Matt Burke – November 22, 2017
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Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke
(What are your options at this point at middle linebacker? Do you think that LB Chase Allen played well enough where you stick with him or are you giving a fresh look at LB Mike Hull? And do you expect LB Stephone Anthony to be available this week?) – “A multi-part question. (laughter) Yes, I think all of those guys are in play. Chase did a good job. This is the second time for him being thrust into a starting spot unexpectedly and he really did a good job. He’s got a big head on him that runs and hits and sticks it up in there and stuff. I thought he did a good job. When we’ve asked Mike Hull to fill in and play, he has. We obviously had a plan to use Steph a little bit last week and got him some work. He obviously got a little nicked there in the middle of the game. I think he’s just day-to-day and we’re going to go through the week and see how he is. Chase didn’t do anything to discourage me, the way that he played; but we’re always going to try to find the right fits and the right matchups for all of those guys and how we can utilize them.”
(LB Neville Hewitt being back, has he done enough over his NFL career where you think maybe he could play?) – “Sure, why not? He’s played ball for us. I’m proud of ‘Nev’ and the way he’s worked to get himself back. When we released Neville in preseason and he had a tough deal when he got banged up – it was kind of a tough timing issue because we couldn’t really hold a spot for him. Literally, the last thing I told him when he left was ‘Get your body right, get yourself in shape, keep working and there will be another opportunity.’ I’m kind of proud of the way he’s worked himself back into the mix and I’m excited to see him get a chance.”
(Where on your list of priorities is making Patriots QB Tom Brady uncomfortable in the pocket?) – “Sure. If you’ve got an answer to that, that would be No. 1 on my priority list. (laughter)”
(Talk in general about the challenge of going up there, but first QB Tom Brady and the importance of that.) – “Going against Tom Brady, there’s nothing easy about it. If you allow him to just sit back there and be comfortable and don’t affect him in any way, obviously he’s going to have a level of success. That comes in different ways. It comes with, again like everything, trying to get pressure as best we can, whether that’s blitzing or getting our rush. He’s seen it all, so you try to give him some different looks maybe and showing some things that he hasn’t, just to give him half a pause and make him have to decipher something. I think making him uncomfortable isn’t just from a rush standpoint. I think we’ve got to try to find a way to … I don’t think he’s going to get that rattled. I don’t know that that’s in his nature; but we have to do as much as we can to try to get him that much more uncertain, as much as we can.”
(Isn’t the ideal scenario getting to QB Tom Brady with four rushers?) – “It helps. It’s like anything else. Any time you are adding into the rush from pressure, you’re taking away from your coverage element and you’re exposing some things back there. He’s really, really good at seeing that happen and seeing that coming. It’s difficult to fool him on pressures and they always have answers built in – quick throws and outlets – for him to get the ball out. You’re going to have to pick and choose your spots on where the pressures come. Yes, ideally if we can get pressure with a two-man rush, that would be great too. Then we can have nine guys in coverage. (laughter) The less rushers you have to bring and the more you can dedicate to coverage, because they do some different things in the pass game obviously and they have some weapons; but yes, that’s ideal.”
(When you went back and watched the film of that last drive against Tampa Bay, what was the one thing that stood out to you?) – “I was disappointed, obviously. I thought we played okay up until that point in spurts, and there were a couple of other things. We just didn’t make a play. I always examine myself first. A couple of calls I wish I had treated differently. To be honest with you, they got the ball back with 3 minutes left. They had one or two timeouts plus the 2-minute warning; so for me, I didn’t get into 2-minute mode. I didn’t think fast enough as a caller. I wasn’t sure they were going to just start opening it up and cutting it loose. In hindsight, they didn’t have a lot of success running the ball on us, so I feel like they didn’t think … In my mind, I was like they may be conservative and run or screen here early, to try to get the drive going before they really got into it; but they kind of came right out and opened it up and were going empty and stuff. Early on, we gave up that one play up the seam the very first play. I was literally thinking screen there, to be honest with you. There were a couple of calls that I wish … Not that they were bad calls per se but my mindset was kind of a little different. Honestly, ‘Fitzy’ (Tampa Bay QB Ryan Fitzpatrick) made two good plays. The throw on the sideline, that was a coverage we hadn’t played all game and ‘Fitzy’ kind of got out of the pocket a little bit and hit that comeback on the sideline. ‘Tank’ (Cordrea Tankersley) is closing back to it and it’s a good throw and catch on the sideline. Then the long one they hit right up the seam, it’s the same thing. We’re closing the pocket on him. That was the most disappointing thing for me was just not getting that stop. We obviously had been battling all day and got momentum back a little bit when we scored. I don’t think there was a man on the sideline that didn’t feel like if we got the ball back to our offense, we were going to be able to take it out. I always examine myself and I’m always critical of that, so I was kind of disappointed that I didn’t make a perfect call, or a little bit better call, to win a couple of those downs. That’s just what I told the team – the defense. We have to find a way to get a stop there. Somebody has to make that play. I told them it’s all of us. I may not make the perfect call and those guys have to help bail me out sometimes or I may be able to call us into something and (bail them out). There were about three or four plays that somebody has to find a way to make a play. We don’t let them out of the pocket and we get them down in a sack or ‘Tank’ gets that ball on the sideline, or we pop that ball up on the long one that got us down there. To be honest with you, the thing I was probably most proud about was after the long play, and they went into more of a ‘run the ball out’ (mode), ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) makes a great play – smart – trying to get the guy out of bounds to stop the clock. And even on the third down play, I thought we were close to drawing some holding calls, which would have stopped the clock too on a third-down run when they’re trying to set (the field goal) up. Even after the long play and they were obviously in field goal range at that point and they were just trying to run a couple of plays, I thought our guys really had good situational awareness of attacking the ball, trying to draw a penalty to stop that clock. ‘X’ is trying to ride (Doug) Martin out of bounds at the very end there on the second-down play. I was happy that they kept trying to play through the situation at the end. I’m always critical of myself so I wish I had called some better stuff.”
