Good to see everybody. It's a good win. It's tough coming east, 10:00 a.m. game for our guys. Got to give the Titans a lot of credit. They played extremely hard. Their quarterback played really well. He's a really hard guy to get on the ground. Extended plays and did a great job, especially on some of those third and fourth downs. Our guys were playing really hard there at the end, and I thought we showed a lot of maturity. Working through all the things and how the game went, you would have liked for us to be able to close the game out earlier, but they were fighting hard and they played hard, and they returned a kick for a touchdown. Our guys showed a lot of resilience, just keeping playing. The last drive, we were also playing the clock knowing they were going to be in an onside kick situation, so didn't give up a big play there, which is a positive. Obviously would have liked to close the game out earlier, but I'll tell you what, our guys fought really hard, played hard. We had a good week of preparation. Look, you don't play teams' records in this league. Teams are too talented. This team is a talented team that is coached well, and they played hard. They've had a lot of one-score games that haven't gone their way, and today is another one, so hats off to them.
Thoughts on Jaxon Smith-Njigba breaking the franchise record for receiving yards?
Yeah, it's funny, we just told the team that we were giving him the game ball, and I asked them what week it was, and everybody said, it doesn't matter. We've got the right mentality. But happy for JSN (Jaxon Smith-Njigba). He's doing an incredible job, brings it every day, and he's a great teammate, which is awesome. So you're really happy for him.
With all the injuries at linebacker, how did you feel like Patty-O (Patrick O'Connell) played out there?
It's funny, we have an ongoing joke on our ready squad that you can't block Patty-O (Patrick O'Connell) on a daily basis, so I'm glad he had his opportunity today, and happy for him. He went out and played winning football for us and made some great plays, so I'm excited to watch the tape and see what he did.
On Smith-Njigba, was he fully healthy? Was he all right coming out of this?
To my knowledge, yeah.
When he's so consistently dominant, when everyone knows that he's getting the ball for the most part, what does that say about his ability?
Well, he's got tremendous ability and he's a great talent and he's an incredible worker, but I would say it's a team thing. He's not the only guy running routes out there. He's not the only guy protecting. I think our offensive staff does a great job of moving him around, which is not easy to play multiple positions and move around. It's hard for guys to do that. It takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of elegant simplicity to make him get into all these different spots. And I think the guys around him were playing at a high level, too. I think we can be better. I think today we were a little sloppy operationally offensively. We need to clean that up. We've got to be better in the red zone. All these things we want to be able to improve on I think will even make it — I think will allow them to take it no another level.
The second game where you guys had no turnovers, how important was that?
Yeah, that's a credit — I probably should have started with that. Obviously, it's a major point of emphasis to play great football. We're talking about finishing drives with the ball in the end zone. That's what we want to do. We want to finish in the red zone, and obviously we want to hold on to it. Guys did a good job of that. The ball was in jeopardy a couple times. The ball hit the guy in the chest once and the ball was up in the air, so we've got to look at that and make sure we're cleaning those things up.
What happened with Ty Okada, and how did you think D'Anthony Bell did?
Yeah, Ty (Okada) has an oblique, and all of a sudden he was out. I think it happened — I think it might have happened on that fourth down or in the drive before the fourth down. Then D'Anthony (Bell) being ready to go, it got a little hairy there out at safety, so we had to be ready for a contingency plan. But great job. Jeff Howard did a great job of getting him ready to go, and we didn't have to change game plan. We called our stuff. And that's a tribute to him.
You've been talking about guys stepping up. You had fourth down stop, you mentioned D'Anthony Bell, got Patty-O (Patrick O'Connell). What does that say about the defense?
Yeah, it's the same message. It's the 70, and it's that feeling that we talk about throughout the year of when guys have opportunities to go, you're excited to go see them play. These guys have earned opportunities to play for us in critical games, and so I was excited to see these guys play. It's great; it's not like, "Oh, shoot, 'so-and-so' is out." It's like, okay, great, let's roll with Patty-O. Let's play. Let's go.
On the TV copy you were pretty fired up on that fourth down stop.
