WR Preston Williams
(You said you watched the dropped touchdown three times. You said what after watching it three times?) – “Honestly? I should’ve made that catch. I feel like I’ve been (expletive) in the end zone. I’ve just got to come down with those. I wish I had them back.”
(Had you felt it was a touchdown, like you had possession, when you looked back at it three times you watched it?) – “I need to look at my handbook again and see what the rules are on possession of a catch or whatever. For a minute, I thought I caught it. After looking at it, I can’t really tell.”
(You got by far the most targets than any of the receivers. How would you describe the chemistry between you and QB Josh Rosen?) – “A couple of them got batted down. Coach called certain formations for certain plays for what the defense was running. Josh goes through his reads and makes the best throw possible. A lot of times I was in the right situation.”
(One thing they said on the CBS broadcast yesterday is that QB Josh Rosen said that you could be his best friend on the team. How have you all form that relationship, what things do you have in common outside of football that’s helped develop that?) – “Me and Josh came up in high school together, the same year. We played in The Opening together. We’re familiar with each other just from past events. We’re just reuniting back here. It’s pretty cool. We’ve got to get a little bit more chemistry down, a little bit more work together so we can just polish up some things, and get on the same page. I feel like me and him will be real fine – me and Josh. Josh is a great quarterback. He knows what he is doing. He is a talented guy with a great arm.”
(How did you feel QB Josh Rosen did in the game yesterday? Obviously he made some good throws, your view on how he played?) – “I feel like Josh played exceptionally well. There is always room to get better. Nobody played a perfect game. I feel like Josh played really consistent, and I’m excited to see what he’s going to do this week coming up.”
(Obviously it’s unusual for an undrafted rookie to come in and play as many snaps as you did, and you’ve earned a lot of it with your play in preseason. Do you look at this as a special opportunity that maybe not a lot of undrafted rookies get to play so much so soon?) – “Undrafted, first round – I never doubted my talent and what I can do. I had a chip, that gave me drive; but at the same time, I still felt like I could still compete in the league and be one of the No. 1 receivers one day.”
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Monday, September 23, 2019
G Michael Deiter
(How would you describe the experience of being a rookie and in-game, going ahead and playing left tackle?) – “Just another day of playing football. You never know how it’s going to play out. I definitely didn’t expect to play left tackle, but it is what it is and I just had to adjust to it. It could’ve been better. It could’ve been worse. There are two ways to look at it, but it was cool. It was just another little challenge that I had to navigate through, and I thought it went alright.”
(What does it tell you in terms of the coaching staff’s confidence level in you that they would put that responsibility on you?) – “It’s nice that they felt okay enough to put me out there. It’s cool to understand that, but I haven’t played tackle for a while and I don’t want to say that they’re like, ‘oh, he’s for sure the tackle we want,’ but it was cool that they were like, ‘he can do it.’”
(When was the last time you played left tackle in a game?) – “(I played left tackle in) college in 2017.”
(What are the adjustments you have to make? Obviously you’re going against a fast edge rusher as opposed to an inside guy, but what technique-wise and your steps and all that kind of stuff. Did that come back to you?) – “That’s the biggest thing is there’s a lot of different techniques. Especially when you’re throwing the football, it gets a little bit different with technique – how you set, where you want to punch, where your landmarks (are), all this – it’s all different. The first thing is knowing that. You can’t go out there and not know what the tackle’s assignment is, how he’s supposed to set, all that. That’s the toughest part and then the speed. The speed and the space is the biggest difference. Those guys – they’re not as powerful – some guys as powerful – but it’s just way more speed.”
(How many snaps would you say it took before you kind of felt like – I don’t want to say back at home – but felt like you were comfortable at left tackle?) – “I don’t know how many. It just took a little bit of feeling out, I’d say. Not too long. My first play at tackle was like a third-and-7 or third-and-6 and I was pretty rusty. That was bad, and I just kind went into ‘don’t get beat too fast’ mode. The first play was rough, but from there on it got better and better. There was some good. There was some bad, but it started getting going.”
(How long had they been looking at you at tackle because I think in the second game, I think I noticed that C/G Evan Boehm and G Shaq Calhoun were the extra linemen and I asked Head Coach Brian Flores what were you going to do at tackle, and he was like, “oh, I don’t want to give it away right now,” but that had to be a few weeks or so since regular season? I don’t remember it in training camp.) – “It was just the last two weeks. It was maybe, if need be, play some tackle. It was ‘he did it in college’ and I got a couple reps in practice at it, but not much. It was a very just-in-case thing. That’s it.”
(Are you going into this week with the mindset that that’s where you’ll be if G/T Jesse Davis can’t make it on Sunday?) – “No idea. I have no idea.”
(How many practice snaps have you gotten at tackle the last three weeks?) – “Probably no more than 15.”
(Combined? Each week or combined?) – “Combined.”
(I know your short-term goal is becoming entrenched as an NFL starting guard. Do you have any aspiration to being a tackle long-term?) – “I have aspirations of starting in the NFL on the offensive line. (laughter) I don’t care where – just as long as I’m playing. That’s it.”
(Anything shocking to you about left tackle whether it was being out in space – I know that stuff comes back to you, but…?) – “Just the speed was a little bit shocking. I just kind of had like weird flashbacks of ‘I remember doing this.’ I just kind of remembered getting the guy is just a little bit easier. In the league they’re just past you, so you’ve just got to be that much cleaner with your sets, that much cleaner with your hands, footwork. It was cool.”
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Monday, September 23, 2019
Head Coach Brian Flores
(On the two players that made their debut, can you talk about each one of them separately? DE Taco Charlton first of all and DE Trent Harris. How did they do after watching the tape?) – “I thought Taco – he had been here a couple of days. I thought he went in, I thought he played hard. I thought he handled his assignments. We didn’t give him a lot to do. I thought he did an okay job with his assignment. He lost contain on one play in particular that I’m thinking of; but I think he’s off to a pretty good start. He was very into the game, very into everything we’ve been doing since he’s gotten here. It was good to have him. As far as Trent, I thought he had a couple of good games and twists inside. I thought his communication was good. He hadn’t been out there (much). He was just getting out to practice, (so) he had a little rust on him. Overall, I thought it was a good start for both guys.”
(I know we get an injury report on Wednesday. Is there anything you can tell us on G/T Jesse Davis, or WR Allen Hurns?) – “Allen is in the protocol. Our medical staff, obviously I’ll defer to them from that standpoint. I think they do a great job and were doing everything they can with Allen, leaving him in Dallas and felt like that was the best thing for him. He’s on his way back and from what I understand, he’s doing a lot better.”
(As far as G/T Jesse Davis, and G Danny Isidora?) – “It’s Monday so those guys, just in talking to them today, I think we’re just going to take this day-to-day. Hopefully we can get them back this week. But yes, it’s early in the week and those guys are very upbeat about the possibility of getting back into practice and playing. We’ll just take it day-to-day.”
(What things did you see yesterday that you think you can build on?) – “There were definitely some opportunities for us to make plays in all three phases. From the surprise onside kick, to there was a kickoff return where if we make one block – there was a lot of should’ve, could’ve, would’ve in the game; but definitely some opportunities for us, offensively. Obviously we had some drops. Defensively, we had some missed tackles. Some opportunities on third down we didn’t take advantage of – third-and-long, second-and-long. I think the team, from what I’ve seen, there seems to be some opportunities for us to have a little bit more control of the game, and we just didn’t take advantage of them. There are plays to be made that we can make, that we just aren’t making – in all three phases. I think if we make two, three, four, five more plays, the game is a little bit different.”
(Are guys pressing at this point? Do you think that is part of the problem now?) – “Pressing?”
(Yeah, with the way things have gone and wanting to…) – “I think these guys want to win. They want to do well. They play hard. No, I don’t think they’re pressing. I think we’re close to stringing some good plays together, and then we’ve just got to make the routine plays – routine catches, the routine blocks. This is a game they’ve all played since they were little. I think as a team – individually and as a team – we just need to stay in the present and just play the way we’ve practiced, the way we’ve talked about playing, and I think good things will happen.”
(A couple questions on the RB Kenyan Drake fumble. That ball – was that clearly stripped, or was that caused when he roll-spun into TE Durham Smythe?) – “I think it was a little bit of both. He spun, the Dallas defender got a hand on it. Obviously there are a lot of bodies flying around; but any way you slice it, we’ve got to secure the football. We hit it, they hit it, an official hits it – it doesn’t really matter what happens. We’ve got to secure the football. We’ve got to do a better job of that. Obviously that was a critical point in the game. We had an opportunity to go up at half or at worst, kick a field goal and go down one. That’s why ball security is so important in this game, and we need to do a better job.”
