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Transcript: Mike Smith Post-Practice Interview

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**On the injury report:

**"Today, there were two guys that didn't participate: Jonathan Babineaux, who didn't play in the game, and Kelvin Hayden. Kelvin has a hamstring [injury] and we know Jonathan Babineaux has a knee [injury]. We're hoping to get him back. There were four guys who had limited participation in practice. Todd McClure who came back for his first time, Roddy White, we had limited participation, Ray Edwards and Matt Ryan. We had full participation with Corey Peters and Shann Schillinger. Shann Schillinger had a neck [injury] and Corey Peters had a back [injury] in the game but they had full participation."

**On the memo from the league today on feigning injuries:

**"It's always been something that they say allegedly takes place in the League; it' something that there's no place for. They want to play the game and I believe they shouldn't feign injuries. However they want to deal with it up at the league office, we'll deal with it. I know it's something that we don't do."

**On the competition between James Sanders and Thomas DeCoud at the safety position:

**"I would say that it's an ongoing competition. Again, Kelvin (Hayden) and James, we wanted to get them in. They split time last week. Unfortunately, Kelvin had the hamstring [injury] and wasn't able to practice today so Chris Owens took most of the snaps. At the safety position, we're going to try to work those two guys and have them compete and see how it goes over the next few weeks. Last week, we worked both of those guys during the week and we made a decision as we got closer to the end of the week."

**On how Todd McClure may help with the pass protection:

**"It'd be great to get Todd back. He's a guy who started 144 consecutive games. That's quite a streak. We obviously missed his leadership out there over the first two ball games. Hopefully, he will not have any adverse effects from the workload that he had today and we'll try to ascertain tomorrow where he's going to be. But it was good to have him back out there, I can assure you that."

**On the problems that Tampa Bay QB Josh Freeman presents:

**"Getting him on the ground is a big challenge. If you see this guy in warm ups out of his uniform and if he wasn't wearing his jersey and you didn't know who he was, you'd think he was a defensive end. He's a big guy that has a real strong arm and he's very difficult to get on the ground. We've had some issues in the past and that's going to be one of our musts, to make sure that we contain him and not allow him to get out of the pocket and extend plays. He can break tackles and he can throw the ball a long ways. He's got a real strong arm. He's got one of the stronger deep balls of any of the quarterbacks in the League."

**On whether he expects Ryan to be available on Sunday:

**"We rested him today. He'll be out here tomorrow, just like he was today. Probably more participation tomorrow than he had today."

**On a report that Ryan played through a season with a broken foot:

**"Well, we know he's a tough guy. I can't speak to that. I don't know if he did or not. But he's a tough guy and he took some shots in the ball game. We got him some rest today."

**On whether Ryan still wears a brace on his left leg:

**"He always wears that brace. He's been wearing that brace on his left leg since he's been here. That's something that he always wears."

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