- 11 hours ago
Many are wondering how JD5 will take to a new offense under David Blough...but will it be a smoother transition than we think?
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00:00Speaking of adding things to the bowl, if you will, the commander's adding a ton to
00:04their offense, and we're trying to figure out how Jaden Daniels is going to handle it
00:08all.
00:08It's only been one practice, but very impressive reviews on just how much of the offense he's
00:14grasped, how much was installed, the types of things they were already running at OTAs,
00:18and frankly, while it's only May, how he looked dropping from under center and operating some
00:24of the motions and the shifts and the alignment stuff.
00:26And it got us to thinking about, what if this goes smoother than everybody's anticipating?
00:30What if this actually is easier?
00:32Somebody made a great point.
00:33I just got a DM on Instagram during the break, Grant H. Paulson on IG, and he said, remember
00:39that this offense was built for Jaden Daniels.
00:41Like, he was here first.
00:43David Blau already knew everything about what he can and can't do well, and there's a lot
00:47more on the can list, and then he built this offense in his image, basically.
00:51I think that's a really smart point.
00:53I did, too.
00:53So, it's not like you brought in, a la Durante Jones, a coach from outside of the building
00:58who has to learn the player while he's building this thing.
01:01David Blau has been here.
01:03You can make the case was closer in terms of proximity and conversations with Daniels
01:08than even the guy that he wanted to keep the job, Cliff Kingsbury, because Cliff's just
01:12got more responsibilities, whereas Blau is, you saw this on Hard Knocks, he's the guy in
01:16the quarterback room with them every single day and every single meeting.
01:19If he didn't build this offense and make it Jaden-proof, so to speak, then he didn't
01:23do the right thing.
01:25So, that should help with the transition.
01:27It is smart.
01:27It's a good way to look at it.
01:29So, in other words, you get a guy, and everybody's had a coach like this.
01:32I'm not talking about playing in the NFL, but in general, this is how we do it.
01:36Okay, well, you got a different group of players this year.
01:38Should that matter at all?
01:38Nope.
01:39This is how we play here.
01:40Okay.
01:40We can go 500 and that can be worse.
01:43Or, let's build it around what we got.
01:45Let's be adjustable.
01:46There are principles that are universal.
01:48You still got to block well, still got to run good routes, misdirection, all the good
01:52stuff, but it should be catered toward the most important player, which is the quarterback.
01:57So, if somebody's got to sacrifice a little bit, aka a second receiver or a blocking tight
02:02end may not get the looks that he wants, so be it.
02:04If it's built in the image of the quarterback with some of those universal principles that
02:08you like and believe in, that's the right way to go about it.
02:10Let's go to Juan in Fairfax on Grant and Danny.
02:13Juan, thanks for the call.
02:14How are you?
02:16Grant, Danny, how are y'all doing, man?
02:18Good, buddy.
02:20So, you have to understand, too.
02:22So, this is going to be easy because, don't forget, you know, De'Ami Brown was in this
02:27offense, too.
02:28You know, so this is, it's like, it's going to be like riding a bike.
02:31So, it's not going to be that hard for these guys.
02:34So, and David Blau knows all the receivers, like, what, he only has, like, what, two receivers
02:40that's new?
02:41And that's it?
02:43So, I mean, trust me, it's not going to be that hard.
02:47So, therefore, it's like, like I said, it's going to be like picking up riding a bike.
02:52So, that's what I feel.
02:53Appreciate you.
02:54Yeah, I think the fact that he's been in the building and has familiarity is going to be
02:58huge.
02:58I just don't want to downplay how hard it is on the fly in this league to play quarterback
03:04at a consistently high level anyway.
03:06Yes.
03:07There are guys who have been in the league for eight, nine years that are really good
03:11players that go through ruts and just struggle because the defense gets to them that day
03:15or you run into a buzzsaw of a schedule or something.
03:18That happens for the Pro Bowl caliber.
03:20Elite level quarterbacks.
03:22So, you got to bake that in when we're talking about now a second offense in three years.
03:29But it's not the same as a completely new staff.
03:34And maybe that's the part of it that needs to be covered more accurately is it's kind
03:39of like one and a half new offenses and new coaches.
03:41Yeah.
03:42Because you've been around this guy already.
