A brand new highlight reel starts now with the compilation of a couple of our favorite moments from the show.
That's called Now We've got Josh McDaniels on developing young quarterbacks.
Developing young quarterbacks? Can you can you talk about that? You know, what's the process? Like you were a huge part of help developing Tom Brady, right, that's when you first came in two thousand and two thousand and one. Yep, you developed him and the other guys. But what it developing a quarterback? What's that process like now? And who also makes that decision? Is the head coach, is the offensive coordinator, is it, you know, the quarterback coach or
is it everyone's doing it their own? Well, let's just think you.
I think you have to have a plan, you know, and that obviously starts from the head coach his perspective, and you have to you know, be able to agree on how you're going to kind of unveil that thing to the to the player and you know, and ultimately bring him along. You know, you were a young player that needed to make progress every step of the way and this is no different. It's just there's so much
notoriety and so much attention on the quarterback position. So if they're not talking about your arm angle, they're talking about your footwork. If they're not talking about that, they're talking about your eyes or your read or how you navigated the pocket. And there's a lot of things that go into playing it well. But I I at the end of the day, I think you got to take
the player where he's at. You know, when he comes in, whether that was Castle or Garoppolo or Stidham or Brisset or mac aidan O'Connell, like, you got to take the player where he's at. They're all at different spots. They all have been taught different things. They've all, you know, digested different amounts of information. Some have played in different systems than yours. Some have played in maybe some that
were a little bit more like yours. And you just got to figure out, all right, what do they know and what am I going to try to you know, push forward to get him to progress the quickest. You know, I think I can get this and this done in OTA's okay, great cadence play calls footwork all right, good and in training camp you know, now I got to get him to see different coverages, and understand defenses a
little bit more. You know, protections, you know, and then you know move forward, you know, ball security, and then the red zone is a different animal, and third down and two minute offense. So there's a lot of things that go into it, but I think it's just having a really good feel for where's the player at. Yeah, you know, can't just keep throwing stuff at him. Always talk about it. They have a bucket. You guys all had a bucket and yours was a big bucket at
the end, like you could handle whatever we gave you. Well, when you take a young quarterback, it's more like a cup.
You know.
You got to put some some stuff in his cup, and when it gets to the top, you got to stop, you know what I mean, and then make sure that he you know, got has this and he can do it well. And okay, so then when he's ready for more than you get him a bigger cup and then hopefully he ends up with a bucket and you've got a bunch of stuff in there that you can do well. But there's no shortcut. There's no shortcut to it. And I think knowing where the players at is really important.
Yeah, Now some you know a lot of people have been talking about, you know, the systems in the NFL. You got the West Coast system, then you have like our system, the Charlie Weiss Patriot system, and they say that the West Coast system is pretty much it protects the quarterback, the offensive linement, help with the protections everyone, you know, everyone with the quarterback, you go where the ball is supposed to go. It's step system for the receivers.
Is it harder to develop a quarterback in our system, because that's what people are trying to say than it is in the West Coast system.
I think it depends on the way you look at that. If the goal is just to restrict the volume of responsibility that you place on him right away, then it certainly could be. If at the end of the day, your goal is to have him understand how to handle all the problems and take care of those things that come up in the big games in order for him to help you win them, then maybe it's worth it. You know, that was always our mindset. Is basically what we're talking about here is who's going to do the
stuff prior to the ball being snapped? Yea, all the quarterbacks have to do the same thing. Once the ball is in their hand, they got to understand what happened relative to the protection or the pressures. They have to read the coverage, they have to identify a guy that they think is open and make accurate throws and protect the ball like everybody does the same thing once the ball snapped. Really, what we're talking about is pre snap responsible pre snap responsibility.
That's it.
And so I always looked at it like a mountain, like at the beginning, we're at the bottom, we're trying to climb it. And at the beginning when you start talking to them about making the calls and setting the protections and dealing with the run game and all those things that we, you know, we taught our players how to do. You know, it's it's harder because it's foreign. It's not that they don't understand it, it's just different. And so at the beginning, they're at the bottom of the mountain.
You look up and you're like, God, damn, that's a tall mountain, you know. But always felt like as we went through the first year, all right, you're getting up the mountain. You know it, I know it, we all know it. And then once you get to the top of the mountain. Now there's nothing left to climb because
you understand it. You understand how to manipulate the protection, how to solve your issues, and prep with blood zero and those kind of things, and and and just be able to to do it at a high level, you know, because I always thought, like, Okay, Tom, everybody knows Tom's won a lot. Well Tom did it that way. Heyton did a lot too. You know, Peyton won a lot, he did it that way.
You know.
I know that Pats some you know, in some way, shape or form able to handle some of those things as well. I just think having the quarterback never be responsible for any of that stuff. You know, there's some downside to it.
You know.
Other people might argue that that's not the case, but I would say that, you know, there's there's pros and cons to both.
You know.
I love the I love the idea of having the quarterback able to understand it all.
I really do.
Here's a clip of Matt Patricia talking the art of the defensive coordinator.
What's the art of the d C? How do you what's your starting point of when you're preparing for a team. Are you looking at players, plays, or is it changed situationally for each team? Like, how do you construct what you're going to plan for that week? Because you're a game plan coach, it changes every week? How do you break that in? What's the art of co d C?
Yeah, you know it was interesting.
So being in New England obviously are fundamental background defensive philosophy, right, comes from the Giants, right, nineteen eighties Bill at the Giants, those great defenses there, and then you got to really understand.
So I had I had.
Two playbooks, right, we had our playbook and then I had the Bible. Right, I called it the Bible because that was everything like that. I I was always keeping track of the history of where did all this stuff come from? Because I figured if you could understand where it came from, then we would know when to installed er when.
To use it.
So who made the Bible?
So I did you know?
Copy football player? Does that make you a profit?
Definitely? I mean Jesus, I am.
I mean I was named I am Matthews, one of the prophets.
He's out of here so so so yeah, so eighties right, and then you have the influence of our defense from Saban when Bill and Niket together at Cleveland and how it mores from Cover two to Cover three, a little bit of Cover five.
Which was our two man nick with Cover one four, and then so as we get to New England, loves it right. So as we get to New England, you know, Romeo Rack is there early what that was Mangini and then Dean takes over and we go all in to Cover four, which was you know, that was his baby, and that was great for all those years too. When Dean left, you know, Bill wanted to get back to
some more traditional stuff. The game was changing at this point, right around this timeline, and I really think offensively, Bill had a great vision of where the game should go, and it was getting away from the elevens into the mixed twelves personnel groups. But at this time, defensively we had gone back to a lot of base Cover two, Cover three. We had young players playing zone because zone you got more chances for turnovers.
You can see the quarterback, you can see the throws.
Good tack we're always good tacklers, right, good tackling defense, and so that's we had young guys.
So that's what we were in this era.
We had our mans for situational football because you got to play man in situational football, red area things like that. And then really as our team developed, we get into other games. You know, when we get keep to leave, everything defensively changed changed, everything changed. It keeps like one of my favorites ever right walks in and he's like, Matty Pee's like, I got him.
You figure out the rest of it.
I'm like cool, Like you know, it was like, so we changed, we morphed. We would always morph the defense based on the talent we had. Right at this time, we're also coming out of this is actually the last year of a lot of base defense. So the next year after this, because of our twelve packages, you know, I went into big nickel. This is where that's where pat Chung really comes into. This is where Pat Chung
saves us for a lot of years. No, he does not get enough credit for the evolution of what we went to and where we were.
For all those years.
After defensively, Devin also gets moved from corner and move him to safety, you know, after this because of where we were. You know, Dev's like rookie.
Of the Year, and why do you do that?
Why do we change the defense?
Because because you're the twelve personnel and so there's a lot of twelve personnel, which means there's two tight ends, but teams are still spreading people out. Correct the safety has to cover the tight end. Who's a better rout runner these days? So Patrick Chung being the physical type player that could play decent against bigger or very good against bigger guys. Strong physical, great run instincts. So that's why Patrick Chung was so good because he was a
covering safety. He wasn't a big safety, which now all the safeties looked like Patrick Chung, but at this time, you know, this is when safeties were fucking huge.
Yeah still still big, still coming down there of the history.
So defensively, our mentality in general was how do we fit the defensive structure to the So again, like people are like, oh, you're a base cover two coach, and I'm like, well I was when we needed to be, you know, but like you saw our playbook, like we had every coverage known to man in that thing, and then some we made up so or fronts and variations. So with that mentality the defense, that was just our
mentality every week, what do we have to do? What do we have to play in order to win this game? Because that's all that really mattered. It was like, it doesn't matter what we do. How do we just win this game? Complimentary football with the offense, with special teams with defense, and who are the players we have to do that? And so it was always evolving, always changing. But when you game plan an offense for for me, you know, started with the quarterback, how are we gonna
make this guy? You know, how we're gonna play the game within the game against this guy? And then I went to the offensive line. You obviously identify who are the great players, who are the go to guys you gotta stop. You know, who's the ball going to and what situations you know, make sure you got those guys handled, make sure you got him covered. But game planning affecting the quarterback was through the offensive line. How do we get pressure in his face? He's gonna step up, is he gonna bail?
