First impressions of new units and faces after Week 1

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1:27Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Week one is in the books, and me and my buddy Dan Pazuda today are just running through some initial first impressions from some new situations around the NFL. That can mean anything, really, right? And so today we're going to talk about a couple new quarterbacks that we saw this week. One playing for a new team, one playing for the first time. We're going to talk about quarterbacks in new places, a couple new offensive coordinators, a defensive coordinator returning to his old team with a bunch of young defensive players that we've never seen before.

1:59Robert Mays: So this was really a chance to do a deeper dive into four, five, six units that we really haven't gotten a chance to chew on since those week one games wrapped up. So really enjoyed my conversation with Dan talking about our first impressions of these groups. Let's get to it right now.

2:21Robert Mays: joining me for the first edition of our thursday show on the athletic football show this season from the snaps and stats sub stack uh product whatever wherever you want to say you're hosting it it is a football content machine run by our guy here dan pazuda dan how you doing man i'm i'm doing well how are you i'm doing fantastic we're back to football and i am very excited to have this conversation with you.

2:45Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, absolutely. Are you sure you're doing well? This is the first time I think you've talked since being at the bears game. Okay.

2:53Robert Mays: I'm doing okay. Yes. I, you know, listen, I think that there was a lot of emotional lows associated with the game, but it was still great to be there. Uh, we will talk a little bit about it on our preview show tomorrow, because I feel like we have to discuss that performance from the offense in some way and what it might mean moving forward. But it was fun to go to the game. I had a great time going to the game. I wish the outcome had been better. But at this point, I'm so beaten down that there's really nothing that can surprise me anymore. It was just one of those things where over the course of the game, I just got progressively quieter and more withdrawn.

3:29Robert Mays: And I'm very used to that experience as I watched the Chicago Bears.

3:33Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, I kind of figured that was kind of how it happened. But But yeah, just wanted to check in, see how you were doing. And I appreciate that. We'll talk about some more exciting stuff today.

3:43Robert Mays: It's always hard to know how to program these early season shows because we're just trying to figure out what's real, what's not real, what from week one actually matters. And so what I wanted to do today was essentially just talk about our first impressions of some stuff that is new this season. That can be a new player on a team. That can be a new offensive or defensive coordinator. that can be some young players with a returning defensive coordinator, which we'll talk about a little bit later today. But we just wanted to pick out like five or six things that are different about the 2025 season and discuss our first impressions from those things.

4:22Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Obviously, we're looking at there's a lot of stuff to take in. We never know what's what's real or not. But yeah, a lot of fun things that kind of stuck out that I'm curious to see if we're going to continue throughout the season.

4:36Robert Mays: You threw out three. I gave I threw three back at you. We're going to start with three of the ones that you suggested. And let's begin with your early impressions of the Las Vegas Raiders offense with Gino Smith and Chip Kelly. What piqued your interest about the Raiders on Sunday that made you want to kick it off with them?

4:54Dan Pizzuta: man what what didn't it was fun um in just the sense of like what wouldn't athletic football show be without some gino propaganda to to start right off right off the bat but just kind of structurally just everything they were doing the fact that i mean the run game probably is going to be a concern going forward but the fact that they stuck to the play action game uh for gino 32.5 percent of his drop back season play action and again we remember last year in seattle that is like 18%. So the fact that they were able to have some deep shots off that, the way they were moving in 12 personnel with Bowers and Michael Mayer at the same time, developing some shot plays off of that.

5:34Dan Pizzuta: Like this is a Geno offense that like there were some shots in there that are really fun. And I think this is just kind of a type of, you know, expanded passing offense that I think is really going to fit what these players can do. Yeah.

5:48Robert Mays: It's a combination of different sorts of play actions. The first play of the game, they're in the pistol and they have Bowers running up the seam and Gino just rips like a line drive throw off of play action so those throws we've come to expect from Gino like when he can put his back foot in the ground and just let it go that's some of my favorite stuff we see on an NFL football field so that was the first example and then they came out in the second half and actually were doing some under center play action stuff and some of the best stuff that Waldron did in my opinion when that offense was really rolling in Seattle at its best when they were like back half at the top 10 in success rate.

6:21Robert Mays: They had some of this under center play action stuff with obviously the skill sets or the receivers on that team when you're living in a lot of 12 personnel with Lockett and DK, really you have two vertical receivers. Like those are the skill sets that you have. And one of my favorite things they would do is they would get an under center play action and they would just run like deep curls with those guys after threatening vertically. And they come out on the first play of the second half, I believe, or the first drive of the second half. And that's exactly what you get. You get like a big, deep curl from Jacoby Myers.

6:52Robert Mays: Gino rips it into that void. And then on the next play, you get like a big crosser off of play action. And so if this is going to be a team that wants to live pushing the ball into the intermediate and deep areas, the field off of play action, they have the quarterback who can do that. Like that's the best version of Gino that we saw in Seattle. And so getting a few glimpses of that early on, I'm very much looking forward to that style of offense. If that's the one that we're going to get. Yeah.

7:18Dan Pizzuta: And then the way they just manipulate defensive personnel off that too, when you're in 12 as much as they are, I think, you know, obviously you're going to want to be able to run the ball a little better than they do. But if you want to start defending that in nickel, which I think the Patriots have eventually started doing, that's when they can, you know, use those pieces to just run the ball down, down their throats. And I think we'll eventually see the development there. I mean, I think Gentry was hit 0.4 yards beyond the line of scrimmage on average, which was one of the lowest among running backs.

7:50Dan Pizzuta: I think he had the third lowest expected yards per carry per next gen. So you weren't it's not like the running game was bad in a way that he couldn't, you know, make anything happen. It was just they were getting the run blocking was not very good. I think that will eventually kind of figure it out just schematically. so when you're built actually going to you know the kind of the opposite of the the football guy thing the run to play action i think they're going to play action to run really well as we continue to to develop you know this throughout the season we saw the usage with the tight ends

8:22Robert Mays: which was a little bit curious and i think a little bit of a tell essentially like when mayor was on the field and 11 personnel was going to be a run when bowers was on the field it was going to be a pass and i think they have to play with some of that stuff i also think that there were just these are when you have a bunch of layers to your personnel and how that plays into your run game that's stuff that you're just never going to figure out in training camp but you just don't have enough full speed fully padded practices to really hone all of that and so i think that's why we see things feel a little bit uneven for these teams early in the season and the bowers you should specifically i i think that we're going to have to see them tweak that over time because there are plays where he's on the field but he's in the core blocking on on passing plays and it's Just like there are ways to use this guy where you don't have to throw it 85 percent of the time when he's in there and we can have it be a little bit more cohesive and a little less siloed based on which tight ends are on the field.

