Latest / Press Pass / Press Pass | Press Taylor Speaks Before Week 2 of OTAs
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What does a step forward in your tube look like?
- 0:02Speaker 2: For Anton? After all the experience and stuff again last year,
- 0:04Speaker 2: what does the next step of play?
- 0:06Speaker 1: Yeah, I think just I think there's a level of
- 0:07Speaker 1: confidence that you expect to see from a guy that
- 0:09Speaker 1: played the whole season and just you saw his confidence
- 0:12Speaker 1: grow from week one through week eighteen, and just understanding
- 0:15Speaker 1: what each week looks like, because I think that's one
- 0:17Speaker 1: of the biggest things, especially for young guys. You know
- 0:19Speaker 1: they're used to their season kind of ends around Thanksgiving.
- 0:22Speaker 1: We're in the middle of our season right then, there's
- 0:24Speaker 1: a long push. Each week is it's new set of challenges,
- 0:27Speaker 1: so you kind of you face that, you overcome a
- 0:29Speaker 1: lot of that, you continue to grow. Now you know
- 0:31Speaker 1: what to expect in year two, so you expect to
- 0:33Speaker 1: just see that confidence walk around with a little bit
- 0:34Speaker 1: more swagger, approach each week, a little bit kind of
- 0:39Speaker 1: just more understanding what's coming what those guys who didn't.
- 0:42Speaker 2: Get the confidence like that. When you look at Tank
- 0:44Speaker 2: and Britain second and Therampic, guys who maybe didn't contribute
- 0:48Speaker 2: like ants, how do you get them to maybe take
- 0:52Speaker 2: that next step.
- 0:52Speaker 1: Well, I think I think a lot of it you
- 0:53Speaker 1: see just the way they're practicing now of this time
- 0:56Speaker 1: last year they're swimming. I mean some guys were coming
- 0:58Speaker 1: off injury from their college career to wherever they were
- 1:02Speaker 1: throughout the off season program for us to just you're
- 1:04Speaker 1: trying to figure everything out, how does the NFL work,
- 1:05Speaker 1: how does this practice pace move? What's the offense look like?
- 1:09Speaker 1: What's my role in this particular play? To where now
- 1:11Speaker 1: in year two, they know it, they know they're split,
- 1:14Speaker 1: they know their alignment, they know their adjustment. They're able
- 1:16Speaker 1: to play a lot faster, So you see a little
- 1:18Speaker 1: bit more of that skill set you probably saw when
- 1:20Speaker 1: they were in year four, year five of college and
- 1:22Speaker 1: they understood the system inside out. So you see a
- 1:25Speaker 1: lot of that now. The game reps are invaluable, so
- 1:28Speaker 1: some guys got a lot of that. Some guys didn't
- 1:30Speaker 1: get as much of that. But the expectation, the confidence
- 1:33Speaker 1: they carry on the practice field, you're hoping that that
- 1:35Speaker 1: extends over to the game field whenever the time comes
- 1:37Speaker 1: for that. You have any regrets with how Tank's usage
- 1:40Speaker 1: went in year one on the field, yeah, I mean
- 1:43Speaker 1: we would have liked to say we'd get more usage,
- 1:46Speaker 1: more opportunity four Tank as the season went. Looking back,
- 1:49Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of things that we probably
- 1:51Speaker 1: could have done better. Obviously, the goal is not to
- 1:53Speaker 1: go nine and eight, especially each year we've done that,
- 1:56Speaker 1: So you look at a lot of things. You try
- 1:58Speaker 1: to be as critical as anything, as everything that you
- 2:01Speaker 1: can be, and how do we utilize every single player
- 2:04Speaker 1: available to us on game. I think there's things that
- 2:05Speaker 1: Tank could have provided that we maybe didn't give him
- 2:08Speaker 1: opportunities to, or maybe we're quick to give Travis another
- 2:12Speaker 1: rep on something that probably Tank could have done well
- 2:14Speaker 1: for us. But you know, you kind of you live,
- 2:17Speaker 1: you learn, you grow from it, and you you adapt
- 2:19Speaker 1: moving forward. And I think Tank's in a great headspace
- 2:21Speaker 1: in terms of where he goes into year two, and uh,
- 2:24Speaker 1: you know, we're looking to get the most at him
- 2:25Speaker 1: as well. Go see Brian Thomas. So far, Brian's done
- 2:29Speaker 1: a great job. I mean, Brian's what we expected. He's
- 2:31Speaker 1: he's he's long, he's fast, he's smart, and so those
- 2:33Speaker 1: things have shown up just early on of getting him involved.
