Saints special teams coach Darren Rizzi talks about the big hands team play made by D'Marco Jackson and other topics on Thursday.
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00:00 All right guys.
00:05 Very underappreciated. You know, those are game winning plays. You know, when
00:20 the hands team goes out there,
00:21 um, that's usually the seal the game in most most times. And so,
00:26 um,
00:28 when you're looking at hands teams players, you know, I think the general
00:31 fan would be like, well, just put all your receivers and running backs and
00:34 tight ends.
00:35 Um, there's an element of blocking involved as well. So you have to really
00:38 have those combination guys. So a guy like DeMarco,
00:41 Zach Ball and guys that are on that unit,
00:43 um, you know, played some offense somewhere in their life, you know, and
00:46 uh, and fielded some balls. And we actually test out their hands, believe
00:50 it or not,
00:50 uh, in the preseason. But great read by DeMarco.
00:54 Great job. You know, he's out there,
00:56 you know, a little sidebar to the story. He's out there on Friday,
00:59 um, in the indoor and for about five minutes, he just had guys kicking him
01:04 onside kicks,
01:05 you know, two days before the game. And so, or on Saturday, I should say,
01:09 my day's mixed up with the Monday game. But he's out there on Saturday,
01:13 fielding onside kicks. So there is a little bit of an art to it. You know,
01:17 you never know how the ball is going to, you know, come to you. There's a
01:20 tempo and things like that. But that's a, that's a huge play for us in the
01:23 game.
01:24 Uh, you know, I make sure that he knew that, that everybody knew in our group
01:27 there, that they'll be able to play those. Like I said, when that hands
01:29 team takes the field,
01:30 you're, you're usually in the lead. It's usually a close game and they need
01:35 one. And so, you know, it was a huge play, big, big time. So great play by,
01:38 but great play by DJ.
01:40 Yeah. And well, you know, when, when Phil Galano and myself, during, you
01:48 know, during training camp, when we're doing like offensive, defensive drills,
01:51 we'll go around to different, you know, Phil works closely with the defensive
01:54 backs.
01:54 When they're doing their individual, I'll walk around and kind of watch
01:58 those guys doing ball drills. And, and
02:00 we actually have a pretty good group of linebackers, pretty good hands in our
02:03 group of linebacker, all those guys, you know, so a number of those guys, but
02:06 you know, depending on where the ball gets kicked, you might have to block.
02:09 Like I said, so you can't really have a, you know, smaller type bodies out
02:12 there, especially those frontline guys where DeMarco is, they have to be combo
02:17 players. They have to be able to block or, you know, or field the ball. And so
02:20 just throughout training camp, watching those guys kind of field balls, watching
02:23 them do their ball drills and their, and their individual stuff. And, and so
02:27 there's been, we had to be strategic with that. So, but yeah, so you really
02:30 have to have a good idea of everybody's skill set, you know, and then a guy like
02:34 Zach Ball played quarterback in high school, you know, guy, you know, guys
02:37 that have maybe some offensive background in there, you know, somewhere
02:40 along the line in their history. So.
02:44 There's,
02:44 so you guys are going up there in September and not in January, are there
02:49 any challenges,
02:50 as any of the crew specialists? Yeah, I mean, listen, we don't play, we don't
02:56 play a whole lot on grass to begin with. So, you know, obviously our whole
03:00 training camp was on grass. So, you know, Blake and Lou and Zach got a lot
03:03 of work during training camp outside on the grass. And so, you know, you're
03:07 always, there's always those challenges, you know, we'll get another good
03:09 workout outside tomorrow. I think I mentioned that last week where, you
03:12 know, we have every different surface here with goalposts and grass, indoor,
03:15 outdoor, turf, indoor, outdoor. So, you know, so just a grass stadium,
03:19 their stadium, you know, we play up there last preseason. So you get a
03:23 pretty good beat on the,
03:25 you know, on the field conditions and, you know, we'll have to check out the
03:28 wind when we get out the pregame, you know, like we do every week and kind of
03:31 see what it's doing. You know, I see how the week goes on. As we know up there,
03:35 the weather can change in a hurry. So I don't really look at the forecast too
03:38 early, but, but yeah, so those are the natural things that come with an
03:42 outdoor game. You know, you get wind direction, you're on, you're on that
03:44 surface, making sure everyone's got the right shoes on, things like that.
03:47 Yeah, it can be. It really depends on, you know, to get technical on which
03:59 direction it's coming out of and kind of how it's blowing in. Um, and that was
04:02 kind of the same thing the other night. You know, sometimes you have to, like
04:05 I said, those, those guys will really do an extensive pregame. You know, if
04:08 you go, if you get there early and you watch Blake and Lou will get out there
04:11 early, early and test their shoes out, they'll get out there early, early,
04:14 test out the wind, you know, really see which, you know, which direction the
04:17 wind's going. So, um, kind of kick the balls at the post and see what if it's
04:21 moving at all or same thing on the punts. So
04:23 um, you know, I think, I think today for the whole team to get outside, it's
04:31 good. We haven't been on grass in a while, you know, we've for the whole
04:34 group. And so I think everybody get out there and just get on the get used to
04:37 the grass footing. And then for the specialist, certainly, uh, you know,
04:40 kicking the ball outside this week, we've been indoors now for a while. All
04:43 three preseason games were indoors. You know, our first two game or our first
04:47 game rather was indoors. We're outside last week on a turf surface, but not on
04:51 the grass. So this would be our really again. We practice all training camp on
04:55 grass, but but it's been a minute since we've been out there. So getting out
04:58 there, getting everybody out there for a short amount of time today. I thought
05:00 it was good.
