First impressions of the teams that FLOPPED in Week 1

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1:52Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show, brought to you by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays. Week one is done, but we're still sitting with some of the first impressions we got from the first glimpse we had of these teams in the 2026 season. That's what we did today. We went through some first impressions that really made an impact, mostly in a bad way, from the week one games with our old friend Mike Sando. Chat a little bit about the Chargers, the Rams, the Packers, and the Broncos, and what our early looks at those teams might mean for the season at large. We also spent some time at the end of the show and I encourage you guys to go listen to this.

2:29Robert Mays: And if you've not read the story, I encourage you to go to check that out as well. Sando has spent a ton of time this offseason working on a project that was focused on how teams allocate their resources and how teams really commit to being quality special teams units. and some of the really meaningful, impactful choices you can make from a roster construction standpoint to some of the other areas where you're either in this or you're not, and you feel the impact of that and how organizationally your overall prioritization of special teams can matter as much as anything. And so we talked a little bit about that at the end, but really enjoyed this conversation with Mike.

3:05Robert Mays: Let's get to it right now.

3:16Robert Mays: Joining us today to help us pick through the rubble of week one in the NFL, it is our old friend, Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing?

3:25Mike Sando: It's good. There is some rubble, too. There's some rubble to go through here. So I'm excited to be back. It was great seeing you this offseason at your 422 camp stops. I think it caught you at a couple of them. I assume you've showered and gotten the sweat off.

3:39Robert Mays: Yeah, I think at this point I feel a little bit cleaner. I'm not sure I've bounced back by how I ate over the month of August. That's going to be a process that leads deep into September and October. But I'm cleaner than I was. Yeah, you were part of a fantastic meal that we had in Minneapolis where I think we decided when we were ordering that it was going to be easier just to tell them what we didn't want on the menu rather than picking the menus that we did want. And that's always how I want to attack any menu that I see. And so I appreciate you helping me accomplish that.

4:10Mike Sando: But it was a twist my arm, you know, it was great. So really had a good time. Did it get through expense? You were able to expense that too? Oh, yeah. Come on now. Come on now.

4:19Robert Mays: What's the point of having any sort of pull if you can't make that happen?

4:22Mike Sando: Well, hey, you know, not to get too far off the track, but one time I was, when I was at ESPN, I was, you know, didn't bring a suit or anything on the trip. And I was going, I was in L.A. and quarterback tears came out and they're like, hey, can you get with Van Pelt? And I said, how don't I have a suit or nothing? They said, hey, no worry, Sando. So buy yourself a suit, expense it. Expense the suit. I said, okay. So I go get a suit. I did a great job. I mean, I got this whole thing for like, it was under 400 bucks for everything. Great job. Get home. It gets kicked back. No, we can't expense a suit.

4:56Mike Sando: So I said, what? This whole thing. You got receipts on that, though.

5:01Robert Mays: You got to be able to send that to somebody.

5:02Mike Sando: Some higher up got back to me and said, the only way this works, Sando, is if you donate it to charity and give us a receipt. I think I can say this now that I've been gone for ESPN since 2019. I went and found the oldest, most ill-fitting suit out of my closet and made the donation. And the other one became my go-to for a couple of years. So, you know, you do what you got to do on these expenses. And I thought we said that was a funny story.

5:29Robert Mays: On our way out the door at Grantland, I think one of our bosses at one point, when we were thinking about how much money we could spend in that final couple of months, I think the exact line was you could expense a fur coat right now and I wouldn't give a shit. So it was it's always fun when you get to the end and you can be a little bit looser with how we talk about this stuff. Week one, always a fascinating experience in the NFL because we go through the entire summer and you think you know what might happen. You have an inkling of what these teams might look like. And the first week is just full of surprises, both good and bad.

6:02Robert Mays: And so we're going to dig through a few of those today. and just talk about some first impressions that we thought were particularly notable, most of them bad, most of them from teams that had sky-high expectations for one reason or another and then came out of the gates really stumbling and what that might mean and how that might have to reset what we think about these teams and what we should expect from them moving forward. Let's start with the Los Angeles Chargers. We're going to dig into four teams here, and I wanted to start with the Chargers because I think you started your pick six column with an item about the Chargers coming out of that game on Sunday.

6:37Robert Mays: I believe they finished 26th in EPA per play offensively in that game against the Cardinals. This was a group that Mike McDaniel coming in, Justin Herbert's there. We're taking this thing to the moon. And our first look at it was anything, but as you sort through what that performance from the Chargers looked like on Sunday, where's your head out with this? And what are the things that you think are most important as you try to piece this all together?

7:03Mike Sando: So, you know, you end up, if you try to take the long view on it, then you're just a Herbert defender and hey, there's no way to win at some point. There's no way around that. So I think you have to not make the excuses. I do think that it's an inexcusable performance at home by a team that's supposed to be a lot better than Arizona and has a lot more talent, certainly at the quarterback position and lost. So it is concerning to me. Now, I do think that, you know, the things that really concern me long term about the Chargers are their depth. I don't think it's very good. I didn't break down the blocked punt and all of that, but that's been an issue for them.

7:40Mike Sando: You know, they're just the depth of your roster and their interior offensive line is an issue. They're platooning guards. I mean, if you're platooning guards, that's not a good sign to me. It's not because one of them, they're both Hall of Famers in a certain area. It's because what are we doing? And so I have concerns with that being a problem for them throughout the year. I do also, as I wrote about, this is just coming from coaches, you know, who have played against Herbert, that good talent, they still like him, they'd love to have him, but he is a little slow among the better quarterbacks in his processing.

8:19Mike Sando: And so when you have a new system with a lot more motion and things going on, a lot more intricacies, he could be possibly exposed. Now, I wish I'd dived into that before the season. It's easy to say now. But I think there is probably some of that to where he'll get more comfortable in it and get better in it. And maybe this is one of his worst days of the year.

8:39Robert Mays: Yeah, there's a lot to dig through. I think what I would start is we came into the season and obviously the Chargers made so many investments in that interior of the offensive line. And then that group looks nothing like it was supposed to when we were considering it at the beginning of training camp, right? I remember my first stop on the training camp tour, one of them was in Los Angeles and talking to people there about Tyler Biotis and just how excited they were to have Tyler Biotis and just how urgent their pursuit of him was. I mean, that he took his plan, I think, was to take a series of quick visits after being released by Washington and then make a decision.

9:12Robert Mays: The Chargers were like, we're not letting him get on that plane and we're going to make this happen right now. And the whole point of going out and really showing some urgency to upgrade at center was just to make this thing on the interior feel different than it had last year where they really, really struggled. They struggled along the entire interior. It was an absolute mess. But what they were getting in terms of pass protection, the mental side of things from the center specifically, it was a non-starter for the offense. And so let's get a veteran center, a stabilizing force, and then we'll take a couple swings at guard.

