BB: Good morning. We're winding down
here. Make sure you pack all of your warm clothes for Lambeau.
Q: It's supposed to snow out there.
BB: It wouldn't surprise me. At this time of year, we could probably get
anything –except warm weather. Hopefully we're ready for it.
Q: What are the drawbacks of not spreading the field against Green Bay?
BB: I think they're pretty good in pass defense. They have to be one of
the top teams in sacks. They have a lot of them. 30-something. Whatever it
is. They rush the passer well. They cover well. They play good man-to-man
coverage. Very athletic linebackers. The corners are good press coverage
guys, so it's hard to get open. It's hard to throw the ball against them.
They're tight.
Q: Given that pass defense, how much does that affect your offense having Daniel Graham back in there?
BB: It's always good to have Dan. He's been a good, consistent player for
us. He does a lot of things well. Run-block, catch the ball, pass protect.
He's a versatile player. He's a good player. An experience guy. He's been in
a lot of good, tough situations. A dependable player. So it's good to have
him back out there. We could always use Dan Graham.
Q: Has Green Bay gone back to more of a pure form of the West Coast
offense with [Mike] McCarthy? Does it look more like Seattle does now?
BB: I don't know. We haven't played Seattle in a while. It would be hard
for me to compare two teams that we don't even see an average of once a
year.
Q: How would you equate this form of the West Coast system to some of the
others?
BB: It's a cousin. Some elements I think are West Coast elements. Other
elements are…it depends on how far back you want to go, are not. Probably
more in the passing game, which I would say is typical of a lot of West
Coast offenses. They have their own running game and it's different from
going back to the Paul Brown/Bill Walsh West Coast, which was almost no
I-formation. There's a lot of I-formation with a lot of these teams that run
the West Coast offense. A lot of NFC teams. Tampa, Philly. Almost all of the
NFC North teams. Seattle. Teams that we don't see on the same kind of
frequency, but they see each other.
Q: The last couple of days you've been in pads. Is that unusual at this
time of year? What were you looking to get accomplished?
BB: I think you kind of flip it back and forth. We had a Monday night
game and then we had a short week. Those are harder weeks to go out in pads.
Now we're kind of more back in a regular routine and it's given us an
opportunity to do that. I think it's good to help you keep your timing, both
in the running game and in pass protection, blitz and blitz pickup, that
kind of thing. I don't think it's something that we'd necessarily do every
week, but I don't think that we'd necessarily go without pads every week. I
think somewhere along the line you need to keep your timing doing that. You
just have to look at your overall health of the team your practice week
situation and those types of things.
Q: What goes into the decision to throw the red flag to challenge a play?
BB: I think it depends on the situation. How big of a play it is and how
much is at stake. That would be one factor. Two would be how confident you
are when throwing it that you would get the call. Sometimes you're more
confident than others. Then sometimes, given the magnitude of the play and
the time of the game that it's at, it's maybe worth throwing even though you
might feel like your chances are less than 50-50, but if it's that
significant of a play and you think you have any chance, it might be worth
it. The timeout factor could be an issue. I think the earlier in the game
that you throw, if you're wrong, you really lose two challenges, not one.
That's a little bit of an issue too, and again, how much is at stake. If
it's a couple of yards at midfield, that's one thing. If it's a scoring play
or a change of possession play, that's another thing. If it's a change of
possession play or involves a lot of return yardage or something like that,
that could make it another factor too. If you feel like your 90 to 95
percent sure that the play was called incorrectly, then there's not a lot of
downside to challenging it, but it is one or your challenges. Say it's your
second challenge and you've already missed on the first one, even though you
might get this one right, if it's not a turnover play, it's not a scoring
play, it's just a yardage play, then you have to make that decision as to
whether or not you want to challenge it, because going forward there could
be a much more significant play in the game and then you're out of
challenges, which happened, this is going back a ways, but it happened in
the AFC Championship game in '02 against Pittsburgh game – for both us and
the Steelers. There was just one of those plays where we were in the high
number of them in that particular game that were very close calls that it
looked like it could've gone either way and both teams were out of
challenges. I think it was early in the third quarter.
Q: It was interesting last week with the fans last week, I forget what
the play was, but they were kind of watching the board and were reacting and
you looked and you reached down and grabbed it like you were ready to throw
it, but then you changed your mind.
BB: Yeah, on the [Doug] Gabriel fumble. The way I saw the play he stepped
out of bounds, but the ball was already out of his hands. He didn't have
possession when his left foot was over the line. Based on the way I saw the
play and the replay, I thought it was a fumble, and again, it was fairly
early in the game, so that would've been one that had you lost the
challenge, then you would have really lost two challenges and only had one
left.
Q: So you did that based on looking yourself up to the JumboTron?
BB: I think we all saw the same thing. No, there were other people in the
press box that look at it as well, but I think we all saw the same thing.
Q: Do you have one guy in charge up there?
BB: We have a staff of people and everybody has different
responsibilities. I think it would be a much longer discussion in going
through what everybody does during the week and on game day and all that.
That's how that particular play...I just didn't think it was a fumble. I
didn't think that he was out of bounds with possession.
Q: Have those JumboTrons changed a little bit of what you do on the
sideline? Do you find yourself looking up there at replays?
BB: I think you can, sure. It depends on how good of a shot it is and the
camera angle and the quality and my eyesight, which isn't particularly good.
But all of that is a factor. Yes, it's another look at the play.
Q: Do you notice that after the replay it seems the players are looking
up there too? Do you address that with them – 'Keep your eyes on the road?'
BB: I think it's important for all of us in the game to stay focused on
what our job is, yes.
Q: Is there a standard of what you tell whoever is working the board,
'Look, if there's a questionable play make sure we get it up there so we can
get a better look at it?'
BB: No. You can't count on that and you don't even know what shots are
available. I don't even know how the replay system works, the technology of
it, who does what and all of that. I really just try to coach the game and I
can barely do that.
Q: Was your gut instinct to challenge the Marvin Harrison touchdown play?
BB: I really didn't have a good look at it. It was all the way across on
the other side of the field. It was in the end zone. I couldn't really have
been any further away from that play. I don't know any play that I could've
been a further distance and a harder angle for me to see than that one. It's
one thing when it's on your sideline right in front of you. Sometimes you
get a better look at it than the replay shows you, and that's been the case
sometimes where I really feel like I got a good look at the play, but you
don't know where the camera angles are. That's one of the whole issues with
replay is there's no consistency on the camera angels. You never know if
there is a good camera angle on the play. That's something that I think the
league and the competition committee have addressed, but I think they need
to continue to address it because I think that's one of the whole problems
with the replay system is you don't really know what you're looking at,
which was definitely one of the problems in the Denver game.
Q: So are you saying the replay officials had angles on that [Benjamin] Watson play that your coaches didn't?
BB: No, I'm saying that when you challenge a play
you don't know what the
camera angles are. You don't know whether there's a good camera angle or
not. If you see the play replayed, you know you have that angle, but there
are
multiple cameras and there are multiple angles.
Q: What I'm saying is the replays that are shown in your coaching booth
are the exact same ones that the replay officials are seeing.
BB: Well, there are more than that. First of all, sometimes there's
nothing shown in the coaches' booth. There's no guarantee that anything is
shown to the coaches. What they see, the replay officials have access to. The replay officials also have access to, I guess, some other views besides
that, but you have no idea of what those are. That's why I think what the
league should do, if you really wanted to make the replay system work more
effectively, is that you should have some consistent angles that everybody
knows there's a camera there and you can count on that angle. Like put a
camera exactly on the goal line so that you know that if there's a goal line
play, you're going to actually be able to see where the ball crossed the
goal line or whether that guy had possession or not. To me that would be an
obvious one and that goes back to the Watson play and the [Champ] Bailey play. One of the reasons why that play I don't think it was overturned was
because there wasn't a camera on the goal line, so no one could really tell
from the angle of the ball, I know I thought it was, but evidently the
officials didn't. It's like in tennis. You have a camera on the baseline.
