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Head Coach Mike Macdonald On Sam Darnold's Performance In Week 9 And Building The Team's Culture · Seahawks Press Pass

0:01
Speaker 1: All right, appreciate your patience. All right, everybody, Andrew kick
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Speaker 1: us off.
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Speaker 2: Mike just wanted to ask you, not just in light
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Speaker 2: of yesterday's performance from Sam, but generally speaking midway through
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Speaker 2: the year, is this what you had kind of expected
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Speaker 2: for or hoped from him, or is he perhaps even
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Speaker 2: exceeded expectations for what you had from him at the
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Speaker 2: quarterback position coming into the year.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think we had expectations. We have a
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Speaker 1: vision for you know, what we felt like he could do,
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Speaker 1: and it's a pretty big vision. You know how he's
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Speaker 1: playing right now and he's doing a great job. But
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Speaker 1: you know, the things that we thought he could do,
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Speaker 1: he's definitely doing that, and probably then some. I mean,
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Speaker 1: we brought him into be our quarterback, be a leader,
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Speaker 1: win games, be efficient, I mean all those all those
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Speaker 1: things he's doing.
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Speaker 3: Brian John Yeah, Mike, you touched on this a little
1:08
Speaker 3: bit yesterday, But as you look at the film, how
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Speaker 3: much with what Jackson's doing this season are you seeing
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Speaker 3: like maybe as each week goes on, more opportunities coming
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Speaker 3: up for other players as teams do more to try
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Speaker 3: to take him away.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. I think, uh think there's different like.
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Speaker 1: I think there's different like mechanisms based off of the
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Speaker 1: defensive systems here in that teams can get to to
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Speaker 1: take receivers away based on the situation. First, give credit
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Speaker 1: to our our office coaches from moving them around and
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Speaker 1: making them a moving target. But uh, if you know,
1:42
Speaker 1: if you're gonna spend a lot of resources on making
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Speaker 1: sure he doesn't catch the ball, then uh, our guys
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Speaker 1: are showing that they can, they can take advantage of
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Speaker 1: those opportunities in those one on ones and and Sam
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Speaker 1: can deliver the ball to them. So, uh, it's great.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's great something that we're gonna still have
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Speaker 1: to take advance. You know, I know, if we're gampling
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Speaker 1: against us, you know that would be one of our
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Speaker 1: top priorities is taking care of Jackson. I'm sure the
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Speaker 1: teams are thinking the same things. That's something we need
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Speaker 1: to be taking taking into account moving forward. Greg.
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Speaker 4: So I'm gonna shine a light on you and your
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Speaker 4: coaches a little bit last night after the game in DC,
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Speaker 4: a lot of the players were talking about how you
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Speaker 4: guys the coaches want to set a culture, and then
2:27
Speaker 4: they talked about the things you do preparation for a game.
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Speaker 4: Like the Brandon Peey on the kickoff and preparing guys
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Speaker 4: that are coming in like Tyrie Knight and guys I got.
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Speaker 4: How much pride do you take in your players? Maybe
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Speaker 4: not even just talking to us about that, but just
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Speaker 4: responding to the things you're teaching and showing them week
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Speaker 4: to week.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, uh man, I don't really thought about it that lens.
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Speaker 1: I think it probably reflects that our staff is a
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Speaker 1: lined and we're going towards the same vision, which is important.
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Speaker 1: You start straying in different directions. I think the players
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Speaker 1: sniff that out. And then to build trust, I mean
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Speaker 1: you have to. You have to show that you can
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Speaker 1: help guys out and that when you're making these decisions
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Speaker 1: is the best best interest for the team and the players.
