5 Players with Unlimited Ceilings Thanks To Playcalling
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Jul 28, 2026
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Tue, July 28, 2026
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Episode Transcript
0:00The entire goal of the off season is to identify the stats that will help you win your fantasy league. It's really
0:05that simple. But, I'm sure when you watch all these videos, you read all these analysts, the same numbers are repeated every single week. So,
0:12today's mission to present you with at least five underlying metrics, five completely new stats that will give you an edge in your drafts. And the perfect
0:21man for this challenge is Ryan Paganetti. First, Ryan, welcome to the show. And second, you know, tell the people what you've been up to for the
0:29last decade that makes you perfectly suited for this challenge.
0:32>> Well, I really appreciate you guys having me. Um you know, I started in the NFL in 2015 with the Eagles and I've sort of done a
0:39bunch of different analytics and coaching type roles there. I was there I was there for 6 years with coach Peterson and and um you know, we we
0:46managed to have a lot of success there in terms of you know, we won the Super Bowl. We we were kind of
0:51ahead of the game a little bit on some of the things like fourth downs and two-point conversions and QB sneaks and
0:56whatnot. And then I spent 3 years with the the Jaguars as director of football analytics and you know, I was kind of
1:02diving a little bit more into the personnel side in addition to the the coaching side there. And really uh this last year I I was with you know, Pete
1:09Carroll who's I absolutely love and I always will love and I I you know, I hope to see him in the
1:14He might He deserves to be in two Hall of Fames in my opinion. Like just just an awesome guy. He was kind of dealt
1:19some, you know, difficult circumstances with the team that wasn't maybe necessarily ready to go last year, but >> Uh you mentioned that you worked with
1:25Pete Carroll in the Raiders last year.
1:27You recently posted that quote, we had a goal last season in Las Vegas of single season record for catches and targets
1:34for Brock Bowers before the week one injury. So, Ryan, how are you guys going to achieve that? And maybe most importantly, do you think that's going
1:42to be possible and is another goal that Clint Kubiak might have for Brock Bowers this season?
1:46>> I just you know, just from my familiarity with that roster, like we were basically looking at that last year and
1:53the talent that we had on hand. You You I know a bunch of different you know, where you really stack your team up in
1:59talent is always a little bit controversial and you know, it's it's very good from like a media perspective to do ranks and whatnot, but there was a
2:07consensus that the receiver group for the Raiders entering last season was in some cases 32nd or quite close to 32nd.
2:15And there was a little bit of like a situation with Jakobi Meyers wanted to get traded and he was kind of our top
2:19guy and there was like some instability there.
2:22And um you know, Brock Bowers like had I think he was like graduating from Georgia or something like that. He showed up at some point OTAs
2:30and the coaches were just kind of looking around and they're like this is this is there are some things going on.
2:37And he had just come off his first season that I believe he set like the NFL record for catches for a tight end
2:41or something and um we're just kind of looking around like given the roster distribution saying like this makes way too much
2:48sense that we're we're not doing a good job coaching if we're not figuring out how to get him the ball as much as
2:52possible. So that was sort of like the attitude and you know, I printed out a piece of paper for like Pete and Chip
2:59and and I just I think it it was either early in training camp or in OTAs I'm just cuz I and it was essentially like what are the
3:06actual records and I'm like we're going to just keep a tally of this every week as like an aiming point. And the
3:12attitude from them was like oh, let's let's smash those records. Like just given where we were as a team and like
3:17what from a macro perspective where we thought like our kind of difference-maker player was and then week one he had a pretty significant injury. I
3:26think he had a 108 yards.
3:28Yep. Like say two and a half quarters in the game whatever. Don't quote me on that exact number, but he gets that
3:33injury and he was significantly hampered and it was like an ongoing narrative. He wasn't practicing. He's like there's can't even do walk-throughs some days.
