Early returns on five new offenses across the NFL

0:03Robert Mays: Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Really fun conversation today with our old buddy, Ollie Connolly from the read optional newsletter and podcast. Ollie does a fantastic job breaking down all things football. He is like a true sickos NFL analyst. And we are digging into all of that stuff today. We're talking about five offenses that have incorporated some new ideas coming into this season via a new play car, a new offensive system. The Patriots, the Bears, the Jaguars, the Seahawks, and the Cowboys. All five of those teams have new play callers this year. We wanted to take some time four weeks into the season just to check in.

0:40Robert Mays: How is this going? What are these teams doing well? What are they doing poorly? What can improve? How has the marriage been between some of these play callers and the quarterbacks? We talked about all of that today in regards to these five teams. Really enjoyed this conversation with Ollie. Let's get to it right now.

1:01Robert Mays: I've really been looking forward to this one. This is a show idea that I wanted to do even before we started the season. I was like, at some point in the first four or five weeks, we need to check in with all these new offenses because there's so much stuff that we're going to want to figure out and see how they're doing. And I can't imagine a better guest to help me dig into that conversation from the Read Optional newsletter and the Read Optional podcast. It's our old friend, Dolly Connolly. How are you doing, man?

1:25Ollie Connolly: I'm doing good. I'm excited to do this show. I thought it was fun when we went through the teams, not jump ahead of ourselves, how much overlap there was between every team kind of ideologically. And it made me really excited being like, oh, these teams are just telling us these are new groups in the league with new ideas. They've had some time off and that's the way football is going. So I thought that was really fun.

1:44Robert Mays: There's so much cool stuff to dig into here. And I think a lot of these these five offenses, I think it's been uneven for some of them. You know, the Bears are probably, if you look at the numbers, the worst so far over the first four weeks. but I think there's still a lot to be excited about with what they're doing. And so I think this is going to be a pretty rosy conversation compared to last week when we had some offenses that fit this bucket last week. So essentially new ideas, right? Are you bringing in a new coordinator? Are you trying to adopt some new ideas on offense? We hit a few of those last week, but those are the ones that were struggling.

2:15Robert Mays: So we got all of those out of the way. So we can talk about some offenses today that have been surprising and fun as they've incorporated some of these new ideas.

2:24Ollie Connolly: Yeah, I think particularly two of these, if they can get the snap off, happy days. Now we've got some good stuff going. It's just can we get lined up correctly to incorporate all of our cool ideas?

2:35Robert Mays: Let's start this conversation, though, with a quarterback situation in Cleveland that you are going to be watching up close and personal this week in the London game. The Cleveland Browns have announced that they are going to Dylan Gabriel heading into this week five matchup with the Vikings. We talked about this a little bit, Derek and I, on our Sunday hangover show this week, going back and watching the Browns game. We had run out of reasons that Joe Flacco should be the starting quarterback for the Browns. And I understood the plan going into the year. We don't need to feed a rookie to this real kind of hellacious start of defenses and opponents we have to start the year.

3:10Robert Mays: Let's try Joe out there. We'll start Dylan in week five or six, and then we'll figure out what we have. It happens maybe a week earlier than they wanted to, considering now Dylan Gabriel's first start is going to be against Brian Flores in a different country. What do you think about the move from Cleveland and what do you think about the timing of that move?

3:27Ollie Connolly: Yeah, I think it's good to just get it over with and give yourself as long a runway as possible. All the other rookies in some sense of sparkle for them, I feel like. So why not try and get a move on with it early? And the Flores thing to me, I was thinking about this afternoon, I remember Jordan Love's first start against Steve Spagnuolo and how he got essentially embarrassed by looking like a college player playing maybe the greatest defensive mind of his era and all the reports that came out after that i did some on the newsletter about the fire that kind of lit in him like oh this is how the pro game operates i need to understand all the mechanics of the blitz the pressure the rotations and i'm going to dedicate my life to figuring that stuff out so when we get to the next training camp i am beating aaron at this stuff understanding this stuff and we see him the next time i think it's against philly right when he gets the next the nod in the next start yeah that's not the I believe.

4:15Ollie Connolly: Yeah. And they tried to light Jordan up. It's like, this guy from Utah doesn't have any idea how to beat the Blitz. Let's just send the house after him. And he shreds the thing apart and he's fist pumping and pointing at the side. Like, look at what all my offseason study did. So I get if there's a long run of this thing and you get David Card out the league, right? You just take so many hits. The confidence gets rocked. I don't mind even if he does look completely lost in over his head. If it's like something in him that recognizes that this is how the league operates. It's not point and shoot Oregon football.

4:41Ollie Connolly: I think that can actually be helpful down the line. So I didn't really have many fears about saying, hey, we're going to throw him out against maybe the most wackadoo coach in the league.

4:49Robert Mays: It also can't get a lot worse than it was on offense for them last week. And I think that's the upside here is that your defense is playing so well. You run the risk if you just keep going at the pace that you were with kind of demoralizing them in the way that you have in previous seasons. And I think that's, again, one of the reasons there's why not like it's not going to get any worse. You're already running the risk of like really making things harder on your defense the same way that you have over the last couple of years. You might as well go to him, even if it's against a pretty tough opponent.

5:17Robert Mays: So not surprised by it. I think it is obviously a tough first challenge, but it makes the morning London game, I think, a little bit more intriguing. The fact that we're going to be getting the first Dylan Gabriel start early in the morning.

5:29Ollie Connolly: Yeah, I'm excited to tell my grandkids where I was. It's like, did you see Montana? I did not, but I saw Dylan Gabriel.

5:36Robert Mays: he's the new this generation steve young just just that that overlooked lefty who's going to bring a lot to the table all right let's dig into these five offenses so we picked five teams again that we have not really dug into over the last over the first four weeks that have a new offensive coordinator and a new play caller of some kind and are trying to incorporate some new ideas on offense and we're just going to assess how that's gone to this point in the season obviously it's extremely early that's a caveat we can throw out for all of these teams but we're about a quarter the way through the season.

6:05Robert Mays: I think this is probably a good time to check in with what all of these offenses have looked like so far. Let's start with the New England Patriots, who I don't know, might be the most surprising out of this entire group, considering what they were on offense last year. Just some baseline numbers for the past through four weeks, fifth in EPA per drop back, according to next gen stats, fifth in drop back success rate, their running game has been bad, but the passing game has been just shockingly good when you look at the numbers. And I think anecdotally, there's also been a lot to like. So when you went back and really started digging into what the Patriots passing offense has been over the first four weeks, what were your first couple takeaways?

6:43Ollie Connolly: Number one thing that jumped out to me was the joy Josh McDaniels is having calling plays for this offense. And that may sound silly, but I noticed this when I've been studying Matt Patricia at Ohio State and just seeing the glee in the film, like what he's calling and stuff, he would never have dreamed of calling before. because like I get Caleb Downs. What an amazing, I may never get this again. I'm going to call stuff I could never do. And I think you're seeing that with McDaniels where it's like I get to fuse all the glory is with the Cam 2020 offense. I can run a true downhill power spread offense and I still have maybe the most successful sophisticated passing attack the league has seen in 2007, 11 onwards.

7:22Ollie Connolly: And how can I fuse those together with this guy who has the physique of Cam Newton? and can he speed up the way Tom was able to speed up for me and I just think you see it all and week to week it's just here's a brand new personnel grouping formation package window dressing to get to all the stuff that I love just in slightly different ways and then there's really unique things opponent specific stuff every single week and then it's just gone it's like we've done that stuff and that really speaks to me of May's ability to pick things up really quickly that they've ID'd, oh, we can do this with him.

7:56Ollie Connolly: We don't have to have these are our 25 things and maybe there's two cool gadgets. It's like, no, we can put a full package in and then it's just gone for two, three weeks until we feel it can come back.

8:05Robert Mays: Let's give me a couple examples of the merging of those two worlds. Like when you see some of the cam spread stuff based and compare and combining that with some of the older Patriots things, how does that manifest to you when you're watching them?

8:17Ollie Connolly: Well, what it does, you know, you point out the run game figures that I make this point all the time i think i come on the show and do the same monologue to you every time that you're gracious enough to have me on is the run game being the first layer the base layer of your offense to get to everything else we're investing in the run game to trigger play action that's why we're doing it the better we can sell it it's not necessarily about the efficiency or the success it's how invested are we in it they believe we're invested in this thing so then our safeties will bite our linebacker uh sorry our linebackers by our safety sit we get this middle of the field stretch and we can just rip fastballs right through the thing we'll throw it over people's heads their investment comes like all these groups do frankly as everyone has tried to adopt some kind of power spread principle of getting to a spread formation or spread look with big bodies on the field can we get a fullback on there can we get a tight end on there do we have a good enough receiver like pukor or someone to come inside and block for us and so you see with mcdaniel's this attack every blade of grass mentality which is if i have a run game where i can do all the fun stuff with the pulling and the movement of the guards and the tackles and i can get true counter stuff in there plus i can get may running behind the lineman right so it's a downhill run game with my quarterback all of a sudden the triggers are there when we start pulling and moving guys in play action and in the drop back game too that was always the famous uh brady play right was the the uh backside guard pulling and gronk down the seam and what did brady say the other day threw for 70 000 yards on the same concept that's that's the go-to mcdaniel stuff now the element is oh it's not just backside pull for single back power it's backside pull because that six five guy might run down the hill at us and that's really dangerous if we get on first down that puts them ahead of the chains so it's just all that stuff to me particularly the panthers game you saw i'm gonna make all that stuff an rpo element he never ever could dream of doing that with tom right that was the stuff he found with cam which is a vertical action from the run game with a vertical action in the passing game which is just releasing a tight end down the field So seeing him blend those things together to me has just been really interesting to watch.

