Josh Boyer – October 27, 2022
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Thursday, October 27, 2022
Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer
(It’s unfortunate that S Brandon Jones had to go down with a season-ending injury, but in real time, we saw you kind of adjust with kind of a trio of guys – S Eric Rowe, S Clayton Fejedelem and S Verone McKinley. First, I wanted to ask you, in replacing Brandon, would you ideally like to have like, every-down starter as he kind of was? Or do you plan to kind of continue with the collaborative approach?) – “Well, I would say the first thing is, and I didn’t get to touch on this a week ago, I mean for Nik and Brandon both – two guys that put in so much work, and it’s very important to. I think it’s disheartening to see that. It’s sad for them to have that happen to them. Both guys are mentally and physically tough. Both of them are already attacking their surgeries or their upcoming surgeries. So obviously you hate to see that and it really breaks your heart because you know the amount of time, effort and energy that they put into it. To answer the second part of your question, I think you always try to put guys in position to succeed and if that’s multiple different guys, if it’s one guy; it really kind of depends on what you’re asking them to do. I mean, Brandon (Jones) did a lot of things for us and we’d asked Brandon to improve on some of the things that we thought he could get better from a year ago, and we felt like we were trending in the right direction on that. So it’s a big void to fill. But again, we practice guys throughout the week with contingency plans that if something happened to whoever, we’ve got to be able to be multiple, which is why sometimes you’re going, ‘Okay, if you just put a guy in one spot, maybe he’ll get better at that.’ But knowing and understanding the attrition that happens in the league, I think you’re always better well-served if you make guys multiple, and you teach things defensively from a conceptual concept so that guys understand ‘Okay, I’m just in this spot.’ So in a long roundabout way, it could be different week to week. It could be one guy. It could be multiple guys, depending on what we feel is best for the guys that are available to us and for what we’re seeing from the opponent that week.”
(What do you like about S Verone McKinley III’s skill set and what he brings to the defense?) – “I think again, he’s improving. There’s some things that we’ve kind of pinpointed for him that we’ve asked him to get better on. And obviously being a rookie, there’s a lot of things that he needs to work on. But I would say for him, his understanding, his commitment and dedication to understanding the complete defense, and his ability to track balls in the air, and his ability to tackle at a deep part of the field. There’s other things that we’ve been working on him with as well, but I think a lot of times when you start with young guys, when you get to a certain point, you kind of pinpoint and say – this is kind of completely opposite of what I just told you – but you kind of pinpoint and say, ‘Okay, let’s really get good at this, so if we had to use you, we would use you in this situation.’ Now circumstances change, so then you ask him to do a wide variety of things. So we’ve been very pleased with him from a communication standpoint, very pleased with his ball skills, very pleased with his tackling in the deep part of the field, and obviously we’ll ask his role to grow, just like we do other guys as well.”
(We saw DB Elijah Campbell go from corner to safety this offseason or play a little bit of both. What do you see in his game that that made you think he was a viable safety in this defense?) – “Elijah (Campbell) is a guy that we’ve not been able to, I would say pinpoint like, ‘okay, just do this.’ We’ve tried to make him as multiple as possible with contingencies in mind. So he’s an explosive player, he’s a physical player, and he has good speed. So there’s a lot of things that he can do. And unfortunately for us and him, we’ve asked him to do such a variety of things, we haven’t really been able to focus on one thing. And we’re continuing to do that with him, so it can make him more valuable when we have to plug and play in certain situations, if that makes sense.”
(I wanted to ask you about two outside linebackers – LB Jaelan Phillips, just the consistent motor that he brings; and LB Andrew Van Ginkel, how far along as he come since when his appendix removal was kind of recent?) – “Yeah, I would say starting with (Andrew) Van Ginkel – the mental toughness, the tenacity that he had to come back, call it two-and-a-half weeks after he was opened up was pretty impressive. And he’s pretty much got all of his weight back. We like using him on defense. We think he’s getting better. There’s other components that go into the game as opposed to just defense. He’s a big part of our special teams and sometimes out of necessity – I think what Justin Bethel did for us last week was commendable. He played a lot for us on defense, played a lot in the kicking game. We got him out at times when we could. Obviously there were some shuffling parts with one, where we were at and two, with some of the injuries that happened during the game. But I would say Van Ginkel falls into a category from a team standpoint that he’s very important to the kicking game. He’s very important to us defensively. We have more of a luxury on defense to be able to sub him out than we do in the kicking game right now, if that makes sense.”
