Lemuel Jeanpierre – May 24, 2021
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Monday, May 24, 2021
Offensive Line Coach Lemuel Jeanpierre
(What did you learn from last year’s experience working with this unit and how can you help them improve and gain an identity as an offensive line?) – “I’ve got a good group. They were good last year as well. I think one thing that’s high with me is character. We’ve got a high character group. They work hard, (ask) a lot of questions and all of that stuff. Even now, they contact me on the weekends, asking more questions trying to learn. That goes kind of to your second question where I’m trying to give them more information to understand football as a whole. It helped me out a lot when you understand more than just blocking the end and things like that. So I help them there and techniques and the reason of why and things like that.”
(Why do you feel G/T Robert Hunt may be better suited to play guard than tackle?) – “Rob doesn’t have a spot quite yet. We’re all out there competing for sure. Like I said, as a group, they are young and they are versatile, for sure. Rob is a powerful man, just like what you said when write about him or hear about him, you saw him in college be able to move people. He can move people at tackle; he can move people at guard. Where he is right now, I can’t tell you, but Week 1 we’ll be able to see where everybody falls.”
(I wanted to ask you about T Austin Jackson and C Matt Skura. What do you think Matt, first of all, is going to give you? And then Austin, he never seemed overwhelmed last year. Did that give you encouragement that he could become a really good player in Year 2?) – “Matt – what he brings is experience, first off. Another thing I look for and you’ll hear me talk about is character and grit. Going through what he’s gone through, being a guy that I believe was undrafted, working his way into the league and doing things like that, I hold that character very high. Then just kind of our line, our group and as we are trying to mesh as a unit – not only on the field but off the field. He brings that aspect of being somewhere else and giving advice like that. He’s come in working great, asking questions. He’s been playing – like I said everybody is playing multiple positions, so he’s not flinching at that. That’s one thing that’s really great about Matt. He’s just a great guy. Austin – ‘AJ’ as we all call him – once again, I was really high on his character. When I look up guys, I Google them and look at the media in terms of how they do their interviews and things that happened in their personal life. His character and things that he’s went through on that level is very high to me. That’s why when he was faced with adversity or getting his start, he didn’t flinch I think because it’s deeper than football. He’s excited. He’s been contacting me. We’ve been in close contact, had a great relationship, just building that – along with all the other guys. That gives me very much hope where even this weekend, I’m contacting him. This morning, I’ve seen him. We keep talking about ball. He’s on the ball, for sure.”
(You guys had one of the youngest offensive lines in the NFL last year and you’re not getting much older. Certainly you’ve added a rookie in the second day of the draft. What are the challenges of coaching a young offensive line and what is the potential of this group?) – “The challenge of coaching the offensive line unit as a whole, the experience is a challenge but you have to gain it sometimes. You want to make sure you help them gain it, especially nowadays with so much technology available through other people’s mistakes on film. On the field, putting them in stressful situations to really simulate what they might go through. I think with most lines, the issue is really understanding football and different schemes and the reasons why. Just getting deeper in that will help out anybody, because you can be a guy whose played five, six, seven or eight years and all of a sudden a coach or a scheme comes in and you learn it, now you’ve also improved. The reps, of course you want to get them and we’ll find many ways – nowadays you have to not only on the field, but off the field – to quiz them and simulate it the best ways we can.”
(You’re a former center. I don’t now if you naturally played that position in college, but how easy is it or how difficult is it for a player like C/G Michael Deiter to learn the position and then play it well? How long does that process take?) – “Deiter, I believe has played that position and snapped it, even in Wisconsin when he was playing. A lot of coaches, when you talk to them and you talk to players now, in college they put them in situations just in case, to snap back then. To play it fast like you said, when I first started playing, I was actually a d-lineman and then they moved me to guard. I got to center like my last year in college. There’s that transition of first off, getting the snaps to the quarterback. You’ve got to protect the football, so that’s the first thing you’ve got to be able to do at center. If you can’t do that, you can’t play in the first place. Then – like with the whole group, what I’m doing with them is I’m trying to help them all learn football. So if I say a scheme where we might be, they should all be able to tell me what everybody is doing and put the pressure on them to do it like that. Deiter, like last year, he had to be ready to be that guy to play all three inside spots. You saw two years ago he lined up at tackle. If Deiter ends up being in that spot, I think he’ll be ready for it. If not, we’re training multiple guys to be able to play the center spot because in a game, if somebody gets hurt, you only have so many guys active and if you can’t snap the ball, you can’t start the play. We’re working on that with everybody.”
(The follow up on that question, you guys have a team or a unit where just about everybody except for a few exceptions has played tackle or is a former tackle. The line obviously has some size to it. What do you want this line’s identity to be?) – “That’s funny because I’m going to piggyback off what Austin (Jackson) told you guys. On Day 1, one thing we did was we made our manual or paper of what we want. When we come out as a lineman, as a group, you’re trying to create that culture in the room of what you want. They know I look for the toughness, being disciplined, being detailed and nasty. I tell guys all the time, there’s a difference between being dirty and nasty. I’m not putting that out there any type of way, but you want to have guys who get after it, who have a tough mentality. I tell guys that toughness isn’t just being physically tough, but mentally tough, emotionally tough. There are definitely levels to this game, for sure.”
(Going back to the center position, when C Matt Skura was signed to the Dolphins, there was concern regarding last year’s situation and I wanted to know what is going to be your approach to prevent that from becoming a issue in the future, to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore? How are you going to – I don’t know if it’s a mental thing or if it is a mechanics thing. How are you going to approach him with that?) – “Like you said, going back to the center spot, because I’ve played the center spot – I think it happens in golf, when you’re shooting. You’ve got to know your rhythm and you’ve got to first be able to identify the mistakes. I know we’ve talked to you guys about linemen. We don’t make excuses. The difference between an excuses and a reason is very slight. I think it’s just the person who is listening and how they take it. What we do is we just rep it. It has to be multiple reps over and over again. Like when we’re doing drills, he’s doing it pre-practice, he’s doing it of course during practice, he’s doing it even after practice. You want to do it before something happens. So if it doesn’t feel right, even if you didn’t get a good snap, you want to get more snaps anyway to be preventative, not reactive. If there are any issues – of course because I played it, I’ll be able to talk to him and try to see some things. Sometimes you want to move the ball a little bit to the center of your nose. You might be off. Sometimes you may want the ball more tilted up, which can affect the pendulum swing. There are many things that could have affected him; but this year so far, when he’s been in there at center, he’s been good. I saw his interview. He’s been snapping like crazy because that’s the type of guy he is, where he took that really personal. It’s another chip on his shoulder like a lot of the guys on the line are. He’s worked at it. I’ll be preventative and so will he. We talk to the quarterbacks, ‘did you get that snap? Good. Is it left? Is it right?’ Things like that.”
(You’ve mentioned how engaged your players are right now to absorb as much information as they can. I’m curious between your experiences as both a player and a coach, if you had any insights as to how rare or unique it is to have such an engaged group at this point in the offseason?) – “I was very fortunate in terms of playing. I have to make sure I give a shoutout to the guy who kind of helped groom me, Tom Cable, and the whole line we had in terms of how we started back when I played. And then even now, you see how important communication and just the connectiveness of the group is not only off the field but on the field. They will push each other in terms of quizzing each other and asking those questions and understanding – the terms of the o-line room in general. I think in any actual business, where you can develop a culture to where it’s not just, ‘hey, I’m at work and I’m leaving.’ But who are personally in your life and your family? How are those things going? It’s going to pay off way more in the end, in terms of situations where you guys are going. There is more of that care. That’s why it’s really cool being here and part of the culture because I felt that when I got here with ‘Coach Flo’ (Head Coach Brian Flores) and the whole organization. That needs to go through my room for sure, and that will go through the team.”
