Speaker 1: UM wow. You know, probably just like the whole team.
Speaker 1: We lost a game, so there's no consolation prizes and
Speaker 1: handling injuries, injuries or part of the game. We have
Speaker 1: multidimensional players that can go in and fill different positions. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, we had to make it through. That's that's
Speaker 1: our job. So I don't want to give any gold
Speaker 1: stars for doing what our job is upstay going forward.
Speaker 1: What you need. Um, well we have confidence in both
Speaker 1: of those guys. I'm not going to get up and
Speaker 1: give you the pluses and minuses of every player. UM,
Speaker 1: I'll leave that. I said that last year. I'll leave
Speaker 1: out the pro football focus to determine. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: it was the first experience for Russell. It was not
Speaker 1: the first experience for Corey. Um. Corey's been around the
Speaker 1: block and um Russell um stepped in and you know
Speaker 1: I thought, I thought he did a good job. He
Speaker 1: tackled well. Um, and you know, made no mental mistakes
Speaker 1: and that that's that's a tough duty against what they
Speaker 1: do offensively, from read option reverses to shovel passes, the
Speaker 1: jet sweeps to you know, all the different stuff and
Speaker 1: it's a lot of moving parts. I was proud of
Speaker 1: him for for that part of it that arises us
Speaker 1: for the guys, for there are experiences that you can
Speaker 1: be drawn to coach, similar situations that you can have
Speaker 1: it steus to go back and say, hey, when that
Speaker 1: happened years ago in this UM. Yeah, I think every
Speaker 1: team is different, every opponent's different, you know. UM. I
Speaker 1: mean we had preseason against the Jets that we had
Speaker 1: a lot of corners play in safety. I mean, you
Speaker 1: guys probably get tired of hearing me talk about multidimensional players,
Speaker 1: but that's part of it, you know. I mean we
Speaker 1: even had a linebacker getting ready to go in and
Speaker 1: play safety if he needed to. UM. And we have
Speaker 1: a couple of guys on our roster that have the
Speaker 1: ability to do that. UM, that's just that's just life
Speaker 1: in the NFL. And UM, I think every situation is different,
Speaker 1: Your opponents different, the game situation is different. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's anything that you draw back and
Speaker 1: then too. But I've had, I mean, we've seen wide receivers.
Speaker 1: You know, New England Patriots Troy Brown played nickel. I
Speaker 1: had a wide receiver play. UM played nickel for me
Speaker 1: when I was in Detroit. UM, it's not It's not
Speaker 1: unusual in the NFL, you know. I mean there's there's
Speaker 1: only forty six active and if you get a couple
Speaker 1: of guys injured, I mean, I don't know how when
Speaker 1: the last time it's happened here, But when you keep
Speaker 1: seven offensive lineman active, I mean, you're gonna see a
Speaker 1: tight ended offensive line if um, if you get more
Speaker 1: than two injuries on the offensive line. It's just built
Speaker 1: into the business. It's safety. Um yeah. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: a guy that could do it, and we were we
Speaker 1: were gassing him up on the sideline, you know, getting
Speaker 1: him ready to potentially do that. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things you know. I mean Nick carries on the
Speaker 1: practice squad, but that's another guy that could potentially do
Speaker 1: things like that. And they're the guys that probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: go into a game starting, but you know, being able
Speaker 1: to get you out of the game. It's the same
Speaker 1: thing with defensive line. We have different linebackers that could go,
Speaker 1: um rush the edge if they needed to. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just part of your job as a coach, it's
Speaker 1: part of your job as a player to be ready.
Speaker 1: Everybody's used to dealing with one injury in a game.
