Friday, September 4, 2020
S Eric Rowe
(It looks like your group has come together. Obviously there’s a solid front four, established linebackers, two high-end corners, safeties who are really good. Should this defense be top 10 in the league this year? Top 12? Top half? What’s realistic in your mind?) – “It’s hard to put a number because there are a lot of factors that go into it and it’s a long season. You’ve got injuries. Some people don’t play to their potential. I can’t put a number on top anything. All I know is we have good pieces and we’ve just go to come together.”
(I know last time we talked, you talked about the points system and creating a lot of turnovers and competition in your room. I wanted to get an update as camp is finishing up on how that point battle is shaping up.) – “It’s actually, this afternoon – it’s being revealed today, the final total. We only kept points through training camp and I guess technically since camp broke, we’re getting the final total today. Last time I checked, the corners were up; but we safeties made a good push the last couple of days before training camp broke.”
(With New England being your Week 1 opponent, I was wondering what your interactions have been like with LB Kyle Van Noy and what has he brought to the defense in general when you’re in the huddle with him?) – “It’s been good. He brings instant leadership. Obviously it’s a defense that he already knows and has run before, so he brings instant leadership and experience on the edge. We’re hoping this year – last year we got off to a really slow start on defense and kind of with him coming in, he already knows the defense and already has experience with it, and his leadership, we should get a faster start.”
(Did anybody end up catching S Bobby McCain on the individual part of the point battle? I know he was leading early. Did anybody end up catching him?) – “Yeah. Who caught him? I can’t remember point for point; but yeah, he had a couple of picks. I had a couple of picks. Shoot, the corners – I remember they had a nice number of pass breakups and that kind of got them ahead. You’ve got to ask me the next time I’m up because this afternoon we’re going to have the final total.”
(What makes QB Tua Tagovailoa so hard to kind of defend against?) – “I mean he has an arm. He has an arm. He can put zip on the ball. I’ve noticed through camp that he’s gotten his better with his eyes. At safety, we just kind of read the quarterback and beforehand, he was kind of staring down at routes but he’s gotten a lot better with his eyes and from what I can tell, his progression. Obviously he’s only going to keep getting better. What makes him hard to defend is kind of tough to answer.”
(I wanted to ask you how CB Xavien Howard has looked this week, his first full week back; and also, did anyone catch your eye in your nickel package among the young guys competing there?) – “From what I see, ‘X’ looks like he’s getting back to form. Obviously there’s going to be a little rust in the beginning because he hasn’t played since – I think he went out whenever we played Pittsburgh in that Monday night game – a long time ago. It looks like he’s getting back to form, so it’s great to have him back – another experienced corner back there. With the slot position, honestly, I don’t know. It’s competitive. Both guys – they’re all making plays in the slot. Obviously I’m not the one setting the depth chart but from what I’ve seen, it’s been pretty competitive.”
(Last time we talked to you, you mentioned that you can’t really go out in the offseason and get four or five guys together to work on fitting the run. I’m curious now that you’ve had some time in camp, how has that progression been for you this training camp?) – “It’s been a lot better. From the beginning until even now, beforehand – now, I’m having a better feel of if I see some tackle pulls or guard pulls, stuff like that, and which way the (line)backers are, they’re spilling blocks. It’s gotten a lot better for me. Obviously we haven’t seen live live action but for right now in practice, even during the scrimmage, I’m getting a little more comfortable with it.”