9:42Robert Mays: We'll draft a guy in the second round. We'll sign a couple guys in free agency. Cole Strange came from Miami. And as long as Mike McDaniel has a center, we can get by with maybe a little bit less physicality and size at guard because we have the center and the tackles. Well, then Biotis gets hurt, and this entire thing gets sent to a tailspin before the season even starts. And you look at what the running game looked like specifically, and then the pass protection stuff, which we can talk about. Let's look at NextGen this morning. 61 % of the Chargers' runs in that game involve the player getting hit at or behind the line of scrimmage.

10:15Robert Mays: 61%. And I think they finished 29th in EPA per rush per next gen coming out of that game. The 50 % of American Hampton's carries in that game came into a light box. And those were the final numbers that we saw on the ground. That's just a non-starter. Like, if that's what it's going to look like when you're trying to run the football against a team that is daring you to do it by how they're playing, the rest of it is just never going to come together. And so it was tempting at points this offseason for both the investments that they made and McDaniel's history to just kind of hand wave it and say, oh, they'll be fine.

10:50Robert Mays: They'll be able to get by with that group. And so far, early returns are they have not been able to get by with that group.

10:56Mike Sando: And to me, as excited as they were to add the center from Washington, Washington was not like, oh, my gosh, we're losing the center.

11:04Robert Mays: They cut him up. They cut him. They moved down for me on purpose.

11:07Mike Sando: It's not like they used a first-round pick on a center. They didn't really even have a center. So you always have to look into that because we're going to get the narratives from one team's side. Well, you've got to look at the other team's side. Like, no one was riding all offseason. How are they going to get by? And I think what's so fascinating to me inside that division of the AFC West is who did the Raiders get at center? And they paid way too much. You can say whatever you want. Tyler Lindenbaum. Who's Lindenbaum from? The same place the GM of the Chargers is. But the GM of the Chargers isn't going to spend that type of money in free agency.

11:37Mike Sando: He wants to build it a different way. And so I think that's the interesting part of this build is there's urgency in this division. There's urgency for a lot of these teams. But I feel like they are taking a longer range view of, hey, let's get the cap in order. Let's get rid of these guys. We'll get this thing set up. And in the meantime, you know, when Ladd McConkie goes out, you can't function as a passing game.

12:04Robert Mays: The conversation about the front office specifically brings me to the kind of the bigger picture look I want to take at this. And you mentioned it a little bit with Herbert. He did not play well on Sunday. And coming into the season, even if we get to a place over the course of this year where the interior offensive line is going to remain a question and pass protection is going to be an issue in terms of both their performance and the quarterback's handling of it. Like they got picked on in pass pro even beyond the individual talent level of the interior offensive lineman in that game. whatever the systemic concerns if we get to the end of this year and their passing game in their offense are middling and there's something left to be desired they're going to people that are going to want to have a real conversation about justin herbert because the whole point was we have mike mcdaniel here now it's going to get fixed mike mcdaniel with justin herbert this is the time that he's fully going to be unleashed and if that doesn't happen even if not all of it is on him a discussion is going to emerge from that and i wonder if there's going to be a broader or discussion that emerges about a lot of the stakeholders in Los Angeles.

13:06Robert Mays: Because like you just said, well, we're not really spending any money in free agency and we're going to be a build through the draft team. We haven't really talked about the fact that the Chargers took a running back in the first round of the draft when they have offensive line needs, when they have defensive talent needs. We haven't really talked about the fact that Jim Harbaugh is supposed to be this floor-setting coach where you do all the little things right. And that's what the whole promise of Jim Harbaugh is. But this is a team that is getting punts blocked and making bad fourth down decisions.

13:37Robert Mays: And I just wonder what sort of discussions we'll be having if it continues to go like this about the people that we treat like firmly known positive quantities for this team and whether that's going to start shifting if this doesn't get better.

13:53Mike Sando: Yeah. The number one thing to look at there to me is when Jim Harbaugh went to the 49ers, look at the players that were there. I know they hadn't won a lot and stuff, but look at the guys on defense. I mean, they had a lot of good players there. And they had Vic Fangio. And they had Vic Fangio. And so the book on Harbaugh has been, yeah, the great leader, a little quirky, all this, believes in guys and all of that. But he's always been very dependent, more so than other coaches on his staff, because he's not going to go in there and create a competitive advantage with his offense, right? And so when he had Greg Roman, that was great when he had the quarterback who could really run and a great run game and good offensive line he had in the 49ers and all of that.

14:35Mike Sando: But now he's probably a little bit going to be dependent on McDaniel, who, by the way, if they have a good year, he's going to leave and will be starting it over again. And so I'm with you that, like, this could shift as the season goes along and there could be some difficult discussions in terms of what they need to be doing with the personnel on the roster, where the head coach is on all of that. The quarterback's going to be there. Justin Herbert's going to be the quarterback of the team. So to me, I would probably want McDaniel to get another year after this and not leave for head coaching jobs.

15:07Mike Sando: I'd want to be good enough for that, but not so good that he leaves and maybe get a chance this offseason. Maybe there is some of that urgency to spend and add to it.

15:18Robert Mays: And you mentioned that Jim Harbaugh and the way that he what he's adding as a head coach, you rely on the coordinator says brothers the same way. I mean, that's it was always the case in Baltimore is that when they had the coordinators, they're real difference makers. They were a great team. And when they haven't is when they've faltered a little bit. And that Jim, the Harbaugh's deserve credit for the choices they make at those positions. It's part of being a head coach. But we've talked a lot about the offense. The Chargers finished 26th in EPA drop back allowed on defense in that game against Arizona.

15:48Robert Mays: And so when you're looking back at there's a chance this is the worst case scenario. And I'm not trying to fast forward us here one week into the season. But there is a realistic chance that we get to the end of this year. The Chargers are a 500 ish team. The offense doesn't come together the way that you hope. and the defense takes a significant step back. And we're sitting there at the end of this year and wondering, is the reason that the Chargers were a playoff team in their first couple years of Jim Harbaugh actually a product of how good Jesse Minter was as a defensive coach over the other systemic considerations that still exist in that building?

16:22Robert Mays: Again, that's a really pessimistic read. But when you watch what happened in week one, I don't think it's unreasonable to start going down that path.

16:30Mike Sando: We got to think about it. I mean, look, it's a week-to-week thing, and you have to analyze the week. This is the evidence that we have. I'm positive it's going to get better than that. I think one thing that happens in these first games is you get a whole offseason of narratives built up without resistance. And then you realize that a lot of these games are close anyway. Seattle's going to play Arizona this week. Well, down there in Arizona last week, they won by three points. It wasn't like they're just, oh, this is the Super Bowl team. You're going to have these types of games. I think we're going to talk about the Rams.

17:04Mike Sando: Like the focus of San Francisco coming into that game is different because of what everyone's saying about the Rams. So I think some of these things get checked. Some things get checked in week one.

17:15Robert Mays: I want to let's get to the Rams, because I think that's exactly right, where you're talking about the narratives that are allowed to just be unchecked over the course of the entire summer. And I said this today, we did a segment on The Athletic Show, and I was just talking about the idea of super teams in the NFL. and I landed on something that I really do believe. And it's like when you get talked about in the way that the Rams did this offseason, you put yourself in a position where every single week, especially in week one, you have to play against the team on the other side of the ball and the expectations.

