Ejiro Evero talks preparing to face his former team in the Los Angeles Rams | Carolina Panthers

Ejiro Evero talks preparing to face his former team in the Los Angeles Rams | Carolina Panthers

Good afternoon. Um so, uh yeah, this is a exciting week. Thanksgiving obviously my favorite holiday of the year and uh obviously we have a big game this weekend. Um and it’s exciting to play this time of the year with everything in front of us and uh the the magnitude of all of these games as we move forward and so uh looking forward to this challenge. We know this is a great opponent um facing a great organization and uh a team that I worked for for 5 years and I just have so much respect for all the people there, you know, starting with Kevin Kevin Demoff, uh Lesne Sneed, uh you know, their coaching staff, Shawn McVey, some good friends of mine, uh Chris Schula, Aubrey Pleasant, um just so many wonderful people at that organization that I have really close ties to. Um but that being said, we are uh just throwing up on Sunday with the one thing in mind and so uh I’ll take questions. you have to I mean you were on that team and didn’t have to face you face him in practice all the time staffer what makes him boy who he is well yeah I mean just when you think about all the traits that you want from an elite quarterback uh intelligent uh he’s got a great arm um he’s got the experience now obviously um and then I think his probably his strongest uh trait is that uh the guy doesn’t flinch under pressure or under pressure and so he’s going to take stand in there he’s going to take the hits he’s going to deliver the ball and uh so uh yeah immense amount of respect back for him. He’s a guy that struggled before he got the Rams, but he had a team that was more complete around him and he and he did well. Um, what’s what’s the lesson from that for quarterbacks that are struggling early? Well, I I don’t know if I would say he struggled early. We played him lots of times before he got to the Rams and he was still hell to deal with. But yeah, you know, I just think Coach McVey does a great job and uh when you just look at the offense, the balance between the run and the pass game and marrying everything up and uh everything starts off looking the same and then it could get to a bunch of different concepts and uh I just think that’s uh it’s a really good design by them. Opportunity to kind of engage in this chess match with Shawn. What’s that going to be like? I mean, you know him well. He knows you well. what what give give us some insights into that. Yeah. No, it’s going to be fun and uh but you know, so much of what’s going to happen is going to be the players on the field as well. Um but yeah, you’re certainly right though. I I need to be on top of it schematically because uh he’s going to be good with the tendencies. Um as much as any head coach I’ve been around, he really understands the defensive side of the football. And so he knows your rules, he knows how to beat them. And uh so we’re going to have to be on top of all those little things. And then uh at the end of the day, uh we’ll have a great week of preparation. and the guys have to go out there and execute are on the field and aren’t in this case maybe the guys who aren’t on the field this weekend the secondary JC we don’t know about Draymond know about right um how how concerning is that especially given what staffers want to throw 27 straight touchdown pass interceptions this week yeah look he’s this is a great offense um regardless of who we I have out there this is going to be a hard team to defend um I just always look at the the opportunity that it creates for other players if JC can’t go um and some of these other things. But like uh at the end of the day, it’s like there’s no excuses. We got to go out there with who we have um and we’ll be more than capable and ready. When you’re in this situation, do you almost and it’s you talk about that chess match. Are there almost like they try to give you false tales like they try to bait you into something and you have to be aware that okay, he’s he’s thinking that I’m thinking this. me how much how much madness goes on your mind and trying to kind of predict what he might be thinking you’re thinking. Yeah. No, there certainly is. It’s it’s funny because it’s like going back and watching, you know, games back in 2022, you know, and I’m just you’re trying to just make sure you cross all the tees and dot all the eyes and uh uh you want to make sure that all your rules and game plan adjustments are sound and that the players can execute them. Uh but at the end of the day, it’s like you trust your preparation. Um you know that uh they’re a very good team. They’re a very good offense. They’re going to make plays. Um, but if we can continue to just play down in and down out and be sound, we’ll give ourselves a chance. Has kind of been the guy who’s gotten them down the field. And then Adams seems to catch all the touchdown battles, right? How do you how do you you key on that knowing that maybe that’s been sort of their their MO this season? How can you bet? Yeah. No, you can’t deny that. Um, they’re both great out on the field. Uh and then certainly they’ve seem seem to feature Devonte more in the red zone and so we’ll certainly uh be aware of that. But like you know they got a lot of weapons all over the field. Their tight ends are very good. They can run the ball very well and so when you have all of those things working it makes you very tough in the red zone. You still look at their defense. I mean if they’re really playing at a high level, but I know you’re studying the offense a lot. When you look at that defense and the evolution of it over the years, what do you see and and why is it so good? Yeah, I I think uh coach Chula does a great job of um you know, like we try to do is just