Q: You talked yesterday about the challenge of replacing players that are injured, in particular on the kicking team. Do you have to create a depth chart at all of the positions on special teams, similar to offense and defense? How challenging is that?
BB: Sure, absolutely. Yeah, you create depth charts all the time. You know, it's interesting when you have a full roster, like in the spring or in training camp. When you have those special team meetings, sometimes your depth chart is five or six guys deep and the guy who's sixth on the depth chart sometimes will say, really, ‘Why am I here? Do I really need to be at this meeting or spend time on this? I'm sixth on the depth chart.' But, as you know, once that 90 becomes 53 and then eventually 46, literally everybody that's on the active roster for a game is probably going to be on that depth chart, excluding, of course, the quarterbacks, the specialists have their role and the offensive linemen and many of the defensive linemen, other than field goal and field goal rush. So, that cuts down your numbers quite a bit. If you eliminate a couple of other players that maybe have significant roles on offense or defense that really aren't a big part of the special teams unit - maybe they have one special role, like the hands team or something like that, which is important but not a high-frequency play - again, your numbers get cut pretty thin. So, maybe you're working with a total of - I don't know - 18, 19, 20 players, basically, for those 66 spots, or at least 44 spots, if you eliminate field goal and field goal rush. So, that's a lot of depth provided by the same guys. Again, in some cases, you have to move one guy for a spot and then somebody else replaces him, so it's not just I come in for you, but then you move over and take the spot of the person that we need to replace. So, look, every NFL team has the same situation. It's no different for us than it is for the other 31 teams, but having coached special teams for a number of years and having also coached offense and defense and understanding that when a player goes home at night - a lot of players, I should say, aren't just responsible for their plays on offense or defense or special teams. They're responsible for two of those three things. So, offensive skill players not only have to prepare for the offensive plays, but they're also preparing for plays in the kicking game, and the same thing defensively. Or, guys that are in special teams who have a primary role in the kicking game - like earlier in the year, let's just say, with a player like [Johnson] Bademosi - have to be ready to go on all the defensive units, as well. So, that's just being professional, being prepared, doing your job. But, it's a little bit like a relief pitcher in baseball. You go to the stadium and you don't know if you have to pitch or not. Well, sometimes certain players on the football team have a similar role that they don't know whether they're really going to have to perform that role or not. You have to be ready to go if you're called on, but that may not be the case. Again, each one of us on the team - every coach, every player, regardless of what our role is - we all have a job to do. Nobody can really do it for us. We all have to prepare and do the things that we need to do to be ready to perform that job when it's needed on game day in critical situations. So, that's what being a professional and that's what being a good teammate and that's what having a good team is all about is everybody doing that.