Matt Burke – October 12, 2017
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Thursday, October 12, 2017
Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke
(Regarding DT Jordan Phillips last week. He said that he was healthy enough to play. Was that a coach’s decision because you’re happy with DT Davon Godchaux and DT Vincent Taylor or an injury decision?) – “No, it was a combination of both. We thought Vincent got a little bit more work during the week. It was close with Jordan. He was kind of right up until game time but we just felt we were only going to have three healthy (defensive tackles). We couldn’t keep four up with the way the actives were going to be constructed, so we just felt for another week to have three healthy bodies. God forbid if something happened, if Jordan kind of aggravated something and we were down, we were going to be shorthanded. So we just felt having the three healthy bodies, truly healthy, that we felt that was just a better option for us.”
(If DT Jordan Phillips is healthy, will he be active on Sunday?) – “You’d have to ask the head coach that but yes, Jordan’s been working back in. I think he’s got a good chance to play.”
(Can you talk about from a personal standpoint, what the first four weeks have been like for you calling plays on the sideline? Is it a chess match? Is it like the most draining experience you’ve ever had? I mean what has it been like for you?) – “It’s definitely draining. I don’t know if you guys watch me on the sideline. I’m a little out of my mind sometimes too. It’s exhausting. Game days are tiring. You’re on edge. It’s a high intensity moment for four hours. Even in between series when we’re making corrections and those sort of things. Mentally, the information is constantly changing, so every series there’s new information coming of what they’ve done and what their adjustments are to what we’ve shown. So I’m always trying to work the next series and what calls I can make to get ahead and stay, try to stay one step ahead of what we’re getting from the offense. So there’s a little bit of chess match element to it. It’s definitely exhausting, just physically and mentally. I mean I go home on Sundays and I just like comatose on the couch for about five hours.”
(Is there a lot of second guessing?) – “From you guys or from me? (laughter)”
(I mean is it hard to move on to the next play? Or you really have no choice but to move on?) – “Yes. There’s always calls … It’s really not within a moment. In the heat of the game, if something doesn’t work or if a call doesn’t work, it’s just kind of like why? If that does not fit what they’re doing, if we went into a game with a blitz that we liked against a certain look and now they’re not running that, so it’s more like ‘I don’t want to call that anymore.’ It doesn’t fit what we’re actually seeing. Again, it’s sort of real-time processing of what their adjustments have been. I mean they can call whatever they want obviously on offense. So the second guessing, usually it comes after the fact. There’s always calls when you’re watching the film the next day and you’re like ‘I wish I hadn’t called that,’ or ‘I wished I put our guys in a better spot.’ So within the course of the game to me, it’s more just taking information, like as its coming. Again, we have a database of what we’ve watched and prepared for during the week and then as things adjust within the course of a game, it’s just taking that new information and trying to say ‘Okay, this call fits better in this situation,’ or ‘Here’s where I’m going to come back to with this,’ or those sort of things. Then there’s always the second guessing a little bit later on.”
(Do you enjoy it as much as you thought you would?) – “Oh yes, I love it. This is what we do. It’s cool. I mean game days are the fun stuff for me. That’s why we do all of this. That’s why we work 100-hour weeks and that’s why we spend all this time here to … I love it. It’s awesome.”
(Has the success of the defense so far through these four games been a little bit of confidence builder for you would you say?) – “I’m a fairly confident person in general. (laughter) No. I mean every week is a new challenge. It really is. I mean looking at this week, it’s never easy. It’s hard to battle the complacency or any of those sort of things. We’ve had some decent games. We’ve had some okay games. We’ve made a lot of mistakes, so every week it’s a new challenge and every week you come in and you start looking at the next opponent going ‘Oh man, this is going to be another piece of work for us.’ I don’t know. I’m confident in what I do and what our players are doing, but every week it’s a new battle.”
(When LB Kiko Alonso decapitated Titans QB Matt Cassel and CB Bobby McCain came…) – “(laughter) It’s your words not mine.”
