LOVIE SMITH: The guys are definitely feeling it. You know, today, we're going to play some four quarter games, we may play some over time games and when you kind of sore and -- but nobody want to hear you about being tired at the end. The guys pushed through it at the end. They done everything we asked them to do. Love everything that they are doing. We have a couple guys that are out, I guess Christian Harris has been added to injured list a little bit, Kenyon Green, those guys continue to get better. We'll see when they get back.
Q. What do you see in the running back position?
LOVIE SMITH: We see, coming into camp, we had number of guys we liked, nothing's changed. Each day one guy may flash a little bit more than others, we going to play them in the preseason games. They are getting ready. You mentioned Dameon Pierce, he done some good things throughout. He had a couple good runs today but I'm going to say that about most of the guys.
Q. Who did you say were injured --
LOVIE SMITH: 64 years old, I have short-term memory. I don't know, who did I say? I know who I say.
Q. Who did you say?
LOVIE SMITH: Christian Harris, all right, and Kenyon Green were the two that I mentioned.
Q. How severe is it with Christian?
LOVIE SMITH: We'll see. He's not practicing. He has an injury that's going to require good rehab. We'll try to let you know a little bit later on. If it was game week, I'd let you know a little more in detail but since it's not, let you know tomorrow.
Q. What did you see in Blacklock today --
LOVIE SMITH: You asking that question, he probably stood out a little bit, real estate it? He has showed up every day though. He's been out here -- it's about availability and that's hard for a defensive line to keep straining each day. Ross has done a lot of good things. Watching the video, he flashed a little bit more. I noticed him also.
If you stay on the field and keep letting yourself be coached, you'll get better. Young players get better each year. Ross has been around awhile. We expect him to be one of our guys. He's flashed throughout and he's going to have a good year.
Q. Booker?
LOVIE SMITH: Booker has improved also. I know I'm saying that about a lot of the guys but in training camp, we are not game ready but we see improvement. Thomas, we like his athletic ability, good size, good speed. He has flashed from time to time. He's getting a lot of reps and again we see him, everything going his way.
Q. What have you noticed about this training camp?
LOVIE SMITH: There are similarities with all of the teams, especially first year when you come in. But with our guys, we are a young team, hungry. We are building. We see where we're starting. Nobody is giving us a lot of -- not many people jumping on our bandwagon right now. You just want hungry guys, and we know -- we know that we're a little bit better and guys are anxious to prove that, but the way you get in position is they show up every day and our guys keep showing up.
Q. The proverbial chip on their shoulder?
LOVIE SMITH: You should have that. Everybody has a reason to get maybe motivated a little bit more but really it's not what everyone else is saying on the outside. Last couple years we won four games. That's enough to motivate our guys.
Q. When you drafted --
LOVIE SMITH: You know, right now, training camp guys have shown up, they flash from time to time. Now it's about the preseason, games. Preseason is getting ready to come up. We are going to play a the low of those guys we don't know about and kind of see how they play in the game but love everything that Kirk's done.
Q. Do you know if Stingley will start --
LOVIE SMITH: We're not quite there. All of our players won't play that, I'll say that, the first preseason game. We still haven't determined of course how much. A lot of times when guys are coming off a major injury, we may wait a little bit but we'll decide that as much as anything for Stingley. You see him practicing out here every day. He's right on schedule.
Q. Any similarities between the teams and how you were approaching analytics and sharing that, how have you seen that and how do you approach that?
LOVIE SMITH: Analytics have been about around for a long period of time. There's a big emphasis on it right now, whether it's baseball, basketball or football. We have a big staff and there's somebody that's looking and analyzing everything that we do. I'm sure in basketball it's the same way. We rely on that just like we rely on strength and conditioning coaches, our nutrition people. We have a plan with everything that could possibly make our football players better and that definitely goes into it.
Q. Have you talk about the difference in the safeties? I know different alignments you like different attributes in guys. What do you like?
LOVIE SMITH: Just general ability for our defensive players, we want athletes that can run, tough athletes that can run that are smart. Strong safety, and our defense, strong safety position, safety position and linebackers have the most mental work on them. So our guys have to be smart players. Jonathan Owens, every one of our players, either have a double degree, high wonder league score, high IQ but then they are going to guard man-to-man coverage, got to be able to play it. Got to be tough to play in the box and so there's a lot of different things that we ask our guys to could.
Coverage-wise, they will play third deep responsibility, quarters, half field and also drop into the box. You need a multi-type athlete to be able to do that and we feel like we have quite a few that can do that.
Q. Looking at guys like Derek and Jalen, Nelson, a variety of different defenses, what does that do --
LOVIE SMITH: It's good, you ask about Steve Nelson. A lot of times, new guys, young players come in, older players from last year, but we like what Steve Nelson -- he's played a lot of ball. Started for Philly last year. Got a good skill set. Zone, smart, IQ guy. He'll tackle, everything we're looking for. You'll see every rep that we have taken with the ones, he's been out there, too. So I just love his hunger for football, buying into how we do things. He's going to help us an awful lot. He'll be one of our starting corners of course.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports ....
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports