June 13, 2024 • 59 mins
Stoney catches up with James Foster about the state of the Tennessee Titans before getting into his personal story, how he got into film, what led him to creating videos, the Senior Bowl, and much more!
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Thank you from Sobros HQ and Nashville, Tennessee to wherever you're cheering on your
Tennessee Titans. The Sobros Network presentthe Unofficial Titans Podcast. Welcome back for
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another episode of the Unofficial Titans Podcast. Offseason content is underway. It's your
boy, Big Natural. Stony Keeleyhere the EIC at Sobrosnetwork dot com,
NFL Draft analyst and Tennessee Titans filmanalyst for stacking the inbox as well.
You can follow me on Twitter atStony Keeley, collectively at sobros Network on
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all major social media platforms. Afamiliar guest on this week's show, I
want you guys to get to knowthe man behind the A to Z Sports
Film Room. Though his name's JamesFoster. He's been on the show before.
James, How you doing today,my man? I'm doing great.
How are you doing pretty good?Just just excited for this reunion of the
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Monty Rice Appreciation Club. Yep,he's Is he even in the NFL anymore?
I think the Saints picked him upat some like some point last season,
but I don't know if he's ona roster right now. Yeah,
I don't either, Man, toughscene. I always I always thought he
was good when he got on thefield, but I think there might be
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something else going on there. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know
what you've heard, but from whatI've heard, maybe you know, maybe
some of those intangible things, thepresence, the locker room stuff, the
stuff that you can't pick up onfrom just watching the tape, might have
had something to do with that.But a misjudgment on my part anyway.
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But we can still we can stillreminisce about what could have been with the
talent that was there. I thinkhis teammate grade was pretty low, pretty
low score when it came to theteammate score. What are you working on
these days? My man? Thisis kind of the slow time of the
NFL calendar. I made a jokeabout this being the time of year when
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all the national guys finally getting aroundto watching the Titans. But what are
you working on? Yeah? I'mgoing through most of the first round rookies
and doing videos on pretty much anyonethat I think is like worth doing a
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video on. I guess if theyare obviously, if they did really good
in their rookie season, I wantto cover them if they had kind of
an up and down season, Ithink that can still be a good video.
But then there's players like Tyree WilsonQuintin Johnston where it's like, man,
there's just there's no positive spin onthis. I'm just gonna come off
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like a hater. I'm gonna feelbad making a video like yeah, this
that no redeeming qualities. Sorry.I felt like there was one point during
late in the season last season thatthere was one game that Raiders people were
like, oh, man, TyreeWilson has turned it on, like finally
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we're going somewhere with him, andthen that was the last I ever heard
of him. Yeah, I'm aboutI think I've watched seven or eight games
of his. I have not comeacross that game. I'll say fair enough,
fair enough. Yeah, And theQuinton Johnston stuff, Man, that's
brutal wide receiver one. Now,if I'm not mistaken, unless that's Lad
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McConkie's spot to take, I don'tknow, Yeah, probably Lad, if
it's If it's not Lad, Idon't think it's a good receiving room.
Yeah, but you do have ahell of a video on Darnell. Right,
I'm just kind of making my waythrough IM. I've got the Paris
Johnson and Junior video paused, butyou did some Bryce Young, some Jordan
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Addison, some Will Levis, PeterScarronsky's up there. You've been on it.
Man. Who do you think isprobably your favorite first round pick that
you've evaluated so far from last year? Who had the best rookie season in
your mind? I think that thereare three. Let's see, there's probably
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three players that I would say arein a tier by themselves, Like I
would have to go c J.Stroud, Devin Witherspoon, Yeah, and
Jalen Carter I think would be probablythe three best. And then you know
underneath that, like a step behindwould probably be Will Anderson. And like
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christianan Zalez, just on a person, not at basis, was outstanding.
Yeah, I love Christian Gonzales.That's actually who I want into the Titans
to draft instead of Peter Skeronsky wasat the four to forty Sports party and
everybody was like chanting Skoransky, youknow, like and then they go to
me and they're like, Stony,what do you think? And I'm like,
yeah, Skronsky or you know,Christian Gonzalez is there too. I'd
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be really happy with him, butnobody wanted to hear it. And then
he ended up being pretty good beforehe got he got hurt, right,
that was it was an injury thatsidelined him, if I'm not mistaken,
Yeah, like week five or sixor something. Yeah, that's that's a
bummer. But yeah, he wentup against Tyreek Hill aj Brown. Like
if you look at the receivers,and it's not just like he played their
teams like he was guarding them oneon one in man coverage for most of
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the games. Like the list ofreceivers, it's like just the top ten
receivers in the NFL basically, Andhe was already like a borderline Pro Bowl
caliber corner. So yeah, Ithink he's the real deal. Sick sick
good stuff. Well, you cancatch all of James's work at a to
Z Sports Film Room on YouTube.Uh anything that I'm I'm missing, James,
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that's all. That's the only playis you're doing content these days,
right, correct? A is ESports Film Room on YouTube? We go,
Well, we've had the dust settlefrom the draft and the first big
wave of free agency. So beforewe get into your story, I just
want to get high level overviews.What do you think about where the Titans
are at now here as we sitin early June, I think the Titans
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are in as good of a positionas they've been at a lot of positions.
Cornerback I think is as good asI've ever seen it with Lugerious Sneed,
Roger McCreery, a Woozier, andthen you know, Jarvis Brownley Junior
probably is the CB four. Ithink the left side of the offensive line
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has a chance to be really good. And then they've taken the floor of
their receiver room up another level,I think obviously, so much of it
depends on Will Levis's development. Butyou know, there's a lot of areas
of the roster that I think they'vemade significant improvement. But then there are
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still I think some massive holes,which like I have them as my twenty
fifth ranked team right now. Andyou know a big part of that is
having one of the worst linebacker roomsin the NFL, probably negative edge depth
outside of Harold Landry and Arden Key. You know, no safety depth right
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side of the offensive line is amajor question. So you know, there's
still I think some holes on theroster that prevent them from being a super
Bowl contender, but they are.They've entered the making things interesting. Tier,
I would say, very well,very well, well, how long
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have you been in the content game. Let's get into your story a little
bit, because, man, Iwas introduced to your work several years ago
with the Patreon at No Flags Film, which is still your handle on Twitter.
So at No Flags Film, gofollow James if you don't already,
which if you're listening to this show, I don't know why you're not already
following the man. But when wasit that you got your start and how
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did you get your start? Whatdid you get started doing? So,
yeah, I first made I thinkthe first video I made on my channel
was and I'm actually I'm going ontomy channel to see when there's a lot
of videos. Man, you gota lot of work to comb through.
So first first video that's posted onmy channel was April twenty fourth, twenty
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twenty one. So we are onwe're on three years, a little over
three years, and I was justdoing like some random draft videos. I
started out doing Titans videos. There'sa couple that aren't on the channel anymore
because they were such a low qualitycompared to everything else, But like it
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was really just like I was incollege studying chemical engineering and thought like I'd
always been interested in in video editing, never really knew how to do it.
I'd been watching tape just like casuallyfor a couple of years and felt
like I had built up a lotof knowledge, and Yeah, I thought
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it would be cool to do somelike Titans centered videos that had cool data
visualization and like the editing on theon the play art and stuff like that.
I was always really drawn to thegame past film sessions if you've ever
seen those on YouTube where they havelike cool player indicators with like the spinning
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circles underneath them. I always thoughtthat was so cool. So I wanted
to do something like that, Andyeah, really just started it for fun.
There wasn't a lot lot of Titan'sfilm breakdown content on YouTube when I
started, so I pretty much immediatelygot a following of Titans people. And
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then yeah, I decided like onceI wanted to do it full time,
dropped out of college and decided tokind of transition it to a an NFL
channel just so there's a broader appeal. So you made I mean, that's
you're talking about a leap of faiththere. What what was it that made
you feel so inspired and so confidentto take that leap? Well, I
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think the first thing is that Ididn't enjoy engineering, which is what I
was doing, and I was definitelykind of if an if an out presented
itself, I was going to takethat. I think there is there is
one point where I was home fromI think I was home for Christmas break.
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I probably had like a year leftin college and I'd gotten two job
offers through through sports media that Ididn't end up taking, but I'd gotten
them like back to back, andmy mom was like, yeah, you
need to drop out of college becauseshe knew that I enjoy doing this like
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so much more than I did engineeringobviously, So yeah, just I felt
like it was felt like it wasworth taking the gamble to be able to
do something that you enjoy for aliving. Yeah, I hear you,
man, that's Truer words may havenever been spoken, but I think your
level of detail, the information thatyou present people ask and I don't mind
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sharing this on the podcast because youknow, I'm sure you get some of
it too, but people kind ofask about who you know what about this
guy? What about that guy?And you're a dude that whenever your name
comes up, I do everything Ican to sing your praises because I know
from private conversations with you. Ilove sharing the Anton Harrison story because I
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didn't see it with him, andI DMed you one day and I'm like,
hey, man, what games haveyou watched on Anton Harrison for you
to be so high on him?And you just clap back with like,
yes, I watched every single oneof his games from this season, and
I watched six games from the seasonbefore. And I'm like, okay,
all right, I see so thisisn't like you know me. I'm over
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here like, okay, if Ican piece together three games, I can
come up with some sort of evaluationfor a prospect. So I always tell
people like James is one of theguys that you can trust to have done
the work. And you and Idon't agree on everything, I'm still I'm
willing to go down with the JalenDuncan ship. I'm gonna go down with
that ship absolutely. But even whenyou say something that I don't agree with,
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or you have an evil that Idon't agree with, I trust and
respect your opinion because I know withone hundred percent certainty that you have done
the work to get to that opinion. And even like I'll use DeAndre Sweat
as an example, and like I'msuper high on to Andre Sweat, You're
not so high on to Andre Sweat. But the way you break him down,
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I'm like, you know what,I see it, I just I
don't feel that way. It's likeI I'm like, you know what,
hopefully they just won't have him inposition where he's going to need to be
running down the play from behind onthe backside. Maybe we'll just we'll just
pretend that that doesn't exist right there. But I always tell people like you
are one of the people in thisspace that you can absolutely do the trust
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you can do the work, andyou should trust to to consume his content.
But I don't think you you getto that level of detail with which
you are talking about these prospects andthe scheme of the high level stuff,
but into the weeds. You don'tget to that level of knowledge base without
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a love of the game. Sowhat was it for you that really made
you fall in love with football atthat level to be willing to put in
that level of work and get tothat level of detail on these guys that
you're evaluating. So yeah, Ithink a lot of my knowledge was kind
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of built up, like I wouldn'tsay accidentally, but just kind of adjacent.
