Because it's a challenge for blocking along the offensive line when the linebackers near their team. There are two guys that Kyle was talking about yesterday, Smith and Queen, who were kind of like your guys Warner and Greenlow. How much tougher is it to block these guys and say was blocking linebackers ten fifteen years ago.
It's always been hard.
I mean, there's always been quality linebackers on every team I've ever been associated with. When we play somebody, there's always a good player on the other side. You know, you go back to when we were in Tampa with Derrek Brooks and Hardy Nickerson and guys like that. They're out standing. And when you come to the first level, you get through Sap and you get through the guys.
Next thing, you know, Booger McFarlane, next thing, you're trying to block Derek Brooks, right same thing we had Jack Delreel was playing middle linebacker and Adie McDaniel in Minnesota. You know, there's always been a quality quality. These two guys are outstanding inside linebackers. I mean when I was in Baltimore back in the day, Ray Lewis and Bart Scott were the two inside linebackers. You know, there's always there's always quality inside linebackers. Now there's probably been a
little bit more of a trend. I don't want, but I don't want to say those guys weren't athletic. I mean those guys were fast, and it's there's maybe a little different style back in the day, but not much. It's it's it's always been a challenge. Very rarely does somebody have two guys, you know, three four defense that are both the quality of the two that guys they have here. Most teams have one and the other guys
a guy that's up and coming. But this team has two, and it does make that that part of it is a challenge.
As far as Spencer Burfer, I realize he's I think he's the third youngest guy in the roster and he's got tons of room to grow. But what does he need to do to sort of solidify a spot as a starter. What are you looking for from him?
Well, the consistency factor is is number one thing. I mean an offensive line play, it's it's throughout. As the year goes on and the season gets longer and people see what you do and they see as we talked about earlier in the year they start, you start developing a game, right, they see what your game is, and they see what they can take advantage of, and and
so that happens. You have to have to play with to a level of consistency, and with him, it's some physical consistency, but so much of it comes back to there's just a lot of parts to the.
Offense that and he knows it.
It's just in the spur of the moment in the game sometimes it's not quite right, and then all of a sudden you're a little bit off with your technique, and then all of a sudden there's a player.
Too that just aren't that aren't what they need to be. So in the offensive line, sometimes consistency weighs out way over a big play.
Because a big play for a right guard, okay, he reaches the three technique in pancakes and virtues, he reaches the three technique and the guy just can't make the tackle, And both plays are running around the corner eight yards away from him. One of them is a dominant play, the other one is just an okay play. Neither one of them is going to make that big a difference in the outcome of the game. If he falls in his face and misses him, it will whereas a running
back that same difference. If he makes an outstanding play in the open field and makes a free safety miss and as opposed to just a guy that gets tackled by the free safety, that's a huge difference in the outcome of the game. So with offensive line, you're like, yeah, you love the splash plays, but you have to see the consistency.
And that's what's hard as an offensive lineman.
It is a grind day in and day out, weekend week out, especially when I say you start establishing maybe some things that they see about you and things that they'll try and take advantage of and you didn't have to counter. So it's just a consistency thing. It's he's played very good football for us. He's gotten better every single week and he continues to progress.
You play a team like the Ravens that put a lot of guys up up you know, the line of scream ageing. You don't know which guys are coming and which guys are dropping. What are the pros and cons of that from your standpoint? What what are the downfalls and what are the potential rewards when if you figure it out writing do everything you need to.
Well, the downside is is that you you for us everything that we do as we coach. It's fundamentals. Okay, so you have a play of a protection call. Lets
say we're talking about pass protection. Throw on the line of scrimmage and you have protection called okay, I got him, I got him, at him and then and then if they're stationary, if they're just stagnant, if they're just lined up, you're like, Okay, here's how we're going to pass set, and here's how the helps work, and here's who we're working to, and we're gonna try and slide out and help our tackler, help our double team, our guard based on the people and where Aaron donald is affects things
and things like that. So you can kind of set, You can set your feet and say.
Okay, here I go. Now you have eight nine guys.
In the line of scrimmage and it appears to be one thing, and then all of a sudden it becomes something else, and you have to adjust on a fly, or you have to set the guy differently. Because there's three there's two players standing one in either gap. You can't just set the one without being conscious to the other because you might get picked or some other things can happen. So there are some real there's there's some real challenges for us the disadvantage. And I'm not a
defensive coach, so I have seen sometimes. You know, obviously they have all the guys line of scrimmage. And I remember one time we were playing. This goes back to a story I mentioned Jack do Rio and we were in Minnesota. We played in New England a long long time ago. Why anyway, it doesn't matter. But on a third and twelve in a game that we had, we decided to bluff. He decided to bluff as the inside linebacker in the a gap. I don't know if it
was Jack or somebod else. I'm not gonna put on Jack, but and all of a sudden and we dropped back and they threw a ball right over his head and he was probably three inches from tipping the ball, probably have been an interception into the game, end up being a play that got them a big first down and end up beating us in a comeback victory. The point is, you're up in the line of scrimmage and you have
to go do your coverage. There sometimes is that little bit of gap where you can't quite get where you're supposed to be, and so you know, there can be that disadvantage.
I'm not just speaking to them.
I have no idea exactly what they tell their guys and every single when it comes to coverage. But that can be the disadvantage and where we can take advantage. I've seen it some on receiver screens. You know, they play screens very very well, but every now and then the receiver screen goes out the way, then they're kind of dropping guys the other direction. That's what want to do. The Ravens, they go out the other direction and then you throw the screen out there. All of a sudden,
you got these guys. There's nobody over there to help make the play. So there's there's a there's a plus minus and all that stuff. But it does it makes it really really hard fundamentally to zone in and lock in, and you have to have a lot of experience to and start seeing, Okay, how can I sit and block these guys given the different parameters they're they're they's well coached the defenses as as as the record indicates they've been there for a long time.
