Head Coach Doug Marrone
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Q: Injuries?
A: Scott Berchtold : Did not participate in practice – Keith Rivers with a groin. Limited Practice – [Jonathan] Meeks with the neck, Aaron Williams with the MTBI [Mild Traumatic Brain Injury] or head, whichever you prefer. And Lee Smith with the toe. Full participation – [Stephon] Gilmore with a groin and [Sammy][Watkins] with the ribs.
Q: Could you talk about what you thought of Robert Woods’ game on Sunday?
A: I thought he did well. I though he did a really nice job. Towards the end of training camp and coming up into the first game, I think he’s been practicing well and doing a good job.
Q: What do you point to that got him to improve his play?A: I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s probably a better question for him. Make no mistake, a lot of players kind of go up and down a little bit until they hit their groove and they become consistent. I think it’s very difficult, when you haven’t been playing for a while, to come in right off the bat and be consistent every single day. There are little ups and downs. You just don’t want to see any extremes as a coach, where one day you’re here. You just want to see kind of a gradual line going up. Robert’s done a good job. Very good.
Q: How will you be rotating and lining up the wide receivers?
A: I think we’re going to look at the situation, matchups, who we’re playing against, what we want to do, how we want to rest guys. There are a lot of things that get involved in it. We feel fortunate that we have five receivers where it really doesn’t matter who is on the field for us. We’ve got to keep them fresh. It’s a long season and the quarterback feels comfortable with all of them.
Q: Do you expect Corey Graham to share time at cornerback on the outside with Leodis McKelvin and Stephon Gilmore?
A: We’ll have a plan of what we want to do, as I said before. We’ve rotated guys in the past. We could potentially do that and keep guys fresh, especially when Leodis and Stephon are coming off of injuries during the season. That’s definitely a possibility.
Q: How do you draw up an offensive strategy when you don’t know much about their linebacker situation?
A: Obviously, you sit there and you start thinking about it and you start taking the focus on yourself. “This is what we’re going to do and they can do this or that.’ You just make sure that you’re practicing against enough different things that your players are prepared. Our focus, what we’ve talked to the players about is more of what we’re doing than what we could possibly see.
Q: Can you give us an idea of how much Aaron Williams has been able to practice?
A: More than individual, so he’s practicing and working on some plays. Again, we won’t know that decision. We’ll go day by day and see how he feels.
Q: What do you think you’ll learn about Seantrel Henderson in his matchup against Cameron Wake?
A: We feel very comfortable, obviously, with him playing there. I think Cameron Wake is a great player. When you play tackle in this league, like I said before, you face a lot of great players throughout the year. He just needs to continue to get better and work. It’s a good matchup. Cameron Wake is an outstanding player. A couple of years ago he had a bunch of sacks. It’ll be a tough matchup. It’ll be a challenge for him.
Q: Do you like what you saw from the zone read on Sunday?
A: I think it’s something that we’ve got to be smart about; when we do it and when we use it. We did execute those plays well. Again, it’s part of the playbook, but not something that we can continue to make a living with.
Q: Is that because of health reasons?
A: Yeah, I think we’ve got to be smart when we want to run the quarterback or not run the quarterback and when we’re doing it and what situation. I think that comes into play a lot when we think about it.
Q: What is your comfort level with Kyle Orton if he had to come in and play in a game?
A: I would feel good. I really would. I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all.
Q: Can you give an indication of his knowledge of the playbook?
A: It’s kind of tough because there are some things he would do differently that are in the playbook.
Q: What about with the verbiage?
A: Oh, no problem there. He’s an extremely bright guy and we were able to translate some of the stuff into the words that he’s used before. That’s how we started from the beginning, but I think now it’s really not a problem.
Q: How do you rectify the minimal production from the tight ends last Sunday?
A: I don’t know if it’s something to rectify. In other words, part of the things that they do opened up other people. I think people look at catches and targets and things like that, but, for us, going through the last game without giving anything away, if you know what Chicago was trying to do then it was going to be very difficult for us to get them the ball in areas of the field that they’ve been successful before. I wouldn’t look too much into that because we’ve always been able to throw the ball to the tight end everywhere I’ve been. Coach Hackett has always been able to do that also. I don’t think that’s a good indication of what we want to do in the future.
Q: How much do their injuries at the linebacker spot open up some opportunities to get the tight ends the ball?
A: The thing is that it goes back to the unknown for us of what is exactly really going to happen. They have some options, obviously. They’ll be prepared. In the same sense, when I say we look at ourselves, is that we’re not going to go in there and start to put in things differently that we haven’t worked on before and never have done before. I think they’ll probably have a good feel of what we do and how we run things and they’ll get those players ready. It’s not different than when Nigel was out and Preston Brown was able to coming in. When Stephon [Gilmore] wasn’t able to go, Corey Graham came in there are played a bunch. So these things happen. The one thing about it is everyone is talking about the linebackers, but those guys that came in there for the second half against New England, they played extremely well. They’re good football players. Don’t make any mistake about that. They played very well against a very good New England team.
Q: From what you saw in the Chicago game, how well did CJ Spiller diagnose plays?
A: It’s always a catch-22 sometimes.. There’s a play that he bounced outside that he wound up making positive yardage on. I think it’s one of those things you’re going to look at and something you’ll say, ‘Hey, take it up in there.’ And then, all of the sudden, he takes it on the outside and you’re like, ‘Oops. Let me keep my mouth shut.’ It’s very difficult to tell someone what to see when they’re on the field. It’s easy to tell them what the read is, but when everything starts moving at that speed it’s tough to tell. I think that we understand that we may lose a yard or two here, but we may get 15 or 20 when he does that. It’s something that I think we accept and we move forward from there.
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