00:00We did get to hear from Falcons D-line coach Nate Olley the other day.
00:04Very animated guy, very energetic, and he called out the Falcons final boss.
00:08Oh man, he gotta be like the final boss, like the big dog.
00:12When we in there stopping around like that, that's what he gotta do for us.
00:15He gotta be, we tell him when he run through that A-gap, it has to look different.
00:19He's the final boss right there. We call him Kingpin.
00:22He gotta be that guy for us.
00:24Did you give him that nickname?
00:25Yeah, we gave him that nickname.
00:26How early on did he get that one?
00:28How early on did he get the nickname?
00:30Oh, he gotta, right?
00:30When we was doing like OTAs and started running through that A-gap, big dude, couldn't be able to move
00:34him.
00:34Like, oh, you the final boss.
00:35We gotta be the Kingpin for us.
00:37We need a proper noun here. He's talking about Deshaun Hand.
00:40Yeah, it's, um, look, there's so many layers of this conversation because this is a spot that a lot of
00:49people,
00:50fans and many in the media feel like they left unresolved in the offseason.
00:57Um, in the free agency portion and the draft that they didn't fill the void that we clearly had even
01:04after they kind of spoke on it.
01:06Um, I pulled a couple of things and Deshaun Hand played for the Chargers last season.
01:14Yes. Um, can confirm.
01:15He had 44% of their snap counts on defense, which is just under 50. Defensive line, it doesn't matter
01:22who starts. It's all rotational. It's all depending on what your specialty is and what the group, the grouping is
01:28on the field offensively, what their personnel is.
01:31But that was the eighth best run defense in the league with him anchoring it in the middle and, and,
01:36and primarily getting a majority of those run snaps.
01:39Some would call that top 10.
01:42Some would.
01:43Mm-hmm.
01:43They also did one other thing, and I don't want to go too far off the Charon Hand. I know,
01:47I know Grant's probably got some stuff on him.
01:49But they traded Rook Arororo.
01:51Great name.
01:53For lesser of a name, but spelled differently in Mason Smith.
01:57Two A's, not one.
01:59And Mason Smith played on the best run defense in the league last year while playing 28% of his
02:08snaps.
02:08So what if I could tell you, or what if I told you, you live in a world where you
02:12have two top 10 defenses, run-stopping pluggers at the A-gap, and Deshaun Hand and Mason Smith.
02:21So maybe they did do something to fix these issues.
02:27They did, and we heard Jeff Ulbrich talk about this about three months ago when they signed Hand, that this
02:33was going to be part of their identity there.
02:37The championship teams are built with moves like this and with depth and on the D-line, and that's pretty
02:43rudimentary, but it's good to hear it, and it's also good to see, to your point, the moves they make.
02:47But I clocked two, actually three, maybe four things just from that one soundbite.
02:51Number one, we had the final boss reference.
02:53That, obviously, is the Rock.
02:54Then he slips in a Big Dog reference, which was the attempt that WWE had for about 10 years of
02:59making Roman Reigns the Big Dog, and it was infuriating and also didn't work.
03:04Then he gets to the Kingpin, which, if you've ever seen the Kingpin from Marvel, we understand what's going on
03:09there.
03:10But it all reminded me of Andy from The Office when he's explaining how many nicknames he had because he
03:15would go get drunk, and they would call him Puke, and then he would make this and that and the
03:19other, and then he had like five more nicknames inside of that quote, and you're like, wait, how many nicknames
03:23does this guy have?
03:24But from all of that, I will take this.
03:27If you've done enough in a short enough amount of time to be described in that way and to have
03:32a nickname, whether that's Kingpin, Big Dog, Final Boss, or something else, it does sound like this is a move
03:38that could really help solidify what the Falcons are trying to do there,
03:43which is to get into the place where they're not, what is it, 24th in the league in run defense,
03:48to get into that top 10 or make incremental improvements at the very least.
03:51This guy could be part of the solution.
03:53Yeah, well, if anything, Nate Ali, he acknowledged Deshaun Hand, if anything, in that one soundbite.
04:01But I, yes, thank you.
04:04I will say this, though.
04:05I'm curious in what the philosophy is in the run defense this year because last year,
04:15Ulbricht purposely brought in some, I don't want to say smaller bodies because you still had guys,
04:21like Lakelle London and our guy that went to the Jets.
04:27You still had him.
04:27There were some bigger-bodied guys, but they were an attacking defense up front.
04:31And he said, Nate Ali said something in that soundbite where he was like, you can't move him.
04:38It's not all about size, though.
04:41Being able to go line to line is something they're looking for athleticism.
04:46Well, yeah, and their defense is made to, and it was why Devon Diablo was such a, he was such
04:54a breath of fresh air from the Nate Landman experience.
04:57No disrespect to Nate.
04:59The Nate Landman experience.
05:00Because, well, Nate Landman is a linebacker that's going to let it come to you a little bit.
05:04He's going to try to go around blocks.
05:06Devon Diablo was able to go take them on and fill the hole because what they, they had, like with
05:13Anya Mata was the guy I was trying to think of.
05:15But, yeah, in Contavious Street, they're attacking.
05:17The whole defensive scheme was for the line to get up front, tackle behind the line of scrimmage.
05:22And then if not, it leaves a hole that maybe Devon and last year Caden were trying to fill.
05:28But Nate Ali might have just given away that that's not the way we're going to play run defense because
05:34we got Mason Smith.
05:35We got Deshaun Hand.
05:38And Deshaun Hand is a guy in the A-gap.
05:40You're not moving.
05:41So maybe now they are going to go to a little bit more size and plug the hole.
05:47And then that way you can't necessarily have these gaping holes that they can just run right through like a
05:54freaking bus.
05:55Do not pause me.
05:56I'm not going to.
05:57I know you're going to do it.
05:57I'm not going to.
05:58You're over there just wanting to pause.
06:00But that's the reality is this might be a little bit of a meshing of schemes.
06:05It's time for a lot Hey.
06:05I mean it's the time to say that he sells int.
06:05And then I have been asked my stuff.
06:05It's time to play.
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