HEAD COACH BRIAN CALLAHAN
Frustrating to start a season 0-2, certainly. I've still got a lot of belief in our football team, that we can win games in this league in the season. But right now, we haven't put together a game worth winning against two really good football teams to start. Today, Matthew Stafford, Hall of Fame caliber quarterback. We didn't do enough to disrupt him overall. Too many explosives allowed in the second half totally, didn't get any rhythm going on offense. Again, the penalties are still a problem. We've got to keep trying to get that fixed.
But we're in a battle of a ball game deep into the third quarter and almost into the fourth and didn't make the plays necessary to put ourselves in the position to win at the end in the fourth quarter. Too many things got away from us. That sack fumble was obviously killer for any momentum and any chance to keep ourselves in the game. So, got to bounce back. We've got a division game this week.
What's the disconnect between the penalties and all the emphasis that you guys had about the SINs of the offseason?
It's something that I'm still trying to figure out. I think we had a couple of false starts today. We had just an illegal lineman down field on the first drive, which is, you've just got to come flatter on the screen play. Just things that are frustrating, very frustrating to be in that spot. It's obviously something that we had a problem with last year. It was a problem before. It's still a problem, and we're trying like hell to get it fixed. So far, we haven't been successful doing that.
What's the explanation you get on the blind side block call against Cedric Gray?
Nothing really crazy on the field. They didn't really say much. They just said it was a blind side block. And obviously I was irritated by it, but you've just go to go with what they tell you.
What happened on that strip sack that you referenced there? And did Cam Ward have any chance of getting away, do you think?
Yeah, hard to know in the moment without seeing the actual play again, but I think he was probably a little loose with the ball in that spot trying to pull up in the pocket. Had a shot maybe at something coming across the field. But just trying to escape some pressure and a little loose with the ball, which he's learning. He's learning about how these guys are trying to get their hands all over you every time they get a chance and it doesn't take much. We know and emphasis very much on our side too that quarterbacks around the league have the worst ball security. He's got to do a better job protecting it.
I know hindsight is always 20/20, but any thought going into halftime about taking a shot with how Cam Ward and Elic Ayomanor seemed to be clicking?
Just because of the distance to the end zone, just didn't want to do anything where we'd put the ball in harm's way in that particular moment after a big turnover and a chance to go kick the field goal and take the lead going into the half. That was a huge 10-point swing for us, so wanted to make sure we took the points there.
The touchdown you got from Cam Ward, was that kind of two players improvising on the go?
It was outstanding play by both Cam (Ward) and Elic (Ayomanor). Really great job recognizing that the quarterback had broken contain and broke to get open on the scramble drill. Those things are huge plays in the red zone. That's how you score in the red zone. It's hard to scheme up plays every time. And the good red-zone teams in this league have the ability to create and improvise when the play structure breaks down. That was awesome to see. I think Cam got better again this week. I thought he did a lot of really good things over the course of the game. There's still things we're working on, still things he's got to get better at. But his improvement, his trajectory, has been really positive. And I think he's going to come away again and learn a lot be ready to go play another game next week.
Given what he's done in these two weeks, are you letting him do enough considering you need more than a field goal you're getting.
We keep getting stuck on the fringe. We've had some sacks there, some backward plays, just haven't gotten enough cracks at it. I don't think so. We're also being mindful that the two fronts that we've just played were trying to keep some semblance of protection there. And if you drop back every play against those fronts, that's going to make a for a long day. It's hard enough as it is already. So I would say, no, probably not at the moment. But as he keeps getting more comfortable and we keep learning to protect better we can keep trying to push the envelope.
How did you think about L'Jarius Sneed did with his expanded work load this week?
I thought he did really well. I thought he was sticky. He followed Davante (Adams) around the field most of the day. I thought he won that match-up most of the time. You're going to get beat at corner. He's playing against a big-time player in this league who has a lot of pelts on the wall, too. But I thought L'Jarius (Sneed) was really good without having watched it all. But I thought just in general he was around the ball and in position to make plays.
What did you think about your protection? So much of an issue at times last year, frustrating, even against these pass rushes to see what's happened the first couple of weeks?
Yeah, I'd like to see better. I think part of that we're playing with a backup tackle for the fourth quarter last week and another one again this week. And it's not an excuse. We've got to play better. But we're playing against some good teams, and this is what playoff teams look like in this league. That's what the defenses look like. That's what the pass rush looks like. If we want to be in that mix at some point, we've got to be able to block those guys.
What about the choice of John Ojukwu today?
We felt John (Ojukwu) is a steadier performer, had a better knowledge of what was being asked of him over the course of the week, and decided to make that move. Again, I don't know if he was necessarily good enough at the moment either, so we'll reevaluate that again. But we'll see.
Is there anything that you can pinpoint as to why you guys have had trouble maintaining momentum in the second half of the game? Seems like you hit a good flow first half, after halftime it seems to die off.
I don't know. We'll take a look at that. I'll take a long look, see where we can be better there. I don't have a great answer for you. We didn't really try to change anything in what was working for us. Tried keep going back to those things and change up some formations and things like that. We've just got to do a better job coming after the half, certainly.
Did you feel you had some momentum there? You scored the 10 pretty quick points right before halftime, did you feel pretty good?
I felt great. I felt great. I felt like our team was playing well. The defense was playing well. We were doing what we said we were going to do early which was do our best to knock that run out. They're a really good rushing team. They're committed to it. Their play-action game off of it is really, really good. I thought we held that in check for the first half. I thought we made some plays offensively when we had to and we were in a good spot. To have that team here down at half and then deep into the third quarter was really positive. I mean, again, it's another really good team that we played toe to toe with for a while. We have to find a way to finish against these good teams and not make plays that put us in a hole, sack fumble or explosive pass or explosive run. We've got to keep those things bottled up for four quarters and we've got to find a way to do that.
On the sack fumble, I know it didn't wind up counting, but seemed like an instance of a message not getting through. Chig Okonkwo seemed obsessed with punching the ball out and not with getting the guy to the ground. I'm sure your message is to get the guy to the ground. What's a guy doing there obsessively punching the ball while a guy is carrying him seven yards?
We're trying to see if we can get the ball off of him. Defensive players are not used to carrying a football. It's something that we emphasize. When defensive guys have the ball, you try to get it off them. They're not used to securing it the way they were supposed to. I thought Chig (Okonkwo) was doing the right thing trying to get ball off of him on a turnover, they're already in plus territory, so taking a shot there to try to get him off him I thought was the right thing by Chig.
