Preseason Risers, Fallers and the Future of NFL Defense

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Daily, where we don't know anything about the SABAN cover seven man match defense.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: But our guest does.

00:00:13
Speaker 1: I'm Greg Rosenthal, and I'm here with Jordan Rodrieg and I'm in the Chris Westling podcast studio, and I'm with one of Jordan's friends and one of the biggest ball knowers in the business, Cody Alexander, who runs match quarters on the Substack. And yes, that was like one of your recent posts was about the SABAN cover seven man match defense and we're going to break that down on this show for one hundred and fifty minutes.

00:00:41
Speaker 3: Let's it might take a little longer.

00:00:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, we're not gonna do that actually, because you know, I wouldn't know.

00:00:48
Speaker 4: What you listeners do not turn off the show.

00:00:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Cody also hosts the Let's Talk Ball podcast, but everyone check him out on substack where he has built up a big following top ten in sports on substack, and he's been building this up for almost a decade getting into the nitty gritty of defensive play.

00:01:09
Speaker 2: So what we're gonna do on this show.

00:01:12
Speaker 1: First, we want to talk a little bit like big picture about anything we've seen over the last month just quickly go around and talk about anything we feel differently about. And I'm sure for you, Cody, it'll be maybe on the defensive side of the ball, but just some rapid fire what we feel differently about after watching some preseason and everything. But then I think we're going to get into a bigger picture conversation about what's next with defense and Cody, it sounds like you're the type of guy that people like Jordan and maybe coaches and just fans who want to know more, they go to you to like understand how defenses are actually run. So instead of being the guy behind the scenes, we wanted to have you on the show behind the curtain if you're instead of like stealing your information like Jordan normally does, we're going to have you here and you can just give it so.

00:01:58
Speaker 3: Much appreciate it.

00:02:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're excited to have you, Cody. Obviously, you've taught me a lot about defense over the years. You've taught a lot of people a lot about defense over the years, And I think what's nice is we're highlighting defense today. Most of the time, everybody fireflies toward offense. Cody, I know you have a lot of experience with that, you explained defense to people who need to know how defenses affect offense.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: Right.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, the thing about defense is that it's not just tackle somebody, right or cover somebody. You know, there's a lot to it and it's really just an orchestration and a lot of because it's reactionary in where the offense is always producing something, the defense has to react to it and it's setting you up for success. So it's much more complicated than just tackle somebody.

00:02:43
Speaker 4: But you dumb it down for me and I love that.

00:02:46
Speaker 2: It's amazing and Cody's a great example.

00:02:48
Speaker 1: We were talking before the show of you know, you were a coach and a teacher and eventually after doing this already for six years, you were able to turn it into your full time job. And it's just defense on the substance, there is no offense. Occasionally, people they'll try to get in the comments talk about it. People kick them off the site. I'm making that part up, but there's a lot of pressure on us. I found out as we were talking that Cody flew out in part for this show, which Jordan bad job by you not telling me that, I mean, that's that's too much responsibility. So we got to make it count. Everyone go check out match quarters. And why don't we start with you, Cody, something that you have noticed, whether it's a scheme because I don't know where you're going with this, or a player or something that you've noticed over the last month, maybe you kind of feel a little differently about.

00:03:40
Speaker 2: That you've learned over the last month.

00:03:42
Speaker 3: I look at there's so much hype around the Washington Commander and a lot of it focuses on the offensive side, but I have a big pause on the defensive side, and just the track record of that staff just in general of now we're looking at this. This defensive line is a little bit scary to me heading into the season, and you look at it with you know, their big pickup was Kinlaw in the off season. He doesn't really want to have much to do with the run game. Okay, so there's a pattern here, right. We have Von Miller and Bobby Wagner that are both like, I mean, they're they're pushing, you know, late thirties, right, Like, are we really relying on this for a whole year? This is a game of attrition. And then you know, Will Harris had one good year right from the Saints, they get Latimore. Latimore's never finished the season, So you start really looking at this, It's like, why is Farrell Armstrong, where's the pass rush coming from? Where's the run stopping ability? You can't have Bobby Wagner having two hundred tackles, right, Frankie Louvu's great, But you start looking at all these pieces and it's a little scary heading into the season.

00:04:46
Speaker 1: And do you think they could make up schematically maybe what they lack in just beef because it's a surprising way to attack their offseason after you know, getting blown out by the I know that was amazing that they got into that game, but that's a team you're going to obviously have to face twice every season.

00:05:06
Speaker 3: Schematically, they don't know. There's not a lot of answers from it. I mean, this is a defense that wants to play man coverage primarily. They if you even go back to Dallas days, I mean, Dallas's problem right now fitting to run has a lot to do with the way that they developed that the dan Quinn's system there, and he's trying to mirror that there, and I just don't know. When you start really looking at it. You know, at a player by player level, is this going to work or are they going to have the same problems, like are you going to essentially have to score thirty five points a game in order to win some of these games? And I don't know if that's necessarily sustainable.

00:05:39
Speaker 4: And they paid Johnny Newton, first of all, is getting some pop in training camp, and he was injured last year, and obviously they really hope that he takes a step forward in order to actually shore up that interior defensive line. At the same time, they paid Javon Kinlaw more money than a lot of us expected him to get, and there was familiarity with Adam Peters, who obviously knew kin Law very well back when he was in San Francisco. But to your point, you can't expect Bobby Wagner to just have to hold the line against the run. And he's still a great run defender, still one of the hardest hitters, best tacklers in football. But you also watched the way that they deployed Frankie Louvau a lot last year. It was almost like, where's our emergency? Is it pressure or is it coverage or is it run? Start helping and run support, like he had to play so many positions. He was great at him one of our favorite players on NFL Daily. But I guess I would say all the optimism and that came out about the way that they were starting to try to reinforce this defense. I feel a little bit worried about them heading into this season.

