Clyde Christensen – October 5, 2017
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Thursday, October 5, 2017
Offensive Coordinator Clyde Christensen
(A couple of things. One, from a run blocking standpoint, who has been your best offensive lineman this year? The other thing is how different are you seeing defensive fronts in terms of number of people in the box in the first three games compared to last December – Jets, Patriots, Steelers in the playoff game, Bills?) – “To answer your first question, (Mike) Pouncey is the one guy on offense who I think has graded out (well) all three of the weeks. He continues to play at an extremely high level. He has played extremely well for three weeks, especially on a (modified) practice schedule where we’re kind of having to rest him a little bit. Defensively, it’s really the same thing (we saw last year). We just haven’t handled it as well. We’re getting the extra man in the box and everyone starts with the same thing, ‘Let’s stop the run. Let’s not let them get going.’ The difference is that we haven’t gotten going much this year; but I think they’re playing us the same. I really think that they’ve played us very similar and probably the only advantage that they do have now is a whole year of film on us and it gives them a little more to start preparing for us. But it’s the same thing. Every week, week after week, it’s the same thing. It’s that extra guy in the box, let’s stop the run first, which we knew. You go into every game knowing there’s an extra man in the box and last year we ran the ball solidly on the extra man, and this year we haven’t consistently done that. This last game, it’s a hard thing to say; but when we were on schedule, we played pretty well. You called runs on first-and-10 and second-and-1-to-6 and when you’re on schedule … The bad news was we just weren’t on schedule probably two-thirds of the game, whether it was a penalty, whether it was a minus-yard play or whether it was something else, we just stayed off schedule. Then it’s hard. It’s hard-sledding and we didn’t handle it very well. If there was a silver lining – which there wasn’t much of one, but if there was one – it was when we were on schedule, it was okay. The first drive, we drive down there and did some good things and ran, threw (the ball) and kind of had a little rhythm going there and then we had the pick at the 5-yard line on first-and-goal from the 5 (yard line). But when we were on schedule, it was okay. It was okay football.”
(Is it fair to say that the run blocking is not anywhere close to where it was at the end of last year?) – “I don’t know if that’s fair. It’s a good question. We haven’t run it as successfully. There were moments and there were times last year where we had trouble running, that the extra guy is (causing trouble); but I think it’s certainly fair to say we aren’t running it as well. It’s a combination of an awful lot of things. Is it the line’s fault if we jump offsides, if we jump offsides and end up first-and-15? I’d be careful. I would not put it all on the (offensive) line or the run blocking, if you will. It’s been kind of everybody. Sometimes it’s the quarterback, sometimes it’s a tight end jumping offsides, sometimes it’s us not getting lined up right or something. There have been multiple … Getting a ‘Mike’ (linebacker) point, getting it ID’d correctly. All of those things. It would be widespread to blame (everyone), including me.”
(What does this offense need to do more than anything? I know score points, but specifically what do you need to do?) – “I think we’ve just got to get guys … I said last week, we’ve got to have more guys play winning football. That would be the first thing. And then I think third down continues to haunt us because everyone gets claustrophobic and frustrated that you don’t have enough snaps. It’s another game where there is 50-whatever there was – (47) snaps in the game. I watched Houston against these guys last week this morning and I think they had (78) snaps. Don’t hold me to the number. I think if you said two things, we have to play better football and everyone just has to do their job; and then two is we have to stay on schedule and sustain some drives and get enough snaps to where playmakers can make their plays and (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase can get into his full play call sheet, runners can get enough carries to get into a rhythm, we can wear down some pass rushers to where it’s a little easier to protect and block people – all of those kinds of things. Those two things I’d say would be of utmost importance.”
(With Head Coach Adam Gase calling the plays and having final say on the offense, how exactly do you two work together when you’re in a situation like this trying to fix some things? What is your role as far as that dynamic?) – “My role, which I don’t think I’ve done very well is just keep giving him some ideas and kind of manage the things underneath him, talk through some things like how do we get this thing back on track, so he can focus on calling the game. It’s the same as it’s always been, just to be a complement to him. It’s his show and I’m just dancing in it; but I’ve got to do a better job of giving him what he needs to dial it up. The same as everybody, there’s a frustration level I think (he has). When there are so few snaps, it’s hard to get a rhythm. It’s hard to get to the things in your game plan that you want to. You start pressing. I do think that probably one of my responsibilities would be just to be a soothing voice, if you will, that you can’t get frustrated. All of us have tendencies – players and coaches – to say ‘I’ve got to make it happen. I’ve got to make this thing successful. I’ve got to call the perfect play. I’ve got to dial up the one that turns the whole thing around.’ At the end of the day, that’s a recipe for things getting worse. You’ve got to stay with it and we’ve just got to work our way through this thing. The great news – I was walking over here trying to think of some positives and I couldn’t think of many, but one is we get to play this weekend; and two is that we have to find some way to end the first quarter 2-2. We’ve been around the globe with circumstances and geographics, and we can come out of this quarter 2-2 and regroup with a long way to go. That’s a positive, to play as dismally as we’ve played offensively and I think there’s just one undefeated team (Kansas City). If you come out of the first quarter 2-2 … We’ve got a chance to do that with a home game (this week) and we have to do that.”
