OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR PRESS TAYLOR
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
(On what kind of threat the Texans bring) “…Well, I think schematically, they’re kind of similar to
what we saw in Indy where they line up and do what they do. The wide-nine front, Coach Burke
[Texans Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke] and those guys, DeMeco [Texans Head Coach
DeMeco Ryans] they’re familiar with in San Francisco, it really lets the d-line tee off and they’re
firing off the football, penetrating the three-technique. All of the different things that you see in
a lot of these fronts that we’ve started to see, they’re doing a good job of. Obviously, they have
talented edge players, they have good solid interior players as well to let the linebackers clean
everything up from there. You can see that early on in their system, this is game three for them,
playing in a new system for some of the guys. A lot of the free agent acquisitions, they all came
up in the system somewhere or another. They’re familiar with it, but you can see it starting to
get implemented and they’re doing a good job. They’re playing really, really hard.”
(On how the offense will change if Texans CB Derek Stingley Jr. is injured) “Yeah, they’re still
going to play the same thing. Shaq [Texans CB Shaquill Griffin] came up in Seattle, come up in
this coverage scheme. It’s something that he’s familiar with, he played in the Indy game and you
see him out there in that game as well. A lot of these guys have played, whether it’s in this
system in Houston getting implemented for the first time, a lot of these guys come up in the
system. That’s where Shaq cut his teeth playing in this style of coverage unit. It’s something he’s
very familiar with obviously and he’s done it for a long time.”
(On how he handles frustration when a camera is on him in the coaching booth) “I was in Philly
for eight years. Outside noise doesn’t affect us inside. I’m here, pretty much all day every day, so
I really don’t have social media and don’t listen to the radio or watch TV. I don’t really have time
to, so ignorance is bliss. That doesn’t really bother me at all.”
(On level of concern of the offensive line, specifically OL Anton Harrison) “He [OL Anton
Harrison] is not the first player to ever have a tough time with [Chiefs DT] Chris Jones. It’s
certainly early in his career and at times, we put him in a tough situation and that’s on us as
coaches. We got to do a great job of making sure we’re protecting matchups and doing
everything. They get you a little bit and they’re a big pressure team and you’re trying to protect
against the pressures, then all the sudden you realize you have the personnel matchup at times.
You’re picking and choosing how you want to deal with it at certain times. I think our offensive
line is continuing to come together. We just finished Week 2 and we’re getting into Week 3, we
expect growth and you see as you mix and match pieces in camp, you get [OL] Ben Bartch back
in here. There’s some gelling that I think comes together that’s to be expected, but I think everyone in our unit in general, offensive line and offensive unit, we all think we need to play
better in Week 3 than we did in Week 2 for sure.”
(On the impact of shifting receivers around if WR Zay Jones can’t play) “There’s a possibility,
we’re fortunate in that we have versatile pieces. We have guys like Tim [WR Tim Jones], guys
like Ag [WR Jamal Agnew] that provide different elements. With our tight end room, being able
to mix and match 12-team personnel and 13-team personnel to give us some of the elements
we get. From a coaching staff perspective, it’s certainly easier to know early on if a guy is playing
or not, if it’s a guy that ends up being a gametime decision or something happens on gameday,
that’s where it gets tough to mix and match and change your gameplan as you go. We’re doing
everything we can to communicate with the training staff to get a feel for where Zay is and what
we expect out of him. We’ll be able to massage our plan either way.”
(On how much of the previous home game against the Texans is reviewed) “You really don’t pay
attention to that. The personnel has changed, the scheme has changed pretty dramatically. That
was a more cover-two base coverage unit, this tends to not be like that as much. That’s not
something we necessarily pay attention to.”
(On if he goes back and reviews San Francisco’s defense last year for personnel reasons)
“Absolutely. We all pull our experiences of playing against those guys as they’ve been together
but that’s where Coach Ryans [Texans Head Coach DeMeco Ryans] has had the most experience
as a defensive coordinator, so you see his identity and how they played. You’re always checking
the tape, is it the same? Is it aligned? Is this who they are? That’s always the research you do
throughout the week to get a feel for it.”
