The Exchanges

Q so many questions here. I think the first one is sort of with Aaron Donald, he might require three people to block him and he might not get anything on the stat sheet, but he might be the reason that the quarterback had sacked And how do you account for stats like that, where it doesn't show up on a stat sheet, but it is sort of affecting the play?

A I mean, I think that's the difference between stats. We call it, we, we term it hidden production. And I'll try to paint the picture for everyone. If Aaron Donald lines up I'll say this. So an offensive line, there's usually five players, a center and two on each side of the center, right? So let's say Aaron Donald lines up between the two offensive linemen on the left side of the center. So we call that a tackle and a guard, and he's between those two. Most of the time, or the majority of the time, Another, a team's going to probably put a tight end over there, so now there's a third player to the left of the center, and the line's going to slide to Aaron Donald, so that means the center, he could either go toward Aaron Donald or away from Aaron Donald, and a lot of times the center's job is to, is to kind of clean up, if you think of basketball, just make it hard for the player to drive to the basket, which at this point is the QB, so oftentimes, right, you're going to get Two, sometimes even three players aware of Aaron. So let's go back to when we made the trade, uh, for, uh, Von Miller. The reason we made that trade is we knew, we knew that Von really wanted to win a second Superbowl. And we also knew that when we add players like Von Miller, that when we've had, we've had, when we've added good rushers in the past to our model team, With, uh, Aaron Donald, uh, you see tho…

AI assessment note: “We call it, we, we term it hidden production.”

Q Stafford trade, I'm curious how you identified Stafford who played in it, I would assume a different system in Detroit and identified that he, you know, having experienced the same system for a while could make the transition to LA. And then what went into the thinking behind trading it for him? And yeah, there's an opportunity. What's the downside? How did you, can you walk me through that decision?

A Systems in the NFL do matter, right? They're, they're different. I think the average fan or just a fan in general, you know, that you look down and you go, okay, everyone's playing football, but, uh, there is a difference, right? In, in the tactics and the systems of each, right? Each NFL's teams, offense, defense, And even special teams. So, so here's the interesting thing on Matthew Stafford, and then I'll, I'll try to, I'll try to give some bullet points, and you can ask him there. We did think Jared Goff was a good QB, and there was a possibility that he could become a great QB. So when we made the move for Matthew, we felt like he was great now, and he could help us in our window of contention be great. That window of contention had players like Cooper Cupp, Players like Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey that were in their prime. So in our model, maybe it was going to be, right, a Better results if we aligned our core players with a, with a QB that was there already, but, and not in the process of getting there. So more, I always said, Jared was a, was probably a student for Sean. Matthew was someone who could partner with Sean. He's our head coach in our prime, but he's also our play caller. So that was going to be An alignment that we felt like would give us an edge. And, and, and going back to systems, uh, Sean was mentored by John Gruden and then mentored by Mike Shanahan. Th…

AI assessment note: “we felt like he was great now, and he could help us in our window”

Q out to me as a fan, uh, was that Jordan made the team better, not just on the court when they were playing a game, but every practice. He wouldn't let anybody sort of half-ass it. He wouldn't let them give anything less than a hundred percent, or he would just go after them. Is there a value to players who do that too, that we don't see as fans?

A Spot on. We probably do not win the Super Bowl. If we do not trade for Von Miller, not necessarily for the sacks or him harassing the QB. When he comes to work, like he, he's happy to come to work. Like he really likes going to a football locker room. There was this element, right, of, of, as we were getting closer to the playoffs, and he was able to connect with our Aaron Donald, our Jalen Ramsey, right? Because those two players, some of our best players on our team, But they respected Vaughn, but in a, in a very light way, And he brought the replica, you know, he brought one of his, uh, his replica Super Bowl trophy and put it in our locker room, uh, right there when everybody went to get their new clean clothes, pick up their laundry for the day, right? That trophy stared at you and he would handwrite a message, right? Of what we needed to do that day, each day before each of our playoff games. And I, and I do think, uh, I think when you're living through it, all of a sudden you can feel it, but when you reverse engineer it after there's been this special result, you can probably see these pivotal moments where, wow, we traded for Von Miller, not Ness. We didn't know if he was going to be a leader or not. We didn't know he would affect the passer, but then you see that, hey, I've got one of these. Uh, I know Aaron, you really want one of these. I know Jalen, you really want…

