Adam Gase – October 19, 2018
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Friday, October 19, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(Obviously you have a healthy DE Robert Quinn, you have a healthy DE Cameron Malveaux, among the others what’s your expectation for Sunday — DE Cameron Wake, DE Andre Branch, etc.?) – “The fact that we had all those guys get an opportunity to practice, we’ll kind of see how tomorrow is. I don’t want to jump the gun. I hear guys say, ‘Hey, I felt good after practice.’ (I) wait until the next day to see if they say, ‘Hey, I’m sore,’ or ‘I’m good to go.’ Tomorrow I’ll have a better idea as far as just kind of how everybody feels after today.”
(Do you feel, if DE Cameron Wake, doesn’t play, you have enough defensive ends to make it through the game?) – “Obviously him playing would help us a lot. But we just want to make sure that we’re being smart with him. Those guys do a good job of having contingency plans and making sure if we’ve got to change some packages around and put some different guys at those spots to make sure that we are somewhat fresh during the game, we can do that.”
(Are you surprised that what was probably perceived as the deepest unit on the team has been the most decimated by injuries?) – “I’m not surprised by anything. That’s just how it goes. We’re kind of in that part of the season where every team in the NFL is banged up. Probably about this time or in the next couple of weeks, that’s when everybody kind of starts getting a little healthier, getting guys back from the early injuries. And then everybody makes that push at the end.”
(CB Bobby McCain is on track to play Sunday, correct?) – “We’ll see. Once again, it’s always nice to get a starter back in the lineup.”
(How do you view the course of this season or any other season? When you guys started 3-0, you were talking about how there was still a lot that you needed to correct. At some point, you have to be past that.) – “It never gets past that.”
(I know there’s always things you can do better, but at some point you kind of have to roll into form, no?) – “You want them to be more like the little, tiny mistakes. You don’t want it to be things like formations, alignments, those type of things. And I think we’ve moved away from that for the most part in all three phases. But at the same time, all it takes is one to creep in and throw a whole thing off. That’s why you’re constantly trying, as a coach, you’re reminding your players over and over again about probably the most basic things just to make sure, all right, we still have it. You don’t want to ever think you got it because that’s when you find yourself in trouble.”
(When do you typically get out of that finding-your-way phase at the beginning of the season?) – “It’s probably in the next like few weeks, where you’re hoping everybody is kind of really kicking it in all cylinders, everybody understands just kind of the process that you’re going through for that season. It changes when your guys changed. You start losing some guys and all of a sudden you can take a few steps back as far as what your process is getting ready for a game.”
(Every week is played toward Sunday, but with Thursday next week, do you have to think injuries, work load, as far as having a game right around the corner?) – “Our main focus is this week. That’s all our players need to worry about. We’ve planned out what we need to do for the next so many days a long time ago and we have some ways to adjust if we need to adjust. With where we’re at right now, injury-wise, and after this game where we’re going to be after this game because two years ago we played in a Thursday game, we lost a ton of guys in the week before. I mean, we were scrambling to put a lineup together. It changes fast. Every Sunday is so different. We’ll see how it goes on Sunday and then we can adjust, but for the most part we’ve thought this through pretty good.”
(Does your familiarity with Lions Head Coach Matt Patricia add to that?) – “For me, when I’m calling plays, I can’t go to the next one. I’ve got to wait for this one to be done because then it just gets all jacked up in my brain.”
(TE A.J. Derby practiced last week but wasn’t cleared for the game. Is it just a matter of waiting to see him get healthy?) – “It’s really just … I mean, it’s never going to be no pain whatsoever, but I think it’s just where he can do the things we need him to do in the run game, pass protection and with his routes. I think his routes are really the one thing that he’s good. It’s just being able to hold up against either a defensive end or a linebacker’s blitz or safeties, to where he feels like he has the right amount of strength in his lower body.”
(Sticking with the tight ends, how does with TE Nick O’Leary’s performance last week impact how you use him and the rest of the tight ends going into Sunday?) – “We’re always going to use multiple guys. We have certain personnel groupings for everybody and we just keep moving guys in and out. The key is to try to stay as balanced as you can with all of the groupings. You don’t ever want to be one-sided to where another team can just say, ‘Hey, they’re doing this when this guy is in.’ We’ll just keep rotating. I like all of those guys when they play. That’s a good group.”
(How much does TE Nick O’Leary being able to help you as a H-back sort of expand your offense and what you’re able to do?) – “It’s always helpful because you’re more multiple. You can do some things that we really haven’t been able to do in this offense. There’s a couple of things we did last week that were new that (the Bears) probably didn’t think like, ‘All right, they’re going to run this.’ That’s always nice to have. Any time you have a tight end that can play in-line, kind of like that ‘F,’ off-wing guy, and then can play in the backfield, it just makes it hard to game-plan for.”
(How did the end of WR DeVante Parker’s practice week go from a health perspective?) – “It stayed pretty consistent. We’re just waiting to make sure we’re all good. When you’re dealing with soft tissue stuff, things can creep up out of nowhere.”
(Was there a specific thing with TE Nick O’Leary, blocking for example, one particular thing that you saw from him right away, where you thought we can definitely play this guy? He can do that and he’ll figure out the rest as he goes.) – “I remember last year him catching a touchdown pass against us. That’s probably the first thing that comes to mind, but then when we started practicing – I’m trying to remember who were playing, but it was somebody that had a fullback, and he was going in there and he was hitting with the linebackers pretty good (for the scout team). I don’t ever remember having as many defensive players come up to me and ask me when I was going to get him up. That tells you something like, ‘All right, they think this guy’s got something to him.’ Then we kind of started working him in on our some of our stuff because he was trying to learn our offense. He picked it up pretty quick. Once we started working him in, it worked out because we were down a guy. So we were able to get him up and play him and just kind of see how it went.”
(What’s the longest conversation you’ve ever had with TE Nick O’Leary?) – “Three seconds. (laughter) He doesn’t say much.”
Matt Burke – October 18, 2018
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke
(With CB Bobby McCain, obviously you guys hung in there without him, but having him back, the impact it’ll have on your defense?) – “If Bobby plays, obviously having one of your starting corners back is always helpful. Beyond that, Bobby … I think he brings a lot of other things to the table also. He’s one of our more competitive, fiery players. He’s also one of our problem solvers just from a communication stand point, too. He helps elevate the game of the other guys around him. Hopefully he keeps working through this process and we can get him back on the field soon.”
(What went into the decision to go with CB Cordrea Tankersley late on Sunday?) – “Obviously, we had some things going on, on the field and just felt like it was time for a different look. They were going at Torry a little bit. We were trying to work some different coverages to help him out. Torry was battling, so it wasn’t any of that, but it felt like it was time to put something else out there, something different look, a little different body type, a little different skillset for ‘Tank’, just try to change some pitches up to give them a different look.”
