| August 14, 2020 Opening statement: “Good to see everybody – appreciate everyone jumping on. Hopefully everyone did a good job with their COVID-19 test for those of you who had to take it. I’m not sure how far in there they got with those swabs, but they do that every day. It’s a good time. We’ll dive into this as far as where we’re at – so finishing up Phase 2, heading into Phase 3 tomorrow. We’re excited to keep progressing as we go forward. Certainly a little bit of a long process for us here, but we’re just trying to do everything a way to stay safe as we put everybody back in the building. Our first time to have all 80 (players) in the building this week which was great, then really, kick into a longer schedule as we progress towards training camp on Monday. Guys are working hard; guys have done everything that we’ve asked them to do. Really just a very impressive group overall with their focus and their drive to do everything right. I think for all of us, without the spring, realizing how fragile all this, I think everyone is just excited to get out there, get on the grass together and start working. We have a lot of work to do. We’ve had some situations with the walkthroughs where we’re all in the huddle, and we’re trying to communicate, trying to put a play together, trying to go get lined up and it certainly looks like it’s our first time. So we have to get that fixed and go forward from there. But we have a couple more days before camp starts. I’ll just open it up and let you guys ask questions.” On how valuable the teachable moments occurring in other leagues are to use as examples: “That’s a great analysis there for us. We do try to use everything we can to educate our guys all the way across the board. So certainly things that don’t happen within our sport, if they can apply (and) that we can learn from then I think that’s really important, and certainly things that happen within the sport, those directly correlate. So for us, I think our guys are just trying to understand, ‘Hey, we’re trying to do everything that’s possible to keep everybody safe and (not just) keep yourself and your teammates, but your families and your teammates’ families.’ We know those situations come up, and we deal with them the best we can when they do. I think the biggest challenge for all of us I would say, as we get comfortable in these environments and we get better – or more time into it and you do feel safer, but it’s just staying diligent with being protected. Sometimes it’s easy to maybe forget your mask when you walk out of your office or you walk into a new room, but you have to have it on, you have to put it up. Just staying really consistent with that stuff, I think, is important because as we progress here things will change, variables will change, so we just have to make sure we’re doing everything that’s possible to stay safe.” On if he envisions on-field practices looking differently this season: “It’s a good question. I think everything looks differently right now, and I think the guys are getting used to that. Maybe by the time we fully get on the field it’ll feel normal, even though if you just compare it to last year it is different. I do think that there are certain aspects of the things that we do are going to look exactly the same, but maybe it’s after the snap that looks different or guys are paying a little bit more attention to what they’re doing with their equipment or the water bottles and things like that that we’ve had to address and how we hydrate. All that stuff will definitely look different.” On if there will be more live tackling periods during practice in the absence of joint practices this preseason: “You nailed it. That’s one of the biggest issues we have right now is just trying to get those tackling fundamentals full-speed and live. We do kind of mix in some live periods when we get to training camp, certainly down on the goal line. We usually do that relatively quick. One of the things we have had to evaluate is: We’re going to need to tackle somebody before we get to that first game. You need to feel it; you need to see it; you need the see the speed of it. The question is: How do we do that in a safe environment? Certainly from the preseasons games, that’s where you get your live-action in there with the tackling part of it. But we’re going to have to do that, and I think for us, it’s putting them in, we call it in-line situations, where maybe they collision and the contact isn’t as great, and it’s a little bit of a safer play and try to eliminate some of the more space and speed type of plays. But they still need to feel that; they need to be able to drive through and just get that out of the way, and do it also in a point in camp where we’ve had enough practice where we feel comfortable doing that safely and everybody’s operating at a high level in equipment, and also far enough away from the first game where you have enough time to recover from that standpoint. The tackling is a big one, absolutely.” On how he’ll balance the ramp-up period while keeping players safe: “It’s definitely a tricky balance. I think the one thing about football that’s probably a little bit different than every other sport, is that at some point you need to get hit. You need to do some hitting – that’s just a part of the game. There is a little bit of an acclimation period for your body when it is tacking shots, and you’re getting hit from different angles, different directions. You’re just getting used to some of those plays that are just taxing on you overall. So the key for us will be able to take advantage of the ramp-up period, get into pads here, get into practice, slowly build upon that as we go. There are certain time restraints that we will follow as we push forward in to that – try to hit the target mark, let’s say what would normally be the third preseason game – and build towards it slowly there where we’re really operating at a high level (on) what would be that game or that game week. Try to get a scrimmage in and try to take a look at those live situations that we can practice and execute there. I’d say the other really big challenge for us is going to be special teams. I think that’s the one area and the one phase of the game where we say all the time, ‘It’s really hard to simulate the speed of special teams in practice.’ We use those preseason games, certainly in the foremost, to get specials teams reps during a normal training camp. So that’ll be a big adjustment for us. We’re really going to have to push that as hard as we can to get a feel for that, so it’s not the first time (against) Chicago. On top of that, it’s constantly trying to stay in front of the injuries and make sure that we’re doing a good job of keeping the team healthy as we go through that. So it’ll be a big challenge for us. But if we try to keep those markers the same as we normally use and just understand that in the game of football, the only way to get better is to practice – that’s first and foremost. It’s not like the other sports where you have a lot of games to go out and play, and you can get better by playing games. We don’t have that luxury, and certainly without preseason games it’s even less. So for us, we have to improve during practice.” On if he’s seeking advice from NFL and college coaches on how to ramp-up practices or if it’s kept internally: “Great question, and I’ll go in reverse order. I think honestly for us, my resources in college football and the guys that I know that coach at that level were probably the first ones that I contacted going through the spring because they were in the virtual world before we were. Our offseason program started a little bit later than their offseason program or their spring program. So (I) got a lot of guidance, a lot of advice and tried to pick their brain as much as possible on how to do that virtually. That was hugely helpful from that aspect of it. Then going in to training camp, certainly from a standpoint of college football, they don’t play preseason. So there is a ramp-up period that they follow and how they acclimate and get their players ready to go for the season. Those have been great tools for us to use and conversations for us to have with some college coaches. On the professional side, you’re absolutely right. You do have your network of close colleagues that you work with and have worked with in the past and tend to communicate, reach out and bounce ideas as much as you can. The thing about it is once you see it rolling, just like everybody else, you hate to bother guys because you know they’re in the middle of it too. When you can reach out, something comes up, you have a question, certainly you’re trying to use as many resources as possible. I think with as unusual of a time as we’re in for training camp, I think everybody really understands (that) this is all new for everybody. Let’s try to bounce ideas and help each other out, as opposed to keep it all close to the chest, to yourself.” On if he’s had any staff members test positive for COVID-19: “Really our positive tests have been limited from that aspect of it. I can’t remember off the top of my head. Obviously there’s nothing pressing otherwise I’d remember either way, and I’m also not sure how deep into all that I’ll go just in general with just everyone’s own individual care.” On how to evolve QB Matthew Stafford’s success in with Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevell’s offense from Year 1 to Year 2: “That’ll be a great challenge as we go forward through that because certainly there are things that were really great last year that we liked and parts of that season everybody was intact or there were groups of guys who were intact that are here now. I think certainly there are new pieces that are added and definitely the growth of those players individually will affect how things happen and how that offense elevates itself and it evolves. That’s the exciting part of it. Certainly with Matthew with the second year in there and more command and more control of the things that he can do – we all know how special that is on the field, so that’ll be exciting to see. We do understand that without the spring, rolling in to training camp right now with a limited amount of opportunities – we have to get ready for the season. This is something that’s going to have to evolve as the season goes too, and as everyone gets a little more comfortable with their roles in the offense right now.” On where the team is at from an installation standpoint: “I said this to the team last night, ‘Think about where you would’ve been last night if things hadn’t changed.’ Right? It would’ve been out first game. From that aspect of it things are completely different. We would’ve been coming back and evaluating game tape already. So from that aspect of it, we’re trying to just – we put the installs in together. We kind of have an idea of how many installs it takes to get ready to go. The different thing for us this year, obviously is without those preseason games, without travel the day before, the post-game, the day after evaluation, we actually pick up three extra days with that. So we spaced it out accordingly and put it at that target point of the third preseason game to make sure that everything is being installed so that we can go through and run and prepare to approach that week like we normally would, and put the emphasis on getting ready for the season. We backtracked it from that standpoint and made sure that we got everything in. I think certainly part of it is having conversation with the coaches and the players, of maybe some instances, less is more and just try to get really good at a couple things as opposed to trying to install too much right now knowing we’re going to have to do that as we go through the season.” On his preferred gameday atmosphere if there are no fans: “To be really honest with you, I haven’t really thought about it too much because we haven’t even taken the field yet for a snap, offense versus defense. Certainly at home, I’d like any advantage we can get. I’m all for that. But on the road, definitely not, so if they can get us just at the home games that’d be perfect. But I haven’t really thought too much about it.” On how different his approach to the first month of regular season will be because of no preseason: “I would say honestly, my approach to the season in general probably changed a bunch of years ago when we lost doubles in training camp. We took the spring and really tried to space out installations going back to the spring, and then took the idea that training camp where we’re not going to have as many practices as we normally would, and you start to look at things in September a lot different. You start to look at the schedule a lot different from that aspect of it. Obviously, even more extremes now with the scale-back without the spring and trying to get ready for the season. So from that approach I think it’s really – the idea is to be fundamentally sound, to do a good job with the basics and make sure that you’re not doing anything out there that may be too complicated, and it’s going to cause mistakes or penalties or turnovers or things like that that you know loses games. I think the first couple of games are going to be interesting from things like situational football and how teams handle game management. A lot of that is going to be really important because we don’t have those trial runs of preseason where we can get in there and work on the communications. We’re going to have to try to simulate that the best we can to get ready to go. I think that is what the beginning part of the season will look like I think for us. We’re just going to go out and try to play really sound football and be able to adjust it in the game like normal and hopefully play good fundamentals. I think some of that will look definitely different through the month of September.” On if first-year head coaches have an advantage or disadvantage this year in the League: “I don’t know. I know some of the first-year coaches that I’ve talked to and reached out to and had conversations with are trying to figure it out like the rest of us. But I’d say for all of us – this is all new. We’re all kind of first-year coaches going through this. We’ll see how it affects when it gets to the season and kind of get in a game – some of the communication there – I think a lot of it will be good. There will be some comfort level with the in-game communication for some staffs and maybe parts of staffs and certainly just in our instance, we’ve had some changeover. We’re going to have to work through that at a pretty high level pretty quick.” |
