05-21-24 Ryan Michael with Broncos Country Tonight

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Run right out to the Eka CommasPerial Health hotline. THO, I'll bring
our good buddy Ryan, Michael Ryan, how you doing this evening? Doing
well? Ben Grant? Now youguys doing pretty well. First of all,
congratulations sir on your your the nextthing that you've added to your impressive
CV sheet as you are now workingfor the Barcelona Dragons. I believe,

(00:20):
yes, sir, thank you.Yeah, it's something I'm incredibly excited about.
I had the fortune of having opportunitieswith a number of LF teams,
but really, in the end,Barcelona I felt was far and away the
best fit for me, and theyreally won me over. The culture there,
the professionalism, the commitment to winning, and you know, from our

(00:43):
owner and managing director Jason Robinson,our head coach David Shelton, and the
rest of the coaching staff Sean Cooper, Darien Simmons, Jason Hillery, we
have such an expansive staff and it'sa group of guys who are passionate high
football like you, hard working,committed to helping our peer succeeds. You
know, my role on the staffis small, but I'm excited to be

(01:06):
a small part of it, andI'm excited for the twenty four season.
Yeah, I'm excited for you aswell. One of the quarterbacks that they
have on the team, Connor Miller, is actually an American. Went to
the Florida Atlantic was undrafted in twentynineteen. So I don't know if he's
still on the roster there or not, but he was with the Dragons,
I believe was last year. Iknew him through a friend of a friend,

(01:27):
so I'm not sure if he's stillthere or not, but you know,
he used to be small world.Yeah. Levi Lewis is going to
be our starting quarterback this year,and he's a guy who spent time with
the Seattle Seahawks, and you knowa lot of people have described his style
of play as a fusion between RussellWilson and Kyler Murray, but Levi is
really his own man, and Ithink he's going to be the perfect fit

(01:48):
for the up tempo offense that we'regoing to be running. So we're excited
to get at it. Yeah,that'd be really cool. You know,
can you stream it from the websiteor I mean, I'm trying to figure
out how anybody would get a chanceto watch the europe In football like that.
Yeah, you can sign up forthe ELF season Pass, and then
we're really excited about how that's goingto help us reach fans it away with

(02:09):
growing technology that we didn't necessarily haveduring NFL Europe. So it's it's definitely
a league that's on the rise,and we're very excited to connect with our
fans and definitely tune in. It'sgoing to be some exciting football. Well,
you tell coach if he needs aslow, over forty white, short
dad bod type wide receiver that Iam. I am there for him.

(02:30):
All right, you got it?Oh my goodness, yes, good status
about Peyton Manning out there today onthe net yards per attempt at how the
Broncos kind of sort of fell offa cliff once Peyton Manning, as it
were, fell off a cliff andthen and then departed. What could the
Broncos do? First of all,how bad was that? Because I mean,
and they went from basically first inthe league to the bottom third of

(02:52):
the league. But what can theBroncos do to turn that around? Now?
With Sean Payton and ostensibly bon Nicks, I mean, Peyton Manning was
truly a unicorn in terms of whathe did well, and really him and
Dan Marino were the two toughest thesad quarterbacks in the history of professional football
by some distance. Through Breas inmy view would have been third there,
but he would have been a distancethird. And so if you look at

(03:15):
the stats that I posted earlier thisevening, the Tim Tebow era, Bronco's
twenty ninth in that yards per attempt, So you're factoring in the yards lost
the sacks. And then we wenton a run three consecutive years the Broncos
finished first place with Peyton and thenyou know, obviously injuries caught up with
him during our Super Bowl year intwenty fifteen, and since then we've definitely
been in the bottom third of theleague. You know, Bonnix being a

(03:38):
guy who was sacked and only onepoint one percent of his dropbacks last year
at Oregon is going to be thatperfect fit. I know. It's something
that coach Payton was frustrated about lastyear in terms of the number of sacks
that he took. So, youknow, we brought in a guy who
doesn't make a lot of mistakes,an accurate passer, whose pocket pricing is
really one of the greatest strengths ofhis games. So we're certainly hoping to

(03:58):
see some improvement in that. Canis going to be a first place finish,
I wouldn't bank on that, butare we going to improve from where
we were twenty fourth and twenty twentytwo twenty first last year. Yeah,
I'm looking forward to seeing some improvementin that metric for sure. Well it
goes into that metric for the fanat home when we reference that number,
what does that mean? So thefant home can unpack that? Sure?

