Darren Rizzi – November 10, 2017
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Thursday, November 10, 2017
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(How would you evaluate CB/S Walt Aikens’ season and how important has he become to the special teams unit?) – “I’ll start with his importance to the special teams unit. His importance is great. I look back to the middle of last season and I thought Walt really, the second half of last year, was dominant on special teams; and I don’t use that word very often. I thought he had a dominant second half. He really played very well in just about every phase and I was very, very pleased with the way he finished last year. You may remember, he started off this season a little bit slow because he was hurt in preseason this year. I thought it may have taken him a game or two to get back into it, but I thought by about games three or four until now, we’re kind of seeing where he left off last year. You start off with his role as a gunner, he’s been very good. The one thing that may go unnoticed sometimes is he’s actually caused a whole bunch of penalties out there. That’s actually a statistic that we keep. We call it a factor point, a factor grade. If you force the other team into a penalty, then obviously that’s a big deal. He’s forced a bunch of penalties, last year, this year, and there’s probably been a few that haven’t been called that should have been penalties that we sent in to get an explanation on. His role as a gunner has been very, very important and vital, especially now with the injuries and things that we’ve had and different guys having to step up. Our other gunner has been a little bit of a revolving door, but he’s been a consistent constant out there. You look at him in the punt rush game and the punt return game and he’s a guy that can do everything. He can rush punts, we’ve seen him block punts before, he can block guys. Last week, he was on (Raiders WR) Cordarrelle Patterson (who) was one of their gunners and he’s obviously a big, physical guy. We put Walt out there on him, so he can do a little bit there. The same thing in the kickoff game. In the kickoff game he can do a little bit of everything. We’ve had him in the middle, we’ve had him on the edge, we’ve had him as a safety. Then in the kickoff return game, he’s a great matchup guy, again, because he’s a big guy that can block; and then we’ve seen him in the field goal block game. He wears a lot of hats for us. He’s a very important piece of what we do and, like I said, from the middle of last year through this point, he’s really put together a really good string of games.”
(How would you assess your return game this year, as a whole?) – “A little bit disappointing, so far. Statistically, obviously not really where we want to be. We’d like to be creating more opportunities for the offense. I was asked a question about, ‘Is it one particular thing? Is it Jakeem (Grant)?’ It’s not. It’s never one thing. You look at last week’s game as a good example, because we start the game and our first kick return we have actually a really good return out to near the 30-yard line, and it got brought back because of a holding penalty. The next kickoff return we got everybody blocked, we have a really good play and Jakeem falls down, to be honest with you. No one hit him. So it’s been a little bit of a frustrating thing. Jakeem was battling a little bit of an ankle thing for a few games and he really wasn’t 100 percent. Now I feel like he’s getting back to where he needs to be. The thing about the return game is you’re always one or two plays from making a huge statement, momentum. Really, statistically, to be honest with you, you can go from 30th to 2nd with one or two big returns. So I take the statistics, as you guys know, with a little bit of a grain of salt. Just finishing off, even last week on a punt return, that last punt return we had should have been a bigger play. We had pretty good blocking and I thought we should have gotten downhill a little bit more. We’ve got to do a better job there. We all know what Jakeem is capable of doing. I think sometimes we’re looking to make the huge play where we’re not really taking what the opponent is giving us, so it’s been a combination. Our effort’s been there, our execution has not, and we’ve just got to get a little better there.”
(Have you considered making a change at all?) – “As you guys know, we have a couple of punt returners and we have a couple of kick returners too. We’ll continue to do the same thing with Jakeem (Grant) and Jarvis (Landry). They’ll both get opportunities. They’ll both be back there. There’s been one or two times this year where they were both back there at the same time and we’ll continue to look at that on a weekly basis. Kick return, we’ve had (Kenyan) Drake back there, Senorise (Perry) was back there last week. Jakeem will continue to be back there, but it’ll still be the same.”
