All the injuries for today. Eric Armstead for knee won't practice, Dwelly ankle won't practice, Hardgrave hamstring won't practice, Tarvarius Ward growing won't practice, Burkes knee won't practice, green Law Hippen ankle won't practice, Burford knee won't practice, Elijah Mitchell nee will be limited in Luters full back go ahead.
How difficult does it make? Make it the practice when you have seven.
Guys out not as bad at this time of year, just because we're going to have speed anyways on Wednesdays regardless, if this was earlier in the year, we'd probably have to go have speed just by default.
And it obviously helps with a couple of years ago, adding the sixteenth sixteen.
Oh, it's everything. Yeah, that's helped in so many ways. So it's been crucial.
You obviously don't want Lenord to get good out of games, but he is notably like Feist year, I guess you know this is in a good way. Does that come with confidence just growing up in this league or what are your impressions?
Uh?
I think I mean just knowing Demo's history, I think he's always I mean just how he was in college and well we had him on him coming out. He's always been a pretty feisty guy. But I think the more in this league, you learn to play with an edge. Whatever that edge is, you need something, and he's found that a lot of guys do it that way. Some guys do it separate ways, but you got to have an edge in this league to kind of get you
over the top. And Demos found a good way of doing that cause he's playing at a higher level each and every year. But that's the line you can't cross. I mean, that's something i've Our team takes a lot of pride in our team. We feel we are as physical as you can be, but we don't think that's something we ever do. So that was disappointing with him. He knew it, Our team knows it. But that's never the goal. If you get a penalty, you're wrong. If you get ejected, you're twice is wrong?
What's that?
What do you apologize out?
How they all do?
Text?
Yeah?
You text?
No, That's usually what I do to them, and sometimes they don't answer, but they'll call back and just be like I have a bad service, or text back. I'd do it to my kids sometimes and they're like what the hell is this? We don't look at each other.
We text.
Recently that Christian McCaffrey is the best player without the ball in his hands that you've ever coached. How would you assess Debo Samuel hip department.
I think he's getting there. I'm not giving him the best ever, but Deebo is such a big factor. First of all, to be that good without the ball, everyone's got to be concerned with you. So people are concerned with de bow all the time. That's why we're constantly stressing to him the importance of doing stuff on the backside, cause people will watch him hard. I think Debo has struggled with it when he's been banged up. Anytime you can't practice and stuff, it's hard to do that playing
and play out. That's what I love when you can string together some weeks, stay healthy, be able to continue practicing, which he's done here for about a month, and now he's a big effect without the ball.
Well, you said one of the favorite passes you sawt of Rock was a checkdown uh to deepot. But he also had a a pass where he rolled to the left and shot it over you'd down the side. What makes him so proficient and able to move to his left.
And make that throw.
Uh, I th I think he knows where he's going with the ball. And then sometimes when color flashes and you don't have time to wait for that to show, you gotta take your eyes off the look and find a way to buy time. And once she does, by time he already saw where to go. So then he goes to a spot and now the time he's a little bit off. So he did a great job of fading him away cause you wanna catch that about twenty
yards and he was. Brock was late to it cause he had to be, but it was the right spot to go, and then he had to fade him to turn it in about thirty something. And that was so was so huge by Chris Conley just continuing to run down the field. It was a three level throw where they're separate from each other. But because Brock broke, I U had to go deeper and Conley was still so deep. So we still got those three levels and worked out good.
He'd mentioned the the one throw he made. I think it was the debo where he noticed that the safety was flat. Put like, how next level is that? At what point in the quarterbacks NFL development. Is he not just looking at a blurry picture and he can actually see a guy's feet.
I mean, I think that's stuff that he does very now. I think that's the talent in Brock that you can't always judge. Like I think vision and stuff is very important and doesn't just go into like is he twenty twenty, Like there's different types of vision of like looking outside wide coming in, like just the the words I never know, but it's it's a big deal how your eyes see things. And I think Brock recognized the stuff and the speed of things and levels, and he knows the whole and
the people, the defenders and what they should defend. But it's always there's a progression. It's like, yeah, this play is going to go to here, but that guy might not do his job, and so you got to feel that make sure if he does his job, we're going to number two. That's what he usually does. And Brock went to number one, which hadn't been there on tape. But he wasn't backing up and we had a fast guy in the slot, and you better back up. And he hesitated a little bit, and Brocks all that, and
so he doesn't memorize and guests. He kind of sees it and reacts, and that's the cool thing about him.
