Matt Burke – October 4, 2018
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Wednesday, October 4, 2018
Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke
(At this point there are three natural defensive tackles on the roster. Is that enough for what you and Defensive Line Coach Kris Kocurek want to do or at some point do you think a fourth will be needed?) – “Whoever we’ve got, we’re going to play with. At this point, that’s going to be enough to win a ball game today. We’ll see if we get another body there, then we’ll use that body too. Everybody is kind of banged up at this point and there are a lot of spots that we’re trying to manipulate in the roster. We’re going to go to war with the guys that we’ve got right now. That’s who we have and that’s who we’ll play with.”
(What was your message to the team after Sunday? What did you say to them?) – “It felt like de ja vu to last year up there, to be honest with you. I was just disappointed that we didn’t execute the way we talked about executing. In general, if we give our best shot and play our game and lose to a team that beats us because they’re better and made some plays that we didn’t make or something, that’s one thing. But when we make a lot of mistakes and do a lot of things that are just uncharacteristic of how we’ve been playing, it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing because I’d rather go toe to toe and have our best shot and have their best shot and if they make a couple of plays that we didn’t make, then fine. Really, it was more just disappointing (because) all week we had talked about poise and execution, poise and execution and do your job play to play to play. To have the penalties and all of the stuff, just some breakdowns go on that we obviously didn’t have in the first three weeks of the season, was disappointing. That was my message, more than anything. I wasn’t yelling or anything. It was more about we have to get this fixed. You just try to come up with some of the whys things happen and here’s what we have to clean up. Here’s how it happened, here’s why it happened and we can’t do these things moving forward. It’s really more disappointment than anything.”
(How does CB Bobby McCain’s injury change what you guys do at corner?) – “Somebody else is going to play. With every position, whoever is up is going to be up. We’ve been rolling different guys at different spots. If Bobby is not available for us then the next man up is going to play and we’ll go play some ball.”
(How do you feel about CB Torry McTyer and CB Cordrea Tankersley?) – “I feel fine. They’ve both been working hard. Torry has gotten some work the last couple of weeks and had some playing time and has done a good job. Both of them on the practice field … We try to utilize our practice time for different reps and working guys in and making sure that guys are staying ready. They’ve both been working hard, so I’m happy with that. It’s been the same story since Week 1. We tell everybody in that room. If you’re in this defensive meeting room then you have to be ready to play when it’s called on and everybody has to work to that goal and to that end. I’m happy with the way they’ve been working in practice. If their number is called, they’ll be ready to go.”
(I know sophomore slumps are a real thing but other than that, can you explain what’s happened to CB Cordrea Tankersley?) – “Nothing has happened to him. I think like I said, other guys have played better at times than him. He’s working and doing what we’re asking him to do. When he gets his opportunity, he’ll be alright for us.”
(After the game, a couple of the players, especially defensive linemen, were talking about miscommunication. I don’t understand what they have to communicate about. Can you enlighten me?) – “I’ll try. I can’t speak to … I don’t know what they were talking about. I wasn’t there so I don’t … I never like to address hearsay. I don’t know what you’re referring to or what they’re referring to, if that’s the case. But everyone has to communicate on game day. Even just from making a huddle call, making a front call, getting lined up. There’s always checks and things that happen in the course of a play, whether it’s certain motions or things that trigger certain other calls. There’s always communication between all levels of the defense. That’s a starting point. There has to be over communication a lot of times. Everyone has to be on the same page. That’s the worst thing that can happen. If eight guys are playing one thing and three guys thought they heard something else, that’s when things obviously can go really awry. I didn’t think, personally, that was necessarily a huge issue. That wasn’t communicated back to me at all, so I can’t address what they were referring to; but just in general, there’s always communication going on every play between linebackers and d-linemen, obviously in the secondary and the linebackers have to get on the same page with coverage calls and checks. Even just from a starting point in terms of the Mike linebacker making a front call or setting the blitz or setting whatever we’re doing. I wouldn’t say that was a huge factor last week. There were a lot of other things going on.”
