Is that as simple as it was to combat that Cardinal running game?

Well, I think, yeah, I think you can start loading the box.

But again, if they start loading the box, what does that do to the pass game? That should open up the pass game.

If you can protect, if you can protect, that's the key, right? And so, you know, I think, I mean, that Giants pass rush has been non-existent.

So let's not sit there and like give that a free pass because all of a sudden they get nine pressures.

Abdul Carter looks like he's Lawrence Taylor as Lawrence Taylor's watching on.

And, you know, you get Arvel Reese who, yeah, good player.

What's appropriate going forward to serve the locker room and the work that those guys have put into this season? At what point in time do you start considering long-term options?

Okay

... right? And I think that's, that's the biggest issue, right? Like, I think, like, when I, when I talk offensive line technique and I put my little videos out every single week, the biggest thing is keeping your hips square to the line of scrimmage as long as possible.

That's the biggest thing.

Far too often I, I see hips turn to the sideline, and that creates soft edges, short edges, and allows guys to get up the gap, right? And so I think that's, uh, that's been quite a, quite an issue thus far.

And I think, yes, I think if you turn on the LA Rams football, they're running the football.

They're 13 personnel.

They're duo.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

And it's just like, "Okay, let's just go block that 99.

He's a pretty good football player," right? So to your point, I think, uh, I think when you get to this level, you build not only defenses up, you build players up to much more than they are.

It's like, "Hey, this is the game wrecker.

We can't, we can't let this guy p- wreck the game, and then all of a sudden you're stressing out all week.

I think they did a little bit of that last week, too.

I think with Derwin James, I think they sat there and they, they, they put a ton of emphasis on him and had this whole game plan to go aben- about him.

Your thoughts on what's going on with that young man.

I come out of a high school basketball game, and I know I don't look like it because I'm as wide as I am tall, but I was a pretty good basketball player.

I come out of this game, I score like 30-something points, I have like 12 rebounds, and everybody in the town's like, hey, great game, great game, great game.

My mom's sitting there and gives me a big hug.

My sister's there and gives me a big hug.

Hey, great game.

I walk up to my dad that's looking for some approval, and he looks at me and he said, if you could make your free throws, you would add 40, and he just walks away.

Do you encounter that when you're introducing the ice bath to the guys that you're training? 100%.

And more so...

Are they gonna be able to protect Stafford? What is the leverage point on this Los Angeles Rams team? Is it the offensive line and protection like it was a couple years ago, or they have that kind of figured out?

No, listen, I mean, their offensive line, I don't think when you look across the board any of their five guys are sitting there like, "Oh yeah, that's a, that's a clear All-Pro," or, "That's a Pro Bowler." But they play well together.

I think that's a key, and they've had some consistency.

They've been able to keep a lot of the same guys over the years.

I think what Dan's trying to say, and I kind of agree now being able to call the games of the Cardinals and seeing Coach LaFleur operate the same offense this entire preseason, which by the way, with the entire two, threes, and four- fourth-string guys for the Arizona Cardinals, they look like a juggernaut.

Because here's the deal, the offense is easy to operate, and what he means by that is it's, it makes it easy on everybody.

The offensive line job's easier.

[laughs]

What's going on? Do you have a direct line to the Las Vegas Raiders with Tom Brady once going under your cheeks to get a football during a Super Bowl run?

Just posted a picture with Robby Leonard, uh, on my story the other day.

I f- I, I spent about an hour with him pre-game, Arizona Cardinals versus the Vegas Raiders in the pre-season.

Spent about an hour with Spytek.

Vegas Raiders got a team over there.

They made a big free agency haul.

Robby Leonard's a dog, though.

Shout out Roger Goodell.

H- how did it go, in your opinion, and what do you think you, you learned the most?

Yeah, I think it got better and better every week.

And I think for me, just more comfortable, right? I think the, the best piece of advice I ever got was obviously doing a lot of TV with the Pat McAfee Show.

Before I started the first day there, and again, I'd never done anything on TV prior to that, just similar to how I'd never done a broadcast, a, call a game before I'd done it last year.

And so the one piece of advice I got was Matt Hasselbeck, who had done some TV for a long time, former teammate of mine, Indianapolis Colts, legendary quarterback, right? He says, "Explain the game to the audience as if you're explaining it to your grandma.

