 How's everybody doing? How are you? I'm great. A little warm. But they're not great. Coach, we saw a little bit in the first game of you all coming from everywhere. How's everything going with the installation of the defense? The installation is going well. The guys were really kind of bought in. You know, the great thing was we had great participation in the off season. You know, with the Zoom meetings back in phase one and then with the OTAs, we had a great attendance. So that really helped especially being a new system and new staff. My hat's off to the players being here for that. And then it's going well. You know, the practice organization that Coach Smith is unbelievable. And so we've been able to get a lot of stuff in and get a lot of work done. And you know, how's the front in a defense going? I just want to go from the front to the linebacker to the secondary if you could. Well, I mean, they're all tight in. I mean, in all these things, everybody's got a job to do and they're multiple. They're multiple stuff up front that those guys got to know and there's multiple things in the back end. What makes it really multiple is the fact that sometimes you can do the same thing in the front and change. Do the same thing with two or three different coverages. And then there's also some things where you can do a bunch of things up front different and keep the same coverage. So sometimes when we talk about multiple, it's not everything multiple. It's not every time you make a call. Okay, the defense is the front is this and the secondary is this. And then when you change another call, we can run two or three different pressures up front but play the same coverage or we can run the same pressure up front and run two or three different coverages. So that's what really makes the thing multiple. Where does your philosophy on pressure come from? Where did that evolve for you throughout your career? It's just, it's really what's happened in football. I mean, obviously I've been around it a very long time. And 25 years ago, teams weren't throwing the ball 50 times a game. And everybody geared up to stop the run. There weren't a lot of different formations. There weren't all these jet motions. There wasn't RPOs. There wasn't all that stuff. So basically your defense was a lot simpler because the offenses were a lot simpler. So everybody's got to always play catch up and when the offense has changed and really started opening things up and all the motions and stuff like that, then all of a sudden you've got to change your defense. You can't sit in there and play vanilla defense anymore. And so you've got a choice. You can play vanilla coverage or you can try to get after them a little bit and start pressuring. And sometimes if you can pressure it can, you know, they got their set of issues over on offense too. They got to figure it all out too when the ball snapped. So it's a little bit just over time. The game's changed and it's just changed a lot. And so it's the old days of lining up an I-pro with two tight ends. Those days are gone. So you got to evolve with it. And I think part of that is pressure on defense along with a lot of multiple coverages. When you made the decision to retire for the second time, what was that conversation like? Not necessarily with Arthur Dutton, you said January and Arthur Dutton. What was that conversation like with your family saying, hey, I know I'd said I was going to do this, but now I'm going back. It wasn't difficult at all. I think number one is everything, when it comes to family, it's all basically I'm talking to my wife about what she thinks. And I think she knew how much I missed it. I was doing a little radio for the Titans on Friday afternoons during that off week. And the worst thing they did was I was allowed to... I went to the Titans and I asked them if I could watch film and during the week and be kind of up to snuff on the offense that we were playing. I never talked about the Titans ever, offense or defense, nothing. I didn't think that was fair, but I would talk about the upcoming opponent's offense and what they were like and what was good, what was bad, what to look for, these kind of things. So the more film I watched, the more I missed it. I think my wife knew that I really kind of really wasn't ready and I kind of wanted to get back into it, but at the same time I was not... I wasn't going to go out there and make some phone calls or tell anybody necessarily that that's what I wanted to do. She knew it, but that was about it. And then I got a couple calls from a couple people that were going to interview for jobs. I really kind of told them I wasn't interested and then it was different when talking to Art. I mean, because I knew Art, I knew what Art's like, our relationship, and I wanted to work for somebody that I knew, totally trusted, believed in, and so I said, yeah. And I asked my wife first, like always, and she says, I know you want to do it and then it's fine with me. And she was on board totally. The other thing is that I don't think sometimes people quite really realize what a family affair this whole occupation is. I mean, I've been doing it for 48 years and I remember my grandson when I retired, looked at me, one of them, I got nine of them, one of them looked at me and said, I'm going to go to grandpa, whom I'm going to root for. And I didn't really realize how much they, it's a part of their life too. And my daughters and I got my son, I got five daughters and they all