Press Pass: Bill Davis

You had all four inside linebackers practice yesterday. Kiko says he's gonna play KOs something like he's going to play. How do you see that all shake down? Well, it is with the nature of the injuries and out of coming, we need them practicing again to take that first step, kind of like Michael did two weeks ago. So if they'll pass the test during a week, then we'll be excited about having all four of them up and we'll again we'll use them as their health allows us to

use them. How much and how well they did, we'll put them in certain packages and see who the healthiest are. The other factors when you have those four healthy players, they also have some special teams contributions that they have to do. So if for instance, somebody discovered a kick or you know, is winded from that, we'll put the

other guy in. So there's a rotation that's kind of fluid during a game on both their health, stamina, special teams involvement, which we need a big role from from all of them, and that that also everyone here the first time that you've had all for is it something that you're looking for Different things you can do with having them all if they're all healthy. Absolutely, But one of the things that you can't you can't expand any

of their roles. Of the guys that haven't been practicing. First, I got to get them back into the main role, get them oiled up and where they're very confident and play well at that spot before I can get too exotic with packages. If all of them had been playing for the whole season, then that's okay, now we're going to start going outside of the box. But right now they just haven't had enough practice or game reps to do that. Isn't a challenge for you to get all

of them resenting. It's a challenge. It's a great challenge to have. Uh. You know, we've got different packages that they all kind of fit, and we can make those packages fit their their talents, which is uh is a good thing to have, but it's it's a great challenge to attack and to solve. But we're excited about getting him all back on the field. This is your perception of your optimal rotation changed since the beginning of the season because the play of Hicks, it's changed a little bit.

You know, he's he's moved you know, he's moved himself up into the conversation. Uh. In the beginning of the year, he wasn't in the conversation other than special teams and a backup role as we grow him. But he he jumped in and did such a nice job that now he's brought himself into the conversation of a of a main rotation. Put the maccastle too. Well, you know we've had we had a game in Minnesota. He's a he's got a lot of experience and it's not too big

for him, and he manages the offense. Now what he's trying to get is the new offense and all the intricacies of it. When we played in Minnesota, he had the full year with Bill Musgrave, and he had a great game against us, both with his legs moving to the sticks a little bit and throwing for I believe three hundred and seventy or eighty yards. So we've got a lot of respect for Matt casting on what he's done against us and what he's now doing. And I know he didn't have all the success he would have

liked against Seattle, but you know, I few do. It's a different offense and they were so to in terms of the quarterbacks, seal guys, minding backers. Yeah, is that game planned from him to applicable or a portable to go back to the drawing parts of it are, but not all. We have to adjust a little bit to get Dez Brian in the game now. So that's another

weapon on top of the weapons they already have. The running back is a different running back with a different style, and I think the running game is kind of morphing a little bit and playing to what his strengths are. So there's those aspects that are changing, and a little bit of protection changes with who running backs are and tight end. So uh, there's parts of it that will apply in parts that we need to to expand about the quarterback situation. I mean obviously first seeing me twenty one,

now you know Castle and everything. Well, you know we played Weeding at the end of that game did pretty well against us, so we uh, you know, we've got respect for Brandon. I was with Brandon in Cleveland, so I know him well and what his skill set is, and and uh, you know, we think we're getting Matt Castle, and and uh we'll get his best in the offense with with des and there will we'll be better than it has been. I think I was Keiko unique among

this side my bed. Is there one or two things that he might do best out of the floor, Uh, you know Keiko, and I'm still learning Keiko. Uh as we see him out there, has him an out there a whole lot. But Keiko is a very instinctive football player. You don't have to say much. He can go out there, probably not even give him a call, and he could probably flow to the ball and be at the ball or in coverage being a good spot. He's he really

gets the game of football. He sees it well. He's got great eyes, so no matter what you put him in, Like yesterday was his first day in a while and he just he was like a and miss a beat. So I think he's got a great football instincts in an IQ that that helps him make all those plays that you saw making Buffalo. The pass rush is good. I really we just we looked at obviously all week and I've said this before. Up here are we moving? Are we affecting the quarterback and moving him off the spot?

