Games with Names - 2018 AFC Championship Game with Ernie Adams | Patriots vs. Chiefs

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Ernie Adams is back in studio! That's right, the smartest man we know has returned, this time in our Nuthouse East studio, to break down an all time classic: the 2018 AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah, we've done this game before, but this is Ernie's Version. Ernie joins us in studio (3:54). We go back to January 2019 (1:09:15). We get into the teams (1:23:58). We get into the game and Ernie breaks down some pivotal plays (1:49:19). We score it (2:28:30). We wrap it up by redrafting the top ten picks from he 2018 NFL draft (2:38:12). Support the show: http://www.gameswithnames.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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History is filled with unexpected stories, and I'd like to tell you about them. I'm Aaron Manke, and for the past six years, I've been sharing history's most curious tales on my podcast, Cabinet of Curiosities, such as the surprising country that invented the croissant and the wrestling champ who won the White House. And now these amazing stories and many more have been compiled into my new book. Curious to know more? Pre-order Cabinet of Curiosities,

available November 12th, wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Learn more over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky

and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot.

Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If we draft a guy in the seventh round, he's going to be the rookie minimum. What are you talking about, Ernie? I got a $36,000 signing bonus. That was kind of high, don't you think? A very special episode today. The smartest man we know. Former head of football research with the New England Patriots.

That's right. Ernie is back. Had a great episode earlier this season with Ernie. We had so many great comments that we're like, we got to do another game. We're doing the 2018 AFC Championship Patriots versus Chiefs. Everybody's wearing red. They all hate us. I mean, it's a perfect environment to go in and play a football game. Have you been game planning for the second episode of Games with Names? See, I brought this. This is my chief's book from 2018. Oh, my gosh.

Ernie sent a bunch of plays he wanted to go through and get in deeper. Something that we can really talk about. Maybe the fans don't really see. Very excited to get into it. Get really granular. Deep dives are what we do. Games with Names is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to Games with Names.

I'm Julian Edelman, and they are Jack and Kyler, and we are on a mission to find the greatest game of all time. We're back in the Boston studio. That's right, kid. Get your kid out here, kid. We're back in the bean town this week coming to do old brady brady day week brady do it baby big one and uh on today's episode we are covering or should i say recovering our fans asked for it and we listened the 2018 afFC Championship game with our friend,

the smartest man we know, former head of football research with the New England Patriots. That's right. Ernie Adams is back. Let's go, Erndog, back. I mean, I feel like I've got a lot of Ernie time these last few months. It's a blessing. It is. I just, I honestly feel smarter. got a lot of Ernie time these last few months. It's a blessing. It is.

I just, I honestly feel smarter. For the love of God, cherish it. It's kind of like when you walk on Harvard's campus, you feel smarter. If you're around Ernie, it just makes you feel smarter. Elevates your game. It makes me feel dumber. Picking up wisdom. Because it's like how much I don't know.

Look at all this that I just don't know. Maybe I completely messed that up. Maybe I just feel so dumb that I react to smart. wisdom because it's like how much i don't know look at all this that i just don't know maybe i completely messed that up maybe i just feel so dumb that it i i react to smart hey it rubs off on us being around a smart guy like that i bound to rub off on you i want to go read a book right now but we're gonna do this got a couple got a couple right there that's right baby that's right there um we get into talking what ernie's been up to since he's last been on he's been everywhere busy guy busy guy uh his thoughts about the patriots draft and the roast the brady roast talk a little roast talk a little roasty mcdosty roast mode roast mode

and ernie will break down some pivotal plays from the classic AFC championship game in Arrowhead. Rob got to do it. Now it's Ernie's turn. Now it's Ernie's turn. Ernie's version. This is the Ernie version. You know, we had Rob Riggle. He did it.

He was on a glacier in, I don't know. Iceland. Ernie was up in the box. Yeah. I'll find out he scouts restaurants, too. He does. We found that out. Ernie is a rib connoisseur.

Ribby dibby. The ribs dry. I didn't get to ask. The fans sauced. Crazy night in Arrowhead. Ernie loves talking about fans getting saucy McDoss. Bro, the atmosphere that night sounded insane. It was electric.

And Ernie breaks it all down. And then we get to unveiling a brand new post-show segment. You guys. We can say. We're going to redraft the 2018 draft in honor of Ernie. You got to stick around for it. Ernie gets us so. He gets us wanting to make write-up player reports

that we wanted to redraft the 2018 draft. I want to print out some of those play sheets and just drop plays like I would in middle school. Tyler cards. Oh, you guys got to see. I can't wait for you guys. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's go.

Good one. January 20th, 2019, Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri. Brady versus Mahomes. The old dynasty versus the new dynasty. But under a super blood wolf moon, there's a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. This is the 2018 AFC Championship Game. Ernie version. Welcome to Games with Names.

We have a very special episode today. We're doing the 2018 AFC Championship Patriots vs. Chiefs. Now, I know all you guys, all you listeners, all you visual, everyone watching

is probably going to say, we already did that with Ron Riggles. I messed his name up again. I mean, that's... Rob Riggle. Rob Riggles. I called him Ron. But our special edition, our Ernie version, we could say,

is here with Ernie Adams. We had a great episode earlier this season with Ernie, and it was so great, and we had so many great comments in the comment sections from everyone who listens that we're like, we got to do another game. And so we sat, we talked with Ernie, and he wanted to come in the Nuthouse. We brought it out to Boston.

We're here in the Nuthouse Boston version. Boston version. That's right. To talk about the 2018 AFC Championship game against the Chiefs with Ernie Adams. Ernie, why this game? Well, it's always so satisfying to go into an environment like Arrowhead Stadium.

You know, this was a double championship weekend. This was the second game, so everybody had been out there tailgating for five or six hours. Five or six. It was Kansas City winter, so it was cold. I mean, you take the bus ride in the stadium. Everybody's wearing red. It's totally alcohol-fueled.

They all hate us. I mean, it's a perfect environment to go in and play a football game. Plus which, of course, they knew perfectly well that we were just the obstacle in the way to them going to the Super Bowl. So we were just kind of inconvenient for them. But that wasn't really the way we looked at it, but that's what makes it a good game. Is this the greatest game of all time? Oh, if you were part of the Patriots, it's on the list. I mean, we didn't execute well in short yardage.

We did enough things that I wasn't real happy with, particularly yesterday I went back and watched it again. But it was two really good teams. We played well enough to win. And I was thinking, of course, you know, this is going against Mahomes and Hill and the whole bunch. My objectives for this game were to make them punt five times and to hold them to 30 points. Now, I don't usually associate giving up 30 points with playing good defense.

But you've got to take the opponents into account. And we did make them punt five times, and it was the 31st point that got it to overtime. So we missed the point goal by one. But, of course, Matthew Slater, he knows to call heads in a critical situation at an overtime coin toss. He studied the probabilities of the coin. I know they say it's 50-50, but Matthew knew it was going to be heads.

So we got the ball and went down and scored, and that was it. And, of course, after the game, it took a while, but they now changed the rule where both, in a playoff game, both teams are going to get a shot. They all get to touch the ball. They all get to touch the ball, which, of course, came up this past year with the Chiefs and the 49ers. Exactly.

We broke that down last episode. Yeah. How's it been going since we last had you on? Well, of course, nothing can talk being with games with names. But everything's been going well. Any new books? Well, you know, I really enjoyed the, a couple of years ago, that great movie Oppenheimer.

Yeah. So, of course, I said, you know, I really needed, it was based on the book called American Prometheus, which had been sitting on my shelf for a long time. I hadn't read, so I just finished reading that, and that was extremely worthwhile. Was the book better than the movie? Well, of course, you've got a 500-some page book

versus a two-hour movie. Three-hour movie. Okay, so a three-hour movie. But even so, obviously, there's a lot more detail in the book. But I will say the movie was great. I enjoyed them both. Enjoyed the movie, enjoyed the book. Christopher Nolan, zero special effects in that.

Or CGI. Oh, yeah. Zero CGI in that movie. IMAX, too. IMAX. You're way over my head with that one, but I enjoyed the movie. It's pretty much like in book terms, the font was bigger, and they didn't double space after the period, so you cranked it out.

MLA format. What was it like making your acting debut in the schedule release thing that we did? Well, what i learned was interesting which you taught me was that so much of that is sitting around the waiting because i know it the shot itself is you know with three and a half minutes and it took us all day all day uh but everybody seemed to everybody seemed to enjoy it, so it was good. Did you prepare for that role in any way? Did you watch the movie a couple times?

I got a little, my wife gave me, Christine gave me a scouting report on the movie. And I had seen the movie, so it kind of brought it back. Now, did you practice in the mirror at all? Remember when we had to was with like uh did you have did you have any scenes where you practiced in the mirror where you kind of wanted to work on we did we did we did some retakes because there were a few scenes i think we were both laughing but we weren't supposed to be laughing so the nice thing about that is just you know shoot it again exactly shoot it again movie magic movie magic now Ernie what's what's up with the attire we got today well Julian this

is a Madras shirt Madras and as you know at New England Patriots training camp that's where you know I was big on the Madras shorts I would always wear a Madras sport coat to that first pre-season game on the road. I mean, you go on with a professional football team, and the dress code for the trip is coach and – so everybody just had a dark blue. And I always said, here we are going to play a professional football game, and it looks like I'm with a group of undertakers. So I kind of you know

the madras would you know would break it up but of course we had a little call a couple weeks ago and i promised you a madras shirt so i delivered it is the season it's the season did i tell the story about the plaid jacket and the last time we were on here i don't think so no so there's one i mean it's the madras jacket and i i messed up on that and so ernie would wear this madras jacket early in the season every year and you know it's five six years into my career and madras was making a comeback there's like some articles about it this that never left and i i i go up to ernie i go hey earn you've been wearing that mattress so long or that i was calling it plaid that uh you know it's finally come back ernie with his briefcase his new york times of course

under his arm looked back and said never went out of style and just kept walking the bus let's go baby i said hey if i like it it's in style there you go you know what he takes the leap he takes the leap now er did you watch the the roast of tom brady i have i've i've heard about it i i did i did not i have not watched you didn't watch what you didn't watch coach belichick up there i i did not i i don't have clips no clips i i read about it did he did he call you and ask you know like nope nope no he he you know bill i'm sure had you know he had his plan for a game plan for that situation what he what he wanted to say and he went with it he went with it. Now, have you been game planning for this second episode of Games with Names? I watched the TV replay just to kind of,

I mean, I remember it, but five and a half years ago, I wanted to just refresh my memory. Yeah. Now, to give everyone a little light, we had these pre-prep calls with Ernie and his wife, Christine, and Mrs. Adams, as I like to call her. And they weren't just like anything. Ernie fully came in with, I want to say, five, six pages of notes on what we wanted to do and what he felt he could have done better last episode.

He wanted to know the statistics of what we said that made people laugh, that people liked, the insights of all the posts. I mean, he came in fully dialed. What did you guys get out of these prep meetings, Kyler, Jack? The level of preparation only matched by peyton manning for games with names universe the text message of all the games like so ernie sent a button like for audience ernie sent a bunch of plays he wanted to go through and get in deeper easily 30 35 plays now for our you know two sometimes three hour show that's kind of a

six-parter. So we were in the trenches doing a lot of prep for this, very excited to get into it, get really granular in some of the games. We love it. Some of the plays here. I'm going to switch format up a little bit. Deep dives are what we do.

But to pull the curtain back a little farther, Ernie, we asked the guests for input, this and that. And it's always a little bit the same boilerplate stuff coming back. But you and Peyton came back with the most prep, took it the most seriously. It's very telling. It's very telling of two greats. Now, the fact that you guys put Peyton Manning in this. Now, if and when there's a third episode,

I don't even want to be associated with these pre-prep calls because the amount of information he's gonna the competitive vibe are you gonna go and out prepare him well I probably So now we've put him on a competitive level. See, I brought this. Now, this is my Chiefs book from 2018. Oh, my gosh. So as you can see here, Jules, what I do before getting ready for the game, I've got every game they played.

And this is the form I've got comfortable using. Earning cards. Well, these aren't the cards, but one page, you use both sides, of course. I've got 16 plays on each pad. So if I want to find out, because the Chiefs, they're repeaters. If they've done something in a critical situation, middle of the season, you get in that same critical situation, decent chance you're going to get it again. And I remember Bill always saying, it's going to be the same play.

They might have a different guy. They may have a different formation or a different way of getting there, but it's going to be this guy here, this guy there, and this guy there. Right, and that's typical of most good teams. You get in the critical situation in the fourth quarter. Like Sean Payton says, you call the plays they know by heart. I mean, when you're going down for a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter, that's what you want to run, right? The stuff you've been running since training camp, you know exactly what to do.

Everybody else on the team knows what to do, and that gives you, most of the time, gives you your best chance of success. Now, Ernie, you have a play. So this is your folder for the Chiefs. 2018. Yeah. Do you have a folder for every single team?

Probably not to this detail. Not to this detail. Because, I mean, I've got every game here, plus some prior years. Not to this detail. Not to this detail. But because, I mean, I've got every game here, you know, plus, you know, some prior years. And one of the reasons because I do the Chiefs is they're really good. So, you know, and I want to, you know, I don't want to go, if I'm going to study, you know, in the middle of March, study a team,

I'm not going to go study the worst team in the league. That really doesn't work. I want to see what somebody who's good, you know, is there something they're doing that we can use? You know, putting it all down on paper, to me, is, you know, the best way to, because I will tell you, because you're wearing your Phillips Academy hat, the best teacher I ever had in my life

was my Latin teacher at Phillips Academy, who would put us all up at the board before we started a class. And he'd say, we're going to write out this sentence, how you translated it. And he would come and say, oh, lad, if you don't know it well enough to write it down, you don't know it well enough. Now, of course, when I would use, for 30 years, I would say that to players, you know, and say, hey, I know this play. Okay, put it up on the board. Let's see if you can diagram it.

Let's see if you really know it. So I'm a big believer, you know, you really want to know something, put it down on paper, study it, make sure you got it right. You got to write it down. I wrote down everything. That's just make me pay attention. I've got a question for you. You mentioned that you don't watch a lot of film on teams that aren't good. What team do you think you've

scouted the least during your tenure in the NFL? Well, you know, over that period of time, you know, teams kind of cycle in and cycle out. So some teams, they might be terrible right now. Well, 10 years ago, they were really good. So there's not, I don't have a phobia about certain franchises. You know, teams that are playing well on offense, well on defense, and that's you want to see, you know, what are they doing? Is there something there that we can use? Now, Earn, what goes into making this folder? Like now you said you started in March.

So this 2018 you were anticipating. So probably like in the early 2000s, you probably had a big blue folder for the Colts. Now in this generation, you have the red folder for the Chiefs. And so it started in March. What went into this whole thing? Like you said. If you remember, I mean, they came in, you know,

first game of the year in 2017, and they just lit our defense up. Yeah. I mean, it was a track meet. Yeah. So you could just see, okay, these guys are obviously good, and they get Mahomes in a quarterback. So sometimes you just kind of know, you know, we have to be ready for it. Like you mentioned, you know, the Colts with Peyton Manning.

I could kind of tell you in September, any of the years he was there, then we went to the Broncos and they continued to be really good. We're going to need to be ready for these guys. So it's always kind of in the back of your mind. I think we talked about this last time you know 2014 season I had it was inconceivable to me that the Colts were going to go into Denver and beat the Broncos but they did so obviously we're going to play the Colts so you know the surprises come up they do every so often. Now, what did you take away from this specific folder going into this specific match?

