We had a tough ball game Sunday that just hammered home one of the real lessons in our program that it’s all about the ball. We know. We were on it so diligently that when you give the ball up a couple times, it’s hard to win. You gave up a couple scores that’s really difficult to figure out a way. You got to match them back up and neutralize them. We weren’t able to do that. As you look at this game, you think it’s all about the ball that they got in their turnovers. We didn’t get any. A week ago, we got four. This week, we got nothing. Makes a huge difference obviously in the outcome. The rest of this game was a really good, hard fought game. Both sides battling, just slugging it out kind of like we wanted to do. We thought if it could go like that, it would be a game that might be a last possession type of game. We had a chance to make it that way, at least that way had taken care of the football better. The lessons couldn’t be more obvious, and we couldn’t be more clear about what we needed to do to change it. We’re going right back to work. We’re not going to spend any time on this game any more than we would otherwise. I want to do a good job of putting it behind us and getting going. We got to go to Atlanta and finish up this first half of the season in the best fashion that we can. That’s what we’ll do.”
(On if the offense giving up the ball puts pressure on the defense to create turnovers) “The pressure is always on the defense to get the ball. We do know well enough that you have to find a way to match it up. I thought what was impressive about it, if anybody was wondering, how that would affect our offense and affect the quarterback. We came right back with a really good drive and answered and went down the field and tied the game back up. That’s one statement of it – how did it affect you? We weren’t rattled by it at all and we went back to business. We know. Deep-seated, we know we got to go get the football to match that turnover. We’re after it. We were trying.”
(On what he has and has not seen from the pass rush) “I think it’s mostly the results, of just the sack part of it. Getting the sacks. That number isn’t going in the right direction. The passing game, there were like two plays in the passing game and the rest of it was really well done by our guys making plays and disrupting. We pressured a number of times and got good disruption out of it. We found a way into chasing the quarterback when we pressured. Okay, we got him out of the pocket. We broke him down and knocked him out of the spot. That wasn’t the best thing that can happen, but you needed to do it. You’ve got to go after him and change the rhythm. Again, I think this is something you guys are going to worry about a lot more than I am, really. We’d love to get more sacks. We’d love to have more hits on the quarterback whenever because that gives us the ball for the most part. We just want to keep battling away. I think now, if we’re going to get better, it’s going to happen in the next couple weeks. I think the fact that J. [Jarran] Reed is back out there should make a difference. He played real hard and came out of the game healthy and all that. Being his first game in a month and a half, he’ll get better and help us.”
(On what he saw out of Jarran Reed) “He played fine. He played good, hard football. Had a couple plays that he would like back. Other than that, he played tough and he felt good coming out. He felt good in the game conditioning wise. He came out fine and that’s a big positive. You can see it could have a big impact on him if he wasn’t ready. Physically, he did a fantastic job of getting prepared so that he could go for it when he returned. We’re pleased with that.”
(On how he evaluated the two young safeties performances) “Well, we made a big mistake early. Gave them a freebie down the field. That’s just distasteful. I hate that we gave them that because there’s no way that should’ve happened. Other than that, I thought Marquise [Blair] did a really good job. I thought he was active, physical, covered well. Made a couple things happen that were real positive and avoided a couple other things that were mistakes that he made. Our guys covered for him pretty well. They helped us. I liked his play. Really, it was kind of like what we would expect. He showed up immediately as we saw in the first kickoff, too, where he had a couple plays in the kicking game that really kind of knocked him down a notch a few weeks back. He jumped right back in and was a special factor. He helped himself. He’s going to play some more.”
(On if Marquise Blair will start in the future) “He’s going to play some. We’ll say it that way for right now. I’m fired up about him.”
(On if it will be a few more weeks before he knows what’s going on with Lano Hill) “Yeah. He won’t be able to get back this week.”
(On Bradley McDougald’s status) “He’s a little bit better, but he didn’t just pop out of it yet. He didn’t come back today ready to go. We’ll take it all the way through the week, and we’ll see what happens. Obviously, he’s got a little issue that’s keeping him in the spasm mode. He hasn’t been able to shake it yet. We’re working on him and we’ll see what happens. We’ll go day to day.”
(On if there are any structural issues beyond the spasms for McDougald) “Well, there’s always something that causes it. Our guys know what’s going on and they just got to try to take care of him.”
