Watson on QBs, TEs, the development of the offense and more

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How is Pitt’s offense developing in its first training camp with Shawn Watson? The Panthers’ offensive coordinator met the media Thursday to discuss the team’s progress.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE QUARTERBACKS AFTER THREE WEEKS?
WATSON: The two older guys are really playing at a high level. I know they’ve put a lot of work in, they’re highly competitive guys, they’re really good for each other that way. They’re really good for each other in that they help each other. So we’ve got a really good room and a really good things going. So I appreciate, first off, the spirited competition between them, and then how that’s affected their play. When you have competition in your room, the performance goes up. So that’s been a marked difference between now and the spring.

Max knows what he’s doing. Ben’s used to being coached by me now and how we make decisions. Time has taken care of a lot of things, and I think allowed them to be really competitive with each other.

IN THE SPRING, YOU SAID YOU WANTED BEN TO GET BETTER AT DECISION-MAKING. IS THERE A THING LIKE THAT FOR MAX THAT YOU WANT TO SEE?
WATSON: He’s been very assured in his decision-making. He doesn’t make a lot of pass decision errors or run decision errors or, really, management errors. He’s very sound that way. And he should be. He’s had a lot of experience and been trained by some really good coaches. So he’s got that part. And consistency - I mean, since I’ve really been working with him, he’s been very good in that area. I think the big curve for him since he’s been here is learning how we do things, how we call things; that’s been his big curve.

IT SOUNDS LIKE MATT FLANAGAN’S BEEN DOING PRETTY WELL. DOES THAT SURPRISE YOU BASED ON HIS PAST PRODUCTION AT RUTGERS?
WATSON: I look at the character of the player, so once I got a chance to really know who Matt was, I’m not surprised by who he is. He’s a high-character player, he’s a great effort player; everything that he does is assigned and perfected to detail. So as I have known him in our short time together, I kind of get what I see every day - and when he’s not in a football uniform also. He’s very bright, a very accountable player.

SO WHEN YOU LOOK AT HIS STATS AT RUTGERS, YOU THINK THOSE DON’T TELL THE FULL STORY?
WATSON: No, they don’t tell the full story. I think, you know, what’s the emphasis of the tight end? All of those things that we don’t know - I don’t know. Standing here with you, I don’t know. I just know what he’s doing for us. He’s doing a great job for us and really providing us with high-level play. He and Chris, we’ve got a really good thing going on there, because those two guys, they’ve been very competitive with each other and we know we can use multiple tight ends now, which is huge for me.

BACK TO THE QUARTERBACKS, WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE SNAPS ARE THEY GETTING WITH THE ONE’S?
WATSON: Well, Max is getting a lot of the snaps with the one’s right now. We’re able to roll Ben in there occasionally. Really, when you’re in seven-on-seven, we’re inter-mixing the groups - passing situations, in terms of the receivers, I’m talking about. So it’s been - they’ve been able to work with the most important group, the receivers, and we’ve been able to inter-mix those guys because of the way we roll and the tempo we rep at. Those guys have got to work with both groups.

And we’ve had so many different combinations in the offensive line, they’re all getting to work with the same group because we’re doing some cross-training, we’re trying some different combinations inside with Brandon Hodges being here now and finding the best fit for how does he fit into the mix of guys that we have.

HOW ARE MAX AND BEN DOING IN THE SCRIMMAGE SETTING?
WATSON: They’re doing a good job. This past scrimmage was the one that we really had more volume in. The first one was really a very bland scrimmage. This last one was more situations because we both had more in and they’ve both done a nice job. In situational football, for example two-minute, which a quarterback’s got to shine in, one guy’s got it one day, the other guy’s got it the next day, so they’ve been very competitive in those situations. And then red-zone throwing and different areas - today we did an overtime.

So just seeing them compete against each other with their units and who they’re working with, they’ve been highly competitive. You walk off every day and somebody - yesterday, they both were awesome and their grades showed it at the end of the day.

