Q&A: Quincy Avery on the art of quarterbacking in today's NFL
Our first guest on "How the NFL Works" has a master's degree in quarterbacking. Here's the written transcript of our conversation, Darnold to Watson to Geno to what constitutes the perfect QB in 2024.
Welcome to our new show at Go Long — “How the NFL Works.” Episode 1 is live. In addition to the audio and video posted earlier, the written Q&A transcript with NFL quarterbacks coach Quincy Avery is below.
This is the man so many starting quarterbacks turn to… and for good reason.
Expect a new guest each episode of our new podcast. We’ll explore the essence of this sport.
First up? Avery. You’ll love his sharp insights into the most important position in all of sports.
ICYMI:
How the NFL Works, S1 E1: Building the 2024 Quarterback with Quincy Avery
Good morning! And welcome to our new show: “How the NFL Works.”
Go Long is your home for longform journalism this 2024 season.
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You are on the front lines of where the position’s going, which is really in essence where the sport is going itself. But how in the hell are you doing down there in Atlanta?
Avery: I am amazing. How you been, bro?
Not too bad. Kids in school. So that’s a big life change for us here at HQ — five and three. So it's a little different workflow with the football season starting. You’re a Dad, too. I love how you put it (on your social media): “Underrated Dad, Overrated quarterback coach.” In what ways are you an Underrated Dad then?
Avery: I don’t know if they’ll really care, but my daughter loves me. She’s excited every time I come home. I fly out a lot for work. I probably catch four flights a week, but I always fly home just to make sure I can either pick her up from school or put her to bed. So that’s one of my big non-negotiables with work. So just little stuff like that. Making sure you can be there as a Dad when you work how we work. We’re always on the road, always traveling.
Four times a week?
Avery: Easy.
What’s your miles situation? Is it all one airline predominantly?
Avery: I’m Delta only. We’re not fooling around.
I asked Joe Schoen last summer, the Marriott nights that he has. I don’t have the math right in front of me. It was almost like 10 years of his life living out of Marriotts. How many miles do you have on the Delta app? Do you have any idea?
Avery: I’m a little over a million miles that I could use for trips for myself, and I’m at 890K lifetime actual flown miles, so I’m almost a million miler and that’s happened pretty quick. I didn’t fly much before the last four years, so I’m in the air a lot.
You are smack dab in this hyper-competitive world of, I mean, “quarterback guru” is such a cliche term. What should we call what you do? We’ve got to think of a better way to put this.
Avery: So I call myself just a “quarterback consultant.” So they consult with me. I help them out in the best ways I can. Give them remedies in order for them to take with them to make themselves the best versions of themselves. And then I also work and talk with teams a lot, whether that is a team that’s interested in drafting guys or a team that has a quarterback and they need to set a rehab regiment. Things like that.
I can’t wait to get into how you teach the position because I think that's how I was drawn to you initially. It was different than anything I had really heard before. Your story. We could spend hours just talking about how you broke into the business. From what I remember, you played football at Morehouse. You wanted to get into coaching and you drove from Atlanta to L.A. to UCLA, right? And then sat in Rick Neuheisel’s office. Then, you’re living out of a car for 19 months. This is how you break into the NFL, everyone.
Avery: So I was fortunate enough, I had been around football my whole life. My dad coached the NFL. Long story why he wasn’t able to help me more in such a nepotism-ran league. So I won’t get into that now. But Neuheisel was new to coaching at UCLA. I knew that he probably didn’t have his staff filled out. So when I graduated summer school, I just got in my car and I drove to UCLA and I just sat on the couch. Neuheisel walks in. He’s like, “What are you doing here?” I’m like, “I want a job.” He’s like, “Bro, this is not how this works. It’s big-time college ball.” When he leaves the office that day, I’m still on the couch. Next morning, he comes. I’m there. He’s like, “What are you doing here?” I’m like, “I want a job.” He’s like, “That’s not how this works.” When he leaves the office that day, I’m still there. He’s like, “Alright, if you come, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” The next day, of course I’m there. He talks to me. He happens to know some people that my Dad knew. He’s like, “Alright, we don’t have a position for you, but if you want to help out here, you can volunteer.” Unaware of what volunteer meant. You’re really working a full-time job for no money.
You’ve got enough people here who know enough about football. For me, it was working every day. You’re there in the office by 5 o'clock at the latest. Because Norm Chow was the offensive coordinator, he was a morning person. Neuheisel is not a night person, but he just gets to the office probably like 8:30 for the first team meeting, but he wouldn’t leave before 11:30, midnight. So if you’re in the coaching world, you’ve got to be there before your coordinator and you can’t leave before your head coach. So you end up “guarding your desk” in the coaching world. And I did that for two years. Lived out of my car and the locker room while I was doing that. But that’s where I cut my teeth and that’s where I learned a lot of valuable information. And that’s also where I found out like, “Oh, quarterback training might be a thing.” For two reasons. One, I evaluated every single high school player who sent in a tape to get recruited. So I evaluated every one of those. So I knew where the good kids were coming from and I knew what was going on. And then the next thing that I did was — Rick had a son named Jerry Neuheisel, and Neuheisel was training with his Dad, and his Dad would always be like, “Oh, if you want to come out here and watch us do it, come on.” So I watched how a head coach would train a player that they obviously cared a lot about their success and their career, the workout that he put him through. I’m like, “Alright, I think that I could build something, but I think I could build something better than this.” Because I’ll be able to put all my time and energy into making somebody a better quarterback. Got done at UCLA. Packed up my car. Drove to Atlanta. I saw a lot of kids from Atlanta sending in tapes. I went to school in Atlanta and I knew that they looked like they could use some help. So that’s where I decided to make home.
And then it's just a matter of cold Facebook messaging quarterbacks — begging, pleading “somebody let me coach you for a day.”
Avery: It’s crazy. Yeah, I went almost a year without getting my first client. And then the way that I got my first client — who actually is Josh Dobbs — I kind of tricked him. So I sent this letter to the 20 best high school kids in Atlanta who were underclassmen. So they’re freshmen and sophomores. So I’m like, “They probably don’t have a trainer.” But Josh did not have any scholarship offers at the time. So I sent this message to everybody. I’m like, “Hey, we’ve got a workout for the best 20 kids in Atlanta.” But it had to be at 5:30 because I didn’t have enough money to rent a facility at a time where it actually cost money. And I negotiated my way into getting this indoor spot. No one comes, but Josh Dobbs Facebook messaged me like, “Hey man, I can’t make it. But is there an opportunity for us to work together?” I’m like, “Of course.” So yeah, we ended up training together one time and man, we probably started working together four or five times a week from that point forward. He made the Elite 11 and got a scholarship offer to Arizona State at the time. Switched to Tennessee last minute. And kind of the rest has been history.
Every legendary story starts with a little trickeration. Antonio Gates, the only reason that he even got a shot with the San Diego Chargers. Tim Brewster was a coach with the Chargers and basically lied about Antonio Gates’ 40 time to the team and just said he was faster than he actually was so they would pick him up and give him a shot in training camp. So you were able to fool Joshua Dobbs a little bit, and here you are with working with the quarterbacks in the league.
Avery: You’ve got to stay by the rim man. You never know when you’re going to get a shot that drops. Stay by the rim. Be ready when you get a chance.
And so you’ve obviously worked closely with a whole slew of quarterbacks. Deshaun Watson, Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields, Jordan Love for a bit, too. Geno Smith a ton. Who am I missing here? How many quarterbacks are you really working with leaguewide?
Avery: Probably 10 or 12. I’ve got some backups too. Malik Willis played really well this past week. Shout out to Malik. Tyrod. Dobbs, of course. There’s a bunch of other guys who are floating in free agency right now. So the list is always changing and growing.
A little Ben DiNucci, I believe.
Avery: Yeah, that’s my guy. I just talked to him this morning. Sean Clifford works with us. So we actually work with all three quarterbacks in Green Bay. It’s fun. It’s unique that I get to be in this position.
You’re studying all of that film. Every high schooler who sent footage to UCLA. So you’re kind of honing your own opinion on how the quarterback position should be played over days, weeks, months, years. You fast forward to 2024, what is the quintessential A+ quarterback. In your mind, what does that look like today?
Avery: If I was building a quarterback and I put a little bit of this, a little bit of that, the No. 1 feature that I want in a quarterback is confidence. Because that’s probably the biggest determining factor in how successful somebody is. And I think that people oftentimes think like it’s athleticism or the ability to throw hard, whatever. Nah, Tom Brady was both unathletic and couldn’t throw that hard and is the best quarterback ever in my opinion. So, confidence. Then, decision-making or decision-making speed. Then, accuracy. Then, athleticism. Then, throwing power. That’s how I would rank those things or the qualities that I really want in a quarterback.
Confidence can seem like this nebulous, intangible thing. But isn’t that so true? I mean we’ve talked about a million different quarterbacks, but even a Baker Mayfield. Look at the way he’s playing right now. When he’s loaded with confidence, he is a weapon out there and that’s the case for anybody.
