Skip to main content
Advertising

Transcript: Mike Smith post-practice interview

4c80302fb6973dce1f010400.jpg


On making the roster cut down to 75 players:

"We're going to probably make those announcements tomorrow in terms of being in line with the 75-man roster, which is the first cut that we have to make. We're on course to do that tomorrow."

On whether there should be special attention paid to special teams, linebackers, and defensive tackles in Thursday's game:

"I think all three of those areas are going to be areas that we need to watch. I think that really for us, we want to go down to Jacksonville and evaluate a number of guys. We've got a number of guys that are fighting for roster spots. A lot of the roster spots are going to be predicated on how they can contribute on special teams. So, our special teams play is going to be very important and guys are going to get a lot more opportunities to play on those situations in this game."

On whether that will help to determine the number of players per positions on the final roster:

"That's correct. You have to have contingency plans, we know we can have 53 and it's a matter of how you put it together. Even though we've basically had the same numbers at the positions through these first two years, that doesn't say that we're going to have the same numbers this year. We're going to try to put the best roster together that will help us in all three phases."

On the plan for CB Dunta Robinson going into the final preseason game:

"We really haven't decided the number of plays yet for the starters. We're on a short week and that's something we're going to discuss, as a staff here, in our staff meeting this afternoon. I've got an idea in my head where I'd like to see them, but I really don't want to talk about it until we meet as a staff. The fourth preseason game is very important for a lot of guys on this roster that are fighting for positions. We need to continue to evaluate. We get four opportunities to see them in game situations so we need to make sure that we do our due diligence and evaluate those guys."

On whether it was important to see DB Brian Williams in last Friday's game:

"I think all of the guys that saw their first action was important. Not only Brian, but DT Peria (Jerry) as well. Probably the biggest reason for Brian, was Brian was the one who had the injury further along in the season. You know he's not wearing a knee brace any longer, we kept him in a knee brace for precautionary reasons. He's feeling good. He's a guy that we need to get some more snaps out of in this game. He'll be someone, the same with Peria, they need to get their snaps in so they can be prepared and ready to go for Pittsburgh."

On whether it helped the evaluation process that Williams was matched up against Dolphins WR Brandon Marshall:

"We wanted to rotate him in early so that we could see where he was at in terms of his recovery. We wanted him to play against the starters, so he went in in the first quarter. I think that Brian ended up playing 29 snaps last week. That's a good number when we start talking about a guy's first action in a game coming back from that ACL injury."

On how many snaps Peria Jerry played against Miami:

"Peria had 23 snaps in the ball game. He played in both our sub and our base package. That was a good start for him. We wanted to keep both those guys in the 20 to 30 range and I thought that we did a good job as a staff of keeping a play count for those guys. We'll do the same thing this week. We've got an ideal number that we'd like to see them play this week and we'll try to work towards that."

On how S William Moore performed against Miami:

"I thought William, for his first action, I thought that he showed his physicality. He had that nice tackle in the red zone and he really showed up on special teams. As a gunner, he cut the field off, actually made the play when he was running down on the punt team. It's good to get William some playing time and he fits into that group that we were just talking about. We've got to get him a certain amount of plays as well. He was in the high 20's last week as well."

This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an issue.

Related Content

Advertising