Ben Johnson on Kyler Gordon’s return, preparing for Washington | Press Conference

Ben Johnson on Kyler Gordon’s return, preparing for Washington | Press Conference

All right, go ahead and open it up. Ben, uh, your previous two seasons with the the Lions, uh, you’ve had strong, uh, offensive performances, 40 points. Um, and Case was saying that, uh, you gave your guys extra route sessions. Is there something that you’ve learned about preparation from by weeks, uh, in your experience? I don’t know if there’s any secret sauce to it, to be honest with you. Um, you know, these these guys, I’m I’m pretty pleased with how they approached it. Um, I I don’t think a whole lot of them went out to Cancun and went partying or anything like that. You know, I think a lot of them stayed local and they just want to get their bodies right, want to get sleep back in order. Um, and so they should be feeling fresh right now. Uh, yeah, we had a couple extra route sessions, but that’s as much conditioning as it is just being on the same page, hooking up. Um, but no, I you know, it’s each week’s its own deal. I mean, love to have another 40-point game, but that it’s one of those things you just you never know. We got to we got to go earn it. We got to have a great week here um in terms of our preparation and then we got to go out and execute hopefully better than we have the previous four weeks. And so, um that’s what we’re looking to do. Um I really don’t think of it anything coming off the buy or anything like that. It’s just we’re on to the next one. You obviously ended your season last year playing against the Commanders. What did you learn from that game that is applicable this year? Shoot. Um, man, you need to play complimentary football to to beat this team. This is a really good football team. Um, I think Dan Quinn’s an outstanding coach. He he has been, whether it was Atlanta or Washington now. I mean, it really doesn’t matter. He he’s fielded good teams. Uh, these guys play hard. They play inspired football. You know, there are a lot of similarities between what we faced a couple weeks ago with the Raiders and a Pete Carolled team and a Dan Quinn le team in my opinion. I I think um you know I say it when you turn on the tape and you see special teams playing so fast, so violent, so physical, I think that says a lot about your your football team. Um I like to think we do the same thing on on our side led by coach High Totower there. Um but that’s I I just I can’t say enough good things about the identity. You know, it’s it’s physical, it’s fast. Um and you can tell that they’re really unified group and they play well for each other. wonder some of the question defense question. You did have a lot of offensive production in that game in January. Is there anything instructive to you within that tape that you can apply just knowing how to how to exploit their defense a little bit? Yeah, I think um when I look back at that game that there were we had a lot of turnovers and and uh you know I I felt like I felt like within that setting that as good as that offense was clicking, you know, you feel a little bit of pressure on offense to go score for score and you don’t want to fall behind by two scores against a good team like that. And so, um, might have been a little bit more aggressive with the play calls and got away from the game plan a little bit based on how that game went. And, um, end of the day, you take care of the football, that game goes maybe a different direction. And, you know, it’s really that’s been the last two weeks for us in general is we’ve done a good job taking care of the football for the most part and we’ve been taking the ball away uh, from the opposing offense. And so, um, I think that’s a big indicator of of how well we’ll do this week. Ben, with your running game, uh, when you’ve talked about this lately, you’ve spoken highly of Swift, uh, and said there’s more like collective problems here. What generally needs to improve in terms of your role as the play caller with that and the offensive line? Yeah, you know, I think uh, it’s hard to it’s hard to evaluate any of our running backs right now when you turn on the tape and and uh, there’s some free runners in the hole where the play is designed to go. And so I take, like I said last week, I I take it personally because um I actually spend more time on the run game than I do on the passing game and not only trying to create explosives in the running game, but but uh being sound and take a lot of pride in our execution of the fundamentals of, you know, you talk about a deuce block, deuce combination all looking the same, a triple between the tight end and the tackle all looking the same. Um and we’re just we’re not we’re not quite there yet. And so, uh, it’s been a race since training camp started. We get pads on, that’s when the full speed starts happening. And you get linebackers that are coming downhill and pulling you off your double teams. And, uh, we’re just not reacting fast enough right now. And so, we got to learn from everything that we put on tape so far as an entire unit so that those combinations can be a lot cleaner. And uh and so we give our runners a chance because we do have some dynamic players, whether it’s our our running backs or our receivers that if we can give them a chance to to get a little bit of green grass, they take advantage of it. But we just haven’t done it consistently enough. What stands out to you about Jaden Daniels as a runner? Yeah. Uh dangerous. Dangerous. I think that’s uh he’s a big reason why their running game is what it is. um he strikes a lot of fear in opposing coaches because you look at him and you know you got to account for him um not just as an accurate passer, not just as a scrambler, but the quarterback driven run game that they they do a lot of. And so um fast, slippery, um you know, it’s it’s going to take all 11 guys playing disciplined football to to make sure we contain their attack. Ben, where has Caleb grown in playing within structure? I know that that’s was a priority for you guys in the preseason. Five weeks in, where is that showing up the most? Yeah, I think when you turn on the tape, I I think that shows up every single week. Um I see him playing the game with his feet more to where he’s, you know, at the top of his drop. He’s ready to deliver the ball to the primary receiver um in a good throwing posture and position so that he can be accurate with it. And then if it’s not there, he quickly progresses to two to three and then we’ll end up taking off if need be. But, um, I think that’s that’s the best thing is just knowing where his eyes need to be. Combine it with the footwork