Monday, October 5, 2020
Head Coach Brian Flores
(Who’s going to be your quarterback on Sunday?) – “We’re still going through corrections of the game from yesterday. As a staff, we normally start talking about this this evening. ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) – I thought we moved the ball pretty efficiently yesterday. Look, I understand where everybody’s coming from with Tua (Tagovailoa). I get all that. At the same time, he’s a young player, he’s coming off the injury. So we’ll make the decision on the starter, but I would presume it’s going to be Fitzpatrick.”
(I know T Austin Jackson and S Bobby McCain both returned to the game, but how did they come out of it – Austin with the foot injury and then Bobby after being tested for the concussion?) – “They’re still both getting treatment. I think Bobby went back in and played well. Austin went back in and had to come back out. Both – with our medical staff, it’s the day after the game so we’ve got nicks and bruises really in a few different places, so we’ll see how it goes throughout the week and we’ll take it from there. But it’s the day after the game, so guys are bruised up. We’ll see where we’re at on Wednesday.”
(Teams react to losing differently. Your players yesterday seemed particularly angry. Do you find encouragement in that reaction?) – “Yeah, I think our guys, they work hard. They prepare well. We didn’t get the things done we talked about getting done. I think they understand that and they’re all competitive. That’s how I felt after the game, so they felt the same way. I think it just speaks to how competitive they are. I think we’ll just come back, get back to it once we start for preparing for another good team in the 49ers and try to turn things around.”
(I know that you mentioned QB Tua Tagovailoa and his injuries and stuff before, but I know there’s two rookie quarterbacks that have played so far in Bengals QB Joe Burrow and Chargers QB Justin Herbert. Does their early success have any influence on maybe how well you think Tua will play once he gets that opportunity?) – “No, I think every player is different. Every situation is different. So no. I really don’t look at other players and I play the comparison game with players or really anyone. We’re going to do what we feel is best for the Dolphins and for the individual players – Tua or ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) or Austin Jackson or Robert Hunt or whoever it happens to be. It’s all case-by-case, so we don’t look at other situations and make decisions off of what other people are doing. We’ll try to do what’s best for us and we’ll make decisions with that in mind.”
(In weeks and months past, you’ve been more definitive about QB Ryan Fitzpatrick absolutely being your starter, no question about it. Was there something either in the game or when you reviewed the film that gave you pause that made you wonder if he’s the right guy at this moment?) – “The pause was – we haven’t even gone through the corrections from the game. We’re actually in the middle of that right now, so it wasn’t based off of anything in the game. I hope you guys don’t take that the wrong way; but every week we come in on Monday evening after we make all the corrections. We’re a quarter of the way through the season now, so we’re going to obviously do an evaluation of our team from that standpoint. We try to play the guys we feel are going to help us turn this thing around and play better in situations that like red zone and two-minute and the fourth quarter; and that’ll be at all positions. So that was kind of a conversation we just had as a staff, so I guess that’s what gave me some pause. Not something from the game. We just talked about reevaluating everything – every position, every grouping and we always do that after every quarter, let’s say, and try to, moving forward, do the things that we’ve been doing well and try to continue to build on those and obviously improve anything where we haven’t had as much success.”
(I know 1-3 is not ideal, especially in regards to the division and playoffs and things like that. It’s going to be a long season. How do you take your start and your approach into the rest of the season? Do you still feel like you have a chance to do something special here?) – “We take this one game at a time. Like you said, it’s a long season. We take it one game at a time. We’ve got a big test on the road in San Francisco. I think you start thinking about the end of the season and what that’s going to look like. We need to put our energy on this week and our preparation for this week. Leave it right there and let the results take care of themselves. But if we start thinking about down the road, it’s probably not going to help us all that much.”
(I only ask as a follow up to your first response regarding QB Tua Tagovailoa. Since you did bring the injury into the answer, in terms of his health, has he checked all the boxes that you guys have looked for in camp and in practice? Or are there still any hesitations or lingering questions in regard to either his hip or mobility?) – “No. He’s checked all the boxes from a medical standpoint. He has. Look, the honest thing from me is if he was my kid and he had a serious injury like that, I wouldn’t want his coach to be in a rush to throw him in there because of media pressure or anything like that. That’s kind of how I approach this situation and really all situations, the players. Essentially they are my kids. No one is going to pressure me into doing anything. When we feel like he’s ready to go, we’ll put him in.”
