Lot of people thought he would struggle, and I don't know how you felt, but it seemed like he stood up pretty strongly. What was your.
Evaluation, Jaalen had a really good game. Yeah, Jalen and Aaron both played very well in the game. On on Monday night, Jalen was, Yeah, you know, we talked about last week. I said, you know, he'd improved, and I think I said, but you still got to go out and do it. And and he did. He went out and had a nice game and even flip ninety nine over there a couple of times, and he held his own over there and did a nice job. I was
happy with Jalen's play, and it's happy for Jalen. You know, he's always been in that role where Trent's been down a game or two and he's had to play and and some some games better than others. It was good for there.
Is there a common theme that you guys need to do to kind of spring that running game going again?
Uh, you know, it's a little bit of everything, you know, it's uh, you know, Kyle talked about the Cleveland game just how we were. Everything was long yardage, you know, every single time, whether it was a run, whether it was a screen pass, whether it was a penalty, you just end up behind eight ball and you can't ever generate. You can't ever get in that rhythm of you know, run first down, run run first down, you know, just
that rhythm of a of a long sustained driver. Were able to keep getting runs and pop one, and then we just haven't had the big, the big breakout run recently. And then we just haven't been able to sustain as much. You know, we moved the ball, we punted one time, we turned it over. But turnovers, penalties, negative plays, they all stop you from really establishing a run game. I don't think it's anything more than that. You just can't
get into a rhythm of this call. This call leads to that call that sets up off of this play. And uh, and give the defensive credit. You know, Minnesota and Cleveland did a really nice job and uh, and we didn't execute as well as we could have. Christian in particular, he's so dominant the first four games of the season, the last three started with Dallas. His yards per carry has been down.
Uh.
What are you seeing with Christian in particular? No, it's I think it's along the lines of what we're talking about. I do think that, uh, if teams do come over with the mindset that they're not gonna let him go, you know, they're gonna do whatever they can to shoot the first player Dallas game and try to rip his head off. You know, there's that, there's that feeling of we're not gonna let this guy run. Secondly, is we're just haven't established we haven't given him the lanes that
he needs. We haven't give him the space he needs space that we did in the first couple of games, and that the last couple of games, it just hasn't been there. And you create that space by blocking them better.
You create that space by having more throws. That opens up the running game a little bit more, which allows him and then and then he's also able to I mean, you open up the Cleveland game making about four guys missed and having a nice thirty four whatever the run was, and they attacked the fifteen on at the end of that. But again, it just wasn't there consistently throughout the day for all the reasons I stated a little bit earlier.
But it's not anything they're doing, it's not anything he's doing. It's it's we're just not as productive these last couple of games, and that's in all areas.
A lot of speculation outside the building that after Brock did the sneak, maybe that's where he used to stand the concussion about how his play might have changed after that after watching the film. What is your opinion?
Yeah, I can't. No, I don't know anything about I don't I can't speak to when it happened, how I don't know anything about that. I really don't, and I'm not in that meeting with the medical staff and then all the things like that, So it's hard for me to say that, I'm.
Sorry, really dominate in that push push, whatever you want to call it, quarterback sneak. Everybody's loaded up. You can substitute freely in the NFL, have you guys discussed the possibility of putting, you know, your best personnel power wise, maybe a Feliciano, maybe a huge check, Maybe you take the quarterback off the field and all the different things that you potentially could do in a quarterback sneak scenario to give yourself the best chance for success.
Yeah. Our our sneak rate has been has been productive. We had the one sneak where we we jumped the ball and tried to run it. That's the one we're talking about where we didn't get it, and I think he took the hit I think on that play, I'm not sure, though, I think that was it. And then and then we ran another sneak the very next play. It was more advantageous. We've been all about running advantageous sneaks and not just saying hey, here we come, we're
running sneak with Jimmy. We could do that a little bit more. I think each quarterback is different. Through all my years of coaching, there's you know, I always prefer to Peyton, but Peyton was not a sneak guy, where Steve McNair was a better sneak guy, or Trent Dilfort was a good sneak guy, whereas some other guys you know, weren't. So there's always that thing of some guys are better at it than others. I think, no matter how you did it with the guy from Philly, they'd be good
at it. There is that play right now, that's that's going around that everybody's been been working on and doing, some with success, some that haven't had as good as success, and so I just think it comes back to your guy and what your philosophy is on third and one. It's been a pretty productive third and one year four us up to this point, and knock on wood, we got to keep it going. We had a missed last week on that play, but we were able to get it on the fourth and one. So with a sneak again.
So we're a little bit more about not so much saying hey, here we are, we're running sneak. Everything in our offense is about you do this, it builds and then we can have this and we do you know, we take advantage of what you do and kind of build things off each other.
Mcavy's three film malls. It's not normally something that he does. It's is it kind of a fluky thing or is it something in particular fun?
Yeah, I would say that the only one there was one that I would say was probably he wasn't probably one down, and he was pretty good with the one in Dallas, but it was just taking the guy on head on where the ball was he was trying to secure it. He's excellent with ball security and sometimes it just happens they hit the ball just right. Obviously, they're they're coming after him trying to get it out, and he really this one was fighting for extra yards. He's
going down. It's hard to see that he wasn't securing the football properly. He just got hit just right this past week, and I would say that was kind of the same way in the Dallas game.
How much since he's lying. I mean, readers all load and the ends are both real active compared to other teams you guys have played, do they play a lot of games up front? What stands out when you watch the film.
On the Bengals Bengals defense from the pass rush standpoint is the two ends with great effort. I mean, ninety one is a great effort. He's a great bull rusher. He's a great edge rusher. He plays without standing energy and effort. He's got great get off the ball, which is a pretty consistent theme of all good rushers. They get off on the snap. Whether you see him at their home stadium where they're having the advantage of the team in silent count, or whether they're at your place.
They just have great get off. They study the film. Miles Garrett was a guy great get off, That's part of his game. Where he's a half a step ahead of you before you even can can get out of your stands. Both those guys and then the guy Hubard on the other side, he gave us fits when we played there a couple of years ago with Compton. He he got after us really good. We had to we had to help over there and do some things to stay in that game at the end. And uh And
both those guys inside players are good, solid rushers. They have a very very solid, good rush plan, whether it be there they're different double A gaps, their fronts that they get and things like that on third down games pressures. It's very well thought out, very well coached. Uh. So you not only have good players doing it, you've got a really good scheme to go with it.
Sounds like this route locker room had a lot of took a lot of responsibility for the loss. I mean each player said took responsibly for their own particular mistakes. Is that special about this locker room, even more so than what you experienced the mass?
Yeah, I'm just these guys are all we all. I think the thing about it is starts with our head coach, you know, Kyle is about it's football and so instead of that, it's never a woe was me. It's never it's it's about coaching football. And you're gonna look at the You're gonna look at the game. You're gonna say, hey, coverages, You're gonna look at blocking schemes, you're gonna look at production, you're gonna look at reads, You're gonna look at everything.
You say. You're gonna coach football. And I think the players are that way as well. You're gonna say, hey, we're you know, I didn't do as I was coached to do. You know Colt mckibbitt's would say to me, He goes, yeah, I said, what happened? He goes, Well, if I'd just done what I was supposed to do,
I wouldn't have had the problem. But I didn't. I did X, Y or Z, and I didn't pick them up and and and they're very accountable that way that we all work together, and it's not like, well do what I tell you or that's it's everybody knows exactly what we're supposed to do. There's a good understanding of our offense, our defense, our special teams, and so when it doesn't work, it's never about he said. She said, it's very definable. It's very football driven, it's very schematic driven,
and say, this is what it is. It's never about effort. Our guys are. They play their tails off every single week. It's it's gonna be about the execution of the fundamentals or not recognizing something that you know, we worked on consistently through the week, or maybe we didn't give enough reps and it's our fault that we need to give them more reps at it so they can see it.
But they'll always take the accountabiliy. And you know, I can think of a number of plays from the last game where it's just you're like, we should have done this and we didn't, and uh, why we didn't do it packed reps, We just didn't see it, we hadn't done it enough, whatever it was, I can't tell you.
There's a lot of feeling. There's a lot of uh, not a lot of feelings in football. Coaches are direct with players. Coaches are direct with coaches. Kyle came out and said that Steve messed up a call on the podium. How does that sit with coaches when when a coach acts, you know, criticizes you publicly and kind of directly. Is that just part of the territory. Is that something easy to deal with hard to deal with?
It is for me, I mean, I'm it's easy to me. It's it's it is what it is. The hardest thing is is you can't you say, well, nobody really understands when you say that, because I don't know. It's hard to explain to people that aren't inside working it every single day. It's it's a it's a very you know,
it's a lot that goes into it. But in the same sense, you can't hide and say, well, there's nothing wrong and and so you just admit it and you live with it, and you understand that the court of public opinion is going to be what it's going to be, and some will understanding that you have a good understand of what you're talking about. Others won't. And that comes
with the territory. With the job. You know, the more people sit out here, the more people fill those stadiums, the more people internet, all the things that go on with it. I know that one thing's happened through the
course of that time is salaries have gone up. And with that salary comes you have to take the heat for the job that you do, and you have to stand and be accountable for the things that you do because there is more people, There are more people interested, There are more people that are analyzing you on television and radio and everywhere else. And it comes with the territory. Man, It's what it is, and you have to understand it.
You know, you control what you control, and what you do control is the job that you do and whether somebody appreciates the job you do or doesn't. And when the head coach, if he wants to stand up and say the offensive line didn't play well enough, he's the head coach. He's in charge, and that's does it bother me? You didn't play well enough? So that opens up to you guys that then look at it and evaluate the film and say, God, they did stink that game. We
did or we didn't. You know, however, it is and that's a fact, and you just got to live with them. The guys got to live with them. You got to come back and play again. I like it, you can tell when I talk to you, guys. I like everybody gets to learn in football. Everybody's to know football. It's a cool game. It's a cool sport. It's a great team sport. It's so it's so hard, eleven guys working together to get this thing to go, and it's it's really cool. And when it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
And a lot of times you gotta take the heat for it, and the players have to take the heat for it. That's that comes with the territory, man. But but it's it's still the it's still the greatest thing to step out there. I tell those players, you know, I get to be as close as I can be to and I love about you. Guys got the greatest thing of all. They can step across that wind line.
They can compete every single Sunday, and it's a it's it's it's amazing how the level of competition, the level of talent, how how hard it is and how hard is everybody's got to be on point. And if you're off just a little bit, just a little bit, all of a sudden, you're down fourteen nothing, or you've got three tackles for loss, or you've given up two sacks, and it's it's the margin of error is so small and and it demands that and that's why when somebody
says he you didn't do enough job. Yeah, we didn't, because you have to be on point and that's why you just accept In my opinion, you accept it and you and you roll with it. So thanks guys,