I have no opening statement ready to go.
Steve was just talking about how Kyle was talking about they're three and ten, but.
Please don't you know to message with the team. Do now look at three and ten?
These guys can actually you know that they're on the I guess I'll swing. Does that resonate with you from what you see?
Yeah, I records. Really, you know, when losing games comes down to a lot of things that happen in a game. You know it turnovers and you make a kick, you don't make a kick, things like that. You look at the team, You look at the players that your guys are going against. You look at the side of the
ball you're out going against them. You evaluate those players, you evaluate the scheme, and you look at what the challenges and what you have to do every week, and it's just you get so I think ground down on the minutia and you try to just stay in that world of, hey, we got to take care of this, where I got to do with my job, that the big picture thing just really doesn't doesn't weigh that heavily on what the record is, are where they're headed or
what they're doing, And so you know there's tons of stories about past teams on where you have you know, you've been in a situation where your record isn't quite as good, and shoot, these games become like playoff games for you at the end of the season. Your team's building towards something next season, and so on and so. But all that stuff really doesn't matter. What we got to do is take care of business. What our job is every single play and do the best that we can.
And that's where the focus is.
Okay in Rock said.
He noticed that Jama Autives was flat footed and the fact that he recognized that before the play on Deevo's touchdown.
Is that something that you don't see as often in a young quarterback.
Uh, you know, every every guy, you know, you look at some different every single play. So I mean, yeah, I mean he's an experienced thrower. You know, he's played quarter you know, we've talked about what a good quarterback he's been through the years. As far as he's played the position. He understands the position and these are things who knows when he picked that up during the course of his career. You know, you never know. Every guy's different.
Sometimes you're amazed when a guy comes in from college football and the things he's he knows and then you're a maaze sometimes the things they don't know and you're having to teach them that. So you never know, he might have picked that up in you know, sophomore year high school football, noticing flat footed defenders and things like that, or he might have just you know, picked it up recently hearing it from somebody else talks. So you just
don't know. You'd have to ask him that, but you know he does continue to do really really good things and and things that seem to put him, you know, a little probably head of head of the curve for work guy with his experience in ages.
Is the culture here made things self sustaining sort of for a coach. I mean, do you not have to spend a lot of time or I got to get this guy going today because you know they're they're looking at their teammates to get going.
Well, I think it's it's it's both things. You know, I think that you know, you always go back to we've talked about I know John and Kyle have talked about a lot, you know, the way we have decided to draft players and you know he braw players in they haven't worked out, they've worked out. But the type of player that we bring in traditionally has been the kind of guy that we feel really good about and a guy that that is self motivated and does fit what our quote unquote culture is. I go back to
it starts. It really does start with how Kyle. The expectation of cale sets for everybody, and that I expectation if you it's in every part of the building, whether it be in the you know, the on field, off field, the way people work all those things, there's just an expectation level that it's just there's not there's not any there's not much variance or given it, and so that it kind of then becomes you know, self suttaining to a degree. But we have to stay on it every
single day. It's not like that don't come to work. I know that if I'm not doing something right, I'm gonna hear about it. If one of my players isn't doing something right, if there's a drop off ter in practice, they're gonna hear about it. For me, they're gonna hear about from other players. So there is that, you know, they work with each other. We've got a good veteran team that way, but it starts at the top and
it really does. Kyle is just very demanding of all of us and and that that expectation level is why it is the way it is. And then you bring in players that that that like that, so then they thrive in that environment, so then they do keep it going.
You see guy like Kyle you Check and tries to show you every day all the different things that he can do, and and other fullbacks around the league that seems like they've kind of embreased that more. You've been around for a while, You've seen that position kind of evolve. How much do you think versatility and being able to do that, especially at that position is kind of key a lot.
Well for us, You know, it really is, because the game is as everybody wants to take the game and become a spread and you know that's been the trend over time, and so then you you can stay with the eye formation and do the things, but being able to break out of the eye and use your full back in those other ways allows you to kind of do some of the spread things, some of the things that other teams are doing without a fullback, and yet still put the guy the full back in the backfield.
