Darren Rizzi – June 5, 2017
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Monday, June 5, 2017
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(Has WR Jakeem Grant caught every punt that has been kicked his way this spring?) – “Has he caught every single one? No. He has not caught every single one, but he has certainly looked much improved. The nice thing right now in camp is we have two punters – a righty and a lefty – which I’m not going to say was purposeful, but it’s great to have a guy from each side and getting as much work as possible. He’s out there every day. He was a little disappointed … He just looked at me like I was crazy because our JUGS machine – when it’s wet at the end of practice, you can’t shoot the JUGS – and he was looking at me like, ‘What are we doing?’ because he had been doing it every day. He has been catching a ton of balls. (He) looks a lot more comfortable back there. Again, we’ll see how that progresses moving forward. But (he is) certainly a lot more comfortable than he was a year ago. He’s certainly still a work in progress, but looking good.”
(We saw WR Drew Morgan back for returns today. He did just a few at Arkansas. Do you think he’s well equipped for that if you need him, and what else can he do on special teams?) – “What we’ve been doing is every day we’re working more and more guys in, trying to get as many people as possible to fill the role. Some days we’ve had Kenyan Drake back there, Senorise Perry, Drew Morgan – we mix a bunch of different guys. We obviously know Jarvis (Landry) can do it. Kenny Stills has done it before in his career. Drew is one of those guys that had done it in college, not a lot of reps in games, had done it a lot in practice – kind of like Jarvis, to be honest with you, and Jakeem both coming in. We’re really working Drew at a bunch of different spots right now. He’s working a little personal protector on the punt team, working a little bit of gunner. Really what we’re doing with all of the rookies right now is finding out what their skill set is and what their positions are. (We are) working a lot of techniques stuff right now, a lot of fundamentals, trying to get a lot of those guys caught up on things that they haven’t done before. A lot of these rookies have never done what we’re doing before. But he’s a guy that can definitely … It looks like he’s fairly comfortable back there, more than most. We’ll see moving forward how he does as well.”
(You had a fair amount of in-game responsibilities beyond special teams last year, game management stuff. Is that still the case in 2017?) – “As far as I know. (laughter)”
(Did you do anything this offseason to study tendencies, stuff like that?) – “Yes. What we do every offseason is we look at a bunch of different situations. We really go back and look at all the reviewable plays. That’s one of the things that I’m charged with during the game – myself, (Assistant Special Teams Coach) Marwan Maalouf. We go back and look at all the reviewable plays from last year. That’s one example. All the plays we lost review or won review, we go back and look at all kind of stuff. We look at a bunch of different 2-minute situations. We go back and look at a bunch of ones we thought we might have played different. We go back and look at good timeouts, bad timeouts, a bunch of those different things. We spend a good part of the offseason looking at a whole bunch of things in terms of situational football. There’s a bunch of different special teams things that come up – as we all know – situationally. So yes, we spend a lot of time during the offseason doing that.”
(Was there one or two areas of improvement you saw that you’ve enacted those changes or will enact those changes this year?) – “We try to play those reviews out as if we were live, in-game, because you don’t have that much time to make a decision. Ironically enough last year, we didn’t have a ton of reviewable plays (because) just the way the games transpired, and then we had two big ones in one game. We had like a drought for a long, long time where we didn’t have any. And then all of a sudden it was the Jets game where we had the Dion Sims non-touchdown turned touchdown, and then we reviewed the spot on the third down, made it a fourth down and they didn’t get it. It ended up being two huge plays. And then all of a sudden, we went into a drought again. You never know when they’re going to come up. So we try to practice those as if they’re live. We’ll put them on the big screen and say, ‘Right here, are you thinking review, not review? Challenge, not challenge?’ You try to practice as much as you can. It’s hard, because it’s hard to do it in practice. You can’t really practice reviewing a challenge in practice. With that as well – like we’re practicing right now – myself, I’ll watch the offensive and defensive plays and look at the sideline plays and the end zone plays, and you’re saying to yourself … You’re always trying to work yourself, because you have to practice it like anybody else. You’re saying to yourself as you’re watching it live, ‘Is that one I would’ve reviewed? Is that the spot I would’ve reviewed? Are his feet inbounds? Was it a catch through the end zone?’ All those different things that you can review. It requires a lot of film work and really trusting your instincts. Fortunately – knock on wood – we’ve been pretty good with it in the last couple years, and hopefully it continues.”
