Q&A QB Trent Green - 9/30

royr17 · 09-30-2004, 07:16 PM

Q&A QB Trent Green
Sep 30, 2004, 4:50:10 PM

BALTIMORE PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: What do you see in the Ravens defense?

GREEN: “Well, you can’t say enough good things about them. They have several Pro Bowlers over there. They’re extremely fast, aggressive. Their reputation talks about them stopping the run and their speed and every time you watch them on film, that’s exactly what they do. They’re great against the run. (Chris) McCallister, I think, is one of the best corners in the league. I’d definitely put him up there among the top couple guys in the league in terms of cover and that gives them the freedom to support a lot in the run game when you have confidence in your corners like that. We go back and we look at our game last year against them and we did some good things but we’re obviously going to have to make some adjustments because with their aggressiveness and with their speed, they present a lot of problems.”

Q: Coach Vermeil talked about the mental state of a 0-3 team, can you expound on that?

GREEN: “Well, I think that’s really what he’s been trying to hammer into us is that we are all disappointed. Players, staff, personnel, the town… everybody. He’s more worried about our psyche and our mental approach. When you come into a season with the expectations like we did, he doesn’t want everybody to get down in the dumps and giving up hope because we still have a long way to go. So I think that’s what he’s been focused on in terms of how he’s addressed the team meetings the last couple of times, just stay positive and continue doing what we’re doing, believe in what we’re doing, believe in our systems, believe in each other and eventually this thing will get corrected. Because we have had success and you have to believe in those successes and fall back upon that.”

Q: How’s your psyche?

GREEN: “Oh, I’m good. I’m good. I’m ready to go. You know, to start out the way we have you wish, instead of waiting a week for the game, you could play a couple days later. In the case of all three of these games, we’re so anxious to get back out of the field and it just gives us another opportunity to get things turned around. It doesn’t get any easier – we’re at Baltimore. I think that’s the only regular season home game they lost in the last year and a half is to us. So I’m sure they’re pretty fired up over that and that’s something I’m pretty sure they’re going to emphasize and talk about. We know it’s a tough place to play, we played there last year. The noise is going to be incredibly loud. It’s Monday night, everybody’s going to be excited. Everybody’s going to be fired up. We have to go in there with the right frame of mind, try to get back to where we were a year ago and where we were in the preseason.”

Q: Is there a feeling of disbelief that this team finds itself where it is?

GREEN: “I don’t know if I’d use those exact words but I am surprised we’re in the position we are right now. I never would have anticipated us sitting 0-3 right now. Like I said, with the expectations – not only from the outside with the media and those sorts, just from ourselves. We had high expectations; coming off a 13-3 year, doing the things we were able to do, we definitely didn’t anticipate being in this position.”

Q: Are they doing anything different defensively this year from last year based on what you’ve seen?

GREEN: “They have changed some things up. They’re getting healthier, so I think they’re going to have a couple of guys back this week that they didn’t have a year ago. They have changed personnel-wise, but I think if you look at a majority of their guys, they’re all three or four or five-year guys. They’ve really made a big youth movement the last few years. Obviously with Ray Lewis as their leader, he kind of takes those young guys under his wing and the enthusiasm and energy they play with, it all carries back to Ray. I think that’s clear when you look at how that defense attacks an offense is everything is very aggressive and fast and that kind of takes over from his personality. He’s kind of rubbed off on those other guys.”

Q: Do you have to come up with a few misdirection plays to compensate for their speed on defense, much like the reverse to Johnnie Morton that was run last year?

GREEN: “Well, I hope not. I hope it doesn’t rely on getting a trick play here or there. Hopefully, we can run our offense and have success doing that. If you look at that game and how it unfolded, that play was definitely a huge play for us, not only did it get us down into field goal range but then we were able to convert a big third down to Jason Dunn that got us inside the 10 and put us in position to get our only (offensive) touchdown. Hopefully it doesn’t come down to that, but if we need it, our playlist is around 300 plays going into every game, so if we are struggling and we need a spark of some kind we’ve always got different ones to fall back on.”

Q: Can you use their aggressiveness against them?

GREEN: “You can. Yeah, you can definitely use their aggressiveness against them. The one thing you so back to, when you look at their film trying to find ways to attack them, is everybody’s fast. We ran a screen pass to Priest (Holmes) on a third-and-20, third-and-18, and (Adalius) Thomas, who’s probably a 260, 270-pound linebacker, he’s all the way on the other side of the field. Priest had to make a couple of guys miss and read his blocks and make some cuts and everything, but Thomas ended up catching him a couple yards short of the first down. So when you’re talking about guys 260, 270 (pounds) being able to run like that, you can take advantage of that some ways but you know they’re going to recover very, very quickly. So in terms of us sustaining our blocks and our backside blocks is going to be very important and definitely a point of emphasis.”

Q: In looking for positives, how does being able to win in Baltimore last year rank?

GREEN: “It’s very positive. When you look from a defensive standpoint, being able to hold them to 10 points like we did. We created a bunch of turnovers a year ago. Offensively, we were able to do some things well. We moved the ball at times. Other times we got stuck, but so much has been made of last year and what we were able to accomplish last year, we’re trying to focus more on this year. There is a level of confidence that comes from that, just because there are a number of guys who went there last year and understand what kind of environment we’re going to get into in Baltimore. So that level of confidence should be good, but right now we’re focused on getting this season turned around and there hasn’t really been too much of a mention of that.”

Q: What’s your role in getting things back on the right page?

GREEN: “What I’ve tried to do – and it started about a week ago – is to try to be more of a vocal leader. I’ve always been a little bit more of a lead by example guy, not as much an ‘in your face,’ ‘rah rah’ kind of guy. So I’ve tried to do more of that even though that isn’t in my personality to do that. I’ve tried to be more encouraging. I’ve talked to more guys – be it offense, defense or special teams – I’ve just tried to be more vocal. Once again, I’m not a screaming, yelling, ‘in your face’ guy, I’m trying to be supportive, working the locker room, working the practice field. On the sidelines, I’ve made an effort to get up and get more involved in the game and try and be more supportive. I’m going to try and continue to do that even though that doesn’t necessarily fit my playing personality, its something I feel right now, if there are certain players that have let doubt creep into their mind, maybe just by giving them some words of encouragement, just trying to be as reinforcing as possible.”

Q: What about your play?

GREEN: “Well, I was really happy with the way we played last week. I think our third-down conversions were in the 60 percent range. The one area where we were ineffective compared to a year ago was our Red Zone efficiency. We were one-of-five in the red zone, where last year we only went one time without scoring in the Red Zone. So that’s obviously got to be better. In the last two weeks we didn’t have as many opportunities in the Red Zone. We were efficient in the red zone, but now all of a sudden when we get those numbers of opportunities we have to be more efficient. My job is mainly to put us in a position where we can have success. Be accurate with my throws, give guys an opportunity when they catch the ball to be able to run after the catch. That’s something that I think we’ve been lacking in the first three games, is the yards after catch. Some of that is our inability to get Priest out of the backfield. He led the league in yards after catch. We haven’t had the success this year as we have in the past. I’ve got to be able to put the ball in a better position where those guys are going to be able to get yards after the catch. That’s where big plays happen. It’s not necessarily throwing the ball downfield, it’s giving the pass to the guys where a five-yard route can be a 15-yard route or a 10-yard route can be a 25-yard route. So I’ve got to be more effective in that regard.”

Q: Do you have any idea why you haven’t been as effective in that aspect of the offense?

GREEN: “I think teams have just taken more notice of it. Any time you have a running back with the number of catches he has over the last couple of years, when you lead the league in a category like he did with yards after catch, there’s going to be an emphasis of covering him. Teams have done a better job of spying a linebacker on him or putting somebody man-to-man on him, so when I go to my dump downs there’s somebody right in his hip pocket. There’s not necessarily the separation he’s had in the past. So we’ve either got to find different people as an outlet or come up with ways to allow him to get more separation.”

Q: Are you glad the game is in prime time on a national stage?

GREEN: “I wouldn’t care if the game was in an empty lot somewhere. We just need to go somewhere and play well and play positive and not worry about the outside part of it to get this thing turned around. It obviously adds a lot more national attention, in terms of where its played and the day of the game, but right now I think we’d be willing to play anywhere at any time to get back on the field.”

Q: It seems like against (Cincinnati Bengals QB) Carson Palmer, the Ravens sat back and looked to pick off the deep throw?

GREEN: “I think maybe some of the inexperience factor (of Palmer). They tried doing some things to him differently. I think they added some things differently that they hadn’t done in previous weeks. Whereas they’ve always been aggressive, they wanted to test his patience a little bit. I don’t necessarily see them doing that with us and if they do we’ll be ready for it. That’s why I’ve got to be smart in throwing the ball downfield and taking chances. If they do it gives us the opportunity to dump things off, that’s when Priest and T-Rich (FB Tony Richardson) and Tony Gonzalez and more of the underneath stuff tends to open up. If that’s the way they end up playing us, I’ll have to adjust the way I read it.”

Q: How important is it to get off to a quick start and maybe take a lead into halftime?

GREEN: “We’re three for three on opening drives. We’ve got two touchdowns and a field goal. We feel real good about our opening drives. Where we’ve fallen into problems is our third, fourth, fifth drives. If you look at all the games, we’ve either had the lead going into halftime, the Texans game we had the lead going into the fourth quarter, at Denver we were tied going into the fourth quarter – we’ve just got to be able to finish better. I think we’ve done a good job early on in terms of momentum and getting in a position (to win) but the way this league is shaped it all comes down to the fourth quarter and what type of success both offensively and defensively can you have in the fourth quarter. We put ourselves in position the last three weeks to either win or lose a game in the fourth quarter and we just haven’t finished, we haven’t gotten it done. Not so important is how we start, it’s how we finish this week.”

09-30-2004, 07:16 PM	Topic Starter
royr17 MVP Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Lovin my kids Casino cash: $-1461324	Q&A QB Trent Green - 9/30 Q&A QB Trent Green Sep 30, 2004, 4:50:10 PM BALTIMORE PRESS CONFERENCE Q: What do you see in the Ravens defense? GREEN: “Well, you can’t say enough good things about them. They have several Pro Bowlers over there. They’re extremely fast, aggressive. Their reputation talks about them stopping the run and their speed and every time you watch them on film, that’s exactly what they do. They’re great against the run. (Chris) McCallister, I think, is one of the best corners in the league. I’d definitely put him up there among the top couple guys in the league in terms of cover and that gives them the freedom to support a lot in the run game when you have confidence in your corners like that. We go back and we look at our game last year against them and we did some good things but we’re obviously going to have to make some adjustments because with their aggressiveness and with their speed, they present a lot of problems.” Q: Coach Vermeil talked about the mental state of a 0-3 team, can you expound on that? GREEN: “Well, I think that’s really what he’s been trying to hammer into us is that we are all disappointed. Players, staff, personnel, the town… everybody. He’s more worried about our psyche and our mental approach. When you come into a season with the expectations like we did, he doesn’t want everybody to get down in the dumps and giving up hope because we still have a long way to go. So I think that’s what he’s been focused on in terms of how he’s addressed the team meetings the last couple of times, just stay positive and continue doing what we’re doing, believe in what we’re doing, believe in our systems, believe in each other and eventually this thing will get corrected. Because we have had success and you have to believe in those successes and fall back upon that.” Q: How’s your psyche? GREEN: “Oh, I’m good. I’m good. I’m ready to go. You know, to start out the way we have you wish, instead of waiting a week for the game, you could play a couple days later. In the case of all three of these games, we’re so anxious to get back out of the field and it just gives us another opportunity to get things turned around. It doesn’t get any easier – we’re at Baltimore. I think that’s the only regular season home game they lost in the last year and a half is to us. So I’m sure they’re pretty fired up over that and that’s something I’m pretty sure they’re going to emphasize and talk about. We know it’s a tough place to play, we played there last year. The noise is going to be incredibly loud. It’s Monday night, everybody’s going to be excited. Everybody’s going to be fired up. We have to go in there with the right frame of mind, try to get back to where we were a year ago and where we were in the preseason.” Q: Is there a feeling of disbelief that this team finds itself where it is? GREEN: “I don’t know if I’d use those exact words but I am surprised we’re in the position we are right now. I never would have anticipated us sitting 0-3 right now. Like I said, with the expectations – not only from the outside with the media and those sorts, just from ourselves. We had high expectations; coming off a 13-3 year, doing the things we were able to do, we definitely didn’t anticipate being in this position.” Q: Are they doing anything different defensively this year from last year based on what you’ve seen? GREEN: “They have changed some things up. They’re getting healthier, so I think they’re going to have a couple of guys back this week that they didn’t have a year ago. They have changed personnel-wise, but I think if you look at a majority of their guys, they’re all three or four or five-year guys. They’ve really made a big youth movement the last few years. Obviously with Ray Lewis as their leader, he kind of takes those young guys under his wing and the enthusiasm and energy they play with, it all carries back to Ray. I think that’s clear when you look at how that defense attacks an offense is everything is very aggressive and fast and that kind of takes over from his personality. He’s kind of rubbed off on those other guys.” Q: Do you have to come up with a few misdirection plays to compensate for their speed on defense, much like the reverse to Johnnie Morton that was run last year? GREEN: “Well, I hope not. I hope it doesn’t rely on getting a trick play here or there. Hopefully, we can run our offense and have success doing that. If you look at that game and how it unfolded, that play was definitely a huge play for us, not only did it get us down into field goal range but then we were able to convert a big third down to Jason Dunn that got us inside the 10 and put us in position to get our only (offensive) touchdown. Hopefully it doesn’t come down to that, but if we need it, our playlist is around 300 plays going into every game, so if we are struggling and we need a spark of some kind we’ve always got different ones to fall back on.” Q: Can you use their aggressiveness against them? GREEN: “You can. Yeah, you can definitely use their aggressiveness against them. The one thing you so back to, when you look at their film trying to find ways to attack them, is everybody’s fast. We ran a screen pass to Priest (Holmes) on a third-and-20, third-and-18, and (Adalius) Thomas, who’s probably a 260, 270-pound linebacker, he’s all the way on the other side of the field. Priest had to make a couple of guys miss and read his blocks and make some cuts and everything, but Thomas ended up catching him a couple yards short of the first down. So when you’re talking about guys 260, 270 (pounds) being able to run like that, you can take advantage of that some ways but you know they’re going to recover very, very quickly. So in terms of us sustaining our blocks and our backside blocks is going to be very important and definitely a point of emphasis.” Q: In looking for positives, how does being able to win in Baltimore last year rank? GREEN: “It’s very positive. When you look from a defensive standpoint, being able to hold them to 10 points like we did. We created a bunch