00:00You brought up Ethan Oneonwa earlier, and I want to dive into this a little bit more,
00:03but before we get there, I want to talk about Kevin Stefanski,
00:06because Jawan Taylor right now is the only offensive player really missing,
00:09and this is what Kevin Stefanski had to say about Jawan Taylor on Friday.
00:13Continuing to do better, pleased with where he is,
00:16working very hard with our strength group.
00:19I think he's getting closer and closer, but he's in every meeting,
00:22he's in every walkthrough, so he's getting closer.
00:27Now, since camp started, we weren't at OTAs, but we've been at almost every camp practice.
00:32It has been Michael Jarrell lining up with the ones.
00:35Jack Nelson recently has been sidelined, so he has not been part of this.
00:40Brandon Walton, the fourth-year off-season signee, has been taking some reps,
00:46but Ethan Oneonwa has started to kind of work his way in.
00:49Well, multiple drills on Saturday night started with Ethan Oneonwa at right tackle,
00:56rep number one, two-head quarterback, Jawan in the backfield,
00:59every other starter out there, and Ethan Oneonwa out there at right tackle.
01:03And as we're kind of navigating through this,
01:07there was one other player defensively that popped to me, that was Mason Smith.
01:10And it kind of hit me in that moment that we've talked about the slow transition
01:15away from the style offensively that we've talked about,
01:20the getting in the backfield, the turning the shoulders, the attack style front,
01:24and offensively, the wide zone style, athletic, 305-pound offensive lineman.
01:30Ethan Oneonwa, and you brought this up on Saturday night, what, 331?
01:34Yeah.
01:35Massive human being.
01:366'7", by the way.
01:37Mason Smith is listed at 305, 306.
01:41There ain't no way.
01:42There ain't no way that guy is 306.
01:45He is a massive human being.
01:47Yeah, he's, yeah, yeah, he's, if Matthew Bergeron is 6'5", 315.
01:53Yeah.
01:55And with all due respect to my dear, dear friend, Matthew Bergeron,
02:00Nathan Smith is a bigger human being.
02:02He is a big dude.
02:04Like, it seems like he's an entire helmet above the rest of the roster defensively.
02:08The thing for me is, and how important, you can touch on this,
02:12you can, or you can explain this to me,
02:13how important, or how much should I pay attention to the fact that when they did
02:18the one-on-ones, that Oneonwa was also at right tackle for those?
02:26Because they go through the, if you don't know, they start at right tackle
02:30and go from right to left in those one-on-ones.
02:35And he was going against, like, James Pierce and holding his own, so to speak.
02:41I think he did more than that in the reps.
02:43I would say that, I would say they probably went 50-50.
02:47I think they probably had three, I watched three reps of James Pierce
02:50against Ethan Oneonwa, and I would say Ethan Oneonwa owned him
02:53on the first one of one-on-ones.
02:54I think Pierce got around the edge decently, and Oneonwa lost his hands
02:59at one point.
02:59Then one of them were kind of a draw in the reps that I saw.
03:03But very quick one-on-one period, they kind of got in and gone out.
03:06But those guys, like I said, so then you go down,
03:08and you're lining up ones versus twos for red zone period.
03:13And they matched up again because James Pierce has not been playing
03:16with the starters in defense.
03:17He's been playing with the twos, playing with the threes.
03:20And Ethan Oneonwa goes down, and he was part of that starting group,
03:23the very first group out for that red zone period with the ones.
03:26Again, two at quarterback, Bajon in the backfield, Drake London out wide,
03:30Kyle Pitts, and Ethan Oneonwa.
03:32And I just think it's wild because two weeks ago,
03:36I would have made the argument that the guy was the fourth-string right tackle.
03:41I thought he was the right guard.
03:43Yeah, and to be able to see the strides he's made,
03:45and he doesn't look out of place, man.
03:48So I bring that up because I want to fold all this back in.
03:51This is a distinct change offensively in what we're seeing.
03:56And you brought up one of your biggest takeaways was Tua being under center a lot.
04:00There was no pistol on Saturday night.
04:02There's no way a 330-pound right tackle could have played in this offense a year ago.
04:08There's just no way.
04:09The wide zone stuff, you would not physically be able to get up
04:13and climb on the backside to a linebacker and get that cutoff block.
04:16It's one of the reasons they've always gone with smaller guys up front.
04:20330 is a guy that they're expecting to maul in the run game on double teams
04:25and take on bullruses in the pass game.
04:28And I'm excited to see it.