10:18Ollie Connolly: And the success kind of speaks for itself.

10:20Robert Mays: It's really fun to watch just how they're weaponizing his legs, even in the play action game. I mean, the amount of design rollouts we've seen from them over the last three weeks, they have the number one design rollout rate in the NFL in weeks two through four. It's like 15 % of their snaps. And they've done it 15 times. He's only thrown the ball on eight of those. He's scrambled on seven of them. And six of those scrambles have been successful plays. And to me, it just makes so much sense. It's like, we have this guy that is a really creative player outside of the pocket and his legs are a real weapon and them leaning into it the way that they have.

10:52Robert Mays: You're essentially almost guaranteeing yourself a positive or neutral play every time you're rolling him out because he's either going to dump it for an incompletion or he's going to run for five yards and you're going to be able to go to second and five. And I think that's the part of this that has been really encouraging for me. I tweeted a video of this earlier today, but it was a two-play sequence from, I think it was the Panthers game. And it was a third and six in plus territory, like the 40 or so. And it's a play, it's a third and six, he drops back. He hits Ramondre Stevenson on the check down for like three yards.

11:28Robert Mays: They get to fourth and three. Just a very simple, easy play. And he's making those consistently. Like anytime there's a completion to be had, he's taking the completions. And then on the next play, it's fourth and three. And he just rips a back shoulder ball to Stefan Diggs down the right sideline. And when you have a quarterback with his skill set, if he's taking the completions that are there, the explosive plays are going to come. The man is a living, breathing, explosive play at quarterback. And so watching him play within himself when those easy chunks are there to be had and then taking the shots when they're available like that combination with a guy that has this skill set that's going to make for a really fun offense and that's kind of what we've seen over the first

12:09Ollie Connolly: four weeks yeah and it's funny you mentioned those check downs I love his body language on the check downs I don't know if you watch this like he purposely slows down every single part of his being slows down almost like he's mid salt because he's like I gotta take the check down but he's like doing it 20 times a game he's like uh and the ball is kind of the ball rips off his hand but the motion is so slow compared to when he actually goes to rip it some of these guys you watch dag it's the same every single time it's robo dag with him he's like ah i gotta take the check down that's the coaching point it's free money i'll guess i'll take it and then he'll come back and rip the back shoulder throw which he already might be one of the three or four best back shoulder throw players in the nfl and so you get the vertical bombing you're mentioning there down the field you get the the horizontal stretch of the boot game but the downhill run game is kind of what makes it where we are in a complete bind like this ball could go anywhere that's the attack every blade of grass element of the offense and now all of a sudden it's okay we're going to put two backs on the field it's going to be one of them is in motion it's gibson it's henderson they're kind of the gadget guy or it's stevenson thumping in your face and figure that out and they already have built in all the next layers which is like we got a pretty sophisticated rpo package we got a deep play action package and if it's not there he's making some unbelievable plays when pressured.

13:19Ollie Connolly: Like, it's just not there, but he will hang in and hang in and hang in. He will absorb a shot. He'll slip and slide. He'll find some kind of room. And as you mentioned, that he's just willing to say, it's not there. I hung as long as I could. I guess I'll just dump this thing off and we'll keep it moving.

13:32Robert Mays: I think that's really the only criticism I would have from him over the first three weeks is that he's still figuring out where the limits of that are, right? There are times where he's trying to do a little bit too much in some of those moments. The Strips Back against the Steelers is a perfect example where it's like the first time that's not there. Just, just take the sack. Let's just live to play another play. But because he can do some of that stuff outside of structure, you don't want to reign that in too much. Even like the, there, there, the sequence that ended with the interception in the red zone against the Steelers, that entire sequence, there's like a little bit of an erratic feel to his play, but those things are becoming such a small part of the ratio that I think you can still feel really good about it.

14:12Robert Mays: Like he, just the way that he's wired, that's going to show up every once in a while. But I think those things are becoming a smaller and smaller part of the pie as he learns what he can and cannot get away with.

14:22Ollie Connolly: Yeah, I think you're just going to have to live with two boneheaded plays a game. And if you go into the season saying we'll get two, I think everyone would be like high-fiving, like that's a really great ratio for us because this guy thinks he can make everything. This guy thinks he's Brett Favre. So if we only get two of them, that's not so bad. And it was four or five last year and you decide to draw on the floor when he hit two of them, right? That's how it went, at least for me. I just think there's a maturity and confidence to his game now. where those panic plays, you can literally, as you just did, rattle through the list of them.

14:49Ollie Connolly: They're like isolated. Here's these two, three plays in the season. Whereas last year, they were just broken plays that you completely forget about. It's just when you kind of run through the whole cut up, you go, oh, there's four or five where he's panicked. It's not just like the plays out there, he's actually panicking and fleeing. And I'm just not seeing that this year. Behind a line that is still pretty fragile, by the way. It's not like those guys, he's got balls all over the place. It's pretty fragile. And he just has this real natural sense and feel in the pocket, which just was not evident all through last season last season was all about when everything's perfect look how good he looks when he doesn't make a silly decision and if you can just can we pull away all the different parts to get to that more consistently i think it's different this

15:27Robert Mays: year i totally agree and this is a very very granular place where it manifests but i actually do think it's indicative of what the offense feels like overall they are number one in the end again small sample size theater i have to say that every single time we talk about stats four weeks into of the year. They are number one in the NFL in success rate on plays with 10 or more yards to go on second or third down. And so let's just dig into that for a second. Essentially, that's a bucket of plays where you are behind the sticks. So it's second and 10, it's third and 12. They are number one in the league in success rate on those plays.

15:57Robert Mays: And I think that really speaks to, even when things get off track and a little bit off schedule, there's a calmness to the way that they're attacking those situations and they're not making a bad situation worse. And I think that really does show you like how he's slowing down his heartbeat in moments that actually should be disadvantageous for an offense they're not actually showing up that way for this team right now

16:21Ollie Connolly: yeah i'm sure you will talked about the ramondre stevenson wheel route in miami was probably the best throw he's had in his entire career that's a perfect example he gets pressure flashed right in the face the may of old even runs into someone else tries to run around and bail out and it's just the most basic like pull up the brady clip stick slide climb throw get to the guy i know by situation he's probably going to be open and i'm just going to throw it down the sideline like that just stuff was not happening last year the pulse rate as you said was way too high too frenetic so to have him be this calm and absorb as much information as he is i'm stunned by how quick he's getting to the right stuff at the top of the drop basically every single time the eyes aren't in the wrong place he doesn't always let the thing go and sometimes he hangs on too long but he knows where he's supposed to be and that that is like step one can we get there it's a really complex detailed offense and they have put a ton on him earlier it's really really not small it's like every week there's eight new packages of really really detailed specific stuff and it's all the Brady stuff so you know how detailed it is it's like all the old favorite stuff to be able to have a guy get the eyes in the right place essentially every single time is way beyond what I ever thought he would be in this development.

17:35Robert Mays: They're doing such a good job of just like using a little tiny levers to give him information and allow him to get to those right plays. The perfect example to me is there was a third and 10 against the Steelers where they have a little quick motion. They understand that it's man. He checks into like a little traffic route to Ramondre Stevenson coming out of the backfield, completes it to a 15 yard gain first down. And like, those are just those moments. Like it's third and 10. Like that should be a situation where you're feeling a little bit uneasy as an offense. And even in something like that, he looks like he's in control.

18:04Robert Mays: And again, with a guy that has his skill set, if that's how he's approaching the position and there is that level of calm to go along with the explosiveness, there's a lot to be really, really excited about when it comes to this team.

18:16Ollie Connolly: Yeah. And I think this is where Diggs' return to health is important. He just looks so much healthier this week, just revving off the line. There was like a different juice to him going. They already have really, really good like wink, wink chemistry on the in outbreaks of which way you go and which way I'm going. It's seamless with those guys. And this is the first week they really started moving digs around the formation, being like, let's get you even more easily identifiable stuff by just that's our best player. Let's go and see what they do with our best player. And so to what you're saying there about like the calmness and marrying up to the formations, the impact of digs beyond just the fact you get to throw to a great player.

18:50Ollie Connolly: And that's more helpful than throwing to a less great player. They're gathering even more intel now because the return of digs.