(RB Kenyan Drake made a comment: “I’m not going to change my running style.” I guess he was referring to spinning off of hits, I guess. You can’t really always put two hands on the ball when you spin, right? Does he need to change anything? We see running backs do that all the time, including Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott yesterday.) – “I think – Drake’s a good runner. He’s fast, he’s explosive, he can make people miss, he’s physical. He’s a good running back. In that instance, he’s just got to secure the ball better. No one’s asking him to change his style. I’m not. But we’re always asking him to secure the football. He knows that. We’ve talked about that. He’s a good player. No one’s more upset about that than he is. He wants to do well for this team. It’s important to him. He’ll get that done and corrected.”
(Time of possession was almost even. How do you interpret that, and how much of a step forward is that? What does that say about the team?) – “I think it just means we kind of strung some plays together offensively. (We) got off the field defensively at least in the first half. We made some plays – explosive plays – down the field; but at the end of the day, this comes down to putting points on the board. We were 0-for-3 in the red zone. We did a good job I would say on early downs – first and second down – of picking up first down, but we were 3-for-15 on third down. That’s really how you change the time of possession and you change controlling the game. We need to do a better job, specifically in the red zone, of putting the ball in the end zone and then third down, that’ll go a long way to helping us both offensively and defensively. We have to keep them out of the end zone and then we’ve got to get off the field on third down.”
(How would you assess how G Michael Deiter did at left tackle?) – “I think he played – it was pretty admirable of him to go out there and (with) limited practice reps – he’s practiced at that position for sure, but when Jesse (Davis) went down, he went out there and look, they’ve got good ends. There were some tough matchups out there, and he performed – I thought he performed well. Not perfect, but given the circumstances, I was happy he was there to kind of fill that role. He’s got a lot of versatility. He’s a tough kid. He’s smart – just from a communications standpoint, there were no issues. He had some tough matchups for sure. I was happy with watching a guy – a rookie at that – in that environment, step into that type of situation and give us some really good effort and give us some good plays. I thought that was really admirable.”
(You had 72 defensive snaps. LB Raekwon McMillan played 21 of them. Considering you gave up 6.9 yards per carry – he did well obviously his first full season last year against the run. Does he need to play more?) – “Raekwon (McMillan) – we’ve got him in in some of the bigger packages. He’s played well, but I’d say Sam (Eguavoen), ‘Bake’ (Jerome Baker) – those guys have played well also. We’re kind of splitting reps between the three of those guys. I’ve got a lot of respect for Raekwon. I think he’s doing a good job. Again, we’re evaluating all positions and getting him in there a little bit more is something we’ve talked about, and we’ll see how that goes this week. Obviously, if he has a good week at practice, we’ll take it from there.”
(Is there one specific message you have for the team this week?) – “Get better. That’s the message every week. Let’s get better, let’s come back, let’s practice, let’s improve, let’s get better. I think it’s pretty clear that there are some plays that we could’ve had out there. That’s disappointing, but I guess the silver lining there is there are some opportunities that we can definitely take advantage of. If we continue to put ourselves in those positions where we have those opportunities, then I think we will take advantage of them. That’s my message. Just keep continuing to get better. I feel like that’s been the case each week. The results haven’t been what we want them to be, but I think in time, things will turn.”
(I want to go back to something you said yesterday when we asked you about the WR Preston Williams play in the end zone where the ball was stripped. You said you watch every touchdown every week. Is that every contested touchdown or every single touchdown in the NFL you’ll have them cut it up and you watch?) – “Every one that’s, let’s say, up for debate whether or not it’s in or not in; but I do end up watching a lot of the touchdowns over the course of the week. Any one that is on the line of ‘do we throw the flag, not throw the flag?’ ‘Is he in, is he not in?’ I watch them all. Those I get. Every single touchdown – I wouldn’t say I watch all of them throughout the entire league, but I watch a lot of league footage along with our opponent.”
(From watching those touchdowns, do you have pretty good clarity on what to challenge and what not to? You seemed certain yesterday that that was the right decision. Do you have clarity?) – “As far as going through the process of watching them – what were the results? Were they overturned? Was it in? Was it not in? From that standpoint, you have pretty good clarity. Obviously that’s subjective in a lot of ways; but yeah, I have fairly good clarity. I spend a lot of time on that. We need to be sure about those decisions because they’re big ones in a game.”
(I know you said after the game that you were advised that you didn’t need to review that, but after watching that play itself did you feel like maybe a review – not was warranted – but you could’ve gotten something from that?) – “No. I trust the guys in the box, and after watching it myself, I was convicted that that was the right call.”
