 No hoods in the meeting, Paul. There you go. Yeah, but it's just the only thing I, one of the few things I ask players to do, so. I'm not a player, actually I'm not a player. Goes without saying. Hi, Teresa. Good afternoon, Mike. Mike, you talk about this team being at a crossroads. What has to happen to go the right direction? Is it offense, defense, execution? Well, it's everything. And the point that I was trying to make and that I try to tell them is that you have to be playing your best football late in the season. And that's just what happens in a national football league. There's all this jockeying for a position. Some teams every year end up with a really good record. And there's some other teams that kind of toil around. And they're kind of figuring it out. But then they continue to improve. There's some teams that kind of go in the other direction. And we've always gone in the direction of playing our best football late and improving. And we have to find ways to do that. And so there is no one answer. It's not about one particular player. It's not about one particular side of the football, all three phases. And obviously coaching, we all have to be better. Are lineup changes potentially on the table at this juncture? Well, I mean, I think we'll look at everything. You only have so many guys at this point in time with a lot of guys on injured reserve. We have guys that probably may or may not come back this week. We'll see where we are with Racy and Josh Thompson. Those guys could potentially be back. Their time is up. And Racy's been working hard to try to get back. So we'll see where those guys are this week and what we can do with them. You don't regret this very moment. I think you're always trying to look at that. I think you have to find ways to still stay balanced, still do things, and make adjustments with who we have, and looking at whether that's defensively or offensively, how we have to give ourselves the best chance to win the game. I understand that when you say it's not about one player because it's an 11-player thing. But if one player is not doing his thing or is consistently underperforming, isn't that a disservice to the other 10? And can't that hurt the team that way? Yeah. I think that that's always something that would not be beneficial. But I don't think that there's such a standout or such of you have to look at who's going to be playing in there. You have to look at some of the things. It's not all bad with every guy that you're going to tell me isn't playing well. There's certainly some plays that we can't have if we want to win at some of the positions. So we have to make sure we're doing everything we can to get the guys in positions to understand and be able to do their job and then find out if there's somebody else that we have that can help us better than that. You've kind of waved off a question about Dennis. Yesterday, you've gone through 16 defensive backs on the roster to find the right solution. But you plugged in Dennis, when Taylor went down and hadn't done anything else there, what's going to happen? Yeah, I would say after yesterday there wasn't a solution in any phase. So I wouldn't say that we had any solutions in any phase. Speaking specifically for Dennis, there are, you know, you can go through them. There's plays where I think he's doing his job. And then there's plays where we know we can't get beat inside. We're chipping for him and you can't get beat inside. And critical error in third and one, we've had guys jump off sides before. But certainly in the red zone, things are magnified. You know, I think on one of the sacks that he gave up, had Josh sweat at 10 or 11 yards at the top of the pocket. To me, anybody that's blocking Josh's sweat, if they block him at 10 yards at the top of the pocket, we're going to have to be able to step up. And guess what? Quarterback couldn't step up. So, yep, those are things that, you know, and then there were some other plays that aren't very good, that, you know, we had a backside cut off on a 4-i where, you know, he butted him under the chin, his hands were inside, and he pancaked him. But, you know, there's, when you play that position, you know, there's some things that are glaring when you get beat. So, he's going to work hard. LaRaven's going to have a chance to compete, but that's who we got on the roster right now. We need to re-mention the struggles over the last few weeks. Is that something where the opposition, is it what they're doing? What is execution not going right on your behalf? What is behind the recent struggles? In the running game, or what did you say? It's a ground game, yeah. Yeah, we got to, we have to find ways to create some space for Derrick. That, when I tell you that he's a unique player, he is. And, but also coming with that is we have to find ways to create some space. We've got to get him, you know, the X plays are coming, you know, with him at the second level. And, you know, whether he tries the corner or not, you know, that's on him. Like we hand him the football. He decides to stay front side. Okay, great. Like he decides to bounce it out on the corner. That's on him. We've given him the football and we have a lot of trust in him. And so that happens sometimes, but then other times there's got to be some space. And again, he's got to help us find that space. And so does the line and so does the scheme. It's all connected. And trust me, we're working hard to try to get it and try to figure it out and try to get him going and get our offense going so that we can stay balanced and use all those things to help us. With the lack of space that has been there for Derrick over the last four weeks, do you think your offense needs a shift in identity and is that possible to do this late into the season? Yeah, I think you have to be careful. You know, what identity