Monday Transcript: Head Coach Brian Daboll

Head Coach Brian Daboll

April 17, 2023

Q. Quick question, how much did what you accomplish in free agency affect your draft coming up?

BRIAN DABOLL: That's a good question. I would say they are all kind of intertwined together. Joe and I evaluate the roster, seems like on a daily basis. You know, the draft is a little bit different than free agency. But there's been a lot of work done to it, and you know, who gets selected and when they get selected. I would say there's discussions when we had a player at a specific position. Does that lower the need, yeah, but that doesn't guarantee that you're not going to draft that player at that position because you don't need that position. I'd say that's not the case always.

Q. Obviously the big story today is Saquon and Dexter not reporting because of contract stuff. How do you handle those guys? Are you in touch with them? And do you feel like -- I know everything is voluntary, but do you feel like guys are missing stuff when they are not there?

BRIAN DABOLL: I'd say first of all, we've had a great turnout. We've had a few meetings here today. I think the guys that are here are excited to be back. We got off to a good start. Again, phase one is really about, you know, the physical part of it, getting quicker, faster, stronger and then there's a few little meetings here or there based on scheme. I've talked to both of those players, both Saquon and Dex, and I'll leave those conversations as I always do, private.

Q. On Dexter and Saquon, this is the voluntary portion of the off-season only but is there a point as a head coach when you consider it an issue when some of your best players aren't in the building in an off-season?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I take it day-by-day. Again, I've had conversations with both those guys, and both those conversations will remain private. You know, I hope you can respect that, but that's kind of where we are at.

Q. Just one follow-up if you don't mind. Did you address that with the team? Because obviously these aren't just two guys. These are two of your best players not there. Curious how you addressed that on day one or if you addressed it at all?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I talk with the team about a lot of things. Again, those are private team meetings that we have. Again, it's good to see everybody back here getting off to a good start. I'd say we have a very high percentage of people that are here and that's what we'll work at. We'll work at getting better each day.

Q. Joe Schoen mentioned not long ago that he feels he has a better handle on the kind of players Wink would want in free agency and certainly the draft. Overall, do you think this second year around, this process, this draft process, everybody has a better handle on everything and that's going to help select players that are perfect for your offense and your defense?

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, look, I think the guys did a great job last year of evaluating the coaches, the scouts, those good collaborations. We had a lot of good meetings. We'll have more here for the next couple days. We had a bunch last week. Again, the draft is an inexact science. You do your best job you can do of evaluating the players, what you see on tape sometimes you can forecast a little bit about what you think the player can do if they are not playing the exact same position. I don't think that's ever changed since I've been in the league, but certainly the conversations that we have, from the coaches to the scouts to myself with Joe, those are all very productive conversations.

Q. Can you just clarify for me, the situation with Dexter and Saquon, are they allowed in the building with these contract negotiations going on and have they been in the building from so?

BRIAN DABOLL: No, Saquon is not until he signs his tender, but Dexter certainly is. Again, each case, whether it's Dexter, Saquon, another player, they are all a little bit different. Again, they are voluntary. It's April 17th. We've got a long way to go here so we'll just take it day-by-day.

Q. And then my follow-up to you is this being your second year as a head coach, what are some of the things, if any, are you planning to change to make sure that the team is, you know, either healthier or just better prepared or any area that maybe you felt was a shortcoming last year that you said to yourself, okay, we've got to make improvements here and we've got to look forward.

BRIAN DABOLL: I believe you do that with every area of the building, from the coaching side to the scouting side to the training side to the strength side to the cafeteria to, I'd say facility development. We've done a lot with our weight room and changed it around and it really looks good and think it will be more productive for the players, from stuff on the walls. You are always constantly -- scheme, you know, scheduling. It's a never-ending process, and we have talked about that at length the last few months and continued to try to improve every area we can.

Q. What are the benefits of being here, and what do you feel like guys who aren't here, it doesn't matter, the two guys obviously are big guys but what are they maybe missing by not being here?

