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Head Coach Jim Schwartz Post-Practice Quote Sheet

Posted Oct 14, 2009

On whether he was encouraged by QB Matthew Stafford at practice today
“He’s improving.”
On whether Stafford’s ‘arrow’ is trending up
“He’s improving. If he’s improving then I would assume that it would be going up. He’s improving. He’s doing a little bit more each day that we’re able to get him out on the field.”
On whether Schwartz has made a decision on who will start at quarterback at Green Bay
“No, the decision hasn’t been made yet. We’ve got a long way to go before Sunday. There’s definitely ground that needs to be covered between now and then.”
On how tough it is on the team to have players like Calvin Johnson and Jason Hunter go down during the game
“We have other players to step up and we had guys that did that. Dennis Northcutt stepped up; Derrick Williams stepped up, made some plays at wide-receiver; Turk McBride and Cliff Avril stepped up at defensive end and made some plays. We had a lot more players than that go down in that game and it was tough duty—particularly on special teams. We had a lot of depth chart situations that we had to juggle and guys were playing positions they hadn’t practice and things like that. But, that’s the facts of life in the NFL; you’re going to have situations like that. That’s why you want smart players; you want multidimensional players, players that you can rely on when you get a situation like that.”
On how hard it is to reign in a player like Stafford who may want to play before he’s physically ready
“We’ve had to do that before. We’ve had to do it with different players that thought that they were ready to go out and we had to make a medical decision that they weren’t. You’d much rather have that situation—a player that wants to be out there, that wants to be out there too early in your opinion, than somebody that you’re prodding to get out there.”
On Calvin Johnson and whether WR John Standeford was signed as insurance in case Johnson can’t play
“Calvin (Johnson), you saw what he did today. I think he is improving also, but John (Standeford) knows the offense. He was here all training camp. He was here last year. He knows the team. We know what John can do. He’s in a position that he can go play right away. I wouldn’t term him ‘emergency’ or anything like that. He’s a guy that can go make plays for us and I know he’ll be ready if he has to.”
On whether the offensive scheme will change if Calvin Johnson can’t play
“To some extent sure, because it changes how defenses play. That’s a huge dynamic in the game that defensive coordinators need to account for and things like that. It affects the way they play defense. Therefore, it’ll affect the way we play offense.”
On how quickly DB Demarcus Faggins will be able to contribute
“That helps (the fact that he spent the pre-season with Tennessee). He played at Houston and Houston’s done a lot of different things personnel-wise or scheme-wise defensively over the years. He’s familiar with a lot of those techniques, and like you said, he spent training camp with the Titans where he was familiar with every technique that we play. Our terminology is different than Tennessee’s. Our techniques and our schemes are very similar but the terminology is different and being a veteran player the hardest thing is not learning what to do, it’s just putting it in your own language and trying to get ready, but I assume he’d be up to speed pretty quickly.”
On the Green Bay Packers giving up more sacks than any other team
“Yeah, they’ve given up 20 in their first four (games). They’ve had some personnel issues, some guys being injured up there, but we also gave up seven last week and I think five the week before that so both teams are going to have to do a much better job of protecting the quarterback.”
On how Packers LB Aaron Kampman is being used differently now
“Yeah, he’s playing outside linebacker. No. 1, his hand isn’t in the dirt except for on some third down situations. He’s expected to drop into coverage, maybe not half the time, but maybe a third of the time.

“The only time he was dropping before was when they were zone blitzing which wasn’t a whole lot. Now he’s a true outside linebacker in a 3-4 which gives him, technically, half the snaps he’s going to be rushing. Half the snaps he’s going to be dropping. I think his percentage is a little bit higher than that. His skill-set, size wise it fits him. He’s athletic enough to do it. He doesn’t have a lot of experience doing it, but I think he’s done well doing it.”

On Kampman’s rushing style now
“He’s still mainly an edge player. There are some blitzes where he’ll come inside but mainly he’s an edge player. Really the difference is he’s in a two-point stance instead of a three and he’s dropping with a little bit more regularity. But his rush patterns are all pretty much the same.”

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