Modernized Offense - West Coast, Wildcat, Shotgun

because that's one thing that we have control over. We can have control over how we respond everything. So yeah, yeah, no, it's it's a it's a good life philosophy and mantra that I will try to implement in my own life. But, um, you know one thing, not only could I say your super Bowl champ and the most positive person that I know, can I use another word to describe you? It's not offensive either. It's a good thing. Trailblazer. Have you heard

that before in your past? Well? Not really? Okay, Well, please explain. I actually think it is an appropriate title for you because I think the one that you have heard is dual threat? Oh you've been you can call that a couple of times. Dual threat quarterback. All right, I want you to rewind for a second, because when you're at Penn State, you know the reality is back

in see thousand six, we heard that phrase before. Like that's not something that we hadn't heard, but like you were legit dual threat, like not just a guy who could play quarterback and run a little bit or a runner who was playing quarterback, Like you could thrive in both of those scenarios. So is that a cool title for you? Act? It is cool, But to me, I think dual threat turned into a negative thing. You get what I'm saying, And I know it's good that you know.

They say the more that you can do, you can run, you can do this. But what happened was when you show a lot of these teams that you can run the football and you are a great runner, oftentimes they say, oh no, let's just hand them the ball and not allow them to play quarterback. All right, So you and I are going to go through this whole identity of the dual threat quarterback who can do what the numb birds,

the whole thing. But the modernization of NFL offenses. That is our topic today here on the NFL Explained podcast. There's a ton of analysis to get to you. But what do you think the biggest influences on what we're seeing offensively and these philosophies that have evolved over time? Man? Where do I start? Yeah, it's so much here, It's so much when I was when I knew we were talking about this, Man, my brain just got going because obviously everybody sees the spread system, which is in the

National Yal League. Right. You know when I say spread, I mean you have your five offensive alignement. Oftentimes you have a quarterback in the shotgun with the running back. Possibly the running back is split out somewhere, and you have four wide receivers or five wide receivers, all your eligibles just out and wide right. And what's happening is the defense has to adjust. The defense has to cover guys. They have to show whether they're in zone. I have

to show whether they're in man. And I think this trend started from the bottom and went up. And what I mean by that is I'm in youth football. I sit on the NFL Legends Youth Advisory Committee. We were charged the right in the football curriculum for all the football so that apparent youth football coach can have the

fundamentals of how to teach the game. And the reason why that committee was formed is because I feel and a lot of former players feel that we have a coaching problem in the younger levels and the youth levels. And what's happened quite frankly, Mike, and just just gonna be frank with you, bad coaching has led to and I'm talking one on the youth level, has led to coaches on the youth level just saying, you know what,

who's my best player. Who's the guy that can throw, can run, nobody can tackle who he's just that much better. I'm gonna make him the quarterback. He's gonna touch the ball every single time, and I don't have to coach. Is hard, and I think that formula kind of worked this way into college football, and college football is a little bit more of a business, so coaches they have

to let these guys play earlier. They have to adapt to what these guys are used to from high school in little league so that they can win faster, So that these guys can play earlier. It's about recruiting and things like that. So I think coaches jobs played a role in these offenses evolving really really fast to keep

up with the players that they were recruiting. And I think in when the Philadelphi Eagles won the Super Bowl, I think it legitimize the style, meaning that spread system, meaning a bunch of r p os, basically that backyard that you football being in a park style of playing football.

I think that's what's happened with the modern day, especially offense. Yeah, So I think something that you're touching on is really fascinating to me because I've had this conversation a lot over the years, and it's this idea that high school football influences the college game, the college game influences the

NFL game. And I think it's almost counterintuitive to how most people would think, well, the pros do it this way and then everyone else follows suit, because it does feel like if we're gonna talk about offenses here and spreading the whole, like a lot of this stuff does start at a lesser level. Think about it, Mike, where you're getting your players from the NFL, their amateur system is college, right, so for these guys to be able

to be NFL ready and play faster. The great coaches adapt see it, and I can sider myself a pretty good coach. Okay, I don't believe there's any human being walking the planet that a coach can't get through too. It's on the coach. Everybody can learn. It's on the coach. And so what you've seen, especially at the NFL level, they're saying, Okay, if from an ownership standpoint, I'm gonna only have this job X amount of years, I gotta

