 Before hand I got to ask who was the one that asked the question last week that jinxed Nick Falk? Who was that? Not pointing any elbows or fingers or anything like that? Okay. Okay. I don't imagine you had to counsel Nick too much or you know reconstruct his confidence or anything like that after a missed and you say anything to the guy? Yeah I mean I just went over to him and I just told him hey great streak you know I started let's let's start on another one you know Nick's great he's like obviously he wouldn't take it back but you know Nick's a professional he understands that the most important kick is his next one and then he went out and made it so hopefully he can start a new streak. You know exactly what he did on that? Yeah it's just a miss hit and it looked like from on the field he kind of hit the grass a little bit beforehand and you know he just came off said hey I just didn't hit a hit a good enough ball. How would you head in the season maybe maybe the expectations or at least the coaching points for Ryan Stonehouse and how do you think he's kind of followed through with those this year? Yeah great he's done a lot of things that we've asked him to do I know we put a lot on him this past week too you know having a good game they had a really good punter in Tampa Bay Jacksonville has a really good punter too but we put a lot on him we expect him to do a lot for us we got a high standard form as far as whether we asked him to kick the ball 60 70 yards in the air we asked him to kick the ball 50 yards with hang time I thought I think he's done a really good job this week his big point of emphasis is on plus 50 kicks you know we don't like touch backs that's one of the biggest things that we talk about a lot and we're going to work on it a bunch today and hopefully we can continue to get better at that. Tajé and Faircatch it's just is there a strategy to that game by game or is it just kind of get out there sort of situation just kind of how do you guys handle that? Yeah it's game by game you know there's sometimes that we would love to return every kick one of our things that we say a lot we're going to be aggressive but not reckless you know Kamara their kickoff guy there at Tampa Bay he was hitting them four three four four hang times and when you get them four to five six seven deep in the end zone it's just kind of being reckless and we don't want you know us to get in a bad situation where they tackle us inside the 20 or we even get a holding call because we're having to hold on our blocks a little bit longer so yeah that's just week to week we'll change it up and see if we like a return here and there or we like our personnel a little bit better but yeah it's definitely week to week. You're probably always looking for ways to have teaching moments with players I guess the money night game where the bills I got caught with twelve on the field is that something a reminder? Oh yeah there's certain things that we give players each and every day just little reminders you know for instance we went over we got Tampa in a 10-up situation on their punt team where we brought our corners in so we reminded on how we're going to block certain things like that if teams give us some certain situation on the punt team field goals situations how that happens so yeah it's definitely a teaching moment that we'll use each week Tom Levine and myself we'll go through every single game and we'll pick good plays we'll pick bad plays and we'll show them to the players on Saturday too. We do a not top ten each Saturday for the players to see and just really learn from you know they might smile and giggle on some things but really it's for them to learn certain situations of what could come up and how we have to be ready for them. I guess Bronco has executed the I guess Hurricanes so well I mean what's the time you need on the clock from from when the ball is down? Yeah usually we're trying to once a play starts we're asking for at least 18 seconds that's what we're trying to get because we feel like we can rush out our field goal team when the offense starts with 18 seconds we feel like we can run out on the field execute a hurry-up field goal situation and give or take a few seconds here and there so big thing with Nick he's just got to understand the time is it 23 is it 18 is it 25 can he take his steps or not you know that's that's really the key part about it and then us just doing a good job of communicating the call. Is it for you to go back every year down to where you're from and on top of that to face it? Yeah it's always fun to be able to go home and play in front of your family it ain't fun getting tickets but it's always fun to be able to go back home and play because the team grew up watching. How does the tickets numbers ever gone down or did they continue to? It's pretty consistent it's pretty the same. I try to knock it out as quickly as possible. What was your first time in that stadium? Did you play an all-star game in high school there? Can you remember that day and what it was like playing there? Yeah that was a long time ago but yeah I got a chance to play in that stadium and it was cool to be able to play there as a kid and then get recognized in the stadium once I got to high school and my senior year so yeah been to that stadium a good bit. What did you run for there as a kid? I can't remember but I think I had a couple touchdowns. My dad's always saved my score he gave me some money so I was trying to get to the end zone every play. Do people treat you well there even though you're on the opposing team and the rival because that is where you're from and maybe they respect what you've done? Yeah I think they're more nice than when I'm not playing when I'm busy rather than when I'm playing but you know it's all love it's football they're a fan of you