Transcript: DB Logan Ryan

DB Logan Ryan

November 4, 2020

Q: Can you describe the growth of this defense and where do you think it can go in terms of it’s potential?

A: How about that Rutgers play? How do they dare turn that Rutgers 20 lateral play back? I’m proud of our defense although this is a cut and dry win or loss league. I think we’re definitely growing. I think we saw that on Monday Night. I think we gave the goat some issues there. We’re a bunch of tough guys who fight regardless of our record. I’m giving it everything I got every play; I know our team is playing like that. We’re becoming a tough out for people and we’re going to find ways to win games. I’m extremely confident in that because we’re going to continue to work on our fundamentals, continue to build. I don’t know the potential, we’ll see. I like where we’re at on all three levels. I think guys are stepping up and guys are making more and more plays. We just have to make game winning plays.

Q: Obviously we have talked about it, you guys change up the game plan week to week based on the opponent. I’m just curious, on short week, is there any advantage to facing his team for a second time? Knowing that it was only a couple weeks that you prepared for Washington? What they did, who they were, all their personnel, from a defensive perspective?

A: Yeah, I think so. Playing an opponent once, you definitely get a feel for them, but they got a feel for you too. Any advantage we have is the same one they have. They know us, we know them. We had some problem plays in the first game that we have to address. They can come out and ran some of those plays which is what we anticipate some of the plays that may give us problems. Or they can come out and do something different, we don’t know. We just have to get a good idea of their personnel. We got a jump on that from playing them. We know 17 [Terry McLaurin] is really good, we know their running backs are really good. We know their tight end had a pretty good day, so we have to address that. We have to continue to stop the run. We know they are relying on their run game. We were good at stopping the run a little bit on Monday night pretty well. We have to continue to grow in that area. I think we’re a much-improved team from when we played them a few weeks ago. I think they improved too, they looked really good against Dallas. I think it helps on the preparation a little bit, but it all comes down to execution on Sundays.

Q: You’re a guy that has a similar football background to [Head Coach] Joe [Judge]. You have the rings to prove his way of doing things works. When you have a veteran though, I’m talking about Golden [Tate] obviously, who seems to be adjusting to that philosophy. How does a team handle it? How have you seen teams in the past handle this kind of a situation and get through it?

A: Honestly, I’m not educated enough on the question. I had no idea what was going on until they prepped me two minutes before this interview, what happened today. I had a short week as well, resting my body up recovering, getting on to Washington. I honestly think that’s definitely a question for Joe which I’m sure he addressed. I think it’s a question for Golden if you get a hold of him. I honestly think I’m not educated enough to speak on that one. I like to speak on a lot of things but that one I just don’t know enough about what’s going on currently.

Q: How are you feeling?

A: Pretty good, feeling good. Definitely left a lot out there in the game trying to tackle the right way. I think I took the brunt of that one, how the NFL wants me to tackle. Hopefully it’s on teach tape for somebody one day, I paid the price for it a little bit. Feeling good, back out there at practice today.

Q: You were on the injury report, so you don’t think there is any doubt about you playing this week right?

A: If you’re a gambling man, I would put it on me to play this week.

Q: You played obviously a bunch of places where they have kind of have the same defense, the same concepts. The other night we saw it was really multiple. There was a lot of different looks, a lot of stuff. Is what you’re doing here the same, less, more maybe than what you were doing in Tennessee or what you were doing in New England?

A: That’s a good question. They’re all defenses that are willing to change for sure. Tennessee, we didn’t have as good of a defensive line so we had to find more ways to create pressure with bringing secondary pressure a little bit more than we do here. We have a really good D-line so we don’t have to. That’s something we had to do out of necessity. New England was more of drop a lot of guys, play a lot more man coverage than we play here, but we like how we play in zone right now. They’re all multiple though to answer your question. They’re all really good defensive coordinators and defensive minds. [Bill] Belichick, Dean Pees and I think Pat Graham is a really good defensive mind honestly, he’s really good. I told you guys weeks ago we’re really multiple, we’re really versatile. We’re trying to give quarterbacks a hard time. I just think we’re starting to execute his vision a little bit better. I really like this defense. It challenges me every week to play somewhere else or learn something new. Playing the post against Tom Brady, a year ago I never played it. I got to play Monday in the post against Tom Brady and try to mind game with him every play I could. Try to give him a hard time. He told me I did, but he still won so it wasn’t good enough. We’ll take the improvement and try to give Kyle Allen a hard time.

