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Quotes
Head Coach Brad Childress
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Childress: It was our first really good live session in terms of where we say move the football, where you have a chance to not bring it back to the same spot every time. These days football is so situational that you break it down whether you spend all of your time on the goal line or in third downs or in regular downs. When you are able to move the football you really kind of feel the emotions of football. Defense thinks they got them stopped, offense hits a big play, defense is kind of down a little bit, offense should be geared up, so you get to see the ebb and flow of that and that's what that's all about. Likewise, whether it is offense is tackled for a loss, being able to overcome those things. I think what you see and somebody mentioned it the other day at this point in camp you generally see defense is ahead of offense and I would say that is the case right now. I think we are doing a great job of rushing the passer. Obviously (they are) getting their hands on a bunch of balls and that's daunting for a quarterback. They are getting a nice push in the middle and very good coverage on the outside, so their pressures are unusual and Leslie (Frazier) is doing a great job with mixing those things. We had some different looks today. I think on offense the guy that probably gets overseen, Mewelde (Moore) has had an excellent camp. He really has, and you see him pop out here and do a couple of things today but he has done everything we've asked him to do and then some. He just keeps his nose to the grindstone there and he wants to be a good football player, and again I've seen him do some different things in terms of holding landmarks in his course integrity. He has improved in that area. Adrian (Peterson), he is awashed in it a little bit right now. By design we weren't going to give Chester (Taylor) any snaps in this scrimmage; we were going let Adrian jump in there, and you saw EB jump in and out of the huddle with him a little bit, which is to be expected. He has only been here less than 48 hours or so, but you get to see the innate skills and ability. Once those eyes get trained and he has complete understanding, you'll see him get more and more comfortable I think with what he is doing.
Q: Any early word on Chester Taylor? It looked like he dinged his arm.
A: Yeah, ding is a good term. He had a forearm contusion so he just went in and stuck ice on it right away and they took a picture of it. It's a bruise.
Q: You said picture; is that an X-ray?
A: Yeah, that's short for X-ray.
Q: Without Chester out there Mewelde showed up out there for the live period. How important is it for him to get in there and get a chance?
A: It's always important that you make the most of the turns that you get, and you're right, they are not parceled out equally. When opportunity knocks you really have to make the most of it. I think you were over there talking to him but I just mentioned he has had a very nice training camp, kind of a quiet training camp but you've seen him get incrementally better in all the things that he does from pass protection to looking at that run game.
Q: Can you give us an overview of what your game plan is for play-calling as far as training camp and where you want to be for the regular season?
A: Yeah, I have given my overview over and over. This is probably my final thing until I tell you who is calling the plays. Right now it's a process. During our camps typically the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator are going to call any situation that is not scripted, that's not written down here on our practice menu. We have numbers of those plays and that falls to him but it's always going to be a collaborative effort and when I determine that, I'll share it with everybody.
Q: How does Tank Williams look to you?
A: The thing that I have seen Tank do is not have any range problems. He is getting to some footballs that you saw him break one up I think a double route where I think we were intentionally trying to trick him and move him out of the middle the other way and then he came back and made a nice play on Aundrae Allison yesterday on a deep go ball. I haven't seen any ill effects from him and I think what's significant is at this point last year in this camp off of a similar surgery, he had pain, which pain is a tell tale. Sometimes it can't be avoided but usually it points to something. It went back to the OTAs last year; he bumped a knee on a helmet and tried to get it right over the summer but it kind of lingered and then all of a sudden he came up with that broken knee cap here. He has no pain right now and that is important as a player you can go a million miles an hour if you are pain free. So I see him rounding into his old form. He is a big man, he is very smart, and he is getting things organized back there, so he is having a nice camp as well.
Q: How about Artose Pinner?
A: Yeah, Artose is another guy that we talk about every night. He has gotten better in the pass protection stuff. You've got to remember he came to us last year game three or game four before Detroit so he misses all of training camp and he doesn't get to go through any OTAs or anything like that. So we know what he does with the football in his hand, but he has gotten better and better in the pass game.
Q: All of the safeties have played well. Have you thought about how many you can realistically keep?
A: You know I don't. I'm glad to have to embrace something like that. I'd rather have that than be looking for somebody to show up on our doorstep. That's that competition thing that I am talking about, and those guys they know they have to push to get back out there because everybody does something to get your attention every day. I saw Mike Doss get in there and put a good hit on Adrian coming off the edge, so it's a nice problem to have.
Q: How would you assess the wide receivers so far? Are you pleased with what the young guys are doing or would you like to see a little bit more?