(The last couple of games, there’s been a couple of plays where two or more wide receivers are bunched up and something happens, either the block at the line springs a guy or people are not covering Raiders WR Jordy Nelson. Why is that happening?) – “There’s a good example of communication. Any time … Not just in man coverage but anytime we’re in zone coverage or any matchup coverages, if receivers get stacked or bunched or are in condensed splits and switch release or come out of stacks like that, we have rules week to week on how we’re picking that up. We’ve had some miscommunications there in terms of how we’re handling some of that stuff. We have a game plan every week of in these calls, this is how we’re handling this. There’s different ways to sort it out. Obviously we’ve miscommunicated a few of those in the last couple of weeks.”
(Without getting too far ahead of this week’s game but all coaches self-scout throughout the season. What has gone well for you and what has not gone well? What do you think may be is a strength that hasn’t been in the past?) – “I usually do my self-scout on Fridays to go through it; but in general, our takeaways have been a huge factor of keeping us in games. Even in the last week, getting two picks was probably the only positive of the game last week. I think that’s (been good), especially having been a point of emphasis. I think when we’ve kept our explosive plays down, the games that we’ve done that, we’ve performed well. When we haven’t, we’ve kind of been up against it a little bit. That’s been kind of a critical factor for us. I think probably the biggest disappointment – I know I mentioned it last week and I feel like a broken record – has been third downs. We were actually decent last year in that and obviously we spent a lot of time doing that. Last week, the penalties got us. We had a chance to go three-and-out on the first series of the game and to have a penalty on third down … The last two weeks we’ve had I think five or maybe six third-down conversions on penalties. That’s been disappointing from that sort of thing. I haven’t studied much this week. It’s kind of early in the season to paint a big picture like that.”
(When you decide whether or not you’re going to shadow a guy like WR A.J. Green, what goes into the thought process about whether to do that and when to do that – third down, red zone? How do you, as a defensive coordinator, come to that conclusion?) – “It’s all of that. Again, you start the week and from a matchup standpoint and from a personnel standpoint, how do you match up? Do you like man-to-man matchups for those sort of things? That’s sort of a base starting point. Is there a body type or a player that you like doing that with? It’s also, as you start watching their schematic attack, is it possible? Is it going to cause more confusion? Sometimes if there’s a guy they’re motioning a lot and moving around a ton, it can sway you against doing something like that (because) there’s a guy that they’re moving around and you’re trying to flip guys all over the field. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mine when an offense moves one player and seven guys on defense have to move spots just by that. There’s some issues in terms of how you’re doing that. It’s the same thing situationally. If there’s certain players they’re targeting in certain situations, maybe that’s a time to do something different. Obviously when you have great players and you’re going against great receivers – a guy like A.J. – you always want to give different looks. You can’t give static looks to any of those guys. At some point they’re great players and their talent is going to show up. You kind of maybe pick your spots on when you’re doing certain things like that. There’s a lot of factors. Some of it is what their scheme is and some of it is what our scheme is. Some of it is a personnel matchup. Some of it is areas in the field, there’s certain times where you want to change some things up or sprinkle some things on them. That’s a huge discussion every week and how we want to approach that.”
(How do you approach that discussion with CB Xavien Howard or a cornerback?) – “Really, it’s not. It’s not as much of a factor in terms of directly with someone like that. With ‘X’, we’ll look at it. Those guys are in here Monday and by the time they leave Monday and we start really looking forward to the next week, we have all day Monday and Tuesday. (Defensive Backs Coach) Tony (Oden) and myself, as we watch the tape and sit through it, we’ll start game planning and put our discussion together and say ‘is this something we want to do?’ Or ‘how do we want to utilize something like this?’ Or ‘are we better right and left or are we better left and right? Are we better however?’ As the week kind of gets into the game plan week, we have a better idea of what our personnel is going to be. Now that we’ve sort of watched some of the opposing teams’ scheme and how they’re utilizing certain players, we’ll try to get it fit up how we want to.”
