BB: Players were off yesterday so hopefully we'll have a good level of energy here. Kind of restart things today, get back on track. We've got three good days here coming up before we take a break and then really get ready to get down to Philly. Hopefully we can finish up another chunk of our installation, keep working on our fundamentals and things we've already installed and just start doing a little more team work and have things come together a little bit more so we're ready to go down and compete against the Eagles next week. Just grinding through it, just grinding through camp.
Q: Have you gotten to the point in camp where you're able to see how guys are responding to higher levels of stress?
BB: Sure. We add more every day and of course they're responsible for all the stuff that we had in plus all the new stuff, all the multiples that can happen. It gets a little bit harder each day and of course physically there's the wearing down effect, physically and mentally too. It's what the team needs to develop mental toughness and staying power and to get into a regular season football kind of mode. Yup, we see all those things.
Q: When you drafted Jamie Collins, there was talk about how he can do a lot of different things. What have you learned from working with him in terms of where he might be the best fit for you?
BB: I don't know where that will be. We'll just keep doing things with him. We've asked him to do a number of different things. He's a versatile player. We'll get a good look this week from all the young guys against the Eagles and then next week against Tampa; see how it all comes together. I don't think now is really the time to start formulating game plans or anything. We'll just let everybody take their reps, compete and see how it all turns out. But he is a versatile player.
Q: Is Aaron Dobson good to go?
BB: We'll see – just like we do with all the players: take him out there, stretch him, warm him up, get him going and see how it goes. If they're ready to do more, then we'll put them in more drills. If they're not, we'll take them, rehab them and try to get them ready for the next day.
Q: What do you see from your interior offensive line group in terms of the depth and the players that are working there?
BB: It's probably not as deep as it's been at other times. But I feel like the guys we have there are working hard. Like everything else, we'll just have to see how it all comes together.
Q: Does Tyronne Green have a little bit of center experience? Or is he more of a pure guard?
BB: I'd say more of a guard.
Q: How would you assess your own performance thus far in camp?
BB: Long way to go. Started, but all the coaches, myself included, we have to get ready for the season. This is part of it for us too – getting back into the coaching, teaching mode, start getting ready for game situations, decisions, some of that we do on the field. Yeah, we're all in that boat. We're all starting all over again.
Q: You talk about versatility with defense. As important as it's always been, is it even more important with increased versatility with offenses around the league?
BB: You have to be able to stop what they do. However you do that, but versatile players are good players. Good players are good. Some guys are real good at the things that they do – that's really important too. Some guys have versatility, that's good. It's alright to just be able to do one thing if you can do it well, that's OK too.
Q: How much did whatever Julian Edelman was dealing with that led to him being on PUP affect his work this offseason?
BB: He wasn't able to do much and he hasn't done anything in camp other than work individually with the trainers and stuff. He watches and goes to meetings, but he can't participate in anything. I certainly don't think it puts him ahead. We've got other guys that are out there working, playing, practicing. I don't think...he's got some ground to make up, we'll see how it goes.
Q: What are the biggest advantages to joint practices with another team?
BB: Evaluate your players against different guys than the ones you're looking at every day.
Q: Does it give you an added tool in order to evaluate guys?
BB: You work against your guys, you see those matchups, now you get a different set of matchups, different skills, different techniques, whatever the other teams are doing. They don't have the exact same system that we have. A lot of times it's quite different so you get to see your player against a different type of scheme as well as against different type players. That's all valuable. You can work on situation things from a scheme standpoint. Again, you work on them against your defense or your offense or whatever it is and then you work on them against a different team and they play it differently than you do or they adjust to it differently than they do. It makes you react to something a little bit different and that's the way it is every week. I think there are a lot of advantages to it. You see that in a game but you see more of it during practice. Four days worth of practice is a lot of reps, a lot of opportunities to evaluate your team and your scheme versus one night of preseason. Sometimes you get certain looks but then there are some times you miss out on things, depending on how the game goes and how the matchups on the field are – substitutions and so forth. Yeah, I just think you get a longer look at it. The key thing is being able to work together with the other team. We did that – it was great with Tampa last year and New Orleans. I think it will be good against Philadelphia. As long as you get a good, cooperative practice, I think both sides are getting a lot out of it.
Q: What did you like about Lavasier Tuinei in Chip Kelly's system at Oregon?
BB: We signed a few players here to give them an opportunity to compete in camp. We know they're coming in late; they don't have a great background in our system. We'll evaluate them on that basis and just take it from there. We did that with a couple other guys last week ,with [Quentin] Sims and [Perez] Ashford, guys like that. We'll just see how it goes.
Q: Can you share your thoughts on what you remember from what Bill Parcells did in New England? From competing against him and his career in general, as he goes into the Hall of Fame.
BB: Career in general: he coached four different franchises and was with five different franchises. Pretty much every one he came into was not doing well when he got there. Either they were the bottom or close to it. He made them all pretty competitive in a very short amount of time, on several occasions, the first year. Two Super Bowls in New York, and that franchise really wasn't...hadn't done a lot in awhile. Great coach, great evaluator, does a great job with his team, whatever capacity it was – when he was the coordinator under Coach [Ray] Perkins, head coach or his other administrative duties at Miami most recently. A lot of respect for Bill, learned a lot from him, glad I had the opportunity to work with him and work for him. Certainly well deserved. Patriots was definitely an example of a team that was pretty much rock bottom when he got here; rejuvenated the franchise. We competed against him in Cleveland but again he made the Patriots very competitive in a short amount of time. Putting them into a strong position, '96 we won the AFC, we had a good, young football team that came up just a little bit short against Green Bay. I think he certainly deserves the lion's share of putting that team together and the whole program together during that period of time. We can go on and on but I think all the accolades for Bill are well deserved and I personally value his friendship and have a lot of respect for him as a person and as a football coach slash football person. It's not just coaching; it's beyond that with him.
Q: Is Julian Edelman going to be practicing today?
BB: He's been cleared to come off PUP so we'll see.
