 Mike, in looking at the issues in the red zone yesterday on tape, was it a combination of execution, play calling, especially for an area that you all have been traditionally pretty good at? Yeah. We had an efficient run to start the one drive down there. Ryan probably could have got the ball to Woods. I think come in the play that we had for him, and then he made a decision not to, which obviously is the quarterback's prerogative, and then progressed on and didn't really give Chig a chance. That was the one series. The other series, we got pressured. The ability to handle blitz zero, which we've done well in the past, wasn't something that we did. So we know that we have to be much better in those opportunities, and we have been. There's evidence for many years of us doing that this year, last year. Only thing that matters is what we're going to do against Philly moving forward. Maybe use more run blitzes yesterday than some teams have against you, or did you guys just not handle it? No, they brought the nickel just like they have throughout the year. They brought the safety. No, I wouldn't say that there was more run blitzes. That's how they played us. Felt like we were prepared. We just have to be able to block them and get some movement. Started the game off with a good run after everybody blocked and gained nine yards. But then it just really never took advantage of the line of scrimmage. Never were able to string anything together. It's too many inefficient runs for us. Derrick's, I think, averaged 2.8 the last three weeks. Has that just come down to not winning enough one-on-one battles? Well, I mean, he's part of that. I mean, that's everybody. When we have success in the run game, it's everybody. And when we're inefficient, it's everybody as well. And combination blocks have to be good, whether it's in a zone scheme or a gap scheme. And we've got to get him going. And when we do, we'll have to break tackles and make sure we get force players blocked on the second level. How do you like the way Traylin is starting to emerge as a playmaker for you guys? Well, I think he continues to improve. I think he's showing the ability to go up and get the football and had a right read the other day in zone, snapped down, rined through it to him. We had a couple of those, what he had one of those, and Hoop had one of those. And then I think he's trying to play fast. I think his effort was great along with other guys on that screen when Derek unfortunately fumbled. The guy made a great play when Traylin was hustling. So that's a good teaching moment that you just never know when the play is going to be that's going to require your effort. And you could go 30 plays and bust your tail and really not be needed. And then all of a sudden, we need you to protect the guy with the football. And that's what we preach. And it was good to see that that happened. Unfortunately, not for the fumble, but the ability to be there and take advantage of it. You were feeling that on Sportsman-like at the end, did both Strong and Tiair get the long snapper? And how's that jive with what they're taught? Well, I just think any time you do that, that's going to be a penalty. That's not a decision or anything that we want or need. That's we have to have to be careful. They're only looking for certain things. Make sure you don't cover them up and make sure you don't have the appearance of hitting them in the head or neck. So it's not something we can do. Mike, with Derek, so much of the identity of this team has been tied to him in the run game now for a while. How much is that handcuffed to scheme and personnel? And by that, I mean, how difficult is it to change directions when it's not working? Well, Gentry, our job, obviously, is to understand who it is that's run the ball and has had success. And Derek has got a unique skill set. That's his size, his length. So we'll have to continue to find ways to get him into the second level to where he can use his size, his speed, continue to try to get him on the corner and break tackles and stiff arm and do the things that he's done. I thought the screen was an excellent well-executed play by Brew and those guys. And we've hit a couple of those. So I think that there's some things that we have to be able to get to, to get him the football. But our first focus is finding ways to run it. And to control the game and let those plays, those run plays and some of those play actions, marry with each other. Phil, I mean, are some of the problems in the red zone? Anything consistently stand out to maybe keep it from being as effective there as you have been? They'd blitz zeroed. And we didn't handle it very well. Had a third and five that we didn't convert. So we just have to continue to, and we did a nice job on third down. I mean, there's some guys, when you lose, when you win, there's the good, the bad, and the ugly. I thought we did a nice job on some of these third and mediums that we picked up a lot of that probably in previous years we hadn't or previous weeks, excuse me. So kind of as bad