Speaker 1: But when you start getting two or even three at
Speaker 1: a position and like us having three in two weeks
Speaker 1: at a position, um it, it taxes you a little
Speaker 1: bit more. But you know it's part of the business. Touchdown, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we give up fifty three or a touchdown or fifty
Speaker 1: three or fifty four, fifty three. Yeah, a gap that
Speaker 1: was left up was that just was a second arm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot of things. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: every play, there's plays that everybody can play a little
Speaker 1: bit better. Um. You know, I think I'll just leave
Speaker 1: it with um, we didn't we didn't play that play
Speaker 1: well enough. Um. And there's there's ways that you can
Speaker 1: cover up. You know, if a defensive lineman's out of
Speaker 1: his gap, a linebacker can cover them up. If a
Speaker 1: linebacker misses something, a safety can cover them up. If
Speaker 1: a safety misses something, a corner can cover them up.
Speaker 1: And one of the great things about about football is
Speaker 1: it's such a team game, and it is very rare
Speaker 1: that anything on the field is one person's sole responsibility
Speaker 1: or soul fault. When it comes to a defensive play,
Speaker 1: there's so many layers to your defense and players that
Speaker 1: can cover it up. I mean maybe you know, if
Speaker 1: a corner falls down or you know, gives up a
Speaker 1: completion down the field, you could say, hey, yeah, that
Speaker 1: guy was at fault. But I would even counter that
Speaker 1: and say, well, maybe if our pass rush was a
Speaker 1: little better and somebody hit that guy when he's throwing,
Speaker 1: maybe that maybe that helped it out. So you know,
Speaker 1: we're a team defense. We take things, we take things
Speaker 1: on ourselves as a defense. And you know the guys
Speaker 1: have said it before, but you know, no excuses, no explanations.
Speaker 1: We gave up a touchdown on the play. It's our
Speaker 1: job to you know, get them stopped right there, and
Speaker 1: we didn't get that job done. We all take that
Speaker 1: very seriously, not just you know, an individual person up
Speaker 1: the way you wanted on that, was that what you
Speaker 1: wanted there. I'm I'm not going to get into all
Speaker 1: the all the little you know, ins and outs of
Speaker 1: every single thing, because then all of a sudden it
Speaker 1: just turns into dissecting every single play. And you know,
Speaker 1: as signing blame, you know you want to sign blame.
Speaker 1: We just assigned it to the whole defense, and I'm
Speaker 1: part of that. It's a long standing up a lot
Speaker 1: us and is a game specific or I mean, what's
Speaker 1: the benefit there of avdu It's just it really depends.
Speaker 1: I mean with some of the um, with some of
Speaker 1: the parameter plays, it helps him see some of the
Speaker 1: balls were coming out quick. It helps him see a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Brandon Graham has done the same thing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know last year we had different players that stood
Speaker 1: up at different times. Some of it goes into an
Speaker 1: individual responsibility and some of it goes into something an
Speaker 1: opponent's doing. I mean, not as far as I'd take
Speaker 1: my explanation for that, as far as tackling goes, if
Speaker 1: you go back to twenty eleven under the last SPA
Speaker 1: as opposed to now, do you think it's more difficult
Speaker 1: to get these guys prepared, especially early in the season.
Speaker 1: As far as lack of practice time the last practice time,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take that cop out. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: even though we don't tackle live in practice, we do
Speaker 1: enough tackling drills, and then tackling is mostly about leverage
Speaker 1: and running to your leverage and knowing where your help is.
Speaker 1: I think we had seven plays that we had miss
Speaker 1: tackles and most of it or some of those seven,
Speaker 1: we had multiple mis tackles, and I don't I don't
Speaker 1: consider a mistackle if if you know, let's say a
Speaker 1: guy's running inside out and a guy's running outside in,
Speaker 1: and the inside out guy misses and the outside guy
Speaker 1: in is right there to clean it up. That's just
Speaker 1: playing fast, and that's playing with leverage. But if the
Speaker 1: inside guy out gets too far out and it cuts
Speaker 1: back and it gains extra yards, then it becomes a problem,
Speaker 1: and then it becomes mistackle. And I think most of
Speaker 1: those time come to leverage. I think you also have
Speaker 1: to give a little bit credit to the opponents there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's some big time skilled players, um, and
Speaker 1: some guys that can make some plays, and we got
Speaker 1: to play team defense there and and get guys cleaned
Speaker 1: up and get guys tackled. We can do a better
Speaker 1: job of that. Or Journey and the first two of these,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the the same things we've said
Speaker 1: all along. Um, you know, he's done. He's done good
Speaker 1: in the run game. He's been a factor in the
Speaker 1: past game, and he plays tough. He's a physical player.
