Durham Smythe – October 7, 2018 (Postgame)
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Sunday, October 7, 2018
Postgame – Cincinnati Bengals
Miami Dolphins Tight End Durham Smythe (transcribed by Cincinnati Bengals)
(Any idea what happened on the first interception?) – “No, I have to take a look at it. I couldn’t tell you what happened.”
(What was the experience like when you were on field?) – “Well, on the replay, it looked like it bounced off of someone else, or me and then someone else, and then went 90 degrees — and by that time he was 10 yards down field with the interception.”
(What did it feel like in real-time?) – “In real time, you’re just focused on blocking your guy. Then you feel something, and it’s kind of awkward, but you don’t really know what happened until you go back and look.”
(What did you guys talk about after the game?) – “Well we talked about how there’s a lot of season left, and how you can’t give away 17 point leads in this league. We have to clean up the mistakes and get back at it.”
T.J. McDonald – October 7, 2018 (Postgame)
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Sunday, October 7, 2018
Postgame – Cincinnati Bengals
Miami Dolphins Safety T.J. McDonald (transcribed by Cincinnati Bengals)
(What was working for you in the first half that didn’t work so well in the second half?) – “We were stopping the run well and had a good flow. Came out in the second half and still had a good flow, but didn’t stop the run.”
(What made them so hard to stop?) – “I wouldn’t say it was so much that they were hard to stop. They do have a good offense, but we just need to get better.”
(The way this game ended doesn’t leave a great feeling …) – “It (stinks). If you don’t want to lose, you have to play four quarters of football.”
(What’s the conversation between you guys right now about moving forward?) – “We just have to rebound. We’ll go home (for two games) and then go back on the road (after that). We have to rebound.”
Reshad Jones – October 7, 2018 (Postgame)
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Sunday, October 7, 2018
Postgame – Cincinnati Bengals
Miami Dolphins Safety Reshad Jones (transcribed by Cincinnati Bengals)
(You held them to 13 offensive points (the rest were defensive points). How did you feel about the way you played today?) – “It doesn’t matter because we lost. We didn’t do anything to win the game.”
(Coming off the New England loss and now this one, where will you draw your confidence from?) – “We have resilient guys in this locker room and a great coaching staff. They’ll get us in position for next week. We just need to go out and do what we do.”
(Do you think there’s still a sense of determination?) – “As I said, we have got resilient guys in this locker room. Of course.”
Adam Gase – October 5, 2018
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Friday, October 5, 2018
Head Coach Adam Gase
(What can you tell us about the game statuses for the key players who are hurt?) – “Well, right now we’re still going through our process. We still have time. We’re hoping we can get as many guys back as we possibly can. We’ll just kind of see how it plays out and see if some guys can travel, some guys can’t. I think the majority of the guys are going to be able to at least travel and give us more time.”
(We saw you speaking with WR DeVante Parker for a while. In general, I don’t know if that conversation was part of it, have you been trying to keep him up a little bit? This has obviously not been the start to the season that he wants.) – “Yeah, I just want to make sure he doesn’t get frustrated. This is a long season. You guys can see, we’re at that point where everybody is banged up. The team we’re playing right now, they had a lot of injuries last week. You’re trying to find bodies to make sure that you can fill out that active roster. I just don’t want him getting too low thinking, is this going to stop happening? I mean, this is football. That’s what happens. You’ve just got to keep taking care of your body, get as healthy as you can because you’re never going to be 100 percent and when you can go, be ready to go.”
(Has WR DeVante Parker been down? Has he struggled…?) – “It’s just sometimes you can tell when a guy is thinking about ‘why is this still bothering me?’ It’s just kind of knowing people.”
(How is DE Cameron Wake?) – “We’re making progress. We’ll kind of see how this ends up turning out.”
(DE Cameron Wake could possibly play despite not practicing?) – “Yeah. I mean that’s a guy that I never worry about. We’ve got things up in the air right now.”
(When you look at the low snap count this year, you had the same thing in 2016 but you made the playoffs. You had a low third-down conversion rate in 2016 but you made the playoffs. How did you do that in 2016? Was the defense contributing?) – “(Laughter). I don’t remember. I have no idea. All I know is we found a way to win games. I feel like right now we’re a better offense than what we were in 2016. We just need to do a better job of staying on the field, keeping our defense off. That would help us because I just feel like if we stay on the field, they’re going to get less snaps and it’s going to balance out a little better. And we’ve got too many playmakers and guys that can do a lot of good things with the ball to not be on the field longer than what we’ve been.”
(Can you get around that with big plays?) – “Yeah, you can. It’s just the percentages aren’t going to be very good.”
