Zac Taylor Press Conference – October 27

Zac Taylor Press Conference – October 27

All right. Fire away. Is that just an injury update on Joe? We’ll see. We’ll take it dayto day. Uh it was a shoulder issue. He came back and so again sore today certainly and we’ll continue to work through the week. Trey, um Trey will be we’ll take a dayto day with him. He’s he he’s obviously came out of the game um with a very similar issue. So we’ll work through the week with him. How much do you feel like he was feeling that when he was playing? I’m sure he felt it a lot. Yeah, I’m sure quite a bit. Shaka Hayward. Um, Shaka will be a several week issue. A hit that ended Trey’s day, football play or over the line? I don’t really comment there. With the amount of double teams and chips and all that kind of stuff that Trey gets, how do you see plans change when Trey’s not in the game? You know, do how does it change? Yeah. How do how do things change? Yeah. Well, it’s like we we go against guys, you know, it’s when when that guy’s in the game, you’re you’re calling it that way. You know, immediately when they’re not in the game. So, yes, it changes in terms of a tight end being over there, a back coming out of the back field. Um it’s not as substantial as when he’s in the game. And no different than how we track it when we play other teams. How have you seen kind of the young edges try to try to take that next step there? Yeah, got to continue to improve. You know, like Shamar really, you look at Shamar’s time on task, it’s it’s minimal in what he’s gotten the opportunity to do. And so I see an ascending player who’s just working to get better every single day and that’s that’s what we’re asking him to do. Um same as you’re talking to Young, you know, you know, Miles is in his third year. I see Miles working to to continue to strain and um we’ve seen some good flashes from him as well. And so just continue to see those guys develop. Demetrius told us Zach that uh was a defenseonly meeting today to kind of address all of the techniques and uh kind of also this objective part of yesterday sticking together as a group. What does that show you about his leadership and that group to get better? Yeah, I think we’ve got we’ve got good people in that room and we’re into holding each other accountable. That’s that’s the biggest thing. Um it’s just it’s a little it’s little things. It’s not always a big thing, you know, it’s just giving up an extra three yards sometimes on on a run or a perimeter play. Um it’s it’s being a step hesitant and so maybe you’re not missing a tackle, but you are missing a tackle because of the the little hesitancy there. So those are things that I think we’re seeing as a unit, as a team um that we’ve got to clean up and be better at. And and there’s not wholesale changes to be made with that stuff. It’s just fundamentally we got to be better and that’s that’s really at every level of the defense. Um there’s certainly things in the other two phases as well that we have to clean up on offense and special teams as well that hasn’t been good enough either. So um as a team those are the things that we’re all accountable for and I know that the guys are of the right mindset to get it fixed and play better so that we can go win a game. How much do you look back at some of the stuff from yesterday and just say there’s just too much inexperience on the field on defense together that’s causing some of this stuff? That’s what we that’s where we’re at and and so we have to create that experience quickly, you know, and so again, learning from number one, you can’t make the same mistake twice. So maybe you’re seeing it for the first time or in the context of a game for the first time. And if we’re slow to react in the second time, we can’t be slow to react. And so there’s there’s going to be a little bit of that, especially when you’re playing some young players, which we got a couple rookies playing on defense that I think have tremendous upside. And I’m excited about them. And at moments there’s going to be growing pains. Um, you just can’t have them all together, you know, one play this guy, one play that guy. I I see elements that I’m excited about in our future as we continue to grow this week and going forward. And so, again, just just like I stated, it’s about, all right, we made a mistake. I’m not going to ever repeat that mistake again. I I’ve learned from it. I’ve been in the game. I’ve done that. Um, other guys at the position, holding everybody accountable, like helping them get lined up, helping them get the call, helping them make the correction immediately after the snap. And again, we got the we we got good people that all all in like when you watch the when you one thing you look at when you’re having the struggles we had on defense yesterday in terms of giving up the points, you look at the effort, it’s not it’s not an effort, it’s not a want to. It’s not a guys checking out. Um it wasn’t perfect all the time, but um there were moments there in the fourth quarter I saw 11 guys swarming to the ball, you know, and and we’re going to continue to build off of that. We’re not going to run from the fact that it was it was good enough, it wasn’t good enough. um we got to get some stops and keep the points off the board. Um there’s some opportunities we had where we’re an inch