November 6, 2025 • 34 mins
Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks are joined by seven-time Pro Bowler and former NFL Defensive Player of the Year Luke Kuechly to talk about his transition from playing in the NFL to coaching youth football. Luke shares his thoughts on the Panthers’ strong season and how head coach Dave Canales has helped the team embrace its identity. He explains why a lack of attention to detail and urgency frustrates him more than anything else on the field. Luke also reflects on his mastery of the Panthers’ defense during his career, while admitting he couldn’t have called plays at the same time. Plus, Luke shares what makes his former coordinator Sean McDermott so effective in shaping the Bills’ defensive style.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now move the sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
What's up, everybody?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome to move the sticks, DJ and Buck with you
and Buck. I don't think we should waste much time here.
I think we should get to our guests we got today.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, Luke Eikley one of the best players that I
have ever seen in terms of scouting, and watch him
take what we saw him doing college and translate it
to tremendous success as a pro. Now doing all things
with the Carolina Panthers and helping out the little fellas him,
Greg Olsen, Jonathon is doing us. Some other guys have
a little middle school team that they have Roland I
love checking them out on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Todd blackliche as well.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
We're gonna get into that a little bit about his
youth coaching, as well as what his take is on
some of these quarterbacks that have turned things around environments,
good defensive schemes. It's a long, long, raging conversation that
I think you're really going to enjoy. Here's our chat
with the great Luke Keighley. All right, Buck Pump to
have Luke back with us. Luke, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Man? Oh, I'm doing good. It's uh, I'm looking at
my window right now. The leaves are changing. It's it's
getting cooler. It's a little brisk in the morning. And
this is always my favorite time of the year playing
because stuff starts to really matter now trade deadline's gone
and you start playing meaningful games in November December. And
we played in Green Bay obviously this past weekend, and
(01:21):
it was the most perfect day in Green Bay, chilly,
little breezy. I love that field that they have, and
our boys came out the wind so that the air
and the atmosphere and the cool weather and playing on grass,
and that's this time of the year is what I
think about playing football. So it was this is my
(01:41):
favorite time of the season. Real quick. Were you no
sleeves no matter what? See I was, But I didn't
like wearing sleeves and games. I always felt like I
was constricted, constricted running And then did you ever regret
it though?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Like that, like it was just so stinking cold, You're like, wait,
sweatshirt up, sweatpants at practice.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I was no skin showing. But what I don't what
people don't get, is you get on the field and
I don't know, you're only on the field for a
couple of minutes at a time, and then once you
go to the sideline, the benches are heated. I can
put a jacket on, you can put a hat on.
There's heaters everywhere. And then you get on the field
for I don't know a couple of minutes and then
you're back off. So it's really not that bad. Buck.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You wore sleeve I'll be well, I'll bet you money
you wore sleeves. Yeah, but when you touch the ball
you can't wear them. So like I played on teams,
it was a rule if you're touching the ball.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So I was returning kick, so you only can have
like the mock neck and maybe like it was staft
sleep yeah, asleep. But you couldn't wear the whole thing
because you can you can't fill the ball and so
it gets slick and it to pop out or whatever.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Not fun. Not fun.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
But I was listening to Luke talking about, oh, we're
about to play meaningful games. But I heard you before
you came on looking. I got to admit one of
my guilty pleasures. It's following you Greg and Jonathan Stewart
on this you youth ink thing where y'all are getting
the middle school team.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So I'm not here. And you talk about not playing
meaningful games, because.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
The way that you guys were pulling in to finish
the season, I think you played some meaningful games before
we got to this point.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, I'll tell you what. This is the fourth year
we've coached. And so Greg's dad coached high school football
in Jersey forever, and he coached Greg's older brother Chris,
and his younger brother Kevin, and then obviously Greg, so
that's been in their blood forever. And then Or Tate's
Greg's oldest son. When Tate was ready to start playing football,
Pop Warner and Pop Warner, Greg's like, hey, do you
(03:31):
want to coach? Greg and I were both done playing.
Obviously something Absolutely he got Greg's dad, So Greg and
his dad handle the offense, and then Greg and I
kind of tagged team the defense. And everyone always says, hey,
it's so nice that you coach these kids, and we
tell everybody like, no, thank you for letting us coach
your kids, because it gives us an excuse to hang out.
(03:54):
It gives us an excuse to go talk football, gives
us an excuse to be back out on the grass
and have our game day. And now we have Stu
Jonathan Stewart coaches with us and awesome, and then Todd
blackliche coach with us the last two years. It's just
we have a ton of fun doing it. We have
great kids, and yeah, absolutely every game for us is
(04:15):
like the Super Bowl. We spend probably way too much
time breaking tape down trying to figure out, hey, is
our defense good? What happens if our defense that we
put in isn't good? What's our fallback plan? Where do
we need to put guys so they can have success
and they're maximizing their skill set. It's it's so much fun.
But the funny to me, the funniest thing about it
(04:36):
was when I was playing, you always hated when coaches
had too much in or we're trying to overcoach or
do too much, and you just wanted to be like, hey,
let us just play four or five defenses, give us
three or four pressures, and like let us go. And
then now coaching these kids, you like what if, what if?
What if? What if? What if? And you can tell
(04:57):
sometimes the kids or you can see it on their
bass and I know that exact look and I'm like,
all right, maybe I need to take a step back.
Our kids are good. They have a ton of confidence,
like let him go play fast, let them go play
fun and encourage them and they'll be just fun.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I want to ask you this because you said that,
you know, you guys have done this now for several years,
and think about like your college years and at that age,
you you know, you'd go home for a little bit
of the summer and come back and maybe.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
A teammate would put on like eight pounds or you know.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
He'll you can make these little incremental growth steps as
at the college agent in the NFL, like probably even
smaller steps you can take. But when you're coaching kids
this age's like there's got to be a kid that
you finished the season thinking this kid's got no shot,
and the next year he comes out and he's put
on he's four inches taller, he's now got like he's
got facial hair, and you're like, oh my gosh, like
(05:46):
this is a different human being. And then some other
kids kind of plateau. That's got to be wild to
watch that transformation over those years.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Oh yeah, and some of the kids we've had for
four years. DJA was telling you this. And we had
a kid that play corner for us the first three
years we had him, and he was tough, he was physical,
he wanted contact, it was all about it. But he
just he hadn't grown yet. And I always wanted to
move him inside to play backer, but we just it
(06:15):
just didn't work. And then last season, at the end
of the year, he started to kind of grow a
little bit and we're like, hey, we need to move him.
We need to think about moving him in to play
backer this year. And then he showed up this offseason.
We see the kids all year, but they still grow
quite a bit. He showed up this offseason in our
little off season program and whatever was June or whatever,
(06:38):
and I was like, whoa, he's coming to play backer
with me. And we're let this kid just go hunt.
So it's fun because you don't know where where are
they going to grow, what are they going to turn into?
Is he is he maxed out with where he is,
If that's where he's going to be, what we need
to try to coach him at that position to put
(06:59):
him insition to be successful in high school? You know? So,
But yeah, this kid, his name is his name's JJ
JJ has been one of my little my little dudes
for four years and he's been tough, he's been physical,
and then they grew this year and he was a
monster playing inside for us. So great, it's so great.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, now back to your Panthers, because I saw you
guys week one and to see the team now play
the way that they're playing. And I always believe that
franchises have a blueprint for being able to win. When
I was back there working in the early two thousands,
it was run the ball, play defense. Dan Morgan was
the centerpiece of that defense with Pep and those other guys.
(07:39):
I see when you guys, you and Thomas Davids are playing,
it's kind of like the same thing. It looks like
I turned back the clock and it's the early two
thousands again.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Watching this team.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Run the ball with Rico o'dodell, the way they're playing
on defense.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Just talk about their style. Yeah, I think for us
we've leaned. We've leaned on the run game. The run
game has been really good for us. For I think
it'd be it'd be tough to talk about a run
game and not talk about the offensive line. Coaches Joe
Gilbert and Harold Goodwin have been phenomenal. We started our
off season with Iki Quantu playing left guard, Robert Hunt
(08:14):
playing left yeah, left tackle Ikey and then Robert Hunt
left guard, and then we had Austin Corbett at center,
and then Damian Damian Lewis and then Taylor moden In.
