ASSISTANT HEAD COACH/SPECIAL TEAMS COORDINATOR DAVE TOUB
Q: There were more kickoffs returned by you and the Packers this past Sunday, what contributed to that?
TOUB: “The cold weather obviously affects the football. You can’t kick them as high; you don’t get the hangtime, so it gives you an opportunity to get returns. You get the ball in your hands; coverage is not right on top of you, so you take a shot. Every week is different. It depends on who you’re playing, what their coverage teams look like, how high they hang the ball and weather – all those things come into play every week, so we were able to get a couple last week.”
Q: Were you satisfied with the special teams unit?
TOUB: “Yeah. I thought we were one block away on the first kick return that we had, the middle, and then the left. We obviously got that out to the 34 or 35, so those are good results. 17, Richie (James) has done a good job so far.”
Q: What do you notice about the Bills special teams unit?
TOUB: “Very good. Same personnel as they had last year, they’re all back. They have one rookie on their special teams, that’s it. The rest of them are all guys that have played there last year, and they fly around, very very good on kickoff coverage and punt coverage. I think that’s where they excel. They fly around, they play hard. It’s a testament to their special teams coach (Bills Special Teams Coordinator Matthew Smiley) and (Bills Head Coach) Sean McDermott. You can tell that it’s real important to him, and he puts a lot of emphasis on it. The kicker (Tyler Bass), you know obviously he’s missed a couple but he’s still a quality kicker and the punter is 11-year vet, Sam Martin, who is a great directional punter. They’re all good, its going to be a good challenge for us.”
Q: What are you seeing from Chamarri Conner?
TOUB: “He (Chamarri Conner) keeps getting better and better. I mean, that’s two games in a row that he made beautiful tackles on punt and open field tackles, so it tells you a lot about his football abilities. He’s going to be a great one down the road. I’m enjoying the fact that I have him right now and I know eventually he’s going to end up being in depth as a – you know getting more and more reps on defense. He’s already getting a lot now, but he’s going to get more and more as we go forward. He’s a player that you should be excited about.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR STEVE SPAGNUOLO
OPENING STATEMENT: “A little disappointed in last week, but we’re onto the next one and they do not get any easier. We know in times past with this (the Bills) offense, they’re tough to defend. With that, I’ll open it up, and let you guys roll.”
Q: What’s been the challenge stopping the run game early in the past two games?
SPAGNUOLO: “We’ve talked extensively about it this week. You know sometimes I’m not so sure we hone in on that part of it early, and I’d like us to do that. First and second down has really been – if you look at it – has been more of a problem for us than maybe third down. We only got them to 10 third downs last week – if you count the fourth down it would have been 11 of those kind of situations – and that’s not enough. You have to get teams into 15, 16, 17, 18 third downs and hopefully you win in 12 or 13 of them and that part didn’t happen. That part of it has been a main focus, (Defensive Line Coach) Joe (Cullen) has been all over it, (Linebackers Coach) Brendan (Daly), the upfront people, it’s all 11 guys. I’d like to see us play better. When you pull them all out and look at the ones that are going for longer yardage than you want to, everybody is playing a part in it. It’s not just one guy or one person, so everyone needs to clean it up.”
Q: What boost can Nick Bolton bring in stopping the run when he comes back?
SPAGNUOLO: “I’ll tell you what, he (Nick Bolton) provides – he boosts me. I mean that. He’s an energy giver. I know the guys feel that in the huddle. We’ve had Tuesday where we do a little walkthrough, yesterday – everybody knows what he’s all about, what he brings, and how he communicates. You’d have to ask him a little bit more exactly, he knows where he’s at with all that. We trust the trainers and Nick on that.”
Q: You rotated guys in on defense starting early in the season. What prompted you to do that?
