BB: How are we doing today? Ready for
third down? That's what we're trying to get ready for. Like I said
yesterday, watching these guys on third down, there's no distance that
bothers them. Third-and-20, and they fire those 20-yard in-cuts and seam
passes in there like it's third-and-three. There is no down and distance that
you can feel safe with [Jon] Kitna and these receivers and that offense on
the field. We have to do a better job defensively. We have to do a better
job offensively of converting in those situations as well. Hopefully we can
work on that today and get some improvement. [Eddie] Drummond is really a
problem on the returns. They're doing a good job leveraging him. We've
obviously had some trouble with our coverage teams in previous weeks, going
back to the Minnesota game against [Mewelde] Moore and guys like that. When
you run into a good returner, everyone has to a good job. One breakdown and
he's through there. That will be another big challenge for us that we need
to spend some time on this week, starting today. That's where we are. The
roster is status quo.
Q: I noticed that the quarterbacks
were wearing white jerseys at practice yesterday and not red. Were you
knocking them around a little bit?
BB: They asked about it, so I don't care. It's fine. It's good. It
doesn't separate anybody now.
Q: What did they ask not to wear them?
BB: Yes.
Q: Was there a reason why?
BB: It didn't matter to me.
Q: Were you happy with your special teams coverage on Sunday?
BB: I think in the punt coverage that was probably more a function of the
punting than the coverage, although the coverage was okay. Kenny [Walter]
did a real good job of getting the ball up in the air. He put some hang time
on it and that was real good. We'll take that kind of coverage every week.
Kickoffs were better. They were better. We got hurt on one there where he
bounced it outside and we lost contain on him and he got it up to about the,
I don't know, 35, 40, whatever it was. Drummond is that same kind of guy. If
you don't have it contained, he'll definitely take it outside. He's looking
to go out there. If you stay wide and cover the whole field, then there's
going to be some space up inside. He's very good at that too, kind of like
what we see with [Wes] Welker, that kind of speed and that kind of
aggressive running to get the ball north/south up the field once there's
space.
Q: On Monday you talked a little bit about how Tedy [Bruschi] is going to
have to make the switch, for now at least, from weak side to strong side.
What would be the biggest difference for an inside linebacker at those two
spots?
BB: Tedy is not going anywhere.
Q: No? So then [Mike] Vrabel is going to come in?
BB: Yeah, that's the way we finished the game. Vrabel took Junior [Seau's]
spot. We switched them earlier in the year, but that's the way it's been
for, I don't know, a whole bunch of weeks now.
Q: Given his age and the fact that he did retire once, he's played well
this year, but do you think that he might decide, 'This going to be too
much?' Do you think he'll play again?
BB: I don't know. I don't know if that's anything to even talk about
right now. There's no decision that needs to be made on that. We'll discuss
that in due course.
Q: Will he still be around the team at all?
BB: He isn't right now. He's doing some things with his arm, so he's not
here right now.
Q: Do you expect him back at some point this year just to be with the
team?
BB: Well, we'll do what's best for him in terms of rehabilitation. We'll
talk about it. Right now there's really nothing to talk about. When the time
comes, yes, sure, we'll be open to it.
Q: Is Rodney Harrison sort of starting to get the itch to play?
BB: He's doing better. He's doing better. He's still definitely out this
week. We'll just take it week-to-week, but he's doing better.
Q: Do [Pierre] Woods, [Corey] Mays and [Eric] Alexander have position
flexibility too?
BB: Well Eric has played inside and outside the last two years, so he
would certainly have the most flexibility of that younger group of players,
which I would definitely put him in that younger group, even though he's
more experienced than Corey and Pierre. Eric worked outside, Corey has
worked inside. As we know, most of their opportunities in the game have come
on special teams.
Q: Is that going to change at all because of your linebacker situation?
BB: Well, I think that Pierre is outside and Corey is inside. How much
they play on defense, that could be flexible, but I don't see Corey going
outside or Pierre going inside at this point. We're just trying to get them
to improve and continue to develop at the positions that they're in.
Q: When you go looking for a linebacker, how important is that flexibility?
