Anthony Weaver meets with the media | Miami Dolphins

Anthony Weaver meets with the media | Miami Dolphins

kind of an unorthodox question, but with where you are, obviously I giving up 32 points a game. Was there any point this off season where you told Chris and Mike, I just don’t think we have enough talent, whether it’s defensive line, whether it’s corner, or is your feeling that if they don’t ask me, I don’t express concerns. You You’ll never hear me say that. I don’t think we have enough talent or need more. I mean, was there a time you find you find me You find me a coach that that doesn’t think they need more talent. Okay. And that that is not a that is not a diss on the guys that we have. We have we have everything we need to go out there and play better defense. Uh it’s our responsibility and ultimately my responsibility to get that done. So, but you know, sure you’re going to ask anybody if they want Miles Garrett or whoever. Like, of course, like that’s come on. We But we have all the guys we need. Like, but that that question is kind of like is Lawrence Taylor coming back? Yeah, I’ll take them. Come on. Let’s go. You know what I’m saying? Like my my whole point is was there ever a time and I don’t want to put you in a tough spot by asking you don’t have to answer you a lot. Was there ever a time after free agency March, April, May, June, where you said to Chris, I think we need more. My job ultimately is to cook the dinner. Okay. With with whatever ingredients are bought. Do you think you found something in the second half against Buffalo? You had three. Yeah. I mean, you had problems obviously Indianapolis, New England at the start. Did something change or was it just the same problems, but Buffalo didn’t take it care? Yeah, I I do. I do. I think our defense, while it’d be very easy to sit here and say like, yeah, we should pick up right where we left off from a year ago. It’s an entirely new defense, right? You have an entirely new group of safeties, right? Our three starting corners right now got here during training camp. Bradley Chub did not play a year ago. Jaylen Phillips played three games. We have two new starting rookies on defensive line along with Sealer and Jordan Brooks and T dot. So, we’re definitely going through some growing pains. Uh on the short week, right here’s what I’ll say. They came out early and I didn’t think we were playing physical enough. I thought they punched us in the face early. Our response to that wasn’t what I would think would be would put us in a position to to respond accordingly. We reacted. There was some chaos on the sideline. And when that happens, like you’re just not going to play good connected defense. You start worrying about the previous play instead of the the play that’s in front of you. We addressed it. We faced a head-on. And in the midst of the storm, we readyed the ship, right? Whatever happens happens. We start the ball rolling. We didn’t have the best response to adversity right after the punt situation and we give up a touchdown. But through that, I hope I I don’t hope I know that they understood the point going into that game. I said it was all about trust. Trusting one another, trusting the coaches that that you know your job and to go out and execute at a high level. Got punched in the face early and that trust flew out the window. We got it back in the second half, right? Even even we gave a touchdown early in the second half, right? Guy scrambled on long with something like that, but the response was much different. They came back, we talked, we worked through our issues, and we were able to go out there and get it stops. That’s what needs to continue to happen. But I’m not going to know about those things as a coach with this particular group until they happen, right? And on a short week, we learned a lesson. So hopefully those lessons carry over this week and they understand like what it takes to play connected team defense and and and to build on that whether it’s takeaways stopping the run like I’m old school. I may sit up here I’m a nice guy. I smile. I do all those things but all of our problems that we need to solve can be solved through violence. Yeah, they want to legislate it out of the game but we play defensive football. And in defensive football, at some point, you draw a line in the sand and you say, “I’m gonna set the edge. I’m gonna stick my helmet under this guy’s chin and I’m gonna set the edge. I’m gonna violently take the ball away.” And that’s what we need to do with a steely focus, with resolve, with resiliency, and we’re going to stop people. And I’m determined. We’re all determined for that to happen. Anthony, what is your approach? You talked about the eye of the storm when things are going the way they were the other day. What is your approach as a coach to getting everybody together and getting that turned around? Yeah, that’s easy. I try very hard to stay calm in the chaos. I’m not a guy that’s going to run around screaming, yelling, all those things because I think that players are a reflection of their coach. So, when they weren’t a reflection of me, obviously, I started to get upset. I talk to them very calmly and just point it out to them. And usually when you point it out, they see it, right? Because they feel it. And particularly when it’s happened with some of our older guys again who haven’t played a lot of football together, that then influences the younger players and then they start to panic and not play with technique and fundamentals and all those things. But as soon as it happens and the coach, if you have a level of awareness, you can point it out to them and you can fix it in real time and you don’t have to waste the game. And I felt like that’s what we did. And moving forward, that’s the expectation. You can’t go out there and just start yelling and screaming at each other during the course of a drive. How can you be successful with that? When my I gave him the example like when my second child was born, I’m I’m sitting I’m sitting in the we’re in the room with my wife and I’m with my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law and then the umbilical cord gets wrapped around my son’s throat. So, like that, like in a very calm situation, it goes from zero to 100 and it the doctors come rushing in and it is panic. They’re flipping my wife over and my my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law in that moment, they’re just I I see it on their faces like they are just distraught. Now, how would that how would that situation went if I started to panic and was like, “Doc, what are we going to do?” No, I stood there. I