Brian Flores – December 5, 2019
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Thursday, December 5, 2019
Head Coach Brian Flores
(A couple of things on the running game – I know no one can be happy with the 3.1 per carry average. I know it’s always a combination of things with the running game. Would you say that the blocking has been more of an issue than the running backs finding holes? And also, who has your best run blocker been this year?) – “Like you said, there’s a lot of things that go into it. I think it’s a combination of the things you just mentioned. Sometimes it’s blocking. Sometimes it’s running. Sometimes it’s receivers not getting the correct guys. Sometimes it’s miscommunication. Sometimes it’s – it’s a myriad of things. At the end of the day, you don’t point at just one thing. It’s never one thing. You just try to get all of it right and if we can get everybody on the same page – and again, it’s a hard thing to do – get 11 guys on the same page, execute versus defensively what they’re giving us – but we’ve got to be able to do it. We’ve got to do it more consistently. It’s something we’ve talked about for a lot of weeks now, and I think they’re working at it. I have to give credit to the defenses that we’ve seen. We’ve played against some good fronts, and I think the score plays a role in how much we’ve been able to run; but every game is a little bit different and we’re not going to make excuses or say, ‘hey, it’s this or that.’ We have to block better. We have to run better. We have to do everything a little bit better.”
(Who’s been the best run blocker do you think of your linemen?) – “I think – you could point to one guy, but one guy is not going to get it done. I’m not going to point out one guy. I think we all have to do a better job, starting with me. That’s my message to the team. It is. One’s not going to get it done. That’s my answer to that.”
(Offensive Coordinator Chad O’Shea singled out QB Ryan Fitzpatrick and C Daniel Kilgore as two leaders of the offense who maybe corral the younger guys together when you guys are kind of trailing in games and leading the comeback. Who are some guys on your defense that really have all the players kind of locked down and locked in when things are going not so great?) – “(Jerome) Baker, (Davon) Godchaux, Raekwon (McMillan), Jomal Wiltz, Eric Rowe – I think all of those guys. I think this is a team that feels like we can battle back and get ourselves back in games when we’re down. I’d like for us to not play that way and try to play a little bit earlier in games. It’s something we’ve talked about a lot among other things, but I think we’ve got a lot of guys that have belief in each other. We all know there’s no quit. We’re going to keep competing, and if you do that, things turn in games. You need that belief in order to get back in games and to start games as well.”
(How has LB Sam Eguavoen done this season, especially relative to his transition from CFL to NFL?) – “I think he’s made a lot of improvement since the day he got here, really since we started spending time with him. This is a guy who works extremely hard. Football is important to him. He studies. His preparation is very good in all areas defensively and on special teams. Whatever roles we ask him to perform in, he learns it quickly and does it to the best of his ability and we’ve asked him to do a lot of things in the kicking game and defensively in different groupings and different positions; so I think he’s made a nice adjustment and I still think there’s a lot more room to grow and develop. We’re going to use these last few weeks of the season to do that and then hopefully that gives us a good start to what’s next to come.”
(How has LB Sam Eguavoen done in areas of physicality – run stopping, tackling and things like that?) – “I think he’s a physical guy. I think he plays downhill and is not afraid of contact. When we ask him to set the edge, he’s been able to do that. I think he’s a tough, physical guy and hopefully we’ll continue to see more of that from him throughout this week in particular and then the rest of the year.”
(What does DT John Jenkins bring to your defensive line? What would be his most underrated asset?) – “Leadership. I would say, I think that is underrated. He’s the veteran guy in the room, and he’s been on some good teams, around some good players and brings that experience and that leadership to the room. He’s a good player, too. He really does a good job with fundamentals, technique, specifically on first and second down. He’s a hard guy to move, and I think he’s played really solid football for us.”
(How does the run game philosophy change if at all, now that you’ve gone from RB Kenyan Drake to RB Kalen Ballage and now you’re with RB Patrick Laird? How do things change?) – “I don’t think it really changes much. We want to run the ball efficiently. That’s always at the forefront, and we want to move the ball efficiently in the run game, in the pass game, in the screen game, in the play-action game; but specific to the run game, nothing really changes, I would say. We’ll mix the scheme runs with the zone runs with the various runs we have, and at the end of the day, it comes down to execution. I have confidence in all our backs. We wouldn’t change what we would do for – I don’t think we have to change what we would do for Myles (Gaskin) or Patrick (Laird) or (Zach) Zenner or De’Lance (Turner). We just have to execute better than we have.”
