Kevin O'Connell on Harrison Phillips Contract Extension & What Makes 49ers So Challenging

all righty um excited to get back uh you know for our home opener I thought I was really proud of our team going on the road and getting a win but um you know huge challenge um doesn't need to be said about the San Francisco 49ers coming in to US Bank Stadium and uh we want to obviously take advantage of the enthusiasm we hope to get and we know we'll get from our fans expect that place to be an awesome environment on uh on Sunday uh and we've got to put in the work this week to play a really good football team um as far as uh participation um really the only injury uh that you know as of right now he's going to stay in and get some treatment taking it a day at a time with Jordan Addison uh but everybody else should uh participate in some fashion today and uh we'll put out our injury report later on today but with that I'll open it up to you guys Kevin when it it comes to uh Andrew van GLE before he got here did you have a sense for all the different things that he could do just from his time in Miami and Brian Forest yeah that was honestly as we identified some potential Targets in free agency he was one of the first names uh that I had identified even before talking to Flo and then you know the first chance that Flo and I got together to to really talk through some of our options um that was one of the first names he mentioned to me uh for on my end of it it was really just playing against the guy uh watching crossover tape where you just see a bunch of play play get made by the same guy and they're not always the same play you know they're not always just doing his job on the edge in the Run game or pressuring the quarterback he's dropping into coverage he's matching players in coverage he's making plays on the ball he's punching the ball out you know when he arrives to tackle just does so many things and then just being an extension of flow out there as many of those guys as we can have and we have a lot of them especially you know in that first group whatever grouping that we're in that just allows kind of that player ownership to come to life cuz they understand the why and you know gink always knows really the intent behind his job on the play and then that allows them to kind of take a look at what formation we're getting what are the you know what are the Tendencies what are the things we may get and then react like picking off a screen like that that's really hard to do and then just to have the ability to catch that football I mean I could probably give some of you guys a 100 chances at that same catch and uh I can tell you you're probably not in the end zone with half our defensive staff at the end of that play how quick is that dude uh just from a hand to eye coordination Sam to cuz he's he did you know he picked off Sam the same way here at your night scrimmage yeah so it's not like a fluke no no that's it wasn't and even when we when we called that play in the night scrimmage I remember you know kind of saying over to West you know could we have gotten it the other way um you know just because of knowing that he's made those plays before and hopefully it's not the last time I expect people to have an awareness of him especially when he's standing up on the edge um you know or potentially walked uh it's just so aware that you have to make sure your timing execution and then the urgency to place the football away from him might cause you to be inaccurate you know which is the number one thing that offenses are looking for on those bubble screens and kind of quick element throws so whether he gets his hands on it or not he's still going to have an effect just by his presence right there a play like that is is his technique changing so that he can Rush from an angle that allows him to do that or is that him saying hey I see something here I'm GNA kind of do this on my own well I I think they're coaching you know offset gun run or what is our defensive formation are we in a threatening position where uh teams may look to use that as kind of a bailout type throw uh to not have to handle whatever the interior looks like from a pressure front structure standpoint and then he just knows the first you know he you know if you would have just had a handoff on the play you would have seen him probably attach to that c Gap and and do his job setting the edge and playing the run and all those things so that's the you can't really just say if he was just a guy that okay hey gink it wasn't thrown you got to go if he was that player you couldn't do as much with him but since he diagnoses and recognizes what he's going to get he can you wouldn't know the difference between the calls based upon how they played out where do you feel like Christian der has has improved the most you been here yeah I just I felt such a you know such an urgency from him just to uh attempt to be one of the best at the position uh he already has really established himself but it's really what I've really challenged him to do is every rep every day you know no matter what your matchup is in the game whether you're lining up against 97 or Burns or or Tibido last week like whoever that player is you got to treat it like your job in many cases is were probably by scheme asking you to do a significant job so the more you can consistently be Christian darol every single snap uh which he has basically been the majority of my time here um and I've just seen him really have a laser focus to do that daily since we really kind of came back to camp and uh it's awesome to see when you see a guy get rewarded as he should have with the with the contract and then be you know the same guy every single day you know it makes you feel good as the head coach of all the runs that you called on Sunday was there was there one that stands out that were most confident in because you had Aaron Jones who could do what you maybe called or maybe what you didn't yeah um it's a good question I think you saw Aaron have some explosive runs on some more tighter hitting kind of runs where he played the cut back really well uh you saw him bounce you know the play Down by the goal line um and really you know that play was packaged with with multiple other plays so the intent of actually running that run as opposed to some others down there was really kind of sented around the look that we got um and then just some of the wider hitting stuff that he was able to get outside you know that run late in the game where you know we had uh basically ran an open side Zone play where he hit it and just showed his burst and speed um so really not really in any one particular I I just think you saw a guy that he's he's pretty darn explosive with that burst and then he's got great feel and vision and then what I loved is some of those longer runs there wasn't a you know he had no desire to go out of bounds on really any of those runs there was a burst late to get every possible yard he could on those runs and uh just loved everything about his personal play style in the game I think blo used the word violent like four times yesterday talking about the 49ers just how