Is he gonna move?
Do we need to keep him in the pocket? Do we want him out of the pocket he scramblard? Does the extend all of those You got to answer all of those questions, you know, as you go through the game plan, process, and then you know, you got run game, you got all that in there. What packages you're gonna play? How are you gonna call the game? You know, So a lot of games I would have, you know, had
different call sheets. So I had the main, our main call sheet that everybody had, and then I would have adjustment call sheets, you know, and I either have them or you know.
People ask me all the time.
So I always had a notebook in you know, always wore hoodie, always had pets. Yeah, good, of course, right, uh, but I always had but I always had notebooks with paper, you know, and I would rewrite different scripts, different series coming up, you know, like we come aside. I'm like, hey, jewels, next third down call is going to be this, next first down is going to be called to be ready to go in on second down and long second shore
we're gonna stay based. And I would write all of those out so that everybody had that during the game.
Now, Bill O'Brien on coaching Tom Brady to.
Have the opportunity to coach you know, obviously, what we believe is the greatest quarterback of all time. When he when he first he was out on the West Coast and he came back for ot as that year, uh nine, the year, the year.
Yeah.
He I'll never forget this. He came into my office he said, look, I want to be coached. He's like, look, I don't want don't waste my time, but I want to be coached. And he was right about that, and I learned a lot about, you know, how he wanted to be coached, what he wanted to know.
Like I can remember one of my first meetings. I was so prepared.
I had this like book of like computer reports, and I gave him this. I'm like, Tom, look at this book, you know, and he's like, what is this. I want one sheet. I want one sheet that tells me boom boom boom, first, second down, third down, boom, fronts, pressures, red area, backed up to you know, the whole thing. And I was like, oh my god. So but from that point I did the one sheet and I used that one sheet to this day for quarterbacks. Because he wanted to be able to think quickly. He didn't want
a big computer report. He was a guy that if you showed him that you could work with him, like you you could take in his input and show him that you could work together. To formulate a really good offense, like then you were going to have a great relationship. And I think that's why he and I got along so well, because we had our ideas and then he would come in on Tuesdays with his ideas and we would put those ideas into with ours, and you know, I would put it all together and then each night
I would have to email it to him. And so I don't know if Josh. I think Josh probably do the same thing. But like you know, he went to bed early. So if it was like, you know, Tuesday night for Wednesday morning, here's the game plan by eight pm, here's the game plan for third down by eight pm on Wednesday, you know red area eight pm on Thursday.
You know what I mean for the next day.
But that forced you to work, get your work done and be prepared. And then he would email back with hey, I love this play. I love this play. I don't really like this play. Hey what do you think about this play? And it was just that type of relationship, you know, and coaching them was it was awesome.
That's really cool to hear, you know, And people don't realize Tom loves being coached. I mean, Billy Oh, was probably so overwhelmed jumping into that thing because when I got there, they are like they already had three super Bowls. Yeah, they were already the Patriots. That was like. And I remember seeing him throw for the first day and I was like, Man, this motherfucker throw.
Next up, We've got Ernie Adams on defensive schemes against high powered offenses.
We did a really good job adjusting from that regular season game to the super Bowl against US. I think they weren't really. I don't think they were expecting the playoffs. They only had a week, so they kind of went in a little bit the same way they did the regular season game, which we were ready for. What they do, do what they do? Uh and and they listen, they're good. They figured it out. They started hitting the sounds. So you know the pass up the seam, what do we always call that pass?
The sea?
How about ram pass? How many times you heard this talk about rampass? Everybody the Scott right five twenty five f post swing. I mean it was like staple Well they started to run a ram pass against it, and they had a step on us a couple of times, and they ran like five times for five different formations, different personnel groups, and you know, they came back and tied the game up.
Uh, and then we went back and one and.
Again, but the Colts and three we I think the final score of the game was twenty six to three and the only reason it wasn't a zero was because we dropped an interception in the end zone that we should have had and they kicked the field goal. So we held them the three points. And then Super Bowl fifty three against the Rams in twenty eighteen, we hold them the three points. So that was you know, those to me were three five hundred point teams, fire five
hundred point teams. I mean, those were masterpieces. And what I remember that three game that you're going to talk to Tie about. After the game, they had, you know, on the whatever network was doing. One of their guests for the game was Mike Shanahan, coach of the Broncos, and I mean he his team had been shoot up by the Colts. I mean, they got massacred by the Colts.
