Frank Smith – November 30, 2023
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Thursday, November 30, 2023
Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith
(With left tackle sort of uncertain for Sunday, what skillset about T Kion Smith made him appealing to you, Offensive Line Coach Butch Barry and Head Coach Mike McDaniel? What does he do well?) – “Very athletic. Good initial movements. Has lower body power. Like everything, when you come from a smaller school and you display those physical traits, sometimes it’s just getting the consistency to really be able to dive in and learn the why of things. That’s why his training camp, he really devoted a lot of time with (Assistant Offensive Line Coach) Lem (Lemuel Jeanpierre) and Butch and really worked on understanding deeper components of the offense and what defenses are doing. We’ve been very pleased with his development. He also gives us versatility. Because again, he plays guard, tackle, and that’s kind of the nature of how we built the group is having guys who are versatile. He’s been doing a really good job for us.”
(Obviously you guys have a long history with T Terron Armstead in terms of him playing hurt or playing through things. Where is the comfort level with him continuing to do to that, especially with his quadriceps injury and how he performed against the Jets?) – “I think just so much is to the makeup of him. Just knowing him from when he was a rookie in New Orleans when we drafted him to now, he’s just a very consistent person. He understands the physical tolls on a game and what it’s going to take, and his preparation and how he goes about his business and his drive to be one of the elite players at the position, I think. That just all takes into pushing through things to get yourself to game day to be there for your teammates. He’s a consummate teammate, a consummate pro. When you have a guy like him who tells you he’s good to go or he’s not, you believe it because he’s proven it over years and he’s a very good communicator. I have all the confidence in him when he’s really available to help us.”
(When you look at this team as it is preparing for December football, what do you see compared to say last year? Obviously, you’ve made some changes to the way the run game has developed, the way the offensive line has protected QB Tua Tagovailoa. You have some things going for you, but what’s the biggest difference for December football from last year to this year?) – “I think a lot of it is just it’s year two. Guys really understand so much more of what we’re trying to accomplish and they can really not spend as much time maybe – like they’re seeing the plan. They’re seeing consistency of it as opposed to a nuance here or there where it’s kind of grouping it. You see can see just an overall understanding. It’s the same thing of the consistency of a lot of guys being able to play together. You look at how many teams – it’s a challenge in any sport for guys to come together and be extremely successful in year one because there’s just so many different personalities and different communication styles. And then also with what happened in year one. You make the playoffs and it doesn’t go the way you want to, but you see how close and what you are. That just sets your inner drive and what’s going to push you. I always, for years working for Sean Payton, those first five years, I got there two months after they won the Super Bowl. He used to always talk about the Super Bowl is the greatest meal of your life. Every day after that, you’re just chasing the taste. You want that steak again, you want that mashed potatoes again, because nothing else tastes like it. It’s just that drive and it always resonated with me, because I was sitting there going like, yeah, you can resonate with what that feeling is. Once you make the playoffs, you can see it and it’s so close. I think that’s a driving force for so many of our guys because to be your best on a daily basis, the way you’re judged by your peers through the history of the game will be winning championships and how much you win. So I think all those things are reasons why we’re hoping that this next month, we’ll see the growth that we kind of feel like we’re pushing towards.”
(If both of your rookie running backs are ready to play this week, De’Von Achane and Chris Brooks, what could be the determining factor in who’s on the active game day roster in the whole running back room? Would it be special teams or would it be more situational plays from scrimmage?) – “Both. Whenever you’re going through roster decisions for each position, you’re weighing all the factors that play in. That’s the communication between Chris (Grier), Mike (McDaniel), Danny (Crossman), Vic (Fangio) and I. Each game has a different need, and what are the needs at the position groups? What’s the need in special teams? Who fills what role? Who, conversely, might be down that now you have to change spots because that’s the team’s component. It’s never as easy as like – because I think we talked about it earlier in the year where it’s like, it’s never as easy to say, ‘hey, he’s active.’ Why isn’t he planning? Well, especially at this point in the season, there’s a domino effect of the whole encompassing roster that affects our decisions for who we can bring up to the game.”
