(How is Noah Herron doing?)
Noah has a sprained knee and Tyrone (Culver) was our other injured player - he had a sprained shoulder. Early indications are that they're not very serious. That's how Pat (Dr. McKenzie) feels as we're in the locker room here.
(Anything at running back has to be serious though right?)
Well, he didn't seem very concerned about it so I think when we get back together Sunday will be a better sign.
(Did you get a better evaluation of your young players because the Titans had their starters in for so long?)
Clearly - that's what we talked about this week. They were not only going to have the opportunity to play a lot of snaps and really had to double duty, the offensive and defensive players also played special teams. You could really see that they were gassed and that was part of the evaluation too, particularly individuals push through that, but to be able to play against their 1's. I thought it was a great opportunity. I thought we took full advantage of it as a football team, and we'll have good film to evaluate in the morning.
(Can you talk about the concerns on special teams?)
Well, I mean once again I think the timing of it and I'll give you a clearer picture of it when I see the film. First thing - punting the ball down the middle of the field doesn't help. We'll look at that too. That's never a positive; I'm not side stepping it. Once again, it was an opportunity to look at a lot of different players in different positions that they played both on special teams and offense and defense. I'm very pleased with the number of reps that we got in the situations we put our players in. We're not happy about the final score obviously, but the evaluation part of it, I thought we got a ton of information to draw from.
(Is that helpful to get the No. 1 offense in there to get ready for Philadelphia?)
One of the objectives that we had with the No. 1 offense was I didn't feel we had enough no-huddle work. It's something we did more of in the practice plan but not enough in my opinion in the preseason games. So, having the second series was a no-huddle series with Brett on the touchdown, and the third series with Aaron was a no-huddle situation also. So, I was very pleased to get that done. That was an objective I wanted to hit tonight.
(How has Scott Wells played and what are your expectations for him?)
Scott's done an excellent job. He's had a good camp. He's been a little nicked the last week or so, but he's our leader up front. He makes all the checks and is in his second year into it, so I'm very very happy with Scott Wells.
(What did you think about Aaron Rodgers' performance?)
I thought he did a real nice job. I thought he ran the no-huddle very well. Once again he moved out of the pocket, made plays, bought time. I think he's clearly improved in that area from last year to this year as far as his out-of-pocket performance. In the second quarter, I'm not real happy with some of the situations he was put into. I think Aaron as whole completed a very productive preseason and I think he's clearly made a step. We're very comfortable where he's at.
(Did you see what you needed to from Wynn?)
Yeah, absolutely. He's one of the individuals where I'm looking forward to watching the film particularly on the inside runs. He looked to run with pad level, has really quick feet. He got a ton of reps. That's what I wanted to see, if he could handle it all. I thought he had some nice runs but the film will tell us a lot more.
(How do you improve the running game?)
Well, first of all the play caller has to commit to it, and that starts with me. I'm not as concerned about it just because the way we've gone about it with the first group. I haven't gone out and tried to pound the ball from series one. There are other objectives we've hit. We have a veteran quarterback who is able to take advantage of a best-play available mindset, and I think we're doing an excellent job with that right now.
(Were those last runs by Wynn valuable even though he already had 16 carries?)
Absolutely - the film tells the whole story. As far as exactly who's blocking, a couple of those looks I don't know if anyone would have run the ball there on some of the looks that he got. The film will be a clear indicator. He's a talented young man. He's got some things he's got to overcome and if he can do that, he'll be a very productive player in this league.
{sportsad300}(How do you feel about your football team?)
I feel very good about it. I think there are so many positive aspects of our football team that we're able to build on. The only thing you have to compare it to is last year, so we're clearly further ahead. Our defense is clearly the catalyst of our football team. They've been the most consistent part of our football team, and I think it will clearly carry over to special teams once we set those groups and the core players are playing all the time. I look for vast improvement in that area. I'm very comfortable with the building of the offense playing whatever way we need to play to score points. That's how I feel about the football team.
(Would you have challenged Vince Young's TD run if it were the regular season?)
Probably, no excuses but replay was out in our box. Based on the new rule frankly I thought about challenging but I had some other objectives as far as keeping the game moving. I definitely would challenge that probably in the season just from what I saw because it looked like it went over the top.
(What did you make of Crosby's missed kick?)
Yeah, I really didn't communicate to Mike (Stock) after the kick exactly what he did but that's something we'll evaluate. Obviously we've looked at that situation closely throughout training camp and we'll take a look at it again tomorrow.
