Brian Flores – September 23, 2019
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Monday, September 23, 2019
Head Coach Brian Flores
(On the two players that made their debut, can you talk about each one of them separately? DE Taco Charlton first of all and DE Trent Harris. How did they do after watching the tape?) – “I thought Taco – he had been here a couple of days. I thought he went in, I thought he played hard. I thought he handled his assignments. We didn’t give him a lot to do. I thought he did an okay job with his assignment. He lost contain on one play in particular that I’m thinking of; but I think he’s off to a pretty good start. He was very into the game, very into everything we’ve been doing since he’s gotten here. It was good to have him. As far as Trent, I thought he had a couple of good games and twists inside. I thought his communication was good. He hadn’t been out there (much). He was just getting out to practice, (so) he had a little rust on him. Overall, I thought it was a good start for both guys.”
(I know we get an injury report on Wednesday. Is there anything you can tell us on G/T Jesse Davis, or WR Allen Hurns?) – “Allen is in the protocol. Our medical staff, obviously I’ll defer to them from that standpoint. I think they do a great job and were doing everything they can with Allen, leaving him in Dallas and felt like that was the best thing for him. He’s on his way back and from what I understand, he’s doing a lot better.”
(As far as G/T Jesse Davis, and G Danny Isidora?) – “It’s Monday so those guys, just in talking to them today, I think we’re just going to take this day-to-day. Hopefully we can get them back this week. But yes, it’s early in the week and those guys are very upbeat about the possibility of getting back into practice and playing. We’ll just take it day-to-day.”
(What things did you see yesterday that you think you can build on?) – “There were definitely some opportunities for us to make plays in all three phases. From the surprise onside kick, to there was a kickoff return where if we make one block – there was a lot of should’ve, could’ve, would’ve in the game; but definitely some opportunities for us, offensively. Obviously we had some drops. Defensively, we had some missed tackles. Some opportunities on third down we didn’t take advantage of – third-and-long, second-and-long. I think the team, from what I’ve seen, there seems to be some opportunities for us to have a little bit more control of the game, and we just didn’t take advantage of them. There are plays to be made that we can make, that we just aren’t making – in all three phases. I think if we make two, three, four, five more plays, the game is a little bit different.”
(Are guys pressing at this point? Do you think that is part of the problem now?) – “Pressing?”
(Yeah, with the way things have gone and wanting to…) – “I think these guys want to win. They want to do well. They play hard. No, I don’t think they’re pressing. I think we’re close to stringing some good plays together, and then we’ve just got to make the routine plays – routine catches, the routine blocks. This is a game they’ve all played since they were little. I think as a team – individually and as a team – we just need to stay in the present and just play the way we’ve practiced, the way we’ve talked about playing, and I think good things will happen.”
(A couple questions on the RB Kenyan Drake fumble. That ball – was that clearly stripped, or was that caused when he roll-spun into TE Durham Smythe?) – “I think it was a little bit of both. He spun, the Dallas defender got a hand on it. Obviously there are a lot of bodies flying around; but any way you slice it, we’ve got to secure the football. We hit it, they hit it, an official hits it – it doesn’t really matter what happens. We’ve got to secure the football. We’ve got to do a better job of that. Obviously that was a critical point in the game. We had an opportunity to go up at half or at worst, kick a field goal and go down one. That’s why ball security is so important in this game, and we need to do a better job.”
(RB Kenyan Drake made a comment: “I’m not going to change my running style.” I guess he was referring to spinning off of hits, I guess. You can’t really always put two hands on the ball when you spin, right? Does he need to change anything? We see running backs do that all the time, including Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott yesterday.) – “I think – Drake’s a good runner. He’s fast, he’s explosive, he can make people miss, he’s physical. He’s a good running back. In that instance, he’s just got to secure the ball better. No one’s asking him to change his style. I’m not. But we’re always asking him to secure the football. He knows that. We’ve talked about that. He’s a good player. No one’s more upset about that than he is. He wants to do well for this team. It’s important to him. He’ll get that done and corrected.”
