Q&A Todd Haley 8/22

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Q&A with Todd Haley 8/22
By PR Staff

Posted 4 hours ago

OPENING REMARKS: “Alright, so, moving right along here. We just got
through our little on-field assignment period. I thought yesterday was a
real good work day for us. We had a significant, significant lift in
the morning that you all don’t get to see, but we felt like we made
significant process coming off the day off for the players. We had,
obviously a hot practice, a long practice yesterday where I’ve made it
pretty clear to the team that this stretch here is a pretty critical
stretch for us here over the next week or so, from the standpoint of
things have started to progress physically. We’re making progress. The
practices, in turn, have become a little more and more difficult each
day, which is part of the process for us. So today, again, I don’t know
exactly what the weather is doing. Hopefully, we can get outside,
though, and get this afternoon’s practice in which begins at 3 p.m. So,
any questions?”

Q: Anything with the draft? Who are you taking?

HALEY: “The draft?”

Q: The Supplemental Draft today.

HALEY: “Oh, yeah, that’s getting a lot of attention, isn’t it? I can’t give away any secrets.”

Q: On the Joe Flacco incompletion the other night where the referees
consulted each other and Harbaugh didn’t have to use a challenge. Before
you throw the red flag, can you ask the referees to discuss?

HALEY: “I don’t know exactly what occurred over there. The only thing
that was a little surprising to me was that I thought we had passed the
play. Obviously, you’re not officially past the play until you run the
next one, but they had lined up to punt. Generally, you don’t see a
huddle by the officials that late in the process. So, I thought there
was a chance he could challenge it, and I did look over and I saw him
holding his red flag, but that’s what I asked. I asked the official on
our side, ‘Was this a challenge?’ and he said, ‘No, they huddled,’ [and]
I said, ‘Well it did appear…’ I just wondered the timing of it is all.
But, they, for whatever reason, decided to huddle, which I’m all for and
I believe in and I think, ‘Hey guys, just get it right,’ and that helps
the game. And they got it right. So, I don’t know the process, though,
to get there.”

Q: Is that something to think about now when you see a marginal play before you do throw the red flag?

HALEY: “That’s assuming they’ll listen to you? They listen to the red
flag. But yeah, I mean, those are important. I had to use two right
away, didn’t get the one. The second one I thought was real good. It
saved us in a significant situation in the game. But, if you get one of
them wrong, then you basically are out of your third one, so that was
tough during the game. There were a couple situations that came up that I
thought you could have looked at, but, again, we’re working at this,
too, and just trying to get our process right from upstairs to down and
some of those things.”

Q: That might be an avenue to explore.

HALEY: “I’ll talk a note. I have considered that, though. But again, there’s no guarantee that they’re listening always.”

Q: With regards to the reported incident between [Thomas] Jones and
[Jonathan] Baldwin, it was local early in the day on Friday, but by
early afternoon on Friday every national media outlet had picked it up,
and it’s my understanding that some of the media in Baltimore had been
told that you were going to address the incident after the game. But,
then when Adam [Teicher] asked you about it, you said, ‘What are you
talking about?’ You seemed to not know about the reports. Can you just
explain why you didn’t seem to address the reports?

HALEY: “I thought I did address it. I just didn’t understand the initial
question was all. I addressed it as family business, falling into
family business. I felt like I addressed it. I’m sorry if you didn’t
think that.”

Q: Are you denying the reports?

HALEY: “I’m neither denying nor confirming. It’s one of those things,
again, injuries are one of those things that fall into the family
business category. Again, it’s just what I see as the head coach as
what’s best for our guys, and that’s every decision that we are making.”

Q: What are you seeing in the competition battle for those safety spots behind Kendrick Lewis and Eric Berry?

HALEY: “I think that we have good competition. That’s actually… I think
it’s a good question because as we went through the game review as a
staff and graded the guys, that was definitely one of those spots, areas
that we talked about. Usually, when we get through going through a
position and we know it’s going to be critical and there’s good
competition, that’s one of those where I kind of stop the meeting and
I’m like, ‘Coach Hoffman, now are you hearing this?’ Special teams might
be one of the separators here in this battle. I think it’s a real good
competition. Obviously, S Jon McGraw is in there, and he’s not out of
the mix to even be out front in the mix. And, then you’ve got a pretty
good competition between S Donald [Washington] and Jersey Shore, I mean S
Sabby [Piscitelli]. So, I think it’s a good competition, but I do think
that as you get in to some of those fourth safety, sixth linebacker,
fourth receiver, fifth receiver – special teams might play a big role in
it.”

