Gerald Alexander – December 22, 2020
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Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Defensive Backs Coach Gerald Alexander
(I know all the focus and attention is on the Raiders from speaking to everyone, but last night when you heard CB Xavien Howard made the Pro Bowl, how happy were you for him and how deserving do you think he is of that nod?) – “I was happy for ‘X’ (Xavien Howard). I know that he had a significant injury last year and it’s something that he really battled through to get himself back healthy and get him back to playing at a high level. Any time anybody goes through that kind of adversity – I know that in my playing career, not that I was any type of player that ‘X’ is, but just the mental things that you go through when you go through injury and the rehabilitation and getting your body to function the way you want it to and the frustrating days that come with that process; for him to be able to go through that and then reap the benefit of his hard work and the way that he’s played this season, you can’t be happier for a guy like that who’s battled through that kind of adversity.”
(What does it take for a cornerback to not panic when the ball is in the air? Because a lot of people say that they don’t, but then you see them get flags or hold or pass interference or they just overreact to it. What makes CB Xavien Howard so calm when the ball is in the air?) – “I think his confidence. I think that probably before that we’ve ever had a chance or myself has ever had a chance to work with him, I think he’s probably always been confident in his ball skills. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a receiver in high school and just kind of formulated those ball skills to attack the football and not panic in those situations. Then it’s obviously a little bit different when you’re a defensive back. I think when you do get to that moment of truth, you see a lot of guys who do panic because they think about the things that could happen that go wrong. It’s one of those things where mentally, there’s a difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. I think that you see that all the time within certain reps from defensive backs in that moment of truth when it is about attacking the ball, even in situations where sometimes it looks like that defender is beat. And there have been times where guys have caught up and even ‘X’ has caught up at certain times where it looks like he’s beat and the next thing you know, he makes the play. So that’s the major difference if you just look at defensive back play. Sometimes it just goes down to that moment-of-truth mentality.”
(I wanted to ask you about S Eric Rowe. I noticed him playing a lot of deep centerfield in the game on Sunday. I just wanted to ask you being a former corner that got switched to safety, plays box and plays deep center field, how valuable is it to have a guy down your secondary that can really play any position back there?) – “It’s valuable because it allows us to be versatile as a defense – just putting different guys in different spots based on game plan, based on matchup. Eric (Rowe) has done a good job of that. Obviously Bobby has done that really all year, but when you have a guy like Rowe who could be in the deep center field, who can match up on tight ends, who obviously has the versatility – being a former corner – to be able to be matched up on the outside if we needed him to do something like that, it just allows us as a defense to use that weapon and be versatile.”
(I’d like to go back to earlier when you were talking about CB Xavien Howard battling through the injury. If you could think back to early September when you were getting ready to go up to New England, where was he physically? Did you have any question in your mind about whether he was going to get to this level that he’s at now where he’s probably playing his best ball of his career?) – “I’m not sure where he was physically. I know that he had continued and always does continue to get his body to perform at its peak performance. I just now got introduced to ‘X’ obviously as a person. Before I got the job, I was obviously a fan of really good defensive back play and I know that he’s done some special things throughout his career, so it doesn’t necessarily come as a shock that he’s playing at the level that he has been playing at this year because he’s done it before. I’m just getting a chance to obviously look through it from a different lens. It’s a special thing that he’s done and we’ve needed every single bit of his play and we will continue to need that as we continue to go forward throughout the season.”
(Two games left, but after the Bengals beat the Steelers last night, the Dolphins defense became tops in the league in scoring defense. Just what does a stat like that mean to you guys?) – “The stat doesn’t really matter. Maybe when we get a chance to unwind and look back on the things that we’ve done this season and evaluate it, then maybe we can then reflect and look at the things that we’ve accomplished; but as of right now, we all know what the task is at hand. The task is to do the necessary things to prepare our players, to go down to Vegas and play our best football. At this time of year, you see all over the league that it doesn’t really matter what your record is on a Sunday or a Saturday in our case; you have to go in there and prepare to play your best football this time of year, especially if you want to accomplish the goals that you set out for at the beginning of the season.”
