Darren Rizzi – November 1, 2018
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Thursday, November 1, 2018
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(What does LB Mike Hull bring with his return?) – “The first thing I’d say about Mike Hull, let’s take the playing aside for a second. The way he attacked his PT (physical therapy) and his rehab was really incredible to watch. (He’s) just an ultimate professional, did an unbelievable job (and is) really a model, a role model for anybody. Not just the young players, anybody that’s ever injured. Watching him go through the rehab and just really attacking it and having a great attitude about it. It’s hard when you get injured to have a really good attitude. Let’s be honest. But watching him come in every day and work, and work with the trainers and work himself back, it’s not a surprise that he’s back in the time he’s supposed to be back. I watched him go through it. What he brings to the table, he brings leadership No. 1. Just a really good guy in terms of the meeting room, the field and practice. He obviously brings playmaking ability. Any time he’s had an opportunity to go on the field in special teams in all different phases, he’s really done well. So we’re really happy to have him back. (He’s) just a guy that was really having a strong preseason, offseason, spring, training camp (and) preseason up until he got hurt. I was really looking forward to watching him play this year. It was obviously a disappointment when he got hurt. Now to have him back and get him back in the fold is great for our core team and really the whole team because he’s just a great guy, great locker room guy, great character guy and great professional. I’m really happy to have him back.”
(What happened on those first few snaps of the game. It seemed like it was penalty happy special teams wise.) – “We had a bonehead play. We lined up … In the new rules, you have to have eight guys setup in the setup zone. So between the 10-yard line and (25) yards back – the 40-yard line. (Cordrea) Tankersley was standing on the line. You can’t even be on the line. It’s kind of like a restraining line, you can’t be over it. The ref was trying to get his attention, I was trying to get his attention and we didn’t get him moved. He kind of started up and then he moved back and lost where he was on the field. He knows the rule, he just lost where he was for a second and unfortunately he was on the line. When that happens, they now have a choice. The other team has a choice now. They either want to take a tack-on penalty, where they can take 5 yards off of wherever we end up, or they can re-kick. I believe we returned the ball to the 23 yard line. A tack on, minus five would’ve been to the 18(-yard line). Or they can move up to the 40 and re-kick. So I guess they thought by moving up to the 40 they could pin us back even further than the 18. I’m assuming that was their philosophy, I guess. Then obviously they kicked it into the end zone so we had a touchback out to the 25, and then they had an illegal formation on their kick team. They didn’t have everybody up on the 34-yard line. It was kind of a weird sequence of events to start the game. We actually gained 12 yards, we benefited on that whole thing. That was their decision to re-kick. They didn’t have to. They could’ve taken the 5-yard tack-on penalty; but that was a really, really weird series of events.”
(A good penalty by CB Cordrea Tankersley?) – “Yeah. (laughter) It worked out. I guess we got plus-12 (yards) out of it.”
(What is your rule on returning? I don’t want to give away any state secrets, but if WR Jakeem Grant gets it and he’s two steps away from the end zone, do you think he should come out? Not just Jakeem but RB Senorise Perry too.) – “It’s really on an individual basis. We treat each play like an individual event so we have rules for that play. A lot of it has to do with game situations. It could be the team we’re playing, in terms of personnel, ‘Hey, we think we have a good chance this week to maybe get a return.’ Obviously a lot of people are talking about the end of the game with the Rams and Packers. The ball was just over the goal line. We’re going to talk through those situations, ‘If this one is in, we’re staying in.’ The other day when Houston kicked off from the 40-yard line. That was one that if that went into the end zone, I didn’t care if it was one inch into the end zone, we were going to take a knee. That’s for an example. To start the game, had it been a yard or two deep maybe a few yards, we were maybe taking it out. That was one of those situations, if they’re kicking off from the 40, 45, 50 after a penalty and the ball is in the end zone, typically you’re going to stay in. On a regular situation form the 35, it’s really all game situation and how early is it, when is it, is it end of the half, is it end of the game, is it a possible 2-minute situation like Packers were in the other day? I feel for that guy because when (Ty) Montgomery fumbled that ball, it’s one of those easier said then done plays. He was told, ‘We’re going to take a touchback here.’ Those kickoffs which we’ve discussed before … The ones that land right near the goal line are very difficult for the returner because if someone is not in his ear communicating exactly where he is on the field, it’s very easy for that player to get lost for a little bit. Typically you’re not going to catch the ball and look down. You have to have an awareness of where you are. In those situations, usually what we do is we line up on the goal line and if you step back at all, you’re going to stay in. I feel for him, obviously. It was a big play in that game. Obviously there was a lot of discussion this week about that. For us, it’s just really an individual basis. When we huddle up on the sideline ‘Hey, on this one, this is our thought process.’ We’re either going to stay in, we’re going to come out. This is kind of our yard marker. Our alignments by the returners, all of those things are going to change play by play.”
