00:00:00
Speaker 1: Everything gets a little expedited.
00:00:03
Speaker 2: Specifically, the previous game review gets a little bit expedited, and that's where I was able to circle back and show some of the stuff from this.
00:00:14
Speaker 1: Past weekend's game. in my meeting this morning.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: But a lot of the preparation as soon as Monday starts is all on Baltimore.
00:00:23
Speaker 1: And so these guys have handled it really well.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Everybody is in this game is going to be sore, tired, all those things, right? Mentally, physically, everybody feels the same exact way. Everybody's nicked up and have to go play this game.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: That's just the way it is.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: And so a lot of this is going to be about mental and physical toughness.
00:00:45
Speaker 1: Do you give the players Friday, Saturday, Sunday off after that? Yeah. That's pretty standard. Pretty standard, yeah. We'll come back and do a bonus Monday.
00:00:52
Speaker 2: Do you expect to be able to practice today?
00:00:55
Speaker 1: We'll see.
00:00:56
Speaker 2: I think he'll do something. Yeah, he'll do something. But I would expect– I talked to him today. He said he feels better. I would think it's probably going to go up to game time. When you're going into a game like that, you mentioned sore, tired, a little bit up.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: How dangerous can a guy like Eric Henry be?
00:01:12
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: I mean, you know.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Tackling right like you got to be so on your on your p's and q's in terms of your run fits your angles to the football your swarm has to be elite you know getting off blocks not staying blocked you can't just throw an arm.
00:01:33
Speaker 1: At them and that ain't gonna happen it's not.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: Gonna work and so um it's definitely critical showed that to the to the guys this morning uh when we're at our best and we're flying around as a defense um good things usually happen would you describe nate borkature's development and how he's taken to coaching yeah i mean he's uh loves football loves loves to practice loves what goes into it um you know high care factor but like also has that good way about him that doesn't like take everything so seriously and so like tense you can kind of make a mistake or something and learn from it but also like move on fairly quickly which i think is a unique trait um and and you know, to make some of the plays last two weeks in the past game has been obviously nice to see the catch in Houston and then to change his body and torque it to make the catch the other day pretty seamlessly was nice to see. And so we got to continue to lean into that and keep working with him. But I've been very pleased with him so far. And then Branson Combs, how well has he developed for you guys? Huge. Obviously competed a ton. in training camp with Ventrell. Ventrell wins the job, clearly, and Ventrell's played at a high level and done some really good things for us. But to have your third linebacker that we know that we had a lot of faith in to come in and make an impact on special teams the way he did with the two big hits on our sideline and to get the interception, we know we've seen that kind of play from him out here in training camp, right, like going up. climbing the ladder and making a great catch on an interception this training camp. So he's got good ball skills, and the more he can do for our team, the better we'll be. Building off the linebacker conversation but pairing it with the defensive back rotation, knowing that the safety spot with Eric going down for the season, Antonio obviously working his way back, maybe not as deep as it previously was, how do you.
00:03:37
Speaker 1: Pull from some of those other rooms to potentially supplant the fact that you may not have your usual.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: Full load of safeties. Yeah, Antonio, obviously, Merriweather. you know, Ray on lane just got named AFC defense, a player of the week. So, you know, I think those three guys specifically will, we'll kind of get the load of it all, um, you know, and then be able to supplement it through, you know, different packages, base, nickel, Aggie things, different things that you can play, but, um, have faith in, in, uh, Kayvon and Ray right now. And then obviously Jalen got some, some burn this past week, made it, you know, had a sack. So we just got to keep building off that, uh, you know, experience, exposure, and playmaking because they're not going to get better unless they play. They're not going to get better unless they play. So those guys playing is going to help us in the long run.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: You're talking a little bit about that kind of next man up mentality.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: When you lose two defensive leaders kind of in one foul swoop, how do you replace that part of the team?
00:04:36
Speaker 1: The whole team. The whole team. The whole building.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Everybody needs to, and I don't mean on Thursday night playing in the game. I mean like throughout the week. I challenged them, you know, on Monday with everybody just stepping up their week a little bit more, their being a great teammate a little bit more, the energy a little bit more. You know, you draft young players, you know, Regis, Wesley Williams, a lot of these guys were captains.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: In college, right?
