00:0030 minutes from now, you'll hear some analysis Logan Paulson had
00:04on what David Blau's offense looked like at OTAs yesterday.
00:08Welcome back, Grant and Danny.
00:10On the fan, speaking of OTAs, our first chance to hear from Dan Quinn
00:13in some time this offseason, and more importantly,
00:16our first chance to see the veterans, the rookies on the field together.
00:20Dan Quinn on what he's excited about for OTAs.
00:23For today, I'm pumped to get rolling with the guys on the field.
00:27Spring ball is an important part of our ramp-up for training camp.
00:31As you can imagine, with two new systems, looking for excellent communication,
00:36all three phases, and working really hard on the specific skills
00:40that go into these plays.
00:42And that's the movements, that's the skill, that's what you have to go through
00:45over these next few weeks on the play design.
00:49So that's what I'm looking for from there.
00:51I'm starting to get to know the team in the locker room a lot better
00:55with some new faces, with some veterans and the rookies to add,
00:59and so some really talented guys.
01:00But I love the locker room and the men that make it up,
01:02and I'm looking forward to getting rolling with them
01:04kind of as we start this next phase together.
01:06I think there were more questions of Dan Quinn yesterday
01:09about his new coordinators than the players, almost.
01:13And that was definitely the biggest storyline
01:15because everyone's trying to get a feel for how different things look,
01:18the scheme, pre-snap, offensively, defensively,
01:20how many pressures you get to see, although it sounded like they ran
01:23a lot of base defense for Durante Jones in this first installation of OTA.
01:28But it just brings you back to our big storyline
01:30at the very start of the offseason,
01:32which was how bold and daring it is for Dan Quinn in the third year.
01:38In a gotta-have-it, you're coming off of a 12-loss season,
01:42you're in big trouble if you don't win, if Michael Phillips is right,
01:45and you and I are right, as he was just talking about on the Blitz.
01:47And then you blow out coordinators and you start anew.
01:50You are putting yourself on the shot clock here.
01:53I wonder if with every step you take, you kind of know that, right?
01:56If you're out on the practice field going,
01:58damn, this Blitz thing's got to work.
02:00This Durante Jones better get me where I need to go
02:03because your job's on those guys' shoulders.
02:06I also, though, wonder behind the scenes,
02:07you had a great question early this offseason, if you even remember it.
02:11Are we sure that that's the case, right?
02:13What kind of conversations have Peters and Dan Quinn,
02:16what have they had?
02:17What have they talked about, right?
02:18Is it a, dude, don't worry.
02:20We know.
02:20We didn't do right by you.
02:22I'm just making this up.
02:23But it's not a gotta-have-it year.
02:25We're building something.
02:25We're going to be patient.
02:26Who knows?
02:27Well, you can't have two of what you had last year.
02:30When I say that, I don't know if they have to make the playoffs.
02:33I don't know if they have to win a playoff game.
02:34But it's got to be better than last year.
02:36It's got to be way better.
02:37And sizable.
02:37If they're 6-11, I think he's gone.
02:40You know, if they're 7-10,
02:41but there's enough good with Daniels
02:43and some of the important key cogs of the whole operation,
02:47you could maybe convince me.
02:48Eight or more wins, I think he's probably safe
02:50because now you're on the brink of something meaningful
02:52in the continuity.
02:53If you're Josh Harris, it's something you could be talked into.
02:56Now we're on the precipice.
02:57Let's have one more draft, one more free agency,
03:00and we're right there.
03:01But if they win, certainly five or six, maybe even seven games.
03:05Yeah, I think if it's a disaster again, then yeah, it's up in smoke.
03:08It's over, Johnny.
03:08But I think the point stands either way,
03:10and that's what I was taking a very long way to get to,
03:12is that no matter what, in year three,
03:16when you go, neither coordinator was up to snuff.
03:18Who picked them?
03:19Don't worry about that.
03:20Look over here, new players.
03:22It's a major, major, major to do.
03:25And it's the second time you've picked one.
03:27That's the problem to me,
03:28is you've already picked and blown out coordinators.
