QB Tua Tagovailoa
(After the game, you mentioned communication issues. Just wondering how you go about fixing that throughout the week leading up to the next game?) – “Yeah, I think communication issues start from the beginning of the week. It starts with today – Wednesday. I think we had a pretty good day. There’s been a lot of things that have been installed. We‘ve got to get in and out of the huddle to get the looks that we want to present the motions that we want and things like that. So I think for the most part today, it’s been a lot better.”
(What have you seen from your run game especially over the past two weeks?) – “It’s been really good for us. That’s what I would say. It’s been helpful to offset some of the actions that we do in the pass game and then off of those run actions we can marry some of the ways we motion and do our action fakes to some of the pass plays that we have in, so I think it’s been really, really good.”
(What’s unique about RB De’Von Achane?) – “Oh my gosh, I mean, you guys see it. I think the entire NFL can see it. Dude’s a special player. He understands ball like the back of his hand and I think that is one of the coolest characteristics that I can say about someone like him, is he’s very soft-spoken, but he’s very smart, very intellectual when it comes to the X’s and O’s of understanding where to line up, where he needs to be in the timing of the play and things like that. I think that’s something that needs to be said because it’s hard, especially being in this offense. So he’s done a tremendous job and I know he’ll continue to work hard and continue to do all he can to help us try to win games.’
(What does that mean for you when you know you’ve got these proven guys coming into the season but then a guy like RB De’Von Achane just shine. Like for you, that just must be awesome?) – “I think for everyone on our team, it’s really awesome to see a young guy come in and the way he goes about his business every single day, it speaks a lot to his character and how seriously he takes this. He’s gained a lot of respect from the guys in the locker room. Needless to say, the entire league in on watch as well with him. He’s a tremendous, tremendous athlete and a great person.”
(How would you describe your style of leadership and how has that developed from the time that you first started playing to now? Like have you become more vocal over time?) – “Yeah, I definitely have become more vocal. I think when I came into the league during Covid, it was a little hard for me to find myself leading the way I wanted to lead because of the hierarchy with how I was told I should have led. It just wasn’t the way I felt comfortable with and so I didn’t lead in that sense; I continued to lead the way I felt was necessary in being the true character to myself. And so having Mike (McDaniel) and the new coaching staff come in has definitely helped allow me to be myself. And with me being able to be myself, that’s just how I became to be more vocal, feeling comfortable talking to guys certain ways and it’s also how you approach guys in this league. Some people respond better when you yell at them. Some respond better if you just pull them to the side and have a man-to-man conversation. And there’s just different ways that you go about that and I would say that’s sort of my leadership.”
(It seems like you’re more about positive reinforcement than negative. I know leaders lead in different ways depending on wins, losses, etc. But is it more about uplifting or are there sometimes times that you need to get in someone’s face and say, “look, we need something else, we need something better?”) – “Yeah, it’s definitely both. You always want to try to uplift the guys. The guys in that locker room, everyone’s hard on themselves already. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Those guys know that everyone has their job at stake every week and so everyone already has that negative thought, ‘if I don’t do this, if I don’t do that.’ So for sure I want to positively reinforce things when I’m explaining or having to talk to them. And then there’s just times where it’s like ‘okay, we’ve, talked about this multiple times. Like, we can’t be doing that.’ And that’s the bottom line. And I think having a good relationship with everyone in locker room, there’s a good understanding of ‘okay, like if said person comes and tells me this, I know it’s coming from a good place because he never does this. So when he does this, I know something’s up.’”
(Coming off the obviously disappointing result in Buffalo and coming back to work this week, I just wanted to get your perspective on what you’ve seen in the locker room in terms of how guys have approached coming off a disappointing loss like that?) – “Yeah, I think guys are approaching it the same way this week. I don’t think anyone’s pushing any harder to do more or to do anything out of the ordinary. Guys are coming into work and they’re working and working on their craft. But I would say for us, there’s a lot of things that are going on that we – in order for us to be able to play together, we all got to know our own assignments. So it’s about knowing our assignments and being able to trust the guy behind us and trusting that they’re going to know and understand where to be and what to do.”