would we want to go with is I guess the question. We have to understand what we think wins in this league and I'm going to remind you that it's taking care of the football. It's running the football and it's being efficient when you pass it. And those are the three things for the past 25 years in this league that has won. And so that's what I want our identity to be because I know that that's what wins and when we've won, we've done those things. And so maybe we could have run the ball a little better. We didn't turn it over, neither did they. So we didn't do enough defensively. We clearly didn't affect their quarterback. We had a 90-some rating. He had 130. So that's what I stand by. That's what I coach and teach every day. And that's what I'm trying to get our team to do. You talked about Clark earlier this year, Mike. I know you mentioned it. For anybody, him included, to come in and jump into a lineup after missing training, camp off season. Has he had enough time now or were that things might change in that regard that? Trader, anything could change right now. Yeah, I mean, just looking for ways to win a football game and looking for ways to move the ball and score in the red zone and not be 0 for 2, looking for ways to affect the quarterback and not give up X-plays and looking for ways to cover punts and pump better, you know, all the stuff that adds up. But you guys just focus on a few little things. So I'm just going to try to look at the whole list. You talked about the guys that were here with the dentists and the options that are here. With those defensive bats, you had a ton of guys who are contributing here who weren't here. So I think my question is like, why aren't you looking outside for offensive line help the way you looked outside for defensive back help when all of those defensive bats have done such a terrific job helping? You know, you have an option of finding guys on somebody's practice squad that you can poach. You have the option to sign guys off the street, which I don't know what would be there. I mean, we're looking for players that are there. You know, we've signed a lot of guys off other people's practice squad that are playing for us. So at some point, you know, we've got to figure if they're not playing for them, you know, they're going to play for us. Is Traylin at the start of the concussing protocol process? He's doing well, I guess. If that's what you're asking, he's feeling well. And we'll see how we progress us through the week. But I'm happy to see him after the game, see him when we landed, see him this morning. So he's doing well. You've been through this before, but how difficult does that make it when you've got a guy that you just don't know how it's going to look come Friday or Saturday? Everybody will have to prepare, you know, as a starter. You know, we saw that yesterday. And I think it's probably a good lesson learned by CJ and offensively, you know, being ready to go. Something happens. You had the field goal penalty against the Bengals, and then you get another one this last week. Is that just guys trying to do too much? No, I think it's ridiculous. I think it's ridiculous. So to go out there and call safe block two weeks in a row and knock the f*** out of the center and then jump off sides, like, I guess safe points are going to mean line up a yard behind the line of scrimmage and have four guys up there. I don't know. But we'll have to do something so utterly ridiculous to not get a penalty on a safe block. Who's the hit on Burks and the Jaxson Ward, the play? I don't know. I think the league office handles that. I think Troy Perry and Walt handle those. So that's not done on the field. Again, you guys should just reach out to them. I haven't gotten a response yet. Mike, do you think you can be playing their best ball this summer here in December? What gives you the confidence that this team can be playing its best ball now? Because that's our job. That's what we've always done. I'm confident in this staff. I'm confident in the players to make sure that we figure out ways to win a football game. We're strong, efficient, like we need to. There's been some teams around the league the last few weeks that have run the ball another next week that have been almost all passed. Is this team built to do that if necessary to win a game? I think we have to always find ways to give ourselves the best chance to win. And you get behind, you kind of run out of options. And you have to. We'll continue to search and find ways to move the ball. And again, get some stops. It's all complementary. It's hard to play defense in this league. Without getting turnovers, it's hard to drive the ball 85 yards to get touchdowns. See last night, the difference that turnovers make in short fields and defensive scores and special teams, X plays. You always got to get a head turned around on that PI call. But the league doesn't reward over throws. Does the competition committee need to look at rewarding under throws, which is something we've seen, I think, a lot of the last couple of years? Well, there's been conversation about it. And again, they will if you get back and you're in phase. And I've noticed that they let some contact go if guys are in phase and they turn around and they're maybe pushing the guy. So again, I think the only way to properly and consistently officiate it, this is just me talking, is that you have a standard. And the standard is if you're not playing the ball, that your contact is probably going to be penalized if the receiver does their job and makes an attempt to come back. And I think it's just so that it's consistent. Everybody sees it and everybody says, yep. Unfortunately, that's DPI. Defender not playing the football and a receiver going back and getting two arms across the shoulder pads of the defensive player. So just so that