(I asked RB Jordan Howard earlier this week who had the advantage he thought going into the season between the offense and the defense because of the lack of preseason games. He said he thought it would be the offense because the defensive guys haven’t tackled anybody in a while. What do you think about that and I guess the lack of real football yet to be able to tackle?) – “It definitely goes both ways. Yeah, I haven’t done live tackling in a while. We’ll hit and thud up. We’ll have some good hits. But going to the ground play after play, that’s a different type of conditioning. Shoot, on the other side, they haven’t gotten tackled going to the ground or calling for sacks whenever we get a good pass rush. It goes ways but he’s not lying. We haven’t gone to the ground yet.”Austin Jackson – September 4, 2020 Download PDF version
Friday, September 4, 2020
T Austin Jackson
(I was thinking about how close we all are to your first pro game and I was wondering are there any habits or superstitions that you have had in college or high school a day before the game, night before the game, day of the game, in the locker room before the game that maybe you could repeat that would help you feel comfortable prior to your first pro game?) – “A big part of my routine in college was just every night at the team hotel I would do treatment before I went and got the team ice cream at the hotel, so I should be able to still do that. It’s a new schedule for me, but that’s really my biggest superstition. I have to do that before every game.”
(We saw you with the starters at the training camp practices the reporters could watch. Has that continued this week and are you ready in your mind to be an NFL starter if you’re named starting left tackle?) – “Yeah, I think all in all just taking it one day at a time and just making sure I do what I need to do in practice, make sure I handle everything, being assignment-perfect, technique-perfect. And I’m ready for whatever as long as I keep working and putting myself in a position to win, but ultimately whatever’s best for the team is best for me.”
(What kind of ice cream does it for you? What kind of flavor? What’s your favorite flavor? Is there a certain flavor that gives you better play for a game? Is there a flavor that you try to stay away from that maybe you had a bad game you don’t want to go back to it?) – “Definitely I stay away from strawberry. Strawberry and cookies and cream. I keep it real, real simple – just a little bit of chocolate, little bit of vanilla, little bit of fudge and maybe some Oreos on top. Just real simple.”
(I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t appreciate the cookies and cream slander. That’s the best ice cream there is. Check out the butter pecan, too.) – “Oh, butter pecan is valid. (laughter)”
(But I do have an actual question. What is the chemistry like that you’ve been building with G Ereck Flowers at this point and how comfortable do you guys feel playing next to each other?) – “He’s entering his sixth year in the league so he’s definitely somebody I look up to. He has a lot more knowledge about things and how things go. He’s just real helpful and he’s definitely somebody I look up to on the o-line – we look up to – and it helps him playing right next to me. So just getting to work with him and pick his brain about stuff. It’s really helpful.”
(I’ll go ahead and cast my vote for Chocolate Devotion from Cold Stone Creamery. Just going to go ahead and throw that out there. You’ve got to go with that chocolate. That’s the way to go. I do want to go back to the football question here and follow up – just kind of 15 or so practices in now, just curious if there’s any particular thing whether it’s your pass sets or getting better at drive off the ball in the running game. What’s one thing you’ve really focused on and you think improved so far in training camp?) – “The biggest thing for me was just picking up the playbook in training camp making sure my technique is specific – consistently specific – to whatever scheme I’m trying to do. So I think my consistency is the biggest thing that picked over training camp. Just doing what I need to do consistently over and over and over again to the point where it’s muscle memory. That’s probably the big thing for me.”
(I have a football question. If you purchase ice cream for the linemen how many gallons do you estimate you would need?) – “For all the linemen?”
(Yeah, you’ve got to bring enough for all the offensive linemen, right?) – “Yeah, I guess I do. (laughter) Honestly, I’d probably say about three. Three gallons.”
(Three gallons? [laughter]) – “Two-and-a-half. Two-and-a-half gallons. Three gallons just to be safe. Not everything’s going to get taken, but three just to be safe between all of them.”
(Here’s my football question. Texans T Laremy Tunsil is a good player and I think you guys have – coming out of college – similar traits in terms of being big guys who can move. You have good feet. I’m curious if you’ve ever watched Tunsil film. If you have what’s your thought?) – “Yeah, I remember him getting drafted to the Dolphins. I feel like he’s not too far away from me in age, so I saw him get drafted. I saw his Ole Miss tape and I saw his tape with the Dolphins and he’s a great player. Great feet, like you said, and I think he got in the Pro Bowl last year if I’m not mistaken or something like that. But he’s a great player, great feet and definitely respect his game.”
