Darren Rizzi – October 20, 2016
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Thursday, October 20, 2016
Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(Rizzi, where is your confidence in K Andrew Franks as a field goal kicker and his protection up front?) – “There are a lot of facets to that answer. Here’s where I’ll start off: I have a lot of confidence in Andrew. I don’t think he’d be here if we didn’t have a lot of confidence in him. (With) Andrew, I think people have to keep things in perspective. Andrew is, if not the youngest kicker in the league, I think he’s the first or second youngest guy in the league, and we’ve got to remember this is his second year in the league and his experience factors (in). We didn’t have a lot of opportunities last year. We only had 16 field goals attempts, so he’s still an inexperienced guy. I think when you look at that and keep things in perspective, right now through six weeks in the NFL season, there have been 22 missed PATs and 57 missed field goals. That’s a lot. So, there have been 79 missed kicks so far this season. When you look at it overall in the NFL, there are only five kickers right now that have not missed either a PAT or a field goal. So, 27 guys out of 32 have either a missed PAT or missed a field goal. At this rate right now in the NFL, you’re looking at three to four missed PATs per week. At this rate right now, you’re going to talk about at the end of the season – if we keep on this pace – you’re going to be talking about 50 missed PATs for the year. Why and I giving you all these stats? My point is that we believe a lot in our guy. The bottom line is I’m his biggest critic, and he knows that he has got to make those shorter field goals. He has got to fix the problem, and he has got to elevate the ball more on those shorter field goals. With that said, it’s not an issue that’s only happening here, it’s an issue that’s happening league-wide. Andrew is a talented guy. There are many things he does very, very well. I think one of the things that may go by the wayside from the last week is we had to kick off from the 20-yard line after a penalty, and he kicks the ball 82 yards on the kickoff and drives the ball 2 yards deep into their end zone. He’s obviously a talented guy. He’s an inexperienced guy. Two years ago, he was getting ready to play against Alfred University, if you will. Now he’s getting ready to play against the Pittsburgh Steelers last week. The mindset – and again, that’s no knock on good ole’ Alfred University up there, you’ve got to love upstate New York – but you know what I’m saying. Again, keeping things in perspective, you look back and you look at a lot of the young kickers throughout the league, and there’s going to be growing pains. I think you know that. We took an undrafted free agent kicker from a Division III school last year, and I’d be silly to think there wasn’t going to be any growing pains along the way. He had a couple of short field goals. Again, that’s not Andrew Franks; that’s every young kicker. You look throughout the history of the league, and even this year you look at a guy (Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Roberto Aguayo) across the state over here (that) got drafted in the second round, and he’s having growing pains as well. You look at his success – you look at Aguayo’s success in college – and the transfer to the NFL, it’s not an automatic transfer. I think some people sometimes lose that in translation. And we’ve had some great kickers here. Look at Dan Carpenter, who we’re going to play this week. I think one year here – one of the years I was with him – he missed 11 or 12 or 13 field goals in one season as well, and he has had a great NFL career. I know that’s a long answer to a short question, but there are really a lot of ways you can go with that and look at it. I think keeping things in perspective with a young, talented player, we’re going to have some growing pains. He has got to get that corrected. The second part of your question was about the protection. The two field goal blocks we’ve had this year were not the protection. When you really go back and dissect those plays, they were short field goals. The ball has to get elevated better. Even the 50-yard field goal that we missed the other day if you look at the elevation on the ball, he actually got better elevation on the 50 yarder than he did on the short one. So, it was not a protection issue. Our protection certainly hasn’t been 100 percent, but that wasn’t a protection issue the other day. That was really just he has got to … I think what happens with young kickers sometimes is you get in close and sometimes those guys tend to relax. It’s like the golfer with the three-foot putt. If you relax a little bit, you’re going to lip it out; you’re going to miss that putt. If you don’t concentrate and focus in and block all the noise out, sometimes you kind of lose your technique. It’s just like a young golfer. Kickers and golfers are very, very similar in that way. Again, I’ve got a lot of confidence in the guy. We’re going to continue to get better. We’re going to continue to try and improve like every other player on the team. Do we want to be 7-for-10 right now in field goals? No. But he has had 23 kicks. And now with the PAT, you kind of look at every PAT like a field goal. In the old days, you separated PATs and field goals. Now, a PAT is a 33-yard field goal. It’s really what it is. The PAT we grew up with is not the PAT these days. So, we’ve had 23 chances; we’ve made 20 of them. We want that percentage to be higher. We’ve got to make those shorter kicks. Again, you can tell I’ve thought about this a little bit. (laughter) But again, seriously, there are a lot of different perspectives on it, a lot of different facets.”
