Matt LaFleur on Isaiah McDuffie: ‘We’ve got a ton of confidence in him’

not practi Elton Jenkins Aaron Jones Josh Meers John ran and Y is there some concern for for Jer I'd say so two days in a row not practicing longterm M or just kind of week to week yeah I don't know he told us on Sunday his back was feeling the best something happen yeah I mean you can't practice if it comes to it I know we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here but is is Roselle ready to play has he been here long enough where he could pitch in and a pinch he's going to have to be yeah we've talked a lot about the first and second halves um some of that was during a losing part but in a positive way that the offense has been more productive in the second half is that a sign up a young unit that's growing and learning about okay we're seeing this now we've seen it and now we can adjust possibly obviously we don't do a good enough job in the first half and um just need to start got to adapt quicker and have a better plan and go out there and execute at a higher level with more urgency Matt you had mentioned on Sunday that for the first time in a while you guys were sort of on the call sheet in the game plan not going two minute mode you know for an entire game how important was it to have a game like that where you weren't you weren't suddenly just winging it in two minute for a quarter and a half or whatever yeah I think that's very important because that's what you practice all week and so it was fun to be able to go out there and and practice the plays or run the plays that you practice um and the guys were executing at a a much better level and you know a lot of that is we did a pretty good job on third down and we got to continue to do that to get all those extra plays in and then also um just talking about complimentary football we weren't in a hole for the first time in a while so that that's been a big part of our problem is we just get in these holes and it's hard to climb out of them hey man what did you hear back from the league about the the runion calls I'm not at Liberty to speak on that per the uh NFL rules two more please with qu and devre having spent time injured how important has Isaiah McDuffy been to the defense is has been huge uh I think just his ability to step in there and play at a really high level obviously he's been contributing for some years now on on special teams but uh every time we ask him to go in there and take on a larger role he seems to excel at it so we've got a ton of confidence in him I view him as a starter whether he's starting or not there's been a lot of quarterbacks injured this year um I think it's like could be 48 starters after this week um how much work does Shawn get and is it any different than it has been in the past because you do have a young St maybe you can't afford a take away yeah he doesn't get any reps with um the offense but he does such a great job on the look team and they I think our guys do a pretty good job of trying to translate whatever play that is being run against the defense into the offensive terminology so that he's getting he's getting real reps at it he does a great job every every time every rep he goes out there he's competing against the defense and it's actually in some ways um it's a lot harder because you're going against our best players and um I think he gives them a great look each and every week and I I see it in his game I think he's gotten he's he's improved from the day he got here till now he's he's improved immensely so Pittsburgh's defense right now you know you see the spectacular plays they make with the teamj uh they're great at keeping points off the board but not so good on getting off the field on third down and they get described as a Ben don't break defense do you is that really a thing a Ben don't break defense well as long as you keep people out of the end zone I mean that ultimately um that's what it's all about is the points and they just I don't view them as a Bend don't break defense I think they've given up some explosion plays but they've made so many explosion plays you know on the defensive side with all the takeaways and um you know especially late in games it seems like the defense comes away with a a huge play that ultimately ends up allowing them to win the game mat are are there ways that musra Musgrave can help you more in the red zone areas as you get close potentially I think everything's on a just depending upon like kind of what coverages you're seeing and who the defense is trying to take away but yeah absolutely has he wound up doing more blocking than you intended or was it about to say no we we that is that's part of our offense we need the tight ends to block and um we need them to continue to learn and that's one of the I feel like um I don't want to say a lost start but like you see it more and more in today's football the the inability of the tight ends to block especially with some of these strong side runs but I think both he and Tucker and Ben have all done are are showing Improvement in blocking and um it's just something that you don't see as much in college football and I think it it it hurts at our level you know back back in the west coast days the fake play action to the tight end was like a slam dunk touchdown every single time you don't see that anymore which one are you talking about just like strains off the play action no like it just seemed like the guy would fake would block fake his block and leak out and and score you know in the '90s like it seemed like guys did that all the time 20 early 2000s it I don't know just it totally depends on what coverages you're getting and and whatnot and um but we we try to incorporate those guys guys was whether it's play action screens back to the tight end um some of our keeper game we have them slam and then released to the flat so it's just whether or not it gets dialed up