Chip Kelly’s September 15 Press Conference

Q.  After watching the film, do you have any better sense of what was going on with the running game early on and what was wrong?
             
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, we talked about it earlier last week.  I was really impressed in the preseason with their defensive line.  I thought [Falcons DE Adrian] Clayborn and [Falcons DT] Jonathan Babineaux inside were kind of disruptive forces early.  Defensive ends did a good job, so we started to try to attack a little more in the second half on the outside and get the ball to the perimeter.  Obviously, because of what they were doing, we felt like we could throw the ball and that was the best way for us to move the football.
          
Q.  Any concern with what your offensive linemen were doing?  Or did you think it was more because of what the Falcons were doing?
COACH KELLY:  No, I thought both guards actually weren’t bad.  They did a nice job.  It’s just a matter of getting separation on combination blocks and things like that.  Again, give those guys credit.  I thought their d‑line, and we had said that going in that I thought the new additions with [Falcons DE Vic] Beasley on the edge and Clayborn inside, kind of what their techniques had changed from what you saw before, that they played hard and did a really good job of it.
 
Q.  What was the plan for dealing with Falcons WR Julio Jones and why didn’t it work?
COACH KELLY:  As I said last night, the plan with dealing with Julio is very difficult because he lines up in so many different spots.  So if you try to double him where he’s going to be, he’s going to be the outside right receiver, he’s going to be the outside left receiver. He’s going to be the inside third receiver.  He’s going to be the second receiver, and then he’s going to go in motion, so we had some doubles on him.  We had safeties leaning towards him.  I thought obviously in the first half, a couple of those he got were actually two of the plays were slant plays off of the run game.  It was actually a designed run where [Falcons QB] Matt [Ryan] pulled up and fired the ball back side to him twice.  We had press coverage on him, but he got inside leverage on him.  Then they made a couple adjustments at halftime.  I thought they did a good job.  He only had one catch in the second half but that was a huge catch for him and extended that drive where they went down and got points on it.
 
Q.  Was there any thought of having CB Byron Maxwell shadow Julio Jones?
COACH KELLY:  No, when you do that, now Max is playing inside at number three.  So if the ball is run, where are his fits and all those other things?  And then you’re exclusively playing man coverage the entire game.  So when you do that, it’s not interchangeable where you can take a corner and then put him inside and say if it is a zone call now you’re actually playing linebacker on this play.  So that’s where it becomes a difficult deal.  They do a nice job scheming that so that you can’t do that to him.
 
Q.  What did you see from Maxwell last night?
COACH KELLY:  Just inconsistencies in techniques.  I think Byron would be the first one to tell you that.  When he was locked up in technique, he did a really good job.  When he got beat, you can look at where he was from a technical standpoint and that’s where he got beat.
 
Q.  TE Zach Ertz played more than almost twice the snaps than TE Brent Celek.  Is that kind of a matchup situation?
COACH KELLY:  It’s just how the game expressed itself.  But we felt like our inside players, whether it be Zach or [WR] Jordan [Matthews] or our running backs were the matchup.  If you’re going to play in a man game like they were doing, that was the matchup that we were going to try to exploit and obviously [QB] Sam [Bradford] goes 21 of 25 in the second half. It was working for us, so we just stuck with it.
 
Q.  That’s an interesting technical standpoint on Max.  Explain that to us.
COACH KELLY:  Just technique in terms of how you’re taking guys in press man and on the line of scrimmage. Are you working lateral, are you getting hands on them, are you opening up the gate?  Base things.
 
Q.  Was he not jamming enough on the line?
COACH KELLY:  Combination of both, depending on what the coverage was.  But there are some times when you’re taking lateral footwork and trying to get your hands on them to slow the receiver down from getting a free release down the field instead of opening up the gate and letting them run down the field.
 
Q.  Could you take us back to the 4th and 1 and the decision-making process on the sideline to kick the field goal as opposed to going for it?
COACH KELLY:  I just wanted to know the distance from [special teams coordinator Dave] Fipp. He knew exactly where we were. When he told me it was a 44 yarder, that was right in [K] Cody’s [Parkey] wheelhouse so we kicked it.
 