(Is that pet peeve on offensive movement that you mentioned, is that why you like your corners to typically stay on their side?) – “No. It’s not just about that. That’s just in general. I think you see more of that … If you have a defense … It’s partly why we don’t necessarily flip our tackles and have a 3-technique and a shade like a nose or something like that where they can trade a tight end and you have to move 10 bodies. Then you’re just going to see that all year long. They’re just going to get you unsettled by moving one guy. It’s easy for an offense to do and then all of a sudden we have 10 guys moving around and our eyes are in the wrong spot and you’re not settled when the ball is snapped. We try to utilize our rules to where if they’re motioning one player, either one guy is going with him or we’re bumping something and just kind of moving spots. It’s another thing week to week that we’ll look at and say this week, they do a lot of this so how do we want to handle this kind of motion? Do we want to match it and run across? Do we want to bump it? (Those are) certain calls and that sort of thing. That’s not necessarily dictated by the corners per se. It’s kind of just a schematic thing.”
(We saw snaps rise a lot for LB Jerome Baker this past week and the last couple weeks. Has what he’s given you from a speed and activities standpoint outweighed any negatives from a girth or size standpoint?) – “Yes. We like ‘Bake’s’ speed. We like that matchup in the passing game. We’ve probably seen a little bit more of 11 personnel and open up type stuff the last couple of weeks, so that probably has a little bit of a factor. The last two weeks we’ve faced good backs – good passing game backs – No. 30 in Oakland (Jalen Richard) and (New England’s) James White last week and those sort of things. It’s a different spot to utilize his skillset. Playing defense is, by nature, a reactionary thing. We have to react to what an offense is giving us in terms of personnel and formation and those sorts of things. Playing times are sometimes dictated by that as much as anything else.”
(What are your memories of your tenure in Cincinnati?) – “I was there in 2014 and 2015. We had two good seasons. We made the playoffs both years. We had good teams, good defenses. (Head Coach) Marvin (Lewis), obviously you like working for Marvin. How many years is he up to now? I can’t even keep track. At the time, he had been 12 to 13 years in the league as a head coach, so it was good to learn from him and see how we operated. It was good to be around. I always kind of laugh. I’ve had four head coaches in my NFL career. Two of them were like the longest tenured coaches in the league between Jeff Fisher and Marvin. Then two of them were first-time head coaches in Jim (Schwartz) and Adam (Gase). It was cool. I had been with Jeff and then had been with Jim for five years in Detroit and then to go with Marvin, it was good to see how he operated. It was kind of the first time I had been out of that (defensive) family with the Fisher and Schwartz lineage. It was the first time I had kind of broken out of that a little bit. It was good to see Marvin … It’s a unique place. It’s kind of a family-run business and how they operate. I learned a lot from Marvin, I learned a lot from that organization, I learned a lot of football there. We had two good seasons and unfortunately, both ended in playoff disappointment. But I enjoyed my time there. I grew as a football coach and learned a lot of ball.”
(What are your thoughts on things not working out between you guys and DT Jordan Phillips?) – “I don’t really have any thoughts on it. Things didn’t work out and the organization moved on. I’m sure he’s moved on. We’ll both go try to get a win this weekend.”
(How often in the last two years has CB Xavien Howard lobbied to shadow an opposing receiver?) – “X is an extremely confident player. He wants to do it every game – every play, every game. And even if you do it, he gets mad if you give him help. Like literally, he’s like, ‘leave me alone.’ So he lobbies all the time for it, which I love. Now, that’s not always the best strategy, so he doesn’t always get what he wants. Again, you want your corners, especially playmaking corners, you want them to be confident, and he is. He wants to go against the best and he wants to match up against the best. He views himself in that category and he wants to perform on that stage. He pretty much every week wants to do it, and obviously especially when you’re going against really good players like we’re about to go against. But, again, this offense isn’t just about A.J. Green, so there’s other factors. We can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to put 10 guys on A.J. Green or we’re going to flip this guy and always do this.’ This is a good offense and they’ve got other playmakers that we have to account for. He’s got to just play within our scheme and he’ll do what we’ll ask him to do.”
