Head Coach Pat Shurmur
August 12, 2018
Opening Remarks: It’s Sunday, right? The beginning of our Detroit week. Keep in mind we’re still in training camp, so we’re working on things that we need to get better at as we approach our preparation. As you know, we’re going to practice three days against Detroit before we play them, so we’ll practice again here tomorrow then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday we’ll practice with the Lions, then play them on Friday. Looking forward to that, looking forward to a little change of scenery. It’ll be a good team event for us to be all together away from town so we can bond a little bit, too. Anyways, I’ll take your questions.
Q: Is James Bettcher under the weather or something?
A: James’ mother passed away last week, and so he’s back (home) and they’re having the services this weekend. He’s back in Indiana and he will meet us in Detroit.
Q: Did you give Eli (Manning) a maintenance day today where he didn’t do as much in the team periods?
A: Yeah. That was two-fold. It gave him a little less and that allowed the other quarterbacks to get a little more.
Q: How do you feel like Davis (Webb) responded from Thursday night’s performance in the last couple of days?
A: Responded to what?
Q: How do you think he handled it? It wasn’t his greatest performance.
A: He’s out there working trying to get better, just like he does every day. I don’t think his demeanor has changed at all.
Q: You noted that on Sunday you’d have more injury updates. We noticed Connor Barwin didn’t do much, is he okay?
A: Yeah, he’s just a little sore from the game. We’ll see how long he’s out.
Q: Are you going to bring the injured guys with you to Detroit?
A: Yes, I think it’s important. We’re there an extended period of time and so we’ll try to bring them. We’ll take them this trip. Typically we won’t when we take one-day trips or two-day trips, but because this is extended, they’ll be with us. They’ll get their treatments on the road.
Q: How is RJ McIntosh doing health-wise? Is he getting better?
A: Yeah, he’s getting better. He’s getting better. Again, it’s an extended rehab-type situation so we’ll just have to see when it’s good.
Q: Do you think you’ll have him this summer at all before the season?
A: We’ll see. I don’t know. Hard to say.
Q: How are you balancing making corrections with continuing to install and work on things to get yourself ready for the season in these practices?
A: It’s continuous, and so there were lots of new plays that we ran today. Different concepts, getting different guys involved that are just kind of, as you go through the playbook, there’s a list of things that we want to get in before the season starts. So you work on them in practice and some of them you’ll use in games. Some of them, you don’t, and it’s just to kind of build the depth of your offense and defense and special teams. It’s a continuous process.
Q: Do you put an extra period in for corrections?
A: There are corrections throughout, and then certainly apart of the walk-throughs, we do the corrections, which you really don’t see. But we’ll come out here this afternoon and we’ll go through corrections from practice and then we’ll do things moving forward for tomorrow.
Q: What’s the next step in Kyle (Lauletta’s) development?
A: Just play more. Try to cram in as many reps as possible. When you’re a young player… you can imagine an older player like Eli, who’s done it for 15 years, the memory bank of reps that he has, as compared to a rookie like Kyle. So just get him as many reps as possible, he’s got fresh legs, he’s young, he can take a lot of reps, so we just try to get him as many as we can.
Q: What’s your philosophy in terms of guys who have been working with the second (team) all this time, maybe giving him some first team reps? Is it merit-based, or how do you approach that?
A: I would say it’s merit based. There are a number of guys who played well last week that will kind of bump up, maybe a third string guy who’s now a second string guy, or a second string guy that may play with the ones, so yeah, I think that’s important. Really when you’re trying to find your role players or backup players, to see them against the ones is a good thing for the other team, and that’s why this preparation time these three days of practice are good because it’ll be very competitive. I’ve got a good relationship with Matt (Patricia). As I mentioned before, I’ve done this twice when I was with the Eagles against the Patriots, and Matt and I worked together on it, so the offensive coordinator on one team works with the defensive coordinator on the other, so Matt and I kind of organized our stuff. So, we’re used to the process. So I anticipate it’ll be really good work.
Q: How much improvement do you normally see from rookies going from game one to game two in the preseason?
A: You like to see a lot. And typically, just like coaches and just like anybody, the improvement between the first time you do it and the second time you do it can be great, because if a guy did a handful of things that he didn’t like, you can fix them, and if you do one or two things wrong instead of five or six, then that’s a big improvement.
Q: What have you seen from Cody Latimer as a receiver, putting special teams aside, that maybe he’s a notch above some of the other guys in the rotation, because he didn’t do a whole lot in Denver until last year?
A: He’s performed well here. I think he has the ability to make a contested catch, runs pretty good routes. He’s been out a little bit, so he’s still getting his sea legs back out there. He slipped a couple times today, but he’s a competitive guy, very engaged in what we’re doing behind the scenes with the playbook stuff. It’s just a matter of him getting out there and getting reps and running our stuff.
Q: With Evan Engram, he admitted he had a bunch of drops last year, something he wanted to work on. What have you seen in that regard and is there anything you’ve worked on (with him)?
A: Well, we work on catching the ball a lot. And that was one of the major points of emphasis when we started going to work here is that we can’t be a good football team unless we catch the ball. The obvious, it’s receivers. Not so obvious sometimes is the linebackers and the secondary, when the ball gets disrupted making the interception, and certainly all the guys that handle the ball in special teams.
Q: For Odell (Beckham), do you consider a practice against another team as risky as a game against another team?
A: I don’t think it has to be. So, no, not necessarily.
Q: How tough has it been to evaluate the free safeties when the guys are coming in and out with injuries and there are different guys every day?
A: It makes the evaluation tougher when guys are getting themselves nicked up. Ideally, they’re all healthy all the time and you’re giving the same amount of reps and see what they can do. I’m not so sure that’s the real world, though.
