Arthur Smith - Offensive Philosophy

in the in the modern players to day it is what it is you know some of these players want to know why I've got no problem ever answering why and I think that's how you develop an open a trust and a strong relationship with your players and you can coach them harder coach them in your own way I always said this and I said to to our staff here in Atlanta and and we are teachers first and I always say that we we are always trying to push the envelope find new ways to teach we understand that attention spans are shorter than they've ever been uh we're always looking and tonight maybe you guys have some good good ideas I can steal from you uh but we're always looking for the best ways to reach and teach our guys you know we've gone into a point where you take breaks and things that used to be unheard of 5 10 years ago is you know after 20 minutes sometimes I tell these guys hey we'll take two minutes look at your phone walk around but you know the good thing is we can find them if their phone goes off and you guys have different ways of of punishment but we can at least use the fine system I think this and I believe in this like be yourself I think you got to be authentic in your style of teaching your core beliefs whatever whatever you believe in I think you got to be you and you got to be authentic you know I hire to feel like an excellent staff here we got a guys with a lot of different experience you know Dean peas he's got 48 years of coaching from the high school to the college the National Football League and he has a way to go go about it we hired Nick Barry out of Alabama uh who had been an analyst down there and he's his first year uh as an assistant in the NFL I told Nick be yourself you know learn from everybody but it doesn't matter if you're going in a year 50 or year two and then I committing to our style play the why way I look at it and this is just from an offensive standpoint so hopefully I don't bore some of the defensive guys on here tonight but we're looking at ways to put conflict on the defense and what I'm going to get into here with this film is is how we marry up our Concepts and I think it's important that you marry up your concept compliment itself and I really don't think it matters what system you run you could be a spread you can be an air raid you can be a wing te you can play in condensed formations like us all this stuff is building to what you believe in and your commitment at the end of the day once you decide here's what what we believe in here's what we're going to implement and you're working every day our objective to me as we go into game planning is how we marry up our Concepts do they compliment each other I think that's important when you want to have different looks I mean excuse me different concepts off the same looks but I really don't think that just because we did in Tennessee one way it's better if you you know you got a strong belief in the air raid you run Wing te you run triple option football you run spread Zone read you want to play at no huddle we Pace there's a lot of ways and guys have proved in a lot of different places in high school and college in the NFL that you can you can be good on off offense I'm just here to kind of show you what we do and why and but this is a huge part when we go into a game plan can we put the defense in conflict and I think a lot of things open we believe in here is it keeps the level of Simplicity and this is a quote that I was kind of you know I fear not the man who's practiced 10,000 kicks once but I fear the man has practiced one kick 10,000 times and it's hard especially when you get to to our level there's some really cool plays and there's some things that I I you know on uh I love this time of year when we're getting ready for the draft I I tag plays watching different offenses and there's some cool stuff I kind of put in a library and then then I got to make the decision does that fit us and uh because we want to make sure we get enough reps and it's important even if we're coaching Matt Ryan or Ryan tanah Hill as much as we pay these guys and we you know we think they're Superman they need to see the looks over and over again and and you got to be careful sometimes when you're game planning try not to get too too cute and you know you you go off one look and you only practice it once and then they you know it's Murphy's Law you get a different look and they haven't had the Reps like a lot of times when the game gets tough we go to our fast balls but we feel like we can dress it up and I'm gonna go into this here in a second with different Personnel different motions and different looks but that you know there one things I hit a lot is is I tell these guys we need to be brilliant in the basics so I think you'll see that when I go into this film here and the last part of the why you know trying to create buyin and understanding among the players and you know quality repetition I believe builds success and it and it you're really building confidence and it gets your buying all right so I get in here now I'm I'm gonna go a little Clips this is going to be some of the stuff we did in Tennessee and I I hit this every day with our offense it takes all 11 and certainly for us it takes all 11 to run the football that's including the quarterback uh we're going to get into condensed formations here in Atlanta we still play Under Center we get in a gun plenty but we play Under Center and we put a lot on our quarterback way we package plays but we you know if we're going to put an eighth defender in the box or seven Defender and we're one back and 11 quarterback's got to car out of fake and we we hold everybody accountable so I'm G to start here with the wide zone so this is kind of our bread and butter in our Run game and where we start in Atlanta and what we did in Tennessee what we still believe in we'll evolve but our principles up front we we are a physical wide Zone team we're not looking to run to the sideline we're looking to play Speed off the ball toughest and finish and that hasn't changed trying to knock people off the line of scrimmage and win a gap pressing it trying to go outside and one in a gap and reading one time one on time putting our foot in the ground and we we preach effort and finish around here and that's why you know I'll die on that Hill you can the way you coach in high school it works in in college and it certainly works in the NFL so this is one of our blood and butters I'm just going to our wide Zone R 1819 uh this is about balance formation we use and I'm going to show you plays that we buildt off this is just our 18 alert Oscar we have different parameters we'll give the quarterback where we want to take this this is a mirror formation here and I'm really just kind of focusing on our style of play so you don't think I'm I'm full of it sitting here preaching to you tonight I really want