Defensive Coordinator James Bettcher -- November 21, 2019
Opening Statement: I had a good opportunity last week. I think one of the things about a bye week is everyone thinks that a bye week is seven full days with your players of non-stop football. The thing that I can say you don’t do is that, you don’t get that. Coach Shurmur had a great plan for our bye week. We came in and got two really good days on the field, we spent time as a staff really evaluating some things that each of our players need to get better at. Not just overall picturing of the scheme but identifying specifically things for our young players that are playing, things they need to get better at. We really tried to focus on those with some really good individual work. We tried to cater the calls we had in practice for the work that needed to get done. I was really encouraged coming out of it. I’ve said this a lot of times about this group, they keep running to it. Mike (Shula) just talked to you a little bit about how we’re close, and that’s why we’re close. You have some vets who are continuing to work and really trying to help our young players. Our young players who are coming in each day, they are still building their professional process, they’re still building their professional resume, but they are working. They are taking the coaching and you see those guys getting better. When you went to and looked at it, man, there are some really good snaps in there. We’re either not on the same page, or not executing a technique or not playing with good eyes or good leverage. The fundamentals it takes to play good defense down in and down out, when we don’t do those things, then big plays occurred, that’s what happened on tape. We continue to work on those things, we’ve had two really good days of work. Our guys are anxious to go play again and look forward to it. I’m sure you will be interested in if we are going to make personnel changes and play this guy more or that guy more. As I’ve said in the past, those plans will reveal themselves on Sundays. Whether guys get more opportunities or less opportunity to play, that always reveals itself on Sunday.
Q: What do you need to see from DeAndre Baker the last six games to say, ‘hey, this kid is a number one pick’?
A: Very similar to some of our other guys that are young players, first, second, third year players, there are some snaps they want back. I think he would be included in that, I want some snaps back for him and he wants them back, too. The thing that Bake has shown me is that he is willing to come to work. I would worry if we were sitting in the meeting room and he didn’t own a mistake, that’s when I would worry. I don’t worry because he owns whatever the correction needs to be. Whether it’s on him, hey, it might’ve been on someone else, too. Sometimes when you watch the tape, if you didn’t know, you might think this was on player A when it might have really been on player B or C. He’s continuing to work very similar to the rest of our young guys, and we are trying to narrow down to things they need to get better at in the immediate future. We are trying to identify those things and prioritize them. That’s how you help players develop. I’ve said it to everyone here, it’s very similar to getting a prescription. You need to do A, B and C first and if you handle A, B and C, then we’ll square that away and help you get better there. Then we will work in whatever those next progression of things are to help become a better player short term and long term for the New York Football Giants.
Q: What are some of the things Julian Love needs to work on to get on the field? What is holding him back?
A: To be honest with you, the things that we talk about with our guys, I like to stay in the room. I’m not going to sit up here and talk about the deficiencies of any of our guys. I think that’s a great question. I think Julian is close, he fits in the same category as DeAndre Baker, Corey Ballentine, X-man and even Lorenzo Carter in his second year. The thing that I really like about Julian is you go and watch him take notes. He’s taking notes, he is locked into the meeting room and he has been that way since day one. I think AB (Antoine Bethea) has really helped him, I think AB has been a great guy in the room. I sit in the DB meeting room a bunch and I hear AB (saying), ‘hey, Julian you see this, recognize that, you see that, that’s why it’s this’ and they have some good dialogue and conversation. Julian is highly engaged in those conversations and that’s why he will trend himself to a guy that’s going to make a push to have a chance to play and be a guy that helps us.
Q: Is he a safety now?
A: Yeah, he’s a safety/nickel. A lot of those guys in the back end are safety/nickel or corner/nickel. Most of them are two-position guys.
Q: What’s B.J. Hill’s role, his playing time has gone down since you made the trade for Leonard Williams?
A: He’s still in the rotation. When Williams came in, that’s a guy from the first game he played he’s made an impact for us and he’s disrupted the line of scrimmage. The other guys in that room, they all have roles. Each and every week, you earn more, or you get less based on each day. That’s a great situation to be in because it’s going push our guys to be better and better.
Q: Some of the vets have made a point to say we are all talking about how the rookies need to get better but that the vets on this defense need to play up to a standard as well. Do you coach it differently with vets versus rookies and what you are focusing on? It seems like it’s easier to understand the mistakes the rookies are making, but if the vets are making the mistake, how do you coach those mistakes out of this team?
A: I think we have been talking a lot about the rookies and that’s a good question because that doesn’t mean for any stretch of the imagination that anyone else in the room is not accountable, doesn’t take ownership, is not getting coached the same way our young guys are. I think with vet guys that have played a substantial amount of snaps, you coach those guys maybe not like a rookie because their understanding of conceptual stuff is generally different. Their understanding of maybe being a little more self-aware. A lot of those guys can say, ‘yeah, I messed up because my eyes weren’t right or I didn’t have the right leverage and that’s why I didn’t have success on that down.’ A lot of times it’s reaffirming those things with those guys. You can ask those guys, I coach those guys just as hard and demand just as much of them. The important thing is they demand that from themselves. The fact that they say that to you or anyone else asking questions, that they need to play better, I think that speaks to their character.
Q: Can you tell that your players are sick of losing?
A: I think that everyone in the world would say they are sick of losing. I don’t think it’s a matter of being sick of losing. I think Coach Shurmur has made a couple great points to our team, it’s not about being sick of losing, it’s about what are we willing to do to win. What we are willing to do to get the job done, and I think that’s more what it’s about.
Q: You think you can take advantage of the flux the Bears have at quarterback. When you look at Trubisky, a guy who has been up and down, you guys can hone in on keeping him down as opposed to having a break out game?
A: Ideally, that’s certainly what we want to do. He’s taken whatever he has taken there. When you turn the tape on, you see a guy that’s competing, he’s playing hard. He’s not afraid to tuck the ball and scramble. There’s certainly a desire to win, a desire to play at a high level. I have a lot of respect for him from that standpoint.
Great coaching.