MOBILE, Ala. – This is the fourth installment of FootballScoop’s exclusive, week-long look inside the annual Reese’s Senior Bowl through the eyes of an NFL assistant coach who’s on staff this week for college football’s annual top all-star showcase.
Indianapolis Colts offensive assistant Brian Bratton, who was selected to coach wide receivers this year for the American squad, has agreed to provide a daily diary that brings a first-person view throughout the week to the audience at FootballScoop.
Bratton opened with his first piece Tuesday, and he continues today with his final pre-game entry. Bratton will wrap up his work this week for FootballScoop after the conclusion of Saturday’s annual Reese’s Senior Bowl:
It was pretty consistent as the day got started from previous days, starting off with our offensive staff meeting and continuing to make sure the staff and players are all on the same page. We continued with our film review and final elements of installation.
We moved into red-zone installation. I think it’s pretty cool because these guys are getting the installation as far as learning the actual plays, the concepts, the run schemes but also at the same time, we’re diving deep into the details of situational football for each element that we’re installing.
When it comes to red zone, I just emphasize the importance of making sure we score when we get into the red zone. The best teams, the teams that win games, are teams that take advantage in the red zone. We just emphasized how the field gets smaller in the red zone, the windows are tighter and there’s even more emphasis on route discipline and detail to everything we do.
The game is about scoring points, so if we get into the red zone, it’s a must to come away with points.
Then we went out for practice, and I had anticipated before practice that it could be really fun, that guys would be really into it. The anticipation was that we could score some touchdowns and have some fun as an offense celebrating touchdowns.
Once we got to the practice field, we went through our normal structure. It was cut down a little bit, the field smaller for the red zone work, and less running so guys can start to get their legs back for the game. So that’s perfect timing with the game approaching.
They did a great job of handling more installation of new plays, and meshing those with our previous concepts. I feel the overall execution for the day was great. Obviously, it wasn’t perfect – still things to clean up and fix, as always in football – but really feel like guys are starting to grasp concepts, grasp different details of situations and when you grasp something and begin to have success, it becomes more fun.
I feel like in these red zone situations, the guys had fun.
In 1-on-1s, they would jump up and say, ‘Hey, Coach, give me this play, let’s try this.’ I like it because they were getting in there and wanting to compete. It was fun for them to get out there and just compete. The want to, willingness, competitiveness is really coming out. The guys are into it. It’s Day 3 and they’re into it, they want to compete, do well and still want to put their skill-set out there to be evaluated.
I think that’s because they’re getting confident in what we want to do, more confident in me as a coach and more confident and comfortable in the details we’re trying to teach them on the field.
I told our wideouts, this is a great learning experience, because wherever you go, you’re gonna get a playbook that you don’t know, you’re going to be expected to learn it, and now you know that you can learn it in a short period of time, work on the details of it and have success. This is a great proving ground to show they can do what’s going to be expected of them to play in the NFL.
Once we wrapped up practice, we had our normal film review. Then we broke out of meetings and as an offensive staff, we ate dinner together. Just had a chance to hang out, get to know each other a little more and kind of just reflect on our week together.
We’ve had three really good days of work and preparation. First without players and then with players. Now we’re kind of on the back end of the week and close to game day, so it was good to go out with the staff, have dinner and get to know each other even more on a personal level.
I think we were all gratified with what we’ve able to accomplish this week. Again, the cool part is that we all came together, put together this offense led by Charles London, we taught that to our players and now our players are prepared and attempting to go execute and do a good job. I think that was the main conversation, how we’ve enjoyed working together, the players and enjoyed the experience here at the Senior Bowl. The product that it is and has been. I think we have just a respect for what we’re doing, an appreciation for the opportunity we’ve all been given. Another thing I’m excited about is this staff that was put together, because it’s been a bunch of good guys picked together to formulate this plan and give structure to go perform and be evaluated.
Today, we’re having a walkthrough. We will make sure that our i’s are dotted, t’s crossed with things we want to make sure the players know and are ready to go execute. We’ll re-emphasize situational football so that they just fully understand when they’re in those situations what to expect and, frankly, how to be successful.
The rules for the Senior Bowl have a couple of different twists, and at the end of each quarter is a two-minute situation. So we want to make sure we’re definitely on point with those things. We’ll clean up anything from Thursday’s practice and get ready for the game.
It’s the day before the game, that’s always a shorter day, you come in, get done what you need to get done and it’s kind of the calm before the storm.
I’m really looking forward to gameday and watching these guys. They’ve put in the work, and they’ve been great guys to have in the room. I’m excited for them and their chance to showcase their talents.