know the home team and you know I respect it and you know we're the opposing team trying to come win so it's all football. You're not the guy that focuses on milestones but you're closing on 9,000 is that number just kind of crazy to you? How long you played to? Yeah it's definitely a blessing to be able to you know get to that that mileage you know don't take it for granted very thankful for everyone who helped me get to that point and you know just blessing thankful to be able to play this game as long as I have and you know looking forward to Sunday. Who are you trying to break out of the funk that this team's in? How important is this Sunday into your feel like you're in a position where don't do this now as a team it's not going to happen? Yeah I think it's just focus on getting to win. Wanting to be better and then letting the show when the game time comes. I think it's just time you know it's been a lot of up and down and you know I know guys are just wanting to find some consistency and knows that it starts with us and we just got to go out there and execute on all three phases make the plays when they're there. Be disruptive on defense, execute on offense, and then be able to get some explosives out of special teams and play our style of football to be able to win. But I think it's time for us to start doing those things consistently to be able to have a chance of doing anything. How is the week going just as far as keeping our eyes open? Yeah I mean nobody's confidence is down. I think you know we're all grown men, it's a grown man business. I think we all understand what we have to do and what we have to do better quickly, urgently and go out there and do it. And it's a sense of accountability amongst each other to go out there and do it and execute the way we know how to. How accountability is that just kind of like a person-to-person thing where you or anyone else stepped up and said we have to be more accountable? I think it's just self-countability and then accountability on each unit you know about our jobs and what we need to do to be able to be effective on all three phases and going out there and do that. You know every play is not going to happen the way we want to but as long as we stay with it, as long as we stay locked in and be able to have good more than bad then I think we'll be alright. Your mindset's always very steady but with the record being what it is at this stage is something different for you. Does it feel different? I mean how do you deal with the fact that you're in a much different spot than you've ever been in? Yeah I mean you know it hasn't been like this but at the end of the day it's about how you respond. You know you can't dwell on it too much. Still a lot of football left is about the response and I think guys are willing and ready to respond the way that we know how to. I love adversity, I embrace it and I'm ready to go and I know all the other guys are as well. He's reaching that point this season. What are you saying to Tajay just about keeping pushing through? Yeah I don't think he hit no wall. He's ready every week. He hit no wall soon, I don't think he'll hit one. Talking to the guys in the locker room yesterday they still seem very positive and excited. I think because of how many divisional games you guys have left there's always going to be a lot of energy for those who kind of feel the same about hey there's still a little bit of time left in the locker room to make something happen. Yeah for sure, we just played one and this is the next one and we just got to focus on being one and no in this game and then just had that same mindset as time goes on. Have that underdog mentality that's coming to work being positive, being confident and then making each other better and then let it go on Sunday but we just played one of the divisional games so we still got plenty of time. When it comes to maintaining morale at high level and staying constant in the mindset does that responsibility fall on the players? Do coaches affect that? Is it the culture of the organization as a whole? What do you feel like drives that consistency? Well I think we all have a culture that's been built around here and the standard that's been set and I think that when you feel like you're not meeting that you just try to do everything you can to get it to where you want it to be and sometimes it's not going to happen overnight sometimes it's not going to happen in a week it might take a little time than others but you just got to take the system with it and your message and your play how your approach work and your leaders doing that as well and it's going out there being hopeful and being faithful to how you work and the things that you preach and knowing that eventually it'll happen for us and I think that that's where guys are right now and we just need to put some big plays together on both sides of the ball and play our style and then let the chips fall where they make but it's time for everybody to step up and do their job just a little bit more. The struggles inside the 20 at the Red Zone have you been maybe most frustrating since that's been an area that you all have been so good at in recent years? Yeah, you know, because you work so hard to get down there and then nothing comes out of it or, you know, field goals are points but you want to get in the end zone and, you know, when you put a drive together and you're having positive plays you want to finish in the end zone to give you a chance to be able to win in the end and, you know, I think that's been, you know, the rough part about it is getting down there and just not getting in the end zone but we still have time to, you know, figure out what we need to do better, execute and then put points on the board when it's, when we get down there to be able to give ourselves a chance