Anthony Weaver – June 5, 2024
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Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Defensive Coordinator Anthony Weaver
(How would you describe what you’ve already gotten accomplished from your arrival to today?) – “I think collectively as a team, we’re just trying to chase the best version of ourselves every day. Defensively, I’m just so happy with the way the guys have attacked this offseason, just in terms of their professionalism and their approach to every day. Every day that they come in here, you see that they attack the day with the right purpose and intentionality to go out there and just get better, which has been awesome.”
(A few of the guys have talked about the energy that you bring. I don’t want to be cliché but you’re a relatively young guy so you bring energy. How do you approach bringing energy to the film room, the practice field, etc.?) – “First off, I appreciate you saying I’m relatively young. The greys don’t necessarily reflect that. (laughter) I tell guys that time plus energy equals production. If you’re going to put in the time and you do it without energy, you’re just not going to be that productive. But when you combine the two, which you’re going to be here anyway, and you bring some juice, you’re going to get the most out of your day. I think, fortunately, we have a bunch of guys on this team, particularly defensively, that have that naturally. It’s innate in them. Then the guys that sometimes lack that, they bring them along with them. I just love being around the guys in general, just because of their work ethic and their habits. So for me, they think that may come from me. Shoot, I’m feeding off of them just as much as they are feeding off of me. It’s been awesome, just the synergy of it all.”
(Your linebackers have the ability to go forward, backwards, sideline to sideline, and it seems like that’s kind of intentional, especially with the two guys that came in this year. What does their diverse skill set across LB David Long Jr., LB Jordyn Brooks, LB Anthony Walker Jr., what does that do for a defense to help expand what you can do?) – “First off, I love that room. If you talk about a room that brings juice and attacks the day every single day, it’s them. And it’s led by (Linebackers/Run Game Coordinator) Joe Barry, who does a tremendous job with them. In this league, with the way offenses are trying to attack you both vertically and horizontally and trying to space out the entire field, you better have linebackers that can do that. It’s not like back in the day when I was playing and you’re getting a lot of lead and iso and you better have a guy who is going to thump and throw it up in there. The league has kind of transitioned away from that. You still need physicality there but at that position, you better have athletes. Fortunately, I think we have a bunch in there.”
(With the defensive line, obviously there are a number of different guys and a number of different body types. How versatile do they have to be? I know you are going to do multiple fronts, but do you have to have varying skill sets in that group?) – “Yeah, absolutely. I think you need to have the right balance of guys that I like to call grinders. Guys who go there and change the math in the middle, whether that’s with mass or elite technique. And then you need those guys that are kind of in between, that are tweeners, guys that can both do that yet are athletic enough and have the skillset to both win and pass rush, whether that be with power or finesse. You’re always looking for the right balance and combination of that and making sure you have enough of each. I think we have that. I think a lot of the guys may not necessarily be household names, but I think they’re all guys that have had a taste of production in this league and their best years are probably yet to come.”
(When you’ve coached defensive line, you’ve used a heavy rotation. That’s what you’re known for. Is that just your approach that you believe they’re best in waves?) – “Yeah, it’s kind of like the tsunami approach. I’m half-Samoan, I lived in Hawaii for a little while. They always say the first wave of the tsunami does damage, but the second wave does the most damage. So for me, sometimes people get overly concerned about who is starting the football games – that means nothing to me. I want to know who is finishing the football games. I think you’ve got your best chance at finishing football games when guys are fresh. You can’t do that at every position – particularly when there are bigs out there running around in this heat, you’re going to want to rotate them a little bit.”
