Q. What was your biggest takeaway of Jalen's performance?
SHANE STEICHEN: You know what, I thought he was really efficient. When you look at him, when he ran the ball, he was efficient. When he was throwing it, I thought he was really efficient. To average 7.2 yards on the pass game is pretty good. He made some tremendous throws. His accuracy was on point. I think he had about four throwaways, but overall, just a really strong performance from him.
Q. Just his ability to kind of struggle off that 0-for-5 start and stay focused.
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, that's his thing. It's the next-play mentality. Coach talks about it all the time, that next-play mentality, and I think that's where his mindset is at all the time is just continuing to grow and be on the next play, and I thought he did a hell of a job bouncing back. I think everyone did.
Offensive line played tremendous. Obviously AJ had the big game. We made some big plays, so it was a good performance.
Q. AJ said after the game that Shane has a hard job getting everyone involved. Throughout the course of the game, how cognizant are you of the target distribution of each player?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I'm thinking about that. I'm definitely thinking about that, but I'm also thinking about the flow of the game. That's the biggest thing. There's certain things I want to get called, and I'm like, hey, that might not be the right time for this, so that's a balancing act.
Obviously Devonta is a premier player in this league, and did I think in a million years he wouldn't have a catch? Absolutely not. I did not think it was going to go that way. But that's my job, I've got to get him the ball. Same with Dallas, same with Quez, Zach, all those guys. I think that's the great dilemma we have. We have a great offensive line and we run it well, and we have the ability to throw it, too, so you've got to get all those guys touches, and job to get that done.
Q. If the ball isn't going to one of those guys, do you take it upon yourself to talk to them, make sure they know that --
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, you know what the best part is? This group in general, they're all selfless, and this is an ultimate team game, and it's all about winning. Those guys understand that. As competitors, do they want the ball? Absolutely, they want the ball. But as long as we're running and we're scoring points, I think everyone is going to be pretty happy.
Q. What about blitz pickup? That seemed to be a real issue. Is that something that surprised you a little bit?
SHANE STEICHEN: No, I think any time when they pressure, right, we have our pressure meetings all week, and our offensive line is one of the best in the league picking those things up, and some of those things I know Coach talked about yesterday, they brought some blitz zero stuff that we had answers for. But those are the things you look at all week, every week. Every opponent you're playing you've got to be ready for that.
Q. It looked like a couple times a little late getting out of the huddle. Is that a fair assessment? Did that have something to do with the noise?
SHANE STEICHEN: No, I think we were fine getting out of the huddle. I think sometimes when you get up to the line you're changing plays, it's loud, and you've got to communicate, and I know Coach talked about it and we talked about it as an offense that we've got to be, all of us -- starts with myself, all the coaches, the players, the communication, like the tempo of everything, we've got to be -- it's week 1, but shoot, it's going to keep coming, and we've got to keep practicing that and keep going through those situations in practice and be ready to go on Monday night.
Q. Are you putting an extra emphasis on Jalen to protect himself given some of the hits he sustained on Sunday?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think Jalen has a great feel. He's got a natural ability to not take the big hit. Does it happen sometimes? Yeah, it does, but you can see that he slides at the right moment, he gets out of bounds when he needs to, and then he takes some of those hits. He slid, yeah, he did, but he knows when to get down, and I think he's got a good feel for that.
Q. What are your initial impressions of Minnesota's defense?
SHANE STEICHEN: You know what, shoot, watching them on tape, they're flying around now. This is going to be a heck of a challenge. I say that every week, but looking at those guys, Za'Darius Smith, he was something else. He was a monster on Sunday against Green Bay, and then Kendricks inside, he's been their leader there in the middle for a while. He's a good player.
Then on the back end they've got the Pro Bowler Harrison Smith. He's a rangy guy that can make a lot of plays. He got an interception, obviously, but he's strong in the box, too. He can come down and hit you. Then Patrick Peterson, a veteran corner out there, that just really understands route combinations, got really good vision. He's been playing for a long time.
It's going to be a heck of a challenge for us, but we're definitely looking forward to it.
Q. Jalen had a couple passes batted down. Was there a common thread in those?
SHANE STEICHEN: No, sometimes those happen. To say this is why or this is it, sometimes those guys get their hands up and it gets batted down. I can't give you an exact reason why. Sometimes guys put their hands up and the ball goes right past it. It's just part of the game.
