| |
BB: Good morning. What are you
working on today?
Q: How would you describe Vince
Young, a big Michael Vick?
BB: I don't know if there's really another guy to say he is like. He's
stronger than Vick. I don't know if he's as fast as Vick. I would say he's
probably not as fast as Vick. He doesn't look as fast, but then again he
doesn't get run down very often either. He's kind of deceptive. He has a
long stride. Some of those guys that have those long strides don't look like
they're moving as fast as guys with a shorter stride, their legs are moving
faster but they're not getting there as quickly. He's big. He runs through a
lot of tackles. He breaks a lot of tackles. He's hard to get down, kind of
like [David] Garrard, that type of strength in the pocket, but he's a lot
faster than David. He's an interesting guy. He breaks a lot of tackles. He
outruns some people. If he gets out in space, he's hard to get down out in
the open field. Let's put it that way. It's a challenge. He's a challenge to
get down in the pocket, too.
Q: In a way, when you're watching film on a player like that, is it fun
to watch at all?
BB: If you weren't playing them, it'd be a lot of fun. If you didn't have
to defend it, it would be entertaining.
Q: When you watch a kid like that play, as a football coach, you've seen
so many guys on film, is he someone who can do things that you've never seen
anyone do before? That doesn't come around very often does it?
BB: I don't know if I would put him in that category, but he has his own
unique style of play and it's a good and very productive one. He's not the
first quarterback that's ever scrambled or broken tackles or outrun guys.
It's kind of like Randall Cunningham, that type of a guy, the same tall,
linear guy who's hard to tackle, can throw the ball deep, can run around,
throw it short and take a broken play and turn it into a long gain. Don't
get me wrong, I think he's an outstanding player. I'm not saying that. But I
think there are other players that have scrambled. He's not the first
scrambling quarterback.
Q: So is defending him, is it maybe a little bit like defending Cunningham when you're at the Giants?
BB: That was a different system. Again, it's not just Young. You got Travis Henry. You got [Drew] Bennett. Their tight ends have been productive.
They have a good offensive line. There are a lot of other problems out there
too besides Young. He's a significant problem, but I mean Travis Henry is
one of the best backs that we've seen all year. So, that's an issue. The
receivers, they do a good job and use them on their play action and all of
that, which has a lot of draw because of the way they run the ball, or when
Young starts running around, you tend to slide up on him and that creates
some voids there in the secondary. They run a lot of bootlegs and roll out
plays with him, probably a lot more than most teams do. Some of it has
elements of a college style offense, a roll out quarterback option, down the
line option, dive option, things that you're just not normally used to
defending in this league.
Q: How many of his runs are off of those options type of plays and how
many are just breakdown type of scrambles?
BB: I'm not sure. I would say about half. There's plenty of both, let's
put it that way. It may be about half and half. There's plenty of both. He
probably runs the quarterback draw, he's probably run 20 of those this year.
There's no doubt about who is getting the ball on that play. Then they have
some other option plays that, a lot of times, he pitches it. I'm sure he
would keep it if the opportunity was there. Those bootleg plays are kind of
like run/pass options. Those are what he has some of his biggest runs on.
Q: A year ago there was all that talk about his passing motion. Was that
something that you thought was significant or not?
BB: Well, first of all, as I said, I didn't do an in-depth, thorough
study of Vince Young. Where he was going to be drafted and where we were in
the draft and the players that we were considering, it really just wouldn't
have been a fit for us. If you were going to identify the classic…Bill Walsh is going to come in here and coach the quarterbacks, I don't think that he
would say, 'Well this is the classic delivery,' but there's a lot of guys
that don't do everything the way it's drawn up to do it, and they're still
productive. I wouldn't say he has the classic delivery of the ball, no. He
has a good arm and he's made some good throws and he can throw on the run
and I think any time a quarterback throws on a run, your accuracy is going
to go down a little bit. If that was the way to throw, then we wouldn't have
a drop-back passing game like we have in the NFL. He gets the ball there. No
doubt about that.
Q: Is there really only so much you can do to tweak somebody's motion?
BB: Again, I don't think there's any set formula on what you can and
can't do. When you talk about an athlete like Tiger Woods rebuilding his
golf swing, I would say if he could change his golf swing, given what he
does, then a kicker can alter his kicking style, a passer can alter his
passing style, a receiver could alter his route running style. I'm not
saying that's not out of the realm, but how much you want to do that and how
much you want to stay with what has been successful, there's probably a
balance there.
Q: Is this the type of game where Asante Samuel could put himself in a
position to have a lot of success?
BB: I'm not really sure what you mean by that.
Q: Just with the success that he's had this year, just reading the plays
a little better and because of the type of quarterback that Young is, making
those long throws.