17:47Robert Mays: You have to play against both of them. The team on the other side of the ball is good as shit. They have Kyle Shanahan. That's enough. playing against them is hard enough halfway across the world let alone when you've set yourself up with this sort of conversation about your team over the course of the entire summer and and it felt like i don't want to read too much into it again it's week one it's a 15 hour flight all that shit but they looked like a team that had been carrying that all summer did you see mcveigh do his zoom availability two days ago that man looks like he hasn't slept for like 10 days.

18:23Robert Mays: I'm like, how did he get to week 18 already, you know? And you also talked about this in your column, and you were talking to coaches about it. Like, when you get billed as this sort of team, it just comes with a different sort of weight that doesn't do you any sort of favors.

18:37Mike Sando: Yeah, so you know, the fact that now everything's kind of reset, Miles Garrett's out for a while, maybe there's a little bit of a realistic reset and maybe the expectations come down a little, but you can't tell me that didn't go into that game. And the 49ers are a tough matchup for them anyway. They beat them anyway. you know, and so there's really, you know, I wasn't trying to rain on Rams before the season, but you have to be realistic in the fact that a couple things. Number one, when Aaron Donald comes back, they're going to get the worst season of his career. And it may be better than anyone else in their team.

19:09Mike Sando: It may be really good, but they're not getting prime Aaron Donald, right? And is he going to be playing every week? Is he going to be healthy? We don't know. We don't know how that's going to go. Miles Garrett, to me, that's red flags when you have this type of a situation where he's talking about after the game, well, I wasn't physically where I needed to be, and now I need to do what I need to do to get back, and I'm going to have surgery. That's a quick pivot from all the hype and stuff before the season that makes me wonder, is everyone on the same page there about what his health was? And now is this hurting anything in terms of the relationship going forward?

19:46Mike Sando: It's early, it's one game, but he's going to be out a while now uh there's a lot to manage uh with this team with a lot of new faces and guys making

19:54Robert Mays: a lot of money i you would have good perspective on this i don't want to put you on the spot but i'm curious as somebody who's covered the league for a long time now is there any situation that you feel is analogous to this one just in the way that we were talking about this team coming into the season people have used the dream team eagles as an example of this and that's the easiest one to go to, but that's honestly one that like one soundbite at a press conference, I think allowed that to snowball in a different way. This was everyone, every single person that had a microphone was talking seemingly about how great the Rams were going to be in my decade and a half that I've done this.

20:32Robert Mays: I can't remember a team that was talked about like this heading into the season. And even in the moment when we were talking about them, that left me uneasy. Like, I just think that it's so hard to win and you need so many things to go your way, including intangible things, that this can only be a bad thing when you are discussed this way. And I'm curious if you can remember any other team that had a similar sort of narrative about them coming into the year.

20:57Mike Sando: Well, I would say when I think of a team like that, and I can't remember the exact narrative, but remember how great the 2007 Patriots were, you know, and they lost the Super Bowl. But I would imagine then Tom Brady got hurt the next year, right, early for the first game, right? Didn't Brady hurt the next year? So, you know, and that affects your whole season. But that's a little bit analogous to me in that that's one of the greatest teams ever. Obviously stumbled at the end of the season. But, you know, I went into the season going, you know, they're a Stafford type back away, you know, from it being a totally different year.

21:29Mike Sando: And that's very plausible to happen. So let's just not – I really went back and forth in my mind. Like they had us pick the season before the season, pick the Super Bowl teams. You know, everyone on the staff did that. And I actually had the Rams written in. I was like, you know, it just doesn't usually go that way. And I put Seattle in, of course, the last Darnold. But I feel I feel pretty good about it. I feel fine about it. And when I pulled the executives, you know, before the year, hey, rank your teams one to 16. There was an outlier guy who did the Bears. Just like, hey, I said, what are you talking about?

21:58Mike Sando: You know, I know they're going to regress some, the Rams, this and that. It's like it never goes how you think it's going to go. So, you know, I see them as I see Chicago's having a really great head coach and a really good up and coming quarterback. I'll bet on that, you know, rather than just taking the chalk. So, you know, let's just see how it goes. I'm sure the Rams are going to be good. But, man, they didn't look good.

22:19Robert Mays: I picked them to win the Super Bowl in part because it's easy to pick the Rams. The Rams and the Ravens are the two highest over under win totals. It's like, whatever. And because I'm I'm very much in the same boat when it comes to predictions of any kind. where it's like, I have no idea how the season is going to go. Truly no idea. That's what I come in with every single year. But it's different. Picking the Rams to win the Super Bowl is different than talking about them like they're the greatest team that's ever been assembled. You can be an 11-6 Super Bowl team. Like, that is something that can happen.

22:50Robert Mays: You could be a 12-5 Super Bowl team. Again, their over-under win total was 11-1⁄2. So even if you went over, there's still five losses as part of that. And so I just think that some of the framing was unrealistic. And I also think the 2007 Patriots is a great example of this. And I would, the idea of a super team in the NFL, right? Like the having a truly dominant team. If you look at the past two Super Bowl winners, by the end of those seasons, those were dominant teams. Like the Seahawks were a fantastic Super Bowl winner when you look at it top to bottom. The Eagles, by the end of that season in 24, were a really complete team.

23:30Robert Mays: But I just go back to all of the things, and even the 2007 Patriots are like this a little bit. The things that have to fall into place that you don't expect and that happen over the course of the year, that's how those teams come to exist. It's not in March and April and the way that we talk about them because they made one move. The Eagles are such a good example where you come into the year and they're threading a needle with their defensive personnel specifically. Like you drafted Quenya Mitchell and Cooper Dejean in that draft. They both need to come in and be good players for that defense to become what it was.

24:05Robert Mays: And that's exactly what happened. Last year in Seattle, we have no idea what Darnold is going to be. We have no idea what Clint Kubiak is going to be. And their rookie class had to come in and really fall into place for that team to become who they were over the course of the year. the Patriots in 2007 even after trading for Randy Moss you can play the game of oh man it's Randy Moss and Tom Brady no one knew how they were going to play that season like they revolutionized professional football with the amount of 11 personnel they were using with Wes Walker in the slot with the amount of shotgun that they were using again it's something where the personnel was part of it but they snuck up on you in all these different ways over the course of the year and so that's typically how these great teams come to be.

24:47Robert Mays: It builds over the course of the season. And by the end of that year, the Patriots had to wear that sort of burden. They had to carry it when they were undefeated in December, but it wasn't something in week one where everyone expected them to be a 17 win team. That, that just, that would be revisionist history to talk about them that way.

25:03Mike Sando: Well, to me, the greatest example is the Rams, but back the Kurt Warner Rams. Remember they were Duke and they had put together one of the greatest teams ever that year, And you're like, how does that? No one predicted that. That's an extreme way. But I think what it gets at is the league has changed since back when I was a kid, which was longer ago than for some other people. But there wasn't a salary cap in these things. Teams stayed together. If you look at those great 49er teams, Bill Walsh, they had the same players a lot of the time. The Seahawks roster is completely different from two years ago, and it might be completely different two years from now.