(04:20):
So netyards per attempt or ny overA is really just a metric that factors
in the yards per passing attempt,and it accounts for the yards lost to
sacks. And something that a lotof people may not be aware of is
that sacks are drive killers at almostthe same rate as interceptions are automatic drive

(04:40):
endors. So if it's third andfifteen and a quarterback wants to preserve his
passer rating and he throws a threeyard slant, that doesn't help us anymore
than Brett Favre chucking a deep.Maybe it gets picked off, but that's
not really any different than a puntin that instance. So you know,
given the reality that touchdowns are heavilyinfluenced by field position and intercept as well.

(05:00):
You know, if you're a quarterbackplaying with a bad defense and you're
down seventeen points, you're going tobe facing some loaded coverages and you're going
to throw more picks, and soI like to hone in. Net Yard
per attempt is one of my favoritestats because it's a great reflection of the
value that a quarterback brings per dropback, and it's something that isn't necessarily
impacted by touchdowns and interceptions. Adjustednet yards per attempt is a more comprehensive

(05:24):
measure for those things. But interms of both adjusted net yards per attempt
and net yards per tempt, PaydonManning was the best player in the history
of professional football. Well, ifhe was the best player, what was
his or what was the best seasonin the history of professional football? Using
that number? That is a goodquestion, and off the top of my
head, I don't have a rankingthrough net yard per tempt alone. In

(05:47):
my view, I would say inthe top two seasons in the history of
pro football at the quarterback position orboth paid Manning seasons two thousand and four.
In terms of efficiency, he threwa touchdown pass on a nearly one
out of every ten attempts. You'renever going to achieve that happen ever again,
especially with a sample size throwing asmany passes as it did, And
so his efficiency wasn't quite what itwas in two thousand and four. By

(06:11):
the time we got to twenty thirteen, there was greater volume. But when
you consider the reality of the injuriesthat he came back from, and you
consider the reality that he threw fiftyfive touchdowns five four hundred and seventy seventy
cards in fifteen and a half games. Do you remember they pulled him at
halftime in the season finale against Oakland? He could have thrown another four touchdown
pass in the second half conceivably,So his volume numbers and also efficiency throwing

(06:39):
that many passes when you factor inwhat he had to come through to just
make his return to professional football,and you know he joked about it himself
that Grady might break next year orif not that, the year after.
And here we are Dak Prescott likethe NFL with thirty six touchdowns last year
in a seventeen game schedule. Noone has touched the fifty five after Mahomes

(06:59):
throwing fifty is the only thing evenremotely close. Yeah, and it's weird
how that looks almost like an aberrationnow. I mean, you know,
it's funny because you thought the extragames would pad the numbers as far as
that goes, but as you're absolutelyright that Prescott was far far below that
with the benefit of an extra game. How did the injuries affect their trajectory
of Peyton Manning's career, because youknow, we saw, you know,

(07:23):
the big injury with the Colts there, and at the time, you know,
it was kind of like, hey, he's one sneeze away from being
a quadriplegic, but then he comesback to have some of the most statistically
significant seasons ever. I think thathis comeback to the to the Broncos,
to professional football, signing with theDenver Broncos is arguably the most impressive thing
I've ever seen at the quarterback position. Because clearly I'm not a doctor,

