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00:06Welcome back, G&D.
00:07On the fan, we'll take you up to 6.15 tonight in Nat's pregame with Charlie Slows and Dave Jagler.
00:15Today in D.C. sports, the biggest story probably OTAs for the commanders on the practice field.
00:20The way it works is each week with a different section of OTAs, the media gets one day out there
00:28to watch practice.
00:30Do a bunch of interviews, meet with coaches.
00:32And so a lot of the coverage and the stories that we talk about come from that access.
00:37And one of the big developments today was new offensive coordinator David Blau taking to the microphone.
00:43Want to go through some of the things he said.
00:46Let's first hear from how he's hoping the offense evolves with Jaden Daniels as quarterback as they build this thing
00:53in the image of No. 5.
00:55You know, just trying to open his eyes, maybe under center to some of the play action concepts and different
01:02things.
01:03We want to stretch, you know, stretch people horizontally and vertically.
01:06And, you know, it's we're not creating essentially new concepts, just asking him to do different things.
01:13And I think at the end of the day, it's about us trying to put our best players in positions
01:18to be successful.
01:19And, you know, we'll evaluate that throughout the spring and in a training camp to do that.
01:25Somebody somewhere heard that and just heard a football coach talking and didn't think much of that cut.
01:31I'm going to lock myself in the bathroom and turn the lights off for a few minutes.
01:35He said things like under center, play action, and stretch the defense horizontally.
01:44You'll have to give me a minute.
01:46Compose yourself over there.
01:47I love it.
01:48That's the good stuff.
01:49Speaking the Paulson language.
01:49Yeah, I mean, the part that I took out was previously with Terry.
01:54We had comments on the Rich Eisen show where the marriage between run and pass, where the first 1-1
02:01,000, maybe even a 2-1,000 of a play, the defense still doesn't know what it is.
02:07That's what I want.
02:08Well, let's get into the specifics on that.
02:09How do you do it?
02:10Your runs and your passes have to come from the same formations.
02:14They have to come from the same looks.
02:16They have to come with the same personnel groupings.
02:19And that's not always the case.
02:21This was not necessarily a strength of Cliff Kingsbury's.
02:24He got a lot of credit, especially in 24 when they were winning.
02:27Weird how that happens.
02:28Less credit the next year when all of a sudden everyone thinks he's a boob all of a sudden when
02:31they're not winning.
02:32But he got a lot of the credit for the variation, remember, of like run groups.
02:37And I remember we would talk especially on the scripted first and second series of a game.
02:42How many times did people talk about they ran 10 different formations and 10 different personnel groupings on 10 plays,
02:48you know, basically in terms of not any one back-to-back is what I'm trying to get at.
02:53But they did not marry run and pass well at all.
02:55That's what David Blau is going to do.
02:57Everything's going to look the same.
02:58And I love that.
02:58Again, a flat-footed defender is a bad defender.
03:01And I want that.
03:02Your guy has a running start.
03:04Their guy doesn't.
03:04He's reacting.
03:05That means he's trailing.
03:06You know what it is to me?
03:07So in baseball, we've talked a lot of baseball lately with the Nats playing well.
03:11Everything now from a pitching standpoint is about what?
03:14Tunneling.
03:15Right?
03:16Yes.
03:16You see these pitching ninja accounts, Rob Friedman and these other people, where they're showing you overlays of fastball, slider,
03:26curveball, and it's like four pitches, same slot, same spot, and then they all spray in different directions.
03:31And so when you're at home going, how could he swing at that?
03:34It wasn't close.
03:35That's why.
03:35Because it looked like every other pitch 80% of the way.
03:39Yep.
03:40This is tunneling in football.
03:41If you're throwing a curveball that's not competitive and bounces in the dirt, essentially, I could take that pitch.
03:48But if you tunnel it correctly, if your arm slot's different for your breaking ball than your fastball, and to
03:53me, that's the big difference, right, with Kingsbury, with some of these coaches, it's like a tell.