BB: If it's there, good. If it's not, then guys can still be good players
and not play multiple positions. You need somebody to play multiple
positions, but not everybody. We have plenty of our players that are on this
team that I would say don't have a lot of position flexibility, but I think
they do a real good job at whatever their job is. I think there's an
appreciation for that. I wouldn't really want to change that, but at the
same time, as you're constructing a team, you have to have enough
flexibility somewhere along the long the line to handle the different jobs
and assignments that come up through the course of the game and also through
the course of the season. Somebody needs to be able to do that, but not
everybody, as long as you can have a balance there. So, if you see a player
that does one thing really well and if he can help you in that particular
role and that situation, great. I'd love to have him. Other players, if they
can do a certain job and then have the flexibility to do something else,
that's great too. There's a place and a role for them. In some cases, not
all, but in some cases a player who can do multiple jobs at one level, might
be more valuable than somebody else who can do one job at a higher level,
but he can only do one job, but that's also true in reverse too. There are
other times when players aren't on this team even though they can do
multiple things, but then we have somebody who can do one thing
significantly better. In that particular case, that person is more valuable
to the team. That's a case-by-case situation. I wouldn't try to blanket that
because you don't need everybody to do everything.
Q: It seems like your linebackers here have more flexibility than any
other position, in terms of moving inside and out.
BB: We don't have a lot of guys that play inside and outside. Our outside
linebackers play defensive end in rush and pass situations, but I think on
just about every 3-4 team you're going to see that. There are a few
exceptions, but you look at 3-4 teams and those teams' outside linebackers
are usually their defensive ends. Maybe not both of them, but at least one
of them or that's the position that they would play. I think that's kind of
just the normal progression in a 3-4 based defense to sub situations and
nickel defenses. Whereas in a 4-3, if you keep the 4-3 guys in there, that's
your base defense and then you take out one or two linebackers and replace
them with defensive backs. You're not really changing the front, you're
making your changes at the linebacker position.
Q: Is there a specific element that you feel like you lose defensively by
going 4-3?
BB: There are advantages and disadvantages to anything that you're in. Overs. Unders. 4-3s. 3-4s. Reducing the front. Expanding it. Anytime you
move somebody in one place from one spot to one another, you strengthen one
area, but you kind of weaken yourself somewhere else, how much you do
something else. If you just move one guy, then you've strengthened one area
and weakened another. If you move one guy and adjust with another player to
compensate for it, then essentially you're covering the same area it's just
with different people. You're just kind of switching responsibilities on
that. However you line them up, you have to have other people to compensate
and be sound in whatever that alignment is unless you just want to overload
it and play to a team's tendency or a team's strength and lighten up
somewhere else because you feel like that's the way you want to try to
defend it.
Q: Is one of the things that is tough about going to a 4-3 is you have to
change the alignment of the linemen a little bit and change their technique
a little bit?
BB: It depends on how much you change them. You could. You could, or you
could just put a lineman in and play him basically where the linebacker
plays and try to keep everybody else the same. There are a lot of 4-3 teams
that, in some cases, when they play in those overs and unders, there isn't
that much difference between them and a 3-4 defense. It's just the player is
a lineman instead of a linebacker. The integrity of the rest of the defense
a lot of times it's similar. Now sometimes it isn't. If you're playing a
one-gap defense, then it wouldn't be that similar to ours. If you were, then
it could be kind of just a one-for-one personnel trade out. So it just
depends on how you're playing it.
Q: If you go to a 4-3 normally out of what you guys do does it look like
a little bit like an over/under?
BB: We've played both. We've played over. We've played under. We've
played an even front which is similar to our sub, our pass rush fronts on
third down. It's a combination of things. I don't think there's anything
magical about any front or any coverage. It just needs to be coordinated and
work in conjunction with the rest of the defense.
Q: How much time did you spend on [Ernie] Sims before the draft and was
it hard to envision him possibly being a fit in a 3-4 defense?
BB: No, not at all. I think really Ernie could play in any defense. We
spent a decent amount of time evaluating him. He's a good player. He went
very high in the draft. He was well thought of. Very fast and has a great
playing style, aggressive. He runs all over the field. He's kind of like a Troy Polamalu at linebacker type of [player]. A little bit undersized, he's
short, but he's probably, I don't know, 230, close to it. It's not like he's
210. You have other guys, a player like Jonathan Vilma, who physically
weighs a lot less than Ernie Sims does, who's playing in a similar style of
defense, and has for the last two or three years. I think he could play in
any defense. Like any player, some things that he does are better than
others and you would probably want to utilize the skills that he is the best
at or would be the most disruptive with. I don't think there's anything that
he really can't do. I think they have good team speed at that position, with
[Boss] Bailey and Sims. Both of those guys are probably as fast as any
linebackers that anybody has.
