You won’t believe what Chiefs Spagnuolo said… PFF’s Dalton Wasserman Responds

You won’t believe what Chiefs Spagnuolo said… PFF’s Dalton Wasserman Responds

You guys won’t believe what the Chiefs defensial coordinator Steve Spagnolo had to say. We got Dalton Wasserman from PFF here today to talk about it. Let’s do it. [Music] Chiefs Kingdom ACU crew. How we doing tonight, ladies and gentlemen? It’s going to be a fun one. Fun little topic tonight, right? It’s going to be a great time. Dalton Wasserman. Steve, you said the name wrong. We just discussed I wasn’t listen. I’m sorry. You don’t listen to nobody. Okay, Steve. I’m still happy he’s here. I’m so happy he’s here. We’re all happy he’s here, man. Uh Dalton, welcome to the show, brother. Dalton works at PFF analyst. Tell us what you do over there, man. Uh a little bit of everything. I cover NFL. I’m on the PFF NFL show on YouTube. Cover college football as well, the PFF college football show. I’ve done the grading and all that stuff behind the scenes in the past. So, it’s been really for the last what, five, I’m in my sixth season now. A little bit of everything for, you know, on all sides of the company. Awesome, man. We appreciate you being here. I’m sure everybody’s going to have some questions. Uh, the host show tonight, not the whole show, but we’ll get right to it. The big thing is is every year somebody likes to come out and just just crap all over PFF. And a lot of fans don’t like it, and a lot of Chief fans particularly do not like PFF. If we share PFF or whatever, it’s quick to get the same they’ve been bought. We’ve heard that. I think maybe even Kelsey insinuated that on an episode of New World that maybe agents can pay you guys. And I’m thinking that’s a little wild. That’s that’s an accusation. You can discuss that in a minute if you want to. But it it’s always comes out that there’s a problem with PFF. And I think a lot of people don’t understand the grading. They don’t understand that 60 is average, which uh you can get into that in just a little bit, too. But I’m gonna play the clip that set everybody on fire this week and we’ll let you respond to it and we’ll just go from there. We’ll have a discussion. Here we go. What grades are you using? What I’m looking at right now? That’s what everybody uses. The only thing, you know, I you know, Chris Collinssworth, I I think he’s a good dude and he’s involved in that company. I I just I don’t know how you grade put a grade on somebody when you don’t know actually what their assignment was or what they were being told. So, I don’t know. It’s like that for from our standpoint. I thought Chris in this particular game had a real big effect on the game. They obviously found ways to double him whether it was two linemen. The full, excuse me, the running back at times was chipping inside, which you don’t see a lot, but that was the Chris Jones effect. A number of times that he didn’t get there, but I think he forced a the quick throw step up. So, you know, from my stamp, I don’t remember what Chris’s actual grade was. Um, but I know that at the end of the game, I thought the guys up front, Chris included, had a big effect on the way things went. You mentioned PFF and they don’t know the place. If I’m not mistaken, it was Mike Zimmer a couple years ago when he coached the Vikings made that same point. How stock do coaches when they’re looking at PFF put the stocking in there? Well, I will say this, there’s a lot of stuff the PFF puts out that’s valuable and useful. My my only thing I think a lot of coaches feel the same way. Chris and I have talked about it. We’ve laughed about it. Uh and I think their guys do a really good job and they see Listen, they can be but I just think there’s a margin of error when you don’t know exactly what the player was told. It may look like he’s Alton. We don’t have to watch the rest of it, but basically he’s saying that it’s hard for you guys to get a good grade on players when you don’t know the plays. Can you please explain that process to everybody? Yeah, absolutely. And and I want to I want to lead this off with saying honestly, Coach Spags said absolutely nothing wrong there. I I complet I completely respect that opinion. And look, he’s going to grade his own players the way that he should. That’s why he makes so much money. That’s why he’s maybe the best defensive coordinator of all time, right? So, I don’t think he said anything wrong there. And my my best answer is, look, we go over the thing these things two and three times over, right? We do we do the grading live as the game is happening. And when we get the all 22 and for every game NFL and college, we have our reviewers and I was on that side for the passing game a little bit towards the end before I moved over to content. We go over it two and three times over and we have a lot of discussions about different plays and players responsibilities on it. So, it’s not like these things just get one pass through for us and we go, “Okay, that’s it. That’s we’re done. We’re done looking at it.” We get it from both angles, from the sideline, from the end zone, all of that stuff. But I mean the answer is look we do the best we absolutely can right when it comes to interpreting their assignments and the entire defense the entire offense and what everybody is supposed to be doing right so you know there’s a lot of discussion had behind the scenes we have former coaches former players on our staff that go over these things and look we’ve got even NFL coaches that used to work for us right NFL coaches college coaches that used to work for us and go over these things as well so there is a system for us put in place to interpret these things but you know It’s never going to be absolutely perfect. And to think that you’re going to be absolutely perfect when you’re not, you know, like like coach Spags there said, when you’re not within the organization and running the running things and calling the plays, yeah, it’s not going to be 100%. But we do the absolute best we can to get as much of the responsibility of the players in there as possible in that context. And look, football is never going to be like baseball where it’s individual events, right, that you can evaluate is so much context. It’s so much, you know, just dependent variables that are dependent on the other 11 guys on your team and then the 11 guys on the other side, right? That that, you know, kind of make this a big interpretation of everything that’s going on. So, no, again, I don’t think he said anything wrong there. And we’re never going to know everything. If you think you know everything, you don’t know anything at all. Right? So, I just that’s just the best part about it that I can say is we go we go over things two and three and four times over before we put these grades out and interpret it the best that we can. Okay, man. That’s a lot of good information you just threw at us. Totally appreciate you being here once again. U you guys hit the like button for Dalton being here tonight talking about this with us because I think it’s good information because we use PFF as a tool all the time on this show. So, I think it’s good that everybody has a good baseline actually how it works. And what would you say is like a baseline or a default for like when you’re grading a play, is it like the best possible outcome? So, say if it’s a pass rush play, uh, 100 being sack the quarterback and then you back it up from there. How does that work? Yeah, I mean it’s different for every position. I can even tell you when it comes to say new guys coming in to to be a grader and we don’t have that many. It’s maybe seven. I mean, it’s it sounds like a lot, but it’s maybe 70 or 80 guys that know how to do the grading. And I was one of them for three years. I did the grading myself for three years. And every aspect of it is different when it comes to say pass rush and pass protection, right? run run block on one side and run defense on the other. You know, receiving and coverage on each side of the ball. Everything is a little bit different. So, I mean, it comes down to, you know, for us the biggest things are winning your individual matchups, right? And then obviously producing on the football, right? So, I mean, when you talk about the pass rush and we, you know, we have our pass rush grades and there’s things that, you know, say maybe a guy who maybe a guy who leads the league in sacks isn’t necessarily the highest graded pass rusher, right? And that’s the way old school it used to be. Oh, that guy has the most sacks. he’s the best player. Well, not necessarily. If you have a guy that’s winning the most often, winning those one-on-one matchups, and just maybe isn’t quite getting home to the quarterback or the quarterback’s just getting rid of the ball before he gets there, we want to give him credit for that, too. So, it’s certain things like that. And again, everything is about interpreting a guy’s assignment at certain times. I think the run game really um is something that presents itself as a challenge when it comes to that and grading, say, offensive and defensive linement and things like that. But a lot of it is about winning your matchup and what are you producing, you know, on the ball. Whether you’re a defensive lineman getting a sack, whether you’re a cornerback getting a pass break up, a receiver, you know, producing catching the football and making things happen after the catch. There’s a lot of different factors that go into a lot of different positions. Oh, okay. So, let’s let’s jump on what Spags had actually mentioned. They they were all talking based off Chris Jones. So, I’m gonna bring up what you guys have rated and not necessarily you. So, I’m just not blaming you here, but you guys have given Chris Jones an overall defensive grade. Week one versus the Chargers 73.5. Um, week two versus the Eagles a 53.6. Week three a 48.6. And then last week, uh, in the big win versus the Ravens, a 60.5. Now, Chris Jones, we all know, is a top five, top 10 player in the NFL. This has been his grades throughout the past. So, this is 2025. You guys have got him at a 57.8, 8, which is below average. Average is 60 and then 90s down the board. So, it looks like to me that you guys are are in all your reviewing, you’re you’re saying that Chris Jones has fell far off the wagon from being a top defender on this team. And by the way, you’ve got him ranked on the Chiefs. Uh you got Null Williams, our rookie that’s played limited snaps. Of course, that’s probably going to be the reason. 