03:32It's not guys graduating went to better jobs.
03:34It's not like Cliff went to be a head coach somewhere.
03:36That's not what happened.
03:36Joe Barry, we all knew.
03:38Well, Joe Barry, I'm sure.
03:39That's another terrible defensive coordinator.
03:40We knew that guy couldn't do it.
03:42Joe Witt, last year, we knew,
03:44okay, this is not working.
03:46This was a mistake.
03:47And then he gets demoted.
03:48First, he gets moved to a different location
03:50because that was going to solve it.
03:51Then he lost his play-calling duties,
03:53and eventually he was out.
03:54He could have at least gone along with the idea that
03:57Cliff's good, this was a great hire.
03:59He made the decision to let us all know
04:01he didn't like the way the offense was run
04:03and the lack of pro-style concepts.
04:06So he put himself squarely on the chopping block here.
04:09He placed a bullseye on his back
04:11by, I think, just starting the hourglass
04:15when you start changing your staff around
04:17and bringing in new coordinators.
04:20This was Quinn yesterday on entering year one
04:23with David Blau as OTAs began.
04:25Yeah, the first part, even take it back a step,
04:28Nicky was to say,
04:29can we throw an incredible offseason
04:31in the teaching and the installs?
04:32I think that's the first part
04:34that I saw David and Durante nail
04:36over the first couple of weeks.
04:38They're going back.
04:39I'm exploring.
04:40All right, what's best for this player?
04:42What's best for this route?
04:44And sometimes it takes a few, you know,
04:46sessions to go through that.
04:47Let's hit that again.
04:48Let's try that route again.
04:50And then there's other things.
04:51You know what?
04:52Let's hold on that.
04:53And so they've got a big amount that's installed so far.
04:57And so over the next, you know,
05:00a couple of weeks here and then through camp,
05:02it kind of gets refined
05:03and you really hit on the things that,
05:05you know, already, you know,
05:06these are the ones that feel the best.
05:08It's crazy to me how smart these guys are.
05:11I know they've been working behind the scenes over there
05:13and this is what they do,
05:14but they were pretty far advanced
05:17from everyone I've talked to out there yesterday
05:19with what they were running
05:20and how seamless it was.
05:21You'd think it's a lot of,
05:23all right, what do I do on this play?
05:24Let's go back to the huddle.
05:25Let's sort this out.
05:26They were just mid-season four, man.
05:28Just a new offense, new language.
05:30Pretty incredible.
05:30Yeah, and you wonder if Blau sort of,
05:33you know, as he's designing this thing
05:35in multiple images, right?
05:36He came from a different tree.
05:38But if he's making the language more accessible,
05:41right, that's an underrated part of this
05:42where he may have one name or number
05:44or concept in mind for a certain something,
05:46but he can go, okay,
05:47these guys were raised in this offense,
05:49meaning Cliffs.
05:49We can sort of have an easier translation
05:52where it means almost the exact same thing somehow.
05:55I mean, again, he was able to craft it on his own,
05:57not coming from somewhere else with a blank slate.
05:59If David Blau is the truth,
06:00he's going to become a rising star in this sport
06:03really, really fast.
06:05Recent former quarterback,
06:06everyone's kind of looking forward to call plays.
06:08Then he takes over as a coordinator.
06:10He's working with one of the most beloved players
06:14in the National Football League quarterback position
06:17in Jaden Daniels.
06:18Like, you're going to have a Sean McVay situation
06:20where either you're going to have to make a tough decision on
06:24if the team's not doing great,
06:25but the offense is ascending,
06:26and you can tell Blau's special,
06:28is that someone that you want to keep around somehow,
06:30some way, or might he walk?
06:33But there's a lot that would have to happen between now
06:35and him getting a head coaching opportunity somewhere,
06:38including him proving that he's worth this OC op.
06:41Quinn talked about what Blau's offense might look like
06:44when it gets going.
06:47I think the efficiency, David, is the number one thing,
06:50you know, especially on the early downs.
