Ron Rivera Presser: Bobby McCain is the slot corner and Darrick Forrest will get more playing time

Ron Rivera

Jamin Davis:

“Yeah. We’ve expanded Jamin’s role where he wasn’t coming off the field initially when we first started. We gave it to [S] Kam [Curl], but because the fact that Jamin wasn’t coming off the field, we stuck with it and just stayed that way.”

“Huge. It really is. Not only just handling the huddle, but getting the calls out and setting everything up. He’s really grown in probably the last six, seven weeks. You’ve really seen the growth.”

Communication of LB Jamin Davis:

“It looked like it was pretty good. It really did. He made a couple errors, but not communication errors. But he’s played well. he really has.”

Difference for LB Jamin Davis between Week 1 and now:

“We talked about it. I got on him a little bit, but Jack jumped his ass. I mean, he really got after him, he got after him in the press too. And all of a sudden, the realization that crap, that’s what we should have been doing because he grew up with two military parents. So he’s used to being pushed or at least that’s what I felt. And so I said that, Jack, we missed early. This is a kid that needs to be pushed, that needs to be challenged, needs to be gotten after because he’s used to it. That’s kind of how we feel like, okay, we’ve gotten a lot out of him and just get after him and he stays with him. So you learned a little bit about how to deal with the personality.”

Coaching different players/personalitites:

“It’s one of those things that you got to kind of see how you get after a player, how you deal with a player, how you talk to a player, how does he respond? And like you said, it takes a while because of different situation, different circumstances, and after a while you see how a guy responds with you and say, okay, this is how I could deal with him. This is how I could treat him.”

Chase Young:

“Well, decision making process is once we start practicing him, we’re going to get to a point where we will activate. We’ve got till next Tuesday, I believe it is. So if we don’t activate him tomorrow, most certainly going to activate him by Tuesday or by the deadline. Just now, we’ve gotten his reps going, he’s part of the practice so he provides the extra body as well. So we’ll be fine either way it’s just a matter of when do we play him.”

Would it have been beneficial to wait to start him practicing again?:

“No, this was always going to happen because if you think about it, if we push it back another week, we’re going to be in the same boat. Because when you talk to the trainers and listen to the strength conditioning guys, there’s nothing else they can do for him. Now it’s about the football part of it. You’re going to get pushed differently. You’re going to have to read different keys to get yourself ready to play. And that’s where we are with him right now. It’s how confident, how comfortable, how well does he do the football aspect of it now. He can go straight ahead and everybody else sits there getting fired up because he’s going to run somewhere around 19-20 [Mph] on the GPSs you’re going to feel well. But now it’s moving when you’ve got 300 pounds pushing one direction or 600 pounds, you’re trying to hold the point.

That’s the different thing. That’s the thing you can’t mimic during your rehab program. So this is the important time for us. So starting it when we did gives us the opportunity for him to do these things now. And if it turns out he needs five weeks before he goes or four weeks before it goes whatever, 28 days. Well thank goodness we started it when we did you know what I’m saying? So that’s what we’re trying to do right now.”

Chase Young in practice:

“Well, the reps have been increasing. The only problem is if you increase the reps too much and he doesn’t play, you just took ‘em away from the guys that have to play. So, you know, in some cases we’ve had him do some scout stuff, but then you don’t necessarily want him doing scout stuff because you didn’t want developing bad habits. So, we have to pick and choose exactly when we’re going to get him in there.”

Young’s technique:

“Yes, that’s what we’re trying to look at too and see where is he with the technique. And so you see these things gradually coming. I mean, again, he missed a lot of reps, so when he does play it’ll be a pitch count and those will be the things that we’ll be watching is exactly where is he with his technique.”

Power rushing style:

“That’s one of the things it’s one of the comments he made to me is hey, I got to continue to do this. I got to continue to get used to doing this. I got to get back to what I did my first year. So he’s aware of it as well.”

Rush lane discipline:

“Well, we’ll see. It’s a valid question because when you have guys that are right now orchestrated in terms of how they’re feeling and feeding off of each other, it’s impressive. When you watch and you study it and you see it you see how these guys are coordinated, you know, Montez starts up on an outside rush and you got a defensive tackle. You see Daron get engaged as the three technique gets engaged with the guard and you see his head look outside to see where Montez is.

All of a sudden, Montez starts wrapping around him and then you see Daron continue to get vertical. Then you look to the other side when Montez is over there and he’s got Jonathan and he knows Jonathan’s as he’s going, you see him start to hesitate. Like he wants to go inside what he sees Jonathan just driving through, so he stays outside and that’s kind of guy’s understanding. Whereas if Jonathan’s working inside and also Montez goes inside, there’s that escape line that the quarterback’s looking for. Those are some of the things that when you talk about the rush line discipline, that’s important and that’s something that Chase will have to develop and get a feel for again and that’s understanding who am I rushing with.”

Defensive line:

“Well, I think the guys have played well that have had the opportunities. I mean, you look at James Smith- Williams, you see the positive things that he’s done. You see Casey. You seen Efe. Those guys have given us a boost in some situations in other situations, they’ve been good. Could they have been better? You’d love to and that’s why you’d love to have Chase back to form, so now you got those four guys going. I mean, one of the things that we’ve done this year a couple of times too and Jack has done it consciously in that is we’ve tried to rush to pass it with just four to keep the coverage sound back there, so there’s some give and take with it when you don’t have that fourth guy. Now you have to decide, do we want to run pressures? Are we to help a little bit more? So that’s part of strategy as well and if Chase comes back and can be the guy that he has, that’ll be a huge boost for what Jack wants to do.”

