Chad O’Shea – September 17, 2019
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Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Offensive Coordinator Chad O’Shea
(How do you measure improvement with your offensive line?) – “I think that it’s an ongoing process and some of the things that might go unforeseen we measure improvement in. Obviously, the way the game went for us is not what we want as far as not scoring points and those things, but we thought that there was a lot of improvement at all positions on some small things that we’re asking of the group to try to make progress on. Certainly, I think that was true of the offensive line. This is a work in progress for us. It’s one of which we’re embracing the challenge. I know that the players are, the coaching staff is. I think that what we’re asking is to improve every week and to get better and certainly, they’ve done that.”
(With the issues you’ve had on the offensive line, why not move the pocket more, why not change launching points for QB Ryan Fitzpatrick or QB Josh Rosen?) – “I think that there’s – that’s a good question. I think there’s a lot that goes into our plan and the pass game on offense. Certainly, there’s a number of factors one of which is the defensive scheme that we’re presented each week. That may change and that may vary what we do as far as our protection systems. Like I’ve always said, we’re always going to try to do what’s best schematically to produce points and contribute to winning football. The protection scheme is one that we definitely look at very closely each week. I think there’s a number of factors involved that would determine what protection scheme we’re going to use on a weekly basis. I think there’s a number of factors involved in that. It’s a great question on moving the pocket and those things and that’s certainly one way in which we could do things. And I can just say that we do everything on a weekly basis to try to evaluate everything whether it’s the protection scheme, whether it’s a pass concept that we think is going to work. And that’s one of our jobs as coaches is to do what’s best for our team.”
(When you have a lot of drops like you guys did with WR Preston Williams, WR Jakeem Grant and RB Kalen Ballage, do you hammer on that the next week in practice? Because obviously these guys know how to catch. Or do you kind of do your normal work? How do you handle that?) – “The first thing I’ll say is those guys have done a good job in that area thus far. Obviously, I thought it was uncharacteristic in the game. Certainly Kalen is somebody I have a tremendous amount of respect for and no one (was as) hurt and was as disappointed as much as Kalen after he dropped the football in the game, because he’s one that really takes a lot of pride in his work and one of the areas he takes a lot of pride in is catching the ball. Is it something that we work on daily? It is. Is it something that we’ll continue to emphasize because of some of our issues that we had in the game of not catching the ball? It is, and we’ll emphasize those fundamentals that we think we need to improve on, but certainly catching the ball is one of our everyday fundamentals that we try to emphasize as an offense.”
(There’s been a little bit of mention I guess of how much QB Josh Rosen had to grow when he got to you guys. Can you quantify a little bit of where he maybe was and where he is now?) – “I think we’ve made progress. He’s made progress, certainly. I think anytime that you have to learn a new offense and you have to learn a new language and you’re doing it at a place in which it’s your first year, there’s challenges along the way. But I certainly think there’s progress that’s been made. Last week was a good week for him – and during the week – of preparation. He stayed well prepared during the week. He worked extremely hard in the meeting rooms, in the walkthroughs and in the settings other than in the practice field to try to improve as a player and help our team. And I think that’s what we’re asking of our players right now in general is let’s control the things that we can control. One of the things that we can control is our improvement. Certainly, Josh has been an example of somebody that I think has really tried to do that and tried to improve. The quarterback position is a difficult position to play regardless of what system you’re in. There’s a lot that it entails and a lot of responsibilities that you have that are unique to the positon. I think that it’s a difficult position to play in the National Football League. I think that there needs to be a number of factors involved to get to the point where you’re a consistent player at that position. Certainly, he’s aware of what those are and he’s continued to work on those and we’ve bene pleased with his progress. Although he’s not out there playing in a game, we’ve bene pleased with some of the things at practice and he’s making progress.”
