Q. Are what did you think about Jake Luton the other night?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, there's some good and bad that comes with obviously your first time out there running the offense. You know, that's kind of where we're at. He continued -- we continue to want to see what we see in practice and all that out on the field when there's less controlled variables, all that. Obviously he's live in those types of situations. So there's good, there's bad and a lot to learn from and excited to the next opportunity out.
Q. What did you see from Luke Fortner and Walker Little played in the half last game. What do you like from them moving forward?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, I thought they both did a good job of first thing is they look like they belong. Wasn't too big for them and wasn't a moment they weren't ready for. I thought Luke specifically played really fast. He identified things well.
Now there are some things that you don't spend as much time scheming and game planning in the preseason games as you do obviously in the regular season. So there are times maybe a front presented itself and wasn't something we had gone over before and they played a different personnel and maybe you don't know the personnel as well as you would in a normal week.
So there was a couple things that we maybe miss identified but in terms of just communication, recognition, play speed, they did a good job.
Now there are things we are obviously looking for him to improve upon as he goes forward and that's what we expect out of a young player but he did nothing to diminish our excitement for his ability.
Then I thought Walker was calm in his pass sets. He did a really good job communicating with the guys next to him and just being on the same page and not getting overeager on some things. It was a good showing for him.
Q. Were you able to see Trevor?
PRESS TAYLOR: We'll see that's stuff we're getting into. There's a chance but we'll continue to have those conversations.
Q. Doug described the game plan as potentially vanilla. What's the next step to build off going into the next preseason game?
PRESS TAYLOR: There's always the fine line of we want to put our guys in situations to see them execute things they know really well.
So when you are playing young guys, you are going to keep it vanilla. It's you on him, let's line up and play. See how you run the route we put in day one; can you execute it with the technique we asked you to do; does it all fall apart when all of a sudden there's a guy standing across from you.
At the same time you want guys to run the offense the way you believe it could be to see, evaluate can this guy do this when we ask him to do but maybe there's not all the bells and whistles, we are not scheming it up and punting a ton of wordy calls to make sure we have the right play in there. Sometimes it's let go, figure out some problems here but let's see your technique play against another opponent.
There's always the fine line and I would say early on there's portions where it probably is pretty vanilla and you want to see guys go out and execute but that's just something we'll continue to work through as the preseason goes on.
Q. When you look at the wide receiver room, what's your evaluation of some of the young players battling to make the roster?
PRESS TAYLOR: Those guys, they definitely are. They are battling and they are in the conversation for it. There's going to be a lot of factors involved. You kind of want to see as you get to the fourth, fifth, sixth receiver what their versatility could be.
You come in, you assume you have this starter that starter that starter, if somebody goes down, who can fill in. Do you fill in one spot, can you fill in multiple spots, do we have to move three guys to get where you you're comfortable and at the same time if all things go well and you have three, four, really established receivers that are playing well that fifth guy, sometimes his value becomes more special teams. There's not a lot reps from a receiver standpoint, so who steps up, what is Heath and Luke's ability of that guy in special teams and how can he contribute to the team if he is to get that jersey on a Sunday.
Q. Do you have the idea of how you want to deploy and match Travis and Jay or is that something that you wait until you get an idea how much you can use James early?
PRESS TAYLOR: It's definitely that. We have a vision for what we hope it is. You kind of always envision what you're going to do when everybody's healthy but until we get to that point and we see everybody in there and everybody is available on game day, then you kind of just have to go with what you have in that particular availability for that game.
Until James gets fully cleared that's something we'll continue to do the best to work through the process we believe it's going to be but you kind of have to work through the pieces to get to that point as well.
Q. What kind of player is Luke Farrell? In college he didn't catch a whole lot of passes, led the team in receiving in the last preseason game and thrown him a handful of passes here. What kind of tight end or what kind of player do you see when you look at Luke?
PRESS TAYLOR: Luke is not somebody I knew a ton about before I got here but he's somebody that's a very versatile piece for us. We feel that he can be that inline blocking tight end but also has ability to get out in the open field and run and catch and do some things with it. You saw that the other day, big play down the sideline.
