Terron Armstead – January 1, 2024
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Monday, January 1, 2024
T Terron Armstead
(What was the message today for the team?) – “Reviewing the film from yesterday, make corrections and get ready for Buffalo.”
(Seems pretty simple. One game here task at hand. Do you feel like anything needs to be said or everybody pretty much knows exactly what the expectations are?) – “Yeah, I don’t think there’s much explaining needed at this point. It’s the last game of the regular season. We have our goal number one in front of us: win the division. So we’ve got to go out there, execute, and get that done.”
(Is the feeling after this loss any different than after the other losses this season? More resolve? Do you need to change anything?) – “No, we’re not about to try to revamp or switch up anything. It was a tough loss for sure. They beat the (expletive) out of us in all three phases. We can’t take that lightly or ignore it. We’ll figure out where we lacked, how the game got away from us, and prepare for Buffalo, so we can go out and execute and win the division.”
(I think it was 27 minutes into the game, you guys were down by a touchdown. Even yardage. Everything was even across the board. I’m curious in your mind offensively what changed from that point forward?) – “Kind of hard to say. A team like that, they play very sound football, very in-tuned with each other and they execute at a high level. We have to do the same. You have to do the same. You have a team that’s a well-oiled machine, you have to go out and execute the same. Opportunities that we missed, we can’t really afford to do that in those types of games. So, just bad plays at the wrong time. Turnovers, busted coverage, missed blocks. You get into a game like that with a team that executes at a high level, it’ll get away from you quick.”
(With this game, obviously last time you faced them, I know you got injured in that game, and they got a lot of pressure on you with a four-man rush. Obviously that’s a challenge for the offensive linemen that you guys are looking forward to. What does it take to protect QB Tua Tagovailoa in such a critical game like this?) – “Yeah, every game. Every game that’s the goal. The first objective is to keep 1 (Tua Tagovailoa) as clean as possible. That’s never going to change no matter who’s in front. Four, five, six, doesn’t matter. We try to keep them as clean as possible. That’s going to be our objective number one. In our preparation this week, we’re going to go over our protection, make sure we keep him as clean as possible.”
(How much have TE Durham Smythe and TE Julian Hill helped you in terms of attaching some of those wide blocks off the edge all year long? Just kind of talk about their ability and what they have done to the running game?) – “Yeah, those two are amazing. They’re great. They feel like an extra o-linemen when we get a chance to run some plays with them two in the lineup. Understanding the leverage, angles, combination blocks, it’s pretty seamless. It feels like o-line to o-line. Definitely a lot of praise to Julian and Durham.”
(I’ve been asking everybody in light of the LB Bradley Chubb injury, being on the field when the deficit is so large when the game is basically out of hand. What are your thoughts on the Chubb injury? And your thoughts on being on the field in such a large deficit?) – “We’re here to play. We here to play football. So whether a coach tells us to come out or stay in, we’re not looking to look up at the score. They’re up 21, time for me to come out? Nah, that’s never the case whether we’re up or down. We’re just here to play football. Chubb specifically, he loves it. He loves being out there regardless. He’s not a guy who chases stats or watches the scoreboard. Chubb just loves to play football. It will never be a situation for him to be like, ‘They’re up big coach, take me out.’ That’s not him.”
(How hard was it just seeing LB Bradley Chubb go down?) – “It’s tough. It’s tough, man. I’ve grown closer to ‘B. Chubb’ (Bradley Chubb) throughout this process. He attacks it every day. He works. He works relentlessly every day, so it’s tough, man. To see him go down in that manner, he means so much to us. He’s an impact – he’s been phenomenal all year. It’s tough, man, but the first thing he said yesterday when I talked to him after the game was, ‘It’s God’s plan.’ So he wasn’t questioning it. He’s got the right mindset. He’s going to attack his rehab and be back better than ever.
(You guys have had a bad string of injuries recently, especially on the defensive side of the ball, and I know up front, y’all have been battling through a lot. How do you separate the emotions you were just talking about with LB Bradley Chubb and playing through stuff versus just making it happen, know that you have to?) – “That’s really it, we have to. Regardless of what we’re dealing with personally, at home, or an injury to our body, this game is going to kick off when it kicks off and it’s going to go down. You want to go out there with your best foot forward regardless. So when you prepare through the week, that kickoff time is going to be that kickoff time, no matter who is on the field, no matter what they’re dealing with. That’s how you’ve got to approach it.”
(You’ve had some deep playoff runs with the Saints. Just how important is it to win the division to get these two home games versus having to go on the road first round?) – “Yeah, I mean I don’t know the stats on hand, but I know those first two seeds have a higher percentage of getting to the big dance (and) get a chance to play at home in front of your fans, that energy that we can feed off of. We’ve been dangerous at home. But home or on the road, we’ve got to come with it. We’ve got to bring that energy, find it within. It’s always better when it’s the home crowd that can feed into it and they can be on the field with us. So locking up the (No.) 2 seed would be huge, for sure. But if we’ve got to go on the road, it doesn’t matter, man. It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to line up and go.”
(You’ve talked about how good you guys have been at home with the fans, what operationally feels different at home versus the road for you guys?) – “The road presents some challenges through communication. Like you said, the operation. So silent count – the silent cadence is 11 people trying to non-verbally communicate. Sometimes it gets a little grey, crowd noise can be grey, the center could be thinking it’s one mechanism when it’s another and we’re all relying on that indicator to when the ball will be snapped. But if he’s off, or if the quarterback is off, or if the play comes in late, or if the motion is coming in late, you can’t really communicate that stuff with the crowd noise. So that’s the challenge. The fans play a big part of the game.”
(Is it more impactful for your offense, like you mentioned, given how much motion and timing is based on?) – “I mean it is a challenge for the details, yeah, for the motions, snap timing. That’s probably the biggest challenge for the offense on the road is a lot of the snap timing Tua (Tagovailoa) can control when he verbally asks for the ball, but now he’s got to kind of watch the motion happen, tell Liam (Eichenberg) when to snap it and Liam has got to snap it on time. So just small details like that people don’t really know or understand, but that’s a big part of the game.”
(If I could ask you one more just from an educational purpose, the Ravens, at least when I saw it, it looked like they were maybe shifting a little bit late based off your motions. Is that something unique to them or have you seen other teams try to, I don’t know if they’re timing up your snap count based off the snap point or the motion?) – “Historically, the Ravens for a number of years now have been known for their disguises and trying to present one thing and show you something else at the snap. That’s kind of historically what they’ve done. Yesterday, I felt like they were pretty calm, actually. They didn’t go too exotic with the looks yesterday. We got out early the first couple of series and we were moving the ball on them pretty smoothly and it was quiet. But then when they got the lead, they were able to do a little bit more and get a little bit more risky.”
