Karl Dorrell – October 1, 2019
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Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Wide Receivers Coach Karl Dorrell
(How would you assess how your group has been doing?) – “This last week was our best, I think, overall game where I think the group played hard. They functioned very well with the run game and pass game. There was one drop. We still have an issue with dropping the ball here and there, but I think there was some improvement. As a group, we felt it was pretty good.”
(What do you chalk up the drops to?) – “It’s concentration more than anything and it’s experience. Both of those things. It’s something that it’s hard to swallow because I’m not used to that, but sometimes with guys with where they are in their development, it just takes a little bit longer. There’s nothing that I’m really thinking is a major issue. I think given this last week and how we performed, I think we maximized almost every opportunity other than the one that Preston (Williams) had. We had guys that were scrambling to catch some tipped balls and stuff like that, so there were some pretty good things. I think that’s going to quickly eliminate itself pretty soon.”
(With WR Preston Williams’ arc so far – obviously he has that big-play ability – but the reliability at times has been a question. Are you fully confident that when you throw the ball to him it’s going to get caught?) – “Completely. He’s a young, developing, going to be a really good football player. He’s playing in a situation where he’s playing 60-plus snaps a game, and he’s playing like he’s been in the league for a while but he’s learning really every snap about different corners, how they play. We’re playing against some talented defenses. It’s been a learning experience for him each and every week he rolls out there. I have to compliment him on how hard he’s playing and how he’s trying to do everything that I’m asking him to do. Does it happen completely? Not so much, but I think when it’s all said and done by the end of this season, we’re all going to be really excited about his future. I’m already excited about his future, but I think he’s really just tipping a little bit of the potential that really he can be.”
(It seems like WR DeVante Parker is catching a deep pass every week. What are you seeing from him in terms of his ability to get open deep like that?) – “DeVante – from my experience watching him from afar – he’s had the ability to get deep. He runs well enough for his size to get past corners. I’m not surprised about it. I’m encouraged by it. It was good to get a deep ball a week. I’d love for that to happen for him just because he has size, he has ball skills and length and jumps and all that stuff that he should be able to come down with a lot of those contested catches. I think these last couple weeks, it’s good that he in the first quarter has jumped off on a good start. We’re hoping he continues that trend moving forward but I’ve been pleased. For me, I thought he played his best game all-around in every aspect (against the Chargers). He caught the ball well, ran good routes, he did great in the run game. He was playing well. Like I said with our group, it was our first (game for me) as the receiver coach (where) our group played solid. (They) really did some really good things. Unfortunately, we didn’t win, but there was definitely some stuff to build on.”
(Averaging 20 yards per catch for WR DeVante Parker – that’s got to be encouraging.) – “That is encouraging. Let’s see if he can hold that average. He’s off to a pretty good start. He’s trying to maximize his opportunities. That’s really the thing I try to stress each and every week. Sometimes you’re going to get targeted a lot, and sometimes you’re not, so you never know how the game’s going to go. You never know (when) there are some un-scouted looks that defenses do that may decide to take someone away and it might be you. You’ve just got to take advantage of every opportunity that you get.”
(WR Jakeem Grant – how would you say his season has gone?) – “It’s gone pretty good. He wears a lot of hats for us, as you know. He’s our returner in both phases – in the kickoffs and punts. He came in when Allen Hurns went down in that Dallas game and really filled his role, plus his own role. He did those things pretty well. I’m encouraged with Jakeem (Grant). I really am. He had a couple of really good shot opportunities that we thought we were going to be able to get to him this last week but we didn’t get to them. He brings some excitement to the game. I’m just looking for an opportunity for him to get to a wide open space and take off.”
(How are you as a coach addressing dropped balls in drills and then from the mental aspect on how to kind of get past that?) – “We will get past it. I’ll start with that. The issue with drops in my opinion of all my years of experience has always been the focus on the football. You see it every week where there’s a ton of receivers that drop balls and stuff like that. Sometimes they’re a little more glaring depending on the situation and where you are as a football team. In either case, they’re not acceptable to me. I’ve never been around a group that treats drops as just a common theme. We’re paid to do a job, which is catch the football. I was encouraged this last week because of the attention we put to it, whether it’s more ball drills and focus on really honing in our hand-eye coordination skills, things like that. We were down to one drop this game from the receiver position. That was encouraging. That was after the things that we’ve talked about as a group. We’re putting more attention to detail in practice on certain things so that’s encouraging, but usually it’s more of a mental thing than anything and the mental thing is just to focus on the football.”
(When I talked to the guys about it a couple weeks ago, all four of them – Preston Williams, Jakeem Grant, DeVante Parker and Allen Hurns – there’s that adage of both for receivers and cornerbacks, ‘short memory. If it happens, get back in the huddle…’) – “That’s exactly right because we don’t want them to be, ‘oh shucks, I did this. I’m worried about that’ and they’ve got it on the next play. It is a little bit of that in the heat of the moment. We don’t want them to – obviously, it’s passed. You’ve got to get to the next play and maybe make up for the issue that you had the previous play. That’s kind of the mentality. Our guys – we’re not making this an overblown issue; but we did put some attention to it. We’ve discussed it. We’re drilling to make improvements about, and this was past week was better. I think we’re finding a solution pretty good.”
(How do you balance that? You want them with a short memory. I know WR Preston Williams was saying ideally when that happens, just get back in the huddle, look at QB Josh Rosen and say, ‘throw it to me again and I’ll catch it.’ On Monday, the day after the game, you’re breaking down film and you’re going to go over what happened on that play so the balance of moving forward but also learning what went wrong on that particular pass.) – “That’s every Monday. It can be after a great win. ‘I’ve had X amount of yards and two touchdowns and I’m feeling great, coach,’ but guess what? You did this, this, this and this and we need to fix this. That’s part of Mondays, win or lose. We are able to address all of the issues that happen in the game whether it’s a dropped pass or a missed block or you didn’t run a route the right depth or you made the wrong footwork here and he’s on your back hip. Those kinds of things that you talk about with your receivers. That’s going to happen every Monday. Like I said, the encouraging thing and you can see it usually when you watch tape is when the ball is just there and your eyes start to look to do your next move. It’s still a focus thing. It really is. It always comes down to focus – you and the football – and that’s something that even though it is a simple thing to fix, it still needs to be addressed and worked on and repped in practice to make sure we alleviate as best we can.”
(How much credence do you give to the time that it takes to adjust to the different quarterbacks and how the ball comes out of QB Ryan Fitzpatrick’s hands compared to QB Josh Rosen’s hands? For the first couple weeks obviously Ryan was your starter for and then they made the switch the Josh. Obviously the ball is not going to be identical. Is there an adjustment period that comes with that for receivers?) – “Not really. I wouldn’t say there’s any length of period because both of those guys are here throwing to all of the receivers all the time. They know the difference in both. I would say it shouldn’t be very long in terms of an adjustment period. I would say it’s still a level of focus and executing your hand-eye coordination with catching the football. Those guys – they bought into that. They kind of know what the issues are. They can tell me, ‘oh Coach, I did this right at the last minute.’ They can fix it on their own, which is a good thing when they know that the reason why they didn’t catch it is because, ‘I did this.’ That means that they’re thinking through the process of it and what needs to be fixed and the next time that happens. We put some attention to it. It’s starting to pay some dividends for us and I think we’re off to a good start since this last week of really addressing it and playing well and hopefully carry that into Week 5.”