25:37Mike Sando: You know, there's just a lot more volatility in the league now. They play more playoff games, right? More teams are getting in. I think that also opens things up to surprises and teams getting hot. And nowadays, if you have a weakness by the end of the season, it'll be exposed before you get to the Super Bowl, usually. You know, you can't just overcome it because you're so much more talented, usually. That doesn't happen.

26:01Robert Mays: And I think it's that there's not those sort of talent gaps. And, you know, there are teams that are trying to push those sorts of gaps. The way that the Eagles spend money, the way that the Rams have built this roster, they're trying to accrue as much talent as you possibly can in the modern era. Fine. I mean, that's you are creating a talent advantage for yourself. But even in that sort of world, you're still going to have vulnerabilities and weaknesses because by definition, you have to in a salary cap, even if you're manipulating that salary cap. And the other thing, and I think this is right, I think the level of coaching is so good around the NFL right now that if you expose even a small vulnerability about who you are, so many of these guys are going to be able to pick at it.

26:43Robert Mays: The Rams exist in a division with Kyle Shanahan and Mike McDonald. That's enough. If there is one thing that you do not do well on either side of the ball, they were probably going to be able to find it. And so it just the entire discussion around them coming into the year, it just to me is misguided about how we talk about teams, period.

27:02Mike Sando: Isn't it funny? NFC West, they're the only team that's not one and all. The Cardinals are even.

27:07Robert Mays: But that's a perfect example. Like the idea that the Cardinals have reset their staff and now you look at what they were doing on offense. And now you have a certain level of quality with that roster, which isn't as bad as people were making it out to be coming into the season. There are so, I think there is so much collective competence around the NFL that the idea that any team, no matter how talented, is just going to be able to come in and run roughshod over the rest of the league to me is just, is a very silly proposition.

27:38Mike Sando: Yep. But, but check back in December, a team might develop into that, right? I think that's what we're getting at.

27:42Robert Mays: That can happen. And that has happened. But the other side of it where it's just a foregone conclusion, that doesn't happen. Yeah. Is there anything about the Rams, as you think about that performance, that you have the most faith in them course correcting? Is there anything that you feel like is kind of a lingering concern that you have coming out of that game?

28:03Mike Sando: Well, I have the ultimate faith offensively in Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford and those guys. I mean, I think they're going to have a good offense, and I think you take that to the bank. Obviously, Stafford gets hurt at changes, but that's true with most of the teams that are starting quarterbacks. So I feel great about that. They, you know, defensively, I think there's going to be talent as the season goes along, but, you know, I'm less sure. And then the thing I wrote about before the season was they lost to Seattle because of special teams. And when you're losing 27 to 7 and all of that, the special teams usually aren't going to be the lever on that.

28:36Mike Sando: But, you know, Miles Garrett, Aaron Donald aren't going to be on those, you know, coverage teams. And that's what really has given them, gave them an issue. That was really the main reason they lost to Seattle last season. and that was my unanswered question for them. Hired Bubba Ventrone. I think he's good. But we'll see that over the course of the season, too, because they're going to be in close games with the Seattles of the world, and those guys really are committed in that area to a degree that the Rams aren't.

29:03Robert Mays: We're going to dig into that at the end of the show because I really want to sit with that story that you did and the project that you were working on all summer. The Aaron Donald part of this is funny because I think some people, as they were looking at this roster coming into the season, And like, oh, man, Aaron Donald, that's a it's a luxury that they don't even need. And then you look at the way they were getting moved around on the ground in that game against the Niners. It's like maybe they do need Aaron Donald. It's like maybe Aaron Donald is a necessary component of this in a way that we weren't really considering.

29:29Mike Sando: I wonder how much run defense he wants to play against 21 personnel, you know, at this stage of his life. I think he's probably envisioning some great pass rush sets, you know, down the stretch in the Super Bowl. But it's a tough season. In this division, too, Seattle and the 49ers are going to run it at Aaron Donald.

29:45Robert Mays: Yeah, I think, again, they're going to get challenged over the course of the entire year. And if Arizona isn't an easy out, that becomes six games where you really have to bring it. And so far, they're 0 for 1. All right, let's take our first quick break and then come back and chat about our first impressions with a couple of these other teams. football season has arrived and with the u.s bank smartly visa signature card you earn an unlimited two percent cash back on every purchase including at the stadium or at home watching on a brand new tv score big with unlimited two percent cash back on every purchase visit usbank.com slash smartly card to learn more the creditor and issuer of this card is u.s bank national association pursuant to a license from visa usa inc some restrictions may apply when my wife and i were buying the car that we still drive today.

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33:03Robert Mays: All right, so let's stick in the NFC and let's stick in the Sean McVay coaching tree world and you wanted to talk about the Green Bay Packers and your first impressions of the Green Bay Packers from that game. Why did you want to dig into the Packers after what you saw from them in week one?

33:16Mike Sando: Because the things that doom them are such the hot button things. You know, when you spend the whole off season, you know, talking about how we have to finish and we know their offensive line has to be, you know, improved this year. Now you played Minnesota. It's probably the worst team they could play coming out of the gates. I mean, that's tough. But I just feel like how do you have credibility coaching-wise when you go from leading by 12 points to losing by 17 when we've been talking about finish? And I think that's been my concern with them. I think Matt LeFleur is very good with the offense.

33:49Mike Sando: I think their offense will rank well probably over the course of the season. But as far as being the head coach, you can pull that stuff together and make the narratives come true in a division where, by the way, Ben Johnson says, you know what, we're going to try to average 38 a game and he gets 59. Huge credibility. I mean, this guy, Ben Johnson has complete credibility. Dan Campbell, right? I mean, he's had great credibility over the last few years of just like his voice and his leadership and all of that. And I think Kevin O 'Connell to some extent has had that too. Certainly helps having their defense.

34:22Mike Sando: And then you have Matt LaFleur who, you know, hasn't, has been there a while, has had great seasons with Aaron Rodgers, but when it's really mattered to get over the top, hasn't been able to do it, and now you have this thing blow up in your face against a division rival where you give up a big lead, which has been your problem. I just don't see how that's good. And now you go to play the Jets. I'm probably of all these teams that lost, that one kind of sat with me almost as bad as a Charger one.

34:54Robert Mays: I think you can look at it two different ways. I think you can look at it, and Packers fans have looked at it this way, the cascading effect of all of the penalties that occur on that drive for you to lose the game when the game should have been over like four different times. That's never going to happen again. That's like a black swan event in how that unfolded for them to lose that game. Brutal. And I understand that vantage point. I don't think that's wrong. I think if I were a fan of that team and I were trying to talk myself into the positive outlook on this, that's exactly where I would go with it.