3:42They we end up shutting him down for period. He comes back and he gets like three touchdowns in a game and um but
3:46then he's you know, he gets he's still kind of managing it. And so there was there was considerations like managing his snaps, like was he getting was he
3:54drawing additional attention and really the combination of the injuries and you know that some other players on the offense clearly not performing really
4:03where you would hope and it just was sort of snowballed where you know then we we even had a play caller change during the season and and
4:09like so all these different variables made it a little bit complex but if I was Clint Kubiak and I had and I also just funneled like
4:17an insanely high percentage of my offense through one player if I was thinking I might do that again like doing that for Brock Bowers makes
4:24all the sense in the world just given he nobody can actually with a serious face can like show up to their practice
4:31look at the pass catcher unit and not say you actually might think he's the starting XY receiver like we were going
4:37to do that at at different points where we're like why don't we just make him our X and we just 12 will be our base
4:42offense and Michael Mayer will be our Y tight end you know I I was I was keep certainly keeping an eye on like how
4:48unsustainable the JSN target share was last year but then he just kept doing it and he kept succeeding it's so like if I
4:54was Clint I'd be like I'm just going to try that again like why not [laughter] >> I think that Trey McBride ran what over
5:00100 more routes than any other tight end in the NFL last year so Hayden I know that Brock Bowers is one of our favorite
5:06picks in the board this year >> he's he's going to go crazy just real quick we don't spend a lot of time on
5:10this is there anything about the Raiders analysis from Ashton Jeanty obviously the situation was brutal offensive line just him by himself comparing him to
5:18other backs across the league was there any consensus in the building after watching his rookie season >> I um well let me put it this way like
5:26I as an as an analytics person there there's like a certain belief system of like I'm the big offensive line first
5:32guy I was there in Philadelphia where you know at times we were basically putting practice squad backs behind like a great offensive line and having
5:39production and um it was clear that the offensive line really needed massive improvement there and almost certainly Jeanty will perform better this year. They have some things
5:50they got to sort out with some of the offensive line positions still. You know, they got basically two guys that are like confirmed starters and then the
5:55other ones are a little bit up in the air. You know, Jente has a unique play style where he's definitely a little bit
6:00more of a try to run you over guy rather than like the ultra dynamic outrun you type player and it's definitely an
6:08interesting kind of contrast with some guys like Jahmyr Gibbs where you're sort of like sweating that if he hits a crease, he's going to
6:14go like 75 and like that's not to say that Jente can't, but he might get 75 and break four tackles on the way. Jente
6:21and and and you know, Gibbs or Saquon might go untouched at times. I think it'll be interesting. There's definitely a lot There was a lot of eyeballs on
6:29that decision of making that pick last year.
6:33You know, that's ultimately like that's the the route that the team decided to go with and it it didn't result in the
6:40team improving run game-wise last year and I think it seems like that was an emphasis for this year that whatever whatever other like components they
6:48added the team, they really need to get the run game on track.
6:50>> I got to ask was this more of like like analytics department or was it something different because I know a lot of people
6:55that watch fantasy football shows like their dream job would be like in the analytics department of these NFL teams.
7:00Could you just give us some backstory and just exactly how analytics departments work behind the scenes for these NFL teams?
7:05>> Yeah, I I'd say you know, a lot in a lot of cases there's it used to be like sort of when I
7:10started almost like one or two man shops and things have really expanded where now teams aren't shrinking their analytics departments. They're just getting bigger
7:18and you know, I I bring up baseball for example where you know, some people quote some of these top teams of having you
7:24know, essentially 40 quantitative people now and like and like the direction of of football like the some teams are like approaching tennis and it's probably
7:33going to continue to go up especially in this world of like the player tracking data and everything, but whether it's like
7:39draft modeling like free agency evaluations, trades, uh game planning, league-wide studies, like all sorts of cap implications. Um I think you're
7:49seeing more and more of the data really being utilized in all those different worlds, and the thing I think that the
7:55Eagles did an amazing job of is that uh you know, the it seemed like the message from Jeffrey Lurie and Howie
8:01Roseman was like basically every important decision was going to be cross-checked with analytics. And if And if there was some data that said don't
8:08do this, like they were going to pause and be like, you know, let's look into this. Let's think about this. And um
8:13it's really to me like if if you say if an organization made 10,000 decisions in 2015, there was a lot of places that maybe
8:21used some kind of data for like 10 of them. And now now you have teams that are basically using some kind of data
8:27for nearly every decision.
8:29Um so it's it's it's it's a really uh it's an interesting world where like just like the coaches are trying to beat
8:34the other coaches and the scouts are trying to, you know, do a better job of evaluating players, like the analytics people I think are trying to have better
8:41information for their own staffs, too.
8:43>> You mentioned game planning and trying to understand these play callers and coaches. We love doing that, too. Ryan, uh because in the end, you
8:51know, you don't get fancy points unless people actually score points on the field and yards on the field every Thursday, Sunday, and Monday on top of
8:58it. So, let's dive into some of the information you've been sharing uh on Twitter that is @RyanPaganetti. Uh everything we talk about today comes
9:05from that. And the first chart we're going to bring up here, the play callers with 10-plus yards design run rates uh
9:11throughout their entire career. So, typically this is viewed, Ryan, from our lens through individual running backs, individual ball carriers. But I love
9:19looking at it how you have done it here with the, you know, offensive designers, with the play callers. So, I'm not going
9:26to shout out anything. I just want to present this to you since you presented it to us, and ask what stood out to you
9:31when you put these numbers together.