you to focus here too of our style of play of coming off the football and demanding all 11 and playing with effort and finish we're just trying to one Gap at a time and we just sit here and we we say some people believe you can't knock people back at certain levels we certainly feel otherwise there's a different level of guys that we value over and over that I'll get in these films and I said look we we High We value this we value guys that are that are good teammates as that are finishing to the ball pick them up don't let guys get that extra rip shot on on on your uh Ball Carrier I always like to point out when I'm showing right now we're installing guys you know with Atlanta guys in the game I mean this is a left guard we we took out of the undrafted out of Texas State last year named Aaron Brewer and and we tried to reward we always tell them we don't care where you're drafted the best players are going to play and again it goes back to implementing what you say and what you and what you believe you see here just just highlighting our finish trying to displace guy guys one one in the gap you can see right now we pretty pretty cleanly here won the front side a gap different ways to do it get into our no huddle but we you can see right now the our sted we're we're we're coming out the football we we rep this over and over again as we build our individual we get into our team run and how we try to practice knock them off win a gap our front side is just as important as the back side it does take all 11 these are body blows we we're going to come at you rep after rep just one as a gap and go forward and off e off our 18 and 19 we'll build on first and second down our Keepers our boots however you want to call them our movement blast changing the launch Point getting guys on the move and really to keep that eth Defender honest they're going to put eight in the box and we're going to on our wide zone out of any of our 12 and 21 you know so we got seven really in the in the in the Box here not not including our receivers we got ways if guys guys aren't being honest chasing down the line of scrimmage not honoring the quarterback our counter punch are going to be our keeper game different ways to do it like I said we mix up Personnel you know we're sitting here in 12 throw a little shift on here pre- snap use the Cadence snap it can't try to put as much conflict and stress as we can move in the pocket finding ways effective ways to move it all our outside Zone wide zone game it's got to look and feel like the run though anytime we get in our Keepers and our play pass I always tell the line it's it's a it's a free fight there you take a shot at a guy so go back to Spotlight the video don't mind yes sir I got you coach no worries man different ways to do it too and and and plays that we think they compliment each other they're part of identity they build off each other getting guys running so you got the wide Zone you put the keepers off of it and our single back stuff other thing coming in coming in just you can see over and over again us hitting our keepers keeping them honest they want to come too fast downhill we'll get a move and some of our two back weak wide Zone same thought here but you're what you're going to see commitment to running the football playing and condensed this is just who we were and this is St we worked on every day we tried to be us what we felt was best for our players and a little bit of our identity using Cadence knocking them back and guys finishing there's there's AJ brown right there there top at the top you can see here comes here comes the line here comes the tight end we got it can we Spotlight this gu I just saw a comment here about the um what happened here you guys can see the video you good yes sir awesome you can see right here just working on our double teams I mean these are combination blocks that we get thousands of reps on you know these these guard tackle combination blocks that we call over blocks trying to win the Gap and how we scheme this stuff up if we get these backers on the ball we got multiple ways to do it but these it it really is there's nothing real flashy about it it's it's our Basics that we believe in kind to knock people off the ball finish and wear people out and the other thing it does it takes a commitment when this style of play you got got you got to be in excellent shape you can see I mean it does help when you have Derrik Henry I mean I'm you know not gonna lie I me you got a you got a guy that's unique like that that can carry the ball 300 plus times and completely continue to to wear DBS down but it it takes those big guys up front it takes the quarterback get us in the right play it takes those receivers committing do it we will reward these guys and not get into our play pass here in a minute but I just wanted to show you ways we do this and getting our bread and butter and we use motion we use different Personnel groups we can get no huddle we can go huddle this is one of our our guys we signed in training camp last year J Nicholls been in multiple camps did a great job C on a third down roll was did a a hell of a job for us last year maybe this is the old line coach you know Old Line guy me but I can sit here and watch Roger out all day knocking people off the ball displacing people open up the Bap let's roll it takes a commitment by the receivers blocking on the perimeter guys finishing downfield you see 87 there's another guy we signed in Camp he's an old Texas guy Jeff Swain a guy cam Batson who was an undrafted guy to Texas Tech we didn't care we were going to play the best players we had good players but the culture that we we implemented is empowers those guys that you know then I give Mike Rabel a lot of credit you talking about a top round approach we didn't care we're were going to play the guys that committed that that were willing to put in the work and do it the way we wanted now here's the play pass so if you get in there and we we feel we're a physical wide Zone we'll run some Gap scheme stuff we feel like we're a physical running football team and we marry the the wide Zone and the keepers and then we have play pass off it as well see when you start wearing people out and get these guys to step up and they give you free access and you can get a commitment to it you're gonna get wide open space right here and this is one of my favorite Clips right here yeah this this is great by AJ Brown but you can watch Cory Davis up top I call this a run batted in or assist guys believing finishing helping the team their teammates out that's an explosive play becomes a touchdown because of Cory Davis you can demand it whether they're professionals and they're making 15 million a year or a high school kid you can see it with your own eyes it works but it's got to be an Allin buyin top down approach same play you're going to see it again I know it's on your screen Rita X