 All right, let's get growing here coach. How are you doing today? All right, all right. Hey, um, CP in your reserve. Uh, is he, uh, uh, what's his status? Yeah, we'll just, you know, talk to him and the doctors and see, uh, you know, what the plan has on Wednesday. Uh, and, uh, Terrell and Hopkins, any updates, uh, hopefully we'll get them back. But hopeful again, um, see how that looks by Wednesday. And if they're, um, trending like they could be ready, they'll be out there. Any, I didn't have anything, um, anything out of the game. No, it came away, uh, pretty clean, thankfully, you know, a couple blocks and bruises, but, um, pretty clean. And, uh, you know, uh, just kind of settled, uh, any reflections on, on that wild game and, uh, what you had to talk to the team about today. Move forward onto, uh, the chart. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff we can certainly learn from. Uh, we could be cleaner. Um, same way I felt yesterday afterwards. I mean, that was a crazy game. And, uh, thankful we came away with the win. What was the family reaction when you got home? Some anger about, uh, don't do that to him. Um, just kind of disbelief. Probably the reaction that most people, most fans, range of emotions. But, uh, thankfully, I said, sometimes you need a little bit of luck and things bounce their way, and we're able to finish that and come away with the win. How do you deal with that as a coach on the sideline? I mean, just the ups and downs? You've got to stay into it. I mean, it's, no matter what you're really feeling inside, I mean, you've got to make decisions and you can't lose your mind. You've got to be neutral. I mean, there are a lot of decisions you had to make, and things change along the way, you know. It goes from the Hail Mary. There's still enough time. You're looking. You've got to time out. You're thinking about possible chunk plays you need to call. And, you know, what you're going to get, and then you've got to make the decision that you take it then or take it on the extra point. Like I said, we took it there, and thankfully it broke our way. Is that one of the bigger adjustments you had to make from a coordinator to a head coach? Yeah. Changes where you got one of the balls? Absolutely. But that's why, you know, we have a good staff, and that's why you have great communication with the headset, you know, between upstairs and guys on the sideline. So everybody's got a job to do. And so as you're talking through, say, hey, look, we got to get ready for this possible scenario. You know, most of it you've practiced before, but you're in it and you're making sure everybody's good personnel-wise and strategy. Because even as a play caller, what you were going to call, if you thought you were down by one, you're in the game plays and having a time out to try to get cool out there to kick a game winner. And then when you realize you're tied, you know, you take a shot, we took a shot, you know, that's a different play. And you know, in overtime, and then you get your overtime thoughts and there's a lot that goes on there. What was the decision to use the penalty on the extra point? Was there numbers backing that up? Yeah, numbers. You know, that's when you look at it and you prepare, and then that was the percentage. I mean, he had had a history of missing some kicks in that range. And that's ultimately what's waited for me. The stats said they throw the PJ Walker since they started counting this air yard snake, 67 yards long as one. Did you think he was going to throw the ball that deep when you were watching that playing full? Absolutely not. Because of the situation you're in, at that point, you're just trying to keep it in bounds. Get him to check it down. Obviously you'd love to get a sack, but you're going, do you drop out of there? You know, do you rush for? Do you want to simulate pressure? I mean, those are all, as soon as you got to make, and the way the game was going and where the ball was. You're playing on a, hopefully get him to check it down, tackle him in bounds, get the clock moving. We've all seen that story. When he rolled out to the left and went to launch it. And that's what, no matter what, we got to stay behind that. That's pretty obvious there, but when he turned to throw it, I didn't think that ball was going to get there. I thought it was going to fall short and I thought maybe we had a chance to pick it, but made an incredible throw. I know what was that next gen was like 67. It looked longer than that. Like his front foot left at the, we ought to audit next gen. Because where his front foot was when he launched that ball, he hit that thing on a rope. What tune are you to like the emotions after play like that? Motions of guides on the field on the sideline. You can feel a bond. You know, it changes on you. I mean, yeah, I mean, nobody, it's not a great feeling when you see it happen, but you got to be aware there's still time. You got to coach the whole game. I mean, you can't just become deflated no matter how you, whatever emotion you feel. Because it just, on a whim, Jeff, you know, you make the play. You can't let it snowball on you because there's still time left in the game. And then you're, you know, you were weighing, you see the flag, I saw him take his helmet off. I saw the flag and then that's when you start thinking, all right, we're going to use it here, use it on the kick. Kick off. Obviously, do you say anything? Yes, there's still time on the board. And you know, you can sit there and I hit it and I can say something to Marcus and I can say something to David Gown about, Hey, look, get this ready, because this is the way you thought you're going to be in. You got to prepare that he's going to make that extra point, even when you move him back just to be prepared to work the end of the game situation. What is pleased you most about the C2A games? The resiliency, you know, the guys that are, like I said, it's been far from perfect. Usually it's not perfect in the NFL, but just the guys that the belief and, you know, some of the obstacles we've been able to overcome so far. So we're not celebrating thinking that we've done anything special. But it's the reality is we've been able to overcome some things that have been in our control that, you know, we didn't go our way early in the year. And then they go on the road to Seattle. And like I said, at the time, that's a good football team. It's a tough place to play and they'd be able to bounce back after L.A. and get that win and then come home and playing better at home. But we're going to have a huge challenge, we know the Chargers, but just the resiliency of this team. Could you see things playing out the rest of the season like this? I mean, the way things are going in the division, the way you guys are having these up and down moments, it just might be that kind of year. Certainly, yeah, I mean, you've seen so many, I mean, you've covered this game a long time. You know, even the teams that get out ahead and you start 6-1, you've seen teams collapse and you've seen teams that only have two, three wins and they go on a run, seven or eight wins in a row. And we just need to continue to improve them. And we had a lot of things we got to fix, as most teams do. But yeah, I expect this thing to go all the way to the end of the season. You spent a lot of time talking about the offense for the first eight weeks. Numbers for the defense for the first eight weeks. Last and yards allowed, second to last and yards were played. Third to last and third down conversion by opponents and fifth to last and points. I don't want to say that just to say that we spent so much time talking about the offense. The defense starting to become a concern to you as far as what is happening. I mean, you take it objectively. What happens is there's times where, like a game like yesterday, you start out all right and then you start to give up and there's a lot of different reasons why on some of the critical situations as the game went on that we didn't do a good enough job. And it's not just one guy, it's not just one scheme, but it's our job as coaches to problem solve. And then what happens, you get certain games and like we gave a lot of yards in the Niners game and those were kind of like who cares. We had a 14-point lead and they went the whole distance of the field and came up with no points. So that adds to some of that Cincinnati game. I mean, it wasn't good enough and we ran into a bus all there and it gets you in that sum. So you get a halfway point and you get in the game like yesterday and you get 70 yards on a crazy play and then you get it. I mean, it just wasn't, we know it wasn't good enough, but that's the reality and we got to make sure we problem solve. There's a lot of things we can do to help that, even in the other phases. The way that Dean and Michonne played that final pass to DJ Moore, was that what you guys coached in terms of how they approached it or were those errors there? Is that a real question? Give me a real question, I'll give you a real answer. That's not a real question. That's a classic loaded question. It's a cover two. Obviously, nobody's ever coaching anything at safety, whether you're in cover three or cover four, cover two, two man, whatever you want to call it. Two invert, two slice. It's your deepest, deepest. So he got back there in regards to the call. So is that your question? Kind of keeping away from the sideline because in all, you guys want to keep it in bounds. The reality is nobody thought he was going to launch it 70 yards. Regardless, you can't let somebody get behind you. That's the best way. He was saying he was taking a calculated risk thinking he was going to come back to that sale route that was coming in. But again, you got to stay deeper than deepest, no matter what the coverage is if you're back there. He knows that, but he was trying to explain his thought why he didn't. He didn't think the guy was going to turn around 35 and launch that thing on a rope 70 yards or 67.8. That's what he was saying. Was there anything from yesterday's game that you felt like the team did consistently well when you called for quarters? Another loaded question. I mean, there's a lot of things. It's an NFL game. There's always a good. There's always some bad. There's always some ugly. Just make sure you don't have a lot of ugly on there and try to minimize the bad. But there are a lot of good things going around. There's a lot of stuff we got to clean up. And that's the reality every week. At the end of the day, some awesome way, we found a way to come away with more points. And we're thankful we got the win, but doesn't stop our mindset. We've got to improve. We know the challenge coming in this Sunday. We've got a team that's coming off a bye. Arguably, but one of the best young quarterbacks in the