AI assessment note: “Spot on. We probably do not win the Super Bowl. If we do not”

Q right? It's a window of contention and you also have positional value as it relates to the salary cap. And, and it seems like there's a general scorecard, at least going around the internet where, you know, wide receivers are valued at X, quarterbacks are valued at Y. How do you think about positional value in terms relative to what you can pay for the best performer at that position?

A It's probably case by case, probably depending on the year. Coaching staff. Scheme. I call it where you, where you're, where your bread is buttered. Here's, here's what we did intentionally do when we hired Sean as our head coach. He believes in passing the football and having explosive pass plays, right, to attack a defense that way, to apply pressure at all times. That way, on the defense, it's going to give us the best chance to win. So, That's, that's fast forward. That's, that's a blueprint. That's a vision, and it's actually been working. So what we've determined is in this moment of contention with, with Sean as our head coach, with him calling plays, we're going to play a lot of three wide receiver sets. We better have capable wide receivers ready to step in. So we've probably been imbalanced at wide receiver and our Guys, I call it catch the football, run the football, score touchdowns. We've deemed based on who we are, based on our DNA, based on, you know, our fastball that we're going to pay eligible. Now, some teams may not, right? They, they, they may value, maybe there's a team with a defensive head coach who might want to run the ball more. So they may value offensive linemen more and be a little imbalanced there. So I think, I think it's a team by team thing. And I, I would probably argue that It is probably better to attempt to be dominant and imbalanced somewh…

AI assessment note: “It's probably case by case, probably depending on the year. Coaching staff. Scheme.”

Q What are the intangibles? What would be the first five that you would write down?

A I think the first five, so let's go in tangible. I think number one would be passion to be a part of football. That's got to be the player's North Star. There's the element of when The, the human really identifies and really gets in a flow by actually coming to the football facility and, and let's call it studying football, studying how to get better and also working physically to, to, to have their body, you know, in prime condition when it counts, those people succeed. Uh, I think, I think the next thing would definitely be the ability to, to, to process the geometry of the game. I do think there's a love of winning, because there, there, there is a subset of humans that would be, that may be passionate about football, may have the acumen, the ability to process football, but the love of winning would be, if they had a choice between Let's call it having a winning season or being the, the receiver who caught the most yards. They would choose winning season, even though there is an element there. If you, if you're, if you lead the league in receiving yards, there could be more financial rewards. So, so those are definitely, those are definitely three. I do think conscientiousness is one thing. Like if you're going to put in the work, you definitely have a chance. And the other one is, is the element to Handle pressure situations. Uh, and I was going to say the, the confidence …

AI assessment note: “I think the first five, so let's go in tangible. I think number one”

Q sometimes, I mean, they're, they're, they're completely off. I think it was you and Sean who were caught on TV sort of when the New England Patriots picked Cole Strange in the first round. And I think the projection was you guys have him in the third round. How do you think about a pick like that where it just sort of like breaks these models that other people have?

A Well, that's a, that's an interesting one because that video, if you want to call it, I guess it would be, my teenagers would say it went viral, right? In a sense, a lot of people watched it real quickly. And there was an element that got taken out of context that, okay, Sean and I were, let's call it mocking New England. So Sean, Sean apologized to Bill. Obviously, it didn't bother Bill a lot. There's not a lot that bothers him. We actually called the player. Great guy. But here, here's what the, where a player is projected to go pre-draft. I call that speculation, right? By, by third parties. And then where a player is drafted is, I call that his IPO. And then at the end of the day, what he does after that pick is his stock price, right? And that's the, that's the most important thing. In this instance, when we first started our process, probably, I mean, usually it's a two year process, but let's call it early fall. He's a young man at Tennessee Chattanooga, which is an FCS school, you know, not power five, not group of five. Uh, the, the, the third level down. We, at that point we had a second rounder, but then we traded that for Vaughn and we, we were left with a third rounder, but through the process, Cole Strange is someone we watched initially, but then that player went to, uh, the all-star game. So the senior bowl is the, is where the, the best senior talent, uh, in th…