rocket what we did right here we got in no huddle we got into our 13 Personnel we open it up we have multiple plays off this again trying to put the defense in Conflict pretty snap quarterback's got to be ready they got to believe it Shift come back down we hit our bread and butter in our play pass of our two back play pass look feel like the Run get the open space these are reps that we build over and over and over again there's no magic there's no shortcut it's what we believed in there's another guy that Receiver right there khif Raymond he's about 59 170 pounds he made one of the biggest plays in in the divisional game against Baltimore two years ago he was cut six times played at Holy Cross and this is this is powerful when when these guys work you guys on your practice squad and you put them out there and they get a helmet on game day and you call their number I think that's the one of the most things you can do to really get the the bottom of your program up when you show these guys you believe in them because they deserve it and not just sit there and and in CLE the stars is what I like to call it we don't we don't do that around here in Atlanta so again same play call you can see up there there way to do it bottom we got thousands of reps at it this is just who we are I mean as I said there's a lot of different ways off to play offensive football but it's got to be a commitment and the thing is you got to have belief in yourself and what you're doing and the way you're teaching and I think when you a lot of people get in trouble in my experience is when you start to struggle and you start trying to in the middle of a season is the fundamentally try to change you are and then you start grab bagging PL I think that can hurt you and then you know a lot of times your players at our level can lose confidence okay get into this the last part so you know I showed we're going about much of our wide Zone plays how it married on first second down went Keepers keep the defense honest really that eth Defender moving the launch point for the quarterback protecting him so he's not a Sitting Duck all the time first second down and then and then our play pass off now we have our Duo and this is a very common play uh you'll see a ton ton of teams run this on on Sunday it's all over football this is a lot of people like to call it power without a polar to me this is a really physical downhill we teach it downhill a gap out trying to get as many double teams as we can we can run it out of 12 13 run it out of 11 as you can see right here we talk about taking all 11 this is plays that we package as we motion down into our Bunch sets we've got a wide Zone call here we gave parameters of how we want to can to to our 13 Duo and that's what we're doing a lot of times we use double motion get indicators put them in Conflict put them in stress make the defense communicate get down in here make it all look the same and this one was a parameter if we got any kind of strong side rotation we can but we were going run to run that is one of my favorite clips of Derrik Henry again you go up top and if you got receivers that aren't committed to to blocking who knows maybe that corner gets him we got him on the free safety he say Derek we'll get you the free safety the rest on you he can make you look good so we can see here that's special you know I wish I could say that that that speed was coaching that's not but I I say this there's not many guys that that I've been around that can that can hit home runs like he could but you can see his teammates selling out and there's a powerful belief there's another guy down here that's playing Z who was an undrafted receiver rookie out of Indiana came from a different offense had a great skill set bought in and earned his reps Nick Westbrook's his name you see these guys flying down the field there comes the calvary yeah the question I he I can kind of see these on here you talking about the the the spot you're trying to get the quarterback in depends on the route dep we we'll still teach some of those those two back stuff I'm getting into this in Q and the a off a quick five and then depending on how if we're trying to push the ball on the field it's still seven step about the action but I can get to that in the Q&A whoever just popped that in there soon as a mic assuming the wheel comes over the top Derek could see it and he could see it's good night same play it's different way to do it doing out 12 Personnel getting into a wing set get the receiver down get this thing we a little handb back motion Derek bounces it puts it in the corner you can see how how we we start building a package out of this our Duo concept and here comes the play pass offer coming into it and then you talk about a commitment here here I mean see the situation in the game it's 2110 we're we're great we're in normal ball there's no ever there's no reason to panic we're still playing normal ball here different ways to get to it but our guys up front they feel confident they've been in these combination blocks then you get them there and then you come out in a play play pass and as you can see right here a lot of guys stepping up Corner steps up that's all we needed he took the eight we kept the corner high they talk about finishing right here receiver being physical not running out of bounds when you get into this you build your run packages you build your play pass it's got to look the same all we're looking for is to create space how do we exploit it how do we remain efficient keep the defense try to wear that front down so it's not too much where that quarterback's sit and Duck and same thing going off the duo action backed up trying to be aggressive running our Low cross right there again that's Cory Davis stiff arming the uh the DB just playing physical guys by in there's nowhere to hide there's a commitment preach it practice it and you reward those you know I always think you know there's an old line institutions get the behaviors they reward and we rewarded guys played like this Al this is a turning point in this game I mean we're sitting here no no reason to panic now you know we end up missing a field goal to go on overtime but we were down we didn't play well in the first half we kept chipping away we don't want to project Panic you know he's talking about belief system there's a time when you're going to have to say hey there's too many you know possessions we got to go a little bit faster but we felt still we're in a good spot there's plenty of possessions left in this football game we're not going to get get out of our game plan yet again get into into two minute and panic this the all you need is one play and here going to our bread and butter off our Duo action running a slow glance up top we call a slow glance and in a corner playing off leverage it's another one AJ taking taking this thing and hitting the Home Run and the game changed