The amount of combinations that we've had at that position
this year and had no drop off whatsoever has been phenomenal.
And I think Dave Canalis has a really good feel
(08:34):
for what our team is good at, what allows us
to win. He has zero ego, which is just in
this day and age is sometimes hard. But he said, hey,
you know what, I'm want to do everything we can
to put our team in position to have success. So
our I think our blueprint is, Hey, let's played tough
on defense, Let's have the ability to run the football.
(08:55):
Let's throw us some play action. Let's tighten up in
the red zone. I don't care if they drive big field.
Can we tighten up in the red zone and either
forced turnovers or have them kick field goals. And that's
kind of been been our successful formula this year is
control the run game, not turn the ball over, tighten
up in the red zone and play tough d and
(09:15):
keep ourselves in the game so we can lean on
that run game throughout the throughout the whole game.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
That's been fun. I'll be honestly, I want to watch
the game last week because I hadn't watched much of them,
and I'm watching it and I had to pull up
our lads because I'm like, who the heck are all
those guys like Yosha yosh Not even really you know,
he was in there filling in and doing his thing,
but you know, watching this tape and watching them we've
talked a lot about this year is kind of this
this theory that we've been kind of hitting, and I
(09:42):
want to get your thoughts on it, Lucas. We talk
about like a culture of a team when you're when
you're little, guys are physical, like in other words, when
you're receivers in your corners play physical, and when you're big,
guys chase and run. And you see offensive lineman working
to finish, you see defensive lineman chasing plays. Just speaks
kind of like a competitive culture that you've cultivated there,
and it's it seems like Carolina definitely has that wee
thing you.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Talk about big guys run, and I think the one
guy that we've been so happy to have back has
been Derek Brown. He's a lobster, he can play every play.
But the one thing that I think you look for,
especially in a young defense, is what's the identity of
what we want to do. So Derek is that guy.
J Horns one of those guys, and we've got more
dudes that are that type of guy. But when you
(10:25):
watch Derek Brown play, he takes on double teams, he's
physical at the point of attack. He throws the guys
on the ground, he doesn't get moved. He's a great
interior pass rusher, but he runs from sideline to sideline.
I can't tell how many times he's been in the
stack inside getting blocked. They throw a swing pass and
ninety five is running full speed at three hundred and
(10:47):
forty pounds and knocking dudes out on the sideline. And
I think as a young guy, when you come in
or some of these free agents that we brought in,
you look to what's acceptable on our team, and that's
kind of where people start. And when you watch Derek
Brown play, say, hey, I don't know where I came from,
but hey, when you come to Carolina, this is how
we're going to play defensive line. And Todd Washington d
(11:10):
line coach, there has been phenomenal. I think Derek Brown
would say the same thing. But Derek epitomizes what we
want to be on defense, and the whole defense revolves
around him and plays physical and plays with great effort.
And he's been great to have back, not only as
a player on the field, but you need that presence,
you need that dog, You need that alpha that people
(11:31):
just look at and say, hey, if I'm going to
play defense for the Carolina Panthers, an ab a lot
like him. You know.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
It's funny, Look, you talked about that, and you guys
had great cultures when you were there. Talk about the
peer pressure to get everyone to play and perform at
that standard. Because you can talk about, hey, look at
Derek Brown, but there's also this quiet, unspoken standard that
you must play with. If you're gonna play with us,
if you're gonna be one of the eleven on the field,
(11:59):
you got to know how we get down. How do
you go about building that out? Is that a coast
lift thing? Is that a player lifting? I think it's both.
I think the players have to believe it in their heart,
like Derek Brown. Derek Brown needs to go be Derek Brown,
but he also needs to be backed up by the coaches.
If Derek sees something that he believes is an issue
and he makes a comment about it, he's got to
(12:20):
have the backing of the coaches, or at least be
able to have a conversation with the coaches where hey,
we're on the same page. I understand what you're saying, Derek,
this is what we see. But at the same time,
we're moving in the right direction. So I think it's
both player led and coach led, and all of our
guys do that. I think there was a play on Sunday, so.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
JC playing corner doesn't get any action right he sits there,
he guards a boundary portion of the field. No one
throws at him. And they threw a little glance rout
in the end zone the Romeo Dobbs against Green Bay,
and it was probably one of the only routes. Jac
haddle day and great spot, eyes in the right place
converted knocked the ball down at the Always thrown in
the right spot is probably an interception. So we have
(13:03):
it at all levels of the defense, And when I'm
getting at with JC is you have to stay mentally
engage all game at that corner spot because your job
is boring, boring, boring, boring, boring until it's not. So
JC gets those reps at practice, he takes them seriously,
He goes through his progression each play during the game,
and then when that moment of that opportunity pops up,
(13:24):
he's there to capitalize. So I think as a young guy,
when you come in and you look at this defense,
whether it's Derek Brown and you're in the mix, every player,
you're j C. Horn and you're playing off and you're
not getting any action. When your number gets called, you're
expected to go make a play on the football. And
I think it's player led, it's coach led, but it's
also Dan Morgan and brand tillis. What kind of guys
(13:45):
do you bring into this team? Are they willing to
play physical or are they willing to play the brand
of football that you're going to play. Are they willing
to kind of not conform but fit into what you
want to do as far as culture and scheme and
how we do things. And I think it's all three
of those things. Get put together the players, the coaches,
but the GM and the front office have to do
a good job of bringing the right type of guy
(14:05):
and that allows him to mix in with the guys
that we already have.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, I think that's a great challenge, is trying to
identify those guys and how do you go about doing that.
We've talked a lot about, you know, the right questions
when you get to know players, Like what's a good
question to elicit a good answer? And I was talking
to one of our buddies of the show, Ken Coleman's
written a bunch of leadership books and I ran it
to him in Nashville and I said, Hey, I'm always
looking for new questions, like give me, give me a
(14:29):
question you can ask a player you can learn something
interesting about him. And he said, ask him what pisses
him off? And he's like, okay, I've never asked that.
So I'm going to let you be the first person
as a player. Look what pissed you off?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Effort? Effort and lack of attention to detail and not
thinking that details are important. And you saw that a
lot in the run game. Hey where are your eyes?
Where are you closing to? Are you the end man
on the line scrimmage, make sure we squeeze all the
way to the hip of that end man on the line.
Because you're the edge player, your inside foot has to
(15:04):
be up because if you're outside foots up your clothes
making a play, you know, going away from the line
of scrimmage. All these little things that seem dumb. Where
my pad level is as a linebacker when I'm taking
on a guard, where are my hands? Where are my feet?
Where are my eyes? How much of this offensive linement
am I taking on? All that stuff is so easy
(15:24):
to do in practice, especially in walkthroughs. Let's not make
it close, because when you go into a game, you're
going to fall back to however you practice, and these
little small details have a huge have a huge role
and whether you have success or whether you fail inside games.
So I think to me, lack of detail and lack
of urgency and walk through periods was a big deal
(15:44):
for me. That's great. I mean I can see it
because I'm ready to I can feel the intensity. How
he would be a new It's not me to me,
it's yeah, we can all do that. It's easy. You
can feel it. Yeah, I can feel that, and It
shows the other thing too, It shows is walk through specifically,
like it shows how important this is to you. The
(16:05):
way you go through walk through, the way you have
your pad, level that your pad, you know where my
hands are, where my feet are, where my eyes are,
the urgency at which you put your hands on somebody
in walk through. All that says to me is hey,
number one, do I know what I'm doing? And then
number two, how important is it to me? And how
(16:25):
important it is to you? Shows how important you feel
like our job of playing defenses to the rest of
your team. That's great looke.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
It appears that I mean, you're there watching, we're in
the midst of a renaissance when it comes to the
running game and those things.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So that means.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Defensively, it's appearing that there was a two or three
year period where were talking about, Hey, we'll let the
opponent run. We're going to take away the explosives in
deep ball. Oh, we had a time there where we
may need to go back to our old school defensive
philosophies and making sure we shut down the run before
we prioritize the other parts of playing great defense.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I think the run game it depends on who you
talk to about the run game. I think the run
game is super important at the end of the game
when you're trying to when you're trying to mill clock,
you're trying to run a clock out. And then in
specific situations, you know when when you need to run
the ball and they know you need to run the ball.