Well, of course you've got the Chiefs offense has its heart with Andy Reid going back to Mike Holmgren at Green Bay, then Philadelphia, then the Chiefs. So there are a lot of things that are just part of Coach Reed's DNA. You know you've got to be ready to stop, like what they call 72X shallow cross. I mean, that's just they ran it with Mike Holmgren ran it, Andy Reed ran it in Philadelphia, Andy Reed ran it in Kansas City, and you look right up this pass here in the playoffs, they're still running 72X shallow

cross. Again, like Bill said, they dress up the formation a little bit, maybe a little different motion, but when the ball snapped, it's 72X shallow cross. So you always try to take something like that that's just core to them and make sure your defense has some degree of familiarity with it. Of course, the game is moving. When you get into it, it's moving so fast. You don't always recognize it quite right, but you at least want to give your players the best chance. Yeah.

What are some of the things that worked that you found in this book or you made or you manifested in this book or whatever, the Ernie book. Yeah, I mean, our big thing for going into this game, when you're getting ready to play a team on defense, you always got to make a base decision. What do we need to stop? Well, I just remember in the team meeting, whenever we played against Andy Reid,

when he came, like, Bill would, I'm paraphrasing, but he, in some form or another, Andy's going to want to throw it. Right. He's not going to run it. Even if he's got 100 yards, he's going to want to throw it. That's to a large extent true,

although, you know, they've had They changed it with Pacheco this last couple years. Yeah, so I mean, it's, right. I mean, you always true, although, you know, they've had— They changed you with Pacheco this last couple years. Yeah, so, I mean, it's—right. I mean, you always have to take, you know, the personnel into account. But, you know, you're never going to go play, you know, against one of Coach Reed's teams. You know, they're just going to come out in two tight ends and try to hammer it.

I mean, probably unless they're down to their third-string quarterback or something. Yeah. I mean, he's, you know, very—you know, if they're going to to come out in two tight ends and try to hammer it, unless they're down to their third string quarterback or something. I mean, they're going to adjust to their personnel. But, of course, when you've got, you know, yeah, you can run it for five yards, run it for five yards, but when you've got Mahomes and Tyreek Hill, they throw it, it could be 60 in one chunk. Yeah. So, I mean, that's really, I mean, I always said against a team like that, if they handed the ball off on a running play, I'd applaud, do it again, please, you know, do it again. I

mean, that's the distinguishing feature of a lot of NFL football, you know, over the last half century. You get great skilled players, a quarterback, great receivers, and it's a passing league with teams that can throw the ball. You've got to be able to run it enough to keep the defense honest, keep them off balance. You can establish the tempo of the game. I mean, in this game, even with Tom at quarterback and you and Rob at receiver, we came out and ran the ball very effectively right off the bat,

kept their offense off the field. But in the end, when all hell broke loose in the fourth quarter, you're going to revert to form, and both teams just open up and let her rip. Let her rip. Do you have any examples that didn't work from the book that you thought you game-planned or you had a tick or something that was in the book that you thought you game planned or you had a a tick or something that was in the book well you know for instance they hit it they hit us uh in the fourth quarter that big misdirection screen i mean remember they they have four of their guys standing over outside the

numbers that we got nobody so it's a walk-in touchdown, and that had been something that they had shown before, but there was another case they dressed up a formation. They got a motion. They got us a little bit confused. When you're on the screen, when all their guys are on the right and you're screening to the left, it's probably going to work, but like we said, dressing up a player with a formation, that's why they do it.

So if they get in the game and hit it, it's a touchdown for them. I mean, this gets into a little bit. I mean, it's kind of like watching NBA basketball at its best. You know, I mean, it's fluid, it's moving. You know, and they hit somebody for, you know, a wide open three, a decent chance he's going to hit it. Now, before we get into the deep dive of this Chiefs game, we want to cover some of the things our fans want to know more about.

Now, the draft happened since we had you last on our podcast. What are your thoughts of the Patriots and their draft? Well, I mean, obviously, they had the third pick in the draft and they take a quarterback. So essentially, you have married the franchise to Drake May for the next few years. I mean, they've got Jacoby Brissett in there. For some period of time.

He may be the starting quarterback. If they ask me, which they haven't, people say, when should they start Drake May? They should start him when he's ready. And you can't invent that. If he's not ready to start from the first week, don't start him. Maybe it's going to be in the middle of the season, however that works out. But, I mean, at some point, he's going to go in and be the quarterback,

and he's going to get a full chance to show what he can do. What makes a quarterback ready? Well, number one thing, of course, is going out, how is he doing in practice? As you know, I mean, this practice yeah uh as you know i mean this is uh you know taking snaps against the first defense seeing nfl coverage running the you know running the patriots offense does he really know what he's doing you know does he look like he can go in and execute at full speed you know against you know a really good defense you know when the

bullets are flying. It's a judgment call on the part of the coaches. You see them every day. You live with them. Does he really know how to call the plays in the huddle? Does he understand what you're trying to do? But there's nothing like going in, okay, we think he's ready. Now we're going to put him in the game,

and now we're really going to find out. Eventually they're going to put them in the game and now we're really going to find out. Eventually, they're going to do that. And particularly the way that training camp has been so cut back. I mean, I know there's a lot of veteran players who stand up and applaud no more two-a-days and all that. But as far as a rookie getting ready to play, it's going to slow down his development. I was at the Patriots practice yesterday, and I saw Vince, Big V, Wolfork, and we were talking like, yeah, when we were players, you hated the practice, but with how they have adjusted the players' practice now so much, it is the worst thing for a young quarterback in the offense alignment.

This is a collective bargaining agreement. It's negotiated between players and the owners. Who's negotiating and I'm part of the players? Veteran players who don't really want to go out with two a days. I'm thinking back, the first training camp I was a part of in 1975 for the Patriots, I mean, we had the rookies in, and we were six straight days of two-a-days. Oh, yeah. Okay? All in full pads.

Now, we had a lot more players in camp. When everybody was there, we might have 125, 130 players in camp. But then it was two weeks to two days with the veterans, play a preseason game. And by the way, this was back in the day when we had six preseason games. Sheesh. Whoa.

Okay. And then it was a couple more weeks going one a day in pads. And yeah, that's probably too much. But as far as... But if you're going to be a young player particularly on quarterback needs to develop you you need every rep you can get yeah and i know they're uh my understanding is they're using you know they've got the virtual things set up yeah but there's nothing like there's no substitute for being on the field when it's going full speed and you've got to make decisions.

And in terms of playing quarterback, I think probably everybody who watches ESPN at some point watches some of that Formula One racing. You know, when they've got the camera right past the driver's ear hole and you can see how fast everything's moving. That's kind of the way you got to play in the NFL. You don't get, oh, is that, is that, that extra look, forget it. It's over. You, you, you got one chance, see it, right. Go ahead and do it. There's no substitute, you know, for, for getting that, by the way, when there's a pass rush coming at you you may have to slip and slide to avoid somebody who's going to try to take your head off um but but that's uh um that's that's the way it's played it's it's that's why it's the hardest position to

get ready for in sports the quarterback position and drafting um what was the scouting and the player evaluation process like during your time in new england well of course it really when are the first 10 years when scott pioli was the uh director of player personnel scott and i worked very closely together and it was you know we just went through every player you know we had a grading system. Every player? Every player. Who the scouts had identified as having a realistic chance. We weren't necessarily grading some of the backup. But there was probably a project bucket. Well, there was, sure. I mean, people who had, you know, might have been injured, missed their senior year.

But at some point, you say, well, now two years ago when this kid was a sophomore, he really looked good. Then he had circumstances come up that limited what he could do. So maybe we need to go take a look. And then it gets down to, you know, some people you just take a flyer on, like Steve Neal. Steve Neal from Cal State Bakersfield. Wrestler. Right.

Well, you're saying Cal State Bakersfield. That's right. They don't play football, but Steve is, you know, an NCAA champion and is a wrestler. He brought Lesnar. That's right. World championships. And, you know, we said, okay a wrestler. He brought Lesnar, World Championships. And we said, okay, this is somebody who's got the raw tools.

He just hasn't played football. We're willing to invest a little time in him, see what can happen. Scar, of course, did a great job coaching him. And Steve worked hard. And ends up, he goes, no college football, and he starts forcing a couple Super Bowls. He was a very good player. I mean, Steve was around when I was a rookie.

Right, but he had, you know, there's certain raw things that you look for a guy big, strong, really good balance that you want an offensive lineman and he had him of course you don't know for sure until you put your pads on go out and play football yeah but but just for instance you're talking about that uh you know this whole concept of the practice you know what they do in training camp it goes to you know having a practice squad i mean you know that we had guys who were good players for us who developed on the practice squad. Think of Ryan Wendell and Dan Conley.

They both started for us in Super Bowl XLIX, and they were there because they busted their tails on the practice squad trying to get better every day. And if you remember what we'd do, even if it was a day where no pads or anything, when practice was over, the practice squad guy would put their pads on and they'd have 10, 15 minutes going one-on-one. Well, that's where they developed. Now, you can't do that. So, by even limiting the practice squad that way, limiting training camps that way,

you're really hurting young guys who need some reps to develop into players. So if you were in this day and age evaluating players, you probably would be looking at different traits than if you were, say, 10 years ago when you could practice them because you have to have a more ready, developed guy. What would you be looking for in these now? I really you know i always said before the draft don't don't get away from size and speed you you your best chance is get the guys who are big and fast and go and go from there small and quick quick well yeah we would go you know of course we'd be out on the field pre-game warm-up,

and that was the one time you got to see all 43 players who were dressed from the opponents. And you could stand there and look. This team lives and dies by their size speed chart. Of course, they're all big, and that's where you're stuck. That doesn't mean you're going to be a great football player. What team off the head? Size, speed.

Most of the good ones. Baltimore always seemed big. Well, the Ravens were, I would say, one of the teams as close. I always felt like they were a sister team. And, of course, their general manager was Ozzie Newsome, who started his NFL management. We broke him in at Cleveland, the personnel and doing drafting. And that was the philosophy we had then.

And he took it to the Ravens. And you see some other teams, and you can see, well, there's some short, squatty guys. There's no, look, just because you're a little short doesn't mean you can't be a good NFL player. Yeah. Just because you're short doesn't mean you're small either. Right.

But if you end up with a bunch of guys like that, you look at them, I don't know how that's really going to work for them. Most of the time, it doesn't. So you start with a size speed chart. Size speed. Size speed chart. Then, of course, you want to see guys who can run

and break down and change direction. Because when I say speed, most of the time, that's timing guys run the 40-yard dash at the combine. There aren't that many opportunities to do the 40-yard dash, but guys who are good players, most of them can run. Like if you're going to take an offensive tackle in the first round, if you're an offensive lineman playing a fairly short area. Most of the good offensive tackles come pretty close to running a five flat in the 40. You know, that's, I mean, that's just the way it works out.

Then you've got to see a guy who can bend his knees, change direction, which comes into play at every position. And then it's how do they really play on Saturday afternoon, particularly how do they play against the good teams on their schedule. Like, for instance, you may look at a guy, this guy, he's an edge pass rusher. He got 14 sacks. But you go find a game where he's playing against an NFL – somebody who you think is going to be

an NFL tackle, and he gets stoned on the line of scrimmage and can't do anything. They say, wait a minute now. This is, this, you know, this maybe not, maybe it isn't the next Lawrence Taylor. You know, so it's, so you're always conscious when evaluating college players

who they're against. Eating a redshirt freshman for lunch? Okay, well, if he's playing against a redshirt freshman, that's what he should do. But what you really want to see is him against somebody who, say, this is an NFL-quality player. So size, speed, quality of play against quality of player right so those are the three things we're looking for plus it's being being able because at every position you really have

to be able to bend your knees and change direction bend your knees and change direction and if you can't you know if you're stiff-legged player it's it's it's not good it's not going to be real good if you're you know if you're a weight what we call, you've got to be a knee bender, not a waist bender. Knee bender, not a waist bender. Like lifting something heavy. How does that change when you're looking to get free agents? It's easier or is it harder?

Of course, you're talking about this. This is, we go from draft, yeah, NFL. NFL free agents. Okay, well, of course, the biggest thing when you're talking about an NFL free agent is you can see him playing against NFL players. So you see it here. You know that. Right.

So, I mean, really the biggest thing for us at the Patriots with a free agent was I always felt it was a little bit of a crapshoot because you never knew for sure how somebody was going to adjust coming into our environment. And I can't tell you the number of players who I would say, if they'd been in the league somewhere else, they came to us and say, oh, it's so different here. That's everyone. And of course, what I really want to do, what I really want to do in my next life, I want to be a fly so I can be on the wall of all these different places.

What are they doing that's so different? Because, you know, truthfully, our thing at the Patriots was we did it the way we did, you know, we did it at the Patriots in the 70s with Chuck Fairbanks and the Giants and Cleveland. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?

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We only really knew one way to do it. It works, so why change? But people say, well, it's so different in other places. I'm not real sure what those other places do. Now, of course, when they get you down to, you can only go on pads once a day, and then at the end of the season, you really can't go on pads. They're, and then at the end of the season, you really can't go on pads. They're kind of bringing everybody down to that lowest common denominator. Do you remember any guys that you wanted in the draft that we may not have got that went on to be great players? Oh, sure. I mean, but, you know, you're always, the thing about the draft particularly.

Or you thought you were going to get. Like I'll tell you one that I remember just studying, and I say, this would be the guy for us. He'd really be a good player. I always kind of like to just hear, are there names that are around? I mean, if everybody's name is around, that tells me everybody's really looking at him. But if I'm not really hearing the name around, maybe we have a chance. And there was one guy I felt totally confident this would be the guy for

us. I think we got a chance to get him at the end of the draft. And we took him, and that was Logan Mankins. And then I came here afterwards. There were a couple of the teams right behind us at the top of the second round. They were ready to call him. You're our guy, but this would be a perfect player for us. And, of course, Logan goes on to be one of the best. If I'm putting my all-time Patriots team together, the guards are going to be Logan Mankins and John Hanna.

Two greats right there. But, sure, there are some players, you're down at the end of the draft, you know this guy's going to be in the top five. Why don't you trade up and get him? We'd have to trade our whole team. What about a guy that you thought that was going to be there that someone snagged?

There's got to be the one that got away. You know, sometimes. The one that got away. Because everybody in the league is looking at, yeah, the big, oh! It's that 800-pound tuna I've been fighting for 11 hours, and all I got is a hook. A bucket. Well, your buddy put a bucket on the end of the hook.

That happened to me once. Yeah. But it's, you know, there are 32 teams all looking at the same players. So you just figure, like, if you trade, if you drop back in the draft, you really, you can't say, hey, we'd like this guy here. Let's see if we can drop back five places and still get him. You know, everybody else is looking at the same group of players you are. So you just never – I'll tell you because I know you had him on as a guest. For instance, one that we didn't want to get away was your friend Matt Light.

And, of course, it's – the year he came out, I don't know what number, it was in the middle of the second round. We're picking the team ahead of us as the Jets, and then ahead of them is the Lions. So you always call like 10 minutes before. If there's a player, he's on your radar. You want to make sure, first of all, they're still alive. I mean, the Patriots, they did draft a player in the early 60s

who was not alive from southwest Louisiana. They had the name. You know, they had names in newspapers. You know, they don't have quite – not everybody had a cell phone. So are you still okay? How are you doing? So we're behind the Jets who are behind the Lions. We call Matt Light.

Hey, Matt, we're really interested. How are you doing? Hey, Coach, the Jets just called me. They're going to take me. So we know right there it's very cut and dry. We're either going to get a trade executed with the Lions so we can get Matt, or we're just going to sit there and watch the Jets take him. So we call the Lions. We're really trying to work out a trade with them. The guy they want is the center from Nebraska, Dominic Rayola. I said, look, we got Damian Woody. Don're not, don't worry, we're not going to draft a center.