You have a camera on the in line. You have a camera on the serve line. You
want to put a couple of cameras out there on the football field, put them on
the goal line, put them on the sideline, and them on the in line. You'd need
what, six cameras right? You want to save some money and put four out there,
then decide where you want four. You want to save some money and put two out
there, then put two out there and put them on the goal line. Right now, you
don't know where those cameras are located, so when you challenge the play,
you're at the mercy of whether or not there's even a good angle to view the
play. I think we all understand that if a guy dives for a catch on the 40
yard line, whether he makes it or doesn't make it, how can you say, 'Well,
that's where we need to have a camera?' I think we can all understand that
and live with that. Hey, there might be a good picture of it, there might
not. That's the way it goes. But to have a guy going in for a touchdown
crossing the goal line and the ball comes out and was he in or wasn't he in,
but there's no camera angle for sure for you to definitively know that
you're going to get a good look at that play. I think that defeats the whole
purpose of the system. If we think those plays are that important, then
let's put a camera on the goal line so we can make sure that we can see
them. Again, that's a lot bigger subject than…it is what it is. Try to coach
the game and do the best you can with it and that's it. You'd have to talk
to all of the experts on the competition committee and in the league that
make the rules and decide on why we can't do things like that. Maybe they
can explain why that's not a good idea.
Q: I know in the NHL, there's always someone watching the games from
their league office and they can decide on a play. Is that the same in the
NFL?
BB: Well on a replay it's a coach's decision until the last two minutes
of the game. Nobody else can challenge a play except the coach. Then, in the
last two minutes it's the replay official upstairs.
Q: So when you challenge it, they are only looking at it in house?
BB: Yes, right. That's right. Well, it's like the play that happened in
the Colts game two weeks ago. It was a situation where I think we picked up
the first down in the two-minute situation and we took a timeout. Then, the
officials went back and because it was in the two-minute, they decided to
review the play and by rule since we had already taken a timeout to stop the
clock, even though the play was looked at and upheld, we were still charged
a timeout because we were the ones who took it to stop the clock. Had the
officials decided that the play needed to be looked at then naturally we
wouldn't have been charged a timeout. The play was ruled correctly. I think
it was originally stated incorrectly by the referee, and he said that the Patriots have two timeouts, but the fact of the matter was that play was
corrected a play later and we only had one timeout left because we had used
a timeout to stop the clock and they had used that clock stoppage to look at
the play, which it was correct.
Q: If the league did talk about that, would you be interested in that?
BB: This league could do whatever it wants.
Q: Would that be something that you would look at?
BB: It's not something that I would look at. It's something that the
league and the competition committee looks at and then based on their study
and their recommendation then the league votes on it as a whole.
Q: Would that be something that you would be interested in if they were
to have a rule where if you were corrected you would get your timeout back?
BB: Well, there's a lot of different
ways to do it, and again, the experts on this supposedly are the competition
committee and the league and they've worked obviously together with the
television people who produce the game and their recommendations and the way
the system is set up is a combination of all of their recommendations and
suggestions and then the league approval on it. There are a million different options. Colleges do it
different ways. Different leagues do it different ways. The way the NFL does
it is the way that it's been proposed by the competition committee and
approved by the membership. Why that is what it is, I'm not really sure to
be honest with you, but that's the process. What all hands are involved in
putting together that stew, I don't know, but in the end, what it is is
because it was approved that way by the league.
Q: On third down passing situations, you always hear TV commentators say
you should never throw short of the sticks on third down, it's a mistake. I
always thought well maybe there's a higher percentage of actually getting
that ball completed and the guy breaking a tackle and making the first down
than it is trying to squeeze it into an impossible spot past the sticks. Is
that a reasonable thought on my part? Do you think that all third down
passes should be past the sticks?
BB: I've never said that. I don't know exactly what you're referring to
or the comment or anything else. I really don't. Third down you're trying to
pick up the first down, so whether you pick it up on a screen pass, whether
the guy catches it and runs for the first down, or whether you throw it two
yards past the sticks and complete it, you're trying to get the first down.
If you hand the ball off and run it, you're just trying to get the first
down. So however you get it, whatever the best play is, however you execute
it, whatever their defense is, however it's done, that's what you're trying
to accomplish. If you can pick it up, it's a good play. If you don't pick it
up, it's better than turning the ball over, but it's probably not a good
play. I'm sure we could find a lot of examples of all of those – runs, short passes and longer passes. |