right on that right on that play another thing we talk about you know trust you talk about over and over in confidence I don't know how well you guys can see this but this is one of the the better throws I I've seen Ryan make at quarterback but this is a trust with these reps over and over again this ball damn near I mean it whizzes off the the Vince Williams helmet here for the Steelers and this is a hell of a play by the receiver but this is Ultimate trust because he's got court if he wants to progress he pops out of there but he trusts it there's a window that ball whizzes in there if I can get in on the slow motion here but but you're building trust with the quarterbacks receivers play caller that's just a snapshot you know just kind of wrapping up of our identity and uh and and it's stuff that you like I said there there's multiple ways to do this and I'm happy I want questions I want I open up now a Q&A I just want to show you example of things we Implement offensively and that's our first and second down package what we believe in in Tennessee and some of the stuff I'll Implement in Atlanta we'll adapt to our Personnel but our style of play up front won't change we believe in it we believe in a long season it's going to wear people down and we believe that once you do that can we put enough conflict on defense and design plays as as a as a staff put the defense in conflict and get our players in position to be successful with reps they have over and over and over again so put a lot of magic to it but uh I hope that helped kind of set the tone and and gave you example of what we tried to accomplish in Tennessee and what we're going to try to accomplish here in Atlanta so Billy you can remove his follow if you want and guys feel free to ask me anything right coach I just loved uh everything that you're saying because as a former offensive linan love seeing what you're doing on the offensive line and I guess some questions have already lined up um so what I'll do is I'll start reading some of these off if guys have questions just put post them in the Q&A section and I'll go through these as we get them but I guess starting with the offensive line someone asked you know what are the traits and qualities you're looking for from some of those undrafted free agents um that you're seeing in guys that you're getting the type of player that you get yeah I mean a lot of that we just went through the post trp that's a really uh valuable uh process you can't skip it you know if everybody gets fixated on the on the early parts of the draft but but looking at guys for us we like to run wide Zone um I like our guys a little bit heavier I think if you're going to demand to to ride run wide Zone as much Gap as we do you're going to have to be a little bit thicker uh but we still value hip flexibility guys that that can bend and can and can really get off football you know it's a fine line I think Roger saffold would be the perfect mold I think when he's rolling in the wide Zone and the style we play in Tennessee would be an example Raj is about you know right at 315 uh which is obviously uh huge for a high school player but we still value h flexibility core strength the guys that can really play with speed off the football well when you're looking at offensive line you know what is doesn't matter if it's drafted or a free agent somebody you signed what what's the quality that you're looking for I mean what what do you stress the most from your o line is it you know toughness um you're looking for you mentioned hip flexibility but I think it's maybe the traits you're looking for when you're in the trenches well sure you know the the bottom line of the job description they Absolut uh you know simplest terms can can they block their guy I mean obviously that's the the lowest bar and then from there guys that are efficient that can get their guy blocked um but the traits are looking for like I said they got to be what we value three things can they play can they get off the football speed off the football do they play with finish and toughness because the one thing that we have a hard time you want to be a physical and tough football team for us it's hard to to to change guys if guys don't do it in college it's going to be hard it's going to be really hard all a sudden to to think that in the pros they're going to just change their mentality so we we value that and then when we're looking at different College films and uh guys that get after it up front you know all things equal we're going to go with the guy that's got the better football character and played them in all right we're going to the red formation now we got a question that asks favorite Red Zone formation versus seven across like a Zone in concept you like to attack seven across we talking about a seven up and a zero it just says it's pretty generic um attack against it's I maybe best way to answer this our Red Zone philosophy we'll take our our game plan bread and butter down there and make them feel that we can still run the football I think a lot of times what happens is you get down there and you got some designer plays you put in and you want you're just in a hurry to get to them and uh you can still run the football down there you can still run some of your play pass I like I do like to to get in different Personnel I do like to shift get into some of the empty stuff you got to always have a zero answer which we do get into it we'll get into Gap protection like to bring it back across and again you know we we have the uh advantage of having Pro quarterbacks and a lot of more practice time we'll get to some of our our man uh zero beaters down there if we see it well when you have your package of plays for the Red Zone we got a question asking you know what are your favorites uh I think maybe what what's your top two to four Red Zone plays that you you really can count on yeah one of ours in in the drop back when you get down in the five lot of that we you'll see that uh we'll do is is a lot of it I mean obviously you know the it gets condensed B there so we got how do we displace The Defenders you know you see a lot of different right there's only handful of covers you can really run down there whether you run red two or red four and you get the split safeties people start to play a little more three down there kind of matchup Zone and then get your brackets hybrid man and zero you know those are really those are the most common looks we get down there but everything we can do to try to dis Place guys initially you know you got to have it's it's hard to hit a ton of Fades we've done it but I like the things that that can displace guys going running high lows coming back across we call our some of our shallows that we don't you know convert that stop you run those baselines again to give a high low read to the quarterback a lot of times at a three by1 we'd like to build a man attacker