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Speaker 1: And so it's it's great to hear that that they
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Speaker 1: they believe in us, and I know, I know, I
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Speaker 1: sure as heck hope that they you know that they
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Speaker 1: can feel that we believe in them, and I think
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Speaker 1: that starts. That's what happens. You know that you can
3:30
Speaker 1: you can take some of these chances about, you know,
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Speaker 1: using personnel a little bit unconventionally, and sometimes things aren't
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Speaker 1: gonna work. But I can you know, I can definitely
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Speaker 1: tell you that we can look our players in the
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Speaker 1: face and tell them it's coming from a good place
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Speaker 1: and it's we were we think it's the best for
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Speaker 1: for them of the team.
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Speaker 4: As a first time CEO, what have who or what
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Speaker 4: have you leaned on to build this to to get
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Speaker 4: the messaging right to reflect the staff cohesion?
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Speaker 2: What? What did?
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Speaker 4: What was the magic to do that?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? I think I think it's something that has evolved
4:04
Speaker 1: over time. You know, as you start as a young coach,
4:07
Speaker 1: you think you know everything. You think it's all about
4:08
Speaker 1: x's and o's. You start to gain some more responsibility,
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Speaker 1: you realize it's definitely not just you, it's it takes
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Speaker 1: the whole team. Then you start to realize, okay, alignment
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Speaker 1: is really important again around coaches like the Harbaws, about
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Speaker 1: how you know, how principled they are and kind of
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Speaker 1: those old school principles. That's something that I learned from
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Speaker 1: those guys. And and then you come here and and
4:31
Speaker 1: it's you feel like you got a lot of great ideas,
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Speaker 1: but it's probably a little too scattered. You know, creating
4:38
Speaker 1: the alignment is easier said than done. You know, it
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Speaker 1: takes a lot of conversations. It takes some decisions that
4:44
Speaker 1: might not be easy to do in those in those moments.
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Speaker 1: But I think, I think, uh, I feel like I
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Speaker 1: can speak for our coaching staff and the rest of
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Speaker 1: our building. It's like, I think we've we've generated an
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Speaker 1: idea of who we want to become and what we
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Speaker 1: want be as a as an organization, and a lot
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Speaker 1: of that groundwork has been here, and so that's that's
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Speaker 1: probably what's made the transition, you know fun. You know,
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Speaker 1: it feels like it feels like it's a it's not
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Speaker 1: just me coming in saying, hey, this is the way
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Speaker 1: we have to do everything. It's it's a hey, this
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Speaker 1: is this is the vision that we want to create.
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Speaker 1: How do we what's the best way to get there?
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Speaker 1: On all these different decisions, So it's yeah.
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Speaker 4: And then finally you joined only two others in league
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Speaker 4: history to do what you did when eleven of the
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Speaker 4: first twelve on the road as a head coach McVeigh
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Speaker 4: and Seaffert. First of all, it was what we've asked
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Speaker 4: you this before, but the way you do things on
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Speaker 4: the road, where'd you learn that frond? Was that a
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Speaker 4: John harbaught thing? And then how much pride if you
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Speaker 4: look back and take an accomplishment like that.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's cool. It's a cool stat
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Speaker 1: It's like, I'm worried about where we're going to go
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Speaker 1: from here. You know, it's it's cool that have done it.
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Speaker 1: But you know, as a head coach, you probably you
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Speaker 1: probably get too much credit and too much that you know, blame.
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Speaker 1: It's like, this is a team operation when we go
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Speaker 1: on the road. I mean, this is this is as
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Speaker 1: you know, when we got here, it was okay, how
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Speaker 1: do how is it? Because the team has had success
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Speaker 1: on the road before I was here, and so I
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Speaker 1: was curious, Hey, what what are the things that we
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Speaker 1: were doing prior? Okay, a lot of that stuff we've
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Speaker 1: kept that we felt like we're aligned with how we
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Speaker 1: wanted to operate. And then you know, I had I
6:27
Speaker 1: experienced from one place, so how we did it in Baltimore,
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Speaker 1: so that you know, that was probably the brutprint of
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Speaker 1: blueprint of everything we did it initially, and then you
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Speaker 1: start to learn, okay, well what's best for the Seahawks.
6:38
Speaker 1: You know, going east is way different than going west.