There was a handful of things that should have been would have been sacks, but Eli grounded it or Fitzpatrick through with his left hand in the shovel, so the pocket was collapsing. I love the way the guys are rushing together. I think it's the best year we've had four guys being where they're supposed to be together. Now you put a good coverage behind that like we are, and now the quarterback has to make that choice. Am

I going to force the throw and throw interceptions? Which we're getting more of, And that's kind of replacing some of the sacks that we're happening a year ago. But I think we're doing a nice job in our stunts and games are way more efficient than they were a year ago. So we were excited about, you know, kind of self scouting that and seeing how that's grown. How do you think barn Maxwell's Max's tackling. Max has been

doing a solid job. I mean, like all of them, we've got our last game, we didn't tackle as well as we had been prior to that um, but Max has been doing a good job. I can't think of of a blatant one that he that he missed or that was horrible. Older he should he should have tackled him instead of gone for the strip. He put his focus on getting the ball out, and then it was

that was a bad That wasn't even a tackle. That was a It was a mistackle, but he was at the ball trying to strip it instead of tackling like you should have been played. He might to cowboys and puts multiple weapons out on the field and increases the chance. So I'm that's asking you to give this away, increases the chance that you're not going to be in base,

that you may be in specialty packages. Does that make that challenge of your inside livebacker rotation more challenging, to make you look at a little bit differently when you realize you might not be in base a hole, Well, what you don't know is what they're going to come at you with, so you can go off what they've gone on. But what we're challenged with right now is we've got really three different quarterbacks. We're looking at two

different main running backs. We're looking at an offensive line shift some of the protection. So who are they come We have to be prepared for being a full game of base or a full game of nickel or dime or whatever they throw at us. But as far as the inside backers go, so far, our base and our nickel has been about equal. So those reps as we interchange them, even though in whatever dallas And then what's the offensive score? What's the score differential in the game?

That affects a lot of what they do and in turn what we do. Legal league year, we put a huge emphasis on it and we've got the dummies all around the building. We really believe since the beginning of football that that's stat to take away differential has been a huge stack in wins and losses. So we put a lot of focus on it, and the guys have it on the front of their mind. Therefore, it's it's it's been, it's where we're at at the halfway point. We needed to be there at the end of the season.

I didn't spat and train care I think you mentioned the possible of firematchal bomb and like the other teams and receiver around, you know, wherever he runs up, is that no longer possible? No, we we've done it in spurts. We've done in different packages. I think it was in the Jets game and dime only he followed Brandon uh, he followed Julio in the first game. We move in

and out of that. It's kind of attached to You can put a guy on there and leave them alone, or you can put two guys like we did on Beckham. We always had two guys with a little bit of an eye on them. So if you have that, you don't need to match up. If you're going to where you're given help, maybe somewhere else that you want to match up. So there's a lot of things to go into that. But he's out. That is absolutely still in the mix that we can and we'll go in and

out of doing against the guy like Brian. Yes, we could, yeah, and we liked whose idea was to put the dummies all around the building. I was a collective idea, you know, we had looked at a lot of different things, and we just said, how can we really put on the front of their mind. And we put the dummy and we got the you know, the one throwing and one holding the ball, so it's gonna be a passer or a runner. And we just said, hey, guys, in and out of every meeting, just put it on your mind.

Just you know, we all talk about habits, and habits reflect the mission and it's just a habit that we're trying to get to. And then does it happen in a practice field? And most importantly, how many times are we actually attempting to punch a ball out in the game. There's the more shots on goal you get, the more success you have, And that's really there's been a lot

of hidden punches. Now. One of the bad parts of it, it's like Max tried to take the punch and the turnover instead of the tackle on Toberd and we lost on that one. So we it's a fine line between the tackle and the turnal one balanced like that. I mean, it's the three yard line. You haven't been a chance of getting to stop if you punch it out. Yeah, but the tackle has to be secured for Earlier in the season, Max had a great one, but I've been

against Dallas. It was it was Escobar and Max came up and tackled and punched at the same time, and mount scooped it up. That's an example of the tackle. First the body in a position and then the punch. What happened against Carolina was not right. He went on one half of the man trying for the ball and didn't secure the tackle. He knows I do. It's actually real good at it outside linebacker. And then you know why, why no longer I'm out there and say it again

outside linebacker? How Well, we've got multiple packages that Vinny's in, and we were that was putting them in all the packages, which I don't think it was real fair to Vinny not giving them the off season to do it. And really, when we had Travis Long and we had some other bodies out there, we felt like we had some depth and we had a lot of competition and Vinnie could

could grow inside and do all those things. And then when we lost Travis and lost some numbers there, we put Vinnie out there, but it kind of weakened the rest of his game, So we kind of put them back in there and say go do what you do.

