Thursday, October 4, 2018
Thursday, October 4, 2018 Vikings Offensive Coordinator John DeFilippo It’s good to see everybody, I appreciate everyone coming out. Looking forward to going back to Philly and trying to get a win against a really good football team. We’re going to have to play well up front and do well on third downs. They’re really well coached, they have great speed, and we’re going to have to play really, really good. Q: Both Mike [Zimmer] and George [Edwards] mentioned spending time with you in the offseason going over the NFC Championship game and different things that the Eagles liked against this Vikings defense. Can you take us through that conversation? A: I was just taking them through some of the ideas we had, some of the matchups we thought we could exploit, those type of things. We were really concerned going into that game, just like you would be playing anybody in the NFC Championship game. The opponent is there for a reason as well. Coach Zimmer’s defense is hard to scheme against, it really is. The third down blitz package is tough, the double A’s and all those things. So I just shared with them some of the things we did protection wise, and that stuff. Q: How much does that still happen during the season, when Coach Zimmer can lean on you as a resource, in ways such as, “Here’s how I would attack here, here’s what you need to think about.” A: Coach and I are always having dialog about that stuff. He’ll bring a blitz in to me, or say, “How would you guys protect this against your main protection?” Or, “What would be your answer if we showed you a cover zero look here?” There’s always that dialog, and I do the same thing with him as well, “What would you do if we showed this a bunch?” There’s constant dialog between Coach and I, which I think is really, really good. Q: You’ve been tested with multiple two-minute situations at the end of halves this season. How does your mentality have to change as a play caller in those situations? A: Depends on the situation, obviously, and obviously how much time [there is]. The half is a little bit different than the end of the game. You want to come away with points, any points, where at the end of the game it could be a field goal or a touchdown. Your mentality, I would say at times that you’re probably a little bit more aggressive at the end of the game, if you need to be. You saw us in Green Bay make a couple tight-window throws, those type of things where at the end of the half, not to steal Coach [Hank] Stram’s words, but you’re trying to matriculate the ball down the field. That’s what you’re trying to do. It all just depends on the situation. Q: Is clock and timeout management something that you get more comfortable with the more you do? A: Sure. The other thing to it is this; I just said you want to come up with points, but there’s a protection piece in that as well. You need to make sure that you don’t get into an extra-long situation to where you’re going to get out of field goal range. Say you have the ball coming out of the second half. Our goal is to get points, and then you double-dip. We call it a double-dip, where you score at the end of the half and then hopefully you can come out in the second half and score again. That double-dip swing points is what you’re trying to do there at the end of the half. The whole mentality changes because of the protection piece as well, where you’re liable to take a few more chances at the end of the game. Q: Kirk [Cousins] talked about the fumbles, and the things that he can try and control. Are there things that you saw from the Rams game, when he was back in the pocket and fumbles, which he can possibly improve upon? A: We work it every day, we work pocket presence and two hands on the ball, and Kevin Stefanski does a fantastic job with that, and it’s something that we’re going to continue to work on with him. That was kind of a freak play. Some of the other ones, where he had one hand on the ball, I thought there were some that were avoidable. The one against the Rams, he was double clutching and tried to pull the ball back. Sometimes you get in that position, and the defender from the Rams made a great play. We call that half a man, he was half blocked and Riley [Reiff] was trying to run him by, and he just got a hand in there. In that situation in the Rams game he was double clutching and tried to pull it back to
reset his feet, but there were times this year, and Kirk said it himself, where he’s got to do a better job of keeping two hands on the ball. Q: Is some of that the depth of where he is in the pocket? On that Rams play, could he have been further up in the pocket? A: Our mantra is this: climb if you need to climb, slide if you need to slide. If you get into the world of climb, climb, climb, like old school West Coast teaching, you’re throwing from a foxhole. You’re throwing a grenade from a foxhole. We want to stay back in the pocket at seven and a half yards deep as much as we can. Come to balance at seven and a half yards deep. You don’t want to be nine and a half. On some run action, play action stuff, you’re going to sit deeper on those things, but we don’t want our quarterbacks having to throw from a foxhole with guys in their lap, where they have this shortstep, no-step throw. Their arm angle has to change, all of those things. I hope I answered your question there. If you need to slide, slide. If you need to climb, climb. If not, stay back there. Q: How much is Aldrick Robinson putting himself