Avery: And let’s look at somebody like Kirk Cousins, right? Think about Kurt Cousins last year when he was with the Minnesota Vikings, how well he was playing. You would never see him miss a read. You would never see him miss a throw. He was super accurate. Of course, he loves turning down big plays and getting the completions, but if you watched him this Monday night vs. Eagles, yeah, they ended up winning the game, but you just saw the lack of confidence in the new system, new offense, new players around him. He was not always ready to pull the trigger at the appropriate time, and I’m sure he's going to start gaining confidence very, very quickly. But just watching him early on, you’re like, “Oh, this isn’t a confident quarterback.” He still has all the same physical tools, but it hasn’t looked the same. Without that confidence, that ability to pull the trigger — the ability to know that you know — you’ve got to know that you know in order to be as successful in the NFL. You’ve got to, one, know what the hell you’re doing on the offensive side of the ball. And you’ve got to know, “I got a good idea what they’re doing on defense.” And you can rip stuff, you can throw things early. Someone who’s playing with so much confidence right now: Sam Darnold. Sam Donald drops back. He hits the top of his drop, it’s one hitch and he’s delivering the ball. Brock Purdy, you talk about Brock Purdy, his ability to get through progressions, see things get from one to two to three, it’s because he’s so confident. Kyle Shanahan, I’m not the biggest fan of him as a person. I’m the biggest fan of him as a playcaller, play designer. He designs these things. He gets these quarterbacks playing at the highest level because they’re confident. When he tells you something, you know that it’s true and you know that you can go execute it.
Start there with Darnold. I know it’s two games, but watching him against San Francisco pull the trigger. Difficult throws. Where do you think that confidence is coming from? Because this is somebody that was essentially left for dead. I don’t know if anybody expected him to look half as good as he looked so far.
Avery: One, you have someone who knew that they had a high level of talent. So he can draw a little bit of confidence from “Yeah, I’ve done this before. I’ve got the talent. I was a first-round draft pick.” Then two, he has a play designer who is scheming things up in a way that there’s something — he’s giving you a bunch of solutions. You can be confident as a quarterback. You walk to the line of scrimmage and you know you have an answer no matter what the defense is giving you. You have a plan. And having the answers to the test, you’ve just got to go through your steps and you’ll have the correct answer. That’s what Kevin O'Connell has given Sam Darnold. And you see these guys when they’re with these great playcallers, their confidence grows from that. It’s really hard to have that same level of confidence when you don’t have confidence that your coaching staff and the plays that are called and you’re not seeing things through the same set of eyes as they’re seeing. Baker Mayfield right now? He’s on fire, but him and his OC are seeing things through the same eyes. And when you have a playcaller and a quarterback who see things through the same set of eyes, you’re on fire. You want to know who’s not confident and who doesn’t see things like the coaches? Bryce Young. He’s not confident in himself right now. He’s not confident in things that he’s doing on offense and he’s not confident in the offensive line. As talented as he was coming out of college, he will not be a successful quarterback until he regains some sort of level of confidence.
Are you surprised by how bad he’s been? We talked ahead of that draft and you said it then: “C.J. Stroud is who I would take first overall.” Maybe Carolina should have consulted with Quincy Avery back then. But I’m surprised and I get it — there’s a lot from the ownership on down with the Carolina Panthers, it’s not ideal to put it mildly. But still he just looks small, is playing small. I’m surprised that it’s gone this poorly.
Avery: So Bryce Young is somebody that I’m a big fan of, so I want to be very measured with the words that I’m saying. When you’re that small — you’re that small — and you don’t have a redeeming quality, whether it be elite speed, elite quickness, elite arm strength, it’s very, very hard to come by. Every level of football that you play, there’s a minimum required talent level, just overall talent, physical skills and gifts level to be successful. Now, his talent and skill level was far above what you needed in college. So you got see everything else shine. In the NFL, he’s like right there. He’s a really accurate great processor. But he’s absent some of the physical tools now. Is there a situation he could be successful in? Yeah, I think that there is. It has to be somewhere who’s asking him to see things early, get the ball of his hand, make quick decisions, use him in the same way you saw Tua. If we replace Tua and Bryce Young right now, I’m not sure there would be much of a difference on either end — both from the Dolphins or the Carolina Panthers. That’s if Bryce Young is playing for a coach like McDaniel who breathes confidence into a young man, who makes him feel good. Now, I don’t think that anybody’s talking to Bryce Young the way that Tua was talked to by “Flo.” But I think that he’s been beaten down enough to where it’s had the same effects on him as a person. It’s tough to get up in the morning and go be the starting quarterback of an NFL franchise when you’re hearing these things day-in and day-out. And it’s very easy for people to say, “Well, he’s the starting quarterback of the NFL. He’s this or he’s that.” He’s still a human and these things wear on you.
When I think about it, that’s why I was concerned about Deshaun. I got concerned about Deshaun because I know that the talent’s there and I’m so glad to see him play the way he played against Jacksonville and that’s going to help rev the confidence back up because you need to see yourself doing great things. And he played really, really well against Jacksonville. Stats may not reflect he played as well as he did, but he played at a high level. Now he’s in a situation — “after I just destroyed my shoulder, I’m back now and I know that I can do the things that I wanted to do when I came out here.” He doesn’t just think it, he knows it. And you get to have confidence from that.
