Head Coach Scott Linehan
August 2, 2008
(Opening Remarks)
“Nothing really to announce, I think we had a couple mild things, but nothing serious. Stayed healthy, which was a big part of the goal today. We got the seconds and thirds a lot of work, but we still worked the ones in team. We were a little short handed. Some guys took every snap today when we actually went to the scrimmage. Which, you get a little concern about some fatigue things. But, we were able to manage, we actually shortened it down by about six plays from before, but we broke it up and got every phase of special teams worked. Got a long ways to go yet, but I’m very encouraged by the approach to this morning, and now we’re kind of into the preseason mode. We’ve got our first game coming up, I know you all will probably down, most of you, will be down in Tennessee. We’ve got a really challenging week this week. We’re going to go two good practices on Wednesday, and we’re going to go two on Thursday, one of them being all special teams, and then we’re going to take a break from working against them on Friday, and then play them Saturday night, then we’re coming back here, we’re not going home, we’re still in camp mode for another week.”
(On LB Quinton Culberson’s injury during the scrimmage)
“He tweaked his ankle, nothing serious though.”
(On which players took all the snaps)
“(DE) Eric Moore, (DE) C.J. Ah You took every snap at end. I think we put (LB Marc) Magro in there at end, which he did at West Virginia, to me, you’re forced to do that, it was kind of good. I saw him rush the passer, really would have got a sack. That’s the one thing he did exceptional at West Virginia, which that’s kind of what you’re looking for right about now.”
(On DE C.J. Ah You’s downfield defense)
“I’m going to watch the tape, but I noticed some plays by him and some others. He’s a guy that has a knack and a nitch in this game and you never know what might transpire in the next four weeks.”
(On waiving LB Vince Hall because of injury)
“Yeah, but we’ll still rehab him here.
(On what he knows about LB Marcus Riley)
“He’s Henry Eller’s cousin, significant cousin apparently. We have to get all his stats and everything from (Vice President of Public Relations) Rick (Smith), I’m sure he’s got them in his back pocket.“
(On QB Bruce Gradkowski and QB Brock Berlin)
“You can see their experience. Both of them have a very good demeanor in the huddle. I’ve seen Brock play a game for us. He played a very gutty performance and was very efficient, I thought, when we played Cincinnati last year in a tough situation. You can really tell the two of them played a lot. You can really tell that Bruce has been playing in the league. You can see those 14 some-odd starts, just how he manages things. It’s their first go around, they’ve been working with receivers, you know, they don’t know which group’s in there and they just go in there, they’re having fun doing it, and it’s going to be a heck of a battle.”
(On if QB Bruce Gradkowski’s is more comfortable with the offense)
“Yeah he is. He is a lot more comfortable. I can see in his play calling and huddle procedure, play calling just really is. I’m pretty surprised. It’s a new system the verbage is completely different. That’s something I noticed today, he’s got a pretty good handle on things.”
(On Gradkowski’s ability)
“He’s a very good athlete. That’s the thing we evaluated in a lot of evaluations and we go back to them and look at their college. That’s the one thing coming out of college that was really a big part of what he does and did it at the pro-level. That gives him dimension that is only going to help him.”
(On his thoughts about the crowd)
“It was great. I kind of anticipated we’d have a crowd because it was Saturday. We had a nice crowd when we first got here on the weekend. It was great. People come out; I think they are curious, they’re interested. I saw a Trent Green Kansas City No. 10 jersey out there. I mean we got them all up here. But this has been a great experience. I can honestly say, and you guys have been here, I think you kind of see the same thing, they’ve been very open to us being here very cordial and cheered us on. I know we are in Packer country but we have had a number of Rams fans that have shown up and they tell me where they are from. They came here and planned their summer trips, and that is what I was hoping for when we moved up here. Hopefully they go back and tell everybody else, maybe we will finish this camp off with more Rams fans up here.”
(On the number of people in the crowd compared to last year)
“Yeah it probably was but you know it’s nice; it’s in a stadium, great setting, great way to spend your Saturday. You know you can’t beat the weather.”
(On how QB Marc Bulger and QB Trent Green looked in the scrimmage today)
“Good, worked good. You know Mark worked our run period, our red zone period. We stuck Trent in there in the blitz and kind of split it up there. You can tell those guys have a pretty good handle on those things.”
(On Bulger’s and Green’s performance the last three or four days)
“Yeah it’s been Marc, the last probably four days maybe more, but he’s looked real, real comfortable. I’m really happy with where he is going, where he is at.”
(On any things that he was not happy about in the scrimmage today)
“Well, we still had a couple pre-snap issues. If you want to be a good team or a great team, you can’t line up wrong, you can’t jump off-sides. But it wasn’t many, it was a couple though. We’ll have to rattle our cages a little bit on that. Because those are self-inflicted wounds that you can’t have.”
(On moving the line of scrimmage a lot during the scrimmage)
“Right, because we wanted to work the situations. Because we had to modify the scrimmage somewhat we didn’t want to not get some third downs in there or we didn’t really want to spend a bunch of time, if we had a sack or a bunch of long yards. We wanted to work first, second, third down to kind of spread it out. So, that was why we did it. You really can’t control that if you don’t go another maybe twenty snaps, or you weren’t going to be able to do that.”
(On when players have meetings)
“Sunday night, we will be back. They are off tonight. Some have family here, some maybe going to get on the lake. I don’t know. I told them they are grown men and it’s their business you take care of it. We just have a 6:15 meeting. No curfew tonight.”
(On the discussion between Haslett and himself during the scrimmage)
“We bark all the time, that’s football. No, I think there was a lineman problem. I told him, I knew it’s nothing. We do that all the time, it’s great. I mean he was probably right, because they didn’t have a side judge over here, and the guy on the other side didn’t see it.”
(On if Saunders had the quarterbacks quick snapping the ball)
“No, I think we weren’t. Our pre-shift I don’t think we were lined up right.”
(On the coaches’ competition with each other)
“It’s good though, that’s what we want. Coaches are pretty competitive too.”
(On if Al Saunders was trying to pull a fast one)
“Oh no, no, no. It was nothing. It was really nothing, to be honest with you. I was actually busting his chops a little bit.”