18:56Robert Mays: And some of those looks were there in 21 personnel and they bounce out into empty and you have digs at that number three spot like that's just easy. And they're doing a lot of that. They're doing a lot of things where just formation, motion, just something tiny before the play that's making it a little bit easier on the quarterback. And you see that all the time right now.

19:11Ollie Connolly: And that's where the legs really matter, because some of that 21 personnel, so if you mentioned, OK, they split it out to empty. Everyone's in a nightmare. Everyone knows everyone's checks. When you get to empty, there's usually a trigger check, right? Everyone starts throwing their hands up, you know, going into the week, we've studied this guy, this DC for X number of years. We know what Everos check's going to be in empty for the most part. You can confirm it immediately, essentially, as you get the ball and attack it. There will come a point where they checked that and it's him downhill. And what do we do then?

19:36Ollie Connolly: They're playing five on four football up front. Oh, they also have a sixth guy in the backfield who looks like Cam Newton. That is the possibilities they have now, which McDaniels has never worked with before. And you can just see the giddiness leaking out of the film, being like, I cannot wait to get to this stuff. I've saved this stuff for the Bills. I cannot wait to get the Bills. And this is where I'm going to do all my Josh Allen stuff that Joe Brady gets to do.

19:56Robert Mays: let's get to the one of the other quarterbacks picked in the top three last year that's dealing with a new offensive play caller Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears the numbers right now for the Bears if you look over the first four games I mean they're not great they're 25th in rushing success rate they're 20th in passing success rate but I do think that after that first week there has been some stuff that you can get excited about and there has been some pretty good things that they've put on film as you went back and studied what the Bears have been over the first four weeks What were your major takeaways from rewatching this offense?

20:26Ollie Connolly: Strangest thing is seeing a Bears offense operate and the quarterback be the thing that I have the least questions about. Isn't it crazy? It's crazy. It's like that feels pretty solid. What's going on with everyone else? Why does everyone else know what's happening?

20:42Robert Mays: It's a bewildering experience. You must be confused. When you watch him play right now and you talk about Drake's eyes going to the right place. And I think that it's still a little bit more robotic and it's still a tiny tick slower with Caleb right now. Like when you watch him progress and he's doing it consistently a lot, his eyes are going to the right place. It's just sometimes a little tiny bit slower than you want it to be. But that's kind of like a nitpicky thing, like how quickly he's moving and just how on time he's playing gets to his back foot. All right. One hitch, two hitch, three hitch check down.

21:14Robert Mays: It just it's happening at the pace you want it to happen. Or I guess mechanically it's happening the way you want it to happen. And that to me is just so encouraging when you consider what he looked like last year and what Chicago bears quarterback play has looked like for the past 10 years. I said this yesterday, it's been uneven for the bears offense over the first four weeks. We'll get to some of the things that they're struggling with. He is playing quarterback right now, better than anyone has played quarterback for the Chicago bears in the past 10 years. That's, that's not an exaggeration.

21:43Robert Mays: Like that's actually true. And it has left me in a place where I don't really know what to do with it.

21:50Ollie Connolly: my my only concern with him at the moment is still things feel a bit too reactive rather than active i agree he is waiting to see what happens and then i get my i think that's where you're saying like okay the footwork is great it's timed up with the pattern of the route that's what he's supposed to be doing and he knows where he's supposed to go with the ball but there's that split second hesitation of do i do it or do i not whereas when you watch the best in the league you watch dak you watch golf you watch the true rhythm throwers which he's going to have to become in the system the ball is just out because it's just a ballet of place it's like i know when my foot goes here ball goes there i've confirmed it in the drop so that slight hiccup is still there but that is a world apart from where we were last season it's a world apart honestly from where i thought these guys would be i really felt coming into the season was the most intriguing schematic question almost imaginable in modern football because you get ben johnson who is so wedded and set to his ways the most balletic offense we've had a melodic offense we've had for some time with gerard goff a real vertical base play action attack that's kind of where he makes all his money with this guy who kind of wants to do his own thing who's a bit freelancy who comes from the spread option era who comes from the air raid system and just wants to go and create and have fun and oh by the way is more accurate throwing on the move when he's creating than he is when he's playing with rhythm so why wouldn't you prefer to do that stuff you're better at that stuff than trying to be tom brady so i thought it was going to be a really peculiar difficult marriage and the notion just like great play call with great talent was kind of really underselling how difficult fusing these two things would together would be.

23:18Ollie Connolly: So to see kind of where he's already at, to your point of how quick he's getting two things, it's not the appropriate timing necessarily, but it's way quicker than it was the year before. And it's certainly further along than I thought these two would be together.

23:31Robert Mays: I think the number that really speaks to what you're talking about when it comes to the choices he makes and when he decides to rip throws per next gen, he has the highest percentage of throws in the NFL to open and wide open receivers so far this year. that anecdotally makes sense when you go back and you watch them he's throwing the ball to open people that's okay right like in this sort of offense like you're supposed to be progressing to the guy who's open but he is I think a little bit less willing to pull the trigger on stuff that is a little bit murky hopefully that will come with more confidence here's the thing and I don't know if I've said this on the show or if I said this to Derek and just in conversation I get what you're saying when it comes to the stylistic marriage between them but purely as throwers, I actually think that Caleb Williams and Jared Goff have way more in common than they do that then that is different about them because Caleb's best throws because he has that kind of whip like arm the same way that Jared does.

24:25Robert Mays: His best throws are those intermediate laser type throws over the middle of the field. And so trying to access the same sorts of throws within the offense that the Lions did in terms of his stylistic abilities as a thrower, I actually you think does make a lot of sense there is like a weird similarity between them even though i don't think anyone would ever say caleb williams and jared goff are similar players no i agree with

24:50Ollie Connolly: you and it just gives ben johnson a broader menu because you can have more of the moving pocket stuff and that's an advantage as well as kind of the vertical set play action game it's just his willingness to throw that stuff it's all anticipation it's all in phases open it's the nfl hell i got good players roma dunce is really good if he's one-on-one with someone he's open that's football right it's just the willingness to do that stuff and i think you've seen it in moments when he's being backed up and it's like it's go time there isn't really the easy out that's when you get some of the more incredible plays it's just you you vacillate between crazy decisions like what are you trying to do with the ball why are you trying to create something out of nothing in this specific situation like the understanding of the situation of football i think can be off from series to series but you get two of the most breathtaking throws you're ever going to see like the the one we put together at the end of the season here the 50 best throws of the season he's probably going to have four or five that's how well he's playing the adun's a touchdown throw is a in rhythm post strike that is just like textbook cannot do it better i don't even know if that is a jared goff throw goff hits plenty of them but the arc and delivery on the ball the power on the ball is unlike anything few guys in the league can do like there's what three four guys you would trust Stafford, those kind of guys, to really rip that in rhythm that way to that specific second window, as opposed to kind of an in-breaking return to the quarterback type window.

26:14Ollie Connolly: It's just purely the anticipation stuff. It feels like they're a bit clustered in that intermediate field area when it's not open. And that's just third down football in the league. Like these guys, Ben Johnson can be as great as we all think he is. And as you mentioned, these guys are open everywhere because he's really good at this stuff. And Caleb's being smart with taking checkdowns. But to win on third down consistently, it's going to be ripping those intermediate throws of anticipation.

26:36Robert Mays: Do you think that stuff, I agree with you with the situational aspect of it. And there are times where things feel really hurried, like the timing, and we'll get into some of the timing and detail stuff about the offense that I do think is pretty misaligned right now. But like there are times when he'll try to get to a check down, him in the back are just completely not on the same page, thrown at people's feet, that those sorts of things. If I'm trying to see this in a rosy way, because I have to, right? Like I have to choose to believe this is going to get better. Do you think with more time, more maturity, more comfort, this is stuff that can get honed in the long run?

27:07Ollie Connolly: This is the stuff I think you can hone. This is why people fall in love with the idea. Can we make every quarterback in the draft Josh Allen? We think we can teach all the other stuff. Someone like Caleb Williams, if you just put the job up for offer with the tape of this season, someone like Bruce Aarons would be like, I'm coming back out of retirement. This guy's making throws. I can only dream of having guys make. That's how gifted those downfield shots are to me anyway. The problem is just the details, as you mentioned. The mechanics are often all over the place. His balance is atrocious a lot of the time, even when he's hitting completions.

27:38Ollie Connolly: And so that is just an obsessive attention to detail, right? You've got to be Lamar Jackson. You've got to be Brock Purdy. The offseason is where I put the work in. The season is when they pay me to play the games and it's fun. And it's just we have no way of understanding from outside whatever reporting is. Is he that obsessed about the details in an offense that is so based on rhythm? Rhythm with the tempo, with the motion. my foot goes here this guy flies behind me here this timing is snapped up perfectly right when we break the huddle how quick am i getting from the huddle to the line of scrimmage because the shift i'm running is elongated compared to the shift i'm running i'm probably have to hustle on this one to get everyone ready and going and i set the tempo for everyone else right those kind of detail stuff to me are just guys who are completely obsessive about the details of the game as i meant to be jordan love i want to be the best blitz beater in pro football that's what i want to be.

