Greg McElroy Compares 'Seeing Ghosts' in Football to Golf

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00:00I actually want to talk to you a little bit about this because I wanted to try to, you

00:07know, talk a little bit about playing, starting quarterback.

00:10And obviously I was a professional golfer and the mental side of the game, right?

00:14So I've heard this term said before, when, whether it's you as an analyst saying, well,

00:20this, this quarterback, they're seeing ghosts today.

00:23And I've always wanted to hear what that term means and maybe how we can relate it to seeing

00:28ghosts on the golf course, whether it's like noticing the out of bounds stakes or noticing

00:33the lake.

00:34I just wanted to kind of get your sense on what your, what your feelings on seeing ghosts

00:39means.

00:40Yeah, it's well, um, seeing goes, it's, it's very applicable to golf because like every

00:46time you take a drop, you have to be fully committed, you know, like it's, I mean, yes,

00:51there are things that you have to account for that are unexpected, but you have to be

00:56fully committed.

00:57The play will work.

00:58If you go and exit the huddle and you are not a believer that this play will be successful,

01:03like it has no shot before it even gets, it sounds a lot like picking the wrong club and

01:06one shot.

01:07Yeah.

01:08Whenever you're standing over, it's like, I need to hit this low.

01:10And like, all of a sudden you just forward, press just a hair and you miss it, right.

01:13And hit it off the hosel.

01:14Like, yeah, I've done that.

01:16Um, but it's very similar, I think.

01:19And when you see ghosts, it's, you're just not trusting what you're seeing.

01:22So for instance, like you see two safeties, quarterbacks are always taught to read it

01:26from the front to the back.

01:27So you go, you know, throughout your week of prep, you know what the defensive front

01:32is going to look like based on where the tack nose tackle is the guard that like, you know,

01:37where guys are and you know, their tendencies, like when they blitz, do they blitz out of

01:42this formation?

01:43Did they blitz out of this alignment out of this front?

01:47When they blitz out of this front, let's say you have a three down defensive line.

01:49All right.

01:50So if they have a three down defensive line, I got problems.

01:52All right.

01:53So I can have problems left.

01:54I can have problems, right?

01:55I need to make sure the Mike's sorted out.

01:56Like who's the Mike linebacker who are my offensive lineman accounting for is this guy

02:01taken to which two are mine.

02:03So three down fronts are hard.

02:05Four down fronts are a little bit more manageable.

02:08Um, but after you had diagnosed the front and where your problems could come from, you

02:14look at the safety and you have to identify coverages.

02:17And when you look at the safeties, you either see two or one.

02:20And most offenses are saying, all right, this is a two high safety beater.

02:26Like this throw, this route combination beats two high safeties.

02:30On the other side, this is a one high safety beater.

02:33So if you see a two high safety beater and all of a sudden they rolled a one, you need

02:37to be on your one high safety beater.

02:39If you see one and they rolled a two, you need to go to your two high safety beater.

02:43You have man concepts that you can check to if you see man and things like that.

02:47So when you see ghosts, it means that they're really in too high, but instead of going like

02:53this, maybe they went like this and then the third corner goes that way and they play like

02:58a three cloud, which is basically a one high safety, but it looks like two.

03:02So you see, you know what I mean?

03:04People are going to be, yeah, it's like, I think I know where they are, but I don't really

03:08know where they are.

03:09Like I'm freaking out.

03:10Where's my running back?

03:11You know what I mean?

03:12Or did you, did you ever see ghosts when you play?

03:14Oh my God.

03:15Yes.

03:16All the time.

03:17Absolutely.

03:18Yes.

03:19Without sometimes more than others.

03:20And sometimes the game's just moving way too fast.

03:21It's just like, Oh my gosh, this is, or for instance, like you see ghosts where you see

03:27an alignment and all of a sudden, Hey, okay, shoot, they're rolled this way.

03:31I could have pressured this way.

03:33Let me adjust the protection.

03:35Hey, William, you go take this Mike linebacker to the right hand side.

03:39Number 57.

03:40He's yours.

03:41You take this guy to the right hand side.

03:44Number 42.

03:45He's yours.

03:46And then I'll take number 36.

03:47It's the will linebacker.

03:48Well, you see that you adjust the protection.

03:52Now the shot clock's coming down and you got to snap it and all of a sudden they roll back

03:55the other way and the safety is coming the other direction and we're toast.

03:58So like you're seeing ghosts cause you see something, but it's not really, it's not reality.

04:02Like you need to just play and react.

04:04So I'm seeing ghosts is a very real thing.

04:07It's not that dissimilar than, like I've never played Augusta, but like they always

04:12talk about, um, whole 12 and how, you know, the smart play is to hit it right over the

04:16tongue of the, of the bunker, right?

04:18I guess that's what they say to me.

04:21That seems like a really, you have a bunker in the front of Bronco bunker in the back

04:24and I really don't want to be in the bunker in the back.

04:25So I feel like I did bail out left, but long story short, I feel like a lot of players

04:33because of how that whole sits into the terrain overanalyze the wind and they're looking at

04:39it and they're thinking, okay, I got, I don't, there's no wind up there.

04:42And then the announcers are always like, there's wind just telling you account for the wind.

04:46You're going to hit it and raise Creek.

04:47Like you're going to account for the wind.

04:49I think that's kind of what seeing ghosts is like.

04:51It's not really there, but it is to an extent.

04:55So it's like, it's just seeing things that aren't really reality.

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