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Speaker 1: You know, you're learning that, and we got a lot
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Speaker 1: of we got a lot of we got a lot
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Speaker 1: of firepower behind the scenes, you know, make it these
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Speaker 1: these things happen as well, and those people deserve a
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Speaker 1: lot of credit. Curtis.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, Mike with with Jackson last night coming out of
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Speaker 5: the backfield a handful of times there for you, what
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Speaker 5: what is it about his skill set that lets him
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Speaker 5: jump into the backfield and still be the receiver you
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Speaker 5: want him to be. And then as a bigger picture,
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Speaker 5: what is it about having a really prominent receiving threat
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Speaker 5: coming out of the backfield, whether that's back to Marshall
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Speaker 5: Falk or Deebo when he was with the forty nine
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Speaker 5: ers that causes problems for a defense?
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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, just speaking to a skill set, just it
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Speaker 1: shows you, like his diversity of skills, you know, he's
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Speaker 1: made he's made plays all three levels of the defense
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Speaker 1: really and all the breakers in, breakers, outbreakers, runaways. So
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Speaker 1: he can kind of get you with anything, which which
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Speaker 1: makes it which makes it difficult to you know, what
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Speaker 1: are you You got to kind of choose what you're
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Speaker 1: going to defend given a situation. But he's he's just
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Speaker 1: a very dynamic receiver in terms of putting him in
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Speaker 1: the backfield. It's just it's it's how you want to
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Speaker 1: treat it. Do you want to treat it like a
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Speaker 1: running back? Do you treat it like a receiver? How
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Speaker 1: do you match it? What coverage adjustments do you make?
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Speaker 1: Because now he's you know, foreign a half five yards
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Speaker 1: out of the backfield if any you know, those are
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Speaker 1: those are decisions you have to make in real time,
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Speaker 1: and it just adds stress onto the defense in my opinion.
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Speaker 1: And if that's something that you can take advantage of,
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Speaker 1: then that's something that we're going to explore.
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Speaker 5: And then when you look at the pressure you were
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Speaker 5: able to create for for Jayden all night up front
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Speaker 5: and with the blitz as you brought and everything, what
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Speaker 5: what do you kind of make of that performance overall
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Speaker 5: and and kind of where it kind of indicates your
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Speaker 5: defense is at the midway point of the season here.
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Speaker 1: Well, I thought, I thought our rush for the most part,
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Speaker 1: we had a couple rush laying issues throughout the game
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Speaker 1: that we want to get, you know, addressed, but I'm
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Speaker 1: sure we will. But the guys they played really hard,
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Speaker 1: the Russian coverage worked together. I think I think the
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Speaker 1: step that we took this past game was our pressure
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Speaker 1: coverage was probably the best it's been all year. So
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Speaker 1: when we have when we did rush, you know in
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Speaker 1: the simulated world or five or six, our guys were
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Speaker 1: on point and like it was like the the guys
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Speaker 1: just did a great job executing the coverage, so you know,
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Speaker 1: the quarter back didn't have exactly anywhere to throw initially,
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Speaker 1: and that that helps the timing of the pressure as well.
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Speaker 6: Bob Am, I just first off, any update on Ernest
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Speaker 6: Jones at all.
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Speaker 1: No update. They're doing the medical right now. Probably stick
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Speaker 1: to the same story as last night. Is not season ending,
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Speaker 1: but uh, we're gonna be We'll be working through is knee.
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Speaker 1: We'll have an update probably on Wednesday on what what
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Speaker 1: the technicality is behind it.
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Speaker 6: How did you feel like it worked out with with
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Speaker 6: Drake then it looked like he kind of took over
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Speaker 6: those roles, and then and then with Tyree obviously.
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Speaker 1: I thought Drake's communication was fantastic. We didn't skip a beat.
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Speaker 1: Uh that's a tribute to him, you know, and staying prepared.
