Las Vegas Raiders DC Patrick Graham on the Silver and Black Defense
HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis made a major coup in the NFL when he landed Coach Josh McDaniels to lead his team.
Underrated in the aftermath of that hire, was McDaniels being able to land Patrick Graham to lead his defense.
After training camp practice, Graham spoke on the state of the legendary Silver and Black defense. You can watch the entire press conference below, or read the transcript as well:
Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham
Q: You have a young group, but you also have veteran guys in each kind of position group all the way back. How much of an impact or benefit is that for this season?
Coach Graham: “Well, it’s always good to have veterans so that you have guys that know the system, are more comfortable obviously communicating, have seen all the different looks and plus they have some leadership on the field and off the field in terms of teaching the young guys how to prepare their get their bodies ready for training camp, how to study tape, how to watch practice when you're not in to get the mental reps. And then the young guys, just their energy usually helps push the veterans. They're usually younger, they’re healthier, they're ready to run at the drop of a dime, so that always usually helps the energy in practice and helps push guys.”
Q: How much as a coach does that benefit you when have veteran guys who have no ego and they're listening to everything that is being taught?
Coach Graham: “I mean, it's always good to have the guys that have done it give feedback. I never played in NFL, and I will say this, aside from my background and the coaches I learned from, I learned a lot from the players. So, I can imagine when they're picking their brains in the locker room or when they're eating or when they go out to dinner or back at the hotel. I'm sure they're getting even more knowledge than what I gained from the players when I was coaching him. I mean, I've had some really good players that have taught me a lot about the game, because they've seen it.”
Q: What are you most pleasantly surprised with so far?
Coach Graham: “Our guys work and the willingness to listen. And they're hearing what we're asking them to do. They know it's not perfect. They know the goal is to get better every day. And the guys come in to work, they listen, they're attentive, they're working hard and they're being good teammates. Being respectful of everybody's time, valuing the process, and they know that we got a long way to go, and you can see the work ethic so far knowing let’s get better from the morning to the meetings and from the meetings to the field. From the field back to the meetings, back to the walkthrough, and just trying to improve.”
Q: How have the guys adjusted to a more complex scheme when it comes to learning?
Coach Graham: “I mean, football again is not as complex as everybody thinks. I mean, football you have a single high zone, you have a single high man. They played that here last year. You have a split safety, zone split safety, man, they played that here last year. I mean, we're not reinventing wheeling wheel anywhere.Again, from each system it’s usually language. That's probably the thing that's different. And the guys have embraced it. I mean, this is a very successful defense last year and we’re just trying to build on that. And then obviously some of the language changes, but it's really not as complex as everybody thinks. There’s only so much you could do out there on the field to take away what the offense is doing, and it's usually a different language.”
Q: What have your early impressions been of Malcolm Koonce?
Coach Graham: “I remember him coming out of college at Buffalo. I really liked him when I was at the last place. And you see a player that's fast. We'll find out about the physicality. I know in college you saw the physicality, some of the plays from last year you saw the physicality, but the thing that stands out the most is the speed and his willingness to try to improve. We asked a lot of them during the spring. We asked him to narrow his focus and attack that goal, and he's trying his best to do that and that’s all you could ask for him to do.”
Q: What have you seen from Johnathan Abram and where do you see his role?
Coach Graham: “When we talk about narrow the focus, again as teachers, we got to find the best way to teach our guys Some guys handle multiples. Some guys, you got to build a little bit slower. Each player is different. So, Johnathan is one of those guys that can handle a bunch. I mean, he's a really smart football player. He works at it; he works really hard. He has a great skill set. And really it’s our job as coaches to really put them in the best spots where he could be successful. And I know this about Johnathan, he's willing to do whatever we ask. I mean, he's in here early, stays late. He brings guys together. So, I’ve been really, really pleased with Johnathan, but I knew that about him when he was coming out when we interviewed him when he was at Mississippi State. He’s just a real good football player that works hard at his craft and is willing to do anything for the team, which we value. Team first guys, so that's important.”
Q: What can Duron Harmon do for Abram?
Coach Graham: “I mean, you probably would have to have ask Johnathan. Duron has as a lot of veteran leadership. He's seen a lot of things. Again, to me, when you got those veterans, they've seen so much. It's no different than a quarterback, a quarterback is able to decipher the disguise or figure out disguise because he's seen so many different ways guys are playing it. It's no different than a safety. A safety's back there, really, I would say more so is the quarterback of the defense a lot of times. So, the more reps Duron has had, the more likely he has seen more things that he could talk on it. So, I mean, whether it's Johnathan, the other guy’s, Rod [Teamer]. I mean, he's helping everybody out because he's a good teammate, a really good teammate.”
Q: What’s your vision for Tre’von Moehrig?
