March 21, 2015
Head Coach Derek Mason
Overall thoughts:
“I’ll look at the film and I’ll have a better idea. I treated it like another practice. Coming out of spring games and spring contests, it is really for your fan base. You want your fan base to get to see some players that maybe they don’t know, and I thought there was some give and take on both sides of the ball. Defense looked like they played a little better, and made more plays. Offensively, we lacked a little bit of execution, but had high points as well.
On defensive success:
“Outside, inside, I want guys to be playmakers. You saw some guys make interceptions. You saw some sacks. You saw a couple of good pass rush moves. At the end of the day, I thought we were all productive. At the end of the day, it’s going to have to be a group effort for us to have success. Every coach has plays, but players make plays come alive. I thought our guys did a good job today, defensively, within the framework of what we asked them to do. We tackled pretty well today.”
On offense:
“Offensively, it’s a group of guys, who have taken on their offensive coordinator’s mentality and are still young. Defensively, they’re one year older in a similar system. When you have that growth, it makes all the difference in the world. These guys are going to be fine by the time we get back to fall camp.We’re making sure our schemes fit our players. We don’t make our players fit our schemes, we make our schemes fit to fit them, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Differences between the 2014 team and this team:
“There’s a huge difference between confidence, competence, and really, their total understanding of what I expect — and when that happens, you begin to gain some ground. We’re not where we want to be. Collectively, it was a solid day and a good practice. For us, fall camp and that first game will be a great indicator of our strides and our football team.”
On the quarterback position:
Our guys got to make plays for our quarterbacks. I think our quarterbacks made some good throws, but we’ve got to make plays for our guys so it’s hard to evaluate. I’ve seen guys making plays for their quarterbacks all spring and today was one of those days when we just couldn’t find our rhythm. There is no frontrunner (for the starting quarterback job).
Safety Emmanuel Smith
On more sacks in the future:
“More to come. I just keep working hard in the offseason and try to get better as a team.”
On his role on defense:
“Right now I play nickel and I am happy with that position.”
On his improvement from last year:
“My mindset has changed from last season. We got more focused. We don’t want another 3-9 season. Everyone is just working hard.”
On how he feels after making plays on defense:
“I was happy to just be able to play. Last year I sat out and played a little special teams. This year I have a chance to play and I am just thankful for it.”
Cornerback Taurean Ferguson
On improvements made:
“The first week, we just got our feet wet. Each week we’ve been trying to make progress. Teammates, linebackers, D-backs, D-linemen, as we progress, we show some improvements. We made some big strides by making plays and making stops on third downs.”
On defense being more mature going on second year:
“Most definitely. With young guys we played last year with getting another year under their feet. I’ve seen a lot of improvement from last year to now.”
On intercepting the touchdown pass:
“Receiver Darrius (Sims) came down. I opened up my hips. He got me on an island and I couldn’t stop right. I had to go and finish the play, just play through his hands and I ripped the ball out. You are not going to stop until the whistle blows so I played all the way through.”
On defense dominating the game today:
“It feels good. With this being the spring game, we are just trying to figure out where our weaknesses and strengths are. Just being able to come out and show our weaknesses and strengths is going to help us in the film room. This is going to prepare us for the season.”
Outside Linebacker Stephen Weatherly
On the athleticism in the defense:
“We are all moving a lot faster, moving a lot better, and understanding the defense a lot better than how we did last year at this time. That’s why you didn’t see as many plays made.”
On almost scoring a touchdown:
“It was a great play by Patton, a great heads-up play. Most quarterbacks wouldn’t have known where the ball went.He turned around and saw me. He made a very athletic play catching me and bringing me down.”
On defense dominating:
“We’ve been working hard all spring. I feel like today was great that you saw a lot of gears coming together, and we were meshing really well together as a defense.”
On the pressure over the defense:
“We actually cut out a lot of our plays that we had last year. Our main goal this spring was understanding the playbook. So we actually simplified and had less pressures this spring so we could really work on the fine details.”
Wide Receiver Trent Sherfield
On the game:
“I thought everything went well. I think all the quarterbacks did pretty well, and we did good. We just have to take it a day at a time and take it from here.”
On the offense being new with Coach Ludwig compared to the defense:
“They definitely have been with Coach Mason for longer.This is our first spring with Coach Ludwig.We are just making progress every day, making progress and just trying to do things right.”
On being a playmaker:
“Just as a wide receiver core, we work constantly just trying to make each other better.”
On the difference between what was played today and what has been practiced:
“It’s been a little different. We have to hold off of course from being televised and what not. We just came out here to try to run the same plays and not try to run all of our schemes and not give ours away.”
On the fact that they are wrapping up as many other teams are just starting with spring training:
“I definitely feel like that will make a difference. All of the early mornings, starting before everybody. We as a team, we work hard, very hard, and I feel like that will make a difference coming into the fall.”
Quarterback Patton Robinette
On the spring:
“It was a really good spring, really productive, a lot of energy every practice. Today didn’t really go the way the offense wanted it to go as far as being clean, playing clean. But overall, like Coach Mason said, a lot of improvement and a good building block base moving forward.”
On what he can do to improve his deep throws:
“Throw more deep balls. It’s something I have to work on in practice, and by myself in this offseason.”
On how today went:
“There was some frustration, definitely. A little disappointment. I really wanted us to come out and play clean, a clean game and put a thumping on defense. But to look back over our body of work this spring, it is hard to be too disappointed. We got better, we didn’t necessarily show everything today that we have improved on and haven’t improved, and I am looking forward to moving on to the rest of the season.”
On why the offense struggled today:
“There are a lot of different reasons maybe.It is the first time really in the stadium all spring, except for that one time last week. But bottom line, we didn’t play as clean as we wanted to play, and we want to fix that before the start of the season.”
On new players moving into offense and their potential:
“We’ve got a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things and are explosive athletes. We have to find a way to utilize them this year. That is going to be a focal point moving forward. We are looking forward to seeing what those guys can do.”
On how much wider the playbook is than what we saw today:
“I guess you’ll have to find out. There’s a lot left out there.”
On the fact that he was the first one to get snaps today:
“Read into it what you want. At the end of the day I’m going to have to go out there in the off-season to camp to compete to maintain my position at the top and I’m going to work hard to do that.”
On his connection with Coach Ludwig:
“I feel a really great connection with Coach Ludwig. He and I think a lot.He has a great football mind, I have enjoyed learning from him. Even though it is my third coordinator, I am really excited about moving forward and building a better relationship with him to see what we can do.”
On having to learn new offenses:
“It can be frustrating because each coach has their own nuances. But like he says, and it’s something I have known for a while, everyone runs the same plays, there is just some different style to them.Plays are all the same across offenses. So getting in there with him, he has helped refine my knowledge of the game further than what it was.And like I said, I’m really excited for the work we put in this offseason.”