00:06:42
Speaker 1: This was I feel like we hadn't done enough Commander's talk on this show and then this was a big week for it because they made it into our most interesting offenses and this is our defensive talk. And when I used to do fantasy football, we I used to say, like, oh, that's an everybody in the pool game because their defense ain't isn't very good, but their offense is amazing, And I feel like this could be there could be a lot of like everybody in the pool for Fantasy Days and Commanders game because because games got are going to be in the thirties. While I'm thinking fantasy, I'll just throw out a quick one Baseiel Tuton. Weirdly, I hadn't got a chance to watch his tape until after we did the recap show last Sunday. Fourth round pick for the Jaguars at running back. I feel differently just about him. I thought his tape in the preseason like looks different and better than it looked in college. And his ability to cut while moving forward with the power and aggression that he has is something, and like that would be the one guy. And we had the Fantasy show earlier in the week that I would just make sure you have him in every league because I think they will find a way to get him on the field, because I think he's their best running back. Probably right now, I think he's probably it makes more sense. Maybe Tank Biggsy Bigsby is the guy that gets traded. There's been some whispers that someone gets traded there. Maybe Bigsby goes etn Stays is a nice compliment. And sometimes you find these running backs in the second day, the second third day of the draft and they come into the league and they're immediately like top twelve to fifteen runners. I don't know if that's I'm not, but I think more than any other position, you can see that in the preseason he looks freaking amazing. Yeah, I feel different.

00:08:11
Speaker 4: He runs hard, his success rate is leading. It's a preseason. I don't want to get crazy about success rate. Just yet, but a success rate is leading other running backs in the NFL in terms of per play. And I actually kind of have a fun basial Tutin story because James Gladstone, the GM for the Jaguars man, he really pissed off his old boss and mentor less sneed because that was a player the Rams had very very high on their draft board, and James Gladstone also had him very very high on their draft board. Liam Cohen was concerned at the start of camp about how many times Basil Tutin had put the ball on the ground aka fumbled the ball in practice. But he seems to have been cleaning that up in a big way. And if he can keep it clean, he's going to be their lead one of their lead players in no time. And I think he's just a really great fit for what they want to do with their run game.

00:09:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a major fumbling problem in college. Yeah, that will get you benched.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: So that was like a big, a big reason why he fell in the draft after you know, the forty time that he put up. But I don't know, you can just see it. The way he moves is rare. Jordan, give us one thing that you feel differently about.

00:09:17
Speaker 4: I have another commander's one. Oh, actually it's about Deebo Samuel. I kind of really really felt bad for this guy at the start of training camp because it didn't think like seemed like optically anything could go right for him. Obviously, he was getting a lot of memes made out of him and a lot of really unfair I think criticism. People were making a thing out of the size he looked, at least when they opened training camp, and then the Terry McLaurin situation is sort of lurking in the distance of that entire offense. In general, I was not one of the body shamers, but I did also still wonder how Debo would fit into this offense. So now I feel differently about that. And part of it was I got to go up to Commander's camp and see everything he's doing in that offense. He has clicked with Jade and Daniels, and he is doing like literally a little bit of everything in that passing game, including deep down the field, including the intermedia and long range. Where he looks smooth, he looks light on his feet, he looks fresh, he has speed, and Jade and Daniels hit him on a couple of deep throws down the field. They seem to be really building that chemistry if they can just get Terry McLaurin back. I feel a lot better about what Deebo's fit and roll actually is in this defense.

00:10:29
Speaker 1: Cody, Yeah, to me, I think, actually, no, you're not allowed to talk about offense in this I even.

00:10:36
Speaker 4: Said defense as I was looking at Cody. Oh my god, it's like Pavlovian at this time. But I feel a lot better about what Deebo's going to do in this offense.

00:10:43
Speaker 3: Well, I think last year, just collectively everybody kind of bullied Cliff Kingsbury into moving receivers around. I think he finally grew out of the air raid structure of like, oh, you know, McClaren can only play on the left, And I think what you saw was within that explosion of the offense last year. But then now you're adding somebody that he still wants to run those perimeter screens. It's, you know, the one thing that Kingsbury is not, the air raid gets a lot of the kind of a lot of people think that it's just this deep choice, right because a lot of people think of like RG three and R Brieles. That's not really the air raid. This is really an intermediate based offense. They really want to throw it, but they want to throw it into space, and this is a guy that is essentially if you throw it to him in space, literally people are going to bounce off of him. So I think it's a good fit, especially when you have somebody that can stretch the field and then you have somebody that can come underneath in that intermediate with Debo and move him around. I think that that offense can be really explosively.

00:11:41
Speaker 1: I'm a big first play guy, like, let's see what they run for their first play in different situations that they're almost like, I try to like pretend that it's making some grand statement of what the season is going to be, like what they think, and to me, it was very telling that the first play that they had out there with Jayden Daniels and Deebo sims Amuel on the field together was an end round to Debo and yeah, Okay, you're this is what's this is what you want to do, and I love that you're just showing that to us. I'm going to throw out the Bills defense. Okay, I'm trying not to overreact to the preseason because I know it's a lot of backups out there, but I'm curious what you think of this. And I was texting with our friend Ali Connelly about this too, and the combination of how freaked out Sean McDermott seems on hard knocks, like you can actually see he he is not happy with where their defense is, how freaked out he seems on the sidelines. I was talking with Oli, so I don't want to take credit for it, like about some of the things he's doing in the preseason, like trying things that that aren't working, and then thinking about this group in general. He he's not thrilled with the safety position overall, like he is just calling them out. And you look at their secondary and you know you lose Maxwell Yirston early. He's not anywhere close to being back. He was their first round pick at cornerback, so cornerback is very thin. You're not feeling great in general about safety, which was like the bedrock of this defense for so long. And I'm finding myself, and I apologize to our producer Eric the Big Bills fin I'm finding myself. Actually, I am I am by, I am a little more worried about the Bills defense in general. Maybe I shouldn't be coming out of training camp because of because of how tight and McDermott seems about it. All you can speak to kind of Cody the what they want to do defensively and maybe where you think that they need some work this year.