Q. You said that it's your job to get everyone involved. Do you ever want Jalen to be aware of the distribution?
SHANE STEICHEN: No, I don't need him to worry about that. Really wherever the ball is going, it's first read, second read. He goes through his progressions, and that's where it is.
Q. What do you think is the most underrated aspect of Miles Sanders' game?
SHANE STEICHEN: The most underrated? I think his vision. You saw on that 3rd and 2, that was the play of the game now. It's a four-minute situation. I know Coach talked about it the other day, but to end with the ball in a format -- I think we had it with 3:50 left. We didn't throw it, and it's 3rd and 2, and they got into big people and that hole got stuffed, and I don't know if you guys saw it, but he popped through, and he had great vision to see that and hit that thing. That was a hell of an individual effort by him to make that play.
Q. On that drive, especially after you get that 1st down after the Miles run, are you calling plays with the understanding that you're going to be willing to go for it on 4th down?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, absolutely, depending on where the ball is and all that stuff and how it's going, absolutely, we've got to be ready to do that.
Q. Which pass stood out as Jalen's best?
SHANE STEICHEN: Probably the one to AJ, 3rd and 4, two-minute, right before the end of the half, to hit that ball to the field, a go ball to the field and put it right on the money, he caught that thing in stride was pretty impressive. To go back to that two-minute, I know Coach talked about this yesterday, too, but to be able to score before half, whether it's a touchdown or a field goal, and then when you defer and you get the ball to start the third quarter, you double dip and you get 10 points without them touching the ball, so anytime we can do that, that's huge.
Q. Talk about that four-minute offense; Jalen didn't even run the ball. He had I think three to Miles and three to Boston. What kind of impacts, when everybody knows you're going to try to run the ball, how much does his presence on the field help that?
SHANE STEICHEN: Oh, it definitely helps. When you've got the threat of a running quarterback, and those guys got to be aware for it, whether you're in the shotgun or whatever formation you're in, those guys got to be aware of it, and so it always has that threat, so if you are in that shotgun and those guys are playing the zone read and you hand it off, it can get a good gash in there, and it was good to see.
Like I said, our offensive line did a heck of a job. All those guys played well. Kelce led it and then Lane Johnson -- I'll just say this about Lane. Lane is unbelievable. This guy is one of the best offensive linemen I've ever been around, and he was dominant on Sunday. I know sometimes those guys don't get enough credit, but that guy is unbelievable. He's a freak show.
Q. We've seen Jalen have big games before, maybe the consistency not being exactly where it needs to be to this point. What's the differentiator there between the quarterbacks that can do it, play at a high level consistently? What does it take to get to that?
SHANE STEICHEN: I think it's just repetition with anything. I think whatever it's been, nine starts, he's 7-2, he's winning football games. That's what you want. You want winning football, and when you win in this league, you're going to have success.
Anytime you score points like we did on Sunday, you're going to give yourself a chance to win. I told the offense this before we went out there, it's all about points, guys. However we need to get points, we've got to get that done. To score 31 -- I'll take 31 plus every week, and you're going to have a chance to win a lot of football games.
Q. Did you sense that the Lions were trying to keep him from leaking out to the right side?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yes and no. Not really. I didn't sense any of that, to be honest. I didn't.
Q. The influx of penalties, do you think that's a week 1 anomaly and what are the teaching points specifically with the pre-snap ones?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, those are the big things. The penalties, you've got to eliminate the penalties. Those things, those will come back to bite you in the butt. We overcame some of those deals, but you can't have too many of those things because if you have a lot of them, they're going to end up hurting you, and we were able to overcome a few of them, and those are things we talk about and we've got to get corrected and cleaned up.
Q. How much do you have to now anticipate teams changing the way they defend you guys?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think anytime a guy like AJ, he has 10 catches for 155, teams got to be aware of that, so we've got to be ready to adjust, and that's the beauty of we've got three studs, along with Quez is a stud, that if they start rolling to certain guys or whoever it is and how they start to play guys, we've got to go through our reads and go from there.
Q. In Nick's postgame speech, he called Jalen one of the best quarterback sneakers in the league. Is that a specific skill?
SHANE STEICHEN: I think it is. There's some of those guys, I'm not going to say specific names, but there's guys that are really good at it, and he's got a strong lower body, and obviously the offensive line up front helps with that, to get that push up front. But you've got to have a feel for it where the gaps are and how to hit it, and he does a heck of a job with it.
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