Q. Do you feel like this job is going to entail, and how much do you draw on your experience with the Raiders in taking this over?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, that was obviously a great experience for me, being able to also take over an offense, work with a rookie quarterback. I'll draw from those experiences. But we had a great staff with us. Stability is good. So I'm really looking forward to working with our staff and working together and putting this thing together and go get a win on Sunday.
Q. How would you describe your philosophy as a play caller?
BO HARDEGREE: Protect the ball and score points. That's it.
Q. Do you see the play calling changing materially from the way -- just the general approach for this team coming into the year? Do you think you'll be really doing things a whole lot differently from the way they've been called?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, we evaluate everything every week, but we're just going to call the best plays for our players on Sunday, put them in the best situations possible.
Q. Do you have it helps having some experience with a rookie quarterback?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, it's good, and it's great because going from that quarterback coach to a role like this, being a play caller, I'm with him every day. I talk to him every day. I check on him at night. We've got a meeting this afternoon. That's not going to change. It'll just be me and him rocking and rolling on Sunday.
Q. What did Brian tell you about making this change? What was that conversation like, if you can share some of that?
BO HARDEGREE: He made the decision yesterday, and we talked about some things. Again, he's involved, everybody is still involved. That's the good thing with the stability of everything, the workflow is that, and then just the only change is just me calling on Sunday.
Q. I know it's fresh, but the conversation with Nick Holz, Mike McCoy, obviously they're going to help you, how has that been so far?
BO HARDEGREE: It's been great. We all work together. It's obviously one of the best staffs I've ever been on. These guys will draw from their experiences, draw from my experience, they're all from different places. But again, it's all about the players and putting them in the best spots. You only get a certain amount of calls on Sunday, and just got to hit on those.
Q. Calling plays before, where are you as far as weighing analytics versus your gut?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, absolutely. Some things will always come down to where you are in the game. There's so many different scenarios you can go through. Obviously analytics help you get out ahead of it. You can look at that, where you are in the game, where are the players, what type of game has it gone to. Obviously the games change quarter to quarter, half to half. But yeah, all that goes into it, and really you have just a couple seconds to make that call.
Q. You've been on the field and Nick and Mike upstairs, so are all those logistics staying the same?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, we're going to kind of take it day by day this week and kind of make a decision on where -- what's the best spot for the team and for myself.
Q. Cam has spoken about your relationship dating back to the spring. What have you done to build that closeness?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, really just tried to earn his trust to where I can coach him hard, and he has that trust in me, and just keep building. Building these young players. He's really smart. He takes in a lot of stuff. There's things that -- the wins aren't there, but for me and his development, the things I've seen him do from the first game to this previous game, some of the things he's been able to do is incredible, from protection standpoint, from getting us into a better play, maybe out of a bad play into a better play, handling the run game. All that stuff has been great, and he's learning situational football, is the ball moving, where are we at on the field, what do I need to do. He's learning, hey, I can't hold on to the ball, I've got to get the ball out of my hands, take less hits, find completions. It's great.
Q. What's the challenge for you calling plays for this team for the first time going against the Texans' defense?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, it's a new challenge every week for an offense. You obviously see who the game wreckers are. You deal with those first. Where are the advantages for us in the defense. Is it personnel standpoint, schematics, what are our guys doing well, what do we need to do more of. It's more about us than them.
Q. In your mind, what are some of the things you have to do to protect a rookie quarterback from themselves that maybe you wouldn't have to protect a veteran from?
BO HARDEGREE: Yeah, just constant subtle reminders throughout the game. You can be in their back pocket until 15 seconds on the clock, making it easy for him, whether home or away, and getting him up there, letting him get to the line of scrimmage, take a deep breath, whether the play matters that he needs to know a certain coverage or not, he's able to see the defense every snap, kind of know where we are in a game and be in his back pocket there until that last 15 seconds.
Q. What Brian just talked to us about was how taking this off his plate is going to allow him to be more involved with the other things going on, especially on Sundays. We see you on the sideline in Cam's hip pocket every week. With you having to now have that on your plate, how do you think logistically that will change your ability to be with him and does that allow Brian to spend more time with him?
BO HARDEGREE: I think all of the above. We're all in this together. I'll still be there with him and then there will be some times where I've got to go talk to a position group or two about some things going on in the game or where are we going to go with it, and kind of communicate so they can anticipate what's going to be called in the first couple plays, next 3rd down, things like that.
But again, drawing from prior experiences, that helps out.
Q. Do you think that will negatively impact the attention that Cam is getting?
BO HARDEGREE: No, I think Cam is going to be just fine.
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