Offensive Coordinator Tommy Rees (11.28.25)
So can you sort of wrap up how you think Shedeur (Sanders) did and what you thought of his performance?
“Yeah, I think hard to win on the road, hard to win as a rookie. Did a nice job in some of the things we asked him to do. You know, our focus is really like it’s been all year on the process of how to improve and how to continue to get better and for these young players that are playing for us offensively, finding all those teachable moments to continue to improve on. There’s a lot of plays he would like to have back. There’s a lot of great learning opportunities out there and then there’s a lot of plays that he made that helped our offense and helped us score enough points to win the game, but, again, we’re really doubling down on how can we be process oriented, not get too caught up in a result of a win or a loss and just focus on every time you come in on a Monday, there’s going to be a bunch of plays that you want to correct. It’s just usually easier to correct when you win than when you lose, so our focus is there on continuing to improve. I think Shedeur’s done a really nice job this week of continuing to prep and really starting to hone in on the things we’re asking of him and excited for another opportunity.”
Tommy, he seemed to really play from within the pocket a lot more than even, those two quarters against Baltimore (Ravens). What was sort of the process in getting, you know, getting him more comfortable to stay within the pocket, not drift backwards?
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s like a magic solution here, right? I think you just got to continue to show evidence of, ‘hey, this is a clean pocket. This is what, this is what it looks like. These are the times where we need to stay in here and read things out.’ And, you know, with him, there’s the balance of, ‘hey, he can do some things creatively outside of the pocket,’ like when is it time to go and when is it time to stay in there? You know, there was a third down there during the game last week where it felt like we could have stayed in there instead of flushing out to our left. And he’s the first one to recognize those things. And then, you know, the play extension to Jerry (Jeudy) on the big end cut, we have a little pressure off our right side that made him move right and then that’s a great example of, hey, this is a good time to get out of there and find something down the field. He does a really nice job of keeping his eyes downfield as he evades. So, I would love to say, ‘hey, there’s one thing that we do that gets him to stay in the pocket.’ I think it’s just the teachable moments that come up throughout the course of a game to show him what a clean pocket looks like or if, you know, we got a route concept versus coverage we really like, you might be a little bit more willing to hang in there and let it develop. And a lot of that comes with time and reps and time on task.”
Tommy, Kevin (Stefanski) talked about the 52-yard throw to Isaiah (Bond), that being such a high-level play and them being in cover zero and the free runner. But that play specifically, like, how much do you think that opened things up to throughout the course of the game and opened up maybe some of the shorter passing lanes to make a throw like that.
“I don’t know if it necessarily opens things up in terms of how you’re describing it. I think like we were going to be hot on that play. We could have protected a little bit differently, be less hot. He makes an unbelievable individual effort, a great throw off his back foot, gets hit, it’s right where you want it. They’re playing cover zero, which is an aggressive call. It might have dissuaded them from playing cover zero throughout the game, which again helps our protection moving forward. And then I think for him, it’s kind of like your first start, you’re on the road, like, make that first play and then it kind of settles you into the game. So, when you talk, like I look at it through the lens of what does it open up? It probably opens up a little bit of a, you know, confidence and a relief from, okay, made that big play, now let’s focus on moving forward and going to continue to play. You know, I think as a young player, when you have that first moment where it’s like, all right, I made the play, now let’s just settle into the game. But no, it was a great individual effort and I think that helped him throughout the course of just staying confident and calm as the game went on.”
Is he more willing to take the deep shot or have these always, obviously probably been in the game plan, but maybe Shedeur has so much confidence in his accuracy to go ahead and take them?
“Yeah, I think guys have different…look, not to compare it to anybody else or anybody else that’s played quarterback for us, whether it’s Joe (Flacco) or Dillon (Gabriel) or anybody else. I just think throughout the course of the game, sometimes you call the shot versus the coverage you want, and you get it to go, right? Sometimes you don’t and you gotta chuck the ball down and make the right decision. You know, that’s part the of process for our guys, is instilling in them is, hey, these are premier looks that we’re calling these versus and this is what we want them against. And when we have those looks, let’s take a rip. If not, then make the right decision and we’ll call it again. You know, in the first game he played, I think somebody asked me about it last week, we hit Harold (Fannin Jr.) on a big in-cut, that two-minute drive. We had called it earlier in the game and the deal with those guys is like, hey, when we get the look we want let’s make it work. When we don’t, make the right decision and live for another down. And I think he chucked to Dave (David Njoku) and we got like nine yards and good decision, hey, we’ll get back to it. We get the good look, let’s go take the shot. And we did later in that game. So, when you call those shot plays, you try to program the quarterback to understand like, hey, if we don’t get it, solve the problem, make it right. It’s a run down or it’s an advantage down for the offense. We’ll call it again and we’ll try to get another shot at the right coverage and let it rip.”
We’ve talked a lot about the rookies. You got a huge performance from a bunch of them on Sunday. Just what’s it been like this season having so many of them, having to rely on so many of them. I’m sure there’s goods and bads from that.