Maybe it's like it was just onthe way of like what I was
already doing. So to explain thatfurther, like the way that I got
into film is basically once I learnedthe NFL had at the time it was
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NFL Game Pass, like they hadthe coaches film up there. I think
I was probably a couple of yearslate to discover that from whenever they had
added it, and I was like, oh, awesome, I can find
out if the corners on the Titansare actually good, you know, because
like for my whole life, I'vebeen watching every single Titans game and then
like you watch the condensed game oneor two times throughout the week, and
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I would do that season after season, and if you asked me, like,
how how good is like is itDori Jackson good? I would be
like, I think because like everythingthat he's doing is off of the camera
when I watch, so a lotof that stuff, like I was,
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I just kind of like dove intoit and like wanting to know, wanting
to know if Marcus Mariota is good, because I would see him just stand
there in the pocket and take sacksand it's like, well, is nobody
open? Is he just bad?So I started watching the tape on game
pass for that reason, and thenit was kind of like the damn breaking
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of the Dunning Krueger, like youknow, peeking over the valley and you
have this moment where you realize howmuch, how much detail and depth there
is to it that I didn't evenknow because like I grew up watching football,
but my sport in high school wasbasketball, so I didn't play past
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middle school, so like I didn'treally I mean, I I think I
was probably you know, above averagefor like a football fan in terms of
understanding, but I didn't know anythingabout technique or scheme or anything. So
yeah, it just started by byme like saying, Okay, I don't
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understand what any coverages are, solet me try to like look up.
Eventually I found playbooks, but likelooking up stuff on websites and like,
okay, this is cover two.And then you know, I'm watching you
know, a linebacker like where ShaunEvans or something and I'm like, Okay,
well it kind of looks like hescrewed up here, but I don't
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know. And then I'm looking uplike okay, how do you fit power?
And stuff like that. And there'sa lot of so a lot of
that kind of stuff I learned justin the like genuine search of it,
just for my own self. Andthen I kind of built up a base
knowledge level to where I wanted tojump into making content. But I I
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I put in a lot now thatI've transitioned to doing this full time,
I put in a lot of timeto try to continue to grow my my
knowledge base. And like I basicallyalways have coaching clinics on just as my
background noise and another tab and I'lljust like flip over it to it if
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it sounds like he's saying something interesting. But I'm just like constantly getting you
know, coach speak into my head. It's probably I think I've noticed I've
picked up a lot of the speechticks that coaches have in clinics. But
yeah, and then like reading stufflike Bobby Peters books, and there's just
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a ton of you know, PDFsand playbooks and stuff out on the internet
that I'm always looking through. Man, It's crazy because it was kind of
it was similar to how things happenedfor me. I had been writing about
football for I mean, my firstdraft that I actually wrote about more than
fifty players was just two years ago, twenty twenty two, and it was
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the first year that I had goneto the Senior Bowl and gotten like a
deeper, a deeper level of scouting, like you get just kind of like
being around the stadium seeing the coachesand players interact and how they're learning the
game, and then going home andsaying I want to know more about this
guy, and finding film and watchingit. It's almost like a bug because
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for me, I have this curiousnature where it's like I buy a battery
powered lawnmower and suddenly I'm on Google, like, what are the physics behind
battery powered lawnmowers? How do thesethings actually work? And I never realized
I'm not too proud to admit this, but I never realized how much watching
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all twenty two and seeing everything onthe field at all times really feels like
watching a different game at times.And you mentioned the cornerbacks, like you
can't evaluate wide receivers and corners offof game broadcasts, and that's what I'd
been doing for so long. Sofor me, it was to see that
kind of unlocked something within me thatwas like, oh shit, this is
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awesome, Like this, I can'tget enough of it. And I saw
a tweet that you put out oneday that you said something along the lines
of like just go to Google ifyou have a question, like people ask
you a lot about how you learnedabout the game or something like that.
I don't recall it's been a coupleof years at this point. You were
just like, yeah, Google,And I was like, is it that
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simple? Is it really that simple? So then like I google Cover four
or quarters coverage explained, and there'sjust you know, a plethora of resources
there, YouTube channels as well,and the coaching clinics. Like you said,
like there's there's so many resources thatare out there on the Internet.
But once it got into me,it was kind of I don't know,
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it just kind of spread like wildfire, and suddenly I found myself like in
the middle of the night, it'sone o'clock in the morning. I finished
all the articles for the next day, no reason for me to still be
up, but I'm watching you know, Alex Gibbs explain wide zone blocking in
the middle of the night, andit's just kind of I don't know.
I think when you get to thatlevel of detail and understanding, it opens
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up so much more of the gameto you. Do you think that's a
stretch to say or was that kindof how it happened for you too?
In so many words? Definitely,I mean I think that it once you
you don't even need this, andI don't think I have an expert level
of knowledge, like compared to coachesand stuff, But like, once you
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just get a little bit of advancedknowledge, I feel like the floodgates open
as far as your enjoyment of thegame just exponentially increasing, you know,
Like again, you don't have toeven be analyzing it at a super high
level. But once you get kindof like the baseline of schemes and kind
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of for certain positions, just likesimple techniques and stuff like, and you
can go back and watch games ofyour team like during the week and just
analyze it and evaluate it for yourself. I think it really enhances your enjoyment
of the game. How many timesdo you watch the Titans game throughout the
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following week broadcast All twenty two doesn'tmatter, so I, yeah, I
watched the broadcast obviously live. It'sit's usually the first game that I watch
whenever the film drops, so like, yeah, when the film comes out,
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there's usually a couple of plays thatare just in my head, like
some coverage bust or something where it'slike I'm immediately jump into that because I
want to figure out whose fault itwas or something. And then but after
that then I'll just like I'll gothrough go through the game once. I
don't. I don't really watch itthat many times more than that during the
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week, just because like when thefilm comes out, it's kind of a
rush for me to get started onmy videos because especially if I'm talking about
something that happened this past Sunday,people's interest in it is going to decline
every single day that I don't havea video out about it. So like
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I'm not trying to Saturday morning belike here's why the Bengals beat the Rams
in week eight, like I crackedthe code, like nobody cares. So
yeah, I don't end up likewatching it usually multiple times during the week,
but like by the time the nextseason starts, and this really applies
to every team now. But Iwill have watched like probably every single NFL
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play multiple times just through Like youknow, I do probably a couple videos
on each team throughout the summer,so it's like I'm going through every single
game multiple times. So yeah,by the time the summer ends, I
will have watched every Titans game.I mean, like I don't I don't
know how many times. I couldprobably do some McVay level stuff with it,
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but I don't have his level ofmemory. How many how many college
games do you think you watched toprepare for the draft? Oh, that's
tough. So I watched let's see, I graded probably three hundred and fifty
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players. That would be That wouldbe pretty hard to estimate. I would
say, I mean, it's definitelyin the hundreds, but I could see
it being probably in the thousands,because I mean, anyone that is in
my top fifty, I will havewatched every game of their last season.
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I usually skip the like FCS game. And then if there's a big school
like Alabama offense and defense, PennState, Michigan, Ohio State, like
all the any school that has youknow, more than three or four draftable
players on a unit, I'll justgo through and watch every game from that
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season so I don't miss anything.And and then like once you get into
kind of the hundreds, like ifI'm just watching let's see so Jalx Hunt
out of Houston Christian, there's noone else on his defense that I'm paying
attention to. So I went throughlike those kind of players in the seventy
five to one fifty range. I'llwatch five or six games usually, and
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I have a three game minimum,but I this year, I tried to
do five for everyone unless it waslike for me, the three game minimum
is if I watch three games andI'm it's literally like the Steven A.
Smith meme where he's just like youknow what I'm talking about, like dead
face, like off the camera.Like if I watch three games and you
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haven't had one positive play and youlook like a bad college player and you
have like a one RAS, thenyeah, I'm not gonna waste two extra
games on you. But yeah,I think that I've tried. I think
now that I'm writing up these playersespecially, it's just so much easier for
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me to do watching as many gamesas possible, because like I don't want
to watch one game and see aguy maybe not use any pass rushing moves
and then be like, oh,he doesn't have any moves, you know,
like that kind of thing. Butit's like, I mean, it's
kind of like what you have todo though, if if it's not your
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full time job, did you sitthere and watch player after player. It's
like you kind of have to todivide your time up somehow. So it's
it's not a criticism to people whodo that, but I try to be
as thorough as possible. Well,yeah, and it feels like if like
when I do three games, it'slike I've got to make sure that I
pick the right three games, andI can't just go in and pick the
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three worst games with the three bestgames or anything like that. You got
to really do some research to lookat the matchup, like did the pass
rusher go up against a guy that'sgonna be playing in the NFL along the
offensive line and that sort of thing. But I knew, like I knew
it had to be a crazy numberbecause you've told me before, like you're
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watching the entire unit offense and defensefor multiple major programs, and I'm just
curious because that would be, Uh, I don't know's that's impressive. It's
a lot of football. It's alot of football. The thing the thing
for me, so like I doit all in huddle basically, like I
have my own huddle account, andwhether I can actually put the games on
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huddle or I have to download clipsor cut them up somewhere else. Basically
what I do is like if I'mlet's say I'm watching you know, Alabama
Defense, I'll while i'm watching it, I'll have a Dallas Turner playlist.
I'll have a Terry and Arnold playlist. I'll have a kool Aid McKinstry playlist,
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just in a boybe et cetera,et cetera. And then as I
as I'm going through, like playafter play, I just i have it
like down to a rhythm. Basically, I'm like watch kool Aid, watch
Terry on, watch Dallas, watchblah blah blah. And then if they
do anything that's like what I calla gradable rep so whether it's a good
play, a bad play, anythingthat I would be able to look back
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on, like anything that that play, any play that will like add anything
to my evaluation. Basically I'm savingand then I so I'll get through Alabama's
entire season, and for every player, I'll have basically their you know,
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seventy to one hundred key plays fromthat season in its own playlist. And
the reason I do that is becausethat way I can just zoom through the
film without having to write any notes. And I don't early on I would
fall into the trap where I wouldI'd see something happen like the first game,
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and then I'd write like bad anchor, and then I would be looking
for that and I'd be like negativelybiased towards something based on what happened in
the first game so or the youknow, first couple games that I watched.
So I try to just have likeno opinion on them until I get
a few games in and I'm justyou know, mindlessly adding plays to these
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playlists and then you know, I'lldo my grade. And then the reason
I do that, though, isbecause then I can sit down and write
them up whenever. It can betwo or three months from now. I
just pull up their playlist, gothrough. I can chart it on huddle
based on like hand usage, speed, rush, whatever, and then I
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can write their strengths and weaknesses.That's more accurately based on what I see
on the film. And it alsohelps me because I'll start my film study
for the draft usually October November,and someone like one of the first players
I watched was probably Nate Wiggins Cornerfor Clemson. I watched in like November.
