(What did Tauscher do in practice?)
He went through the first part of practice and frankly I just wanted to see how well he could move and how he felt. He felt very good. The plan was just to use the first half-an-hour of practice as a testing opportunity and he went through that and we'll see how he feels tomorrow, but I just wanted to make sure that he's able to, his weight distribution and the soreness and so forth because I want to make sure he has 48 hours to get ready for the game.
(Is he one of those guys who has so many reps in his body that it's OK, although not ideal, that he didn't take a single team rep in practice this week?)
Correct. Him participating today had nothing to do with him preparing for the football game. It was clearly a medical evaluation and we used that segment of practice to get that done.
(From what you saw, did he pass that test?)
We'll see how he feels in the morning, but I anticipate he'll play.
(Did Tracy White have a setback with his ankle?)
He was worse the Monday after Minnesota than he was after Kansas City. He's progressing, and the fact that we have a short week next week, all those things factor into your decisions.
(He's a vital part of special teams, how do you make up for him?)
Bishop will have an excellent opportunity. He's played well in his limited chances this year, so he's been taking the reps for Tracy and once again, we'll see what Tracy looks like Sunday morning.
(How'd you feel about practice this week with the short week coming up?)
I think the practice structure this week is an excellent opportunity for us to find out the maturity of our football team. Because you have times like this, every team goes through it, you have medical situations that create a disjointed practice structure like we had, particularly Wednesday and Thursday. At one point we had three defensive linemen playing offensive line. But I thought the energy was good, I definitely feel they're prepared. We're just being smart with their bodies. We cut practice back about 10 to 15 minutes yesterday and 15 to 20 minutes today. So, we got our work done. We'll be ready to play Sunday.
(So mentally ...)
Mentally, they're very sharp. I thought they were sharp. Like I said, the energy was good. It's just the fact, like I said, you have some people playing positions that they normally don't play on your opponent teams, those types of things. But as far as the actual work of the offense, defense and special teams, I thought that part was very good.
(Allen Barbre played 18 snaps in the Vikings game because of Tauscher's injury. Are you reluctant when you're up by 27 to ever make a change on the offensive line like that?)
I wouldn't say there's a reluctance, but at that position less than others because the continuity and the cohesiveness of that group practicing against certain stunts and different things, that's not somewhere you start rolling guards and tackles in. But I've done it more for medical concerns. If you have, for instance, Mark Tauscher's in the football game and you are late in the football game and you're up 27 points, it's probably not a bad idea to play somebody else. Those are the types of conversations I've been a part of in the past, and I'm sure hopefully it'll happen again soon.
(But even 18 snaps are valuable.)
Oh, absolutely. Anytime a younger player can get game-day reps, you can't simulate that in practice. It's very, a very good opportunity for Allen. And he did a nice job when he was in there.
{sportsad300}(What was your thinking with next Wednesday's practice schedule?)
Well, the Thanksgiving game has been scheduled for quite some time. We played a Thursday game last year, I've played in the Thanksgiving game twice in my career as an assistant coach -- Kansas City against Dallas and Kansas City at Detroit. So I went back in the spring and looked at all those schedules and really, you play the game Sunday, Monday's really a Tuesday, and Tuesday's really a Thursday, and Wednesday's really a Saturday. And that's the way we went about it. Mike Eayrs presented the football team Thursday with a case study of how long it takes for your body to recover, the things that you can help your body recover with the fluids after the game. It's imperative that they work out Monday morning, the blood flow and all those things enhance recovery. So we have a plan, it's a plan that we've put together frankly in the spring and that's the schedule we'll follow.
(What will the players do on Monday?)
Monday the players are going to come in, lift, rehab, and watch game tape. That's (it). And the coaching staff will use Monday as a game-plan day. We're game-planning today and tomorrow as a staff and then Monday will be our ... because obviously we can't, we have to go beyond base and third down, we have to get into the red zone and goal-line and short-yardage and have all of our situations before we leave Monday night.
(You won't have the guys run in the gym or anything like that?)
Well, Rock has a specific workout for really it depends on how they come out of the game, too. That will factor into that. Their aerobic activity is put together based on position. Once again, really how they come out of the game will determine exactly what they do cardiovascularly, to answer your question.