Okay, that's not going to happen. So we get the trade executed with the Lions when there's, you know, when they're on the clock, we jump up and we take Matt Light. So, I mean. Did you guys have intel that the Jets were going to take? No, no, no, the Jets had called Matt. Before that? You guys are sniffing out there, though.

Well, but it's like they may have called like three minutes before us. Everybody does this. You can't keep in touch with people. We got the solid intel that if we want

Matt, we got to get in front of the Jets. To get in front of the Jets, the only way that can happen is if we do a trade with the Lions. There's no other way we can get in front of the Jets. And to get in front of the Jets, the only way that can happen is if we do a trade with the Lions. There's no other way we can get in front of the Jets. Is there any guys that you evaluated that probably wouldn't have been that great that turned out to like, oh, shit, this guy is a monster, that you missed on the other way? Sure.

I mean, you're dealing with human beings. First of all, how are they going to react to coming into the NFL? And particularly when you're talking about the first round, does this guy have the right mindset that we can entrust him with a big contract? Because it's not, you know, if we draft a guy in the seventh round, he's going to be the rookie minimum. What are you talking about, Ernie? I got a $36,000 signing bonus.

That was kind of high, don't you think? I mean, but it's... I bugger out. But if you, you know, it's really important if you're going to take a guy at the top of the first round and make a big investment in him, you know, the guy can't handle it. He can handle it. And that doesn't always happen. But some guys, like for instance, you, you think, you know, a player, you try hard,

you do the psychological evaluations, you interview them. But when you've had them in camp for about 10 days that's when you know right i mean you some guys you hey this guy's got the right makeup the right stuff he's actually got chance this other guy this is not really going the way we want he's not really our kind of guy and you don't get to have him in your training camp for 10 days before you draft them yeah so it's just like you know you'd be you know as a veteran julian i'm sure you'd be watching pretty carefully to see if they've actually oh is this is this guy gonna be one of our kind of guy or did they screw it up in the draft i was convinced for a while and i almost mustered up enough courage to go into bill's office and tell

me if you're going to take someone in the first round or the second round that's going to be a skill position player i need you to send me out there to look him right in his fucking eyes well i have to be said for that i mean there is i didn't muster up enough courage no No, but there's a, you know, every school, there'll be somebody there who knows. Maybe it's the equipment guy. If you happen to know the equipment guy, they'll tell you, hey, this guy's been in my locker for four years.

He's an asshole. You don't want him. Well, if that's the equipment guy, he may actually know, you know, what kind of guy you're looking for. So if you know that the equipment guy, what his brand of cigars is, you may take him a box of cigars and on the QT, hey, just tell me who are the guys we don't want. And if, you know, if it's the right person telling you, that information can be gold. Now what's happened, of course, is now with all the stuff with social media and P you know,

people are barred from talking to NFL people. It's, it's harder. It's harder. It's harder to get the information that you really need, but you're still, you're still trying to figure out a way to go get it. Turkey always talks Ernie. Yeah. Turkey always talks. really need but you're still you're still trying to figure out a way to go get it turkey always talks ernie yeah turkey always talks we get who was the equipment manager for florida back in uh the 2010s we probably can we find out what his cigars uh preference is we probably had a lot of those going on. Now, how did it go with internal evaluation of our own team? So we did, I mean, what Bill always said to the staff was, the players that we have here now,

we have to know them better than anybody else. We can't make a mistake on one of our guys. We just went through a six-month season. We live together, right? I mean, players go home, go to sleep after practice. Coaches go home, go to sleep. But for most of the day, we're with each other in a small space. We know what makes each other tick. You know, we really have to know our own players better than anybody else. So we spent a lot of time after the season, take each player one at a time. We went through everything.

They're medical. They're strength and conditioning. How are these guys? They're reps. They're MEs. And is somebody getting into their early 30s? We can just see they're starting to slip. May still be able to play for a while, but they're starting to go on.

You have to really know that about your own players, and those can be the hardest decisions to make. This guy's gotten a slip, but he's a fantastic human being in our locker room. He's the guy everybody else looks up to. Who's going to really suck it up and push himself hard? I always said the older you get, the harder you have to work at your conditioning. Always. Always.

And so is this the guy who's really going to push himself, you know, to be able to play when he's in his early 30s. So you guys have the self-scout every year at the end of the year to see your own team that you know better than anyone. Right. And it's not just, okay, everybody can watch them play. No, yeah. But we know what's our best judgment,

what do we think they're going to do in the next one year or the next three years. Because what I always call simultaneous time horizons, we always say the most important day is today, the most important game is this week. But when you're dealing with your football team, you really have to have a sense where are we going in the future. And then you get into contracts.

Hey, we got somebody here. He's a year away from his contract. Where's he going to be in three or four years? Because that's a judgment that you have to, I mean, nobody's going to play forever. Yeah. Yeah, so it's, but I always say, hey, Warren Spahn, Ted Williams, Tom Brady, they always did some great things past 40.

Not many people can do it, but some of the real Hall of Famers can. So it's a lot of judgment. It's tough judgment. Now, what goes in the judgment to trading players, probably some of the best players on your team? How does that go down? The Logan Mankins, the Lawyer Malloy, the Malcolm Butlers. Right.

It's a question of, okay, I mean, as you know, it can be a business. Some of it is we're not going to be able to sign this player next year. It's just, you know, we've tried to negotiate some with him. It's not going to happen. It could be a guy, hey, he may be causing some problems. We're going to live with him. But it's not, you know, we can live with him right now. Do we really want to sign up for living with them for five more years?

No. So it's a lot of circumstances. A lot of circumstances. Maybe it's a case, you know, we're really, we've got four good players at this position and we have nothing over here. So, you know, we can trade with somebody and really fill a need on a team.

Yeah. But then again, are we just getting somebody else's problems? So you really try to find out before you trade for a veteran player, what are we really getting here? Yeah, that's got to be tough. You have to be able to make emotionalist decisions when you're doing those types of things, when you're dealing with human beings. But it's the hard part of the job. It's the hard part of the job because particularly, like I say, you can have a guy and say, well,

he's, you know, he's okay playing this position, but he's such a positive input on the team. You know, we really need to have him. He brings six other players with him. Yeah. What's the one draft pick you're most proud of? You know, I'd say in all honesty, it may look easy in retrospect, but, you know, first round of the 2001 draft, because we didn't have our first year of the Patriots in 2000. You know, we were 5-11.

That didn't go so great. We knew we had to do something. It was just having the conviction to stay at six and taking Richard Seymour. Because there were teams, we had an opportunity to trade down, but it wasn't going to be for a player who was as good as Richard. And we said, no, hey, the thing we need to do is just stay where we are. If you got a, you know, a pick up, you know, in the top part of the first round, you earned that pick the hard

way. So you really want to get that right. We said, hey, take Richard. He can really be a difference maker for us on defense. And, you know, he was. Just, I will say, you asked me earlier, it's the same thing with, you know, the Patriots sitting at three taking Drake May. They took him to be the guy who's going to turn their team around. You know, so they obviously have a conviction, you know, that he can be that guy because, you know, that's your chance to get a top-quality player. And, you know, if he isn't, you know, that will have a negative impact on the franchise

for a number of years going forward. Yeah. Now, continuing with the fan questions. These are all fan questions. Fans loved when you talked about when you had to evaluate Peyton Manning. Who was another player you loved evaluating? You know, somebody who was really good. I mean, it's like, you know, going down,

even though we only played him, you know, once every four years, going to play the Dallas Cowboys against Zach Martin at right guard. Zach Martin, I thought he was the best offensive lineman in the league. So, you know, you know, we got to be pretty solid. What made him the best offensive lineman in the league? He did everything you want. You know, he's got the size, speed, bends knees, change direction, knock him off the ball, great pass protection. Pad level? Pad level. You know, use his hands. He did everything the way you want it done. So,

I mean, that's like, oh, okay, we better be, we better. And this is where having a guy like Vince made a difference because Vince was such a good defensive lineman. We'd say, you know what? We got a great player here. We just better put Vince in front of him. You want to try to neutralize somebody, put your best against their best. I mean, that's why you watch Vince.

Well, Vince, you see, he's a nose tackle. Well, there are times he's a defensive end. Hey, we need a great defensive end. We got a good player here. Put Vince over there. We look at guys, you know, like we talk about players having flexibility. It's not that Vince was a football player. We could put him any spot in the defensive line where we needed him,

and he'd play well. I mean, it's not that. Don't make it more complicated than it is. Get your best players in position to make the plays to win games for you. What about who? What's another player that you like? You got to hit an offensive lineman with Zach Martin with the Cowboys that we play once every four years.

You hit Peyton Manning, a quarterback. Another guy would be a guy we took in the second round because we really liked a lot. He just looked like a lot of the things he did well. Rob Gronkowski. Now, Rob, obviously, he had issues with his back. He didn't just go light it up for three years at the University of Arizona. But when he's on the field playing, now this guy,

he can knock him off the ball. He's a load. He's not a nifty player. He's a little bit like Mark Bavaro, who played tight end for us a long time ago. He's not, you know, nifty, but he's a straight ahead, knock them off the ball, catch the ball, you know, do everything else you want. And obviously, you know, that one worked out pretty well. You never saw Rob get caught from behind either. No. Rob was straight ahead, like I said, blocking, knock him off the ball.

He's a load going down the field. And always you saw him out there catching balls. Great hands. Great hands. You threw it in his neighborhood, you know he's going to catch it. Greatest tight end of all time? He's right there. In that short list where you're going to have that conversation, he's on it.

Who else is? The thing that distinguishes Rob is that he's the guy who probably is a combination. He can block like a tackle and catch like a big receiver there are other guys you know who you put you would play tight end maybe a little bit could be a little better route runners a little more receiving tight ends but you know none of them could block the way that rob would broke vandenbosch's neck ended his career it's still crazy to me vandenbosch was like the highest paid d-tac dn that year and i remember billy o'brien just getting on him all week don't let this guy be this guy

and we don't ever want to see a player get hurt by any means we're just trying to build the folklore of gronk of course uh it was terrible that he did that but he was a rookie van den bosch was one of the best most distinguished defensive ends in the national football league and this big old golden retriever laid him out that puppy bit that puppy bit as as parcel what was parcel saying if a puppy don't bite a dog won't bite yeah puppy don't bite dog won't bite just the timing real quick to kind of wrap up this kind of incredible player evaluation conversation, just because Jules won't ask you, what was the process like evaluating and then drafting Jules?

First of all, we thought this is a guy, obviously we're talking about being a projection. We were not going to, yeah, you were our emergency third quarterback, but we were, you know, realistically, we would get down there and pray we don't ever have to put Jules in a game of quarterbacking. Almost happened. Almost happened. But we thought, hey, there's a guy who's really athletic,

a lot of skills. We'd like to bring a great guy to have him in. Let's see what he can do. Because sometimes you get towards the end of the draft, you're going to have a pool of players. These are the guys that would be worthwhile signing as undrafted free agents. But if there's some guy you really want to make sure that you get, you don't have to go compete with

because that that undrafted free agent market as soon as the draft's over now that's the wild west i mean it's you know that's there's why because you have the you have eight teams wanting to go for the same player there's no real you know no real rules here who can sign them who can't has there ever been a case where a undrafted free agent got more than a draftee? Sure. Yeah, because when you draft a guy in the seventh round, you're slotted in there. And that's the reason you draft him in the seventh round. I want this guy.

I don't want to have to go compete with him. Let's just turn the card in and take him. And he has to come to our camp. Now, you only get, you know, you don't have 15 picks in the seventh round. You've got to be, hey, this is the guy. I've already, we're talking to his agent. He's got nine, you know, nine teams have said, wow, if you're not drafted, we really want to talk to you.

Well, that's kind of telling you that there's going to be competition here. So, you know, take the guy in the seventh round and lock him up as opposed to, you know, throw him right. Locked me up. Locked him up. I mean, you know, this, hey, this, but I will say this, my first draft, spring of 1976, there were 17 rounds, okay? That meant that all those guys

who now would be the undrafted free agents, you draft them in the 12th round, you draft them in the 13th round. Locking them up. Locking them up. And you say, well, wasn't that draft long? No, because those last five rounds, teams got a minute of a pick.

Minute of a pick. Speed pick minute a pick and that's a speed pick speed pick it's kind of like my fantasy we're dead so we had so the fantasy draft so fucking hard so i'm over here dialing jack hey you want to trade picks i'm over here on auto draft so so it was uh uh 1970 great patri, 1974 draft, 15th round, Chuck Fairbanks, they drew straws for who was going to get to make the pick. Hey, you guys been going out seeing all these guys? We'll see if you know what you're doing. Tom Boisture, my good friend Tom Boisture, he won.

Patriots drafted Sam Hunt from Sam Houston State. Ended up being one of the best inside linebackers the franchise ever had. But those are the same. Those rounds 7 to 17, well, that's who you were drafting. You were drafting the guys who in this day and age would be undrafted free agents. But there's guys who for whatever reason um you know teams miss on circumstances he was injured in college didn't get to play was playing in a system where he was out of place i mean we drafted uh one of the best for patriots draft choices was stanley morgan 1977 first round wide receiver, who is today still, I believe still,

the all-time National Football League leader yards per catch. Guys who have over 300 catches. You know, Stanley, you know, he's like 20 yards a catch. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, in any day and age, that's pretty good. Stanley, senior year at University of Tennessee, he was a halfback in the wishbone. It was a little bit like you being, you know,

we weren't drafting him to play wishbone halfback, but he showed everything that we wanted for a receiver. So we took him, and he had to transition that rookie year. I remember in training camp, I heard coaches I respected saying, why did we draft this guy? He don't look like a receiver. Well, he's just learning how to play. Now, by the end of the season, going down playing the Atlanta Falcons,

he made a couple plays to win the game for us. He just needed some time to get some reps to learn some of the game for us yeah he just needed some time you know to get some reps to you know to learn you know some of the details for the position so i mean you always got to remember in this draft thing you're drafting human beings they're unpredictable you don't know for sure how it's going to work out you know you use your experience and judgment and do the best you can man stanley morgan great punt returner as well. Great punt returner. Yeah. So out there, we had, and you talk about this, the team we had, we had Mike Haynes, Hall of Fame. Now, he could return a bunch.

We had Stanley Morgan, and we had this kid we took late in the draft, Dave Preston. We were so loaded, we didn't take him. He goes out and has a great career as a Denver Bronco. I mean, I think he's still, you know, he might still, Dave might still be doing, like, radio for the Broncos, were so loaded we didn't take he goes out and has a great career as a denver bronco yeah i mean i think he's still you know he he might still dave might still be doing like radio for the broncos but he had a great career so we go up to play green bay in a pre-season game mike haynes takes a punt back for a touchdown stanley morgan takes a punt back for a touchdown dave preston like gets

caught at the five yard they trip him up by his ankle. Jeez. Yeah. Who's the special team coordinator on those teams? Jeez. Well. Looking for a job. A special teams coach was, if you really show how you're a Patriots fan, was Tom Usyk, was the backup quarterback and punter for the Patriots

back in the early 60s. And, of course, our whole staff at the Patriots with Chuck Fairbanks, they all played together at Michigan State. Of course. There's levels to it. So we go down and we're playing my first year at the Patriots. We're going down to play

the Dolphins on a Monday night. And Bob Greasy, he's heard of some. He isn't playing the game. So Earl Morrill is going to be the starting quarterback for the Dolphins. And Earl Morrill was the quarterback on that Michigan State team. And all our coaches were his teammates. So it's hysterical. He's warming up for the game.

And he's, hey, Chuck, hey, Hank. You know, he's talking to all his old college teammates. Is that where it was developed to, look, guys, we don't need to be having a fucking powwow before the game with the other team. Yeah. Remember that? Always. That was a rule.

We couldn't, you know, you didn't want to. If you could say hi. But that was it. That was it. We're about to fucking line up against this guy and try to take his soul. Yep. No. All right, last fan question.

