Offensive Coordinator Tommy Rees (10.2.25)
Opening Statement:
“All right guys, good seeing everyone here. Fire away.”
Can you address the quarterback change, and how do you believe that this will give you guys a little bit of a boost?
“Yeah, excited about the opportunity for Dillon (Gabriel), and obviously talking with Kevin (Stefanski) and throughout the week on it, felt like it was the right time for it. He’s put in a lot of work to put himself ready to play, so guys have rallied around him. We’ve all got to do our part to help elevate the play of the quarterback and get the quarterback playing well. So, I know Dillon’s been chomping at the bit, and Joe (Flacco) has been there every step of the way to help support him through this process and get him ready on this week here in London and getting ready to play Minnesota (Vikings).”
Tommy, are there other pages of the playbook that’ll be dusted off with a different skill set?
“Yeah, you want to build what you do around a certain guy’s skill set, make them feel comfortable, put them in positions that gives them a certain level of confidence in what they’re operating. But look, we have enough in our offense that we feel like we can tailor to both guys. So, there’s certainly some things that Dillon does that are different, certain things that Joe does are different, and it’s our job as coaches to put the in that position.”
Why did you guys feel like this was the moment to make this change? Was it the turnovers becoming too much? Was it a combination of things?
“Yeah, look, we all got to play better at a lot of positions. This is not singular just to the quarterback position. You know, we’ve all got to do our part around him, coaches included. So obviously when we spoke, Kevin (Stefanski) and I felt like it was an opportunity to make the change, and really looking at it as a way to spark the offense and get things going.”
Was there any consideration given whatsoever to making Shedeur (Sanders) the backup, and what’s sort of the philosophy to having Joe being the number two right now?
“Yeah, I just feel like Joe’s going to stay the number two right now, and has done a lot to prepare and be ready to go in a pinch.”
Just coming over here this week, just the whole itinerary week, does it add any challenges?
“Yeah, sure. I mean, look, we have a good plan in place to how we’re preparing. You know, we got a lot of work done on the front end of this trip, got some extra walk throughs, some extra time to make sure that we did everything we could to treat it as normal as possible. Obviously knowing it’s not, but don’t see any real limitations. Have a good plan in place as we get here, as we were at back home, so it felt like we had enough time to pour into the game plan.”
Dillon said yesterday that he hopes to bring some juice, some energy to the offense. How does he do that?
“Yeah, I think he just is himself. You know, I think he’s got a calmness to him, a real true confidence to his personality and his ability that I think guys have fed off of since he’s been here. So, doesn’t look like he needs to step far outside of who he is to do that for our guys.”
What’s the biggest adjustment you made this week?
“Yeah, I think just obviously with the travel and finding unique ways to get extra reps, whether it’s walk throughs or different ways to get our guys off their feet and still prepare them in the right way. But getting here and finding more time. You know, we got here, we got off the bus, we got moving right away. I think that puts our guys in a good mindset coming into a long day. But we’ve got plenty of work, which feels like they’re preparing the right way.”
Is there an advantage, a benefit for Dillon making a start on sort of a neutral environment compared to if it was a road environment or even a home environment where you get a disgruntled fan, whoever knows. But can it be a benefit to starting him in environment like this?
“Yeah, look, we don’t evaluate that stuff as much maybe as the outside eye does. Like, we’re so in tune to, ‘all right, are we going to prepare the right way? Is our process there in the right way?’ Look, if you go play well, it doesn’t really matter where you are, so our focus is on making sure that we put ourselves in positions to play well.”
Do you feel like you guys maybe will be able to utilize a fair amount more of quarterback movement, maybe some RPO. And I know you’re not going to give away the game plan, but do you feel like that might be something that could shake up and wake up this offense a little bit?
“Yeah, we’re looking at all avenues, right, to waking up, and to get the ball moving and score points, that’s what we’re after here. We want to play complementary; we want to score points and do our job. So, certainly going to try to put Dillon in the best positions that make him feel comfortable to do that.”
In the evaluation of Gabriel, how relevant was the two minute drive in the (Los Angeles) Rams game? Did that make you guys believe that he might be ready sooner than we thought?
“I think you just look at it as a body of work. You know, that was a good cap off to that preseason for him, and to go down the field in those circumstances, obviously a positive. But we really evaluated this throughout the entirety of training camp, of the off-season program, of preseason. And you’re just looking for progression and looking for him to continue to improve, and certainly that was an opportunity where you saw improvement, and you saw growth. So, I think all of those add up to our evaluation of feeling like he’s ready to go.”
If you can finally get some continuity with the offensive line, how much can that help?
“Yeah, I think we’ve talked about that, right? I mean, those guys need to see it as one, passing off games, working in combination. That’s so much easier when you’re working with a similar player, or somebody that you have a lot of reps built up with. So, hopefully we can continue to get guys healthy and build towards that.”
Looking at left-handed quarterback Mark Brunell to those kinds of things, anything that you guys see different, whether it’s spin on the ball or even how you use your tackles or your guards?
“Yeah, you’re so used to right-handed guys, you even think like, ‘all right, we want this going right’. So, you have to flip your mind a little bit on certain calls and certain things. But we do train our guys to have to do a keeper left, do a keeper right, right? Do some things that you typically wouldn’t ask a righty to do, we are going to ask him to do that so you don’t limit what the playbook entails. So, for Dillon, he’s done all these things. Are there certain things here and there that you got to maybe think about? Sure. But it really doesn’t change a lot in what you’re doing.”
Brian Flores is already a very challenging and difficult coordinator to go up against, but when he’s facing a rookie, what kinds of things do you guys have to really watch out for with Dillon against that kind of aggressiveness?
“Yeah, Flo does a great job, as everybody knows. Presents a lot of challenges, is very diverse in his scheme, likes to pressure, likes to create havoc, likes to turn the ball over. That’s kind of how he’s made his made his hay here, but he does that versus everyone, right? And so we just got to focus on our game plan, focus on the tools that we’re giving the quarterback to handle some of those things and allow him to go out there and play fast. We don’t want to slow him down by trying to analyze everything, want him to go out there and be able to play fast and play confident.”
With Tillman obviously out, do you see (David) Njoku and (Harold) Fannin spending more time kind of without another big receiver out there?
“Yeah. I think a lot of guys are going to be asked to step up in a lot of different roles. Ced (Tillman) plays a lot of roles for us, wears a lot of hats, run and pass. So, it’s a challenge for the group to step up in his absence, and I think we have guys ready to do that.”
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