Press Pass: Frank Reich

in each of those games. So we just have to as a unit, played better offensively, get more snaps, played better on third down, and so we can get a chance to give coach a chance to call a few more plays. If we can convert on third down. In that way, the ball can get spread around a little bit more. One play of thirty ords are more than the least three weeks. Do you feel like just plays out there to be made down the field or you

just got to take it with what you're given. No, I think there's plays, and I think when we look back on the film from the last few weeks, there's a few plays, just a little something here, maybe we missed something here. There were opportunities. I just say this way, there have been opportunities that we've just missed for one

reason or another. When tight ends are required to do a little bit of pass pro help here and there are they put them later in the progression as they get out down the field and the quarterback has made

a decisions that could that play into part of this. Yeah, that's that's a fair statement that you know, when you're when you're going to give Chip help, it doesn't have to limit you, but it does change certain dynamics and soum So maybe if you have a chance to be vertically down the field on twenty plays, now if you're Chip helping, it's only fifteen, So you know, just by

sheer numbers, there's a few less opportunities. But I think again, the whole key is just being more efficient, getting more plays, being more efficient overall, and I think the ball distribution will take care of itself. I think he did watching the film, Yeah, made really good improvements. He played aggressive, he played with confidence. Um you know, he still got a little help, not as much help, just seemed to get into rhythm. Um, so that was that was good,

good for all of us. For him, I guess during the week leading up to it to again, I think it's a little bit set on down was a little bit playing at home, a little bit playing playing with the lead, you know, Um, a little bit, just a few a little bit of him just gaining more confidence and getting coached up, even a little bit more learning from the mistakes that he made and attacking and playing aggressive experience. When a quarterback slips a little bit with

his mechanics, what can that be attributed to? Um? You know, if a quarterbacks slips in his mechanics, you know, sometimes it's you know pressure, you know, the pressure of the defense, you know, putting pressure on you. But um, you know, I really think in our in our case, you know, whatever we said about how Carson's been playing, I look at last week going up against that defense. I just I didn't look at the exact numbers, but they've gone

up against them. That defense has gone up against some pretty good quarterbacks, and I don't think anybody's had a very good quarterback rating against them. And so it's always a question of just taking care of the little things, getting completions, making plays. I think mechanically, um, I think everything is in good shape. Well there was fun interception

last week that that wasn't Carson's fault. You know. Um, we had a receiver get impeded on his way to where you know, the ball's gonna probably hit him right in stride, and he was impeded and wasn't able to get to the spot that he was supposed to get to. So we made a throw that probably normally would have been a completion and instead it ended up at an interception. The other one, the other one was just a forced interception. Cars and said that you know, every now and then,

it happens to the best of them. First, you would not want to reign in Parson's uh, you know, aggressiveness. But when you go against a team like this and they play play some soft zone at times, it is important to just try to not take too much and try to go on all these guys. I think, uh, yeah, this team, although they play zone, I think they play aggressive. You know they you know, just because you're playing zone doesn't necessarily equate to soft. They have vision. It's a

different mentality. Uh, they have vision on the quarterback. So now like you know you can if you're playing zone, it's a gay vision on the quarterback and once he let's go to the ball, it's jail break to the ball. That's an aggressive mindset, um, but just a slightly different way than playing man and playing pressure. UM. So in either case, as a quarterback, you got to take what

the defense gives you. When it's a zone. You got to be patient enough to hey, when when when the underneath routes there, take if they if if you can get them to bite up on the underneath route and you could hit in behind them, You got to be patient. You gotta trust your instincts. When it's man coverage, you know, you gotta take with you still gotta take what's the defense gives you. But that that many times is predicated on a matchup. It gives you a chance to go

down the field. So um, either case, it's quarterbacks making good decisions and as players making plays down the field when you're grading out. So when you're grading out that first interception, you would say that that wasn't any any I would say had nothing. I say Carson had nothing to do with that interception. He was going to the right place with the ball. The throw maybe wasn't perfect, you know, but if the receiver's not impeded. It's in

my opinion, it's a catch. You find any reason for the myriad of fumble snaps last week, different reasons, the same reason. Yeah, yeah, I think coaches addressed that. I mean, it's a little bit of you just can't take those things for granted. Um, you got to make sure sometimes as a quarterback when you're in the shotgun. The advantage being in the shotgun as you can get your eyes down field sooner, but if you're not careful, sometimes your eyes come up a little bit quicker than they should.

