| Opening Statement: “I’ll start by saying how proud of this defense I am first and foremost. Each week, you continue to see improvement. It’s something we talk about each week about how we want this defense to operate. To able to fight the way that they fight, you’re starting to see a little swagger with them. You’re starting to see a little bit more anticipation as far as plays are concerned. Each week – for the last three weeks, we’ve forced a turnover. We’re hitting the quarterback, we’re getting sacks. With Charles Harris to have the most sacks he’s had in his career, you’re starting to see those things start to show up. It’s a continued process for this team, for this defense, and I can’t be more proud and happy that they’re continuing to improve. Now, I’m not proud of the record, not proud of the record at all, but those positives as far as third down, again, sticks out from last game. Those things just continue to be something that we want to emphasize as far as us getting better as a defense, and the guys are really, really buying into that. So, we just have to continue to do that, to continue to understand things we have to work on. But there are some things we’ve got to fix. We understand that and the players know it. They know it and we as coaches know it, too, so we’ve got to make sure we do our job to continue to help those guys get better in those situations.” On OLB Charles Harris’ four-game sack streak: “Well, I will say this first and foremost is the talent has always been there. A lot of times as a coach, you have to make sure you can match that talent with a scheme that allows him to go out there and be successful, and that’s one thing we as coaches we pride ourselves on is to make sure that as much as we can, each player makes sure whatever they do best, you put them in those positions to be able to successful and we try to do that with Charles. Right now, he’s hitting the quarterback and getting the sacks that we expect him to get and we want to continue to do it with him along with everybody else and what they do well, also. Now, you can’t do it with everybody because of schematically how you do things, but for the most part, you try to do that as much as you can.” On what an ideal situation is to rush three defenders: “Well I will say this, the first thing I do is I look at who we have. And then the next thing I look at is who the team has and you make your decisions from there. We’re really young in the backend and the more you expose them to pressures and things like that, the more issues that can happen. So, you try to do the best that you can to try not to put those guys in situations to where you can expose them, and that’s always been my philosophy. Each week is different. There are some weeks where I’m like, ‘Man, listen, there is somebody that’s got to have the hard hat and you have to wear that hat this week.’ And this week, I feel like that was the best decision to make. Just like any other week, any other decision I make in the game, I feel like those are the best decisions to make and we go with them.” On if rushing three defenders changes with a more experienced secondary defending: “I don’t want to say that because every situation can be different. It can be, ‘Who do we have in the game as far as us creating those pressures?’ Because with those three guys, you’re looking at, ‘Who are those three guys?’ Because they’re in there for a reason because there are other situations that happened because if the clock was running, then you might have a different play to where you want those guys to do something totally different. Each week I just try to think about, ‘Who do we have? Who do they have and what calls can I make to put those guys in the best situation?’” LIONS OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR ANTHONY LYNN QUOTE SHEET October 14, 2021 On if he has changed the verbiage of the offensive play calls: “We’ve been doing more of that over the last couple of weeks. I grew up in the west coast offense and it is a lot of verbiage, but I don’t believe in a lot of verbiage. But, sometimes when you have a young, inexperienced group, you’re trying to tell everybody what to do and that verbiage can get a little long. We’re at a point now where I think our players understand concepts, where we can shorten things up, and hopefully create a little more tempo.” On the typical length of play calls: “You don’t want it to be 10 words, but you shorten it by guys – just like I said, guys learning concepts where you don’t have to tell everybody what to do. They know what to do by one word.” On using key words in offensive play calls: “These guys coming out of college, that’s kind of how they operate anyway, to be honest with you, but they have to learn the concepts first.” On an example of what a play call sounds like: “You could go, ‘Six gun, double right, spider O across, Z escape.’ Just something like that. You can just maybe call that ‘rally’ and you learn it from one word, formation, play, snap count, the whole nine. We’re getting more into some of those.” On quarterbacks visualizing a play in their heads when they get the play call: “Yeah, and most quarterbacks are like that, especially veteran quarterbacks. When you’re giving it to them, they visualize, and then they see it again as they tell the group. But it can get so long that it can make it hard for them to visualize it, as well. It’s just a few concepts. It’s not a lot, but we can definitely do a better job of trimming it a little bit.” On if QB Jared Goff is being aggressive to a fault: “Everyone’s trying to make plays. At the end of the day we just have to do our job. I think that’s natural when you’re an opposition. He’s trying to make a play here and something bad may happen. He’s doing fine.” On what the offense can do to score a touchdown in the first half Sunday: “Yeah, not turn the ball over. We can start right there. We’ve had four turnovers in the last couple of weeks in scoring territory. When we improve in that area – and that can start with me – the play selections, our calls when we get in those areas, but it also starts with our protection and our quarterback decision making. We can all get better in that area and we plan on doing that, but having four turnovers in scoring territory, that’s been tough not coming away with points in those situations.” On T Taylor Decker returning to practice: “I believe he got some walkthrough reps. Nothing team-wise and it’s just good to see him back out there.” On what he needs to see T Taylor Decker do at practice for him to play Sunday: “Hopefully today he may get some practice reps just to see how he moves around and see how uses that hand.” On how an injured finger may affect T Taylor Decker’s play: “They use their hands a lot. That is very true, and so putting a club on it and trying to play, guys have done it. It’s just whatever you’re comfortable with. Right now, we just want to see him get back out there and take a live rep before we can decide anything.” |