(You’ve added four players in the last couple of days. Would you and General Manager Chris Grier and Vice President of Football Administration Brandon Shore just want to get a look at as many players as you can over the last month in practice settings to see if maybe you have something there and of the four, anyone that you remember in particular that you had seen in the scouting/pre-draft process or in games that stood out to you?) – “Yeah. All of these guys – obviously you guys know (I have) a background in scouting, so I watch a lot of – I watch everybody. The guys we brought in, I watched them all and we feel good about them. Mack Hollins for instance, he’s a tough, physical wide receiver, plays in the kicking game. He’s had some production offensively and in the kicking game. We like him. He’s a guy that obviously, we just saw him, so we know a lot about him and the rest of the group – Evan (Brown) with the Giants – we watched him in the preseason. I watch all this stuff, so anyone we feel like can help us get better that we feel like has some developmental potential, we’ll look into it. We don’t make every move we could possibly make, but the ones that we think feel like will help us, we try to make.”
(When you do look at these guys before you add them to the roster, how much film and how long are you taking to watching these things? Do you have the film cut for you so you can see some things beforehand? What’s that process?) – “I watch a lot before I make a determination on what I think a guy can or cannot do. My process is a little different than I guess some other people. I take a good amount of time once a name comes across my desk, or we check the waiver wire on a daily basis. I watch a good amount of it along with our next opponent. I’ve got a routine on how I’m doing this. We’re not going to delve into my exact routine right now. (laughter) But yeah, I do spend some time.”
(Is that process that General Manager Chris Grier or someone else in the front office will say ‘hey we’re looking at this guy, tell me what you think?’ And then you get back to Chris or someone else?) – “That’s fluid. There’s a lot of communication from that standpoint. I’ve looked at the wire every day for the last 15 years. It’s just part of my routine and process. I know all of the – or I look at, at least – all of the transactions on a daily basis. Chris and the personnel staff does the same thing. I just think that’s part of working in this league.”
(When you look at the wire, what percentage of players do you think that you know just based off looking, playing and watching football?) – “I know a lot of them. I’d say when I was in personnel, I knew pretty much all of them. When you get into coaching, you know the guys you’ve played and you know most of the league; but there are some teams you haven’t seen and some new players that have been acquired. You don’t see all of the draft picks so maybe not as much when you are coaching, but this is a different role. I spend more time on – the draft last year, obviously I knew a chunk of those players and the rookies that are in the league now, I know the lion’s share of those guys, and I’d say over the next couple of years I’ll know most everyone. Hopefully I’ll know everyone.”
(WR Trevor Davis is one of the new guys you brought in here. Where do you see him making the most immediate impact?) – “Well he’s got return value – kickoffs and punts. He’s fast, he’s big and he’s had some production offensively as well. Anybody who comes in here, the opportunity they receive is going to be up to them and how they perform in practice. Trevor had a nice practice yesterday and we’ll see how it goes today. That’s the case for everyone. You guys have heard me say that every day that I’m up here.”
(Going back to the waiver wire and mining it for gems, what’s one or two guys who you’re really proud of that you spotted on the waiver wire and really feel good about, ‘Hey, this guy really panned out.’) – “I could name a couple of guys but it’s not a one-man show. I think it’s the entire staff. We have a really good personnel staff here. They do a good job of uncovering guys and I’m not going to sit here and say I’m 100 percent on draft picks or free agents. No one is, but having that background I think helps me a lot. But again, it’s a team collective effort. It wasn’t me who found any specific player. I think that part of it is about having strong opinions on players and being able to forecast and predict what guys are going to do. I guess I feel confident in that area as well as I feel confident in our staff to get that part of it right.”
(I’ve heard other coaches say you guys play and coach with house money, and that you are playing with nothing to lose. What do you think about that aspect of it, and is that something you enjoy or appreciate being said about you?) – “We’re aggressive and we’re going to play to win. If we feel like there’s a place where we can gain an advantage, we’re going to try to do that; but I think every team does that. As far as playing with house money, I guess you can say that. We’re going to play to win. We’re going to play to win and if there is something that we like and we feel like we can make a play on, we’re going to try to do that. We’ve got a group of guys in there who practice hard and compete. You don’t win games with trick plays in this league. That’s just not how it works. You have to be able to execute on play-to-play basis and play consistently and we need to do that.”
(How would you assess G Michael Deiter’s growth?) – “Deiter, I think he’s had a solid rookie year and he’s continuing to develop and get better on a day-to-day basis. He’s had some ups and downs, and he just needs to continue to trust the process, play with consistency and play with the same effort, grit and toughness on a play-to-play basis. I think he’s tried to do that, and we’re going to stay on him to do that, that’s for sure.”