(I do not have an ice cream question, but I do have a question I’ve wondered about. With Offensive Line Coach Steve Marshall what kind of offensive linemen whether it be Laremy – which has he encouraged you to watch on tape just to sort of observe things? Are there any ones in the league you think have a similar skillsets that you’ve studied on tape?) – “With Coach Marshall, I think what he’s good at is just knowing what a lot of guys do and understanding that. Everybody’s different. With me, he’s been real good with working individually with what I need to work on and in terms of what other people to look at I’d say pretty much I’ve looked at guys like Tyron Smith, Taylor Lewan, ‘Big Trent’ (Trent Williams) up in San Fran, a little bit of Ronnie Stanley. Just pretty much all the tackles that the league just kind of adding to my toolbox, seeing what everybody does and creating my own rhythm and my own set of tools.”
(I want to say I will not tolerate any strawberry slander. Strawberry is an excellent ice cream. With DE Shaq Lawson how much has he helped you walking you through things that you need to improve on those daily matchups that you go against him?) – “A lot. Shaq (Lawson) is a great rusher and again he’s one of those older guys who’s been around the league for a while so he’s been pretty good at just pulling tools out of the toolbox randomly. Randomly throwing new stuff in. He’s caused me to get a lot better so yeah, I definitely think he’s helped a lot and I’ve gotten a lot better lining up against him.”Emmanuel Ogbah – September 4, 2020 Download PDF version
Friday, September 4, 2020
DE Emmanuel Ogbah
(Obviously it’s great having you and DE Shaq Lawson not only for what you can do on the field this year, but you give good competition to the young offensive linemen to help them come along in training camp. What have you seen from T Austin Jackson as a young left tackle?) – “Austin is doing a tremendous job. I know him and Shaq (Lawson) have been going at it, and also I’ve been going at it with him too. He’s been doing a pretty good job at working and getting better every day. He’s got guys like me and Shaq helping him out and giving him some tips too, as well. He’s doing a good job for us.”
(The Patriots named QB Cam Newton as their starter. I wanted to ask what your experience is playing Cam and what do you think that will be like for the opener?) – “I’ve played Cam once in my career. It’s going to be a dogfight. He’s a former MVP. They’ve got a good quarterback and we’ve just got to be ready. It depends on what ‘Coach Boyer’ (Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer) has in mind for us as far as game plan. We’re going to be ready to go.”
(Also to that extent, talking about New England, what has LB Kyle Van Noy brought to the room? He plays behind you but to the defense, what does he bring to the unit? It seems like when we watch practice, he’s pretty vocal in terms of telling guys where to be and such.) – “Yeah, he brings that leadership. He’s familiar with the system, so he kind of helps younger guys to bring guys together and tell us that we’ve got to keep working and keep getting better, and the division is open. We’re just doing our best to stay up there.”
(How is your transition to Miami and this new team kind of going for you so far?) – “It’s been going well. South Florida is like my second home because I come here every year to train. I’m just blessed to be here and grateful for the opportunity. I’m just ready to go out there and bring home a championship.”
(You mentioned you were talking about LB Kyle Van Noy earlier and you guys have a lot of loud guys it seems like on that defense, between DE Shaq Lawson and LB Jerome Baker at times, and DT Christian Wilkins. Who brings the most energy and noise on that defense?) – “There’s a bunch of guys. We’ve got ‘E-Rob’ (Elandon Roberts), we’ve got Kyle (Van Noy), Shaq (Lawson) is always loud and outspoken. We’ve just got a lot of guys that come together that just know how to work together and play together. It’s a good group of guys.”
(Just wanted your thoughts on how good this defense could be. Obviously there’s two high-end corners, a very solid front four, linebackers who are established starters. How good could this defense be? Should it be a top 10 or 12 defense in this league, do you think?) – “We can be as good as we want to be. Right now we’re taking it one step at a time, working together, getting better together and just doing our work and doing our job. If you make your play, I’ll make my play. Setting the edge, taking care of the deep ball – the deep part of the field. Just doing our part. Each of us individually just have to do our part and we can be as good as we want to be.”
