Bills Coaches & Players Say This Team is Special

Buffalo Bills Offensive Coordinator Rick Dennison
Monday, October 30, 2017

Q: Rick, the play in the third quarter with Brandon Tate had the long gain, and then everybody just kind of erupted on the sidelines, what did you guys see on film? Sean [McDermott] said you guys kind of made a big deal with that with the team.
A: Well, I mean, it’s a team – everybody was into the game. Certainty, that’s our profession, but, I mean, they’re emotional connected to the game. It was a great play, individual play by Brandon. Tyrod [Taylor] did a great job of buying some time, the line did a good job of keeping them off of him. He made an individual effort and everybody appreciated it. I think the momentum really swung, we really felt like everybody was a part of the team, and it was good for us to see.

Q: Sean mentioned that kind of reaction he usually sees at his kid’s game and not really the pro game. You’ve been around a little bit longer, is that rare for the NFL?
A: No, not in the right attitude. In the right locker room, it’s not. It’s a sign of a really good team, so I’ve seen it before and certainly this team has really responded well to being part of a team.

Q: The running game continued to take a step forward. Is that an area you’re still evolving in regards to how the blocking scheme’s going?
A: I think the blocking scheme, like I said last week, no plays are new. We haven’t done any new plays since training camp. We’re just focusing on the things we do really well, and certainty, we did them well the other day.

Q: LeSean [McCoy] had 27 carries; that’s the most he’s had this season, actually the most he’s had in 2+ years here with the Bills. How comfortable are you with that workload that he handled yesterday?
A: Well, obviously he’s in fine shape, I mean, he didn’t have any wear and tear for that. That’s something that we’ll always work on. We have confidence in all our [running] backs, but he was in there and he was doing a good job, and he kept playing, so there’s some give and take there, but he did a great job.

Q: Sean mentioned that he saw Tyrod [Taylor] kind of evolve in the at few weeks, in terms of hanging in the pocket and also as a leader. What have you seen from Tyrod?
A: Well I think, the leading [part], he’s always been that way, but I think he’s being more comfortable, more confident in what he’s doing, which, you know, I knew he had in him, obviously working with him. I think he’s trusting his eyes, and he’s doing a good job with that. It helps to have the run game work, so when that’s working and he feels comfortable with that and putting the ball where it needs to go, he’s hitting the open guys, going through his progressions. That’s what I see. He’s trusting his feet, trusting his eyes, going through his progressions.

Q: How is Cordy Glenn’s return really help solidify things up front and the running game as a whole?
A: He obviously played very well yesterday. I thought he did a very good job, and just his presence out there is a good thing. He’s played a lot of football, has great experience and it’s hard not to have that talent on the field. He’s done a great job.

Q: Rick, you guys had a slow start offensively but didn’t really look back after the first quarter. Can you talk about the in-game adjustments that you guys made?
A: I think we have a series of plays that we want to get to, based on our first 15, what formation, different plays that we like, and it’s just a matter of going through it and making sure we’re patient and make our first downs. We miss a play, you know, get a penalty, we can’t panic. [We] just got to stay with what we think is right.

Q: Rick, you’ve seen in training camp, the team traded Sammy [Watkins], I know Marcell [Dareus] didn’t impact you as much, being on the offensive side of the ball, but working for a GM and a Head Coach that are willing to make big moves if they feel like it’s best for the team. What kind of an impact does that have on a coaching staff? Maybe that’s more of a question for Leslie [Frazier], but, you know, to change things on the fly like that, is that – how does that process work?
A: Not at all, we’re just staying in our lane. That’s his job, we trust him to do a great job. Obviously, they have, and they’re giving us, just like you said, it’s what’s best for the team, and that’s what we believe too.

Defensive Coordinator Leslie Frazier

Monday, October 30, 2017 

Opening Statement: [We had a good] practice. [The] guys are really into it. It seems like they’re beginning to move on from the game on Sunday and starting to focus on the Jets, so it was really good to see how focused they were in our walkthrough and our meetings, which is something you have to be able to do. You have to be able to turn the page and get ready for a Thursday night game.

