Blue White Illustrated

2 0 1 8 S E A S O N P R E V I E W challenge offenses – have everything to defend what people do, but keep it at a level for these players where they can learn it and play fast. A lot of people talk about teaching concepts where, once they know it, you can plug it into differ- ent calls and it's going to look different to the offense, but the concept is the same for 10 guys on the defense. So we try to do that. We try not to create new things. Both safeties and the corners, you've got the same technique. But for the outside linebackers, it's a new wrinkle. Then maybe in another call, for the safeties it's a wrinkle, but for everybody else it's a technique they already know. So the learning is cut down a little bit, but you're able to dial up the things that you need. You've just got to be good at what you do and have enough in the toolbox. I think our league is challenging because we see multiple tight ends, multiple backs, and then at the same time we see spread and the RPOs and the reads. So we have to make sure that we can be good against all the styles that we see in this league. To do that, you have to spend enough time at just a few things to get good at them. BWI But as the athleticism increases, can't it negate some of those complica- tions? PRY I think so. Probably the easiest example is what everybody talks about. Can you get a four-man rush or not? If you've got dudes up front and can rush four, you don't really have to pressure. If you play coverage and rush four and your [linemen] are better than theirs up front, at least at two or three of the four spots, you're going to get home. And it's that way across the board. Sometimes you look out there and you know what direction you want to send your group. Do you want to be vanilla with them? A lot of it goes through that commander on the field, that Jason Cabinda-type of guy who [gives you the confidence to] make a call to or change a call before the ball is snapped. BWI Do you have that guy? PRY Still working on that. I think we can. We've got some good candidates. I don't know. Jason had a lot of snaps doing it. Is somebody going to come in there as well-versed as him and as confident as him at doing it? I don't know. But can I have the same amount of confidence in somebody? I think so. I think there are some guys there who can do that. BWI Let's talk about your personnel, starting with the guys up front. PRY I like the pool of guys we have at defensive tackle. I think that we can be as good, or better, in a different way. When you look at the group collectively, when you look at the production potential, we're going to be stronger in some areas at D-tackle this year than we were last year. Will we have as much experience in the first three or four guys? No. But I think we have a chance to be more pro- ductive and have a little bit more depth. We're just not quite as experienced. At defensive end, I think we've cer- tainly got some depth there. We've got a good group of guys, a bunch of them competing for a starting job and to be in that two-deep. BWI Do you have a starting group in mind yet? PRY I really don't. I think there are some guys who haven't started a game here who are going to push the guys who have. I'm excited to see them compete in camp and see where this thing shakes out by the first game. BWI At linebacker, you know coming out of spring practice what the pieces are. It just looks like the question is where to put them. PRY I'm excited about the unit. There's some development that has oc- curred with some guys that has me ex- cited. Koa [Farmer] is playing in the boundary as well now. He wasn't very healthy down the stretch at all for sev- eral weeks. I think you'll see an improve- ment there. I think Cam Brown has turned a corner. This is his time to be the player that he can be. I'm excited about Cam. He plays the game the way you're supposed to play it. He's going to run by people and put his pads on them. He's confident right now. We've just got to keep him healthy. Jarvis Miller is up to 225 pounds, and he's really become a linebacker, an outside guy. Jan Johnson – everything that we were excited about with Brandon Smith as a guy who walked on, I think there's every [reason] to be just as excited about Jan. He's a different style of player than Smitty, but I think he brings as much to the table right now as Smitty did. Ellis Brooks is a guy who's explosive. He really flashes, does some things. Of course, you've got Micah [Parsons] and Jesse [Luketa], two freshmen I'm re- ally excited about. Micah's rush ability is the best of any freshman I've ever been around. He's able to play fast despite not knowing what the heck he's doing. He hasn't let his mind slow him down. He can be wrong and make himself right. Jesse is a big, fluid athlete, very cerebral, sees the game very well, a lot of maturity. Dae'Lun Darien is out there at the field. And Cam Brown can now play Sam, Mike and Will. Koa can play Sam and Will. Micah is a Will. Jesse is a Mike and a Will. Jarvis is a Sam. Dae'Lun is a Sam. Jake Cooper can play Mike and Will. Ellis is a Mike. So we've got flexibility. We've got some guys, and then we still have Charlie Katshir coming in, who I am ex- cited about as well. Jake has a lot of intangibles. You would like to think that he would have more snaps under his belt at this point. Un- fortunately, he doesn't. He's got a very strong determination to make some- thing of his last year. It's just going to be very competitive for those guys. There just aren't enough reps to go around, I don't think. But he's a worker, he's smart, he's got intangibles, he's got a decent skill set, so he's certainly a guy who's in the mix. BWI In the secondary, you lost a num- ber of guys to the NFL but still return a lot of experience. PRY We still have some experienced guys, between John Reid and Amani [Oruwariye] and Tariq [Castro-Fields]. Tariq played a lot of ball last year, and he's one of the guys, to be honest, that we're more excited about than ever. So you've got three guys there. We've got a newcomer, Donovan Johnson, who really showed a lot this spring at corner. And then you've got a bunch of guys at safety who we've been grooming. Just like Troy

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