Lessons learned from this season's conference title game participants

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You can get cashback on flights and hotels and even airport parking. It's really simple, super joyful and so satisfying. Watching that cashback build up, oh joy indeed. Join Top Cashback.co.uk today and start getting money back on your everyday shopping and travels. This is the same track from Peeke blinders, the immortal man. Featuring new tracks from Green Chat, Amy Taylor from Amalanda Sniffer, girl in the year above, Lancome and Nick Cave. Peeke blinders, the immortal man's soundtrack. Listen now on Spotify. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. We had a really fun show today. We had a really good time. We do the show every year now. The final four lessons, teams that made the conference championship games. What can we learn from the way that they were built? What can we take forward from that? What should other teams pick up on? We've done the show since I've started doing the podcast. So it's been I think five or six years, five or six different iterations. Most of the time, the guests that we've had on that show is some combination of me, Nate Tyson, Bill Barnwell. So we just decided to do that again. Our old buddies, Barnwell from ESPN, Nate from Yahoo, joined us today to just walk through about a dozen lessons we can learn from the teams that were left on conversation, championship weekend, Patriots, Broncos, Seahawks, Rams. What should teams take from that? Are there any things that maybe you're a little bit misleading? What does it tell us about the NFL in general? This was a incredibly fun, wide-raging conversation. Let's get to it with both of those guys right now. It would has become an annual tradition at this point. We've done the show probably last four or five years. And some combination of the two of you have been on most of the times that we've done it. I figured this was the chance for us to get the band back together. It is time to run through some lessons from the final four teams left in the NFL here to help me do that. Our two of my old and wonderful friends. First of all, from ESPN, it's my good friend Bill Barnwell. Barra, how are you doing, Ben? Looks like I dressed for a different podcast. So I did not get the... You're so fixated on this. You just looked at my face. You look great. Wow. Okay. So in between, I don't look that nice. I look great. I'm going to take Nate's side of this. Thank you for complimenting me, my friend. Of course. So I'm going to have to admit that you're not dressed... You're not dressed for that much of a different occasion than we are. But you look great. I'm not disagreeing with him. Also joining us today. It's our whole friend from Yahoo. Nate's, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. Like I said before, the show I didn't wear a hat on our Sunday show because I finally got a haircut after two months. And I thought some of our listeners, they acted like I was wearing a suit or a talk. Like they were just in shock. They just saw my hair for the first time in about two years. So yeah, no, I'm doing wonderful. Very happy to be here. I was glad when you sent that text. Like, hey, final four teams. Time. Hey, it's time. Let's do it. So very excited to be here. I love the show. There are like five or six shows we do every single year where like no matter what the staffing on the show looks like, no matter how many times a week we do the show, no matter what any of the other structural things. Are we're going to do this podcast? And so this is one of them every year. We're doing this because I think it's such a fun way to use these collection, this collection of teams, these four teams as a way to point to larger themes about the NFL. I think it's a really good exercise. It's useful and it's fun. And so we're going to continue going back to it. This is a very simple kind of deal here. We each came with, I said four ish to you guys, right? It was four ish. Was that the door? I was not doing it. I think I have like 12. So I'm going to another. I said four ish. Four ish lessons. You think you can pull from the final four teams left in the NFL for those of you guys that are wondering. That means the Patriots, the Broncos, the Rams and the Seahawks. So what kind of through lines can we find from those teams that we can maybe attach ourselves to and use as directives for how teams should think about how to get to this weekend moving forward? Barnwell, you have 12. So we're going to start with you. What is your first lesson that you took away from the final four teams in the NFL this year? Okay. So this is not my idea. I didn't come up with this obviously. I don't Greg Olson has talked about this a lot during broadcast. Obviously I think Greg Olson does phenomenal work. But it is born out by the final four teams. And that is this idea that what really matters in the NFL now is not yardage, field goals, but explosive place. And your ability to produce explosive place and stop explosive place. And I know like there's a little bit of totality to that. Like, you know, you want to get a lot of those and you want to stop a lot of those. I don't think that's like a brand new idea. But if you look at explosive play differential and I think this is 12 yard runs, 16 yard passes or longer. Seahawks, number one in explosive play differential. And I think the ninth best explosive play differential rate since 2000. Behind a bunch of Shanahan teams. The great start 2001 greatest show on turf for Rams. And then a couple of Legion of Boomteens. Rams number two. Patriots number four. Broncos number five. Four of the five teams. The top of the NFL and explosive play differential are in the final four. Can you guys guess who number three is? Colts? Packers? That is a good guess. Packers. Packers. Yes. So this idea that like V best teams, what they are doing, Mr. Giving up your arts here and there. Does it really matter? Patriots are terrible in the red zone, for example, the worst red zone defense and football. But if you can control the explosives and you can create explosives, that is what actually makes the difference and moves the needle in the NFL in 2025. I love this. Where are you, natives? You've done your like your suplex stuff over the last couple years, which for you is like a, it's a way, it's a good measure. And it's a good thought where you're combining essentially success rate and explosive play rate and trying to build them into one metric to get a sense of not only how exposed with these offenses are, but how consistent down to down they are. Have you noticed any sort of vacillations on the line between explosiveness and success rate where it started to trend more toward big plays with the offenses that you're like, this is what you should be chasing? Yeah, no, absolutely. They're, for passing, I found the goal number is 14%. Just pass attempts that doesn't include scrambles. I've kind of made up my no own little like scrambling explosives as well, because I've realized that the running explosives can get skewed. But no, 14% passing. And then I found rushing the explosive, it's explosive runs matter if you don't get explosive passes. But if you do have explosive passes, then explosive runs becomes a little bit less necessary. And I felt like there was rushing success rate, 40% kind of the gold mark, you know, you can go plus one minus one from there. But more or less that's the mark I'm looking for. But no, I've really taken this as some of my dads I've, has believed in. And really he got it from Brian Billick. Brian Billick had toxic differential, which was explosives and turnovers. Not just turnover differential. So that's something I've always kind of looked at. But no, I really do think that's the way to make a run because especially when you feel in playoff time more than anything is how clank down these defenses are. They're so keyed in on everything you want to do. Watch what the Seahawks did against the Rams offense. One of the truly one of the best offenses we've seen in 20 years, like really have the new millennium. And when every third and fourth down, they can do anything. They didn't have any of the yards on third down for almost the entire game. I did not check the update that's that at the end of the game. They had negative yards and that's because you had to get it on first and second down. They're so tight to what formations you want to use, motions you want to use, what they expect you to run that getting an explosive on first and second down, then we don't have to be perfect on third down. Then we don't have to be perfect for five plays in a row. So it's just it's always been important. But it kind of got a little away from that because I think it became a little bit easier as far as just to be efficient. And now I think as the, you know, we see how these defenses play very top down, very keep everything underneath you. Be able to break that bubble is just the key to everything. It opens up so much you have the threat and it has to be a valid threat. It's like three point shooting. That's always why I kind of compare it to embassable. It's interesting now because I think that we used to live in a world where there are a lot of explosives in a single high defensive universe. If you go back to like the 2017, 2018 Rams. And it's funny watching because the bears are really an explosive offense, right? Yeah, but the bears were more that explosive throwing the ball against the Rams. And I think it's because where are you seeking out these explosives with the new offensive world that we play in? Go look at where the Niners, go look at the Niners offense against the sea ox. I know they were banged up by the time we played those two games, but where the Niners want to throw the ball all over the middle of the field, intermediate areas of the field, that as defenses are structured like the sea ox are, it's going to be really difficult to create explosives there. Well, where did the Rams get their explosive against the sea hawks? You can still, despite what some people on the internet say, win one on one outside the number shots against quarters. That in this universe is still possible. And that's where the Rams were getting all of their explosive plays. And so where it used to be, could you hit these explosive 18 yard intermediate crossers off play action? Now, explosives are still available to you. You just have to access them in different parts of the field. And the team that could do that against Seattle is the only team that was consistently able to string together explosive plays against them. Other thing I would just mention is we do have different rules now, right? And so going back 10 years, the average field position starting to drive is up three yards from where it was a decade ago. And so with the new touchback rules, with the desire to kick off and play a kickoff as opposed to, you know, touchback coming out of the 20, you only need one explosive to score. And you combine that with the fact that you have field goal kickers who can hit from 55 from 60 teams who are willing to attempt that, you know, increase in fourth down rate and the successes on fourth down. Like, do you really only need one explosive play? Not like a 40 yard explosive. You might be able to get a 20 yard explosive, maybe get one first down, maybe not even a first down after that. And that's in field goal range. So you might get three out of that one before, you know, you need it more than that. You need an explosive and a couple more first down to score. And so it does, you know, even getting that one explosive, you've been getting an extra three points that maybe you wouldn't have gotten a decade ago, just because of where you were starting on the field adds up and makes a difference over the long run. I like this a lot because I think that when you get to the other side of the field, you're more prone to go for them, forked out. So if you get one explosive play, now you're in a spot where like there is a larger present. And I'm sure the numbers would bear this out if you looked at them. I'm like, there, because if you're on the other side of the 50, your chances of scoring a touchdown increase not only because you're closer to the end zone, but because you're more prone to go for it and use all four downs in those situations. And another thing I think is funny in talking to defensive coordinators for a show we did earlier this year about the kicking changes. Multiple guys I talked to were like, I used to be in a spot where on the other side of the 50, I'm playing with a lot of cushion. I