San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak spoke with reporters after Wednesday's training camp practice. Here's everything he had to say.
Transcript provided by the San Francisco 49ers Communications staff.
How have these first couple of practices gone? They look smooth as usual, just a little bit more walkie talkie and stuff.
"Yeah, calling the plays to the quarterbacks, stepping up where I need to, but everything's been smooth. Our guys have come out and had the right mindset. Our tempo has been awesome, and practices have been really good. Just have to keep going one day at a time."
How has QB Brock Purdy responded to you calling plays and been through the first couple of days?
"Great. I haven't had any issues. I have experience in camp of calling plays in move the ball periods and, obviously, in preseason. It's just a long time between then and the season, but they get used to it pretty quick. Then [head coach] Kyle [Shanahan] will be back out there at some point, and they'll get used to him. So, it's all going good."
You added a lot of speed at receiver and running back. Is the hope to try to create more space and put more pressure on the defense? What was the mindset of the offseason?
"Yeah, always trying to add more speed, more explosiveness to our offense every year. We were lacking in that last year. There's a lot of reasons why, but I think we definitely fell off in terms of our explosiveness as an offense, our yards after contact. We're trying to add players that add value in that area, but those things are products of playing the right way, of running the football better, of getting more opportunities in the pass game. When you run the ball better, there's more opportunities for play action explosives. It's all sorts of things. It's a collective effort. We have the right guys out there that are working. Just have to keep getting better."
How has WR Mike Evans' presence and having new guys in the wide receivers room upped the competition?
"Absolutely. Mike being in there is one thing. He's a vet, he's a pro, he knows how to work, he knows how to compete every day and get better. In my opinion, that whole room has taken a big step from last year to this year. There's continuity. There's guys who maybe missed time last year between [WR] Jordan [Watkins] and Jake [WR Jacob Cowing] in camp, but they're out there every day. They're getting better. I've just seen a lot of growth across the board. Those guys come out every day with the right mindset. They're on their assignments, they're working, they're competing. It's going to be fun to watch that room kind of become what it does over this next however many weeks of training camp. It's one of the positions where we have a lot of competition and I'm excited to see where it goes."
You guys had a lot of injuries at that position last summer. Is the new practice schedule part of an effort to keep everyone, especially the wide receivers, a little bit more fresh and healthy throughout the summer?
"It's definitely not just about the receivers. We're never going to make an adjustment to benefit one position group. It was a team thing. Just studying, talking to different people around the league and looking at different ways people do camp. We just thought it was a smart adjustment for us to not be going three days in a row of practice. The other benefit of that was that everybody gets to practice every day. We have days when we were doing our traditional three-day block where a lot of vets would be missing that third day to kind of take the workload off of them. The way we're doing it now is everyone's out there every day and we don't have to compensate for a lower number in a practice, which is where sometimes you might get an injury. When you're low on receivers, one day you're low on linemen or something, guys have to take more reps. So, we're trying to avoid that as best we can by adding that jog-through day. Yesterday was good. It was our first one and hopefully we get the results we want moving forward."
What have you seen from rookies WR De'Zhaun Stribling and RB Kaelon Black the past few days?
"Good work by both of those guys these first two days. Long way to go. They're rookies and they have a long way to go to grow. The volume of the playbook is going to keep going up and they have to stay with it, but you can't ask for anything more in terms of what they've done so far. They are very sharp young men in terms of being on the details of their playbook. They practice extremely hard, they're very coachable and that's all you can ask from those guys. They have to keep stacking days and getting better."
Stribling and Watkins went to Nashville to work with Brock and QB Mac Jones. Can you see a little difference in their level coming into training camp?
"Jordan, yeah. Jordan's taken a step. He went through a rookie year with ups and downs of injuries. He's been a lot more consistent. We like to see that. He was like that in the offseason. He looks that way now. I think the work with Brock over the summer for all those guys was huge. Not just from the football, but just the camaraderie and just being together and working together. That's always an added benefit for those guys. Strib as well. I think Strib was there and Strib was here a lot in the summer, working and training. Again, that's all good. It's all just a starting point though, and it gets us off to a good start."
What have you seen executed that you like through the first few days which you'll build on throughout training camp?
"You just want to see guys come out with the right mindset every day. What I mean by that is they're preparing in their meetings, they're on the details of the practice script, which allows them to play fast, which allows them to play decisively, because they're thinking with clarity. They're playing with a clear mind. You want to see that every day. It gets harder as we go through camp because the volume goes up. That's one thing. You want to see guys play hard. You want to see guys play fast. You want to see guys play on their assignments. We're not in pads right now, so you don't really see the physicality, but you want to see guys playing with detail and assignment-sound football. You want to have great tempo in practice always. You want guys in and out of the huddle. You want guys lining up fast, motioning fast. You want good operation. Those are the standards of every practice and they're no different in camp. It's our job as coaches to hold them to that every day and just keep coaching them on it."
How much extra time does it require a rookie receiver to learn the playbook? You want them to know every spot for the most part, right?
"Definitely. Think about receiver. Yeah, some guys have a position, but every position moves, every position runs every route. You want guys to be versatile. Up front, on the o-line, you want guys to have versatility. With regards to the playbook, it's not so much that the playbook is huge and there's so much. It's that things add up every day. You master the first day and then you go out there and set the second day and there's all this new stuff. There's these new stimuli and the defense is doing new things. That's the challenge. 'Okay, I went out there today and I made a few mistakes. Can I put that to bed and come out the next day and try to have a clear mind?' Eventually we're going to go to the move the ball periods where nothing is scripted, so they don't have the ability to study the script and know what plays they're going to get in practice. I'm calling it or Kyle's calling it, so they don't know what play's coming. Can you hear the play in the huddle for the first time? Can you line up and know what to do? Those are the challenges that we're going to add to their plate as camp goes on. That's part of football. It's part of learning. The guys that are up for the challenge, they embrace it and they grow from it and get better every day."
Is the Z receiver the most demanding of the three?
"I wouldn't say that. You could say the Z probably moves more in our offense because he's off the ball and that's maybe more common. As far as demanding, the demands are the same to me for all those guys. We want them going through all the same mental and physical stresses."
Looking back at the way last year ended with those two games against Seattle, what did you see? What did you learn? Where do you guys go from there?
"First of all, you give credit to Seattle. That was an elite defense. Obviously, they're a championship team, and they got the better of us in those two games. It's not like we study it and go, 'Oh, this is the thing that's going to make us now have 10 touchdowns in those two games.' We have to run the ball better. We have to be better on third down. I go back to that Week 18 game and we had something like 38 plays in the game. We weren't good on third down. We didn't stay on the field. We had too many second-and-longs. We're putting ourselves in bad situations. So how do you fix that? You go back to the start, you get better at your scheme, you try to add players in free agency that are going to make you stronger in these areas. When you go to the playoff game and you go, 'Okay, we actually did move the ball better, but we come out and we don't execute a short yardage and we get stopped on fourth and one. We have a turnover on our second drive. We have a huge third down in the second quarter of that game where we throw the ball over to [WR] Ricky [Pearsall] and he doesn't come up with it and we end up getting a field goal.' It's going to be a one possession game if we make those plays. There's so many things that go into it. We have to get better as a football team. We have to worry about us. It's not just about beating Seattle. It's about putting our guys in position to be the best they can be so we can have a 17-game season and let the chips fall where they may. We have to learn from those games. We just have to get better as a team and keep going."
QB Kurtis Rourke had a nice long ball to WR Junior Bergen on Monday. How's he doing and where is the competition between him and QB Adrian Martinez at this point?
"Kurtis is doing great. First of all, the competition between those guys is going to be all camp. Those guys, they've embraced it and those guys do a great job of coming out every day and getting their minimal reps they get and getting the most out of them. They've done a good job so far. To me, that's going to emerge through the preseason games. That's when those guys are going to get most of their reps, is in preseason. They're going to play a lot. That battle, that competition will kind of play itself out and whoever plays the best is probably going to end up winning that battle. As far as Kurtis and Adrian go, Kurtis is what we thought he was as far as the size, the mental strengths he has and his ability to throw the football. It's been jumping out to us in these first two days, and he has to keep stacking days and getting better. Adrian's a pro. Adrian does things the right way. The ball goes where it needs to go when Adrian's in the game. The same thing. Consistency, learning from mistakes, getting better each day. Then the preseason games will dictate a lot of those decisions."
How hard is it to know that you have to put in a lot of work preseason, but you also have to think of all the traveling that you're doing for the first game? Is it challenging to prepare?
"Yeah, we can't get too far ahead of the travel. It's going to be different. It's going to be a challenge, certainly, because it's so unique as far as how far we're going and maybe how long we'll be gone. We can't put the cart before the horse. We have to focus on our team right now, getting better. Then as we get closer to Week One and that travel, we'll probably have some adjustments to our schedule and how we train. For now, we're just focused on getting better."
I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on Kyle's composure these last couple days. I think it's safe to say it took a lot of guts for him to own up to some of what he talked about yesterday in front of a group of reporters. I just want to hear what your opinions might be on how he's been handling himself.
"Kyle's an outstanding leader, an outstanding mentor. He's a great friend to me. Obviously, we're all just glad he's doing well and recovering and that everything ended up kind of okay from that situation. The thing I feel really strongly, kind of going through this with our team, is it's just a reflection of Kyle's leadership that he can kind of be absent in certain ways or not as involved in certain ways, but this building and this team can continue to press on and continue to function at a high level. That's because he's enabled people to lead. He's enabled me. He's enabled our whole staff to just take on our jobs and lead in our own way. Just because he might not be here in the same way for now, and as he continues to heal, we're pressing on. We're still handling our business, and our players are handling it the right way. Again, it's all credit to his leadership. It's the standard he set. It's the culture that him and [president of football operations/general manager] John Lynch have set here. I'm honored to be a part of it. Then, as his friend, I'm glad he's getting better and just kind of taking it day-by-day."
Is he ghost-coaching at all? Is he calling you up and getting updates from you or telling you to do anything?
"Kyle's here every day. He's definitely paying attention to what's going on out there, watching film and definitely involved. It's not like he's absent in that way. We're definitely communicating on certain things."
We keep asking if Kyle is reassuring you guys, but is there any conversation between you and him or other coaches where you guys are reassuring him that everything's handled?
"We try to, absolutely. I know [LB] Fred [Warner] said when he got up here that 'we got this coach.' That's our job, to reassure Kyle that we're very confident in the work we're doing. I'm very confident coming in here every day and doing my job. Helping lead the offense and helping support our assistant coaches, who are doing a phenomenal job. Everyone's stepping up and just doing what we normally do, which is do our jobs and do it to a really high standard and take care of our business. I think Kyle knows that. I think he's very confident that we're all capable of that, so we can just keep getting through this and keep pushing one day at a time."
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