03:59Fastball is mitts up at his chest.
04:00Breaking ball, it's a little lower, and his arm slot changes.
04:03You need everything to look the exact same.
04:05And that's what David Blau is going to do.
04:08Who talked about some of the challenges he's looking to overcome as the new offensive coordinator.
04:13You know, what's stimulating for me is every day, you know, there's something new with the role.
04:18So whether it's leading the coaches or our group, it's been really cool to see in different areas new experiences.
04:29And, you know, I've really appreciated everybody just kind of being the wind at my back to keep going forward.
04:37And whether it's our coaching staff or the players buying in completely.
04:39And, you know, I'm really pleased with where the group is at as a whole.
04:44I think he's benefiting from an excitement about his hiring.
04:47Yeah.
04:48He was popular in the building, both with coaches and obviously the front office, who kind of ran Cliff out
04:52of here to promote him.
04:53I don't mean that as a pejorative to him.
04:56That was not like his doing.
04:58But they said, this guy's a rock star.
04:59We can't let him leave our building.
05:00So if that means Cliff's got to go too soon, so be it.
05:03A la the old Sean McVay thing.
05:05That's right.
05:05Like, we're not letting this guy walk.
05:07And so they decided he was going to be in the mix.
05:10But part of the reason they thought that it was time to do that was some of those exit interviews
05:14from what I gathered from players where this was a really, really popular guy.
05:18And Blau talked about the willingness of those players to pick up the offense to help him out.
05:22I really do feel like no hesitation from anybody.
05:26And not that that is surprising, but I think everybody has just full steam ahead said, OK, we are, you
05:34know, we're locking the gates.
05:36We're going forward and we're just going to be about what the vision is for this new system and what
05:42the 26 commanders offense will look like.
05:44His offense is quarterback friendly.
05:46It will make Jaden Daniels life easier.
05:48It will get receivers open more if he's good at it.
05:51And it'll be easier on the offensive line, which we don't talk enough about.
05:54But that's a big deal, too.
05:56Why wouldn't guys be excited?
05:58This is what is working in the league.
06:00It's what everybody's kind of trending toward.
06:02This is the offense that everyone's trying to hire the head coach to run because it does make life easier
06:07on a lot of his players.
06:08Yeah.
06:08And that's really the hope.
06:09That's the ideal scenario is that this is just this, you know, roll the football out there.
06:15You've got 11 guys in the same jersey and everyone's open and plays materialize and there's plenty of options for
06:20the quarterback.
06:21It's, of course, far more challenging than that.
06:23And when rubber meets the road, but that's the utopia, that's the idea.
06:26And that's kind of the ideal that you're shooting for here.
06:28And in May, now June at OTAs, those good vibes should continue.
06:32You and I have talked a lot about this offense is going to be some Ben Johnson.
06:36It's going to be some Kevin O'Connell.
06:38Well, what is David Blau about it, right?
06:40How does this offense really become his own?
06:43He was asked about that.
06:44You know, I really do think, you know, as we grow, we're a sum of everything that we've kind of
06:50taken in.
06:51So there's been things that I've really liked along the way from other places that we will certainly look like.
06:56There's things that we did here that I really like that you guys will see as well.
07:00So, you know, as a staff, that has been the goal so that you can walk into this offense and
07:08say,
07:09well, why is it called that?
07:10And everybody in football always says, well, we've always done it that way.
07:13The goal was to eliminate all of that and build it from the ground up, the collaboration,
07:18and we're going to make the 26th Commander's offense our own.
07:24Very cool to hear.
07:25Also, there are going to be some things that he takes from Cliff.
07:28It's not like they're going to throw everything out.
07:30A lot of stuff worked.
07:31Yeah.
07:31They got to the NFC title game, and Jaden Daniels was a top seven quarterback in the league.
07:35Little or what I was going to say, that's the old baby with the bathwater analogy, right?
07:38Where it's okay to borrow certain things from nearly everybody, even terrible coaches,
07:43even guys that were disastrous.
07:45There's probably some nugget in there.
07:46You don't just go, we can't do that because Cliff's in it,
07:48or we can't do that because name that offensive mind did it.
07:51He's been around some really good ones.
07:52He's been around some great quarterbacks.
07:54He's also around this one.
07:55So everything should be a factor.
07:57Now, how you move those faders up and down, where this is a 17% Ben Johnson play
08:02and a 41% Kingsbury play, that's for you to play with
08:04and you to kind of figure out what your identity is.
08:06If this all goes well, I'm talking about really well,
08:08one day we should be talking about the David Blau tree, right?
08:11Correct.
08:12Where two decades from now, he has spawned all sorts of other copycats to a degree
08:17because he's found his own personality.
08:19And you've got the chance to do that with a quarterback that's got an athletic skill set
08:22that most guys don't have.
08:23Even the bad experiences that you've had with bad offenses should inform you
08:29and help you in building an offense.
08:31Not that you're adding a lot of that, but you know why it didn't work.
08:34And you know what to avoid.
08:35100%.
08:36Pitfalls might be.
08:38He built this thing over the last several months.
08:40He went into that process a little bit.
08:42I think there was construction of it, right?
08:47Back in, call it January, February, things that I had stored away from prior years.
08:52And then there was a whole deconstruction process of, with the coaching staff
08:57and input from certain players, a lot of communication with Jaden along the way.
09:02Um, and then you build it back up and, okay, in March and in April, you know, it's, it's
09:08been a full process, call it from January until the players got their eyes on it for
09:12the first time on April 20th.
09:14And, uh, and we kind of went from there and it's still evolving, right?
09:17This is, this is a work in progress.
09:18It'd be, it'd be foolish to say, Hey, this is a set in stone what we do.
09:22So we're going to continue to, uh, find the best avenues to put us in a position to succeed.
09:28New offensive coordinator, David Blau.
09:31He was on with us.
09:33Fantastic interview.
09:34I thought shortly after he was hired.
09:36Yeah.
09:36There's just said he's got like almost that, that Southern twang.
09:39He played his college ball at Purdue.
09:42Um, but yeah, he he's Texas.
09:44It says there's a little lost shucks to it.
09:46All right.
09:46So he's a Texas guy was born in Carrollton, went to Creekview high school, spent all of
09:51his time in Texas before college at Purdue.
09:54And you, you can hear that a little bit from David Blau.
09:57Indeed.
09:58Starting to sound a little more sure of himself too.
10:00Not that I was underwhelmed or anything when we talked to him again, I thought the interview
10:03was great, but he sounds more like a coordinator talking now than like when we talked to him,
10:09it was like happy to be here guy that just got the job.
10:12And again, as you said, not a criticism, but there've been different guys where you just
10:15go, I can see why this is a fast riser, right?
10:18Where when you get Sean McVay talking about offense years ago, when he,
10:21when he was an OC before he became the head coach, it was like, he was talking about his,
10:26his kid.
10:26You know what I mean?
10:27It was like, you should have seen this play that I came up with.
10:29Oh my God.
10:29Like just, he couldn't contain his, his animation for it.
10:33Whereas Blau was just kind of, oh shucks, sort of, yeah, we'll see, we'll try, we'll do
10:36our best.
10:37We'll figure it out one day at a time.
10:38But there's a, there's a calming demeanor there, which I like because when, when the bullets
10:41are flying, so to speak, the, it's the third Nate play, the crowd's loud.
10:46You're on the walkie talkie.
10:47You're the guy in the headset talking to the quarterback.
10:50And there's something to be said for that nice, even keel where I'm not, I'm not worried
10:54about anything, buddy.
10:55I'll just give you this play.
10:56You'll go ahead and execute it.
10:57Double, double plays coming up next on Grant and Danny.
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