Matt Burke – October 11, 2018
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Thursday, October 11, 2018
Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke
(How did CB Torry McTyer and how did DE Charles Harris do last week when you looked at tape?) – “I think they both performed admirably for us. Obviously they both played larger roles for us due to the circumstances. Torry was good. He competed. He really had one play in the run game and one play in the pass game that he kind of got loose on. Other than that, he was really competitive. Torry, it was good to see him firing up in the run game, fitting some of the runs and tackling, which was good for him, and competing down the field in the pass game. I thought he played pretty well. It’s the same with Charles. Obviously with Charles, you’d like to see him finish that sack or a couple. He had a chance to have a really, really big game. He played well for us and did a good job of plugging in. He played with a lot of energy. He played faster than I’d seen him play in a while, which was good to see. You’d like to see him finish a couple of those that he had his hands on on Andy (Dalton) a couple of times but he was flying around, which is kind of … What we’ve been preaching to him is just go play fast. So he kind of did that, which was good to see. I was happy that both of those guys kind of took advantage of their opportunities.”
(I wanted to ask you about your mindset or approach when you’re facing a team that utilizes two backs in two different ways. How do you approach that as a play-caller?) – “Like Chicago?”
(Yes. Do you have a specific set of plays for when this guy is in the game versus…) – “Yeah. I don’t know if it’s a specific set of calls or plays, but you try to see how they’re utilizing those players. It’s not just backs (but) anybody. Obviously those two backs, they have different skillsets. The interesting thing with Chicago is – and they do a good job – they do a pretty good job of self-scouting. I think they understand we’re looking at that, so they try to balance it out. So it’s not always ‘24’ (Jordan Howard) is in the game and it’s going to be always power run game and ‘29’ (Tarik Cohen) goes in and it’s empty spread out. I mean they do everything with both players. It’s not a game where you can just say ’24’ (Howard) is in so let’s all load up and put 40 guys in the box; ‘29’ (Cohen) is in so let’s put 10 DBs on the field because they run the ball with ’29’ (Cohen) and they pass the ball with ’24’ (Howard). You just sort of try to get a feel for how they’re utilizing those players and what their strengths are. With anything on defense, you just try to take away or do the best you can to take away and limit the strengths of the opposing offense. We try to study … Sometimes some teams have different play calls and are running – I don’t want to say running different offenses – but feature different plays with a different back in there. These guys do a pretty good job of trying to mask that. It’s not as clear cut as some other weeks are.”
(I’ve always heard that the book on new head coaches or first-time offensive coordinators, you’ll know what they are running after about five games.) – “Yeah?”
(Yeah. Like rookie quarterbacks, you have a feel for what they’re doing or their strengths and weaknesses. I guess that’s not accurate?) – “I don’t know. They’ve only played four games, so maybe we’re still in that book. (laughter) So I still have one to play. This offense, they’re a unique offense. Obviously it has some roots in some of the stuff that’s going on in Kansas City, Philadelphia and those sort of things. They dress up a lot of stuff. They’ve got a lot of motions, jet sweep actions and again, using the backs in different ways and putting guys out in different personnel groups. Every week, this offense is going to feature some sort of trick plays and gadget-type stuff and unscouted looks. They’re going to give you stuff that you haven’t seen. I’m not sure that we’ve seen all that they have to offer yet, to be honest with you, especially coming off the bye week. I think all offensive coaches are saying if you give them more time, they’re going to start drawing up stuff in the dirt. I wouldn’t say it’s like ‘Aw, man. We’ve seen all of their tricks and now we’re ready to hone in on it.’ I think we’re preparing for some sort of unscouted stuff and things we haven’t seen. You just try to extrapolate out on what you’re predicting, where their next moves are and those sort of things. This is a pretty expansive offense. Obviously again, they have a lot of different ways to get the ball to different players. I wouldn’t say that I feel safe in assuming that we’ve seen everything that they have to give.”
