Q. Coach, what's your quarterback situation with McCarron going out?
ARTHUR SMITH: I really feel for A.J. McCarron. Any time something like that happens, it's non-contact, it's tough. You know what these guys put into it. I feel for A.J. We'll obviously get the MRI to confirm, but he's heartbroken. He had bounced back, and he was out there fighting, fighting for his team and trying to get the extra yards.
I understand injury is still a part of the game, but there's still a human element. So I feel for A.J.
Q. There's some fear that this could be a longer term thing.
ARTHUR SMITH: We just have to see the MRI.
Q. Are you all prepared to be in open quarterback market if necessary?
ARTHUR SMITH: You're always going to look to improve the team. We have to assess and see what the injury is. Until we get an MRI. We've seen things happen before, but it's quick. Any time we're always looking to improve the roster. If it is long term, sure, we'll continue to look there.
Q. And how did Feleipe play for you? Came in, took him down right away and then a couple late touchdowns.
ARTHUR SMITH: So he came in there, and that was the job. He was the backup quarterback tonight, and he has to be ready. He stepped in there, and he did drive us down. He made a play on fourth down. The one thing that Feleipe's continued to show is he can extend plays. I thought he threw the ball a little bit better tonight at times. Still going to push him.
He's had a lot of growth and continue to grow. The reason I respect Feleipe is he's a tough minded guy. You can push, and we'll continue to push our operation. He's thrown into situations that you can never replicate at practice. These are very valuable reps for him and for all those guys out there.
Q. You got to throw a flag today. How did that operation work? Did they call it from up top or on the sidelines?
ARTHUR SMITH: No, that was from up in the box. It was really good teamwork. You're kind of waiting to see how the booth review is going to go. You're waiting and waiting. They tell you about 20 seconds if they don't do it. We had really good communication upstairs, so that's good teamwork. I waited, and I threw it, and then we won the challenge. So I was happy with that.
Q. Tonight doing everything else that is involved with head coaching as opposed to just calling an offensive game plan. Has that all been pretty natural for you?
ARTHUR SMITH: We've got a great staff, and you've got to trust people to do their job. It's nice for me. Talk about the young guys getting reps, it's good for me to get reps in that role. Feels great. As I said, it's nice tonight I felt a little more comfortable. When I did have to turn my back, if I wanted to say something to the quarterback, I knew we have communication upstairs and a guy on the sideline.
That's the good thing about the headsets. I thought that communication was clean tonight. But, yes, the preseason games help me as well.
Q. What was the experience like for your second team defense getting a lot of reps against their first team offense?
ARTHUR SMITH: That's life in the NFL. There's a lot of ways to do it. That's one of the fun parts about coaching. The decisions we make as an organization because we're going to rely on those guys at some point. That's been my experience. When we have a chance to develop players, that's invaluable. Everybody's got a different situation. Those are the guys that are going to play on Sunday. There's not a better experience in the world.
It's unfortunate. We've got to be a little cleaner. We've got to get off the field on third down. We need to operate better in the red zone. But I was happy at times those guys stood up.
Q. How valuable was it for the rookies Dalman and Mayfield to get the action they got tonight?
ARTHUR SMITH: It was huge. That's why we decided to play the young guys. We thought we had a very productive week. I can't give enough credit to Miami and their staff. It was a very clean two days. It's easier said than done, and that's a credit to their staff. I was very pleased with both teams, and we got a lot of good work out there.
We got something, 95 competitive reps both days Wednesday and Thursday, and those guys got another step tonight.
Q. Back to A.J. (inaudible).
ARTHUR SMITH: When something like that happens and you've got to take him out, we're going to be very cautious. Until we get the final word -- I know we don't like to talk about injuries, but we'll have to see. It didn't look good.
Q. What have you learned about your team in the game?
ARTHUR SMITH: A lot. We want to see if they're going to push through. We want to be front runners. We want to be a team that can stand up in tough situations because that's the nature of the beast in the NFL. It's unfortunate we got down too many possessions. We want guys that are going to continue to swing and be able to close games. These games are going to come down in the regular season more times than not to one possession, and we've got to control those situations.
Q. Were you able to break out some better runs? Do you feel like this game maybe helped you paint a clearer picture of where the run game is at?
ARTHUR SMITH: It certainly helps. I think the week in practice as you build out -- it's hard when you're not tackling in practice, but we felt pretty good, good back and forth during the week, and tonight we were able to give those backs carries.
That's what we didn't get to last week.
Like I said, if we're going to be the optimist, the silver lining, at least we cut back on penalties and able to get back on track and able to get in some drives, but we need to score on more possessions clearly.
Q. Two series for Kaleb McGary. I know you don't have the benefit of the tape yet, but what did you see and what did you hope to see?
ARTHUR SMITH: He missed a lot of time, and Kaleb's done a good job working himself back in play. That very first play, went right behind him. No secret, he went right to the right side behind him, and I thought he came off the football. Been pleased with Kaleb's progress. He's bought in, and he's working through it.
Q. Any concern that's the second miss from Koo?
ARTHUR SMITH: I'm very confident in Younghoe.
Q. What?
ARTHUR SMITH: I'm all right with Younghoe.
Q. For some clarity with McCarron, is the sense that he got hurt actually on that run, or was it a complete non-contact situation?
ARTHUR SMITH: Again, until we get the full evaluation, going through what he's communicating, we've got to go back. Obviously, the doctors will pull the film, and then we have to get an MRI.
Q. And when you look at trying to evaluate Ollison, he's really going with the second team offensive line against a lot of Miami's first team defense. Does that maybe skew some of the evaluation of how you look at maybe the yards per carry in some of the runs versus some of the other guys? Does that change how you look at it?
ARTHUR SMITH: No, because those are guys that play on Sunday. If you're going to be a regular contributor, you can't -- that experience out there is so valuable, and we're not going to make excuses. He had a nice week, and it's good to get him in there and get him in there on the protection because that's critical for the back.
However we use the back, you've got to have guys that can get in there and protect on those critical downs: third down, fourth down, and two minute.
Q. Notwithstanding A.J.'s injury, because the quarterbacks have been in there with all the backups, has it been difficult to evaluate their play, or do you think you've gotten a decent read on sort of what their level is?
ARTHUR SMITH: A.J., when we signed him, he's played in the NFL. You have actual NFL games to evaluate. Feleipe is the one that he's had the biggest growth, and that's why these last two games, for him to come in there and play, you just can't replicate that in practice. To develop quarterbacks in this league, you've got to play them. There's no other way to get around it.
That was our philosophy going into the first two games. The situation, it's unfortunate what happened to A.J., but that's life as a backup. If Feleipe is going to be your backup quarterback, unfortunately, that's the situation that happens a lot of times. Whether it's the first play of the game, you hope it doesn't happen, but you get into a drive, and he's got to be ready to go and be prepared.
Q. I know this is preseason and they're backups and not necessarily being strategic in play calling or anything like that, but have you been disappointed in the offense's production at all in the two games?
ARTHUR SMITH: The best way to answer your question, we've got to evaluate how we're playing schematically. We're not out there trying to trick anybody. We're trying to see if we can block, we can get open, we can catch. I thought some guys took another step tonight. There's a lot of different velocities. 32 different velocities. We're trying to run our bread and butter and to get apples to apples evaluation.
So I thought we took another step. We got in there, and we need to possess the ball a little bit longer, and when we get down in the red zone, we need to take advantage.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports