Defensive coordinator Dick Jauron had his weekly press conference with the media Thursday morning, and one of the primary topics of discussion was the defense's struggles at stopping the tandem of Arian Foster and Ben Tate last week. [Read full press conference transcript here].
(On if they worked on stopping the run this week in practice)- "We worked on it last week too. Last week, it didn’t go the way we had hoped it would’ve gone. We knew going down there they were just a tremendous offensive football team with a scheme that’s unusual to some degree. We didn’t do the job that we needed to do, obviously. We wanted to limit the big play in the passing game and we were fairly successful there, but the run game just got out of hand, too many big plays. The guys played hard. We just didn’t hit our fits and I didn’t help them with the best calls at the right times."
(On if he schemed the run by playing a little bit off the line)- "We try to give our guys a little more room to read it in the zone schemes. I guess the way that I’ve always kind of looked at things is if it works it was a pretty good idea and if it doesn’t work it wasn’t a good idea. It’s kind of that simple and it wasn’t the best idea because it didn’t work out. When you think about it, it makes a little bit of sense, you’ve got to have a little room to lead it. They’re on you fast, trying to two-hat you and cut you out of your gaps. They did a really nice job and we didn’t. They’re a really good team that played well and we didn’t play particularly well on that day."
(On if it had to do with their two rookies who haven’t seen that scheme before)- "A little bit, but I think overall the bottom line was we just didn’t seem to play at the level that we had played earlier. We just made too many mistakes, too many mistakes on the same play. Our tackling wasn’t as crisp. Lots of things occurred. The guys struggled, but they fought to stay in it. We fought to make corrections on the sideline and they were in it. We didn’t lose them in the course of the game. They were interested on the sideline. They were trying to regroup to get things done. We just never really got it done."
(On if he was pleased with the run defense up until last week)- "We’re giving up too much in the run game. It’s not total yards. It’s never total yards, its yards per carry. That’s the deal. Last week it got out of hand, the yards per carry was just too big. I’m not concerned with total yardage, but the yards per carry, when that gets consistently out of whack then you got issues."
(On where he would like to see opponent’s yards per carry average at)- "I’d like to see it at zero (joking). Up in the three’s, 3.7-3.8, in that area you’re okay."
(On if teams scheme different for D’Qwell Jackson and how he’s played after his strong start to the season)- "He’s played really well. Clearly, he’s not the biggest linebacker in the league. We’ve got to do a good job of keeping him as clean as we can keep him running to the ball. If we can do that, he’s going to make plays because he can find the football. He’s a very good tackler. Last week in Houston, they got up on him and we got some big bodies up on him. That’s hard, it’s hard on any linebacker. As we said, he’s not the biggest or the tallest and guys up front are huge in this league. We’ve got to do a better job of keeping him clean, keeping him running, scheme a little more to keep him that way. But, he’s playing at the same level, I believe, that he’s started the season at."
(On if Phil Taylor has been struggling the last few weeks)- "I don’t know that he’s dropped off. He might have leveled off some in the last couple of weeks. It’s a long season obviously for everybody and for a rookie it gets particularly long. Although, it’s shorter for these guys because they had no offseason with us. He’s getting a lot more experience game-by-game, which should help him. We anticipate he’ll step up and make his presence felt again this week."