 Hey, Darryl. Hey, good morning coach. How are you today? I am fantastic. Awesome. Awesome. Hey, uh Doing some research. I got one football question and a music question. So oh guys, all right Yeah, uh, so football wise, uh, you know, can you tell the people, uh, you know, what your plan is to for, you know Three four, you know, no, you know what you've done in the past. I'm gonna play as a play for you You know, what are what are your uh, where are you at, you know, right now as you, you know Y'all do the roster evaluations and and so forth. Okay. Well, you know, I get asked that question all the time Are we gonna be three four four three and I'm gonna tell you yes Yeah, we're gonna be multiple and that's what we've always been when we are a Baltimore when we were in Tennessee Uh, in New England, we were a little bit more of a three four standard back in that day But really the whole time of Baltimore the whole time in Tennessee There we're gonna be really multiple up front You know, well our philosophy is gonna be we will be multiple but simple simple in the back end and really multiple up front. So our our talent and our roster will dictate what we're gonna do not me We can go a lot of different directions And I think our job as coaches are to put the players in the best possible position They can be in to do their job And that'll give us the best success and so for me to be rigid and say I can't do this We can't do that We'll do whatever we need to do with the personnel that we have to do the best job for the Atlanta Falcons that we can do and uh, you know With the musical question too, why why come out of retirement again? And then uh, you know, tell us a little bit about the copyrights and making the songs for your daughter's weddings and so forth I'll tell you what you you guys dig up everything. Don't you? we uh I come out of retirement really because I really missed it and I think the world of arthur smith I loved working with him loved working with him And the thing of it is is that I got to do a radio show in Tennessee on fridays This past season and so during the week I would look at all the other teams offenses and I so I got to watch It's kind of really staying in it and really watch film And the more I watched darrow More I missed it the more I watched what other people were doing the more I wished I was doing it and so It was a short-lived retirement But uh, I am just I can't tell you how excited I am to be back here and to be with the falcons The musical question is the is this it's it's very simple. I can't read music. I can write it, but I can't read it And this was just something that my mother and my grandmother We could all play sports But the two things you had one thing you had to two things you had to do is you had to go to college And you had to learn how to play the piano So I the truth of it is darrow I actually liked it because it was so far removed from athletics And it really kind of always has been a stress release And so what happened was I quit taking lessons because I wanted to you know I was out playing ball in the yard all the time So I never took lessons as a kid But I did learn how to play and I learned how to write it and I got copyrights on like 24 songs And I got five daughters and a son and I played for all their weddings So wrote the music for their wedding. So it's a great sidebar, but that's what it is a sidebar Thanks coach. I thank you Darrell Now we have Tori McElhaney from the athletic. Hi Tori. Hi coach. It's very nice to meet you I also took lessons piano lessons when I was younger But I gave it up after two years because I wanted to play softball instead and it was hard to do both So I get it you want a year longer than I did so Oh man, I was listening to A little bit of the make defense great again podcast that you went on not too long ago And I was quite a bit blown away by the information you shared and I took a lot of notes At that time when you were doing that podcast, did you think then that you were going to get back into coaching? I didn't I didn't know because here's the thing about it is Tori. I will tell you that I wasn't really the the thing that really got me back into coaching was arthur smith I really wasn't really just saying okay. Well, I want to get back into coaching I'm gonna put my name out there that I hey, I want to get in I want to go here there. That wasn't the case at all It was the fact that it was arthur smith that I talked to That got me back into coaching and I yeah, I had the itch But I wasn't really going to go out and search for a job. It was just I came here because of the Atlanta Falcons and arthur smith In that podcast you spoke a lot about flexibility and your arsenal of principles that you kind of incorporated into your bread and butter based calls and it got me wondering Looking back in your career When was the time where you thought you had to be the most flexible to get the most out of the players that you had? Well, you know what? I learned it was kind of funny I've been nick savings and even as a coordinator twice And first time we played to snuck four three the next time I coached with him We played over and under it changed what that taught me and has always taught me as the fact that You got to do whatever you need to do to stop the other team And if you're so rigid and all you can play is cover two And all of a sudden the cover two corner goes down But you got a guy that can play man coverage Well, don't you want to play man coverage with that guy? The other thing is everything on defense everything in football breaks Nobody's perfect. Nobody's got all the answers But when the players come to the sideline, they want answers if something isn't working What are we going to go to here coach? And if you're a coach and you don't have an answer to give them that's not real good credibility and accountability All right, so that's why we've always been so flexible A