Tyrone Carter Discusses The Importance Of Communication
Posted by Matt Terl on August 23, 2010 – 4:28 pm
With Mike Shanahan announcing today that safety Kareem Moore had his knee scoped and is expected to miss 4 to 6 weeks, some clarity has come to the role newly-signed Tyrone Carter will be expected to play. Reed Doughty and Chris Horton will be competing to fill the free safety spot, and Carter becomes the presumptive backup to LaRon Landry at the strong safety spot.
At least, clarity has come to everyone besides Carter himself. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said after practice today. “I just came here, practiced, and now I’ve gotta go see what my next task is.”
What Carter does have, though, is six years experience in Pittsburgh’s very similar edition of the 3-4 defense. “It’s just like learning how to walk again,” Carter said. “It’s easy. And once you get it, the concept of it is easy. Learning their terminology to compare it to ours is a little different, but it won’t take long to learn that.”
(Forgive the guy for reversing his theirses and ourses — he’s been here for, like, twenty seconds.)
So he knows what it takes to make this scheme successful. It was something that he mentioned repeatedly when he talked after practice, and it wasn’t exactly what I’d expected.
“You’ve really gotta communicate,” he said. ” You’ve really gotta talk. ‘Cause if you don’t, one bad play and you’re gonna be gone and it’s over.”
And then, later, “If we all buy into it and be communicative back there and play it together, they can’t stop you, so it just takes all eleven playing the same page, communicating, doing the things that coach asks you to do and it’ll work.”
And again, later still, “You’re able to make plays back there, but at the same time you’ve gotta communicate. In order for you to make plays, you’ve gotta believe in your other counterparts on the other side of you that they’re gonna get their job done and know that the play’s gonna come to you. So you can’t be selfish in this defense. You’ve gotta play team concept, team football.”
And, one more time, “It starts in practice. It’s new to them. In practice, they’ve gotta be goin’ over it right now. They’ve gotta be talking over it –” At this point, a reporter broke in to point out that Carter was mixing up his theys and wes again, so he corrected himself. “We! We have to be talkin’ over every assignment, you know, when we hear the call we gotta communicate, make sure we talk, man. See this here? Talk. This defense, you gotta talk. You can’t be quiet. If you’re quiet, I’m telling you, it’s gonna be over with.
This is promising news, actually, because DeAngelo Hall and LaRon Landry and Carlos Rogers and all the guys at safety have proven, it’s that they’re not much for keeping quiet. It’s just too bad that Fred Smoot is gone, because no one enjoyed communicating as much as that guy.
Tags: 3-4 defense, presesason 2010, tyrone carter
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