The tape on Pittman is about anticipation, not athleticism. The tape on Dowdle is about patience and contact balance. Put them together and the offense has a very specific shape.
Pittsburgh added three players this week and the football conversation has been almost entirely about Aaron Rodgers. I understand why. But I want to have the other conversation — the one about what Michael Pittman Jr. and Rico Dowdle actually do on a football field, and what their presence tells you about what Mike McCarthy intends to run. Pull the Indianapolis film from the last two seasons and watch Pittman on routes at 10 to 14 yards. He is not a field-stretcher. He has never been a field-stretcher. What he is — and what the tape shows consistently across four seasons — is a receiver who wins the contested catch at the second level, who holds position on curls against off coverage, and who delivers after the catch in tight spaces. He is 6-4, 223 pounds, and he runs through would-be tacklers at the second level consistently enough that it registers as a pattern, not an outlier. The yards after contact numbers are real and they are the result of how he runs routes, not just how big he is.
The comeback is a professional route. The intermediate crossing pattern is still developing. Go watch the tape before arguing about the contract.
George Pickens received the franchise tag in Dallas this week, and the response from most of the commentary class has been about the contract — the money, the extension timeline, the leverage conversation between the player and the organization. That's the business side of it. I want to talk about the football side, because the football side is where this actually gets interesting. Go get the tape from Pittsburgh's 2024 and 2025 seasons. Watch Pickens against press coverage specifically. Watch him on the first three steps of his routes — before the release, before the route even begins — because that is where the actual conversation about what kind of receiver he is takes place.
Tagovailoa is a rhythm quarterback. Penix is a downfield thrower. Those are not the same system. One of them will be playing in a scheme that does not fit him.
The Tua Tagovailoa acquisition in Atlanta deserves a technical discussion that the headline coverage has not yet provided. The first question any film-based evaluation of Tagovailoa has to answer is not whether he is talented. He is talented. The question is what kind of offense he requires to be effective, and whether Atlanta's current system matches that requirement.
Ignore the dollar values. Look at the positions and the player types. The teams that get this right are identifiable by the end of day one.
The first signings of the new league year tell you more about organizational philosophy than the headline numbers suggest. Ignore the contract values for a moment and look at what positions are being filled and by what kind of player. The teams that understand offensive line construction are identifiable by the end of day one. They are the teams signing guards and centers at prices that reflect the market — not below-market bargains they stumbled into. Below-market offensive line signings are almost always below-market for a reason: a technique problem, a medical flag, a scheme-fit question. The teams that are good at this position group pay what the position is worth and then develop the player within a system that maximizes what he does well.
Production numbers live inside defensive schemes. The counter move, the run-defense effort, and the pressure rate are where the real evaluation lives.
Here is what the tape tells you about this free-agent pass rush class, and why the number you see on the contract announcement is almost never the number that should determine your evaluation. Edge rusher is the position where the production-to-tape gap is largest, consistently, every year. The reason is that sack totals are generated within defensive schemes, and schemes vary enough from one organization to another that the player who produces twelve sacks in one system and the player who produces four in another may be the same player with the same fundamental ability. The number tells you what happened. The tape tells you why.
The tackles get the headlines. The guards and centers are where this free-agent class actually has value — if you've done the film work to find it.
The offensive line free agent market is open, and here is what the tape tells you about who is actually worth the money. The conventional wisdom going into this window was that tackles were the premium commodity and interior linemen were the afterthought. The tape says something different. The most consistently impactful free agents available at the offensive line position are in the interior, and the reason is simple: the league has figured out how to get after tackles from the outside in ways that can be schemed around, but the push up the middle — from three-techniques and nose tackles who have gotten dramatically better at their jobs — is a problem that only gets solved by having centers and guards who can actually anchor.
When a staff gets fired in October, the technique breaks down before the season ends. Penn State's back half of 2025 is a film study in what that looks like.
The mid-season coaching changes produced a specific kind of program wreckage that we're going to see on tape this fall, and it's worth understanding what that actually looks like before we get there. When a program fires its coaching staff in October — not January, not February, but October — the players who are on the field for the final four or five games of that season are not the same players they were in September. They are players who have stopped believing in the system they were playing in. They are players who are going through the motions of an offensive or defensive installation they know is being replaced. They are freshmen and sophomores who were recruited for one vision of a program that no longer exists.
The top defensive prospect in the draft has a refined hand counter that most college players never develop. The tape shows it. The measurements only confirm it.
Forget the forty time. I know everyone wants to talk about the forty time. David Bailey ran a 4.50 at this combine at 6-3, 260 pounds, and yes, that's a real number for a player his size, and yes, it matters. But the forty tells you one thing: straight-line first-step speed. It does not tell you whether a player can turn the corner on an NFL tackle, whether his pass rush moves hold up when a right tackle gives him a firm set and takes away the speed path, or whether he's a two-down specialist or an every-down disruptor.
The consensus top tackle has a lazy kick-slide that will get him killed at the next level. The center out of Iowa State is invisible and will be a ten-year starter.
Everyone is talking about the quarterbacks at this combine. Fine. Let them talk. I'm looking at the offensive linemen, and what I'm seeing is more interesting than anything happening at the quarterback podiums.
While the broadcast focused on skill positions, five men up front executed at a level that made everything else possible.
The national conversation after Philadelphia's postseason run was about the quarterback. It always is. Jalen Hurts this, Jalen Hurts that. The man is a fine player. But if you think Jalen Hurts is why Philadelphia won, you haven't watched the tape. Watch the tape.