And Mike Shanahan went and I said, I can't believe I just saw what I saw, which I took as a real you know that that's like a real comp you know, a real compliment from somebody who really knows this is something special right here. But you know, I will say part of that was because I knew in the middle of November it was going to come down. I was playing the Colts.
So that was what it was then, That's what it was.
And you know what spent like, I mean, it didn't matter if we were playing, you know, the Jets in a regular season game.
I made a point to spend.
An hour a day at least when I was studying the Colts, you know, just in the middle, just just to make sure.
Now, what's the study, just watching the game, watching the game, logging it, what the you know.
And and the thing was they would get everybody was trying to play and cover three and cover one and they kill them running up the seams. I mean you can, oh my god, it was. It was a slaughter. And so I said, we can't do this. We need to go in and play cover four. We cannot get showed up in the seams. And Romeo Cornell, are defensive coordinator, is one of my favorite people, said when you want to play cover three, never not against this team.
Just don't do it.
They will kid you.
Okay, and that's what that's kind of what teams would do to us because of Gronk.
And so I go, this is maybe two years ago, and I'm watching a Monday night game and I'm watching the simulcast with Eli and Peyton Manning and somebody's playing cover four and Peyton Manning goes, yeah, I cover four. I don't really like my incuts and my seams against that. And I'm sitting there thinking, yes, that's why we played it.
Next up, you've got Josh McDaniels outlining his mindset when he calls trick plays these little details. Is that like the factor room with your play calling? Is that innate? Is that something with reps? Like where do you pick up those little details when it comes into your crafts of play call?
I think it's just probably experience, you know. I don't like I think when you're coming off the sideline and like the defense is kind of ready for almost anything, you know, Like, I don't think that's a great time to like spring your craziest play on them all the time. I think it's almost like you run a play, you run a second play, Oh you got a first down, So they're kind of like, all right, they're just driving the ball.
They're just trying to.
Do the same stuff they've been doing, you know, throwing the ball here, dink and dunk, which is what I wanted him to be thinking. And they got So we get a first down and we're into a drive. The defensive coordinator he knows we're not going fast. He's into his drive now, you know what I mean, meaning meaning Deans. You know, you kind of get into a rhythm of the drive itself. Each drive is different. And so we first down, play huddle, second down, play first down, go
back to the huddle, you know what I mean. So now Dean's in his rhythm too, and so again the it just I thought that was a better way to do it, honestly, than go out there and be desperate and try to hurry up and get to it.
And you know, people don't realize these you know, I don't know how it's in other places, but there's a department that studies and gives everyone around the league what they're doing to our coaches, and they look at it. These guys study it so that you know, you could always see when it's the best opportunity. He's probably seen this situation go down may not be this specific trick play, but a different trick play that you know, a team off of. You know, a big play makes another big
play feels desperate, you know. So these guys they're always watching the game, and that's how they get their experiences, not only through coaching it, but watching other coaches. The great coaches will use their experiences and implicate it into their.
And I've made I've called enough plays and made enough mistakes when I was younger, you know, to like, all right, well that sucked, you know what I mean, Like that totally wasn't the right time to do that, you know, and you just I think learning through your failings as you're going is a helpful thing. So you have a little bit of wisdom, you know, after you've put enough pelts on the wall, you know where now you kind of know, like that's I remember not to do that
because of this game. And I tried it and it backfired, you know. And the other thing I would say about this is, and you would attest to this, we practiced those things, and we didn't act like they were like so special that it was like impossible for us to succeed at them. I treated those things is like almost like a play action pass like a flea flicker or a double Like if you rep it enough, what's the difference.
Like other than the ball handling?
And yeah, like but I trusted you enough and we repped it enough where I was like, I didn't call it and go like this like what's gonna happen? I called it going as long as the defense is going to give it to us. I've seen us execute this many times. Look at he's got this smile, like, yeah, tell him how many times I hit it in practice?
I think I overthrew him three or four times.
You were gloves too, right, yeah, because he always ships on quarterbacks when they wear their gloves.
Yeah, but I'm not gonna take my glove off.
Well that's why that's the thing is you take it off. Then these guys Baltimore might have been perceptive enough to he's got.
Michael Jackson out there gloves like lad Guerrero. Come on now.
Yeah.
But but to to coaches point, I think that's a that's cool that like it's not one of these like super trick plays and like crazy things. Because we were watching we did the AFC Championship and in Arrowhead with Ernie and there was a leaf licker on that drive in ot. Yeah, like it's just a regular play, Like that's a testament.
To that practice.
And it was like a comfort level for you as the play caller, like I don't feel like I'm about to mess the game up because I've watched us and I trust our guys enough and trust you guys to do it.
So and you don't either.
You're not thinking like, oh god, he called a flee flicker.
You're just like, what it is? What it is?
Next up. Matt Patricia on utilizing go to players. During go to plays, I.
Was always looking at the offensive guys getting said who could play defense? Yeah, the offensive guys that can play defense. But once you were kind of on the team, all that stuff that you went through, I was like, that's the guy that can do it. So I always had in my head I was like, at some point, he's going to play dB for us.
Which is so crazy. For two reasons. I remember when I was getting worked out, Pittsburgh worked me out as a safety in a corner when I was coming out of Kent. And then the second thing, when you told me about the Troy Brown stuff, and like you said, oh that I finally got someone that I could do this with. When I first got drafted to New England, Yeah, my agent Don ye yeah, Don Don goes to me and he goes, I have a vision, You're the next
Troy Brown. I just the team's gonna it's gonna be hard for them to cut you because you're gonna Because that was the thing going into this. They had seven receivers my rookie year eight receivers. They traded for a guy, they had Raindy Moss West. One of the guys was a Special Teams captain Sam Akin. So like the roster spot was like hard, you can't get that spot. But my agent was just always say it's gonna be hard for them to cut you because you could do a lot,
a lot. And it's crazy you said that fucking down's smart dude.
But yeah, it was. I just and Josh, you know, Josh Boyer, he was great at all that too. So Josh was like, and I think he was on he was in that same mentality. Josh was and he saw the same thing. So you know it was Jules was going to play defense. We were gonna, we were gonna go through it. You know, I remember Troy saying I was like, long time ago. I was like, Troy, how did you He's like, well, I know most of the routes.
Yeah, he's like, I run all these routes.
Yeah, so I know everything inside exceptually.
Yeah.
Situation is so you knew the same and then situationally, you knew what we wanted to defensively, and I knew you'd learn it in a very short amount of time.
So because I remember what I would do, Bill and you guys would always say, well, Bill, I would listen to the team meeting, yep, and Bill would always say gotta have it situations, the third downs, the four point plays they throw got to have it routes to got to have it players, Yeah, go to go. So if you fucking study the got to have it route, give you the list on that straight third down, and then
you study the got to have it player. Like, all I would do is just hold on for dear life for the first five yards because I knew guys hated it and they just play to your leverage.
Coming up next, Ernie Adams on analytics.
Do you get fed up with hearing this bullshit analytics talk? Well, you know what it's like, I'm the analytic godfather.
You know.
For instance, there's a.
H Ernie Adams analytics. I am analytics.
You know, like for instance, Amen, if something.
Four, we went for it as analytics. Ernie before analytics.
You know, but there was if something, if somebody's got something that makes sense, you know, we're we're Like David Romer was an economist that at the University California. I mean, his wife is a critical part of you know, some presidential administrations, and he wrote the paper on why on fourth and golf from the one you really want to go for it? Well, I read the paper and you know what, this makes sense. So it's it's it's like analytics is one thing, but if it's good animnalytics, it's
gonna make sense. For instance, you know this whole thing that came up the Super Bowl that was just played, and I have been waiting for this situation for three years. Somebody when they changed the rule on overtime, you know,
this is totally different. And to be honest with you, they flipped the you know, the forty nine ers win the toss and my text I sent a bill right then, I said, this is the first time in the national Football League history, the right call on winning the coin toss is we want to kick.
Now.
You know, remember the playoff game again, you know, the overtime game in the regular season against Denver win. We took the wind. You know, this wasn't a case of, you know, we want the win that our back. We would take the chance on giving the ball to Peyton Manning. We just felt us out weighed by you know, we're playing in this for three hours. We can see what the wind is. We know the important thing is our back. Well, the Super Bowl with Kansas City and it's inside, there
is no win. But to me, the call is we want to kick. We want to go on defense first. And the big reason it came up when Kansas City got the ball, you know what you need and you know, when you're in four down territory, off the way because it comes up fourth down, you can go for it. Well, if you know you're going to be going for it on fourth down, that changes the way you can call the game a first, second, and third down. And to me, that's that's the biggest you know, that's the biggest reason.
And as interesting is I had never I mean, yes, Kyle Shanahan said, Okay, if it comes to a third possession, you know, and we score a week, kick a field goal, you kick field goal, I get the ball the third time, all right, then I can win it with a field goal. That's I hadn't really thought of it that way, and that's certainly a valid point, but I think it's overweighted by the fact if I'd rather have the ball second. So I know, you know, I know what I need.