Speaker 1: I like to temperament he plays with on the field. Also,
Speaker 1: the physical aspect of his game that that we saw
Speaker 1: on Sunday. Is that something you had seen through the
Speaker 1: preseason tackling, Yeah, I mean we saw it last year
Speaker 1: at West Virginia. I mean that was one of the
Speaker 1: reasons we liked him. He was a tough, physical player
Speaker 1: and he has good size. And you know, the way
Speaker 1: we played that game plan, we played off an awful
Speaker 1: lot against their receivers. It seemed like every time we
Speaker 1: did get close to him. Um, you know, we had
Speaker 1: a ball go over our head. So we had a
Speaker 1: very concerted effort to keep him in front. Um. That
Speaker 1: only works if you make tackles. And I thought that
Speaker 1: Russell m Jalen Mills, Jalen Motkins when he was in
Speaker 1: the game. You know, I think that those guys did
Speaker 1: a good job of getting those things tackle. We can
Speaker 1: go play a second down and three. It's hard when
Speaker 1: it's a you know, a forty yard chunk or fifty
Speaker 1: yard chunk and it's either a touchdown or the balls
Speaker 1: in the red zone. So, um, like I said, it
Speaker 1: only works if you're making those tackles. I'd say this,
Speaker 1: Russell played with good anticipation on those. He didn't cheat,
Speaker 1: He didn't you know, run down and guess he played
Speaker 1: good technique and I was happy to see that degrees
Speaker 1: of success against Odell Beck. Um, I think that's very common.
Speaker 1: Very second. Yeah, we're one on one at least, so
Speaker 1: I guess that's varying. I see, not one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: How do you prepare, um, not knowing whether he's going
Speaker 1: to be well. I've about it this way. We have
Speaker 1: to expect him to be one hundred percent. If we
Speaker 1: expect anything less, we're in the wrong business. Because he
Speaker 1: has a full week to prepare. Obviously, was well enough
Speaker 1: that they played him for third thirty three plays, I
Speaker 1: think it was. Um, he's another week away from that,
Speaker 1: another week ahead of his rehab and things like that.
Speaker 1: So UM, we'll have to be ready for thirteen. And
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to be ready for him being the
Speaker 1: same guy we remember from last year and that that
Speaker 1: he's he's a he's a very difficult player to handle,
Speaker 1: and their offense has missed him the first couple of weeks. Um,
Speaker 1: it's our job to keep him from being and um,
Speaker 1: a factor or not. He's good, he's going to be
Speaker 1: a factor, but keep him from being a game changing factor.
Speaker 1: And we're going it's gonna be it's gonna take good
Speaker 1: team defense to do It's not going to be one
Speaker 1: guy that'll do it. What do you recall about how
Speaker 1: Darby fared against him in that twenty and fifteen matchup.
Speaker 1: Reviewing the film, it was that part of what excited about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did, we did look at that. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: but you know, every good a little bit back to
Speaker 1: like experience of things in the past. Every everything is
Speaker 1: so different. Coverage schemes are different, offensive schemes are different.
Speaker 1: UM matchups him pass rush are different. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, I think that'll go. Um widely
Speaker 1: reported this week that it's an important matchup our defensive
Speaker 1: line against their offensive line. Well, that only comes into
Speaker 1: play if we can make the quarterback hold the ball,
Speaker 1: you know, if he's if he's running it or throwing quick.
Speaker 1: You know, that defensive line can get neutralized if we
Speaker 1: can cover all their wide receivers, their tight ends. I
Speaker 1: mean that that rookie tight ends looks like he's going
Speaker 1: to be, you know, one of the same kind of
Speaker 1: guys that were used to playing Travis Kelsey or Jordan Reid. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of guy. They're getting him more
Speaker 1: involved in the offense. So it's not just about stopping
Speaker 1: one guy. It's about it's about, you know, playing good
Speaker 1: team defense. And if we do that, we'll be able
Speaker 1: to exploit some of our you know, some of our
Speaker 1: better matchups in the game. You're going to pay an
Speaker 1: offensive line that has struggled to protect their quarterback. Do
Speaker 1: you have to Obviously your defensive ends are going to
Speaker 1: have the opportunity, but you have that kind of make
Speaker 1: sure that they don't try to make too much happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it goes back to talking about
Speaker 1: Russell and playing those plays in front. I mean, you
Speaker 1: still have to be disciplined, you still have to read
Speaker 1: your keys, and you still have to be able to
Speaker 1: execute and um, you know, just because they haven't been
Speaker 1: very successful in the first two weeks running the ball
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're not going to come out in this
Speaker 1: game and and try to run the ball. So we
Speaker 1: have to play good technique there. You know, play action pass,
Speaker 1: quick passes, max protect chip. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that can go into you know, layer in
Speaker 1: the pass rush and you know, down in distance and
Speaker 1: score means a lawful lot to it too. You know,
Speaker 1: you rush a lot different when it's third and two
Speaker 1: than you do one third down and eleven and pin
Speaker 1: your ears back a little bit on third and eleven.
Speaker 1: Third and two. You got to play everything. So UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that not only then it's not
Speaker 1: just an important match up our d line against the
Speaker 1: role line, but it's everybody else's ability to um, you know,
Speaker 1: to be able to to set that match up up up.
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess that's the way to say. Its
Speaker 1: seven or eight times in two games against them last year.
Speaker 1: Is that more because of Elie's ability to defend, to
Speaker 1: go up against the blitz or eat the confidence of
Speaker 1: your line or well, there's a lot. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get too much into specifics, but um, last year
Speaker 1: in particular, he was calling just about everything out the
Speaker 1: line of scrimmage, and it was a spread set, a
Speaker 1: lot of three wide receiver sets, and you know, in
Speaker 1: order for you to blitz, you got to declare. And
Speaker 1: you know he changed to play with five seconds left
Speaker 1: on the play clock. UM, So you know that that
Speaker 1: layers up and makes it a little bit more difficult
Speaker 1: to um to blitz or tow blitz out of different looks.
Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes sometimes you're not blitzing just to
Speaker 1: sack to quarterback. You're blitzing to get the ball out
Speaker 1: of his hand quick. And sometimes you feel like if
Speaker 1: you can cover, you can make them hold it a
Speaker 1: little bit longer and then maybe by time for your
Speaker 1: past rush to get home. Um. I thought our pass
Speaker 1: rushing that second game last year had a good impact
Speaker 1: on that game. For first game too, but I think
Speaker 1: second game, you know, we were we had our hands
Speaker 1: full in coverage and there was a couple of key
Speaker 1: moments that that game that guys came through with big
Speaker 1: rushes and it helped us be able to get to win.
Speaker 1: It helped us be able to get the interception that
Speaker 1: gave us a lead early in that game. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody looks at Malcolm intercepting that ball. That doesn't just
Speaker 1: happen on an island. It just doesn't happen by itself.
Speaker 1: It's team game, and pass rush had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with that. Also, you talked about bobs driding different players.
