JONATHAN GANNON: Quick recap of that game. I do have walk-through pretty quick. You know, we didn't do enough to win the game on our end, flat out. Let them possess the ball for a good amount of time, obviously the entire game, especially the first half. There were some things we got to clean up execution-wise, detail-wise.
That starts with me. The amount of plays in the time of possession, I felt like that really hurt our team because we're on the field for a long time, and when you do that, then they have the opportunity to score points; and on the flip side to that, our offense is sitting on the bench and I don't like that.
Gave up 20 pins in the first half. You're not going to win many games when do you that, so we got our work ahead of us.
Now, what I do like is in the second half I think we played a little bit better. We executed on some known-pass situations, which helped us, which in the first half we really didn't do that.
When we had known pass situations on second and third down we didn't get it to third and in our favor, or even they made some first downs on second downs.
So when you do that, the plays are going to get high, the time of possession is going to get out of whack, and they're going to have a chance to score points.
Second half I felt like we cleaned that up and played better. I think we gave up six points there in the second half. Got off on some third downs and played how we have been playing.
But challenge ahead of us, and we got to get cleaned up to give ourselves a chance to win the game.
Q. In the run game you gave up 3.1 yards per carry (indiscernible.) Regarding time of possession, just curious where your level of content was with the run defense?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, it's one of the things we've been working on. I think that it should be better. We have to coach it better and I got to call the game a little bit better to help our guys out.
You know, I don't know that the yards per carry and where we are and all that stuff, but if a team is going to run the ball on first and second down, first and second down, first and second down, and try to get it to third and short, we have to do something to combat that.
That's what we're working on and that's what we'll do.
Q. There were some third and longs that they converted. Was your focus on the run? Did that prevent you bracketing McLaurin?
JONATHAN GANNON: On third down?
Q. In general. I know you had Slay covering him; doing what you did with Jefferson.
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, a little bit. Each game plan is a little different as far as who you're defending and what plays you have to defend. I thought we got things that we needed to clean up with the pass game that we got cleaned up.
It's just a little bit better execution and the coaching of the details of those calls.
Q. Were there two plays where you guys only had ten players on the field?
JONATHAN GANNON: There was, yeah.
Q. What happened there?
JONATHAN GANNON: My fault both times.
Q. You say you're working on the run defense, getting better. What are you options at this point? The personnel is what it is; you're adding Linval Joseph, but schematically I don't think anything changes. What are some options there?
JONATHAN GANNON: That's a good question. There are some things schematically within things that we do and we have that we can use those bullets, so to speak. It's just deploying them and using them at the right times, and I can help our guys out a little bit better calling it a little bit better.
That's going to always come down to within each call the strength and the stress of each call. You know, putting our hands on the right people, playing with good pad level, fundamentals. And that is all 11 guys.
So it starts with us coaches to make sure the fundamentals -- and we are really good at times. It's got to be consistently throughout the game. And I know it's never going to be perfect, but we got to make sure we're consistent with what we're doing, because run game, run defense is not one or two guys, it's all 11.
This team that we're about to play, they make the corners tackle, and we got to do a good job of crack replace and tackling backs. That's how they're winning games right now.
So it's all 11 guys, and we got to execute at a high level, just like in everything, situation, pass game, but especially the run game as well. One guy gets a little bit cut out and another guy thinks he's going to be here and he's not there, it leads to a six-yard gain instead of a three-yard gain. That's what you're talking about the first and he could is down, like 3.1, whatever.
When you're playing a game in third and short all day and it's not known pass on third down, it's a hard way to go for us. We you don't want to play like that and we know that and we got to get cleaned up.
Q. That said, JG, I imagine Linval is here for a reason. He's got a reputation as being one of the better run stuffers when he was younger. How much does a guy like that make a difference?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, he's a really good player against the run. Then with Marlon getting hurt we needed to add another piece there. I was with Linval for four years. He's a really good player. His attitude is right. His character is great. He practices extremely hard. He is diligent. He kind of fits right in to what we do and how he wants to play and what he wants to do, and I think it'll help us.
