PRESSER: Alex Golesh previews the Tennesse game

Alex Golesh (0:00)

All right, guys, thanks for being here.

Go through last week, again, awesome environment at home, awesome to finish the game in front of our home fans.

It was a really, really cool environment for our kids, and awesome to be able to go finish it off. I thought overall, you go back and watch the tape, I thought two things, really, the effort on all three sides of the ball, I thought we continue to play with a high level of effort. I think that's going to continue to be the difference for us as we build this thing, as long as these dudes are bought in and playing really, really hard. There's obviously some things we got to clean up, but that's a starting point and a really, really big piece of it. I think as a team, we got to continue to grow in a big way, and we got to do it really, really quickly from a fundamental standpoint. I'm talking about blocking in space, I'm talking about tackling in space, all of the little things that can A, either turn a small gain into an explosive one, defensively keep you out of third and fourth and shorts and allow you to create more negatives. Those are the biggest things. We talk about tackling, there were 16 missed tackles in that game for 68 yards. Improvement from a week ago, but certainly a big, big staple of our defenses is the ability to get people down on the ground and it's gotten better, it's not where it's gotta be and you go into an offense like we're about to face and that's truly what they make you do nonstop. I thought offensively, the first two drives obviously really, really poor and then I felt like we got into a rhythm, we got into, we got settled in and we got going.

You know, the disappointing drive in that first half was the two minute drive, we ended up with no points there, we'd been really efficient in that situation, the ability to create points, we didn't. I thought from a third down perspective, we were close to 50%, I thought we operated well there, especially second quarter into the third and certainly in the second half. And then I thought we protected the quarterback and the quarterback protected himself as well. We talked about that being such a key to winning that game is not giving up quarterback hits. There's so many different unique pictures that were presented. I thought he did a phenomenal job handling it. I thought offensively we did a really good job handling it. I thought at the very end, in the most critical time, he was able to protect himself and deliver a ball to Keyshawn as routine as it seems. That was something that's been worked on for a really long time against high, high pressure. Looks like that. I was proud of him. I was proud of the offense in that regard. We've obviously got to start better. This has been a thing since we started the season.

Honestly, I know I own a lot of it. I truly own that where we've got to figure it out and we've got to figure it out right now. And that's what actually this press conference interrupted us from doing. But we'll get right back to it and not use it as an excuse. So defensively, you know, the... We talked about the tackles, these short yardage situations that came up. And we had four fourth downs and didn't convert on any of them. We were really good on third down. You got into fourth and shorts. We had three fourths and ones, we had a fourth and three. And didn't get a stop on any of them. Those are turnovers that need to go our way. That's a huge point of emphasis for us.

You know, we were effective against the run, which we knew we had to be. We affected the quarterback. I thought we gave up too much from a scramble perspective. We knew that we were going to be able to move him out of the pocket. We didn't at all times have the ability to contain him in the pocket. And as much as the pressures in the sacks, that stuff looks good statistically. There was a ton of him running around. And you go into this week, another quarterback that certainly can win with his legs. We've got to be all over the place there and do a much better job. I thought we were more urgent getting lined up. I thought we adjusted to the times when they did tempo us. I thought the focus there was high end, and it resulted in some high end results.