A: I think they flash. I would like to see probably from that corps and really offensively I think would be the overall thing is the consistency, so that I know exactly what standard I am going to get. I've talked about this before; training camp, that's what it is all about is exposing the guys to situations, having them make corrections and get out of this thing and really know who you are. I don't think that group and really any of those groups have developed that consistency. Offensive line-wise I've seen them grow but all you've got to do is make one wrong step when you are playing against a guy like Pat (Williams) or Kevin (Williams) and they can really accentuate that. I'd just like to see them continue to build that consistency.
Q: Has any one guy in that group caught your eye?
A: I think from time to time Aundrae Allison has flashed. I think they are all victims right now, we are down one with Billy McMullen and Todd Lowber didn't practice today, but they are all victims right now of being a little bit weary. So then they have already shown you some of their skills and abilities, but now you are working toward the mental toughness aspects and some of those things and fighting through some things. That's where that group has to grow.
Q: How important is it to bounce back for Tarvaris Jackson to bounce back from a tough practice and how do you help him bounce back?
A: Well, that's part of it. It is really part of it. It is the first time he has been exposed to the live situation where it is all tumbling down around him. It is all live except the quarterback, so your decision-making has to ramp up a little bit and you have to put all those on-air snaps that you have taken into account with some massive bodies moving at you. It is daunting sometimes and therefore your accuracy may struggle, your thought process might struggle, but again, that's a building process. I would not expect somebody the first time they get exposed to a blitz drill to be great at it. I wouldn't expect the first time during the live scrimmage situations, the goal-line being different because you are primarily going to get the ball out quickly, but when you are moving the football, that is an element in itself.
Q: Has Visanthe Shiancoe been what you expected?
A: Well, you know he was nicked up a little bit. I thought he showed up not necessarily today during the team periods, but I just watched him in the 7-on-7 and thought he did some good things. I thought he had a good afternoon practice yesterday, so again that is about as much as we have seen of him. I saw him early and then he tweaked a quad and he has been getting treatment for it.
Q: Is it hard to get a read on a guy who hasn't played that much in the past?
A: Yeah, I had mentioned to somebody the other day you could make the same assertion about Chester Taylor, and that is not all bad. You just have to look at the skills and abilities and make sure that he has the tools you are looking for and then obviously the reps are going to increase for him.
Q: Can you rate Cedric Griffin's rookie season?
A: I think he probably started slow. They had one or a couple sets of techniques that they played at Texas and it just took him a while to learn what we were teaching and trust what he was seeing with his reads, but obviously he became good enough to unseat Fred (Smoot) at that corner position. I thought he played very well. He is a violent football player out there. He will wallop you. He suffered for it a little bit with that pinched nerve in his neck and I think the thing that he did in the offseason is he did a great job of adding some good weight and I don't see some ill effects from that weight in terms of his cover ability out there. There's a couple times I was kidding around with him that he looked like a pencil neck. He looked like a 187/189 pound corner last year. Now he weighed in to start at 204 and he is probably going to play about 200 and it is all muscle mass. He has plated himself up a little bit physically.
Q: How is his confidence level?
A: His confidence level is good. He is cleaning up some things in terms of his technique, but he is a high confidence guy and plays with high energy.
Q: How impressed have you been from Marcus McCauley so far?
A: Yeah, really all those guys in the back end. You see somebody flashes; Chuck Gordon has flashed here a few days in a row in picking off balls and you all remember what type of camp he had before he got hurt last year. McCauley is usually going to make a play a day that is going to raise your eyebrows a little bit. There are times where I have asked those quarterbacks whether they owe money to him or something like that and are they all square now because they threw them the football. He has very good instincts and he is cleaning up many of his techniques. The instinct part is hard to coach. That's there, that's innate. He is doing a nice job.
Q: Would it be far to say that the defense is better then the offense or even better from last year? They seemed to be breaking up plays very consistently today.
A: It is a fast defense, for starters. You see guys racing to the football and then you've got some stoutness on the inside. I think those guys are rushing the passer as well as I have seen on the outside. I will just be interested to watch them get it into play. You know, I don't know. You rate that when the season starts. Are they better? I don't know. I just know that they are flying around and I like what I see from that side.
Q: Is there an update on Wendell Mathis and Todd Lowber?
A: Mathis is trying to fight through some muscle tightness and we just thought we would shut him down today and get him in the pool and work him out in there and see if resting it and a little therapy would help him relieve that thing. We are going to see if we can try to get Bryant McKinnie out here tomorrow. It looks like he can move around a little bit better. I was watching him down here in some of his drills. He is going to go through another extended period of soreness. He doesn't have those camp legs just yet. He has Tom Kanavy legs. He has legs from over here working on the side field. He's going to have to learn how to carry his pads, and that's a whole different thing until you have taken those reps physically.
