Offensive Coordinator Ben McAdoo
October 16, 2014
Q: You always said that the offense was based on personnel. Now that you are without your best running back and your best wide receiver, how is the offense going to change? Or is it?
A: Well, our philosophy is when an injury happens, next man up. So we’re going to stick with that. Our offense is personnel-driven and we’re going to do what we can to get our players in positions to be successful. We’ve been training guys within the system since April 21, so we’ll tailor it to their strengths and we’ll go from there.
Q: You mentioned the cross-training a lot. How much has Odell Beckham been cross-trained for the slot role and if not, how much have you seen on film to let you know that maybe he could do that if you needed him to?
A: Odell, this is only his third week back into practice, so he’s getting his football legs underneath him. He’s getting in football shape. He’s shown that he’s smart and conscientious and willing to work and we’re sprinkling those reps around now. We’re training a bunch of different guys to take those reps and a bunch of guys have been taking those reps since April 21, so we’ll plug and we’ll play and we’ll go from there.
Q: How different of a skill set really is it to move a player from outside to inside?
A: Just because you’re a slot receiver doesn’t mean that you’re a shifty guy or a quick guy rather than a fast guy. You can use different body types in there. Whether you’re a big guy who is a physical type receiver, whether you’re a long, linear guy that plays with speed or whether you’re a short, quick type guy, there are all different kinds of slot receivers. Each of them do different things well.
Q: Is there any thought, though, since he’s had minimal practice time with you guys, to keep him outside and let him get used to working there before putting more on his plate?
A: You could think that way, yes. But we train concepts here. We teach conceptually, so whether you’re number one, number two or number three, you have to know what everyone has and how it impacts what you do. Sliding a guy in one slot or sliding him out one slot is different, but it’s not a huge challenge.
Q: For a young guy, does he seem to be picking up those concepts reasonably quickly?
A: Absolutely. No reservations there as far as… he comes in, he’s very attentive in meetings, he takes it out to the field, he practices it, he asks questions, he wants to be right and wants to learn and wants to know. He wants to be a good player. That’s what I see.
Q: One guy who hasn’t been here since April 21 is Kevin Ogletree. What have you seen from him and do you think he can contribute as soon as this week?
A: Yeah, he did today. He contributed today. He did a nice job in practice. He’s a guy that, when you’ve seen him in the workout, he came in and he was able to speak the language, he was able to go out… a lot of times in those workouts, it’s tough to get guys to run things the way you want to run them, but he could take what you were speaking verbally and put them to the walk. That was good to see. He was also able to come in there… when you’re walking behind a guy a trying to show him around and walk him through some things conceptually, he was able to pick that up and go out. It’s not his first rodeo. He’s been around the block a little bit and he’s highly thought of in the league.
Q: Probably one or two weeks ago, Tom Coughlin was talking about how Victor Cruz kind of changed what defenses did to try to give him a lot of attention. What do you feel like, what do you expect to see differently from defenses now that he’s not there?
A: We’ll wait to see on Sunday. We’ll see how they’re going to play us. We’re going to have a plan, we’re going to move some guys around. We’re going to do what we do and put our guys in positions to be successful. We’re going to see what the plan is from the defense and be able to adjust from there.
Q: You were able to get a certain level of execution from your offensive line in three games. How either stunned or dismayed were you by what looked like a massive, widespread drop off last game?
A: When you go out and you perform the way we did on Sunday offensively, it’s a lot more than one position group and a lot more than one guy that takes the blame. And it starts here. I have to do a better job during the week, I have to coach better in the games. When you give up eight sacks, yeah, a lot of it falls on the offensive line, but it’s not just the offensive line. There is plenty of blame to spread around. We came in, we watched the tape, we took our medicine, we coached, players took it. They were hard on themselves, but we moved on. You’ve got to move on in this league. If anything’s hanging over your head, you’re susceptible to a bad week the next week and we can’t let that happen.
Q: Did the Eagles do anything differently than from what you’ve seen from other teams so far this year? Was there anything specific?
A: The Eagles are a well-coached team. They played great defense on Sunday night. They coach great defense and they kicked our butt.
Q: Did you try to maybe be a little more vertical in that game? Was that the intention going in?
A: Did we try to be more vertical? Everything we do is off a vertical stem, so I would say no.
Q: It looked like maybe some of the plays, before they got wrecked so quickly, it looked like you were maybe trying to get down the field a little more. Maybe Eli was going to have to hold the ball a couple of extra seconds as opposed to getting it out so quickly.
A: There may have been some of that but I wouldn’t agree with that. There may be some, when it’s second down and 10-plus and third down and 10-plus and third down and plus ten times in the game, it’s a challenge, so you’re going to have to hold the ball a little bit longer when you have 10 yards to go.
Q: You said you trusted Andre Williams last week. Anything that he did or didn’t do to lessen that trust going into this week?
A: No, I trust Andre. He prepares like a pro, he’s doing it this week. He went out and had a great run early in the game when he put his shoulder down and went after some positive yards. He did a nice job last week and we look for him to continue to improve.
Q: What’s the line of thinking behind going in a shotgun in those situations and the benefit of that?
A: It’s part of your film study.
Q: Specific against what the other team does?
A: Yes, what you do and what you see on tape.
Q: It seems like you either get a whole lot or really nothing from the tight ends in the passing game. Can you attribute that to something?
A: You’d like to get production from every group. Sometimes the coverage you’re seeing depends on what you’re calling and how that goes. On Sunday we didn’t get a lot of production from… we didn’t get enough production. That was widespread.
