Head Coach Mike McCoy will host a live chat every two weeks this offseason leading up to the NFL Draft.
He held his first one Thursday afternoon from the lobby of his Indianapolis hotel as the team is hard at work at the NFL Combine.
Here are five of his most interesting answers, followed by a transcript of his entire 40 minute session.
- Question: Who is one young player on the team that you think has a chance to blossom next year and become a starter that wasn't one last year? Thanks coach
McCoy: I don't want to say just any one player. We had a bunch of younger players step up toward the end of the year that we are excited about. I am really looking forward to getting Tourek Williams back. He was having an outstanding training camp and preseason until he got hurt.
- Question: I am hoping to see a more aggressive in game approach this season when needed, and I think many fans would too. Do you think you can be too conservative at times, and how do you determine when to be aggressive?
McCoy: When making those decisions, there are so many different factors I have to consider. How is the offense playing? How is the defense playing? What point in the game are we at? What is the score? Trust me, we are trying to score as many points as fast as we can and not allow the other team to score. But the ebb and flow of the game differs each week, which impacts my decision. For example, there is a time and place when to go for it on 4th-and-1. Part of the offseason is evaluating in game decisions. Good question.
- Question: Players use the offseason to get better. What are you using this offseason to get better at?
McCoy: We evaluate every aspect of our organization to find ways to improve. For example, on offense one of the things we are looking at right now is how to create explosive plays. Likewise on defense, we need to minimize explosive plays. Obviously we need to improve our running game. That was not acceptable last year, and something we know we need to get better at.
- Question: How do you handle criticism after a 4-12 season?
McCoy: You have to have thick skin in this business. When you are 4-12, no one is happy. You learn a lot about the character of your football team when you experience adversity. So I ask myself how do I fix some of our problems? We made a number of new changes to the staff, and we are vigorously hard at work to improve. As a team, we have to do a better job of winning the close games. We were 3-9 in games decided by eight points or less. That is a great example of the importance of every single play during the game. We had a lot of opportunities to put the game away earlier that we didn't, or we didn't make a play when the game was on the line. We must do a better job of that.
- Question: You talked about being more open with the media this year. How do you plan on doing that?
McCoy: I do hope to be more open and provide more access to our fans this year. Hosting live chats like these is one of those ways so I can hear directly from our fans and give as much access as I can. At the same time, I don't want to give anything away that would put our team at a competitive disadvantage. But yes, my hope is to give more access to our fans and I think that is important.
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