05:00 You brought up making sure everybody has the right shoes on.
05:04 People in the district. How does that happen?
05:11 Who's got it? Well, yeah, well, listen, I think I think there's, uh, you know,
05:15 I'm kind of one of those old school guys. You know, I come from a old school
05:20 background of making sure you get out there and having different shoes with
05:23 you. You know, there's all different this day and age. There's all different
05:26 kinds of screw ins. There's the molded. There's the and so I think a lot of guys
05:29 get used to, you know, can get used to playing in certain types of shoes,
05:34 whether they be molded bombs, screwing bombs or whatever. And so getting out
05:38 there and actually testing out pregame. There are certain stadiums throughout
05:42 the league where you watch on film and you can see players falling down,
05:46 slipping a lot of certain surfaces in certain stadiums. And so, you know, a
05:50 lot of times that can be directly related or correlate to their footwear.
05:54 So, so I think, you know, I think all of our players will end up, you know,
05:57 every week, not just this week, but every week they'll get out, test the
06:01 surface because even the field turf surfaces can be different. And, you know,
06:04 some have more fill than others. Some are a little more flat. Some have more
06:07 sand and rubber. It can be a little softer. So getting out there every week,
06:11 not just not just this week, but yeah, getting out there pregame. I think
06:14 you'll see a lot of guys out there early kind of testing out the surface.
06:16 Yeah, listen, I thought he did a really nice job on the on the punt return
06:27 unit. He put some pressure on those guys. That's something he did well in
06:30 college. Uh, and he's obviously a good, good pass rush guy. And that's
06:34 something that he can do. I think he's gonna improve a little bit more on
06:36 the kick kick return aspect. Um, that's not really something he's done a lot
06:40 of. And so, like any rookie, there's some going to be some growing pains
06:44 there, and there's gonna be some room for improvement. But when he has his
06:47 hand in the ground, he could rush and hold up and block. And he did a nice
06:49 job of that in the preseason as well in our drills and the preseason games.
06:53 That's something that that he brings to the table. You know, Pete was doing
06:57 it the week before or the week that he got hurt. So, so Isaiah stepped in
07:00 this week, kind of took his his role. But, but no, it's something that,
07:04 uh, listen, I feel like Isaiah can be a really good core player for us. Not
07:08 just a one phase guy. I think he could. He's got. He's very well rounded. He
07:11 kind of plays like a big linebacker, if you will, kind of plays those kind of
07:15 positions. And so he could be multifaceted. He can help us in a lot
07:19 of different ways. But last week in particular, he did do a nice job on the
07:21 Russians.
07:21 Okay.
07:23 Yeah.
07:25 Sure.
07:26 What are some of the things
07:29 this club takes steps forward?
07:33 Yeah, listen, I think overall, I think you're always looking for the beginning
07:37 of the season. You know, there's a little cliche about the make the big
07:40 improvements you may grow in the year from game 1 to 2 to 3. I think, listen,
07:43 I think overall as a team, I think D. A. Has done a great job of kind of laying
07:47 out where we have to improve every week. You know, he would go in and reassess
07:51 every, you know, the game, game one, game two. This is what we did. Well,
07:53 that's what we didn't do. Well, these are the things we have to improve on.
07:56 I think we did some of that from week one to two. We cut down some penalty
07:59 stuff, things like that. Overall team general stuff that were kind of themes
08:03 of the week. And so that's really what I think what you're looking for in the
08:05 beginning of the season as a whole. You're looking to just make marked
08:08 improvement. You know, we spend a lot of time on situational football, whether
08:11 it's first, second down, third down, red zone, goal line, short yards. And so
08:15 you want to kind of win, you know, at the end of the day, you always chalk up
08:18 and look at those battles. You look at the turnover battle, look at the red
08:20 zone battle, you look at the third down battle and you look at those
08:23 situational football. I think, I think this time of year, what was it last
08:27 weekend? It was at 11 or 12 out of the 16 games with one score or something
08:30 like that. It was a crazy number. And so every single play of the game is
08:34 critical. And so we're really looking to win those situations. I think what
08:37 you're seeing right now in these one score games is teams that win the
08:40 turnover battle and the third down battle and the red zone battle and the
08:43 team that win that sit those situations are the teams that are coming out on
08:46 top. And so those are the things I think D.A. has done a great job of
08:49 stressing. I think we've done a really nice job as a whole coaching staff
08:52 of emphasizing that. And those are the things you're looking to improve on,
08:55 you know, in the beginning of the season here.
08:56 No.
08:57 No.
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