 I feel like we're talking about Avery every week, but like, what is it in his vision that's kind of put him in the position of how he's been as a return? I'll say, you know, Avery's been doing the same stuff that he's been doing since last season. You know, when he got here as a rookie, he does a great job of having an urgency to the football, understanding the game plan, Mike, of which way the ball is being punted and correlating that with the returns that we're running or the rushes that we're running. And then I think another part of that, too, that has been big is the players that we've added on the field with Avery. You talk about a guy, you know, the most athletic players on the field when it comes to punt return and when you talk about punt coverage. All right, usually those returners are dynamic, they can make people miss in space. So when you talk about the team's punt team, the most athletic, dynamic guys on the punt team are the gunners. And they don't have, in the punt game, those gunners, they don't have to protect, they can just release when the ball snap. So being able to slow those gunners down is a critical part to that. So when you talk about guys like Mike Ford, you know, who's been in the league for going on five seasons, he's played that position. You watch the punt return from the other day, he single-handedly takes out a gunner by himself. And he does that weekend and week out. And those plays, a lot of times they go unnoticed because he's on the outside and he's taking on their best gunner and trying to do a great job out there, along with D'Alfred, along with, you know, Armstrong, those guys. And then you talk about the interior, those guys blocking or rushing the punt. So all those correlate to Avery's success. And you talk to Avery and I'm pretty sure he says, you know, he can't, those other ten guys on the field blocking for him, which helps. And then it allows him to go do his job and get vertical with the football. Because Arthur had said that he came close to him playing corner the last two weeks. If he ends up in that situation, do you always have to pull him off a punt return just because of, you know, at least for the rest of that game because of the other duties involved? No. The most important play is that play. He's our starting returner. So whether he's playing on offense, playing on defense, because he plays on offense, right? He has a critical role in offense. And if there was a situation where he had to play on defense, just like last year, he's still going to be our returner. He's still going to cover kicks for us. So when that situation happens, obviously Coach Smith and myself, we have those conversations, but Avery is our starting returner. So it's important that we try to get the ball in his hands in the return game and game first down to make sure that our offense has the ball in the next play. I realize that I'm probably walking right into the hypothetical junction here. But if, whenever Cordero comes back, does he return to being the kick returner or does that have to be maybe a difficult conversation at this point? He's one of the best returners in NFL history. So whenever he's ready to come back, that's going to be a great problem to have. And we're excited, you know, we're excited once he's get healthy and he gets back going. That's just another weapon for us in the return game. So we're excited. Right now, obviously this week we have Carolina. But when we get CP back, it's going to be a great opportunity for our team to have a dynamic returner back on our team. What are the skill sets physical and mental that you look for in that gunner blocker position? The jammer position, as we call them a jammer. Look for a guy that's fearless, that has speed, that's aggressive. We talk about the term mean but clean. We want to be mean, we want to be aggressive. We got to slow the gunner's motor down because those guys are first ones to the fight. And they got to be fast, aggressive, like I was saying. They got to be able to play in space. And they have to play with great effort and then also to understand the rules of the game. We want to be aggressive, but we want to do it within the rules. We want to hold. We don't want to block in the back. And we have to understand how good spatial awareness where our returners at. Just so we don't get pushed into the returner, making sure that we get, you know, certain things, certain responsibilities that we have when it comes to playing that jammer position. And again, Mike Ford, he does a great job along with our other corners of playing that position and helping our returner out, get vertical with the football. Is there a guy that you use historically or, you know, recent history or back whenever that's like a teach tape for that position when you're talking to guys about it who's done it really, really well? I always kind of try to use our current players or, you know, recently former players. When I got here, Mike Ford was one of the guys that I used. For example, when I coached him in Detroit. He's one of the reasons, and I know I'm talking about him right now, but he's one of the reasons I'm in this position right now because of the former players that I've coached in my last couple of years, whether I was in with the Chargers or with the Lions. And our players, they do a great job, whether it's current or former players bringing the cause of life. And I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that position, you know, for those players. I wouldn't be a coach if it wasn't for players. That's why we get to coach the game. And