Monday, September 7, 2020
Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer
(Going into Week 1 of any season – not specifically this team but any season – what is the level of uncertainty about how good of a defense you have and what are the things you’re particularly interested in finding out about this week? What do you think you’ll really find out the most?) – “I would say yeah, going into any season, I think that’s pretty accurate. You work your way through training camp. You try to do as many things as you can to get players ready, but like I’ve said earlier, the defense will evolve over time and we’re going to try to put them in position to make plays and obviously it’s going to come down to execution and fundamentals. It’s really an unprecedented experience this year because there’s no game action before we go out there. So our focus has really been on fundamentals and I think over time, the chemistry, the camaraderie, the fundamentals, the play; all of it will improve. We don’t look to be playing our best football in September. Week to week, we’re looking for improvement. So I think that there’s going to be a little bit of we’ll see, but our focus is on getting ready to go this week and go up there and get a win. That’s what our focus is, but yeah, there’s definitely some unknown going into it.”
(We were made aware I guess of the DB point system game that was going on in the DB room. I wanted to see if you could update us on the winner of that if you know what’s going on there.) – “Our thing is defensively, we preach about fundamentals. We preach about the takeaways, turnovers and we work pretty hard on that. And really for all the coaches, whatever way they can motivate the players to get better out of them, I’m all for. As far as how those things work and all of that stuff, I don’t really pay attention to it. I just kind of really look at the results on the field and I know our guys are working hard towards those things, so I don’t have an answer for you on that one.”
(I wanted to ask you a question about Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey. Did you really know him too much before the hire and how has it been like matching wits with him in practice?) – “Personally, I did not know him; but obviously with his history with the Jets and the Bills, going against him for a good chunk of years, I was familiar with how he uses players and I’ve always kind of respected him from afar, and getting to meet him in person has really been awesome. We’ve had some really good conversations about football. He’s a great football coach and more importantly he’s a really good man, so he’s really been a good guy for me to be around. It’s been a great experience that way and that’s kind of been our relationship.”
(The pressure that you’re going to be able to put on quarterbacks. I know a lot of it is scheme-driven, but do you feel like you have defensive ends, pass rushers that can disengage from tackle one-on-one and get after the quarterback?) – “Again, I think pressure, it comes in a variety of forms. Some of it will be individual effort. Some of it will be team-oriented – scheme-oriented – but we’ll take it any way we can get it. Obviously ultimately, I think all defenses are trying to put pressure on the quarterback. I think they’re trying to put pressure on the offensive line. I think sometimes you can do that by disguises, alignments and sometimes you can do it by matchups. And again, we’re working pretty hard to put our guys in a position to succeed and again, we’re excited about Sunday and we’re looking forward to it and we’ll kind of see what the results are there.”
(Head Coach Brian Flores informed us of all the captains; but on defense what do you think it says about the impact that two specifically with LB Elandon Roberts and LB Kyle Van Noy that they’ve made on their teammates in the short amount of time that they’ve been here to not just be voted on that but to be looked on highly with the defense?) – “I would say with all three of our guys – Bobby (McCain), Kyle (Van Noy) and Elandon (Roberts) – I think those are all three great candidates, which obviously you mentioned the players voted for those guys. I think all of our players – all of our coaches – need to exhibit leadership on a daily basis. I think these guys have kind of stood out in some of those roles and again, everything has kind of been – they came in and the guys that were here, it was a welcoming event for them when they were coming in and for the guys that were here. I would say there’s a lot of conversations between our players. They worked hard in the spring when we weren’t able to see them. These guys, they reached out to many players on our defense and tried to develop relationships that way and I think ultimately it’s going to help us as a football team, and it says a lot about those three guys in particular, but there’s many others. You can go – (Davon) Godchaux, Eric Rowe – there’s a lot of guys that took it upon themselves to reach out to guys when everybody’s kind of quarantined off with the pandemic and they’re trying to build those relationships.”
(How do you think Patriots QB Cam Newton is going to look in Patriots Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels’ offense?) – “I will say this: Cam Newton is an extremely talented player. Obviously we’ve seen that for a decade in the NFL. He’s very talented. He’s got a big arm. He can make all the throws. He can run if he needs to run and I would say Josh McDaniels for – you call it almost two decades – he’s been a solid play caller in this league. So I know this: I know that Cam is a good player and I know Josh is a good coach, so I’m sure there will be a good marriage there and like New England will do, they’re going to try to get the best out of their players and put them in position to succeed, and Josh has shown the ability to do that year after year. So I think it will probably be a good marriage and be smooth for them, and we’ll just have to see what it is. There’s no film on it. There’s no tape on it, and again it’s going to have to go back for us, we need to focus on our fundamentals and what we’re trying to do; but we know we’re facing a really good quarterback and a really good coordinator.”
