Frank Smith – October 5, 2023
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Thursday, October 5, 2023
Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith
(In terms of how the process of snap allocation at running back works with you and Head Coach Mike McDaniel. Do you and Associate Head Coach/Running Backs Coach Eric Studesville discuss it typically early in the week, later in the week? And is this as difficult a spot as you’ve been in in a while, obviously knowing you have three good backs, RB Chris Brooks, and RB Jeff Wilson Jr. soon?) – “I think that as we go through the week, like all positions, you’re going through the availability, who will be up for the game, discussions with the position coach, myself, and Mike (McDaniel). We’re all collectively dialed in to what we’re trying to accomplish. Certain plays have guys tagged to be in them. Ultimately, they’re good problems to have when you have a room with such depth. Basically, we look at every week, like all players, what are we asking them to do? What do they do well? Putting them in positions to be successful. The great thing is, that whole group, they’re so professional with what they do in their approach. I think just ultimately, each week, that’s the challenge of when you have a group that’s that deep, how do you use them? Like all things, when you have guys that deep, you start playing a couple of them at a time.”
(Do you and Associate Head Coach/Running Backs Coach Eric Studesville in this case, and Head Coach Mike McDaniel know going into the week, we want to get this guy the majority of carries? Or do you not decide that typically until Friday?) – “It’s a collective as we go through the game plan throughout the week of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
(With RB De’Von Achane, he talked about yesterday, and I’ve heard him mention this before, at first the offense was like speaking Spanish and he just didn’t understand it. But now, he’s at the point where he can understand it. Where is he in terms of, when you add those installs, being able to execute or understand the concepts?) – “When you’re in college, or as your progression goes through football – high school, college to professional level – at first the volume is less. So by the time you get to the NFL, you just realize the mistake a lot of rookies make. ‘Oh, I’ll be okay,’ because you remember your last experience. The challenge they get is the volume that comes with it because we have more time with them and it’s a longer season and a longer whole process towards the first game. With De’Von, yes; but it’s all about your approach and how do you handle the process and the volume. And how do we as coaches make sure the progression comes at him the right way so he can grow and develop appropriately. I think with him, it’s not being in a rush in spring and training camp. Every failure isn’t an overreaction of why that occurred. You’re going, okay, if it was a good result, reinforce the process. If it wasn’t the result we’re looking for, correct the process. How are you looking at things? What in your intent made you think to do that? I think that’s just been the great thing. I know that Eric’s (Studesville) really worked with him. Then you’re also learning the conversation and dialogue with your position coach, with your coordinator or the head coach. I think that’s just like all rookies, that’s part of the process. How do you accelerate the process? Well, it comes into, alright, their approach, their detail, how much extra work they put in. All these things that factor in and sometimes wide receivers, tight ends are a little harder when we have to move them all over the place. Where running backs, obviously, there’s their natural positions, and then there’s their external positions. For him, I know that all the extra work that he’s done with Eric has really helped. I’ll have to start speaking Spanish to him to see if he really does understand it. (laughter)”
(I wanted to ask about the pre-snap operation against Buffalo. Obviously you had a couple pre-snap infractions. I know TE Durham Smythe was saying that sometimes when it’s as loud as it is, as it was in Buffalo, maybe you have to scratch some motions. I was curious about your perspective. Obviously, the timing with the motions is really important to what you do. But are there some situations where in a raucous environment, maybe you have to scrap some things and maybe go about the pre-snap operation differently?) – “You evaluate all scenarios for what occurs and game four was a great test for us. I mean, it was a playoff-type environment, and when you can get those early in the season, it’s great ability to learn. What we do and how we operate, obviously there’s scenarios and situations where we have to maybe adjust some of the things that we came out of that game that we feel very confident that we’ll be able to make the corrections going forward. The hardest thing is when you have the week before and you come out from one performance is that it looks like it’s in such contrast. But in reality, there’s a couple things that we know we can improve on that can allow us to have great growth in the second quarter of the season. That’s what we were really addressing yesterday and going to continue today.”
(How did you assess OL Liam Eichenberg’s game and what are the teaching points you’re nailing down with him?) – “I mean, your first game at playing a new position is at Buffalo versus the reigning divisional champion. There’s always going to be things that you know you can improve on and you can work on. For him, a player and actually the guys who have the right internal process, they’re always going to remember the one play, the two plays, the cut handful of things where they know they can improve. Then it’s what about the rest of the body of work that you did really on? I think that ultimately, when you’re playing center for the first time in an environment like that, was it perfect? No. But there was plenty of things that we can build upon and with how conscientious Liam is and how intentional he is, we’re very confident with his growth for the rest of the season as we ask him to do that work.”
