00:00Brian, yesterday we got to watch OTAs.
00:02And the thing I wanted to see most was just what the offense looked like.
00:07And that's not to say I wasn't excited about lots of different things.
00:11And seeing the defense and seeing, hell, just seeing the new,
00:16this is incredibly minute detail.
00:20Seeing the, and we saw them at rookie camp, but like,
00:24forgive me, Ethan Kaliak-Manus,
00:26you don't really make it as cool as Jaden Daniels and Marcus Mariota do.
00:29I mean, seeing the all black, but retro QB jerseys they're now wearing is dope.
00:37Yeah, yeah.
00:38But what I was most.
00:40They will get sold.
00:41What's that?
00:41That's the way of promoting them.
00:42Sure.
00:43But so people understand when, at NFL practices, college practices too,
00:48but you have the offense wears one color, the defense wears the other,
00:52and then quarterbacks wear a different color.
00:53Just to make clear, nobody hits them.
00:55Used to be yellow.
00:56Right.
00:56Now it's black and they're fresh.
00:59But what I wanted to see most was where this offense was, right?
01:05Just kind of where things are as David Blau is working to install a new offense.
01:11Where is Jaden Daniels in his understanding of this offense?
01:14Where are the receivers?
01:16The line you get somewhat of a look at.
01:19And Brian, it's May.
01:22Nobody had pads on.
01:23Yeah.
01:23I want to provide all of the proper caveats here.
01:26They look good.
01:28But see, this is the thing about it.
01:30Give the credit without having to worry about caveats.
01:33Because if someone is thinking that they're perfect right now, then they're crazy.
01:38Right now is, did they step on the field and look good?
01:41Yes.
01:42We should understand they're just in pads.
01:45Nobody's playing the day of tomorrow.
01:46Okay?
01:47But the ultimate thing is, there was an understanding.
01:50That's what I told you yesterday.
01:50I want to see them be able to move with the understanding of the offense.
01:54And if they understand it, they'll move quickly.
01:57That's all I care about.
01:58Totally.
01:59And they moved quick.
02:00And I talked to some players on the record, microphone, cameras, and they said, you know,
02:07they were, I asked a number of guys.
02:11Jaden has, like, when you ask a quarterback, their superpowers, right?
02:16Like Josh Allen, incredibly tough, absolute rocket of an arm, right?
02:20Yeah.
02:20Patrick Mahomes' playmaking ability, particularly on third down, that's super power.
02:23Yeah.
02:24Um, Lamar Jackson's ability to run with the football is the best of all time.
02:31Right.
02:31Um, Jaden, to me, is a pocket passer that can beat you with his legs.
02:36Mm-hmm.
02:36But the pocket passer aspect is his mental capacity.
02:42Like, what made Peyton Manning one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time is that he
02:46beat you with his brain before the snap.
02:49Mm-hmm.
02:49He didn't have the strongest arm, right?
02:51But he knew exactly what he was doing before the snap.
02:53And I'm not saying Jaden is there, but I think Jaden's mental capacity to get through
02:59his processes, to get through his reads, his progressions, is super vital for him as a
03:07quarterback to be a star.
03:09And so what you have to consider when you're changing systems like that is, does that speed,
03:15do you retain that mental speed?
03:17And to my eye, he absolutely did.
03:20Now, again, one practice in May, but I asked other players, and some of the responses I
03:25got, I asked Traylon Burks, who made a hell of a catch.
03:28It was out of bounds because it was a bad throw from one of the third-string quarterbacks.
03:31But he made a hell of a diving catch.
03:34I asked him about it after.
03:35He's like, yeah, we're not really supposed to dive, but like, I kind of dove.
03:40And I was like, the ball caught you.
03:42He's like, yeah, the ball caught me.
03:43I didn't catch the ball.
03:44But I asked Burks, I was like, you know, how is Jaden's processing going with this new
03:51offense?
03:52He's like, bleep, hella fast.
03:56And I asked Jalen Lane the same question.
03:58He's like, man, it seems like Jaden was part of founding this offense.
04:02Yeah.
04:02And I think probably because he was.
04:05But see the thing, Jaden, it's not like we outside of the building think they have to
04:12learn a new offense.
04:13But you know it's the same.
04:15When he steps to the line, whatever play he called, find a safety, figure out what the
04:22coverage is, he knows he's going to one or two people.
04:25And then he has a guy who's going to be his insurance policy.
04:31No matter what the play is, no matter what the defense is, if it's this certain defense,
04:36I know I got to come over here.
04:37If it's another one, I go over here and I got to work on that thing.
04:40That's all the quarterback has to worry about.
04:42And if Jaden already understands that, as he does with his virtual reality, he's going
04:46to be able to understand it in any offense.
04:48It's just getting the verbiage out real quick.
04:51That thing may take more time than anything.
04:54But the understanding, you don't step up with the play and then say, oh, I called that play.
04:59Let's see what, every time you look, find your safety, figure out what the defense is,
05:04figure out what the, and you got a center helping you, you found out what the coverage
05:08is, and you know where you're going automatically.
05:10So to that point, football coaches and front office executives love secrecy.
05:20They very much don't want anybody to know anything.
05:23And if you think about what, I mean, Washington's got a brutal start to the year.
05:28At Philly, at Dallas, Seattle at home.
05:31I think they're going to show next to nothing as far as publicly what this offense might
05:37look like.
05:37Now, the other teams are going to do enough research of what Detroit has done and maybe
05:43some of what the Rams have done to build some level of idea of what it's going to look like.
05:48But I don't think it was an accident yesterday, Brian, that the media all got a reminder about
05:55the media policy, about what you're able to disclose as far as personnel packages, offensive
06:04formations, defensive formations.
06:06So I'm going to be relatively broad on some of what we saw yesterday, right?
06:13But the things that immediately look different and we know are coming, Jaden under center.
06:20I think we got a caution that our listeners and viewers and everybody, like this is not
06:27going to be like the Nebraska offense from the early 90s.
06:31Like it's, there's still going to be plenty of shotgun.
06:35You're still going to see the pistol.
06:37Yeah.
06:38But Jaden's going to be under center significantly more than he was before.
06:42I think you're looking 60-40-ish center to shotgun.
06:46I think we were at, maybe Neil Greenberg could crunch the numbers.
06:50Where was this thing at?
06:52Probably 80-20 or 90-10.
06:5390-10.
06:54Yeah.
06:54And I think they started implementing more under center snaps late last year as they
07:00were maybe trying to, whether this was someone was told to do this or there was just a Eureka
07:07moment.
07:07I think they tried to have less quarterback design runs later in the year.
07:11We did see some shifting there, right?
07:13Yeah.
07:14The under center stuff is real.
07:16The motion.
07:19Having receivers and running backs and tight ends, having movement pre-snap was very real.
07:25Yeah.
07:26Like, and those types of things, when you combine putting the quarterback under center, allowing
07:33them, allowing play action to be more of a threat, letting the run game start from a
07:37more advantageous position with maybe three tight ends on the field.
07:41Like, I left.
07:45So, two dudes you know I've been very high on since Dan Quinn got to town.
07:50A pair of Davids.
07:51David Blau and David Rye.
07:52And they're very different people.
07:54Blau is a very cerebral fellow.
07:56Like, he's quiet.
07:57He's stoic.
07:58He's locked in.
07:59He's now your offense coordinator, your play caller.
08:02Rye was your tight ends coach.
08:03He's now your pass game coordinator.
08:06And Rye is energetic.
08:08He's a ball of energy.
08:08Right.
08:09He's all over the place, high-fiving dudes, fired up.
08:11But watching the two of them stand together and watch the offense and watching Blau's stoicism
08:18and Rye's energy, it felt like this is the new direction here.
08:25And at one point, Terry came off.
08:29Terry ended up very open in the middle of the field.
08:32You won't allow for a route, but we can say that much.
08:34Right?
08:35And Jaden hit him.
08:36It was a big gainer.
08:37And dude, nobody's hitting.
08:40Right?
08:41But Terry kind of ran to where there would have been contact.
08:44There was a safety and maybe a DB.
08:45And he just slipped.
08:47Like, he just slipped.
08:48And he went down.
08:49Not hard, but he went down.
08:50And everybody was like...
08:52Everybody froze up for a second.
08:54Then he popped up first down.
08:56Everything was cool.
08:57He ran over.
08:58Rye gave him a big old high-five.
09:00And it just...
09:02You can feel an energy change.
09:06Now, does the energy change matter week one in Philadelphia?
09:10We'll find out.
09:12Right?
09:12It may.
09:12It might.
09:13Because as I stated when I saw the schedule, the intensity has to pick up early.
09:18So if the energy was there yesterday, keep going.
09:21Build off of it.
09:22Now, I just happen to be walking out at the same time a veteran offensive player was walking out.
09:28And we mostly just BS.
09:29Like, yo, how's the summer going?
09:31Whatever.
09:31And I said, I was like, man, it seemed like y'all were moving fast in there.
09:34And he said, that's a point of emphasis.
09:36We want tempo.
09:38We want to go fast.
09:39It was noticeable.
09:40Especially in 11 on 11.
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