The news of the Sam Bradford trade comes down to you, what's the the immediate thought process of how to get the rookie ready? You know, one step at a time. I mean it's a long process that started, you know, the day we drafted Carson. That preparation process starts, and uh, you know it just continues with obviously a different role from him moving from third team up to first team. Um,
no one was expecting it. But you look every move that that gets made, you find you look forward to the moves that are made, You look forward to working with the guys that are going to be here, and so that that's the mindset going forward. Um yeah, I mean that's that's why he's here. That's you know they were when you when you're look and evaluate Carson and
the process. You know, if there's five to seven key boxes that you're trying to check all for a guy that can come in and be an elite quarterback, he checks off all the boxes. And you know, furthermore, if you're scoring on all those boxes on a one to ten scale, he scores nine or ten on a lot of those boxes. And but all that being said, it's probably the most difficult position to play in sports, and there's so many factors that go into it that there's
no doubt in my mind he's ready to play. UM, But there's so many factors that can happen, and we'll see how it all plays out. Which is very confident and excited about what's coming up over the last three weeks or so, where you realize, Hey, this kid's ready and when this when this came down from the personnel department, where you felt comfortable going to Carson. You know, I felt he's when we evaluated him. You know, I felt
he was always ready. UM that didn't always meet. You know, I was always one hundred percent behind coach Peterson's plan. I thought it was a great plan. I think that plan was working out actually how Coach Peterson wanted it to work out. And I think the steadfastness of his leadership and the vision that he had was playing out
just how he envisioned it. Nobody can predict the things that happens in the moves that you have to make that you think that Howie and Doug had to make to think what was best for the team at the time. He can't predict some of those things. But I think Doug's leadership was clear and the vision was good. And now you just adapt and you know that's the ongoing part of this business that you have to be able
to do. And I've always felt that whenever Carson got his chance, whether it was next year or Game three or Game ten, I've always felt he would be ready. Or Game one, I feel he'll be ready. You know, just the Edmund flow of the game. You know, the ups and downs, the speed of the game. You know, he's seeing it against our defense all the time. I mean not that it's some guys just have that. Just some guys have what it takes. Some guys can translate
it. It It doesn't matter what level you've played on. You have qualities that make you a great player. And that's what we think we have in Carson. But he's like anybody else. He has to go out and prove it. And um, it's a long season. It begins this Sunday, and we're all excited about that. I mean a lot of you know, he's he's sixty five, two hundred and forty pounds and and he's got very very good athletic ability for the position, I mean for any position. But
this is a big man's game. This is a physical game. This is a game that you know, and so when you have that kind of athleticism and that kind of size and then and then you work that along with what I would say very high grades in processing speed and intelligence and then leadership and you know, and playmaking ability and all those other X factors. I just think that's a good form that those are a lot of good things to check off. Yeah, I'm just to continue
to build, you know. I mean if you've again we've said before, when he's out on the field, I think defenses know he's on the field. I think our quarterbacks know he's I think our whole team knows he's on the field. He's that kind of a presence. So you know, we just have to we had playmakers. It comes down to playmakers, and really the way we define that is how do you make an explosive play on first or
second down? And then playmaking really gets defined on third down and in the red zone, keeping drives alive and getting the ball in the end zone. And that's where you know, if you're going to start to piece meal a guy in who has that kind of ability, you know you want them to be you know, they want to be difference making kind of plays, so those will those will be key. He saw that play in Indianapolis, the jump ball. That's all about timing. How often to us,
Carson and Real worked on that. You know, throwing fade ball is yeah, there's a certain thing. You got to throw it to the same guy again and again. But some of it is a fade ball is a fade ball, and some quarterbacks have a natural touch and feel for it. I think Carson loves throwing the fade ball, has a natural touch and feel for it. So the confidence will build with a guy like DGB more and more you throw it to him. But some of it is just
dgb's ability to go up and get it. He's been doing this for a long time, so he's been running those kind of routes for a long time. So it's a it's a quick transition. I think talked about not having um you know, coached with Ray for one year in Arizona, so, uh, you know he's from that pitch. You know he's from that dick lebau Tree have a lot of respect for a raise for early good football coach know him well and uh you know he's he
has a pretty sophisticated blitz package. You know, Pittsburgh has always having that. Ray has put his own little twist on it. Um and he's you know, not afraid to be aggressive an attack, um, but just very well coached, very good schemes for a lot of years. I think, um a little bit, you know, because part of the game is scheme. Part of the game is matchups. You know, when you play earlier in the year, you just don't have as much tape on teams as obviously as you
do when you get into it further. But um, you know, you get what you can. They have the same problem. They have the same problem looking at us. So h you know, that's that's just part of the nature of it. Talked about with Carson Waits not fighting for that extra yard right now, it's not the NFC title game. With a guy with his ability to run, how much do you need to manage within his game to not fight for that extra yard because your mentality takes over in
the heat of the home. You know, I think that, you know, I know Coach has been talking to Carson about that from the he got here. I know I've been talking to him about that and so as coach d Filippo. Um So, you know, I mean Carson hasn't played as much in preseason as we all thought he was going to play to show that he's kind of got that message. Um, so we'll see. I mean, I
think he has gotten the message. I think he's a very smart guy and he understands the role and responsibility that he has to stay to give himself the best chance to stay healthy. And you know, and I expect him to do that now, you know, I mean, he is who he is. Son. Some times you're going to try to make an aggressive play. But I think we'll see that he's gotten that message now that christ mentality didn't make it. You know, we'll we'll mix some things up.