as it was, we were still able to get some first downs and we were inefficient on first and second. And we converted on some really nice third downs where we protected and progressed through. And personnel, in fact, you get the pressure in the quarterback or the last couple of games? Every week, we've got to find ways to affect the quarterback. And it's trying to make him earn it. We did it. Rush lanes weren't good enough at times. And obviously, seven plays for 186 yards is not making him earn it. 59 for 180 some is. You go from seven plays for 26 yard average to 59 plays at a three yard average. So we have to tackle. We have to coordinate the rush. And just there were some things that were uncharacteristic, allowing the quarterback to scramble on third and 12 to extend the play and then lose the guy. That was not a very good series there that they ran the ball for their second. We only had the ball running on us two times and certainly didn't think it was going to be from the eight yard line. Has anything happened that's closed the gap there, maybe in him blocking the less well and the other guys blocking better? Well, just going to continue to try to get guys in there. I think that Jeff had some good blocks. I think there was a couple that have to be absolutely better. We can't turn and dictate where the running back runs. We have to get into the line of scrimmage. We have to be on a landmark, cover them up. But that group is we've got four of those guys that are active and we're going to have to continue to try to figure out who's going to play, who's going to do what, and who can help us. Is he making progress as a blocker? Yeah. I mean, he's a willing blocker. And he's continuing to do that. And we've got to continue to stay on him with the details. And he's got a unique skill set. And he's done a nice job on special teams. Keep this week from being all about AJ Brown. I mean, his best team in the national football league ran for 360 yards. Be plenty of challenges. It's a good football team on the road. The Titans and who we have proven to be and hopefully who we are just have to prepare this week. And we have to show up and try to do things that we know are successful and not start changing things and pointing fingers and just be accountable, make the corrections, figure out why, ask questions, learn from it, and make sure that we look at the things that we do when we're doing well, that we have success, and when we don't. Kind of along those lines, Mike, how do you, it's not often that you guys lose games the way that you normally win games. I guess the best way to put it, up front, stop in the run, that kind of thing. How do you use that as a challenge going forward to get back to winning at what you guys do best? That's just fundamental football. Those are things that we have to be able to do, understand what the keys are each and every week. They change. And when you don't do a very good job on the keys, it's going to be tough to win the football game. So make sure everybody understands, keep things in perspective. Everybody's disappointed and upset when you lose. But it's a quick turnaround against an excellent football team. Changes. Successful run in the ball yesterday. Just kind of what do you need to shore up going against a guy like Jaylen Hertz, who likes to run it as well? Hopefully we have better rush lanes than what we had on yesterday. Changes. They're going to design runs for them that they may out number you just based on the quarterback running and what defense you're in. We'll know that they have design runs. But then also, his longest run, I think, yesterday was a drop-back pass. And we'll have to have much better rush lanes and rush coordination and understanding who it is that we're playing. Any change in Ben's status? From what? Is he out of concussion protocol? Ben's working his way through. We'll keep monitoring and see how he is Wednesday. What are you able to do to earn his snaps and how do you think he'd do with his opportunity? That's excellent. They challenged him. They tried him five times. He won six times. He won five and lost one. So say he was probably the best of the group of corners and did everything that he could do with the snaps that he got. So he gets in there, kind of does it the way we coach and challenges, plays square, had a PBU. So that's what he did. As we see, it seems like the creativity is kind of expanding for guys like Chig and for trailing. So for those young players, is that because of acquired confidence that you guys have in them, acquired confidence that they're having comfortability of what is behind what seems to be an uptick in attempts to really go out and get them involved? Just trying to get the ball to guys that can help us and have done a nice job and earned those reps. That may change each week based on a certain defense or what we see. You got your core offense or core defense, and then you try to figure out how much you can handle game plan-wise that you can put in. But the calendar flips to December this week. What's the challenge