Q. In watching the film and looking at Carson last two games, seems likes there's times when he's overly aggressive and times where maybe he's too timid, for instance in the red zone against the Rams when he didn't throw into the end zone and throughout, missed Dallas one time. Why are we seeing this dichotomy with Carson right now and is it a problem?
PRESS TAYLOR: You know, I think you've got to take every play into its own and understand why things are happening with any pray, whether we miss a read or miss or converted something we warrant supposed to convert and take everything -- we are not going to throw a blanket and say this is what's going on. We're going to egg taste and do as much research, are we efficient and did we put in the time, did we script it versus the right locks, did we make it clear as coaches. When we come back and we review our process of the game and how we prepare for a game we look at everything. We uncover everything that we can whether it's from our preparation, the way we coached it, the way we installed the play, the way we repped the play, all that. We uncover everything we can to uncover what's going on in each play.
Q. I understand what you're saying there but have you picked up any trends -- throwing to open guys and decision-making -- what conclusions have you drawn from that film process?
PRESS TAYLOR: I'll keep a lot of those close to the vest of what we are doing in term of how we are moving forward and progressing with some of these. I will say we try to do a very thorough investigation of -- everything, we continue to do that. I wouldn't say there's one common trend that's going on in things but just in general as an offense as a unit we know we need to play better and we need to sharpen things up and there's been that.
There's been this sense of urgency. There's no panic within this organization and within this unit, any of that. It's just a sense of urgency to get things right and to put our best foot forward every time we walk out there.
Q. I'm sure there's enough on a rookie quarterback's plate talking about Jalen Hurts in terms of learning the offense from a quarterback perspective, and now he has some extra responsibilities like we saw on Sunday. How is he handling both and is it a juggling act?
PRESS TAYLOR: He's done a great job. We feel like all our quarterbacks they are responsibile for knowing everybody's role every single time. Every time we throw Jalen in there, we don't look at as he's a receiver. We look at it as we are getting two quarterbacks on the field. We are threatening the defense in some way, shape or form, either with what we are doing or what we could possibly present to the defense in some way, shape or form. So every time we do something like that it's purely to give our offense an advantage and threaten the defense another way.
Q. It seemed like the offensive games were pretty different week one to week two and I'm sure what the Rams defense was doing had a lot to do with that. Which of those two is closer to what you think the football team for this team; and given the personnel you have, can you be as explosive as you want?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, I certainly think we can be as explosive as we'd like to be. We want to be a balanced offense. I think everybody would say that. And when I say "balance," I don't mean we want to be 50/50 necessarily. We want to be balanced in that we can do what we need to do that week to win, whether that is run the ball 60 times; throw the ball 60 times. That's the balance we want, where we can go dictate: We can be on the attack; we can be moving forward on attacking the defense the best way we see fit to win that week, and every single week that may change.
You obviously want to be making sure you're doing things you're good at and putting your best foot forward in terms of what we are asking guys to do, what they are really good at. But we'd like to be balanced in the sense of we do what we need to do to win that week.
Q. You and Zac have followed similar paths. What's the dynamic been like as you've followed in his footsteps and you've done a lot of the same things in y'all's career?
PRESS TAYLOR: It's definitely a cool experience, being the younger brother, being able to follow in his footsteps. Like you said I followed him in high school. I was five years younger than him, so I was always -- he had gone through something and he was somebody I could lean on as I was going into the next stage of whatever he had just gone through.
So whether that was high school football, junior college football, coaching in college, coaching in the pros, I've always had somebody that I trusted more than anybody ahead of me doing these things. So I could lean on him for advice, ask his opinion, and we've always had a very good relationship in terms of that, the communication. There's nobody I trust more in this business than my brother. He's always been that person for me that I can lean on.
Q. Zac said this week is like any other game. How is that possible when it's your brother and you both have the roles? How often do you typically talk to each other during the season and how often have you spoke this week if at all?