don't want to give up explosives because I want them to string drives together. Well, if you're starting on the 35, that's not the mindset anymore because if you're stringing together a couple, couple of first downs, you're already in opponent territory. So now I think there's an easier chance to hit explosives based on defensive mindset because of where the drives are starting. So there's just so many things that play into this. It's fascinating. No, and it even comes down to receiver size because now you're seeing more zone and the ways that you beat so much cover two and cover six like the sea. The sea. The sea. The sea. I'll show more cover six and quarters, but like these two ID fences is dig routes and stuff over the middle and those big routes like you say on the outside against quarters, but that all requires kind of size to like window spots because there's just so much tighter coverage. Somewhere areas where there's just a lot of muck they have to throw to when it was the single high world when everybody was running lesion of boom stuff. All right, if it's three match, it's like you said it was those over crossing routes. That's speed. That's more of a speed thing because you're running away from a guy as opposed to catching and throwing two areas that are tight with the guy over the top and underneath. It's just yeah, it's a really cool thing. You actually have some segues from here at my point, but no, this is everything. This is going to be the name of the game, but it just cranks up even more because defenses are going like I bet you can't do that eight times in a row. I bet you can't do it eight times a row and that's what they they're winning right now. I would actually say you hear how excited he is, bar and wall about the idea that we're bringing back six four perimeter receivers. The fact that that's going to be the back of the bogie guy you can you can just hear the glee in his voice that we're training back that direction. I can't. Carol Anna Panthers fan they ties talking about the off the top of a receiver room after my own heart. It's it's the best. I know I mean shoot the Rams try to trade for Tetoro McMillan. So if you imagine the botanical and the Nukua McMillan. Oh, this is exactly what I wanted. All right, Nate, let's hear your first one. If you have something that's an extension of that, that's great. But it sounds like you have stuff. It's in the same general vicinity. I do. Well, I got I'm curious how I want to segue here because I have two points. I could. But I'll go with this and this is more of talking about size and everything and talk about skill players and everything. And I know tight ends have been a big discussion of this this whole season than 13 personal all that. I went why tight ends not not a question. Just the letter why tight ends is how important those guys are is basically with the personnel defenses with guys that are valid blockers. So you used to be kind of tight and be a valid receiver. And that's more yeah, every all these guys are because it's just how they have to play in college. Now it's more how can you play in line? How can you play more snaps and impact more snaps and something I've just I always just love to see the kind of the sea saw of this about where what kind of guys are valuable. I mean the bears Colson Loveland. This is why I prefer him over worn in that process because I said yeah, I really like warren. But Loveland down the road is going to be able to impact more snaps. And if you look at these teams, the final four teams, AJ Barner, of course, great blocker. Good good enough receiver where he's a valid receiver. He's the guy that you know you can't just wash away on Parkinson. Of course, and the ramps tight ends by I say Parkinson most importantly because he is a blocker and a valid receiver as well. The Patriots guys, this is kind of kind of tapers off, but they always have two guys are playable. I wouldn't say they're great blockers and Hooper and Henry, but they're playable and they're not negatives. They're not negatives. They don't they don't have to be hidden. And that's what again, this is what again to my point and then Trotman with the Broncos, very valid blocker Adam Trotman and I you can feel a little bit of the deficiencies there, but I always he can be run behind. And if you look on next year's stats, strong side runs, so runs towards the tight end are have a 43% success rate and negative point of our EPA per carry. That's the highest it's been in next year's stats history. And 2017, which is the furthest you can kind of like you can go to 2016, but 2017 the numbers are a little bit better. That number was 37% success rate and negative point, oh nine, EPA per carry. So and this and this is just a not just a philosophical thing, but also the personnel that's being used defenses are not only using nickel and dime. So it's making these tight ends there 245 to 48. Those guys can be wise now when 15 20 years ago, oh, you're an receiving title and you're not big enough to handle D N's because this my last little point here, average weight of NFL D N's and outside linebackers. So this is true media minimum 200 snaps this year is 263 and a half pounds 10 years ago in 2015. There's 275 pounds. It's dropped over 10 pounds. And so now that's just open up more possibilities for these guys. And I think the impact that they can bring in not just the final 14 Josh Oliver got paid this year John Bates from Washington got paid this year. We talked about Jackson haws and milling. Yeah, another team and this is going to swap for their six of all stuff from last year. Exactly. Because no, I suppose that. That was a six oh, but why why this is so fun is that it the six offensive line stuff from last year is already outdated. Yeah, because because it's and it's so funny how fast it's like half a page. Because now it's not just just like you can get to it in different ways. Well, I think a lot of teams did it this year. More teams did it this year, but then you saw the best offenses already move past it. Right. And so if you kind of tapped into that this year, you were already like a half step behind. Because and I think it's for a few different reasons. One, if you have three tight ends in the field, like the Rams do, all those guys are valid receivers. Despite the fact that we saw probably like 10 throws to six offensive lineman this season on accident, which for some of my favorite plays of the entire year. Like those guys are not. The paper's base one was one of the canard was one of my favorite plays of the entire season. They did one better in the in the divisional round. 18 miles an hour. I'm the rest. We're out of the show. Having those guys all three of them can catch passes is just such a huge advantage. And the bills did the exact same thing, but the other part of it and they I think this plays so well into your point about the smaller defense events. There are two games that are coming to mind to me when I think about how these multi-titan tight end teams are trying to run the ball out of those sets. If you think about the bills game against the Broncos in the playoffs and then the way the Rams attack the Seahawks, they're getting those tight ends on the move and they're trying to cave in that side or cave out that side. You're just trying to move that big that perimeter defender and get space out there. And so that is impossible in part because of tight ends and because tight ends just move better. Right. You get those guys on the move. They're just better blockers in space. And so that attacking that specific area. We're just trying to get like this collective movement on these edge players to kind of blow that side out and try to find explosives there. That's something that just kept coming up over and over again this season when you watch it. And I feel like that's a combination of the tight ends being on the field and those edge defenders just getting a little bit smaller. You're retaining like a sort of level of plausible deniability, right? Like I think there's this push and pull on both sides of the football of we want to hide what our intentions are, post-stab for as much as possible. And you can do that with on defense we see teams spinning their safeties, we see teams providing different looks and teams and work. That's about that than they used to be. And I think on offense one of the ways you do that, obviously you can do it with scheme. We'll talk about a lot of other ways, but you can do that with personnel. And so, you know, in a league where you want to be running the ball more often where you're being incentivized on defensive structure to run the ball more often, like being in multi-tied and groupings, being in, you know, if you're playing 11, even if you're playing with one set on the field, as long as you have a tight end who can block like it is such a difference maker. And so, like this isn't like some, you know, again, genius point. It's pretty obvious, but it does, I think it is worth saying. I'm not going to get too later on. That's kind of in the same vein. But just sort of like this idea of, you know, you're opening up the possibilities and leaving the opposing team with fewer towels for what you want to do. That's it. As you're lining up. It's a tendency thing. And that's what so I have a point here is, as like defenders are smaller, but defenses are smarter than ever. Like ever, ever. And I easily can say that. And just when you feel them playoff time, especially in these, I mean, these staffs are so good, they know your tendencies like, I mean, to a T, who's on the field, where they're aligned, where the odds that you're going to do something. And again, this is like a rock paper scissors thing. Yeah, you might not do it 100% of the time. But if I know that Sonsos in line 80% of the time, they don't run that to his direction. Don't concade might be my best example. All right. If he's attached to the formation, they're not running right here. It's either play action, they're passing, or it's an RPO. And but then defenses are so good now. You used to be able to get away with that. But then now, then it becomes the smart offensive coaches played off of that. Like Jake Bobo touched out and the sea ox. I know that's a receiver. But also check downs and how offensive coaches use these guys has been weaponized. You talked about caving in putting those guys on the move. That's been I think the genius of what the shahan guys called the Zorro concept or guys emotion and kicks it out. That was a necessity because these tight ends couldn't block the tight defense of hands across from them. And so let's give them some help. And now you can see that kind of popularized the check downs the Broncos use and other teams of Packers kind of popularize this. Where the guy chips and then tight end releases. We talked about this barn while we texted about the Steelers doing it. Where they chip and the guy releases in the and then there's a swing route right there. So even the guys that are might be, oh, this guy's just I would just make up a guy Josh Oliver's on the field. Okay. He's not going to catch a pass. Well, now he's getting weaponized as a weed blocker. And now we can't just tee off on that. That this is actually a pass by the end get to and on top of it to bring up to your guys' first point. Talking about like how aggressive coaches are and where everything is scoring ranges. Third downs have become second downs in some some instances. So a third and five I can run 12 personnel with my why tight end. I got that's not a receiver because it's technically almost a rundown not rundown. But like a second and long. Then what used to be a third and long. And I think that's another thing. So those downs become more like these guys are on the field more because those downs are more live down for them. So it's just as all of it kind of tying together and I just think that receiving tight ends hit a kind of a ceiling. And now the blocking aspect of it is becoming more prioritized and becoming more available valuable commodity for these guys. Yeah. And then if you are approaching third and five and saying, okay, we can present the threat over running the football. This way you have to run the football right because you can have a plausible deniability of. We can come with 12 personnel and just run on third and five because we're going to run on the four down as well. Now you can open up explosives off a plaction on third and five. Before that was not typically a down we might have the opportunity to spike an explosive you were to bring to the sticks. The ramps go 12 personnel on third