(07:46):
but a lot of folks have madethe argument that given the severity of his
injuries, he should have never returnedto pro football. And there's a difference
between being capable of returning and isthis a good thing to do for your
long term health. I can't speakto that, but what I can tell
you is when he came back intwenty twelve to twelve arguably was even more

(08:07):
shocking to me than twenty thirteen,because he immediately jumped into a new team
with a new system and the newcoaching staff. Led the NFL in success
percentage fifty four percent, led theAFC in passer rating one to five point
eight, led the league in netyardsper attempt, and adjusted the netyards per
attempt as we had just mentioned,set Broncos franchise records for touchdown passes and

(08:28):
passer rating, and he was afirst team All Pro selection immediately his first
year back, and he was againat first team All Pro selection his second
year. His seven first team AllPro selections are far and away the most
in the history of the quarterback position. Tom Brady won three of those in
twenty one seasons. Hayton Manning wontwo in his first two years in Denver
alone. So what he was ableto do really for the first two and

(08:50):
a half years in Denver he isunseekably brilliant. But eventually, and this
shouldn't have been a shock to anyone, the injuries caught up with him,
and I had my read on thesituation when it was was that he had
limitations in arm strength due to theneck entry. He couldn't run away from
that, and that led to greaterdemand on his legs because he had to

(09:11):
generate torque and Peyton Manning's passing mechanicswere damn near perfect, but to collective
wear and tear of basically using yourlegs to generate arm strength that wasn't there
anymore, led to his quads tearingin twenty fourteen, and then you know,
you follow that through the twenty fifteenhe tears. His plan of fashion
has left foot and just the injuriesbecame too much to keep up with.

(09:33):
So what happened there and a lotof quarterbacks will tell you the first thing
to go with their legs. Theirarm could continue for a few more years.
But when you lose your legs,especially in Manning's case, it really
impacted his pass accuracy, which wasthe strongest aspect of his game. But
what I will say for Peyton,even in that last year, I mean
most Broncos fans are familiar with thefact that he threw nine touchdowns seventeen interceptions,

(09:56):
so the efficiency marks weren't good.He averaged more passing yards per game
on the road than Brady did toeighty three point four Brady had two eighty
two point three. That year.He had six games averaging seven point six
yards per attempter more to put thatinto contact, seven point six would rank
seven months all NFL quarterbacks. Intwenty twenty three, he finished top ten

(10:18):
and sack percentage again. He ledthe league in fourth quarter comebacks if you
include the postseason, and certainly thattwo touchdown, zero interception performance against Brady
in the pass in the AFC Championshipgame gave Von Miller and the defense the
opportunity to really tee off on Tomfor the rest of that game. So
I always say that twenty fifteen isthe greatest bad season in pro football,

(10:41):
which is a weird backhanded compliment.But the Testament do all the things that
Peyton Manny could still do well ata high level upstairs right. I don't
know if you know this, butthe Barcelo and Dragons have a history of
going out and being innovators in asense. They brought Michael sam back to
football, the first and openly gayplayer to enter the NFL draft. Sam
been out of football for uh forseveral years, and uh, he's we've

(11:03):
brought back as a defensive line coach. Now they since moved on. He's
moved on, I believe to aPolish team. I can't remember off the
top of my head, but uh, you know I I I didn't know
if you knew that or not.I did. Yeah, And absolutely a
number of big names have actually comethrough Barcelona Denver Broncos. Connection would be
Jerryus Jackson, Yeah, playing quarterbackfor US. Yeah, he spent a
few years playing for the Barcelona Dragonsand then later ended up finding great success

(11:28):
in the CFL, winning a coupleof great cups. So definitely a lot
of great NFL CFL connections in Barcelonafor sure. Got to uh always got
to gotta love that. And Ilove the fact that that, you know,
American football has become a global sport, you know in a lot of
ways, and uh and all thatwhat what what? Uh? I don't
want to say what got you intothat position? But how did you find

