Brian Flores – September 10, 2020
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Thursday, September 10, 2020
Head Coach Brian Flores
(Two questions for the price of one again if I could – with CB Byron Jones is the Achilles at all a concern in terms of whether he’s actually going to be able to play through this and I wanted to ask you why you and General Manager Chris Grier decide to take a chance on WR Antonio Callaway? I know that the league’s own website says he’s got to sit out seven more weeks.) – “I’ll start off with (Antonio) Callaway. (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and the personnel staff – Chris, (Assistant General Manager) Marvin (Allen), (Vice President of Football Administration) Brandon (Shore) and our scouting department – obviously did a lot of work on Antonio, along with a lot of other players. We felt like it was an opportunity to add a talented player. That’s what we did. We’ll work with him over the next few weeks in the capacity that we can – obviously not so much because of the suspension but when we can, we will work with him – and we’ll see where it goes. The first part of your question with Byron (Jones) – Byron is working extremely hard to rehab and we’ll see where he is for game time; but it’s something he’s been dealing with and he’s working to get back out there and quickly as he can. It’s kind of a day-to-day thing, so we’ll see.”
(We heard yesterday from CB Byron Jones and LB Kyle Van Noy that the players have something in mind in terms of demonstrating before the game. I would assume they’ve looped you in on that. Is whatever they’re planning, are you okay with? And is there any kind of demonstration that you would not be alright with?) – “Yes, we’ve had some conversations as a team. I’m going to keep those internal. We’re going to support any player and every player however they want to protest or whatever they want to do from that standpoint; but yeah, those conversations are ongoing and again, I think the topics they’re talking about are very serious, and we respect each guy’s opinion and right to protest or not protest. But I would also say that a lot of the guys, they just want to focus on the game and that’s in more of those conversations – how do we do whatever we’re going to do, but also just have our total focus on the New England Patriots.”
(When you’ve got a game I guess like tonight, where you don’t play either opponent, can you sit back and relax, eat some food, have a drink and enjoy the game or are you always on football mode trying to scout?) – “When I watch the game, you can try to relax but what would you do on third down, what would you do in this situation, two-minute? Your mind kind of goes. I think that’s how every coach is – Pop Warner, high school, college, National Football League. Once you get into this profession and those types of situations, your mind kind of goes there regardless. You can try; but that is relaxing in a lot of ways for coaches. It’s nice to sit and watch a game; but yeah, your mind starts to wander a little bit. You start to work on how would you handle this situation or that situation; but it’s going to be fun to have a game to watch. It’s been such a long time whether it’s preseason – like a lot of people, I love the sport; so I’ll be watching and I’ll be working as well. It’s a normal Thursday night. It’s back to kind of the normal routine in-season.”
(At some point over the course of this season, you’ll be faced with the decision – maybe – of maybe having to pull QB Ryan Fitzpatrick and put QB Tua Tagovailoa in at quarterback. When you do have to make that decision or come across that bridge, whether it could be halftime at Sunday’s game or later on in the course of the season, what makes you feel that Tua would be ready and prepared for that moment whenever it does come?) – “That’s a very hypothetical question there…”
(At some point, it’ll happen.) – “I think it could happen at any position. It’s football. Guys get injured. Things happen. So the entire team or the guys who are on the active roster have to be ready to go and Tua (Tagovailoa) is part of that. There’s no specific to pulling someone. It’s no different than if a guy goes down. The next guy’s got to be ready. I think it’s – I understand the question to a degree, but I want everyone on our team to be ready to go. If you’re on the active roster, you need to practice and prepare as if you’re going to go into the game, and I’ll just leave it at that.”
(I wanted to ask you about do you see the coincidence in the fact that you’ve got three former Patriots as captains even though – those guys haven’t been with you and familiar with your scheme and familiar with the organization you’re coming from? Does that have any kind of impact on where they’ve gone status-wise on your squad?) – “You kind of froze right in the middle there. I believe the question is about the three former Patriots?”
(C Ted Karras, LB Elandon Roberts and LB Kyle Van Noy.) – “I think they’re all good players. They’re smart. They’re tough. They care about the game. They’re team-first. I think they’ve tried to build relationships throughout the locker room and on defense, on offense, on special teams. They are guys who care about those relationships; but there’s also a number of other guys who are very similar – guys who aren’t former Patriots like Bobby (McCain), like ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick), like (Davon) Godchaux. So it’s always good to have those types of players on your team and I’m happy to have the three former Patriots, but also the other guys that we have as captains as well.”
(A lot has been said about the uncertainty of the game, and how the teams haven’t seen each other in preseason and it’s new to everybody. Is there any part of that uncertainty that you like, and what is that?) – “I think there is uncertainty for everyone. The thing I like about it is, you go back to your rules, your reads, your fundamentals, your techniques. You see how far you’ve come along from that standpoint. I think at the end of the day, in football, there is a lot of different schemes, concepts, defensive structures and eventually you’ll see something that you haven’t seen before and you’ll have to rely on your rules and your keys. If you do that, you should be okay. That part of it I like. That unknown is something that a lot of players, they need to feel that. I think coaches need to feel that also and how we respond to that will help us moving forward.”
(I know we spend a lot of time asking about QB Tua Tagovailoa, but I wanted to see, are you okay with a scenario where he doesn’t play at all this season?) – “You know how I feel about questions about the entire season. (laughter) We’re just going to take it one day at a time. Again, everybody has got to be ready to play. It’s football. You knock on wood that there are no injuries; but the reality is there are at several positions – the o-line, d-line, quarterback, DB. I mean we’re dealing with some now. Everyone has to be ready to go. When your number is called, you have to be ready to go in and try to be productive and if your number is not called, then you just have to stay ready. That’s kind of the approach I’d like all of our players to take, and coaches. Couple that with the pandemic, and I think everybody has got to be ready to go. If there is a year where you’d see more players playing, I think this is it. I’m not really thinking about guys not playing. I’m trying to get guys ready to play. I think that’s what every coach should be doing.”
(Earlier this week, G/T Jesse Davis told us that he thinks whoever makes in-game adjustments the best will be the one that comes away with the victory. I’m just curious, are those mostly coaching observations, player observations, and how long does it take to make those adjustments? Can you just talk about the communication and process of in-game adjustments?) – “It’s a little bit of both, player and coach. The players are out there on the field, they hear things, they see things. If you can get the players and coaches on the same page, then you can make some adjustments. Now, have there been times where everybody is getting doubled? There are only so many people on the field. So if this guy got doubled and I got doubled, and I got doubled – they just don’t have that many guys. There has got to be some honesty and transparency there on both ends. Then you look at the tablet and we have film. You just try to tell them, ‘let’s be honest,’ and if you screwed up a play, then tell us about it and what happened and we’ll get it fixed. But, ‘I got cut, I got doubled, eight guys got doubled,’ – I’ve been in games where that’s happened too. It’s not funny in the moment; it’s funny the day after, after you watch the tape and you see the one guy that got doubled and the other guys just couldn’t beat a block. But yes, to answer your question, the in-game adjustments, you can make them, but it’s got to be – the communication on both sides has to be transparent, it has to be honest. That would be my first thought. But, thank you; I’ll remind the guys on that, too. (laughter)”