of turnovers a year ago. Offensively, we were able to do some things well. We moved the ball at times. Other times we got stuck, but so much has been made of last year and what we were able to accomplish last year, we’re trying to focus more on this year. There is a level of confidence that comes from that, just because there are a number of guys who went there last year and understand what kind of environment we’re going to get into in Baltimore. So that level of confidence should be good, but right now we’re focused on getting this season turned around and there hasn’t really been too much of a mention of that.” Q: What’s your role in getting things back on the right page? GREEN: “What I’ve tried to do – and it started about a week ago – is to try to be more of a vocal leader. I’ve always been a little bit more of a lead by example guy, not as much an ‘in your face,’ ‘rah rah’ kind of guy. So I’ve tried to do more of that even though that isn’t in my personality to do that. I’ve tried to be more encouraging. I’ve talked to more guys – be it offense, defense or special teams – I’ve just tried to be more vocal. Once again, I’m not a screaming, yelling, ‘in your face’ guy, I’m trying to be supportive, working the locker room, working the practice field. On the sidelines, I’ve made an effort to get up and get more involved in the game and try and be more supportive. I’m going to try and continue to do that even though that doesn’t necessarily fit my playing personality, its something I feel right now, if there are certain players that have let doubt creep into their mind, maybe just by giving them some words of encouragement, just trying to be as reinforcing as possible.” Q: What about your play? GREEN: “Well, I was really happy with the way we played last week. I think our third-down conversions were in the 60 percent range. The one area where we were ineffective compared to a year ago was our Red Zone efficiency. We were one-of-five in the red zone, where last year we only went one time without scoring in the Red Zone. So that’s obviously got to be better. In the last two weeks we didn’t have as many opportunities in the Red Zone. We were efficient in the red zone, but now all of a sudden when we get those numbers of opportunities we have to be more efficient. My job is mainly to put us in a position where we can have success. Be accurate with my throws, give guys an opportunity when they catch the ball to be able to run after the catch. That’s something that I think we’ve been lacking in the first three games, is the yards after catch. Some of that is our inability to get Priest out of the backfield. He led the league in yards after catch. We haven’t had the success this year as we have in the past. I’ve got to be able to put the ball in a better position where those guys are going to be able to get yards after the catch. That’s where big plays happen. It’s not necessarily throwing the ball downfield, it’s giving the pass to the guys where a five-yard route can be a 15-yard route or a 10-yard route can be a 25-yard route. So I’ve got to be more effective in that regard.” Q: Do you have any idea why you haven’t been as effective in that aspect of the offense? GREEN: “I think teams have just taken more notice of it. Any time you have a running back with the number of catches he has over the last couple of years, when you lead the league in a category like he did with yards after catch, there’s going to be an emphasis of covering him. Teams have done a better job of spying a linebacker on him or putting somebody man-to-man on him, so when I go to my dump downs there’s somebody right in his hip pocket. There’s not necessarily the separation he’s had in the past. So we’ve either got to find different people as an outlet or come up with ways to allow him to get more separation.” Q: Are you glad the game is in prime time on a national stage? GREEN: “I wouldn’t care if the game was in an empty lot somewhere. We just need to go somewhere and play well and play positive and not worry about the outside part of it to get this thing turned around. It obviously adds a lot more national attention, in terms of where its played and the day of the game, but right now I think we’d be willing to play anywhere at any time to get back on the field.” Q: It seems like against (Cincinnati Bengals QB) Carson Palmer, the Ravens sat back and looked to pick off the deep throw? GREEN: “I think maybe some of the inexperience factor (of Palmer). They tried doing some things to him differently. I think they added some things differently that they hadn’t done in previous weeks. Whereas they’ve always been aggressive, they wanted to test his patience a little bit. I don’t necessarily see them doing that with us and if they do we’ll be ready for it. That’s why I’ve got to be smart in throwing the ball downfield and taking chances. If they do it gives us the opportunity to dump things off, that’s when Priest and T-Rich (FB Tony Richardson) and Tony Gonzalez and more of the underneath stuff tends to open up. If that’s the way they end up playing us, I’ll have to adjust the way I read it.” Q: How important is it to get off to a quick start and maybe take a lead into halftime? GREEN: “We’re three for three on opening drives. We’ve got two touchdowns and a field goal. We feel real good about our opening drives. Where we’ve fallen into problems is our third, fourth, fifth drives. If you look at all the games, we’ve either had the lead going into halftime, the Texans game we had the lead going into the fourth quarter, at Denver we were tied going into the fourth quarter – we’ve just got to be able to finish better. I think we’ve done a good job early on in terms of momentum and getting in a position (to win) but the way this league is shaped it all comes down to the fourth quarter and what type of success both offensively and defensively can you have in the fourth quarter. We put ourselves in position the last three weeks to either win or lose a game in the fourth quarter and we just haven’t finished, we haven’t gotten it done. Not so important is how we start, it’s how we finish this week.”
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