Transcript: Head Coach Brian Daboll

Head Coach Brian Daboll

Q: Anything new on (Jermaine) Eleumunor?

BRIAN DABOLL: Nothing serious. It's two men kind of colliding there accidentally. He's going to do individual today, we'll see where he's at after. If he can do more, he'll do more. If not, we'll keep him out of team, but nothing serious.

Q: Is it like a soreness thing?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, anybody Dex (Dexter Lawrence II) hits, you get sore from that.

Q: Would you consider it his (Jermaine Eleumunor) ribs?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, it's kind of in the side section right here. Inadvertent kind of hitting the side. Did tests, looked at him. He's okay. He was back in meetings yesterday. He's a tough, tough man. He's going to go out there. He wants to do some individual stuff. He's obviously sore, but we'll see where he's at after that. I don't think we'll put him in team today, but if he can do it, we'll go ahead and do it.

Q: Do you feel kind of lucky that you maybe dodged (an injury)?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, absolutely. First couple days of practice, no pads. And you see that, you're like 'damn', but everything checked out okay.

Q: What are your thoughts on Daniel's (Jones) first 11-on-11 action?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, good. We'll continue to do 11-on-11. We didn't do 7-on-7. We're not going to do much of that. We're going to do more 11-on-11 so you can feel the pocket. Move. Procedure was good. Did a lot of movement and things like that. Didn't have any pre-snap penalties. Made good decisions. It's good to get him out there and feel some of the rush. Dexter (Lawrence II) was in the middle of the pocket a couple of times, and he's got to move and use his legs and I thought he did well.

Q: That's the thinking of no 7-on-7?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, as much 11-on-11, pocket stuff, movement, instead of just standing back there without a rush. He did a bunch of 7-on-7 in OTAs, so we'll do more team.

Q: Did you feel like he recovered well after his first full practice, that was part of the question of how he would recover.

BRAIN DABOLL: After the first day? Yeah. He was good

Q: In the past, you've set up your days. The Idea of one day defense, then looking at the defense. It's third and long and you know the offense probably going to struggle. Yesterday you had the running backs involved a lot, was that part (of the schedule)?

BRIAN DABOLL: No, we were working in the fringe. If you have some shot plays called and the defense takes away, make sure you make a good decision, keep the ball moving forward rather than backwards so we can stay on track and if they take it away deep, then throw it short. If you have a chance to rip it, then go ahead and rip it deep.

Q: Last year the offensive line was a bone of contention. Are you doing anything differently with that group with a new coach (Carmen Bricillo)?

BRIAN DABOLL: You're talking about schematically? We've made adjustments throughout the off-season. There's only so much you can do up front. A lot of people have the same protections and things like that, but you try to mix it up, and those guys have done a good job with the techniques, Some of the individual techniques that Carm (Offensive Line Coach Carmen Bricillo) AND (Assistant Offensive Line Coach) James (Ferentz) have brought with them. It'll be a work in progress just like all the positions are.

Q: You have rotated starters at positions where there is a competition. Are you going to do that at safety and nickel?

BRIAN DABOLL: Potentially. We'll take it one day at a time. Let those guys compete it out. It could be a little different, maybe every two days, maybe one day. We'll just take it as we go each day. We'll talk about it but give those guys ample opportunity. Whether with the ones, twos or threes, they're seeing the same stuff. You can get a good evaluation off of do they know what to do? Are they using the correct technique? Are they communicating well? That goes for every position.

Q: With Jermaine (Eleumunor) and Dex (Dexter Lawrence II), is that something you maybe want to at least use it as a teaching moment?

BRIAN DABOLL: No, there's really not much you can do on that play. It was accidental contact. We had a little scheme. Dex was playing the back block. There was no back block. Jermaine was blocking here. It was accidental contact.

Q: We saw a lot of the quick game yesterday. Quick stuff to your running backs, quick passes out there. How much is that something you intend to (use), is that a focus or is that just what we're doing on the first day to sort of ease everything in?

