Q. Doug talked about this week being sort of like a normal game kind of week. How do you look at it from an offensive perspective, and just talk a little bit about Trevor Lawrence and what you want to see out of him this week.
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, certainly you get a little closer, and more so I think what Coach is referring to is we get into more of the game planning process, so we spend the day doing kind of normal down-and-distance stuff, but at the same time that gets tough because you're still technically in camp mode, so we're spending a lot of time scripting these practices, and right now like today's practice is against the Jaguars' defense, so we're doing some different stuff install-wise, not necessarily geared towards the Pittsburgh game plan.
That's kind of a fine line of you're not necessarily game planning for your opponent like you would in a normal week, which is -- it makes it fun, it makes it tough, because the guys then you're trying to within a couple days cram through hey, here's their defense, show video clips, build all this of here's what you're going to play on Saturday, but we need to go have a good practice today and continue to work on things that we want to work on as an offense and work through that.
But as far as Trevor has handled that all really well. Sometimes it's a little unfair. You don't get all these live reps of things, but we ask you to do into a game and now you're seeing a different coverage than you've seen for the last two weeks with limited reps against it. But that's kind of the training camp or the preseason really, it's your standard operating procedure of here's how we do things, here's plays we've put in since day one that we know the ins and outs of. Now, maybe it's not perfect against this coverage, but we want to see you go find a completion or work through your progression right here on this type of play. He's done a good job handling all that.
Q. Have you decided if you like the booth or the field yet for you in terms of play calling?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, we may still work through it a lot, but I do like being upstairs in the box a little bit. I can spread everything out, I can clear my mind a little bit more. It's quiet, it's calm up there. I enjoy being up there. I'll probably be up there again this week and continue to feel it out and do what's right for us.
Q. What did you see from Trevor in terms of the game against the Browns, and where do you want to see him progress against the Steelers this week?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, what I really liked was just the communication and the operation of everything. There were no pre-snap penalties, everything got off clearly, they communicated really well as a unit, the ones all did, and functioned well, and then you want to continue to see all the details. The ball security in the pocket, the ball handling with the running backs, the little details and their footwork of things we're working through. There's even some plays that we're not sure we love yet, but it's like, well, this is the time to call them and see what they look like and work out the kinks of some things. So there's been some of that going on.
But you just want to see them continue to play faster, continue to master the details, be a great communicator, find completions and be accurate with the football. That's what we've continued to see with him since the day we got here for training camp through today.
Q. If he's going to work out the kinks in some things next week going to Atlanta for those joint practices, how important is that for the offense to kind of be able to put those guys in some situations that may not come up during the preseason that you want to see?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, those are huge. We really get a lot out of the joint practices of being able to control the environment, control the situation, but then see your guys really compete. It gets amped up a little bit when they're going to go against a different opponent than they have regularly, so guys get fired up to do that, and just work through the whole process.
Really it's a good experience getting a chance to work with those, and a lot of it falls on the head coaches. If you go and have -- if you're working with a team that they have a good culture in their building then you're going to get a lot out of those practices.
Q. Do you evaluate Trevor differently when he's going against that different defense that isn't structured like the Jags that he's been seeing for weeks on weeks on weeks?
PRESS TAYLOR: I wouldn't say you evaluate him differently, but you definitely probably -- I would say you maybe put a little bit more stock into it just because, all right, he got really comfortable against these guys, we know what they do, we know what we're trying do against them, then all of a sudden it's a different opponent, and can he still go through the same process and things like that.
Q. Any concerns about the (indiscernible) backups seemed to struggle in the fourth quarter?
PRESS TAYLOR: No. Again, you haven't schemed everything up and tried to put everybody in the best possible position at all times through these preseason games. I wouldn't say there's concern from the depth. We do expect when the backups go into the game to meet the standard that we have as an offense, so when the ones go out and score three times and we don't score the rest of the game, obviously that's frustrating for all of us. There's a number of issues with that, but we feel like we have the depth here to contribute.
Q. Obviously you look at the whole roster, not just your offense but the entire team. When you see defense, what it looked like when you took the job and you see the one do you that's been upgraded both through the draft and free agency, how different is it in your mind?
PRESS TAYLOR: Well, I got to play against this defense, the personnel, twice last year, and we had a tough time with them when I was in Indy last year. The defense came to play both times and played really well against us, so I had a lot of respect for the unit they've already had, and obviously we added some key pieces to see how they all gel and play together. But yeah, we have ultimate confidence in our defense. They've done a great job. They obviously challenge us every single day, so we know how good they can be.
Q. Do you have a feel for if you'll have James Robinson for the opener at this point?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, we just continue to work with whatever they tell us. So however much he's able to do today. He's limited; he's not allowed in contact periods but he can do everything else, or he can be in this period, he's going to wear the orange jersey. Each day we continue to progress on that, and they give us the ideal timeline and things like that, but right now we just continue to work day by day with him and whenever he's ready to go we'll use him the best we can.
Q. When he comes back do you have to be careful to not overload him early?
PRESS TAYLOR: Again, they'll kind of tell us that, whenever he's full go, and he is full go, that means he can play every single snap, then we'll roll there. If they tell us he needs to be on a pitch count, then that's how we'll operate as we go. We'll just continue to go with the advice of the training staff.
Q. How about Jamal Agnew? I know he just said he's got the green light in terms of returner. What is the status on the offensive side of the ball?
PRESS TAYLOR: Same deal. We're going to continue to mix him in with us, and he's one of those guys that we're going to continue to find a role for just because we know he's going to have a jersey on game day, and he's got a special skill set that we want to be able to utilize. We'll continue to mix him in with the offense, see what he's comfortable with.
Obviously he hasn't done a lot for us full speed up until recently, so we want to continue to work him into that where we can put him in position to utilize his skill set, but not put him out of the realm of what we expect from him.