(How do you get the running game established? Speaking of playmakers, I know that RB Kenyan Drake is not having the season that he’s been accustomed to.) – “I mean we’re four games in. Let’s not everybody get all riled up about the first four games of the season. We’ve got a long ways to go. If we get our play count up, I think things will get a lot better as far as dividing the touches up and guys having more opportunities to make some plays. Really, the run game, it’s all about efficient runs. We’ve just got to do a good job of making sure we stay ahead of the sticks. We keep putting ourselves in bad situations with being third-and-7-plus. We need to live in third-and-5 or less. And we can do that by getting positive plays, whether it’s in the passing game or in the run game. When you do that, then everything balances out and you look at the numbers at the end of the game and you go, ‘Okay, well, we had 40 rushes and 30 pass attempts or 35 pass attempts.’ That’s what you want. We have the players to be able to do that. We have to find a way to sustain drives and convert on third down.”
(Have you and RB Kenyan Drake talked this week about … I’m sure he wants to be more involved than he has been. Have you had a conversation?) – “No.”
(When you’re dealing with as many injuries as you’re dealing with on the defensive line, does that force you to change or alter your approach? I know you’re going to have to probably play DE Jonathan Woodard and DE Cameron Malveaux) – “When you have the injuries that we have and we’re kind of up in the air on some things, you always just have to do what’s best for that game to win, especially when you’re kind of in that situation. The defensive staff knows that. I’ve never been one to stop them from trying anything. I’ve always told (Defensive Coordinator) Matt (Burke), ‘Be as creative as you want to be. You can do stuff nobody else tried. I’m not going to say no.’ I’m all about however we can stop a team and get them off the field. I don’t care how we do it. And then keep staying on the field on offense.”
(With the receivers, when you have WR DeVante Parker out of the mix, I know you’ve got packages for those other guys. Do you lean on those packages or do you incorporate them in the packages that you had for DeVante?) – “We mix it all up. It’s all over the place. These guys know how to do all of that stuff. You’re trying to divide up the game basically with those guys. It gets interesting sometimes because you’re trying to see how has the hot hand, but you’ve got to have plays to do that. You’ve got to stay on the field instead of going three-and-out. That’s really our main goal is let’s get our first first down and convert on the first third down and see if we can get something rolling.”
(How do you feel in general at the end of the week about the mental state of your whole team?) – “I thought those guys, once we hit Wednesday, they were good. They turned the page; they’ve moved on. They had great energy on Wednesday, got after it yesterday. I thought today was really good. There was a lot of juice out there. Guys went hard. That’s all you can ask. As a coach, you tell those guys just prepare as it’s a new week, it’s a new opponent. We can’t change anything that happened in the past. We put it behind us. Once Monday is over, we’re done.”
(How did DE Andre Branch respond to yesterday?) – “He was good. He’s been working hard. He saw, especially being able to watch this last game, he saw kind of what was going on and guys going down. He’s chomping at the bit to get back out there. He does not want to be left out of this. He wants to get out there as fast as he can.”
(Is Sunday possible for DE Andre Branch or is that too much?) – “We’ll see.”
(Where are you guys in the development of QB Luke Falk? Particularly with him missing practice today, that’s why he’s on my mind.) – “He’s getting checked out for something right now. He was doing well for us. He was really … mainly working with (Offensive Coordinator) Dowell (Loggains) after practice was really the biggest thing. The amount of reps that he’s acquired just from that alone, working on a lot of our schemes, working on some of the under-the-center stuff, because he hasn’t done a lot of that in his career. It’s been mainly (shot)gun; but he naturally does that really well. His footwork is really good for somebody that hasn’t really done it before. I like his anticipation. When I watch him throw, I really like how the ball comes out of his hand. He’s a very confident kid. He’s smart. He’s been a fun guy to be around. That room has been really good. That room has been really tight.”
(So you definitely see a future here for QB Luke Falk?) – “I’d love the opportunity to get him in the spring, especially, and then start from there. He’s going to have a head start because he’s got a year to really get that under his belt.”
(So, is IR a possibility for QB Luke Falk?) – “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Dowell Loggains – October 4, 2018
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rsday, October 4, 2018
Offensive Coordinator Dowell Loggains
(With TE Mike Gesicki, can you recall over the first four games have there been a couple of times where maybe you intended to throw him the ball? At least that was the play call, but maybe he was covered tightly, maybe there was a problem with jamming at the line? Has that happened at all?) – “Yes, it has. There’s been a couple times – multiple times – that he’s been the primary receiver. A couple of games they were – what we refer to as ‘butching’ the tight end – hitting him off the ball or the safety was cheating him outside. A lot of times when you see 3×1 formations when he’s split out outside of the numbers, we treat that like he’s an X receiver and if you get one-on-one in the premiere – what we call picture – look, we’re going to take him. We haven’t gotten those, so the ball has gotten to other people.”
(As far as TE Mike Gesicki getting open and getting space from linebackers or whoever is on him, has that been an issue or do you think he’s doing generally a good job with that?) – “He’s done what we’ve asked of him to this point. Obviously, we have a lot of good playmakers on this roster and they’ve shown up in different times in different ways. We need to continue to get the ball distributed, but there’s only one rock and we have a bunch of talented players that have unique skillsets. Sometimes, one guys is going to have the hot hand, he’s going to get it more than … Next week it’s going to be someone else.”
(What’s it going to take to get more consistency on offense. I think all 10 of QB Ryan Tannehill’s drives were five plays or fewer. Just getting those first downs to get you going.) – “We made a big emphasis the last couple weeks of making the first first down, making the first play of the game, getting explosive pass, a 20-yard gain, so it’s really like two first downs. But the story of the game really comes down to third down. We have to do a better job converting those third downs. Playing 40-something plays in any game is not acceptable. The only way you do that is you continue to go first down, second down, first down, or when you get in third down, you have to convert on those situations. How do you do that? Well, you have to stay in third-and-2-to-6 and you can’t have penalties, you can’t have negative plays that bump you out of that. Three of the five first series of the game, we have two penalties and we drop a snap. That’s kind of the story of the game and it got away from us, this last one, 17-0, at that point versus a good team on the road.”
(I know third-and-longs are tough, but teams do find a way to pick those up. Have you guys looked at what’s been going wrong in those third-and-longs?) – “There’s multiple. It’s not one thing. If you look across the league, you start looking at third-and-8 plus, those percentages aren’t high. Third-and-12, a lot of people aren’t converting that. You’re probably hitting around 30 percent I’m guessing max, the good teams are. It’s always … It’s never just one thing. It’s pass pro and that can tie into the quarterback moving off the spot when he should sit there or picking up a gain or chipping when we’re supposed to chip or receivers hitting their depth where they’re supposed to be or getting off press coverage. There’s multiple things that go into that.”
(I know when you have 45 plays on offense, that limits everyone across the board. Within that, how do you want RB Kenyan Drake and RB Frank Gore sharing? What’s supposed to be regardless of how many snaps on offense?) – “I think it depends individually on each game and who’s got the hot hand. I’ve been part of this before with good players with Chris Johnson and LenDale White. Chris Johnson rushed for 2,000 yards and LenDale White led the league in touchdowns. Those things happen. In games, obviously, we don’t go into it with a number like, ‘We want to get this guy this many catches, this many touches.’ Sometimes it changes. Frank Gore is a really good player and so is Kenyan. Kenyan is a really good player in the run game and the pass game. He needs to be a big part and he will be a big focal part of the offense going forward. Each week it will be different.”
(What have you learned about C Travis Swanson since he’s been here?) – “It’s early. When he came in, he did a good job for us. It’s still early enough to where we’re confident he can do what’s asked of him. He’s got NFL starts and got NFL experience, which helps a ton.”
(How would you evaluate how you guys are doing against press coverage?) – “I don’t think we did as well as we should’ve last week. I think it’s something we need to continue to work on. We have guys that can do it and it just comes down to executing technique and the proper fundamentals. It’s an area we need to improve this week.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase said just got out physicaled at the line of scrimmage. Do you think that alone with make a difference or do you think there’s technique and assignment stuff?) – “I think the big part of that is the message to the guys we need to execute better. Playing together … Obviously, nicks on the offensive line affect that when you have to come in and you’ve got two new starters – a guy that we were able to pick up that got cut from the Jets and comes to our squad and he’s been here for a very short time working together. In pass pro, it’s a unit. It’s the quarterback, the offensive line, tight ends, running backs being on the same page. As they play together, it’ll continue to improve.”
(Do you guys have first-down plays and third-down plays?) – “Yes, sir.”
(So do you evaluate your first down plays and say ‘Okay, these four weeks these first-down plays haven’t worked. Maybe we should throw in some third-down plays and first-down plays and vice versa?’) – “We self-scout every week. The way we talk about it in terms of efficiency, like what have we done that’s been efficient in the run game and the pass game and pass protection, and conceptually what have we been good at. We do have a unique set of skill guys and everyone has a little bit of different skill and trying to put those guys in those situations to succeed. There are certain things the quarterbacks or each back does well. We self-scout hard. We do have separate third-down plays if the defense dictates that, if they play different coverages. Sometimes they play more man, so it’s going to be more man-beaters. Just because we have it in the third down section, it can be called on first and second down as well. And that stuff did happen. When we get in the game and the game gets lopsided like last week, we started calling some third-down stuff on first and second down.”
(On Monday, Head Coach Adam Gase said a couple of receivers were open a lot. He mentioned WR Jakeem Grant was one of those guys. So if they’re not the first read, but they’re open a lot, what’s supposed to happen?) – “Jakeem did a really good job. Obviously, the stats didn’t say that, but he did a really good job in press, getting off, getting clean (releases). It’s the same thing. It’s the offensive line protecting, it’s the quarterback not throwing the ball on time or not moving into pressure and doing those things. There are so many different things that it’s hard for me to answer that question. Sometimes they’re number one in the progression, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes we call a play for Cover 1 for Jakeem and it’s Cover 2, so the ball goes to someone else. There’s a lot of different things that go into that.”
