When you start piecing together that we need to be going for it on fourth down, there's still some feud of that? Or are you a strictly, "Hey, the numbers say 62% of the time you're gonna pick up the first down, we should go for it." How do you kind of view it, and did it go astray a little bit and is it finding maybe a little bit more level now, you think, after, like, a 10-year run?

It, it, it was always a battle and, you know, a lot of the defensive coaches in particular really don't like it.

You know, you go for fourth and one at your own 45-yard line, there, there might be a 30% chance the defensive coordinator is gonna be facing a 45-yard field.

So, you know, in particular, I...

Even after winning a Super Bowl, I've, I've sort of gotten in a lot of battles with different guys.

But what I would say is that I liked letting...

When I worked with Doug Pederson, I worked with Pete Carroll, like, I liked having the head coach kinda feel like he had ownership in the sense that, you know, I'm gonna provide data, but From that data, they can kind of nudge in either direction.

So what's your, uh, opinion on that, building that through that position in the modern NFL?

But I think I've, there's been a lot of talk as I've talked to teams at training camp about tapping back into more of a wide zone world, and I think some of that movement that you're talking about defensively is one of the potential reasons that it makes sense to re-embrace that stuff as we've drifted away from it a little bit.

bit.Yeah, there, there, there's been a, a split for a long time where, um, like in the under center world running, that a lot of these guys were like robots, and they, they wanted to run at the lesser technique in the inside, so they wanted to run to the A gap defender.

So like the D...

If the D line was in a three technique in like a shade or a two eye or whatever, they just like, they'd be like, "All right.

Let's just run this play to the two eye." And, um, and part of it was 'cause the data actually showed, like if you were trying to run it, like an under center wide zone two or three technique, the penetration that it created, there's usually a nine technique a lot of cases, like that caused problems.

And one thing that I think has changed a little bit, and you see Ben Johnson doing this, and McVay's doing this a little bit, and some of these other teams, they're not afraid of running those wide zones to like the run strength side.

But now it's sort of there's like more, there's a, there's more of an ability to sort of outflank the defense because they're lined up with like 12 or 13, and they're just creating like a four or five-man surface.

[chuckles]

Mm-hmm.

And, um, we actually...

The fourth game of the year, we had a, we really had a great rushing game against the Bears, and a few plays before the end of the game, Colton Miller had an injury.

He ended up going out for the season.

He was by far our best offensive lineman, and we really were not...

The roster was not set up in a way that there was a p- a player to step in at tackle that could very easily repl- no one was gonna replace it, but to at least like be manageable there.

Um, and you know, I think at that time in that fourth week, we actually...

Uh, any comments on that, Ryan?

But why don't you talk about it, um, you know, and how analytics have really changed the NFL as well?

Yeah.

So I, I, I, I got my start in, um, Philadelphia in 2015, and I was sort of fortunate.

They, they ended up making a coaching change a little bit after I got there, and I was able to sort of partner with Doug Pederson and sort of be his coaching analytics and his game management guy.

And, um, Doug had a great attitude about using all the data, and he had a very open mind.

And I, I kind of s- considered myself fortunate that many of these highly successful head coaches that had established pedigrees were very resistant.

They were resistant to analytics, in part because they've already had some success.

Who are a couple of other offenses that you're very bullish on with, with some of your research, uh, especially regarding the play callers?

Uh, one, when was this first on your radar? How did it get on your radar? And second, uh, why is he so head and shoulders above everyone else, and, like, why is this so important to his game-to-game success?

Yeah, so I, I think his, when he first started really calling plays in 2022, um, I had, on like a week-to-week basis, I'm like really on top of all these league-wide metrics.

Like, as the coaches are worried, I'm, I'm doing as much work as I can on like a Monday and Tuesday to help the team with the next game plan and self-scouting and stuff, and then I would try to spend the rest of the week trying to get ahead, like, "All right, what's something that's going on that's a little bit unique?" And I remember back then just seeing, like, okay, he was, there's this guy, Ben Johnson, with Detroit.

Like, the expectations were pretty low.

They were doing all these, like, tight end shifts and motions, and it was, like, standing out in some of my metrics, and I'm like, they were ... almost immediately, like really good.

And, um, you know, it was a little bit unclear at times, like is it just the personnel is really good? Like is, are they just stacked on the offensive line? But then he did it again the next year, and then he did it again the next year.

And, you know, of course, you know, they, as their team was succeeding, you- they started playing in these, these island night games, and they're running laterals and trick plays.

Last season there were 340 of them, and also no team has ever been stopped on four straight sneaks on first and goal from the one-yard line.

Where are you on Bo Nix?

Yeah, so what I'd say is, is in terms of how Denver built their roster, I think it's exceptional.

You know, I think if you were to just rank the O line, D line combo in terms of who is, who's entering the season with the best group, I, I think it's hard to debate that Denver's really number one there.

And both groups are great, and that foundation is something we had in Philadelphia where the engine of the team, whoever was behind it, was going to be, you know, that offensive line, that defensive line.

And as a result, like you can, you can handle potentially some rougher games from the quarterback or, or lesser talent at running back or even, you know, potentially at times lesser skill players at receiver because, you know, the, the, the quarterback's gonna have all the time in the world.

And I think, um, there's definitely some things that Bo could potentially, you know, improve upon just like anyone in the league.

And, and, um, but, you know, for example, when we lost Wentz in our Super Bowl year and we were able to put Nick, Nick Foles in, like when you have that foundation of a great O line and great D line, like you... that...

[laughs]

Yeah, so yeah

...

but, but the, uh, just to give you an example, like, we're playing the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and if James White was in the game, we were gonna play a different personnel group in 11 versus a different running back because they were so heavy pass, and it was really heavy drop back pass.

