Patrick Graham – October 1, 2019
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Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham
(I wanted to ask you about blitzing. After this last game in the press conference Head Coach Brian Flores said ‘we can blitz more’ when asked about not getting more pressure. In the middle of September when asked about lack of pressure, coach also said ‘I think we can blitz more.’ I know you guys are in alignment obviously, but what is your general blitz philosophy?) – “In game, what you try to do on defense is defend that situation and whatever they put out there. I think like what coach said, blitzing more is something that we need to do or we can do, like you said. That’s something we’ll go about trying to get done.”
(Obviously every choice has pros and cons. This might seem self-evident but for the fans and media especially who aren’t coaches per se, can you kind of in general outline some of the pros and some of the cons anytime you bring pressure?) – “I think you’ve got to weigh what you think is going to give the quarterback or the offense, in general, the most issues. If you bring more than your standard four rushers, obviously you’re taking somebody out of coverage. Is it going to be beneficial for you to do that? Will it keep somebody in for them? That’s one way to look at it. Or, now that you’re bringing extra people, are you isolating somebody to have to block a certain player, so now you’re getting a chance to isolate one of your better rushers, if it is a passing situation. Then you have to take it into the whole situation with the run game. Are you bringing it off the edge to help set a firmer edge or to surprise them off the edge? Those are the different things when you’re weighing it. There is always a risk and reward so that’s really what you’re trying to weigh and trying to have some anticipation based on tendencies and the people in the game.”
(In your career, have you been a guy who enjoys – There would seem to be an adrenaline thing there. Like, ‘I’m going to dial it up.’ Are you a dial it up guy in general?) – “In general, I’m a ‘try to do my best to win the situation’ guy to be honest with you. I like the pressure. I like it all. It’s all fascinating to me, just to figure out ways to stop these offenses that are so dynamic. Blitzing is definitely somthing that I’m accustomed to doing. I enjoy doing all aspects of the defense to be honest with you.”
(Is it fair for us to say, this is the youngest team in the NFL, they have a lot of youngsters and you got new guys every week. Every week you’re putting guys in positions they’ve never done before. Is it fair to say, you know what, maybe because of that, we’re going to be a little more base?) – “No. Not in my opinion. I get paid to coach. We’re going to do what we think is best for the situation. That’s what I get paid to do. I’ve got to get them – regardless if they are here from a day, or three days, or five years – we’ve got to get them to do what we’re asking them to do. I don’t think that’s the answer.”
(A guy that has brought some pressure in the last two games is a guy who just got here. DE Taco Charlton to me seems to be playing with who is playing with motivation, and maybe it has something to do with how he was criticized in Dallas. What have you seen from Taco?) – “For me, I’ve always wanted to coach Taco, from when I met him at the combine. I told him, I say to him probably every day, I say, ‘I’ve been waiting to coach you. I’m happy to see you and get to coach you.’ I think he’s really bought in so far in terms of what we’re asking him to do, and then obviously his skillset. The motivation thing I think you’ll have to ask him. I think from what I knew of him and from what I know of him now, he’s a competitor. He’s been blessed with a skillset that – again, any time you’re having success, you’re going to want to push that anyway. He’s a competitor and he has a skillset. That’s probably the motivation, but you’ll have to ask him specifically.”
(What went into giving DE Taco Charlton a big opportunity? He had a lot of chances in that last game. What is the staff’s philosophy?) – “I think it’s practice. To me, practice is the closest thing to a game. Practice execution is game reality. Guys, if you’re seeing it in practice consistently, you get rewarded.”
(A lot of coaches really try to keep what’s in the building inside, and any noise that’s kind of outside or around the team, and expectations and performance, you don’t want any of that noise to creep in; but it kind of does. How have you guys taken it as a coaching staff, the 0-4 start, what people are saying about what this team is trying to do in the future instead of right now – how do you guys handle those things as a coach?) – “I handle it, and I would say our players in terms of, in my opinion, are handling it because the vision that’s been set forth by our head coach is a vision. It’s not a Polaroid picture; it’s not a glimpse at it. It’s a vision of where we’re going in terms of getting better every day, improving on our fundamentals, and that’s what we’re working towards. I think any time you have a vision and any time your leader lays out the vision and guys that buy in and we see it and we listen, what we’re seeing might be different from what everybody else is seeing. I can’t speak for everybody else; but the vision that our head coach has, (General Manager) Chris Grier – the vision that we have and the vision that we explain to the players – I think that’s important, so I don’t hear it. It’s not me (using) coach-speak. I don’t hear it. I don’t hear it, period.”
(Does it get a little clouded when the results don’t show up on the field?) – “No. That’s why it’s our vision. It’s not a Polaroid; it’s a vision. It’s deeper than that. It doesn’t sway at all. Obviously we want better results (and) we can coach better, and we can play better. I know I can – I’m speaking for myself; but the vision is there.”
(How much progress have you made towards that vision?) – “Like coach said yesterday, if we can play one good half – or coach said the day before, ‘if we can play one good half, we can play two good halves.’ That’s what we’ve got to do. That’s what we’re going to work on.”