there's not any egregious mistakes. On the other side of that equation, offensive PI. When you look, now that you've gotten to see it, the double move that AJ had on Christian Fool, I mean, what is Christian supposed to do in that situation? Not sit on the row or something? I mean, I think we could say he could get over there half a second sooner. And then he'd be entitled to that space. I still don't think it's going to get called. I mean, that's what they'll tell me, is that the defender is entitled to that space. And if the receiver runs into him, it's OPI. I think we all know that that's not going to be the case. So play more physical. And play more physical as a receiver for us, too. I mean, when we're doing it. Because that's just what it's going to be. The OPI's, it's not, I didn't call. Couple of guys at the end that coverage a little bit earlier. Anything in particular that you noticed that they were getting a few of those good returns on yesterday? What'd you think? I don't know if there's anything in particular, but it wouldn't have been enough. We only thought that three of the seven punts were a vaticuit hang time. So when we choose to bang it down the field, which we feel like that's a strength of Stony's, Stony's got to do his part. And the ones that towards the end of the last two that he put were four, six, four, seven hang time, looked like we went down and covered them proficiently. It just puts too much stress. And again, we could cover better. We have to cover better. We can't guarantee that it's going to be a five second hang time. And we've been through this. You have to keep running. First guy's got to try to come to balance and make the guy go lateral or make the play. And then cast a net, get everybody in some lanes, and not let them bounce outside or stretch and cut. So it starts with a better punt. And then, obviously, the net coverage has to be better. Couple of guys were preaching together as the solution to the downturn. I understand the importance of that. But how does togetherness make up the gap in skill and execution that we've seen the last couple of weeks? Well, I think we always want to start with doing things together. And when you hit a rough patch or you go through a tough week personally, you get around people that you care about and that you trust. I think that that's important. Not straying away and getting in small groups. I think you try to get together in large groups and figure out ways to help. And I think that when you take that approach in all three phases, you get 11 guys working together. Sometimes the plays look a little better. And the communication, the coverage, whether you're in combination coverage and that works a little better or you're working up front and finding ways to help each other or offensively, finding ways to let whatever the play is, marry off. There's guys that have jobs of getting over the top, guys underneath, whatever it may be in the run game. So that's just what we've always tried to do around here and not to let guys stray and splinter. And everybody's going to have an opinion. And the one that matters is the one that's best for the team here with everybody doing it together. Racy didn't mention Kyle. Is he still rehabbing and trying to do it? Yeah. What is Racy's challenge if he does come to practice, after not practicing since August? So I think that the challenge, Jim, is that we are conscious of Racy's overall body. I think that making sure that he's recovered from his injury, but then also that we're just not, the volume doesn't get thrown on him because he's doing special teams and receiver. And his hip may feel better, but at what cost to other soft tissue? So we just want to make sure that as we work his way back and return to play that he can handle that volume because when he was rehabbing, you know, don't feel like he was able to do things that he would normally be doing to maintain his speed or that force or the power that Racy has. So I'm conscious of that. That's what I'm trying to be careful of. In terms of some of the issues yesterday that the receivers had in the past game, how much of that do you put on Ryan just not having enough time to get them the ball versus them not being able to get open? It's the same thing. You know, I mean, again, I thought we protected well enough in the first half and not well enough in the second half. And there were some times where we had some clean pockets and, you know, we have to be in spaces. We have to have spacing in zone coverage. And then we have to have route craft and man coverage. So that's, it all goes hand in hand. Back on Racy for a second. Do you need him more right now to help a receiver or on special teams if he's going to be limited in the number of snaps he can play? I think we'll just kind of see how that goes and how he feels throughout the week. What did you see from him kind of in his first exposure? Well, I know that he worked extremely hard with Rob to be ready, had some mistakes where, again, it's going fast and it's his first game action and with the game plan and things like that. So, you know, thought he did OK. I thought there was obviously some plays and alignments and execution that he'd like to have back in him. I think he'll be better the more exposure he gets. Is Chig kind of done to earn some more snaps out there and then to kind of answer the challenge and be more productive out there, too, in those snaps? Yeah, I mean, he's just working hard and understanding. I mean, he plays special teams for us and plays offense. And we've got to continue to find ways to get him a ball. We've got to continue to find ways to have him help us in the run game. It's not just a situation where you put him in there and it's a pass that doesn't work for anybody. So to keep searching for ways to, again, stay balanced in what we're trying to do.