get these guys playing as fast as possible. So what's happening is they're going into college to dip it into these kids playbooks and saying, let's just take their playbook and let's let them play fast now so that they can come in and know what they're doing college. Same way I just talked about it, right, colleges, they're recruiting young players out of high school. So what's the best

way to get them ready to play earlier. Go to the high school, see what they're doing, and implement that offense. So I get it. People are like, hey, pass happy. The numbers have to bear it out. I'll say this, you actually haven't seen a huge, massive uptick and passing rates over the last last twenty years. Only one team ran it more than it passed last year. That was Philly. Yeah, ten teams threw it at over a sixty clip. Tampa Bay, by the way, attempted passes on sixty of their place.

And that's not really surprising when you think about the amount of firepower in the NFL and the shifts to a passing game. But despite all of this, we actually have seen a huge shift in quarterback formations and two thousand NFL quarterbacks took only fourteen point six percent of their snaps in shotgun. That number is actually steadily increased to the point where of the snaps are taken in the gun like that you watch these games, it's like

it really is. That's actually a four time increased, so as you might expect. And this is something that you touched on a little bit earlier in the podcast where you're pulling from your your farm system, so to speak. As the college game. Super popular in the college level, RPO run pass option that has taken off. According to Pro Football Focus, r PO usage has nearly tripled since just going from eight point seven percent of plays to twenty three point five percent. But em Rod, we watch

a lot of college football these days. Guys are rarely under center halftime. You don't even see guys even huddle up. Go to a high school game, that's never even happening. The change of offensive philosophy in the NFL. Is it mostly due to the fact that high school quarterbacks college quarterbacks like they just don't do it. Yeah, I think

that has a lot to do with it. You talk about R. P. O. S Man again, and you said the shotgun formation had an uptick after I think earlier I talked about the seventeen Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl and legitimizing that style of play. Again, listeners, listen up. Whoever wins the Super Bowl the year before, everybody in the damn National Football League tries to copy what they're

doing when we want our Super Bowl. With the Seattle Seahawks, everybody saw that three deep defense, saw the style at which they played, the length of the cornerbacks, and guess well, for the next five or six years, every defense in the National Football League was looking for Richard Sherman type and playing three deep defense, so that that that's just the way it goes. You also talked about the shotgun formation.

I got a little confession to make, Like when I chose to go to Penn State and back in two thousand and one, they had just introduced the shotgun formation for the first time ever in its school history and two thousand with with Shard Casey. And when I heard that, like I heard that from you know, competing schools, trying to tell me, you don't go right, what the hell, man, Joe, He's a hundred seventy five years old. Man, they won't even evolved, man, like them. They ain't even getting the

shotgun til last year. And when you talk about the shotgun, the advantages of it is it gives the quarterback clear vision of everything. And again that's the most important position on the field when you talk about in terms of

responsibility and things that they have to do. And they touched the ball every single play, and so a quarterback being able to clearly see the adjustments of a defense because Mike, dude, there's times when you first walk up to the line of scrimmage you may see two safeties

back on the hashes. But as you start to get into your cage and start to look around, and as you do, color number color number, that second color number that you say as the snap is about to happen, those safeties start the road tape, you start to see things changing. It's a totally different picture. It totally cloud your red and so having clear vision is very important for the quarterback. It also allows more space for when the ball is snapped, for the manipulation of the pocket,

and when the quarterbacks and shotgun. He's a typically file the six yards deep. When I take a five step drop from the shotgun, I'm dropping back to ten and eleven, twelve yards deep. It gives my tackles and my offensive lineman more room to push these guys past so I can step up in It gives me more room to step up in the pocket. So that's some of the things that come along with the shotgun position. The negatives about it. Again, this is the running back in me

happening now is the run game. You really don't get much influence on the the second level in the run game. So a running back which I blocked for two Hall of famers in my opinion, and Frank Gore and Marshawn Lynch, these are two guys that can be in the shotgun. Take the ball. Like let's say if you're a quarterback and the running back is to your left side, these

are guys that are in the shotgun. They can take the ball from the quarterback using inside zone footwork, go across the midline of the offense, and still get back to the left side, the same side that they started right and only a five yard area right there, which is again I know some of our listeners, like Michael you' talking about that is very difficult to do. That is not a lot of people walk on this planet that