Q: Speaking of Rutgers and referees. Did you go up to Nate [Jones] after the game and say how did you pick that up?

A: I didn’t know Nate on a first name basis like Joe. I’m not going to get fined in this press conference on this question. We see defensive pass interference a lot in this game. I just don’t see it picked up often. Obviously, they picked it up on my hit, so I guess they do pick it up sometimes. That’s just one they decided to pick up. You don’t see it too often, it’s rare. I don’t know if the time or score had something to do with it. I really don’t know. I don’t want the job of a referee, it’s a tough job. I’ll leave it there, but you just don’t see that happen too often. A DB got a call for once.

Q: Nate was a little bit before you at Rutgers right?

A: Yeah, I believe so.

Q: I don’t know if you’re going to remember, a few years back in the New England locker room, you told me about the marshmallows in the bowl. I think that was a Belichick special to motivate, you guys are soft as marshmallows, that kind of thing. I’m just wondering, if you didn’t know Joe Judge came from coaching under Bill Belichick, would you somehow still know? Are there some tells in his coaching philosophy that you would say to yourself ‘that reminds me of New England’?

A: I think the situational football. The amount of detail spent on tackling and situational football is just unique to I guess Belichick, and that’s all I know. I’ve always been under a Belichick type of coach, tree coach. I don’t want to discredit Joe or anybody and say they’re just that type of coach. I just think talking to guys on other teams, they don’t focus on tackling as much as we do. They don’t focus on the situations. I really know in two minute, how many timeouts they have, where they need to get, do they need to get out of bounds or in bounds? How long does it take them to run a play and clock it? Probably 17 seconds. How long does it take them to catch it and call a timeout? Probably six seconds. That’s telling me how to tell our DBs how to play. That’s trying to be a coach on the field, and I really learned that from Devin McCourty doing that a lot in New England. That was his job. That was all our jobs to know, but Devin was really vocal about that. I think that’s just the role that I’ve kind of inherited here, is a lot like Devin, who is one of my best friends, of being very vocal on the field in the situations. That comes as an extension of Joe and an extension of Bill. I just want to talk about something I don’t think people really much know about Joe and this organization. I know we talk a lot about wins and losses. I don’t want to take up too much of people’s time. But after the game, my wife flew down to Florida to go vote, a very important state for this vote. My wife actually flew down there to go vote and check on our house. We have a house in Florida. She was having some stomach pains. It was 1 am and I was banged up after the game as well, and I was leaving the stadium at 1 am. She was telling me about some pain she had in her stomach. She wanted to sleep it off. She was in extreme pain, but she said she’ll wait until the morning. I talked to one of our trainers about the symptoms. He said ‘no, she needs to go to the ER.’ My wife ended up going to the ER, and they ended up catching, I don’t want to butcher the word, ectopic pregnancy, where the egg was in the wrong place in her fallopian tube and it was about to burst. She ended up going into emergency surgery, that’s what I’m dealing with right now. They ended up saving her and ended up preventing a lot of what could have been done. That was a trainer on our team, Justin Maher, telling my wife to go to the ER at 1 am and could have saved her life or saved a lot of internal bleeding there. That’s the type of organization we have here. Honestly, I wasn’t going to talk about that. My kids are okay, my wife is recovering well, she’s okay. This happened all of yesterday, and Joe said ‘if you need to fly to Florida, don’t worry about football.’ That’s who Joe is as a man and as a coach. I know we care about X’s and O’s and winning and losing, but there are really good people here. That’s why I came here. There are really good trainers here, there are really a lot of people behind the scenes that are working really hard for us to get wins. I’ll do everything I can to play for a coach like that and play for an organization like this because if that wasn’t the case, I don’t know if my wife would be here today. Honestly, I’m extremely grateful for this organization and for Joe, and for everyone to understand that there are things bigger than football, especially this year.