much does that show up on tape as you guys are are preparing both sides of the ball special teams um whether they're running it throwing it whether they're blitzing or rushing for playing coverage I mean they they just play so hard um and you know this is the team I think of when you talk about play style uh not necessarily being about X's and O's uh they no matter what side of the ball you're defending or or playing offense against they don't particularly care too much if you know what's coming and I think that's uh what's a really powerful thing about their the way cop runs their their program there is is in a lot of ways you know what's coming and can you stop it and uh you know you just got to give them so much credit for not only what they've built there but as they've kind of reloaded their roster and and capitalized on Brock you know being a young player and really putting a great group around him on offense and then having those pillars you know really at every level of their defense with you know Bosa and the great interior players they have obviously Fred's the best inside linebacker in the NFL and then I think Ward is is one of the best corners in the NFL so they've really established themselves and when they get you know hanga back as well which could be this week you really start seeing the layers to that defense so it's Personnel it's play style and then it's the scheme that they run that they're so well coached at at uh playing so hard within um that gives you a lot of challenges on game day talk a little bit yesterday about some of the check system you I know you talked with him about him wanting to have the pen last I guess from an offensive perspective how does a a defense that can check like his does stress an offense or change the the map yeah I mean at any point in time um you could get a variety of different checks from those players of what they're seeing and feeling how has Flo put together the defense that week um how are things packaged it's very similar to kind of how we play offense which is why I was so drawn to the idea of of getting Flo to not only be our defensive coordinator but you know the way he allows me to you know the conversations we have it helps me you know be a better be a better offensive coordinator cuz I'm you know infusing you know the perspective of what they're you know what it's going to feel like from the other side um when we get into the game and uh I some of my favorite conversations of the week are always when Flo and I sit down and talk about kind of the plan of attack and what it's going to take to win the game what was your approach to Camp driven by games like this I I mean you can't go two it a now and stuff like that but this was definitely as you talked about you know an attempt to be in pads more blah blah blah was this driven by like the San Francisco at having and being a tougher team physically up front and you know commercially elsewhere yeah I mean everything was really I really challenged our guys to focus in on you know that that first game and and really get in a habit of you know what the weekly protocol has to be for us to have the discipline every single day every walk through every practice to maximize what we get out of it uh but you can very easily attach you know that play style term that I used a lot with you guys and our team every single day highlighting examples of it showing them what it looks like uh from our guys and and just hoping that uh they it's ingrained in the fabric of who we are that it's not something that I've got to give some impassioned speech about every single week it's more so now it's not establishing it can you maintain it regardless of who your opponent is and just so happens that our opponent this week and and many of our early season opponents really hang their hat on that play style and physicality and you've got to be able to match it and you've got to try to match it early um and not let them capture the momentum of the football game I mean these guys this week if if we do that you could see 40 plus runs out of Kyle in this group um and it it just becomes a you know a really hard game in a team to capture momentum back against um that's why I was so happy last year with how the defense was able to respond to our early turnover with a turnover of of their own and then we were able to take that down and get seven points and kind of reset the game a little bit but that all takes players being mentally tough to be able to overcome that early adversity and and we got a an immediate dose of it the other day which we've got to find a way to avoid and and not have a part of our program Harrison deal what does that mean to you and uh why now yeah I I'm glad you asked I you know Harrison's was one of the first guys that we brought here via free agency when quy and I got together here and um there was a lot to really like about Harrison from afar and then when we brought him in you really started to see even more from a leadership standpoint uh he's consistent every single day uh his teammates voted him a captain his first time in his career he was the man of the year last year and although it always tends to Circle back to what you do in between the white lines which Harrison has been really rock solid uh for us and really played a ton of snaps for us um it's also those other things that as a coach I can rest easy knowing Harrison's going to be here for you know much longer than just this year and I always like when we you know we do reward our own and we've done that a few times um you know throughout the spring and and training camp and now right you know as we're going into the season coming out of the season um I just love it every time I I know it's getting close I get excited and and you know do whatever I can to help get it over the finish line but in the end it's a a big hug and a smile from me saying I'm I'm very fortunate to have this job in the first place but to have this job with players like Harrison Phillips um gives me you know a ton of Joy Sam being in San Francisco last year does that mean anything for you guys this week with his kind of knowledge of their schemes on both sides I think it it definitely helps with his own preparation because he's very much aware of what they're all about from uh you know what he's going to be you know the incredible challenge it's going to be like it is for every quarterback that plays against them every single week um so he's definitely aware of that and then for the most part you know I think you know the days of you know you feel like at any one point in time in the season there's going to be some guys from your roster on some other teams and at what point does that player have a unbelievable impact on the game plan um you know unless a bunch of them are going to end up being coaches like me um probably not often uh but Sam's a really bright guy and and uh whatever we can get from him to help us as coaches game plan we're going to try to do but also make sure we're very sensitive to his own process that he's established that I've been challenging in him to do since really we started training camp that he's laser focused on that