(When we spoke to Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey a few minutes ago, he had mentioned that he’s going to be working games from upstairs. I’m guessing you’re going to be downstairs, but I’d like you to confirm that; and also in terms of getting ready to call plays what have you done to prepare yourself or are there drills that you’ve done or how are you getting ready to call plays in such a short amount of time?) – “Yeah, I’ll be down on the field. And I would say I probably have got as good a ‘school’ as anybody because for I don’t know, the past – whether it was (Lions Head Coach) Matt Patricia or ‘Flo’ (Head Coach Brian Flores) – I was basically up in the box and I was kind of going through the game with them as games were going on. I would say from getting ready to call plays in the game – like you sit and you watch a lot of film and you go through, okay, there’s a lot of things that you can manipulate the film to just give you down-and-distance, personnel. You can create games, which we’ve obviously done. I’ve sat through there. There’s guys on our defensive staff that have put those together and we go through it. We call that way with what you think New England’s going to do this week and stuff. And it’s not all right, it’s not all wrong; but it’s just a way to prepare and all the guys that I’ve been around over the years, I know they’ve done that and that’s just how we kind of prepare. You’ll go on film, you’ll make the calls and then you’ll be like, ‘okay, well this is something they can do in this situation.’ But again like I said, they have a new quarterback. There could be a lot of unknowns out there, but we’ll be prepared and ready to go and make sure that we’re fundamentally sound on stuff. And like I said earlier when I was talking with you guys, there’s not going to be a lot of surprises in the calls that are coming out there. Our players are going to know what’s getting called in certain situations and give them the ability to go out there and play fast, and again, it’s going to go down to fundamentals – getting off blocks and tackling, good eye discipline in coverage – all those things are going to show up huge, I would say, the first month of the season.”
(You mentioned how things might not be sort of perfect in the first game. We would like perfection, but I’m wondering how much patience you might have for what I think we’ll see, which is maybe a few extra missed tackles?) – “Again, I think this is why you try to put your team together with mentally and physically tough people. The mental aspect of it is defensively, we’re going to face some adversity this year. There’s a lot of good players in the league. There’s a lot of good coaches. They’re going to make plays, too, and the key is how do you handle that when those things happen? We try to simulate it in practice. We try to put our players in situations that are tough for them and we try to set them up with every drill possible; but until you get out in the game situation and those things happen – but you’ve got to move on to the next play. If it’s good, bad or indifferent, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to move onto the next play until the clock says zero because we’ve all seen strange things happen in games. You’ve always got a chance and you could have a lead or you could be behind, and it could go either way. We’ve all seen that, so I don’t think you – you don’t hit the panic button. You know things are going to happen. You try to address it and you go to the next play, and that’s kind of the approach that we take with our players whether it’s good, bad or indifferent. If you get a sack on second down, okay, that’s great. If you go out there on third down and you have a mental error, that’s not a very good set of downs for you. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad. You just really, you move onto the next play and kind of train our guys that way and our guys are kind of built that way, so that’s kind of how we approach that.”
Monday, September 7, 2020
Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey
(I wanted to ask what went into the coaching staff’s decision to name QB Ryan Fitzpatrick the season-opening starter?) – “I think first of all, all of those kind of questions go to (Head) Coach (Brian) Flores and not to me. He is the one that makes the final decision on that; but I think last year’s play and this year’s preparation and play played a lot into the decision.”
(The opportunity to get a player like WR Lynn Bowden Jr., how do you see his skillset kind of fitting in? And we asked Head Coach Brian Flores earlier, he kind of plays that – it seems like that versatile role like WR Malcolm Perry. How do you see his skillset fitting in the scheme?) – “To be honest with you, I don’t know a lot about him. I didn’t study him coming out. All I know is what Coach Flores and (Wide Receivers) Coach (Josh) Grizzard said to me about what he can do and what he’s capable of. It’s going to be somewhat of a wait and see for me because I just don’t know enough about him.”
(You’ve had more than a few trips to Foxborough in your career, I was wondering – probably some good and some bad – what makes that place so hard to win?) – “They’ve got good players is one thing. When you have good players, it’s hard to win; I don’t care if you’re home or away. They’ve won a bunch. They believe they can win and you have to go fight your rear off to go win up there. It’s always been a tough place to play, but the good thing about it is the players on the field that get to go play the game and make the difference. Our crew went up there last year and won, so I think they’ve got a great belief about what they are capable of doing.”
(What were some of the key factors that went into the staff’s decision on who to go with at right guard and right tackle?) – “I think you look at the overall play during camp of guys. You look at the maturity aspect of things, you look at the athletic aspect of things. When you take all of that into account, you come up with the best five that you can get on the field. That’s not just right guard and right tackle, that’s the whole line. It’s every position. Coach wants a lot of competition and I think we had that. You’ve got to make a decision. You can only put 11 of them out there. There may be more that are capable of doing it, but you can only put 11 out there.”
(What do you think of the camp that WR Preston Williams had, and obviously the concern about his health before camp, it seems like he answered a lot of questions or doubts throughout camp?) – “Yeah. Some days he look great and other days you could tell he wasn’t 100 percent; but there were more really good days than the bad days. We tried to rest him, and I think he’s in a really good place going into the first ballgame.”
(I wanted to ask you about the tight ends that you have in your arsenal. A lot of people would say that TE Mike Gesicki is one dimensional, TE Durham Smythe is one dimensional and then you have TE Adam Shaheen who’s kind shown me that he can do both. How important is it that you don’t telegraph what you do with tight end use?) – “It’s very important. You don’t want to get locked into doing one thing with guys like that. You have to show some versatility, so a guy like Mike that’s envisioned as just a receiver and not a blocker, we’ve worked hard to help him get better as a blocker and I think he’s done that. I think we’ve also done the same thing with Durham. We’ve worked hard with him to help his receiving, and he’s worked hard at it, and I think he’s gotten better at it. Hopefully we’ve got balance there, more than people might think at this point.”
(We know you know QB Ryan Fitzpatrick well. I was hoping you could give us some insight on what value you think he still provides for the team both on field and off field?) – “Well, his leadership is unbelievable. His understanding of the game is right up there with the best. He understands not only what we’re trying to do, but he understands what the defense is trying to do, and that gives any quarterback a leg up when they can do that. It wasn’t necessarily that way our first year together in Buffalo; but he’s gotten to the point the last six or seven years where that’s been a real asset for him. His leadership, I think his accuracy has improved since we were together last, and I think his knowledge is great. The other thing is he loves the game. He’s a competitor. He wants to win and when you have a competitor at quarterback, that goes a long way.”
(I wanted to ask you about your plans for Sunday. Are you going to be on the field or upstairs? What do you see as the benefits to either one?) – “I’ve always – when I hadn’t been a head coach, when I was a coordinator – I’ve always been upstairs. The calmness of being able to think through the next series, of being able to look at the pictures and think about things without somebody coming up to you and telling you that they were open on the last play, ‘why don’t you get me the ball,’ and all of that stuff, it’s great to just sit there and think about how you need to go about beating the defense the next time out. You can spread out and just have some calmness is what I like about it.”
(What do you enjoy most about calling the ball plays on game day?) – “That is a great question. You’re in the business because you like to win. Everybody says they want to compete; but no, you want to win. That’s what you’re trying to do. You compete in order to be able to win. If you don’t compete, you won’t win. So yes, you want to compete, but I love winning. It may be winning a series, it may be winning a half, but ultimately you’re about winning the game. The good thing about it is, over the years, I’ve realized the most important thing is that at the end of the ball game, to have one more point than the other guys. That’s a successful day because if we go out and win 15-14, you guys will say how bad we are on offense and write but we won. If we win 43-42, you’ll talk about how great we were, but we won. The biggest thing is to go win the game. I like winning. That’s what I enjoy about play calling is winning. I don’t think I have all of the answers, but hopefully I have enough to help us win.”
Monday, September 7, 2020
Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman
(I’m getting a gauge of going into Week 1 and I talked to a couple of people and asked “what do you think is going to be the biggest unknown?” And a lot of people mentioned special teams because you haven’t had any live drills to kind of prepare. What is sort of your perspective on the unknown of how your unit is going to look because of the offseason?) – “I think you’re always going into the first game – even after having played preseason games – there’s always that ramping up of the regular season compared to the preseason. Now you just add to it that we didn’t even have those preseason games; but I think we’ve done a good job in how we’ve structured practice and how we’ve worked. Obviously true game reps, you really don’t know how guys are going to perform until they get into that situation. I like the way we’ve worked. I like the plan we’ve had. We’ll have a good week of practice hopefully and see what we have on Sunday.”