00:13:38
Speaker 3: This has been really since mcdermot's been there has been one of the teams is consistently ran from a too high shell, you know, and was running actually split field coverages, so they were actually running like cover two quarters. They were doing that last year. You could really tell that they did not trust those safeties and so they started getting into more situations where they're having to spin down put guys in that place. You know, you look at a guy like a Cole Bishop, they really want him to start, they really want him to play. So they played a little bit more covered three because that's what he came from in Utah. You can see that, like there's been times where he's lost in those deep coverages where he doesn't know where to get his eyes, how to transition from there, and so you can see that they don't really like outside of Christian Benford, they're not really comfortable with a lot of those guys, and I think that that's where that like the Maxwell Harrison kid played some of the most z own Kentucky played a lot of zone coverage, so they got a long zone corner fits the mold of what they wanted. He's not going to be there, so now you're having to kind of reshuffle everybody, and so you're right that you know you're relying on a Joey Bosa and a bunch of you know, recent draft picks to kind of go in there and pass rush over coverage, right, like fix the coverage by sacking the quarterback. And that's going to be one of the interesting elements for the Bills.

00:14:53
Speaker 4: One of the things that really concerns the Bills, and I think when you hear them talk about this player and how much he'll contribute to them when he finally gets on the field is Michael Hoyt, who emerged into an extra rusher. But somebody who really made that pass rush, that five man rush, their Cheetah package they called it in Los Angeles come to life, and they were able to manufacture and design all types of pressure using him. He will not be on the field for the first part of the season because of a suspension, and I have to think that through a wrench into some of their plans of how they really want this defense to build out this year.

00:15:28
Speaker 1: And I've read in the Athletic like they weren't They're like, could could they just cut Larry Ogunjoby, Like is he even going to make the team? And team sign Larry go and Joby and then they get excited and he has a couple of high weeks and they get sick of him because maybe he's not as good a run defense. And Joe Bisalia of the Athletic like was speculating he's also suspended for the Yeah, it's like I'm not sure he's totally gonna make the team. Like so that worries me. They have like their second round pick TJ. Sanders up front, but in general in County Entredavius Dan Jack, I'm just like a little freaked out. And then there's just this is more of a vibe space thing too. I was just like, it's just hard. I think I think it's just hard mental. I think it's hard to stay at that level year after a year, and we've seen it. The Bills actually have been a more inconsistent team in the regular season. Bills fans know this. Over the last you know, four or five years than you would expect, they go through these dips and can they revvit back up and be that high level of an offense. I think they'll need to be to make up for the defense not being as good or needing to take some time. All right, give me one more thing, Cody that that's changed your mind over last month.

00:16:36
Speaker 3: I think too. There's so much hype. I go to another team in the NFC that has a ton of hype on you know, hey, this is a potential Super Bowl winning team, and then you really look at it, like, let's really look at the roster here, and again, I think the forty nine ers have some some major issues on defense. And yeah, I love I love Sala. They're going to run it back. This is you know, they're going to get back into what they were doing. He's essentially tried to find Robert Sala and a bunch of different people to get him to that's so true Robert SAWA's defense. So he went out and actually it's kind of when the Eagles finally just went out and said how much money do you want to be our defensive coordinator, vic Fanji.

00:17:09
Speaker 2: I mean Tobiko did a good job of.

00:17:11
Speaker 4: It, No, a great job, but he also was there in the glory days of that developmental staff under Robert Sala Like he did a great job. But after Damiko, what you're saying is true. They yes, they've basically gone like, Okay, what what are some code words that you know that can make us hire you because you know this defense well.

00:17:30
Speaker 3: And that's the thing is, like you can see the frustration, like the Wilkes Hira was really odd, didn't have any didn't really know. Then you just go with Sorenson, who's you know, Hey, you've been around, you're really a special teams guy, but hey, can you call the defense? Is here's a playbook And then I think you go and look at it and you have a bunch of Yeah, you have a first round draft pick in Michael Williams, right, but you start looking at this this defensive line. This is a defensive line driven scheme. Because it's a wide nine scheme. They don't do a lot in the back end. They really need this defense of line to go. This used to be the best defensive line they had foot eight guys that were drafted in the first round. Now those guys are gone, so you have the kind of a bunch of unknowns or a bunch of guys that are kind of like rotational players. And then oh, hey we have Nick Bosa. So you're really relying on one player anytime. I just feel like in the in the NFL, when you're especially on a defense, if you're lying on one guy, you're in trouble.

00:18:25
Speaker 1: And when you're relying on a draft class to save a major problem, almost never works. And so that's basically what they decided to do. Michael Williams first round, Alfred Collins second round, CJ West fourth round. That all sounds good at the time.

00:18:39
Speaker 4: Fast forward sounds good for twenty twenty six, right.

00:18:41
Speaker 2: That fast forward.