47 total snaps. He’s at a 92.3. You have Chris Jones rated the 12th ranked defender on our team at a 57.8, which is just wild to a lot of Chiefs Kingdom. And I guess that’s probably what Spags is kind of getting at. And I think people probably do want to know an answer as to why you think Chris Jones has scored so low this season in comparison. Yeah, to be honest with you, I I mean, look, we know Chris Jones is a great player, and that track record gives him the benefit of the doubt here. So I listen, I’m not going to sit here and be the guy that tells you Chris Jones is over the hill. Absolutely not. No, I certainly not on this show. I’m not kidding. The big number 95 gets the benefit of the doubt, right? But he watches, he’ll come get you. I Oh, I’m sure. Look, when at the end of the day, when it comes to the overall grade, this sometimes you do have to throw the context into it. And I feel like that’s a lot of what my job is is going, okay, why did this grade great? Why did this guy grade so highly? Why is he maybe a slightly just bit lower than we’re used to, right? Because it is something a number we’re we’re used to seeing a little bit lower. But I want to throw in the split right there that you see about the pass rush grade and the run defense grade, right? That’s the biggest part that plays in. And you see in week three there with such a low run defense grade. Uh, you know, I think that I think that that’s really with such a small sample of four games, that’s what’s going to drag it down just a little bit, right? And in the past, even last year, I think he was the second highest graded pass rusher and his run defense grade was in the we had it in the low 60s, right? and and you know and right around that range of the low to mid60s you know is where you talk about you mentioned our grading scale I think in the past we haven’t done the best job of explaining what the grading scale is is that when you talk about a 60 or grades in the low 60s you talk about okay this guy’s kind of doing his job as expected he’s t he’s carrying out his assignment maybe he’s not making a huge positive impact and affecting the ball too much but he’s also not you know blowing it by any means right or making too many negative plays so you know I think that’s what you’re talking about is in total. Sure, it looks like it’s average. But then you look at the splits there and you go, that’s 78.4 pass rush grade. That’s top 12 among defensive tackles in the league right now. We know Chris Jones is an elite pass rusher. And through four weeks, he’s still doing that. It’s just that honestly the one bad game there is dragging down the average. That’s that’s against the Giants there in week three. It’s dragging out the average a little bit. But honestly, over the course of the full 17 games, we know what we’re getting out of Chris Jones, right? So sometimes people like to overreact to one game or even four games. This a very very small sample where the numbers can get tilted overall a bit a little bit. I have no doubt about Chris Jones ability even though he’s been in the league what is it 11 years now. 11 or 12 years. A long time. I like to talk about it. It’s wild to think about. No, it is wild to think about because I mean he’s he’s he could retire tomorrow and to me he’s a first ballot hall of famer. He’s one of the best DT tackles to ever do it. But I I don’t think as far as Chris Jones individual grade that there’s much controversy behind this. I think the bigger thing and and and it is to a point where and again I respect the reporter for asking coach Spags and I respect coach Spag’s answer is we we do I think need to do a more consistent job of explaining where things on the grading scale are and how that works. I think there’s times where that hasn’t been communicated well enough and I’m glad to continue to do that honestly because we know at the end of the year we know where Chris Jones is going to end up at. He’s Chris Jones, right? I mean that’s not going to be a big problem. Absolutely. But yeah, I mean it’s great to get you here and get your perspective on this because a lot of times, like I said, we use this as a tool quite a bit. Uh when we’re just talking about different games here and there or player stats, whatever. Uh you always have a handful of people. It’s like, well, PFF is trash. Like they don’t that doesn’t even make any sense or you know, or like Mike said earlier before we actually went live, a lot of people think that that grade is kind of like a elementary school grading scale where if you don’t have a a 90 or higher, it’s not a good score. So, I just think it’s cool to get some perspective on that. And um hopefully if you guys have any questions, make sure to throw them out there because Dalton said he’ll he’ll field them, baby. He’s ready to roll. So, if you got any, throw them out. But, but yeah, super cool. Super cool to hear that, man, because it it’s actually helping me get a perspective on it as well. Yeah, I love that. Um Dalton, I don’t mean to cut you off here, but I did have one other question. Somebody had asked this earlier, and I wanted to get to it. This was on X. I posted a a tweet today and again we like to throw out a lot of stuff and we’ll use PFF man because we I think you guys do like what you do is not easy like like you said you guys watch these games multiple times you’re watching every position multiple times and it may not be correct all the time but I’m telling you if I look at PFF and I look at the top you know for for pass rushers who am I seeing I’m seeing Michael Parsons and Miles Garrett and Chris Jones. I’m not seeing these guys at the bottom that suck. So, there has to be something to it, you know. But, I do get there’s nuances. But, I tweeted out today that Ashton Gelotti, our rookie fourth round pick or third round pick, I’m sorry. Our rookie uh third round pick, Ashton Gelotti out of UL, he ranks fourth for tackling grade perff against rookie edge rushers with a minimum of 100 snaps. And his grade was a 73.6. So, we already know that 60 is average. So, he’s about 14 points higher than average. That also ranks him 23rd amongst players that have played 100 snaps in the entire NFL for tackling grade. So that was pretty awesome. We thought that was cool. And and our boy down here at the bottom at Nshr Cuts Cuts. Uh I think that’s uh J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J JT, our boy JT, he says, “What’s a tackling grade again?” So could you explain what the tackling grade means? Because sometimes people don’t understand. Is that like a percentage out of 10? Do you miss a tackle, it goes down to a 90? How does that work? Um, yeah. I mean, the tackling the tackling grades, it’s really about your number of opportunities and how often you’re missing. Yeah, it’s going to be most most tightly correlated to your your missed tackle rates and how you know how often you get an opportunity to do that for sure. So, for defensive linemen especially, that can be a little bit volatile because they don’t get as many opportunities to make tackles as say a linebacker or a safety. But the idea that your tackling grade is higher means that you’re getting more opportunities and you’re making those happen as opposed to just missing tackles when you get those chances, right? So again, I think, you know, be careful with small samples when it comes to especially a guy like Gelati who’s only played a 100 snaps so far in his career. But the fact that you do see that, especially for somebody, you know, obviously draft scouts were concerned about short arms and length and things like that, but a guy who’s making tackles and making plays on the ball, that’s always good to have. So, I I think that’s really what the tackling grades come down to is just the number of opportunities, the amount of times you’re executing. And then, you know, obviously there’s certain guys that miss tackles more than others. You never want those, but the fact that he’s making tackles this early in his career is obviously a good thing. Absolutely. We got Roma with with a tin bomb here says, “Dalton, ACU crew has Mike and Steve with an overall grade of 92.7. Where does PFF grade them?” He’s got a short sample size here. I I do I’ll tell you what if you guys if you guys finish the night with a 92.7 that’s elite stuff right there. I think, you know, for as much as for as much as we’ve talked about the grading scale, I think that is something that can get mentioned where you’re right. I I think that that does need to get mentioned more often is it’s not like grade school, man, where you’re talking about, oh, you’re aiming for a now. Obviously, you are aiming for 100. That would be nice. And we actually just a week or two ago that last week we got the first perfect grade in an NFL game. I got to go back and look in college and that’ll take a lot longer if we’ve gotten any. the first perfect grade in PFD in NFL history at least with Isaiah Rogers for the Vikings at a 99.9. That’s as high as it goes. So that’s really Yeah, he played out of his mind that game anyway. That was fun to I mean yeah you score two touchdowns and all that stuff forced what three turnovers and everything like that. I mean he was it was welld deserved Isaiah Rogers but no I mean it just needs to be said more that I’ll tell you what if you guys get a 92.7 or if anybody does you mentioned null Williams on the season with a 92.3 so far in a small sample look anything over 90 is elite stuff honestly and I think again the baseline that you have to look at is a 60 right there is 60 if you go out on the field and you just do your job with maybe no positive or negative impact at all now a 60 in school back in the day was the difference between passing and failing. That’s not how it works for us, right? When you get to like, okay, say a grade where you’re really having a negative impact on a game, you’re really talking about getting below about 50 or so, right? And then you get into the higher grades and you’re in the 60s and you’re relatively productive. You’re in the 70s, mid to low to mid70s, you’re a productive starter. Then you get high 70s and into the 80s and you really had a good game or a really good season. And then again, you get high 80s or 90s. I mean, Aaron Donald used to grade at least a 90 every year because he was just unstoppable. That’s the level of player you’re getting at, right? Like like a quarterback. Quarterbacks up in the 90s, you’re talking about MVP candidates and things like that. So, we have Mahomes. We know about that. Oh, you you guys know you guys know all about it. Absolutely. So, struggling per PFF this season. For the most part, you guys you guys have been used to those highest graded guys with Momes and Kelsey and Chris Jones and Trent McDuffy and those guys, right? You guys are used to seeing that. There’s some teams like I’m a Jets fan. We’re not used to seeing that too often. So, um you know, it’s just one of those things where understanding the scale and and listen, us communicating what that scale is. Yeah, we got to get better at that, man. I try to do that, you know, as often as I can and just go because I get asked all the time, how does this work? And we’re 20 years into this thing and I still we get asked this question and you know, it’s fair to answer. It’s fair to ask and it’s certainly fair to answer. Absolutely. Which is why I reached out to you to see if you’d come on and it was awesome that you said yes. So, I