Brian Flores – September 18, 2019
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Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Head Coach Brian Flores
(Obviously we’ve seen throughout training camp and the first two games, S Bobby McCain is a starter at one safety spot and played most of the game. With S Minkah Fitzpatrick no longer here, would you expect S Reshad Jones – once he’s healthy – to be your other primary starting safety, or do you envision a scenario where he’s competing with S Walt Aikens, S Steven Parker, etc.?) – “We’ve got a – obviously, Reshad has played a lot of football over the course of his career. (He is) kind of dealing with a couple things; but yeah, when he gets back, we expect him out there along with Walt (Aikens) and (Steven) Parker like you said. It’s a good group. We’re happy with that group. Once we get out there, communicate and practice together, I think we’ll be okay.”
(How far do you think S Reshad Jones is away? Is it mostly that ankle that’s keeping him back?) – “He’s working extremely hard to get back. He’s close. I would see him as close. Again, he’s in there. He’s in the training room, working out. He’s closing in, so I expect to see him soon. He’s working to get back as soon as he can.”
(Do you have any update on the quarterback situation? Have you made a change, or is QB Ryan Fitzpatrick your guy still?) – “Right now, ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) is the guy; but again, every week both quarterbacks will get reps. That’s the case every week. You go throughout the league and you see there have been injuries at that position across the league. It’s like every position on the field. You’ve got to have a backup. Everyone – you’ve got to get them all reps during the week. It’s no different at quarterback for us.”
(Given the losing margins that you’ve had here, do you find yourself doing a little more morale building or spirit lifting than you would if say you were 2-0, or do you just treat it the same way?) – “My message is always the same. Come to work, get better, we improve, we learn from our mistakes. There are always mistakes. There are always things that we could improve and get better. That’s kind of where my focus always is. I try to stay the same. I never get too high. I never get too low. I try to stay even. It’s been something I’ve done my entire career, and I’m going to stick with that. Hopefully our team’s that way as well.”
(What have you seen from QB Ryan Fitzpatrick the first two that gives you confidence in him going forward?) – “’Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) is – I think he’s got real leadership ability. He’s smart. He knows what we’re doing offensively. He can get guys in the right position. He’s a guy I have a lot of trust in. I think he’s – I like ‘Fitz’ a lot.”
(Can you talk about the specific challenges Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott poses for your defense and how much of your success on defense will be predicated on containing him?) – “They’ve got a really good offense, really across the board. You can go a few different ways. You can go to Ezekiel (Elliott), you can go to Dak Prescott, go to (Amari) Cooper, go the offensive line. They’ve got a good team. They’ve got a good offense. They’ve got a good defense. They’ve got a good special teams unit, so this will be a big test. Specific to Ezekiel, he is a downhill, physical, fast, good stiff-arm, breaks a lot of tackles, can hit the big run. This is a very explosive player. It’s going to take a total team effort to keep him contained. At the same time, this offense is a good one. If you put too much emphasis on stopping the run, Dak has done a really good in the pass game and is much, much improved. This is a really good quarterback, so he’ll sit back in the pocket, whether it’s play-action, whether it’s drop-back, whether it’s – he’s got a really good grasp of what they’re doing offensively to get those guys in the right plays. He’s been very accurate. If you focus too much on one player, they’ll get you somewhere else. They’ve got big-play receivers really across the board and then a big offensive line. It’s a good team.”
(Do you plan any changes on the offensive line?) – “Nope. We’ll go with the same five guys from last week. Obviously we’ll – again, like every position, we’ll work in backups from Shaq (Calhoun) to (Chris) Reed to (Bryan) Witzmann. We’ll work everybody but the plan is to go with the five guys from last week.”
(What went into the decision to have C/G Evan Boehm play some snaps instead of G Danny Isidora?) – “We just wanted to get him in there. You want to get guys some game reps. He’s a guy who has practiced well, so we wanted to give him an opportunity to play a little bit in a game. That was the plan there.”
(How important is it for you to have some continuity? You’re going to have five starters from one week to the next.) – “I think it’s very important. I think that’s how you grow, build and improve and get better. That’s the goal here with that. It starts in practice. We’ve had a couple of good weeks of practice. I think we were better from Week 1 to Week 2. We’ll try to just continue to get better week after week after week.”
(Over the last three weeks, you guys have moved off of a lot of players. CB Xavien Howard is one that’s still here obviously and part of your future. We saw on Twitter after the trade that he had kind of a wistful tweet about being the only one left in the room, it seemed like. Have you had conversations with him about how this has all gone and the future and his place in it?) – “My conversations with him today have been about the Cowboys – Amari Cooper, the quarterback (Dak Prescott), this run game. That’s kind of – I’ve said this before – the more effort, the more energy somewhere else is less on the Cowboys and we need to put all of our effort on this team. Those have been the conversations. I haven’t talked to him about that.”
(We’ve seen TE Mike Gesicki with a couple of receptions here. Where have you seen improvement in his game?) – “I think he’s really done a much better job in a lot of areas – blocking, catching the football, route-running. There were a couple of plays last week where he’s open and he’s getting open and we just don’t have enough time to get him the ball. He just needs to continue doing what he’s been doing. We’ll get it protected, we’ll have more time and we’ll try to find him in the pass game. He’s done a better job in the run game. I just want to – if he continues that improvement, I think that will go a long way for him.”
(Is most of the improvement that TE Mike Gesicki needs kind of mental as far as understanding how to get open and running those routes? Or is it physical and actually making that play?) – “No. I think physically, this guy is big, fast, athletic. I don’t want to say mentally, but you have to learn how to play this game at this level at that position. That takes a little bit of time. This being his second year, I think he’s showing a lot of improvement. I think we’re starting to see some of that in flashes and then obviously we always have to be more consistent.”
(It’s been a low per carry average for RB Kalen Ballage so far and I know it’s clearly not all his fault. There’s blocking and other things involved. Are you at the point where you’d like to see more of RB Mark Walton carrying the ball in a game or even RB Patrick Laird or RB Myles Gaskin? Obviously you have RB Kenyan Drake of course. Or do you just want to move forward with Kalen and see what he can do over a longer body of work?) – “I like all of our backs. I like Kalen. I like Drake, obviously. Walton, Laird – I like all of the backs. Obviously there’s one ball and you can’t get them all the amount of touches you’d like; but I think Kalen had a really good camp. I like Kalen a lot. I like Drake a lot. We’re going to try to get both guys in the game and if we get a hot hand, we’ll stay with that. That’s been expressed to both guys and I think they’re both – I really like both of them. I like all of our backs but Drake and Ballage, these are two guys who have a lot of talent, who are tough, who are physical, who love to play. I like both of these guys. I want to get them going.”
