Hey, hey, where you been, but got to talk is about to begin, hey, hey, hey, come on in.

Welcome back to your Tuesday book. I talk getting it to you a little later on Tuesday because we waited until after we watched a little tiny snapshot of practice on Tuesday morning.

And then we did talk with Brian Hartline and Jim Knowles. So we're going to discuss that. Doug Lamarie, Snaath and Bear, and Steven Means.

Let's start with Jim Knowles.

And things clarify for me as people have learned over the course of the pod. I've done it for almost two decades and there are still moments where I'm like, oh, wait, no, that's how stuff works.

And I know Nathan, you know, we're splitting up. We're in different places. Jim Knowles started talking and then Brian Hartline came in a little later. So I had to split up, but Jim Knowles.

I asked Jim Knowles one of the things that we talk about here a lot, which is like young guys on the rise and veterans who know what they're doing at a position.

And I just asked Jim Knowles, like, how do you handle that? How do you try to figure out the balance of who should play and what you're looking for.

The thing that he said is when you're a young guy like that, the first thing you have to do is dominate the twos.

Kick butt with the twos. And once you do that, then we can have a discussion.

And that was clarifying for me, Nathan, especially in a world where when we are out there and we look at the twos, we are seeing sunny styles with the twos,

we are seeing CJ Hicks with the twos, we are seeing Kai Stokes with the twos, we are seeing Jair Brown with the twos.

And it was a bit of an aha moment for me. And as always, this is really this podcast is about me and us. It's not about a lot of state.

And I was like, should I have known that, Nathan, or was that clarifying? Like, I feel better.

We were on here the other day and I was like, man, you watch the second team safeties. And I was like, man, the second team safeties could be the starting safeties.

And Jim Knowles is like, yeah, maybe, but do this first. And then maybe we'll have that next discussion. It helped me, Nathan. Should it help our listeners?

I think it should because here's why I think it's important that it's not like they don't look at, I'll even name some guys you didn't mention Gabe Powers or Mike Halls with the twos.

It's different a little bit on the defensive line right now, but like, it's not like they don't look at those guys and see the ceiling.

They saw it when they recruited those guys. That's why they recruited those guys, not so much Jim Knowles with linebackers.

He wasn't here yet, but you know what I'm saying as a staff they did. And anybody can see the potential of those guys.

But I think it clarifies something goes back to something you were talking about the last time we had this discussion, which is sometimes you have to just believe in the talent and that putting it on the field kind of allows it to mature kind of in real time a little bit, right?

That sometimes putting that sometimes the pure talent that you put on the field can surpass the certainty of a guy who has is more experienced, more fundamentally repped all those sorts of things.

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