mean, both sides are trying to just get answers and and that’s what it is. Chris Wright been a member for 26 months. Go, baby. Present for duty. Put those ketchups in the chat. Uh, Dalton’s probably like, “What in the world are you guys doing over here?” Uh, pee on fire. Yeah, I think penon. There you go. Get it right. Pen on fire. On fire. Not a penon. Hey, man. We talk about peen sometimes. You never know. You think it happens. Hey, well, here’s the thing. Uh, I was actually going to ask uh something similar, but like I don’t know how much actual just Chiefs football you get to watch. I know you grade a lot of different things. You just said you’re a Jets fan yourself. Uh, but from what Chiefs that you have watched this season, uh, what are some of the upgrades do you think that this team actually needs to to be at that elite level they’re normally playing at? So, I I’ll start with with the offensive side because that’s what everyone likes to talk about, right? And you talk about, okay, what’s with the struggles of Patrick Mahomes and the offensive line and then the receivers and all of that, right? And I I think, you know, it is a topic of discussion over the last year and a half of what is with this Chiefs offense. Now, for the last couple years, it has been death by a thousand paper cuts, right? Ever since Tyreek Hill’s been traded, it’s been a more conservative offense, but they’ve still made three Super Bowls in a row doing it. I think what you see right now and on the offensive side is the improvements. They’re coming. And I think they started last week when Xavier Worthy got back on the field, right? As that speed threat, as a guy who can threaten safeties and back off defenses a little bit. So Mahomes can work underneath. And now we saw Worthy make a couple of big plays. The endound for what a 35 yard carry. The gold ball when it came to press beating press man one-on-one coverage and making that play happen, right? I think, you know, I looked at this um you know, in our preview of this week’s game when it came to the Xavier Worthy effect on Patrick Mahomes, his passing grade, his yards for per attempt, and his average depth of target significantly higher over the last year plus with Worthy on the field as opposed to when he is off. Right. This is something I really wanted to look at this week because of the effect it had on the offense and going out and scoring 37 points on a Ravens team that well, at least was supposed to be good. We’ll see where they’re going in the next couple weeks from there. But the worthy effect and then I think the layered effect of in a couple weeks when they get Rasheed Rice back, you can think about that and go, man, you can see the vision now. You can see the vision of worthy as the deep threat, Rice as the mismatch all over the field. You can see the vision for the offense. Defensively, honestly, I know Chris Jones has been the topic of discussion, but I think as a unit, the defensive lines just just just kind of play a little bit better, right? you’re getting enough in the pass rush out of Jones and Carl Loftess, but there’s not a ton of depth and I don’t think that unit has played quite their best yet. I think the back seven is always going to be good. The Chiefs are one of the best coverage teams in the NFL like they have been the last couple years. All the names in the secondary you absolutely love. I mean, you know, Trent McDuffy’s one of my favorite players in football. Shamari Connor, Jaden Hicks, now young kids like Christian Roland Wallace and null Williams playing well. You know, I thought last week the Leo Chanel interception felt like a turning point in that game. He’s an unbelievable football player. I I I I’ll be honest with you, those are like two of my 10 best uh favorite players, I should say, to watch in the NFL are McDuffy and Leo Chanel. I thought he was great back when he was at Wisconsin. It was a great pickup when they drafted him. He’s been terrific. So, I think the Dline as a unit, not just Chris Jones and all of the controversy we’ve obviously caused this week, but the Dline as a unit could be a little bit better. And I think the offense, we’re getting to the vision that they have for this offense. I think once Rashi writes gets back, it’s going to be a whole lot of fun. Yeah. Well, you hit the nail on the head there pretty much because that’s what Mike’s been preaching. We got we got to have somebody on the other side of the defensive line opposite of Chris Jones and George Caroff is actually getting some pressure on the quarterback and doing some damage. Hopefully Omar Norman Lot Ashton Gelotti can be that uh in the future, but obviously they’re just getting their feet wet in the NFL. So, we’ll see how all that goes. And uh yeah, man. McDuffy and Leo Chanel. Both awesome to watch. You just mentioned crazy we got them in the same draft with George Carlos, too. That’s pretty wild that they crazy, huh? That That’s nuts. Uh, I just got a question here real quick. Um, okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Okay. I’ll I’ll say whatever really quick because it goes with his. You were talking about a a yard higher for Momes attempt when Xavier Worthy’s on the field. Uh, isn’t it something like a 21 point swing on his passer rating that you guys give him when when it’s uh worthy on the field compared to worthy off the field, right? It’s something like 81 to like 63 or something that range. Yeah, it’s it’s uh it was somewhere I think uh 80 I think I had an 81 passing grade. I’m trying to remember the numbers I threw in our preview. Let me look at it real quick the exact number, but it was like an 81 passing grade when um when were on the field. Let me see here. when he’s without him 63ish. You’re right. An 81 passing grade when Worthy’s been on the field. And this is not just this year. This is going back to the beginning of last year when Wory started. 81 passing grade when he’s on the field and a 63 when he’s off it. And and I really think that just speaks to, you know, because a 63 passing grade for a quarterback, especially Mahomes caliber, is not great, right? You’re talking about that’s like low-end starter, even like high-end backup type stuff, but an 81 now you’re talking about, okay, we got a darn good quarterback here. And you have certainly you have one with Mahomes. But again, it speaks to this threat of worthy speed and that greatest 40yard dash time ever. The 421 speed that we saw at the combine and just the defenses, it gives them something to think about. And I know when he’s been out this year that Taekquin Thornton as another really fast guy has tried to fill that void, but he’s not savior worthy, right? And the fact that you can start to dictate two things I think really happen with Worthy on the field is one you dictate when you know when defenses when they feel like they have to get in those two high shells and really defend deep and really back them off right you make them respect it and two one thing they to do late was put him in motion a lot and give him opportunities to work back so far. So I think there’s really a mallayers of having Worthy on the field as a threat that helps you. But no, I I I think that’s exactly what you see is those bigger windows when to throw into absolutely I don’t care how you grade scale. If there’s a 20 point gap between the two, obviously there’s something to that. That’s all I have to say about it. Uh Mary says, “Who’s the most impressive rookie that you have so far in your opinion? And also, what do you think of King Liso Mataya now that he’s slid over to left guard and how’s he doing so far this season? Um, look, I I think there’s there’s a lot of options. I mean, the Chiefs always like to play they, you know, Andy Reid in the past hasn’t liked to play rookies as much, but he’s given these guys opportunities to play. Honestly, you know, considering the injury and considering just what he has to battle through and coming back on such, you know, I want to say short notice and he missed the second half last year. I think the first round pick, Josh Simmons, has been really solid. I think he just had his best game of the season so far against Baltimore. 67.8 pass blocking grade. Look, it’s not at the top of the league, but I’ll tell you, it’s a hell of a lot better than the Chiefs were getting last year out of their offensive tackles, right? So, I think the improvement that you were looking for from Josh Simmons and the pass protection that he gives you is big time, right? I think he stands out. I think obviously null Williams in the small sample that he’s gotten at quarterback. Look, it’s, you know, I’ve kind of make it I’ve kind of almost made a joke about this on when we cover the draft and even at times during the season. The Chiefs are just going to draft a defensive back on day three that’s going to be really good. This is just this is just tradition. It’s like it’s almost just like clockwork that Brett Beach is going to find one of these guys. And I liked Noah Williams at Cal his ability to play press man coverage and play to the ball. I think I want to say he led the nation in interceptions last year among quarterbacks if that’s right. I cover a lot of the college stuff and some of it the memorization kind of filters through sometimes but no I mean no Williams I mean he’s he’s been really good so far and it’s just the Chiefs I mean you look at all the you know McDuffy as a first round pick is one thing but Jaylen Watson day three Josh Williams day three uh Jaden Jaden Hicks I think was he a fourthrounder I think which is wild Shamari Shamari Connor day three Noah Williams day it’s just like clockwork every year that Brett V is going to get at least one defensive back on day three that’s going to be super productive and Steve Spagnola just finds a way to use him. So those two guys really stands out and as far as Kingsley goes, you know, a 58.3 PFF grade so far. He’s another one. His best game of the season just came in this Baltimore game. So sometimes, you know, maybe things start to click, but he looks more comfortable I I think that, you know, than I thought he would early on. He’s he never really played that much guard before, if at all, at BYU, if I remember. So you’re just looking Look, you’re look, you have a superstar on Creed Humphrey. You got a superstar on Trey Smith. those other three spots you’re looking for good enough and that’s fine. A lot of times your offensive line is is is as good as your weakest link. So, and if Simmons becomes a star as a first round pick, great. And then you have Kingsley and you have, you know, hopefully Jawan Taylor is good enough at that right tackle spot. I know he can irritate people a little bit, but you know, that’s what you look for. If you have two or three stars and then you have the rest is good enough, that’s a darn good offensive line. Yeah, for sure. Jana here says, “Which offensive lines have the highest combined PFF grade?” if you know that. And then do they correlate that with fewer sacks let up or is it for better run success or does how does that play into the whole thing? Um it’s it’s a little bit of both. I mean it’s you know it does it does correlate it is going to correlate a bit when you talk about okay giving up fewer sacks is obviously good and in general we like to think about it more as giving up less pressure. Right? In general pressure creates sacks. You know sacks are yes they’re important. Obviously you want to bring the quarterback down but how often are you allowing pressure? How often then are you allowing hits and sacks? So, I can tell you right now, here’s the five highest graded offensive lines I have in the league right now. Buffalo Bills, they’ve been fantastic, especially in the run game. Holy moly, they brought all their starters back and they’ve been mauling people up front. You’re a Jets fan. You’re a Jets fan. So, I mean, is it fair to give the Buffalo Bills um the number one offensive line knowing they’ve been playing high school teams every other week? Um, you know, I I think it is because you still talk about, you know, and and you know, I think it’s different because so I I I run into this problem covering college football because early in the season you get teams that play like FCS teams and group like, right? Like teams like that that are completely overmatched, right? In the NFL maybe, yes, you maybe have two or three teams that are overmatched, but you’re still, okay, so let’s say the Bills playing the Jets, you still have Quinnon Williams, you still have Will McDonald like this. True. 28 probably 28 out of the 32 teams. There’s a lot more parody in the NFL than Colorado. Yeah. So, hey, it’s just fun to to rag on the Bills. Set you up to take a shot at Josh. Believe Oh, believe me, I I know you guys in any given chance are going to hit on Josh, but he also caught astray in the process because you use the Jets for an example. Well, of course I did. And I can I can tell you in certain spots we have talent. We just Well, we don’t execute. I mean, you know, and and listen, you guys, I know it’s it’s a very privileged you guys have Patrick Mahomes. We haven’t had a quarterback in 60 years. I get it. I know it. But, uh, no, I mean, your your top five right now, your top five offensive lines we have right now, and then there’s a close race with some good ones behind them. But, Buffalo, San Francisco, they’re always good in the run game, Trent Williams and those guys. Denver, that’s a spectacular offensive line that they have out there. And Denver, I know you don’t want to hear about that either, but the pass protection in Denver is great. Atlanta’s got a good line every year. And then you know what? One that surprised me a little bit considering some of the guys they lost and shuffling around. The Detroit Lions, man, they just keep doing it. They’re they’re really good. They got young kids at guard at both guard spots. They had to move one of their guards from last year to center. Center retired. The Lions Su I believe is the highest graded offensive lineman in the league. He’s been unreal this year. So, I mean, some of the usual suspects up top, but that’s what it takes, you know. And the Chiefs, if you’re wondering, are there at 14th. They’re kind of putting it together. I don’t mind that, you know. So, it’s it’s I I think it’s just one of those things where you see some of the teams with offensive line struggles and they’re the teams that are struggling. Cincinnati, Cleveland on offense, Miami, those are the teams that are struggling. So, it is such an important thing to have a at least a good offensive line, right? And maybe not if you don’t the best one in the league. It is what it is. But at least having a good offensive line, that’s a big asset to your team, right? Absolutely. That’s been the Achilles Hill for us for how long now? So, Chris, the five bomb, baby. He says, “Do GMs or teams ever reach out to PFF for any kind of data or insight into players presumably if they want to draft or trade?” So more so than reach out say on a specific thing is that I I think something that doesn’t get said enough we um we provide data to all 32 teams to all what is it 136 FBS teams to another 70 or 75 FCS teams that that have signed up that that are clients of ours to all of the CFL teams to all of the UFFL teams like they they all have access and I have talked to coaches that say you guys are an unreal resource for us between, you know, the grades are one thing and maybe even if like like coach Spagnolo, they don’t look too much into the grades, that is fine, but you know, our our database and everything those guys get to look at. There’s so many different um options you have as resources within our database, whether, you know, it’s looking at how often certain guys are positively graded versus negatively, whether it’s, you know, we get all of the all 22 for NFL and college that’s easy to access. We have things that, you know, they can filter out which co when is a team in this coverage or what does this team look like in this front and it’s so much easier. I had a college coach tell me one time that we for him, you know, he was a defensive backs coach and for his advanced scouting that normally took two days, we cut it down to three hours. So, believe it or not, and it doesn’t get out out it doesn’t get said out loud very much because of the outward facing thing that we’re always talking about as the grades and stuff that they use us as a resource, man. And everybody has, you know, we’ve we’ve got all 32 NFL teams in the system as clients and and they use our data to whatever for whatever use that they want to use it for. That’s, you know, they that’s how they that’s how they scout. A lot of times the draft scouting is a big time thing in front offices. We’ve got people even in NFL front offices that used to work for us. So I I mean it is something people use. So I know the the grades are obviously all the argument and everything that gets the debate, but we do a lot more than just the grades. We provide a whole lot of information. Even like coach Spags even said that we got a lot of information at their disposal that they can use. Absolutely. Appreciate you, Chris. Wright. Yeah, I appreciate you, brother. Yeah. Uh, we tell people, man, PFF is a tool. You don’t have to love the grades, but they do a lot of good work. And like for us, man, we’re big draft guys. Me and Steve always go in, we dive into the draft. Um, I’ll watch uh, you know, I’ll watch Trevor and I’ll watch Connor do their draft stuff, man. And and and I’ll hear some stuff and I’m like, that’s interesting. I’ll hear some stuff and I’ll be like, I didn’t agree with that when I watched my film. And then I’ll also hear things about certain like FCS teams or or things I cannot get all 22 film on. Like that’s a good resource and and like you’re saying it it makes the draft, you know, the process and the scouting process just so much easier. And uh yeah, I know that you and Trevor actually have a a show where you guys get together and you guys uh preview NFL games coming up. So, we’ll get to that in just a second because I want to hear your thoughts about this uh Monday Night Football game coming up versus the Jags. But last week, Trevor picked the Chiefs and somebody over here, I ain’t going to name names, Dalton. You picked the Ravens. What are we doing? Hey, you know what? Based on Alyssa, I do things based on the information I have. And I think one thing, one I did, I did pick the Ravens. I picked them. I thought it was going to I thought one way or the other it was going to be a closer. Did you get your info from PFF or a competitor? Say it was a competitor. Oh, hey, listen. I I’ll be real with you. I I use the information I have. I use what I see on a week-toeek basis. Sometimes Sometimes I come up with my own crazy ideas, obviously. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, right? I mean, I get to preview a lot of these games, both NFL and college. I previewed 16 NFL games last week and 12 college games. So, you know, I got to go back and get a count on how many I got right. I think it was about 19 or 20 out of the 28. So, that’s pretty good, man. I’ll I’ll take that. Usually, if I get about 2/3 to 70%, I feel pretty good about it. No, I mean based on the previous information we had and I think one thing I did probably underscell was the return of Xavier Worthy and and then the impact on the offense and I I thought this game would have been closer um than it was one way or the other, whichever team won. I think I had the Ravens 23 to 20. That sounds right, but um no, I I think the Ravens and their struggles obviously on defense and the injuries they have are a real problem. The Chiefs had their best day of the year running the ball at least by design, right? because a lot of it before that was Mahomes scrambling and then again the Xavier Worthy effect on their offense is big time and what it what it does the impact that his speed has on defenses and credit to him man maybe Ed Arrowhead you just should never pick against them right especially in a big game because they’re going to find a way to win it but that was a big- time showing I think that was a game the Giants game I really believe that that was a good amount about the Giants and the way they just been struggling in the quarterback situation and Malik Neighbors getting hurt and all of that but this game really showed me, okay, we got we got two weeks off from them at the beginning of the season. The Chiefs are back. They’re they’re back. I mean, they’re still the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs still the Chiefs. They’re still the Chiefs, right? A lot of disappointed people out there that were like, “Oh, it’s over.” Yeah. I mean, and you know what? And and I I I really do I respect the Chiefs in the same way we used to do this for there was a few years with the Patriots where, you know, everybody wanted to to declare the Patriots dead and Brady’s old and they’re done and it’s all over. And then what do they do? to come back and make the Super Bowl again. So, I I think it is the same feel as the Patriots for all those years where you got Patrick Mahomes, you got Andy Reid, you probably shouldn’t doubt him, right? I doubt I doubted him. I doubted him for a week. I’ll tell you guys, this week against the Jags, I did pick him to go to Jacksonville and win this week. I’m not I didn’t get to see the episode this week. I I have I have seen the light. I get it. They’re back. We I remember what is it that the What was the year with New England? We’re on to Cincinnati. They were two and two and everybody was freaking out about the demise. I mean, I I’ll I have seen the light. I get it. It was. And listen, and it was such an impressive showing against Baltimore all the way around. It really was. So, I I mean, they’re back, man. If you don’t think they’re gonna And I said this before the season when everybody a lot of people were picking Denver, picking the