You said you saw a fire in Matt Ryan's eyes, what did he say that left you with that impression?
"I just thought it was his overall demeanor and his real willingness to say, 'hey these are some of the things that are important to me.' Moving forward, these are things in my past that I liked, these are things that we are doing now that I liked, it was a wide range of things. Ultimately, he knew what he wanted, he knew what he wanted to get across to me so that moving forward we are on the same page. I think that he really appreciates the relationship with the offensive coordinator and himself, and how important that is to the overall success of the team. For him to come over today to meet me as soon as I walk in the building, I think just shows how important this is to him. I was very appreciative of that. He didn't have to do that for me, I was really thankful that he took that time. It just shows his want to, and that this is obviously very important to him."
What are some of the things Matt Ryan said are important to him?
"I think we all know Matt likes to be aggressive in attacking defenses, there's no doubt that the entire organization is that way. He just wanted me to reassure him that's how I was. That we were going to be aggressive and do the things [we need to do] to throw it down the field to take advantage of the weapons that we have. And that we would have enough offense, that we would be able to break the huddle, shift to motion, run the ball, play pass, go to no huddle, get in empty and have a variety of offense that would make it tough for [someone] to defend."
What are some of the wrinkles that you think you will add to this offense?
"I don't know totally what those wrinkles will be because we are going to start to meet as a staff, we are going to go through some of the things they did. Maybe things they installed in training camp that ended up not being ran in the season. Like every offseason, whether [if] you're still here as a coordinator or you're taking over a new spot, you do an audit of the offense at the end of every year and say these are the things we did well, these are the things that we maybe didn't do so well. These are things within the system that make sense to us, these are things that we can maybe re-word this to make more sense so that if flows a little better. We'll go through all of that, I'll find some things to tweak or add here and there along the way. But again I'm not coming in trying to say, hey, here's a brand new offense. This is the Atlanta Falcons offense that they've created here over the last couple of years. Now it's my job to add to it, to continue to allow it to grow, and to stay as explosive as it has been."
What are some of the things that excite you about the talent Atlanta's offense possesses that you might not have ever worked with before?
"Well a couple of things stood out to me when watching briefly here throughout the season and as I've decided to take this job. No. 1, we've got a very bright quarterback, Matt is very bright and he can handle a lot of things, especially at the line of scrimmage. When you can do that type of stuff, generally you don't run bad plays. You have an opportunity to always be in the right play at the right time. You can't be too excessive with it, but he is a guy who candle that. That's something I'm intrigued about."
"No. 2, I really like the versatility of the running backs. Obviously their ability to catch the football, their ability to line up in the empty formations, catch the ball in the empty, catch the ball out of the backfield. That stuff is exciting for me to work with. "
