| September 14, 2020 Opening Statement: “OK, well we just finished up the day here. Obviously going through the tape – a little bit of an unusual Monday for us from a standpoint of trying to handle meetings. We did meetings virtually as a team, as special teams, as offense and defense. A little bit unique trying to get things corrected not being in the large group settings, so that was different. We are able to meet in groups of 15 or smaller to be able to go through the tape by position coaches which is good. We had a lot of corrections to make from yesterday’s game and a lot of things to go over. Certainly was different from that standpoint – I always like to get everybody in person on Mondays as a big group and make sure we reset as we go forward, especially coming off of a tough day yesterday. All part of the changes of what this year is right now and what we’re all adapting to, trying to just get going here as we get rolling through the season. “I’d say with that, I think the guys – we understand we had a great opportunity yesterday, but really there’s a lot of plays in the game early on in the first three quarters where we needed to do a better job. We did a great job, I thought, with the halftime swing. I think that’s really where we kind of got a jump up there a little bit, but didn’t really settle the game and get it under control and finish as we got towards the end. It’s really all three phases. I mean, there’s plays in all three phases where I think that obviously could’ve changed the outcome and that’s where we got to get better. I think a lot of guys on the team – one of the things too that – some of the guys that were on that field yesterday maybe have never played for the Detroit Lions, were rookies or haven’t played football in a long time, even the guys that were out there that were injured at the end of last year hadn’t played in even longer. I think from that standpoint – first game for everybody trying to get things right, and we obviously have to do a better job there. Certainly was different playing in our stadium with no fans, that was unique I would say from that aspect of it. So we definitely miss the fans there too. We have a lot of work to do. We have a long season, and we have to get going to, really, Green Bay in front of us and another division game. It’s important that we learn from today and get going, flip the page, get ready here and have another good week of practice. That’s kind of where we’re at right now.” On what he can do to help the team finish better: “I think there are a lot of plays – I would say we focused on a lot of the plays that happened in the first three quarters. I think we understand the plays that happened at the end of the game that we have to do a better job of. But the first three quarters, we certainly could’ve put ourselves in a better position to not leave that door open at the end, even if it’s cracked just a little bit, in the NFL, we certainly understand the things that turn the games, especially late in the game, statistically and all that stuff shows up again. I think from us from yesterday, we know that we got to make some plays in one of the phases or all three phases. We have to be able to execute and make sure that we capitalize on the opportunities that we have to make those plays. So keep putting the guys in those situations, trying to get everybody on the same page as much as possible with the new pieces that we have in place and the new players that are out there on the field, so that we are moving as one. That’s important for all of us, and certainly we just have to keep fighting to get better, that’s really it. You don’t want to be in those situations at the end of the game. You really want to make sure you do everything you can possible before that, to handle that, so that you’re not in those situations.” On avoiding the “here we go again” mentality: “I think that’s a great question. I think that for us, obviously last year is last year, and there’s some definitely pieces that are different than where we were last year form that aspect of it. So we make sure that we’re focusing on the guys that are here now. There’s a lot of guys here who are in key roles that were not part of last year’s team, so they certainly don’t have that mentality at all. For us, we actually have to make sure it doesn’t creep in. Sometimes maybe you hear it too much from the outside world, then you start to think, ‘Is that the case?’ But it’s not the case for us inside. So right now for us, we have to make sure we understand it was Week 1 and we got to improve Week 2.” On what he said to RB D’Andre Swift as they were walking up the tunnel and how a rookie handles getting over a moment like that and refocused: “I think from that aspect of it – he’s a great kid. I mean I know obviously in this virtual world, you guys haven’t had a lot of chances to spend time with around him in person, but he’s a great kid. I honestly think – when we were walking up the tunnel, I kind of grabbed him, put my arm around him, because I knew that he was going to put too much of this on him when it’s not him. It’s not him at all. We had a lot of opportunities to win that game. It’s not about him at all. It’s about the other plays that happened. He’s going to make a lot of plays for this team. He’s going to be a great player for this team. Everyone goes through growing pains from that aspect of it, and I just wanted him to know that he’s a great player, he’s a great guy, he’s going to come to work, he’s going to keep pushing forward and to think that we didn’t win the game because of his play is total inaccurate. Obviously it’s just one of many plays from that aspect of it. We can’t do that to a really good, young player. I think if anyone tries to do that to a really good, young player, then you run the risk of that guy actually believing that and that’s not the case. He’s a great, young player, and we should all support him, and we should all be behind him. The great thing about that room is – especially with Adrian (Peterson) coming in and Kerryon (Johnson) and his leadership, all the guys that are in there, I think that they know that too, and everybody on the team. Honestly it was – because he’s a young guy and he was in that situation – I think he’s going to put more on his shoulders and that’s just the way that he is. He’s going to take that and say, ‘I should’ve done this.’ But honestly, we should’ve done a lot more as a team. He shouldn’t have even been in that position. He’ll be great. He’s a really, great kid. He’s a good, young player. We’ll just get him back out there. Everyone believes in him. We all believe in each other. He’ll be all right.” On LB Jamie Collins Sr.’s ejection: “Yup, I’ve spoken to him at length and spoken to the team. I think the bottom line is (that) there’s rules in place for a reason, and it’s to protect everyone that’s out on the field, including the officials, and everybody knows that. Whether it’s an honest mistake or not, you just can’t do that and that’s the bottom line. Jamie – he understands that; he knows that. Like you said, he was just trying to demonstrate more so than doing anything aggressive. It was more of a, ‘Hey this is what’s going on,’ and unfortunately got too close. So it’s not OK. We know that. We can’t afford to lose a great player at the begging of a game. It’s a hard lesson for everybody to learn, but it’s another reminder of those situations. Certainly our first game with officials – it’s a good check for everybody to understand, like, you can’t touch an official. It just is what it is.” On if it’s difficult to turn the page after a loss like the one to Chicago: “I mean, I think we’re still on Monday, so I’m still working through the game from that aspect of it. Certainly by tonight, by tomorrow morning, we’ll definitely flip the page. There’s a lot of learning in this game. There’s a lot of teaching, there’s a lot of situations that we got to make sure we get corrected. We don’t have the luxury of the four preseason games to teach some of this stuff right now. You try to do the best you can with, whatever it was, 14 days of padded practice that we had, but certainly live, in-game action – we’re coaching, we’re teaching, we’re learning on the fly. We have to do a better job so that we can turn those into W’s and not L’s because they still count right now. So there was really a lot of teaching that had to go on today and understanding that it is Week 1. There’s going to be some bad football here through September. We know that, but the quicker we can improve and get better through the course of this month, then the better we’ll be as we hit those next stretches. So hopefully we can learn from today. The guys did a great job with the meetings. They were really on top of it. Most of them with today’s technology were already, probably self-correcting harder than we’re going to by the time they come in here in the morning. So from that aspect of it, it was good just to reemphasize those points of what we need to get better at.” On the difficulty of having multiple injuries in the same position group and if soft-tissue injuries are being caused by the shortened preseason: “It’s a great question. It’s no excuses, just like you said. WE don’t use that as an excuse at all. I certainly do know that within a game, and this is just game management sort of information that we look at, when you lose two guys in one position, we know how thin you are roster-, depth-wise, and we do understand that there’s going to be a lot of adjusting and adapting and things that we’re going to have to do. So that was hard yesterday, but – Tony McRae did a great job I think of stepping in and competing. He gave us everything he had. He was making plays on special teams. So everyone knows they have to be ready to go whenever that happens. I think for us, we are taking a hard look at the hamstrings and the soft-tissue injuries right now. Some of it for us too is, maybe we mentioned last week too – I’m trying to coordinate with some of the strength training that we’re doing along with practicing and the muscle groups that we’re using and based on what days because I think you’re right. I think throughout the entire league everyone is looking at the same thing going, ‘OK, we had a condensed preseason. We didn’t have an offseason. We’re trying to get these guys in what we call “max-high efforts,” and what that looks like and when the injuries are occurring. Can we do something to try to build them up? Keep making sure that we’re building on top of that so that when we get to the game and those really open up, that we don’t have these injuries in the game itself.’ I think it’s a league-wide thing that everyone’s looking at. It’s really groins and hamstrings. I would say those are the two areas, and then after that would be calves. It’s kind of that posterior chain that goes down through the back of your leg that right now we’re looking at from the stress on those.” On what did and didn’t work offensively and if he knew WR Kenny Golladay wasn’t going to play earlier in the week: “We were just following the protocols as far as hoping to have him for the game, from that aspect of it. He’s been an established player for us for a long time. We’re definitely holding hope to try to get him out there any way we could. As far as with Matthew (Stafford), I think you hit it on the head. I think there’s a lot of guys who haven’t played football in a long time, and he hasn’t played in a while. So that was his first action out there too. I think he’s giving us everything he’s got through training camp, through the game. He’s competitive; he’s tough. He’s trying to do everything right. A lot of times we just have to go out and got to play better all the way across the board. Certainly there’s some guys over there in that Bears front that are pretty good, that can cause some problems, and certainly you’re going to be making sure that you have