Q: Did you happen to meet up with him at all on any trip down there?
BB: Yes. I spent quite a bit of time with him. Yes. At Florida State,
sure did.
Q: What were your impressions of him?
BB: A football guy. Business. Very competitive. Like I said, a good
playing style, he's very intense. I think football is important to him and
he plays like it on the field. Every play he's after you. Let's put it that
way. If you have the ball, he's after you. He might be 50 yards away, but
he'll be gaining ground on you. He might be five yards away, but wherever he
is, he's after the ball and he's going to get there sooner or later. He has
a good playing style and a good motor. He's fast. He's quick. He's an
explosive guy and he plays with good leverage. I think he's a good player.
Q: You've talked highly about Dante Scarnecchia in the past. How unique
of a coach is he doing what he's been able to do with different linemen year
in and year out?
BB: I think he's a great coach and he's pretty much coached every
position on the team. When I was here in '96, he was on the defensive side.
It was Romeo [Crennel] and Al [Groh] and Dante and I. We worked on the
defensive side of the ball. He's coached special teams. He's coached
offense. He's coached a lot of different positions. He's a smart guy. He
understands the game. He has a lot of flexibility. He's a very good
fundamental and instructional teacher on fine points and individual coaching
points. He also does a great job of understanding the big picture and total
scheme and how different plays can or can't be applicable for different
situations. Obviously he has a lot of experience and is a guy whose voice is
always heard with a great deal of respect, whether it's from a player or a
coach or anybody. It doesn't matter who it is. He's seen a lot. He's been
through a lot. He's experienced a lot. He's very fair and I think he has a
good perspective on, like I said, the little things and all of the big
things and all the stuff in between. I'm glad he's on this staff. He's made
a big contribution to our football team over the years.
Q: Have you ever considered asking him to back off some of those sprints?
BB: He can run faster than some of the guys that are out there. 60, or
however old he is. He keeps himself in top physical shape. He works hard.
He's always on top of things. He's a very disciplined guy. He's a really
good football coach.
Q: Do you try to fit offensive linemen that you bring in here to his
style of coaching or can he coach anybody?
BB: I think he could coach anybody who's willing to be coached. I think
he's improved any player who has made the effort to work hard and listen to
his instruction has improved. A couple haven't and they didn't improve. They
go somewhere else. I think that if the player wants to get better, then he
has a good coach who can help him get better. If the guy doesn't want to get
better, then I don't think he's going to get any better.
Q: How sharp is his tongue?
BB: Like I said, I think Dante is fair. He loves his players and his
players love him. I think there's a lot of mutual respect there. It's like
you have kids. Sometimes you have to discipline them. You have to yell at
them. It doesn't mean you don't love them. It doesn't mean that they don't
love you. Sometimes that's what you need to do. Dante was in the Marines.
What do you expect?
[Laughter]
Q: A little Full Metal Jacket.
[Laughter]
BB: There are a lot of similarities between being in [a military]
environment and being on a team and playing in a competitive game. I think
anybody who has done those things will tell you that there are similarities
there. It's teamwork. It's doing your assignment. It's being tough. It's
being physical. A lot of mental and physical toughness. It's being in
condition. It's all of those things.
Q: Is there something that you can take from I
think it was a year in Detroit that you had is there something that you
really maybe still carry now that happened with the Lions?
BB: Well, it was two years. There aren't very many people there now that
were there when I was there. The owner, Mr. Ford, was. He was a great guy to
work for. Very fair and generous. Just about everything else has changed. I
can't think of too many people that are still there that were there when I
was there. My first year in Baltimore, I worked on defense and special
teams. Then when I went to Detroit, I worked on offense. The first year I
coached the tight ends and special teams with Floyd Reese and Jerry
Glanville, and then the second year I coached the receivers and special teams with
Floyd Reese. So I learned a lot about special teams at Detroit and I learned
a lot about offensive football in Detroit, with coaches like Ken Shipp and Joe Bugel and guys like that, Ed Hughes, that were on that staff. With three
years on special teams, one in Baltimore and two in Detroit, kind of after
three years I'd had an exposure to all three phases of the game with some
different coaching styles, some different coaching philosophies, but in the
end a lot of good coaches. Even though they maybe didn't do things exactly the
same, the way they did them was good and it was good for me to see and to
experience and to really understand. In addition to that, I worked for three
coaches [Ted] Marchibroda in
Baltimore, [Rick] Forzano in Detroit for
part of the '76 season, and then [Tommy] Hudspeth for the remainder of the
'76 and the '77 season. Not that I planned it that way, but three years in
the NFL: three years on special teams two on offense, one on defense;
three different head coaches; two different divisions AFC, NFC.
