LOVIE SMITH: In-season practice, getting some guys back. Kenyon Green was able to get back into full speed work. Roster is shaping up.
As far as the game, we're going to play some of the guys a little bit more, but the third preseason game is when we'll play the guys the most. I'm not going to get into how much every guy is going to play. We'll show up at the game and see that.
I'll take your questions.
Q. (Indiscernible).
LOVIE SMITH: He's injured right now. We'll just kind of say that he won't play this week.
Q. Will Kenyon be able to get out there and get his work in? Are you planning on playing him?
LOVIE SMITH: Eventually we'll get him out there. The biggest thing was to get him back into the mix. He missed a couple weeks, so we'll gradually get him back into the full-time mix, but no issues, right on track. We'll see how it goes.
Q. You said on Sirius Radio yesterday that he had a concussion. We asked a couple weeks ago, and you didn't want to disclose it.
LOVIE SMITH: I can't remember what I said then because it's a little later in the game. We're not trying to keep anything away from you. When he initially did it I didn't talk about any of the things. Now it's a little bit closer and he's back. That's why I did it. I'm not going to keep anything from you, all right, but when a player has an injury back then in training camp, I didn't go into detail on any of the injuries then.
Now they're a little bit closer, I'm going into detail a little bit more. That's how we're going to handle it throughout. If I don't say anything, I'm not trying to keep anything away from you, I just didn't really even think about it, all right.
Q. On Derek Stingley, you have a decision -- is he going to play a little bit?
LOVIE SMITH: Yes, yes, and just as a general rule, I'm not going to talk about too much. We're going to play some of them a little bit more. A lot of these things we wait right up until. To give you a heads up in the preseason, he's practiced full speed. Eventually he's going to play some this preseason.
Q. With Jake Hansen (indiscernible)?
LOVIE SMITH: Yeah, we have a couple of injuries, so that kind of dictates a little bit how many reps you get. He has an injury. I won't go into detail exactly what the injury is, but I'm talking about other guys before him a little bit. KPL, Kevin Pierre-Louis, he hasn't been doing an awful lot, so then it's just about moving guys up on the depth chart.
Q. How about Pharaoh Brown?
LOVIE SMITH: He has a -- there's no such thing as dead days. All of our vets, if the player isn't out here, he has some type of nagging injury. That's the case with Pharaoh. Hamstring is a little tight. We kept him out for that reason.
Q. Not to belabor the part about Kenyon Green, but the concussion thing, given the job hurdles, padded helmets and you don't do a lot of contact, do you know how he suffered an injury like that?
LOVIE SMITH: No, but I mean, it's not 100 percent wearing those covers. Of course you lessen the odds of getting concussion, but nothing is 100 percent in football. It wasn't a big blow or anything like that. The game of football, there's no way we can eliminate concussions in our game, but you stay out, and eventually you get back clear. We've really taken our time with him. We make sure a guy is really ready to go, where there's no symptoms before we put him on the football field, and that's how we took it with him.
Q. What's the challenge for a rookie that plays such a physical position like that inside, having to miss time, trying to get back up to speed, and what do you think about your depth at that position with Max and Jesse?
LOVIE SMITH: When a player goes down, I think it's a good thing to be able to work on your depth. Preseason games to be able to work on a lot of your depth. But as a young player, we want every young player to take every rep. It doesn't happen like that. But there's still time. Kenyon missed some time, but we have two more preseason games. As long as we get a player some action before -- they've had a lot of practices, so it's not like we're just throwing him out there cold turkey. We kind of like the way he's going.
Q. With Thomas Booker, what have you seen from him and his progression, especially coming out of the game?
LOVIE SMITH: We've seen progress, which you would like to see from the rookie class. I mean, all of it -- if you stay on the football field and you continue to just work hard, you're going to get better. That's what we've seen from Thomas. He had some good plays in the game, he's in practice. Just to see some of the young players, their second preseason game, to see how they do with it.
Q. What are some of the biggest things you're looking for from the second preseason game?
LOVIE SMITH: Just improvement. The guys that played last week, they set the bar then. Improvement. And the guys that didn't play last week, just to get them some game action. It's no more than that. We like to have a healthy crew after the game, and as I think I said, the third preseason game, we will play our guys. That's the game that we pinpoint, so again, just a few more, a little bit more improvement from this group.
Q. What are you looking at when you do your running back room, obviously Dameon Pierce is a young guy who's coming on strong, you've got Marlon Mack and you also have (indiscernible). But what are you looking for in determining who's going to be the starter?
LOVIE SMITH: I think you let guys play. They kind of tell you who should start, who should be on the roster, how many plays they should get. Last week -- we've been going through training camp, practice, we've seen a lot, but to see guys finish, I thought that was a big game. Of course we talked a lot about Dameon, and then you have history a little bit, too, on what we've seen from some of the veteran players. It's good competition there. They all have a certain strength, and we'll let it play out.
Q. Davis Mills gave an interview and said he feels like the Texans are ready to shock the world. What does it mean to have that level of confidence, and does that feel like something you guys are capable of doing this year?
LOVIE SMITH: Well, okay, are we capable of winning this year? The thing about what you just asked, all right, your quarterback, yeah, I want him to have confidence. That's all he's really saying is guys, we've been working hard, think we're a pretty good football team, and if we do well, you're not picking us to win much. I'd say no one here is. So it's going to probably be a shock if that happens. I think it's no more than that.
You're the quarterback, you really have a pulse on what you're seeing each day. We think we're going to be -- I think we're going to be pretty good this year. If that happens, you can say that Lovie said we're going to shock the world, because nobody is picking us. Isn't that how it goes? If we do well, what's the story? Is it going to be a shock to you if we do well? Yeah, I'll answer it for you. Yeah. It's no more than that.
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