 How are you doing good? How are you Teresa doing well with no pre-season games? What's the challenge going to be getting your special teams ready, you know for the opener in three weeks? You know when you don't have those those times to maybe work through all the guys Do you add extra sessions? How do you try to what are you doing to help prepare them and find those guys? Yeah, you know one of the big things I think that we're we're doing to help out this situation because we're not getting them in pre-season games is we're trying to put them in as many competitive drills That we can find not not that we're adding stuff to practice, but Having it be more competitive and getting them in situations game-like type situations where they got to go down there and run You know play in space and things like that So we're trying to do as much stuff in practice to simulate the game for special teams as we can Craig good to see you. I know it's still early, but how would you say the kicking competition competition is going so far and It's another situation where how difficult it's gonna be where you're not gonna have games to judge them off of Yeah, I would say the kicking situation is been very competitive You know, they're being consistent Which has been great to see they're pushing each other and it's it's kind of fun to see those guys really talking to one another and helping each other out but You know as of right now, it's been neck and neck and these guys have been doing a great job competing against each other and it's been fun to watch You know, it is gonna be a little bit different because it is not a game-like situation But we're still trying to do things in practice to make it those game-like Situations where it could be a hurry up fuel go at the end of the half or at the end of the game or even just trying to put pressure on those guys Whether it's the guys over on the other side yelling whether it's us doing some different things We're trying to put as much pressure on those guys Because they won't get that in the preseason games Greg I'm gonna ask you how many guys typically do you think are sort of special teams stand up special teams? specialists on a roster and and does that change at all this year with the Bit more expanded roster on game day Yeah, you know, it's it's different for every team. That's that's the big thing. You know, you got to go through your roster and see You know the guys that you can play that are gonna help your team win and whether it's offense or defense or Maybe one or two extra special teams guys You know, we're gonna have guys on the active roster that are gonna help us win And if it happens to be a couple extra special teams guys, that's what we're gonna do But but I think that's a huge part, you know, if we get it to add some guys You know, obviously the one's gonna be an offensive lineman, but you know that extra spot Could be for a special teams player And you know, we I think we're doing a good job of telling those guys that yeah You got to play offense and defense, but there could be an extra spot on special teams if you can excel in there David Craig as good as Brett Kern was last year How nitpicky did you have to get in terms of identifying things for him to work on this off season? Yeah, it's tough but obviously we hold Brett to a very high standard here and You know, he's gonna be his own worst critic, you know I might point things out here and there just to nitpick, you know Because obviously he's done a real good job these past couple years and throughout his career But you know any little detail that we can help him out with as coaches, you know, he's all for it But you know, he's gonna make his own corrections He's gonna know when he mishits a ball and we're gonna talk about it You know, I mean he takes one step the wrong way or an inch here or there He's gonna know about it, you know, he's hard on himself, but It's good. So, yeah, we had to come up with a few things to try to nitpick on But he handles it and he takes coaching and goes out there and tries to improve every day Toronto Yeah, what's up coach for your returners part returners specifically How do you or what are some ideas that that you've come up with to be able to simulate those situations where you know Yeah, the gunners running down and they're trying to catch that that punt in the midst of those guys bearing down on how do you Rep that like what's what are some ideas that you've come up with? Yeah, you know, one of the things that I Think we did pretty well as far as you know What we've come up with is we want to try to put as much pressure on those guys that are catching punts And whether we got to get three or four guys around him when he goes and catches it You know, we'll do that and not like they're getting the total live look as a pump returner But if we can get guys that are in front of him all the time He's got to come up and make contested catches whether it's with the gunners or just a coach or the other Returners that are back there helping him out We want to try to do those different things to help him make those contested catches where he's just looking at the ball And he's not worried about what's going around him Luke Hey Craig when you're coaching your your pot returners, how do you handle? Helping them to find the balance between the need to advance the ball and help the offense So a lot of guys have talked about that you all like to get that Sort of the ten yard rule of getting first down versus field the ball cleanly Don't make a mistake and just making sure the offense gets the ball Yeah, I think that's the most important thing that we tell our returners is we've got a team possession of the football No matter what and if we can get ten yards, that's great But the most important thing is to give our offense the ball or get them a first down afterwards You know, we really harp on that with those guys We want them to come up and catch everything Cleanly and if they don't feel comfortable, you know We'll make a call to let those guys know that we can't come up and catch it But we want to make sure When it comes down to it, whether it's a fair catch or we catch the ball and run for ten yards that we maintain possession of the football Terry Craig with 16 practice squad spots now and Obviously the uncertainty of the code that could take somebody out at any time Have you guys had any discussions about maybe stashing an extra kicker on the practice squad just in case? you know, we've discussed many things and You know, I think you always got to look at different ways because of what's going on right now And you have no idea of what can happen at any point in time You know, and those are really things for you know, our general manager And Ryan Cowden to those those guys will talk about all that stuff You know and coach Vrabel they'll end up talking about what's best for our roster and how we're gonna do things But you know, I'm sure everything's being discussed and talked about just because of the unknown That can happen at any point in time So, you know, we'll always be looking and evaluating people to see what's going on David Craig back to the idea of Core special teams players how much easier is your job being with an organization that'll Bring in a de Zubner or Chris Milton in recent years Darren Bates and devote roster spots to those guys Yeah, you know, I feel blessed being a part of organization who you know, really put an emphasis on Special teams and when you get guys like Nick Chris Milton guys like that who have done a really good job in the past on special teams It's gonna make my job easier Of having those guys that really understand their role and they accept their role and they're gonna excel in it and then You know their leaders too because we'll talk to the young guys They'll talk to other guys that are gonna be involved in it And we're lucky enough too to have veteran players who are even starters who will play on special teams And once you get core special teams players and you get veterans to buy in that they might have some type of role during the game It just makes our job a lot easier with that But you know, I do feel lucky that we put a major emphasis on special teams and getting players to understand their role