Brian Flores – December 6, 2020 (Postgame)
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Sunday, November 1, 2020
Postgame – Cincinnati Bengals
Head Coach Brian Flores
(Congrats on the win. Obviously, a lot to get to. I didn’t expect to have the first question. I think I’ll start with if you could share what some of the halftime adjustments were. Obviously, the third quarter looked a lot different. Maybe share something that was shared at halftime.) – “We just needed to play better. We had too many penalties in the first half. We didn’t execute offensively. We gave up the big play defensively, which just had to do a better job really across the board, playing, coaching, and execution. And we talked about it at halftime. I think (Offensive Coordinator) Chan (Gailey), (Defensive Coordinator) Josh (Boyer), (Special Teams Coordinator) Danny (Crossman), those guys made some adjustments, really in all three phases, and we were able to come out and play a lot better in the second half. Even then, there were still some mistakes there and some things we’ve got to do better. We’ve got to punch it in in the red zone, and a couple plays there defensively we could have tackled better, get our yardage down. But overall, much better in the second half. But we have to play a 60-minute ball game. We’re going to have to do that really moving forward.”
(It just seemed like a really chippy game. Obviously, you had the ejections. At one point, we saw you really upset. Could you maybe take us through what you thought of the WR Jakeem Grant play and what made you so upset about it?) – “We’ve got to do a better job of keeping our poise. That starts with me. I’ve got to do a better job of keeping my poise. But, look, I’m going to stick up for my players. They’re going to stick up for each other without getting penalties, without hurting the team, but we’ve got to do a better job of keeping our poise as a team. I’m just going to be honest, these are like my kids. The first time, yeah. The second time I got a little upset about it, but still I’ve got to do a better job. I have to. I can’t do anything to hurt the team. My emotions got the best of me there. But again, you see somebody you care about get hit like that twice … But I have to do a better job. I’ve got to keep my poise better. We have to do a better job of that as a team.”
(In such an emotional game, how do you control having both grit and also composure? How would you assess how your team responded to that, specifically with the defense performing their strong … That following sequence after that mix-up?) – “We talk about it all the time. Games in this league are chippy. This is a competitive league. Players, coaches, everyone is competitive. We want competitive people in our building, so at times it can get chippy, but we have to keep our composure. We’ve got to keep our poise. We can’t do anything that will lead to the detriment of our team. We talked about that really all year. Today I would say emotions got the best of us in some instances, myself included. We have to do a better job. It starts with me. I’ll be better.”
(Are you concerned that you might be without CB Xavien Howard or WR DeVante Parker next week?) – “Obviously, that will be handled by the league. We’ll see what that looks like. Again, that’s what we’re talking about as far as keeping your composure, keeping our composure. I would say we’ll see what it is, hopefully not. Hopefully not, but we’ll see.”
(I heard what you said about poise and composure, but I’m sure you realize that looked great as you charged across the field. What was your intention, and do you realize that that’s going to earn a lot of respect points with a lot of people, including fans?) – “Like I said, I’ve got to keep my poise. I’ve got to do a better job. It’s not about points, it’s about not doing things that hurt the team. Unfortunately, I was part of that today. I’ll be better, and our team will be better. We’ll just keep it there.”
(It sounds like you’re second guessing yourself, but at the same time, you’re understanding what you did because you’re protecting your kids, as you said, is that the right way to phrase it?) – “Look, I mean, the people in this organization, they’re very important to me. I’m going to try to protect everyone here – players, coaches. But there’s a way to do that. There’s a better way to do that, and, again, like I said, unfortunately, this is one of the things that I don’t like is that our team went out there, played a good game against a tough opponent, won the game, played well in all three phases, really played well in the second half. Defensively, we played well. Offensively, we really moved the ball a lot better. A lot of things from the game that are good that should be highlighted, but unfortunately, we’re talking about my situation, and that’s what I don’t like. These guys work extremely hard. So a lot of credit should go to them. I don’t want the spotlight on me. It should be on the guys that are on the field, the players. DeVante (Parker) playing well. He played well for us. He made plays for us. So did ‘Mike G’ (Mike Gesicki). So did Myles Gaskin. I thought the o-line played well with the three young guys in there. I thought defensively, we made a lot of plays. But unfortunately, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about this situation. And that’s … I’ve got to be better because the spotlight shouldn’t be on me. It should be on them. They work hard. They’re the ones that are out there putting their blood, sweat, and tears into the preparation, into the walk-throughs, into the practices, and hopefully we spend some time talking about the things that they did well in the game and not that situation.”
(Wanted to ask you about the up-tempo approach in the second half. Seemed like you guys come out and are kind of sluggish in the first half offensively and then got some things going. I was curious what did you see on the Bengals defensive side that forced the adjustment, and how do you feel your guys executed that up-tempo attack in the second half?) – “(Offensive Coordinator) Chan (Gailey) and the offensive staff made that adjustment. We just wanted to pick up the pace a little bit. It was efficient. We got some production out of it, so we stayed with it. I think, again, that’s hard to deal with defensively. So we we’re able to make some good throws, make some good runs and execute and really keep the pressure on, that was the thought process at halftime. We got it accomplished.”
(I wanted to ask you what went into your decision to start QB Tua Tagovailoa? And also, when he was struggling in the first half, what went into your decision to stick with him?) – “We’ve got a lot of confidence in Tua. I think what went into the decision to start him was we thought he practiced well, thought he was healthy enough to play. You mentioned the first half. I thought we were moving it pretty well in the first half. We were just kind of … Our drives were stalling out. I thought he was playing well. I thought we just needed to be more consistent and finish drives and really kind of take it one play at a time, and we were just kind of stalling out on a few of the drives early. So I don’t think he was playing … I thought he was playing well. I just think we needed to finish off some runs, finish off some protections, finish off some throws. That’s what we talked about at halftime. It was never really a thought of … Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it until you really brought it up here. He was going all the way, and I thought he was playing well, and he did play well. We’ve got a lot of confidence in him. Hopefully, we can build on this.”
