JDR: Everybody set? Alright. Not what we were looking for in the second half for sure. A little ragged out there, that's for sure. I told our team coming out of this that we played everybody a lot, or the backend of our roster a lot tonight, and going forward, the next couple weeks in particular, we'll really look to play our front line a whole lot more. I think 14, 15 reps I think we got, the majority of our front line got that even played and I know they rested some and we did the same. I thought early on, things were decent. Nice to see Blaine [Gabbert] take us down right away, move the ball, put us in position. You know, would really like to score on the opening drive, seven points, but to get a field goal was nice to see. And then we got the sudden change, get the ball down in there close again, like to get 7 there. You know, you come away a little disappointed that you aren't able to punch in one of those two when you are down in good position. But, the run defense was decent in the first half and the second half, not real good. But the first half we had more of the people that we are going to be counting on this year playing. I thought it was pretty solid. So there are some things, certainly a whole lot to correct, but a lot of evaluation done. You know, a good night's work. Anytime they are keeping score, you don't like the score to look like that, so I'm not real excited about that. But again, for what we came in here to do, we got great evaluation and we're a little bit closer now to getting the front line players out on the field for more. For a little more exposure, so questions….
Q: How did you think Blaine [Gabbert] reacted to getting hit, getting that first exposure?
JDR: I guess pretty good. I mean, I wasn't really expecting anything less. You know, got up, went to the next play. I thought he was pretty solid.
Q: How do you assess his performance overall. Can you give us his report card?
JDR: Report card? I mean, I don't know if I would sit here and give you a report card. We'll look through the tape and you know, from the live performance that we saw, he did some decent things directing the team down the field. You know, didn't look like he was in awe or that the situation was too big for him. You know, we really didn't have designs on thrusting him into the lineup in the first pre-season game. But, David [Garrard] was held out, Luke [McCown] was held out, and so Blaine [Gabbert] and Todd [Bouman] took over, and Blaine played the first half and did some good things to build on. And then Todd finished up.
Q: Jack, what are your biggest concerns coming out of this game?
JDR: Probably the biggest concern is, we aren't going to play our backend people that much again this pre-season. So, that is more of a relief than a concern, because that was pretty ugly out there at the end…at the end of this ballgame. You know, concerns, we're just getting our football team ready. We are going to have a good team this year. I am very confident of that. So, we're just going to stay the course and get back to work and go back and make our corrections and continue to focus on the things we need to do on a higher level this year as a football team. Again, concerns coming out of the first pre-season game, I guess, the one guy that got banged up was [Steven] Wesley, the defensive end, 91. That's probably the biggest concern for a young man. You know, to have him injured, that's unfortunate. But other than that, we came out in pretty good shape.
Q: [Clint] Session? They said he had a head injury?
JDR: No, he was cleared to return. So, somebody must have jumped the gun on that one. Yeah, he was ready to return, but we had already pulled him out. So, no issue there. The only one was number 91, Wesley.
Q: You said the back end won't play again this year in pre-season?
JDR: No, I said the back end won't play that much again. The back end played an awful lot tonight and they won't play that much again.
Q: Are the starters going to play the next expedition game?
JDR: We'll see, we'll see. We got time to get there. I just told you what I have to tell you tonight. They won't play that much again.
Q: [Luke] McCown and David [Garrard], are they going to be back Saturday?
JDR: I thought they were going to be back. I thought David was going to be back a few days ago, so I'm going to try not to do any predicting, since I'm being held on my guesses on that. I'm just going to wait until I see them come out there. And then, we will go from there.
Q: What is wrong with [Luke] McCown?
JDR: I'll let Luke decide if he wants to say anything about that.
Q: So, you aren't going to predict anything about him?
JDR: No predictions.
Q: Coach, what else do you have to say about the way Blaine [Gabbert] played?
JDR: You know, my initial reaction was, that I thought he was composed. I thought he did a nice job making decisions. He made a couple nice throws and it was a good experience for him. It was just that. Still, an awful lot to do, but I think it was encouraging that he came out, exhibited poise, made good solid decisions and looked like a guy that, you know, belongs in this league, that's going to be able to play in this league. That's good stuff. Far from perfect, we got a lot to do. We got a lot to do. But it was a good beginning for him. So, I was encouraged by that.
Q: (Inaudible)
JDR: Yeah, I would say that the backend of the roster wasn't much fun to watch.
Q: So the depth wasn't where you wanted it to be…
JDR: Well, we got 90 guys in camp, so we're not going to get carried away focusing on the last 30 guys of this football team. So, I think you understand. I think everyone watching understands. You know, you are talking about guys getting an opportunity to show what they can do. And some guys didn't have a great showing, so that will all be evaluated.
Q: You brought in Jason Spitz pretty early in place of Brad Meester. Talk about that…
JDR: Yeah, we had a list of guys that were going to play about 15 plays max and Brad was part of that. And that allowed us to get a good look with [Jason] Spitz and be able to evaluate further, his ability to play center and guard for us. And just also our desired to not expose Brad [Meester] as a veteran player. You know, we got some of the guys that are veteran players, and there is no reason to expose them when we got 90 guys here and we can play others. And that's how we close to approach this first pre-season game. Some because they haven't been here long, some because they have been here a long time, just a mixture. But we went into this game with a plan and we stuck to the plan. Like I said, we came out with clearly a list of things that we need to do better, but a good amount of tape to evaluate.
Q: Who is this new pass rusher? The guy you just signed…
JDR: Was anything announced on it? Then we'll have something soon.
