On how it feels to be back at practice…
Yeah, just getting on the field, was great to get these guys back out, the whole group. We had those two days of minicamp; we’ll just keep building on today.On
Brian Poole…
Hopefully we get him back tomorrow we’re giving him an extra day, kind of giving him a little extra conditioning and just make sure that he’s good to go. We should have him out there very soon.
On Poole’s conditioning…
No, his conditioning is alright, we just gave him an extra day. We didn’t want to throw him out there right away.
On the cornerback position…
Obviously, we need some of these young guys to come along, quickly. We knew coming in that we had two guys that are veteran players, we have a lot of young guys and a lot of guys with no experience. You know, we’re thin and we need guys to develop quickly, and were going to need guys to play well in the preseason and practice well and step up.
On how the defense could mask potential deficiencies at the cornerback position…
That’s why Greg Williams is here.
On if he feels that he needs to add more veteran corners…
That’s what personnel is for, my job is to coach the team. We have those discussions, right now we’re at where we need to be as far as numbers wise goes. These guys have been working since April and they’ve earned the opportunity to get a shot and that’s what we’re going to do.
On his early impression of Le’Veon Bell…
Like he hasn’t missed a beat. Walked in, knows what’s going on, looked good, caught the ball well, ran the ball well, you can’t tell that he’s missed any time.
On his opinion of Bell saying he would be up for 500 touches if it got the team to the Super Bowl…
I’ll agree with him on that statement, I mean it’s whatever we have to do to win. Obviously, he’s an elite player and anytime that we can get him the ball and find as many different ways as possible to get him the ball, that’s what were going to try to do. At the same time, we know teams are going to be paying attention to him, we’re going to need the other guys, that’s why you’re trying to get five guys out there in the skill position that can help you in the pass game, in the run game and make sure everybody is a viable option. You don’t want to have the one guy where they say, “Don’t worry about him he can’t do anything.”
On if he would be averse to going with a run-heavy offense…
It’s hard to make that prediction because every game is so different. The flow of the game, you could have some weird stuff happen all the sudden you’re down 21-0 and it becomes a completely different game, you get up 21-0 and it becomes a completely different game. It all depends really on the flow of the game and really what the defense sometimes is doing, if they’re trying to take him away and now we have to go a different direction.
On Robby Anderson’s potential…
Yeah, I think right now where we’re at, our offense is a blueprint in pencil really and we’ve talked to our guys about this, it’s their job to put it in sharpie. It’s their job to show me what we’re going to be and right now it’s huge for Robby. We’re trying to do as much as possible and keep giving him different routes to run, today he had something he’s never run before and he was like, “Don’t watch that one, that was terrible.” It was the first time he did something and that’s what we want. We want him to experiment with some different types of routes. I know he can run a go route; everybody knows that. We just want to keep finding ways to mask that and keep running different stuff and when that time comes it helps him get open that much easier.
On working with Hines Ward and how valuable it is to have a guy like Ward in camp as a coach…
It was interesting. It was this summer when Joe (Douglas) said something to me about how they kind of talked about bringing him in at Philly at one point to work in a training camp, and he had done it in Pittsburgh and when his name came up, he reached out to Hines and then I had a conversation with Hines and we got it done. We got him here. His first day was Monday and watching him go through the offense and pick it up as fast as he has, it’s funny because being with Emmanuel Sanders, he helped groom him. Just seeing his notes and how Emmanuel used to do his notes, I’m like, ‘Now I know who taught him how to do it.’
On if Brian Winters missed practice because of the birth of his child…
Yeah. He should be back tomorrow.