Q. Where are you at on the right tackle battle? When do you anticipate to make a decision? How are you feeling about those guys so far?
PRESS TAYLOR: I think it's a great position to be in because both those guys have played so well. They continue to push each other. For the foreseeable future we'll just continue to rotate those guys and see -- right now they're pushing each other and making each other better, so it's a good problem to have, and we'll just continue that process until we need to make a decision on that.
Q. What has Zay Jones shown you the last week or so in the game and then in practice on Monday it seemed like he stepped up a little bit?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, I feel like Zay has done that since he's been here. When he came here, he was all in. He knows, we were actually talking the other day about certain concepts. I asked him what he liked in certain things, and he said, I like this concept. I said, I haven't installed that concept yet. He goes, I know; when I got the playbook when I got here, I was reading through it all and saw this one and I thought it was cool.
He's a guy that he's been all in since the day he got here. He was all in on building relationships. He's all in on competing in practice. He's all in on just maximizing his ability. That's what we knew about him when we brought him in. He has not disappointed from that standpoint. He's got a lot of flexibility.
The other night we actually played him in the slot more than he has been. We told him the day before, hey, Christian is not going to go; we're going to move you in here. He said all right, great. He knew everything without missing a beat.
The first play of the game obviously has an explosive when we put him back outside, and the cool thing about that really wasn't a play -- we had never repped that full speed, so that was just -- that's the beauty of preseason. Normally in a week you'd get that play five, six, seven times, work it out. We kind of just said, hey, we want to do this. They both, Trevor and Zay, were like, we haven't really thrown that, and we're like, well, let's get it in pregame. You don't have to run it but I want to see the throw and we'll call it good.
So they went out and were able to execute. That's just kind of those two being on the same page, being able to work things out and trust in one another, that he's going to throw this ball where I need it to be, and he's going to be where I need to throw this.
Q. Have you been surprised by how quickly Zay and Trevor have been able to develop that chemistry?
PRESS TAYLOR: No, I don't think so. Just because of the character of who they are. They're both great communicators. I've mentioned that a couple of times with some of the guys we've brought in and the way they all communicate, because again, nothing is going to replace the on-field reps they get together, but the way they communicate really kind of eats up that gap, I guess, of what they've been missing for on-field timing.
So they see things the same way. They communicate really well together and they've been able to kind of work together from that standpoint.
Q. Did it feel to good to be able to get a full look at Travis Etienne during the game?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, and again, we've had tons of live periods out here. We've had tons of competitive periods against our defense, so we have a good feel for what he's capable of, what he's going to be really good at. We're trying to test him and put him in different situations to see. We have a vision for he's going to be great at this run from the gun, this run from under, do this. But we want to challenge him. We may not think this is where we want to be later in the season, but right now let's do it and let's see how good we can get at it so we can introduce it into the season earlier.
Q. Do you think that was a game he kind of needed to play in just to shake a little bit of rust off or get adapted back to game speed?
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, I don't think it hurts definitely to get used to the speed of the game, get used to taking hits things like that. Now, Coach has done a great job of introducing these live periods, which they feel pretty close to games, so I think that has kind of introduced those guys to that speed and that physicality a little bit, and these games haven't been as drastic of a change from practice.
Q. Have you felt like there's almost been I don't want to say a camp wall when it comes to the interior run game, but I know during the game, there were some struggles during practice Monday night, try to get in between the tackles going? Any idea? Have you picked up on that at all?
PRESS TAYLOR: No. Again, that kind of comes down to scheming your opponent and being able to hit that. It's not easy to get the run game going. There's a lot of guys, there's really 11 guys that have to be in sync with it. Different than the pass game.
Pass game, maybe one or two guys gets open, the ball gets thrown and everything looks good, where in the run game you've really got to be a coordinated unit. So you really want to sync that up and talk about, all right, we're putting this motion with this run; to have the defense respond this way, you're going to be able to do this. Where maybe in the preseason you don't quite as much time getting to do that and scheming your opponent, but I feel like we've had good success in practices of being able to run between the tackles whenever we've had some of those dialed-up runs.
Q. Will Richardson back?
PRESS TAYLOR: Will is still working with the training staff a little bit.
Q. How unique is it to have a guy like Evan Engram and talk about what he did against the Browns last week.
PRESS TAYLOR: Yeah, Evan obviously has a unique skill set as a tight end just with the speed element. Played a lot of receiver even in college and has kind of been that guy in his career. But I think the most encouraging thing with Evan is Evan is a very willing blocker. He's a very capable blocker. He does a good job of putting his face in there and being targeted on the right spot and things like that.
So we've tried to find ways that, again, we can utilize him, be aware of what we're putting on film for the defense, making sure he's in all sorts of spots and everything marries. But he's definitely a different maker in terms of the speed he has at the tight end position.
Q. As an offensive coordinator when you look at a lot of the top guys on this unit at least pass catching wise, Evan Engram, Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, a lot of those guys have had some success, but it hasn't been necessarily consistent or maybe the level of success you'll need this year if the offense is going to be really good. Does that put extra weight on your shoulders or do you look at some of these guys and say, I don't know how he hasn't put up numbers like this in his career yet but we know he will this year?
PRESS TAYLOR: No, I think a lot of it is whether it's free agency or the draft, you're evaluating a skill set, and so we are able to see what we envision our role being for this guy, and we feel like it's our job as an offensive staff to maximize their abilities and put them in position where they're going to succeed well. Not saying they haven't been in those positions in the past, but again, we're not as concerned with what they did in the past. It's what they're going to do for us here in this position and how we're going to utilize them and the things we're asking them to do.
So far been very excited about the group we have, and the expectations we have for them are high.
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