9:32>> A lot of the the top names are consistently guys that are, you know, fairly well regarded in terms of run
9:38game designs. And one thing I think that stands out to is like there's a little bit of a of a consideration that some of
9:45the top performers also had a like running type quarterback because that's absolutely has a huge boost in the run game whether they can read a defender,
9:55whether it's Kyler Murray or, you know, Lamar Jackson with Todd Monken. But you see some of these guys in particular that, you know, have succeeded even
10:02without what would be considered like a true running quarterback. For example, like Ben Johnson with Jared Goff and and what, you know, Caleb can can run a
10:10little bit, but that's not going to be like a main thing that they do as much as other teams. And then Mike McDaniel
10:15with you know, Tua certainly wasn't really a heavy run guy there, but you see some of the exceptional like big play upside
10:22of some of these guys. How much of it was an offensive line situation in the past? Was there something with running
10:27back talent and all that? But I think there's at least some level of concern if like guys over some big samples are
10:33showing up relatively low on some of these rankings. I do want to call attention to a couple of these names specifically. So, at the top of the list
10:41it's Todd Monken at a 14.3% rate. We know that Quinshon Judkins is in the middle of the fifth round now.
10:48No mobile quarterback and Lamar Jackson attached to him, but point still stands.
10:52As you mentioned Ben Johnson with the Bears, De'Andre Swift also in the fifth round. Then you get to Mike McDaniel third on this list now with the
10:59Chargers. We know Marvin Mims Hampton is at that 1.2 turn. Trey Palmer the 1.01 attached to Jahmyr Gibbs which is notable because we know what Jahmyr
11:09Gibbs and that rushing attack did with Ben Johnson who's second on the list.
11:11So, still having a top four guy among this as calling plays and designing the run game helps. Shane Steichen obviously Jonathan Taylor the eighth
11:20overall pick on Yahoo right now. Ryan, I also want to take you to one part being the explosive plays that we just outlined, but also avoiding
11:28negative runs, avoiding dead runs is a major part of this too. You also posted this chart. Uh what stood out to me here is how Mike
11:37McDaniel on the previous was ranked third on explosive runs rate and then now ranked bottom three in terms of
11:46number of dead runs. Now, from the outside, I can guess that that is maybe an offensive line stat.
11:54Also, where these runs kind of originate for him at the same time. Um there's a whole bunch of things I could
12:01dive into here. When conversely, you know, Ben Johnson ranks at the top of of nearly both.
12:06Uh what stands out to you? Again, Nick Kayley, the Texans are 22nd out of 26 teams here. So, it's almost Would you
12:13say combining these two and maybe looking at the overlap uh is maybe the best way to approach how
12:23the run structure is going to feature for these teams this year?
12:27>> To me, part of the story that it's telling is that Ben Johnson is really good at coaching football.
12:31>> Yeah.
12:31>> Because he's avoiding negatives and he's just methodically getting big chunks as well. And so like it's interesting how some of these lists are a little bit
12:38different. I think the Bills are kind of interesting that they're actually a little bit higher here in terms of popping off some big runs.
12:43>> Yeah.
12:44>> Um you know, Kellen Moore is up there a little bit higher, which I think is interesting, too, because they they had
12:48a little bit of a struggling run game last year, but you know, there's some reasons to think that could improve. You
12:52know, I think uh Mike McDaniel's if that I think it'll has a lot to do with the the scheme being very high risk, high
13:00reward. Like there's sometimes where you see Yeah, like outside runs, tosses, reverses.
13:06Um he he'll come up with stuff every every game or two that no one's ever run before and sometimes those things are
13:11awesome and it's a gash, and then sometimes like maybe part of the reason no one's run it before is because like it's a little bit
13:17of a funky [laughter] deal, and then like there's like a 2-yard loss in there. But, you know, I think uh it's it's an interesting like if if just
13:25thinking stability and like if you're like I want I want a guy that I feel pretty comfortable on a, you know, week in a
13:31week out basis is going to come up with a run game that's probably going to be pretty efficient and, you know, you're
13:36I I think you you have to at least think Ben Johnson's kind of up there and you know, Matt LaFleur up there too, I think
13:41was a little bit interesting, too, especially because they're like rivals or whatever.
13:45>> Payton, the thing that stood out to me is Devon Achane going from Mike McDaniel's play calling, which is, again, third in
13:54design run rate that leads to an explosive, to now Bobby Slowik, who obviously was with the Texans and now gets a second time calling plays here
14:02with the Dolphins to 19th. And then also, Slowik's offense is ranked 25th in terms of uh negative rush rate.
