 How you guys doing, huh? That's right. Making sure I said it to everybody. That's right. It's a weird spread. Say, Ned. How about that, huh? Is that right? What was the final score? All it was. Yeah, well, they won't be. Captain Northeastern Ohio, though, right, Dee? That's all that matters. Represent. I'll tell you about the David Stringer. Oh, there we go. Yeah, so, hey, you all were able to run the ball. We got 100 second game in a row. And now I guess the goal is to win that together. Sure. Yeah, I think, you know, again, sitting up here and talking about the different things offensively. At the end of the day, regardless of how you do it, you know, you need to score points. So, you know, having the ability to go and take advantage of certain situations. When you're down in the red area, making sure you convert those four-point plays. You don't want to kick field goals. You want to score touchdowns. And then from that situation, again, you know, running the football is important. It's a mindset. It's a mentality. You know, I think every team in the NFL wants to go out there and establish the run, or at least run it well, or productively. No different than us. Complimentary into the pass game. And so teams just can't make us one-dimensional. But, again, it goes down, making sure that we have the ability to go out which ultimately is the ultimate goal. Coach talked to us about inside-outside zone. We're familiar with that. And then a pin-and-pull play, and I didn't go Google that to see what that was. Can you help us out there? You know, I can't go to schematics, right? I don't see. That's like the wishbone. Option left, option right. Take it with you right there. Again, it's just different ways to attack the defense. Inside-outside from the perimeter standpoint, attacking certain leverages, techniques, and what we feel our guys are best able to do and giving them the best chance pre- and post-snap to be successful. Yeah, there you go, D. I mean, Russ, you know, for the whole year, you know, obviously you missed some time. You come back from a lower body injury as a wide receiver. Everybody comes back differently. From that standpoint, just your conditioning, your timing with the quarterback. And then, again, you know, opportunity and the ability to make the play when it's there or if the coverage dictates the ball goes to you. And so there's been instances where you call a certain place, certain concepts, coverage takes it away, certain guys get the ball. Number one in the progression might not have gotten the ball. The reality is, at each position in a skill standpoint, backs, tight ends, and receivers, regardless if you're one or you're not one in the progression, being where you're supposed to be in the timing of the play. And that's the one thing we kind of harp with the quarterback, with the wide receivers, and everybody else in the skills, is understanding the timing of the quarterback and where you're supposed to be and why you're supposed to be there. And so, hopefully, that all kind of synchronizes in guys where they're supposed to be. The protection, the quarterback's drop is right and his eyes are right and the ball comes out on time. You feel like Matt's getting the ball out on time and not the last moment? Yeah, I mean, I think from the standpoint of, you always go back in certain past concepts overall. If it's play action, if it's drop back, if it's quick game, if it's screens, and you want to first check out, you know, make sure that the design of the scheme gave the players at least an advantage schematically to the point where they're somewhere to go with the ball. Sometimes, right, you kind of, obviously, they game plan as well. They might give you something that they haven't shown on film, you hope the quarterback and the wide receivers go back to their foundation and rules. But again, you look at each play in its own entity and you go back and there's the timing, the spacing, and the trust in the past game. Make sure that's all there from the skill position standpoint, making sure we're correctly right in who we're protecting and what guy we're going to. And then from that standpoint, making sure the ball comes out when it's supposed to come out. And sometimes, is everybody's watching the NFL or even college football, there's extended plays. You know, sometimes, at the end of the day, the defense wins in a certain position. The quarterback has to move. It eliminates half the field because he moves right or left. And then, obviously, it comes into the fact of how well can you extend the play. And that just doesn't mean take off and run. It's the receivers being able to move with you, finding soft spots, or winning versus man when you have to move. And stuff that we obviously are wanting from every one of our guys from a production standpoint. Could you talk about and just go back to what you were saying about spacing and timing and just kind of being where you're supposed to be. You kind of look back last week or maybe with Tashay Sharp or Kyle Pitts, kind of those jobs early and even maybe Russ's fumble. Can you get a little bit more specific? Not scheming-wise, but just how do you get those guys to maybe minimize those self-inflicted wounds or kind of what's the philosophy you've been in this week on focusing on that? Yeah, sure. I think it goes for every position, right? In the National Football League, in my opinion, since I've been in it as a player or coach, you look at each game. And the reality is, obviously who you're playing against are talented people. The reality is, more times than not, you're probably causing your own issues at times. Either they're pre-snap penalties, post-snap your, for whatever reason, not doing fundamentally what you're asking to do, or the guy crossing you sometimes just wins. The reality is you try to minimize the ability to not beat yourself pre-snap and then when the ball snapped. You watch on Sundays and you could argue that more teams lose on Sundays than win. I know if you just think about it that way, teams go out, and the defense is exactly what you thought they were going to do, and then you make unforced errors. And then you go back and you watch a tape as a coach and a player and you self-evaluate what you could do differently. And there's always, obviously, after wins or losses, you always evaluate things you could do differently and things that you did well. But you do. I mean, from training camp to OTAs all the way into the season, you try not to beat yourself, right? You try to stay, and I think it all goes back