AI assessment note: “where a player is projected to go pre-draft. I call that speculation”

Q Talk to me a little bit about hiring Sean McVay. So up, up until that point, he wasn't a head coach. He was an offensive coordinator. A lot of coordinators don't make the transition from coordinator to head coach. How do you think about that, that leap and the job requirements being different and what accounts for most of the success or, or, or non-success?

A The math is against a head coach from succeeding, right? So every year, if there's five to eight new head coaches, they're usually going to write teams that haven't had a lot of success recently. And the success rate is The math is a, is against you. So I think, uh, let's just say the, the traits being, hey, definitely need someone who can stand in front of young men that are warriors that are confident and have those men buy in and want to follow, follow that coach. I would say, will they follow that coach up a hill and go to battle? That's one thing. That's a very hard one to identify. The coach definitely needs in today's NFL tactics are very important. The, the coordinator, the potential head coach needs to be an expert on the side of the ball. Uh, and, and then I do think a coach needs to be, there's an element of humility. And we're going to find that coaches are very confident. They read it. They better have efficacy. They better. Not believe they can win, but know they can win and how, right? And they've done it somewhere else. It's, it's not a false hope, but the humility part comes into this is, is it takes a lot of people over the course of the, you know, 365 days in a calendar year to help a team thrive on a journey. So the humility part is when the coach who Is really the, the alpha leader of probably the, the team in the building can be vulnerable enough to say, o…

AI assessment note: “the traits being, hey, definitely need someone who can stand in front of young men”

Q That's really interesting to think about. It seems like, I mean, Belichick's earned the right to do whatever he wants in the draft at this point, right? I kind of like the controversy around it as a, as a fan, because I think it brings people on attention to smaller schools.

A And now what's, what is interesting probably in, in today, in the media climate covering football today, right? And I wouldn't say it's the, it's the media's fault. It's probably the consumer's fault. The first round is really, really covered. So probably eight years ago, I mean, there was, there was a little more nuance and, and, and, and analysts were talking about second, third, and even fourth round picks, but that doesn't sell anymore. That doesn't get clicks anymore. So I think what happens is the general fans are primed in seeing a certain amount of players mocking in the first round. And then when all of a sudden a stranger, no pun intended, Cole Strange is, Pops into the first round. Oh, it's like, wow. How is that possible? They've reached.

AI assessment note: “when all of a sudden a stranger, no pun intended, Cole Strange is, Pops”

Q You told me you were fathered by football. What does that mean?

A Football was something that I was, for whatever reason, I was really attracted to, and I think if you, if you grow up in the southeast, football is very important in that part of the country. If you've seen the, the commercials for, you know, SEC football, right, or just the SEC in general, there's just something different. It's part of the culture. It's part of the fabric. It's part of the social hierarchy, so I was very attracted to football, and as a, Kid, you had to earn things in football. I can remember in those days, the first time I actually played, let's call it football with pads on the middle school team. So sixth, seventh, eighth grade. So I think seventh grade is the first time you go out for the middle school team. And that year, you're really going to sit on the bench. There's one school If you were third string, you, you had to be third string, and you played scout team, and, and if no one knows what scout team is, that's, that's basically a team that's getting the, the starters and the contributors ready to play the next opponent, but I remember this story. There was, in those days, there was a company that made helmets, bike helmets, and those were the cool helmets, and then in those days, the Rydell helmets were the less cool helmets, so our school probably had maybe five to seven Bike helmets. So fast forward to eighth grade, you know, try, you know, trying …

AI assessment note: “Football was something that, right, if you wanted to play, if you wanted that bike helmet”

Q talk about the, the window of contention, as you mentioned, and you have a concept, the flywheel of a team. And I'm curious as to what that flywheel is during a window of contention versus what that flywheel is. If it differs during, uh, maybe a phase of rebuilding. And then I guess another sort of add on to this is, can you always be in the window of contention?