I think that's when it's important. But I still think
the passing game and the explosive nature of downfield throws
(17:22):
is what's going to control of the NFL. Still, I
don't think I think running is important. We've had a
lot of success running the football, but I think big
plays allow you to score points quickly, which ultimately I
think leads to the most success.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I never asked you this before, but we in baseball
we used to have player managers, and then in the
NBA you had Bill Russell who was playing and then
and then managing. I'm not asking, I'm not saying, could
player be a head coach in the NFL. I don't
think that's possible. But if you've got someone I'm just
talking about someone with your background, experience, intellect, where you
got to at the peak of your power, you think
(18:01):
you could have called the defense at that point absolutely why.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I think that there's way too much going on as
a player that you're worrying about that you don't get overall, like,
you don't get over like trends in the game, who's in,
who's out? There's too much information? Is it? So? Is it?
Is it eleven personnel and not all eleven personnel is
the same? Right? Like last week when we played Green Bay.
(18:29):
Is it twelve personnel and Tucker crafts in the game
or is it twelve personnel with two big tight ends?
Is it? Is it twenty one run game? Is it
two fullbacks? Or is it two running backs? And then
right after the play you got to think about all
that stuff. I think there's way too much going on
in the game. Maybe some guys can I certainly couldn't
think about. You play a snap, you wake, you get
up off the ground. You're trying to figure out I'm
(18:51):
looking at the jumbo tron usually trying to figure out, Hey,
what happened the previous player in the run game? Where
did that ball hit? All? Right? Hey, maybe I need
to be a little bit more shifted. Run that guard
in the B gap. And you don't have time to
think about like all right, it's third and seven. They're
bringing in, you know, eleven personnel, and their eleven personnel
has like we were playing the Saints. Was it mark
(19:12):
Ingram or is it darren Sprolls right boom right now,
it's eleven personnel with these guys, there's too much going on.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
How many people For those that don't know, how many people,
like headset wise, you don't get to hear them, but
how many people were involved in that process in terms
of identifying the personnel that was on the field. I'm
sure you have somebody who knows tendencies based off the
numbers they have in front of them, like how many
people are collaborating before that call gets into your headset?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I mean, you got guys in the booth that can
see everything super easily, right, So that's kind of how
we started. In Carolina. McDermott was in the booth, so
he had his crew up there that could see it.
So they probably relate to mcdee hey, this is a personnel.
McDermott makes a call down to the field to hold them,
how holk them gives me the call in my headset,
that was kind of our process, I believe, and I
(20:01):
think that's that allows everybody to do their specific job, right.
McDermott when he was calling defenses for us, he's up there,
he's looking at situation field down in distance. Then he
gets the plate. Then he gets a personnel grouping. All right,
boom out of this personnel grouping. This is what we like?
All right, what do we bhoom? We like this? Let
me give it to aw Al gives it to me.
(20:21):
That's the fault. And it all happens. I mean, it's
a forty second guys, a forty second play block cut
shuts off at my headset shuts off at fifteen. So
that stuff all happens in like ten seconds. It's wild.
So what's so funny is not being able to call it.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I didn't disagree that he couldn't call it because, un
to Cunningham, when I was in Kansas City, he was
a defensive coordinator, Donnie Edwards was to Mike linebacker practice.
We would situationally say Donnie, you have to call it
because if the headphones go down, if anything goes down,
I need you to think about the game the way
that I think about it. And so we would go
(20:59):
these two two minute drives in game where Donie's called
in the defense because we can't get everything communicated. So
I still believe that there's ways to have AFC automatic fronts, coverages,
things that you can call, things that you can get
us to based on one Hew, you and Thomas Davis
worked together. Did I know that y'all have a yin
and yang to kind of get it figured out? I
(21:20):
do want to go. Do you feel like the players
should be empowered sometimes to override some of the calls
that come in from the sideline based on what they feel,
what they see.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Absolutely in MC Germany gave that to us all the time.
I'd always watch tape with him on Saturday nights before
games and with those guys, and I just say, hey,
I want to know what you're thinking, why you're thinking.
So we'll just run through a game real quick and
call stuff and let me know kind of why you're thinking.
So I agree with you on that, And then in games,
(21:51):
you know, kind of you guys asking a question. I'm
thinking about it a little bit more. I always wanted to go.
I had like a checklist in my mind of like,
all right, hey, it's third and seven the in the
right hash, here's their top concepts out of you know,
out of their third and seven window that we've seen.
All right, let me think of where I'm going to
be and then I get a play call, and then
how does that that play call match up with what
I've been going through? So that was kind of my process.
(22:13):
But then Sean McDermott always gave us a really good,
great flexibility to change stuff. So say we were bringing pressure,
you know, Thomas was pressuring, and they saw the pressure
and they were able to slide protection pre snap and
they're going to have it blocked up. It's you know,
it's seven man protection on third down. We don't want
to deal with that. McDermott would say, hey, look, if
(22:36):
you guys see something and you don't like it, here's
your three calls that you guys can get to and
it's on you guys to make sure that it gets
communicated across the board. So there we did have some
creativity within our defense. If we got into a situation
and we really we really didn't like it, we had
the ability to change stuff. But I think for the
(22:57):
most part, I trust it. You know, mcdee and Steve
Wilks and Eric Washington, those are the coordinators in Carolina
to put a call to make us, make us put
us in a position to be successful. Yeah, I just
think I don't know this conversation that's ever been had before.
That's why I think it's fascinating. I think for me,
I would have loved to been like, hey, I want
(23:18):
to play quarters right here, I want to blitz right here.
But I think it'd be you could do it for maybe,
you know, a couple of plays throughout the game, but
I think it would have been too mentally draining for
me to do the whole game, because think about it,
it's you're in a third quarter. Hey, this is a situation,
this is where they are on the field. We've seen this, this,
and this. What are the top concepts out of twelve
(23:41):
personnel that I've seen, Like, there's I think there was
just too too much going on. I think it would
have slowed my on field processing to have to add
one more thing. Yeah, that's an interesting though.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Man, Just think about all that goes into just one
one play call in the execution of it. One of
the things that's been a theme a little bit really,
not just this year, but the last few years. We've
seen and guys that were in Carolina. We saw Sam
and Baker go on have success elsewhere. This year, Daniel
Jones has kind of become that guy. Were there times
when you were playing where you were getting ready for
a team and you might be with the staff and
(24:12):
those meetings going like, Okay, look this quarterback is talented
or this quarterback's got some ability, but he has no
chance based on maybe it's the system he's in, whether
it's the supporting cast that he has. But I mean,
did you see that You remember having those moments of
being able to separate the player from the environment and saying,
this guy, I don't care how good he is, he
doesn't really have a chance.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
You know what, That's a that's a good, good question.
I don't know if we ever. I'm trying to think
through games where I'm like, hey, this quarterback's a really
good player, but he doesn't have the tools around him.
I think some of it is like is just how
do they match up with their skill their skill positions outside?
