DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MIKE CALDWELL
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2022
(On what they learned during last week’s struggles against Eagles QB Jalen Hurts) “That we’re still in the
process of becoming a good defense. We have to take this loss and learn from it. They did a great job
yesterday of getting back to work, working fundamentals, go back out there and line it up again.”
(On the confidence gained from seeing CB Tyson Campbell make a big stop) “We have the confidence
because we’ve seen him in practice and we understand that he’s a good player. That position, a lot of
positions in the back end, you hear it all the time, you’ve got to have a short memory, and he did a good
job of coming back and playing the next play, and that’s what you have to do. They’re going to make
plays at times, and you just have to brush it off and come back and go back to battle.”
(On the total missed tackles and how many more than would be acceptable) “I think it was right around Too many more. In this game, you have to tackle. It helps us on third down. Instead of it being third
and short, it’s third and medium, and you’re in a different thought process.”
(On if he expects the defense to come out strong after last week’s performance) “As far as being a
competitor, that’s what you look for. If you fall down, you’ve got to get back up. They came to work
yesterday with the understanding of we’re back to the basics. We’re trying to go 1-0 this week. We’re
going to go back and be ourselves and get back to the way we play football, and we’ll see how it goes.”
(On how much the quarterback being mobile and able to run affected the defense and defending the
run game) “I think that’s part of it. He’s another option that they have, but at the end of the day, we
were out of our gaps. We didn’t play fundamentally sound, so we’ve got to get back to doing what we
do.”
(On if he would rather face a quarterback like they will see this week who is less of a running threat) “It’s
really, in run game, you just want to go out there and be successful in the run game no matter who’s
running it. They have a really good running back, and we have our work cut out for us.”
(On how much of a loss it will be if DL Foley Fatukasi cannot play Sunday) “It would be a big loss, but we
have guys that are ready and able to go behind him, so if he’s unable to play, the next man will be up,
and we’ll go.”
(On what makes the defense be on the right side of turnovers, given the saying that they come in
bunches) “It’s a lot of effort and just mentality. We talk about it, but the guys go out there and really
think about it, and they practice it, and they practice fast. That’s part of it, being able to be around the
ball, being able to go fast and affect the quarterback, affect receivers, and like you said, they come in
bunches.”
(On Head Coach Doug Pederson giving credit to him for the defense being able to create turnovers
regularly “I wish I could say that, but they’re the ones out there making the plays. We talk about it as a
staff, and we talk about it as coaches to the players all the time. We have different things behind the
scenes that we try to stress, but they go out there, and they’re in the right position, and they play fast,
and they are creating the turnovers.”
(On the progress he has seen from S Andre Cisco from game one to now) “He’s consistent. You saw him
early on, communication was there, now it’s just even multiplying. He’s communicating and made the
big play last week, and we’ll just continue to see those happen.”
(On what kind of stress WR Brandin Cooks can put on a defense) “He’s a guy that they go to. He’s their
guy that when it’s time to get the ball or time for a critical play, they’re looking for him. Anytime you
have a guy that’s a volume player that has a skillset that he has, it’s going to be a tough day.”
(On Texans QB Davis Mills) “He has athleticism, and he’s able to command the offense. You see him, he
throws RPOs, throws deep passes, he’s able to hand the ball off, just to be able to run the show for
them. That’s the way they want him to play, and I think he’s playing that way.”
(On what defenses can do to make it harder on young quarterbacks) “I think in the way we go about it,
any quarterback, you want to speed them up, you want to pressure them, and we just want to go out
there and show them a different look and pressure them as much as we can. The front four, they’re
going to get after him, make him speed his clock up so that it’s uncomfortable for him.”
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR PRESS TAYLOR
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2022
(On QB Trevor Lawrence’s adjustment on ball security) “Yeah, that’s something we’ve emphasized since
the day we got here and continue to emphasize with him in the pocket of always being ball aware,
having two hands on, being secure in your grip, and that’s one of the danger zones we talk about, is in
the pocket. The way he holds the football, we continue to emphasize that in individual. We continue to
show him examples of good, bad, and it happens. Quarterback, you get hit in the pocket, you’re
extended, you’re ready to throw the football, something happens from time-to-time. We want to do
everything we can in our power with drill work, with just emphasizing by showing him good, showing
him bad, and he understands that. That’s something he’s working to correct for himself as well. But
yeah, it happens, it was very unfortunate. The unfortunate part, in that game at least, was that there
were two completely unforced. We had a quarterback center exchange and then we had one that just
slipped out of our hand. So those were the really disappointing ones. When it happens in the pocket, it’s
going to happen from time-to-time. You want to do everything you can to not let that happen, but we
understand that. The two unforced were the ones that really, really hurt us.”