in a position to earn more snaps? A: Well his touchdown-to-catch ratio is pretty good. So we’ll see, we’ll see. He needs to continue to learn the offense, and not just the offense, but the details of it. When you miss as much time and you come in late, obviously he’s going to be a little behind, but I’m pleased with where he’s at. Obviously he was in Washington, so he knows the quarterback, which is huge. And the quarterback knows him, which is huge. Some of the terminology is obviously the same, the same background, so he knows how to run a lot of our routes, but it’s just the details, the splits, the motions, the way we motion, the way we shift, the amount of formations we line up in. Those are the things that he’s going to have to continue to master. Q: Were Robinson and Kyle Rudolph supposed to be on top of each other on Robinson’s second touchdown catch that he had? A: No. They were not. We got knocked off a little bit, and one guy got over there a little bit quicker than the other guy should have been. But no, they should not have been that close together. But hey, it’s football. It’s players making plays at the end of the day, and the quarterback made a great throw. Obviously those guys made a great play. Q: How do you weigh wanting to run the ball with the success you have had through the air? Is yards and points the only thing that matters in the long run? A: I was waiting for somebody to ask me that. Here is the thing. There is no one in this building that wants to run the ball more than I do. Because it takes a lot of pressure off of me to not have to have the perfect protection, to not have to call the perfect route against the coverage that you deem you think you are going to get. The quarterback in duress at times where if you run the football with efficiency, obviously it is a lot easier on the play caller, it’s easier on some of the players. But at the same time there is a fine line. There is a fine line when you say balance. As the offensive coordinator, take the winning and losing out of it. We all know when we get on the bus, we all know whether we won or lost. We all know that. The whole world knows that. I feel like I did my job as a play caller as an offensive coordinator if our best players were the ones, our playmakers, were the ones that touched the ball in space and gave them a chance to help our team win. We all know who those players are. We don’t need to name them. If those guys are targeted, catches, our time of possession is still good, we’re efficient in the red zone, we’re efficient on third down then at least we gave our team a chance for success. It doesn’t mean we won, but we gave our team a chance for success. The long-winded answer to your question, I apologize, is do we want to run the football with more efficiency? One hundred percent. And we are grinding our butts off to make that happen. But at the same time, the Rams game, Aqib Talib is out. Marcus Peters is on one leg. I like our matchups on the outside more so often than trying to bang our heads up against Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh. Like I said, there is no one that wants to run the ball more than me. We are going to try to establish that and continue to keep grinding on that. At the same time there is a fine line of doing something just to do something and maybe taking some success away from your team. I hope I answered your question there. Q: With the production of Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen is this level of production through four weeks sustainable? A: We have high expectations. Yes. We have high expectations for everybody, myself, our players. We take a lot of pride in trying to get our guys in the right spot. I think that is why you see us line up in so many formations. So many guys in different spots, we try to do that and there is a reason for it. But yes, we knew those guys were going to come in and be productive. They are playing really well. Just
call it what it is they are playing really, really well. We are throwing it well and we have to continue to do that but with more balance if possible. Q: Will going back to Philadelphia be emotional for you at some point? A: It will be. And not just because of the Eagles thing. A lot of people don’t know that I went to high school in Philadelphia. My dad was the athletic director at Villanova. I spent some of my formable years in Philly and was kind of in the middle of the Philly sports scene with my dad. I went to high school there with my high school buddies and all of that. But once the game starts, it is going to be like any other game. I have nothing but the utmost respect for everyone in that building. Just like this building, there are some really phenomenal people, coaches, players, ownership, personnel in that building. It is a first class place, no doubt. Q: What are your biggest memories of growing up in the sports scene in Philadelphia? A: Probably going to Eagles games. Probably going to Eagles games and I was at a lot of the Monday Night games which was really cool. I always ask the quarterbacks a trivia question. I saw Shawn Bradley’s first game as a Sixer and he was not the tallest person at the tip. Bingo. Gheorghe Mureson. Right. You were the first person to get that quick by the way. Those are the memories you have. You are 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old. You are around these guys. You are rubbing elbows with guys from the Sixers through my dad, and the Eagles. You are getting