(On the kicking situation and the injury to K Aldrick Rosas) “The injury last week, Aldrick [Rosas] came in and said that he was feeling something, I don’t know what the exact medical term is for that area. Then we wound up going to see the doctor and it was a graded injury, so he was out. I don’t know whether it was during the game, I think that might have been when that occurred. That’s probably all the information I really have on that. I think we’ll take a good, hard look at our kicking situation when we fix the issue, resolve the issue, then obviously we’ll come out and you guys will be notified with some things.”
(On the return of K Josh Lambo) “I don’t see him being able to come back this week, but we’re trying to progress as fast as we can to come back for the game against the Chargers. That’s what we’re hopeful of. That would be maybe speeding it up a little bit though from the normal prognosis originally.”
(On a status report of the other injuries) “I think right now the only person I feel comfortable about saying that will probably not be available for us is Andrew Wingard (abdominal strain). As far as anyone else goes, I’ll probably know more on Wednesday, but [I’m] optimistic about everybody else. He’s the only one that I can honestly sit here today and say him and, obviously, Josh Lambo. are the only two players I know that won’t be available for us this week.”
(On the return of DE Josh Allen) “I’ll know more Wednesday.”
(On where NFL players find consistency) “I think one is obviously you have to be available on the field and play and you have to be available to practice. I think those two things go together. I think the availability of being out there every day in practice, which makes you hone in on your skills and on your technique, which obviously those are the things that are going to give you the ability to perform consistently, and then getting out there and going through it. I think there are things that happen during a game, each player’s different as far as what may take their mind off something or keep their mind on something too long where you’ve got to get yourself ready to focus play in and play out. I think that is a skill that’s learned throughout your process as a player. Obviously, it starts when you’re young, being able to do that. But I think we all can relate to it somehow whenever we’ve played sports or played team games or even in clubs that we’ve been in, the amount of focus, the amount of practice that you need to be consistent. I’ve seen that on things outside of football too. Just think about when we were all students in college and we’re studying and we’re trying to learn and we’re figuring out better ways to learn and keeping our focus for all these long tests of how to keep our thoughts in line. Those things are acquired through experience, but I really think you need both those things. I think you have to be available to practice and you have to practice at a high level and practice with a lot of focus. Then, obviously you need the talent to be able to go out there on the field and to be able to do it and then to prove that you can do it day in and day out. I think the players that are able to do that and show that consistency, they’re the ones that get the second contracts, play for a long period of time and play at a level where you can win.”
(On what contributes to the inconsistency of play this season) “I talked to the coaches today and we have the players coming back in tomorrow. We want to make sure that, ‘Hey, is it the right technique? What was going through your mind? What are you thinking?’ When you do the right technique, you’re going to get beat sometimes. You haven’t played enough unless you’ve gotten beat, but if we’re going to get beat, let’s do it that way. Let’s not do it where ‘I didn’t put my hands on this guy’ or ‘I didn’t hit the right landmark’ or ‘I ran this route too short,’ things of that nature. So, what I see now is a lot of effort, a lot of guys are playing extremely hard. I think it’s a combination of us doing a good job coaching and getting them to believe or have confidence in it and being able to do it, and then, situationally, taking advantage of opportunities. I think we’re not giving games away, but we’re also not going out and taking any games. I think that we’re playing hard and when the opportunities come up to make something happen, we didn’t do that. I’m just basically talking about last week. Yesterday, we had a couple opportunities, and we didn’t take advantage of it and you need to do that. I think [when you’re] moving the football, you move the ball at times well and then all of a sudden you stop, you can’t have that. You have to be able to do it. Being able to stop someone for two downs and them into a good situation and then not be able to get off the field, those are the things, the critical plays at the right time, to get yourself some momentum and get yourself in the win column. That’s what we’ll be working on.”
(On if the schedule changes will affect the game planning for the next couple of week) “No, I think the key thing is that because we all have to be on-site to test daily, on a daily basis, I think that helps. Where sometimes those bye weeks, with the amount of time the players have to have off, [they] can go ahead and schedule things and plan trips or see family or whatever may happen. So, I think that plays in favor of you don’t have to worry about all that scheduling or re-scheduling of things you have to do. I think for us, outside of really Josh Lambo being ready, which we thought he’d be ready for that game, I actually like it. I like [that] they moved it up and we’re going out to the West Coast and then we’re coming back from the West Coast and having a bye week. I think sometimes it’s tough when you come back from that West Coast to get your team back and ready for the following week. So, I’m trying to look at it as more of, ‘Hey listen, I think this helps us a little bit, except for the guys that we’ve got that are banged up.’”
(On what the team can do to stop giving up as many points per game) “I mean there’s a couple things. I think you go back to — situationally — some of those third downs and being able to get off the field, possessing the ball more on offense and scoring. I think that helps put more pressure on the opposing team and just making plays at times. I thought yesterday, Sidney [Jones IV] made a lot of good plays. He had an interception and he almost had another one. He defended four or five passes. I think those are things which you’re looking for to get yourself off the field, creating turnovers. We created two, I thought they were two really good plays. Great hustle play by Jarrod Wilson coming over, great play by Sidney to do that. I think those are things you have to do and do it consistently. I think we’ve shown we can do it at times, but we haven’t put it all together because you look at those turnovers and you look at what we did offensively after those turnovers and we didn’t really come up with anything. So, you can’t let that stuff go and I think that playing for the full four quarters. I think last week, the other day, the score is the score, but it was a lot tighter than that and it was close, and we had an opportunity to get ahead. We weren’t about to do that and that’s what my focus is on now, that I think we’re doing enough not to, like I said before, give the game away, but we’re not doing anything to get the game in our favor.”
(On the game plan of playing RB Chris Thompson versus RB James Robinson) “I think that’s a good question and it’s one that we’ll look at to see what we want to get done. During the week, basically, we had packages where obviously when we’re in two-minute or we’re going fast and things of that nature, we had Chris [Thompson] in there. On third down, we had Chris to take some of the load off of James [Robinson] and not put too much on him too early. But I think we’ll look at that and I think the philosophy, it changes week by week. It’s easy to stand up here and say you’d like to be able to run the ball in the red zone. When you chart their history, most teams have some ability to run the ball there. They have success and a lot of teams that have elite playmakers have success down there. We feel like we have some good playmakers on the perimeter. We feel like we can run the ball. We just really haven’t put it all together. I think where I’ve always struggled when I was game planning, I always struggle from that 4-, 5-yard line in, because what you have to deal with there is you have to deal with a lot of checks. You have to deal with a lot of different situations of either they’re all coming, and it’s ‘Cover 0’ or they’re all covering. You get one or the other, so you always have to have two plays in there, what you want to do and what you want to go to. A lot of times they’ll take away the first read and you have to buy yourself some time and be able to get to some secondary progressions or third progressions going through. That’s why whenever you see a lot of those backline throws, things of that nature, that’s where it’s going to. So, I think there’s a lot that goes into it. I felt really good about our red zone prior to this game. I thought we were doing a nice job. I didn’t think we took advantage of maybe some of the situations that we had and we probably all could’ve done a better job there.”
(On what he’s seen from DE Adam Gotsis in the first five games) “I like a lot of things that he’s done. He’s really helped us in the run game. He’s done a good job in the position that we have him in. I think he’s excelled in that position before and I think we’re going to push him to see if we can get a little bit more pass rush out of him. I think that we know that he’s really done a good job in the run game and [we’re] really trying to work on this first and second down pass rush and get even better production out of him because he’s a guy that consistently works hard, consistently tries to better his game, great team guy, wants to be better. So, I’m happy with what he’s doing and how he’s helping us right now filling in for Rodney Gutner, who wasn’t able to play, and we couldn’t fill those positions. I think he’s come in and done a really good job of that.”
(On if he thinks the offense is balanced between the run and the pass) “I think when you look at it, what we were trying to get accomplished game plan-wise, we were trying to go in there and try to push the ball. We felt like we had some areas that we could do a good job of and at times we did and at times we didn’t. I think when you lose a game, to sit here and try to defend a lot of decisions and do that, I don’t think [I can]. You guys know me, I’ve been there. To say that we were in a tight game, would you want more balance? I love it when you can get up on a team and then balance is easy. It always works out that way, it’s a whole lot easier. Sometimes you’ll start out, you’ll come out and throw the football just to get those runs later on in the game to loosen people up and sometimes its vice versa. Sometimes you’re going to run early and get those guys to come up fast and hit them with play action over the top. There’s a lot different ways to do it and how you game plan to go about how you want to play the first part of the game, if it goes your way, I think a lot of times you’ll come out with balance at the end of the game when things go that way. I think whichever way you go in the first time, if you’re going in there and you’re going to run it and then you’re not throwing it well and then all of sudden it’s like should you have thrown more earlier to do that. I think these are all good questions. They’re all things that we’re constantly looking at and seeing what’s the best way to play and what’s the best way to have ourselves prepared. I think right, wrong, or indifferent, we had the three injuries on defense. I think the defense stepped up, played as hard as they could, the best they could. Those guys are playing extremely hard. I think we lost on the matchups on the outside at times, but defensively, I thought they did a good job and then I think maybe offensively, maybe we threw it probably a little too much. I’m not going to sit here and try to defend that. I think we’re always looking for balance and we weren’t able to get that in this game.”
(On if yesterday was one of DE Dawuane Smoot’s better games) “Absolutely. I really think he did a nice job. I thought that he disrupted the quarterback. I think he did a good job in the run game. I think that the snap count has gone up. I’ve seen him working hard in practice. He’s always been a hard worker and all he’s done is really just push for opportunities, so that’s something that’s going to help us. I thought he did a good job. I thought Caraun Reid, even though he didn’t play that many snaps, did some things for us in the pass rush mode. I liked what he did there, and I think he’s earning his stuff. I think you see a lot of these guys that are going in there and they’re playing and they’re doing things that are going to earn them more playing time. But I agree, I thought that was one of [Dawuane] Smoot’s better games, if not maybe one of his best games.”
