Bobby Babich On Maxwell Hairston's Injury & Recovery Process

Bobby Babich On Maxwell Hairston’s Injury & Recovery Process | Buffalo Bills

Can I say something real quick? Matty, where’s Vic? Is Karuchi here? He’s not here today. We share the uh same birthday. So, our birthday was yesterday. I was going to say happy birthday, but uh it wasn’t about me. It was about Vic. It was about Vic. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was looking for Vic. I didn’t see him yet. So, go ahead, Maddie. I’m sorry. We’re recording. Happy birthday. Yeah, Vic, happy birthday wherever you are out in the Since the pads have gone on, what has impressed you about your group? You know, I mean, I think the best thing I could say is this. We’re I mean, we got a lot of things to improve on, whether you talk about fundamentally, individually, per player, whatever that is. Um, but when you look at the big picture, like when you close your eyes and and kind of, you know, you want to see what it looks like in the pads is, you know, I think we’ve said it for years, you know, we want to win the line of scrimmage, you know, and we’re just certainly battling our offense for that line of scrimmage and we’re doing a good job. Um, and then the physicality piece of things. I think I think the best thing to say is that during our tenure here, and you know, a lot of us have been here nine years. I shouldn’t say a lot of us. I don’t know how many are left, but you know, it’s always been an emphasis and it’s part of our philosophy and all those type of things, but I think um the short duration of when we arrived to showing up physically, that was good. But it doesn’t matter, you know, how early you do it. It’s that you do it consistently. And that’s what we’re looking for. So those are a couple things. Full speed football. So are you able on the practice tape evaluation to determine whether your Dlinemen are effectively holding them up so your linebackers can run free and hit or is that tough to discern? Yeah. No, I mean I would disagree on you with the fact that it’s not full. We are full speed. We’re just not taking dudes to the ground. And then sometimes you see I got to yell at our guys because they’re taking guys to the ground. You know what I question is how free are they keeping your linebackers to run and hit thus far? Yeah, I mean we just talk about doing our 111th. It’s not it’s not we’re not teaching everybody’s got a key and everybody’s got a technique that they’re supposed to perform on every play, whatever that causes, you know, whether you’re keeping linebackers free or they decide to free release on a run the O line to the second line or to the uh second level, excuse me. Um, it’s just everybody identifying their key and doing their job. You know, like I just said, if they want a free release to the second level, that means the defensive line has one-on- ones in the run game. So, the expectation is that yes, you control your primary gap, but we got to be able to also like we got to get to the ball and tackle the football. That’s the whole goal is tackle the football without them gaining any yards in the run game. Keep it elementary, right? So, I think everybody is honing in on their 111th. We certainly have a lot of room to grow, but um I would say that we’re treating this as full speed game-like reps. That’s that’s the message that we send our guys is just don’t take them to the ground yet. We know that Max is going to be missing some time. In your experience, what is the key for a young player, a rookie who misses time early to be able to get back and kind of be where he needs to be at that point, if that makes sense. Right. I mean, we’ve dealt with it. Um, we’ve dealt with it over the years. I mean, I can think back to when I was a uh when I was a linebacker coach with TB, right? You know, and then TB missed the entire preseason, you know. Um, and you know, we had a plan in place and, you know, we certainly have walkthroughs. We have things that he can do um um during practice and those type of things when he’s available to be able to do those things. um you know, but it’s hard to simulate game game speed. You you can’t simulate the the physicality of the NFL. So certainly going to be an adjustment period there, but we’ll have a plan and it’ll be well fouled out and be rocking and rolling. For TP though, he had had a year in the system before he missed that that part of camp. For a rookie, how how hard is this foundational part of the season to miss that he’s going to have to be out for a while now? Yeah, it’s tough. But the NFL is not worried about us and trying to get him caught up. So, we’re going to do everything we can uh to make sure he’s ready to go and can perform. Certainly, we we’ve got to be creative in the ways we go about it. But, um between Joe, Dana, Jamal, myself, um we’ll definitely have a plan and and uh we’ll do the best we can to get him ready to go. Certainly, you know, like I said earlier, one of our goals is to prosper in adversity and certainly this a case of adversity and we need to prosper. We can’t hang our heads. Bobby, you saw you go up to him as he was coming off the field with that injury. What’s kind of been your conversations with him like, and how has he respond? Yeah, I think with all players, you know, they want to be available. They don’t want to let their teams down. We talk about being a good teammate and, you know, the competitive nature. Uh Sean and Brandon do a great job of identifying those players as we acquire them. But um biggest thing that I tell any guy that potentially be facing adversity with injury is don’t let negative thoughts get in your head. You know whether whatever you believe in. But I do believe that if you negativity in your mind can certainly affect your recovery process. And it’s hey stay positive take it minute by minute day by day um rehab session by rehab session. And when you’re ready to go we’re ready to go. But you try to think too far ahead. Oh I’m going to be out there. No. Literally just worry about today. worry about what we’re doing right here. How valuable is it to have depth at the position, but also depth in guys that have started games for you, have been in this system that you kind of know what you’re getting when you put out there in Jammarcus and Danny. You’re talking about corner. Yeah. Um I mean I I really and I’ll say it. I really love the the competition in that room and the depth in that room. There’s a lot of skins on the wall in that room, per se. There’s a lot of uh youth that we’re excited about. Um, so I mean I’ve said it before, we don’t flinch like the next next man up, you know, next man slides right up and you know, for instance, Dorian’s going to have to get more reps. Dorian Strong and that’s what it is. And our expectation is that you the expectation for every player is the same, you