and five with Parkinson Ferguson and Adams and Nekua and they could run anything. And you have to you have to defend it now. It's not third and five. I was 10 years ago. It's like, all right, pass. Thousand percent pass here guys. All right. Here comes the blitz. They might just run dual on us run all over us like that. It's very cool to see all these teams again to it now. It's funny you guys talking about this idea of you know defense is being able to hide what they want to do in their intentions and then offense trying to do the same. That's a mean. This isn't one of my points because it doesn't really fit the Broncos, but it fits the ramps and the sea ox. 100 percent. The reintroduction of high play action rates this season specifically by teams like the ramps where the ramps didn't run play action four years ago. And they went to the Super Bowl and now the highest play action rate in the game again. So the reason they went away from play action is because was defensive structures changed the ways that you would access play action with those crossers became less effective. Well now they've gone back to it without trying to access those routes. I think in large part because in my mind, this is how I've kind of bucketed it. Play action offense is the same as starting into high shells on defense. It's just a way to be able to do anything. It's just a way to hide your intentions. And so even if you're not accessing the same types of explosive shots off play action, you were seven eight years ago. The confusion you create by lining up under center and using play action, you're doing the exact same thing to defenses that defenses have tried to do to offenses over the last five years. And so the more things you can do to credibly provide the defense with three different options before the play, the better and more and more offenses. I think went back to that world this season after we trended much more to a spread out shotgun, even like the two teams that did it that I think were the teams that like, oh man, like this is canary into coal mine stuff. We should be paying attention to this when the ramps on the nine are stopped using under center play action. That's when the league changed for like three years. And the fact that they're now back there, I think really shows us what that cycle has looked like. Yeah, I am. I'm in the middle of watching every single see hawks play action stop from this year for the Super Bowl preview. That's what I stopped doing to do this podcast. Yeah, Ram, Ram's number one under center this year. See hawks number two in terms of under center rate. Patriots nine Broncos 16. Yeah, and the face is just speaking with your talking about and I think offhand someone told me this. So I don't know if I can like use the quote, but they're they I know the shane hang guys and I think even Kyle specifically said like you can't run play action. How you use to because now everyone does what Jim shorts used to do just tee off on it have the guy. How Drake may got sacked against the Broncos on a bootleg. So just a traditional fake zone bootleg outside the pocket got sacked 10 years ago. No defense. I would have been doing that and running straight at him. That's that's totally changed how defenders are taught to play because everybody's running that. So now all the fakes is if you really watch the Rams, but see hawks too. It's not zone fakes. It's duo fakes. It's downhill straight play action. It's a different type of play action that they're using now and the guys that it's so cool that the guys that kind of popularize the old one are now doing the one that's not really their offense. That's Sean Pete and stuff. That's Eric or L that's what my dad like that's what they grew up with and what they did that's what the Cowboys and deck press club and doing for 10 years now. But now it's kind of cool to see the guys that were the zone guys doing the duo gap fakes now. So that's literally what I thought works. I'm literally charting meant you know gap gap zone runs on play action and how often they're going out of gap schemes and they can still get to like the boot stuff. If they're faking off duo like it's not like you can't get to that stuff just because you're not running outside zone. It's just you have to account for the edge defender now like it's naked. We just see it. You have to account for them in some. Yeah. Even and even the slices toward those guys, which is exactly what happened on the Patriots play you're talking about. Even that's not enough. Like you have to actually account for that guy and how you're protecting and I think more and more teams are learning that. All right. Let's take our first quick break and then I'm going to come back with my first one. Working across teams is tough, but Asana helps you handle it. Asana AI can spot roadblocks and assign work to keep everything on track. That's how work gets handled. Visit us at asana.com. Hey, this is Martin Tommy from P1 and our podcast is currently being sponsored by Sky Sports. F1 is back on March 6th with the Australian Grand Prix and this is a proper reset. 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And I know it's almost like a truism when it comes to comes to professional football, but it is worth bringing back every year we do this. And I think the one small nuance to this one that it has been coming for a couple of years. But now I think we're kind of firmly there. I had a coach who I really respect and has a role in their team building process two years ago. I believe with my whole soul that interior defensive alignment or more valuable than that drushers. He's like, I believe it like wholeheartedly now. I think we're getting there when it comes to those guys and how they affect the game. And so if you look at these four teams specifically, just on a general level, according to next gen stats, the Broncos Rams and Cocks all finished top six and pressure rate. The Patriots were 10th, but they were had a 41% pressure rate with Milton Williams on the field. So when he was out there, they were better than 10th, but they're still all four teams finished in the top-send and pressure rate. But then you take it one step further and obviously some of these teams have really good ad rushers, right? Jared versus Nick Bonito, the Cocks have 12 guys, whatever. But if you look at the interior of your players on these teams, I'm looking at the PFF pressure numbers right now. Top five, number one, Zach Allen, number two, Kobe Turner, number three Leonard Williams, four Jeffrey Simmons, five Christians, six Christian Barmore, seven Byron Murphy, nine Milton Williams. So we have eight guys in the top 10 in total interior pressures played for the four teams that finished in the final four. And so if you, you need to be able to create that with four guys, and now I think maybe more than any time I can remember since I started paying attention to this, those guys need to be on the interior and just think about going back to last year. Milton Williams was a part of this discussion a year ago. Chris Jones, who was fifth on that list, is a part of that discussion a year ago. So now just having those guys where there just isn't that much you can do to take them out of the game and having them be a linchpin of what your team looks like. It just feels like we are, we've come to a place and live in a world where that is a nonnegotiable part of being one of these teams that's around till the end. Absolutely. My point was this, I said defense alignment. Yes. And I think we did one where I think we did Robert you and I did like kind of lessons as Super Bowl finalists or like what we want. Yeah, just like the nonnegotiables you need to win a Super Bowl. What is every Super Bowl winner half for like the last 10 years? And one was you have to have a guy that can get five or more pressures for you. And yeah, and that's always stood out to me. And I think it's still a truism. But now I think you need the monsters out there. You need a motley crew out there. However you want to put it, I had a my note because I said defense alignment. Yes. Is that it's not just past pressures or edge rushers. I should say those are important, but you have to have a variety pack of defense alignment. And you look at it's almost like, especially when it comes to playoff time. And it's that ability to pivot like, okay, they're taking away this or taking away this or this matchup we need to hunt. They have a guard that stinks. This guy is not good at speed up pardon. Anthony Bradford. There's a rock comes from Bradford. Will Campbell. It's you know, a little bit spent speedy bendy guys. And if you look, you mentioned you said to 12 guys the CX have I think all these teams. Broncos, Alan Roach, DJ Jones, Sean Franco Myers, Nick Benito, Jonathan Cooper, Patriots, Milton, Barmore, Tonga, Chase on who's actually. He's unbelievable. Chase on I thought stunk a few years ago and he's like, he's so good now. He's good now. Apparently you come from. Yeah, I know. Seahawks. Of course there guys Murphy, Williams, to Marcus Lawrence and Woe Su, Derek Hall, Boymoffee, Rams, first young, Kobe Turner, Punaford, Brain Fisk. Why I'm bringing up all the names, not just to like show that I can look at our lads. It's more just to say like you can just throw any of these types of guys at you. One guy has to mall and hold up against the run because if you want to play a certain coverage show, if we're doing all this rotation and we're doing all this like McDonald runs everything for the Seahawks defense. He can run everything on the back end because he has the front that can do what they need. Sometimes you need guys that hold up blocks. Sometimes you need gaps here. Sometimes we need to slant. Sometimes all these defenses, they drop guys into coverage. So you need athletic guys that can drop into coverage as well. So it used to just be who can shoot the gaps and get up field and now it's like a whole new world. You need offensive lines are getting bigger. So you need guys that can mall but you don't need the fat pluggers. You need guys that actually can do a little something too. We can move across the center space. And also just speaking to adressers. And just kind of like how often it's gone so good with tight ends and moving them around and kind of mitigating maybe any blocking deficiencies. Really good at helping out tackles. It's so much harder to help out a guard in the center. You can slide, you can everything but chip help. It has to be so much more creative. And if you have guys that can be valid and moving around, a lot harder to account for that than just lining up before and going unless you're the frickin Texans. You know, like the Texans like can do it but they're the outlier. I think to what more teams are doing now and having just say again a monster that they can throw it off fences. I love you bringing up the Texans because I think this is something I've had to kind of rewire my brain about and I would caution fans of teams to think about it this way as well. Like if you're looking at what your team needs from a defensive line perspective in a given off season, don't just look at like the first line of the dub chart. It's like, oh, we have two defensive tackles and two defensive ends. You were talking hockey lines now. And the Seahawks specifically, I think, are such a good indication of that because I cracked jokes when it happened. But when they drafted like Byron Murphy in the first round and then signed to Marcus Lawrence, this off season was like, how many did he need? Right. How many did he need? And the answer is, Oh, yes. And it's Poon of Punaford too. Right. The Rams defensive line was the best thing they had last year. And then the second, and I will get to that in a second, the second biggest thing they do in free agency is go sign Poon of Ford immediately. And so this is very much in Ocean's 11. You think we need one more. You always need one more. When it comes to defensive lines now, you always need one more. And I think these teams specifically are very good reminders of that. Do you think the Eagles influence matters here? Like you think teams saw it. The Eagles did them the Super Bowl. And we're like, yeah, we want eight. We'd like four is not enough. We need six. We need except that is a classic how he rose been trope of like, you know, he's training for Robert Quinn at the deadline when they have a stack defensive line. Like that felt like maybe, you know, other teams have had beat them lots of lines before. But it feels like the Eagles prioritizing that maybe a spread around the league a bit. It's funny because I