9:14Robert Mays: I think over time, I would hope that that stuff that they start to sharpen and hone a little bit as we get a little bit more time on task with this group specifically.

9:24Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, and I think that's going to be the case where you're still trying to figure out what that personnel is. And obviously he goes out early in that game with the injury. So you're going to try to figure out what exactly, you know, his role is going to be, you know, when, when fully healthy, I'm glad we, you know, the, the early like preseason Michael Bayer is playing more than Brock Bowers thing. We didn't really have to worry about it. I think they're going to be both play plenty, which I think is a lot of fun. And then the wide receivers I'm excited about too, you know, there were a couple of nice just shots to the Jacoby Myers.

9:56Dan Pizzuta: There was one, uh, I think in the, you know, the, the first quarter where he just kind kind of rips it kind of up the seam. And then I think when you have the speed of Trey Tucker and Dante Thornton, they both had a long reception in this game. When you have those guys running as fast as they can on the outside and you have the two tight ends making the defense just really worry about what's going on in the middle, I think that really stretches out what this offense can be too.

10:21Robert Mays: I wonder how that ends up working with Bauer specifically though, because if those two fast vertical guys are going to be on the outside and they have Myers on the slot, what is that going to mean for the Brock Bowers usage or and are we going to see him enough if they're committed to playing Thornton and Tucker as much as they seem to be again I think this is all just stuff that you're going to figure out over the course of the year but that if you're going to treat Bowers solely as a slot receiver which it kind of seems like they are within this offense then how redundant is that with the way that they want to use Myers and then what does the workload between those guys look like that's something that I'll be paying attention to as we keep moving forward.

10:56Robert Mays: The group I wanted to touch on at least a little bit is the offensive line, because I think that even if you could get excited about the Geno, Brock Bowers, Jacoby Myers, Chip Kelly, Ashton, Gentry combination of all of this, the line was a question mark. And at the end of last season, I was actually kind of encouraged by some of the stuff that this group of five in different spots put on tape together. Jordan Meredith was playing guard for them last year. He's now moved to center and Jackson Powers Johnson is now playing guard after playing center in the back half of last year. But DJ Glaze is somebody they drafted in the third round last season as the right tackle.

11:30Robert Mays: I thought he played well enough to earn a starting job in year two. The early returns from this group in week one, not great. I feel like that's, if you had some optimism about the Raiders offensive line, I think it took a hit based on what we saw in the first week of the season. You mentioned the run game stuff, but even in pass protection, I feel like there was something left to be desired. Gino was pressured on 65 % of his blitz dropbacks in this game. He took four sacks on those plays. He also averaged 14 and a half yards per attempt when the ball came out against those blitzes. So if the ball left his hand, it was a good thing.

12:07Robert Mays: But he's getting hit and pressured a little bit too often for my liking, even when you consider that side of it.

12:14Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, I mean, Gino, you know, you were you were born. You were raised in the he was. He was born in this. like this is like this isn't much different than like what geno smith has had to do obviously i think we do hope there is i think there were a few more answers that he was able to get to you know and had the opportunity to get those balls off when he when he did uh have the have the opportunity uh but yeah i the offensive line in general is definitely going to be something to watch again i think they're going to fix it and i think they can get to okay which i think if you the way they want to use the play action and the play action was set up well which i think was nice the way they i think they faked the run well like they weren't getting beat in that way so i think that can hopefully translate to what they actually do on run plays uh and then hopefully that also you know goes to the straight drop backs too um but again you know no stranger to having to make stuff out of pressure when it gets quick.

13:14Dan Pizzuta: So it was, I think overall, this is a very exciting thing. Certainly are things that you kind of wonder if it's going to help hold them back. But for what we saw in week one, I think there's a lot to like.

13:26Robert Mays: And I will say, I mean, sometimes you don't know based on the opponent that you're going against how excited to be about a specific element of a team. But watching the Patriots defense, like Harold Landry looks really good on Sunday against the Raiders. I mean, he cooked glaze at one point, like high side, like a little dip, you know, outside rush. And then they, uh, they had ran a twist and Jackson Powers Johnson just could not get back to it. And the way that Harold Landry was moving, I was like, oh shit, that's not a signing. I really loved this off season based on the last version of Harold Landry we had seen, but I thought that he looked really good, really explosive, really bendy.

14:00Robert Mays: And I thought Milton Williams, not surprisingly gave those interior guys trouble more times, more than once over the course of this game. And so I think that this front has enough talent that they may give you a little bit more problems than some of the other teams that you're going to be going against. But again, somewhat worrying first step out of the gate for the Raiders offensive line, even if there are plenty other aspects of this offense that are worth getting excited about. Yeah, yeah, definitely agree. Let's get to our next one here. The Indianapolis Colts offense, which isn't a new offense.

14:32Robert Mays: I mean, most of these guys outside of a couple of interior offensive linemen who we saw in spot duty last year have, you know, they return essentially, let's say nine and a half starters from last year's team. The quarterback is not one of them though. And so this was our first glimpse at the Daniel Jones Colts against the Dolphins on Sunday. What were your first impressions of the Daniel Jones led Colts offense in week one?

14:57Dan Pizzuta: so you said it's it's not a new offense and kind of what stood out is how not new it was in a sense that it was like a combination of the 2022 daniel jones offense and the 2023 gardner minchu offense which again not like exciting but those can work if done correctly and i think they have the right idea of what this offense is supposed to be you know a ton of play action uh he had what 39 9 % of his dropbacks were play action. You know, seven and a half yard, a dot off play action, 6.8 when not play action. So I think we like, when we use an average depth of target, it's usually like has a large average that you're bringing together.

15:43Dan Pizzuta: But this just kind of felt like every pass was like seven yards. I think like 52 % of his throws were between one to 10 air yards. And like if Daniel Jones can successfully live in that area, that can work. You know, the first play, They have a boot to the left, which was basically the entire 2022 Daniel Jones offense when that offense worked with the Giants. And then you kind of look at what they were doing personnel-wise. Well-crafted plan to use Tyler Warren. A lot of 13 personnel, which was a lot of fun. So I just kind of think they know which levers to pull. And for all of the talk that we had about what the floor or ceiling of this offense can be, I think this was, you know, Shane Steichen showing that he can control this type of offense, at least how exciting that gets for the rest of the year.

16:32Dan Pizzuta: I think it's probably something we can talk about. But I think knowing like what box they need to be in for this offense. I think we kind of saw that in week one.