(In regards to the successful third-down scramble in the previous game, I’m curious, what are some of the things that are being calculated in your head as you decide to go for it?) – “There are a lot of times throughout the week where we talk situationally what we want to do if it was this sort of game or if it was that sort of game. Things we want to run for our two-point conversions. We talk about a lot of fourth down. If the game is going this way, this is the play we’re going to run on fourth down. If the game is going this way, this is the play we want to run. So it’s really about figuring out the players we want to get the ball to and the timing of the play and things like that.”
(I know after struggles in Buffalo it might be easy to focus on all the negative things. But it seems like one of the things that sticks out to Head Coach Mike McDaniel is that he’ll kind of point out the things that you can build on as well. Was there anything that you saw from that game that made you say, that was actually pretty good, and we can continue to build on that?) – “Yeah. There’s always good, there’s always bad when you’re watching the film. Nothing is ever as good as it seems, nothing’s ever as bad as it seems. We’ve come in after the game, we watched the film, we got what we needed to get corrected and today was our first day to be able to go out and practice against really a new look. The last game, I mean, it’s done. You learn, you live and you continue to move forward from that.”
(You mentioned it’s a new look. I asked Head Coach Mike McDaniel about that. The Giants don’t do what they Buffalo Bills do. They play a lot of single-high, a lot of cover zero. That might open up opportunities to get the ball to WR Jaylen Waddle and WR Tyreek Hill. Do you expect them to kind of sit in those looks?) – “Knowing that those two guys, as well as our backs – those guys are really our backbone of the team – we’ve just got to stay connected and when there’s space, space is our friend. So we try to use that to our advantage. If they pressure, we’ve got to have answers quick, get the ball out quick, and allow our guys and our playmakers to make plays.”
(After last game, it seemed like you were sending a message with the ‘humbling experience’, which you said was needed for some. Just wondering what you were seeing in guys and how you think they responded after that?) – “You can see being in a locker room, some people, some guys take things with a grain of salt, and some don’t. Sometimes something like that is well-needed. Sometimes things like that are needed in losses, especially in the way that we lost, to get our guys closer together, to get guys doing things maybe they’ve never done or maybe they never had to do. But I do know one thing, that some guys are being asked to do more than others and I think it’s a good challenge for some that are willing to take up that challenge and hopefully do something with it on Sunday.”
(Isn’t that part of the leadership thing you’re talking about though? When you’re speaking about that, you’re including yourself in that.) – “Of course.”
(But some don’t. I mean, that’s just the case. Then that doesn’t go over so well in a locker room. But that’s something you’ve got. That’s a learned trait isn’t it, to understand how to motivate others while including yourself in the conversation?) – “I would say yes, it could be a learned trait. I would say for me, it’s just been through experiences of what I’ve liked more as far as how I was coached, being coached growing up. Then how I would see friends react to some of the coaching and how they would respond better to certain things. So I would say to that, it was just something that was trial and error. ‘Try to yell here. Okay, yelling doesn’t work. Then try this. Okay, that works.’ It’s things like that and then as you continue to grow and mature and then you go to become who you are, who you’re supposed to be, then I think you start to figure out what works best for you and what your true self is.”
LB Jerome Baker
(In terms of the defense, obviously this hasn’t been to everybody’s expectations or what you guys wanted or expected. What do you do to fix it?) – “Come out here like we did today and have a good practice. I think we all know what we have to do, what we can do better. We’ve all got the expectation and all the hype or whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day, we have to come out here every day and just execute. That’s all we can do.”
(How much is this different for you as an inside linebacker in terms of what you guys were doing last year? In terms of the blocks the front line has to take?) – “I mean it is different, but at the same time, football is football. Most of the time we all have one gap, so it’s nothing too crazy. It’s more of just all being on the same page together.”
(How tough is it to be patient to wait for everything to come together?) – “How tough is it? It’s not tough at all. We’re 3-1. We’re not 0-4. It’s going to take some time. Sunday is a good step in the right direction. We just have to lock in on Sunday and take the next step.”