think the last year they actually stopped rotating them as much because that's a fangio thing. And so it's like, it's kind of a weird like intermediate step where the Eagles used to be like that. And then under fangio, they actually rotated less than they won the Super Bowl. But I think this is more about just teams and their specific needs. Heading into the in a given season like Punefort is just the skill set. The Rams needed right. I think with it. Yeah. And again, with the sea ox, I think that they've just been so hell bent on trying to add as many different body types as they can. Like, though what Lawrence and Wusu are versus, and I know it was kind of, he calls very strong. But like my face specifically, like they're just such different types of players. And so to be able to have those four and be able to rotate them as much as you want to, like I think it's just about options. And I also think, and I'm curious, like the amount of stunting we see from the really good defensive lines and like the different body types you need to fully unlock all of those things you want to do, only increases the need to diversify the skill sets that you're adding to the room. And so I think that plays into it too. Yeah, if this were just my like clean point, I was going to open and say like, I think everyone can take advice from Wu Tang financial and diversify their bonds. And it's kind of just the same exact thing. They can diversify. They can diversify their full, their full defensive personnel. But I think it's just as we talk about defenses defenses they can tee off on you. Offences to like look what happened to the 49ers defense. Oh, hoves on the field. All right. Run it right at you. And like that's why I think you yeah, that in a situation, Huff is useful. Once you get to playoff time against a K.A. The best teams with in theory, the best coaches. They're going to find that weakness and just pound away at it. And that's what's so cool about some of these guys go, oh, you got that right here. Here's to Marcus Lawrence. That's going to just tee off on you and forth down. There's a reason he might have been a healthy scratch during the post this last year. It's so funny that we used to think about that with offensive lineman, right? Where we used to be like offensive lineman, you could weaponize against one guy. And now it feels like we're at a place where defensive lineman are in the same boat where if you got that one guy, they can pick on. It's just going to be a problem. And so you need to be able to do that. They can pick on. It's just going to be a problem. And so you need to make sure you don't have that one guy. I've never really thought about it that way, but clearly we've gotten to that place. Yeah. And if you think about the crustiest old school thing of all the offensive lineman, there's no continuity. They're too young. They don't look at trainings. If you believe that, okay, great. The way it's to attack them is to give them every possible look. Force them to communicate. Force them to pass stuff off. Force them to do it with every twist, every slant, every stunt you can get. And you see, you know, I'm thinking about some of the weaker offense, elementally Dylan Parham, Jonah, Sevena and Naomi, like guys, young guys who struggled in pass pro, like every week when I'd watch all the pressures on the sacks, you would see them getting hit on twist. You'd see them getting hit on stunts. And that is like, if you believe that as a coach, that is the thing, that is like the table stakes for being a good defensive coach is just having every way possible to attack those guys. Watch what the Bears did to McClendon at right tackle. Who actually was fine, but they went, this is the guy we're getting. You could tell the Bears coaches where we're going to bring these saw pressures, you know, all the safety, the DB stuff, but they're like, that's the guy we're getting. And they game them up. And yeah, again, when you get these, it's so cool when you see it play out exactly probably how they intended going. The mean way is they say, who's the fish? And that's what these defensive coaches do. And they go, oh, there's the fish. All right, we're going to just, I wait until we watch the sea arch right guard. Next week, I think there's going to be so much movement on the right side of like from the Patriots front, but like that's exactly what these coaches do. That's, yeah, again, cool. See, play out the Bears are such a great example here, though, and like how it's not when you don't have enough because Dennis Allen threw just a almost perfect game at the Rams in that game. But when you have to go back to it too often, eventually they're going to get there. And so you can have this great specific bespoke defensive coach. Like bespoke defensive game plan where you're bringing all these pressures, but when you get to a place where you can't do it with four, eventually a good offense is going to be you. And so I think that's where the little gaps are. All right, Barbar, what's your next one here? Ooh, okay. I have a very big picture one. It might not come together well in my head. It makes sense. I'll let you guys decide if that is the case. So I think sort of like if I'm having a really broad picture like meta, this is what smart teams in the NFL are doing versus teams who are less smart. It's not new, but I think they're focusing on it more than in years past. I think you're seeing teams really chill down on trying to reduce the complexity of the opposing teams playbook, try to take as much out of it as possible, try to drill down to the stuff that they can predict that is more reliable, where there's a smaller amount of things teams can get to, and then taking advantage of that. And so that happens on both sides of the football on defense. I think the thing you see with as an example are some pressures. Like presenting certain looks that teams are going to have only a couple of protections for us. Only some of the things you can do for when I'll really look at the staff and then, no, okay, if we're getting a full slide in the situation 90% of the time, we're going to have a call that's going to take advantage of a full slide. On offense, and I think this is the one that leads more into a 2025 thing, or maybe more of a focus on 2025 thing. It's okay, what can we do to get teams out of the exotics? What can we do to get teams out of all of the things they want to throw at us that we can't possibly do? What can we do to eliminate and reduce the number of things that defense can do? And so that can happen in a lot of different ways. You can do that with motion, although I don't think it's that important, you can do it with personnel. And the Rams 13 is a great example, because there's only so many things you can do to deal with 13 personnel. I think such a defensive line and it's kind of the same thing. So when I said earlier, you know, like 6.0L, 13 personnel, like there's differences, but it's still that idea of, okay, you're not dealing with this on a regular basis. You could only run certain things. It's going to eliminate or limit what you can do defensively in terms of your personnel, in terms of what you can call, how you can fit the run. But then the things that came to mind for me this year, two things. Number one, formation into boundary, which may is when I was predicting what I was going to say before the show, call that one out, which seems impossible to me. But the idea that you can have, you know, that you're putting, you're putting the strong side of your offense into the boundary, I suppose, to the field so less space to work with. You're limiting the concept of play. There's just not as many calls for that stuff. You're asking defenses to communicate in a small site. You're asking them to deal with four strong concepts. You're asking to deal with, you know, fast stuff, screens. There's opportunities for picks and rubs. Seahawks Broncos Patriots all in the top 10 in FIB this year. Seahawks number two. The other one, NubTiteN, kind of the same idea of, you know, what can we do to account for this? We're over learning a side of the field. How are you just, are you changing your front? Are you giving us good run looks? We want to run outside. All four teams in the top 12 in NubTiteN. You should Seahawks to Broncos 7 Patriots 8 Rams 12. There's a lot of different ways you can do this. These are not just like perfect examples. Just this idea of there's so many things we can possibly see in a weekly basis. What can we do to eliminate this? Many of those as possible get the most predictable response we can and then take advantage of that predictable response. Yeah. No, it's, yeah, coverage checks is the, that's the, that's the golden thread you're trying to pull as a coach. Like, or as far as offensive coach is if I do this with a chain hand, so good at, if I shift like this into this formation, they don't bomb, they don't do this. But like, if I can go, like empty, might be the best way I can put this. If I go into empty and I know that you're only getting to two things as opposed to it, like this is how you used to be able to get fangio. Was you going to empty, especially if you go on base personnel like 12-21 or something, go empty quarters. You know, like I know what I'm getting every single time. And they, they don't have the personnel to like make that tough. Like, yeah, if you have Cuperdigene, sawing guys off into slot. But if the year before that, oh man, who they fired, they brought in Patricia. But the year before that, thank you, Sean DeSci, and it blashed from the past. But no, it is when they were running that coverage, same exact thing. They didn't have the horses. So it was like anytime they, anybody that played the Eagles at year empty because they was just so predictable. This was how you used to be able to get spags was to make him more simplistic. All these teams have shown me creepers and simulated looks. It's like you're playing Rex Ryan every freaking week now that this is, you have to do it. So just dovetail off with your sand bar. Yeah, I think that's what, that's the goal. Like that's what you're trying to find every single week. And I think teams are getting better at that. And I'm just talking about the offensive side. But yeah, defensively, you can do that as well too. But offensively, that is something you really see teams trying to do more and more. The one by three nub stuff is, is definitely see that. Yeah. Got it. I was just, I just, the Patriots dated a couple of weeks ago against the Texas. I was on a bit, Siox do a ton of it. I mean, it's Rams have done it a ton. Like that was the, you've brought up their, their first football run with a staffer. That was what they did every play. It was empty one by three. It was tower Higgby was the lone receiver like all the time. Yeah. when you get the percentages of their dropbacks into base defense this year, I believe it was the highest in the league or it was definitely up there. The only reason it wasn't the highest number of total based dropbacks is because they didn't throw them all very often. of the ball very often, but then the C-Ox used a ton of empty. Like one of my favorite play calls of the entire game against the Rams, they come out in 21 personnel and go out and get into empty. And so the C-Ox were very good at this, where they were like, we're going to make you just live in very specific buckets offensively. And it's why I just am so impressed with the job that Clint Coupiak did all year where it's a combination of play calling field, but also just having a really, really good sense of how we're dictating the game to opposing offenses. And then their defense or defenses, and then their defense refuses to be dictated to. There's like nothing you can do to make us do what we don't want to do. And then you flip it back to our prior point though. Like how do you counter that if teams are getting out of all the exotics and since you want to run, have a bunch of shit kickers up front. Like that is the solution. You're not going to be able to get the C-Ox to check out of having a bunch of dudes up front that you can't block. Like that is inevitably the solution, which breaks it back to the oldest thing of, hey, control the light of scrimmage in you in games, which you don't need to hear if you listen to this podcast, but it's crazy. It's crazy. It's still as true. It's still as true. I know. And that's also the fallacy. I think, you know, obviously Robert, where you and I talked about the brand is sailing to her blue in the face. But like that was the downfall of that defense in the LA was they never once invested in the spine. And that might have been Tom Tolesco's issue. Might have been state like whoever was that was the Achilles heel of that whole regime. They didn't know what made their defense, which is you have to have ass kickers up front to hold everything down. If you're going to be in quarters every time, good quarterbacks are going to figure it out. Good coaches are going to figure out, you know, it's frustrating to know exactly what the defense is in and you still can't beat it because your online can't block it or your guys can't win down the field. So I always just always stick with me because then I watch the C-Ox. I'm like, oh my god, look at these light boxes. Just run dual on them. And there's Leonard Williams, teen off on a guy, DeMarcus Lawrence, suplexing a guy. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. All right. Yeah. I guess you got to trick him up a little bit. Well, but it's so funny to me because you look at the first half of last season for Seattle. They wanted to live this way and they were getting gashed just over and over and over again. And then the two biggest differences, the two biggest differences between that version of the C-Ox and the first half of last year in this version is they trade for Ernest Jones and Byron Murphy is a very different player now than he was last season. So his ability to hold up in those looks, you talk about transforming the spine of the defense, they did that. Those two moves transform with the spine of the defense feels like for Seattle. And that's why they're allowed to live this way. All right. Nate, what's your next one? Oh, man, I have two. I will go with, I'll go with this one. Special teams. Don't forget about it. I know that you are, you know, as a Bears fan, you're all about the four phases, Robert, you know, the four, the fourth phase is the fans, right? In Chicago or I get shit on our show. Dave always gives me a shiver not wanting to talk about special teams. And it's maybe it's because I'm scarred from having special teams be too important in my life at one point. It was the highlight of a Bears game for exactly. I will say my couple years as being a Bears fan, it was very fun to go to a game and have the entire stadium stand up for a punt return. And like, and they played, oh my god. I'm forgetting, oh god, no, I know the song. I'll think of it in a second, but they would play a song before and it would really get everyone amped up. Well, they did soldier boy a little bit too, but we got schooler for the Patriots, unbelievable as a gunner. Seven tackles as a gunner. I just love that we get into punt gunners on this show. I shouldn't be surprised whatsoever. But it was inevitable. We're in the fifth iteration. I got to turn over every stone. Yeah. This one, it's gonna be special teams. This is actually my point number one. This is the first thing I put down last time. I was like, all right, going on TFS. Sorry. What's what's one? All right. Well, knock everyone socks off special teams. But the CX have a guy, Pritchett, 34 times this year he had 20 miles an hour or more. And the CX special teams, I think is obviously one of the best units we've seen this year. And it's a, it's a key component to their success. It's classic. I mean, we just joked about the Bears teams, but it's a classic, amazing defense, amazing special teams. That's how you can survive Sam Darnold having his bad moments. That's how you can survive having a center botch a snap. And then a walker maybe doing something wrong. Like, that's how you can survive that is by the other two phases winning. And I know where this whole show is almost like the old coaches were right kind of thing, but it's like it kind of funny how it just footballs football. Like the DVOA ranks don't really bear this out. But like, you know, CX were second, but the other teams are kind of middleing mostly off the kicks and stuff. But power returns. CX were, our Patriots were first in power return EPA. CX were third. Broncos eighth. Rams 23rd. But the Rams don't count. The red there. Yeah, the Rams are not involved. Kind of show it out. They're the exception that proves the rule. Exactly. You need to be good at the special teams. Yes. You can't just wave it away. I had the year and a half ago or two years ago now. The Rams finished the draft and they didn't have a long snapper kicker or a punter on the roster. And I was like, this is going to cost them fantasy football drafts. I know linebackers either always that doesn't show up at all. But yards per punt return, including the playoffs. The extra second Patriots third Broncos seventh Patriots 20 or Rams 23rd kickoff return EPA. CX third Rams seventh Patriots 10th Broncos 21st. The CX ranked first an opponent average field position after their kickoffs and they ranked third and their own starting field position after their own kickoff returns. And again, this is hidden yarders. The CX had five special teams touchdowns this year, including the playoffs. Patriots had three. The those are two super bowl teams. I could just leave it at that. But it's just definitely felt it a lot more this year. And I know the kickoff rules have changed. I think returners are becoming, they get prioritized just a little bit more. I remember talking with Dane about this a year or two ago. But they become a little bit more. And I actually think punters have become a little bit more valuable to me in just the sense that yeah, they might be punting from midfield a little bit more. But cough in corners matter again as far as just booming it. Weather and I know more teams are going to be in a dome in about five, 10 years where it's like going to be like 2018's in a dome. So maybe not as much. But I was just that Broncos Patriots game just stood out to me so much. I was like, we think about quarterback arms cut through this win and cut through all that. What about the kickers and punters and gears like this? This matters just as much. So I don't know. I just I think my point, I think my overratching point of being don't ignore it and how much it can turn into a weapon in a wide open playoffs in a wide open NFC or aFC wide open season. Don't ignore a phase that can win you the game. I think the teams that didn't you can feel them kind of like, well, they just popped this now they're in midfield and scoring position. Yada Yada. Yeah, the only reason that the Broncos had a chance of scoring in the second half of that game is because Blake Baron tried a couple really bad punts. We got them into region. What's an opportunity where the Patriots second to him was not very good. That gave the Broncos a shot. I had elite return man on my list. And the CEO of get Rashid Shaheed. He was so good. Marcus Jones to the Patriots phenomenal Marvin Mims over the last couple of years. Maybe a less return guy in football over that two years span. And for the Rams just having a lips and said, wish you had one of those guys, don't you? And I think they're, you know, this is a league where scoring is down from where it was five years ago. Number of plays are down from where they were five years ago. Field position after kickoffs has improved from where it was five, ten years ago. Having the ability to get either a touchdown or again, an explosive play that in itself puts you in field goal range or flips field position matters. Then for punters, given that you can get the ball at the 35 now, the average distance for a after getting the ball back is on the 30 yard line. Your only chance of opposing, stopping the opposing team and having them start deep in this other on 10 yard line now is on a pun or by failing on four down. Like you're not going to get the, you know, touchback to the 20. You're not going to get kick returns to the 22 and then a holding penalty. Like it happens occasionally, but that's really rare. And so that's the only time you're going to get that opportunity to do that. And so this is the right thing for your position. It matters less in the traditional ways, but it does matter in a different way now, maybe than it did in 23. Yeah. That's, yeah. That's kind of way I kind of looked at it too. Think of it in first downs. Like if you get a guy 15 yard shorter or closer or further away, that's enough. We just talk about explosives. That's one more explosive they have to get or that's three more successful plays. They have to get like you start thinking. And first downs then like, oh my god, 22 yards. That's two first downs. They don't have to get now or they do have to get now. And that's funny because I think some people would be like, well, how does that play into teams going for it more and for it down? Well, it's, you have to weigh how many more first downs you need, but also the possessions. Both things can be true at the same time. Like it still is a game of possessions, but the difference in field position does matter. The possessions matter more, but the field position also is important. So, Barnwell, you saying the scoring is down, possessions are down, plays are down. That brings me to kind of my next one here. Who is defense back? Do we have to reconsider what this group usually looks like? And I'll come from my own perspective on this. I, my world view when it comes to how I think NFL teams should operate is dictated in part by what the makeup of the final four teams has looked to like since I started covering the NFL. If you go back to like 20, I've always done it since 2014 or 2015. I think it was because of the first time I did the exercise. It was 10 years. But if you go back to like 2015, the only team in the final four that did not finish top 10 in EPA per play on offense was the 2015 Broncos. I was it every other team that played in the championship games was a top 10 offense by EPA per play in that given season. This year the Seahawks were 13th and the Broncos were 10th. And if you look at some other metrics, the Broncos were 15th and offensive DVOA, the Seahawks were 14th and weighted offensive DVOA. One year is not a trend, right? There is a chance that this was just kind of a strange season. And that over time, prioritizing your offense will still be the way to make sure that you are a championship caliber team. And that's always what I've believed. That's why I believe in offensive-minded head coaches. It's why I'd always go that way because I think if I had to choose, I would always try to make sure I had the fifth best offense in the league every single year will figure the rest out. Are we in a place where defenses have caught back up to offenses enough that it might be time to reconsider whether that is a non-negotiable thing or is the gap between the importance of offense and the important defense started to shrink a little bit? I don't know, but it's a question worth asking. Align that you use that I always like is who holds the pen last. And I feel like more defenses are holding that pen last than offense is right now. Not saying everybody, I would say maybe if we're looking at when offenses were just crushing it because everyone was trying to run man coverage and cover three 10 years ago, eight years ago, I thought, you know, majority of the offenses were taken into most of the defense coordinators. Like I would say, like 22 of the offenses and there are maybe 10 defense coordinators that were worth their weight. I would say now it's almost flipped. And I think we hit a, you know, McVase McVase and Shanahan Shanahan. But as far as like the auxiliary guys for maybe that tree, like maybe they've hit a ceiling with what they can get away with until I think there's a rear hit of a ceiling and we're going to see some innovation. Are you seeing a little bit right now as far as but it's kind of the innovation is going old school. You know, I think the Bears are the best example of that with Ben Johnson and everything. And I think you see more Sean Peyton. I call Sean Peyton offenses, but more of that at you offense and play action game where we see a little bit more of that becoming invoked. So I wouldn't say it's like I say defenses have an advantage right now. I say defenses. We talked about defensive lines. They're ahead of offensive lines. League wide. There's more of them. There's more pass catchers. DBs are the best they've ever been. The linebackers are the fastest they've ever been. And I think coordinators are so much more creative on defense. I just made the joke a little bit earlier that it's like it's like going against Rector Eye and every week. And that's because I'm just it used to just be like all right, Dick Lebo and Rex Ryan. And the other guys you kind of know which again, you know, quarter is cover two, cover three. Now it's like 26 teams are running all these funky blitzes on first down and simulated and creepers and stuff. So I will say that there's more maybe defensive innovation that's caught up than where they were at with offense. But having said all that, I kind of I'm seeing some things with offenses and what do offenses do? They copy. It's a copycat league. So they're going to watch the bears. They're going to watch the ramps. So I think we're going to see more of this kind of, you know, maybe trickle out a little bit. They always they always catch up. The team always catch up. They always catch up. Some side always catches up. Well, the league will just give the offense the advantage by changing the rules. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. I just rely on legislation on the line. He's doing something right now. Bill Paul. Bill Paul. Yeah, just on 100% sure. I feel like you I feel like you you will like throw cold water. Cold water on this for me. Yeah, I'm going to go over the cold water on it because I'm ready for you too because I think again, this like it shakes my principles to my core to consider this as an option. But I think that this year specifically, it's made me want to go back and be like, all right, let's let's actually think about how true this is. So where do you land on this? Something very funny about like the lifelong bears fan being like, yeah, maybe that's probably matters. Maybe. Maybe I don't want the offense. I'm like, yeah, yeah. You're first good offense in 30 years. And you're like, oh, that's yucky. I think it's probably why I prioritize the offense as much as I have because it's like I know how hard it is to live the other way. And so, but I that's one thing where again, over the last like 10ish years, I think really since the McVey version of the NFL came to be you, Nate, you guys know this. I have that is one of been one of my like, I am unwavering in this. If I'm hiring a head coach, he is going to be in my offensive play car. That is going to happen. I'm not, I am not getting off that and watching what Mike McDonald has done and the fact that we have two defensive minded head coaches in the Super Bowl for the first time in like 10 years, I think I would be not doing my like due diligence at this job. If I didn't at least question whether holding steadfast to that previous opinion is the right way to approach it. So two things. These don't refute your point, but I just think they're reasonable counters to what you're saying. Number one, we have lived in an era for 25 years where it's pretty much either been a Tom Brady lead team or Patrick or homestead team in the Super Bowl. And so those two teams are primarily offensive driven. Doesn't mean that you can't win otherwise, but just those two teams have been so dominant and so good on one side of the football. Nothing that you have in a good defense stuff. Patriots have an in good defenses they have at times, but just this idea of, well, you can either have the best quarterback of his generation or you can do something else. And if you are going to do something else, and this is one of the years where the thunderclales has been able to get all the way up to the top, maybe it's easier to have a good defense than find a almost a generational quarterback. But the other thing I would say is I want to see how teams react to this during the offseason because last year the Eagles were, I think, 31st or 32nd in cash spending on the defensive side of the football. They drafted a ton of guys and felt good about them, but they did not invest ton of defense at all. I think their highest paid defensive player might have been James Bradbury who did not play a single stop for them all season. This year the Rams or say Patriots or Broncos are two of, I think, the five highest teams believe in terms of cash spending on the defensive side of the football. They spent Patriots on the other side of the free agency. Broncos signed a bunch of guys to extensions. They signed Sir Tan. They signed Benito. They signed Franklin Myers and signed Alon. But they have a ton of dudes they feel good about on the defensive side of the football. They brought in Greenlaw, brought in Bufonga as well, paid a premium to bring those guys in. Rams were 32nd in defense of spending and you could argue, hey, came back to bite them. You know, in terms of corner bats got pretty, if you buy the end there, linebackers were stretchable, shall we say, in coverage and maybe not the best tackling linebackers I've ever seen in my life. But, you know, I think there's this thing of, you're almost like, you're not the mean. It's almost like this question of, are you minmaxing it? Like are you sort of seeing like, okay, we believe in defense, but we think our best way to get that is just to draft a ton of guys on that side of the football and just invest everything in our offense, the way the Rams do, the way the Eagles do, or I think you can flip it. I think you're seeing this idea of teens being more aggressively willing to throw a lot of their financial resources into one side of the football and draft on the other side of the football. Bengals maybe on when Borough Chase, St. John Rikki deals, maybe a good example of that as well. I think at the very least what we can say is there's not a clear, like, path this year, like you can't sit here and say, well, if you don't have a quarterback, you are screwed. But that, that, the San Darnal Super Bowl appearance changes things, I think, from that perspective. So I do think there's some truth to it. I think that's right. And I think for me, the way that I would have approached the McDonald situation a couple of years ago was I would have said, well, of course, there are going to be exceptions, right? There's always going to be a defensive coach who's that good. That's just the nature of how it's going to go. He's exceptional, but is he maybe less exceptional as the league changes? And is he something you can actually chase as an archetype with some credibility and have that be a viable path forward? I don't know, because at the end of the day, my stance has always been you need the offense because at some point in the playoffs, you're going to need to score 35 points. And guess what? The C.O.X needed to do that. Like, they needed to score 30 in order to get there. So I still do think that if I had to choose, that's the one I would choose, but it's offered to bait more now based on how the season has gone that it has been in my opinion at any time over the last 10 years. And one of the notes I had in here, Brian, what's funny that you say that quarterback play and what you need from the quarterback, it changes in this version of the equation. And it changes where you can seek that quarterback out. And you look at the teams that are in the Super Bowl right now. This seems to run the final four. They got the quarterbacks in very different ways. You know, you have the most expensive quarterback in the league against the cap this year was Matthew Stafford. You have the least expensive quarterback room in the league this year was the Patriots. You have a mid to your quarterback contract of the likes of which we almost never ever see. But in my opinion is cheat code is strong. It is a thing in the world. You love the middle class quarterback contract. That has been like one of your favorite things. I mean, I'm not trying. I'm not making fun of you. You never existed. And so it's always been a thing to you. Yeah. Now that we've had two years in a row where the the bucks last year and the Seahawks this year, paying Sam Donald $33 million a year when every other quarterback is making $55 million a year and having him perform better than a lot of those better or as good as those $55 million quarterbacks. It's massively valuable. And so the fact that we've had all these different kinds of quarterback contracts play into the way that the final four looks in part because the team constructions and the strengths of the teams are different than they often look. I think that's a fun little wrinkle to it. The quarterback does play into that exact conversation. Yeah. That's what you asked me about the suplex stuff. And that's what I have kind of reconfigured in my thinking too. It's not that you have to be the best of the best. You just have to have you have to just be legit enough like that as far as running the ball as far as explosive passes. It doesn't mean you have to have Josh Allen just to win this game. Can your offense generate explosives when you need to? Like, that's kind of how I've just viewed it. Do you just pass that threshold? And that's kind of like how, again, even defensively too, as far as pressures and all that being, anyways, but as far as offense, that's kind of just what I've kind of keep. I've kind of reconfigured how I view it. It's not that you have to have the best and be ranked first or second or third. It's just like, oh, yeah, they're 12th, but oh, they're above the mark. Okay. Okay. It's valid. And again, that is often it's a very good indication. That's that. That's explosive, but overall they are the, they clear the bar offense in this. That was why I was bullish on the season going in the season. I'm like, right, I think this defense can be top five pretty like put it in the top five. I don't think it's going to be the best run game, but I think they're going to be at least to average where it's going to hit that mark. Would I say 40% in the second half of the year they did? And then I think the, just a kubi action and offense, they generate explosive passes like, you know, like, like it's candy. Like, you know, they can do that. That's part of their offense. Did I say they can make a super bowl run? I never made that prediction, but I did say I was like, Hey, I think they're going to make the playoffs and I maybe they can win the division because they have a formula that wins games. It's not the best, but they can pass those thresholds. So yeah, and even just talking about defense, you're talking about just who makes the finals and everything you're talking about the offense being top 10. I looked this up a few weeks ago, but it was, I don't think there's been a final four teams since 2013 that hasn't had that they've all had a positive or they've held offensis to a negative EPA. Maybe that's the best way I can frame that. They've all passed the threshold of just having enough on defense. I think it's every single one, every single final four, there's no exceptions that have all been zero because it says defense of EPA and true media. So that's why I'm trying to reconfirm this my brain, but held offensis to negative EPA. So that's always just something just passed the threshold as opposed to being the best the best. And that's the funny thing is I think that's how I always used to think about it where the offense, it's not, I don't want the offense to have to pass the threshold. I want the offense way, way above the threshold. Can I get the defense pass the threshold? Are we seeing a world where maybe that flips? And I'm still not there yet. Like it's again, it's been one season where we've lived here. It's been a strange season, but this is the type of year where I'm like, all right, well, let's see how the, let's see where this goes from here. Yeah, but I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just, I'll be intrigued to see if that's true. We should see teams investing a ton of money this off season on defensive lineman, on dudes who can kick ass up front. Like I know the Patriots paid so much multi-millions last year that we were like, you know, he's a good player, but there's no way he's ever going to be worth that contract. If multi-millions was a free agent this year, he would get significantly more. You would get 30 plus million a year. Yeah. By the way, I hope I'm wrong. Because it's the first time my team has had a good offense in my entire life. And so I really hope the offensive centric model is the right way to go. We're going to do one more quick break and then come back with a couple more of these. 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You think about the bigger guys, Nick M. and Warry, Quentin Lake. That idea that, OK, if we're going to live in our stock packages, if we're never going to play bass, we don't want to ever play bass if we don't have to. Having a dude who is big enough in the alley, big enough as our overhang defender, still good enough in coverage that he can survive. This idea of, you know, we don't have to worry about getting outmatched by teams who want to play 12. If we do want to play with bigger bodies, we want to put a sexist on the side of the field. If we have the ability to counteract that by having safety, by having nickels we feel good about. Then he flipped it. J. Kwame Millen, Marcus Jones, really good players in totally different ways, smaller players, better in coverage, but this idea of, you know, we can have you cover all those attempts to run away over the middle of the field. We can have you cover all the sales we're going to see, all the, you know, you have good instincts for dealing with the dates when you're in zone. Just sort of feels like this is not a new thing, like it's been a trend for a long time now. This idea that like we have to value that position, but I wonder if it's becoming even a prerequisite to be an elite defense at this point. Even Wari feels like a tipping point to me. Like I think you could have said Kyle Hamilton's enough of a unicorn where if you're seeking out Kyle Hamilton is that, are you, are you going to come up empty more times than not? Right. Even Wari doing what he did this year. And obviously he's a physical freak in his own right. Like I understand that there aren't a lot of Nicki Minaj is walking the planet, but I think now the fact that we have two and Durwin James is kind of doing a little bit of that for the chargers. Like I do feel like now this thing of like can we find our 220 pound nickel defender that allows us to play nickel to everything? I'd be shocked if we didn't see three to five dice rolls on that exact idea. This offseason from teams that are trying to find their version of it. I'd be surprised that this, this feels like the moment where it changes. And it changes safety value because if you have a guy that like is a guy that could play the slot too, you're just a hybrid player now. Like as far as again, what would you used to be like, oh, three safety looks how big, three big, big nickel. It's like, no, that's based now. And you think the guy that always comes to my mind because I think he's such a good blitzer as Kyle or Gordon for the Bears who ended up in down year, faces injuries, all that stuff. When healthy, a very good slot player and a very good blitzer and how like Dan Sauen has used them, how Eber Fluce used them was they are doing what used to be a three, four common pressure, which is you rush the three defense alignment, drop one outside linebacker and the other officer, think of James Harrison back in the day with the Steelers. Now it's just the slot is the pressure guy. So you're running a creeper rushing for, but the slot is the outside linebacker now. But then the slot has to run in coverage. He has to play it's he has to fill the run because that's the gap on the open side. And it became like I always just even look at the divisional round team. So Tyron Johnson was one of these guys. Now you see Tyron Johnson, he would kind of become a weakness for the bills this year. I mean, there's so much for the bills that you could just dice apart. I know, but it's just with him, they were trying to okay, we get into base and everything. But then they kind of got the worst of both worlds was Johnson's not big enough to do all the dynamic things that we wanted to do. And then our linebackers aren't that. So they kind of and that was something I got on being about. Brandon being was like, how did you not have a succession plan? You guys have lived in nickel for 95% of the time in the last five years. And you never had a drafted a backup guy that can maybe take over the 180 pounder. But anyways, that was almost 30. Yeah. And like how did you not? I don't know. Yeah. But Texans, Jaylen Petrie full on weapon. Yes. Full weapon. And also just think bubbles, flats, all the screen stuff every team does. That's an extension of the run game. That guy is the guy that's the swing screen. The swing screen. The swing screen. Everyone's running. Though you have those guys have to be so dynamic now. You can't just be a coverage guy. You are an all-rounder. And if you're not, teams are going to get after you. The 40-niars have an interesting rookie, Upton Stout. Who had some nice moments there. And even I ever mentioned the Bears with with the coward Gordon when he's healthy, he was that. So it is something it's just become, it's such a point of attack player now. When it used to just be a year on third down and you have to play man coverage against the tiny slot guy. You have to tie it in. You have to guard a receiver. You have to guard a running back. You have to blitz. You have to just be, and that's why it feels like the best players play there because they are the best football players. You know, like that. Yeah. Might as well put him there. But a guy would give me a worry. The fact that he was a deep safety at South Carolina and was slow to react to stuff, a big long athlete. And you're like, okay, if you get him to the right spot, but I was like, see a box player. Like, I don't know. He's not super physical. He's not super physical. He's not super physical. He's not super physical. 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He's not super. influence the way he thinks about the scope you're giving to a player like that early in his career, where when he had Kyle Hamilton on the back end and they're doing a little bit of everything, that guy's swimming a little bit and the downside of a young player learning as a deep safety is significantly lower than the downside of a young player learning as a nickel. And so if you look at the, because I think that's what people are thinking, well, will he play in this spot in this spot in that spot? Nope. He is a nickel and box player. That is what he is this year. And by limiting that, they were successful. Cooper Jean, just a nickel player is a rookie. Durwin James even, I think one of the smartest things that Jesse Minter did was shrinking the menu for Durwin James. After the buy, he played more safety this year, but for the most part, he was a nickel and box player. And that's exactly what the Seahawks did. And I think that is going to be something that continues where it's like, we don't need him to play five different things. If he plays one thing well, that's just as valuable. And I think we're trending more and more toward that direction. All right, Nate, what's your last one here? Kind of nice with Ty and this was the fourth one I kind of was like, man, I feel like I need a little bit more philosophical here, you know, as I talked about special teams and why Ty and Ants. And how I kind of got it was my like one liner for this is red, a new level of aggression in the NFL. And now I'm talking about fourth down play calling. I'm talking about owners and team decision makers. I'm talking about just red accrossroads in the week. And I know, I know we felt that this year, how wide open the NFL felt. I'm talking about quarterbacks that we got new crop kind of growing up in front of us, which has led to so much discourse. I'm so ready to unplug from completely until I have to run an article. I'm ready to article about it. Oh my God. But if you just look at how these teams got here, just these four, the Patriots fire drawd mail after one year, hired for Abel. Broncos fired Nathaniel Hackett after one year, traded for Sean Payne. Now first rounder gave him a shit ton of money. What Russell Wilson took on the dead cap and just said, we got it. And they made it a five playoffs two years in a row. Rams went all in, won a Super Bowl, traded for all these guys, totally tore the team down. There's Stafford in the funky bunch revamped their whole team with a cheaper contract. And then they made the playoffs immediately, immediately revamped their whole offense. It's been one of the, that's why again, McVeigh deserves every ounce of praise that we throw at them because like it's the most fascinating thing every year. I get to watch with the Rams, too. I mean, you got this time. What do you got this year around, like it's in heavyweight. It's a football test. Kitchen. I mean, like, that's, that's what it is. It's the. It's. It's. I know it's obnoxious for neutral friends. But it's so fun. It's. It's. It's heavy. It's. It's like, last year they got jets keys. And you're before. They got the block. This. This. Very. You want. It's. It's. It. It. It. It. Still the most empty dropbacks of any team in the next gen era was the 2021 Rams. It was, it was fascinating to me because you can see teams trying, we're getting so frustrated against that. Um, but the sea ox fired their long time coach, a legend, traded away their starting quarterback, signed Sam, Arnold, everyone's laughing at that. Here they are. And on top of it, Patriots spent the most money in free agency. Siox spent the fourth most in free agency this year, ownership, firing coaches left and right. We had 10 new coaches this year. Just a couple of years ago. And that's because that whole VC money coming in there just like, hey, this actually isn't so bad. Maybe the 50 million sucker owners were on to some here. Let's just fire these guys. Let's get this going. It's going to be a whole new staff here. This is so bad. And Mark Davis, the broke the broke his team in the NFL has like three coaches they're paying right now because they sold so much VC money. Um, rights and streaming rights. Like we're entering a whole new world. Like we're about to get 18 games. I don't care how much players want to complain about everything. We're getting that and that's going to change scheduling. That's going to change. We're in so much new stuff here. That might change roster construction as far as how many players teams can have. That might be the change upon all of it. Coaching turnover. Like I said too, but also the ramifications of firing 10 head coaches a few years ago, 10 head coaches this year. The well is tapped. And the NFL is very insular. It's yeah, we can say it's the good old boys. Now work it is. But everybody wants a shaniang guy for years and years and years. It's tapped. It's tapped. We're going to get a new trend of those same guys. There's no new guys to my kind of bump up. And we're seeing owners who only watch TV kind of just go like, I don't know who we're going to like corn fairy. Who do you think we can sign? And it's just the same exact people. So that is we're again, like I said, we're crossroads. There's got to be a new tree that sprouts up. Like I don't know who's tree it is. But there's got to be new ideas, new inflection is a college guy's coming in. Jim Lander is a defensive guy. And we're the page tree. You alluded to it earlier and I bet to me. It feels like it's the Sean Peyton tree. All right. I was going to say it's the is it the harbour Mike McDonald Jesse Mitter. Mitter. Oh, that's interesting one. Yeah. Well, defensively, I think that's it. And then I think if you look at the Davis Web is going to get one of these jobs eventually. The main way guys are going to continue getting these jobs. But I think there will be like Declan Doyle. But just can do it. I just thought to say yeah. And he's obviously like indirectly. He is off the Peyton tree to an extent. And so I think that collection of guys is where we're going to start mining next. And then we're going to frack it too much and they're going to be some implosions. Yeah. Then we're going to fires and everything. And yeah, it's it's it's fascinating to me because I felt like this year was like, oh, yeah, fire. The guys are oh shit. Where the young coach is at. Like because I everybody kept getting fired. I'm like, who are they interviewing? Like who like I feel like I'm pretty well versed on who are the interesting candidates. And I'm like, uh, like I don't know guys. Like there was no one Johnson's an only him Cohen's in this. In this. And that's the problem. We were talking about before we started. Here we've arrived with this coaching cycle is a perfect storm of bullshit because you have all the just the complete the frustration from some of these longstanding teams not winning the Super Bowl when the chiefs were not involved. So you get the brown bills and the Ravens jobs open. You have the constant turnover that you're talking about combined with this crop being not good enough and so much worse than the last couple of years. And so you have the most jobs open in recent memory. And you have no coaches to fill those jobs. That's exactly what happened. And you have owners who are having to do things that make no logical sense of it. Today the Browns hired Todd Monkin after I had coached and I think time and I think it's a good coach. I'm not saying like he's a terrible coach. But this same ownership group fired Todd Monkin as offensive coordinator in 2019. Do you really think he got so much better over the last six years that he's now suddenly a good head coach? Like I'm not saying it's a bad head coach. But like if your evil end was this guy's not even going to have to be R.O.C. what does I tell you about you see that your hiring is an HC now. Or or or the owner of the bills going hey these stupid coaches may as draft can't call him and hey we're going to promote a kid. We're going to promote him. And then they try to pass the buck to the receiver coach and then it's like Joe Brady played receiver. His background is receivers. So you guys went over the head coach and then they got the second high second round pick from the wide receiver coaches. 33. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You like all right. Sorry. The bills have been like they just been such a joy for me because it's just the whole shit they're spouting and it's just so much fun to just pass through and go wow. You guys can't get your lies straight. Yeah. With days to prep. My last one is almost directly connected to this. And that is the aggression the aggressiveness being at all time high. I think we've had to recalibrate our concept of what windows look like for NFL teams. The Patriots and the Seahawks have preseason overrunners of eight and a half and they're playing in the Super Bowl. And so and I think for both of these teams I was guilty of this when the Patriots were thrown all this money around in free agency. I'm like why? Like what like to what end is this happening? Like it. Well, yeah, it's like the I and they're good contracts and bad contracts and free agency. The Carlton Davis one specifically I was like you think you're going to be good enough quick enough for this to matter. F*** me. Right. Right. They're about to play for the Super Bowl. Right. And I think in the Seahawks are again it's not totally the same because they won a bunch of games last year. But when the Seahawks traded Gino Smith and DK Mechaff, one of the first responses was oh, well the Seahawks are rebuilding now. The Seahawks are in the Super Bowl, right? And so I think that this idea that there is like a logical sequence of events that has to happen for you to build yourself into a championship team over like a multi-year period, it's kind of gone now. And I think one of the reasons that that's the case is that offensive context can change so fast for these teams. And part because of what the right play collar can do for you, right? Like Clint Kubiak being what he was this year combined with sand Arnold. There is no possible way for us to accurately predict what that would have looked like and what it would have meant for the Seahawks. It's impossible to do. Jameson challenging for 2000 yards. There's no world where you can do that. And so there's no world where you could have predicted that this would have been the opening of the title window for the Seahawks. Even if you were the biggest Drake May supporter on the planet and you had faith in what the Josh McDaniel's Drake May thing could look like, there is no conceivable way. You could have had him with a season where he averaged .25 ePaper dropback. It'd be fucking crazy to predict that. But I think because of all of this, because of the power that a lot of these coaches have the good ones, William Conan Ben Johnson to this year, like that's possible. And so the conversions of that with quarterbacks that we don't really properly understand it until they're in the right context, everything about the way that you view these teams before and after can change immediately. And so I just think that our understanding of what that means for their ability to win championships and the timeline it takes to win them also has to change. And I think this year was like a really good example of that. I don't care back in the mid-aut. I don't disagree. I just, this is the ass-strunt lean for me. It's always been this way. Like, I don't think this is a new thing. I go back to the Rams with Big Bay. Like, that's when for me, all laughing stock. Definitely one of the worst things we ever saw to being, play off team year one, Super World team year two. Yeah, the Bangalos. With Barra coming back from the ACL. The Bangals. The Bangals are the best comparison to the Patriots. Sure. I'm trying to tie them together. That's the team they remind me of the most. Same. Go back to the Niners with Harbaugh. The first year Harbaugh got there. Yeah. They go from being a mediocre team to 13 and three. And they probably should have beat the Giants and the NFC championship. If it wasn't for those special teams, which turns out it's mattered then too. I'm not saying you're wrong. You are completely correct. I just think, and this is, I think, I've mentioned this to you guys before. I don't know if it's totally true. But I feel like this is so based on the Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, where they went through such a linear process of, we're going to win, we're going to lose the first track. We're going to win the first track. We're going to lose the second track. We're going to make it to the conference title. Okay. We're going to lose in there. Then we're going to make it to the finals then. We're going to win every single year from that point forward. And the team we lost to before in the playoffs, we beat this year. Yes. Yes. Like, like, like, it is such a, I'm going to go through the entire stable to get to the little remain heel booking. And it's, it's a dungeon of, it's great when it works out that way. We're going to do all this podcast six hours in. There was like a 1995 hall we'd have it. What's like? What's a monster choice? Well, listen, listen, I, I, I would say that Drake May is the giant falling off a cobalt horn getting up and not having any water on it. I am pumping the car. I shut this right now. You guys are done. You're a totally shavonnie here, Robert. I've always aspired to be exactly that. You're probably right, Barnwall. And honestly, I say this thing. You're wrong. I'm just saying that. I think we underestimate how quickly these things turn over. People's brains. Like speaking of the bulls, I actually was so fun. You said bulls. I was about to bring up the warriors were the warriors who warped everyone in the NBA. And then also in the real people have realized, oh, actually, yeah, just a space shooting, shooting, shooting. Everyone try to copy it. Well, it gets tapped over tapped, whatever. And then also it's like, well, you have to counter that. And then we see, you know, the nuggets using size and you know, you'll get you everything. Of course, I'm being the best player in the world helps. That same thing, I think the, you know, Brady and the Patriots followed by immediately followed by my homes and the chiefs. That screws you a little bit because you go, well, we need that. We need that. We need that. And it's like, man, shoot, even think of those first Patriots teams, Patriots teams, Chiefs teams. I guess you go Patriots here too, but first Chiefs teams were my homes. I don't know how bad those defenses were. Like, it wasn't like in that's what's funny. It was like, that's not exactly how you want to build a team like when you actually look at it. I mean, this is like a nice way to kind of like end it, but it's just like kind of like speaking what you say. It's like just enough, you have to have enough, you know, kind of like enough of everything just to be valid and all that. But it's, it's fascinating to me what you think is kind of tying in what you said, Robert. It's like kind of changing what you need. Like what I think you've regaging it maybe is the best way to put it. Like, do you, is that important or how important is these things to be a quarterback passing in wrong game defense? It's special teams, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, now it's fun. I don't know how much it changes around, but I do think that dynasties kind of warped our brains a little bit. I'm encoding myself here. The bull and I think that's what I'm saying is like, I'm, I have to like make sure I'm thinking of this the right way because in my opinion, and Barnell, the fact that it might honestly be it, or it's just like the, that bulls like sequence of events is burdened to all of our brains. We're just like, there's a way to do this. So clean. There's a timeline you must do it on. But I also think there are examples where there's so many to me where teams jump the gun and they pay for it. That's why I feel like this, there's actually a way to do this. And even like, listen, the Patriots may lose the Super Bowl. And that Carlton Davis contract might look like a disaster next year. I still think there are proper ways to handle free agent contracts that you give out. But again, I just think that the, the, this year specifically, there have just been multiple teams that have flown in the face of our idea of like what a window really is. And you go back a couple years, the Broncos and the Brams did this. Like the Broncos free agent class in year 100 and Peyton, I was like, what are they doing? And then those guys that they signed, it was crucial in what this team looks like. The Rams in 2023 were like, well, when's that window going to open back up? The answer is immediately, immediately. And so I just think maybe I'm too mired in this where I think too traditionally about what the sequence of events has to look like. When in reality, the right play call or quarterback combination, I think is always at the center of this. And quarterback play call or combination smashes that wheel maybe more often than we want to admit. And we should be open to that idea when thinking about how quickly teams can do this. There's more past the victory. I think that's like, yeah, is it a good time? My board game stuff is like speaking of wheels wheels within wheels bill, doing impure a man that board game. It's good. There's multiple paths to victory. It's just like I feel pressed to get out of here. We talked about the US soccer team too. We got the real cup coming up. We can get that in there. There's a car. A Peppy train's front of the phone. Oh, did you see how much free man Alex Freeman got? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have to central Robert. I know this is a mistake. I knew this was a mistake. All right. That is all we've got for today. Always good to do this with you guys. Barnwall tell people where they can check out the work that you're doing right now, including the Super Bowl preview. You're already maniacally working on like a psycho. You do that. Go to the psycho section. You will find me. And they were people check out the work that you are currently doing over at Yahoo. And a little bit of NFL plus stuff. I have some videos kind of coming out now doing some breakdown stuff. But yeah, Yahoo, check it out football three one. All the good stuff over there. All right, guys. That is all we've got for today. We'll be back tomorrow with an update on the coaching car. So we were going to do a mailbag for Friday. There's just way too much shit. We have not talked about. It feels like there have been 30 coaches hired that we haven't talked about. And so we're going to sit tomorrow and just download on all of that with me, Derek and Dave. We're also going to have a couple of our beat riders on to help me walk through a couple of the processes that I don't understand like the bills hiring Joe Brady. So we're going to do a couple of those tomorrow as well. For now though, that is all we've got. I sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. At New Balance, we believe if you run, you're a runner. However you choose to do it. Because when you're not worried about doing things the right way, you're free to discover your way. And that's what running's all about. Run your way at newbalance.com slash running. Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up, and audit dread. It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place, and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clear of visibility, faster deals, zero chaos. Call it compliance or call it calm. Pliance. Get it. Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Get started at vanta.com slash calm. Hello, it's Jo and James from Jo and James Facked Up. And we're currently sponsored by Top Cashback. The UK is leading cashback site that adds joy whenever you spend money. Now we both love spending money, but what's even better than spending money is getting cashback on the money you've spent. 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