- 12 hours ago
Jayden Daniels' teammates are seeing his leadership skills grow by the day, and even we can see it on the field in OTAs! Kevin Sheehan breaks down what Terry McLaurin and others are saying vs. what we're seeing in the media.
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00:01A more sound to play here on the show this morning, because this happened, I think, yesterday.
00:07Correct, Max? This was not while I was gone.
00:09This happened yesterday with Terry McLaurin on the Rich Eisen podcast.
00:16Correct.
00:16And he had a couple of things to say.
00:18This first thing was, you know, Terry, as we know, Terry is thoughtful.
00:25He is a good communicator, and his answers tend to roll on for a while.
00:32This was Terry on Rich Eisen's podcast yesterday talking about Jaden Daniels and his advancing of his leadership role in
00:42taking control of the new offense.
00:46How's your quarterback looking?
00:48Man, he looks really, really good.
00:50And since I know Jaden since he got drafted, he's always been a focused, determined, prepared player, young guy.
00:58But now he's a vet.
00:59And this offseason, you can tell he's taking even more of a leadership role, more initiative of, you know, putting
01:07his hands on the steering wheel of this offense.
01:09You know, I think it's no secret that Gladwell wants to build this offense around him, the things that he
01:14does really well.
01:14And, I mean, there's countless things he does well.
01:17And, you know, him being able to work under center and use more of the play action is only going
01:21to not only help him, but it's going to help the receivers, going to help the O-line, the running
01:25backs, the tight ends.
01:26And so I just think the biggest thing you can tell, his voice is becoming more and more loud.
01:31He's a very laid back person.
01:33But from getting us together, throwing in L.A., you know, before OTA started, to the way he's communicating in
01:40the meetings, him and I are having so many conversations, not only on the field, but through text.
01:47We were going into Memorial Day weekend.
01:50And, you know, Friday, guys are doing their plans.
01:52And he's texting me about a route that we ran that day.
01:55And I'm like, all right, five, like, we're kind of on the weekend now.
01:58Like, we could talk about this on Monday.
02:00But that's just the type of player he is.
02:03He's always locked in and focused on the task at hand.
02:05And you can just tell his personality is continuing to grow.
02:09And, you know, he's the leader that we want leading this team this year and every year.
02:14So it's just been really fun to be able to build with him.
02:17And I think for me it's been different because I think this may be the first year I've had the
02:21same quarterback starting for three years.
02:24And that continuity goes such a long way.
02:26And so him and I are really, you know, hitting a lot of early marks now in OTA.
02:32So I believe it's going to continue to build as we get throughout the offseason.
02:37Terry McLaurin on Jaden Daniels.
02:38You know, he said something there that reminded me of something.
02:42And I may have alluded to it already on the show today.
02:45But if I had not done that, I want to do it now.
02:48So I told you that when I got back yesterday from the vacation that I was on, one of the
02:53things I did do is I went and watched the pressers from last week.
02:58Jaden's in particular, Quinn's, a couple of others.
03:02Obviously, I saw the Ken Law stuff.
03:03We played some of that earlier.
03:04The one thing that struck me about Jaden Daniels in watching him up on the podium last week is there
03:12was an air of incremental confidence in his communication ability, in his comfort level.
03:25That's more of a comfort thing.
03:26I saw a guy up there that is, you know, entering his third year, not his first year, not his
03:32second year.
03:33He just looked more comfortable.
03:37He looked more engaged.
03:40You know, I've always felt in watching Jaden in these pressers, and it doesn't bother me at all because I
03:45don't care what he says.
03:46I only care about what he does as a fan of this team.
03:49But it's almost been a bit of a tooth pull with him during these press conferences.
03:56It looks like he cannot wait once he starts to finish it up.
04:01The answers are super short.
04:03It's not that he went on and on in his answers.
04:05He didn't necessarily.
04:07But I think he contemplated the questions more, tried to give a more complete answer, tried to give an answer
04:14that wasn't,
04:16how do I move on quickly to the next question so we can get through what my PR person told
04:22me would be about eight or nine questions and then I'll be done.
04:26And I didn't see that in watching him.
04:29He just looked, he looked more mature, looked more comfortable.
04:33That's good.
04:34It's fine.
04:34I don't care about the answers being like super exciting or super insightful.
04:40You know, I only care about the play on the field as a fan of the team and a big
04:45fan of his, which most of you know I am.
04:50I don't care if my quarterback is a scintillating press conference or not.
04:56Now, what's interesting about that is I do think over the years for me, it's observational and you'll pull up
05:03an example or two that will completely refute this, I'm sure.
05:07But I do think that those guys, a quarterback, specifically quarterback, that give you something that's interesting, that give you
05:16something that's more thoughtful,
05:18that really understand and process the questions, usually, you know, it's reflective of maybe a higher, you know, sort of
05:29intellect.
05:29And I think that's better than less intellect at that position.
05:32And I do, that was the other thing that I noticed with him.
05:36Like there was an effort that maybe didn't exist before, but a real ability as they've all told us about
05:44this guy.
05:45He processes quickly, he's incredibly intelligent, and then he's a grinder, you know, he's a gym rat.
05:53All of the, what I call, positives in, you know, what you want your best players to be.
05:59But I just, I thought it was interesting that Terry said some of those things because I thought that in
06:05watching him in that press conference.
06:07I watched it yesterday, I did not watch it last week when I was out.
06:12But, yeah, so we'll see whether or not that manifests itself into better health, more availability,
06:19and a season like he had in 2024 or better, but observational.
06:26This was Terry on Blau's, you know, offense and what it might look like.
06:32And there's so many new offenses and new offensive coordinators around the league that I'm fascinated to see, you know,
06:37how it plays out.