Q.  Was there any thought of calling a timeout there and just settling the kicking team down and Parkey down a little bit?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, we talked about it. I was watching the play clock and where we were watching our guys get set.  But there were still seven seconds on the play clock when the ball was snapped.  Usually when you get inside of four [seconds], that’s when you’re starting to worry about it. Are we rushing things here?  It was seven when we snapped it.
 
Q.  After the first preseason game, you said it was not time to hit the panic button on Cody.  When is that time?
COACH KELLY:  Not now.
 
Q.  Not now?
COACH KELLY:  Not now.
 
Q.  Why is that?
COACH KELLY:  Because I have total confidence in Cody Parkey.  He was a Pro Bowl kicker last year.  I think he’s an outstanding kicker.  I have total confidence of everybody in this organization right now.
 
Q.  Overall, why would you say the team got off to such a slow start offensively?  Do you look at the film and gauge the mental attitude of the team?
COACH KELLY:  I think our mental attitude was there.  It breaks down on each individual play as a missed block.  We had a sweep, missed a down block, got a holding call.  Had a screen pass – we’re supposed to cloud the coverage over there, didn’t do it.  Just one or two guys just making a mistake on a play puts you where you end up just short.  We complete a pass, but it’s a gain of five.  So it’s 4th and 1.  We’ve got to punt the ball because we’re on the negative side of the field.  So it’s just kind of a combination of just trying to get hitting stride and getting going on a few things.
 
Q.  What about some of the throws where it seemed like there might have been a miscommunication between Bradford and receivers on the back shoulders?
COACH KELLY:  Which throws are you talking about?
 
Q.  There was one with WR Josh Huff?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, it was the wrong route by the receiver.  He was blocking and should have run a fade route.
 
Q.  There was one to WR Nelson Agholor?
COACH KELLY:  That was a timing issue. It was a stop route and Sam threw it on time.
 
Q.  How about Ertz in the left flat?  I think it was the first series. Ertz went inside and the ball went outside.  It was on a third down play.
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, Ertz had a press man on his head. Should have tried outside release, but he inside released on him, so he got pushed too far inside.
 
Q.  RB DeMarco Murray only had eight carries and nine yards.
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, we didn’t run the ball very much at all.
 
Q.  Yeah, I mean, you probably wanted to run the ball more than that with him also?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah.  Yeah, again, in the second half we were moving the ball so well throwing it, it was really – I don’t think moving the ball in the second half was an issue.  So we’re going to stick with what they gave us.  Obviously what we were able to exploit with [RB] Darren [Sproles], what we were able to exploit with Jordan and with Zach, we took advantage of that.
 
Q.  Back to Cody, the mental aspect is such a big part of being a placekicker.  What do you see from him as far as confidence, body language, just out of practice, the whole works?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, he’s been great.  We haven’t seen any issues for us to have to push a panic button at all.  I think you’re going to miss kicks over the course of a season.  Unfortunately for him and for us, he missed one at the end of the game in the Falcons game.
 
Q.  How does it work with you and running backs coach Duce Staley as far as the rotation of the running backs? Is he in complete control?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, we talk about that during the week, and on gameday, we have certain packages where we’ll call personnel groups and that means this person is in the game.  But besides that, he’s just rolling those guys.
 
Q.  You always say after the game I’ve got to look at the game tape to see.  Did you see anything that you didn’t see in the game?  Did you learn anything about this team from watching that game?
COACH KELLY:  It was just technical break downs.  I think you can look at each specific play.  We had the conversation earlier about what was wrong with the routes.  When you go to the timing of the routes or what it was, you know, it’s a different thing.  It’s not a consistent thing where everybody’s doing this in an improper manner or everybody’s doing this in a proper manner.  So we’ve just got to clean it up.  If you break that game down very simply, we look at it as a coaching staff, first and foremost the thing that jumps out is penalties.  We had seven penalties in the offensive side of the ball that negated – not only did we lose 60 yards, but we negated 98 yards gained.  We had a 29 yarder called back, a 25 yarder called back, a 14 yarder called back, a 7 yarder called back, a 9 yarder called back.  You can’t do that, especially when you’re the away team.  A team that plays that well at home and you hurt yourself so you negate 98 yards gained.  I mean, [if] we don’t have a penalty on the screen pass, the ball is on the 10‑yard line.
 