(We saw that DE Shaq Lawson got hurt yesterday with the shoulder, how is he doing, and was there any other injuries that you guys came out of from the game?) – “Guys are banged up. A few different guys are banged up. You mentioned Shaq. He had a shoulder (injury). He went out, went back in. He’s sore today, I think he’ll be ok. Honestly, he’s a tough guy and wants to be out there. We had a couple of other guys who were banged up and I’m hopeful we’ll get most of everybody back Wednesday.”
(I was going to ask you about CB Byron Jones. He was pretty hopeful when he spoke at the end of the week, then ended up being listed as doubtful. How hopeful are you that he has a good chance of getting back this week?) – “He had a good week last week, like he mentioned to you guys. We just felt like he wasn’t all the way ready to go last week. But we’re hopeful that this week we’ll see him a little bit more at practice and if he does well in practice, he’ll play next week.”
S Eric Rowe
(CB Noah Igbinoghene is such a young kid. He’s 20-years-old or something. What have you said or what would you say to kind of steer him in the right direction?) – “Really, what I’ve kind of been telling him really this past season is it’s part of being a rookie. It’s part of the pains of growing, especially as a corner. I have comparable situations to kind of what he’s going through mentally and everything, and really I’m just trying to keep his spirits up because I remember in my second or third year where I had a couple games that were just rough, and you feel like everyone on the outside is kind of bearing down on you. It kind of gets you mentally, so really just for me to pick him up, keep playing because we’re going to need him. We’re going to need him. It’s a long season. We’ve got 12 more games to go at least, so really to keep his spirits up.”
(I was curious if you guys watched the film today. Down in and down out, the defense hung in there. It was again the big plays that seemed to get you. What on those deep throws to Seahawks WR DK Metcalf, etc. really stood out to you? When you watched the film what were the breakdowns on the big plays that you gave up?) – “Yeah, the big plays were – really, it was nothing of what kind of they had schematically or kind of talent-wise. Obviously they’re talented, but it was plays that we as a defense just had a mental breakdown. Just kind of a breakdown in coverage, a breakdown in our communication. That leads to them having big plays and ultimately that’s kind of what hurt us in the game.”
(I wanted to look ahead quickly to the matchup next Sunday. You guys are going to be facing TE George Kittle. He came back into action after missing a couple games. He had like 15 catches, 183 yards. So I guess the question is how big of a challenge is he and what makes him so good as a tight end?) – “It’s a huge challenge. He’s one of the, if not the best, tight ends right now in the league. Obviously as we can see, they target him a lot each game. So obviously he’s going to be a big challenge for us this week. What makes him good is he’s not just a receiving tight end. He blocks. So he’ll get in and he’ll block the nine or block the linebacker and not on some like, ‘oh, I really don’t want to hit you.’ So really he can play both ways, so we’ve definitely got our hands full this week.”
(Another 49ers question for you. QB Jimmy Garoppolo is coming off an ankle injury. It’s unsure whether he will play and the 49ers played two quarterbacks last night – QB Nick Mullens and QB CJ Beathard. How do you guys kind of go into this week knowing that you might have to prepare for three quarterbacks instead of maybe one or two?) – “That’s definitely different. Usually you kind of prepare for one, maybe two; but three – that’s different. Obviously all three of them, they’ve shown that all three of them can play. So it’s not like, ‘okay, the third string is coming in – we’re going to tee off on him.’ I think when Beathard got in, he went like 7-for-7 and scored a touchdown on a drive, and I was like, ‘wow, this dude’s good, too.’ So again, him, (Nick) Mullens, Jimmy (Garoppolo) – it don’t matter who’s playing. We’ve got to play our best ball.”
(I wanted to go back to what you mentioned before about breakdowns in communication. Is that a matter of guys getting confused over whether you’re in man or zone and how do you solve that? What steps are you going to take to make sure that such breakdowns don’t occur moving forward?) – “It’s really the call within the call. So whatever call that we have lined up against the opponent, and there’s always checks based on whatever they do. So we as in safeties, corners – everybody – we all have to be on the same page on motion, shift, kind of whatever they do. So when I mean ‘breakdown in communication,’ if the offense, they did some sort of motion and then whatever call that we have to give out, we have to give it out clean, faster, crisp so we can execute. Obviously that didn’t happen last game. There were a couple calls kind of within the call where not everybody was on the same page just at the end of the day. The only thing we can do is shoot, when we get back to practice on – it really starts today. Today, we watch the film and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, it’s just being overly-communicative, loud, before and in the meeting room.”
