Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham
(One of the areas that defense has done really well in is the penalties. Just 17 – third-fewest in the league. What have you guys done from the preseason to now to really improve in that area?) – “I think it started when ‘Flo’ (Head Coach Brian Flores) put together his vision of the team. We said ‘smart, tough, disciplined football team.’ Part of being smart and disciplined is not being penalized and not beating yourself. We talk it about it all the time, especially early on in the year. More games are lost because guys – whether it’s penalties – you end up beating yourself, and we’re trying to avoid that just by harping on that. The stuff that takes no talent, that’s the stuff we’ve got to make sure we get done.”
(How would you say your defense hung in there in the first half? I know it was different for the second.) – “Right now, I’m thinking so much about Los Angeles right now. There were some positives from the game last week that we can build on. I think the fundamentals – we were seeing some improvement in that, and we’ve just got to keep going with that. That’s what’s going to carry us into this week against the Chargers because we’ve got a pretty good offensive team coming in here. They’ve got a head coach who has familiarity with the system. He knows us pretty well in terms of just having been in our division for a while. I know it’s been a while for him. This is his third year. The quarterback, the o-line – the o-line is probably one of the more athletic o-lines in the league, and they do a good job of getting to people and the first and second level. Then the skill players – the backs – these guys are dynamic. They’re dynamic skill players. They can run the ball. They can catch passes, and I think the receiver (Keenan Allen) – obviously he’s been targeted 200 million times. (laughter) This guy’s a good (player). They’ve got good players out there, and they’ve got explosive players with (Travis) Benjamin. There are a lot of good players out there to worry about.”
(Three games, four sacks – where is the heat going to come from?) – “The heat’s going to come from the guys on the field. We’ve got to pressure – however you define it – and the main goal is to affect the quarterback. We’ve got to find ways to improve that. It starts with me. We’ve got to do a good job of that. We’re constantly just evaluating it week-to-week. The main thing though is not necessarily the sack numbers or the pressures. It’s affecting the quarterback, whether that’s disrupting his passing windows, getting our hands up and making sure that it ties together with the coverage and the rush tied together. We’re working towards that, and we’re working to improve that.”
(Is the run defense a concern right now?) – “I think overall, we’re looking to improve in all facets of the game whether it’s the pass game or pass coverage, pass rush, run defense. We’re trying to improve all of them. We’ve got to do a better job. We’ve got to set the edge, especially against the Chargers. If we don’t set the edge, these guys can get out there. We’ve got to do a good job with that. We’ve got to play with power inside, play with extension; but it’s all a process. We’re looking to improve and it starts really today – guys getting in, getting an understanding of who the Chargers are as a run team, what they do in the run game and in the pass game. For us, once we get to practice, working on the fundamentals that are going to help us improve there.”
(You’ve twice now in the second half been on the field a lot during the game, and players may be worn down a little bit. I don’t know if that’s a fair criticism or not. How do you guard against that when you’re not – when it’s three-and-out on offense and you’ve got to come right back out and you have all those snaps for your defense?) – “Our job is to play defense, and that’s what we’re going to do. When we go against the Chargers this weekend, whenever they have the ball, we’re going to go out there and we’re going to play and we’re going to do our best to limit the points and limit how many snaps they have and we’ve got to get off the field on third down. That’s our job. That’s our job, so we don’t worry about other stuff. We’ve just go to make sure that we’re doing our job. That’s what I’m worried about most.”
(Where can you improve on your third-down defense?) – “We’ve got to do a good job – a better job of – it starts with me doing a better job of preparing the players. Obviously, that’s always the case. I’ve always got to do a good job of coaching if it’s not getting done. I think that we’ve got to do a good job of just some basic fundamental stuff that we’ve got to keep working on, but we’re making strides in it and we’ll keep working towards that.”