(Going up against QB Tua Tagovailoa in practice, what are some things that he does as a quarterback, that are probably a little bit harder to defend?) – “You still have to watch out for he could scramble on you. He’s pretty fast, too. He’s pretty mobile, so you have to watch that. He has a nice deep ball too. He throws the ball really well so you’ve just got to do your best to stay contained and keep him in the pocket or he might get out.”
(What’s the difference between defending QB Tua Tagovailoa in practice versus defending QB Ryan Fitzpatrick in practice?) – “I mean ‘Fitz’ will run on you if you let him. I feel like I’m more nervous about Tua’s speed than ‘Fitz,’ but they both bring their game. They both have something unique that each has.”Brian Flores – September 4, 2020 Download PDF version
Friday, September 4, 2020
Head Coach Brian Flores
(I just want to follow up, I remember last year you telling us that you were the ‘turk’ at one point in your NFL career. I wanted to know, who is your ‘turk’ now and what’s that experience like when you’re having those conversations with guys telling them that “hey, your dreams of playing in the NFL are deferred?”) – “We’ve got some young personnel people who are handling that as far as who is making the first – having that first conversation with the players – then obviously they talk to (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and then they talk to me. That conversation is not an easy one. It’s one that’s – it’s a delicate situation. Obviously the guys are disappointed who are being released. I try not to tell them that their dreams are over, but I do tell them that when one door closes, normally another one opens up. I try to be supportive and give them some good feedback that could help them in their next endeavor. In a lot of cases, there’s opportunity to bring guys back to the practice squad. If that’s the case, we’ll let them know that; but we just try to be respectful and supportive and honest. I think that’s always the best way to handle a tough conversation like that.”
(Is there I guess a different strategy this year with the bigger practice squads about how you want to go about cutting guys to make sure you get them through? Like I know some teams may do it a few days early or a day early to try to get their crew through? Is there any strategy behind that?) – “I think we have conversations on every situation. As far as strategy for the practice squad, I think the additional practice squad players – we’ve had a lot of conversations about who we would want on that and that’s almost its own kind of roster itself. How many linemen, how many corners, how many receivers? As far as if there is a strategy on what day, I think no, to be honest. I think we’re just going to kind of go through the normal process and everyone who we release, we know they’re out there to potentially get claimed and if they do get claimed, then we’ve got to move on to the next guy on our list. So from a strategy standpoint, no. But again, honestly that’s probably more of a question for (General Manager) Chris (Grier), (Vice President of Football Administration) Brandon (Shore) and the scouting department.”
(Do you have captains at this time?) – “No. We don’t have captains. We’ll go through that process probably later in the week.”
(This time last year, those on the outside weren’t expecting the amount of moves you guys made this coming weekend with trades and cuts and picking up guys on the waiver wire. Obviously you have a much more veteran team – a much more established team – this year than last year. Should we expect that kind of movement from you all this weekend or do you think you might be a little lighter?) – “You never know. It depends on who’s out there and who’s available. Look, we look at everyone and if we feel like there’s a player out there that can help us, then we have those conversations. Last year was different than this year so we’ll see. You never know who’s going to be on the wire, who’s going to get released, who’s going to become available. I don’t want to kind of pigeonhole us and say, ‘hey, we’re good with where we’re at,’ because if we can get better, we’re going to try to get better. I think that’s going to always be the approach.”