(I was going to ask about the kick return alignment. It looked like you changed it last week, correct? You used to have RB Kenyan Drake and WR Jakeem Grant back there, now it’s Jakeem with RB Senorise Perry up front, is that right?) – “So a lot of times what we’ll do is align depending on the game plan – number one, how we’re going to block, so I don’t want to talk too much about that – but number two is, in the back end, the returners, a lot of times we’ll align based on the kicker that we’re playing. Last week was a lefty kicker and his kickoff chart, if you will, was a little bit different than maybe a guy we’re playing this week or last week or Justin Tucker, or somebody like that. So our back end alignment’s going to fluctuate week-to-week based on the kicker we’re going to play, where we anticipate the ball coming down, the return that we have set up. There are many factors into it. Yes, we have had Jakeem and Drake both deep at times. We’ve had one guy play up a little bit more defending the mortar or squib type of ball, the short high one or the squib, and one guy deeper. So we’ve done both and we have both in. A lot of the times, it also depends on what call we have in on where those guys align, as well, so there is many factors involved.”
(Is there a little bit of a reluctance now to have RB Kenyan Drake return kickoffs now that his role on offense is so much greater?) – “For you or me or who? (laughter) I’m kidding. Listen, Drake’s a guy that … It’s a lot like the Jarvis (Landry) thing with punt. If we have an opportunity to make a play in a game and we can help the team get field positon and help the team make a big play then that’s really the most important thing. Do we want him back there full time? No, kind of like Jarvis isn’t back there full time; but occasionally he’s going to go back there and get some punt returns as well. Really it’s the same kind of philosophy with Drake.”
(On the flip side, RB Damien Williams looked like he had pretty much his normal load on special teams?) – “He didn’t. It was a little bit lighter.”
(A little bit lighter?) – “Yes, it was probably about 50 or 60 percent that he normally has.”
(RB Damien Williams is a guy you still want out there, though?) – “No question, and Kenyan (Drake), too. Again, week to week, we’re really going to define everybody’s role and again, it’s all game-plan related. Those guys are still very much involved with what we’re doing.”
(The K Cody Parkey onside kick, can you talk about how that went about and how often does he practice that?) – “The way it went about is it’s something we always have had in, even before Cody was here. It’s something we had in all of last year. It’s one of those things where you’re looking for the best opportunity to run it and execute it. It’s something that Cody did well and has done well. I thought one of the things that goes unnoticed too is a lot of the times when you run that play, you worry about the offsides, we call it the take-the-line. When you hit the line, a lot of times guys get a little bit greedy on those onside kicks and you see a bunch of flags on onside kicks. Our guys did a great job with the approach. Cody hit a great ball and we did a great job of letting it go 10 yards. It’s something that we’re always going to have up and it’s something that we always have practiced. We’ve practiced now for a while. We haven’t run it in a while, but it’s one of those things that we always have in the back pocket and look for the best opportunity to run it.”
(The actual kick, as a lay person, that seems incredibly difficult. K Cody Parkey can just sit there and do that 10 times out of 10? just kick it and kind of walk the dog?) – “I don’t know about 10 out of 10, but more often than not. He’s pretty good at it, and again, it’s one of the tools, if you will – or in the old tool chest – that the kickers like to have. Some guys call it a bunt ball or whatever word you have for it. Guys hit the ball differently, but he just has a good knack of hitting that ball. I’m not going to sit here and tell you he’s 100 percent in practice every day when we do that, but more often than not, he gets a pretty good ball there. He does a great job. Great execution, obviously he recovered it himself. I told him he owes Damien Williams a lunch, because Damien probably took a little bit of the hit off of him. Damien came in and got a little block there at the end, ‘91’ (Raiders LB Shalique Calhoun) was coming in to hit Cody. He tried to get into a late slide, if you didn’t notice; but no, really good execution by him. A great, great kick. ”
(Under what circumstances is it okay with you for WR Jakeem Grant to lose yardage on a kick return in order to cross field, trying to make something a big play out of what otherwise might just be a 3-, 4- or 5-yard return?) – “Sure. That’s really a scheme question. It depends on what the call we have in and the way we’re blocking it. There’s a lot of punt returns that are more downhill, catch the ball and get downhill right now and get north and south, go get 5 or 10 yards and then make one guy miss and hopefully it turns into a bigger one. There’s other ones where they are more sideline-type returns where it is okay to maybe lose to gain, like you call it. On those straight line, downhill returns, that’s not something you want to do. You shouldn’t be running sideways, and sometimes on those sideline returns, the same type of thing. You may be losing a little bit trying to get sideways to set your blocks up. It is a little bit more of a scheme thing. There are times, though, and I said it earlier, there’s times where, and last week was a good example, we need to get more downhill on the particular return.”