couple years ago. In fact, I'll tell you this in 2012. I'm with the Baltimore Ravens We lost Ray Lewis for 10 games. People don't remember that. We lost Suggs for eight games We won in Super Bowl Well, during that time, we also lost a couple corners. We changed weekly We had new guys in there every week changing and my job Our job as coaches was to go out and win and do the best we can and put guys in great position Well, I think that obviously worked pretty well to our advantage because then we got those guys back from the playoffs Made a great run. So that's why we want to be flexible is because look The roster changes all the time not only year to year sometimes week to week And so if you've got a corner that's down and the next guy can't really do what the first corner did I need to somehow be able to do what this corner can do Well and be flexible enough to see if we can do that Um Everybody'd like to have a perfect defense where everybody can do everything but that's never going to be the case So that's that's why we want to be flexible Jason butt from the AJC Hey coach, uh, welcome to Atlanta Hey, so, you know, obviously you mentioned that, um uh, you came out of retirement for you know for Arthur Smith and for, um You know the falcons, but what is it about Arthur that? Led you to to want to come out Or what makes him the kind of coach that that you like working with and for working with previously at Tennessee Well, first of all, I got to see you know in front of the his offense at times and just being around the staff and how cooperative he was there but the biggest thing was just the cooperation and When you have an offense and defensive coordinator sometimes that can be very competitive within 18 You know and you go out to practice and somebody's trying to beat somebody else Well, that's really not the purpose of practice The purpose of practice when you're practicing together is to be get get better You know, we may want to do something we wouldn't normally do or he may want her to do something That's all we wouldn't normally do that in this situation But we need to practice it and get good at it not all coordinators not everything always coordinates like that Arthur Smith was incredible If I would go to him and say, you know what I need you to do this on offense for me today So we can practice against it. It may not be something they even hardly do He would come to me and say how I need you to play this coverage today in practice Can you give me a couple snaps of that? Absolutely He was incredible to work with but the other part is I just saw how he was around the staff around the players I I just I just think he's an incredible incredible coach and then watched him the league from afar What did you see out of the falcons defense? And also have you been able to familiarize yourself even more so with the personnel sense taking this job? Yeah, I really have since I took the job I actually really kind of dug in quite a bit because Normally as a defensive coordinator, I don't watch other defenses all that much. I watch their offenses, but I've really dug in I tell you what I really really like about them is first of all, they're young And second of all they run And they like to hit And those are two things that you don't really it's harder to coach You can do a lot of things in scheme. You can do a lot of other things, but you know I I loved watching these these guys will run to the ball and they can run And so that to me is the first thing that I looked at. I don't care about their what they did scheme wise it's not fair for me to Compare or to even comment on what they did because I wasn't here. I don't know But I know this they can run and they can hit and I love that Awesome. Thanks. Thanks Jason. Kelsey Conway from atlanta falcons.com Hey coach. Nice to meet you. I do not have any piano skills. So I can't really comment Okay, Kelsey But looking at you know, your background as a coordinator, you don't have much experience coaching against coaching NFC teams. Are you looking forward to Having some matchups with some of these teams that you know, you typically didn't see a whole lot being in the afc Uh, yes, I do, but uh, you know, but then again, you know, and over all these years We always played four NFC teams every year, you know, even if we were in the afc There's always been four teams every year in the NFC we've played So there really hasn't been a team out of the 32 that I haven't ever played So, you know teams are teams that the thing about it is is I don't think that's a big difference at all Uh, there's a lot of times at baltimore or new england or even tennessee We would get players coming over from the NFC and we would be losing players There's still players playing players and you know, and so I I don't think Having been in the afc all this time Has really any bearing on me. I think any effect of coaching against the NFC And you said that your mantra is going to be about keeping it simple How do you go about keeping it simple when you're going to be switching back and forth between the three four and the four three That one part's the front the front's not going to be real simple The front's going to be very multiple the back end doesn't have to necessarily It can still stay simple. You can still keep the coverage wise You know, I don't want to tell you our trade secrets of what we do here in kelsie. So But the the point of it is is that You know, that's one of the things that we will require though out of our guys on defense You know, we we have really three criteria that that we look for in a defensive player Number one, we want them to be tough Physically and mentally number two We want them to be smart Because if we're going to do a lot of things and you want to change a lot of things You got to be able to smart and be able to adapt We're never going to run everything in every game But we can switch from week to week and I've been