(I’ve seen you use, I think it was on Hard Knocks because you’ve been here that long. I’ve seen you use film from other games as teaching moments for your special teams unit. Is that something – the Packers RB Ty Montgomery situation – is that something you’ve used?) – “One-hundred percent, yes. What we do every week, it’s actually a weekly thing. It depends on the week but usually on Saturdays we’ll probably pull about 15 to 30 plays from around the league. We call them plays of the week and we use those as teaching moments for the whole team.”
(15 to 30 special teams plays?) – “Correct, from each week. What we’ll do is we’ll use those. What happens in the special teams world is you may have a situation that comes up and it may be a once a season thing and you can’t get reps at it. I can sit here and talk about it for a really long time. You can go through every phase and there is all different crazy situations that come up in games. I was watching the Jets vs. Bears game the other day and the announcer starts talking about there was almost a fair catch kick. It was at the end of the half and I believe the Jets were punting and there was like 6 seconds left in the half. In that situations, if the Bears or if the return teams gets a fair catch, there’s a very unique rule where you can actually kick and get a free kick from the spot of the fair catch and if it goes through the goalpost, you get three points. You never see it. It never comes up. It’s a very, very odd situation. If a team is deep in their own area with not a lot of time left in the half, there is a thing called a fair-catch kick. So if they kick the ball, wherever they kick it, if you fair catch it, the fair catch rule is this: 99.999 percent of the time, what you see is you either run an offensive play or you get a free kick form the spot. A free kick meaning you can’t bring out a tee, but you can have a holder come out and hold the ball. The kicker can take a full approach, a kick off approach – no blocking. It’s not a field goal formation, it’s a kickoff formation so you have to be 10 yards back in the restraining area. If he kicks the ball through the goal post, you get three points. You never, ever see it. It comes up once every 10 years. For example, I’m going to use that play in our meeting this Saturday and explain to the guys, this was a potential fair-catch kick situation because you rarely see it. We may have one of those come up every four decades. One in every 40 years. But we have to be ready for it. In the special teams world, you have a lot of plays like that. That’s why we pull about 15 to 25 plays per week that come up and we discuss them. We go through them and go through the rules. I remember last week one of the plays we had was in Cincinnati. In the Cincinnati game, there was a kickoff right by the sideline and their returner did a really good job. If the returner puts his foot out of bounds and then touches the ball while his foot is out of bounds, he’s considered to be out of bounds and you get the ball at the 40-yard line. So the ball kind of rolled near the sideline inside the 10 and their returner had great awareness. He went over, got his foot out of bounds and then touched the ball and they got the ball at the 40-yard line. Those are just a couple of small examples. That’s why we do that every week. Ironically enough, this past week, we had just watched on Thursday morning the day of the game, we had just watched on of those plays, the opening kickoff where (you have to be in front of) the 40-yard line, we watched someone else make the mistake that morning. Then we went out that night and did it. It doesn’t always work. The teaching doesn’t always work. I was sitting there saying ‘we just watched that this morning.’ It’s one of those deals where we try to use those teaching moments throughout the league because there’s a lot of unique situations that come up. There’s very unique rules. There’s gunners out of bounds, re-enter and staying in the paint and all of those kind of things that come up all the time that are very unique that we try to teach from other games because we may not get the min ours.”
(There’s a website, I don’t know if it’s any good but it’s Football Outsiders. They have a special teams formula which takes into account everything – coverage, field goals, punts, weather, everything. Right now they have the Dolphins third in the NFL. Do you feel like that’s a fair representation? Would you describe the first half of the season as excellent overall?) – “I’m a really tough grader. I wouldn’t be a very good teacher. My grading scale might be a little different. I’ve seen a lot of those formulas before. There’s like four or five different ones, different websites and different things. People use different things. Sometimes you pull one thing in and put another one in and you go from third to first or first to 12th in one play here or there. I said this to the guys after the weekend, I think special teams wise the first half of the year, we have a lot of highlights. We did a lot of good things. I felt like we were a little bit too inconsistent for my liking. I felt like we’ve got to just play more consistent football. There were a little bit too many peaks and valleys. We did have some great plays and kudos to those plays. I felt like we left some plays on the table. I felt like we could be a little bit more consistent all the way through. I’m probably not a fair guy to ask because I’m probably the hardest on myself first and then the players second, in terms of grading. I don’t know if I would use the word excellent; but I’d say good to slightly below average. That’s just me. I’m fairly tough in terms of the grading scale. I’ve seen a lot of those. There’s all different ones I’ve seen.”