35:27Robert Mays: But I think, like you mentioned, them playing against the Vikings as this version of the Packers in week one is kind of a worst case scenario for a couple different reasons. When Matt LaFleur, the way that Jordan Love wants to play, I love and respect. I bring me a quarterback who wants to be as aggressive as Jordan Love consistently is. And when you look at the numbers that he had in that game, I think Derek said it in real time when we were watching it. It felt like a 2025 Caleb Williams performance where we had 50 % completions, but we've got 12 yards per attempt. That's what it was. And that is okay.

36:05Robert Mays: It's okay to have that sort of haymaker passing game in the way that Jordan Love and the Packers want to when you have an element of your offense that can provide you consistent efficiency. The ground game was that as recently as 2024, their ability to run the ball as the jab within their offense gave them the leeway for the passing game to be more gash or be gashed. Well, against the Vikings last week, they had 21 carries for 66 yards. They had a 33 % rushing success rate dead last against Minnesota in EPA per rush dead last. The only team behind that or the team right ahead of them was the Chargers.

36:45Robert Mays: And so if you're going to be a Matt LaFleur team that really wants to take your big swings in the passing game and you're playing against defense that only fuels that feel of the game, where, again, it's this gash or be gash sort of world. It's really hard to live in that existence when you can't consistently run the ball. And so that's what worries me. If they can't consistently run the ball over the course of the season, it really changes the complexion of what we've come to expect a Matt LaFleur, Jordan Love offense to look like at its best.

37:20Mike Sando: And it's almost like it makes it impossible for them to become a tough team with some metal, right, that holds up. And when you look around the rest of that, I mean, what did the Bears rush for? 291 yards? I know Caleb had 68 of scrambling, but still, I mean, they ran it all over the place. and you know Dan Campbell wants to do that and you know we'll see what Minnesota does but I think they're I look at them just in the context of the division and what I perceive their weaknesses to be and can they address those and overcome them and to me there is a little bit of a toughness metal M-E-T-T-L-E gap that the run game can help solve but when you don't have it and you end up playing a team that's going to blitz on whatever 78 % of the plays like Minnesota did.

38:06Mike Sando: It's going to be hit and miss. They're going to hit some plays, and they did. But you're going to have enough misses and lack that consistency. And oh, by the way, defensively, we'll see what they are over the course of the year. And then special teams-wise was encouraging for some of the day, but has been an issue for them for a while.

38:26Robert Mays: As you talk to people around the league about Matt LaFleur and the Matt LaFleur era in Green Bay. What's kind of the general conventional wisdom and consensus around how the league thinks about him and his tenure there in Green Bay, especially the last couple of years?

38:44Mike Sando: So that if he was available, he'd get a job right away. Like, I don't think there's any question about that. I think he's well regarded that way. You know, the criticisms for people that are good and successful are different than they are for guys who've failed. But I think for him, it's along the lines of, does he care too much about how you win the game? Your job as a head coach is to pull all these phases together. And I think sometimes, in some cases, probably I think of it more with an offensive coach. Like, sometimes decisions are made to try to win the game on offense, you know, in ways that, I mean, shoot, you go back to that playoff game years ago when they had the whatever, the fourth and goal from the eight or something, right?

39:22Mike Sando: They're going to win that thing right there with that call right and i think that is a component that uh probably could be improved upon just hey this guy's the head coach of the whole team and they're everything everything's coordinated and working together and i don't know that he's transcended that perception that he's still the

39:46Robert Mays: coach of the offense yeah and i think it's it's an interesting argument and in the push and pull between defensive-minded head coaches and offensive-minded head coaches where I think there are a lot of changing dynamics around just archetypally which direction you'd want to go. I think defense is really making a comeback in the way they have over the last couple years. I think changes the discussion around the viability of defense first teams and whether they're championship caliber. The Seahawks are obviously the best possible example of that. But I hadn't really thought about that where it's, if you're an offensive-minded head coach, Are you more prone to care about some of the style points and the ways that you win these games rather than if you're Bill Belichick, it's just like, I don't give a shit, right?

40:29Robert Mays: I can win six to three. And if that involves a blocked punt and a special kind of defense, it doesn't really matter. Like, are defensive coaches actually more prone to take that sort of approach than offensive coaches are? I don't know what the numbers on that would say, but it's an interesting idea. Yeah.

40:45Mike Sando: One thing I've learned in trying to lump together offensive and defensive coaches, because I did this in the special team study that I did under the perception that offensive coaches wouldn't care as much about it. But it's really sort of coaching tree based a little bit. Like, yeah, Sean Payton and Dan Campbell are quote unquote offensive coaches, but they come from Bill Parcells. You know, they're going to care about that more. Right. The defense special teams component. You can feel that. Darren Rizzi, super empowered as a special teams coach in New Orleans under Payton, now in Denver. Look at what happened when Aaron Glenn left Detroit for the Jets.

41:18Mike Sando: What's the one thing the Jets were good at last year? Special teams, right? It's like it matters to these guys. That's what they care about. Some of these other guys, and Sean McVay admitted it, you know, he's not – he kind of wishes it was – they don't always – some of those guys wish they didn't have to deal with it. Like they just would rather do the calling of the game and that type of a thing. So you can't fake what brings you joy in your job. and so if it's not going to be that that does it then you've got to be super good in the other areas to overcome it and you know sean sean mcveigh is like we're doing it you know we're committing in this way in that way and you know we'll see he's got a you you got to make it hit but i think it's a lot easier to do when you actually believe that you know and so mike mcdonald comes in and they've got teamers on that seattle team and it infuses your roster with a toughness and like an abandoned hair on fire guys, right?

42:10Mike Sando: That's what people, that's what fires up your team on the sideline. You know, I was at the combine last year and somebody had come out of a meeting on concussions and stuff. And they're like, we just watched the concussion reel. It was all Seattle special teams just blowing everybody up. It was like, you know, that, that doesn't just happen by accident, right? It has to matter to you. And so that would be the thing with some of these coaches that are super into the play calling component uh you know i would put shanhan in there to agree to a degree the floor in there you know um uh but they you know those guys more than i'd put sean payton as offensive coach or or dan campbell let's get to sean payton's team and what

42:54Robert Mays: they looked like on monday night against the chiefs i wanted to start this conversation about the Broncos and about the start of their year, just with whatever conversations and discussions you had with people around the league about the Davis Webb thing this offseason. It's something that I didn't really ask around about. And I'm just curious if you did, just why that might have happened, what it might mean, what it says about just the overall dynamics in that building. Before we get to the veracity of the choice, I'm curious about whether you've talked to people about the motivation behind the choice.

43:28Robert Mays: Oh, yeah.

43:29Mike Sando: So I think I might have misread it early. You know, when I saw that happen, and remember, my roots of covering the league go back. I spent a lot of years covering the Seahawks when Mike Holmgren was the coach. And I know these guys, the offensive coaches like that, they always talk about how they're going to give up play calling, and they never do it. Like those guys, they can't. You know what I mean?

43:48Robert Mays: Like you said, it's so central to their identity.

