Head Coach Dick Jauron
PM Practice – July 30, 2008
On Langston Walker playing left tackle and preparing without Jason Peters
That is certainly part of it and the other part of it is we can move. Sean Kugler likes to work all the tackles at both sides because you never know what is going to happen on gameday. We only have those three guys on gameday so we want to make sure we are ready for that and for if Jason [Peters] is not here.
On keeping Walker on the right side to not affect two positions
I haven't really changed. I definitely would like to keep Langston at the right [tackle] and have Jason come into camp. We will be prepared just in case. Even when Jason comes in, we will keep working people at different positions for the same thing we just talked about.
On if the line would be stronger if Langston stayed at right tackle and Kirk [Chambers] won the position battle
I really don't know. And that is why we are preparing for any eventuality as we move along. What we don't want to do is get to a point were we think we might not have looked at it because it takes a while. We don't want to move a guy that has never taken a rep there through the whole training camp. We feel the way we are doing it will give us options.
On injury updates
J.P. [Losman] was back today as you know. Angelo [Crowell], again, Bud [Carpenter] doesn't think it will be a long thing nor does he think it is very serious. Steve [Johnson] we lost today and again we don't think it is very serious either; a day or two is what he is talking about for the both of them and yes it was a knee [for Johnson]. [Shaun] Nua left [practice]. I believe that it may have been a hamstring but I am not certain though. Again, none of them do [appear severe] and Bud doesn't think any are severe and that is good news and we would love to have them all out there.
On keeping Walker at left tackle for an extended period of time
I think you will see him there almost every day to some degree. He will take some reps over there at different times throughout different practices and then we will see about pre-season. Our first game is less than two weeks away and we have four of them and hopefully Jason will come in. And if he does, I don't think that Langston will see any [time] at left tackle in pre-season games. During practice he will probably still see some work there.
On players like John DiGiorgio and Keith Ellison who started last year and are now on special teams
They are definitely starters on all of the coverage teams and we are counting on them to be key core players for us and that is huge for our football team. We know we have to kick it and recover it and do all of those things in order to have a chance of being successful. We are really counting on them. We really like them and they are very athletic, very tough. Hopefully they will make us even a little stronger than we have been and we have been strong in the special team's area.
On DiGiorgio and Ellison accepting their new roles
The guys that you are talking about, they are really smart guys and pretty much team oriented people. They are not, well you know them from talking to them, and I don't know if there is any selfishness in either of those guys. They just want to play as well as they can play and contribute anything they can contribute to the team.
On rebuilding coverage units
It is a huge emphasis for us. It's huge and the guys that we just talked about and other veterans are back from injury and the rookies, the young guys. We have to find contributors from all of those people, guys who have done it before and guys who have never done it. They have to come through for us.
On the run defense being charged up today
You have heard me enough to know that I am encouraged about everything with our team, the directions we are taking. We still have to have results on game days and we just won't know, we won't know for a while. I like our guys, I trust our guys and they are hard working and I think we have increased our talent level significantly in some spots. We have a good attitude so we have a chance and that is all it is. We have to get better and perform.
On red zone offense
The red zone is critical to every team and we haven't performed very well. We haven't scored a lot of points and we need to score points. You need to score them outside of the red zone as much as you need to in the red zone, but you need to work on specific plays down there and the sooner the better. We worked on it in our OTA's and addressed it in our off-season program but we just have to score. We have to find ways to score.