00:05:12
Speaker 2: A lot of these guys were leaders on good football teams. And we need those guys to not only, you know, help us potentially in the games, but also their leadership, their energy, their being great teammates. Like, we need that to show up this week. And that was what I challenged the team with. And I think they've responded the right way.
00:05:36
Speaker 1: Is that an amplified version of who is about us? Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. Like.
00:05:41
Speaker 2: you lose there's there's no doubt you got you know you lose the ham eric uh tootin gets hurt right trevon gets hurt like you got four starters get hurt in one game and so what how do you how do you supplement that well it's through the building it's through the entire group it's not just all right, the defensive captains or the offensive captains that need to feel the weight of that.
00:06:08
Speaker 1: It's the entire building.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: It's the, it's every single one of us, players, coaches, and staff included, uh, to help pick that up. On Sunday, I didn't get a chance to ask you this Monday though.
00:06:19
Speaker 1: Ezra obviously practiced the last few days, but what did you see from Wyatt?
00:06:22
Speaker 2: What are your expectations in terms of who will be available? Yeah, I expect Ezra to be available. Um, you know, I thought Wyatt came in and did some good things though. Um, Pride opened the hole on the short yardage run for Chris down the pipe.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: Did some really good things on both screens. Was pleased with Wyatt's.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: Ability to go in and no flinch, no blink, go and play his tail off.
00:06:48
Speaker 1: So depth is always a good thing.
00:06:51
Speaker 2: I know there's a lot of coaches who are influencing you and how you see the game, but when it comes to play calling, setting plays up, sequencing stuff, who's really kind of made that influence on you? Hmm. Um, you know, I'd say it goes back to obviously my dad in the wing T with some of that stuff. Um, obviously, you know, Phil Estes at Brown, Mark Whipple at UMass. Um, and then Sean specifically when I got to the NFL, um, in a lot of ways, definitely helped that Sean Payton from, you know, I went and studied there. I would think a lot, you know, that crew probably in a lot of ways have impacted and affected the way I, you know, call a game, see it, but obviously it's all, you got to make the decision, you know, so it is your vision in your, you know, study habits, the way you look at it, the way you see it, your feel for the game. And like Trevor said it, obviously the other day, I thought like how much work goes into a plan, and how much the offensive staff puts into a plan. It's a lot of details. It's a lot of checks.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: And balances, right?
00:07:58
Speaker 2: Because you could come up with any play, but, well, like, what is your answer versus this? What is your answer to that? And making sure you have the answers, but you haven't overcooked them, right, to where you're, like, poking holes at your own stuff. That is a balance that always goes into game planning and ultimately goes into play calling as well. What's the biggest reason that Trevor's been more accurate this year? I mean, you can measure with completion percentage and stuff like that.
00:08:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker 2: Trust, I would imagine, has a lot to do with it, right? Trust in what he's doing, belief in what he's doing, understanding the concepts probably more, trust and belief in the guys on the perimeter and the guys that he's throwing to, trust and belief in the guys in front of him that are blocking for him. But I think his feet right now are pretty clean. I think his feet have been– pretty darn clean for the last few weeks, playing on time and in rhythm, but also when he does have to move doing it while being able to still have a platform to throw, I think was nice to continue to see. And he's decisive right now, right? Like he's decisive on his reads where it's like, okay, my primaries, but I know where my checkdowns are. I mean, I thought a key play later in the game, I know we were up, But we ran a play action. He dumped it down to Chris Rodriguez in the flats and gained, I don't know, like 10 or 12.
00:09:21
Speaker 1: Yards or something.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: But it was a two-man route concept that, like, at the top of his drop, he just knew that it wasn't open. So he just quickly, decisively, one hit, kind of slid up in the pocket, dumped it down to Chris, and it's like, That's the same thing as Tootin's touchdown against Houston where it was a quick, decisive check down, accurate ball placement. That's playing the position because you have so many.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Hard throws in a game. You have so many third downs, two.
