Brian Flores – September 4, 2020
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Friday, September 4, 2020
Head Coach Brian Flores
(I just want to follow up, I remember last year you telling us that you were the ‘turk’ at one point in your NFL career. I wanted to know, who is your ‘turk’ now and what’s that experience like when you’re having those conversations with guys telling them that “hey, your dreams of playing in the NFL are deferred?”) – “We’ve got some young personnel people who are handling that as far as who is making the first – having that first conversation with the players – then obviously they talk to (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and then they talk to me. That conversation is not an easy one. It’s one that’s – it’s a delicate situation. Obviously the guys are disappointed who are being released. I try not to tell them that their dreams are over, but I do tell them that when one door closes, normally another one opens up. I try to be supportive and give them some good feedback that could help them in their next endeavor. In a lot of cases, there’s opportunity to bring guys back to the practice squad. If that’s the case, we’ll let them know that; but we just try to be respectful and supportive and honest. I think that’s always the best way to handle a tough conversation like that.”
(Is there I guess a different strategy this year with the bigger practice squads about how you want to go about cutting guys to make sure you get them through? Like I know some teams may do it a few days early or a day early to try to get their crew through? Is there any strategy behind that?) – “I think we have conversations on every situation. As far as strategy for the practice squad, I think the additional practice squad players – we’ve had a lot of conversations about who we would want on that and that’s almost its own kind of roster itself. How many linemen, how many corners, how many receivers? As far as if there is a strategy on what day, I think no, to be honest. I think we’re just going to kind of go through the normal process and everyone who we release, we know they’re out there to potentially get claimed and if they do get claimed, then we’ve got to move on to the next guy on our list. So from a strategy standpoint, no. But again, honestly that’s probably more of a question for (General Manager) Chris (Grier), (Vice President of Football Administration) Brandon (Shore) and the scouting department.”
(Do you have captains at this time?) – “No. We don’t have captains. We’ll go through that process probably later in the week.”
(This time last year, those on the outside weren’t expecting the amount of moves you guys made this coming weekend with trades and cuts and picking up guys on the waiver wire. Obviously you have a much more veteran team – a much more established team – this year than last year. Should we expect that kind of movement from you all this weekend or do you think you might be a little lighter?) – “You never know. It depends on who’s out there and who’s available. Look, we look at everyone and if we feel like there’s a player out there that can help us, then we have those conversations. Last year was different than this year so we’ll see. You never know who’s going to be on the wire, who’s going to get released, who’s going to become available. I don’t want to kind of pigeonhole us and say, ‘hey, we’re good with where we’re at,’ because if we can get better, we’re going to try to get better. I think that’s going to always be the approach.”
(We had heard from I guess some of the DBs and Defensive Backs Coach Gerald Alexander earlier a couple weeks ago about the point system that you guys are doing to kind of encourage turnovers, hands on the ball. I wanted to see if you could kind of give me your perspective on that strategy and then maybe what’s the state of the competition as camp wraps up.) – “Turnovers – they’re hugely important and in a lot of cases the deciding factor between wins and losses in this league, so we’re very conscious of obviously trying to secure the ball offensively and in the kicking game and try to take it away defensively and in the kicking game. It’s something we try to spend a lot of time on. The more turnovers, the better chance of a victory. My message to our staff was any way we can create more urgency, more energy, more competition and maybe a competitive points system; if that’s what does it and puts more emphasis on trying to create turnovers and it works, then I’m all for it. As far as the state of where we’re at, I’ll let ‘GA’ (Gerald Alexander) handle that, (Defensive Coordinator) Josh (Boyer) and the defensive staff. I’m doing some other things.”
(Getting back to the captains, what’s your thought process when trying to put that unit together? Do you have a leadership council? Do you expect it to be one person from every unit? How – is it player-voted, not player-voted, selected?) – “It’s player-voted. I think that’s the right way to do it – allow the players to select who they feel are the leaders on the team that they want to speak for them because those captains, we have a captains meeting every week and we have conversations about everything from the schedule to game plan to any issues surrounding the team. So I think that’s where – the players make that selection and I talk to them about that and the role of the captains. It’s not just on the field which that’s part of it also, but it’s on and off the field, the locker room – anything that they feel like they need on, off, scheduling. It’s a big role and it’s not one we – I think it’s an important choice for the players. I try to mention that as well. It’s not a popularity contest. This is a serious kind of position and they should take it seriously.”
(Now that we’re at the tail end of training camp, given what you were up against this summer with no OTAs and so forth, where are you in terms of preparedness? How far behind are you compared to if you had a full offseason training program?) – “Compared to years past, we’re 10 OTA practices and three minicamp practices behind; but every team is in the same boat so us being a young team with a lot of rookies and a lot of new players, that’s where we’re at. I feel like we’ve worked hard. We’ve improved; but as far as where we’re at versus past years, that’s what it is. But it’s that way for every team. We’re not making excuses or pointing fingers or placing blame or anything like that. It’s what it is and more time – it’s always better, but that’s not what we have and I think the guys have worked really hard and trying to build that continuity, that takes time as you guys know. But I think they’re working towards that and like any year, hopefully we’re better two, four, six, 10 weeks from now than we are today.”
(With the news coming out that Patriots QB Cam Newton is going to start for the Patriots next week, how much does that help, how much does that affect your preparation for the game?) – “I think we all had an inkling that that was going to be the case, so we were preparing for all three quarterbacks and we’ll still do that. You’ve always got to prepare for the backup and you have to know who the third quarterback is if there is one – the same at all positions. You want to know who the o-line is and who the backups are on the o-line and who the d-line is and who the backups are on the d-line. But with him being named the starter – I mean we’ve watched a lot of film on Cam (Newton). We’ll continue to do that, but we’ll also watch what (Brian) Hoyer and (Jarrett) Stidham and the rest of the guys on the team – they’re very talented. They’re obviously a well-coached team. It’s hard to win on the road. It’ll be a challenge. We know that and it doesn’t matter who the quarterback is, it’ll be a challenge against that team.”
(Yesterday there was a report that the team was kind of taking calls for QB Josh Rosen. Whether that’s true or not, could trading away Rosen maybe lend to the opportunity for QB Tua Tagovailoa to play maybe a little bit earlier than you want to play him?) – “As far as the rumors about Josh (Rosen), I think it’s the day before cut-down day and I think there’s a lot of names that are floating around and we’re fielding calls left and right – or I know (General Manager) Chris (Grier) is –about Josh and probably a handful of other players, and I think that’s the case across the league. As far as Tua (Tagovailoa) as you mentioned, no decisions have been made. We’re going to go out here in practice today and make decisions on the roster tomorrow. But yeah, we’re fielding calls on everybody – well, not everybody but on a handful of players – and I think every team is doing the same thing. But again, Josh has competed. Josh has made some great throws. Josh is, I think he’s gotten better over the course of training camp. That’s where we are with him. Hopefully that answers your question.”