in the end. Appreciate it. Tim, three games in how are you seeing Will as a rookie kind of take and see what he's doing on film and making corrections and trying to build on that for the next game? Yeah, you know, he's doing a, he's been doing a really good job really protecting the football up until, you know, late in the games. So that's something that we're going to look to continue to build on and hopefully, you know, he can continue to learn like no matter what the situation is we can't just throw the ball, you know, up for grabs like 500, I can't do that. So, you know, he's done a good job with that and he's done a really good job of really taking command of the huddle, being in there, really being able to drive the operation and you can just see here with his body language and things along those lines he's just more comfortable in there, you know, giving the play call understanding, you know, what that role entails and hopefully we can continue to take strides there. You talked about wanting to be a better leader. What is that like and how challenging is that for a rookie who has to step into that leadership role? Yeah, you know, I think it's, you know, it's a challenge for sure for anyone to come into a leadership role. The best way to go ahead and, you know, earn the confidence of your teammates and to develop into that role is to come in and be consistent every single day. Do your job at a high level and not just, you know, go out there and perform at a high level. Obviously that helps. But being able to do all the things behind the scenes that may not necessarily take any talent, you know, is something that he's done a good job at since he's gotten here. And again, we're looking to continue to improve in every area. Using the speed that you had to let your guys be faster. How's that worked in the practice? How's that worked with what was the end of it? Put into practice. I think at times it's been successful. I think obviously the results aren't what we've wanted. But there's evidence of that. We just need to be more consistent. I need to be more consistent in putting our guys in those spots. And we need to be more consistent in being able to execute when we are in those spots. Will obviously facing a ton of pressure. Is there anything he can do better against the pressure, even though a lot of it's obviously not under his control? Yeah, you know, it's under everyone though. You know what I mean? There's specific examples of different play action protections where, you know, the hold on Hopkins in the third quarter. He wins on his route. We miss a run through, you know, in the backfield at the tight end position. And it's a five yard gain instead of possibly being an explosive play. So there's different aspects of the pressure where everyone just needs to continue to do a good job at. When given the opportunity, he's gotten the ball out, he's been accurate. So there's different times while we're looking at it where he can continue to work the pocket and maybe, you know, avoid some of the pressures. But again, like he's, everyone needs to continue to do a better job of picking up the different pressure looks that he's gotten from, you know, me being able to help the guys on the edge to our backs, our tight ends, the line, the wide receivers being able to get open or when they're helping in protection. So everyone's got a big part of that and we all need to do a better job there. Is that something, would you say those self-inflicted ones or some defensive ones? Yeah, you know, probably more self-inflicted when looking at it. Obviously, it's always going to be a combination of those two things. But, you know, we've got to do a better job of being able to stay on schedule and not have, whether it be a mental error or a mistake, be the reason for us getting behind the sticks. If it's, we have a play called and it's a bad design or we have a play called and, you know, we get beat, like that's a different deal. But we got to eliminate the, you know, self-inflicted wounds and then being able to make plays when the ball finds us. And then I've got to do a better job on third down of continuing to get help to our guys on the edge to make sure that we have enough time to be able to go in with. Overall, as you go across the league, Red Zone's scoring itself is down. As you're watching film, do you see that defenses are doing something different? You know, I can't speak lead-wide. It certainly seems like there's something you've seen in the past, which, you know, as we know in the red area everything happens faster. The windows are smaller. They open and close quicker. So when you have more guys in coverage, you know, that's my own personal theory. I don't know if there's any scientific data or anything to back that up. But, you know, that's kind of what it seems like. Like he's mentioned, I guess Dylan and Jalen dunk in both as possible. What have you seen from Jalen, I guess, so far as far as his development? Yeah, he's freaky in terms of his ability to go out there and move and his athletic ability. And he's done, he's very intelligent. He's done a good job of picking it up and really taking this however many weeks it's been throughout the season of learning how to be a pro. So I'm excited to continue to, you know, see this growth and see if he can take advantage of this opportunity. How much can Dylan get out of a week of practice? I guess on the left side since that... Yeah, not even just at the left side, but in the tackle position itself, you know, getting ready for it. Obviously, you know, as we've talked in the past couple weeks kind of seen his praises because he's been our swing guy and has been able to go from guard to tackle, you know, seamlessly. And so, you know, last week I think he'd tell you he wished you would have played better. But having a whole