Brian Flores – September 25, 2020
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Friday, September 25, 2020
Head Coach Brian Flores
(How encouraging was it to see CB Noah Igbinoghene come back from obviously a tough game last Sunday to how he played last night? What does that say about him? And your other boundary corner – CB Xavien Howard – just how encouraged are you by how he looked last night? Obviously coming back from knee surgery is not easy.) – “Encouraged – I’m not sure if that’s the word. I expected both guys to bounce back. ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) is a mentally tough guy; so is Noah. We’ve got a lot of mentally tough guys on our team. They practice hard. They prepare for the game. They play with great energy. They played as a team. I wasn’t surprised that they bounced back. They’re prideful guys. We have a lot of prideful guys on this team, especially at that position. Look, you’ve got to have a short memory to play really any position in this league. There’s a lot of good players. Occasionally they make plays on us and we make plays on them. You’ve got to be able to just move on to the next play, next game, and try to be better, which they were last night.”
(You addressed this a little bit last night but that now that you’ve had 12 hours or so for it to sink in, what does it mean to this team to get in the win column?) – “I was just checking to see the time. Yeah, it’s been about 12 hours. (laughter) Look, that’s why we practice, that’s why we prepare. We do all of those things – we put all of the time in – to win ballgames. I’m excited for the players, our players, our coaches, to see the fruits of their labor. They’ve worked extremely hard and now the goal is to try to string them together and continue to do the things we’ve been doing. We can do them even better so that we can play better. Again, after watching the tape, there were a lot good things. There were also a lot of things we can correct. We didn’t play a perfect game. There’s never been a perfect game played. You try to make the corrections and try to play as well as you can. While there were a lot of good plays, there were a lot of things that we can get fixed so we can play better, play more consistent and make it harder on our opponents. Those are things that we’ll focus on this afternoon when we get to the players and watch the film with them. While there was a lot of good, there definitely is an opportunity for us to get better. I think if we can improve – good or bad, there’s always improvement that can be made.”
(I asked QB Ryan Fitzpatrick about this last night after the game but just that first drive, completing four passes to four different guys and kind of setting the tone to get a lot of people integrated early, how important is that and how does that kind of change maybe the start of a game?) – “I think it’s very important to get contributions from different guys that can’t lock in and key on one person and say ‘Hey, this is a guy we have to take away.’ I think we did a good job of spreading the ball around, getting the run game going a little bit. ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) ran it a little bit, so you just create issues for the defense – or our opponent – and force them to guard everyone. Force them to defend every inch of the field. That’s what you want to do offensively. We were ready to do that early. I wish we would’ve sustained it a little bit better in the second half but it’s always good to get off to a fast start and integrate everyone, and spread the ball around and get the running game going. Those are all good things. They led to a fast start and then we played well in the kicking game and made some stops defensively, and we were able to string some points together and build a lead. That’s how we want to play. ‘Fitz’ knows that and understands that. He made some good decisions last night and hopefully we continue to play that way.”
(You talked about the bounce back from CB Xavien Howard and CB Noah Igbinoghene on the first question of this presser. During the broadcast, Troy Aikman kept talking about the shift of the defense kind of playing more off-coverage. I’m curious if that’s something you can confirm for us and if that was more based on what the defense did in Week 2 or based more upon what the Jaguars presented on offense for you guys?) – “Every week we’re going to try to do whatever we can or what we feel is best to win the game. I thought (Defensive Coordinator) Josh (Boyer) and our defensive staff came up with a good game plan for this particular team this particular week. It was a mix of zone calls, man calls, blitzes. I thought we mixed it well and kept them off balance. You never want to do just one thing or do just a couple of things. You want to be able to mix the calls, mix the fronts offensively, defensively and in the kicking game. So to keep our opponent off balance, that’s what we always try to do; and I thought Josh did a great job of that defensively, (Offensive Coordinator) Chan (Gailey) offensively and (Special Teams Coordinator) Danny (Crossman) in the kicking game. Credit to those guys and credit to the players for executing the game plan.”
(What has impressed you most about what RB Myles Gaskin has done?) – “He’s been productive. He goes in there and runs it effectively, catches the ball, blocks in pass protection, plays some in the kicking game. He’s tough, he’s competitive and he’s been productive. If you’re productive in this league, you get more opportunities and that’s been the case for him.”
