Interim Head Coach Mike Kafka
Q: Do you have any clarity yet about (quarterback) Jaxson Dart's availability and do you expect him to be available to practice Wednesday and play next weekend?
KAFKA: Jaxson's still in the protocol so I'm just going to see that through, talk with the medical and when they give us the thumbs up then we'll take the next action.
Q: What did you think overall looking at the film of how (quarterback) Jameis (Winston) played?
KAFKA: I felt the same way I felt like I did after the game. I thought he did a nice job. Obviously had a couple turnovers there at the end, but his aggressive mentality, he handled the huddle, he was great on the sideline with the adjustments, he had great command, great urgency, he was really decisive, so I had a lot of praise for Jameis.
Q: Sticking with Jaxson Dart for a moment, there's obviously a need, I guess, to kind of teach him to be a little less reckless, if you will, when he runs. How do you do that? Do you set parameters regarding what to do in certain situations on certain downs, certain yardage? How do you get that message across to him without compromising his fearlessness?
KAFKA: I think that's the fine line. I think you hit on it right there. I think Jaxson, going through the whole draft process with him and understanding what kind of player he is, he's an aggressive player and that's what we love about him. But obviously, you want to show him some examples that he can learn from. I think he's going through that now and I think he'll continue to grow from those things. But at the end of the day, he is a competitor and that's why we love this guy. I think he'll continue to learn and grow but you don't want to put a player like that in a box. Obviously, you want to show him the examples that he can improve on and I think he'll take that to the bank.
Q: But how hard is that, Mike, because you can show him examples, but no two examples are ever the same?
KAFKA: Absolutely. Absolutely. The game is very fluid. It's very different. Every single play is kind of a game in its own and so each example that he goes through and the more experience that he gets, he'll continue to learn from that.
Q: I think we forgot to ask you last night about (cornerback) Paulson (Adebo). What happened with him pregame and how big of a setback was his knee injury?
KAFKA: He went through the pregame routine and was talking with the doctors about it and just didn't feel good enough for it, so the doctors recommended that he didn't go. Again, I've got full trust in those guys and their opinions on the player. Obviously, player health is super important to me, so I want to make sure Adebo is ready to rock and roll and that he's healthy and that when he's out there, he can go after it.
Q: Is this the kind of a setback that maybe puts him back a couple of weeks now or are you going to try to get him out there again next week?
KAFKA: I'm not sure of the severity of it. We'll talk again and have a meeting with the medical and see where it's at and kind of what the decision was and what happened there. But I've got full trust in those guys and I know Adebo, he's itching to get out.
Q: What did you see when you watched the film of your defense? Obviously, this is sort of the first game that you got to do that as the interim head coach. What did you see there and how do you fix it? How do you get those guys to be able to close out these games?
KAFKA: I think the guys played aggressive. They played their tails off for all 60 minutes. We had some opportunities, some one-on-ones, whether it's on the defensive line or whether it was in the back end, whether it was on the second level with the linebacker group. So, that's going to be our focus this week is having those opportunities and finishing them. We've got some drill work that we already talked through and that we'll emphasize this week. But that's really what it comes down to on the defensive side is we've got our one-on-one opportunities, let's go nail them and I've got full confidence that our guys will go and do that. But I think from a coaching staff, on the coaching side, we can continue to be creative with how we're working those drills in practice and put them in more situations to do that.
Q: Just getting back to Jaxson for a second. Has the warnings and the videos and showing him examples of maybe where he can be more protective of himself, has that been ramped up since you've taken over, or is that something that has been going on from day one?
KAFKA: I just think, you're playing a game of football, you're playing an aggressive game to begin with. That's a violent game. I think Jaxson's aggressiveness - the last thing I want him out there is playing timid or afraid of getting injured. You want him to go play as hard as he possibly can. Now, there are going to be opportunities for him to go ahead and get down and I trust that he's going to make the smart choice. There are going to be opportunities where he's got to go get a first down and I trust that he's going to go make the right choice. Again, with a player like this, you don't want to put him in a box and you don't want to put a bunch of parameters on him. You want him to go play free, play confidently and play the game that he's been playing his entire life. Of course we want all our guys to be healthy, we want Jaxson to be healthy, we want all those guys to be healthy. I think from the quarterback position, there will be some opportunities, and he did in this last game in Chicago. He slid two or three times and did a nice job in the open field, so I'm not necessarily going to go over the top with it. I think he's a smart player and he understands it, and he gets it. But when he gets his opportunities, we're going to ask him to go cut it loose and play ball and go ball out there for us.