BB: As we talked about last week, I think that scrambling quarterbacks,
and scramble plays in general, I can't imagine any defensive back really
wants to see that play happen. It just extends the coverage that much longer
and makes the route a lot of an improvision route. If the guy goes down and
is supposed to run an in-route and you're inside of him, well a lot of
times, he has no choice but to run that route because of the complementary
things that are going on around him. When you get into a scramble situation,
the receiver is basically looking to uncover off of the defender. So
wherever the defender is, the receiver is probably going to uncover opposite
of that leverage or that position. That makes it hard. If you're in front of
him then he goes deep. If you're behind him, then he goes back to the
quarterback. It makes it hard to cover those kinds of routes. I can't
imagine there's any defensive backs sitting there saying, 'Let's let him out
of the pocket. Let's let him scramble around. That will make it easier for
us.' I don't think that's the case. I think that's hard on defensive backs.
I think any player that is well-prepared going into the game can take
advantage of whatever opportunities he has, and read his keys and play the
defense called, then he has a chance to be successful within that system.
Now what that means, I don't know. Really a lot of defensive backs come out
of the game and feel like if their receiver didn't catch a pass, that
they've done a real good job, and they probably have. Sometimes it's not
about knockdowns or interceptions, it's about just not having a guy catch a
ball. That's why a defensive back's stats can be very misleading. The guy
has a lot of tackles. Sometimes that's not a good thing.
Q: How did you feel [Matt] Cassel handled the holding responsibilities?
BB: All right. All right. I think it could be better. I didn't think it
was bad, but I think it could be better. It's the first time he's done it
since preseason, on an extended basis. He's gone in for a play or two in
preseason, but I think it's getting better.
Q: Will he continue to hold the holding responsibilities?
BB: Yes, he'll continue to work on it.
Q: Will [Todd] Sauerbrun work in there too?
BB: You have to work more than one holder. We have multiple people
working on that. In the end, we'll do what we think is best for the team.
Q: With having three punters on the roster, one on the active roster and
two on the practice squad, how do you split the reps up in practice?
BB: It's like having three quarterbacks. Whoever the first guy is, he's
going to get most of the work, and then you divvy up what is left, however
you want to do it. It could be 98-1-1. It could be 50-25-25. You could do it
a lot of different ways. However you want to do it. I'm talking about team
reps. In an individual period, that's kind of the same thing, but you could
split the individual periods up differently than the team periods.
Q: From a pure punting perspective, have you seen enough of Sauerbrun to
get a first impression? Do you like his leg?
BB: Oh, yeah, I don't think there's any question. He has a lot of leg
speed. There's no question about that. Yes, he has plenty of leg strength
and power. He can hit a long ball. He's shown good accuracy and technique on
the plus 50 punts, dropping the ball in there on the goal line. Yes, I think
he has plenty of skill. I don't think that's any kind of issue. Just as
usual, it comes down to consistency. This is a guy that hasn't punted for a
while. I'm not saying he hasn't gone out in the backyard and punted, but in
terms of punting competitively in game situations, or even in practice
situations, that is something that he hasn't had the opportunity to do a lot
of this year. He did some last week at the end of the week and he'll do more
this week and we'll see how it goes.
Q: Can you talk about the improvement that Asante has made this year? In
your mind, what is the reason behind that?
BB: I think Asante is a smart kid. He works hard. He has a good
understanding of football. He has good football instincts. He's been a good
player for us for four years. He's played different positions. He's played
inside on the slot his rookie year, and then he's played primarily outside
the last couple of years, but he has some versatility. He has quickness,
good hands, and good instincts. He is around the ball. He kind of has a good
feel for timing and anticipation and has enough quickness that when he sees
that, he can get to it.
Q: Is he the kind of player that could be a big impact player in the
playoffs, especially with his experience in the playoffs?
BB: I don't know about all that. Right now we're just trying to stop Tennessee. That's a big challenge right there. We'll worry about next week
next week. Right now we're just trying to defend Tennessee's passing game
and their running game, and that's a handful.
Q: What improvements have you seen in Matt Cassel as a quarterback from
the final game last year to the final game this year?
BB: He's made a big jump. He's made a big jump, understanding of our
offense, understanding of our system, understanding the defenses, opposing
defenses and how he reads them, reads them better and has a much better
understanding of what we're doing and how to adjust to our plays and what to
do when he sees something and how to manage it and how to adjust it. He can
read the defenses. He's much more accurate and is much quicker, just
understanding and seeing what's going on even when they give him some hard
looks and move a lot of guys around. He can sort that out. He does a good
job with that. I think his accuracy and throwing mechanics and technique
have improved. I would say the biggest thing has been his overall, not only
understanding, but I would say comprehension of the game on both sides of
the ball, offensively and defensively.
