What was your evaluation of a poony in the game?
Good?
He's been He's played well. He's kind of been consistent throughout the way he started camp and has continued to work every week. It's been pretty consistent performers. So he did everything we saw him doing practicing did in the game.
Yeah, he pulled on that on the touchdown. I mean that's something that you do a lot with banks. I mean, is he is he good at that? Is that something that's good?
Yeah, he's got some I mean there's some things about him moving to move inside.
There's some little things that he.
Needs to work on, and pulling is going to be one of them. But he's done a really good job and everything he's developing in all his areas. He's very diligent in studying and what to do next and listening and taking coaching and he's doing a nice job. But that is going to be something you have to work on. Chris Hubbard, how did he grade out?
And can he play comfortably both sides?
Chris can play both sides.
Yeah, that's where we're working him primarily on the left because he's more he's uncomfortable there.
He's more comfortable on the right side in my opinion, So we have.
Decided to dedicate those two guys kind of opposite where they're used to doing, he and Harker, and then if we get to whichever, however the thing shakes out, when if one of them is here to be a swing or something like that, it would be they could go back to working both.
But right now it kind of I think they can.
I can let them put their best foot forward working in his position to get better where their weaknesses are. And also they'd stay in one spot every single day he performed, he performed well, you know there was every player would like a few plays back, and I think Hubbard would would like one or two back for.
Sure, as Jalen played enough. At this point we're missing that game for being ill. Is not that big a deal.
Yeah, I mean it the first pre season game he was going to play the series, so it end up play like eleven or eleven play drive, wasn't it. The penalty was the twelfth play, so he had eleven plays. I mean, for what that's worth, I think I shared it last week. It is there's something to that full speed work that, regardless of when you get it, you do need it at some point. It's not like he's what he did, whatever the date was, is going to make a difference opening day, but it does in the big.
Scheme of things.
I got kind of a big picture run game question, you know, last year with Christian winning the NFL rushing title for the year, kind of goes under the raidar when you're in the middle of a Super Bowl run. Is there a way that you guys kind of honored it or celebrated it, and then how what's it going to take to kind of repeat that.
Yeah, I don't know if the guys did anything. We don't do.
You know, we're congratulations all those honors because so many guys that a lot of good players in this team and want a lot of things.
We don't do anything for that. Say, he went in is a rushing title.
I know that he did take care of the guys at Christmas or I don't know, there's something there was a gift or something.
Yeah, so line coach didn't see it, but all the players did. I don't do any blocking, so I don't deserve any of them, but I don't like off so but.
Yeah, he definitely, Uh, he's we all obviously congratulations go around, But it's nothing big like that for for the individual merit, and.
Then what's it going to take to just kind of repeat that success, you.
Know, I mean it's different. The cliche answer is a cliche for a reason. I mean, every year it's a brand new year. You have to get out there and start doing things and and see where it goes. I mean, how defenses play you. There's so many different things that can come into it. That that how well your quarterback plays, if your receivers are healthy, that you can throw the ball and keep them off your running game, and there's just so many, so many things. I mean, you look
at the run we had to open in Pittsburgh. We watched it the other day and the big fifty or six yeard run start in second half, and it was an incredible run with incredible Maybe maybe that guy tackles him this year and you have four or five of those in the.
Unit, it looks different.
You just don't know how it goes and and how the season plays out. We were able to get a lot of runs in the fourth quarter of games, is Shuel were a lot of games that we don't have a lot of two minute drives. We sure have a lot of you know, trying to kill the clock at the end of the game.
In the past, sometimes rotated guys at a position. One are the benefits of that for a young guy. Oh, it's huge job. And I don't even know why.
I don't know how I prepare, how I decide to do it. But you can kind of tell I even did it. Uh with Feliciano, who I didn't think. I didn't think Burford I don't think is going to play as much in the in the it was a Green Bay game in the playoffs. But also I noticed, I said, ninety seven was giving him some issues. So instead of getting in a routine of rushing John Feliciana, he puts Burford in there and the defender has to deal with a different guy. For young players, that that was the sidelite.
It can help anybody. For a young player, what is is those plays start mounting up where you start doing some bad that you get out and just take a step away. It stops whatever's going on and you get to go back in and restart. That guy then has to deal with a different player, and over the course of time. Usually what happens is you have a veteran player and a younger player. The younger player who you
think has more talent. That's why you're alternating. He's just not quite ready to play sixty plays a game, and our position is won. Like some other positions on the field. That defensive line, for example, you can get a rookie twenty thirty forty plays because they rotate so much. That's what starters do. Offensive lineman, you can't. People think it's you shouldn't. I know you can do it, and it does. That's a great way to work a player in just
because he doesn't get exposed. Analytics was were they would say every time we took him out, they were saying, that was about the time his play was starting to do this. Now, I'm not saying I did it because that I kind of had a in my mind.
Two serious three series.
But you can kind of feel that, and you talk to theimut the sidew You feel that things are getting little loose.
Let's bring them back over here.
And they stand for a minute, catch their breath, and they can usually get back into a rhythm.
I just preached the continuity.
When did you first maybe do that with the figuring out how it was worth well.
Here's what I saw.
I saw and when I was with the Vikings, we drafted a rookie tackle that I watched him be completely destroyed, like just day, week after week, game after game. He wasn't quite good enough, he wasn't quite ready, and by mid to the end of season he went an ir because he just was he was beat up. He was just hanging on for dear life. And we didn't have somebody to rotate, but we talked to it. We did have somebody that would have helped him.
