 The rules that allow linemen to push a ball carrier these days. When you're in that scrum and guys are pushing you, you getting jostled around a lot, or is it tough in there, I guess? No, I'm thankful, getting extra push, getting extra yards. Any time before, it's always positive, so that's a good thing. 100 career games in the NFL, looking back to just like the last seven years, has it gone by fast, or has it gone by slow? How would you describe the pace the last couple of years for you? Old? No, but no, it's a blessing to be able to play in your early game. Very thankful, and I'm blessed to be able to play this game and make it this far and just keep striving and do what I can to be the best player, best teammate I can be for this team. What's maybe something you of today would have told, would tell your younger self when you first came to the league about what to expect out of my go? Watch the media? No, I'm kidding. No, I just know, just continue to grind, be grateful for the whole journey. Embrace everything, grow every day, it's always room to grow, always room to learn, be a great person, be a great teammate, and then everything else will take care of itself. Was it ever frustrating early in your career when you weren't getting a ton of touches? Yeah, it was, but it's all God's plan in his timing, and that's what you just got to understand, that his timing is always perfect. And just trust him, believe in what he's putting you through. Third quarter struggle's pretty well documented for the offense. He'll fall with the question. Ten times are the 13 first drives you guys have gone three and out. One of the things some of the other guys in the locker room have said is they're trying to raise the energy coming out of half time. Do you think that's been part of the issue? Yeah, I think so. And I think we just got four more games to try to turn it around and fix it as quickly as possible. And that's all you can do is just raise the energy, have heavy im misses on it, and then work on it out here and let it translate to the game. Why do you think maybe it's been down or is that maybe just a habit you could fall into? I think we just haven't been executing, that's what it comes down to. So gotta go out there and execute to keep the drive alive and we haven't been doing that. But like I said, we got four games left to put more urgency on it, more emphasis on it and come correct it out here during the week. So Sunday we're good at it. As you guys came in here to try to flip the page to LA, did you kind of have to remind yourself that you guys are on top of the division and still have ultimately control of your outcome? Yeah, thanks, I think you just got to look at it. You still got everything in front of us. And just continue to strive to get better because however it goes, you still got to come in and work and do your job. So I think that's just how you got to look at it, just come in and get better and focus on one game at a time. Some of the other leaders on the team have said that they want to take it upon themselves to make the environment more positive. As a leader yourself, what have you done to contribute to that? Yeah, I think, like I said on Sunday, I think leaders on this team, we got to step up and do more whatever that requires. And coach always talks about positive energy having great demeanor throughout the week on meetings and practice. And people feed off each other's energy and we're all a team, we're all a family. So we got to feed off each other and I think God's been trying to do that. You guys are maybe struggling a little bit like this, Derek. Does it help that I think just about everybody on the roster has never had a losing season here. Does that kind of, I guess, culture, is there an expectation of winning now that helps when you guys are in a stretch like this? I think just getting back to playing our style of football. And that's just the credit about how we play. If the players here are not having a losing season and going out there and do what we need to do to get a win. And like I said, just getting back to how we want to play and do the things that we do good at and do whatever we can to get a win. You guys talked about staying positive all. Jeffrey yesterday said it's motivating for him to get this monkey off his back, a three game losing streak. Is that a word you'd used to as far as what you want to try to get done? Yeah, yeah, definitely motivating. We're coming off of three losses in a row. It hasn't been that way in a while. So you're just doing whatever you can to get a win. Trying to find everything as little as possible to buy that and get a win. And work as hard as you can so that can happen on Sunday. Kevin mentioned a saying, I guess, that's going around the locker room, he says, which is a rising tide lifts all the boats around you. What does that mean to you? And what has that kind of done to help the vibe in the locker room, I guess? Yeah, I think that's a question he's asked, just what are the leaders doing? What is everybody doing to lift one another, have positive energy? Coming to work, ready to go to work, and bringing everybody with you. Coming in wanting to get better, and that affects everybody by the way you carry yourself and how you work when you're here. As part of that, what do you say to guys who maybe are struggling a little bit, that maybe haven't been playing particularly well? Yeah, just stick with it, keep working. Everybody's had struggles, I've had struggles, and that just comes with the game, it comes with the territory, but you just gotta keep working, and keep having faith, and trust to believe in the coaching, your technique and your ability, and everything that happens where it's supposed to. Maybe some uncertainty around Hussain in the last couple of weeks, what has that maybe done as far as preparation leading up the game? Yeah, sure, it's obviously difficult when you have one of your better players on special teams, hasn't played the past couple of