Transcripts: Jeff Fisher, Gregg Williams Talk Wigs, Playing Without Ogletree, & Prepping for the Packers

Jeff Fisher – Post Practice – 10/9/15

(On his interview at Tennessee with Packers Head Coach Mike McCarthy)
"Oh, yeah, I definitely remember. Yeah, we had a really good visit. We visited for a couple of days. It was a good visit."

(On what he liked about McCarthy)
"Mike was just really, really good as a quarterback coach. That’s what I was looking for at that point. Just his experience and whom he had worked with prior to that interview. So, it went really well. We’ve been good friends since."

(On what he thought about LB Daren Bates wearing a blonde Packers LB Clay Matthews wig today at practice)
"He’s a little shorter than Clay. Moves around. He’s watched Clay. I’m sure he grew up watching Clay and has a great deal of respect for Clay. Obviously, we need to know where he is every snap. So, that’s why we dressed him up a little bit."

(On if the wig Bates wore today is the same wig worn by former Rams LB Sammy Brown in 2012)
"No, it’s not the same one. I think Sammy took it with him." (laughs)

(On the vibe of the team)
"They’re great. I mean, we’ve had a great week of practice. It’s a hard place to play. One of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game and he understands the game and the run game and all that. We’ve got to play good. We’ve got to make our own breaks. So, we have to try to keep the ball away from him, which is easier said than done, because the way their defense is playing right now. I mean, you can’t run against them. You go back and watch these games and you watch Seattle and you watch San Francisco, and they had a hard time running the ball against them. So, we’re going to have to find a way to get that done."

(On Packers DT B.J. Raji and DT Mark Daniels being productive)
"Yeah, and then you add (LB) Julius (Peppers) and (LB) Clay (Matthews) and the rest of the group. They’re playing really well."

(On if he stops for a second and takes in the stadium when he travels to Green Bay)
"I mean, I think the guys who have not been there before will probably do that. But I’ve been there numerous times. It’s a great place to play. It’s a great fan base and it’s ideal. What better time of year than October? The leaves are turning, changing and it’s going to be a great day."

(On if he feels the law of average will help his team out this weekend against Packers QB Aaron Rodgers’ passing game)
"You know what, we’re just…if the ball hits the ground, I’ll be happy. Alright? So, that’s the starting point. If we can get the ball to hit the ground, then we’ll be happy. If it happens to fall into one of our arms, however that happens, then we’ll try to make the most of it."

(On why DE Robert Quinn wasn’t at practice today)
"Mr. and Mrs. Robert Quinn gave birth to a baby girl this morning. So, I told him that was more important than what we were doing. So, everybody’s good."

Gregg Williams – Post Practice – 10/9/15

(Opening Statement)
"We’ll start off differently this week. Fast Friday, my favorite day of the week. It’s the best day of practice because they get a chance to show everybody what they do. On top of being the favorite day of the week here, how could be even more favorite than the Cardinals starting the playoffs today? So, I got my marching orders when I left the house this morning to make sure that we had a good practice and don’t be bringing any bad mojo down to the stadium tonight. Especially when I go up in the booth and he’s (Williams/ Father IN Law to Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon) talking about the game and ripping me behind the scenes and stuff. I want to try to stay off his list."

(On if he’ll be at the Cardinals game tonight)
"Yes, I’m going to be at the game tonight later on. I’ve got a lot of things I’ve got to do normally, but I’ve been instructed that I have to go to the game. It’s not one of those things, I have to be there. That’s part of the marching orders. One of the things I do is always try to do the right thing. So, I’m going to try and do the right thing and stay in good family-stead. That’s what I’m doing. It’s great, the Shannon family, they made the rules, now I’ve got to follow the rules."

(On LB Daren Bates wearing a wig at practice)
"It shocked me too. I didn’t know that was coming. You can see those guys doing all of that kind of fun stuff. The hard part of the business is the preparation, your body feeling tough at times. But, all of the sudden you can laugh and joke and have some good times and promote some spirit. That was kind of cool. I did not see that coming."

(On if Bates should keep the wig)
"It really didn’t look really good on him. His look right there, he battles looks anyways. He doesn’t need any more things to hurt him, that’s for sure."