Speaker 1: What change is playing wh he's out there. He's an
Speaker 1: experienced player, just like Rodney's smart um, you know, and
Speaker 1: we had we went into both games having a package
Speaker 1: where both of those guys would have been on the
Speaker 1: field at the same time. Um, we obviously won't have
Speaker 1: that up if Rodney's not able to play. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think you know, both guys were corners in the past.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of similarities. You know, Um, Corey's been
Speaker 1: around a little bit longer. But we have confidence in
Speaker 1: both of those guys being able to execute, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever we wanted, and we liked them both enough that
Speaker 1: we had package to be able to match up some
Speaker 1: of the offensive stuff with both of those guys. On
Speaker 1: a few start going to quick passing gain to counter
Speaker 1: your your pass rush and the nickel and diming up
Speaker 1: the field. What what's what's the defensive philosophy to counter that? Well,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of different things. I mean, first
Speaker 1: is you've got to keep those short passes from becoming
Speaker 1: long passes. And you gotta you know, somewhere along the
Speaker 1: line if they're going five yards at a time, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's something to knock them off and knock
Speaker 1: down pass. A forced holding penalty, you know something. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the the quintessential men but don't break thing. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, So there's ways, I mean you know, you
Speaker 1: can play tight coverage and and and put that opens
Speaker 1: up a completely different can of worms. UM. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's so different. But that's that's one thing that UM.
Speaker 1: You know, Washington worked hard to try to do. You know,
Speaker 1: Kansas City was doing. Um, you know, it's hard. It's
Speaker 1: hard to throw quick every third down. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it's all last night. Sometimes you throw a quick
Speaker 1: on third, on third or fourth down, you can't make
Speaker 1: the sticks. You know that happened. That happened a couple
Speaker 1: of times last night. So that can play into our
Speaker 1: hands as well being able to limit I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's a well known stat in the NFL of how
Speaker 1: much explosive plays correlate with winning. Supposed to plays on offense,
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to plays allowed on defense. Um, you know
Speaker 1: that that's a that's a big thing. And if you
Speaker 1: can force teams to consistently drive played good on third down,
Speaker 1: you got chances to you know, get off the field.
Speaker 1: UM can't give him anything for free. I was also
Speaker 1: you know, I'm never pleased with a loss, but I am.
Speaker 1: I am. I continue to be encouraged by UM by
Speaker 1: our discipline defensively Again, two fouls and UM, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know where we are in the league. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't really judge other teams, but you know
Speaker 1: we had two in the first game and two in
Speaker 1: this one, and um, you know we one was offset
Speaker 1: and the other one was five yards. So we allowed
Speaker 1: no first dounds off of that, and I'm encouraged by that.
Speaker 1: We need to keep that going. Also, your second defensive
Speaker 1: line group did I love they made an impact in
Speaker 1: the game. You know, I think that all those guys
Speaker 1: you know, can step in and play. There was a
Speaker 1: UM play early in that game. We forced Alex to
Speaker 1: um go out of a sort of in a long
Speaker 1: drive and he's an elusive guy, and we dropped a
Speaker 1: defensive tackle into coverage. It was Elijah Qualls, and I
Speaker 1: did a great job number one executing this coverage and
Speaker 1: then was able to show a little bit of speed
Speaker 1: to keep the quarterback from getting the first down. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about Chris Long getting a sack
Speaker 1: and having an impact in the game. Derek Barnett, um
Speaker 1: bo Allen, you know, all those guys are very important
Speaker 1: to us as a general. M you feel like you
Speaker 1: had any kind of advantage you're going where the play
Speaker 1: caller Mac, who was the adensive, cool leader of Amity Collage.
Speaker 1: You are single and focused any kind of we can
Speaker 1: think about it. To take the truth, I mean, we
Speaker 1: have a hands full with We're just trying to trying
Speaker 1: to play the opponent that we're playing. Whoever the call
Speaker 1: to place calling from, whether it's the quarterback making the call,
Speaker 1: whether it's the offensive coordinator, where it's somebody in the
Speaker 1: booth on the sideline. You know, we can't control that.
Speaker 1: We just line up and play. Any great