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Well, if i just watch histape in November and then write the
notes and then I'm still trying totalk about him all the way in April
and it's like, however, manymonths that is five months since I've actually
laid eyes on them. I'm justbasically going to be reading off of my
notes, And especially you can dothat if you're writing about it, but
(31:03):
if you're recording a video and liketalking about it on a podcast, it's
gonna it's just going to sound roboticand you're not going to have any you
know, specific details that you canreally refer back to, like, oh,
yeah, you had this play.So just being able to have that
tape saved and then if I'm gettinga little hazy on someone, I can
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just go flip through their tape refreshmy memory. So yeah, it's a
lot of work, but it endsup really making a lot of other stuff
easier. So I get I getthis stuff sometimes. I'm sure you probably
get it a lot in the DMSas well. It's like, oh where
did you Where do you get thefilm? Like how do you watch it?
What are you looking for with acertain player? And I'm just curious
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because like I handle it, youknow, I try to tell people,
encourage people, always tell them upfront, like I don't think people realize how
much work goes into the and thescale you're doing it at is just like
I don't know how you do itsometimes, man. But people that come
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to you with those questions, whatadvice do you give them? Somebody that's
maybe looking to get get started inthe game, or is just you know,
trying to figure out where to watchfilm or how to even start understanding
schemes at a deeper level, orjust saying, hey, like I want
to get into this film study stufftoo. How do I start? I
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think the easiest place to start wouldprobably be like whatever team you follow,
just watching their games, get anNFL Plus subscription, watch their games on
tape that week. And what Idid, the way that I kind of
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learned a lot of coverages and likepassing and rushing concepts, is that back
when I was covering the Titans,like only I would actually cut up all
of their games and put them inhuddle, and I had them. I
had the games charted by probably likewith ninety plus data columns on huddle,
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like based on where everybody's lined up, you know, I can pull up
all of their smash concepts on seconddown, like between this yard line where
so and so runs a corner likewhatever it is. So I did a
lot of that stuff. And thereason is because, like, since I'm
making so many Titans videos, Ididn't want to have to go back into
(33:43):
like the games on NFL plus definespecific plays. I wanted it to be
easy. But the byproduct of thatis that I got really good at identifying
like oh yeah, this is Pinpooll, this is outside zone. But if
you're wanting to learn how to identifythat kind of stuff, you don't have
to physically chart it. Even justlike watch a play, if it's a
(34:05):
running play, like watch it andtry to identify like what concept it is,
and you can google like football rushingconcepts and it'll have you know,
kind of the six or seven mainones, and like try to go through
and be like, Okay, thisis power. Yeah, this is counter
et cetera. So that would bemy suggestion. Yeah, good stuff,
(34:29):
man, good stuff. So theSenior Bowl this year is actually the first
time that you and I had metin person. That was that your first
time at the Senior Bowl. Itseems like were you telling me that?
Yeah, okay, I thought,So what was that experience like for you?
Kind of getting out of the filmroom and getting onto the field to
cover draft prospects in person. Isit something that you think you'd like to
(34:52):
do more of, maybe work theScouting Combine in some of these other All
Star games or what was that experiencelike for you? Yeah, I actually
went to the Combine also this year, which was the first time. So
yeah, yeah, I plan ongoing to the Senior Bowl and Combine every
(35:14):
year that I'm doing this. Ithink for me, the most enjoyable,
enjoyable part was just getting to meetpeople for the first time that I met
through the internet, so put infaces to names there such as yourself.
So really enjoyed that, especially forthe first time. I think that,
(35:34):
you know, with everything, it'salmost like kind of pointless for me to
go there. I feel like sinceit's all on tape, and I'm just
gonna end up watching that anyways.Yeah, like there is is something to
be said for seeing a player inperson, but yeah, the actual on
(35:54):
field practices, I don't view themas things where like I have to make
sure I'm not missing anything and getevery last piece of information. I just
kind of, you know, focuson whatever position drill. I feel like
watching a couple of the days Iwas. I was filming some content for
(36:15):
a disease, social media's and stuff, trying to get some one on one
reps. But yeah, man,love love doing all that stuff. Saw
Ian Rapaport. Oh that's very short. Yeah he was. He was in
the bleachers, and I didn't evenrecognize him because I am like honed in
(36:36):
on, like I don't want tomiss if somebody takes their helmet off,
I don't want to miss it,kind of deal if somebody. You never
know when guys are going to startswinging on one another, so all all
all eyes are on the field always, and Zach just nudges me at some
point he's like, that's Sean Rappaportand I look down and I'm like,
man, he's He's a lot smallerin person than I would have thought he
(36:58):
was so, but you never know. That's the thing with sports media is
like I am a lot taller thaneverybody I have not that caught me.
That caught me off guard because Iam used to being like the biggest person
in the room in most rooms thatI am in, and I had no
(37:20):
inclination that you were as tall asyou are. So when you walked up,
I kind of I felt like,oh man, I hope he didn't
notice the shock on my face,Like who is this? Who is this
giant walking towards me? Yeah,I'm I'm the boss here. So there
was a one point last year,Zach and I were down and we were
(37:44):
going to get breakfast before heading overto the stadium, and we look over
and Doug Maron is sitting at thetable next to us, and he almost
shoulder blocked. I don't know ifI I don't know if I told you
the story when we were down thereabout how I ended up on the side
of the stadium that is reserved forthe coaches and personnel people. But I
(38:07):
was over there last year. Ijust walked up, like I walked up
to the security guard and was like, hey, I've got a badge.
I'm trying to get over here becauseI want to watch the offensive lineman and
they're on that side of the field. Had no idea that I was supposed
to stay on our side of thestadium. And the guy looks at my
badge and he's like, oh,okay, yeah, man, no problem,
moves the guardrail for me, andI walk over and I'm just sitting
(38:30):
in the bleachers by myself with mynotebook, just furiously scribbling notes down and
I look up and I'm like,man, that's all these guys in Titans
gear over here. Oh all thoseguys are in Giants gear down below me.
And then I slowly start piecing togetherthat I don't think I'm supposed to
be over here. But Zach cameover to watch some of the action with
(38:51):
me, and he's walking down thestairs or walking up the stairs as we're
leaving, and Brian Daboll is walkingdown the stairs towards us, and Brian
day Ball actually sidesteps so that Zachcould get by, and I was like,
damn, dude, you just backdown. Brian Daball at the Senior
You just never know, You neverknow who you're going to run into there,
(39:12):
especially when you go into parts ofthe stadium that you're not supposed to
be in. Yeah, I was. I was in an elevator with h
with who's the Jacks coach that I'ma pedron of, Doug Peterson. Going
downtown is like that's what people getinto for the networking stuff, and I
(39:36):
don't ever really do it, butwe usually go back to the airbnb and
we're I mean, Zach and Iwere doing like three shows a day and
writing articles for the newsletter and allthat stuff, and we're getting old,
so we just kind of like tobe in bed at a certain certain hour.
I can't go as hard as Iused to, especially with all the
(39:58):
alcohol that's flowing down there that week. But did you go partake in all
of the debauchery that was going ondowntown mobile that week? Yeah? I
went out one night, I thinkwith Marcus Whitman and like Mike Renner and
some other people like YouTube people.But yeah, I'm like you, there
(40:22):
was probably after my sophomore year.I just like I came back to college
for my junior year. Junior yearand tried to maintain like the drinking that
I did my first half of college, and I was like, Wow,
these are way worse hangovers than Iremember. And after a certain point,
(40:44):
yeah, I would just like itwasn't even I guess it is hangovers,
but it wasn't like painful hangovers.It was more just I got so tired
of feeling shitty the next day,so I pretty much quit drinking, like
a few years ago. Not good. It wasn't like, it wasn't like
a hard set thing like if I'mat a wedding, I'll have a few
(41:05):
drinks and stuff like that. Butyeah, I kind of I don't.
I don't have it have it inme like I used to. I I
found out that they were serving whiteclaw in the stadium during practices, and
I went and I was literally inthe stands watching practice drink in white claw.
So I have I have a problem. I should probably follow your example,
(41:29):
but I can't. I can't helpmyself. Man, It's it feels
like a holiday to me. It'slike just being around the sport, being
around the game like that, andjust I don't know, I just I
love working, so I'm constantly takingnotes for the shows that we do in
between the practices for afterwards, anduh, you know, I don't I
don't have anyone to answer to.So if I show up on camera after
(41:52):
a few drinks, nobody's nobody's gonnafire me. So I'm I'm cool with
it. There you go. Butyou to get to do this full time,
man, it's a it's a dreamcome true. Uh. And your
level of effort was rewarded. Ithink you you've got quite a bit of
respect from your peers. But thento see like the validation on YouTube to
(42:16):
hit thirty thousand subscribers, that's that'sno joke, man, those are those
are real numbers. So first ofall, congrats, good thank you,
Good for you. Happy to seepeople putting in the work and being rewarded
for it. But what did thatmilestone mean to you? Yeah? Man,
(42:37):
Uh, it means a lot.I think it is definitely more of
a milestone than like, I thinkit's more symbolic on YouTube when it comes
to subscribers. I feel like becauseso much of of success on YouTube nowadays
(43:00):
it's just getting on people's homepage andlike suggested videos and stuff. Like when
I look at percentage of views thatfrom different sources, like on YouTube analytics,
no one ever is in their subscriberbox. Anymore, Like I haven't
I haven't hit the subscriber tab inso long. It's usually just the channels
(43:23):
that I watch a lot, theyget suggested on my homepage and I don't
even have to go looking for them. So it is kind of like I
value subscribers a little bit less.It's more of just a symbolic milestone to
me. Obviously, you know peoplesubscribed, like those are the people that
(43:43):
are going to be watching every video. But I also know that there's there's
probably a lot of like dead subscribers, not not actually, but like by
dead subscribers, just like people thatsubscribed away ago and don't watch or whatever.