28:25Ollie Connolly: I'm going to spend an off season doing that. Is he wired that way? Or are we going to get him in three years, still a junking ball to the feet of a back and a check down? He's like, yeah, that stuff doesn't really excite me. What excites me is ripping the laser down the middle of the field.

28:38Robert Mays: That's a really good, really, really good point. Just not being bored with the boring stuff, I think is a key part of all of this. And I'll say even with some of the imperfections and some of the inconsistencies, I think the first four weeks, there's been a lot of really encouraging stuff from him and the marriage between him and the play caller. Let's get to everything else. If the quarterback is not the concern with this offense, where do your concerns start with this offense?

29:03Ollie Connolly: Everywhere else. Can't get lined up. Can't get plays off correctly. Can't motion and shift correctly for the offense that wants to motion and shift the most in the NFL. And this is where it comes back to Caleb slightly is does everyone understand in the huddle what the play is that they're the number one offense I look at and it's like the palms up our fence if everyone look around going what are we actually supposed to be doing there was a play one of the penalties i think it was a false start in the raiders game where caleb's like waving his hands being like i think that one's on me that's the first time i've seen him on film like take responsibility this is happening constantly so is there a miscommunication is there something going wrong with the operation of the huddle that's like phase one start one day one of install type stuff and then just the line is such a disaster i mean they can't pick up anything anything and it's it's not just one-on-one talent it's any kind of stunt twist pressure bluff disguise blitz the best guy in situational protection is deandre swift who then has no juice to run the ball for you so it's like when do we put him on the field because he's gonna at least buy caleb maybe an extra half second because he's the only guy who seems to know where he's

30:08Robert Mays: supposed to be yeah i think that the run game details are the thing that really jumps out to me. It just, you watch the run game and whether it's design, whether it's execution, like they're just complete inability to ever get to anybody on the second level, no matter what the call is, no matter what the scheme is, is absolutely maddening. And it got to a point. And I completely understood this in the back half of the Raider game where they were like, Braxton Jones cannot play anymore. Like he, we cannot have him be the left tackle anymore. And it's mostly because of what's happening in the run game, not even what's happening in pass protection, which I don't, I don't think I can remember a situation like that where the left tackle gets benched because of what's happening in the run game, not because he's given up like four or five sacks over the course of the day.

30:48Robert Mays: It just, and there's so many examples where you're just looking at whether it's a one on one loss or whether or not the loss happens on paper before the play even starts. Like we can get into some of the details if you want to, but I think all across the board, everything up front is just not nearly as buttoned up as it needs to be. And I think that has been the most frustrating part of watching this team so

31:09Ollie Connolly: far yeah i don't know if you have any stats or figures but it feels like watching they allow the most run-throughs of any line in the league like it's just a free runner in the run game constantly and we're in a league right now where everything defenses are trying to do is they try and get to one single plugging linebacker that's kind of like the meta trend on first downs is like most these guys aren't good in coverage they want to move us around the box if we just set that one guy is attacking the line of scrimmage and we're trying to create a five or six man first level at the front with one guy coming downhill maybe gets penetration it blows the vision for the bag let's just approach it that way so at least we're setting the agenda with what our linebackers are doing rather than all this nonsense these smarty pants are doing with the movement and the motions and the shifts and all that stuff so to allow that many run-throughs and you go and watch the raiders and it's just play after play after play hitting the backfield hitting the backfield hitting the backfield with a pair of backs who are downhill thumpers downhill maulers we will churn out four or five yards for you these are not guys who kind of make someone miss and wiggle away and now they're down one in the run game on defense and jamae gibbs can go take it to the house so it doesn't even seem like a structural mess because it's just ben johnson's run game from detroit i just think they lack talent up front the communication seems to be a miss everyone's always pointing at each other about why did you allow it and then the other guy's saying i thought that was your assignment so it's just such a detail oriented offense with so much going on it just could take a long time for everyone to be able to tap in together when you've put all those new pieces together in one offseason.

32:40Robert Mays: I think that's right. And you watch it. And I think that the Detroit run game, you watch Detroit run the ball and the amount of times where it just this is happening. It's something you build over time. It's like everyone knows exactly when to come off on a combination. If there is some sort of like some sort of stunt or movement, the recovery is so consistently correct. And like there it's just so far away from that when you watch the Bears run game right now. And I think hopefully that stuff will get a little bit better over time. I also feel like it's probably time to tweak the personnel up front and they're already doing that.

33:12Robert Mays: Right. And so my thought is after we're going back and rewatching that game, like obviously Trapillo is a right tackle. He was a right tackle in college. He's mostly worked at right tackle over the last few weeks, just because of how they're deploying the personnel. I do wonder if by the end of the season, their best five from left to right is Trapillo at left tackle and Darnell right back at right tackle. Like I'd be surprised if that weren't the, if that wasn't the best five for this team by the time the season ended, even if he's much greener over on that side and they really haven't played him there much at all since they decided he wasn't going to be the starter there.

33:46Ollie Connolly: Yeah. I wonder too, if Johnson would just adapt slightly as well. Could you maybe be less heavy base? I know that like, that's the doctrine. That's the idea. That's how he wants to call. And you would hope that over time all like coalesces and everyone figures out and oh, maybe it's this guy's fault, so we'll change the personnel and then we'll flip this guy from this side to this side. I do think too, could you just declutter the box slightly? Could you eliminate some of these concerns? We're playing hat on a hat with seven, eight guys in there. Why don't we just play hat on a hat with five guys in there?

34:13Ollie Connolly: You know, four guys in there? That to me would be something I think they could look at. And again, then it becomes complex with how they get to the next stuff, which is what Ben Johnson wants to do, which is taking a shot off play action. But you have Caleb Williams. You could go and call up some of the Lincoln-Riley stuff and say, well, let's just, you know, take our percentages down from the heavy personnel groups are from 26 28 maybe we drop that down to 18 and we just see if we can de-load the box through personnel um that that is something i think they should look at because i just don't think they can stand up one-on-one in the trenches essentially and if you even go back to that you're mentioning that the lions run offense i think people in their mind remember all the cool and the fun parts of johnson offense right it's like all the pullers and movers in space and here comes penny sewell that's like three or four plays a season, Collinsworth just highlights it on Sunday Night Football, the base of the offense is we are just bigger than everyone and we are mashing people in the face.

35:03Ollie Connolly: And that's 24 % of our entire offense is we just kill people up front inside and it's double and climb as you mentioned. And then it looks the exact same when we get to play action. So you just need to have three mores in there and they don't have three mores in there before you even get to concerns you mentioned at the tackle spots.

35:18Robert Mays: I'll be curious to see what they do with this well personnel stuff, because obviously you drafted a guy in the top 10 that is hopefully going to play for you. He was hurt last week, but you're still using 12 personnel on 35 % of your plays. Durham Smythe is not a positive for you in virtually any way. And last week was probably one of the worst games I've seen Cole come at play since he was drafted. I mean, like in every single aspect of the game, he was a defined negative last week. And I don't think that will continue, like, especially as a blocker, like he can hold up in that way. It just, he's had some really rough stretches this year.

35:50Robert Mays: And so where they land on that, cause I agree with you. I do think that trying to be a little bit more of an 11 personnel team might be a positive for them. But the way that they've built the personnel is just flies in the face of that. And so where they land between those two things, I think is going to be interesting to see.

36:03Ollie Connolly: I think you can go less about the personnel and say Loveland's in there. Loveland is just a slot receiver for us. 15 % more of the time than we had planned on coming into the year because we want to run a tight, condensed offense. We got to get a body out the box. Let's move that safety out the box to just help us out front to clean out. there's just so many people down there. We're trying to work these combos and our guys can't pick it up. So let's just try and move a body out there. What's the best way we can do that? Well, they're going to put a certain person on the field to match us. If we have Komet and Lovelland out there, let's move Colston, you know, eight, nine yards further away from the formation to kick a body out.

36:38Ollie Connolly: I think it's more of those like granular switches you could make than it is saying, okay, we got to throw out the entire like organizational plan that we want to be this 12 personnel style offense.

36:46Robert Mays: I think that's right. I think that's a very good way to think about it. All right, we're going to take our first break and then come back and talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars.

36:55Robert Mays: All right, let's dig into the Liam Cohen Jaguars four games into the season. When you have gone back and watched the Jags over the first month, your biggest takeaway about this team is what? Frustrating, I think.

37:10Ollie Connolly: There are so many opportunities here. It might be the most cohesive, well-designed for the moment we're in, offense in football. and yet again they struggle to get plays off the basic stuff once they get a playoff they hold every three plays sometimes the refs call them but sometimes they get away with it and then i find lawrence at this stage i don't know what it's like for you but sometimes you're such a fan of someone's it's like a music artist or something and then they they have a massive career pivot that really bothers you like you feel like they sell out then you just hammer them because you feel so burned by them that's where i'm at with trevor lawrence now it's like i just don't know if the light is ever going to go on to a point where he could even be a reliable, will make the postseason and will always be on the fringes.

