Brian Flores – October 29, 2019
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Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Head Coach Brian Flores
(With the CB Aqib Talib move, was that purely a financial move or would you hope to be able to see him in a Dolphins game when he becomes eligible in Week 15? Would you have interest in him when he’s a free agent this offseason or was it purely a financial-based move?) – “Obviously I have some history with Aqib. I think he’s a really good player. We had an opportunity to acquire him and some draft capital, so we felt like that was the best move for us and obviously he’s dealing with an injury and we’ll just see where that’s at. This is all happening very quickly, so there’s a lot of things we’ve got to assess (and) evaluate. It’s hard to make a blanket statement on what it’s going to be playing-time-wise, etc. So we’re just going to take it day-by-day and just see where he is physically and take it from there.”
(So CB Aqib Talib will report to the team? At the very least he’ll be here as opposed to just being a…) – “This has gone – we’re half an hour into this, so I’m not – I don’t have his flights and I don’t have any details from that standpoint. When I know, I’ll let you know.”
(And multiple reports about CB Xavien Howard being placed in IR. Does he need surgery and what led to that decision?) – “That’s another one where we’re still doing the evaluations there and seeing where he is physically from a health standpoint. Again, it’s unfortunate. He’s obviously one of our top players and you never want to see anybody get injured or deal with things, but he’s a tough kid and I’m sure he’ll bounce back. We’re still kind of going through that process right now and figuring out where we are.”
(I know you’ve been asked this before but now how concerned are you about long-term issues with him with CB Xavien Howard knee problems?) – “It’s still very early. Injuries are part of the game so I guess there’s not too much concern from my standpoint. He’s young. He’s tough. Football is very important to him. People get dinged and deal with injuries on a year-to-year basis and guys come back, they play and have successful careers; so no, (I’m) not overly concerned. For me more than anything, I feel bad for the kid. I know he loves to play. I know he loves to compete. He loves to be out there with his teammates, so my concern is more for him than his long-term ability to play.”
(The roster move with TE Nick O’Leary – was it purely because you needed a roster opening or do plays like last night obviously where he couldn’t hold onto the ball and that led to a pick, did that contribute to his decision?) – “We claimed Xavier Crawford yesterday, so we needed a roster spot and we just felt like that was – we needed a roster spot so we had to make a move, and we made the move with Nick. That was the reason behind that.”
(Any thinking of bringing up TE Chris Myarick or adding another tight end or do you think two would be enough at this point?) – “We only have 53 spots, so that was a one-for-one. If we make a move, we’d have to drop another player and we’ll see.”
(After watching the tape of last night’s game, what were some of your takeaways?) – “I think we started fast. I think we were ready to play. It’s a big stage and a tough environment and I don’t think it was too big for us, so that was good. I think at the end of the day in this league, it comes down to executing in critical moments and I would say, like I talked about last night, one of the biggest stats in this league is turnovers and we lost that battle 4-1. That’s something we – I would say most teams – it’s hard to overcome losing the turnover battle in this league and we’re no different. (There were) some good things. I thought we started fast. I thought we made some plays early defensively. We just couldn’t sustain it. We didn’t play well in the second half and I think turnovers were a big part of it.”
(It looked like LB Jerome Baker went and had himself the best game of the year. He might have been more involved in plays than he’d been all year. Would you agree with that and what did you see from him?) – “Yeah, I think he flew around and played fast and was physical and tackled well and did a lot of good things. I think he’s definitely improving, getting better, taking on more of a leadership role week after week after week; and he played well last night, but the individual efforts – I think he’d even say that – they’re great. We need good individual efforts, but we need more of a better team effort and we need more guys having better individual efforts and us all collectively playing better as a team.”
(With obviously the prospect of now CB Xavien Howard’s and CB Ken Webster’s injury, do you think you might move CB Eric Rowe back to corner and with CB Cordrea Tankersley, is he ready where you think we could see him against the Jets?) – “It’s still early in the week. I don’t even know if we’ve been here 12 hours. (laughter) We’re going through every potential positional changes we would make based on injury, based on our opponent; so there’s a lot to do and we’ve been on it all morning so we’re still working through a lot of those things. I would say it’s too early to say we’re going to move this guy here or this guy’s out. I think it’s too early to say all that.”
(I know as you mentioned last week, there’s obviously rust at cornerback when you haven’t played for a while, just the technique of having a guy in front of you to cover. Did CB Cordrea Tankersley look to you last week like he might be close to being polished enough at this point to help?) – “Yeah, I think he definitely had a better week last week than he did in the previous week. We’ll see. We’ll get out there again this week and there’s definitely going to be some opportunity or potentially going to be some opportunity for him to come up, be active and we’ll just how that plays out over the course of the week. Again, it’s too early to tell whether we’ll have a spot. Again, to bring somebody up, you’ve got to put somebody down, so we’ll see how it goes.”
(Looking into the film – the touchdown pass on the blitz at the end of the half – what did you see?) – “I’ve been asked this a couple times. To me, if you want to win games in this league, you’ve got to be aggressive. That’s never going to change for me. We blitzed them. They made a play. That happens. I’ve been in games where we’ve blitzed them and I’ve been in big games where you blitz them and you make a play and it’s the right (call). To me, if you’re going to win in this league, you’ve got to be aggressive. Period. That’s my style. I’m not going to play conservative. That’s always been kind of my ‘M.O.,’ so that’s not going to change. What I saw was we blitzed them, they ran a crossing route, we didn’t tackle a guy. People say you live by the sword, you die by the sword; and I guess that’s something people say, but for me, we’re going to be aggressive. That’s the way this team’s going to play and we’re going to go down swinging. Period.”
(What did you think of DT Robert Nkemdiche’s first 15 defensive snaps as a Dolphin?) – “I thought he played okay. Again – I mentioned this last week – there’s a lot of technique, a lot of fundamentals, a lot of those things that you need to train your body, train yourself to get into; so from a footwork (and) hand placement standpoint, it could’ve been a lot better but that’s kind of the progression. Hopefully – I do think – I think he’ll be better in practice this week. I think he’ll play better in the game. I didn’t think it was – I’m not saying it was a bad performance – but just from a hand placement, a footwork, a technique standpoint, it could be (better). He looked rusty. He’s been out there 10 days, two weeks or however long it’s been so that wasn’t surprising.”