Q: Is Erasmus James getting closer?
A: Yeah, I see him doing some good things. I was watching him stick his leg in the ground there and move around. I know Karl (Dunbar) works him after every practice here. Pat (Morris) worked McKinnie after practice yesterday. There are certain rules about the things that we can end up doing with those guys. They can't actually get on the field and participate, but the position coaches can get over there, and under the direction of a trainer, see where they are at. I think Erasmus is moving up as well.
Q: Could you talk about how Ben Leber and Chad Greenway work together in controlling the outside?
A: They are both good football players. They are different kinds of football players. Ben would fall into the savvy veteran category. It's hard tricking him. He's very smart, makes a lot of the calls along with E.J. (Henderson). His see-to-do is very quick. Greenway's see-to-do is very quick too, so both of those guys are very good football players. It's just a matter of again Leber having more experience than Chad. Chad is not going to make the same mistake twice, but in a lot of instances he is seeing things for the first time.
Q: I know it is still early, but are there any position battles that are coming to the forefront at this point?
A: Maybe I could answer that later after I think about that for a while. I'm kind of day-to-day until we get to the personnel segment at 9:30 at night. My brain is a little scrambled right now. None that jump, I would say.
Q: What has Todd Lowber shown you so far as a football player?
A: He has shown that he hasn't played much football, and I think it probably qualifies if that's the first time that he has had shoulder pads on. That would qualify as not much football, but he is a wonderful athlete. He's a little bit like Forrest Gump now, and sometimes we kid him about that. It's like, run, Todd, run. He can run and run and run and run and run and run, and yet had a pretty good hand-eye. You don't play basketball and play in the pivot and play in the post and not be able to have good hand-eye coordination. The thing that he has not exposed to is the pounding, and I'm talking about the physical pounding on your legs with equipment, and then obviously the hits that go along with that. He has shown some potential, and he is just continuing to grow. A lot of the things he is experiencing for the very first time ever.
Q: Does Lowber have a knee injury?
A: No, it's a muscle. He's got a muscle strain.
Quotes
Head Coach Brad Childress
Listen to Brad Childress
Video of Brad Childress
Childress: It was our first really good live session in terms of where we say move the football, where you have a chance to not bring it back to the same spot every time. These days football is so situational that you break it down whether you spend all of your time on the goal line or in third downs or in regular downs. When you are able to move the football you really kind of feel the emotions of football. Defense thinks they got them stopped, offense hits a big play, defense is kind of down a little bit, offense should be geared up, so you get to see the ebb and flow of that and that's what that's all about. Likewise, whether it is offense is tackled for a loss, being able to overcome those things. I think what you see and somebody mentioned it the other day at this point in camp you generally see defense is ahead of offense and I would say that is the case right now. I think we are doing a great job of rushing the passer. Obviously (they are) getting their hands on a bunch of balls and that's daunting for a quarterback. They are getting a nice push in the middle and very good coverage on the outside, so their pressures are unusual and Leslie (Frazier) is doing a great job with mixing those things. We had some different looks today. I think on offense the guy that probably gets overseen, Mewelde (Moore) has had an excellent camp. He really has, and you see him pop out here and do a couple of things today but he has done everything we've asked him to do and then some. He just keeps his nose to the grindstone there and he wants to be a good football player, and again I've seen him do some different things in terms of holding landmarks in his course integrity. He has improved in that area. Adrian (Peterson), he is awashed in it a little bit right now. By design we weren't going to give Chester (Taylor) any snaps in this scrimmage; we were going let Adrian jump in there, and you saw EB jump in and out of the huddle with him a little bit, which is to be expected. He has only been here less than 48 hours or so, but you get to see the innate skills and ability. Once those eyes get trained and he has complete understanding, you'll see him get more and more comfortable I think with what he is doing.
Q: Any early word on Chester Taylor? It looked like he dinged his arm.
A: Yeah, ding is a good term. He had a forearm contusion so he just went in and stuck ice on it right away and they took a picture of it. It's a bruise.
Q: You said picture; is that an X-ray?
A: Yeah, that's short for X-ray.
Q: Without Chester out there Mewelde showed up out there for the live period. How important is it for him to get in there and get a chance?