guys like Mike Ford, coach guys like Justin Coleman before Jason Verrett, Brandon Flowers. Those are guys that use an example. And you could say Jason Verrett and Brandon Flowers, both starting corners, Pro Bowl corners and NFL, it took a lot of pride in playing that position when it comes to that playing that jammer position. You talk a lot about getting the offense first down. Well, the numbers say that you're getting two first downs now. And there have been, it wasn't just a big long one the other day. You guys have been pretty consistent in that area. Is there some confidence and pride being built in that steady execution and do your guys maybe think or in meeting rooms that hey, we're pretty close to breaking line? For sure. That's the first play on offense. So our number one objective is to put points on the board. We want to make sure we get the ball, but we're trying to put points on the board. We have possession of football. We're trying to, you know, score points. So our guys do feel confident, but at the same time we have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to that position. When it comes to, you know, winning at the line of scrimmage, winning downfield. Yeah, we could have like, let's say we have a 15 year return, but we had opportunity to get 25 or 30 yards on that return, being in better position, winning with leverage. There's a lot of basic fundamentals that we're currently and we're every day still trying to work on. And our team and those guys that are on there have that combination of 11 players out there. We're still evolving and trying to get better each and every day. And we only get better with reps. We're never, when we go into a football game, we're guaranteed zero-point return reps. So we never know. It could be a 4th and 1, it could be a 4th and 10, they could punt the ball back up, they could punt the ball from the 50. Our guys just have to stay prepared before the opportunity presents itself rather than being unprepared without the opportunity. The only way we could do that is by honing in on our basic fundamentals and our technique. What are some of the alerts for punter Johnny Hecker and how's he doing for the Panthers this year? Well, Johnny Hecker, strong leg punter, very athletic. He has directional ability. He can truly flip the field when you're talking about punting and flipping the field. He's been a pro bowler, all pro player, highly respected at this level. So we have a great challenge this week going against Johnny Hecker. And then also, too, you talk about their gunner, Franklin, he does a great job on the outside, number 42, one of their top tacklers on the team. That's how he's made a name for himself in the league as a special teams player. So it's a great challenge for us. And then you can talk about Sean Chandler, the PPE number 34, the safety, he does a great job. They use him as like a third gunner in their coverage units. He's a quarterback of their pun team. So the combination of Hecker, you talk about Franklin and Chandler, it's a great challenge for us when they're doing flipping the field and controlling the field position. When you kind of look at where the offense is right now, kind of at the midway point, I guess, how do you assess if y'all have done well versus what has not? I think when you get to a certain part of the season, obviously, even from a roster standpoint, it can change who a personnel you have out there due to injury or whatever. And I think you have to take it, I've been caught up in the mid-year buys where all of a sudden you reassess everything and you go back, the reality is each game has its own entity. So you look at how each game was played and what was needed in that game. And specifically speaking, there's certain games in which we obviously we did well in terms of drives and scores. Other games we hit lulls and then you kind of reexamine throughout each game of y. Instead of looking at this total picture and saying this and saying that, obviously there's a lot of variables involved. And for us, no different than how you approach this week. So you're playing a different scheme defense than you played the week before. Obviously different personnel. You always say, okay, do we put our players in the best position coach wise? And then for the player standpoint, do they rely back on their fundamentals or do we do think uncharacteristically physically and mentally? And so I think moving forward, right, you're always reassessing design preparation fundamentals, right, for us. And I think that'll always help true regardless of we're at the midpoint or we're towards the end of the year as we kind of go. Coach, what are some of the variables in general with regards to developing young quarterbacks? And then I'm going to follow up of course it'll be to this. Yeah, it's almost a stumper there question there, D-led. I think from this standpoint, right, so each quarterback that comes in league is different, right, regardless of how many years they played in college or what scheme they came from. So when you take those variables of experience, scheme, then you get to your scheme. I think those are always, there's going to be a curve, right. So when you get to that curve, then it's about how many reps that player obviously gets his chance to have. And that's why I think you saw us in training camp and offseason go with the two quarterback for the most part with obviously Felipe taking his part to try to gain and garner as many reps as possible. When it comes to young quarterbacks, right now, if you look at the ones who are not playing, you