Read the full transcript from HC Jeff Hafley's media availability on August 2, 2026.

I wanted to go back to Friday practice. What was the teaching lesson for Kadyn Proctor?

Jeff Hafley: On which one?

The final play on Friday. What was the teaching lesson for Kadyn Proctor?

Jeff Hafley: What happened on the play...

Zach Sieler got behind him.

Jeff Hafley: Oh, we ran a game. I'd like to say it was a well-designed defensive play. (laughter) I believe it was, yeah it was third down. I made it the final play of the competition. Now you got me again. You can't just throw that out there. I mean, you know how much – I don't even remember all the stuff that happened yesterday and you're asking me about one play on (Friday). No, I actually remember the play now. So we put the ball down, third down and we made a call defensively where we knew where the man side was going to be, and I told Zach once he figured that out to call a certain game and he did. It was a very veteran move on a game, and Proc (Kadyn Proctor) has just got to see it and come off faster. And that is a big – your question, it's actually a really good question now that I'm kind of thinking about it – it's a good learning lesson that in those situations, he's just got to recognize the game and come off it quicker. But it was a very well executed game by Zach. I mean, it was a beautiful thing.

How is Jacob Rodriguez doing in terms of getting his hands on the ball, forcing turnovers since his arrival?

Jeff Hafley: What have you seen?

Yeah, I've seen that.

Jeff Hafley: Yeah, I mean it's violent right. He's got a really good knack for getting the ball out. A lot of guys throw punches and miss and hit ribs and hit the back and hit shoulder pads, and they're trying to get the ball out. He's got a really good feel and he's got really good timing and very instinctual. I mean Achane – there was one I think a couple practices ago where Achane actually had two hands on the ball and Jacob came in and I mean, it was a violent punch and the ball came out. I think Achane even kind of smacked him on the back and was like, 'that was a heck of a punch.' Now Achane's got to hold on the ball, but I don't know who would have been able to hold on the ball on that. You can see even running sideline to sideline, he's constantly taking swings at it and they're very deliberate. Then I just think he's got really good width and range and in zone coverage he's got the ability to get up and get his hands on the football. So that's what you're probably seeing, but he's done a nice job so far.

Sticking with the rookies, what have you seen from Caleb Douglas in the first three practices?

Jeff Hafley: I've been impressed. I think he's still got work to do and within the scheme, but we've moved him around. He's made some contested catches, which I think is very impressive with guys right there. I think that's probably the No. 1 thing that I wanted to see from him; when there was people around him and when the catches were hard, could he make them? Because he does have good size and he has a good catch radius. It's a compliment to him in the first three that he's been able to make some of those plays. He's got a ways to go for what we expect of him, but I'm pleased with the way how he's approached stuff right now.

You guys have fans here for the first time today. How much are you looking forward to coaching in front of them for the first time? And just as a follow up, when the news broke that you were hired and you were watching the game inside Hard Rock Stadium, did you allow yourself to think about being center stage?

Jeff Hafley: I didn't really think about myself being center stage, to be honest with you. I'm not going to use any cliches, but it's really never been about me. I'm not the one playing. Those guys should be center stage, not me. As far as practicing in front of the fans today, I think it's great for our players. I think it's good to get them in an environment where people are watching and it changes the scenery a little bit. It brings some excitement and some juice and maybe some of them will get a little bit anxious. I think that's good for the young players and I think it's good for the city to get people out and open as many practices as we can to let people see us play, and the energy and how hard these guys are working and everything that it takes, and all the effort and the time that they put in to getting ready to go into Hard Rock and play a game. I always get really excited when you see a lot of young kids out there. I think that's a really cool deal to see these kids who probably think it's the coolest thing in the world to get close to these players. That's the most exciting thing for me and maybe help change a kid and get them working harder and doing things maybe that they can be here one day doing these type of things. So those are the cool things to me, but I'm excited for the fans. Whether I put a headset on or once I start coaching, that kind of all disappears. It's just kind of have a job to do out there and focus on getting the team better today.

Do you alter anything about practice with fans there? Like do you have the rookies hype up the fans at the beginning, like that's been done in the past or do you do it keep it the same?

Jeff Hafley: Hopefully we hype them up by the way the guys make the plays. I mean, if guys want to hype up the rookies in their own their way, they can. I'm focused on how to get better in practice today and hopefully score some touchdowns and get them excited and hopefully make some big plays on defense and get them excited. But no, I haven't really thought about that. But if certain players want to go out and get them all hyped up, then that's great.

What is it about Zeek Biggers' skill set that allows him to play inside and outside, and how much is it situation-specific?