00:09:53
Speaker 2: Minutes, red zone, goal to goes, all those settings that amplify and make the position what it is and how difficult it is. It's can you make the easy ones easy, right? Like what we determine as easy, easy. And I think that that's kind of something we're seeing right now.
00:10:12
Speaker 1: Do you see your offense trending towards being more consistent away from Jacksonville?
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Obviously, they've had a lot of success here at.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Home this year. Yeah.
00:10:23
Speaker 2: Obviously, when you go on the road, it's always a challenge no matter what.
00:10:29
Speaker 1: Finding the balance of.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: The motion shifts, things like that, to continue to play fast while also having the things that you need in order to operate.
00:10:41
Speaker 1: In a game.
00:10:43
Speaker 2: Looking forward to seeing us play, obviously, on the road again on the silent again, going through that operation again, and playing cleaner and continuing to play as clean as we were able to this past game, I think. And that's always the challenge when you're playing on the road.
00:11:02
Speaker 1: Last one. Liam, going back to that next man up, I asked the guys about that in the locker room yesterday. Every one of them mentioned the standard. Why is it that the standard is so effective here? What are your thoughts on hearing that from your players? Yeah, it's pretty cool. The consistency and messaging, I think, is always appropriate.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: It always helps when you're on the same page and understand what the standard is.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: And then I think being honest.
00:11:30
Speaker 2: About roles and responsibilities, being honest about the moment, too, without it feeling like it's pressure.
00:11:38
Speaker 1: Right? And so when you have guys go.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: Down, like it's the NFL, nobody cares, you know, like really nobody cares. And so these guys get paid to do the job and they care about the job, right? They love doing it. They wouldn't be doing it if they weren't, you know, otherwise. And so when they understand the expectation, when they have belief in what they're doing and the coaches and players and building are able to continue to pour into them, regardless if you're a starter for every single game or if you're a practice squad elevation guy or if you're on IR, whatever it is that you're feeling like you're in it, you're involved, you're.
00:12:24
Speaker 1: A big part of.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: What we're doing, I think maybe helps guys believe in themselves when they do have to go and step up and give us meaningful reps. Great.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: Thanks, guys.
Speaker 1: Everything gets a little expedited.
00:00:03
Speaker 2: Specifically, the previous game review gets a little bit expedited, and that's where I was able to circle back and show some of the stuff from this.
00:00:14
Speaker 1: Past weekend's game. in my meeting this morning.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: But a lot of the preparation as soon as Monday starts is all on Baltimore.
00:00:23
Speaker 1: And so these guys have handled it really well.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Everybody is in this game is going to be sore, tired, all those things, right? Mentally, physically, everybody feels the same exact way. Everybody's nicked up and have to go play this game.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: That's just the way it is.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: And so a lot of this is going to be about mental and physical toughness.
00:00:45
Speaker 1: Do you give the players Friday, Saturday, Sunday off after that? Yeah. That's pretty standard. Pretty standard, yeah. We'll come back and do a bonus Monday.
00:00:52
Speaker 2: Do you expect to be able to practice today?
00:00:55
Speaker 1: We'll see.
00:00:56
Speaker 2: I think he'll do something. Yeah, he'll do something. But I would expect– I talked to him today. He said he feels better. I would think it's probably going to go up to game time. When you're going into a game like that, you mentioned sore, tired, a little bit up.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: How dangerous can a guy like Eric Henry be?
00:01:12
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: I mean, you know.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Tackling right like you got to be so on your on your p's and q's in terms of your run fits your angles to the football your swarm has to be elite you know getting off blocks not staying blocked you can't just throw an arm.
