Darren Rizzi – November 8, 2018
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Thursday, November 8, 2018
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(We have a few rookie kickers in the league this year. Would you say that K Jason Sanders has been the best of them?) – “I don’t know about that. That’s one I’d have to think about for a minute. Certainly, I’m very pleased with where he’s at. Any time with a rookie kicker, you’re certainly expecting some peaks and valleys. The Chargers just signed (Michael) Badgley from UM. He had a short stint with them, now he’s back. I’m kind of thinking through the guys. Eddy Pineiro obviously had an injury and he’s done for the year. Daniel Carlson is on his second team. With every rookie class, kickers are kind of a weird position because it may take a guy a couple of years to catch on. It’s one of those things you have to track for a couple years. Right now, obviously we’re very happy with where Jason is consistency-wise kind of through this point in the season, but we still have a long way to go, so we’ll see how that goes.”
(With RB Kalen Ballage and with CB Cornell Armstrong, would you say special teams work in sum has been average, a little above average, well above average?) – “I like where both guys are. As I said last week, I’m a hard grader, so I don’t know if I’m the right guy to ask on the grading system. I made mention of this earlier in the season, I really thought Cornell Armstrong, since the day he walked in is probably, if not the most improved rookie, certainly one of the most improved and one of the most improved guys on the team. I think he did a great job of picking up special teams and kind of just getting better every preseason game, every practice. I’ve really liked his progression. Ballage was in a little bit of a different situation when he got here because he had a lot of experience. He had much more experience. He played for a special teams coach that coached in the NFL, so he was a little bit ahead of the curve as far as rookies go. My expectation level for him was maybe a little bit higher than some of the other rookies. The games that he’s been active, he’s obviously played a bunch of roles. We’ve had him back there as a kick returner, we’ve had him as a gunner, we’ve had him as a cover guy. Cornell as well. Both of those guys have worn probably a few more hats than most rookies would. They have high play totals. Right now, you’d have to be pretty pleased with where they are. I don’t really want to put a grade on it yet. Like I said, there’s still a lot of games to go. They’ve been very productive in terms of what we’ve asked them to do so far and played multiple positions, so that is certainly a plus.”
(By our count, we see that they need two tackles this week just to make it through the game. That means that they’re going to take from you in terms of one of your running backs, Brandon Bolden or Senorise Perry. Who plays more jobs on that unit?) – “All of those guys right now. Just as far as running backs go, all of those guys in the last few weeks have been four-core guys. They’ve all been on all four teams. As far as the actives go, I’ve said this before, it’s contingency plan, contingency plan, contingency plan. That’s what a special teams coach does. Depending on who the actives end up being, we’re going to have a plan in place for all. We kind of have ongoing discussions and we’ll kind of have a final discussion at the end of the week and see what is the best scenario for us. I have to have a plan if anybody goes down – a tackle, running back, safety, corner. Whoever it is, we’re going to kind of have a contingency for all of those. We’ll have a plan in place and kind of see where we’re at. All of those guys have been four-core guys the last few games when Ballage, Perry and Bolden have been up. Those guys have all been four-core guys in the last weeks. Senorise Perry obviously got a little bit more time so far this year than Ballage because he was inactive for a couple of games, but they’ve all been integral parts of what we’re doing, for sure.”
(How many four-core guys do you have and is it now a body type?) – “You kind of have your ideal guy at the beginning of the season, but as we all know, when injuries happen, you might not go to ideal. You go to the next man up and it is what it is. If you think through the offensive guys right now, the three running backs are four-core guys. (Leonte) Carroo, since he’s been active with injuries and whatnot, he’s been a guy that’s been a four-core guy. Defensively, obviously Mike Hull is a guy that only came back last week, but he’s a four-core guy for us. The secondary, obviously Walt Aikens is a guy, Cornell Armstrong has been a four-core guy. It depends on the game, the game plan and things like that, but he has been as well, so those guys are the guys. Stephone Anthony is a guy. When (Martrell) Spaight has been active, if he ends up being active this week, he’s a guy that’s a potential four-core guy. You have about seven or eight guys that are kind of your group there.”
(They seem to be getting smaller. Is that just because of the changes with the kickoff rule?) – “In the beginning of the season, with the way the makeup of our roster was, we had a few more starters play on a couple of teams, so that kind of knocks down a couple of the core guys. It depends on where we are right now with the roster. We’ve kind of upped our core players and maybe taken a little bit off of some of the guys where you may have a starter or two playing one or two teams. The more core players you have at the game, the less those guys (play). It’s kind of a formula every week. It’s never the same. That’s the challenge for me. It’s never the same. It’s certainly not going to be the same in Game 10 as it was in Game 1, that’s for sure. That’s all across the league. We kind of work that formula every week.”
(You mentioned last week that you went over something before the game and then it happened in the game. From what I understand, you were yelling at him to get on the line or get off the line and so was the ref. How often does that happen?) – “Are you talking about the Houston game with (Cordrea) Tankersley when he was behind the 40-yard line?”