Jeff Hafley: He's got really good size and he's athletic for his size, and he has the ability to line up inside because of that. But then he's got the athleticism and the strength that we like, especially on run downs to set the edge and it will be specific based on down and distance personnel, what packages we want to use, whether we want to get in the different looks – odd, even – but I like where he's at and it's three days. So we'll see how much we need to do that.

Is that commonplace where you're willing to give guys autonomy in practice to make calls and change things on their own within the play that they see?

Jeff Hafley: Not too much, especially right now, no, but that was an example of I know Zach (Sieler) and I know how Zach's mind works. And I made the call in and I tagged something, and then I yelled out to Zach that if he gets a feel for something, he can switch the game. And he kind of smirked at me and he switched it, and I knew he would. And I had a pretty good feeling it would work. So I think that's a coach trusting a player who's done it for a long time. And in the competitive nature of practice in that point, I wanted to make sure that the defense won that down, and they did. But I can't do that all the time because I want the offense to win downs, too. That's been a big deal for me. When the defense gets an interception, you'll see me not celebrate. I go up to the quarterback and tap him on the back and just call the next play while all the defensive coaches are running down the sideline. I stay out of that now. Now we score a touchdown, I go high five the wide receivers instead of going to talk to the DB. So I'm getting better at that. It's taken me three days to get used to that.

What excites you about pads coming on at tomorrow's practice and some real football?

Jeff Hafley: Yeah, I think the game changes when pads come on. I think it's easier to run the ball when the pads come on. I think offensive linemen can get their hands underneath shoulder pads. I think they can kind of hold in certain places that aren't going to get called. I think they can move people better. I think DBs can reroute wide receivers better because there's more surface area to get your hands on wide receivers, and I think certain positions, it becomes way more real. Like let's be honest, it becomes more real. It allows us to practice in different tempos. We can go thud where you guys will see a lot of the NFL thud somebody up, wrap them up and then kind of let them go. I do think you need to have that physicality and you need to callus your body, whether it's your shoulders or whether it's your hands or whether it's a lot of your body getting used to that physical contact, which is really hard. And then it's going to allow us to go live and play real football and see who can tackle, who can break tackles. You know, when people talk too about playing the game, I think there's a lot of safety that we still need to get better at in this game throughout the league, right? So we start teaching the proper way to tackle and keeping your head out of the tackle and protecting yourself. Well, how do you do that if you really don't practice it and get it on tape and correct it? So I think playing real football is huge and being aggressive and physical and live and actually having periods where we go to the ground is huge. But I think it also allows us to teach how to do things properly for the safety of the game, and those are all things that are very important to me.

You talked on Thursday about guys learning in different ways, whether that's seeing, hearing, the physical act of doing it with a new team. How have you and the staff kind of gone about figuring out how guys learn best as individuals? And then how much are you able to kind of tailor that learning experience for an individual versus trusting your overall install to kind of get them where they're going to learn?

Jeff Hafley: You have to find out how each player learns. Not me in front of the whole entire room, I'm going to teach how I believe is the best way to get my points across; but say you were coaching the running backs and there's only five running backs in the room. That's your job as the running back coach, to be the head coach of the running backs and get to know how each one of those guys learn because that's your job as a teacher, just like it would be as a school teacher to figure out how maybe a kid who's here versus here to teach everybody, right? And if that's extra time, if it's me and you need to go out and do an extra walkthrough because you learn better walking through, and then maybe I take him in the classroom extra in my office and we watch video because he learns best watching the video. And then there's rep guys who just need more reps on the field, but you better figure that out as a position coach, and that's 100 percent on them to figure out how each one of their players learns individuals. I think the best coaches are the best teachers, and I think that's why I have a ton of respect for all the teachers, all the school teachers, because they need to figure out how each kid learns and each kid learns differently.

To our account, the defense sports like nine, 10 takeaways. What is it about your scheme that creates these opportunities?

Jeff Hafley: It's important. I think having the ability to letting guys play fast know what they're doing. I think if you look at one punching the ball, right, you got to drill it. And then I think there's some guys that are really instinctive, like we just talked about Jacob (Rodriguez). But every day in individual, it's mandated that the first two minutes of individual, your drill has to be about attacking the football. So that's on the script. Before individual, it says 'takeaways.' So they have to do something to emphasize the takeaways. When Sean (Duggan) and I are in the defensive meeting room, it is the first thing we talk about and the first thing that we show, are the takeaways. So I think, one, you emphasize it, right. And then if you really want to break it down a step further, we're playing a lot of man coverage, but we're playing a lot of zone coverage. A lot of times when you play zone coverage and your eyes are on the quarterback, you have a better chance for takeaways where if I'm covering you man to man and say you run a route that way and my back's to the ball, most of the times you're going to get more of a PBU. But if you have like seven guys and their eyes are on the football and everybody's kind of getting ready for that quarterback to break, you have a better chance to have somebody be around the ball. So some scheme-related, a lot of player-related and then it's guys knowing what they're doing so they can play fast. And then let's talk about the d-line, right? Ball disruption is huge. Is the quarterback forced to get rid of the ball quick? Did they get their hands up to force a high throw? Did we send a pressure and all of a sudden the quarterback's got to make a bad decision? So I think everything goes into that, and then it's year to year. I've been around teams that have been in the top five and then years I've done it even more, you aren't. Sometimes the ball bounces a funny way, but I think all of those things you have to emphasize and then some of it's scheme related, too.

