
Speaker 3: make and you keep them going down, then the longer
38:42
Speaker 3: that's gonna last, and then you're gonna have opportunities to
38:46
Speaker 3: get them in the hole.
38:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's when Leslie Fraser was a Bill's defensive coordinator.
38:51
Speaker 4: Like Hem mcdermal are, on that page. It's part of
38:53
Speaker 4: why they wanted to put a cap on everything. It
38:54
Speaker 4: was like, because we want you to have to go eight,
38:57
Speaker 4: nine to ten play drives, because we think you're either
39:00
Speaker 4: going to make a mistake like you said, or we're
39:01
Speaker 4: gonna get a sack or we're gonna get a tackle
39:03
Speaker 4: for loss. We'll get you behind the sticks, we'll create
39:05
Speaker 4: an advantageous spot for us, and we'll get there. And
39:09
Speaker 4: now it's been like that's kind of still their mindset,
39:12
Speaker 4: but they're giving up like eight yards, fifteen yards, twenty yards,
39:16
Speaker 4: seven yards, sixteen yards and kind of further your point there,
39:19
Speaker 4: the Bills are have given up the second most runs
39:22
Speaker 4: of ten or more yards this year with sixty five.
39:25
Speaker 4: The Chargers are fifteenth in the league at forty eight,
39:29
Speaker 4: so almost twenty less, which is a crazy amount of difference.
39:32
Speaker 4: The only team worse than the Bills in explosive runs
39:35
Speaker 4: given up is the New York Giants, and they've just
39:37
Speaker 4: been an absolute fire on that side of the overall. Yeah,
39:40
Speaker 4: it's the Giants. Like, you don't want to be in that.
39:42
Speaker 4: You don't want to be in any conversation where it's
39:44
Speaker 4: like you and the Giants it's like, that's not fun.
39:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, any team from Yeah, you guys are the only
39:49
Speaker 3: good team in New York. Any that's right, Let's.
39:51
Speaker 4: Stay from yeah, stay away from the Jersey teams. Yeah,
39:54
Speaker 4: the New Jersey teams that they are no good right now?
39:56
Speaker 1: You don't want to be associated with that.
39:58
Speaker 4: And you know you you mentioned a lot of the
40:01
Speaker 4: conversation about linebacker and the Bills. They move some of
40:05
Speaker 4: Matt Mullano's money around and so it looks like he's
40:08
Speaker 4: probably not going to be here next year. But they
40:10
Speaker 4: locked up Bernard for the foreseeable future. They've got Dorny
40:13
Speaker 4: and Williams. Shack Thompson has been a revelation for them
40:16
Speaker 4: this year and been their best linebacker, in part because
40:18
Speaker 4: Bernard has been hurt. Though Milana is coming kind of
40:20
Speaker 4: back on a little bit. What do you see for
40:23
Speaker 4: like the linebacker position going forward? Because you said it
40:26
Speaker 4: on one of the Let's Talk Ball podcasts that I
40:28
Speaker 4: was checking out recently, of kind of like how the
40:31
Speaker 4: linebacker is like the defensive version of the running backs
40:34
Speaker 4: don't matter thing where everybody kind of forgot about the linebacker, Like,
40:37
Speaker 4: what do you see now, especially with how much the
40:40
Speaker 4: run is becoming a primary thing for offenses and personnel
40:44
Speaker 4: and dictation and everything offenses are doing.
40:46
Speaker 1: What do you see for linebackers kind of going forward?
40:49
Speaker 3: Is it?
40:49
Speaker 4: Is it like, hey, we got to get bigger, We
40:51
Speaker 4: got to get dudes who can thump a little bit.
40:53
Speaker 4: And then tying into something you mentioned earlier, like where
40:56
Speaker 4: do you get that? Because so much of the college
40:58
Speaker 4: game isn't building though guys like that. They are building
41:01
Speaker 4: more of like kind of the spread type of linebackers,
41:04
Speaker 4: Like where do you see kind of what the future
41:06
Speaker 4: of the linebacker position, how much it matters, and the
41:09
Speaker 4: type of like body types you know teams need at it.
41:12
Speaker 3: Well, I think like staying in the division, like the
41:14
Speaker 3: Chiefs are a great example of, like they found a
41:17
Speaker 3: guy that can line up on the line of scrim
41:19
Speaker 3: and channel. They found a cover a really good coverage
41:22
Speaker 3: guy in Tranquill. I mean there's clips of Tranquil in
41:24
Speaker 3: the DP half as a safety. Right.
41:26
Speaker 4: Oh my yeah, I remember that last year clipping stuff
41:28
Speaker 4: where I'm like twenty three, I'm like that's Tranquill.
41:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's playing split field safety. I'm like, what the
41:33
Speaker 1: hell is going on? It's so cool?
41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and now you know, Bernard could probably do
41:37
Speaker 3: that not saying and that's not really in their stylespac
41:39
Speaker 3: you know, Spags Fags has to do this most bizarre stuff.
41:42
Speaker 3: I think he's calmed down this year just because the
41:44
Speaker 3: defense just hasn't been there. But then you go with Bolton,
41:47
Speaker 3: and Bolton's a true mike backer. Yeah, now he can
41:50
Speaker 3: guard a running back if you need him to, but
41:52
Speaker 3: he's really kind of a B to B player. He's
41:54
Speaker 3: not he's not really supposed to be outside of the
41:57
Speaker 3: sea guy. And I think, like if you and then so,
42:00
Speaker 3: I think that's a good example there. I think a
42:02
Speaker 3: lot of the linebacker Like, I really think there's a
42:05
Speaker 3: lot of teams that would love to have the Lions linebackers. Now,
42:08
Speaker 3: I don't like a defensive scheme that it lives on
42:11
Speaker 3: a razor's edge. Basically, what that means is, if all
42:15
Speaker 3: eleven are healthy, we're really good. If all eleven aren't healthy,
42:18
Speaker 3: we're not very good. Screw, that's not a good scheme
42:21
Speaker 3: to me in an eighteen week season. And so I
42:24
Speaker 3: think what you need to do is, like I mentioned earlier,
42:26
Speaker 3: like the room within a room, you have a big five,
42:29
Speaker 3: you have your Russians. Your drop in your edges. Right,
42:32
Speaker 3: you have a defensive ends and you have edges, you
42:34
Speaker 3: have three techniques, and you have noses. I think even
42:36
Speaker 3: at the linebacker spot, you need to have a B
42:38
Speaker 3: to B player, You need to have an outside the
42:41
Speaker 3: box player. I think Bernard is perfect will linebacker. I
42:44
Speaker 3: think that's the guy that you need to have to
42:46
Speaker 3: the boundary. Let him play in the will. But you
42:49
Speaker 3: also have I think, like you just played a team
42:51
Speaker 3: that's a great example of this. Again of two is like, okay,
42:54
Speaker 3: well you have Nikobe Dean, who is a Georgia linebacker
42:58
Speaker 3: and I mentioned him really good blitz in gap. He's
43:01
Speaker 3: a B to B player, Right. You have Zach Bond,
43:04
Speaker 3: who is a great coverage linebacker, can give you some
43:07
Speaker 3: edge presence if you need it, but that's not really
43:09
Speaker 3: his game. He can line up in mike if you
43:11
Speaker 3: need it. And then you have a guy like a
43:13
Speaker 3: G Hot Campbell, who is really your hybrid guy. He
43:16
Speaker 3: can line up at the edge, he can play coverage
43:19
Speaker 3: if he needs to. And so I think you kind
43:21
Speaker 3: of need those three spots. You even look at, you
43:25
Speaker 3: even look at kind of like what the Lions and
43:27
Speaker 3: he's brought them up. Barnes nobody, not a lot of
43:30
Speaker 3: people talk about Barnes. Barnes makes it so that they
43:33
Speaker 3: can run that three for He's the old school. I'm
43:36
Speaker 3: gonna I'm gonna drop another old school for you. The
43:39
Speaker 3: Ted linebacker right. Why is it Ted linebacker because it
43:42
Speaker 3: has a te in it. Where do you think he
43:44
Speaker 3: lines up on the tied end? Right? So you have
43:47
Speaker 3: these the Ted linebackers back right, So he lines up
43:50
Speaker 3: on a tied end. He can guard a back out.