This thing is shaking and and and put you in a position that you can run some of the traditional plays that you use a traditional fullback on. There's a lot of advantages to have in a fullback, and so put him in the backfield there and be able to do things we do with him or the other tight ends. There's an advantage to how you can cut the defense, different things you can do. When you're a one back offense, you really don't there's a lot of you don't have
a lot of leverage and things like that. That's why the quarterback runs and the zone reach stuff becomes such a big thing because you regain an advantage that you
don't have with one back in the backfield. So yeah, that that advantage that Kyle gives us, and that it lets you do a little bit of everything, and that's really really cool, and that does I think the kid I know that I've talked to the guys in Miami, the guy they have their in England, whoever his name is, he he has a heck of a job doing some of the same things. So he's probably not quite as versatile athletically, but he still does a lot of those
same things. And then it's still a good fullback. That position had.
To had to evolve it away because it used to just be like, you know, the sledgehammers going well.
I think what happened was I ran into it when I was in Tampa. There's a really good guy in fact, with Frank Wychek's passing the Music City Miracle. One of the pieces of that was Lorenzo Neil, and Lorenzo was with us in Tampa, and Lorenzo was the definition of leverage. You say, what is the FIW do you get leverage? Well, you'd be about five to nine and weigh aout two hundred and forty pounds and be built like a fire hydrant. You have leverage on everybody's going to block. Well, Zoe
was that. But the problem was is that even in Tampa, where we weren't going to throw the ball a lot back in the day, he played fifteen snaps. You're paying an X amount of dollars to play that limited number of snaps, and so all of a sudden you're like, it's not worth it, and then you want to throw the ball a little bit more, do different things with different positions. So I think that that it if you're gonna be on the roster if you're going to you
can't have somebody that's that limited. So the having that be more versatile, uh, it more you know, fits, the you know, the salary, everything that goes into.
It, more blocking combinations with the.
Fullback on the field, there's more things available there really are. There's just more end moving tight ends. It's all the same thing that HVAC type position. But you're having guys that can you know, you just can cut the defense in different ways. Things that you see sometimes we have these plays that you know, you just see like it
just kind of opens up because we've cut it. You know that we build a wall this way, we knock things out this but that allows with the full back when it's one back here always and we've had one of our most productive play is a one back play without the way. I mean, the fullback might be up on the line of scrimmage, but it's we are not we don't have the cut of the defense, we don't have angles. And it's been a productive play for us this season, more productive than ever but and it's still
probably our best play. But those plays do all of a sudden, you're doing this doing it as in Bam Bam. You cut the defense and with the fullback and it gives you some more flexibility.
A prominent downfield blocking by wide receivers in this last game as they're having been throughout the season and imploring how how Kyle, how you or how Leonard kind of highlights that is that something that after a game like that, that that is sort of you know underscore.
You caught me in a minute with Leonard called Hanes Hank. I don't I've been thinking, remember Hank Hank. Okay, Hank has a hard hat in his in his meeting room and if they get a good block or heart, they get to sign the hard hat. So you know, like Jwan's on there a bunch this year, they all do. I'll go back when I was when I first started working with Kyle and Mike Shanahan and Washington. Every Friday
we had what we called the run Meeting. And what you did is you took Thursday's team run period and it started with Alex gibbson Denver and you would go He'd go in there and it would be his chance to coach all eleven guys in the run game. And that's when he would, you know, for Alex, and I can't speak for him. He rests in peace, but he would. He would get to rip everybody in the room, you know, not that he just rip his lineman. Now he get to chew out the receivers, chew out the quarterback for
not carrying out the fake. And it became his chance to kind of bring everybody together in the run game. And so I get the meeting and I'm like, oh, am, I gonna yell at Santana. I do you know all these guys. So I'm running the meeting and Coach Shanahan, as he did, he recorded all the meetings so he could he could actually punch in on a screen and watch everybody's meetings. He could go from meeting room to
meeting room and listen on a video screen. So he's listening to my meeting, and all of a sudden, the door flies open and he comes in from his office. I was in the middle of trying to run this meeting, like I didn't know how Alex did it. And he's like, hey, Coach the Santana, that's unacceptable. You got to get your ass in there and block that guy. And Coach, you got to coach him harder to go do it. I'm like,
oh crap, here we go. So so I'm like, I gotta figure out how to do this meeting because there was a very high This is a roundabout way to tell you the story, but this guy, they had a high expectation level for receiver blocking and from that point forward, now I said, I can't do it that way. So what I would do when Santana miss his block? I started going back and find another film clips of game tape where Santana did, Hey Santana, hey man, look at this,
look a look at a great job. Great job. And then this, Hey Tanner, we know you can do better thanut in this place. Same thing here. You could show Debo doing things excellent, you know, and or you and those guys, and so it's just it's the expectation, Like we spoke earlier about the expectation of the building. When we run the football, it's all eleven guys, the quarterback
care not to fake, the receivers doing their part. That expectation level was set a long time ago, and it's all of us handcaster to stay on and we all do. It's not acceptable to not do your job in the running game because as huge part of what we do. And that's why, you know, knock on wood, we've had some success. You're running the football. It's it's it's all eleven doing it.
