Matt Burke – December 6, 2018
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Thursday, December 6, 2018
Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke
(The month of S Minkah Fitzpatrick on the boundary. How do you think it’s gone? We’re in December so of course no one is saying what he’s going to be long term; but in your heart of hearts, do you think he’ll be just as effective playing there as he would at safety after seeing him for a month there, or do you still not have a good enough body of work?) – “He’s done a good job. It’s probably been a while since he’s played in that role out there, dating back to early in his college career. I think there was a little bit of a learning curve getting up to speed out there then where we were playing him early in the year, kind of inside and safety, and moving him around that way a little bit. There is still some techniques stuff and those sort of things that he is working through. I think everywhere we’ve put him abd everywhere we’ve played him and everything we’ve asked him to play, he’s done a good job with. It’s hard to say … Why we drafted him and one of his qualities was his versatility. I think it’s a testament to his work ethic and his character and those sort of things. I think there was a little bit of a learning curve early, but I think he settled into it quickly and he’s done a good job out there. That’s hard for me to think long term right now. We’re in a week-to-week world. This week he’s going to keep playing out there and you can ask me the same question next week.”
(How did TE Charles Clay get so open and what was going through your mind when the ball was in the air?) – “I hate to say it but it was very similar to the week before. We had a time out. A TV timeout or however we got to the timeout before the play. (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) and I were going through a couple of things I was thinking about trying to call and going through this. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. One of the things we made a point in making the call that we did, was if (Josh) Allen gets out of the pocket, we have to latch on. It was similar to what happened the week before where we had him in the grass and (Andrew) Luck got through and things got loose. We had all the guys in the back end, and said ‘Hey look, we’re going to make this call and the one thing is if he starts doing his thing back there, which obviously he had been all day, we have to latch on.’ It was such a long play. He reversed field about four times and he got lost in the wash a little bit. If you watch him, he was in the middle of the field and literally in the very back of the end zone and just kind of floated as Allen moved to the defensive right, everyone kind of started drifting that way. He just kept drifting back. He was literally almost hiding in the back of the end zone and came up through the back end of it. Not good. A couple of people should have had a chance to locate him and didn’t. When the ball was in the air – I promised you guys I wasn’t going to curse so I can’t give you my thoughts – it felt like it was in the air for about three minutes, one of those slow motion, heart sinks into your stomach type of thing. We’re fortunate the ball fell a little short and bounced out of there and got away with a win. We’ll try to not have that happen again.”
(How do you think DE Charles Harris has done his first couple of games back?) – “He’s done a good job. One of the things we’ve preached to Charles is just playing fast. He’s getting off, playing fast and not thinking. (You have to) kind of turn that part of his brain off sometimes. He overthinks some things. He’s been cutting loose a little bit more and running around and playing fast. He spent his off time trying to get better physically, getting a little stronger and doing things in the weight room, so I think that’s helped him. He’s in good shape and moving around and playing more physical. I think he’s done a good job of … We’re asking him to just go. Just use his explosion and use his speed and use his athleticism and not let him overthinking things slow that part of his game down. He’s done a better job with that. If he keeps on that track, I think some of the production and the finishing element will come.”
(CB Cornell Armstrong just from watching him over the last six months, obviously he did enough on special teams obviously to make the team. His development as a corner, what have you seen and what does he do well?) – “He can run. That’s why we brought him in in the first place. That’s one of his defining traits. He’s got speed. One thing that’s been cool with Cornell is that it’s not too big for him. Everything we’ve asked him to do, he’s done it. Coming from where he came from and stuff, you just have a concern that things could get too big for him and it hasn’t been. He’s kind of a quiet kid, but he sits in the front row of my meeting and just sits there, pays attention and does everything and doesn’t say much and every time we put him out there, he just does his thing. I like his demeanor. He doesn’t get rattled. He doesn’t get shook by anything and he has a defining trait that he can run and he has speed. Again, he’s had more opportunity on (special) teams. He’s done a good job there according to ‘Rizz’ (Associate Head Coach/Special Teams coordinator Darren Rizzi) and some of those guys. He’s a good guy to have in the program for us.”
(Did you have a spy on Bills QB Josh Allen throughout that game?) – “At times, yes.”
(One thing that was mentioned during the CBS broadcast – James Lofton was saying LB Kiko Alonso was the spy and wondered why LB Jerome Baker was not. Is that an accurate portrayal? Was Kiko the spy and if so, why Jerome wasn’t?) – “We had multiple different calls, multiple different spies. Kiko was at times, Jerome was at times, we had d-linemen on him at times. We had all sorts of things. Honestly, we were spying on the last play. The problem is when he doesn’t break the pocket, when you have a spy or whoever it is – when you have a second-level player that drops out and is spying him, like on the last play, if he starts running around – it doesn’t affect the play. Now, you have one less guy kind of chasing him in terms of a rush in a pass-rush situation. That’s the trade-off you have. You’re great if he breaks through and you have a guy spying him and try to overlap in terms of him running, but now he only has a three-man rush and he’s buying time back there. The spy guy is trying to figure out where to go spy. He runs that way then you start going there, then he reverses field and you kind of waste him. We had spy elements. At times, we didn’t. We had some times we were sort of in zone coverage or have hole-droppers that need to have vision on him and have better discipline staying in their zones and having awareness of those sort of things. We threw a lot of different things at him. We’ll have to refine those when we play him again next time.”