You know, you look at think about Green Bay this
(24:52):
past week. Green Bay's offense, they go into the Seeds,
they go into the game, Christian Watson, Tucker Kraft, the rookie,
the rookies golden right, yep, and those guys all left
the game. So if you're Matt Lafleur, where do you
go with your script when your top three weapons are
out of the game. I think that's more kind of
where it gets to is what does this coach have
(25:13):
or what does this quarterback habit his disposal versus what
does he not have that they typically do?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
You know, I want to ask you this because a
lot of times people talk about scouting players, How often
did you scout the opposing coordinator? Like it's one thing
to do that, but like I believe everybody.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Has a pet called, they have things.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Did they get to regardless of who they're playing whatever,
Like when they get to twenty yard line this is
their go to call? Did you spend time also trying
to scout the coordinator to have a feel for what
he's thinking, what he tends to like in certain situations.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, it's really interesting. Kyle Shanahan was always that guy
for us. Right, So when I was a rookie, Shanahan
was in Washington with his dad, and then I think
he was there maybe a year or two when I
was playing, And then in twenty. I want to say
it was twenty fourteen years and she was in Cleveland,
and then in fifteen he was sixteen seventeen, maybe he
(26:05):
was in Atlanta, and then obviously he's been in San
Francisco ever since. I don't know if that timeline is
exactly correct, but I would always keep my notebooks and
so then when we'd go play the Shanahan led offenses,
I'd go back to that notebook, like, hey, we're the
same defense. We're going to probably play a lot of
cover three, we're going to be in overfront, we're going
to play quarters in the high red zone. This is
(26:26):
what we look like on third down? How did he
attack us? You know, from year to year to year,
and there's a lot of there's a lot of similarities.
And then guys, I can always have stuff that's different,
that's new that he's set up over the year. He
set up probably going years back. But that was a
really good example for me of, hey, this is what
Kyle looked like in twenty twelve as I was a rookie,
(26:48):
and then we played him in you know, twenty nineteen,
my last year when he was in San Francisco. In
the overarching principles in the field of that team felt
very similar from year one, even though they had RG
three as a quarterback, to you know, year eight, my
last year with them in San Francisco. So that was
one thing that I always looked at was how are
they changing from year to year to year with.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
The same coordinator. Uh, look, we just get another couple
of minutes with you here. But the Denver Broncos defensively,
we've talked a lot about them this year, just with
how they've played and how they're, you know, on a
historic pace in terms of ruction of the quarterback. When
you have a defense, when you've got fastballs like they
do coming off the edge, and then you marry it
up with the scheme there with Van Jose where you
(27:28):
don't know where they're coming from. What it just seems
like when you marrying up your scheme with your players.
I think we've talked about this in a little bit
earlier in this discussion, but just how important and vital
it is to know what you have and how you
marry those things together.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I think a lot of it comes down to ego
of these coaches. Are you more concerned about highlighting your
guys in putting them, putting them in position to have
success or are you more? Are you more worried about
what your defense looks like to everybody else? And I
think Vance Joseph has a great feel for what they're
good at, what his guys like to do. As rushers
are obviously obviously really good. They've got good flexibility with
(28:03):
those guys that they can move them around. And that
was one thing that I think I was super fortunate
with McDermott and Carolina is he always wanted us to
do what we were most comfortable doing, regardless of maybe
what he wanted to do on the defensive side of
the ball. He would always come to us and say, hey,
what do you like? What don't you like? And it
had less to do with him and the scheme and
(28:25):
what he thought was good, and he didn't want to
be the mastermind behind everything, and it was more how
can I put my guys in position to have success?
And how can I put my guys in position where
they feel comfortable and they feel they can play really fast.
I think that's kind of where Vance is with that
defense and Denver, obviously the feel and the overarching structure
of that defense is one thing but when you have
(28:47):
studs that can go, let's let those guys go do
what they do best.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Look if you could come back and just play for
one year, but you could pick any defense, any defensive
scheme to go play in.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Who would you want to play for? And why? I mean,
it's it's easy for me. I love the Sean McDermott defense.
That's what I grew up in, That's what I played.
I've got a great feel for it. I understand. I
know where my stresses, I know where I have issues.
I know where I can be aggressive. I know how
even watching me we played them, I don't know it
(29:18):
was two weeks ago. Watching that defense, it makes me
smile because in the low red zone they called a
couple of plays and I'm like, guys, I know exactly
what this play call is, and that was what I
would I would go back and play for that for
a lot of reasons. Number One, I love Sean McDermott.
Number two, the linebacker coach Al Holkam was to coach
(29:38):
me for a majority of my career in Carolina. Bobby Babbage,
the defensive coordinator, was in Carolina for a year or
two maybe when I was here, so I know that defense.
I've got a lot of confidence in that defense. I
know where to be, I know where to line up,
I know where my eyes are. I was a fantastic
coach for me, so I think it's an easy one
for me to get it.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
I got a quick because I'm curious because on paper,
on the surface, it appears that they're not playing with
like a bunch of a level guys, but the unit
plays really really will What is it about this game?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
What is it about Sean that he can get a
bunch of.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Unherded players to play at the level that they traditionally
play at year after year.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I think they play extremely hard. I think they fly around.
I think they hit. I think that they do a
great job of coaching the guys that aren't the starters.
In the event that guys get hurt, you plug another
guy in and it doesn't It just doesn't matter, you know,
and you've got guys that want to be there. You
look at Jordan Poyer at the end of his career,
he could be anywhere he wants to be in Buffalo,
(30:42):
and when they put him in the game, he understands
that defense to the point where, hey, maybe physically I'm
a little bit limited, but I know exactly where I
got to be. I know where my stresses, I know
where my help is, and you can go play faster.
I think Sean and Brandon being up there, I've done
a really good job of finding guys that are going
to play really hard, that are going to play really physical,
(31:03):
and they do a great job of coaching the guys
at the second and third level that allow them to
have success. If you know at Oliver gets dinged or
Rousseau's out, or you know Milano's out or Bernard's out,
the linebackers, they can plug guys in and have to
zero drop off, and then when those guys get back
to healthy again, they plug them right back in. So
(31:23):
I think they take a lot of pride in coaching
not just the starters, but everybody else.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
All those guys played with tremendous effort even as college
players coming up too, So it's kind of in their
DNA last one. I'm gonna let you run here the
uh you know, the scouting side of things, which I
know you're fully capable of doing a lot of times
when you're looking at young players, it's okay, what is
he now? Strengths and weaknesses. Where does he need to
get better to get where you want to go. So
I'm gonna ask you to give me a scouter report
on your dog.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Oh my god. You know what the scout on your
report on her is, she is the best dog. But
she she likes being in the mix. She's mad that
you guys didn't give her a camera to come to her.
She wants microphone, she wants in on it. Maybe she
was a little bit disappointed that I said Buffalo and
not Carolina. So I think she's she's trying to voice
(32:09):
her opinions and now she where she is. She's she's
laying down, facing away from me with this little bit
of silence and not looking at me.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
So, oh yeah, I gotta go give her. I gotta
go get her coach. She coached, gave her a t
R E A T. She's, uh, she's very coachable. She's
a great dog. But you know what, she just wants
to be in the mix.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And she felt like she felt like she needed a
microphone today. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
The t R E A T. By the way, that's
just the helmet sticker. That's that's a good performance exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Helmets. She's going to show back right up over here.
Get her to come on.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
If I I wanted to hear me say treat, could
she hear me say treat?
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Oh, she just got up. She's walking over here. Now
we gotta handle that thing down. I'm backwards here.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, you need a treaty.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
There, you see her, you see your Yeah, intreat, intreat.
He's gonna run, She's gonna run to the laundry room
where we keep them on. Better be waiting for one
from you and one from Blacky mccar.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, it's fantastic. Hey, I've enjoyed talking to both of you, Luke,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, she's not so interesting or she's already laughing. Hey, dude,
you are the absolute best. You always carve out time
for us and we appreciate you. Man, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Thanks guys, well block there he goes, always generous and
uh and I always feel like I learned something. By
the way, what are your thoughts on the new question
getting in the mix there? Oh, I guess the language.
That's okay, right, we can say pissed off, but like.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It is interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
He gave a great answer. He talked about the attention
of detail, the lack of focus and the walkthroughs. I
thought that was fascinating.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Well, what it less, you know, is a little peek
inside what your standards are. What your standards are not
only for yourself but for the people that you're around. Uh.
