Things Discussed

• Brown's cerebral side
• Brown's coaching style
• The 80-yard run last Saturday
• The difference between this year's defense and last year's

[After THE JUMP: Quotes, then more quotes]

Jim (Harbaugh) said Monday, he could be 75 feet away and hear you through the halls, down the halls, I guess. Are you just projecting?

 

“Projecting, that’s a good word. To be quite honest, there’s been very little projectionn with this group. But last Wednesday, we needed just a little bibt of a wake-up call to make sure we did things the right way. And you know the deal, don’t wait until Sunday. That could be a bad deal if you waited.”

 

Generally speaking though, are you — do you have to be loud? Even Sean McKeon said he takes the earplugs out when he knows that you’re gonna talk to the team before a game. He wants to hear what you have to say.

 

“Nice. It’s cause he’s from Central Mass. It’s the only reason. No, it’s an emotional game, an aggressive game. It’s a tough game for tough people. And I don’t know, maybe it’s that piece of it that kinda gets me motivated to still go to my masculine side, I guess.”

 

What’s your other side, exactly?

 

“Cerebral. Very cerebral.”

 

That would be your feminine side then?

 

“No, I didn’t say that. I did not say that. … The masculine side is the tough-guy side in the game of football. Which is — did you notice the targeting thing’s kinda quieted down?”

 

Yes it has

 

“Me too.”

 

Do you think you had something to do with that?

 

“No, I had nothing to do with it. But I think the one thing’s that’s really happened, to be serious, I think players are conscious. Coaches are conscious of it. I think we’ve kind of found that happy medium, where it’s kinda like it was a year ago. It was there, but was not frequent. And it’s kind of gone that way, where we’ve all kind of found common ground to make sure we can keep the players on the field.”

 

Why do you think it was frequent earlier?

 

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I think getting the head of the officials in here — that would be a really good question to ask him. Was it a priority? I saw something yesterday where a coach said, ‘Well, we gotta outlaw or we gotta put a rule into effect of a defensive lineman slamming the quarterback with his full body weight.’ I kinda get that a little bit, but, so, there it is though. Another subjective deal. I think that could be difficult.”

 

Maybe there’s a feeling-out process

 

“I think — had me lying awake at night, trying to figure out ways to combat it. But the reality is, just stay true to your values, which you know you’re teaching the right way. In terms of the tackling piece. Just make the guys conscious all the time, head’s out of the game. It’s out. Can’t utilize it. So, I think we’ve found common ground. I joked with Khaleke (Hudson) yesterday, I said, ‘The Khaleke Hudson penalty.’ He didn’t laugh. Joking. So that can be, obviously, it’s an issue. So, it seems like it’s kind of subsided. I think it’s a really good thing. I think we’re all being able to play the game of football again. Any emphasis on that is where it should be.”

 

Cause you had said that was making you rethink coaching

 

“I mean, I was like, ‘Is this where we’re going?’ But no, I think cooler heads have prevailed and we’ve kind of all figured it out. Both officials and coaches and players. We’re all coexisting.”

 

Do you think you’ll have Lavert (Hill) and Josh Metellus?

 

“Yeah. I think — well, I’m not a doctor, so I can’t make that. But we got a heck of a shot to have them. We’ll see. Both of them are day-to-day. And yesterday was Tuesday, today is Wednesday. Obviously, we’d like to — we’ll have a better idea after today, obviously. Cause Tuesday and Wednesday are the real heavy work days, so you gotta get some work in on Wednesday, for sure. But you still have Thursday and Friday. And at this time of year, except for learning the innuendos of the game plan — you’re not fooling anybody right now.”

 

Is Lavert able to practice? He’s been in concussion protocol

 

“Not yet. So we’ll see what Dave has for me today. We haven’t had that discussion as to what his availability is for practice today.”

 

You said they needed to wake up last Wednesday. Was that 80-yarder a wake-up?

 

“Oh, that was a wake-up for me. Well thought-out play. They lined up in three backs in the backfield, they motioned one of them out. We made the adjustment nicely. They bought that guy back and faked the reverse with him. And we lost one of our edges, and the safety who had him man-to-man was adjusting to him. But we lost the edge to the defense, the back edge. And it got out. We were spinning for the ally supporter. I thought he was a little slow getting there. Would have liked to have seen that play get put on the ground after about 10-12 yards, ubt it is what it is. And that’s been — that’s obviously an infrequent deal for us this year. We haven’t had many plays like that. I can’t think of — for quite a while, we’ve been really stingy with giving up explosive plays. So that was a little out of character, but I thought the response was excellent. We made the adjustment on the side, went to a little bit of a different front. And just made sure we had both edges covered.”

 

They ran it again, some form of it, and you guys —

 

“Oh, they ran it. Yeah, they ran it again. They just didn't motion out, they lined up. But it was same personnel grouping and all those things. Kinda knew it was coming, so got the — was able to put the specific call against that personnel group in, and guys played it well.”

 

Kind of in a similar vein, you give up a big play like that and everything, but coming off of those three weeks of Wisconsin, Michigan State, Penn State, how hard or not hard with your group was it to keep them focused playing games against Rutgers and Indiana?

 

“Indiana’s pretty damn good, so we better be engaged. The Rutgers game, I was more concerned about not the opponent, about us. I don’t worry about how — I think our guys are really good at digesting the game plan, giving every opponent their respect and then going and playing. It really was more about, I watched us practice really, really well. Was complimenting our guys publicly. And I thought we just had one day where we didn’t practice as well and I just reminded them of that. … So, our guys have really brought it. They get it. (Snaps fingers). We were right back to work. But that play, I don't want to belittle it. I thought that was a really well-designed play by their offensive staff. And caught us off-guard.”

 

Your whole defense, sort of speaks to their ability — Harbaugh complimented your ability to fix things in real-time, but they’ve gotta do it, their ability to diagnose.

 

“Like this year as opposed to last year in those veins — I can’t really speak to the piece of, from a conceptual standpoint. It’s really more of a mental approach. Like, when things didn’t go quite our way at times a year ago, we’d get big-eyed and be, ‘Alright, let’s calm down. Gotta do this, gotta do that. X, Y, Z, all those things.’ But it would take us a little time to do that. And, as I told you, in the Penn State game, we never fixed it. Me included. But with this group, shoot, right to the bench. Sit there, look at you, ‘Alright, this is what we’re gonna do.’ Good. Let’s go. And that’s really been the approach to this point. Now, you hope that keeps rolling for another, whatever period of time. We got two more left. That part of it, just their approach, being able to adjust, I think the confidence in one another and being around the scheme for — we got a really, a bunch of guys that know what to do. We go to practice, like I’ve said it before, pretty darn good. Product is kind of pretty exciting to coach, to be honest.”