Dowell Loggains – October 18, 2018
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Thursday, October 18, 2018
Offensive Coordinator Dowell Loggains
(With the emergence of TE Nick O’Leary, how tough now are the decisions for you, Head Coach Adam Gase and Tight Ends Coach Shane Day to make as far as using four healthy bodies now?) – “The legend of Nick O’Leary. (laughter) Nick’s come in and done a nice job for us. It always takes time when you get new guys, at this point in the season, and try to find out what they do well. What Nick has done a good job of is he’s able to move and be kind of a move tight end. It’s a strength of his to be able to do that stuff and kind of play that hybrid tight end/fullback role and do those things. The challenge that (Head) Coach (Adam) Gase has is really the actives and inactives and managing that roster. The good thing for (Tight Ends) Coach (Shane) Day and myself are we get to coach the guys he tells us to coach and he’ll make those decisions. We do have a room of four or five guys that they can play and help us, so whatever coach tells us on that, we’ll play those guys.”
(What is the legend of Nick O’Leary? Why is he a guy that was a castoff sitting around waiting for a call, and now he comes here and it looks like he might be the best tight end?) – “I can’t speak for that and those are your words, not mine. I think what Nick does a really good job of is he’s a scrappy player. He’s competitive and I think the guys see how hard he plays. He’s always mixing it up in the pile, he plays with edge and he’s made some plays for us, so guys are naturally drawn to that kind of competitive spirit. I can’t speak on why it didn’t work out in the past on other teams, but I think the coaching staff here has done a good job using his skillset to put him in a position to be successful.”
(Sometimes you see things in a guy, though. You obviously looked at film on him before you brought him in and you see how this is something that is underutilized or this is something you could do something with. What did you see with him?) – “It goes back to Florida State. He was a productive guy doing those things. He can move, you could tell he was smart, you could tell he was competitive and scrappy. Sometimes this league is about finding the opportunity, and when you do get the opportunity, making the most of it. It comes in a lot of different ways and he’s done that to this point and made the most of his opportunity here.”
(What was the difference that we saw from this offensive line? Not the Cincinnati game, let’s not compare those two, but from what you saw against the Bears compared to what you saw earlier in the season.) – “The biggest thing I think was the execution. It really was. Having Laremy Tunsil out there is a big deal because he’s a really good football player. When you have a guy that you can say ‘we trust this guy one-on-one to block anybody in the NFL,’ and we can slide protections and chip the other way, it makes a big difference. You get help in other places, and it makes your strengths your strengths and you play to your strengths and protect your weaknesses or what could be a matchup issue the other way. Maybe a team like the Bears, the right side of their rush pattern is really good for those guys. So we were able to do some different stuff schematically, and having Laremy makes it able to where you can do that stuff because you have such trust in him to be able to handle whoever lines up in front of him to block him one-on-one.”
(So there’s nobody in the league that you can think of that you say ‘we might need to give T Laremy Tunsil a little help?’) – “I think at every point, there are breather play. Whether it be Laremy or Ja’Wuan (James) or whoever it is, you don’t want to put someone on an island and say ’40 plays in a row, we want you to block this guy.’ We don’t believe in that here anyway. We want to give them different looks and do those things, but when it’s crunch time and it matters, we trust Laremy to do his job and block anyone one-on-one.”
(With QB Brock Osweiler, how much did you know about him before you took this job and what have you learned about him since?) – “I’ve been on the other side of losing to him twice. In 2015 in Chicago, he was in Denver, and the 2016 opener, I was in Chicago and he was in Houston at the time. Just being across from him, watching him, it’s been fun and a privilege to coach him because he learned from one of the best of all time in ‘18’ (Peyton Manning). That part of the knowledge of the offense after watching ‘18’ do it for four years in Denver and coming in and executing the system at a high level, and just the confidence he has in the system, it feels like it fits his skillset. So, from a distance I got to watch him and learn and figure out what he’s good at once he got here, so it’s been fun.”
(What’s more impressive, his confidence as you mentioned, or his optimism, because he seems to have both?) – “I think he’s in a very good place mentally. I think he really enjoys football. I think he really enjoys his teammates, and I think that’s important. He trusts the system a lot because it’s something he’s familiar with and he got to see it operated at a very high level by one of the greatest players of all time. When you get to sit back and watch that, it just gives you confidence and belief when a call comes in that you’ve seen it executed at a top level and you know what the system is capable of when executed the right way, and just the belief that he has in his teammates. The one thing that Brock does a really good job of is he plays with a point guard mentality. He’s getting the ball out quick, he knows where the hots (reads) are, he knows where his outs are the majority of the play. I think he does a good job of executing that stuff.”
(What is the approach you would like QB Brock Osweiler to take relative to aggressiveness versus caretaking?) – “The line we use a lot with the quarterbacks is ‘aggressive as can be in the timing of the play.’ If we have a shot play called up and we want to throw the ball and push the ball down the field, as long as you’re listening to your feet, sometimes it doesn’t develop the right way and you have to take an extra hitch and we’re telling them ‘bring your eyes down and find the check down.’ I thought the one thing that Brock did that probably doesn’t get talked about enough is he’s really smart with throwaways. I think in the second quarter or third quarter, on second-and-10, he throws the ball away because we bust the protection. The next third down, instead of being a third-and-15 and taking a sack, we throw the ball away and the next play, we hit (Danny) Amendola for a first down and it ends up leading to points. It’s just being smart with the football and being aggressive. We want him to be aggressive in the timing of the play, though.”
