Thursday Transcript: Offensive Coordinator Ben McAdoo

Offensive Coordinator Ben McAdoo

October 1, 2015

Q: Did you guys do something to push Rueben Randle’s breakout performance last week?

A: No, I think he had a good week of prep. It was a short week. He was dialed in, you could see that on the practice field for as many reps as we had out there. We didn’t have a ton of live reps, but we had some good skelly reps. He was into the plan, he came out and he didn’t press, he let the game come to him. The balls went his way and he capitalized on them.

Q: He established himself early in that game. Did that open things up for Odell later on or make things easier on Odell in terms of the coverages he was seeing?

A: I think the more you can spread the ball around, the better it is for everyone. You let the one-on-one matchups take care of that. You’d like to gravitate towards the one-on-one matchups and not press. From Eli’s perspective, the more guys you have that can make plays for you, that’s a good problem to have.

Q: How invested were you in having Victor back when you did the game plan on Tuesday? How did that change?

A: We were excited to have Victor back on the field with us. It didn’t work out this week, and we’re going to move on from there.

Q: Does anything change for you this week?

A: No.

Q: Are you getting enough out of your third receiver right now in your estimation? Or do you need more out of that spot?

A: We had some opportunities to gain some more production on Thursday night. It didn’t go that way coming off of a short week. This week we’ve had a good week so far of our two days on the field. We expect Dwayne (Harris) and Geremy (Davis) to take advantage of their opportunities. They had a good couple days, and we’ll see how it goes in the game.

Q: He didn’t have any offensive snaps last week, do you anticipate Geremy seeing snaps this week?

A: That’s a possibility.

Q: Last year there was so much talk about limiting the turnovers and protecting the football, obviously it was a priority. You struck a balance last year. I would imagine you want to be aggressive but you also don’t want to be foolish with the football. Is that a mindset that you think this offense has now adopted?

A: What’s that, protecting the ball?

Q: Just in terms of not being too passive because you want to protect the football, but still taking your shots, but also knowing when the shots need to be taken.

A: We talk a lot about we just want to let the game come to us and find completions. There will be an opportunity in the game to take some shots and throw the ball down the field. When the opportunities arise, you take advantage of them and pull the trigger and you make the play.

Q: Rueben caught two balls downfield and that was a big chunk of his yardage. I don’t think you actually attempted a pass to him deep downfield in the first two games, Maybe there was one. As the offensive coordinator, is that something you have to make an effort to do every game? Is that something you’re looking at? Is that something as a team that’s a part of the plan?

A: You can call some completions, you can push the ball down the field on some play calls, and you can take an opportunity on shots. But for the most part, you take what the defense gives you, you complete the ball and you move on down the road. There will be some opportunities in games on our terms where we want to take a shot, and we’ll do that. To tell the quarterback from the sideline, when I’m over there with a headset on, where to throw the ball on every play is not smart football. So we’ll let our veteran quarterback drop back, go through his reads and take the open receiver.

Q: There were a couple third and shorts but you even threw the ball short of the line on those. Were those run too shallow or was that also just him?

A: How do you define third and short?

Q: Like third and threes, fours, maybe the ball was thrown like two yards.

A: I’d have to see the play you’re talking about. If they take the deeper stuff away, then he has a chance to drop it down, check it down.

Q: If you look at the stats, they’re the best run defense in the league. If you look at the other half, their pass defense isn’t too good. Is it simplistic to say, “Let’s attack them with the pass.”

A: They’re a very opportunistic defense. They’re obviously well-coached. They have a variety of schemes in place, they can probably play every defense in football. They have good players that can execute the schemes. Their strength is up front, and because of that, they’ll try to pressure the quarterback and make him commit some errors. When you do that, you may give up some plays downfield. I know a lot of their yards may be at the end of the game when points are more important than yards. So I don’t think yards is really a good stat to look at. I think if you turn on the film, you’ll see a pretty good defense.

Q: Tom Brady seemed to shred them a bit. Is that just Brady or are there opportunities there?

A: They had a good plan. They did a nice job protecting him, they took some shots down the field, and they did a good job executing in that game. I think they had about what, 10 third downs in the game. They were three for 10, but they did a nice job with their personnel groups. They had a nice plan.

Q: How frustrating is it that you haven’t been able to have Odell and Victor out on the field at the same time?

A: Not frustrating. We play with who we have. Whoever is in the locker room getting dressed, whoever gets to suit up that day-- that’s who we play with.

Q: Do you have to change anything knowing that you only have four healthy receivers and you’ve got two tight ends on the side and it’s Thursday. Is that a factor?

A: No, we anticipated coming into the week that we could possibly be short on numbers. We just have to have everything backed up, that’s all.

Q: Is Shane Vereen an option to use or a weapon to use to sort of help mitigate the fact that you only have four receivers, and you had zero catches from the third receiver last week. Is he an option in your mind to make that easier or get more production out of your receivers?

A: You mean move him to wide receiver?

Q: Just use him in any way possible—

A: Yeah, it’s all hands on deck. We’ll use him, anybody we can, we need 11. So we’ll play with 11 healthy bodies if that’s all we have. The guys that can catch the ball the best, we’ll play with on the perimeter.

Q: You’re willing to use him as a wide receiver?

A: Sure, why not?

Q: How much experience does he have with that as far as you are aware?

A: He does it a lot from the backfield, so I’m sure we can move him around and do what we need to do if that happens. We’ll have a plan in place, we’re not going to run out of guys. We’ll have 11, we’ll have 11.

Q: You’ll line John Jerry up at some tight end, too?

A: Never say never.