(I know turnovers are a real quirky thing. Sometimes it’s the right place at the right time, but how do you guys go about trying to force more and trying to always get the ball back?) – “Turnovers – part of it is, are they a turnover team? Like a team that is prone to give up turnovers? That’s one thing. Then it’s just putting pressure on the ball. Putting the pressure on the ball whether in the running game, passing game – just putting pressure on the ball and then usually good things happen with the turnovers. That’s the main focus on that: putting pressure on the ball and the people that have the ball and just attacking that.”
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Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Offensive Coordinator Chad O’Shea
(With the linemen who were injured in the game, you went almost exclusively to shotgun with QB Josh Rosen; but for running plays you went under center. How do you kind of try to work that so you’re not tipping off the other team, and I guess where do you go from there? Is Josh going to play a little bit more shotgun?) – “I think whenever you have things in the game that you have to adjust, there’s a balance that needs to happen whether it’s a player being injured or maybe a scheme being altered based off what the defense is doing. I think one of the challenges that we always have on game day is to make sure that we’re balancing that during the game. Certainly, the protection aspect is one part of it. The choice to be under center and in the gun is another aspect of it. Whether that has a stronger tendency to be run or pass obviously is an issue, so I think the word balance comes up a lot for us. It’s something that we strive to really do both in-game adjustment-wise and then in our preparation.”
(I know stats aren’t everything, but the stats don’t look great for this offense. What is your assessment of where you guys stand after three games?) – “I think what’s really important for us is to keep improving, and although the stats aren’t exactly where we want them to be, we are just going to continue in the process of improving and that’s what we’re asking our players. That’s certainly how we’re approaching it from a coaching staff – just to focus on improving every day, of getting better at not only the schematics but the fundamentals and our overall preparation improving. I think all of those things are continuing to improve, and we’re making progress. I think that’s where our focus is – on just improving.”
(Was there one part that had you particularly kind of perplexed that it hasn’t been better or one part that has been better than you expected?) – “I think it’s – when you look at it – it’s everything. We just need to improve really in all areas. There’s not one area that I think that we necessarily need more improvement or less in. It’s really just all areas, even some of the areas that might be some positives for us right now. There’s still plenty to improve within those areas. We have a long way to go. I think our players have done a good job of trying to embrace the challenges that we’ve had along the way. I’ve been impressed with the way they’ve worked and handled some adversity here early in the year.”
(I think you were either one or at most two injuries away from having to have a non-offensive lineman playing offensive line. So who’s your emergency tackle, your emergency guard? Who would slide into those roles?) – “Because of the NFL, the way it’s set up on game day, you have usually seven offensive linemen, so when you do incur injuries at that position, there are some special considerations that you have to bring another position in and that’s something that we’ve looked to. Obviously, we didn’t have to do that. In our preparation this week, we’re going to talk about that, so that’s something we’re going to talk about today. If that does come up – and we talk about a lot of situations that might come up during the game just not the offensive line situation. We’ll talk about it as a staff, but we certainly have to have a plan in place for that because we were close to having to play with a player that was going to be playing out of position.”
(Who would it have been?) – “I don’t want to necessarily comment on that specifically, but there was definitely a plan in place for that. Certainly the choices we have are offensive players, as well as defensive players.”
(With QB Josh Rosen playing shotgun again, could you guys see yourselves practicing a little bit more pistol stuff and maybe some RPOs maybe just to give him back there and give yourselves some more time and more protection?) – “There were some things that he did well in the shotgun and certainly there have been some things that he’s done well under center here that he’s comfortable with, so I think that with Josh (Rosen), he’s fine in the things that he’s very comfortable with and confident in and that’s a work-in-progress for us as a coaching staff to identify those things and really to play to his strengths. Certainly, I think one of his strengths is to be in the shotgun, but I’ve also been impressed with some of his under-center snaps and his ability to still be balanced and our ability to throw the football when he’s underneath has been a strength of his also.”