So it's like, I don't know, it's kind of a weird dynamic
(44:06):
with YouTube where subscribers can actually bea negative. Obviously you want them if
it's if they're all watching, butjust if you have like one hundred K
subscriber channel and they're not interested inthe content that you're making, then it's
not that doesn't really mean anything.It's worthless. Yeah. I know you're
(44:27):
you're a big Brandon eye guy,but m hmm, I want to ask,
like who some of your favorite playersare to watch? Uh? From
a tape standpoint, not just pureenjoyment, but like who who in the
NFL do you think has the besttape? Ooh, let me think about
it by position. So, thinkingabout offensive line, I think that Lane
(44:53):
Johnson probably has the best pass protectiontape just because he's so athletic and he
has such a difficult job like himand my allotta are on islands as much
as any offensive tackles in the NFL, and like Lane Johnson is one of
(45:15):
the best. So his tape isjust rep after rep of true one on
one pass blocking with no help,and he does it at a high level
year after year. So I thinkfrom a pass blocking standpoint, Lane Johnson's
the first guy that comes to mind. And then, like Trent Williams a
(45:36):
couple of years ago, I thinkrun blocking Pinna Sewol this past year was
outstanding. Sauce Gardner has the cleanestcornerback tape in my opinion, outside of
a few missed tackles. It's justshut down press man every play, and
he's he's so fluid for someone that'sthat's as tall as long as he is.
(46:01):
And then like pass rushing, Ithink that Miles Garrett is a tier
above everybody else. So yeah,I would say those four are probably the
four best tape that I would say, Do you have a particular coach or
maybe scheme, maybe the better wayto frame it that you like to watch?
(46:23):
Ooh, So I like, canI list a few? List as
many as you want to? Brothergo crazy. So I think that Steve
Spagnolo is probably the best game plannerin the NFL. I think he's the
best DC in a lot of ways. He's great at it always seems like
(46:50):
every year the Chiefs defense, aroundWeek five or six, they have some
minor or major problem and then bythe end of the year always figures it
out. So that's one element ofwhat makes him great. The other is
the player development that they've had onthat side of the ball. But then
the other is that he's the bestone time game planner in the NFL.
(47:14):
Like, if you just need akick ass defensive game plan for the Super
Bowl or something, he's gonna comethrough with it. So spags defenses always
like to watch Sean McVay run game. I would say lou Anarumo defense for
the Bengals, although they were terriblethis year, so I haven't watched any
(47:37):
Bengals out twenty twenty three. Yeah, Cam Taylor Britt got injured and their
secondary just could not keep up somemore. Let me think about more like
less less Normy picks. All right, So I really like watching Okay,
(48:01):
so this this is also a Normalypick. But I like watching the Browns
defense just because it's the most simpledefensive scheme that you'll ever see. It's
just we're either gonna play Cover oneor Cover three, and we have great
corners and they're just gonna lock peopleup one on one, and then we're
(48:23):
gonna rush for and we have fourgreat pass rushers that are gonna pressure the
quarterback. So I like that schemebecause it lets the individual players shine.
I guess you get a lot ofone on one reps, which is always
what I'm looking for when I'm goingthrough tape. Have you have you watched
(48:44):
much of the Browns offense? Yes, because I kind of what's your stance
on Kevin Stefanski. I'm just justout of curiosity. Yeah, I mean,
I think that Kevin Stefanski did agreat job of kind of scrapping together
a functional offense with with what theyhad at quarterback and the rotating players that
(49:08):
they had on the offensive line lastyear. I like his running scheme.
It's it's a lot of pin pulloutside zone. Like I feel like they
are a running scheme that just kindof plays the hits and they run a
lot of good concepts and execute them. Well, I'm sure part of that
(49:29):
has to do with Callahan, butyeah, I like their diverse running scheme
where it's it's diverse, but itdoesn't try to do too much, you
know. Passing game is kind ofjust like I feel like a standard under
center passing game. Nothing that I'venoticed that's that's too groundbreaking there. But
(49:54):
yeah, I mean I think he'sa solid o C I I develop mastermind.
I developed a soft spot for himwhen I did my film work for
the preview of the Browns Titans gamethat I ended up being completely wrong on
because the Browns just demolished the Titans. But I really appreciated how he seemed
(50:15):
to be able to piece together agame plan to attack whatever defense he was
playing. And I felt like partof it was like they had a really
good bread and butter with their rungame, and when you have that,
you know, it helps a lotof other aspects of the offense. But
I always thought that he was kindof underrated in terms of kind of I
(50:39):
would say, like understanding his personneland calling plays to their strengths, but
then also understanding his defensive matchup andplaying to their weaknesses. I thought was
pretty good. Yeah, the bestlike this applies to both sides of the
ball. But the best coaches andcoordinators and scheme designers don't have like one
(51:06):
play or one concept that it's like, you know, my great grandfather ran
Cover three and like you know,have some you know, weird thing that
they're committed to. It's about adaptingto what does your personnel do best and
then fitting that to your opponent.So yeah, Stefanski, I'm looking at
(51:30):
my Let's see. I went throughand did ratings for every basically every team's
positions and coaches. I had Stefanskias the seventh best, like OC even
though he's not technically OC. Butyou know whoever's number one of the offensive
coaches? I had him seventh bestin the NFL. So you got to
(51:52):
you gotta share the top six withus. Now, I want to know
who's ahead of the guy, SoI went with So this is just ranking
the offensive coaching staffs. So numberone is the Rams, Number two is
the forty nine Ers, three isthe Chiefs, four is the Dolphins,
(52:12):
five is the Vikings, six isthe Lions. Seven is the Browns.
Pretty good list. It's a prettygood list. Ten out of ten,
no notes, Ten out of ten, no notes. Can you guess who
the lowest one is? I wasabout to say Penn State, but that's
just me being triggered by the wordbad offense. Penn State does not play
(52:35):
in the NFL. For the listenersthat might not know that, I'm gonna
go with the Tennessee Titans. Itis the Jets with Nathaniel Hackett. Oh
yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Did you know there are the top
three receivers in percentage of routes thatthey ran that were fades last year?
(52:59):
A play for the Jets. Howabout that they have the only three receivers
to run over ten percent of theirroutes as fades. All right, Uh,
they're cooking up there in New York. Man Hackett drew a straight line
on the chalkboard and said, waita minute, this isn't right. This
(53:23):
isn't right. Oh man, Well, if if we're not careful here we're
gonna be We're gonna end up talkingfor two hours about the uh, the
intricacies of the forty nine ers andRams offense. It already happened. I
stopped myself once because you talked aboutSean mcvay's running game, and I was
like, Oh, but James,what about that Super Bowl against the New
(53:45):
England Patriots and the game plan thatBill Belichick grew up? Grew up,
drew up to defend it. Soif we're not careful, we're gonna branch
off into one of them. Ithink Tom Brady drew up that game plan.
Was it Tom Brady that drew upthe game plan? Fair enough?
All right? I got one morequestion for you before we get on out
(54:06):
of here. Early predictions for thetwenty twenty five draft. Who is the
top overall pick? Who has orwho is? Who is who's gonna be
the top pick in the twenty fivedraft. Let's see. So, I
I have not watched a ton ofplayers. I watched James Pierce, the
(54:30):
ed rusher for Tennessee. I knowPFF has him as number one. Yeah
I don't. I haven't watched enoughplayers to agree or disagree, and like
he looks like a great prospect,definitely a top five type of guy,
but needs to get a little bigger. I could I think Will Campbell for
(54:51):
LSU the left tackle. I reallylike him. I really like car Beck
though. I think I think Georgiaquarterback Carson Beck will be the first overall
pick. Him or Shilah Sanders.I know, wait, Witch Sanders,
(55:12):
Shiloh Okay, it's a okay,all right. I thought you said you
gave up drinking, James, Hey, man, what do you think about
should though? So I've just startedmy shoulder study, and I I gotta
admit, man, I liked hima lot more than I wanted to because
(55:35):
of all and it's not it's notfair to him, but like the fanfare
surrounding that program, it was kindof like, there's there's no way,
like, we gotta we gotta stop, for lack of a better term,
we got to stop the dick riding. Okay, he's not that good,
guys, But then I started watchingthe tape and there are times that I'm
like, this is an NFL quarterback, this is an NFL playmaker. It's
(55:59):
just a matter of getting a betterevaluation on him. Because the offensive line
was so terrible. I mean,I am I am two games in right
now, and the dude's just fightingfor his life so much out there that
I kind of kind of felt weirdabout the evaluation. And I'm not gonna
(56:19):
put like too much. You watchthe UCLA game, like, what are
you? How are you supposed toevaluate shitter Sanders from that, It's like
it's maybe the worst offensive line performancethat I've ever seen. And that's one
of the games that I watched,and I'm like, he's still like has
these buckets at times where I'm like, oh my god, Like the footwork
is clean, the postures aligned,the ball flies out of his hand,
(56:43):
it's, you know, to awide receiver that has two guys within striking
range of him, and he stilljust drops it in the bucket for a
big game. So I'm like,I had I eventually close my MacBook if
I can be transparent for a momentand was just like, fuck this,
I'm just gonna wait for the twentytwenty four tape because it's so it's so
bad. Where are you at withthem? Yeah? I like him.
(57:07):
I I I tried not to.So a new thing is that I tried
not to have super strong preseason takesabout quarterbacks because I had that about Bryce
Young over CJ. Stroud, andlike, obviously that was a miss uh
(57:29):
missed evaluation, and I feel likein retrospect, I wouldn't make that same
mistake again. But I do thinka lot of it had to do with
just I liked Bryce Young's penultimate yeartape better than c J. Stroud's.
Yeah, and just kind of likehad that had that bias in my head
(57:51):
going into it and like ended upmaking a bad email. So everything that
I've I've never watched him specifically,but I watched Colorado offense for Xavier Weaver,
and I really like Sugar Sanders' armtalent, his ability to find windows.
(58:14):
I think that he's got some borderlineconcerning habits under pressure. But it's
it's also like it's one of thosethings where the protection was so bad that
I have a hard time fully blaminghim for it, although it is,
you know, something that's that's oneof the difficult things, whether it's an
(58:35):
NFL player or a college player,is separating like when you've got someone like
Sam Howe, for example, whois one of the worst quarterbacks at taking
sacks in the NFL, but thenalso has a terrible offensive line, and
it's like, Okay, this entiresetup is a disaster, and like somehow
you got to parse out the blame. So yeah, I want to see
(58:57):
him get a little bit better underpressure, but I understand and you know
where some of the bad habits couldcome from. Well man, we got
to bounce because my stream yard recordingis about to get out on us,
but real quick at No Flags Filmon Twitter, A to Z Sports Film
Room on YouTube. James, thanksfor your time. We'll be back next
week with another episode of the UnofficialTitans Podcast.
Thank you from Sobros HQ and Nashville, Tennessee to wherever you're cheering on your
Tennessee Titans. The Sobros Network presentthe Unofficial Titans Podcast. Welcome back for
(00:28):
another episode of the Unofficial Titans Podcast. Offseason content is underway. It's your
boy, Big Natural. Stony Keeleyhere the EIC at Sobrosnetwork dot com,
NFL Draft analyst and Tennessee Titans filmanalyst for stacking the inbox as well.