It was a lot of exposure to a lot of different things in a short amount of
time. It was like a graduate course in football. I learned a ton. There are certainly things
today that I learned in Detroit, no question about it. There were a lot of
things. Those coaches that were on that staff, and even though I wasn't on
the defensive staff I spent a lot of time with those guys, with Jimmy Carr,
with Glanville, with Floyd Reese, with Fritz Shurmur, with those coaches...Rollie Dotsch who came in '77.
And then the exposure to the offensive
systems: Ken Shipp's system, which is what he used in New York with [Joe] Namath and those guys; then the next year Ed Hughes who brought the Dallas system in that [Tom] Landry used. That's a lot of football in a very short
amount of time. I was very, very fortunate to have the opportunity to work
with and very closely with a lot of good coaches in a lot of different
systems.
Q: Do you think you were maybe fortunate that you got to work in all
three phases of the game and maybe you had a better understanding going
forward after that of how they all worked together?
BB: Yes, I learned a tremendous amount in those years.
Things that I remember the defensive coaches saying in Baltimore about, 'Well, this is how
they're doing it,' and all that, well when I got over on offense that really wasn't how they were doing it. The same thing on offense. When I
heard people talking about, 'Well, this is what the defense
' well I had
been on defense and that wasn't really the way they did it either. And then
what
really capped that off was then going to Denver and working a year with Joe
Collier in the 3-4 defense, in Joe's 3-4. Joe's 3-4, which was totally
different from what turned out to be Bill [Parcells'] 3-4 in New York compared to the 4-3 George Allen system that we ran in Baltimore under Maxie
Baughan, you couldn't contrast a defense any more than George Allen's 4-3,
man-coverage, checks-and-adjustments on every single thing you did, to
Joe's 3-4 zone defense with very minimal adjustments. And the preparation was
totally different in the way that the games were broken down and presented
to the players and all of that. Looking back after four years of two in two
defensive systems and two in two offensive systems, four on special teams,
which three of those were really fundamentally different, that was kind of
the Ph.D., I guess, of that educational process for me.
Q: When a player fumbles a couple of times in a certain short amount of
time, is there a danger that it could start to get in his head?
BB: I think that anytime a player makes a mistake on the football field,
that once it's explained to him or pointed out to him, what any good
football player would do or any person for that matter, coach, we all make
mistakes, just like players do. When those mistakes are pointed out to you,
and they're corrected, then you take the steps to try to improve it and do
better and not let that mistake happen again. I don't think a mistake has to
fall into a certain category, 'This mistake,' or, 'That mistake.' It could
be any mistake. It could be steps on a double-team block. It could be a
release on a route. It could be a coverage technique. It could be ball
security. It could be anything. Whatever those are, that's what the process
is. The coaches correct them and the players take steps to try to improve in
those areas that are corrected and identified as areas to either change or
improve, whatever the case might be and then that's what you do. Sometimes
that's a short process. Sometimes it's a longer process. I would kind of put
all of those into the same category and not try to separate this mistake and
that mistake and another mistake. To me it's all kind of the same thing.
Q: Is ball security one of those fundamentals that late in the season
that sort of gets away from you and you need to go back and focus on it?
BB: I think fundamentals are something that as you go through the course
of the season that you have to build that base in training camp and the
longer the season goes, the less percentage time you work on fundamentals.
The highest percentage you work on them is in training camp and then as you
go from training camp into the regular season and from regular season into
deep into the regular season, then your practice time gets diminished on
fundamentals and expanded on schemes and adjustments and all of the
different things that you have to deal with that the other team is doing,
plus at the same time, your volume of plays has grown a little bit as well.
Like I said you're out there playing and practicing and you hope that when
you're practicing and playing that those fundamentals get reinforced in game
conditions as opposed to segmented practice time to work on those things.
