Good to see everybody. Great to be back at Lumen (Field). Thought the 12s were awesome for a preseason game. Place was rocking. Forced them to be on silent cadence. Told the team, look, you never want to tie a football game. Kind of stinks. But a lot of great stuff on both sides of the ball. Special teams as well. You know, guys got our attention. We can go through all the guys, but we're going to watch the tape and evaluate everybody. I thought the effort was tremendous. Our vets, especially the guys that didn't play were awesome support. The two penalties were the cost of doing business. We'll be better moving forward. Great to see the enthusiasm. Obviously we want to be able to close games out in the fourth quarter, so both sides this will be something to look at. A lot of stuff we're going to learn from, too, as a coaching staff in how we operate and players as well. So solid start. Can't wait to watch the tape. Again, I keep saying this every week, but it's a big week coming up ahead of us here. Looking forward to the next game.
**Q.** **What did you like about your first offensive line, Mike?**
Well, just you felt the line of scrimmage, you felt the physicality. They gave us a couple pressures there early where we weren't necessarily expecting, so being able to identify the front, get everything targeted the right way, and sustaining blocks, I thought that was really good. Thought we kept the quarterback clean for the most part, especially in the first half. A lot of good stuff.
**Q.** **I know, it's really early in the process, but what did you like about Klint's offense, especially in the first half? More of those guys in there, and like 7 for 10 on third down and ran the ball a little bit.**
I thought situationally we did a great job. I feel like we're on a pretty good cadence communication-wise. It's great to hear the communication over the headset. Everybody on the staff, everybody is contributing. Play calls in fast. Just all the things we saw in practice were there, and there is some stuff we're going to go back and recalibrate and learn from and improve on. But solid first start. He's always chasing the things, which is what you appreciate about him. But I thought we ran the ball well. Not sure on the stats, but it felt like we were moving it. Third down completions were good. Got some explosive plays and had a good two-minute opportunity there at the end to go win the game. Would've been great to go down and close it out.
**Q.** **George Holani had a great preseason last year as a rookie. How have you seen him take his game to the next level? He had 81 yards on just eight touches today.**
I feel like we don't talk about George enough, but he's just the guy that does everything right all the time. It's great to see him have success because of how hard he works. You saw the runs, but the kickoff tackle was a big play for us. I think he's a pretty well-rounded player.
**Q.** **Coach, I know it was a fourth and 20 situation at the end of the game. Is there a reason you decided to punt for it, just a long shot to try and convert?**
That wasn't really part of the conversation. If we don't convert there we're pretty much handing them the game.
**Q.** **What did you think of Jalen MIlroe? His first two drives the holding penalty, so he was kind of behind the sticks I guess on those. What did you think?**
I thought Jalen played well. I thought he made good decisions. Operation-wise there are some things we want to be a little cleaner on. Throwing the ball accurately, throwing it on time, and then when it wasn't there, extending plays with his legs I thought was really cool. Made some good decisions in the quarterback-driven game with how they're playing their edges. Again, we haven't game-planned these guys, but they're a mesh charge of the quarterback, so not getting greedy and handing the ball off and having effective runs, I thought that was good stuff for not really having prepped them for them.
**Q.** **Tory Horton has been having a lot of good practices in a row. Just to see him take it to the game and have a good game.**
Yeah, it was great. Then to see him catch the punt was awesome, I'm not sure how long that return was, but that helped us there. Then obviously the touchdown and you just felt him out there in those situations, which was a continuation of what we're seeing in practice. Great to see it in a game setting.
**Q.** **Talked about cost of doing business for the two penalties. What did you make of the defense coming off the sidelines?**
These guys are ready to play a game. They've seen the work that our non-starters have put in, and to see those guys come up and attack the ball the way they did was really cool. Wanted to make a little bit more of a return in both situations. We worked plus-one a lot, so there is some meat left on the bone in that situation. But we do have to show the guys, those penalties did affect us in the game. Changed field position. We really can't afford to be doing that moving forward. Having the enthusiasm and guys fired up for guys making plays was pretty cool.
**Q.** **Speaking of Tory, seeing his punt return kind of the way he was able to move around some guys there and that, what is it about his skillset that you kind of like in that role in addition to what you saw in him receiving? Obviously you had the spin down at the end the goal line as well.**
Well, the run after catch is a similar situation and punt return. He's worked really hard -- he's catching a lot of punts and he's worked really hard at it. It's just his MO. Just works really hard. Does the right things. Makes great decisions. Good things happen when the process is right.
