SHANE STEICHEN:
Q. Shane, through the first few days, how do you think the passing offense has looked?
SHANE STEICHEN: I think it's been good. I think we've had some up and downs at times, but honestly, Jalen has looked really good. He is efficient throwing the football right now, getting the ball out on time, and the receivers are making plays.
There are always things to correct. When you look at the practice tape there are always things we can get better at. That's what training camp is for.
But it's been good.
Q. Talk about Miles Sanders' progress?
SHANE STEICHEN: Explosiveness. You see it, right? We know he's an explosive player, but even in individual, the way he's running, he's running hard, taking care of the football, hitting it, seeing it well. He made a few plays the other day where he jump cut through the line of scrimmage and hit it.
I mean, it's been good to see.
Q. What kind of impact are you seeing that AJ Brown is having on the receivers and also with him and Darius Slay going against each other?
SHANE STEICHEN: It's awesome to see. His physicalness that he brings to this football team, he's got great play strength. He caught a slant the other day and I had a flashback watching his tape when in Tennessee catching some of those slants. Just brought me back to his tape in Tennessee where he catches that ball strong with his hands and then he creates afterwards.
He can run a guy over or make a guy miss, but his play strength is very impressive.
Q. Where are Jalen and AJ right now? They are obviously very close friends, but there is a rapport they have to build.
SHANE STEICHEN: I think they're making great strides. They've spend a lot of time together in the off-season obviously in spring and then they threw again in the summer. It shows up, right, the timing, right?
With anything, wide receivers and quarterbacks, right, it's not like it just happens overnight. It's been good to see. They're talking through things. After every period they're talking about, Hey, we got to run it more like this and this ball needs to be here.
Those things take time, but it's good to see and the progress has been really good.
Q. What's different for you during the games calling the plays?
SHANE STEICHEN: Right now, not much. The communication that Nick and I have has been great. This is Nick and I's sixth year working together. We worked together for four years in San Diego/LA, and then last year and going into this year. Me and Nick are on the same page. We have great communication in the meetings, on the field in practice, and on Game Day, so it's been good.
Q. Do you share ideas on the headsets on what the play could be?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, absolutely. Like I said before, when we are going through a game, we are talking about when we want to call on the sidelines. We get into a situation and we are in a drive he might say, hey, let's run it here or let's throw it here. He might give me a specific play that he wants; if not, I roll with it and we go.
Q. (Regarding Jalen's three interceptions.)
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think this: Like in practice, right, we want to treat practice, right, just like we always do. We want to treat it like the game, right? In practice sometimes there is no consequences because it's not going against another team.
I think in practice we want to treat it just like the game, right? Be smart with the football. If you got a chance to make play, make a play; if you don't have it, throw it away and live for another down, especially on third down. If we don't have it, throw it away and punt it and go.
Q. Quez Watkins said yesterday he's the fastest guy in the NFL. Do you agree, and how is he looking?
SHANE STEICHEN: Well, he is really fast. He might be. He might be. He's looking really good, explosive. His speed and the way goes up and tracks the ball is really, really impressive, so he's doing a good job.
Q. (Regarding walk-throughs, something new in practice.)
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think the walk-throughs are invaluable. I really do, because you get so many reps in the walk-throughs, and you can get multiple looks. There is all these problems solvings that you got to have. You can give them a base look, but you want to give them multiple looks in those walk-throughs so when they come up in practice or the game we are ready.
It's been really valuable.
Q. So much of practice is structured. How do you prepare for off-schedule plays for Jalen?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think some of those things, right, it naturally happens where he scrambles, but sometimes we got to add that into practice, too. It's like, hey, we got a drop-back pass here, whether it's in 7 or 7 or team. Let's, hey, let's work a scramble drill so we get it.
Q. Is that new for you?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, well, we did it last year. We started doing that in practice last year, so we want to continue to do that. Some of those things happen organically, right, in practice, but sometimes we script it in to where we get those off-schedule plays.
Q. From your vantage point, Shane, how has Jalen Reagor handled working primarily with the secondary team, and as Coach Sirianni said, battling for a spot?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, no, he's done a great job. He comes out, he is hard worker, he battles every single day, right? You can still see everything he's got, the explosiveness. He's made a whole bunch of plays in training camp so far, so he's got to keep doing that.
Q. Going back to the off-schedule stuff with Jalen, how difficult is it in a practice environment, because you're going to blow whistles, you're going to make sure you're going to be very cautious obviously with the quarterback?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think that's a great question, because it is a controlled environment, right, when we are out here and he's not getting hit. We just got to do a really good job, right, of working those things in the pocket, right?
When it's third and 7 and 10, yeah, we can scramble, but everyone in the world knows we are throwing the football, so when we work those third down periods, we want to work probably a little more 7 to 10.
If you look around the league, the most third downs are 7 to 10. We had the most third and 4 to 6s last year, but to convert on third and 7 to 10 the league average was 33%, so we want to make it as hard as possible on us in practice so when it comes to game time we're ready for that situation.
Q. What has been your approach with Carson Strong in terms of integrating him to learning the offense?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, exactly. With any young guy you're learning a whole new language. You got the spring, right, and then the summer he's studying, then we come in there on this.
With anything it's a transition, right, from college to the NFL. This is his first week of NFL practice, right, so he's still learning and going through those things.
Obviously we want to keep it to where, Hey, let's get our base stuff in with him, and then once he gets a real good hang of it, then we can start incorporating a lot more things that we do.
Q. The flip side with Carson Strong is Reid Sinnett. He came in in the middle of the season last year. What do you see from him?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, you know what, Reid is a really smart football player. He understands the game really well. He has been really good in meetings. He asks great questions. He is a big, strong passer with a big arm, and he sees it well.
Be good to see him in the pre-season this year.
Q. Kenny Gainwell's role?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, Kenny's done a nice. I think any time from year one to year two you want to see that jump and that growth, and you can see it on the practice field, just the understanding of how we want to run things in ball handling in the run game and in the pass game. Just how to set up defenders coming out of the backfield. He's learning and he's doing a good job.
Q. Gardner, what did you see from him that you can't learn when he's on the scout team during the season?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, the thing about Gardner, he can process really quickly and gets the ball out of his hands quickly. He has played a good chunk of football and had a lot of experience playing in Jacksonville.
But you can see the growth in him in learning our offense too with a year into it, just the decision making and getting the ball out quick.
Q. You only have five runningbacks; most teams have seven in training camp. How does that force you to be creative with the rotation in practice, with reps and everything? How is that an advantage to the group you have in?
SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think it's exactly what you just said. I think it is an advantage. When you only have five, right, a lot of guys can get reps and you can switch those guys in and out whenever you want and they can get more reps. I think that's what you said, and that's the valuable part of it.
Q. Shane, how has Isaac looked on the other side?
SHANE STEICHEN: Really good. He's a really smart football player. He understand protections, the run game, the different looks, the different fronts. He sees it before it happens, and he's a physical player and he is playing good football now.
Q. Year one, year two you were talking about with Kenny Gainwell. Devonta, for whatever reason haven't seen a ton of traffic to him in practice. What have you seen from him to make that leap?
SHANE STEICHEN: You know what, from year one to year two, just watching him in training camp, the explosiveness in and out of breaks, I mean, it's stepped up. You can really see him coming out and sinking his hips, and the way he comes out of routes right now in creating separation has been really good.
Q. We've seen Cam Jurgens a lot. Seemed like a pretty good day in one-on-ones yesterday. What have you seen from him?
SHANE STEICHEN: Honestly, the way he moves. Obviously we saw in college like the screen game, but when he works double teams with the guards inside, just the way he gets those double teams off and comes off the next level is really excited, so really excited about Cam.
Q. Shane, Andre Dillard, how do you think he'll handle the reps?
SHANE STEICHEN: You know what, he's done a nice job. He basically lives in this building. Every time I'm in here, he's always in here working out, grinding away getting his body ready.
But he's done a nice job.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports