JIM SCHWARTZ: Those heavy contact practices, those are going to be really important in our evaluations. There's no grading on the curve for this, it can't, well, it's Week 7, a guy has to play or it's week two a guy has to play, or Week 16 and a guy has to play, and you know, sorry haven't any training camp and we can't expect much of them. We have confidence in those guys. Those guys are working hard and they are really good athletes and feel good about their prospects.
Q. Your thoughts on Darius? What are some of the traits --
JIM SCHWARTZ: Well, I'd say first is experience, this is not his first rodeo. You know, he's been a proven player in this league. Has a long track record. Has a lot of experience matching different kinds of receivers. He's played against a whole range of different guys. I think that's probably the first thing when you're a quarterback and you go out to practice or when there's a guy you've seen on film for four years and seen him on opponent film and seen him.
Just a guy that knows his job technique-wise, that has a nose for the football. Those are things that a quarterback is going to be concerned about when it comes to throwing to a particular receiver.
Q. With the limited time, is there enough time for that open competition? Will you mix in different players? We saw Avonte yesterday,
JIM SCHWARTZ: You're going to see a lot of different players. Obviously when you look at a guy like Slay or Rodney McLeod or Fletcher Cox or Brandon Graham, you're going to have a good idea that they are going to be out there in week one, but we are going to match a lot of different combinations and there's going to be some days just because of our accelerated camp, there's going to be some guys that have days off, so you'll see some guys in there. We have seen the last few years how important it is to plug players in and still have a level of success. So we have always tried to do that during training camp, anyway, just sort of throw different groups out there and mix-and-match guys, No. 1, to be able to see players against different competition.
So you're not sort of working against the same guys all training camp, but No. 2, just to have a comfort level with the other guys that are out there. So we'll do that for a lot of different reasons not just competition. But we'll have plenty of time for competition and Coach Pederson is giving us some good opportunities to get some, if not quite game situations, but as slows as we can simulate and we'll have a good chance to get everybody an opportunity and make decisions in a few weeks.
Q. Last time you spoke, you weren't asked about Barnett, but we spoke to a few players and coaches about him and they were saying how he seemed coming in healthy for the first time seemed to be good for him clearly but here we are in the first week of camp, or at least padded practices and he's back on the DL with a week-to-week injury. Is there correlation between his size --
JIM SCHWARTZ: The injuries he's had are not related to that. It's a physical game. It's a physical position. Defensive tackle and defensive end, I think are the only positions that make contact with somebody on every single play. I mean, you can be an offensive guard and it's pass protection and there's nobody over you and you can just sit there and you might not have contact with somebody. But defensive tackles and defensive ends take a load every play, whether you're 350 pounds or 250 pounds, there's a toll that comes and he plays so hard and plays so wide open, you know, he doesn't -- he doesn't take any plays off.
I still am very pleased with where Derek is and I think he's going to have an outstanding year this year.
Q. Hope you're doing well, obviously with no preseason games, it's kind of -- you touched on it but it's different to evaluate where the rookies are right now. Can you take us through what it's like having to split those reps in your approach, because you also need the veterans to be ready in week one while also trying to evaluate the younger guys that you have.
JIM SCHWARTZ: Yeah, that's a really good point, because we do have sort of two concurrent agenda in training camp and we are sort of almost in a game prep type week trying to get guys ready for Washington. Then also, we are trying to develop players and we are trying to -- and we are trying to also evaluate players.
So one hand, we are really driving toward -- we are only a few weeks away from going and playing a game for real and then on the other end, we have guys that are basically brand new that we need to find out as much as we can. I think coach appeared son has done a good job of mixing different periods in practice that way. We have some periods that are very specific toward trying to get a group that's already experienced ready to play and then we have enough other periods where we can see guys and evaluate and develop. I think it's going to be an ongoing thing this year. The abbreviated training camp is not going to be the end of our developmental program. You'll see some stuff early in the season where young guys will get more work than maybe in previous years. It reminds me a lot of 2011, a lockout year. We started a little bit late. Now we had all those preseason games but we were on a little bit of an abbreviated schedule and we were able to get everything in.
Q. Last year you brought up how Ridgeway as a new guy in the system that impressed you. Anyone this year?
JIM SCHWARTZ: Too early to say. Yesterday was the first day with pads and it really wasn't a competitive period and in Coach Pederson's terms, it was a 10-10-10, even though it looked very competitive it really wasn't a true evaluation kind of thing. It was always just one of those first day of pads, Coach has all taken that approach of not throwing red meat out there for those guys the very first day.
Let's just reserve judgment on guys that require pads and to truly evaluate them. Let's give them this first week and then maybe I'll be able to better answer that question, maybe this time next week.
Q. We've been talking about this defensive tackle rotation theoretically and last year Malik went down first game and now you're preparing for the season without Hardgrave. Are you ever going to get what you're looking for here? And with Javon, does he play a position where maybe it's easier for him to get ready for the season without reps in terms of scheme and so forth, the complexity of what he does, than, say, if he were a safety or linebacker?
JIM SCHWARTZ: Well, yeah, I'll just start there. First, Javon is an experienced player and generally when those guys come in, they are not learning how to play football. They are learning the way you play and it's more terminology and things like that. So young vets tend to get up to speed really quickly when it comes to that kind of stuff. But I think there are some positions that just by the nature of their position, it's a little bit easier to plug, particularly young players, in defensive line, outside corner, I already mentioned safeties and linebackers and particularly with the complexity of offense with all these jet sweeps and distractions and zone reads and RPOs and all that stuff that builds into it, things change really fast. It used to change because a guy would sort of try to cross half speed in motion and you had to go from one thing to another. Now that same guy is going in motion and it looks like the start of the 100-meter dash in the Olympics and you have to go super, super fast. So you know, D-Line doesn't necessarily have those kind of complexities. It's more of a physical game for those guys up there. We are not super complicated when it comes to those guys, so it will be -- I think it will be an easier transition for a guy like Jay.
You know, we'll see where we get with those guys. Injuries of a part of the game. We've seen it. We've had to deal with it. You can have plan but Mike Tyson was famous for his saying about plans. So you'd better have a Plan B and you'd better be ready for how it goes because it's just a matter of time before things don't go to plan over the course of the year.
Teams that can balance those things and find a way to still be competitive and still have success, those are teams that are going to be rewarded at the end of the year.
Q. Does Vinny take on the same role as last year and how does that affect the development and playing time of young guys you've spent time developing?
JIM SCHWARTZ: I think Vinny any had an outstanding year for us last year, one of his best, so it was good to get him back. He's a veteran player. We talked about some of those young guys needing all these reps. He's a guy that needs to get ready and doesn't need quite as many reps, so I don't think it will hurt the development of the younger guys. You're not going to find a coach that says more good players is a bad situation.
So you know, we added a good player, a trusted player in our scheme, a guy that's had success in our scheme and a guy that means a lot to our locker room and to our spirit, so we added a guy like that, I see that as a bonus. It not going to take away from the development of those young guys.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports ....
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports