Darren Rizzi – September 21, 2017
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Thursday, September 21, 2017
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(It’s a small sample size, but 6-for-6 for K Cody Parkey in his career beyond 50, that’s got to give you guys a great deal of comfort.) – “Yes, I mean the one thing about Cody, just looking at his career, the word ‘consistency,’ I think I mentioned that last week, comes to mind. I know Dolphins fans and all of us in this room, remembered him before last week, remembered him from the one game he played against us (with Cleveland in 2016), but the one thing people have to remember about that game is I think he might have met the holder and snapper at the game in warmups and it was the first time he had ever kicked with them. I can promise you that the nuances of holding and snapping and all that stuff, the lean of the ball, the spin, the tilt, all of those things are definitely a factor. So I think (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) (and I) might have told you the same thing, we kind of scratched that game out of the equation when we were evaluating him; and when you look at his overall body of work, he’s been a consistent guy. He was a Pro Bowler his first year in Philadelphia and then got hurt, and then ironically (former Dolphins K) Caleb Sturgis ends up there and he ends up in a battle with ‘Sturge’ the next year and gets beat out. Then he goes to (Cleveland), where they drafted a kicker, and gets beat out, so sometimes the best 32 kickers in the league, you end up with two on one team. I feel like we had that situation with our punters this year. I feel like Matt Darr is going to end up finding a home (in the NFL) at some point, because I think he’s one of the best 32 punters. So it’s my job, one of my jobs is to make sure I have a really good beat and a really good feeling for the rest of the NFL with who’s where and the specialists deal. Listen, I travel to free agent workouts in the offseason. There’s a couple big ones they have every offseason, and I’m always surprised at some of the talent that’s at those. You’re always asking yourself, ‘Okay is this guy a guy that we can get an upgrade on.’ So again, just always had an eye on Cody. I knew him as a college kicker. I actually knew him as a high school kicker, believe it or not, and kind of followed his path all along. He’s just always been a really consistent guy and I’m really, really happy for him and certainly proud of the effort he had last week.”
(The team has this amazing record in close games now for two seasons, and special teams is a big part of making that happen, but if Chargers K Younghoe Koo makes the kick at the end on Sunday, it’s a different conversation. How much do you feel like you’re testing the law of averages here? How much of it really is the culture of the team and the ability to close and that kind of thing?) – “I will say this, there’s no doubt about the belief on the sideline. I will start with that. There’s a belief and you’re down there and we go in at halftime, and (Koo) misses the (field goal) right before halftime, which (when) you look back at the game (that) was obviously a big one too. I thought that (missed field goal) gave us a little bit and our guys were a little fired up at halftime. We came out with a different sense of urgency, in that particular game; but there’s always a belief on our sideline. Since (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) has gotten here, I’ve never been part of a team that really feels like they’re going to win every week. We’ve definitely won a variety of ways. Listen, if you’re going to win, you’re going to have fortune along the way somewhere. I’ve had plenty of bad fortune in my time here too. So we’ve definitely had some good fortune; but if you look at the sequence of events from last week, and I tried to explain this when we watched the film with our guys yesterday, is it’s cumulative effect because one play leads to the next. We had the kickoff cover – great kickoff coverage – which leads to a punt by them, which leads to a good return by Jakeem (Grant), which leads to a 54-yard field goal, just to talk about the special teams. We needed every one of those yards that Jakeem Grant got on that return. Maybe if he gets tackled right away, now we’re 14 or 15 yards deeper and we’re not trying a 54-yard field goal. I’ve got to give credit to our field goal rush team. Our field goal rush unit puts a lot of pressure on opposing kickers and has done that for the last four or five years, and I’m proud of that, because the effort they put forth on film. I know the kicker felt Bobby McCain coming off the edge, and whether or not that made him push it right or not, I certainly don’t have the magic answer on that; but I will say this, our effort there (was great). If (Koo) kicked a straighter ball, Bobby had a chance to block it. So I hope our luck doesn’t run out. We definitely have some fortune; but there’s a sense of belief on our sideline and I think the variety of different ways that we’ve won says a lot about our team. It’s not a 2-minute drill with a quarterback leading the team down the field every time, we score and kick a short field goal; we haven’t won that way every time. We’ve had a defensive touchdown, special teams plays, offensive plays, so the variety of the ways that we’ve won I think says a lot about our team, the culture, and the belief, and I think all of that kind of parlays together.”