Because you're such a good athlete, you catch you can catch a million balls looking here, and as long as a snap is right there, it's never going to be a problem. But if the snaps a little bit off in, your eyes aren't disciplined. So that's why we teach you you got to have disciplined eyes in the shotgun, you know, to make the catch first, and then you know, make

the catch first and then play football from there. Last couple of weeks, you know, Carson's play is due the fact that teams now I've got five six games to look at on bailment ten and offense. The case like as a rookie, like, how do you kind of adjust to offset that? I think you know, in fact, the more games you get on tape, at some level that's true of every you know, defense has learned, they adjust, But I think the same goes true for offenses. We

learn more about the defense. Yes, are they learning more about us? Are they learning more about Carson? Yes they are. Do they try to make some adjustments to do things that we have attendance to do? Yes, they do. At the same time, we're looking at the more film we get to them, we see where their work week points are that we're going to attack them and we're going to make adjustments. So it's a little bit of a game that goes back and forth. But without question that

is true. What your what's your level of confidence in Ryan with the ball late in the game, fourth quarter, close game, at this point. I mean, when a guys on the field. I love our guys. I wouldn't trade our guys for anybody. You know, we we use a word around here a lot, and I know sometimes it gets thrown around, but as family, and you know, not every family's perfect and we all make mistakes. But when we put guys out in the field, I can't play like that. I can't coach like that. You got to

have confidence. And you know, now, coaches, it's a business. Coaches make decisions based on things, and you know, when those decisions get made, they get made. But when a guy's in the game, we have to play with confidence and we have to coach with confidence. And I don't see any other way to do it. Shotgun under center where you want it to be, and as maybe use some shotgun for Carson being a little more you're stealing from the running game a little bit, but not being

under centered. I think our percentages in the breakdown of one of our self scaut of where we are shotgun understand or run passed from each is. Some of it's very good, some of it's a little bit close, it's borderline. Um. I don't think any of it's out of control. Um. So you know, we tweak it here and there, we look we look at that each week. Problems. Yeah, I

mean we just not you know. The first problem was just third and too long, you know, third and the distance just being a little bit longer than you want it. This last week we did a better job of keeping it in the manageable situation. Um, and we've just missed some opportunities. I mean, you know, And that's the thing you go, I don't if you go four for eleven and you have two misques, you can look at it and say, oh, we could have been fifty percent and

we would have been great. Instead we stink. So that's just the nature of third downs. You're gonna get ten to fifteen of them a game, and they're you know, you're gonna convert four or five, and then there's and then there's gonna be two or three in there that are gonna be tightly. You got to make those plays, and we just haven't been making those plays. So, um, we just got to bear down, tighten up, and do

a better job. Matthews mentioned yesterday, Seawan Lee has to be account is he kind of the key Sean all over the field. Now he's he's a smart guy. He plays fast on his feet, he understands the game. He's doing all kinds of things. So he preussures a lot. They don't pressure a ton, but when they do pressure, he's a guy who he shows up a lot in the backfield, So you definitely have to account for him. Pretty good at covering Yeah, you know, it's smart, good

pattern recognition. You know, understands the concepts, good at looking at the quarterback size, reading the quarterback size, see out of a quarterback. As a coach, is it um? Is it the poor decisions or is it the flipping mechanics? And which is easier to fix? Um? Well, first of all, you know, I'm not ready to say that there's been a bunch of poor decisions or a bunch of poor mechanics. I'm not going that far. I'm saying this is the NFL.

I mean, just I watched the tape of guys all around the league, and you know, when you're under pressure, it's always have It's hard to have perfect mechanics. Now, are there times that we can be a little bit better here and there and other times that we're making a poor decision at any position? Sure, but that's that's life in the NFL. So we're four and two. We've made a lot of good decisions to get to four and two, and certainly our defense is special. Teams has

carried today for for us for a lot. But we're still doing a lot of good things and Carson's doing a lot of great things. Understand But to correct some mistakes. And when you have which of those two areas I guess worries a coach more the decision making or fundamentals, you know, decision Yeah, I mean they're both important. I mean it's you know, they're both critically important. You gotta

have both. It's a both and it's not an either or in my in my opinion, you did a lot of work on took a hard look at Zeke Elliott. Would you think of him coming out? And I don't think about a chance? Was strong fast? Um, you know he he've it's not a surprise what he's doing. Very frank, Thank you, thank you,