(Was there any thought given to letting them score because the clock was upside down on you?) – “Well, that’s not my decision. No. The only time you would possibly even think about that would have been after they got that long seam route into field goal range. We still had the one timeout and like I said, I thought if you go back and look at the second and the third downs, we had a chance to get the clock stopped. Even if we hold them, if they call that play out of bounds and it’s 50 seconds left when we get the ball back and we need a field goal … I don’t know that we ever got truly into that mode. That wasn’t discussed with me.”
(Your linebackers have been through a rough year – LB Raekwon McMillan, LB Lawrence Timmons and LB Rey Maualuga – LB Chase Allen has been told I guess at the last minute twice that he’s a starter. Have you seen evidence that that’s had any effect on this group at all? Realistically, you would think that it would.) – “Not really. They’re kind of an interesting crew. I don’t know if you guys spend a lot of time talking to them but they’re pretty even-keeled, straight across the board. Sometimes I want more of a reaction out of them than I get. They all just sort of shrug their shoulders. I don’t know if it’s just because for two years now, that’s sort of been the nature of that group or what. They just kind of go ‘Okay, I’m up?’ Or ‘who is playing this week?’ Or ‘what am I doing?’ Literally, none of them even blink or hesitate about things. We give all of those guys work and we prepare them all. All of the ‘backup players,’ we prepare them all to be ready to play. That’s obviously a mantra that we preach team wide about next man up and being prepared. They’re pretty nonplussed about the whole thing. They just kind of shrug it off and go on and play ball.”
(Without the distractions, would they have performed better? Can you say that?) – “I can’t say that. Who can say? If we have a season without any distractions then I’ll let you know. (laughter)”
(In terms of LB Stephone Anthony being weaved in last week, was it a function of wanting to reduce LB Lawrence Timmons’ work load at all, questions of if he’d be better in coverage or merely something Anthony showed in practice?) – “Probably a combination of all of that. My thing to (Head Coach) Adam (Gase), I’ve been watching Steph on the scout team and running around and I really like the way he has been practicing and showing. It wasn’t necessarily just Lawrence, but I felt my argument for getting him active and involved is that he’s a big, young player that can run and hit and do some of those things and have some fresh legs. I wouldn’t say it was directly in terms of Lawrence, but just the group in general, I felt like it would benefit that crew to have somebody take some snaps off some of that group and just be a fresher athlete that can go out and do some coverage stuff and close some space, and hopefully alleviate some of the things. He was doing a good job. You saw the third down he had sort of in the high red where he closed on the back. It was really a little bit of both. I don’t think it was specific to Lawrence. It was a little bit of the group and then me just watching Anthony and (thinking) we could use a guy that can do some of the things he can do athletically.”
(There’s been this thought that DE Cameron Wake is not human, that he’s a robot from outer space or something. He can’t get tired. Forty snaps two weeks in a row and no bye week, is he human? Is he susceptible, just like the rest of them, to fatigue?) – “Is that a real question? Is he human? (laughter) Yes, he’s human.”
(Is he human? It’s very simple – human or not human.) – “(laughter) I haven’t done any scientific research on that. You worry about (fatigue) with all of those guys. I haven’t seen … I’ve mentioned that as we’ve been here throughout the whole season. We’re aware of all of our guys, especially our veteran guys … Similar to the same question I just answered about the linebacker room and guys that are playing a lot of reps. You’re aware of that with Cam (Wake) at all times. I haven’t, truthfully, seen a downturn in his play. He’s been doing fine and doing everything we ask of him. I’m not watching him going ‘Man, he stinks. Can we get him off the field?’ I think we try, through the week, to handle those guys and keep them fresh. I think in terms of him being not human, I just think he’s one of the best – him and (Ndamukong Suh are two of the best I’ve been around in terms of using the week to take care of their bodies to prepare. He knows how old he is but he knows what he’s done throughout his career to prepare and put him in this position, and I think he continues to do that. I have utmost faith in his preparation during the week to get himself ready to play however many snaps we ask him to play. If I really saw a decline, or whoever saw a decline in his play, then we’d address that.”
(How do you see LB Kiko Alonso’s performance in coverage, especially given that New England TE Rob Gronkowski could be running against your defense this Sunday?) – “I would assume that Gronkowski is going to be going against our defense this Sunday. (laughter) I think Kiko does a good job. We put a lot on Kiko. A lot. We ask him to do a lot of things for us. I think he ends up in tough positions at times. We put a lot on him to do. I honestly think that he’s been pretty good. He probably had a couple of squirrelly busts last week but in general, he’s done a really good job. I’m always aware. Like I said, just between mentally and matchup wise – a lot of things – we put a lot on Kiko Alonso. He does a lot for this defense. He does a lot for me as a play caller. He gets a lot of people lined up. He makes a lot of checks. We always basically put him on the hardest matchup possible, period. We’re going to put him in spots that are tough for him at times and he’s going to have his moments but I’m happy with the way that he’s performed so far, for sure.”
