George Godsey – November 5, 2019
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Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Tight Ends Coach George Godsey
(How proud are you of the improvements TE Mike Gesicki has made and where do you think has been the biggest growth area from when you arrived to now?) – “He’s still a young player and I keep saying that just because there’s a ton of improvement to do every day. He’s practicing a lot harder. He’s taken reps on the show team to kind of get his craft down. When you’re a receiving a tight end – which that’s his main trait – if you get one opportunity, then you better be on-point on that one opportunity. So I keep stressing the fact that you’d better get multiple opportunities in practice so you make the most out of your one opportunity in the game, if it’s a third down rep or depending on the situation. He’s practicing a lot harder.”
(And then route running, how has that improved since you first saw TE Mike Gesicki and got your hands on him?) – “He caught a downfield pass along the sideline, he caught a crossing route – a couple of those – he caught outbreaking routes. So the more we can be versatile with his route tree the better off it is for him, but it’s harder to defend. It’s harder to defend when he’s press, it’s harder to defend when he’s getting off coverage; so that type of variety, you can’t just be good at one route. He’s improving in his whole route tree.”
(I remembered in the beginning you had a master plan to help TE Mike Gesicki evolve as a player. Now we’re starting to see him run routes a little bit faster, get open, find the seam – what was in the making of that?) – “The passing game is pretty complicated because you’ve got to protect to be able to get routes either downfield or schemed up. At the tight end position, sometimes we’re asked to protect, sometimes we’re asked to go out on routes. He’s making the most of his opportunities and he’s making the most of his opportunities in practice. He’s practicing a lot harder. He’s voluntarily taking reps on the show team to go against Eric Rowe and some of the other defensive backs that have played a lot; so if he can’t get open in practice, then maybe in the game he probably won’t get open, too. When he can get open in practice and that’s on tape and the quarterback can see it and maybe he’s an outlet there for him, too. There’s a lot that goes into it. He’s working hard in his individual drills, so he’s really – if you practice well, it’s transfers to the game. If you had one thing to pinpoint, he’s practicing a lot better.”
(How do you get a long-strider to speed up TE Mike Gesicki’s release?) – “If his main intention is to threaten downfield, then he needs to get downfield as fast as he can (and) spend a little bit less time at the line of scrimmage. We motion him a little bit, too. There’s a lot things that we can help out with that. Pad level – he’s a taller guy, so it’s easy to grab if he just stands straight up. All of those things – route technique – you can’t just talk about it either. It’s releases. Then it’s the secondary stem – making sure he’s not giving away his route and then the top of route, uncovering or sitting depending on man or zone and recognizing that. When I say he’s a young player, just recognizing all that stuff at this level, it just doesn’t come watching it on tape. You’ve got to go out and do it and you’ve got to do it the wrong way and then get that feeling, ‘okay, I know exactly what that feeling is and I need to do this next time.’ The defender, who he’s going against, he spends a lot of time studying him. Sometimes it isn’t the matchup and sometimes it is, but at least we’re prepared for who’s going to guard him.”
(What do you think are the keys to helping any player reach his potential?) – “First you’ve got to identify strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes that’s easy and sometimes that’s not. For example, you can have a strength because you run the route a lot and then you can have a weakness because you don’t run the route; but that player is capable of running that particular route or block or any facet of the game. Maybe it’s even a read for a quarterback. Let’s just say a go route. If you’re not winning the go route, is it because you just can’t get open or is it because you just haven’t had enough opportunities to see what you’re doing wrong? That part and how much time you want to invest and how quickly they can improve becomes just another pebble on the plate, so to say. How many of those do you want to approach? Do you want to work a go route, an out route, an in route and try to fine-tune all of those? And that’s just in the route-running game. Obviously there’s some run game that’s involved, so when you add all those up – that’s why I keep saying the pebbles on the plate – because you can do a bunch of things okay and it may not be worth a darn at this level.”
(The second part of my question – Head Coach Brian Flores mentioned after the victory that he’s proud of his staff for putting in a lot of time to find the small advantages that may exist either in a broad perspective or individual matchups. What have you learned about how to best find an advantage vs. an opponent?) – “Experience helps, but it’s also knowing who you’re going against, meaning you watch enough tape where you know that that player plays this coverage or front or technique this way. Because you don’t have a lot of time for the player so you better boil it down to a couple sentences and then you better have the examples for him to be able to recall that when we’re in that instance and we’ve got to block that player versus this technique. Those are the things that I think we’re trying to find the quickest way to teach them. There’s not enough time in a day. Ultimately, being on the field and repping it is what the most important thing is. One of our phrases is, ‘say it once. Rep it a million times.’ So if we can say it once and it affect a manner for them to grasp it, then they can rep it and achieve it.”
(In the Major League Baseball playoffs, there was a ton made on Fox about how certain teams are doing an awesome job of getting tips from the opponent. They knew that this was likely to be a fastball, likely to be off-speed pitch. Even in the Ravens game, they were talking about how depending on what Ravens QB Lamar Jackson did – if he patted his hands it was more likely to be a pass. Just in general, how easy or hard, how helpful is it to pick up going into a game, tips or how often do the opponents actually tell you what they might be more likely to do?) – “I’d say at this level there’s a lot of self-scouting going on, too. If there is a tendency it’s because usually that’s what the team does the best. If you do you something well and somebody else knows you do it well, maybe you feel like you can out-perform them. That’s part of it. I think both sides of the ball – talking about offensively and defensively – everybody tries to self-scout before they put in a play so those tips aren’t able to help a defender or help an offensive player get an edge.”
(So it’s not just in this formation they usually run right. It could be the tight end – your guys – could learn that maybe they’re tipping off to the opponent that based on the position of their feet or the position of their hands or when they wait to get down, that could be a tip to the opponent about whether it’s more likely to be a run or a pass, right? Is it really heavy study on tips?) – “I would say that these guys have been playing football for a long time, so sometimes it’s good to bring that up. ‘Hey, every time you run this route, you do this,’ or ‘this is a tendency that you’re building;’ but everybody is pretty in-tune to a lot of that, too. It’s always ‘this route needs to complement this route so that they look the same on the route stem.’ I just feel like at this level, some of those tips that maybe people are picking up from a pitcher or something, it may be very, very minute; but in the final game, anything like that may help them. I don’t know. I’m not a baseball coach or player, but it’s very similar to us. If you get down and this is your stance and you’re giving away run or pass – just even that, not necessarily which kind of run or what kind of pass – then potentially you might have a bigger challenge.”
(One day when you’re retired I’d like to read your notes like in terms of what you told a player going into a game and how it translated to a play. That would be a fascinating thing for me. I know you won’t show me your notes now but one day.) – “You can see them. (laughter) You might not be able to read them. A lot of that, too – I’d be anxious to see everybody’s notes. You may think you have a tip and then going into the game, you’re playing what you see. You’re not relying on that tip.”
(The emergence of TE Mike Gesicki – last game career highs in receptions with six, career yards 95 – is something clicking? What is it that you’ve seen in him and the room and just kind of on the field and everything and his performance?) – “He’s practicing a lot harder, a lot better. He’s taking basically a practice rep like a game rep. When you run a route on third down, that’s a critical down. You’re either staying on the field or you’re punting from an offensive perspective. It’s a critical down to get open and there’s not a lot of room for error. If you’re going to rep it one time in practice offensively and then one time in the game, to me there’s some more practice time throughout the week that he can sharpen that route up. He’s been taking some reps on the show team to try to get another rep at that route or work a competitive route vs. our starters on the other side of the ball. That’s the biggest improvement that I’ve seen – the way he’s been practicing – so I’m not really surprised when he has a game like that based on how he’s been practicing because if the ball’s thrown his way, he’s done a pretty good job of attacking and getting the ball.”
(When you see TE Mike Geiscki get fired up like that what does that do? What does that help create on the offense, not only in terms of for himself but in terms of the team and kind of as you’re driving and trying to strive to make it better?) – “He knows how critical of a play it is. We harp on the situations and for him to make a play in a critical situation – a couple third-down conversions – it means a lot for our team and helps us move the ball to get points. That’s him doing business.”