People are so curious what your day-to-day schedule was. Everyone, that's all they ask about. What was his day-to-day schedule during the regular season? So when I started at the Patriots in 2000, my job description was really simple. Do whatever I thought would help us win. So if I thought there was something particular this week, hey, we really need to focus on this and we got to get it fixed,

that's where I would put my attention. But basically it's come early, stay late, and work on football. So what does that mean in day-to-day routine? It is come in, watch film, get ready to go out to practice, maybe do the cards for practice. But if there was somebody in the middle of this, hey, there's somebody, it's the trade deadline, there's somebody coming up here,

he might be available for a trade, see what you think. I could get on that for a couple hours. This is priority. The trade deadline is tomorrow. It's not going to do any good to look at them next week. You know, you got, sometimes things that come up on, you know, that we'd have to, you know, jump on fast. Just on the fly.

Just the total. 65 game cut-ups of them. Right. You know, and that's. Who is your, did you have someone that worked under you that gave you information? Like, who was your bears? Or who was your, like, did you have an Ernie?

You know, I always felt like. Like, there's got to be some information that you're like, yeah, where did this guy? Well, so like if I wanted to, you know, like the video guys. The most? Well. Jimmy D? Jimmy D? Jimmy D, Teddy, Jared.

Hey, I need a cut up on this guy like I need it in five minutes. Put these 20 plays together. They would get it done. No Googler? Did you ever hit a Google search on like, what was this guy's grade point average in college? Or was that all in the scouting reports? Yeah, yeah.

That was mostly in the scouting reports. I mean, that's why when we interviewed guys at the combine, I always wanted to know, you know, what's your GPA? Well, you know, particularly on a quarterback, I wanted to know, you know, are you capable of doing something hard? Because you come in as a a quarterback, I wanted to know, are you capable of doing something hard? Because you come in as a rookie quarterback, you're going to have to sit down and study and absorb a lot of information. I was going, are you capable of doing that? I don't really care.

But it did make a difference. Are you capable of trying to absorb complex information? Thank God we skipped that out with old Brady because I think he had like a 1.26 GPA. I'm joking. I don't think so. So you're basically telling us there wasn't an average day for Ernie Adams. Well, a lot of us come in.

I watch film during the season. Is there something we need? If Bill would say, hey, I want to make sure. Like Bill and I kind of did our plan together. So if we want to make sure that we've got something, that we're right on something, Bill and I might talk about it. What defensive fronts do we want to play this week? Do we really need to get something straightened out? I would make sure that I had studied so that we could talk,

so that Bill could go and talk to the – I mean, he might want to go talk to the coaches about something or talk to a particular player. This is really important for us to win the game this week. No average day, guys. So there's no average day. We're shooting from hip. This is really important for us to win the game this week. No average day, guys. There's no average day. We're shooting from hip.

We're shooting from thoughts. We're bringing books out that we have prepared on every team. I mean, it may look the same. Are they different colors for each team, or are they all the red? I'm not going to put the Colts in red. I mean, listen, maybe if I don't happen to have a blue binder, you know, I got, you know, but I'll put them in red, but I'll get a blue binder and get them in the right color.

So when I've got them on the shelf, I don't pull down a blue one thinking I'm getting the Chiefs. I mean, what are we doing? Martreuse. We got to get a Martreuse colored. Is it Martreuse? Mattress. Mattress. Mattreuse. What is it? Martreuse. We got to get a Martreuse colored. Is it Martreuse? Mattress. Mattress. Mattreuse.

What is it? Yeah, I'm not. Red. Red. We'll be right back after this quick break. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

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And I'd like to tell you about them. I'm Aaron Manke, and for the past six years, I've been sharing the most curious tales in history with millions of listeners around the world on my hit podcast, Cabinet of Curiosities. With well over 120 million downloads to date, listeners have been fascinated by such tales as the surprising country that invented the croissant, the stowaway turned hero who helped capture a Nazi spy, and the wrestling champ who went on to win the White

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A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church,

and then a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's go back around July 20th, 2019. We have an Ernie edition of The Throwback. Okay. We already did it with Rob Riggles. Riggle.

Riggle. There's just one of them. Sorry, Rob. I love you, man. I love you. But we're going to do Ernie edition, or Ernie version. The number one book was Versus for the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Did you read that

book in 2019? I have not read it. No? Around this time, the notable Nobel Peace Prize winners. Just prize winner. Prize winner. M. Stanley Whittingham for the development of lithium-ion batteries. Important. Important these days.

You ever read up on him? I've probably just read briefly, but I would not want to sit here and discuss his biography with you. Lithium batteries are important, but aren't they pretty bad for the environment, Ernie? As a world, we've done a lot of things that not get us going in the right direction. I mean, we're sitting here in the back bay of Boston, you know,

where the floods again. I mean, that's, you know, where we're sitting right now, you know, 400 years ago was water. I mean, this was the major construction project in Boston, you know, in the 1800s, filling this in so that we can sit here. I've read that everywhere it's flat in Boston is landfill. Is landfill. That's basically correct. Crazy. I mean, from Beacon Hill out to, you know, Brooklyn to where I live, there was like one little peninsula, you know, one little narrow peninsula. And people said, wait a minute, this is crazy.

We want to live here. So they tracked in trainload after trainload of gravel from western Massachusetts in just for 30 years and just filled, filled, filled. And that's when they call it the Back Bay. They're not kidding. This was a bay. Oh, yeah. I saw a map once.

Hopefully it doesn't flood um the s&p on this day s&p 500 raises on a strong earnings closing out the best january since 1987 dow was up seven percent that portfolio was looking good this day arn You know, as a long-term investor, some months it's up, some days it's down. Over a long period of time, you hope it's way up. Yes. Compounding interest. That's how you get it, right?

That's a critical concept. Critical. Can I get a critical tip on how to make millions of dollars in the stock market? Number one is be patient. Be patient. And buy GameStop. I'll leave that to, you know, if you buy a stock,

do you actually know this well enough? Would you buy the whole stock? Would you buy the whole company? Yep. If you don't know, if you can't say for sure, hey, I would buy the whole company at this price, why are you buying

the stock? Would you buy the whole company of, what's the AI company Navita? What is it? The AI company. You know, I don't know enough about it to give you an honest answer. It's a true question. I mean, that's...

It's a true question. I think AI is you. I don't think so. In the sports world in 2018, 2019, we won the Super Bowl. MVP of the NFL season, regular season, was Patrick Mahomes. NCAA champs was Clemson. Kyler Murray was the Heisman Trophy winner. It was the first season without Ed Hockley jacked since 1990.

Do you remember Ed? I remember Ed, and I would not have remembered that this was the first NFL season. What was the scouting you remember Ed? I remember Ed and I would not have remembered that this was the first NFL season. What was the scouting report on Ed? Don't mess with him. We used to have the scouting reports on the refs.

Do business as business is being done. I always let them play refs and the ones who are going to throw flags all know, the let them play refs and the ones who are going to throw flags all over the place. The principal refs. Rams versus the Saints. This was the crazy pass interference call that wasn't called.

The non-pass interference call. And then they put in the challenge of the pass interference the next year, which was, how was that? That would be horrendous. Remember, what was the operation on doing those? What they put in was the coaches had a lot more, which I was totally in favor of. You know, why after this game to have the league office say we blew the call?

What good does that do? You blew the call, probably cost the Saints a trip. Realistically, it probably cost the Saints a trip to the Super Bowl. So why not let the coach challenge it? I understand it's pass interference. I understand it's judgment. This was flagrant. I mean, the calls you want to be able to challenge

are the ones that are cut and dried. They're easy. You know, and I was the one, you know, I had to do the challenges during the game. The harder I have to look, the less likely we're going to get the call. I mean, if you see the ball, they said he caught it and it bounced off the ground.

It bounced off the ground. Like happened in this, we got a successful challenge. It was not a hard call. They said Watkins caught it. Well, no he didn't. The ball hit the ground. But if you have some efficiency, everybody in the world could see it's pass interference. Let the coach challenge it.

I mean, if the coach is wrong, he's going to lose a challenge and lose a timeout. But the whole reason you've got coaches' challenges in the first place is to try to get it right. Let the referee, the guys in the league office in New York, they study this stuff all the time. If they don't agree, fine. But at least as a coach, you've got a chance to throw the red flag out there

and try to get it right. So is there one challenge in your career that you still to this day think that got over, that we didn't get, that you think the league messed up on? Yeah, there were a few that, you know, it's. Which one? Ah, boy, no, that's. You don't work for a team you can't find. The Chiefs game in Foxborough.

The Kiel Harry. The Kiel Harry touchdown. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it looks. But some of this is, you know, it's camera angle. I mean, it was clear and obvious. It's not... And what... The standard that I always tried to force on myself was Al Riveron, who, of course,

was the head of officiating for Lackawanna City. Don't tell me what you think. Tell me what you saw. And that's the big... Don't tell me what you think. Tell me what you saw. Ernie, just a quick one there while we're on the subject of challenging.

Can you take us through the process of challenging a play when you were in New England? It was just you and Bill talking and coming to a decision? Yes. And really, so I had every coach's booth has a monitor, which is big screen, high definition, but it's the network feed of the games. I get, when you're a coach in the box, you get exactly what the fans get at home. There's no special

cameras. And first place, you always want to challenge plays that are significant. Like, I've seen coaches challenge a two-yard completion. Seriously, I don't care. You know, I don't care if the ball hits the receiver. You're still missing a challenge. Using a challenge. Right. I mean, you know, so, okay, it's two yards. They blew it.

Go on. Next play. You still lose a challenge. You lose it. Right. Right, right. So, you know, I want it to be, you to be like back in the day when it was now all turnovers get reviewed. In the first few number of years, that wasn't the case. So I remember I think we're playing the Jets.

It was Aaron Hernandez. He went down. He's got the ball. His forearm hits the ground, and the ball comes out. He's down by contact. And this is a turnovers are big. So those are the ones you want to challenge. Or the same playing the Jets.

And was it, I think it was Dion Branch. He's down. He's got the ball, his knee's on the ground, Jet guy comes up, you know, makes contact with him, the ball comes loose, well, you know, there's no situation. You know, he's down, contact occurs, you know, it's clear as day. It wasn't a stumble ball. So when there's an opportunity to potentially challenge, you said it's pretty much you and Coach Belichick.

Now, is that a very collaborative conversation, or is it more of a trust because you can see the cameras? Well, sometimes, you know, in an ideal world, he's got the, he can look at the jumbotron. In fact, some coaches who really had, you know, like I'm told, and I totally believe this, you know, when Mike Shanahan was at Denver, when he put his right hand up in the air, that's give me the replay on the jumbotron right now. And hopefully your organization's good enough.

The guy's running the jumbotron. No, you know, when the head coach puts his fist up in the air, get the jumbotron so that he can see it. And that's, you know, the ideal, you know, because obviously, but there are other times there's no. You're in a way game. They ain't showing that replay. They ain't showing it.

And actually the worst game was you get to the Super Bowl. Yeah, they got 72 cameras, but the network's got a whole other agenda. So you remember the week challenged in Super Bowl XLVI, the Mario Manningham catch. Yeah. So it's a big play. I know. I mean, as soon as it happens, I know.

This is a big decision right here. And the network, they're doing a promo for Little House on the Prairie or something. I mean, come on come and it hits me they're not going to show me the replay i would you know it's it's a big enough way it's obviously really tight i think we just got to go ahead and do this you know because the situation dictates now as soon as we see the replay, yeah, he caught it. But, you know, with 72 cameras here, they have priorities other than helping coaches make challenges. This is a little screwed up.

It is the Super Bowl, but, you know, that's the way that one worked. What's the most egregious missed call in NFL history that you think of? Well, the pass interference right here. I mean, it's fourth quarter. It's crunch time. Crunch time. In a championship game, that's by definition. I mean, the only one you'd have bigger is if you had this play in the Super Bowl.

That was crazy. Right. I mean, the New Orleans fans still think the NFL is rigged because of it. We'll toss it to Jackie. Hold on real quick. Because this was an NFC Championship game and you guys would eventually play the winner of that, were you scouting any of these teams ahead of time

or were you focusing entirely on the Chiefs? No, because the thing was you know that if you go to the Super Bowl, you're going to get two weeks. So I don't really have to, you know. If they came and told us, hey, we're doing the Super Bowl next week. Sorry, we're going to play a short week on a Thursday. You know, then, you know, we would adjust our schedule like we would do on a Thursday night game. We'd know three weeks ahead of time. It's a Thursday night game. So we're going to have to be up on that team. We're playing

Thursday because, you know, we're only going, you know – it's like what the coach – if we came in and won a game and had a Thursday night game coming up, what would Bill say to the team in the locker room? Hey, guys, you need to understand this is a Wednesday. Yeah. Monday's a Wednesday. Adjust your schedule. Adjust the schedule.

Well, we always say, hey, you tell us when the games are. We'll be there. It could be raining, snowing, sunny, moon. The moon could be out. It could be whatever. They'll tell us when to play. We're going to show up and be ready to play. But if it's a short week, you've got to adjust to it.

So the fact that we have two weeks going into the Super Bowl, I never worried about that game. I knew we was going to have plenty of time to get ready. Yeah. As opposed to, I think we talked last time about, you know, like I knew, you know, we're going to play, you know, got to be ready to play the Colson Division playoff in 2004. Yeah, I spent, you know, six weeks,

spent time every day getting ready for that. Just like these years, you're probably doing it for the Chiefs. Right. So you look ahead and you try to be smart about it. Yeah. Jackie, why don't you break down these games? Can we get one last challenge talk real quick? I have one more question.

Yes. What's the science behind Bill keeping the red flag in the sock? You know what? That's a good question for Bill. I think because he knows where it's going to be there. Because you get in, you're wearing wind pants. Oh, yeah. Because we played the game, if you remember, 2016.

We played the Rams at Gillette Stadium. And that was Jeff Fisher's last year as the head coach. He's digging. He can't find the – he can't find the – he wants to challenge a play, but he can't – with the parka, the pockets and all that, he can't find the flag. Scouting the other coaches. That's right.

I mean – Bobby Cat League, how do I make myself better? Yeah, you make sure you've got the flag right where you're going. Or you have somebody else with the flag. You stand right next to me, and you make sure you've got the flag. Got to have a flag guy. The best ability is availability, even for the flag. The more you can do.

The more you can do. Jackie. Love it. Set the stage for this AFC championship game. It's 2018 Chiefs. Let's talk about them real quick. A record of 12-4, started out hot 5-0. And the biggest storyline of this season, Patrick Mahomes' first season as a starter.

They ship Alex Smith out before the season. They get rid of Marcus Peters. They're still on a roll. And Patrick Mahomes' first season as a starter wins league MVP. Jesus. 50 touchdowns. 50 touchdowns. This is our sixth year under Andy Reid.

This is an Eric Biennemi coached offense. Bob Sutton was a D season. This is a pre-Spags. Guys, we love guy talk here. Some dudes, some notable names on this team. This is Kareem Hunt. This is Tyreek Hill. This is Travis Kelsey.

This is Sammy Watkins hunt this is tyree kill this is travis kelsey um this is uh sammy watkins this is kelvin benjamin on the other side of the ball you got justin houston d ford eric berry orlando skandrick i mean this is a uh it's a high-powered chiefs team and and this is before before they'd won the super bowl so uh this is this is still my home baby my homes but he's still showing us a ton. And like we mentioned earlier, that high-powered offense, 35 points a game. And, of course, because of all that, they were the number one seed, which is why we had to go play this game in Arrowhead. In Arrowhead.