43:53
Speaker 3: You have Azeloney who is a great coverage backer, you know.
43:57
Speaker 3: And then you have Jack Campbell, who is what an
43:59
Speaker 3: a to a player if he needs to rush a
44:01
Speaker 3: running back, if he needs to cover running back into
44:03
Speaker 3: the flat, you're not really worried about that. You're not
44:06
Speaker 3: asking him to cover a tight end. But you start
44:09
Speaker 3: looking at some of these teams. Why are the Jaguars
44:11
Speaker 3: so good? Well, they kind of have a front structure
44:15
Speaker 3: that they've got the guys. They have every type of
44:17
Speaker 3: body that you need. They have two they have a
44:19
Speaker 3: tackling just guru in Ola Kong. And then you have
44:24
Speaker 3: Lloyd who is just kind of this freak like passing
44:26
Speaker 3: line like coverage linebacker, So they have both of those guys, right,
44:31
Speaker 3: and so like you start looking around at some of
44:33
Speaker 3: these defenses that are really good, and you're like, wait
44:36
Speaker 3: a second, they have pretty good linebacker play. Look, I'm
44:38
Speaker 3: a big Broncos fan. One thing that scares me is
44:42
Speaker 3: anytime that those linebackers have to get covered. So that's
44:44
Speaker 3: why do you think we play so much man coverage?
44:46
Speaker 1: Dude, I was thinking that I was. I dove into
44:49
Speaker 1: uh package.
44:50
Speaker 4: I've watched a bunch of Broncos this year, but I
44:52
Speaker 4: really dove into Packers Broncos and then Jagg's Broncos, and
44:55
Speaker 4: especially when the Packers game. Like one of my takeaways
44:57
Speaker 4: was like green Lawn Singleton and coverage like I get,
45:01
Speaker 4: I mean, and also too like no disrespect to them,
45:03
Speaker 4: Like I'd rather go there than like anywhere Pats Ertan
45:06
Speaker 4: is or having to deal with the front and like
45:08
Speaker 4: Rythy Moss probably doesn't get the credit he deserves because
45:10
Speaker 4: everybody throws it in because the don't.
45:11
Speaker 3: Want to go with Pat.
45:12
Speaker 4: But like, yeah, like you can get green Lawn Singleton,
45:15
Speaker 4: but granted, teams are gonna go there anyway because they're
45:17
Speaker 4: sick everywhere else.
45:18
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, right, So you can see like there's
45:22
Speaker 3: some outliers, but that whole defensive unit is really good.
45:24
Speaker 3: That kind of carries him, right. You know, look at
45:26
Speaker 3: why did the Rams get so good this year? Well
45:28
Speaker 3: they sign a guy named Landman. Okay, and so I'm
45:32
Speaker 3: also a Colorado buff fan, so I know who Landman is.
45:35
Speaker 2: Right.
45:35
Speaker 3: So when you're like, wait to think that guy was
45:36
Speaker 3: just a regular dude with the Falcons, and then he
45:39
Speaker 3: comes in and it's like, yeah, but he's an A player.
45:41
Speaker 3: He's an A to A B to B player. That's
45:43
Speaker 3: all they need. They got a fine man front. They
45:45
Speaker 3: just need you to plug a gap. Yep, that's it.
45:47
Speaker 3: And two, you know, just watching before we came on,
45:50
Speaker 3: I mean he made a couple of really nice plays
45:52
Speaker 3: taken on guards, So you know that's the thing is
45:54
Speaker 3: like I need that guy that can play B to B.
45:58
Speaker 3: Then so you start looking at some of these teams
46:00
Speaker 3: that are really good and you're like, Okay, this is
46:03
Speaker 3: a good scheme. I like what they're doing. And it's like, well, yeah,
46:05
Speaker 3: that's because they've got you know, they kind of have
46:08
Speaker 3: every body type that you need. You know, the argument
46:11
Speaker 3: like if you're sitting there like yeah, the Chiefs weren't
46:13
Speaker 3: really good. You're right, they don't have any pass rush
46:16
Speaker 3: on the defensive line outside of Chris Jones. But those
46:18
Speaker 3: linebackers you can't get if you you run the ball
46:21
Speaker 3: to the second level. Guess what they are. They're really
46:23
Speaker 3: good at stopping the run there. It's not that great
46:24
Speaker 3: a pass just because just a personnel. So you start
46:28
Speaker 3: really looking around and you're like, well, how can we
46:30
Speaker 3: fix this. I think that there's ways, and I do
46:32
Speaker 3: think that there's a market deficiency in linebacker. I think
46:35
Speaker 3: that you can get really good linebackers as long as
46:37
Speaker 3: you don't get Please don't pick up Kenneth Murray from
46:40
Speaker 3: the Cowboys when they when they.
46:41
Speaker 1: Don't get away.
46:42
Speaker 4: I really thought once Logan Wilson came in, I was like, okay,
46:45
Speaker 4: that's it. Like Olverstone's coming back and that's it. And
46:47
Speaker 4: then like Murray just keeps getting work.
46:49
Speaker 3: There's a there's a rumor that that's a that's eber
46:52
Speaker 3: Flu's digging Jerry Jones. That's okay. If you remember Mike
46:57
Speaker 3: McCarthy didn't play Mingo because he i s to a
47:00
Speaker 3: fourth round pick. This is kind of one of those
47:02
Speaker 3: like I'm just not going to play your new toy
47:04
Speaker 3: because you go troll me on. Yeah, I hear all
47:11
Speaker 3: the mess of if I bring up the Cowboys too much,
47:12
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. You know, at least we haven't talked about
47:15
Speaker 3: Dak's legacy yet, so you know it hasn't become a
47:18
Speaker 3: football a full football show yet.
47:20
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
47:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Dak Prescott discourse is always so I what
47:24
Speaker 4: did I?
47:24
Speaker 1: I clipped.
47:26
Speaker 4: I was watching some of the I forget everything's blended together,
47:29
Speaker 4: the Thanksgiving games, Christmas games, all that, but the I
47:32
Speaker 4: think was the Thanksgiving you know, the Christmas game when
47:34
Speaker 4: he uh he hits Kamante Turpin on that beautiful ball
47:40
Speaker 4: off the take. Washington runs like the Tampa too robber
47:43
Speaker 4: Tampasa invert. However you label it beautiful ball to Turpin,
47:45
Speaker 4: and I clipped it. I was like this, like this
47:47
Speaker 4: is one of my favorite coverage of the team's playing.
