Press Pass | Liam Coen on Patriots Prep, Focus on Physicality & Using Home Advantage

0:00Some, yes, sure. Patriots this week kind of put the last week behind him and then turn the page into grateful. It's a pretty tough phone. Yeah, we saw enough time to waste looking back. We have darn good opponent. I played in the Super Bowl last year coming in a town that we know they're going to be very well coached, disciplined, darn good football team with a good quarterback. I think our guys, they talking to them, they're after the game on the plane. When we got back, a lot of guys understood kind of what took place and the areas in which we need to improve on. And it's all of us in it together and that's the best part of it is we have the opportunity now to respond. That's what I have to thank for a while to how important it is. We've got to go out there and take advantage of that. Yeah, we need it. We need a true home field advantage this week, obviously. You know, not going to be here for a while and definitely need the community and fan base to come out and support as much as possible. You know, England's defense has been really phenomenal on third down.

1:02Yeah. What do you see when you watch them? They do a really nice job in man cover. I mean, they have obviously some good cover guys. They're secondary. You can all play different positions in their structure. You know, they're all kind of on a string. Their safety's, nickels, corners, all can kind of do similar jobs and responsibilities, which can make it sometimes difficult to undress what covers that are in. And they have a really good interior pass rush specifically. And then they mix it up like three man rush, four man, five man, heat you up, play man coverage, play fire zone. So, you look at really the history of a coach variable and the defenses and how they've played. I mean, it's very similar in a lot of ways to their style of play. And they're usually a game plan. There's going to be a big game plan element. They double guys if they feel like they need to and take advantage of matchups.

2:02What kind of signs have you seen from Travis under in practice that he can maybe handle an expanded role in offensive making that sense? Yeah. You know, you're continuing anytime you struggle offensively specifically, right? You look for, you look at the totality of it all and Travis is a big part of that. Obviously, that we're looking at continuing to find different ways to get them involved. And you're also looking at the other side of the ball and looking at A or we bat, where are we batting here on defense in terms of all that stuff. The miss time is communication and I thought he did a nice job throughout the course of the week and we're going to look at giving them some more this week. I think that's what Travis just wanting to get more reps because of how much time he missed last year, also coming back from the injury. Yeah. And then wanting to play your full programs. It's a balance, as you said. It's just a balancing act that you're continuously working through.

3:02I thought, you know, he made it almost made the interception on early on in the first drive of the game. Had a couple things throughout that I think, you know, we can play better and it is a balancing act though, right? You're trying to get into a flow whether it's on offense or defense, but we have, you know, corners that we have a lot of confidence in. We didn't play our best this past week. You know, but I think a lot goes into that, not just those guys specifically. It's on coaching, it's on the rush, it's on those guys in the back end. But they're confident to respond this way and he's a big part of it. How much did him missing all that time last year impact him, but just feel of comfort and knowledge and understanding completely offense? Yeah. I think it definitely has some form of an effect, right? You can walk through, you can do a million things in the, in the walk through room and in the meeting room settings, but, you know, you just missed a lot of pitch and catch in, right? You just missed a lot of chemistry with the quarterback, but like I said, just like anything,

4:02when you struggle to move the ball specifically in the fourth quarter when we did and you lose, okay, we got to go look at it, right? Go look at everything that we're doing, touches, targets, all that stuff and, you know, he's a part of that just like all those other guys. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. You got it. With AJ Brown, he was going to be a high value guy for that offense. What kind of adjustments do you see that the Patriots have in the big with knowledge and knowledge? You know, I think, look, that team, you look at how they were last year prior to acquiring AJ and they spread the ball around pretty good and I think they all have certain roles within their offense, you know, Douglas Williams, you know, obviously Hunter, Henry's the dang good player and you know, it's dobs, you know, they get dobs and then obviously

5:04being able to use the run game to be able to give them like Mac Holland, those guys blocked their asses off at the perimeter, all those guys. And so the play action plays off at all in Mac Holland, Douglas Sprung, you know, the running back there on the long run the other day on the tackle wrap. That was a huge block. I mean, I don't think there as much as I know it hurts to lose a star, you know, a star player as AJ Brown is. I think that, you know, it's so much about fitting their players to the system in vice versa. And I think Josh has always done a nice job of whoever he has in there. He's going to find a way to be successful, find a way to get those guys the ball. You know, I think Mac Holland's you look at in the middle of the field, operating on a dagger and in breaks. I think they have the tools on the perimeter that Drake feels really comfortable with and they push the ball down the field. Like they'll take one on one opportunities and I don't know if it really affects them too much because of how much they spread the wealth around that it's not always just going to

6:08go through one guy. And so that's what I've kind of seen over the last two weeks, specifically when AJ went out of that Seattle game, they just kept spreading it around to other guys. It didn't seem like they truly struggled at all. What is it about? What is it about? It makes it so consistent. Yeah, and he runs, you know, routes with urgency. Like every route he's running, he's got Twitch, ability to separate, you know, rip in through the middle of the field fearlessly, you know, and so he can run the routes, the tree in terms of the short, the intermediate and you saw the double move last week that he hit. So they've got a rapport, obviously, which is nice to have. We got to continue to look at spreading the wealth around as well and getting guys involved a little bit earlier on. And but he's playing at a high level. Do you know who's studying fast? Is always important by considering you guys can score a touchdown in the second half last

