Interim head coach Mike Kafka

KAFKA: Really the only change in practice today will be (safety Tyler) Nubin, he'll go today.

Q: What have you seen from (kicker) Ben (Sauls) this week in terms of the kicking game?

KAFKA: He's done a nice job, he's really done a nice job. Obviously kicked inside but then went outside onto the game field and did some work as well, so it was good to kind of get him out there and get him used to the environment a little bit.

Q: Does it change how you manage the game at all because it's such an unknown at the position? Obviously, he hasn't done it at this level, you've never really probably seen him kick in a game.

KAFKA: You certainly think about it, but we have a plan, we've been talking about it all week. Have a plan for what's going to happen in the game, weather, if that starts to show up, but it's pretty much our normal routine for us, and then just letting Ben go out there and rock out.

Q: How do you go about determining his range, where you're going to feel comfortable? Do you have to see him kick in the stadium?

KAFKA: Him and (special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial) Ghobi, they'll talk through it really throughout the week. Then on game day, depending on the elements, they'll give us a range, a line, what that's going to be, whether that's just, hey, normal situations or, hey, got-to-have-it line for end-of-game type situations. So, they'll give us a little bit of a range and obviously throughout the course of the game, it could be flexible. But it's something that we talk through throughout the morning, throughout the game, and if anything changes based on weather or another reason that pops up.

Q: You guys are so routine-based and structured in everything you do. When you're on a run like this where you're just so desperate to get a win, is there any part of you that looks and says, you know what, I'm going to walk in today, I'm going to shake things up, I'm going to do things differently? Or is it that routine that's just so important?

KAFKA: When I think about how you want to address the team, how you want to talk to players, how you want to install, you think about it and evaluate it, and when you talk about it with the staff and you talk about with the players, you're trying to always find ways to improve. So, wherever we can find a way, just one little nugget, but you don't necessarily want to change just to change, just for change's sake. I think what's important is that you find an intent and find a reason why you think things should be better, and then you go and attack that, right? So, you're always just kind of chasing just one little edge that you can find that maybe helps that player or helps that group be a little bit better on Sunday.

Q: What would it mean for you and for this team to end this skid?

KAFKA: We are all working to win. As a group, as a team, that's our only focus. It's not about individuals or me or anyone like that, it's about us as a team finding a way to win. Offensively, defensively, special teams, doing our job, playing at the best of our ability. Then when we get into crunch time in the fourth quarter - because we all know the game's a 60-minute game. It's not won or lost in the first, second or third quarter. It's won in the fourth quarter. So, that's been our emphasis. We're talking about it on a daily basis. Today is no different, we're talking about some got-to-have-it type calls that we can go through and rep in a walk-through setting. We're talking about red zone, we're talking about goal line, we're talking about backed up in four-minute, critical situations of the game where those come up, we've got to be able to nail those. Our level of detail needs to be at a high level and I'm excited to go out there. We already presented them the game plan, we walked through these plays, now it's time to kind of bring them to life in a practice setting.

Q: I don't know if you've heard any of it, but there's been a lot of interesting dialogue with coaches and quarterbacks talking about pure progression versus coverage reads. Have you heard that?

KAFKA: I've heard. I haven't heard every response, but I've heard the trend.

Q: What's your take on it? How do you teach it, especially if you're a young quarterback, how do you go about teaching that?

KAFKA: It's certainly an interesting concept. I've been in now, probably this is my eighth or ninth offense. I've been in all West Coast, number system, I've been in all of them and I think it really comes down to the quarterback. It really comes down to how you want to get the quarterback through his progression, tie it in with his feet. I mean, it's hard to do this in this setting. I wish I had a chalkboard where we can just talk through the plays. But you're looking at how it all matches up, so the route depth, the timing of the quarterback's feet, the protection, all that stuff's tied into it. Now, football has evolved over these last - every three or four years, it kind of evolves, right? So, when you're looking at the quarterback position, you're looking at, alright, before it was one high, two high reads. Then it evolves to like these pure progression reads, then it's been cut the field, move the pocket, now you're just looking at one high kind of just like one side of the field and cutting the defense completely off. So, I don't think there's one way, like there's a best way to do it. I certainly think we have both. We have one high, two high ways. We have plays where we pure progress all the way across the field. We have plays where it's just, hey, it's one-on-one matchups outside, pick your best matchup. I love the conversation. I wish - this isn't necessarily the venue to get deep into it, but that's certainly things that we talk about as a staff and talk about with the quarterback room. You think about them first, how they're seeing this play, and then you try to build it around that person.

Q: Pre-snap, I'm sure you're always looking for clues. Maybe this is a good opponent to talk about. How often do you actually know pre-snap what a defense is going to be in, in the current day?

KAFKA: That's a good one too. I would say, there are clues. You can dig for them and find them, right? You can anticipate. I don't think you'll ever know 100% for sure till the snap is made. Then you can have a high, high percentage of verifying it. Then right at the snap, then you know, right, obviously. But teams are doing a great job, defenses are doing a great job of disguising one high, two high shells, presenting cover zero, popping out, showing coverage, playing cover zero. They're doing a great job of tying those things in and I think you're seeing that has evolved over the last four or five years. That certainly is giving offenses, it could be a challenge, right? I think the more you talk with the quarterbacks, the more you talk with the offensive skill group and giving them indicators on leverages, inside leverage, outside leverage, those are clues that you can kind of pick apart when you're in a meeting. Hey, if you're seeing inside leverage, it's a high percentage of this coverage and this coverage. Outside leverage equals this coverage and this coverage. And then at the snap, now we've got to verify and make a split-second decision and adjust your route or adjust your read or adjust your fundamental to get it accomplished.

Q: What quarterback do you feel is the best right now at figuring that out right at the snap? And how much of an advantage does that give a play caller or does it give an offense?

KAFKA: I haven't studied a lot of the quarterbacks across the league just in this season. But there are a lot. I mean, you're seeing a lot of the veteran guys that have been doing this a long time, you see the veteran guys pick that up a lot faster because they've seen more looks. But there are plenty of young players as you're watching tape, just through crossover tape and stuff, that are doing a nice job. I praise (quarterback) Jaxson (Dart) because he's a high-level processor post-snap. He sees a lot of things, things that he'll come off the sideline, maybe my eyes were on one side of the field, his eyes are kind of scanning through it and he sees the backside hook defender and he comes off the field, 'Hey, why did you, where'd you get your eyes there? I saw this guy bail.' He just has such great space focus in his ability to play and so that opens up a lot of things in terms of an offense when your quarterback's not just kind of seeing it through a straw. He has a big vision of the field and that's a good asset to have in terms of playing quarterback. T

Q: There's this fixation on having the success immediately from a quarterback. Get him in as a rookie and immediately see it. But we have seen, one of the guys that played last night is an example of it, a guy who's kind of found the successes later on, whether it was (Buccaneers quarterback) Baker (Mayfield), (Seahawks quarterback) Sam Darnold, things like that. Kind of what you're talking about, the veteran is starting to see it a little bit better…