47:49
Speaker 4: Dak just beats it with a gorgeous ball perfectly in stride.
47:52
Speaker 4: And I had so many people were coming in and
47:53
Speaker 4: we're like Jack's so overrated, Dak sucks. And then other
47:56
Speaker 4: people that were coming in and were like teach tape
47:58
Speaker 4: from Dak Prescott and it's always just so much.
48:00
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, there is no You either love him
48:03
Speaker 3: or hate him. Yeah, that's the whole that's the whole thing.
48:05
Speaker 3: So it's so crazy. Yeah, no, it's it's it's a mess.
48:10
Speaker 3: But you know, to go back to the point. Sorry,
48:12
Speaker 3: I got h stuff on it.
48:13
Speaker 1: Oh I don't know.
48:15
Speaker 4: And I also got a buddy too, who covers the Lions,
48:18
Speaker 4: who was always talking to me about Derek Barnes.
48:20
Speaker 1: And he's going to be so happy with this convers.
48:21
Speaker 3: Okay, good, yes, because he's is. If you are alliance fan,
48:24
Speaker 3: you love him. But if you get you probably like
48:26
Speaker 3: you're like, who is it? That's fifty five for the Lions.
48:29
Speaker 3: He's pretty good. You won't ever notice him because he
48:31
Speaker 3: does a lot of the dirty work, I think transitioning
48:33
Speaker 3: to his secondary. I love the Hairston pick. I think
48:36
Speaker 3: I talked to you guys in the offseason two dear
48:38
Speaker 3: in the draft, and I was like, I think that's
48:39
Speaker 3: a great pick. He's long, athletic, it's going to take
48:41
Speaker 3: him some time. That's a perfect field corner for your
48:44
Speaker 3: Benford boundary corner. And if you're sitting here like field boundary,
48:48
Speaker 3: I thought the NFL plays in midfield. You're right, But
48:50
Speaker 3: a lot of these defensives now are kind of going
48:52
Speaker 3: a collegiate style where you're having really kind of the
48:56
Speaker 3: nickel play to the field. You're having guy or the
48:58
Speaker 3: passing strengths, depending on how you want to call it.
49:01
Speaker 3: So you have a guy that goes with the nickel
49:03
Speaker 3: hand in hand, and then you have a guy that
49:05
Speaker 3: goes with your will linebacker hand in hand. And so
49:08
Speaker 3: Benford is a great boundary corner because he can play man,
49:11
Speaker 3: he can press, he can get off, and I think
49:13
Speaker 3: they've done a great job of weaponizing him recently just
49:17
Speaker 3: with some of the pressures and some things. I thought
49:18
Speaker 3: the Bengals game was a great example of that, and
49:20
Speaker 3: so I think you've got that. I think Cold Bishop
49:22
Speaker 3: is going to be a great hybrid safety. I think so.
49:25
Speaker 3: I think if you're looking in the future, you probably
49:27
Speaker 3: need to go get a B to B linebacker, a
49:30
Speaker 3: box linebacker. I think you need to find you got
49:33
Speaker 3: to go find a safety, and you got to decide
49:35
Speaker 3: what you want to do a cold Bishop. Do you
49:36
Speaker 3: want him to play near the box primarily or do
49:39
Speaker 3: you want him to play in the post. I think
49:43
Speaker 3: you want hybrids that's a pipe dream. Every coach will
49:47
Speaker 3: tell you we want to teach left and right, and
49:50
Speaker 3: I think when you get guys. The Broncos were like
49:54
Speaker 3: that under Fangio. They had the two that could do it,
49:56
Speaker 3: like it's with Simmons and like you could do both
49:59
Speaker 3: of them can play the box whatever. That's a pipe drink.
50:02
Speaker 3: You're never really gonna I think the Packers could probably
50:04
Speaker 3: do it. The Packers actually do that a lot is
50:07
Speaker 3: with McKinney and williams Lambs. He didn't want them play
50:09
Speaker 3: down and so that again is not realistic. So you
50:14
Speaker 3: need to find a guy with a post skill set
50:16
Speaker 3: or a box skill set, and then that way you
50:18
Speaker 3: can just kind of rotate that way on early downs
50:21
Speaker 3: and then on third down. Obviously you want to be
50:23
Speaker 3: able to play it. But I think body type wise,
50:25
Speaker 3: that's what you should be looking at in the obseason.
50:28
Speaker 1: Very fair. I also like that because that echoes a
50:30
Speaker 1: lot of what I've said about cool Bishop. I appreciate the.
50:33
Speaker 4: Progress that he's made, you know, playing better the farther
50:37
Speaker 4: he's gotten from the line of scrimmage, especially as a
50:39
Speaker 4: single high guy, but even in two high structures he's
50:41
Speaker 4: gotten better at some of his angles and positioning, but yeah,
50:44
Speaker 4: I want him as a big nickel monster man apex
50:49
Speaker 4: type of dude, live in and around the box. I
50:51
Speaker 4: would love to pair him with more of a traditional
50:53
Speaker 4: free safety, and I don't want them complete completely isolated
50:55
Speaker 4: where it's like, yeah, a free safety can never come down,
50:58
Speaker 4: but having more of that win where yeah, getting going
51:01
Speaker 4: back to like those bills are a great example to
51:03
Speaker 4: MIKEL Hyde and Jordan Poyer, where either like they were
51:05
Speaker 4: at the forefront of that, it's no more free and
51:08
Speaker 4: no more strong.
51:08
Speaker 1: It's just two safeties.
51:10
Speaker 4: Granted Hide was a little more free, Employer was a
51:12
Speaker 4: little more strong, but you could take both and box,
51:15
Speaker 4: split field, single height didn't matter, they could do whatever.
51:18
Speaker 1: But it's so hard to get guys like that.
51:20
Speaker 4: And I think Bishop has done enough in showing progress
51:23
Speaker 4: as like a single high safety and a deeper coverage
51:25
Speaker 4: guy that he can live there. But I still want
51:28
Speaker 4: him in and around the box, playing top down, coming forward,
51:31
Speaker 4: And if they could pair him with a true free
51:33
Speaker 4: I think that would be so fun and exciting for
51:36
Speaker 4: them and kind of you know, tying into you know.
51:39
Speaker 4: So we talked about the body types and skill sets
51:40
Speaker 4: and traits to have defensively schematically, you know, again, a
51:44
Speaker 4: lot of ways to skin the cat.
51:45
Speaker 1: There's a multitude of ways you could be good.
51:47
Speaker 4: There's no one right way to build a defense, build
51:49
Speaker 4: a team, YadA YadA. What do you think there are
51:51
Speaker 4: some schematic principles that defenses need or should have today.
51:54
Speaker 4: It could be anything from front structure to coverage, structure,
51:57
Speaker 4: towards identity, philosophy, anything and everything. Just some principles or
52:01
Speaker 4: things that defenses should hang their hats on in today's NFL.