You're talking about the defensive guy, like you draw it up and pay the defense is played sound soundly, this is what this guy should do. But there are times where it's it makes it more difficult on the offense because the defense isn't doing.
That's how everything. There's always progression. But you might call a play where this guy's number one and the progression, but the coverage that they play, he's never opened, so you should see he's covered, and then that means number two is open. But if you get that coverage and you just go right to number two and he's covered, you can't go back to number one. So you've got to verify things, and so you find I mean, if I got in there and played quarterback, I want to
know anything that's going on. I'd memorize coverages and I would try to program before and be like, all right, I think it's sis. Let me go to number three, and then you get fooled, and once you try to come back to number one, you're throwing picks or getting sacked. So it's it's knowing what's going on, but also still playing the game and trying not to get overwhelmed with
code talk or a film and all that. You got to be in a pocket and read things and react, and that's why it's it's really tough to play the position.
Yesterday that Nick Mullins and told him that his arm might not be fully normal again until halfway through the season, and rockshed that indeed happened.
Can you see that on film with his throwing?
Yeah, I think I think just like, it's not like you can't. It's not that you can see it on film. It's not like, wow, it's got a lot more zip. He's throwing a lot farther. I think it's about being in shape. And like when when receivers go like a month without catching a football, they come back and they drop balls and it's not because they're their hands aren't in shape, because their eyes aren't they're not used to running full speed and tracking things that fast, and they
just don't see it. As well, if a quarterback's not throwing in the offseason, he can still. I mean, he's they're born to throw, and he throws it right, and he can once he was cleared, he was throwing it normal, but it's he hasn't. It's not in true shape. He's not just doing a day in and day out and putting all those reps. And that's why sometimes guys get hurt and they can't throw for a few weeks, and they come back, they sell their arm strength, but it's
just not consistent. And I think Brock his consistency's there. I think trying to get his arm back in shape and building up and ramping all that up with just the number of throws and stuff eventually catches up to you. And I think that's why that week off he just didn't do anything. I remember him coming back after the week off and he was rusty that Monday, just didn't
throw it that great. But by the end of that Thursday, I thought he was throwing it better than he had all year, which means it's just part of getting in shape. We know how he can throw, but when you take a whole off season off, the conditioning is not quite there. Doesn't mean his arm's not, but just the consistency over all the throws has changed, and I think it's back.
What ways do the Cardinals look different than when you saw them earlier?
In the season. They're doing the exact same stuff. They're just better at everything. I got a lot of respect of how that they've done this year. I thought they were real tough. At the beginning of the year, I thought we had to play flawless on offense to beat him, and but that that was a real tight game. And since then they have how many other games it is, nine more games of reps. They're playing very hard, they're playing together. They've added some really good players, especially Buddha,
who they didn't have. I think it's they've always been real talented on special teams. They've also gotten a very great talented quarterback back. So they remind me of a lot of us our first year where we started out ZHO nine and finished six and ten. And I think everything they're doing is the right way, and I think they're a real tough football team.
The defensive principles you did to keep Jalen Hurts in the pocket for Kyler Murray or are they different?
They're different. I mean, he's still a huge threat to run every time, but there's there's a little different style on how they play and stuff. So but he has a problem anyway. We all know how fast and quick he is, and if you give him, no matter what you do in coverage, if if you give him those open gaps, he's going to get fifteen fast in anybody is very much.
In the MVP conversation.
But when you have someone like Christian on the team, how hard is it to decipher that?
What are your thoughts on that? That's I mean trying to get me in trouble with those two guys. That's the only reason I want it overly comment on either one of them, because I don't want them to cancel each other out. But if any quarter if any non quarterback, is gonna get an MVP, I don't get how Christian McCaffrey can't. I mean, he's amazing and what he's done all year. If it's going to a quarterback, then I don't have to talk about Christian. I can talk about
our quarterback. And I'm still as if his numbers is all you see, then I think that solves it up. But if you watch the film then it makes it even stronger, which to me is the most important thing.