(Time of possession was almost even. How do you interpret that, and how much of a step forward is that? What does that say about the team?) – “I think it just means we kind of strung some plays together offensively. (We) got off the field defensively at least in the first half. We made some plays – explosive plays – down the field; but at the end of the day, this comes down to putting points on the board. We were 0-for-3 in the red zone. We did a good job I would say on early downs – first and second down – of picking up first down, but we were 3-for-15 on third down. That’s really how you change the time of possession and you change controlling the game. We need to do a better job, specifically in the red zone, of putting the ball in the end zone and then third down, that’ll go a long way to helping us both offensively and defensively. We have to keep them out of the end zone and then we’ve got to get off the field on third down.”
(How would you assess how G Michael Deiter did at left tackle?) – “I think he played – it was pretty admirable of him to go out there and (with) limited practice reps – he’s practiced at that position for sure, but when Jesse (Davis) went down, he went out there and look, they’ve got good ends. There were some tough matchups out there, and he performed – I thought he performed well. Not perfect, but given the circumstances, I was happy he was there to kind of fill that role. He’s got a lot of versatility. He’s a tough kid. He’s smart – just from a communications standpoint, there were no issues. He had some tough matchups for sure. I was happy with watching a guy – a rookie at that – in that environment, step into that type of situation and give us some really good effort and give us some good plays. I thought that was really admirable.”
(You had 72 defensive snaps. LB Raekwon McMillan played 21 of them. Considering you gave up 6.9 yards per carry – he did well obviously his first full season last year against the run. Does he need to play more?) – “Raekwon (McMillan) – we’ve got him in in some of the bigger packages. He’s played well, but I’d say Sam (Eguavoen), ‘Bake’ (Jerome Baker) – those guys have played well also. We’re kind of splitting reps between the three of those guys. I’ve got a lot of respect for Raekwon. I think he’s doing a good job. Again, we’re evaluating all positions and getting him in there a little bit more is something we’ve talked about, and we’ll see how that goes this week. Obviously, if he has a good week at practice, we’ll take it from there.”
(Is there one specific message you have for the team this week?) – “Get better. That’s the message every week. Let’s get better, let’s come back, let’s practice, let’s improve, let’s get better. I think it’s pretty clear that there are some plays that we could’ve had out there. That’s disappointing, but I guess the silver lining there is there are some opportunities that we can definitely take advantage of. If we continue to put ourselves in those positions where we have those opportunities, then I think we will take advantage of them. That’s my message. Just keep continuing to get better. I feel like that’s been the case each week. The results haven’t been what we want them to be, but I think in time, things will turn.”
(I want to go back to something you said yesterday when we asked you about the WR Preston Williams play in the end zone where the ball was stripped. You said you watch every touchdown every week. Is that every contested touchdown or every single touchdown in the NFL you’ll have them cut it up and you watch?) – “Every one that’s, let’s say, up for debate whether or not it’s in or not in; but I do end up watching a lot of the touchdowns over the course of the week. Any one that is on the line of ‘do we throw the flag, not throw the flag?’ ‘Is he in, is he not in?’ I watch them all. Those I get. Every single touchdown – I wouldn’t say I watch all of them throughout the entire league, but I watch a lot of league footage along with our opponent.”
(From watching those touchdowns, do you have pretty good clarity on what to challenge and what not to? You seemed certain yesterday that that was the right decision. Do you have clarity?) – “As far as going through the process of watching them – what were the results? Were they overturned? Was it in? Was it not in? From that standpoint, you have pretty good clarity. Obviously that’s subjective in a lot of ways; but yeah, I have fairly good clarity. I spend a lot of time on that. We need to be sure about those decisions because they’re big ones in a game.”
(I know you said after the game that you were advised that you didn’t need to review that, but after watching that play itself did you feel like maybe a review – not was warranted – but you could’ve gotten something from that?) – “No. I trust the guys in the box, and after watching it myself, I was convicted that that was the right call.”