A That's a good question. That's, can we always be in a window of contention? I think the vision would be, let's at least attempt to, but right in, in professional sports, uh, there's going to be attrition. There's going to be change every year. So then when there is, look, A change at quarterback or position that's really, really important or really, really good player. At that point, you have to You have to adjust, adapt, and deal with. So in our case, if in, let's call it four to five years, Matthew Stafford decides to retire, we're going to be in contention as long as Matthew is our QB and as long as he's, you know, still able to play like he plays. So at that point for us, who will, who would replace him, right? And that's, that would be a big, big if-then statement of whether we contend. So, but the interesting thing, I think when we are in contention At that point, I think we're trying to build a team, and not just collect talent. We've simplified it by saying in football, we're either building, and at that point, we're trying, and the vision is to hopefully break through, And then once we break through in that, in NFL football, that could be, right, having a winning season and getting to the playoffs for the first time after not being there for a few years and building. And you make, you can measure some steps and see momentum and, and feel momentum and things like that. …

AI assessment note: “can we always be in a window of contention? I think the vision would be”

Q year and then that lasts for maybe a week and you wake up and all of a sudden you're, you're six weeks behind every other team when it comes to scouting and when it comes to the preparation for next year. And you find yourself at the bottom of this mountain again, and yet you're the champs. How do you, how do you fend off complacency? And earn it again.

A There's a few nuances in that question. So if we engineered our processes correctly, even though we played a longer season, we wouldn't necessarily be behind. We're in a contention phase. We're aware of that. That's why we do a lot of the things we do. So we also design our calendar so that if we do play into February, and then while the, the, the new league year begins a month later in March, We're not necessarily behind, so what we did intentionally do was try to focus on all of us getting away, players, coaches, staff, and just renewing, because we, we definitely needed to come back and, and not be, you know, still afraid, not, not be exhausted, and, and still want to compete. I was, I, uh, Ryan Holiday spoke in Los Angeles a couple days ago, So I went down to see Ryan and I was, I hadn't seen him in a while and he's obviously written bestsellers and then he's in the process of writing probably a four book series and he finished, uh, the one on courage and he has a second one that he's finished, but it's in the publishing phase. And then he was like, okay, on June, even though the second book of that four part hasn't even let's call it hit the market or the shelves yet, he's got to go back and, uh, Begin writing that book. And, and he mentioned something. I said, that's, that's, that's very similar to what we're doing. He says on June 16th, when he goes to sit in his study t…

AI assessment note: “when he goes to sit in his study to begin book three, the blank page”

Q When you get stressed about something, what is it that you have to remind yourself?

A I think I actually, maybe in a sick way, like stressful situations. I think that's a genetic gift. I don't know if I learned that. I've tried to really journal and kind of figure out when that occurred. But fortunately for me, when there's a stressful situation, I'm normally at my calmest. And maybe that's because I, I have evolved in, in the, in, in the chair of general manager, you do realize when there are some stressful moments that there are probably eyes on you. So there is an awareness there. But I think if, if there wasn't some sort of genetic gift where you, I truly believe that, okay, Talked with Ryan Holiday about this. He wrote the book, you know, The Obstacle is Away. Okay, there's an obstacle there. I mean, wow, this is, this is actually an opportunity, right, to, to grow from that obstacle. Maybe in, in, in a sick way, it's, there's an adrenaline moment of like, wow, this is, this is really living. Now, I am fortunate, and I'll, I'll use the asterisk, right, of where I'm sure a lot of people listening to this podcast and maybe have been on it. I, I've never, I've I've never had to deal with major personal tragedy or health issue or, you know, some set of losing some job because the Major financial stress. So I'm fortunate in those, and I'm not saying, uh, I would hope that I would react the same way in those moments. So a lot of the, the stress and anxiety comes …

AI assessment note: “this is actually an opportunity, right, to, to grow from that obstacle”