| August 21, 2020 Opening statement: “Good morning – we doing OK? OK, all right, good to see everybody. Let’s roll. Let’s hit it (and) get out to practice.” On OL Frank Ragnow’s development and potential: “Frank Ragnow has really just continued to grow and develop every year. There’s probably not enough great things to say about him. He’s a great person – just really turning into a tremendous player certainly at the center position. I think he has settled in to that after a year under his belt last year with that, and now really taking the lead of the communication and working with the quarterback and all of the things you need to do as a center to pull that group together. He’s done a phenomenal job. Really starting to work with him – we were just talking about this last night – on a couple more technique things to do as a center to be able to help yourself. It’s an interesting game when you get to the center position, certainly it’s a very unique position where you actually have to snap a ball between your legs and still move at the same time. So there’s some fundamental technique stuff there that we’re exploring with him now that he has the basics under his belt at this level and trying to expand there. He’s very strong, he’s very powerful, he finishes blocks very well, he’s got a great punch, all of those technical things are really great. I think it’s probably to your point, like you said, we haven’t said much about him just because he’s anchoring that middle and just doing his job every day and doing it at a high level.” On how much the coaching staff is involved when identifying players to study or if it is up to the player to seek that information: “The coaches are directly involved with all that, too. The players do a lot of studying on their own. They’ll talk among themselves and say, ‘Hey, have you watched this guy? You studied this guy?’ We have all that available to them. We’ll put those cut-ups together and be able to get those tapes, but certainly – Hank (Fraley, offensive line coach) played center in the NFL. So that’s another great resource for him, and (Assistant Offensive Line Coach) Billy Yates who is over there helping him, played guard and also was a backup center. I think those two are doing a great job of giving the coaching perspective but also the player perspective too. There’s a lot of very interesting tricks and technique stuff that centers do and done through the course of the years to hold the point, hold the middle of the pocket. So it’s fun to watch Frank look at some of those techniques and do some of that stuff.” On RB Bo Scarbrough not being at practice yesterday: “Not going to get into specifics as far as injuries are concerned, but Bo was not out there, and he won’t be out there again today. So I think we’re going to reevaluate him right now. Certainly there’s a workload overall, composite yardage and things like that, that we’re looking at there from that standpoint, just guys that are sore. Certainly one thing for us to remember in all of this is that we’re continually trying to build on everybody’s back-to-practice workload. Just trying to be smart with some of those guys too if there’s general soreness or tightness or things like that we need to keep an eye on. Just trying to do right all the way around as far as that’s concerned. He won’t be out there again today.” On if OL Jonah Jackson is still a part of the offensive line rotation or if he has solidified his spot as a starter: “I don’t think anything is solidified. I think that’s a hard word for it, but maybe definitely ‘extended look,’ that’s probably good. I would take that, that’d be all right. I think one of the things you have to look at though is Beau Benzschawel was repping in and out a little bit at practice, and kind of pulled off some of his reps and same thing with Joe Dahl. Kenny (Wiggins) and Oday (Aboushi) were actually playing on the left a little bit more – if you saw that a little bit. So some of that rotation there, and then Logan (Stenberg) was taking more center snaps too. So some of the rotation actually flipped from the right side to the left side, and that was good because we do have to cross-train the guards on both of those positions and also through the center. So it may have looked that way, that there was just more reps on the right for Jonah, but it was really probably because of the rotation was flipped to the other side.” On defining cumulative yardage: “There’s a lot to it actually. There’s also hard yardage percentages, so what we can tell off of heart rate and things like that, as far as the exertion amount they’re doing and how that looks for hard yardage, miles per hour and all of that. It’s just tools, that’s all they are. Just tools we use to try to keep a gauge on the readiness of players and hopefully try to increase as we get to some of longer days in camp. We’re starting to increase the practice time here, so we know that that yardage is going to go up. Certainly the different areas of the field, whether it’s early downs and really now we’re into some third-down stuff – so Bo Scarbrough is another great example where maybe some of the running backs will get more reps in the third-down area than Bo right now. So we can pull off of him in that accord and save him a little bit until we get back to more of the different packages that he may be involved in. We do like to look at that. We do make sure that if players are increasing their yardage maybe by too much per day, and we have a percentage there that we like to look at. Certainly the goal is to try to reach what a game would look like, not necessarily this week because we’re just kind of getting going here, but at a certain point during preseason, we have to make sure we’re up to game yardage and also high-speed efforts.” On if he would like to see TE Jesse James more involved in the passing game and where he has progressed since joining the team: “I think Jesse is having a great camp right now. I think he’s working really hard, and he’s made some really great catches too. So I think is all showing up. Certainly on our end, as coaches, making sure we understand our players and how do we use them to the best of their ability and put them in positions where they can hopefully make plays. I think we’re trying to just do more of that with Jesse because we know that he does have a skill set that is valuable to us. He has a big catch radius. He’s a big, tall guy. Certainly some of the work that we did earlier in the week in the red-(zone) area, he made some really nice plays. Obviously it was really good for the offense. Just utilizing those skill sets I think a little bit better is probably what (Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevell) ‘Bev’ was talking about.” On what the team has decided to do during the National Anthem this season and if he will be taking a knee: “We have a lot of conversations as a team, as far as that is concerned. I’m going to keep those private. But I think certainly all of that stuff is conversation that is great, and we’re listening and trying to do everything we can to understand better. I think that’s the point of everything that we’re doing.” On if he will be taking a knee: “Again – we’re just going to get through practice right now. I think for us, those conversations that we’ll have internally with the team.” On LB Jahlani Tavai entering Year 2: “At his position, specifically linebacker, there’s a lot to learn at that position. Certainly the first year you’re just trying to go through and make sure you know what you’re job is, and you can go out and execute at a high level and perform. As we work into Year 2, and we’re trying to expand the knowledge and concepts of what the defense does and push it into some of those areas where he can understand where to help and where the different positions have to go and broaden that command of the defense. I think that’s the biggest part of it for a linebacker is (that) you do tie together the back-end and the front-end in a manner with coverage and rush and making sure the defense is balanced and the communication and the control of that is really something with Jahlani that we’re trying to push further ahead.” |