to your fundamentals. If you're fundamentally sound, you believe in your technique, you use it under pressure. More times than not, I think you'll be successful, at least that's what I found when you watched this game for the course of how many years. How often this year do you think you'll beat yourself? Yeah, I mean, again, I don't look at it in terms of the total, I look at each play. So I say, all right, in any given play, as coaches, did we provide the players the best opportunity to be successful? And then from a player standpoint, each position, did you do what you were coached to do, or did we give you the tools if they gave you something different to get yourself into the right situation? You know, and that's play-by-play. So you go through it, and I look at each play, like I said before, it's his own entity. And you look at what you could have done different, what you would have stayed and done the same, and how can you help your player next time? Because I've felt this for, as long as I've been privileged enough to be in this league, is that as a coach, your best tool you can give the player is the ability to help them. And when a player thinks you can help them, regardless of if you've ever played that position or never played that position, it doesn't matter. If you can help that player become a better player, and you can prove it time after time, then you've gained that trust with that player. So it's constantly reevaluating. Are we making sure, as coaches, that we're doing a good enough job to help our players through scheme or fundamentals? When it comes to the production of the run game that we've seen over the last two games, how much do you kind of think about the uptake as a byproduct of this unit being more comfortable in the concepts that y'all have put in and how it's kind of taken time to get to this point? How do you kind of look at it that way? Yeah, I think for me it just, it goes back to the fact of what I've said in previous press conferences about you go out there, pre-practice, and you watch the individuals. You watch the fundamentals we're going through. That's just not the backs or the tight ends or the wide receivers or the old linemen. It's everybody in sync, and it takes all 11, and they've constantly stayed true to the commitment of working their fundamentals. And to me, through the course of time, guys believe in what they're doing, consistently staying with it. You do believe you'll get production. And to me, you saw guys, players, with an individual commitment and a unit commitment to continue to work their fundamentals and become a closer unit by doing so. And then hopefully you get the production and hopefully we continue to do what we're doing. I've found in thinking about the idea of playing and completing the goal of what you want to get to. And I was just kind of curious, and I'm asking every coordinator this, but from your unit specifically, what does a complete game look like, maybe from a 5,000 foot view? Yeah, to me, it goes back to what you want it to look like when you put the film on. So it's about the speed in which you come off the ball for all positions. It's about watching your guys play confident, knowing what their assignment is, and obviously executing it. Again, plays, scoring obviously is what you want to do as an offense. But I'm just saying stylistically, when you put the film on and you watch it, you want your offense or whatever unit you're working with to represent the core beliefs of what you want the players to look like. And to me, it's a speed off the ball. It's the confidence in running. It's being physical with the ball in your hands. It's applying pressure to the defense by doing those things. So again, it's a goal each day. It's not just something you wish or hope to have happened. You obviously have to preach it. And it's a daily thing. So as we continue to move forward through this season, it's today we'll ask the players to do the exact same thing. Come off the ball. Understand your assignments. Play confident, play physical, play fast. Arthur is very dedicated in you as well to not discuss skiing. I'm not going to talk about anything that even bumps up again. I got you. That's been clear. I got you. Has that made your mantra your whole career? You get some of that from him. Where does he follow? I'm just not going to get into this. Sure. I don't think I've ever coached for a head coach who or that has not been the policy. Again, right? I understand you could put the film on. You can see what guys are doing. The reality is you want to, you don't want to give any potential advantage to your opponent in my opinion. So you keep things in terms of close to the vest. You want to make sure that your players understand the importance of that. But again, I just don't think from my standpoint, from the scheme to how players play, I always think the importance at this level, scheme's important. There's no doubt about it. But how your guys play is just as important. And to me, that's why I always go back to how you want them, how when you put that film on, is it what you want it to look like? And so scheme to me, like, you know, there's a, I don't know if anybody's reinvented a play, or invented a play in 2021 that hasn't been done over the course of whatever years. Maybe people haven't seen it because it happened 40 years ago, but the reality is there are probably a lot of smart people who've coached and played this thing for a long period of time. They've definitely, they've definitely figured some things out. It just, you might see a different wrinkle of it in 2021 that happened in 1981. Is Arthur's policy on that? Is that a spoken, does he say, we're not going to do this or do you just understand? Yeah, I don't think I need to have him tell me. At the end of the day, I think, you know, scheme is obviously, we hold it dear. It's important to us. So we just don't, I just don't discuss it. I don't want to speak for him, but I don't discuss it. I'm sorry. You know, I have not, I have family members and friends who do and they, and I've heard it's awesome. The reporter or somebody asked Tony Dungey, how would you defend Peyton? He said, tell me just told him. He just laid it out there. Oh, is that right? And so Peyton was furious. Yeah, sure. If you had any. No, I had, no, I am sure. That was much as I know of Peyton. I'm sure that wasn't probably what he wanted to have happen out there in terms of how to defend him. But again, the top, whatever player of all time, I'm not sure anybody really defended him the way he