37:55Ollie Connolly: My comp was always, could he be Matt Ryan? You get him in the right situations, like an explosive MVP caliber season. And maybe people underrate him, but by the back end of the year, people remember the really like holy grail seasons with Shanahan. And I think I'm just falling further and further away from thinking that's a possibility.

38:12Robert Mays: What do you think? Because I watch him right now and I think frustrating is a very good way to put it, because his best stuff looks absolutely beautiful. And when he puts his back foot in the ground and they're asking him to read one guy and you're really attacking teams in like the intermediate area of the field, like you still see that ability to just throw lasers all over the place that made him the prospect that he was. And I love watching that version of him. The play I go back to, it was a third down against the Bengals on the first drive of the game. they have mesh across over the ball and then deami brown is running a corner to that side and the back is running to the flat and so it's just pure progression from left to right he sees the flat defender bite down on the back and he throws the corner out immediately and his ability to layer those intermediate throws outside the numbers and even over the middle like i love watching that version of trevor lawrence and when he's moving fast and he can read one guy it looks beautiful but there's so many other elements of who he is right now that remain frustrating and so if you were trying to pin down the things about his game even within this offense that is going to give him the correct opportunities what do you think at this point is holding him back

39:26Ollie Connolly: I think it's really difficult I think he's with the perfect coach I just think about the way you were phrasing that which is like when when when when when this guy's paid 50 million dollars a year to not have wins that's not what you get paid that money for we're talking about him there as the way we're talking about drake main caleb williams like these guys are learning on the job both have new play calls in the second year in their career this guy has a new play call this is not his second year in the league and so and nothing ever operates at optimal speed and the wins you're talking about oh when you see this is like the five six times a game you see optimal speed in the entire process and i just don't know does the light go on for people at this stage in their career when it's like that i think always think about i was tracking this i don't have the figures for this week but going into last week 82 of his red zone throws went into the end zone right the next closest guy was 55 over the last two seasons that is now you're in the red zone that's not goal to go situations that's the entire 20 yards we get to play within the red zone and i think it's indicative of the player he is which is hyper aggressive wants to make every play thinks every throw is a hero throw and it's just not a way to have a sustained efficient offense where you just take easy wins and a lot of it is panic stuff a lot of it is not even tight windows it's a window that's not there and i just don't think there's enough nuance or subtlety in his game at this stage and he's playing in an offense that is crafting guys open and he's just missing it all the time.

40:57Yeah.

40:57Robert Mays: I think that there are so many plays and my favorite moments from him are those things where he's making an immediate decision. And if you look at it, like the ball comes out of his hand very, very quickly. I still think, I believe he has the third fastest time to throw in the entire league. I think the only two guys who are getting rid of the ball faster right now are Aaron Rogers and Patrick Mahomes on non-play action passes. And you feel that when you watch him, like when the, when he hits his back foot, the ball is coming out. Here's the problem with that. There are times where the ball should not come out with the way, with where he is deciding to throw the ball.

41:29Robert Mays: And there are so many examples of this where he'll have, there was a play in the late in the second quarter against the Bengals. And he has Travis Hunter on like a deep comeback. And he's like, all right, I have a one-on-one. I'm going to throw it as he's coming out of his break. And this is going to be a situation where I'm giving my guy a chance. He's making that choice immediately, like before anything else even happens. He's not even thinking about where else he should go with the ball. And so in the moments where that works, it looks incredible because you're thinking, oh man, he's throwing with such aggressiveness and anticipation.

42:01Robert Mays: You love to see it, but it gets him into trouble so often because he's making those decisions based on immediate information. Like how many times do we watch him? It happens every once in a while. The touchdown to De 'Ami Brown in the Bengals game is a good example. He starts on the flat to the right, comes all the way back across, hits De 'Ami for a touchdown. You can, it's the same with the Drake may like how many bad decisions I could count him on one hand. I can, I watched every single Trevor Lawrence drop back over the last 24 hours. I can count on one hand how many, how many times he progresses to the backside of a concept.

42:32Robert Mays: Like, so it looks beautiful when it works. And when it doesn't work, you're like, why would you ever make that decision? And that kind of feels like the Trevor Lawrence experience right now.

42:41Ollie Connolly: Yeah. And you asked me a question I probably should have answered that you asked, which is like, what would you do? I think the problem they have is it's again another one where the marriage between like the play designer who has an ego that would fill the entire state right and i love liam cohen and he's an unbelievable play designer it's an earned ego i get you know he thinks he sold football and he may have done it with his scheme so i i get where he's coming from so they want to run this turn the back play action system right that's that's kind of the the hallmark and staple of the operation i just don't think trevor lawrence plays very well when he doesn't have vision on the defense i mean it's really that simple and that what you're saying there okay the guy plays well immediately and we're building more and more time into the offense when it's turned the back play action it just takes more time naturally right we got to sell the play fake and come out of it and then turn away from the defense we don't know how they're going to move or rotate or disguise things to us then you've got to sit back around and decode it and get rid of the ball immediately a lot of the bad stuff is coming on those turn the back shots the design let's go try and rip it which is in your mind where you go well that's got to be where Trevor Lawrence will do well that's why this partnership is going to be so strong that to me is the stuff that's a problem when he's just in the flash fake world and it almost looks RPO like and it's just ride the ball in the belly and his eyes can stay downfield and he can see it and read it it becomes almost one read and go football for him and if you just even go look at some of the figures and like you said we're early in the season he's ninth in EPA per play this season on just straight drop back football I can just see what's happening in front of me I'm making a decision I'm going and that might just be the peak of what Trevor Lawrence is.

44:11Ollie Connolly: He might just be in those situations, the ninth best player in football. And that's pretty good to have at your quarterback spot. But once you start building in the stuff that Cohen really, really wants to do, I just think he's a different player. I think he's a bottom third of the league quarterback when he is forced to turn his back to the defense, turn back around and then scan and figure out what's happened.

44:29Robert Mays: It was interesting because in talking to people there during training camp and just discussing how they were trying to build the offense, when you consider the things that Trevor had done well and the things that Trevor had liked previously, there was a little bit of, okay, how do we make sure we're not going too far in our direction here? And a lot of that was based on like shifts and motions because in the Jags world, things were very spread out and he was able to make those pre-snap decisions based on alignment before the play would even start. When you start condensing things and you're starting to try to give him information based on some of those shifts and motions, you're adding layers to the offense in the exact way that you're talking about.

45:06Robert Mays: And that's something that he was going to have to get comfortable with because that was not a huge part of what they were doing before. And so I do think maybe there's a little bit of misalignment between the way that this offense wants to operate and the way that he's comfortable operating. And I think we're seeing some of that.

45:21Ollie Connolly: Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot with CJ Stroud and Nick Caley and how I really like those guys individually. I think Nick Caley has a great plan for how to attack defenses in 2025. I'm a huge CJ Stroud believer. but if I got them together with like some truth serum and I said okay what's our game plan to win the Super Bowl we got a drive to win the Super Bowl what does it look like to you I think they would come out the room with completely different ideas about what that would look like and there's just not a great fusion between how CJ would see that moment and how Nick Kelly would see that moment and I just have in my gut a feeling of that with Lawrence and Cohen that how Cohen views the game there's not a complete alignment with how Lawrence views the game and how you build more of that stuff in i think the credit that cohen has is he might be the most adaptable guy week to week in the nfl like he will completely shapeshift the offense dramatically week to week to get to what he thinks works best he thinks he can outthink everyone in the nfl and eventually it may wind up being his downfall but he truly believes that and so i if anyone will be willing to say i'm throwing a bunch of stuff away early it just doesn't work trevor doesn't like it we're not going to get it even if that's bringing down the motion shift rate from a sky high level to this doesn't work why are we giving up five free yards every single drive it's not worth the investment he is the guy i think will do it my only concern with that long term will be you just kind of bumble yourself back into the Doug Peterson offense over time and then maybe you just have to have a conversation in the offseason about the partnership what do you think about the

46:49Robert Mays: deployment of the pass catchers so far i think that last week them leaning into more of that outside of the numbers type stuff with brian thomas jr considering what the first couple games it looked like was a good example of that. Like them being like, all right, we're going to do a little bit of something different this week. Travis Hunter and Brian Thomas Jr. are two guys that I think a lot of people had in front of mind coming into the season for various reasons. What have you thought about the way that this offense has used them over the first month?

