Q. You guys did a better job of getting the ball out quick. Obviously, game plan oriented. How much did the O-line issues factor into that?
SHANE STEICHEN: I think those guys, when they went out and played, I think all those guys that came in; Herbie, and Landon, and Jack, I thought they did a heck of a job. They battled the whole game. They fought their buts off. I thought overall it was a good performance for those guys.
Q. When you go back to the first fourth down, Nick was talking about the play getting in a little bit late. What was the communication there getting that play in and what decision --
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, we had a kill on it. And when you have a kill on it and there's two plays being called, we just got to get it in quicker. That's the bottom line. I got to do a better job myself there.
Q. We saw a lot of ineligible men downfield penalties, it looks like on the RPOs. It looks like that's a pretty big part of your offense. How do you fix that?
SHANE STEICHEN: We just got to continue to work it and talk through it. I mean, that's the biggest thing, right? We just got to keep that space between not going all the way down the field. You know what I mean?
You got to keep that one yard in between those guys. That's the biggest thing. We got to working it.
Q. Are there things that the opponents are doing to screw up the timing on the throw or is that just you guys offensively executing?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, we just got to control ourselves off the line of scrimmage a little bit sometimes. Because you can hand it off and get up to the second level to block those guys, so that's something we got to keep working through.
Q. What did you see from Jalen Hurts this past week that looked better than what he's done, like, in the past?
SHANE STEICHEN: I think more than anything, he's continuing to grow. And the consistencies are the biggest thing right now with him. And he's continuing.
You know, we got to keep stacking those games on top of each other, just the consistency. Obviously, the completions he's getting, the big plays he's creating, we got to continue to do that.
Q. Quez Watkins, such an interesting player for a young fifth round pick, to be able to catch the ball like he does. What makes him such a special receiver?
SHANE STEICHEN: I think he's got really great hands and he's got a great ability to find the dead spots and zones. And his speed. We hit some shallows to him. His speed is good. He's got really good hands. He's got a good feel for that.
Q. Shane, after the first two possessions, the offense seemed to have less motion. And more traditional dropbacks. Was that by designed? Were the first 15 plays scripted and was that just the way the game was going?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think that's just the way the game's going. Like we talked about the last week, we're going to use motions to help us. And, obviously, we have certain things that we have set up to where there is no motion to where we feel we can get an advantage there.
Q. If you guys were ahead by a touchdown or so and not behind, do you think that you would have -- it would have looked more like the first quarter that you guys were doing offensively?
SHANE STEICHEN: Not necessarily. I think we go with what we got in our game plan and we go and try to create plays that way.
Q. This Panthers defense was a top defense in the league, until this past week, anyway. What do they do well?
SHANE STEICHEN: They're really fast. These guys can fly around the football. They got speed off the edge. I know Shaq Thompson is out. He's a really good football player. And then burns is a really good football player. They got really good football players. They got really good speed, like I said. And they can fly around and tackle. That's the bottom line.
Q. As far as Kenny goes, how do you balance the reps that he gets versus Miles Sanders?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think those are things that we talk about throughout the week. Like, we put guys in position, what we think guys do best, and then we put them in position to make plays.
So if we feel that Kenny gives us the best chance in this situation to make a play, we'll put him in. Same thing with Miles, if we think he gives the best chance in a situation, we put Miles.
Q. In watching the film, Nick gave us an assessment with what happened with DeVonta and the illegal touching. Rewatching it again, do you agree with him that it was kind of back and forth in terms of --
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, it was. It was back and forth. It was tough. Obviously, DeVonta would say this, too, Hold the line a little more. You know, hold the line a little more. We just got to do a better job there. It's happened to us twice now.
Q. What happened with J.J. on that OPI that he had that took away the touchdown? What happened there?
SHANE STEICHEN: We tell them -- obviously, the guy that was covering Zach, right, we're trying to create an interference there. Obviously, the guy bubbled over the top. It was a tough call. They called it. It's something we got to live with and we got to go from there.
Q. As a play caller, what have you learned about Nick?
SHANE STEICHEN: Nicks' been great, obviously. He's feeling the flow of the game right. And we're hitting some big plays and some chunks. And once you get into the flow of the game and you're calling it and things are rolling, everything just starts to roll a little bit. You know what I mean?