If people didn’t check it out, you can see what Quincy had to say about the Cleveland Browns, Deshaun Watson at our story at the site: The Deshaun Watson Question. I thought that you just put that whole situation perfectly, too, in saying that confidence “is a muscle.” It’s something that you have to train. I think you compared it to a bench press. If you’re benching 225 “X” amount of reps and you don’t do it for six weeks, six months, whatever it is, you try to do it again, you’re not going to be able to put up that many reps. I got the sense that Deshaun Watson’s confidence, from you, has been wavering. Not what it once was. Where do you think his confidence muscle is right now? Week 3 of this season? As he tries to recapture what he once was as a football player?
Avery: The way I mean to put that is it’s hard to have confidence in the things you’re not seeing yourself do right now. So you can think that, “Yeah, I’m going to be back to the old Deshaun Watson.” But it’s hard if you haven’t seen it in the application. So I’m not sure it’s something that he was thinking, but I just think that for anybody, its hard. The first time you did a podcast, you’re like, “I think I can do a really good one, but I’m not sure.” You just are absent a level of confidence just because you haven’t felt it. But I’m so happy about the place that he’s in right now in terms of seeing himself do it on the field. I knew that he had a great offseason and that’s why I was a little frustrated to see that first week and everything not click the way it should have clicked. But I knew his offseason was really good and now I just see the sky being the limit for him and that Cleveland Browns football team.
Why is that? What else do you see in him and the team in general?
Avery: Yeah, so they have, I think everybody knows this, one of the best defenses in the NFL. So the defense is unquestioned high level. Then, I think that him and his receivers are starting to get on the same page. It’s starting to click a little bit. They got more drops than anybody in the league right now. I don’t think that’s something that’s going to stay consistent. I think that they’ll change really, really quickly. I think that they’re going to just regress in terms of the number of drops and they’ll be able to continue to make explosive plays. And then there’s a throw that he had to Jeudy. It’s a concept I’ve seen him run it a bunch of times. No. 2 runs out. No. 1 runs his corner right behind it. When he threw that ball, I’m like, “Oh, he’s confident in his arm.” And the confidence in the arm was a thing that I was really worried about just because he hadn’t thrown in a game with that repaired shoulder. Seeing him let that ball rip at that particular moment and having enough juice hitting Jerry Jeudy in the hands, I’m like, “Alright, my guy’s back.” He’s feeling good about himself and, of course, he does all the things in the pocket where he's not letting one defender bring him down. There’s so many times where he evaded the rush, extended the play and threw either a completion or a first down in situations where they really needed it. So seeing all that from him is nothing but promising.
After the deep shot to Jeudy, that’s when he had the play darting and improvising. That looked like 2018, 2019 Deshaun Watson getting outside of the pocket. Every coach, every player talks about noise and distractions, and we got into this as well before. He has strongly denied the latest allegations to come out. But knowing Deshaun Watson on a personal level, how is he — you can’t really compartmentalize this stuff — but dealing with everything that is said day to day.
Avery: Yeah, I think he’s dealing with it as well as you can. I think that he’s confident in who he is as a person and the things that he knows that he hasn’t done. He’s vehemently denied what’s going on. So I mean that’s my guy. I’m rolling with him. If that’s what he says, then I’m going to trust that and I know that the situation will work out in the way that it’s supposed to.
Do I need to give you a chance to respond to your pal Shaun King at all on this podcast? It was in our story. So are you guys friends?
Avery: When Shaun King played for the Buccaneers, my dad was a coach. So I’ve known him since I was a youngster.
We did an NFC South Preview and we get talking about this quarterback and that quarterback and I think I referenced confidence as a muscle and how powerful that can be for your guy, Deshaun. He was pretty scathing. He said that Deshaun’s been “awful, not average, awful. That it seems like every time he plays bad it's an injury. Is this a little boy crying wolf? You get the money, you got the bag.” And it goes on and on and on and on. He says he doesn’t want to hear Deshaun talking about “fit.” He doesn’t want to hear this, hear that. He let it rip Quincy.
Avery: I think that you could say some of those things. But I mean this year, I don’t think he said anything after Game 1 about injury. I think he just said “I didn’t play well enough.” And agreed. And I think that when your shoulder’s literally broken and you need surgery which requires you to be out for the whole year, I don’t know what you want someone to say. In fact, with that same broken shoulder, he played great against the Ravens. That second half vs. the Ravens, which were the last snaps that he played of that season, was with that same fractured shoulder. For people to say that somebody is not tough or question those things, it’s crazy to me, especially when the doctors are like, “Hey, it’s broken. We have to have surgery and he can’t use his arm.” I’ll just say this: Shaun was wrong there. I think that he probably knows he’s wrong. So I’m not paying much attention to that.
We’re trying to get a beef going here.
Avery: Yeah, no beef for me. But then you have silly people like Brady Quinn who are talking about it originally. He looks stupid. Brady’s a clown. His shoulder was mangled. He got surgery, got it fixed, and I think that we’re going to see the Cleveland Browns are going to see exactly who they wanted to see when they made that trade.
You said the shoulder is in and out of the socket through most of that season. I don’t know how easy it is to throw a football when a shoulder’s popping in and out week to week.