Q.  Why were there so many offensive penalties?
COACH KELLY:  It was a different thing.  We had an offensive pass interference.  We had a hold inside on a screen pass.  We had another on a down block.  So it wasn’t a consistent pattern. It’s not always one penalty that’s coming up, but again it’s everybody doing their job.  Some of the penalties in the holding standpoint, we’re in proper position, but we stop our feet.  We stop our feet and then we have to grab and hold on.  So we have to run through blocks whether it’s at the perimeter or on the inside.

Q.  S Malcolm Jenkins had a chance to make two big plays on interceptions. He was in great position and just didn’t make the plays. What did you see from him playing in that slot?
             
COACH KELLY:  I thought Malcolm ‑‑ we all thought Malcolm had a really good game.  He was very consistent in his coverage, no matter who they put in there. A couple times he was on Julio because he was inside.  But again, he did make two big plays.  They were good plays.  If they’re great plays, he comes up with interceptions in those situations.  But we were really pleased with how Malcolm played.
 
Q.  What makes S Chris Maragos the best option there?
COACH KELLY:  Because we were moving the safety down so bringing our next safety in. We thought Chris played well when he was in there.
Q.  Why move a safety to the slot as opposed to a corner?
CHIP KELLY:  Because of who our safeties are.  Both of those guys have corner backgrounds, have been nickels and they have the most experience at playing nickel is Malcolm [Jenkins] and Walt [Thurmond].  Those are the two best guys.  There were times when Walt was down, so you can kind of see how it works too?
 
Q.  How do you think Walt handled his first start at safety?
COACH KELLY:  I thought Walt did a really nice job.  Missed a tackle on the screen when we had an all-out blitz on the goal line.  Kind of came up and forced back and [Julio Jones] bounced inside him.  But he made a huge play on the interception.  He was actually going to double Julio who ran an out route and then spun back because he ran an out route and came back inside and picked the dig off going the other way.  But it’s kind of what we’ve seen from him.  He seems to be around the ball.  He seems to make plays and he’s a real savvy football player from that standpoint.
 
Q.  Does LB Kiko Alonso need to be the guy even more?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, I mean, again, coming off of he hadn’t played during the preseason except a little bit in the Jets final preseason game so still bringing him along.  But you saw what he can do and we’ll see how those roles expand as we keep moving forward here.
 
Q.  Sam threw for over 300 yards, a lot of stuff was in that five to 10 yard range.  Is that basically how they were playing you guys?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, that’s how they play coverage.  They’re not going to let you get behind him.  They’re going to keep the ball in front of them.  Look at the Super Bowl, that’s what Tom Brady did all game to Seattle.  You’ve got to throw the ball down and get the ball down the field.  That’s what their scheme is meant to do.  They do a good job of it.  And if you do do that you have to be able to convert and make plays.  That’s where we had a critical 3rd-and-11 where we check it down to [RB] Ryan Mathews and he does a hell of a job getting the first down for us.  Sticking his foot in the ground and making it up field.  You have to make plays like that.  That’s where [RB] Darren [Sproles] and those inside receivers had to come up with it first.  Jordan coming after the catch, that’s what they gave you.  Now when they give you that, you have to convert on that because they are a good tackling football team. One or two of those drives in the first half where we completed underneath, but we didn’t get the ball up the field the way we needed to get the ball up the field. In the second half, that was changed a little bit.
 
Q.  Looking at Dallas, what will you tell the team that has to improve based on the studies in this past game?
COACH KELLY:  First and foremost, penalties.  You go out and you have 10 penalties against Dallas, and you’re probably going to end up on the wrong side of the stick.  You’ve got to clean up things that we can control.  We didn’t do a very good job from that standpoint.  We also had a turnover that we created that we had to call back because of a penalty on the defensive side of the ball.  So when you really look at how many yards we lost on the offensive side of the ball and the turnover on the defensive side of the ball, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.  And none of that, the penalty on the defensive side of the ball didn’t affect the rush or the fumble or the fumble recovery, and that was down the field.  So that part of it has to clean up.  If you’re going to be a good football team, you can’t be a highly penalized team.
 