(I know you guys wanted to be or have been a heavy man team and then you guys have done a little bit more zone since CB Byron Jones has been out; but how have you seen offenses attack you guys with that? I know we’ve seen a lot more crossing routes. You talked about some of the communication things. Have you seen teams try to get you guys in position where they can exploit your tendency to play a lot more man?) – “Yeah. Every offense, whether you’re in man or zone, they’re always going to have some sort of plays to beat the coverage whether we’re in Cover 4, 3, 2; there’s always some sort of scheme, schematic they have to beat the coverage. So our thing is to try to obviously keep them off balance by mixing different types of zones and then throwing in man, so the offensive coordinator won’t just have a whole playbook of just, ‘okay, we’re going to run all these man-beaters because we know they’re going to run man all game.’ So that’s why we’ve just got to mix it up, kind of balance it out.”
(I wanted to ask you, now that you’ve settled into this I guess role where I don’t know exactly what they call you position covering the tight ends. What makes it fit your skillset as well as it does or seems to?) – “I would say that I’m a bigger-body cover guy and I can move. I’m pretty agile. So with tight ends, obviously these dudes are tall, they’re big. Maybe – I wouldn’t say all of them, but some aren’t as agile and just kind of just schematically, the way that the coaches, how they use me – they move me all around from safety and I’m in the box, I’m in the back, sometimes I play like a linebacker role – it kind of fits me. Or maybe I would say I fit their scheme; and so shoot, when they put me in there last year, I kind of excelled and I’m trying to get the same results this year.”
DT Christian Wilkins
(Can you share some of the message you’ve taken away from Head Coach Brian Flores either in postgame or I don’t know if you’ve met as a team yet this morning; but what are some of the things that he’s saying that resonates with you?) – “The biggest thing that we feel as a team is that – a few things are that we just got to be better in all three areas of the game, first and foremost. We’re not far off. It’s just a few things here and there. We’ve really got to hone in and take ownership, everyone individually. Then in your segments, in your positions, and on your side of the ball and as a team. You’ve really just got to take ownership of all of that and just work like crazy to improve on that. I feel like we will, because we have a lot of guys who care, who work hard. If we just keep hammering away and work on things that we are not doing so great, I think we’ll improve each week.”
(I looked at your box score yesterday. You were credited with a tackle and I think you had 44 snaps. Were they doubling you a bunch? What were they doing to kind of neutralize you yesterday?) – “Really, sometimes in a game, you just play and things come your way and things don’t come your way. With that many snaps, I do have to make more plays. I take ownership in that. I’ve got to do more than just do my job. It’s not just enough for me to just do my job. I’ll be the first to say when plays come my way and things happen, I’ve got to be more productive.”
(You guys have lost by 10 points, 3 points and 8 points in the three losses this season. That has to be equal parts discouraging and also encouraging for you guys. What are some things you guys can do to potentially play better and finish moving forward?) – “Typically if you look at it, most NFL games are within seven points or so, or one-score games. Like I said, it means that we’re close; but there is another level we can go to and I know we can go to it because we’ve got the right kind of guys in the locker room, the right kind of coaches, really everyone involved. We’ve got the right people around, so I think we’ll make that jump when we make those improvements, for sure.”
(On that same note of being resilient and getting through adversity, that is a big part of what every team has to do in this league. I’m curious, since you’re one of the guys that was here last year and been a part of this program for two years now, how can you compare what you guys were able to do last year to overcome some of those adversities and how you might be able to apply them this season?) – “Really, last year I just feel like we had guys who are still buying in and sticking with it. We know what we ultimately wanted at the end of the day, so we just kept working for it and kept making improvements each week. That’s pretty much what we need to do each week. Every day, every minute we’re in this facility, every minute we’re away, just keep doing things, keep being all about ball and finding ways to improve.”
(You’ve got a guy on the outside in CB Noah Igbinoghene, who has had some struggles in past weeks. You as a former first-round pick, is there something you can say to him about maybe being in that role, in that position, and how to deal with that?) – “I feel like as a defense, we all have a lot of faith in Noah and his abilities and what he can do. We’re not too super worried or anything. We know he’s going to make jumps and improvements because he’s a good player, he works hard and he comes every day with the right mindset. We’re all behind him, we’re all for him and we all think he’ll make the necessary improvements, like we all need to do.”
