Las Vegas Raiders DC Patrick Graham Cincinnati Bengals Week

Cincinnati Bengals On SI

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00:00Some football stuff to attend to, sorry for the delay.

00:05All you Dodger fans, I don't know if anyone has before, but whatever.

00:10I'm Cubs all day, Cubs all day.

00:15Good morning, Coach. Happy Halloween.

00:18I've maybe celebrated like three times in my life.

00:22Dressed up as ODB one time.

00:27ODB slash Obi-Wan Kenobi.

00:30So I did the Star Wars and Luke thing together.

00:33It was interesting, it was interesting.

00:36Alright, last question.

00:39Obviously, the Santana's a good player, DiMarce's still-

00:43Some good players.

00:45DiMarce's a very good receiver. What kind of chances does he present?

00:49Yeah, I mean, you know, he's one of the best in the league, you know.

00:54And if you want to argue he is the best, then I can't.

00:58I don't have a real strong rebuttal for that.

01:01You know, between him and Jefferson and some of the other guys.

01:04And then on top of that, they got a whole crew of receivers.

01:07They're all fast. They're all big.

01:09I think they've done a real good job in their personnel department.

01:11How they've shaped the team offensively.

01:14You know, given the quarterback who is elite.

01:17This is my first time going against him.

01:19And I'm really impressed with the quarterback in terms of his toughness.

01:23You know, before you start talking about just straight up the skill level.

01:26You're talking about the toughness he displays in the pocket.

01:29Sits in there, gets the ball down the field, steps in the throws.

01:32His intelligence out there. You can see him changing plays.

01:35And you can see they're all on the same page.

01:38The receivers, the whole line, the backs.

01:40So, you know, kudos to those guys in terms of what they've done with their personnel department.

01:44Putting those guys together.

01:46You can see there's some smart players out there.

01:48Not just because they have the Ivy League guy.

01:50But, you know, there's some smart players out there.

01:52That are really skilled and they present a ton of challenges.

01:55So it's going to be a tough one.

01:57I know it's probably not exciting trying to prepare for it.

01:59Oh, yes, it's exciting. I'm competitive.

02:01But I guess when you get to see a player for the first time like that.

02:04Dive in deep on a guy like Joe Burrow.

02:06Is that kind of a fun challenge for you?

02:08Yeah, it was fun.

02:09I mean, again, you know, on Monday you hear us talking in the office.

02:13Like some of the guys have gone against him before.

02:15I'm sitting there like, jeez, this dude's good, man.

02:18You know, and I'm smiling because of the challenge.

02:20I understand it causes a little later nights and some headaches, I guess.

02:23But I'm excited to go against him.

02:25He's a good player.

02:27And the backs, I'm real impressed with the backs.

02:29You know, Brown and Moss, I believe.

02:31I mean, in terms of their ability to get into the hole.

02:34Get to the second level.

02:35I think they've got a good combination.

02:37Again, I think the personnel department has done a good job.

02:39Of putting that group together.

02:42And they're obviously well coached.

02:44Yesterday Coach Pierce talked about a trademark area.

02:47And how playing in the box is a lot.

02:49And you're going to make more plays in the ball.

02:51I guess going into that transition for him, really.

02:53But mostly a post safety pass.

02:55And what kind of level of play have you seen from him last week?

02:58You know, football's a big man sport.

03:00You know, and he's a big man.

03:02So, like, get him down there in the air with the action.

03:04And the other thing is he's doing both.

03:06He's doing both.

03:07He's in the deep part of the field.

03:08He's down.

03:09That really comes with the position.

03:11You know, especially in today's league where you have to operate from some

03:14split safety looks.

03:15Drop it down.

03:16Stay in there.

03:17But, I mean, Trey's just grown as a football player.

03:20I think G.A.'s done a really good job.

03:21Chris Ash, when we got here two years ago,

03:24did a good job of bringing him along.

03:26And now G.A.'s there.

03:27And he's just really growing and maturing.

03:29And, again, like I've told you guys before, it's a choice they make.

03:32You know, a choice they make to say, okay, I'm a professional football player.

03:36I really don't have anything else to do except get good at football.

03:40And then you've got to put that work in.

03:41And real proud of the way he's done.

03:43And, you know, he's always had the skill level.

03:46And you're just starting to see him reap the rewards of his hard work.

03:49Real proud of that guy.

03:51Over the past couple of weeks,

03:52Max has obviously been dealing with that ankle injury.

03:54However, he still, you know, statistically,

03:56is ranked amongst one of the top-edge rushers in the league.

03:58You know, how impressive is it to see him still put in that effort?

04:01And how much of a standard message does that send to the rest of the locker room?

04:04Well, I don't talk about injuries as an assistant coach.

04:07But I'm always impressed with everything Max does.

04:10If you were around him as much as we are, you'd be impressed with everything.

04:14Whether it's a birthday party for his daughter.

04:16Whether it's how he operates in meetings.

04:19His prep, getting ready for a meeting.

04:21His prep in the walkthrough.

04:23Zeroed in, laser-focused.

