Offensive Coordinator Al Saunders
July 24, 2008
(on being at the facility or home )
“I think probably about half the team are on the facility now, the other half are away. I think some of it probably is a fiscal decision in terms of finances and probably is a little cheaper to stay at home. But in my experience in the league I’ve done both, been at a facility or then been away. I just think that sometimes breaking the monotony of being there everyday at your same facility and now it’s a year round program with the OTAs, minicamps, the offseason program, the training camp, and the regular season all at the same environment I think it is good to break it up. A place like this where we can work harder longer with the weather like this instead of have the humidity. The last time I checked we played game at seventy-four degrees, indoors. Getting used to that humidity we’ll have two almost three weeks to get back before our first game against Philadelphia. I think this was a great idea, and I think there is some real value in it.”
(on players understanding expectation at camp)
“This is a professional football team not a junior high school team. These guys ought to know what is at stake, and they ought to know what to do to get better. My feeling is that the guys are disappointed with what they did last year, and they would like to rectify that. In what I’ve seen, during out OTAs and minicamp they worked extremely hard and they were very very attentive. I was very pleased with their effort and the focus that they had. There is no reason to believe that it that won’t continue.”
(on offense)
“That is a coach’s comfort level. The longer time you have together and the more time you have the better you feel about it. It’s a commitment like anything else. There’s much mental that goes along with as emotional and physical. We’ve got a good jump on what we attempted to do during OTAs and minicamp. Right now we feel good about where we are and how much they retained and how fast we can go here during the early parts of training camp.”
(on the retention of the offense)
“We had 15 opportunities on the field. On the course of OTAs and minicamp together, our first 15 practices here in the installation should be identical to what we did during the OTAs. So they will be going through it for the second time. For a lot of them, they have been in the system before. System is really a language. Learning a new language. Trying to make sure we are all on the same page in that regard. Some of the guys were here during Mike Martz or were here when Dick (Vermeil) was head coach. Languages remain the same. So there was a two-year hiatus in the terminology and now we are back to what a lot of them were bred on with the St. Louis Rams. Now it is a matter of philosophical approach to how we go about doing it.”
(On rookie WR Donnie Avery)
“Well it is always important for rookies when they miss something then they got to make it up at some fashion. He is a real smart kid. He learned extremely quickly when he was here for us at minicamp and he’s not here today but hopefully he’ll be here tomorrow or the next day. As a coach, you really like them to be here but you can’t worry about that you have so many other things that you have to focus on. I know it is a cliché but coach the guys that are here and move on. We have every faith that it will get done and will be done quickly and he will be right here joining us and going along.”
(On running backs)
“Offense and defense, it’s about players. When you are little league baseball, football, or basketball if you have the best players, you have the best chance to win. No matter what level you are if you have the best players and Steven falls into that category. He’s a special football player. He’s special because he is three dimensional. You look at the guys in this system that have succeeded. You go back to San Diego with Chuck Muncie. And you look at Marshall Faulk. And in Kansas City we had Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson. In the past, Steven played very well in the system when he first became adjusted to it. He blocks well, runs well and catches the ball extremely well. He’s a big powerful man who has tremendous speed and acceleration. He’s the guy, and I’ve said this before, I think we are only limited by our imagination in terms of what we can do with Steven. I think he did a tremendous job with catching the ball from a receiver in slot position during minicamp. Catches coming out of the back field and he runs with it. He can run. He’s a power runner as well as a perimeter stretch runner. A lot of times backs fall into one category, there are between a tackle downhill guy or their a stretch kind of player. And we had that situation in Kansas City, Priest Holmes was an outside perimeter run, real patient runner. Larry Johnson was a downhill between the tackle guy and you have to change your running game to accommodate Larry when Priest got hurt. I’m not so sure that you can’t do anything with Steven. He runs perimeter as well as he runs inside. He’s got a great ability to accelerate and get fast in the hole. He runs with tremendous speed and explosion. He’s a special back and if we can stay healthy upfront and have some real good blocking schemes for him and spread people out and give him the opportunity to run football, I think he is going to have a real good year.”