(We’ve seen a ton of S Minkah Fitzpatrick. I think 42 of the 60 defensive snaps last week. That being said, has it entered your mind at all about is there a way that we can get him on the field every play? Is there a need to at this point? Has that thought process even crossed your mind?) – “Everything crosses my mind probably. We’re putting a lot on Minkah right now, already as it is. We’ve obviously had smaller injuries at different spots back there. I just think we’re conscious of not putting even more on his plate – too much on his plate – too soon. We’re asking a lot. We’re plugging him in at some different positions, at both safety spots and nickel and those sorts of things. He’s a good player. We obviously want our good players on the field, so we’re not necessarily trying to hold him back from that; but at the same time, there’s a little bit of diminishing returns putting too much on his plate. We don’t want to take away from what he’s already been good at and the things that he’s doing and the progress that he’s making at certain spots. We’re giving him what we think he can handle and again, I mentioned it last week, some of the stuff – play times and snap counts – are dictated by what we’re getting from the opposing team too. I’m not trying to get him off the field, I can promise you that.”
(S Minkah Fitzpatrick has a tendency to drop players for loss, especially on screen passes. It seems like he diagnoses, reads, understands what happening. What percentage of that do you feel is studying and what percentage of that might be innate?) – “Do I have to put numbers on it or can I just speak to it? (laughter) It’s both. I think he’s one of our better studiers. He’s a student of the game. He loves it. He loves just absorbing ball and understanding the nuances of things. So I think he does, through film study and learning our defense and getting better in that realm of what we’re asking him to do and where everything fits from a big-picture standpoint from our scheme. That frees him up to know when he can take some risks and shoot his gun a little bit and do those sort of things. But I also think one of the advantages for us of playing Minkah down in a nickel-type spot is he’s a bigger body in that role. So that screen game, where you have perimeter screens, we feel that’s a pretty good matchup with receivers trying to block him in the screen game. So some of that is a physical thing for us. We think that’s a decent matchup in a lot of instances. He’s a bigger, more physical nickel than a lot of teams get to play with. There’s a little bit, to us, of a physical advantage to that. I do think he’s getting a better understanding of our scheme and where his leverage and where his help is so he knows where he can take his risks, and then he does a good job of studying opponents and just getting a feel for the game. This is something I’ve mentioned in the past with ‘Mink,’ he’s very good in-game. There’s going to be some things that he still hasn’t seen or just some nuances where he just hasn’t gotten the volume of plays; but as it happens in real time, he’s very good at adjusting. If he doesn’t see something the first time on the field, he comes over, looks at the pictures and he kind of adjusts so the next time something like that comes back up, he’s ready to go. I thought in the Jets game, that happened where he had a screen that he misfit the first time. He didn’t see it and it got out on us and you bring him over and then the next time it’s a 2-yard loss. He does a good job in real-time of taking that feedback and seeing where he wasn’t right, then it happens right the second time.”
(This past game it seemed like there were more frequent blitzes and they were more effective for you, the A-gap pressures. What sort of went into the thought process on being more aggressive in there?) – “Two things: we were a little shorthanded from a player standpoint. There was part of it that we felt we maybe needed to generate some things and try to do some different stuff. Some of it was we felt we could take advantage of some of the things we saw in the protection game and those sort of things. That’s part of the evaluation every week as you’re game-planning and as you’re studying. Any time you’re blitzing and sending more players into the rush, you’re taking players away from the coverage element. So there’s a risk to it. It’s not just ‘Oh, that’s great. We should call a million blitzes every game.’ When you go into a game … That was part of it of our personnel and certain matchups versus that personnel. We thought we had some calls that we could kind of get after them. I couldn’t tell you my tendency numbers in terms of pressures, but we felt we had to generate a little bit more from a schematic standpoint as opposed to just letting personnel work. That’s what went into it.”
(Do you learn more about guys in those situations as far as a blitzer? We saw LB Jerome Baker get a couple of sacks when he was used.) – “He was free in the A gap. Let’s not get carried away with Jerome here. (laughter) No, I wouldn’t say that. I mean we hope to have a good feel. I guess, as a blitzer, who is successful and a guy like Jerome, he finished two of those plays and got the quarterback on the ground, which is as important as anything. I would hope to think I’m not going to send guys that I don’t feel like are good blitzers. But yes, I guess you learn if you send a guy and he has some success and you can generate some different things with him. Again, the more threats to do that, that you have on the field, obviously the better it is. Whether you’re sending them or dropping them or whatever, the more threats now … ‘This guy, ‘55’ (Baker), he can blitz a little bit. You have to be alert with him. He’s not always just a cover linebacker.’ Now ‘47’ (Kiko Alonso) comes and all of a sudden ’20 (Reshad Jones) blitzes. It helps anything else we’re trying to do if you’re generating enough threats of blitzers on the field and have had some success. Then it leads to hopefully more advantages for us.”
