Josh McDaniels Post-Practice Interview 8/5

Josh McDaniels after the Wednesday morning practice, discussing Brian Dawkins, Brandon Marshall, and the Thursday night practice at INVESCO.

Trouble using the player? Download the mp3 here. Transcript after the jump, courtesy the awesome Broncos PR guys.

On S Brian Dawkins

“He will be out for a few days and then once he is ready to roll here, I wouldn’t expect it to last too, too long. (It is) certainly not anything devastating, but I am not going to go into details about what it is and all the rest of that. He will be out for a few days.”

On tracking the team’s improvement during camp

“We have made a lot of mistakes. I’m talking about the first day of practices. The things we are working on now are to directly correct the things that we have not done well to this point. The drill work we are doing early in practice is geared toward fixing some of those things and giving our guys the same look that they made a mistake on the day before. Then we go out there and we put it into a team period where they do not know it is going to come up, but it comes up. You start to see them do it subconsciously without them having to be told in a drill setting. There are a lot of little things going on and a lot of guys getting better individually. Our groups are getting better together as a team. Every day is different, I have learned, as a head coach. You never have a great practice when you want the offense and the defense to win. Some periods are better for one side than the other, but right now, I think there is steady improvement every day.”

On how WR Jabar Gaffney’s role will compare to his role playing for New England

“It will be very similar in that Jabar is very unselfish, knows every spot on the field, could basically play any position and does it well. ‘Gaff’ is kind of an ace in the hole in that if something ever happens during the course of the game, you don’t have to adjust five people. You can adjust him, and he doesn’t miss a beat. (He is) a very valuable player to have on your team, a really good football player, a good route runner and a great teammate. He has brought all of those things here to Denver.”

On RB Knowshon Moreno’s contract situation

“No update on Knowshon. We are working into the wee hours of the morning. Hopefully, it will be done soon. That is what we are hoping for.”

On Thursday night’s practice at INVESCO Field at Mile High

“(There will be) a lot of teamwork (and) coaches off of the field in the booth, so we are going to simulate, as much as we can, a game-type setting and scenario for our players and staff because we haven’t done this together yet. We don’t want the first time that it happens to be in San Francisco. (There are) a lot of exciting things to go into practice tomorrow. There will be some live contact and hitting.

“We are all looking forward to going down there. Usually during this time of training camp, you get rejuvenated by going down there, putting the lights on and being in the stadium. It is a fun thing for all of us. Everybody is looking forward to it, and I hope there is a good turnout. I hope we put on a good show.”

On if the coaches will use headsets during the game

“We are going to do what we would do during the course of a game just to go through that as a dry run (to) iron out some of the kinds and make sure that we are on the same page.”

On if the practice will be scripted

“Some of it will be scripted, and then some of it will just be kind of ‘play the situation as it goes.’ Certainly, we will give the people spotting the ball and (other game personnel) where they need to put the ball (and) what the down and distance is, but we won’t script everything. We are going to make our players responsible to know the information that we put in up to this point. There is not going to be a big call sheet where we give it to them and say, ‘Here, it is only going to come from B.’ We want to see how they respond to that. Usually when you do that, the players respond to the challenge.”

On his confidence that the Broncos will improve in the red zone

“I am confident that we are going to improve in the red area. To what degree, we are going to find out. Offensively, we have a good plan and a structure in place that we are bringing in from New England that I feel comfortable with. (It) has been very affective. Defensively, we have got a good mixture of coverage and pressure, and (we are) trying to be a little bit unpredictable down there and force them into passing situations as much as we can. We are getting a lot of work at it now in practice. We’ll hopefully get a bunch of those reps in the preseason just to kind of get our plan in place and let our players see how we are going to coach during the coach of the game.”

On WR Eddie Royal

“He sticks out every day. Eddie is a very talented player. He has got a lot of ability. (He is) very smart (and) versatile. We move him all over the field. He is responding to that role the way you would want him to.”

On if he will restrict Royal on special teams because of his role in the offense

“The best guys we can put out there to return the ball, (they) are going to return it. He might not return every one of them in either phase, but he is definitely one of the guys that we are looking at. We have got a number of players that are competing for those spots, and Eddie certainly is looking forward to that, too.”

On the punting competition

“(It is) a competitive situation. (P) Brett (Kern) is doing a nice job, and the young kid, (P) Britton (Colquitt), is getting better every day. That is going to be one of those things where we are going to let them kick in the preseason. We are going to let them go through some pressure situations in practice and then see if we can’t implicate some of those in the game and see how it plays out. I think the competition has been great for both of them.”

On how he will rotate punters during the preseason

“We are going to talk about that. We haven’t gotten too far along there. There are multiple ways to do it. You can do it in the same game or you can choose games if you like. The problem with choosing games is what if you punt once in one game or twice in one game… I know you guys are probably laughing at me saying we are only going to punt once in a preseason game, but you never know. We certainly want to make sure it is fair. If it deserves to be that way, we are going to give each guy a chance to win the job.”