06:38Now, you're, you're, it was one of them, one of, you know, three in the division, as a matter of
06:44fact, you know, with the Eagles re, re, you know,
06:47hiring a new offensive coordinator, the Giants have obviously got John Harbaugh on the mix there now.
06:51And then there's you, you mentioned David Blau, the OC and the conversation about it's a more pro style offense
06:57that he's bringing in.
06:58You kind of just referred to it a little bit.
07:00That is what is happening.
07:01And what more meat can you put on the bones there of what it's going to look like?
07:06Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to give away too much, but I just know he wants to be multiple.
07:10And the first thing he said about our philosophy, he wants the same things that look different and different things
07:16that look the same.
07:17And what I take from that is you want things to marry together.
07:20You want formations that you could build off of.
07:22You have multiple formations that you could run same plays out of.
07:26You have different formations that you could give the defense a completely different look.
07:29But all encompassing, it all makes sense as an offense.
07:34You know, for a receiver, going from no huddle to a huddle, that's different.
07:39You know what I mean?
07:39It goes from a signal base to really being able to open your ears to what part of the play
07:43call is most important.
07:45I think I got to give Jaden a lot of credit because it seems like he's just really picked up
07:49the offense really quickly.
07:50And his calls out there when we're in OTAs are really clean and concise.
07:54So it allows the communication to be that much better.
07:57And so, you know, I've been benefiting through OTAs of having a lot of similar stems and formations that allow
08:06me just to manipulate defenses more,
08:09manipulate the DB a lot more and put them in a position of feeling like they maybe have to guess
08:14what I'm running because they just saw this same formation two or three plays ago.
08:19But it's a completely different concept.
08:20And as a receiver, that's music to my ears because you never want to feel like the defense has the
08:25upper hand on you.
08:26And, you know, I feel like with this offense, we'll have a chance to not only be on the attack,
08:30but also be able to get back to things in the games that maybe have been successful earlier in the
08:35first or second quarter.
08:36So I can't say enough great things about David Blau.
08:41He's an excellent communicator.
08:43He's been that way before he even got the offensive coordinator job.
08:46He's extremely personable and he's played the game.
08:49You know what I mean?
08:49He knows what it's like to be in our shoes extremely recently.
08:53And he knows the importance of putting playmakers in position to make plays.
08:55And he's been around so many talented offensive minds and offensive players.
09:01It's kind of seemed like it's come second nature for him to step into this role.
09:05And so even though this is his first opportunity, we're all excited to help support him and bring his vision
09:10to life
09:11because we all definitely believe that he has a chance to have a bright future in this league as a
09:15coach.
09:17Interesting stuff from Terry there.
09:20You know, pro style offense.
09:23He's talking about more under center, more play action pass attempts, more married run to pass.
09:29All of those things are true.
09:30I'll just completely, you know, stick with it's just a bit of a pet peeve.
09:36That's it.
09:36A bit of a nit to pick is when some of you refer to Cliff Kingsbury's offense as air raid
09:43or, you know, straight college offense.
09:46It's just not really an apt description of it.
09:49But, you know, go back and watch college football because I don't think you have if you actually think what
09:55Washington ran the last two years was air raid.
09:59It doesn't even resemble what they did in the two years in air raid offense.
10:03Um, but it will be different.
10:06And again, I think the number one big difference, the obvious difference will be more play action pass attempts, which,
10:14you know, really we've seen for a long time.
10:17You know, that Shanahan style, McVay style, Gruden style, Ben Johnson style, where you emphasis on marrying run to pass
10:27and, you know, using play action as the primary part of your pass offense.
10:33It's really hard to defend, uh, very hard to defend and, and that sometimes doesn't require, ironically, it doesn't require,
10:44you know, four or five yards per carry.
10:47It's interesting that, you know, back to the defense play action seems to work even when you haven't run the
10:56football well.
10:57Uh, I remember Cooley saying many years ago, and I thought it was such an interesting observation because it felt
11:03so intuitive as a football fan and watcher of football.
11:06He said, if your quarterback is really good at play action, selling that run fake, turning his back, protecting and
11:15hiding and masking the football, you don't have to be, you know, a four and a half yard average per
11:21carry team for play action to work because linebackers, that second layer of the defense.
11:28They tend to, when a quarterback turns and hides the football after a play action to react to it the
11:36same way, almost every time, even if you haven't been successful running the football, you have to attempt to run
11:46the football.
11:46That's for sure.
11:47You have to make them believe that even if you haven't had success running the football, you're going to run
11:55the football.
11:56Uh, but, uh, great play action isn't necessarily contingent on higher yards per carry averages.
12:06Always found that interesting about the play action game, but we're going to see a lot of it.
12:10And, you know, some people will say, well, you know, the old traditional non, you know, running non mobile quarterbacks,
12:18they need play action.
12:20You know, the Jared Goffs and the Kirk cousins of the world, they need play action.
12:25And God knows those guys have been incredibly effective.
12:29Kirk's been one of the better play action passers of his era.
12:33Uh, but it works for mobile quarterbacks too.
12:35And in many ways, it's even more effective when the quarterback is mobile and threatens the defense off of play,
12:45play action with his arm and legs.
12:48And that's the one play.
12:50Like if you, you know, even if, if you get the run game going and you see him on that
12:57stretch outside zone, play fake coming back the other way, keeping it on a bootleg where he's got the option
13:04to throw layer one, usually a tight end, sometimes a fullback.
13:08Layer two is wide receiver or that third level much deeper.
13:12And usually they work deep to short, but if nothing's there, can you imagine Jaden with nobody on the edge
13:21as he's coming off that bootleg fake, uh, that zone run fake on a bootleg.
13:26And he can easily run for 10, 15 yards, get out of bounds.
13:30If he can't throw it, we'll see a lot more of that.
13:34That is for sure.
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