Read the full transcript from HC Jeff Hafley's media availability on November 6, 2026.

Has Proctor cleared?

Jeff Hafley: Proctor's clear.

Do you have all 53 available Sunday? Do you know yet? I know eight guys were limited.

Jeff Hafley: We still have some guys that we need to figure out.

Anything you can share that wouldn't compromise you competitively about guys kind of on the bubble?

Jeff Hafley: I would say with Jaylen Wright, we'll practice today, see how he is. Malik Herring will practice today, we'll see how he is. Kaytron Allen will practice today, and we'll see how today goes. I mean, those are really the three guys.

I wanted to ask you about Malik Willis and him running last week or not running last week. Bobby Slowik said there were some opportunities there that, it's tougher to see, from our perspective than when you're on the field. What did you see last week? Was Malik's groin a factor? And how has he done on that kind of decision making all season?

Jeff Hafley: Yeah, one, I think as you've seen kind of how I've always answered these questions about a player and how he's feeling, I think it's always a better question for the player than for me to put words in a player's mouth. I don't think it's fair for me to do that. When you watch the film, just like I'm sure you did or just like Bobby did, you're always going to see opportunities that are there that you either took or maybe you missed, right? And I could sit down with Malik and I could watch the film with Malik and I could say, 'hey man, you see this, you could take off there.' The question is, did he see it in the moment, because it's always easier when I'm sitting in an air conditioned room with a remote in my hand. But those are all good teaching moments. And the more he plays, the more he'll feel them and the more he'll see them. And to answer your other question, yeah, there's plenty of times when he has seen them and he has taken them and he has taken off. And he'll continue to do so.

What do you want to see out of Chop when he lines up against Penei?

Jeff Hafley: I want to see him be himself. I think anytime you go up against a really good player like Penei you got to trust your training. You have to be efficient. But if you go into any game and you try to change who you are or what you do based on who your opponent is, it usually doesn't end very well. Chop's having a really nice year and he's done some really good things. We would like Chop to trust himself, trust his training and continue to improve like he has.

Lions are obviously off to a good start. What are your expectations for Sunday?

Jeff Hafley: Like I mentioned, I have nothing but ultimate respect for the Lions. It's the No. 1 offense in the NFL. And their defense, I think the Shep's done a really good job with their defense, just steadily improving. They've got a really good front. They've got good safeties, corners. They're a really physical team. I think they're very well coached because you can see the steady improvement. My expectations are that we go out there and we play a clean football game as hard as we can. Try to be as efficient as we can and take another step forward. I mean, those are the most important things to me. And like I said, it will be a challenge against a really good opponent. So we're really looking forward to that.

You seem to have a lot of adults with your rookie class as opposed to kids who are just doing their own thing. How important in the draft process, as you recall with you and Sully, was being able to get a good feeling for care factor, maturity among the guys you drafted? And did you make any of those calls to any coaches you know who coached some of your draft picks about that issue?

Jeff Hafley: There's a lot of research that goes into the draft. You could imagine how important all the work that Sully and his entire staff put in. And then that trickles down to our coaching staff and all the interviews you go through, all the tape you study, all the people that you talk to. So all that does play a huge factor in it. And I think we're kind of on the same page of the type of person that we want to bring into the building that has high character, that loves football, that's going to be a great teammate and is going to play the way that we together envision playing the game. And you can't always just measure all that on tape. There's so much that does go into that and that's why all the scouts and everybody on that side. All the diligent work that they have to do when they go in and I even remember as a college head coach, when they're there at all the training camp practices and they're watching practice and they're talking to coaches and they're talking to the athletic trainers and they're talking to the strength staff and they're talking to position coaches, you're gathering so much information so that when you finally put the tape on, you have what you need to make those decisions. So those are very important.

Have you mentioned Tuesday's NFL trade deadline generally to the whole team or pulled a few guys aside who have been mentioned on the interweb as potential trade candidates just to check in with them?

Jeff Hafley: I have not, no. I have not and no one has approached me about that either.

Do you think it's something that guys worry about in general?

Jeff Hafley: I think again that's a better question for those players. But if I'm going to give you an honest answer, I'm sure it's on some guys' minds, right? I mean, I think I'd be lying to you if I said no. So I'm sure it's on some guys' minds. Again, as far as the trade deadline goes with, I love the players on this team, like I really do. In a short period of time, I care about them, I love them. I love all the work that they're doing and we'll see how this ends this week.

We've talked about Ollie's charismatic personality, but when you see a guy like him addressing the relationship that he has with you, saying that he values your hands on approach, the effort that you do to connect with players, how does that reach you personally and what does that do for the entire locker room?