can do that. But it tries to give the maximum amount of influence on the second level so that you have space to cut back. I'm gonna always love to see a run game with this quarterback on the center because at the end of the day, gives maximum influence

on the second level. And then when you're able to do play action passing, which in two thousand three, two thousand four, two thousand five on Peyton, Manning made that long reach out the Edger and James where he's reaching out there and then he pulls it back up and stands up and Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison running across the field. Those guys running wide open that gives the

maximum displacement of the second level of the defense. That's why I think understander will always be the best influence on the second level footwork. You just mentioned a five step drop back. How I mean obviously in the shotgun you're not worried about dropping back. So you speak your footwork when you're practicing and your training and you're getting ready for games. If you know you're going to spend most of your time in shotgun and not under center, like,

how does that alter your footwork and your preparation. Well, again, I know for me, I was a runner, and there's a difference between a runner with passing ability, which is myself, Lamar Jackson. Sure, I will put Jalen Hurts in this category. Um, it's a difference between a scrambler who's really a passer that has movement ability, Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson, Steve Young when he was playing those guys. So it is a

little bit different. Well, I will say for runners, and you see this a little bit out of Lamar Jackson because they're in the shotgun, their body feels like they gotta move and do something, so it's weird. It was always in the shotgun thrown from me. It was always weird when I had to just stand there because the body wants to move. Body feels like I gotta drop back,

I gotta hitch up, I gotta do something. But oftentimes you gotta understand that the offensive line is just guarding that little spot right there and you gotta stay there. So for runners playing the quarterback position, sometimes they have to work on their footwork a little bit more. But it does change what you're working on. And again, drop back drills. You're gonna do drop back drills no matter what. It's just the launch point changes up a little bit.

Welcome back to the NFL Explained podcast. Mike ab and Michael Robinson with you. So we're talking about the evolution of NFL offenses. It's important to note that that does have an effect on deep senses and there's some changes there. So the data actually shows that Nicol st When I say Nicol, I'm talking about five dbs use sixty one percent of the time across the league in the bills their fans and I know, you know, yeah, let's roll here. Bill is actually percent of the time and Nicol that's

the most in the league. By over ten percent, and we saw them actually sack Matthew Stafford a Week one seven times without blitzing once the entire game. Five dbs. Basically they're based defense, So Rob, we're clearly seeing a lot of different players being drafted specifically for their skill sets on offense. But how is that affecting what's happening

draft wise on the defensive side. I mean we just talked about I mean we have tight ends like Travis Kelsey, We got running backs like Aaron Jones who is probably gonna end up leading Green Bay and receptions and things like that this year based off what they have on the outside. It's just the defender has to change it tras that evolve. It's no longer than Levon Kirkland's The Big showder paying guys that are just banging and running

into each other all the time. It's more like the Jeremiah wool Sue core More, Isaiah Simmons, the Fred Warners, the Shack Leonards, Guys that have the toughness to really mix it up and be able to share it against offensive lineman, but also have the movement ability that if this running back motion is out in the slot and we're in man, like you're expected to cover this guy?

Is that a divisional thing? When we talk about drafts philosophy, like if if the team that is the best in your division is rolling out with a ton of offensive weapons in a West Coast style, like, then do you have to think defensively like, Hey, I gotta match up. I'm playing those twice a year, like I need to figure out how to beat them. I'm building my roster according to the best team in my division. Ist or first and foremost, every team's goal is to win your division.

You win your division, you guarantee yourself home playoff games. So to answer your question, absolutely, whoever has won the division, you're always trying to chase and beat them. Let's take the a f C West for instance, Kansa City Chiefs have dominated the a f C West. So if you're another team in the f C West, I eat Denver, I eat the Las Vegas Raiders, the charges, things like that. You want to have a lot of defensive backs, That's

why J. C. Jackson is now in the division. You want to have pass rushers, that's why you have Khalil Mack in the division and guys like that. So yes, absolutely, Mike. To answer you a question, whoever wins the division, you're always drafting the chase and beat those guys. So I asked you about footwork a little bit earlier in the podcast because I'm thinking about certain teams and what I see from them and where I was going with it is prestap motion. You know, I've spent a lot of

time watching San Francisco Ford. Now I under seen a little bit now with Mike McDaniel down and it winded before the place started. Man, just all I was thinking about former players thinking about it like that. Damn, that's a lot of running, man. I'd be running all over the place before I even get off the line. Offense are actually using prestap motion almost four times as much as they were back in team, so from four point five percent to sevent over the course of the last

eight years. Explain besides being winded, what emotion is gonna do for offenses and the real advantage that's there. There's eleven guys on offensive, eleven guys on defense. That means that there's eleven one on one matchups, eleven people that have to be on the same page on offense and defense at the same time defense, I line up in I right or whatever, which is a receiver to the right, of receiver to the left of tight into the right with the eye formation and backs. Okay, defense is said.

