MIKE MACDONALD: All right. Good to see everybody. Excited for another week to be back at home. Looking forward to a great practice today. Had a about walk-through.
Onward we go.
Q. Mike, what was your reaction to finding out in the Colts signed Philip Rivers?
MIKE MACDONALD: It's the NFL, man. Every week is different. Finally we had something crazy happen this year that wasn't expected, as to opposed to last year with the power going out. Felt like we had something going every week last year.
That is kind of it. Just if anybody can pull it off it's him. Guy is probably one of the best competitors in the history of the NFL, and I'm sure he wouldn't do it if he didn't feel like he was ready.
We're getting ready for him like he's been playing the whole time.
Q. So you're preparing like you're expecting him?
MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah, we're expecting for him to play. I mean, we got to be ready For Riley and for Brett. But, yeah.
Q. You talked about Monday, the unpredictability of facing a rookie quarterback. What's the unpredictability of facing a...
MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah, it's tricky. You know, do you overthink it? Do you -- you're going to go back and watch some of the stuff he was doing before he retired. Obviously going to go off a lot of what they've done this year.
So at the end of the day we got to go play football and make sure we're on our stuff and ahead of plays and playing our style of ball.
Q. Are you going over to St. Michael High School?
MIKE MACDONALD: No, no.
Q. Sundell, Eric Saubert, both looking to come back to practice. Do you expect them both to have a chance to play this week?
MIKE MACDONALD: We hope so. We hope they'll be available. Each are on their -- same thing. These guys are coming off extended breaks, so we have a plan for each guy. We'll see how it pans out throughout the week, but we're optimistic for this weekend and see how today goes. Then we'll kind of accelerate throughout the rest of the week and into next week.
Q. If Sundell does show he's ready to play, is there chance he would end up as a backup or do you expect him to be back in the lineup...
MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah, we got to see how well practice goes, but we'll just make sure he's fully healthy before we make a declaration.
Q. Better idea with Arroyo and what might be up with him?
MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah, he's out right now, yeah.
Q. You made a point after the game Sunday to highlight Ty Okada. Curious along the way since you got here, what has he shown that gave you the confidence to be able to put him out there? Once he got out there, what stood out about the way he's played?
MIKE MACDONALD: I mean, yeah, it's not a secret. It's how he handles his business every day. So as a coach, that is what you're evaluating on a day-to-day basis, what are the inputs they're putting into it, how do they execute.
I'm thinking of like last year's OTAs red zone, just him being able to understand red zone calls and be ahead of plays like he's been doing this for an extended period of time, even tough he's kind of been in the shadows so to speak.
That's really it. It's one of those deals when it became evident that Julian wasn't going to be able to play and he was going to have an opportunity, that's when you start to think, okay, I'm excited to go see him play because he earned the right to go play.
Q. Every week run defense is a key part of what you guys do. Seems like against the Colts who have a great running game and might have some changes at quarterback, becomes a bigger focus.
MIKE MACDONALD: Well, I mean, it's one of those deals where you can't like -- it's not like we're going to shift our emphasis more because of outside circumstances. It's always a premium for us, our standard, how we want to play defense. Colts have a great run game and personnel. They call great games and overall do really, really good job. The numbers reflect that.
But the mentality is really consistent from week to week for us.
Q. What stands out to you about Shane Steichen's style of offense?
MIKE MACDONALD: Well, it's their offense. It's very distinctive what they do. It's complementary. It's situational. It's sound. They're explosive. The quarterback operates at a high level. They do a lot of really, really good things. He's really good coach.
Q. With the run defense, we always talk about the guys in the middle, but the guys on the edges, how key have than been?
MIKE MACDONALD: In the run defense?
Q. Yeah.
MIKE MACDONALD: It's kind of -- it's a 12 is one type of mentality. You have to dominate your area and then some to make this thing come to life. What we ask of our edge guys is to set great edges and also come to life, not just it's not one of those deals where you're just like, okay, I have contained. I am just going to sit here and do my job.
No, I have to go be physical. I have to set a violent edge. I have to get off blocks. I got to run to the ball. All those different things.
And both those guys are really smart, and we ask them to do different things in the pass game in terms of drops and things like that if we can -- they can make our pressure system come to life a little bit more as well.
Q. You mentioned their run game. Taylor in particular...
MIKE MACDONALD: Man, great contact balance. He's probably the fastest guy we've gone against so far. Can outrun angles, got really good acceleration, really good vision. He's a really good back. He's really good. This is two in a row where we faced the league's best in my opinion.
Q. Robinson got going a little bit and seemed like (indiscernible). How do you feel like your guys handled that challenge last week?
MIKE MACDONALD: We did enough to win the game, but it wasn't really up to our standard about how we want to play. I think the guys were a little bit frustrated coming out of the game.
But it's right where you want them to be.
What I was pleased with is our guys played extremely hard and we had waves to the football, and even though we had tackles, guys cleaned and up and we played off one another.
We can fix all the technical things and coaching points. That's really on us as coaches to get it fixed. But the intent and the way we play is there.
Q. Mike, what can you tell us about Kennedy Polamalu taking a leave of absence?
MIKE MACDONALD: Yeah, not going to comment on it. The guys are going to step up and Michael Byrne and Justin Outten will take over this room and do a great job. Excited for the opportunity those guys have.
Q. Do you expect it'll be the rest of the season or could he come back to you?
MIKE MACDONALD: It'll be the rest of the season, yeah.
Q. You talk about finishing games and that aspect. You talk about for the season focusing on one game at a time. You talk about finishing seasons as well?
MIKE MACDONALD: No, we haven't talked about that yet. It's really -- when you talk about finishing games, it's really about finishing the next play and understanding the context of where you are.
I think that's where we are as a team. I mean, it's very difficult to win in our league and it takes, in my opinion, 100% of your effort and focus from everybody in your organization pulling in the same direction on a weekly basis to give yourself a chance to win.
Our team has done a great job of that through this week and that's our intent every week. I don't know, maybe I can't -- brain is not big enough to think about things outside of just the stuff we can control this week.
Q. Elijah Arroyo an IR consideration?
MIKE MACDONALD: He's just out right now, yeah. Day-to-day.
Q. Mike what's Coby Bryant (indiscernible) in terms of initiative, run game, pass game?
MIKE MACDONALD: Well, leadership-wise, his mentality is incredibly competitive. He sets an edge for us on defense. Run game, you know, a lot of times he's at the throw level. Sometimes he's at the second level. Second level you're trying to limit yards at the line of scrimmage to minimize games.
When he's at the third level a lot of times it's erase tackles that are preventing explosives, so all those things are really critical to us. What was the third part of your question?
Q. That was it.
MIKE MACDONALD: Okay.
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