(You just mentioned you liked how your group has worked. With the three main specialists – K Jason Sanders, P Matt Haack and LS Blake Ferguson, how do you think they’ve done over the past month and just the sense of they didn’t have any outside competition, so do you think they were able to hone in on themselves and get that motivation within themselves throughout camp?) – “I do. I think every guy in this building is self-motivated. I think the big thing that we’ve tried to emphasize with those guys and getting all of the work for those guys is without preseason games, being able to work for really five or six hours. When you think about when you get into a game situation, by the time you warm up for an hour and a half and you’re ready to go for three hours based on the game, it’s all on you. With how we’ve structured practice, involving things very early in practice and being involved in things very late in practice, (we’re) making sure our mindset is right to be able to perform at a high level for a long period of time, which you don’t get without preseason games.”
(Where are you guys with your return situation? I know WR Jakeem Grant has handled a lot of that in the past. Is he still expected to be your primary guy there?) – “Like I’ve said all through camp, we have a couple of guys that we’re very happy we have. Obviously Jakeem has done a good job and had a lot of production in this league. We feel good about where we’re at with our return situation. It’s obviously evolving and especially with Jakeem.”
(What do you think of the acquisition or the opportunity to add a player like WR Lynn Bowden Jr., who has return experience at a pretty successful clip during his days in college?) – “It will be interesting when we get him in the building and really get our hands on him and be able to work with him. He was a player that obviously we had a high level of ‘like’ of his attributes going into the draft. Once we get him in the building and see where he’s at and see where he can help us, it will be a joy to work with him.”
(I know you’ve had different type of players returning. You’ve got a small guy like WR Jakeem Grant and then sometimes you have a big guy like WR Preston Williams. What do you kind of look at in different body sizes and types of players and how that goes into a returner?) – “I’ve been almost in this league for 20 years now and I’ve seen them all. You’ve seen guys that are big, you’ve seen guys that are small. You’ve seen guys that you don’t think are fast but are quick. It’s an innate ability as a return player to be able to make people miss in small places. Regardless of your body type, some guys have that ability and some guys don’t. You mentioned a couple of guys that we have that I think have that ability and have proven it in games that they can make people miss in small areas.”
Monday, September 7, 2020
Head Coach Brian Flores
(How much better do you expect your defense to be Sunday than it was a year ago at this time, in your first game as an NFL head coach?) – “We’re not really worried about what happened last year. I think the guys are really focused on this particular week. I think they’ve worked hard over the course of training camp and we’re just going to try to put our best foot forward and try to play a good 60-minute ball game against a good opponent.”
(It’s game week. I wanted to see if you could let us know who your starting quarterback is.) – “This isn’t groundbreaking news; but ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) is going to be the starter. In a year like this with limited – no OTAs, no minicamp – limited training camp or modified training camp, we just felt like that was the best decision for the team. He’s done a good job through the course of training camp and he’ll be out there.”
(I wanted to ask, I guess we saw you guys obviously made your roster cuts. How do you plan to use those two practice squad spots? I know this year there’s the rule change where you can use those two practice squad spots to have guys active. Have you guys started to have discussions on how that will be used?) – “Once that rule was put in place with the new CBA, it’s something we talked about as a staff – myself, (General Manager Chris (Grier), (Vice President of Football Administration) Brandon (Shore), (Assistant General Manager) Marvin (Allen) and the coaching staff. It’s an interesting – being able to flex up a practice squad player. It’s something that I think a number of teams are going to use. We’ve talked about it. We may use it as well, so we’ve had discussions. It’s really case-by-case and week-by-week and a lot of it depends on the game plan so we’ll try to – without giving too much away here – we’ll use it when we need it. And if we don’t, we won’t use it.”
(I just wanted to ask you about what appealed to you about WR Lynn Bowden Jr.’s skillset in the trade with the Raiders and just the possibilities you have now with two exciting former college quarterbacks who can do a lot of things. Does that intrigue you having two of those types of players?) – “It’s two young players that have a lot to learn, haven’t played in the National Football League, don’t know the speed of the game. They’ve got a long way to go. I’m excited about both Lynn (Bowden Jr.) and Malcolm (Perry) from a talent standpoint. They’re tough. They’re competitive guys. It’s important to them. As far as Lynn, obviously we did a lot of work on him pre-draft and when the trade was an option here, we did a lot more work, so we’re excited about having him join our team and once he gets here, there’s a lot that he’s going to have to – he’s not just going to jump out there and start playing. He’s got to learn how we do things around here. It’s obviously a new environment. He doesn’t know where our facility is. He’s not going to know where the meeting rooms are, the training room, the weight room. So he’s got a lot to learn in a little bit of time. He’s excited. We’re excited to have him. We’re excited to have Malcolm also and a lot of guys in this rookie class, so we look forward to working with all the young guys and really everyone on this team. Hopefully – but this week obviously we’re locked in on the Patriots. We’re trying to have laser focus on that, but at the same time getting guys acclimated and trying to develop them is always at the forefront.”