Q: What was is like for you, Leslie, to find out on Friday that the team had traded Marcell [Dareus]. Obviously, he had practiced all week and I’m sure he was part of your game plan.

A: You know, in this business, things like that can happen. Being around it for a while, you have to deal with it when it happens. Our players did a great job of refocusing on the task at hand, which was preparing for the Raiders and that’s what we have to do as a staff as well. Thought our guys did a good job of doing that.

Q: Will there be a part of you that’s relieved after tomorrow when that deadline is over and you know that’s not going to happen again?

A: You know, you roll with it, whatever happens, happens. You just try to control what you can control, and everybody’s focused right now on trying to get ready for the Jets. If something else happens along the way between now and six o’clock tomorrow, you deal with it.

Q: How do you think that the three guys, I mean not including Kyle [Williams], since he’s your starter, but Cedric [Thornton], Adolphus [Washington], and Jerel [Worthy], how did you think they worked yesterday together and how do you see that rotation going forward there?

A: I think they did a good job. Mike Waufle, our D-Line coach, did a good job of rotating them, getting them the number [of] snaps that they needed and trying to keep them fresh during the course of the game. The rotation will pretty much be the same going forward, barring injury. Those guys will rotate in there, some at the nose, some at the three, and hopefully that’ll be enough to get us what we need, both in the run game, as well as our pass rush.

Q: Leslie, we hear people say ‘bend-not-break’ type of defense. Is that a fair way to categorize you guys?

A: I think we just try to play good defense the best we can. [We] try to keep the points down, try to take the ball away and just try to be as physical as we can be and aggressive as we can be and run to the ball. I mean, that’s how we want to categorize it. Try to be a smart defense that plays hard.

Q: Are you worried at all about the passing yards? It’s been more big chunks recently, certainly the points not last week. Good quarterbacks, but still, how worried are you about that?

A: Well you don’t want to give up a lot of yards, but what’s most important is points allowed, taking the ball away, third down. I mean, those are things we emphasize all the time. They really trump yards, and yesterday’s ballgame, I mean they threw it 49 times. We got a lead in the fourth quarter, a pretty good lead, so they’re going to get some yards underneath there. They were beginning to check the ball down a lot, got some yards, but we’re playing to take away some of the deeper throws, so you can’t get too worried about that. You do get concerned when the points are going up, I mean that becomes a concern, or we’re not taking the ball away, but yards in the kind of game we had yesterday, you can’t get too caught up in that.

Q: Leslie, they obviously scored pretty quick in that game. Can you talk about the information you gathered from that drive, and how you were able to use that to stop them? [You] pretty much stopped them for the remainder of the game.

A: Yeah, there were some things that we saw in that first drive that made us believe that we needed to make a couple of adjustments. We did that, and were just able to handle their offense from that point on. That happens sometimes, and you’ve got to be able to in-game adjust. Fortunately for us, we got some smart players who, when we talk about doing certain things, they can handle it. We’re very fortunate in that way.

Wide Receiver Jordan Matthews
Monday, October 30, 2017

Q: Jordan, that play with the emotion and the reaction by the sidelines on Brandon [Tate]’s big run, how unique is it for a team to all organically respond in unison unprompted like that?
A: I didn’t even know you guys really knew about it. I mean, I know y’all saw the play. Everybody watched it, but to be honest, it was so natural like you said, and so organic [that] I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was until Coach [Sean McDermott] kind of brought it up later to us. He showed us and was like ‘hey, this is the identity that we want. These are the type of guys that we want to have in this locker room. Guys who are excited about everybody making big plays and not just the guys who are the starters and guys who everybody is expecting to [make big plays].’ But a play, 2^nd and 20, not even a touchdown, just a conversion by a guy who comes out here and works his butt off every day in Tate. So it’s just a microcosm of what this whole team is about.