- 2:36Speaker 1: He's spending a lot of meeting time with Chad and
- 2:39Speaker 1: being around Christian, being around Gabe, who not necessarily knows
- 2:42Speaker 1: our system, but knows the NFL and what things are
- 2:44Speaker 1: going to look like. I think has been really good
- 2:45Speaker 1: for him. You know, you see obviously the intelligence in
- 2:50Speaker 1: the quick twitch, in the long speed show up throughout
- 2:53Speaker 1: you know, our practices right now as we go through
- 2:55Speaker 1: things or even routes on air. He grows every single day.
- 2:59Speaker 1: He's a guy that's very easy communicate with just because
- 3:02Speaker 1: he is intelligent. Things come naturally to him. Football, I
- 3:04Speaker 1: think comes naturally to him of just learning, picturing concepts,
- 3:07Speaker 1: understanding routes, how we're attacking certain coverages. So you see
- 3:11Speaker 1: his growth every single day, which is fun to see.
- 3:13Speaker 1: How do you assess the competition, what they're at least,
- 3:17Speaker 1: what there you think in your mind is of it
- 3:19Speaker 1: on the offensive line, left tackle a little bit more
- 3:23Speaker 1: up in the air than other spots, and what's your
- 3:26Speaker 1: vision of it right now? Right now it's kind of
- 3:29Speaker 1: just we're trying to create an identity of who we
- 3:31Speaker 1: envision ourselves being within the scheme. It's a little tougher
- 3:35Speaker 1: to have position battles right now when things aren't very physical,
- 3:37Speaker 1: because that's obviously an element that we value, or we'd
- 3:41Speaker 1: like to value even more moving forward. As an offensive unit,
- 3:44Speaker 1: So that's something that's kind of taken out of the
- 3:46Speaker 1: off season program a little bit. So right now you're
- 3:49Speaker 1: looking for understanding, you're looking for the details, you're looking
- 3:52Speaker 1: for some urgency, But that physical piece is kind of
- 3:54Speaker 1: the element that misses throughout the off season that we're
- 3:57Speaker 1: trying to kind of take our time with as we
- 4:00Speaker 1: move forward, and you'll get a little bit more preview
- 4:02Speaker 1: that through training camp, obviously preseason games, as these things
- 4:05Speaker 1: continue on.
- 4:06Speaker 2: With Trevor and his growth and all of other stuff
- 4:10Speaker 2: that you've heard, have.
- 4:11Speaker 1: You seen it? Where have you seen maybe his biggest
- 4:14Speaker 1: striding I think just that full on ownership of our system.
- 4:18Speaker 1: I mean, he understands too what we're trying to accomplish in
- 4:20Speaker 1: the offseason and putting in plays. So he understands we're
- 4:23Speaker 1: putting in our schemes. We're an install for now, the
- 4:26Speaker 1: defense is an install for These plays aren't a ligned
- 4:29Speaker 1: to we're attacking a certain coverage. So you're seeing a
- 4:32Speaker 1: little bit of growth of he's quick to find a checkdown,
- 4:34Speaker 1: he's quick to move on in a progression because this
- 4:36Speaker 1: isn't the coverage this is built for. So you see
- 4:39Speaker 1: a little bit of that and then you see the
- 4:40Speaker 1: way it communicates with the guys around him. Hey, I
- 4:42Speaker 1: need you at this depth, at this spot on this
- 4:45Speaker 1: timing because I'm getting to you as the fourth read
- 4:49Speaker 1: or the third reader or the first read, so I
- 4:51Speaker 1: need a little bit more so just you know, it's
- 4:53Speaker 1: it's kind of trying to get him to take over
- 4:55Speaker 1: more and more and more, and I think that's coming
- 4:57Speaker 1: naturally for him partially year three the system you're four
- 5:00Speaker 1: in the NFL. Just working with young guys around them,
- 5:04Speaker 1: understanding what communication each guy needs is a big part
- 5:07Speaker 1: of playing quarterback.
- 5:08Speaker 2: With new faces at two of your top three receivers,
- 5:10Speaker 2: do you shift? Does this installation phase change? I know
- 5:13Speaker 2: the last year talking about continuity and how you were
- 5:15Speaker 2: able to build off the year before. Are you maybe
- 5:17Speaker 2: starting from the ground and moving forward at this time?
- 5:20Speaker 1: Yeah. We always try to us that's kind of always
- 5:22Speaker 1: the phase. You teach it through phase one, you get
- 5:25Speaker 1: a chance to do it in phase two where it's
- 5:27Speaker 1: just us on air, and now we're into phase three.
- 5:28Speaker 1: Now there's a little bit of competition where there's a
- 5:30Speaker 1: defense across from you're having to adjust to things on
- 5:32Speaker 1: the fly, potentially post snap, so I don't know if
- 5:37Speaker 1: it's necessarily changed in terms of how we've done this
- 5:40Speaker 1: throughout the course of three years, but you know, we're
- 5:43Speaker 1: certainly pleased with where these guys are. It's obviously tough,
- 5:46Speaker 1: you know, Gabe's coming off an injury, new to the system.
- 5:49Speaker 1: You get Brian inserted at the end of phase two
- 5:52Speaker 1: trying to get into a system, so they're still probably
- 5:54Speaker 1: early on through their understanding the installs and things like that.
- 5:57Speaker 1: As opposed to year one, where most of our guys
- 5:59Speaker 1: were free agents. We're here from the very very beginning
- 6:01Speaker 1: of this thing to hit the ground running.
- 6:03Speaker 2: Does it matter to you who's calling plays?
- 6:06Speaker 1: No, I mean, ultimately winning is all that matters to us.
- 6:09Speaker 1: And however we get to that point, we're all for.
- 6:12Speaker 2: In terms of game planning and play calling. What were
- 6:16Speaker 2: the differences for you personally from twenty twenty to twenty
- 6:18Speaker 2: twenty three.
- 6:20Speaker 1: In terms of game planning, There was really no difference.
- 6:22Speaker 1: You know. Obviously we had Nichols was here as a
- 6:25Speaker 1: basketing coordinators post Jim Bob Cooter, so there were some
- 6:27Speaker 1: different ideas working our way through. But I thought, you know,
- 6:30Speaker 1: you kind of hit your stride. Is that thing gets
- 6:33Speaker 1: going through the middle of the season. Everybody gets real
- 6:35Speaker 1: comfortable in what the expectations are each day, each meeting,
- 6:38Speaker 1: whether that's just coaches, players, whatever that is. And then
- 6:42Speaker 1: in terms of play calling, it was really just you know,
- 6:44Speaker 1: I was able to move around the call sheet a
- 6:46Speaker 1: little bit of things that caught my eye a little quicker.
- 6:48Speaker 1: But in terms of communication with coach and the other
- 6:51Speaker 1: coaches on the headset trevored throughout the week, throughout the game,
- 6:54Speaker 1: none of that changed necessarily. Really impressions with Mitch Morris,
- 6:58Speaker 1: what does he brought Mitch, I mean, there's definitely that
- 7:01Speaker 1: better in presence of this is a guy that's very
- 7:03Speaker 1: confident in who he is, what he's done. You see
- 7:06Speaker 1: that show up from the way he handles himself in
- 7:08Speaker 1: the huddle. It's also the meeting room, and that's one
- 7:11Speaker 1: of the things that he's not afraid to speak up
- 7:12Speaker 1: and ask a question. Where some young guys that are
- 7:14Speaker 1: new to a system are, you know, they're probably going
- 7:16Speaker 1: to wait till a meeting ends, Go grab a coach
- 7:18Speaker 1: on the side, Hey, you said this, what do you
- 7:19Speaker 1: mean by that? Mitchell? Stop a meeting, make sure he's
- 7:22Speaker 1: on the same page. Of what the coach is expecting,
- 7:24Speaker 1: because sometimes you go quickly through these things because you
- 7:27Speaker 1: look around. There's a lot of familiar faces in a room.