(They were both untouched and it seemed to me that Titans QB Matt Cassel didn’t know they were coming. Take me inside that play and also maybe in general, what’s the best way to disguise your pressure points?) – “Yes, I mean we try. You always try to hold your looks and to build pressures off of things you’ve already shown or looks you’ve already shown. Not to get too specific on stuff, but like for example, a play like that, we blitz – I mean everyone this is no secret – we blitz Reshad (Jones) and Lawrence Timmons a lot. That’s no secret. You can watch the film and know that. So now you can start setting stuff up to where people are alert to where those guys are and you can bring pressure on the sides. I don’t know in that particular case, Bobby (McCain) and Kiko (Alonso) both did a good job of just playing from depth. Just to backtrack a little bit, we went through the spring and one of the things we went through in part, the pressure package in particular, is I try to let those guys know why I’m calling a certain pressure. In some cases, it’s like that. That was a second-down play, so it was second-and-10 or second-and-long, I think – I can’t remember specifically – but in that pressure, we don’t want to show. We want to make it look like we’re kind of playing a shell and then we kind of hit it almost like a sneak attack. There’s some pressures that we have that I don’t care if they know, where I’m like ‘Look, I want you up. I don’t want to be late. I don’t care if he knows.’ If it’s a heavy run pressure, I’ll put Reshad up and say Reshad, I want you on the line of scrimmage. I want them to check out of a run here if they’re going to do it, and if they try to run it, then they’ll run into a bad look. Part of our process through the spring was that, was understanding ‘In this call, this is kind of what I’m trying to do when I make this call, so I don’t care if they see that you’re coming.’ Or ‘in this call, I don’t want them to know we’re coming and try to hit it on the fly.’ So that’s part of the process partly all the way through the spring and partly our install process when we do that. They try to understand what I’m trying to get out of each call and each blitz and those guys did a great job of executing.”
(S Reshad Jones, LB Lawrence Timmons and LB Kiko Alonso seem like three really good tools to have as blitzers.) – “Yes.”
(How effective do you think those guys are as blitzers?) – “Again, they are. They’ve all got a good feel for it. They’ve got a good knack. They’re all violent players. Kiko has such a big hit when he makes contact there and we know what ‘20’ (Reshad Jones) and ‘94’ (Lawrence Timmons) can do, coupled with our front and those things. It definitely helps having different tools to use, for sure.”
(Regarding CB Byron Maxwell, was he a healthy scratch or was that the hamstring? Byron Maxwell last week, he was inactive?) – “He was. It was a combination. Obviously he’s still working back in. He’s been battling some things. The guys that were getting the work were going to be active for last week. It’s the same this week.”
(There was a lot of hand-wringing on our end about the linebackers.) – “I’m sorry about that (laughter).”
(When LB Koa Misi and LB Raekwon McMillan got hurt. Has the linebacker group exceeded your expectations or have they played to them?) – “Yes. I have high expectations in our room and it’s something that we preach – every man up. It took a little bit. Obviously with Ray (Maualuga) getting his first action last week, it was good to have him out there. I don’t know if they’ve exceeded anything. Again, I have pretty high expectations for every group and yes, we’ve dealt with it last year, when I was in the room with those guys. Nothing surprises me. I think it’s a talented bunch.”
(With each of the three starters – LB Kiko Alonso, LB Lawrence Timmons and LB Rey Maualuga – can you give me one thing each does well that we might not see?) – “That you don’t see? I mean I hope you see it. Lawrence surprises me every day with the way he runs. Honestly, he may have been a touch rusty two weeks ago, or in the London game, but he was sideline-to-sideline last week. He’s however old he is, I don’t even know; but he does it in practice every day. To watch Lawrence Timmons, literally he runs like that in practice. To see him run the way he does and chase balls sideline-to-sideline, it’s always impressive. I’ve been around Rey a lot. Rey, he’s somewhat typecast. He’s a big, big Mike linebacker. Rey has a really, really, really good feel for the game. He’s played a lot of football. He’s been a linebacker most of his career, most of his life probably. He’s very nuanced in just getting reads. He reads play actions really quickly. So whatever he may – he’ll get mad at me – may lack in some speed, I mean he’s really quick off the spot. He diagnoses plays really, really quickly. It gets him off the spot. He gets from point A to point B faster than you think because he’s so good at diagnosing plays. Kiko’s just such a unique player for a linebacker. As an athlete, for him to be able to cover – I mean I said it last year – we match him up on receivers sometimes, backs, tight ends. He can run. He makes that play getting the ball out on Delanie Walker last week, which is a great play and on the third-down stop. The ability for him to play coverage and do some of the things that we can do schematically, he allows us to do a lot. I don’t know if that answers your question.”