(As a veteran, you’ve been through all these seasons where sometimes with the fan base, it feels like the sky is falling. Are you able to be more patient throughout the season now and take one not-so-great looking loss and just progress as the season goes?) – “Yeah, our fan base is funny, for sure. You can just check my Twitter if you want to laugh a little bit. (laughter) It’s one of those things that they’re going to love you when you’re winning and they’re going to hate you when you’re not. It’s a part of the game. At the end of the day, we’re professional athletes and it comes with it. But if you let it get in your head, that’s when everything snowballs. It’s going to be alright.”
(You’re going against a team that just gave up 11 sacks in one night. Shark smelling blood in the water?) – “I hope I get one. I hope we all get one and we all have a good day, but it’s the NFL. I’m sure they’re not going to let that happen. They’re going to be working on that. At the end of the day, we have to go out there Sunday and execute, because we can’t rely on what they did last week. We just have to lock in and execute.”
(What did you see on film from their protection issues from Monday night?) – “A lot of miscommunication, a lot of guys getting beat, but it’s the National Football League. They’re going to go back, watch the film and they’re going to be working on it all week. They’re going to make sure they understand what we’re going to do. I’m sure they’re going to fix it. We’re going to have to come up with new things. At the end of the day, it’s about a man beating another man, so we’ll have to do that.”
WR Jaylen Waddle
(QB Tua Tagovailoa seems like more of a positive kind of lift you up type guy than a get in your face. Have there been times over the course of your times playing with him where he’s really gotten in your face and said, “Listen, this is what you need to do?” Or is that just not the way he goes about it.) – “No, Tua (Tagovailoa) shows respect to pretty much all the guys, all the players on the team. It never got to that point at all. I honestly don’t think he’s that type of guy. He’s more of a tell you what he needs from you and encourage you and go from there.”
(Do you have any advice for RB De’Von Achane on how to handle stardom?) – “He comes from (Texas) A&M, so he was a great player there and they had a good following. He’s a grown man. He knows how to handle all that good stuff.”
(What’s been most surprising about what you’ve seen so far from RB De’Von Achane?) – “Not really surprising. I told y’all way back when, when he first came in, that he was going to be a special player here. I’m standing by that. He’s going to be a special player for years to come.”
LB Bradley Chubb
(Was there something that the Seahawks did that jumped out at you as far as putting so much heat on Daniel Jones?) – “I just think they have great rushers over there. There’s nothing they did special. They’ve got a lot of guys that play very good ball over there. I’ll be watching them this week to get little tips and stuff that we can (learn) from it. Like I said, not try to do the most and go out there and try to get 12 sacks because the Seahawks got 11. We just have to keep our heads down and play football like we know how to, the techniques, the fundamentals and all of that stuff will take care of itself.”
(Where do you think this team is right now? There is the sack total we all talk about but there’s also the win rate to put pressure on the quarterback. How do you think this team is doing in those two departments?) – “I think we’re doing alright but we could for sure do a lot better. Me personally, I feel like I could get after the quarterback a lot better in these first couple of games. It just goes back to technique and being a master of the technique and not trying to do too much getting those sack numbers up and stuff like that. (It’s just) letting the game come to me and letting me be me.”
(In terms of this defense, you’re the guy who has the most understanding of Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio’s scheme and system. Where do you think the unit is as a defense in terms of trusting this scheme?) – “I think we’re almost there. It’s easy to trust it on paper and easy to go out there in practice and trust it. But when bullets are flying, you kind of want to resort back to your old ways and do stuff that you used to do. I feel like as a team, we’re right there on the cusp of perfecting where we need to be. A play or two might resort back to old things and not do stuff how we know how we can do it, and those one or two plays end up hurting us in the long run. That’s when they get their explosive plays. I feel like if we minimize trying to go outside the defense and try to do the next person’s job and try to do the absolute most, I feel like if we get back to those fundamentals and get back to what the defense is asking of us, I feel like we can take this to a whole other level.”
(How much does the defense miss a guy like LB Jaelan Phillips when he’s not in there?) – “A lot. A talent like that, you want him to be out on the field. You try to do as much as you can in his absence but you want a guy like that to be out on the field. I know he’s doing everything he can to be back on that field. It’s going to be fun to get him back whenever that is. I know he’s working his tail off in that treatment room to get back and this team is going to need him for the long haul.”