Q: Is it more difficult to evaluate a player like that when he doesn't
see live action, when he's not playing on Sunday?
BB: Well, you evaluate the opportunities that you get to evaluate it,
which is the preseason and the limited opportunities he's had this year and
in the practice opportunities, which those aren't game conditions, but it's
closer to game conditions than anything else we have. You work off of that.
But I think in Matt's case, there's been a good level of consistency, what
he's done on the practice field and how that's transferred over to the game,
when he's had the opportunity to play, whether it's in preseason or even in
limited snaps in the regular season, there's a good level of consistency
there. So you're kind of seeing the same guy no matter what view you take
there.
Q: You mentioned the comprehension and the strides he's made. He was not
someone who played regularly in college, did that make it more difficult for
him to make the strides that you said he's made?
BB: Well, I'm sure playing experience would have benefited him. He's a
smart kid. He can definitely take what you tell him in a classroom setting
and then apply it onto the field. I would say not everybody can do that,
maybe not everybody could do it as well as he can. He does it extremely
well. You tell him something and then a week later it comes up and he uses
that. Just because you tell him something on one day doesn't mean it's going
to happen out there on the practice field. It might be a day. It could be a
week. Who knows when that exact situation is going come up again, but then
when it does, he'll do the right thing and we'll talk about it and he'll
say, 'Is that what you were talking about when we went over that last week?'
That's the type of thing that he does on a consistent basis. He'll do
something that might not happen again for who knows when. Then, when it
does, he'll be able to relate it back to a previous experience in a positive
way. That's great. That's how players get better, is being able to take
those situations and improve from them even though there might be a time
lapse between when those occur.
Q: You have a shot going into this
game to have your total points allowed this season by your defense set a
team record. How proud of you of that? Do you say to yourself that this has
to then be your best defensive football team because points allowed is the
most important stat?
BB: Defensively, it is the most
important stat, but I would say that scoring defense, and also scoring
offense, certainly that unit has a lot to do with it, but I think those are
somewhat team related. I think some of our success defensively this year has
been as a result of the field position that we've had. That certainly helps
and that comes from both the offense and the special teams unit. To some
degree, it’s also a function of the score. It's a lot easier to play defense
from ahead when it's kind of a one-dimensional game than it is when they’re
ahead and they can do whatever they want to do. That being said, I think our
defense has done some good things this year, but again, I think defense is
still team defense with that unit out there, but also to a degree, it's
reflective of the overall performance of the team. That's really what's
important, is how many wins we have and how many games we can outscore the
other team. Not what our individual unit stats are.
Q: In your experience, when that number is real low as a team, is it
usually reflected in the critical situations — red zone, getting turnovers,
doing well on third down? Have you seen a lot of those things come to
fruition with this defense in particular?
BB: I don't think there's any way you can really not give up a lot of
points on defense, unless you can play competitively on third down and in
the red area and not give up big plays. If you do any one of those three
poorly, then that's going to lead to giving up points. It's as simple as
that. In order to minimize the points, getting off the field on third down
is important. Stopping them in the red area is important. Not giving up big
plays where they don't have to go through the red area is also important.
When you can play competitively on defense like that, I think that also
helps your offensive unit as well. Again, they go hand in hand. You don't
have to go out there and feel like you have to score every time you get the
ball. You can not make gambling plays and take high risks and feel like,
okay we have to get the ball back here, we'll get it back, and the game is
not going to be out of hand. That's a good way to play offensively as well.
I'm not saying play conservatively, I'm just saying where you don't get into
a situation where you feel like every play has to be a touchdown, because
it's not going to be.
Q: They said during the broadcast that you said, 'It's hard for me to
look at my defensive football team and think there's only one Pro Bowler out
there.' Do you look at it that way at all — it's impossible that we're
playing this well and there's only one guy who's at that level?
BB: If you look at the two teams that were on the field last Sunday, I
think it would be hard to think that there's only two defensive players that
represent that. But that's out of our control. There's nothing I can do
about it. I'm a little surprised at that, though.
Q: With Benjamin Watson being injured, do you see Daniel Graham playing a
more important role for you as far as the passing game is concerned?
BB: Well, Daniel has always played an important role in both the running
game and the passing game. I think that Daniel is a versatile player. He can
do a lot of different things for us in the passing game and the running
game. But in the passing game, he can pass protect. He can run after the
catch and be effective on short to intermediate throws, and he can also get
down the field, as he's done a number of times this year and did last week
on those seam patterns and flag patterns and things like that. I think he
gives us good production in the passing game in doing all those. He's also
productive for us in the running game. I think he's an important part of our
offense and he's done a good job for us. I would hope that he would be an
important part going forward.