But to me, analytics is if it makes does it make good sense? You know, there's got to be a valid reason behind it, not just the computer told me to do. And I don't care what sports you're in. You know, it's like the whole thing three point shots in basketball. Okay, well yeah, it makes you know, it's points for possession. So if you've got somebody who can, you know, shoot forty percent shooting threes, go go ahead to shoot threes, got it, you know, But that it's
it's analytics. But you know, on the court it actually makes sense like that.
It's like, okay, analytics, well like.
Like talking about because it's been you know, I think analytics probably used more in baseball than a football. But you know, the book I mentioned the buzzbitions. You wrote about the Cardinals and he's talking about their pitching coach, Dave Duncan. The notes he keeps, well, that's it. That's great analytics right there. You know, that's really you know, because you can and actually got to give that to a baseball player and you can apply it and use it.
And that's like but again it's like if it's if you know, there's nothing as practical as a good theory. If the theory works, it's going to be practical.
Do it.
So David Roma wrote the book on why you should go for it on fourth and one and this makes real sense. So there must have been ten times it came up for US fourth and goal in the one. But what do you want to do? Call your best play? And we got stopped up at one time, we got stopped up at Buffalo. Okay, well, what's the national football? They're not all going to work, you know, But but it's like, you know, we had this just absolutely killed me.
We're playing the Ravens in twenty nineteen. We're going into game eight, no, and we get the ball. Okay, well yeah that's going to happen too, but you know, we get the ball right towards you. If it's fourth and goal in the one end of the half and you know it, it's like Josh didn't have a play really good with If you didn't have a play, you feel good,
we'll kick the field goal. But but you know, I really that was like, you know if that killed me because I you know, I know I really want to go for it, but I don't want to go for it. If you know, if the offensive coordinator, who's one of the best in the business, to have a play you likes, I don't want to go run a play just to run apply.
Next up, Bill O'Brien on play calling for the four overtime Alabama Auburn game, the legendary four overtime Iron Bowl.
Yeah, that was a great game. That was crazy. Anything can happen, rivalry, a game they ranked, wasn't even.
It was like it was ten to three in that game and we had not done anything Auburn's defense. It was at Auburn, which is a tough place. So we got the ball back on our because Auburn screwed up the four minute kid ran out of bound, so they had to punt. We got the ball back on our own two yard line and Nick, I'll never forget Nick on the on the headset was like, Bill, we got to do something here, and I was like, yep, yes
we do. It was about a minute and ten left and we went ninety eight yards Bryce Young and sent it into overtime and then we had a lot. You would have loved it because in college, after the first overtime you have to go for two score and so it was all of those Patriot bunch like boom.
We saw that and they were just hit, like three or four of them. And then it carried over to this game. Well, you guys used a lot of those bunches, the Rams, the Rifles, the Texas two lane two lane two in which it makes this legendary Georgia defense have to communicate think fast. Is that what were you're doing in the middle. You're starting fast to try to slow down that d lineman. You guys were playing with tempo? Was that the game plan going in this thing?
Yeah?
I think I felt for us in this game.
You know we Nick did a great job of this team of his teams being in great condition. We you know, much like the Patriots. There was a lot of conditioning in Alabama. I felt like we were in better condition in that game than we were than Georgia was. You know, we were able to go fast, and Georgia was very big upfront, very talented, but maybe we could you know, get him huffing and puffing a little bit and be able to you know, sneak a couple of plays in there on him.
And that was the game plan going in.
Josh McDaniels is up next, diving into preparing for an offense when facing Ed Reed and Ray Lewis.
I know this game isn't it didn't have Ray or Ed, but can you can you talk to the listener about having to try to prepare against those two guys.
Yeah, that's I'm sure like when you talk about a defensive coordinator trying to get ready for Manning or Brady, you know, those guys that were really intelligent and could play the game in their mind too.
That's what that.
Felt like when you were getting ready to play read Lewis. Suggs to me, there's not that many teams that I've coached against where I would say that there was the volume of players that they had at one time that were as instrumental and terms of knowing what was coming, seeing the formation overplaying tendencies, being able to adjust, getting their teammates in the right position.
It was really.
Hard to you know, because as a coach, you want to prepare your team as best you can. You also want to try to scheme some success. So it's not like make you know, good luck jewels, you know, get out there and get them on every play. Like there's definitely place where it's like, all right, jewels, you're gonna got to come through here, and you came through you
know a ton. It's just you want to try to help your players as much as you can by giving them something that's like, Okay, this is going to work, and it's it's going to not trick the defense, but there's gonna be an element foreshadowing. There's gonna be a little you know, a little you know where it's simpler to have some success. And it was hard against them. It just wasn't that was not simple. Yeah, it wasn't simple.