47:16Ollie Connolly: Pretty confusing, particularly with Travis Hunter. It's an awful lot. You mentioned a deep stop route earlier. It's an awful lot of that. It's like return to the quarterback type routes. it's a little shallow sit it's a it's a little stop route it's a lot of comebacks it's like is this why you trade a future first round pick to go up and get a guy that it's a lot of teams will fear travis hunter so he will be our clear out guy in a clear out concept to pierce it behind for brian thomas jr early in the season before they recognize that they don't think he can attack the middle of the field anymore evidently it's gonna have to go outside the numbers as you mentioned with him it's like you drafted travis hunter to play the clear out position like you can truly find street free agents to go and run the 40 you know 60 times a game they have guys on their team who've done that role willingly sacrifice themselves to an offense before playing that role recognizing i might get two balls a game on an alert and i might get a 40 odd score you know once every four or five weeks so they have those guys and then that's how they've used travis hunter i just find it really strange you would think just with the skill set with a guy in this offense that as i said will move around every week it's a new game plan every single week with stuff you've not used before it's a really detail-oriented offense and he's also in the defensive meetings for the most disguise-based defense in the nfl for four weeks there so think of the volume of information you have to have in your head you'd have to play for kubiak and gus bradley essentially to even contemplate being able to take the information on every single week no we have the two most complex structures in football this guy's going to play both ways and all we're going to ask him to do is sit over the ball it's like i just find that so confusing and then you watch him play and he just doesn't look like a full-time receiver it's a ton of wasted movement and then it's a wasted movement on a the investment is like we get a we get a five yard snag if we get him the ball it's like what are we doing here why aren't these all runaway routes why is this not him into space and attacking grass where he can out athlete everyone if nothing else if the details aren't there he can out athlete people for us i've just found the hunter stuff really, really confusing.

49:21Robert Mays: It's funny because I actually think that them using him on some of like the benders and over the middle routes, like he actually does have a good feel for that space in a way that Brian Thomas Jr. does not. And so using him on some of that stuff, even if he's a little bit undersized, I actually do think might make a little bit more sense to make the rest of the offense click, even if that's maybe not the first place your brain would go.

49:41Ollie Connolly: Yeah, well, you know, they use this cheap motion an awful lot with him. You'll see it right where he's flying across the formation then kind of bending up the arc and it's a essentially a two-way go if you get open just keep going down the field it becomes a go if there's if there's someone in front of you stop and sit down and i'm thinking to myself this guy is playing how many snaps a game 70 80 snaps a game on both sides of the ball why is he the speedy motion guy and i'm a like could not be more of a travis hunter believer you know if he's full-time one way even attempting to play both ways could not be higher on the prospect and the player and the person but he looks tired running the the point of the chi motion is to induce panic in everyone else that it's at the snap and it's fast and it goes so quickly we can't adjust and he's kind of not lollygagging but it's not exactly the the pace he traditionally runs of when he's just revving out of his route it's like who thought this was the correct idea so there's just an awful lot of that when you go through it being like who came up with this idea who put their hand up and said boss i think this is a good idea for this week.

50:41Ollie Connolly: It just not a lot of it adds up to me. I do think they are constricted by Trevor, frankly, in what they want to do.

50:47Robert Mays: Let's talk about the run game a little bit, because the run game has been very good. I mean, I could consider the success rate stuff. It's kind of all over the place, depending on what stats you look at. But they've been a top 10 DVA run game over the course of the season. I think they're a top 10 EPA per rush run game. Anything from that side of it that has been encouraging to you so far?

51:05Ollie Connolly: Yeah, I think that's where I've always just admired watching cohen's offenses i mentioned changing things every single week his ability to manipulate defensive fronts through motions through shifts getting people misaligned getting a guy in a one track and it's just wide open and it's just the most basic simple blocking mechanics ever but through the motion and shifting he gets guys up to the second level cleanly and i think that's why they're going to have so many explosive runs this season already they've got i mean the two backs are as good as it gets just one plant and go vision acceleration second level burst and wiggle it's hard to figure that anyone's got two backs who have that those overlapping skill sets like that so that to me is what stands out in the run game it's not quite i would say as sophisticated along the line as it was with the books and he was only there for one season so he was able to implement that stuff really early on now i think he had superior players obviously particularly inside and obviously having worse helps everyone but that was a true all five can pull everything is available to us at all time type operation this isn't quite that it's a bit more boxed in but what he's been able to do is just manipulate things through the different looks pre-snap as opposed to being more creative like as the ball's in play let's get to the seattle

52:17Robert Mays: seahawks who have been i think a lot better than anybody could have anticipated on that side of the ball through the first four weeks they are second in the nfl per next gen stats and drop back success rate they are ninth in epa per drop back and it has been the most explosive passing game in the league through four weeks. Your biggest takeaway from watching the Seattle Seahawks Clint Kubiak offense through the first month has been what?

52:40Ollie Connolly: My big takeaway was I'm a dummy. I don't know why anyone listens to me. I feel bad for the listeners listening on this one, but it just looks nothing like I thought it was going to look like at all. It doesn't look like the Saints offense that Kubiak ran in the first week. It was like this is dad's offense. It's like he picked up the wrong playbook in the morning, the wrong call. She just picked up one of his dad's one's by mistake and now all of a sudden it's as creative as you could find in the run game um again trying to get to some element where can all five guys be a threat to pull to get to our play action game a lot of those shots those play action shots one is just donald playing out of his mind i mean he is out of control right now and then secondly if you just pull up the chunk plays the 20 r plus passes and go check the the initial run game mechanics it's a different one every time This is not just like, you know, we're going to run wide zone, wide zone, boot out of it, boot out of it.

53:32Ollie Connolly: It's not. It's a different snapshot when you freeze the frame of the blocking mechanics every time, because as much as the run game has kind of been running their head into a wall, as I was saying earlier, it's like that next layer up of the offense, which we're investing in this to get to Donald throwing the ball to Smith and Jigba down the field. That is what's making it click.

53:50Robert Mays: Yeah. So the run game obviously has been frustrating that 27 percent or so of their runs have gone for negative or no yardage this year, which is 31st in the NFL. But again, they've been the most explosive passing game in the league down to down. And some of that, like you just said, is Darl just running hot and he's running extremely hot right now. But he's really fun to watch when he's in those stretches. Some of the numbers are kind of ridiculous. They have 13 targets of 20 plus air yards this year, which is like seventh or eighth in the league. They've completed eight of those. They've completed eight of those 13.

54:22Robert Mays: He has the 12 of those 13 throws have been marked as on target by PFF. Like the down the field accuracy that he has shown at throughout this entire season so far and the accuracy, period, like right through the first four weeks. I think you can make a really solid argument that Sam Darnold has been the most accurate quarterback in the NFL. And when you combine that with the aggressiveness, I think that's a lot of what's driving this is that he has played in terms of when the ball leaves his hand and where he wants it to go. He has played quarterback about as well as you could have over the first four weeks of the season.

54:54Ollie Connolly: yeah about as well as anyone's ever played over the first four weeks of a season i mean he he just decides it's going no matter what i can fit the ball anywhere i mean there's some play action throws against the cardinals where people are truly double covered and he's like it doesn't really matter to me because if i put it on their face mask that's open and so i'll just put it on their face mask 35 yards down the field in the end zone and he does it and there is zero hesitation in this game absolutely it's just ball is out immediately um they have what is it third this season and the number of dropbacks where the balls are in less than 2.5 seconds like it is coming out and it's not coming out for just the quick easy free access stuff it's coming out for him to rip it and that's that's the thing that's just incredible to play on that average time to throw with that kind of downfield threat just unlocks everything for them it's been really

55:44Robert Mays: fun to watch the combination of the play action stuff and then i guess quote unquote spread looks And what I mean by that is the horizontal stretch they're trying to create within the offense. And when you watch them play, it's a really interesting combination of the two. So you'll have those plays and the second play of the game when they went tempo against the Cardinals were in that four by one look and they throw that little screen to Kenneth Walker. Like that's a very extreme example of what I'm talking about. But when you watch them play right now, they're doing two things specifically where I think you feel a lot of that horizontal stretch.

56:15Robert Mays: They've had 26 empty dropbacks so far this year, which is top five in the NFL. And they've been incredibly efficient on those plays. It creates a lot of space in the middle of the field, and it's creating a lot of throws for him over the middle of the field where he's very comfortable pushing the ball. They've been really, really – they've been top five in the NFL when he paid a drop back on those empty snaps. And the other thing that they're doing a lot of – we talk about Clint Kubiak's time with the Niners. They're doing a lot of that bumper motion with the backs in order to create that stretch horizontally and pulling down the flat defender and then creating a lot of space that way.

56:46Robert Mays: And then on the next play, they'll be in these hyper condensed formations and be using play action. And so there are just so many layers to the offense that I didn't necessarily expect. And you might think that those two components actually kind of feel misaligned. But when you watch them play, it actually marries together really beautifully with what the quarterback wants to do and then what the receivers want to be like JSN on all of those like in breaker rap routes. Like he's so good at that. And they're creating the space in order to make those plays really dangerous. It's really fun to watch.

57:19Robert Mays: Like it's just a combination of stuff I never really expected to see.

