I won't practice. That's all we got.
When that happened in the game.
Uh, it's I mean, it's just wear and tear. It's just still sore.
Had I had a question about when to pulls forrest starters, let me ask, because I think Warner played every at every snap, Christian have like three carries when you're up twenty from midway through the fourth quarter in Rosa, got at least one snap with like three minutes to go, and you're up twenty three, and you know, so, I guess would be easy to say, get him out of there and get hurt. Why what's your philosophy on that? And and is it is it tough to figure out when you do it?
Uh?
Yeah, it's you pull guys when you think the game's over, and you do that off of experience. And we don't think the game's over when it's at that point. Now it's sometime in that drive, cause it took so long, it was we debated whether it take them out but for that driver or not. We'd been in that situation before. We decided not to. We kept both out just for a third down, but it ended up going longer, and then we don't want to pull him out in the middle of it. So we kept that drive, but that
was the last drive of the game. We decided that before it just went long, No, just he helps Leus get him off on third down, so we thought he could at least do a third down in that drive pretty quick. Oh we didn't, how mure.
That week one experience to Detroit a couple of years ago kind of shape the way you view that.
That's huge. I mean that happened to us personally. It was I think forty one to seventeen with a minute fifty eight left, and they had the ball was seventeen seconds, twenty yards away, down seven points. So you know, that's a lot more than that was. And it's not just that's personal situation, but I see it happened a lot a lot of places.
Will you guys use your nickelbacks that nickel defense with Leonora first being that guy and then later Oliver was at something that was pre planned? Or did the circumstances of the game dictate the change?
I mean, every things dictate the change. We thought they'd all play in the game, but stuff happened in the game that as I suggest, stuff that's between me and our team just watch the film. You might have figured out stuff I can't say, sorry, like a divisional punt.
I usually know these guys really well. Just kind of looking at the Rams rosters, there are a lot of familiarity there with them being such.
A young Oh we have such a history, and just you know, the coaching staff's being similar for so long and the players being similar for so long. So you know, there's a lot of new guys out there. You know them playing in one game, and you know, trying to figure out some of their new players that you don't have a history with. But once you turn on the tape and try to see it, yeah, you don't know some of the guys, but you definitely know ninety nine
and you know the quarterback. And then you watch the schemes and nothing's really different. I mean, it's two really good schemes on both sides of the ball and two great players and looks very similar, and that's you know, the result was very similar with what they've had in the past.
Rock me a few plays with his feet on Sunday, including that at seventeen yard or right up in the middle.
Is that an aspect of him that is surprising to you?
Did you foresee that.
When you were drafting him that he'd be able to make as many plays with.
His feet as he has?
And you never know at the next level. But that's I mean, that's how he played in college. You know, he did it a lot and I think it's one of his first games he had his own red play for like sixty yards or something. So Rocks always had a knack for making plays with his feet. He has the quickness to do it. Yeah, you never know how to equate at this level, but look that way in practice and stuff, and he's carried it over to games.
Much of his success is a product of the fact that he's a lot more experienced than most quarterbacks.
His agent, I don't know, it's how you played quarterback at a high level. What does that come from? Sometimes experience sometimes because you're just good at it. But uh, he's playing at a high level because he's good at quarterback.
You and put a performance like that in week one, Is there an need on your card to kind of all right, now, we gotta got to bring bring him back down a little bit because they played so well, or is this such a Victorian group that they kind of policed that themselves.
I mean usually it's off the tape, and the tape to me, wasn't totally what everyone thinks. You know, there's lots of yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't our best performance, you know, it's there's a lot of things in there
that could have gone a different way a bunch. I mean, the way we ended at the second quarter, not scoring on offense, not running the clock out before you gave it back to him, giving up an eighty yard drive before half, giving up a forty yarder on a third and one possible touchdown on the third play of the game. Fortunately they missed it. They tried to come back to it like four times, but they got their wrong coverages.
Then.
I mean, there's lots of stuff that goes into it, but sometimes games just get away. And it got away real fast because we broke a sixty yarder on play two in the third quarter, and after that it was pretty easy Texas.
You ever run on the backside seventy yards to blog for Seth Benson and would you think of there? I mean it seemed like a culture play.
Did you get a game.
Ball you talk to him about it?
I mean, I always tried to do that, but I was never fast enough. I could have caught the sore fullback, but not Cedric. You know, that was awesome by Ray. Ray was awesome by Ba. It was awesome by We didn't give a game ball for it because that's that's what we expect. I feel like that's what those guys do every play. Those guys run hard every play. It just happened that Christian broke one and there would be put in the spotlight as lead blockers, so it looks
really cool. It was really cool, but I feel like that's what those guys try to do every play.