(When the holes aren’t open in the run game, how do you manufacture a running game or touches for your backs?) – “That’s a really good question, because sometimes the game is played … Early in games, it can be tougher to get started, but that’s why when you convert on third down and you’re able to stay on the field and you give those guys more attempts at running it, then you start to get going and going the right direction with the run game. Converting third downs helps you call more runs. I know the narrative right now is being better on third down, which is going to help a lot of different things. It’s sticking with the run, but the only way you can stick with the run is if you convert third downs, so you have more shots on first and second down to run the football.”
Darren Rizzi – October 4, 2018
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Thursday, October 4, 2018
Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi
(Is there any difference in the way Head Coach Adam Gase or any other assistants who spoke handled the aftermath of this game compared to the Baltimore loss last year and the Carolina loss, or is it basically the same approach? I don’t know if there is any difference that you’ve noticed?) – “I think the one thing that Adam has done a really good job of since he’s been here is kind of not treating anything differently. We come in and we have our routine that we do weekly. We come in on Monday and we evaluate the game, we watch the game. I think one of the things we’re doing this year that’s really good is we’re spending a lot of time on Mondays making the corrections. Not that we didn’t do that in the past, but we’re spending a lot of time on the game film. We have ample time – special teams-wise, offense, defense – to watch the game. I think the one thing that Adam does a great job of is treating each game like an individual event and making the onus on the one game. Win, lose or draw, we move on to the next week. We go in Monday and we evaluate what we’ve done, Tuesday the players are off, Wednesday they’re back and it’s on to the next event. So, (there’s) not really a big change there. Obviously, there’s a lot of things you want to clean up from last game, so that was addressed on Monday. Then when the players are back here on Wednesday, it’s right on to the next game and again, treating it like an individual event. So, I think that’s really one of the things I’ve been impressed with the most, with Adam that is, in terms of just taking the week by week approach, not getting too far down the road, not looking back and not looking too far ahead. We’ve kind of treated it the same way all the way through.”
(What did CB/S Walt Aikens not do correctly on that personal foul, because it looked like he tried to come in?) – “I can’t criticize the officials so I won’t do that, but I do not necessarily agree with the call. I’ll just leave it at that. I don’t think he did anything that was abnormal. My reaction on the sideline probably also backed up the fact that I didn’t agree with the call. I could tell you what the rule is. When the gunner goes out of bounds, he can’t go out of bounds on his own. If he goes out of bounds without being touched, it’s a penalty. If he gets forced out of bounds by the jammers, his angle on his re-entry to the field has to be a straight line back onto the field. At no point can he straighten out on the sideline. He has to take an angle which brings him back onto the field. That angle could be five yards, that angle could be 15 yards, that angle could be 30 yards, but that angle has to bring him back on the field. At any point, if he takes a step to straighten out and that step does not bring him back on the field, that’s an unsportsmanlike conduct. It’s a 15-yard penalty. The Patriots had been called earlier in the game for what they call the ‘four feet in the paint’ rule, which is when the jammer takes the gunner out of bounds, at that point they’re both out of bounds. The jammer cannot make contact with the gunner. Four feet in the paint is that big white stripe. The official that’s officiating that play is looking down the sideline, and if he sees the jammer make contact with the gunner and they both have both of their feet in the paint, that’s a penalty. If the jammer is on the playing field in the green, and the gunner is in the white, they can make contact. So, their guy had been called for four feet in the paint, and later on, as you know, we got called for an illegal re-entry. I wasn’t really pleased with the call but regardless, that’s what he got called for.”
(Is it strategy for jammers to take them out of the paint?) – “If you have two gunners, some guys might both release outside, some guys might both release inside and some guys might both release in the direction of the punt. So, everybody is different, meaning every team is different or every rep could be different. We have a technique for when the gunner releases outside – an outside release is what we call it when you start going outside – and we have a technique that we use with the jammers when that guy goes out of bounds. We have this whole technique that we use at that point, whether it’s one guy on him or two guys on him. There are two different kind of ways that we play it. Most teams do, because you have to be very careful with the rules there. You have to make sure the jammer, once you get near the sideline, they have to make sure they stay on the field. If they end up out of bounds, they have to get themselves back in because obviously they can’t make contact like I said before. There’s a lot of technique. We spend a whole lot of time doing that. You see it a lot more with two jammers on one gunner than one-on-one. Usually, the one-on-ones don’t end up out of bounds. Sometimes they do. If the gunner lines up really close to the sideline, you’ll see them maybe end up out of bounds. But a lot of times, when a gunner goes and lines up, if I have two players, if I have two jammers, a lot of times they’ll widen their alignment. They’ll adjust at the line, they’ll tighten it or widen it to give themselves more room either way, so it’s a little bit of a cat and mouse (game) there, for sure.”