You know, we'll use our three tight end package in ways that we have always used it and that you see, Um, you can always move you can always move Trey back there. We can find other offensive or defensive lineman to kind of put back there in specialty situations. So you know, we'll just continue to build that full back package small, small piece by piece as we go. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a good thing about a guy who's
been around playing at a high level. As long as Sprowls has been a lot of things on tape, you know, another kind of routes that he's good at, and know how we can isolate him and and use his strengths, and certainly plan on trying to do that in every way we can. First team, you have to balance a little bit getting the game plan ready, but maybe keeping something simple, especially because he can get to play much
of the preseason. Yeah, and I think that would have been most teams game plan for week one is you know you've got all this install and training camp, you know you've run all your base offense, you don't show a whole lot in preseason, so um, you know you want to keep it simple and play fast. So that would have been the case anyway, no matter who was
playing quarterbacks. Certainly it's true with Carson and but as for all of our players, and um, I don't think the amount of stuff that's in the plan is going to be an issue for Carson. I mean, the guy is I can't emphasize how smart this guy is. I mean he is off the charts smart just playing smart. I mean, you know, like smart smart. But then on top of that, the football IQ and the acumen is just way way high, way high. That comes with having
him start so early. It's the biggest concern for you having him starts at early, like any young player, trying to do too much too fast, trying to understand that not every you know, not every play is the play of the game. You know that you got to sometimes live to play another and play another play. So um and use the guy and don't This is true for any young player. You don't have to be the hero. You know, you don't have to be the hero. Just
play good football. Be discipline. You know, you can be a great instinctive athlete and be able to do all kinds of things, but you still have to play good discipline football, Play within the system. You've got good players around you, You're on a good team, you're in a good organization. Just do your job and do it well. Execute. You know, coach Stout says all the time. You know, execution fuels emotion. You know, we know he's a passionate,
high energy guy. Well, there's nothing that builds excitement and energy and passion on the football field like execution. So at the end of the day, you can bring all those things to the table. But you have to execute the offense play by play, first down by first down, and then you know, get the ball in the end zone. And so we just want to keep it simple, keep focused on executing, execute the offense, whatever it calls for.
There's a Dougs brought a great system. We've got a lot of reps in it, a lot of mental reps, a lot of tape study. Just run our offense and execute it well and good things will happen. Yeah, I mean, you know when to me that one of the things that jumps out the first time I watched Carson's college tape was you know he just his size and his strength and his athleticism, you know, just make him and
then just this natural playmaking ability. You know, just had that instinct and feel that you look for in a guy. And he wasn't He wasn't all. It just wasn't a guy who was big and strong and could run and was athletic. This was a guy that you could tell was in control when you watched his film and you look at his body movements, you know, you look at the body language. You know, when you're around this game a long time and you see the elite guys do
it a long time. There's a body language, there's body movements, there's certain you know, you watch eighty plays in a college game and there and then there's ten plays that you say, no one else can do that, and that's what that's what an NFL quarterback looks like. And that's just what continually jumped off the tape. You know, you watch ten games, and each game there's ten plays that you say, that's what makes him the number two pick in the draft, and that's you know, he gets a
chance to show that now at the next level. Raw steam r