00:01:33
Speaker 1: At them and that ain't gonna happen it's not.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: Gonna work and so um it's definitely critical showed that to the to the guys this morning uh when we're at our best and we're flying around as a defense um good things usually happen would you describe nate borkature's development and how he's taken to coaching yeah i mean he's uh loves football loves loves to practice loves what goes into it um you know high care factor but like also has that good way about him that doesn't like take everything so seriously and so like tense you can kind of make a mistake or something and learn from it but also like move on fairly quickly which i think is a unique trait um and and you know, to make some of the plays last two weeks in the past game has been obviously nice to see the catch in Houston and then to change his body and torque it to make the catch the other day pretty seamlessly was nice to see. And so we got to continue to lean into that and keep working with him. But I've been very pleased with him so far. And then Branson Combs, how well has he developed for you guys? Huge. Obviously competed a ton. in training camp with Ventrell. Ventrell wins the job, clearly, and Ventrell's played at a high level and done some really good things for us. But to have your third linebacker that we know that we had a lot of faith in to come in and make an impact on special teams the way he did with the two big hits on our sideline and to get the interception, we know we've seen that kind of play from him out here in training camp, right, like going up. climbing the ladder and making a great catch on an interception this training camp. So he's got good ball skills, and the more he can do for our team, the better we'll be. Building off the linebacker conversation but pairing it with the defensive back rotation, knowing that the safety spot with Eric going down for the season, Antonio obviously working his way back, maybe not as deep as it previously was, how do you.
00:03:37
Speaker 1: Pull from some of those other rooms to potentially supplant the fact that you may not have your usual.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: Full load of safeties. Yeah, Antonio, obviously, Merriweather. you know, Ray on lane just got named AFC defense, a player of the week. So, you know, I think those three guys specifically will, we'll kind of get the load of it all, um, you know, and then be able to supplement it through, you know, different packages, base, nickel, Aggie things, different things that you can play, but, um, have faith in, in, uh, Kayvon and Ray right now. And then obviously Jalen got some, some burn this past week, made it, you know, had a sack. So we just got to keep building off that, uh, you know, experience, exposure, and playmaking because they're not going to get better unless they play. They're not going to get better unless they play. So those guys playing is going to help us in the long run.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: You're talking a little bit about that kind of next man up mentality.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: When you lose two defensive leaders kind of in one foul swoop, how do you replace that part of the team?
00:04:36
Speaker 1: The whole team. The whole team. The whole building.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Everybody needs to, and I don't mean on Thursday night playing in the game. I mean like throughout the week. I challenged them, you know, on Monday with everybody just stepping up their week a little bit more, their being a great teammate a little bit more, the energy a little bit more. You know, you draft young players, you know, Regis, Wesley Williams, a lot of these guys were captains.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: In college, right?
00:05:12
Speaker 2: A lot of these guys were leaders on good football teams. And we need those guys to not only, you know, help us potentially in the games, but also their leadership, their energy, their being great teammates. Like, we need that to show up this week. And that was what I challenged the team with. And I think they've responded the right way.
00:05:36
Speaker 1: Is that an amplified version of who is about us? Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. Like.
00:05:41
Speaker 2: you lose there's there's no doubt you got you know you lose the ham eric uh tootin gets hurt right trevon gets hurt like you got four starters get hurt in one game and so what how do you how do you supplement that well it's through the building it's through the entire group it's not just all right, the defensive captains or the offensive captains that need to feel the weight of that.
00:06:08
Speaker 1: It's the entire building.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: It's the, it's every single one of us, players, coaches, and staff included, uh, to help pick that up. On Sunday, I didn't get a chance to ask you this Monday though.
00:06:19
Speaker 1: Ezra obviously practiced the last few days, but what did you see from Wyatt?
00:06:22
Speaker 2: What are your expectations in terms of who will be available? Yeah, I expect Ezra to be available. Um, you know, I thought Wyatt came in and did some good things though. Um, Pride opened the hole on the short yardage run for Chris down the pipe.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: Did some really good things on both screens. Was pleased with Wyatt's.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: Ability to go in and no flinch, no blink, go and play his tail off.
00:06:48
Speaker 1: So depth is always a good thing.
00:06:51
Speaker 2: I know there's a lot of coaches who are influencing you and how you see the game, but when it comes to play calling, setting plays up, sequencing stuff, who's really kind of made that influence on you? Hmm. Um, you know, I'd say it goes back to obviously my dad in the wing T with some of that stuff. Um, obviously, you know, Phil Estes at Brown, Mark Whipple at UMass. Um, and then Sean specifically when I got to the NFL, um, in a lot of ways, definitely helped that Sean Payton from, you know, I went and studied there. I would think a lot, you know, that crew probably in a lot of ways have impacted and affected the way I, you know, call a game, see it, but obviously it's all, you got to make the decision, you know, so it is your vision in your, you know, study habits, the way you look at it, the way you see it, your feel for the game. And like Trevor said it, obviously the other day, I thought like how much work goes into a plan, and how much the offensive staff puts into a plan. It's a lot of details. It's a lot of checks.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: And balances, right?