Q: You've been with Jaxson since the start here. You're on the offensive side, obviously, so is this something that you have been speaking with him about? To my original question, is there anything new with you taking over as the head coach that will try to mitigate some of this, or is this stuff that has been going on from day one?
KAFKA: Our personal conversations in the quarterback room, it involves all the quarterbacks. Jaxson's a part of those conversations, how we're going to play the game, how we're going to play the game on the perimeter, how we're going to play the run game, the pass game, our screen game. All those things kind of factor into it, so, yeah, we have a ton of conversations about how we're going to play that game. I wouldn't say there's anything in terms of our process in the quarterback room. We're going to stay very consistent and continue to prepare as best we can for each game.
Q: I wonder what you saw when you went back and you looked at the game-ending interception there? The play with (wide receiver) Jalin Hyatt. What did you see?
KAFKA: It was a flag route right there. I think there was a little bit of miscommunication there. I know Jalin was feeling hurt after the game just about the result of that. You never want to see the game end like that for us. But our guys battled, man, our guys battled. I thought Jameis played aggressive. I thought Jalin had some nice plays in terms of stepping up and making a couple catches. Our guys battled all the way through, so I was proud of them for that. Just didn't get the end result. A little miscommunication that we've got to get cleaned up there. We'll be better for it moving forward.
Q: What do you say to Jalin and how do you move forward with that now?
KAFKA: It's never just one play. It's never just one person. It's a team game. It's all of us coming together. All of us making those adjustments. Then when we get those opportunities, we've got to go make them. Right in front of us, we've got to go nail it. But it's not about one person and it's not about one play for us. It's about our whole group. There are a lot of plays throughout an NFL game and there are plenty of things that we could have done better, myself included. I'm a part of it with those guys. I'm going to work my tail off to get it cleaned up and fixed and then go attack this week of practice.
Q: You ran the ball a lot on first down yesterday. I think it was 16 of 19 times in the first three quarters. What was the thinking behind that for you guys?
KAFKA: I'd say there was a little bit of how we're going to play the game and have a little bit of clock awareness. But also, I thought there were some factors of the wind that were a little bit a part of that. I was just trying to stay on track on first, second down as much as we can. Give us some favorable second downs and third downs as well, depending on how aggressive we were going to be on fourth down. That was just kind of our thought process throughout the week. Then our guys were executing on it so we kind of hung with it. But we had a couple alternative plans if things didn't go the way we were anticipating.
Q: A couple of head coaching specific questions. Why did you receive the opening kickoff?
KAFKA: We were talking with our game management crew, (offensive assistant/game manager) Cade (Knox) and (director of football data & innovation Tyseer Siam) Ty and (special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial) Ghobi, special teams. All that kind of played into it. Just where we wanted to be in the fourth quarter knowing it was going to be a four-quarter game and give ourselves an opportunity with kind of the wind and favorable position. It was a little bit of just the game management side of it and certainly, I obviously had trust in the offense too, so, kind of killed two birds with one stone.
Q: It was your first day wielding the red flag. Can you take me through the two decisions, the one that you did challenge and then the (wide receiver) Wan'Dale (Robinson) one that you didn't?
KAFKA: The first one, we trusted the guys upstairs on it. (Packers running back Josh) Jacobs ended up stepping out of bounds. It was one that we thought was a little bit short of the sticks, so wanted to take a shot at it. Didn't get it. Even looking today, it was really close. I know the replay showed there was kind of like two angles. One right down the sideline where you can kind of see a little bit of green, but then the one from the side view, it looks like he's out. So, just being aggressive with it. We knew he stepped out a second time, so it just kind of gave us another look at it. I'm not hesitant to pull the flag if our guys see something and they're confident about it. They were. They jumped right on it, hey, challenge this one, gave ourselves a chance possibly for a third-and-two on the minus side of the field where we could potentially get the ball back.
Q: Then not throwing it on the Wan'Dale one near the sideline on third down?
KAFKA: That one was kind of a product of when their tight end, when they ruled it incomplete on their tight end's catch, fumble, was it a fumble? It was incomplete. That ruling kind of swayed in terms of what we were going to do on the one to Wan'Dale. Once we kind of figured out that's how they were going to rule it as a catch or incompletion, then the one to Wan'Dale we said, okay, that's in the same world. Didn't feel like it was a strong catch, so we didn't throw the flag on it.