or if we think we're playing a lot of Zone we get guys working the backline that's got got a late Outlet because if they get in any kind of drop coverage and only run three you may have some play extension you got to have something where the quarterback can can hold on there has got a back py on throw so that's that's a real one of our you'll see three by one which we you know you bring a number three on the shallow bringing the backside on a basic or whatever you want to call those in your inbre and routes right here then we build in either a two-man pick attacker we feel like we got a chance to get pressure or we build in our our high low with the guy whirling back to the back pylon to give a laid out for the quarterback I don't like given just too many just yes no 101's out there I just we found over that those are inefficient plays uh but that's one of our Staples and then I like getting into our Bunch our weak side Bunch just just running again there's nothing real flashy about it whether you want to call it a spot concept where you're building still building a high low and somebody ripping to the flat when we call our little widen arrows you may call a spot route guys ripping to the corner back going fast and flat and giving inividual route on the back side those would be two of our more common ones in the low Red Zone if we got um any guys that are listening to this and you want a recording of this uh my email is in the the chat there it's KT Don UNC at I'm sorry at email.unc.edu and you can just um send that to me and I'll get you a copy of this because I know he's going through very quickly um coach I know you're transitioning from the Titans down to the Falcons you obviously have a lot of different Personnel especially on the offensive side you've got tons of weapons um you know within your system will you see a lot of carryover from what you did with the Titans or will you develop more of a a plan for those specific players yeah no I saw in there so that's that's a very common question I get obviously how you transition from being so run heavy with Derk Henry you obviously you know was pretty simple when you know I've said this before where you felt like you had Shaquille O'Neal on his prime so we're we were going to feed the big fell but there there to me our offense went because you build the confidence of that old line and we'll run the football here but we have some pretty good weapons on the outside we drafted Kyle pits and we'll find ways to to to get the ball in his hands and get the Calvin with the hands and got that we have and and so we won't compromise our style and the physicality we want to play up front but there's a lot of things we'll do personel formally we we feel like we can pass Pro here and we feel like we got to get the ball and and and to build efficient catch and runs on first and second down so it will look a little bit different you know we may call a little more drop back um but we got to protect the line you got to build confidence in this league if you drop back too many times and become obvious you guys get paid a lot of money your quarterbacks take shot and your line loses confidence you've done a great job doing the the wide zone game with the with Titans I'm sure that will be incorporated a lot with the Falcons offense what what are some of the ways you work misdirection in your wide Zone plays yeah that we we do some split flow out of two back um lot of lot of it you know you see it all over college football the tight ends and we call them the sift guys that that come back and get these guys see the defense so be honest fit in the run and the fallbacks um and off that you can bu easily build Keepers or we can build play pass actions and get guys to step up and still hit some of our Core Concepts behind it that's a little bit what we do in misdirection and obviously the keeper game that I showed here uh minute ago I had a question from one of the coaches asking about your play calling you know when you're developing your your call sheet for the week and what you're going to do on Sunday to try and win a ball game are the plays that you put in there that uh maybe your final go-to plays um are you leaning more on your the the ones you've reped the most or is you looking at some wrinkle plays sometimes if you're trying to get a big play yeah so I just give a little bit Where My Philosophy came from there um obviously when the pressure the games on the line go with what they know is what I was taught by Joe Gibbs and and what I read and I had a great conversation with Coach Gibbs going into that playoff run in 19 and I and uh he's been heck of a mentor for me I worked for him for a year and gotten closer with him as as I've kind of made my own coaching journey and it was all in Bill Walsh's Playbook and and the pressure's on the line go with what the guys know and that was a lot of I have a section on my call sheet say hey got to have it and I'd always meet Saturday mornings uh you know day before the game with the quarterbacks and Ryan and I would go and I'll do the same thing with Matt you know what are our got of habits some of our core drop back third down obviously getting the you know your critical third down four four down plays um yeah I mean you know we've done some stuff that you know worked with some schemed up stuff that we feel good about we may have worked it for a couple weeks even even going back to Baltimore game we when we threw that jump pass with Derek that had been up for about seven weeks we had repped it seven or eight times some of them looked awful at first but uh figured at some point we need it and uh we got down there and a critical third down and and figured it was it was the best call and said why not you got take a little bit of risk but uh he' felt comfortable because i' have been on the call shoot for about seven or eight weeks okay I got one from one of our coaching staff our offensive line coach Stacy Sirles wants to know tell me about Ben Jones's attitude yeah so Ben's got some stories about CH St I don't think they're appropriate to uh use on this Zoom but uh I Gotta Give Ben a lot of credit uh you don't have a center in the NFL and really at any level uh it's hard and Ben changed our culture in Tennessee when we on Ben and as you know Ben's not the best looking line Prospect in there if you saw him walking around especially over here in flowy Branch you would think he's a local and not a pro football player but he's one of the toughest smartest football players I've ever been around uh yeah Ben Ben Ben was the quarterback of that offensive line and he changed our culture when we signed him in 2016 fantastic well and uh here's a question about balance when you talk talk about it uh how do you define balance and I think this is in regards to your uh offense you know is it yards between the running and the passing games at the amount of temps throwing and running