week of practice in there being able to work on those different techniques on the left side is going to help him. Yeah, he just got here today. So he's doing a good job of, again, coming in and working with Haas and Sully and Matt just trying to learn our, you know, our offense and being able to figure out where the cafeteria is at this point in time. But, you know, he's a guy he's played. I think he started seven games for Carolina. Highly intelligent. He's big. He's strong. So, you know, we'll see where he fits in here when we're able to see him work in person. I can't, I don't know I don't know enough yet to after I haven't seen him practice. I can't answer that one yet. When it comes to, I guess, a high volume guy like Hopkins in terms of catches what's a good catch percentage? Maybe his, maybe, might not be as good as a guy who, I guess, you know, gets fewer targets what in your mind what's a good percent? Yeah, when we throw to him so, you know, and that's that's due to the experience that we've had with him being able to watch him and he's got such a unique ability to to catch balls in tight windows and be strong and be physical where as long as you put it somewhere near him he's always going to have a good opportunity to catch it. So, I don't know what the percentage is but when we throw a ball to Hopkins we're expecting him to catch it. Still there. The elite, I mean, just look at his ability on the sprint out that we had on Sunday with his ability to be able to go and get two feet in. Like, that's as simple as that looks. It's not. He's got elite sideline ability. He's got elite body control. He's got ginormous hands. He's strong. Catch radius is unparalleled. He's just, he's very talented. He's got a lot of skills. He's got a lot of skills. He's just, he's very talented in his ability to catch. Basically, like we said, if you put it in the vicinity he's going to have a good opportunity to come down with it. How much of the issues of individual offensive linemen about what the what the rushers are doing to them as opposed to the soundness of their technique in their own play? Um, yeah, like we talked about earlier when we were talking about the red area it's probably, you know, well, we're going to separate downs in technique that we need to be better at and be more consistent at and then there's going to be times where, you know, the defense has a good rush. So, you know, we're continuing every single day. I know you guys are down there watching them. They're working the past protection fundamentals. We work every single day as we're going through it, the different past protection schemes against different looks, against different pressures. So, you know, that's never going to change our ability to focus in our attention to detail when it comes to the different fundamentals and the different schemes that we're using. Do you think you guys are going to have a high, I guess explosive play in your, or chunk plays last year, Jake? What do you think is the reason or two that we haven't seen as many of those? Um, yeah, the ball, the ball hasn't found them. Um, you know, and again, finding different ways to try to get them open like you look at the first play of the game, um, he's screaming down the sideline, they had two guys on them open up the window for hop to be able to make that 15-year game. So, you know, there's definitely probably a little bit more attention to him after last year. And so just continuing to work to try to find different spots to get him running through the field and get him the ball. Good. With Trevor Lawrence, how key is it to try to make him hold that ball for an extra second and get him off that first read? Yeah, I think it's a big key. Like, uh, does a really good job understanding what he's seeing, coverage-wise, and knows where to go with the ball. We got to do a good job, hopefully disrupting that first read and see if we can buy some time for our guys to get home. You guys talk something, what's your assessment of where that is? Yeah, I think there's been opportunities. I think guys are trying. Um, when we're able to get back there, I see guys trying to attack the ball. Um, it's just got to continue. We got to get more opportunities. There's chances to attack the football. So it continues to be an emphasis. I think it's showing up more this year than it did last year, but we got to continue to hopefully get back there and have those opportunities. How would you assess how Roger did in his first game play and back on the edge? Yeah, I think there's some good and some bad. Obviously, he'd probably like to have that third down back. Tough call with pressure and don't get home. That's what happens. Those guys get left out there and they got to find a way to win. But overall, I thought it was pretty good. Just some things that he hasn't done in a while. He had to kind of work his way back to return and face his old team this weekend. How would you kind of evaluate how he's done his first nine games here? Yeah, I think the biggest thing with him is just the consistency weekend and week out. Um, I think he brings energy to our to our unit, but just continuing to find the consistency in terms of winning the pass rush, the run game, everything that comes involved. But, um, he's been good for us. I'm happy he's here. What's he kind of got to do to be a little bit more consistent? Yeah, I think first of all, it's all gonna start with his get off. He's got to use it. Like that's that's a bullet for him. Um, he's explosive continuing to work edges, right? Not be down the middle of find ways to work edges and be able to counter back in late. At times, those guys are pushing him. He ends up getting high a little bit and just finding that counter to be able to work back underneath. Do you think it's through what happened on that the screen