When Keith talks about that, he talks about the effident
attention to details.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I mean, just think about it. He talked about it
a walk through.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Just how everyone needs to have the antennas up and
locked in and ready because the things that we covered
this walkthrough gonna be the things that pop up in
a game.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
And if you're not ready, locked in and focused, I'm.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Gonna be really upset at you if you messed this
up in a game, because it's a thing that you
can control. You can control your ability to focus and
make sure that you take in all the information so
you're ready to play your best on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
No doubt. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So that was a fun conversation. Hope you guys enjoyed
it as much as we have.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
What encourage you?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Check out the other episodes from earlier this week if
you missed those, and we'll see you next time right
here on those sticks
And now move the sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
What's up, everybody?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome to move the sticks, DJ and Buck with you
and Buck. I don't think we should waste much time here.
I think we should get to our guests we got today.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, Luke Eikley one of the best players that I
have ever seen in terms of scouting, and watch him
take what we saw him doing college and translate it
to tremendous success as a pro. Now doing all things
with the Carolina Panthers and helping out the little fellas him,
Greg Olsen, Jonathon is doing us. Some other guys have
a little middle school team that they have Roland I
love checking them out on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Todd blackliche as well.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
We're gonna get into that a little bit about his
youth coaching, as well as what his take is on
some of these quarterbacks that have turned things around environments,
good defensive schemes. It's a long, long, raging conversation that
I think you're really going to enjoy. Here's our chat
with the great Luke Keighley. All right, Buck Pump to
have Luke back with us. Luke, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Man? Oh, I'm doing good. It's uh, I'm looking at
my window right now. The leaves are changing. It's it's
getting cooler. It's a little brisk in the morning. And
this is always my favorite time of the year playing
because stuff starts to really matter now trade deadline's gone
and you start playing meaningful games in November December. And
we played in Green Bay obviously this past weekend, and
(01:21):
it was the most perfect day in Green Bay, chilly,
little breezy. I love that field that they have, and
our boys came out the wind so that the air
and the atmosphere and the cool weather and playing on grass,
and that's this time of the year is what I
think about playing football. So it was this is my
(01:41):
favorite time of the season. Real quick. Were you no
sleeves no matter what? See I was, But I didn't
like wearing sleeves and games. I always felt like I
was constricted, constricted running And then did you ever regret
it though?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Like that, like it was just so stinking cold, You're like, wait,
sweatshirt up, sweatpants at practice.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I was no skin showing. But what I don't what
people don't get, is you get on the field and
I don't know, you're only on the field for a
couple of minutes at a time, and then once you
go to the sideline, the benches are heated. I can
put a jacket on, you can put a hat on.
There's heaters everywhere. And then you get on the field
for I don't know a couple of minutes and then
you're back off. So it's really not that bad. Buck.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You wore sleeve I'll be well, I'll bet you money
you wore sleeves. Yeah, but when you touch the ball
you can't wear them. So like I played on teams,
it was a rule if you're touching the ball.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So I was returning kick, so you only can have
like the mock neck and maybe like it was staft
sleep yeah, asleep. But you couldn't wear the whole thing
because you can you can't fill the ball and so
it gets slick and it to pop out or whatever.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Not fun. Not fun.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
But I was listening to Luke talking about, oh, we're
about to play meaningful games. But I heard you before
you came on looking. I got to admit one of
my guilty pleasures. It's following you Greg and Jonathan Stewart
on this you youth ink thing where y'all are getting
the middle school team.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So I'm not here. And you talk about not playing
meaningful games, because.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
The way that you guys were pulling in to finish
the season, I think you played some meaningful games before
we got to this point.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, I'll tell you what. This is the fourth year
we've coached. And so Greg's dad coached high school football
in Jersey forever, and he coached Greg's older brother Chris,
and his younger brother Kevin, and then obviously Greg, so
that's been in their blood forever. And then Or Tate's
Greg's oldest son. When Tate was ready to start playing football,
Pop Warner and Pop Warner, Greg's like, hey, do you
(03:31):
want to coach? Greg and I were both done playing.
Obviously something Absolutely he got Greg's dad, So Greg and
his dad handle the offense, and then Greg and I
kind of tagged team the defense. And everyone always says, hey,
it's so nice that you coach these kids, and we
tell everybody like, no, thank you for letting us coach
your kids, because it gives us an excuse to hang out.
(03:54):
It gives us an excuse to go talk football, gives
us an excuse to be back out on the grass
and have our game day. And now we have Stu
Jonathan Stewart coaches with us and awesome, and then Todd
blackliche coach with us the last two years. It's just
we have a ton of fun doing it. We have
great kids, and yeah, absolutely every game for us is
(04:15):
like the Super Bowl. We spend probably way too much
time breaking tape down trying to figure out, hey, is
our defense good? What happens if our defense that we
put in isn't good? What's our fallback plan? Where do
we need to put guys so they can have success
and they're maximizing their skill set. It's it's so much fun.
But the funny to me, the funniest thing about it
(04:36):
was when I was playing, you always hated when coaches
had too much in or we're trying to overcoach or
do too much, and you just wanted to be like, hey,
let us just play four or five defenses, give us
three or four pressures, and like let us go. And
then now coaching these kids, you like what if, what if?
What if? What if? What if? And you can tell
(04:57):
sometimes the kids or you can see it on their
bass and I know that exact look and I'm like,
all right, maybe I need to take a step back.
Our kids are good. They have a ton of confidence,
like let him go play fast, let them go play
fun and encourage them and they'll be just fun.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I want to ask you this because you said that,
you know, you guys have done this now for several years,
and think about like your college years and at that age,
you you know, you'd go home for a little bit
of the summer and come back and maybe.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
A teammate would put on like eight pounds or you know.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
He'll you can make these little incremental growth steps as
at the college agent in the NFL, like probably even
smaller steps you can take. But when you're coaching kids
this age's like there's got to be a kid that
you finished the season thinking this kid's got no shot,
and the next year he comes out and he's put
on he's four inches taller, he's now got like he's
got facial hair, and you're like, oh my gosh, like
(05:46):
this is a different human being. And then some other
kids kind of plateau. That's got to be wild to
watch that transformation over those years.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Oh yeah, and some of the kids we've had for
four years. DJA was telling you this. And we had
a kid that play corner for us the first three
years we had him, and he was tough, he was physical,
he wanted contact, it was all about it. But he
just he hadn't grown yet. And I always wanted to
move him inside to play backer, but we just it
(06:15):
just didn't work. And then last season, at the end
of the year, he started to kind of grow a
little bit and we're like, hey, we need to move him.
We need to think about moving him in to play
backer this year. And then he showed up this offseason.
We see the kids all year, but they still grow
quite a bit. He showed up this offseason in our
little off season program and whatever was June or whatever,
(06:38):
and I was like, whoa, he's coming to play backer
with me. And we're let this kid just go hunt.
So it's fun because you don't know where where are
they going to grow, what are they going to turn into?
Is he is he maxed out with where he is,
If that's where he's going to be, what we need
to try to coach him at that position to put
(06:59):
him insition to be successful in high school? You know? So,
But yeah, this kid, his name is his name's JJ
JJ has been one of my little my little dudes
for four years and he's been tough, he's been physical,
and then they grew this year and he was a
monster playing inside for us. So great, it's so great.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, now back to your Panthers, because I saw you
guys week one and to see the team now play
the way that they're playing. And I always believe that
franchises have a blueprint for being able to win. When
I was back there working in the early two thousands,
it was run the ball, play defense. Dan Morgan was
the centerpiece of that defense with Pep and those other guys.
(07:39):
I see when you guys, you and Thomas Davids are playing,
it's kind of like the same thing. It looks like
I turned back the clock and it's the early two
thousands again.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Watching this team.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Run the ball with Rico o'dodell, the way they're playing
on defense.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Just talk about their style. Yeah, I think for us
we've leaned. We've leaned on the run game. The run
game has been really good for us. For I think
it'd be it'd be tough to talk about a run
game and not talk about the offensive line. Coaches Joe
Gilbert and Harold Goodwin have been phenomenal. We started our
off season with Iki Quantu playing left guard, Robert Hunt
(08:14):
playing left yeah, left tackle Ikey and then Robert Hunt
left guard, and then we had Austin Corbett at center,
and then Damian Damian Lewis and then Taylor moden In.
The amount of combinations that we've had at that position
this year and had no drop off whatsoever has been phenomenal.