43:50Mike Sando: I think that's why it's so difficult to let go of. Yes, it's why they're there. And so when that happened, Sean Payton had not signed his contract yet. He didn't have a new contract. You're hearing a lot of things about like, hey, they really like George Payton there. And I'm like, what's it? These guys had left Sean's staff. And I was like, what's going on here? It's like, is he getting his wings clipped here? That's what I kind of my impression from afar. I don't think that was the case. Like, I don't think ownership went to him and said, stop calling plays. I do believe, just from talking to folks, that, you know, they like Davis Webb, you know, and Sean values him, and they wanted to keep him.

44:29Mike Sando: And he's losing other guys, Jim Leonard and some other guys have left. And so he, you know, wanted to have him there. But to me, that's a short-lived situation because how is Sean Payton—you know you're going to have ups and downs in the season. how are you going to let any time go by with the offense struggling and not take it over? Like, to me, that's just going to happen at some point, unless they just hit on all cylinders, which I don't think they did the other night. And so if I'm the ownership there, I'm like, okay, Sean, you know, we didn't hire you for your defense or, you know, the way you run the team meeting.

45:05I mean, that's all nice, but, but, you know, your hands on the quarterback here, right?

45:09Mike Sando: And let's give us a competitive advantage. We're playing Andy Reid, Clint Kubiak's pretty darn good. I mean, they came in there and looked decent. Can we get that competitive edge from you? So I see it being taken over by Sean Payton at some point during the year, and I don't anymore really see it as that he gave it up under pressure or anything like that.

45:31Robert Mays: Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to fully process it just because, even when we talked about it in real time, we were discussing the Davis Webb performance compared to some of the other first-time play callers. And to me, it's a little bit different just in that the fact that the game planning process probably has enough carryover from what it looked like under Peyton because Peyton's still there. Davis Webb is part of that process. I give them a little bit less grace than I would give other first year staffs just because if you are coming in there from day one, the language is different. You're troubleshooting that game planning process for the first time.

46:07Robert Mays: So many things are just completely fresh and new, where with them, there's enough carryover where, in my mind, it just shouldn't look like that. But at the same time, he still is a first-time play caller, and so I've struggled with figuring out exactly where I want to land between those two poles.

46:23Mike Sando: I think it's got to be a hard thing. It's got to be a hard role when you're under a legendary guy who, let's face it, Sean Payton's super fiery during the game. He's going to be all over guys. That's just his style. it's out of the Parcells school. And now you're coming in and you lose 31 to 10 at Kansas City. And by the way, you look at their schedule. Jacksonville, Rams, 49ers, Chargers, maybe that's easier. But Seattle, Arizona, Kansas City, you know, I could see Sean Payton, like they go Carolina then and they have their bye. I'll be kind of a little bit surprised if Sean Payton isn't calling the plays when they play the Raiders in Week 11 with a much easier stretch from there to finish the year.

47:11Robert Mays: We're going to talk about the Broncos as one of our games of the week on the preview show this week, and I have not gone back and re-watched the offense. I'm curious to do it. Just what exactly were some of the issues that they were dealing with? But just looking at the numbers from a bird's eye view, there's a through line here in the teams that we've talked about. I mentioned that the Packers finished 32nd in EPA per rush in Week 1. The Chargers finished 31st. The Broncos were 29th. So three of these four teams that we're discussing that were disappointing in week one compared to their preseason expectations, in terms of value generated when they were trying to run the ball in these games, they were three of the worst teams in the league in week one in totality, which to me is not an accident.

47:50Robert Mays: And you compare that to teams that were better than we might've expected or the way that the Chiefs looked, the Chiefs were number one on that list and the Broncos were number 29. And when you go back and you watch that game, you feel that difference.

48:01Mike Sando: So what was the big, so the big trend that we were talking about coming out of this week was it was the highest under center shotgun rate, you know, that had been under center rate in the league. I looked at early downs and it was, it was the first week since 2017 that half of the early down plays on offense were from under center. is, you know, and, and so when I was looking at this and I need to adjust for some other things, because I think I need to take out some late game type of stuff where you might be doing that just to run it out the clock that, but the top 10 teams in under center rate on early downs were 10 and 0.

48:35Mike Sando: And it was like, it wasn't like all the great teams, like the Raiders were in there. You know, there was, there was a lot of teams like the, uh, the Giants where the Giants might've been in there. You know, there, there was just teams in there that you weren't going to necessarily predict to win that won doing that and had that type of production. So again, I think it's normal for, it might be normal for six or seven of those teams to win because you're going to be doing that if you're winning probably more. And so I'm going to look at that a little bit more nuanced, but that's really stood out to me versus some of these other teams that were, you know, shotgun more and didn't have the run game and it was struggle.

49:14Robert Mays: It's funny because you said this idea of what type of team you want to be? Do you want to be a team that's physical? Do you believe in that? Is it just lip service? What you work on and some of the structural choices you make can feed into the type of team you feel like. And the fact that these under center teams really showed us, the Chiefs specifically, like we're going to be about it. That's who we're going to be. We are going to line up that way and we're going to run the ball down your throat. I do think that that has a carryover effect just the way your team feels overall. And when you compare that to a team like the Broncos, who again, the Chiefs in their game, I'm curious what early down rates were, but the Broncos finished 31st last week in the percentage of under center snaps that they had.

49:59Robert Mays: They were 31st. The Chargers were 29th. And so again, it's just like these, and the Chargers are obviously a unique case. Like they used a lot, a decent amount of pistol. It's going to be a different sort of approach with McDaniel, but yeah, the return to under center football is interesting.

50:13Mike Sando: Here were the 10 teams, the top 10, I just call it up. So Vegas, Detroit, which barely won. Jaguars, Jets, Ravens, 49ers, Bills, barely won. Vikings, I don't know that they had the, you know, that you're going to repeat that a lot, but the Bears and Seattle. And the bottom teams were Tennessee. Okay, maybe they're trailing, but I'll look at it for early in the game. Denver, Miami, Dallas, Chargers, Houston, Washington. Those were the lower teams. Saints, you know, maybe they're a team that needs to do a little more. So, look, fun with numbers after week one. You know, we're not doing huge trend stories after week one.

50:50Mike Sando: But I think those are just some things to keep our eye on because, as we've talked about for so many years, you know, you have to convince the defense somehow that the run is a threat. You have to. And so for a lot of years, you could just do that by saying, hey, it's first and second down. You guys are going to play the run, right? And it's like, okay, yep, we're going to do that. Every coach after practice, every defensive coordinator, we've got to stop the run. And then people just started passing and hitting all these explosive plays. Now defenses are like, okay, we're not doing that anymore.

51:19Mike Sando: Now what's the offense got to do? Well, maybe to convince them, we actually have to be under center and run it sometimes and make it part of our identity. The toughest thing is real. I feel like it's like you go to the gym. There's different people in the free weight section than in the machine section, right? I mean, if you had to go pick a fight in one of those sections, where are you going?

51:40Robert Mays: I'm going to the cardio equipment first and foremost. The cardio equipment first, right?

51:44Mike Sando: You're not going over to the guy with four plates on your side. Yeah, you're not going over. But you're not going over to the guy with four plates doing the deadlift. That's a different ethos, and I think the running game gives you some of that.

