Frank Smith – January 4, 2024
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Thursday, January 4, 2024
Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith
(Did you see anything encouraging yesterday from RB Raheem Mostert in terms of cutting or the things he needs to do play? Or is it too early for you to even know?) – “Through the walkthrough we had yesterday, he was working on his stuff. But I mean, ultimately, yesterday for us, we’re getting ready for the game. With all the guys, everyone who’s working through things, it’s more about for us, the mental side of the preparation for the game and what we’re trying to do. So today is really our day where we’ll get on the grass and be able to do things. But when it comes time at the end of the year, it’s a process for every guy that’s working through things. You can feel very optimistic with the guy all the way through Friday and then all of a sudden, how Friday goes dictates a lot of our stuff. So for us, it’s a three-day process to get to the game and today is the most important day as we focus on our work on the grass.”
(With WR Jaylen Waddle, is he a guy where, so long as he can’t make it worse, 80 percent of Jaylen is better than maybe 100 percent of somebody else? Is that what you think about him as a player?) – “I mean, it’s hard to put exact percentages on performance and stuff like that. When guys feel they’re good enough to play, have gone through the process with our training room, and understand the game plan and can execute it, we feel fully confident in those guys being able to execute. You have a process to get the players ready for the game where they feel confident, they feel healthy enough to go. And when guys feel good enough to go and they can make an impact and do their job, then we have full confidence in the situation we’re going to put them in and our attack.”
(How much does it change the offensive gameplan if RB Raheem Mostert and WR Jaylen Waddle are both out?) – “I wouldn’t really say – it’s not like we drastically go, well we can’t do this or do that it. It just makes us have to know with certain variables where we maybe move guys in different spots or have maybe a different concept that someone does maybe a little bit better if they’re going to be potentially up in their place. But I mean, it’s not like all of a sudden you remove part of your offense. It’s more of you just go, ‘Okay, how do we maybe move a guy here?’ Or you move maybe Tyreek (Hill) to another side, or maybe we use a different personnel group. So I think it’s just more of how you shift things and you try and always put guys in the best position. As we’re going through the week, we make sure we have different concepts, different things that attack different parts of the defense for what our guys do their best.”
(What does the Bills defense do uniquely, if anything?) – “They play very well together. They’re a very well-connected defense, well-coached. They understand what they’re defending, how they’re going to defend it. They understand their opponent. So overall, they just do a very good job just knowing their system and the intent. Similarly to what we try and do, you teach the why and the how. Then you have a plan for offense. You have a plan for attack, they have a plan for the defense. You see a very-well coached team with guys that play hard and it’ll be a very good challenge for us on Sunday night.”
(Given the circumstances yesterday, are you expecting WR Tyreek Hill to be able to get back out there with you today?) – “I mean, how about all that, right? The first thing that goes through my mind was, I hope everyone’s okay and everything goes well … (inaudible) But yeah, we’ll work through all that. It seems like everything was fine. He’s the best. I mean, just as far as how he goes through the game, his competitive nature, how he pushes things. I’m sure with him, it’s going to be completely – everything’s going to work itself out and today, we’ll figure everything out working up to the game. But I’m just glad like, with one of those situations, it’s one of those where you’re like, the first thing is you find out and make sure everyone’s okay.”
(There’s been steady snaps for TE Julian Hill. Has the quality of blocking that he’s given you been at such a level that he’s very much in your mind in terms of a role, whether it’s what it’s been or expanded?) – “Yeah, just his physicality, his commitment to his process to go to the game and getting better each week. I mean, he’s really done a good job from getting here in the spring to now and each week he’s growing. He asks excellent questions. That’s been something I’ve noticed about him. When you have a young player who’s asking very advanced questions, you know that his process to get to that question, you’re like ‘wow, you’ve really thought about all the things,’ and that’s kind of how he’s played. He loves playing the game, he loves playing physical. Always with the tight end group, big physical guys with a complete skillset is always huge. So we’ve been very pleased with him so far.”
(Has TE Durham Smythe improved his receiving skills?) – “It’s not like he’s improved them. I think it’s just more opportunities. The biggest thing is, when you have the guys that you’d say initially are ‘blocking skillsets,’ sometimes they’re overlooked in the passing game and they can find those holes in between zones, and they can catch it and get yards. Guys who are physical after contact can get even more yards off that. So I think it’s more opportunities and you can’t say enough about the guy. What a great part of our program, I mean, just an unbelievable tough-minded person who is just one of the guys that you love coming and coaching because the way he approaches everything is so professional.”
(As an offshoot of that, is TE Durham Smythe’s increased receiving numbers the last few weeks a byproduct of you guys consciously wanting to get him more involved? Or is it a case of taking what the defense is giving you?) – “A lot of it’s just what the defense is giving you. The guys are in position as you deploy them in the concepts and sometimes if you’re the primary, you get covered and other times the ball can get checked down to other options. So I just think it’s more of as the coverage and we go through the attack, sometimes when guys defend the deep part of the field, they’re going to give you the underneath part of the zones. Especially last week, they were trying to defend the deep part of the field, and the underneath stuff sometimes becomes open. Guys like Durham thrive in that area, Alec (Ingold) as well, and then all the tight ends. If you catch a checkdown in between zones, or you catch a vertical in between zones and you can stay on the move, that’s where you can get some good production.”