get all that in scout team, right. Even though you're not running your plays per se, a lot of the plays are similar in the NFL, and you have to take each play as if it's yours so you can gain that experience. There's nothing that will ever replace the do of the act of doing, right. So when it comes to the quarterback spot, every time that you're back up, if he's young gets a chance to go out there and throw it around like he's going to garner and gain experience. Now, you have to go play games. There's no doubt about it, and I think that obviously is the next step, but until that happens it's about how well can you prepare off the field. I think that's one of the more harder challenges for young quarterbacks coming in. Rookie's first year players is the fact that it's not just your ability to throw the football. The reality is there's a lot of guys that are not in the NFL that can throw a football and they're not in the NFL for whatever reason. You obviously need to cross over a bar in terms of physical ability to be at this level. But then what is really the separation point? The separation point for me, right, is going to be your ability to retain and then obviously the functionality of the mental part of the game. How well do you know the plan, even though you're not practicing unnecessarily, right? Do you know the calls inside out? Can you vision the play when you break the huddle? So I think getting those guys, the young quarterbacks to realize this is a full-time job, it's not 20 hours a week like it is in college. There are distractions, like this is all part of it. I think that is the next step for any young quarterback coming in. Some grasp it sooner than others. Others do better just by doing than the classroom. It's rare to find one guy who can't do both, right? Who's just a classroom guy and can't play or just on the field and can't do the classroom. You look at the guys who have lunged in this league, there's a reason why. It goes hand in hand from the preparation, mental and physical. That's a long answer. I'm not sure what you got of that D-let. I just kept going on that. I'm not serious, but it sounded good. Perfect. That was also a role you were in very early in your career. How much do you impart that to Desmond? It's more about what I didn't do. The mental part of it I took for granted because I went out there and ran scout team and I just said, okay, I'm not going to play this week. I'm just going to go ahead and throw it around. I'm going to get better physically. Then what happened in my rookie year is I was forced to play. It was one of those situations where when I became a coach, especially at this level, I was going to press upon any backup quarterback, regardless of age, the importance of preparation because that failed me. You always learn through either your experiences or your environment. I failed in that regard and I obviously learned from my mistakes where you have the ability to prepare yourself even though you're not getting those reps. Take every single session in the classroom. Walk through whatever and it's the act of actually going out and playing the game in your mind. I just went out there and said, all right, I got individual, I got some team periods, I got some seven on seven and I'm out of here. I think that was a 22-year-old not really understanding or grasping the idea of what it means to be a professional. Every quarterback I've come across, it's been, you can ask them, that's been a pretty hard lesson for me to pass on because I have to relive it and hopefully they can learn from it. What help won't it take you to realize that you messed it up? My career was, be told, I was done. I mean, I didn't obviously have a long, long career. As I look back, you always reflect on your experiences of what you had in life regardless of what career you pick and you wonder why things didn't work out the way you do so you reevaluate and that was definitely part of it. It wasn't the lack of, I would say, want or intelligence. It was the lack of the discipline to get yourself into a, well, I guess I'm not going to play so I shouldn't, well, that's the wrong approach. You hear a lot of quarterbacks now talk about who now go in the game for whatever reason at certain points and say, hey, I prepared like the start of that week and that is the right mentality. I think it's a lot easier said than done. How's Desmond doing in that regard? Well, again, regardless of it's Desmond or any quarterback that I've been a part of, that is part of the preparation. It's part of the mental grind. Think about this for a second, right? So they come out of their college season, they go to a draft combine prep regardless of where they go. That's months of their life. Then they get drafted to a city they probably are not familiar with. They move their OTAs and you got a little bit of a break then you're right in a training camp and you're right into an NFL season, right? So a lot of things being thrown at that young player regardless of position. The biggest thing that we can press upon the young players is to understand what that grind really looks like. When you get into the season, there's a bye week, no doubt. But the reality is your season's not over past Thanksgiving, right? We still have a long way to go. And so it's making those guys understand that how to approach each week and how really to have, and we talk about this in the quarterback room at the time, the capacity for boredom. You've got to be able to do the mundane things over and over and over. Even though you think you've got it, you've got to