played. But yeah, that's part of the reason, right? You go out there, you don't want to give anybody any inkling or an idea or a spark. Oh, maybe we should, you know, you just want to, you want to be able to go into Sunday with them having no particular advantage in that. Play the fifth on that. You know, you try to gather as much information as possible. You also understand that, you know, you have to sometimes read in between the lines and, you know, again, the games are so close mostly, right? Come down to fourth quarter situations at the end of games. You know, you try to gain any advantage legally that you can. But yeah, I mean, anything you can get, you try to use at your advantage. And sometimes you got to pilfer through all the information. Sometimes there's nothing. No, but I was, and I shouldn't name where I was at, but before the pros, I was a player and we'd have guys trying to go through garbage cans and stuff like that to find things. And to me, I'm like, as a player, you're like, that sounds great in theory, like snap the ball. Like I got three seconds to make a decision. What you told me 10 minutes ago about what they may do is probably not going to enter into my thought process with less than three seconds to throw a ball. You know where you went to college, right? It could be before that. We know where you went to high school. Yeah, great school. We're in great school. There's no play that's ever, do you sit there and sometimes design, even though you're not the player, do you sit there and sometimes design plays and be like, I don't know if anyone's ever tried this. Do you have a sketchbook in it where you do that? Sure, absolutely. I mean, I think of any coach that goes through the course of offense or defense and you think you have a light bulb moment. I will say this. I think I'm smart enough to understand that anything I think that's original is not original. There might be a wrinkle to, hey, I haven't seen this on film yet. The reality is I probably haven't watched all the film possible to see that. To me, when you think about scheme, obviously you have players and you try to fit it to their best ability. But the reality is from a play standpoint, I think it would be hard, I think decoupling as long as you have it, I think it's hard to find a play that no one's seen before in the national football league. Coach, I want to go there and see something Tori was asking about earlier in terms of the run game, just looking at activating Kavir Allison for the new game as well as last week. Sort of what was the thought process behind him and if he gets going this Sunday, what do you see that he'll bring to the table, whether that's from actually running, blocking just... Sure. I think it comes down to, and I think you can look at the backs, I think you can look at other positions, it comes down to competition. That's the great thing about, you know, being part of this organization is competition matters. And it matters on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, it matters on Saturday and meetings, walkthroughs, everything, you know, we film things, we watch things, as a staff, everything's important, everything matters. So at the end of the day, regardless of if it's a particular person or a group, you know, you're always competing, you're always going out there and you're trying to bring out your best and the person who's competing with you is trying to bring out their best and hopefully it brings out the best in both of you. So... Anything specific in maybe last week's game that you liked about what Q did? Q to me, you know, from a standpoint of a player is, comes to work, he's professional, he knows his assignment. And just like a lot of guys, right, you have to be ready, you never know when your opportunity could arise. And again, anybody that we feel that we dress specifically on offense, we have confidence in regardless if it's the same person we can week out or it's a new person coming in and it's no different for Q. One more question on Hayden Hurst, obviously coming back from IR, if he's a go on Sunday, especially when you look at him having 20 catches on just 25 targets and just how good he is on third down. How good will that be? How important will it be for you guys and particularly mad to have that other weapon? Sure, yeah, and we'll see where, again, I'm not going to get into where Hayden is in terms of yes or no, but just obviously there's history with Hayden and Matt being together here. Hayden will come in like he has with a professional mindset and know what he needs to do, be where he's supposed to be and if he's up, we expect the same thing from that situation. We didn't ask about Kyle Pitts and... Well, you didn't ask about someone else, though. No CP question. I mean... You're saving it for Dean. I got you, I got you. I was just on Kyle, because I counted them, 16 to 32, Kyle would be, you know, proof of our representability. Since the last step by Gilmore, what's going on there? How do y'all try to get him going? And, you know, the step by Gilmore, is he still playing on a high level? Yeah, I mean, I think you look, again, you see where they're ranked statistically defensively. He's obviously a very good player and he's just one of many on that defense. And again, we talk about, you know, stylistically, Carolina's defense plays fast. They can apply pressure from all different, not just the front, but the backers in the back end. They play aggressive. They understand, you can tell they're well coached. My former teammates, the back end secondary coach, you know, he was a smart player. It doesn't surprise me that he's a smart football coach. And not until they get the most out of that group, that group, you can tell plays fast. And there's an identity to how they want to play football and they've been successful this year doing what they're doing. From Kyle, Kyle's the same thing as at any other player. Go out, end of the day. Kyle relies back on what he's doing on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, which would be the fundamentals. And when his number's called, if he's won the progression, the ball dictates the ball goes there. Great. If not, Kyle will work his route wherever he ends up in the coverage. The ball dictates it goes to him. Awesome. But, you know, it's been the same for each player. Go out, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, compete, stick to your fundamentals and Sunday hopefully is a by-product of how you practice and hopefully you practice well. All right. Thanks, everybody. No. All right.