Q. The growing pains that you guys are kind of dealing with, you know, as far as -- you mentioned the two penalties on the receivers, things like that. I mean, how much does that -- like, did you kind of expect coming into the season with such a young receiving core and a young quarterback and everything like that?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I don't know if I expected a ton. But like you said, some of those things happen, right? And you just got to teach them and overcome them. And we got to keep learning from those things.
Q. How much teaching, like, are you guys doing with --
SHANE STEICHEN: Oh, tons. There's -- obviously, we're trying to grow and get better for -- everything we have a mistake on, we got to correct it in the film room. That's the biggest thing.
Q. Nick said that explosive plays are one of the two things he looks for in the stat sheet after a game. Obviously, teams want explosive plays. But as play callers, what can you do to create those? What goes into creating explosive plays?
SHANE STEICHEN: Obviously, you scheme them up. I mean, there's certain things that you see from a coverage standpoint where you say, Hey, they're always in this coverage when we get into this formation.
Or, If we do this motion or whatever it may be to create those chunk plays, that's what we're trying to do.
Q. Moving Landon to left guard: Is it fair to say that part of the reason of that is Isaac is out for the year and this will be Landon's landing spot for this year as opposed --
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I don't know it will be his spot for the rest of the year. Could it be? Yeah, it could be. But we're working through it and we're going to play the best five guys every week.
Q. Back to the illegal downfield stuff. Nick said it's been a point of emphasis around the league. So if it continues that way, you guys might have to think about calling it less. Have you seen that? Is it borderline, is it bang-bang or have you guys been making that mistake?
SHANE STEICHEN: No, I think we're working through it. Like I said, there's some close calls. And I get it, the officials got to make the calls when they got to make them.
So we got to continue work through those. But, obviously, we just got to do a really good job of, like I said, not going downfield. That's the biggest thing. We got to do a good job. If we want to keep that in our offense, we got to do that.
Q. What was the coaching point with Whiteside on the pick play? Did he extend too much or --
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, like I said, the guy that was covering him, he's trying to go and create interference right there. And the guy bubbled over the top and he put his arm out on the guy that was covering him. And I think they saw that and that's what they called, and we got to live with that.
Q. Do you think the arm was the problem?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I mean, that's what the officials called. That's what it looked like.
Q. You talked about how you figure out Kenny and Miles, what they do best. Miles is used to being the guy from the last year and a half, at least. How has he reacted to the way he's sharing reps with Kenny?
SHANE STEICHEN: I think Miles is fine. We all know that Miles is a heck of a football player, obviously. And we want to get Miles the ball as much as we can. And I think Coach hit it on it the other day, right? We have runs where it's a zone read play, we have runs where it's an RPO play. So we're reading the guy. Right?
So if Jalen sees a defensive end, he crashes, he's going to pull it. He plays upfield, we're going to hand the ball off. So that goes into it.
Q. (Question concerning big plays on offense.)
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, that's on me. I think we got continue to practice that. We got to put -- I got to put -- when we script plays during practice, we got to create more scramble drills in practice.
You know, we do a couple a week. But, you know, we need to do more of that so we can get better at that.
Q. What are the teaching points on that?
SHANE STEICHEN: On that? We want to have good spacing when we scramble. So when we scramble, guys, receivers, where they're routes, right, one guy goes low, one guy goes high, one gets in the middle, and the other back guys are basically creating five on a dice, right?
We want to have good spacing. And so whenever he scrambles to the left, you kind of flow to the left. He scrambles to the right, everyone flows to the right. And everyone's got to have good spacing when we do that.
Q. When you guys face third and long and in your 11-personnel, what have you found of the teams so far this year, how they defend you, and what personnel is it?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think that's week to week, to be honest. Like, defensively, if you look at -- when you break down third down, like, what are teams doing on third and 11 plus from a coverage standpoint?
Some teams play soft and some teams are aggressive. So our third and 11/plus calls are dictated off of what they're defensively.
Q. Personnel-wise though --
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I don't think there's a big -- on third and 11/plus, I don't think there's a huge personnel -- I think the defense is going to play what they have called.
Q. Jalen Reagor had the 12-yard run, and the 9-yard sweep. Are you guys still figuring out -- trying to figure out creative ways to get the ball in his hands quicker and implement more to do --
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think so. Jalen is an explosive player. We want to get the ball in everyone's hands. We got a lot of good football players.
Like I said, the other week, there's one football, right, to get all these guys touches. But anything we can do to get involved, we want to do that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports