Duke Riley – December 12, 2023
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Tuesday, December 12, 2023
LB Duke Riley
(How did the whole operation go for you guys with you as the Mike linebacker and the green dot, just can you tell us how that all went down?) – “It went pretty well. A couple of third down calls, it got really loud in there so we kind of had to, I guess you could say signal some of the calls in, but I think it went pretty well. We all got it communicated. they started to do a little hurry-up towards the end of the game and at the end of the second half, I believe. It went well. It’s something I do every day so it’s not like I’m not prepared for it.”
(You mentioned some of the hurry-up late in the game. What do you think went into some of the missed communications that went down in the secondary late?) – “I got to go back and watch the tape. I’ve got to re-watch it again and watch it with my coach and we’ll go from there, but things happen. We’ve just got to be more detailed and have more focus. That’s really it, starting with myself.”
(The thing so far this season has kind of been you guys have beaten yourselves. You haven’t really gotten beat. Do you agree that that was the case last night and is that any better than being outplayed by the opponent?) – “There’s a lot of things that we’ve done to put ourselves in some situations in that game yesterday, but it happens in the NFL. No one’s perfect. I can tell you one thing, there’s no one on this team that wants to make a mistake and everyone wants to play well and do well for each other and we come to work every single day and we work hard. We focus on the day, like we always speak of, focus on the day that’s in front of us and I feel like we do a really good job of that. It’s just sometimes things happen. That’s life. We’re human. We’re not perfect and people make mistakes starting with (me) – I make some as well.”
(Tell me about the mentality of this team because it’s always seemed good. Even last year during the five-game losing streak you guys seemed to keep your heads up. How has it been this season? How was it last night? How is it today?) – “We’ve got a lot of good-character guys on this team so I know one thing, we’re going to learn from this game and it’s just only going to make us better. That’s just like everything we do in life, especially with the guys that we have and the leaders that we have and the captains and leadership that we have on this team. I know that we’re going to look at this game and only get better from it and only make corrections. It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time. No one wants to lose. I know for a fact no one wants to lose in this building. I hate losing. Everyone does. But I know one thing – you learn from every time make a mistake. We have a lot of grown men in this building and a lot of people, like I said, with good character and are going to come back to the drawing board and not point the finger, look at themselves and see what they can do better and improve on, just like myself.”
(What’s the challenge with Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio’s defense of having moving parts? You guys had a lot – you were one of them – of players that probably weren’t envisioned in the role that you maybe played last night. What’s it take to make it work when you have a bunch of guys that are the next man up?) – “I think a lot of guys have been playing ball their whole life, just like myself. And even when I’m not in that role of being an every-down guy like I was last night, I’m always prepared to be in it. I always look at myself like I’m in it. I don’t go to practice and be like, ‘hey, I’m not going to play this week.’ Something could happen at practice and we’ve seen it happen over and over on every team, so the last thing I do is prepare or go into a game thinking that I’m not going to play. I prepare like I’m a starter regardless of the situation and I think a lot of guys do that as well. At practice, we even rotate a lot of guys in just for moments like that. We always give guys reps. We always keep everyone involved and all of our meetings are pretty much – there’s a lot of communication going on, a lot of people make sure everybody’s on the same page. We always do call outs so everyone on the defense is on the same page. We do a lot of individual meetings with just the players and we all get together to make sure that we’re doing the right things and we’re all on the same page. So like I said, people make mistakes and I know one thing, we have the right group of men on this team that’s going to go back to the drawing board and make the corrections, including myself.”
(I’m wondering even when you’re not starting, how vocal of a guy are you with the team and then how much will you go at a time like this when your team maybe needs leaders stepping up and things like that?) – “I love the game so much that I’m probably one of the most – I mean, everyone can tell you I’m probably one of the most vocal guys on the team. I’m always speaking up and being loud and answering questions and standing in there every single day. At practice, I’m always – I learn plays that I see, things that I see. And yeah, it’s just ball, man. I love the game. It’s what I do and my favorite moment is being on the field so I have the most fun out there and communicating is something I’ve done really well throughout my life.”
(I know you guys don’t want to make any excuses for what happened last night, but is part of the explanation missing personnel – S Jevon Holland, LB Jaelan Phillips, LB Jerome Baker?) – “The building and the organization do a great job of selecting the guys that we get on the 53-man roster every year and it’s always next-man-up mentality. We know that. I feel like everyone on the team can make plays regardless. You just have to be out there. If you’re out there and you’re doing your job and you’re focused on the right and you’re detailed, the plays will come to you if you’re just doing your job. Everyone has to play fundamentally sound football and we didn’t do that as well on some plays yesterday and it came back, and as you can tell, we lost the game.”
(When you are missing personnel and the offensive line is probably the best example of this, how tough is it to adjust? You can speak to it on replacing LB Jerome Baker, but how tough is it? I know that’s part of your job, but there’s got to be a level of difficulty there, right?) – “Some guys play different, some guys see things different and they move different. Yeah, you get that. I can’t speak from an offensive perspective because o-line is a totally different thing that I’ve never done – but as a ‘backer, especially a Mike ‘backer, it’s just all about communication. The more you communicate, the better everyone plays and even if you make the wrong call or if you make a call that wasn’t called and everybody is on the right page, it still doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. If you make the wrong call and everybody is playing that play, then you’re not wrong. You just made a different call than you were supposed to. So I think that’s really all it’s about, just overcommunicating, especially when you don’t have the guys like Jevon Holland who is a great communicator in the back end, and (Jerome) Baker who is a great communicator like myself. Just stuff like that. In those situations, it’s all about overcommunicating, making sure that everyone is on the right page and the same page.”
(Last night, you guys for the most part, were able to keep them off the board until those last two drives and on those two drives, they were getting more than 10, 11 yards per play. Was fatigue a factor at that point, do you think?) – “I wouldn’t say fatigue. I would just say details and getting back to the fundamentals and doing what we do. Watching the tape, there’s a lot of things that we go over and talk about every single day. Like I said, it’s just during those moments, you just need to be more detailed and overcommunicate more than you’ve ever done. Starting with me, we have to get better with that.”
(And from the outside looking in, it seems like a kind of difficult loss to swallow. It was such a stunning fashion the way the game ended. Can you see how at least from the outside looking in how hard it might be for a team to get over a loss like this?) – “Yeah, I know from the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out, it’s tough. It was hard on everybody. We don’t expect to lose with the people we have on the field, regardless of who’s out there, to be honest with you. And in that game, it was like a surreal moment. It didn’t feel real, but it happened and at the end of the day, like I said, we have the right men. We’ve got grown men in this building who come to work and guys with great character who are going to get back to the drawing board and learn from everything that we’ve done wrong, and I know that for a fact. We’ve got another game, a division opponent,this weekend and we’re going to focus on each day and we’re going to get better as a team, like we always do.”