fortunate enough that that has always been the case And then number three, we want them to give the best effort they can possibly give If you can do those three things if you're tough and you're smart and you give effort You're going to be a good defense Allison mistrain love from wsb Hey, welcome to it lana. I can't see Just the energy and your passion for coaching just where has that come from and what do you love about coaching defenses? well The defensive part of it. I actually just it's it's it's fun Drawing up things and doing things and seeing what you can do against somebody on offense because you You have to adapt. They know what they're doing. We have to adapt and react to it and it's just been so much fun Doing that. I just it's always been the side of the ball that I've gone to But I think the here's the the thing that allison is The enthusiasm I've loved every job I've had Everybody goes what's your favorite job of all of them? Who's your favorite player all of them? If you don't love what you do, how could you do it for 48 years? You know, so it's just it's it's a passion and and look at it If you look at the people that I've worked for Saban twice Lou Holtz Bill Belichick John Harbaugh Mike Vrabel and now Arthur Smith, and I'm leaving somehow It's just they're all great coaches and they're all different and everybody says who who are you like? I hope all of them. I hope I'm like me You know, I don't really want to be nick. I'm not going to be nick Saban I'm not going to be bill Belichick John Harbaugh any of those guys I'm going to be me and so I think that's the thing that I've learned over the years and just be you And you know what if you love what you do it's going to come across to the players it's going to come across under the coaches the fans everybody else and You're going to have good times. I've been fortunate in 47 years and never have been fired That's unique for a coach. That's very unique, but I contribute that to I love where I am I'm not looking for another job. I love where I am. I'm really excited to be here in Atlanta And I was just curious Well, have you had a chance to kind of reach out to any of the guy Any of the falcons players or did any of them reach out to you? When you joined the team and if they did what they said to you Well, I really haven't talked to many of them yet. I've talked to a bunch of the titans players That wished me luck and all that stuff. They were great And even some of the but Ravens guys have reached out to me I haven't but I just got here to the facility and before I leave today I'm actually going to try to get everybody's either phone number or email I'm going to try to reach out to every guy on defense Introduce myself to them and just tell them I can't wait to see them I hope we don't have to do this zoom thing forever So I hope we get a chance to actually you know do stuff in person Paul newberry ap Hey coach. How you doing? Good. How you doing paul? Good. What is it? Obviously coming here to To work for Arthur, but what did you um What did you see in the atlanta job? That that appealed to you? And just you know the team itself and the franchise Well over the years. I just I've you know, I've played against atlanta a couple times and stuff and and Uh You know, they they got daggone good office. I'm telling you what these guys can They're talented and I think this defense is very talented too And I I just I've always loved this area atlanta. It's obviously it's a great place to live. It's a great place to be um Just the whole thing attractive, you know, I mean, I'm gonna watch them just say well not all that long ago They were in a super bowl and you know, I'm playing very very well and things Hey things in this league can change Week to week year to year Obviously you look at the teams that were in the playoffs this year that weren't in the playoffs before And some teams that were that aren't I mean it can change all the time So it really didn't have anything to do with that. It had to do with I think atlanta has always been A really really good football program. I think they got one of the best owners in all of football The you know and and mr. McKay and and now terry font now. I mean it's just It's kind of all that stuff. It was what really made it appealing One thing for me to kind of following up on what allison asked you How do you You know, it's easy to say I love my job and you know, that's that makes you successful But when you've done it for so long all of us, I mean I don't know that I have the same enthusiasm for my job that I did 30 years ago How have you How do you maintain that over such a long period? Is there is there any secret beyond just you know loving what you do? I don't know. I I'd like to give you an answer on that. I don't really know I just I love coming to work every day. It's it's the best fraternity you could ever belong to you know in your life and And I think you know what really I think paul makes it that way is the staff Because those are the guys you really spend a heck of a lot of time with that becomes your family away from family And I've just been blessed to be around such great staffs and this defensive staff I mean the whole staff. I don't know everybody on offense. I know everybody on defense I am so excited about these guys. So I think it's It's that I think it's also a little bit paul You know what I owe it to the players and I owe it to the falcons To to be that and to to give it my all and if I'm going to give up my all I mean I gotta have enthusiasm for my job. And so I don't know that I'm the same guy I was You know when I was 30 years old, you know, I can't can't run like I used to run when I was 30 years old But I would hope if you walked into my meeting room in defense this coming spring That you would see the same guy that you could have seen back at michigan state in 1995 Or at teledo in 1990. I think you'd see the same guy standing up front coaching the same way Yeah, a lot of things have changed a lot of experience over the years But I really think my approach to the game hasn't changed a bit To meet your batis 92 9 Good morning coach. He's talking about not being able to run like you used to and I was running hills yesterday And I said, yeah, I can't do it. I could do 30 days ago or pre-covid. But anyway, congratulations. Welcome to atlanta Thank you Just a couple questions for you going back to some things you said about philosophy as well as dealing with young players So philosophy first, you know, the falcons have had moments on defense, especially last season But maybe not consistent productivity on defense. So What's your philosophy specifically on how this defense can sustain playing at a high level? Well, I think, you know, the thing you get at We'll have a scheme like I say that could be multiple and can do all those kinds of things that that all sounds I know great But I think the thing the way to sustain is keep things fresh too Sometimes it can get boring as a player and honestly, I've had Players have a lot of input into what we do You know, I used to have what we called a What I called signal callers meeting and what it is I would take a guy from each position and I would meet with them before I even finished the game plan Saying here's what we want to do. What do you guys think? And you know, I've had some great guys with Ray Lewis and Teddy Bruce key and all those guys over the year And they'd have input because they're the ones that are playing. I'm not hitting anybody out there So, you know, they they have they're going to have input and I think they feel good about having input And I think they get excited every week when Uh, you maybe add a little something here there just to kind of throw them a bone that hey We're going to throw this at tom Brady. We're going to throw this at at somebody And so I think they get excited about that and I think that's how you kind of keep it fresh And you know, hey to your point watching the play you guys watch that Kansas City game, didn't you? They look pretty good going good on against Kansas City now They play as good as anybody has against them. So That's what we're going to pull for that's the stuff that we're going to build on right there We don't need to build on something else We're going to build on that performance and how they played right there Because that was a great team they played and they they had a chance now They had a great chance and defense played spectacular. So that's what we're going to build on Yeah, and could you talk about the players getting excited when deon jones started getting the chance to blitz more? It's like a light bulb went off for him So that variation must mean something and then you mentioned that the falcons defense does have a young crop of players Versus say dealing with maybe a lot of veterans with the titans and with the ravens What are what are the pluses and maybe challenges you see in having to deal with that young core versus veterans? Especially in your year one I think it's great. I I love it from the standpoint of sometimes when you get a veteran player who has done the same thing forever and ever You know, they're kind of setting their ways and it's kind of hard to teach them a new way that you might really kind of want because I've never really done it that way and so i'm really reluctant I've been doing this for 10 years or 11 years and I don't know Well, when you're a third year usually second year fifth year player, it's kind of like Yeah, hey anything whatever coach, you know, and that's kind of what you know kind of you know, what you're you're really kind of looking for and I had a point there like I lost to hear that you had brought up but You know, we're just we're excited very excited We got time for one more question from daryl Yes, coach. Um, hey daryl Yeah, um Yeah, I've been knowing you back since the Miami of Ohio day has been fire assistant. I was at Cincinnati inquire back then Just your thoughts on um, you know past rush has been an issue around here since uh, john abraham They had beasley get one good year, but how do you plan to get after the quarterback? Well, you know what that was an issue a little bit at tennessee I know this last year, but then if you look back the year before we weren't too bad, uh at it We're gonna have we'll do whatever we can't hate you can Look every defensive coordinator would like to four man rush and sack the quarterback 50 times a year That's what you'd like to do But you know what if we can't do that we can't but you know going back to tennessee I just remember what I wanted to say is and um, and it kind of goes to your question One of the things that our defense will know is if you are on our defense Every position will blitz Every position Not just the safeties not just the linebackers It's corners. It's everybody if you go back a couple years ago and just watch just two years ago when I was at tennessee If I want the offense to know we're coming from everywhere In it you can't just say hey number 54 is gonna blitz It could be 24. It could be 20. It could be 26. I'm talking about our secondary guys, too You know that Look, I want them to account for everybody But you know as a player it's kind of like as a receiver I want to run around but I want to know like I've got a chance to get the ball I don't want to run around and know that I'm never going to get the ball, right? Well, if I'm a defensive player and we're going to blitz or we're going to pressure I'd like to know that I'm going to be part of that thing, too And to your question daryl then hey, I'll do we'll do whatever we have to do pressure-wise Or four man rush wise or whatever we have to do to put pressure on the quarterback Thank you coach Awesome. Thanks coach. Thanks everybody. Enjoy the rest of your Friday. Hey look forward to meeting all of you in person. Thank you