You can follow me on Twitter atStony Keeley, collectively at sobros Network on
(00:49):
all major social media platforms. Afamiliar guest on this week's show, I
want you guys to get to knowthe man behind the A to Z Sports
Film Room. Though his name's JamesFoster. He's been on the show before.
James, How you doing today,my man? I'm doing great.
How are you doing pretty good?Just just excited for this reunion of the
(01:12):
Monty Rice Appreciation Club. Yep,he's Is he even in the NFL anymore?
I think the Saints picked him upat some like some point last season,
but I don't know if he's ona roster right now. Yeah,
I don't either, Man, toughscene. I always I always thought he
was good when he got on thefield, but I think there might be
(01:33):
something else going on there. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know
what you've heard, but from whatI've heard, maybe you know, maybe
some of those intangible things, thepresence, the locker room stuff, the
stuff that you can't pick up onfrom just watching the tape, might have
had something to do with that.But a misjudgment on my part anyway.
(01:56):
But we can still we can stillreminisce about what could have been with the
talent that was there. I thinkhis teammate grade was pretty low, pretty
low score when it came to theteammate score. What are you working on
these days? My man? Thisis kind of the slow time of the
NFL calendar. I made a jokeabout this being the time of year when
(02:17):
all the national guys finally getting aroundto watching the Titans. But what are
you working on? Yeah? I'mgoing through most of the first round rookies
and doing videos on pretty much anyonethat I think is like worth doing a
(02:38):
video on. I guess if theyare obviously, if they did really good
in their rookie season, I wantto cover them if they had kind of
an up and down season, Ithink that can still be a good video.
But then there's players like Tyree WilsonQuintin Johnston where it's like, man,
there's just there's no positive spin onthis. I'm just gonna come off
(02:59):
like a hater. I'm gonna feelbad making a video like yeah, this
that no redeeming qualities. Sorry.I felt like there was one point during
late in the season last season thatthere was one game that Raiders people were
like, oh, man, TyreeWilson has turned it on, like finally
(03:20):
we're going somewhere with him, andthen that was the last I ever heard
of him. Yeah, I'm aboutI think I've watched seven or eight games
of his. I have not comeacross that game. I'll say fair enough,
fair enough. Yeah, And theQuinton Johnston stuff, Man, that's
brutal wide receiver one. Now,if I'm not mistaken, unless that's Lad
(03:42):
McConkie's spot to take, I don'tknow, Yeah, probably Lad, if
it's If it's not Lad, Idon't think it's a good receiving room.
Yeah, but you do have ahell of a video on Darnell. Right,
I'm just kind of making my waythrough IM. I've got the Paris
Johnson and Junior video paused, butyou did some Bryce Young, some Jordan
(04:04):
Addison, some Will Levis, PeterScarronsky's up there. You've been on it.
Man. Who do you think isprobably your favorite first round pick that
you've evaluated so far from last year? Who had the best rookie season in
your mind? I think that thereare three. Let's see, there's probably
(04:26):
three players that I would say arein a tier by themselves, Like I
would have to go c J.Stroud, Devin Witherspoon, Yeah, and
Jalen Carter I think would be probablythe three best. And then you know
underneath that, like a step behindwould probably be Will Anderson. And like
(04:51):
christianan Zalez, just on a person, not at basis, was outstanding.
Yeah, I love Christian Gonzales.That's actually who I want into the Titans
to draft instead of Peter Skeronsky wasat the four to forty Sports party and
everybody was like chanting Skoransky, youknow, like and then they go to
me and they're like, Stony,what do you think? And I'm like,
yeah, Skronsky or you know,Christian Gonzalez is there too. I'd
(05:13):
be really happy with him, butnobody wanted to hear it. And then
he ended up being pretty good beforehe got he got hurt, right,
that was it was an injury thatsidelined him, if I'm not mistaken,
Yeah, like week five or sixor something. Yeah, that's that's a
bummer. But yeah, he wentup against Tyreek Hill aj Brown. Like
if you look at the receivers,and it's not just like he played their
teams like he was guarding them oneon one in man coverage for most of
(05:34):
the games. Like the list ofreceivers, it's like just the top ten
receivers in the NFL basically, Andhe was already like a borderline Pro Bowl
caliber corner. So yeah, Ithink he's the real deal. Sick sick
good stuff. Well, you cancatch all of James's work at a to
Z Sports Film Room on YouTube.Uh anything that I'm I'm missing, James,
(05:59):
that's all. That's the only playis you're doing content these days,
right, correct? A is ESports Film Room on YouTube? We go,
Well, we've had the dust settlefrom the draft and the first big
wave of free agency. So beforewe get into your story, I just
want to get high level overviews.What do you think about where the Titans
are at now here as we sitin early June, I think the Titans
(06:25):
are in as good of a positionas they've been at a lot of positions.
Cornerback I think is as good asI've ever seen it with Lugerious Sneed,
Roger McCreery, a Woozier, andthen you know, Jarvis Brownley Junior
probably is the CB four. Ithink the left side of the offensive line
(06:47):
has a chance to be really good. And then they've taken the floor of
their receiver room up another level,I think obviously, so much of it
depends on Will Levis's development. Butyou know, there's a lot of areas
of the roster that I think they'vemade significant improvement. But then there are
(07:10):
still I think some massive holes,which like I have them as my twenty
fifth ranked team right now. Andyou know a big part of that is
having one of the worst linebacker roomsin the NFL, probably negative edge depth
outside of Harold Landry and Arden Key. You know, no safety depth right
(07:33):
side of the offensive line is amajor question. So you know, there's
still I think some holes on theroster that prevent them from being a super
Bowl contender, but they are.They've entered the making things interesting. Tier,
I would say, very well,very well, well, how long
(07:53):
have you been in the content game. Let's get into your story a little
bit, because, man, Iwas introduced to your work several years ago
with the Patreon at No Flags Film, which is still your handle on Twitter.
So at No Flags Film, gofollow James if you don't already,
which if you're listening to this show, I don't know why you're not already
following the man. But when wasit that you got your start and how
(08:16):
did you get your start? Whatdid you get started doing? So,
yeah, I first made I thinkthe first video I made on my channel
was and I'm actually I'm going ontomy channel to see when there's a lot
of videos. Man, you gota lot of work to comb through.
So first first video that's posted onmy channel was April twenty fourth, twenty
(08:41):
twenty one. So we are onwe're on three years, a little over
three years, and I was justdoing like some random draft videos. I
started out doing Titans videos. There'sa couple that aren't on the channel anymore
because they were such a low qualitycompared to everything else, But like it
(09:03):
was really just like I was incollege studying chemical engineering and thought like I'd
always been interested in in video editing, never really knew how to do it.
I'd been watching tape just like casuallyfor a couple of years and felt
like I had built up a lotof knowledge, and Yeah, I thought
(09:26):
it would be cool to do somelike Titans centered videos that had cool data
visualization and like the editing on theon the play art and stuff like that.
I was always really drawn to thegame past film sessions if you've ever
seen those on YouTube where they havelike cool player indicators with like the spinning
(09:50):
circles underneath them. I always thoughtthat was so cool. So I wanted
to do something like that, Andyeah, really just started it for fun.
There wasn't a lot lot of Titan'sfilm breakdown content on YouTube when I
started, so I pretty much immediatelygot a following of Titans people. And
(10:11):
then yeah, I decided like onceI wanted to do it full time,
dropped out of college and decided tokind of transition it to a an NFL
channel just so there's a broader appeal. So you made I mean, that's
you're talking about a leap of faiththere. What what was it that made
you feel so inspired and so confidentto take that leap? Well, I
(10:37):
think the first thing is that Ididn't enjoy engineering, which is what I
was doing, and I was definitelykind of if an if an out presented
itself, I was going to takethat. I think there is there is
one point where I was home fromI think I was home for Christmas break.
(11:01):
I probably had like a year leftin college and I'd gotten two job
offers through through sports media that Ididn't end up taking, but I'd gotten
them like back to back, andmy mom was like, yeah, you
need to drop out of college becauseshe knew that I enjoy doing this like
(11:22):
so much more than I did engineeringobviously, So yeah, just I felt
like it was felt like it wasworth taking the gamble to be able to
do something that you enjoy for aliving. Yeah, I hear you,
man, that's Truer words may havenever been spoken, but I think your
level of detail, the information thatyou present people ask and I don't mind
(11:48):
sharing this on the podcast because youknow, I'm sure you get some of
it too, but people kind ofask about who you know what about this
guy? What about that guy?And you're a dude that whenever your name
comes up, I do everything Ican to sing your praises because I know
from private conversations with you. Ilove sharing the Anton Harrison story because I
(12:13):
didn't see it with him, andI DMed you one day and I'm like,
hey, man, what games haveyou watched on Anton Harrison for you
to be so high on him?And you just clap back with like,
yes, I watched every single oneof his games from this season, and
I watched six games from the seasonbefore. And I'm like, okay,
all right, I see so thisisn't like you know me. I'm over
(12:33):
here like, okay, if Ican piece together three games, I can
come up with some sort of evaluationfor a prospect. So I always tell
people like James is one of theguys that you can trust to have done
the work. And you and Idon't agree on everything, I'm still I'm
willing to go down with the JalenDuncan ship. I'm gonna go down with
that ship absolutely. But even whenyou say something that I don't agree with,
(12:58):
or you have an evil that Idon't agree with, I trust and
respect your opinion because I know withone hundred percent certainty that you have done
the work to get to that opinion. And even like I'll use DeAndre Sweat
as an example, and like I'msuper high on to Andre Sweat, You're
not so high on to Andre Sweat. But the way you break him down,
(13:18):
I'm like, you know what,I see it, I just I
don't feel that way. It's likeI I'm like, you know what,
hopefully they just won't have him inposition where he's going to need to be
running down the play from behind onthe backside. Maybe we'll just we'll just
pretend that that doesn't exist right there. But I always tell people like you
are one of the people in thisspace that you can absolutely do the trust
(13:41):
you can do the work, andyou should trust to to consume his content.
But I don't think you you getto that level of detail with which
you are talking about these prospects andthe scheme of the high level stuff,
but into the weeds. You don'tget to that level of knowledge base without
(14:03):
a love of the game. Sowhat was it for you that really made
you fall in love with football atthat level to be willing to put in
that level of work and get tothat level of detail on these guys that
you're evaluating. So yeah, Ithink a lot of my knowledge was kind
(14:26):
of built up, like I wouldn'tsay accidentally, but just kind of adjacent.
