Saturday Press Room Observations

Quick hits from the press room:

• Some guy named Ron Rivera was there, sitting in John Fox's chair. This Ron guy answered questions, thoroughly. I was floored.
• Got 2 questions in to Rivera (and no, not the "What do you think of Cam's smile?", or "How's the chemistry between Cam and Jimmy" crap). Asked him about using Olsen/Shockey in 11/10 personnel sets, and he absolutely got into that one. Took a solid 2 minutes to pontificate on formations, sets, and how they're using their TE's. Also asked him about Sharrod Martin. Said they would not move him to CB at this time, but could very well place him at NB, with the idea of have 3 guys rotating at S (Pugh being #3.....he likes Pugh)
• Solarte...saw him, didn't shake his hand, as I thought he would snap it in half. Mike...talk to you next time.
• Rachel Nicols was there. She was very nice, and that's all I'm going to say about that.
• Media room is smaller than I thought. Some of you have probably been there before. Was a linen closet, basically. Nice room, though.
• We have to be careful in the media. I'm upstart, and my main gig is spinning records and doing production for radio stations, but I write too. Saw PFT picked up a local report about Smith's comments on not being moved around enough under Fox (which my brother and I both believe is a farce), and the lead paragraph from PFT was: With a new coaching staff in town, Panthers receiver Steve Smith is no longer disgruntled, saying he finally feels like he’s in an offense that will use him correctly. (That's misleading by PFT. I'll be posting the story, framed in the proper context, on my site later today.)
• Cam was Cam. I'm not blown away by "the smile" or his charisma. He's a smooth speaker, but his thoughts come out a little jumbled at times. He's handing the media materfully, which if you're a fan, is good to see. I asked him how his ability to run the boot and make DE's respect contain can open up the running game for "DW/Stew/33", ala Falcons with Vick-Dunn-Duckett-Norwood. He gave a very safe, general answer, to be expected. He also said "I have the easy job" compared to WR/TE's.
• Filed some work in the press box--hung with Person, Sorenson and Ron Green. All were helpful guys.
• Left the press box, took the elevator down, and NOBODY was there at 8:15pm. NOBODY. So, like Rudy, I just walked around the tunnel loop from the visitor's locker room to the home locker room. Saw some cool things, took some cool pix.
• Ended the night with a walk on the field with one of the groudskeepers...

As a media-guy, it was a very good assignment. As a person who digs NFL football...it was cool. If you can't admit that, you're a liar.

Thank you all for letting me ramble, and for supporting the site. Means a lot.

Now, Brian Billick...your thoughts?

 

With that said, I will gingerly (no pun intended, McDermott) post the link to my story on Smith below.

http://the212daily.com/2011/08/07/74/

 

Outstanding. You'll probably earn some credit with the coaches by not boring them with idiocy the way the usual suspects do.

 

Henning actually used motion, it's Davidson who was incredibly vanilla.

 

My brother said the same thing last night. Hell, ran two big reverses in the 2005 playoffs, one for a TD. Was in the slot quite a bit, too.

Davidson really did a poor job here with what he had.

 

Rivera appreciates questions with tangible schematic context. Most coaches do. The fluff is just laughed at. You can see it in Rivera's eyes when a question is fucking stupid. Were a few yesterday. None from me--did my homework.

 

Davidson never had any business being an OC. Remember that he only had the job in Cleveland on an interim basis for a handful of games before getting the job with Carolina. It's not like he was an established play-caller or anything.

Fluff is pretty much all they ever get asked. What beat writer do you know of that had any kind of real football background? Do you think Gantt played a single down in his life? None of those guys know anything at all, which is why I imagine that getting asked a real question would be pretty fun for the coaches since the rest is a constant waste of their time.

 

Are these answers to your two questions?

On tight end Greg Olsen, what he does for the offense and being able to put him anywhere on the field: That's basically what happens for our entire tight end group. We've got four guys that have great ability, and you can mix and match all four. Every package from our 11 and 21 package, where you just have one tight end, guys who are versatile that can run and catch as well as block, those guys are going to be featured in that package. You get the 22 and 12 package where you're using two tight ends and you're going to shift one out, split one out, use one like a wide receiver, create mismatches, then specific abilities will be matched for those. Greg and Jeremy seem to have a great rapport with one another. In my opinion, I could see Chud using both those guys in those types of packages. I'm excited about it because it gives us some flexibility in terms of what we can do offensively.

On the role of the cornerbacks in the Panthers defense: The one thing Jim (former Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson) always wanted was corners that were physical and played with vision. That's what Chris (Gamble) is. He's a physical corner who's got good size and he plays with vision. Having him out there on the field, especially when you are bringing pressure, puts him in position to make plays even more so. One of the things that we did that happened my first year when I was with Jim and we did it in San Diego and we did it in Chicago was takeaways. It was a big thing that Jim preached about. The year before that we got there back in '99, that team was dead last in takeaways, and we went from last to first in takeaways I believe in '99. That's something that Sean and I feel very strong about as far as what we want to do defensively. We want to major in takeaways.

 

I get along fine with everyone there. I try not to read their work, because I have my own vision of how to deliver news.

But, yes, some of the questions I heard yesterday were spot-on, some served an agenda, and some were pitiful. I just try to focus on two elements, Collin:

1. What would a coach want to read in a piece?
2. What would a fan want to know if they could be in the ropes?

Simple formula. This is a new era in media, as you know. Social media is critical. Beating the others to the punch with "quick hits" via-twitter builds credibility. Then, taking your time and properly framing a story builds even more.

As long as I have access, my goal is to be credible with the players and staff, not my peers. That's an exercise in futility.

 

and third

"On if he would consider moving safety Sherrod Martin to cornerback: I think all three of the guys (Martin, Charles Godfrey and Jordan Pugh) that we having playing our safety positions are three, young dynamic players that all have coverage skill abilities. To try and move guys around and experiment right now is not the right time. We are very comfortable with those three guys. We think there is going to be some sort of rotation. In talking with Sean, we are going to find ways to put guys on the field. We will play the best players, and I believe that. If our three safeties are part of our best nickel package group, all three of those guys will find a way to get on the field. If only two of them are the best, then two of them will be on it. That's just the way we'll look at it. To say we're going to have Sherrod here or not as a corner, we're not going to do something like that right now. Maybe in an emergency situation one of those three guys could come down and play (corner). But the one thing we have done is we have taken a look at rotating those guys possibly as a nickel. If we ever get in that situation we could use them as the nickel. Again, it goes back to whether we run out of bodies, as well. Because of the situation we've had with some of the hamstrings, we've done that and that's why we've done it."