Josh Boyer – September 8, 2022
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Thursday, September 8, 2022
Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer
(I wanted to ask you about CB Noah Igbinoghene. What has he shown to give you guys faith – which it’s pretty evident you have faith because you didn’t go out and sign veteran corner in the last couple of weeks and CB Byron Jones is not playing. What is he showing you over the past three months that gives you faith?) – “Well, I would say that there’s a number of things. One, we’ve kind of seen a little bit of progress, I would say, from a maturity standpoint and the fact that he’s been able to handle things a little bit better. Things that don’t quite go his way, he’s able to put them behind him a little bit faster. He’s also improved on his techniques. He’s working very hard at it. And again, he’s 22 years old. He’s had some experiences. He kind of had some baptism by fire early. And I think (in) all those experiences, I think he’s shown the humility to understand that every experience can be a good experience as long as you learn from it. And we’re seeing progress. We’re excited for when he gets his opportunity out there to show what he can do.”
(I was curious, when you look back at your time in New England coaching with Head Coach Bill Belichick, how has he may be impacted your coaching career and just the way you view defense philosophically?) – “Greatly. I was there for 13 years, and 10 of the 13 years I was there, we were at least in the AFC Championship. So you equate those, and most of those years we had a bye, so you equate those extra years and that’s almost two and a half seasons extra that you spend that other people aren’t working. The amount of time that we spent together as a staff, but Bill (Belichick) running it, game-planning, running different defenses – obviously when I started there, Dean Pees was the defensive coordinator and there’s a little bit different philosophy there. But structurally, I would say 95 percent or higher of the things that we do here on defense all come from New England. Now, it just depends on what direction you want to go (and) what things you want to highlight. There’s been so many gameplans, call it over – that’s almost 15 years of game-planning. There’s so many gameplan things that come out, I would say. Obviously when you watch the crossover tape and you see them defensively, there’s a lot of things that you go, ‘OK, they’re doing this. We do this.’ I think all of it is to highlight what your players do well and try to put them in position to succeed. I’m very grateful to Dean Pees for bringing me to New England. I’m very grateful for Bill for all that he’s done for me at New England, and then obviously – I can still hear kind of the same messages. I can listen to Bill’s press conference and I kind of know what he’s talking about. The difference is, is once you leave the building, you don’t have an exact understanding of everything that’s going on. But I’m very appreciative of all the meetings, all the gameplans, the thoughts, the ideas. It’s a collaborative effort. It was that way at New England, (and) it’s that way here. A lot of times we’d be game-planning defensively, and Bill would be like, ‘Well, what do you think about this?’ And you’re like, ‘OK, all right. I wasn’t really thinking that direction, but alright, we’ll try that.’ Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But I’m very grateful for all those conversations and opportunities over the years. And like I said, call it 15 years of game-planning – or 15 seasons I should say, not years – but call it 15 seasons of game-planning, I would say upwards to 95 percent of what we do here probably correlates to something that we did there.”
(With LB Trey Flowers having played linebacker and d-line in his NFL career, what’s your vision for how to use him here?) – “Well, like all of our guys, we’re going to try to make him multiple and do different things. Obviously, we got him a little late here in camp, but he’s an extremely hard worker, very intelligent. He’s one of those guys that’s early in the building and out late. Again, there’s some carryover of techniques and fundamentals that he knows and understands that he was with us at New England. He was with Matt (Patricia) at Detroit. Obviously, Matt at Detroit, probably very similar to the question that (you guys) just asked right there, I would say 95 percent of what they did there probably came from those 15 seasons of game-planning (in New England). So Trey (Flowers) has a familiarity with all of our techniques. He does give us some versatility. His play style and I would say his demeanor is a great fit for our locker room. We’re really excited to have him.”
(This defense caught fire the last half of last season. You got a lot of the same guys back. How much carryover are you expecting? Can this defense realistically pick up where it left off for the most part?) – “Well, I think each season is unique in and of itself. I would say we have a higher expectation as a coaching staff defensively and I would say as players defensively. I think we’ve all tried to raise the standard. We’re excited to get the opportunity to go out and do that on Sundays and kind of put on display the work that we’ve been putting in, the camaraderie that our guys have shown together. We have a very good coaching staff that works very diligently with our players, and I would say that they put in a good day’s work. We kind of held ourselves to a little bit higher standard. We had a little bit better starting point than we’ve had in the past two seasons that we’ve been here. And again, all of that matters very little if it doesn’t translate to Sundays, and we’re all well aware of that.
(When you put the Patriots tape on offensively, what stands out to you?) – “Well, the first thing that stands out is they’re very efficient, they’re very well-coached. They’re a very run-oriented team. There’s definitely – one, being this is opening day and two, being that it is them, they’re going to give us something that they haven’t shown or haven’t done that we’re definitely going to have to adjust or be prepared for. That’s another thing when it comes into game-planning opening day, you have to be very careful about chasing ghosts, because you’ve almost had seven months to gameplan one game. But the thing that stands out to me on film, they’re very good with their doubles with their offensive line. They have good running backs, (Rhamondre) Stevenson, (Damien) Harris. I’m sure they’re going to use (Ty) Montgomery in certain ways. We’re preparing for J.J. Taylor, if they elevate him from the practice squad. They’re very efficient in their pass game. The quarterback does a good job. He gets the ball out quickly. He’s very good with his reads. He knows and understands where to go with the ball. They set up their play-action off their run game, which if you’re having a hard time with the run, you know it’s play-action. And then their drop-back schemes, again there could be a little bit element unknown here, but for the majority of the part, they’re an inside passing team, and they have good skill players out there. They’ve got two good tight ends with Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith. And then their receivers, obviously, they had the addition of DaVonte (Parker), but with (Nelson) Agholor, (Kendrick) Bourne and Jakobi Meyers, who’s really – they really went to him a lot in go-to situations. It’s a good core group that they have. They’ll have a good scheme. They’ll have a good plan in place, and we have to be ready to adjust to whatever they give us that’s a little bit unknown.”
(New England was run-oriented last year and they ran well against you guys a couple of times. What do you have to do better in run defense?) – “Run defense is really like – I mean, it’s all 11 guys. And again, if one guy is out of gap or out of place, then there’s a crease there. But even then, if you do a good job in the back end of funneling it, then OK, instead of 15- to 12-yard runs, they become eight- or six-yard runs. I think the thing for us is consistently, we’ve had a couple of runs that have hit big on us. I think if you look at it over time, we can definitely do a better job on that, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity on that. We expect that they’re going to try to run the ball. And we’re really looking forward to the challenge this year.”
(How much more difficult does it make it to gameplan for Week 1, given the uncertainty with their play-caller situation?) – “I think you look – as far as tendencies, that’s one thing that you’ll study from week-in and week-out with play callers, their given tendencies in certain situations. You kind of look at what they do there. I think this week, that’s a little bit of an unknown, but what you do is you basically, philosophically, (say) kind of, ‘How did they approach it? What are they trying to do?’ And then again, it’s like the other things that we talked about is there will be an element of unknown and adjusting in the game. They may come in with a certain gameplan and may completely shift it, so that’s kind of the back and forth. I would say that happens a lot more probably. I mean, it happens on a week-in, week-out basis, but I would say, usually it’s a couple of weeks into the season before you have like those hard concrete, ‘OK, there’s tendencies here.’ I would say that’s usually the case. Then obviously a team that’s gameplan-oriented anyway, when they come and face you Week 1, you look at a lot of stuff that they’ve done to you in the past, things that they’ve had success on, things that they might hit or things that you’ve struggled with that you think that they might go ahead and try to do there. So that’s kind of how you prepare that way.”
