| October 21, 2020 Opening statement: “OK, hope everybody is doing well. Obviously a big week in front of us here, so just pushing forward, getting ready for a really good Atlanta team. Obviously they played a great game last weekend and (a) team filled with a lot of talent, a lot of ability and some explosive playmakers all the way across the board. We’re just kind of back at work, back at it, trying to put another good week of preparation in and get ready to go. We’ll just jump right into questions.” On what he saw from Atlanta’s play last Sunday and the return of Falcons WR Julio Jones: “I think they played a really outstanding game. I thought they were very aggressive. I thought they had some great plays in there that turned the game in a certain direction. Obviously offensively for them, it starts with the quarterback, with Matt Ryan, but Julio Jones – his return, his play, his speed, his strength, his power, his run after catch, all of it – just showed in its full form, and I think that you just see on tape how dominant he is as a receiver, how great of a player he is. It’s like I say all the time – when you’re that great of a player, and everybody knows you are, try to do everything you can to limit what you can do, but you still go out and do what you do every single game. It’s pretty amazing. That’s a big one for us right there. I think they’ve done a great job of just complementing. I thought (Calvin) Ridley did an outstanding job when he wasn’t there, and he’s a really good player, (Russell) Gage too. Those guys have done a great job, and you can see that in its full form this past weekend. I think you see what that offense is about.” On if DE Julian Okwara’s injury season-ending: “I don’t think we’ll put a timetable on Julian’s situation. We’ll just kind of take it as it comes. But I would say it’s just day-by-day at the moment, week-by-week. It’ll be a couple weeks here, but we’ll see what it looks like.” On what he hopes to get out of DE Austin Bryant returning to practice: “We don’t look at the big picture, I think what we’re trying to do is just make sure we get a couple good reps here today for him and make sure we see what that looks like and give him some confidence and just get back into the rhythm of things for him. Austin’s a phenomenal guy every single day he studies, he learns, he listens, he works hard. I’m excited just to get him back on the field and let him get going and coach him and see where we’re at. But certainly haven’t done football stuff here in a long time, so we just have to be patient with that, too, and make sure that we go through the process to get him back out there in the right manner.” On what is unique about playing a team with an interim head coach: “I think from that standpoint, we’re focused on the guys on the field and the game. I don’t know if there’s anything drastic that we saw. It’s only really been one game. I think you would obviously note that. I think sometimes things change, maybe over the course of the end of the season, if that happens early enough in the season, but for us right now, it’s their guys on the field. These guys are good players. They are obviously productive, extremely explosive like I mentioned, but the defensive side of the ball – Grady Jarrett, this guy is phenomenal inside. Obviously Deion Jones, (Keanu) Neal as a safety, I think it just looked like a team that was well-prepared. They played hard. You saw all of their great players show up in the game and I think that’s something we look at first on tape.” On the status of CB Desmond Trufant and him looking forward to returning to Atlanta: “I think that’s always obviously a great, underlining story every time those situations come up, but I think the reality is we’ve got to just do what’s best for him and best for the team in trying to get him out on the field, regardless of who we’re playing. We understand those situations, but he’s working hard to get out there and do everything he can. We’ve got to just be smart all the way through, too.” On if he has to address the team with the trade deadline looming, and how the team goes about making trades: “Honestly, I really haven’t thought about any of that stuff right now. Just pretty focused on Atlanta. I would say typically, just sharing conversation with it, usually teams, right around the trade deadline, will start to make phone calls, they’ll start to inquire, they’ll start to ask. I think at that point, it depends on what individual teams are looking for from that accord, and what they might be interested in and what that whole picture looks like from both sides. That’s usually where it starts. Right now, for me, it’s really just Atlanta. That’s kind of just where I’m at.” On how difficult it is to separate winning now and getting picks for the future: “I think those are always difficult thought processes and conversations. Certainly, Bob (Quinn) and his staff do a great job with that stuff and weighing out the balances with all that and communicating that all across the board. For us, it’s just focusing on what’s in front of us right now, really.” On rookie CB Jeff Okudah having to cover Falcons WR Julio Jones this week: “Julio Jones is phenomenal. I don’t know how you want to look at it – fortunate enough or unfortunate enough – to play against this guy and watch him just do some amazing things out on the field. I think for young corners, and certainly guys that haven’t played against him before, I don’t think you really understand how big and strong he is. You see him run incredible routes on tape, and I think that most of the guys that you see run routes with that sort of detail, that sort of explosion, that sort of change of direction, aren’t really that big and that strong. I don’t mean that in a negative way. This guy is big and strong and can move like that. It’s just a whole different level guy. So, you just try to do the best you can to prepare him for what he does, and obviously just try to have a good game-plan around it and give the guys confidence that, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and obviously we’ve got to play an entire, complete game as a defense. I think they’ve done a great job. (Calvin) Ridley on the other side – some of his ability to get in and out of breaks, his explosiveness in start-stop is amazing. So, I think they’ve just done a good job with those guys, and Julio deserves all the attention that he gets. They’ve done a great job of balancing that one. One of the guys I think is sneaky in the whole thing is (Hayden) Hurst. I think he’s a guy that you spend so much time worried about the wide receivers, that the tight end position gets lost in there, and he has some big plays, too. You just try to settle it down to, ‘Hey, this is the gameplan, this is what we’re doing. Let’s just go try to go out and execute. It’s one play at a time.’ Understand, he’s going to make some plays, you just got to try to minimize some of the things that he does.” |