of finding your best football on ground in the warm-up the last several weeks? Well, you have to continue to improve. You have to continue to improve when practice reps are down, late in the season. Focus on how you're going to improve technically. Skills that you need for your job, how you're going to improve physically, how much more rest you plan on getting. Look at your nutrition, your conditioning, weight training, and then focus on improving mentally. How you're absorbing the information, your ability to get recovered from good plays, from wins, from bad plays, from losses. Keep things in perspective. So that's the challenge, and that's where we're starting. Do you feel like Randy's made some progress? We could get your kicker back soon, or that remain to be said? I think he's feeling better, but I think we'll have to monitor it as we go down towards the end of the week and see how he feels and see if he's going to be able to kick Wednesday or Thursday. And it's such a violent action that you just have to make sure that he can do everything that we need him to do as far as kicking field goals and kicking off. Any of your practices? If he's healthy, some question as to where you go? I don't know if we're ready for that yet. I think I'm just focused on getting him as healthy as possible. And Caleb hit the ball well, had to touch backs, and had the one that I'm sure he'd like to have back that wasn't his best swing. But other than that, I thought he kicked the ball well. Open any practice windows for this week for IR guys? We'll look at, you know, see where Kyle is and Ola and see what they feel like on Wednesday. Yeah, obviously, you know, I think it kind of starts with the run defense. I mean, we didn't have like one rusher get 100 yards and stuff like that, but total, obviously, they had 100 yards. Joe Burrow made some pretty good scrambles out there, making some plays. But I just didn't think we was clean up in the run defense. Like I spoke yesterday, the third downs, I didn't think it was terrible. Joe Burrow, he threw some dimes out there. One play that's number 16 called Asylum was a great catch. And other than that, man, I think we just wasn't clean enough execution-wise on defense. And I'm pretty sure Verve was going to say that, you know, as a whole team, we wouldn't execute clean enough. So got to be better there, but we did some positive things, but just not enough. On those scrambles by Joe Burrow, Jeffrey Simmons, he has said that there were breakdowns in communication. Can you just elaborate, like what was the problem with communication on his scrambles? Yeah, when I watched the film, you know, I think he had some pretty good rush lanes a couple of times. You know, like I said, the defense's alignment, especially on third downs, the different situations, they have different rush games that they have called. And it didn't look like the execution and communication with that was clean enough. And then obviously when you scramble on the back end, sometimes we're plastic receivers at the time. So he's finding an open spot. So, you know, he didn't have any, I think it's long, I don't know if it was like 15 yards or something like that, but he did make some key scrambles when he needed to. A few more X plays in your used to, Kay, it looked like for the last several weeks you guys had really done a good job kind of tamping down those X plays and maybe a few more yesterday than you're used to. And I guess if so, you know, what led to that? Yeah, the first one was, you know, a miss tackle on the catch by the running back. And like I said, T Higgins, he, you know, he played big time yesterday. He made some big time catches, contested catches. And not like I said, he'd been playing well, but like I said, other than that, man, it wasn't a whole lot of X plays, but those four X plays was definitely crucial. Cause the first one with the running back led to a scoring drive. And then obviously the ones that T Higgins had led to a scoring drive too. So just can't have it. You guys have been pretty good at creating turnovers throughout the course of the year, but going back to the playoff game against them and then again yesterday, they've been hard to come by against Cincinnati. What is it about them that makes it harder to get those takeaways? Yeah, man, I just think looking at the game yesterday, we didn't do a good enough job, but just affecting him. You know, he had a lot of time back there to throw. Think we sacked him one time, but he just had a lot of time. He was able to set his feet, and we just didn't affect him good enough. Coverage was good a little bit down the field. Obviously those guys made some good one-on-one catches, but you know, when you're not affecting a quarterback, not tipping passes, you know, it's kind of hard to get those intercepts, especially against a really good accurate quarterback as Joe Burrow. You talk about not affecting him. A lot of his passes were five, six yards less. So is that just got to get your hands up because there's not enough time to get there? Yeah, I