league. And we've got to be ready to roll in all three phases. Why do you feel like your special teams have been so productive this year? Well, there are a lot of reasons. One, you're in the secondary system and when you've got a lot of young explosive players, there's a lot of length and size out there. D'Angelo Malone and Troy Anderson, Lorenzo Carter and Felipe Franks. A lot of size and speed, youth and length out there cover a lot of ground. I mean, we almost got another point yesterday. Troy was close. That's what helps when you're building depth. And the type of players you're bringing in that eventually probably be starters, whatever, and you want to continue to make sure you've got depth on that roster. And I think that we've done a good job. That's part of the team building strategy as well. You mentioned size and special teams. Is that something that when Marquis is making decisions, or you and Marquis are making decisions? Well, it's a built defense. So if you want to have, again, there's a lot of philosophies. If you're going to be a 4-3, you're going to play a lot of 4-down. A sub-package, you know, where a lot of people do now. They essentially plan a 4-3 defense. You can call it a 4-4 and plan, you know, a big nickel. You only got two traditional linebackers behind the ball. You may just, you may be drafting a lot more for speed. If you're more of a zone team, vision break. If you're more of a 3-4, you're going to have a little bit better size on special teams just by the nature of who you're drafting and where you're getting those special teams' contributions from. Ideally, you'd like to have a lot of them come out of your outside lineback or room inside linebacker room. And hopefully, you're getting some help from your tight end room as well, just the size. And then we've got, you know, Cadero Hodge, I think, is one of the better gunners. I think Mike Ford is, too. So you're getting contributions from them. It allows you to different personnel inside on your punt team. And when you combine that with youth, length, and speed, guys that can play in space, that usually helps your coverage. So it's all part of the team building, like what you want to be defensively and offensively that can help your teams. It's all part of the strategy as you merge it together. And then it goes with the football staff and everything. Coach, do you need to discuss the dimension that Demir Byrd has brought to the team, the guy who's, you know, on his fifth team and having trouble sticking in the league and through some stuff? I know you like people like that. Yeah, he's taken advantage of his opportunity, right? He's been in our program, works extremely hard. I wasn't getting a lot of snaps early in the year. And when his number's been called lately, he's been making plays for us. It made a huge play. And not just what you can tell sometimes, too, when you've got the ability to take the top off, and then they may give you a cushion which he had on that touchdown he scored. He was able to snap down, come back, did a great job with the run after catch. Kyle made a good decision. You know, when he comes in there and underrated, it's kind of a no-brainer, but he's able to make the smart play there and Drake's able to finish. No one to let go, and Demir was able to put the ground and score. Marcus had a lot more success passing in kind of off-structure situations. I don't know if that lines up with what you saw in film. I just remember there was one to break, kind of toward the end. Yeah, that was the one that was off-scheduled. A lot of those stuff, too, we were doing, and that's part of the game planning. We had showed something we hadn't in a while. And the things we were doing with some of the motions and clearing it out, he was able to progress and get down to them. Some of them were progressions, like the one he hit the Hesse, the one he hit the OZ, the one he hit the Kyle in the flat. Now, the one Drake was off-scheduled. But that was a good job. I mean, I thought our tackles played really well yesterday. They kept them clean. And I said, when they rush, and they kind of tried to rush you down the middle or heavy, he was able to get out and extend that play and flip his hips around and Drake did a nice job coming back to him on that one, for sure. I thought he made some good play action. The one he had to Kyle on the first touchdown drive and the pop pass we hit Kyle on. So there's a lot of different actions. I mean, even the one he had on the keeper kind of got us going, too. Believe it was to Bird. Burns was chasing him down and able to make that throw in the run. So there's a lot of different ways. Certainly, it may have looked that way. The way he was playing the pocket, I thought he progressed pretty well, though, too. I'm just wondering if that indicates any of you encouraging to see how many of those players play? Very encouraging. I know you focus so much week to week because of the opponent and things change. Are you the kind of coach that takes stock and where you started? Where are you pleading? Are there areas you look like where ahead of schedule or behind schedule of things? I don't know if it's not behind schedule. That's a good question. But it's more about the progress, right? And anticipating how, you know, I mean, you're an idiot if you think somebody's not going to adapt to you and you're arrogant. You're the ones with a good look. So, you know, if