Frank Smith – September 28, 2023
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Thursday, September 28, 2023
Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith
(How do you follow up 70 points? What do you do next?) – “Go back to Wednesday, start the process over again. Whenever you have a game like that where a lot of things go well, (there are) plenty of things to enjoy, but the most important thing we were able to accomplish is to get a win. And then now move on to the next.”
(When Head Coach Mike McDaniel was talking about the feat after the game, he said his mind goes back to April 17th, which is the first day of the offseason workout program. He said his mind goes back to the first day of phase two when you guys were out there on the field. I was curious what was the over-arching message from Mike? I know he said that he played a bunch of the pre-snap penalties to show that we got to get this cleaned up. What do you remember being the message? Because he said, ‘hey, we have the guys to be really special on offense?’) – “Essentially that was it. The greatest opponent you face everyday is yourself. How do you maximize not having to fight that opponent? You’re playing with that opponent. I think everything just goes to how do we want our tape to look, how do we want our play to look. It starts with the basics. I always laugh when he talks about John Wooden back in the day, ‘put your socks on first,’ and then you work the process all the way until you get to your performance. It’s the same thing with football. When you start off your offseason looking to get better, and you identify those areas that are under your control to improve, I think that is the key emphasis to our program. We’re a process driven organization, a process driven program. So to improve, it’s not looking at the result. It’s looking at the process to get there. That’s a constant thing and it starts every year when you start in April. You start your process over. How do you teach it, what do you enforce, how do you communicate it, how do you get your guys to understand the intent? And then the challenge then as you go through the offseason, training camp, preseason, regular season, playoffs, is staying true to what you believe and what you’re emphasizing with the group. I think that’s what he meant with it going back to the beginning because it’s Wednesday and the process begins for the week yesterday.”
(What did TE Julian Hill do well and did he do it well enough to earn more playing time?) – “Yeah, he came in and executed. We needed him to do some things. Obviously in the tight end room, when one is in, one is out. Guys get an opportunity to step up and Julian has been very deliberate in this whole process and the way he’s approached since he’s arrived here. He really has great intent for blocking and shows good route speed and route intent, and just everything we’re looking at. Ultimately though, the first game when you play at that level, there are plenty of things he knows he needs to work at. Collectively, we’re excited for him to grow into this week with what he’s going to work on. Overall, a lot of the things we asked him to do, he did well with blocking and being in the right place at the right time, just like we ask all the other guys to do. Very pleased with what he did so far.”
(One sack through three games, plus some incredible run blocking. What has impressed you about the offensive line?) – “Their approach. I would imagine that – again that goes all the way back to April. So many things that we are doing well so far are things that we have really started from the ground up and are our points of emphasis with the group. I think the biggest thing with them is you’re seeing all the hard work, all the hours, all the extra work they’ve done with (Offensive Line Coach) Butch (Barry) and ‘Lem’ (Assistant Offensive Line Coach Lemuel Jeanpierre), like you’re seeing it payoff. But now it’s the consistency to keep doing it again, doing it again and doing it again until you get the opportunity to keep playing for as long as you can. I would imagine, I would think, that they feel the same way with their approach to everything they are doing. Very detailed, very process oriented.”
(What would you say about OL Ausitn Jackson’s starts this season?) – “When we talked about him through the early parts of the season, it’s just opportunities to develop consistency. With Austin, it’s been great to watch him grow. The only way you can grow and develop is through playing. Again, a guy who is very deliberate through his process and has really worked as hard as anyone to get himself one, back on the field, and two, keep refining what he’s done. Overall with a lot of the guys, you can’t really sit there and be like, ‘hey, it’s this one thing.’ Because it’s not the one thing that will separate the growth. It’s the approach and the way they go about it, and his has been awesome so far. We’re excited for it to continue this week.”
(I know revenge isn’t a main motivating factor for anybody this week, but for the players does it have a healthy place in preparation for this game, revenge for those two losses last year at Buffalo?) – “No. Revenge is a fleeting motivation that disappears early into a game. What your motivating factors are, are having the right guys who have the right process to take them into a game to prepare the right way. I think ultimately for us, this is game four in the season. For us to get to where we want to go in our goals, it’s having the guys that every Wednesday, the reset to work the preparation to get ready for Sunday is the most important thing. I really don’t think that focusing on something – the minute the game starts then that’s energy you’re focusing on something other than what am I going to do, how am I going to play, how am I going to execute at the time that I need to do.”
(I was talking to one of the network analysists the other day, and he talked at length about the role of motions and shifts in your offense, and how it’s helping you get to where you want to go. Especially in terms of getting the receivers open, how big of a role do you think all of that is in just helping the offense move the ball?) – “I think it’s kind of the bedrock to what we do. We start up day one in first installation and we’re moving. Like we’ve talked about numerous times, the real thing is that we don’t move to move. Like some people say, ‘hey that was eye candy,’ or something to that extent. For us, there is a reason for everything we move, and why we do it. The reaction of the defense, if it’s what we anticipate, there is a complementary play that connects off of it. And if it wasn’t a reaction that we anticipated, why? And what do we need to do to get to the reaction we anticipated? Ultimately when you move as much as we do to motion, shift, and do all of that, it comes down to the players and their understanding of what we’re trying to do, and what we’re trying to execute because you can move and get them all open, but if they don’t understand what the defense is doing inside of that, it would be fleeting. You’re just trying to move guys around for the sake of moving them. Ultimately it comes down to, yes it helps us attack the defense, but ultimately I think it comes down to the players, and their understanding of why we’re doing what we’re doing. And that’s been the best part so far.”