to go to training camp as a kid. Then to be working there was kind of surreal to be quite honest with you. The first time you walk in the building was “whoa”. It’s your hometown team. But like I said, I haven’t thought about it that much just because you are so busy grinding for the game. I have very fond memories but not only Philly, but the Eagles. Q: What is the biggest thing coaching with the Eagles that you took with you? A: I think Coach [Doug] Pederson. I’ll just talk about Coach Pederson for a second. He is great. He is great. There is two things that Coach does that I really learned from him. Number one, don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box. Be aggressive. He is an aggressive guy. He is an aggressive play caller. Number three, he really trusts his assistant coaches. He really trusts his assistant coaches. If he gave you a job to do, he would let you do your job. He trusted you to do your job. If you were doing your job, he would let you run with it and take something and make it better. That was my goal everyday. To try to get the quarterbacks of the Philadelphia Eagles, number one, two and three to get better each day. He trusted me to do that and gave me a lot of leeway and a lot of room to do that. I thanked him for that when I left. Those three things I learned from Coach. I think he does a fantastic job. Not only is he a great coach, he is even a better person. I really like Coach P. Q: What is it like as a coordinator when Kirk Cousins is not getting the play call through his speakers in his helmet? A: I was not too happy about that. Usually, you read the body language of the Q. He is usually going like [shrugs] giving me one of those, something of that nature. We are prepared for that situation. Our quarterbacks have a call for every personnel grouping that we have on the field for first and second down call, run and pass, and a third down pass. We are prepared for that situations. That happens all the time. Especially, just Google it, certain venues in the NFL are more so than others. You are always ready for that situation. Q: Was the two-point conversion the play you would have called or would you have gone with something different? A: Something similar. Not the exact formation. But something similar. That is what is great about having smart players. The guys that know situational football and buy into situational football. That is one of the benefits of having smart players. I am leaving people out but you have guys like Kyle Rudolph and Kirk Cousins and Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs and Riley Reiff and Pat Elflein. Those guys are smart guys. I apologize to anybody on offense that I left out there. Those guys are smart guys. They just handled a very tough situation and they handled it right. Q: As you try to find a perfect combination of protection packages, do you still see an opportunity to potentially experiment with moving guys around on the offensive line? A: We are always looking for ways to get better. If that means potentially moving some guys around, then we will give it a shot. I don’t see that happening in the near future but you never know. You never know. We are going to continuously always self-evaluate ourselves to see if we can do things better.
Q: Was there anything about coaching Carson Wentz that stood out to you from any other quarterback you have coached before? A: Yes. A lot of things. The first thing is the amount of maturity he has for his age. Not only football maturity but maturity in general. He is very, very confident in himself but to a point where it rubs off on others in a good way, not a bad way. The whole team just kind of felt his confidence and felt his swagger and juice and fed off that. And really just his freak athleticism to be quite honest with you. The guy is 6-5 and 240-something pounds and can run like that, throw like that, throw off balance, get out of traffic, extend plays, There are some plays you watch last year and not a lot of guys get out of that. The last thing is just his football knowledge for a rookie. Even when he came in, I don’t want to say it was off the charts, but it was pretty close for a rookie. It was pretty good. Real good, actually. Q: How much Philadelphia’s defense miss Rodney McCloud? A: Rodney is a really good player. I know this. Rodney is a darn good player. He is fast, he has great instincts. He is not afraid to come out of center field to try to rob something and take a chance. You always have to have your eyes on Rodney when you are playing against him. Even when I was in Cleveland when we played him and he was with the Rams. You always had to know where he was at. Ed Reed-ish almost. Freelance at times, but always make the right play. Obviously his football I.Q. is really good and obviously he is a great athlete. You would have to ask those guys how much they miss him. I just know Rodney is a heck of a player. Q: Is it important in today’s league to have two top notch receivers? A: It sure helps. It sure helps because especially when you stick guys in different spots as much as we do, it’s hard for defenses to hone in on where everybody is going to line up. Whether you have an elite tight end and elite wide-out, or two elite wide-outs, I think that obviously gives you so much more flexibility to do some neat things and to line up in different things and run different routes. At the same time that’s awesome but everything begins and ends in the protection world in the passing game.
