| November 13, 2020 On the injury status of TE T.J. Hockenson: “I think T.J. – he’s a very tough kid. He pushes through a lot of stuff. Tight end in the NFL is not an easy position. You’re blocking, you’re catching, you’re in a lot of different positions. We’ll just kind of list him as we feel necessary, and he’s pushing through, and we’ll see what today looks like and go from there. T.J. does everything he can to be there on Sunday.” On what will happen to the offense if WR Kenny Golladay and TE T.J. Hockenson can’t play: “I mean I think for us, offensively, we’ve got a lot of guys that we’ve got a lot of trust in. We’ve got a lot of guys that can step up in different situations, and certainly, a lot of guys that can produce. There’s no lack of worry in that category, and there’s a lot of really good players out there on the field. Just whatever the design is will be for whether we have them or don’t have them, and then we’ve just got to go out and execute those plays.” On how challenging it is to run a practice when multiple players are injured and how important the expanded practice squad has turned out to be: “Obviously, we jinxed ourselves a couple of weeks ago because I don’t think we had anybody injured there. We were feeling pretty good about it, and we got a bunch of them here in a couple of weeks. You always monitor and you adjust based on who you have. I think the expanded practice squad’s been great. I think that’s been a really cool thing for everybody with the opportunities, especially, I’d say, some of the situations where being able to bring guys up because of different deals and all that. I think it’s tremendous for the guys that are on the practice squad. They’re not really practice squad – everyone’s part of the team. So that part of it is, I think, awesome. Guys can be active for a game and have a role, and you can do whatever you think is best that week to try to put yourself in a competitive situation. I think that’s been a big blessing for us this year.” On if he’d advocate keeping an expanded practice squad going forward: “It’s a great question. I don’t know if I’m going to advocate for anything other than just trying to do well against Washington. I would say that in general, I love having as many guys on the field as we can for practice and to develop. This is a violent sport. There’s guys that get hurt and guys that fight through stuff, and I just think it helps having those guys around.” On the Lions run game: “My background, and (Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevell’s) too, we love to run the ball. Running the ball is great. It’s a great part of this game. Certainly it’s something we want to do. We didn’t do it well a couple weeks ago. I thought we got back on track a little bit last week with it, and that’s where we have to continue to go. We’ve had some moving parts to the offensive line, too – the O-line and the tight ends, the running backs, I have a lot of confidence in all of those guys when they go out there that they’re going to be able to execute. I would say statistically, as far as running the ball against Washington – we’ll do what we have to do to win the game – but they have some very, very good players up front. Really, two guys inside I think, with (Jonathan) Allen and (Daron) Payne there, that are outstanding guys coming out of college, coming out of Alabama where they’re going to play a lot of technique similar to what we do and how we play the run. I think those guys do an outstanding job with it. Certainly we know how much pressure the edge players can put, not only in the pass rush, but they’re big and they’re long. Put (Ryan) Kerrigan out there, too. He’s another big, long, strong guy who’s been doing this for a long time. It just becomes really difficult from that standpoint to get yardage. We have to be smart with it. We have to try to do a good job of the execution, but you always love to run the ball, no doubt.” On what teams who have kept the pass rush under control have done well: “I think one of the things you don’t want to do is get off track. If you get into bad down-and-distance situations, I think that’s really where you run into a lot of trouble. Certainly I think that (Defensive Coordinator Jack) Del Rio does a great job with the coverage, mixes in behind it and he understands when in those situations when it’s a little bit longer of the timing of the plays – take a little bit longer. That’s something we always talk about with how long does this play take. What’s the point of this play? As far as, is the ball coming out quick; do we have to hold it on this play; what does the protection look like? How do we adapt versus the personnel they have? I think he does a great job of the coverage in the back end of really making sure that you can’t get the ball past them, and you are trying to throw those shorter passes, and then they rally a tackle. Then once that gets to the point where you maybe start to try to push the ball downfield, you do have to hold it, that’s where you just see that really dominant rush come forward and take advantage of those situations. That would be a big key for us.” On playing in front of 500 friends and family: “We love having fans. There’s no doubt about it. It was great to have that energy and have everyone there. I think we had the drumline and everything else rolled in, so that was cool. You do notice that for a little bit, then at some point, you do kind of shut everything off. You just kind of dial-in to the game. But certainly good to get a little bit of that going – so that’s exciting.” |