BRIAN DABOLL: All we try to do is, you know, improve in each area that we can while the players are here, whether that be in the strength and development side of it, whether that's system side of it. So again, that's why they are voluntary. Players get to choose if they want to be here, if they don't want to be here, and then whoever is here, we are going to work as hard as we can to help improve in those areas. I'd say the other thing, the guys just being around one another, getting to know (each other). We have a number of new free agents here in the building. So it was good this morning to see those guys start to interact with some of our players we had last year. There's a lot of people that we had last year that are moving on from different teams, whether that be coach or players. Again, it's just introductory stages here of really the 2023 season. Got a lot of months and a lot of practices and things like that to go.

Q. Can you ever tell if guys have improved in any way, even if it's the mental part of the game?

BRIAN DABOLL: Right now, you don't get very much time with them. They are in the weight room, and then we have a couple hours of meetings with them, you know, hour, 45 minutes of -- again, guys like Parris Campbell and Darren Waller that are just coming in the building, they don't even really know where to go, so they are getting used to their surroundings but then they are starting to get used to the plays. So, where Daniel is right now isn't necessarily where obviously Darren is, and you've got to bridge that gap and you've got to start over and start back with the basics. You know, there's certain things that you add throughout the off-season when you're looking at yourself and self-scouting and maybe throw out a couple things here, add a couple new things here. So, each year is a different year, like I've said before, and a lot of work that needs to be done.

Q. Curious as a general question, what do you do the first day? Like what is important to you? What are you trying to get across to guys and really what's the whole first phase about for you?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, so we had a team meeting this morning, it was brief, but I brought up, I'd say, a lot of people, different areas, introduced them again to the team. You have however many new players, so from Dr. Lani (Lawrence -Director of Wellness and Clinical Services), our mental health therapist to Jerry Meade (Vice President of Security), who does security to Ronnie (Barnes - Senior Vice President, Medical Services/Head Athletic Trainer) who is athletic training to Fitz (Craig Fitzgerald - Director of Strength and Performance) who is our strength to Steve Smith (Director of Sports and Performance Nutrition) who does our nutrition. I just try to let the new players put a face with the name and let those people that are involved with each of the departments tell them what they can do to help them because that's our whole goal, is how can we be good serving leaders; how can we help our players be the best they can be in the building, but outside the building. So, a lot of that is introduction to those type of people that work for us. There are just a few things here of kind of what we're looking for in phase one, and then they go work out and meet offensively. So then (Offensive Coordinator Mike) Kafka can take some installs of core things he wants to talk about on day one and (Defensive Coordinator) Wink (Martindale) does the same thing. Four hours is four hours, that's what we spend with them, a few hours working out and a few hours, up to a few hours in the meetings.

Q. On a separate note, your owner said as much about Saquon that he's not happy with the franchise taking the contract situation, I've heard the same things, the word, unhappy. As a coach in general, how much do you have to manage that, and when players are unhappy with their contract situation and it not affecting the team and the rest of the locker room?

BRIAN DABOLL: It's April 17th. I'm going to keep all those conversations private. That's the way I'll always do it. Again, excited about the guys that are here. Much respect for Saquon, and those things, in some form, at some time, will find itself working out.

Q. I think you answered this, but I just wanted to be really clear on my own here. Did Dexter or Saquon not coming today have any kind of element of surprise for you or anyone else there or was that already discussed, and you knew the deal?

BRIAN DABOLL: It's voluntary, so those guys get to choose what they want to do. Obviously, we know Saquon is not going to be here based on his contract situation. I've had conversations with Dexter, and I've had conversations with Saquon. Those will remain private. That's just what I believe in.

Q. There's been a narrative on Twitter from football guys not just from your average Tweeter, necessarily, that because Daniel got paid, Dexter and Saquon are somehow planting a flag to kind of demonstrate their need to get paid. You know, how would you address any of that?

BRIAN DABOLL: Privately. Again, look, this is the NFL. You guys have been doing this for a long time. There's a lot of things on the business side of the NFL that go along and again Joe has done a great job with his conversations, and again, there's certain things that you know, I just am not going to go into here because they are private for our team but a lot of respect for those guys, and you know, it's April 17th here. We have got a long way until we get going.