14:10>> I mean, it makes me nervous, but I think Slowik would be smart to kind of study what Mike McDaniel was doing. And also,
14:15I think that Dolphins' offensive line has really come along, especially when you get Kayden Proctor in there, when the Slowik offensive lines were terrible
14:23with with the Texans. But, uh I never saw anything like super original out of Bobby Slowik, and that does make me a
14:29little bit nervous, but Devon Achane is like one of these superstar backs that like it's kind of on you. If you can't
14:34make that work behind that offensive line at this point, like you're not going to be in the the play calling chair for very long.
14:40>> From your experience, have you ever been a part of an organization where uh such a prophetic
14:49that's the right term to use uh in terms of just a great genius moves on and then he's kind of replaced with someone who
14:57uh maybe doesn't run the exact same style, but can kind of pick up on some of the uh outlines of what the departed
15:03play caller left in his place?
15:05>> If you're if you're a coach in the NFL, like the shelf life is is is short and the turnover is so high, you're you're
15:12usually better off following up somebody who was like not well regarded.
15:16>> Yeah.
15:16>> Like I I feel bad for the the the O-line coach in Philadelphia this year. He's like stepping in for like a Hall of Fame
15:23O-line coach and like I I don't I I I hope he does a great job and he's got some players to work with
15:28and everything, but just like the standard that's set at times is tricky.
15:31And like so you definitely see coaches like studying what was successful with the previous coach because like you don't necessarily just want to abandon
15:39everything. Like it would be kind of foolish if the Dolphins just like lit every single run design they had on fire
15:44last year when they have they were doing some things that were really cool in the run game and at times they were getting
15:48huge plays. And if somebody like is such an outperformer. Like I can assure you most offensive coaches around the league have had some somebody on their staff is
15:57studying what Sean McVay and Ben Johnson has have done these like last couple years.
16:01Um because it's it's almost like malpractice not to at least take a look at it.
16:05>> Before we move on from the running backs, I had a question about just what NFL teams are doing to kind of grade
16:11running backs. So we have like next gen stats to public model with it. They're doing their best to kind of account for
16:16the boxes, how good the offensive line is. I see that you some of these charts use an NFL fast star. That's what I use.
16:22I have my own models, rush yards over expected success rate. Is there is there something that teams have access to that
16:27is just way outclass what the public does? And then follow up to that, do teams uh look at what's what some people are
16:34posting onto Twitter and ESPN and stuff?
16:37Uh is there any kind of like making sure that the media doesn't have some idea that maybe we haven't thought of before?
16:43>> Well, I always I was always refreshing Twitter. If I would find something that was good or useful, I'd just like print
16:48it out and give it to the head coach. I didn't care. Like like there's why would you not use the information? And now
16:53that there's so much data out there and there's a lot of like interesting analysis being done, you know, on social media. A lot of times these coaches
17:00actually get asked in their weekly press conferences just based off something that came up. Like, "Hey, you're 30th in the league in middle of the field
17:07throws." And it's comes from somebody just like pulled something together.
17:10>> Yep.
17:11>> Um the uh in terms of the run game, like there's you when you're on the team side, like you have access to this expected rush
17:19yards that on like a play-by-play level.
17:22And it's it's honestly, I'm not entirely sure if you can get access to that in the public sphere of like the one that's
17:27built entirely off of the tracking data.
17:29And I think you can get like summary stats of it, but on the team side like you could legitimately say like, "Oh,
17:34this play was supposed to get 2.3 yards and the running back got like 3.9." The play-by-play level information on that, I'm not entirely sure how much of that
17:42is available in the public. I think it's a little bit limited. And but like it's the same thing with like pass game like
17:49the expected completion rates and whatnot. Like it's it's really useful to kind of evaluate um with a little bit more precision and say like okay like
17:56great that ball was completed, but maybe you shouldn't have thrown that you tell your quarterback because it was like a 42% chance of completion rate and there
18:04was another opportunity and and stuff like that.
18:06>> So NFL teams it's all tracking data now.
18:08It's like like for a lot of the public information it's like the tenant okay, how many people are in the box and then
18:14you can build it sometimes a model. But the the team stuff is like all of just like we have every single helmet tracked
18:18at this point and all of the models are based off of that. We don't need the the stuff that the public usually has access
18:25to.