Chargers to win the And I said, “No, I They do They do it every offseason, man. The Chiefs at the Chiefs, there’s something I like to use sometimes. It’s until further notice.” I said, “Until further notice, I’m taking a Chief.” Just like the Bills in the East, I’m picking I I will pick them every year until somebody else just does it and knocks him off the perch. But nine in a row, no, there’s still I’m still going to take them. Absolutely. Well, we’re going to dive deeper into that Jacksonville game here in just a minute, but real quick, appreciate all you guys being here tonight. Do us a favor. Hit that like button if you haven’t already. Also, if you haven’t subscribed to the channel, what in the hell are you waiting for? Hit that subscribe button. hang out with all chief up for the rest of the season. It’s going to be a fun one. You heard Dalton. We’re back, baby. Um, it’s going to be good. So, make sure to do those things. We’d appreciate it. Let’s get to this chat real quick and then I want to get back to that Jacksonville game. But, shout out about time. Been a member for 18 months now. He said, “What’s up, Kingdom?” Let’s see. A whooping Monday. And he said, “PFF.” Barn. I’m not sure what we what we mean by that one, but I don’t know. We We hear a lot of things in our direction. I can only I can only hope that’s good. That That’s probably one of the nicest things BFF’s heard this morning. Then we got our boy Zack here with the 10 bombs. It’s hard to see the Chiefs losing more than one or two more games. They’re balancing out, finding themselves. Smith showing a lot of promise. Mahomes just taking care of business. Defense showing up and growing. Uh they got a couple of tough games coming up, Zack. I mean, they still have I mean, this Jags game is not a gimme. And then you also have Buffalo coming up. You have the Lions coming up. I mean, before that bye-week, there’s still a handful of pretty tough games. And then, of course, divisional games are always tough. So, um, I like the confidence, though, and appreciate the tin bomb. I’m in. So, Zack, what what Zach, you’re trying to say is that the Chiefs are a grower, not a shower, huh? I don’t like it. Oh, wow. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. Like, I think they’re both Hey, as long as it gets the job done, that’s all that matters. Hey, man. Let’s talk about the Jags. Can we talk about the Jags here? Okay, look. Um, like I said, I haven’t got to see your show, so I’m curious. You don’t have to give it all away. We’ll we’ll tell everybody go watch your show. You don’t have to give it all away or anything. Um, but in my opinion, a lot of people seen uh, Spags play cover zero, I want to say like 13% of the time versus Lamar. Uh, he was running two high safety splits, just confusing Russell Wilson in week three and got us back on track. So, a lot of people are wondering what they’re going to do. Is he going to try to take away Trevor Lawrence and force Etien to beat him or do you take away the run game and force Trevor Lawrence to beat you, which is kind of what they did with the Jags? And and we’ve all been going back and forth. Um, you know, I I I I was thinking at first they may do the whole, you know, stuff the, you know, not stuff the run, but but try to make try to make Etien beat you a little bit or something like that. But I think that with with at the end now I think he’s the only running back over six yards per carry this season and he’s on pace he’s on pace to have like 1 1600 yards and like 13 14 touchdowns. It’s insane. So I think that they’ve got to shut down the run first. This has to be the big one here with me cuz the Chiefs defense not the best so far. And then we’ve got rid of Mike Panell in the you know in camp which was wild. Didn’t make the 53man roster. That one went over our heads. But again, I haven’t got to see what you said on PFF. Um, let us know what you think about the matchup. Do you think the Chiefs have to take away Trevor Lawrence or you think it’s more important to take away the run game? I I actually think in this matchup, the run game. I think you make Trevor Lawrence beat you and throw through this secondary that after the first week has gotten it together. And once again, the Chiefs are our highest graded coverage team in the league. The back seven’s been absolutely outstanding since week one. You know, Justin Herbert played out of his mind in that first game. He really did. He was spectacular in that. But ever since then, the Chiefs have had the best secondary in football. I I will tell you this about the Jaguars. They are different than I expected them to be this year because, you know, a lot of the thought going coming into this year was, okay, Liam Cohen, he’s got Trevor Lawrence. He’s going to make him better. It’s going to be the Renaissance like it was for Baker Mayfield. You got Brian Thomas, you got Travis Hunter, you got these weapons. They’re going to spread it out and and gun it on the outside, right? And it’s really been the opposite. Their offense has been incredibly balanced. Travis ETN, like you mentioned, having a great year. their offensive line, some of the veterans they’ve added, they’ve been a lot better up front. They’ve got the highest grade, uh, the highest run blocking grades for the tight ends in the league right now. They’ve been spectacular at tight end. So, when they put these guys downhill at you, man. Absolutely. They come right at you with multiple tight ends. I’m going to tell you another guy, he had a big impact last week, you mentioned, with the interception. Leo Chanel is going to play a big role this week. I really believe that when you talk about the Chiefs getting back in that base defense with three linebackers, Nick Bolton, Drew Tranquil, and Leo Chanel, he’s going to play a huge role this week. I think the Chiefs are Steve Spagnola is going to have to do a good job matching personnel, right? When you talk about getting Leo Chanel in the game, getting maybe even a Jaden Hicks, a big-time tackler, safety in the game. Shamari Connor is obviously going to play a lot too down in the box. I I’m loading up to stop the run because this Jaguars team wants to run the football with Travis CTN. They’re controlling the pace of the game right now. Their offensive line and their tight ends are blocking great. They’re getting aggressive downhill in the run game. And I think, you know, you make Trevor Lawrence beat you, make him throw into that great secondary. And all those looks you give in coverage. If you can get this Jags team in third and long, they’re not throwing it down downfield too much right now. It’s more of a ball control type team. I’m making Trevor Lawrence beat me and not getting beat up on the ground by Liam Cohen and this O line and all his run concept. Yeah, man. So, let’s flip it to the other side of the football, right? Uh, I’m not real keen on the Jags defense right now. I don’t I don’t know a whole lot about them. Uh, I do know they have the XUK player, Joshua Hines Allen, who’s a pretty badass guy. Um, and then of course they have Devin Lloyd uh as a um linebacker. Um, how is their secondary and how do you think this passing attack now that we have Xavier Worthy back? How do you think that matchup’s going to go? because I’ve read a few things here and there that said that they’re going to have a lot of trouble stopping the Chiefs offense. So, what’s your opinion on that one? Um, their secondary has been a hell of a lot better than last year. I just mentioned the Chiefs as our highest graded coverage team. The Jaguars are second right behind it. They have been fantastic. And I’ll tell you what, I if I had a vote for assistant coach of the year right now, it might go to Jaguars defensive coordinator Anthony Campanili. He has just been outstanding with the way he’s changed the mentality on this defense. Last year, one of the big problems was they ran way too much man coverage when they did not have the ability to do so. They’ve gone to a zone coverage heavy defense. And I will tell you something, they are as good as any team in football defending the middle of the field. You mentioned Devin Lloyd and Foyer Luakan. Those linebackers have been great. They’ve been great at safety so far. They brought in, I believe it’s Eric Murray, they brought in at safety. Antonio Johnson’s been good in the slot. Jordan Lewis has been outstanding. the the acquisition from the Cowboys. So, I think what Patrick Mahomes is going to do, and now this is the part where it plays at a Chief’s advantage is one having Xavier Worthy in there is going to back up those zone defenses just a little bit, right? It’s going to back up the depth of those guys. But the fact that Mahomes is now what four years into this now without Tyreek Hill so comfortable working underneath, taking completions, taking positive plays, that’s something that’s going to be big in this game. do I I personally would not expect Mahomes to take a lot of deep shots down the field because the Jags have been really good in zone coverage and what you don’t want to do is mess around especially in the middle of the field because this Jags team got 13 takeaways in their first four games. They only had nine all of last season. So they’ve been taking the football away. They’ve been playing more zone coverage and I I I will tell you right now this team, this secondary, this coverage unit is probably the most improved in the NFL. I think Anthony Campanil is doing an outstanding job with them. It might not seem all that flashy on Monday night if the Chiefs are going to win, but stay patient. Allow Patrick Mahomes to just complete passes. Yeah, it might happen six, seven yards at a time like we’ve seen in the past, but that’s what it’s going to take. This Jaguars defense is a lot better than it was last year. Yeah, you mentioned the 13 plus 13. They’re actually plus nine. If it hadn’t been for uh, you know, the quarterback throwing four picks, I mean, come on. They’re pretty good. I think it’s going to come down to that. the Chiefs have to do it. But like you mentioned, Worthy, Worthy not only can do the, you know, take the top off of a defense, but he opens things up in the middle and he makes defenses decide. Do you want to play zone? You want to play man? What are you going to do? It can confuse them. It can get in the DC’s head a little bit as well. So, I’m with you. I don’t know if we see as many deep shots, but I do think the Chiefs will test their luck if they get their shot. Uh if Mahomes does see them in man-to-man, he may go ahead and take it because with Taekquin Thornton coming on, Xavier Worthy and then of course like you said, the way you’re sounding, if they want to set back in a cover two shell and they want to force Mahomes to come under the middle, this could be a Travis Kelce wake up game. This could be, you know, maybe getting Brashard Smith getting more snaps and stuff in the back field, coming out of the back field and working a little bit. So, I’m with you. I