Maybe it's like it was just onthe way of like what I was
already doing. So to explain thatfurther, like the way that I got
into film is basically once I learnedthe NFL had at the time it was
(14:48):
NFL Game Pass, like they hadthe coaches film up there. I think
I was probably a couple of yearslate to discover that from whenever they had
added it, and I was like, oh, awesome, I can find
out if the corners on the Titansare actually good, you know, because
like for my whole life, I'vebeen watching every single Titans game and then
like you watch the condensed game oneor two times throughout the week, and
(15:11):
I would do that season after season, and if you asked me, like,
how how good is like is itDori Jackson good? I would be
like, I think because like everythingthat he's doing is off of the camera
when I watch, so a lotof that stuff, like I was,
(15:31):
I just kind of like dove intoit and like wanting to know, wanting
to know if Marcus Mariota is good, because I would see him just stand
there in the pocket and take sacksand it's like, well, is nobody
open? Is he just bad?So I started watching the tape on game
pass for that reason, and thenit was kind of like the damn breaking
(15:52):
of the Dunning Krueger, like youknow, peeking over the valley and you
have this moment where you realize howmuch, how much detail and depth there
is to it that I didn't evenknow because like I grew up watching football,
but my sport in high school wasbasketball, so I didn't play past
(16:18):
middle school, so like I didn'treally I mean, I I think I
was probably you know, above averagefor like a football fan in terms of
understanding, but I didn't know anythingabout technique or scheme or anything. So
yeah, it just started by byme like saying, Okay, I don't
(16:41):
understand what any coverages are, solet me try to like look up.
Eventually I found playbooks, but likelooking up stuff on websites and like,
okay, this is cover two.And then you know, I'm watching you
know, a linebacker like where ShaunEvans or something and I'm like, Okay,
well it kind of looks like hescrewed up here, but I don't
(17:02):
know. And then I'm looking uplike okay, how do you fit power?
And stuff like that. And there'sa lot of so a lot of
that kind of stuff I learned justin the like genuine search of it,
just for my own self. Andthen I kind of built up a base
knowledge level to where I wanted tojump into making content. But I I
(17:29):
I put in a lot now thatI've transitioned to doing this full time,
I put in a lot of timeto try to continue to grow my my
knowledge base. And like I basicallyalways have coaching clinics on just as my
background noise and another tab and I'lljust like flip over it to it if
(17:51):
it sounds like he's saying something interesting. But I'm just like constantly getting you
know, coach speak into my head. It's probably I think I've noticed I've
picked up a lot of the speechticks that coaches have in clinics. But
yeah, and then like reading stufflike Bobby Peters books, and there's just
(18:14):
a ton of you know, PDFsand playbooks and stuff out on the internet
that I'm always looking through. Man, It's crazy because it was kind of
it was similar to how things happenedfor me. I had been writing about
football for I mean, my firstdraft that I actually wrote about more than
fifty players was just two years ago, twenty twenty two, and it was
(18:40):
the first year that I had goneto the Senior Bowl and gotten like a
deeper, a deeper level of scouting, like you get just kind of like
being around the stadium seeing the coachesand players interact and how they're learning the
game, and then going home andsaying I want to know more about this
guy, and finding film and watchingit. It's almost like a bug because
(19:06):
for me, I have this curiousnature where it's like I buy a battery
powered lawnmower and suddenly I'm on Google, like, what are the physics behind
battery powered lawnmowers? How do thesethings actually work? And I never realized
I'm not too proud to admit this, but I never realized how much watching
(19:29):
all twenty two and seeing everything onthe field at all times really feels like
watching a different game at times.And you mentioned the cornerbacks, like you
can't evaluate wide receivers and corners offof game broadcasts, and that's what I'd
been doing for so long. Sofor me, it was to see that
kind of unlocked something within me thatwas like, oh shit, this is
(19:52):
awesome, Like this, I can'tget enough of it. And I saw
a tweet that you put out oneday that you said something along the lines
of like just go to Google ifyou have a question, like people ask
you a lot about how you learnedabout the game or something like that.
I don't recall it's been a coupleof years at this point. You were
just like, yeah, Google,And I was like, is it that
(20:15):
simple? Is it really that simple? So then like I google Cover four
or quarters coverage explained, and there'sjust you know, a plethora of resources
there, YouTube channels as well,and the coaching clinics. Like you said,
like there's there's so many resources thatare out there on the Internet.
But once it got into me,it was kind of I don't know,
(20:38):
it just kind of spread like wildfire, and suddenly I found myself like in
the middle of the night, it'sone o'clock in the morning. I finished
all the articles for the next day, no reason for me to still be
up, but I'm watching you know, Alex Gibbs explain wide zone blocking in
the middle of the night, andit's just kind of I don't know.
I think when you get to thatlevel of detail and understanding, it opens
(21:02):
up so much more of the gameto you. Do you think that's a
stretch to say or was that kindof how it happened for you too?
In so many words? Definitely,I mean I think that it once you
you don't even need this, andI don't think I have an expert level
of knowledge, like compared to coachesand stuff, But like, once you
(21:27):
just get a little bit of advancedknowledge, I feel like the floodgates open
as far as your enjoyment of thegame just exponentially increasing, you know,
Like again, you don't have toeven be analyzing it at a super high
level. But once you get kindof like the baseline of schemes and kind
(21:52):
of for certain positions, just likesimple techniques and stuff like, and you
can go back and watch games ofyour team like during the week and just
analyze it and evaluate it for yourself. I think it really enhances your enjoyment
of the game. How many timesdo you watch the Titans game throughout the
(22:15):
following week broadcast All twenty two doesn'tmatter, so I, yeah, I
watched the broadcast obviously live. It'sit's usually the first game that I watch
whenever the film drops, so like, yeah, when the film comes out,
(22:37):
there's usually a couple of plays thatare just in my head, like
some coverage bust or something where it'slike I'm immediately jump into that because I
want to figure out whose fault itwas or something. And then but after
that then I'll just like I'll gothrough go through the game once. I
don't. I don't really watch itthat many times more than that during the
(23:00):
week, just because like when thefilm comes out, it's kind of a
rush for me to get started onmy videos because especially if I'm talking about
something that happened this past Sunday,people's interest in it is going to decline
every single day that I don't havea video out about it. So like
(23:22):
I'm not trying to Saturday morning belike here's why the Bengals beat the Rams
in week eight, like I crackedthe code, like nobody cares. So
yeah, I don't end up likewatching it usually multiple times during the week,
but like by the time the nextseason starts, and this really applies
to every team now. But Iwill have watched like probably every single NFL
(23:48):
play multiple times just through Like youknow, I do probably a couple videos
on each team throughout the summer,so it's like I'm going through every single
game multiple times. So yeah,by the time the summer ends, I
will have watched every Titans game.I mean, like I don't I don't
know how many times. I couldprobably do some McVay level stuff with it,
(24:10):
but I don't have his level ofmemory. How many how many college
games do you think you watched toprepare for the draft? Oh, that's
tough. So I watched let's see, I graded probably three hundred and fifty
(24:30):
players. That would be That wouldbe pretty hard to estimate. I would
say, I mean, it's definitelyin the hundreds, but I could see
it being probably in the thousands,because I mean, anyone that is in
my top fifty, I will havewatched every game of their last season.
(24:56):
I usually skip the like FCS game. And then if there's a big school
like Alabama offense and defense, PennState, Michigan, Ohio State, like
all the any school that has youknow, more than three or four draftable
players on a unit, I'll justgo through and watch every game from that
(25:22):
season so I don't miss anything.And and then like once you get into
kind of the hundreds, like ifI'm just watching let's see so Jalx Hunt
out of Houston Christian, there's noone else on his defense that I'm paying
attention to. So I went throughlike those kind of players in the seventy
five to one fifty range. I'llwatch five or six games usually, and
(25:49):
I have a three game minimum,but I this year, I tried to
do five for everyone unless it waslike for me, the three game minimum
is if I watch three games andI'm it's literally like the Steven A.
Smith meme where he's just like youknow what I'm talking about, like dead
face, like off the camera.Like if I watch three games and you
(26:11):
haven't had one positive play and youlook like a bad college player and you
have like a one RAS, thenyeah, I'm not gonna waste two extra
games on you. But yeah,I think that I've tried. I think
now that I'm writing up these playersespecially, it's just so much easier for
(26:33):
me to do watching as many gamesas possible, because like I don't want
to watch one game and see aguy maybe not use any pass rushing moves
and then be like, oh,he doesn't have any moves, you know,
like that kind of thing. Butit's like, I mean, it's
kind of like what you have todo though, if if it's not your
(26:55):
full time job, did you sitthere and watch player after player. It's
like you kind of have to todivide your time up somehow. So it's
it's not a criticism to people whodo that, but I try to be
as thorough as possible. Well,yeah, and it feels like if like
when I do three games, it'slike I've got to make sure that I
pick the right three games, andI can't just go in and pick the
(27:19):
three worst games with the three bestgames or anything like that. You got
to really do some research to lookat the matchup, like did the pass
rusher go up against a guy that'sgonna be playing in the NFL along the
offensive line and that sort of thing. But I knew, like I knew
it had to be a crazy numberbecause you've told me before, like you're
(27:40):
watching the entire unit offense and defensefor multiple major programs, and I'm just
curious because that would be, Uh, I don't know's that's impressive. It's
a lot of football. It's alot of football. The thing the thing
for me, so like I doit all in huddle basically, like I
have my own huddle account, andwhether I can actually put the games on
(28:04):
huddle or I have to download clipsor cut them up somewhere else. Basically
what I do is like if I'mlet's say I'm watching you know, Alabama
Defense, I'll while i'm watching it, I'll have a Dallas Turner playlist.
I'll have a Terry and Arnold playlist. I'll have a kool Aid McKinstry playlist,
(28:25):
just in a boybe et cetera,et cetera. And then as I
as I'm going through, like playafter play, I just i have it
like down to a rhythm. Basically, I'm like watch kool Aid, watch
Terry on, watch Dallas, watchblah blah blah. And then if they
do anything that's like what I calla gradable rep so whether it's a good
play, a bad play, anythingthat I would be able to look back
(28:49):
on, like anything that that play, any play that will like add anything
to my evaluation. Basically I'm savingand then I so I'll get through Alabama's
entire season, and for every player, I'll have basically their you know,
(29:10):
seventy to one hundred key plays fromthat season in its own playlist. And
the reason I do that is becausethat way I can just zoom through the
film without having to write any notes. And I don't early on I would
fall into the trap where I wouldI'd see something happen like the first game,
(29:32):
and then I'd write like bad anchor, and then I would be looking
for that and I'd be like negativelybiased towards something based on what happened in
the first game so or the youknow, first couple games that I watched.
