What Frank Reich Said Following Loss to Jets

Carolina Panthers head coach Frank Reich met with the media after today's preseason game.

RE: Injury Update

Let me give you a couple of injury updates. Cam Erving had an ankle. So we further evaluate all these injuries. But Derek Wright had a knee and then Henry Anderson had a foot. [Amare] Barno had a back but he returned. We will just continue to evaluate those guys.

RE: Opening Statement

What we just talked about in there for a minute was it was a good week that really just ended on a bad note with this game. Obviously, the game weighs more important than the week but you have to keep everything in perspective. So that’s what we do. What we do is we look at every play, every player. We evaluate everything. We will grow from it and look forward to diving into the tape and getting better next week.

RE: What did you see from Bryce [Young] and the first team offense?

Obviously, we had a little too much pressure at times. Bryce was accurate. He got rid of the ball quickly. There is some good in having to try to overcome some bad field position which we did not do. We got our second drive. We are backed up there pretty much. Those are great situations. We talk about this all the time. Let’s get the tough situations and put ourselves to the test. We had a couple of those today. We didn’t pass those tests but those are good to learn from.

RE: Whether he was disappointed in pass protection of first and second team?

No doubt. We don’t want to see the pressure that we had. Got to go back and look at it. What I’ve learned over the years is it’s not always the o-line sometimes. We can get it out a little bit faster but I have to go back and look at the tape and see exactly what is going on.

RE: Whether it was planned for Thomas Brown to take over some of the play calling duties. 

Yeah, we are going to do that the whole preseason. So, we will just mix it up. A-lot of the game planning and play calling is collaborative. It’s always the way I’ve done it as a play caller. Kind of give the back up play caller some time just because I’ve done it for a few years. So I just want to get some of it in, to get ready for the season. But I also want those guys to get the experience as well.

RE: Whether you knew you were going to play Bryce [Young] three series or was it by feel It was going to be by feel. 

It was going to be somewhere between 10 and 20 plays is really what we were thinking, depending on how the drives went. I would have probably preferred two drives but when the second one was backed up and we were three and out, it was like, ok, let’s go one more and see if we can’t get something going.

RE: Whether three different right guards were used in each of Bryce Young’s series by design or whether that speaks to the uncertainty at that position?

No, that was by design. [James] Campen and I had talked about that coming into the week. We really have been cross training those guys. Just wanted to get a look at the different combinations and they’ve been getting a good amount of work and just thought it was important to get each one of them a drive kind of with the ones in that combination.

RE: Whether there is concern about the number of hits Young received today in a short time… 

I thought he took the one big hit, obviously, that first hit was pretty big. I asked him on the sidelines, I kind of waited until the second half and said ‘well, that was a pretty good welcome to the NFL hit. How did that one feel?’ He said that he was fine. He said he barely felt it. So I don’t know.

RE: Whether that hit was a little late?

I don’t think so. I think it was a good hit. Sometimes as a quarterback you have a lot of adrenaline going and that was a blind side shot so you’re not tensing up. He bounced right back up from it. A couple of the other sacks I didn’t think they were really crushing blows. But I did think he took one really big hit.

RE: Matt Corral and whether the lack of success can be attributed to the offensive line or quarterback? 

I thought Matt showed some flashes. We did have the one drive where we went for it on 4th and 1 and I thought about kicking it just to get points on the board. When we were third and long, I said to myself, ok, I know check with the guys in analytics. I know we are in 4th down territory and I just kind of said to myself, if this ends up 4th and 5 or more, I’ll just kick it so we can just get that operation. Then when it ended up 4th and 1, then it was just, ok, lets just go for it and see if we can get a touchdown drive here. I thought Matt showed some flashes. We will have to look at the film overall to kind of weigh and see why we didn’t score, why we didn’t get the ball down in there more often.

RE: Understanding this is preseason, how he puts this in perspective when you had such a good week of practice and then are able not able to score any points…

I appreciate that question because it is hard. You don’t like getting shut out and getting beat 27-0. But I have a lot of years in this league that tell me that preseason scores are not the most meaningful thing. Not that we aren’t accountable for that, we are. But it is not the most important thing right now. It’s just not. We are trying to evaluate our team. Listen, this is by design. I mentioned it the other day. We are very generic now. We did nothing in our scheme. Nothing. That’s not an excuse. I expected us to do a lot. So, we kept it simple so that we could do a lot. So that we didn’t have to think much. So we could just evaluate one on one play. So we need to do better there. But as a coaching staff, we weren’t trying to put the guys in the best position the whole game. Really, in any phase. I’m not saying they were. I don’t know what their game plan was. I just know what our philosophy has been, what my philosophy has been in preseason. When you are a new coaching staff, I just don’t want to show too much. Some teams don’t know the things we are going to do and there is some of it I’m willing to take on the chin a little bit in preseason to hide some things we are going to do in the regular season.

RE: Whether practicing other plays and then going vanilla impacts your performance… It can but it doesn’t always. 

That’s fair but sometimes that does happen. Obviously, we practiced against this team so they kind of had us, get us a little bit wired. I give the Jets credit. Obviously, they played well. They rushed the passer well. They protected pretty well. I think they ran the ball decent. So give the Jets credit.

RE: Whether you intend to play [Brian] Burns and or [Justin] Houston at all in the preseason 

Not sure yet. We will take that game by game. Still working through that decision.

RE: Whether the hits Young took impacted him not receiving another series…

Not at all. Really, not at all. He is going to get hit. Now listen, in this game, there was a plan. Everything was pretty much get it out quick throw. The biggest hit that he took was, on one, he worked through his progression, got a completion on the back side. We had a nice little completion but had to work through the progression and got hit. Like I said, the two sacks were, we will see it on the tape, but it felt a little bit like they were coverage sacks. Nothing popped early. The pocket just kind of squeezed but I have to go back and look at the tape.

RE: On the plan for Young in these last two preseason games

We will take it game by game. I don’t want to over-commit to that. What we’ve talked about as a team, we need to do what it takes to get ready for our season opener. We are committed as coaches and players to doing whatever we think that is. If that’s playing a lot, then we will play a lot. If we feel like, nope, we are good, we don’t want to show anything, we feel confident in what we’ve been doing day to day in practice and we want to try to save guys, then we will make that decision. But right now, we’ve sent the message as coaches and players to be ready to play and if we feel like it’s the right thing to play a lot, we will play a lot. If we feel like we need to kind of sit back, we will do that. I respect the players because they are all bought into that. They are trusting that process and trusting us as a coaching staff to say, ok, let’s get ready, the goal is to get ready for Atlanta and get ready for the regular season. Everything we are doing is geared around that.

RE: On how much credit he gives Kamu Grugier-Hill for coming out and playing with what’s going on in his home state of Hawaii

Kamu, our hearts are out to him and his family. I’ve talked to him about that. It’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy and just kind of talking to him, our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family and of course everyone there in Maui. We are working through if there is anything we can do to help out. We are working through all of those discussions. 

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