Mike Macdonald: "It Was A Great Win Going Across The Country"

Mike Macdonald (0:00)

Yeah, second half. Play the run.

I don't know the yard splits on first half versus second half. But to answer your question, it's both. Scheme-wise, some things that, without getting all the details, I'm putting on that on my shoulders, on how we prepare, how we call it, situations we're putting guys in. We can be better on that front, me in particular. And then, on the other hand, there's just old school football fundamentals that we need to be better at in our front seven, our edge mechanics, how we're taking on blocks. Some of our run fits at the second level. Those things need to be improved. So I'd say it's a combination of both.

SPEAKER_2 (0:47)

As far as the run defense goes, just individually there for Tyrese Knight, what did you see in that aspect of his game with his first extended action that he had?

Mike Macdonald (0:55)

Yeah, he made a couple of tackles in the run game. And then him along with the rest of the front seven, there's a couple other ones where he can be a little faster to diagnose, a little bit cleaner in his alignments. But overall, he made a couple of impressive stops as well. So good foundation to build off of.

SPEAKER_3 (1:17)

Mozvita.

Mozvita (1:19)

Hey Mike, staying with your defensive front, without going too much into detail, what's the basic differential concepts between rushing from the outside, rushing from the inside? I know you mentioned something this morning, when you're rushing the quarterback.

Mike Macdonald (1:35)

Oh, yeah, they're saying that boy needed to slow down.

Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. I mean, that was all in fun, but understanding what type of rusher you are, you don't need a thousand different moves. Are you a speed guy? If you're a speed guy, you need counters inside. If you're a power guy, you need speed counters on the perimeter. So understanding who you are as a rusher and as a player, I think that's number one, no matter where you're rushing from. Obviously, the blocks get on you quicker when you're on the inside. So having things ready in that contact area just happens sooner when you're rushing from the inside. And then ultimately, you have to have an understanding of what's going on around you and who has the two-way go. So to speak, who's protecting who, who's the pocket pusher, who's the A-gap push, and then how you play off of the guys that have more of a freedom in their rush. And that way, you can eliminate those extra gaps and try to keep the quarterback corralled.

Mozvita (2:41)

As you teach that, that just take time for players to really mesh and get in synchronization.

Mike Macdonald (2:48)

Yeah, we've talked about this throughout training camp. I love the way that AD and Hines and CP coach it. I think our guys really bought in. But it does take some level of chemistry to understand where guys are going to be and how you're going to call the games too. So there's a combination of calling games. There's a combination of, you know, rushing straight, so to speak. And you have to play off one another. So it's kind of a spectrum on how, like how black and white it is designed on, you know, who's going where.

Mozvita (3:20)

Thanks.

Mike Macdonald (3:21)

Brian.

Brian (3:23)

Hey, coach, you joked a little bit about staying really focused on the defense and handing things over on offense to Ryan Grubb. It's pretty atypical for college OCs to come to the NFL. Can you talk a little bit about what gave you the trust to put Ryan Grubb in charge of half the team or a third of the team?

Mike Macdonald (3:44)

I don't see that he's in charge. I mean, who's in charge of what? It's like, ah, that's kind of a weird way of describing it in my mind. We have a lot of coaches on offense that have a ton of NFL experience. Leslie spends a lot of time over there. I can go right down the line of all of our offensive assistants that know about the NFL game. Jake Pete does a great job of coordinating a lot of what we're doing on offense.

So, yeah, I mean, he's coming from college, but I think, you know, I'm kind of on the record here with like the type of thinking that Ryan does and how he includes the rest of the staff to how they operate, how we handle game management. I mean, there's plenty of times where we're working together on this thing. It just so happens, you know, I'm not in there when we're installing offensive plays because defensively, you know, we have our job to do as well.