(Can you touch on the strengths of a couple of the Lions offensive players, notably Lions RB D’Andre Swift, the running back and Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown?) – “Well, I would say when you look at Detroit, they’ve moved the ball in every game. I mean, I know they were shut out against New England, but they moved the ball down the field; they just turned it over. They moved the ball against Dallas; they just turned the ball over. They put up a lot of points in their previous games, too, that they’re a very explosive offense. They run a good offense. They run similar concepts. It’s not the same offense as our offense, but they’ll run some of the same concepts. We’ll see for sure plays that we’ve struggled with against the Jets, Minnesota, Cincinnati. They’ll go look at that because the offense is kind of a culmination of all those offenses. Whether you look at the Rams offense, Minnesota’s offense, there’s kind of a tree. I’m sure they look at San Francisco plays. They have a very good scheme. They’ll make it very gameplan-oriented to the team that they’re playing. That’s why I would anticipate things that they’ve seen us do to Cincinnati, Minnesota or the Jets, which all fall from the same tree. I think they’ll implement some of those things or even look at some of the things that we’ve done going all the way back to 2020 playing the Rams. They’re very explosive. (D’Andre) Swift in particular. (Amon-Ra) St. Brown in particular. They’re very explosive. They do a good job of scheming in the run game and the pass game to get guys open to create space. Which like I said, we see them run very similar concepts that our offense runs. And so we’re going to have to do a good job of making them drive the field, and we’re going to have to do a good job of creating turnovers. Opportunities will be there, we just got to make the most of them.”
(You had a lot of success against Lions QB Jared Goff when you guys played him in 2020. In facing him now, I know it’s a different team, but do you go back and look at that tape at all to see what worked well and maybe if you can incorporate some of the same things?) – “Sure. I mean you try to do your due diligence whether it’s a particular player or coordinator. Even if it’s an offensive lineman that you faced three years ago, you go back and look at some things and then you see if there’s things that would carry over to (Jared) Goff in particular. Are there are things that carry over from the system that they’re running? Which there’s some similarities. It’s not exactly the same. And then you look at, okay, like some of the things that you felt like you did good or that weren’t good, then you look at the current film and go, ‘Okay, this is the same or this is different, or this was a good idea, but we did it because of the scheme, not necessarily the player.’ So there’s always a give and take there. But yeah, I think you will always go back and you look at, and I think once you pinpoint and recognize kind of like what the offense is doing and what they’re looking at, you kind of try to look at it through their lens. And that’s why I think it’s important for us to go back and look at games that are from very, call it similar offenses, of things that may have come up for us defensively. Not only the stuff that they put on tape, but stuff that we’ve put on tape that you think they’re looking at that you got to go ahead and apply that. So there’s a lot of work there when it all comes down to it, but I think that’s part of it. And I think I would just say for me personally, each week is about the same from the regard of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, today included, I would say; there’s usually high anxiety of trying to make sure that you’re dotting all your I’s, crossing all your T’s, for lack of a better cliche there. And then really, when you get to Friday and Saturday, it kind of starts to come together a little bit from a whole picture standpoint, because we’re really segmented throughout the week on what we work on. And then Sunday, when you get there, it’s kind of anticipation. I think that’s what you what you strive for and the bad thing is once Sunday is over, you go right back to Monday, so you’re right back to the anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety, okay, it’s starting to come together, it’s starting to come together. Now it’s anticipation. And it’s a vicious cycle, but that’s what it is. And I think that’s the key to being prepared. And then knowing and understanding that circumstances, whether it’s due to players, or due to maybe there’s something unforeseen that you did not prepare for, that you got to be ready to adjust.”
(Do you ever allow yourself to enjoy it? I mean, I know you had a big game on Sunday, a bunch of stops, some big picks late. Do you have a chance to enjoy the win when you get it?) – “At this point in my career, I would say, I’m happier for people, then ‘Yeah, I’m excited!’ I think you just know and understand that it’s a long season. I think there’s things that you work on, win or lose – I think idea of you need to be improving. Obviously, the more that you win, you set yourself up to achieve goals that you have in front of you. I don’t think it’s – it’s not a big like ‘hey, let’s go out and party.’ You kind of move on very quickly. But you are very happy that you see results, and you’re happy for the team when we win. But I think at the same time you always have – because it’s hard to win. In this league, it’s hard to win. The parity is so close. It’s a grueling process to even get to that point to even give yourself a chance to win. So you’re very happy when that happens. But you’re also, in the back of your mind, you’re ready to move on and go to the next thing. And there’s things that happen, even when you win, where you’re like, ‘Okay, these are things that we could maybe detail a little bit better and get better at,’ because at the end of the day, there’s going to be, out of all 32 teams, there’s going to be one team that’s happy.