(What does CB Cordrea Tankersley have to do to regain coaching staff’s confidence?) – “I wouldn’t say he doesn’t have our confidence. I think it’s like any of the rest of them. Any of our guys that are in sort of backup type roles at this point, they just have to keep competing, keep working in practice. I think actually ‘Tank’ has had two … His probably last week and a half … The last two weeks of practice has probably been the best I’ve seen him really working in practice on the look team, but we’re playing some teams that play some similar technique on defense and things so he’s able to work some of our stuff. Just like the rest of those guys, they just have to keep competing and then when they do have an opportunity – which obviously he got an opportunity to perform when he has a chance to perform – and to keep doing that. All we ask those guys – any of those backup guys right now that are in a backup role – we tell them all, ‘Hey, look.’ … Obviously, all of them have to be ready to play, so we tell them keep working. Keep doing what we’re asking them to do and when they have the opportunity to perform. I wouldn’t say he doesn’t have our confidence. We felt like we had some other guys that were performing better at those spots at the time we made those decisions. He’s just got to keep himself ready and keep working to get back to where he needs to be.”
(When you see WR Albert Wilson on the offense – you’ve obviously faced him quite a bit on the practice field – when you see his elusiveness on the field, is there any opponent that you think of that’s in that caliber of guys that you have to deal with during the season?) – “I go week to week. You want to talk about this week?”
(Is there anyone on the Lions?) – “I think it’s a pretty fair comparison to (Golden) Tate. They’re probably fairly similar in size. I’ve actually never gone against Golden Tate. Obviously, (Defensive Backs Coach) Tony (Oden) and some of the guys on the staff have been around him a lot more. But just the run-after-catch stuff, the elusiveness, the ball in their hands and the things they can do. We went against Albert last year. I remember when we were playing Kansas City, or prepping for Kansas City, and obviously most of their offense was going through – forget the running back part – but 10 (Tyreek Hill) and 87 (Travis Kelce) were getting the majority of their offense last year in Kansas City. I remember watching tape and being like this guy, we can’t sleep on this dude just watching – it was Albert – but just watching him do some of the things he was doing. I remember saying that in the thing like I know everyone’s focusing on 10 and 87, but this number 12 is the real deal. I remember having that feeling about watching him, prepping for him last year. Looking to this week, they do a lot of similar things. Again, they’re moving Tate around trying to get him the ball in different spots like we do with Albert. Probably the best aspect of both their games is with the ball in their hands and what they can do with it. That’s a challenge for us this week, for sure.”
(What would you like to see happen on that 29-yard touchdown? There was a blitz and LB Raekwon McMillan got back and you had S T.J. McDonald in the back, too. What’s supposed to happen?) – “I’m probably supposed to make a better call right there, so we’ll start there. I knew what the play was going to be. I kind of made an inelegant call. I don’t know if that’s the right word. Ball was on the 30-yard line, 29-yard line. Obviously, about three minutes left in the game. I was part thinking from everything they’ve shown they were going to max protect and take a shot there. That was what they were going to do, it was pretty evident. They changed their max protection scheme. I don’t want to get into too much detail stuff, but they changed the max protection scheme. Basically, I tried to throw numbers at it just tried to bring more. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t like a schemed up thing where I thought we could attack it. I just tried to bring enough numbers to try to muddy it up. That’s not really my style. To be honest with you, it didn’t really work very well. I was in a tough situation. I thought he played coverage there even if it’s incomplete, they’re in field goal range. Again, with three minutes left, we’re trying to keep points off the board there as best as possible. They’re right in the fringe. They’re trying to make it harder on the field goal kick. It wasn’t the right call. I don’t want to say it was a bad call necessarily. It wasn’t the right call in hindsight. ‘Bake’ (Jerome Baker) had gotten taken off, because his contact came out. The stuff that people don’t see all the time. They thought it was … He was playing with his eye. They thought … The spotter called him down for a concussion check, because they saw ‘Bake’ playing with … His contact fell out. So, he got taken off the field. There was just a lot of stuff going on in real time. I just tried to throw numbers at the situation and it was probably not the right call at that time. I like to see myself make a better call, how’s that?”
(Are you expecting the linebacker to run back there?) – “Maybe. I shouldn’t have made that call. It was the wrong call. That’s on me. I’d like to make a better call on that spot. I always try to review myself and what I do. I think the … I wasn’t questioning my philosophy in terms of trying to be aggressive and try to knock them back a little bit and challenge the field goal spot, but it wasn’t the right pressure to do in that moment.”
(You guys are ranked I think 25th in defensive snaps.) – “What is that, like number of snaps?”
(Yeah. I think it’s 67 or 68 a game or something like that. Is that too high and is that … How do you manage the course of the season if you’re playing more snaps than everybody else?) – “We’re going to play as many snaps as they tell us to. Hopefully we’re not playing full 70-minute games. I’m sure that doesn’t help. I think it’s well documented our third down … We kind of been struggling a little bit on third down in some situations. Again, same as last week, I don’t know how many third-and-1s we had. I couldn’t get off the third-and-1s; it was driving me crazy. That’s partly our fault in terms of that stuff. Again, I don’t necessarily worry about that in the moment. We’re going to play as many snaps as we need to play to win a ball game. Last week felt like more. Last week didn’t actually play 70 snaps maybe or something like that not including the penalties, you take those off and we’re actually in the 60s, which I would expect. I also expect to play in sort of the mid-60s. That’s to me not an unusual number of games. Again, we try to keep our guys fresh. We try to do things during the course of the week in practice and recovery stuff to keep them ready to go. That’s not totally out of our hands in terms of trying to get stops and getting off the field a bit quicker and getting some more three-and-outs. I don’t know. We don’t really worry about … I couldn’t have told you that stat if you asked me a million times. We’re just trying to play as many plays as we can.”
(Speaking of stats, what’s your thoughts, I guess, on total defense as a stat like yardage?) – “I don’t really care about it to be honest with you. Again, our job is to keep points off the board, period. That’s our only goal. Now, again, you can argue or debate about what stats you think lead more directly to keeping points off the board. For us, it’s all about getting stops. I think we’ve been pretty good, obviously, in terms of takeaways and then red zone defense has been pretty good. Third downs is another way to get stops, which is where we’re kind of … We’re not up to snuff there. Total yards, again, I’m not saying we want to be giving up 500 yards every game, but that’s not really a stat that we try to measure ourselves by. We’re trying to keep the scoring down, so however we have to do that is what we’re going to do.”
(So that’s changes I guess as offenses have evolved and picking up easy yardage versus maybe how it was 10, 15 years ago?) – “Obviously, everything’s evolving, offenses are changing. Again, I don’t really look statistically around the league, but I’m sure offensive numbers and total yardage is going up. It’s getting hard to play defense sometimes. But again, that’s not something we focus on like we have to hold them under 300 yards here. That’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get off the field. We’re trying to keep the score down. The things that we think lead to lower scoring games are what we’re going to focus on. Yards isn’t necessarily one of them.”