16:40Robert Mays: I don't think with Dan Jones, your quarterback, you ever will or should be a team that's just consistently pushing the ball down the field. It's not how he's wired. And if you look at the numbers over the last couple of years with the Giants, I mean, that was the biggest gripe that Giants fans had with the Daniel Jones led offense. And it's one of the reasons that I think a lot of them had so much optimism about the Russell Wilson version of this offense is that even if it's imperfect, we're going to push the ball down the field. And so you look at some of the numbers from last week, attempts of at least 15 or more air yards for the Colts was 17.8 percent of their dropbacks per Tramita.

17:14Robert Mays: That was the 22nd highest ranked mark in the league after week one. it's not crazy but you look at some of the kind of the pointed decisions to push the ball down the field when the opportunities were there and that was happening like it's not as if he was gun shy when those chances were there down the field I mean there's a bunch of different examples the first little rail route he hits to Tyler Warren that's open he lets that thing rip he takes a one-on-one fade to uh Alec Pierce in the end zone at one point he the throw down the left sideline to Alec Pierce, I believe in the second half is like an incredible throw and catch from both of those guys.

17:49Robert Mays: And then the Michael Pittman touchdown, even though it's wide open, I felt like when the throws down the field were there to be made, he was willing to rip those things outside of the numbers in the intermediate area, especially that's all you need. Like, I don't need him to be Jordan love or Gino Smith in the aggressiveness we see with Daniel Jones. I just can't have it be like a mind numbing level of cautiousness over the entire season. And that's not what we got on Sunday. And I think that's what was so encouraging about it.

18:18Dan Pizzuta: Yeah. That's, that's one of the things where I think there's a sentiment of giants fans, which, you know, growing up a giants fan, I still have, I'm still a little too involved in that community, but there was a lot of like Daniel Jones is a good deep passer because he has like this high completion rate when he throws deep. But like you said, it's because when he throws deep, it's like these wide open places so he can uh you know put the ball in that area the the one play that uh you talked about the the Pittman touchdown I love that because it's you have a Pittman and Warren on that side Warren's running a post and that brings the deep safety in and you got that little double move then to the outside that opens up Pittman completely so again it's just these levers that they know how to use Warren in that way how to create some of these openings that are going to happen deeper down the field.

19:07Dan Pizzuta: And then when he's just asked to do, you know, some of the play action, find the first easy read, scramble if it's not there. I think like that is something that can at least not be a terrible offense going forward. And when we kind of had what expectations we were going to have with the Colts, I think this is probably the best case scenario you could have, at least in week one.

19:27Robert Mays: I totally agree. And I think it's a combination of so many different things. You mentioned like the 2022 Giants offense. So first third down of the game, we see Pittman like in that Dallas Goddard kind of sniffer roll behind the tackle run across the formation in this RPO where he just dumps it in the flat. I mean, we've seen that version of an RPO a million different times in the NFL over the last five years. And that's what Daniel Jones did really well during that 2022 season. So you have a little bit of that. You have a little bit of the intermediate and downfield stuff that I think this receiving core requires of you in order to unlock everybody.

20:00Robert Mays: And then one of the things about just the decisions he was making, I was really encouraged by is that there were a lot of just well-timed and well-executed checkdowns within the offense. And, you know, that's something that sounds silly to be harping on and kind of pumping up after week one. But I felt like every time the ball was going underneath, it was going underneath for a good reason. You know, the one play where Jonathan Taylor split out all the way to the right, he comes all the way back to him. That's a really good decision. there's a check down to Taylor against like an inverted cover to look where that's the right move because of how much errors in the coverage they get a first down on that play and so even when he was throwing the ball underneath in the ways that we're used to seeing from Daniel Jones recently it was to the betterment of the offense and I think that to me is what was really exciting about the decisions he was making over the course of this game yeah and again like if that's

20:53Dan Pizzuta: something you can get in the mind of Daniel Jones because as we know he is someone who would like to hang on to the ball has not the greatest pocket presence in the world uh so i think you see like some of the sacks he just takes is when he should just be getting rid of the ball and has no kind of idea that pressure is coming so the fact if you can kind of time that a little bit again the checkdowns aren't going to be exciting uh but when they're the other plays that are happening are usually negative when he's trying to do that if he's getting to the checkdown that's i think that's that's very good coaching and again does raise the floor like people kind of said that this might do

21:30Robert Mays: and you know that is i think what it did with this team is specifically i think this is all about this is the reason they went to daniel jones it's like we have so much faith in our ability to create separation for these receivers because of who our offensive coordinator is and what our run game can look like because of jonathan taylor and because we are a team that has earned equity in our offensive line ecosystem. So you have Tanner Bornolini now at center after they move on from Ryan Kelly and Matt Gonsalves comes and is the right guard after Will Fries moves on. And obviously he played a decent amount last year because Fries was hurt, but that group coming in and you really not even noticing the fact that there were two new interior offensive line starters.

22:10Robert Mays: I think that goes a long way if you're trying to build up your Colts optimism. And you combine that with, I thought Jonathan Taylor was fantastic at pass protection in this game against a team that blitzed more often in the Dolphins than any other team in the NFL in week one. And so if you're going to have that level of protection with two new offensive line starters, if you're going to go for even five receiving options deep on this team, and you're going to run the ball efficiently because you have Jonathan Taylor in that offensive line, all they needed was a quarterback who could just keep the train on the tracks.

22:42Robert Mays: Like that's all they were asking for. And so we'll see, you know, maybe he's unable to do that over the course of the year against teams that aren't the Miami Dolphins. But what we saw in week one, like if you're trying to build the best case scenario for who the Colts could be in 2025, this is exactly what you were talking about.

23:00Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, that's that was my takeaway, because I was. I was I was hesitant about the Daniel Jones sets a higher floor because I've seen Daniel Jones play. That floor can be low. but if but if you are then figuring out what the best things to do with him and you again if you have the combination of that 2022 giants offense a 2023 cult offense it's not exciting but that is exactly what can and we're not going to talk about the defense but if you added a defense that was doing some fun things uh throughout the game that i think i'm a little more optimistic about too in what they can do. You add it to that defense.

23:40Dan Pizzuta: I think this is, again, like you said, the best case that you could have hoped for going into week one.

23:45Robert Mays: I also think it's a really important thing to point out, just the difference in what the quality of an offensive line and the quality of pass protection can do for a quarterback. You talk about that low floor that we've seen from Daniel Jones over the last three or four years. And even if the Giants, we've talked about this, me and Derek, on Monday's show when we were discussing the Giants-Commanders game in that the Giants offensive line is not a disaster like it's been in previous versions of the Giants, but it's still not a very good group. The Colts, even with some of the question marks coming into the season, we're still probably like the 15th best offensive line in the league.