know, in our eyes that we set for him. Not for for no no offense to you guys, not for what you set for them, not for what uh Bills, we’ve got to stay inside our building and we’ll set those expectations and they’re certainly high. Um but they know what they are. So, you know, it’s certainly good to have those guys here. How does he spit his time between? Yeah, I mean, we we’ve had a plan um where we started him one way, we’ve kind of moved him another way, and then we’re we’re going to try to get to a happy medium of where we’re at. Um but it’s hard on them. It’s hard on them. Um you know, and and that’s fine. I’ve said it all the time. We want to create a sense of urgency and a little bit of chaos for those rookies. So, it’s hard early and then once they start to uh gain repetition, it starts to calm down. So, um you know, we have a plan. Like I said before, don’t need to go into a lot of detail with it, but u there’s certainly a plan. Coach, we’re past kind of the halfway point. What have you noticed from TJ Sanders from the start of camp until till now? We’re we’re past the halfway point. Gez, I don’t even know what day of the week it is. Um yeah, I mean it’s consistency. We need, you know, TJ’s talented. We all know that. Like he knows that. Everybody knows that. Not telling you anything you don’t know. But what we’re looking for him is is the consistency day in and day out. Um, and really, like I said earlier, it’s just read your key, use your technique, and we’ll go from there. But we’ve got to make sure there’s enough leeway for him to use his god-given ability, which there’s ability there. So, um, we just need to make sure we’re getting that consistency out of him. Bobby, in terms of Dion Walker, uh, Ed Oliver said that he’s a dancing bear. He’s a big guy on ballerina legs. Yeah. Is it crazy to see how big of a human being he can be in the way he moves? I mean, I’ve said it. I’ve said it multiple times. I mean, people that are his size shouldn’t be able to do some of the things he does. But again, just like TJ, we need to see consistency because if we don’t get the dancing bear, you know, all that type of stuff, it doesn’t matter. So, um, you know, we need to make sure that that consistency is in there. And I get it. He’s talented, but you know, this is the NFL. Everybody’s talented. So, you know, certainly he’s got some god-given ability, but um we just he needs to do his 111th for us. Where have you seen improvement from Javon Sol? What excites you about what he can bring in that that passion? Yeah, I mean I I’ve seen a and I’ll talk about him quick. I’ve seen a big jump from Javon from last year to this year and I think he’s doing some really good things out there. He’s certainly pushing that group and uh you know, it’s just he’s he’s a year more comfortable, right? like and he knows what to expect. He knows, you know, he knows going into the offseason what it is. It’s not his first time listening to me in front of the defense. It’s not his first time listening to Sean in front of the team. So, he can hone in a little bit more on potentially mindset going out every day to practice, locking in mentally when you come out here as a rookie. Sometimes it’s wideeyed like, oh, what’s going on here? You know, so um he certainly has shown some things. We’ll see where it goes. We’ve seen some splash plays from Malano so far this camp. What are you looking to see out of him? and you know how he been responding so far. Matt’s great. Matt’s great. Stay healthy. That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. Bobby, in terms of injured players, you said you want to make sure they take it minute by minute, not get into the skies falling mentality. How do you approach that with players to make sure they are doing that? And you’re saying our our defense in general, every every every player. Yeah, I think, you know, I think it’s just constant reminders for us of what our expectations are of our guys, you know, and and this goes back, like I’ve said it before, you learn from players and, you know, you you’ve got to, you know, even me as a coordinator, like you’re you’re looking ahead. That’s part of the job. Like, okay, got to get ahead of things and make sure we’re preparing for what we might see. But I think it’s really important that the players, you do enough to make sure the players are right where they’re at. Whether that’s constant reminders, whether that’s, you know, honing in on the detail of every play, whatever it is, there’s a lot of different ways you can go about it. Certainly the position coaches have different ways and certainly I have different ways, but it’s just constant reminders. It’s just constant reminders of, you know, we’re not thinking about the meetings after practice. You know, we’re not thinking about the last period of practice today. We are focused on what’s about to happen and there should be guys out there early working on things and we’re only worried about that right now. How impressed are you with what seems like a rapid ascension of of leadership for Christian Benford who I mean he played at a great level last year. Seems like he’s improved a little bit this year, but just the way he seems to have the pulse of that room in what feels like a pretty quick amount of time. Yeah, I think I don’t think Christian Benford’s changed. I think you know Christian Benford is not a man of many words as we all know. um extremely smart, extremely intelligent. Um you know, and I think it’s more like literally those young guys, I tell them all the time, and I show clips of CB and I’ve said it before, CB does everything right, you know, 99% of the time. And that’s the expectation for him. But it’s going to be more for him of the young guys especially or even when we’re in defensive team meetings of the Dline seeing him doing everything exactly right. He’s not going to say a lot but the examples he puts on tape is going to elevate the play of those around him, which you know that’s that’s leadership. Elevating people around you, you know, and lifting up people around you. That’s to me that’s the definition of

Bills defensive coordinator Bobby Babich addressed the media on Thursday, July 31st before practice. Topics included: what’s impressed him about the Bills defense, Maxwell Hairston’s injury and recovery process, the performance of Bills rookie defensive linemen, T.J. Sanders and Deone Walker and more!

Subscribe to the Buffalo Bills YT Channel: https://bufbills.co/2Yhjq9j
For More Bills NFL Action: https://bufbills.co/3sWlvc3

#BuffaloBills #Bills #NFL

For more Bills action: https://www.buffalobills.com/
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuffaloBills/
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buffalobills/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/buffalobills
Follow us on TikTok: https://bufbills.co/TikTok