Q: Sean said that that’s something that he never experienced in his 20 years of coaching. Have you ever experienced a moment like that on the sidelines?
A: No. Like I said, and it was so unique, almost like you don’t even realize it because we’re like, we have a lot of energy in practice. I mean, at the end of every practice, we do, it’s called development period and we’ll have like the guys from the scout team offense go against the scout team defense for like one play, and usually whoever makes the play to win that period, we’re all going crazy whether the offense wins or the defense; and you don’t see a lot of guys, like starters, get that excited for a guy who’s on the scout team, but we do. So even just for that to happen, it kind of went over my head because that’s what I’m kind of used to with these guys. Nothing really surprises me with the type of camaraderie that we have. Yeah, like when I really thought about it, I was like, ‘man, this is kind of unique.’ It just kind of shows how different of a team we are.

Q: The ‘next man up’ mentality for this team, I know we talk about it every week almost with this team. Sean McDermott, what he’s been able to instill in terms of not really looking at anybody as a backup but you’re either a wide receiver, a linebacker, or you’re a safety. Have you ever seen a head coach take that kind of approach with a team?
A: I think it’s not as much of the individual person approach. It’s more of just the overall game. I’ve been on a lot of teams where you separate the offense, you separate the defense, and you separate the special teams and it really feels like three different teams on one Sunday going out and trying to get a win for one [collective team], where with us, we really build a collective game plan between offense, special teams, and defense to try and go win games. It’s almost like it’s really just one unit. Like, I’ll give you one example. I never knew, honestly, until I got here, where, I never pay attention to where your kicker’s range was. So let’s say it’s like 3^rd and 15. I want to throw to the sticks, but I’m a receiver. I’m like, ‘yo, let’s just throw to the sticks, get a first down, let’s get a deep pass going.’ Here, we know where [Stephen] Hauschka’s range is. We know ‘hey, if we get across the 35 or across the 37, that’s three points.’ So before, I’m like, ‘why are we throwing this check down to the running back, you know, just to get three yards when we can throw it to the sticks?’ It’s like, no. We know like, ‘hey, this is an easy three points if we can just get in Hauschka’s range. We don’t have to worry about the first down. We just need points,’ and it’s just that type of game plan that he’s really instilled in everybody. He talks about the five points of the game. It’s not just, ‘hey, I’m a defensive coordinator. I’m going to talk about defense and then offense, when we split up, you guys are going to be with Rico [Rick Dennison].’ No, it’s everybody all in one trying to find a collective way to go out and get a win. That’s just a small example, though.

S Jordan Poyer

Monday, October 30, 2017

Q: Do you feel like you’re on track to play Thursday?

A: Definitely do feel like I’m on track. I just want to continue sticking with the process, sticking with the treatment and just doing everything I can in order to be out there for my teammates.

Q: Jordan, you saw the celebration collectively after Brandon [Tate]’s catch and everything like that. It was brought up in the meetings and whatnot. This team as a whole, where does it compare in the camaraderie and things like that with other teams you’ve been around?

A: Oh, I’ve never seen anything – that alone, that picture alone, that image alone, that says everything it needs to say about this football team. It’s a group of brothers that go out there every Sunday and play for each other. It’s really one thing that I haven’t been around since I’ve been in the NFL. Just a group of guys. We call ourselves a group of no-name guys going out there and kind of competing every day. Coming into work and just playing for each other. You can’t ask more from a group of guys like the ones we have in this locker room.

Q: Can you talk about the performance of Trae Elston in your absence?

A: Trae played a hell of a game. Trae did everything that he was asked to do and more, and I was really excited and really happy for him that he could go out there and have the performance that he did.

DT Kyle Williams

Monday, October 30, 2017

Q: In the first three games of the season, you guys combined for 10 sacks, over the last four games just three. I know it doesn’t tell the whole story, I know you guys are still able to get into the backfield and disrupt things, but how do you guys get more pressure and get that sack total back up?