(Opponents are completing 73 percent of their passes. They have a QB rating of over 100, how do you get those numbers down?) – “It’s one of those things to me, where if … Again, I kind of talked about this last week at one point about trying to get out of our lane. If I’m trying too hard to do something or if I’m telling our players ‘Hey, we can’t let them do this.’ I think the growth of ‘Tank’ (Cordrea Tankersley) and ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) and those guys are getting closer. I think they’re starting to get a better feel, just as a unit, for the coverage package and how we’re trying to attack things and approach things. I see progress. I think it’s closer and closer. At some point, if a guy wants to throw a 1-yard flat route, there’s only so much you can do to stop that. Some of that is built into what we are doing. Obviously we keep preaching challenge, challenge, challenge and get us closer. I think our coverage plans evolved to help those guys out a little more and get them in the right spots. Again, as we move further in the season, we’ve got some complements to some of the things we’ve already played and try to put some different coverage looks out there for those guys. I think that’s helping and hopefully it keeps trending down.”
(With QB Matt Ryan, WR Julio Jones and RB Davonte Freeman, obviously they’ve got three of the better weapons in the NFL at each of those positions. How do you maintain balance in terms of how an offense like that can attack you?) – “Yes, they’re a talented group. Both running backs are good players. They’re top of the league in explosive plays, from all three of those guys really. It’s a challenge. I’m not going to lie, it’s a challenge. You’ve got to pick your spots and who you’re focusing on. You can’t go triple cover Julio and then leave Devonta Freeman to run against a light box and vice versa. You can’t play soft coverage all day and let them run the ball for 8 yards a clip. Matt Ryan has been around for a long time. He’s a good veteran quarterback. He gets them in the right calls. He gets them in the right looks. It’s a challenge. I think our guys are excited. Pretty much top to bottom, it’s probably the best offense we’ve faced all year. It’s not easy. If I had all the right answers, I don’t know if I’d give them to you anyways. (laughter) It’s difficult. Again, we have to mix our looks, mix our calls and try to give them some stuff that they haven’t seen and just try to keep them off balance. Whenever you’re playing a quarterback like this and an offense like this, it’s trying to keep them off balance. That’s what they do to us. They’re going to hand the ball of to ‘24’ (Devonta Freeman) and ‘26’ (Tevin Coleman) and they’re going to get Julio going and Matt’s going to get them in the right calls and they’re going to use tempo and cadence and all of the stuff that they’re able to do. We’ve got to try … As a defense, you’ve got to try to do the same thing to them. They’re one of the best teams in the league at converting on first and second down. They stay ahead of the chains, they keep you off balance, where it’s third-and-short. They do a good job on first and second down so we’ve got to try to combat that with throwing some different pitches at them to get them off track a little bit.”
(Going back to the linebackers, that was those three’s first time in the lineup together. How do you feel about their communication and are you satisfied?) – “They’re great. Like I said, I think Kiko (Alonso) has been outstanding in that realm. Rey (Maualuga) and Lawrence (Timmons) are both veteran guys that talk ball and know ball. Rey’s been in the room. It’s not like he’s been in a cage on the side somewhere. Rey’s been in the room and they kind of built a rapport already. Again, they’ve all seen a lot of ball. It doesn’t take much for veteran linebackers to look at each other and go ‘Hey, we’re doing this here,’ or this or that. So those guys are starting to get a connection I think.”
(Why was the pass rush so successful last week? Well even statistically, I know they’ve been effective before, but you had six sacks.) – “We did, did we? I don’t know. (laughter) Again, we actually … We got out to a little bit of a lead early, which helps. Some of the situations, we had some more third-and-long sort of situations. That gives you more of an opportunity. The quarterback is going to hold the ball a little bit longer in those situations, so it gives them a little bit of an extra second to work to the rush. I think in general, I just thought overall our energy last week was really sky high and I know a lot of guys have talked about how we’ve moved on from last year and all of that, but there’s things you don’t forget. We were still smarting a little bit from how that game went against those guys last year. It was the first home game. There’s a little bit of extra energy in the building for that. I think just a little bit that half a step of extra juice, which helped. I think the guys were really into it and feeding off the situations and then, like I said, I think we just got them in some longer down and distances with a little bit of a lead at times that just gave us more rush opportunities.”
