Sam Madison – November 10, 2022
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Thursday, November 10, 2022
Cornerbacks/Pass Game Specialist Sam Madison
(Did you coach against WR Amari Cooper in high school down here?) – “I didn’t. I had him on my 7-on-7 team for a couple of years.”
(How have you seen him grow?) – “Oh, man. Going into his senior year, he didn’t really have any offers and then coaching for South Florida Express, we were traveling around South Florida, around Florida, and then all of a sudden, it was like who is this kid? But just unbelievable speed. Strength at the top of the route. And that’s the way he’s always played. He’s always been one of those guys that’s going to go get it. He’s very quiet and he lets his play do the talking.”
(We know what CB Xavien Howard can do. We know what he has done. We also know he’s played through groin injuries. But candidly, throughout the first half of the season, how would you assess what you’ve seen?) – “Just going in and watching film when I first got here, and just understanding and knowing exactly who he was, watching him for a number of years doing television, he’s a playmaker. And these little nick and nack injuries, they can take a toll. So being able to finally get him through those different little injuries and not really having him during training camp, the offseason and trying to make sure that he was healthy to get him to this point, those were our main goals. Now I think he feels comfortable. He’s practiced very well the last couple of weeks. He’s just got to get his confidence back, knowing that he’s healthy, and then whoever he’s covering, he’s just got to go out there and dominate, just like he’s been able to do over the last couple of years. So he’s feeling comfortable. I’m feeling comfortable about everything he’s doing. And now we just got to go out there and just get that confidence back, and just go and attack. Getting his hands on the ball last week, I thought that was good for him. But now we’ve just got to take it to the next level and dominate every play.”
(I was curious to get your thoughts on the second to last play on the deep pass to WR Chase Claypool and DB Keion Crossen in coverage. A lot of people are saying that he potentially could have been called for defensive pass interference. I was curious, what are your thoughts on that one?) – “(laughter) Do you watch the offensive line and defensive line? They could get called for holding every play. The same thing in the secondary. So when you’re in that situation at that point in the game, the referees, they’re going to do their due diligence and see exactly what they see and just make the appropriate call. But just get it done at the line of scrimmage. That’s what we really talk about. That’s what we really preach. Since I’ve been here and Coach Josh (Boyer) has allowed me to work with these guys, getting hands on them at the line of scrimmage to eliminate those things down the football field and then slowing guys down. Keion just has to do a little bit better at the line of scrimmage. He knows that and that’s what we work on. That’s what we talked about throughout the course of the week.”
(Didn’t CB Keion Crossen have his hands around his waist on that play downfield?) – “To your point, when the referees come in here and we talk, and they come out there and they watch us practice, one of things that they always talk about is don’t put your hands up high. Put your hands down low. As long as you don’t turn the wide receivers, then it doesn’t become a penalty. So having your hands down low, those are the things that they tell us when we’re working with them, when they come out here during training camp. So those are the things that we work on and those are the things that they go out and try to work and execute. For it to be a no call, any given Sunday it could be called a penalty or not, just like it was for Keion.”
(Can you speak to the growth you’ve seen from CB Kader Kohou from when you first got him? He comes in as an undrafted rookie out of Texas A&M-Commerce and now he’s really an NFL starter.) – “Yeah, he’s an NFL starter. And guess what? He doesn’t shy away from contact. He doesn’t shy away from any challenge. It doesn’t matter if it’s Stefon Diggs or no matter who it is, he goes out there and he’s going to give it his 100 percent, and that’s what we ask from these guys. That’s what he’s been doing throughout the course, since he’s been here. He’s the guy that when you give him something and you talk to him about something, he’s going to go out there and try to execute it. Challenging at the line of scrimmage is one of the things that we work on, on an everyday basis. He’s going to do it. He’s nice, thick (and) strong. He missed a game. It really hurt him when he missed those couple of games. So coming back has really helped our depth and as you can see, when it comes to run support, he doesn’t shy away from that at all.”
(How will the LB Bradley Chubb acquisition affect your guys?) – “It’s going to affect us a lot. When you talk about the defensive line and the secondary always have hand in hand, if we can give our defensive line a couple of extra seconds to get to the quarterback – because they’re starting to do a lot of chipping because they know we play a lot of man and as you see over the last couple of weeks, the coverage has been tight relatively throughout the course of the game. So if we can get those guys a couple extra seconds to get to the quarterback, hopefully they can get the ball out, get the quarterback on the ground but yet still just be a disruptive force throughout the course of the game. He’s starting to feel himself and feel the things that he can do within the scheme of his defense. And Josh (Boyer) is going to do a good job of putting him in those situations to be successful. So, we’re very confident about him. The guys have accepted him very well and he just came in and just picked up right where we’ve left off and just continue to get better. So just looking for good things and more things better from him.”