(Beyond you coming in, there’s also a lot of new assistants under you on the defense. Can you explain your thought process behind the turnover and some of those guys specifically? What makes them the right fits?) – “I love this staff. I think our players feed off of our collaboration and the way we work together. One, we do play staff basketball every Tuesday and Thursday so if anybody is interested in looking at a very non-athletic basketball game that looks like a 40+ league, you can come watch us on Tuesday and Thursday. It’s pretty ugly. The wives are not happy with us right now, because we all come home with injuries. We have a full injury report if anybody is interested. But between me and Mike (McDaniel), we obviously wanted to build a group of guys that not only had FBI – football intelligence – but more importantly, we wanted a bunch of guys that actually cared about their players. And I think from top to bottom, we have that. To me, ultimately on every team, the teams I’ve been a part of that actually care for one another, where they hung out outside of the building and they cared about their families, their wives, their girlfriends, their kids, like that’s transcending. So now when you’re out there playing next to somebody, you’re not just playing for him but you’re playing for him and his family and everybody he cares about too. I think as a staff defensively, I’m always trying to feed into that and making sure that we’re as close as we could possibly be, because when adversity does inevitably hit, those are the types of guys you want to be in the foxhole with.”
(The media used to play pickup basketball every day in the middle of the day and then we would shower and come back. There were too many torn ACLs and MCLs.) – “I’ve got a sleeve on right now, and that is not just from normal wear and tear.”
(So who is the worst fouler?) – “There’s a rumor that it may be a d-line coach of ours. He claims everything is clean. I can’t say. You’ve got to go to the tape to find out. But fortunately there is nobody out there that limits him to six. (laughter)”
(What have you learned about Head Coach Mike McDaniel in terms of the best way to mesh with him as you get to know him?) – “So I’ve actually known Mike since 2006, and the thing I respect most about him – people think he’s unique, that he’s a breath of fresh air to the profession but to me, he’s who he’s always been and that’s what I respect most about him. I’ve been around guys that have been put in that position where they now have some power and authority and you see them kind of change who they were from a personality standpoint. He’s the exact same guy I’ve known for a long time. He’s a better version of the guy he was in 2006.”
(How competitive do you think training camp will be? I know sometimes guys share their plays prior to practices and sometimes guys just kind of want to win the day. What’s your approach to that?) – “I think always, particularly when you’re going against one another, you want to be competitive. There are a bunch of alphas out here. When you’re practicing against your team, you want to be competitive and not combative. So we’re always trying to walk that line and I think our guys do an excellent job of that.”
(You’ve played and coached for the Ravens. You’ve coached on some great staffs in Houston. You’ve been under Romeo Crennel. Where do you get your influences from?) – “From all over. You take bits and pieces from everybody along this journey, both the good and the bad. The most positive influences I’ve had have probably been with Romeo Crennel, Mike Macdonald, Wink Martindale, Rex Ryan, Urban Meyer – the list goes on and on and on. Then in taking bits and pieces of them, you’ve always got to stay true to yourself and who you are. I’m truly appreciative for all of the experiences along the way that have helped shape who I am, and in the process, I hope to have that same influence on some of the guys that now work under me.”
(You had an opportunity to be a defensive coordinator in Houston. What did you learn from that experience there that helped shape who you could become now?) – “I learned so many things from that experience because there was a lot of adversity thrown at us in that particular year. I’m talking about COVID-19. I’m talking about a head coach getting fired midseason and how you’re going to try to right the ship and keep it all together. And then just the schematic tweaks, how the offenses tried to adapt as we’re changing and trying to protect some of the players that we have. There were so many lessons learned there. Ultimately when we were let go and I had opportunities to go elsewhere and potentially coordinate again, I chose to go to Baltimore to see how that dinner was being made, because they were doing a lot of good things there. So I took a step back in order to take a huge step forward, which we hope pays dividends here in Miami.”
(We talked to CB Kendall Fuller earlier. How does his skill set align with what you ask of the corners?) – “You talk about a guy that has tremendous football IQ, that knows his skill set, can take all of the pre-snap information that is given to him and then apply it. He’s played in every coverage scheme known to man. Just his vet-savvy, his presence, the professionalism that he shows every day is going to have a tremendous influence on all of these guys. Then when you combine both with Jalen Ramsey and the influence he can have on some of the younger corners we have – the Cam Smiths of the world, the Ethan Bonners – I’m just so grateful for him being here. He’s such a calming presence back there at the corner position.”