I'm sure you want Ollie Gordon II to be a complete back, but considering De'Von Achane and Jaylen Wright have speed as a big element of their game, do you want Ollie to be kind of that short yardage, big back?

Jeff Hafley: No, I want Ollie to compete to be an every down back, and I think he's capable of doing it. When Ollie has flashed and he knows what he's doing and he hits it, he has great speed, he has great size, and he can catch the ball out of the backfield, too. He gives us the ability with a bigger back to be good on third down and protection downs because he is a bigger person. But I want him to compete to be an every down back.

Is an ideal practice for you one where the offense wins fifty percent of the snaps, the defense fifty percent, or does it depend on what you're trying to accomplish that day? Or is there another thing you're looking at?

Jeff Hafley: That's a good question. I don't really look at like throughout the normal course of a practice, I don't really look at like who wins and loses the play. I look at the execution and I look at the process. Like (Michael) Taaffe made an interception the other day and he was completely wrong. He shouldn't have even been there. So he joked around with me and he's like, well, you know, he commented on the result. I said, 'oh, you're a results guy, huh?' I mean, jokingly, I said, 'I'm about the process.' Now trust me, in a game that's like, yeah, great job, but like, what the hell are you doing? But right now in practice, the focus has to be on the process to make sure that that's right or else those results won't happen consistently. So when you go through the process and you make sure that it was right and I kind of wait to watch the tape before I have a big reaction in practice, I do want a competitive practice and I do want to go back and forth. And truthfully speaking, if you watched on day three, we'll just go by days from now on because your question threw me off. So we'll go day three of practice, which was our last one, the offense came out firing, right? It was awesome because there was a ton of energy. And then I felt like the defense was dipping a little bit. So I stopped practice and I said, 'hey, this period, these six third downs are going to be competitive' because I felt like if I did that, it would ramp things up and it did. And I wanted to see it balance out because I do think it's good if it goes back and forth. I think if one group's just constantly dominating, that's not a good thing. I used to believe that on defense, but I don't anymore, so I do like the balance. But it's more about the process than the result.

Is today considered a high, medium or low day with intensity?

Jeff Hafley: Today is like a medium day, so it won't be as many plays, but when you see us get down to the red zone a lot, there's a reason for it. Usually when we get into the red zone, it takes away the yards that are run on the field because there's less space, right? So today we'll kind of be in the middle of the field more playing real football. Tomorrow we'll ramp it up and then day three of this week, you'll see us get back into that 20- to the goal line. Whenever you see us down there, that's me, Todd (Hunt) and the rest of our strength staff and trainers; we're trying to dial it down a little bit so we can still go really hard. I never want to say like, 'this is a low day, we're just going to jog around,' but we can do so by taking the yards out of it.

With Jonah Savaiinaea, what do you want to see from him when the pads come on? I know that Pro Football Focus ranked him as one of the worst performing guards last season. Is he aware of that? Do you want him to be aware of that?

Jeff Hafley: I don't know if he's aware of it. I'm not aware of it. Here's with Jonah, and I say this knowing that it's only three days. Jonah has obviously taken a lot of criticism. We switched his position. Is it going to help him? Is he more comfortable on this side? It's hard to play o-line year one. And he played a position that he hadn't been playing a whole lot, on the side he hadn't played, right. And, you know, he had his ups and downs last year just like most rookies. It's a hard league to play as a rookie. I think everybody understands that, especially on the o-line. There's going to be ups and downs, and we switched his position to the right side. And is he more comfortable there or is he more confident there? I don't know, you got to ask him those questions. All I know is this: he has been a pleasant surprise to me on how he's been in these first three days. I think his confidence is an all-time high. I think he's learned from going through a really hard year. I think he's had a really good offseason. I think his mind is in a great spot and he has played good football for three days, and all I want to do is him to believe in himself and continue to progress and tune out everything that happened last year, because every one of us in our lives has had a tough moment, a tough day, a tough year, and you got to put that behind you, man. You got to move on. And I just, I don't want to hear any more about Jonah last year just because it's over. Like, let's judge Jonah on everything that he's doing today, moving forward and see how he does. And then I think that's fair, but I hope he's not worried about what anyone else has said about him in the past and he can just move on from that.