(On if QB Trevor Lawrence will change his plan of wearing gloves with weather) “Yeah, we’ll talk about
anything that will help us. We’ll present the idea of possibly wearing gloves if that’s something he wants,
but again, the quarterback’s got to be comfortable. Really, the players in general have to be comfortable
going into the game. If that’s something he feels comfortable with, then that’s something we’ll do. If he
feels like that gives him the best ability to hold onto the football in situations like that, now I haven’t
been in many games that were like that in terms of just the amount of rain and all that. Yeah, we will
explore all avenues just to give us the best possible situation if that comes up again.”
(On adjusting the game plan mid-game) “Certainly. It definitely changes. You got a lot of good plays on
the call sheets that you want to get to, and you’re just not able to. When you get 46, 47 plays. You don’t
get to run the ball as many times as you want, you end up in different situations when it’s two minute
and you’re forced to throw the football. It definitely skews your numbers over the course of the game.”
(On if WR Jamal Agnew has earned his role) “Certainly. He definitely stepped up. With Zay (WR Zay
Jones) kind of battled through the week to see if we could get him ready to go. Ultimately, we just made
the decision that it was best for Zay and the team to let Zay get healthy a little bit longer. Part of that
comes from we know what Jamal is and what he’s capable of. We had a lot of confidence that him and
Tim Jones (WR) could step up and fill that role. That kind of works with a lot of different people, we have
some versatile running backs, we have versatile tight ends that we feel like we can plug and play and move things around if we need to. If a situation comes up like that where we have a guy that’s a day-to-
day decision and ends up not making it, we have the pieces within our offense to be able to move around like that. Jamal is certainly one of those pieces. The greatest thing about Jamal is his mental
flexibility. We can tell Jamal the day of the game, ‘Hey, I need you to play X and, on this play, I need you
to play F, and on that play I need you to play this,’ and he can handle it. He’s one of the smartest guys
we have, communicates really, really well in the huddle, and he’s going into the huddle with other smart guys. He’s able to talk with Marvin (WR Marvin Jones Jr.), Christian (WR Christian Kirk), Tim Jones (WR),
and there’s a lot of times where you probably don’t notice it, but they’re switching positions. You would
never know that unless you knew exactly what our formation was called. We have a lot of smart guys
that give us the ability to do that, and Jamal is just one of those guys.”
(On what flushing the game means to him) “For us, you’re flushing the game but you’re really just
moving onto the next one. No matter what, we tell our guys all the time, when our meetings end at
whatever time, 12:30 or 2:00 on a Monday, that game is over, and we’re all about moving forward.
Whether that was the best game we’ve ever played or the worst game we’ve ever played, we’re going
to spend Monday morning learning our lessons from that. When you win, you still have a lot of lessons
to learn. It’s a little more fun to learn those lessons from that standpoint, where you’re watching the
tape where you won the game. Either way, you win, and you move forward, because Monday at 1:00, or
Monday at whatever time it is that the film ends, we are moving on. We got to put together a plan. We
got to study our opponent, put together the plan of attack, and be able to learn that plan. All our guys,
win, lose, Monday at whatever time that is, we all move forward. It’s that 24-hour rule that everybody
talks about. Personally, I think when I get home at the end of the game, I’m still processing, and when I
lay in bed I’m still processing. But I got little kids and a family at home. It’s pretty easy to be at home
when you’re home. Your mind always has football in there at some point in time, especially in season,
but I don’t really have a lot of problems being there with my family when I do get the ability to be
home.”
(On how to be more efficient running the ball) “I think that’s everything. That’s putting ourselves in a
good situation to build around the ball, you don’t want to be in second and ten and have to run the
football. You may average four yards a carry there, but you’re not getting what you need out of the runs
there. It’s a matter of first and ten and staying on schedule, that’s a big part of it. We want to run the
ball when it’s second and three. That’d be perfect. We’d be in second and three all day long, we’d call
any play in our playbook and we’d feel good about the results of the play. It kind of goes with
everything. It’s everybody finishing blocks, it’s maybe the quarterback maybe getting us into the right
run at the right time, us calling it in the right situation. I think with anything, with execution, it really kind
of all goes together at all points in time, of us understanding what we’re trying to attack in that
situation. The way they play first and ten defense out of base is different than the way they play first
and ten defense out of nickels, then different the way they defend second and ten. It’s kind of all those
situations, it’s just our ability to put our guys in the best possible position, them understand why we’re
trying to do it, what we’re trying to attack, and then everybody executing their job to the highest level.”