(You had a fourth-and-5 at, whatever it was, the 38- or 39-yard line. Was there a moment when you thought, ‘Okay, go for it, get a first down and get a little closer’?) – “No, I felt like at that point in the game, I knew if he hit a good ball he had the distance. From watching him practice and play, I knew. I thought 54 yards and obviously the weather was decent. I think in different circumstances, maybe; but not in that game. In that game, I thought … There was a conversation on the headset that (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) had asked me, ‘If we don’t get another yard here.’ I said, ‘No, at this point, if we don’t lose yards, we’re going to try this one.”
(With CB Cordrea Tankersley, is he yet a competent special teams player? How much improvement does there need to be there for him to be a viable candidate to be active?) – “The good thing is that right now, we have some really good discussions every week, because we have a lot of options and I like that. I like that as a special teams coach. We’ve got a lot of young players that are right on the cusp, and every week those guys come up. So those guys are in the equation every week. (We) kind of wipe the slate clean after game one, everybody’s back in the pool, we go back to practice, we see how guys are practicing and feel like when they’re ready, so certainly ‘Tank’ is right in the mix every week. The same with Torry McTyer. He’s in the conversation. All of those guys that were inactive last week, they’re all part of the conversation, so I would say that they’re all close.”
(How much at Clemson had CB Cordrea Tankersley done special teams-wise?) – “More than most. Actually that was one of the reasons, one of the things we liked about him coming out, is he actually played more special teams than a lot of defensive backs have in the past.”
(On the final field goal by Los Angeles, if you had not called timeout, you would have just been trying to stop that with your base defense. How prepared are those guys for what happened there?) – “What happened there is, if you look back and watch the game, I know there’s been a lot of conversation about that. So obviously, (Los Angeles) ran a play where they centered the ball on purpose. Then (Chargers QB) Philip Rivers is going to get up and he’s going to clock the ball probably with about 3 seconds left. There’s no doubt their specialists started to run out; but, if you watch Rivers, and I’m watching him live, he’s waving those guys off. Then he’s going to go back and spike the ball and then try to make the field goal the last play of the game. I think (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) may have talked to you about this, so our philosophy in that situation is that we don’t want that field goal to be the last play of the game. We’re calling timeout there to make sure that if he does hit it, we get a desperation kick return, an offensive play, whatever it might be. We’re trying for that not to be the last play of the game. So we would’ve, if (Rivers) went up – to answer your question directly – if he went up and did spike it with less than 5 (seconds left), now there’s going to be time where we are going to get our field goal block unit out there, if that makes sense. I know there’s some conversation that it looked like they were trying to run the field goal team out, but if you watch Rivers, he’s waving them off.”
(I’m not trying to debate the timeout in this particular question…) – “Yes, but we would have gotten the field goal block team out there. If we didn’t call time out, they would have went up, they would have spiked it with under 5 (seconds left) and then the play would have stopped and we would have had a new 40-second clock and we would have ran our field goal block team out. Then we would have had a timeout to either ice him, if we wanted to, or not ice him or whatever.”
(You said you’ve known K Cody Parkey since high school. That’s some pretty in depth scouting.) – “Yes, so when I was a college coach, I was very, very (good friends with) – he’s still good a good friend of mine – this guy named Chris Sailer who does this Chris Sailer kicking thing national deal. So I had recruited a lot of kickers from that, and Cody actually had gone to that and I remember getting him on a watch list. South Florida was my recruiting area for Rutgers and so you start tracking guys when they’re freshmen and sophomores, so I think – if I’m not mistaken – Cody was a freshman or sophomore my last year at Rutgers or the one year I was the head coach at Rhode Island. So I remembered him from the Chris Sailer thing.”
(Did K Cody Parkey remember you?) – “No. (laughter) I was at Rutgers and the head coach at Rhode Island, he was SEC and all that.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase took, not blame, but responsibility for being a little off with his play-calling this week, and yesterday he said the sack was on him. You work with him very closely on the sideline on game day. Did you notice anything different about him that he was struggling at all?) – “It’s a good question. He’s actually funny in those regards, because as you guys know, he’s not afraid to make fun of himself and criticize himself, which I love. I think it’s a great characteristic of him. He mentioned that to me afterwards. During the game, I’m handling the management and the special teams, so sometimes I don’t even hear the play call to be honest with you, so it’s not until after the fact that we had these conversations. During the game, I’d be lying to you if I told you. Now I did hear him say a couple of times those same things that you just said, but I really didn’t notice it as the game was going on.”