(You’ve been here for so long, you’ve been here for quite a while. When you’re struggling and possibly losing confidence as a team – last year you faced a five-game losing streak in the exact same stretch – how do you inject confidence and self-awareness that ‘Hey, the season is still alive.’) – “I think the first thing, no doubt about this and we’ve talked about this before is really keeping the one-game approach mentality. It’s hard to do. It’s certainly easier said than done and it’s certainly a little cliché-ish. There is no doubt about it. I get all of that. However, I really think keeping the focus on just one game … You guys know how hard it is to win one game in this league. It’s hard to win just one game. I think we have done, as a staff, starting with (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) and throughout the rest of the guys, is keeping the focus on the task at hand, on this game. This week, right now, Jets at home, that has got to be all in. It can’t be looking behind. It can’t be looking ahead. It can’t be any of those things. Then what happens as you all know is that you get one, and then you start going one, then you stack and that’s how you build confidence. On the flip side of the coin, what you’re talking about, on the other side when you lose a couple in a row, it’s easy to lose confidence. I think to re-center yourself and put the blinders on and get the focus on the immediate task from a confidence standpoint, all of the focus has to be on the Jets. I think all of the other things in my opinion, and I know everybody else in the building, is everything else outside is just noise. We have to keep the focus on what we’re doing right now. To get the players confidence back and everybody’s confidence back … I don’t think there is a lack of confidence in the building. I really don’t. I think right now with where we are, we’d certainly like to have a better record; but where we are, we’re right in the middle of things. I think if we just can take care of the job week to week, we’re going to be in the position we want to be in at the end. We can certainly be a little bit better, but we can certainly be a hell of a lot worse. We’re right in the middle of this thing with a lot of games to play. There is no reason … You guys know we pretty well. I certainly don’t lack any confidence and we’re going to go out there and inject that into the players every day and have the same approach every day.”
(When there is a surprise onside kick call, does Head Coach Adam Gase say ‘Hey, I want to run it?’ Or do you come to him and say this might be a good time?) – “We always have a couple up and you’re always looking for the situation to do it in. It’s obviously called a surprise onside for a reason. I’ve heard people say, ‘that wasn’t an onside kick situation.’ No kidding. That’s why they call it a surprise onside kick. You don’t want to do it in the most obvious situations. I can’t really get into depth with this thing because I’m going to come across like I’m criticizing and I don’t want to do that. I don’t know if you were aware but the ball hit the wire for the camera. I don’t know if you guys were aware. It hit the spider wire. Obviously it wasn’t seen. It’s an unfortunate situation because we had the play we wanted. I feel like if it didn’t hit the wire we would’ve been in a much better situation to recover the ball. Then all of a sudden, we have the ball at midfield down by one score and that whole game is different. I thought it was a great time to do it. Again, it’s called a surprise for a reason. Unfortunately with the whole wire thing … I’ve been asked a ton of questions about it. Obviously the officials at that time didn’t see it. By the time we saw the replay, they had already run another play, by the time we got video evidence and it was too late to challenge it. That’s really how that went down.”
(What’s the rule on the wire?) – “The rule on the wire is that if the officials had seen it, there would’ve been a replay, just like the play never happened. Dead ball, replay put the time back on the clock and replay the down like it never happened. Ironically enough, I haven’t seen one in a long time and if you watched the Florida vs. Georgia game, it happened again in their game on a punt. Their officials did see it and they replayed the down like it never happened. It is reviewable however we didn’t get … Again, in the whole video world, you’re not going to waste a challenge if you don’t have video evidence. We didn’t get a replay on the stadium board and we didn’t get a replay in the booth until after they had unfortunately run a play. It didn’t hit it by much but it skimmed it enough to affect the ball and the ball dropped straight down instead of wider where it was supposed to be. That’s how that went down. It was just an unfortunate situation. Call it what you will but it didn’t work out.”
(How often would you say you practice onside kicks?) – “The kickers have a weekly routine that they do. Then we’ll work on it. It’s usually Friday, Saturday type things we work on it. But we work on it every week. We’re always going to have those kind of things up in the game plan. It depends on when you want to use them. That goes with all of our phases. You always have different gadgets and things you’re going to have. It depends on when the right time is to pull them out. Usually the right time to pull them out is when they work. Usually the wrong time to pull them out is when they don’t work. (laughter)”