putting their players uh in positions where they can use their strengths to their to the maximum and uh and certainly they have done that. Um, but it’s cool that you brought up that question because it’s like uh, you know, we started at the same spot and it’s kind of cool to see like where our off our defense went, where he’s taken their defense, even when Joe Barry was in Miami, where he took the defense, you know, and so just where what Brandon Stale is doing now in uh, in New Orleans. And so, you can see all the little like different nuances and changes within it while still maintaining the the key components. EJ, how do you surprise a 17-year vet? Uh, I don’t know if we’re going to surprise him much. So, uh, you know, we’ll, uh, we’ll do the best we can. Uh, but at the end of the day, this is going to be an execution game. I think, um, we’re not going to be able to just go out there and, uh, and trick them. You know, we’re going to have to go out there and beat them. The fact that you might have to rely on some guys that are going to be plugandplay guys, how will that perhaps limit you? Um, I don’t think it would limit us. uh you know if we have certain guys that can’t play because of injury we’ll just it’s our always our motto the next man’s up and uh you know I always preach to the players like hey if you’re not preparing to be in the game then you’re doing yourself a disservice because at any moment you can be in there and you can either put yourself in a position to go show out and uh create a opportunity in terms of more playing time more money for yourself or you go out there and not be ready and lose that opportunity and never get it again. So going into the game thinking you won’t have JC or uh we’ll see. It’s hard to tell right now. So we got to be ready for both both ends of that. Guys like Rochelle and Wong who’ve been with you. You’ve got a couple of those here. Where does that show up in terms of how does that benefit? What area? It makes it it makes the onboarding a lot easier. So, they come in and, you know, it’s there’s I’m sure there’s some subtle differences from last time we were with them, but at the end of the day, they know the the key words. They know a big bulk of the playbook. They’re probably going to learn the the little changes that we made over the years, but uh it certainly makes uh getting them ready on a short week a lot easier. EJ JC is having a career year from from a ball hawking perspective. I think it’s, you know, obviously he has the size and and the IQ. Is it really just a matter of him getting opportunities or is he like really also growing as a guy who can read and react uh to I I think it’s both. He’s he’s certainly growing. Um you know uh our first year was with him was challenging just because um you know there’s so many games missed and you know at that position in our defense you really have to play a lot to um to kind of learn all the uh the nuances and uh how we’re going to feature him and all that. And so he’s certainly grown into our scheme. Um and then uh I think just him being on the field and if people want to test him, you know, there’s a good chance he’s going to make a play back there. And so um it was cool. He made one interception in man coverage uh where he just did a hell of a job on the basic and then the other was in zone coverage, you know, and so kind of shown both of his traits, the ability to cover manto man and then the zone awareness. How smart interception? I mean because he was over and party never saw and you kind of just broke out. you saw. No, it was great because it was something we talked about in the week. He uh identified the formation, the call that we were in and putting it all together, understanding the concept that we might potentially get on the back side of that. And uh yeah, that’s always going to be a hard play for the quarterback to see. And so, uh I just thought it was incredible just awareness by him. That Super Bowl season with the Rams when you were there, you guys went a month without winning a game. Do you remember a trigger in that moment that you could kind of tell when something shifted? Well, um I thought uh you know like coach McVey always does, he did a great job of kind of keeping us focused even when things weren’t going well. Um and uh we just tried to stay one week at a time. But I would say the biggest turn in the season was actually the last regular season uh game of the year when we lost to the 49ers and uh um we had lost to them at that point uh five times in a row. Um and uh you know we were both very good teams over the course of those years and uh so we play them the last regular season game. It’s for the uh we need to win the game to to guarantee we win the division. They need to win the game to get into the playoffs. Um and so uh we go up I think 17 zip and we end up losing a game in a two-minute drill at the end. And uh we’re disappointed and uh everybody’s dejected. It’s sixth in a row. We lost. We probably lost the division. And then we come off the field and we found out we won the division um with uh uh Arizona losing that that year. And so, um, that was a great shift for us because we actually got beat up pretty well in that game. We had a lot of injuries and we had to go get Eric Wed off the street to come play for us. Um, and, uh, but it’s almost like we galvanized around that. The whole team did. Um, and, uh, we started playing really well on defense. Matthew did what he did down the stretch and, uh, so yeah, that was a great turning point for us. All right. Thank you, coach. All right. Thank you, guys. about

The Panthers’ defensive coordinator also talked about the secondary’s three-interception performance last week and the challenge of Rams veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford.

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