do it again. Not specific to a quarterback, but you can include a quarterback there. A couple weeks back, Arthur was talking about Dez and he was saying that he was very mature in his mindset that that was something that you guys saw during the pre-draft process. Have you kind of seen that as well in terms of his approach to the classroom and those types of things, even though... Obviously, you know, Coach spoke for himself there and I'll speak for myself when it comes to Dez. I look for from a young quarterback is the ability to retain and understand information. But again, I will say this, when it comes, regardless if he's a rookie or not, Dez has a dual mandate. The mandate is to make himself, prepare himself as if he can play, which get himself ready physically and mentally. But then the other mandate is to make sure he is the best he can be for that starter, which is Marcus. And so what he has to do is know that plan inside now, like any quarterback who has a backup in this league. That starter should be able to come to you, ask you questions, maybe a film question or a plan question. You should be an extension of the coaching staff, no different than the starter. But that's why I think being in that backup role it's not for everyone. When you look around the league, I know just from my personal example, you go from being a starting quarterback in college and then you're getting every rep and you're the guy and you're leading the team the way you want and then all of a sudden you go from getting and it's not your team necessarily, but you have to be able to transition to gain value and to bring value. And so how do you do that? You prepare yourself as if you're going to be the guy, you're a play away, but then you're also there for the starter knowing that you guys are working together to get the best out of the quarterback room. Is that harder to do when you've been the guy for that long? Well, I think that would obviously be a better question for him to answer. I'm just talking in general, right? You have to be able to come in and understand your role. It doesn't mean you're not competing or you're satisfied or anything like that, but you understand what is needed for the team that week. And if regardless of you're the backup quarterback or you're the backup tight end or back, that's non-consequential. What matters is the fact that you can go out there if your number is called be ready, be prepared. If it's not, you're absolutely adding value to the guy that's playing in front of you. And to me, that's what a great teammate is. Regardless of the position you're talking about, that's what brings great culture and obviously gives you a chance on Sunday for everybody to come together and specifically on offense to have a chance to win. Coach, what challenges does the fans of defense present for on Sunday? Yeah, good question. Use the D-Led. Yeah. I got you. I mean, we're a little bit into this, right? Look, right? I know I'm a broken record up here at times, but my goodness, and you put the film on, and there's not many holes in this defense, right? They have really good players at all 11 spots, regardless of their base or sub. They understand the scheme. I always say this up here, you can always watch defenses, and when you put the film on, especially early in the week, and you really watch them play, and the faster they play and the more they take away from the offense, the greater grasp they have of what they're asked to do. And that's a dangerous combination for an offense because they can play fast. They can take things away. They make it hard for you. They make you gain everything. They're a very good tackling team. They play really good with their leverages. They can rush the passer. They can play coverage. So, again, you know, obviously, we know what the score was when we played them last year, right? There's some different characters there, obviously, this year, where they're trending defensively. That's pretty good. We're going to work cut out for us for sure. You really haven't yet or haven't done it yet. If you had to fully open up the passing game, how comfortable would y'all be? I don't understand where the question is coming from. I don't see it that way. What I see is, and you guys have heard me say this before, what it takes in that driver, that game, to go win the football game on offense, right? We can control our side of the ball. So the reality is, you know, if we find weaknesses or we think this is where our strengths are to do a certain thing, we're going to try to stay strong where we're strong or attack where we need to attack. If certain things call for certain things, then obviously we have to be able to adapt and evolve during the game. And I think more importantly, that's really what it comes down to, right? Our ability as a staff and players to understand the big picture as a game's progressing and making sure that we do our best job to continue to attack and try to score. And, you know, how much stock do you put in the last two games given that you've got new people making, you know, decisions over there as opposed to the first five games? I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. You've got a new coach, Steve Wilkes, and they look like they're playing well. I know you're talking about our players. I didn't know who you were talking about, whether you're talking about the opposition or you're talking about new players that we got on our team making decisions. I meant a new approach to the Carolinas taken with the third quarterback they've used this year, P.J., and it looked