Brian Flores – August 19, 2019
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Monday, August 19, 2019
Head Coach Brian Flores
(If QB Ryan Fitzpatrick is starting Thursday – and you can tell us if anything has changed – is it accurate to say that is an indicator that he’s a projected starter for the season opener?) – “No, I wouldn’t say that is accurate. I would say that we go into every game trying to evaluate every player on the team. I know this is the third preseason game and the thought is this is the dress rehearsal for regular season game No. 1. In a lot of ways, it is that; but every game is important to me. So every time we step out there against another opponent, it’s a great evaluation for everyone on the team. This week is no different. That’s what I would say about that.”
(So do you want to have one quarterback or do you feel like on a week-to-week basis you’ll be deciding…) – “I want to put the best guy who will help us win, who we feel will give us the best chance to win games. If that’s one quarterback, if that’s four quarterbacks – I think in a best case scenario, it is one person. But things happen. We have to be ready to adapt. Guys go down at all positions and you have to be ready to adapt and have that next-man-up mentality.”
(Do you anticipate being able to make that decision after this third preseason game for Week 1?) – “Potentially. I think we may – obviously it’ll be our third game. We’ll have most of the evaluation done. So yeah, potentially we would be able to make that call. But we may not. I think part of that is as a staff, we’ll get together and talk about what we feel is best for the team and if we feel strongly that it’s one guy or the other, then we’ll make that decision. If not, then we’ll continue to evaluate and go from there.”
(Now that you’ve looked at the film of the game, how would you grade the progress that QB Ryan Fitzpatrick and QB Josh Rosen made last week?) – “I think there’s a lot of things we can do better offensively. We had some drops, we had some penalties, we had some negative plays – in the run game, sacks. We spend a lot of time talking about one position but as a total offense, there are a lot of things we can do better. Specific to that position, I thought there were some good things from really all three guys. I thought there were some not-so-good things from all three guys. But I think there was some good things and not-so-good things from everyone on the team. Again, I mentioned the drops, I mentioned the penalties, I mentioned the negative runs – those are things we have to clean up as a collective group. Some of those are not all on the quarterback. Being second-and-15 or first-and-20, that’s not advantageous for anyone. We need to clean those things up to get a good evaluation of the entire offense.”
(Will WR Albert Wilson be ready to play a full game this week?) – “Albert is doing everything he can to get back on the field. We’ve seen him – he’s done a little bit more each week in practice and he’s continuing to do that. He’ll be out there as soon as he can. Maybe that’s this week, maybe it’s not. We’ll see. We’ll go through these next couple of days of practice and we’ll take it from there.”
(What’s your general philosophy on starters playing on special teams?) – “We’re going to have the best 11 guys in the kicking game out there. So yeah, we’ll have some starters playing on special teams. That’s a very important phase, a very important phase. So yeah, you’ll see some starters playing in the kicking game, whether it’s linebackers on punt or receivers on punt return. We’re going to get the best 11 guys because that’s a very important phase to me, as I’ve said in the past.”
(Oftentimes in the third preseason game, the starting quarterback will go the first half and sometimes into the third quarter. Is there a scenario in which we could see QB Josh Rosen and QB Ryan Fitzpatrick both play in the first half?) – “Yeah, there’s a scenario you could see that. There’s a scenario you could see them playing a half. There’s a scenario you could see them playing the entire game. (laughter)”
(What scenario is most likely then?) – “(laughter) That’s yet to be determined. It’s still early in the week. We’re going through the process. I’ve got a few thoughts in my head of how I’d like it to go but again, there are various scenarios so we’ll see which one – it could be a half, it could be a quarter, it could be a series. We’ll see.”
(What does QB Josh Rosen have to do in the next two weeks to be a starter in Week 1?) – “That’s a good question. I think he has to continue to improve on the things that he’s done well and then the things that he hasn’t done as well. We need to see improvements there. He can’t take as many sacks as he’s taken in practice and games. We’ve talked about that. He has to step up in the pocket. He has to have command of the offense. I think those things are very important at this position. He’s got to get the ball out quicker. He has to do all of those things. And I would say the same is said for ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) and Jake (Rudock). They have to do all of these things better. At the end of the day, it’s about our offense moving the ball and putting points on the board.”
(After the first preseason game, you said sometimes you want QB Josh Rosen to take a sack. It’s the right play to make. What happened after the second game? Is it the offensive line? Is he holding the ball too long?) – “Sometimes the right play is to take a sack. We’ve got to know when the journey is over. Other times, you’ve got to get the ball out quicker. So there is a fine line between all of those things and it’s something we talk about in the quarterback room. Again, every play is a little bit different and each quarterback is a little bit different. But we don’t want to just take sack after sack after sack. We can help that by getting the ball out a little bit quicker and stepping up in the pocket. That’s about footwork and fundamentals and those are things we’ll be working on this week.”
(You have a lot of key players that have been injured. How realistic of a look can you get of your team if they don’t play this week? LB Kiko Alonso, S Reshad Jones and S T.J. McDonald – you know the list – RB Kenyan Drake, RB Kalen Ballage.) – “Well, we’re going to have put to somebody out there. It’ll be a real look for someone. As far as our evaluation, we can only evaluate the guys who are out there. If they’re not out there, we can’t evaluate them. I know guys are working extremely hard to get back into the game, whether it’s Kiko, Reshad or whoever else you may mention. We’re going to have 11 (players) out there. I promise you that. Hopefully it’s 11 and not 10 or not 12. That’s something that we harp on a lot here. All we can do is evaluate the guys who are out there. We’ve got 90 guys on the roster and each guy is competing and trying to make this team. If they get an opportunity, they’ve got to take advantage of it. There’s nothing we can do about the injuries. These guys are trying to get back and we can only evaluate the guys who are out there.”
