Clyde Christensen – September 15, 2016
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Thursday, September 15, 2016
Offensive Coordinator Clyde Christensen
(On why he didn’t go with a quarterback sneak on the fourth-and-1 play in Seattle and how much time he spends with Head Coach Adam Gase on fourth-and-1 play possibilities) – “(Gase) has been the same with the team ever since the beginning. He was going to be aggressive and every chance he had to go for it, he was going for it. We treat it like any other situation. We have a game plan for it. (As for the reason we ran the play we did) over the sneak, sometimes we would sneak it and sometimes we wouldn’t there. We just didn’t get it blocked. We needed to secure the edges a little bit and we didn’t. That would probably be the only thing we change – that they come hard off those edges. Good defense. We’ve got to make it.”
(On why it is so tough to win at New England) – “I think it’s a lot of things. We were laughing today, this is the first time I’ve gone up there in September. The sun checks out on November 1st and never comes back. I’ve been up (there) in December and January mostly, so I’m looking forward to hopefully (seeing) the sun out there. A) They are a good football team. B) It’s hard to win any game on the road, and they’re really good. All of a sudden you go up there and a lot of times it’s the elements. They’re just a good team. They’re hard to beat. It’s hard to beat any team on the road and especially one of the upper-echelon teams. I haven’t felt there has been anything mystical or anything. If you go up there and you take care of business, you have a chance and the ball moves. If you don’t, it doesn’t. Nothing special.”
(On Defensive Coordinator Vance Joseph commenting that you play the Patriots four times and you see four different teams and if they’re the same way on offense) – “(It’s the) same thing (on offense). They’re a game-plan defense. They’re going to game plan you. If their game plan is to play Cover 2, they’ll play it, and it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, and they’re going to go with it. They do a great job that way that you go into the game and you better have a good system, because you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. They have some themes. They like to cover you man. They like to do those things. They like to get those ‘backers on your backs, but where they come from and which of those two big ‘backers are coming, you don’t know. You have to play ball and the system has to take care of some things and you have to be able to adjust, which I think is their game plan. You’re not 100 percent sure you’re preparing for what they’re going to do, because you don’t know what they’re going to do. You just prepare to play football – play a good football team – and now you have to adjust on the sideline and your system has to take care of some of those things.”
(On the team being 30th in the NFL in yards and 29th in points and how to improve that) – “You play better. You catch the ball. You convert some third downs. We were horrendous on third down and all of a sudden that game gets shorter. It was a good one-score game for most of the game, so you play a little bit close to the vest. We all know how hard it is to go in there and play (at Seattle). They’re a darn good defense and a darn hard place to play. I think all of those things … I don’t know if the statistics mean a whole bunch after Week 1. I wish we had won the game. If we had won the game, we’d still be 30th in offense, but we would have had a win under our belt also. I don’t put a ton of weight on statistics at this point, but the bottom line is we didn’t play well enough to win offensively. We didn’t convert third downs. We didn’t get our defense off the field. We can’t wait to go on a drive with five minutes to go in the fourth quarter and not get it done before then. We had our opportunities, and we just didn’t take advantage of them.”
(On what the issues were on third down) – “One: they are a good team. Two: First and second down wasn’t good enough to keep the third down shorter. And a couple we just screwed up. A couple we just messed up and didn’t make a catch (or) didn’t make a throw. And then some of it is a credit to them that they’re a darn good third-down defense.”
(On what he thought about C/G Anthony Steen in his first NFL action) – “I thought Anthony Steen was really, really impressive. I would say that the best compliment I could tell you about him was that I didn’t notice him. I didn’t think of him as any factor in the game and then all of a sudden you watch the game and you go, ‘Gosh, the kid played really, really well.’ But during the game, the best compliment was that (he) was never a factor. There was a lot of ID. That was a lot of pressure on him. That was about as hard of a first start as you could have (with) good players, hard place, new offense – all those things – not getting all of the first-team starters snaps in the offseason, etc. And the kid played extremely well. He was really a bright spot for the day.”
(On what WR Leonte Carroo did last week to give him confidence and how he did at Seattle in place of injured WR DeVante Parker) – “To answer the first question, he (Leonte Carroo) kind of got in there by default. We didn’t have much choice. You’re only going to dress four, and he was our guy. Jakeem (Grant) is really a specialist right now. He’s learning, and he wasn’t really an option offensively, yet. I think he will be down the road. We felt like (Carroo) had gotten the most deposits in throughout the camp, so we stuck him in there. The second part of the question is he played really well. It was not too big for him. He makes a big catch on the drive that we did score. He physically mixed it up with a physical team. They take pride in having energy and hitting and all 11 guys hitting, and (Carroo) mixed it up in there with some awful good players. It may have worked to his advantage that he didn’t know how good they were. He just went in, and it was another football game to him. He was another guy that was extremely impressive. He didn’t do everything right, but he did play hard and the game was not too big for him.”
