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November 30, 2007

Transcript: Defensive coordinator Dean Pees' Friday press conference

Mike Vrabel has 9.5 sacks, one of the top marks in the league. When you look at his performance do you see him playing better than he has in the past seasons that you’ve been here?
It’s always hard to say whether a guy is playing better. I think Mike is doing the things we ask of him. I think he’s playing well. The thing about Mike is he is a really smart football player, maybe one of the most intelligent players that I’ve coached and we’ve got a lot of them. I just think he’s playing well right now and I think, being in the same spot, the thing that he’s provided for us in the past is his versatility to move around, which has helped us as a team. This year, we haven’t had to move him like that as much, which I think has helped him as an individual. I think he’s playing well. To say that he’s playing better, I’ve seen him play pretty good at times in ’02, ’04 and ’05 so I think he’s playing well right now.

How are these linebackers going to shake out now with Rosevelt Colvin out?
Well, as always, it seems like everybody has to go through it and we’ve gone through it in years past. You’ve got to just deal with injuries and that you hope somebody… When somebody else has a problem or is injured, it provides an opportunity for somebody else so you hope that somebody else can step up. The thing that happens with every team -- and it’s also with us -- is that you’re always concerned about depth. Whenever you lose somebody, like when we lost Rodney [Harrison] in the secondary or [Richard] Seymour up front, you lose depth, too. Somebody’s got to just pick up the slack and we’ve got to keep going and guys have got to fill in, the depth thing always concerns you.

How necessary is it to have that five-man rotation at that position?
I think it was important prior, even before Rosevelt got hurt. It’s always good if you can - up front, especially in the front seven - have a rotation to keep guys healthy as much as you can and try to keep them fresh. It’s even going to be more so. We’re going to need to try to find somebody that we can rotate in there now. That’s always good for the front seven to be able to rotate guys in, if you have them. If you don’t, you don’t. You’ve got to play with who you have.

Where is Chad Brown at this point? Is he ready to step in?
He’s on his way back. I mean he’s only been here two days, but it’s always great to have an older veteran guy who’s been in your system. You can get an older veteran guy that comes in and has not been in your system, he might as well be a rookie -- Sometimes it’s worse. But in Chad’s case, it’s great to have a guy that was out there, that was available to come in at short notice and know a little bit of something about our system. To be fair him, to say after two days of practice, Boys, he’s ready to just jump in there, [isn’t fair]. He’s working hard at it and I’m really happy that we have him.

Is Adalius [Thomas] going to slip outside now?
Well, you know us. We have the ability to play 3-4 and 4-3 and 4-2 and 2-4 and whatever you want. That’s always going to be a game-to-game thing. He slides outside; he can play inside. We’ve had the ability with guys like him, that’s one of the versatilities that those guys have. You’re always going to see a multiple [number] of defenses from us week-in and week-out.

Do you expect teams to try to attack you with the in-cuts like Philadelphia did last game?
Philly wasn’t so much the in-cuts. Sometimes it was the seams of the field. There’s a little difference. But one thing I give a lot of credit to [are] the Eagles and to [A.J.] Feeley, he had a good game. He threw a lot of passes when he was under duress and getting hit and put them on the money. At the same time, we need to play them better. The thing that got us a little bit in [trouble] the last game, and we’ve tried to work on it this week, is just fundamentally we got a little bit lax at times and let things happen that just shouldn’t happen. There are other plays that they made: He made a good throw, they made a good catch. And that’s football, but there were other times that we got caught kind of watching the rush, expecting that guy to get sacked and he didn’t get sacked and maybe we were out of position a little bit.

One of the things that some players mentioned was that maybe the pre-snap communication was maybe a little bit off. Did you see that at all?
Not particularly. They would be the better ones to ask on that because they’re the ones out there doing the communicating. I can’t always hear it from the sidelines, especially when the crowd’s into it. I didn’t see that as a big concern, but that would have to be something that they would answer.

How about Pierre Woods, a second-year player who could potentially see more time with Rosevelt Colvin going out? Can you just talk about him a little bit in his progression from year one to year two?
Well, again, he’s a guy that’s been a legitimate backup and he’s a guy that we are hoping that we can get in the mix. He’s done a great job on special teams for Brad [Seely]. You know, he would certainly… he’s working hard and he’s getting better all the time and we’re hoping that he just keeps progressing like that and, if he does, then he’s certainly going to give us some depth where we need it.

Can you also talk about Eric Alexander a little bit in his progression?
It’s kind of the same way. What’s set Eric back has been being hurt and being out for 4-5 weeks and not being involved in some things, but it’s kind of the same thing as Pierre. We just need him to keep progressing and getting better so hopefully we can use him in some kind of rotation to help balance it out a little bit, too. Again, he’s working real hard. He’s coming off that injury and both of those guys have been working real hard this week to try to get themselves in the mix.

How concerned are you about limiting wear and tear on Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau?
Well, I’m always concerned about all the players. I mean it’s not only those two. We have a few other guys back there too that you’re always trying to take reps off of them, if you can. One of the things that would help us do that is if we got off the field on third downs, which we were doing for the first 10 games. We did really well and that helped limit the number of plays that we were in the game. Now, we didn’t play a lot of plays in the Eagles game, but we could have played a lot less if we would’ve done a better job on third down. It’s always a concern on any player that has been around for a while. But, hey, we’ve got to play with the guys that we have and they know that and they’re ready to do that.

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