(We had heard from I guess some of the DBs and Defensive Backs Coach Gerald Alexander earlier a couple weeks ago about the point system that you guys are doing to kind of encourage turnovers, hands on the ball. I wanted to see if you could kind of give me your perspective on that strategy and then maybe what’s the state of the competition as camp wraps up.) – “Turnovers – they’re hugely important and in a lot of cases the deciding factor between wins and losses in this league, so we’re very conscious of obviously trying to secure the ball offensively and in the kicking game and try to take it away defensively and in the kicking game. It’s something we try to spend a lot of time on. The more turnovers, the better chance of a victory. My message to our staff was any way we can create more urgency, more energy, more competition and maybe a competitive points system; if that’s what does it and puts more emphasis on trying to create turnovers and it works, then I’m all for it. As far as the state of where we’re at, I’ll let ‘GA’ (Gerald Alexander) handle that, (Defensive Coordinator) Josh (Boyer) and the defensive staff. I’m doing some other things.”
(Getting back to the captains, what’s your thought process when trying to put that unit together? Do you have a leadership council? Do you expect it to be one person from every unit? How – is it player-voted, not player-voted, selected?) – “It’s player-voted. I think that’s the right way to do it – allow the players to select who they feel are the leaders on the team that they want to speak for them because those captains, we have a captains meeting every week and we have conversations about everything from the schedule to game plan to any issues surrounding the team. So I think that’s where – the players make that selection and I talk to them about that and the role of the captains. It’s not just on the field which that’s part of it also, but it’s on and off the field, the locker room – anything that they feel like they need on, off, scheduling. It’s a big role and it’s not one we – I think it’s an important choice for the players. I try to mention that as well. It’s not a popularity contest. This is a serious kind of position and they should take it seriously.”
(Now that we’re at the tail end of training camp, given what you were up against this summer with no OTAs and so forth, where are you in terms of preparedness? How far behind are you compared to if you had a full offseason training program?) – “Compared to years past, we’re 10 OTA practices and three minicamp practices behind; but every team is in the same boat so us being a young team with a lot of rookies and a lot of new players, that’s where we’re at. I feel like we’ve worked hard. We’ve improved; but as far as where we’re at versus past years, that’s what it is. But it’s that way for every team. We’re not making excuses or pointing fingers or placing blame or anything like that. It’s what it is and more time – it’s always better, but that’s not what we have and I think the guys have worked really hard and trying to build that continuity, that takes time as you guys know. But I think they’re working towards that and like any year, hopefully we’re better two, four, six, 10 weeks from now than we are today.”
(With the news coming out that Patriots QB Cam Newton is going to start for the Patriots next week, how much does that help, how much does that affect your preparation for the game?) – “I think we all had an inkling that that was going to be the case, so we were preparing for all three quarterbacks and we’ll still do that. You’ve always got to prepare for the backup and you have to know who the third quarterback is if there is one – the same at all positions. You want to know who the o-line is and who the backups are on the o-line and who the d-line is and who the backups are on the d-line. But with him being named the starter – I mean we’ve watched a lot of film on Cam (Newton). We’ll continue to do that, but we’ll also watch what (Brian) Hoyer and (Jarrett) Stidham and the rest of the guys on the team – they’re very talented. They’re obviously a well-coached team. It’s hard to win on the road. It’ll be a challenge. We know that and it doesn’t matter who the quarterback is, it’ll be a challenge against that team.”
(Yesterday there was a report that the team was kind of taking calls for QB Josh Rosen. Whether that’s true or not, could trading away Rosen maybe lend to the opportunity for QB Tua Tagovailoa to play maybe a little bit earlier than you want to play him?) – “As far as the rumors about Josh (Rosen), I think it’s the day before cut-down day and I think there’s a lot of names that are floating around and we’re fielding calls left and right – or I know (General Manager) Chris (Grier) is –about Josh and probably a handful of other players, and I think that’s the case across the league. As far as Tua (Tagovailoa) as you mentioned, no decisions have been made. We’re going to go out here in practice today and make decisions on the roster tomorrow. But yeah, we’re fielding calls on everybody – well, not everybody but on a handful of players – and I think every team is doing the same thing. But again, Josh has competed. Josh has made some great throws. Josh is, I think he’s gotten better over the course of training camp. That’s where we are with him. Hopefully that answers your question.”