(On if the defense was more worried about containment or sacks for the pass rush) “Yes. We tried to compress the pocket on a number of times. That was a big part of the plan. Whereas you think that trying to sack the guy was the issue, it wasn’t. It was trying to keep him from getting the freedom and the spacing that he likes to take. Even when you do that, you can see we still had trouble containing just because he’s not a containable guy. If he wants to get out, he’s going to get out. We wanted to close down the passing lanes for him and just make it hard. For the most part, the passing game was not a big issue. Again, there were two huge plays that got us. Other than that, it was really him running around. That is a big part of their passing game, him scrambling. ”
(On Rashaad Penny only playing a few snaps) “That wasn’t part of the plan, it just didn’t work out. I wish he would’ve played more. It just didn’t happen.”
(On what Baltimore changed in their defense for the second half) “I didn’t see them change much. They were mixing so many calls throughout the first half. I think they just kept rolling the dice as they do. They play a lot of stuff and they keep just bringing it from different edges and different manners. They just kept doing it. What happened in the second half is the first half, we really possessed the football. In the second half, they did. We didn’t get off the field like we wanted to. We had terrific drives in really the five drives. Three of them we scored on. We had a lot of plays. Half of our drives were over eight or nine plays because we were converting on third down. It gave us the chance to keep the football. They did a little better on third down in the second half and they made a couple more plays. They possessed the ball a little better than they did. The halves kind of flipped in terms of time of possession.”
(On Chris Carson having to bounce it outside a lot) “Their two big guys on the side did a nice job on a couple plays. We’re critiquing Chris instead of heading for the hills out here, just stuff it and give us two or three yards inside and we’ll go to the next play a couple times. Just a couple situational runs, too, that we talked to him about. He has a lot of success putting the ball on the perimeter. He’s good at it so he looked for a couple ways out that we’ll take what we can get and stuff it up in there and go to the next play.”
(On how Luke Willson and Jacob Hollister have been as blockers) “Well, Luke [Willson] is playing that position for us. Jake [Hollister] is moving around a little bit more. Luke has always been a solid blocker. It’s not been his sole strength that he needs. He’s been a runner and a catcher and all that. He’s working hard at it. We are missing George [Fant] playing there. That’s something that we’re missing right now. Regardless of whoever else we had with Will [Dissly] and the guys we’ve had in the past, nobody blocks like George. That’s a factor that we’re hoping we can get back to soon.”
(On the plan with Duane Brown) “It’s a day at a time now. He’s closer, obviously, after a couple weeks sitting out. He wants to get something done on Wednesday. We’ll find out if he can. He’s determined to try to make it back. I don’t know if that’s going to work out or not. [D.J.] Fluke will be back and ready to go. Fluke just barely made it back for the game. He was available to us. I think he was only in on a couple snaps in the kicking game and field goal protection. He will be ready to compete this week for playing time.”
(On what he saw from Tre Flowers) “He played really good ball. He had a couple other plays in the game. Did a nice job. He’s taking a technical step forward here in the last few weeks with his game. I’m fired up for him. His confidence is up. He’s more aggressive. His technique is really the best it’s been all year. He can feel it coming. We got a good play out of him and a couple really nice plays.”
(On if first interception helped get them going) “Sure. Sometimes yeah. Sometimes it’ll give you a little boost and get you going a little bit. Without question.”
(On the conversations around the fourth and three decision to have Jason Myers attempt the field goal) “Get out and go ahead. It’s in his range. We knew where we were on the field and all that. He was comfortable with kicking from there. It was a long field goal, but it was a chance to go ahead in a game that they hadn’t done a lot on offense. We were feeling fine about playing defense on those guys. Three points would have been a big deal in this game without the big turnovers. That was part of it. I’m thinking, he’s going to make it. He’s good. He’s a good kicker. The ball got pushed, that’s it. The other thought was, I hadn’t thought about punting them deep and putting them in the hole because the defensive nature of the game. With the chance to go ahead right there, we are exactly where we need to be in range, we went for it.”
(On why going for it on fourth down and three wasn’t considered) “It’s fourth and three, there’s a little difference, I won’t give you the whole scoop here but, that’s getting there. That’s a little longer than you want to go for it.”
(On Duane Brown’s plans to practice on Wednesday) “I’ve got someone on this shoulder and someone on this shoulder. I’m listening to what Duane [Brown] is saying, and I know what the doctors are saying so, we’ll see what happens. They’re a little more cautious, he’s aggressive and wanting to go for it. If he can, he’s going to be on the field on Wednesday. We’ll see what happens. We may have to protect him from himself in this regard.”