(How do you improve the production in the run game? Is that a matter of continuing doing what you have been doing but doing it better?) – “I think it is. I think generally, the recipe out there in the stands and on the TV and everywhere else is we’ve got to change people, we’ve got to change things, we’ve got to change schemes, we’ve got to change everything, we have to change what we had for pregame meal. I think that’s kind of … ‘Replace this and replace that.’ Usually, in my humble history, you try to just do what you’re doing better. It’s not the system. It’s a proven system. It’s not the players. They’ve won games. Just keep doing what you’re doing, do it better, tighten it up and you hope for something to just kind of ignite it. A big play, we need someone to make a big run, a big catch, a big throw, a big block, something to just get us going. We all know who have watched this thing from last year that we’ve kind of been that kind of team. Once something gets it going, it kind of catches fire and then we go. I do think it’s not (about changing things). You have to resist a little (because) changing everything, that’s not the case. We’ll experiment a little bit but the answer to the question is stay the course, do it better and it’s about us. It’s not about the opponent. We’ve got to play better football; we’ve got to have guys play winning football. If we don’t play winning football, it doesn’t matter what offense, what stadium, what continent we play on. None of that matters. If we don’t play well, we’re not going to win; and that’s kind of the theme. If we play well, it doesn’t matter who the opponent is. It’s the same thing. If we play well, we’re going to have a chance to win the game. We’ve just got to play well. We haven’t.”
(You’ve had this issue going back to last season. Three different quarterbacks. What is at the route of what’s going on in terms of how, you said, this team starts to feel the pressure?) – “Good question. I don’t know the answer. If I knew the answer, we’d have solved it already. It’s a lot of things. It is three quarterbacks. It’s getting off schedule. This week, it was completely unmanageable third down distances. It was probably the longest I remember in a long time where you had three third-and-20s and a third-and-17. The first thing we can do is to keep that thing manageable and to give ourselves a chance. That would be the one thing that jumped out that we all know, that’s obvious. You guys know, I know, everyone knows that; but we haven’t been able to do it. We haven’t been able to stay on schedule. We haven’t been able to get third down going. I would say that of every nine third downs, you could just divide it up and one is a receiver, one is a quarterback, one is protection, one is the defense does a good job. That’s been the question. We’ve studied it, we’ve worked at it, we’ve emphasized it, we’ve done all of those things and so far we haven’t been able to solve it.”
(You mentioned the big plays before. It seems obviously that you’re not getting enough. Is there a metric for that? Do you expect a certain number of big plays and why haven’t you?) – “Yes, I think we do. We feel like we’ve got people up in the box, we’ve got to throw the ball downfield and we’ve got a couple of guys that we think are big-play guys. I think there is empirical data that it’s hard to drive the ball if you don’t knock out a big play somewhere in the thing – a big run, a throw. They’re not always perfect. That’s the amazing thing. When you watch red zone, or you watch third down, a lot of them are off schedule and its Aaron Rodgers getting out of the pocket and making a play or someone making a one-handed catch. The fact is that you have to have them. It’s impossible to just drive the ball. It’s not like certain games in college where you can go 4 yards over and over. You need a big play and we haven’t had them. This week, we really didn’t get a chance to get balls up. The same thing, those number of snaps. That’s important, where you can take your shots. You do get puckered up a little bit where you’re going ‘Gosh, I don’t want to be second-and-10 or I don’t want to throw two incompletes in a row.’ That’s probably what I’m talking about that it’s a challenge to manage as a coach, just that you start pressing and that you want everything to be perfect. I talked about staying on schedule so you’re kind of afraid to take a shot and take a little deeper drop because you don’t want to be second-and-17 if it doesn’t happen, or some of those things. I think all of the above is not very fun, but we’ve just got to get out of it. We’ve got to get out of it and we’ve got to find a way to get out of it and get that ball flowing a little bit. That will be big plays. They have to happen for us to have any success. That’s everybody.”
(How far away is G Isaac Asiata from getting consideration? With C/G Ted Larsen not available, I’m trying to think of possible guard solutions.) – “I think (Asiata) is a ways away. I think in an ideal world, it’d be his redshirt year. That would be the ideal world. We may have to call him up and he may have to go this weekend; but I do think Larsen and a couple of guys are getting closer and that will give us a little extra depth in the thing. We’ve got plenty of good players. We’ve got to play better. I don’t think it’s pulling someone from another team. It’s not someone out on the street that we’re going to go find. It’s our guys playing better.”
(Do you guys have a definition for big play? 11 yards? 16?) – “Yes, we talk about a pass being 20 yards and a run being 12 yards. Different people measure it different ways. The league measures it a different way, but that’s kind of what we would talk about.”
