Jon Embree – September 8, 2022
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Thursday, September 8, 2022
Assistant Head Coach/Tight Ends Coach Jon Embree
(With TE Mike Gesicki, coaching staffs have used him in different ways. There was a time during his first couple of years where coaches didn’t want to use him much on running downs, but obviously, you want the element of deception where teams don’t think it’s going to be a passing play when he’s in the game. Where are you in that process of his blocking being adequate, good enough, where you don’t think that would be an issue?) – “Well, let me – I’ll answer the question this way. First off, as I told my guys, it’s never going to be good enough. So we start with that as the baseline. He’s done a good job of working and improving. You guys will get to see some of it, obviously, on Sunday when he’s out there playing. But it’s a work in progress and I’m pleased at how he’s gone about his business and improving in that – not just him, but all of them. All those guys have – it’s been a change for everybody in that room, it really has, just because of the style of offense that we play and the different things that we ask that position to do is very unique to what they’ve been asked to do in the past. So they’ve all had different things that they’ve been working at and getting better at, and I’m pleased at where they are. We’re not where we want to be, but we’ll just keep working towards that and I’ll let you know if we ever get there. (laughter)”
(When you talk about the different things being asked of these tight ends, they’re not going to be that Jimmy Graham type guy. Do you have to have guys with a different mentality? Do you look for that because of that?) – “Yes, I do. It’s something that as we were trying to build the room, so to speak, there are certain characteristics or traits that are imperative that you have so that you have an opportunity to have success in his offense. The reality of it is what we ask those guys to do in that room, really the quarterback is probably the only person that has to know everything that everyone’s doing and then it’s us. There’s a lot on our plate. We’re going to do stuff that running backs do in pass protection. There are things we’ve got to do with the receivers. There are other things we’ve got to do with pass protecting on the line of scrimmage. I think we do that probably more than they do in other places. And then go out and catch a pass. So there’s a lot that we ask these guys to do – a lot of motions, a lot of movements, a lot of things formationally that they have to have on their plate. It’s something that as guys – when you come into this offense and it’s new for them, there’s just certain learning curves. For me as a coach, just figuring out what hits their brain, in other words, how do they learn, and then you have to teach those guys in that manner. So for me, I might have to teach a play three different ways in our room, so that everybody understands exactly what I’m saying or what exactly we’re trying to get accomplished on that play or with that particular scheme.”
(What stood out to you about TE Tanner Conner to make this 53-man roster even after missing a couple of weeks in training camp?) – “Well Tanner I think is just scratching the surface. He reminds me – I’ve had Cam Brate, I’ve had Ross Dwelley – those are guests that were similar to him. In other words, maybe didn’t play big time college football, maybe didn’t play the tight end position, but they had certain skill sets that I felt like we could work with and help develop them into being good players. For Tanner, specifically, I loved how physical he was with the football. I think you can glean a lot about a person’s mentality when they have the ball, and he was physical with it in college. Obviously, he runs well, and he really made a lot of strides. He picks up things real quickly, and you could tell he worked on the stuff that I asked him to work on over the summer. And when he came back from summer, he was lightyears ahead of where he was when he first came in as wide receiver. So I’m excited for him when he comes back healthy to see what he can do. And then he’s a really good special teams player. You know, I joke about that in my room. ‘I’m not your coach. (Special Teams Coordinator) Danny Crossman is your coach. And if you can’t play for him then I can’t do anything as far as getting you up on game day or doing things with you in game day unless you’re just a difference maker.’ So all of those guys I think have done a good job of buying in on that and really being contributors on the special teams as well.”
(You talked about having to sometimes coach a play three different ways to the guys. Obviously, it’s deep position for the team. How have they gone about helping out one another with learning the scheme, maybe they’re not comfortable with coming from different places or different schemes in the past?) – “That’s hard to answer because I think right now, there’s times it’s like you coach a guy, you do things a certain way. I’ll incorporate guys like, ‘Hey, what is it that Player X isn’t understanding when I’m saying this,’ or ‘Hey, you guys need to go talk to him, because I’ve told him eight million times,’ whatever it is and try to get them to help with that process. I think the other thing to be in our room that makes it unique is it takes all of us. We’re all going to play. We all need each other, and it’s been like that where I’ve been. So doing that, we all have to help each other. It’s not like, ‘Well, I don’t want to help him, because he may take my spot.’ If you’re a selfish player like that, you’re not going to be able to function and be able to play not only in this offense, but be in my room. You have to be a selfless player. You can’t worry about who’s getting the credit. If you’re worried about, ‘Oh, why didn’t I get this ball?’ Or, ‘How come they’re letting him do that?’ You’re probably not going to last long in there. So one of the things I try to do is just try to create an environment of positive peer pressure, so that if guys aren’t going about what we need to do, they end up finding their way out of there.”
(In your years as a tight ends coach, have you had this many guys in the room – five tight ends?) – “Oh, yes. I’ve been all over the place. Back when I had the original (No.) 88 – (Tony) Gonzalez and Jason Dunn – I only had two guys. So I was just like, ‘OK, now what am I going to do? (laughter)’ So I’ve had it all over. I think in Tampa I had five. Maybe one was on the practice squad. But I’ve been anywhere from two to five, so it doesn’t bother me. It just shows the depth of our room, and this is kind of a tight end poor league. It’s funny because some organizations don’t want to address it, but then they don’t have any and then they’re looking around like, ‘Why don’t we have any tight ends?’ I think the thing that (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and (Head Coach) Mike (Gesicki) have done a great job of building is they’re trying to get the best 53 regardless of position. We’re fortunate enough in our room that they felt like we had five legitimate NFL players in there and didn’t want to let any of them go. For me, I’m happy with it, because that gives me more to work with. (laughter) But it’s hard to find tight ends in this league – it really is. That’s why a guy that I had at UCLA, I joke around with Marcedes Lewis – this is going to be Year 17 or (Year) 18. How is it that that happens? Because he can block, he knows how to be a pro, he’s good at pass protection. He does all those things that I just talked about that we’re requiring our guys to do, but guys coming out of college right now don’t really learn that skillset. Sometimes they’re not in a situation where they get the patience of an organization or a head coach to let them learn and develop like that. So when you get guys that can do all that stuff and have developed it, you want to try to keep them.”
(In your role as assistant head coach, I have to assume that you’re involved in some of the challenge flags and timeouts that get called on Sunday. I’m just curious how much work with a rookie head coach goes into all that stuff?) – “There’s a lot of people that have different aspects that they help them with. So if it’s bad then (Head Coach) Mike (McDaniel) did it. If it’s good, I probably made the suggestion. (laughter) It’s great working with Mike. He is a guy that doesn’t take himself super serious. You can communicate with him. You can say things to him in a certain way about, ‘Hey, do this,’ or, ‘Do that,’ and he’ll take it all in and then ultimately he makes the decision. But in this organization, we have a lot of people that have a lot of different roles that help with different things like the challenge flag – that’s somebody else. Timeouts, we have people that kind of work with that. So Mike’s going to do just fine on game days. He will.”