03:44And the thing that you always hear is when there's usually a big paradigm shift or a big
03:48brand new offense or new anything, the terminology is so different that it really is like learning
03:53a new language where Excalibur means this, you know, this, this certain dagger route or,
03:59you know, Xerxes means that those words have no meaning anymore.
04:03You have to learn a brand new set of terminology for protections and all those other kind of
04:07things.
04:07And you've got to crawl before you can walk, before you can roam, before you can sprint.
04:10I mean, Kirk Cousins would talk about this.
04:12It would take how long for him?
04:13He would say the first year you're just drinking through the fire hose or you're trying to remember
04:17what everything means.
04:18Because if you've spoken a foreign language ever, if you have to go through the transit
04:22translation, okay, this word means this, and then you try to produce it.
04:26You cannot speak the language.
04:27You've got to be able to speak the language from minute one to do this successfully.
04:30That's kind of the extra layer of our part.
04:32You already mentioned it.
04:33It's the hardest thing to do in sports without a bunch of change, without everything, you
04:37know, being totally different around you.
04:39I mean, who's better than Patrick Mahomes?
04:42Probably not very many people, right?
04:43The last three years with a bunch of transition and older Travis Kelsey.
04:48No Tyree Kill, a bunch of receivers that haven't worked out, no running game.
04:51Rasheed Rice getting in trouble every Thursday.
04:53He's averaged right around 3,900 yards, 23 touchdowns, and 12 picks.
05:00That sounds pretty pedestrian to me, but that's Patrick Mahomes.
05:03I'm not knocking him.
05:03I'm saying it's really, really hard to do this high-level thing each and every year.
05:08Let's go to Vic in Akakeek on Grant and Danny.
05:10You can call us at 800-636-1067 discussing the Jaden Daniels transition into the Blau offense,
05:16which was on display at OTAs this week.
05:19What's up, Vic?
05:21What's up, Danny?
05:22What's up, man?
05:23Hey, buddy.
05:23So, my take on this is I'm 39, and most of my football life, I've watched athletic young
05:34men.
05:34I won't say as an athletic as Jaden, but very athletic young men that played quarterback
05:39all through my years of high school, middle school, what have you, and they played at the
05:42center, and there was a time, 2004 to about 2011, the high school coaches in the D&D, more
05:53or most of them, would not have one bit of a shotgun, anything that looked like a pistol
05:58off it, whatsoever.
06:00It was three-step, five-step, seven-step drop.
06:02When was that, Vic?
06:03That's interesting to me.
06:05When was that?
06:07I graduated in 2004.
06:08And so, like, when you were in high school, everybody was under center?
06:12Everybody.
06:13Everybody.
06:13I remember there was one team.
06:14Just about?
06:15Yeah.
06:15Woodbury Forest had a guy named Tim Olmstead that went and played at Florida, and he lined
06:20up in the shotgun, and they lined up five wide and slung it.
06:22He played for Spurrier.
06:23He was, like, the fifth quarterback behind Danny Warth.
06:25I guess that's true from my time, too.
06:26It was a lot of, like, wing T or single wing or stuff like that.
06:30This is my point.
06:31It's not rocket science to learn it, because most of the generation before the Stephen
06:39Curry effect happened in the NFL where college coaches were coming to the NFL, and they wanted
06:44to implement their offenses.
06:45They were taught to drop three-step, five-step, seven-step drop from under center.
06:49So, I don't understand why it's perceived that it will be hard for him.
06:54The quarterbacks that don't do that well with this are not that good of quarterbacks.
06:58They may be better, they may be pro quarterbacks, but they're not the best pro quarterbacks.
07:03And Patrick Mahomes has been a shotgun quarterback most of his life.
07:07That's all he knows.
07:08I'm not going to put that to the test of, this is going to be really hard for him when
07:13he puts the work in.
07:14If Patrick Mahomes was given the same offensive scheme and the same offensive expectation,
07:20I think he would do well with it, too.
07:21Well, so...
07:22Thank you, buddy.
07:22I'll push back a little bit on the second part of that call, right?
07:26The idea that, like, well, this was happening in high school back in the day, so it's not
07:30that complicated.
07:31David Blau's offense is not the same as the one being run at Chirando High School from
07:34under center in 2005, I'd be willing to tell you, or at King George High School.
07:38Like, there is a complexity to what they're doing in the National Football League and why
07:43they're doing everything pre-snap that still makes life difficult if you're an NFL quarterback.