grabbed my mother-in-law and I hugged her and I said, “We’re going to be all right. Got good doctors here. They got this.” And we’re calm in the middle of the storm and everything everything turned out okay. Football’s no different. The sideline’s no different. But this particular group needs to be taught that. And as a coach, that’s my job. both to make sure we’re sound from an X and O standpoint, from a technique and fundamental standpoint, and then a response to adversity. We need to learn how to respond to adversity better. And I’m hopeful, and I do believe that that happened in that Buffalo game. We understanding that the quarterbacks are all fairly new, the three of them. How have they done through three games? I’m I’m pleased with where that group’s at. Are there things we need to do better? Absolutely. But all those guys have played football in this league. They’re intense competitors and they want to go out there and make plays. One of the things I think we’re doing just from a back seven standpoint, if you look at our the depth target where balls are being caught, it’s pretty low. We’re giving up some leaky yardage with non-stapled tackles. And what I mean like when the ball is caught, it should stop there. and we don’t have great vision on the quarterback to break when the ball is being thrown. We’re not forcing screens well enough, right? So, when when screens are being thrown, we need to force it so the interior piece can run and we can get there and we’re taking chances and the ball’s getting down. We’re giving up yardage there, too. But if we can correct those things, it’ll put us in longer third down situations. We’ve been living in like one to three, which again, it’s tough on a defense, right? right? We got to win more of them than we have. But when we’re four plus, we’re pretty good. But if you’re living third and one, third and two, it’s not you’re not going to have great third down numbers. So, if we can we can fix that part of it, we’ll be better. But in terms of your question, like I’m I’m pleased with those guys and trajectory and where we’re going. I hear you calling for more physical play. Even using the word violence. Yeah. Why do you think that’s not happening to your satisfaction? Just watch the first few drives of the game, right? Buffalo decided they’re going to run outside zone. They’re going to toss the ball and they did and they’re getting five, six yards and we’re misfitting and all these things. So, that’s not a them thing. That’s an us thing. That’s something we can control, but at some point we got to do it. We got to do it. What about run fits? Um, are they where you need them to be in order to be? Yeah, I we we got I get run fits like I get we all know run fits. We know where guys are supposed to be and all those things. I get it. But at some point again, it comes down to changing the math through violence. Our whole point of defense is we want the offense to feel like we’re playing with 12 and 13. But you can’t do that if you’re just like, “Yeah, I did my job.” No, I need you to do more than your job. I need you to whip that guy’s ass in front of you and then fall off and make a play. Ultimately, the ball is the issue. And like fit to me is almost like a four-letter word. It’s like, yeah, we know where everybody’s supposed to be and we all know that, but at some point it it’s football, right? It’s football, man. So, defensively, they know what my expectation is and they all have that mindset. They don’t want that. But now we got to put it on tape. But earlier in the process, I guess coming out of the Colts game, the the the storyline or the theme was, “Okay, everybody do their assignment.” Yeah. But now you’re saying, “Okay, well, you still got to do your assignment violently.” Yeah. You still got to do your assignment. I’m not asking anybody to come out of structure, right? Excuses change nothing. Execution solves everything, but you can do those same things with violence. What are you seeing? What are you seeing from Zach? So far this season, he hasn’t had the kind of impact he’s had last couple years. We’re three games in. Uh I love Zack Seal and everything he’s going to do for us. The the numbers will come inevitably. um his numbers will come as as a as like like all of them all of theirs will like through team defense, right? And he’s the ultimate team guy. I said early on I thought he was trying to do too much, right? Just in terms of helping everybody around him last game, I felt like we did a better job of taking some of that off his plate. It’s the quarterback that really probably took away some of the stats that he could have had, right? uh these guys that are runners, that are mobile, they’re they’re running away from us a little bit, but I know he works too hard, right? Like we all do all we’re gonna we’re going to solve all our problems by just continuing to be disciplined in our approach to work, not pouting, not blaming, not complaining, not doing any of those things and playing the game of football in a manner that it needs to be played, connected together physically and aggressive. That’s that’s how it’s going to get done. was asked about Kenneth Grant recently and he said that young players can be robotic at times. How does that relate to what Kenneth needs to to do moving forward? Yeah, I I think I I agree with that. Both him and Jordan, they are pleasers, right? So, the last thing you ever want to do as a coach is coach the instincts out of players, right? And make them robotic. And there’s a little bit of that going on. The thing I always tell those guys, like, we’ve done the training and it’s no different than being a golfer. Like, if you go out there and golfing and you’re always have all these million different swing thoughts that you had on the range, then you’re not going to play very well. You’ve done the training, right? You’re you’re going to go out there and have those repeated actions because they’re habitual now. But when the ball is snapped, like now it’s time to just go play play football, the game you’ve played your whole life, and the ball is the issue. So, I know what my job is supposed to be. And then I got to get off and make a play. And everybody needs to do that. This defense has Yeah. force a turnover. What can you emphasize uh to change that? Oh, I don’t know how many times I got to say violence. Okay. Right. If you want to get the if you want to take anything away from somebody, particularly the game of football, you have to do it with aggression. And that’s what we need to do.

Anthony Weaver meets with the media.

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