Avery: Talk about somebody being tough. I don’t know what exudes more toughness than that. To me, that’s some of the highest level of toughness you can exhibit as a quarterback.
He played through a torn ACL, right?
Avery: There’s a game versus South Carolina. Torn ACL. No ACL and he just was like, “No, I want to play despite all of my suggestions not to.
That’ll be an interesting game Sunday, too. The Giants are going to be desperate and you talk about just a quarterback being confident with answers. I mean, that was the reason I went pretty hard on the New York Giants. I just feel like with Brian Daboll, Allen Robinson put it this way: There are answers for everything in this offense. There will be a solution at the line of scrimmage. So even a Daniel Jones with a little bit of athleticism, I feel like he can get the ball there. So this is going to be a test against maybe the best defense in the NFL.
Avery: Not a big fan. I like the person. I’m not a fan of his game right now. So he’s someone who I think has a really good offensive coach with him and he’s still not successful. He has talent. Daniel Jones has physical ability. So if you have a coach who’s good, I don’t know about the weapons. I’m not going to speak to the weapons that they have there. I think that they’re good enough. They have an offensive line doing well enough. You’ve got all the ingredients to be successful and you’re still not. So it’s disappointing and I hope that he picks it up because if not, he won’t be the starting quarterback in New York for much longer.
Maybe that’s the trade, Bryce Young. Oh, we'll see what happens with Tua.
Avery: Who says no first? Who says no first out of New York Giants and the Carolina Panthers.
Gosh, I was thinking Bryce Young to Miami. But Bryce Young in New York would be interesting.
Avery: Right? I don’t know. You trade Daniel Jones for Bryce Young. I mean, neither one’s been great. New York knows that they’re not going to keep Daniel Jones after this year and you’d at least have Bryce for three more years. I think you could figure something out with Bryce, but who knows?
You mentioned the Vikings and Darnold and Kevin O’Connell. That offense, you talk about solutions and just having things baked into it. He did it with your first client ever, right? Last year with Joshua Dobbs on the fly to win that game against Atlanta. What makes a Kevin O’Connell offense different for a quarterback you think?
Avery: Kevin O’Connell attacks the defense at a multitude of ways from formations that I don’t think that people are familiar with seeing some of these concepts. Like the ability to run four verts out of 21 personnel, which is two backs, one tight end and put people in different levels because vertically a wide receiver in the slot is going to run faster than a tight end on the other side. So they’ll stretch both horizontally and vertically at different levels. Then you’ve got the other guy coming out of the backfield out of motion getting to the widest third. So he just does a lot of things that I don’t think people’s eye are familiar with, and then he’s going to do it from so many different formations. He’s not running a ton of different concepts, but he’s getting to them from a multitude of ways. So it makes it easier on the quarterback because they’re seeing pictures that are familiar to them: “Oh, I’ve run this play, I’ve seen this triangle before. I know how to read this.” So they're really comfortable, but the defense isn’t uncomfortable because you’re doing it out of a set or formation that you were not prepared for. So he’s really great in the passing game that way. And they create some unique angles in the running game through their motions and their shifts.
Harrison Smith has been around forever. He said, yeah, you’ve got Tyreek Hill with Mike McDaniel running a deep post from a jet motion. There’s so many ways to get into these routes and it’s a matter of being the person who comes up with the new thing, I suppose. Because then, it’s going to get copied. Once it’s out there, teams copy it and now you can prepare for it. It makes it a little more difficult.
Avery: Think about the Miami Dolphins offense. One of their staple concepts is a zone read action that the Texans, to my knowledge, created with Deshaun in 2019 with Bill O’Brien. They got that across motion, right? They’ll go from a tight end here — so it’ll be 2 by 2 — they’ll motion across here. They’ll go motion this way. We have a sit and then that wheel or arc. The Texans are the first people I really saw run that. That’s the Miami Dolphins offense. That’s what Tua is so successful with. So this is a copycat league. People are always trying to figure out how to stop things. But that’s why we see defenses so similar across the league. Like, “Oh, that’s how you stop this particular player concept with this two-high quarters look, this quarter-quarter halves.” And we’ll see what the offenses do to adjust because by the end of the season they’ll figure out a plan solution behind it and then like you said, it’s going to be a bunch of copying and who can coach it the best.
You said this the last time we talked at Go Long, I believe: The stationary pocket quarterback is the dodo, the dinosaur. You need to be able to move if you’re going to play quarterback in the NFL now more than ever. Breaking news, it helps to have athleticism at the quarterback position. But I think even these two weeks, you’re seeing quarterbacks run more than ever. This is a real weapon in every offense. I don’t have the analytic in front of me to back it up, but is it passing that eyeball test for you, too?
