Brian Flores – August 12, 2021
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Thursday, August 12, 2021
Head Coach Brian Flores
(On the advantage of having a base four guys in the secondary working together throughout training camp.) – “Well it’s good to have all of those guys working, working together, working on the communication, fundamentals, techniques. I think we feel good about that group. But we feel good, really, about everyone on the defense, on the offense, etc. We’re excited to get another good day here against a good team and just keep building.”
(What are your thoughts on LB Benardrick McKinney since you’ve had him in camp?) – “Tough, physical, downhill player. Smart, good communicator. He’s done some good things. He’s gotten better over the course of training camp and hopefully he continues to get better.”
(Reviewing yesterday, what are some of your thoughts about how the defensive linemen performed as a group?) – “I thought they did some good things. I think in this type of environment, it always comes down to fundamentals and techniques. In some instances they were good; in some instances they weren’t good. The results normally play out as you think they would when they’re good and conversely when they’re not good. We made a lot of corrections yesterday. Hopefully we’ll have another good day today. Again, it’s good to see a different opponent, different schemes, different skillsets from the receivers, from the linemen, from the tight ends. It’s good for us. We need that and that’s what it is in this league. It’s different every week.”
(We saw T Liam Eichenberg pulled at the end of team portions of practice. Was it performance based or did he get hurt a little bit? What happened?) – “Yeah, Liam got banged up a little bit so we pulled him. He’ll be out today. But I think it’s day-to-day. He’s already working to get back as soon as he can. I think he’s done a good job for us so far to kind of get over this and hopefully we’ll get him back as soon as we can.”
(Did anybody who did not practice yesterday who will be back today?) – “I don’t have the full list in front of me but Will Fuller will be out, DeVante (Parker) will be out, Albert (Wilson) will be out, Hunter Long will be out.”
(S Brandon Jones?) – “Brandon Jones will be out. Again, if you’ve got a name, I will let you know.”
(Regarding S Jevon Holland, he seems to be around the ball quite a bit. The ball seems to find him. How much of that is just natural instincts?) – “I think he’s doing a lot of good things from a communication standpoint, from a fundamentals and technique standpoint. He’s a hard-working kid. It’s showing up a little bit on the practice field. Look, I don’t evaluate and judge people off of three or four plays. There are – he’s had 500 plays over training camp. I’m not going to judge him on four of them, either way, good or bad. We’ve had this conversation and I’m not going to go through it again.”
(With the physicality that the Bears bring on the defensive line, is that good for this offensive line to see that kind of play and practice against for a couple of days?) – “Yeah, absolutely. That’s what you see on a weekly basis in this league. I would say this is a good front too. It’s great for us to see it. It’s great for us to feel that. It’s great for us to – as coaches – talk about things we would do against a front like this, which I would say we practiced some of them yesterday. When we did it correctly, when we had good fundamentals and technique, we were ok. And when we didn’t – it’s a good front, so that’s how it goes in this league. It’s good for our offensive line to see. We talked about that. That’s the speed, that’s the power you see on a weekly basis. It’s good work for us.”
(QB Tua Tagovailoa kind of mentioned yesterday or when we spoke to him that when you were engaging with him after a series of reps, that maybe you were focusing with him on how you would like him to approach certain situations. That’s kind of vague. Is there anything that you can kind of share with us about when you engage him in practice and the kind of things that you might try to impart?) – “I mean look, I normally keep my conversations with players with the player. But there’s coaching points I give every player – fundamentals, techniques, communication – and it’s normally in that ballpark. And I know that may be kind of vague for you but I try to keep those conversations between me and the player.”
(There was plenty of change yesterday going outside, back inside and back outside. How did you feel the team handled the change and the disrupted schedule you dealt with yesterday?) – “I thought it was great for us. We get lightning in a game, we’ve got to go in and we’ve got to wait until it passes and then we come back out. It was another rep at that. For us as a team, as coaches, how we would handle that, we came in here and we huddled up, we’re going to do this when we go back out, another delay, we’re going to wait a little bit, we’ve got to stretch them this long, we’ve got to stretch them a little longer, we’ve got to do some individuals. Then I thought we went out and had good energy, good juice and finished practice out. I think it’s a good rep for us. You guys all know in South Florida there’s sometimes delays and we’ve got to be ready to adjust, be flexible and still perform.”
(There was almost a little bit of a scuffle at one point yesterday. WR Allen Hurns took a hit. I think you were able to get in there kind of before it got into anything deeper than that. Is that just kind of two teams seeing someone else for the first time?) – “Yeah, I was the bouncer on that play. (laughter) Look, it gets chippy. It’s football. For me, it was a 2-minute situation and it was hopefully a learning tool for our team. You get in there and I’ve got to call timeout, so we wasted a timeout in that situation when we could just go back, forget about the play, move on and kind of keep our poise in that instance. I know (you guys) are probably writing that I said I was the bouncer. You can put that out there. (laughter) I’m just trying to keep practice going and not have any issues. I thought the tempo yesterday was good – really good. I thought we got good work from the Bears and they got good work from us. Everybody stayed up. We’re trying to keep guys healthy and that’s kind of been the conversation I’ve had with Coach (Matt) Nagy and our coaching staff. I’ve had conversations with their players and I know Coach Nagy’s had conversations with our players. We’re all just trying to get better and compete. There’s really no place for that in my opinion, so hopefully we have another good day from that standpoint.”
(Is LB Jaelan Phillips on a modified practice or is he full-go at this point?) – “When a guy is coming off – it’s like if I just threw you in there and said go for 70 plays, it would be hard. (laughter) When a guy is coming off of something, we try to ramp him back up. That’s normally how we do it. I think for a lot of reasons, for conditioning purposes and then he’s just not ready yet – he hasn’t had enough snaps. I think that’s generally how teams do it. We’re no different. But Jaelan had some good snaps yesterday. Hopefully he gets a few more today and then we’ll hopefully build off of yesterday and ramp him up over the course of days, weeks, etc.