24:19Robert Mays: And if Bordellini and Gonsalves are gonna play like this, they can be the 10th best offensive line in the league. The gap between that and 25, if you're the Giants, you feel that. And the quarterback can play differently because of that. And so I'm open to the idea that this ecosystem with the Colts is good enough that we can see a demonstrably different version of Daniel Jones as long as he's not making self-inflicted mistakes that are going to be shooting this offense in the foot over and over and over again the same way they have over the last couple of years.

24:50Dan Pizzuta: yeah and that's again what the the 2022 offense was was all all the bootlegs all the short passes the shortest passes in the league like if he was if i think he had the lowest interception rate in the league too but if he threw an interception like that was really on him because he shouldn't have had a chance to just because of how they were designed and what i think this week one game really showed me is steichen just has control of of that i think he knows exactly which levers he's going to be pulling if they need to help that offensive line a little bit again first play of the game is the boot to the left.

25:20Dan Pizzuta: I think we're going to see a lot more of that if he needs protection from that line, if it starts to, you know, crumble just a little bit. So I'm, I'm more optimistic now, um, about this just being okay, which is, you know, a higher rate than I thought they were going to be coming into the year.

25:38Robert Mays: We haven't spent a lot of time talking about it. I just want to mention before we move on to the next topic, the Tyler Warren part of this is very exciting. Like all the different ways that they're going to use him, whether it's, you know, manufactured touches in the flat, using him as like a vertical seam runner and just kind of allowing him to go make plays on contested throws. And they handed him the ball as a fullback in this game. Like I'm totally fine if they want to try to tap into the Penn state version of Tyler Warren and as many possible ways as they can, because I think ultimately that is going to be very additive for this Colts offense.

26:10Yeah.

26:10Dan Pizzuta: And some of the fun things they were doing from 13 to use 13 on eight plays. Um, and like Warren is basically just a wide receiver at that point too. And they can also use them tight. It's, I think there, there's some fun stuff they're doing there too.

26:22Robert Mays: And that creates layers in the run game too. And you see it just something like the split zone stuff that they're able to do, like slicing the tight ends across the formation. It was a fun combination of gap scheme runs, zone runs. I mean, just like a ton of different things under the sun. And I think that's because they still have the offensive line to have a very diversified run game. And I think we're already seeing some of the benefits of that. We're going to take our first quick break here, and then we're going to come back and talk about the kickoff excitement from week one.

26:52Robert Mays: It's smart to always have a few financial goals. And a really smart one you can set? Earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can. Get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously. All of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card.

27:41Dan Pizzuta: You would do us a huge favor if we got to log in as a family with separate emails. I really think our well-being as a couple depends on it. Thanks for looking into this.

27:53Robert Mays: Kayla, we heard you. It's why we created the New York Times Family subscription. One subscription, up to four separate logins for anyone in your life. Find out more at nytimes.com slash family.

28:11Robert Mays: Anyone who listens to this show knows that if we're going to be talking about the kickoffs here, it is not going to be because I wanted to talk about the kickoffs. When we do special teams on this show, it is because someone else is driving the train. But you wanted to discuss how dynamic the dynamic kickoff felt in week one because of some of the rule tweaks. This has become like a pet obsession of yours over the course of the summer. And so I'm going to let you kind of let loose here on what you saw from the kickoffs in week one.

28:41Dan Pizzuta: I do want to point out that when we were discussing this, I gave you the out. I said, if you don't want to talk about the kickoffs, but if you're going to let me run, we can do it.

28:50Robert Mays: I think it's important to do it when someone else wants to, because if someone I don't think it's I think we probably should talk about it more than we do, but I'm never naturally going to do it. So whenever it's you or Dave or whoever, it's like, all right, it's time to talk special teams, I usually leave the door open because I'm, Oh, I'm, I will admit that we should be doing it more often than we are. So what were your main takeaways from the changes that we saw in the dynamic kickoff rule from week one? Yeah.

29:19Dan Pizzuta: I mean, first of all, it worked. Yeah. I think we saw it 75.6 % return rate.

29:24Robert Mays: Um, I wish that had been a tiny bit lower because I wish that Kyro Santas had booted the ball out of the back of the end zone, but let's, we don't have to do that again.

29:32Dan Pizzuta: yeah i mean that's yeah that's one of the crazy i think you know i it wasn't going to be one of my notes but i think it does drastically change end of game scenarios like that where you know just you know you can kick it out of bounds and it's only again five yard difference from where a touchback would be so if you need a time where you don't want clock to run at the end of the game like that is you have multiple options there uh so i think like i think it just adds a little bit of a layer there. Outside of that, again, last year, 32.8 % return rate with the touchback only going to the 30. The average starting field position was about the 28.

30:13Dan Pizzuta: This year, the average starting field position is about the 30, which is still below the touchback, but higher than what it was last year, even though there's now more returns. I think that's super debt. It's definitely something that i think we're going to see more returns coming i think you had you know there were only two teams that started beyond the 35 but i think we still saw more teams taking that that effort to to do it um there's still some teams that are not completely balancing risk reward like the the jaguars came out they are one of the teams that tried the like line drive bounce kick which I think is going to be beneficial for more teams to try because it sets up your kick return or your uh your coverage better and it gets them into the backfield more uh but then one kick went out of bounds and then they sent the rest of them into the end zone for the rest of the game so but and again it was it was against the Carolina Panthers which like you said one of my you know pet things that I saw this summer is how terribly the Panthers go about returning kicks there's a lot of different ways you can do it right because you have nine guys now in the blocking scheme the panthers are the only ones that have every blocker facing their kick returners when they start off and now you can't move until the returner gets it so the panthers are facing their kick returner and they all run backwards and retreat and they have like five to ten yards less of like the initial like line of scrimmage uh then like every other team so i think that's something to watch uh going forward but uh because it's i was talking to like some people who know and like that's frustrating for them too uh about the kickoff that i don't know what the panthers are doing but the fact that there are more returns we saw a couple of big ones uh i think the jets were actually like the best team and they just released their their kick returner uh xavier Gibson, but, uh, Nwagu and Arian Smith both had a nice return each.

32:16Dan Pizzuta: Um, the, the Titans are, I think a good team. They, uh, DK had a, uh, 71 yard return after, uh, just a mess of a end of half thing from, from the Titans. So I think we're going to see some more big returns. I think this is something that is going to be positive for the game. And I was just really excited that it actually worked.