(You mentioned your reaction. Have you ever gotten a warning?) – “I don’t know what you’re talking about. (laughter)”
(Never once?) – “I have no idea what you are talking about. (laughter)”
(Through the first quarter of the season, how have any of the rule changes played out compared to your expectations?) – “Starting the season, I really thought that after looking at the play a lot through the preseason, I really felt like it was going to be a much more wide open play. I think that’s been the case. You’re not seeing those big collisions happening in the back end of the play down by the returners, the off returners we call them. Down in the red zone area, from the 20, you’re not seeing those big plays anymore. You’re seeing a much more wide-open play. Every team handles it differently strategically. Some teams have a little bit more of a tendency maybe to stay in if the ball is in the end zone. You can kind of tell where the returner lines up a lot of times. Some teams are going to do it situationally. That’s more of what we do, more of a situational approach to the return game. I know the numbers are up a little bit when there have been returns. The kickoff numbers are up a little bit because the play is more wide open. It’s not as condensed, it’s a little bit more of a full-field play. I think it’s going pretty good. I don’t know the exact numbers, I can’t give you the exact numbers on the injury prevention stuff, which is obviously why the rules are put in place, for player safety number one. But I do think we’re heading in the right direction. I think as the season unfolds and gets down the road, as we know, obviously a lot of the teams play in colder weather, there’s going to be more returns and I really think you’re going to see more big plays. Usually, what happens in the first quarter of the season, the touchback number is high, then as the season goes on that number comes down because you’re not getting as many touchbacks in the colder weather games. The ball is not kicked as far, so it’s harder to kick the touchbacks in that type of weather. I think it’s going to be a really interesting number to keep your eye on the rest of the season, how that touchback number plays out. I think towards the end of the season, in the colder weather part of the season, I think the kickoff return game is going to be even more interesting.”
(Was the wind blowing differently in New England? If seemed like there was a little bit more of a line drive punts?) “Yes. It wasn’t a really good punting day for either side certainly. What was happening, there was a little bit of a cross wind and we got messed up with our drops a little bit and I know they did too. The punt numbers weren’t great on the day. The couple of bad punts we had were more related to our drops. Our drops, a lot of times when you’re on your going in punts and you’re on what people call flip flop or Aussie punts, you drop the ball nose down and the ball was getting pushed down by the wind a little bit and it was messing with our drops a little bit. It’s not a flat drop, our regular punts were actually better than our what we call flip flop punts or going in punts, plus-50 punts. Everybody has got a different name for it. Our regular punts were actually pretty good, our flat drops were good. It was messing with our nose down drops a little bit, our nose was coming out and that’s why Matt (Haack) had a couple of shanks. That’s something that’s easily fixable, but it wasn’t a good punting day for either side. The cross wind, the wind that goes across the field messes with punters a little more than a straight down your field (wind) either at your back or in your face. You don’t have as much problems with the drops. It’s the crosswinds that kind of mess with their drop a little bit. It wasn’t a very good punting day for us and it wasn’t for them either.”
(Is this something that you know before the game? I know the last two games he punted really well especially inside the 20.) – “Yes. We worked on it. To be honest, he had a pretty good pregame. That’s a really good question. Going into it, the wind did pick up a little bit to be honest with you. Up in that stadium that wind comes out of that open end and comes in and goes back into that corner. When you’re looking at that open end, it kind of drives through that open end where that bridge is and goes into that corner. That’s where that crosswind was coming and as the game went on, the wind picked up a little bit and it was kind of going in the face a little bit – the cross(wind). It was something we noticed pregame. It really wasn’t a big deal pregame, but as the game went on it became more of a factor. It was an interesting note for that game.”
(Do you have tabs on all the stadiums like that?) – “Yes. For the most part going in, you kind of have an idea. I’ve been fortunate enough to be around here long enough to be in all the stadiums we’re playing in and certainly the open-air ones. There’s kind of a book on each stadium that doesn’t always play out exactly … It depends on the day. Sometimes you get a day, and that obviously was one of our better days in New England weather-wise, but there still was a little bit of a tricky wind. We kind of have a book going in and then the kickers and punters are going to play that out during the pregame. There’s sometimes on one end, the field goals could be a little bit trickier than the other in some stadiums. Pittsburgh, for example, at the one end of the stadium there’s a low percentage in the open end and then you go to the other end and it’s a drastic difference. When you’re going in, you play that and decide when you’re going to take the wind. The coin toss, deferring and which way you’re going to kick, having the ball third quarter, fourth quarter. All of those things come into play and that’s something me and Coach Gase talk about a lot pregame and where you want to end up at the end of the half or the end of the game. Those definitely factor in and New England is one of those stadiums.”