And I think Dave Canalis has a really good feel
(08:34):
for what our team is good at, what allows us
to win. He has zero ego, which is just in
this day and age is sometimes hard. But he said, hey,
you know what, I'm want to do everything we can
to put our team in position to have success. So
our I think our blueprint is, Hey, let's played tough
on defense, Let's have the ability to run the football.
(08:55):
Let's throw us some play action. Let's tighten up in
the red zone. I don't care if they drive big field.
Can we tighten up in the red zone and either
forced turnovers or have them kick field goals. And that's
kind of been been our successful formula this year is
control the run game, not turn the ball over, tighten
up in the red zone and play tough d and
(09:15):
keep ourselves in the game so we can lean on
that run game throughout the throughout the whole game.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
That's been fun. I'll be honestly, I want to watch
the game last week because I hadn't watched much of them,
and I'm watching it and I had to pull up
our lads because I'm like, who the heck are all
those guys like Yosha yosh Not even really you know,
he was in there filling in and doing his thing,
but you know, watching this tape and watching them we've
talked a lot about this year is kind of this
this theory that we've been kind of hitting, and I
(09:42):
want to get your thoughts on it, Lucas. We talk
about like a culture of a team when you're when
you're little, guys are physical, like in other words, when
you're receivers in your corners play physical, and when you're big,
guys chase and run. And you see offensive lineman working
to finish, you see defensive lineman chasing plays. Just speaks
kind of like a competitive culture that you've cultivated there,
and it's it seems like Carolina definitely has that wee
thing you.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Talk about big guys run, and I think the one
guy that we've been so happy to have back has
been Derek Brown. He's a lobster, he can play every play.
But the one thing that I think you look for,
especially in a young defense, is what's the identity of
what we want to do. So Derek is that guy.
J Horns one of those guys, and we've got more
dudes that are that type of guy. But when you
(10:25):
watch Derek Brown play, he takes on double teams, he's
physical at the point of attack. He throws the guys
on the ground, he doesn't get moved. He's a great
interior pass rusher, but he runs from sideline to sideline.
I can't tell how many times he's been in the
stack inside getting blocked. They throw a swing pass and
ninety five is running full speed at three hundred and
(10:47):
forty pounds and knocking dudes out on the sideline. And
I think as a young guy, when you come in
or some of these free agents that we brought in,
you look to what's acceptable on our team, and that's
kind of where people start. And when you watch Derek
Brown play, say, hey, I don't know where I came from,
but hey, when you come to Carolina, this is how
we're going to play defensive line. And Todd Washington d
(11:10):
line coach, there has been phenomenal. I think Derek Brown
would say the same thing. But Derek epitomizes what we
want to be on defense, and the whole defense revolves
around him and plays physical and plays with great effort.
And he's been great to have back, not only as
a player on the field, but you need that presence,
you need that dog, You need that alpha that people
(11:31):
just look at and say, hey, if I'm going to
play defense for the Carolina Panthers, an ab a lot
like him. You know.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
It's funny, Look, you talked about that, and you guys
had great cultures when you were there. Talk about the
peer pressure to get everyone to play and perform at
that standard. Because you can talk about, hey, look at
Derek Brown, but there's also this quiet, unspoken standard that
you must play with. If you're gonna play with us,
if you're gonna be one of the eleven on the field,
(11:59):
you got to know how we get down. How do
you go about building that out? Is that a coast
lift thing? Is that a player lifting? I think it's both.
I think the players have to believe it in their heart,
like Derek Brown. Derek Brown needs to go be Derek Brown,
but he also needs to be backed up by the coaches.
If Derek sees something that he believes is an issue
and he makes a comment about it, he's got to
(12:20):
have the backing of the coaches, or at least be
able to have a conversation with the coaches where hey,
we're on the same page. I understand what you're saying, Derek,
this is what we see. But at the same time,
we're moving in the right direction. So I think it's
both player led and coach led, and all of our
guys do that. I think there was a play on Sunday, so.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
JC playing corner doesn't get any action right he sits there,
he guards a boundary portion of the field. No one
throws at him. And they threw a little glance rout
in the end zone the Romeo Dobbs against Green Bay,
and it was probably one of the only routes. Jac
haddle day and great spot, eyes in the right place
converted knocked the ball down at the Always thrown in
the right spot is probably an interception. So we have
(13:03):
it at all levels of the defense, And when I'm
getting at with JC is you have to stay mentally
engage all game at that corner spot because your job
is boring, boring, boring, boring, boring until it's not. So
JC gets those reps at practice, he takes them seriously,
He goes through his progression each play during the game,
and then when that moment of that opportunity pops up,
(13:24):
he's there to capitalize. So I think as a young guy,
when you come in and you look at this defense,
whether it's Derek Brown and you're in the mix, every player,
you're j C. Horn and you're playing off and you're
not getting any action. When your number gets called, you're
expected to go make a play on the football. And
I think it's player led, it's coach led, but it's
also Dan Morgan and brand tillis. What kind of guys
(13:45):
do you bring into this team? Are they willing to
play physical or are they willing to play the brand
of football that you're going to play. Are they willing
to kind of not conform but fit into what you
want to do as far as culture and scheme and
how we do things. And I think it's all three
of those things. Get put together the players, the coaches,
but the GM and the front office have to do
a good job of bringing the right type of guy
(14:05):
and that allows him to mix in with the guys
that we already have.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, I think that's a great challenge, is trying to
identify those guys and how do you go about doing that.
We've talked a lot about, you know, the right questions
when you get to know players, Like what's a good
question to elicit a good answer? And I was talking
to one of our buddies of the show, Ken Coleman's
written a bunch of leadership books and I ran it
to him in Nashville and I said, Hey, I'm always
looking for new questions, like give me, give me a
(14:29):
question you can ask a player you can learn something
interesting about him. And he said, ask him what pisses
him off? And he's like, okay, I've never asked that.
So I'm going to let you be the first person
as a player. Look what pissed you off?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Effort? Effort and lack of attention to detail and not
thinking that details are important. And you saw that a
lot in the run game. Hey where are your eyes?
Where are you closing to? Are you the end man
on the line scrimmage, make sure we squeeze all the
way to the hip of that end man on the line.
Because you're the edge player, your inside foot has to
(15:04):
be up because if you're outside foots up your clothes
making a play, you know, going away from the line
of scrimmage. All these little things that seem dumb. Where
my pad level is as a linebacker when I'm taking
on a guard, where are my hands? Where are my feet?
Where are my eyes? How much of this offensive linement
am I taking on? All that stuff is so easy
(15:24):
to do in practice, especially in walkthroughs. Let's not make
it close, because when you go into a game, you're
going to fall back to however you practice, and these
little small details have a huge have a huge role
and whether you have success or whether you fail inside games.
So I think to me, lack of detail and lack
of urgency and walk through periods was a big deal
(15:44):
for me. That's great. I mean I can see it
because I'm ready to I can feel the intensity. How
he would be a new It's not me to me,
it's yeah, we can all do that. It's easy. You
can feel it. Yeah, I can feel that, and It
shows the other thing too, It shows is walk through specifically,
like it shows how important this is to you. The
(16:05):
way you go through walk through, the way you have
your pad, level that your pad, you know where my
hands are, where my feet are, where my eyes are,
the urgency at which you put your hands on somebody
in walk through. All that says to me is hey,
number one, do I know what I'm doing? And then
number two, how important is it to me? And how
(16:25):
important it is to you? Shows how important you feel
like our job of playing defenses to the rest of
your team. That's great looke.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
It appears that I mean, you're there watching, we're in
the midst of a renaissance when it comes to the
running game and those things.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So that means.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Defensively, it's appearing that there was a two or three
year period where were talking about, Hey, we'll let the
opponent run. We're going to take away the explosives in
deep ball. Oh, we had a time there where we
may need to go back to our old school defensive
philosophies and making sure we shut down the run before
we prioritize the other parts of playing great defense.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I think the run game it depends on who you
talk to about the run game. I think the run
game is super important at the end of the game
when you're trying to when you're trying to mill clock,
you're trying to run a clock out. And then in
specific situations, you know when when you need to run
the ball and they know you need to run the ball.
