Pass Game Coordinator/ Wide Receivers Coach Chad O’Shea (9.5.25)
Chad (O’Shea) You have a lot of rookies, relative young guys in that room. Obviously the on the field transition is one thing, but how difficult or underrated is the off the field transition? The meetings, the film study, that part of the job that maybe they don’t understand until they get in the building.
“With our young players, there’s a lot of challenges, and they go beyond what’s just on the field. And I think that what we’ve done, in the way we’ve structured our meetings and the amount of walkthroughs that we have, it’s an opportunity for those players to develop in those settings prior to getting on the field. So, I would say we spend as much time and are very intentional about how we spend that time prior to going on the field. You know, we try to be very organized in our meetings. We try to really be intentional about our teaching sessions with those players, because you can really gain a lot before you get on the field. And I think that if the young players don’t take advantage of that part of the process, they’re not going to have success.”
What can you tell us about Isaiah Barn and how does he look so acclimated so fast?
“Isaiah’s done an outstanding job of coming in here, number one, of working very hard. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do. He’s been outstanding in the meeting room. He’s really displayed that he’s very smart, that he can do a lot of things for us as far as his role. So that’s very exciting when you have a player that has a physical skill set that you can use in a variety of ways. But to combine that with a player that takes a lot of pride in the mental aspect of the game, and he’s very capable in that area. So that’s the part that’s been very exciting working with Isaiah is how well he’s done on the mental side of the game. And I think that’s occurred because he’s blessed with having good intelligence, but he also works very hard, and he’s listened to not only the coaches, but he’s listened to some of the veteran players on just how to go about his daily routine and how to get out there and help the team as quickly as we can. And I think that starts with just his work ethic. You know, we’re very fortunate to have (Stephen) Bravo-Brown, that’s our Assistant Wide Receiver coach, and I think he’s done an outstanding job of spending extra time with Isaiah, and Isaiah has been very committed to us during those sessions. We get him here early in the building, he stays late, and we’ve really tried to accelerate his learning, and he has really done a great job in that area.”
On Gage (Larvadain), who went undrafted and made the team. Was there a moment in the off-season program or training camp that really just stood out to you about him and his skill set? How excited were you for him being on the roster?
“So excited about Gage and him making the roster. He was so deserving of that from day one. There was something different about Gage, from the way he worked to the way he performed on the field. I mean, in the rookie minicamp, he performed at a level that you want a receiver to perform at. He got open, caught the ball, and that continued through the process. It continued once we got into training camp, and then obviously in the preseason, he performed very well on the field. It’s a great example of the path in which one takes isn’t what’s important to get here. What’s important is once you get here, what you do with your opportunity. And I think that he’s just a great example, probably one of the better ones we’ve had in the receiver room in recent years, of taking advantage of an opportunity and going out there and making the team. And he put himself in position to do that because of his work ethic, the type of person he is. He’s a great teammate. I’m so excited to have Gage as part of our team right now. You know, we have a couple practice squad players right now that, you know, if we could dress seven guys, they would play in the game. That’s how we feel about them, you know, taking, like, Kaden Davis. He’s on our practice squad, so obviously he won’t be eligible to play in the game this week. But at any time, I would have complete confidence in playing a guy like Kaden Davis. To include our other young players and our practice squad players in a game, I’d feel real comfortable with that.”
Chad, last year I remember Ced (Cedric Tillman) talking about knowing he needed to get used to secondary game planning for him more and maybe not getting so many easy opportunities, then obviously doesn’t really get the chance because he gets hurt, I guess. How important is that in this next step of his development here with you guys?
“I think it’s really important, but I think that what we’ve asked him to do is to fall back on, just trying to focus on what exactly is the detail of what you need to do on that play. You know, it’s like almost staying in the present, staying in the now, and not worrying about who’s playing you defensively, what scheme they might be playing you defensively. Let’s focus on doing your job right, and then a little bit less focus on maybe the scheme of the defense and who’s playing across from you, whether it’s at practice or whether it’s in the first game of the season. And Ced he’s done a really nice job of that, so we’ve been really impressed with that.”
Jerry (Jeudy) said that he saw a scenario which was maybe more difficult for him with the attention that he drew last season and the success that he had. How do you see him anticipating and approaching that, knowing that he might be double teamed more, he might have a harder time getting open, but still wanting to be that wide receiver one and make that impact?
“Yeah, obviously very high expectations with Jerry because of the season that he had last year. And we’ve talked a lot about managing those expectations. And one of the best things we can do with Jerry, and he can do for himself, is just to do the things last year that brought him success, and that was being very detailed in everything he does, to being on the same page with a quarterback, to get in exactly the coaching point that we ask him in the meetings, getting that correct on the field. So, if Jerry stays within that, right? And doesn’t try to do too much, right? Then I think he’ll have a lot of success. And that’s what Jerry’s done so far in the preseason, is he’s just tried to just do his job right, and just try to get the detail of what we ask him on that play and not think too much about statistics and targets and those things. Just worry about doing our job and doing what’s best for the team. And Jerry, what a great team guy he is. And I’ll say this, he’s really emerged as a leader for us. I mean, I know he doesn’t say a lot, but what I see is his actions speak so much louder than what he says. He’s just provided us great leadership. And when you talk about the development of young players, you have to have a leader in the room besides the coach that needs to help the development of the young players. And I think that like the success of Gage making the team, the progress we’ve seen in some of our other younger players that are on the practice squad, a lot of that credit goes to Jerry because of his leadership that he’s provided a young group of receivers to include Ced. You know, Ced’s still a young football player for us and Jerry’s really done a great job of providing leadership for our young players on our team.”
Chad, Tommy (Rees) and Kevin (Stefanski) sat down and designed this run game, how much of an emphasis has that been here from your guy’s involvement in getting this run game back to where it was?
“A lot. I mean we ask the guys in our room to do three things, to get open, catch the ball, and last but not least, compete in the run game. And we take a lot of pride in that, and we know how important it is to our offense that we run the ball extremely well. We take a lot of pride in that. We know that we can be a factor in the run game. You know, I mean, I think of a guy like Cedric, who has done a great job in that area, being very selfless of putting the team first – you know, obviously he’s a bigger body that we’ll ask to do some different things than we would one of our smaller receivers just because of his size. But most importantly, he’s very competitive and he takes a lot of pride in doing the job in the run game. So, we talk about it. We just got done talking about it 10 minutes ago, about how important it will be for us to be a factor in the run game.”
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