00:07:58
Speaker 2: Because you could come up with any play, but, well, like, what is your answer versus this? What is your answer to that? And making sure you have the answers, but you haven't overcooked them, right, to where you're, like, poking holes at your own stuff. That is a balance that always goes into game planning and ultimately goes into play calling as well. What's the biggest reason that Trevor's been more accurate this year? I mean, you can measure with completion percentage and stuff like that.
00:08:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker 2: Trust, I would imagine, has a lot to do with it, right? Trust in what he's doing, belief in what he's doing, understanding the concepts probably more, trust and belief in the guys on the perimeter and the guys that he's throwing to, trust and belief in the guys in front of him that are blocking for him. But I think his feet right now are pretty clean. I think his feet have been– pretty darn clean for the last few weeks, playing on time and in rhythm, but also when he does have to move doing it while being able to still have a platform to throw, I think was nice to continue to see. And he's decisive right now, right? Like he's decisive on his reads where it's like, okay, my primaries, but I know where my checkdowns are. I mean, I thought a key play later in the game, I know we were up, But we ran a play action. He dumped it down to Chris Rodriguez in the flats and gained, I don't know, like 10 or 12.
00:09:21
Speaker 1: Yards or something.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: But it was a two-man route concept that, like, at the top of his drop, he just knew that it wasn't open. So he just quickly, decisively, one hit, kind of slid up in the pocket, dumped it down to Chris, and it's like, That's the same thing as Tootin's touchdown against Houston where it was a quick, decisive check down, accurate ball placement. That's playing the position because you have so many.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Hard throws in a game. You have so many third downs, two.
00:09:53
Speaker 2: Minutes, red zone, goal to goes, all those settings that amplify and make the position what it is and how difficult it is. It's can you make the easy ones easy, right? Like what we determine as easy, easy. And I think that that's kind of something we're seeing right now.
00:10:12
Speaker 1: Do you see your offense trending towards being more consistent away from Jacksonville?
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Obviously, they've had a lot of success here at.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Home this year. Yeah.
00:10:23
Speaker 2: Obviously, when you go on the road, it's always a challenge no matter what.
00:10:29
Speaker 1: Finding the balance of.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: The motion shifts, things like that, to continue to play fast while also having the things that you need in order to operate.
00:10:41
Speaker 1: In a game.
00:10:43
Speaker 2: Looking forward to seeing us play, obviously, on the road again on the silent again, going through that operation again, and playing cleaner and continuing to play as clean as we were able to this past game, I think. And that's always the challenge when you're playing on the road.
00:11:02
Speaker 1: Last one. Liam, going back to that next man up, I asked the guys about that in the locker room yesterday. Every one of them mentioned the standard. Why is it that the standard is so effective here? What are your thoughts on hearing that from your players? Yeah, it's pretty cool. The consistency and messaging, I think, is always appropriate.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: It always helps when you're on the same page and understand what the standard is.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: And then I think being honest.
00:11:30
Speaker 2: About roles and responsibilities, being honest about the moment, too, without it feeling like it's pressure.
00:11:38
Speaker 1: Right? And so when you have guys go.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: Down, like it's the NFL, nobody cares, you know, like really nobody cares. And so these guys get paid to do the job and they care about the job, right? They love doing it. They wouldn't be doing it if they weren't, you know, otherwise. And so when they understand the expectation, when they have belief in what they're doing and the coaches and players and building are able to continue to pour into them, regardless if you're a starter for every single game or if you're a practice squad elevation guy or if you're on IR, whatever it is that you're feeling like you're in it, you're involved, you're.
00:12:24
Speaker 1: A big part of.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: What we're doing, I think maybe helps guys believe in themselves when they do have to go and step up and give us meaningful reps. Great.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: Thanks, guys.
