George Godsey – September 2, 2020
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Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Tight Ends Coach George Godsey
(Obviously you don’t coach the quarterbacks. It seems even defensive players, even the tight ends, everybody has been sort of impacted in some way by QB Ryan Fitzpatrick. That’s sort of what I was driving towards. Your tight ends talk about how he drops into the tight ends’ room just to check on them and maybe go over some detail or something. Can you kind of give us a since of your impressions of Ryan and what he means to the whole room? Obviously in the light of him going through a hard time right now.) – “Playing quarterback and knowing Ryan really since 2014 when I specifically coached him in Houston, the most important thing about that position is communication and communicating to everybody on the team. When the ball is in your hands as a quarterback, everybody sees it through your eyes and how a defender is playing you, he may expect something that maybe another quarterback wouldn’t have expected at the top of the route to look a little different. Getting on the same page, that’s hard to do when you’re not together and have already experienced it in OTAs. So now that we’re in training camp, it’s that much vital. Just personally, Ryan means so much. He talks to us daily at all of the positions. Our heart aches for him, and I think I’m speaking for everybody on the team when I say that.”
(You’ve obviously worked with Head Coach Brian Flores before you guys both came down here to Miami. Where can you say that he has maybe changed of evolved as a coach, and where can you say that he’s stayed the same and kind of kept the same values he’s always had?) – “The three years in New England from 2011 to 2013, we were both kind of making our ways as far as turning into position coaches. We would use each other as sounding boards. When he had a certain area on defense and I had a certain area on offense, we would always spend extra time at the end of the week reviewing on future talk, meaning how are we going to get ourselves better as coaches. We’ve stayed in touch since those days. He’s a good mentor right now, a good friend. He’s always been. As coaches, we improve every year. We don’t have all of the answers. Sometimes unfortunately we learn from mistakes, and sometimes we’re better. I’d say that his mind is always focused on what’s best for the team. With that mindset, you’re going to be ahead of a lot of things and that’s where I see us. I see Brian a lot of times a step ahead of maybe a question that’s about to arise. That’s encouraging not only from a coaching standpoint, but I’m sure they see that as players too.”
(It was interesting what you were just talking about with Head Coach Brian Flores. It kind of made me wonder, I know obviously you guys have a job to do now, but as a position coach, how do you balance wanting to ascend in your own career versus preparing for your day to day current task?) – “That’s a tough question because sometimes there is not enough time for that, to build and type something up because you’re worried about your current job. Usually when you succeed at your current job, it will show; and obviously it extends to what else you can do. If you’re given certain responsibilities and you’re able to overcome those, or let’s say go beyond those, and then provide more. We always think that your role is really defined on how you – what you make of it. Being efficient and being quick with your decisions, and being accurate, those will be the quickest things to put more things on your plate. That’s kind of where I individually start at. Just being like I said, efficient, quick and accurate as far as making decisions.”
(I wanted to ask you about TE Adam Shaheen, in terms of where his progression is now. Obviously when he first got here, he was behind the eight ball; but then we started to see him make some more plays during the second week of training camp. Where is he in the understanding of the offense? And skillset wise, can he be an inline guy? Is he a flex guy? What’s your vision for him?) – “Just the first question with Adam, daily there is some – it’s very similar to what I was saying, you usually make – sometimes as a player, you make some mistakes and then you learn from those. It’s a lot easier to sit back there in a meeting room and coach them up. A lot of times, it’s getting out there, getting those reps, and we’ve done a good job as far as everybody from a cumulative-wise on the offense is making sure we’re slowly adding more to the plate. For Adam’s sake, it’s not only just learning the offense a little bit more and spending more time on that; but also getting on the field for more reps. We put him in roles where he’s blocking. I feel confident about that. He’s got good range. Obviously when you’re a taller guy like he is, pad level is very important. That’s constantly something we’re working on. I’ve been a part of that in the past with tall guys. We kind of have a good plan on that one. Again, it’s showing reps of what he’s doing in practice and how those individual drills can transfer over. In the passing game, not only is he a good protector just with his length – he can match up with those defensive ends – but also the size matchup on a safety or a linebacker. He’s a big, athletic man. He has some basketball background, so he makes good decisions in space. We can improve that and I think he knows that too; but we’re trying to keep adding to some reps. He got 20 to 25 reps in the scrimmage. That’s a sign of good improvement from our standpoint.”