They know exactly what defense they're playing. They're all good. If this running back, not the full back, but the running back motion is out of the backfield and goes wide outside the receiver to the left, it totally unlocks the defense. Now the corner has to step on. Now the linebacker has to walk. Now the box is a little bit like. Now there's a safety that has to

drop down in the box. There's a lot of communication that has to happen, and there's six gaps across the offensive line, and every gap has to be accounted for. If there isn't a gap accounted for, then usually that's six. That's how this game works. That's how great these players are. That's the chess match between the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator. Right. So at the end of the day, it's all about putting maximum pressure on the defense. And

so again, one motion, one shift. Um. Sean McVeigh is excellent at doing this building for building a formation. He may have three receivers on one side, he may motion one guy to the right, shift another guy to the right. Then before you know it, before the ball snap, he has four more people on the other side of the football, forcing the defense to communicate. And again, with eleven guys having to communicate, chances are one guy will be off. And if one guy is off, that's all this take

the needed to take get a touchdown. What's it like to be a quarterback where you see things unfolding with guys moving before the snap and you know you got him. It's about holding your water man because you just want to snap then faster. Everybody, just just be cool, Just let the snap be good, let the combinations get the way they want to go to. But that's what it is. You always hear people talk about this game being a

game of inches. Oftentimes when you see a play fail is because ten of the matchups were won by the offense, but on defense, this one person won their matchup and totally crashed to play a game of inches. That's how

close things are, all right. So we're taking everyone through the evolution of NFL offenses, and we've been talking about some of the philosophies that have been in place when when we come back here on the NFL Explained Podcast, we're gonna talk about a little bit of a hiccup in the middle of this timeline that actually involved one of the most memorable game plans in NFL history. Trust me, I don't want to miss that. Welcome back to the NFL Explained Podcast. I know I usually ask at the

end of the episodes. I just want to throw this your way. Um, you get hit up on social media a lot. I know you're a little bit of a media maven, so to speak. I've been getting some questions from some of our listeners for our pod cast, so I do want to encourage people to keep firing them off a little inside baseball here, I said, I got a d M and we're gonna use this in our mail bag episode. And I'm not gonna lie. I think, m Rob, I think you're a little jealous that someone

slinder on my du man. I'm just like, if I do it a bunch of haters, Why are you saying that about the Patriots and whatever? Oh, I don't get just great questions, No I don't. Yeah, So look, if you want to spread the wealth, you can feel free to hit up the real m Rob with the d M and a question or Mike underscore yam and happy to include those in a future episode. Love getting a

lot of these questions. But right now we're talking about the evolution of NFL offenses, and I want to hop into the time machine and take you back to two thousand eight. The Miami Dolphins. They weren't doing a whole lot of partying around that time. In fact, they were coming off a one in fifteen season. In two thousand seven, they go to New England to take on the Patriots. In Week three. Tom Brady had torn his a c

L in Game one, so he's not playing right. So let's pump the brakes here because you're like, oh, the Patriots loss of Brady. No, I'm playing all right. So the Patriots they still finished two thousand and eight eleven and five, and they had won twenty one straight regular season games when the Dolphins heads to leet. Now, Finn had to do some little drastic here, right, because you know it's the mighty Patriots. These dudes been balling out and they've owned us. That's what I would be saying

if I was a member of that team. Towards the end of the first quarter, Miami lined up with their running back Ronnie Brown, who was probably winning me a fantasy championship. I remember I had him on a couple of my squads. They lined them up and shotguns from the Patriots two yard line, whereas we know it, Yeah, the wildcat. He scored on a run up the middle, proceeded to shred the Patriots for a hundred and thirteen

yards and four touchdowns. The Dolphins go from one in fifteen in two thousand and seven to eleven and five in two thousand and eight. They make the playoffs, and we're talking about one of the biggest turnarounds in league history. They ran almost two hundred and fifty plays out of the wildcat that year. And the wildcat, by the way, it peaked in popularity two thousand nine, it's still used. How many times do you watch a game outlaw cat formation?

