Wednesday Transcript: Head Coach Pat Shurmur

Head Coach Pat Shurmur
July 25, 2018
 
Opening Statement: Welcome back everybody. That was a quick summer, as they always are. You got a chance to see the third day of our rookie camp; rookies, select vets and quarterbacks. Very valuable time for those guys. I think I mentioned a little bit earlier, but they get a chance to get the first, second, and third installment before the veterans get here. That is very helpful for the rookies. Then the selected vets that didn’t get a bunch of work in the spring, that kind of gets them up to speed, so that’s the idea. As we move forward here, we’re certainly looking forward to the 2018 season. As the coach, I’m going to try and keep the focus on playing football, keep the focus on trying to determine who our initial 53-man roster is, and keep the focus on playing Jacksonville and beyond. So that’s the goal, for us to keep getting better and trained up for what we hope to be a very productive season.
 
Q: You have Tom Quinn working here… Did you hire him back?
A: Tom was in town and available and is back assisting us. T-Mac (Thomas McGaughey) had some health issues, so Tom is here to assist in anyway possible. Outstanding coach and was in town, so he’s here. So T-Mac is running things and will have two assistants.
 
Q: Do you expect Odell Beckham to be a full participant?
A: I do, I anticipate – the vets are here checking in as we speak – so I anticipate him to be ready to go.
 
Q: Just to clarify, so you anticipate he’ll be full participation?
A: I anticipate he’ll be here and ready to go. As we go forward, he’s coming back from injury and so we’re going to continue to be smart about how much we give him starting out.
 
Q: Do you have any reservations putting him into live drills, contact drills?
A: No, no reservation. But again, as I mentioned, we’re going to continue to be smart with his training.
 
Q: Your first impressions of Sam Beal?
A: Sam’s a very, very talented guy. His movement skills are tremendous and we feel like he could compete to make our team. We felt good about him, we got a chance to visit with him, and he was available, so we committed to him.
 
Q: Is that because in the spring you felt like you didn’t have enough there at corner?
A: No, I think we’re constantly looking to upgrade at all the positions and felt like he’d be a great player to add to our team.
 
Q: You only saw a little bit at the June minicamp, but is there anything that you’ve seen with Odell and talking with his doctor… has he had any bumps in the road in his recovery or is he on track to being the player he once was?
A: We feel like he’s on track and, again, with all players coming back from injury, we just have to be smart with how much we give him going forward. It’s all about football and it’s all about our guys being ready to play Jacksonville and beyond. As we go through this process here, we’ll give him what he needs.
 
Q: Is that the same with Landon Collins, coming off the arm injury?
A: Yeah exactly, with him coming back, we’ll just see. He did some stuff in the spring and we anticipate he’ll be ready to go and, again, we’ll be smart with him as well.
 
Q: Do you have anyone that you know of so far that’s going to start on PUP?
A: No, I don’t. Again, everybody is checking in. We don’t anticipate any surprises, and we’ll see when we get them here and finish up their physicals.
 
Q: Can you talk about picking up a veteran like Connor Barwin and what he brings to the table?
A: Connor and I were together in Philadelphia. Veteran player, edge player, so he could play the outside linebacker position, he could be involved in the pass rush when we get to our four-man rush. Very veteran guy and I think if you don’t know him, you’ll quickly get to see that he’s a true pro and we were fortunate he was available and we felt like it was a smart move to add him to our roster.
 
Q: Any thoughts on the trip that Odell took to Jerusalem? Any impression that made on you or just thoughts on his desire to go there?
A: No, that’s part of his time off and he felt like that was a place where he wanted to go.
 
Q: I don’t know if you pay attention to other teams, but with some big name guys around the league holding out this training camp, does it say something to you that Odell is here?
A: Yeah, I anticipate the players will be here and be ready to go. I sort of worry about the Giants; obviously, I’m aware of all things NFL, but my concern is getting my team ready to play and this is a key time. This is important, training camp is important. We need to be smart about how we do things, but we need to get out there and bang around a little bit and get ready to go. I think that’s my concern.
 
Q: What’s your plan for training camp and the first few days? I know there are no pads, but are you going to gradually build them up or do you have any pace that you want to put them on?
A: I think what’s important is that we’ve got to go game speed. Obviously without the pads, there’s a little less banging. The training sessions, the practices, will look a lot like they do in the spring. Once you put the pads on, though, we still don’t go to the ground and we’re smart about what we do. It’s just a little bit more intense for the guys in the front seven and a little bit more competitive on the edges because now we can bump and run and cover in a much more tight fashion. We’re just going to play football… Make it look like football.
 
