(How is Driver?)
Donald is classified as a foot sprain. He's in good spirits. We'll have more information tomorrow.
(Is this like Ferguson's foot sprain?)
It's the long French word. Pat didn't seem to believe it was to that extent. He just told me it was a foot sprain. I went over to talk to Donald and he's in good spirits. I don't have a diagnosis as far as weeks.
(Did you see him right after?)
He's in the training room right now with a bag of ice on his foot. He's sitting there. A bunch of people are sitting around talking. As I said, he's in good spirits.
(How is Jason Spitz?)
Spitz is a re-occurring calf. It was bothering him. I was a little nervous with the number of people we had injured coming into this game. I pulled him right away.
(Did you reduce play time to stop the injuries?)
I can't control it. I was just trying to lower the risk of injury with the play time. From that standpoint I feel like we accomplished that. Unfortunately, injuries are a part of the game. The other factor we had a number of backups competing for spots to play as early as possible in the game. I definitely feel like we accomplished that. Ted and I will have the opportunity to view the film and we have a lot more information to make our decisions and move forward.
(Is this team where you want them to be?)
Where you want to be? I think I can better answer that after Tennessee. No. 1 I want to look at the medical report because that's the most important thing going into Philadelphia. I think we're getting better each week and that's what's important. I think there's growth within our football team. You look at all three phases and you can point to things that are improving. Even the defense did some things tonight, particularly on fourth down. We didn't have a lot of fourth downs, we tried to slip some into training camp because that is something that you can't practice enough. I think we're improving all the time. I'll never be satisfied until we win them all. We're further ahead than we were last week, I can tell you that.
(How did your running game do?)
They're a physical football team in all three phases, particularly their run defense. We didn't run the ball very well at all. They did some things to us early. We made some adjustments with the second group that panned out. We were able to run the ball at the end. We need to do a better job there. There were some opportunities in the passing game. We moved from the running game to the passing game. I thought we took advantage of those. I felt like our passing attack and pass protection, Brett was really in sync. I thought the receivers did a very good job catching the ball and running after the catch. I was very pleased with the passing game. Unfortunately there are no style points in this league. You have to move the ball down the field either by the run or the pass. I would prefer the run but if you have to pass it you have to pass it. I thought our offense did a good job of adjusting to that and being productive.
(What was your reaction when you saw Donald go down?)
It's a natural reaction. You're saying I wish I had taken him out with Brett, and I did to myself and now standing here with a microphone. That's part of the game. It's unfortunate. Hopefully, it's not serious. Early indications point that way but tomorrow is an important day. Then you have to move on.
(Did he use the word?)
No, foot sprain was the way it was mentioned to me.
(What did he say?)
It was a 10-second conversation. I asked Donald how he felt and he said 'pretty good'. He has his foot on a bag of ice. I asked Pat 'What do you think.' He said I'm classifying it as a foot sprain. Then I came in here.
(Why didn't you send Will Blackmon out for another return?)
I think it's safe to say that Will Blackmon will be our returner against Philadelphia. I feel confident watching him in the first two games. I really wanted to find out about the other guys.
(Did you get a look at Tramon Williams back there?)
I think so and he played some snaps on special teams and defense. The defensive backs, corners and safeties, and the linebackers were a group that we wanted to get a lot of work and look at. I think we got that done tonight.
(How is James Jones playing?)
I think he's doing a nice job. If you look at his statistics you'd say he had a great night. But the first sack he ran the wrong route and the quarterback was ready to throw the ball to him. Those are the things that you have to continue to work on and that's part of his youth and his development. I've said time and again that his body type fits the flanker position. He's done a very good job with his opportunities. He's only going to get better. I'm very excited about the impact that he's made and look forward to him progressing as we move forward.
(What is KGB's situation?)
A bruise and day-to-day. I think the Tennessee game is not important for the starters to play in so I would not push him to get back for that game but I think he'll be okay.
(How long will you play the starters?)
Probably a series, like I did last year.
(Will you play Brett?)
I'm leaning towards not.
(How are the kickers doing?)
I can't say enough about those guys. They're automatic. They both run out there and do an excellent job. We have a tough decision to make and we'll take it through the Tennessee game.
(Would you keep both?)
We'll see how the other numbers play out.
{sportsad300}(Do you think the top offense got enough snaps?)
I think you can make the case no if you count the reps but what's the standard. There are always other factors. No. 1 we talk about availability. Availability is the most important factor to me, especially on offense because of the injuries that have occurred. When it comes down to making a decision that's what I'm leaning against. Sometimes you can't do both and we're in that position. I was looking to get the offense first group with 30 snaps. I think we accomplished that. Brett had 28 and the rest of the group had 35 or more. We weren't far off from a numbers standpoint. If we played them into the third quarter we may have gotten another 10 or 15 snaps. I'm comfortable with the reps that we played.
(How did Aaron Rodgers play?)
I thought he did a real nice job with the two-minute drill. He was very composed, made some good decisions, was good with the ball. He had some tough times in the third quarter. We had a pass protection break down on every single series. I was pleased with the way he handled it. I think the game has slowed down for him. He's in control of the huddle and his decisions. He had one negative decision. I was pleased with his performance without seeing the film.
(Is it harder for him to play with the second stringers?)
You play with who you have. Still it's opportunities for those guys. We had a couple of guys, from seeing it on the replay, that didn't play very well on the second line.
(Did Montgomery have a scope?)
He had the scope yesterday. It was the MCL. It was in better shape than he thought it was going to be because of the old injury. He had the old injury in high school or college. I'm going to say four to six weeks is the classification to put him in.
(Can you talk about why you ran so much on the one drive?)
We were working a four-minute situation. I was trying to shorten the game there. It was inside zone and outside zone depending on how they were playing it. They were spiking the end a lot. Our guys were having a hard time handling it. We made an adjustment with the guard, tackle and fullback. Then we went back to some inside zone and I thought that our guys did a good job with the inside zone.
(Is Noah Herron struggling?)
I don't think so. Noah wasn't supposed to play past the first half. We were short on numbers so we put him back in the game.
(What happened on the INT return for touchdown?)
I would say it was either a poor decision or a poor throw, one of the two.
(How is the defense playing?)
The thing that jumps off the charts to me about our No. 1 defense is the energy and the way they're flying to the football. They're attacking the football. We didn't get the ball out tonight like we did the first two games. I'm very pleased with that aspect. The communication, which was a part of our breakdowns last year, we have overcome that. I'm very pleased with the game management and productivity. They're playing tough and physical in the front seven. You can see the athletic ability is coming to a head here. I'm very pleased with the defense right now. It's a catalyst for our success.
(How did Bigby play?)
I thought he flew around and made some nice open-field and in-the-hole tackles with his impact-play ability. From what I saw he did a nice job.
(Is it his job now?)
Without watching the film with the defense I couldn't answer that right now.
