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ARTICLE
HEAD COACH BILL COWHER We had some injuries this evening. The worst will be Barrett (Brooks) who unfortunately pulled a quad, tore his quad off of his knee. He is done for the year. Mike Logan should be fine. He had his ankle rolled on. All the backs were going down with stingers. They should be okay. Chidi (Iwuoma) had a mild concussion. He got kicked in the head on the one punt. That's kind of the basis of some of the injuries to this point. They played hard. The turnovers in the red zone were disappointing. They kind of voided some good efforts. Preseason is over. We'll come to work tomorrow and get ready for Miami next Thursday. Can you assess Duce Staley's performance? He did some good things. I thought he got better as he ran with what he had to work with. Did you see enough from your starters to hold them out of this game? Yeah. Can you expand on that? Can you evaluate where you are, being able to hold those guys out? Well the expanding is not so much about how good I felt (about them), it's the fact that we're playing in seven days. That is the basis for that decision. I don't think I really needed seeing them play a series or two to feel better. These guys feel pretty good about themselves right now. When you go through the preseason you have to take all of those things into consideration. It was an opportunity to look at some of these backups. The reason the offense line was the only group to play out there is because (Carolina) was starting their defensive (starters) and that's a pretty good defensive line. I didn't want to subject Charlie (Batch) to that. That was the basis of who played, who didn't and the reason for it. How did Omar Jacobs do? Omar played very well. He took an unbelievable stride. He took a giant leap from what he's done in the first three games. He made some plays out there. I thought he did an excellent job. Can we read into Ryan Clark playing with the second-string defense? No, it shouldn't be read into. Both safeties were going to play. We haven't made a decision. It was Ryan's turn to start so that was the basis for that. Did Tyrone Carter play some CB? We used Ty at corner when Chidi went out. We only had three going into the game. Ty was the next guy. We didn't want to overdue Ricardo (Colclough) and B Mac (Bryant McFadden). They were kind of doing a round robin, those three guys. Did Colclough's spike remind you of Plaxico Burress? That was a unique play. The one official was actually in Jacksonville (for Burress' spike) that day. The difference between this one and that one, (Colclough) threw it forward so it was an illegal forward pass. When Plax threw it down, it went backwards so it was a live ball. That's the difference between the two plays, both of which were live. When Ricardo threw it forward it was an illegal forward pass. When Plax threw his backwards it was a fumble. Could that ball have been recovered? Not on an illegal forward pass. No. An illegal forward pass is a five-yard penalty from the spot of the foul. Is that just good technique? Yeah, if you're going to spike the ball, spike it forward. I guess that's the lesson to be learned. Should that rule be looked at? The rule is right. If people are consistently foolish enough to do that and we have to make a rule for that, it doesn't say much about the state of players in the National Football League. Did tonight make any decisions easier or harder? There are going to be tough decisions. We had a chance to see a lot of young kids play. It's going to be tough in a short period of time. That was the most important thing; the young kids were out there playing. If they don't make this football team they had an opportunity to showcase what they can do for another team. It wasn't going to be easy. This didn't make it any easier, if anything it probably made it tougher. Why did Staley get so many carries? He needs the carries. He's played one (significant) game against Green Bay last year. He needed to run in this preseason and he needed to run an extended period of time to see if he could sustain it. That was the biggest thing. When was the last time he's run that many times and it was probably at Green Bay a year ago, in one game. It was important for him to play, as it was this whole preseason because as we get into this regular season I'm trying to roles that people are going to have on this team. It's something to refer back to. I feel good about where Willie (Parker) and Verron (Haynes) are. Verron ran a lot last year. Duce is the one guy that hasn't had a lot of experience. What will Staley's role be? Those things will unfold in the next few days. I'm not going to sit here and assess roles at this point. Can you gauge where the team is? I like this team. I don't like losing, I'll say that. I never will like losing but that's not the objective of preseason. W got through it without any major (injuries). Barrett tonight was the only major injury that we had. I feel good about Hines (Ward). I don't know about Jerame (Tuman); He'll be a little touch and go. I feel better about Hines' situation. Outside of those two guys and the fact that we got through healthy, I thought we had a good camp. Can you talk about Chukky Okobi's come back from his surgery? He needed that as well. It's hard for me to assess his play. I was glad that he was able to get in there and play basically three quarters of football. That was good for him. How did Tim Euhus do? I have to look at the tape to be honest with you. That's the first exposure I've had to him. We'll look at that and see what options we have. Is it too early to tell what this team's intangible qualities are? Those things will take place over the course of a season. I don't think anybody can walk into a season and say we have this, we have that. Those are things that expose themselves over the course of a season. I don't even know what the identity is. I won't know the identity will be until we play three or four games with this football team. They're going to get a feel for each other. It's a growing process. You don't have answers to questions like that at the beginning of the season, but you will at the mid-point based on the experiences that you go through. Do you like this team's talent and depth? I like this football team. Is the media way off base with the Staley trade talks? You will have all of the answers to those questions in the next 48 hours. You have to be a little bit more patient and everything else will take care of itself. I know you want to be the first and break something before it happens but because we're on a short week we're not going to sit there and use all that time. We're going to make some decisions tomorrow; we'll make most of them. We have to make them all by Saturday. The questions that you have, on base or off base, those will take care of themselves in the next 48 hours. Not just about Duce but with the rest of this football team. To be honest with you, with the short week, the focus at this point goes right to Miami. Are you using any practices for Miami? The whole practice on Monday was all Miami. What about previous to Monday? We sprinkled a few things in.
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