Q: Where are you with evaluation of your whole roster? Are you where you need to be halfway through preseason?

HALEY: “Yeah, I feel like as coaches you’re never happy. You want more,
more, more and more time is always good. But, I feel like for the
circumstances – that’s one of the reasons I felt really good about
coming through that game last week – is I felt like we made significant
progress in a number of areas and that was one of them. I think in that
game you saw Allen Bailey just as a sub rusher, not that that’s what he
is for sure, but we were able to evaluate him in that role. Cameron
Sheffield only was on the sub-rush team, so you didn’t see him at
linebacker. Again, not that he’s not in that competition, but for last
week that’s the direction that we chose. Now, I think you’re seeing some
of those guys get a few more reps in a base position. And again, that’s
across the board. You saw WR Keary Colbert, his reps were coming out of
the slot, like I talked about. I think that helped with the evaluation.
Again, you’re going to have to crunch numbers and guys are going to
have to cross train, but right now, three weeks in, two games under our
belt, I felt like we made significant progress as far as our
understanding of what our guys can do and the direction they’re going.”

Q: You’ve got to cut a few guys next week and then you have the big one
after that. Are this year’s roster cuts going to be any easier or more
difficult than usual?

HALEY: “I think it’ll be as difficult as ever. It’s never an easy thing,
and the harder it is, the better it is, I think. For us as coaches and
as an organization, we kind of feel that way, that when those decisions
get more and more difficult – they’re always difficult from the
standpoint of you’ve got guys that aren’t going to be here and have put a
lot into it – but when they’re more difficult from a decision-making
standpoint, that’s good for us.”

Q: Has anybody caught your eye on special teams? Young guys?

HALEY: “Yeah, the first week I really stressed to the guys, especially
the young guys – the guys in certain position groups, those linebackers,
the receivers, the running backs, the extra fullbacks, the extra
safeties and corners – that they had to try to show up and separate
themselves, and I think that occurred. I don’t know that there’s just
one guy that I could pick out, though. I think what is evident to me is I
saw much better team speed on special teams, and I’ve felt like that
each year. The first year we were one place, last year I felt like we
were faster, but still needed to improve, and this year is the most
speed I’ve seen from our groups, regardless of who’s in there. And
again, I think that’s a pretty good thing. They played physical, they
played hard; we just did some dumb, dumb things that cost us a lot of
yards.”

Q: Do you see any young guy making the team like [Cory] Greenwood did last year based off his special teams ability?

HALEY: “Yeah. Again, I don’t think I’m ready to say who, but I do think
there’s a couple guys that maybe are not ready for primetime, so to
speak, at their particular position, but that are starting to really
flash.”

Q: And these are guys that you think would be on your 45-man roster?

HALEY: “Yeah, you find a way. Like you said, the good example is Cory,
that last year wasn’t quite ready for primetime as a ’backer, but we
said we’ve got to get him on the team; he’s making that kind of
difference. So, we’ve got a lot of plays left – in practice and in the
games – and we’ve got to try to get it right. And like I said, that’s
part of the specialization process, also. There some guys, like Cory
Greenwood last year, through the offseason and training camp – we signed
him a little late, didn’t we? He was getting reps on special teams, he
was getting reps in the game. With those guys – I think especially this
game specifically – you might see some guys that, more specifically,
just play special teams, that we just don’t have the time or can afford
to have guys at both spots. Because it’s either to see what we need to
see out of special teams from that particular player or see what we need
out of another guy at his position.”

Q: With regard to Greenwood, would you have kept him last year if he wasn’t able to help right away on special teams?

HALEY: “No, I think he would have been a guy we liked and were
interested in and we would have kind of kept our eye on or got him on
the practice squad or done different things. He caught our eye, but
special teams is what got him onto the team. There’s no doubt about it.”

Q: Have you been disappointed in this year’s group of rookie free agents?