(How clear do you feel it is at this moment that you have the best five on the offensive line – that you know who they are?) – “Well, I think the two young guys (Michael Deiter and Shaq Calhoun) are improving and developing. I feel good about the five guys that are rolling right now. I think the communication is improving on a weekly basis. I think the technique, the fundamentals are improving. I think they’re working well together – guard to tackle, center to guard and then the entire group. There can always be improvement, but I like what I’ve seen from those five guys, and hopefully they’ll continue to improve; but each game is a little bit different. Each game is an experience, and hopefully we just continue to improve and get better.”
(Where do you stand with the pass rush? We saw sometimes that worked well the other night. What was going on there that led you to that improvement?) – “I thought Charles Harris played really well the other night. I thought we had some really good individual efforts, and I thought as a group we played well as far as not allowing the quarterback to step up, as far as running a few games and just our pursuit to the quarterback was very good. Now, I would have liked to see us tackle the quarterback a little bit better. That would have helped us. But I think those guys are really working hard as a unit to try to work their pass rush games and then their individual technique on a one-on-one rush has improved, and you saw that the other night.”
(On the offensive line, some mix of players are going to play together at some point during the season. What could a lineup of G/T Jesse Davis at right guard and T Isaiah Prince at right tackle probably yield you guys?) – “I think that if that were the case, I think we’d have two big, strong guys on the right side. We’d have a young guy working with an older guy – kind of similar to how we have Shaq (Calhoun) and Jesse right now, where the young guy would probably have to lean on the older guy a little bit for calls and adjustments, etc.; but we’d have to make that work. Again, it’s a team effort. Jesse – from a leadership standpoint – is a quiet guy; but when he speaks, people listen. I’ve really enjoyed working with him. I think he’s really doing a lot of things well, and he’s a guy who’s helping some of those young guys – really, Jesse, (Daniel) Kilgore, ‘Tuns’ (Laremy Tunsil) – I’m really appreciate of the way that they’ve worked with these young guys in trying to help them come along because they were young guys once, too, and they had some older vets help them along. So I like to see that from our veteran players, and that would be the same if it was a Jesse and Prince lineup.”
(You’ve had the same five guys working together since the coaching change and it’s been like, three weeks and two preseason games. Would it be counterproductive to start experimenting moving guys around now, or is that the five?) – “I don’t know if it would be counterproductive because I think we’ve got to be ready if something happens. I think we’ve got to be – that’s part of our jobs as coaches is to kind of think worst-case. If something happens or if somebody’s shoe comes off and another guy’s got to go in, the wheels can’t fall off. I think we do that really at all positions, so we’ll work a mix of guys. I could see how you would think it could be counterproductive and that you’re not working the five guys you think all the time, but we’ve got to be ready if something happens, and that’s on the o-line, on the d-line, different groups of guys in the secondary. I think we have to – it’s all the same verbiage, but the communication between you and I might be different than me and (that guy). I think that’s something that you’ve got to work through. We try to create situations where we force that communication between different guys.”
(When you have players like CB Xavien Howard and T Laremy Tunsil playing cornerstone positions at the level they are, how freeing is that for you from a game-plan perspective?) – “From a game-plan perspective, it allows you to do a few things that if you didn’t feel as good about some other players, you wouldn’t do. For instance, we’ll leave Laremy one-on-one or leave ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) one-on-one. I think offenses and defenses, they can force a situation where you can’t do that. Every coordinator knows how to do that; but yeah, it gives you an opportunity to slide the protection away from Laremy or move the coverage away from ‘X.’ We can not do that, also; but I think having good players is always a good thing. I’m not going to tell you that it’s not. So we’re happy with those two guys. We’re happy with a lot of the guys. It’s a nice feeling to know that, ‘hey, I like that matchup with ‘X,’ or I like this matchup with Tunsil. Let’s leave those guys alone and let’s work around – we’ve got some other problems somewhere else. Let’s focus our attention there.’”
(Where do you feel like you’re at with the running game right now?) – “It’s really – I’m focused on the run game today. It’s been – I would say from a practice and a game standpoint, we’ve seen some bright spots; but we need to continue to improve there. There are some combination blocks, there’s schematically a few things we can do a little bit better; but it’s an ongoing process. Like I’ve said with everything, hopefully what we’ve seen from the run game isn’t the best we’ll see for the rest of the year. I hope not because we’ve got a long way to go here. I think you guys feel the same way, hopefully. We’ll just continue to try to improve, but I think we’ve got good backs. We want to get them the ball in space, try to create some space for them in the run game and hopefully we can pick up some yardage, control time of possession, control the clock and grind out some tough yardage.”
(What has stood out to you about RB Patrick Laird?) – “Laird’s a young guy who works hard, who has done everything we’ve asked. He’s played well in the kicking game. When he gets his opportunity in the running game, as a receiver, he’s taking advantage of them. He just does everything right, and he’s had a good camp so far. He’s earned some more opportunities, which he’s gotten, and he’s taken advantage of them. He needs to stay on this path and he’ll have a chance. Again, it’s about consistency. It always is.”
