(Did Spitz practice today?)
Jason Spitz did not practice today.
(Does that mean Colledge is starting then?)
He will start the game, yes.
(How do you feel he's played since the demotion?)
I think he's improved. I think the opportunity to move around, step back. It's just like anything else, when someone takes it away from you, you want it back. He's taken full advantage of his week of preparation, and we look for him to play well this weekend.
(What about him playing the position next to the one he's playing as far as understanding?)
The understanding I think is there. We've been doing the same things here since March. I think he has a good grasp of what we're doing. Our problem frankly up front is our continuity, just the technique and execution of what we're trying to do.
(Koren Robinson, Vernand Morency?)
They practiced and we're going to have them ready.
(Where's Koren at with the offense at this point?)
He's had three practices. There's a lot of carryover from his time in Seattle as far as terminology, as far as route route running and things like that. He'll be ready to contribute on Sunday.
(Anything you saw during the week where your team might do things differently to get ready?)
One thing that's jumped out to me is the urgency of correcting your mistakes, and how important it is to correct and move on and not to dwell on it and over-analyze it. I thought the tempo and the spirit of practice was good. We had some rough periods where we had to get some things cleaned up, but that's kind of where we are as a football team. We stayed a little longer than we wanted on the practice field to get it cleaned up. They're definitely into it, we're getting better, we're growing and we're looking forward to the opportunity Sunday.
(48-hour rule, not as many walk-throughs, some criticism of too much leniency for a young team. Your response?)
I'm not aware of the criticism, and I don't think it's valid. I don't think it's factual either. Based on my experience of being in the other system, which I've coached in in the past, we actually have more walk-through time than the old system. We may have at least two, maybe three walk-throughs a day because of the way we structure our meeting time. Our time management in this schedule in my opinion is better than the old schedule, and I think it illustrates how long we're here to work. When you have an opportunity to stay here in your facility that you work in and have walk-throughs as opposed to creating two practice structures that have a walk-through, so that's what we have accomplished. The walk-through on Saturdays is no different than their walk-through on Saturdays in the past, but we do it in the gymnasium as opposed to on Lambeau Field. One thing Ted and I talked about, we don't feel Lambeau Field should be used as a walk-through. We did it from a scheduling standpoint this past preseason, but we may never do it again. It's a privilege to walk on Lambeau Field, it's not somewhere you go out and have walk-throughs. As far as the criticisms, whatever they are, we use walk-throughs as part of our teaching more than my experience in the old system, the old structure.
(Speaking of Lambeau, do you let Rayner and Ryan go out there and kick sometimes to get a feel for it?)
If needed. Our practice environment is pretty similar, obviously with the wind change and things like that. So that's an exception to the walk-through rule, if needed.
(Has Tony Palmer gotten any work with the 1's at right guard?)
Tony is getting ready to play the game if needed. As far as what he's doing and so forth, we'll find out Sunday. He's definitely elevated his participation as far as offensive line play, so he'll be ready if needed Sunday.
(Moll is still the starter?)
Correct, yes. Tony Moll is our starting right guard.
(Palmer and Chris White the backups then?)
Jason still has 48 hours. He made a lot of progress from yesterday to today. He's doing everything he possibly can to get ready for the football game. I don't know how well you know him, but he's a resilient young man that it's important for him to get ready to play. He'll be a game-day decision.
(Do you know how he suffered the injury?)
It was on the interception, I think he said. He didn't know about it until the next day, the severity of it.
(First interception?)
I'm not sure. Because I didn't see it either when I watched the film. Usually something like that jumps out at you, but it was something he knew he got hit and he didn't think it was that big a deal.
(What specifically did you do to improve offensive line play this week?)
Just the way we go about our game-plan, you have to play to the strengths of the matchups you have. We are young, yes we are. I think it's important to do the things young guys do well and what they're comfortable at. That's all factored into the game plan. We didn't have any crazy drills or anything like that. We had good hard-nosed padded practices on Wednesday and Thursday with the emphasis on running the ball.
(Will you keep Herron back on kickoffs with Koren, or because you don't have another backup behind Ahman do you pull him out?)
We'll see Sunday I guess.
(Vonta now is with the Saints. Do teams pump players with information?)
Absolutely. He'll go visit with the defensive coordinator, everybody does it. I don't even know if there's a rule against it. It's part of the business. I never found that I won a football game because of a player that we acquired from the team before. Vonta knows the intricacies of our offense, but quite frankly there's a number of other individuals that know a lot about our offense too. I spent five years there, so those are all things that factor into the game plan. Times change, your offense changes. Faces and conceptually within what you're trying to do changes almost year to year, so I don't feel like we're at a competitive disadvantage from a schematic standpoint with Vonta there.
(The potential for being caught short at fullback?)
The way I look at it, and we've spoken about this before in here, you never want to be one player away from being out of a primary concept or a primary play you have in your game plan. With that in mind, between the fullback and tight end positions, we're carrying four players, so that gives us the ability to stay with that philosophy.
