TRAINING CAMP PRACTICE #1 MEDIA AVAILABILITY
Thursday, July 25, 2019
(Opening statement) “Just a couple things – obviously, welcome to everyone, excited, and then there’s a couple things. Obviously, we know about Yannick (Ngakoue) right, so let’s address that. It’s really part of that business what goes on, this is the business side of it. I stay out of it. I always have. I’ve been in touch with Yannick. We’ve been talking to him, and then again, it’s just between Yannick and his agent, management, contracts, but he’s working hard. He’s trying to get this thing done. We’re trying to get this thing done. We’re excited for him. He’s going to come. He’ll report. I don’t know when. I know it will be before a certain date, and when he comes, we’ll be excited about it. I mean, he’s looking to get back and looking to be with his teammates so that’s where he is. Obviously, Telvin Smith I haven’t personally had any contact, but he’s on the reserve/retired list officially. But again, anyone that retires, or anyone that’s not with us, obviously we’re here to support them if they need us to reach out. Anyone that’s ever played, has been a part of the team, we want to make sure that we’re there for them if they need us. That’s one thing great about the NFL, the family type of atmosphere. I think when you look at the roster you’ll see obviously Marqise Lee is PUP. He’s doing well. I think what I’ll do is when it becomes the time two or three days prior to when he’s ready to get on the field I’ll probably say, ‘Hey, we’re expecting him to be on the field with the team.’ But I think everyone here is going to be able to see him on the side working out, so you’ll see where he is, you can form your own opinion of how close he is or how not close he is or whatever. Cam Robinson, the same way. Both those guys are doing well. There’s been no setbacks with him, and you’ll be able to see those guys on the side working and again, we’re excited for them to come back and be with us somewhere during this training camp. I don’t know the exact time, but some day during this training camp they’ll be practicing and obviously those guys are important for us as we go into the season. The next player, Jake Ryan, obviously is one the non-football injury list. We had a setback during the summer, ok, so we’re really not sure exactly when he’s going to be able to come back or when he’s going to go. So, we’re just going to see where it is and go out and test it. It’s unfortunate because he’s worked really hard and he really hasn’t been on the field with us and he’s really frustrated with that, but hopefully we can get through this and get him on the field. Other than that, I was very pleased with the way the team came back in from the standpoint of weights. We’re in great shape there from a standpoint of conditioning which is outstanding, so I’m very, very happy with where we are with what the players have done. They’re done a really good job making sure that they’re ready to go for this training camp. With training camp, obviously, a lot of you guys that have covered the team last year know that we had a great deal of injuries. A lot of injuries, due to a lot of different things, which in the offseason as you guys know, we put a lot of time into — or I put a lot of time into making sure we make some changes in the schedule of what we’re doing. Obviously, you can see there’s so many things that I wouldn’t be able to go through and itemize each one, but what I’ll say is we’ve tried to build in better recovery time. The one thing you’re going to see in practice is we’re looking to build up our practices, meaning that we’re going to take it in a progression and build up to a level where we can go, and we’re really concentrating on these first 10 days. From all the stuff that we’ve got, these first 10 days have been a high level of soft tissue injuries, things of that nature. So, we’re going to be very—I guess its player safety. I don’t want to use the word cautious or anything like that because we’re going to go…so, and that’s where we are. So, we’re excited, we started and we’re going to build it, we’re going to go. We got heavy installation early on in camp, and we’re looking for the players to retain it and go. Obviously, this is the third time we’re hitting the installation, this is the third time around for us, so obviously we should see some better retention and some better results. We’re just going to go on that field and take each day and try to take advantage of it and try to do a good job and get ourselves ready for the season. We’re a team on paper. We’re not a team yet as far as being ready to play. We’re not ready to go out there and start a season right now, let’s make sure that we understand that, but those are the things that are the challenges, those are the things that we’re building up to.”
(On if Jake Ryan’s injury was away from the facility) “Yes.”
(On if Ryan’s injury being away from the facility is why the injury is listed as a non-football Injury) “You know what, I wouldn’t know the exact details of that because the non-football injury, and the PUP (Physically Unable to Perform), for me as a coach, it’s the same thing. And those players that are on PUP or Non-Football Injury, what you’ll see is they’ll be off to the side. They’re not allowed to participate with us in practice whatsoever. They’re just going to be with the trainers, but they are allowed to attend meetings with the coaches and stay up to date.”
(On if Ryan will need surgery) “No, it’s definitely not surgery. Definitely not surgery.”
(On if he found anything amusing about Jalen Ramsey’s armored car appearance yesterday) “Yeah, I think that—of course. I was like, ‘Those Adidas people know how to market.’ You know what I’m saying? That’s the one thing, I mean you do something and everyone else talks about it, it’s good. But I’ll say this, and this happens a lot, what people see on the outside, they’re going to form an opinion. But I can tell you, as soon as he crosses into our building, it’s all about doing what’s best for the team and doing everything from that nature. So again, I look at this profession now as it’s a business, you know what I’m saying? They have agents, they have marketing people, they have so many things that go on that you’re not going to micromanage the business part of their lives from that sense, but as long as that player shows – and Jalen’s done a good job of coming in here, communicating with his coaches all through the year, working hard, in great shape, ready to go, and he talks about team in here. That’s what my concern is. What happens on the outside—as long as our players are good husbands, good fathers or giving back to the community and I can do anything to help them, that’s what my concern is. The other stuff, again, it’s become part of it.”
