FAN ZONE

Coach Chan Gailey on Practice August 8

On NT Torell Troup leaving practice early:

They said he hurt his hand.  They took him in for further evaluation and they never got back to me, but it was bad enough to take him off. We’ll see what happens.

On if LB Chris Kelsay and WR Roscoe Parrish had rest days:

They both are feeling tight.  Instead of pushing it right now and since they get a day off tomorrow it’s almost 48 hours before we go again.  So we decided to give them the afternoon off so they’ll be ready to go Wednesday.

On if he thought he would begin to see fatigue at this stage of camp:

Yes.  I think so.  Most camps when you get to practice eight and nine (times), is where it starts to wear on them a little bit.  They’ve been running and doing things but they haven’t been carrying that extra weight, so their legs get a little fatigue.  It’s mostly 90% lower body.

On the scrums that happened at practice:

It’s part of the game.  You’ve got to be smart and not get hurt during that.  If you don’t have a little bit of an edge to you, you’ll have a hard time playing this game.

On S Jairus Byrd and his progress from last season:

He probably, early in the year, was still feeling his way through the new defense.  He didn’t have a lot of things to build on.  He had only one year to put in the bank, so he was probably still feeling his way. But the last half of the season he really came on.  It looks like in practice that he picked up right where he left off.  I think he’ll go back and have a good year.  To have the interceptions that he had in one year, he set a pretty high standard for himself. 

On the versatility of the defensive line:

Alex (Carrington) is one of those guys that is really long.  He’s a tall guy that has long arms.  He can press the guy and push him back into the pocket.  He’s got enough speed and quickness to get on the edge.  The one thing he and (Torell) Troup have done so much better this year to last year is learn to use their hands.  They’ve become much better with their hands this year, and taking on blockers, pass rush and the run game.

On moving Arthur Moats to ILB:

We saw the development of (Danny) Batten, (Antonio) Coleman, and we also got (Shawne) Merriman.  You look at the prototypical outside backers; there are not a lot of six footers out there.  We felt like his quickness and speed allowed him to be a better inside backer than an outside backer.

On RB Johnny White:

It’s amazing for a guy that played as many different positions as he did in college. He has very good instincts about running, setting up blocks, cut back and all of those little things.  He really is a good football player in that respect.  He’s got a long way to go, learning the protections.  He’s done a good job of running the football when he gets it in his hands.

On his concern of the left tackle position:

We don’t have a lot of depth right now.  Ed (Wang) has played none, Cordaro (Howard) played very little last year.  So we really don’t have any depth at that position.  We’ve got to develop that and that’s what training camp’s about.  We would have loved to have more time to do it but you take what you have.

On if he ever had a training camp where he didn’t have to worry about the o-line:

Never.  It’s always a work in progress.  They are the ones that have to have the most consistency, cohesiveness and communication.  They’ve got to be on par everyday with that, or you’re going to be in trouble.