(So baby steps?) – “I don’t know about baby steps. We’ve got to put together two good halves of football.”
(When you say, ‘I can coach better,’ which is a thing that coaches sometimes say; but as it relates to the first four weeks, what do you mean?) – “You’re always in the process of self-evaluating and trying to improve. I ask the players to get better every day. I make it a point on myself to get better every day. If I’m never thinking about how I can improve for the next week or the next day, then I think you get complacent, and then when complacency sets in, in this league, you’re not going to be here very long. That’s how I approach it. There’s a bunch of stuff – I don’t feel the need to get into exactly all of the stuff that I know that I need to improve upon, but I’m constantly evaluating myself and trying to figure out how I can become a better coach, a better husband, a better brother, a better son. That’s just how I’m built.”
(I saw DT Christian Wilkins a couple of time over the past few games, move a man – a guard or a center – five or six yards back. I was thinking, ‘that’s what he was brought here to do.’ I was trying to think about guards and center in this league. He’s just a rookie, but from a physical standpoint, his power, strength, his leverage ability, his footwork, his mobility, do you think it’s fair to say he should have a physical advantage over a good majority of men he’s facing in the league?) – “He’s a rookie, and I’d say a majority of the people he’s facing has some experience in the NFL. Four games compared to whatever, I don’t know. You hope you have a good matchup in terms of the physical, but there’s so much that goes into it. The physical, the mental makeup of it, the experience. There’s no substitute for experience. I think he’s making progress, just like some of our other guys are making progress. Eventually when the mental catches up with the physical, then it all ties together, then it becomes a beautiful thing.”
(I saw DT Christian Wilkins I think take a right guard, disengage and make an aggressive physical tackle, I think for maybe no gain on that particular play. Playing the position that he’s often at, left defensive end in a 3-4 formation, some folks wonder how destructive can he be in that spot. How much of the responsibility for his job is to wreak havoc in destruction, and how much is it to hold up his point of attack?) – “I think the point of the front is to – we ask those guys, we call it block destruction. That’s the No. 1 thing, that’s what we ask them to do: destroy blocks. In terms of violence and destruction and things like that, that’s in their job description. I would say that’s high on the priority list. As he improves and uses his hands and gets off of blocks and is able to find the ball, I would say that any time you’re a part of the front or just the defender, we’re trying to be destructive.”
(Do you agree that DT Christian Wilkins is showing improvement?) – “He’s improving. He’s definitely improving. Again, experience – there’s no substitute. That comes with time.”
(What’s been the most surprising thing to you about the first four games defensively as a whole?) – “The most surprising thing? I can’t – the most surprising thing? I don’t know how to answer that right now, to be honest with you. Obviously we would want to finish off the games a little bit better obviously, but I can’t say anything surprising per se.”
(What is something that is happening that actually pleases you, and provides you some encouragement going into the bye?) – “Again, from the first time I talked to you guys until now, I just really want the guys to buy into getting better every day. There is definitely evidence of that, and I just know if we get better every day, we’ll be okay. That’s the thing that’s been most important to me. The guys – their work ethic, trying to get better every day, working on something to get better every day, that’s been pretty good for me.”
(Going into last week’s game, you guys were allowing 208 rushing yards per game. Held the Chargers, which was averaging 5.2 to less than 100 yards. What was the difference?) – “I think as always with the run game, it starts with setting the edge and just trying to be more consistent setting the edge. Then from there, playing with power inside and tackling. I think there was glimpses of that during the game and then part of it too is mentality, just trying to get that established. It really starts from the film room in the meetings, them having a better understanding of it and us coaching it better, to practicing and being better. That’s where the emphasis – the emphasis always comes back to practice.”
(Has it been an edge-setting issue or what?) – “I would say it’s multiple things. It’s really just trying to improve the fundamentals of it. It always comes back in the run game to is the edge set, are you playing with power inside, and are you tackling? Then on top of that, eye discipline. You can get into all of that stuff but once you start dealing with all of the misdirection or pullers and things of that nature; but I think the most important (thing is), and we always talk about it, you’ve got to set the edge, play with power inside, building a wall and then you’ve got to tackle. You’ve got to tackle. That’s the main thing.”
(With LB Raekwon McMillan, has there been a moment where – ‘oh wow, this guy, we’ve got something here that we obviously we didn’t see a lot of in the spring?’) – “People want to talk about the plays and the big tackle here but to me, Raekwon ‘wow’s’ me by how he handles himself in the meeting room. He’s talkative in a good way. He understands what’s going on. He asks good questions. To me, when that starts to grow and you start to see it and he sees the correction before I do, now I know we’re starting to build something, especially at that position where they’re seeing it, they’re understanding it and then they’ll be able to correct it throughout the series on their own. That’s when I get the ‘wow’ moments. A lot of times it’s not the stuff that happens on Sunday, it’s the stuff that happens on the field, in practice or in the meeting rooms before that time.”