certain things in place that take care of them, but sometimes that hinders maybe some of the deeper throws that we can get downfield, especially if we don’t feel that we have all the guys in our arsenal that can go downfield in those situations. I’d say one thing I definitely saw in the game, really for both teams, was just at the end of the game, I think everyone was moving slower. I just think to try to get the ball downfield on both sides of the ball, guys were just weren’t quite getting there where they normally would. It’s the first time guys have played in to that snap count, obviously in this year, and really through training camp. We never got up to that total volume. You could see that across the board. That will improve as we go. Everyone will get better as we push towards the season.” On something he learned about coaching after the loss to Chicago: “Absolutely. I’m going to pick apart what we did as a staff and see what are the areas maybe we can do different. Certainly there’s plays in the game that you want to have back, whether you’re a play-caller or from my standpoint as game management. Maybe you could have made a difference, and I could’ve helped the players better. Some of it goes back to the preparation, maybe we could’ve done something a little bit different – a different package, spend some time on some different looks, maybe a couple different plays situationally to try to make sure we executed some of those, especially at the end of the game better. So that’s where I start. I kind of go through my process there and I would say from my end, there’s a lot to learn from yesterday’s game. I think that definitely in some situations we could have tried to help the players out a little bit more, maybe put them in some positions to make some plays. On the flip side of it, we have to make some of those plays. I got to start with me. Whenever there’s something wrong with that – How can I improve? How can I get better? We will this week. I told the team that this morning. I said I’ll coach better, and we’ll play better. We’ll go out and practice hard and make sure we’re ready to go.” On if he has to provide extra assurance on gameday with multiple injuries to the same position group: “Definitely. I think one of the things that for us – obviously as we get towards Saturday, and we know that’s kind of the last time we can make roster moves and situations where we can either bring somebody up from that standpoint, practice squad – kind of have the new rule this year. So we put guys in position to be ready to go. Sometimes it’s not always maybe a one-for-one, may not always be the same position. Maybe it’s out next best playmaker or another guy in the pass rush, another guy in the front if it’s a DB, might be the next DB – it just kind of depends with special teams in there, too, of what that player’s impact is and that phase, and who’s available to kind of handle some of the duties there that may free up another guy to take the responsibility of someone that has to replace someone with a hamstring injury or something like that.” On what it was like not calling defensive plays: “No. Cory (Undlin, defensive coordinator) was on top of the defensive calls. He actually had a really good feel for it. We were trying to make adjustments and everything on the sideline. I was really trying to do the best job I could of trying to get with all of the phases, all three phases. That was our first time as a staff, and two new coordinators, to try to game manage in real-football situations without the preseason games. So as much of the simulations as we did, obviously within the game, things move fast, and making sure that my communication to them was clear. We go through a lot of scenarios during the game. Certainly from hypotheticals that are really important, so that when we get in those situations, we’re not last minute. It could be something from the standpoint of, ‘Hey look, this is a drive where – by field position, if we get in close, we’re going to do this on fourth down; we’re going to do this on third down,’ and some of the game-management calls that need to be done there. So I was really trying to make sure that I wasn’t putting any of the coordinators behind a little bit by making a late decision from that standpoint.” On injury updates from CB Justin Coleman and CB Desmond Trufant: “No update right now. Evaluating them today, and we have to see what they look like tomorrow.” On if CB Justin Coleman and CB Desmond Trufant are Reserve/Injured candidates: “Yeah I don’t know right now.” On why he’s focusing on the plays that occurred in the first three quarters: “Absolutely. I think for us, just to understand the opportunities that we have, whether it’s down in the red-(zone) area where we have to capitalize there, whether it’s third-down plays that maybe we have to stop them, early-down run game and how that affects control of the game, things like that. If we want to get them corrected earlier – and some of the plays were just, you know, first time out there. We’re doing some things that weren’t really how we practiced or coaches it or whatever it might be. We’re just trying to settle some things down in the game a little bit to kind of be more productive, I would say, earlier in the game from that phase. Honestly, it was a tied ball game and then we had the halftime swing, which I felt was excellent, those guys did a great job of that, then it came back to that third quarter and the start of the fourth quarter – there were just some plays in there that I think could’ve really changed the scenarios at the end of the game, and some of the, call it two-minute to four-minute-type back-and-forth situations that we’re in, and that maybe would’ve nailed it down to a two-minute situation all the way through for the other team. So some of those plays that I think are really important to capitalize on, so that you don’t have to be on those constant back-and-forth situations at the end.” |