reset his feet, but there were times this year, and Kirk said it himself, where he’s got to do a better job of keeping two hands on the ball. Q: Is some of that the depth of where he is in the pocket? On that Rams play, could he have been further up in the pocket? A: Our mantra is this: climb if you need to climb, slide if you need to slide. If you get into the world of climb, climb, climb, like old school West Coast teaching, you’re throwing from a foxhole. You’re throwing a grenade from a foxhole. We want to stay back in the pocket at seven and a half yards deep as much as we can. Come to balance at seven and a half yards deep. You don’t want to be nine and a half. On some run action, play action stuff, you’re going to sit deeper on those things, but we don’t want our quarterbacks having to throw from a foxhole with guys in their lap, where they have this shortstep, no-step throw. Their arm angle has to change, all of those things. I hope I answered your question there. If you need to slide, slide. If you need to climb, climb. If not, stay back there. Q: How much is Aldrick Robinson putting himself in a position to earn more snaps? A: Well his touchdown-to-catch ratio is pretty good. So we’ll see, we’ll see. He needs to continue to learn the offense, and not just the offense, but the details of it. When you miss as much time and you come in late, obviously he’s going to be a little behind, but I’m pleased with where he’s at. Obviously he was in Washington, so he knows the quarterback, which is huge. And the quarterback knows him, which is huge. Some of the terminology is obviously the same, the same background, so he knows how to run a lot of our routes, but it’s just the details, the splits, the motions, the way we motion, the way we shift, the amount of formations we line up in. Those are the things that he’s going to have to continue to master. Q: Were Robinson and Kyle Rudolph supposed to be on top of each other on Robinson’s second touchdown catch that he had? A: No. They were not. We got knocked off a little bit, and one guy got over there a little bit quicker than the other guy should have been. But no, they should not have been that close together. But hey, it’s football. It’s players making plays at the end of the day, and the quarterback made a great throw. Obviously those guys made a great play. Q: How do you weigh wanting to run the ball with the success you have had through the air? Is yards and points the only thing that matters in the long run? A: I was waiting for somebody to ask me that. Here is the thing. There is no one in this building that wants to run the ball more than I do. Because it takes a lot of pressure off of me to not have to have the perfect protection, to not have to call the perfect route against the coverage that you deem you think you are going to get. The quarterback in duress at times where if you run the football with efficiency, obviously it is a lot easier on the play caller, it’s easier on some of the players. But at the same time there is a fine line. There is a fine line when you say balance. As the offensive coordinator, take the winning and losing out of it. We all know when we get on the bus, we all know whether we won or lost. We all know that. The whole world knows that. I feel like I did my job as a play caller as an offensive coordinator if our best players were the ones, our playmakers, were the ones that touched the ball in space and gave them a chance to help our team win. We all know who those players are. We don’t need to name them. If those guys are targeted, catches, our time of possession is still good, we’re efficient in the red zone, we’re efficient on third down then at least we gave our team a chance for success. It doesn’t mean we won, but we gave our team a chance for success. The long-winded answer to your question, I apologize, is do we want to run the football with more efficiency? One hundred percent. And we are grinding our butts off to make that happen. But at the same time, the Rams game, Aqib Talib is out. Marcus Peters is on one leg. I like our matchups on the outside more so often than trying to bang our heads up against Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh. Like I said, there is no one that wants to run the ball more than me. We are going to try to establish that and continue to keep grinding on that. At the same time there is a fine line of doing something just to do something and maybe taking some success away from your team. I hope I answered your question there. Q: With the production of Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen is this level of production through four weeks sustainable? A: We have high expectations. Yes. We have high expectations for everybody, myself, our players. We take a lot of pride in trying to get our guys in the right spot. I think that is why you see us line up in so many formations. So many guys in different spots, we try to do that and there is a reason for it. But yes, we knew those guys were going to come in and be productive. They are playing really well. Just
call it what it is they are playing really, really well. We are throwing it well and we have to continue to do that but with more balance if possible. Q: Will going back to Philadelphia be emotional for you at some point? A: It will be. And not just because of the Eagles thing. A lot of people don’t know that I went to high school in Philadelphia. My dad was the athletic director at Villanova. I spent some of my formable years in Philly and was kind of in the middle of the Philly sports scene with my dad. I went to high school there with my high school buddies and all of that. But once the game starts, it is going to be like any other game. I have nothing but the utmost respect for everyone in that building. Just like this building, there are some really phenomenal people, coaches, players, ownership, personnel in that building. It is a first class place, no doubt. Q: What are your biggest memories of growing up in the sports scene in Philadelphia? A: Probably going to