mean, like I said, I mean, a lot of times you play in a lot of zone, those five-yard catches are going to be there. We just rally and try to tackle. We try to punch the ball out. We got to try to do that a little bit more, especially when we're going to be playing all these zones. Guys are breaking on the ball. Try to push the ball out. We had some attempts, but you know, they just didn't come out yesterday. But like you said, when it's a quick game and ball's coming out really quick, defense alignment, they might not get the sack, but a lot of times they were to get their hands up, bat the ball down, but it just wasn't there yesterday. You said yesterday you maybe weren't sure what the not beating the better teams on schedule meant. I'm just wondering if overnight and kind of with some time to think about it, you have a better sense of that and if it's cause for concern? I want to say it's a cause for concern, but it is frustrating. Obviously you're going to these teams, I mean, these games against teams that, you know, they're going to be there in the playoffs and we don't win those ball games. It's frustrating for us, frustrating as a team because we feel like we're one of those teams as well. We feel like we know that we're a really good team. We feel like we're going to be there in January. So to not beat those teams is disappointing at the time, but I want to say it's a cause for concern because more than likely we'll see one of these teams in January when we get to the playoffs. What's it going to be like facing AJ on Sunday? I was going to be awesome. Obviously AJ is my guy. I'm happy he's having success in Philadelphia. I know he's going to be amped up during the game and I'm going back to my hometown, so that's going to be more about the thing for me. I'm going to have some family in the stands as well, so it's going to be fun. It's going to be a great environment. Their fans are pretty crazy. I mean, had a preseason game in 2018, had a couple of fights break out, so should be exciting. But, you know, this is going to be us to take another step. You know what I'm saying? Obviously coming off of disappointing loss against a good team in Cincinnati, Philadelphia is a really great team that's playing really well, so we're going to have to go out there and play our best football. Everyone in this community is going to make this game all about number 11. How do you guys avoid letting that be the case? I mean, the question is going to be there. You know, people are going to talk about it. You know, it is what it is. You know, like I said, I mean, obviously AJ is a really great receiver, one of the best receivers out there, but they have a lot of other weapons. You know, Jalen Hurst is playing really well, playing like one of the best quarterbacks in the league, Miles Sanders, so it's, I mean, we're going to make it about the entire offense, not just about AJ. Obviously AJ is one of their guys, but you know, it's going to be about us trying to go beat the Philadelphia Eagles. Paul asked about beating the best teams. This could be the best team you've played this year, so this could be the ultimate opportunity for you. Absolutely. So like I said, man, we're going to have to play our best football to go out there and beat the Eagles, because like I said, they're playing, they're playing the best football of any team in this league, offense, defense, special teams. We have to go out there and play a lot of, play great ball there to go win this game, especially on the road. AJ was obviously a very popular guy, really, but have there been some times where he kind of surprised you with some of the jabber, too, that he seems to take on social media back at the Titans? I mean, AJ, you know, AJ always had, you know, little moments on social media and stuff like that. I wouldn't say it surprised me or nothing like that. Obviously, when he tweeted that, I think it was the Kansas City game or something like that. It was during the game, so I didn't see it. I didn't see it until after the game. It was funny, but you know, he got his thoughts and stuff like that. Obviously, he's a guy that I respect, and I, you know, I love and admire. You can go and chop it up with him pre-game, probably after the game and everything, but you know, he's in Philly now. We can only focus on what we can do. You guys know it better than anybody else around the league. Is that any sort of advantage regarding his tendencies and talents? I mean, I don't know. He's obviously in a whole other team. They're running a different scheme than we did here. Obviously, I know the type of, you know, he has great play strength. He's a guy that we, you know, even for cornerbacks, you know, to tackle this guy one-on-ones is a pretty hard thing to do. So we can't let him get a lot of space, a lot of separation in his routes because he's a dynamic athlete with the ball in his hands. But like I said, I'll dive into all the film later on tonight to see, you know, if it's similar things that he did here that he's doing up there or not, I just know he's a