(How much of a factor was special teams last year in terms of WR Rashawn Scott being active ahead of WR Leonte Carroo late in the season? What exactly can Leonte do well on special teams as far as what units he’s on and can do well?) – “I’ll start with Rashawn Scott. He’s a guy that progressively had gotten better throughout last year. We watched him all through camp and then through the season on the practice squad. He’s a guy that was arrow up all year, always practiced hard, always felt like he was on the verge of breaking into the 53(-man roster). We felt like at the end of the year, we went for a little bit of a change up those last few games. We thought Rashawn gave us a little bit more at that point than Carroo did. It was obviously a joint decision between the offensive staff, myself and (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase. Moving forward, you come into the offseason like this, everybody is at a clean slate. Leonte Carroo – I just call him Carroo; I don’t even mess with his first name. I don’t know why I’m trying. Carroo is moving a lot better. He has actually looked like he has really taken the offseason seriously in terms of movement and moving around. Like I said, we have those guys doing the same stuff everyone is doing right now. They’re all working the same types of things. Carroo, I think, played about 100 plays last year roughly – give or take a few on special teams. Obviously, he had a little more experience than Rashawn, but I was really happy with the way Rashawn played. It’s a good battle right now. We got a battle going on at that receiver position, in that room. Just like the guys we added – Isaiah Ford and the undrafted guys. Right now, those guys are all competing for those fourth, fifth, sixth spots, whatever you want to call it. They’re all in the mix right now.”
(A question for you in your role as Associate Head Coach and somebody who has been here for a while: If this team is better than last year, would it be because it has got more talent? Would it be because of system or because it executes better? What would you say?) – “D: All the above. (laughter) I’m not trying to be funny. It’s one of those, I think year after year … There has been … You mentioned the years I’ve been here. I’ve been on, I think, teams that were 7-9 that might’ve had more talent than we had last year. I think last year, we played well when we had to within the game. We played well when we had to within the week. I think Coach Gase did a hell of a job last year of once we started off the beginning of the season 1-3, of tightening the ship around here and getting guys, bringing them in a little bit, reeling them in a little bit, and we run off a bunch of games there. Did we acquire some talent? Yes, I think we definitely acquired some talent in the offseason between the draft and free agency, so that has helped us. We kept a lot of our own players. I think a year now in the system with all the players in the program – whether it’s offense … Defensively, we’re still going to have some changes, but there is still a lot of the same terminology, so the guys that (have been) around, there’s not that much that’s going to change. I’m sure (Defensive Coordinator) Matt (Burke) is going to have his own certain stuff that he’s going to do. And then special teams-wise. I think when you’re moving forward from Year 1 to Year 2, that’s going to be a huge factor that the guys have been in. I think where we are right now compared to where we were a year ago systematically, programmatically and organizationally, is heads and tails from where we were. I think all of those things that you mentioned, I think it’s a little bit of everything. I really do. I think that whole thing gathers together, makes a recipe for success moving forward. At the same time, when the season comes, we’re going to have to play well in those games – in those crunch times – and that’s what we did well. You look back … You guys know the thing. You look back at our games last year, and we had big plays at big times. The Rams game, the Chargers game, the Jets game – you go on and on and on about these games we won in the fourth quarter – and the Bills game. You look at all those games where maybe in years past, we didn’t win those games. That’s kind of how I view it from my seat. The couple years we went 7-9 or whatever, we didn’t win those games. We lost those games. This year, we made the plays to win. Guys stepped up for whatever reason. I don’t think it is one thing. I really don’t. I think it’s a combination of things. I think a little bit of it is all the things that you mentioned. They could all factor in, for sure.”
(Do you think winning the close games is a reflection of the players, the coaches?) – “I think it’s a reflection of everybody – winning those close games last year. We didn’t win it one way. It wasn’t like the offense won every game with a 2-minute drive. It wasn’t like the defense held them every … It was something different every week. It was us driving down the field against the Rams to beat them. It was Kiko Alonso intercepting a ball. It was Kenyan Drake running back a kick return. It was Andrew Franks making a field goal with time running (out) up in Buffalo, and then Jay Ajayi having a big run. We did it a different way, and it was different people every week. It wasn’t the same guy. That was the most impressive thing to me. I think that is a combination of coaching and playing. It wasn’t one person.”
(Do you think that’s sustainable, because you look at – over history – those close games tend to even out over the long enough timeline? Do you think this team can go – whatever it was – [8-2] in one-score games?) – “It seemed like my first two years we were always on the short end, so I think we’re still making up for them. (laughter) Do I think it’s sustainable? I do. We have the same people in the building. We’ve added some great pieces to the puzzle. Again, it comes down to playing well in those crunch times. That’s really the bottom line. To me, that’s in any sport. You look at the NBA Finals, you watch the Stanley Cup, you’re watching baseball – whatever it is, it’s playing well in those (games). The talent sometimes at that point evens out. (In) the NFL, there’s a whole bunch of talent. The bottom line is, ‘Who’s playing well? Who’s executing? Who’s making those plays in the fourth quarter, in the times it matters?’ We did that last year. I think moving forward … I think the one thing (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase has done a great job of here during these OTAs is reminding our guys about not being complacent, remember the complacency thing. Everything we got last year we earned. I think he has really done a great job of reminding our players that is a huge factor. I haven’t seen (complacency) at all. I have seen our guys going out every day, working hard. I’ve seen a great work ethic even today out in the rain. We flipped the (practice) scripts around a little bit and threw some curveballs at them. They handled it very well. I really like where we are. I like where our veteran guys are. I like where they’re leading the rookies. This is the first time I can remember in a long time where I’m going out to do drills, and I have the veterans out in front telling the rookies what to do, and I’m standing back being able to watch and evaluate. That’s a comforting thing as a coach, because we have a lot of veteran guys that have been here and know what we’re looking for. That’s a really, really good thing.”
(You teased us with more talented Dolphins teams. What year are you leaning towards?) – “(laughter) Come on now, you know I’m not going to go there. You’re not going to get me to go … You guys have covered the team for a long time. You guys know. We had a lot of teams here in my years – I’ve been here eight years – there have been some teams where we had to win at the end of the season where we didn’t. We had to win some big games that we didn’t. We can probably point to two or three different years. We can sit here and talk about a bunch of different years, and last year we did. Again, going back to what I said before – not to beat a dead horse – but we made plays when we had to last year. We made those plays in the fourth quarter, and in past years we didn’t. That’s what I was getting at.”
(Getting back to WR Jakeem Grant for a moment. You mentioned earlier that he was working with P Matt Darr in the offseason. I know that’s one reason he’s doing better. Can you give us a sense of, for example, how many balls he’s catching a day? Is there anything technique-wise that you’ve done to improve his ball security?) – “One of the biggest things is going back and watching your video, obviously, from the year before. We videotape everything that he does – when we’re allowed to, when the rules allow. He’s watching the videos every day. He goes out, (and) he probably catches about 30-40 balls prior to practice. He probably catches about 10 to 15 within practice, catches another 30 or 40 after practice again. He’s up there. Let’s on average say he’s catching 75 punts a day, either off of a live foot or off of a JUGS machine, simulated punt off a JUGS machine. That’s during now. During the OTAs here, he’ll catch about 750 balls. When you factor in the couple days for minicamp, he’s going to catch roughly somewhere in the vicinity of 1,000 balls, punts here just in the spring and then we bring it to training camp. What has he done differently? I think just the experience. We talked a lot about that last year. It’s just one of those things. Punt returning is one of those things (where) if you haven’t done it before, it’s a very difficult task. It’s not something that’s going to come natural to a lot of people. I’ve seen some great, great, great talented players that couldn’t catch a punt. A bunch of them. Hall of Famers. It wasn’t in their DNA, if you will. It’s one of those deals where it’s a certain practice time. It takes, really, an awful lot of practice time and getting a guy used to it. That’s what he has done. He knew that he couldn’t just take the offseason off and come back in OTAs and pick up where you left off. That’s not how it works. That’s why he got Matt (Darr) down to Texas. That’s why he took it upon himself to work on it all offseason so that he felt like he was continuing his trend of improvement and not having to pick up where he left off or start over or any of those things. I think he has been really mature about it. I think I might’ve mentioned it the last time I talked to you guys: he was the one that told me that he was disappointed in himself in our exit interviews. He really didn’t feel like he put his best foot forward, and that’s why he really went out this offseason and put his mind to it to work at it.”
(With Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke, you’ve been here with him on staff for a year. What have you noticed about him that could possibly translate to becoming a good defensive coordinator?) – “I’ve known Matt a long time. We go way back to when we used to work the Boston College camp way back when I was a college coach. I’ve known him for a while as a person. The first thing I’m going to say is he’s a very intelligent guy. He’s a guy that’s … Obviously, he’s an Ivy League graduate. But more than that, he’s football intelligent – because I’ve known some Ivy League grads that weren’t that football smart either. Nothing against the Ivy League. No shots. (laughter) All kidding aside, he’s a very intellectual guy; but he’s football smart. Great football IQ. I think his relation to the players is great. I watched him last year as a linebacker coach and look what he did with Kiko last year on an individual basis. A guy that came in and maybe a lot of people cast off and he got him back into a leadership role in what he did with him. Watching him individually with his group, watching him associate with the players and watching him with the entire defense, I think his intellect is obviously going to help him in that, his football IQ, his relationship with the players – all those things combined will make him a very good defensive coordinator. There’s no reason for me to believe at all that he’s not going to do a great job and have a lot of success.”