Carson Wentz starting to throw again:

“Right. You increase the amount of volume, and it works on the hand grip and all that stuff. That’s the way being explained to me, so we’ll see where he is come Monday.”

Bobby McCain:

“Yes. Going forward, absolutely. What that’s done is the one thing that putting Bobby there gives you is you give you the guy that can fit the run better than a corner. He’s a little more physical. Bobby’s also a very good blitzer, so if you go back and get an opportunity to watch it, watch how he plays what we call the apex. If you’re the the slot receiver and you’re the tackle, I play the midpoint for my run reach and if I see it’s run, I’ll fit inside the gap and Bobby fits it downhill and he reads it pretty quickly, he reads it. I don’t wanna say as well as a linebacker, but like a linebacker and at the same time, once he recognize it, he can get to his man and play his technique, whether it’s match or man or zone.”

Getting Darrick Forrest on the field more:

“Yes. We want who we think are the three best run fitters for us on the field and it’s something that Jack [Del Rio] and Chris [Harris] and Richard [Rodgers] talked about and Coach [Brett] Visselmeyer is big on this as well, cause Coach Visselmeyer coaches for the most part, the nickels and the buffalos and he’s always said that Bobby could be one of our really good nickles.”

Jim Hostler

New role:

“It’s just a little bit different from the standpoint of the game planning. I spend a little bit more time on game planning ahead of the teams we play. That allows [offensive coordinator] Scotty [Turner] obviously to be in the moment of the game he’s calling that week and I’m just a little bit ahead of him when we start on Monday and Tuesday with the game planning. So, if he’s got questions, those kinds of things, that’s probably the biggest difference. Other than that, it’s just me sort of watching the perimeter, helping the guys coach the routes, the concepts, if they have any questions. It frees Scotty up to do what he’s gotta do and they can come to me about those kinds of things.”

Passing game coordinator:

“It’s kind of tied together. It’s not really — it’s all advanced scouting, but it’s not from a scouting standpoint. I’m not really looking at numbers or anything like that. I’m just looking at them as a defense. What they do? How we’re gonna attack it. Obviously when you start game planning next week, Scotty’s window of preparation for the game planning is a lot smaller than mine is because I can spend two or three days from the previous week working on the next opponent. So, I’m a little bit farther down. I’m a little bit broader in my scope. It just allows Scotty, if he’s got any questions or how they play things or why we’re doing things, he doesn’t have as much time to prepare that way.”

Focus on the next game:

“Soon as our final game planning preparation is done for the upcoming opponent, which is usually Wednesday night. So we spend Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then obviously you’re practicing Wednesday, early down kinds of things. Then you’re practicing situational offense on Thursday and Friday and usually that’s all done by Wednesday night. There’s a little bit of stuff done on Thursday, but usually after Wednesday nights the meetings are over, and I’m on to the next opponent.”

Wide receiver depth:

“I feel good about it. I think we’ve done a good job of bringing the players in, drafting the young players that we have and defining what they could do before we got ‘em here. Then the ability for us to try to use ‘em in their capacities. We’ve got a group that any of ‘em can play. Even the young down the line guys. We don’t have any fear right now of putting ‘em in the games. So from the standpoint of depth, that’s a huge advantage as we go through these longer seasons, players are used a lot more, people are bumped up a lot more. So when your group has depth, it just gives peace of mind that you don’t have to go out of your way to execute things that you want to do just because you don’t have the personnel to.”

Curtis Samuel:

“Well, we had a history with Curtis and we knew what he could do. Obviously just unfortunate the way it ended up last year. But that’s kind of the way we used him in Carolina. Not to the same extent from the backfield because we had a dynamic player in the backfield down there. But we knew he could do those things. That’s what he did in college. That’s what he’s probably most natural doing is playing with the ball in his hands. So it was just a matter of him being healthy enough for us to utilize him in those roles.”

Offenses relying more on the run this year:

“Yeah. You know, trends, that’s interesting that you would say something like that. I’m sure trends happen based on a lot of different factors. We don’t go into game planning looking at trends. We go into game planning looking at what we can have success doing and how it fits our personnel and then how is the season going. There’s gonna be ebbs and flows of how you gameplan, what your strengths are, you have injuries, those kinds of things. And there’s so many factors that go into that. Who you’re playing, who their injuries are. One week they have a great pass rusher and the next week the guy’s not playing that week and you don’t have to worry about as much or they have a great three technique and he’s not playing. You follow what I’m saying? Or their best corner’s not playing or all of a sudden you’re just in this world of doing whatever you gotta do week in and week out. And I’m assuming that the trends all follow in those kinds of ebbs and flows. I don’t think anybody goes into the season and says, ‘Oh, you know what? Everybody thinks we’re gonna throw the ball more this year, so we’re going to run it more.’ From our standpoint, we’re just trying to figure out the best way to beat that next opponent from two ways; who we have up that week and who they got up that week.”

Establishing an identity on offense versus exploiting the opponents’ weaknesses:

“That’s the balance of how you’re gonna beat this next opponent. Obviously identities, that’s what the overall vision of the head coach and Scotty, how we play the games, those kinds of things. Those visions are in everything we do. If you run the ball 60/40 as opposed to throwing it and the next week you run it less and throw it more, that’s all based on one what you are trying to do and establish. Their offense might be better, your defense might need to be protected. This week they might not need as much help. Again, all those factors go into how you put the gameplan together and how we call it.”

Practice Updates

Injured players

Chase Young