Mike McDaniel – November 18, 2024
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Monday, November 18, 2024
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(With RB Raheem Mostert, Raheem had the hip injury and then kind of maybe limited participation in the game. Is he OK and is it something that we have to be concerned about?) – “He came out positive. It kind of adjusted our plan of action through the game as well as I think De’Von’s (Achane) play merited some extra snaps that we were kind of anticipating being a little more level. But he came out of the game good, he’s a warrior and fought through it to make a play on third down for us and stay involved. So I’m expecting him to have a positive week this week.”
(How’s RB De’Von Achane handling this workload? Obviously, it started off where he was getting a lot of touches and now again.) – “I think we have the creative challenge of having a fully tooled backfield. So you go into a game with kind of like an outline of how you think things, the ball will be spread out amongst them, but then also leave room for adjustment as we communicate directly – myself and Eric Studesville – and adjust for in-game play. I think De’Von was really at the top of his game yesterday, was doing some things on the field that – there’s a lot of plays that he made maybe weren’t the 40-yarders that he’s broken in his career, but were seven-yard gains that could have been minus-three. There was a nine-yard gain that could have been a two-yard gain. He was really playing well, so in those situations we kind of lean on the hot hand, so to speak, and I think he’s really made it difficult in in-game situations, the last two in particular, to take him off the field, but we try to leave that room for guys to decide for us during the game on how much play-time they’ll get and respond appropriately.”
(We’ve seen LB Chop Robinson have an uptick in his counting stats the last month or so, what would you say has contributed to his jump in his production?) – “I think it’s a guy that’s a football guy that has a skillset for pass rush disruption that’s very unique and natural. And so understanding the winning edge in the National Football League has to do with the small details of snap count anticipation of pass rush adjustment based upon a tackle’s set. All those things, he’s found a way to disrupt the passer for us which is exactly what the doctor ordered and the right time. Now, for talented players in the National Football League, it’s always a step-by-step process where you find ways to make plays and then once you are making plays or you’re creating disruption, then you have to find a way to impact the game once people devote the appropriate attention, which always comes when you’re making an impact on the game. So it’s important for him to continue to take advantage of every opportunity given to him, or that he has available to him, in situations that he is just pass rushing the tackle. And any player that’s a good player, and especially one like Chop (Robinson) where he has ambitions to be great, you have to anticipate the next step where you have to find production when they start devoting more attention to you which is the natural progression in things. And when someone devotes extra attention to Chop, he needs to be productive in those situations and then his teammates have to take advantage of the extra space when you’re devoting – whether that is a half-back getting out late because he’s trying to chip his way out or the turn, the guard getting out to the tackle to provide help which in turn gives some lightness in protection internally. All those things play off each other, so we’ll have to take his positive plays, make more positive plays and have counters to the natural attention that he’ll start receiving when you put back-to-back, or three-game stretches or four-game stretches together with production.”
(Fans got used to seeing those big, home run plays your first two years, and now more recently we’re seeing these long-sustained drives like we saw yesterday. Is that more of a philosophical change in terms of game control? Or is that just a byproduct of something else?) – “I think offensively, you’re trying to score points and it’s important to take advantage of what the defense presents. When you have some offensive production, or sustained offensive production, specifically with last year, I think we were No. 1 in yards from Week 1 to the last week of the season, you’re going to get offseason attention and people are going to have a different plan for you because opponents get paid, too. I think I’m very proud and very proud of our offensive unit when they’re able to sustain those drives. I think we had as many 14-plus play scoring drives last game as we did the entire year previous and that’s something that we’ve been talking about since the start of the offseason in conjunction with forecasting how do we win elimination games? How do you win down the stretch of the season? You have to adjust to what is being presented to you and people have different plans of actions and once people put two-high conservative and/or two-man coverages against your offense, until you’re able to take advantage of that through the quarterback extending plays or throwing shorter to space and staying efficient and maximizing those gains with YAC. Until you prove that you’re able to execute and have games like that where you don’t punt the ball, you’re going to get that type of defense. In the National Football League, in all three phases, once a formula has been put out there, coaching is generally – coaching and playing is good enough where people will identify that you’re struggling against that and force you to beat that. So it’s an important part of a winning formula for all three phases to be able to win in whatever type of fashion necessary. So I think that is something that has been on the forefront of our guys’ minds in terms of we’re finding different ways to execute and move the ball down the field and score points, and I think that’s an important part of the process when you’re talking about a winning formula for big games and elimination games in particular, which is what we’re trying to grow to.”
(How did OL Isaiah Wynn look last week? Any chance he plays on Sunday?) – “There were no setbacks, it looked good. I’m having to be pragmatic with – when he comes back, I want him to stay back so we’ll be working through that as the week progresses based upon our feedback from him, from his field work. Hoping to have a week like we did last week because it was a good week.”
(I was going to ask if you anticipated any movement in terms of windows opening, activations off the illness list?) – “There’s a lot of possibilities right now, and you’re approaching a two game in 10-day stretch or whatever the math is, I can’t remember, so there will be a lot of fluctuation. We do have some guys that are approaching the readiness, but we also have some stuff to iron out with the roster. There’s a lot of to be determined, and when I say a lot there’s like at least a handful of guys that of variance that we have to work through in the coming days.”
