Brian Flores – September 15, 2021
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Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Head Coach Brian Flores
(On DT Raekwon Davis) – “I don’t get into anyone’s medical situation. He’s going to take it day-to-day. He’s going to work to get back as quickly as he can, like any player who is dealing with something. Obviously he’s on IR, so it’s a minimum of three weeks. We’ll take it day-to-day. I understand the question. I don’t like putting timelines for a number of reasons. I’ve had injuries. I’ve had setbacks. So if I tell you it’s three weeks and then it’s not three weeks, then everybody is wondering what happened. That’s the reason why I don’t give timelines. I’ve personally had injuries and personally had setbacks. That’s kind of the thought process on that.”
(I know it’s just Week 2, but a win would put you two games up on Buffalo with a tiebreaker. Getting these division wins early in the season, knowing that you’re coming back or you’re going to face Buffalo later, how big will that be?) – “Our focus right now is on the preparation. Buffalo is a very good team. Obviously they were in the AFC Championship a year ago. They have a lot of good players, a lot of good coaches. They’ll be ready to go, so we’ve got to prepare in all three phases, situations. We’ve got to have very high execution to have success against this particular team, which is a very good team.”
(The last time you played them, it didn’t go so well for you. What can you take from that game as you prep for this one?) – “Yeah, it didn’t go so well. But last year is last year, just like last week was last week. We’re focused on right now, we’re focused on today, we’re focused on our preparation. Obviously we’ve studied the game. There are a lot of things we didn’t do good enough. We’re trying to make those corrections and not make those mistakes again. They’ve got some new players and so do we. It’s different. We’re starting from scratch from that standpoint. It’s about the preparation this week.”
(What are the difficulties of a quarterback like Josh Allen? He can use his arms and use his legs. How do you contain something like that?) – “He’s a very talented player. He’s improved incredibly over the course of his career. He’s got a lot of confidence. He has total command of the offense. He has autonomy to make changes at the line of scrimmage. He can throw it; he can run it. They have good backs; they have good receivers. They’ve got good skill all over the field. They’ve got a good team. It’s about communication, it’s about everyone handling their assignment, their responsibility, playing team football, tackling well and having good execution overall as a team. That’s a tall task and this is a good team. We’ve got to prepare and that starts with preparation. We can talk about it all we want, but we’ve got to prepare the right way, we’ve got to practice the right way, just to get an opportunity to have success on the field.”
(With Buffalo’s ability to disguise how they blitz, what kind of onus is on QB Tua Tagovailoa’s ability to create outside of the structure and improvise as the play develops?) – “You’re right. They do a very good job of disguising. That’s not just a one-person situation. Our receivers need to know what the coverage is, the backs need to know what the coverage is, the line is looking at some of that stuff too as far as some things from a protection standpoint. It’s a team. Tua is a big part of that, there’s no doubt about that. He’s got to have good awareness and good overall knowledge of what may or may not happen. But everyone is involved in that and we really need everyone on the same page. Tua can know, but if someone else doesn’t know, it still doesn’t work. To put it on one person I think is unfair; but with that, said as a team, we’re going to have to all prepare and be on the same page if we want to be able to execute.”
(The process of making corrections, does it differ coming off of a win as opposed to coming off a loss when you’re asking the guys to be self-critical?) – “I don’t think so. I think corrections are corrections. I think our guys are open to that. They understand that. They want to get better, they want to hear the critiques and they want to play better and help this team win. We try to make the corrections but every week is a little bit different. We’re going to see some things that are different this week than we saw last week. Some of the corrections that were made against a fullback in the game, we may not see as many of those plays this week. Hopefully somewhere done the road when we do see a fullback or a big fullback team, they hopefully remember the corrections from Week 1. But that’s the game. We try to get them to rely on their fundamentals and techniques and their rules. When they make a mistake in one of those areas, we try to correct it. Hopefully there is some recall the next time that situation arises.”
(What do you think of Bills CB Tre’Davious White?) – “A very good player. Good cover corner, good tackler, good ball skills. A very good player. It’s hard to get open against that guy.”
(With TE Mike Gesicki getting 21 offensive snaps, do you envision utilizing him more often moving forward? Was it a matchup thing against New England?) – “There are so many things that go into that question. There is situation, matchups – there is a lot that goes into it. They had the ball 36 minutes in the game, so we didn’t really have that many offensive snaps. There is a lot that goes into it. We’ve got a lot of different groups. Mike is in on a number of them. He’s not in on some. The down, distance, situation can play into how much a player does or doesn’t play. It’s the same really across the board – offense, defense and in the kicking game. We had 21 kicking game snaps. It’s normally 30. So all of those guys’ kicking game numbers were down too. There is a lot that goes into it. Obviously we have a great deal of confidence in Mike and think he can make some plays for us. We’ll try to put him in positions to do that, but every game is a little bit different.”