Jeff Hafley: Well, I appreciate him saying that. I think relationships are really important. And I think as you go through a season with anybody, you have ups and downs. It's like two brothers or it's like father son. There's some really hard moments and there's some honest moments where you might go at it. But if it's because you care about somebody and you love somebody and you want what's best for somebody, even if you have an argument and you have to go at it a little bit, hopefully at the end of the day that they respect you and that love is in return. So I appreciate that coming from Ollie. I feel the same way about him. And as far as the locker room goes, I think all these relationships are going to be built and cultivated over time. That's very important to us. And I talk about it all the time with our team because I think as we build this thing, how close can we connect? And I think when you talk about connection, it's in a lot of different ways. It's player to player, right? It's player to coach and it's coach to coach. And I think a lot of that takes time. And I think we're just kind of at the beginning stages of it. But those are the things that we're looking to build.

With a young team like this, obviously a lot of playing time is invested in them with the hope that it pays dividends down the line. At what point do you expect to see maybe the light bulb turn on or guys start to turn a corner in terms of consistency and not making the same kind of mistakes or playing more poised?

Jeff Hafley: Yeah, it's a great question because there are examples where there's improvement, there's improvement, there's improvement, and then maybe a step back, right? And sometimes when you get into these NFL seasons for a lot of young guys, I mean, we're almost done with a college football season and we have 10 more football games left to play. So there's no like, oh my gosh, I can't believe he made that mistake again. It's just every time you take a small step backward, we got to quickly get them going forward. So you don't stack a lot of those backward where we don't have time to make up the ground. Our whole goal and what's really important is all these young players, they end up better when we finish this thing. Incrementally, they get better, so at the end of the year, they're better players than they were. There's going to be mistakes made along the way. There's going to be some mistakes within scheme, whether it's something new, there's going to be fundamentals in technique, they're just going to get beat, they're going to miss a tackle, they're going to drop a ball, they're going to do something wrong in a coverage or they're going to do something, right? Something's going to happen and it's just about if the process is right and they're truly buying into what we have been talking about, they're going to let it go and keep moving on. But we have to continue to coach and develop. And that's on me, it's on the coaches, it's on everybody in here. We've got to coach and develop and get better.

Tyke Tolbert mentioned that young players are more prone to make a mistake late in a game where fatigue has set in. I thought that was interesting. He said the thing has to stay on top of with the three rookies in particular is route precision late in games when they're tired.

Jeff Hafley: I mean, for sure. It's just again, it's the start of the game. You're fresh, you're focused, you're locked in, and then, all right, just played 35 plays and you just got hit and you get up and it's, can you do it on play 40? And then at the end of the game and things start to get tight and you're tired, right? It goes back to practice. It's why you have to make practice hard. It's why you have to practice when you're tired and you're sweating and it's hot outside and it's uncomfortable because those are the times when you usually make mistakes. Those are the times at the end of the game where you see a false start because the guy somehow, he knew it was on two, but he just – when you're thinking about breathing, you're not thinking about anything else. Like you can't. Like think about a time in your life when you're so exhausted and you're so tired and all you can do is thinking about breathing, you don't think about anything else. So you got to train in those moments. You have to train for those moments. And then there's the anxiety factor that goes into a close game and it's your first time through it. How are you going to handle it? So those are situations that we have to do our best to simulate. And those are situations, unfortunately, we're going to have to go through a bunch of them to get them experience with it. But, if Tyke said that, I totally get it and I understand it. And we need to help those guys in those situations.

I know it takes time after seven weeks out to be in game condition. With Kenneth, you mentioned this week he's still building himself up, I know he lost 12 pounds in the offseason. Is he now at the weight you want him at to be most effective?

Jeff Hafley: I would say that he's close, yeah. And I think as we watch him play, we'll adjust based on what we see. But that is a conversation, just like it is with all the players, especially when they come back from an injury, to watch them on tape, to see their movement, to see, like you're saying, how long they can play and how long they can last and you adjust as you go. And again, that's part of our job.

I know you're a secondary guy. How do you coach short-term memory, specifically for like the corners?