(On if more cohesiveness is seen as the season is progressing) “Yeah, I think so. As gameplans tend to
get carried over, runs get carried over, we got a little more time on task running this particular scheme
or that particular scheme, or maybe it’s the exact same play we’ve been repping for three weeks. You
just see guys get better and better and better. They build in that contingency plan of, ‘Alright, we
worked to get against this, now this is happening, how do we do this?’ They just get better and better as
they go. Again, we talked about it way-back-when, but it’s Week 5, it needs to be better than it was in
Week 4. That’s just kind of how we go in all aspects of our offense.”
(On talent of RB JaMycal Hasty) “Well, he’s got a skillset that we really want to be able to utilize, like a
lot of our guys. Now, there’s only so many snaps that you can get so many guys on the field, but the
guys that do the right thing or produce when they have the football, we’re going to continue to find
opportunities for those guys. With him, he was a late add for us, right before the season, it’s been
piecemealing. He’s been learning gameplans, he hasn’t necessarily learned the offense, but as you learn, now you’re on the fifth gameplan, things start to make a little more sense to him. He’s getting a little bit
more comfortable where he’s earning that trust that he can handle this. To put him on the field and
hand him the football, you’re maybe not handing that one to TJ (WR Tim Jones) or you’re not handing
that one to James (RB James Robinson) or any of our other guys. There’s always a give-and-take, but a
guy that gets an opportunity and produces with it, we’re going to try to find opportunities for.”
(On using motion plays to make it harder on a defense and easier on a quarterback) “Yeah, there’s a
number of different reasons you’re using motion. Sometimes it’s just purely to disguise the formation
that we’ve been in a number of times to run one of our top concepts. There’s a number of times where
it’s giving the quarterback information or receivers information. There could be times where it doesn’t
really apply to the quarterback, but it’s letting the receivers know potentially man zone, potentially
who’s covering me or who’s covering him, how they’re going to adjust. Then, I kind of have this
accelerated vision of how I’m going to run my route now. Then, there’s time where it tells the
quarterback all he needs to know; I know I have man; I know I have zone. We pour film over the week,
we try to find all the indicators we can, so you try to utilize that in any way, shape, or form. The more we
feel like we can force communication, whether that’s minimal communication or wholesale changes
over the defense, we’re going to try to do that. We also want to protect our core stuff and make it look
like something. Maybe it’s just matching attendancy, we have a couple runs where this is the motion
we’ve done on this run, can we just add it to this pass just to break attendancy? It’s kind of a wholesale,
self-scout type thing, and it’s really a play-by-play basis I think.”
(On Texans defense being a challenge this weekend) “I think it’s an underrated defensive line. I think
those guys, having been in the division last year and played against them twice, and coming out of those
games feeling like it’s a talented, young pass rush group. Then, you add Jerry Hughes (Texans DE Jerry
Hughes) who’s had a lot of production in this league for a long, long time, he does a great job. I think as
they roll through guys, the edge players are pretty good. Greenard (Texans DE Jonathan Greenard) does
a good job, Lopez (Texans DL Roy Lopez) is a great player, Maliek Collins (Texans DL Maliek Collins), all
those guys. Then you add Mario Addision (Texans DE Mario Addison) potentially back into the mix, I
think he’s a talented front that does a good job to present a lot of problems.”
(On the challenge Texans CB Derek Stingley Jr. brings) “He’s a really good player. The number three
overall pick, obviously you have a lot of talent and then you can see that they have a lot of confidence in
him. He’s shadowed premiere players in this league already, followed Mike Williams (Chargers WR Mike
Williams) around. He’s a guy that can make plays on the ball, he’s a guy that can be sticky in coverage.
He’s a big, physical, long player which just presents issues anytime the ball is thrown his way. He had a
couple nice pass breakups in the red zone against Indianapolis early on. You just see his length. You see
his confidence in the way he plays. Adding him and then Pitre (Texans S Jalen Pitre), the safety in the
backend, they’ve done a good job to add some young players, and going at Jerry Hughes (Texans DE
Jerry Hughes) that I mentioned earlier. They’ve done a great job of trying to fill that defense up.”