A: It's always important that you make the most of the turns that you get, and you're right, they are not parceled out equally. When opportunity knocks you really have to make the most of it. I think you were over there talking to him but I just mentioned he has had a very nice training camp, kind of a quiet training camp but you've seen him get incrementally better in all the things that he does from pass protection to looking at that run game.
Q: Can you give us an overview of what your game plan is for play-calling as far as training camp and where you want to be for the regular season?
A: Yeah, I have given my overview over and over. This is probably my final thing until I tell you who is calling the plays. Right now it's a process. During our camps typically the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator are going to call any situation that is not scripted, that's not written down here on our practice menu. We have numbers of those plays and that falls to him but it's always going to be a collaborative effort and when I determine that, I'll share it with everybody.
Q: How does Tank Williams look to you?
A: The thing that I have seen Tank do is not have any range problems. He is getting to some footballs that you saw him break one up I think a double route where I think we were intentionally trying to trick him and move him out of the middle the other way and then he came back and made a nice play on Aundrae Allison yesterday on a deep go ball. I haven't seen any ill effects from him and I think what's significant is at this point last year in this camp off of a similar surgery, he had pain, which pain is a tell tale. Sometimes it can't be avoided but usually it points to something. It went back to the OTAs last year; he bumped a knee on a helmet and tried to get it right over the summer but it kind of lingered and then all of a sudden he came up with that broken knee cap here. He has no pain right now and that is important as a player you can go a million miles an hour if you are pain free. So I see him rounding into his old form. He is a big man, he is very smart, and he is getting things organized back there, so he is having a nice camp as well.
Q: How about Artose Pinner?
A: Yeah, Artose is another guy that we talk about every night. He has gotten better in the pass protection stuff. You've got to remember he came to us last year game three or game four before Detroit so he misses all of training camp and he doesn't get to go through any OTAs or anything like that. So we know what he does with the football in his hand, but he has gotten better and better in the pass game.
Q: All of the safeties have played well. Have you thought about how many you can realistically keep?
A: You know I don't. I'm glad to have to embrace something like that. I'd rather have that than be looking for somebody to show up on our doorstep. That's that competition thing that I am talking about, and those guys they know they have to push to get back out there because everybody does something to get your attention every day. I saw Mike Doss get in there and put a good hit on Adrian coming off the edge, so it's a nice problem to have.
Q: How would you assess the wide receivers so far? Are you pleased with what the young guys are doing or would you like to see a little bit more?
A: I think they flash. I would like to see probably from that corps and really offensively I think would be the overall thing is the consistency, so that I know exactly what standard I am going to get. I've talked about this before; training camp, that's what it is all about is exposing the guys to situations, having them make corrections and get out of this thing and really know who you are. I don't think that group and really any of those groups have developed that consistency. Offensive line-wise I've seen them grow but all you've got to do is make one wrong step when you are playing against a guy like Pat (Williams) or Kevin (Williams) and they can really accentuate that. I'd just like to see them continue to build that consistency.
Q: Has any one guy in that group caught your eye?
A: I think from time to time Aundrae Allison has flashed. I think they are all victims right now, we are down one with Billy McMullen and Todd Lowber didn't practice today, but they are all victims right now of being a little bit weary. So then they have already shown you some of their skills and abilities, but now you are working toward the mental toughness aspects and some of those things and fighting through some things. That's where that group has to grow.
Q: How important is it to bounce back for Tarvaris Jackson to bounce back from a tough practice and how do you help him bounce back?
A: Well, that's part of it. It is really part of it. It is the first time he has been exposed to the live situation where it is all tumbling down around him. It is all live except the quarterback, so your decision-making has to ramp up a little bit and you have to put all those on-air snaps that you have taken into account with some massive bodies moving at you. It is daunting sometimes and therefore your accuracy may struggle, your thought process might struggle, but again, that's a building process. I would not expect somebody the first time they get exposed to a blitz drill to be great at it. I wouldn't expect the first time during the live scrimmage situations, the goal-line being different because you are primarily going to get the ball out quickly, but when you are moving the football, that is an element in itself.
Q: Has Visanthe Shiancoe been what you expected?
A: Well, you know he was nicked up a little bit. I thought he showed up not necessarily today during the team periods, but I just watched him in the 7-on-7 and thought he did some good things. I thought he had a good afternoon practice yesterday, so again that is about as much as we have seen of him. I saw him early and then he tweaked a quad and he has been getting treatment for it.
Q: Is it hard to get a read on a guy who hasn't played that much in the past?
A: Yeah, I had mentioned to somebody the other day you could make the same assertion about Chester Taylor, and that is not all bad. You just have to look at the skills and abilities and make sure that he has the tools you are looking for and then obviously the reps are going to increase for him.