KAFKA: Yeah, and sometimes it just clicks at different times for a quarterback. There's not like one straight line in a progression for a quarterback. I always see it, everyone kind of hits their groove at different times. For some quarterbacks, it's early. For some quarterbacks, it's a little bit later. But that's always kind of the interesting part of how you build and how you build that developmental program for the quarterback, because you know that not everyone's going to be at the same level. I know in my time in Kansas City with (Chiefs quarterback) Patrick (Mahomes), we were spending a ton of time just identifying fronts. He never had to do that in college. Identifying coverages, he just kind of went back and dropped back and was a little bit more of a freelancer. But when you built that structure, you saw it. It wasn't year one. Into year two, it was a little bit better. Into year three, a lot better. And then year four and five, now you start seeing that ownership in terms of him being able to take the next step. So, that was just my experience with Pat. Every quarterback's on a different plane. Jaxson, we had to do the same type of program when he was in training camp and OTAs. You're teaching him, here's what this front looks like. Why do they line up in this front? Well, it's because they want to have these gaps responsible for. These coverages, what are the beaters of this coverage? Well, what are the soft spots? What are the spots where they're trying to protect? When they present you with this coverage, what does that mean? What is the coordinator trying to tell you? Oh, he's trying to take the top off so we can't throw it deep. Alright, so where are our outlets going to be at? The more you rep those things, the more you talk about it, I think that gives the quarterback an opportunity to be successful. And again, as he hears it more and more and more, and every day we're hammering these things, oh, now here's the adjustment to this coverage. Okay, bank that. You see him taking a note. And then, you might even not even hit until the next OTA period. Like, oh man, that note, you're reviewing it and you see it and he said, oh, man, okay, now I understand why these coverages are building into one another, why these fronts, why teams play us like this. There's never enough time in the day to really go through that all. But when you're a young quarterback and you're learning and you're growing, you're absorbing all that information. It might take one or two reps to finally hit it. It might take five or six or seven reps to finally get it. But the point is that you get it at some point and I think for young quarterbacks, it's about going through that process. It's not about, it's one play, that's the end of the world because you missed the alert or you missed the check or you messed up on a protection call. It's alright, how do I grow, how do I eliminate that from happening? We've got a great quarterback room. (Offensive passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach) Shea Tierney does a hell of a job getting our guys prepared and the veterans that have a lot of experience, they're trying to jam all this information that they know and it's great. Jaxson's absorbing all of it and you can see the progression. You can see the communication. You can see at times the light bulb go off and see, oh yeah I see that, I understand that. I'm sorry I'm being long-winded with it, but I think it's important. I think it's cool because Jaxson gets this experience and he gets to learn from these things and grow and that's the most important part of playing quarterback. You grow, you learn from it and you get better and then you tack on a talent like Jaxson and then the sky's the limit.

Q: In relation to this, how have the conversations you've had with him changed when you're on the sideline, the level, the skill level, or just the ability of what he's able to process just as each start he's made?

KAFKA: I thought it was really important just being in the quarterback room as a quarterback coach, that dialogue has always got to be at a high level. So, it never really changed even when I was a coordinator, and then now in this role as head coach, you have to keep that dialogue. If you lose it, is that what you're asking?

Q: No, just the level. I guess the level that he's taking it in and processing. Not the position change that you've made, just how he's, I guess, getting smarter.

KAFKA: His recall over the course of the season has been phenomenal. You can see teams that are pressuring us maybe a certain way or seeing teams playing coverages in a certain different way, so I think his recall over the course of the season has been good. We're able to kind of pull back, even in-game, like, hey, you remember that look from this game, remember the look from San Francisco, remember the look from Chicago, and he's able to recall and say, oh, yeah, this is why they're trying to get to it. Then now we can continue to move forward and make those adjustments. Whereas maybe in his first or second start, you have a little bit smaller menu and you're kind of picking and choosing from things that he really knows really well. And that's probably pulling from preseason and training camp and OTAs. Now we can pull from live game situations and things that have come up.

Q: You've worn a bunch of different hats in this league, obviously, and now you're in your position. I know you've always had an appreciation for the entirety of a coaching staff. I'm just curious, of your perspective and appreciation for what you guys have gone through the last couple weeks. Do you see anything differently? Or have things been magnified in terms of what you rely on the coaching staff to do in this position versus what it was?

KAFKA: Yeah, I'm super proud of our staff and how they've stepped up. Obviously, when you lose a couple coaches, other guys have to step up into those roles and carry on that work. For our guys, they're spending a ton of time not only just detailing out the installation and what we're trying to do but also carrying the message of the team and what we're about, and it's about winning. So, that's been our focus. Our coaches have kept the players in that mentality, our players are keeping the players in that mentality, and now on Sunday we get an opportunity to go show that.