DO YOU ANTICIPATE THE OFFENSE PLAYING AT A HIGHER TEMPO THIS YEAR?
WATSON: We’ll have that aspect. We’ll have that gear. I don’t believe in being in all of that. I think it’s - I think multi-tempos are the way to go, and that’s how we’re really built here. It’s a philosophy. It’s a team philosophy more than it is an offensive philosophy, because the offense is setting the defense up for wins and the defense sets the offense up and how we mesh that together and what the philosophy is, starting with Pat. So will we have that gear? Yes, to use. Will we live in it? No.

YOU TALK ABOUT PHILOSOPHY OF PAT; YOU’VE HAD A NUMBER OF DEFENSIVE-MINDED HEAD COACHES. HOW DOES THAT WORK FOR AN OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR? DO YOU GENERALLY GET MORE AUTONOMY?
WATSON: I’ve been fortunate to work with guys who understood that you really have to develop the quarterback. So the only thing that I’ve ever asked for us, let’s develop the team through the eyes of the quarterback. Because he gets to experience situational football, the management of the game in critical situations, and that’s where your quarterback can really be an edge for you and win for you. So they’ve all been great. I’ve had - everyone’s listened that I’ve ever worked with and we’ve applied those and had good quarterback play as a result of it.

WHEN WE TALK TO YOU HERE, YOU SEEM TO BE A SOFT-SPOKEN GUY AND THE PLAYERS SAY YOU’RE REALLY POSITIVE WITH THEM. ARE THERE TIMES, THOUGH, WHEN YOU GO TO THE OTHER SIDE?
WATSON: Guys feel my bite. I’m a competitive dude out there. I have an expectation of what I want it to look like and expect it to look like, and when it’s not that way, I bite back. But I also, at the same time, know that I’m out here to develop young men and develop players, and I want to have their ear and I want them to know how much I really do care about them as people and as a person and care about what they end up in life. I really do. That’s not coach talk. That’s who I am. And the minute I stop feeling that way, I ain’t coaching anymore. Because that’s what this profession, I think, is all about.

I think the kids appreciate it. You’d have to ask them. But they know I have a hot motor when it comes to perfection and things being played to detail. They also know that I’ll have their back and I’m always there for them to help them, whether it be football issues or life issues. That’s the type of relationship I want to have with the guys.

HOW BENEFICIAL WAS IT TO HAVE THE EXTRA WEEK OF CAMP, IN TERMS OF INSTALLING THE OFFENSE?
WATSON: I think we’ve all been trying to find our place with it across America. I’ve talked to buddies across America and everybody’s been kind of feeling their way through it, because one week extra is different. So you have to make sure you manage your team, is a big thing. And you have more time to install your offense and defense and touch those things that sometimes, because you’re doing the schematics part of it, may get overlooked or may not get touched as much. That’s the situational part, management stuff.

WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE SKILL SET OF JESTER AND QUADREE, HAVE YOU HAD A PAIR OF GUYS LIKE THAT IN PLACES YOU’VE BEEN?
WATSON: I did. In Colorado, I had DJ Hackett and I had a kid by the name of Derek McCoy - great players who were exactly like Jester. And then we had Jeremy Bloom, who was like Q. So yeah, I’ve been around it and it’s really cool having that skill set, because you can use those guys, use their skill set in what you do and how you get them open and where you put them and how you make matchups.

And I’ll tell you what, the other guys in that room, too, have been awesome. I’m just blown away by how much better Ruben is. Aaron, being with us, he’s had two really good practices back to back. So we’re really developing a whole room. Ra-Ra has been great. He’s competing with Q. And Ffrenchy’s been awesome. So we’ve got really - not just one, but we’ve got several guys like Jester and we’ve got several guys like Q, in terms of the skill set. It differs: one is a little faster, a little of this, a little of that, but we’ve got guys that we can create matchups with and use.