BB: We're pushing through here. We met this morning and came out this afternoon. We'll be back on the two-a-day schedule tomorrow. We're just trying to make some improvements day-to-day here. We have a lot of stuff to cover and we're just going through the installation. We have a lot of people working, a lot of things to cover, a lot of situations to go over. We worked on the two-minute today, some of our sub-defenses, stuff like that. So we'll just keep adding to that as we go here day-by-day. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll have most of our stuff in and we can really start playing a little more situation football. We got a break here with the weather. We got some music here to work on the crowd noise, that's a little stress for both the offense and the defense in terms of the communication, but we need that. The music is good, so we're fine. We have a lot of country guys on this team.
Q: Is it good to have Brandon [Meriweather] here?
BB: Well we expected him to be in here.
Q: What are your first impressions of him?
BB: He has a long way to go.
Q: Is there a sense of relief having all of the draft picks done and having that phase of things over with from a personnel standpoint?
BB: Sure. It's always good to get as many players as you can taken care of. I'm mainly focusing on working with the guys that are here and that's what we'll keep doing. It's good to have another one here.
Q: Do you have a timetable on Chad Scott?
BB: No, [he's] day-to-day.
Q: Brandon looked like he would be a better corner than safety.
BB: Well, we'll find out. We'll work him at both spots. He's played a lot of different positions in college. He's played the nickel position, the corner position, the safety position. We'll use him in some different spots and see how it goes. People on our team are going to have to have some versatility and play different spots anyway, so he falls into that category.
Q: [On the importance of having position flexibility]
BB: You just can't have a backup at every position. By the time you take your three specialists and a couple of quarterbacks and your offensive linemen to the game, you don't have enough people to back up every spot. You just don't have enough numbers. You have to double up somewhere and that's where a player's versatility can help him earn a playing roster spot at the game or even keep him on the team. It helps our team and it helps the individual player. It works well both ways.
Q: It looks like you had some college coaches out there. Could you just comment on that and how that came about?
BB: We go into the colleges all fall long and also in the spring to work guys out, so we try to have a good working and reciprocal relationship with them. If they want to come in, and they help us out a lot, then we try to give it back to them. It's getting harder and harder because the colleges start so much earlier than they used to. Most of them are starting around the first of August, so it's getting tighter on their schedule. We're happy to work with those schools and they work well with us.
Q: You mentioned versatility being a good element for any player. How much of a factor was it in getting [Adalius] Thomas during the offseason?
BB: Well, I don't think it hurt him any. That's who he is and that's what he does, so we'll try to take advantage of it and use it in whatever way it's applicable. We have a lot of players who pretty much play at one spot and that's okay too. Somewhere along the line, you have to have some guys that have some versatility in order to fill out those roster spots.
Q: Is he a guy who can play a lot of different positions and play them all well?
BB: He's played them all in the past for Baltimore and we'll work him into our system and see how it goes. I think he's a pretty versatile guy and his skills are good, yes.
Q: Generally by the third season, do you have an idea of what a guy is and what he can do for your team?
BB: Yeah, you would like to think so, unless there's some unusual circumstances. Sometimes that's part of the issue. Generally speaking, I'd say probably in 90 percent of the cases that is the truth.
Q: Does that vary from position to position?
BB: I would think by the third year, you should be able to have a pretty good idea unless, again, the guy has had some unusual circumstances like he's been injured, or maybe he's had a big position change – a back to a receiver, something like that, from quarterback to defense, something like that might take a little bit longer, Steve Neal had such a long way to go. I don't know if we knew going into the third year, but for the most part, normally speaking, I would say about 90 to 95 percent that would be the case. |