You know. When I went to.
Tampa, we drafted ah we had a veteran player there at right tackle that came from another team, and we had a right tackle that I thought could be as good, and we just started we just started rotating. That was the first time I did it, was back and I think we were an Orange. I think it was nineteen ninety six. I did it, and then I did it again in Baltimore, and I did a couple of different places where it's been managed through it. We've been lucky, you
know that it's worked out, but it does. It's worked out that way that you can help the development.
Where do things stand at backup?
Shenna well, right now, it's you know, you have Barti and Sekel that are batting out with Nugent there as well.
You got three guys there.
They can do it, and that will work the backup and we'll see how it plays out as the year goes on. Sekel obviously took the starting reps. I would say that if you looked at him and said what Cekel's strengths and what barches are I think that Sekel is probably playing a little bit better. Center suited him better, and guard probably suits barts better and not the other one who plays. That's the first game Sequl's ever played in a game center and it was that was it uh in college anywhere?
So and I'd stayd that. So I give him the edge right now.
But they're both right there because then if he moves to Kel to guard, Bart's the center.
It just depends on what you're looking at.
You look at, say, okay, one of those guys will be your third or fourth guard, backup center. It's just it's a lot of pieces board moving there. But right that's what it sits.
Right now, you decided who's going to play what in against the Saints.
No, I mean, we kind of I briefly talked about it. I think some of it leads up to discussions on the last game. Because you have a small window of time between Sunday and Friday. Is you have to be careful how many guys you want to playing. So you look forward to that game and you work back and say, okay, if we have a lot of a lot of players playing in that game, then maybe not as many. This
week is a short turnaround. You don't want to give him a dag up a short week in the preseason if you can help it.
First, what does Kingston look like to you?
He's getting better all the time, He's improved. I ring out of love about these young guys. John Lynch and I were talking about this morning. Is these guys are really they're working hard to improve and they've made they've made some good strides. It's not it's a tribute to them, not to me, and we just do what we do. We go out there to do the same thing every day. But these guys have grabbed onto it and he has
gotten better. The things that we saw that were limitations with him were we felt were fixable, and so he's been able to fix some of them. It's still not consistent. Uh, but it's gotten better. So they were things that were they get addressed, you know, and we addressed him and he's he's address him.
Which is good.
Sometimes it's hard to break a habit, and we've talked about it in here before, where you know those those in a game when you start creating bad habits.
Are hard to break.
And these guys, over the course of their college career, have some bad habits that you have to break. And the things he had wrong he's really fixed. And so that's helped elevate his game. Every week guard or more tackle more guard. He's played tackle out of necessity and uh and and can still in the pinch. But he's really he's a guard, although he's got to he's got issues.
He's got to work on his anchor and things like that inside because he doesn't you know, there's pluses of minds that both positions for him.
So he's got to make up some space at guard to get better there.
You ran the ball so well with Mason on the opening series and then it was considerably tougher for Schrader and and Brita. Was that just being behind a second line, were there things they didn't see that Mason did see.
No, we didn't block. We didn't block. We didn't block well at all. We didn't block.
We all and and I and I want to get you know, I would tell me it's no, it's look, we're we're down, and it's not. These aren't excuses, it's an explanation for me. I'm looking at saying why, holy cow. Well, really, at the end of the day, when you take Trent uh Jalen, Feliciano and Burford of the equation, you've taken
four or five people that really started caliber players. So all of a sudden, your starting group becomes a little bit more of a second tier group, and then you're the next group becomes more of a you know, later in the game group. And so by that point, that second third quarter, they we weren't. It was a good challenge for those guys. It was good to watch against that caliber player they probably wouldn't see in the fourth quarter of the game when most of them would have
been playing. Everybody's been pushed up to play at a little bit higher level than what they would have if our starters were here, all healthy in there in playing.
So it's been a it's huge.
It's benefit, but the drawback is they're put in there in situations and we didn't give the backs enough good looks. Fortunately, and we'll see how this week's a whole different thing.
We'll protect it. We protected decently.
I mean, it was decent that the last and the fourth quarter got a little bit looser the two tackles, but but we protected good enough, which then at least we could do that, you know, because we weren't running the ball very well.
It used to be that defenses didn't do a lot of blitzing in the preseason. I guess that's changed somewhat recently. How do you feel about that? I mean, are you sort of glad that the Titans blitched quite a bit just to give your guys?
Yeah, I do.
I remember I was in Baltimore with Rex Ryan and Brian Billick. There was always discussion in Rex Ryan was, you know, he'd throw the kitchen sink at everybody, and they always have a discussion do we show them what we do or do we not show them?
Hold it till the season, and Brian was like, you know.
Do everything in the preseason because that means everybody has to prepare for everything. Sometimes you realize in the fourth course some of these games defense courters are calling things just they know you're going to play them in two weeks that you have to prep for, not not in the regular season, but in the preseason because you don't have a lot of tape on them, so you're scouring. We're gonna work on all these blitzes and then may never do it again that all year. So sometimes it's
a prep time some people. Every defense courding uses different things. My philosophy is, I want to see everything we can see. I want those guys to be prepped in In other words, if Poony, if whoever these guys are that we're trying to evaluate, If they just see one front, one defense all the time, what evaluation are getting other than their physical This gives them a mental challenge.
Thank you, guys,