“Yeah, let’s just look at it from the positive. I would say like seeing their development throughout the year is pretty rewarding as a coach. Like when you have young guys that you think about the first time they step foot in the building for rookie minicamp, to, you know, having Samp (Dylan Sampson) lead the team on a breakdown after practice or in the meeting room and like just seeing their roles increase, seeing their development take place, you know, seeing like tangible evidence of where they’ve improved on the field both mentally and physically, like that part is exciting. That part is a lot of fun to work with. I really haven’t looked at it as a negative throughout the year. We knew were going to have a young offense of core players. It’s exciting to be able to work with those guys, a lot of them have contributed. You think about Gage (Larvadain), who was in here as a true undrafted rookie, earning his way, like, making all the plays to earn his opportunity to be on the team and then him making a huge play on special teams to set us up. And then he’s in there at the end of the game in four-minute offense, blocking (Jeremy) Chinn, who’s a safety who’s got a lot of weight on him, and he’s doing a great job. So that group of guys are a lot of fun to work with, they really are. They got a good connection; they have good energy about them. You know, football is very important to all those players, and to kind of see that group collectively take a step forward and help us win a game was really rewarding as a coach.”
Did you know that Dylan had that kind of speed in him? It just seemed like once he…
“I don’t know what he ran, he was in the 4.4s, though, I’m pretty sure coming out. And I don’t know why we all give him the – I do it too, because I messed with Samp a little bit and just, you know, like, hey, if the first guy brings you down, you’re gonna have to give him this…like, we talk about, we joke around that way. And so, he was the first person to let me know after that one, but I think he ran in the 4.4s. I think we looked it up a couple weeks ago, and he’s got a little more juice than you think. But it was a great stretch of cut. And then Ced (Cedric Tillman), Harold, Dave, Po (Ethan Pocic) getting involved, like, all of those guys and how they blocked it, and it was really a well-executed play, and we needed it at that time.”
With Dylan Sampson, we’ve seen what Quinshon (Judkins) able to do and Dylan breaking free. We talked to them both about maybe being a one, two punch earlier in the summer. How do you think that can maybe help open up the run game to have two highly productive backs operating at the same time in the run game and the offense?
“Yeah, obviously, like, when you spell your top back, when you feel like you don’t miss a beat or you feel like you have a guy you can rely on, that’s beneficial for the offense. They do have a little bit different skill sets, and managing those and maximizing their skill sets is important to us. You know, I do feel like both of them have enough versatility to their game. We’ve said it for a while. Like, there’s not a call on the call sheet where I would be worried if Q or Samp are in, like, let them both roll and, you know, we try to make a concerted effort to get Samp more involved as the year’s gone on. And obviously he played really well for us last week and even the week before, he had a couple nice runs there in the first couple series. So, he’s really… like when we talk about the rookie class and guys that are fun to work with and committed to doing things the right way, he’s really one of those players you point to and I’m excited for him to have the success. And everybody’s talked about Q all year and rightfully so, he’s played really well for us and he’s definitely a guy that our offense runs through. Like you have guys that you try to get involved, our offense really is running through Q. And then Samp becomes a great complimentary piece to that and somebody that can have his role in his own right.”
What about this Robert Saleh defense? What are you guys on the lookout for and just how well are they playing, even though they only have 13 sacks?
“Yeah, no, they’re playing – I mean, they played really well a couple nights ago, and you know, they’ve had a ton of injuries on defense and to see them play as well as they have, that’s credit to that staff. Obviously, you kind of know what you’re going to get with him and the way he structures his defense. They play a lot like our defense schematically, which is something we’re accustomed to seeing. They play hard, they play fast, they rally to the football, they attack you defensively. You know, the thing Salah does really well is his pressure packages. I know the sack numbers aren’t maybe what they want, but the pressure on the quarterback, they’re able to create that a lot of different ways. So, we’ll have our work cut out for us. They’re a really well coached team and still have good players even through the injuries. So, we got to make sure we put our best foot forward.”
Tommy, what was your first introduction to the Wildcat and why do you like it so much inside the red zone or inside the 10?
“Like ever with the Wildcat? When I was working at Notre Dame, we introduced it. Never got a bunch of… never got a ton of benefit out of it there, just for whatever reason. I think we had it up a few weeks ago, going into the Miami game, just felt like we could gain an extra gap in the run game, gain an extra hat in certain places, makes you really defend in the run specific looks, all 11, without giving up too much of the schematics of it, like there are some real advantages to it. Q has, you know, comfort in doing it and somebody we trust doing it. And you can kind of define the look you’re going to get to attack. Obviously, we’ve had a lot of success here in two small sample sizes of games, but we’ve scored four touchdowns and had some productive runs in the package. You know, our fullback was unavailable there throughout the game. So, that takes you out of certain personnel groupings. So that’s kind of -Wildcat’s, another one you can use in those run heavy situations. And, you know, we don’t use it every week, but it’s something we work on and have in our arsenal and have a lot of confidence in that group of guys, you know, making those plays work and you can kind of define the looks that you’re trying to attack.”
Tommy, what about Harold and especially the way he’s able to pick up the yards after the catch for you guys? I mean, it just seemed like it was such a fantastic part of his performance.
“Unbelievable. He’s done that all year. You know, like, we try to tell our guys, like when you think Harold’s being tackled, like, he’s probably not. So, keep playing through the play and keep blocking for him and keep hustling because that block could be the difference of a 12-yard gain and if we just stay with it, here’s nobody really left. And so, he’s got tremendous body control, he’s got tremendous contact balance and strength. It’s kind of just one of those innate things that he has. I don’t have a great reason why he’s able to do that other than he’s strong and he’s got good balance, and he’s got a real will to him on fighting through those plays and finding ways to maximize yardage. It’s really an impressive trait.”
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