WEEK 7 — PODIUM AVAILABILITY
Monday, October 14, 2019 | Hoag Performance Center | Costa Mesa, Calif.
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS HEAD COACH ANTHONY LYNN
On T Russell Okung:
"I'll know more about Russell on Wednesday. He has been working on the side. He is doing some good things, but we'll see on Wednesday.
"I believe he is [meeting with doctors] early this week. We'll see."
On T Trent Scott:
"I saw him this morning. He was walking. He's a little sore, but I think he'll be okay."
On improving the rushing attack:
"We'll do what we did the first four weeks of the season when we ran the ball more efficiently. I'm going to cut back a little bit, obviously, and put some younger guys in there. We just have to do a better job of executing. I just didn't think the execution was very good last night. Anytime you rush for 35 yards or whatever we rushed for, I mean, that speaks for itself."
On if changes on the offensive line affected the ground game:
"It could have slowed it down a little bit. We have a good, young offensive line. Those guys will be fine. I'm not worried about those guys. They will be fine."
On his confidence in the offensive line:
"I believe in those young men."
On the offensive line:
"When you rush for 35 yards, I don't think that's very good.
"Pass protection wasn't that bad. We had some chip help and we slid protections certain ways to help certain guys. A good team, they're going to get some rush, but overall, I didn't think it was that bad."
On QB Philip Rivers:
"At this time of the season, I don't think anybody is fully healthy. He's healthy enough to play."
On the onside kick:
"When you have your timeouts and you have a guy that can kick that flop like we have — to me, sometimes when you're kicking it as well as he kicked it last night, that's like a 50/50 ball. The opportunity to get the ball back there at midfield with those timeouts and that kind of time, I thought gave us the best chance to win the ball game."
On opting to not attempt on fourth down early in the fourth quarter:
"Not on fourth-and-15. No, we kick the field goal there and took the two-point conversions out of it so we could try to get the ball back and score a touchdown and the extra point. It's a higher percentage that you're going to make those than two-point conversions. Fourth-and-a little closer? Yeah, probably would have gone for it.
"The fourth-and-15, we weren't doing that one at all. The other one we were probably just punting because there's plenty of time."
On WR Jason Moore:
"He came in for a couple of series. I thought he did his job. He caught a ball. If we had a chance to step into it and get it out there a little further, it could have been a touchdown. I thought Jason did fine. He has been showing that on practice squad throughout the week. That's why we elevated him."
On the start to the season:
"I don't think it's gotten away [from us], it's just execution. We can coach it better and can execute it better, but those are good football teams. This league is week-to-week. Records don't matter. It's who shows up and who's the most prepared and ready to play that week. It doesn't matter if it's the second-string or third-string quarterback, the young man is a professional. I thought he did an outstanding job yesterday. He showed that."
On the tackling:
"We need to get more hats to the ball. I want to make those tackles in the open field. The more hats you get to the ball, the easier those tackles are to make. If you go up against a good running back and give someone 53 yards that they can make miss, a lot of times the back is going to win. We need to get more hats to the ball."
On a deep pass to WR Travis Benjamin:
"[QB Philip] Phil [Rivers] threw it out there. Normally, Travis would have a chance to run underneath something like that with his speed. For whatever reason, he did not get underneath that one. Maybe he could have laid out for it, I don't know."
On getting more hats to the football:
"Sometimes, you can control that by using different coverages."
On TE Hunter Henry:
"I was hoping to [get him] like 30, 35 [snaps]. Somewhere in there. I didn't want to give him the whole game. I was very pleased with how Hunter played. From the very first play to the last play, I thought he did his job."
On LB Drue Tranquill:
"He's a young linebacker, but he knows what he's doing. He plays fast. He's helping us out on special teams. I like what he's doing in there at linebacker. He wasn't perfect yesterday at linebacker, but he's going to be a good linebacker in this league for years, I can tell you that."
On K Michael Badgely:
"He's getting really close. We're going to watch him kick this week. I think this week he may take some three-step kicks for the first time."
On third down defense:
"When they're in a manageable down-and-distance and the way they were running the ball yesterday, they were pretty efficient. Their third downs weren't that long if I remember correctly. There were a lot of third-and-two, third-and-four. There were a couple of third-and-six, seven, eights. [Steelers QB Devlin Hodges] did a good job of finding open receivers, dumping it off to the backs and the backs make one [guy] miss and go get the six or seven yards."
On the lateral returned for a touchdown by Steelers LB Devin Bush:
"It was a bad play. It was just a bad play. [RB] Melvin [Gordon III] was the hot receiver and Phil [Rivers] overthrew it. It was a lateral. Mel should have jumped on it. He didn't and it was an easy score. Those are the things that the last couple of weeks have kind of bitten us in the butt. 14 points in the first quarter, that stuff is hard to overcome. We just kind of gave them seven points right there. The very next drive, a tipped ball was an interception that gave them great field position. Next thing you know, it's 14-0 in the first quarter. We just have to start games better and just execute."
On turnovers:
"Yeah, I don't like the turnovers. I do believe the turnovers are going to stop. [Rivers] may be pressing a little bit early, but he has done a good job the last couple years of taking care of the football. We just have to get back to that.
"It depends on how many turnovers. We want to win the turnover battle. We know that if we're plus-one, plus-two, plus-three what our percentages are for winning that game. Turnovers do matter."
On taking the ball away:
"We're starting to do that a little bit the last couple of weeks. Guys are tipping balls, getting interceptions. [S] Rayshawn [Jenkins] had a nice play yesterday. Guys are swarming to the ball. If you don't try to get one out, you probably won't get one. Just contact fumbles and things like that, that's just swarming hats to the football."
On RB Austin Ekeler:
"Austin, we've never stopped him. Last week, he had 49 snaps. I'm not sure how many he had yesterday, but we haven't taken Austin out of the plan. He's just sharing the backfield with Melvin [Gordon] instead of [RB] Justin Jackson."