and, uh, you know, you see him getting a little bit better and better every single week. I mean, there’s there’s reps every week that we we try to build off of. There’s also reps that, uh, we we learn from as well because there’s there’s a number of them that maybe we bypass number one a little bit too quickly and it’s like, no, he he’s there. Let’s go ahead and give it to him. And um I think that’s that’s really been the best thing for him is he doesn’t make the same mistake twice very often. And that’s that’s a good thing because we’re just as we accumulate all these reps they’re they’re getting banked in this library for him and so he can draw back from that experience the next time he gets a similar type of play. He getting better at recognizing the checkown. I know that’s something he said he wanted to do like he wanted to progress that but from your perspective are you seeing him when it’s not there he is hitting that with more I guess faster than he he knows where they are. I don’t think we’re hitting them accurately enough as a whole when you look at the four games. Um he’s he’s very you know we’ve been talking about being completion driven and so he’s very conscious of that. Um the checkdowns are a good way to do that. You know, we have some plays where, yeah, we’re looking for a chunk and if it’s not crystal clear, he knows, man, all of us are happy if we just dump this thing down. But, uh, we got to give accurate balls underneath so that our our pass catchers have a little run after catch opportunity when it’s the underneath five yard variety. And so, he knows where they are, but we need to be just a little bit cleaner in our delivery to him. Ben, what does getting uh Kyler Gordon back allow you to do? Uh, shoot. Hopefully, it allows us to to unlock a few things on defense. I mean, he’s uh he’s one of the bigger playmakers, I think. You know, I’ve got a lot of experience being on the opposing sideline from him and ton of respect of how he can impact a game. Um, you know, I think I think there’s only a handful of nickels in this in this league that you really have to account for. Um, both as a coverage player, but also a guy that likes to be nosy in the run game and and could be part of the solution for us here in in terms of shoring up our run game as well. Um, I think he’s just he’s got those natural football instincts that are really hard to coach and hard to teach. And when you have enough players like that, that’s where you really take off in a hurry. Any level of concern about Cairo’s availability for Monday. Yeah, we’ll we’ll see as we go through the week how how he’s feeling and how he’s looking. Um, you know, we’ve had a lot of conversations with him and so it’ll it’ll be one of those things we take it day by day. And then when you were in Detroit, you guys were solid at quarterback with Goff, but did you um just as like a uh procedure or anything evaluate the quarterbacks in the draft? Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s usually pretty standard procedure. Yeah. What did you have on these two guys at the time? You’re talking about Caleb and and Jaden? Yeah. Um you know, I I thought it was I thought it was a really strong class coming out. It’s probably one of the stronger in recent history. Um, you know, Caleb obviously felt highly about him. You know, that uh part of the reason why I wanted to come here, you know, and and I haven’t been disappointed with him whatsoever. U he continues to get better elite arm strength. Um, the ability to extend plays. Um, I I don’t think a whole lot differently for for Jaden. Jaden’s extremely accurate thrower of the football. um something that I think it’s overlooked when when you look at him because he uh he is so dynamic with his legs and he he hurts teams so much on the ground as well. So um I think I think there are probably a lot of similarities. I think these these are two ascending quarterbacks in this league and I think we’re going to be talking about them for a long time in the future. When you were looking at that class, what did you like about kind of what the six guys went that first round? Was there a was it a different flavors thing or was it just overall just strength? Yeah, I I think you know the college game so unique that each one’s a little bit different with what they put on tape, but I thought they were just you just start with um the throwing of the football. I thought all those guys were elite at throwing the football accurately and that’s always a good starting point because uh you know I kind of go back to Bruce Arens back a few years ago talking about quarterbacks still they need still be able to execute on third down and in two minute. I think that’s you get all these athletes nowadays coming on out and if you can’t really picture them excelling in those two situations I think you kind of hamstring your football team. Um, and so in regards to that that draft class, I thought all those guys were capable of of winning games for you with their arm on third down and two minutes. A masterpiece and I know you kind of echoed that sentiment last week, but in what ways can a win in a game like that be beneficial to the building process for it? Yeah, I mean it’s something that we we’ve talked about a lot of is uh just the belief in each other, the belief that when the game’s close um in the fourth quarter that that we’ll find a way to come out on top. This league is full of one-score games. It’s it’s uh it’s the way it’s designed. You know, there’s a lot of parody. It’s five weeks in and we have no undefeated teams. You know, any given Sunday, that’s a true mantra. And uh you know, I think it’s just the belief that if if it’s close here in the fourth quarter, we have a number of really good playmakers on this team that we can find a way. That’s one. And the other one is there’s a million ways you can win games in this league. Um I mean, even watching some of the games on Sunday, it’s there there’s a lot of bad football still being played early in the season here. And uh you know, you you look at we we needed special teams to come out on top last week. We needed uh defense to come through with with all those turnovers or else we don’t come out on top last. We we needed offense despite how rocky it was in the first half to find a little bit of a groove there in the second half and score 16 points on four possessions. And uh and so I think it’s just each week’s different, but you’re never out of it. Not not in this league. And and I think you can score points in a hurry, which is which is always exciting.

Head coach Ben Johnson addresses the media Wednesday at Halas Hall.

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