(On how he feels about George Fant’s performance the past two weeks) “He’s done fine. He’s done a nice job. Our pass protection was really nice in this game. We did a good job. I don’t know what their plans were in terms of rushing the passer but, Russ [Wilson] had a lot of time to hold the football back there when he needed to, and he waited some out. He threw a lot of balls away; he threw a dozen balls away this game- to avoid a sack or avoid a bad situation. But he was able to do that for the most part because he had a good look at things. They covered us up pretty good. George [Fant] was a big part of that. He’s out there on the edge and he came through again.”
(On of D.J. Fluker’s playing status is affected at all by how well Jamarco Jones plays) “Somewhat, because he’s competing and he’s done well. That means that he’s raised the question, ‘does he deserve to play, should he start?’ He played terrific for us for three weeks in a row now. It’s a good situation for us, it’s as competitive as can be and D.J.’s [Fluker] got to come back for us ready to go – which he is. His attitude is great, he can’t wait to get back out there. We’ll see what it all means, we’ll know at the end of the week really.”
(On what has been most impressive about Jamarco Jones) “He’s been really poised, he’s been really consistent, he doesn’t get rattled by the situation or the guys he’s going against, the calls we’ve made’ the checks. We have not had to scale back at all for him because he didn’t have the awareness. I mean, shoot, he was on his stuff and everybody’s going to have a couple plays. He got a whiff one time on pass protection, but for the most part, he’s got his hands on people, he’s staying on his and doing a good job. He’s just been impressive, it’s probably most impressive that it’s just been no big deal. He just handled it, and he’s out there playing. He played in as big of a program as you could play in in college. The crowd, the fans, the pressure, whatever, he was chill. It didn’t even bother him at all. He played like he was capable of and that was impressive.”
(On not planning to play Jamarco Jones at the guard position initially) “No. but everybody that comes to the program has got to be versatile to help their chances of helping. Before too long, we started messing around with him but, we have in mind the big, giant guys that are 340-350 something that we have in there. He wasn’t as big as those guys but, he’s played big, and he’s played strong. He’s done a nice job.”
(On how Jarran Reed held up and played against the Ravens in his first game back) “He did hold up, he felt fine today. This was the day that you thought he would be hobbling around because he got banged up–he didn’t. He came through it in great fashion, his mentality is great, he was really strong at the point of attack, he was clean in his techniques. We missed a couple opportunities in pass rush stuff that’s going to come through communication. Brand new, two guys working together, either side he was on. Brand new conversations and all that, that you can’t recapture in three or four-days’ time, it takes a while. But, we’re on it and the acceleration of this should go light speed. We should be able to roll, I couldn’t be more fired up that he came back like he did, performed like he did, and felt like he did coming out of the game too. So, it’s as positive as we can get.”
(On how close Ziggy Ansah was to playing and his status moving forward) “It’s a day to day deal. He’s got an ankle that he’s got to come back from. He’s going to be caught somewhat like Duane [Brown]. He’s going to want to come back Wednesday/Thursday or so and see if he can get back out there. We’re going to need to see him, see that he can get off and put some pressure on it. I don’t think we’ll be able to go all the way up to game time and not play him at all during the week and see if he can play. I don’t see that happening, we need to get him some work during the week so he can prove that he’s ok.”
(On Tyler Lockett’s recent sideline catches, including the one out of the back of the end zone) “I thought that was a really impressive play. Matter of fact, that one in particular; he caught another one. He had another great catch. It would’ve worked in British Columbia or something like that but not here, maybe in another league. He caught it going near the wall, that was awesome. He’s been spectacular, his play has just been spectacular. The connection with Russ, as we saw again and again. The throw down the middle was just a phenomenal throw and catch, and that’s about as challenging a play under the full blitz situation that happened as you can make. I can’t wait to see what he does next.”
(On if he feels compelled to mentor and talk to Dan Quinn) “No, not really, not this week (chuckles). He’s on his own right now. I’ll be happy to talk to him next week (after we play each other).”
(On if he keeps in touch with Dan Quinn) “We have, over time yes we have. We take a couple chances during the offseason to visit, and talk about stuff, and see what’s going on, and kick around the questions and the issues that are happening. He had big changes in the staff this year. I care tremendously about what he’s doing but not this week.”
(On if he could imagine being a defensive coordinator and head coach at the same time) “Yeah, I did it at USC. You can do it. If you can do it on offense you can do it on defense. You need re