Joshua Morgan: “Last year we were breaking off routes.”

SANTA CLARA – Here’s a transcript of a Joshua Morgan interview from this Wednesday. Sorry I’m two days late posting this.

In this interview, Morgan sizes up the Buccaneers, he makes sense of the rise of Alex Smith, and he talks about the difference between the way this year’s offense attacks a blitz as compared to how last year’s offense would have.

Enjoy.

Q: What’s the key for the offense getting off to a fast start against Tampa Bay?

MORGAN: Cut out the turnovers and penalties and just execute. Cut out all the little mental mistakes and small errors that we’ve been making in the last couple of games. It seems like the last couple of games we made a lot of mistakes in the first half, and then now you come out and it’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s the tale of two halves, and we’ve just got to cut that out. Especially against a young team like this. They’re kind of very similar to us – a young team that’s playing good right now and they’ve got a lot of great athletes all across the board. You’ve just got to go about it like you were playing yourself. How would you beat yourself? You just focus on your technique, cut out the turnovers and everything, and you just go out there and execute and take advantage of every opportunity you get.

Q: What sticks out for you among Tampa’s DBs?

MORGAN: Just great technique. They read the quarterback good. I think Ronde has really taken Talib under his wing and told him a whole lot – that whole secondary, not just Talib…They may not have the big names the Eagles have, but I think these corners are just as good, if not better than those corners.

Q: What’s the biggest difference you’ve seen from Alex Smith these first four games?

MORGAN: I agree with what he said. I think he was trying to do too much last year. And this year, this offense is kind of like the offense he played in at Utah, so I feel like he’s a lot more comfortable, and he’s just playing football now. I don’t want to put this the wrong way, but you’ve got so much on your mind as a quarterback, but during the game he’s not out there thinking anymore. He’s just playing football and reacting, and you see the difference.

Q: When you lined up before your touchdown reception and you saw the Eagles were blitzing, did you know what was going to happen at that point?

MORGAN: I really didn’t because they were blitzing from my side and then they were bringing the free safety weak, so he could have went to either side. I just basically ran my route like I was going to get the ball and he ended up coming to my side and I got lucky.

Q: Alex Smith seems to be taking advantage of blitzes well. Have you seen that?

MORGAN: Yeah, most definitely. That’s another big difference from last year. Last year we had so much going on, so much that they put on Alex’s mind, that when it came to the blitz instead of this year. We don’t have to cut our routes shorter or anything. We don’t have to do nothing. We’ve just got to let Alex find the weak spot like he always does, and attack where the weak spot is.

Q: You’re saying that’s built into the offense?

MORGAN: Yeah, everything’s built in. Last year we were breaking off routes. They had too many people trying to read the blitz. Sometimes we would get it wrong and sometimes we would get it right, but when you’ve got other people trying to do the quarterback’s job then you’ve got miscommunication. He was holding the ball because he didn’t really know what we were going to do, and vice versa. But this year everything is everything. You just run your route and let Alex figure it out.