00:18:42
Speaker 1: Mikeel Williams, I think they'll be happy with him so far, but he's missed a couple of weeks. He's going to be back on the field. Alfred Collins doesn't sound like they are happy with he might not be playable, and CJ Wests like a fourth round defensive tackle, So asking them all to do a lot is maybe too much.

00:18:56
Speaker 4: The thing about Robert Sala as well is that this has always been a front that he can play the coverages behind them that they like to play because they don't have to manufacture pressure. They like to rush the way that they rush with the guys that they have up front. Robert Sala has been one of the best when he's coached to defense and doing that. It's not that he can't blitz, it's not that he can't design some of these things we're seeing, like the jesse Mentors the Mike McDonald's do, but he has preferred in the past to stay my guys are going to beat you up front, and then our dbs can just and our linebacker can just run wild and do whatever they do behind. Now, this is not going to be a front in my opinion, that's going to be able to do that. So he's going to have to change. We can maybe get into this in our next segment about what the future of that is going to have to look like. But Kodia, I think he's going to have to change his stripes a little bit in order to get the most out of this group in the short term.

00:19:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it is is even reflective in the secondary. I mean, they're wanting to, you know, kind of we're relying on Jason Pinnock to be you know, Hafunga, and that's going to be a problem I think going forward in you know. The other thing too, is like Greenlaw really hasn't played that much, but they've really missed that guy next to Fred Warner to let him kind of be the alien that he is and just go go make plays. And they just don't have that right now.

00:20:12
Speaker 1: And they're hopeful that de Winters will be that guy who a sixth round pick from two years ago that you haven't heard too much about and hasn't played that well. When he has played that they believe the light has turned on and he is one of those guys. And this is why I do like covering training camp because you can you can hear at least the excitement that they think he will be that dude and he's going to definitely play over their rookie third round pick Nick Martin. We'll have to wait and see, but they do have some rookies that'll play right away, like an Upton Stout and I love ute and up the next step next segments because I think talking about whether Salas defense still makes sense in twenty five is something fun to get to. So we're going to take a quick break. We won't takrante Urser, just like I really maybe maybe killing Cam Robinson. I like getting rid of it. We won't talk Chiefs offensive line. We did that already, Cross Simmons.

00:21:06
Speaker 4: I'm thinking we won't talk injuries like Rashaun Slater Seahawks run game.

00:21:10
Speaker 1: Oh man, we've hit that a lot. We'll see after the break back on NFL Daily. You can check us out on YouTube, like subscribe like it really helps us out. Leave us a review on iTunes as well. We were talking about Robert Sala and I think using that as a starting point, do you think his style of defense, for instance, fits in what's going on in twenty twenty five or has kind of defensive trends not made it obsolete, but made his type of defense less popular.

00:21:54
Speaker 3: I do think that the static nature of the wide nine, like we see with Schwartz in the Browns, what Quinn was trying to do at really in Dallas, I think that is kind of dying out. I mean, sports really had to pivot. This was a defense that dominated a couple of years ago, and just running man coverage. Man coverage is kind of like you're gonna tap out at some point, right. It's like think about your running a track meet for seventeen games. You might be able to do that for a while. But then we saw when they got into the playoffs they had a pivot to cover three get a couple of injuries. So I think with Sola, the one thing that he has an advantage on that him and Olbrick were able to build with the Jets was actually start building some quarter structures. You know, your quarter quarter half. They ran a ton of Cover six, which is quarter quarter half.

00:22:41
Speaker 2: They explain that to the listener. What does any of that mean?

00:22:44
Speaker 3: Okay, so all quarters is is you essentially are taking all four of your backfield defensive backs and you're capping all the verticals of the receivers. So there's typically five receivers that are eligible. One of those is going to probably be a running back, and so we're not talking empty, we're talking back in the backfield. So your four eligible receivers that are really on the line, those guys are going to be capped by defensive backs.

00:23:06
Speaker 4: And that's why they call it an umbrella coverage or a shell.

00:23:09
Speaker 2: Because if you need capped, what do you mean by.

00:23:11
Speaker 3: Cap They're going to make sure they're on top of the verticals, so you're not. It essentially is in the old style of NFL cover four has always been a really a third and long coverage. It's becoming more nuanced now because teams are starting to really really lean into quarters. One of the reasons why a lot of coaches don't like quarters is because it is teaching intensive. You have to actually have tags, you have to have certain ways that we're going to match routes, and you have to work those matches, and a lot of guys don't have the time nor do they have the knowledge. I know this sounds crazy, but quarters is not. This is not college football, this is the NFL. And there's a lot of guys that have not run quarters outside of like third and law.

00:23:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so when you play like this, and what we've seen is in the emergence of this type of system Fangio. But then also you know the the you know Jim Johnson and the old Sean McDermott, ron Rivera days. You know, those guys will always say, well, we were doing quarters before Fangio was doing quarters and all this stuff, and so now you're really seeing Fangio popularize this because basically what it does is it builds a dome over all of the unfolding layers of the passing game. And you hear people complain about like the shell and too high has ruined passing, and like all of these things. And that's why this has become a popular thing. What what Robert Sala had done in New York. And it's also why Jeff Ulbrich became such a popular coaching hire was because of the different ways that they were building that hyper aggressive wide front that could still cut off outside zone runs and screens that have become very very popular in the league because if you think about it this way, if your defensive line is automatically playing wider, you're able to those players are able to cut off the wider parts of the run game and the wider parts of the passing game wide zone and schemes and screens. So now you're going to a defense that can is trying, at least I don't think he has a personnel this year is trying to do both play wide up front and dynamic in the pass rush, which means you can't design as much pressure because your guys are more matching routes and playing in the backfield.

00:25:23
Speaker 1: You called your substack match quarters. So this style of defense gaining popularity in the NFL.

