Limit mental errors and missed assignments, take care of the little things, make plays, and win games. Simple, but not always easy to do, but that’s what Adam Gotsis says is Denver’s focus heading into the opening game of the season on Monday night.
The 4th year defensive lineman spoke with Ryan Edwards of KOA News Radio yesterday about the upcoming match-up with the Raiders and the goals they have for their defense overall.
He said while they have goals of being a top tier defense, they can’t focus on rankings and need to just worry about winning games. The formula for doing that, according to Gotsis?
“Gotta limit the mental errors, missed assignments, things like that. Just the little things, the penalties, those yards that don’t show up on the stats sheet, you gotta limit all that stuff.....and guys need to make plays when the plays are there to be made.”
Gotsis’ sentiments echo Fangio’s message since he arrived in Denver, no “death by inches”, take care of the little things, and limit mental errors. At Fangio’s introductory press conference he gave insight into the importance of that, especially as it relates to penalties:
“We had a lot of great statistical numbers this past year in Chicago,” Fangio said. “One that gets overlooked by most, but not by me, is that we were the second-least penalized defense in the NFL this past year. I believe I was told today that three of the last four years we were in the Top 5 in least penalized [defenses]. What we’re really talking about is execution. Discipline is a broad term that people use too loosely. If you play with good technique, you will avoid being penalized too many times. Some penalties are just going to happen. They happen in the competition of the game. Some are more avoidable, and we’re going to work hard to avoid those. There are ways to teach that and emphasize that, and we are going to do that.”
I know it comes off as typical interview speak, but it’s encouraging to hear a 4th-year player like Gotsis talking about exactly the kind of things that his head coach has been preaching. I wrote back in July about Fangio’s culture he’s establishing in Denver, and this is further evidence of that culture taking hold.
Now they just have to pay it off on the field. We’ll see how it plays out on Monday.
Check out the full interview above, or here.