Coach Graham: “My vision? For him to be good. Does that work? I want him to be good, help us win a lot of football games. I think what we got to do, he's in his second year, he's shown the willingness to work. He’s shown the willingness to communicate, that's the one thing from that position we're asking those guys to talk a lot, pre and post snap, talk a lot. So, that's one important thing. Again, he's working on it every day. We're trying to build it, it’s early on in training camp. There's a lot to work on right now. But I would say right now in this part of training camp ran right now, probably the focus will be communication. Communication, recognizing sets and then just keep building on that building on that.”
Q: You guys have spent a lot of time with a couple of defensive tackles in Johnathan Hankins and Bilal Nichols. What have you seen from the rest of the guys that have come in and are stepping up?
Coach Graham: “Well, thankfully you're not really dealing with a lot of the run game, the physicality This is when you really need those guys going. But the young guys, I'll say this again, I'm real pleased with the overall group and how they work. Does that make sense? So, I'm not trying to just give you some cliche answer. The guys come to work every day. That's what I've been pleased about. But the big thing I'm seeing is the improvement on their run technique as much as they can without going against the body yet. Does that make sense? So, we know that our defense and the vision Josh [McDaniels] has, he wants us to win the line of scrimmage, so we got to be heavy handed. We got to come out of our hips. We got to strike people. Right now, we’re not striking people. We're hitting sleds. But you see them improvement, you see the pad level. I always think about young defensive linemen, when they're in college they're better than everybody. Here everybody's good, you better get your pads down or you're going to get embarrassed. So, that's been a big focus for Frank [Okam], myself. Even when Josh comes over there, I promise you you’d probably hear Josh say get the pads down on the sled 20 million times since we've been here. But that's a real focus right there and they're working at it.”
Q: You talked about transitioning from a 3-4 base to a 4-3 front?
Coach Graham: “I think you misspoke. I’ve never spoken about transitioning to anything. Nice one. I’m on to you now. I'll say this, however we deploy the front game one we're going to do what we think is best. So, if it’s 3-4 or 4-3, whatever they call that, we're going to do what we think is best. The guys are learning multiple positions. Here's the thing, the roster is so limited we only have a certain number of players. Guys have to be able to do more than one thing. That’s how you increase your value, that's how you increase the possibility of you staying here, being on the team. So, we ask a lot of our guys, whether it's in the front, the second level or the third level, we asked them to learn more than one thing. And now if you only know one thing, you better be really, really good. Because gameday there is only 46 spots, so we got to be right on that.”
Q: What have you seen from the cornerback room?
Coach Graham: “It’s a competitive room and I know that’s been said, but it really is competitive, and I think these guys push one another. You could see them in the cafeteria hanging out. My office you can see the parking lot and they're always walking out together, whether they are listening to music, or I don't know what they're doing. They are around each other; they're pushing one another out there on the field. And they hold each other accountable. I love when they're correcting the other guy before I even get to him. And that's hard to get to at this point in the process we're in. We just all met in the spring. We're in the first few days of training camp, so that's been good out there on the field. You know what you want from corners, we'll find out truly the guys that can tackle, that have some toughness. Obviously, they have to be able to run and play panic free in the deep part of the field. Have we really been exposed to that yet? No, but I can see the speed out there from the group. I see the competitiveness from the group and the willingness to work at tackling, so we'll find out when the pads come on.”
Q: Has your defense gotten accomplished what you wanted to the first three practices?
Coach Graham: “Hell no! Am I allowed to say that? I'm a coach. I mean, come on now. We got a lot of stuff to improve on. No. They’re working hard, but no, we haven't. The standard is the standard. The standard is the standard. And like coach said, we're trying to build championship habits. And it's a process. So, it's an imperfect game, but we're striving to be perfect. And so, if you ask me as a coach, no, but they're working at it. They're working at it.”
Q: What does Denzel Perryman bring as a leader on the defense?
Coach Graham: “I think it's important and I've been around some good ones in my career, consistency, whether it's your motions, whether it's, you are out there on the field with your communication, your play. I mean, you can't lead if you're not contributing and being consistent with your contribution there. And he comes in the same way every day, great energy, willingness to learn, accountable. If he messes up, he's willing to take the blame for that and he holds others accountable. And because he's in that position as a linebacker, he's doing a good job of communicating between the players and the coaches, players and the coaches. And that's important from that position.”
Q: What is it about Josh that all these guys are buying in right away?
Coach Graham: “I mean, I'm sure they looked up on the internet the resume. Arguably in my opinion, one of the best play callers in the league. He's had a lot of success. The thing that they might not know but they probably they probably assume it is how hard he works. He’s going to look underneath every stone; he’s going to make sure to dot the I’s and cross the t’s. He's real detailed. He's real honest. He's consistent. The things you're looking for from a leader just like we talked about DP [Denzel Perryman] right there. He's consistent. And he comes from a championship background. He's building a championship culture here. That’s the standard he's going to hold for the guys here, the coaches, the players. So, I'm sure that's part of it. And you know, I mean just being consistent that's a big part of it. And he's had success.”
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