07:48Having said that, I think his point is, if you put in the work and you're athletic enough,
07:54you can figure this out, and I know a lot of people feel that way, it's just, if you've
07:59never done it, it's like anything, Danny.
08:01If you've never driven a car on the right side of the road, when you move to London and
08:06have to do it, it's going to take a little time.
08:09It doesn't come naturally, necessarily.
08:11And I would disagree with him if he thinks it does.
08:14Like, oh, you've driven on the left, you can drive on the right.
08:16No, you've got to think three times before you turn.
08:18You come up to that intersection, it's a pain in the ass.
08:19I drove that manual transmission in Scotland, dude.
08:22That was not easy.
08:23The other part is, and I've talked to a lot of quarterbacks about this.
08:26This is not my opinion as a dude who threw the ball in his backyard, okay?
08:30This is the opinion of coaches who call plays in the league and quarterbacks.
08:33When you have to turn your back to the defense as a drop-back quarterback from under center
08:40for play action, and then whip around, and now everything looks different.
08:44Because they've disguised the coverage, and one guy lined up one place and then flew 14
08:50yards into the deep secondary and center field in those couple of seconds, and now you've
08:55got to reassess everything.
08:56That is uncomfortable.
08:57There are quarterbacks that legitimately do not like doing that.
09:00They don't prefer it.
09:01They want their eyes on the defense and where guys are moving at all times.
09:06So I don't agree with him on the idea that, like, oh, this is something anyone can do
09:10with the reps.
09:11Yeah, eventually, but not necessarily at the level that they're demanding that Jaden Daniels
09:16do it.
09:17It is complicated.
09:18It is hard.
09:19And some guys do not get past the discomfort of losing sight of the defense for, if it's
09:25a stretch run at times, like a play action, like you're going off tackle, the old Peyton
09:29Manning on my arm's way out here.
09:31I can barely get there.
09:32You're talking a couple of seconds of not looking.
09:33You turn back around.
09:35Everyone's in different spots now.
09:36So you really got to rely upon your pre-snap reads and thoughts.
09:40Yeah, it's really, really hard to process.
09:42Now, Gibbs back in the day hated the shotguns.
09:45He didn't like the idea that a guy would be taking his eye off the defense for even a
09:48microsecond just to catch the ball.
09:50That was the old way of thinking.
09:52He didn't like that.
09:54So, I mean, the whole point here is no matter what you do, it's a trade-off, right?
09:58You can have very little run deception coming out of the shotgun.
10:01There's some, but it's not the same as that real, true, honest-to-God under center play action.
10:05I think the problem with the run game at a shotgun is that most of the time, if you're
10:09lined up to the left of the quarterback, you're going right.
10:12If you're lined up to the right of the quarterback, you're going left.
10:15That's one of the issues for sure.
10:16It's not gospel.
10:17It's not 100%, but it's the bulk of the time, and the defense has a tell in that way.
10:21And there are fewer looks and play action things that you can do.
10:25Whereas under center, you've got more angles.
10:27You've got more holes to hit.
10:29You've got just a bigger playbook of things I've got to account for if I'm a linebacker from
10:34under center.
10:35That's why a lot of the times the defenders will say they'd much rather a team be in the
10:38shotgun.
10:39It kills a bunch of the stuff on their checklist, like a co-pilot sitting there up front looking
10:44out the window before you take off.
10:45We're good on this and this and this.
10:47Before the snap, if you're a linebacker trying to figure out what they might be running, when
10:51they're in shotgun, you can just cross eight things off the list.
10:53And if you're under center, if there's no tells, if you're not tipping your pitches, it's
10:58a lot harder to guess.
10:59CJ's in New Jersey listening on the Odyssey app.
11:01What's up, CJ?
11:03How you doing, fellas?
11:04I think it's malpractice on behalf of Adam Peters and company and the confusion that we
11:09have.
11:10He's going into year three.
11:11Shotgun can work if you have the weapons.
11:13The fact that you're not committed to surrounding this kid with talent is just mind-boggling.
11:17I really don't understand how we're hyping up Van Jefferson, Traylon Burke for Jayden
11:22Dings when other teams are like, no, we're going to do whatever's possible to surround
11:25our young quarterback with talent.
11:27He's on his rookie contract.