(QB Tyler Huntley is one of the guys, he’s now eligible. You guys have only two quarterbacks on the roster. Is it important for his elevation just so that arms don’t get tired during that stretch?) – “I think the taxation on the arms in this portion of the season through the practice week isn’t necessarily the biggest mover of the needle. We’re trying to be pragmatic with his arm to make sure that he’s a fully tooled quarterback when he’s back. We’re feeling better about that. I think ultimately, it’s important to have three guys over a long stretch of time, but in the short term, we’ll adjust by the needs of the team for sure.”
(Going back a question before about the changing the approach to offense. How has that impacted you as a playcaller, but maybe even – this phrasing might be off – but force you to grow a little bit as a playcaller?) – “Definitely, I think I’m right in step with players. In the National Football League, if you’re not getting better, tick, tick, tick. There’s too much competition; you have to continue to evolve and that includes myself. There’s a lot to learn. I don’t know the recourse – I can extrapolate or forecast, but I don’t know the recourse of having explosive plays and the offense we did last year until you’re actually in it and seeing how people defend. I have to, I think every year, adjust to players, and defensive presentations have been a unique necessity for evolution, as well as our roster has different assets and we have different guys to get the ball to. All of those things, you’re trying to find the flow within your particular unit. I think what the players have done a great job with and our offensive coaching staff in general is identifying the things in the game that they can control, that they can get better at. Overall, I think we’ve done a little bit better job of putting them in position for success, and as a result guys have risen to the occasion and found their success through technique and fundamentals that have been emphasized. I think that is kind of across the board, as plainly as I could put it, that is the game that we all are trying to play. That’s identifying weaknesses in our game and making them strengths and continuing an evolution in how we play football so we continue to position ourselves to win whatever type of game possible in whatever fashion. You just don’t have the liberty of saying, ‘Hey, it’s OK that we lost,’ because no one cares about that. You have to find ways to win. The more ways we find to have success, the better suited we are to adhere to the needs of the team which is maybe to not turn the ball over and score 17 points one week and then we might need 30 the next week. That’s complementary football that’s always evolving.”
(Is it something that you immediately talked about at the end of last season, something that developed through training camp and the way the season began kind of cemented that thinking?) – “We were all very aware, and I think we were talking about it as we were hitting the exit interviews last year. I think there’s probably some quotes you can grab from Tyreek Hill; he was talking about the necessity for 10-play drives and to be able to own the ball versus teams that it would behoove us to do that. And then once we started playing games this year, the adversity was the opportunity of losing Tua (Tagovailoa) for a little bit and then having to play a different style of football to play to the defense and that gives you benefits that plays into the stuff that we were already emphasizing. I thought that this season has played out and forced our hand of something that we all knew we needed to prove upon. Then it becomes on the coaches to have the right points of emphasis and the players to take those points, focus on them, practice them and then execute them in games. It’s been on our minds since the season ended, and it’s good to see a lot of work come to fruition and be able to execute for the very reason of games might be that way where you might be in the second half and the opposing team makes a couple of plays and they stay on the field and you need to own the ball, not turn it over, and score points. We were able to do that, not because we were hoping yesterday, but a lot of work went into that to be able to prepare ourselves to be able to come through for the team in that way.”
(I wanted to ask you about the run game. You guys had a stretch where you were one yard shy of rushing for 150 for three straight games and now it’s kind of 60-yard performances the past couple of weeks. Is that a byproduct of the injuries you’re sustaining to offensive line, defensive game planning, defensive game plans? What’s happening with the run game?) – “I think it’s kind of twofold; there has been some guys getting healthy at positions offensively and we’ve had some injuries, that for sure plays a part, but I think more so when defenses are presenting themselves in a certain way and they are also giving you easy completions maybe in the shorter higher percentage area of the field, in that first five yards, if you’re able to execute appropriately with protection, quarterback reads, and receiver eligibles, you can exchange some run plays for some quick game, or quick dropback pass plays. If you’re efficient enough with that, you can kind of deliver on what the run game gives you in pass versions. You get the ball in space. Julian Hill had a couple great examples where he catches a checkdown at five yards and gets 11. I kind of look at offense just in general that way that you can have a run tonality to your pass game and the only thing you supplement are the opportunities to have some more big gains like the 30-yarder that popped in the third quarter I believe, which affects your average and gets your yards up. When you don’t get as many opportunities at running the ball because of play calls, you limit those opportunities but you open up other opportunities if you’re doing low-cost, low risk pass plays based upon your players execution, because they’re not turning the ball over. It’s not a bunch of incompletions, you’re not forcing your hand. You’re kind of attacking the defense in the ways that they’re telling you to attack them, and that’s kind of the biggest reason of disparity in numbers is I really haven’t called as many run plays and it’s not because we can’t. It’s because what I’m watching and how defenses are trying to stop us.”
