Kevin Byard III and Walter Rouse | Player Media Availability 10/26

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

In that self-scouting, was there anything that was the most important or revealing that coaches showed during self-scouting?

Kevin Byard III (0:05)

I mean, I just think the past couple of weeks, we haven't tackled as well as we have before in the past, especially just, you know, just think about secondary. I think we pride ourselves on being a really good tackle in secondary. We haven't been doing that in the past couple of games, so that's something that we definitely need to improve on.

SPEAKER_3 (0:19)

How about turnovers? We talked a little bit about that the other day after the game.

SPEAKER_4 (0:23)

How do you get better at that?

Kevin Byard III (0:25)

I mean, I think just finding out within the plays, in the scheme of what we're doing to try to create those takeaways. They haven't been there right now. I don't think us as a team or as players need to start pressing, gambling and making, you know, playing without this, out of this evening to get those turnovers. But it's something we have to do.

Like you said, I don't know if it's been a situation like, there hasn't been a situation where we've just been dropping the ball or it's like a ton of opportunities. But when we do get those opportunities, we have to be able to take advantage of them.

SPEAKER_5 (0:54)

Kevin, what would you say is the value of that self-scouting, specifically at this point in the season for you guys?

Kevin Byard III (1:00)

I mean, it's all about improvement.

Our next game is going to be November, and we all know in November, November football, that's when teams start to separate themselves. Obviously, it was on the three-game winner-street loss one, but we got to get on another run. We want to be able to create some separation and to be able to consider ourselves a contender to make it to the playoffs.

SPEAKER_3 (1:20)

I see you're coaching, you guys are close, and then Marcus was saying it to a close game as well.

SPEAKER_4 (1:26)

When you hear that, what does that mean to you, that you think you guys are getting close to where you want to be?

Kevin Byard III (1:31)

I mean, I would agree, we're definitely getting close, but in this league, close doesn't get it done, you know what I mean? So I'm just more concerned with trying to finish plays, finish games. You know, we haven't played well on the road against teams that you would consider contenders, and that we want to put ourselves in that position. We got to be able to win those games, and we haven't been able to get it done just yet, but we can only focus on what's right in front of us, and that's the Miami Dolphins.

SPEAKER_4 (1:59)

Kevin, does the overlapping film help?

SPEAKER_3 (2:01)

You guys just played the Jets, they just played the Jets?

Kevin Byard III (2:04)

I mean, honestly, I haven't dove too much into the film just yet. Like I said, a lot of today, which is a lot of self-scout, I'll dive into some of that film tonight and then tomorrow.

But just knowing from watching the games earlier in the year, obviously Malik Willis, the guy who I played with and played against when he was in Green Bay, a really good, talented quarterback, guy who can scramble to make plays with his feet. And they're a young team, but they're playing very hard. They have a really good run game as well. So no, I think this is going to be a tough challenge. This is not like automatic win or anything that I think people want to consider it. This is going to be another division game on the road that we have to go get.

SPEAKER_3 (2:39)

Well, speaking of that, how important right now is, with all you guys have been through, winning the division, you can quit yourself and continue to put yourself in good shape on the DFW Sunday.

Kevin Byard III (2:48)

Yeah, I mean, it's the most important, first and foremost goal that we want to accomplish is to win our division.

We put ourselves in a good position to do it. Obviously, getting those couple of division wins. But like I said, this month of November has to be about improvement. The things that we haven't been doing well, which is like I said, tackling the turnovers and things like that, that's something that needs to have an uptick if you want to be able to put yourself in a position to win this division.

SPEAKER_4 (3:11)

Jumping into where you've had to jump into, what has been like for you?