Sean Desai

Q. Was it the return of CB Bradley Roby that made you go a fair amount of big dime, or is it something about that package that made you feel you’re able to now kind of trust? (Jeff McLane)

SEAN DESAI: No, it was just for that week we thought the matchups that we had with the depth that we had and the people that we had presented well in dime, and so that was one of our plans for that week.

Q. How big were the two weeks off for S Kevin Byard really diving into the defense and maybe helping his comfort level? (Reuben Frank)

SEAN DESAI: I think just more time for anybody is just great. I think I would defer to him to see how big it was for him. But for us, it’s just more time. He was able to get home and be with his family and reflect on some things and really detail in. He’s such a professional player, such a smart player, and he adds such a great dimension to our team. Such a pleasure having him.

Q. S Reed Blankenship had maybe not necessarily any highlight reel plays, but he had a bunch of tackles in the open field where good Chiefs plays didn’t become great plays. How important was he to the win on Monday night? (Jimmy Kempski)

SEAN DESAI: Yeah, critical, critical. For us those are highlight plays. When we watch the tape those are big time plays. He has answered the bell for us repeatedly, has done a great job and is going to keep getting better too and keep improving. That’s the great thing about him, is he’s just so hungry to keep improving week in and week out.

Q. Is that why he was the guy all the way back in the victory formation? (Jeff McLane)

SEAN DESAI: That’s an offensive formation, offensive question, so I’m going to defer to that. But I would guess so, too, as well.

Q. What does it mean to have CB Bradley Roby back and stabilize that slot position? (Ed Kracz)

SEAN DESAI: Yeah, I think it was great to get him back. I know he was eager to get back and get his feet wet after not playing for a while. The conditioning, all that stuff is important.

He did a good job. We just try to keep finding and building that combination of guys we like back there by matchups and by week and who we like to present out there, and he’s done a tremendous job for that.

Q. What does having four guys in the secondary play 100% of the snaps, which you really haven’t had all year, enable you to do as a coordinator that you wouldn’t be able to do otherwise? (Bob Brookover)

SEAN DESAI: I think at every position you love to have continuity. When the guys play with each other and play amongst each other and communicate with each other, they’re hearing the same voices, feeding off each other, play off each other, communicate different tips and tendencies they see. That helps just amongst the group is that okay, we know who’s talking to us, we know what is happening, how this person sees and plays the game on this route or fit and this person does it this way. I think that just helps. That’s the big part of it. So, it’s great to have that.

Q. What are the challenges of going up against an offense that just changed its coordinator mid-season? (Jeff McLane)

SEAN DESAI: Yeah, that’s always challenging, really trying to see what the identity and the philosophy of the new play caller is and the tweaks he wants to bring.

[Bills Interim Offensive Coordinator] Joe [Brady] has obviously done this before in this league at a high level, so he’s got a lot of the experience and they have a lot of great players, and they present a lot of different challenges for us. It’ll be an exciting matchup to prepare for.

Q. What goes into the second half improvement we’ve seen lately? You’ve only given up six points the last two second halves combined. What are the factors that go into that? (Reuben Frank)

SEAN DESAI: I think our players do a great job of understanding what’s happening, and the coaches, each of the position coaches, when they meet with the guys, they are meeting with them throughout the first half in between series, it’s just kind of getting everybody back to, hey, this is what we have to do to go win this second half.

Whatever our plans are and tweaks that we have to make, we communicate as a staff and coaches with the players, and then the players respond. It’s ultimately on them, and they do a great job of kind of — and we try to get them in the right positions, and they do a great job coming out with that energy and intensity to dominate in the second half, and they’ve done a great job of that.

Q. Along those lines, you guys really firmed up against the run in the second half against the Chiefs. I guess were there changes at halftime or was it more about individual performance? (EJ Smith)

SEAN DESAI: No, I think it’s always a bit of both. We always try to make some changes and put our guys in the best position, and then our guys go out and execute it. They own that, and then we as a staff own the responsibility we have to make in terms of putting our guys in positions that we need to put them into to make them execute.

Q. How tough is it to find ways to contain Bills QB Josh Allen. He is another one of those guy that’s unpredictable. (Merrill Reese)

SEAN DESAI: Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s really hard. It’s really hard. He can beat you throwing the ball, running the ball as a true runner with the quarterback run game, and then as a scrambler. He can create explosives in a lot of different ways. He is big, physical, tough, accurate, has a strong arm.

So all those things present unique challenges, but that’s the NFL. Each week you face a different person and team and identity, and you have to adjust and adapt to that and come up with the best plan to go in.

Q. What’s the biggest challenge about this week? Not only being a short week, but a holiday week where the schedule gets jumbled a little bit. What’s the biggest challenge as a coordinator in that regard? (Bob Brookover)

SEAN DESAI: I think it’s just about trying to make sure the plan that we have is simplistic enough for our guys to go master and execute, and our guys do a great job in terms of taking a lot of ownership in preparation – players and coaches – and then making sure it’s enough to go ahead and win the game, and obviously trying to manage the importance of the holidays and being with their family and friends, and then the importance of preparing for the game and putting the time in that way. Coach does a great job with the schedule to allow for all that to happen.

Q. Eagles defensive ends Josh Sweat and Haason Reddick both played over 65 snaps. I know the defense as a whole played 79 snaps, so abnormally high. How do you weigh the importance? I know they’re star players and hard to take them off the field, but how do you weigh that versus keeping them fresh? (Jimmy Kempski)

SEAN DESAI: That’s a balance. It’s always a challenge and something we’re constantly talking about throughout the week and even in the game, and then it’s just based on game flow, to be honest. You go into the plan with the game, and if the game goes a certain way, your reps account for a certain way.

But then it is also the volume of reps you get by quarter, too. That is really unpredictable. So that second half we had a good bit of reps the whole game, and so it’s just a matter of managing, and then really our coaches, [Defensive Ends/Outside Linebackers] Coach [Jeremiah] Washburn in that instance does a great job communicating to the guys. It’s a dialog. Okay, here is where we are at, and then you move forward and go that way. Those two players you mentioned have been phenomenal in terms of responding that way.

Q. They have both been very good at the end of games this year, Josh and Haason. Their fitness level and ability to play well at the end of games go into being up in the 80 to 85% range. (Reuben Frank)

SEAN DESAI: I think in terms of conditioning, that’s a big thing, foundational thing that we really believe in is making sure our guys are conditioned. We practice a certain way to help them get into shape and conditioned. They have to do their own stuff, too, to stay up with that. I think that’s a huge part in terms of guys going to finish games. I think our whole defense has really shown they’ve been able to do that.

Q. What did you think of DE Jalen Carter attempt to intercept the spike? Do you guys talk about that or is that just something that was like, wow, what did he just do? (Ed Kracz)

SEAN DESAI: I can’t say I drew that one up, so I won’t take that credit. I mean, he’s a smart player. He went to go take his shot in an important situation. Good for him. As long as there is no penalties associated with that, and it wasn’t, it was a clean play. Was pretty impressive how you slide underneath the center’s legs that way.

Q. Did you know it was coming? Did he say, hey, I might try this at some point or was that something he did on his own? (Ed Kracz)

SEAN DESAI: No, we have a lot of different types of conversations throughout the week with all the guys. And Nick knows. Like we’ve talked about before, the defense allows them to go make some plays in different situations when they need to go did that, and as long as they’re playing within our structure and framework we encourage that because we want our players to go make plays.

Q. What about WR Quez Watkins jumping over the Chiefs’ offensive linemen? Was that a coaching point? (E.J. Smith)

SEAN DESAI: Yeah, the big thing there is you don’t want to hit those guys. You got to get back on track, and Fletch did a great job. Got back and lined up quickly there. That’s the big point there, in those tempo situations we got to get ready to keep playing the next play and get the huddle call in from my perspective to the signal caller on the field and them getting that call out and getting aligned and getting ready to execute.