(When you all got WR Albert Wilson, you obviously knew he was a highly-skilled guy, elusive, and his yards after catch were good. But have you guys, just sitting around as coaches, even a tiny bit amazed just in talking among yourselves just to see what we’ve seen over the first six weeks?) – “It’s a good question because we knew he was talented. We assumed he could do certain things with the ball that would make him unique. The one thing that really jumps out to you is how strong he is in the lower body and how thick he is. He’s built like a running back in the lower body. His ability and his contact balance … When he gets hit, a lot of people stumble and fall. Albert does a tremendous job of keeping that contact balance and running after the catch. He’s done a really good job of taking on a heavy burden because he moves around in a lot of things. Some of the things that don’t get called … He’s played slot, he’s played outside, he’s played running back, he’s played quarterback. He’s just really challenged himself to learn all of that stuff. We’re going to continue to stretch him that way and see how far we can take him.”
(Explain something to me, catch and slash.) – “Yes.”
(What does it mean?) – “So slash is a term that we really started talking about this year. What slash is is when you catch a ball, you’ll see a lot of guys bouncing. What we say is slash, which basically means stick your foot in the ground and go vertical. (Danny) Amendola does a really good job of it. Sometimes as a ball-carrier, you get in trouble of trying to do too much with it. We keep talking about going north and slash and go vertical, go vertical. Then once you go vertical, now you can get your shoulders square and now you can go make moves in the open field like Albert (Wilson) did on ‘39’ (Eddie Jackson) for the Bears. It was basically a fast break in basketball. He went vertical and slashed. He went vertical and had a two-way go on him. It’s really trying to eliminate angles for the defense because they’re trying to overpopulate. That’s how you stop missed tackles is to overpopulate the ball. Well the way you stop it as an offense is going vertical and slashing, going north.”
(One of the things QB Brock Osweiler mentioned is that you guys talk about standards over feelings, which I thought was kind of interesting. How do you work through that, the idea that guys have different personalities and respond to coaching in different ways?) – “We think the only way that you can raise the standards is to continue to communicate the vision of what we want and what we expect. The only way you do it is to be able to tell people the truth and that’s not good enough. It’s yes or no. It’s evaluation friendly. You either did your job or you didn’t. Part of that is the coaching staff doing a really good job of explaining their expectations and the intent for plays. When we call a shot(gun) play, we expect a 3-1 hitch throw and we’re putting it up. Or we didn’t get the coverage we wanted, the intent wasn’t there, so check the ball down; but just so our expectations are clear. It’s part of the process. We’re not where we need to be, but we’re getting closer. It’s just having very direct dialogue and cutting through all of the stuff. ‘Hey, that was a pretty good read but we’d really like to get to No. 3.’ It’s more direct and it’s like ‘No. It’s not good enough. You know that it’s 1-2-3 in the timing of the play and check the ball down. Don’t take sacks.’ Just being very direct with each other. I think it helps you establish standards. It helps the whole team, the whole offensive group, understand the expectations.”
(Do you game plan differently at home in the heat as far as your running game and how you run RB Frank Gore and RB Kenyan Drake?) – “No. It’s actually a really interesting question. We don’t. But what does happen is you go in with a plan and then you react off what’s going on in the game and make adjustments. Maybe some teams, if you start to feel them wearing down or however it’s going, and the run game gets going, you start popping off. The one thing we did against Chicago is we were really efficient. We were efficient. When I say that, we were getting the 4 yards on first down and on second-and-1-to-6, we’re cutting it in half and making it third-and-short and doing those things. It’s really the feel of the game, not really necessarily going in (to the game). We obviously see this: playing at home is a huge advantage for us that we need to continue to make a priority of winning at home. But it’s really just the in-game adjustments and seeing how the game is going.”
(Can you put your finger on what changed for you guys? There were a couple of weeks where you were struggling to get going and then all of a sudden, like you said, the efficiency popped up.) – “I do think that the matchup things have changed a little bit. I think some of the teams we’ve played lately, we’ve been running more inside stuff than outside stuff. Frank (Gore) has had some more carries that way and playing to his strength. It’s really what the defensive scheme gave us and how we chose to attack that scheme. I think our guys are starting to understand what we want more and they’re starting to execute the blocks better. Once we lost (Josh) Sitton, there was a little bit of a transition there. Once we lost (Daniel) Kilgore, there was a little bit of a transition there. I think these guys are starting to play together a little bit more and starting to gel a little bit in the run game that way.”
(What did you like specifically about T Ja’Wuan James and what he did last week?) – “I thought he did a really good job. I think there were 15 or 16 times that he was on his own blocking one-on-one and he did it. The one thing is he brought great energy. Ja’Wuan is an energy giver. He plays hard and aggressive. That’s what the whole thing was. Especially at home, you feel that heat and you want to be able to impose your will and play on your terms in the run game and pass game. When we talk about the run game, you have to be able to run the ball when you want to. I thought that’s what our group did. I think Ja’Wuan was a big part of that, just playing aggressive and trusting his technique. Understand that he did a really good job of … There were a lot of times where we were sending two or three guys and we were chipping and doing those things but he did a really good job of understanding where his help was on each play. We might be sliding to him so he might know ‘They’re sliding to me, so I have inside help if I don’t need it; but I know that I can set a certain way to be aggressive.’”
