Quotes: Coach Brian Daboll breaks down preseason opener vs. Lions

Q: Any injury updates out of last night?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, we’ve been really meeting as a staff. I got to meet with (Senior Vice President, Medical Services/Head Athletic Trainer) Ronnie (Barnes) and the medical people after our team meeting here. Don’t have a lot for you. I’ll have more for you tomorrow.

Q: Because it was such a theme of Hard Knocks, I think you even asked Malik directly, ‘how will you react if you don’t get touches early in the game’? How did you see him react to no targets? How was his body language, his attitude on the sideline after those three series with no touches?

BRIAN DABOLL: He was good. Locked in. Good mindset.

Q: You said postgame that having a variety of run schemes is important to you as a play caller. Just curious if you could expand on why that is and what you mean by that.

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, I view the run game a lot like the pass game. So, in the pass game, you have RPOs, you have three-step, you have movement, you have run action, you have very quick drop back, you have intermediate drop back, and sometimes you have deep drop back, different levels of the field you try to attack, whether it’s short, intermediate, high lows, horizontal stretch. To try to attack the whole part of the field in a passing game, I think that’s important to do in the run game as well, to have a variety of schemes, whether you’re attacking the perimeter, edge players, double teams inside, trying to create extra gaps when you pull players, draws, RPOs that can go a couple different ways, quarterback runs. There’s various techniques that offensive linemen use, but you’re either usually doubling team with somebody, whether it’s a zone or a gap scheme, or you’re singled up or you have some type of pull concept with it. So, to be able to attack the front or the fronts that you see and keep people guessing, I think is important, just like it is in the pass game. So how you tie it together from one week to the next, one week it might be this, the next week it might be that, based on your preparation and the defenses that you see, how they play them. Some teams are read and react teams, some people are two gap teams, some people are fly up the field teams, and just try to create penetration in the backfield. So, there’s a various amount of schemes that you try to attack them with, and I think if you’re proficient in multiple things, that helps you. So, we’ve practiced a lot of them since OTAs. We’ll continue to do that. And then you just figure out you have those schemes, Dan and then you also have bread-and-butter plays too, where you hang your hat on, no matter who you play, you can fall back on this play, whatever that play is. So again, it’s just a way to try to give your players an opportunity to be aggressive, to keep defensive coordinators/defensive players second-guessing themselves. You want to use motion; you do not want to use motion. You affect the force by shifting and moving and things like that. So, a lot goes into those decisions.

Q: I know you said you didn’t have an injury update. But, with (quarterback) Drew (Lock), do you expect to have to bring in another quarterback for this week?

BRIAN DABOLL: (I) don’t know that. We’ve been grinding here as a staff with the evaluations, (I) just made it to this presser. We’ll go back. We have a squad meeting at two and then I’m going to get with the doctors after all they go through.

Q: The question I had off of last night…

BRIAN DABOLL: So potentially if he can’t go, there’s a potential of that.

Q: Question I had off of last night, really off of the whole week was, I know you stressed this last night, was the toughness that you saw from the team, the physicality. How do you coach that? You have a lot of the same players from last year. How were they, how did you get them to be more physical and more tougher?

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, I think we have a lot of changes. Each year is different. Different players at different spots. We have players that have been here. We have different coaches. I would say we’ve put a high premium on that. I think the draft class is a bunch of tough young players. But you’re constantly reinforcing things that you’re looking for from your team. I would say from a foundational aspect. And this is a tough game. I think you have to be mentally and physically tough. I think we’ve added a lot of new pieces in our building that have helped contribute to that. Now, where we go from here, we need to continue to build on that. We need to continue to lean on the physical aspect of our game. (It) Starts in the trenches, but some good examples yesterday. Whether it was in a kicking game, whether it was safeties coming down on force or taking on guards or receivers. (Wide receiver) Isaiah Hodgins really made a good block down there on (running back Eric) Gray’s run in the red zone, where he blew up a secondary player. So, you’re constantly reinforcing that element to your players, which is something I think we all could have been better with. And we’re trying to do that.

Q: We’re all in preseason mode. Sorry about that before.

BRIAN DABOLL: No worries.

Q: With Drew (Lock), real quick, are you still of the belief that it’s not going to be a long-term thing?

BRIAN DABOLL: Really, we just got done meeting. I’m going to meet with those guys after at two o’clock. I don’t know yet. We’ll find out. I know he was sore last night. We’re going to this two o’clock meeting. I’ll get with (Medical Services/Head Athletic Trainer) Ronnie (Barnes) and the doctors after that. It could be longer than a couple days, but I don’t want to give you one answer and then it’s not. I’m going to talk to these people. Then I’ll tell you guys tomorrow or whatever it is the next time we talk.

Q: And with your running backs, what did you see from those three guys? I’m talking about the main three guys that carried the ball: Tyrone Tracy, Eric Gray, and Turbo (Dante Miller).

BRIAN DABOLL: I thought they were decisive. I thought there wasn’t a lot of stutter stepping. I thought they were hitting the hole with good vision. They ran in space. (Eric) Gray had a nice catch there from (quarterback) Tommy (DeVito). It wasn’t perfect, but most of the time they were going forward. They ran hard. They got their pads down. They did a nice job for the first game.

Q: How do you look at that spot behind (running back) Devin (Singletary)? Obviously, he gets the majority of the first team snaps, but it’s a really young group behind him. How do you look at that and what goes into your process of sorting that out of who’s second and who comes in third?

BRIAN DABOLL: You just let them play. That’s what they need to do. We’ve talked about this. I think I’ve had a lot of questions on that early on about the youth of that room. You let them play. I thought they did a good job in protections, knowing who to block. It wasn’t overly complicated, but they did stick their face in there and fit the window and block some blitzers. They ran hard. They knew what to do. Again, it’ll be good competition for all those young players, but I think (Running Backs Coach) Joel Thomas has done a fantastic job with the development of that youth room.