(Obviously, everything seems to be slanted towards the offense in terms of the new rules. This is just the reality of the situation.) – “It is.”
(But as a defensive guy, as a defensive coach, if you can advocate for one thing to help the defense – maybe no cut blocking, for whatever reason, safety issues – what would it be?) – “I don’t know. There’s always those debates.”
(You’re just taking the default?) – “No one’s going to listen to me anyways. I don’t know about that. It’s frustrating sometimes, it is. That’s just the way it is. I try to take that approach with our guys. We can complain about landing on the quarterback, illegal hits with the head, all that stuff they’re trying to change and you can say it’s slanted, some of it’s player safety issues, but honestly I really try to take the approach like at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what I think. As a defensive coach, my NFL might look a little different than the NFL we have today. But that’s the state of the union. Those are facts. For me, it’s more about how can we coach within this world? How can we play defense or be better within the context of the new world order we’re facing essentially? I can come up with a lot of rules that says we can grab guys downfield, even obviously college football contact rules and things like that.”
(But even now it has to bother you when…) – “Nothing bothers me. (laughter)”
(Where running backs can lower their heads and run.) – “They’re not supposed to.”
(They’re not supposed to, but they do it. Receivers can push off, quarterbacks can’t touch them.) – “For me, when we have penalties or plays that happen within a game that we turn in say for example to the league, for me it’s never about punitive, ‘You guys screwed up. Tell everybody that you’re wrong.’ It’s more like, ‘Am I coaching the right thing? Are we telling our players … Is this what you want?’ For me, it’s more about just informational. That’s all sour grapes stuff. That’s fine. Again, that’s the way of the world. They’re going to call more DPI than OPI. That’s just how it is. They’re going to call more defensive players for striking with the helmet or leading with the helmet than offensive players. That’s just facts. That’s okay. That’s what the league wants or that’s what the owners want or whatever it is, whoever wants those changes. For us as a coaching staff, it’s about, ‘Okay, how do we coach within the context of that world?’ I just want to know, ‘This is what we’re telling our guys. We’re telling them to do this. So this happens in a game and you call this penalty or don’t call this penalty, was that right or wrong so I can keep coaching it that way or no, I have to readjust what we’re telling our players?’ Again, because our job to me is not to worry about what the rules are. I’m not that high up in the world. Our job is to tell me what I can coach our players to do to be successful, as successful as we can be within the context of what’s going on in the league. I try not to bother myself too much with that, because you can drive yourself crazy, you really can. Maybe in the offseason when I have more time I float around, I go, ‘This would be cool if they changed this or if they did this.’ But right now, really, honestly, it’s more about information gathering and saying, ‘Hey, look, I want to make sure this is how I’m coaching this guy. Is that right?’ or ‘You told me you were going to call a penalty this way, but you didn’t. Not like you screwed up, but hey are we on the right path here in terms of what we’re telling our guys?’ We just have to take what the rules are at this point and try to coach as best we can within them.”
(One stat that you will like is sixth in red zone defense?) – “You’re like my PR guy. (laughter)”
(That’s a good one though.) – “It’s not bad.”
(The turnovers seems to be pretty rare.) – “That helps.”
(What’s going on there?) – “We’re getting turnovers in the red zone.”
(I know we talked about in the offseason a concerted effort to get more turnovers.) – “Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. In terms of our red zone defense, it’s been helping. We’ve been opportunistic as a defense. We have a pretty high number of takeaways in general but they’ve kind of come at good spots in sort of fortunate instances. Obviously, having a bunch down as teams are close in the red zone and completely taking points off the board even, forget holding teams to field goals and stuff like that once they get down there. Again, our philosophy is we’re trying to get population to ball. The more hats around the ball, the more guys are getting around, getting their hands on balls, guys are getting tips off and guys that that are running to it. If you look at the second fumble at the end of the game where Kiko (Alonso) knocked the one out that X (Xavien Howard) recovered, we got about eight guys in the picture right there. It’s the 60th-whatever play, whatever your other stat was, and it’s late in the game and we’ve got eight or nine guys running to the ball. If you look at both our fumble recoveries from the last game, the first guy in didn’t recover them. Both times, the first guy in kind of had it in his hands and it bobbled out, and the next guy in kind of fell on the ball or scooped it up. Some of that’s random, but again, just the emphasis on getting hats to the ball in terms of attacking it and punching it and popping it up in the air and also population to run to the ball. Again, trying to help our tackling. If one guy misses, we’ve got guys there. And if a ball does pop out, we’ve got multiple opportunities to try to recover it. Hopefully, some of those things that we’re coaching are starting to show up a little bit.”
(Did you say get population to the ball?) – “Population to the ball. Get hats to the ball.”
(I’ve never heard that before.) – “Yes, that’s what we tell them.”
(It seems like with CB Xavien Howard, teams are avoiding throwing him the ball the last couple of weeks. What role have you seen him still play even though he might not be getting the action?) – “I thought ‘X’ played his most physical game of the year on Sunday. If you look at the fourth-and-1 play early in the game that 20 (Reshad Jones) makes, ‘X’ sets the edge. They’re playing a little flip play on the toss and the tackle is pulling out, and ‘X’ goes and knifes the offensive tackle and sets the edge at the numbers and allows 20 to run the alley and and make that play. He obviously had a big play on the screen, was getting his hands on some guys. That was cool for me to see. I thought he took a big step. That was his most physical game by far. He was really helping in some ways like that that maybe weren’t available to the public eye.”
(There are pros and cons of having CB Xavien Howard shadow. Now when you have him shadow, the other guy became a target. Is there a balancing act?) – “There is. There always is. Sometimes, you shadow a guy, and so for ‘X’, say I’m covering Omar, so I study him, I know his ins and outs, I know what’s going on, while the other guy has to study three different receivers, because it may not be the same guy he’s matched up on across the ball. Sometimes that’s even harder for the other guy to say ‘You’re locked in on this guy and you know his tendencies and you see his nuances,’ but the other guy, there might be two or three other receivers that he’s faced up against or he may have him in different spots and those sort of things. So, there’s always that balance that we talked about a couple of weeks ago. All of that goes into making that decision. It’s not just put him on the best guy and that’s cool, we’re done. There’s sort of a ripple effect on everything else that’s going on, for sure.”