(What about Paul Brown stadium?) – “On this stadium? I can’t … Ask me on Monday. I’m not going to tip my hand on that one. (laughter)”
(Is there a stadium you would say is the best or more conducive to kick at?) – “Yes, the ones that are closed. (laughter) The ones that have no wind at all. We had an interesting one in Dallas about five or six years ago. It’s a closed stadium but they opened the sides up in the end zones and there was like a venting systems. There was nothing at pregame and all of a sudden there was like a 10 mile per hour wind going one way. All they did was open the end zone, there was like a window system that opens up, and all of a sudden the wind is coming in. You’re like, ‘wait a minute. The roof was close, what’s going on?’ We’ve had some interesting deals that way, but obviously it’s much easier to kick in the indoors. Every outdoor stadium, especially the ones up north, have a little bit of a trick to them. You have to figure them out and play them out. Our stadium, to be honest with you, is another one that before they put the roof on, there were a lot of kicker that didn’t enjoy coming down here, especially some of the road teams. We had a field goal percentage book on every stadium. Every stadium we keep a 10-year stat book on field goal percentages and things like that. Our stadium is actually one of the lowest one until … It’s made a little bit of a difference, the roof; but it’s still open air so there can be some trickiness in ours as well.”
Matt Burke – October 4, 2018
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Wednesday, October 4, 2018
Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke
(At this point there are three natural defensive tackles on the roster. Is that enough for what you and Defensive Line Coach Kris Kocurek want to do or at some point do you think a fourth will be needed?) – “Whoever we’ve got, we’re going to play with. At this point, that’s going to be enough to win a ball game today. We’ll see if we get another body there, then we’ll use that body too. Everybody is kind of banged up at this point and there are a lot of spots that we’re trying to manipulate in the roster. We’re going to go to war with the guys that we’ve got right now. That’s who we have and that’s who we’ll play with.”
(What was your message to the team after Sunday? What did you say to them?) – “It felt like de ja vu to last year up there, to be honest with you. I was just disappointed that we didn’t execute the way we talked about executing. In general, if we give our best shot and play our game and lose to a team that beats us because they’re better and made some plays that we didn’t make or something, that’s one thing. But when we make a lot of mistakes and do a lot of things that are just uncharacteristic of how we’ve been playing, it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing because I’d rather go toe to toe and have our best shot and have their best shot and if they make a couple of plays that we didn’t make, then fine. Really, it was more just disappointing (because) all week we had talked about poise and execution, poise and execution and do your job play to play to play. To have the penalties and all of the stuff, just some breakdowns go on that we obviously didn’t have in the first three weeks of the season, was disappointing. That was my message, more than anything. I wasn’t yelling or anything. It was more about we have to get this fixed. You just try to come up with some of the whys things happen and here’s what we have to clean up. Here’s how it happened, here’s why it happened and we can’t do these things moving forward. It’s really more disappointment than anything.”
(How does CB Bobby McCain’s injury change what you guys do at corner?) – “Somebody else is going to play. With every position, whoever is up is going to be up. We’ve been rolling different guys at different spots. If Bobby is not available for us then the next man up is going to play and we’ll go play some ball.”
(How do you feel about CB Torry McTyer and CB Cordrea Tankersley?) – “I feel fine. They’ve both been working hard. Torry has gotten some work the last couple of weeks and had some playing time and has done a good job. Both of them on the practice field … We try to utilize our practice time for different reps and working guys in and making sure that guys are staying ready. They’ve both been working hard, so I’m happy with that. It’s been the same story since Week 1. We tell everybody in that room. If you’re in this defensive meeting room then you have to be ready to play when it’s called on and everybody has to work to that goal and to that end. I’m happy with the way they’ve been working in practice. If their number is called, they’ll be ready to go.”
(I know sophomore slumps are a real thing but other than that, can you explain what’s happened to CB Cordrea Tankersley?) – “Nothing has happened to him. I think like I said, other guys have played better at times than him. He’s working and doing what we’re asking him to do. When he gets his opportunity, he’ll be alright for us.”
(After the game, a couple of the players, especially defensive linemen, were talking about miscommunication. I don’t understand what they have to communicate about. Can you enlighten me?) – “I’ll try. I can’t speak to … I don’t know what they were talking about. I wasn’t there so I don’t … I never like to address hearsay. I don’t know what you’re referring to or what they’re referring to, if that’s the case. But everyone has to communicate on game day. Even just from making a huddle call, making a front call, getting lined up. There’s always checks and things that happen in the course of a play, whether it’s certain motions or things that trigger certain other calls. There’s always communication between all levels of the defense. That’s a starting point. There has to be over communication a lot of times. Everyone has to be on the same page. That’s the worst thing that can happen. If eight guys are playing one thing and three guys thought they heard something else, that’s when things obviously can go really awry. I didn’t think, personally, that was necessarily a huge issue. That wasn’t communicated back to me at all, so I can’t address what they were referring to; but just in general, there’s always communication going on every play between linebackers and d-linemen, obviously in the secondary and the linebackers have to get on the same page with coverage calls and checks. Even just from a starting point in terms of the Mike linebacker making a front call or setting the blitz or setting whatever we’re doing. I wouldn’t say that was a huge factor last week. There were a lot of other things going on.”
