George Godsey – October 6, 2020
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Tight Ends Coach George Godsey
(You’ve known Head Coach Brian Flores a little bit longer than some of the other coaches on the staff, and certainly some of us. How do you think he’s taken this 1-3 start for the team with some high expectations after everything in the offseason and maybe some close games that maybe didn’t go you guy’s way?) – “The close games are what they are and we know sitting at 1-3 with a long season still left to go. It’s a quarter of the season done and we have some things that we need to correct and fortunately we have time; but obviously it’s got to start soon enough. That’s how ‘Flo’ (Brian Flores) is. It’s day to day. There is nothing where you look ahead at certain opponents late on. It’s one game at a time, one day at a time. We try to improve on the mistakes that we’ve made, whether it’s playing, coaching, and rectify that during the week. And come Sunday, it’s our time to see where we are at versus that opponent.”
(I saw that all three of you tight ends had over 20 snaps in the game on Sunday. There was one particular catch with TE Durham Smythe where he gained 12 yards. I went back and looked, you guys were in 13 personnel and you guys went empty. How unique is that for a tight ends room to be able to have three guys on the field and be able to spread things out like that?) – “We’re fortunate because those guys do a good job. That’s a good point because they are playing position where maybe it’s a position where usually it’s DeVante (Parker) or Jakeem (Grant) or one of the guys outside as a number one receiver on that particular catch that you’re talking about – No. 1 meaning the most outside extended receiver. Those guys do a good job, and it really started last spring to take the concept and grasp it – not just your particular role maybe for that practice. That’s how we teach it. That’s how we do it in that room because we feel like we’re versatile enough to play those roles. Those guys accepted the coaching and fortunately that was a good play for us. It was a catch and a first down.”
(I noticed that FB Chandler Cox had his first career catch. I know he hangs out with you guys a lot, even as a fullback. Does that catch get credited to the tight end room or the running back room?) – “Chandler is part of the muscle room in there with the blocking. Whether it’s tight ends blocking or fullbacks, we kind of put that together as far as the physicality of our offense. He’s in our room from a teaching standpoint. The guys were happy about that. It was a good catch. It was another third-down conversion. It was a short-yardage play. He’s throwing his head in there and blocking a bunch of guys, so it’s good for him to get that reception for the first down.”
(How have you seen defenses shift to covering TE Mike Gesicki over the last couple of weeks after he had that big day?) – “It’s really a bunch of different sort of defenses. In the passing game, there is more than just the opponent (and) what their actual scheme is. It’s the play, it’s the read, it’s the pass rush, it’s the situation. Is it a downfield route, is it a route at the sticks, depending on the down and distance? There are a lot of things that go into that. I think it’s hard to really just answer with maybe this specific defensive scheme. Certainly, sometimes they are – whether it’s putting a guy underneath and a guy over the top – taking care of his route, so to say, in the progression. But there are other times where maybe we’re open and the pass rush affected us, and the read, we were on the back side of a read. There is a lot that goes into it. We’ve just got to make the most out of our opportunities. We had one early on third down that we converted that was ruled an illegal forward pass. Then he made a good catch on the sideline. Then we had one really close to the end zone for what would’ve been a big play. We stress the opportunities when they are thrown our way, to take advantage of them.”
(Do you and Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey feel like there is any element of surprise when Durham Smythe gets thrown the ball? He is clearly competent at it. Is there an element of surprise? Also, is that a skill he’s gotten better at since he’s been here?) – “I think Durham is really fluid at catching the football. He does a good job on normal downs blocking for us. When it’s a normal down or a run situation and he’s out there on a route, he does a good job of executing his role. We have Mike (Gesicki) in a lot of the obvious passing situations in. That’s really where maybe he’s not getting the amount of targets that maybe Mike would get; but we feel confident about Durham’s ability that if the ball is thrown to him, to catch it and get yards like he did last game.”
(I think it was in the first quarter where it was a third-and-1, where TE Durham Smythe caught the ball. Educate me here, it looked like he was pretending to run block. Is that a strategy increasing in popularity where offensive linemen or tight ends pretend to do one thing such as run block, and then all of a sudden, it turns into a pass? Am I onto something with that?) – “A little bit. It’s kind of more on the eyes of the defender. He sees a block and then goes into his run keys. They’ve got an experienced linebacker group last week with (Bobby) Wagner and (K.J.) Wright. Those guys have played a million games, so certainly we wanted to give them some eye candy to help with that play. There was a little bit of a different formation too, so there was a lot that really went into that play that kind of got them thinking. He did a good job of executing his assignment. That’s not easy to do because there is a lot of trust that goes on in the blocking of that. Then to leak out at the right time, that was well executed. We got a good run after the catch. It was another third-down conversation that as a group, we try to take pride in, whether it’s an obvious passing situation like in two-minute or in the red area. We try to make the most out of those opportunities.”