(The possibility of playing without CB Xavien Howard makes you feel how?) – “Obviously, he’s a great player. He’s been outstanding for us this year. Any time you have the possibility of not playing with one of your better, if not best, players, it’s … But that’s this league. We’ve had a lot of injuries. We’ve dealt with those things and it doesn’t do me any good to worry about my feelings about it. If he’s available to play, he’ll play and if he’s not, he’s not. Whoever is out on the field has to get some stops. I try not to spend too much time examining my feelings. I could probably do a lot of woe-is-me from the whole season. It doesn’t really matter. We’ll play with the guys that are ready to play. If ‘X’ is one of them, that’ll be great. Hopefully he’ll continue his great season. If not, we’ll figure it out with the rest of them.”
(You’re at a position of more scrutiny than ever in your career. Is that fair?) – “Sure.”
(In every year, it seems like some members of the media find someone just to complain about. Your name has come up more than once. Are you aware of that at all?) – “No. Do you complain about me?”
(Do you think the level of scrutiny that you’re under is fair?) – “It’s part of the job. It’s fine. I signed up for this job freely, in my own free will. I know with you guys, I joke with you guys. It’s a waste of my time to try to get into that stuff and worry about what people are saying about me. The only people that matter is (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) and (Owner) Mr. (Stephen) Ross and (Executive Vice President of Football Operations) Mike (Tannenbaum) and (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and the guys that are a part of this organization. I don’t really care. I don’t follow it and don’t pay attention to it. Again, it’s a waste of my energy to do that. We can get into big-picture topics about the state of our culture and the media if you really want some time. It’s probably not the time, but I agreed to that part of the job when I signed up for this role. I signed my contract.”
(How would you assess how you’ve done as a coach this year?) – “I feel like I’ve done a good job. I try every week to put our players in the best position to make plays. We’ve done that sometimes. We haven’t the other times. There’s calls I regret. There’s calls I’m excited about. Again, we’re week-to-week. It’s really hard for me to big-picture evaluate myself in the course of a season. I’m trying to win a ball game this week. The feedback I worry about is Adam’s (Gase) and what he cares about and what he wants. I try to give him what he’s looking for as a coach. That’s really all I concern myself with.”
(With CB Torry McTyer, if he’s going to have to be in the game, how much do you think he’s learned from when he played earlier this season and how much do you think he’ll be picked on by Patriots QB Tom Brady?) – “I can’t speak to their plan of attack.”
(But you know Patriots QB Tom Brady’s history.) – “I do. Honestly, I don’t know how much he’ll be picked on. I was watching some of our stuff from last year against them. I pulled some of the stuff up and Torry played but he was wearing No. 33. He was wearing a different number and I was like ‘Who the hell is No. 33?’ I was watching this tape and I couldn’t figure out for like 10 minutes. I couldn’t remember if we signed somebody late in the season. It took me forever to figure it out. So Torry played a little bit at the end of the season for us last year and played in that game against them here. Obviously any time young players get experience – game-time experience – that’s part of their growth process. You hope that experience, good or bad – he’s had some ups and downs – contributes to him growing and developing and seeing things more, seeing plays from this offense and those sorts of things multiple times. I can’t speak to their target plan or their plan of attack. We’re going to have different guys out there at different spots and try to help them all out.”
(The last time they showed everybody that if you run at them, they’ll eventually break. Do you think you fixed some of the issues that the Patriots put on the table in the running game?) – “Yeah. We’ve had ups and downs in the run game. Downs and ups maybe, if you want to say it that way. We’ve obviously dedicated a lot of time the last month or so, especially trying to clean up some of those things. We’ve had some moving pieces in the front on the interior and those sorts of things. Yeah, I do (think we fixed them). I think we’ve addressed a lot of things. Last week our rush numbers looked like crap because the quarterback ran around. We did a good job in the actual running game, I thought. We’ve been better in that mode really since kind of the Houston week-ish, trying to address some of those things. I feel pretty good about our plan against the run game this week.”
(You mentioned Bills QB Josh Allen’s rushing totals. What could have or should have limited that?) – “Everything. Something like that, to me, all three levels are responsible for … I don’t want to say those issues. But we’ve got to do a better job in the rush plan of keeping him in. Whether it’s spies or guys in the back end in zone coverage have to better eyes and awareness and vision when he does start breaking out. We have to get him on the ground when we have an opportunity to. We had multiple guys just slip off of him or miss. He’s a big guy. That’s part of the challenge. He’s a big athlete. He’s not just like a little quick guy running around, so he shrugged off a couple of guys. I think it’s just a multi-layer thing. We saw it the week before. In Jacksonville he ran around a lot and almost had 100 yards rushing in Jacksonville, so we were ready for it. I’m not sure if our guys maybe totally didn’t understand what was coming. Obviously he broke out a few times on us. I think we just have to have the awareness and a disciplined plan in terms of how we’re rushing and keeping him in. And then the next-level players, whether it’s a spy or whether it’s guys with vision coverage, if and when he does get out, who the next guy is to clean that thing up. You can’t have guys out of their rush lanes or rushers missing a tackle on him and then nobody – with backs turned – with vision on him. Then it turns a 5-yard scramble into a 25-yard scramble. It’s a dedicated, disciplined approach from all levels of defense.”