So I try to just have likeno opinion on them until I get
a few games in and I'm justyou know, mindlessly adding plays to these
(29:55):
playlists and then you know, I'lldo my grade. And then the reason
I do that, though, isbecause then I can sit down and write
them up whenever. It can betwo or three months from now. I
just pull up their playlist, gothrough. I can chart it on huddle
based on like hand usage, speed, rush, whatever, and then I
(30:17):
can write their strengths and weaknesses.That's more accurately based on what I see
on the film. And it alsohelps me because I'll start my film study
for the draft usually October November,and someone like one of the first players
I watched was probably Nate Wiggins Cornerfor Clemson. I watched in like November.
(30:41):
Well, if i just watch histape in November and then write the
notes and then I'm still trying totalk about him all the way in April
and it's like, however, manymonths that is five months since I've actually
laid eyes on them. I'm justbasically going to be reading off of my
notes, And especially you can dothat if you're writing about it, but
(31:03):
if you're recording a video and liketalking about it on a podcast, it's
gonna it's just going to sound roboticand you're not going to have any you
know, specific details that you canreally refer back to, like, oh,
yeah, you had this play.So just being able to have that
tape saved and then if I'm gettinga little hazy on someone, I can
(31:23):
just go flip through their tape refreshmy memory. So yeah, it's a
lot of work, but it endsup really making a lot of other stuff
easier. So I get I getthis stuff sometimes. I'm sure you probably
get it a lot in the DMSas well. It's like, oh where
did you Where do you get thefilm? Like how do you watch it?
What are you looking for with acertain player? And I'm just curious
(31:47):
because like I handle it, youknow, I try to tell people,
encourage people, always tell them upfront, like I don't think people realize how
much work goes into the and thescale you're doing it at is just like
I don't know how you do itsometimes, man. But people that come
(32:07):
to you with those questions, whatadvice do you give them? Somebody that's
maybe looking to get get started inthe game, or is just you know,
trying to figure out where to watchfilm or how to even start understanding
schemes at a deeper level, orjust saying, hey, like I want
to get into this film study stufftoo. How do I start? I
(32:31):
think the easiest place to start wouldprobably be like whatever team you follow,
just watching their games, get anNFL Plus subscription, watch their games on
tape that week. And what Idid, the way that I kind of
(32:53):
learned a lot of coverages and likepassing and rushing concepts, is that back
when I was covering the Titans,like only I would actually cut up all
of their games and put them inhuddle, and I had them. I
had the games charted by probably likewith ninety plus data columns on huddle,
(33:21):
like based on where everybody's lined up, you know, I can pull up
all of their smash concepts on seconddown, like between this yard line where
so and so runs a corner likewhatever it is. So I did a
lot of that stuff. And thereason is because, like, since I'm
making so many Titans videos, Ididn't want to have to go back into
(33:43):
like the games on NFL plus definespecific plays. I wanted it to be
easy. But the byproduct of thatis that I got really good at identifying
like oh yeah, this is Pinpooll, this is outside zone. But if
you're wanting to learn how to identifythat kind of stuff, you don't have
to physically chart it. Even justlike watch a play, if it's a
(34:05):
running play, like watch it andtry to identify like what concept it is,
and you can google like football rushingconcepts and it'll have you know,
kind of the six or seven mainones, and like try to go through
and be like, Okay, thisis power. Yeah, this is counter
et cetera. So that would bemy suggestion. Yeah, good stuff,
(34:29):
man, good stuff. So theSenior Bowl this year is actually the first
time that you and I had metin person. That was that your first
time at the Senior Bowl. Itseems like were you telling me that?
Yeah, okay, I thought,So what was that experience like for you?
Kind of getting out of the filmroom and getting onto the field to
cover draft prospects in person. Isit something that you think you'd like to
(34:52):
do more of, maybe work theScouting Combine in some of these other All
Star games or what was that experiencelike for you? Yeah, I actually
went to the Combine also this year, which was the first time. So
yeah, yeah, I plan ongoing to the Senior Bowl and Combine every
(35:14):
year that I'm doing this. Ithink for me, the most enjoyable,
enjoyable part was just getting to meetpeople for the first time that I met
through the internet, so put infaces to names there such as yourself.
So really enjoyed that, especially forthe first time. I think that,
(35:34):
you know, with everything, it'salmost like kind of pointless for me to
go there. I feel like sinceit's all on tape, and I'm just
gonna end up watching that anyways.Yeah, like there is is something to
be said for seeing a player inperson, but yeah, the actual on
(35:54):
field practices, I don't view themas things where like I have to make
sure I'm not missing anything and getevery last piece of information. I just
kind of, you know, focuson whatever position drill. I feel like
watching a couple of the days Iwas. I was filming some content for
(36:15):
a disease, social media's and stuff, trying to get some one on one
reps. But yeah, man,love love doing all that stuff. Saw
Ian Rapaport. Oh that's very short. Yeah he was. He was in
the bleachers, and I didn't evenrecognize him because I am like honed in
(36:36):
on, like I don't want tomiss if somebody takes their helmet off,
I don't want to miss it,kind of deal if somebody. You never
know when guys are going to startswinging on one another, so all all
all eyes are on the field always, and Zach just nudges me at some
point he's like, that's Sean Rappaportand I look down and I'm like,
man, he's He's a lot smallerin person than I would have thought he
(36:58):
was so, but you never know. That's the thing with sports media is
like I am a lot taller thaneverybody I have not that caught me.
That caught me off guard because Iam used to being like the biggest person
in the room in most rooms thatI am in, and I had no
(37:20):
inclination that you were as tall asyou are. So when you walked up,
I kind of I felt like,oh man, I hope he didn't
notice the shock on my face,Like who is this? Who is this
giant walking towards me? Yeah,I'm I'm the boss here. So there
was a one point last year,Zach and I were down and we were
(37:44):
going to get breakfast before heading overto the stadium, and we look over
and Doug Maron is sitting at thetable next to us, and he almost
shoulder blocked. I don't know ifI I don't know if I told you
the story when we were down thereabout how I ended up on the side
of the stadium that is reserved forthe coaches and personnel people. But I
(38:07):
was over there last year. Ijust walked up, like I walked up
to the security guard and was like, hey, I've got a badge.
I'm trying to get over here becauseI want to watch the offensive lineman and
they're on that side of the field. Had no idea that I was supposed
to stay on our side of thestadium. And the guy looks at my
badge and he's like, oh,okay, yeah, man, no problem,
moves the guardrail for me, andI walk over and I'm just sitting
(38:30):
in the bleachers by myself with mynotebook, just furiously scribbling notes down and
I look up and I'm like,man, that's all these guys in Titans
gear over here. Oh all thoseguys are in Giants gear down below me.
And then I slowly start piecing togetherthat I don't think I'm supposed to
be over here. But Zach cameover to watch some of the action with
(38:51):
me, and he's walking down thestairs or walking up the stairs as we're
leaving, and Brian Daboll is walkingdown the stairs towards us, and Brian
day Ball actually sidesteps so that Zachcould get by, and I was like,
damn, dude, you just backdown. Brian Daball at the Senior
You just never know, You neverknow who you're going to run into there,
(39:12):
especially when you go into parts ofthe stadium that you're not supposed to
be in. Yeah, I was. I was in an elevator with h
with who's the Jacks coach that I'ma pedron of, Doug Peterson. Going
downtown is like that's what people getinto for the networking stuff, and I
(39:36):
don't ever really do it, butwe usually go back to the airbnb and
we're I mean, Zach and Iwere doing like three shows a day and
writing articles for the newsletter and allthat stuff, and we're getting old,
so we just kind of like tobe in bed at a certain certain hour.
I can't go as hard as Iused to, especially with all the
(39:58):
alcohol that's flowing down there that week. But did you go partake in all
of the debauchery that was going ondowntown mobile that week? Yeah? I
went out one night, I thinkwith Marcus Whitman and like Mike Renner and
some other people like YouTube people.But yeah, I'm like you, there
(40:22):
was probably after my sophomore year.I just like I came back to college
for my junior year. Junior yearand tried to maintain like the drinking that
I did my first half of college, and I was like, Wow,
these are way worse hangovers than Iremember. And after a certain point,
(40:44):
yeah, I would just like itwasn't even I guess it is hangovers,
but it wasn't like painful hangovers.It was more just I got so tired
of feeling shitty the next day,so I pretty much quit drinking, like
a few years ago. Not good. It wasn't like, it wasn't like
a hard set thing like if I'mat a wedding, I'll have a few
(41:05):
drinks and stuff like that. Butyeah, I kind of I don't.
I don't have it have it inme like I used to. I I
found out that they were serving whiteclaw in the stadium during practices, and
I went and I was literally inthe stands watching practice drink in white claw.
So I have I have a problem. I should probably follow your example,
(41:29):
but I can't. I can't helpmyself. Man, It's it feels
like a holiday to me. It'slike just being around the sport, being
around the game like that, andjust I don't know, I just I
love working, so I'm constantly takingnotes for the shows that we do in
between the practices for afterwards, anduh, you know, I don't I
don't have anyone to answer to.So if I show up on camera after
(41:52):
a few drinks, nobody's nobody's gonnafire me. So I'm I'm cool with
it. There you go. Butyou to get to do this full time,
man, it's a it's a dreamcome true. Uh. And your
level of effort was rewarded. Ithink you you've got quite a bit of
respect from your peers. But thento see like the validation on YouTube to
(42:16):
hit thirty thousand subscribers, that's that'sno joke, man, those are those
are real numbers. So first ofall, congrats, good thank you,
Good for you. Happy to seepeople putting in the work and being rewarded
for it. But what did thatmilestone mean to you? Yeah? Man,
(42:37):
Uh, it means a lot.I think it is definitely more of
a milestone than like, I thinkit's more symbolic on YouTube when it comes
to subscribers. I feel like becauseso much of of success on YouTube nowadays
(43:00):
it's just getting on people's homepage andlike suggested videos and stuff. Like when
I look at percentage of views thatfrom different sources, like on YouTube analytics,
no one ever is in their subscriberbox. Anymore, Like I haven't
I haven't hit the subscriber tab inso long. It's usually just the channels
(43:23):
that I watch a lot, theyget suggested on my homepage and I don't
even have to go looking for them. So it is kind of like I
value subscribers a little bit less.It's more of just a symbolic milestone to
me. Obviously, you know peoplesubscribed, like those are the people that
(43:43):
are going to be watching every video. But I also know that there's there's
probably a lot of like dead subscribers, not not actually, but like by
dead subscribers, just like people thatsubscribed away ago and don't watch or whatever.