I think that's when it's important. But I still think
the passing game and the explosive nature of downfield throws
(17:22):
is what's going to control of the NFL. Still, I
don't think I think running is important. We've had a
lot of success running the football, but I think big
plays allow you to score points quickly, which ultimately I
think leads to the most success.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I never asked you this before, but we in baseball
we used to have player managers, and then in the
NBA you had Bill Russell who was playing and then
and then managing. I'm not asking, I'm not saying, could
player be a head coach in the NFL. I don't
think that's possible. But if you've got someone I'm just
talking about someone with your background, experience, intellect, where you
got to at the peak of your power, you think
(18:01):
you could have called the defense at that point absolutely why.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I think that there's way too much going on as
a player that you're worrying about that you don't get overall, like,
you don't get over like trends in the game, who's in,
who's out? There's too much information? Is it? So? Is it?
Is it eleven personnel and not all eleven personnel is
the same? Right? Like last week when we played Green Bay.
(18:29):
Is it twelve personnel and Tucker crafts in the game
or is it twelve personnel with two big tight ends?
Is it? Is it twenty one run game? Is it
two fullbacks? Or is it two running backs? And then
right after the play you got to think about all
that stuff. I think there's way too much going on
in the game. Maybe some guys can I certainly couldn't
think about. You play a snap, you wake, you get
up off the ground. You're trying to figure out I'm
(18:51):
looking at the jumbo tron usually trying to figure out, Hey,
what happened the previous player in the run game? Where
did that ball hit? All? Right? Hey, maybe I need
to be a little bit more shifted. Run that guard
in the B gap. And you don't have time to
think about like all right, it's third and seven. They're
bringing in, you know, eleven personnel, and their eleven personnel
has like we were playing the Saints. Was it mark
(19:12):
Ingram or is it darren Sprolls right boom right now,
it's eleven personnel with these guys, there's too much going on.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
How many people For those that don't know, how many people,
like headset wise, you don't get to hear them, but
how many people were involved in that process in terms
of identifying the personnel that was on the field. I'm
sure you have somebody who knows tendencies based off the
numbers they have in front of them, like how many
people are collaborating before that call gets into your headset?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I mean, you got guys in the booth that can
see everything super easily, right, So that's kind of how
we started. In Carolina. McDermott was in the booth, so
he had his crew up there that could see it.
So they probably relate to mcdee hey, this is a personnel.
McDermott makes a call down to the field to hold them,
how holk them gives me the call in my headset,
that was kind of our process, I believe, and I
(20:01):
think that's that allows everybody to do their specific job, right.
McDermott when he was calling defenses for us, he's up there,
he's looking at situation field down in distance. Then he
gets the plate. Then he gets a personnel grouping. All right,
boom out of this personnel grouping. This is what we like?
All right, what do we bhoom? We like this? Let
me give it to aw Al gives it to me.
(20:21):
That's the fault. And it all happens. I mean, it's
a forty second guys, a forty second play block cut
shuts off at my headset shuts off at fifteen. So
that stuff all happens in like ten seconds. It's wild.
So what's so funny is not being able to call it.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I didn't disagree that he couldn't call it because, un
to Cunningham, when I was in Kansas City, he was
a defensive coordinator, Donnie Edwards was to Mike linebacker practice.
We would situationally say Donnie, you have to call it
because if the headphones go down, if anything goes down,
I need you to think about the game the way
that I think about it. And so we would go
(20:59):
these two two minute drives in game where Donie's called
in the defense because we can't get everything communicated. So
I still believe that there's ways to have AFC automatic fronts, coverages,
things that you can call, things that you can get
us to based on one Hew, you and Thomas Davis
worked together. Did I know that y'all have a yin
and yang to kind of get it figured out? I
(21:20):
do want to go. Do you feel like the players
should be empowered sometimes to override some of the calls
that come in from the sideline based on what they feel,
what they see.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Absolutely in MC Germany gave that to us all the time.
I'd always watch tape with him on Saturday nights before
games and with those guys, and I just say, hey,
I want to know what you're thinking, why you're thinking.
So we'll just run through a game real quick and
call stuff and let me know kind of why you're thinking.
So I agree with you on that, And then in games,
(21:51):
you know, kind of you guys asking a question. I'm
thinking about it a little bit more. I always wanted to go.
I had like a checklist in my mind of like,
all right, hey, it's third and seven the in the
right hash, here's their top concepts out of you know,
out of their third and seven window that we've seen.
All right, let me think of where I'm going to
be and then I get a play call, and then
how does that that play call match up with what
I've been going through? So that was kind of my process.
(22:13):
But then Sean McDermott always gave us a really good,
great flexibility to change stuff. So say we were bringing pressure,
you know, Thomas was pressuring, and they saw the pressure
and they were able to slide protection pre snap and
they're going to have it blocked up. It's you know,
it's seven man protection on third down. We don't want
to deal with that. McDermott would say, hey, look, if
(22:36):
you guys see something and you don't like it, here's
your three calls that you guys can get to and
it's on you guys to make sure that it gets
communicated across the board. So there we did have some
creativity within our defense. If we got into a situation
and we really we really didn't like it, we had
the ability to change stuff. But I think for the
(22:57):
most part, I trust it. You know, mcdee and Steve
Wilks and Eric Washington, those are the coordinators in Carolina
to put a call to make us, make us put
us in a position to be successful. Yeah, I just
think I don't know this conversation that's ever been had before.
That's why I think it's fascinating. I think for me,
I would have loved to been like, hey, I want
(23:18):
to play quarters right here, I want to blitz right here.
But I think it'd be you could do it for maybe,
you know, a couple of plays throughout the game, but
I think it would have been too mentally draining for
me to do the whole game, because think about it,
it's you're in a third quarter. Hey, this is a situation,
this is where they are on the field. We've seen this, this,
and this. What are the top concepts out of twelve
(23:41):
personnel that I've seen, Like, there's I think there was
just too too much going on. I think it would
have slowed my on field processing to have to add
one more thing. Yeah, that's an interesting though.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Man, Just think about all that goes into just one
one play call in the execution of it. One of
the things that's been a theme a little bit really,
not just this year, but the last few years. We've
seen and guys that were in Carolina. We saw Sam
and Baker go on have success elsewhere. This year, Daniel
Jones has kind of become that guy. Were there times
when you were playing where you were getting ready for
a team and you might be with the staff and
(24:12):
those meetings going like, Okay, look this quarterback is talented
or this quarterback's got some ability, but he has no
chance based on maybe it's the system he's in, whether
it's the supporting cast that he has. But I mean,
did you see that You remember having those moments of
being able to separate the player from the environment and saying,
this guy, I don't care how good he is, he
doesn't really have a chance.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
You know what, That's a that's a good, good question.
I don't know if we ever. I'm trying to think
through games where I'm like, hey, this quarterback's a really
good player, but he doesn't have the tools around him.
I think some of it is like is just how
do they match up with their skill their skill positions outside?
You know, you look at think about Green Bay this
(24:52):
past week. Green Bay's offense, they go into the Seeds,
they go into the game, Christian Watson, Tucker Kraft, the rookie,
the rookies golden right, yep, and those guys all left
the game. So if you're Matt Lafleur, where do you
go with your script when your top three weapons are
out of the game. I think that's more kind of
where it gets to is what does this coach have
(25:13):
or what does this quarterback habit his disposal versus what
does he not have that they typically do?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
You know, I want to ask you this because a
lot of times people talk about scouting players, How often
did you scout the opposing coordinator? Like it's one thing
to do that, but like I believe everybody.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Has a pet called, they have things.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Did they get to regardless of who they're playing whatever,
Like when they get to twenty yard line this is
their go to call? Did you spend time also trying
to scout the coordinator to have a feel for what
he's thinking, what he tends to like in certain situations.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, it's really interesting. Kyle Shanahan was always that guy
for us. Right, So when I was a rookie, Shanahan
was in Washington with his dad, and then I think
he was there maybe a year or two when I
was playing, And then in twenty. I want to say
it was twenty fourteen years and she was in Cleveland,
and then in fifteen he was sixteen seventeen, maybe he
(26:05):
was in Atlanta, and then obviously he's been in San
Francisco ever since. I don't know if that timeline is
exactly correct, but I would always keep my notebooks and
so then when we'd go play the Shanahan led offenses,
I'd go back to that notebook, like, hey, we're the
same defense. We're going to probably play a lot of
cover three, we're going to be in overfront, we're going
to play quarters in the high red zone. This is
(26:26):
what we look like on third down? How did he
attack us? You know, from year to year to year,
and there's a lot of there's a lot of similarities.
