September 25, 2020 Opening Statement: “Good morning, everybody. (I) hope everybody is well. Obviously off and running here on a Friday, getting ready to go, got a big game in front of us. Really for practice, as far as guys out on the field – I think Calvin (C.J. Moore) is the only one today, probably won’t do much. He’ll be out there, but I think probably not too much for him today. Everyone else, again, kind of get out there and see how they feel. Got some guys trying to work back from some of the injury situations previous, so sometimes we get a little bit more out of them once we go through stretch and see how they feel. So we’ll just see what it looks like when we get out there. Other than that, let’s just dive into questions and go from there.” On where he has seen TE T.J. Hockenson’s develop: “I’d say the biggest thing for us right now, in that second year, certainly understanding more conceptually offensively what we’re doing and how the pieces fit together, understanding and taking a look at some of the different coverages that maybe he started to see at the end of last year, maybe that he didn’t see early in the season and as he developed through that season, defenses maybe paid a little bit of different attention to him, and some more specific type of coverages that he would have to deal with having that knowledge going into this year. I think that gives him a head start.” On the difference between practice and game reps for a young player’s development: “Absolutely. In-game experience – we obviously always talk about game speed. I certainly think there’s game speed post-snap, but there’s definitely game speed pre-snap too, along with the motions of formationing, the adjustments, the communication, all of that happens at a much higher level. Especially as a new player or a young player, sometimes your communication may be a little bit hesitant. You may be asking as you communicate as opposed to just having that pure confidence that comes with in-game experience and the reps and all the rest of it. That’s a big thing for us, trying to improve that. I think that’s a big difference when you go from practice to a game is the speed of the pre-snap, the communication and then obviously the length of the game. For (Jeff Okudah) in particular, the corners, very similar to the offensive line, those groups that really don’t rotate a lot during the game, those are the ones that now go from maybe a max of 29 or 30 rep at practice, to all of a sudden to a 65-play game, and that’s a lot at game speed. Those are the biggest differences here in Week 1, or your first week out there compared to as you push towards and through the season.” On the way the team has responded throughout the week: “I think our guys know – we treat everything as a one-game season. I mean, that’s what it is. We have 16 one-game seasons from that standpoint. We reset. We do a good job here I think of resetting every Monday and making sure that when we get done with the game from the previous week, that we push forward, and we understand what we have to do to improve, and we go to work. I think that’s the bottom line. We’re here to work, and we’re here to try to do everything we can to put ourselves in a position to play well on Sundays. Really, anything other than that is not really in our mindset. It’s kind of just, ‘Let’s go out. Let’s work, and let’s get better, and let’s go.’ These guys are working this week which is great.” On how big of a hole the team feels like they’re in being 0-2 with the rest of the season ahead of them: “I mean I think for us, we just have to stay in the moment for this week. Let’s not look (at the) big picture. It’s the same thing we talk about in-game. When you get outside the moment, and you’re outside that one particular play that you got to make, and you let everything else compound it, a lot of times everything else can affect your execution on that particular play. It’s no different for the games. We just have to focus on this game.” On if TE Hunter Bryant suffered any setbacks: “I think he’s just pushing through just like we expected. We know coming off the injury there’s going to be days where you feel really good and days where you’re probably sore. It just hasn’t had that time and – also conditioning is a big part of it for these guys right now too. If you miss some of that conditioning time, guys that – even though it’s limited, we’ve had some time to get into that multiple-, consecutive-reps-in-a-row-type of shape. So just pushing ahead from that standpoint, progressing. We’ll see what it looks like.” On what the team learned from their first road trip last week: “I think a lot of it for us, too, is making sure that everybody’s safe, and we’re trying to do a good job with the information that we have, certainly from the League. They’ve been great, and with our own internal studies of the contact tracing and what do we do to keep players safer in the different environments that we’re in. I think, obviously, the familiarity of traveling again – even though this is a longer trip. It’s a little bit different. We’re going to be out there and it’s going to be a longer plane ride. A little bit different from a setup, obviously, the time change. Every trip’s a little bit different. I think, at least, there’s some routine. We’ve got one under our belt from that standpoint, from a travel standpoint, so there’ll be some routine to this one, and then hopefully we can just stay focused on going out and playing well.” On what he wants this team’s identity to be: “Great question. I mean I think I love to talk this stuff. So, I think the Raiders, what’s great about that organization is I don’t think the identity of that team’s changed forever. It doesn’t matter who the coach is or what the situation is there. I think that’s always been the same. Pittsburgh, obviously I think they really built their identity in the ’70s, but definitely through the decades, you’ve seen where (Ben) Roethlisberger has kind of come in. They’ve always played (that) style on defense, but a different element with him and the offensive side of the ball and certainly through his career, that’s been ever-changing, too. I would say for us, and the Detroit Lions, I think for us, we’re just trying to make sure that we’re a tough football team and we have that defined by certain things we do during the game, and we want to play at a high level. We want to be competitive. We’d like to be a smart football team, which is something we’re still working on from that standpoint and eliminating some of the bad stuff that happens out on the field. And really, for us right now, it’s just being consistent and making sure that we’re not inconsistent in a lot of things that we do. Every team is different every year now in the NFL, and that’s true. There’s changeover every year, and we’ve had a lot of changeover in the last couple years, and hopefully we have a little bit of a foundation now that we can build on and these guys can start to grow and develop together as a team and push forward and kind of cultivate all of that that we talk about. But hard-working is probably my No. 1 thing that I think is important for our team, is just every single day coming in, work hard, get better and improve and keep that blue-collar mentality. I think that’s really what resonates with me and what I think is so important to this area. This area’s a hard-working, blue-collar town. I mean, that’s what it is. It’s tough. There’s a lot of things that this town has overcome, and the adversity that has come through Detroit and this city and the team. They battle through and in the end, they persevere. We’ve just got to keep doing that because at some point, we’ll get all that, we’ll breakthrough and when that happens, it’s going to be pretty exciting. We’ve just got to get to that point.” |
