Anthony Weaver – September 27, 2024
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Friday, September 27, 2024
Defensive Coordinator Anthony Weaver
(I was going to ask you about initially inside linebacker. So if you don’t have LB David Long Jr., obviously you lose a very good run defender among other things. What is LB Anthony Walker Jr.’s skill set now compared to what David gives you? What do you feel you’d be getting differently if it is Anthony instead?) – “Yeah, I have the utmost confidence in Anthony (Walker Jr.) and Duke Riley for that matter. We know he brings a wealth of experience to the field and to our team. I think the thing Anthony provides back there is he has a big picture understanding of what we’re trying to do defensively – and David (Long Jr.), he tries to do the same things. But he tries to very much- he’s a calming presence out there because he knows everybody’s jobs and if there’s ever a point when anybody has some indecision of unclarity, he gets rid of that real quick. So excited to see him out there and play if David can’t go.”
(It looked like CB Jalen Ramsey was shadowing DK Metcalf. On the touchdown, it looked like a miscommunication in coverage. The 21-yard one, DK Metcalf lined up across from CB Kendall Fuller and it looked like on the video that CB Jalen Ramsey was looking at the sideline kind of like, “Is this what we want to do?” And I know it was a broken play but was that a miscommunication on that play?) – “It wasn’t miscommunication, it was really just the force of tempo, so that just made it hard for them to run and switch sides and get on those same matchups. So hats off to them for forcing that issue, but we made the quarterback blink, we got to get there and get him on the ground. It was a broken play. They made a good play, hats off to them.”
(There’s a big discrepancy in the numbers – the defensive numbers between the first half and second half are pretty big. Anything you could point your finger to?) – “Yeah, trying to find that answer. We’ve got to find a way to start faster. So how do you do that? The only way I know how to do that is to continue to approach each day with purpose and intensity. I tell the guys, ‘The NFL is an improvement league. There is no staying the same in this league.’ Ultimately, it just requires 11 guys to be disciplined on every single play, and unfortunately for us, we’ve had to have some bad things happen for us to have that ultimate and supreme focus that’s necessary to win on every down in this league.”
(On CB Kader Kohou’s interception, it looked like LB Emmanuel Ogbah and DT Zach Sieler were in there. What have you though about the pass rush through three games? What do you like and what would you like to see improved?) – “I think those guys are doing a tremendous job. And the thing about when you’re rushing four is the more reps those guys get together, the more cohesion they can find and the more they can work almost like where they don’t have to necessarily talk to one another, now they can signal and feel what the other rusher is going to do. So I’m pleased with where we are at this point. I still think there’s some plays we left out there, particularly allowing quarterbacks to get out of the pocket and extend some plays. We’ll get that fixed but have the utmost confidence in those guys and their ability and what they’ve done from a work standpoint to this point.”
(What’s your assessment of the run defense to so far?) – “Not good enough. Just like our first half defense, there are spells where we’re pretty darn good, and then there’s other times where you’re like, ‘Gosh, how did we allow that to happen?’ Ultimately, there’s no fingers to blame; it’s just a collective effort about cleaning it up and making sure we’re setting the edge, making sure we’re building the wall on the inside with our front and our backers and ultimately, making sure we get these backs on the ground. Because the last thing we want to continually allow offenses to do is run the ball, particularly in the end zone – let’s make them throw it in. So right now, when we get down in the red zone, we’re not making that happen. So collectively from a coaching standpoint and from a player standpoint, we got to do better.”
(DT Zach Sieler’s sack came on the edge against the left tackle. How much have you enjoyed the versatility in using him?) – “Yeah, we have some studs out there, right? Calais (Campbell), you can use in that same mold where you can move him all over the place. It’s certainly an asset – particularly to a coordinator when you have a bunch of smart guys who can play multiple spots. You saw that with us just in the secondary as well. We suffered some injuries, we had to go out there and play with three safeties and nobody blinked; nobody batted an eye. So in those situations, it’s always good to have that position flexibility.”