touchdown, but Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things that they threw screen into a pressure. Number one, um, hopefully you can get it down for a lot less game than what it was. Um, but ultimately we didn't really make a play. Guys, it was really across the board to be honest, Ron, like I mean, they got the ball off whether we need to buy some time out there on the perimeter to allow some of those guys to retrace we kind of took the easy way out, so to speak, or picked aside when you need to really buy some time to slow down that back. And then just the effort, the pursuit, the zone drop, not getting extended, not carrying things vertical. I mean, it was it was a perfect storm, right? Like it's probably going to be a successful play form regardless, but hopefully it's not a 43 yarder. Well, with how it was designed, Harold was supposed to come under and Monty was going to be around the edge. Yeah. We're probably going to win a lot of games, holding teams with 20 points, but it's offensive struggle in some games this year. How do you keep defensive players not to feel like, hey, I've got to make a play. I've got to do something outside the defense. It could get you. Yeah, I mean we got plenty we can do better. We're not doing enough defensively to win. I mean, we're giving up plays. We shouldn't at costly times at critical times. We got to be more consistent and like I've hit on throughout the year. We got to eliminate the bad plays that are getting us beat. Those five, six, 10 plays, whatever it is throughout the games they unfold like we have to be better there. So there's a lot for us to coach on a lot for us to improve on every week. No different. But we got our own issues that we got to work through and improve on. Are you guys frustrated with the lack of takeaways? I think so. I mean, I am, right? I think all of us kind of are. We expect to get a little bit more. We work at it. We emphasize it. I think the encouraging thing for me for the most part is you see the attempts. You do. You see the attempts. You see guys trying to hammer at the ball. You see guys trying to get their hand up. We've gotten a few more of those. I mean last week, Jeff tips it out. Eric's sitting right there and Baker out jumps him to knock it down, right? So, I mean, we just got to continue to go about it and emphasize it and take advantage of our opportunities when they're there. And hopefully we can get a few out. Are you doing anything different this year as opposed to before? We do a lot of same stuff. I mean, we're pretty consistent in what we do. We'll change various things by game plan, how we see it. We can alter different coverages by game plan. You got a game plan down there a little bit because there's a lot of scheme. A lot of scheme stuff shows up. But we're not, we're not by any means the scheme of the week team. We're going to do what we do and do it well. I think everybody knows that, but we do have our adjustments here there by game plan. As you go through and watch you, you know, take the different offenses, et cetera, the defenses that they're facing, are you noticing them doing different things? The reason why I think it's just opposed to Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably a combination of things. I mean, it gets harder down there for offense as it's supposed to. Like as a defense, you got to, you don't want to be down there, but when you're down there, you got to take advantage of the situation in terms of the field shorter. They can't run by you, right? There's a lot of elements that's tougher to hopefully run the ball because you got DBs that are tighter to the line of scrimmage. We've got a lot of stretch in the field, right? So the defense is that most of them obviously understand that the back line use the back line as the 12th defender and everything's tighter. You got to be able, hopefully for us, we got to match tighter, right? Like we know the ball is getting out quicker zone, man, whatever. We got to make sure we're tight on body and doing everything we can to use that back line to help us. A little bit more in terms of pressure anyway that the old Harold Landry, I think he's got four sacks in the last four games. At least in terms of pressure in the quarterback or, you know, is he kind of backing more in the form than he was? Yeah, I think it continues to progress as we go. It's been good to see him kind of get the production there. It's been big for us getting him back. Anytime those edge guys can go in a little bit and we can continue to get the push up front the coordination of all four of those guys is vital. Like if you have one without that other it's hard. The quarterback can hold it. He can step up or he can extend outside potentially. So I think all those guys just continue to improve continue to be coordinated is critical for us and continue to help each other. Like the communication all the aspects of that goes into it when you're trying to game and do some different things. So hopefully it continues with Harold and we get some of these other guys going. You guys did a good job on containing Travis Etienne last year in both your matchups with them, but how has he jumped players? Yeah, he's explosive. I mean they're explosive across the board. They got speed across the board. I think he runs with really good balance. He runs behind his pads. You don't see him fall and he's gaining extra yards. I think he's got a top two or three in yards after miss tackles or whatever that might be. So he's a good player. We're going to have to do a good job. They use them in the passing game, the screen game especially after last week. I'm sure that's looking pretty good to them. So we're going to have to know where he's it, know where he is, know how they're using them. They're going to find ways to give him the ball. Yup.