Shannon Dawson put together the best offense in America last year. He's hoping to keep the momentum going headed into the 2025 season. Here is everything he told reporters on Greentree:
On the benefits for Year 3 in the same system: It's extremely helpful. Going through the offseason and watching cutups and getting on the same page is a lot easier and a lot quicker.
We already know basically what we're doing. Everybody understands the process around here. There are some off-the-wall case studies and some stuff we want to add to it. But overall, we do what we do. With everybody coming back, the learning curve keeps going.
On Carson Beck: Obviously, it’s a unique situation, His football IQ is really high. You can tell just in meetings and talking football with him.
I think it's important for him to get injected with the team. Just to be around those guys and build rapport. The way football is now, it's different every year. So the team building part of it's huge. We’ve got to just accelerate that as much as possible.
On the returning talent: It's certain positions, surely. I do think that the strength of our offense is up front. Honestly, that was the truth last year, too.
We have a lot of guys that have played a lot of football up front. We have some guys that haven't played as much football at the skill positions. But I do think up front we have a lot of snaps.
On JoJo Trader: Throughout the course of last year, he showed glimpses of being a player that could be really elite. But consistency is one thing that we all have to work on. He's really, really steady in what he does because he's been here for a while.
So he knows what to do. He's very capable. He just needs to keep banking reps, really.
On Malachi Toney: He should be in high school still, so that's kind of shocking. Physically, he's way more accelerated than most kids at his age. Mentally, I would say so, too. His mental toughness and the way he competes is a little bit different than a brand new guy. He's picked up on things really fast. His football IQ is high.
He's really a low-rep guy. He does something or sees something on tape and he has the ability to mimic it and do it. I’m excited about his future.
On what he liked about Luke Nickel: Accuracy, first of all. He was extremely accurate throwing the football. It looked easy for him.
And he was a winner. He hadn't lost a football game in two years. Those two things are high on the list in evaluating quarterbacks. And then when you dig into the mental part of it, and get in depth with his knowledge of football and the way he views the game, his attitude and the way he goes about leadership, he's very calm. All those things added up to me liking him a lot.
You can see the same thing here. Now, the game is really fast right now. But you can tell over three practices that it's starting to slow down already. He has to keep in mind that he's playing with a lot of guys that are going through a very similar curve.
When you first get somewhere and you're learning something, you're not playing instinctive. You're up there on the line of scrimmage still thinking about, “What the **** are the reads of this play?” I'm sure last year in high school, a play was called and he inherently knew the reads and everything was very instinctive.
It hasn't got that way yet and it shouldn't be that way yet because he hasn't had enough reps, but you can tell that the game has slowed down. Very talented thrower of the football, very talented player, but it will keep slowing down the more reps he takes.
On QB depth: It used to be you wanted five. Now, it's probably three to four. We’re very fortunate. Our quarterback room’s really talented. I do think it's very hard to keep guys. Four is a number that if you got four, you better feel lucky. Three is probably more realistic.
On the RB room: That's one of the deepest rooms we have. All of them have a little bit different skill sets. But for the stuff we ask them to do, they're all built really well.
Some of them are a little bit bigger than the other ones, but they all have the ability to make plays. More importantly, it's a fun room to be around. They all support each other, which is huge. We talked about that last year a lot. With rooms that are really talented, it's important for those guys to have a rapport and be happy when Pringle makes a play or be happy when Jordan makes a play, be happy when Mark makes a play.
On Elija Lofton’s role: Lofton obviously played a significant amount last year, made plays in games. His role will continue increasing, probably more of the role Elijah [Arroyo] played.
We're not going to sit there and just play one guy. Last year, we rolled a lot of guys in there. Arroyo could have had 65 catches if we didn't, but it got spread around a little bit. And I like that. I like spreading the ball around and getting guys touches.
On the benefits for Year 3 in the same system: It's extremely helpful. Going through the offseason and watching cutups and getting on the same page is a lot easier and a lot quicker.
We already know basically what we're doing. Everybody understands the process around here. There are some off-the-wall case studies and some stuff we want to add to it. But overall, we do what we do. With everybody coming back, the learning curve keeps going.
On Carson Beck: Obviously, it’s a unique situation, His football IQ is really high. You can tell just in meetings and talking football with him.
I think it's important for him to get injected with the team. Just to be around those guys and build rapport. The way football is now, it's different every year. So the team building part of it's huge. We’ve got to just accelerate that as much as possible.
On the returning talent: It's certain positions, surely. I do think that the strength of our offense is up front. Honestly, that was the truth last year, too.
We have a lot of guys that have played a lot of football up front. We have some guys that haven't played as much football at the skill positions. But I do think up front we have a lot of snaps.
On JoJo Trader: Throughout the course of last year, he showed glimpses of being a player that could be really elite. But consistency is one thing that we all have to work on. He's really, really steady in what he does because he's been here for a while.
So he knows what to do. He's very capable. He just needs to keep banking reps, really.
On Malachi Toney: He should be in high school still, so that's kind of shocking. Physically, he's way more accelerated than most kids at his age. Mentally, I would say so, too. His mental toughness and the way he competes is a little bit different than a brand new guy. He's picked up on things really fast. His football IQ is high.
He's really a low-rep guy. He does something or sees something on tape and he has the ability to mimic it and do it. I’m excited about his future.
On what he liked about Luke Nickel: Accuracy, first of all. He was extremely accurate throwing the football. It looked easy for him.
And he was a winner. He hadn't lost a football game in two years. Those two things are high on the list in evaluating quarterbacks. And then when you dig into the mental part of it, and get in depth with his knowledge of football and the way he views the game, his attitude and the way he goes about leadership, he's very calm. All those things added up to me liking him a lot.
You can see the same thing here. Now, the game is really fast right now. But you can tell over three practices that it's starting to slow down already. He has to keep in mind that he's playing with a lot of guys that are going through a very similar curve.
When you first get somewhere and you're learning something, you're not playing instinctive. You're up there on the line of scrimmage still thinking about, “What the **** are the reads of this play?” I'm sure last year in high school, a play was called and he inherently knew the reads and everything was very instinctive.
It hasn't got that way yet and it shouldn't be that way yet because he hasn't had enough reps, but you can tell that the game has slowed down. Very talented thrower of the football, very talented player, but it will keep slowing down the more reps he takes.
On QB depth: It used to be you wanted five. Now, it's probably three to four. We’re very fortunate. Our quarterback room’s really talented. I do think it's very hard to keep guys. Four is a number that if you got four, you better feel lucky. Three is probably more realistic.
On the RB room: That's one of the deepest rooms we have. All of them have a little bit different skill sets. But for the stuff we ask them to do, they're all built really well.
Some of them are a little bit bigger than the other ones, but they all have the ability to make plays. More importantly, it's a fun room to be around. They all support each other, which is huge. We talked about that last year a lot. With rooms that are really talented, it's important for those guys to have a rapport and be happy when Pringle makes a play or be happy when Jordan makes a play, be happy when Mark makes a play.
On Elija Lofton’s role: Lofton obviously played a significant amount last year, made plays in games. His role will continue increasing, probably more of the role Elijah [Arroyo] played.
We're not going to sit there and just play one guy. Last year, we rolled a lot of guys in there. Arroyo could have had 65 catches if we didn't, but it got spread around a little bit. And I like that. I like spreading the ball around and getting guys touches.