Q. You've mentioned several times about how each year is a new year and now you're going into year two. Are there things that you've identified just from a program perspective, maybe by talking to other people, I know you've dug in in the past, we talked a lot about last year, reaching out to different coaches, what works, what doesn't work, that transition. How do you kind of plot that out this year and make sure that it's not just an anticipated continuation of year one?

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, I think when you talk to the team, you know, you talk about today, not yesterday. You think too much about yesterday and it will get you, and you think too much about three, four, five weeks from now, that will get you. So just live in the moment. Again, I've had numerous conversations with a lot of different people in leadership roles, really, the past few years since I've been in that situation, whether I was a coordinator or head coach, and tried to pick up as many tidbits as I can and make sure I'm doing my due diligence on my end to make sure the players are ready to go with fresh start. I've been fortunate to be part of some really good teams, whether that be in college or the NFL where you ended up winning a championship and learned are from some of the guys, I got to work for with how quickly they turned the page. I'm not comparing what we did. We didn't really do much, won one playoff game and that's it. I drawback in some of the history that I've had with some of the coaches that I've been around and how they did things. I talked to a lot of other different people, maybe not just coaches, but business leaders and things like that and myself. So, what we did last year and I've said this a few weeks ago, really has no bearing on anything we do this year. I think we have a really good group of people in our building that understand where our focus needs to be, which is today and trying to get better today, and that's all we can control.

Q. Do you find it easy to turn the page yourself? Have you always been that way?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah. You know, again, what you do last year and really in any endeavor that you're involved in really has no bearing on the success or the failure that you could have the next year. We had a lot of work to do. I've said this a few weeks ago. I know when we were at the Annual Meetings, we are not starting out from ground zero just because we have some people that know how we kind of do things, but there's a lot of new things that we're adding. There's new chemistry amongst the players and the coaches. There are certain players you don't know how they are going to react after something bad happens or something good happens, and the a challenging part of the job is building a team. You know, you can collect all the talent that you want but teams win in this league. Teams that do things the right way, and we're just getting started on that process of building our team. Some of the defensive guys don't even know what Parris looks like. He's got to stand up and introduce himself, a new coach, (Running Backs coach) Jeff Nixon, whoever it may be. There are so many things that go into building a team, and I know most of you all have been part of a team at some point in your life. You'd like to just pick up where you left off, but unfortunately that's not how it works.

Q. A year ago, you were still in the process of evaluating Daniel and the quarterback position and all those things. How different is it this year? What are the benefits of knowing that he's your guy and that you guys made that commitment to him during this off-season?

BRIAN DABOLL: You learned a lot when you come in. We learned a lot about Daniel. I think he learned a lot about us. Again, you're not going through day one cadence in the quarterback meeting room or maybe some installation of some basic plays. You have a good feel for what the quarterback feels comfortable with, and now it's adding new wrinkles here and there are things that you study in the off-season. But the language and the terminology, you know, he has that down. You jump into some other things, maybe some technique things, maybe in new plays, maybe some things you saw when you really broke it down at the end of the season and the past few weeks of, hey, let's take a look and make sure we understand the why behind this play a little bit better. But he's done a good job. He's a consistent person. I'm glad we have him.

Q. How about from your point of view, not having to spend energy on analyzing and trying to come to a decision about whether or not he's your guy?

BRIAN DABOLL: I think once you're around a team like we were for the last year, our first season, the people that you have on your team, you kind of know some of their strengths, and you know their weaknesses. You also know that they know a lot more than they did last year when you came in and I'd say the same is for me just being in my position. Does experience and togetherness help? Yeah, to an extent. But you have all these new pieces that you are trying to integrate into your system. Again, albeit be day one, but that's the challenging part of building a team. Like I said I said before, you have maybe a few pieces that have a good understanding of how you do things and they know the playbook and they know the ins and outs of the program and all those types of things and then you have some players that have been in the league, call it four years, five years, maybe some have been ten years, they have been around to different spots and really the only thing that matters is how you do things in your building and making sure that everybody gets on the same page and that's my job.

Q. Quick housekeeping, we know Saquon and Dex aren't there. Is there anyone else missing from this first day?

BRIAN DABOLL: I'd just say this, we have really good attendance. It was good to see everybody here. You know, each day we'll try to get better with the things we need to get better at.