Eagles games. Probably going to Eagles games and I was at a lot of the Monday Night games which was really cool. I always ask the quarterbacks a trivia question. I saw Shawn Bradley’s first game as a Sixer and he was not the tallest person at the tip. Bingo. Gheorghe Mureson. Right. You were the first person to get that quick by the way. Those are the memories you have. You are 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old. You are around these guys. You are rubbing elbows with guys from the Sixers through my dad, and the Eagles. You are getting to go to training camp as a kid. Then to be working there was kind of surreal to be quite honest with you. The first time you walk in the building was “whoa”. It’s your hometown team. But like I said, I haven’t thought about it that much just because you are so busy grinding for the game. I have very fond memories but not only Philly, but the Eagles. Q: What is the biggest thing coaching with the Eagles that you took with you? A: I think Coach [Doug] Pederson. I’ll just talk about Coach Pederson for a second. He is great. He is great. There is two things that Coach does that I really learned from him. Number one, don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box. Be aggressive. He is an aggressive guy. He is an aggressive play caller. Number three, he really trusts his assistant coaches. He really trusts his assistant coaches. If he gave you a job to do, he would let you do your job. He trusted you to do your job. If you were doing your job, he would let you run with it and take something and make it better. That was my goal everyday. To try to get the quarterbacks of the Philadelphia Eagles, number one, two and three to get better each day. He trusted me to do that and gave me a lot of leeway and a lot of room to do that. I thanked him for that when I left. Those three things I learned from Coach. I think he does a fantastic job. Not only is he a great coach, he is even a better person. I really like Coach P. Q: What is it like as a coordinator when Kirk Cousins is not getting the play call through his speakers in his helmet? A: I was not too happy about that. Usually, you read the body language of the Q. He is usually going like [shrugs] giving me one of those, something of that nature. We are prepared for that situation. Our quarterbacks have a call for every personnel grouping that we have on the field for first and second down call, run and pass, and a third down pass. We are prepared for that situations. That happens all the time. Especially, just Google it, certain venues in the NFL are more so than others. You are always ready for that situation. Q: Was the two-point conversion the play you would have called or would you have gone with something different? A: Something similar. Not the exact formation. But something similar. That is what is great about having smart players. The guys that know situational football and buy into situational football. That is one of the benefits of having smart players. I am leaving people out but you have guys like Kyle Rudolph and Kirk Cousins and Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs and Riley Reiff and Pat Elflein. Those guys are smart guys. I apologize to anybody on offense that I left out there. Those guys are smart guys. They just handled a very tough situation and they handled it right. Q: As you try to find a perfect combination of protection packages, do you still see an opportunity to potentially experiment with moving guys around on the offensive line? A: We are always looking for ways to get better. If that means potentially moving some guys around, then we will give it a shot. I don’t see that happening in the near future but you never know. You never know. We are going to continuously always self-evaluate ourselves to see if we can do things better.
Q: Was there anything about coaching Carson Wentz that stood out to you from any other quarterback you have coached before? A: Yes. A lot of things. The first thing is the amount of maturity he has for his age. Not only football maturity but maturity in general. He is very, very confident in himself but to a point where it rubs off on others in a good way, not a bad way. The whole team just kind of felt his confidence and felt his swagger and juice and fed off that. And really just his freak athleticism to be quite honest with you. The guy is 6-5 and 240-something pounds and can run like that, throw like that, throw off balance, get out of traffic, extend plays, There are some plays you watch last year and not a lot of guys get out of that. The last thing is just his football knowledge for a rookie. Even when he came in, I don’t want to say it was off the charts, but it was pretty close for a rookie. It was pretty good. Real good, actually. Q: How much Philadelphia’s defense miss Rodney McCloud? A: Rodney is a really good player. I know this. Rodney is a darn good player. He is fast, he has great instincts. He is not afraid to come out of center field to try to rob something and take a chance. You always have to have your eyes on Rodney when you are playing against him. Even when I was in Cleveland when we played him and he was with the Rams. You always had to know where he was at. Ed Reed-ish almost. Freelance at times, but always make the right play. Obviously his football I.Q. is really good and obviously he is a great athlete. You would have to ask those guys how much they miss him. I just know Rodney is a heck of a player. Q: Is it important in today’s league to have two top notch receivers? A: It sure helps. It sure helps because especially when you stick guys in different spots as much as we do, it’s hard for defenses to hone in on where everybody is going to line up. Whether you have an elite tight end and elite wide-out, or two elite wide-outs, I think that obviously gives you so much more flexibility to do some neat things and to line up in different things and run different routes. At the same time that’s awesome but everything begins and ends in the protection world in the passing game.
