Quotesheet: Mike McCoy talks Brandon Lloyd, 4th and Goal

Offensive Coordinator Mike McCoy celebrates with Brandon Lloyd #84 of the Denver Broncos after they scored a touchdown against the Oakland Raiders at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on December 19, 2010 in Oakland, California. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Every Saturday we sift through the week’s transcripts and handpick a Q&A session of interest. This week, Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy responds to Brandon Lloyd‘s call for the football and discusses the 4th and 1 call from Tennessee last week. All quotes courtesy the Denver Broncos.

On getting WR Brandon Lloyd more involved in the offense

“We go into each game plan with what we think is the best thing for us to win. He was out obviously a couple weeks ago, and then he had a couple opportunities in the game where for one reason or another the ball didn’t go to him. He caught the one later in the game towards the end that was more downfield, but it’s not like we’re not trying to get him the ball.”

On a game plan for a receiver

“I think we have some talented receivers outside, and every game plan you go in, you’re going to take a certain number of shots, and then depending on how the game is going, things change accordingly to who’s up, who’s down, what the defense is doing, how are they playing against Brandon, are there certain coverages we saw going into the game, have they changed anything? From game to game that changes, but you’ve always got a couple of plays in there that you’d love to take those shots, and make the defense respect the deep ball.”

On teams planning around the kind of player Lloyd was last season

“The teams we’ve played the first three weeks have played the way we thought they were going to play. It’s early in the season too and with short training camps and everything this year, you’re going to go into a game more often than not, and there’s going to be some adjusting you’re going to have to make. But for the first three games of the season we’ve seen what we prepared for.”

On Lloyd wanting to get more touches

“That’s the way we want it to be. We have an open door policy here. He’s a very talented player. Of course you want to get him the ball more. Have we played a certain style of offense the first three games of the season? Yes, but we’ll find ways to get him the ball.”

On if he likes when a player tells him they want more touches

“Yes. There is only one football, and that’s the thing about it. The quarterback is the only one who is going to touch it every play, and we have some very talented, skilled players, and you’d love to get them all the ball 10, 15 times a game, but you can’t. So there are certain things you’ve got to do week to week. We’re going to call certain things for Brandon Lloyd on a week-to-week basis, and if all of a sudden the coverage takes it away, it’s [QB] Kyle’s [Orton] job to go somewhere else. It’s not like we haven’t tried to get him the ball.”

On the game plan changing with RB Knowshon Moreno back

“We have a plan because we have three talented backs who can all play, so [Running Backs Coach] Eric [Studesville], myself and the rest of the offensive staff sit down and kind of plan certain plays you want certain guys in. They’re all going to play. They’re going to get their touches accordingly. We’ll kind of just roll them like we have in the past. Knowshon was out obviously for a little bit, so he’s just working his way back into things. We’re fortunate to have all three of them.”

On if Moreno is ready for a full work load

“Yes, I think he can. He’s had a good week of practice, and he’ll start working his way back in.”

On deflected passes at the line of scrimmage

“There are certain things that happen. There are certain balls that you’re trying to throw sometimes. We might be trying to throw underneath more like in the last play of the game we were trying to throw the ball over the middle part of the field. Unfortunately where we were throwing it the defensive lineman was standing right there, and there wasn’t a big, strong rush. They were playing soft up front, and it was a volleyball. He was just sitting back there waiting to tip the ball unfortunately. Then it’s a little bit of luck also because he was just swinging his arms, and he came across it. Otherwise we hit [WR] Eric Decker, and who knows what happens from there. That’s all part of the game. That’s going to happen. We obviously would like to get those numbers cut down a lot. It’s also the offensive line’s job to knock their hands down. If they’re going to jump, you’ve got to hit them in the gut and let’s go.”

On Orton’s deflected pass intended for Decker at Tennessee

“It was wide open, but that’s part of the game. That’s not the only play. We had a number of opportunities throughout the game, so it came down to that one ball. If Eric catches it, who knows what happens from there whether we kick a field goal or go in to score from there, but that’s football.”

On turning the ball over on downs at the Titans’ goal line

“Everybody wants to look back at the 4th-and-1 call or the 4th-and-goal call and say, ‘Why’d you do that?’ or ‘What happened here?’ But we had three other opportunities, and it’s just a matter of the whole entire offense [and] coaching staff involved. We just have to do a better job. We don’t have too much further to go. We have got to find a way to get in to the end zone especially in that situation. When you’re up 14-10, to be able to go up 21-10 when your defense is playing pretty good football, and now we go up 11 instead of four, that’s what we’ve got to do. You’ve got to learn to put teams away in order to get an opportunity.”

On what he would do differently if a similar situation occurred this week

“You go into a game plan and we had a game plan of what plays we wanted to run. We ran three of the four plays that we put in for the game plan. The first one was the pass. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and then we had two other plays that we ran that came on the fourth down call. We have a game plan that the coaches work extremely hard putting together whether it’s 4th-and-1 at the one yard line, whether it’s a third down call in the middle of the field. We were going off a script of what we thought was best going off the week of preparation.”

On short yardage situations

“It’s just one game that we didn’t get in. There were four plays and we didn’t get it done. Whether it’s we’ve got to do a better job of coaching, call better plays, whatever it is, players executing it better, it’s all of us together. We had four chances to get in and we didn’t. That’s the most difficult situation in a football game, trying to get that yard when they’re all loaded up in there. They know certain pass patterns you’re running and certain things, but it’s just a matter of execution and doing a better job by all of us.”

On LB Clay Matthews

“We’ll do certain things to help him (T Orlando Franklin) throughout the game. We’ve mixed plenty of things up, plenty of play action, quick passes, do some things to help him on the edge, but he’s (Matthews) an outstanding football player. He plays hard, really hard every down, so you’ve got to know where he is every play. Everybody‘s got to have their eyes open and understand there are going to be times where he might be a little bit free off the edge. You’ve got to chip him and help him and do whatever we can. We’ll slide to him and do certain things.”

On Matthews playing well on third down

“That’s the way he is. He’s a great football player. That’s the way you want guys to play the game.”

On CB Charles Woodson

“We’re going to do what we think is best to help our football team win the game. There are a number of things we’ve got planned. Everybody wants to talk about stretching the field, but we have that in every week. Depending on how the game is going—how are you running the football, how are guys playing, who’s healthy? All that kind of depends on how you change your game plan as the game goes on.”

On trying to compete with the opposing offense

“We’re going to call the game accordingly, and when I say that, we’ve got to do what we think is best for our football team. But then again, you also have to understand that you’re only going to have so many possessions in a game like this. When you have a talented quarterback like they do, he’s going to make his fair share of plays. The longer you can keep them off the field, the better, and if you’re fortunate enough to hit some of those plays downfield for big plays and score points early, then you do that early in a series. You have to make sure that you take advantage of every possession you have. It’s different from some other teams because you know what their offense is capable of doing, so every snap is important.”

On Orton’s ability to run a no-huddle offense

“With his knowledge of the system, it’s easy to go up there. He understands defenses and all that stuff, and he knows the offense as well as anybody else, so it’s easy for him to direct the traffic.”

On Head Coach John Fox play-calling preferences

“John Fox wants to do one thing—win. It doesn’t matter if we run the ball 50 times or pass the ball 50 times in a game. All he wants to do is win. That’s all he tells us as a staff every week, ‘Do everything you can to win a game,’ and that’s what we’re doing. Of course you’d love to run it as many times as we could, but he also understands there are certain weeks where it’s going to be hard to run the football so you have to throw it more. It all comes down to: John Fox is about winning and losing. That’s what it’s all about.”