(With DT Calais Campbell and snaps, obviously lopsided score the last two weeks probably influenced why he ended up playing fewer defensive snaps in both games. In a close game, do you, DT Calais Campbell and Defensive Line Coach Austin Clark have a comfort level where you feel like you can use him for generally more than half of your defensive snaps as opposed to under? And I know half is an arbitrary number but it’s sort of some measuring stick.) – “You always go into it with a plan. We know if it’s a critical situation, you want to have your best players in the game, and we feel as if he is one of our best players. Do we have kind of a light like rep count feel for what we want from every game? Yeah, but I don’t think we’re going to be at a critical play in the fourth quarter and be like, ‘Eh, Calais you’re at 40. Sorry, come sit down. We’ve got to shut you down.’ He’s not like a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He’s going to roll. We’ll be fine, and we’ll take care of him throughout the week if need be.”
(Can he go 40 in a game though if it’s a close game? Because it’s been low 20s last week, again in a lopsided game. Can he get to 40 do you think at his age?) – “Yes.”
(On that long touchdown to DK Metcalf was it as simple as Cover 2, S Jevón Holland should have had his deep half?) – “Yeah, that was just a breakdown in coverage. And it starts obviously with the secondary and the safety as a cat in this defense, but there are multiple miscommunications on that play, and unfortunately, the results were what they were.”
(Being around CB Kader Kohou for now several months, do you have a sense of if he’s better in the slot, if he’s better on the boundary, where you like him more? I know he can play both.) – “Yeah, I think Kader (Kohou) is an elite nickel. He is certainly more than capable of playing on the outside; where he flourishes, I think, is inside where he can use his short area quickness and his toughness.”
(Did you get any sense of how strong CB Storm Duck and CB Siran Neal performed? I know they weren’t out there for extended periods.) – “Yeah, I though Storm (Duck), particularly as a rookie, he did not look bright eyed and scared out there. He went out there and did his job. I was pleased with him. Kid got hurt, came back and threw his shoulder in trying to tackle the running back. I was like, ‘OK,’ that told me something right there just in terms of his toughness and his attitude and his willingness to get back out there. Siran Neal, he’s a tone setter. He’s a tone setter on special teams; ultimately if he’s out there, I have the utmost confidence in him to go out there and strap whoever he’s covering and strapping them down. I have the confidence in him to do that.”
(A general football question – the way that training camps are now with the starters getting their work in the joint practice, the youngsters playing the preseason games. Has September football changed? Is there just kind of feeling it out and discovering what you can do in September now?) – “Yeah, and I think you see that all throughout the league. There’s some sloppy football being played and that’s just what I said before. It is an improvement league, so I talked to the guys earlier in the week about a rising tide raising all ships. It’s not about one guy trying to get 50 percent better; it’s about each and every person, players and coaches included, getting incrementally better so that the team as a whole can improve.”
(You weren’t here last year when the defense gave up two late touchdowns to Tennessee. Do you have to review that film with the guys and what would you do differently?) – “Yeah, we got to exercise those demons to an extent, but every year is different. This is an entirely new team. There is a bunch of us that weren’t a part of it at all, but the guys that were here, we know that we want to go make it right this week. They have a new team, new staff, new coordinators, new players – same thing here, but those two logos, we know what this means.”
(When there’s a blown assignment or a mistake in a game, what do you teach about avoiding overcorrection as the game goes on?) – “Yeah, in real time you just try to get the guys to make sure they’re trying to win through technique and fundamentals. Ultimately, we always talk about obnoxious communication, and on that particular snap we didn’t have that and that’s where the breakdowns occur. It’s real easy – you see it from down to down. You can get nine or ten guys on the same page, but it only takes one to allow that big play to happen. So for us ultimately, the more we can get in cohesion and for constantly over communicating, the less chance we allow that to happen.”