(Is OL Austin Jackson giving you above average NFL quality right tackle play?) – “From where we’re going to with Austin (Jackson), each week keeps getting improvement out of him. Offensive line play, it takes five of them to work together to get the production and then the quarterback and connection, and with the work Austin has put in to get better at all the things he wants to from obviously losing almost the entirety of last year, we’ve felt really good about his improvement and we feel really good about his work habits, how he’s been working with Butch (Barry). So ultimately where you rate and where you measure people, that’s for the end of the season. Our goal right now with him and all guys is just to keep improving and to make sure that we’re playing our best football when it matters the most at the end of the year.”
(Has OL Austin Jackson played well, I guess, would be another way of saying it without asking you to compare him to other NFL right tackles. Just is he playing well?) – “Yeah, we’re very pleased with how he’s been developing and how he’s playing.”
(Is there a simple explanation for why WR Tyreek Hill and WR Jaylen Waddle did not have more receptions last week?) – “There’s a collective of things that we come out of that game and we’re assessing and evaluating and make sure we move forward and do the right things schematically and the right things overall for the offense. Yeah, when you have a game that doesn’t come out the way you want, there’s many things that you look at. You’re like, ‘okay, what can we do better?’ It starts with the coaching staff. Play design, play implementation, how we went about certain things. There’s several things that we look at the game that we wish we could’ve done different, but ultimately our focus this week is just making sure that with the Giants we’re attacking the defense appropriately and we’re making sure we’re putting the right people in the right spots.”
(I was reading around when you were at Butler, is it true that you developed a relationship with Brad Stevens?) – “Yes. Yes I did.”
(I was wondering, we’ve asked Head Coach Mike McDaniel about his relationship with Erik Spoelstra and talking about maybe some commonalities between basketball and football and maybe concepts. I was wondering if you ever had those conversations with Brad and maybe something that you learned?) – “Yes, I did. In 2019, they were playing the Warriors and him and I met up in the city for dinner. think at that time they moved on from Isaiah (Thomas) to Kemba Walker and they had some roster shake over things and I was curious how they handled all their travel and how much they play. Because when he got to the NBA it was him and Micah Shrewsberry, were both at Butler and I got to know. I was more curious from college to the NFL, the contrast of basketball, so many different things because at Butler they had to practice in the morning just due to class. There were so many issues in college that obviously were different. And the big thing we talked about was with their contracts being locked and guaranteed versus ours and how when they’re assimilating the roster, what are they looking for, how are they doing it? Awesome dialogue at the time because at that time I was with the Raiders. We had that 2019 draft class where it was like Maxx Crosby, Foster Moreau, Josh Jacobs, Hunter Renfrow. And then at that point I think we were 6-3 or something like that. It was funny because I had all these questions about how they operate and Brad being Brad, we sat down, he immediately went at me for our things that we do because at that point, we were winning and we were trending the right way. We were winning some close games. And the discussion we had I think was about two-and-a-half hours. It literally was just your sport, our sport, what do you guys do, how do you guys do it. The thing that I think as coaches, we’re always interested in, is how do you evaluate the talent you’re trying to assimilate on the roster, how do you maintain the talent, how do you do recovery, how did they handle their travel, how did we handle our travel especially across the country, practice habits. Hell, a good friend of mine is in the Navy SEALs and I went down to Coronado and spent time with him talking to their BUDS training guys of just going through and how do they sort out things. Like how do they – it’s just everything. If you can see the differences but you have the perspective, and you try and find the commonalities between the things, that’s where you can get the connection of where you can take something and steal it. It’s great when you have like-minded coaches that are just so obsessed with improving every day. I know this is a very long answer because it’s got me excited because it reminded me of that dinner. We were sitting there and I don’t think we ate for like an hour-and-a-half. We were just going bang-bang-bang-bang-bang back and forth and Brad – and he had experience with the Patriots – like Erik in our crossover with the Heat guys, it’s all about the dialogue and the dialogue and different perspectives allow you to have, you can find commonalities and you can extract things. But there isn’t really one thing that you can say you ever go into a conversation, you can say ‘hey, I want to start with this idea.’ But it’s amazing what you can get out of a long conversation like that. Because at Butler it was Brad (Stevens) and then Kelly Findley, our men’s soccer coach. I remember our kicker, we couldn’t make a damn kick. He was missing everything short but everything long, he’d drill. We went to our soccer coach, showed his tape and our soccer coach helped us like just talking about kicking and targeting things and he goes ‘you ever think of a kicker, maybe you just staring at that, do you ever just kick into space and say kick it straight?’ I was like, ‘no’ and he goes, ‘why don’t you try it?’ So we kicked to the sideline just straight down the 20-yard line. He didn’t miss a kick for the next month-and-a-half and I gave Kelly all the credit even though we’re high fiving ourselves behind and going like, ‘we are morons, how did we not think of that?’ So it was like all that, it’s just perspective towards things.”