(Where is QB Josh Rosen in terms of reading defenses and getting the team into the right play?) – “Again, I think it’s similar to some of the other positons: we’re making progress in that area. I think it’s a great challenge at that positon, because there’s so many other things that are going on prior to the snap that they’re responsible for and then the ball is snapped and you’ve got to read the coverage as the quarterback. It’s something that he has worked tremendously hard on. I think anytime you put in the effort that he has, that you’re going to make improvement. I would say we’ve made progress in that area. It’s an area that was been well stated that he needs to improve on among other things that all of our players need to improve on. That’s one of them for Josh and I think we’ve made improvement in that area.”
(You’re always evaluating QB Josh Rosen. How many games does it take to give him a fair full evaluation at the end of the season?) – “It’s a good question. We’ve talked about that as a staff and I don’t think there’s a set in stone number. I think this is an ongoing process whether it’s practice reps, whether it’s his familiarity with what we’re doing scheme-wise and where we think that is. I think that you can’t put a number on it and that’s how we’ve approached it. We’ve looked to see improvement and that’s certainly what he’s done and how he’s approached it is he’s tried to improve. That’s what we’re asking all of our position groups. I know the offensive line and the quarterback position is being talked about more than the others, but certainly we just mentioned the receivers and the running backs having to focus in and catch the ball better and be better fundamentally. I think that that’s probably true of all positions right now. There’s no set number to see whether we make improvement – it’s just over the long haul, the progress needs to be made.”
(I know that you mentioned with us the Mike call is something that was difficult for QB Josh Rosen to pick up and he’s felt like that’s something he’s progressed with substantially since he’s got here. When you find younger quarterbacks, are there things that now in this new era that are harder for them to pick up as they transition to the NFL?) – “I think one of the things in general that’s happened is in college football with the amount of no-huddle offense and the spread offense, a lot of responsibilities in the NFL that you have at the line of scrimmage and in the huddle as far as communication-wise, it can be challenging for players to transition from college to the NFL. Certainly, that’s one of the challenges, but that’s probably true of other positions, too. You take the receiver positon for example, they line up and look to the sidelines in a lot of the offenses in college – which I have a tremendous amount of respect for those offenses and the way they do things in college – but it’s challenging as far as the transition that one makes from college to the pros because of simply not being in a huddle, breaking the huddle, seeing some of the coverage things that are different in the NFL to college. I do think that there’s challenges. I think that’s true of any offense you may go in, not just specific to our offense here at Miami.”
(Right now you guys are converting 20 percent on third downs. Obviously, it’s what’s handcuffing this offense. Is there a strategy that you think can work to get you in better down-and-distance situations?) – “I think the success of third down really relies heavily on the success of your early down success. Our inability to get ahead of the down-and-distance on early downs has been something that’s really hindered our success on third downs. To your point, when we talk about third down, it relies so heavily on early downs. Again, when you’re at third-and-longer and you play the game like that, that’s a tough place to play the game, especially with the multiplicity of what teams are doing defensively. They know what position they’re in defensively and that is they can be aggressive and bring pressure and do things they would not do if the distance was manageable at third-and-2-to-5. If we can do a better job on early downs and be at a more manageable third down distance, obviously, that’s going to really help our third down and that’s where we want to be.”
(With RB Kalen Ballage, obviously, the drop aside, he’s not even averaging a yard per carry right now. How much is that the line versus him finding the right hole?) – “I think that, and I talked about this last week with Kalen, that’s Kalen’s stats, but it’s everybody’s stats. I really, truly believe that. I think Kalen, I’ve been impressed with him as a runner and we really stressed to the team that it takes all 11 to be successful and this is certainly true of the running back positon. They rely so heavily on not only the offensive line but the tight ends and the receivers to block-run for us and for the quarterback to get in the right play whether it be an alert at the line of scrimmage or the right identification of the front. There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle in the run game and unfortunately right now for Kalen – he’s a player in which I have a tremendous amount of respect for because of his work ethic and his professionalism and he’s a talented runner and one of which we need to help him obviously be better. We’re all in this together and it takes all 11 for an offensive play to be successful.”