Dowell Loggains – October 18, 2018
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Thursday, October 18, 2018
Offensive Coordinator Dowell Loggains
(With the emergence of TE Nick O’Leary, how tough now are the decisions for you, Head Coach Adam Gase and Tight Ends Coach Shane Day to make as far as using four healthy bodies now?) – “The legend of Nick O’Leary. (laughter) Nick’s come in and done a nice job for us. It always takes time when you get new guys, at this point in the season, and try to find out what they do well. What Nick has done a good job of is he’s able to move and be kind of a move tight end. It’s a strength of his to be able to do that stuff and kind of play that hybrid tight end/fullback role and do those things. The challenge that (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase has is really the actives and inactives and managing that roster. The good thing for (Tight Ends) Coach (Shane) Day and myself are we get to coach the guys he tells us to coach and he’ll make those decisions. We do have a room of four or five guys that they can play and help us, so whatever coach tells us on that, we’ll play those guys.”
(What is the legend of Nick O’Leary? Why is he a guy that was a castoff sitting around waiting for a call, and now he comes here and it looks like he might be the best tight end?) – “I can’t speak for that and those are your words, not mine. I think what Nick does a really good job of is he’s a scrappy player. He’s competitive and I think the guys see how hard he plays. He’s always mixing it up in the pile, he plays with edge and he’s made some plays for us, so guys are naturally drawn to that kind of competitive spirit. I can’t speak on why it didn’t work out in the past on other teams, but I think the coaching staff here has done a good job using his skillset to put him in a position to be successful.”
(Sometimes you see things in a guy, though. You obviously looked at film on him before you brought him in and you see how this is something that is underutilized or this is something you could do something with. What did you see with him?) – “It goes back to Florida State. He was a productive guy doing those things. He can move, you could tell he was smart, you could tell he was competitive and scrappy. Sometimes this league is about finding the opportunity, and when you do get the opportunity, making the most of it. It comes in a lot of different ways and he’s done that to this point and made the most of his opportunity here.”
(What was the difference that we saw from this offensive line? Not the Cincinnati game, let’s not compare those two, but from what you saw against the Bears compared to what you saw earlier in the season.) – “The biggest thing I think was the execution. It really was. Having Laremy Tunsil out there is a big deal because he’s a really good football player. When you have a guy that you can say ‘we trust this guy one-on-one to block anybody in the NFL,’ and we can slide protections and chip the other way, it makes a big difference. You get help in other places, and it makes your strengths your strengths and you play to your strengths and protect your weaknesses or what could be a matchup issue the other way. Maybe a team like the Bears, the right side of their rush pattern is really good for those guys. So we were able to do some different stuff schematically, and having Laremy makes it able to where you can do that stuff because you have such trust in him to be able to handle whoever lines up in front of him to block him one-on-one.”
(So there’s nobody in the league that you can think of that you say ‘we might need to give T Laremy Tunsil a little help?’) – “I think at every point, there are breather play. Whether it be Laremy or Ja’Wuan (James) or whoever it is, you don’t want to put someone on an island and say ’40 plays in a row, we want you to block this guy.’ We don’t believe in that here anyway. We want to give them different looks and do those things, but when it’s crunch time and it matters, we trust Laremy to do his job and block anyone one-on-one.”
(With QB Brock Osweiler, how much did you know about him before you took this job and what have you learned about him since?) – “I’ve been on the other side of losing to him twice. In 2015 in Chicago, he was in Denver, and the 2016 opener, I was in Chicago and he was in Houston at the time. Just being across from him, watching him, it’s been fun and a privilege to coach him because he learned from one of the best of all time in ‘18’ (Peyton Manning). That part of the knowledge of the offense after watching ‘18’ do it for four years in Denver and coming in and executing the system at a high level, and just the confidence he has in the system, it feels like it fits his skillset. So, from a distance I got to watch him and learn and figure out what he’s good at once he got here, so it’s been fun.”
(What’s more impressive, his confidence as you mentioned, or his optimism, because he seems to have both?) – “I think he’s in a very good place mentally. I think he really enjoys football. I think he really enjoys his teammates, and I think that’s important. He trusts the system a lot because it’s something he’s familiar with and he got to see it operated at a very high level by one of the greatest players of all time. When you get to sit back and watch that, it just gives you confidence and belief when a call comes in that you’ve seen it executed at a top level and you know what the system is capable of when executed the right way, and just the belief that he has in his teammates. The one thing that Brock does a really good job of is he plays with a point guard mentality. He’s getting the ball out quick, he knows where the hots (reads) are, he knows where his outs are the majority of the play. I think he does a good job of executing that stuff.”
(What is the approach you would like QB Brock Osweiler to take relative to aggressiveness versus caretaking?) – “The line we use a lot with the quarterbacks is ‘aggressive as can be in the timing of the play.’ If we have a shot play called up and we want to throw the ball and push the ball down the field, as long as you’re listening to your feet, sometimes it doesn’t develop the right way and you have to take an extra hitch and we’re telling them ‘bring your eyes down and find the check down.’ I thought the one thing that Brock did that probably doesn’t get talked about enough is he’s really smart with throwaways. I think in the second quarter or third quarter, on second-and-10, he throws the ball away because we bust the protection. The next third down, instead of being a third-and-15 and taking a sack, we throw the ball away and the next play, we hit (Danny) Amendola for a first down and it ends up leading to points. It’s just being smart with the football and being aggressive. We want him to be aggressive in the timing of the play, though.”
(When you all got WR Albert Wilson, you obviously knew he was a highly-skilled guy, elusive, and his yards after catch were good. But have you guys, just sitting around as coaches, even a tiny bit amazed just in talking among yourselves just to see what we’ve seen over the first six weeks?) – “It’s a good question because we knew he was talented. We assumed he could do certain things with the ball that would make him unique. The one thing that really jumps out to you is how strong he is in the lower body and how thick he is. He’s built like a running back in the lower body. His ability and his contact balance … When he gets hit, a lot of people stumble and fall. Albert does a tremendous job of keeping that contact balance and running after the catch. He’s done a really good job of taking on a heavy burden because he moves around in a lot of things. Some of the things that don’t get called … He’s played slot, he’s played outside, he’s played running back, he’s played quarterback. He’s just really challenged himself to learn all of that stuff. We’re going to continue to stretch him that way and see how far we can take him.”
(Explain something to me, catch and slash.) – “Yes.”
(What does it mean?) – “So slash is a term that we really started talking about this year. What slash is is when you catch a ball, you’ll see a lot of guys bouncing. What we say is slash, which basically means stick your foot in the ground and go vertical. (Danny) Amendola does a really good job of it. Sometimes as a ball-carrier, you get in trouble of trying to do too much with it. We keep talking about going north and slash and go vertical, go vertical. Then once you go vertical, now you can get your shoulders square and now you can go make moves in the open field like Albert (Wilson) did on ‘39’ (Eddie Jackson) for the Bears. It was basically a fast break in basketball. He went vertical and slashed. He went vertical and had a two-way go on him. It’s really trying to eliminate angles for the defense because they’re trying to overpopulate. That’s how you stop missed tackles is to overpopulate the ball. Well the way you stop it as an offense is going vertical and slashing, going north.”