A: Well we keep doing what we’re doing. We’re not going to press or do anything out of the normal. A lot of that comes hand-to-hand, he has to hold the ball, he has to do some separate things. Game plan wise, if they’re planning to run screens, into play-action, into quick pass, we just have to stay after it, and get there when we do have an opportunity to do it.

Q: To get more pressure, I only remember off the top of my head one, two, maybe three times yesterday where you guys blitzed. Do you guys need to dial up more pressure to get those mismatches on the offensive line?

A: Well it just depends. Sometimes when it’s advantageous for us, we’ll blitz and we’ll rush four. It’s just dependent on how the game is going, there’s a lot of things that go into that. You can’t just say ‘oh, we’re just going to throw a lot of guys at them to get pressure,’ or ‘we’re just going to do this to get pressure’. There’s a lot that goes into that.

Q: Second time meeting the Jets, what did you guys learn from week one?

A: Everybody changes week-to-week. They find things that they do well, and they practice those and work on them. You can see they’ve had some good games since then. They’ve won some good games, they’ve played some really good football teams close. We’ll go in and look at them, on a short week, trying to get prepared as fundamentally sound as we can.

Q: You know you talk about the next man up mentality, that’s always a common philosophy, but why is this team been able to actually be able to do that?

A: I think the way that we work and prepare, and the way that guys compete through the week, breeds guys that may or may not have been playing before, let’s them have success on Sunday, just because the way that we prepare, the way that we work, the expectations that we have.

DT Jerel Worthy

Monday, October 30, 2017

Q: The next man up mentality with this team, whether it’s an injury or a trade, the mentality that it seems that Sean McDermott has instilled in this team is everybody’s ready at any given moment, guys don’t look at themselves as backups, you’re a linebacker, you’re a wide receiver, you’re a safety. What’s it been like to see that from Sean McDermott, that message?

A: It’s been fun, it’s been exciting. From day one when he got in the building, he wanted us to learn every employee that’s in the building, from top to bottom. It comes from making everybody feel included. When you think about a team going out there, the guys that get limited reps, when they get a chance to impact the game and guys get a chance to fill in big roles and they make plays, it’s just exciting because it makes everybody feel a part of it. Like I said, it goes back to day one when he came in and wanted us to know everybody that’s in the building. He wants us to feel like a family organization. At the end of the day, we’re riding with it, following everything he has to say because he has the right message and he has his head in the right direction.

Q: Along those lines, the Brandon Tate play, I know you’re a defensive guy, did you see his spin move to get that 24-yard gain? That was one of the moments Sean McDermott said he’s never experienced in 20 years, where everybody on the bench got up and kind of mobbed him.

A: It was exciting. Brandon Tate’s known for making good plays and big plays. He’s been doing that for a while in this league. But it’s exciting to see a guy pull out a Madden move in the middle of a play, and be able to scramble for the first down. It was a crucial situation for us because we got a penalty before. He was able to pick us back up and it was exciting for us. At the end of the day, like I said this is a family, we’re trying to build something special, trying to build something that everybody feels a part of. Coach McDermott has the right message for us, and we’re just trying to deliver it on Sundays

Q: That emotion, that response just seems so natural collectively of everyone on the sidelines, how unique is it to have that relationship to where everyone unprompted has the exact same reaction?

A: It’s definitely unique. When you look around and see other teams playing on the field, when you look at the tape, you necessarily don’t see the same continuity. That just goes back all the way to OTA’s. We’re trying to build something special here, as I said before. We all want to feel included, and we all want to feel involved. At the end of the day, we all get our chance to make plays on Sundays. He treats us as if we have starters, like a 1A, 1B team type of ordeal. That gets guys excited on going out there and playing on Sundays. He’s rotated a lot of guys throughout the lineup throughout this year, so everyone feels a part of it.

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Tagged with: Buffalo Bills, Kyle Williams, Leslie Frazier, Rick Dennison