Darren Rizzi – November 17, 2016
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Thursday, November 17, 2016
Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(When you have a young player like WR Jakeem Grant go through instances and moments like he went through last week, how do you get him to clean the slate and respond?) – “I think the first thing you do is you have to make sure he knows that we have confidence in him; his teammates have confidence in him. I think sometimes a mistake by a young player can snowball at any position, not just as a returner. One of the things I said to him – once I knew he was getting kind of hard on himself – was, ‘Listen, we all believe in you. You’ve already made plays. You’ve already shown what you can do. We have to correct, improve, move on.’ That’s really the biggest thing. One of the things I always said to people is, ‘Some of the best returners in this league of all-time have put the ball on the ground before.’ Really, it’s learning from the moment, learning from the situation. It probably wasn’t a great decision to field the ball on the one that we lost. Really, that’s the biggest thing is learning from the situation, moving on, knowing that the head coach has confidence in him, his position coach has confidence in him, his teammates have confidence in him. Just keep reassuring him that, and that’s really all you can do. As I told him, there’s no one that has worked harder at that craft – that skillset – than him since he has been here. It’s going to keep paying off for him. Just like Matt Darr dropping a snap, or a guy missing a field goal – any of those things – a guy missing a tackle or a block, you have to learn from it, correct it, move on and keep going. That’s really the biggest message to him so far.”
(When you guys initially put WR Jarvis Landry back there inside the 20, was that just a comfort thing until WR Jakeem Grant gained comfort level, or was that because you felt more secure with Jarvis doing it?) – “If you look at it, we’ve really actually used Jarvis in a bunch of situations. I know a lot of people have said to me, ‘You always use Jarvis on that going-in punts.’ It’s actually not true. We actually used Jarvis a few times as a changeup. There’s no doubt we’ve used him in those going-in situations, but we have had Jakeem (Grant) back there a few times. We tried to use it a little bit of a changeup. Listen, there’s no mistaking what Jarvis has done when he has been back there throughout his three years. He has been very productive and productive this year. He was productive his first two years. We feel like any team that has multiple returners, (you) want to try to use both guys. It definitely helped the learning process for Jakeem. I think Jarvis has been a great, not only sounding board, but a great example for Jakeem as a returner, because he did it as a rookie. Here’s another guy that hadn’t done it in college, and they had very similar backgrounds. Listen, if you remember back, Jarvis wasn’t perfect either. He lost a couple fumbles early in his career as well. Again, I think we talked about this last week about learning from other people’s mistakes, and Jarvis has been great for Jakeem and vice versa. Again, it’s great to have both. At some point, we have different packages where we have them both in together. We haven’t really done that, yet. That’s coming down the road. Again, I think using Jarvis on the going-ins, using Jarvis … There have been a couple times where people have punted out of their end zone, (and) we’ve had Jarvis back there. But there’s no doubt that I have confidence in Jarvis to make the right decisions, because he has been doing it for longer, more reps, more experience, just the natural stuff.”
(How did CB Lafayette Pitts do on special teams in his first game?) – “He had a good day. He had a really good day. We slow burned him in there a little bit, but as the game went on, we played him more and more and more. I think he ended up with 17 or 18 snaps. He had two really good gunner reps. He had a couple of really good kickoff reps. I was very pleased with him. He was in on our punt returns as well. We’re going to continue to expand his role, because he really showed … The one thing that really showed up on film for him was him playing fast. It was kind of neat; we watched the game, obviously, on Monday right here in the meeting room. To watch the older guys see him on film and congratulate him like, ‘That’s a hell of a job,’ I pointed out to the younger players, here’s a guy – and I might have mentioned this last week – that has really taken practice reps very, very seriously throughout training camp, throughout all these practice weeks as a practice squad player. He got the opportunity, and he showed in the game that he could do it. I was very, very pleased with him. We recognized him; we recognized his effort. He was playing fast, and hopefully, he can continue to do that, because he can certainly be some help to us.”
(Was CB Lafayette Pitts a guy that caught your eye in training camp on special teams?) – “He was a guy that was … Every rookie made their fair share of mistakes early on, but the thing that flashed with him was athleticism, speed. He plays fast. One of the things that’s hard to coach is a lot of these younger guys will slow down when they’re thinking, and they won’t show their true ability. He’s a guy that plays fast. Even if he makes a mistake, he played fast. He wasn’t perfect in the game on Sunday – he wasn’t perfect in preseason games – but he plays fast. He’s disruptive. He has got a great temperament. He has got a great skillset. I was really, really pleased with what I saw, and we’re going to continue to up his reps.”