18:25>> I would say I it's it's still a blend and like dude that's where you get the differentiation between the teams that
18:30are like taking analytics seriously versus not is the ones that are kind of leaning into that a little bit more. But
18:35there's still the public sources are are leaned on like PFF had a relationship or still has a relationship with every team. It's the same thing with college
18:42like where where you get you know, a lot of these objective metrics like who what's the personnel in the game, what's run concepts and things
18:50like that. Like you in a perfect world you do as much of that as possible with the player tracking, but there also is a
18:55lot of work that goes into that. And so there's still some things like subjectively that are a little bit better.
19:01So there's a world though where it really moves 95% plus towards just like everyone using player tracking data.
19:08I wish they just made it all public. It it be so much more fun to do some of this stuff.
19:12>> 100%. Okay. Uh we can't have a conversation about play colors without bringing up Ben Johnson's name again. Uh Ryan, you posted that no
19:21NFL play caller this century has treated second and short like a free shot more aggressively than Ben Johnson. Among 68 play callers with 70 plus games since
19:291999, Ben Johnson ranks first in second one pass rate, first in second and two pass rate, first in second and three
19:36pass rate, basically. Uh one, when was this first on your radar?
19:40How 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
19:47important to his game-to-game success?
19:50>> Yeah, so I I think his when he first started really calling plays in 2022, um I have on like a week-to-week basis,
19:58I'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
20:03as 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
20:08would try to spend the rest of the week trying to get ahead like, all right, what's something that's going on that's
20:13a 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
20:20pretty low. They were doing all these like tight end shifts and motions. And it was like standing out in some of my
20:25metrics. And I'm like, they were almost immediately like really good.
20:29And um you know, it was a little bit unclear at times like, is it just the personnel is really good? Like is are
20:34they just stacked on the offensive line?
20:36But then he did it again the next year.
20:38Then he did it again the next year.
20:39And 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
20:46laterals and trick plays. It's And it's like it's really really impressive what he was doing. Um I thought when he was
20:53entering kind of like after 3 years as the play caller, I thought it was potentially the greatest head coach opportunity. Like if I was I there was
21:02half those teams in the league I would have potentially gotten rid of my head coach if Ben Johnson agreed. Now, you
21:06can't just do that cuz there's rules for hiring, but I he it was so unbelievable like looking at his his metrics in terms of what he had
21:15accomplished, how young he was. He's like a computer engineering major. Um and really he sort of captivated the whole league with what he was doing.
21:24And so I I tried to dig into different things that he was doing that was unique and you know this this idea that there's
21:30a lot of coaches that just look at second and short and they're like let's just go pick it up. Let's pick it up.
21:34Like Greg Roman I don't know if you guys saw that one, but Greg Roman had a stretch from middle of 2019 to his end
21:40of his Chargers career where every second and one to two it was with that were like not at the goal line.
21:46They had they had 135 runs and one pass.
21:49And like that's just literally what he was. I swear to god. And like legitimately so like we played him in the chart with the Chargers last year
21:56and it's actually it was actually the game that Tom Brady came up and was in the booth and like he's literally
22:00sitting next to me and I have like all these tables and stuff and I'd bring it up on the headset different times and
22:04like they get a second one to two and I like look over at my at my little chart and it's like here's
22:10the run thing and I'm like telling Pat Graham and Pete and like sure enough they run it. Like that's just what he
22:15does. And they're like people in the booth are like oh damn that's cool. Like how'd you know that? I'm like okay well
22:20it was a pretty good tendency.
22:21>> 100% of the time.
22:22>> Yeah. And the best part is the one time that they actually passed it was like an up-tempo play in the second quarter
22:28against the Patriots and they took a brutal sack. And I was like >> [laughter] >> You did never again.
22:32>> Should have ran it. Should have ran it.
22:33I'm done.
22:35But that'll be interesting with um you know cuz Greg ended up going joining back on with John Harbaugh and Nagy actually you know was a little bit more
22:43willing to throw in some of those situations, but this idea that even in like third and shorts and fourth and shorts like there seems to be like a
22:50wellness from Ben to try to rather than leaning into the sneak thing he's like I'm going to try to go for big plays as
22:55much as possible. And then as much of the first and second down stuff he's he's so 50/50 in everything. So like
23:03he's the most 50/50 guy on first and you know, on second and short, the most 50/50 guy on second and three to six,
23:09the most 50/50 guy on second and seven to 10. A lot of the analytics guys criticize him on the second and seven to
23:1510 runs, but I think there's actually like a master plan where essentially you can't game plan it going forward as opposed to like I think Steichen's a
23:22great coach, but like everyone in the league had caught on they were throwing every time on second and seven to 10 as
23:27the season went on and it's like, okay, do you start calling different defenses?