32:34Robert Mays: Anybody else, not even from a results standpoint, from a process standpoint that you were like, all right, I like the way that they're going about this. whether it's how they're approaching kickoffs or how they're approaching the structure of their

32:46Dan Pizzuta: returns yeah there's a little bit of both i think it's weird that carolina does really well on the other side of how they're kicking off they are one of the teams that are going to routinely try to get the ball to land in the landing zone before the returner catches it um and again if it does that and then gets into the end zone your touchbacks at the 22 so there's a lot of uh there's a lot of advantages to trying that as well as kind of making the return harder. There are like the Bills, I think, are a good team in how they're blocking everything up. Again, like I said, you can't move until the returner catches it, but you also can't go forward for the return team.

33:27Dan Pizzuta: So but the Bills kind of just like stand their ground. There's a lot of teams that like try to pass block a little bit and try to retreat. And I think that gives up a little the bills are a team that just kind of stands their ground and i think does give a solid front line uh and also uh like i said the the jets the titans were good the the chiefs also i think they just have a pretty good return um and yeah so i think we're just gonna i think see some more developments too because i don't think we saw a lot of kind of as much as the trick plays as you know i think we can eventually get from the return i think everybody is still trying to figure out what this new return is going to do now that they're actually returning kicks.

34:05Dan Pizzuta: So I think we're just going to see more of it going forward, too.

34:09Robert Mays: A couple of things to point out just from like a macro perspective on some of the teams that you mentioned. So the Lions last year were number one in the NFL and special teams DVOA over the course of the season. So to see Aaron Glenn kind of try to carry over success and just detail oriented approaches in that way, I think that's an encouraging sign if you're a Jets fan. And then the team that is, it's definitely encouraging sign based on last year, the Tennessee Titans finished dead last in special teams DVOA in 2024. And so if they can be better in that area across the board in year two, I absolutely think that is something that's worth paying attention to.

34:43Robert Mays: because when I was trying to build my case for being excited about the Titans and you look at some of the underlying stuff, whether that's penalties on offense, just how problematic some of the operational things were last year and how much of that goes on the quarterback versus how much of that goes on the structure. And then you extend that to things like special teams that are like often a, an expression of the details of how you're being coached. There was a little bit of me that was like, I don't know, there's a lot of stuff that needs to get cleaned up here. So the fact that the Titans one weekend were one of the better special teams teams in the NFL after what they did last year.

35:19Robert Mays: I think that's a good sign if you're a Titans fan.

35:22Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, yeah, that was that was one of the nice takeaways there, too.

35:26Robert Mays: Let's get to the another element of that Tennessee Titans team. And let's talk about the first impressions that we had from Cam Ward in that game. This is going to be one of the most divergent results versus process conversations I think we've ever had on the athletic football show. The numbers when you look at them for the Titans in that game throwing the football are horrendous. Like I believe they finished dead last in the NFL and EPA per drop back on Sunday. It was just not a good offensive performance based on any number that you want to look at. It was a 25 and a half percent success rate for the Titans on Sunday per next gen.

36:06Robert Mays: They averaged 3.3 yards per play. And I came away from that game being like, Cam Ward's awesome. I cannot wait to watch Cam Ward play more football. I don't think there's ever been a bigger gap between what the final result was and how much I enjoyed watching the offense down to down and especially the quarterback than what happened with Cam Ward and the Titans on Sunday.

36:26Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, in my notes, possibly the best I could feel about a 21.4 % success rate game from a quarterback. And it was one of those things where he did have the lowest completion percentage over expected, right? But also had the lowest expected completion percentage because of the type of throws he was trying to make. So it's a little Anthony Richardson-ish in just kind of this setup there. but i don't think it was i don't think you can compare exactly like how they play uh but it's

37:03Robert Mays: the accuracy was so much better than even if the completion percentage wasn't there i think that's

37:08Dan Pizzuta: an important thing to point out yeah so what i was going into is like when the expected completion percentage is that low because you're throwing downfields so often and the way you're doing the margin for error just ends up being so small and then when you add in the drops that they had Like that just kind of compounds itself into what we saw result wise when, again, we both came away from watching what he did. And like he's going to be a must watch every week like that. It was just fun.

37:37Robert Mays: You look at it. So he had like one of the higher off target percentages of any quarterback in the league last week. But I don't think it's anything that's overly concerning. I mean, the two guys immediately ahead of him were Patrick Mahomes and Jordan Love. So I don't think this is necessarily an indication of what's to come. And just think about a couple anecdotal moments from that game about why your completion percentage over expectation is a little bit later than it's supposed to be. The first throw to Gunnar Helm on that corner out on the right sideline, that ball should be caught. And he bobbles it on the way out of bounds.

38:08Robert Mays: It ends up becoming an incompletion. The chunk he gets to I.O. Manor down the right sideline that should have been challenged, that goes down as an incompletion. The one that just drove me the most crazy when it comes to you watch what the quarterback did on the play and then it doesn't end up counting. Calvin Ridley had a couple tough moments in the second half, multiple balls off his hands. A couple of them. I don't think reasonable expectation that they're caught. I mean, the one scene ball that's like a high just inside throw. He barely gets a hand on it. But the throw on the in breaker against cover to write down the hash.

38:42Robert Mays: That's a play where So for people who didn't watch it Cam starts his eyes to the left The Broncos drop back into like a funky version of cover two With Patrick Sertan shooting back out into the deep half And so he comes back to the middle of the field with his eyes Cam Ward does And Calvin Ridley is running an in-breaker Right between where the two safeties would be And where the pole runner is And Cam on time Just rips the ball down the middle of the field And Calvin Ridley drops it That play in and of itself If that was like the only good play he made in his first game as a rookie on the road against the Broncos, I'd be like, all right, I think I'm kind of in.

39:18Robert Mays: But there were four or five of those over the course of the day. And so the final results are horrendous. But he already looks like a guy like you just said that is going to be a quarterback worth tuning into pretty much every time he's on the field. Yeah.

39:33Dan Pizzuta: And I think one of one of the other things I think like he I think he adjusted well for some things. uh like you said that throw to helm and that first one in the corner that ends up you know not being a catch because it was bobbled a little bit like i think on the next drive they flip it and kind of go back to a similar thing where helm is running out to the other corner and he gets them well before the sideline so even if there is a bobble uh he still has some time to to rein it in so there were just i think some adjustments like there were some misses where i think he's he's like playing at a hundred miles an hour sometimes sometimes the ball is uh and i think he like will lead a guy when but also throw it the 102 uh and i think like that's where some of the off target comes so he's putting the ball in a spot where i think other quarterbacks probably need to when they like layer it in so i think he just kind of needs to find those settings a little bit more but I think he has one where he misses DK on a throw like that.

40:34Dan Pizzuta: But then I think the play to Ridley is like the next one that he, I think, times it better and knows exactly where to put it.

40:42Robert Mays: And the Okago one is the best one of the three in terms of the ball placement on those throws up the seam. And I think that was the last one of the three. And so you see him like slowly learning as he's trying this stuff.

