Steve Marshall – August 20, 2020
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Thursday, August 20, 2020
Offensive Line Coach Steve Marshall
(We saw G Ereck Flowers out there the past two days staying late after practice, specifically with the rookies. It looked like just chatting them up, giving them some advice. What type of leadership and that veteran presence can help, especially when you have so many newcomers and rookies in the unit?) – “Yeah, it’s huge. Not only Ereck and Ted (Karras) and Jesse (Davis) and some of the guys that have played in this league, it’s really guys like that that help guys because those young guys – they’ve had three weeks of work and it’s a whole different ball game. The speed is different. Obviously the size and the physical movement (is different); so yeah, every day that not only helps them. It may give them a little tidbit and help them do with fundamentals and technique and some of the things we’re asking them to do, and then that’s what o-line(men) do. That helps build camaraderie and all the different aspects that go into playing offensive line in this league.”
(I wanted to ask you about the three draft picks – T Austin Jackson, T Robert Hunt and G Solomon Kindley – and I wanted to ask you what has stood out about them so far from where you stand?) – “Those three guys are competing. As you guys know, they’re competing for a job. Those three guys have taken a role. They’re coming in and they’re learning every day. Every play is a new adventure for those guys. They were very good players at college level and they’re getting better every day. They’re bright-eyed and they learn and they’re competing hard. We’ve been pleased. Again, it’s just starting – three days of pads – and the hot Florida sun is a little bit of an eye-opener for some of those guys, but they’re fighting through it.”
(I guess for the common eye, it seems like offensive line is probably the hardest thing for people to understand because you can’t attribute stats to them. How – and maybe there’s no simple way you explain to the common person of how you dictate whether an offensive lineman is performing well or not?) – “It goes to skillset. It goes to smarts. It goes to toughness. Is he a team guy? And those guys usually are team guys because obviously as you know, there’s no stats involved with offensive line. They try to make them with all these different things; but at the end of the day, the best five guys that can block them, can do it intelligently and do it over a long period of time, are the ones that are very successful in this league, and that’s kind of what we’re trying to build with these guys. That’s the best I can tell you. They’ve got to have the skillset. It’s bigger, faster, stronger; but there’s a lot more that goes into it. O-line is all about intelligent, being able to work on your feet, being able to change – doing things quickly (both) mentally and physically.”
(Obviously we’ve seen that two of the rookies are being inserted there in terms of getting a chance to prove that they can handle the starting job in terms of G Solomon Kindley and T Austin Jackson. What do you want to see from them to understand that hey, this job is too big for them?) – “You can add Rob Hunt into that category, too, and some of the others guys; but what you see at the end of the day is that who are the best five guys that give us a chance to win? That’s really kind of what it is. They’re good young players, but – I can use the term ‘young’ – I think ‘AJ’ (Austin Jackson) just had his 21st birthday. That’s young for this league and it’s a day-in and day-out grind mentally, physically. We have basically four hours of meetings a day along with practice. So can they get in there and sustain it over a period of time from a physical standpoint, from a mental standpoint, to be able to make – because at the end of the day, we’re all here to win and my job is to make those guys do the best they can within the framework of the offensive line and go from there. But they’re off to a great start. All the rookies are. We’ve got great competition at every position and we’ll see where it all comes out in the end here in three weeks – because it really, in three weeks, that’s kind of our first game, but we’ve got a long season ahead of us and we’ll see how it all goes down.”
(On G Solomon Kindley what do you think are some things that he has the potential to do very well?) – “Solomon is a guy that if you went back and looked at him at Georgia, he’s a big man. He’s smart. He’s a smart guy. He loves to play the game and that’s the one thing I think that for a 21-year-old kid that left college early to come to the NFL, he’s got to want to be a very good player; but obviously he has physical attributes and a skillset that – my grandmother can see that he’s a big man, but the thing about Solomon is he comes to work every day so far. We put a lot on him. We want to see where he is and he has not backed down a bit. Every day is an adventure for him. He’s a guy that like I said, it’s a whole new thing for him – a whole new nomenclature, a whole new thing and as rookies do, they have good plays, they have bad plays; and my job is to eliminate the bad ones and keep making the good ones better. That’s really where Solomon is as is Rob (Hunt) and AJ (Austin Jackson) and some of the other young guys that are playing on the offensive line.”
(You and Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey have a combined 79 years of coaching on various levels and various successes…) – “Are you telling me I’m old? (laughter) Is that what you’re telling me?”
(No, I’m talking about the wealth of experience both of you have. Has there been a light moment between you two basically saying, “look, we can’t believe we’re still doing this?”) – “Well, yes. Yes and yes and my wife says that all of the time. My brothers, my family – but it’s something I grew up doing. I love it. I don’t really think I’ve ever worked a day in my life. You don’t do this job if you don’t have a passion for football, for competing, for helping young guys get better, because it’s a grind. It’s a day-to-day process; but I’m so fortunate to have a chance to coach in the NFL. I had great jobs in college football and knock on wood, I’m healthy enough to keep doing this at – what you say – my age. (laughter) So I’m looking forward to this year and years to come.”
(I wanted to ask you about the communication and protection calls up front and seeing a defense like the one that Head Coach Brian Flores and Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer run with all of those fronts and different rush packages. Does that kind of help accelerate the growth of your young line up front?) – “There’s no doubt. It starts – not just the young line, but the whole group. You’ve got to be – as we’ve all documented – part of offensive line play is more of the pre-snap stuff than the post-snap stuff. You come out of the huddle. They give you a specific look. We have to make a specific call based on that look and especially in pass protection, but also in the run game; so yes, there’s a huge communication factor that we go through making sure that it goes from the guard to the tackle to the center to the guard to the tackle, and making sure when we get different looks like our defense does – they’re very multiple; they give you a lot of different problems – and it’s really part of the whole maturation process and learning process to get the line to come together. A lot of it is just time on the job. Over and over again and seeing the different things that we’ve got to see and be able to handle and pass protection and obviously in the run game, too; but pass protection is really where that’s the difference between pro ball as opposed to college ball – what the young guys have. Not only for that but for the Ted Karras’ and Ereck Flowers’ and Jesse’s (Davis) and the guys that have had – who are basically young veterans, that every year – again, the nomenclature and the different ways we say things and the different language that we use has got to be practiced in meetings and practiced in games to be able to handle all of the different looks and pressures you get.”