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Speaker 1: Now he has a green dot in practice as well,
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Speaker 1: so he has a lot of reps at it. But
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Speaker 1: he did a phenomenal job managing their tempo and the
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Speaker 1: communication and then you know him and him and Tyreese
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Speaker 1: played both positions throughout the night and interchanged seamlessly, seamlessly,
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Speaker 1: I thought, I was really pleased with those with those
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Speaker 1: guys with really teenite coming in and executing the defense,
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Speaker 1: and I thought Drake played a tremendous game.
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Speaker 6: And in the back end, obviously again Josh went out,
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Speaker 6: Greek stepped in. How did you feel like he did there?
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Speaker 6: And then kind of the mix of with Devin and
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Speaker 6: Nick and kind of what you ended up doing with
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Speaker 6: those two guys as well.
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Speaker 1: We've had some scenarios throughout the season where we've had
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Speaker 1: a dB go down early in games, and I felt
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Speaker 1: like last night was the best job that we did
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Speaker 1: as a as a as a team, as a defense,
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Speaker 1: and as a coaching staff of making the adjustments in
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Speaker 1: real time and you know, detouring, you know, from where
10:36
Speaker 1: we originally things we wanted to do and got this
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Speaker 1: some solutions quicker where the guys can execute, And the
10:42
Speaker 1: guys did a great job. I mean, we moved some
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Speaker 1: guys around. You know, there's some guys in some spots
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Speaker 1: that hadn't really practiced a lot of those plays and
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Speaker 1: gotten those looks throughout the week, so I thought, considering
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Speaker 1: that the execution was was really really good.
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Speaker 3: John, Yeah, Mike, just curious to get your thoughts. I
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Speaker 3: think we asked you about the play even more he
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Speaker 3: made the tackle for loss where he's getting blocked on DEVO,
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Speaker 3: just that play in particular for him, but then also
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Speaker 3: kind of touching on what Bob asked, just how he
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Speaker 3: thought it looked with him and Spoon out there together
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Speaker 3: really for the first time in a regular season game.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the plan the perimeter was a play we
11:22
Speaker 1: expect him to make. I mean, one of the reasons
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Speaker 1: we have him in that position is so he can
11:26
Speaker 1: be a factor on the perimeter screen game and the
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Speaker 1: perimeter run game and he continues to make those plays.
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Speaker 1: And when you can eliminate those plays offensively, it narrows
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Speaker 1: their menu and that's really helpful. But that was a
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Speaker 1: tremendous play, and that's something that we're going to want
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Speaker 1: to encourage him to still do. Like his body position
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Speaker 1: when he strikes, his hand placement, all those things we
11:49
Speaker 1: expect him to keep improving and I know it will
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Speaker 1: put the work in and do it, and we have
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Speaker 1: a plan for that him and spoon. I'd say the
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Speaker 1: number one thing is just the energy those guys bring
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Speaker 1: to the table, competitiveness, you know, where they're playing. It
12:02
Speaker 1: really to bright down depends on our secondary depth and
12:05
Speaker 1: how many guys, how many corners we have up. But
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Speaker 1: I think the cool thing is is there is some
12:10
Speaker 1: flexibility and Nick showing that the capacity to really to
12:13
Speaker 1: handle multiple positions, which is exciting, and it's shown us
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Speaker 1: that we can keep giving them new responsibilities. Andrew, sorry
12:25
Speaker 1: about that.
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Speaker 2: Mike kind of broadly asking here in respect to practices
12:30
Speaker 2: and tackling how much of that is a focus for
12:32
Speaker 2: you guys on a week to week basis just something
12:35
Speaker 2: that some reporters are asking around the league to various
12:38
Speaker 2: coaches about. Is it something that you've prioritize regularly week
12:41
Speaker 2: to week or if you identify issues with it, do
12:44
Speaker 2: you try to harp on a little bit more, just
12:47
Speaker 2: kind of broadly speaking, Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say we put a premium on it
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Speaker 1: every day. We've had some issues earlier in the year
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Speaker 1: and probably some more technique things, and then we just
13:01
Speaker 1: we address that in the film room end and practice time.