40:52Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, which works. And I think that is one of the things like you can take away. One of the other things is I think his process was sped up a little bit when pressure came because the 0 for 6 against the Blitz with four sacks, seven quarterback hits. I mean, a lot of that was, you know, just the Broncos doing some stuff to take advantage of a rookie quarterback. So that happened. You know, he was hit on 35.3 % of his dropbacks overall. That's not ideal. Next was Joe Burrow. Like Deshaun Watson was first last year at 25.9%. point nine percent so obviously you don't want him getting hit that much but he's a guy who's going to stand in the pocket and try to make something happen he like said he kind of has that jordan love to his game a little bit so it is one of those things where i think the what we saw the positives i think were really positive and i think there are some things that i i hope get cleaned up just kind of you know procedural wise in the offense uh but for what what he can do and what potentially this can turn into.

41:54Dan Pizzuta: It was, it was really exciting.

41:55Robert Mays: Yeah. I think there were obviously the two sacks he takes after the muffed punt are really tough. Like those are just plays, especially the first one. Like you just can't do that to knock yourself out of field goal range. And then there was one, there was a third and three down in the, in the red zone where they ran him on a little sprint out to the left. And Van Jefferson, if he, if Cam had kept moving and kept rolling out to his left, Van Jefferson pops open on what could have been a touchdown. Instead, for some reason, and this is the play where it's like, oh, he's going 100 miles an hour. For some reason, he actually peeks back to his right on a sprint out to the left.

42:29Robert Mays: Well, that edge on the backside is not being blocked. And so you can't run back into him. He takes the sack and it's just a tough play. And so I do think that just that somewhat frenetic, you know, this is my first game. I'm just very overexcited. I think that you could see that. But I think the plays he was able to make, even there's the perfect example to me. there was a play it was a uh it was a second and 13 to start the second half and it was a rough moment for dan moore against benito and there are a few of those in this game i mean benito would play with his hair on fire i mean this is somebody that was already an ascending player and i just think he just looked fantastic and so all of the i can't believe we paid 20 million dollars for dan moore people are probably crowing right now after that game i think it will look better against lesser competition.

43:15Robert Mays: But on that play, Skorowski just lets a blitzer come right into the B gap. And so there's an unblocked pressure plus Benito coming and Cam bends the ball around the blitzing linebacker and Iow Manor just kind of drops it. And so there were just so many of those like bang, bang, game of inches type plays for this offense over the course of the game that I hope as we get a little bit deeper into this, the coin flip plays, maybe a few more of them go your way because it felt like none of them went their way on Sunday.

43:46Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, and I had stats pulled up for the fourth quarter. He went four of 11, 3.1 yards per attempt, 18.2 % success rate, but an 88.9 % adjusted completion percentage because all of those incompletions were dropped.

44:00Robert Mays: Exactly. That's an area where I'm glad we have more stats now because that would have been the most leading four for 11 you possibly could have had based on what we saw from him in those moments. And so again, you're on the road against the defense that I think has a chance to be one of the better defenses in the league. And I honestly am a little bit more frustrated with some of like the operational stuff from their decision not to challenge that play and just some of the other things that happen. But when it comes to the quarterback and just, and honestly, like the structure of the offense type stuff, especially in the first half, I thought everything was fine.

44:32Robert Mays: And then in the second half, you just have a few more slips than you probably want. But all in all, I think a very promising start for Cam Ward and for that, the future, hopefully, of the Titans offense. All right, we're going to take one more quick break here, and then we're going to come back with two more teams that we wanted to dig into.

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45:38Robert Mays: These are a couple that I sprung on you because I haven't had a chance to look at them over the course of this week. And I didn't have as much of a chance to watch them in real time as I probably wanted. And I think both of them were kind of objects of fascination for me coming into this season. And the first is just what we would see from this version of Robert Salo's defense with the Niners and all of the young players that this team is going to have to trot out, especially early in the season. So your first impressions of the Niners defense and round two of Robert Sala as the defensive coordinator were what?

46:11Dan Pizzuta: Man, I had a great time and Sam Darnold did not.

46:19Dan Pizzuta: It was like, it was, it was what we've kind of expected from Robert Sala a little bit. And some of like, you know, it was still a lot of, you know, cover three, a lot of single high, uh but the the blitzes and what they were doing up front the way they were moving some guys around and the just chaos they were creating by uh who was coming and who wasn't i think was just kind of this another just kind of evolution of what you know this type of defense can be uh and it was it was real i had a lot more fun watching this than i thought i was going to on rewatch just

46:51Robert Mays: with everything that they were able to do i 100 agree and i think that that's why i really wanted to dig into it because even in real time when you were watching you saw some of the layers that were being added to what robert sall has been in the past and so this is a simple example but i think a telling one last year the jets had 54 plays where they dropped the defensive lineman back into coverage over the course of the entire season michael williams did it three or four times in this game alone and then you had ytor gross ytor gross matos also i think once or twice over the course of the game drop into coverage.

47:24Robert Mays: I don't think that's necessarily an inherently good thing, but I do think that speaks to some of the layers that they're trying to build into it. And whether you want some of your pass rushers dropping into coverage, we can argue with the quality of that decision. You can't argue with the quality of what was happening when they blitzed in this game. The Niners on Sunday, when they brought five or more pass rushers, had a 71.4 % pressure rate. So I think that all of those things, they were trotting out and how funky things were looking on defined passing downs it was a good thing at the end of the day that they were approaching it that way yeah the the stuff on

48:01Dan Pizzuta: third and long they were doing was like darnell was just in in hell all game and one of the things about um that stood out to me with some of the dropping guys into into coverage is how just kind of well coached it was and how the operation was there was a there's a second and 11 in the second quarter i think they're lining up for what eventually is going to be a sim pressure and it's Bryce Huff and Michael Williams are the two ends and I think Huff is originally supposed to be the guy who drops but in the backfields Kenneth Walker shifts from the right side to the slot in the left so Michael Williams stands up and starts to like looks like he's going to cover Walker and he ends up dropping back and then they still send the sim with Dee Winters coming and Bryce Huff just gets a free shot at Darnold.

48:51Dan Pizzuta: So it's just kind of those things, like that little shift from the offense shifts what the defense is going to do, but it was still all over it. And I think like it was just things like that that repeatedly happened. There was another blitz where third and 11. It was the next play. It was the very next play, yes. Where Warner's in the A-gap and D-Winners is off ball and Winners starts coming down and they just run through the same gap and Seattle had nothing that they could do about it. Yeah, it was just stuff like that all the time.