(I wanted to ask about third-and-short, fourth-and-short struggles converting. Obviously, it’s a difficult down but you guys generally prefer to pass. Or at least the numbers say you prefer to pass in those situations. Is that based on work that you’ve seen in practice, things that haven’t worked? Or is it just the mentality and philosophy that, hey, we’ve got one of the most accurate quarterbacks, this is how we prefer to utilize those plays?) – “It kind of relates into all of that. Nothing is ever as simple as just, ‘hey, it’s this, so we do that.’ It’s more of, alright, when we go into the plan, we devote time to all the situations and when we look at that situation, we have a philosophy in which we want to attack it. Then some days, some weeks, it’s third-and-one, two, and three kind of get grouped together. It just depends upon who we’re facing and why. Yes, we have an extremely accurate quarterback and a very good skill core that we trust. We have a line that we know from this last game that when we had to run the ball and they know we’re running the ball, we were able to run the football. Those are all good signs. The biggest thing is that when you look at us as an offense and you see we have an ability to move the football. One section isn’t as good as the other because the disparity between the two is drastic. You’re top five in most categories, and you have this one where you’re at the bottom. So it’s one of those where, always, there’s never a quick fix to anything. It’s being aware of an issue, communicating the issue, and how do we get better and maximizing our players in those situations. Us as an offensive staff, we do devote time to, are we calling the right things? Are we calling the right play at the right time? Are we getting coverage looks that we want to be aggressive in the attack? Or do we want to run it? There’s multiple factors that go into it. But ultimately, yes. We know that’s an area that we have to improve on. We’re aware of it and we’re hopeful that this next opportunity and the next couple ones, we can really offset it, because the reality is, it’s a 17-game season. When you look at all encompassing, at the end, its entirety. That’s when you can really formulate – we’re hopeful that we’ll turn the corner. And you never know. You might have a game where all of a sudden you get four third-and-ones, and you convert all four. The section overall is the percentages of your ranking versus the league. Well, how many did the other guys have? If they had 10 and you had 20, your percentage would be off compared to theirs statistically. So it’s just opportunities and execution. The more opportunities you get, the more opportunities to execute. That’s why at the end of the year, you look at some teams and they had 25 third-and-ones, and you go like, dang. And you had 12. Or you had 18 and they had 32. It’s a hard metric to really compare yourself in the league and especially on that one yard because it’s not like everyone has 20 reps, 20 opportunities, everyone’s the same, here’s the measure. That’s the variable. So that’s why sometimes stats, we have to look at it from us as offensive coaches, as we look at it as a staff, our ability to move the football, if we were unable to move the football and then really struggle there. As opposed to, we were able to move the football. This area we can improve in. Okay, how are we going to do it? Here’s how we’re going to do it. Here’s how we’re going to improve. Here’s our emphasis, if that makes sense.”
(Just going back really quick when you were saying the driving force for so many guys, last season was a winless December. What has been the biggest growth that you can see already from the accomplishments to this point entering December football?) – “When you’re in year one, it’s all new. You’re working towards something that’s this goal and it’s all a part of the initial communication of what the expectations for the program are for the long term. In year two when you get into it – you don’t have a history in year one, you don’t have anything because many guys are new to the roster, many guys are new to the city, all things are new. Now, most of us have been together. There’s that consistency of knowing this time, knowing what it’s like, knowing what our expectations are, seeing the results and history from last year and okay, how do we affect it. And then you’re never communicating about what the end goal is. That’s the offseason and okay, here’s our plan to get there. It’s every day of you break it out from if our goal is this, long-term, intermediate, now short-term, if your daily goals are what the mindset towards that ultimate goal, that means your daily production, your daily output, your daily process is going to be at a high level because always in your mind, you don’t want to get the result that you had before because you remember what it’s like. I want this, so therefore how do we get it? I think that’s the great thing about this football team, is that they all together have that drive, have that daily process towards how can I get better today? Because if I get better today, that’s going to help everyone tomorrow, this weekend, next weekend. I think that’s the greatest thing is that you have a bunch of guys who are very accountable and want to be their best daily. And they challenge each other and they bring out the best in each other. That’s why it’s such a joy to work with this team.”
(Is there a game, a play, a day, where this team, well your unit specifically, had some sort of accomplishment that probably could not have happened last year?) – “I don’t know if it’s one specific moment. It’s more situational things that occur. Like this last game, to be able to control the ball the third quarter, everything wasn’t perfect. You have the ebb and flow of the drive. You have guys working together, execution. You have one play that’s good, another play that’s not, and you work through it together, because it’s a time where you want to control the clock and establish the line of scrimmage and really for us, set the tone for the rest of half. That’s really cool for us. At times we could do it last year, but then you can see now there’s moments where a lot of the games this season, we’ve had a lead that was a score or two. But that one, you have a lead or two, but we still felt like, ‘Hey, we have to put this away.’ And that was where you could just see the will of the guys working together, the resolve to what they wanted to do. For me being upstairs, not really seeing it, but from afar, you could feel their intensity to the moment was really heightened. I think that’s just been everything this season. L.A., it’s going back and forth and everyone stays on it and then right at the end we score when we need to and the defense gets a stop when we need to. You learn from Buffalo in the loss. You learn from Philly in the loss. You learn from Germany in the loss as much as those moments that you remember are the driving forces, along with the success. So I think just so much of these years are situational things, not maybe one play. But that’s the great thing about this football. I’m excited to go to practice today just because you know the level of intensity and commitment they’re going to bring to each play that they’re trying to execute.”
(We know rumors are always out there. Your name has come up in association with the Carolina Panthers. Are you aware of that? Or do you consider that flattering?) – “It’s not flattering. It’s more humbling. I remember why I got into coaching. So when all this stuff comes up, it’s pretty cool. But the minute you worry about your goals and where you want to go, you forget, like for me, how lucky I am to be here today. So all that stuff’s cool, but I truly enjoy every day here and that’s the cool part. And it’s one of those where I’m a walk-on from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Every day of my life, I remember it. So those things pretty cool, but it’s not going to affect today.”