(Does whatever the offense have going on, whether they’re injured or banged up … We heard Head Coach Adam Gase talk today that it may be a little rougher week for the Dolphins offense. Does that impact how you may call your scheme?) – “No. I try to shut out every team we play and hope (our offense) is going to score a million points. That’s how we start our week.”
(With the turnovers, there’s just such a huge difference between this year and last year. Outside of practice and focusing on it, what has been the difference?) – “I wish I had the answer to that, honestly. It’s crazy. Again, the whole speaking it into existence. If you talk about having a point of emphasis, it’s obviously something (that’s important). And (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) has dedicated practice time to it where we’ve had specific periods almost or turnover periods and things that we’re doing. It’s been interesting. We spent a lot of time talking about attacking the ball when we’re tackling. We haven’t had as many fumbles. It’s been obviously more interceptions. I think it’s a lot of things. We’ve got good players in the back end. Part of that is just the emphasis on being around the ball because a lot of our picks have been tipped balls and stuff gets knocked (around). Obviously Kiko (Alonso)’s last week, Reshad (Jones) made a nice break on it and those sort of things. I don’t know. I hope it’s just guys are flying to the ball a little bit more so when those plays happen, that ball gets bounced up in the air and there are bodies around it to finish those plays. I feel good about the guys that we have in the back end in terms of having good playmakers that can (make those plays). Reshad has a couple of picks, T.J. (McDonald), obviously ‘X’ (Xavien Howard). So I don’t know if it’s a multitude of factors. If I had the answer, I probably would have done it last year. (laughter)”
(Have you ever thought – I’m just spit-balling ideas here – that maybe it’s the caliber of quarterback you’re practicing against on scout team?) – “I will say obviously carrying the quarterbacks that we carry – Brock (Osweiler) and David (Fales) – obviously work most of the scout team reps for us and both guys are veterans that have played. It does help. We had Matt Moore last year for some part of that, who does a good job. That does help just in general, having a guy like Brock who has obviously played in the league. He can look at a card and know what we’re trying to get out of it and know where the ball should go. You can tell him, ‘this is the coverage we’re playing, so try to look this guy off and come back to this.’ He can kind of execute that. We’ve been good. If you want me to expand on that a little bit just to give a little shout out, our scout team has been great, especially (because) we’ve been shorthanded a little bit the last couple of weeks. All of our starting receivers are taking reps on scout team for us. It may be one per period but Kenny (Stills) will jump in there, Albert (Wilson) will jump in there, Jakeem (Grant. It’s been really cool to see. All of those guys will feel like we’re in this together. Kenny will start the scout team period and will take maybe one rep off the receivers; but he’ll run a deep route for us that we can get a pretty good look at someone running through our defense. Those guys are doing a really good job, but having a quarterback that can operate in a system and knows what you’re trying to get as a defense out of that look and out of that play, that certainly helps.”
(Have you and Defensive Line Coach Kris Kocurek felt after Sunday that there was the same level of efficiency and production with a three-man defensive tackle rotation plus a little bit of DE Charles Harris compared to four obviously when DT Jordan Phillips was here? Did you feel like there was a drop off because of tiredness late in the game? Or did you feel like you were just as affective with three primarily instead of four?) – “I think it’s probably more difficult on Kris than anyone else, just trying to manage that. Obviously when you have more bodies, it’s easier to keep guys fresh and the defense is waving guys out there and stuff. I think it puts a lot more on him to make sure he’s not letting one guy wilt on a vine out there for 10 plays at a time. We had obviously a lot more success on third down last week. We had some shorter drives, so it’s easier when you’re playing in that world, when you’re going three-and-out or when you have shorter drives and you get stops on third down, or when you don’t have those extended drives. Obviously that helped. I thought we did a better job of managing that group last week. Ideally, I’d have 46 defensive guys up. I’d say again, those guys battle. They’re warriors. Honestly, our whole defense last week, I thought … We kind of went in shorthanded. We were banged up and the effort and energy level was outstanding. Guys that weren’t feeling great that played and guys we were shorthanded at tackle, and I didn’t hear a word about it. Credit to the d-tackles. They went out and had a job to do and they battled every play. Like I said, it was probably more difficult on Kris just managing that. We helped ourselves out from a whole unit standpoint in terms of not being out there as long. We had 20 less plays than we had the week before, which is easier to manage a rotation when you’re playing 60 plays instead of 80. There were probably a lot of factors there.”