49:20Robert Mays: It was literally back-to-back plays, the ones that you're talking about, was the simulated pressure when Michael Williams drops. And the next play, Warner is mugged up. They end up bringing six and Dee Winters just absolutely blows up Charbonnet. Yes. And JSN just gets hung up a little bit on D 'Amador Lenore. And so I actually think if he doesn't get hung up on Lenore down the field, that throw from Darnold probably gets completed. And I think Darnold deserves a lot of credit for getting it off, but they were sped up so much in this game because of the types of pressures that the Niners were throwing at them.

49:53Robert Mays: And why I think this is so important to point out is that a lot of defensive coaches and even offensive coaches, when you talk to them about the Niners defensive system over the last few years, there's, there's a little bit of like a negative tone. And I think some of it is brought upon by jealousy, right? And so they look at what the Niners have been able to do and even a team like the Texans. Right. And they look at the success of this defensive system and they say, well, when you have all those monsters, you can succeed playing this type of defense where it's a little bit simpler. And some of these teams that don't that's want to run this type of defensive system, but don't necessarily have that level of personnel.

50:35Robert Mays: They've run into some issues as they've tried to stay that simple. And I think two guys that obviously are at the core of this type of defense and the way that it's being run are Robert Sala and Jeff Ulbrich. And so I knew going into the year after talking to people in Atlanta that the Jets or the Falcons defense was not going to look like the Jets defense from the last couple of years. They knew they couldn't do that, not only because they didn't have the same horses, but because it was probably time to start evolving. And if you look at what the Falcons were in week one, we'll talk about that at some point this week, I'm sure it was funky.

51:06Robert Mays: They were trying a bunch of stuff. The Niners, I wasn't sure what it was going to look like, but to see the Niners kind of trying to tap into, if not similar ideas than a similar ethos where it's like, we want to make sure that we're taking this thing into the next version, whatever it has to be based on our personnel limitations and how on our shit so many offenses happen to be now. That's why this was encouraging. It was just a sign of, I know that the same old stuff is no longer going to work at the same clip it used to. So we're going to try some different stuff. And I think some of that different stuff was pretty effective.

51:39Dan Pizzuta: Yeah. And even when, you know, when they were doing this stuff that they usually do on the backend, the third highest rate of cover three, but allowed negative 0.87 EPA per drop back when, when they were doing that. So it was, you know, the normal stuff on, on the backend for the most part, and then just all the stuff they were, they were doing up front um was uh was so fun like even just the the first third down i like you said gross matos playing defensive tackle uh he starts pushing the center and that opens up a wide lane for bosa who comes around on the stunt and lights uh lights darnled up pass hits off a helmet and gets completed but it doesn't pick up the first but it was just like that stuff from the beginning and if they're going to keep just kind of bringing that type of heat like that's that's really exciting.

52:24Robert Mays: And so a lot of stuff is new for the Niners defense. Some of the ideas that they're trotting out, some of the players that are out there, two things that are not new are that 97 is on one end and 54 is in the middle. And both of those guys played insane on Sunday. Like the way that Warner was playing and the way that he was moving, just a reminder that when he's not playing with a broken foot, this is one of the best linebackers we've ever seen. And so that was a fun little jolt that we got. And then Bosa, I mean, that play you're talking about when he loops all the way back inside. He like teleports on that stunt.

52:57Robert Mays: And then you see him just call game at the end. So that was always, this was always the, like the best case scenario or the argument for the 2025 Niners defense is that, okay, if Sala can like turn up the dial on some weird shit and we can account for some personnel deficiencies that way, and we still have these two guys, can we get to a place where we're consistently bothersome against the offenses that we're playing against, check one for one. That's exactly the formula that we saw on Sunday.

53:28Dan Pizzuta: Yeah. And yeah, yeah. I have a note of how fun Fred Warner was. He's just the best. Yeah, I am. I'm excited. It's kind of a shame that there are zero players on offense who are going to be suiting up for the Niners. But this might be a lot of like three nothing games coming for San Francisco now.

53:50Robert Mays: I will say the last part of this is that on the flip side of the Bosa Warner conversation, Upton Stout and Marquis Siegel are still third and fifth round picks making their first NFL starts. And you saw that a little bit. I think that the Seahawks were consistently trying to pick on Upton Stout in every way that they could. Siegel was a little bit slow to trigger on some stuff coming down over the middle of the field. You're going to see that, right? These are young players being thrust into starting roles because the Niners are scrambling a little bit when it comes to their defensive personnel.

54:21Robert Mays: It's just going to be a question of whether all of the positives that we mentioned consistently paper over some of those areas where teams are going to be able to pick on them a little bit. Yeah.

54:31Dan Pizzuta: And when you have the front seven that they have and what they're doing now, I think the margin for error is just a little bigger, which is nice because that hasn't always been the case.

54:40Robert Mays: Let's get to our last one here. I wanted to talk about what we saw from the first glimpse of the Houston Texans offense with Nick Haley. obviously this is something where you have a quarterback that has played in an extremely high level at times over the course of his career and i think because of their downturn on offense that's why the offensive coordinator gets fired and the fact that the offensive coordinator is really the only one who lost his job and for the most part a huge chunk of that offensive staff is coming back i think that lets you know that we think we've got enough here to win with we just want some new ideas at the top.

55:15Robert Mays: And so what those new ideas looked like, I was very curious about. And unfortunately, the new Texans offense looks a lot like the old Texans offense in ways that were particularly frustrating on Sunday.

55:30Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, it, it, it seemed like the protection plan from last year was just kind of copied over in a new notebook. It was not exciting. One thing I do want to point out before like we start this conversation is how backed up houston was kind of on their own to start uh every drive so i'm just gonna run through where they started their drives their own 20 their own five their own 20 the rams 46 their own 23 their own 20 their own 24 their own five their own 19 so like if that was the worst starting field position in the league uh and that was not by the offense's fault they were just kind of put there so that kind of already put yourself in a little bit of a disadvantage for what they were trying to do um but obviously what they did afterward wasn't super great that either um it's just kind of seemed like you know especially on so on the first drive uh holding on the first play uh delay a game on their first third down so just operationally we weren't starting out too great either so the other kind of bigger picture

56:37Robert Mays: ecosystem thing that I wanted to mention. That's a really good thing to point out. The other one, the Texans last year, I believe I'm pulling up the numbers right now from 2024. So the Texans last year had the third longest average yards to go on third down of any team in the NFL was 7.66. And I believe they had the highest number of third and 10 plus situations of any team in the league last year. Well, on Sunday, the Houston Texans averaged 10.67 yards to go on third down. And so when I say like, it looked a lot like it used to look when it came to the situation you were putting both the offensive line and the quarterback in, that's where I go first, is the fact that your average distance to go on third down is almost 11 yards after you were one of the worst teams in the league last year in those exact same situations.