(Obnoxious?) – “Obnoxious communication. To the point – you remember the scene in Dumb and Dumber, when they’re driving in the car and he’s like, ‘You want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?’ That was the scene I played for the guys. I’m like, ‘That’s how I want you to be. I want you to be so annoying out there communicating to the guys, it’s just like shut up. Please, I know. I got it. I got it.’ But that, if you want to be good, a noisy defense is a good defense.”
(You literally played that?) – “I played that clip, yeah.”
(And what was the reaction when you played that?) – “They got it. They got the message. (laughter) They got the message.”
(I don’t think any of them know Dumb and Dumber.) – “Well, they do now. (laughter) At least one scene.”
(We’ve seen sustained greatness over LB Jaelan Phillips’ first couple years. We’ve seen snippets of it. When he doesn’t play as well as he wants to play or maybe you want him to play, how often are you telling yourself, “Well, he’s coming off of an Achilles.” Does that factor at all in your mind as you make an assessment at this point?) – “It is absolutely a factor, and I think we all have to give him a little grace. For him to do what he’s done and come back from that Achilles as fast as he did is remarkable just doing that alone. So I think he’s still working himself back into just getting his timing right on how to attack these tackles, but like I said, there’s nobody in this building that works harder than him. So it’s only a matter of time to where he gets back to where were used to seeing him.”
(From watching LB Bradley Chubb just do some things, do you feel like we’ll be seeing him at some point in the weeks ahead?) – “I truthfully have no idea. I would just be speculating up here. I see him every day. He’s in all of our meetings so he certainly gives me the feeling that we will see him at some point this year.”
(What are your thoughts on Will Levis and the Titans receiving corps?) – “Will Levis has all the ability in the world. Right now, you can see he’s kind of fighting that turnover demon a little bit, but you know, in particular you guys referenced the game a year ago, like it’s in there. He’s capable. So we’re certainly not taking him for granted, and we’re certainly not taking that receiving corps for granted. They got two studs. I was with DeAndre Hopkins for a number of years there in Houston and saw everything he can do, so we got to make sure we account for him, and (Calvin) Ridley is incredibly talented too. Then obviously from a coordinator standpoint, he’s very familiar with (Tyler) Boyd. So we got to account for all of those guys. We are cognizant of them, we have plans on how to potentially limit their productivity and then we’re going to try to do everything we can to rattle this quarterback.”
(What did you see from DT Da’Shawn Hand last week and what have you seen all season?) – “Yeah, Da’Shawn (Hand) – he’s just another guy that he’s steady. And every single time that he steps on that practice field, you know you’re going to get 100 percent effort out of him. So the production he’s had at this point has not been a surprise. He was out there every day. He’s put in the work and typically when that happens, you reap the rewards for it.”
(CB Ethan Bonner, where is he in his development at cornerback? I know you’ve got a couple injuries that’s going to require –) – “Yeah, I feel incredibly confident if Ethan (Bonner) steps on that field this Monday. I forget it’s Friday, it feels like Thursday to me – it’s football Thursday, so my wife is not happy about that. (laughter) But Ethan man, he goes out there – he’s just like these other guys that I’ve mentioned. You talk about a guy that’s constantly going out and trying to finetune and work his craft. I actually gave kudos just to all of those guys that are on the show team for our offense yesterday, like I thought they did a tremendous job. You’re talking about iron sharpening iron, that’s what we need to do. We need to make sure we bring the effort, energy, technique and fundamentals day-in and day-out. Ethan does that and I thought that our guys that aren’t starters did that yesterday.”
(I wanted to ask about some of the big plays over the last couple of weeks – the DK Metcalf pass and the James Cook run. It seems like, just visually, that the guys have that on the chest and you can kind of see the wind go out of the sails on the defense. How do you stop that specifically from happening? Is it just drilling in the importance of communication? Or what’s your message to the guys after one of those big plays happens?) – “Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said earlier. We don’t have to make wholesale changes. It’s ultimately just everybody individually like watching a little bit more film, trying to work on a particular technique and fundamental that maybe they’re lacking in. And if we can all just get a little bit better, those plays will stop, and ultimately, we’ll make the play necessary to go out there and win the game.”