(In that same sense, for how that game ended with offensive turnovers, was there a massage, or do you feel like you needed to share a massage with the defense because of how that game ended last week?) – “No. The message is we didn’t play well enough to win. We left plays on the field. We did some really good things. Like I said, I thought they had that warrior mentality, which I was really proud of; but there were plays to be made. We always preach about it doesn’t matter what is going on the rest of the game and those things. There is always meat on the bone and we left plays on that field that people may think I’m crazy. But there were a couple of plays that turn that game around if we make those plays. We made a lot of plays and got some stops and we improved on the third downs and we had some pretty decent red zone defense. We did some things like that in areas that we’re trying to work on; but the message was we left some plays on the field that we could have done something to turn that game around. We don’t control what happened on the opposite side of the ball. That’s not our world and that’s not something that we concern ourselves with. The message is, if we want to be an elite defense, then we have to clean up the plays we need to clean up on our side of the ball.”
(You said you guys have turnover periods during practice. I’m just curious what specifically you guys do that’s unique to those periods? Do you have quarterbacks purposefully throw interceptions or poorly thrown balls? What are you doing that you wouldn’t normally be doing in your defensive drills anyway?) – “We literally have separate drills, like a separate period. We do something different every week. Two of the main points of emphasis coming into this season was our tackling and takeaways. On Wednesday practices, when we have our pads on, we have a tackling period, like a tackling circuit or something, where at the end of individual period, depending on the week, it’s a 3-5 minute period that every group does tackling. Sometimes we circuit it and kind of do drills at each spot and move guys around. Sometimes it’s in their own groups. Then on Thursdays it’s the same thing with takeaways. Whether it’s certain ball drills we’re trying to work or we’re working on punching or ripping balls out or scooping. Today we did kind of a return drill. We’ve been getting our hands on balls and I’d say our interception returns are average to below average right now. We’re trying to work on understanding that … Guys are watching. We are picking the ball off and guys are watching it happen instead of turning and trying to lead the convoy back up the field. We’re getting our hands on some balls, now we’re the offense. Let’s try to do something with it. Today’s emphasis was on when we do recover a fumble or do get an interception, let’s go do something with it. The play is not over. Let’s not just all watch and celebrate. It’s different every week, but just saying that every Wednesday we’re doing a tackling something. It’s emphasizing something, whether it’s an extra drill or something. And every Thursday we’re doing a turnover something. It could be a circuit, it could be certain ball drill or tip drills, fumble recovery, strip drills, ball carrying, ripping things out. Whatever it is, we’ll change it week to week, but there’s a point of emphasis of saying every week we’re going to do this. Now obviously our periods in practice, we’re emphasizing taking the ball away when it’s in the air. We’re scooping every ball up on the ground and those sort of things. Within the course of practice, that’s just naturally how it goes; but then we have an additional period that Adam (Gase) has built into the schedule where we’re going to take five minutes a day and we’re focusing on tackling or all we’re focusing on this period is takeaways. Not anything else that is going on. Hopefully we keep seeing the fruits of those labors.”
(What’s the most unconventional thins you’ve done in one of those periods?) – “I don’t know.”
(Something that would be very creative. A very creative drill in practice.) – “I don’t think it has to be creative.”
(Turnovers are so random.) – “Well fumbles are. Fumble recoveries are random, but our philosophy in that world is the more fumbles there are, the more opportunities you have. You eliminate some of that randomness. If we are attacking the ball, if we’re always punching at the ball and the second guy in is always trying to strip at things, well, if you put more balls on the ground, the randomness, you at least have more opportunities to recover the ball. In our coverage element things, we try to be aggressive and we have sort of a multi-coverage package. We change looks and we try to give different looks on one thing and try to drop in and I don’t want to say confuse quarterbacks, but we try to disguise what we’re doing. Sometimes you get some balls thrown into it. Again, some of the emphasis is just running to the ball so when it does get tipped, there are bodies there to catch it. I don’t think we’re doing unusual unheard of drills that no one has ever seen before. I’m not trying to give away my secrets or something. I think if you plant that seed in people’s minds and you keep talking and talking, maybe it’s like some inception stuff. I don’t know. We went back a couple of levels and put turnovers in their minds and we’ve been successful so far, so hopefully we keep going.”