51:55Robert Mays: No, I totally agree. And even if we're not doing trend stories about the overall quality and returns on this, we're joking. Going under center is not a magic wand where you suddenly become a better football team by doing it. That's a silly way to frame this. but I do think the commitment to it as an idea, that's a trend that's worth picking up on after one game. Like that's worth it. When we do the things of, oh man, defense is ahead of offense and we do it in week one. That's not a trend. The structural choices you've made to this degree, leaning this far into it. That is a trend that I think we can already start talking about because that's undeniably real.

52:33Mike Sando: And the greatest, the greatest reference to this is just the last few years, what the Rams did with Stafford. When Matthew Stafford got there, Sean McVay was so happy, leaned in to drop back, shotgun, all this stuff. And, you know, it worked great until it sort of became diminishing returns. What do you do? Got back to the run game. Now he's the MVP. So there is something to it. Yeah, there's no doubt. Look at Rodgers. When Rodgers was kind of diminishing a little bit under McCarthy, his production was down. And then LeFleur comes in and puts him under center with, you know, play action and stuff.

53:03Mike Sando: Rodgers wins two MVPs. So it can really help.

53:07Robert Mays: All right, let's take one more quick break, and then I want to come back and chat about that special team story. Are you the kind of sports fan that wants to dig into the story behind the stats? Join The Athletic Live on YouTube to get more of the sports stories you can't stop talking about. On game days, they'll watch the biggest matchups alongside The Athletic's most tapped-in reporters, and you can become part of the show in the interactive chat. The Athletic Live is presented by Google Gemini. Subscribe now on YouTube. This episode is brought to you by Onnit. You know those days where your schedule is packed to the brim?

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55:29Robert Mays: all right let's dig into this special teams project that you were working on over the course of the summer just to take people behind the curtain a little bit i when we're at training camps you know i'm we're you're kind of hanging out on the sideline and you're waiting for practice to end and then you're talking to people after they come off and you know it's in the best case scenario you can sit down have a real conversation with somebody but it's very informal it's just kind of something that happens in passing. The first time I saw you on this trip, we're in Houston and we're in the indoor facility.

55:58Robert Mays: And I just talked to Kamari Laster and you're sitting over in the corner with one of the coaches and you literally have your laptop out and you're showing the coach a presentation that you've created about this thing that you're chipping away at. And this is what you were doing throughout all of training camp is going to these stops and talking to people about this thing that you've been working on and this idea that you have. And I just want to talk people a little bit through the methodology behind what initially got you interested in this, what the idea is, and how you started chipping away at it.

56:30Mike Sando: Well, usually there's something that kind of occupies me, a rabbit hole for the offseason. And this one on special teams really hit me two ways. One was McVay fired his special teams coach with the Rams during the season. I was like, wait a minute. He's had like six of these guys. Here's Sean McVay, one of the best coaches in the league. And this has been a problem area. Systemic issues here, right? And then when Rich Pisacci quit the job at the Packers, he had time on his contract. Like, that's very unusual. And I thought, well, shoot, they've had lots of issues even before LeFleur. You can find all these special teams plays.

57:02Mike Sando: There's something systemic about that component of it. What is it? And so then I went to the combine and just met. There's no presentations going on at this point because I'm trying to learn. And so I sat down with coaches and front office people, just asked them, like, how do we analyze this? I'm so tired of the same way that this gets covered, which is special teams are bad. They fired the coach. They have a new special teams coach, and now it's going to be good. And then it gets bad. We care about it now because we hired a guy that you've heard of as a special teams coordinator.

57:33Robert Mays: Now we really care about it now. We mean it this time.

57:36Mike Sando: So I'm like, what goes in? Like, how do you know? Are some of these guys, some people just doomed going into the year? You know, it's kind of like we know on offense, if you're going to work with a really bad quarterback that year, that quarter, that coordinator is probably going to get fired. Do the special teams coaches know that, too? Like when you go to the Rams or the Packers, are you doomed? And to some extent, yes, they do know that. And so I learned about how what to look for on the game day roster, like how it's configured to help or hurt special teams. One thing we can't look up statistically, how much time do these coaches get in practice?

58:07Mike Sando: Right. And for the special teams coaches, you probably can never give them enough. There's a balance here. But some systems, like one of the things that was said to me was, hey, if you're in a Shanahan tree, you get less time in practice. But some of those Shanahan guys are getting good players to work with in special teams like Houston. You mentioned that. Nick Casario comes from New England. He's the GM of Houston, and he's going to get them players. So they're going to be pretty good on special teams there. And even for Kyle Shanahan, they got Brant Boyer last year as their coordinator, and it looked pretty good.

58:40Mike Sando: It got better for them with some commitment. So I really wanted to know, Rams and Packers, what is it? And so in being able to study those game day rosters, I was able to put together kind of some visuals that were really pretty hard hitting. And then I took those around to a few coaches here and there and just, what do you think of this? Am I on the right track? And they were like, yes, yes, nodding. Yes, yes, nodding. and so then usually when you talk to somebody like that they're going to have two or three things you didn't think of you know uh everybody does what about this what about the best part

59:18Robert Mays: about working on stuff like this is when you you get sent off on like three other little chat like little chases that you can do because somebody's lit up a part of your brain

59:26Mike Sando: so by time by time i was in training camps in august you know then i i actually had a pretty good presentation that had come together and that doing the presentation helps my mind like until you can teach something, you can't, you don't really have a mastery of it, right? So not that I'm teaching teams anything. It's more of like harnessing the knowledge to do it. But I would have to be able to teach somebody who didn't know anything about this and they would come out of it going, wow, that's, I didn't realize that. And that's kind of what it got to before writing the story that you were talking about that I was pretty pleased with because let's face it not everybody cares that much about special teams even the co even the head coaches so like how can you make this interesting and i think we did the anecdote that really jumped out

1:00:13Robert Mays: to me and there's plenty of them in the story that are really telling was that i think it was a coach that was on one of the staffs had relayed to you that when the rams and saints had joint practices last year i want to say it was they literally didn't have a special teams period as part of the practice and i think stuff like that really does jump out and so i'm curious what does this actually look like when you dug into the numbers like what are the most important gaps you mentioned game day rosters and we can talk about some of the nuances with that but when you look at the teams that are committed to this and the teams that are not where do those biggest where do the biggest gaps there exist and statistically numerically what do those gaps look like in the areas that you were talking about?

1:00:56Mike Sando: Well, how much input does a special teams coach have on the final roster? So one of the things I learned was like when Bill Belichick, who entered the league as a special teams coach way back in the 70s, he would let his special teams coach, he'd say, hey, besides the kicker, besides the punter, besides the snapper, you got two, three guys you want to have on this roster, tell me who they are. That does not happen typically, you know, in a lot of places. And so that gave the special teams coach in New England a lot of investment, Right. Hey, we gave you your guys. You better be good. But also those were really his guys.