(I wanted to ask you about the contrast of this season versus last season. I know last season is in the past, but is it encouraging that you guys have played four close games except for Jacksonville as opposed to last year’s early blowouts? Or do you not look at that as sort of a moral victory?) – “Yeah, there are no moral victories. You want to win. That’s what we’re here for. That’s why you put so much work in. You want to improve each week, and you want to win each week, really. There are no moral victories. I don’t really look at that. We didn’t get the results we want at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter if it was by one point or by 100 points we lost by, you want to win at the end of the day.”
(South Florida wants to know what your Clemson vs. Miami prediction is?) – “Y’all trying to get me. (laughter) I’m rolling with my alma mater, of course. It’s a Clemson win, for sure. That’s how I’m rolling.”
(I’m doing a story on the development of QB Tua Tagovailoa. What have you seen at practice from him? We haven’t seen him obviously for a month since they shutdown practice for us. How has he looked at practice?) – “I think Tua is a great player. He works really hard. That’s all you want in a young guy in his position, just see the work ethic and the competitiveness and that’s all you see from him day in and day out. Whether it’s in the meeting room or on the field, this guy works hard.”
(QB Jimmy Garoppolo is dealing with an ankle injury and the 49ers played two QBs last night. What’s the challenge that you guys could face preparing for three QBs instead of one or two?) – “Just more guys you’ve got to be ready for. You don’t know what you’re going to get. I just feel – typically it’s a schematic thing. Once you know what they like to do from a scheme standpoint, you can kind of just play ball from there.”
WR DeVante Parker
(I know you’ve previously spoke about how important it was for you to play every single game this season. Was that in the back of your mind when you decided to continue to play yesterday?) – “Yeah, it was actually because I don’t have time to be missing out on games and little stuff like that – little tweaks and stuff like that. I just feel like I have a need – I’ve got to come back in.”
(How would you assess how QB Ryan Fitzpatrick has played through the first four weeks of the season and why do you think he’s the right quarterback for this team?) – “I think pretty well – he’s been playing pretty well. He’s making adjustments, reading the defense. We adjust to things off of what he sees.”
(Going back to that first question about prioritizing getting back on the football field. What has kind of changed for you and your mindset from this year to previous years, where you’ve been able to approach that mindset and get back out there and play through an injury and have a productive day like that?) – “I would say I was just younger back then and I wasn’t used to injuries like that all of the time. It was something new for me; but now as you get older, you realize that it’s just something that you can play through.”
(You talk about just sort of playing through pain. Is it something special when you know you’re dealing with something and you can still make big plays and still have a big game? Does that add a little extra to you?) – “Not really, no. If an opportunity comes my way, I just have to make the plays no matter what – injured or not.”
(Only eight Dolphins in history now have more receiving yards than you. You’ve climbed the charts in terms of Dolphins history. What does that mean to you to know that you’re going to be potentially remembered among the best receivers in Dolphins history?) – “It means a lot but I’m not really focused on that. I’m just focused on getting wins for this team. That’s the biggest thing.”
(There will be a lot of discussion going forward about when and how QB Tua Tagovailoa should be entered into a game. What have you seen out of him in practice and is your sense that he might be ready to see some action?) – “Whatever the coaches feel who the starting QB needs to be, that’s who they’re going to put out there. I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do and doing what I can to help the team. That’s the coaches’ choice.”
(This is an important question because WR Jakeem Grant claims you told him that he is the inspiration for the irritating nephew in your cartoon. I just need confirmation from you. Is Jakeem the inspiration?) – “(laughter) Yes, he is. It’s based on Jakeem.”
(It seemed like yesterday when we talked to the guys after the game, there was this overwhelming consensus that you guys feel like you’re better than 1-3. What’s kind of the mentality today as you shift into the new week and kind of work on the next opponent?) – “We’re coming in today, watching a little film, make the corrections and then we’ll come out the next day – the off day – and look at the next team. Then we’ll come back the next day and get focused and start the new week.”
(We’ve seen your videos – your Uncle ‘Vante videos. You’re not the most talkative dude but it seems like that’s kind of a way to show your personality a little bit more. Is that the goal of it, to let people see a different side of you?) – “Yeah, I’d say that’s one of the goals. Coming in early, I wasn’t really known, like you said, as the talkative type; but I’m trying to let me personality out a little bit more now.”
