Gerald Alexander – September 29, 2020
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Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Defensive Backs Coach Gerald Alexander
(I wanted to ask you in terms of S Bobby McCain’s transition to safety, how would you assess that that’s going and what do you look for from an impactful free safety?) – “I think Bobby’s (McCain) transition to safety is actually going great. One thing about that position and that responsibility that we put him in; a lot of the great things that Bobby does for us as a free safety sometimes isn’t represented on the stat sheet. So in that respect, I think Bobby has done a great job in regards to what we ask him to do and that’s communicating first and foremost – making sure that all 10 guys in front of him have the understanding of what the responsibilities are and what the adjustments are, what the call is. Being a leader and playing with a passion that he needs to play that also will generate the energy that his teammates need to play with as well. Being able to do that in the role that he’s in, I thought he’s done a great job. I think he’s done a great job so far and those opportunities to make splash plays within our defense are going to present itself where he’s going to be able to make those plays when the opportunities come.”
(I’m curious if a player like LB Jerome Baker at the linebacker spot and all the athletic ability that he has and his ability to kind of get depth on those drops into the hook zone. Does having a linebacker like that, does that change the way you do things or does it help your group in coverage at all?) – “I think it helps us in coverage with guys like ‘Bake’ (Jerome Baker) who has the athleticism to get the depth in zone coverage and have the speed to really break down on check downs and be able to make open-field tackles as well as be able to do some things athletically when we want to play some man-to-man and matching up on certain guys. I think that that’s a weapon for us defensively, being able to utilize his skillset.”
(There’s obviously a lot to like about S Brandon Jones in terms of intelligence, speed, tackling ability, how he prepares. If you look at numbers from a metrics side – Pro Football Focus – it indicates that he’s … a very high percentage of balls thrown in his coverage area – last year at Texas, this year so far. Where is he in his coverage skills and is that something that a player with his athletic ability can improve on substantially?) – “I think that’s a thing that he can definitely continue to improve on. I don’t really get the numbers part of the Focus Football or whatever; but just looking at the things on tape, there’s a lot of things that he can continue to do better in his development, whether it be in man coverage from a technical standpoint and being able to win with leverage or also from a zone perspective of really being able to understand the threats and having the vision to break on the quarterback. So regardless of what he did in his past as far as Texas is concerned, I think that he’s a developing player that has the tools and he has a great skillset that we’re continuing to build on a day-to-day (basis).”
(Seahawks WR DK Metcalf is averaging an absurd 25 yards a catch over 11-12 yards a target. How do you handle that A; and B, is it as simple as saying, “Hey, CB Xavien Howard go cover that guy for 70 snaps?”) – “For one, this isn’t anything that surprises me. I actually saw DK (Metcalf) at Ole Miss when I was at Cal my first year there, so him doing what he’s doing now is not a surprise to me at all. But definitely for us defensively, we have to be aware of that. Not only DK and his vertical presence out there on the field; sometimes it’s not just as easy as saying, ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) go cover him. There’s a lot of things that go beyond that because I think Tyler Lockett also needs attention as far as the coverage is concerned. They have weapons. They have guys like that. They obviously have a great guy who is engineering the offense with Russell Wilson, so we have to be smart with what we’re doing coverage-wise and I think first and foremost, for us to be effective in the pass game, we have to stop the run. We have to at least not allow the run game to get going, that also kind of generates their play-action package. And then when it is time for Russell Wilson to drop back and throw the ball, we’ve got to do a good job in coverage just kind of mixing in some of the calls.”
(I wanted to ask you, how did your players take to Head Coach Brian Flores saying as a press team and as a Cover 1 team, we have to cover better? I imagine you have a prideful group. How did they kind of take to their performances the first two weeks and then going into this week?) – “I don’t think Coach Flores saying that let us know that we need to do that better. I think that we look at our body of work and we understand the things that happen out there on the field and we evaluate it, and we try to continue to get better. Regardless of the result, if it was good or bad, we always have to get better. We have to get back in the lab. There’s so many different things that we need to do even when the situation doesn’t present itself as a ball that got completed. Something maybe happened at the line of scrimmage or happened in coverage where it may not necessarily have generated a negative play for us, but we have to continue to get better. And also, we look at that obviously as a challenge. We’re challenged to be able to play man-to-man and when that is something that is observed as something that has not been as successful as we would like, we have to just continue to get better.”
(You mentioned Seahawks TE Tyler Lockett earlier and he did jump off the tape when watching the last game, which I did. What are some of the coaching points when you face a player with Lockett’s particular skillset in the slot?) – “I think you have to have awareness of where is. A guy like that – they utilize his skillset and his vertical speed and really put him really everywhere. He can line up on the outside and do some things on the inside. He can really stretch a defense. So as a secondary, we have to be aware of where he is and if that’s coverage where we have the opportunity to get hands on him in the slot or obviously on the outside, and we have to make sure that we definitely have depth to the defense and zone coverage and even some single-high stuff. He has the ability to do some stuff not just vertically. They get him things on crossing routes and catch-and-run situations, and those are the opportunities where we are playing zones and we’re dropping off and staying back for the intermediate stuff. We have to have vision to break on the quarterback and be able to swarm him and be able to leverage him and be able to get him down on the ground and not allow those check downs to become rewards for the offense where they go for 12-15 yards when they were really designed to get tackled at five or six. So for us, we’ve just got to be aware of all those threats, whether it be Tyler Lockett who does a good job for them, DK (Metcalf), obviously the backfield – the backs. We know and accept the challenge that we have coming in on Sunday and through preparation, we hope we’re ready.”
(What did you see out of CB Noah Igbinoghene and his ability to bounce back this past week?) – “That’s no surprise. I think Noah (Igbinoghene) is a competitor. We knew that as his evaluation throughout the draft process. We know that this is a guy who again is a developing player, but he’s a competitor. You’re going to have days. There’s not a guy in the league in his career that hasn’t had a rough day at the office. So looking at it, evaluating it, figuring out what we can do to continue to get better throughout the week and accepting the challenge of a new opponent, and also looking at the things that we can do to get better throughout the week day-to-day, allowed him to have what is I guess a ‘bounce back day.’ But regardless of what the result of Jacksonville was for him individually, we’ve got to use this week to go back to work. This is a new opponent, a new challenge, a new thing that’s going to be presented to him in his rookie year. And we knew that. It’s no surprise, just for the mentality of the kid that we knew we were getting.”
(I wanted to ask you about the nickel position. We’ve seen three different guys in there three different games. Is that matchup-based? Is that practice performance-based? Is it just you trying to find the right mix? What’s going on at that position? Is it a weekly battle?) – “I think it’s a little bit of all of the above. I think we’ve kind of had a conversation of how valuable that position is and a lot of it is based on game plan. It might be based on matchup. It might be based on the matchup in the slot or whatever our defensive plan is for the given week. So of course, ideally you want a guy who’s kind of strong-arming the position and that’s your guy; but I think we have a couple of different guys with a couple of different skillsets that we can be a little bit more versatile with how we use those guys in that position based on whatever the game plan is and whatever the opponent is that we’re facing. That’s kind of the plan for the nickel position as of right now until noted otherwise.”