And then guys, I can always have stuff that's different,
that's new that he's set up over the year. He
set up probably going years back. But that was a
really good example for me of, hey, this is what
Kyle looked like in twenty twelve as I was a rookie,
(26:48):
and then we played him in you know, twenty nineteen,
my last year when he was in San Francisco. In
the overarching principles in the field of that team felt
very similar from year one, even though they had RG
three as a quarterback, to you know, year eight, my
last year with them in San Francisco. So that was
one thing that I always looked at was how are
they changing from year to year to year with.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
The same coordinator. Uh, look, we just get another couple
of minutes with you here. But the Denver Broncos defensively,
we've talked a lot about them this year, just with
how they've played and how they're, you know, on a
historic pace in terms of ruction of the quarterback. When
you have a defense, when you've got fastballs like they
do coming off the edge, and then you marry it
up with the scheme there with Van Jose where you
(27:28):
don't know where they're coming from. What it just seems
like when you marrying up your scheme with your players.
I think we've talked about this in a little bit
earlier in this discussion, but just how important and vital
it is to know what you have and how you
marry those things together.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I think a lot of it comes down to ego
of these coaches. Are you more concerned about highlighting your
guys in putting them, putting them in position to have
success or are you more? Are you more worried about
what your defense looks like to everybody else? And I
think Vance Joseph has a great feel for what they're
good at, what his guys like to do. As rushers
are obviously obviously really good. They've got good flexibility with
(28:03):
those guys that they can move them around. And that
was one thing that I think I was super fortunate
with McDermott and Carolina is he always wanted us to
do what we were most comfortable doing, regardless of maybe
what he wanted to do on the defensive side of
the ball. He would always come to us and say, hey,
what do you like? What don't you like? And it
had less to do with him and the scheme and
(28:25):
what he thought was good, and he didn't want to
be the mastermind behind everything, and it was more how
can I put my guys in position to have success?
And how can I put my guys in position where
they feel comfortable and they feel they can play really fast.
I think that's kind of where Vance is with that
defense and Denver, obviously the feel and the overarching structure
of that defense is one thing but when you have
(28:47):
studs that can go, let's let those guys go do
what they do best.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Look if you could come back and just play for
one year, but you could pick any defense, any defensive
scheme to go play in.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Who would you want to play for? And why? I mean,
it's it's easy for me. I love the Sean McDermott defense.
That's what I grew up in, That's what I played.
I've got a great feel for it. I understand. I
know where my stresses, I know where I have issues.
I know where I can be aggressive. I know how
even watching me we played them, I don't know it
(29:18):
was two weeks ago. Watching that defense, it makes me
smile because in the low red zone they called a
couple of plays and I'm like, guys, I know exactly
what this play call is, and that was what I
would I would go back and play for that for
a lot of reasons. Number One, I love Sean McDermott.
Number two, the linebacker coach Al Holkam was to coach
(29:38):
me for a majority of my career in Carolina. Bobby Babbage,
the defensive coordinator, was in Carolina for a year or
two maybe when I was here, so I know that defense.
I've got a lot of confidence in that defense. I
know where to be, I know where to line up,
I know where my eyes are. I was a fantastic
coach for me, so I think it's an easy one
for me to get it.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
I got a quick because I'm curious because on paper,
on the surface, it appears that they're not playing with
like a bunch of a level guys, but the unit
plays really really will What is it about this game?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
What is it about Sean that he can get a
bunch of.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Unherded players to play at the level that they traditionally
play at year after year.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I think they play extremely hard. I think they fly around.
I think they hit. I think that they do a
great job of coaching the guys that aren't the starters.
In the event that guys get hurt, you plug another
guy in and it doesn't It just doesn't matter, you know,
and you've got guys that want to be there. You
look at Jordan Poyer at the end of his career,
he could be anywhere he wants to be in Buffalo,
(30:42):
and when they put him in the game, he understands
that defense to the point where, hey, maybe physically I'm
a little bit limited, but I know exactly where I
got to be. I know where my stresses, I know
where my help is, and you can go play faster.
I think Sean and Brandon being up there, I've done
a really good job of finding guys that are going
to play really hard, that are going to play really physical,
(31:03):
and they do a great job of coaching the guys
at the second and third level that allow them to
have success. If you know at Oliver gets dinged or
Rousseau's out, or you know Milano's out or Bernard's out,
the linebackers, they can plug guys in and have to
zero drop off, and then when those guys get back
to healthy again, they plug them right back in. So
(31:23):
I think they take a lot of pride in coaching
not just the starters, but everybody else.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
All those guys played with tremendous effort even as college
players coming up too, So it's kind of in their
DNA last one. I'm gonna let you run here the
uh you know, the scouting side of things, which I
know you're fully capable of doing a lot of times
when you're looking at young players, it's okay, what is
he now? Strengths and weaknesses. Where does he need to
get better to get where you want to go. So
I'm gonna ask you to give me a scouter report
on your dog.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Oh my god. You know what the scout on your
report on her is, she is the best dog. But
she she likes being in the mix. She's mad that
you guys didn't give her a camera to come to her.
She wants microphone, she wants in on it. Maybe she
was a little bit disappointed that I said Buffalo and
not Carolina. So I think she's she's trying to voice
(32:09):
her opinions and now she where she is. She's she's
laying down, facing away from me with this little bit
of silence and not looking at me.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
So, oh yeah, I gotta go give her. I gotta
go get her coach. She coached, gave her a t
R E A T. She's, uh, she's very coachable. She's
a great dog. But you know what, she just wants
to be in the mix.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And she felt like she felt like she needed a
microphone today. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
The t R E A T. By the way, that's
just the helmet sticker. That's that's a good performance exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Helmets. She's going to show back right up over here.
Get her to come on.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
If I I wanted to hear me say treat, could
she hear me say treat?
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Oh, she just got up. She's walking over here. Now
we gotta handle that thing down. I'm backwards here.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, you need a treaty.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
There, you see her, you see your Yeah, intreat, intreat.
He's gonna run, She's gonna run to the laundry room
where we keep them on. Better be waiting for one
from you and one from Blacky mccar.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, it's fantastic. Hey, I've enjoyed talking to both of you, Luke,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, she's not so interesting or she's already laughing. Hey, dude,
you are the absolute best. You always carve out time
for us and we appreciate you. Man, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Thanks guys, well block there he goes, always generous and
uh and I always feel like I learned something. By
the way, what are your thoughts on the new question
getting in the mix there? Oh, I guess the language.
That's okay, right, we can say pissed off, but like.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
It is interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
He gave a great answer. He talked about the attention
of detail, the lack of focus and the walkthroughs. I
thought that was fascinating.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Well, what it less, you know, is a little peek
inside what your standards are. What your standards are not
only for yourself but for the people that you're around. Uh.
When Keith talks about that, he talks about the effident
attention to details.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I mean, just think about it. He talked about it
a walk through.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Just how everyone needs to have the antennas up and
locked in and ready because the things that we covered
this walkthrough gonna be the things that pop up in
a game.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
And if you're not ready, locked in and focused, I'm.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Gonna be really upset at you if you messed this
up in a game, because it's a thing that you
can control. You can control your ability to focus and
make sure that you take in all the information so
you're ready to play your best on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
No doubt. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So that was a fun conversation. Hope you guys enjoyed
it as much as we have.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
What encourage you?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Check out the other episodes from earlier this week if
you missed those, and we'll see you next time right
here on those sticks
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Jeremiah
Bucky Brooks
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