57:23Ollie Connolly: No, it's a it's a great one to watch. And it's a really fun example of a guy really recognizing, OK, what a defense is trying to do to us. What's the best way to stop that? Right. Which is they want to move and rotate constantly. They want to disguise in the back end. They want to have all these weird, creative, odd fronts up front where we don't know who's coming, who's dropping the seven guys presenting. But they're not all going to be coming. they're moving everywhere how can i just make them be static that's all i want to spend my week doing is make them be static and reveal their hand and the best way to do that is to get into big personnel and we're playing bully ball football and they can't be so exotic then because they gotta put their big guys in the field to match us or you get to empty we mentioned at the top of the show like either there's an immediate trigger check or it's just really hard to rotate in disguise when you're facing empty like if you've really stretched the field out and if you're sending some kind of pressure you kind of have to tip your hand to get the pressure there in time so you can get a tell or a feel for when it's coming so it's a really good feel and it's what i think you're pointing at there is if you watch the falcons for instance it just feels like something's off all the time the tempo and the rhythm and how they sequence one play to the next it just doesn't feel right and when you run that style of okay we're 12 one play we're empty the next play you can kind of get that accordion offense where you're just bouncing back and forth between these two systems and the defense can get a real easy check and tell on what's actually coming their way.

58:38Ollie Connolly: It takes the real good ones to be able to find a way to get that kind of flow and that ball rolling down the hill mentality where it just feels like, oh my God, they are just rolling and rolling and rolling. And for four weeks, they've been able to do that. And I think a lot of that just goes down to when it isn't there, when it's kind of busted by design, Donald is just figuring it out. He's got to figure it out, Gene, in a way I just didn't expect he would do.

58:59Robert Mays: I love that because when you watch them, I think that's exactly how it feels. We pointed this out when we recapped the Cardinal Seahawks game in real time. There is a difference between offensive architecture and design and play calling quality, right? Like those are two different things. And I think you can like a lot of the architecture and design things about this offense. But to me, what's really sticking out is how cohesive it all feels. That momentum of a ball rolling downhill, that is what the Seahawks offense feels right now. And I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head. How do those two worlds merge in a positive way?

59:28Robert Mays: Well, they're driven by the same motivation. We're trying to make sure were dictating to the defense. And you can do that with using empty. You can do that with some of that bumper motion stuff and you can do it with personnel. They are dead last in the NFL in the percentage of plays. They have 11 personnel on the field. It is 31 % of their plays. I believe they have a fullback on the field for like 37 % of their plays right now. It's pretty crazy, like how much they're living in some of these extremes in order to make sure they're the ones dictating. And when you combine that with a receiver who is ascending to like a real superstar level, like the way that he's playing right now, a quarterback who is red, red hot and a coach who I think has a really, really good finger on the pulse for what he needs, given the situation.

1:00:14Robert Mays: I think that's where you start to get the feel of the Seahawks offense through the first four weeks.

1:00:18Ollie Connolly: Yeah. And you mentioned that, I mean, the people to see the offensive coordinator and we think of that guy as like the one guy you can go, go through the team's coaching staff. And the reason they have a run game coordinator and a passing game coordinators, everyone has different interpretations of the job and to tie it all together it's really to have one guy who is a great play caller and play designer and everything else that goes into it is really difficult someone might be unbelievable at drawing up different designs in the passing game but not have that in the in the moment feel for how to tie and sequence it all together again i think we're seeing some of that uh in atlanta the last thing i would just mention is the drop the drop back stuff from under center that being a constraint right that it's like we got to have run past conflict everywhere they have organic run as conflict as you mentioned they're in heavy personnel all the time people just naturally think it's going to be a run right so but they are probably the most money team on that maybe dax so far this season but every single time it feels like it's just the most easy eight yard out every time it's like just easy money we can take that and so they're just always putting these different conflicts into a defense while still having as you mentioned that horizontal stretch all the time so it's it's probably as good a coaching job as anyone has done through four weeks of the season.

1:01:28Ollie Connolly: So to have a new quarterback, essentially a new interior, the offensive line, reworked receiver room and to piece it all together in one go for four weeks and have this kind of output is really impressive. And I get Seahawks fans will listen and say, why the run game stinks, the run game stinks, the run game stinks. It is worth it for that investment in the explosive players. If they dry up, you got a real problem, right? It's an exchange for the other.

1:01:49Robert Mays: What do you think can help get the run game on track? Do you think there are a couple solves in your mind that could make this thing feel a little bit less frustrating with a little bit more time on task?

1:02:00Ollie Connolly: Yeah, bench the right guard would be the number one thing I think I would do. I mean, it's just a complete sinkhole at that spot. And it's the most constricted they look because they can't really do much with him in the pull and movement game. So there are some things of like they can only do certain action. When one guy starts to trigger a move, you can get more of a feel for what's coming. and they don't actually run a lot of stuff it's really varied for like formational dressing and kind of pre-snap law but if you just isolate the play design and freeze it it's like we got like 20 things we do here we just do them really really well and we hide them pretty well i think the right guard spot is incredibly limiting for them and i just don't think they knock people back off the ball well enough it comes down to just physicality up front and you mentioned earlier about can the bears work combo blocks and things like that they have really good again when you just freeze the frame at the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped.

1:02:51Ollie Connolly: They're in like premium, premium run looks. That's why Donald's not checked out of it and they cannot get any movement.

1:02:57Robert Mays: The under center drop back thing is really interesting. And I think exactly what you're saying when I had a coach kind of explain to me one of the benefits of it this off season, when we talked about why it would become a more prevalent part, prevalent thing that you see in the league, you kind of play into the nature of the, of the defensive backs that you're playing against where you're in 21, 122 personnel and that quarterback is under center defenses are wired to think it is one of two things it's either a play action shot or it's a run play and so if you're a corner and you're sitting there in single high and you're playing cover three your first thought is at the snap i'm bailing out right i'm getting tons of depth because that's what they're doing they're doing this in order to run the ball or they're trying to throw the ball downhill or trying to throw the ball down the field and so when you have guys with like access running seven eight yard outs that's exactly why you're able to do it in those situations because you're playing with the expectations of the defense you're playing against the funniest one is how the packers played in the

1:03:51Ollie Connolly: cowboys game even just beyond like okay we're gonna get depth what the coverage is just the human nature of i at least have some time i can i can wait to make a decision i'll see what happens and dax just like you're just gonna give me eight yards i mean they must have done it four times

1:04:03Robert Mays: in against the packers yeah it's really funny it's been a fun thing to watch get ramped up even though we knew it was coming it's still interesting to see it just more and more and more the best

1:04:12Ollie Connolly: spot about it is watching these guys who've never had to do that footwork give it their best shot watching kyle murray really he's trying his best out there and then they're like four weeks of me like this is not gonna be for us we gotta take this stuff out it was really funny i was going

1:04:25Robert Mays: back and watching some old peyton manning highlights the other day and just seeing that and it's like we're back man it's all it's all cyclical it's all coming back around all right guys before we move on we're gonna take one more quick break let's finish this up with the dallas Cowboys who have been just a hyper efficient offense over the first month or so had a really good game against a great Packers defense on Sunday, seventh in EPA per drop back so far the season per next gen eighth and drop back success rate. And the one that really sticks out the Dallas Cowboys and number one in rushing success rate through the first four weeks.

1:04:58Robert Mays: So when you went back and watch the Cowboys over the first month, what was your biggest takeaway about this offense?

1:05:03Ollie Connolly: Yeah, the run game stuff, bringing Clayton Adams over and immediately just planting the stuff they did in arizona directly onto the cowboys and i did have reservations about how that would go based on the personnel they have even drafting booker in the first round was like he is a guy who plants people off the ball you bring him in to drive people one-on-one he cannot move and go in space and even when you watch them in the opening week they were they gave him one rep they're like you get one because we have to pretend like five guys may pull at some point you can get one and it was one of the worst reps we'll see in pro football this season so now it's like that stuff's out actually with with him being injured and the backup coming in they actually do have more versatility in the run game now it's not a better player one-on-one you know at the point of attack but they they can get to more in the run game so just the general movement in the run game i think is what stands out how dak can aid that he might be one of the best fake out artists with like the the giving it and then moving into the bubble you know they'll have a bubble away from outside zone or inside zone it's like he carries the fake out as well as anyone in the league and then Williams has just been creating a ton of yards that aren't really there to be made frankly he's just playing at a really really high level and so it's easy to kind of glorify the coach and say oh they put a new staff in place and Sean and I'm is doing great but in the run game specifically I think the backs are just playing at a really high level it's really

1:06:19Robert Mays: really fun to watch right now because there are so many different layers to it and it's whether it's personnel or just the specific designs right so let's just say we're in 21 and let's say Hunter Lepke's on the field, all the different ways they're using him to kind of steal back angles in the run game. They're doing the exact same stuff with Brevin span forward when it's 12 personnel. And sometimes he'll be lined up as a tight end. Sometimes he'll be a fullback. And sometimes they'll be running like sort of a wind back where he's coming to one side and then he's slicing back across and he's cutting the defensive end.

1:06:54Robert Mays: Sometimes he'll actually be coming back and he'll be trapping the three technique. Sometimes he'll be leading up the amount of different ways they're creating angles on the end man on the line of scrimmage to allow their guys to get onto the second level is magnificent. Like it's just so, so smart and so well-designed. You see it in so many different ways. And the other part of it is, I think that there are certain guys up front that are playing some of their best ball in the run game specifically that they played in a really long time. And the guy that jumps out to me watching Terrence Steele in the run game right now, he has taken his lumps over the last couple of years after he came back from injury And either him as a puller, him at the point of attack, like the way that he is playing specifically when they're trying to run the ball right now is really, really cool to watch considering some of the issues that he's had.

