(What's the situation with Matt (Flynn)?)
I don't have a medical evaluation for you. But he had a shoulder sprain. The early opinion is that it's more muscular. I am sure we'll find out as we move on.
(What was the thinking playing Brohm ahead of Flynn tonight?)
Well, they're competing for a position. We've been splitting the reps all training camp. We wanted to get a good look at Brian. I thought he had some opportunities tonight that really didn't present itself last week. Now we feel that we have quality film on both of those guys and we'll keep evaluating.
(What did the x-ray show on Nick Collins?)
Nothing. Negative.
(I know it's only preseason, but it seems like night and day for the defense from last year. What's been the biggest reason for the success?)
Well, I think we're off to a good start defensively. The takeaways, I think we have something special. As far as the production, the takeaways are another element of fundamental football. It's something we practice every day. We emphasize it, we have drills and things like that. I think the guys are playing with a lot of confidence. They seem very comfortable in the scheme. The disguise part of it has gone very well. We're playing with more vision to the football than we did in the past, and we're off to a good start.
(What's the status of Rouse and Peprah?)
Aaron Rouse has a hamstring. I would put him in a classification of probably day-to-day. I don't have enough information. We'll see how he works out on the off day, and Charlie Peprah has a knee sprain.
(With Collins being banged up, are you worried about the numbers there?)
That's what tomorrow is for. Tomorrow the players are off. We have a number of guys banged up, which I think was evident to everybody with the way we played the game at the end. So, we'll have to take a look at it. We're on a short week getting ready for Arizona. We'll maybe stay away from certain personnel groups and so forth when we get later in the game. I really don't have all the information for who's going to be up and I don't really have a feel for it for this week.
(How excited do you get when your starters play as well as they have so far?)
Well, preseason is a process. Obviously you want to win the game. But there are a lot of different things you're trying to accomplish. I think even as a head coach you spend more time evaluating individuals and you get away from looking at situations and the other things that you're normally looking at during the regular season. But there's a lot of positive information in our first two games, and we feel very good about that. But the reality is there are things we need to correct too. So there's no reason to strike up the band or anything like that. I know we're 2-0, we've got a lot of turnovers. We had some point production off of the turnovers today. You come into halftime with a commanding lead, you feel good about those things. But when you have 5 yards of offense in the next 20 minutes on the field, that's not a positive. So, we'll look at those things. I am sure there will be things in the film that reveal, even during the good times that we thought we had out there tonight that we can learn from and we'll apply it. But this team just needs to keep working. We just finished our last two-a-day on Thursday. We're a little banged up. We had a couple injuries that we had on Thursday night and you have a couple more tonight. We're going into a short week so you just have to find the balance between health and progressing as a football team.
(Why didn't Durant Brooks go tonight?)
He had a hip flexor. It was the same injury he had last week when he had to miss practice so he was unable to go tonight.
(As sharp as Rodgers has looked, how much has he elevated his game from last year?)
You see the consistency and that's what you always strive for. But when he jumps out of the pocket and makes that play for the touchdown to Donald Driver, that tells you something about his individual playmaking ability. I thought that was a big time play. You train those types of drills, throwing on the run, stepping up in the pocket, sliding to your right or left, and for him to put that ball where he put it and for Donald to keep his feet in bounds, that's exciting. Those are the type of plays that win football games. We just keep staying after him to be consistent. He does have the ability to make big plays. I think he's primed for a big year.
(How do you think you handled the no-huddle?)
I thought the communication part of it was very good. We really didn't have any breakdowns there. We were a little challenged there in the fourth quarter when our numbers were low. So we probably didn't have a great call for what they were in. But that's because of our injury situation. It was great work for our defense. We do it against our defense in practice, but to do it under the lights and for as much as they did it, it was great work for us.
(Do you have any sense on how B.J. Raji did tonight?)
I had a chance to watch him a little bit. I thought he had some penetration, live legs. I think he's going to be an exciting young player for us. He broke contain on that one quarterback scramble that I saw was his. But other than that, I thought it was a good start for him. I'm going to have to watch the film to give you a more accurate evaluation.
{sportsad300}(Does Finley open a lot of possibilities for a coordinator or an offensive coach?)
Well, when you call plays on offense in football, the ability to win downfield is so important. Whether you do it with the receiver, the tight end, or a back, and find different combinations and variations to do it is really productive. But even more so down in the red zone. He's definitely a weapon for us. We felt that last year just the way we were able to utilize Jermichael the last couple games of the season, and now he's able to do the full gamut. He's another young player that looks like he's ready to take off.
(How would you assess Brian's performance tonight?)
I have to look at the film. The production part of it, he didn't have the production you are looking for until the last drive. I thought that was big for him to go out there and lead that. He did a good job with the run game adjustments as far as which side to run the ball and also throwing the quick slant when it was there.
(Are you hoping to settle on a lineup for the offensive line?)
I'm hopeful the film will give me that option or a strong opinion one way or the other. That's something definitely we'll take a close look at tomorrow as a staff and I am hopeful that would happen, but I'm not making any guarantees. We'll get as much information as we can and hopefully we can make a good decision.
(Did you feel it was another outstanding performance by Desmond Bishop?)
Yeah, I felt Desmond out there. He was definitely productive. He's an explosive player. He had the big hit on the screen there. I can't say enough good things about the way he's playing so far.