(11:50):
out about the positions availability? Andhow did you come about getting on with
the staff there? Sure, soI keep an eye on professional football across
the globe by the year working forthe Hamilton Tiger Katz of the CFL as
a staff writer, and you know, just seeing what the ELF has done
overseas, it's far and away thebest professional football that you're going to find

(12:11):
over in Europe. And one ofthe coolest parts is the fact that a
lot of the original NFL Europe franchisesare now Barcelon Dragon's being one of them,
of course over there in the ELF. So it provides great opportunities not
just for American players to display theirskills overseas, but really to develop a
lot of homegrown talent across the globe. We've seen the NFL do wonderful things

(12:35):
with the International Games coming every year, and that continues to expand. So
I think it's very clear that thereis a strong demand for American football over
in Europe. I think this isreally just the tip of the iceberg.
Well, I'm looking forward to it. I'm gonna you got a subscriber out
of me, So I'm going tobe keeping an eye on Barcelona this year.
Just just just for you, mygod. By the way, you

(12:56):
know, our own Nick Ferguson playedde Canadian football, not with the Tie
Cats always with Saskatchewan Ryan Fire andthe Winnipeg Blue Bombers. As the text
line is reminding me at this moment. We were talking earlier about you know,
Peyton Manning and you talked about twentyfifteen being the greatest bad season of
all time. But you know,the Broncos are looking forward. Peyton Manning
is the standard. I guess thatthey want to get back to it.

(13:16):
That's a very lofty standard, ifnot the greast indeed, But when you're
a franchise that has a John Elwayand a Peyton Manning on the books,
and even to an extent that JakePlummer on the books, you know,
it's tough as a quarterback not tobe compared or viewed through the filter or
the lens that we saw those quarterbacksthrough. What can bo Nix expect for

(13:37):
a grace period, you know,like early on, because everybody's going to
he was drafted in the first round. People are going to expect greatness.
I think the NFL world is alot different now than it was when John
played with us. I mean truly, if you look at John's numbers from
when he was a rookie in eightythree, all the way through eighty nine,
they were somewhere around league average,and he had some really good years

(14:01):
mixed in with some really tough years, But he wasn't a quarterback who stepped
into the starting lineup and played atan elite level quickly. That's something we
almost take for granted because we seeit in the NFL today. But as
you and I have talked about,then, you know, when we're seeing
young quarterbacks really step into that startingrole and having really strong starts in almost

(14:22):
all cases, Andrew Lukins twenty twelvewould be one of the few exceptions,
but in almost all cases, they'resurrounded by tremendous support, if not on
one side, oftentimes both sides ofthe football. And so the Kansas City
Chiefs are a great example of this. They had great success or Patrick Mahomes
stepped into the starting role. OleSmith led the NFL in pouncer rating during

(14:43):
mahomes rookie year, and Mahomes isan entirely different caliber of quarterback than Alex
Smith. God knows, but theChiefs had tremendous success before Mahomes. So
when you missed tremendous talent with tremendoussituation, get tremendous results. Have to
be realistic. We're coming off aneight win season and we're coming off an
eight year run where we really havenot lived up to the standard that Peyton

(15:07):
Manning, John Lway, Nick Fergusonand a lot of the Broncos that came
before both set for us. SoI think as far as Grace period,
you got to give him a solidtwo seasons at least to get his seat
wet, to really learn sean systemthat's not an easy system to learn,
so there are going to be alot of bumps and bruises, but to

(15:28):
really give him an opportunity to developand give the recipient of great coaching.
That's what we hired Jean Payton todo. And so you know, I
would temper our expectations and for me, I'm looking to see what bow Knicks
looks like as a quarterback in twentytwenty five. I'm definitely definitely with you
on that, Ryan. We appreciateit as always at the Ryan Michael on

(15:48):
Twitter, the contributing writer and analyststhe Pro Football Fame of course, our
official and official statistician and on younow an offensive defensive analyst with the Barcelona
Dragons of the E l F willbe paying attention. Man, appreciate you.
Take you bet absolutely take care