(TE Durham Smythe has really come onto his role in the last couple of years trying to do a little bit of everything. Where has he kind of taken this training camp?) – “I really think Durham’s a leader in that room. He does a good job of communicating when he’s right and when he’s wrong, but explaining exactly what he saw so as a group we can get better. He was put in a lot of blocking roles last year and did fairly well. He improved tremendously from his first year. He put on a lot of weight. I think we found a good spot at his weight. He’s in shape. He plays a lot of reps out there at practice. He’s hydrating. He’s getting his nutrition back so he’s maintaining his weight. He’s able to help in all three phases – whether it’s blocking, protection, or running routes. I feel really confident about Durham, and I really feel confident about putting him in any role and him knowing his assignment, which that’s the number one thing in a coach to player relationship. We trust him. Like I said, his leadership in that room is invaluable.”
(I was really impressed, as I’m sure you were, about TE Mike Gesicki and TE Durham Smythe showing the maturity to get together this offseason, even by phone, trying to work on their areas of improvement to become less predictable in terms of what teams anticipate you’ll run with both in the game. Do you have any way of knowing through about 12 padded practices if Durham is a better receiver now and if Gesicki is a better blocker?) – “The way that we kind of work things from a scripting standpoint, I like to rotate them all and make sure that – like right now we’re not specifically game planning something for one particular player. So in case something happens, during training camp there’s always something that happens whether it’s a slow pull here or maybe he needs to sit out a couple of reps because he took multiple reps. We put those guys in that role. I know we put Durham in a couple of two-minute situations where last year we didn’t necessarily put him in those situations. I could’ve did a better job at that, just preparing for maybe the what-ifs that occur. And the same thing with Michael (Gesicki), putting him in some situations where he does have to cut out Shaq Lawson, (Emmanuel) Ogbah. These are some good players that they are facing on the defensive end – Kyle (Van Noy). The list goes on and on. They are getting good work and they are kind of learning different roles. I appreciate them kind of leaning on each other, and that shows you the chemistry in that room. It’s not just those two guys. I know Adam (Shaheen) asks a lot of questions – Chris (Myarick). We rely on Chandler (Cox) too on some of his blocks, because obviously a tight end is going to do some of those roles. It’s a good room as far as communicating back and forth, and like I said, I appreciate the professionalism.”
(Just asking you about TE Mike Gesicki, I know last year was kind of viewed like a breakout for him because of the stats he was able to put up. Is that like a realistic expectation of what could be in store for him this season? Or does the new offense change anything on maybe how he will potentially be used?) – “I just expect him to continue to improve. Like I said, I see all those guys as young improving players. I don’t think any of them have reached their ceiling. I think that when the ball is thrown to those guys, those guys have the ability to catch it. They work hard at their craft. They work hard at catching the football. Mike’s the last one to come off the field with the JUGS machine. He takes pride in that. The one thing I mentioned to him was if you’re a go-to receiver or tight end in this case and the ball is thrown to you, and you have a chance to catch it, it’s your job to pull that down. It’s not always going to be on the numbers and with separation from the defensive back. Those guys have started to understand that, and you understand that going from the first year to second year to third year. You realize that those opportunities are not as easy. They know that they continually have to work. There are new players that they will be going against this year. Defenders, they have to study their positives and negatives. I think that we’ve got them in a good position as far as learning to weekly prepare for an opponent and work on their craft at the same time, because it is constant and it is every minute of the week as we’re preparing for a game.”