If you more than one occasion, we see Rock drop back and kind of use lefty footwork, kind of drop and then flip the hips and as throwing aside is that I would imagine that's by design. What's the coaching point on the lefty drop for the right quarterback?
Just parts of their action guards are pulling where our backs are going. It's you know, you got to be able to move both ways, and I'd rather move to the left and throw left hand if he can't do that yet, so he's got to turn around. But you try to balance everything out so we you know, you just don't want to be one dimensional, so it's probably easier to go the right, but once you get used to doing it both ways and ends up being the same.
Well, what are your.
Coaching points for your wide receivers when they line up? See what happened to the k seat Buffalo game? How you coach him on that? What's your expectation for them and the reps? And did you learn something from that play?
That's just out football always as you as soon as it's broke, the white House's got to sprint and get lined up as fast as they can. Sometimes the receiver doesn't have the ball sets, so they guess where it is, They put their foot there, they check with the ref and then they move on with their life. Then there's a motion something like that. But that's why you got to get up there, get set, look to the ref. Usually he gives you a thumbs up or something, and then you go on.
You're twenty sixteen offense on paper, seems like it might be your best. You've got five top fives.
How does this one compare.
To that and the best offenses?
I'm not sure the uh, I'm not sure at all with the numbers, I would assume they're close, and I'm still not done with this year yet, so I don't know, but it's got a chance to be like that.
You uh, we're regarding that.
I know this is not a perfect comparison because Matt Ryan was where he was in his career and other differences, but the fact that Brock is in his second season with you and Matt was in his second season with.
You, are there similarities and.
Now what they can do their understanding the offense and what they can see, uh within the offense now that they have more reps.
I mean, yeah, everybody gets better with reps. You know, Matt was a lot more comfortable the second year definitely than the first year. But I think one thing that was harder for Matt is that, you know. I think I got there as eighth year, you know, and he had played for like six different coordinators, so that's there's
a lot of more football in his head. So like you go through stuff, and you know, Brock was pretty clean slate, so it was a Brock was always just doing the offense and learning and reacting and playing like he's always played. You know, it's different when you do a lot more schemes before you give with someone.
Out of the first match of Arizona, they played tempo in a non two minute drill against your defense and it seemed to have some effect. Did you guys practice up tempo? Have you considered changing the tempo and with all the weapons you have, maybe trying to play fast in the middle of the game as opposed to just a two minutes trump.
Uh, yeah, we used to. We used to do that all the time twenty sixteen, and we did that probably as much as anyone. It's we do it sometimes we think it's effective. That's we don't feel like we like what we're doing right now, but doesn't mean that we want to do it. I think we have done it a couple of times.
This year.
It just hasn't been that obvious because we don't stay in it too long. But we have a whole turbo package that we can go to it anytime. It's just a couple of words, and we're capable of running our offense on the line scrimmage anytime too.
So it's.
I feel like we haven't done it in a month, but we've always mixed it randomly into game. It's just not enough for you guys to notice.
More bars and uh branch that person.
One more one more arm arm question.
He broke missed a couple of deep throws in in week two in in LA. I do you think that that is kind of uh related to what you were describing as you know, maybe throws that he wouldn't fish.
Yeah, now I don't, but could be. I there weren't easy throws. I remember the one in La he had to go all the way across the board to debot and just missed him on a post. But no, I don't think that had to do with arm fatigue. I just wasn't the few he hasn't hit.
H two quick minutia.
Uh but probably uh when when you.
Guys audible and guy's types are helmet, like why why is it? Why is that the thing types or helmet? And then the the.
Motion it's pretty lame.
Worse the motion where Afro, maccafriar or Debo will loop back around the quarterback or in motion but then move back around. That seems lewish or not. And you know what's the idea behind it?
No, we started I think the first time we did it twenty nineteen. Yeah, the idea is just is it slot? Is it trips? Is it pro? Is it two back? Is he going back into two back? Is he going across? It's some people have calls out of two by two, then the defense changes to three by one, then it's empty, then it's back to and it's just makes it hard on the defense, and you just try to balance everything out. And we just letting everyone know we're on the same
page changing our play. We used to go like this and it was a little too drastic, so we just made it simpler in this and I think some people do this. It's just whatever you decide, all right, guess