Q: How has Dave Gettleman been doing and over the last month or so, your interactions and how you guys have worked, has it changed or is it similar?
A: Dave’s doing great, he was here yesterday and he’s being doing his treatments. That’s a process that he’s going through, but we communicate frequently; he was here all day yesterday. We’ve been in close touch all summer, I didn’t doo much traveling, so I was here in town and Dave and I communicated quite a bit, actually.
 
Q: You find yourself in more communication with Kevin Abrams?
A: Well, I think we were always all in communication together. Typically, what Dave and I are talking about, we don’t say Kevin, but Kevin’s involved with it as well.
 
Q: You put together a staff that’s known as great teachers. Do you feel as though that part of the game is lost at this level?
A: No, I think we all understand how important coaching is and the basis of coaching is teaching and instructing and trying to get the very best out of the player. I’m proud of the staff that we put together. I think they’re outstanding teachers, and now it’s time for us to get to work.
 
Q: I know it’s a short amount of time, but what’s the biggest thing to you about how Saquon Barkley looks?
A: Well, he’s very smart; he gets ‘it’ in a lot of ways and I think that’s a great place to start. He’s super talented, and the third part that’s stuck out to me is that he embraces work. The mind is always looking for a way out and he doesn’t. He’s here, he’s working, he’s training on all the things we can train on in the sessions. Now it’s going to get a little bit more physical and I assume he’ll embrace that as well.
 
Q: I know contracts aren’t your deal at all, but do you think the Odell contract situation as long as it goes this summer will be something you need to address with him?
A: Well, part of your question is correct, we don’t talk about contracts. Again, the focus for me is to keep the players thinking about football. That’s not really a question for me at this point. I would say you can ask Dave (Gettleman), but my guess is he’ll give you the same answer.
 
Q: Do you plan to sit down with [Odell] individually to sort of detail whatever his plan is going to be…
A: I talk to all the players… In regard to Odell, we talk to all the players about what we’re trying to get out of each phase of our training and so we’re going to talk to them in a group and then we’ll talk to them all individually with what we’re trying to get done.
 
Q: You’ll address the entire team this evening?
A: Yeah, I’ll talk to the team this afternoon and then we have that big meeting we all know about where we have to cover some league issues. That will be this evening.
 
Q: What will your message be to them as they come back here?
A: Well, my message is really for them, but I think the important thing is for us to focus on playing football, focus on getting better. I told the rookies this, but when we put a 90-man roster together, the goal is for them to make our team or somebody else’s. There’s 31 other teams watching what we do, and it’ll be a great honor to our roster if all 90 guys make a roster. I think that’s their challenge, to get better everyday and use the reps they get to the best of their ability and let the chips fall where they may.
 
Q: The anthem issue still exists throughout the league; how do you plan on handling that?
A: Yeah, we’re going to talk about that as a team. Again, I want to keep the focus on playing football. There’s going to be constant conversation with regard to that. I talked in the spring about my feelings with regard to the anthem – those have not changed. We’ll just keep the focus on football.
 
Q: The previous head coach here had some comments about some of your current players, do you have any response to that?
A: Nope… I mean I know Ben [McAdoo], I have great respect for Ben, but no, I have no comments.
 
Q: If I could go back to what you said earlier, playing football but you don’t want guys on the ground, with the change in the rules leading with the head, how do you plan on tackling that?
A: Well, we’re going to talk about it… There’s educational videos out there. We’re all aware what the rules are and how we’re going to coach. A lot of that full speed, live football, you practice that in the preseason games, tackling to the ground and what not. We’re going to have to use our skills as teachers and educators to get them trained up on the right way to do the right things. The league’s provided us with the rules, at least provided us with some guidelines and suggestions on how to teach and we’ll follow those.
 
Q: Odell has maintained his denial and his lawyer put out a statement yesterday, I’m curious if the team or yourself have any degree of concern on the latest allegations surrounding that case that has been ongoing?
A: No… We’re aware of what’s going on. It’s a lawsuit type deal, so I wouldn’t comment on it.
 
Q: How have you handled the Janoris [Jenkins] situation?
A: I’ve spoken to Janoris and I think you’re all aware of what happened and it’s tragic anytime somebody dies, but I’ve spoken to Janoris and he was in Florida at the time.
 
Q: I just meant how did you gauge how it affected him?
A: Well, he’ll be here in an hour or so, so I’ll talk to him then.