52:05
Speaker 3: I think just being multiple. I think that's really the
52:08
Speaker 3: key now is that That's why I think a lot
52:11
Speaker 3: of times, like the Vikings in the Browns are outliers
52:16
Speaker 3: in a sense that they don't really do much. Like
52:19
Speaker 3: the Browns, you kind of have an idea they're gonna
52:20
Speaker 3: you're gonna get a four to three Cover one. They
52:23
Speaker 3: will sprinkle in some Tampa two stuff as a change up.
52:26
Speaker 3: They'll play some Cover three. Obviously that's the king coverage
52:29
Speaker 3: in the NFL. But you kind of know down to
52:32
Speaker 3: down what you're gonna get. And I think, like the Vikings,
52:35
Speaker 3: you know, okay, we're gonna get about a fifty percent
52:37
Speaker 3: blitz rate, we're gonna get the all up on the line.
52:40
Speaker 3: They're going to play a lot of zone coverage. We
52:42
Speaker 3: kind of know that going in, right, But I think
52:45
Speaker 3: if you look at kind of everybody else, the entropy
52:48
Speaker 3: or like the diversity that you see is really high.
52:52
Speaker 3: I do like a kind of an an index, like
52:55
Speaker 3: on my stat site. I do like each week I'll
52:58
Speaker 3: do like a coverage entrope, like how diverse are you in?
53:01
Speaker 3: Then rated?
53:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's awesome. Those graphics look great. They're so colorful
53:05
Speaker 4: and they highlight everything.
53:06
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
53:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, with the spider charts and how everything goes. Yeah,
53:09
Speaker 1: that's awesome stuff.
53:10
Speaker 3: Well, the point to that is like we're still like
53:13
Speaker 3: most teams are close to eighty. I mean like most
53:16
Speaker 3: teams are doing a lot, and so I think how
53:19
Speaker 3: that's kind of changed how teams go about. I think
53:22
Speaker 3: like the static nature of it. Like I go back
53:25
Speaker 3: to Dallas again, when Zimmer was the everybody was really
53:27
Speaker 3: excited because all the double A gap pressures and he's
53:30
Speaker 3: gonna run some different things. It's not just gonna be
53:32
Speaker 3: cover one in Trapp Two's with like Quinn was, and
53:34
Speaker 3: it's like yeah, but then he doesn't move. So it's
53:37
Speaker 3: like if I give you two safeties and the corners
53:40
Speaker 3: are also off, I know it's cover four. If the
53:41
Speaker 3: corners are kind of pressed up, I know it's cover two.
53:44
Speaker 3: Right you rorotate, I know it's cover three. So it's
53:47
Speaker 3: like you knew what it was. And I think a
53:50
Speaker 3: guy like you, you're finding out that some of these rotations.
53:54
Speaker 3: I know I've talked to you guys, multiple guys from you,
53:58
Speaker 3: guys that have talked about like more simulated pressures, we're
54:01
Speaker 3: dropping sense events, we're doing some different rush patterns. Pivoting
54:06
Speaker 3: to more of a cover three team is another kind
54:10
Speaker 3: of maturation process of like, hey, we've got to change.
54:13
Speaker 3: And I think, like when you look across, like you mentioned,
54:15
Speaker 3: there's no one way to do it. Look, I think
54:17
Speaker 3: everybody would love to have the rams D line. If
54:19
Speaker 3: everybody had the rams D line or the Broncos D line,
54:22
Speaker 3: they play five man fronts. I think the Vikings are
54:24
Speaker 3: the same way. Why do they play so much five
54:25
Speaker 3: man front Well, I think everybody would like their you know,
54:28
Speaker 3: their defensive line. So it's like that makes sense. Then
54:31
Speaker 3: you go to the to the Texans and you're like,
54:33
Speaker 3: well they don't really run a lot of five man fronts. Well, yeah,
54:36
Speaker 3: but they've got guys all right, they only they don't
54:38
Speaker 3: have to and their linebackers are good enough that they
54:41
Speaker 3: don't have to. So I think, like it's all stylistic.
54:45
Speaker 3: But I think what you're seeing now is is that
54:47
Speaker 3: you you can't really go small, I mean, or you
54:50
Speaker 3: can't really go too big. I think the Lions are
54:53
Speaker 3: a great example of we try and run everything out
54:56
Speaker 3: of base, but we can only do that if both
55:00
Speaker 3: of our all pro safeties are on the field at
55:02
Speaker 3: the same time, and when they're not, our man coverage
55:05
Speaker 3: stuff because you have to play a lot of man
55:07
Speaker 3: because you cannot let those guys. I mean, you're not
55:09
Speaker 3: gonna look, I love Angelina, he's a great coverage guy.
55:11
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna put them on the slot. You can't
55:13
Speaker 3: go let the personnel and I'm gonna put you on
55:14
Speaker 3: the slot. I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna let
55:16
Speaker 3: you move around and let that guy get into a slot.
55:19
Speaker 3: So you have to mitigate that with personnel. And so
55:22
Speaker 3: I think what you're seeing is I don't think you
55:24
Speaker 3: have It's not we need to blitz more. It's not
55:27
Speaker 3: we need to have a three four instead of a
55:29
Speaker 3: four to three or a four three like that. Like
55:31
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier, a lot of four downs are trying
55:33
Speaker 3: to get to five met fronts one way or the other,
55:36
Speaker 3: just to change up the structure just so. Again it
55:38
Speaker 3: goes into you have to be multiple, which is going
55:41
Speaker 3: to change the way that you teach. I think when
55:43
Speaker 3: you compartmentalize things, you start using interchangeable parts. I think
55:47
Speaker 3: a lot of these defensive coordinators are kind of re
55:49
Speaker 3: evaluating how they're calling, how they're going through things. You know, No,
55:54
Speaker 3: I don't think enough is talked about that when you
55:57
Speaker 3: get past the forty five close to the fifty, that
56:00
Speaker 3: your third down is not third down anymore, that's a
56:02
Speaker 3: second second down. And so you're you're changing the way
56:07
Speaker 3: that you're calling because fourth down isn't fourth down anymore.
56:10
Speaker 3: It's almost like a third and five, Right, you got
56:12
Speaker 3: to treat it like that because teams are going for
56:14
Speaker 3: it on fourth and five. Well, what does that mean?
56:17
Speaker 1: Right?
56:18
Speaker 3: What does a third and ten and it's on the
56:20
Speaker 3: forty or it's on the forty five fifty? That changes
56:24
Speaker 3: the way I do that. I need to have more
56:25
Speaker 3: tools in the toolbox. I think that sometimes you get
56:28
Speaker 3: in trouble where sports dealt with this last year, where
56:32
Speaker 3: you get too many injuries. Your secondary man coverage is
56:35
Speaker 3: volatile to begin with. It didn't hit last year, it's
56:38
Speaker 3: hitting this year. Will it hit next year? No one knows, right,
56:43
Speaker 3: So it's like you get into these things. So what
56:46
Speaker 3: I think is where a zone. I think if you
56:49
Speaker 3: look at what the NFL meta is right now, it's
56:51
Speaker 3: zone based. It's still leaning cover three. I think more
56:55
Speaker 3: teams are using cover two because it's simpler and I
56:57
Speaker 3: can change the parts a lot easier. I can change
57:00
Speaker 3: to look much easier than if I just run quarters.