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(So you have CB Nik Needham, OL Rob Jones and RB Jeff Wilson eligible to practice this week. The question is, will they practice this week?) – “Well, there’s two of those players that their 21-day window will begin today. Nik Needham and Rob Jones will start their 21-day window and their process to get back. Excited for both of them. They’ve worked hard to get back to this spot. And that window is key that we will utilize to make sure that within that, they’re ready to go and we don’t get ahead of ourselves so that they can put tape that they feel good about on the field. So, there’s a start. We’re just working our way with Jeff. We feel good about that. We’re starting to get a little healthy, so that’s good news.”
(So both of those guys will practice today? Is that the belief with the window being open?) – “Yeah, I meant to be clear. They are both practicing today to start the window. There are going through the window and going outside to practicing. They’re not staring out of it. My apologies. Yeah, they’ll be practicing today, which will be their first.”
(Another IR question. A couple days ago you said T Terron Armstead is going to be out a couple weeks. Have you decided whether he will be placed on IR and miss at least four games?) – “Yeah, I think it’s a little early. I just wanted to be clear, when I can’t have a little bit of concrete information, that the weeks haven’t changed. He’s feeling pretty solid relative to where he was worried he would feel. What does that mean? I mean, sometimes you can feel bad. So we’re just making sure that we have our minds firmly wrapped around it so we can make the best decision for the Dolphins. But we’re not ready to do that yet.”
(S DeShon Elliott, how is he doing right now physically?) – “I’m proud of him. I had a talk with him just before I came up here, just again, reinforcing, ‘Hey, the team needs you to not rush the process out of competitiveness.’ And he understood that and he feels solid. So we’ll see how it progresses through the week. But you have to be very, very mindful of what doing right by the players, which is doing right by the team, and making sure that guys – I’m never in the habit of urging and pushing people. Generally, that’s a bad idea. So we have a lot of good situations where guys, we kind of have to protect people from themselves. That means you have the right type of players. And I feel good about him being able to participate today. And I feel good that he will do his best not to press the envelope, so to speak, on today, which is Wednesday in preparation for the Giants, which is the only day that I know.”
(In regards to defensive personnel decisions, maybe this guy should start, maybe this guy should play more, as well as game plan strategy heading into the game, I’m curious how much input have you had, do you want to have and how do you approach all that?) – “Well, I kind of approach it like how much of the final score am I accountable for? Okay, well, then you hire the right people, you work with the right people, and then you very much value every piece of information that they take on. If you have the right people, you will have great conversations with the whole defensive staff and (Defensive Coordinator) Vic (Fangio), and I will hear them out. And then if my opinion differs, I make sure to explain why and we move forward as a concerted unit. So ultimately, every decision we end up agreeing upon. It doesn’t mean we started that way and sometimes it’s not about who’s trying to – no one knows the right answer. When you have available players that are competitive and all have their own skill sets, you kind of have to balance a lot of things. I’m happy with where we’re at as a coaching staff. Our communication has been great, specifically as we got into the regular season to kind of get a feel for these types of things. But everything that happens on the football field is the result of a lot of people’s work and all the successes are a bunch of people contributing to each other. But I think it’s important for myself to (know that) everything that happens on the football field, I’m 100 percent accountable for. Can I change everything myself? Absolutely not. I barely do anything as it is. But I can have the right person that can get that done. So that’s been a cool process. We’ve had to go through that exercise several times because we have good players aplenty. And there’s a lot of places where there’s high competition and there’s different reasons to go one direction or the other each and every week. So I think that’s important in the coaching staff as the season progresses, for sure.”