(You’ve had three games now where you’ve needed to win a shootout: LA (Chargers), start of the season, Buffalo and then last week. One of those times, the offense was there the entire duration. The second time it was there and then there was a dropoff. What’s it going to take if you have to win a shootout against Buffalo to make sure that 60 minutes is in line with where the offense needs to be?) – “Well, it’s a good question because I don’t think you can go in with a mindset of this is going to be what’s necessary. It’s more of you approach each moment like each moment is the most important. If you look at the entirety of the situation, the natural human self will take you to too many conclusions and too many possibilities. Then that leads to thinking you need to do more when reality you just stay in the moment. You realize you need to maximize this moment. You’re so in tune to what is necessary now. Then stack them. So the minute you start thinking – like go back to college, I have a C in a class and all of a sudden I need an A on this exam to save myself because I don’t want to hear my dad giving me hell, then all of a sudden you start pressing, you start thinking about things and all of a sudden you come out with a B-minus and you’re like, damn. Because all of a sudden you made a result for yourself as opposed to, ‘no, what do you really want to do?’ If I want to get that result, I focus on making sure each moment is at my best and making sure that I stay now, because the result you seek will come through the process of deliberately staying in the now. And I think that’s the most important thing we try to strive around here is just our intent each day, each moment. And I think that allows you to bank those reps for the future. If every moment you’re playing is of that intent, the highest level of competition, do you take that to each day, each moment of what you’re doing? Because this one play might not seem like a whole lot, but then what if we call it in a game and it got 30 yards? Did you all play together or something? That is how you approach those moments. I think that’s something that I know Mike really strives for with all of us on offense. Stay in the moment.”
(Was there a common thread between the Buffalo and Baltimore games that you guys didn’t meet that moment? It got too big maybe for some of your guys?) – “I don’t think it got too big. It’s easy to sit back and say what’s the correlation between the two times and try to find the similarities, but there’s different variables at play. That was a different point in the season coming off a huge win versus Denver and then now, this week, at Baltimore was a different set of circumstances. As we go through the different games and different moments, it’s learning from them, because now as we’re getting into this game and hopefully the future, it’s just going to be now staying with that and making sure all thing things we’ve learned throughout the season we can maximize one at a time. But yeah, that’s the hard part. You don’t know what is going to be expected on Sunday. You can’t forecast it. All you can forecast is my individual job and making sure I maximize it as we go forward in the game.”
(How has OL Robert Hunt looked in his uptick in participation?) – “feel really good about everyone in their progression towards trying to make it back to the game. The big thing will be is the summation of the whole week. We feel very optimistic with everyone in their buildup. And today and tomorrow will be the most important days to see if we can get him available for Sunday. But he’s been working his tail off to try and get back and we’re hopeful.”
(A little change of pace question, but I’m doing something on what people have overcome in their careers to reach their level of success. Is there anything you look at when you look at your path to here that you’ve had to overcome or master to get to where you are?) – “I mean, it’s one of those where you could say – I just feel so fortunate so many times. I never really looked at anything as I had to overcome something. My whole life has been trying to – I walked on in college and had to prove my worth there. It worked out really well. Then my senior year I was a team captain on one of the greatest teams at our university. That relationship I had with my head coach allowed me to get a graduate assistant job. When our o-line coach left to go to Arizona, I got very fortunate. I got the job at my alma mater. And then I got to work the second year on defense, which was invaluable, because so many bases of what you learn. I went to a small 1-AA school, Butler, for four years. A lot of people would say I left division one, but it was the greatest thing ever because I didn’t have the hard recruiting schedule that the division one guys had, so it allowed me to go claw and scratch my way into NFL buildings and just go watch tape and learn and ask questions. Then me being a nuisance, I developed a relationship with the guys in New Orleans. When they had an opening, they asked me if I would take a $10,000 pay cut to come stuff binders and break down tape and all that. I was like, I’ll do it for free. Are you kidding me? (laughter) And then I was fortunate enough to work for a staff that two months prior to that won the Super Bowl. You go through it, and I went to Chicago. We were not successful in the win-loss category, but I met great guys who I learned so much of how to teach people, reach people, what works, what doesn’t. Go to Oakland, kind of put it together. And then three years of Pro Bowlers. Then I left to go to L.A. and (it was) unbelievable. Rashawn (Slater) and Corey (Linsley) and Matt (Feiler) and Bryan (Bulaga) and Storm (Norton) and all the guys, I couldn’t say enough. The year before they were really starting over. Four or five o-line spots were open. How are we going to rebuild this thing and do all that stuff? I was like I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. Then we get here, and it’s just, I don’t know. What do you look at to overcome? I don’t know, that’s just kind of from the beginning. My high school coach, I asked too many questions. Him and I didn’t see eye to eye on some things and that could have been adversity. I just look at it all as I’m the luckiest guy ever. Any situation arises, just stay in the moment. How can I maximize now? It’s not see the challenge of it. It’s see the opportunity within it. I think that’s just been kind of my way the whole way. That hill looks pretty tall. Yeah, but this is easy. Let’s go up this part first, then we’ll get up to that when we get to it. So I mean, I guess I had challenges but I never looked at it (that way). I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for every one of them.”
(How has working for Head Coach Mike McDaniel been for you career?) – “Working with Mike has been a dream come true for me. When you watch someone prior, their body of work, and you just see from afar what he’s done – we have the same agent, Richmond Flowers. He connected us in the summertime. Then to be able to work with him has been awesome because it’s so many principles that you believe in philosophically and love for football that we do every day. We just have such a natural alignment on the way we see so many things. That’s why our communication is so easy and it’s been awesome. To be able to implement it on a grandiose scale within the program, I couldn’t ask for anything better. So the basis of our program is adversity is an opportunity. And this is an unbelievable opportunity. I couldn’t thank Mike every day for allowing me to be a part of it.”