Q: Can you rate Cedric Griffin's rookie season?
A: I think he probably started slow. They had one or a couple sets of techniques that they played at Texas and it just took him a while to learn what we were teaching and trust what he was seeing with his reads, but obviously he became good enough to unseat Fred (Smoot) at that corner position. I thought he played very well. He is a violent football player out there. He will wallop you. He suffered for it a little bit with that pinched nerve in his neck and I think the thing that he did in the offseason is he did a great job of adding some good weight and I don't see some ill effects from that weight in terms of his cover ability out there. There's a couple times I was kidding around with him that he looked like a pencil neck. He looked like a 187/189 pound corner last year. Now he weighed in to start at 204 and he is probably going to play about 200 and it is all muscle mass. He has plated himself up a little bit physically.
Q: How is his confidence level?
A: His confidence level is good. He is cleaning up some things in terms of his technique, but he is a high confidence guy and plays with high energy.
Q: How impressed have you been from Marcus McCauley so far?
A: Yeah, really all those guys in the back end. You see somebody flashes; Chuck Gordon has flashed here a few days in a row in picking off balls and you all remember what type of camp he had before he got hurt last year. McCauley is usually going to make a play a day that is going to raise your eyebrows a little bit. There are times where I have asked those quarterbacks whether they owe money to him or something like that and are they all square now because they threw them the football. He has very good instincts and he is cleaning up many of his techniques. The instinct part is hard to coach. That's there, that's innate. He is doing a nice job.
Q: Would it be far to say that the defense is better then the offense or even better from last year? They seemed to be breaking up plays very consistently today.
A: It is a fast defense, for starters. You see guys racing to the football and then you've got some stoutness on the inside. I think those guys are rushing the passer as well as I have seen on the outside. I will just be interested to watch them get it into play. You know, I don't know. You rate that when the season starts. Are they better? I don't know. I just know that they are flying around and I like what I see from that side.
Q: Is there an update on Wendell Mathis and Todd Lowber?
A: Mathis is trying to fight through some muscle tightness and we just thought we would shut him down today and get him in the pool and work him out in there and see if resting it and a little therapy would help him relieve that thing. We are going to see if we can try to get Bryant McKinnie out here tomorrow. It looks like he can move around a little bit better. I was watching him down here in some of his drills. He is going to go through another extended period of soreness. He doesn't have those camp legs just yet. He has Tom Kanavy legs. He has legs from over here working on the side field. He's going to have to learn how to carry his pads, and that's a whole different thing until you have taken those reps physically.
Q: Is Erasmus James getting closer?
A: Yeah, I see him doing some good things. I was watching him stick his leg in the ground there and move around. I know Karl (Dunbar) works him after every practice here. Pat (Morris) worked McKinnie after practice yesterday. There are certain rules about the things that we can end up doing with those guys. They can't actually get on the field and participate, but the position coaches can get over there, and under the direction of a trainer, see where they are at. I think Erasmus is moving up as well.
Q: Could you talk about how Ben Leber and Chad Greenway work together in controlling the outside?
A: They are both good football players. They are different kinds of football players. Ben would fall into the savvy veteran category. It's hard tricking him. He's very smart, makes a lot of the calls along with E.J. (Henderson). His see-to-do is very quick. Greenway's see-to-do is very quick too, so both of those guys are very good football players. It's just a matter of again Leber having more experience than Chad. Chad is not going to make the same mistake twice, but in a lot of instances he is seeing things for the first time.
Q: I know it is still early, but are there any position battles that are coming to the forefront at this point?
A: Maybe I could answer that later after I think about that for a while. I'm kind of day-to-day until we get to the personnel segment at 9:30 at night. My brain is a little scrambled right now. None that jump, I would say.
Q: What has Todd Lowber shown you so far as a football player?
A: He has shown that he hasn't played much football, and I think it probably qualifies if that's the first time that he has had shoulder pads on. That would qualify as not much football, but he is a wonderful athlete. He's a little bit like Forrest Gump now, and sometimes we kid him about that. It's like, run, Todd, run. He can run and run and run and run and run and run, and yet had a pretty good hand-eye. You don't play basketball and play in the pivot and play in the post and not be able to have good hand-eye coordination. The thing that he has not exposed to is the pounding, and I'm talking about the physical pounding on your legs with equipment, and then obviously the hits that go along with that. He has shown some potential, and he is just continuing to grow. A lot of the things he is experiencing for the very first time ever.
Q: Does Lowber have a knee injury?
A: No, it's a muscle. He's got a muscle strain.