Q: He had a couple of personal situations that have worked out and he was
also selected team captain, he's come a long way. What do you attribute that
to? How is he handling it in your eyes?
BB: I think that Dan is one of the most respected players on the team. He
works hard. He's physically and mentally tough. He's very consistent. You
know what you're going to get out of Daniel everyday. He's not one of those
up and down guys — what's it going to be today? He's going to give you that
consistent, well-prepared, 100 percent effort, with solid toughness on a
down after down basis, year after year, and I think that's why he's so
highly respected by the team and the entire organization — coaches, players,
pretty much everybody that deals with Daniel. He's honest. He's upfront. He
doesn't say a lot, but when he does, people listen and they kind of perk up
because they have a lot of respect for him. I think that's why he's a
captain, that's why he has the kind of respect that he does, is because of
his consistent, day in and day out performance and dependability.
Q: Do you ever regard an extra point as automatic? For example — have you ever found yourself talking to an
assistant or a player or doing something other than actually watching the
extra point every single time because maybe in your head it is an automatic?
BB: No, I definitely don't think they're automatic. I can't say that I've
never missed a play in my coaching career, so I'm not going to say that. I
think that there's a lot of things that can go wrong on extra points. I
think it's a play of execution, just like every other play is. It's
certainly a three-part play in terms of the snapper, holder, and kicker. But
from a protection standpoint, that's always where you get the biggest rush,
because really teams don't play for a fake in that situation. They kind of
have the token guy for a two point fake play, but when is the last time you
saw a fake extra point? They're few and far between, so you get a maximum
rush from the defense. We have it. I'm sure most teams do. You have field
goal rush and then you have PAT rush. PAT rush, you're bringing more guys
and covering the fakes less. I think you get stressed on the protection
more, and then you always have the snap, hold, kick execution. Sure it's a
closer kick. We all know that. It's just like a 3 foot putt or a six-foot
putt, they're both make-able and they're both miss-able. I do think the
protection gets stressed more on the extra points than it does on field
goals, unless it's a last game-winning field goal type of thing when you
know they're going to send the house. You have to do a better job on
protection and I think on the flip side of it, defensively, I know that's
the way we look at it, we feel like we have some things usually it's a
little better opportunity on extra points because we can rush more guys and
sometimes position a little bit differently and, I don't want to say take a
chance, but be less concerned about fakes in that situation than you would
out in the field. No, I don't think it's automatic play by any stretch. I
think it's an important play and I think when I watch a team, one of the
first things that I look for when I'm looking at a team for the first time,
we're getting ready to play the team 'X', you go through and you look at the
team, I always watch their field goal and extra point rush. I think that
gives you a good indication of what type of team and what type of effort
they have. You see teams on the extra points where if they want to consider
it automatic and just stand and watch the guy kick it, I think that tells
you one thing about the competitive level of the team and that unit. And
there are other teams that it's an extra point and I tell you, you better
buckle up because they're going to roll you over. You might have just scored
on them, but now you're going to have to work hard if you want this extra
point. I think that says a lot about the competitiveness and the toughness
of some of the individual players on that team and the overall team, because
a lot of times when you watch that play, you don't see everybody on the rush
going at 100 percent maximum effort. You might see some players going at
maybe their best effort and there might be other guys that might be a little
bit less than that. I think that starts to give you a little bit of an
indication of what some of those players are about, as well. Without trying
to over dramatize the play, I'm just saying when I look at it, it means
something to me.
Q: In that particular game, the Denver-Cincinnati game, it was a bad
weather game, but it came down to one point. When I see that, I always think
of the last kick in the other stadium, the Adam Vinatieri kick, the snap,
the hold, the kick. I always come back to that when I see something like
that. That kick was pretty impressive.
BB: It is. I've gone and watched high school teams, and ninth-grade
teams, and eighth-grade teams, I've seen them kick extra points. I bring
that up to our team. There are a lot of teams that can kick extra points, so
I don't think that we're asking anything that would be that extraordinary.
But at the same time, it doesn't take much to [mess] one up. Why would you
[mess] it up? It would just be a lack of concentration. That's what it would
be. It's not that we can't do it. It just kind of heightens the awareness of
that play. Again, I don't mean to magnify it into the most spectacular play
in the game, but I think it's obviously an important play because it's a
scoring play. I'll be honest with you, I do watch those plays and I do think
that there's something to be said for those plays. Obviously, it affects the
score. The only reason that field goal team ever goes on the field is to
score points. That's the only reason why they are out there. So if they come
off the field and they don't have points on the board, as a unit, they
haven't done their job and that's not good. There's no other reason to send
them out there. |
|
