In their first ever NFL game, Luciano, No Manning, and Jolly Fisher.
They all had, you know, first game issues. They did.
They didn't play as well as they could have. There were some mental errors, there's some physical breakdowns. Uh Ilm is really of the three guys. ILMs really played very well this camp and in the preseason game.
We look at him and you know, he's not tall, I mean looks like a guard and he's been playing left tackle.
Is that just a numbers issue that you're short on tackling.
Yeah, So what happened post I'm sorry to cut you. I'm sorry post draft.
What happens when we would go to the undrafted you were going looking to see who we're gonna try and size on undrafted free agents, and it was it was interesting because we needed to tackle and we look at.
The tackle list and we're like, gosh, these guys, I mean it was thin, it was really thin. And then Ilam just stood out.
He played tackle in college and he's a really really good player, and we everybody projected him to guard, and uh, we said, you know, most of the time those guys they're on the third team, they end up playing in the fourth quarter. Of the games, and they're playing against kind of the same guys they played against in college. It's not like they're starting yet or in a position when they're playing. So let's just set them play it out.
If he can't do it, we'll juggle the you know, shuffle the deck a little bit, moom around.
And so he's he's done that. I don't I don't know that his long.
Term career is a tackle, but he's played very well there and you're you're right, he doesn't quite fit the prototype, but he's done a good job.
As preseason.
I thought Manning Beach speaks pretty bad in that one on one. I like the kickstep from Manning. What do you see from Manning at guard though, or at center?
He's got He's got a really good bend, flexibility, balanced things that you need inside. He's got good quickness. Uh, you know, he's he'll have to learn it's quicker things happen. The steps have to be shorter.
Uh.
Burford goes through it a little bit. Still, he still sometimes kicks bigger like a tackle and needs to keep his feet underneath him a little more under control like a guard. So there's just it's more of a quickness, And I won't say quickness, it's more of just your footwork has to be everything has to happen a little bit quicker at guard. And that's what Ilm will have to learn if he ever makes a transition in.
Where do you stand with Matt Pryor? It seems like he's obviously pretty comfortable as a pass blocker, but you know he's not the typical sort of tackle you look for in your run game. Where do you sort of view him right now?
Well, that's excuse me, sorry, something something the other day. You know he's doing a great job protection wise, You're right in the run game, he's not a prototypical guy. But I think over the course of time, what I've found out is, even though it's not exactly what this offense usually has for a tackle guard center, if you just keep drilling it, you just keep working. I just keep doing it. They keep working on keeping their weight, working on their quickness, and eventually you can find a
middle ground. Yes, he is he ever going to be, you know, the typical tackle in this offense. No, but but shoot, being able to play on third down into and just being functional enough on first and second down as run blocker can be good enough. You know that third down and piece of pass protection is a big piece that that if you can't play on third down, you can't play as an offensive lineman in the NFL.
So having that.
Down, you can work back and say, well, we can just keep doing is I've coached a few few different times in my career where you just you come to a new new place and you have two or three guys they really can't do the things you ask him to do, but if you just keep doing it, you believe it. You give him reps in the games, reps in practice, they can be good enough.
But sure he's obviously coming from division to.
Off the line all that much where he got here.
You talked about it's a pretty big lead.
It's been a big lead for him.
It's been uh, he's the last I say, the last two weeks he's really started to some things have improved, but there was a long stretch there where just it was was really hard for him. It is big, it is faster, it's a lot of it's different. And I'll say I'll say almost more than I almost say more than that, but almost more than that is the fundamentals that he was coached. Not bad fundamentals, there's different and so he developed whatever habits he had in the length
of time he's played the position. The those habits are hard to break right now, and so he's constantly, you know, maybe in practicing when he gets in the game reverts back.
That was a lot of what happened the other day.
Man, it was like a lot of reverting back with the young guys to the way that always plays things.
We've worked on things that we said we're gonna try and get better. At ALFO.
Everybody just got in the bright lights and it was a you know, great environment.
There was a it was a it felt like.
An NFL game, a regular season NFL game for so many of those guys, and I think they kind of reverted back and didn't quite stick with their fundamentals. And that's that right now, Joey. That's he step back and forth every day. But he has made progress these last.
Couple of weeks kind of around that or Saturday.
So they don't improve back again, well I can't.
You know, we just keep doing it and you just hope with a number of reps. As I've said, you know, the game, the game reps are worth so much, and unless you take practice reps onto the on the game.
Day, it won't go away.
You have to trust and try and do the things that we ask you to do on game day, and then those reps become the real reps. I mean, you can, you can bank some good reps in practice, but it's just not the full speed competitive when when when everything's going and it's truly truly full speed, those full speed reps, that's where you've got to just trust it. That's what's great about preseason is win loss doesn't count, so you can practice those things. That's why I love one on
one pass rush. I think too much weight is placed on the win loss of the one on one pass rush to that we talked about the other day. That's another full speed rep. Because team periods there's always that their gear back just a little so we don't end up with pile ups, there's no tackling.