Yes, it would be great to take half of our practice and work just on
fundamentals, and that would help us. We would improve in some fundamental
things if we did that. I think though the cost of doing that would be the
overall coordination of the schemes in your three different segments and how
far you would fall behind on that. I think that's kind of what every team
faces, every team I've ever been on or coached on or even played on. It's
the same thing. That's kind of what you run into and the amount of physical
contact that you really need to refine those skills, particularly in the
front seven, is significant. You can't go out there and just talk about
double-team blocks and talk about reach blocks and talk about pass rush
techniques. You have to really go out there and do them and that's what
training camp is for, is to develop those fundamentals and that kind of
consistency and execution of those individual techniques. To take that kind
of time, and again, the contact and the wear and tear on the players and all of that, to do that for a significant amount of time at this point in the
season, probably wouldn't be the most productive thing that you could do.
That's kind of the way the grade of the slope is and that's sort of where
the water runs.
Q: You've said in the past that there are turnovers that can be credited
to the defense just making a good play and then there are others that are
just bad plays by the offense. Has there been a mix of those over the last
few weeks?
BB: I don't think there are really a
whole lot of turnovers that couldn't be prevented. There are a few. I'm not saying there aren't any. You do have to
credit the opponents for good plays. I think that on the other hand, most of
those plays I think are preventable. With better execution, maybe not what
actually happened on the play, a ball getting knocked out or getting
stripped out, but had the play been executed better, there would have been
more space between the guy who had the ball and the nearest defender and he
would've had time to put it away, or it wouldn't have gotten tipped if the
spacing had been different or what ever it is. We talk about those things
all the time and we try to take the steps that we can take to minimize those
potentials for, really, what I would refer to it as ball disruption.
Turnovers are turnovers, but anytime the defense gets their hands on the
ball, or anytime we get our hands on the ball on defense, then there's a
potential for a turnover. Whether that's altering a throw, whether it's
grabbing the ball, whatever it is. And if the ball is disrupted from the
intended line of flight or direction that it's headed for, then defensively
you've done something to affect the play and offensively that's something
you want to prevent. The more times the ball gets disrupted, the greater the
opportunity for turnovers. They don't all result in turnovers. We've all
seen that before too, you come out of the game and don't have any turnovers.
Like the Green Bay game. We had one turnover in the Green Bay game, but the
ball was on the ground. Teams drop interceptions. We had that earlier in the
year defensively where we dropped several opportunities for interceptions
with the ball in our hands, so those weren't turnovers. Then you go to
another game and catch them and all of a sudden you're a great turnover team
and two weeks before the problem with the defense was turnovers. Well, part
of the problem was just finishing the play and actually having the result be
the ball in your possession at the end of the down on defense, or vice versa
not losing it on offense. I think most of them can be prevented and I think
defensively what you want to be is an opportunistic defense, because There
are
going to be times in the game, in every game, where you're going to have an
opportunity to come up with the ball one way or another and you need to be
opportunistic in making the right decisions and having as many people as
possible close to the ball so that when it is loose you have the highest
percentage chance of getting it. That's how I see it.
Q: Playing against a team like the Bears, would you ever tell or did you
tell your team to not fight for as much extra yardage in the pile because
they are such a ball-hawking team that goes after the ball?
BB: Again, I think ball security is a
daily point of emphasis. I don't think it's something that you wait until
five minutes before the game and talk about, it's a daily point of emphasis.
And anybody that handles the ball, in whatever manner they handle it,
whether they snap it, hold it, kick it, pass it, throw it, catch it, run
with it whether that's a defensive player after a turnover or
a returner anybody who handles
the ball, they carry the fortunes of the football team in
their hands. And if they have it at the end of the play,
then the team's fortunes, to some degree, are still intact.
And if they don't, then they've provided an opportunity for
the opponents that is going to put you in an unfavorable
position. So everybody who handles it, they have to
understand that. They're carrying with them a great
responsibility and that's the way I think it should be
treated. Do I think you could go through a 16-game regular
season NFL schedule and not have a turnover? That would be
nice; it's a nice goal. I doubt that if you ran 1,100 plays
or however many a team runs in a regular season [that] it's
probably not going to happen. But I don't think there's anything wrong with
having that as an objective and doing everything you can to strive to
eliminate all of them. Just like penalties. Try to eliminate those, too.
Unfortunately they come up and they're a part of the game, but you want to
keep them as few and as less damaging as you possibly can. |