I mean, it was, like I say, it was cold. And it's important to understand the difference between a championship game and the Super Bowl. In the Super Bowl, the way the tickets get divvied up. Yeah, so there will be a lot of people there from both teams. There'll be people there who just like football. But the championship game, it's a home game, you know, for one team. And the places, those fans know, hey, you know, this is a big game for us, so the place will be pumped up.

It's a totally different atmosphere. 100% agree. This was one of the most insane environments that I, I mean, Kansas City in general, we went and played them in 2014. They beat our ass on Monday Night Football. I mean, that place was electric. That place gets going. And to amplify it with an AFC championship, like you said,

they're all alcohol-fueled. And because it was the second game, they had the whole afternoon to do nothing. They got those dry rib rubs, Kansas City barbecue. It was crazy. Now, what do you think? I mean, and just to show you how crazy it was, you got the great barbecue places in Kansas City.

You got Gates's and you got Bryant's. And some people like, I think it's Jack Stack. But right on, I remember, you know, the team dining room, there's bottles of Bryant's barbecue sauce right on every table for breakfast. Yeah. So if you like ribs, it's the place. Are you scouting restaurants for away games listen if you're in

Kansas City I mean I love ribs yeah you know what the place is I'm a Gates guy but you know that's Ernie did order

ribs at Hillstones when we went to Hillstones for dinner those were good I'm still thinking about those deviled eggs what do you think

of what the Chiefs have accomplished since this game? It's been phenomenal. Listen, they were, you know, I mean, winning multiple Superbowls, you know,

being, and really, okay. They, they lost one to, uh, they lost one because their offensive line was crippled up. I mean,

they've, they've been, you know, for the last six years, they've been like we were go to the championship game every year, go to a bunch of Superbowls. I mean, they've been, you know, for the last six years, they've been like we were. Go to the championship game every year, go to a bunch of Super Bowls. I mean, I think it's a tremendous accomplishment. Can you draw any similarities between this run and our run? You know, just having, I mean, I'm not there,

but I know you've got to have, you know, mentally tough people who know how to play over that long NFL season and know how to show up and be there when it counts. The one thing that I always say when people ask me this, same question, is it's been really impressive to see how they've reinvented their team the last three times. You know what I mean? They've had to adjust and they you know people don't realize

how hard it is to sustain success with a salary cap with when you have to pay certain guys and you don't have enough money for other guys and being having having the the humility and being humble enough to change their team from being a high-flying team like they were in this year to a run defensive kind of team these last couple years. I mean, that's something that we always had to adjust to. We always adjusted our team to what we could put on the field. Yep. You know, so that's some of the stuff.

What makes Andy Reid such a good coach? You know, he's got a great system. He believes in it. Obviously knows how to teach it. I mean, he's been doing it now. Because remember, for him, before the Kansas City, there was Philadelphia. Yeah. And they went to, you know, they had the string there.

They went to several NFC championship games. And look, when you're in the Final Four and you lose a couple of people, you say, ah, they're not that good. I mean, forget it. Just to get to the championship game, you've got to be really good. There may be somebody who's just a little bit better and beats you, but that really shouldn't take away anything from what you do. Although, in the end, there's 32 teams in the NFL.

There's only one that gets to stand out there with that final trophy. So just because maybe, hey, you didn't quite get there, you still could be really good. You're just not quite good enough to win the championship. How are Andy Reid and Bill different? And how are they alike? You know, because it's, yeah, I've never worked with Andy. Bill I've known for 50 years,

so that's a little bit of a hard one for me to. I've heard that he practices hard. I heard that they practice really hard. You know, that's my impression. This is a team, when they come out for pregame warm-up, nobody's screwing around. They're getting after playing football. Yeah.

And you remember, particularly your younger days, I think we practiced hard. We practiced, yeah. I mean, we were in pads in camp. Two days, running in the morning, passing the game. I mean, that's classic NFL. That's why guys would have your offensive linemen. They'd have

on their seven stud grass cleats for the morning. They'd have on their turf shoes for the afternoon for pass protection. You know the old thing about the different games? Are you familiar with this? A little bit. Okay.

Croquet is a gentleman's game played by gentlemen. Soccer is a beastly game played by gentlemen. Rugby is a gentleman's game. Football is a beastly game played by beasts. Okay. I mean, it's, you know, it's a nasty game. If you want to learn how to play it, it's, you i mean it's you know that's this is it's a it's a you know it's a nasty game if you want to learn how to play it it's you know it's it's hard it's tough it's tough you better be willing to bleed eat some dirt take a tablespoon of cement at least back in the day

i don't know about now that's i'm joking but but it's you you know, and I don't really know any good teams that were soft. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just some teams maybe have tried, and there's just some of the teams, the players come and say, whoa, it wasn't like this the last time. I was like, well, great. How many championships did you win? Yeah.

Now, did you scout Mahomes coming out of Texas Tech? You know, we did not really, because this was at the stage, we said, there is zero possibility of us taking a quarterback in the first round. Yeah. But he was... But no, I wish I could say I'd studied more than I did. Have you seen his evolution from the early part of his career? What have you noticed? How has he evolved, if you've watched it?

Yeah. He started off really good, and he's gotten better. Sums it up. Being a good quarterback in the NFL, it's a high-wire act. There's no net. So, you know, you've got to be aggressive with the ball. But you've got to know at some point there's that fine line between being reckless, you know, being aggressive and being reckless.

I always remember when we would be playing against these teams, the game plan when you're playing against a Patrick Mahomes team. I just remember as an offensive guy, plaster, plaster. We got a plaster. What's the game plan? So the biggest thing. And what does plaster mean? Plaster means when the quarterback starts scrambling, you know,

you find the – Find a guy. Find a – if there's a guy open, go get on him. What made this team so dangerous was you got Mahomes and you got Tyreek Hill, who's, you know, the speed factor really changes things. So we got to be over the top on him. You know, the other guys are good, but we have to – you know, we have to take this guy away deep.

And that's why I say you always start off at the heart of it, what do we really need to do on defense here? So what did we do to do that? So we had safety over the top of them all day, which worked out, but that leaves other people one-on-one. I mean, we get it later in the game. They start hitting us with the backs on the wheels. They hit the big play to Hill when Mahomes scrambled.

And now you always premise your defense. We'll get a pass rush. We'll keep the quarterback contained. The ball's going to have to come out in about three seconds when the quarterback gets loose. And now he's got it up there five, six-second range. Things start to break down. Bad stuff happens.

Again, this is you get your plan, you practice it, and you do the best you can. Now, how come Travis Kelsey always seems wide open? Because he's, you know, you get, you know, number one, he's got other great players around him, so they can't just double up on him. He knows how to work when the quarterback's moving around. He can adjust with it. And he's got great tools for a receiver.

Yeah. And for this specific Kansas City team, the number one thing was we have to contain Hill. We can't let him have a big play. Stay over the top of him. Stay over the top, put Jay Jones, our fastest guy on him, put our other guys. Right.

So if he goes over to Watkins, you've got Steph, and there's a couple plays there in the second quarter. I mean, it's back-to-back plays. I mean, Steph just wires him at the line of scrimmage. So, yeah, you've got single coverage, but it's against Steph Gilmore, and the guy can't get off the line of scrimmage. And then, you know, stuff happens during the game.

They hit one big play on him because he kind of takes a sneak. You know, you're an old defensive back. You play in the AFC championship game. When it's man-to-man coverage, what's the most important thing? Keep your leverage. Keep your leverage and keep your focus on the receiver. And your receiver. Do not have your eyes in the background.

You stick your eyes back at the quarterback, it's over. And even as great a player as Steph is, got caught one time, he stuck a peek back, and, you know, it's going the wrong direction. So, I mean, this is, like I say, it's it's going the wrong direction so i mean this is like it's a messy game stuff happens uh you just keep going do the best you can make you try to make more plays for your team and their guys are making for their team yeah you have a plan and all that it doesn't always work out that way yeah i mean there's you always got to adjust as we know okay because the other team is doing exactly,

the other team's trying to counteract what you're doing. Adjust to the adjustments. Yeah. That's how, it's simple. Now, Jack, let's set the stage for the Patriots. Let's go through this Pat's roster. We touched on a lot of these guys, a lot of these guys earlier, and we know this roster inside and out.

This is an 11-5 season for the Patriots, coming off back-to-back Super Bowl appearance, their eighth AFC title appearance in a row. It's eighth straight. Eighth straight. Insane. Won the AFC East for the 10th straight year. This is Jules' first year back after the ACL tear.

Coming back, baby, coming back. This was also the season of the dreaded miracle in Miami game. Oh. Which we hate. We hate that. We hate that game. We do. Which proved to kind of be pivotal.

Why do we hate that game, Ernie? Because you shouldn't lose. I mean, you know, we lost the game because we played bad football. I mean, if you go out and play a good, solid game, the other team just beats you, okay, you beat us. If you go out and lose a game because you screwed it up that's bad we have changed the gronk being back there yeah yeah keep going and this was uh this was a little bit unique for a patriot season uh back-to-back double-digit losses there in week two and three uh you'll remember the the loss to

maddie p on monday night football when he was in detroit remember that one that was a bummer of a game too i was on a vacay i was on a oh yeah it was away Detroit. Remember that one? That was a bummer of a game, too. I was on a vacation. I was on a... Oh, yeah. I was away. Forget that. Forget that. But also, in this season,

this will kind of take us into the lead-up. There was a week six game at Gillette Stadium that saw 83 total points. 43-40. The Patriots beat the Chiefs. And this was like a week after the Rams, or maybe two weeks after. Remember the Rams played the Chiefs. And this was like a week after the Rams, or maybe two weeks after. Remember the Rams played the Chiefs?

That was actually, I think, a little later. Oh, was it later? Yeah. Where it was like 40, it was a lot. Yeah, it was like 54, if 48 or something. That game was something else, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that was week 11.

Good memory. 54-51 at the LA Memorial Coliseum, baby. What a game that was. Jared good memory 54 51 at the la memorial coliseum baby what a game that was jared golf yeah my home's a duel now how much did we pull from week six game because we beat the chiefs you all there's nothing like you know hey we've you get a sense well okay some things with our team just we should have done more of it we need to fix up uh you know there's nothing like you know like the opportunity to go play play you know it's like playing your division your division games you know those teams you know they know you well i mean you know the chiefs we played them in the opener in 2017 we played them in this game earlier in 2018. We had actually played them in a playoff game in 2016, I want to say.

So, I mean, even that was okay. That was with, you know, Prima Holmes. But, I mean, we knew, you know, I always kind of felt like this was a little bit like playing the Colts when Manning was there. It's a little bit like a division game for us. We know us. they know them. It's different than going and playing a game that truly the players we haven't played against,

coaches we haven't coached against, you know, like an NFC team. Yeah, you know, we play them early in the season and we get to pull certain situations from that game that we can incorporate into our game plan going forward. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job?

Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

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Now, can we explain situational football to the listener? We always talk about situational football, and everyone associates, oh, this team does situational football good all the time. What is situational football, Randy? So there are some, like, for instance, short yardage. We didn't do a good, this game we're going to look at against the Chiefs 2008, we did a bad job on offense. Well, what's short yardage?

Short yardage would be when you're a third, you're out in the field, it's third or fourth down, and you've got one yard to get the first down. One to two yards? One to two, although the way it's gone, that two yards, it's more like one to one and a half yards. Okay. Where that's, you know, normally if it's first and ten, you'd like to, you know, and you run the ball,

you'd really like to get four yards. You'd say, you know, you're not behind, because now it's second and six, now you can run a pass again. You know, on the third and one, you need one yard. If you get it, you get a new set of downs. If you don't get it, depending on where the ball is, you're probably going to have to punt.

So it's a very, you know, both teams are playing, you know, for that one yard. Whereas if it's first and 10. Is first and 10 a situation? No. Well, it is, but you're going to have 20. On an average game, if you're an offensive coordinator, you can expect to make 24 first and 10 calls during the game.

Now, what's the difference between a P10 and a first and 10? P and 10 is the first down of a series. So some teams will have, you can look at them, and some teams may go a little bit differently. So is that a different situation, P10 and first and 10? It can be a little bit different, but as opposed to, like I said, short yardage where both teams are playing for one yard. Or it can be critical.

It can be out in the field. It can be third and six inches. But it can be you know critical it can be out in the field it can be third and six inches but it can be you know a big uh now is that a third down situation or is that a short yardage short yardage yes it is third down but it's a it's a very specific subset of third down that's a short to short yardage so for the listener so the situation is every exact moment of the game. So short yardage being a third down situation, but third down situation could be broken up into three different situations. There's a third and short. There's a short yardage play.

Third and short being two to five or two to four. Two to four. And then you're going to end up with you always have to be ready. You know, third and unusual, third and 18 plus, you always have to be ready. Unusual, third and 18 plus, and you need a first down. That's just in third and long categories. Right, but you have to be ready if that comes up. I mean, sometimes it can be third and 18 and say, listen, let's just get eight yards here and punt.

We don't want to throw the ball. We don't want to take a big sack, have it be fourth or 30. But there's other third and 18s. We really need to try to pick this up. So that's why we would always try to have something in our bag of tricks for that third and 18. We've got to try to pick it up. So situational football.

And it can also have to do with the time situation late in the game. Situational football, it tends to come up most when you get under five minutes to go in the game, when the clock's a factor, the score's a factor, when everything kicks in. What is a situational football play that you prepared for or you had the team prepare for that you can remember and it came into the game, probably under a weird circumstance, and that we executed?

Well, I mean, the famous one, situational football, was down the goal line against the Seahawks. I mean, because they had, like all teams, they have some things they're good at, they like to run. They had, you know, the way they like to throw the ball down there, you know, that we worked at, you know, famously, Malcolm gets the interception, that we had worked on that route in practice.

Hey, this is the play they like to run down there, so what else are we going to work on? Now, how does situational football help you for that situation? Well, but being on the goal line. You know, goal line. I mean, when they get the ball inside your two-yard line, they get two yards, they get six points. How did we get a tell on this specific situation

through the preparation? Because we had, you know, going through, I had my Seahawks book. Was it green? On green? Dark color, whatever. But getting ready to play, you know, specifically that Friday practice, you know, before the Super Bowl, what are they like?

I got four plays on the goal line. What do they like to run? Well, they got a couple routes. They obviously really like having the outside receiver come on an under route. It would be irresponsibly not to show that to the team because they've run this multiple times. Now, was there a specific thing that the defense did so like in that specific play in the Seahawks we we kept in well we wouldn't we that's we were in

goal line three corners so the interior part of the defense was in a goal line front so everybody said why did they just hand the ball off to uh Marsha Lynch. To Marshawn Lynch. Well, because we had a goal line front in there. They were an 11 personnel, which means there was going to be somebody unblocked, which famously happened when we played in 2003, regular season against the Colts, similar situation. We were in a goal line front. They hand the ball off to Edger and James.

William McGinnis was unblocked off the edge. And guess what happened? He hit him three yards in the backfield, and the game was over. So that's what we tried to do. We tried to have a goal line front to stop the run and then have corners against their wide receivers. We didn't have linebackers matched up trying to cover their wide receivers. So that's –

So that's why they checked into that play. That's why, really. The fact that they were an 11 personnel, they had three wide receivers in the game, and we had a goal line front end, there really was no run and play they could call where they could block us. I mean, yeah, they could try to hand off, and maybe Marshawn Lynch would have broken a tackle three yards

in the backfield to run for a touchdown. But if you're coaching the game, they kind of knew, because of the way that matched up, they kind of knew they had to throw it. I mean, that's the thing about when you're spread out, the defense kind of dictates to you if it's going to be a run or pass. If they come up and pack the line of scrimmage, you really can't run. But, you know, you've got one-on-ones with your receivers so that's an example of studying the situation of short yardage goal line and then taking a situation that was from 2003 remembering that having it logged in the back of your brain

that hey we gave this same look to a 11-personnel group team with the Colts, went back three yards, dictated Seattle into changing. Well, I don't know if they remember, but I mean. But for you guys, you guys played this situation out. I mean, it was a huge, you know, it was that 03 regular season. We got a big lead on the Colts. They came back. It came down to one play. I mean, they're either going to score a touchdown or win,

or we're going to stop them. They spread out they hand the ball off and of course what's you know famous well on my mind you know because i respect them so much but after the game peyton manning is on both knees with his hands looking up like this and you know we're running around because we just made a big play but i mean that's the uh it hey, it's one play, game's on the line, having the right thing called. So the situational football forced him to throw in this situation. It sort of dictated – it dictated a pass. Dictated a pass.

And that's what, folks, that's situational football. Breaking down – it's the game within the game. Game within the game, right. Or, you know, it's being – particularly the game. Game within the game, right. Or, you know, it's being, particularly at the end of games, when, you know, every play really counts. You know, you can win or lose the game on one play. The clock's a factor.

You know, you have to really figure in everything. Which for a player is huge because, you know, on a Friday practice or a Monday or a Saturday travel day walkthrough, you go through five, six situations and you're over here and we've practiced them a bunch and you get like, all right, we've gone over this situation so many times. But then when it comes down to, like in Ernie's point, the last four or five minutes of the game, we get into these situations, we were never surprised.

Other teams would be surprised when they got into the situation, which leaves you in jeopardy of not honing down your task and doing your job for that specific play. Right. And, you know, it's going fast. I mean, you may have gotten hit three plays ago on your arm. You may think you got a broken arm. So there's a lot of stuff going on. As a coach, you just hope you've done enough of the preparation so that enough of it comes back,

that your team can pull it off and do it when it counts. And that's situational football. Now, we're going to jump into this Chiefs game. Yep. And when we were doing our prep call with Ernie, he wanted to get into a deep dive. He's like, I want to deep dive into some plays. Like, all right, Ernie, we can do some plays.

Why don't you send over the plays? Ernie sent over about how many? 30. 30 plays that he wanted to go over deep down. I said, Ernie, we'd be here for four hours. We'll show that. Those are all the plays he wanted to go over. And we said, hey, Ernie, how about five plays?

So that's what we are going to do. Why did you pick these plays? What plays are they? Well, let's dive into it. Because I thought, okay, so there's a bunch of, you know, obviously there's going to be a bunch of plays we can't cover, but let's do plays where there's something interesting on every play, something that we can really talk about. Maybe the fans don't really see, like for instance, I got one, you know, because I really like the way our offensive line executed on a screen pass. So what play is this?

Let's jump into it. Well, let's see. Okay, so we're late. This is, I think, right at the end of the first half, like 51 seconds left. This first one is two minutes and 25 seconds up to the first quarter. So we have to start.

We have to. Okay, we all agreed we have to start with this. We got Cordell Patterson running, you know, whatever we call it, the jet sweep. Jet sweep. Jet sweep. So the down in distance is second and nine. Yeah.

The ball is on Kansas City's 33-yard line. The situation pats up 7-0. And, of course, the reason that we've got to start with this, Jules, is because on this play, you've got to come in and crack on the middle linebacker. Got to crack on the middle linebacker. Okay, which is like, you know, this is how many times, in an average season, how many times do you crack on a middle linebacker? I would say maybe two, depending on a game plan.

It's a game plan. So this is a little bit of an advantage receiver because you got the element of surprise because those linebackers don't really come out looking, hey, where's that receiver going to crack me? Now, if you've done it once in a game, you're not going to get away with it a second time in a game because they will be looking for it.

The first time, you got a little bit of the element of surprise. So we have the element of surprise. Second and nine. This is one of the plays, one of the element of surprise here. So we have the element of surprise. Second and nine. This is one of the plays, one of the five most important plays. This is one of the five interesting plays. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting.

You tell me when you're ready to move on. We can go on. So this is like a trips right, twins. What is trips right? We're in empty here. Empty. We're going to motion back in the backfield. We'll end up basically in a bunch ride.

We create the formation. So explain why this is an impressive play. Well, it's because you come in and, you know, the biggest thing is, first of all, you get CP. You give him a chance to do what he does best, which is get the ball in his hands and try to get out on the edge. And then we get him a little bit because we're cracking on the linebacker. Element of surprise.

Element of surprise. And I always look, you can run offensive football, you can run with power, you can run with speed, and you can try to have a play with deception. Here we've got, no question, speed with a little bit of deception mixed in. And power. Well, power, but power plays when you're really going right at it. We came out in this game running the ball right at them.

We were playing the game with some power coming right off the start. I felt like we controlled the game in the box. We absolutely controlled the game in the box, controlled the tempo of the game, and we kept their offense off the field. And because of plays like this where we would be in a regular, you know, 12-personnel group and we'd run a power or we'd give it to Rex and I'd have a traditional go get the safety force. It was the deception with the…

Come on, you're starting off here in empty. Empty. Well, in empty, realistically, we're not going to just snap the ball to the top and have a quarterback run. They know it's not going to happen. When you're in empty, they know you're throwing. Yeah. So they're geared for the pass.

We motion back in and hand the ball off quick. And boom, there we go. Execution. That's awesome. Here you are, Jules, on the right there. On the right, me and Rob. Back on the sideline. Second and nine.

Speed motion. Hidden. And I will guarantee you that that linebacker, when you came in, it was a whiskey tango foxtrot, right? A whiskey tango foxtrot. But he was not expecting that. And you walled him off and took him out of the play. It was also really – run that back. Play it.

Really good job by Gronk taking two. Taking two. And you got him. Just being big. And so you get CP who's got – I mean, he's got some jets when he gets the ball in his hands. You get you sealing the back of Rob. I mean, that's why the play worked. Yeah, that was a great play.

And it set up, I mean, I think we went on, what did we do in this drive? I think this is the drive where we ended up going down and throwing the interception on the play. Play action pass on the goal line. This play went for 15 yards. But we were driving the ball up and down. We were in control here, but we get down there. We're ahead 7-0.

We got the ball on the goal line. You're like, hey, we're going to go 14-0 here. Yeah. They get paid, too. Like Lee Corso says, not so fast. Not so fast. Anything else from this play, Ern? That was really the, like I said, there's no way I'm not,

great shot of you coming in and blocking a backer. There's no way we weren't starting with that. I love it. Love it. Yes. Love it. And, in fact, Christine watched this game with me. She said, you got to put that play in there.

Thanks, Mrs. Adams. All right. Pivotal play number two. 5-35. Second quarter. Down in distance, first and ten. Ball on the Kansas City 35-yard line. New England is

up 7-0. What do we got here, Earn? Play two. You know, this is, like I say, the big thing here. This is a Kansas City play. This is a Kansas City play. We got, you know, we got your hill double. We got somebody over the top of him.

It doesn't quite work out the way we want it here. This is a great route by Tyreek Hill. Not only is he fast, but he comes in, brings about almost into the hash mark, takes it back out on a deep, deep flag route. Mahomes breaks loose, and this is, you know, they hit him for about 50 yards here. And they called it the Helen Keller audible call. You know what?

I know they have... We had some plays we had names for. Yeah, everyone tells everyone what to do. Right. An NASCAR play. It's an NASCAR play. We had Wolf, Jaguar, Jordan. We had Air Force One.

I mean, you know, so they got, I know they got Helen Keller. I mean, I think they had this year, they had something they called Tom and Jerry. I mean, it's... What else? You studied those, didn't you? Yeah, sometimes. But I will tell you this.

Like, for instance, I know, you know, you get on TV, sometimes you can hear the quarterback play. Well, a good quarterback will go watch the TV tape, and when there's something that was obvious, hey, I called something during the game, and it might be distinctive, it'll be changed for next week. They'll change

it. So like I said, they had the Chiefs this past year. I mean, they had a Tom and Jerry. It made sense to their offense. And if you're on the other team, you have no idea. So just play. Some quarterbacks might change it. Others might name their production company after it.

Omaha. Well, right. But that one, yeah, yeah. Right. So they use the fake speed sweep. They have a deep V route, the deep V route by Tyreek Hill, which is you run directly at that safety until he makes it or declares where he's going to go.

And then once he does that, he's going to hit it to the flag route. Patrick Mahomes, with his second play, gets loose and is able to hit Mahomes. This is how they get 50 yards in a chunk. Great players making a great play. What could have we done better to contain this? Well, number one, you never want Mahomes running around loose with the ball because that's just adding. If you've got him contained,

he's basically going to have three seconds to throw it, which gives your coverage guys a chance. When he gets loose, now he's got six or seven seconds, and that's all that extra time for the receivers to get open. I mean, bad stuff's going to happen to you on defense when you let him get up. And we had one of the plays, which I don't think we have on the list, where he's got a third down on about our 30-yard line. We get the pressure on him, and we get the sack,

which not only a sack, it took them out of field goal range. So they got to kick it. So, I mean, it's keeping him bottled up. It's every defense, like offense, it's a team proposition. You got to keep him contained, keep the coverage, limit the time he has to throw the ball, and that's what gives you a chance. When things break down, he starts running around. Unpredictable.

The chances of something bad happening for the defense and a big play for the offense go up tremendously. So the man of integrity of football, Ernie Adams picks one for the Patriots and his second good plays for the Chiefs. I'm trying to be the objective.

Our fans might like to see. You described the V route that he's going to run. How does the receiver get open deep? Well, this is – we're going to see. Let's see it. Let's see it. Put it on.

So if you watch Tyreek Hill right here, and this is podcast version, but he's got the speed to outside release and then attack the safety and manipulate the coverage thinking he's going to go out. But once he starts going in. I think you get a good shot of this actually coming from the end zone. Watch. See, he attacks the safety. You can't see the safety.

But with the. Devin. Well, the fact he's coming in. He freezes Devin. Yeah. So when he breaks out, all he's got in front of his green grass and Keon probably should have kept the outside leverage well the big yeah but it's uh when you the other thing is dealing with that kind of speed he's got there it's that's where for, when they beat San Francisco in the Super Bowl,

their first Super Bowl win, big play in the game was a little different but sort of similar, the flag route to Hill. It's like all those other players are playing in fourth gear and Hill's playing in sixth gear. Yeah. I mean, that's where, whoo, watches were by me. It's like those guys were flying, you know, the famous United States fighter plane in World War II was the P-51.

And, you know, the Mustang was a great plane. And the first time they're in combat and they ever saw, you know, the Germans had, you know, the jet. Whoo, watches went by me i mean that's you know the world just changed when something just went by you that fast and that was tyreek hill that was tyreek hill yeah it's great execution i mean that's also that's one in a generation type route there's only like three people in the history of the league that can run a route like that where you can outside release and then get back into the middle of the field to then open up

the outside fly. And that's why this guy was such a dominant player for them. We got to double him every play because he's that dangerous. He can do this stuff. If you don't have somebody over the top, they're going to rain touchdowns over

your head. So you can live with eight 15-yarders, but this guy can get 50 in one. Right. And you may not – not to say you like giving up 15-yard plays to Travis Kelsey, but it's better than giving up a touchdown. Yeah. All right, let's go to the next one. Pivotal play number three, or play that we want to discuss, number three, Ernie addition.

Down in distance is first and 10. It's 51 seconds in the second quarter. This is a huge situational alert end of half play. The ball is on New England's 32. Pats are up 7-0. Ernie's note, good shot at our offense of executing a screen pass. Let's show what the O-line does on the screen pass. And so this is, you know, it's the first and 10 here.

You know, you've got time. It's the end of the first half. This is not desperation. We have to score a touchdown. This is at a minimum, though. We want to get in position where Steve can kick a field goal for us. So is this a situational, going back to situational football? Well, remember, we always work the two-minute drive,

but there's a difference two minutes at the end of a half, two minutes at the end of a game. I mean, if it's the end of a game and you need a touchdown to win it, you got to go. You're going to be aggressive. You're going to take some chances because it's right now, do or die. If we don't do it, the game is over. End of the first half, it's very different. We would like to go down and score, but we got a half a football to go. What we don't want to do is give the ball back to them. With time. With time.

So you're so different. Now, the big thing before we get into this, so we've got, and so this is how, we always want to get the two-minute drive started. Got to get it started. Started, right? Chunk play, get it started. So here we're going with the screen,

and the big thing, this is a great job by our linemen because offensive linemen on a screen, a little bit like everybody else, they've got to have a sense of the coverage. Okay? We have what we call man coverage. You have a cover linebacker. So there's going to be a linebacker fairly close to the line of scrimmage who's man to man on your back, and you've got to get him blocked. You've got to know that I may get man coverage.

That's the cover linebacker. We've got to get him blocked. If they drop off and play zone, it's easy. So always for an offensive line, thinking, number one, I've got to cover linebacker, man-to-man. I've got to get him. If they zone, we react to it. So right here, we've got a situation

where they've got man coverage on our back. Let's watch it. So we got man coverage on our back. See right there. So in this case, it's Sorenson. And you can see him. He's coming up to make the play. And Shaq, he's's right there Shaq seeks just enough of him to get the screen started and because it's man it's right here here comes so it's up for the back right there that block that's and now everybody else is man coverage so you know the other defensive players are run off and that's what that's what allows James to get going upfield and that's but that's the it's all the work that Scar would do with the offensive line on screens, seeing what the defense is doing and knowing,

when I got a linebacker right here, I got to get him right now. People think that's easy. Well, you're talking about being out in space on a smaller, more athletic guy. It is not easy. But the biggest thing you got to do as a lineman, you've got to anticipate the situation before the play starts. It's not, oh, gee, what could happen here?

No, it's, I've got to look for the cover linebacker. So you have to be able to recognize, as an offensive lineman, kind of the coverage. Right. You don't necessarily know what the safety is doing, but you have to recognize this linebacker's man the man on my back he's going to be on him quick and i got to get him right now and that was the number one thing that whenever we were installing our screens the number one thing is you have to get it started there's always you know maybe a lineman comes up

and he's doesn't bite on it one of the offensive linemen were assigned, well, you got to get it started. And the other thing on a screen as an offense, you've got to be an actor. The offense has to be actors on a screen. You've got to make the defense think, hey, this is just a regular pass. I got to get the ball rushing upfield.

You want to get the lineman rushing by you. You let them go. And then you're out in the screen wall so this is uh you know what's old time coaches would say you know their screens and draws labeled together they call them the deceptives the deceptives okay you got to be actors we'd always on double moves or stuff like this i I'd always hear Brady give a reminder. Pacino! Pacino! You've got to be a good actor. You've got to be a good actor. There you go.

Awesome. And just to clarify this situation, this led to the Philip Dorsett touchdown. Patriots go up 14-0 at the half. But this is the start of the two-minute drive. Without getting this going, we're not going to hit Dorsett on the out and up. 100%. Amen.

Amen. I mean, this is, you know, whenever we would go into a two-minute situation install, there were three keys. One of the keys was you have to get it started. The other one was you always had to get a chunk play, chunk play being 25 yards or something, or a 15-yard run. And the third one was always try to come out with some points. Those were the three main things.

Those were the keys of the play. You had to get it started. You don't want to start the drive off with a slapdick throw. You throw it inbounds. The guy gets tackled in bounds you have to waste a time out and this goes back into the situational football category of what we were taught throughout the week throughout the installs for us to be prepared for this specific situation right and you know and the other thing over particularly end of the game when the game is really on the line,

you got to play your best football right there when the clock's against you, you're tired, you got to play your best football. You got to. Next play. Minute 33 in the third quarter. The down in distance is third and two. Ball is on the Kansas City 44-yard line.

The Pats are up 17-7. Kansas City's ball. What do we got, Earn? So to me, this is where this game, and here we are, late third quarter, kind of everything's under control, and this is the play where all hell started to break loose. Okay, because what we've got here, we've got a blitz coming. Mahomes, he's got an unblocked, he's got Claiborne unblocked. Defensive lineman coming right in his face. No panic with the football. Makes an incredible throw.

