Gregg Williams, post-afternoon practice interview

Written by Dave Lawrence (New Orleans Saints) | Thursday, 06 August 2009 19:30 | Saints News

New Orleans Saints Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Where do you feel you stand at this point of camp?

"Every day we're getting a little bit better. I'm starting to learn a little bit more about the guys by seeing them compete and push through being tired and soreness and all that stuff. We're still not playing with live bullets. We've had one drill since we've been here where we've had live tackling down there on the inside run period, which was good. But a defense is measured by how well you tackle. We haven't had much time with live tackling, but I do like their effort, I do like their want-to and for the most part, I do like their smarts."

Is a lot of what you bring to the team instilling a mentality?

"It's attitude. It's so much about attitude. It starts with attitude. Tackling starts with attitude; toughness starts with attitude; technique starts with attitude. I come from a family of coaches with attitude in Buddy Ryan and Dick LeBeau and all those guys that I've been around, Dom Capers and obviously Jeff Fisher being my best friend in coaching. We've all coached defensively with that kind of a mindset. These guys have a great attitude; there's a very good locker room here. I'm pleased to date, but we're still a long ways off."

Is that attitude part of the reason that we've seen some of that chippiness lately?

"That is, and I don't see that being negative. We have to protect our teammates. We obviously don't want to hurt our own teammates in practice, but we do want to play with a chip on your shoulder. You have to play like you're living on the edge. I'll pull them back if they get too close to the edge."

Is Bobby McCray one of the more versatile guys you have on the defense?

"He is. He reminds me a lot of Jevon (Kearse), when I had Jevon early on a long time ago. We've kind of migrated and moved on and added a lot of new things for a guy like that. I didn't get a chance to do as many things with Jevon - he was a very rare player and still a really good player, but I see a lot of similarities there and I'm really excited about the opportunity to coach him. He's had a very good spring and he has had a very good training camp to date."

Does he have a particular strength? Is it coming off the edge as a pass rusher?

"Here's the deal - he's not bad against the run. I've had guys that are slender - not 300-pound guys - that have been great run players. Why would a safety that weighs 215 be a great run player but yet a guy that weighs 260 or 270 like him not be? He'll be a good run player. He's a really good, instinctive athlete. He can do a lot of things I can't coach. Mom and dad blessed him with a lot of skills and movement and change of directions. I'm looking forward to try to find some things to try to get him isolated on some people."

You said the other day that you weren't overly concerned with Malcolm Jenkins not being here because he had picked up a lot in OTAs. Are you getting concerned now that he's still not here?

"That's just a part of the business. He's a great kid, he really is. He's a sharp kid and I feel sorry for him going through that. Am I concerned? It depends on how long it takes. I happened to be on a team last year that had a first-round draft choice that didn't sign until the day of the last preseason game - Derrick Harvey, a bright young player and I think he's going to be a good player in the league. He never caught up the whole year. He never caught up and it was unfortunate for him on that. We'll see how it goes, but Malcolm is a good kid and when he gets here we'll get ready to coach him."

How do you see these guys grasping your aggressive philosophy?

"Excellent. 99% of athletes want coaches to let them be aggressive. There's always the excuse, ‘I wish Coach would let me attack more; I wish Coach would let me run more; I wish Coach would let me be nastier,' and all that. That won't be an excuse here. You can think about it like basketball and all those teams that like to run and gun up and down the floor. That's kind of the thing we do defensively here. We have to be able to run; we have to be able to attack; we have to be able to apply pressure all the time. And it's not only in blitzing and that kind of stuff; it's being able to apply pressure when you're not blitzing. We have to do a better job of winning one-on-one blocks and attacking one-on-one blocks and running real fast. We're going to play a lot of people and they have picked it up pretty good right now but we have a long ways to go."