(Along those lines, you speak about being happy for people. How gratifying was it to see CB Noah Igbinoghene come up with a game saving pick? I know we’ve talked to you a lot about him finishing plays and tracking the ball. How gratifying was that to see that?) – “Yeah, I was very happy for Noah, and I think he did a good job. He got his head around. He was able to get his feet down. Secured the catch. I think it’s one of those things where when you go through the game, there’s some good things that happen. There’s some things where you’re like, ‘Okay, well, we can continue to work on this and we can get better.’ And at the end of the day, when it’s the biggest play of the game, he’s able to make that (interception). I don’t want to act like I’m not happy. I was happy when he made that (interception). I’m glad we won. I’m sure you could talk to some people that have been around me. I mean, we’ve won Super Bowls and I’d probably have the same expression that I have right now. The first one that I won, I was pretty excited about that. (laughter)”
(How quickly do you move on from a game ends to I’m already looking ahead or recapping what we just did?) – “Well, just being very honest, I mean usually after a game, because it’s a mental – it’s a real mental process for, call it three to four hours. And obviously, you’ve kind of prepped yourself. Like that’s why I say that anxiety throughout the early part of the week, when you get to a point where you’re like, ‘Okay, this is starting to come together,’ and you got a pretty good anticipation, ‘Okay, I’m thinking this. If this happens, I’m going to do this.’ Like you’ve got all those scenarios in your head, and then it goes out and it plays out. And you really have to be in-tune for the entire game as it goes, and then once that’s over, whether it’s anger or elation, you probably give yourself a 10-minute block to let that go one way or the other. And then if it’s anger, usually right away, you’re thinking about things that you’re like, ‘Okay, we got to do this, we got to do this, we got to do that.’ If it’s elation, then you’re like, ‘Okay, this was good, this was good.’ And then it goes right back to, ‘alright, but we need to do this, we need to do that to improve,’ because I don’t think things stay the same. You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. And sometimes when things don’t change – again, like we talked about this after the Jets game, you have to detail a different way, even though if you think what you’re doing is correct, and you know the things that you need to change is correct and you’re working at it and it’s not getting changed, then you’ve got to detail it a different way. So I think that process starts pretty soon right after a game for me. And then after that, there’s things that you think that you see, then you go back and you study the film, and you go, ‘Okay, this is what I thought it was,’ or ‘this was a little bit better than I thought it was.’ That’s usually the case. ‘This was a little bit better than I thought it was.’ Because I think most defensive coaches tend to think on the negative side on a lot of things. And then you just move on to the next week.”
(So it’s a little more than 10 minutes even after a Super Bowl?) – “Well, on that you kind of know it’s done. (laughter) I mean that would be reflecting. And all of them, I was up in the box. The first one, I was very excited. I got to spend time with my family on that down on the field. That was awesome. The second one, my nieces, they were there. That was pretty cool. But now I’ve lost three of them, too. I’ve been on both sides of that. And then the last one, obviously, my wife was there. She was pregnant with our first one, so that was exciting. Her family was there, my family was there. But it was kind of – job well done. Alright, spend time with your family. Because a lot of times, I would say during the season, whether it’s a player or a coach, there’s things that the family sacrifices because the time and commitment that you put in. I would say that when you have opportunities to spend time with your family, you really cherish those. And then probably about two weeks after the season, my wife’s like, ‘Okay, go back to work.’ (laughter) No, it’s all been good. Yeah, I do ride an emotional roller coaster, probably a little bit more internally. But I think the expectations of winning is what you’re striving to do, and I think that’s a constant burning fire to always get that done. I think there’s going to be one team that’s pretty happy at the end of the year, and I think the rest of them are all going to be going, ‘how do we become that one team?’ I mean, that’s really been my experience.”
(I’m curious in terms of pass rush, when the sack numbers aren’t there, when the pressure numbers aren’t there, what are some things that you look for to make you feel encouraged about the direction that you’re heading?) – “Yeah, I think a lot of things go into consideration when you’re talking about just rush or pressure, in general. Are you playing coverages that are conducive to rush? Are you committing? Are you playing fronts that are conducive to rush or conducive to stopping the run? Because sometimes there’s a difference between the two. And then, when it’s obvious pass situations, are you dropping more guys in coverage then you are rushing? Or sometimes are you rushing a lot of guys in coverage and the ball is coming out quick? I mean, there are so many variables. I think the things that we work on is when we’re in run fronts, we work on our transition to rush. When we’re in rush fronts, we’ll work on ways to beat the protection. I think we’ll always try to mix coverages the best we can. But at the end of the day, it’s all about what do we feel ultimately is the best way for us to one, get the ball back the offense, and two, to win the game. So, some things get sacrificed. But I don’t think the mentality of ‘Okay, you’re sitting in a front that’s not really conducive to a rush, and it’s a play-action,’ I don’t think the mentality is like, ‘Okay, we’re not going to get a rush.’ I think the mentality is ‘We’re playing run. Okay, it’s pass transition to pass rush and let’s get as much pressure as we possibly can.’ And try to marry that with the coverage, if that makes sense.”