They know what they're doing.
They're very their veteran players, they're they're they're one of the better coach defenses that we faced all year.
You've been around so many great players.
Where is Christian McCaffrey sort of rank among the best running backs?
You've been around? Lot?
Well, the thing is is that the think when I got in the NFL, what I noticed, Okay, so you're coming. I coaching college for ten years. I was a big I grew up a Green Bay Packer fan. I mean I grew up in the sixties with the Packers. I mean, I remember Bart Starr. We relived the Quarterback Sneak twenty times in my family room the day it happened. I'm diving over pillows and who's gonna be Starr? And who's gonna be Chuck Mersine with his hands up in Jerry
Cray all that stuff, and we did all that. It was it was cool, And so I grew up and I remember my dad taking me down and watching these players walk by, Bart Starr, Rain Nichkey, Willie Davis, all of them. I'm like, holy couch, Jim Taylor, this is the great I mean, a starstruck kid, right, like all of us. And then you fast forward, you know whatever, how many years. I'm thirty years old, I get my first job in the NFL, and I'm coaching for the Vikings.
I remember my mom the first question, she said, this is old. Sorry my mom, she goes, she goes, Chris, what.
Are you doing? You guys play the Packers, I said, Mom, the Vikings.
Pay me.
We're gonna beat the shit out of them.
What we're gonna do, sorry, We're gonna try and do anyway, you know, but anyway, So get to the long story. Short is when I get the NFL, I had in my mind Trent Williams, you know, Jerry, Jerry, you know, always got Bart Starr. You have these these starlike images. Then you get on the field and you realize so much of the NFL it's guys that aren't as big as you think they are. They're not as what it is. It's the work ethic, it's the it's the talents there. You got to have, as caw says, you gotta be
able to get in the club. Right, We're all sitting where we sit because we didn't we I mean, maybe you guys couldn't you passed on it? But I couldn't get in the club. I couldn't get in the club of playing in the NFL, right, So I couldn't get into the club.
But once you're in the club, it's the guys that worked the hardest. Is Peyton Man? Did Peyton Man have the greatest arm of all time? Or did he just work at.
An extremely incredible level to understand defenses and do what he did with the offense that he did and how he manipulated protections and how he ran his offense right? Every single player I went as I started in to the league, it's it's the guys that work, yes, every now and then there are the guys that have just incredible talent that don't do it. Now, let's get back to Christian. Christian's that guy that does have the talent to get in the club. He's obviously fast, he's big enough,
he's strong enough. But his attention to detail and every little thing that he does is like I say, it's it's Manning. Like I mean, he's the only guy that I know that I can say I was with that is that I've never seen anything like it. You know, I've never seen the detail he went in to went into everything that he did. And that's what I see with Christian. That's what sets him apart. And then the other thing is which is all of them.
There has to be a level.
There's an incredible competitive drive and toughness like that first guy's not getting him down. And there were some things said this week about some other running backs running against how hard they ran against this defense. I can promise you Christian steaming as somebody saying, oh, this guy ran really hard. I mean they did a great job. That running back really got after he ran hard against the Ravens. And if you think that's hard, Christians thinking himself, I'll show you what hard is.
You know. And there's still that I'm going to show you mentality with this guy.
So not on is he a great a tension of tail? He freaking works his tail off and everything every single minute of every single day. He's fired up. I give you one another story about Chrisian. Okay, so yesterday we're gonna start practice. We're doing team takeoff. You guys are out there early. We do two simple little plays were kind of running screens on air or something like that, and Christian we.
Got about forty seconds before the period starts to go.
Christian I said, Man, we're gonna have to these guys. Man, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna play fast, we're gonna play physical. I really feel good, I mean, you know, and I don't know. Shoot, the Ravens are a great defense. We'll do the best we can. But I was being positive, pumping them up, you know, And literally it was like we were in the locker room getting ready to play the game.
He was so fired up.
He's like, I agree, coach, and you can see his eyes get big and he started to twitch a little bit, and he's like, I think we're gonna get these guys. You know, I really think we can get these guys. Like, yeah, I think we can.
Christian.
I'm like, dude, I was just kind of giving you a little banter before we start the period, and he's ready to go run out the tunnel and play the game.
So it's not it's not fake, it's legit.
It's just who he is. It oozes out of him, his preparation, all the things he does. So I could talk forever about Christian McCaffrey because he's one. He's like I said, he's almost one of a kind.
Monday night, I didn't get to watch it. I know the man, and I didn't hear what he said.
Though he was able to identify basically at a Philadelphia Eagles play before it happened, just based on formation and you know whatever.
Who was Peyton or Christian? Of course he did.
Yeah, because those two guys right there, there are two peas in a pod right there. If you they'd be arguing in the backfield as to what they should be doing. I'm sure if they both run the same team. But it's it's outstanding. It's really cool. Did no idea, I know, I just knew he was a good player. Carolina played hard Stanford. I knew the guys that stadt coaching Stanford, so I knew the people there. They spoke so highly.
I actually when I was at Stanford back in the day with Denny Green, Ed McCaffrey's dad played for US, so I knew Ed.
I didn't know Christian, so.
Yeah, I coached with Denny at I coached with Denny at Stanford and then UH for three years.
I was.
I was there with Jack Alway for one then that Jack they fired Jack and They kept me around because I was the lowest paint guy in the staff, so they kept me around. And then when Danny went to the Vikings, he said I was too young to go to the NFL. So I was out for a year and I went to University of Minnesota. Conveniently and luckily, I kept in touch with Denny and the guys that went from the Stanford staff to the Vikings.
The next year he hired me with the Vikings.
So thank you, guys, appreciate it.