00:25:32
Speaker 2: It's good for you, good for.

00:25:34
Speaker 4: Business, and nobody was explaining it.

00:25:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were ahead of the game. How did you see that coming?

00:25:39
Speaker 3: I mean, well, because this is what you had to do in twenty ten to defend all the uber spread that was hitting. Seeing college football and then also the quarterreck run game is also an element. But the big difference is the quarters that you see at the college level and even at the high school level is not necessarily the same at the NFL level. And I will even go one further, like Vig Fangio isn't even a quarters guy. He's actually more of a rotational cover six guy. So he has cover two on one side right, which is a triangle. Think of it. Think of it like in geometry terms. Cover two is a triangle. You have a corner in the flat, you got a linebacker overhanging the scene, you have a safety on top. Quarters is a box. You got a flat, you gotta seam. You got two cap defenders, So you've created a box. And so what he's done is he's actually in one of his innovations, is really playing everything from a two hot shl. Yes, he's really a Cover three guy. Most of the Fangio adjacent guys are all cover three guys. But the way that it mirrors when you have a cover two and you can rotate it right, I can rotate it to the nickel or the passing strength, or I can use it to kind of get a zone double on the single receiver to the backside. When you do that, everything looks like wek rotation cover three, which means we're dropping the safety away from the nickel. So you get this muddying of quarterbacks have always looked at the the weak side safety for their indicator. Well, if that guy doesn't move, I don't have an indicator, And so the indicators are now at the corner, and there's no quarterback that is looking at the corner for the coverage indicator. So it's just an extension in all these guys, especially like with a solo. You go back in twenty eighteen to twenty nineteen, they hopped on that quarters train really quick and kind of ran with it. They run a little bit. It's not the same The Ravens system guys. So the McDonald's and the mentors, they have kind of picked up the Fangio system because that's all stemmed from the nineteen eighty nine Saints with the Jim Moore.

00:27:35
Speaker 1: Senior right, and then I mean there's all this stuff that feels new, all has antecedents to like what you're saying, and Jim Mora and Buddy Ryan and even Buddy Ryan's stuff he would say he was stealing it. And that's back in the eighties and early nineties with a.

00:27:50
Speaker 4: Lot of pressure. Now is coming from Bryan Man. It's crazy what's coming out these days.

00:27:55
Speaker 1: Right, So it's like it is amazing to think that's how football has of and work. But what's a team that you love Cody to watch now, whether it's twenty twenty four and coming into twenty twenty five in terms of what they're doing schematically and just like specifically with their players mentioned the players too, that like you think is on the cutting edge and really is about like where defense is right now and where it's going.

00:28:24
Speaker 3: I think the most fun defense for the past three years. I think if you ask a lot of NFL fans will probably like it's got to be the Vikings, right, they're just blitzing everybody face melter five thousand defense, right, Flora's.

00:28:35
Speaker 4: Just just over there, just like face melting.

00:28:37
Speaker 3: It's actually not the best defense to watch if you are a scheme nerd or you want to watch just some wild stuff on Sunday is to watch the Arizona Cardinals.

00:28:46
Speaker 2: Right. But that's partly because they don't have but why that's.

00:28:49
Speaker 1: The talent, right, I mean part because they're just throwing crazy stuff if they had better talent, do you think they would be as crazy? They haven't changed, but they haven't had the talent until this year, but.

00:29:00
Speaker 3: They But but even so, like if you go back and really watch what Gannon was doing with the Eagles, is a lot of the foundational stuff of what they're trying to do. And then he goes and he hires Patrick Tunney from from Florida, who is if you don't know who Patrick Toney is, he is a basically a cult legend in the coaching world. Like he is a he's a schematic nerd like me, that's why we're friends. But he he can do some things in the secondary and design secondary stuff and it fits the quarter structures with what Gannon was trying to get to. So gan is see the Fangio wants to run his six and eight stuff, so he wants to rotate the cover two, whereas Gannon was like, I just want to play quarters, and so what they're doing is true splitfield coverage where I mean they did this. If go back and watch the Chiefs preseason game and they're running a five man front, they're running robber coverage, so they're dropping a safety down, they're overlapping the corner to get into a cover too.

00:29:55
Speaker 2: They're doing it in the preseason.

00:29:56
Speaker 3: They're doing it in the preseason. They don't care.

00:29:59
Speaker 1: They you never see interesting schemes or everything is completely vanilla in the preseason. That's not really that true anymore, but I mean it is sometimes, but it's also not with others.

00:30:09
Speaker 4: It's true for some offenses, but I posit that it's it's not true anymore for teams that don't give a hoot because they will run their stuff because they know you're not going to see it. When when I talk to coaches around the league and they're they're trying to discern between what quarters is and what something different, different type of zones are they can't because everything looks so similar and these are at the top of their level coaches.

00:30:33
Speaker 1: So Jessie Miner's dropping out defensive tackles to pick off stets In Bennett in the fourth quarter of like a meeting in the meaningless preseason game.

00:30:40
Speaker 4: It meant a lot to stets In Bennett. Yeah, I'm just saying, but that's the thing. It's there. They're so good now that it's okay that they're showing things because they think that you're going to try to just play your offense. True anyway, because if you're a quarterback and you're having to do all of these things pre snap, and your coordinator that's having to do all these things pre snap that we've talked about before, that you have to do a the Cardinals. I remember a couple of years ago when Matthew Stafford was like, I didn't know what the heck I was seeing right with the Cardinals. So we just ran the ball fifty times, you know, and so and if you can, you should. But like, that's the thing about that defense. It's interesting is they don't care if they're showing you their work because they don't think you're going to be able to see it. They think you're just going to have to play your offense regardless because they don't think you're going to see it the way that they're actually showing their rules.