were kind of like, what Jersey do we wear now? Do we wear New England? Do we wear Baltimore? Do we wear Tennessee? Who we root for now? So it was good for them to put on a Falcon's Jersey. Who last year? I don't know. I don't know who they root for. You know, one little guy likes Tennessee, somebody else like Baltimore, they all kind of like different ones. And I think some of them went back to rooting for the team they rooted for when they were little. So I don't know. We just, but I think they're all excited to be back. It's family. It really is, it's just been such a big part of our life. And the fact that they, you know, they get to meet the players and get to know these guys. And I said, you know, they're just living in a little different world. You know, they, they think it's pretty big going to school and telling them, you know, I met, you know, Grady Jarrett and stuff like that. So they think that's pretty big. Tori Vinchels? Yeah. Kind of wanted to get into the weeks a little bit. We were talking to Eric Harris a couple of weeks ago. He was saying he went into this whole big field about how you were teaching concepts, not necessarily positions. And I was hoping you could kind of speak a little bit to that and maybe go into more depth as to maybe what he was talking about. Well, yeah. I want to be careful going into too much depth on that thing. But what I will tell you is that a lot of times corners learn how to just play corner out there on the edge. Our corners learn how to play rolled up corner. They learn how to play half safety. They learn how to play the curl. They learn how to play the hook. They learn all the different spots in coverage. Man coverage is easy. I mean, I got my man, you know, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying it's relatively easy. I know who I got. But what we do is we teach all the defensive backs, all the positions like in zone coverage. So they got to know them all. And the reason we do that is two reasons. One, I went through a year one time in the NFL where we started eight different corners during the season. And we won Super Bowl. The key was is that every corner can't play man to man. Every corner can't play his own. Every corner can't do certain things. They can do certain things well, certain things not well. It's up to us as coaches to make them do the things that they do well for us to put them in those positions to do that. Well, you got to change a lot every week. And so it was that along with the fact if you want to be multiple, then you can move guys all over the place and people don't really know, you know, if I got a corner standing out here in the half field or all of a sudden now he's a corner and he's Blitzen or now he's a corner and he's playing the curl, you know, the offense has to try to figure it out. So it's that kind of conceptually. Same way with the linebackers, you know, inside linebackers know how to play outside linebackers. Outside know how to play inside. All the defensive line know how to play all three positions. You can move guys all over the place. And so you learn instead of memorizing your position, you learn the concept of the defense. It also helps you understand the problems the other guy might have. So if I'm a corner and I'm playing cover two and I'm close to jam the receiver so he can't get deep on the safety. Well, once you put the corner back there in a half field, he now knows what it's like if you don't jam the receiver. So he's all of a sudden has a different respect for the guy that's behind him. And same way with the linebackers. So that's kind of what it is conceptually. We were talking, I was talking to Marlon Davidson the other day, he made a comment that he was like one of the things that Coach Pease comes up and says to me all the time is that we want you to be, I want to see the guy who we've seen on film. Can you speak to what that comment means for his development? It means it's the guy that does the things right. You know, I don't want to see the guy on film that did something wrong. But I've seen things. I told like, you know, somebody asked me in the introductory press conference when I first got here, you know, what I thought of the defense. And so what I saw the defense is what they did against Kansas City last year. That's what the expectation is. They played the heck out of Kansas City last year. As good as anybody did. Well, there's some other games that wasn't the case. That's not, I'm not looking for the other cases. I'm looking for the one, you already showed me you can do it. So now you just got to be consistent in doing it. That's what he's saying with Marlon. I know what you can do, do it. And that's what it is really from everybody. You know, the expectation when you do something, that's what the expectation is. That's why you should be able to do it every time. And why wouldn't you? So that's kind of it. And you know, it's not realistic to think that the guy, everybody's going to play a perfect game every time. They're going to make mistakes. And the other team's darn good. You know, everybody's got good players. But you can't let your expectations down. So that's all I'm doing for him. It's just like everybody else, we just want you to, the guy that I saw do stuff right, this is the guy I want to see out there every day. You were talking earlier about your scheme, your scheme and pressure. Great jersey guy who from the time he came into the league shows his shown ability to pressure from the inside. Almost