HALEY: “No, I’ve been really encouraged with them. I think our scouts,
again, did a terrific job in a difficult situation. Now, you had a
little more time to think about it, but they all… It was like a second
draft there once that thing opened. I think, again, our guys did a great
job of pinpointing who we really thought had a chance. No, I’m as
encouraged as ever with that group.”

Q: What were your evaluations of DL Allen Bailey and WR Keary Colbert?
They are guys that are kind of on different ends of the spectrum.

HALEY: “This Bailey has a long way to go. He’s a guy that played
multiple positions in college but I’ll tell you what separates him a
little bit, he definitely helped our sub-rush in the game against a
pretty good offensive line. But what separates him from maybe some of
the guys in that group is that he’s got the label defensive lineman but
you watch him run down the field, he’s not a defensive lineman from an
athletic-ability or speed [standpoint]. And that’s at 285 pounds right
now. He’s an interesting prospect for me as the head coach because if I
can get a defensive lineman that can still run down on kicks in this day
and age with some of the rule changes or being on your punt team or
your punt return team, that’s a big thing. DE Wallace Gilberry is close,
we used him in some specialist situations, but Wallace, no disrespect,
he still looks like a defensive lineman more times than not. Allen’s
interesting that way.

“WR Keary Colbert, for a guy that’s been out, he shows some ability in
the slot which is an area of need for us, in my opinion, as far as
getting somebody to kind of take that role by the horns. The true, when
I’m saying slot, third-down type of guy, and that role is not for
everybody. I think I’ve said that in here before. The great third-down
receivers, the Wayne Chrebet type, Wes Welker, Patrick Crayton when I
was in Dallas, that’s how he made a name for himself and became a
starter but you may be sitting for 20 minutes, 30 minutes and then all
of a sudden it’s a big third-and-eight and you’re expected to make the
play and like I’ve said as a receiver coach, that role’s not for
everybody but the fact that he got in there and now it’s third down, he
makes a play in a contested throw, a guy kind of draped over him, that
was encouraging for me. Again, all the guys are competing. There’s real
good competition there at the receiver spot.”

Q: When looking at the receivers, one guy at the top of the group with
WR Dwayne Bowe and WR Jerheme Urban but who has had the least number of
snaps is WR Steve Breaston. Is that partially because you know what
you’ve got with him?

HALEY: “He’s coming off a little off-season work and he kind of falls
into that group of you miss the whole off-season, some guys miss rehab,
some guys miss lifting the way they might have lifted or trained and
we’ve got a number of those guys that I think you just take it one day
at a time. We don’t want to move too fast and I think you’ve got to keep
a little more individualized plan for guys, even though we’re a pretty
young team and I would resist doing that most of the time, but this
year’s different. You’ve got to plan for each guy to try to figure out
how you best can be ready to go when the bell sounds.”

Q: You’ve said you were tough on the guy (Breaston), how were you tough?
Was it just verbally or was it constantly? What does that mean?

HALEY: “You can ask him. From my perspective, I tried to break him. I
said I think there’s a chance but he’s a long way off and you just
quickly realize as a coach that for whatever reason this kid responded.
He wasn’t shying away from any kind of push, prod, pull. I pressed him
hard in the meetings, on the field, walking in the hallway, really was
relentless on him. Like I’ve said, you coach everybody different. You
coach everybody the way they need or deserve to be coached, and I think
those are two different things. With Steve, it was clear to me, there
was a look in his eye – because he wasn’t good enough early on, just
from a standpoint of going out and being ready to play – but the guy
returned punts for touchdowns for us in big games. He came back through
that offseason, you could tell he had a chip on his shoulder and again,
as a coach, that’s where I say ‘I don’t expect you to want to be my
friend. Just respect me in the end.’ I think that’s a great testament,
the fact that here a guy wants to come back and be coached and be pushed
to see how good he can be. That’s exciting stuff as a coach.”

Q: Did he ever push back?

HALEY: “No. He’s not your typical western Pennsylvania guy. You just
knew there was a line there you had to make sure you didn’t quite go
across because he doesn’t say much, so if you start to even hear some
rumbling, you say, okay, I’ll pull back. You’re a good guy, I believe in
you Steve. You’re going to be great one day.”