But that one on one pass rush.
Man, that's the time to try things because those reps become a little more valid than the than the reps.
They'll they'll have say in the regular part of practice.
Is that what makes the difference between a guy that's.
Going to make it well, you you.
You, You try to tell them, you know, hey, listen, dude, you gotta do it. You gotta let it go.
And it's hard because they want to they want to be productive. And I would tell kids all one thing, this small thing. Let's say in pass protection, he's continually wrapping a hand and and it's causing them problems. And if I don't break, if we don't, if you don't break this habit here in this first year or so, it'll be there your whole career and it will be a flaw and it'll be something that people will take advantage of over time. Maybe some guys can play like
that their whole career and be successful. I just think you're always going to have a little a little bit. I mean, like I say, I always refer back to Trent because I've been with Trent so long and there's still things. He came in the other day that that's just there's little things that you realize if I don't correct this now, and he knows, he says something doesn't feel right. We looked at it and all of a sudden, it's it's just a little thing. And if he fixes it,
that doesn't become a problem. But if we don't say something about it now, shoot, by week eight, it could become a real problem and harder to change for a young guy that's compounded you know a bunch, Chris.
There was a rep yesterday at practice where be I think it was eleven on eleven Bial just beat Trent, And I'm just kind of wondering. You study all these reps. I know you're watching your own guys, but what do you think of Beal?
Oh?
Yeah, he's been a good player.
Obviously, he hasn't be out there a lot with injuries and everything, So excuse me, he's uh, he's really doing a done nice job from what I've seen. I haven't paid much attention, uh to him. It's been the last couple of days he's been out there. You do notice he's out there. But he's a good player, and like I said, I have not enough on tape for me to say, oh wow, he's really jumping off the screen. He's definitely talented guy.
So last week, you know a lot of guys in his level. But like, if I'm not who I am, you know, once I diminished, I've done, I'm not gonna be just guy.
He said, you know if he was just uh, you know, maybe above average kind of tackle.
He still wants to play and play and play, and ethical hopefully speak to his passion for this. You know, he has desired to know even if he's diminished, Trent Williams to to still stay out him.
Yeah, we'll see if that ever happens. But U but he uh.
I was with uh Jonathan Ogden and Baltimore when his last year and it's due to an injury to his foot toe injury.
I think it was he he ended up. And I think I wasn't there when he had the final conversations with Harball. We we've been let go to and decided not to play any longer, you know, And I think that was part of the I.
Don't think he wanted to do that. I think is if he couldn't play. Now, there were times Jonathan would say, Know, Jonathan might had a sore shoulder and he'd say to me, he goes. You know, I'd be like, hey, man, can you go today? He's like, eh, you know, I'm playing against this guy. I can play this guy seventy to seventy five percent. Now if it would have been Freeeny
Dwight freey from the from the Colts. I don't think he could have played at that seventy He would probably say I can't, I will hurt the team at seventy five percent going against this guy, Whereas you know some other guys, it wasn't that way. I do know this, and this isn't talking about Jonathan. Now back to Trent. Trent does the one thing. There were some questions on Trent coming out of college, and you know he loved the game as much.
He didn't he did.
The weight room wasn't a he wasn't a real fan of the weight room in Oklahoma. There's a lot of things going on then. But when I met Trent, this guy love football. I mean, he loves playing football. I've told you before. He's a student of the game. He's a football junkie man.
He knows everything about all the players in the league. He loves the game of football. And that's why I think for him doing that will be will be.
You know, he'll he'll definitely I could see that happening with him playing that long.
I also think that he you know, when you do.
Diminish, because I have seen guys diminish, sometimes you change your philosophy on that you're like, yeah, I'm not the dominant player I used to be. Can I still stand getting beat two or three dimes a game and all that?
You won't know until you get there.
But I do think that his passion, his love, his commitment, the things he has to the game or just are just unbelievable.
And by the way, you know, he's one of.
Those guys, Trent, where he goes the weight room not it's going to be the strongest guy in the weight room.
That's why the weight room was kind of like not the most important thing to He had other things that he knew he needed more than that.
Does he ever leads you to the punch in terms of, look, I got to work on this before you can even tell him.
Oh, Trent always he's got thoughts and ideas that are well because I've got fourteen other thirteen, other, twelve other whatever it is guys to look at, and Trent's usually not one of your problems.
But I did learn early in my career that you know, a lot.
Of people teach that you coach the lowest common denominator in the room. And I was fortunate my first a lot of early in my career, I wasn't the line coach. I was an assistant or something like that. I sat and I watched coaches do that. And I also sat in a to some very very good players who weren't get anything out of the meeting. So so I've learned you have to you have to. Yes, you have to coach the lowest company. You really coach the highest company.
You have to. I have to coach every meeting for Trent Williams.
And in that process, I have to work with the other guys if I need extra time for the other guys.
So I'm always challenged to.
I'm always trying to keep things interesting for Trent, for for the veteran players in the room, while still being able to reach out to the younger guys. Trent's always I mean, all these guys, if they're really on it, they're probably I want to say, a half step ahead of me. They might be more than that, but you have to admit it. They they study themselves. I'm you know, we get stuck on a scheme. We're looking at the other players, we're looking at the defense, we' looking there's
so much that we look at. Sometimes the player himself can come to you first. A lot of them can't and say, coach, what do you think about this? Or what do you think about that? Trent's trench really good that although sometimes you know it's the other way around.
I'm able to point somethings out to him.
This is an objectively silly question, but a couple of years ago, you try for a touchdown for Trent, do you have any hopes of maybe getting me?
I hope so. I every day.
He is so much fun to work with and such a great guy, and he sure would be great for him to end his career with a touchdown. It's just really hard. It's kind of like a big red flag. Hey, seventy one reporting it tight end. Okay, let's be sure we cover him right, because you know that's that's the
hard one. I go back to Ogden. He did in one of his early years in his career, caught a touchdown pass and we always talked about Himano it was ten years after the fact that we always talked about I hope what Trent that happens.
You guys are looking at some outside tackles when they ask you for your opinion, how many plays you need to watch of a guy before and what do you go do you go to last year's tape, you go to his highlight reel? How much film do you need to watch on some of these guys to decide, Yeah, you know, I like this guy or don't like that.
Guy you're talking about? Like tryout guys at this time of year. Yeah, usually we just it's to try out and then if there's film, they'll they'll put together a tape that will have the high highlights and low lights you can kind of evaluate. I think it all depends on the spot. You know, you're talking about a guy that's going to be a third or fourth or fifth, you know, it just depends on who they are and uh,
and what spots you're looking. If you're looking for a practice squad player versus a guy that might be a rotational player, you might have to dig a little deeper. But a lot of times you can kind of see what a guys and he's kind of built is, we have a grade on him, we've probably evaluated him before.
In free agency, you might take a quick peek again to make sure everything looks the same, but it usually some form of a highlight reel, not quite as extensive as you do in free agency or the college, and then you and then you bring them here for the workout and you see if they're still moving around physical things like that.
It's important for the your way of thinking, for the first offensive line unit to get snapped for this preseason.
Over in a game. That's a great question. It's a tough question, you know.
I don't know what the number of reps is, but on both sides of the coin with that, as far as what happens when guys play and don't play, I do think the game reps are important. I won't use offensive line because it is it is important they play together, but they get a lot of reps together. We're together a lot, and they play a lot of reps together,
you know, in practice and things. I do know this that some players have been with in the past if they didn't get the real live reps like ball hand the guys have handled the football like all of a sudden, it's a lot different when they're punching at that ball in the first couple of games of the year that you have to adjust to it than it is later in the year, you know, or as it is if you don't if you don't have those reps in training camp or practice.
Right.
The only thing I do know also is that the most tired I've ever seen NFL players, and I'll talk about the offensive line, is when they come off the field after that first eight or ten play drive in the first game of the year, they are flat gassed, no matter how many games you played in the preseason or how many plays you didn't play in the preseason, because it's the first real time that you truly exerted everything straining from the you know, snap to whistle every
single play, trying to win, and they just haven't done that enough. As hard as practices, even as the preseason games are, it's just I've been places whe we've played guys as many as a hundred plays in the preseason.
Other places they haven't played any plays.
But either way, when they walk off that field after those first couple of series, they're gassed. And it takes a game or two, ou't how many it is, but to start to get in game shape, the real game shape where.
You're playing full speed, full strain.
And for us, like a receiver, you know he can run, they run, they run, they run, they run, they run around well, give enough runs and it's like, Okay, I'm in shape, but an offensive lineman is you know, in defensive li I mean you're shoving it full. You know, it's not just the cardio, it's the strain that goes on with it.
And that's like that takes a lot out of you.
And it's not the strain in uh team run, the strain in pre season two versus the strain in Pittsburgh on the road right opening day with the noise and the atmosphere and the juices night and day.
And so that's why, Yes, it's.
Important, but I always it's cautionary and it's kind of important.
You know.
It is nice to get guys some reps and our our sports science guys, they'll they'll tell you there's a number and there that they think they should play.
I don't know what it is.
Thanks, thank you guys,