It happens all the time. Between NFL teams averaged just under one wildcat play a game. So maybe I need to pump the brakes. It happens. It just maybe not happening as much as I think. But they're gaining an average of four point seven yards per play. You tell me the inspiration here, like, how does this thing even come about? Well, first of all, just to use the Miami New England's whole situation, that was interesting because you gotta understand who Bill Belichick is. Okay, Bill Belichick is

a guy. He has to be prepared for every situation. And the nature of defenses is to outnumber the offense. They have an extra defender why because again, most defenses don't account for the quarterback. They look at the quarterback. He's just the video game player, right, He's really not real. But you know what I'm saying, So we don't really have to defend him. That's why we can keep this

middle of the field safety back and we can outnumber everybody. Well, when Miami was playing New England, they realized they had to do some things to be you know, unpredictable. For Bill Belichick, well, when you line up in a wildcat, now the quarterback is a real threat to run the football because the quarterback now is a real runner, a running back, a guy that has contact balance, a guy who can read blocks and things like that. And so

Bill had to make a decision. A defense is that year those couple of years and still have to make a decision. Do we just willingly know we're outnumbered and keep our safety in the middle field, or do we And in the modern daytimes, coaches don't really want to do this, especially on defense. Pull that middle of fields safety from in the middle of field because he's the last line of defense. Put him about seven or eight yards at the line of scrimmage. Do we want to

put him that close? Because again, if the runner breaks through, there's nobody back there. That's the kind of chess game that is going on. When your quarterback, whether it's the runner and and you call it the wildcat or the quarterback who has running ability lock of themar jackson, when your quarterback is a real runner, it is the epitome. And again with Cam Newton was doing it, it is the epitome of true eleven on eleven football. And it's

gonna always have an advantage for the offense. Why do you think it's decreased the way that it has. Well, I think it's decreased because of the quarterbacks have gotten so you know what I mean, And they can run it now. They're getting yards running the football, and defenses have gotten smarter. Meaning when it usually when teams do Wildcat. Their regular quarterback is split out wide somewhere really not

doing much. World teams aren't covering that guy. Now, now they're gaining an extra defender and being able to stop wildcat plays. All right, So let's bring it full circle here, because you actually gave some love to Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Kyle Murray. We're talking about more athletic guys who are playing the quarterback position also your primary ball handler. So teams must have thoughts in themselves it if I can create some mismatches with the wildcat. Let me just get

some of these dudes right. And the problem is they don't necessarily grow on treat. No, they don't. There's only a couple of those guys, which is why most of them are making like two hundred plus million dollars pay Lamar. Statistically, what we've seen has been a dramatic increase in quarterbacks running the ball if you include design runs and scrambling. Two thousand nine peak wold Cat quarterback rushed for a total of four thousand, five hundred and seventy two yards.

Fast forward to one, quarterbacks are accounting for over ten thousand rushing yards in a season, so when I say I called you a trailblazer at the start of the show, like that is accurate. Do you know what your numbers were when you were at Penn State? No, I don't. Okay, I'm gonna tell you you rushed for over eight hundred yards and passed for over twenty three hundred yards in the same season. But it's all good. The legend in your mind, the years go on. It just um with you.

I played quarterback too, apparently, I'm like twenty years removed from college. I was a baller back in the day. Um you look. I do think that there's at least some concern because we are seeing some of these guys, the Lamars and the Colin Murrays in the world, Like, these dudes have this ability that is so unique and so special, and I know it's not exactly skill set that grows on trees like I made reference to. Are you concerned though, about your traditional drop back passer being

a thing of the past. No, that's gonna always be a place for a traditional drop back past. I just think we're gonna be redefining what a traditional drop back passer is. To me, the robots in the pocket, like the Tom Brady. And again I can't really say Tom Brady as ro because he's not right. If Tom just had to run a forty, he'd outslow you, he'd be slow in that regard. But he's athletic in the pocket. He has mobility in the pocket, you know what I'm saying,

and he very rarely takes hits in the pocket. And so I think by redefining what a pocket quarterback is, I think we have to say a pocket quarterback now has to have a little bit of athletic ability in there and not And again I'm not saying running quarterback power or quarterback sweep or going seventy nine yards like Lamar Jackson or anything like that, but I do think that you have to be able to if you run a naked boot leg and it's fourth and four, you gotta be able to run for the first down if

you wide open. Okay, So I know we're talking about some scrambling quarterbacks here, and generally speaking, like you do need some mobility to play at the NFL level, especially if your mobile quarterback around that goal line. At the same time, we've actually seen a trend that seems to go along with how much shotgun is run and how

pass happy a lot of teams are. The rate of rushing touchdowns to passing TVs has increasingly moved in favor of the ladder, nearly a one to one ratio in ninety five to now passing touchdowns being almost two and a half times more common than rushing touchdowns. Before the season started, we spent an entire week doing like calling it like fantasy week. This is why when we're talking about running backs like people like you might want to

wait on a couple of those things. All right, the amount of passing and rushing yards in the game, that actually hasn't changed all that much. So how do you explain if the yardage is relatively flat, why there's such a disparity when it comes to actually how teams are scoring. Well, I just again it goes back to I mean, we live in Western society, right, Our society it's about you know what I mean, basically being on attack mode. Right, But that's that's what it's all about. And offenses are

no different. Defenses are no different. Football is no different. And when you get down inside the red zone, I just think that teams are finding matchups. So let's think about this when a team gets down into the goal line, let's call it the green zone inside the five. Right, you bring in big people. Right, If an offense has big people that can catch the football, you have an advantage because now the defense is going to bring in

people and now you have that advantage. And I think just from a younger offensive coordinators, guys getting jobs, getting opportunities to call plays, guys are just more aggressive. I mean not only just from calling plays, from even the players that they're picking. Guys are more aggressive. And that trend is just going all across the National Football League. And to me, I like it. You know, even as

a former runner, I do like it. But at the end of the day, winners of our Super Bowl, and I know we can talk about the Rams last year, they had the ability to run the football. To me, the winners of our Super Bowl still always have the ability to run the football. Man, So running the football and goal line situations, you say, give me the rock and formations actually matter and not to you know, pick

at a couple of different teams. But I couldn't help but notice, as I've been watching games over the last few weeks, my social media feed by Twitter timeline as I'm listening to Scott Hanson on ren Zone, people calling out shotgun formations basically in goal line situations and people hating that. Do you hate that what shotgunna go down situations? Yes?

Yeah I do. I do. I mean the advantage of it is maybe you know the ball care you can get the ball faster, and that way he can kind of see whether he needs to take off and jump where he needs to cut or whatever. I can understand

that message. But at the end of the day, I'm all about the ball, and to me, when the quarterbacks hands are underneath the center, that's the more sure ball exchange than the ball leaving somebody's hands being in the air for a little bit and then somebody having to catch it with ball handling and all of those types of things. But if you're running the football on the goal line, if your quarterback is under center, to me, if you want to throw it, it's the play action

that to me gives you the biggest advantage. But you know, I wasn't a part of this Super Bowl, but the Super Bowl forty nine, I know I always get a lot of questions about whether Pete Carroll should have thrown the ball and things like that. If you listen to the reasoning as to why he threw it, he saw Bill Belichick put his big people out there, and that was that led to the reason of them A part

of the reason of them throwing the football. He saw the defensive coordinator basically put his chest pieces out on the board. First, Okay, it's big people. They're gonna be a man. Hey, what's our best man beat play? And kids just made a better play. There's a lot of different ways, like a comment on that. I understand the reasoning be it, but well, you know, some people think somebody was coaching it to give Russell the the m v P and not beast mode. You know, I hear

all of these things, the conspiracy theories. There are those moments, those critical down and distances, and certainly third down, fourth down inside the three yard line. Uh, we've got some data for it. There's actually a slightly better statistical outcome on run plays from under center, which is why I asked you about shotgun and it seems like you like the outcome when a quarterback is under center. So since we're talking about the goal line, one thing I wanted

to bring up as a form of fullback. We're seeing some usage sickle, come on, don't do me like, okay, just gone down of the traditional running too. A guy just the you know not dude, you know what I'm saying. But you know you got eight backs. You got second tight ends that line up in the lead block of position that aren't traditional fullback. So look a lead blockers still gonna be there. Yeah, that's all I'm trying to say.