Jeff Hafley: Yeah, there's been some that I have coached in the past that they have it, and that requires no coaching. And there's some guys I wish had more of a memory. I say that jokingly, kind of. But then there's others where you got to talk to them. And some guys it's like truthfully, some guys it's hard. And I have coached some guys that can't let some stuff go. And sometimes it takes the experience, just like anybody else, the experience of failing and realizing, oh you know what, I came back and played pretty well, and then making a mistake that you might think cost the team again, and then what, coming back and I played really well, you got to go through a little bit. And I think it's like we keep asking about the development of the players. There's so much that goes into playing in this league physically, mentally, emotionally. And we're working on that with all the guys. And that could be even an older player that gets hit with something and is having a hard day and you got to let it go and you got to let it go. I think if there was a perfect answer for that, I would love to know it.

In your weekly film room last weekend, you spotlighted a play where Michael Taaffe fit an inside gap from depth. And we've seen Dante Trader Jr. have success at times doing the same thing this season. How hard is that for safety to do with consistency to play at depth, knowing they have to fit the run? And then what does that do for you as a coordinator to know that you have that as far as pre-snap presentation versus making your run fit puzzle hole?

Jeff Hafley: Yeah, good question. It takes time. It's always been something that we've done. And what it does is for an offense, when they ID people, they usually don't count that guy dropping in. Because usually they'll identify the linebackers and usually they'll identify safeties dropping in outside when they're responsible for their count of people. So when you're capable of having guys that can insert on the inside, a lot of times you see that they're not blocked, right? Whether that's a pressure, whether that's a zone coverage, whether it's we're playing some form of man-to-man coverage, it takes time. The timing of it is probably the key more than anything. And then it takes guys who are willing to put their face in there and make plays. And we have guys that do that. But Downard and Jahmile and those guys have done a good job with the timing of it.  I think it's something that we like to kind of stick and move with. But if you can do it, it can really help you and create a lot of versatility. I think even as you watch us play now, we're still kind of in the infancy stage of what we're running on defense right now. And I think that will probably progress as we go, we'll see. That's part of it though.

I'm doing something on the peanut punch.

Jeff Hafley: The peanut punch. You want the elbow to follow the wrist. That would be the note I would tell you to write down.

What's that – elbow follow the wrist, meaning what?

Jeff Hafley: It's like if you ever watch a guy break a board in karate. If your elbow follows the wrist and it's a big follow through, not like this, but you can see the violence where your elbow follows through on the wrist, that's where you create all your power from. So there's a technique to it. So when you go home later, you should take a board and you should have somebody hold it. And if your elbow follows the wrist and you go like – I could probably do it through this board right now if you really wanted me to, but I think everybody would get mad at me. But if I punched down right on this and the elbow followed the wrist and I followed through and everything was tight, I could probably split this thing right now for you. But I won't. But keep going.

I talked to Ollie Gordon. I talked to DJ Herman, which was interesting because the linebacker fullback thing and Fred Warner earlier this year.

Jeff Hafley: He got him.

So what would you say is the impact of the peanut punch offensively and defensively? And I know you guys work on both sides during practice of both sides of that.

Jeff Hafley: Well, I think when you practice it, I think it's like iron sharpening iron, right? It's we try to punch the ball so much in practice every single day that hopefully that trains guys like Ollie and Herm to hold on to the football. And I think as you watch around the league more, you're seeing more and more guys using that technique to punch out the ball. And then there's some guys who, when you watch the forced fumbles from around the league every week, it's like you usually see the same certain guys keep popping up because it's a skill. Because it's also the skill, the timing of it, right? It's can you hit the sweet spot of the football and not just punch some guy in the ribs or in the back of the shoulder pads or I mean, it's the timing and it's hitting the sweet spot. It's your eyes because your eyes, again, like when you practice that at home today, your power is where your eyes are. So when you go home and you hit that wood today, make sure your eyes are where you're hitting it. Because if you look up, you're not going to have any power. So elbow follows the wrist. Your power is where your eyes are. And I think you can get it done.

What are the other phrases? I've heard second man in, high and tight.

Jeff Hafley: Attack the 'skin. We have too many sayings. We could do a whole dissertation on it. But attacking the ball is very important to us. Guys talk about high and tight when they hold the football. A big one is locking the elbow because usually when the elbow is out, there's space. So if you lock your elbow, look, see what it does? When I lock my elbow, it causes it to be high and tight. You can't lock your elbow and then not be high and tight, right? So there's a lot of phrases we talk about. We try to preach it. We try to show it. We are punching at the ball. We got one out last week. Chris got one out a few weeks ago. We got a couple out earlier in the season. We need to get more and we need to continue to practice it and emphasize it. And sometimes they come in spurts. I've been on teams that have 30 plus and you do the same thing in a year and you don't get as many, right? You just got to keep going to attack it and then the offense has got to keep doing what they're doing and they've been holding it pretty good for all the work that we've put in. But that is so important.