Ron Rivera Presser: It’s just a matter of time to see more production from Jahan Dotson

Ron Rivera speaks to the media

Charles Leno:

He’s doing well. He’s doing well. Yeah, it was a very personal family situation. It’s a very unfortunate situation, but he’s doing well. They’re doing well.

Cinco package:

It’s really, if you look at it, it’s really just a 3-4 defense. But what it allows us to do is bring in another bigger body, a guy to play what amounts to basically a four technique for the most part if you were playing a true 3-4. When you got that extra big body up inside, it does impact their want and their desire to try and run the football. It frees up the linebackers a little bit more to run. Obviously, it’s not ideal if they start running some play action and stuff like that and drop-back pass, but it still gives us a real stout presence to help stop the run. We really felt that that was something that they were going to try and do against us.

Finding things in the defense that will help moving forward:

Oh, very much so. But again, I think each game is really based on how the defensive coaches and Jack see them. I mean, Jack and the coaches, they’re going to come together, they’re going to work on things. They’re going to talk about the best way to attack the opponent and those are things that we look at each week. I mean, the packages are based on what we feel we believe we need to stop and we need to take away. That’s how you really design it, from whether you’re going to be in a four-man front or a five-man front, it’s going to be determined by the type of running game they have and who they got running the football. I mean, if they’re a downhill inside the tackles type of team with two tight ends out there, there’s a good chance we’re going to bulk up. We’re going to do things based on what the defensive coaches think is going to be best for us.

Danny Johnson:

Well, I think first of all, I thought Danny stepped in and did exactly what we’d hoped he would do, did the job that we needed him to do. He came out and played some good football, made some plays, and he’s a very smart football player which you can tell by the opportunity to intercept the ball on fourth down. Instead, he knocks it down and we get it in great field position. I mean, that’s a very heads-up play and those are the kinds of things that Danny’s very capable of. As far as playtime, we’re going to continue to practice and work our guys and we’re going to play the guys we believe give us the best opportunity to play football.

Different look in the secondary:

I think if we do anything as far as mixing it up, what it does show is that there’s always that ability, there’s always that capability to bring the extra guy if you need be. One of the things that we do intentionally is when we do the five-man, we do bring the fifth guy a lot. We do drop the fifth guy as well. So that does seem to help us when we do have to go into the bigger packages. So doing that, whether we’re in the bigger packages or our base four-man front, I think it adds a little bit more to the thinking process of our opponent.

Emmanuel Forbes:

I think he’s been great. He really has. He and I had a conversation last week as to what was going on. Just explained to him that we feel right now a little time down would help you. Good chance to kind of take a step back and watch it and see how things are done, see a little different perspective. Again, he’s been really good so far and I expect him to continue. He’s a young pro who’s got a lot to learn and a lot of growth to have, but he’s got a chance. We really think this young man has got a great skill set and can be a good football player. This might take a little bit more time.

Do your job:

Well, I think off of do your job will be the messaging more than anything else. When you look at each game, each game has its own personality and I try to figure out what I think the personality is for that week and as we go through it, that’s what we’ll try to do with the players and harp on the things that we think need to be done and things that we need to get better at and improve on as we prepare to play the Giants.

Sam Howell:

Oh, I thought Sam was very efficient. That’s probably the best way to put the way he played. His decision making was for the most part, really good. There was a couple times, obviously I’d like to see him get the ball out his hands a little bit quicker and not take the hits or sacks that he did. But, I thought, well, his quarterback rating was over a hundred, which was very good because his decision making was good. He protected the football, delivered some very catchable balls. There were a couple balls I still feel we could have had completed and we didn’t, unfortunately. But I think, again, protecting the football and making the decisions that he did, I thought he handled those very well.

Injury updates:

Jahan Dotson:

I think it’s just a matter of time. Again, as we continue to work and try and distribute the ball to all the players it’ll happen. It’s just one of those things that sometimes guys will be targeted more. I promise you back in the day when Gary Clark, Art Monk and Ricky Sanders were out there for Coach Gibbs you guys were probably wondering how come he only got three balls and everybody else got six or seven? It’s going to happen. When a guy’s not getting the balls right now, it is just a matter of time. I think that’s the thing we all have to be patient with. This is a good group of receivers. I’m not saying that they’re that group, but they’re a good group and we’re going to distribute the ball based on game plans and who our opponents are. Again, it starts with the quarterback’s decision making too.

Casey Toohill:

Probably the one thing that, if you go back and look at the plays that Casey has made, first and foremost, they’re all based off of him getting after the quarterback off of play action. The two that I’m thinking of from yesterday, very disciplined player who’s in the right spot. He works his technique. He’s got a good little burst to him. He closes ground very quickly and he’s got length. That’s one of the things, he’s stout. If there was one thing I was really pleased with that we did on defense, and I know Jack and Zgonina and Ryan preached to our D-Line was setting vertical edges. If you watch those guys, how disciplined they all were trying to keep that run play from getting outside, trying to keep it bottled up. Those guys did that. Casey was one of the guys that did that. And because of that, he got the opportunities and he made the most of them.

Complementary football:

Momentum:

We have a little momentum and I think that’s one of the biggest things. If you can maintain the momentum and keep the excitement going and energy levels up the players really feed off of it. One of the things that I said too is that when you watch the tape and really break some of the things down, you see just how efficient Sam was. I think that’s something we can build on because of the momentum of when we’re efficient, when we’re doing things well.

Then on the defensive side, keeping the momentum of being able to stop the run. They’re going to come in, they have Saquon and we know how special he is as a running back. We’ve got to be able to contain him. We got to be able to contain the quarterback. A lot of those things that we did on Sunday are things that are going to be reflected in what we’re going to need to do this coming Sunday as well.

I think it’s a good opportunity to build on the success we had. But we also got to be smart and understand that even though we went out and did our jobs, we got to pay attention and focus in on and continue to focus in on the details of our job. Do those things better, do the little things better because we had a lot of mistakes, a lot of little things that can be corrected. That’s the best part about it is those things can be corrected.

Maintaining a good position in the standings over the next month:

I think the biggest thing that is important is really maintaining the focus of one at a time. Just trying to stay connected to where we are and where we are right now. To his point is we’re 3-3. We have an opportunity to go to 4-3, if we go out and play the football we’re capable of and win a football game against the Giants. To get ahead of that, I don’t want to do that. I want to make sure we stay focused on the one game at a time in town. Just understand it’s the most important game we’re going to play all year. Why? Because this is the game we will play, so we’re going to keep that focus.