think that’s a a very good point uh with the Jags and the Chiefs matchup. Um, one thing that I found crazy last last week, you said that their their corners and their safeties and their their secondaries been looking a lot better. Travis Hunter, the one they give up all the picks for, he only played nine snaps on defense last week out of 66. That is wild, huh? Yeah. I mean, the two weeks before that, it was much more split between offense and defense. So, I I do wonder if that was a game plan thing uh last week when it came to just, okay, we’re we’re going to just play him on offense this week. If it was something about San Francisco that they felt like, okay, we don’t need him on defense as much. But the two weeks before that against Cincinnati and Houston, he got a lot of reps. I think it I almost lost. Do you think it was because they they felt the 49ers and McCaffrey was going to be more runheavy? Do you think that’s probably what it was? They wanted to stack the box and they don’t see Travis Hunters being that guy. Maybe that could be the case. I mean, that that’s that’s reasonable because Hunter is not known obviously as an elite run defender and an elite tackler and and you do you just don’t have that run game, so I wouldn’t expect it this week, right? Yeah. Um I don’t know. You know, it’s hard. I I need to dig in more because I’ve been keeping track of Hunter snaps and all of that. I pay a lot of attention to the rookies for one of the articles I write every week. So, I’m trying to find the pattern where they like to use Hunter more because they didn’t use him much in week one against Carolina. um they used him a lot on defense and both ways against Cincy and Houston and then last week kind of went back to okay just really exclusively offense for the most part. trying to find this pattern myself to be honest with you and it’s been harder to find. I but I do wonder if it is a game plan thing but then but then I sit here and I go well Carolina I mean they’re not great one way or the other and if it is a run defense thing if it is a run defense thing I would think you you play them a lot against Kansas City because you know the Chiefs still haven’t been great at running the football. Um but you know I’m trying to find that pattern myself. I’m I’m very intrigued to see, especially in a game of this magnitude now, this is the biggest game Jacksonville has played so far this year, how that works out and and you know, and maybe even if the Chiefs see him on the field, how they choose to attack him, right, as the rookie and a guy playing both ways and see if they can wear him out if he’s playing both ways. It is again, it’s the most it’s the most fascinating rookie story, if not story of anything in football this year is just what is going on with Travis Hunter at any given Right. So, it is very intriguing and I’m I’m still myself trying to figure out the pattern of what the Jags are doing with that. It’s pretty random. I I was a big advocate for I think uh you pick one and stick with it, buddy. Like I think he’s such a good athlete like and I understand he can do both, but it’s like he could be really good if he focused all of his time into one or the other. Um obviously if it was me, I’d go offense, probably get paid a little more, get paid more, get maybe a little bit more. That’s true. Yeah. I saw someone in the chat said that they think he should stick strictly defense that they remind him of Dion when he was younger. So I think he should put on 150 pounds and get that pass rush money. That’s what I think. Let’s start feeding him this week. How about that? Let’s get them nice and slow. That that 40 that 47 million a year that Parsons is getting. That looks pretty good, doesn’t it? Yeah. No kidding. That’s insane. Actually, the Jags defense, everybody keeps saying they look good. They look good. They look good. They’ve not really played a lot of good offenses, right? Like the quarterbacks they beats, Bryce Young, they had a half with Joe Burrow, half with Browning, I believe. Uh CJ Stroud, who’s not looked very good last year or this year. Brock Pery, you know, not too great this year, I guess. Did they get Brock party or was it uh No, it was M. It was uh actually, no, you know what it might have. I think it was Brock Party in that game. Yeah, it was Brock. I think Mack just made his first start. Was it tonight, actually? Um, but I mean I don’t think I’m not I’m not dogging none of those guys, but Patrick Mahomes is a different level than those four. So, do you expect the defense to really be that good or could this be a game where the Chiefs offense and Patrick Mahomes could expose the hell out of them? I I think the big thing is going to be we will see on a downto- basis how good they are better than last year. I’ll tell you that right out of last year. Last year they were they they were atrocious last year. It was a train wreck. Absolutely. They are better. They are better than last year. Now, right now, let’s take our grades again, as controversial as they may be. They’re they’re are they’re our fourth highest graded defense in the NFL. Do I think right this minute they’re the fourth best defense in the NFL for the whole season? Not necessarily. No. And I think the big thing is, can they succeed when they don’t get all of these takeaways, right? 13 takeaways in four games. Because if there’s a guy generally that is not going to give the football away as easy as these first four teams have, it’s going to be Patrick Mahomes. He’s not going to do that, right? So, I think that’s going to be that really is going to be a big battle. I think maybe the biggest battle on that side of the ball is if Mahomes is great with the ball security, obviously that’s that’s correlates to a lot of winning. Chiefs is probably going to win. If the Jags can find a way to get two or three takeaways, that’s going to tilt the game in their favor, right? So, I think without the takeaways, how good are they on a downto-down basis? I I I can tell you for a fact watching four games and just watching them and how fast they are and how much more fundamentally they are, fundamentally sound they are in coverage, they’re better than last year. I don’t know yet that they’re top five, right? They’ve played like it the first few weeks, but this is a real test. And obviously now, can you judge everything about a defense by the way they play Patrick Mahomes? Absolutely not. It’s probably going to be somewhere between those two outcomes, right? But I think it’s a great test for him, especially at home in a Monday night game, what this Jags defense is going to look like, especially against a quarterback who’s not just going to hand him the football like the last few have. Right. Of course, the turnover battle’s always huge. And I think it’s a good one to look at in this game because all the stuff you mentioned and also the Chiefs themselves have kind of made it a focal point to, hey, we’ve got to start turning the ball over more because the last few years that’s just been non-existent with our defense. But you see them making strides to try to get uh players that make play on the ball like a null Williams or someone of that that nature to try to get that uh turned around a little bit because I mean no Williams reminds me a little bit of young Marcus Peters uh who was absolutely insane with the Chiefs. Just a big ball hawk uh big riskreward guy. He might be a little more physical than Marcus but um yeah that’s what I thought about. Maberry here our friend from down under says I love the content. Uh people trash talk PFF. Good to have them come in here and explain how it works. And that’s my sentiments exactly. This is a a pretty cool deal here. Uh so glad you came in, Dalton, because uh I I think a lot of people want the explanation that you’ve been given, right? Because they don’t really know. I think that’s why maybe that’s why people hate on because they just don’t understand it. I think that’s what Dalton kind of alluded to. It’s been what 20 years you said and it’s not been a very well explained thing. U is Chris Collinsworth is he have something to do with PFF? Spags mentioned that, right? Oh, he he he owns the place. I I think it was uh did he come up with the idea or did he just buy it out like No, he bought it the original uh founder uh Neil Hornsby actually created in the UK actually. He retired a couple of years ago, but he started it out in the UK as a small basically a startup like you would think about a tech startup back in I think. Have you ever got to talk to Chris Collinsworth? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I just saw him uh I just saw him last week actually. He was Well, the next time you see him, tell him to lay off Jawan Taylor. Yeah, I was getting ready to I was getting ready to say so. That’s what he does in his spare time. That’s what he done to us. Okay. Taylor Hill. So what he does in his spare time besides just pick on Jawan Taylor, he he runs PFF, huh? Believe me, I I I get to see Chris every once in a while around the building and stuff. In between all the games, he’s tra I mean this time of year he’s traveling constantly and all that. I get to see him once in a while. And the one thing he tells me is he goes, “Listen, there’s a whole lot of noise in my direction and I just have to tune it out on any given week.” is he goes, “I know I’ll say one thing a week that gets people riled up.” So, get get used to it, man. If you’re going to have this platform, it’s going to be a thing that people are going to The Wolves are always out for you, especially in football, especially in the NFL. So, I can hear him now, man. I can hear him now walking into the room. He’ll say, “Now, here’s a guy, Don Wasserman, that went on ACU and told everybody about PFF.” He’s done he’s done it once or twice to me. Trust me, he does it to everybody. But, no, I mean, he’s he’s told me that. He’s like, “The Wolves are always out.” out. He goes, “I don’t this long into it.” He go, he’s he’s been broadcasting for what, close to, I don’t know, 35 years now or whatever it is, man. And he’s just like, believe me, the criticism just comes with the territory. So, no, I mean I mean, it’s just it’s just one of those things where you go, but boy, people and and listen to to your guys’ credit, too. You guys will do it. Everybody’s going to defend their team, man. And I I’ll tell you what, even maybe even more so than the NFL get covering the last couple years, boy. People getiveive about their college teams, too. It’s really, hey, man, college is like, sometimes it’s like state pride. It’s school pride. It’s crazy. Oh, it is. If I say anything about anybody’s college team, I know what’s coming my direction, but man, I just try to say things as honestly as I can. I’m not trying to offend anybody. We’re not and listen as a as a group we’re not trying to offend anybody. I know sometimes it comes across like that but again it’s why it’s great to have talks like this because you know we could