uh how do you define the balance yeah I I I you know it's I don't have a fixed number uh ironically when when I was going through the head coaching interviews you know everybody's put a lot of money into analytics and we have some good stuff here and again it's it's all about the user and how you can apply it but you know a lot of people that were trying to ask me some tough questions and said hey you know you you were 61% run on first down I said yeah wanted to be like no no crap like I know we we were playing with our fourth and fifth tackles and we had Derrick Henry was running on 2000 yard season but and really at the end of the day what we're trying to do is to keep these line these defensive linemen from from being able just to pin their ears back and and so how we did it is to keep keep defense off balance we you know You' love to be 50/50 took just first second down but it's the mental game to limit the number of guys when you're playing Cleveland and you're playing miles Garrett or you know you're playing when we're playing the bucks now when you got jpp on one side they got Sue and vaa inside and Jaa Barrett is to frustrate those guys and uh same thing when we play Chicago so there's a feel to it but I I just don't want to become obvious in two one dimensional is the best way I can answer that for you okay I got one specifically about the QB position position what is the spot you're trying to get the QB to at the top of his play pass fake depends on the concept the one I was showing you in the in the two back off the off the the two back action lot of those hit right in the backside a gap but we're saying those things are off a quick five and in a tiny hitch or five plant and ripping that thing out and I call those our those are our intermediate fast hitting play passes and a lot of times when we got we got into our seven step stuff we really want to push in our three level and we ran this wag of protection and when and this is something tanah Hill and I kind of tweaked and when I was coaching tight ends the way we did it we were trying to hit in that half roll back side B Gap and I was just like look this is this is where a lot of my thought comes from we're putting way too much stress on on the tight ends and a lot of those half roll protections I'm like we're paying our left tackle here talking NFL terms $15 million and we're basically getting Five Guys blocking three over here and we got our two tight ends blocking an edge rusher and maybe a five technique and said we need to and the quarterback was ended up behind them so we started trying to get back and and stay between the guards as much as we could Poss that's something we we naturally evolved to and it just really came out of practicality I didn't want to put the stress on our lesser blockers and some of the play pass all right coach so how do you handle those guys who do not buy into your program so I you know this could be when you were coaching off defensive line as a coordinator getting those guys bought in or now transition head coach so for us uh the thing I can control here and this is again every NFL team's just set different that's why I feel about top top down buying is we won't play them and I Look to get guys out of here and that's that's luckily the the power I have now but in Tennessee it's a commitment it was a commitment by John Robinson or GM and our head coach Mike Rael we don't back back off it and that's easier said than done and that's not me trying to talk like a tough guy but as a as a pro coach only thing we can do is we can control the playing time and the roster spot and you have to have an organization is willing sometimes if you make a mistake to eat that and move on for the betterment because it can wear people down if you pay the wrong guys you recruit the wrong guys um and the other wrong guys in locker room and it's just it's just being discipline and and following through I don't want to miss any of these guys I went back to the top uh one coach asked the question how do you separate play action and RPO yeah we did a lot of RPO we didn't run a lot of RPO the last two years in Tennessee um we did it with Marcus Mariota when we had Marcus and a lot of that stuff went off the gun what he was comfortable with I I don't put it in the play pass category I I used to put RPO in kind of a quick game so we running a lot of rpos true we're going to lock the backside in try to get the backer and hit stuff behind them we wouldn't put a lot of quick game in it on the call sheet because that we we felt at that time and I'm going back to 2015 16 17 with Marcus we felt that kind of replace our quick game when you got uh I got a young coach asking you know hey I'm aspiring to coach in college what's the best piece of advice you'd have that could help him potentially get to the next level well I would say Network as much as possible and whatever job you're hired to do do a really good job at it and that was the advice I you know like I said I was fortunate G North Carolina and every job I was given is it's hard because sometimes you see guys have these really quick Rises uh throughout college football and really in the NFL and uh and you just got to be fortunate that hey I'm getting a coach and but but networking is huge I can't tell you you know how many people you cross and I always say you know you always know when you're climbing up you're going to see them when you're way down too I I remind myself that never know where you're going to run to go to many things you can to network and really job when you're in the season do the best job you can at whatever job you're given well and I think what goes along with that is um you're learning and coaching and doing well and I had a question from a coach that says um you know not football related but more in ways of how do you build confidence and build players back after they make a mistake yeah so that's that's another good one too my my belief is especially the guy got trust guys you know receiver wise has dropped it I tell him I'm coming right back to him and I call his number again I DRS it twice three times okay I got to make decisions better team but I think the worst thing they can feel is if you're going to sit there and you treat them like a backup point guard and they're just looking they like waiting for you to pull them I try to come back at them I try to come something you know if I need to call them a line down that's why I like to go to those Keepers where's a lineman it's really hard to screw up a keeper or or or naked or a boot whatever you want to call them in your terminology um I try to give my fast ball something that they can kind of all right I got my back I get going but when I got drops the ball it's guy that I have trust into I'm coming right back at him all once once you get past week week 10 your old linemen they're banged up I mean they're hurting how do you keep them engaged in