Avery: I don’t need analytics. My eyes can see. Quarterbacks have to be able to run. They have to be able to escape. And that’s twofold. One, colleges don’t recruit quarterbacks who can’t run anymore. So the talent pool is essentially littered with guys who can run and who are mobile. Colleges can’t consistently coach guys up well enough to block everything and have an answer every time. So that’s why these colleges don’t recruit guys who cannot run. So you’re not seeing these guys in college because you can’t see that on tape well enough: “How does a guy process?” But you can see athleticism. So they’re going to recruit what they can see and what they know. Now at the NFL level, you’re just getting the best ones out of college and those guys already came in mobile, so there’s no young quarterback who comes into the league who’s not athletic, who can’t run, who can’t escape and extend the play with their legs. We’ll never again see another Tom Brady. The lasting image of him running that 40 yard dash with that baggy white t-shirt? You’ll never see that happen again. Somebody’s never going to come in the league like that again because we’re not recruiting those guys. Athleticism is key. Coaches cannot be right every single play. And as a quarterback in the NFL, there’s too much you got to handle and D-Linemen are going to win. So you’re going to have to be able to create and extend plays with your legs and that’s what we see the best quarterback in the NFL right now do. Patrick Mahomes is so good at extending plays with his legs. We haven’t seen it as much early on in this season, but I know when it gets to the playoffs in those big critical moments, we’ll see him really bring out the Superman cape.
And I want to say Norm Chow was with Andy Reid once upon a time at BYU, so it all comes full circle. I get it. You get into January, you’ve got to win four games in a row. You better take your layups. You better win death by a million paper cuts and make the right play again and again and again and again. And maybe that’s Lamar Jackson’s problem at that time of the year. But when did it hit you like, “OK, the quarterback position is different than what everybody else is saying out there.”
Avery: To me, that probably happened in my stint at UCLA when I started to see how we were recruiting guys, and I just didn’t agree. I didn’t agree based on the guys that we were getting in the room and the success that we weren’t having. And I thought that we were just recruiting the position wrong. We would either go all-in on somebody who was just super athletic and super fast or someone who could just throw and couldn’t move. And on either end of the spectrum, it’s too hard to build a real successful offense in that way. And I remember we recruited a guy named Darius Bell out of junior college. He was super athletic, and I’m like, “We didn’t watch him throw it all on this tape.” We watched a 10-minute highlight of him running around and being creative. So yes, being athletic is a superpower that you need. But you need to be able to play within structure. You need to be able to go off of hitting your third step from the gun and be able to let it rip and make a throw. That comes first. The athleticism is second. But you have to be able to do both of these things. And I think that it works on a sliding scale. If he can throw this well, then we’ll take this much athleticism. But it was so all or nothing with both of those things that it made it hard for us to really come to an agreement. And then when I see really successful coaches, I see them then build a quarterback room that all the guys play the same way, have the same sort of skillset. You can build an offense around that and you can build something, you can be successful.
So much of what I think about as a quarterback came from the college level because I think that they have the best ability to really create roster management. Then NFL, you take what you can get and you figure it out. You plug and play from there. But I still want to look at these same skills in the same way where you can create systems in which somebody can be successful. Like Malik Willis, who has been amazing at throwing fastballs — a ball on the line — he’s done that at such a high level and he does that really well. He runs really well. Well, you just saw LaFleur create the perfect offense for him in one week after losing Jordan Love taking a lot of the concepts that they ran before and adding a little new flavor to allow Malik to be successful. So his sliding scale looks different than Jordan’s sliding scale. A lot better athlete. Maybe not as good of a throw at all the other throws, but you can figure out a way for him to be successful.
I like the sliding scale visual. And that’s how a Patrick Mahomes lasts til the 10th pick, too. Teams get a little unsure. Can this work? Now, if he goes to the Buffalo Bills and Rick Dennison is his offensive coordinator, and David Culley is his quarterback’s coach at that point, I don’t know what happens. He’s so good, he probably figures it out eventually.
Avery: Does he though? I think he’s the best quarterback in the NFL right now and he’s on pace to be one of the best ever. But if we threw him out there his rookie season — not really having great fundamentals, not having a real plan, asking him to be good — that would be some adversity I don’t think Mahomes has ever had to deal with. He went to Texas Tech, he was really good there, but he never got the wrath of all those folks. If you struggle early on in your rookie season, when you look at your phone, it looks different. It’s like, “Oh, I’m a piece of shit” every time you look on Twitter. That changes a lot about how you see yourself and how you got to respond. And I’m confident Mahomes would’ve responded well, but I’m not sure we’d look at how we look at him today.
And who were the receivers on that Bills team? I think you had Robert Foster and Kelvin Benjamin. Not exactly Tyreek Hill and Andy Reid and Travis Kelce.
Avery: It’s a lot different.
When you’re building out your training regiment and thinking of different ways to get the best out of quarterbacks and maximize their sliding scale and their gifts, what are some of the methods that you have? I remember you breaking down chess in your training with Deshaun. This is like five years ago. But I’d imagine you’re doing some things whether it’s Deshaun, Jalen Hurts, Geno Smith, you worked with Jordan Love. What do you think you’re doing that’s maybe a little different than other quarterback coaches out there? Your field is really competitive. There’s a lot of quarterback coaches out there, but there’s a reason guys are going to you.
