Josh Boyer – December 15, 2022
Thursday, December 15, 2022
Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer
(Of course without S Brandon Jones for much of season, you lost one of your better blitzers. I was curious if you thought blitzing has worked with the effectiveness that you want the season?) – “We’ve got some production out of it. We’ve given up some plays on it. I think people are more in tune to some of the blitzes that we’ve run and some people have had pretty good answers to it. I think you can time some of it up, do it a little bit differently and then obviously, you’re always aware of who you’re sending and what their responsibilities could be or the reactions that you might get from an offense. So I think all that gets tied into it.”
(We have to ask you about the third-and-17, lining up the eight guys at or near the goal line. Just what your thought process? I’m just assuming it was to get them to stay out of the end zone on that play and then it sets up the…) – “Yeah, so there was a timeout on that play and look, let’s start with every play call of every game, I would say that there’s nobody more critical of it than myself. Like I would say the first play of the second series, I wasn’t very happy with that play call, but nobody that’s watching the game is going to think much of that call one way or the other. But to reference the third-and-17, yeah, I definitely think that I probably could have put the guys in a better situation than that. It was third-and-17, I didn’t want to give them a one-on-one shot into the end zone. That was kind of the thought process. We had a personnel grouping out there before that probably would have been a better call. Similar concept, but probably would have been better call. The timeout, I probably overthought it a little bit and obviously you’d like all your calls to work. I’m fine with the thought process. I wish I would have put them in a little bit better situation on that, but at the end of the day, we still had an opportunity to come off the field with no points because there was a play after that. I think you’re critical of every play call and that’s kind of how I look at it in every game. You go back and you look and I think that’s how you get better, is you go ‘Okay, well, your thought process was this. Why did you do this?’ I understood what my thought process was, but there’s probably about, a couple other calls that I could put in that situation that we probably would have got the same result of what I was trying to get with maybe putting us in a little bit better position to defend the screen in that situation. So yeah, absolutely. I put a lot of calls on myself.”
(Quick two-part question on CB Kader Kohou if I may. No. 1, how would you differentiate his work so far this season in the slot and outside? And No. 2, what about his skill set makes him effective in the slot?) – “I think a lot of times when – I would say just over the years coaching corners, a lot of times I look at them as corners whether you play them inside or outside. Now, that’s a little bit easier to do when you’re a heavier, call it man-scheme team. But a lot of things that happen for the inside corner, the slot, the nickel, whatever you want to call them; is it happens a little bit quicker, they’re usually more involved in run fits and there’s a little bit more communication that goes into it. I think Kader has done a good job with all that, handling that. I think he has a skill set to play on the inside and the outside. I think he’s still learning. I think he’s still improving. And the good news is he works hard, and he takes coaching very well. If you said, ‘Hey, we got to get better at this, we got to get better at this.’ He’s going to work really hard at that to do that. And I think he just has a competitive instinct in him and he has the ability to kind of track and find the ball and he’s been able to work through some things this year. But I think he’s been productive inside and outside.”
(You don’t see a lot – I don’t think I see a lot of interior defensive linemen across the NFL that play almost every down the way that DT Christian Wilkins and DT Zach Sieler have been this season. It seems like their snaps have increased a little bit since DE Emmanuel Ogbah went down, but overall just can you kind of speak to what they’ve been bringing to this defense and the interior of the defensive line?) – “Yeah, I would say, and you look at it, they probably both went from – Christian probably went from like 60 to about 80 percent and that’s a high percentage for a defensive tackle. And I would say Sieler’s has greatly increased from probably a year ago. Both of those guys are very productive. They do a lot of good things for us in the run game. They do a lot of good things in the pass game. I think it’s a testament to both of them, their physical condition, because not only are you capable of playing them that many plays; you could see them playing plays late in the game and they’re running 20 yards down the field to finish on plays. As long as they can sustain at a high level, we’re comfortable playing them, and obviously, they’re productive. So it’s a win-win. But again, it’s a testament to those guys. And the work that they put in, the recovery process that they go through. Both of them have played through injuries this season, both physically and mentally tough. And all the while, they’re playing with high effort every play that they’re out there, so we’ve been very fortunate with those guys and they’ve been very productive for us this year.”
(You mentioned at the beginning, when asking about the blitzing, that some things have worked and some things maybe haven’t been what you’d hoped. How much of an overall impact has that had on the success or failure of the defense this year?) – “You probably look at all the calls that you run whether you drop 8, you send 8, based on, ‘okay, how are we doing?’ Or if they don’t work, why don’t they work? And I think you kind of look at that and again, the things that you’re doing well, maybe you try to tweak it a little bit to make it look a little bit different, but it’s essentially the same concept. I think we’re attacking the ball, we’re getting guys running to the ball, the turnovers – we’ve got to keep stressing that and we’ve got to keep detailing that to try to get those to come up because that will help us a little bit. But I think we look at all of our calls whether it’s a blitz or whether it’s a zone pressure, a man pressure, a traditional coverage call. I think we look at all those things and the people that we have and putting the people in position, I think you’re always trying to set yourself up to defend what’s been presented to you if that makes sense.”
(The difference in home and away splits for this defense have been drastic. What theories do you have as to why this defense doesn’t travel well?) – “Whether we’re home or away, I think you’re always looking at – we don’t always get the desired outcomes that we’re looking for. I think there’s been times where we’ve played good segmented football on the road. I think there’s been times where obviously we haven’t played very well. But I do think there’s some instances where we’ve played really good football. I think it’s just to string together 60 minutes of good football, to allow our team to play complementary football, I think that’s what we’re striving to do whether we’re home or away.”
