Every time that happens, it's an opportunity for the next person, ... We prepare hard. We come to the game with 45 guys, and everyone needs to be ready to go. It's tough to lose those guys at the beginning of the game, but the players played competitively and the team played competitively. Unfortunately, it's part of the game. |
Everybody that is covering, once they get behind the blocker, then they lose leverage on the guys that they're trying to block. The penalties aren't when they're in front of them. The penalties are when they're behind them or they're on the side of them. |
Fifteen years ago, it wouldn't have been the case. When you don't have free agency and all of that, then you can keep the player in your system and keep developing him and keep him as long as you want. Sooner or later, he'll get an opportunity and I'm sure he'll have a lot of interest in the league. |
Football's a contact sport. Tackling, that's what defensive football is, getting the guy with the ball on the ground. |
For the short amount of time he was here, he worked hard and picked up things pretty well, assignments and all that. It's tough to bring a guy in here off the street who's not familiar with your system and then put him in the game for a significant amount of plays. To his credit, I thought he was competitive. |
Getting all the run defense, seven or eight or however many guys, in the right places on any given play isn't easy. You can have everybody going hard, 110 percent, but if one guy is out of position, there's space there for the runner. |
Graham runs well, too. He can get down there. I think overall when those guys are out there, we have an element of the vertical passing game from the tight ends. |
Guss is a smart kid. He?s adept at making adjustments and understanding defensive concepts. I think he?s a strong tackler and we saw that on several plays (Sunday). Some things could?ve been better, but some of the things we asked him to do he didn?t have much of a chance to do in practice because Rodney got all the reps. If he?s put in that situation again, I think he?ll do a better job once he gets the practice reps. |
Guys that you know you're going to have to make a decision on (soon), you better figure out what extra information you can get between now and then to help you with that decision. |
Hank is a smart player. He works hard. He is very diligent. He is a tough kid and he really puts a lot into the game. |
Having those extra mid-round picks in a full draft does certainly give you flexibility to move up in rounds. There's only so far you can move in that first round. From 21 you're not going to be able to get into the top 10, but you could move up a couple of spots. |
He (Moss) pretty much has all the skill you could look for in a receiver. He can do it all, intermediate routes, deep routes, makes plays after the catch. Just an exceptional athlete. |
He can beat you in a lot of different ways. Somebody has to be conscious of him on those bootlegs. That's one less guy that can be involved in (stopping) the running game. He demands a lot of attention. |
He can get down there and stretch the inside of the field. It's always good to be able to stretch the field vertically at both your exterior positions and in your interior spots because, as a defense, if you only have one thing to stop, it's not nearly as big of a problem as when you're trying to stop five or six or seven things. |
He certainly deserves, and I'm sure will get, a good opportunity (elsewhere). He's going to be in the league. There's no question about that. |