I just remember anytime we'd play ed Reed or bray Lewis, Bill would show like a twenty play cut up on just both of those. There'd be a thirty minute team presentation like to start the day of just a highlight of these two. This guy will fucking blow you up, Like just that kind of shit. Yeah, oh cover three, that's what you thought, and like Edward agreed to be in the second, you know what I mean.
Like his favorite thing to say to us was that they don't need to play with safety defense because they just played post safety and ed covers both sides of the field and it may and it like got in your head as like I'm like, you know, as a coach, you're like, oh, man, like can we throw it back there or no?
Ever?
You know what I mean? Like I remember Tom, like we'd have conversations and it was always part of the conversation. But that that's that's a tribute to the greatness of the player. Yeah, because when you're looking at him going he can cover everything back there and you're thinking about that, that makes you question whether or not you know, you can do something.
Oh yeah, Bill loved ed Reid, didn't he like just loved loved him.
Where does he rank on the all time Mount Rushmore of like guys that weren't Patriots that Bill loved high.
I was gonna say, I always, I mean, I would always hear.
That that weren't Patriots that he didn't coach. There's a caveat there. Lawrence Taylor would be there is no Mount Rushmore. Okay, there's Lawrence and then then there's the mountain.
Yeah that's.
Ed Reed is he's on He's in He's in the Mount Rushmore.
Is there anybody else in there?
Yeah? I mean Ed was Ed was such like Troy. They were different players. Edred was a completely different player than Troy. You know, we ended well, hell, we ended up with a lot of the guys that he loved, Rodney Junior. It was like, if we loved him enough, we would try to get him like Randy. But like I'm just saying, like there was some show there's a.
All the Mike clips with them talking shit to each other pregame. Well, it's fucking yeah.
Yeah he's something.
But that's that's what happened. I love that, like, you know, like you you you like him enough.
Next up, Ernie Adams on anticipation beating reaction.
We're playing the the Dolphins. It's probably around two thy eleven. So because Brian Dayball, of course, was he was with us for a number years, was the offensive coordinator. And I said what's Brian going to do? And they had
the throwback to the quarterback off the shotgun. So we ran that and practiced and people are, what's well, they ran exactly that play in the game and the fact that you know we had seen it meant that we could react to it just in time, you know, to to make the play on defense, because the stuff is happening so fast. If you got to think, oh, it just went buy me, you got to you know, you
gotta be able to anticipate. In fact, one of the great the great lines for coaching football was somebody I have a tremendous respect for Tom Landry who would say, anticipation beat reaction every time you think ahead of that. Hey, we know this is the situation.
This is what we got to watch out for.
And that just makes a world of difference than just being out there playing, oh.
My god, the play just went by me.
And how You've seen a lot of guys they're always half a step light, and that's just that doesn't work.
That's what I try to explain to people, like when they ask what was your guys day to day like, and I'd be like, oh, well, we'd walk through plays, we'd walk through the walkthroughs, and we'd go to a built in drill for that specific play, take it to a seven on seven. Then do a team and we'd have all these reps and you'd run thirty new plays, but you'd rep them four or five times, and guys would bitch and complain, bitch and complain. But then when you when it came to game day, like Ernie said,
it's in your subconscious. It's built in your subconscious. So you react and you've seen the play, it becomes deja vu on this technique. This happens, Oh, I see this guy. I saw it in practice. I saw it in the walkthrough, and it allows you to play fast. And that's and that's something that I always tell everyone. What made our teams was our practice and our ability to really take those meetings. I mean that's hard to get, you know, thirty guys to really buy in and go over plays
and plays and plays. But that's what made us us.
That's what made us us.
And you know, I think, you know, probably our best, our best ninety minutes of football was Super Bowl fifty one against.
The faulcon Bill O'Brien up next, talking about coaching the SEC championship under Nick Saban.
You're the offensive coordinator, you put in the game plan, We're gonna you probably present to Nick, We're probably we gotta go fastest, slow this d line down, make them communicate with a lot of our our formations, our bunches. When it's a slow first quarter, are you making adjustments to the game plan or are you just sticking with the game plan. You guys are executing better. Yeah, no, we we had to adjust. It was it actually was
ten nothing. They went up ten nothing, but the second quarter you got there was fireworks.