(What’s your feel at this point on LB Jaelan Phillips and if he’ll be able to gear towards going Sunday?) – “I actually have to resist against myself because I get pretty hopeful and optimistic because I just really enjoy watching him play. And I know his teammates really love playing with him because they’re guys with relentless motors that are infectious. I know he has put just as much if not more into the offseason as anybody in that locker room. (He) has high expectations for himself and is learning an invaluable lesson on how in the National Football League, the game has to come to you to some degree. Sometimes when you’re ready to do something, your body doesn’t agree. And I felt good with how he’s handled a frustrating time for him because he’s been at his game’s highest. He’s a passionate football player and he’s in a great spot. So I’m hopeful, but we’ll do the right thing. I know he’s progressing. The last thing we want is for one of the guys that we count on to produce to be having that lingering issue all season. So it’s a fine balance. Fortunately, we have the guys to step up when called upon. I think there’s games that we’ve exemplified that. Like, the Patriots (game). Yeah, but we’ll see. I know he’s trending in the right direction. I just don’t know exactly when that’s going to be.”
(OL Connor Williams, is he on track to practice today? To follow up if I may, OL Liam Eichenberg, is he still your backup center?) – “Some day, you guys are going to have a little faith in anything that I ever say up here. (laughter) Liam (Eichenberg), like I said, there were some really good things that happened in the game. There are some things that Liam would like to have back. I have a visceral memory of Connor Williams on Monday. You want to talk about a guy that is crawling out of his skin to play (and) is about the right stuff. Things that he can’t control, that injury, he takes the mindset he needs to get back as fast as possible to help his teammates. I feel pumped for Liam’s game as his first game as a center. If I thought that was the ceiling that he could perform at, my feelings may be different. I’m not sure if you guys have ever done something for the first time ever, but it’s definitely not your finished Picasso piece. I’m happy with where he’s orchestrating the offense through the center position, making the calls, and he’ll be there if needed. I’m sure we’re going to get a cool practice week from him, because he enjoys the opportunity and the challenge. Pulling it back to the only thing that I do know, he’s got a great one because there’s a really big former Clemson Tiger (Dexter Lawrence) that we’ll be going against here with the New York Giants and their defensive line, which is the biggest that I’ve ever seen in my NFL career. So we’ve got cool challenges, a lot of cool stuff to work on this Wednesday for practice, which I know you guys are geeked up for. So am I.”
(I wanted to ask you, the Giants gave up 11 sacks on Monday night, a number you rarely see in the NFL. When you look at that on film, what do you see? I’m not asking for your gameplan, but what can you say about opportunity? Or if you were a coach whose team gave up 11 sacks, they’d probably be circling the wagons, I’d imagine?) – “What’s interesting is that game, when you watch it, from my perspective, I see an offense that’s close, because I think – I don’t know the stats, hopefully the fingers will be triggering right now. But 11 sacks with the completion percentage that he had, it felt like to me when I was watching, that it was either completion or sack. Which means the way I see it and probably the way – I have all the respect in the world for Coach Daboll – the difference between sack and completion is that finite. If you take the sacks out, he’d probably have a pretty high quarterback rating because the completion percentage was high. So then you’re competitively assessing how can we have those be completions or incompletions, are we getting greedy, those types of things that are nuances that myself nor you guys would not have any idea about. I think 11 sacks, I’ve been a part of an offense that’s done that before, and I know we didn’t have a completion percentage like that. Football is a long process. They diligently work at it. They’ve had plenty of success in this league. I think it’s shortsighted to just say, ‘Ok, 11 sacks,’ and then off the rip, you’re like, ‘Ok, well block.’ There’s a lot of things that go into that. A lot of credit should be given to the Seattle Seahawks who are playing very, very hard. I think they would feel the same way too. But I’m more focused showing the team how they’re functioning outside of those sacks, because what happens if you have that and you eliminate some of the sacks? You’d probably have a pretty good offensive day. So that’s what I saw from it. I think anybody that would be taking that for the absolute or the rule would be setting themselves up to get set up.”