04:25I'm always impressed with what he does.

04:27Physically, he can do anything out there on that field that he puts his mind to.

04:31And the beauty of it is he's always searching for more.

04:34He's always searching for 1% to get better.

04:36And that's not, as a coach,

04:38when you have an elite player like that that's eager to get better

04:41and wants the coaching, wants something to work on his craft,

04:45that makes my job easier.

04:47Coach, as far as Terry Wilson goes, he had his first back this past week.

04:51I'd like to talk about past games and his development,

04:55and how great was it to see him come through like that?

04:59The thing, when you're dealing with young edge rushers,

05:03or young rushers, D-line,

05:05again, in my opinion, unless you're truly, truly like elite speed,

05:09elite speed,

05:11it takes some adjusting to our game,

05:13because they've never been blocked before.

05:18Again, I'm patient.

05:19I can't speak for everybody out there in the world for being patient,

05:22but he's been working hard on getting his hand placement right,

05:26getting his eyes in the right place,

05:28playing with a good base,

05:29shoring up his base,

05:30because he had to get a little stronger down there in his lower body.

05:34I'm just happy that he's reaping the rewards.

05:36To me, the rewards aren't necessarily just getting sacks all the time.

05:39I understand, because they're on Twitter.

05:41People are talking.

05:42I get that.

05:43I mean, the sacks are the sexy thing to get,

05:45but he's gotten pressure.

05:47He's pushed back guards, centers during his time here,

05:50but of course I love him when they get a sack.

05:53I know he would agree with me on this one, though.

05:55I love him more if we get a win,

05:57so that's why we've got to start stacking those.

06:00What sort of a relief was it when Spillane was able to come right back

06:03to the game?

06:06No different than whether it's the fans,

06:08the players out there on the field, Spill himself.

06:11I mean, you want the guy to come back, obviously,

06:14but nobody's going to care about my feelings,

06:16so I don't really get caught up in relief or sadness or happiness.

06:20I'm always happy to have the best players out there,

06:22and Spill's one of our best players,

06:24so I was just happy that he was okay.

06:26That's the main thing for me.

06:28But a sense of relief.

06:29I mean, the game is going to keep going on,

06:31so Spill wouldn't want me to sit there and worry about it.

06:36You mentioned Yosha Vos was an Ivy League player.

06:39Oh, yeah.

06:40We're looking at Princeton as Ivy League.

06:42I don't think this is Harvard.

06:43Yeah, it is.

06:44H-Y-P.

06:45I mean, you know, it's H-Y-P, Harvard, Yale, Princeton.

06:49There's only one that's really, really the best.

06:52I mean, we all know that.

06:54Any last questions, guys?

06:56Coach, you talk about stacking up wins,

06:58your defense is doing their part on their end.

07:02How much more do you think that they have to do

07:04in order to help get this team that win?

07:07Our part as a defense is to keep them from having less points than our offense.

07:13So that's our part.

07:14So that's all that matters.

07:18It always matters.

07:19That, in terms of on Sundays,

07:21between Sundays is about improving and winning the day.

07:24So today we've got a big day today, Thursday.

07:26There was great energy in the room today.

07:28There was great energy in the walkthrough.

07:29I'm excited to see how practice goes today

07:32and see how we win Thursday today

07:34and then get into meetings later and win those meetings right there.

07:37But our job, and it hasn't changed, is always to keep the offense,

07:41to keep the opposing team's offense from having less points than our offense

07:45or points than the team.

07:47So that's our job.

07:48So that job description will never change for us.

07:51I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but that's how I operate.

07:55You can see I'm not tensed up, but that's our job.

07:58I don't care how many points we got.

07:59I keep them down.

08:00I lost you up front.

08:01Third down often gets a lot of focus,

08:03but how important is it going to be this week for the limit

08:05that Cincinnati's success on those early downs

08:07so you can put yourself in positions where they unleash that defense?

08:10It's going to be critical.

08:12It's going to be critical.

08:13You can see the effects.

08:15I mean, that has lived in the past,

08:16but last week when we didn't get off the field, we made them snap it again,

08:19but we didn't get off the field.

08:20We eliminated the early-down explosives,

08:22but we didn't do what we've been doing all year.

08:26So I got to fix that in terms of I got to do a better job calling it.

08:31I got to do a better job putting the guys in the right position,

08:34but to go 75% on third down last week, what they did, that's unacceptable.

08:39I mean, you get called the principal's office on that one.

08:43We can't do that one.

08:45No, no, no.

08:46Before you started speaking,

08:48you were talking about your very interesting Halloween costume that you had.

08:51Amongst the locker room, just kind of seeing people come in today and yesterday,

08:55what do you think is the best Halloween costume in the locker room this year?

08:57Oh, man.

08:58Again, you guys are getting to know me three years.

09:02I maybe remember one of them, but I can't remember now.

09:05I'm worried about Joe Burrow.

09:08If one of them came in dressed like Joe Burrow, that would be frightening.

09:11You know what I mean?

09:13Shit, he's here today.

09:14Sorry about that.

09:16All right, thanks, everybody.

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