playmaker, you know, hands down when he got the ball in his hands. You guys ramped it up in December historically here and played your best football in the calendar clips in a day here. Right. Does the intensity have to change this week and go up even another level? I mean, I felt like the intensity has always been there. You know, obviously, you know, sometimes you don't play your best ball, but I feel like once November football hits, that's when intensity ramps up. Obviously, when you're playing against a great team, if we don't play with intensity, we're gonna get our behinds whipped. So I would expect us to go out there, you know, try to play with the best details, best intensity, play more physical than we did yesterday. So, but yeah, I mean, historically, yeah, we've turned it up in December, but you know, I don't think those things kind of carry on from year to year. What happened in the key to ramping it up in December the way you guys have? Well, I just think it's the brand of football that we tend to play, you know, we're talking about a physical brand of football when you get into December, guys are banged up. Those type of things kind of carry over. We talk about running the football and playing good run defense and getting turnovers on defense. Those things tend to carry. Those are things that we historically have done. So like you said, when December football comes around, we go against the Eagles, those are gonna be having to be things that we do well to go out there and win the ball game. You said you stole maybe a lead off Shepherd Jersey and talked in the past about being the Eagles fan. What do you remember about those days and maybe growing up in Philly? Yeah, man, it was a really good time. Just remember, obviously watching football, my dad and my uncles, and like you said, my dad brought me a lead off Shepherd Jersey. Just those days watching Brian Dawkins be one of the best players in the league. And obviously when we got to trade for Terah Owens, that was probably the biggest moment in my young childhood. Just remember about how he just had the entire city just lit up. I think his first game took like a stop route, 75 yards or something like that. It was like it was on and popping. And then we obviously went to the Super Bowl. I remember being at the Super Bowl part of my aunt's house. Bunch of people there. I remember they had a cooler, much of a little Jell-O, Jell-Os or whatever. I thought it was just Jell-O candy. It was Jell-O shots though. Didn't know when I was young. So my mom had to tell me, no, you can't eat that, you can't eat that. But then obviously they lost the game. Obviously against variable and the boys, but I remember the whole entire block was running at the house, pissed off, cussing and stuff like that was pretty crazy. Now it was a good time in Philadelphia for sure. Robert, variable just talked about how the key is just focusing on improvement with the calendar flipping to December, working to improve and not pointing fingers. With the offense, going over three yesterday in the red zone, how tough is it to maybe look at what could have should have been done differently and work on making those improvements to get the offense into a higher gear? Yeah, I think you do that after every game every week. You always look at the film and look at what you can improve on and how you can be better. Obviously, we did go 0-3 unfortunately. We didn't score in the red zone, but that's why we have today to go over the film, look at it and study, obviously make the corrections and improve. It is December, we want to be at our best going into this last run. And we got to make all the plays that's there. Robert, talk us through the play in the red zone where he threw it to Chig and ultimately I think it is a bounce stop, it appeared you were out in the flat without anybody to cover you. What was working on that play? Yeah, they kind of like zoned it off, end up being there in the flat. Not sure I was able to work out the back side player who had vision, who was looking in and it's one of those plays, like it's a split second decision for the quarterback to make, it's tough, but sometimes you got to have those plays and be able to just score in the red zone. Where are you in that progression? Is Chig before you in the progression or? We got to go over the playbook and review it and see what it is. How does it work too? Like I don't know what kind of deal you guys have, like is it a hand up thing? We're like you're there trying to grab attention or is that even something that you guys would do or what? I mean, we run our bro, we're always expecting the ball, we're all trying to get open. Quarterback has to work through its progressions, feel protected with the line up front and receivers got to work in a timely manner to get open. It takes everybody, it takes defense to play accordingly and get to their zones and get to their drops appropriately in a timely fashion as well. So it's moving pieces. It's always different every single time. Interesting what Philly's capable of this