You've had a lot of success there, and let's look at some other spots because outside backer conversion takes a lot of reps to get it down, and it wasn't it wasn't really fair to Vinny throw them out there that quick, and I was trying to manipulate what he was doing out there, but we felt like it weakened us and Vinnie's game. Are you looking at any other alternatives at the third outside linebackers? Thought must leave Brad Jones. Well,

Brad practice out there a lot recently. He's gone inside because of the injuries because you've been the third guy. He has been early in the season, he was when Marcus wasn't active, Brad Jones really was the guy active for the outside backer spot. He was available to us. Now we were on with Vinnie, but we could go with Brad. So he's definitely an option for us at

the outside backer spot. The defense to go from, where do you guys were couple years ago among the worst in the league and now you're at a point where you're leading the NFL and turnovers, Well, I think it's a it's a credit to the organization, the players, selection, the personnel department. I think it's it really goes to the players more than anybody. When you have a group of guys that what the workers hard as they work

and put their focus in the right spots. I think I'm more excited about the conversation we first got here and we had a hundred times up beer was tackling, tackling, tackling. Are you guys doing tackling to the ground drills and training camp and where the tacklings come. I'm more proud of. The turnovers are always part of winning NFL football games. You've got to get the turnover ratio. But it's the

players putting the emphasis on it. It's the position coaches daily and meeting pointing out you know where we're doing it right, where we're doing it wrong. And then in the individual period and Chip does a great job, which is better than most places I've been of. We get extended individual period which lets us work the fundamentals a lot more and put that empstats and you see guys out here and you're watching, you see that part of practice.

That's a big chunk of why you play well. As the fundamentals are right, the footworks right, the eyes are right, the tackling is where we work on that there, that's where we work turnovers. So it's a combination. Like all things. You succeed as a group and an organization, and you fail as a group an organizations. Four inside that prostrating any of them on the outside, we could, but again, zach it, I have done that, but right now, especially

with the injuries that are happening. I mean, for instance, Brad Jones is both he is in and out of both meeting rooms at all times. Some other guys could, but right now, you know, we're just coming in and out of injuries. So you cannot without reps on the field, guys, don't. You've got to have reps to really learn and get it right and play well in a game. So if they're having multiple reps and multiple weeks of having reps, then I'm more comfortable moving them and cross training them.

When they're just coming off an injury and they and they're working our way back in or the reps haven't been huge, then just stay there until we get real comfortable there and then then we'll go outside of the box down the road. Could Hicks have that sort of versatility. Jordan has the skill set to do it. I think he could, you know, I think I really. I don't think any of them couldn't. I mean, there's Michael Kendricks has a nice pass rush off the edge. Kiko is

length to get out there. But right now we got to, you know, kind of get them in there. And there's packages where you can get them out in space a little bit. So we'll play the healthy ones as much as we can get the eleven best on the field at all times. He was saying yesterday that teams are starting a double all three of those guys up front.

Are you seeing that at times they get the doubles but the backers if how do I say this is easily when you are playing split safety coverages, double teams stay on the D line longer, so when you're trying to stop the run and split your safety so you're better in the passing game, the double teams can stay on D linement longer. And we've done a little bit of that lately, so it's schematically. I know when it's happening.

If it becomes a problem, I bring a safety down in the box, which gives everybody a single gap so now that double team can't stay on as long because a backer takes a gap, the double team comes off, and now they're not double teams as much. So that's that's scheme related our scheme and there you know, their their run of choice, and so some of that has happened lately when I try to go split safety to the run game, that definitely happens more as the season

goes on. Here is rows roll going to the standard off. Yeah, as we as we go and grow the corner spot who we're playing and how we're playing it. You know, we're very happy with Eric's progress. We think we're taking probably the right pace with him, and we were very excited about where he's going to go in the future. Two more games. Any other major takeaways from the evaluations during to buy a week billing val your defense. I think we were getting better each week, and that's the goal.

We talk about it all the time, the goal of this season. We're chasing greatness, but it takes one week at a time, and greatness is defined as being better than your former self. So are we better this week when we were last week? We were a little bit disappointing Carolina because we didn't feel like we took that step forward in some areas. But we've got to take the second half of the season and grow it. We've

got to get better than we have been. The X plays have been like this seven to one, game zero, the next six, one, game three, the next. We're a good spot with X plays over the seven games, but that's got to be more consistent. Our third down has to be more consistent. We have one good game, one bad game. The third longs which should be knocked out every time. That's been a little bit of an achilles heal. We talked about that a lot, and then you know, those are the type of things that we looked at

hard and put our focus on. You mentioned the improved the efficiency of the Demons of Mind stunts. Why do you think that's gotten better. We worked at it, We put more time into it. You get better at what you work on. Yere one, we were really saying, hey, let's get this STU gap and stuff down, and let's let's really put our focus there. You really will, and I've had in my whole career. What you put your emphasis on, you'll get. You just can't emphasize everything at once,

so you have to pick and choose as you go. Okay, that's intact. That's intact. This is weak. Let's dive into this and add more to it, and that's kind of how we grow it. We're good. Thanks John,