In a sitdown interview with the Chargers’ Senior Writer Eric Smith, Jesse Minter was asked about the vision for safety Derwin James thriving in his defense. In a rather lengthy response, Minter revealed his excitement to work with the star defensive back.
On his usage, Minter said:
I’m excited just to sort of try to try to unleash Derwin. No. 1, put him in positions to best utilize his skills and — he can do a lot of stuff — but I also think there’s a fine line. Like, ‘Let’s try to maximize Derwin and allow him to do the things that he’s really, really good at as much as possible.’ Sometimes you can get a guy like that and you can almost do too much with him and move him around too much. I want him to understand the concepts of the defense so that there’s certainly times that we can maximize his skillset.
James struggled at points last year when more was placed on his plate in reference to Brandon Staley’s STAR position. He had his slot cornerback snaps slashed in the last two weeks while his proportion of box and free safety snaps increased. The result? James had his highest PFF-graded game of the season against the Broncos and turned in a solid performance against the Chiefs.
The Chargers should still use the athletic versatility of James when they have the opportunity to, but it should be less heavily relied upon in the context of the whole defense.
Minter continued by mentioning James’ eagerness to get to work.
An elite cover guy, particularly on tight ends. And then he’s a physical presence over the middle of the field at the safety position. We want to put him in a position to use his strengths and do all that stuff to the best of his ability But really just most excited about his leadership skills, his eagerness. I feel like he stopped by my office every day the first couple of weeks I was here. He just wanted to talk and wanted to kind of get to know me and what we were trying to build. I like it to look at it as a partnership with these guys. Now we’re in this thing together, we’re building this thing together. Really excited about Derwin and the capabilities he has.