| October 23, 2020 Opening statement: “Really, just exciting to get out there and get to practice. Big day for us here, and kind of continuing building on the week. Just trying to get ready to go. Obviously have a big challenge here for us, working in the red area today. Atlanta, they do a great job down there on both sides of the ball, and we’ve got to go out there and execute today in practice to perform well on Sunday.” On the “Detroit Votes” t-shirt he’s wearing and if he’s voted already: “Voting tonight. The ballot showed up at the house, so hopefully I’ll get home here tonight and we’ll get that vote in. I think it’s great. I think the initiative and the conversation from our organization, from the League, from the players, just encouraging everybody to go out and vote and the importance of voting. It’s kind of really cool, I would say, this year in some of the guys that honestly have maybe never voted before and the excitement that just watching some – especially we’ve got guys that maybe have to get out-of-state ballots and stuff like that, just try to help organize all that. Just watching them be able to do that, I think, is pretty cool.” On how to combat the psyche of a team after a tough loss, like the Falcons’ loss in the Super Bowl: “I’m not really going to speak on Atlanta. Obviously, you lose that last game of the year – and I’ve been in that one, on the other side of that, a couple of times too. That’s always a hard one. I think, again, the biggest key for every team that’s in those situations is just to reset that next year. Each year’s a new year, it’s a new team. I think for us, it’s obviously just about trying to make sure that we understand each week’s a different week, and we’ve got to go into each game and compete, and the teams that we play against are different every week. Kind of just making sure that we’re doing everything and are doing our due diligence to try to give ourselves an opportunity to win that week. Obviously, Atlanta, great win last week. They’re a dangerous team, we know how explosive they are. So, we’ve really got to just focus on Atlanta and make sure that we’re doing everything we can to go out and execute and perform this weekend.” On if he has to remind his team that Atlanta is a better team than their record and any lead can vanish: “I think for all of us, you just look at their players and you can see how dangerous and how good they are. Certainly, from our standpoint, I think we know that it’s 60 minutes of football in the NFL. Sometimes it’s more. That’s just what it is. Like we talk about all the time, I think it’s 67% of the games are one possession (games) or seven points-or-less, and 34% are three points-or-less. I think you’re seeing that in the NFL this year. I think you’re seeing a lot of really close games. I think you’re seeing games that are high-scoring games that are really close. You’re kind of all over the board with it. So, from that standpoint, we’ve just got to stay focused, got to stay locked in and stay consistent through the course of the game. I think we’ve talked about that through the course of this year, too, and not ride the ebbs and flows of the game and just concentrate on the next play.” On if he set something up to help players get absentee ballots: “Yeah, we talked about it quite extensively through training camp, the importance of it. Brandon Scott, our Community Relations Manager, and Dylan (Thompson) in our player development, we actually set up some tables for the guys to be able to come in and help them register and get absentee ballots and also, make sure that we help turn them in and just have all of that available. Sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming. We actually worked with the Michigan voting department and kind of got some of that going too. So, I think we’ve really tried to get those resources available.” On if it helps that players have been vocal about voting rights: “Yeah, absolutely. Of course. I think it’s always just good – I think it’s always good to mentor younger players, coaches – it doesn’t matter really what it is. Sometimes they haven’t done it before, they haven’t had the opportunity. Certainly, I think one of the biggest, maybe hurdles, that I think guys have always felt or faced is being not in your home state maybe, and being out of that availability and trying to do it from an absentee standpoint. Just having those resources available and that sort of education piece I think has really helped.” On if he remembers the first time he’s voted: “That’s a great question. I think I do, yeah.” On what type of election he voted for when he voted for the first time: “I think it was presidential.” On how the players responded this week after a big win: “I think it’s a really good question because a lot of times it’s easy after you don’t perform well on Sunday to come back in and kind of lock it all back and understand what they did. I think it’s just as important for everybody to understand that after a game that’s more successful, how important it is to repeat that process and make sure that we understand all the hard work that went into it the week before. So, from that standpoint, our guys are working extremely hard. I don’t ever have any worries or issue with that with this team. These guys are, every single week, doing everything they can from that standpoint. Certainly, I think we talked about this before too, sometimes you walk off the field and you’re like, ‘Ah, that wasn’t very good,’ and you watch the tape, and it was better than you thought. Or sometimes you walk off the field and think that it’s good and it’s maybe not as good as what you thought. It’s all about getting it corrected and coming back the next day and trying to improve. We’re in the middle of that. We’ve got to have a good day today, the red area’s critical for us. It’s points, and certainly the most important stat in the game. Go out, have a good practice today and just keep going.” On what a second consecutive win would mean for the program: “Yeah, obviously that’s the bottom line – we’re trying to go out and win. So, from that standpoint it’ll be great, but we’re one game at a time. We understand that’s what it is. Really for me, I mean, I don’t know if momentum is something that I really ever looked at or talked about until you’re maybe five, six games into something, you know what I mean at that standpoint, or quite a few games into something – or another opponent is rolling in that direction. So, for us, it’s just about this game this week. That’s what we have to focus on.” |