- 7:29Speaker 1: Guys have heard this, or guys know Okay, he's talking
- 7:32Speaker 1: about twenty twenty two Week three, this happened, blah blah blah.
- 7:36Speaker 1: We kind of gloss over some things where Mitchell, Hey,
- 7:39Speaker 1: what do you mean by this? We'll pull up a clip,
- 7:40Speaker 1: we'll all watch it together. Make sure we're all speaking
- 7:42Speaker 1: the same language. That's the biggest thing is everybody. I mean,
- 7:46Speaker 1: football hasn't really changed over the course of many years,
- 7:50Speaker 1: but each offense kind of has their own language. How
- 7:53Speaker 1: quickly can we get everybody onboarded with our language? What
- 7:55Speaker 1: does it sound like for us when you say this?
- 7:57Speaker 1: What does this mean? Make sure we all speak that
- 8:00Speaker 1: same language. So Mitch has done a great job of
- 8:02Speaker 1: getting himself up to speed with that. Nick and Jimbob
- 8:06Speaker 1: in the division, they force you to tweak more than
- 8:09Speaker 1: you would normally tweet, not necessarily think. I think a
- 8:12Speaker 1: lot of that is there's probably there's a certain level
- 8:15Speaker 1: of paranoia that a lot of coaches deal with, and
- 8:18Speaker 1: then that's natural, absolutely, So there's certain things, but you know,
- 8:22Speaker 1: we always kind of sit there and we'll talk, Hey,
- 8:24Speaker 1: this player is on this team we just played, and
- 8:26Speaker 1: we all, Okay, what are they really going to say?
- 8:29Speaker 1: Will they know that we like to do this? Well,
- 8:31Speaker 1: unless they hear the call in the huddle, they don't
- 8:33Speaker 1: necessarily know that. Now it's on us to understand our tendencies,
- 8:37Speaker 1: the issues within our offense, the way we communicate verbally
- 8:40Speaker 1: non verbally, to make sure we're not giving away anything.
- 8:44Speaker 1: But no, I mean, it's it's great to see those
- 8:46Speaker 1: guys going to bigger, better things as well. Like Press
- 8:48Speaker 1: obviously disappointing to go nine and eight for a second
- 8:51Speaker 1: consecutive season. Did that maybe up the ante to completely
- 8:55Speaker 1: not tear things down, but say we need to start.
- 8:57Speaker 2: With the blank canvas and start from scratch with this offense.
- 9:01Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly did. And again I don't think we
- 9:03Speaker 1: tore everything down, but we probably took to the studs
- 9:06Speaker 1: and looked at it from the very beginning of of
- 9:08Speaker 1: you know, what have we been good at, what have
- 9:09Speaker 1: we struggled with? And then trying to be really critical,
- 9:12Speaker 1: why have we struggled with this? You know, is this
- 9:14Speaker 1: something that we've from the beginning of our building, the scheme,
- 9:18Speaker 1: the terminology, what we're asking you guys, to what we're
- 9:21Speaker 1: putting on game plans, to what we're calling in games.
- 9:24Speaker 1: Is all of this makes sense? Is it all learnable? Digestible?
- 9:28Speaker 1: And so trying to be very critical of that because
- 9:31Speaker 1: you know, our goal is to win, not not to
- 9:32Speaker 1: go nine and eight, not to be close, not to
- 9:34Speaker 1: be a fringe contender. That that's not necessarily the goal.
- 9:37Speaker 1: The goals to win, and so how can we help
- 9:39Speaker 1: ourselves get there? And then look at throughout the off season,
- 9:42Speaker 1: throughout training camp, how can we see growth in these
- 9:45Speaker 1: things because there's a lot, like we mentioned earlier, there's
- 9:48Speaker 1: just a physicality that you lack through the off season.
- 9:50Speaker 1: So if we're asking our guys to be physical, but
- 9:53Speaker 1: we can't do it in this time, how what are
- 9:55Speaker 1: what are the things that we're going to hold them
- 9:56Speaker 1: accountable for and try to get better at through this time.