**Q.** **How do you go about evaluating a preseason game? Do you evaluate the team or is it a bunch of individual evaluations for each player?**
It's both. I think it's both. As a coaching staff there is kind of just piece it in a bunch of different things. How we start the game. You know, we're going to go back and look at our warmup and see how that went. We're going to go evaluate our run defense. We are going to evaluate our third down defense on both sides of the ball. Field goal protection. Extra point block. So you're kind of looking at everything evaluating it, looking at it situationally, and then as a whole how we start games and how we close games is going to be really important. Ultimately this is a personnel evaluation, so you're going to be watching all the guys that played and evaluating them as well.
**Q.** **How do you thinking Nick Emmanwori played?**
Good. We want him to get his feet wet, go affect the game as best he could. From when he was in there we felt him. We sent him on a couple pressures and did a good job. Did a good job. I think it was a couple series and then we felt like that was good.
Just working through something. He'll be back soon.
**Q.** **On Tuesday you highlighted Tyreke Smith as a player you were looking forward to watching him rush the passer.**
**Q.** **Seemed like he came through in some crucial moments in this game.**
Yeah, same thing with Tyreke. Great to feel him in the run game, too. Thought he played physical. Can't think of all the plays right now frankly, but looking forward to watching the tape and I know he's playing hard. I felt him out there.
**Q.** **What do you think of Brandon Pili?**
Yeah, just another great story of a guy that's really determined over the offseason to have a great offseason. Really commit to the process both with his body and how he practices and getting into football shape so he can go have performances like this. So we're halfway through camp here. Got a couple more weeks that will be really important for him. Really excited for him. Happy for him. Just happy for him to have success because you see how much work he's put into it.
**Q.** **What do you think of Robbie Ouzts reps at fullback there? Obvious had the one block on Holani's touchdown. That was obvious to see. Anything else stand out?**
I was talking about how he started the game. They brought a Sam strong safety, something that we haven't really repped much with that run scheme. But to be able to follow those rules, and ended up blocking Maxx (Crosby) on that play, which was pretty cool. So definitely felt him. Just like, hey, what is that, your second play as an NFL player and you just go execute at a high level and pop an explosive run? That was pretty cool.
**Q.** **You mentioned a couple players making good decisions. What does that say about what you're doing during the week and how players are embracing that and executing in the game?**
Well, you know, we like to take pride in how we practice, and as a coach you are really trying to make practice harder than games by stretching guys, putting them in different situations, making them think on the fly. Now, there are things that I'm thinking about that happened in the game that I think we can realize in real time a little bit faster, and so there are some things we're going to want to simulate moving forward so we improve in those situations. But, I think you go out there and if the game feels slower for you that means they're practicing the right way. I think our guys do that.
**Q.** **Mike, Tory Horton as your punt returner, why do you like him in that role?**
Well, he's competing to be our punt returner right now. You know, his run after the catch is great. We talked about this earlier. But run after the catch is good. Sure hands. Works hard at it. Makes great decisions.
**Q.** **Talk about the communication with Klint Kubiak. He's working from down on the sidelines. How does that change the dynamic with him?**
I think that's where he's leaning right now. I don't really have a preference. It's whatever he prefers. So we'll kind of re-huddle here in the next few days and see if it he wants to try to give it a go upstairs or see what that feels like. It's still kind of a work in progress. I think just as another playcaller, likes being on the field. You get a good feel for the game and personnel substitutions and situations, and the communication piece for guys on and off the field is great. Sometimes it's tough. Today AD (Aden Durde) was calling it, and I was trying to talk to him to talk to the linebackers. So you want to be direct to the players as much as you can.
**Q.** **You had Marshawn Lynch come to the sideline before. Did you see him today with the camera?**
Yeah, we did. I was trying to get him to talk to the guys in the locker room at halftime. He dipped off. Great to see him.
**Q.** **Was there anything you didn't expect or learned tonight that you didn't know tonight because of a game situation?**
I don't think so. I mean, we'll go back and evaluate tomorrow. But, yeah, it's a lot of both. It's a lot of the great stuff that you're thinking about, you're fired up. Especially guys that haven't had that opportunity yet to go show it and put great energy and physicality out there; I thought that was really cool. And then there were some things where you realize that we're not there yet, so let's go to work on it. Let's go attack it. We have time but we don't have time. There is urgency there.
**Q.** **Do you have any update on Tyrice Knight?**
I don't have an update on him right now. We are going to get more information tomorrow.
**Q.** **What do you think of the virtual measurement?**
I think they said they were going to give it a go to try it out. I don't think they change the spot on that one, did they?
**Q.** **No. Virtual measurements in general.**
I love it. It's 2025, let's get it right, you know.