00:31:25
Speaker 1: So what is it that they do that that's so difficult? And do you think it can take the step forward? The Cardinals specifically, because yeah, the argument would be against them is like, Okay, year one they were just yeah, it was interesting, but they weren't good. And then year two, I think they punched above their weight, but ultimately they were like average. I think they punched above their weight in terms of the talent that they have, and they added a lot up front this year. Are they going to be as crazy this year? And like, what is it? What is it that gets you going that's so crazy that works? Ultimately, they they still were boom or bus. Like I said, I think they overachieved, but I'm also not They weren't one of the ten best defenses in the league last year by pretty much any like Advanced Metric fourteenth and DVO. They were playing well, and like I said, like they weren't playing with great players either, so that that's part of it.

00:32:19
Speaker 3: Well, I think they've kind of built. They knew that they needed to get the front structure right, that that's what they needed. So they bring in like Kalay's Campbell to work with a Walter Nolan right, and then you have you have Josh Wett who now they have a pass rusher, you have these hybrid, you still have a Xaving Colin. So like what ended up when they got there was it was like an island of misfit toys. Is that they had all these like hybrids that they didn't really know where they fit, and so what do you do? You build a hybrid defense around that. What they're doing really essentially is it's it's a build a three four. So they have three safeties across the backside with Buddha Baker really being the you know, the key cog and all all of this, and then they can blitz him. They can drop them to the boundary, they can drop them to the field. They can go and they can you know, run him, and they can run that regular Tampa structure. They can run quarters, they can run cover three. They can do almost anything out of that three high structure, which is another trend that we're seeing in the NFL. You know, we mentioned mentor on here several times. But third down is typically when we're starting to see these three high structures. But they play it from base down, So first and second down they are going to be in some sort of a five men front. There's going to be one linebacker sitting there, and you have no idea where Buddha Baker is going to end up, and even what they showed in the preseason, you have no idea what the final covered structure is going to even look like. So we can drop him down and you think, Okay, we know now what we're getting into. But then the whole back end is like an amba and it just like morphs into something that you don't even know. And so I really think, yes, there's a genius out of desperation, right, But I do think that there's real structure here. It's not a gimmick. They believe in it. And he's got one of the you know, Gann has got one of the youngest staffs, and I think it's refreshing that the younger generation. You're seeing these younger dcs get shots early. They're not getting shots in fifty and sixty when they're just like, I ain't messing up because I just got this job. It's like, now, hey, let's do some weird stuff.

00:34:25
Speaker 1: Nick Rallis is thirty two years old and he's had that job what for two years?

00:34:29
Speaker 2: So yeah, he was thirty.

00:34:30
Speaker 4: And I will say there's also this growing trend and I wonder if you could speak a little bit about this too. Cody is a lot of these young especially younger dcs that are coming up. And Chris Shule is one of these guys in LA and Jesse Minter was talking about how he studied. He studied so much offense and he sat in so many offensive rooms. Kevin O'Connell and Brandon Staley used to do this to each other. They used to go into each other's meetings and try to sitit it. But Nick Rallis, the first time I ever met Nick Rallis was when he was in an offensive coaching incubator, like studying offenses. And so I think what they're seeing is how fast offenses are moving. How you can't can you have to come up with a defense and a plan that is going to be a catch all for all kinds of rapidly moving and shifting offensive cycles. Okay, the run game quote unquote is back heavier personnel, using multiple tight ends, even a fullback. We didn't talk about Seattle's run game, but Robbie outs like starting to use the full back back in like these throwback Shanahan which you say throwback now, but what was it twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, But like these things are coming back. So you have to have a defense where it is going, to anticipate what offenses are doing and where offenses are going. You have to understand that in order to build what will be a catch all for regardless of where you're at in the team building.

00:35:48
Speaker 3: Well, I think too that this generation is starting with my generation. I'm about turn forty here here in January. My generation was probably that first generation in the early two thousands that was like introduced to the spread. And then so are coaching careers have been through the spread lens, whether it was in college. And then we see that spread explosion really in twenty eighteen when it broke football at the NFL level, and these guys are used to like, hey, we're already outmatched offensively, how can we figure this out? So a lot of these guys are willing to do some different things and think outside the box and then, like you said, there's been a trend really within the last five to ten years of offensive coaches going and picking a really talented young defensive coach and bringing them over and sitting in them in the office and having them tell me, hey, how are they figure okay, how are they matching this? What are the rules for this? How can we take advantage of that? And so offenses have accelerated, but they're also pulling that knowledge back and bringing it back into the defensive room, and it's just recycling and so that cat and mouse game is just kind of continuing.

00:36:55
Speaker 1: There is I don't think a fear, but do you think there are There are these things pieces out there is like defense is making a comeback, that defense is ahead, Like how A do you think that's remotely true at all? And b Like along with what Jordan was saying in terms of right now the trends on offense being back to getting like a little heavier, a little more run heavy, Like, what do you think defenses are gonna do this year to help counter that?

00:37:22
Speaker 3: Well, I just think historically the NFL goes through very distinct cycles and these are predictable. We can see this. You can go all the way back to the seventies when Arnsbarker and the fifty three defense, this was basically the birth of the three four. Then offense is advanced. Then you have LT we have the move tied end from Gibbs, so we have our h back and twelve personnel packages come in, we have you know, you keep going further down, and then now we get into where defenses have essentially become a bunch of hybrid positionless players. We talk about it all the time, it's been there, but like we really truly are now the one thing about football that will remain this name. So you talk about will defense ever, you know, just dominate like it did in the nineties when we were playing the Andanderthal ball in three yards and a cloud of dust? But I don't think it will.