Yeah, fireworks. We did adjust. We we we went to my recollection is we did. We were going to struggle to run the ball. So we put the ball basically in Bryce's hands and we had, like I said, two good receivers, good tight end and even the backs out of the back for were good in the passing game, so you could check it down to them and they were gonna make yards. So we we we knew like, look, man, we're gonna have to really throw the football here to win this game.
We hit Taffy for like an eighty yard touchdown.
Yeah, so we had to clear out with the toggle with the free route and we hit the free route I think for eighty yard touchdown to Jamison Williams.
I think it was so.
And then we came in at halftime, we said, hey, they're sitting on something.
The taffy's at the bunch Yeah, yeah, the cross. Yeah. Was he the second guy or the first guy? He was the he was a toggle runner, Okay, he was the top guy. Wow. So then we there's no one near him. They blew it. It was a communication thing once again with those bunches motioned to it. Yeah. Yeah.
And then in the second half we knew we could double move him, so we said if we saw cover four, we were gonna give Jmo a curl go because the safety was jumping the hell out of the curl. Yeah, and so Bryce he pumped him and he ran a curl going. He threw it and we had like a sixty yard I think it was a fifty five yard bomb to yeah in the third quarter.
Yeah.
I think that was the first drive of the of the third of the second half, and that that kind of helped us a big That was a big time play.
Yeah. So how how how are you guys? What's the halftime like with with the sabing, are you guys in this.
You know, halftime in the in college is a little bit longer, you know, in the eight Yeah, it's probably more like fifteen twenty minutes, whereas in the pros it's.
What twelve twelve, So unless you're in the super Bowl or twenty yeah, then where it's longer, Yeah, then you can take a nap.
Yeah, but yeah, so yeah, we definitely came in and you know, he you know, Nick's very intense, so he was like, look, what are we doing?
How are we going to do this?
And but Nick also sees the game and I can remember distinctly he's saying like, hey, look, we're gonna have to throw the battle win this game. And so we just made sure we had our best passes ready to go. We had a couple new wrinkles we put in at halftime, like hey, we're going to run this this way.
And these kids, the kids that were playing for.
Us, were very very smart football players, you know, so they could They're like, no problem, coach, we got that. And that's kind of what halftime was like.
And then once you guys go out and score and have that big play in the third quarter. It started off that's when you that momentum started kicking over there. As a play caller, how do you are you just like keep it going because you guys started, you know, there was a pick six. You guys are starting to blow them out. Now, what was the mentality on the play calling? Like are we trying to run this thing down or are we trying to fucking score when you got into.
The fourth quarter of this game, like that pick six? After that pick six, I can that was Jordan Battle. Yeah, we took that back. I think after that when it was thirty eight to seven team, I think you know, Nick was in control of that. He would tell us like, hey, let's let's uh, you know, the millions the clock and hand the ball off and see if we can get you know, at least run it twice and then try to get it on third down with a pass.
Maybe Matt Patricia is up next talking about strategy versus Mike Shanning.
Two thousand and six, we're playing Denver. We had the China Bowl. There's there's it's painted on the field, you know that, all of it. We had jerseys and Chinese business cards. It was crazy. We were going to China. So that game we played Denver, and I remember that game specifically because we're playing Mike Shanahan and we're ready for the zone team.
We're ready for the zones.
And so all week I've got Brew and Junior in my linebackers, you know, and I'm telling him like, look, we're going to creep the line of scrimmage. You know, we used to play base defense, you know, three four, We're gonna move up to two and a half yards off the line because we got to go press these guards right now. We got to get them off of the defensive line. Vince and those guys tie and we
got to get downhill. Well, Mike went to the whole power gap you know, duo run game and it was all down blocks.
What is power gap? Due?
So all kind of the same deal, right, good, good question. Good question depends on the side.
Of the boys. If you're getting in.
The same direction. Now we go to the gap, the duo or the.
Power double teams everywhere, double teams all along Stord.
We're trying to move body.
So we're two on one.
It's six versus three hundred, Yeah, six hundred vers three on moving the line of scrimmage.
Love it.
So instead of pressing the line of scrimmage. We actually linebacker wise, we got a stack. We got to get over the top, pull the double teams off. Well, Junior, you know who is kind of we were in the system. He's running through. And so we got gashed in the run game. I mean I think we won.
We gosh.
And so now we got to go in Monday to Bill's office and we got to go to the tape and it was not pretty.
It was not good.
We had.
It was a very long meeting. I've got Junior say out Teddy, Bruce, Ki, myself, Bill killing us because we couldn't fit the runs power. It's not zone. We practice zone all week, you know, ready for the Shanahan stretch.
Thanks for listening. Remember to tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode and every Sunday for another Games with Names Highlight Day.