Special Teams Coordinator Thomas McGaughey
September 17, 2020
Q: Your two gunners are both guys who got here recently. How do you think they did on punt coverage? Do you give Adrian Colbert credit on that muffed punt for getting down there and making Johnson feel him before he drops the ball there?
A: I give Riley (Dixon) credit and I give AC (Colbert) credit. He got down there and did his job obviously. They made a mistake and we capitalized on it. That’s what that part of the game is about. We knew we had the ability to hit the ball kind of funky down there in that plus area. It worked out for us.
Q: There aren’t a lot of chances to bring back kickoffs. It seemed like the few that there were, Dion Lewis really wasn’t interested. Was that just something he was seeing or was it you guys have a rule if you can’t get it out to the 25, don’t bother?
A: It was just more of a feeling thing. One of those we probably should have returned, definitely. The one right before the half. We talked about that. The flow of the game, you just want to make sure everything gets off and running and it’s just the game management part of it. Being smart in how we’re handling it and just getting a few more reps underneath us before we start breaking out exactly what we’re going to do.
Q: Tell me about that Jabrill Peppers punt return, I think it’s the one that Joe broke down on his film review for the public. How close was Jabrill to breaking that for a touchdown? Were there others that he was close to breaking, too?
A: Yeah, he had a couple in there. Like I told you guys before, y’all have seen him. He is dynamic with the ball in his hands. If we could have been a little cleaner with our blocking on the front end of it, we probably would have been a little bit better in the back end of it. Again, this process has been different. We have to get better at the fundamentals and the techniques. We have a long way to go. We have a solid group. Jabrill did an excellent job. Guys are just playing hard. It’s just a lot of things we have to get cleaned up. Moving forward, we’ll make sure we get those things done. I look forward to being able to help the team in any way we can with our punt return game.
Q: Joe’s a guy with an extensive special teams background. I’m curious how much do your philosophies align? How much have you had to change with some of his influence, just putting that all together?
A: We haven’t had to change a whole lot. I’ve added a lot of stuff from what Joe’s done in the past. As far as changing anything, we just married our two systems together. The things that work, we keep. The things that are a little bit different, we kind of put to the side. It’s been great. Just trying to get that chemistry as you move forward from game to game and how we mange games. How we want to attack people and having those conversations, it has been really good.
Q: I know you have to be flexible personnel wise. Now with this practice squad elevation, did you know last week you would have Sean (Chandler)? Were you planning to have him? Do you have to wait?
A: Like I told you guys before, we’re juggling balls. It depends on what happens during practice. We might have a plan all week and then Friday or Saturday, something happens and we have to change the plan. It’s just being able to make those midstream adjustments and, again, that’s the job.