57:03
Speaker 3: I also think that not everybody knows how to run quarters,
57:07
Speaker 3: and I know that that sounds crazy, but there's a
57:09
Speaker 3: big difference between cover four back and coverage and quarters,
57:14
Speaker 3: which is what we see and what I you know,
57:17
Speaker 3: if there's one thing I can say I'm an expert at,
57:19
Speaker 3: which is not much, but I do know how to
57:21
Speaker 3: run quarters. I do know how to run quarters, I
57:24
Speaker 3: promise like and all the rules to it. So it's
57:26
Speaker 3: like that you have a match quarters to cover four stuff.
57:30
Speaker 3: There's a lot of coaches in this league that did
57:33
Speaker 3: not grow up in trees that actually know how to
57:36
Speaker 3: run quarters and like you start saying palms right, So
57:40
Speaker 3: that's to read where the corner takes a flat. A
57:43
Speaker 3: lot of guys don't know all the rules within that.
57:46
Speaker 3: What are the problems to solve? Remember, your playbook could
57:50
Speaker 3: be as simpler as complex. It doesn't matter if you
57:53
Speaker 3: don't know the answers to the test. Like if you
57:54
Speaker 3: don't know the things that are how people are going
57:56
Speaker 3: to attack you, and then the answers and the pivots
57:58
Speaker 3: offer them, it doesn't really matter.
57:59
Speaker 1: Okay, we saw this.
58:00
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'm a Broncos fan. There's a reason
58:02
Speaker 3: why we gave up seventy points to the Dolphins because
58:04
Speaker 3: we were trying to run Fancio coverages with a white
58:05
Speaker 3: Phillips guy. It doesn't work right, Just like the defense
58:09
Speaker 3: got much better. So it's like, you know, you start
58:12
Speaker 3: seeing like just because somebody is doing it doesn't mean
58:15
Speaker 3: I need to do it, because if I can't teach it,
58:17
Speaker 3: it really doesn't matter. I think the best example of
58:20
Speaker 3: like an amalgamation of like the best schemes is Campan
58:23
Speaker 3: Neil go look at him. He worked for Fangio and
58:25
Speaker 3: worked for Flores. He worked for Salah Halfley. What are
58:29
Speaker 3: the three top schemes outside of the race. The only
58:32
Speaker 3: person he didn't work for is like the Ravens. Yeah,
58:34
Speaker 3: like Ray, Yeah.
58:36
Speaker 4: That Jags defense is so I there's so much talking
58:40
Speaker 4: for now. For Bills fans, it's like, oh, what are
58:42
Speaker 4: we going to play in the first round. I don't
58:43
Speaker 4: think Bills fans, if they play the Jags are prepared
58:46
Speaker 4: for what the Jags defense is.
58:47
Speaker 1: From a schmatic stamp, I told.
58:48
Speaker 3: It so, this is so funny. Danny Heifitz is a
58:51
Speaker 3: good friend of mine for the Ringer. He does a
58:52
Speaker 3: Ringer podcast and he ran only was texting me one
58:56
Speaker 3: day it's probably like a month ago, and he was like, who,
58:59
Speaker 3: what's the one team you don't want to see in the playoffs?
59:00
Speaker 3: I said the Jacksonville Jaguars. He laughed at me, and
59:03
Speaker 3: then I go, I go to the I was for
59:08
Speaker 3: my birthday. My wife had me and my dad go
59:10
Speaker 3: out to the Broncos game. She's got me tickets to
59:12
Speaker 3: the Broncos Jaguars games. And he's like, how ironic that
59:15
Speaker 3: you had to prove your point? Like going through the Broncos.
59:19
Speaker 1: It's hilarious.
59:20
Speaker 3: Watched them lose to the Jaguars. I was like, uhn, dude,
59:24
Speaker 3: they have the painful irony, yes, but I'm like see,
59:27
Speaker 3: and I was texting during the game. I was like,
59:29
Speaker 3: see what I mean? This is why I.
59:30
Speaker 4: Said I don't think people aren't in so Trevor Lawrence,
59:33
Speaker 4: I think is another one too, similar to kind of
59:35
Speaker 4: like the Dak Prescott discourse. But so much about the
59:38
Speaker 4: Jags is always like, oh Trevor Lawrence and like good Trevor,
59:41
Speaker 4: bad Trevor always so overrated. I can't believe some people
59:44
Speaker 4: have him as a top ten quarterback and all. And
59:46
Speaker 4: then even like this year too, it was a little like,
59:48
Speaker 4: oh is Brian Thomas Jr. Scared to go over the middle?
59:50
Speaker 4: Like what are they?
59:51
Speaker 1: But all of that overshadows what they do schematically and
59:56
Speaker 1: some of the horses they have on that defense. They're
59:59
Speaker 1: a team that I watch them sporadically, and every time
1:00:02
Speaker 1: I make a note, I'm always like, I have to
1:00:04
Speaker 1: watch more Jags tape. I have to watch more Jacks.
1:00:06
Speaker 3: You know. I've had to force myself to do it
1:00:08
Speaker 3: the last month of where I'm like, I'm going to
1:00:11
Speaker 3: watch them every week because he's doing. When I tell
1:00:14
Speaker 3: you it's an amalgamation, it is a melting pot. It's
1:00:17
Speaker 3: the only thing I've I think, like, I I hope
1:00:20
Speaker 3: I run into him at the combine because I want to.
1:00:22
Speaker 3: I just want to tell him, Like, dude, what you
1:00:25
Speaker 3: did this year was amazing. I'm watching fansy O cover eight.
1:00:29
Speaker 3: Then the next play you're running Beingles Hawk from you know,
1:00:33
Speaker 3: which is the all up pop out pressures by by Flores.
1:00:37
Speaker 3: Then the next thing I know, you're in wide nine
1:00:39
Speaker 3: playing quarters. I'm just like, dude, it's all there.
1:00:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, And he's not just like doing it, like he's
1:00:44
Speaker 4: not just doing it just to do it, or like
1:00:46
Speaker 4: he's throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to
1:00:48
Speaker 4: see what sticks. Like he's doing a bunch of things
1:00:50
Speaker 4: like you said, a mech from an amalgamation perspective, but
1:00:53
Speaker 4: he's doing them all like above average to really good.
1:00:56
Speaker 1: And that's in like that's insaneing.
1:00:57
Speaker 3: It in the right spots at the right time, it's
1:01:00
Speaker 3: all great. And so my point, like with that circle
1:01:03
Speaker 3: back to the topic, it's.
1:01:04
Speaker 1: Just like sorry, I got excited.
1:01:05
Speaker 3: Sorry, No, I'm dude, I'm the worst. Like I will
1:01:08
Speaker 3: talk you can ask my wife, I'll talk football to
1:01:09
Speaker 3: a wall and I'll be the weirdo talking to a wall.
1:01:12
Speaker 3: So but my point being is like that's really I
1:01:17
Speaker 3: think where we're looking at what was so special about McDonald,
1:01:20
Speaker 3: Like what was different about him and Wink Martindale, Well,
1:01:23
Speaker 3: Wink Martindale kind of went over pressure and over too Lenk,
1:01:27
Speaker 3: too leank too and too pressure with cover one, right,
1:01:31
Speaker 3: go watch the Falcons. The Falcons have done the same thing.
