GREEN BAY – The Packers' coordinators met with the media Thursday. Here's a sampling of their key comments.
Special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia
On new K Lucas Havrisik:
He had a great workout first of all, and he's got a big leg. Obviously he played pretty well. Really a credit also to Daniel (Whelan). Daniel's been through a bunch of different kickers here, to be able to get with him and hold it the right way and get the laces the right way and the lean, particularly in the wind that we had in this past game, it was really well done by him, as well. So credit to Lucas and his mindset, his mental toughness, to be able to come in that situation and play well.
On Arizona's return game:
They got a good returner (in Greg Dortch) first off. He's fast. He's kind of a fearless guy. He wants to make a play, especially in the punt return game. They've had a couple different guys back there in kickoff return, and I think they've had two good shots out of the box as well.
On removing Matthew Golden for Romeo Doubs on punt return:
Just be careful about, I didn't pull anybody. Just, we made a switch. Not to mention that I think Matthew had two big, explosive plays in there … sometimes you have to pay attention how many plays they're playing on offense, how many plays they're playing on defense to what you do. So we just kind of made that switch, and it was in a red zone. We talked about last week, Rome, playing in the red zone, I thought he made two really good decisions back there. He put himself in position to block, and ended up being a touchback. And then he had one going forward for us out of the red zone. So Matthew Golden's still in the process of being a punt returner.
Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley
On the second-half struggles:
You have to go game by game. You can't look at it like a collective. Because some of those points are scored differently in the fourth quarter of some games than in other games … Are we executing as good in that quarter as we did the first three quarters? And some we are, some we're not, right? It's just the way each game goes, and why? Gosh, we play so hard, when I watch our film. Are we playing as hard in the fourth quarter? At times we are, and if we're not and we look tired, why? We open up the half and go on a really long drive where we couldn't get off the field on third down. Do we need to be in better shape? Do we need to roll guys in and out of games more. Certainly it's different game by game. And then did their players make some plays? It's happened in games. There's been some really good plays. So you look through all that, and then the key I think is consistency over time. What can we do better? What can we be more consistent at? What can I do better? And you search in all those different ways and we'll work through it. To me the goal is to play a complete football game, whether that's in the first quarter, the second, third or fourth, I don't want to have a bad first quarter and give up a ton of points and play good in the second, third or fourth.
On positioning of S Xavier McKinney:
We've moved him around and today we talked about plans to move him around. He's got the ability on calls to put himself in different positions too. One of his favorite things to do is to be in that middle spot because he kind of gets to roam around and play football. But absolutely we can move him around on certain calls and drop him into certain areas. He has the green light on multiple calls to put himself into those situations, for sure.
On teams making quick throws to move the ball:
The Bengals threw the ball like 45 times for a little over 200 yards. You're not going to score points doing that. I mean, you know how you score points in this league? It's throwing explosive pass plays. That's how you score over 18 points per game. You're not going to do that going up and down the field the whole game. You've got to hit explosive pass plays, which is what we still need to eliminate. I think they hit three plays for 19, or two plays for 19 yards. Those are the ones that get down the field on you and then they score points. We've got to continue to play good against the run, like we have. We've got to change things up, for sure, so we get aggressive at times, which we called a lot of different stuff in that second half. But you're not going to give up a lot of points if they do that.
On Cardinals TE Trey McBride:
Yeah, he's a great player. I think he's one of the best tight ends in the league. I remember coming off the field last year really being impressed with him. He's a lot faster than you think and he looks faster on the field than he does on tape, and he's strong and he's explosive and he's got good hands and he plays with the right mentality and mindset. I love the way he plays football. They do a lot of things; it's not just in the dropback game, it's in the play-action game. They run a lot of deep crossers with him, they run a lot of intermediate routes with him, they run screens to him, they run RPOs to him, so they use him like a wide receiver and not just like a tight end, and they try to feed him the ball as much as they can.
On Cardinals QB Jacoby Brissett's performance last week in Indy:
In the play-action game, I thought their staff did a really nice job. They schemed up some explosives across the field that he hit off the play-action game. I thought they got the ball out of his hand, he made some good, quick decisions. Even under pressure, they pressured him quite a bit, and he made some really quick plays, some good plays. He kept some alive. He's played a lot of football. Tough, stands in the pocket. He's got a strong arm, he knows where he's going with it. They had a good day and a chance to win it on the last play, on the last pass. I was impressed watching his tape.
Offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich
On the strong fourth-quarter offense and answering when you have to:
One thing, our run game in the second half has been a lot better than it has been in the first half, so as the game progresses we get the run game going – at least that's been the trend in the last few games. And then also it's just guys, as the game goes, making adjustments and going and making plays. It's been fun.
That's a testament to our players. There's no flinch to these guys. Whatever the situation is, they're going to play their hardest, they're going to go out and try to score points, so that's just been cool to watch that as the game progresses. Whatever happens, we just keep that same mindset of being aggressive and trying to go score points.
On Jordan Morgan playing most of the game at RG:
He's been good. It'll be nice to just keep him there hopefully for a little bit and let him just hone into the fundamentals and things that go into that position. But he's strong, he has really good recovery skills in pass protection, and just working on his length and just using his length and his power. That's one thing I want to see from him for sure as we keep going.
We just wanted to give him a shot there and just see how it went. It's not like a done competition or anything like that. It's a weekly thing that we're going to keep going with.
On Jordan Love's mobility:
It's been huge and he's always done a pretty nice job with that, just trying to create time in the pocket, but it's been good to see him kind of get out, use his legs and scramble for some first downs, too. I think that puts a lot of stress on defenses, when a quarterback has that ability to just extend plays but then also get some explosive plays down the field. It changes how you can cover people, so it's been great to see it. He's an athletic guy and I think that just adds a good element to our offense, for sure.
On Elgton Jenkins hitting his stride at C:
He has. He has. Yeah, he had a rough game a few weeks back, but he's done a good job and he obviously has very high standards for himself, as we all have high standards for him because he's a very good player. But it's been fun to watch him own the center position, it's been awhile since he's kind of been in that role so it's been good, to see him take control of that and he's done a nice job.
