| August 31, 2020 Opening statement: “Good morning, (I) hope everybody is well. Obviously another big week in front of us here, so we’re excited to get going here today. Last week of camp – obviously competition is high, the reps and everything else we’re doing out on the field is important and critical. We’re excited to just get out on the field. As far as practice here today, right now Danny Amendola, Darryl Roberts, Hunter Bryant and probably Julian Okwara – they won’t practice or do anything here today. A couple guys that’ll be out there in some limited capacity, and that’ll change, it’ll be fluid as we go through practice, would be (D’Andre) Swift, would be (Bo) Scarbrough, (Da’Shawn) Hand, Danny Shelton and Mike Ford. So we’ll see how that all goes as we’re out on the field. OK? All right, what do we got?” On how much will having an expanded practice squad play into final active roster decisions and if he anticipates having less team-to-team movement: “Really good question. The practice squad is obviously exciting to be able to have more guys available, to be able to develop more guys and spend time with them. Certainly there’s some other things in there, like being able to protect guys through the course of the year, that we can do on practice squad which will be unique and different for this year. I think that really puts a great emphasis on us to make sure – like we always do – you’re going to try to keep guys on the practice squad that you think can help you at some point this year or guys you really see the development upside of being ready to go, at least have a good opportunity next year to go compete. From that standpoint, that’s what we’re always trying to do. We’re trying to keep guys on the practice squad that can help our team. It’s just an extended part of our roster. Certainly with the cut-down day, it always becomes very interesting, the movement that happens when you release players. I think it’ll be totally unique this year without those preseason games and seeing some of that footage. Maybe guys will just be really going off of their college evaluations if it’s a younger player, or obviously if it’s an older player then the previous years or the previous NFL experience he has. So it’ll be interesting to see how much movement takes place.” On if Defensive Coordinator Cory Undlin will be the defensive play-caller this season and the decision behind that: “Cory and I had some great conversation before he jumped on the media (Zoom) with you guys yesterday. I knew that was going to be a topic that everybody wanted to talk about. Look – there’s nothing really to hide here. Cory has been grinding away. He’s our defensive coordinator. He’s been working to understand everything that we’re doing defensively and obviously has his input. Cory and I have known each other a long time. Certainly without the spring it was obviously going to be interesting to see how training camp went and the operation and all that. He’s ready to go; he’s ready to call it and do what he’s got to do. He’s the defensive coordinator. But certainly the best part of it for me as the head coach, if I want to jump in on offense, special teams or defense, I kind of have that ability at any time, which is always fun. It’s really nothing more than that. We talked about it yesterday and said, ‘Look, they’re probably going to ask, so just tell them. We’re going to be on the sidelines. We’re an operation like normal, and we’ll go forward from there.’ Does that kind of answer it for you?” On if that’s going to change the defensive philosophy: “Philosophy-wise defensively – my philosophy is adjusted to whatever best fits our players. So I don’t know if that necessarily means that the calls – if that’s maybe where we’re trying to get detailed in to – will look the same or not. It will be best fitted for what our players do. Certainly in most years and my experience as a defensive coordinator, that’s certainly changed from the month of September to the month of December because your roster changes, injuries, growth and development of different players. We’ll always try to do the best we can to run whatever we have to run defensively to help us win that game. Certainly from that aspect of it that has not changed. Also, we’re going to do the best we can to put our players in positions to make plays because if they can make plays, and they can play fast, then obviously we have a great chance to try to win. None of that philosophy will change at all.” On if DE Austin Bryant will be ready for the regular season after being injured last year or if it’s too early to tell: “Probably too early to say on the last question there. But I think the difference for Austin is, he has a full year under his belt from a knowledge standpoint, experience standpoint of what we’re trying to do defensively and the roles and the positions that we feel he fits best for us in those situations. So he’s pretty dialed in and focused on that. The rest of it is hard when you get injured. We saw a great deal from him coming out of college and a great deal during training camp while we had him out there last year and come in to some situations where he was able to get out there and show us what he can do in the season, but from that aspect of it, we’re just making sure that he’s ready to go. We certainly don’t want to put anybody out there that we feel is maybe not quite physically ready to go, from that aspect of it. When he is, he’ll be out there, and he’ll be ready to go. I do know that. He’s a great guy, he works really hard. He pays attention to the details, smart and all of that. We’ll be excited when he can get out there.” On what he likes about DT Kevin Strong and DT Frank Herron as they compete for defensive line rotational roles: “I think those guys are out there working really hard. I think they know that the competition for those types of positions is really tough, it’s difficult. They’ve got to go perform. We’ve seen some flashes by those guys and some really good plays. I think they know that the biggest thing for them is just consistency, being able to do that consistently down-in and down-out, when you’re in those situations or in those roles or forced into more playing time. We just have to make sure that we understand what we’re doing and just do it the same every time, otherwise it’s gets a little bit difficult for the rest of the defense. That’ll be the biggest thing is just being consistent.” On the concern that guys on the roster bubble will go unnoticed because of the shortened preseason: “I mean, yeah, you hit this right on the head there. I think that’s the way everyone feels across the League. I think this is going to be a year where guys might fall through the cracks, and we might be sitting here in a couple months from now and we might find someone, or someone might emerge from someone’s team that no one knew anything about. I think the part of that’ll play in for us is the practice squad expansion, to