Avery: Yeah, I think that everybody has to have something they can hang their hat on. And I personally feel like we do a better job of anybody at providing solutions on plays out of structure. Like getting your body in the right position to make a play when things break down in the pocket, getting back on balance, being able to deliver a ball that you feel comfortable with and it’s from a position you’ve thrown millions of times. I think that a lot of people spend a lot of time on stroke mechanics or just like your mechanics when you’re throwing a football, which a lot of guys in the NFL already have pretty cleanly. They didn't get to the NFL because they couldn’t throw. But now it’s putting them in position — when things break down and they have to make a play — how do they get back to that spot? How do they get comfortable there? And I think that there’s a few companies that really do a good job in teaching the quarterback position, but I think that’s something that we hang our hat on. And another thing is making you uncomfortable. Yeah, I’ll never be able to make you as uncomfortable as an NFL game, but I can make you as uncomfortable as possible throughout this 90-minute workout that makes you have to really think every time you come to the line of scrimmage. Because that’s what you’re going to be doing every play. You’re going to be thinking. You’re going to be processing. You’re going to have to make decisions at the last minute that are really critical and are going to determine the success of your team.
How can you simulate discomfort?
Avery: So all of our drills require visual stimulation. Sometimes audio. The reason we use audio stimulation is to throw a little curveball at you. Of course you’re never going to be listening to something in the game that’s going to determine what you do. But the visual stimulation is really good and really consistent. So whether that’s a hand wave, one of the coaches backing into you, all those things, then as they’re doing that, they’re reacting to where they have to get to off of that movement. Because it’s easy to move somewhere — just when you can move anywhere — but if you have to move somewhere and get back to somewhere else, that’s the stimulation we need. And that’s how we work on getting back to basic balance. When there’s a specific movement required. It’s easy to just move somewhere when “I could do whatever,” but sometimes a specific movement is required. Then when it's time to throw, you are given the instructions on how to throw with a visual stimulus.
And this is a trade secret, but I’m going to tell you anyway. So we’ll have hands dictate what type of ball that they’re going to throw because you don’t drop at the line of scrimmage knowing what football you're going to throw. You don’t say, “Alright, when I get to the top of this drop, I get to throw this ball as hard as I can, or I have to layer it over a ‘backer or I get to throw with big touch.” So now when you’re doing these movements, you see the receiver come out of their break and now their hands are telling you what football to throw. That’s a lot that you just had to process. That wasn’t just, “I’m throwing a football off of a drop.” And that’s why I said we want to stress you out mentally, and then you might get done with that and then you have to run to the chess board and you got 30 seconds to make a move, both where you had to check for threats, figure out how you can be aggressive in trying to attack the defense. That’s the same thing that we’re asking you to do. That chess mindset is what I want quarterbacks to have when they approach a lot of scrimmage. One, check for threats. Am I hot? Is there pressure coming somewhere? No, I’m good. I’m protected. Cool, alright. Now, how can I be aggressive vs. them? Alright, there’s no way to be aggressive and take a shot down the field? Then, how do I get to my checkdown? We want to put all these things together to create a perfect storm of the best quarterbacks in the world in ways that we can challenge them to be successful.
That is a lot to process mentally in what a matter of 2 ½, three seconds. Do you either have that or not as a quarterback? Can you have some of it and then acquire a lot of it? How do you intellectually get to that place?
Avery: If you have some of it, you can work on it and get more. Some people are just incapable of doing it. The most talented kid that I’ve ever met is not a successful quarterback right now. I’ve seen all these guys in high school. I saw those guys in high school. I saw those guys in middle school almost. This young guy? I’m like, “Oh, he’s going to be the future.” He just wasn’t able to process in a way that would allow them to be successful. So it’s “you got it or you don’t.” But if you don’t have any, then I don’t think you can raise your football IQ high enough to be successful.
And then if you’re an NFL team, how do you figure out who’s got the highest supply of this all? You’ve got the speed dates at the combine, the predraft visits. You watch as much film as you can.
Avery: I don’t think that it can be done in those meetings. Because I get three months with a guy. In three months, I can get you to explain anything however I want it. And I know what they’re going to ask you at the Combine. They’re not asking anything that’s going to trick you. When we go work for the draft, we create a system. Every single time you go to the board, this is how you explain it, this is the order in what you explain it, and this is how you prevent yourself from being confused. That recipe’s there and available for these guys. So the coaches aren’t going to trick you up with these little silly questions that they ask a the Combine. That’s not difficult. You’ve got to dig a little bit deeper. You’ve got to figure out their competitive temperament, all those different things. And college coaches really don’t give it to you either. They want you to draft their guy high.
When did you link up with Geno Smith? When did that relationship first start?