11:28And so now you say, well, okay, well, I'm going to take you from doing what you do best
11:32in shotgun and say, I'm going to take away scrambling.
11:34So now you're not dynamic.
11:36We're just going to throw the ball around.
11:37So who, like, I'm not sure if they have a plan.
11:40We don't have the job of who's going to.
11:42They have a $30 million wide receiver on one side.
11:45They have a third round pick who was almost a second round pick, essentially, from where
11:49he was drafted on the other side.
11:51They've got a tight end that they just spent the second most money on on the market this
11:55year.
11:55They've drafted two running backs the last two years.
11:58They've got a top half the league offensive line.
12:00They've hired a coordinator now to run a very friendly scheme to get guys open.
12:05I mean, it's not like they've done nothing.
12:07And I don't know that anybody's hyping up Van Jefferson, by the way.
12:09I haven't heard that show.
12:10So if somebody's talking about Van Jefferson, big season loading, I haven't listened to
12:16that one.
12:16You might need to get a new show in your file.
12:18Let's go to Reggie in D.C.
12:19What's up, Reggie?
12:20How are you?
12:21Hey, what's going on, fellas?
12:22Love the show.
12:23Hey, buddy.
12:23We make it.
12:24I understand it was the least in the lead.
12:27I understand it.
12:27But we make it seem like Jaden didn't run any plays on the center.
12:31He did.
12:32He absolutely.
12:33Matter of fact, the one that I remember for sure was a while ago against Tampa Bay when he
12:37got the first down when Gonzalez did the kick.
12:39So I know that stands out for sure.
12:41But I think he even said it during the interview when he asked him, like, man, of course, you
12:47got to put in work, you know, because it's probably going to be more.
12:50Absolutely.
12:50And when I was watching Chicago games, I don't know what's the percentage, but I don't think
12:55it's like we're going back to Joe Gibbs, John Riggins.
12:58He's going to be on the center like 89% of the time.
13:01But I'm so confident because I've seen it.
13:03It's not like he hasn't done it in the NFL against NFL defenses.
13:08Absolutely.
13:09He has.
13:10I think it's going to be easy.
13:11But I think what's most importantly is it's going to open up the offense that's just going
13:16to give more to what he's going to be able to do.
13:19But think about him, especially if he masters the, you know, kind of that Peyton Manning
13:24when he's going to stick the ball out and you don't even know whether or not he's going
13:27to hand it.
13:27So imagine if he can really master the play action and that deception, man, it's going
13:33to really open up our offense.
13:35But I'm not worried whatsoever because I've seen it.
13:37He's done it.
13:38Yeah.
13:38The exact number is a league low, which is the important phrase here.
13:43112 snaps under center during the 2025 season, which was a butting of heads behind the scenes
13:49from what I've gathered and certainly something I talked a lot about on the show and was frustrated
13:53about.
13:53One of the reasons that Cliff Kingsbury is not here.
13:56They utilized fewer than 230 under center plays across the last two seasons with Cliff
14:01Kingsbury, which was also the lowest in the NFL.
14:04So has he done it?
14:06Yes.
14:06A couple hundred times over two years and a couple thousand plays.
14:09I don't think anyone's acting like he's going to trip or fall over like he can't do it.
14:14Like happened with down to McNabb, but he couldn't get couldn't get away from center.
14:16Every other play.
14:17How many of those 112 times were a pass?
14:20How many of those times were a pass that wasn't a predetermined read premeditated where
14:24it's like, OK, we're we're booting and it's a tight end on a, you know, a little, you
14:28know, play action boot where it's a cross or whatever.
14:31I don't know the number, but let's say it was a few dozen times where you drop, you read
14:34things out.
14:35That just still means you're two years behind a lot of guys that have been doing it for two
14:38years.
14:39Yeah.
14:39Instead of instead of a hundred reps, imagine a thousand reps doing that, you know, because
14:43you major in something else.
14:44It's a different paradigm.
14:45Forty to fifty percent of the time is where to answer Reggie's question, though, the teams
14:49that do it the most are.
14:50So even still, no one's pretending like they're about to run under center stuff.
14:54Ninety percent of the time.
14:55Right.
14:55We're talking about about half.
14:56It's not Navy.
14:57Eight hundred six, three, six, one, oh, six, seven.
14:59You want to hop.
15:00Back.
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