1:01:28Mike Sando: So you have a Matthew Slater. Right. You have a, you know, two or three guys over the years. Ebner. Right. Nate Ebner. Those types of guys that were just mainstays on their special teams that that give you an advantage over the team that is sending out a bunch of rookies out there just because they happen to be the backups. Right. And those guys are going to get their, you know, their asses kicked by real trained killer special teamers. We all saw that Washington commanders play, right? The guy's running down the field. He's taking out, it looked like it was AI. He's taking out three guys here, two guys here and plants the guy.

1:02:01Mike Sando: And I'll tell you, when I went to one of the teams and was talking about this, I was like, Washington, they didn't have the big game day commitment with their roster, but they were real good. Well, they had really good players. The coach actually in his office put on the film and he showed me Washington. I think it was Washington against like the Raiders really last year. And they're just killing the Raiders guys out there. That's a huge difference. And everyone sees that in film. The team sees that. The team knows if we're serious or not. If we're getting our asses kicked out there, everyone else is going to, you know, the fans are going to get a drink during the punt return or whatever, right?

1:02:38Mike Sando: No, this stuff tells you who you are. So it's not any one thing that guarantees you're good. It's not just having a good coach. It's not just having some kick-ass guys that the special teams coach got to pick. It's not just having your roster configured on game day. You can have any one of those things in a good place and not still not be good. But if you can get enough of them in a good place, you can win games. When the margins shrink in playoffs and suddenly you're playing a Seattle type of a team, there could be a touchdown difference on special teams, which is huge.

1:03:16Robert Mays: what do you think is the most important, the way the teams construct the players who are on those units, what do you think is the most important consideration there? Is it about using starters there? Is it about making sure that you have three or four players that are specifically designed to be a part of that, where special teams are their strength? Like, what is the proper configuration?

1:03:36Mike Sando: It's that part. I used to, I kind of came into this thinking, well, if we have starters out there, we're committed. And I think that could be the case if you think of, like, the Pete Carroll Seahawks years. They had some, Earl Thomas and sure, some of these guys were actually playing out there on special teams. Okay, if those guys are really invested in it, great. But what happens is you use starters who would rather not do it, right? They're already tired and taking bumps and bruises. They don't necessarily want to go out there and risk an injury. At the same time, you don't want necessarily just some rookie out there who's never played on special teams either and doesn't know how to do it.

1:04:07Mike Sando: So if you can get two or three of those core guys, and we know who they are. When you look at Seattle, it's Brady Russell's of the world, right? Some of these guys, I think that's probably the starting point, because if you do that, that's going to solve for some of the other things. That means we're committed. That means our head coach cares about it. Our GM cares about it, because otherwise those guys aren't going to be on the team. Right. And so to me, that's probably the number one thing that reflects on other things and other aspects. And it's hard to really you don't really know going in the season unless you know who those players are.

1:04:39Mike Sando: right so some of the ways i looked at that was like hey how many career special team snaps do you even have because if you have a lot of them then you've kind of been vetted as a player in that phase and so that can be it but then you see a team like last year tennessee was really good on special teams with no experience well that could be a bad team where the special teams coach gets to pick from anyone he wants on game day so maybe maybe that helped him be good right whereas in seattle maybe there's only 13 guys you can choose from right so you can have a big commitment footprint, but it may not be the players the special teams coach wanted.

1:05:12Mike Sando: So lots of nuance here, but interesting.

1:05:16Robert Mays: I mean, well, you talk about Tennessee last year. Tennessee last year, and then in the story you were talking about this, a picture of John Fossil came up on the presentation, and McVay was like wistful about his days with John Fossil, who is currently the special teams coordinator in Tennessee. So I think Sean's reaction to that and the quality of the Tennessee special teams last season, probably not an accident.

1:05:43Mike Sando: One thing I appreciate about McVay is that type of candor. Like, you know, he will say, I've got to do better. Like, he's honest about it. Like, he appreciated, you know, I came in there. The special teams presentation for him was the same as for the other guys. It was like, hey, it was kind of Rams-centric. You know, the Rams fell. They were at a minus 27 EPA differential against Seattle last year in special teams across three games. I didn't soften that for McVeigh.

1:06:12Robert Mays: For everyone else, it was a systemic consideration. For Sean, it was, I'm about to tell you where you've failed over the last decade. I'm going to show you in very plain terms.

1:06:22Mike Sando: In fairness to him, it's mostly the last couple, three years. They were more committed before that. But yeah, it starts at the top, right? And their roster, too, that's a little bit of a probably, hey, when you're so top-heavy on your roster with a bunch of young guys, you know, those young guys, maybe you're drafting those young guys to help fill spots on offense defense first.

1:06:42Robert Mays: I loved that because I think that was such a good observation in the piece where you're talking about how, and this was part of their plan, right? This is part of the vision. And the draft that always sticks with me is the, I think it was the 2021 draft when they won the Super Bowl. the Ernest Jones draft where you're drafting guys in the third, fourth, fifth round that end up becoming incredibly important to your overall team build because you've traded away these first round picks to go get veterans. And so you need cost control players somewhere. And those third, fourth, fifth round picks become starters for you, where with some teams, they might be special teams depth.

1:07:18Robert Mays: And so just the different layers that you have to consider and how this works, I thought was so interesting in it. And then hiring Bubba Ventron specifically, specifically we talked about this in our preview where if you look at the way like the area that the Browns had finished in special teams over the last few years the Browns special teams have been terrible but I was talking to a coach this summer who was had an awareness of like the way that they operate there and he was like well they don't care about that they they're one of those teams that just doesn't care about that so Bubba Bentrone can be a good special teams coordinator who did not do well in Cleveland because for the exact reasons you're talking about these are organizational considerations.

1:07:56Mike Sando: But in the Indy, they were top. They were really good at me, you know? So yeah, it's completely, I just want to, to me, you and I, you know, we value that nuance. I just don't want to say this guy sucks. You know, this coach failed. It's like, that may be the case, but like you got to look, we got, we have other ways of looking into some of that stuff on offense, defense, right? We know if the coverage bear, special teams were like, you know, we don't, how many, when's the last time we had a real in-depth special team scheme show? You know, We just don't do it.

1:08:24Robert Mays: That'll be the next thing we launch on the athletic football show channel. We're just going deep on special team scheme. We're going to let Dave handle it.

1:08:30Mike Sando: Go shit by Mike Sando. There'll be like three listeners.

1:08:34Robert Mays: Mike Sando, always appreciate the time, sir. Always great to chat with you. We will do it again very soon.

1:08:39Mike Sando: Thank you.

1:08:40Robert Mays: All right, guys, that's all we got. Thank you to Mike for his time. We will be back tomorrow with our week two preview, our first real preview show of the season. Very excited to dig into a lot of the week two games. If you have not listened to this episode, this week's episode of Building the Beast with Dane and Dave, strongly suggest you go check that out. Lot of 2027 quarterback talk. That should be a part of your guys' weekly routine at this point if you care at all about the NFL draft. We have obviously having Dane just a very rare resource and very happy to have that show back on the channel over the course of this year.

1:09:14Robert Mays: For now, that is all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating. We'll see you next time.

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