1:01:33
Speaker 3: They have a pass rush, but they have no cover dreamore.
1:01:35
Speaker 3: That's because they've got a five men rush and they
1:01:37
Speaker 3: want to try and play cover one to everybody and
1:01:39
Speaker 3: they don't have the horses to do it. So then
1:01:42
Speaker 3: you look at like what was so special about McDonald, Well,
1:01:45
Speaker 3: he he siloed everything in the Ravens scheme. The Ravens
1:01:49
Speaker 3: have and have since Rex Ryan really have had the
1:01:53
Speaker 3: best scheme in football. They have had the best blitzes
1:01:56
Speaker 3: and the best way to do it because it was
1:01:58
Speaker 3: all The big thing with Rex Ryan was BTF, which
1:02:02
Speaker 3: is blitz the formation. So there were checks within checks,
1:02:04
Speaker 3: so you could get into different pressures depending on what
1:02:07
Speaker 3: the offensive presented. And it sounds complex, but it's really not.
1:02:11
Speaker 3: It's just changing depending on where the opening is. Are
1:02:15
Speaker 3: we to the back, are we to the tight end,
1:02:16
Speaker 3: are we to the nickel, or we too away? And
1:02:19
Speaker 3: so you have rules within it. It seems complex the
1:02:22
Speaker 3: offense can't figure out what you're doing, but defensively it's
1:02:25
Speaker 3: super simple and you can. You can give a million
1:02:27
Speaker 3: different looks because it doesn't matter what the presentation. Well,
1:02:30
Speaker 3: he McDonald came in and said, hey, there's a better
1:02:33
Speaker 3: process to do it. There's an easier way of teaching it.
1:02:36
Speaker 3: Let's simplify it. Maybe not run as much scheme, but
1:02:40
Speaker 3: we can really be you know, double down on the
1:02:42
Speaker 3: finn Mills. I think if you watch that any of
1:02:44
Speaker 3: the Seahawks tape, they run and they tackle. I think
1:02:48
Speaker 3: where they're different than like the Texans is that they
1:02:51
Speaker 3: add scheme into it, where it's like, Okay, we're going
1:02:54
Speaker 3: to give you different looks, we're going to try and
1:02:56
Speaker 3: make you left handed. But we're also, by the way,
1:02:59
Speaker 3: really good at fun mindles. And so I think for
1:03:01
Speaker 3: the Bills, the scheme is there. You know it works. Look,
1:03:06
Speaker 3: we are one of the top passing defenses in the NFL.
1:03:10
Speaker 3: We just can't be thirtieth in the run.
1:03:14
Speaker 4: Just don't be deficient, just be like right eighteenth to fourteenth,
1:03:17
Speaker 4: just be middle of the road ish.
1:03:19
Speaker 3: That's it. And I think with a couple of tweaks,
1:03:21
Speaker 3: I think with a couple of tweaks, I think we
1:03:23
Speaker 3: saw I think I was talking to you before we
1:03:24
Speaker 3: came on here with the Eagles tape, It's like, look,
1:03:26
Speaker 3: there was a lot more movement, but then what they
1:03:29
Speaker 3: were doing is they were moving, but then they were
1:03:31
Speaker 3: also making sure that that second level was moving to
1:03:33
Speaker 3: their gap. So it wasn't necessarily like a Max splitz,
1:03:36
Speaker 3: but if you look, they were really trying to cut
1:03:38
Speaker 3: the front, which all that just means is stunt, which
1:03:40
Speaker 3: is not something that they've been doing.
1:03:42
Speaker 4: I think that they and their run blitzes were so
1:03:45
Speaker 4: good and you'd have like Bosa and whoever's the defense
1:03:47
Speaker 4: tackled is inside both slanting, but then the linebackers would
1:03:50
Speaker 4: scrape over and sink and they're all fit, they're causing
1:03:53
Speaker 4: and they would do that on zone runs, but also
1:03:56
Speaker 4: like Pinn and Poll runs or gap runs that the
1:03:58
Speaker 4: Eagles are doing and gumming up the whole thing with
1:04:00
Speaker 4: that little bit of movement.
1:04:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, and to me, that tells me like, again,
1:04:03
Speaker 3: we're moving in the right direction, it's at the right time.
1:04:06
Speaker 3: Like I think they're figuring out what they can do,
1:04:09
Speaker 3: because again, what do you do? Because I get asked
1:04:11
Speaker 3: this by the coaches all the time. They're like, coach,
1:04:13
Speaker 3: I can't play sit and get. And I've never really,
1:04:16
Speaker 3: to be honest with you, I've never really been other
1:04:18
Speaker 3: than one year we had a state I think it
1:04:20
Speaker 3: was a state finalist heavyweight wrestler at No's and we
1:04:25
Speaker 3: had two bad dudes at defensive end at four I
1:04:30
Speaker 3: I don't think other than that year, we couldn't play
1:04:33
Speaker 3: sit and get. So I've always had to be movement based.
1:04:36
Speaker 3: I think if you I'm sure there's high school coaches
1:04:38
Speaker 3: that listen to this and they're like, yeah, I have
1:04:40
Speaker 3: one hundred I have like one hundred and eighty five
1:04:42
Speaker 3: pound defensive vent. He can't just play box everything right,
1:04:46
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to get him to move. I've got
1:04:48
Speaker 3: a two hundred pound nose and I'm going up against
1:04:50
Speaker 3: a three hundred pounds center or guard because we're playing
1:04:53
Speaker 3: the you know, the city school. Yeah, I get that.
1:04:55
Speaker 3: I've been there. So the Bills are kind of in
1:04:58
Speaker 3: that in the sense that we have all these really
1:05:00
Speaker 3: fast guys. What's the best way to do it? You
1:05:02
Speaker 3: got to move. The problem in the NFL with doing
1:05:03
Speaker 3: a bunch of stunts is that it gets predictable and
1:05:06
Speaker 3: you do it. I thought they did an excellent job
1:05:09
Speaker 3: kind of doing it in the right spots against the
1:05:11
Speaker 3: Eagles to get some negative plays, and they did it.
1:05:14
Speaker 3: You know, I think that it kind of surprised the Eagles.
1:05:16
Speaker 3: I don't think it's something that you become movement based,
1:05:19
Speaker 3: because then that's a different thing. Like the Rams do
1:05:22
Speaker 3: it because they're all big across the board, you know,
1:05:28
Speaker 3: except for probably Byron Young, but everybody else like Verse
1:05:31
Speaker 3: doesn't mind just going in and just ear holing the
1:05:34
Speaker 3: guard and just wrecking shop, you know what I mean.
1:05:36
Speaker 3: So I think for you guys, I think the pattern
1:05:38
Speaker 3: is there, so projecting forward, right, what do we need?
1:05:42
Speaker 3: Probably need to do a little bit more run stunts,
1:05:44
Speaker 3: but we need to be smart about it, right. We
1:05:46
Speaker 3: don't want to move too much, but we also can't
1:05:49
Speaker 3: play sit and get. And I think if you look
1:05:51
Speaker 3: around the landscape the NFL, it's about being multiple. But
1:05:54
Speaker 3: you've already got the passing scheme. It's just fixing that
1:05:57
Speaker 3: front seven.