year, how much do you guys have to just step things up knowing you're gonna put some points on the board? Yeah, I'll say they're playing good football, they're playing very crisp and fast and decisive. So we just have to do the same. We're one of those teams who can play that way. We've done it before, put it on the table, just have to find a way to do it consistently and this is gonna be a big test for us to do it here at home against a good opponent. What you figured as far as your role here, Robert, this year is just the kind of season you expected. I mean, you had a little bit of a hand in trying to come here as well. Is this about what you signed up for? Yeah, I would say we're winning and contending for playoffs. What you've done, things have got to get better, maybe if you guys did kind of hit your stride here down the stretch? I would say these are like off-season questions. We're still in the mix, there's a lot of football left. We got to go and win these games and get after we got Philadelphia this week. We got to get a win. We're trying to get in playoffs, trying to go through Super Bowl. We're doing whatever it takes to win these games. Yeah, as far as offense goes, I mean, what has to happen for you guys to kind of hit your stride here from a consistently? Yeah, I would say spread it around. We could spread around on the passing downs. We obviously know we could do on the ground. Obviously, you block a little bit better to get Derek going. Teams know we're going to run the football. We got to be able to run the football when they know we're going to. Execute in the red zone. And really, just play Chris football when the pass is there. Catch it, get vertical. May guys miss. Takes all 11. What about the creativity we've seen? You were in the backfield on that low red zone play. Are you happy with how things are starting to go creativity-wise? And then how do you have a role as far as being able to, you know, hey, look, let's try this. Let's try that. Yeah, I would say the shots are there. I mean, we just got to click on them. Like I said, it takes all 11. Sometimes it takes 22 when you look at the defenses as well. But I would say the options are there. We have shots. We just got to protect our front. Guys get open in a timely manner. We have to catch the football. And we got to throw the football as well. When you have a trade-in emerging like these last two games, 50-plus yard receptions, what does that do for the offense? And what are your thoughts on how he's emerging as another playmaker for you guys? Yeah, I like it because I feel like it brings confidence to the passing game, a playmaker to go up and snatch the ball. I feel like it just feeds energy to, I would say throw the ball a little bit more. And we have playmakers who could go out there and make these plays when given opportunity, trade-in showing that, and being able to be a receiver on the other side of that. How to make plays downfield, back the defense up, and really allow guys to work underneath and create more space in these zones. We have a playmaker who go up and stretch the defense. It opens up the passing game. Can't they get you more one-on-one opportunities out there? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, we're getting zone, we're getting one-on-ones, we're winning matchups, we're beating the guys. We just got a clip. Is there anything unique about playing there? I would say it's a different team. I would say it's a different group, how they're playing, their confidence every year is different. And you see this team, the swagger is there, the confidence is there and they're playing like it on all phases of football. And when a team like that, you just got to go out there and just bring it show up. Doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter what they've done. They got to play us, play physical football, and every team is beatable. Defense boot, Mike Schmidt and Santa Claus. Are they different to play in front of there? I haven't had that experience in Philadelphia. I know this is probably going to be a big one. Some trays and all that stuff going on there, but we just want to go out there and obviously ignore the noise, ignore the crowd. We love the energy that they bring, can't wait to hear it. We just want to go out there and slide in some and then I guess make them talk after. In your experience, when guys play against their old team, the way AJ is about to, do we make too much of that or is there really a boost you think he'll have going against his old team? I don't know. I can speak on myself when I play at old teams. It's more so like you want to do well. I wouldn't say it's more so like a, I have to like show them like, like when I'm capable of this or whatever, like just retaliation or something like that. I feel like it's more so just going out there and wanting to just play well. You want to do that every single game, but when you go against a team you used to play for, you just want to just make sure you get the opportunities to showcase yourself and be who you are really.