practicing with a high level of intensity yeah we we we still believe that we can still work our technique and develop but not have to to kill them in physicality you know especially and you got to know your team and where you're at if you're dealing with a younger team I think you can push them a little bit more uh in in the practice but we got into uh late in the year we had a little bit over line we beat that crap but we knew if we took care of them we still worked them in Indie and we felt we were smart with them and some guys that we had to manage during the week but we never stopped stressing our fundamentals pad level technique landmarks you've got um you know High School coaches that probably have some limitations especially in the trenches you know it's always hard to find good offensive line and defensive line and so when of the coaches asked you know we're limited by the players that we get for an offensive line that has limited ability to move he wants to know is his Zone concept better than other Concepts yeah it's hard I mean it depends on what your level is but uh you know it's it's to me it's it's if you you may have to shorten and run run the tight zone or inside Zone whatever uhac use um but we're just trying to win one Gap front side and then and working around some limited players it's you have Five Guys limited that's hard uh but if you got a tackle or one dide like we we had last year we get down to our fifth and six tackle uh and it did limit you and sometimes that one way to play call try to keep them out of a bad matchup and to me that's that's the fun part of coaching I'm not paying a lesser player out to dve I got to run at left CU we're healthy on the left we got better players on the left you know five more times and and it's worth it to me um yeah if you got five bad ones I don't have a a magic pill for that so yeah no I'm sure the Kansas City Chiefs wanted that magic Bill last year in no doubt and speaking of that um let's say you get in a Super Bowl in 20122 and you have a 28-3 lead Falcon fans want to know are you gonna run the ball okay you know it's when I took this job there's been a lot of good coaches before me and uh just my personal philosophy like I think Dan Quinn's a hell of a football coach and they've had good coaches here and uh you know I just look forward and I just that's to me that's disrespectful to other coaches and I know that those comments are there but it's just not what I believe in I told the players that I I don't take over here and pass anything that's on for me see I love that that's what o linan are all about those UNCC rootes and your offensive line that's how you do it um let's keep it on the offensive line Taylor lean a heck of a player um but definitely has a little bit of an attitude to him is is that kind of the prototypical guy you're looking for for an offensive lineman uh no Taylor's unique T Taylor is an unbelievable athlete you talk about building relationships you talk about you know you going into a guy's history it wasn't always easy with Taylor and he's mature and come a long way but there's a lot of relationship building wi that to build his trust um Taylor's a phenomenal athlete he's built different he can play a certain amount of speed off the ball uh and and and when you get in the dropback game when he's rolling he's good as anybody uh but you know those guys are kind of outliers that's why those guys go go high in the draft all right I got we'll do a couple more questions here and then I believe Coach Brown has a couple questions for you so uh one of them with the tight end we haven't talked a whole lot of tight end what do you look for Value in a tight end especially when you rely on the wide Zone yeah um again I think you've got to with your tight ends I mean you know I I had the Good Fortune I I coach when I started coaching tight end had a really veteran room a guy named Craig Stevens who was as good as a a base blocking tight end as you can imagine he was a prototypical guy and Anthony Tano who was a big wi we had Delany Walker in there who was more of a move F really really efficient on third down um so to those guys strengths you know we we felt we could run a lot from side then as we you know lost those guys and we drafted John Smith and and got a little bit smaller there but we still demand it we we didn't want to become just an open side Zone team and so a lot of those guys are they good enough are they willing again they have the hip flexibility to play with that speed off the football and are they willing so we we we got in that Patriots playoff game we didn't want to we have to be able in the wide Zone and run behind the tight end and they don't have to be absolute mullers they gotta be good enough where they can at least displace those S linebackers those Edge players they see or get in combinations with the tackles but I I I think that it's to a detriment if if you don't have a tight end and you're trying to run and play condensed you can't run strong now when you're last question for me and before I ask I just thank you so much for your time I know it's been uh very valuable for our High School coaches I appreciate you setting apart some time to do this for them uh last one from me before Coach Brown takes over how do you determine how to use your running backs in pass Pro versus getting them in the pass route what are some of the concepts some things you think about during the week yeah it just depends on you you know obviously your personnel there but um if you got really good tackles and and you're a pretty good pass protection line I would recommend getting the back out of there um you know if you don't have favorable matchups on the edge we the last two years we really relied on the third down back Deion Lewis and his past year Jeremy M Nichols uh that you know they got to be smart they got to be obviously willing to pick up because of the pressure package that we see but if you've got a guy and if you had one of those scat guys know you had Alvin Kamar you had a Reggie bus uh you had one of those guys and you felt pretty good about your your tackles you know obviously certainly helps when you can get five out uh we just didn't went able to do that because of who we had and that's fine we found other ways to move the football all right Coach Brown I'll turn it over to you thank you coach this has been very informative and i' I know I've gotten a lot out of it I'm sure everybody else does too and I thought one of the the things that we all could learn from is coach just got a really tough question about the Super Bowl a couple of years ago with a really good um Falcon team and Dan Quinn did a super job and the offensive coordinator was Kyle Shanahan who played for us at Texas and I love Kyle he's a good person so coach could have very easily beaten up the previous staff uh he could have been critical of of what happened in the fourth