1:05:58
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, very well said, and I'm always very interested
1:06:01
Speaker 4: with it as well, with with McDermott's background and like
1:06:05
Speaker 4: coming from the Jim Johnson tree, but then knowing what
1:06:07
Speaker 4: McDermott was in Carolina and then like coming here and
1:06:10
Speaker 4: really what this Bill's defense has been since since the
1:06:13
Speaker 4: second half of the Falcons game where he kind of
1:06:17
Speaker 4: took over the defense, and what we've seen from a
1:06:19
Speaker 4: coverage standpoint, we're starting to get like non traditional Tampa
1:06:23
Speaker 4: stuff from them on the back end, which are the
1:06:24
Speaker 4: stuff that they really haven't done a bunch. And he's
1:06:26
Speaker 4: leaning in a bit more into true five man pressures
1:06:30
Speaker 4: and it's not just Okay, here's our blitz, but it's
1:06:32
Speaker 4: really like a sim or a creeper. It's not like
1:06:35
Speaker 4: he's getting into more five man stuff. They're starting to
1:06:37
Speaker 4: do like, hey, let's attack the b gap a little bit,
1:06:40
Speaker 4: which something the Seahawks do tremendously. And Yeah, I'm really
1:06:43
Speaker 4: interested to kind of see where they go forward because
1:06:46
Speaker 4: they've got some pieces they're just I feel like they're
1:06:49
Speaker 4: caught in no man's land a little bit at multiple
1:06:53
Speaker 4: levels and also a little bit schematically, and if they
1:06:55
Speaker 4: can just get a couple tweaks to the interior or
1:06:59
Speaker 4: the second level or some of that identity, some of
1:07:01
Speaker 4: that movement piece. Yeah, and also like this offseason is
1:07:05
Speaker 4: gonna be so important for them and interesting and pivotal,
1:07:08
Speaker 4: and not only that, but the playoff run with whoever
1:07:10
Speaker 4: they play and what they do, because there's not I
1:07:13
Speaker 4: think what falls in their favor a little bit is
1:07:14
Speaker 4: there's not one team offensively that has this dominant run game.
1:07:20
Speaker 4: Although massive fingers crossed if they somehow get matched up
1:07:24
Speaker 4: with the Ravens in the first round, and again, I
1:07:27
Speaker 4: don't want to be part of that for them with
1:07:29
Speaker 4: who I think Robert Mays tweeted out the other day,
1:07:31
Speaker 4: like Derek Henry's had the quietest like sixteen touchdowns, like
1:07:34
Speaker 4: fourteen hundred yards this year that like no one realizes,
1:07:37
Speaker 4: like he's still a monster and can still run even
1:07:39
Speaker 4: if Lamar's banged up. But there's not this crazy run
1:07:42
Speaker 4: game president in the AFC. But the Jags can run
1:07:45
Speaker 4: it a little bit. The Broncos have a good offensive
1:07:48
Speaker 4: line and can run a little bit.
1:07:49
Speaker 1: And RJ.
1:07:50
Speaker 4: Harvey can break tackles with anybody. So if you're a
1:07:52
Speaker 4: team that struggles with yards after contact or attempt. That's
1:07:55
Speaker 4: not really the running back you want to go after
1:07:58
Speaker 4: or play against. And then not to mention what Sean
1:08:00
Speaker 4: Payton can do, and then it really comes down to
1:08:02
Speaker 4: do you get good Bonis or bad Bonix. But yeah,
1:08:05
Speaker 4: it's such an interesting kind of go forward for them
1:08:08
Speaker 4: in the playoffs and the off season. And I think
1:08:11
Speaker 4: so much of what happens in the playoffs, either positively
1:08:15
Speaker 4: or negatively, reinforces.
1:08:16
Speaker 1: The direction they go in.
1:08:18
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I'm really interested to kind of see
1:08:20
Speaker 4: what they do obviously and with covering this team. But man, this,
1:08:24
Speaker 4: Uh I kept you too long, and so I apologize
1:08:29
Speaker 4: for that. But this was awesome in every way, shape
1:08:32
Speaker 4: and form. Just in case people don't know who you are,
1:08:34
Speaker 4: what you do, and the awesome work that you put
1:08:37
Speaker 4: out the floor is yours. Tell everybody where they can
1:08:40
Speaker 4: find you everything that you do. Like I said in
1:08:42
Speaker 4: the intro, you are one of the pre eminent ball
1:08:45
Speaker 4: knowers in this space, and not just in this space,
1:08:48
Speaker 4: like in anything like the I don't think I've ever
1:08:51
Speaker 4: I don't think I could come across a person that
1:08:53
Speaker 4: doesn't respect or acknowledge the work that you do. Casually
1:08:56
Speaker 4: or professionally.
1:08:56
Speaker 1: So the floora is yours. Tell everybody who you are,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: what you do.
1:08:59
Speaker 3: I appreciate as you tell I'm a huge nerd and
1:09:02
Speaker 3: I just happen to study football as a as a job,
1:09:05
Speaker 3: so I'm that kind of a nerd. But no, match
1:09:08
Speaker 3: quarters dot Com is really if any of this stuff
1:09:10
Speaker 3: interests you and you want to dive in deep, match
1:09:12
Speaker 3: quarters dot Com is a hub. I've got links to everything, books,
1:09:15
Speaker 3: anything that you want to do. So if you were like, hey,
1:09:17
Speaker 3: you mentioned that Hybrid's book earlier, go to match quarters
1:09:19
Speaker 3: dot Com, click on the books link, go to that.
1:09:22
Speaker 3: I have a mass quarters YouTube. So if you're like, hey,
1:09:23
Speaker 3: I kind of want to wait in give me some
1:09:25
Speaker 3: free content first, what's that like? Go to the mass
1:09:27
Speaker 3: quarters YouTube. And then obviously you can find me on Twitter, Instagram,
1:09:31
Speaker 3: whatever you wherever you are, I'm usually there too, so
1:09:34
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you letting me come on and especially
1:09:37
Speaker 3: talk about it. You know, scheme's fun, but a lot
1:09:39
Speaker 3: of times it comes down to who's on the field
1:09:41
Speaker 3: and then then the fundamental part of it. And I
1:09:43
Speaker 3: think that's a lot of a lot of the things
1:09:45
Speaker 3: going on with the bills this year.
1:09:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Jimmy's and Joe's and how that functions in
1:09:48
Speaker 4: with the x's and o's. And yeah, for everybody, if
1:09:50
Speaker 4: you haven't checked it, check Cody out or know what
1:09:52
Speaker 4: he does. Honestly, you could. You could be a person.
1:09:55
Speaker 4: And this is where I first came across. You can
1:09:56
Speaker 4: just google, like Google search a coverage or a ballphrase
1:10:01
Speaker 4: and there's probably a video on the match Quarters YouTube
1:10:04
Speaker 4: breaking it down, Like you could just google a phrase,
1:10:07
Speaker 4: go and just look up like odd front, and I
1:10:09
Speaker 4: bet one of the first things that come up is
1:10:11
Speaker 4: some video breakdown from the match Quarter's page telling you
1:10:13
Speaker 4: someone exactly what an odd front is, how it works,
1:10:16
Speaker 4: all the variations difference versus in overfront, and all the
1:10:19
Speaker 4: things you can do that with coverages. Yeah, anything and everything.
