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Steve Marshall – November 3, 2020 Download PDF version

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Offensive Line Coach Steve Marshall

(Sorry to put you on the spot with this, but I was curious what your thinking was when T Austin Jackson is healthy and returns, is he immediately your left tackle again or does this become a difficult decision because the way G/T Jesse Davis has played at left, G/T Robert Hunt has played at right?) – “Austin (Jackson) hasn’t put a helmet on for a month. We’ll make that determination when he gets out there (and) he’s cleared. He’s working hard. He’s in all the meetings. He hasn’t missed a beat mentally, but you’ve also got to make sure he’s healthy and full-speed. So that’s the least of my concerns right now. We’ve got these Cardinals we get to deal with right now, but whenever Austin is ready – he’s chomping at the bit. I talked to him yesterday and whenever that time is, then we’ll go from there.”

(I’ve asked you this so many times during the season in terms of a run game identity. Do you feel like you’re getting enough surge at the line of scrimmage to sort of help the run game?) – “I think we have – let me say we’re not as consistent as we all would like to be. We’ve made strides in a lot of areas, but we need to be more consistent on a down-after-down basis. And that just comes with a plethora of things that – I could list 15 things as we go, so we want to keep – every week is a new challenge as we’re just coming out of meetings talking about the Cardinals. The Rams presented a certain challenge, as did the Jets and San Francisco. So yeah, do we need to be better? Absolutely. But we’re doing some good things. We’ve got to continue to build on what we’re trying to get done.”

(I’m curious about maybe what we can’t see on game day – the protection calls and whatnot. How much did that change from QB Ryan Fitzpatrick to QB Tua Tagovailoa as far as identifying blitzes and where the o-line goes and how much does it…) –  “Not really. Not as probably much as you think. The one thing as you know, we went from ‘Fitz’ who is probably the most experienced – one of the most experienced – quarterbacks in the NFL to Tua who’s obviously Day 1, first game. The calls or anything really don’t change. Understanding what they’re seeing in front of them, understanding and making sure that we can get the right guys blocked, which we’ve done a heck of a job of this year and I’m sure we’ll continue to do that and get them protected. But the calls really haven’t changed any. Obviously Tua’s first time through getting a pro pass rush coming at him every minute obviously is a thing that he’ll get better and better at, and obviously the young guys we’ve got up front on offense have continued to get better and better at knowing the different and the variety of blitzes they get, especially on third down. Arizona is going to be no different. They’ve got a really dynamic third down pressure package that we’ve got to get ready for.”

(I’ve got sort of a technical question for you. Just generally speaking, what are some of the keys or coaching points you have when it comes to staying on blocks in the running game and how would you evaluate your group with regards to hitting blocks and staying…) – “You’ve asked really the same question before. It’s something we work on every week, something we continue to strive and get better. We have a Frankenstein drill, we have an eight-second drill, we have different drills that we do every week that are part of the process of getting on blocks, knowing the angles, getting our hands to the appropriate area. So yeah, every week that’s one of those things that we do. Our Frankenstein is how do we block linebackers, how do we block down linemen, things like that. That’s a fundamental part of what we try to do.”

(Something I’ve noticed that I’m just curious about. I think I noticed that G Ereck Flowers is often in a two-point stance when sometimes his line colleagues there have their hand on the ground. Obviously he’s played tackle…) – “You’ve just noticed that? That’s been going…”

(Is that a personal preference and what goes into making sure that it doesn’t impact the tells…?) – “No, when we’re in the shotgun – it’s more tied to shotgun and under center really, and it’s all orchestrated in how we want to do it and things like that because he’s not the only one that’s in the two-point stance quite a bit. There’s a lot of guys that are in two-point when we’re in shotgun. It’s really based on a lot of different factors, so it’s just not ‘E’ (Ereck Flowers). Rob Hunt will be in it a lot quite a bit and Jesse (Davis) and Solomon (Kindley) sometimes and things like that. All those guys – we have different ways to handle those things.”

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