(One of the things QB Brock Osweiler mentioned is that you guys talk about standards over feelings, which I thought was kind of interesting. How do you work through that, the idea that guys have different personalities and respond to coaching in different ways?) – “We think the only way that you can raise the standards is to continue to communicate the vision of what we want and what we expect. The only way you do it is to be able to tell people the truth and that’s not good enough. It’s yes or no. It’s evaluation friendly. You either did your job or you didn’t. Part of that is the coaching staff doing a really good job of explaining their expectations and the intent for plays. When we call a shot(gun) play, we expect a 3-1 hitch throw and we’re putting it up. Or we didn’t get the coverage we wanted, the intent wasn’t there, so check the ball down; but just so our expectations are clear. It’s part of the process. We’re not where we need to be, but we’re getting closer. It’s just having very direct dialogue and cutting through all of the stuff. ‘Hey, that was a pretty good read but we’d really like to get to No. 3.’ It’s more direct and it’s like ‘No. It’s not good enough. You know that it’s 1-2-3 in the timing of the play and check the ball down. Don’t take sacks.’ Just being very direct with each other. I think it helps you establish standards. It helps the whole team, the whole offensive group, understand the expectations.”
(Do you game plan differently at home in the heat as far as your running game and how you run RB Frank Gore and RB Kenyan Drake?) – “No. It’s actually a really interesting question. We don’t. But what does happen is you go in with a plan and then you react off what’s going on in the game and make adjustments. Maybe some teams, if you start to feel them wearing down or however it’s going, and the run game gets going, you start popping off. The one thing we did against Chicago is we were really efficient. We were efficient. When I say that, we were getting the 4 yards on first down and on second-and-1-to-6, we’re cutting it in half and making it third-and-short and doing those things. It’s really the feel of the game, not really necessarily going in (to the game). We obviously see this: playing at home is a huge advantage for us that we need to continue to make a priority of winning at home. But it’s really just the in-game adjustments and seeing how the game is going.”
(Can you put your finger on what changed for you guys? There were a couple of weeks where you were struggling to get going and then all of a sudden, like you said, the efficiency popped up.) – “I do think that the matchup things have changed a little bit. I think some of the teams we’ve played lately, we’ve been running more inside stuff than outside stuff. Frank (Gore) has had some more carries that way and playing to his strength. It’s really what the defensive scheme gave us and how we chose to attack that scheme. I think our guys are starting to understand what we want more and they’re starting to execute the blocks better. Once we lost (Josh) Sitton, there was a little bit of a transition there. Once we lost (Daniel) Kilgore, there was a little bit of a transition there. I think these guys are starting to play together a little bit more and starting to gel a little bit in the run game that way.”
(What did you like specifically about T Ja’Wuan James and what he did last week?) – “I thought he did a really good job. I think there were 15 or 16 times that he was on his own blocking one-on-one and he did it. The one thing is he brought great energy. Ja’Wuan is an energy giver. He plays hard and aggressive. That’s what the whole thing was. Especially at home, you feel that heat and you want to be able to impose your will and play on your terms in the run game and pass game. When we talk about the run game, you have to be able to run the ball when you want to. I thought that’s what our group did. I think Ja’Wuan was a big part of that, just playing aggressive and trusting his technique. Understand that he did a really good job of … There were a lot of times where we were sending two or three guys and we were chipping and doing those things but he did a really good job of understanding where his help was on each play. We might be sliding to him so he might know ‘They’re sliding to me, so I have inside help if I don’t need it; but I know that I can set a certain way to be aggressive.’”
Darren Rizzi – October 18, 2018
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Thursday, October 18, 2018
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(When you have a young kicker like you do and you’ve had quite a few the past couple of years, how do you know they have the confidence to go into a game in a situation like that and produce a win? How do you pick that guy?) – “I think talent aside, I think personality is a big part of it. In the time I’ve been here and all of the kickers I’ve met with and worked out and all of that stuff, a big part of the equation is certainly the temperament and personality of the individual. One of the things we really like about Jason (Sanders) when we first started working him out and getting to know him on the introductory level is that I liked his demeanor. I liked where he was. I really liked his background, his family background, which certainly plays into his personality. He comes from a military background. He’s the youngest of four kids. I have five kids. I know how my youngest boy is. A lot of those little things … People may look at that in a puzzling way but for a kicker, you have to … It’s a very, very unique situation. You’re going out there in unique times. A lot of times the game, like the other day, could be on the line. You have to have a really, really level-headed demeanor. You can’t really be a roller coaster guy in terms of personality. I really think Jason Sanders was a really good fit from that standpoint. I’m not talking anything about his talent or his kicking ability; but I really think he’s got a really good approach of the game. I think he’s really mature above his years. I think a lot of that factors into it. That’s why certainly he takes the field with confidence every time whether it’s practice or out here during training camp, OTAs or on Sunday. I think he approaches each kick the same. That’s one of the reasons I was very, very happy with him in terms of that really from day one. That was one of the things that stuck out for me and I was encouraged by right from the get go.”
(Do you have a game winning kick ritual? Whether it’s your guy or the other teams guy, do you watch the kick?) – “I watch everything. I’m not one of those guys that can’t watch. I’ve got to watch. (laughter) My ritual is more or less treating everything the same. Whether they’re kicking or we’re kicking, we have a process we go through on every special teams play, if you will. There’s really no difference there. Certainly game situation kind of falls into that. Obviously it was a unique situation because it was in overtime and we were kind of playing for the next step. ‘If he misses this, this is what we’ve got,’ and those kind of things. (Their kick) was at the 2-minute warning. Every kick is an individual event, if you will; but I kind of treat it all the same.”
(You had the opportunity to watch your formal pupil, K Cody Parkey, try to beat you. What were you thinking as the kick goes up on his end?) – “Honestly, with where I am and my role on the team, my thought process was what are we going to do after he misses this? That’s kind of where we were and kind of the thought process there. ‘Alright if he misses this, what are we doing next?’ Certainly it’s a unique situation because our former guy is over there and now you’ve got to get ready to go and now you’ve got to go into offensive mode and get back into time management and all of those things. It obviously played out the way we wanted it to. But, (it was) definitely a unique situation, no doubt about that.”
(With WR Jakeem Grant, we know he’s been having a shoulder thing that he’s been working through. He’s playing a lot of offense obviously too. Is there a question as to how much you want to subject him to because when you put him out there, he’s pretty dynamic in the return game.) – “The way we handle that is if a guy is active, he’s active. From a special teams standpoint at least, I’ll speak for myself, if a guy is up and playing then he’s going to play that role. Certainly with a guy like Jakeem, there’s a situational thing involved in it as well. We do have two punt returners. We talked about that before. (We have) a couple of different guys. But as far as I’m concerned, if we make a decision that a guy is active and he’s going to go, then he’s going to play the role that helps us win the football game. Now, we can certainly take care of a guy – any guy, I’m talking about anybody on the team – during the practice week and limit reps and things like that. But once Sunday comes, when you’re out there and you’re going … If he’s out there, he’s going to be returning for us.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase told us that WR Jakeem Grant’s nickname is the bully?) – “(laughter) He’s got a lot of nicknames.”