Q. Do you have a sense yet of what kind of shape he is in, how quickly he will be able to play?
JONATHAN GANNON: In about an hour I will. He's always a guy -- this guy, I mean, he's three or four times a day, on his own, working on that part of his game. He'll always be in shape. I'm not worried about that.
Q. He's going to practice today?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah. Maybe I'll run into the huddle and tell him what to do.
Q. There is a stat out there that teams league-wide are averaging 4.5 yards per rush and yet points are down. Are you okay with allowing teams to run on you, because ultimately the numbers are down and you'll take that over what could happen versus the pass?
JONATHAN GANNON: That's a good question, Jeff. I mean, I think you don't want teams to run on you all day. You don't want to do that. You got to defend the run and the pass.
With saying that, you know that there are stresses and strengths of each call. I always talk about the quickest way to give up a lot of points is the ball to go over your head. Now, with saying that, when offenses adjust, we have to adjust, too.
And that's not just like this year, that's each game is a little bit different; how you set up the game plan; that's during the game, what's going on. That's what we talked about Houston, what kind of was going on.
So and you just got to -- it's a constant chess match back and forth. Are they going to keep doing this or not. But if you win some of -- like I said, if you win some of those known-pass situations that we've been winning at pretty high clip, the however many plays we played, 80 plays that, goes down to 60, you know what I mean, and you are right where you want to be and you give up kind of the points we have been giving up.
So you got to see how out game is kind of going and set it up that way, but I think that's a good question as far as schematics right now and who is playing the different spots of quarterbacks and different offensives. You know, especially ways that defenses are trying to combat certain things. Offenses have adjusted, and then obviously the defense will have to adjust.
Q. What are the challenges? Obviously you've got Jonathan Taylor coming up. Based on the last couple weeks, what kind of challenges do you have like trying to stop him?
JONATHAN GANNON: Yeah, I mean, every challenge that you would have with a good running football team. They've got a good O-line and he's one the premier backs in the league.
I told our guys a story, the first two or three days of training camp he broke a run and literally just ran away from all the defensive backfield. Guys has got major gas. He's big, physical. He's got really good vision.
So it's like any week, but this week he presents a different challenge because of his skillset, and we got to do a good job, all 11 of us, to stop him.
Q. As you look at this, did you see signs of this earlier in the season or just a by-product of Jordan being absent?
JONATHAN GANNON: No, I don't think that. I mean, like I said, Jordan being absent, yeah, he's a really good player and we like when he's in for us and he does a good job. I think it's really just how the last couple have went how teams are going to try to play us.
That's a correlation to the other two phases of our team with our offense and special teams. We just got to be ready to combat how people are doing that and don't let our offense -- that's what I don't like. I don't like when our offense is sitting on a bench for ten minutes, guys.
I don't even care if you make them kick a field goal because it's about points, but we got to get our offense the ball back, and that's what we'll work on this week.
Q. (Indiscernible) the most snaps that he's played in two years, 70 in this past game. What have you seen out of his play so far?
JONATHAN GANNON: He's been fantastic. Yeah, I don't like that the game got -- the known pass got the number count out of whack a little bit, and that's why we played that many plays. Then who we had up for that and how they decided to play us, he played a lot of snaps. So did all those guys. I don't like that.
He's played extremely well. I mean, he's one of our best box defenders that you could ever ask for, and he is super versatile and playing good football for us.
When you ask these big guys to play that many snaps it's hard duty on everybody, so hopefully he will get his body ready to go for this week. I do not want to see that again.
Q. Were you okay with CJ matching up with McLaurin in the slot, or is that something that they didn't show?
JONATHAN GANNON: No, they've shown that with that particular call, that that was the matchup, and we talked about how we can correct that a little bit more.
But I was comfortable with the call, and hats off to them, they made a good play.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports