Josh Boyer – November 21, 2022
Download PDF version
Monday, November 21, 2022
Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer
(So as far as replacing DE Emmanuel Ogbah, it’s good that you have depth. How much of a jigsaw puzzle is it to you as far as determining how much more to play DT Zach Sieler, how much more to play your four natural outside linebackers, maybe three of them together among those four? What goes into that thinking?) – “Well, I think ultimately, it’s one of those things that comes down to what you’re facing offensively, what personnel they’re throwing at you, what they’re trying to do to you, putting guys in position to succeed. We feel pretty good about the guys that we dress for the game, and we’ve been able to roll those guys in there. Obviously, I’m disappointed for Emmanuel (Ogbah), for all that he’s put into it. We’ve had a number of these guys this year in that situation, and it’s just one of those things that you know and understand things happen and you have to move on. I can remember, I was a sophomore in high school, and a guy that played for my dad – so he was older, he was a senior. And he lost his father like, the week before a game. And it’s funny how things happen – you live life forward, but you understand it backwards. My dad was telling the kid, he was like, ‘Hey, you know…’ The kid loved his dad – his dad was his whole world. And he told him, ‘Hey, you don’t have to play this week.’ And the kid amazingly said – he goes, ‘Coach, listen.’ He heard a train whistle and heard the airplanes going over – the world doesn’t stop. So the NFL is not going to stop, the games aren’t going to stop. Injuries are an unfortunate thing and you hate to see it for the guys that we’ve had go down this year, but the reality of it is we’ve got games on the schedule and we have guys that we feel very comfortable that we could put in. Collectively as a group, I think we can get things done. So that’s the way it kind of – I’d go all the way back to sophomore in high school, but that’s the way I kind of approach things like the world doesn’t stop. It doesn’t wait on anything. The NFL is not going to stop. We’re going to play games. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt or who doesn’t. We’re going to have to be at our best to beat Texans this weekend. That’s what we’re striving to do, and that’s what we’re working on today.”
(Just through 10 games, what’s been the story of this defense do you think?) – “I think we’re still evolving. I don’t think we’ve played our best ball yet, and I think we’re getting closer and closer to that. I think it’s all situational. There are things that we’ve done well on early downs, and there are some things that we can improve. I think third down is something that we’ll continue to work on and get better at. Two-minute situations, sometimes things don’t come up in games, but there’s things that you put work in, because you never know when they will. Sometimes they can be the biggest situations in the game. So I think it’s evolving. The common theme has been that our players have welcomed adversity. They have not changed. They have not wavered. Their work ethic, the time that they put into it outside of what’s required of them, has been pretty impressive. I think those guys have done a pretty good job, and we’re all continuing to try to get better.”
(What did you like about pass rush against the Browns? It seems like maybe the past was kind of elevated a bit to a level that we haven’t seen in a couple of weeks?) – “I think there were some good things. I think we had some good individual rushes. I think we had some good games in there. We were able to play with the lead for a little bit, that kind of got them into certain situations where we knew it was pass. I think there were more opportunities out there where we were able to marry the coverage with the rush. Sometimes, it’s a coverage thing that helps the rush, and sometimes, it’s a rush thing that helps the coverage. There’s a lot of variables that go into it. Obviously, it’s – we’ve kind of talked about this from week to week, but again, it’s a striving thing for us to just continually build and get better as we’re moving forward.”
(Philosophically, you guys run a fair amount of Cover 2, but not a lot of quarters. I’m not asking specific to your defense, but just in general, what’s the thought process? Obviously, you’re putting more guys on the back end in quarters, but what do you kind of weigh when deciding whether to do quarters or Cover 2?) – “There’s different variations of both. You can run numerous things off of a quarters coverage. Are you a tight 2-3-2 match underneath? Or are you a zone match underneath? Are you leaving your corners basically pressed and on an island with really no help? If you get verticals, from the safety or your safeties, are they robbing curl to post or are they playing deep? Then within the call, you can change quarters to quarter, quarter, half. You could change it to a two-man structure. When I first got into coaching, like quarters, when it was a Dean Pees thing. He’s very good at quarters and it’s very detailed. There are a lot of things that go into that. Teams that run it sparingly probably touch the surface with it. Teams that do it all the time, there’s all those variations of how they handle things. And then, if they get certain formations or certain sets, do they truly zone that or do they pattern match it? There’s countless – and then basically your Cover 2 or your Tampa scheme is really – the Tampa scheme, your middle read or middle runner, whatever you want to call it, that would be designated, whereas in your Cover 2 scheme, that’s not necessarily designated – it’s basically off a route progression that could get designated. So a Cover 2 scheme could look like a two-man scheme if all the receivers went vertical. It could look like a match principle if all the receivers were short. So I think within those two coverages, there’s a ton of variables. I would say the similarities of them is they both start with a two-shell.”
(I just want to ask you about LB Channing Tindall, what he does well, at this point, as an NFL player, and what he needs to do better to get into what’s a very crowded inside linebacker rotation you already have?) – “I think the things that that we’ve seen him do well when he was out on the field, like he can run and he can hit. He’s working very hard to understand. There’s a lot of things that go into play when you’re playing, call it inside linebacker or safety for us in our defense, or even our nickelback for that matter. Those are really signal-caller positions, so there’s a lot of variables that go – not only are you responsible for your assignment, you’re responsible for adjusting and handling other people’s assignments as well. We’re working very hard with Channing (Tindall), and Channing is working very hard at it. We’re trying to get him caught up to speed to where he can know a lot of different things. I think in some of the roles that we’ve put him out there in, they have been not all encompassing, more situational. So I think he’s working that way. But the physical aspects have been really good, and I think the mental aspects of it, he’s working very hard at to just grasp a total understanding. We’re at a point where I would say we have veteran guys in front of him that we’re not really at a point where we’re forced to say, ‘OK, go out there and just learn as you go.’”
(Staying with inside linebackers, LB Elandon Roberts who’s always been solid against the run seems more noticeable this year. What have you seen from him? What is he doing maybe better than in year’s past?) – “Well, first I would credit Coach Campanile (Linebackers Coach Anthony Campanile), who’s really worked on not only his run fits, which Elandon (Roberts) has done pretty much since he’s been in the league, but really worked with him on his breaks, his agility, his pass drops. Last year, Elandon being the tough guy that he is, he came off an ACL (injury) pretty quick. It was pretty impressive that he was ready to go Week 1 a year ago. And I think he’s better from a health standpoint, and like I said, ‘Camp’ (Linebackers Coach Anthony Campanile) has worked really, really well with him, as far as his movement. I think that’s one thing from the Cleveland game that we saw, a lot of his zone drops, the breaks, the drives, the no yards after catch, which again, we’re continuing to strive as a group defensively, not just Elandon. But I would credit Elandon and his work ethic and his desire to get better and Coach Campanile who’s really kind of drilled a lot of that with him.”
(Will you come back to experimenting with LB Brennan Scarlett with his hand in the ground in the offseason program? Were there some things you liked? How would you assess what you saw out of him?) – “Brennan, he’s done a lot of things in this league. He’s had his hand in the dirt. He’s stood up. He’s played off the ball. He’s played on the ball, on the edge. So I think he’s been exposed to a variety of different things, which obviously makes him a little bit more multiple. We’re glad to get him back, kind of see what kind of shape he’s in and kind of progress him along as he goes. We’re excited to have him, and we do feel he’s a multiple player for us.”