(Speaking with a few defensive players who were here last year this past week, a lot of them talked about LB Kyle Van Noy and just having him around and the familiarity with you and terminology, personnel, etc. Have you been able to see that in camp and just heading into Week 1 the importance of having Kyle here early on?) – “Obviously we’re excited about Kyle (Van Noy). We’re excited about a lot of guys on the team – offense, defense and special teams. I think Kyle’s history with me and history with the defense has been helpful. I think I would say in a lot of ways because he and I have been together so long, it’s good for other guys to hear that I haven’t changed. I coach guys hard. I’m demanding. I’m still that way and I’m going to be that way, so I think for a lot of guys when Kyle says, ‘yep, he’s losing it, but he’ll get back here. Give him five minutes.’ (laughter) I think that part of it’s been good. And whether that’s Kyle or Elandon (Roberts) and I would say some of these – the guys that were here a year ago – they understand that, too. Not that I lose it all the time, but I am passionate about coaching, passionate about getting guys better and it’s something that – I love coaching. It’s great to have Kyle. It’s great to have Kyle and really a lot of the guys defensively – Bobby McCain, (Davon) Godchaux, ‘Bake’ (Jerome Baker) – so I’m excited about that group. We’ve got to put together a good week to play against a really good football team and I think we’ll do that.”
(I know we are just minutes away literally from the first depth chart of the season being revealed. What can you tell us about which starters are going to be listed as first-team and what gives you confidence that they’re ready to start right away?) – “Well you’ll get the depth chart here pretty soon, so the guys who are, let’s call it ‘starters,’ are guys who obviously had good training camps and showed that from a consistency standpoint, from a technique/fundamentals standpoint, from a communications standpoint; they were ahead of some other guys. Again, that initial depth chart, I wouldn’t put too much into that. There are so many groupings. What grouping are we talking about? Are we talking about 12-personnel, 11-personnel, 20-personnel, 10-personnel, big nickel, little nickel, dime; so I’m not into the whole starters, back-ups. I think in football, you’ve got 11 guys on the field, a lot of different groupings. I would say this year specifically with no preseason games, we’re going to see a lot of guys who are playing. Every rep counts. Every snap counts, so I don’t really put too much into, ‘hey, this guy’s the starting this’ or the starting right guard or left guard or defensive tackle. So you’ll get it here in a little bit and I’m sure you guys will (laughter) take a long hard look and write about who’s starting, who’s not. But I think we’ll see a lot of guys playing in a lot of different groups.”
(Last year you guys were able to get a young backup quarterback reps in the first few weeks even though he wasn’t starting. How might you and the staff approach that scenario this year?) – “We’re going to do what we feel best to try to win a game. That’s going to be our approach every week. I would say if young players get reps in a game, that’s good; and if they only get reps at practice, then that’s what it is and we’ll have to make do with what we have.”
(I wanted to ask you about the readiness of CB Xavien Howard to go into a game. We heard from him over the weekend. He’s obviously making progress. Where would you say he’s at right now?) – “I would say, echo is words, he’s making progress … Look, Xavien’s health is very important to me. I know everyone is excited about game one, but we’ve got to take a – we’ve got to look long-term as far as the overall 16 game season. That’s (not just) with Xavien but that’s with everyone. That’s the approach we’ll take. We’re not going to rush anyone; but if the guy is ready, he’ll be out there.”
(Locking in on the Patriots, how different is it to prepare for a Patriots team that does not have Tom Brady at quarterback?) – “They still have a lot of talented players. They are well coached, they are tough, they’re physical. Playing on the road is always hard. I know there are no fans, but playing on the road is a tough thing. They still have a talented roster. Cam Newton is a former MVP, former No. 1 overall pick. Julian Edelman’s a great player. They have good backs, good offensive linemen. Defensively, they’ve got the Defensive Player of the Year in (Stephon) Gilmore and J.C. Jackson, and Devin McCourty. I know we’re all saying this is a very different team. It is in some respects but they are still very talented and they are still well-coached. This will be a tough test for us. We’ve got to have a good week of practice, a good week of preparation and go up there and try to play a tough, smart football game.”
(Have you guys names captains for the football season yet and can you tell us those?) – “Yes. We named captains the other day. Players voted two on special teams – Clayton Fejedelem and Kavon Frazier – three on offense – Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ted Karras, and Jesse Davis – and three on defense – Bobby McCain, Kyle Van Noy, and Elandon Roberts.”