(Have you ever been a part of an offense that has this much going on before a snap?) – “Motion and movement wise? No, but obviously through studying Mike (McDaniel) and Kyle (Shanahan) and their years together, obviously, that was an integral part of what they did. And coming here and us collecting and knowing how we both see and attack the defense, movement and shifting made complete sense, because that’s the only way you can sometimes get a true understanding of what they’re trying to do or attack a certain part of their defense.”
(A little bit of a history question as it relates to the, I don’t know what you guys call it, whether it’s exit motion, or inside out motion, but what’s kind of the genesis of that? Because I feel like I personally haven’t seen it until you guys did it. And now I feel I’m seeing with other teams, I talked to somebody who said, ‘Hey, we’re using it a high school level now because we saw it with you guys.’ Do you guys want to take credit for creating it?) – “I mean it’s like everything, a lot of motions come out of necessity, or they come out of just something occurred and you’re like, ‘Hm, I wonder if we did this.’ And I mean, I would say that a lot or all of the motioning that we’ve done, or I know that Mike (McDaniel) and Kyle (Shanahan) have done over the years, has been solving problems or solving attack needs for the defense. And I would think that motion, which is the number one thing that I’m getting texts about lately from all levels, high school all the way up the pros, was a genesis that came from what if we did this? And that’s what occurred.”
(So you guys aren’t taking credit for creating it?) – “I mean, I’ve been a part of it. I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that for me personally, to be the creator and the genesis of something, my humility kicks in. So I try to not put myself in a place where I try to go there because I’m sure someone did something at some point and then we were able to pick it and extract upon how we needed to use it to get the advantages we needed.”
(Just to add a little color to this, you and Head Coach Mike McDaniel are obviously very humble. But can you tell us if there was a specific time you remember meeting with Mike or discussing this particular topic this summer about whether you could add more motions, new motions, more wrinkles? Was it over lunch one day in May? Was it in a meeting room in August? Can you share that if you know that?) – “It was actually a cabana at the Four Seasons at Fort Lauderdale. (laughter) Yeah, it was fantastic. Ayla was running around, I was sitting there going, what if we watch her run? (laughter) See how fast? The waiter had no idea where she was going. (laughter) I mean, honestly, a lot of it just comes into as we separate from when you kind of debrief from the season and you look at, okay, what you did and how do you organize what you did, so you don’t lose a lot of the things you did well. I think a lot of it was probably just the usual place where ideas come up. It’s in his office where I sit on the couch, he sits in his chair, and we go over the litany of things we need to go through in a day. I think a lot of our motioning and stuff like that, the ideas that come into the season, the way you lose track of the good things you did is you don’t constantly evolve your system. And I think the great thing we did is we came back through, took what we did, reorganized our entire installation board to fit our evolution. And that way, we didn’t lose anything that we started upon last year. Now the challenge would be what do we do next? And that’s the fun part.”
(Where do you feel OL Liam Eichenberg is in his development at center?) – “Yeah, he’s doing a great job. I mean, the hardest thing is when you get thrust into new situations, how do you handle it? And the great thing about Liam is how he’s wired and how he approaches everything. So far, he’s really working through the process, and he’s been a true pro in everything he does. So he’s one of those guys that again, with the offensive line, love their whole approach because everything they do is so focused on getting better in that moment. So it’ll be fun process for all the guys in preparation for this game.”
(About him, what was it that you saw from OL Liam Eichenberg that made you guys say in the spring, other than necessity, because OL Connor Williams skip OTAs, ‘Hey, let’s try him out at center. Let’s see what his snapping is like.’) – “Like the motion, necessity sometimes is the mother of invention. So at that point, we didn’t have – Dan Feeney was also out. We had nobody else. So I mean, I think at that point, I think we only had one center on the roster. The great thing was, it was kind of like, alright, you couple guys get into it. And then he was the one that it made a lot of sense to quickly, because as you move from outside-in, the world changes. Same thing from a wide receiver you move into tight end, the world changes as you bring people closer in. So it made sense to him. He’s a natural communicator. He’s very process driven. And that’s where kind of the mother of it started. And then he just grew from there.”
(In a league where sub packages and matchups are all the rage, the Buffalo defense stays in nickel almost exclusively. How are they able to do that?) – “Through a very detailed understanding of their system. They are excellent at communication, they’re excellent at working with each other. Very good football players who play very, very well together as a unit. So, I think when you have 11 guys on the field who communicate and can execute and know their system so well, it really doesn’t matter what personnel group they’re in because you can execute together when you can communicate and play off each other so well.”
