I think I'm very good at reading coverage and knowing where I want to go with the ball before the ball is snapped.
Even as a coach, sometimes you forget the little intricacies of the offense, the details of the routes, the timing of the footwork, and the timing of the offensive tackles with the different sets that they have.
Plays are designed to attack certain coverages and schemes.
A guy like Drew Brees is a guy that knows how to undress a defense. Most of the time he knows where he's gonna go before he even gets the ball. So he's ready to deliver that ball almost as soon as it comes to his hands.
Put on the game tape. The game tape speaks volumes because I'm in live action, I'm out there making reads, going through progressions, redirection protection, signaling hot routes, getting the offense in and out of the right play.
That's the key to defending any quarterback: to make them throw before they want to throw.
You watch the great quarterbacks like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees and Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers. They all play so fast, but it's under control because they know what the defense is presenting to them before it happens. It allows them to anticipate things a little quicker, and that makes all the difference in the world.
I don't want to get good at throwing off schedule because I don't want to be off schedule. I want to have my protections to be solid, I want to be in the right play, and I want to get the ball out of my hands as quick as possible.
If quarterbacks learned the West Coast offense in college, oh man - it would make a huge difference.
When you can get o-linemen guessing about what you're going to do, that means you're already winning before you start.
You've probably heard from 100 different people that the Patriots are a game plan offense. Here's what that means: We're going to watch the defense specifically to identify their tendencies, what they do situationally and what their philosophy is.
I want to learn more about the game as a whole and about the finer points of technique across the line of scrimmage. I want to learn more about coverages and blitzes so I can kind of see the game before it happens.
We have what we call a dictator offense. We dictate to defenses by making them do what we want them to do. And we do it by creating formations.
A lot of different things go into calling the run game - especially at the line of scrimmage.
When I'm lined up in the middle, it's a lot of freelancing and blitzing.
I feel like I know what defensive backs are going to do before they do it.
I'll be in a cadence, and I'll start to see one thing that a defense is starting to do, I'm like, 'I saw that two months ago on film.' And then that triggers whatever call you need to make.
I'd say that, 99 percent of the time at Nevada, I knew what the coverage was and where I was probably going before the ball was snapped. It makes it very easy when I only had to read one person and know that I was going from here to here, and if not, I'm checking it down.
You love for a quarterback to sometimes make the decision as the rush is coming and make the decision as the play, as opposed to where that computer is hitting it fast and he's knowing where to go with the ball at the right time.
No-huddle is something that I'm very comfortable with.
The best advice I try to give a young quarterback is, you need to know what you're doing. You need to know what you're doing, because if you know where to go with the football, you can get rid of it and throw it and you won't get hit.
As an offensive lineman, having spatial awareness is key: understanding where the quarterback is going to be and understanding what the defensive end might do depending on the play we're running.
You have to be able to recognize defenses on your own in pro football. You can't look to the sideline and read some board. You've got to recognize the defense on your own, and then you've got to communicate to your offensive teammates what you want them to do.
I want to know what coverage it is every single time. I want to line up and be able to read what the defense is trying to do to me so I can get open.