Avery: Four years ago. Five years ago. Russell was still with the Seahawks.
Did you see this coming? In your role, how did you help him get to this place?
Avery: The help that I’m able to provide him is minimal. He’s one of the most talented dudes I’ve ever seen. So when I started working with him, I was kind of blown away because you heard so many things about Geno Smith, who he was X, Y, Z. But to see him throw a football? These numbers aren’t just made up. The most accurate quarterback in the NFL. All these different things. To watch him throw a football for an hour and a half is unlike anything that I’ve ever seen. It’s a demonstration in perfection and holding yourself accountable to that level of perfection. He’s very, very critical of himself. He’s very tough on himself. He’s someone I could see maybe beat up on themselves too much. Because he has this standard that’s unwavering, which would be hard as a young quarterback in the New York market. But now he’s still unwavering. But he is phenomenal. He’s a talent that I think is unlike any other in the NFL.
I just don’t understand how a quarterback can go almost a decade as a backup and be completely written off as a bust, as a never-was, through the New York market. He’s spat out. Talk about confidence and mentally what you go through as a Geno Smith. To get to the other side, get your chance and play this well, what do you know about him as a person to just kind of persevere year to year, to year to year as a backup, waiting for that chance?
Avery: He’s mentally tough. And that mental toughness has allowed him to get this far. I couldn’t imagine doing it. And if you really look back, thinking about who he was as a quarterback, he comes out his rookie season, he still throws for 3,000 yards. He’s someone who I think more than anybody, got an unfair perception about him.
He got punched in the jaw by his teammate. IK Enemkpali breaks his jaw.
Avery: Those things happen. He kept getting a whole bunch of wild breaks and then he’s with the Giants. They make him the starter over Eli, and everybody loses their mind, but in that game he still played well. And then he gets taken out the next game. I could imagine as a quarterback at that time, looking at myself in the mirror and be like, “Why me? Why do I have to go through all these things? Am I not who I think that I am?” But then you hear his teammates. I’m friends with a couple of his old teammates with the Chargers, and they’re like, “Nah, man, Geno was cold.” I’m like, “That’s what I’m trying to tell you guys. He was cold.” He has to wait a long time to really get out on that field. 2022. He has to wait a long time for him to get out on that field and really show people how talented he is. And since then, he’s been special.
I’d imagine he probably grew a lot over that period, too. I wonder in what ways he even grew as a quarterback behind the scenes, which is hard enough. Jordan Love’s coaches have talked about this — the mental toughness to wake up every day knowing, “I’m a backup. I’m not going to get my shot, but I got to get better somehow,” is different.
Avery: For him to call me when he was a backup quarterback just trying to figure it out: “Let me just try and figure out what are the things that worked best for me and allow me to be the most successful” — at a time where he wasn’t even starting. “I’m just going there. I’m not going to be the guy.” And he’s still actively looking for ways to continue to get better. All those things about him as a player and a person continue to impress me. To me, he’s the person I’m proudest, that I get the ability to coach. And I say that because he was at a stage in his career where he had been in the league for a long time. Like 10 years. And he was like, “I’m still actively trying to look to get better.” And he’s someone who has all the resources in the world to go train with anybody. He can train with anybody who wants to. Everybody would want to go work with him. And he is like, “No, I want to go work with you.” And to me, that means a lot. Someone who has faith that I can help them get better when they’re at that stage in their career. And someone who works tirelessly to be one of the best in the NFL. And I’m thankful to be able to work with people like that. Him and Tyrod, I look at differently just because they were vets in the game and they decided they wanted to work with me.
With Geno, when you look at all the quarterbacks across the entire NFL, the way he’s playing right now — granted your relationship with him — but you also know this position as well as anybody. Where would you put Geno Smith?
Avery: For the last three years, I’d say he’s definitely Top 10. This football season, I would say the best five quarterbacks — this season who’ve played the best — it’s him, Derek Carr, Kyler Murray, Sam Darnold and I’m not really sure who five is right now. But those four have been playing the best out of anybody in the NFL to this date. Now, we’re only two weeks in and we have a lot of time to continue to keep playing, but we’ll see. Baker Mayfield’s up in that conversation, too. That’s someone who I haven’t been a fan of, but he’s been balling. You can’t take anything away from the way that dude’s been playing.
That’s why you keep it real. Even Baker Mayfield’s getting in there.
Avery: I cannot knock it. I can’t.
It comes back to confidence though. If you believe you’re the baddest mother on the planet and nobody can touch you. You’re juking Malcolm Rodriguez for a career-long 11-yard gain. But you’re winning at Ford Field and that has a galvanizing effect. You can see how everybody’s feeding off Baker Mayfield right now.
Avery: It’s fun to watch. No matter how you feel about somebody, I love to see somebody be able to write their own story.
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Avery has a unique approach for QB's who've had a rough start but still believe in their potential. It seems to boil down to instilling confidence and teaching decision-making. He has a handful of irons in the fire this season.