(I just wanted to follow up on DE Jason Strowbridge. Are you able to provide any detail about why he was unable to make the trip and if you would expect him to be ready to practice next week?) – “Yeah, we expect him to practice. He was inactive and we left him and decided not to travel him. That’s just a week-to-week – who we’re going to travel and who we’re not. But ‘Strow’ (Jason Strowbridge) has worked hard. He’s done a good job. He’s developing. We expect him to be part of the future here. He just has to continue to work hard and improve. I wouldn’t make too much of whether he traveled or not. He’s doing a very good job and when his opportunity presents itself, hopefully he’s ready.”
(Do you have any updates for us on any players who may have gotten banged up in last night’s game? I saw TE Adam Shaheen for example go down. And secondly, the main thing I wanted to ask you about, clearly QB Gardner Minshew II is a different kind of quarterback from what you faced before; but what have you seen defensively that you can build upon because QB Russell Wilson is your next guy up.) – “To the injuries, we had a few guys who were banged up. All are getting treatment. All are rehabbing. You mentioned Shaheen. Shaheen actually went back into the game last night so he’s just getting treatment and rehab from some nicks and bruises here. We’ve got a handful of guys from that standpoint but we’ll see what that looks like. We’ve got a couple of extra days to improve and get better. We’ll see what that looks like next week. As far as some of the things that we’ve done over the last couple of weeks, in respect to Russell Wilson, this is obviously one of the best players in the league. We’ll do our due diligence as far as scouting it and evaluating him and the rest of their team, and try to put ourselves in the best positions to contain him and contain that offense. But it will be a total team effort. Just defensively, it will be the d-line, the (line)backers, the secondary we want to play a cohesive game filled with really good communication and good tackling and a good pass rush. Look, this is one of the best players in the league. Again, I haven’t watched all of the film yet. That’s kind of the next step in my routine here after I get done doing media the day after a game, but we know this is going to be a great challenge. I think we’ve seen some good quarterbacks and some guys who are mobile over the last few weeks; but this is one of the best guys in the league. It will be a challenge.”
(I wanted to ask about the defense. You mentioned the game plan that they had. What specifically did they do after watching the film that you were happy with? Or that you thought they did better in comparison to the first two weeks?) – “I think there was better communication, better awareness. I think we just had overall better energy. It was just better overall. I would say the communication was at the forefront. We rushed the passer better. We had better situations to rush the passer, I would say. Having a lead and rushing the passer is different than rushing the passer when you don’t have a lead. I think defensively, when you think about it, there’s a lot of other things that go into it: how you play in the kicking game, how you play offensively, do you have a lead, do you not have a lead, is it two-minute. There are a lot of things that go into it defensively. We’ve put ourselves in a position where we played well early, we got a lead, and that kind of changed their game plan and made it more of a passing game so we were able to put pressure on the quarterback and create a couple of turnovers. That’s how we want to play.”
(Last night on your defensive line, DT Davon Godchaux’s snaps were down and DT Zach Sieler actually played more than him. Was Godchaux banged up or was that just a lineup decision? And what has led you to play Sieler more the last couple of weeks?) – “Well Sieler has gone in there and been productive. He’s been productive in practice. He went in there and had production in the game yesterday. Again, like we’ve always said, it’s no different than the Myles Gaskin conversation; if a player goes into a game and has a good rush or has a good pass rush or a good run or a good catch or a good play in the kicking game or a good punt or a good hold, to me, that warrants another opportunity to see if they can have another successful play, and that’s what happened with Sieler. That’s no knock on Godchaux. He’s had many good plays himself. That’s why he’s played a lot in this league. But last night, we called Sieler’s number. We’ve got a locker room full of team players there. They’re happy for each other and happy for each other’s success. They pick each other up when we have failures. That’s what I like about the locker room. I don’t like pitting whose numbers against somebody else’s numbers. I think we’re all in here just trying to win ballgames. The guys don’t care about who gets what reps. They just want to do what they can to help us win. Now they’re all competitors and they all want to play, but they also understand that we’re all trying to just go out there and put the best group out there and try to win ballgames. Sometimes you go with the hot hand. When Godchaux is the hot hand, we’ll leave him in there and he knows that too.”