(Did you feel like the field conditions played a part in the second onside kick not getting the bounce that you may have wanted it to on that one?) – “I don’t think our field had anything to do with it, it’s just sometimes on grass they’re very hard to predict. If you talk to kickers, they like to kick those onside kicks off the field turf a lot of times, because you get more of a true hop. Grass is very unpredictable at times with those. We can kick that same exact ball 10 times and you may get 10 different bounces on the grass. One may just (be) a slow roller, if you will, a worm-burner like I hit in golf (laughter) or you may get the third hop and get a really nice bounce up. It did make a little bit of a left there and took an unfortunate bounce for us. I thought we executed the play well, schematically. We had a couple of guys come free towards the guy that we call the catch guy, but we did get a little bit of an unfortunate bounce there. I don’t think it had anything to do with our field, I just think a lot of times on grass you get an unpredictable bounce like that.”
(Going back to that, it’s kind of like baseball, where you have certain spots where you know the ball is going to take a little hop. Is it the same thing on the field there at the stadium?) – “Again, I go out and walk the field before every game and assess those different things. Our field last week, again, I think it gets a little bit blown out of proportion all of the field conditions and all of that. They had to play on it too. Again, if you’re hitting those types of kicks on grass, sometimes you’re going to get that third big bounce and sometimes it’s going to stay along the ground. Obviously, if you’re playing on a rain-soaked field and all of that, then you have to really make a decision if you want to even try one of those kicks or do something else.”
(This team, I think, has trailed seven out of eight times at half this year. How do you assess that? What do you chalk it up to?) – “Not to be captain obvious, but obviously we want to start better. I think we put a lot of emphasis on that and I think our team has been a very good second half team now for a couple of years, not just this year. Really since (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) has been here, we have played well, we have played pretty good second half football. I think that’s pretty well-documented. I think the one emphasis that Adam has obviously made this year is just getting started better. I’d love to tell you I have the magic answer on why we don’t; but it’s something that we certainly can’t (do). Digging yourself into a hole is not really the way you want to go. It’s not going to be the consistent way you’re going to win games. We obviously want to get started better in all three (phases). I think Adam mentioned the other day, the one thing that I take out of it, the biggest thing is we need to play better complementary football. It seems to me like when the offense is playing well, we’re not playing well in the other phases and when the defense is playing well, we’re not playing well in the other phases. I think complementary football is probably the biggest improvement we can make moving forward in the second half of the season, that’s where I see it from my seat, just being more consistent in all three phases and playing well together. It seems like we haven’t done that very well or very often. I think that will help us play better in the first half of games if we play complementary football. That’s where I think we can make the biggest improvement here in the second half.”
(Have you seen this 6-foot-9 offensive lineman, T Zach Sterup, that they brought in?) – “Hard to miss. He’s a big sucker.”
(Do you have any ideas of ways you could use T Zach Sterup?) – “Well, offensive linemen are really going to be more field goal protection type guys and sometimes kickoff return, back end type of guys. Their roles are a little bit limited.”
(The reach?) – “Sometimes you get a huge guy like that and maybe get a little bit of field goal block going, so we’ll see. We have Sam Young as one of the guys we always train as a field goal block guys as well, so it’s always nice to get those taller guys in there. By the way, Vincent Taylor did get credit for that blocked kick (in Week 3 at the New York Jets). (laughter) So he now officially has two on the season, so good for him.”