(He didn’t like kick somebody or something like that?) – “No. He’s actually got a really good demeanor during the game, kind of like me. I never get excited during the game either. (laughter) Talk about polar opposites right? So sometimes he’s obviously telling me to relax; but no, he’s got a really calm, cool demeanor when he’s calling plays, and I think that’s one of the things that’s one of his strongest assets and attributes is that, even when maybe it’s not going great sometimes, he stays really calm and I think he does a great job with that, with the quarterbacks and everybody else.”
(Did you say anything to P Matt Haack after his 19-yard punt or did you let him go?) – “Let it go. Just let it go. It’s one of those situation where thankfully we weren’t backed up. It was one of those Aussie kicks. We call it a flip flop. It’s those inside-the-50 type of punts and he just dropped it too far inside and chased it with his foot. It wasn’t one of those deals … If we were backed up – hopefully we don’t get one of those – but in the position that we were in, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. We probably lost a little bit of yardage there, obviously; but no, I’ve seen Matt do it enough in here. He didn’t do that one time in warmups or anything like that, so I just said let that one go and go to the next one. He actually had punted three times, two of his punts were darn good and he had the one bad one.”
(Can you tell us all of the different kinds of punts?) – “Sure. Yes, there’s a bunch. There’s obviously the ones where you have the plus-50 punts where most guys in the league now are working the end-over-end. Some guys call it an Aussie kick – we call it a flip-flop – where you try to make the ball get a little spin back when you drop it inside the 10, so that ball has a different rotation. It’s more like a kickoff rotation. Then you have directional punts. You have directional right, directional left. A lot of people call it a sky ball when you try to get more hang time, depending on the situation. There’s a bunch of different kicks, believe it or not. And the punters, not to get too technical, but their angle to the ball and things like that, their drops are going to be different depending on which way they’re trying to go or if they’re trying to drive it. For example, if a guy is standing in the end zone, he may try to hit a drive ball, most punters will call it a drive ball, where you’re trying to flip the field, maybe get a line drive, maybe get a little extra roll, whereas if you’re out in the middle of the field 20-, 30-yard line, now you’re trying to work more hang time or direction.“
(How is RB Kenyan Drake’s overall special teams contribution? How has he done since his arrival until now?) – “Yes, I think the one thing he’s gotten a lot better at is coverage. He obviously made the big play on kickoff; but we’ve got him working on the punt cover as well. He’s been working a little bit of gunner for us. He obviously has great speed. Kenyan would be the first one to tell you, he didn’t tackle many people before he got to the Miami Dolphins; so that part of it, the defensive part of it, if you will, taking on blocks, getting guys on the ground, he’s really dramatically improved from this time last year to now. His speed is obviously a huge asset and attribute to us, so we’re trying to get him to … Obviously he used it the other day. That was a huge kickoff tackle inside the 10, and then we tacked on the penalty and that brought them back even further. So he’s really improved on that part. He’s always been good with the ball in his hands, so when he gets the ball in his hands, he’s good. It’s the other part that I think he’s really improved on – the blocking, tackling, shedding, things like that.
(Obviously K Cody Parkey coming up with the game winner was huge for the team, but was that even more considering it was his first game with the team, in building confidence with the coaches and his new teammates?) – “Yes, no question. I literally, I won’t tell you who it is; but I got on the bus after the game and a staff member said to me, ‘What’s our kicker’s name again?’ (laughter) So I think everybody knows his name now, so that was a good thing; but yes. Listen, when you make a change like that, Andrew Franks has a lot of friends in that locker room, because he’s a great person and a great kicker. So when a guy unseats a guy like that, there’s certainly going to be a little bit of a feeling out process. As far as the feeling out process goes, it certainly helped (Cody) to have such a good game; but I think our guys saw it in practice as well. (They) saw the quality player that he is, but it certainly doesn’t hurt his status with the guys.”