And if you can break it down and explain what 22 double is in the Bruce Arians scheme to your grandma, everybody'll understand it.

Because not everybody understands the way you and I see it.

Yeah

How are you guys viewing this right now as a city over there, and what do you think is gonna inevitably happen around Jacoby Brissett, AQ?

Yeah, the draft just happened, so obviously everybody's excited about Carson Beck

BeckBut listen, he's the guy.

Jacoby Brissett is the guy.

The minute that he went into the game last year in place of Kyler Murray, he injected a new energy into this offense, and they started to look like an efficient offense.

Early, it was just...

Kyler was just playing backyard football, just trying to get it to two guys.

But how does he look in this offense as fit, far as fit wise?

Go boys.

Great job.

Now I think the one thing that people don't talk about enough with Linderbaum is the fact that he was a former high school state champion wrestler, right? That pass protection play that Dan showed, his balance is impeccable.

He's incredible with his balance and pass protection, right there moving people off the spot.

He is so good with lateral quickness, and this is only gonna bode so well for the type of offense that Kliff Kubiak is going to bring into that Raiders offense.

And Rick Dennison, as Schrags mentioned earlier, I had him when I was in Baltimore.

He comes from the Kubiak world.

Why is Allgeier the move for the Cardinals over there, and who's their quarterback, Schefter?

But, like, the Bears' starting left guard, he's a multiplier too, isn't he?

Absolutely.

Yeah, he's a, he's a dog.

There's no question about that, and I think that was the best move that they made.

The other guys are really good football players, and they had really good years.

But the culture setter that you brought in at left guard was much more than just a football player.

He was a guy that, very similar to when I went down to Tampa Bay and I saw the way that Tom Brady operated...

I just, I'm curious from your perspective, how impressed you were with how he embraced not just catching the ball, but being a blocker and helping that offensive line.

You have shown me the light of just really embracing and loving what great offensive line play looks like because it took a while for the Bears to finally get there this year.

It took a while for most teams to kind of get there.

I think there's been a thirst for offensive line play for a while.

And when you look at the Chicago Bears and what they've done in just one offseason by improving three positions, right? Like they had their tackles and still, I still think they can improve their left tackle position, right? And if you do that...

You might have the best offensive line in the league, hands down.

It's already in the top five, in my opinion.

And, you know, I think what they've done and what they've brought in and what Ben Johnson does to utilize them, put them in the right position.

What did you think about the year that Caleb Williams had?

I just am curious from your perspective how impressed you were with how he embraced not just catching the ball, but being a blocker and helping that offensive line.

He was unbelievable this year, and he wasn't early, either.

He was another guy that took a minute to get going, right? I think, you know, he went through some rookie mistakes early.

He went through trying to understand the difference between the college game and the NFL game, and Ben putting him in some blocking positions that he probably didn't have to do very much at Michigan.

But when he does, and he puts his nose in there and gets going, oh, he's a pretty good blocker, right? So for me, being a Penn State guy, I was all in on Tyler Warren early.

I'm like, "Oh, this guy's the guy." And then about halfway through the season, I'm like, "Oh, this Loveland guy's starting to really, he's starting to really show up on tape," right? So I think when, when you look at how much he grew from week one till the end of the season, maybe the most improved player in the NFL when you watch him on film.

Like, you watch him the first couple weeks, and then all of a sudden when Chicago started to get that run game going, it was a lot off the counter game, and watching Colston Loveland come around, bypass the defensive end, and become the lead blocker out on a corner, and then all of a sudden you start getting him going in the pass game, and running the slant.

[laughs]

well all right Q I want to get back to the NFL because you have your like you have your segment on Pat McAfee and it's in the trenches and you're highlighting offensive line play across the league and I really appreciate it the the discourse needs more offensive line discourse like there's just needs to be more talked about when it comes to offensive lines and I want to know from your perspective through the first seven weeks of the season who has which team has the best offensive line

Such a good question.

I mean, I think when you talk, this year has been very weird because when you look across the league, last year it was really good.

I mean, there was four or five offensive lines that were very good.

And I think when you look at this year, it's like week to week.

I mean, you get one week where.

The teams that you thought were going to have good offensive lines, the Detroit lines, the Baltimore Ravens in week one, and then all of a sudden Baltimore has dropped off a cliff.

defensive freaks that you're now lining up across from and if you're coming from an fcs school god forbid or like one of you know even the acc these guys are just bigger faster stronger than anything you've experienced but the game itself is different like what do you see as far as is that trending is that is that gap widening or is it narrowing do you think

Do you think this is a lot of teams copying what the Eagles did because the Eagles did it and because Stoutland did it? And how many, how m- how pissed do you think guards are gonna be that every highly drafted tackle who doesn't work out is now gonna get a chance at guard over top of them?

Well, if, listen, it's a, it's a last resort move, and that's what happens.

When you start to, um, not play nearly as well as they think you're capable of, obviously drafting you in the first round, the initial move is, "Hey, let's just move them to guard." It cracks me up whenever I was upstairs with every team, and it's always like, "Hey, well, if he's not working out at guard, we'll just move him into center.

If he's not working out of tackle, we'll just move him to guard." It's like, it doesn't always work that way.

Listen, at the end of the day, Mekhi Becton is a mammoth human being, and it just happened to be that he walked in to the Philadelphia Eagles with one of the best offensive line coaches, with one of the best schemes, and a scheme that fits where you don't have to do very much except just run off the football, right? When you are in a zone scheme and you can run off the football and get your......

get your body in the way of people and get your hands on people, and you're 6'6", 6'7", 6'8" and 340 pounds, makes it look easy.

But if you're in a system where it requires, hey, you're going to be one-on-one backside quite often in this pass scheme, and now all of a sudden you couldn't do an attack, well, now we're moving you into guard, it may not work out the same way as it did for Beckton, as it will for Neal.

Do you think the football team, because there's so many other schools that are all in as well, especially in the Big Ten, do you think they're gonna be able to do what they did last year? And do you think they're gonna be able to get even further?

What are your thoughts on the tush push and do we need to give credit to the teams that are great at this more, as opposed to just trying to ban the play entirely, in your eyes?

Yeah, I think that's been my biggest take the whole time, is the fact that the Philadelphia Eagles have been the only ones that have been damn near 100% on this thing.

And so, when you look at it, it is a skill.

Like, Buffalo tried to do it and they get stuffed.

Other teams have tried to do it and they've gotten stuffed.

I mean, it's not nearly as successful with all the other teams as it is with the Philadelphia Eagles.

So, it's clearly a skill that the Philadelphia Eagles have mastered.

All right.

(laughs)

And he was the rock piece...

... left guard for them, right? And if you look at him here, I mean, he's unbelievable. He's pulling, opens up the scene, Pacheco's great. But, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, what Tooney brought to that team was experience, and you can't buy experience. And the biggest issue with the Kansas City Chiefs over the last couple of years is they have not been able to solve their offensive line. So now, they're going with inexperience, or I've been reading a lot on the internet that they're gonna move Kingsley to left tackle, who got benched early in the season, they're gonna try him at left guard. So now, you've taken a, a guy who's never played guard and you're gonna move him into left guard, which is probably one of the most important positions on the offensive line. So you take 10 years of experience, 10,000 career snaps, multiple Super Bowls, All-Pro status, and you're gonna replace him with a guy who's never played there before. I think it's an interesting move.

Maybe they think that what happened with Mekhi in Philadelphia could potentially happen there? Or what do you think the answer is for the Chiefs?

I think the answer is what they're, what- what they're doing, right? Like, I think they're screwed cap-wise. I mean, they're paying Mahomes, they're paying Chris Jones, they're paying guys, you know, kind of all over the place, and they're kind of in a little bit of cap hell. So they're able to sit there and look at what Mahomes is able to do with a less than stellar supporting cast at times. They just gave Trey Smith 24 and a franchise tag. I, I assume they're gonna try and work out some type of deal and lower that cap number, just like the Eagle just did with Saquon Barkley. But, you know, when you look at it, you look at Trey Smith at 24, you look at Tooney going on the other side of 30 now, you gotta stick with Trey Smith, who's the younger player, and he's a dog, and he's one of the best players in all of football on the offensive line, right? So you gotta stick there. You would have hoped they would have been able to keep Tooney and try and figure out through the draft the tackle position. They were not able to do that, so now they got to just kind of keep, you know, mixing and matching and hoping for the best. But again, I don't, I- I see them in a position where they've been in the last couple of years, where they're just trying to find that piece and they're gonna be stuck.