(Since the last time you guys played Buffalo, what are the big differences in your defense? I mean, S Brandon Jones is not there. I think CB Nik Needham might not be there. LB Bradley Chubb is there. You’ve had the games where you’ve been on the field for a long time. Two or three differences in the defense between then and now?) – “If you look at the last drive of that game, Brandon (Jones) was out there, Nik (Needham) was out there, Trey Flowers was out there, Emmanuel Ogbah was out there. Those guys are a little bit different, but that’s just the NFL season as it goes. You’re always going to have to handle attrition and move guys in, move guys around. I think you learn a lot about your team as you go and Buffalo has obviously won a lot of games, and they’ve won some close games, and they’ve found different ways to win games. And again, we’re going to have to be at our best this week to play a complementary game and to win this game in all three phases, because to beat a good team, you have to be able to play complementary football and for us, that will be a big part of getting off the field and getting the ball back to the offense and keeping field position when we have it.”
(And complementary football, and I’m not asking you to point any fingers or blame, but the offense on third down conversions hasn’t been good. They’ve had short drives, few plays. How much does that play into you guys being on the field for 79 plays or whatever?) – “It doesn’t. I mean we have an opportunity to get off the field defensively. So again, I think as defensive coaches, our sole focus is getting the ball back to the offense. When we have opportunities to maintain or keep good field position, we try to do that. I think very little of what we’re trying to do is affected by how they’re doing. It doesn’t really change our goal or our thought process. So I think for us, it’s definitely we have an opportunity to get off the field and we need to work to do that.”
(I’m doing a column on good advice people have received through their careers. Little off the beaten path here. So is there anything anybody said to you as you were coming through or it could be anything about managing careers, going against a specific defense, anything at all that jumps out to you?) – “Yeah, my high school baseball coach used to say all the time, and I probably didn’t understand it at the time: “You live life forward, but you understand it backwards.” That’s one of those things that’s kind of always stuck with me. The other thing that he used to say, too, because he was our defensive coordinator for the football team, is when we were running gassers. Now again, this was in high school. He’d be like, ‘You’re not going to die. You just think you are.’ (laughter) So those are the two quotes. Those are the two quotes that I really kind of remember, but I do believe you live life forward, but you seem to understand it a little bit backwards, which I think applies to pretty much everything. It applies to being a husband, applies to being a father, applies to being a football coach. That’s why you scour all your film and even self-scout yourself, so whether you were talking about blitzes, a third-and-17 call or anything like that; you go through that and you try to learn from everything because the idea is you put in all the hours and work to put the players in the best position to succeed. And I think all of it’s a process. The three easiest things to do in America, to me, are complain, make excuses or quit. And I think people that kind of forge through – and that’s from my father. He told me that at a young age, so that’s another thing that’s somebody had said to me, and I believe that because you see it a lot. People want to point fingers, make excuses, or that it gets too hard, they quit, or they just want to complain about things. And the older I get, the more people are like that, the less I really want to be around them, which is why I feel so fortunate about the locker room that we have, the coaching staff that we have. Everybody’s accountable, everybody looks at themselves first and I think that’s what you do. And as a play caller, that’s what I do. So I look at all the calls that we have, and here are the things that we can do better and then you always look at, okay, are we putting the guys in the best position? It’s just like when you prep for the week, and hopefully you’re living life forward but you understand it backwards and those lessons that you’re learning as you go, hopefully it makes you better as you move forward.”
(You have three healthy safeties unfortunately at the moment with DB Elijah Campbell in protocol, and obviously S Eric Rowe with the hamstring. Can any of your five corners play safety if needed – CB Noah Igbinoghene, CB Justin Bethel, DB Keion Crossen?) – “Sure, we cross-train guys quite a bit and every DB that will be active this week, we’ll have all hands on deck. I think that’s why you teach things from a conceptual standpoint and you move guys around the best you can when you can. You guys see us do that a lot in training camp and then obviously, as the season goes, you get specific with things as we go. But yeah, I think we’ll have everybody ready and available to play a multitude of responsibilities.”
(And kind of out of left field on this topic. But did you ever give thought – you, Cornerbacks Coach/Pass Game Specialist Sam Madison, Head Coach Mike McDaniel – during the offseason, to having CB Noah Igbinoghene play safety? Is that a position you think he could play?) – “It hasn’t been a focus for him. I mean, most of his stuff has been at the corner position. There are some safety type roles that we’ve put him in before and that he does. I think he’s – obviously, we haven’t got to see him out on the field in the last three or four games, whatever it’s been. But he’s been working hard. He’s been making a lot of progress. And like I said before the Pittsburgh game, I’m excited to see what he does with his opportunities when they arise. I’ve been very pleased with his work ethic and the way he’s handled himself as a professional. It’s been outstanding.”
(I’m doing a profile on Head Coach Mike McDaniel. You worked under Bill Belichick. I’m curious, what’s the biggest difference between the way Coach McDaniel relates to players and Coach Belichick, and the way he relates to the coordinators?) – “That’s a good question. I haven’t really thought about it. I think everybody has their own approach. I would say the common ground between both of them is they’re both genuine. It’s different. I think both of their approaches is to get the best out of their players. And I think both of those guys, Bill and Mike, I think they do it very well. I think they’re just who they are … I think their personalities come out a little bit. I think the way that they approach and the way that they work at the game and making people better, I think is very similar.”