Q: Wasn't Wan'Dale's before that play? Didn't Wan'Dale's happen first?
KAFKA: I might have the two plays mixed up in my head, but we were looking at it upstairs and our guys felt really confident that it wasn't a catch. I mean, trust me, I was asking them about it. I saw the replay too, but those two, just the confidence we had up there, we just didn't pull the trigger on it.
Q: To kind of follow up on the run game question, given how well you guys did run the ball, I know you just said kind of why you guys did do it, how much do you think that success you had, granted every matchup is different, but how much can that success maybe take some of the burden off of Jaxson? Where it's like, okay, if you want to run you can and have those decisions, but given how well you ran, you can lean more on, say, (running back Tyrone) Tracy (Jr.) and (running back Devin Singletary) Motor to kind of take some of the pressure off him to say hey, instead of you running, these guys can run. How much does the success yesterday affect maybe how you use Jaxson going forward?
KAFKA: I'd say each game is going to be a little bit different in how we build the gameplan out and what we think we can take advantage of. But I think the way that our guys are really playing it in terms of our offensive line is running well, our running backs are running well, our receivers are blocking for us with authority. I think they did a nice job this past weekend. So, each week will be a little bit different and we'll just kind of evaluate it as we get into Detroit.
Q: Along those lines of everything you said, the receivers are blocking well, the offensive line is playing well, you're getting good quarterback play, the running backs are playing well. You've been here a while now, you know what it's like. I mean, you guys have been chasing that kind of performance offensively for years. From your perspective now as interim head coach, is it one of those things where you go into every week and it's like, okay, well we've now got all of this going well and now there's the frustration of the complementary football from the flip side is not working? How do you, in your own mind going into a given week, deal with that, deal with the idea of, okay, we've got this going but now we've got to get this going? It just never seems to be matching up on gameday for you guys.
KAFKA: It's a team game. It's a team game. I think, what I've liked, what our players have done is they've stepped up and we've continued to fight, continued to battle and we're going to continue to do that in practice. We're going to continue to put our guys in competitive situations to where we can finish those things at the end of the game. So, when we're structuring practice, how do I put those guys in more situations where maybe it's some more two-minute drill, maybe it's some competitive drills, maybe it's some drill work that we can do with each unit that puts them in those situations where they've got to make a contested catch or a contested pass deflection. It's the drill work, it's emphasizing it and I think and I know when our guys are put in those situations they'll make the play when it comes their way again.
Q: You've heard questions constantly about the offensive line, the offensive line, the offensive line. That performance yet again yesterday maybe doesn't stand out because of the result, but overall it's kind of what we've expected from this group at this point. Is there any satisfaction or something to build off of knowing that you're getting this constant performance seemingly every week from those five guys up front?
KAFKA: There's a lot to build off of really across the board, across the whole team and that's what I'm really excited about. Our coaches, talking with them this morning about how our guys played, there's a lot to build off of. So, we're going to certainly show those examples, we're going to show the examples where we can make improvements, and then as a coaching staff, attack those in the practice, attack those in the meeting room and give them the examples and the information and the tools they need to go out and succeed.
Q: We didn't ask you last week and obviously you put (offensive lineman) Evan Neal on IR on Saturday, so we haven't asked you that. How did Evan Neal get hurt without playing in a game and what went into putting him on IR?
KAFKA: Evan got hurt doing a workout. The docs made a decision to do the move to IR.
Q: Yesterday we asked you about your staff. You said you were evaluating everything. This week, do you anticipate any changes to anybody's role or position? Or status quo?
KAFKA: I would say status quo. I wouldn't anticipate any - as a matter of fact, we're going to go and attack this week. I'm excited for this week of prep. The coaches are excited about it. We just watched the tape with some good fresh ideas, so this will be a couple of good work days here. We'll get the players in tomorrow, and we'll set that plan in motion.
Q: That's a good last one. Why did you make the change to Monday from Tuesday as the players' off day?
KAFKA: I think it gives the coaches a little bit of front-end time in terms of getting prepped. Then they see them tomorrow. It kind of takes the emotion out of the game, allows guys to kind of evaluate it and see it with clear eyes, and allows the coaches to do the same. Then it gives us an opportunity to then flip the page and move on to the next opponent. Just a little bit different routine, different schedule that I've had in the past. I just thought it was a good fit.