(On playing without LB Alec Ogletree)
"What we’re trying to do is, and you know one the things I’ve always tried to do as kind of a gift to all of the staff members who have worked for me through all of the years, it’s the philosophy of coaching. It’s not the x’s and o’s, it’s the philosophy. One of the things that we have here is a next man up philosophy. We’re going to miss him because he’s so dominant. But, he’s been around here and his spirit has been good. Unsolicited by any coach, it’s been fun to see that they wore his jersey every day at practice. He was having a tremendously productive time. Now it’s up to us not to fall off at that position. How we rotate people through the position, it was fun to see (LB) Jo-Lonn (Dunbar) come back in the building. We tortured him a little bit this week too on some things. He was right back on cue with all of that stuff. He’ll have to be a good coach here coming up. We’ll give Ogletree some coaching responsibilities until he’s healthy to get back."

(On LB Akeem Ayers playing the position in the scheme before and how seamless that transition is)
"It’s always helpful when there’s a terminology and an experience of understanding the how. Again, one of the things I’ve said all year long is, when these guys own what we’re doing, they feel good about what we’re doing. They understand all of the little nuances of how I can take my skill set into this call and play it this way. Now, there has to be a familiarity with people playing around you that are playing with you. They know that you’ve got it and this is how you’re going to do that situation. That’s good and there’s not any hesitation in them with terminology. He’s got a familiarity base and that’s good."

(On how this creates opportunities for S Mark Barron)
"Hopefully with him, nobody should count him out on anything. As our multiple safeties, when you bring a nickel or a corner into the game to play nickel or you bring a safety into the game to play nickel and you bring a safety into the game to play in the box, that person that’s coming in in substitution is playing the linebacker position. He’s done that since he walked in the door here. It hasn’t been discussed that much when people don’t really know what I’m doing, why I’m doing with different packages. But, he’s a really good football player. How we set our skill set and our schemes to his skill set is good. Not only his, there’s other guys there too. There’s other multiple of guys that we have going in at that position. We’ve just got to get the right one out on the field at the right time."

(On the challenge of facing Packers QB Aaron Rodgers)
"He’s playing very confidently. One of the things I think I heard a couple of weeks ago from whatever that sports science show is, it’s kind of a cool show anyway, but the speed of his release is amazing. From a coaching perspective, when everything is maybe a different timing sequence, those are the things where now the skill set of your players have to override how a particular player can take and improvise his own time into the game. He does that with his quick release and he does that with his improve on extending plays too. We’re going to have to do some things to make sure we can try to maybe be in control of speeding things up or be in control of slowing things down. Can we disrupt some timing of plays? Because he does a very good job. And not only with all of those things that he does from a release standpoint, he’s very accurate. He’s as accurate as I’ve seen him in a long time. We’re going to have our work cut out for us, but our guys are up for it and they’ve studied very hard. It’s always fun to play up there. Some of these young guys, it’ll be the first time they’ve had a chance to go through there. I’ve been there a lot. I always enjoy that climate. I always enjoy that field and the whole thing it brings to our game. Now it’s one more thing up the old competition tree is how well that quarterback is playing."

(On if he expects them to try to use a quick passing game to combat the pass rush)
"Everybody has done that. People were doing that last year, I don’t know if you remember that. That was a big acclimation coming into the season at the start of the season last year and how we battled those things because they understand the people we have playing. The pressure packages and the talent level of rushers. We’re aware of that. We go into the game and you’re going to have to adapt and improvise on whatever the skill set is needed for that week and game. Even from a statistical standpoint, there’s things that go on in a game, every game takes on the life of its own. You’d like to be able to maybe hold the rushing down a little bit more here, but would you rather have them rush it or would you rather have them throw it over the top of your head? All of the sudden now what are you going to do? Are you going to challenge the pass to make sure they can’t run and invite them into the passing situation? So all of that, there’s kind of a chess game going on back and forth. I have a lot of respect for (Packers Head Coach) Mike (McCarthy) and what he has done. I’ve coached against him and been with him and think of him as a friend. There’s a couple of coaches on that staff that I’ve coached with and even coached. When you coach as long as I have, (Packers Quarterbacks Coach) Alex VanPelt has done a great job and he was with me at Buffalo when I was up there. That’s a really good staff, so we’re going to have to be on our best game when we go in there and have fun competing and get ready to roll."

(On if there’s a special challenge in going against Rodgers home interception streak)
"Our guys have talked about it, yeah, which is interesting. As a staff, we really never had to bring it up. Those guys, evidentially the read something that you guys had written. I didn’t even know it until the second day of our preparation and I heard the guys talking about it. That’s not only because it’s him. But, really it’s our mantra every week. We’ve got to take the ball away. We’ve got to do a good job of creating shorter fields, creating the situations for our offense. Someone told me a stat the other day that we had six takeaways as a team and all six takeaways as a team has resulted in points for our offense, which is outstanding. We’ve got to do those things. They’ve done a good job minimizing them and we’ve got to try and do what we can to take it."