Game.
No, he had ten tackles, but he had that rough drive.
I thought he had a good game. You know, he had that personal foul in the sidelines and then you know, I didn't totally see it the same way with the defensive holding that he got down there. But I thought he had a solid first game, playing inside and outside and good start to the season.
What do you think of Vanka's decision to try to lateral?
Not great because he didn't lateral it. I also thought the guy in front of him he could have just ran around because they think he was faster than them. But I mean it was a good setup for the option right out of dude if the guy was behind him. So I no, I didn't think it was that smart of a play.
One of the most challenging of what.
I mean, just Aaron Donald bey on it would be the number one thing. But you know, they got some really good players, but they're always going to be sound, They're always going to have a good scheme. They're always going to put their players in good positions, starting with the offense, which is where it starts with Sean, but it's been no different with the defense and special teams either.
Those guys are always coached up well, they're ready to go, and they know how to put their really good players in real good situations as good as it can be. You know, that was evident why they played so well. And he looked like Matt Stafford, which is one of the best quarterbacks to play over the last couple of decades from TJ.
Watt.
After that play, you came back to the bench.
And looked like in part of something to Brock just kind of looked like a one way conversation.
Do you remember what you.
Shared with them right there?
Yeah, just coaching on when we don't get what we expect, and we did get what the second thing we expect. It was just taking too long, and Brock was waiting on he sawid all right, and it was could have been a big play. We just didn't have the time for it. And I told Brock, did my last thing I want to do is put you in that situation. I thought we'd be able to get rid of it quicker, But when you can't, you can't wait on it for
that long. Sometimes you just got to tuck it away and take the sack because we didn't have time to wait on the look.
Season the value of running backs, obviously you always valued that position.
Your dad did as well.
Can you remember how and how and why that position has always been so important to what you do?
I mean, I think it's important almost what everybody does. I think it's really hard to win in this league without a good running game. And you know, you can have good running game by having all eleven people dedicate to it and be real good at it, but you really don't make a difference until you've got a difference maker back there. I always think we've always committed to the run, regardless who's back there. I think my dad
I know, my dad did that in his career. But when you look at when teams have really won, and I think my dad had one really good one and those are the years he won super Bowls. And you know, when you look at our success here, our super Bowl run, the way Raheem did that in the playoffs, our next championship deal game, the way Debo and Elijah were running at the end of that year, and then last year. The combination of Christian Elijah Mixing and Debo to me
is why you go into twelve game win streak. So regardless of who your run running backs are, you're gonna always, I believe in, always committed to it because that's what makes a football team good. But when you have a difference maker back there, it's a huge difference.
How did you spend in recent drafts looking at a well in the coup and what are their their qualities? Would kind of the compliment of them, what is it defense?
Yeah, looked at him a lot in college too. Too is as fast as anyone, and he's one of those premiere play action top level guys. You know that we always everyone in this type of offense ours there, you know, play action offense. They really want a guy like that. You can tell that's why they took him. He's premier at that. When you look at Nakua, he's he's a very tough, physical football player. Reminds me a lot of Juwan. He's gonna get after it on every play. The game's
not too big for him. And when you can put those guys in the right spots and you've got a quarterback like they do, it can be pretty lethal.
Did you have another similar experience that.
Where, yeah, I've watched guys take I mean, that's the biggest one. That was like never again because I took a lot of people out and I still can't believe how that happened. I've had to go back and keep watching it because it doesn't sound believable, but it is. But but to me in particular, I've seen things get out of hand. I'm in close, but nothing as scary as at Detroit one. But it's something I always watch around the league. We see it. Stuff happens fast and
you just go three and out and the clock's different. Now, when they went on that long, we were trying to do it. Then we thought we could stop on our three and out, and they went longer, so it's different, but I don't have a specific one for you, but it's something you gotta be aware of.
I mean, like the game is over.
Yeah, you should get a soundtrack to our headsets. That's all we're talking about. Trust me, we want guys out of there. If we want to go, put them in bubble wrap and wait them for next week. But once you start to go there, bad things happen a lot. So yeah, we wish we could have gone there sooner, but we didn't.
With regards to starting two games on the road, is there any positives or benefits that you can take team building off the field and if you can get to rug wins to start your how that kind of like starts jump starts your year.
Yeah, I mean I think it's been as team building stuff when we go, we've sometimes stayed a week away and these times we didn't. We haven't done that this year. But I think when you start on the road and if you can start out to and oh there's only so many road games and you'd always rather than be at home. So when you have that good record to start, it's just more momentum going forward. All right, Thanks guys.
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