I now y'all skipped practice yesterday but he had a couple big plays out here yesterday, running the ball, catching it, doing some good things. We are excited. He's a young player and got a long way to go in this league to prove himself but we are excited where he is in the grand scheme of that.
Q. How much comfort did it bring you to see Travis take the hit and wasn't a big deal; he welcomed it.
PRESS TAYLOR: There were a couple hits that he took on the sideline probably didn't want him to take but we said you're allowed to step out right there, it's a tough situation but said he wanted to take a hit and see what it felt like and all that.
Somebody described, it's the kind of hits you see in the football movies. He got smoked one of those times on the sideline but he bounced up. He was perfectly fine. There's definitely a different intensity to yesterday's practice, and guys enjoyed it and responded well.
Q. What did you see from Snoop Thursday night on offense?
PRESS TAYLOR: Snoop did a good job carrying the football. One of the things, you don't control a lot of situations, but you want to see him in pass protection, there weren't a lot of opportunities for us to see him in those situations. And that's part of we're vanilla, they are vanilla and there's not a lot of blitz schemes.
So that's something we didn't get to see from him and I thought he did a good job and it wasn't too big for him you know what I mean. First time out there, looked like he belonged. Carried the ball well at times and they are getting their feet wet in terms of the speed of the game now. I'm not going to pretend like preseason one is going to feel like Week 1 and how the speed of things and the intensity is but for those guys it's definitely a step up from what you can create in practice and so it was good to see that carry over.
Q. For a starting quarterback, the practice reps compared to preseason, because they might see more exotic looks and different types of situation in practice than they might preseason game.
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, I think obviously controlling the environment and obviously they are not live nothing replaces a quarterback live and nobody being hit and feeling that pass rush.
But we can put him in a million situations and control it. We'll do third and 11, third and 12, back-to-back-to-back I don't think yardage situations and talk to everything and get a chance to put the situations you want to coach on the field, see how he responds, go back to the room, talk about it.
So they are invaluable from that standpoint, from a learning standpoint and they learn from everybody. We put whoever it is, whether it's C.J., Jake, Kyle, Trevor, any of those guys, this learning from the situation the other one was in in that particular one, or we could just be watching a film of an old game, something like that, and talking through certain things. When you get those opportunities to put those situations in front of the guys that's a great learning opportunity that we can't take for granted.
Q. Keith mentioned Laviska might take reps at punt returner. Where do you see him fitting in right now?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, that's something we've got to continue to make sure Laviska is healthy and available for us at all times so we can see exactly what his skillset is. We have a vision like we mentioned earlier what the role could be for him but that's something we have to continue to work through and hopefully that comes up in game situations and competitive practice situations and we can really see if that's what we want it to be.
Q. Is that a challenge when you have two guys like Laviska and Jamal Agnew, who guys who are somewhat specialty players and you can do a lot of different things with them, is it a challenge to get them on the field and tip your hand because they are not your starting three?
PRESS TAYLOR: That's something you have to be a great self-scout type of team or operation. That's something, we have to know who is on the field, how we utilize them and what we are showing in the defense and what they are seeing when they watch us to make sure you're not tipping your hand like you're saying.
But as long as they are good players and being productive, that's a good problem to have.
Q. Are you starting now trying to figure out where does this guy really fit and where do I utilize him best?
PRESS TAYLOR: Certainly. Heath mentioned it; he's one of the more elite returners in the league. There's definitely a skillset and you want to get the football and get in space and turn the offensive plays into punt returns whenever you can but.
Bu same deal, you have to make sure you're doing right by your offense and not giving away to the defense and that's one advantage that we have is we know where the gall is going so we have to do everything we can to not give that advantage away to the defense.
Q. What growth have you seen from Ben?
PRESS TAYLOR: Ben has done-great job. He played pretty well the other day in terms of communication and there were not a lot of flash bays, good or bad. He was steady, consistent, did a good job with the guys next to him. It wasn't an exotic blitz scheme for them, probably their day one install in terms of pressures and things like that. You expect your guys to respond well and you still have to manage games and stunts.
And it's still physical; a 300-pound man trying to get the quarterback and you have to do a good job of that or get to the next level and fit up some runs. Those guys did a good job. First time out it was encouraging to see but there's a lot of growth that's going to come from those guys that we are excited about.
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