be able to get some more time to look at these guys and kind of get in to a rhythm of what we do. Certainly during the season, we practice, we go out, and we compete and practice every day which is great for us because it really helps our players get better as we go through the season. It also helps us identify those guys that may be trending up, that we think that maybe are on the practice squad that can help us in a game. I’ve said it before, we only have so many games, so we need practice to be able to evaluate our team. That’ll really carry in this year from some of those guys that maybe we had a chance to see in the preseason games where we can get them through the practice squads and spend some more time with them. I’d see that growth and development over another month, we may be able to find those guys then.” On the collaboration process of putting a game plan together: “It’s a full team effort by the entire staff. It’s just kind of how it works. Everyone on the staff has different areas of the game plan that they work on, and everyone has different areas of the opponent that they, we call it ‘breakdown’ and analyze and reports on. When you’re in charge of those areas, you’re the expert in that area. Certainly we come together from a game plan standpoint on ideas, and we’re going to rely on those expertise. It’s more of a divide and conquer sort of mentality. It’s hard to take on an entire aspect of a game plan – and just to expect one person to do it – we want everybody’s ideas and want everybody’s thoughts. We want to put that together as a group. The fun part of it is when you go to the players, and you see and hear their ideas and their thoughts after their film study week-in and week-out and some of the intricacies that they want to have in the gameplan too, which is awesome. It is a big collaborative effort from a gameplan standpoint. Certainly in all three phases, all of that will be reviewed by myself, and we’ll talk about it and make sure that I’m on the same page with the direction of how the game needs to be played in all three phases. It’s a team game, so it takes all three phases to win. We have to all be on the same page as far as what our philosophy is that week to try to win that game. Too many times we see games where the offense may have one agenda, and the defense has a different agenda and the specials teams maybe has another, and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work that way consistently. Just making sure we tie that all in together, and we have meetings with the staffs, defensively, offensively and special teams. I meet with all of them individually. We meet collectively as a staff through the course of the week, and then also we’ll meet as coordinators towards the end of the week and (discuss) how the game is going to go, what we think it’s going to go and the calls we want to put together and what we want to feature. All of that goes in the process.” On what not calling plays frees him up to do on game days: “Just in general, philosophy for me as a head coach is to manage the game, and make sure that I’m there for all three phases when questions come up and certainly (when) we’re talking through scenarios, situational football as it comes up through the course of the game, penalties, things like that, and then obviously input. A lot of the times when I have the opportunity to watch our offense, and I know what our game plan is, I’m looking at the opponent’s defense and trying to make sure I got a good set of eyes on that so I can go back to (Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevell) ‘Bev’ and I can help him maybe with what the defensive game plan is at that point. Special teams is certainly one of the hardest areas, like we need all eyes on that because it’s so many bodies with so much space and speed to be able to see what happens through the course of the game to make sure that we have a good handle on that, and then defensively, sometimes I get a little involved there. I’ll get over and try to make some corrections and go through a couples plays. But obviously the input as the series is going, I’m going to be intimately involved with that too. It’s no different – I’ll walk over to the O-line too, and I’ll coach up a technique in a heartbeat during a game. That doesn’t matter either. So all of it is kind of fun for me. It’s free reign where I get to help and sometimes I see the game a little bit differently from my lens as the head coach as opposed to when you’re a coordinator and you’re dialed in to that call, that play, the next call or the next situation. Sometimes bigger picture stuff I can help with.” On if the Bears not announcing their Week 1 starting quarterback alters his preparation for that game: “Great question. Obviously been in those situations where we’ve had to prepare for a couple different quarterbacks. I think what will be unique, obviously it’s the first game without any sort of idea of what anybody is doing really. No preseason games, no evaluations of players other than what we’ve seen last year. I think it’ll be a big game for adjustments. It’ll be a big game to go in and hopefully just play good, fundamental football and not do anything that’s going to hurt you in the game, and those things like turning the ball over and penalties, and just go play a good football game and then coach it up as we go through the game and figure it out. We’ll obviously do studies on everybody that’s available for that position and make sure that we’re ready to go based on what they do and who they put that out there. We’ll handle that as we get towards the end of the week right now, just our focus is on making sure that with the shortened training camp we get a good evaluation here over the next couple days here.” On how he approaches preparing for different starting quarterbacks: “It’ll be interesting to see. They’re a little bit different in that aspect of it. Certainty we have a familiarity with (Mitchell) Trubisky and what he’s done from past games and things like that, but the other guy has a little bit of a different style, same athleticism. You still have to be alert for quarterback athleticism and things like that, but maybe some of the game plan stuff that they decided to do maybe a little bit different.” On the importance of this week of practice for a guy on the bubble or if roster decisions have been set: “I think it’s a big week. I think it’s a great opportunity. One of the things that we do as a staff and understand that maybe where we are on the roster and some of the battles that we still have in front of us and some of the guys that are competing for certain spots and make sure that we put those guys in situations. Sometimes I hate to manufacture the game, but sometimes we have to do that. We have to kind of manufacture those situations and see what the battle, see what the competition looks like and get a good eval on. We’re going to have to do that this week, absolutely.” |