you're having success in the run game and say, what are you doing well? Well, they're going to make damn sure to try to stop that. Okay, what are you going to do to counter that? That's what I was pleased with yesterday. I thought we were able to counter some of that and showed some different things that I thought helped us. Sort of went perfect. So you're always, yeah, tracking your progress. Always stuff we got to work on. A lot of guys have worn your contracts again like last year. Why do you think, how do you think you've had the level of buy-in that you've had that a lot of teams that rebuild in this kind of thing? I'll say the same thing. But sometimes they're not four and four taking into them season. Why do you think it's worked here so far? Yeah, I mean, I've got my theories, but I don't want to sit there and sound like I'm trying to, like, bat myself or pat all of us on the back. You know, we've just got a lot of good guys and we've got a stable situation and hopefully we can continue on this path. Your theories, you think sometimes other teams jump in? Money situations more? Been named more than... Yeah, I can always give you an answer, but my mindset, without trying to sound like I'm trying to pump my own tires here, I can't get inside. So my answer is that, Jeff. Are you pleased with the culture you've created here that allows guys to buy in? Yes. How would you describe that culture so far? It's something we work under every day. A lot of people, you know, you can put it on a slogan, you know, chirp to you guys about it, but if you're not implementing that with anything in life, can you implement every day? Not going to be perfect, can you persevere, can you be consistent? Those things, and whatever your belief is. There's a lot of ways to do it. It works for some places, it works for others, but a lot of things what happens is the day-to-day grind and the lack of endurance people have sometimes. You think, hey, it worked for you early, you can, that it's good. Like you're asking that, check that box. No, it's something every damn day you've got to work on. What organizations you were exposed to either directly or indirectly impress you with the culture and the way they handle things and... Yeah, some places, you know, organizations you study, whether it's in other sports or other lines of business, you know, some of the experiences sometimes you learn of what not to do, or if you ever get a shot and it sure as hell won't do that. So many other times you take it all and then count. One of the things your players have said a lot is you talk about resiliency you've mentioned, is that something that can be taught or is that just when you're looking for guys you're able to figure that out that they might have. Like how does that manifest? Both. It's like if you want to be a physical team, you know, you look for physical players. I'm not a doctor and I can't do a heart transplant. So you try to find the right people and you try to foster the right climate and get the right type of guys. But it's both, you know, but if somebody doesn't want to do it that way you're probably not changing. Also that within a locker, are there things you're able to pick up either in a draft process or a free agency process that tells you that or is it... Yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. I mean there's things that you look for not only on tape but you know when you're going there all the evaluations, the interviews and it's a long, thorough process. Again, you're not going to be right every time and you're trying to minimize your risk and that's something like I said you got to work on every day as a collective group too. Katie, what kind of that is a collective? I'm not going to take you behind in what we do every day. No matter how you're trying to lead me into that, I appreciate the loaded questions. I just try to make sure I don't fall for it. That one wasn't loaded but you're trying to lead me into it like I'm a witness and you're the prosecutor. So I appreciate the hustle, Mike, but I'm not going to keep going. Do you have a list of questions for your prospects so you can share a few of them with us? Yeah, I may put you guys through it. That'll be an offseason project. We'll do an eval, see how it goes and then you guys can interview me on the same questions and see where we end up. I think we should do that. It'd be a good challenge. Do you want to look at the replay of the non-call at the end of the game? Again? I like your Halloween costume. I like your Halloween costume. I love your Halloween costume. Thank you. Anything else? Oh, you're back. You got to wake up and you need some coffee. Hey, the chart is coming off the bio-week. You know, everybody knows about the quarterback and Williams, Neckler, both is out, I guess, on defense. What are some of the challenges that the four and three charges will present to you? Yeah, I guess that earlier. I mean, Herbert, I don't know if there's a better quarterback on critical down situations. The guy that can stand plays and live arm, he's got to be a challenge. You know, we get to come up with a good plan and we got to play well in all three phases. Obviously, we've got Cluel Mack, you know, the issue with Mack getting into an obvious passing situation so he can be a nightmare. It's a good scheme. They're coming off a bye. Like I said, glad we're at home. Looking forward to it, but it'll be a hell of a challenge.