Transcript: Head Coach Brian Daboll

Head Coach Brian Daboll

October 4, 2023

Q: Start with injuries?

A: People that will not practice today will be (guard) Shane (Lemieux), (center) John Michael (Schmitz Jr.), and (tackle) Andrew Thomas.

Q: Is (tight end) Daniel Bellinger --

A: He will be limited today. (Running back) Saquon (Barkley) will be limited. Saquon will do some teamwork. (Running back Gary) Brightwell, (offensive lineman Marcus) McKethan, (outside linebacker) Azeez (Ojulari), (tackle) Evan (Neal) and (wide receiver) Wan’Dale (Robinson), all of them will be limited.

Q: This is the first time that Saquon is actually going to get in team reps? He didn’t get any last week, right?

A: Yes. Yeah. That’s exactly right.

Q: What is the injury to Shane?

A: He has a groin.

Q: You said Evan?

A: Evan will be limited. Yeah, Evan and Marcus will be limited.

Q: What do they have?

A: Marcus is his knee and Evan is his hand/ankle.

Q: Is John Michael long term or do you know?

A: Long term in terms of?

Q: IR? Weeka?

A: No, I don’t think it’s long term but – I don’t think it’s long term, we’ll see where he’s at. I think he’s making progress; we’re just going to hold him out today. We’ll see where he is the next couple days. Could play but not ready today.

Q: With Evan and Marcus, is that long term?

A: No, I think they’ll be ready to play.

Q: Given the state of things on the offensive line, is it unrealistic for (guard Justin) Pugh to be up?

A: So, what we’ll do with him today, he’ll kind of work off to the side and get acclimated to some of the stuff, get ready to practice. That’s where we’re at with Justin.

Q: Any chance he plays Sunday?

A: Pugh?

Q: Yeah.

A: Probably not.

Q: (Cornerback) Aaron Robinson’s still on PUP. Where does he stand?

A: I’d say he’s making progress. Don’t have a great answer for you in terms of when he will be back, when he won’t. He’s making progress, not ready yet.

Q: How about (wide receiver) Cole (Beasley)?

A: Cole, same thing.

Q: Last week Andrew tried. Is it correct to say it was a setback?

A: Yeah, he only did a few things, didn’t feel right so we took him out right away.

Q: And today, he’s not able to pick up?

A: Today? No, not right now.

Q: Is this week out of the question? Let him rest up a little bit.

A: I don’t know yet. I’d probably say leaning towards no but not ready to make that determination.

Q: We just hit you with all the specifics on the offensive line. What is your general sense of concern now with this group that hadn’t been playing at a very high level to begin with?

A: Got to go out there and coach the guys that are out there and do a good job with that, then get them ready to play.

Q: Do you have enough healthy guys?

A: Yeah. Yep.

Q: How did (guard) Ben (Bredeson) handle moving over quickly to center?

A: He’s a smart guy, knows all our calls, had a bunch of reps in the summer so that was – it’s good to have a guy that plays guard that can play center as well.

Q: No issues with the snaps?

A: No, a couple low ones but nothing out of the ordinary.

Q: (Cornerback) Tre Hawkins (III) went from starter to no defensive snaps on Monday.

A: It was based on who we were playing, in terms of how we were matching the corners and part of the game plan. I’d say we’re talking about that this week of how we want to deploy our guys and that’s probably going to be a week-to-week discussion as we go though who we’re playing, the matchups, how we want to play them defensively.

Q: You mentioned yesterday that obviously, it’s a priority to put up more points. But when you’re going against an offense that put up points the way they did two weeks ago, does that alter how you approach things offensively at all?

A: I’ve said this before, we’ve got to do a good job of playing complementary football, which we haven’t yet. That’ll be the focus, it’s always the focus but results haven’t been there.

Q: Brightwell, Ojulari and Robinson, why are they limited?

A: Brightwell, ankle. Azeez, his hamstring – he didn’t have any setbacks, we’re just going to limit him today. Who was the other one?

Q: Wan’Dale.

A: Wan’Dale, his knee. He had more reps so we’re giving him a limited snap count today.

Q: Daniel obviously ran it a lot and got sacked. Did he come out of it physically fine?

A: Yep.

Q: That was not easy for him to come out of that physically fine. He’s diving, he’s not sliding, he’s getting hit out of bounds.

A: Yeah, obviously he had some hits, but he came out okay.

Q: What’s your plan on punt returner this week?

A: I’d say that we’ll go back to him (running back Eric Gray). Again, that game I just felt that was the right thing to do, based on that punter, is to let (cornerback) Adoree’ (Jackson) field them after that first one and we’ll go ahead and he’ll be back.

Q: Gray hasn’t looked totally comfortable. What were you seeing that you pulled him after one? What gives you a comfort level that he can handle it?