days, or games. But it's good, Julius has got an opportunity, he's went back there at kickoff return, done a really good job for us, which has been exciting. And then we just gotta piece some other guys together and give those guys an opportunity to help us out on special teams. I'll click it on, front returns there. Do you guys generally have a rule of thumb when the ball hits for your front return, or is it just gonna lead them up to the best? Yeah, sure, I mean obviously we've had some difficulty with consistency back there of catching all those punts, and we gotta continue to harp on the communication part when the ball is kicked, punnets short like that. Usually Logan cooks a guy who averages over 50 yards, and when he hits him the ball 38 yards, we gotta come up and catch him. If we can't, the biggest part about that is communication, and we gotta continue to yell at those guys who are blocking for us to get them away from the football. So that's been a big part for this week and the whole year of just trying to communicate with those guys. As far as those guys picking it up on the bounce, do you just leave it up to their best judgment usually? Yes, and the reason why we end up doing it, we want them to square up on that ball as much as they possibly can. Because we tell them on an average when the ball bounces, we could possibly lose 15 yards of field position. So when we get a bad punt like that, we try to square up to the ball. And if we can grab it and just go down or even get two to three yards, we're winning at least 16, 17 yards on field position. Because if we let it bounce, it's gonna go 15 yards easily. Well, the team has been scuffling like you guys have been the last three weeks, trying to get off the schnide. A lot of times special teams can provide a spark with a big play here. Are those things hard to manufacture? They just kind of come organically like a punt return or a block punt that goes first score? When we try to manufacture them every game, it is. We gotta continue to provide our team a spark and give us something that we can win and help us win games. Big return, a block punt, all those different types of things. I thought our guys got a really good lift with Julius having a nice decent return on his very last one. So we'll look to build off of that, but we gotta get our punt return game going. And that's us going up and catching the ball and working up and getting vertical and trying to provide that spark. Options there as punt return. Yeah, Robert can do it, but with Don trail out. Sure, again, we're putting different guys there a lot. Mason Kinsey could be another guy that we could possibly work into it. I know he's on our practice squad, but he's another guy that'll get a look. So we're just trying to find someone who's gonna go up there and catch the ball and give the ball back to our offense. Randy's issues comfortably behind him now, are you confident in that? Yeah, sure, I mean, we're doing stuff to help him out during practice. We're not kicking him as much. And then even during pregame, we got a jugs machine out there so he's not kicking off as much. But yeah, he feels great. We're excited that he goes out there and kicks off for us and makes field goals and we'll continue to monitor his progress and try not to get a lot of stuff on his plate. The punt covered better this week, was the hang time different or what? Yeah, the first one wasn't what we were looking for. But our guys, I thought, did a really good job of just understanding lanes. We really worked on this this past week of guys just kind of staying in their lanes as much as they possibly can. Then the last two, we thought they were really good hang times and that it just allows our gunners to go down there to make plays or even stop the returner from getting vertical. And then the other guy's just gonna go and clean it up. So I thought the guys did a really good job in improving from the past week. What made Ola expendable from a special teams perspective? Yeah, Ola was a good special teams player for us last year. And I think it deals with numbers when guys are injured and guys are trying to come back and things like that. We got some guys that have stepped up and have played a role for Ola when he was down. So we felt comfortable with the other guys going in there and doing it. We wish nothing but the best for Ola. I really liked him as a person and as a football player. So hopefully he gets on to another team and does well for him. Kick returner aside from the side, I know you're hoping to get back and Julia, is anybody else in the mix there? Yeah, again, Mason, if CJ's back up, he's another guy. We're gonna try out guys that can go up there and catch it and try to provide a little spark for us in the return game. But yeah, a lot of guys will be end up getting reps again today for it. And we'll see who's fitting best for our team when we dress the 48 guys. Sunday on one of the kickoffs, on the kickoff team, I counted. There were eight of the 11 guys were not here when the season started. Is that a difficult thing to cope with? So our big thing is no excuses. It doesn't matter. We're gonna coach the guys up whether they get here in training camp, whether they get here week seven, week ten, week 11. We gotta coach those guys up and the best part about it is these guys are willing to go and do it. We just gotta continue to coach them up on everything that we are looking for. We had way too many guys over on the right-hand side when they try to hit that sideline return and it usually is just caused by one guy who will end up going the wrong way and that created a log jam for us. We got bailed out by a holding call with that. But it doesn't matter who's out there. We gotta go out there and do our job. Just about keeping good attitude and trying to stay up. How have things been maybe as far as meeting rooms and guys wanting to kind of improve their craft and get better? Honestly, it's been great to see. I mean, the guys just support