Anthony Campanile – September 2, 2020
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Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Linebackers Coach Anthony Campanile
(Last year, LB Sam Eguavoen coming from the CFL – mostly used in pass coverage early on playing inside, then used more of a pass rusher role late in the season and played well. Your vision for him would be what – a guy who you think is good at both, a guy you think has pass rushing upside and how has he looked in camp?) – “I think he’s done a great job in camp to this point, and he’s a guy who’s been able to – he’s really done a good job with everything we’ve asked him to do. I think that’s been his – what you saw of him last year as well. He’s an awesome guy to coach. There’s nothing that he won’t do for the team. He’s a team guy – a guy you love to coach – and like I said, has a great skillset. (He) can do a bunch of things.”
(I’m going to resist the temptation to ask you about your Sunday menu and instead if we could address the LB Raekwon McMillan trade. He filled some roles for you last year and I’m wondering what you saw from this group of linebackers that enabled you to part with McMillan. Who’s going to take over those roles and what are you seeing from those guys?) – “I think all the guys – like I said last time we talked, I guess a few days ago – everybody’s really done a good job. Everybody’s been a total team guy. Great room. Been able to fill a lot of the roles and things we’ve been asking them to do throughout the summer, and I said this a few days back – I loved coaching Raekwon (McMillan). Great guy. Great kid. And I think he’s a really good player in this league and I think he’s going to have a lot of success – continue to have success – but some of those decisions are obviously the organization and I think he did a great job. I think everybody here thinks he did a great job, so I enjoyed my time coaching him and I think all the guys in our room have been awesome the whole way. They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do throughout the summer, like I already said. So I’m really, really excited to get started here.”
(I wanted to ask you about LB Elandon Roberts. He has come in and seemingly been sort of one of the more vocal players on that unit. How many spots can he actually play and what are the skillsets that he brings to your group?) – “Somebody asked me something similar last week. I think he’s really a physical guy. He’s been that way throughout his career. A lot of fun to coach. You had just alluded to his communication skills, his leadership skills. I’ve really enjoyed being around that. I think the guys on the team and the guys in the room have enjoyed being around that; so to me, that’s the type of guy he is. He’s a real throwback football guy, high character person. You can see like I said, the guys the room, myself; everybody loves being around this guy, so I’ve enjoyed my time coaching him and he’s done a great job for us as well this summer.”
(I want to ask some of the first-year guys on the staff about their coaching philosophy so I wrote down what are the keys to helping a player reach his potential? I know it’s a very general question, but I’m kind of interested in coaching approaches. What are the keys to helping a player reach his potential?) – “I think one of the things that is often overlooked in coaching but is certainly very, very important, is I believe a coach’s job is to organize information so that the player can process it and play faster. I think that’s our job, so organizing the information so the guys are thinking in sound bites, not sentences; and they can play fast. I think good football players and good football plays are made with anticipation so you’re trying to take away all anxiety because anxiety – obviously you’re in fear or unsure of what’s going to happen in the future, whether it be in the next few seconds or the next few weeks. Anticipation is you have a pretty good idea, ‘hey, this is probably one of two or three things, not one of 10 things.’ And I think guys that have great anticipatory skills when they’re playing; you can take a guy that maybe runs a 4.7 (40-yard dash) but he looks like he’s playing at a 4.4 (speed) and vice versa. You can have a guy that is a 4.4. (speed) running the wrong direction; so I think our job as coaches is to get that progression down because your eyes, feet and hands – I think it usually goes in that progression each play. My eyes are going to tell my feet what to do. My hands are buying me time. And a lot of information is sent from the eyes to the brain, telling your feet what to do each play. So I think that’s a big role in terms of the schematics for our job as coaches.”
(I wanted to ask you, you guys have that multiple feel with the defense. You’ve got players playing – some guys playing d-line, some guys playing linebacker. I wanted to ask how you kind of go about coaching some of those guys – the DE Shaq Lawsons, the DE Emmanuel Ogbahs – who in some fronts may be with Defensive Line Coach Marion Hobby and then on some fronts may be with you?) – “I think one of the great things about this organization and ‘Coach Boyer’ (Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer) and ‘Coach Flores’ (Head Coach Brian Flores) – I may have mentioned this in the past – everybody really gets an opportunity to coach all the guys the way practice is set up. There’s no egos in our defensive room, so everybody, really, it’s a collaborative effort. And that’s really a lot of fun. I think you get a great feel for all the guys on the unit and you really get to kind of spend time with players from all different groupings on the field. So that’s been awesome. It’s a great – I think philosophically – it’s something I’ve really enjoyed as well, and I’ve enjoyed getting the opportunity to be around all these different guys every day. They’re awesome. It’s a great group of guys.”
(Maybe this is a question for Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer or Head Coach Brian Flores, but I’m curious because typically the player that wears the green dot – the communication helmet – comes from the linebacker unit. I’m just curious, last year we had LB Jerome Baker wearing it. Now you’ve got some more guys that can probably communicate the defense as effectively. I’m curious what goes into the decision to who wears the green dot – the communication helmet – on defense?) – “I think what you’re striving for is to have a bunch of those guys on a unit that can do that, and that goes back to communication. Do you have players that are – obviously you want to built your unit full of smart, football guys who have a relatively high football IQ and we feel like that’s the case here. We’re fortunate to have a bunch of guys who love football. It’s not only their profession, it’s their passion. So the more guys you have like that who kind of understand the inner workings and schematics – the front, the back end, how they work together, what the offense is trying to do – that affords you more of an opportunity to find players who can step into that role on Sunday. And we felt the guys throughout the course of the spring and summer have done a very good job of that.”
(It’s Sunday dinner question time. Favorite time of the interview, baby. All right, tell me about the best lasagna you ever had and what makes a great lasagna?) – “That’s my mother’s (lasagna). That’s my mother’s. But you don’t want to take that right out. You can’t take that right out. You’ve got to let that sit a little bit so then everything kind of hardens up. It’s all got to kind fit together for a little while. So the people that take right out (of the oven) and serve it, I think that’s a huge mistake. You can’t cook it too – like to me, you get the macaroni done, then when you throw it in the oven – you’ve really got to know what you’re doing there because you can mess up lasagna. You can easily mess that up. That’s not an easy one. That’s a great question though. (laughter)”