- 10:00Speaker 2: Ncality something that needed to be imps.
- 10:02Speaker 1: That's a big part of it. I mean, you have
- 10:03Speaker 1: to be explosive in this league. You know, it's it's
- 10:06Speaker 1: tough enough being consistently efficient. We want to be able
- 10:10Speaker 1: to have that explosive element to us and I think
- 10:12Speaker 1: that was something even if you go back and look
- 10:14Speaker 1: at our run game, our run game for two years
- 10:16Speaker 1: probably hasn't been as efficient as we've wanted it to be.
- 10:18Speaker 1: But I think even year one in the system, we
- 10:20Speaker 1: were explosive, so we were able to kind of counteract
- 10:22Speaker 1: that a little bit. We're year two for whatever reason,
- 10:25Speaker 1: that kind of fell off for us, and so that's
- 10:27Speaker 1: something in the run game definitely that we're looking at
- 10:30Speaker 1: to improve upon, but also in the past game, give
- 10:32Speaker 1: guys opportunity to catch it on the move, making sure
- 10:35Speaker 1: we're attacking all aspects of the field and all aspects
- 10:38Speaker 1: of the defense. Apparently, oh man it well, I work
- 10:45Speaker 1: not necessarily me personally worked for Frank. Frank Reich had
- 10:48Speaker 1: spend a lot of time with Peyton maning Frank was
- 10:50Speaker 1: it was a peytent thing that Frank was paranoid. Every
- 10:53Speaker 1: building we were in was bugged. So if we had
- 10:56Speaker 1: a pregame staff meeting day of I mean we had
- 10:59Speaker 1: to go in, you turn the showers on, make some noise.
- 11:02Speaker 1: I mean, it was there was this. He was just
- 11:04Speaker 1: scared of everything, because Peyton was scared of everything. I
- 11:06Speaker 1: guess or they thought somebody's listening at all times and right,
- 11:09Speaker 1: wrong and different. I don't know, but you know there
- 11:11Speaker 1: were some battles that Peyton was a part of that.
- 11:12Speaker 1: Maybe that happened or not. I don't know. I wouldn't
- 11:16Speaker 1: say Doug's super paranoid, Doug. Doug's pretty laid back, pretty relaxed.
- 11:21Speaker 1: I think a lot of us found Frank's paranoid pretty funny.
- 11:24Speaker 2: But talking about the verticality of the offense, you, Trevor
- 11:29Speaker 2: Lawrence saw is a great de ball. Do you think
- 11:32Speaker 2: you have the receivers on the outside this year that
- 11:34Speaker 2: we'll do a good job to kind of capitalize on
- 11:37Speaker 2: some of the opportunities that He's given receivers.
- 11:39Speaker 1: Over the year. Yeah, I think so. I mean, obviously,
- 11:42Speaker 1: having Brian's length and speed is a big thing that
- 11:44Speaker 1: was obviously a strength of his throughout his college career
- 11:47Speaker 1: with the numbers and all that, and then something gave
- 11:49Speaker 1: has always brought and you're not going to be a
- 11:52Speaker 1: super high pass completion percentage if you're pushing the ball
- 11:54Speaker 1: way down the field. And that's something we feel like
- 11:57Speaker 1: we've done a good job. When we've called the play
- 11:59Speaker 1: action stuff, we've been particularly explosive when you look at
- 12:02Speaker 1: our numbers in terms of concepts that we've called and
- 12:05Speaker 1: opportunities pushed the ball. We've done a good job with that,
- 12:09Speaker 1: and also Evan and Christian from the inside, working inside out,
- 12:12Speaker 1: being able to get matched up on safeties at times
- 12:15Speaker 1: depending on the principles of the coverage however that works.
- 12:18Speaker 1: But we do feel like we have the people that
- 12:20Speaker 1: we're able to push the ball down the field. We
- 12:22Speaker 1: just got to be able to get the opportunities to
- 12:23Speaker 1: do that, and we've got to call those types of
- 12:25Speaker 1: plays throughout the course of games.