like they were running a lot more. There's to be. You never know. You just got to be prepared for a little bit of everything. You know, who knows what he did last week may not be the same he does this week, but it seemed like it was a pretty good formula against Tampa Bay. It was a pretty good football team, so I would think that it would be similar, but again, I don't know. We just got to worry about us playing us, you know, and playing, doing the things that we do well, playing hard, playing physical, doing the things, executing. Really, a lot of times it's more about us than it is about the other team. Yeah, you got to take care of the other team. You got to take care of the other team's good players. You got to know what they want to do in all their scheme, but when it all really comes down to it, it really comes down to how we handle things and how we play. To me, it's all about us. When you looked back at the Bengals game, did you just run into a buzz saw with a bad situation personnel-wise or did you feel like there were things that you didn't do nearly as well as you should have? Both. AJ going down certainly didn't help things, but at the same time, we got to do a better job of coaching. I got to do a better job of coaching and not putting guys in harm's way. We had a tough time matching up against them or hurt us, but then there were some other things too that, you know, very first touchdown, we fall down. So, I mean, what are you going to do? Tell the guy, don't fall down. So, he didn't mean to. It happened. So, you just got to learn to adapt. You got to put those things aside and just not let them get to you. And sometimes our youth shows up in some of those situations, sometimes that we let things linger a little too long and bother us, and if it does, it bothers you in the next play too, probably. So, that's going to be experience. You got to be able to handle adversity and things are going to happen, especially in the back end. And some of them aren't going to be pretty, but you got to kind of put it in the back of your mind and that's the part of being a defensive back and being a defensive player is you just got to let it go and you got to come back. And I thought we let it get to us a little bit and didn't panic, but I'm just saying didn't play quite as aggressive as we had in the past. Then you're playing a little bit on your heels like I don't want to give up the big play. Generally, that's when it happens. We just gave up too many explosive plays in that game. Period. I mean, you get 500 yards offense. It wasn't like they ground out 500 yards. They hit big plays and that's been one of the things we did even last year. We did very, very well as we didn't give up big plays. In that game we did. So, in my first rodeo, in the first time I've gotten my, you know, what handed to me. I mean, we gave an example the other day that I think in 2012 with Baltimore, we get on to Houston and get beat 44-7. We, in 2017 at Baltimore, we shut Cincinnati out at home 20 to nothing. Go play Jacksonville, get beat 43-13. They're in the coach in this league. It hadn't happened to them. They're in the team in this league. It hadn't happened to us. I'm sure Tampa Bay didn't think it was going to happen to them. It's how you bounce back. Now we got to see the maturity of us coming back and just getting right back on the horse and going again. We're dealing with mid-season L.S.A. it's an open competition, but oh, the actual competition and position between practice squad guys, which maybe is happening at corner right now. How do you make that decision on who you're going to elevate? How well they practice? What else would it go on, Mike? How well they could be experienced like Cornel Armstrong has more experience than those guys or did last week in terms of game experience. I didn't know how that was how they practice. If he's guys experienced, then he'll practice about it. Perfect. Topic, these standing scrums that we see at the end of carry is usually running backs where you've got a bunch of offensive linemen pushing a guy and you y'all are pushing the other way. Is there any particular coaching point from your end other than get the ball out from me my son? Cut him. Cut. Somebody got to get the guy's legs. If you keep pushing up above and they're pushing and I'm pushing, it's like a scrum and rugby. Somebody got to cut the guy's legs. Somebody got to go down there and get the guy down on the ground. The only way he's going to go down on the ground is if you get his legs. It also used to be back in the day illegal. Now you can get behind a quarterback on a quarterback, so you can push him. That didn't used to be the case. That used to be illegal to do that. You couldn't not aid a runner from behind. But now you can. It's not illegal. It's not illegal. The process behind the rule change do you know? I have no idea. You tell me what the thought process about most rule changes. I'd like to know. Probably. Yeah. There's been a whole lot of defensive decisions made over the years. Do you ever find yourself feeling for whoever the poor guy is stuck in the middle of all that? No. You're a defensive character. Yeah. Just want somebody to cut him. Yeah, coach. And just to the yards, part of it was four guys had over 25 backyards. How do you all try to cut that down? Tackle him. What do you want me to say? If the guy's got the ball, we need to tackle him. That's the answer. Yeah, that's good. That's why they had yards. We missed the tackle. It wasn't like they were wide open and had a bunch of yards. Other than the one that we fell