Q.  You’re so technically sound in the preseason, did it surprise you that you were not during this game?
COACH KELLY:  Did it surprise me, no?  The seasons are different in how people approach it.  I think some looks are a little bit more vanilla.  What we did was very vanilla in the preseason.  You’re looking at preseason a lot in an evaluation standpoint, and we did a good job.  But you can’t hang your hat on that and say we did a good job in the preseason games.  We still have to go back to playing fundamental football, and a lot of it on the offensive side of the ball is we’re not moving our feet when we get engaged in blocks.  When someone falls off a block, your first tendency is to grab them and hold on to them, and that’s the penalty.
 
Q.  What happened on the 3rd-and-15 draw play?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, that’s probably one we want back from a stunt standpoint.  The stunt we gave them kind of opened up the middle.  If they had run a screen on the down before that and we sniffed that out pretty good, probably want a different stunt pattern going in to clog the middle up a little bit better.
 
Q.  Defensive coordinator Bill Davis said maybe it was the wrong personnel or call there?
COACH KELLY:  Call.  Yeah, that’s what I just said.
 
Q.  What will you do with the players to compensate for the quick turnaround?
COACH KELLY:  We’ll just have meetings today and then start our traditional Sunday game routine tomorrow orWednesday.  So they got in for treatment at 1:00, and then we’ve got position meetings and then they’re out of here.
 
Q.  Do you think Bradford’s ankle will be full go all week?
COACH KELLY:  Sam’s fine.
 
Q.  Did you see anything from Sam in the first half that said to you ‑‑ we watched it on film ‑‑ this is his first game in two years or however long it’s been, things that he wasn’t quite picking up or actions in the pocket, anything like that?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, I think there are a couple throws.  But I don’t know if it’s because it’s his first game in two years, that he wants back.  But that’s natural when you don’t complete the pass or it’s not located where you want it.  But I don’t think it’s because he didn’t play in two years.  I thought he was extremely accurate in the other games he played, whether it be in the Ravens game or whether it be in the Packers game.  So I don’t attribute it to the two years.  But there are throws there in the first half where we weren’t as crisp as we were in the second half.
 
Q.  Health‑wise, how did you come out otherwise?
COACH KELLY:  Good, I’ll know more when I meet with the trainers after this meeting today.
 
Q.  WR Seyi Ajirotutu came off the field last night.  I’m assuming he had to go through the concussion protocol?
COACH KELLY:  I’ll meet with the trainers after this and get all the information.  You can ask me all those questionstomorrow and I’ll answer every single one of them.
 
Q.  Is there any frustration the fact that Bradford only had 13 yards or was it simply ‑‑
COACH KELLY:  We’re concerned with moving the ball down the field.  So at the end of the day whether we rush it for 399 yards or pass it for 399 yards, whatever, that’s not my concern.  What’s the distribution? It’s are we moving the football and getting the ball into the end zone is what we’re concerned with. How we get it there isn’t a concern for us.
 
Q.  What did the pass‑rushers need to do? I know they were max protecting a lot, but what did they need to do in those situations?
COACH KELLY:  I think you need to get off the blocks.  You’ve got to understand the difference between when it’s play‑action pass and once you realize that it is pass, you stop from being a run defender and turning into a pass‑rusher.  Just kind of the transition aspect of it.  They did do a good job of max protecting, but we still have to beat that.  You can’t say hey, they’re protecting with ‘X’ amount of guys so we’re never going to get to the quarterback.  So he can stand back there and pick and choose when he’s going to throw the football.
 
Q.  Are you going to sign anybody to take RB Raheem Moster’s spot on the practice squad?
COACH KELLY:  Yeah, we have a couple guys we’ll take a look at and finalize that.  But we haven’t finalized anything in terms of what we’re going to do.  But we do have to bring in another practice squad player because Raheem got picked up to go to Miami’s 53.