Head Coach Kevin Stefanski (11.10.23)
Opening statement:
“Okay, awesome challenge this week going up against a great football team, well-coached division opponent. So, we’re excited about it. It’s going to be a beautiful day down there, it sounds like. So good three days of practice. We’ll have our meetings in the mornings, walk through and then we’ll get on the airplane. But excited about the opportunity with that I’ll take any questions.”
Kevin, how do you feel about your tackle situation? We saw Dawand (Jones) is out this game.
“Yeah, we work through it all week. Feel good about it.”
Will you say who you’re playing where?
“No.”
Will (Greg) Newsome play Sunday? I know he’s questionable.
“Yeah, he practiced. So, with all those injuries, you want to see how they respond, but we’ll see how it goes.”
Do you have your plan set?
“We do, yeah, we feel good about where we’re going. Worked hard at it and feel like we’ll continue to work through it.”
We don’t know much about Geron (Christian). Is that how it’s pronounced? What have you seen out of him? I know he was on the practice squad a week ago now. What have you seen out of him over the last week?
“Yeah, he’s a pro with Leroy (Watson) as well, you know different stages of their career, but you add guys to your program. I think about (James) Proche – guys come into the program late, you get to know them, you get them up to speed and then sometimes you throw them out there and they’re ready to roll because they work very hard at it. So that happens oftentimes in the NFL, guys are playing sometimes in a game where they just showed up that week, sometimes two weeks, whatever it may be. But that’s part of our job as coaches to get those guys ready to play and then their job as pros to prepare themselves. And those guys have done a nice job.”
You guys in the past have successfully kind of shuffled around the offensive line, especially during the COVID year. Does that give you confidence that this is something you can overcome, not having your top three tackles in the game?
“Yeah, I don’t know about specifically that, Jake (Trotter). I just think that’s our job as coaches…get guys ready to play. Sometimes you’re getting rookies ready to play and then as a professional, you come in and you get up to speed as quickly as you can.”
Kevin, I know you said Joel (Bitonio) was an option the other day when we talked about it. I’m just curious about that kind of decision process that goes into if we slide him out there, we’re also sacrificing maybe the best guy in the league at that position. How much do you take that into account?
“Yeah, we looked at every option, as you can imagine, and we talked through all those things and then we felt good about the plan and feel good about how we practice and then you move forward.”
Might it be good to have someone who has started games over someone who isn’t experienced?
“Yeah, I think you could say that really, probably at every position, Mary Kay (Cabot), with experience. But we’ve played young guys in the past. We’re not afraid to put a young guy in there. You don’t have experience until you do.”
With Marquise (Goodwin), is he like in the building? He doing okay because it looked so bad.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s in the protocol. Obviously, we’ll follow every step of that protocol along the way, but his health is what’s most important.”
Dawand went back into the game after, I think he only missed a play on Sunday. Was it just a matter of after-the-fact swelling?
“Yeah, sometimes that happens, exactly. Sometimes you can play through things and then a couple days later it’s a different function, if you will.”
Do you get any pushback from Dawand on not playing Sunday?
“It’s not that. It’s not – he’s doing everything in his power to make it, but just not ready.”
So nine games now of Todd Monken running that offense over there. Where do you think the biggest differences are from what they did in the past?
“Yeah, I think Coach Monken does a great job. Not to compare them to the past, I think they continued to run the ball well effectively in the gap schemes, obviously with the quarterback. And then the pass game, drafted a receiver in the first know added receivers, so they certainly added some elements to their pass game. Quarterbacks playing at a very high level, like we talked about all week. You really have to defend all 53 in the third of the field when you’re going against this offense and it tries to put the defense in conflict like good offenses do, whether it’s run or pass.”
When we talked to Coach (Ben) Bloom about whether Myles (Garrett) has hit another level. Where do you stand?
“Well, I like to think it’s impossible to hit your potential, so you just continue to try and chase it and I think that’s what he’s doing.”
When it comes to the Ravens, what do they do defensively sort of post snap to make things so difficult on Deshaun (Watson)?
“Yeah, I think they can do things both pre-snap and post-snap. Pre-snap movement, lining people up in different areas. They’re trying to confuse whether it’s your protection or your coverage or your progression, if you will. But they do a nice job in their pressure package. They do a nice job running their games and stunts, leading the league in sacks and with a bunch of different guys getting sacks. So, they’re getting production from different areas, getting production from the interior, from the edge. They’ll blitz the safeties, they’ll blitz the nickel, the linebacker. So, it’s a multifaceted pressure package. So, it requires that on offense you have really good communication and then at the end of the day, all comes down to technique.”
Does Deshaun look any more comfortable to you this week when you watch him?
“I think, like any player, continue as you get better and better and healthier and healthier, you certainly are more comfortable. But he looked good to me last week as well.”
You talked about on Sunday, Deshaun and Amari (Cooper) kind of drew up that deep play in the fourth quarter. Just how often is that type of stuff kind of going on with you guys in-game where they might see something and they come to you and you guys kind of work together on figuring a way to exploit it?
“Yeah, it happens a lot in football. It’s happened here. It’s happened in places I’ve been in the past. And I say this and it’s true, those players have a way better view than we do as coaches, even the coaches in the booth. When you’re on the field, you know what is working, what’s not working. I’ve had players come up and say, ‘Hey, draw this play up. It’s not in the game plan. We’ve run it before. They’re overplaying this. Let’s do that.’ So, I trust our guys. We’re very fortunate to have extremely intelligent football players that see the game well. So ultimately, I trust them and oftentimes with players, if they believe in a play and they take ownership of the play, it’s going to work.”
With Goodwin and (David) Bell being out, what does this wide receiving corps have to do to kind of step up?
“Yeah, the more you can do. So, we got guys that can help us in different areas, guys got to play and we’ll put them in different spots. But anytime you’re short any player, it just requires everybody else to do a little bit more.”
What have you seen from Cedric Tillman’s development here as a rookie, his opportunities, understandably have been limited. From your perspective, where have you seen the growth and his ability to contribute?
“Yeah, we’re excited about Ced. Played a lot in the last game. Obviously, the ball and those types of opportunities will come, but a guy that I think we all can trust, the quarterbacks can trust. Obviously big, physical football player with really good ball skills and those types of things, but just him doing his job, I think he’s done a really nice job.”
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