SPAGNUOLO: “I think we talked about that one day here, I know we’ve talked about it with the coaches. I believe in that, early in the (season) to do that – it’s a long haul, 17 weeks, guys are going to get dinged and get hurt. Thank God we did it with Drue (Tranquill) initially. We’ve always had Mike (Edwards) going in and out, then it got to be a little bit more, he kind of earned that. Charles (Omenihu), same thing. You get in these games, you get into the fourth quarter, you’ve got a number of plays under your belt, it’s good to have fresh guys. That’s really important. One of the things we do – I don’t know if you guys, you may or may not see it. You’ll always see when we do little walkthroughs out there, split in two groups. It’s not just one group with a bunch of guys watching. We believe in everybody being ready to play. I think that’s really key when we get to this part of the season.”
Q: Would you consider Josh Allen to be one of the best running quarterbacks in the league?
SPAGNUOLO: “He’s hard to bring down. He’s such a big dude. I can’t find too many clips on there where he slides. He turns into a fullback really. I think he’s an elite competitor. Every time we go against him – even when you hear him on the sideline, to me that elevates him. The threat that he has being a pocket passer and throwing it as a strong-arm quarterback and getting out of the pocket extending the down – he’s always looking downfield. I know I put a PowerPoint up yesterday – you can check this – but scrambling then throwing it, how many passing yards, I think it was over 400, it was like 483 or something. I think it’s the best in the league, so that speaks volumes to what you’re talking about and he can tuck and run it too.”
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR MATT NAGY
Q: What have you seen from Clyde Edwards-Helaire in his opportunities lately?
NAGY: “His (Clyde Edwards-Helaire) speed looks good as far as his running between the tackles. He’s been really really good even mentally when you go through a transition, or you go through what he’s been through the last couple of years. He’s been a really good mentor and leader in the room, it starts there. Then when (he) gets on the field, is given opportunities, he makes the most of it. That’s what I respect the most about him. In these situations – the running back position gets hit quite a bit, so if you have an injury or you have somebody – next man up, you want to have a guy like Clyde ready.”
Q: What type of characteristics and mentality have you tried to instill in the offense this year?
NAGY: “You start with the leaders we have; these guys have been doing it in this offense – I’m speaking of Pat (Mahomes) and (Travis) Kelce – for a long time. I think for us mentally going into this year we (understood) that it’s going to be a different year identity wise, we are getting that, I think we’re there, now it’s just fine tuning it. We’ve got to have this ability to make sure that when adversity strikes, the leaders in the room take over and we as coaches can help with that as well. So being tough minded, being physical, playing smart and scoring points is really the easiest way to say it. You navigate through some of that as the year goes on. The guys are seeing right now that where we sit it’s hard to win in this league. We’ve got the guys; we’ve got the talent. It’s now time to really start putting this thing together and make this push and play our best football at the end of the year.”
Q: What have you been working on redzone wise?
NAGY: “Opportunities, stay away from penalties and stay away from turnovers. The two easiest are the penalties and the turnovers are simple, we know that we’ve been saying that all year. It’s got to be eliminated. The execution down there – things are tighter, everything happens faster. For us we’ve got to be able to – to me that situational football is a mindset. You’ve got to be locked in at all times and you have to understand – not that every play isn’t important – when you get down there you’ve got to understand– we had two positions in that first half last game. When you get those opportunities, those possessions you’ve got to come away with seven (points) not three. So that’s really what we’re hitting home right now.”
Q: Fourth quarters have been a bit of a struggle. Is there anything particularly going wrong there?
NAGY: “The frustrations, that word is used, you see that or hear that. For us we try to honestly – and I’m not just saying this – these guys are doing good things, they’re executing and doing good things. It’s eliminating the negative stuff because we are right there. Sticking together through those times, knowing we can be better if we just eliminate a few things here or there, we’re going to be right where we want to be. We try to stay positive in this thing. (If) you start to get too negative and all of the sudden guys start playing tight and that’s not what we want. Stick together, we understand that we have good talent, and we’re going to go out there and really do our thing. This is where, as a team, you’ve really got to lock in and have all three phases going in this December football to make this push. I don’t know if I answered your question, but I just know these guys are doing a great job of sticking together and now we just have to go do it.”