Okay, they caught that. Heck yeah, man. Death zone football? That's a physical football play, man, and it's high-leverage situation, takes some high-level execution. At the end of the day, in short yardage, you've got to kick somebody's butt. On that play, we did that.
On their punt return did you see anything that might have happened?
Yeah, I saw something that happened. But we've got to play better. Guy likes to go around the edge and we had no edge. That's the gunner's responsibility, and it's our net's responsibility, so we've got to play that better, but I saw a few things on that one.
What did you think of Sam Darnold today?
Actually, he was a spark for us. The big touchdown to Jax (Smith-Njigba), to see his emotion and his excitement I thought really got the team going, which is something that we needed. Like we said, same guy. Just ripped it, did a great job. There's some plays that we want to improve on and we want back, and we'll learn from those plays just like the rest of the team. But I thought Sam (Darnold) played good football today.
Derick Hall gets his first sack of the season. How did you think he played?
It doesn't feel like it. I feel like he's been rushing way — he deserves more than whatever he has. So happy for him. He should have more. I think we have to finish better on the quarterback. You've got to give their quarterback a lot of credit for how elusive he is, but we had some opportunities there in the third and fourth quarter, and it would be great to capitalize on them, but guys are playing incredibly hard. You can't say it's not because you're fighting or we're not doing anything selfishly. It's just we've just got to do a little bit better, play a little bit better together, finish better together, but happy for D-Hall (Derick Hall) because he's playing really high-level football for us.
What does it say about Grey Zabel coming back?
I'll tell you what, this guy is unbelievable. He wanted to go in against their front, and I mean, what else can you say about the guy? Just elite competitor, tough as crap. Yeah, we love him. It felt like he played really good football, too, so happy for him.
In the first half, they had the long third down where Tyjae Spears reversed field and Nick Emmanwori chased him down --
It's funny, as soon as he reversed field, I said, 'Nick (Emmanwori), go get him,' because he's the only guy that has a chance to go get him. But that's our defense. Just defend a blade of grass. We want to play relentlessly. Nick does that. He's playing two spots for us, which is not easy to do. There's a lot of stuff you've got to learn to play two positions.
How are Chazz Surratt and George Holani doing? It seemed like those guys being out impacted your special teams there.
Well, it did, yeah. We were kind of getting a little thin there towards the game, so guys stepped up and played. Chazz (Surratt) has an ankle, George (Holani) has a hamstring. So we'll see.
Is there any early sense on Ty Okada and how serious it could be?
Not an early sense. I almost punched him in the oblique in the locker room, and then I stopped.
Just because I know you love injury timeline questions, does it seem like Julian Love is on track to get back this week?
We'll see. He's got a process that we've got to go through, like, we've got to take it day by day. We're hopeful, but part of the reason of putting him on IR and taking this time is to ensure when he comes back that he's ready to go, and he can go rip it the way that he plays, and we're not asking second questions. We want to make sure he's ready to go.
Kenneth Walker seemed to get more carries today. How did you feel like he played?
I thought he did a great job. It was great to see Zach (Charbonnet) punch it in the red zone. We wanted to run -- those guys played well together. Thought they protected the quarterback well. We caught it well out of the backfield. Yeah, I felt Ken (Walker) today. He made some explosive plays for us, which was great.
How many game balls have you given to Njigba?
Probably not enough. Honestly, I don't know. But honestly he probably could get one every game. What is this, eight in a row, eight games with 100-plus? Yeah, he's a tremendous football player.
They way he paces his pass routes and keeps defenders on his back. As a defensive coach, what do you coach there?
Well, those deep balls down the field, especially ones that aren't in stride, it's incredibly hard to play. You're running full speed, speeds that I've never encountered, me running down the field. It's a hard thing. At some point when you're in phase you have to go play the ball, and that's really the only chance you have because otherwise you're going to get called for a penalty. It does show you his body control is really just next level.
You said you asked him a question?
Jax?
Yeah, about the game ball, about what the record --
Oh, before I gave it to him, he broke the record by whatever week — what week is it? I don't know.
12.
It's week 12? 11th game, week 12, that's pretty good.
His first touchdown looked like he went motion, kind of got messed up on the safety there.
Yeah, I think they might have had a coverage bust on that one, but you've got to make them pay for that.