1:07:39Robert Mays: And so I think that they're attacking it from a bunch of different levels. Like the Clayton Adams thing is undeniable, but there are also other elements of this that I think are really shining through.

1:07:47Ollie Connolly: And I think they have the opening week in particular, but it has sustained all the way through. when i was saying before about like the rhythm of an offense that that rolling at the hill type stuff they probably have the the top sequence together offense in the league right now where you're mentioning all those different actions they have a play action play where they have a fullback trap a three technique and they rip a post over your head it's like who else is even considering that that's like a smart thing to do the downside is a three tech runs into the back of our 60 million dollar a year player that's not good business that's not good business but it means they're trying everything and everything has a purpose and point and that's what i've got to more and more i think this season watching a lot of these offenses like who is who are the ego based coaches where it's like let me show all my goods let me show you what i've been working on and which offenses i said it's really cohesive everything has a point this play is for the next play unless it's our trick play like unless it's our go time play or it's just we're backed up and it's third and 18 and we're spread out what can we do when it's on our terms and it's first and 10 that is to set everything else up and i think that they're probably the best representation of it and then when it gets a bit muddy and it gets a bit fuzzy dac can just sort everything out for us it's like we get into the gun and it's dac's football that's how he wants to play the game and what we've done is said let's take dac's passing game how he wants it to look and how he wants it to operate and let's go and find maybe the best run game architect in football in clayton adams So what if we try and pad those two together?

1:09:13Ollie Connolly: Will that be successful? It looks pretty successful.

1:09:16Robert Mays: It's been awesome. And I've all I've wanted from the Cowboys offense over the last three or four years, because I know that's how Dak wants to play. And I know he's very good at operating that way. But how static that offense has felt in stretches with previous staffs has driven me insane, right? Like they're in the gun, they're spread out all the time, and they're running nothing but stop routes consistently. And I get that. You have a quarterback who wants to see everything because he is really gifted at the mental parts of the game. I'm not asking you to put him in a box like he's 2017 Jared Goff.

1:09:46Robert Mays: Like, I'm not asking you to do that. Can we just get to like league average levels of dynamic elements of an offense? That's all I want. That's all I've ever wanted. And that's exactly what we've gotten this year. They're using play action on like 30 % of their dropbacks, which is the top 10 rate. Over the last two seasons, they were in condensed sets on 21.7 % of their drop or 21.7 % of their plays per next gen. It's one of the lowest rates in the league. This year, it's 31%. The Cowboys this season through four games have more total EPA generated on play action passes than they had from 2022 to 2024 combined.

1:10:23Robert Mays: It's four games. It's been four games. And this is all I've ever wanted. It's just the, and you look at some of the motion stuff and it doesn't have to be all this crazy stuff, but can we send, are we getting an angle in the run game because we're sending Kevante Turpin on a jet motion? Are we getting there's a play against the Cowboys where they have him on a little end around action coming back and they have Quay Walker pop back inside because of that action. And then it's 11 yard gain. These are just small things. These are just small little tiny tweaks that make offense a little bit easier on your guys.

1:10:57Robert Mays: And all I've ever wanted was for them to do them at like an average rate and just kind of see what happens. And when you combine that stuff with giving him at least one dynamic, dangerous pass catcher, hopefully two when CD comes back. These are the results that you can probably hope for.

1:11:13Ollie Connolly: I mean, Pickens still does frustrate me to get five plays a game where it looks like he doesn't want to play football anymore. I'm about to get like a mid-game retirement tweet or something. It's like, OK, buddy, could you be engaged for us for every single rep? The thing that you're hitting on is something that I've been frustrated with with Dak in the past. Like Dak is just like the quarterback robot. I just love him. I love him beyond words, essentially. But there just was never enough movement in the offense. You said it was not dynamic enough. I think that's the correct word. Something has to move laterally for us.

1:11:44Ollie Connolly: And I get you want to take every second you can to see everything the way like Aaron Rodgers does. I get that you think you can outthink everyone. You're the modern Peyton Manning. And I think if we put you back in that era, you could probably do those things. And it would be an unbelievable success. But we're just in an age now where there has to be some movement in the offense. And previously, when they were successful with Dak's style, it was he was the mover. I would go. Well, that's he's just not that kind of player anymore. It's like it's a Dak keep when it's 10 yards and in at the goal line.

1:12:11Ollie Connolly: Then maybe I want to get involved. Yeah, even that is not really on the menu anymore. No, no. They may roll that out. They were to make the playoffs. Maybe they would save it for super high leverage situations. And there's some more off schedule throws this season because the line's being caved in. He's had to bail out and make some plays. but they've been able to to build the movement in by design which is just how you're able to get some more of that rhythmic feeling it's so hard if you're static play to play and you're taking the play clock to three that feel we're talking about where like you split the huddle and just feels like this team is coming and coming and coming it's hard if you're slowing it down it's easy easy and we're gonna take three seconds because i can read the rotations better than everyone else like let's get up and snap the ball let's play with some momentum and some rhythm and they just have a real great vibe to the rhythm of the offense right now and then you add in all kind of the moving pieces you were talking about with creating different angles of motion throwing out every formation you can imagine it's just hard to get a read on someone if you can't get a read on someone and they're coming at you fast and the tempo changes they change the tempo i think more than anyone in the league that it can be no huddle but it's slow or it's no huddle and it's fast how they get to the line, break the line and the play is off.

1:13:18Ollie Connolly: It's they modulate the tempo every single play that you just can't get a feel and read for what they're doing.

1:13:24Robert Mays: Yeah. And it's just, he's also playing at a high level, the quarterback, which helps all of this, right. But I'm not surprised to see him playing at a high level when you just make things like a tinge easier on him. And that's again, that's all I've ever really wanted. There was a two play sequence in the Packer game that I just think is so indicative of what we're talking about here when it comes to the layers you're trying to build within the offense. They were in 21 personnel and they hit a goal ball to Pickens off of an under center drop back out of 21 personnel. Right. So like you just think about that as a defense, as a defender, you're never even thinking about that.

1:13:53Robert Mays: The fact that he's going to be gone right away and we're throwing a goal ball on a straight under center drop back out of 21 personnel. And then on the same drive, the touchdown to Pickens, they motion to empty. They move the back out to the left side and now makes Pickens the number two receiver in that look. And he has leverage immediately based on that shift. And he throws a short post for a touchdown, it's easy pickings and no pun intended. And like, that's the type of stuff where like it's simple stuff. But when you're doing those things and pulling those levers and the players are good, including the quarterback, we are starting to see the returns on stuff like that.

1:14:28Robert Mays: And so I'm not shocked to see this, but it still has been very gratifying to see a Dallas offense constructed like this.

1:14:34Ollie Connolly: It's going to be a real frustration to someone like Keller Moore, who's like, oh, now he's buying into all this stuff again. That's great. But you mentioned that the Pickens go ball. I think it's an important point when people from other fans like, well, why haven't we got that kind of drop back from an Ascented game built into the league? I'm not sure for these guys, it is all that easy. It looks easy because it's like it's a one on one football shot to a guy who's one of the best contested grab guys in the league. Dak, unlike anyone else, buys into the mechanical stuff in a way that just like is not normal for all these guys around the league.

1:15:07Ollie Connolly: that I'm going to be the best seven step drop guy from in the center in football like I can imagine Dak having like a mantra taped up when he brushes teeth in the morning staring at him like that's my goal for the next two weeks it's like okay Dak buddy we believe you and then he goes out and executes it and as he's saying you I watched someone like Caleb's had some struggles with it Kyle's had some struggles with Kyle's you know an experienced player and he's struggling with it so Dak just makes difficult stuff look easy the problem has been that so much of the offense has look so difficult all the time.

1:15:38Ollie Connolly: The difficult stuff has been difficult too. At least now there's built in more stuff that's easy for him.

1:15:43Robert Mays: I think it's a really good kind of bow to put on the end of this is that so often with the Cowboys offense over the last few years, things felt hard, always. Things felt condensed. They felt tight. They felt difficult. And so far this year, they have not felt that way. And it has been a real breath of fresh air when you watch this team play. Ali Connelly, sincerely appreciate the time, sir. If you guys have not subscribed to the read optional, it is one of my favorite football products that exists. I get the email as everything they put out arrives straight in your inbox. And if you are not subscribed to the work that Ali is doing in their newsletter and the podcast that he does with John Leder, I sincerely recommend that you guys check it out because it is wonderful work.

1:16:24Robert Mays: Ali enjoy the London game. It's always good to talk to you, buddy.

1:16:27Ollie Connolly: Thank you. All right, guys,

1:16:28Robert Mays: that's all we got. Thank you so much to Ali for his time. Thank you to all of you guys for checking in. We will be back tomorrow with the week five preview with me, Derek and Dave. Until then, appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you soon.