NFL general managers don’t make themselves available often throughout the season. And Ryan Poles’ predecessor Ryan Pace was so unavailable, our lasting memory of him is that image-turned-meme of him hiding behind a door.
So I find myself appreciative of Poles carving out some time to give a state of the franchise update:
Poles would take questions from the assembled media later. But for the moment, let’s chug through the highlights of this two-minute clip:
“Clearly, Matt (Eberflus) and I are on the same page in terms of competing to win games. We’ve come short a few times. To us, it’s a little bit of having a young team that needs to learn how to finish in the red zone and win games and do the things we coach them to do.”
“But what I was really encouraged about was how we handled this mini-bye. Regardless of your record the ability to look in the mirror, see what do we do well, what do we not do well, what do we struggle with, and then attack those things. Our coaches met with players, met with coordinators, and just talked about that exactly. And then what’s the plan to improve and take the next step. The work that was put in this week was incredible. Making some adjustments to get guys in positions to be successful, do better, and hopefully win some games.”
“I know Justin (Fields) has been a big topic, and his development. And we’re encouraged with the progress that’s there. I know it’s not on the statistics and on paper all the time, but he’s getting better in a lot of different areas. I think, as a whole, we’ve got to play better around him as well to allow him to keep playing well and get his confidence going to execute at a high level.”
The Justin Fields stuff is most interesting to us. Getting a public vote of confidence has to feel good for a quarterback who has been knocked around in the early going. It ain’t much, but it ain’t nothing. Otherwise, Poles makes astute observations regarding the challenges of a young team learning to finish and win games. As well as the approach to the mini-bye. We didn’t see enough progressive actions from the last regime in terms of in-season fixes after extended breaks. And that’s one reason that group isn’t around any more.
We’ll dive deeper into what Poles had to say as more from his impromptu press conference as more becomes available.
NEWSLETTER