Not just made of the Niners in pre staff motion and other names of Dolphins. I mean you know another list Kyles talked about.
You know, I can't put a defense in a vine then they have to adjust. Why doesn't because there are you know, some teams really don't.
Need to use it that much.
Why is that like when you see the effect it can have d teams like saying that's not that's.
Not for us.
Well, some systems you've heard, uh you've heard quarterbacks miked up right making mic points Mike fifty two, Mike, you know, and the more you move. Peyton Manning was when they when they beat the cheat when maybe Rex Ryan's defense and in a championship game, I think it was when the Jets made it the one year and the Colts went it was they lost it anyway he went Pole
second happens. Not only do I not want to move, I want to be in one the same formation every single step because I'll be able to know exactly what they're doing. If I just stay in this formation, I have all the tells so I can put us in the right play. So any motion would make it really hard for him to audible or check with me or do plays like that. Other teams have to have a mic point. Everything's moving right, so you have to move and get set and and it's impossible to make the identification.
So you know, we've built the system through. The quarterback doesn't have to do all that, and so the plays and we've gone through the years, it's evolved. I mean because I was with Kyle in twenty ten and then was apart for a little bit and came back together. It's just evolved. And how we identify people. You know, we came up with a way in twenty ten. Some
of that has changed with motion and movement. We've had to come up with different words as to how we do it to fix things when you have jet sweeps going this win in that way, to tell the center how to identify it properly. But because teams are their dedicate on we at the quarterback. Everybody gets set. Quarterbacks says we're going here. Everybody goes here. It sets the table cleanly, you know, we're not always clean, it's not always perfect, but there's a trade off that neither neither
are they and it's just a real challenge. And that challenge is it is it's real. I mean, Jake Brendle is challenged and as we're the centers before him and the systems to really get up there and and make sure that everybody's going in the right direction. They do
a heck of a job with it. We got to still do better because there is but we and sometimes we're like, we have all these moving pieces and you're like, oh, wow, we haven't seen that before, and you got to kind of, you know, start backst maybe we have to adjust how we're doing this or the other thing. It's all the nickel defense being played to base now. It's there's always a challenge as defenses evolved and we evolve with the
moving pieces. It's a chess match always. What do you think of Ben Barge so far and where does he fit best on your line? If you had to project, Ben's doing a great job. I was a real good friend of mine. George Warhap, who was the line coach in Jacksonville, had him and actually when we played Jacksonville, George and I got together for a breakfast and we just talked, and he's not in coaching this year. He's hopefully gets back. He should get back in next year.
He's a great coach. And George said, hey, man, they just traded for Ezra Cleveland, the Jacksonville Jaguars did, and they bumped my guy, Benny BArch down to practice squad. He said, if you get a chance to pick him up, he'd be really really good guy to pick up. And so I watched the tape and he was really good. That had a knee injury. And so when you watch this year's tape, you're, like I said, George, he's struggling. Man.
But when you went back and watched the year before, and some guys takes a guy a year after the knee takes another year. And so when you watch him and I got him here, he fits our system. He's quick guard, probably not yet anchoring well enough. At guard you're a little bit concerned as anchor and passport. That's what concern man the Jacksonville tape. But at center he's a good so he can play center as well those
interior three positions. Man, he's got the quickness he's got the length, he's got some size, and as he gets into our system, we keep working with him. I think he's got a real good fit for inside three and it gives us a chance to another good quality player inside. I really like the guy. Thank you very much, guys,