10 Questions with Dennis Allen

Thanks for posting. A good bit of coach speak, but it looks like we have some flexibility with some our players this year. And I’m excited to see what Janoris Jenkins can do opposite of Lattimore. Apple got taken advantage of a lot during his time in New Orleans.

quote:

---

Q: Going back to Janoris Jenkins, how important was the couple weeks that you got to spend with him at the end of last year there or is the overall body of work more important there?

Allen: Well, look, certainly there's an overall body of work that you utilize to try to form opinions about what a guy can or can't do, but there's nothing like the experience of having a guy in your building. I can tell you just from my experience with him in that brief period of time, I felt like he was a real pro, I felt like he came to work every day with the intention of getting better and I think he was a great addition to our football team. I am certainly excited about working with him again this season.

---

quote:

---

Q: Can you divulge anything on how to get three safeties on the field this year?
Allen: Yeah, look I have thought a lot about it. I think certainly when you look defensively, at least for us and I'd say this is a trend throughout our league. We played 70 something percent, I do not know the exact number, but 70 something percent of our snaps were played in a sub defense, with five defensive backs on the field. Now, whether that's three safeties and two corners or whether that's three corners and two safeties, certainly that remains to be seen. I think when you look at some of the depth that we do have at the safety position, I think that bodes well for us and we've got some guys that have some flexibility, in terms of what they can do. Guys like Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, guys like P.J. Williams, who has the ability to play inside the slot of wide receivers, as well as play and succeed at a traditional safety position. Certainly, we feel good about some of the depth we have and look, part of this whole process is going to be getting through training camp and getting through some of these preseason games. Finding out exactly who we have and what we have and then our job will be to utilize those players the best we can to give us success on Sundays.

---

quote:

---

Q: With all those guys with the position flexibility, how much does that open up your ability to disguise? I know you already do a lot of it, but do you feel like you have to even more room to be creative and create deception?
Allen: I think that's certainly something that we want to be able to do and having guys that have the versatility and the athleticism we have, both at the linebacker and the secondary position will be advantageous for us in terms of what we can do. Certainly the longer the down and distance, third-down, two-minute, some of those things we can get a little bit more creative in what we do and how we try to attack the offense.

---

quote:

---

Q: What's your vision for Zack Baun and is he someone too that can be flexible in the sub package, sub rush or various ways?

Allen: Yeah, we love the flexibility of the player. That was one of the things that was the most intriguing to us about him. There's a vision for this guy being able to move around and do some different things for us. Obviously, as a rookie there's a big learning curve in terms of what he's going to be asked to do, but we see him as a guy who can play on the ball, he can also play off the ball and certainly we felt like one of the things that we thought he really did well was affect the passer. There's certainly a vision in our mind of some things that we can do with him from a rush standpoint that I think can really benefit us.

---

Sad that this thread only has 3 replies
I really like what he said about jackrabbit
Finally found a true number 2 corner
Only thing is, he is getting up in age

Finally some real football talk. If we can actually have training camp hopefully people can move on