So like, we might have a dime group that we would match that on a first and 10, which is a little bit uncommon, but trying to sort of maneuver your personnel accordingly is...

And then there, there's just a million different variables to try to consider.

And, um, you know, we've had...

I've been part of games where it's a playoff game and the left guard in a two-point stance is, like, 97% pass on early downs, and that team clearly had no idea that they had that tendency, but it, like, ended up helping win a game in, in the playoffs.

You two, like, both being in the league and now, now you're i- in this position, like, how do you guys relate on the game? Like, are, are you gonna be watching the Saints and giving him ideas, or do you guys kinda stand back and, and relate on different things? Like, how does, how does that family dynamic work?

Like, define what your job has been over the last 10 years, off and on, in Philly, Jacksonville, and with the Raiders last year.

year.So I would say the idea being is just really using all the data resources available to try to, you know, improve the team's decision-making, however, how- whatever that entails.

But for example, you know, if you have access to all these different things suggesting, like, against this team you should be running duo concepts because XYZ, you know, and we have a 500 play example against that specific front that this is the most effective, you know, run concept.

These are things like these large scale studies that never were really even capable of being done in the past, whether there was a lack of data available or, uh, it just, it just wasn't something that the coaches really viewed as a relevant lens.

But whatever domain it could be, whether it's helping out with the roster and draft process and trades, like player valuations, what, uh, sit- game management situations, coaching strategy, like really just thinking, "Okay, what, what is being done now?" Like, what it...

Try...

And, and one of the kind of value add spots I had is I would spend a ton of time with the coaches trying to figure out, why is this being done a certain way? In 2016 in the Eagles, we had two total quarterback sneaks, and I had grown up in Massachusetts, I had gone to a million New England games, I had seen Tom Brady just be an unstoppable force.

Can you explain it?

Like, define what your job has been over the last 10 years, off and on, in Philly, Jacksonville, and with the Raiders last year.

year.So I would say the idea being is just really using all the data resources available to try to, you know, improve the team's decision-making, however, how- whatever that entails.

But for example, you know, if you have access to all these different things suggesting, like, against this team you should be running duo concepts because XYZ, you know, and we have a 500 play example against that specific front that this is the most effective, you know, run concept.

These are things like these large scale studies that never were really even capable of being done in the past, whether there was a lack of data available or, uh, it just, it just wasn't something that the coaches really viewed as a relevant lens.

But whatever domain it could be, whether it's helping out with the roster and draft process and trades, like player valuations, what, uh, sit- game management situations, coaching strategy, like really just thinking, "Okay, what, what is being done now?" Like, what it...

Try...

And, and one of the kind of value add spots I had is I would spend a ton of time with the coaches trying to figure out, why is this being done a certain way? In 2016 in the Eagles, we had two total quarterback sneaks, and I had grown up in Massachusetts, I had gone to a million New England games, I had seen Tom Brady just be an unstoppable force.

Can you explain it?

Oh

... um, you know, being more conservative.

And by the same idea, in games that we were favored, you know, I would generally try to advocate for, for, for trying to get more snaps in and playing a little bit more up-tempo just to sort of reduce variance as opposed to in games that we were underdogs, I would suggest, you know, slowing down a little bit.

And it's, it's sort of like you're the 16 seed playing, uh, the one seed in the NCAA tournament.

Like if, if both teams, you know, are getting a ton, ton of possessions and shots up, like you, you don't have as much of a chance.

But if you can slow the game down and sort of expose s- expose the team to some more variance where like maybe you shoot much better on three-point attempts than they do, it can really kind of tilt things in your favor.

Um, by the, the sa- another idea that this would come up is like if you say you're playing a team and you don't even know if their quarterback's gonna play, and the betting markets have priced in the value of certain quarterbacks fairly accurately.

Yeah.

Now, obviously you're at the forefront of this, but, but I have to ask, like did you build your own model? Uh, like this chart that you keep referencing, was that yours? Is that proprietary or d- is that like a widely known chart?

So there, there's a number of different, uh, public models that, that are available.

Like you might see a team go for a fourth down in week two, and some people actually have posted like totally open source data where you can see what their model says.

But at the time, there was some public research into the topic.

We had internal fourth down models that we also used.

But just for a frame of reference, like I had a book of somewhere around 400 to 500,000 situations that I would follow.

And, and so essentially, like what's the score differential? How much time is remaining? What's the, what's the distance to go? What's the field position? What's our timeouts? What's their timeouts? And so really, um, a ton of work went into sort of building that book and finding all these sort of edge cases, and sort of selling the coach on some of these obscure ones that maybe, um, are, are, are something that is a little bit unconventional.

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Okay.

Now, that number can fluctuate significantly, but you have to practice the play because the snap, the cadence, the timing, that- it, it is totally foreign to a lot of these, um, you know, s- for example, tight ends are, like, the, the, the main kind of guy.

Last year with the Raiders, we actually...

You know, it really wasn't Gino's type of play.

Like, he had a very low sneak amount in his career.

But we w- we- Chip wanted to do it, Pete wanted to do it.

I was trying to advocate for it.

[coughs]

How do you get from Dartmouth to the Eagles and then the Jaguars and the Raiders?

So actually, um, I, I have an older brother who's actually a run game coordinator with the Saints.

Um, we spent a few years together with the Eagles together.

But my older brother, um, he went to University of Oregon for, uh, undergraduate, and h- his first year there was actually the same year that Chip Kelly started as the offensive coordinator at Oregon, and he actually volunteered to just basically help out Chip and do whatever to participate with the program.

And just right off the bat Chip was killing it at Oregon.

This is his first two years at OC, um, as OC there, and then he took over as the head coach for four years.

My brother was actually...

Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going.