(How did you assess the onside kick that really didn’t happen and how many do you have in your bag, because you’ve shown one now and it didn’t count?) – “There are multiple kicks you always have going in. I’ve got to say this the right way without … I know I’m not allowed to criticize the officials, so I won’t, but what happened on that play was – and again, this is just a fact, I’m not criticizing the officials, this is what happened – the officials were set up, the main referee blew the whistle to start the play and there was one official that wasn’t ready. He wasn’t in position, and that’s why they blew the play dead. That’s the explanation that we got on the sideline from the official. Again, I’m not criticizing them, I’m just saying that’s exactly what happened there. The head ref blew the whistle, our guys (are) ready to play – we’re ready to go – and the one official – I think it was the back judge over on the side watching the line – he wasn’t in position, yet. So, there was a mechanical issue there, and that’s why the play got blown dead. Initially, I thought they called timeout. They didn’t. The one official wasn’t in position. That’s the explanation that we got on the sideline. The second part of the question is there are always going to be (kicks) you have. It’s just a matter of time when you think it’s the right time to play it and the opportunity. Again, we’re going to have an aggressive mentality in all these games. Again, all those things can happen week to week.”
(Going back to the K Andrew Franks kickoff on the 20-yard line, have you seen anybody be able to reach the goal line from the 20 like that? How crazy was that?) – “Again, I think it goes to show his talent, his leg strength. I have seen it a couple times. There was one earlier in the year I think in that very first game – Denver and Carolina in Denver. But again (in) Denver, the ball travels differently. At sea level – not to get too technical – but at sea level … In regular conditions, it’s rare. There were actually a few more this week in the NFL – I just watched them – (with) some really good kickers kicking them without naming them and they weren’t getting the ball down there. It just goes to show you he has got a lot of different things he can do. You’ve seen us kick the ball short; you’ve seen us kick the ball deep. Again, he’s a talented guy. That ball traveled 82 yards off the tee. That’s a pretty impressive thing. That’s why we’re confident in his ability. Again, we’ve got to fix some of the technique stuff, but it was pretty impressive.”
(What’s the far end of K Andrew Franks’ range? If it’s the last play of the game, can you kick a 65 yarder?) – “He has in practice. I think last year, he kicked a 66- or 67-yarder in practice with room to spare. It depends on the conditions and all that. Again, conditions and all that stuff. I’ve seen him in warmups kick 64-yarders in the middle of the net. Again, he does have a strong leg. We actually tried a 64-yarder in practice yesterday and had about 5 or 6 yards left on it. We’re always going to … Again, depending on the situation and depending on the conditions and all that stuff – last play of the half, last play of the game, things like that.”
(How much have injuries particularly at the tight end position, safety position and now corner position – guys that sometimes get involved in punt and kickoff coverage – how much change has there been or will there be?) – “The special teams coach is always the guy that gets affected the most, right? It’s all trickle down. No matter where the injury takes place – whether it’s during the game or during the week or during the season – it’s the next-man-up mentality. That’s always going to trickle down to special teams, no doubt – Especially if it’s not in the o-line, d-line or the quarterback. If it’s outside of those positons, the obviously it’s going to affect us. No matter what happens with the (game day) actives, we’ve got to have the guys – the 44, 45, 46 guys or 46 men, rather – ready to play at every position – like you said – whether it’s tight end, DB (defensive back), safety, linebacker, whatever – that’s always going to affect us. All it means for us is we’ve got to have a special teams staff, we’ve got to have everybody ready to go, because a bunch of different scenarios could play out with the actives. That really happens week to week. We always have a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D if you will in terms of if guys are active and guys are injured or they’re going to get more playing time on offense or defense. It definitely affects us, for sure. It affects every special teams coach throughout the league. That’s one of our challenges is to make sure that the playing time doesn’t get lopsided with O, D (offense, defense) and special teams. It’s making sure those reserve guys – whether they were inactive, or against practice squad or whatever – those guys that are in the building, when they get called up upon and are ready to play, for sure.”
(Rizzi, small sample size, but have you noticed that the canopy has affected kickoffs, punts or catching kickoffs or punts?) – “It is a small sample size, but … It’s funny, the wind in our stadium is tricky, because like the other day, we go out at like 11:15 (a.m.) – I go out with Matt Darr to warm up – and the wind at 11:15 and the wind at 1:15 (p.m.) were completely different. We kind of had some storms blowing through, so the wind was blowing one way. So, for two hours before the game when the kickers were warming up – they’re always trying to get a beat on the wind – it’s still a little breezy, because the way the canopy is, underneath there’s still some openings, I have noticed that the wind in the corners with the big screens is a little bit different, but it was still pretty breezy. There wasn’t a consistent wind the other day. It was kind of five minutes it was blowing one way and five minutes (later) it was blowing the other. It was kind of a breezy deal. I think at the end of the day down here in South Florida, we’re going to get trade winds, we’re going to get windy days in our stadium. At the end of the day, there’s going to be openings, so there’s going to be some … Week to week it’ll be different. Some stadiums you go to there’s a consistent wind (in) one direction. From what I’ve found in my eight years here is that you can go to our stadium on any given day – you can go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – you might have four different directions where the wind is going.”
(Heinz Field is consistent, right? Kicking one direction kickers are problems.) – “Yes. There are a lot of stadiums where, again, the more experience you get, you go in there … It kind of feels like the way the stadium is built whether it comes in one way and swirls the other way. New England, for example, is really open on that one end, and then usually it comes in and goes one direction or the other. Every stadium is different. Our stadium – and because of the geographical location that we’re in – it seems to swirl a lot of times coming from a bunch of different directions naturally with where we’re located.”
