The SoBros Mailbag 303: The Ideal Day and Passing Concepts

Gather 'round. This week's SoBros Mailbag is here.

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Let’s face it – every day we are routinely bombarded with questions. When you’re an emerging media company in Nashville, people just want to know what your opinions are on everything. It’s only natural. And, since our duty is to serve the people, well, we have no choice but to be present. That’s the SoBro Way. Also, aren’t mailbags just a barrel of laughs anyway? Welcome to the newest weekly recurring feature up in this bitch: The SoBros Mailbag. As always, hit us with those mailbag questions @SoBrosNetwork on Twitter, email ’em to me anonymously at thesobrosnetwork@gmail.com. And, holy shit, I need to update this terrible intro paragraph that I’ve been using literally ever since I started writing this column…

This edition of the SoBros Mailbag is brought to you by Memo’s Mexican Kitchen in Mount Juliet, Tennessee! Memo’s offers a fresh, modern take on the Mexican restaurant just a mile north of I-40 off of the Mount Juliet exit. For my money, they cook up the best quesabirria in town! Check out the full menu on their website and let ’em know SoBros Network sent you.

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I am NOT a host on a 104.5 The Zone Cumulus podcast! I am a guest on Zach’s show!

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I’m a bit of a gin sicko. Some of the nicer, “fancier” gin cocktails can mask the aroma and the flavors that make gin special, so I stick with the basic gin and tonic…a gin of choice, Fever Tree elderflower tonic, and a splash of rose syrup if I have some handy…that’s the perfect cocktail to me, and I’ll never grow tired of it. If you guys are curious, it’s been awhile since I’ve shared my gin power rankings, so y’all can check ’em out here.

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I’d say Dooley, Jake! The other guys you mentioned were all names I had on my “UDFA Watch List” back at the beginning of the summer minus DMR, and I know he had some buzz because Mike was stirring it up. I never got ahold of that Temple offense film. But, Dooley was a guy that impressed me on Saturday night and he wasn’t even on my radar.

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Goody, I will help and support Zach in whatever capacity he needs my help and support. I’m just happy for the guy.

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I actually don’t know if I can answer this question, Travis. *eyeball emoji*

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Jaylen Harrell is a good answer for this question. I wrote about him on Stacking The Inbox this morning, but he’s making great progress, and I believe with the lack of depth at edge rusher, he’ll get a shot to compete this season. He was throwing a nasty speed-to-power move at Seattle on Saturday, and that could be his ticket to contributing earlier than expected. I’m at a point where he’s been so good this preseason that I don’t think we should write it off – he should play.

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Man, we’re going to get into some deep psychology here if I’m not careful, Travis! I don’t think people are willing to admit that it’s okay to have some regret as long as you process it carefully. Like, I can acknowledge that I’m perfectly happy with how my life has turned out while also acknowledging the feeling that I really wish I’d known what I wanted to do with my life earlier. Had I taken it more seriously, maybe I’d have a journalism degree instead of a psychology degree, and maybe I’d be writing somewhere full time instead of doing enough to keep the lights on here on top of working a 40-hour/week day job.

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I sleep in, but not too late…let’s say 8:00AM. The house has already been cleaned. It’s spotless, so I can leisurely enjoy my morning. I’m going to cook up a big full English breakfast with a fall ambience video playing on YouTube in the living room – something like this one:

It’s peak fall foliage season. So, after I finish up breakfast and clean the kitchen, we’re going to hop in the car and drive out towards Williamson County to enjoy the hills of middle Tennessee. Windows down. We’ll come back home in time for the SEC Game of the Week, during which I’ll make my mother-in-law’s recipe for bean dip and throw some chili in the crockpot. We’ll switch over to Spooky Season movies after the game – 2010’s The Wolfman. After dinner, and again, cleaning the kitchen so I can keep everything spotless, I’ll bust out my foot bath and sit with my feet soaking while reading a book and sipping hot tea to wind down before bed. I’ll have to throw some Ayinger Oktober Fest-Marzen in there somewhere too.

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Drewceephus, my friend, this is a BIG question for a SoBros Mailbag. It’s one that, as frustrating as it may be to read, doesn’t have a concrete answer. But, I’ll do my best to muster an educated guess. This is a topic we could spend an entire day on because of all the tentacles that spiral out of it. There are a few higher level concepts I want to touch on to give us a good foundation of understanding to build off of.