Kind of threw it under Claiborne. I mean, how did you do that? I remember during the game, I went, how the hell did he do that? Kind of threw it under Clay. I mean, how did you do that? I remember during the game, I'm like, how the hell did he do that? Kind of threw it under Clay Boards for completion. That got them going. Then they come back. You hit the wheel down the sidelines. And this is where it went from being kind of a control football

to being NBA basketball. Everybody started running up and down the field, making plays all over the place. And it started right here. So this was the momentum changer. Right, because, okay, let's just take a look here. It's third and two. The Chiefs got the ball in their own territory.

Well, let's just say Mahomes, he can't make the completion, has to throw it away. Now it's going to be fourth and two. Now they got a big decision to make. Are they going to go for it here in their own territory, or are they going to punt it to us? So this is kind of like the little Dutchman when he puts his finger in the levee.

And then another hole breaks. You think he detected it? So you can see, it's freezing right there. So you can see right here, look at those defensive backs. I mean, you can see. We might as well be holding up a sign. Hey, we're blitzing. Okay, it's man coverage straight across the board.

This is classic blitz look for a quarterback. Arm angle. Arm angle. Arm angle. I mean, this is like a submarine. And that's a 300-pound guy coming at you unblocked. Right. Who's aiming right for the middle of your chest to still get that ball off. Nope.

He knows he's going to get the crap knocked out of him too. Just stand in there, make the throw, be ready. Patrick Mahomes. Get in the huddle, run the next play. I mean, that's about as big. You talk about a tough guy playing quarterback. I mean, you're just going to stand there. You're going to get killed, but you've got to make the completion.

That's the play that you can't evaluate when you're looking at an NFL quarterback coming out, throwing in T-shirts, throwing in shorts, watching him play against Louisiana Lafayette Tech School of the South. You know, I mean, that's what you can't evaluate. And I'm going to be – so now, you know, I'm not working for any team. I'm going to tell you, that's the play right there. If you remember, if you watched the Patriots last season, similar kind of situations happens to Mac Jones at that game over in Germany.

He's got the guy coming up, and he panics with the ball and throws a terrible interception. I mean, and that's, you know, that's the difference right there. He panicked with the ball and throws a terrible interception. I mean, that's the difference right there. He panics with the football. And, you know, the quarterbacks, like he knew he was hot. He knew there was an unblocked guy. But it's about being able to execute in the situation. Because if you can do it once, the team's not going to blitz you again.

But if you do a Mac Jones throw, you're getting it all night. Yep. You're getting it all night. Right. And you're, you know, exactly. You're going to get hit. Or any other rookie or any other quarterback. It's not just Mac Jones.

I don't want everyone, oh, way back. And they play. So, I mean, this past year, they're playing, you know, the Chiefs are playing the divisional playoff game against the Dolphins. And the Dolphins, they came after them. And there was guys coming free all night. And they just stand in there and make the throw. Yeah.

I mean, it's... And the pivotal plays. So now it goes from being, you know, a third and two on their side of the field. Now they're first and ten, first and ten on our end, and they can open up to hit a wheel. But I say this was really, okay. So this is the OT.

We're going to have a chunk of plays in these last ones. Pivotal plays, situations, or plays in depth for the viewer. In overtime, we have the first play, first in... And just to set the scene here, these are third nines where if we don't pick this up, we kind of got a punt. And now not only does Mahomes have the ball, but we've had our possession. So they can win with a field goal. So these are big. So these are like, you know, everything, this is truly everything's on the line here. It's not like third down in the middle of the first quarter,

you punt it, okay, keep playing. This is like, we always talked about gotta have it. This defines, I gotta have it. We either get you know, I got to have it. We either get this or the whole complexion of the game just changes, you know, instantly. For the listener, got to have it is an actual situation where, you know, this is a got to have it situation. It usually comes down to a play where it's going to influence the whole game. It could be a four-point play, which is a third down in the red area. That's a got-to-have-it play, or a fourth down

where you need to get games on the line. That's got-to-have-it. And so you would study got-to-have-it plays by the defense and got-to-have-it situations. So as a route runner, when I'm watching this play and we're seeing the looks that they're giving us, we've already kind of seen what the Chiefs love to do in this situation when it was nut-cutting time.

So you can kind of have a sense of, whoa, there's probably like a 70% chance that we're going to get this coverage. And then we would have specific times in practice where we would have this. We would tell everybody, Bill would stand up. This is a gotta have it situation. We would, you know, in fact, we created down, you know, it's third and nine. It's two minutes. It's this has gotta have it, you know, to try to raise, you know, the attention. This is just not another random play. Without a doubt. So the first one, it's third and nine. Ball's on New England's 35-yard line.

Let's watch the play. So we're coming in motion. We see we have man coverage. They mess it up. They mess up. But you know what? It's still a little mess up. You get that one step.

That's what we're looking for. You get a step here. It's crucial. You're not for you get a step here it's it's crucial you're not going to get seven steps no you're just trying to just get enough so that tom's got a chance you know to get the ball in there and keep the keep the change moving so when i'm watching this with the motion you do a lot of these kind of motions in these specific situations because it creates traffic it creates communication for the defense. The two defensive backs, they had to communicate. You see, they didn't communicate.

So you go, play the play. So they didn't communicate. They mess up the communication. So I say, Tom, give me ball right now. Tom sees it before I see it, and he's looking to throw it right away. That's from just reps of reps of working together, and we're able to get a third and nine, which, you know, third and nine is tough, especially in this situation.

In this situation, like I say, you know, I mean, in the back of your mind when you're running this play, it's third and nine. And if we don't get it, like I say, Mahomes has got it, you know, probably in pretty decent field position, and he can win it with a field goal. Exactly. So, I mean, this is, you know and he can win it with a field goal. Exactly. So, I mean, this is, you know, I mean, it's like, look, so we go, they scored, they kicked the field goal at the end of the regulation and tied at 31. So, you know, obviously we're going, and Bill says, okay, what do you want to do?

And a lot of times I know Bill in his heart is a defensive coach. Bill loves to get a stop on defense and then put us in a situation where we can win it with a field goal. But this is when, okay, we just saw hell break loose in the fourth quarter. It's Brady and Mahomes. I want to be the guy that's got the ball first. But you know, okay, we get the ball first, you know, we got to go. If we punt, you know, we're probably going to lose the game here.

So did that third and two that we already discussed with Patrick Mahomes doing that launch angle, did that breaking of the flood come into this decision of taking the ball? Sure, I mean, you know, you're watching the game. Both teams are taking the ball. Sure, I mean, you're watching the game. Both teams are taking the ball up. I mean, because they go ahead. We had the big drive to go take the league 28-24. I mean, we're watching a track meet here.

So, I mean, it's not like there's some blinding snowstorm and this is a 3-0 game. You know, like the Denver game against Peyton Manning where we took the wind. Well, it's a big thing. You know, the conditions dictated. This game, what's dictating is, you know, nobody can play defense anymore.

Exactly. No one can play defense. So the second time on this drive, down in distance, third and 10. Let's watch the play. So once again, we're running the same play. Motion. Now they communicated it, and now I just got across because they had a thief robber, the safety, who was real high.

So usually my depth is supposed to be a little deeper, but I saw all game that Sorenson was you see him or they they played a cover five right there five right there so they played cover five well usually they would have a guy waiting for you so we were trying to mess up our depths but you know we ran the exact same play would you say that we are a repeat team in this situation? You know what? It's the philosophy we always had was when it gets down to the true got to have it, get your best players on your best play. I mean, if we're going to lose it, that's our best chance. We don't want to run something that we don't really know, we're not familiar with. Oh, we didn't work. Oh, yeah, we can go practice it next week.

There is no next week. Go with your best. When it's on the line, you go with your best stuff. And that's, I think it's some, you know, I mean, every coach and every player really knows. You know, we try to change up our looks and be deceptive. But when it counts, we're going with what we do. When you see in the press box, it's cover five and we have this,

are you like, we got it? I'm thinking, thank you. I mean, you know, I'll be honest. My thought here was, you know, and I've known Bob Sutton for, you know, close to 40 years, and, you know, he's a friend of mine. But when you go, you and Rob, the one thing you don't do against our team is open up the middle of the field. I mean, I just not going to, you know, hey, great.

If Brady can hit a, you know, can hit Philip Dorsett on an 18-yard comeback, you know, fine. But I'm not going to give up the, you know, we're an inside passing team, always have been. I'm not giving up the inside of the field. Can I just interject for a second, too, from the fan layman perspective? You guys are having a very high-level kind of chess-level conversation with strategy and scouting on what goes on here.

Tom's still how to make the throw. The line's how to make the blocks. Jules still how to make the catch, too. So that combination of high level and execution is just. It's total. But, I mean, this is championship football. This is... Every player has got to execute.

I mean, if the left tackle gets a bad set on his pass protection and they get the edge on him, he can mess up Tom's throw. I mean, this is a total team game. A true guy to have at championship level football against good NFL, really good NFL players. I mean, this is why tens of millions of people want to watch these games on TV. These are gifted people doing something that's really hard.

This stuff is hard. That's why we love it. That's why we love it. And let's cap it off with the last. Third and 10 on the same exact drive in overtime in the AFC Championship in Arrowhead to go to the Super Bowl. Third and 10. What are the statistics usually you get in a third and 10?

You know, even for a good team, I mean, if you can pick this up, you know, 40% of the time, you know, you're really good. 40% on a third and 10 is phenomenal. It's usually about 15. Right. But, I mean, when you start, it's 15 if you take all the teams. It's a little better if you got the good teams. All right.

So let's watch this play. So break down this play, Ernie. So now we have, and this is, you know, so you got Rob, and we thought, hey, he's a blocker and all that. Here we got him split out. He's playing wide receiver here. You know, run the receiver out. And so speed releases again.

That's a corner. That's a corner. But, you know, I mean, so the corner's got a speed edge. Rob has a size and strength edge. And right here, if you saw, because the last two third downs, Sorensen's trying to come down and, you know, rob it or looks over. He's being attentive to it. And this is why now to get in, you know, to take it to the next level, this is why for 20 years we always coach Tom every play.

You have got to see both safeties. You have got to know what the safeties are doing. There is no way around that for a quarterback. So here he can see exactly, you know, what we've got going up on top. They're coming over. They'll look, because we've just beaten them on two plays coming from the strong side. So they're looking for that. Boom, go right behind them. But this is, again, we talked about, this is the quarterback driving the Formula One race car. See it and throw it. It's not see it, process it, think about it, then it's too late. And for offensive players and people that have to read coverage,

you can never look at a corner and determine the coverage because the corners can lie. They can cheat. They can press bail. They can trap. What you have to do is you have to watch the safety. So Tom's sitting here seeing Sorensen deep high right. So he's trying to give him like a split safety look.

So there's two plays within the play when you're being a quarterback. There's a pre-snap and then there's the post-snap. The post-snap, if you see Sorensen, all he does is take a look at me. But Tom sees that. Tom recognizes that he's probably helping on the crosser that we hit him two times before

on the third and tens. And so that's when he goes and flips his eyes like a NASCAR driver or a Formula One driver and slings it to Gronk. I mean, this is, he's only three yards away from him. That's how fast it has to be. The processing.

I mean, you know, a couple steps, that's about all you get. This is open in the National Football League. Right. That's how it goes. New England tried to play action earlier. I can't see it here. This has to be a run. Second and goal.

Mono e Mono. James Devlin. Rex Burkett. Cannon. Andrews, Shaq. I mean, whenever you want to see a play like that, a short yardage play, you always want to see the offensive line and the defensive line. Where is the line of scrimmage? Slow-mo it. Go.

Watch where the line of scrimmage is established. level stalemate look at the hole and what you really want because you've got the defensive guys the offensive guys and with our footballers i'm talking before the snap the football is called the neutral zone neutral zone neither team can be in the neutral zone but what you want is an offensive team or as a defensive team for that matter you want to be the ones that get your feet into the neutral zone so this is what we're talking like you know short distance but the difference between getting your feet into the neutral zone or having the other team get their feet in is the difference between having a good play and getting stuffed. Difference between going to the Super Bowl or not.

Right. There's one other part of this game that I want to remind you of. Which one do you got? Okay. Of course, we get on. Now, we got gypped. We didn't get to have the trophy ceremony on the field. That would have been epic to have that ceremony in Arrowhead.

Why didn't we have it? I didn't realize. We got gypped. That's my theory. Because if they'd won the game, they were going to have it out in the field. Yeah. And we had that twice in Pittsburgh. That's great.

There's maybe 500 of your fans. The stadium's empty. It's in their colors. Hey, we're going to the Super Bowl. The rest of you, see you. But anyway, we go through that in the locker room. We have the great plane ride home. And then what happens?

We get back to Gillette Stadium. It's about three years. And everybody's car is like an inch thick solid we're all out there trying to chip ice and i'm gonna tell you if we lost that would have really sucked okay but but so we're we're trying to nobody could get their car doors open because what they did was they they took all this there was a huge snowstorm so they took the snow off because but because the cars were warm and it got warmer there was like a little layer of water that went over and it froze all the cars shut so you're sitting there everyone's all hyped after we're

going to the super bowl no one got out of the parking lot for 45 minutes. It's 3 o'clock in the morning. We're trying to chip ice, okay? And I got my, I mean, you know, I'm in New England. I got my snow removal stuff in the car. I'll be able to just get my scraper out. No chance. You know, we're all trying to use a key to try, you know, use your car key to chipist at 3 in the morning. I forgot about that.

Oh, my God. Let's score this thing real quick. We'll be right back after this quick break. of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.

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the stowaway-turned-hero who helped capture a Nazi spy, and the wrestling champ who went on to win the White House. And now, finally, nearly 200 of these amazing stories from the podcast have been gathered into one book. Curious to know more? Pre-order Cabinet of Curiosities, available November 12th, wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Learn more over at GrimAndMild.com slash curiosities. number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and

hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. The name of the game. What do you like here, Ernie? There's the Superblood Wolf Moon game. What do you like here, Ernie? There's the Super Blood Wolf Moon game. They did it.

There was a full moon on the broadcast. There was a great shot. You know, they made a reference. Yeah. I think it was like a, you want to keep that? Or there was the Dynasty Lives On game, the Dee Ford game. Super Blood Wolf Moon. Okay, Super Blood Wolf Moon game.

Yeah, yeah. Stakes? Is this the greatest game of all time? Let's score it. Stakes, 0-10. Decimal's okay, Ernie. It's the greatest AFC championship we played in-game. Definitely.

For me, it was. Number? What is your score? This is a 1 to 10. 1 to 10. Decimal's okay. I'll go 9.5 because we sucked off a couple short yardage plays. 9.5.

Jules had 9.5. Jack had 9.1. I had 8.1. Rob Riggle had 10. Star power. The star power of this game. Two Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Two Hall of Fame coaches.

Yeah. Two dynasties. Two dynasties the dynasty yeah yeah this was eric stone street probably this this was this was our one this was this was our chance to beat him when i you know the great chiefs this is this is our chance we beat him yeah that's i have to give this one a 10 a 10 agreed jules has an 8.8 jack has a 9.3 i have a 9.5 rob riggo has a 10 the gameplay of this game third and two we had them bottled up and then the dams broke i mean you're talking about yeah championship game going to overtime um big drives in the fourth quarter yeah there was some stuff that wasn't perfect.

I didn't touch the ball either. You didn't touch it, right? Right. You know the thing that really would probably advantage us? Because we talked about challenges. The rule on challenges is that when the referee, you know, the first thing they do, okay, when there's a controversial play, the referee is going to come over and talk to the coach.