23:31Do you match with lighter personnel? Do you blitz, you know, call pass pressures or you know, do you line up in fronts
23:36because you know that they're not going to run the ball? Like there's there's a balance there where you can get too
23:40extreme.
23:41And I think that's part of what makes Ben Johnson's offense sustainable.
23:45And people have asked like are people going to catch on to your offense? And he just like laughs about it and I'm
23:49kind of with him in the sense that what are they going to figure out that you're 50/50? Like >> Yeah, then what?
23:54>> It's one thing if you're the Eagles and the team figures out how to stop the tush push and you're like, well, there
23:59goes 90% of our short yardage offense, but he there there is so much of what Ben does that everything looks exactly
24:05the same and then he has some kind of change up. And you know, I was talking to Pat Graham when we were playing them
24:10last year.
24:12And he's like, you don't even cuz I would give the coaches like a tendency sheets and he's like, you don't even
24:16really need to give me one this week because like I know it's just a wild card. He's like, the one thing I do know
24:21is like he's going to call some trick play or something early on this game.
24:24Like so we got to be ready for that stuff. So it's super impressive and um I would I would expect just
24:33when somebody is such an outperformer as a play caller for so many consecutive years, like you can't say it was a Jared
24:38Goff thing or it was the Detroit O-line, it was a Jahmyr Gibbs. No, like he's he's done it so many times that I think
24:45if you were like a fantasy football person, like you'd you'd feel a lot safer about your investments with a guy that almost certainly is going to have a
24:52way to sort of figure out how to get a good offense going, you know, even if they do suffer injuries or have to kind
24:57of adapt a little bit.
24:58>> It's kind of interesting to see the the league, um a lot of the the trends seem to be backing up what we've been doing
25:03in Madden for for two decades. Like the second and first stuff, the the fourth down decision-making and stuff. It just seems like
25:11we're in such a new place now that like finding some like younger quality control coach like does seem like where I would be like looking around just
25:18because it seems like we've like really flipped things like over even just for the the decade that you started till now, it seems like we've like almost
25:25done like a a big 180 here.
25:27>> There's been like an explosion in like the ease of uh accessing other teams' film or even college film. It used to be
25:34like a hassle and now more more of like the tech-savvy younger guys can quickly pull up like, "Hey, Louisville's doing this or Tulane's doing this." Or um this
25:42was super cool that, you know, let me let's find all the counter bluff reverses in the NFL. Like that used to
25:47be a nightmare to try to do and you couldn't even do it like unless you just manually start digging and now you can
25:52kind of get that stuff. And I think the guys that are tech-savvy or at least have some like savvier people helping them out with
25:58their sort of game planning and stuff have definitely have an advantage right now.
26:01>> I mean that this seems like a long time ago, but in the grand scheme of the league it's not 15 years ago. Ryan, I
26:07was had a cup of coffee with the Ram's scouting department when they were in St. Louis and even in 2011, you had to
26:13literally take VCR tapes and plug them in and watch, you know, the college prospects and then that's what the film was versus everything being in database
26:21that is sortable. So it's not surprising at all that in that last 15 years or ever since that was all digitized, um
26:29everything is just exponentially, you know, progressed so much faster. And one of those things I did want to bring up cuz
26:37we can kind of speed round this, but I know that quarterback sneaks have kind of become your obsession over, let's say, the last 10 years. You wrote that
26:44in 2016 there were less than 70 quarterback sneaks. Last season, there were 340 of them. And also, no team has ever been
26:54stopped on four straight sneaks on first and goal from the one-yard line.
26:59>> Yeah, so what I would say on that is, you know, I grew up in Massachusetts, and I, you know, I my memory, I was
27:05about 10 years old when the uh Patriots kind of dynasty began, and I went to a million games, and I followed
27:11it, you know, that was the that was the broadcast that you'd watch on 1:00 p.m.
27:14on on Sundays, and forever, nobody could ever explain to me why everyone is not just cop- copying New England. Like, they had a stretch
27:22for like 15 years where they had double the sneaks of anyone else.
27:26And so, like, I get to the uh Eagles and um you know, in particular with Pederson's first year, like, I was super grateful I
27:34kept my job. I was like retained from the previous staff, cuz I'd started a year before, and I was like really my attitude was
27:40like, I'm just going to, you know, do what I'm asked, like, lay low, like, the last thing I want to do is like just try
27:45to tell some new head coach like, "Hey, bro, like, we got to do this, whatever."