down on, we missed the tackles. With what happened in that game, can you talk about kind of the man management that kind of goes into how you were communicating with these guys in the secondary who are in some instances thrown into a scenario where you know maybe they were preparing for it, but obviously when things are going bad, you kind of have to build them up at any point during this time. Yeah, it's like, you know, all of us, if you're having a bad day, you don't need somebody else to tell you you're having a bad day. You know, the worst thing you can do is go over there and start to berate somebody and this and that. You just, you got to explain to them. It's like, coach told me one time and it just always, it is very true. You know, here guys, and he used an example of an offensive player, so I'll use that. You know, a guy throws a guy, a receiver, a ball, and he drops it. And the coach, he always had to catch the ball. No kidding. Captain Obvious. Why did you drop the ball? I took my eyes off us. I had my hands wrong. You got to explain to them, yeah, if you got beaten man coverage, here's why you got beat. Here's why the guy caught the ball. Other than it was just a great throw, great catch, which sometimes that's the case. And tell the guy that was a great throw, threw it over the outside shoulder, guy made a great catch on the sidelines, tapped his feet in, great throw, great catch. Tell them that too, that's the truth. So just tell them, don't just say, hey, you got to cover the guy. No kidding. Why, you got beat. You didn't get your hands on him. You didn't get your hands up. You didn't turn around fast enough. Your eyes were in the wrong place. There's a reason. So whenever same thing in zone, okay, I didn't break. Well, you didn't have your feet underneath you. You were up too high. There's always going to be a reason that's what you do as a coach instead of going over there and yelling at him that, yeah, you don't want your guy to catch ball. We all know that. Like I say, the only thing that really ever upsets me anything on a player is if he doesn't know what to do or number two, he doesn't give up for doing it. Other than that, I've seen five Hall famers that I've coached get beat. Five of them. And they did something wrong. It wasn't because of lack of effort. So it's the same way I don't, I'm not going to go over there on the sideline. We're having a tough day and start berating the guys and yelling and screaming that, you know, hey, it's our job as coaches to try to get them right. And if some days you do them, some days you don't. Richie, in theory, you might be the only guy from your team starting secondary this year. What's that? Richie might be the only guy from your team starting secondary to actually be out there on Sunday. How does he progress in terms of being able to maybe handle calls and handle some of the leadership stuff you might have to do? He's doing the same thing he's always done. It isn't like all of a sudden that's what Richie does. That's what all your players do. That's what you program them to do. It's not all of a sudden like, okay, Richie, these three guys are out. Now you got to be Richie. He's got to be what he's got to be. Hopefully if we've done a good job coaching, he is progressing in that matter. That's the problem sometimes is what happens is somebody else goes down and somebody else wants to help somebody else do their job. That's when you run into trouble. Our motto is our standard is one of 11. I'm one of 11. If all 11 guys do their job, it's going to work. If I start telling somebody else how to do their job or I worry about that guy then I'm probably not doing my job right. So there's nothing I'm not asking anymore from Richie this week than I asked of him in the previous seven. Same guy. He's progressing as a safety. I think he's doing real well. He's playing consistent. He fell down. Oh my god, say hey, stand up. It's just sometimes it's just things happen and then it kind of gets you off whack and everybody gets a little bit panicky and nervous and stuff like that and that's where experience is really got to come in and play. I mean I've seen Ed Reid fall down but the difference was Ed Reid probably next probably made an interception because he was mature experience. The guys, they're going to be fine. I don't worry about this group. As far as Richie goes, he was talking to somebody about making calls and that him and Darren, you know, he makes calls sometimes for Darren. Like how has he progressed there to make reading things as he gets more experienced? I've lost Mike. Maybe he was just the same way. I'm lost. Then I continue to be lost as well. No. Go back to the Rams game. You got Dean in there for a little bit, I think in the third quarter and then before the Seoxy. You kind of mentioned hey, it had nothing to do with jail and it's about getting a guy some experience. Well you've been able to do that with me and a number of other guys. Does that help you when you reach an injury situation? Absolutely. You've found ways to bring these guys to the show so it's not like... Good point. Absolutely. I think we brought that up last week a little bit. It is and Eric Harris has played in there a little bit off and on at times and you know that's why you do those things is you try to get guys ready so all of a sudden something does happen and they can get in there. It's a little harder sometimes during the course of a game but when you have a week leading up to it then at least you can kind of get them ready even a little more. But yeah, that's a very good point.