(Yes.) – “When the new rules went into place, the officials changed their dynamics and alignments. Now, they’re kind of watching that set-up zone, that 15-yard area. They have one official watching the front line, they have another official watching the back. That guy is on the 40. He’s trying to help the guys out initially. When you’re just getting set up, he kind of gives you the friendly reminder. What happened with Tankersley was he started up and backed up. So when the guy walked in to say ‘watch the 40-yard line’ and then the official backed out, then Tankersley backed up. He tried to yell to him real quick. I saw it as well, I came up and tried to yell it to him real quick. He just lost where he was on the field with his feet. That’s what happens. To answer the second part of your question, I’ll speak special teams-wise. There’s certain things in the game that are unique to special teams that the officials will remind you of. I’ll give you an example. Field goal – they make that big push now about covering the long snapper. Usually, the guy is in charge of that. Not every official, but usually, the guy will walk up and give you a gentle reminder, either in the beginning of the game or some guys do it every down – ‘remember, you can’t cover the center.’ The officials don’t want to call those. They really don’t. They don’t want to call the ticky-tack stuff. It’s not good for them, it’s not good for anybody. So a lot of times they’ll give you a heads up on things like that. That’s just one example. That 40-yard marker, that eight guys in the set-up zone, is another one. They’ll say ‘you guys know you have to be in here,’ and they’ll give you a gentle reminder. The new kickoff line rule with everybody up on the 34-yard line now, within a yard. Usually, when a guy is handing the kicker the ball, you see him talking to the guys. That’s usually what he’s saying. Those are things they don’t want to call. When you talk to the officials, they don’t like calling those ticky-tack things. In our situation, if you’re over the line, you have to throw the flag and that’s kind of what happened on that one.”
(A couple weeks ago, we talked about your manual for NFL stadiums and how to kick in those certain stadiums. What does it say about Lambeau Field?) – “Lambeau Field is an interesting field. Obviously, the beginning of the season, middle of the season and end of the season are going to be different times of year. The weather is always a factor there. What’s the wind like? There’s a little bit of a crosswind there. It’s obviously a natural grass field. All of those things play into the stats. It’s one of those stadiums that a lot like most northern stadiums, where it’s playing totally different the beginning of the year as to the middle of the year. I would consider this the middle of the year right now as opposed to the end of the year. Middle of the year, it depends on what kind of day you get, the wind and all of that kind of stuff. Obviously, we’ll get out there and kind of test it out. They haven’t played on the field in a couple of weeks, so you’re thinking the field conditions would be decent. We’ll see what the precipitation is like, rain before the game or snow or whatever. Obviously, the wind, the weather, all of those things will play into it. It’s been interesting. They’ve had a very consistent kicker there for a long time, so that kind of plays into the stats as well. I look more at the opposing kicker. So when I’m looking at Lambeau Field and how it plays in the middle of the season, I’m looking at the opposing kickers. I’m usually not looking at the Packers’ kicker. Mason Crosby has obviously been there a long, long time. So you’re kind of seeing how other teams have come in, how they’ve done and how it’s kind of played out like that. Overall, it’s kind of middle of the road. It’s not drastically good or drastically bad. It’s kind of a middle-of-the-road type of deal.”
(Are you also looking at punters, like how many opposing punters punt inside the 20?) – “Absolutely. We’re looking at the same type of things. On game day, you can never predict what exactly it’s going to be; but you’re kind of looking at the history of the stadium, how the punters have done as well, what their success has been. Obviously, when you get there on game day, sometimes you can throw that out because you could have a crazy day. If we get some snow or rain or wind or whatever, that certainly will play into it. We have to do a great job with the football and all of those things and we’ll see what it’s like when we get out there on Sunday.”
(It’s the second time this year that one of your guys has got an AFC Special Teams Player of the Week award. Do they get an extra sticker on your board when they win something like that?) – “(Matt Haack) got a belt this week. You guys know we give out the special teams belt. It’s hard not to give the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week the belt, that’s what I joke around. I’m very proud of Matt, I’m very proud of Jakeem (Grant). I think individual awards are great. No different than I said when Jakeem won his, the other 10 guys had helped him with his situation. With Matt Haack, (it’s) the same thing. Our gunners did a great job last week, our protection was very good, John Denney was very good. (It was a) solid game by everybody around. Usually it takes some help to get one of those awards, but great job by Matt Haack. Obviously with the field position last week, it really played a major part of our game. I think the Jets’ average starting point was the 18-yard line for the entire game, not only after punts but kickoffs as well. The field position was huge last week. That’s something we constantly talk about. Seven punts inside the 20 for him and I think all nine punts inside the 25 if I’m not mistaken. Just a really great job by him and our coverage. One of the things we talked about last week was Andre Roberts had been the top punt returner statistically in the AFC, so limiting his opportunities and when he does get returns, having great coverage and rallying to the ball, great pursuit, great angles. We did a great job in both. Not only the punting part of it, but the coverage part of it as well. I’m certainly proud of Matt and kind of what he’s done.”