27:49But, as we developed a great relationship, and as I developed a really good relationship with Jeff Stoutland, the O-line coach, I spent a lot of time
27:57that following off-season after our first year. We ran two sneaks in 2016, and I'm like, you know, there was Doug Pederson's on the hot seat. There's
28:03like, you know, what the Philly media's like. If you go seven and nine, they're like, you're done. Like, so, I was like,
28:07"I'm not going down like this." I'm like, "This is such a bottleneck, and like, this is it Once you know the
28:13numbers and you've seen like the operation, like, it's like hard to watch a game or be part of a game and like see
28:19the team not doing it." So, we just really dug into all that very, very in-depth, and all the concerns about like quarterback getting hurt, uh you
28:27can only do it when it's under a yard, you can only do it, you can't do it if there's two guys in the A gaps. But, now
28:31people are like, "Wait a minute, we could just put the backup in." Or, "Wait a minute, we could just put a tight end
28:35in." And this last year you saw more backup quarterbacks, um you know, than or sorry, more non- QBs do takes sneaks, you know, than than
28:45ever before. I don't even know I was joking with Jason Kelce the other day like I don't even think you can call
28:49them sneaks anymore. Like there needs to be a new word because there's no surprise element in most of these.
28:55>> But um uh and and he is the official sneak champion. Like thank thankfully like once we had that data, he was like
29:02basically going to like strangle somebody if we didn't call a sneak. Like it's like so when the players want to do
29:08it, like that's just kind of takes care of itself. But we actually experimented cuz Geno had very few sneaks in college
29:15or sorry very over his career and people are like oh maybe it's not his body type. We were experimenting with Brock
29:20doing it and we we were he was taking snaps in camp and whatnot.
29:23Unfortunately, literally in that first game, Geno got hurt like his groin and it was sort of a lingering thing and Brock hurts his knee. And so like our
29:32first two sneak options, we ended up still doing you know, I don't know 10 or so on the year, but it kind of slowed
29:38our sort of plan on that. But you see some teams like the Seahawks, they're just like oh we're just going to
29:41literally put a tight end in there every single time. You know, I think I'm going to put it at about 75% chance that the
29:47Eagles at least experiment with some kind of non like quote unquote I I use the word rugby scrum cuz Pete Carroll said it and
29:56I thought it was hilarious cuz like that's literally what the play is. So he'd be like we're we can have a sneak
30:00play, but we're going to have rugby scrum as a separate play that we're going to experiment with. And some teams like we brought in like a legitimate uh
30:07rugby uh like a rugby coach like and we just like did like a zoom with him and asked him about the leverage and
30:13everything and we're like try to make up stuff on defense like can we push the guys on defense? Like I don't even know
30:17what you know what that would look like.
30:19>> And even running last year, I feel like the counterpunch for the Eagles on maybe four or five touchdowns for Dallas
30:24Goedert was to pitch it out in those situations cuz everyone was you know so clustered in the middle then it was
30:30leaving the free space to Dallas Goedert to get to the edge.
30:33>> Yeah, there there's there's like a if you think of the game theory like big picture like for the longest time sneaks
30:38were just so much better than everything else you probably could just keep doing it. But it it's we've really reached a
30:43point where particularly on like the fourth down plays that are not right on the goal line, like a mixed strategy is probably the
30:49best thing. Like the Mark Andrews like spin out that he had for the long touchdown and different like 30-40 yard gains. Like that really is the best way
30:57to not only you know, have the most of you know, explosiveness and effectiveness, but also to boost the sneaks because then
31:02these teams have to play they have to play it straight. There were some snaps last year. There was guys like laying on
31:07the ground pre-snap to try to stop like people were just making stuff up and people were then just still running the
31:13sneaks anyways and like there there is a point where like, okay, maybe this does not make any sense anymore. One thing I
31:19I'd say is like, you know, we were our team was just not good. Like everyone kind of knew that with the Raiders, but
31:25as things were playing out and like we had those injuries and stuff. Like I just went down this little wormhole and I'm like, who would be the best
31:33player on the team to do this if we were just going to go like with these you know, scrum touch push type things.
31:39And it just so happened that Max Crosby his like eerily similar frame to Josh Allen. They're both 6'4 and 7/8 and
31:46their their three cone times were within 1/100 of a second and Max is actually bigger. He's heavier and he's faster.
31:53And Max is like a really good athlete.
31:55Now Max also had like a significant health thing, but I like said it to Max at one point. He's like, bro, I'd get that every single
32:04time. Like I really think like there's no compelling reason that you have to say, oh, we're doing this with the tight end.