  1. Terminology and defining roles – The deeper you get into exploring the game, the more you realize how difficult it is to find universal concrete language for a specific concept. It’s why you hear players talk about terminology as the biggest hurdle to getting acclimated with a new offense or defense. “Oh, you call [RANDOM PASSING CONCEPT] ‘X’? We used to call it ‘Y’ where I used to play.” That sort of deal. It works that way in the definition of roles as well. It would be easy for me to sit here and tell you guys that a 4-receiver set is going to have an X, a Z, a Y, and an F, and I’ll do my best to define those roles within the context of what we’ve seen from the Titans so far and what Brian Callahan has said in press conferences this summer. But, the truth is there is no universal definition for an ‘X’ receiver – for some teams, it’s simply the best WR on the team. For others, it’s specifically the lone WR on his side of the formation in 3×1 sets. For others still, it’s specifically a big bodied wide receiver that can win contested catch situations one on one. You see my point? While we’ve heard Callahan refer to DeAndre Hopkins as the ‘X’, we still don’t know for certain exactly which type of X Hopkins will play. That makes it really difficult to explain these roles in simplistic terms. Anything I say here could still be a projection based off of a gray area!
  2. Personnel usage – The most successful coaches adapt to their personnel rather than force personnel that may not fit well into a scheme. It’s the classic ‘square peg round hole’ discussion. I assume you’re asking about 4/5 WR sets that consist solely of wide receivers, but I don’t think the quality of the Titans offensive personnel dictates that. For instance, if that 5th wide receiver…let’s say that’s NWI…were to come on the field, that would mean that one of either Josh Whyle, Chig Okonkwo, or Tony Pollard/Tyjae Spears would have to come off of the field. While I understand players need a break every once in awhile, I don’t think it’s a wise coaching habit to pull the better players off of the field in exchange for a worse player that often. How much did Titans Twitter criticize Mike Vrabel, Todd Downing, and Tim Kelly for doing just that? So when we say “4 or 5 WR sets,” I believe it’s more likely that we’ll get a heavy dose of Hopkins-Ridley-Boyd-Whyle/Chig-Pollard/Spears with the TEs and RBs lining up as receivers than us getting a heavy dose of Hopkins-Ridley-Boyd-Burks-NWI. That’s a fine thing, by the way. The receiving personnel is in a much better place than it was a year ago.
  3. Ultimately, we still don’t have the playbook! I try to always preface any analysis that I put out there with “yeah, but I still don’t have the playbook so I can’t be 100% certain for sure…” People say that’s fence-sitting to protect myself, but it’s just the truth. In this day and age, the more sensational you are, the more clicks you get. No one wants to hear “I don’t know for sure, but…” but the truth is that that’s a lot closer to reality than just about any definitive take you can give on any particular play. For me, I’m more interested in studying the hardwiring of the game and passing on what I learn to you guys than I am interested in simply being right.

Alright, all of that said, we know that Callahan has never been a head coach before! We can project what we think his wide receiver sets will look like based on his previous coaching record. But, ultimately, the personnel here is different than it was in Cincinnati, which is different than it was in Denver, so on and so forth. That’s what should dictate what the sets look like. Based off of what we’ve seen from this team in the preseason and what Callahan has shared in media availabilities this summer (seriously, this man is a national treasure when it comes to educating us media on the intricacies of the game), here’s what I think the receiving roles will be under Callahan:

  • X: The outside receiver in formations that can win tight windows and contested catch situations. Must have good hands to secure the ball and must have either length or explosiveness to go up and get jump balls. I expect the X to be one of the players that actually lines up on the line of scrimmage because the physical manner in which they play the game lends itself towards winning those physical battles in the phone booth to separate. Callahan has said Hopkins is the X, but what was surprising was Callahan confirming Burks was the backup to the X.
  • Z: The receiver that lines up off the line of scrimmage, giving them a little more space to operate with speed and twitch. You’ll read some articles about the Z being a veritable slot clone, but I don’t expect this to be an inside-only role under Callahan. I think the Z could be the other outside WR on the other side of the formation from the X or inside. The Z is going to move around the formation to exploit matchups. This is 100% Calvin Ridley in this offense. But, I was surprised to hear Callahan say that NWI had worked in this role as well. Given their physical tool kits, I would’ve thought Burks would be the backup Z and NWI would be the backup X.
  • Y: Your inline tight end role – gotta hit those seam routes, the underneath crossing stuff, and get out into the flat, in addition to blocking. Think Josh Whyle or Nick Vannett.
  • F: You can think of ‘F’ as ‘Flex’ if you’d like. Callahan described this role as a slot receiver type that can line up all over the formation, go into motion, etc.. Hearing him talk about it stirred memories of the role that Kalif Raymond rocked for the Titans for a couple of seasons. I’m looking at Jha’Quan Jackson for this one, but the Titans do have a couple of guys that could play it.
  • Slot: I feel like I could just say “two words: Tyler Boyd” and move on here.

Further complicating things, I expect these guys to move around in different roles this season as well. Think about Hopkins’ skill set. He can be the X on some plays and the Slot on others. Ridley could be the Z, the F, or the Slot! Same with Jha’Quan Jackson if he keeps developing. I know this is all a long-winded way to essentially say “there’s a ton of moving parts here and we’d better keep our heads on a swivel.” That’s good, though! Think about being a defensive coordinator trying to prep for an offense like this!

I do believe we’re going to see more of these 4/5…let’s just say “pass catcher” sets, since I don’t believe it’ll routinely be 4/5 specific wide receivers. Conceptually, based on what we’ve seen the Titans working on in the preseason, I feel confident in saying we’re going to see Dagger and Levels concepts galore.

It’s a little girthy at 17 minutes, but JT O’Sullivan did a sick breakdown of the Levels concept on The QB School here.

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Jacob, I’m going to say something shocking that might offend a lot of people here today…I would simply cancel all of Star Wars.

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Yeah, Jonathan, I think that’s a larger conversation about the NFL. Gone are the days when your rookie quarterback would sit for five seasons before starting. I mean, shit – how unusual did it feel for the Packers to actually ride with Jordan Love? He didn’t look good right out of the gate, and Packers fans were ready to run him out of town. Now, it would seem as though patience prevails. Maybe we see more of that with guys like Love and Allen being good examples of how patience can pay off, and maybe Levis becomes a good example of that as well.

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Very excited – this was a roster that had very few cornerstone pieces at the end of the 2023 season. Not only did the roster lack depth, but it lacked star power too. It sure as hell seems like they’ve attacked the star power issue in free agency and the depth issue through the draft. I’m pretty excited, and for the record, I’m still pretty excited about Gray – I just think maybe I shouldn’t have gotten TOO excited TOO early. They may be a little more patient with him than I had accounted for.

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I’m very proud of myself, but I’m even more proud that people I respect like you are proud of me.

Keep the questions coming – catch y’all next week!

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

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