A: He’s caught the ball well. He had the one (catch) interference against San Francisco, the interference with the kick. Done a good job out here at practice. Again, some of that was their punter. He’s got some unique punts, too. Saw the first one and thought that was the right thing to do for the team.

Q: (Safety/inside linebacker) Isaiah Simmons is someone who seems anxious to be able to make an impact. Is he getting closer to being a real player on the defense?

A: Yeah, I’d say he has a role for our defense, and you know (defensive coordinator) Wink (Martindale) has talked about this a bunch. We have certain different packages that we utilize him in. Sometimes it can be less, sometimes it can be more, but he’s coming along.

Q: What do you think about how (Dolphins quarterback) Tua (Tagovailoa) has played? You know him well, you kind of have seen that progression.

A: Yeah, I’m not surprised. Not surprised. I have a lot of respect for Tua and how he plays that position, some of the stuff he went through early on in his career. He’s got great anticipation, he’s accurate, he’s a leader, and I am not surprised at all with the success he has had. He’s bounced back from some tough things injury-wise, but he’s a heck of a quarterback.

Q: What do you remember early on about him, about Tua?

A: That he’s very accurate, that he’s very instinctive, he’s a great young man. Loves the game of football, has good leadership about him. You can see the players really respect him and how he handles himself. Again, he’s very, very accurate. He throws on time, he’s a heck of a player and he’s a great person too.

Q: (Offensive lineman) Josh Ezeudu was obviously very hurt after the game, really down, and several guys went up to him. Do you worry about a confidence thing with him, and do you talk to him personally at all?

A: Yeah, I try to talk to all the guys. Again, I hope everybody would be down. It’s no fun to lose and he works extremely hard, he’s a good young player that has some upside and we’ll continue to work with him. He cares a lot about his craft, he works extremely hard and I enjoy working with him.

Q: You guys have a lot of success on those bootlegs last year. The last two games have kind of been not so successful. Are teams defending that differently or something you guys need to do different?

A: No, a couple of them, one they had us outnumbered and the other one the guy made a good play coming back. Again, those kind of, so far, I would say that we’ve had some good plays with them, and we’ve had some negative plays with them. I think it’s a timely thing. The look has got to be right. A few good ones and then a few bad ones. We’ve got to try to get some more good ones.

Q: What’s the answer, not just on that play, but when you are outnumbered, what should you do differently there?

A: On the one, there wasn’t a whole lot to do. They may have had a good defense called for it and we only had one guy going back with it, so he rushed off the edge and got us. We can fix some things as a coaching staff, too.

Q: Does Daniel have the freedom to kill the play?

A: DJ has the freedom to get out of any play, but we didn’t have an alert or anything like that with that one. We can do a better job of coaching that one up.

Q: You obviously grade every play, so the eleven sacks, each one has its own little story there. How many of those could have been avoided do you think?

A: Look, we just need to do a better job overall, collectively. Everyone involved in the offense. Whether it’s sacks, pass game, run game. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

Q: Several defensive players after the game felt they had taken a step in the right direction. Do you agree with that and what were the positives you saw?

A: They hung in there good. I thought they played with great effort. Again, they had the one 51-yarder at the end of the half there that we should have avoided there, but I thought they competed well, they gave us a chance, made some progress in a number of areas. Had a good third down day, which was a point of emphasis, so we’ve just got to keep bringing them along.

Q: Why isn’t (wide receiver) Sterling (Shepard) playing more?

A: We have a bunch of personnel groups with different receivers in them. You can see there is a lot of different guys out there. Shep has them, too. They weren’t called, so I’d anticipate seeing him a little bit more. How many? I don’t know what that is, but I’d anticipate seeing him a little bit more.

Q: The fact that Daniel and he have played so much together, could that help Daniel and help the offense, like having some chemistry there?

A: I think Shep is a good player. He will be out there today. We’ll put him in there like we do in practice. We just didn’t call the plays that were tagged with Shep’s plays, but he’s had some production with Daniel. Obviously, it’s a new year, coming back from an injury, so try to keep bringing him along and give him a couple more chances here.

Q: Where are you on the happy or not happy card with (tight end) Darren Waller saying that he didn’t like at all that he had one target in the first half of a game that was over soon after?

A: I’ve got a lot of respect for Darren so like I said, we can all do better, whether it’s getting him the ball, protection wise. There is a lot of things to improve on, obviously, so that’s what we are going to try to do, but I’ve got a lot of respect for him.

Q: You were okay with him saying that?

A: Yeah, I’ve got a lot of respect for him.

Q: Did the Bellinger injury compromise how you would’ve used Darren throughout that game on Monday?

A: Yeah, sure.

Q: In what ways?

A: Well, it depends on the personnel you are using, so some of the stuff you have Bellinger do when Waller’s outside, now you have to put Waller where Bellinger is, and he has to do some of those roles and then you have to use another receiver, if you will, where Waller would be.