one another, encourage one another. But also that kind of community correction, we know what has gone wrong. We know what has caused some of these stumbles and working to correct them. So I couldn't be happier considering the situation we're in where the mood of the group is. Production for tight ends here last few games, Todd, is that specifically been designed, are you seeing more things maybe from Jake now that he's had a few games under his belt than he did early in the season? Yeah, I think the early part of the game, absolutely. Second half, we were basically in two minute after the first couple of drives. So it became difficult to go to any of the planned stuff that way. But I think they've done a nice job. We got in that third and extra long, tried to get him the ball and didn't execute the block on the front side of it. But looking for creative ways to give him touches for sure. Is he a much different player now than in the first few games as a rookie? I think he's gained confidence and that helps guys play faster. And when they know what they're doing and how to execute it, they go play faster. And so what I've noticed from him is just that play speed translating from practice in the games, which obviously gives the quarterback more confidence to get him the football. You obviously go through the game playing with Ryan every week. And what do you like? What are you not like? Something similar ever take place with Derek and particular runs he might want against a defense or whatever? Yeah, Derek's answer is usually, I like it all, any run, I like But no, throughout the course of the week, I may have a little sidebar conversation and hey, what do you think of this one? Hey, we made a tweak to that scheme. You still feel comfortable with that. And then certainly in the game, I'll check in with him during the game and say, OK, is there one you want to get back to? Maybe it's one that he just missed a read or a cut or stumbled a little bit or something like that and he wants to see it again. So yeah, there's constant communication, particularly when a guy like that works as hard as he does. He deserves input. On the note of Derek, it's been, I think, 14 straight games since he's down the end zone in the fourth quarter specifically. Just what do you guys have to do building up to that in the second half in general, we've heard all season long, but specifically with him utilizing him down there, what it matters? Yeah, in particular, last week, we got to stay out of two minute. You know what I mean? And that is a good starting point. And then secondly, it's just that continued belief, right? Just chipping away at things, staying consistent, believing in who we are, and then not making the same mistakes twice. We've had some opportunities down there. And unfortunately, we've had some repeated errors. I'll go back and think about the Philly game in the short yardage where we had an opportunity to pour it up in there on short yardage against an advantageous look and then didn't get that ball snapped, things like that, those kind of self-inflicted missed opportunities. Do you feel like this group is responding to those types of situations where they can fix this with kind of four games left? And I know it's not all fixable, but just those little things that keep on kind of fighting you guys? Yeah, I agree with you. It's not necessarily all fixable. It's not all broken either. And that's something that I think the guys are really holding on to right now and saying, hey, there's a lot of good stuff in there too. Has it been overall good enough? It has not. And that's why we've had the results that we've had. And we're striving to make sure that we're doing those things better at a higher level and a more consistent level. But the guys know who we are and they know what we're capable of doing. And we just need to get back to doing that. On the slow start in the third quarters, guys have talked a lot about execution and energy. Can you talk to the adjustment part of coming out a half time and how it's not your 10, 3, and outs in 13 games? Yeah, certainly not something that we feel we're clicking on all cylinders coming out a half time. But we've had basically inventing new ways of putting ourselves behind the sticks. Last week, for example, taking you through that drive, we come out a half time repeating a run that we liked from the first half, made an adjustment to a combination block, didn't execute that well on the front side. But on the back side, we get an illegal chop block. Now we're first in 22. I can hand the call sheet to anybody in the stands at that point. You're behind the sticks. And you're just looking to try to get half back, get half back, and get yourself in third and manageable. We wound up in third and 27. You're not going to convert very many of those. And so we've got to avoid those negative plays. I think that we've shown as an offense that when we gain positive yards and not even necessarily big chunks in the second half, I think back to last year, that was a strength of ours coming out a half time and being able to get some things going. And so we just need to be more consistent staying on schedule so that we're not in these second and extra long, third and extra long looks. I know some play callers manage fine time at halftime to kind of do a mini script. Do you do that or try to do that? Yeah, to an extent, yes. We certainly rank what runs we want to come back to and what order, talk about complementary play passes and things of that nature. Yeah, there's a dialogue with the entire staff, again, with taking input from some of the players. We just need to go execute better, and I got to help put them in situations to do that. You called the fleet flicker on the first play out of the extra tackle package. It didn't work, but did it do anything to make the extra tackle package a little less predictable when you went back to it later in the game? Well, I think that it certainly kept that post player backed up