(Last week we were talking about facing a rookie in QB Mac Jones. You said that your thought process was always to impact the quarterback. Normally you’d think that means to blitz but is there also an understanding that maybe you can do that in other ways – not necessarily to blitz but in disguising coverages and stuff like that. What are your thoughts on that?) – “All of that is a part of potentially affecting the quarterback and the offense. You can blitz them, you can not blitz them, you can send eight, you can drop eight, you can do a variety of things – blitz safety, post safety, there is fire zone. You can do a lot of things. At the end of the day, you’ve got to do what you think you do well. If somebody asks me to go out there and play man coverage, it’s not going to go very well. Just because it might be a good disguise, it’s not going to work out. I’ll tell you that right now. At the end of the day, you’ve got to do what you think do well as a team and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
(Regarding the timeline of DT Raekwon Davis, are we looking at surgery or standard rehab?) – “Again, I don’t get into people’s medical situations, surgeries, things like that. I think it’s just common courtesy to stay away from people’s medical situations. If Raekwon wants to talk about that, he can; but I’m not going to.”
(Can you say definitively though that the injury is not season ending?) – “He’s going to take it day-to-day. That’s what he’s going to do, that’s what I ask our players to do on a daily basis on really anything. He’s going to take it day-to-day. He’s going to rehab it. It’s IR, so it’s a minimum of three weeks. We’ll see after that.”
(How are T Austin Jackson and TE Adam Shaheen doing?) – “Good. Adam will be back today. Austin’s back. They will both be at practice.”
(Today is the start of Hispanic Heritage Month and it happens to be Independence Day in Honduras as well. Can you shed a little bit of the core values that still help you to this day coming from a Hispanic household?) – “Obviously I grew up in a Hispanic household – my parents. It’s a family environment. Aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone is at the house. We spend a lot of time together. We eat dinner together. It’s something that’s very important to me, I do it now with my family. That’s very important to me.”
(This is a little bit open-ended, but what does WR Will Fuller’s return do for this offense?) – “Today will be his first day back after last week. He’s had some practice time with us. We’ll know what more to expect after we practice and get into it a little bit. If we are just going to go off of past history, obviously he has had some production in this league. He’s got speed, he’s a good route runner. We will practice today and see how it goes and make a determination on who plays, how much people play and if we think he can help us, he’ll be out there.”
(Specifically, I know you said you have to see him at practice, but is WR Will Fuller kind of a counter against a Bills defense that traditionally doesn’t give up big plays given his history as a deep-play, big-play kind of guy?) – “There’s a lot of layers to that. Again, if you’re going to create any type of positive play, it’s not just one person; it’s the entire team. It’s the o-line, it’s the backs, it’s the tight ends blocking, it’s the quarterback throwing an accurate ball. It’s not just send the player out there and he’ll make a big play. I understand your question in that he’s had some explosive plays over the course of his career, but there’s a lot that goes into it. I don’t think it’s just he’s in and it’s automatic. There’s a lot that we have to do as a team to create those – a lot of execution that has to be made to create those types of plays especially against a defense like this who, like you said, limits big plays. We are going to have to execute. We will see how Will does in practice, we will see how all the receivers do in practice. At the end of the day, we will put the guys in there that we think will help us move the ball down the field, get first downs and try to create some chunk plays.”
(We’ve all seen WR Albert Wilson’s upside over the years of course in between his injuries and years off and stuff like that. How confidant are you that he’s going to be able to get back to that key contributor game-in and game-out type guy? What are your thoughts on his development so far?) – “He’s done a good job. He did a nice job in training camp. He’s another guy who missed some time due to injury, worked his way back, got back out there 10-12 days ago, had a good week of practice last week and we are just trying to string good days together. We had him in the game last week. It’s a new week and our preparation on Buffalo is ongoing and he’ll be part of that. His role will be what he makes it.”
(Rewatching Sunday’s game, a play that jumped out to me was late in the game when QB Tua Tagovailoa hit WR DeVante Parker on a slant. I think it was a 1st-and-14 and he was on his goal line. What about the aggressiveness from the play-caller and quarterback in that situation, considering it might have been easy to run the ball. What are your thoughts on aggressiveness in spots like that?) – “I talked to the team this morning that we were done with last week and we are really focused on Buffalo. We always want to be aggressive and I think you need to be, especially in that situation. We’re going to need to be against Buffalo. We are. We are going to need to be against Buffalo.”
(How much can T Liam Eichenberg playing the way he did, how much could that accelerate a young kid’s growth? How much can that fast track – not to say skipping steps – but how much can that opportunity help him?) – “I think playing in games, regular season games and preseason games, I think that gives you – every play is an experience. Good or bad, it’s an experience and it’s one that you can learn from. He definitely learned about the speed of the NFL game, the power of the NFL game and I think he probably gained some confidence in some of the things he did in the game. We want to build on that. We want to build on that today in practice. There’s a lot of things we have to get better at, a lot of situations we have to get better at, our awareness on some things has to be better. I think he understands that too. He’s working at it.”
(It’s not every day that you see a first-round draft pick of a year ago inactive for a team. What does CB Noah Igbinoghene have to do to get back in uniform and on the field on Sundays? How close is he to that spot?) – “I thought he had a good training camp. At the end of the day, you can only bring so many players to the game. Some guys have to be inactive by league rule. Last week it was him and we’ll see how it goes in practice. We have to have inactive players, that’s per league rule. He’ll continue to work hard, he’s a hard-working kid, it’s important to him. We are going to do what we feel is best for the team.”
(QB Tua Tagovailoa’s development as far as how he goes through his progressions and his second, third or fourth read) – “I think he’s a young player who is getting better every time he steps on the field. That’s in a lot of areas; that’s calling the play, reading defenses, his decision making, his progressions and it’s all getting better. I think it’s getting better.”