All right, I just just for urification purposes, do you want to go your muff says I give the fullback, but I'm gonna listening to the snaps taken including a fullback like that makes sense that number. Yeah, it is a little bit of a buzz kill. It's dying breed in some respects. But maybe there's optimism here because the game is going to continue to evolve. Maybe the fullback comes back and it becomes full But is there something that you'd like to see or you think a trend

that becomes the next I don't know. We'll do an NFL Explained podcast in twenty years, me and you and we're gonna be talking about this. Well, honestly, I think the game is going to position this football. The game is going to eleven dudes up against eleven dudes h pretty much closely built the same, very fast, very athletic, everybody can do everything. You gotta understand the entire National

Football League is trying to keep our guys healthier. And to me, I think that's why you're seeing, uh, the fullback be a dying. You're seeing the big thicker just Hey Busser type of a linebacker back in the day, the old cultural football. You're seeing that go away just because it's a contact sport. But the focus on player health has just changed the dynamics of the game. And so yeah, I don't think lee blockers will go anywhere,

but I do think, yeah, the thumpers will be totally gone. Honestly, you were in Birmingham, and I know that the NFL is trying to get and I think we all hope we see it flag football as an Olympics. I'm speaking in until existing it's gonna be an Olympic sport. You know what I found fascinating was I remember doing the hit with you on on Total Access and then you came into studio and you had said, like, there's some

really talented players. Now they might not be NFL players, But there might be some NFL players that can't do flag football, like as you said, positional lists football, Like I'm just thinking about sheer athletes that are just out there absolutely and let's be honest. I mean football, It's an athletic game, right, Flag football a game. How do you train for football? You trained for football, ball, playing foot.

I can see guys in the National Football League using flag football to train in the off season and still get their movement in as well while playing the game of football. All right. As my dual threat quarterback that is you, who is your favorite dual threat quarterback, favorite dual threat quarterback like of all time? Ye, Sarah Gott Because I actually have a guy that I'm thinking of that I'm only bringing it up so I can mention his name in this podcast, because I actually think Michael

Vick is in a lot of ways. When we talked about the evolution of NFL offenses, I'm like, yo, man, Like people were talking about, oh, he can't last because he's gonna take too many hits, and now all these quarterbacks are running like Victid. Yeah, man, Vic he had to be one of my favorite. He was one of my hosts when I went on my visit of Virginia Tech. We're both out of the state of Virginia his high school and never went to the playoffs though you know

what I'm saying. Van in my high school we stilway beat up on them schools down there in the seven seven. But yeah, I guess I would have to say, Michael Vick man, Um, I never really thought about it like at because again, I love Lamar Jackson, Um, Lamar. I love Lamar Jackson because he's a runner as a position. And again that's what I was when I say when I mean by runner, Guys, you don't see Lamar Jackson take big hits because he has the runners instant. Slippery man,

you see what I'm saying. Yeah, if Bret was running the football, he would take big hits because he doesn't have the runners instincts. So y'all would have to say, Mike Vick, Lamar Jackson, have you seen that NFL Legends thing that we do here? Yes, yes, yes, Vick and Lamar dude, man, and they have they did it. They did it. It's awesome. I gotta go check. It's one of the first times when I've watched those pieces where I sit there and I just focus and I'm just

watching these dudes interact. What's really cool? And I think, what's what's interesting about it? And our listeners are understand this. When you're literally the fastest, most dynamic, most athletic human on the field at any given time, and you're the quarterback, you get the ball every single play. It takes a tremendous amount of responsibility not to just say, you know what, guys, we're just gonna put ten guys on the line of scrimmage.

I'm gonna get the ball and I'm just gonna it does like I remember Joe Puto telling me, like, Mike, what do you throw on it for? You're the ultimate shutdown? Just run the ball. Yeah, And I always hear his voice every time I think about doing three quarterback. Yeah, it's it's it really is remarkable. Uh, No one better to hang with to do these episodes, and you, Mike Rob always appreciate it. I know I mentioned this earlier. If you got a question, don't know how to find

the answer, we got a whole staff here. We got a team that can get you that answer. You can slide into my m s add like underscore M you can send some shades towards Real and Rob ready to rock and ball, Mike, Rob always going to be with you man. That is evolution of NFL offenses explained