Darren Rizzi – December 21, 2017
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Thursday, December 21, 2017
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(What do you want out of the year over the last two weeks? Obviously you have something to play for still, but are there certain areas where you’d like to still see improvement or want to build for next year? Is there anything you’re looking for?) – “There’s been zero talk about next year. Really the mantra, I know sometimes it gets old with you guys I’m sure, but our ‘one game at a time’ philosophy really hasn’t changed. Obviously, in terms of our approach per week, special teams-wise, we’re always looking to improve. We’re always looking to get better on every phase. There’s plenty of things we need to improve on and have improved on, which is good. I still want to see our guys playing hard, which they have been all year. What I told the players is we’ve got to be a little bit more detail-oriented, in my opinion. I thought last week we played really hard, guys were flying around, we played fast and physical. I think some of our detail stuff, our fundamentals, our technique stuff … We’ve got a lot of young guys playing special teams as well, so for those guys, every week is a chance for them to improve and that’s no different than the team. Until someone tells us we’re out, we’re in. That’s how I look at it.”
(S Michael Thomas didn’t make the Pro Bowl. Patriots WR Matthew Slater, with the great reputation, did. Was that a surprise to you?) – “No, that Matthew Slater made the Pro Bowl, because Matthew Slater is a great special teams player with a great reputation. I think, whether you like it or not, you get into those situations and guys that are from winning organizations that have made the Pro Bowl time and time again are going to be guys that are hard to unseat. I think (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) might have mentioned this, but making that first Pro Bowl is very difficult and then a lot of times what happens is guys are making it over and over again. Matt Slater, I’ve got a ton of respect for Matt Slater as a person and a player; but I think it’s a little bit of an imperfect system when a guy that plays less than half games is in the Pro Bowl. That’s not a knock on Matt Slater. That’s a knock maybe a little bit more on the voting process. Mike Thomas, as you guys all know, I have a very high opinion of him. I think he’s played at a Pro Bowl level this year. As I mentioned last week, you never know how the voting is going to go and we can’t control that.”
(WR Jakeem Grant, his league rankings in punt returns and kickoff returns are pretty good. Has he had a good year in your opinion?) – “To me, he’s been an arrow up the whole year. We’ve talked about this. We weren’t as good in the early parts of the year as I wanted to be in the return game. I really feel like in the last three or four weeks, Jakeem’s really shown us a lot of what he showed in the preseason. I thought he had a really good preseason. I thought we hit a little bit of a lull there in the middle of the year and I think we’ve been really improving in that area. I think his decision making has been better, his fielding the ball has been better. He’s obviously made some big plays. We’ve had a few 20-plus yard returns here the last few weeks. The thing I really like about Jakeem is his approach. His approach in Week 1 and Week 14 is no different. He’s always looking to improve. I’ve said this a million times, I don’t think there’s a guy that works harder at it – the return stuff – than he does. He catches as many balls now as he did in OTAs and he stills works at it every week. I think we’ve improved. I think that’s probably the overall theme of the return game, is it’s been an improvement as the year’s gone on.”
(Do you think if WR Jakeem Grant pops one, if your impression of his year changes because he had that touchdown last year.) – “The return game is funny. That’s why sometimes, I don’t even look at the statistics, because sometimes you can go from 14th to first with two returns. So sometimes I take the statistics with a grain of salt. To me, we needed to be more consistent. He almost popped one last week. We were one guy away from having a big one. We had a pretty good return last week, one guy away from maybe even a bigger play. I think sometimes we get wrapped up into, ‘How many touchdowns did the guy score?’ To me, I’m looking at how effective are we? How efficient are we? That’s more important to me. To me, those are going to come. If you get Jakeem Grant in the open field, he’s eventually going to score. We’ve got to keep getting him in the open field. We’ve got to block better, we’ve got to field better, we’ve got to do all of those things. I think that those plays will come. I think sometimes – coaches too, believe me – we get wrapped up into how many touchdowns does a guy have and all of that. I just want to see him be more consistent and continue to improve and I think he’s done that. I think he’s really improved as the year has gone on.”
(You’ve had three successful onsides kicks on the year, which is an unusually high number. Is there a common theme here for the success in that area?) – “The number one thing is Cody Parkey hit some really good balls. I’ll start with that. Obviously, the couple of surprise onsides kicks that he’s had. Both times, the dribbler against the Raiders was a great kick, the one against Denver was a great kick and then last week in a regular onsides situation, he hit another good ball. The impressive thing about that is we’ve had three different types of onsides kicks. It hasn’t been the same one every time. That’s really saying something for Cody. Hats off to Cody on that, because we’ve had three different types of kicks that we’ve recovered. It was a great kick last week and a great onsides recovery by Matt Haack. He was in an opportunistic spot at that time, but that’s how the plan was. He was the trailer in that instance and did a great job of staying alive and finding the ball. It is a high number. Hopefully that’s a good thing. It really comes back to Cody and the execution. A lot of times on those onsides kicks and I’ve told our players this, you see guys be offsides. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen offsides on onsides kicks and our guys have done a great job of taking a line and just really running the play the right way. That’s been the good thing; but really again, hats off to Cody, because he’s really been the major part of that, the major component.”