00:38:10
Speaker 2: The spreads one, the NFL won't let it.

00:38:12
Speaker 4: No spread one. Yeah, passing one.

00:38:14
Speaker 3: Passing one. Analytically we know it's more efficient than running the running the ball. We we now understand how to manipulate space. They know how to motions and and the way that the rules are set up.

00:38:25
Speaker 1: With say if not, the NFL just changed the rules right exactly exact. I'm not joking and that's obvious. They've done it throughout the history.

00:38:32
Speaker 3: Well, offense, Look, I'm a defensive guy and I can just from from experience. People love offense, that's what puts.

00:38:41
Speaker 2: But I love defense.

00:38:44
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a glutton for punishment, So yes, I'm a defensive coach by trade, so yes. But the offensively, I think the way that this cycle always works is that the defense comes back right, they figure it out, and then the offense is forced to then do something new and so I I think defensively, one of the things we've mentioned it the quarters kind of waned last year, but it didn't wane in the fact that people weren't running it. It just came up and like more people are running these. I call it targeted coverages. It's the Fangio system where you're moving a cover two around, whether it's to the nickel away. What you're building is backstops and zone doubles. So I'm going to cap your best receiver. But then I'm also if you want to run them across the field because you don't want to run a vertical, I'm going to create a backstop away from him. So that's where these quarter structures comes in. And I think that's one of the things that people don't understand about defense. They just think two high shells either cover two or it's quarters. And it's not like Fangio isn't a quarters guy, but he transitioned into one. And why because what are offenses doing right now? In the NFL? They're getting tighter and tighter and tighter. One of the biggest things last year was what's called a wave concept. So you essentially run a vertical to the middle of the field and then you take two deep crosses and you run them across. It's the old yankee or the old cross country concept that's been around for football forever. But they're adding an extra guy, and so how are you going to defend that?

00:40:15
Speaker 4: Now?

00:40:15
Speaker 3: We got guys in quarter structures. Make sure that you can have guys on both sides and they just tilt. They just tilt, they can cross key it and so they're picking it up. And so that's why I think quarters will come back. I think man coverage has slowly gone down, and then two man. Nobody runs two man anymore.

00:40:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and explain what two man is?

00:40:33
Speaker 3: Two safeties high man underneath what kills two men? Running quarterbacks? What do we have on almost every single team a quarterback that can scramble and so you don't. It's like less than one percent.

00:40:44
Speaker 1: And also like that, it is interesting that the value of like man cornerbacks who are that's the best thing that they do feels which is weird, because that's that's what you think about with cornerbacks, like their value has gone down like those sorts of players I'm trying to think of, who's a good example, like a Carlton Davis is probably less valuable than he would have been, you know, fifteen years ago.

00:41:07
Speaker 4: And I think part of it too is because these coverages can morph around how routes are unfolding on the field, that automatically actually increases the importance of cornerbacks who have played in a match zone system or a system that at least has pattern matched or a system that at least which means that you are understanding where the route is going to go. You're not playing a space on the field like a zone would. Instead, you're playing where you know the route is going to go. And that's where I think this is different. That you're having defensive players who can do more than ever, that are smarter than ever that can fit. Have seen more football than ever that can fit in these like ellipses around the back portions of fields in accordance with where the offense is trying to attack them. And I think that's why, in part you saw a reaction and in part because the nickels were so small, you saw a reaction to teams doing the thing that I just said. Matthew Stafford said, he told Sean McVay to do I don't know what I'm seeing. Run the damn ball. Yeah, that's exactly why. And that's exactly why you're seeing this spring out. You only get maybe a year or two of this before the next thing comes out, the next offense breaks, defense thing comes.

00:42:18
Speaker 2: Out, and waves happened so fast, like and I think.

00:42:21
Speaker 4: The increase the improvement of technology is a part of that. Like we're talking about coaches that are sharing so many things with each other now, where it used to be like I carry my playbooks strapped to my body, you know, into my house at night because I don't want someone else taking it from me. Now everything's available to watch and take. And these guys are are running these clinics with each other. They're bringing college coaches up to run clinics with them as offensive coaches, to sit in to hear what they know, to pick their brains kind of like what we're making Cody do for us here today.

00:42:49
Speaker 2: I know we appreciate it. Cody. Yeah, before we let you go because we're wrapping up here.

00:42:54
Speaker 1: It's interesting, you know, you mentioned kind of like, Okay, you got the five down line men, five up front, and there's like one linebacker on the field, and that is something I'm curious to hear your thoughts on just linebackers right now. Not that they're an endangered species, but it is really interesting to think, maybe more than any position on defense, over the last twenty years, have evolved and their importance has on one level minimized because there's just less of them literally on the field that can do everything. But man, it's important to have that one guy for Jesse Minner to have that day on Henley, that's the one linebacker on the field. So you watching football and film like who do you love to watch and maybe talk a little bit about how that position has evolved and becomes so so difficult to find like the right person to do that.