Coach will tell him, I'm challenging the play because of this. Okay. Then the referee will go to the covering official. In other words, the official that made the call, he'll go to the covering official and say, tell me what you saw. So the referee knows, hey, my side judge made the call and this is what he saw. And then, you know, they'll talk. But when the video starts that the referee starts looking at, it's supposed to shut off after 60 seconds. They had that video off the other field

for a lot longer than 60 seconds i don't know how long it was because there's a commercial and they're still looking at it but you know they they the to me the whole thing is the whole reason they had challenges let's get it right they got it right they got it right gameplay one to ten but they got it right on that play yeah i'm going ten ten burn dog execute tools had a nine jack had a ten i had a 9.5 and rob had a 10 as well the name of the game the super blood wolf moon game i think but also the legacy the legacy about it where it holds in your heart culturally this game you say 2018 afc championship everybody knows what you're talking about exactly yeah i i mean hey there's a full moon i i i got it uh if i if i hadn't seen if i hadn't

watched the tv replay i would not have remembered there was a full movie. Yeah, you would have. You saw it on the weather report. I probably did, but I don't remember. I don't remember that. So what do you score it? I'm going to give that an 8. 8. I like that. Jules had an 8.9.

Jack had a 10. I had an 8.5. And Rob had a 9.3 for a updated score of 9.35. This game was currently the top. It still is the top. Hey, yes. But it moves down.04 places. Let's go.

We're staying on top. Right where it belongs. Amazing. Amazing. Ernie, we miss anything about this game? Well, you know, we didn't do my eight-hour deep dive, so we missed details. We got the importance.

That's part three. That's part three, potentially. You want to plug anything, Ernie? No, I'm good right now. And over? Always. Always. Love your hat.

And over. Well, thank you, Ernie. We always appreciate you. You know what? You give us so much knowledge. You give the listeners knowledge and how much preparation, hard work goes behind the scenes of what makes a dynasty go. Well, listen, all that situational football, it's all those hot days.

I mean, hot days in August and going through that two-minute drill. The reason you do it is so that when you really need it, you give yourself the best chance to have it pay off. The best. Lift all them weights. That's why you lift all them weights. That's why you do all that situational football. That's why you have the walkthroughs for the walkthroughs for the walkthroughs.

That's it. Thank you, Ernie. Ernie, thank you. My pleasure. Thanks again. Well, another great episode with Ernie, thank you. My pleasure. Thanks again. Well, another great episode with Ernie. It's always a pleasure. It's always an honor.

I just feel like I want to go draft some guys right now. Same. I just want to crush some tape, read. He's butt dialed me like four times since we had him on too. Yeah. And every time, like a part of me is like, maybe he's like scouting the show a little bit and it's just a butt dial. Oh, he definitely is. Maybe next time, like, a part of me is like, maybe he's, like, scouting the show a little bit, and it's just a butt-touch.

Oh, he definitely is. Maybe next time. He's definitely. This is. Gotta bring your A game. You better cover your. He's got you. But, yeah, I just want to go do some write-ups right now

as we speak on some players. He was walking us through that folder, too, after. Yeah. Kept that thing pretty tight, though. Oh, so nerdy. Put that thing. Like, my nerdy but that thing like my football nerd was just like i wanted to get it and show it to the people but like i don't know if like there was a booby trap and they would electrocute me if i opened it like the old like

elementary library school or teacher where it's like you know yeah group reading yeah that's just sitting crisscross applesauce learning from the master master. Oh, my gosh. Put that thing in the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress. There was gold in that folder. There's one thing I was disappointed on, is that the Seahawks folder wasn't lime green. He said blue, though, right? He said blue. Which they have a lot of maybe.

Yeah, I wonder if that's an odd. If you went color rush for the folder, it would have been cool. Color rush folder. I think that's something we've If you went Color Rush for the folder, it would have been cool. Color Rush folder. I think that's something we got to take up with Staples or an Office Max. I wonder if they're making enough of those. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure there was only like five or six ones. Yeah.

A lot of black folders. Black, manila. Manila, yeah. I think we can get close enough. He loves it, man. It's pretty cool. wants he he wanted to come back on the show there's a lot of standing standing invitation we had a couple of pre-production meetings ahead of time to prep and really craft in like he was really involved it was it's fun

it's always an honor and i mean this generally as a football fan and particularly as a patron fan it's always an honor just to be in the presence of ernie and then get to talk football with him it's just it's incredible and because of Ernie and then get to talk football with him. It's just incredible. And because of Ernie coming on the show, like now all these football heads, like when I see them, like we did Brady Day, do this, do that. All the other guys are like, because Ernie went on the show, they're like, hey, man, can I get on the show?

I know. You know what I mean? Yes. Some pretty high up people. Seriously. And you can tell who a real football head is by how much they respect an Ernie episode. Big Cat. Big Cat called and was talking about it.

Yeah. All the guys. I mean, it's something. And I wouldn't have it any other way. When we first sort of were talking with Ernie, as Kyler mentioned, and some pre-pro calls, and we introduced the idea of breaking down some specific plays uh ernie came back to us with i think it was about 55 different plays and we run a uh pretty pretty 90 to two hour time constrained show here and

so we were i wouldn't have it any other way though that's how i wanted him coming back and then we whittled it down we whittled it down and Ernie picked a solid five, I think. And copyright issues were tough too, because he's thinking like he wants Cowboy Clicker where we could just sit here and rewind and show the viewer like, yeah, we're not there yet. We're not there yet, but soon enough, soon enough when it's games with names, colon Ernie's edition,

Ernie edition, that's when we'll have it. And we had some good fabric talk, summer fabrics, mattress. Ernie had his mattress on, was killing it. Always. I didn't get to ask him during the pod how he felt about Searsucker. Fast forward the next night. We're walking into the Brady event. We're in the tunnel.

I look over. Ernie, full Searsucker suit, dapped him up. I knew it. He answered it for me. What did he say to you, Jack? He said, long time no see. I'm like, that's right, baby. I mean, just awesome.

What a guy. He wore that because it was a little humid that night. Yep. People were sweating. He knew about the heat. Yep. And what did he do? He did a little research of what it was

going to be what's the best probably fabric fabric and seersucker is great for the heat seersucker nice and light stylish classic we didn't see him down on the table he might have been up in the ernie box i think i showed everyone the ernie box we got some pictures we'll have to put them up legendary man what an all-time time time. And it's just, I always feel so fortunate any time we get to spend some time with Ernie. That was so cool. Always. Learned so much.

Peel back the curtain on so many plays and so many everything. It's just awesome. Just feel like a sponge when you're around him. Seriously. I try to feel like a sponge. Sponge Bob, baby. Sponge Bob, baby. SpongeBob SquarePants. We're going to try a new post-show segment today

where since we were talking about 2018 AFC Championship, we thought it'd be pretty cool to redraft the top 10 picks of the 2018 draft. Now that we learned some stuff from Ernie in player evaluation. Player evaluation. In honor of ernie and player evaluation player evaluation in honor of ernie and player evaluations this is a fun draft to a lot of not notable names um and pretty pretty darn cool here so we before we redraft and go through what kind of we kind of pulled a selection of the most notable guys that were drafted in this draft guys that went on to be pro bowlers guys

that are still having awesome careers um put those into a pile we got our blank top 10 over here on the right and then we also are going to revisit really quickly um who who was the actual top 10 who went where so that would be why don't you give us the top 10 real quick yeah nascar nascar offense here for audio listening Cleveland drafted Baker Mayfield out of Oklahoma of course Saquon Barkley went to the Giants out of Penn State Sam Darnold USC quarterback went to the Jets Denzel Ward the cornerback out of Ohio State went to Cleveland as well Bradley Chubb the defensive end out of NC State went to the Broncos. Quinton Nelson was taken at number six out of Notre Dame, the offensive guard.

At seven, Josh Allen went to the Bills, quarterback out of Wyoming, we all know. Roquan Smith went eight to the Bears, the outside linebacker out of Georgia. Another Notre Dame offensive lineman, tackle Mike McGlinchey, went at number nine to San Francisco and then to round out the top 10 the Arizona Cardinals took UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen wow chosen Rosen baby that was the actual top 10 and some other big names too that weren't in the top 10 Lamar Jackson Jackson, Shaq Leonard, Shoney Michelle, Nick Chubb, Fred Warner.

Fred Warner, third rounder. Mark Andrews, Jermaine Edmonds. Mark Andrews. Minka Fitzpatrick, Derwin Jones, Bita Vea. A lot of guys. Let's start at 10 here. And go in reverse order? Yeah, and go in reverse order.

These are tough. These are tough. Number 10. Maybe we go one first. We can go backwards here. We can go one first because that might be easier. Okay. So it feels like one, there's a couple quarterbacks here

and a couple linemen here. There are no linemen, K. You got either Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. Which one's going to win? That's the biggest decision I feel like here. There ain't no other. This is a quarterback league. Those two quarterbacks have been balling out,

but none of them yet to win a Super Bowl. That's fair. Two MVPs for Lamar, though. How many playoff wins? Playstyle, Josh Allen, probably might have a longer career just in terms of rushing the ball, exposure to being tackled. But Lamar Jackson's higher. Kyler Adams.

We get it, dude. Kyler Adams. Lamar's only got one playoff win as of now, right? One in three, I believe. Who? Lamar. And how many does Josh have? Oh, man.

He went to the AFC Championship a couple times. He's got five so far. Five. Got to go Josh Allen. Okay. Josh Allen, one. Lamar Jackson, two. So Josh Allen to the Broncos.

To the Browns. Browns. Ooh. Lamar Jackson to the Giants. That's fun. That's fun. That would have been fun. Number three for the Jets.

They needed a quarterback. It took Sam Darnold. Gave up a lot to get him to. Oh, no, the Panthers gave up a lot. Trading for him after that. We got here. Quentin Nelson, great guard. Been killing it for the Colts.

Yeah, but. Fred Warner. Mark Andrews. You're not the Colts. Yeah, but. Fred Warner. Mark Andrews. You're not going to go. Did they? Quentin Nelson. What's up with these Notre Dame guys? Notre Dame just got some.

Offensive line U over here. Just taking over for Florida State. Smart big men that can move. Put that in a category. Yep. DJ Moore, we've got to add him to our list. DJ Moore's also from this draft. Where is he?

He went 24 to the Panthers. I'm going to add him to our list. For the Jets, let's make it interesting because if we're not going to get a quarterback, you're going to probably have to get another quarterback later around. What do you want to do for the quarterback? Let's give him a good run game. Let's go.

I'm probably going Chubb nick chubb i like that okay i like i think say it could be saquon but if like we know the the injury history yeah now chubb did just miss a year but he had what four or five years four years where he was ball was pretty healthy balling we gotta add um calvin out of We got to add Calvin Ridley to our list, too. I forgot to read him earlier. Who's four? Browns again. Roquan Smith's in there.

Fred Warner's in there. I mean, I would go with the cornerback, too. Got some guards. See, dude, Ward has been an unbelievable player. He's a... Keep Ward? I'm keeping Ward. i like that you got to feed the offense feed the defense number five i might have to chubb's been good i mean you got

vita vea in there he was a nasty he's in he just no more run game. What is that division like to do? Baker's still on the board too. And Baker, I mean, he went to the playoffs, had a resurgent this last year, but who's the quarterback? This is 2018. Do they need a quarterback? Who was their quarterback that year? Case Keenum?

They clearly wanted someone on the D-line. See, we didn't do our homework on team needs of this. Well, I think we can do team need. We can do best player. Best player. Might be easier. Well, I mean, Mark Andrews is right there. He's awesome.

Also, Nelson is a great guard and a difference maker in the interior line. It's not sexy. It's not fun. Let's go with the guard. We got to go with the guard. Quentin Nelson. Six.

I mean, Fred Warner is pretty insane. Dude, linchpin of that San Fran defense. I feel like he's got to make it in the top ten here somewhere. I mean, he's like the quarterback of that defense. The defense has been pretty elite. I'm putting him in there. Fred Warner to the Colts? Fred Warner.

Oh, I like that. I mean, Mark Andrews probably seven because, I mean, he's still, with the way the league is, and he can still block a nine technique. He's still a great blocker. And he's electric in the pass game. He's faster than what you think. He's stronger than what you think because you already think he's strong, but he's stronger than that.

I've been a fan of him. So Mark Andrews to the Bills. Yeah. Now Bears at eight. They went Roquan Smith. I would say. Who? They end up with him now, but, I mean, a DJ Moore is.

He was later in the first round and went to Carolina at 24. Let's throw DJ Moore in there. I like that. Give a little receiver love they got him after all but drafting him straight up would would have saved him from trading barkley still on the board baker mayfield still on the board jerry james micka vitzpatrick beat of a and then i would probably go i'd probably go bake as nine because bake i mean bake had a playoff win in in cleveland bro that's hard to do oh him on the 49ers oh shanahan shanahan with baker talk about baker cooking i like that

and the number 10 i mean this is a pro this is a pro running back on. It is. We got to go put Bark there. When he first came out, this is just on the careers they had, but he was one of the most dynamic people. Chubb, he's had better production in his career, but we all think of Chubb just a guy that runs downhill. Like Saquon, you could throw him out the backfield. He's got a lot of versatility. And, you know, if he wasn't hurt, we're saying everyone's not hurt.

Like, he was a generational player. What do you think he's going to be like on the Eagles this year? I think it could be really good for him. I think so, too. Because he's not just the main focus there. They have great weapons on the outside with Smith and who's my big, my AJ Brown. AJ Brown, big guy.

And then their tight end is really good. Goddard. Goddard. They got a lot of guys. Will they have the offensive line dialed with Kelsey retiring? I know. A lot of people think, yo, we get a... Kelsey was running that ship.

That was fun. We got some deep draft talk. Let us know what you guys think. Josh Allen won. Lamar Jackson, two. Nick Chubb, three. Denzel Ward, four. Quentin Nelson, five.

Fred Warner, six. Mark Andrews, seven. DJ Moore, eight. Baker Mayfield, nine. And Saquon Barkley, ten. I'm sure we missed a few. We missed a lot. Tell us when we were wrong few we missed a lot wrong

we missed a lot well it's hard being ernie adams but every year in those rooms those war rooms they miss a lot too very true you just gotta look these guys in the eyes and you'll know if they're ones that's what i told her did i tell her any of that yeah sorry so let me look these guys in the eyes you can tell you need that fun well what a game that'll make a great graphic on social media yeah yeah yeah and guys are gonna kill us oh we should do mel kuiper in the comment section what are you doing what if we were smart like part of my take we'd like put a stupid one in there and be like listen to the show and you know why i'd be dumb then.

Those guys are too smart. We're smarter than them. All of ours are stupid ones. We had 10 ones. I'm just kidding. We got some right. You get Josh Allen or Lamar. You're happy. One or two, you're happy either way. What do I look like? Scott Pioli over here? Come on now. Never. Oh, too smart for this. Alright. Well, what a game.

Thanks again to Ernie. That's been another episode. Thank you, Ernie. We appreciate you coming on. Seriously. Martrus. So gracious with your time. Madras.

Madras. Which we planned ahead of time on our call. Yeah. I mean, I could wear my sweater. There's a lot of play in my red sweater that I wore in the draft. Maybe I could wear some Madras. Maybe I could, this is like, whatever you want to wear, Ernie. He's like, I'll wear the Mad. There's a lot of play in my red sweater that I wore in the draft. Maybe I could wear some mattress. Maybe I could get this.

Whatever you want to wear. And he's like, I'll wear the mattress. He brought it. He brought the heat. As always. And he wore it well. And that's been another episode of Games With Names. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Comment a game you want us to do. And remember, rate and review. Remember to follow Games With Names on YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, and Snapchat. Leave a message on the hotline bling at 424-291-2290. We'll see you guys next week. Later. Games With Names is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.

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Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports

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