(On threat of Texans DE Will Anderson) “He’s a good player, he’s disruptive. He’s a guy that, for a
long time, when you go to the scouting combine you talk to players and Alabama, who would
you bring with you? That’s a common question. What teammate would you bring with you? Just
to get research. For a couple of years, you’ve heard the name Will Anderson. I don’t pay much
attention to the defensive guys coming out of the draft and stuff, but I certainly knew his name.
When they were able to get him back in there and get him at three, and he’s in the division,
you’re not exactly excited about that.”
(On growth of OL Anton Harrison by playing against talented pass rushers) “You got no choice,
you’re out there and either you get it done or you don’t. It’s on us as coaches to make sure
we’re putting him in the best possible position. If there’s a way to provide help in some way,
shape or form, if there’s things you can do schematically to take advantage or to protect certain
matchups, that’s what you got to do. Playing right tackle in the NFL is tough, there’s a lot of
really good rushers that happen to be on that side nowadays. One of the things that we knew
about Anton coming up that we vetted from people at Oklahoma and just his background
growing up, we felt like this was a kid that mentally would be tough. It’s going to be hard as a
rookie offensive tackle in the NFL. As a rookie offensive lineman, you could name the position
you’re going to see tough guys every other week or so. We felt like this was something that Anton would be able to handle as you went through the bumps and bruises of being a rookie
offensive lineman.”
(On if he needs to let the game come to the players) “Yeah, you do. At times, you start fighting
the feeling of, ‘Alright, we need a big play here. We need to spark momentum.’ What got us
going last year a little bit was just sticking through our plan. We built a game plan that we
believed in, we executed the plan regardless of the situation, and we chipped away at whatever
we needed to do to get ourselves going. You fight the urge to start digging and looking for a big
play when it’s not necessarily there. Coach [Head Coach Doug Pederson] talks to the team all
the time about making the play that comes to you, don’t go chasing plays. That applies to all of
us, coaches and myself as the play caller. The same idea of just sticking to the plan that we’ve
created and believed in from Monday to Saturday when there was no emotion involved in it.
Just stick to that, let the players make the plays and that’s where we want to go with things.”
(On if there’s pressure on the offensive unit to perform) “I think something like that is natural, I
think as you hear the noise, and you hear all that if you let that get to you. I think at the same
time, we have very high standards. It has nothing to do, at least from my perspective or the
coaching staff’s perspective, it has nothing to do with outside noise or people. We expect a lot
of ourselves. We expect to play at a certain standard that we felt like through two weeks we
haven’t been able to achieve yet, or consistently at least. We know if we just keep chipping
away, we trust the process that we’ve gotten plays for how we build gameplans and how we
practice and prepare the guys, we just really double-down on our process.”
(On what the overall reasoning was for a bad offensive performance last game) “It’s a play-by-
play basis. There were certain things that took place that overall led to a frustrating day, I think if you’re able to punch a couple of those redzone opportunities, the day feels very differently. I
think the biggest thing is, we talked about this as a unit together on Monday, the biggest thing is
we felt like we let down the two other units on our team. We felt like special teams and defense
gave us opportunities to win the game and as an offense, we didn’t carry on our weight and do
our part. That’s where you feel the worst, you feel like you let down the rest of the team.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MIKE CALDWELL
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
(On what stood out most about the defensive effort and energy last game) “Just guys playing together. I
think they understood the gameplan, they went out and did a good job executing and just had fun going
out there and playing hard.”
(On if the defense being more in-sync has to do with being in a second year together) “Absolutely. Guys
have played together and understand each other. The calls are the calls, they know them, so they’re just
going out there and executing.”