(What are your thoughts on the idea of a get right game in the NFL? Is there such a thing?) – “There is no such thing as scheduling out wins or checking off boxes, and anybody that has done that exercise needs to do an after-action report, because everything you think you know, you don’t. This is a team game where effort, intent, focus, camaraderie, momentum, motions, so much goes into it. It’s a bunch of independent opportunities to do something we’ve all been working for our entire lives. A get right game doesn’t make any sense to me, and I don’t think anybody in our locker room is looking at it like that. It is hard enough to get your game to its best. When you’ve left some stuff to be desired, as I know our locker room feels, the thing you want to do is be focused on yourself and how it applies to the opponent every single week. Even if you approach something as a get right game, you set yourself up to lose, for one. But let’s say you’re fortunate enough to win, you’ve now lost your competitive momentum in your process of progressing throughout the season that even though you may have squeaked out a win, the residuals you will pay for as the season progresses. So to me, I don’t know. It will forever be that way. There is nothing guaranteed in this league, and it takes so many people for things to look a certain way. If a couple people can do X, Y, or Z better, all of a sudden, our product looks totally different. I do not care about any other team in the league. I do not want us to progressively get worse. You will get learned a lesson, and it happens every year. You can’t do it if you’re trying to be your best version of yourself, because there’s too many good players, too many good coaches. This game will be one less game that I’ll have in my career moving forward, and that’s just science, so I’m not looking past that.”
(Any neck injury is worrisome. Have you gotten any more clarity on WR Erik Ezukanma as to whether it’s a season-ending injury? Hopefully not.) – “Exploring the issue that he had in college, I’m very hesitant to have a timeline. I don’t think it’ll be a season. But first and foremost, we want to make sure that he is healthy and ready to go and able to play his best self. That’s something that we are steadily getting to the bottom of. Like I said, I don’t foresee it being that, but I really don’t know the timeline on that one.”
(I know the old cliche is, yeah, it’s a copycat league. But when a team has success against your offense, defensively, how often do you see some of those same schemes brought to the next week?) – “It’s funny. Quite literally, every play that we’ve ever run has been copied in some way shape or form. I’m not sure what you guys believe, but we did not invent the forward pass or the handoff. That’s a joke, but everything’s a derivative of other things. (laughter) I think since probably whenever the All-22 was contracted out, and then everything got digital in 2013. I want to say by about 2017 or 2018, how easy it is to look at the explosive plays in the league. Generally, if something works one week, it’s showing up somewhere. So copycat, yeah, that’s real. I know there’s a lot of defensive coaches, ours included, that when you see something that works that’s a problem play, you don’t know if the other team’s running it and you’re repping it in practice because it’s gotten to that point where you know that if something works, everybody’s trying to have their plays work. I think the bigger thing is, is that the players, to execute something that other people think is of quality enough to try to replicate that, I think that’s pretty cool. And 100 percent of the time, I’ve been drawing up plays since 2005, players execute them and then they’re cool plays.”
(The New York Giants defense isn’t known for doing what the Buffalo Bills did, playing a lot of two-high. They’re known for blitzing, cover one, cover zero. How surprised would you be to see them kind of completely flip the script and do something completely off their tendencies?) – “The objective on all three phases is that you’re good enough at your craft so that the norm is unexpected. I’ve been fortunate to be in situations where I’ve been on good offenses. I remember one year playing versus 21 personnel, actually playing Buffalo, they played us 100 percent nickel, and the next week we got all heavy, three defensive backs, from Washington. That is something that if you’re challenging enough, it’s to be expected. You kind of hope that that’s an earned right. People generally don’t change their DNA. We’ll definitely see some stuff that we haven’t seen. But that’s something that you hope to experience and get good at because if you’re having the appropriate success that you’re trying to work for, that is quite literally the norm. Every single game, we’ve had a little bit of nuance to each defense that we weren’t really expecting, or had seen. The hope is to have more of that, but you have to earn that and you have to earn that through real execution of stuff. The same thing goes for the defense and special teams. Our team wants to give reason for opponents to have to adjust. But people generally don’t want to and want to play their game and you have to be prepared for both at all times. They could have a one-man rush the whole game and the players are going to expect to execute. The players aren’t going to hear, well, I’ve never seen that. Who cares? The fans will still want the results and same as you guys. You’ll show up at press conferences with potpourri, apparently. That’s something that will always be the case. If we work the right way over a long period of time, you hope that that’s the norm on all three phases because that means you’re doing enough to cause concern for your opponents.”