06:51If there's a balance in the run-pass ratios,
06:54then we're hitting the marks probably at the right strides,
06:57and I would say the explosives will be up
06:59knowing we can do that.
07:00And so that's the first part.
07:02You know, I'm looking for one that has good balance.
07:04Like I say, we'll always be 50-50,
07:06but if you can find that and attack in that way,
07:09that's what success would look like to me early on.
07:12So that's a football dinosaur answer
07:13that, frankly, I'll never like
07:15when we talk about balance being 50% run, 50% pass.
07:19That's 27 years ago.
07:21That's antiquated and awful.
07:23Give me the philosophy of Mike Leach.
07:27That's 50% stupid.
07:30Balance is getting the ball to your playmakers
07:33and mixing them into the game plan as best as possible.
07:36But we do know that he wants to run the ball more.
07:39This is, when you have a defensive-minded head coach,
07:41you can guarantee a few things.
07:43One of them is that at some point,
07:44they're going to bang heads with the offensive coordinator
07:46on if they're running it enough.
07:47Because there's this complementary element
07:50to the entire thing where you need to help my defense out,
07:53you need to help the other side of the ball out,
07:54especially when it's deficient
07:56and not very good over the last two years.
07:57So they're going to want to run the ball more.
07:59Great.
08:00I got no problem with that.
08:01But the idea of the balance is not run pass.
08:04No.
08:04And just hearing that is frustrating and annoying to me,
08:07but irrelevant largely in the grand scheme of things.
08:10Yeah, the nature of the conversation has driven me crazy for a long time.
08:13Again, people just look at totals after a game and go,
08:16they didn't run it enough!
08:18Okay.
08:18I don't have time to explain stuff to you.
08:20We learn a lot more now.
08:22The old guy that wants to go,
08:24you've got to run the ball more.
08:24No, no, no.
08:25You have to be more effective.
08:26The whole point of running the ball is what?
08:27To chew up the clock, to stay on the field,
08:28to keep the defense off the field.
08:30You know what doesn't work?
08:31Is three runs and a punt.
08:32You ran it more.
08:33Does that work for you?
08:34First downs.
08:35Chain moving.
08:35Time of possession.
08:36That works.
08:37Now, I can see a coach, a defensive coach,
08:39walking into the OC's office and going,
08:41hey, quit running nothing but hurry up, man.
08:44We got no time.
08:45And when you go three and out, it took a minute.
08:47My guys didn't get a chance to even look at the Microsoft Surface
08:49to figure out what the hell was going on.
08:51We had to go back and play defense again.
08:52Quit doing that.
08:54That's different than, we've got to run the dang ball.
08:56You need to be effective.
08:57You need first downs.
08:58Chain moving is the thing that matters.
09:00However you do it, that's fine.
09:01One of the things that he and Kingsbury, I'm sure, had issues on
09:05was the amount of times they ran the ball.
09:08Yeah.
09:08They didn't do it enough for his liking.
09:10Again, find me a defensive-minded head coach.
09:12I'll find you a guy that wants to run it more.
09:14But I think not being under center, I completely agree with that.
09:17Me and Dan Quinn can cheers beers on that one.
09:20I think probably wanting to run something more along the lines
09:24of the offenses that were giving them fits.
09:27He has really struggled with Matt LaFleur as an example,
09:30as an under center play action, marrying run and pass together offense
09:34with Green Bay.
09:35He has struggled with, at times, McVay and Shanahan
09:38and some of those guys as well.
09:40Seattle ate their lunch.
09:42Detroit took their lunch and dipped their heads in the toilet
09:45and hit the flush pedal and made sure that they were giving him a swirly.
09:50I think he wanted to look more like that, and you're going to now
09:53with David Blau.
09:54We'll get to the defensive side of the ball, though, next.
09:56There are two guys on this defense I don't think we talk enough about
09:59to have been added that are going to help, and specifically one guy
10:01who's gone completely under-talked about this offseason,
10:04one of the free agent additions, who got big reviews yesterday
10:07at practice, who I think actually could be an unsung hero
10:10in this whole thing.
10:11That's next on Grant and Danny.
10:13You
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