(In general, late game situation, a team is passing. Do you want your DBs to knock the ball down? Or do you want them to catch it? And then the second part of that is, how much time do you guys spend knocking the ball down? Because we see tip drill and we see guys catching it, but how much time do you spend actually knocking it down?) – “Well, I think if you can intercept it, for the most part, you would like to do that. I do think there’s some situations where it’s actually advantageous to let a receiver catch a ball, depending on the situation and the clock, especially if you can tackle them in bounds and the clock would run out – that would be an example of one situation where you could go ahead and tackle a guy in bounds and you’re better off catching it than a pass breakup. Obviously, an interception that would change possession. If it was late in a game, you’re potentially in a kneel-down situation. There are several situations where, say you have a fourth-and-long and they throw a long pass – or it could even be fourth-and-5, they throw a long pass down the field, you’re going to get the ball right there and you see guys intercept it, and you’re like, ‘OK, well that would have been more advantageous to knock that down.’ I think ultimately, you’re always telling you guys to attack the ball. And then if you’re in position, there’s certain, I would say drills and techniques you could use, and then there’s also certain things when you’re going to bat a ball down or stick your hand in a pocket, it’s really varied based on where you’re at on the field and where you are in relationship to the receiver and the ball in relationship to you. So I think those things – there are times where it’s advantageous to knock it down, there’s times when it’s advantageous to let them catch it, and there’s times where it’s advantageous to go ahead and pick it. So I think more often than not, you’re probably more advantageous to pick it, but there are certain situations, which – and that’s the hard thing. When you’re going through a week and preparing, there’s numerous things that you spend a lot of time on that may or may not come up, like goal line defense, end of game situations, which obviously, those will be critical situations when they come up. Sometimes you work on them continually, but some seasons, they never come up, and some seasons, your season rides on whether you can execute that in the proper situation.”
(Do you think guys are comfortable knocking the ball down? Or are they more comfortable catching it? I know situations can change like you said.) – “You’d probably have to ask each individual player. I think just my experience in coaching DBs over the years, there are guys that have more natural ability to go attack balls and catch them. And there’s some guys that have more of a knack to play through the pocket and break up balls that way. So I think it probably varies from player to player. I think the thing that you look for in both situations is not to panic, especially when the ball is down the field. So some guys have an innate ability that they can turn around really quickly and locate the ball, and they have such good ball skills that they could go ahead and catch it. And others, same reaction time, but they find the ball a little later, which may be pushing them through the pocket.”
(For those instances where what’s advantageous is different than the norm, is that communicated before the play? Or do you expect players to know long on this fourth down, you have to knock it down?) – “You try to always communicate to the players situations that come up. You guys see it every week – the offense has the ball. They can either run a play or let the play clock run out before the quarter. That’s a very good time for offenses to hard count. So usually in that situation, we’re always like, ‘Hey, alert to hard count here.’ Or if we do get an interception at the end of the game and we could kneel it out, that would be a situation – people call it different things. You call it ‘victory,’ you call it ‘no mas,’ call it whatever you want to call it, but we’d have a term for that that we’d let them know, ‘Hey, if we do get an interception at this point, we’re going straight down.’ I was part of the (2006) – so was (Safeties Coach) Steve Gregory, although he was playing for San Diego at the time and I was coaching in New England – so I was part of that 2006 divisional game where they intercepted the ball, Troy Brown stripped him, we were able to recover, go down and score and win the game. So in that situation, if they got down, the game would have been over. I think you’re always preaching and practicing situational football. You practice that as much as you can, and then you kind of expect guys to know and have an idea, but that’s also our job as coaches when those situations come up, ‘Hey, you got to remind them.’ But a lot of times this stuff can happen. It’s no different than a team – it’s a questionable catch on the sideline. ‘OK, did they catch it or did they not?’ The offense goes straight to the ball, they’re trying to get it snapped so you don’t have time to challenge it before either I have to get a call in or whoever has the green dot, (Jerome) Baker, Duke Riley, Elandon Roberts, one of those guys, we have emergency calls that they can just shoot out right like that and they know and understand the situation. It’s like, ‘Oh, they’re going on the ball.’ So again, I think it goes hand in hand, but I think you always have to be talking about those things, because sometimes seasons ride on those situational plays.”