PRESS TAYLOR: We typically talk two or three times a week, probably, whenever we can. Our schedules, they are obviously very busy in season but this week we have not really had a chance to connect, but I think that's been on purpose -- really, this summer, we all spend some time together in the summer but we kind of left football away because we knew this was coming up early in the season. We didn't want to put each other in that situation, anyways.
There's nobody I'd rather compete with more than my brother honestly. It's one of those things with your family, you're always rooting for them but if anybody beats them I want it to be me. That's something, it's obviously a friendly competition that will mean something more to us later down the line but right now, it's all about us, our teams, this game and putting ourselves in a position to go get a win.
Q. We talked about this before, but the adjustment with your added duties and we talked to Doug this morning, he mentioned game day you are kind of the filter between him and the rest of the offensive coaches. So just what has been that kind of adjustment through those first two weeks and that's a lot of added work. How has it filtered down to you and worked for you?
PRESS TAYLOR: It really doesn't feel like it's been a lot different on a game day experience. Obviously my perspective is different, sitting in the box versus down below, but even last year, Carson and I were on the phone communicating. Now we are just sitting side-by-side going through the same, seeing the pictures together, communicating and in between series, getting together with the other coaches and making sure we are all on the same page with adjustments.
In the Rams game, we were getting some different looks front-wise. We made an adjustment. Changed our run game. Had some success in the run. That's more just making sure we are getting Coach Stoutland, we're getting through the quarterbacks and the offensive line: Here is what we are looking for; here is the adjustments we need going forward; this is something to feature, and then spreading that throughout, so the receivers, the tight ends, the running backs, they all kind of know what to expect if there were adjustments going through.
A lot of times you don't have to be side-by-side to somebody because we are all connected through the headset, but obviously Coach Pederson is on both sides of the ball. In a series, we are on the sidelines, defense is on. A lot of times, Coach is out by the sideline; we'll make sure we get everything right amongst the assistant coaches and even the players on the field, and then we'll get to Coach and make sure he get those adjustments or what we are thinking what we are talking about and where we are going in the next series as we go.
But that's been a pretty good transition, I believe.
Q. We've noticed in the passing game that the targets haven't been add spread out as of late, Reagor, DeSean, the tight ends. But how do you get more out of the slot receiver position?
PRESS TAYLOR: I think that's letting the coverage dictate where the ball should be. Obviously we have an idea who our primary is on certain calls, but doesn't all work that way, and that's kind of the adjustment you have to go on some things. There's been some times those guys were featured and maybe the coverage dictated the ball goes somewhere else. And then there's a lot of times even with the slot receivers, wore in a lot of 12 personnel where both our slots end up being tight ends quite a bits. So the target's going to those guys. Sometimes if we were in a different personnel grouping, that would be a different player sometimes, and sometimes you'll dual-list personnel groupings on a certain play, and based on what we are getting out of the defense, we would like to be in this versus that.
So that can kind of evolve through the game. We certainly go through everything. Have an idea of who is getting what target or what the primary is, at least, but everything is going to adjust off coverage. We are not going to force balls on certain people just because we believe that's who the ball should come to on a certain play or what when we a certain play. You have to adjust with what the defense gives you as well.
Q. How big a loss is losing Reagor for the couple weeks you'll be without him and what can you seen from of the young wide-outs?
PRESS TAYLOR: Obviously we are disappointed for Jalen. We felt like he was really growing into his role, and they are still young players. They miss an off-season of these physical represents -- they are learning every single day as they go and they will, and this is obviously unfortunate for him but these other guys have done a great job. They have attacked this week of work. They are ready for it. We are really excited for what John and J.J. have been doing on the field and what they are going to do in their expanded roles, as well. Obviously more snaps go around as Jalen recovers a little bit but those guys have done a great job. They are attacking their work. They are studying the playbook. They keep getting better and they keep growing every day.
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