57:28Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, I had that exact note too. It's just, yeah, it looked frustratingly similar. where it was just there's it just kind of seemed like they didn't have they didn't know and i think the rams made it tough and uh i think uh cody alexander match quarters just put uh is up in his data download uh the rams had a 30 stunt rate which was the highest in the league so the rams wanted to make sure this offensive line was going to communicate and knew what they were doing and i think there were a lot of times that they did not i think when you combine that with just the

58:06Robert Mays: pressure plan that the Rams were trying out there. They were the degree of difficulty. Like this was like an all Madden pass protection game that the Texans had to face, but guess what? Like this is what happens. You can paid a lot of money to deal with this. And so beyond, I think the stunts, they actually did a better job of picking those up than they did at times last year. When you, when you think about like the interior of the offensive line, the problem for me is essentially any sort of perimeter or pressure in this game went unblocked or unaccounted for for the Texans. And, you know, there was so much discussion this offseason, rightfully so, about how CJ Stroud was going to have more autonomy at the line of scrimmage with this offensive system than he did with the Niners.

58:47Robert Mays: Unfortunately, there were plenty of plays in this game where there's a blitz coming off the slot, the Jalen McCullough one, there's a Quentin Blake came unblocked on a slot pressure and CJ had to dump it down to Dalton Schultz for like one yard. And there were plenty of instances in this game where the quarterback is responsible for whatever's happening and it didn't end up becoming a positive result for the Texans in those moments.

59:10Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, there were a couple of things where, you know, and then there were just some where everything just, it didn't work. Like the Byron Junsack, he just plows through Cam Robinson. The tackles were not good in this game.

59:23Robert Mays: The tackles in one-on-one situations were problematic throughout the entire game, both Robinson and Ursary.

59:28Dan Pizzuta: And I think that was one of the hesitations where, okay, we have this new coordinator, like he said, not even coaching staff, but we didn't do anything to improve the offensive line, which is a tough thing. And then there was the second and eight in the first quarter and Stroud completes this pass, but it's one of those stunts from verse and spates. Damian Pierce just sprints out of the backfield on his route and spates is uh starting to chip into robinson to open up for verse and then realizes he is also can be a free rusher so both of them are just free rushers up that gap it was just it kind of just still felt like kind of that stuff that shroud really just had to continue to try to bail himself out of some time and he did you know again make some nice throws and then on the back end the rams were just kind of all over everything uh they played over a quarter of their snaps in dime, negative 0.33 EPA per drop back when they were in zone.

1:00:26Dan Pizzuta: So they were just kind of sitting on things and not really allowing Houston to get anything going, even when they were able to get

1:00:32Robert Mays: past that pressure to that play that you pointed out is such a perfect example. So on that play, they, if you look at the way that the offensive line slides to four man slide to the right, even though there are only, I believe two threats to the right of the center. So that's a, that play is your loss before the play even starts there because of the way that you're pointing the protection. And so I think it's really important to point out it's week one. Okay. It's week one with an offensive line that you didn't even really know the combination of the five until the end of training camp. And so I would love to know, and I'm sure the Texans have this information, how many snaps this exact group of five in these five spots played together in training camp.

1:01:14Robert Mays: I guarantee you it's an alarmingly low number because of how much time they spent figuring out what the five was going to be. And in week one, you have what is going to be one of the biggest challenges from a pass protection standpoint in the NFL. I think there are probably more talented fronts, even though there aren't many. But when you combine that with what Krishula wants to do, you mentioned that stunt rate, all of the pressures that they're gonna bring, and then you still have like a couple dudes involved in just the four that you're having to deal with. This was probably the worst possible team to start the season with if you were the Texans offense.

1:01:52Robert Mays: So I'm very open to the idea that this can get better over the course of the year. But the first glimpse was a little bit alarming based on what we saw on Sunday.

1:02:01Dan Pizzuta: Yeah, at least next week, Todd Bowles is definitely gonna take it easy on them.

1:02:05Robert Mays: I can't believe those are the first two games. You get Chris Shula when like, he smells blood in the water, the same way he did last year against the Vikings in that playoff game. And then you get Todd Bowles in week two. So hopefully some better days ahead for the Texans. But if I'm CJ Stroud, I'm sure he spent plenty of time in the ice bath after that game the same way he had to a bunch over the course of last season. Dan Pizzuta, always great to chat with you, sir. Please tell people where they can find the work that you were doing these days.

1:02:36Dan Pizzuta: So Blue Sky mostly is probably the easiest. Just Dan Pizzuta there. A lot of social anywhere social Dan Pizzuta. writing on, this is the first time I'm saying it out loud, and it was definitely a mistake. Snaps hyphen and hyphen stats.ghost.io. That was not a good thing to be saying out loud. It's much better typed out and in a link. Again, yeah, you can find it on socials, pretty much anywhere. Yeah.

1:03:04Robert Mays: So just if you go to Dan's socials, you'll see all the clips, all the links to the work that he's doing. I've always said this, Dan does such a great job of kind of distilling what made these teams, what makes them unique, you know, just kind of what makes them, gives them the identity that they have. And so I think that if you check out his work, you'll learn a lot more about who teams are, why they are that way and why it's fueling either their success or their failure. So please go check out all the work Dan is doing. Sincerely appreciate the time, buddy. Really good to talk with you. Yeah, always a pleasure.

1:03:33Robert Mays: All right, guys, that's all we got for today. We will be back tomorrow. me, Dave, Derek doing our week two preview. Just a quick heads up. I've talked about this a few different times on social and just on different shows, but this year for the first time on the athletic football show, we are going to plan to recap every single Monday and Thursday night game. Having three of us now kind of lets people not be up until midnight three days a week. And so I think it really does give us a chance to hit all of these in a way that we never have before. So tomorrow night on Thursday, Dan, Dave and Derek will be recapping the Washington Packers game.

1:04:11Robert Mays: I'm actually going to be on a plane. I have a little bit of work travel and I'm extremely bummed about it because I'm not going to be able to watch that game in real time and have to find a time to watch it. But those two guys will be there for you. So highly encourage you to check that out. Those will be only be available on our YouTube channel. We already have five shows a week coming your way. We don't want to be dropping more shows in the feed, but that gives you a good reason to go head over to the athletic football shows YouTube page. We're going to be doing the recaps on that page. And we're really going to have more standalone video content coming your guys way this year.

1:04:42Robert Mays: We're very excited about that. You know, some of the video capabilities we now have over at the athletics. So looking forward to what that's, what the season will bring on that front for now. That's all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.

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