just lay it out there and I think especially don’t think coach bags said anything wrong or or anything like that. I think no he’s speaking his mind and like there’s certain things you don’t have to like everything we do you know. I think there’s there’s even there sometimes I’ll look at a game and I’ll go, “Oh, that’s a little weird.” And then I’ll go back and watch it again and try to figure it out, man. I think that’s the part is football and evaluating it is so subjective. It’s again, it’s not like baseball where a pitcher throws to a hitter and this happens. You know, baseball’s so many independent variables. Football is not like that. You’re within the context of 21 other guys around you at all times. For sure. And just to mention, Mike did cut that clip a little bit short. Spags did have some nice things to say about PFF there at the end of it. I couldn’t show that part. No, you No, you had to cut it off. You guys have to find a way to win the argument in the narr Mike Mike’s trying to get a job at CNN, so he’s trying to see how I could clip stuff up. It was getting it was getting a little long. Come on now. I knew this I knew this was going to be a little slanted eventually. Jeez. No, dude. Hey, let’s get to one more question real quick before we let you go, Dalton. Uh once again, appreciate your time, bud. Uh but Denny here, he says, “What’s the hardest position to grade and what’s the easiest in your opinion?” Good question. Um I’ll tell you, we got a lot of guys with different with different specialties, right? And I I usually leaned more towards the passing game. I would say the hardest thing to do in general is, you know, especially live when you’re doing the live broadcast cut because we’re watching, you know, when we do it the first time through, we’re doing it as the game is going on and we’re using the TV copy. So, when you don’t have that end zone shot, I would say the run game and run defense is the hardest part because you don’t get a perfect angle from the sideline shot of sometimes who’s in what gap and sometimes there’s even little variances in the run concepts that you know can change the assignments a little bit, right? Just like coach Spags was talking about sometimes we don’t know the exact assignments and those are often times when things will get changed the most when we go in that second cut and we go in with the all 22 and then we have the end zone cam and we can tweak some things as we go. the second time around, you know, like, you know, with NFL, we’re up all night, man, and the grades, the final grades after the All 22s got to be in by noon on Monday morning. So, it’s a crunch to get all those in. But I would say from that angle and what we do live, and I did it live, like I said, for three years, it’s probably the run game and run defense because there’s so many little things and angles and spacing and and Dline techniques that, you know, maybe you can just be off by just this much seeing it from that angle and then it’s got to get fixed in the all 22. Yeah, I I I would agree with that. Uh because there was there was some stuff we had earlier this year where the Chiefs run a lot of zone concepts and like you said, I don’t know how the Chiefs actually like do that on their offensive line. Like if they’ve got a a defensive tackle shaded, you know, out to like a five gap or something. Does the guard get that or does that become say the center on like an inside zone left? You know what I’m trying to say? So it’s weird. You don’t really know how to do that. So I guess that does go with what Spag said. I you don’t know it, but you would think that maybe you guys could just reach out to every team and get those those zone concepts. You’d be like, “Look, you’re paying me. Uh let me know what those zone concepts are.” Yeah. Well, you you know, coaching staffs are going to be koi about that, too, because you know, they don’t they don’t want to give away the secrets, right? So, it’s one of those things. And look and you know when you’re doing the same teams and our graders and and especially the reviewers are doing the same teams over and over and over and they get familiar with the concepts and with the coaches even without talking to them say on a week toeek basis. You figure out tendencies right of okay this is you know it can happen with with run concepts. It can happen in coverages. You know we we even have discussions a lot of times about you know this team likes to run this coverage a certain way. This is the way they like to run it. So you do after especially now especially when you get to this point of the year now when you get four, five, six, seven weeks into it and you get those tendencies, right? They run their cover three just a little bit different. I’ve even heard from, you know, I I’ve even heard and had players DM me just to go, “Hey, we play this coverage a certain way.” So, you know, just when you guys are going over it, just keep this in mind. And I’ll pass I don’t I don’t I don’t do it I I don’t do it anymore myself because I’m on the content side now doing the podcast and all that. But I’ll pass that along to our reviewers, man. I’ll tell you our data team, the the whole thing is hundreds hundreds plural of guys like on especially on a college Saturday like between six and 700 guys working on 110 115 games. Not just because I did it myself and I was a part of that team for four years, but man, I got the utmost respect for the grind on Saturdays and Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, like tonight there’s a game on the grind that those guys go through. I’ve done it myself four times through and and they’re some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, man. I’m telling you right now, former players, former coaches, our analysts who some guys have been around for 10, 12, 15 years doing this. I got the utmost respect for those guys and they’re really the backbone of everything we do. So, it’s just one of those thing that that they watch a lot of ball. You got to be a you got to be an absolute sicko to watch as much as we do. Especially college I’ve wor I’ve done it man. I’ve worked college Saturdays 14 15 16 hours working three great three or four different games. It’s a grind. I won’t tell you it’s not. But we have so many hands on it and then again we watch everything twice through just to make sure it’s right. Lots of coffee on those days, right? Keep it going. I’m not a coffee guy. Usually it’s like a Usually it’s like a Mountain Dew or something like goes some somehow. I’m 31. I still don’t drink coffee, which is which is weird, especially being from New York originally where coffee is like a way of life. But yeah, just never never got around to that. Don’t do it. About time with the five bomb says, “Donating on behalf of Julie and her legendary comment.” We missed it apparently. So you’re going to have to let us know what the legendary comment was. I’m confused. And then uh I have one more question. I lied to you. There’s one more question I want you to handle and then I want to give you the floor and let everybody know where they can go uh watch all the social media stuff you’re doing now uh Dalton and it’s uh Nikki here and I think people wanted to to get the answer to this one. Why does a QB who takes more risk get scored lower than one who just goes for easy check down throws? Yeah, I mean so I mean the big thing is and this is one of our things and sometimes um it gets interpreted like well this guy didn’t throw a lot of interceptions so he must be great. But one of our most famous stats is something called turnover worthy plays, right? How often are you putting the ball in danger? And let’s be real, turnovers are very often the biggest correlation. You know, they have the biggest correlation to winning and losing any individual game, right? Ball security is so big. So, it’s great to great guys on the positive side who make so many great plays, right? Those great thread the needle throws or Mahomes or Josh Allen scrambling outside the pocket for a 30-yard run and all of that. But there is an element to playing quarterback, especially in the NFL, that is about risk aversion, right? If a guy is going out there and putting the ball in danger four, five, six times a game, he could cost you the game. And so, you know, sometimes he does, right? I mean, I look at, you know, I think about certain quarterbacks. Jameus Winston is actually the best example of this because he would have years back in the day with Tampa Bay. He he would lead the league in positively graded throws, but also lead the league in negatively graded throws and and turnover worthy plays and things of that nature. And think about the year 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions, right? He was the first ever to do that. That’s the kind of thing where you go, hey, what would you what would you say to Jamus in that scenario? Hey, we need you to throw 50 touchdowns if you’re going to throw 30 interceptions. No, you’re not going to do that. You’re going to say, hey, man, we need that second number cut at least in half if we’re going to win more ball games. there’s a reason we’re going to get Tom Brady to replace you, right? So, it ball security is so so big and when you when you elevate that floor at the level that Mahomes or Josh Allen’s done it now, he’s gotten really good at avoiding turnovers now. Joe Burrow has been a lead at it for years. When you don’t give the defense opportunities to take the football away, you keep your offense on the field, you get positive plays, you score points. I think that’s why those guys, those gunslingers that put the ball in danger, they get graded lower because it does have such a correlation. Turnovers and the turnover battle, it does have such a correlation to winning and losing football games. Absolutely. Brenda with the 10 bomb says, “Thank you, Dalton, for coming to the show.” Uh, floor is yours, buddy. Let everybody know where to find you at and what you’re doing these days. Absolutely. Listen, all our great if you want a to access to all the grades and see and even criticize everything that we do a PFF plus subscription uh you can get that with a code actually 25% off right now. You can get that with PFF NFL show 25. That’s the code for 25% off a subscription to that if you want to see that on the website. We’ve got all our great written content from I think a couple dozen analysts we have now writing articles on the website including myself. the PFF NFL show. You me you guys mentioned myself and Trevor Sikma on uh on YouTube. Mondays and Wednesdays we’re on with previews and reviews of games. And any of you college football fans out there, I know there’s I know there’s some KU fans. I know there’s some KState fans out there. I know there’s probably maybe I know it’s the other side of the state, sort of. There’s probably some Missouri fans floating around there, too. Missouri Tigers look good. You know, the PFF college football show on YouTube as well. Myself