a little bit, and they had shown versus some extra tackle of playing that post player pretty low and getting him involved in the run fit. And so I think any time you take a play action shot, you love to hit them, but sometimes just showing that you're willing to launch the ball down the field sends a message. If you wanted to create that sense of urgency coming out in the second half, have you considered going tempo or something like that? And if you have, what does tempo do for an offense on that urgency side? Yeah, and we've gotten into tempo a couple of times early in the second half. I know I sound like a broken record, so forgive me for this, but it's hard to get in tempo if you're not gaining yards. It's hard to get into your no huddle if you're not picking up first downs, because now you may have a two tight end or three tight end set on the field, and you wind up in third and seven. That's not real conducive to staying on the ball and staying no huddle. So they all complement one another, and turbo or no huddle has been something that we've used quite a bit around here, but it's difficult to get into if you're not gaining yards. I know you're searching for. What's the failure to execute, the consistency of penalties that you've had eight on those first drives? What's the message you're beating home about that, and why do you think it keeps cropping up, coming out of the locker? Yeah, I think we need to just trust our technique. I think we need to play aggressive and trust our technique and not try to do too much. Some of those penalties have been holds where we let our hands get outside the framework of the defender's body. Some of them have been being extra aggressive, like Jeff on the back side with the illegal cut block. We just need to do our job the way we've been trained to do it and not try to do too much. Sometimes I feel there's some pressing there, and that can lead to some inconsistent techniques. But overall, we just need to trust our training and go execute. Just so the guys see what we're doing, that's right now. Getting away from the penalties. You talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Is there something that you could do just to help the offensive line up front, like as a play-caller, maybe put a quick game or something like that to keep Townhill from under so much direction? Yeah, I think that we've had some mixed success with those quick game passes, and certainly that's something that we've employed throughout the course of the season. The early part of the second half, sometimes you can try to get something off the call sheet that you've had marinating there for a little while. And then sometimes you're trying to get back to something that you made a little adjustment to on the sideline. So as a play-caller, I'm trying to put our guys in the best position to go execute and play fast. And clearly, we've got to come up with the right answer for that going forward. What's the offensive line? You feel like doing best right now, I guess, if there's something we can hang its hat on. Yeah, I thought we ran the ball well in the first half last week. I thought we got back to who we are as a run offense. I thought, guys, we're finishing. I thought you saw people pushing the pile, obviously, at the end of the first quarter. Played 22 there. We were showing who we are as an offense and our demeanor. That was hard to carry over and continue into the second half because of the game situation and what we did to ourselves in the first two drives. So I hope we can build on what we did in the first half of that game, minus the turnovers, of course, and look forward to see when that looks like these next four games. Yeah, I think just his instincts, the speed, the size, the physicality, all those things he brings to our defense. So we'll kind of see all these next few days play out and see where he's at. Just two years in a row, you've had all kinds of combinations at those inside linebacker spots of injuries and whatnot. How challenging has that been for everyone? Like, what kind of effect do you think that has had? Yeah, I think just the familiarity with each other in terms of communication, understanding. You play with somebody long enough. There's kind of a second sense where you kind of know where each guy is going to be and you're confident in that. And I think you start playing with some new pieces. I think that you've got to increase the communication pre-stap to make sure everybody's on the same page. And you kind of get a feel as these guys play together more and more, you kind of get a feel of who they are and where they're going to be and how they play certain techniques. And I think all that stuff comes into play. How does a potential archer return affect maybe, you know, not only the front, but maybe the back, too. Yeah, I mean, obviously what he brings for the production, rushing the passer has been huge for us last year than obviously this year up until he got hurt. So, I mean, he's got tremendous value for us. We're kind of see where the week goes with him and how he's feeling. And he's out there doing a little bit yesterday and we're kind of see where it goes. So again, I do think it's a piece we've been missing, you know, it's tough to replace that production. So hopefully we can get him back. And I like that, maybe it's on the verge of coming back and to be an impact player. Do you have certain things in the game plans like, well, if he's available, we can use this and if he's not, we won't? Yeah, I mean, I think that with every position right now, from obviously to Nico in the front to the back end guys, I think with all those guys, we kind of have contingency plans based on what's going on. And really just our comfort level with certain guys of what we're willing to do schematically, right? Some of that stuff comes into play. So that's something that evolves as the week goes, day by day, just how they're feeling. And you kind of put percentages on it, right? In terms of what you're