(On maturity and growth seen from OLB Travon Walker) “I think when you look at him, his games
improved and he’s matured as a person and as a player. You see a lot of stuff that it’s the second time for
him, so he’s more comfortable doing different things. He’s locked and loaded, ready to go.”
(On if there’s a positive to playing rookie quarterbacks early in the season) “I don’t think so, because
there’s so much unknown. You go back and look at college film, you try to see what they did in college,
see what system they’re going into to, and see how it fits them but at the end of the day, guys are going
to go back to what’s comfortable for them and what they’re good at. That’s what we face, it’s a lot of
uncertainty but we just go out there and try to play our game and try to make them adjust to us.”
(On importance of the defensive line to take advantage of the offensive matchups due to injuries) “I
think every week you go out there and you want to control the line of scrimmage. That’s one of our goals
and that’s what we look to do every week. If we do what we’re supposed to do, go out there and control
the line of scrimmage and play well as a total defense, things will fall into place.”
(On what’s been seen out of Texans QB C.J. Stroud) “He’s a guy that I knew a little bit coming into
college. My brother-in-law was with him and I kept hearing about him, about how he’s a great college
quarterback and he can do this. Watching him on film, he’s poised back there and he hasn’t thrown an
interception yet. He’s completing so many – I think he’s up in the 60% of his completions. He’s a guy
that’s poised, has good accuracy and he’s a quarterback that stands back in the pocket and makes good
decisions.”
(On what kind of matchups the Texans have at wide receiver) “They’re big outside. They’re big guys and
once they get the ball in their hand, they’re hard to tackle. They’re guys that are just going to go up and
compete for the ball. He’s [Texans QB C.J. Stroud] is a quarterback that can throw the ball and put it in
the right spot, and they’re big receivers that can get up and fight for it and go get it.”
(On how to contain Texans RB Dameon Pierce) “We just have to continue to focus on tackling. We didn’t
tackle as well as we wanted to last week, so it’s another emphasis this week. We have to go back and
focus on it and try to get as many guys as we can to the ball, understand to do what we teach and
practice, how to get guys on the ground, go out and have another go at it this week.”
(On talent of S Andre Cisco in his range to catch an interception) “It was a good one because he missed
one early. That’s the thing, he’s a guy that’s going to get his hands on a lot of balls. He’s that talented and
he has great anticipation. But, he missed one early and I was like, ‘It’s going to come back to you.’ And it
came back to him, he made a breakout in the middle of the field and made a play.”
(On if he can tell early in a game if interceptions are going to happen) “It’s kind of hard because you get
opportunities, you just have to come down with them. We touched the ball a couple of times early on in
the game, gave the quarterback a few different looks. At the end of the day, they come in bunches,
turnovers do, takeaways do, and we just want to put ourselves around the ball and put ourselves in
positions to be able to make a couple of plays.”
(On how much OLB Josh Allen’s pressure impacted S Andre Cisco’s interception in last game) “I think that
we say that all the time. They go together, the coverage and the rush go together. Sometimes you’ll be in
a step behind and the pass rush will affect the throw. Sometimes we’ll be in coverage and the pass rush
won’t be there, you’ll need a couple of seconds. They go together and Josh does a good job of pressuring
the quarterback, he had a big hit. But you never know when you’re going to need your teammate, so
that’s why you’re always accountable for your guys. You got to go out there and, ‘I got to get to the
quarterback. I got to cover.’ It all goes together.”
(On S Andre Cisco showing awareness in catching an interception last game) “He did, but if you look at
the play, [CB] Tre Herndon was in great position, he was on top of the receiver. He threw the ball to the
opposite hash, we had a half-field safety over there which was Andre. He ended up where he was
supposed to be and made a good play.”
(On why the defense has been able to get off to a strong start this season) “We’re 1-1, a strong start is
that we won one and lost one. I don’t know, I wouldn’t call it a strong start. We’re a work-in-progress,
we’re going to go out there every week and try to do the best we can to give our team a chance to win.”