On managing Bell’s enthusiasm after missing football and running the conditioning test twice…
Yeah, once you get into the flow of training camp and the communication, he’s been great with me as far as telling me how he feels, what he likes. He hasn’t told me he hasn’t liked anything yet. I’m sure there will come a point when we try something and he’ll be like, “Eh, I’m not feeling that.” That will probably be closer to games. We’re always going to keep a close eye on that, especially when a guy has had as many touches over his career as he has. We’re going to be aware of that. Right now, today was day one, and as we go through training camp, we’ll just constantly be in communication with him. “How’s your body fee,l” when we get pads on, and things like that. Right now, we’re still in little spider pads so it’s not the same. When they kind of start roughing each other up and stuff, we’ll see how his body feels and we’ll just be in constant communication on that.
On when the first padded practice is…
The first one will start after these two days. So that third day we’ll get it going.
On his takeaway after his first training camp practice with the Jets…
It was great energy. A lot of different looks by the defense, shockingly. We’ve got a lot to clean up. It’s the first day. We’ve just got a lot better extremely fast.
On Jamal Adams describing him as competitive all the time…
Sounds like the same thing I said about him. Everybody in this building, that’s why we’re in this. That competition, that’s the best part of it. This has been extremely fun since Spring, going against our defense, because playing these guys for three straight years and going against Jamal for two years and how frustrating it was to go against him and now to get a practice against him and hear him, how he communicates with the guys on the field, because when you’re on the sideline, you don’t hear all of that stuff. And then when you are as close as we are there, you can hear him talking, “Run past” and “Watch this,” and, “This is coming.” It’s really been eye-opening for me to see how smart he is, how much he knows, how much he recognizes, how fast he operates with the rest of his teammates. It’s been very impressive. How competitive he is, as soon as he steps on the grass, he is going. He’s 100 miles an hour. That’s why everyone loves him so much.
On why there is the new energy and vibe throughout the building…
Well anytime you kind of start up a new thing and things are different, that’s how it is. It’s about being consistent, sticking with our process, that’s really going to be the biggest thing right now. Great energy level, love it, but we got to maintain that and we have to maintain that when there’s adversity because in the NFL it’s never going to be smooth sailing, something’s going to come up, we’re going to lose somebody at some point where it’s going to hurt and then the next guy has got to step up and the rest of the guys got to make sure they do their job. We just got to maintain it.
On if there’s any central theme that he wants to get across the first week to help the team be consistent through camp…
We’re just trying to do a good job of making sure that we’re tight as a group and we learn each other. This is a new group, it’s not the same team from last year, it’s a different coaching staff, a lot of new coaches, some guys have worked together, and some guys haven’t. We’re all trying to really learn each other better than what we did in the spring. We weren’t all together. We were hit or miss as far as how many guys were here all the time, which is part of the offseason and now we’re all together and we just have to keep learning each other and keep finding ways to get better.
On adding Temuchin Hodges…
I think we only had four guys at the time, and that position for us is one we like to use. We like to use multiple tight end sets and we needed some guys out there. We were lucky enough to be able to get some guys that have played a little bit and for us, the more competition we can add and the more depth we can add at that spot because it’s a tough position to play. It’s probably one of the harder positions to play, especially on offense, outside of quarterback. So, being able to add some guys that have experience and were able to walk out here and know the offense and pick it up really quick. I mean, they had a night and were able to come out here and function. That was good to see.
On the task of building a playoff team quickly with all the new faces around the building…
I mean that’s what we’re trying to do. It’s a one day at a time process. I mean, it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. You have to grind. You have to work every day to get better. We need to get better, we need to stay healthy, we need to make sure that we keep coming together as a group. It’s going to take a lot of things for us to just get to that first game and make sure that we’re ready to go and we can’t focus on what’s going to happen in Week 10 and 12 and make the playoffs. We need to focus on tomorrow, that’s what we need to focus on.
On how Chris Herndon’s preseason will be affected by the suspension…
I want him working. He’s a young player that needs reps and he’s going to be a big part of our offense when he gets back so we need him to have a good training camp, we need him to stay focused on the task at hand.
On if he will play Herndon more in the preseason…
We’re not there yet. I got an idea in my head how we’re going to do it but this is not the time and place because I haven’t even spoken to him about it yet. I told him to worry about just coming out here and practicing tomorrow. |