00:43:47
Speaker 3: Well. I think a great example of where we are in modern linebacker play is the commanders, because what you have is a Bobby Wagner who is a traditional mic linebacker. He is an a gap fitter. He's going to plug the run. He can. He's good enough in coverage that he can give you a little bit of space in the middle of the field, but you don't necessarily want him always guarding somebody. And then you have right next to him as Frankie Luvu, who is he an edge is he a linebacker? He can be whatever you need him to be. You know he is staying in that. You have a guy like Zach Bond, who essentially was an old school Ted linebacker. Ted has a te in it, meaning he just lined up on the tight end and played essentially a glorified nine techniques, so he was outside of the tight end and he was just a wall builder for the defense. And then he comes to the Eagles and Fangils moving him around like he was moving Andrew Van Ginkel. And so I think what you see with these off ball linebackers and really where we are because of this hybridization of everything. You can't just be a four down front anymore. You know, you have to be able to get into odd fronts. You can't just be a single high coverage team. You have to run some of these two high structures. And I think what you're seeing is you have to add value now as a player, we're in an add value now, Like you have to be able to be an off ball linebacker, but then can you pass rush? Can you add value or is your added value in the coverage so you can run. You know, you have to find ways to add value. And I think the linebacker position they're kind of now two rooms. We have our kind of hybrid guy that can go down and he can pass rush, but then we also have our traditional linebackers that you still need in the game because they still have to fit the a gap.

00:45:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:45:25
Speaker 4: I when I was on my training camp circuit, like traveling around the camps, it was interesting. A coach that I talked to described it as this giant like combating math equation, right where if you already automatically know that the way that offenses can play. Now you have a running back who can work out of the passing game and also run the ball. That's a plus two one trait another trait two ads, it's a plus two. You have tight ends who can block and be a mismatch in the pass game. That's another plus two. You have receivers who can block and also be a mismatch in the pass game, that's another plus two. So if you're not at least a plus two play at a skill on offense, you are not going to be on the field for as many downs. They're going to try to take you off as much as possible. Conversely, on the defensive side, if you cannot become a plus two player, whether it's the positions you can play or the phases of football that you can contribute in, you are not going to be on the field at this point in football, and you're just trying to match the opposite side's numbers advantage, which is always the dance that happens when you're scheming him game plan against people.

00:46:27
Speaker 1: Unless you join the Raiders as a linebacker, who I think Pete Carroll is just like lining up like not plus two's just guys that they're old school from the nineties and kind of bring it. No, No, that's hard, you got me thinking, Johd Campbell, I mean, is that is that plus one? And Zach Bond I think is sort of a prototype now, which is crazy to think about based on where he was a year ago at this time, But like, how do you think those two guys together, Like they're going to deploy those two What can you do with two linebackers like that?

00:47:00
Speaker 3: Well, that's kind of one of the trends we're seeing is that, Okay, we're a nickel base the defense, meaning that we're gonna have five DB's on the field. Okay, Traditionally that's with a four down line. Okay, the Penny front, which is a five to one, which is what we talked about with the Cardinals. That's kind of people are starting to move away from it because those edges aren't dynamic enough. And when I put five to one out there, you know, like when our PENNI pegage is out there, you know, here's a certain set of things that we can do, and here's a certain set of things that we can't. So it makes it often seasier. But if I go a four down lineman and I'm in a regular traditional nickel, but then I walk one of my guys down, whether it's strong or weak. Now were and now we're into a five min front, changes the blocking changes the protections. Is he going to drop back out?

00:47:45
Speaker 2: Is he not?

00:47:45
Speaker 3: Are you gonna blitz and then drop them? Like, there's a million different things that now variable. So if a guy like you know McVeigh is going to run everything through eleven personnel, but you know your your receivers, you know, a fossil full back, Okay, well that's great less than a half person right, So what if we did the same thing on defense? And I think that's why you were starting to see too. Like another trend is safety collection, right, big Nickels back from a decade ago. It's back, We're going to have three safeties on the field. So I think that part of it. Now Fangio has two guys that he can do that with and you don't know where they're going to come from.

00:48:19
Speaker 1: It's also just humans are getting better at doing everything athletically. I feel like that that's underrated. It's like my theory that you know, almost every NFL game has a play that's better than any play that happened in the seventies. It's just like the humans are advancing. I mean, you look at basketball, you look at tennis, you look at football. A lot of the things that you just said about football, like to me. You could say about basketball, you could say about tennis. Where is everyone can now do everything It used to just be like this is his style play and it's positionless and it's offense defense just like we're getting better.

00:48:53
Speaker 2: It's exciting. Cody.

00:48:55
Speaker 1: It was a pleasure to have you on. We gotta do this again. My brain is it's expanding, it's going to explode from everything I learned here on defense.

00:49:05
Speaker 2: And I love having you on. And we got to make this flight worth it.

00:49:08
Speaker 1: I mean, you came all the way out here for a little old NFL Daily.

00:49:13
Speaker 2: Go check out Substack.

00:49:14
Speaker 4: I can tell, yes, I can tell you're very pleased with yourself when we are going to football practice.

00:49:20
Speaker 2: Man, okay, you went to sight Ran Come on now, like what you what do we doing?

00:49:23
Speaker 1: He told me that he came out for NFL Daily, So I'm just taking there.

00:49:26
Speaker 4: You're the host of NFL Daily. Of course he said that to you.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: I loved it, so yeah, make it count. Check out Cody's substack match Quarters. Join the twenty thousand subscribers there for match Quarters on substack, and he's got the Let's Talk Ball podcast as well. It was a pleasure, Jordan. You will be back with me next week. But the next time you'll hear from me will be Sunday night. Yes, the last of our weekly Sunday evening recaps with Nick Chuck.

00:50:00
Speaker 2: I'm gonna miss it.

00:50:01
Speaker 4: I know. I like the vibe. They're good, good vibes in that.

00:50:04
Speaker 1: I feel like you start off and you're like excited for the preason, and then you're ready for it.

00:50:09
Speaker 2: Then I don't know what it says about me, but this.

00:50:11
Speaker 1: Year, I think I've actually like enjoyed the preseason more than ever.

00:50:13
Speaker 2: So we'll be back Sunday evening. Football's back