(But do you see WR Jakeem Grant bully on special teams?) – “He’s a guy with more nicknames than … You’ve got Mighty Mouse, Kevin Hart, ‘Say It With Your Chest,’ and all of that.”
(Say it with your chest?) – “(laughter) ‘Say It With Your Chest’ is a Kevin Hart expression. I started that one way back when he got here. (laughter) You’ll learn today all of the Kevin Hart stuff. He gets it all. Jakeem is a guy that the bully thing is kind of funny because he, for a small guy, has a huge presence. That kind of carries with him wherever he is – practice (and) games. So that’s kind of why I think they bust his chops about that, sure.”
Adam Gase – October 18, 2018
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Thursday, October 18, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(One thing on your least favorite topic, with regards to QB Ryan Tannehill, there was a report that he’s on a rest plan for 2-3 weeks. So beginning this past Monday, how many days have doctors said he should not throw a football?) – “They don’t know. And I didn’t know we had a rest plan, so that’s new. I’m glad I’m informed. (laughter)”
(So there’s a chance QB Ryan Tannehill could throw next week then?) – “I don’t know. He could throw tomorrow if he wanted to. It might not feel very good.”
(You said yesterday that there were multiple opinions on QB Ryan Tannehill. Was that after Sunday or was that before?) – “That was after.”
(So will QB Ryan Tannehill be evaluated again late in the week by doctors to determine if he should start throwing?) – “I have no idea.”
(When we hear about QB Ryan Tannehill’s shoulder, it kind of brings up the thought of Colts QB Andrew Luck this past year. Have you guys kind of ruled out that as a possibility with him, the situation that Luck had with his shoulder?) – “I don’t know the exact … I just knew (Luck) was out for a long time. I think there were some surgeries involved. We’re not looking at that.”
(CB Cordrea Tankersley, can you explain what’s been going on there because it’s rare that you see a rookie start 11 games and then the second year not play at all.) – “I think it’s practice. When we start over in OTAs, we start a certain way and then guys have opportunities to win jobs or lose jobs. I think he got kind of caught in that where he wasn’t performing as well and I think there were some switches made. Special teams kind of gets involved when you get to the next corner, when you get to the three (and) four (cornerback positions). There’s been improvement there, which has been good. I’ve been happy about that. He really got more aggressive as far as his relationship with the special teams guys, the way that he’s handling meetings and practice and things like that. I think that’s a positive that I got out of that whole transition where he was one of the backups. I do think that … I don’t know if it’s struggling a little bit sometimes early in the season and preseason where it wasn’t going as smooth for him as he wanted to and if that dinged his confidence a little bit. I think he’s headed in a better direction than what he was earlier in training camp. I think he is more confident right now. He’s been practicing a lot better than what he did earlier in the season. Really, he’s going to get an opportunity because with the amount of injuries we’ve been having this year, he’s going to be out there. We just need to have him keep improving.”
(When you have a player who’s confidence gets chipped away, how do you build it back?) – “Really, the way that I look at it is find out what’s bothering him or what’s causing him to have some missteps here and there or make the wrong decision or not understanding a coverage or something like that. See where his mind is really at the end of the day. Then try to chip away at that and try to really build that thing back up, build his confidence back up. Right now when I see him, whether it’s scout team or just with the defense, I see a little different walk now. I see his confidence really returning. It starts on the scout team because those guys are tough to go against. We ask those guys to compete on Wednesdays and Thursdays and try to get the ball and try to pick it off and get PBUs and things like that. He’s going against good competition every day.”
(So is WR Jakeem Grant destroying everybody’s confidence?) – “That’s why they call him the bully.”
(The what?) – “They call him the bully. (laughter)”
(Does anybody here believe that?) – “It is. That’s true. (laughter)”
(Who calls WR Jakeem Grant the bully?) – “The DBs were in training camp. I think a lot of the young guys, when they were here. He was roughing up a couple of guys.”
(With QB David Fales, obviously he’s going to be your backup this week at least. We saw after the last year with him, what is your level of confidence in him playing in a game?) – “I mean if I didn’t have confidence, he wouldn’t be here. I feel good about David. He’s gotten better from training camp to within the season. He does a good job of preparing every week like he could be the guy. He knows the offense in and out. I like his anticipation. He knows where to go with the ball and he understands the kind of playmakers we have outside and the running back situation of having guys that are multiple. David would be fine.”
(Regarding DE Cameron Wake, who makes the final decision on whether he plays? Is this a collaboration or all trainers?) – “When you have a guy like that, that’ll be a collaboration. I’ll talk to him probably later today to see how he feels or wait until tomorrow just to see (how he feels) the next day. A lot of times you just get a better feel in the morning if he’s sore from yesterday or if he’s like, ‘Hey, let’s go.’ Cam is going to shoot me straight. He’s not going to BS around me.”
(How is DE Cameron Wake feeling today after yesterday?) – “He was fine so far but today was really his big day because it’s third down, red area and things like that.”
(How do you know guys you can trust from that standpoint? At some point you have to measure having DE Cameron Wake for Sunday and having him available in December, right? You kind of have to weigh that.) – “With him, you’ll get the right answer. It’s not like that with everybody but Cam I trust 100 percent.”
(QB Brock Osweiler mentioned something yesterday in his press conference that I thought was interesting. He said in the offensive meeting room there’s a lot of talk about standards over feelings. Sorry if that’s a secret.) – “No. We stole it from somebody else. (laughter)”
(What’s the thought process in that phrase?) – “Just you’re not going to change your standards just because it’s going to hurt somebody’s feelings. It’s just as simple as that. It’s just real talk. It’s being honest and sometimes whether you’re a coach or a player, you don’t like to hear it. Nobody wants to hear that they screwed something up. To get it right, you have to know you messed up first.”
(Was that Mike Martz?) – “No. We stole it from somebody else. (laughter)”
(How do you try to manage that some of us are more sensitive than others? It’s the same thing with players. Some of your players might respond better to different styles of pushing.) – “It’s delivery. To me, I look like it as just making sure that we’re not sugarcoating anything. We get it out there and we make sure we talk through everything and we know if there was a mistake made. That’s really the biggest thing. You don’t want to let something slide just because it’s a veteran or a quarterback or a star player. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, everybody wants to get it right. That’s the key to the whole thing.”
(You’ve said before that you’re not surprised about what RB Frank Gore is doing, even if a lot of people are. Is there anything you’ve learned about him and his game in these six weeks?) – “He just looks the same to me. I feel like I say the same thing about him all of the time. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to answer. The guy, he battles. When he bursts through the hole, it just doesn’t look any different to me.”
(QB Brock Osweiler also said yesterday that there were a couple of instances in the game last week where he actually knew the play you were going to call before you called it. He just knows the offense that well. Is that something that you almost expect? Does it surprise you? How do you react to that?) – “It doesn’t surprise me. He’s been around this offense for a while now so he kind of knows. He can tell probably on the sideline just through discussion of what I’m thinking and if he doesn’t like that, he’s not going to be afraid to tell me. I think all of those quarterbacks do a good job of at least communicating back as far as ‘That’s not really one of my favorites.’ Or ‘I really like that.’ He’s not that big of a predictor because I’m probably giving him like four plays that I really like on the sideline and he might guess one of them right. (laughter)”
(In your time with the Broncos leading up to before QB Brock Osweiler was drafted, how much interaction did you have with him? I guess what I’m asking is how much of a hand did you have on them pulling the trigger on drafting Brock.) – “I’m trying to remember. We went and worked out a few guys. I think it was (John) Elway and Matt Russell, ‘Foxy’ (John Fox), myself, (Mike) McCoy. I think we took a few trips there to talk to a lot of quarterbacks. We went out to Arizona State and worked him out that day. He was just a guy that we kind of gravitated to.”
(Yesterday, QB Brock Osweiler said that he doesn’t follow social media and he wears, figuratively, earmuffs to shut everything else out. Do you think that’s helped him to this point, where he’s been criticized before, to be ready for something like this?) – “It’s keeping pollution out of his brain. That’s what it is. It’s not like you ever read anything positive, so why read it? In this profession, you just have to stay in the bunker, because if you start letting all that other stuff kind of get in your head, you start to believe it after a while.”
(What has C Travis Swanson shown you since he’s taken over at center?) – “He’s learned everything very quickly. He’s a big guy. He really solidified that middle. He’s done a good job with what we’ve asked of him in the run game. He’s helped us get some good movement there. Pass protection, he’s done a good job working with those two guards considering he hadn’t really played a lot with them. It’s an unfortunate transition that we had to make, but I think he’s done a great job jumping in there with both feet and making sure that we didn’t have drop off.”
(What’s one thing that QB Brock Osweiler does well that would surprise us?) – “The command he has of the offense, what he knows how to get in and out of. It will be subtle things, how he can help out those other guys, like little reminders every once in a while that might be something that he might have heard four or five years ago. Sometimes it helps. Maybe a guy will do a certain thing and that helps him get open. The more experience that you’re in something, some of those little nuggets you pick up along the way and you can possibly help another guy out.”
(Do you think that what QB Brock Osweiler went through in Houston and then briefly in Cleveland then back to Denver made him a better quarterback? What do you think that experience was like?) – “I think any time you go through any kind of adversity and you keep getting back up on the horse, it’s going to be a positive. You’re going to get better. If you work at it hard enough, you’re going to get better. I think that’s what he’s really done. He did a good job of just focusing on what he had to do here of improving on the things that we asked him to improve on, supporting Ryan (Tannehill), trying to help him with what he knows about the offense that maybe he might not talk directly about, but he might tell him ‘I went through this experience in it, here’s how I handled it’ behind closed doors that nobody else hears. I think he did a good job of that. He’s brought a lot of value and helped the skill guys as well.”
(Does the continuity help you because it’s just not another backup quarterback that you don’t have a relationship with in the past, that QB Brock Osweiler knows a lot and it makes this a little bit easier of a transition?) – “Yeah, any time that you’ve already had a guy that’s been in the system. Playing behind the guy he played behind, he learned a lot of things that most guys don’t get a chance to learn, and he was smart enough to listen. He didn’t ask a lot of questions, he’d listen. He mimicked a lot of the things that Peyton (Manning) did, but he was going to be different because that guy is one in a gazillion. They just don’t make him like how he was. I think he took a lot of the good that he learned from him.”
(What was it like having Peyton Manning on the sideline?) – “It was good. It was good to see him. I hadn’t seen him in a while, probably since 2016 or something. Any time he comes around, it’s good. The guys are always great. Some of these guys he’s played against before. That was probably the first time he’d seen (Josh) Sitton in a while. It was good to get him around and all of the guys to see him.”
Travis Swanson – October 18, 2018
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Thursday, October 18, 2018
Center Travis Swanson
(Are you pleased with these first two weeks, obviously with C Daniel Kilgore gone, and how it’s gone for you personally? From a performance standpoint, are you pleased?) – “I think I can do better, honestly. I think there’s a lot of aspects of me personally and I know we’re all here still trying to get to know each other. I typically don’t talk about myself a lot. I think when you think of an offensive line group in particular, it takes five guys to make a unit good in a sense. So I’m more of I like to talk about the group in a sense. I think what we did this past game was a step in the right direction. I thought we played good. There definitely are a lot of things to clean up though, across the board, technique-wise. This week, Detroit, it’s another challenging front. They give you a lot of different looks. I think we’ve had a pretty good first two days here of preparing for them.”
(Your knowledge of their personnel obviously, how much does that help you this week personally?) – “I played with guys that are still there. They’ve got some new guys there, a different scheme than what I was used to with my time there. It’s a change, but that’s why thankfully you have tape on them and you can study as much as you can.”
(Is it possible to completely remove the aspect of you going against your former team for this game?) – “You try not to think about it because I think guys that do get emotionally more wrapped up in it than they should. I think I’ve done a good job personally up to this point of not trying to add that aspect into it, just because like I said, you can kind of get carried away a little bit. I’m trying to look at it like it’s just another week.”
(You mentioned earlier about the unit as a whole. When you come into replace C Daniel Kilgore, do you see part of your challenge is making sure it remains a whole and there’s no break in the continuity from what’s been established?) – “Yes. Every situation is different, every circumstance is different. I hadn’t been here since OTAs and I did just get here however long ago it was, five weeks. There’s still going to be this building process for all of us because it’s going to take a little bit to understand how Jesse (Davis) works, understand how Ted (Larsen) works, Brock (Osweiler) and Ryan (Tannehill) and that whole thing. It’s a very unique situation, but I think it’s heading in the right direction. I think every week we go by, we’re building the kind of chemistry that you need to, to try to make up for that time that I was not here.”
(When you think about the two offensive tackles, Ja’Wuan James and Laremy Tunsil, what are your impressions of them? What attributes do you think maybe they have in common?) – “(They are) very smart players. (They are) guys that are very athletically gifted. (They) give you a lot of effort. They’re what you want when you think of edge-protecting tackles. They work good within a group. They’re team guys. I haven’t had any complaints about who they are on or off the field.”
