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Ron Rivera Presser: This roster has more youth, but those guys have played a lot of football already

Ron Rivera, Montez Sweat, and Charles Leno spoke to the media

Ron Rivera

DE depth:

Efe Obada:

International players:

Referees at practice:

Hurry-up:

Padded practices:

Practice at FedEx:

Running backs:

Antonio Gibson lowering his shoulder as he hits the hole?:

“I would say yes. His posture going through in terms of understanding that, ‘Hey, when I make my read and plant I got to lower my pads, protect myself, get my shoulders over my legs so that guys trying to, tackle me, I can protect them, using my forearms and stuff like that.’ You see those things and he’s much more comfortable in doing it. It’s been kind of nice to watch him. It’s interesting because when you watch [RB] Brian [Robinson Jr.] run, then you watch him run, and then you watch [RB] J.D. [McKissic] run, there are differences in their styles. To throw another name in it, [RB] Jonathan Williams, he’s done a really nice job. [RB] Reggie Bonnafon has shown something. I think we’ve got as good a group of back here with us right now that we’ve ever had.”

Judging Brian Robinson Jr.’s running game in pads:

“That’s one of the exciting things, things change when your pad’s on. We feel better about what we’re seeing from the offensive line and that’s big. When we’re just in helmets and shells they basically have to catch guys. They’re getting pushed back into the quarterback and it makes it tough on them. It makes it tough on the quarterback. So now with the pads on, you see that they get their stout, they can hold the point, they can be a little more physical with their contact, and stuff like that. But as you watch and you look at Brian, you see that with the pads on the way he hits the holes and you see a little bit more lean, which is big. It’s going to be exciting tomorrow and Saturday, because they’re going to be padded days and then we’ll go into another day off on Sunday, but they’ll be padded days. The really neat thing is, the energy level will go up at FedEx. It really will. I’m excited because we should have a pretty good turnout of fans there and it’ll be good for our guys. It’ll ramp some things up. We’re going to do some live periods and try to get some of that excitement going for our players. I mean we want to be able to make some contact. We want to be able to get these guys prepared to tackle going into the first preseason game. That’s what I’m looking forward to as far as this weekend’s concerned with both Friday and Saturday’s practice.”

Offensive line:

Montez Sweat

Winning:

Mentoring young players:

Being vocal at practice:

“I think football’s a vocal game. I think everybody needs to be on the same page as far as communication, pre-snap reads and noticing the strength and things like that. So yeah, everybody has to be vocal.”

Chase Young:

Extra pressure with Young missing time?:

Fatherhood:

2021 season:

“Not good enough. I just wanna keep on improving and just being a better me.”

Improving from last season:

“I want to get better every day. I feel like I’m getting better every day, noticing new tools, noticing new things that the offensive, they want to attack and stuff like that. Everybody should look to get better each and every day.”

Defensive line:

“It’s it gives a different flavor to the D-Line room. I mean, Efe from London, but he’s Nigerian. He has that London accent, but he has that African. [David] Bada being Ghana, but from Germany, he gives a different perspective too. It’s great. You hear the different accents. They go about life in a different way. They apply those things to life. So it’s great. It makes me broaden my horizon. It’s a lot of cultures and all that type of stuff out there.”

Tight Ends:

“Yeah, they’re getting better every day and I feel it. I feel like it is my job to get them ready for when we do get really rolling. I like to get those guys tips and stuff that actually veteran tight ends have used on me. Blocking schemes and stuff like that. So I give that knowledge off because I know they’re gonna be able to use it moving forward.”

Charles Leno

Offensive line:

Andrew Norwell:

“Yeah, I mean, you know, Andrew was playing for nine years so same like me. So I mean it didn’t take much for us to get going. You know, he’s been in league while same with I, and we kind of just know how each other’s role and I love his game and you know I appreciate somebody who I really don’t have to coach ‘em up on much. You know what I mean? We just go out there and play ball.”

Carson Wentz:

“Yeah, I mean, you know, Andrew was playing for nine years so same like me. So I mean it didn’t take much for us to get going. You know, he’s been in league while same with I, and we kind of just know how each other’s role and I love his game and you know I appreciate somebody who I really don’t have to coach ‘em up on much. You know what I mean? We just go out there and play ball.”

Improving at training camp:

“Just continue to get better. You know, it’s always things that you can work on whether you’re year nine, you’re on year one or ninety-nine, depending on who you are. This is a game where it’s hyper competitive. It’s always somebody that’s going to push you to get better. And I’m my main self to push me is myself to get better. I’m always seeking, you know, ways I can improve and help our football team, win games and win the championship.”

Brian Robinson’s blocking:

“It’s been good. I mean, I can tell like, you know, he’s just a really good natural running back and it’s been good. He just understands, you know, patience and lanes and you know where to hit his creases and things like that. And like you said, he is a big guy. So getting his pads vertical when he gets his pad vertical, he is going to be really tough to stop.”

Montez Sweat:

“Montez talks so much I don’t even know what that conversation is to be honest with you. It’s always something with him, but he’s just a ball of energy out there and I love going against him and I love having him on the field because he’s somebody that definitely just brings a lot of energy and that’s what you need when you got days where it’s 90 something degrees out at practice and it’s hot, you know. You need somebody to keep the energy going.”

“Thinking about practice yesterday. He’s definitely starting to work with more moves and that’s really good. Being a guy who’s, you know, however tall he is and be able to run four four [40-yard dash] you just don’t want to be a one trick pony. You want to be able to work different moves, work power moves, work finesse moves and things like that inside out. He’s been doing a good job of that.”