7:09week. Just how much more vital is it become to kind of get going quickly this week? Yeah, definitely a sense of urgency. Anytime you struggle late in the game and have an opportunity to, you know, go up multiple scores, specifically coming out of the half. Definitely a sense of urgency. I think our guys will come out today with the right mindset to start fast, to start practice fast. And then that has to carry over throughout the course of the week. As I said on the Zoom, they're like, I didn't feel like we had our best practices Thursday and Friday last week, not that you're going to, we weren't concerned. It was just, it wasn't our best. And you don't, it doesn't always correlate, right? But you try to stay consistent and remain consistent. That practice performance equals game reality. And so that's something that we need to be better at throughout the course of the week. We have to have higher standards with how we practice and how we, you know, we got to make plays in practice like pitch and catch, make good plays, sustain blocks longer, Russian

8:11cover better, all that stuff has to improve this week. Just with injuries, anyone you expect you know to practice today, all limited? Not in knowledge, anything? No, we work. Yeah. Too bad for how much of a problem is Christian and Zalus for them? He's just a problem. I mean, he's a hell of a player, man. He is physical. He's long. He has long arms. He uses quick jam. He'll use double quick jam. He's aggressive at the catch point. They all tackle. I mean, they're whole secondary tackles. He tackles. Yeah, he's a problem. He, for sure. I mean, he gives everybody some fits. You know, you've got to be, you've got to fight through contact with them. Like he's not going to get called for getting right in the shoulder and getting his hands on. It's just that they don't get called on them very often, especially when you're that good, right? So we've got to fight through contact. We're going to have to help the guys when we can with formations, motions and things

9:15like that. But we have to go win one-on-one battles. And at the catch point, we've got to be as strong as ever. There are interior pastures so much. How do you need for challenge to get interior guys? Sometimes beat. It just happens faster. You know, it happens faster when you have guys on the inside that get an edge. And when you get edge in pass pro on the interior, it's on the quarterback that, you know, just that much quicker as opposed to being on the edge. So obviously, we struggled with it a little bit last week with Allen specifically. And so we've got a huge test this week with Barmore and William specifically. And you know, it's those guys that, you know, the quick wins are the ones that are the tough ones to sustain because he just feels any quarterback is going to feel that a lot quicker than maybe if the tackle gets edge quickly, you just got a little bit more time to react to it or see it or maybe they're running back. Has his in protection. The tackle gets be quick. If we don't even have a chip on, he might be able to still see it and clean up the color

10:19as opposed to when it does happen on the inside. It's just a little bit harder on the quarterback. Let's give you that. Who on your roster can help you get the push on the quarterback from the inside? I know it's been an area of focus. Yeah. I mean, I think obviously when we've moved Travon inside, he's done some of the good things on the known passing downs. You know, expect Eric to be able to come on for us a little bit more to this week and continue to give us some more reps inside. I think being able to get regists some reps and Rook had some some good rushes the other day. I mean, we're finishing at the point of attack, but all that crew, it's a collective effort and definitely expect to see more. Building off that question, especially with Devon, of the game in the fourth quarter. How would you assess that deck right now, looking for defense and pass rush? Yeah. I mean, we're, we got enough body. You know, we got enough guys to do it. You know, I think D-ham actually, he had some really good rushes as well in some of the play action. So we feel good about the depth. We just got to get a little bit more production. What kind of work could you do?

11:19I'm here at Johnson Beans in Wood, sir. Could we start out a little bit last week? Yeah. I mean, Antonio is a player that's been able to give us, you know, different jobs and utility where there's playing in the back end at safety, coming down at the Big Nickel, playing some dime. He gives us some flexibility to do different things, whether it's from a coverage contour structure and in the blitz packages. So had a great long 45 minute combo in Antonio in my office yesterday and he's excited to get back to work this week and to put our best foot forward. More targets for running streams so far, three for Jacobi. What needs to happen to get those guys more involved this week? Yeah, just spreading the wealth, like I said, you know, and just getting those guys some more opportunities, especially, you know, early on in the game and try to get everybody a little bit more into the rhythm and you dial some stuff up early and it works. You dial some stuff up later and it doesn't, you know, whatever, typically the ball goes where it does. You know, I think Denver did a nice job of kind of taking number one away from us at times

12:22and we got to be able to continue to, you know, progress throughout but also have enough time to do so, right? So it all kind of works hand in hand. Can't be called necessarily to the point of his former loss in the prime floor. I think 78% blitz rate or whatever that is, but at what point in time do you say, hey, maybe we do need to dial in up a little more? Yeah, we look at it every single week, right? You're constantly evaluating your matchups where you feel good when you need to, like we brought some last week, they identified them and kind of flipped the protection on us a few times. You know, when you're on the road in that atmosphere, they got the clock on their side and they got the communication on their side and they freeze it, see it, flip it and now they're picking you up and now you're susceptible on the back end. So that's a cat and mouse game that you're always playing and we'll continue to see what it looks like.