Q. Mason Rudolph is your starting quarterback today. What do you need from him in order for the team to leave here with a victory?
A. We need him to be aggressive. He doesn't need to live in fear or play that way. Certainly, we've got to be prudent in terms of protection of the ball, but there's a balance there. We spent some time talking about it, but I think it's in his natural wheelhouse. He's a confident and aggressive guy by nature. Whenever called upon he's always been aggressive in terms of throwing the ball vertically. That's an asset, and that's one of the reasons why I'm comfortable calling on him and going with him today.
Q. When making a change at quarterback at this point of the season for performance reasons, do you consider how the change will be received by the rest of the team?
A. I think that's always some component of decision-making, but more than anything, particularly at this juncture of the season, everybody knows that the moves we're making are made for our collective betterment. We're not scoring enough points, particularly this time of the year when you're leaning in as the road gets narrow. And so we felt change was necessary in an effort to pursue more points and to produce more points.
Q. One of the things you said at your news conference was, "I think it's important as we formulate a plan this week, that we're really thoughtful about the configuration of people that we have at our disposal and making sure that they're capable of delivering what we're asking them to do." How does that apply to Rudolph, since you haven't seen him start a regular season game in over two years? (Nov. 14, 2021, vs. Detroit)
A. There's some low-hanging fruit, there's high-volume things that have been a component of what we do for a number of years, a long period of time. That's stuff that is within his wheelhouse, whether or not he's been repping it of late and having a lot of in-helmet perspective. Some of our concepts, some of our base concepts, particularly situational ones, are time-tested. And there's a cumulative experience, or exposure that should be an asset.
Q. When you win the opening coin toss, what are the things that factor into the decision to defer or take the football?
A. It depends on environment. When you're playing outdoors, weather is a component this time of year and windage and so forth, then that's a factor. When you're in pristine environments, sometimes it's just how you feel about the nature of the matchups offensively and defensively, which unit you feel has a leg up, or how you want to start the game from a rhythm perspective.
Q. What goes into blocking a punt in the NFL?
A. To be quite honest with you, if you put all the global blocks from a season or from a number of seasons in the NFL on a reel, usually it's protection negligence. And so we're thoughtful about the schematics that we design where we deploy unique people, guys like Myles Killebrew, who have a skill-set for it. And it doesn't lessen our desire to design blocks and go after them. At the end of the day, when you really look at it, oftentimes it's not the schematics of the people on the block team. Usually it's some form of negligence from the protection team. Now that negligence can be produced by schematics, pre-snap stems, and movement-relocation of people, over-emphasis on quality people. And really, that's probably what happened last weekend (in Indianapolis). We put Myles Killebrew in one A-gap, we crossed the long-snapper's face to the other A-gap. The long-snapper and the personal protector took (Killebrew), because Miles has a reputation (for blocking punts), and that created an opportunity for Connor Heyward.
Q. From a schematic standpoint, is it a situation where the play is created for one guy to actually block the kick, or is it more like a free-for-all to the punter?
A. It's almost always more than one guy, but it can be one guy. Sometimes you have combination rushes and returns, where you set up a portion or most of the unit in terms of the return, but you might fire one guy to try to get him to a block point, or fire a couple of guys to get them to a block point. And so it can be as little or as few as one (guy) in combination returns. And then in extreme circumstances, you can send quite a few people, all-out if you will, knowing that everyone's not going to get to the block point. You know, I've seen lower levels of football where you get multiple people to the block point, and it causes problems for the block unit. That doesn't happen on Sundays usually. And so we're very comfortable sending multiple people.
Q. When it's a PAT or a field goal, is it the same principles at work to block that kind of kick?
A. I think that play has changed quite a bit in recent years because of the protection that the long-snapper gets. There's more operation time in the punt game, there's more space, more vertical space, and so there are more avenues and opportunities to win and get home. In the field goal game, it's a little bit more troublesome if you're trying to get to a block point.
Q. What has made your kick-blocking units successful?
A. We work over a 12-month calendar. In terms of establishing that component of our game, it starts as early as the early stages of team development in the spring. Just simply doing block drills and filming it and seeing how people move their hands to the block point, who keeps their eyes open, who closes their eyes, who has a natural skill-set in that area. And then we build from there. We cast a big net, we teach some global things, and we kind of build from there. More than anything it is probably our commitment to the development of the process over the course of a 12-month calendar.
Q. Neither of your top two safeties – Minkah Fitzpatrick nor Damontae Kazee – are available today, and Trenton Thompson didn't practice on Tuesday or Wednesday, and on Thursday he was listed as out of the game. That means a guy who could be making his debut is Eric Rowe, a ninth-year pro who has spent time with Philadelphia, New England, and Miami. How would you describe him as a player?
A. Versatile. I've seen him a lot over the years. As a matter of fact, I remember when he came out of Utah in the draft. We brought him in on a predraft visit. We liked his skill-set. He played corner in college, but he was physical. He had safety-like size. We were acknowledging that he could have been a crossover player, or a guy who could definitively be a safety later in his career. You fast forward nine years, and those feelings and thoughts that we had about him have proven to be true. He's earned his bones in this league, initially as an outside corner or bump-and-run corner, a big corner, if you will. He was at Utah before a guy that we drafted named Brian Allen, if you remember a few years back. And so Utah has specialized in the big corner, and during the course of his career, (Rowe) moved inside, became a sub-package defender who was matched up on tight ends on third down and so forth, and then eventually moved to safety. So he's a guy who has a global understanding of what goes on in the back end. He has played all over the secondary. He's a 9-year veteran, as you mentioned. So we feel like that skill-set, that experience will be an asset to him and to us, as he gets elevated and gets an opportunity to play today.
Q. Is Patrick Peterson a candidate to be in the mix at safety as well?
A. He's more than a candidate. He finished the game for us at safety a week ago, and so we'll probably call on him in a variety of ways. But again, if you think back to the spring, that was one of the reasons why we were really interested in him in terms of free agency. His versatility was Cam Sutton-like, and he does a lot of the things that Cam Sutton had done for us in terms of, in ideal circumstances, being an interchangeable part in terms of some zone mixes, being able to play inside and provide variation to some schemes, if you will. But also in a pinch, like we're in right now, being able to play inside. And so we valued his versatility. We appreciate the experience and versatility of Eric Rowe. All of that's going to be tested here today.
Q. The Bengals use a 4-man defensive front, and their two ends are Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard. Using the Batman and Robin analogy, who is Batman, and what makes him Batman?
A. No. 9-1, without a doubt, and that's not taking anything away from Sam Hubbard. Hubbard is a good rusher. He's an aware guy. But No. 91 has been doing it at a high level. He did it in New Orleans (at the start of his career) at a high level. The Bengals identified that and purchased that in free agency. He signed a big contract, and he has delivered since he's been (in Cincinnati). He's on that premium matchup side, oftentimes matching up against left tackles on quarterbacks blind sides. He's third in the league in sacks. There's a consistency to his production, and it makes him Batman, definitively.
Q. Specifically, how does Hendrickson get it done?
A. He's got a two-hand swipe (move). He's good with power. He's got a nice repertoire. It's not a big or diverse repertoire, but the things that he does, he lands and lands with big-time regularity.
Q. In the first meeting between these teams this season, the Bengals were without WR Tee Higgins, and today they will be without WR Ja'Marr Chase. In that kind of a situation, might the Bengals use Higgins in ways to compensate for not having Chase, or are they a couple of unique players who are different in what they bring to the offense and how they're utilized within the offense?
A. I really think the answers lie when they have both (Chase and Higgins). When they have both, they're interchangeable parts based on concept. Tyler Boyd is almost exclusively inside, and so they move Chase and Higgins around when they're both available. It makes sense that they would move one around when the other is available. We experienced that the last time we played them. They moved Chase around to Higgins-like things when they wanted to make Higgins-like throws. And so there's an anticipation from our perspective that if Chase is missing, they're going to move Higgins around. And so that puts a big-time emphasis on the guy who remains. But as I mentioned here at the front end of this, there's a guy named Tyler Boyd, who is a savvy, quality NFL veteran. And I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that component of it, and acknowledge that he's probably gonna be a big component of what they do whenever one of those other guys that we were talking about is missing. And we had that mentality the first time we played them, and we'll share that mentality this time. Sure, there's a guy missing, but Tyler Boyd can impact games in a big way. He'll have our attention from a prep standpoint, from a schematic standpoint, particularly in possession-down circumstances.
Q. From a skill-set perspective, what makes Higgins special?
A. Combat catches. He gets down the grass in a one-on-one circumstance, and you can see it in terms of some of the plays he made last week against the Minnesota Vikings. I mean that big-time play he made in a 2-minute drill before halftime, that big-time play he made it the end of the game. He's a "small forward," as we say in this thing. He is a one-on-one matchup guy, he's a 50-50 ball guy. You know, we use those terms, 50-50 ball guy. Under ideal circumstances, it's 50-50. He catches more than his share. And that's the skill-set.