(On if it’s accurate to say Ryquell Armstead will be healthy for training camp) “Yeah, so what happened was we had a misread by the condition. So, when we were talking about putting him on PUP, and then we officially did, and then all of a sudden we retested it because we knew there must have been a malfunction, boom, he was fine. We took him off, and he’s ready to go. That’s what happened there.”
(On his expectations for the tone Nick Foles will set) “When you say expectations … What are your expectations for someone? Obviously for all of our players – not just for Nick and all the quarterbacks and everyone – the [expectations] are extremely high and that’s why we go and make corrections and we push players. We do that because we have high expectations of them, and we are doing that since they can reach those. That is what we are trying to get done. What I have talked about with the team – basically we have laid out four things. One, I obviously want everyone to be on time. No. 2, I want everyone to be prepared. No. 3, I want everyone to give their best effort. No. 4, I want us to focus on winning. Those are the things that I’m really making sure I’m concerned about. If you’re hitting all of those criteria and doing everything you possibly can – the thing about this business is that it is a performance-based business. You can be doing everything right and the things that you may not see – players putting in all the extra time, doing all that stuff and then all of a sudden you go out there and you don’t play as well as what you’ve worked on. That’s what performance is. That is why it is a performance-based business and you have to make sure you are ready to go and do the things during the week, but you are going to be judged, myself included, the coaches included, on what you do on that Sunday. We go out there and practice right now, you are not going to come here the next day and say, ‘you did a shit job with practice the other day.’ I never answered the question, ‘Hey in practice, why’d you run the ball? Why did you do that situation?’ I never have had a question like that in all my years as a head coach. On Sunday now, after you are done playing, you better make sure that you are going to get those questions and you better be right on them. The expectations are high as they are for everyone.”
(On Quincy Williams not having a chance to learn from a returning starter and having an opportunity) “The statement you made at first, I think you hear quite a bit when people talk about the quarterback position. They always talk about, ‘Hey, you have someone to learn from.’ I’m guessing because it is so different when you are going to college where you have to go to class and now you have all day and you have to get ready. The game is different than college. It’s good to be able to sit with someone and learn how to deal with the media because they are always out there. There are a lot of things that go on with that position. Other positions, I think it’s good to have people in the room – the linebacker room, the o-line room – that can show you and guide you the way. It doesn’t necessarily have to be at the same position. I know that we have good guys in that room that we added that are veteran guys that have really helped him and shown him what he needs to do to play. I think everybody that comes in, if he’s new, it’s no different than all of you when you first started. When you first started, you have an idea of what the job is supposed to be. You want to make sure. You are going to talk to people, you are going to figure it out. I think it’s just natural you do it.”
(On the challenge of the installation process, specifically with Jarrod Wilson and Ronnie Harrison) “It’s one of those things where our expectation and the goal is for them to know all of it. I think when you come out … A great expression that we use with the young players is, ‘growing pains.’ Meaning that they are going to learn and make some mistakes, but it’s not from a lack of not preparing. They are going to make those mistakes and then they are going to grow and get better from it. You want those things to happen in practice. You don’t want those things to happen on Sunday. I do think that for Ronnie it’s a little bit different. This is his second year, this is the same system. We expect him to be in a much better situation. The second player you are talking about – Jarrod. He’s on it. He’s been here for a while. He’s worked extremely hard to get to this as well as Ronnie. He probably right now is one of our best communicators back there. I am very confident in his ability and what he has done. He has done a heck of a job with communication. Now he has to go out there and perform like we all have to do. I think the one thing that we have with our safeties going into this preseason and going into this training camp is that we feel good about both of those guys in coverage, and we feel good about both of those guys being down. We don’t see a big difference. Sometimes you may say, ‘This guy is always a down safety, this guy is in the middle of the field.’ We feel both guys can do either one and we feel they can both do it well, well enough or us not to label someone or do things like that. If we have that, that will be able to help us during the year.”
(On if he feels like Leonard Fournette has a different approach or anything to prove) “I think with all of the players – when they talk, I try and just keep things in perspective. If they are not talking the right way, you don’t have a chance of anything. I am talking about any one of them. I think we will see. I think it is something that you have to prove. Everyone will talk, everyone will come … Right now, everything is great. Everyone is ready to go, everyone is in shape. Now you get out there and we will see.”
(On why Myles Jack will not be at practice today) “At 4:45 a.m. Myles called me, so I went down. He was sick, so we’re just going to give him fluids and things of that nature. But I will say this in talking to Myles, I was like, ‘Myles, look. You threw up, you have a bug, let’s get you right.’ But he really wanted to be out there today, especially on the first day. So, when you don’t see him out there, he’s got—I don’t know exactly what he has, but I was with him at 4:45 a.m. this morning and he was just vomiting and didn’t sleep well. We’ll just get him right, and he’ll be fine.”