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Speaker 1: But we're definitely allocating a lot of time to to
13:05
Speaker 1: those core fundamentals for sure.
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Speaker 7: Airy After the game, Nick and Tory came off the
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Speaker 7: field and they were chanting that that game was the
13:16
Speaker 7: rookie takeover. What have you liked about the contributions that
13:19
Speaker 7: this year's draft class has been making so far this season?
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Speaker 1: Tell them, you know, easy there, Tiger, We've got a
13:26
Speaker 1: lot of work to do. You know pretty sure they're
13:29
Speaker 1: not giving up playoffs slots after week nine, so we
13:33
Speaker 1: got some more. We have a lot more work to do.
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Speaker 1: I can that might be a message for him when
13:37
Speaker 1: we see him on Wednesday, But yeah, the guys, the
13:42
Speaker 1: most you can ask is like the way we're the
13:44
Speaker 1: way we're trying to train our our players is give
13:47
Speaker 1: no given the circumstance, go out do the things you're
13:50
Speaker 1: trained to do. Play the best version of football you
13:52
Speaker 1: can play our style of ball, one play at a time.
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Speaker 1: It's like cliche central, but that's that's literally like what
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Speaker 1: we focus on every day. And so whether a rookie
14:02
Speaker 1: a ten year vet the ability to go do that
14:06
Speaker 1: is great. It's great for them. They're gonna play good football,
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Speaker 1: they're gonna be productive, and they're gonna help the team
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Speaker 1: as well. But I hope they know that we have
14:13
Speaker 1: a lot more work to do, Curtis.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, Mike, we've talked about the line when it comes
14:20
Speaker 5: like the running game of Bunch this year. But past
14:22
Speaker 5: protection wise, Sam's been clean a lot of the season.
14:26
Speaker 5: Wasn't sacked last night. What about that unit? And pass
14:29
Speaker 5: pro is working so well for you guys right now?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, our officsive line, they deserve some love. Man, they're
14:35
Speaker 1: playing really hard. I loved how they operate and they
14:39
Speaker 1: practice last week. They did a great job. And the
14:42
Speaker 1: pass protection is a product of that. The thing I
14:45
Speaker 1: would say is, you know, if you're gonna say, pass
14:47
Speaker 1: rush is a kind of eleven man job, and how
14:50
Speaker 1: you affect the quarterback pass protection is the same thing.
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Speaker 1: So the timing of plays, how we identify pressures, the protection,
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Speaker 1: and how we execute protection, how we get the spots
15:01
Speaker 1: on the field, Sam getting through its progressions, and uh,
15:05
Speaker 1: there's a lot of trust involved, there's a lot of
15:06
Speaker 1: work involved to make sure that timing comes to life. So,
15:10
Speaker 1: but they're doing a great job protecting Sam. I think
15:13
Speaker 1: we're staying square, we're being we're being firm in the pocket,
15:16
Speaker 1: which is letting Sam do his thing back there. So
15:19
Speaker 1: but they definitely deserve some love.
15:22
Speaker 5: And what do you think of Derek calls first game
15:24
Speaker 5: back for you guys last night?
15:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, then again like now now you can roll pretty
15:29
Speaker 1: deep with with our with our front. And so not
15:32
Speaker 1: only does did Derek have a great game, he uh
15:35
Speaker 1: he lets the other guys you know play it, you
15:37
Speaker 1: know more, kind of takes a load off those guys
15:40
Speaker 1: and lets them you know, be fresher throughout the game.
15:42
Speaker 1: So really pleased with Derek. He's he's he's a physical player.
15:47
Speaker 7: Uh.
15:47
Speaker 1: I know he's a little bummed about falling off a
15:49
Speaker 1: sack or two. And but the production was there and
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Speaker 1: I thought he I thought he rushly well anything else
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Speaker 1: all right, everybody will see you Wednesday. Thank you, thank you.
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Speaker 2: M