Martz On The Mike - Sept. 5,6
RamNation News Bulletin
September 5
on practice:
"As expected, I guess, it was a good practice."
on de leonard little:
"Leonard did some team work today. He had no effects from yesterday’s work. He felt good today and we would expect he would take quite a bit tomorrow and would anticipate he would be ready."
on speed of little’s healing:
"He wants to play, but if there was a problem in terms of the swelling after the work that he has done, then you would really have to be careful and pace it. The whole issue with Leonard right now is how much strength he feels in it to push off. You don’t want to put him in a situation where he doesn’t have enough strength. I would anticipate that we would have him in some capacity."
on wr eric crouch:
"He is light years away from playing. He is still trying to figure out where he stands in the huddle right now. He has no idea what we are doing, you know, he missed so much time and he was just beginning to learn the basics. We have gone way beyond the basics that this point, so he is light years away."
on wr troy edwards:
"We are going to wait another week, next week we will start doing some light running and see how he feels."
on s chad cota:
"Chad has played so much, and the terminology of the defense is something that he has been exposed to before, so it is pretty easy for him to come in and accept some of the things we are doing."
on ls chris massey:
"He has done a remarkable job with the timing of his snaps and the location of his snaps. He is not just good, he is exceptional. He is a very tough guy. We used him on the kickoff return and he has had a couple of pancakes during the preseason, which is stunning, because he is not that tall of an individual. We are very pleased with him."
September 6
on de leonard little:
"He’s fine. He looked normal today. It looks like he’s back."
on wr terrence wilkins:
"He’s fine. Terrence is fine, he’s back."
how do you feel going into this, your third opener as a head coach as far as comfort level?:
"Well, the most uncomfortable thing is that this is the first time we’ve had them all healthy at the same time. I’m concerned that the precision will be a little rusty in some aspects, but I’m sure we’ll fight through it. Intensity and playing hard compensates for an awful lot, and that’s what we’d expect, but not having these guys in there on both sides of the ball for most of camp makes me a little nervous, but I’m sure it’ll work out."
is there always a little more element of surprise early in the season, especially the opener?:
"I think so. For both teams, you’ve had the entire offseason to prepare and generally everybody will take the first few games to take some time preparing. We’ve spent more time preparing for this game than we do for any other game during the season."
on having a base gameplan for this game by last spring:
"Yeah, we did. Then we had to change a lot of it. They were different in the preseason so we had to change some things. We end up changing a lot. Some of it’s not so much what they do, as just some different things we want to look at."
do you expect to see a "cover 2" kind of defense from broncos’ defensive coordinator ray rhodes?
"I don’t know what to expect. I really have no idea. We’ll just adjust the best we can."
on c frank garcia:
"Frank’s fine. He should be okay for the game, but I’m going to go in the training room to see how he’s doing."
how do you feel going into the opener?:
"I feel great. A little overweight, my back hurts, but other than that, I feel pretty good."
when you finally get to use some of your offensive plays in a game, are you excited?:
"No, not really. It’s fun to watch the guys play at full speed on both sides of the ball, that’s what I really enjoy, watching our guys play. That’s what’s fun for me. What we do on offense or defense, that’s just what you do. The thrill of this game is watching good players play well."
it’s been 44 days since the start of camp to the opener. do you think you need that much time?:
"It’s hard to say because we had so many guys banged up. If they all stay healthy, obviously you probably don’t need all that time. Obviously we needed all 44 days this year because we’ve had to get some other guys a bunch of reps."