and Max Chadwick previewing, reviewing games actually on that channel tomorrow at noon. We will have our first mock draft of the season. So, that’ll be some fun as well. Put some put some bonus stuff up there on there as well. I’m sure that’ll ruffle some feathers. Whoever we take in the top 10 as well, but NF PFF NFL show, PFF College Show on YouTube. Like and subscribe to those. We’ll have some fun. Heck yeah, baby. Awesome, man. We appreciate that. Hey, Pops in the house. This is our old man right here, baby. Five memberships. Let’s go. Pops. Look at that. Pops up. Oh, he’s always on there. Don’t let him lie to you. He checks it out. He uses the mop draft simulator from PFF. Hey, if y’all got one of those memberships, thank the old man in the chat. Uh, but once again, appreciate you, Dalton. Thanks for coming on here, clearing some things up. I thought it was cool to get the the other end of it, right? Because all of Cheese Kingdom got to see Spags talking about it today. And I think it PFF unfairly gets viewed in a like a unfair light, I should say, sometimes. So, it was good to get you on here and get your side of it. No, absolutely. I I appreciate honestly the platform to just come on here and talk about it. I think it’s something at a basic level. I know we’ve been around a long time, but I think it’s something that in the past hasn’t often gotten communicated enough to go, okay, hey, this is what this is and this is the reason for it. I feel like that is part of my job to do that is to just, you know, it’s great to have the numbers and it’s great to, you know, to go through the grind and be the smart guys, but you have to be able to communicate it. I feel like that’s what my job is and and I really appreciate you guys having me on, especially in a week like this where clearly we’ve caused a lot of controversy. Again, hey, it is what it is. If it there wasn’t controversy, we wouldn’t even have a channel. We’re the kings of controversy over here. The the Chiefs. We got to keep it interesting, you know. Oh, the the kingdom of controversy. See that? There you go. Maybe that’s maybe maybe that’s what you maybe that’s a new segment right there, man. See that right there? That’ll work. Don’t come back every week. The kingdom controversy. You can explain all PF, dude. Everybody was the Chiefs. Every player has got to be nine yards. This is why Jawan Taylor had a 40 grade and eight penalties. Hey, I’ll I’ll just I’ll just tell you week to week. I don’t do it anymore, man. I just I go into shows and I talk. We got a lot of great analysts and even a lot of them behind the scenes that are better than me. Believe me, they’ve been doing it a lot longer. I just I just try to interpret what they’re doing and I’ll tell you what, if I can give you the best angle I can, I’ll do it. Right. Okay, man. Before you go, uh I’ve got Brett V on Speed Dial over here. If you guys want to get rid of Bree Hall, let us know. Hey, I I mean, listen, we could take him off your hands. I know. I know we’re a longterm project, man. I know. I know it. Hey, Bree. Brie, I’ll tell you what, Bree’s having a hell of a year, man, behind that offensive line. We have You think they would trade him? I think it’s possible. I mean, we’re not going to the playoffs. We’re not going to the playoffs. So, it’s like, right, what what do you think it would take to get him? Fourth rounder. Is that too low? Maybe they might. I don’t know. They might ask. Maybe they’ll ask for a third. He’s having a good year now. Brillin Allen’s out for a while, so he’s really going to get a lot of took the That might have took the steam out of that one, huh? I think I think the speed that he gives you and the explosiveness because I, you know, I like Pacheco. I like Kareem Hunt, but they just need one more element of speed and that’s been the talk about, you know, putting Bashard Smith in there. I really like Bashard a lot. I I do not think he should have fallen into the second round. When he went to Kansas City, I was like, “Oh man, of course they did. Of course they stole.” I thought he was like a fifth rounder at the latest. I would I would have taken I personally I would have taken him in round four. I I loved him at SMU. Absolutely loved him. I’m telling you, he’s he’s a good football player. No, if you guys got Bree, I’d be like, “Yeah, that that’s fair. Look what we did.” And everyone would go, “Look what the Jets are doing. They’re just look at this. It just somebody the script writers had the Jets trading Breece Hall to the right.” It’d be a It’d be a whole thing. You You know, we would catch we would catch more flack for it than you guys would, honestly. That 100%, man. Okay, brother. We appreciate you. We appreciate your time. We respect your time. So, you can get off here, man. Go do whatever. Have a good night, brother. And we’ll talk to you later. Appreciate it, guys. Let’s do it again sometime. No problem, brother. All right. All right. All right. Heck yeah, baby. Give it up in the chat for Dalton. That was pretty cool, right? I thought that was some good info. I learned a lot. Yeah, I think we all learned a little bit. You know, we’ve learned that maybe PFF are humans and we should be nice to them. No, they’re still going to be called trash all the time. But, you know, we had to give them we had to give them a little platform to get on here and kind of explain it. I just I thought it was cool. But yeah, how you guys doing tonight? How’s everybody doing? Appreciate y’all being here. Appreciate the questions and all that. And it’s always fun to get a little bit different perspective. Also, I thought he had some good information on the Chiefs. It’s always cool to see it from the outside looking in, seeing what other people think, you know, because sometimes we get a little blinded by our own BSber, right? So, it’s nice to be able to see what different people have to say about it, but I can’t imagine the work that goes in to to PFF. I couldn’t I couldn’t be a guy that that sit and graded every play of every game like that. No, I I couldn’t have the focus to sit there and watch North Dakota State play South Dakota State, dude. And then that’s some that’s some commitment right there. Hey, they have to watch that 22 times. He didn’t answer what the um easiest he didn’t answer he he answered what the toughest position was to grade. But what do you think the easiest one was? Probably quarterback, honestly. No, I think it’s kicker. You miss it or you don’t? Yeah. Well, does that even is that a thing? Yeah, they’re great cook kickers. I like I wonder though like do you have to go in depth about was the hold good? Was the snap good? What was the wind blowing? Like do they get that crazy with it? I’m sure. Sure. Maybe. I don’t know. Uh Julia Mike said you love the short you made about Chris Jones. Thank you. Heck yeah. I thought it was pretty good, too. Caught me off guard. I was like, look at Mike. Look at Mike being a good man. I just wanted to tell the story of Chris because our content will go like, you know, YouTube maybe YouTube suppresses or whatever, but our content will go wild on other platforms. So, I like to get the story out. Anything that can change the narrative of the way the Chiefs because the Chiefs have become such a all because of winning. We become a villain and hated for no reason. And our guys don’t deserve that. Like, we’ve got a lot of really good dudes on this team. I mean, look, Kelsey’s hated just because nobody likes the fact he dates Taylor Swift. I mean, that’s so stupid. Let’s think about that. Or Mahomes. Mahomes has like three kids, a wife, he’s like a good dude for the community, and uh he gets hated because he beats their team. It’s just it’s the way of the world. But so I tried to put Chris in a positive light and tell the the story. Tell them about it, Mike. Yeah, man. Well, we appreciate you guys once again for being here tonight and all the questions and everything. Uh it was pretty awesome. Uh we worked on a video today that’ll be coming out on Saturday. We had the COO of Zarda Barbecue on. He was on talking about football, telling some old Chief stories, talking about Joe Montana. Even got Joe Montana in there, buddy. He’s going way back. Uh it was a really good conversation. It was a lot of fun. Uh, obviously he tells you a little bit about what’s going on as far as Zarda and how they’re helping in the community and everything like that, but most of it was just straight football talk and old stories, man. So, it’s going to be a game. We got a little wager going for the for the game on Monday night. Me and Steve picked the game and so did he. Terry picked the game as well. But, uh, there’s a little incentive. You have to watch the video. Whoever gets it right gets a little incentive Zard is going to send out our way. So, it’s pretty awesome, man. Yeah, for sure. It’s going to be a good one. So, be on the lookout for that Saturday. The old man been a member for 23 months now. Let’s freaking go. Pops says, “Love this uh great show.” Uh, glad you liked it, old man. I thought it was something different and I thought it was uh valuable. Thought some valuable information today. We like to be slapnuts sometimes and just get on here and talk trash and be goofy and have fun and there’s a time and a place for it, but it’s nice to get some real information. Some valuable info today, I think. And I Are we the only ones that have reached out to PFF and got their side of the story here? I probably Nobody else has. and nobody will care that we did it. Well, hey, if you guys happen to be on social media and you see someone talking about PFF or the situation with Spags, shoot the link. Let them hear the other side of the story, man. That way, they can get educated about it and actually know what they’re talking about. Uh, but yeah, guys, we’re going to get out of here for the night. Uh, you guys are freaking awesome. Thanks so much for everything. And we’ll be back with that video on Saturday. And of course, we have the Monday night game. So, we’ll see what we can do about doing a pregame and maybe a postgame on Monday night as well. And we’ll see how all that goes. But appreciate you and we’ll see you next time. Go Chiefs. [Music]

You won’t believe what Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo said… | Dalton Wasserman of PFF Responds

Check out Dalton Wasserman on the @ProFootballFocus NFL Weekly Preview Show: https://www.youtube.com/live/QQWb1-5HayY?si=KrxT2qhsnMBEF4z1

🚨🏈Check out our friends over at Zarda BBQ! The BEST BBQ in Kansas City! Be sure to try the new Ashton Gillotte inspired creation “the Takeaway” made with burnt ends, pulled pork, ham, pepper jack cheese, and Zarda’s famous barbecue sauce! The sandwich also kicks up the heat with a little creole seasoning. A portion of the sales from the sandwich will benefit Kansas City Big Brothers Big Sisters. Be sure to tell them ALL CHIEF’D UP SENT YOU THEIR WAY!

🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5300025466552320