October 14, 2020 Opening statement: “OK, hope everybody is well. We’ll just dive right into questions here, obviously coming off the bye week, just ready to get out there and go to work. Big game with Jacksonville.” On Jacksonville’s roster and the problems it can cause on each side of the ball: “I think they have some phenomenal young players mixed with some great veterans in there, and you see those guys out there on the field playing and playing at a high level. Josh Allen, we talked about him on defense, I think he’s an outstanding, outstanding young player. This guy can be very impactful in the League for years to come. CJ Henderson, obviously a rookie corner, but I think he’s an outstanding player too. So they’ll be able to obviously keep pushing him along – and with Myles Jack leading the charge on defense. I think they have some great players, mix some good veteran guys with the younger guys. Offensively, obviously we talked about the running back like you said, with (James) Robinson, but even (D.J.) Chark who’s only a third-year guy out of LSU, and (Laviska) Shenault I think is phenomenal. I think this guy’s going to be a big problem (the) more they start to gameplan with him and put him in different situations. Good mix of young guys playing and veteran leadership – I think they’re just trying to put it all together. They’re just a dangerous team from that standpoint. They’re very, very explosive and that’s one thing we have to do a good job of making sure those explosive plays don’t happen.” On the lack of consistency: “I think the bye week is a great time for us to really look at the things that have happened over the first part of this season. I think that’s one thing that certainly when the results aren’t what you want them to be, that’s one of the factors that goes into that. We’re working hard to try to make sure that there is consistency. I do think that that happens through the course of the year, especially with team and change and different guys on the field, different coaches, just building those relationships and through the course of the year of making sure that consistency takes place. Right now for us, it’s about being consistent against Jacksonville, making sure that we go out today, and we have a good practice, and we have a good day and put that into another good day tomorrow, and hopefully play well on Sunday.” On the reasons for inconsistency he found when evaluating performance over the bye week: “From our first four games – taking a look at the bye week, there’s certainly some things that we saw that we need to improve on that hopefully we’ll get better at. For the most part I would say trying to do a little bit less overall would be good and try to get our guys to be able to play faster out on the field, that’s certainly something I think we can do, and then build as we go forward. Definitely some stuff in there that I thought was really good for us.” On if he subscribes to the theory that it’s easy to find contributors at the running back position: “That’s a good question. I don’t know if I’m going to wrap any players into that theory or just talk about it in general. Yeah, I think from that (general) standpoint, all the way across the board, you find players, hopefully, that maybe come out of different situations and just, like I said maybe on Monday, when they get into the NFL, something happens and the lightbulb comes on and they play really well – whether it’s the linebacker position, the corner position, all the way across the board. I think that’s what’s so unique about the NFL is that – college is great, and whatever anybody did in college is perfect – but I was also around a phenomenal offensive guard that I had the pleasure to coach that never played college football. He was a college wrestler. I just took some time and he developed and was a good guard. From that aspect of it, I think everyone just makes the most of their opportunities, and when they do, if they can breakthrough, then I think it’s great.” On how his philosophy has changed with the drafting process of running backs: “I mean I don’t really want to get too much into draft philosophy, and I think all the drafts are a little bit unique based on what happens, where you pick, who picks before you, what the depth of the positions are that are available, things like that. So I’ll probably just stick to Jacksonville right now.” On what he’ll do with G Joe Dahl and T Halapoulivaati Vaitai when Dahl returns to practice: “I think it’s great for us to have our guys healthy and get back out there and compete. Certainly, Joe has been working really hard to get back on the field and he’s got to get out there and practice and kind of get back in the swing of things, but we know how good of a guard he is, and we know how good of a player he is for us. It’s great to have great players. I mean, certainly from that standpoint, I think all of those guys out there, they go compete whenever they have to. Certainly Oday Aboushi went out and started for us and did a (good) job, Kenny Wiggins has started for us before. I think all of those guys, when called upon, they go out and they give us everything they’ve got. I think it’s just great to get guys back healthy. I think you just always want your team as healthy as possible and create as much competition as possible. Certainly, from that standpoint, Joe adds that competition, certainly, to the O-line.” On Jaguars WR Laviska Shenault Jr. being versatile and if he thinks the future of the wide receiver position will see more versatility going forward: “I do think there are some guys like that do have that kind of crossover, I really do. I think Coach (Doug) Marrone has obviously done a great job of utilizing him with Coach (Jay) Gruden and putting him into some different packages that have allowed him to be successful, and I think it just, obviously, puts a tremendous amount of stress on the defense to try to figure out exactly what player he is. Is he a wide receiver? Is he a running back? Is he a gadget guy? He can play wildcat quarterback. So, you spend a lot of time, defensively, trying to figure that out, and I think there are a number of teams that have been doing that for a while and have guys in different positions. Sometimes some of those trends catch on and when you have one of those guys and maybe you see another opponent do things like that, you say, ‘Hey, we have that guy, we can put the stress on the defense like that. Let’s invest in it,’ and I think they’ve done a great job of investing in him. I think one of the things about him that I also see on tape with the run game and all of the different things he does – I think he’s getting to become a better route-runner. Some of the over routes and things that he does, some of his nuances with his head sticks and some of the body language that he gives to be able to create separation, I’ve seen that get better through the course of the year.” On how often he watches tape of another team and gets inspired to utilize those concepts with his own team: “I mean I think overall, in general, I say this all the time, it’s a copycat league. So, I would say that there’s stuff every week that you see on tape that you say, ‘Hey, we do that, or we have a version of that. That was good,’ or, ‘Hey, that’s really good. It fits into our package or our personnel, let’s investigate that.’ Or you see something that’s really good and you’re just like, ‘We don’t have that type of guy.’ But you definitely look at all that stuff and say, ‘Hey, if it’s successful or it’s giving other teams problems,’ you try to definitely see if you can do that too.” On if he expects G Joe Dahl, CB Mike Ford or RB Bo Scarbrough to be ready by Sunday: “I mean, obviously we haven’t even hit the practice field yet, so we’ve got to see where they’re at. I know they’ve been working really hard, so we’re excited to get them back out there and put them in some situations and see how it goes. I would say with that overall, you still always want to be safe with return to play guys, especially in contact sports where they haven’t had that maybe repetitive contact or any of those situations yet, and you’ve just got to get through practice, take it day by day and see what it looks like.” |