could have been, obviously, going to be a super ball. How does that sort of make him a bit, for your defense? Well, the reason Gray is a good fit is two reasons. One, well, three reasons. He's tough. He's a good athlete. He gives effort. And he's smart. And so those three things you ask for in all defensive players and Grady's epitome, epitome of that, he's really understands football. I mean, but add on to that talent, which he has tremendous talent. He fits into our scheme very, very well. I knew a lot because he's great friends with Ray Lewis. And so, and I say in touch with Ray all the time. And so I already knew watching him on film and stuff. But as soon as I got the job, I called Ray. And that was the first thing I wanted to find out about, you know, Grady the man and all good. That's my business. But I just said it was all good. All good. There's a lot of athletes in sports who haven't butted in yet. Maybe they've done a lot of talent. Maybe they don't get everything out of that talent. Any of guys like Grady who's barely recruited to Clemson who just, you know, has seen people achieve because he's kind of had that at the end for years. When you ask a hallfamer about somebody and you get a good answer, I'd say that's pretty legit. I can't recall if it was Grady or AJ, but somebody had called your defensive scheme user-friendly. And how important is it to be user-friendly, even if it looks complicated to the quarterback or to people who aren't actually operating? Well, I would hope, I would think everybody's offensive and defensive user-friendly. I don't think you would ever, I mean, offensive guys are going to make it user-friendly for their talent, too. I mean, it is what it is. You know, that's something they have to speak to. We just do, we're trying to put guys, try to evaluate guys' talents and what they do well and try to put them in positions so they can utilize those talents. That's, it's, it's not rocket science. It really is. I mean, if you got a quarterback that can run like heck, why would you make him a drop-back quarterback? If you got a drop-back quarterback, why would you make him run? RPOs and Zone Reap. It's not rocket science. If we got a bunch of guys that can run and pressure, then run them pressure. If we got a bunch of guys up front, like I had in New England at one point in time that are big four guys or a New England, I had Richard Seymour, Will Fork, Ty Warren, guys 320, 340, 350 pounds. Well, I'm not going to really move them a lot. I'm going to let them just pile it back a little bit. So it's just, whatever you got, you know, you got. And it's just, to me, user-friendly. It's just taking the talent and putting it in positions so they can be successful. I'm just curious. I know you have a history, obviously, working with Archie Schmidt, but what's it like working with a now as a head coach of a team? What have you seen in him as being a head coach without him? Fantastic. Everything that I expected it would be, it is. The thing about Arthur is that he has, there's some guys, and you know what, I haven't been around too many. Really, the only rookie head coach I was with was Raebel, because everybody else was, Belichick, Sabin, all the old guys. And Harbaugh had been there a long time, you know, but he was kind of a young coach, but not, he had been going. I've never seen a young coach like Coach Smith already have thought out every structure of practice, of meetings, of all the stuff that he does. We have an unbelievable teaching schedule and practice schedule, and that's from him just sitting down probably over the years saying, I like this, I like this, I didn't like this, I did like this, which is what you should do, but it's just, it's been, it's not like you're with a rookie head coach. I mean, I've been with some pretty good ones, and he's right, he's right. I'm just shocked that it's not like, it's like we've been doing this for a while. I'm just super impressed. You mentioned, you don't want like vanilla defense, so how would you kind of describe, what do you want your defense to be or look like? Attacking. That's what I want. If we can get it done, that's what we're shooting for, being an attacking defense. And thank you. You guys good? One more coach we didn't ask you about, Dante Fowler, how he's been coming along and how does he fit in this, you know, your defense? Coming along, coming along great. It's been, since he's been back from that COVID thing, it's just gotten better and better and better every day, and he fits great in this defense. Anybody can rush a passer, it's gonna fit great in this defense. And so, and he's got speed, and he's a smart football player too. He's, you know, he's, you guys get it. We really got a group of guys, you know, who knows how anybody's ever going to be. But I'll tell you what, we got a group of guys that are bought in and are working hard and they get it. And I mean, they want to be good. And so that's half the battle. Right down on Zach here. So we can give him his back. Okay, what is it? Okay, just real quick. With your attacking style defense, this season, Brady said that his goal is to have 10 sacks. Do you think that that's possible in your scheme of defense? Got no idea. I've never, I've never put that on anybody and never put a number on anybody. You know, I'll tell you this, somebody mentioned it the other night, I'll just tell you, two years ago, the team that lived the NFL in sacks was 31st on defense. Which would you rather be? No?