(The last couple of games, there’s been a couple of plays where two or more wide receivers are bunched up and something happens, either the block at the line springs a guy or people are not covering Raiders WR Jordy Nelson. Why is that happening?) – “There’s a good example of communication. Any time … Not just in man coverage but anytime we’re in zone coverage or any matchup coverages, if receivers get stacked or bunched or are in condensed splits and switch release or come out of stacks like that, we have rules week to week on how we’re picking that up. We’ve had some miscommunications there in terms of how we’re handling some of that stuff. We have a game plan every week of in these calls, this is how we’re handling this. There’s different ways to sort it out. Obviously we’ve miscommunicated a few of those in the last couple of weeks.”
(Without getting too far ahead of this week’s game but all coaches self-scout throughout the season. What has gone well for you and what has not gone well? What do you think may be is a strength that hasn’t been in the past?) – “I usually do my self-scout on Fridays to go through it; but in general, our takeaways have been a huge factor of keeping us in games. Even in the last week, getting two picks was probably the only positive of the game last week. I think that’s (been good), especially having been a point of emphasis. I think when we’ve kept our explosive plays down, the games that we’ve done that, we’ve performed well. When we haven’t, we’ve kind of been up against it a little bit. That’s been kind of a critical factor for us. I think probably the biggest disappointment – I know I mentioned it last week and I feel like a broken record – has been third downs. We were actually decent last year in that and obviously we spent a lot of time doing that. Last week, the penalties got us. We had a chance to go three-and-out on the first series of the game and to have a penalty on third down … The last two weeks we’ve had I think five or maybe six third-down conversions on penalties. That’s been disappointing from that sort of thing. I haven’t studied much this week. It’s kind of early in the season to paint a big picture like that.”
(When you decide whether or not you’re going to shadow a guy like WR A.J. Green, what goes into the thought process about whether to do that and when to do that – third down, red zone? How do you, as a defensive coordinator, come to that conclusion?) – “It’s all of that. Again, you start the week and from a matchup standpoint and from a personnel standpoint, how do you match up? Do you like man-to-man matchups for those sort of things? That’s sort of a base starting point. Is there a body type or a player that you like doing that with? It’s also, as you start watching their schematic attack, is it possible? Is it going to cause more confusion? Sometimes if there’s a guy they’re motioning a lot and moving around a ton, it can sway you against doing something like that (because) there’s a guy that they’re moving around and you’re trying to flip guys all over the field. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mine when an offense moves one player and seven guys on defense have to move spots just by that. There’s some issues in terms of how you’re doing that. It’s the same thing situationally. If there’s certain players they’re targeting in certain situations, maybe that’s a time to do something different. Obviously when you have great players and you’re going against great receivers – a guy like A.J. – you always want to give different looks. You can’t give static looks to any of those guys. At some point they’re great players and their talent is going to show up. You kind of maybe pick your spots on when you’re doing certain things like that. There’s a lot of factors. Some of it is what their scheme is and some of it is what our scheme is. Some of it is a personnel matchup. Some of it is areas in the field, there’s certain times where you want to change some things up or sprinkle some things on them. That’s a huge discussion every week and how we want to approach that.”
(How do you approach that discussion with CB Xavien Howard or a cornerback?) – “Really, it’s not. It’s not as much of a factor in terms of directly with someone like that. With ‘X’, we’ll look at it. Those guys are in here Monday and by the time they leave Monday and we start really looking forward to the next week, we have all day Monday and Tuesday. (Defensive Backs Coach) Tony (Oden) and myself, as we watch the tape and sit through it, we’ll start game planning and put our discussion together and say ‘is this something we want to do?’ Or ‘how do we want to utilize something like this?’ Or ‘are we better right and left or are we better left and right? Are we better however?’ As the week kind of gets into the game plan week, we have a better idea of what our personnel is going to be. Now that we’ve sort of watched some of the opposing teams’ scheme and how they’re utilizing certain players, we’ll try to get it fit up how we want to.”
(Is that pet peeve on offensive movement that you mentioned, is that why you like your corners to typically stay on their side?) – “No. It’s not just about that. That’s just in general. I think you see more of that … If you have a defense … It’s partly why we don’t necessarily flip our tackles and have a 3-technique and a shade like a nose or something like that where they can trade a tight end and you have to move 10 bodies. Then you’re just going to see that all year long. They’re just going to get you unsettled by moving one guy. It’s easy for an offense to do and then all of a sudden we have 10 guys moving around and our eyes are in the wrong spot and you’re not settled when the ball is snapped. We try to utilize our rules to where if they’re motioning one player, either one guy is going with him or we’re bumping something and just kind of moving spots. It’s another thing week to week that we’ll look at and say this week, they do a lot of this so how do we want to handle this kind of motion? Do we want to match it and run across? Do we want to bump it? (Those are) certain calls and that sort of thing. That’s not necessarily dictated by the corners per se. It’s kind of just a schematic thing.”
