GREEN BAY – The Packers' offensive assistant coaches met with the media Monday. Here's a sampling of their key comments.
Passing game coordinator Jason Vrable
On Savion Williams:
When you go back to his college tape, he's always been a guy who's (got) a huge catch radius. He's a big, big guy, who has good speed. But I would say the best thing that he's shown this year thus far has been his hands. His catch radius has been great. He's been catching the ball, strong, aggressive hands. And when he gets his one-on-one ops, he's won those. Every once in a while we give it to him in the run game. He had an explosive run last week, but he's a big guy who can block, and I think he's matured a lot in our offense. What I mean by that is, he finally understands the playbook the way that we need him to know it, and he's built a lot of confidence. You can see when he's running around out there.
On Christian Watson:
He's taking care of his body first and foremost. But he's also taking care of his mind, right? He's proven himself in practice that he's going to run that route for Jordan the exact timing, the exact steps, and the exact speed you need to. So, like I said, he's playing at a high level right now. I'm happy for him to finally get some respect that I do believe that he deserves. Because he's done some good things over the years, and just got to keep stacking them and just one play at a time and one game for him. He still left some out there over the last couple weeks, and he knows that. I think that's where the growth has come. So I love where he's at right now.
Quarterbacks coach/assistant head coach Luke Getsy
On how Jordan Love is feeling physically:
Obviously, you don't want him to get hit. I think we've had games where he has gotten hit and we've had games where he hasn't. There's been a few games where he's walked away feeling really good, too. So, that's just part of it. Whether it's him getting the ball out of his hand quickly or whether it's adjusting the protection and whatever we can do, and then there's a little more continuity going on up front, too. These first couple weeks have been pretty crazy from our perspective. I think all of that is nicely coming together and the continuity's going to help and I think it has helped.
On little things helping his success:
Jordan does a great job with his eyes. He manipulates the defense. When you have these in-breakers, if you're staring it down, that's when bad things usually happen. So you've got to do a great job of manipulating the defense with your eyes, and I think you see that each and every week a little bit more and more with him. And then timing and rhythm. If you're on time, you've got a great chance to be successful with it, and he's been on time with his feet.
Offensive line coach Luke Butkus
On John Williams taking over at center:
Losing two centers in the first drive of a game on the road, silent cadence? John's very humble. Unbelievable job. Not only just managing the game, getting the snap count and blocking really good rushers. That's a huge deal. There's no play that can be run unless the center gets the ball to the quarterback and he did a fine job of that.
He just has a calmness to him of knowing what to do, very smart on the calls, managing the offense. Physically, he'll be the first one to tell you there's some things he's gotta get better at. But as far as managing the game, he's done a good job the last two weeks.
On the struggles with run blocking:
The first thing we do in this offense, we talk about it in the run game is playing on their side of the line of scrimmage; coming off the ball. When you don't, you kind of see it. You can see it from the sideline. Looks like a piano, all the different keys. We want to play with one set of eyes, one group all coming off the ball at the same time. Attacking our aiming points and we just need to be more consistent with it.
On Anthony Belton moving from RG to RT:
That's a credit to him and it's a credit to the guys in the room. You're not allowed to be … you can have bad days and a bad practice or a bad rep, but the guys in that room don't let you stay down. You've got to find a way to get back to work and pick yourself up and find a way. Just no excuses and coming back to work every day, and he's done that. The awareness that he's had to build to play right tackle now after not winning that job at right guard, that's a credit to him.
Tight ends coach John Dunn
On Mark Redman:
He's done a great job learning on the fly. You come in there's a lot to learn. He's a pro. He gets better with every game and that's the cool part to see. But he's a smart, tough, physical guy that's played multiple roles for us. And hopefully he just continues to get better and better.
On Tucker Kraft rounding into form:
He gets more and more comfortable daily, right? Just getting in his flow, the routine, nothing can replace game day. So the other part, production is so much more than ball production. Number of catches, yards, touchdowns, those are all byproducts of doing the right thing, the right coverage, hitting it at the right time, so some of those things are out of your control. But to brag on him, I mean, he's doing some things better than he has done. That might be pass protection, that might be some of these other areas where it might not be out there for the world to see.
Running backs coach Ben Sirmans
On what the RBs can do to help the run game:
The biggest thing is we just gotta be ready to break more tackles. I think that's one of the important things in it, making sure that we continue to see things the right way when they're presented to us in the run game when the seams and the holes are there … making sure that we're all just collectively together from runners to the blocking unit, making sure that everybody just unifies together and like I said, we just gotta break more tackles.
On the impact of all the O-line changes:
A line is better when they work together for a long period of time and when they can make calls among themselves and have a great feel for each other. And you can see that with lines that have been together for quite a while, but everybody's a pro and … what we're doing now is not sustainable and we just gotta figure it out. And then the good thing about it, it's week to week, it's game to game and that's all it takes is just one game for us to get right back on track with everything.
Wide receivers coach Noah Pauley
On coaching Matthew Golden on the drops:
You obviously have to coach on the details of it, all the little things that could be causing issues for drops. But for me, I've always felt it's best to not just continue to hammer a guy and put it in front of his head. Hey, we've seen you do it, he's the first one over on the Jugs every single day, he works at it every single day. As you can see, 10 trusts him just as much to come back to him, so it's just something of his focus in the moment of truth when that ball's ahead of him.
On Savion Williams:
There's not many receivers that are that big, playing in the slot as well. Savion is a unique skill set. He's gotten a lot better at running routes, his details in running routes and being big and physical through that. But you also see that we can hand him the football, and he's dynamic with the ball in his hands. So it's just finding the best ways to get him the ball and get him involved. You look at a play, actually the play Christian got hurt on, he had a chip block on a defensive end. Those type of things that you can do to use him within your offense just gives you a lot more freedom.
On Christian Watson's first half:
I think he's just continued to grow as a player. Like you watch, the thing that sticks out the most for me with Christian is his run after the catch. When you get him on runaways, yeah, a lot of guys aren't catching him. But if he's catching these intermediate passes right now and he's breaking one tackle to get us five to seven to 12 more yards, whatever it may be, that's a big thing. I think that's something where he's grown in his game is taking pride in making sure that he's trying to make the first guy miss.
You've got the height and the speed, but it's his intelligence within the game. He's coming off to the sideline and telling us what he's seeing, what they're doing defensively. Hey, did I get caught on this coverage, did they go to this, I thought they rolled to this coverage. He's seeing it how you should see it as a receiver that's in your fifth, sixth year. He is seeing that type of stuff and that's why he's having so much success because the game's slowed down for him. Where he's not thinking about what route do I have, what release do I have to use. It is, all right, what coverage are they in, where is this ball going, how do I get myself open. That's the growth he's had, and that's been cool to see.