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, there was a lot of intermediate vertical stuff as well into that. I just was happy with the decisions that the quarterbacks were making based on the things that we were getting defensively. There's some of that. There's some quick stuff, but there was intermediate, there was action game, there were screens, there were some RPOs. So again, you want to jam it into a coverage where everybody's playing deep. Take what they give you, keep the ball moving, stay on track, avoid sacks, avoid negative plays, playing at a down and distance favorable for a play caller, for a quarterback, for an offense, and that's been a big point of emphasis.

Q: This is year three for you and Daniel (Jones) and everybody in this offense. We saw a lot of movement yesterday. Are you deeper at this point into the, I guess you can call it into the bells and whistles of this offense?

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, I'd say yes, because it's the third year, so you can do a little bit more each year. If it's the first year, you're not going to throw as much at them. Each year you can add a little bit more. Some days you might see a lot of that, some days you might not see a lot of that. Just depends on how we want to attack the day. But yesterday was one of those days where we were going to move a little bit, might be less today. Not much less, but a little bit less.

Q: Question about (quarterback) Nathan Rourke, some of your impressions of him and what is the opportunity for him?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, he's the fourth guy, so he'll get limited reps. Take advantage of the ones that he can get. He did a good job in OTA. He's picking up the system. It's always hard for that fourth quarterback relative to the reps they're going to get because the other three are going to get more. But good young man, studies hard, did a nice job in OTAs. We'll just try to keep developing him.

Q: Is Carter Coughlin hurt? He didn't get any team reps yesterday.

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, he was working special teams. He's okay. I'd say we pulled back a little bit, but he's not anywhere where he's not going to be out of practice. So we kind of emphasized the special teams part of him. He'll get the team today.

Q: It's obviously very early, but what are your initial thoughts on the running backs and the competition there?

BRIAN DABOLL: Probably too early. Again, I talked about it yesterday, I think it's a young group. Obviously, Motor (Devin Singletary) has a lot of experience with me. He's pretty in tune. Even though he wasn't in the system last year, he has picked it up. Young players will compete it out and excited to see that competition.

Q: I know we've talked about kickoff return, kickoff coverage. Are you sure that going into the training camp, everybody knows the rules, have?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, Ghoby (Special Teams Coordinator Michael Ghobrial) goes through it a bunch, but it's new. So anything that's new, there'll probably be some things we got to adjust and correct. Ghoby has done a good job with that unit. Happy he's here. He's really done a good job of explaining, being organized, detailed, and that's something as we get going that we'll have to look at and keep making adjustments. And you don't know how it's going to go early on in the year. You can study all the tape you want from the other leagues, but until you get going here, you're going to have to adjust week in and week out.

Q: Do you plan to dedicate more practice time to it just because it's so new?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, we'll do some stuff with Detroit and things like that. It's something we've talked about quite a bit but again it's the unknown. It's something new and anytime there's something new in this league there's always going to be copycat off something that looked good. And again, we've studied a lot of the tape from the other league, but it'll be probably a work in progress, particularly early in the year, for everybody.

Q: I know you talked about this in the spring a little bit, but so much time we talk about getting younger players ready or getting players to improve. When you look at players who feel like they've reached a certain level in this league, a Dex (Dexter Lawrence II), an AT (Andrew Thomas). How much time is put into getting those guys beyond where they are and getting them to a level that really haven't reached yet?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, you're trying to improve everybody. Whether they're a really good player, those players want to keep improving. I was around the greatest player of all time (Tom Brady), and I got to watch him work for 11 years. The dedication and the commitment and the consistency and the improvement mindset, the growth mindset that he had, everybody needs to have that. Whether it's young players who have a lot to learn or experienced players who are pretty good players, you're always trying to improve the squad and improve the individual technique and things that they can do well.

Q: How do you look at your secondary coming into camp? It looks like there's a lot of competition; you have a lot of guys in the slot.

BRIAN DABOLL: I think that's the word. There's competition. We got a lot of practices here to kind of figure out whoever rises to the top. Like we've always said, we'll play the best guys.

Q: Who do you want to see at that outside spot? It looked like Darnay (Holmes) was a little more outside maybe?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, we're using a lot of people. And again, it's day one. We'll go through these practices as we get going through training camp, we'll have better answers for you. But let all these guys compete it out and play the best ones.