So it's like, I don't know, it's kind of a weird dynamic
(44:06):
with YouTube where subscribers can actually bea negative. Obviously you want them if
it's if they're all watching, butjust if you have like one hundred K
subscriber channel and they're not interested inthe content that you're making, then it's
not that doesn't really mean anything.It's worthless. Yeah. I know you're
(44:27):
you're a big Brandon eye guy,but m hmm, I want to ask,
like who some of your favorite playersare to watch? Uh? From
a tape standpoint, not just pureenjoyment, but like who who in the
NFL do you think has the besttape? Ooh, let me think about
it by position. So, thinkingabout offensive line, I think that Lane
(44:53):
Johnson probably has the best pass protectiontape just because he's so athletic and he
has such a difficult job like himand my allotta are on islands as much
as any offensive tackles in the NFL, and like Lane Johnson is one of
(45:15):
the best. So his tape isjust rep after rep of true one on
one pass blocking with no help,and he does it at a high level
year after year. So I thinkfrom a pass blocking standpoint, Lane Johnson's
the first guy that comes to mind. And then, like Trent Williams a
(45:36):
couple of years ago, I thinkrun blocking Pinna Sewol this past year was
outstanding. Sauce Gardner has the cleanestcornerback tape in my opinion, outside of
a few missed tackles. It's justshut down press man every play, and
he's he's so fluid for someone that'sthat's as tall as long as he is.
(46:01):
And then like pass rushing, Ithink that Miles Garrett is a tier
above everybody else. So yeah,I would say those four are probably the
four best tape that I would say, Do you have a particular coach or
maybe scheme, maybe the better wayto frame it that you like to watch?
(46:23):
Ooh, So I like, canI list a few? List as
many as you want to? Brothergo crazy. So I think that Steve
Spagnolo is probably the best game plannerin the NFL. I think he's the
best DC in a lot of ways. He's great at it always seems like
(46:50):
every year the Chiefs defense, aroundWeek five or six, they have some
minor or major problem and then bythe end of the year always figures it
out. So that's one element ofwhat makes him great. The other is
the player development that they've had onthat side of the ball. But then
the other is that he's the bestone time game planner in the NFL.
(47:14):
Like, if you just need akick ass defensive game plan for the Super
Bowl or something, he's gonna comethrough with it. So spags defenses always
like to watch Sean McVay run game. I would say lou Anarumo defense for
the Bengals, although they were terriblethis year, so I haven't watched any
(47:37):
Bengals out twenty twenty three. Yeah, Cam Taylor Britt got injured and their
secondary just could not keep up somemore. Let me think about more like
less less Normy picks. All right, So I really like watching Okay,
(48:01):
so this this is also a Normalypick. But I like watching the Browns
defense just because it's the most simpledefensive scheme that you'll ever see. It's
just we're either gonna play Cover oneor Cover three, and we have great
corners and they're just gonna lock peopleup one on one, and then we're
(48:23):
gonna rush for and we have fourgreat pass rushers that are gonna pressure the
quarterback. So I like that schemebecause it lets the individual players shine.
I guess you get a lot ofone on one reps, which is always
what I'm looking for when I'm goingthrough tape. Have you have you watched
(48:44):
much of the Browns offense? Yes, because I kind of what's your stance
on Kevin Stefanski. I'm just justout of curiosity. Yeah, I mean,
I think that Kevin Stefanski did agreat job of kind of scrapping together
a functional offense with with what theyhad at quarterback and the rotating players that
(49:08):
they had on the offensive line lastyear. I like his running scheme.
It's it's a lot of pin pulloutside zone. Like I feel like they
are a running scheme that just kindof plays the hits and they run a
lot of good concepts and execute them. Well, I'm sure part of that
(49:29):
has to do with Callahan, butyeah, I like their diverse running scheme
where it's it's diverse, but itdoesn't try to do too much, you
know. Passing game is kind ofjust like I feel like a standard under
center passing game. Nothing that I'venoticed that's that's too groundbreaking there. But
(49:54):
yeah, I mean I think he'sa solid o C I I develop mastermind.
I developed a soft spot for himwhen I did my film work for
the preview of the Browns Titans gamethat I ended up being completely wrong on
because the Browns just demolished the Titans. But I really appreciated how he seemed
(50:15):
to be able to piece together agame plan to attack whatever defense he was
playing. And I felt like partof it was like they had a really
good bread and butter with their rungame, and when you have that,
you know, it helps a lotof other aspects of the offense. But
I always thought that he was kindof underrated in terms of kind of I
(50:39):
would say, like understanding his personneland calling plays to their strengths, but
then also understanding his defensive matchup andplaying to their weaknesses. I thought was
pretty good. Yeah, the bestlike this applies to both sides of the
ball. But the best coaches andcoordinators and scheme designers don't have like one
(51:06):
play or one concept that it's like, you know, my great grandfather ran
Cover three and like you know,have some you know, weird thing that
they're committed to. It's about adaptingto what does your personnel do best and
then fitting that to your opponent.So yeah, Stefanski, I'm looking at
(51:30):
my Let's see. I went throughand did ratings for every basically every team's
positions and coaches. I had Stefanskias the seventh best, like OC even
though he's not technically OC. Butyou know whoever's number one of the offensive
coaches? I had him seventh bestin the NFL. So you got to
(51:52):
you gotta share the top six withus. Now, I want to know
who's ahead of the guy, SoI went with So this is just ranking
the offensive coaching staffs. So numberone is the Rams, Number two is
the forty nine Ers, three isthe Chiefs, four is the Dolphins,
(52:12):
five is the Vikings, six isthe Lions. Seven is the Browns.
Pretty good list. It's a prettygood list. Ten out of ten,
no notes, Ten out of ten, no notes. Can you guess who
the lowest one is? I wasabout to say Penn State, but that's
just me being triggered by the wordbad offense. Penn State does not play
(52:35):
in the NFL. For the listenersthat might not know that, I'm gonna
go with the Tennessee Titans. Itis the Jets with Nathaniel Hackett. Oh
yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Did you know there are the top
three receivers in percentage of routes thatthey ran that were fades last year?
(52:59):
A play for the Jets. Howabout that they have the only three receivers
to run over ten percent of theirroutes as fades. All right, Uh,
they're cooking up there in New York. Man Hackett drew a straight line
on the chalkboard and said, waita minute, this isn't right. This
(53:23):
isn't right. Oh man, Well, if if we're not careful here we're
gonna be We're gonna end up talkingfor two hours about the uh, the
intricacies of the forty nine ers andRams offense. It already happened. I
stopped myself once because you talked aboutSean mcvay's running game, and I was
like, Oh, but James,what about that Super Bowl against the New
(53:45):
England Patriots and the game plan thatBill Belichick grew up? Grew up,
drew up to defend it. Soif we're not careful, we're gonna branch
off into one of them. Ithink Tom Brady drew up that game plan.
Was it Tom Brady that drew upthe game plan? Fair enough?
All right? I got one morequestion for you before we get on out
(54:06):
of here. Early predictions for thetwenty twenty five draft. Who is the
top overall pick? Who has orwho is? Who is who's gonna be
the top pick in the twenty fivedraft. Let's see. So, I
I have not watched a ton ofplayers. I watched James Pierce, the
(54:30):
ed rusher for Tennessee. I knowPFF has him as number one. Yeah
I don't. I haven't watched enoughplayers to agree or disagree, and like
he looks like a great prospect,definitely a top five type of guy,
but needs to get a little bigger. I could I think Will Campbell for
(54:51):
LSU the left tackle. I reallylike him. I really like car Beck
though. I think I think Georgiaquarterback Carson Beck will be the first overall
pick. Him or Shilah Sanders.I know, wait, Witch Sanders,
(55:12):
Shiloh Okay, it's a okay,all right. I thought you said you
gave up drinking, James, Hey, man, what do you think about
should though? So I've just startedmy shoulder study, and I I gotta
admit, man, I liked hima lot more than I wanted to because
(55:35):
of all and it's not it's notfair to him, but like the fanfare
surrounding that program, it was kindof like, there's there's no way,
like, we gotta we gotta stop, for lack of a better term,
we got to stop the dick riding. Okay, he's not that good,
guys, But then I started watchingthe tape and there are times that I'm
like, this is an NFL quarterback, this is an NFL playmaker. It's
(55:59):
just a matter of getting a betterevaluation on him. Because the offensive line
was so terrible. I mean,I am I am two games in right
now, and the dude's just fightingfor his life so much out there that
I kind of kind of felt weirdabout the evaluation. And I'm not gonna
(56:19):
put like too much. You watchthe UCLA game, like, what are
you? How are you supposed toevaluate shitter Sanders from that, It's like
it's maybe the worst offensive line performancethat I've ever seen. And that's one
of the games that I watched,and I'm like, he's still like has
these buckets at times where I'm like, oh my god, Like the footwork
is clean, the postures aligned,the ball flies out of his hand,
(56:43):
it's, you know, to awide receiver that has two guys within striking
range of him, and he stilljust drops it in the bucket for a
big game. So I'm like,I had I eventually close my MacBook if
I can be transparent for a momentand was just like, fuck this,
I'm just gonna wait for the twentytwenty four tape because it's so it's so
bad. Where are you at withthem? Yeah? I like him.
(57:07):
I I I tried not to.So a new thing is that I tried
not to have super strong preseason takesabout quarterbacks because I had that about Bryce
Young over CJ. Stroud, andlike, obviously that was a miss uh
(57:29):
missed evaluation, and I feel likein retrospect, I wouldn't make that same
mistake again. But I do thinka lot of it had to do with
just I liked Bryce Young's penultimate yeartape better than c J. Stroud's.
Yeah, and just kind of likehad that had that bias in my head
(57:51):
going into it and like ended upmaking a bad email. So everything that
I've I've never watched him specifically,but I watched Colorado offense for Xavier Weaver,
and I really like Sugar Sanders' armtalent, his ability to find windows.
(58:14):
I think that he's got some borderlineconcerning habits under pressure. But it's
it's also like it's one of thosethings where the protection was so bad that
I have a hard time fully blaminghim for it, although it is,
you know, something that's that's oneof the difficult things, whether it's an
(58:35):
NFL player or a college player,is separating like when you've got someone like
Sam Howe, for example, whois one of the worst quarterbacks at taking
sacks in the NFL, but thenalso has a terrible offensive line, and
it's like, Okay, this entiresetup is a disaster, and like somehow
you got to parse out the blame. So yeah, I want to see
(58:57):
him get a little bit better underpressure, but I understand and you know
where some of the bad habits couldcome from. Well man, we got
to bounce because my stream yard recordingis about to get out on us,
but real quick at No Flags Filmon Twitter, A to Z Sports Film
Room on YouTube. James, thanksfor your time. We'll be back next
week with another episode of the UnofficialTitans Podcast.
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