Ron Rivera Presser Transcript - Jaguars

[Jeremy Igo]

RE: Being the winningest coach in Carolina Panthers history for regular season wins
It’s kind of cool. It truly is a tribute to our team. I’ve been very fortunate with Mr. Richardson giving me
my opportunity, and he stood by me and I was able to get past my third season. Then the players that
we have had have been tremendous. The coaches – I’ve been very fortunate enough to have great
coaching staffs with guys like that. Mr. Tepper with the things he has given us and the opportunities he
is creating for this football team to get better, it’s pretty exciting. I’m just very fortunate. To my family –
I’m very fortunate with my family with my parents, my brothers and my wife Stephanie and kids who
have been with me the whole way. It feels pretty good. It really does. It’s cool.

RE: Offensive line today
Awesome. Those guys, they’re coached by John Matsko and Travelle Wharton, guys who have been with
me a long time. They do a hell of a job with our guys. We talked all week, you guys wanted to know who
was going to start, I told you they were going to play. I didn’t tell you who was going to start. They do a
heck of a job with those guys. It just shows you when you continue to work hard, you have a group of
guys who do the things that they need to do, they can create some running lanes and they did that. They
did a heck of a job. We have some backs that can hit and go. Very happy for Christian [McCaffrey] who
played the way he continues to play. It was good to see Reggie [Bonnafon] get his opportunities. You
know, Reggie Bonnafon is a guy who earned an opportunity last year to be on our practice squad
because of how he played in the preseason. We watched him and he grew and grew and continues to
grow. Jake Peetz does a nice job with those running backs. Again, we got an opportunity to see a guy go
out there and contribute so it was really cool.

RE: Do you have another word to describe Christian McCaffrey?
You guys keep pulling from that thesaurus. There is a whole bunch of words you can use to describe the
way he plays and the amount of energy he plays with. That first drive and the one he finished that first
drive with was pretty spectacular as well. Again, just a tribute to those guys who are on our football
team.

RE: Brian Burns’ game today
He had his moments. He got a little tired as did all our guys. This game was something else. It’s a tribute
to Jacksonville. You can’t count that team out. They have a dynamic young quarterback. Apparently, that
seems to be the thing that is going on throughout this league. There is a lot of young, dynamic
quarterbacks that are making a name for themselves and they’ve got one, with a lot of playmakers around him. Burns is really growing into his position. He has a good group of guys around him too that he feeds off of. Guys like Mario [Addison], Bruce [Irvin] and then the big guys up front. Those guys are
doing a heck of a job pushing. He is going to grow into something special. He has a way to go but he is
going to contribute and he is going to continue to contribute for us.

RE: Relationship developing between Brian Burns and Mario Addison this season
It’s not necessarily just Mario, but when you really watch the way he works., that group of guys are
learning to use each other and work with each other. I think it’s just learning and understanding who
you are lining up next too. Really, there is a lot of that unsaid communication that shows you that when
you work together and work as hard as they do together, they are going to continue to create those
things. It was a lot of fun to watch today and see the things that happened.

RE: Use of Curtis Samuel as a decoy to create opportunities for Christian McCaffrey
Again, it’s just one of those things that happens with the zip. Anytime you get to the outside edge, they
have to respect. If they don’t, we will hand it to him. We have shown we will hand it to him and that’s all
it takes. Again, that’s enough to freeze or hold that guy and you can put it in the running backs hands. If
you don’t have to put it in the running backs’ hands because they aren’t honoring him, we will get Curtis
around the edge on them. It’s very important that the guys understand that you have to do your job, do
it 100%, full speed and it creates the illusion that you may get the ball.

RE: What did Norv Turner do to get Christian McCaffrey into the one on one matchups against
linebackers?
I think we reacted to what they were doing. They were running a lot of man pressures, a lot of man
coverages. As soon as they put him outside, and you saw a linebacker go out there, that’s a pretty
favorable matchup for us. That’s what happened. It was pretty evident that as soon as we got him
outside on the edge, and you saw the linebackers run out there, you knew you had man coverage. That
was a matter of getting the ball to Christian as quickly as possible.

RE: Whether he can you put into perspective what Christian McCaffrey has done so far?
No, it’s hard to put it into perspective. He is a tremendous football player. He is a hard worker. He is a
guy who just plays the game with such passion and he is a heck of a guy. We are very fortunate to have
him on our football team.

RE: A lack of sacks and the ability of the defense to keep getting takeaways at the key moments?
It’s crazy because we cut our guys loose. We didn’t drop any of them. We tried to put them into rush
lanes and he was able to filter his way through a couple times. A couple times he got the ball out early.
We made some mistakes too, defensively, in the secondary which is surprising. I was a little
disappointed in our inconsistency as a coverage unit. We allowed ourselves to get out of flight**(5:59) a
couple times. We were close on a couple plays, but close gets you beat. We’ve got to go back and look
at these things and get these things corrected.

RE: Joey Slye misses; a lot of penetration from Jacksonville
Yes, there was. That is something we’ve got to take a look at and we’ve got to get that shored up. You
can’t have that. We made that game harder on us than we really needed to. We left seven points for
sure on the field, and potentially fourteen. We can’t do that and expect to beat good teams. We were
fortunate today that we were able to get ahead and stay ahead.

RE: Did you think Joey Slye was trying to kick around a blocker?

No. I think he may have felt that and hurried himself through. It’s one of those things that once it
happens once, it’s one of those things that he may have sped up his times. It will be interesting to see
what Chase [Blackburn] tells me because Chase will let me know what the times were and if he sped up
he was probably feeling the pressure.

RE: Kyle Allen’s performance today
I thought he did some really good things. He has to understand he doesn’t have to drop the ball on the
first series. The fortunate thing was it bounced back to him. I thought he did some good things. He
missed some opportunities and he knows it. That’s the best thing. But once he got a good feel for them,
I think he operated pretty well. It took a little bit to get comfortable because this team brought a lot of
pressure, a lot of man pressure. When that happens, things change, and I think he adjusted well. I think
he handled it all the way down throughout the game.

RE: Reaction from team towards Reggie Bonnafon in locker room
I’m telling you, it was really cool. Again, this is a young man who made the team based on what he did
last year in the preseason. He made the practice squad. We told him we were going to give him an
opportunity to be a running back. He was a kid in college who played quarterback, who played wide
receiver, who played running back and never really knew where he would fit. He came out and had a
great training camp this year, make our 53. It was just a matter of him getting opportunities. We got a
good young stable of backs, led by Christian [McCaffrey] and Reggie [Bonnafon] and Jordan [Scarlett]
and Elijah [Holyfield]. We have some good young guys who eventually are going to get their
opportunities. They just have to continue to work like Reggie has and get themselves on the field.

RE: Does this win feel like the wins from earlier in your career with a lot of rushing yards and creating
turnovers?
Yes. It’s one of those things that we continue to work on and stress. You have to be able to run the ball
successfully. If you can, you give yourself a good chance to win because you control the clock and keep
the other team off the field. Although, as I said, they have a young, dynamic quarterback that did some
really good things. He is going to be a special one in the league I think. he did some nice things.

RE: Dennis Daley’s performance today
I saw him do some really good physical things. He got beat a couple times on a couple of quick moves.
But again, for the most part, he was working a lot at guard so this was really the first true week where
he was plugged in at left tackle for the whole week and really just kind of started to get it going. I was
pretty excited for him. He is a young man who has worked very well, had a good rookie minicamp. Just
from that point has really done a lot of good things. We felt pretty comfortable with him in there. There
are some things we will take a look at and get those things corrected but I think Dennis has a bright
future in this league.

RE: Luke Kuechly’s influence on the defense
It’s interesting and this is one of the things that you can point out. That last play, he could have easily
intercepted that ball but he just knocked it down because he knew that was the most important thing
was about winning the football game and not about personal stats. That right there to me just
epitomizes him as a football player and as a person that he does the right thing. I do stress that our
young guys can learn from our veteran guys that do the right thing.

RE: What did DJ Chark do to cause trouble for defense today?

Part of it was the quarterback was able to extend the play a little bit and DJ and got across the formation
a couple of times. But we put Ross [Cockrell] in a couple of tough positions and he was literally just a
step away unfortunately on that first touchdown. The second touchdown to the corner, they caught us a
little bit out of position. Quarterback pumped it and got us to move. You have to give credit to their
game planning as well because that’s what they get paid for. He did a nice job on that play too. Again,
credit to them.

RE: Was Christian McCaffrey dealing with cramps at the end of the game?
Yes, yes he was. He was cramping up. We are mostly going to rest him. Just so you know, his new
normal will take into effect this week. He will be fine.

RE: Multiple flags today
There were a number of competitive calls. You know, the quarterback stuff. You have to protect the
quarterback obviously. But at the end of the game we had three straight penalties that gave them three
straight chances into the end zone which was disappointing. But we have to be disciplined. We have to
understand that you are going to get hard counted, you are going to get quick movement from the
quarterback and the center and everyone is going to jerk around and you are going to jump offside and
you can’t do that. You just have to be more disciplined. We have to be more disciplined and we have to
go back and take a look at that and get that corrected.

[raz]

no doubt.  that was awesome

[Moo Daeng]

24 minutes ago, bull123 said:

Thanks for posting this...would be great to see it every week

It is posted every week.

[hepcat]

Honestly...I think the Panthers out-coached the Jaguars. Credit to Rivera and co for having the team disciplined and ready to play. Same thing Bill O'Brien said last week that the Panthers are extremely disciplined on defense.

The Jaguars are a very talented squad. Minshew is a find. But they made a ton of bonehead mistakes and penalties. The defense didn't adjust to the Panthers running the same running play over and over and thrashing them on the ground. Their defensive coordinator should be fired.