(We saw snaps rise a lot for LB Jerome Baker this past week and the last couple weeks. Has what he’s given you from a speed and activities standpoint outweighed any negatives from a girth or size standpoint?) – “Yes. We like ‘Bake’s’ speed. We like that matchup in the passing game. We’ve probably seen a little bit more of 11 personnel and open up type stuff the last couple of weeks, so that probably has a little bit of a factor. The last two weeks we’ve faced good backs – good passing game backs – No. 30 in Oakland (Jalen Richard) and (New England’s) James White last week and those sort of things. It’s a different spot to utilize his skillset. Playing defense is, by nature, a reactionary thing. We have to react to what an offense is giving us in terms of personnel and formation and those sorts of things. Playing times are sometimes dictated by that as much as anything else.”
(What are your memories of your tenure in Cincinnati?) – “I was there in 2014 and 2015. We had two good seasons. We made the playoffs both years. We had good teams, good defenses. (Head Coach) Marvin (Lewis), obviously you like working for Marvin. How many years is he up to now? I can’t even keep track. At the time, he had been 12 to 13 years in the league as a head coach, so it was good to learn from him and see how we operated. It was good to be around. I always kind of laugh. I’ve had four head coaches in my NFL career. Two of them were like the longest tenured coaches in the league between Jeff Fisher and Marvin. Then two of them were first-time head coaches in Jim (Schwartz) and Adam (Gase). It was cool. I had been with Jeff and then had been with Jim for five years in Detroit and then to go with Marvin, it was good to see how he operated. It was kind of the first time I had been out of that (defensive) family with the Fisher and Schwartz lineage. It was the first time I had kind of broken out of that a little bit. It was good to see Marvin … It’s a unique place. It’s kind of a family-run business and how they operate. I learned a lot from Marvin, I learned a lot from that organization, I learned a lot of football there. We had two good seasons and unfortunately, both ended in playoff disappointment. But I enjoyed my time there. I grew as a football coach and learned a lot of ball.”
(What are your thoughts on things not working out between you guys and DT Jordan Phillips?) – “I don’t really have any thoughts on it. Things didn’t work out and the organization moved on. I’m sure he’s moved on. We’ll both go try to get a win this weekend.”
(How often in the last two years has CB Xavien Howard lobbied to shadow an opposing receiver?) – “X is an extremely confident player. He wants to do it every game – every play, every game. And even if you do it, he gets mad if you give him help. Like literally, he’s like, ‘leave me alone.’ So he lobbies all the time for it, which I love. Now, that’s not always the best strategy, so he doesn’t always get what he wants. Again, you want your corners, especially playmaking corners, you want them to be confident, and he is. He wants to go against the best and he wants to match up against the best. He views himself in that category and he wants to perform on that stage. He pretty much every week wants to do it, and obviously especially when you’re going against really good players like we’re about to go against. But, again, this offense isn’t just about A.J. Green, so there’s other factors. We can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to put 10 guys on A.J. Green or we’re going to flip this guy and always do this.’ This is a good offense and they’ve got other playmakers that we have to account for. He’s got to just play within our scheme and he’ll do what we’ll ask him to do.”
Reshad Jones – October 4, 2018
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Thursday, October 4, 2018
S Reshad Jones
(Would you have played one of the last couple of games if they had let you? Is it a case you felt like I can do it and the training staff is telling you it’s not a good idea?) – “It’s just precautionary. Everybody wanted to take the right approach. It’s a long season. I think it was best for me to sit out those two weeks.”
(Do you feel like you’re back now? You’re good to go?) – “Yes, I’m getting there. I’m getting there.”
(Sunday, do you know you’re going to play?) – “It’s a possibility, a strong possibility.”
(You’re advocating for it I guess?) – “Yes, for sure.”
(How antsy are you?) – “I’m just ready to get back. We’re on the right track. We had a bad week last week but we’ll pick up this week. I’m ready to come back and help this team win some football games.”
(There’s a Bulldog reunion out there – WR A.J. Green, G Clint Boling, T Cordy Glenn, S Shawn Williams, DT Geno Atkins all from the 2009 Georgia Bulldogs.) – “Yes, we got a lot of ‘Dogs. The Bengals have a lot of ‘Dogs. It will be fun to go up and play against these guys.”
(Do you guys keep in touch?) – “I talk to a couple of them every now and then.”
(Anyone in particular?) – “Me and A.J. are close. Geno is a good friend. I haven’t spoken to Shawn in a minute, but we’re all cool. It’s a family. We’re Bulldogs.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase couldn’t say enough huge compliments about WR A.J. Green and when you see what this guy can do.) – “He’s one of the best receivers in the game. He’s tall, great hands, speed. He can do it all. It’s definitely going to be a challenge but I think we’ll be ready.”
(You’ve covered a lot of tight ends. Give me your scouting report on T Sam Young as a tight end.) – “Sam Young? I can cover him with my eyes closed. (laughter)”
(He says if he got the ball in open field he can make some magic happen.) – “I don’t know about that. Maybe in Pee Wee ball or high school. (laughter)”