04:30I'm not saying he's going to start.
04:31And I fully do expect, like we just heard from Kevin Stefanski,
04:35I fully do expect that Jawan Taylor is going to be back in the fold sooner than later.
04:39And I do expect that he's going to be the right tackle in week one.
04:42But it just excites me to have a young guy that can step in that role
04:45and not look out of place here in week two at training camp.
04:48Well, and now you start to wonder, well, how many tackles are they going to keep?
04:51Yeah.
04:52Because let's say they keep Jawan Taylor, or Jawan Taylor comes in,
04:56and let's just say that the starting right tackle week one is on the roster today.
05:03Might not be, but let's say that.
05:05And you have Jawan there.
05:07Are you going to not really do the swing tackle thing and just have –
05:11because I'm not sure if Oney Onwa can play left.
05:13I just don't know.
05:16You would probably be able to talk that more than me.
05:18I'm just – some guys can't do that.
05:20Some guys just aren't, you know –
05:23like Lane Johnson is one of the best tackles in the league,
05:25and he's a right tackle.
05:26Yeah.
05:26And he's not a left tackle.
05:28And it's just not – you know, it's like kind of how some guys are like that.
05:33Not everybody's Jake Matthews, that they can play both sides.
05:37Yeah.
05:38Or guard if needed.
05:39And so I wonder if they would keep Jarrell for left,
05:47Oney Onwa for right to back up Taylor.
05:49Taylor, and Kyle Hinton is your number one backup guard.
05:57He's your swing guard.
05:58Yeah, and as far as I know, it does not snap,
06:00which makes things interesting as far as the backup center goes.
06:03There's a couple guys competing for that role as well.
06:05And I think Wanya Morris –
06:08It's clouded.
06:09Because he's not a tackle.
06:11Let's go ahead and put that out there.
06:14He's a guard.
06:15You think Wanya Morris is a guard?
06:17I don't think – he hasn't played any right tackle.
06:19He hasn't played any guard.
06:21He's been mostly left tackle from what I've seen of him throughout training camp,
06:25but he's been injured and he hasn't been part of –
06:26It's going to be interesting to see.
06:28You're going to see – I think you're Michael Jarrell versus Jack Nelson
06:30versus Wanya Morris for the swing tackle role.
06:33I think – to me, Morris hasn't shown anything.
06:37I think Jarrell's shown more than Morris.
06:39I think he has too, but you did trade for him, and you did bring him in.
06:43You traded for both of them, but nonetheless, you also drafted Jack Nelson,
06:47so you've got some decisions to make there.
06:49There's no doubt about it.
06:51All right, let's talk a little bit about how far or how not far these guys are.
06:57I thought that this was going to be a fun practice to watch on Saturday night
07:01because I do think they're kind of ramping up.
07:03They're starting to get a little more detail in the playbook.
07:05Here's Kevin Stefanski on Friday talking about how close they might be.
07:09I think we have miles to go, and we've – there's a lot of work that I'm really pleased with,
07:16and there's a lot of work that we have left to do.
07:18Yeah, and honestly, it was such a rollercoaster ride on Saturday watching this team take the field.
07:24Two is under center.
07:25There was a dime pass to Zaccheaus or Drake Lundin.
07:28You feel really good about it.
07:30Bajon breaks a couple runs.
07:31But then in between, it was like muffed handoff, dropped pass.
07:37The backup quarterbacks, Cooper Rush and Jack Strand, I thought looked – in my opinion, they looked bad.
07:42Like there was nothing to really take away from that practice and go, oh, that was nice.
07:45Even when they were able to escape the rush and get out of the pocket,
07:48it was like an overthrown check down, no reading the defense, anything like that.
07:54So I thought there was some – I thought there was a lot of good from the ones
07:56and some rough patches from everybody else.
07:58The defense has looked ahead of the offense the entirety of camp.
08:01Yeah.
08:02Some of that has been from, you know, not having either starting –
08:09or either guy that was competing for the starting quarterback job out there for the first few days.
08:13Some of that is just the defense already knowing what they're supposed to do
08:16and not having to learn a new system.
08:19And I think, look, the defense is maybe better than we give them credit for.
08:23I also think the secondary is as deep as it's been in a while.
08:26Mike Hughes had a great camp.
08:28So it has – we have seen a lot of that where the defense has been a little bit –
08:32but the offense can't create their own mistakes.
08:35You know, you let the defense try to force you into one.
08:38Don't just do it for them.
08:39Yeah.
08:40Yeah.
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