quarter and instead he showed great class and talked about how much they won that year and what a great team they were and what a tremendous coach Dan Quinn was so all of us can learn that we've got to take care of each other in this business it's the classy thing to do and and and what a tremendous answer so for for people on here tonight you got a lot of things out of this and football but take that one personally because it never does any good to to beat up somebody else especially when you weren't there coach two questions in in closing here um you you're got a physical football team you're going to have a physical football team at Atlanta we're at a time where all of us are being told we can't practice as hard we can't hit as much uh how do you stay um with a physical attitude and stay healthy and not be able to hit as much and you're you're in shoulder pads and shorts a lot you're in shorts a lot they've just cut our number of pad days down how do you stay physical and tough with your offensive line your running game when you can't hit yeah that's a great question and you know obviously we're dealing that in our spring but we we try to get creative and uh you know we we've gone back you know really in our approach as individual we brought back out the sleds and the and the shoots because you can't you know you not get as many reps live reps with the o line versus dline and we're trying to constantly work pad level on technique in the days you can do it we try to maximize those and we're being smart we don't try to be uh you know neanthal is about it uh but we we're constantly looking for ways but we have we just had to say Hey look we're going to develop the crap out of this stuff because we realize wearing shorts you know we we're bringing the Sledge back we're bringing we know we're not hitting we're using the pads and and we try to you know draft and bring the right guys in here and and it's a constant demand day in and day out and then when you when you do have those we got to maximize them but yeah we're looking for good ideas coach and trying to be smart and we said hey we'll go back to the sleds and see if that helps and we found some ESS with it how much do you hit good against good in practice do you have an inside drill do you have a we do we do in the days we have pads uh again we we try not to run you know five power plays in a row you know so sometimes you can get a you know you don't have just or really you know any of our inside just ISO playay over and over and crushing the full back but we could try to mix in you know get some wide Zone wide Zone come back with a gap scheme and and even the way we we set up practice the play call but at some point we got to get after it and uh we do that but and even during the season the days you allow pad sometimes you try to throw him a bone at the end and say hey we're going to do inside drill we got uh two periods of first second down we get down at last be we may take the shoulder pads off and just try to throw them bone that way but you're so good in the Red Zone what do you do physically in the red zone to to keep your toughness and your attitude how do you practice that yeah so yeah we found that you know we can still try to run the football down there and the one thing I that I keep preaching and we you know I've started preaching in Atlanta you've got to be unselfish and I know a lot of coaches say that but we rewarded guys that we put the ball in everybody's hands because I think what happens is you get you get a star down there and they said hey this is know naturally you know AJ Brown emerged John who emerged last year too the ball finds him but everybody that we put the game plan in I think some of the times Le at our level in major college football there's a little salesmanship that goes in there and the guys want to know they're going to be rewarded so everybody in the game plan that was really up in our rotation knew they had a chance to score and that kind of helped motivate people this a basic psychological and then coming through with it I think in 19 I think I you know I think we had 13 different guys scored touchdowns and 19 two of them were offensive linemen so those guys love it get excited about it I mean we threw Dennis Kelly at in the AFC Championship game we threw him a a pass in the goaline yeah well Stacy's excited now this is I saw him perk up so last thing coach um everybody wants to be where you are you you started as a graduate assistant you you've worked really hard you've worked your way up um why have you made it all of us have special traits in this business that we do better than other what do you think that that our coaches would understand what what has given you the ability to be the head coach at the other than hard work and dedication and doing things right and but but what makes you special to separate yourself from others so you could get to this point yeah it's hard to answer because I don't think I'm special I think I just was really fortunate to be around some really really good coaches and I'll just list them off and and it's just I feel so fortunate you know you're talking about I mentioned Joe Gibbs uh Greg blosch was a heck of a defensive coordinator Mike Munk was a head coach when I got to Tennessee I think one of the best offensive line coaches in the game uh you know just people I I got to work with Mike Malarkey had a huge impact dick Leo I got to work with gosh Mighty I mean just watching him operate and and I I think I just tried to learn from every situation and do like I said the task and not try to worry and it's easier to said because I was in the NFL but there's guys getting promoted left and right around me and and it just I had to remind myself that hey you're lucky as hell to be in this job and and whether it was a quality control or you know Assistant online or tight end assistant to tight end Coach is be the best damn guy you can be at the job you were given and and learn and listen I know I've talked here for an hour uh but I promise you I I can I know want to keep my mouth closed and listen well coach thank you very much you you've obviously done a a tremendous job at at every job you've ever been I think that that was a a great answer because you listened you learned and and then you put it in in your terms and you did the things that were best for you and you've obviously been great at doing the things that are best for your team so uh thank you for joining us tonight everybody on here especially your your tarh Hill staff will be Atlanta Falcon fans now and if you ever need anything from us you just let us know thank you good luck moving forward if you need anything me let me know I really appreciate you guys time and attention tonight

Channel: Jarrell Flores

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Id: N4GCxT6SB8Y

Length: 56min 13sec (3373 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2024