Kenny Stills – October 18, 2018
Thursday, October 18, 2018
WR Kenny Stills
(On the play between you and WR Danny Amendola, were you guys in the same vicinity on purpose, by accident? Did that play just kind of unfold like that?) – “No. I was where I was supposed to be. I was running a post route, I think he was running a crossing route or something and I saw Brock (Osweiler) break the pocket. So I just was working my way back to the ball and it was tipped up and I made a play.”
(Because he broke the pocket, that’s how you guys kind of ended up in the same vicinity?) – “Yes.”
(The classic line is obviously injuries are a part of the game, but because of your relationship with QB Ryan Tannehill having been here with him for a number of years, do you feel … I don’t want to say extra bad, but do you feel compassion knowing what he went through and now sidelined again?) – “Yeah. I mean, with any player on this team, we spend a lot of time together and you feel for them when they’re hurt. I know he’s upset and he wants to be out there and he wants to help the team anyway that he can. Yes, we definitely feel for him, especially because that’s our quarterback.”
(Is there some point you want to reassure QB Ryan Tannehill and kind of remind him that he has a chance of coming back this season even if it’s a couple of weeks?) – “Yeah. I think that’s really my job. We see him every day, we all uplift each other regardless if we’re hurt or not. We know that when he’s ready and he’s back out there, he’ll be out there playing.”
(QB Brock Osweiler said something in the press conference that I thought was interesting. He said in the offensive meeting room, sometimes guys use the phrase standards over feelings. What does that mean to you?) – “In this business and I think in a lot of other places, sometimes it’s difficult to take coaching or it’s difficult to be told that you’re wrong. We have a standard that we set here and we go by that. So if we’re not meeting those standards and your feelings get hurt, you have to understand that it’s about holding ourselves to this and going out there and trying to make sure that we’re competing and winning.”
(How are things going with continuity-wise with QB Brock Osweiler this week?) – “Great. You guys …”
(We don’t see much at practice.) – “You don’t see much but the quarterbacks are out there and we throw routes on air all offseason. Brock (Osweiler) was here this offseason. We get that time together. It’s different timing throughout the game, but we’ve been working together for a while. It’s not like it’s somebody that just came off the street. Brock’s been doing this. He prepares like a professional and it showed last week when he was out there.”
(Because QB Brock Osweiler knows Head Coach Adam Gase’s offense from their time together in Denver, has that leaked into practice? Has he helped you guys on things?) – “I definitely think it’s makes him a lot more comfortable being that he’s been in the offense before and he’s familiar with it. It makes it easier for him to play well and play fast.”
Frank Gore – October 18, 2018
Thursday, October 18, 2018
RB Frank Gore
(You became the first running back 35 or older to rush for more than 100 yards in 14 years. Is that type of thing meaningful to you? Did you know about that?) – “No, I didn’t. I don’t think about it and I didn’t hear about it. I’m happy I did get the 100, though. And we was also got the win, so that was big.”
(What do you attribute to being durable at your age?) – “I say the man up above. I’m blessed. Also, the way I train and how much I love the game. As you get older and want to keep playing this game, you’ve got to respect it, as well as the way you train and when you’re out there and also when you’re at practice. You can’t think about age. You’ve got to continue like you’re a young man out there.”
(In essence, your mind may tell one thing but your body tells you another?) – “Yeah. I just think the way I take care of myself. When I got to the age that I tried to do something, I felt like I still can do it and also still play and one game I didn’t have it that Sunday. When I felt that, that’s when I knew that if I still want to play this game, I’ve got to respect it. There’s no different way. That’s why I take care of my body, I train my behind off and during the season I’m all football.”
(Is there anything you think you’ve lost from your late 20s to now?) – “I don’t know. Now, I’ve got to pay attention and be very detailed, small details. I try my best to make sure I understand the small details on the field.”
(What happens in a very small amount of time, like 20 seconds, where you come out of the game in overtime and you and you and (Run Game Coordinator/Running Backs) Coach (Eric) Studesville and Kenyan (Drake) have a quick amount of time to determine who’s going in. How does that happen?) – “It depends on what coach calls. It doesn’t matter who’s in. We know we both can get the job done and our coach respects both of us. Whatever play gets called, we’re going to try our best to get it done. So it really doesn’t matter.”
(You could have stayed in at that point. Had you felt gassed or no?) – “I’ve been smart. I felt that Kenyan (Drake) was the fresher guy and I’d do it again because he can play this game at a high level too.”
(Do you ever pick the brains of other guys like DE Cameron Wake or even other sports like a Miami Heat’s Udonis Haslem or a Dwyane Wade, guys who have played a long time and still play?) – “I’ve been going with what I know so far. Also, I talk to other players at my position. When my boy Marshall Faulk gets back in town, when he texts me that I still look good, I just ask him what he thinks I should continue to be doing and things like that.”
(Was that in the last week or two?) – “Yeah, just last game. After the last game (Faulk) texted me.”
(What does that mean to you to get that kind of text from former NFL RB Marshall Faulk?) – “It’s big. A guy like that and a guy who I respect and who killed it when he was playing. He killed it. We always talk during the season, even offseason. I just tell him to be real with me and he said I still can play.”
(Are there times you convince your mind that you can do certain things that maybe your body at your age most people would say you can’t do?) – “I like it. I like the challenge. The biggest challenge was going to be training camp. I felt like I wanted to be the same Frank that’s going out there every day with my teammates. That’s what I did. Even though I didn’t get the reps like I wanted to, I was out there. That was a big thing for me.”
(Has your start to the season reaffirmed for you that you think you’ll be around for a few more years and that you’ve got a lot left?) – “I take it one game at a time, one year at a time. There’s a lot of games left in this season. I’m not even thinking about that right now. Right now, I’m trying to get ready for Sunday and try to get a win on Sunday against Detroit.”
(Do you like all the questions you get about being able to do this at your age?) – “I don’t care about it, but I kind of get tired of it because I still can play. I don’t care what age I am. If I continue to train and feel good and enjoy the locker room and this organization wants me and I feel I can do it, I’m going to do it, no matter what my age.”
(This “Forever Grinding” on your shirt, it seems like it has a lot deeper meaning because of how long you’ve been doing this.) – “My whole career. You think about when I went to Miami. I played as a freshman, I go in and compete to be a starter, I tear my ACL, come back, I start, I get off to a good couple of games and I get hurt again. You hear everybody saying, ‘Oh, he’s done.’ I get drafted in the third round. People still said I got drafted too high, saying I’ll only play three years and I’m still playing now. So it means a lot. Yeah, it does. The way I’ve been raised, the way my career has been going. So, yeah, it means a lot.”
(There aren’t a lot of athletes in this position although you certainly might be one of them, like the Heat’s Dwyane Wade, where they can decide before their last year, this is going to be my last year. Do you want to do that? Do you want to know going into a year this will be my last season?) – “I can tell probably when I’m training. If I feel like I can’t be me when I’m training and I can’t keep up with the guys who I train with, who help me have a strong head coming into training camp, then I’ll be able to tell.”