32:10Like there's some really dynamic big guys in the in the league that could be defenders, could be you know, some of
32:16the I mean like I would if I'm the Rams, like you know, if say Puka Nacua is healthy, like that's a dynamic player
32:23that has some strength to him. Like is there a world where you can >> is the QB sneak role. Let's let's see
32:27what happens, man.
32:28>> I actually I was digging. So like this stat that we had, there's no teams ever been stopped on four consecutive sneaks
32:33on a set of downs. In the the there's never been three consecutive. And I was digging through some college data, there
32:39actually is like has been like one or two times that a team has been stopped on three straight.
32:44But as I was looking through it, I found a snap of Southern University, and I don't even know if I can like post this
32:50online cuz there's like all these college film rules and stuff. Southern University put a guy in that was like 400 lb as a pusher. He is the He
32:58legitimately looked like the largest human being I've ever seen in my life, and he just completely just worth the entire It's It's
33:06completely hilarious, but I also like I've I mentioned it on this thing that I'm doing with Nick Underhill for our little show that we're just doing that's
33:13kind of like innovative schematic strategies and whatnot that they were hitting on. I actually think that if I was optimizing this and I still wanted
33:21to do the tush pushes, I would actually take it either a tight end or offensive lineman and take him in fast motion, say
33:285 to 7 yd off the line of scrimmage, and towards the tackle box, and then on the snap, like he immediately just gears up,
33:35and then he's like your second surge player. So, if you think about Trent Williams when he just was obliterating people on those kickouts, like but
33:43totally experimental, would not do that.
33:45>> to the ball carrier. Yeah, the ball carrier is like, "I hate that idea."
33:48>> So, well, so like listen to this, so like I'm I'm going to put my Nostradamus projection is that I'm going
33:54to say that I think somebody is going to do this this running start thing, and either it's going to be an injury, or
34:00it's going to be so effective that the league's going to ban it after the season.
34:04>> Like >> Cuz they were close to banning the pushing 2 years ago, and then the Eagles just didn't have as good of a year this
34:10last year, but even if you took six games in the last season and and pulled the media, is the tush push getting banned? It probably would
34:18have gotten 95% yes, it's getting banned, and it was because when they when when the when the Eagles played the Chiefs, it
34:24was like this incredibly embarrassing thing where guys were jumping early, then there was another one like the Giants ripped the ball out, and they
34:30blew it dead early because it was like they couldn't even tell the play was still going on and there was way too
34:34many instances where it really became hard to officiate. Um but I think if the Eagles say had like beat the 49ers in the playoffs and like the game
34:43ended with them just like smashing forward on like I think the thing really honestly probably would have got brought up again in terms like a potential ban.
34:50And I and I could see uh there there's there's clearly it was like two votes away from getting banned.
34:56I I could see there's like enough annoyance that that could be a end up being a narrative again.
35:00>> Ryan, you've said it all. This was electric. You also mentioned that you are doing a show with Nick Underhill.
35:05You all can search for it. It's in the description down below. It's uh Paganetti and Underhill. Uh we love Nick. He's
35:12absolutely one of the best in the biz at what he does uh at at covering the Saints at such a high level and uh also
35:19is out there trying to teach people football along with you. So I think it's an amazing uh collaboration between two uh
35:27people that again make not just us but everyone else smarter with the game. So Ryan, appreciate it. Uh everyone go follow Ryan on Twitter and
35:37you know, push him a little bit more.
35:39Push push him a little bit more to uh continue posting uh some some of this information that's behind the curtain and peeking through
35:45keyholes of uh NFL franchises cuz Ryan, we do we really do appreciate it.
35:50>> I I appreciate you guys having me and I'll say um any fans that if you guys got a crazy idea,
35:56just tag me somewhere on Twitter and and and I'll start digging on it and you know, you never know. I I got a message,
36:01you know, yesterday that you know, one of the head coaches had basically printed out one of my tweets and asked an analyst to like sort of duplicate it
36:08for their own team. So like the the the the world of media is seen by a lot of these guys. Like there's some of these
36:14head coaches are literally following They might be following your accounts or following my accounts. Some of them have burners. Like they they're keeping an
36:19eye on this stuff and so um you know, for fans like the there there are cases you bring up something like it and it
36:26can literally have a tangible impact on like impacting your favorite team and like you might notice some tendency or something that the honestly the teams on
36:33team, you know, hadn't figured out themselves. So, it's a awesome time.
36:37Like I really appreciate you guys having me and you know, I'm excited to see kind of follow a little bit more of the
36:42fantasy space this year.
36:43>> Love that. All right, everyone. We're back with two more shows this week.
36:47That's yes, four shows per week at least until the season kicks off. So, we'll see you on the next one.