away and and we didn’t take advantage of that inch and they did and so seven points or led to three points when we could have been off the field and those are things that we’ll be better for in the future. Biggest message that you have for the team today. Similar I mean similar similar to all the things I’ve said here today. you look at the standings in the division right now and for all of the struggles on defense uh for all of the struggles you’ve had overall three and five but still right in the thick of it. I’m aware of it absolutely and today is about cleaning up yesterday for us. You know, it’s not Yeah, I’m aware of that. That hasn’t been a focus for us today. We we just have to control things we can control because if we do that, we’re going to be just fine moving in the future and we’ll be able to take advantage of the opportunities we get. But until we make these corrections and are better for it this week, then then none of that’s going to matter to us. And we know that I I know that our guys are accountable for it and and want to get it fixed. What do you do differently from a from a tackle perspective? There’s things, you know, we’re going to look at being creative with it. I’m not going to get in here and get into it all. But I think when you’re saying it’s an issue backtoback weeks, multiple weeks, then then we got to find ways to to fix it. And so, um, that’s what we’ll do. with what you said about not making the same mistake twice. Is are the tackling issue because it does keep coming up over and over again. Is that purely physical? Is that not guys mentally putting them in a bad position to make attack or are they just unable to the techniques? No, I I think it’s it’s at moments there’s flatout miss tackles. At moments there’s a there’s a step of hesitancy that that is not allowing you to be in a position to get the guy down for a two to three yard gain as opposed to, you know, more significant than that. So, um, again, things that you can see on the tape and and are able to be cleaned up and and we just have to do it. Can’t keep sitting up here and saying it. What is the tape telling you about the last two games from a pass rushing standpoint? No sacks, only three hits when you look at it and you just broke down kind of what’s going on with tackling? Is it guys just not winning one-on- ones? Is it as simple as that or what are you diagnosing as that issue right now? It’s it’s got to be everybody collectively. It’s there’s that there’s got to be some more one-on- ones that we’re winning. we’re getting home on um with our pressures we’re where sometimes we’re we’re right there right in the thick of it and and maybe at that point there’s a coverage let up where they just give up a little bit of space and he can get the ball and find a completion. So it all works together in conjunction and and I think overall um it’s certainly an area we got to improve got to affect the passer talk about playing with playing with a lead going back to last year had some weights of double digits in the second half been able to kind of see those home. Why do you think that is? Well, I I think there was three drives there we didn’t score in the second half and they’re all frustrating. They’re all disappointing. Um the first drive of the second half, you know, that was a chance for us to create a lot of separation there in the game and two efficient plays. The third down didn’t work out for us. Um disappointing because that was to me that was the opportunity for us to to put the game away quite frankly and go down there and create a three-score lead and um start to run away with this. And so, you know, you’ve asked me a lot of defensive questions a lot, but there’s still things on offense obviously that, you know, we want to score in a higher percentage of our drives than we just did. And and you cross that 40 threshold, and that’s going to be tough to beat. And so, again, we have high expectations for what the offense does. Um there was opportunities there yesterday to capitalize on to get more points on the board. Even if it’s just three points and and would have been able to to win the game and be able to clean up the stuff after a win, which is a lot more fun than doing after a loss, doesn’t mean that anything necessarily changes because you still got to make these corrections, but um there was still opportunities out there that that offensively we got to take advantage of. When you go back and look at some of those opportunities last year that kind of slipped against slipped through fingers, is there other commonalities that you see as to No, I I think last year was was different than this year. anything you can point to with Andre this year, maybe why he’s not taking advantage of some of his opportunities? I think there’s certainly a couple plays that that he wants back and there’s been some times he’s he’s made some big plays for us as well. So, um I I got I got a lot of faith in Andre. Before the first two-point conversion, it seemed like there was like a late sub or two. Like, was there some confusion or communication there? Um when they went for two, there there was slight slight confusion. We got our guys on the field and they got the call and they were able to operate. Okay. Thank you.

Zac Taylor speaks to the media.

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