going to rep as the week kind of finishes out. But it is something you got to work through as a coaching staff when you deal with injuries and guys kind of questionable, so to speak. What's up with Harvard to defend from his arm string to just being able to just sling it all over the field? Yeah, he's talented. He's got an unbelievable arm. He's accurate. I mean, he's really good on the move. I think last week, I heard something 150 yards outside the pocket. So he is, he adds, there's a lot of different dynamics to him. We got to do a great job, a better job than we've been doing these past two weeks of really executing as a group, right? We got to understand where guys are going to be. We got to make sure we're challenging and ultimately we got to win some one-on-ones. Whether that's up front or in the back end, we got to find ways to win some of these one-on-ones that we haven't really won here these past couple weeks. Some of your guys are saying that he's similar to Josh Allen. You see some of those similarities in how ammitages. Is it that you already played Josh Allen? Yeah, I think the arm strength, the arm strength, being able to put the ball wherever he really wants to put it is there. I mean, I don't think they run him like Josh Allen in terms of all the scheme quarterback runs, that type of stuff. So I think they're different in that regard. But yeah, I mean, you're gonna have to defend the whole field and you better be tight or he's gonna find it, he's gonna fit it in there. I mean, you guys all saw the third down conversion late in the game last week that Keenan Allen's gloved and he found a way to put it in there and they catch him. They got extremely talented receivers on the outside and coming out of the backfield with Eckler. So we're gonna have to do a good job, make sure we're tight on these guys and contesting them as best we can and hopefully we can knock a few down. On the note of Eckler, just what makes him a more unique back to the play that you said he's used out of the back to the play? Yeah, I mean, they find him. I think he's got 93 catches on the year, which is incredible for a running back. I think anytime that quarterback feels that he's got him, he's gonna give it to him, you know? And they use him in the screen game, they use them in check downs and he's unique in the fact that he's extremely good after the catch. He makes guys miss, but at the same time, he's a little bit stockier build, he's powerful, so he can kind of lower his shoulder and gets them extra yards that way. But he's a viable option on every down in the passing game for them. It's been a while since you guys have had a turn. I think the Broncos game, Terrence Mitchell's pick was the last one. What's going on there? How can you guys generate more of those turnovers that are so precious to them? Yeah, I think it goes back to, we gotta find ways to affect the quarterback, right? To either speed his clock up or potentially get the ball off of him. And then in the back end, we gotta be able to play with some vision, we gotta be able to break on some throws and when we have opportunities, we gotta make them. Like the past two weeks, we've dropped two, you know? And one ended up being seven for them. That's a major turning point in that game last week. So we're harping. It's one thing to make them earn it, but something that goes into making them earn it is we gotta make the plays when they're there for us. Right? Like we gotta take advantage of our opportunities. What do you like about the hooker and the nickel and how much does it help that you're allowing McCreary to kind of stay outside? Yeah, I think it takes some stuff off of Roger. I do, I think he can focus solely on the outside because they are, we've talked about before, they're different positions, different skill sets of wide receivers you're going against, just the mental aspect of it. You can further enhance your learning week to week. If you're more focused on one position, you can dive into the offense even more, right? And the skill sets of the players you're going against whereas if you're learning two positions schematically for us, that might take away some of that personnel study, right? So I think it's the limitation, just limiting him in terms of what he's able to learn week in and week out has helped him. What do you want Hooker thinking that Slott is his primary position right now? Yeah, I mean, where we're at right now, everything's week to week with us. I mean, just based on who we have available, we're kind of at that point in the season right now. But he's a guy that can handle, it's a lot different asking Amani Hooker to go and do that versus a rookie in Roger McQui, right? And I do, I think there's a lot more really similarities in what we do schematically from that safety to nickel than even potentially that outside corner to nickel, you know? So in terms of some of the zone drops we do and some of the things we ask that guy to do there. So, I mean, to answer your question, it is truly week to week right now, trying just to piece together and find a way to get the best 11 out on the field. What if Roger done well during his rookie season or what are some things maybe he needs to do to do better to close? Yeah, I think just with him, it's consistency, right? I think he had a solid game last week other than really the drop pick there at the end of the half. But he challenges, that hasn't really went anywhere. I think just the details of his technique at times, especially down the field, that's showing up a few times here recently. So just continuing, it's not all about the line of scrimmage. You've still gotta be able to play on body, be tight, play with proper leverage and technique as you get on down the field. Everything isn't just about the line of scrimmage in this league and these guys are gonna continue to find ways and use their technique to find ways to separate down the field. So that would be probably one area I would kind of target for him.