(On if he feels the offense is maximizing yardage in the run game and if not, what they can do to improve that) – “It’s the same thing. To make a big statement after one game is hard to do. But it’s the same thing – we had our chances. We had our chances a couple of times. They had that extra guy in the box. The biggest thing we can do for our run game is to throw the ball a little bit better too and complete some of those early. (That would) give us a chance to call some of those runs against less men in the box. That would be the best thing that we could do for them. Everyone kind of took a turn, but we were okay. The first half we ran the ball pretty darn well. I think it was just a combination of things. I don’t think anything jumped out as being the one factor that hurt us running the football. I thought the first half we ran the ball efficiently at times, and the best thing we could have done was to be a little more efficient in the passing game and help the running game. The passing game is where we really broke down. We didn’t throw the ball efficiently like we set out to do, and that puts a ton of pressure on our run game, especially with that bunch. That’s a hard bunch to block. We all know that they play the run; they stack the box. If you can’t complete some balls, it’s a long day running the football. I thought they did a decent job in the run game.”
(On if it is important to throw the football at times to open up the running game) – “Sure. I think we would all be unanimous on that. Absolutely. I think the drive that you saw that the ball did move, we hit a couple of play-action passes and then all of a sudden the ball … This league is hard to go 3 yards and a cloud of dust. It’s hard to do it for 15-straight snaps, especially there against those guys. You need a couple of 20-yard plays, and all of a sudden there we threw two play-action passes and the ball moved 40 yards. Then all of a sudden you get a little momentum, and maybe you get them on their heels a little bit and that opens up some other things also. So, sure, absolutely. We’ve all seen teams where you struggle throwing the football and then all of a sudden that’s hard sledding. Now you’re in third-and-longs all the time, and you’re having to bang up in against extra men in the box, so no. We’ll be more efficient throwing the ball. We have to be more efficient throwing the ball.”
(On how going to Seattle without RB Jay Ajayi changed things for him) – “It really wasn’t much of a factor. It probably sounds like coach talk, but whoever’s up there we’re going to coach them up and play. That’s kind of that next man up mentality. Whatever happened, happened, and he wasn’t there. We didn’t worry about who wasn’t there. We worried about who was there. We took plenty enough guys to win that football game, and we didn’t get it done.”
(On if RB Jay Ajayi is fully involved this week) – “Yes. Yes, he is. He practiced well yesterday. We’ll get some guys back, hopefully. We’ve got a couple of guys still on the bubble, and hopefully we catch a break with some of them and get back towards full strength. Again, we just have to have a mentality that whoever gets off the plane up there and puts on a uniform has to go win a game.”
(On if RB Arian Foster’s play count was where he wanted) – “I wish we had more snaps, and we could have counted his plays a little closer. We didn’t have enough offensive snaps and get our defense off the field, so he did play quite a few (of our offensive) snaps. He didn’t want to come out. The biggest thing was sometimes these guys are warriors, and he certainly is one, and he did not want to come out. (There were) even a couple times where we tried to rest him a little bit, and he just felt like he was in the flow and wanted to be in there and wanted to be playing. That was the biggest factor – that he didn’t want to come out. We gave him a little rest yesterday, which will be probably throughout the year that we’ll have to take good care of him. He’s a veteran guy. He doesn’t need 50 snaps every single practice. We just have to keep him fine-tuned. The biggest thing is to keep him healthy and fresh.”
(On if RB Jay Ajayi is his next guy up after RB Arian Foster not practicing yesterday) – “He was not. Those guys will compete. (Isaiah) Pead got some snaps yesterday, so they all kind of got some snaps yesterday. I don’t know what it will shake out at the end of this week. A lot of it will depend on health and some of it will depend on performance.”
(On how much of an emphasis has been placed on playing better complementary football this week) – “A ton. I think that (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase … We felt like the defense really played well. We have to get that thing started (on offense) before the fourth quarter. Absolutely. There was a huge amount of emphasis. When you’re as dismal as we were on third down, that’s stress on everybody. That’s stress on your run game; that’s stress on everybody. That’s stress on the defense. That’s stress on the kicking game; that’s stress on everybody. We always want to get our job done efficiently.”