1:10:22
Speaker 4: You folks have not checked out Cody's work, go check
1:10:24
Speaker 4: that out. But yeah, thank you so much for joining me.
1:10:27
Speaker 4: This was absolutely awesome. And yeah, I'll see you around
1:10:30
Speaker 4: Twitter and Blue Sky and all that stuff. And thank
1:10:33
Speaker 4: you very much for joining me.
1:10:34
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
1:10:35
Speaker 3: Thank you for having one.
1:10:36
Speaker 4: Of the best in the business, Cody Alexander. As I
1:10:39
Speaker 4: said in the intro and the outro, there just sincerely
1:10:42
Speaker 4: pre eminent ball no or I hate using that phrase
1:10:44
Speaker 4: because so many people use it seriously and ironically and
1:10:47
Speaker 4: on ironically nowadays. But he is absolutely one of the
1:10:50
Speaker 4: best and one of the kindest people as well. Go
1:10:51
Speaker 4: check out the work that he does. He is absolutely
1:10:55
Speaker 4: phenomenal and when it comes to football knowledge, scheme structure,
1:10:59
Speaker 4: a player of value, you know, teaching fundamentals to individual positions,
1:11:03
Speaker 4: not just the larger picture. He's good at the detail,
1:11:05
Speaker 4: small level niche things, but also the high level scheme
1:11:08
Speaker 4: structure stuff.
1:11:09
Speaker 1: One of the absolute best.
1:11:10
Speaker 4: I was so pumped be able to get him on
1:11:12
Speaker 4: and talk ball with him in this episode of Disguise coverage,
1:11:15
Speaker 4: speaking of the best one Pi Pizza the best pizza
1:11:18
Speaker 4: in Buffalo, New York. If you have not had some,
1:11:22
Speaker 4: you're sincerely missing out. Sweet sauce, pie cup and char pepperoni.
1:11:26
Speaker 4: If you get different toppings, they chop them all up
1:11:28
Speaker 4: evenly and sprinkle them across.
1:11:29
Speaker 1: The pizza evenly. They make their own homemade blue cheese.
1:11:33
Speaker 4: They make good salads. They have a catering division called
1:11:35
Speaker 4: Elevated Catering of Buffalo. They do any kind of event
1:11:38
Speaker 4: that you're rocking I've had them do several events for
1:11:40
Speaker 4: me over the past couple of years. The food is phenomenal.
1:11:44
Speaker 4: As I always say, this isn't a tagline, but you
1:11:47
Speaker 4: know they they don't sponsor the show or I don't
1:11:50
Speaker 4: say that they're the best because they sponsor the show.
1:11:53
Speaker 4: They sponsor the show because I think they are the
1:11:54
Speaker 4: best pizza out there. For those who don't know. I
1:11:57
Speaker 4: had reached out to some other pizza spots for sponsorship
1:11:59
Speaker 4: and one pie got back to me. I had never
1:12:02
Speaker 4: heard of them at the time. They were like, Hey,
1:12:03
Speaker 4: come on down, try our stuff, see what's up, See
1:12:05
Speaker 4: how you feel. I tried their pizza and I have
1:12:07
Speaker 4: not looked back. And they're also tremendously kind people. On
1:12:11
Speaker 4: top of with all the good that they do for
1:12:13
Speaker 4: the community, for the city at large, if we just
1:12:15
Speaker 4: got off or finished with the Toys for Tots drive
1:12:18
Speaker 4: that they do every holiday season. They've got the partnership
1:12:21
Speaker 4: with Roswell and trying to knock out cancer. You've got
1:12:23
Speaker 4: partnering with the Alzheimer's Foundation, the SPCA, just everything they
1:12:27
Speaker 4: do to try and give back in addition to making
1:12:30
Speaker 4: the best pizza in Buffalo, and honestly the best homemade
1:12:33
Speaker 4: blue cheese in Buffalo as well. So if you have
1:12:35
Speaker 4: not gotten some one Pie pizza, go treat yourself. Treat
1:12:37
Speaker 4: your taste buds. The season's winding now. Maybe the bills
1:12:40
Speaker 4: are making you feel a little bit sad or a
1:12:42
Speaker 4: little stressed, So feel better eat some of those stresses
1:12:45
Speaker 4: and those worries by getting yourself some one Pie pizza.
1:12:47
Speaker 4: The online menu can be found in the episode show notes,
1:12:50
Speaker 4: So they're here on YouTube or whichever podcasting Apple platform
1:12:52
Speaker 4: you were listening to this show on. I'm gonna throw
1:12:55
Speaker 4: up the banner that says tootles folks, because we're gonna
1:12:57
Speaker 4: start to wind down and say goodbye here. Hope you
1:12:59
Speaker 4: folks enjoyed this episode. If you did, please hear on YouTube,
1:13:03
Speaker 4: drop a like on this video. Please rate and review
1:13:06
Speaker 4: and subscribe on the audio podcasting apps or platforms if
1:13:10
Speaker 4: that is your poison or the platform of choice. If
1:13:14
Speaker 4: you're here on YouTube, try to notifications for the Disguised
1:13:16
Speaker 4: coverage playlist. Subscribe to the Cover One channel as a
1:13:18
Speaker 4: whole across the board. Tell your family, friends, and loved
1:13:21
Speaker 4: ones about the show if you enjoyed it. If you
1:13:24
Speaker 4: hated this show or you hate me, tell your enemies
1:13:27
Speaker 4: and try and make them watch the show and try
1:13:29
Speaker 4: and ruin their day in the process. I hope you
1:13:33
Speaker 4: folks enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I
1:13:36
Speaker 4: hope you folks are having a good holiday and are
1:13:39
Speaker 4: having a good week and have a good new year.
1:13:43
Speaker 4: I will see you when I see you, and I
1:13:46
Speaker 4: hope you and your family and friends and loved ones
1:13:48
Speaker 4: are all doing well and staying safe. Be kind to
1:13:51
Speaker 4: one another, take care of one another. If you are
1:13:53
Speaker 4: going to the Bills game this Sunday, enjoy it to
1:13:55
Speaker 4: the last one at high Mark slash Ralph Wilson slash
1:13:59
Speaker 4: Rich Stadium. History that is full of history and moments, both.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: Good and bad.
1:14:06
Speaker 4: So you know, relish in that cherish that enjoy the
1:14:09
Speaker 4: throwback unis and hopefully the Bills win and we'll see
1:14:12
Speaker 4: what happens with the playoff seating and what the go
1:14:14
Speaker 4: forward looks like, and then I'll do it for us.
1:14:17
Speaker 1: In this episode of.
1:14:18
Speaker 4: Disguise coverage, check out Cody's stuff if you have not
1:14:20
Speaker 4: already again Cody Alexander Match Quarters Let's Talk Ball podcast
1:14:23
Speaker 4: Dude is absolutely phenomenal and amazing in every which way.
1:14:26
Speaker 1: Shape and form and again.
1:14:28
Speaker 4: I hope you and your family and friends and loved
1:14:29
Speaker 4: ones are all doing well and staying safe. Be kind
1:14:31
Speaker 4: to one another, take care of one another. I will
1:14:34
Speaker 4: see you when I see you, godspeed, Happy New Year,
1:14:37
Speaker 4: and as always, go bills