(Could you take us through your thinking – I think in the goal-to-go situation the was I believe three straight runs?) – “It was. We ran the ball three straight times. Again, like I’ve spoken in the past – we’re always going to try to do what’s best. Certainly, the calls that are made are pre-planned and something that we work really hard on. In that situation, the outcome wasn’t exactly what we wanted obviously. We didn’t score. (We were) disappointed in that but not disappointed in our plan, our preparation and our choice to run the ball in the red zone. That’s something that we’re going to have to – we will pride ourselves on – we’ll have to improve, just the ability to stay balanced inside the red zone and just not throw, throw, throw. Certainly, we were run, run, run there; but it’s something that we do put a lot of time in. When we feel like we have maybe an advantage in that area, we’re going to do it. Sometimes the execution and the outcome might not be as planned, but certainly there’s a lot of preparation that goes into that choice.”
(During that drive specifically though, QB Josh Rosen found TE Nick O’Leary for the first down after he scrambled out. I think he found WR Preston Williams downfield, too. Why would you want to take it out of his hands if he was making those plays?) – “I think that each area of the field is very different. We talked to the team a lot about situational football and how each area of the field is different. Certainly, inside the red zone, there were some things that we looked at and maybe saw a little bit differently than the other areas in our game planning. Whether it’s a third-down situation, red zone, those were early-down calls for us in which we had success with him throwing the ball and that was our plan there to use the flea-flicker and to use some of those other things. Things might change for us as far as our mindset and our game-planning when we get into that next situation. So I think it’s just based off of the opponent, it’s based off of week-to-week, it’s based off of where we were (with) personnel at the time. I think there’s a lot that goes into that, and there are some things that we have to adjust during the game based off of some things that – maybe it’s an injury we incurred or maybe they played something differently than we expected.”
(Have you given thought to maybe getting RB Patrick Laird some more work from scrimmage?) – “I think that certainly, (Patrick) Laird has really done a good job for us in the preseason and during practice. I know his role right now is special teams. It’s a great problem to have at the running back spot because we have really good players, and it’s tough to get them all in there right now. He knows his focus right now is on special teams for us; but certainly, he prepares and is ready to have a role on offense at any time if needed or if we think he’s going to be part of our game plan. I have a lot of confidence in him, and if he does get an opportunity, I’m sure he’ll do very well.”
(I guess with RB Kalen Ballage, we haven’t seen the production. Why do you remain confident that production is going to come?) – “I think that again – I said this last week and I believe this – there’s a lot that goes into being successful as a running back, and one of the things is they rely heavily on the people around them. I was very impressed with Kalen at the end of the game when he caught a swing screen for us and ran like it was the second play of the game. It just showed great effort and showed the type of runner he is and that’s what I think Kalen is, and I think if we give him the opportunity to do that, I think that Kalen is going to perform very well. I just think that there are a lot of things that go into him performing well, and one is the 10 other guys that are out there with him. It takes all 11 to have a successful run game or a pass that might be thrown to him. It takes the other guys to really do their jobs for him to be successful. But I have confidence in Kalen – a lot of confidence in Kalen. I have a lot of confidence in our running backs, and we’re working really hard to put them in the best position they can to be successful.”
(One general question on QB Josh Rosen – how do you think he played?) – “I thought that from an operations standpoint, there were some things that were really positive. I think that was – going into his first game in AT&T Stadium wasn’t an easy place to start his first game with some of the elements that we had whether it be crowd noise or just playing on the road for the first time. I thought that he really – from a communications standpoint, from an overall operation of in and out of the huddle – I thought he did a nice job there. I really did. And I thought the one thing he also did is we were also able to protect the football in the pass game. We asked him – that was going to be really important, and I thought he did that. I thought he tried to play on time in the pass game, so there were some real positives coming out of this and the one that really sticks out is just his overall running the offense from an operations standpoint at the line of scrimmage. The things we’re asking him to do, I thought he did well and I think there were some positives moving forward on that.”
(Do you think QB Josh Rosen would’ve probably been a little bit more further along if he started the first two games?) – “I don’t – I think that Josh’s improvement since he’s been here has been good and certainly we were excited to get him in here in this third game. I just think that for him, what’s most important is he just continues to improve and make progress moving forward. I know that he’s very – he was excited about his opportunity. He’s even more excited about another opportunity on Sunday.”
