Brian Flores – October 18, 2021
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Monday, October 18, 2021
Head Coach Brian Flores
(I wanted to ask you a question about where you go for guidance. When you first got here, you had Jim Caldwell briefly and he as the veteran coach on your staff and then he wasn’t here. Chan Gailey had veteran coaching experience last season and could be used as a sounding board. Right now, when your team is 1-5 and you have so many issues, where do you go for a sounding board or veteran guidance?) – “I talk to the guys on our coaching staff. The first person that comes to mind is Danny Crossman. Then our coordinators – George Godsey, Eric (Studesville), Josh (Boyer). And then the people on our support staff – Kaleb Thornhill, Drew Brooks and Kyle Johnston. It’s really a team effort. I think those are the people that have a good pulse of the team and just try to get a feel for where guys are at, how guys are feeling and what I’ve gotten is that there is still a lot of belief in our team and the players on our team. I think they support each other. I think they are a resilient group. We are going through some struggles right now but I think they are sticking together. We are going to continue to stick together and try to prepare and practice well this week to have a better performance next week.”
(Most of the time, teams have a bye coming off the trip to London. Your team doesn’t this year. Was that by team request to the league to have a later bye and if so, could you break down the thought process behind it?) – “We don’t have a bye and quite honestly, I think we want to get back out there, especially after a tough loss yesterday. We’ve had west coast trips, obviously this was a lot longer than that but we’ve come back late, gotten in at 2, 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning and then kind of turned it around over the next couple of days. We are going to have to do that again this week. We have a tough opponent coming in here. We are going to have to prepare and have a good week of practice. But yeah, the London trip took a little bit. I would say it’s a long flight back. Nine hours and a long flight out there, the time change, etc. So we are going to have to get our rest the next couple days, make sure we are getting hydrated, make sure we are eating the right things, make sure we are getting ourselves back so we can have a good week of practice.”
(It seemed yesterday’s game was decided by two fourth-down plays. The fourth-and-1 that you guys had and the fourth-and-8 that they had. In looking at the tape, do you think it was more about the decisions you made for the plays or was it more of an execution issue that both of those plays didn’t go your way?) – “It’s a combination of both. When you re-watch it, there’s always, ‘Hey we could have done that, we could have done this.’ I have peace with the calls we made, both offensively and defensively on those fourth downs you mentioned. In the moment, given what we thought could or might happen, the players we wanted in there. We came out of it feeling like those were the right things to do. You’ve got to give credit to Jacksonville, they executed in those situations and we didn’t. You can always go back and say, ‘Hey man, maybe we should have done this or maybe we should have done that.’ But in the moment, it just felt like we were putting our team in the best position in both instances.”
(Watching the game back, it looked like QB Tua Tagovailoa did a pretty good job of mitigating some of the pressure and getting out of pressure within the pocket yesterday. Just wanted to get your take on his ability to work around muddy pockets and when there is pressure, how you thought he did when watching the tape?) – “I thought he did a real nice job yesterday. I thought he played well. I thought he threw the ball well. Obviously, he’s playing with a little bit of discomfort. He made some nice throws, pushed it down the field. There’s always throws he wish he would have made or could have had back but I think overall, he did a lot of good things and I was pleased with the way he played.”
(How was the flight home for you guys? Was it quiet? Was everybody trying to catch up on some sleep? Were you having conversations with some of the players, checking in with them?) – “Guys were disappointed. I was disappointed as well. These guys put a lot into this – a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of preparation and a lot of practice time, so they were disappointed. It was a long flight. Some guys went to sleep, some guys were watching the tape, asking questions about what they could have done here or what they could have done there, what they can do to help this team. There were a lot of conversations like that on our flight.”
(I know a lot of the conversations you have are in confidence, but I was just wondering if broadly you could tell us the reaction Stephen Ross has had to the season so far and yesterday in particular?) – “Obviously he’s disappointed. I don’t want to speak for him but I know that. He wants to see our team have success but that’s really everybody. He’s no different than the players, the coaches, the support staff, the fans. We’ve got to be better. I’ll be the first to say that. Our players are disappointed as well. What I know about our guys is we are going to pick ourselves up, we are going to go to practice on Wednesday, try to improve, try to get better and make the corrections we need to make. Look, we all know this – there is a very small margin for error in this league. Very small. The mistakes we make, or we’ve made, they’ve cost us. We have to try to limit those mistakes as players and coaches. Yeah, there’s a slim, slim margin for error and we’re on the wrong side of that right now. We just need to continue to work. I trust their preparation. I trust the things that they’re doing, the players. We’re always going to evaluate, re-evaluate and see if there’s anything we can do better. But yeah, I think collectively, Steve, Tom (Garfinkel), Chris (Grier), Brandon (Shore) and the entire organization, there’s disappointment and they want better.”
(In talking to a couple of guys yesterday – TE Mike Gesicki and DE Emmanuel Ogbah – they were saying that you guys are so close. What do you need to do to go from so close to getting there?) – “I think it’s work. I think they’re right. I think there are a handful of things in every game where the ball bounces this way, the ball bounces another way, we get a call, we don’t get a call, we make a call, we make the play, we make the tackle, we make a block, we spring somebody and it’s a different ballgame. Again, that’s what I mean by – and they understand this. There’s a very slim margin for error here in this league and that’s for all teams. That’s the beauty of this league. We understand that. We’ve got to do a better job. I’ve got to do a better job of limited the errors that are showing up that are ultimately costing us. Penalties – pre-snap penalties. There’s things like spacing in the pass game. Some things defensively from a run-fit standpoint. There’s just very little things that are the difference between a guy getting three yards and a guy getting six yards. We’ve got to be better in all of those situations.”
(You had a long list of players who weren’t able to play yesterday. I’m wondering if there were any guys who were close to playing and are looking very positive for this Sunday? Or for that matter, are there any guys who might wind up on IR who missed yesterday’s game?) – “I don’t think anyone – I don’t want to speak out of turn but ‘X’ (Xavien Howard), Byron (Jones), (Adam) Shaheen, Preston (Williams), DeVante (Parker) – I don’t see any of those guys going on IR. But we’re day-to-day with all of those guys. I think we’ll just see how it goes in practice. We’ll see if we can get them to practice on a limited basis, although some of those guys practiced last week. Byron practiced last week and Preston practiced a little bit last week. ‘X’ did not. DeVante did not. Shaheen practiced. I think the guys who practiced are probably a little bit closer than the guys who didn’t. But obviously we’ll know more – they’ve got today and tomorrow to treat and rehab. We’ll just take it one day at a time.”
(Given the length of this losing streak, are you as a head coach having to fight frustration or anything along those lines?) – “I think there’s always frustration when you’re dealing with adversity. They kind of go hand in hand. I think as an organization and as a building, it’s a very supportive group. Players support players. Coaches support players. Players support coaches. Support staff supports really everyone. While we’re all frustrated that we’re not getting the results we want, I think everyone kind of believes in what we’re doing and believes in our process. We need to do things just a little bit better really in all areas and if we do that, I think we’re all confident that things will turn.”
(I was listening to some of your comments here and I think there were some common threads about mistakes and figuring out how to minimize those. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think early in the first couple of years, you guys were really minimizing those mistakes. I’m curious why you feel like maybe you guys have taken a step back in maybe the mistake and discipline perspective of the game?) – “Every year is different so it’s hard to say one year to the next. It’s always different players, a different team. You’re dealing with different circumstances. We harp on all of those little things and all of those things that I mentioned earlier. We’ve been – those are always points of emphasis. Every game is a little bit different. I think it’s dependent on some of the things that we’re seeing – the players are seeing and some of the things we’re seeing schematically. Then at the end of the day, there are definitely instances where I know we know what to do but there’s a mental error or somebody goes down and we have somebody in there who didn’t practice it. I’m not going to sit here and make excuses – I’m not going to do that either – but we’re making a lot of mistakes and we need to clean them up.”
(Having practiced against the Falcons in training camp, will that be some benefit this week as you try to get ready for the game on Sunday?) – “I think the one benefit is we’ll have some familiarity with their players. But I’m sure Arthur (Smith) didn’t show all of his cards and we didn’t show all of ours. They’ve got a tough competitive team. We know it will be a tough game. But as far as them coming down here and practicing, I thought both teams got a lot out of that. I think it will be a competitive game.”
(When you go through a stretch like this – I think five straight – how do you balance maybe feeling like you as a coach may have to make a statement versus counting on your player leadership to say something to try to change this?) – “I think this is a team effort. Players, coaches – we’re all in this together. Obviously I have my thoughts and my message that I give to the team. Then the leaders on our team, whether it’s Elandon Roberts or Jesse Davis or Mack Hollins or whoever it may be, I think they have their own message. I think the coaching message is one but the player message, that’s a different thing. But it’s all encompassing and we all kind of work together.”
(I’m wondering now that you’ve reviewed the tape, what did you see out of CB Noah Igbinoghene’s play yesterday in that spot start?) – “I thought Noah did some good things. I thought he tackled more efficiently. Obviously he had the two balls caught on him. I thought he was in good position on both of them. We just talked about going up and being more aggressive to try to get it out of him. I think (Marvin) Jones made a couple of good plays on him. But overall, I thought he did some good things and filled in competitively.”
(Was it the type of performance you’d expect out of CB Noah Igbinoghene considering how much he’s been able to sit on the sideline and take the game in in a different perspective and learn while he’s inactive?) – “We’ve got confidence in Noah. We put him in there and again, he did some good things. That’s what I expected. I expected him to play competitively and tackle well, know where he’s supposed to be and communicate well. Obviously like we all saw, there were a couple of balls that were down the field. I think he had a chance to make a couple of plays on them. I think that’s the next step for him is to go up and get a couple of those out.”
(I know you talked a little bit about that fourth-and-1 with RB Malcolm Brown and liking what you saw there. But a lot of times you’ll see coaches put the ball in their quarterback’s hands in those fourth-quarter situations. I’m curious how much you thought about letting QB Tua Tagovailoa get that and why wasn’t that the answer there?) – “We thought about that. We just felt like we had some success with Malcolm in that instance and felt good about the play. Look, you have to give (Jacksonville) credit. They made a good play there and we didn’t get it done.”
