HEAD COACH MIKE MUNCHAK
(on if he's OK with Nate Washington playing on Sunday without practicing all week)
I think there are certain guys, depending on our situation with Kenny (Britt) coming back. We just have to decide what we want to do, see how he's doing. We don't expect him to come back and play 60 snaps or 50 snaps like he normally does. It's just a matter of if we feel like he's healthy enough to play a certain role for us on Sunday. He's veteran enough, he's been around enough. He knows the offense now, that if we feel it's necessary to do that, if we don't feel comfortable with where he's at, we'll just rest him a week. It's a long season, and we can't really afford, especially at that position, to have someone go out there and play if he's not really ready to play.
(on if Kenny Britt can provide enough on offense without Nate Washington)
It won't change Kenny (Britt's snaps). We can't allow something like that to happen. He needs to play what he's capable of playing, and that's it. Like I said, we have the tight ends, and we can go other directions if for some reason, we get short, assuming that Nate (Washington) isn't up. That's my point, Nate could be up for that reason, where he takes that 20 snaps himself and eases the pain there. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes on Sunday.
(on if he'll need to elevate anyone from the practice squad)
No.
(if Jake Locker finished the week like he thought he would)
Just like we talked about, he got better every day. He won't even talk about his shoulder. He feels good, and he's moving forward. I don't think in his mind, it will be a factor at all in this game.
(on if Kenny Britt progressed like he thought he would)
Same thing, I thought Kenny (Britt) did well too. I thought his confidence…again, until he plays in a game when you've been out a year, he's just going to have to play. Game time is the next experience for him which he'll get a chance to do on Sunday. I think his confidence has obviously grown each day, he's done a little bit more each day. As good as you can hope is where he's at, at this point. Now it's just a matter of going out and seeing how that applies to pregame warm-ups and then getting started and seeing how the game goes, and how big a part of it he can be.
(on if Kenny Britt's progress leads him to believe he can do more this weekend)
It's more of other things. I think if we're just concerned for his knee, we'd probably think he looks pretty good and could probably go more. But you have to worry about other things too—hamstrings, quads. When you're running like that and haven't done it under pressure and start getting tackled, that's something we don't know yet. When he starts getting tackled and running, and it just all depends how the game is going. You get a general idea of how much you think you're going to use him, so you can plan your game and your rotations, and Chris (Palmer) can get a good feel for how he wants to call his game and where he can use him. Then you just see how the game unfolds. Obviously, we're not going to go, 'He can only play 15.' So if it's 18, you know. If he's doing well and we're going well, and it happens to be the end of the game and we need him and he's healthy, then obviously we're going to give him an opportunity if we think it's the right way to go.
(on if Kenny Britt is getting better at reading coverages as the week goes on)
I think he's getting more comfortable with seeing it. Again, it's totally different between practice speed and game speed, and what defense they're showing you. For the next month of the season, I would think, the first four games will be a challenge for him in a lot of ways—the speed of it, his health, how he handles coming back from getting tackled a few times to reading coverage and getting a feel for where he's supposed to be and sitting down. So there's a lot going on there. But he's the kind of guy, we think he's such a big time part of our offense, that I assume that stuff will come around real quickly.
(on if he assumes that Sen'Derrick Marks will be available to play)
Yeah, unless there's a problem today. I thought he did well the last couple of days getting more and more reps. So now we'll just see if there's any problem tomorrow with him because today he did a lot more reps and a lot more change of direction. Same thing, we'll decide on him on Sunday.
(on if anything changes with the tight ends when playing against a 3-4) We practiced against this type of offense and defense the last week. We saw some of it last week, we played against it with Arizona. So no, these guys are comfortable with what they're doing, so we're ready to go.
