 Coach, do you all got a chance to look at Drake? How did he look? And then just what's the balance like of getting the rookies ready to play, the production, and the decision of how much to put on their plate as rookies? Yeah, that's a very good question because it's important. You're getting ready to go. Obviously week one matters right to us in the short term, but the way the season plays out, it's such a long season. Especially for the rookies. And at the end of the day, you can only dress 48. And sometimes you've got to make decisions based on, hey, here's what the game plan is, or here's what we're going to lean on the game plan. Do we put this player up because if somebody gets injured on the first play, are we going to be out of it? So there's a lot of strategy here. And you try to get that in perspective, certainly when you're dealing with rookies. You know, it's everything's going to be new for them. They played in the preseason, but we'll have to see who can handle what. And we have to understand there's a long-term vision at play as well. It may not have a lot of productivity. And week one doesn't mean by week five, they may be up and really helping us. Drew Dahlman named the starter. What did you see from him in the last weeks of the preseason to really separate himself? Well, it was a tough competition. And I've said it many times, you've got to be objective, and you try to be as fair as you can be. So you go back over the weekend, and you look at the whole training camp, whole training camp and preseason, and it was tough. And that's because you've got two really good young players. It's not an easy decision, but ultimately you get paid to make decisions. And so that decision that I had to make doesn't mean that, all of a sudden, you're appointing them to a lifetime job there. But they had a good competition, and just felt, we're out right now, that we'll go with Drew. When it comes to facing the Saints defense on Sunday, I believe they were ranked first in opponent touchdown percentage in the red zone last year. What made them so good at that point in the field when you faced them? I think they do a really good job of, you know, they've got some really good veteran players that they know when to turn it on in critical situations. And I think they've got a clear identity. Dennis, obviously, being the head coach, he's still the play caller, and they've established a really good culture down there. They play aggressive. They roll guys up front. But they got the veterans, and I think when they get down there in the field, Titans like that, they know exactly who they are. They've played together a long time. And usually in those critical situations, that's why some of those guys get paid the way they do. They've stepped up. Arthur, you guys are practicing in the stadium. Dave, why did you make that decision? Just to make your community easier. I appreciate that. Thank you. But in all seriousness, just, and this is a blessing when you get to work to a place like Atlanta Falcons, and for Arthur Blank and Rich McKay, it allows you to come down here. And a big thing for me is being part of this city. And ultimately, just from a practical sense, is we get to train in the environment we're going to play in on Sunday. And that's important to us, is to be really good at home. In my buy spending, we've got the best stadium in all of sports, and we need to make this our home. We need to win at home. There's always ways you look back and look at it, make an argument for or against. But if we could have found a way to win two more home games, it's a great chance we would have kept playing. But we didn't. And that's the reality. And we got to be better at home. Was some of it too that you didn't have the two preseason games at home? So this is an extra, an added? No, it's not really what my thought was. I mean, it's another way to look at it. But just want to get familiar with the building. And it's a, like I said, there's nothing like opening day in the NFL. And we get an opportunity to come down here and practice. Like I said, they're lucky because a lot of organizations, they don't allow you to do things like that or cut costs. But we're able to put the team, get on buses, come down here and train in the place we'll play on Sunday. And kind of falling a little bit on what Tori asked, like Dennis Allen, in his first time being a head coach. Well, he was a head coach before. Well, first time in New Orleans. It's been a while since he was in New Oakland. It's a good recovery. That's right. Do you anticipate any change because he had been there for so long and because Pete had been there for so long also? Well, Dennis is his own guy. So obviously, Sean Payton is a big presence and a great football coach. And they've established something really good. But a lot of times, you transition. Dennis is his own guy. He's a hell of a football coach. He's certainly established identity on defense. But I'm sure, and I don't want to speak for him, but he's doing things his own way. And Pete Carmichael is a really bright football coach. And he'll have his own stamp on it the way he calls it. It happens all the time when you're in transitions. And we know we got a ton of respect for this staff, what they're about. And we expect an intense rivalry in this next chapter to be just as intense or not more. And that's a mutual respect. What's the expectation for Drake on Sunday? Is he like, he have full go right now in practice? We're just going to have to keep seeing. And he practiced Monday. We'll see what it looks like the rest of the week. And then we've got to make a decision on Saturday. If he's playing, if he's not, how much you want to put on his plate? So we won't know until the end of the week. And also, how do you educate the rookies on what to expect in this first game, just to prepare them mentally, especially when you're going up against the Saints? Yeah, you try to use different ways to get the point across. Go back in history of week one. And we talked about it last year. And you see it happen all over the league. It's a lot of times week one. It's kind of messy football right there. We'd like to be the point where we don't have the self-inflicted wounds. You know, guys are going to be nervous whether they play in the preseason or not. The adrenaline will be flowing. And a lot of times, you can tell them. They can talk to the veterans. But the other day, they got to experience it for themselves. You've been very deliberate with CP's preparation plan. Is he where you hoped he would be right now? And will you continue to manage him as carefully throughout regular season? Or do you just have to see how it goes? No, no good question. Yeah, we're very happy where he's at. Obviously, you've got to be willing to adapt, feel good about the plan. But we'll always be flexible and just see how it goes. Certainly, he's an important part of this team and what we're trying to accomplish. Same offense, Arthur. You didn't see G. Amos last year. How much does G. Amos change the dynamic, what you're going to see from the Saints? Yeah, I mean, different quarterbacks, right? They had to play a lot of different guys. We saw Trevor and Taysom with James, going against them when he's in Tampa. He's got a live arm. And I got a lot of respect for him. He's going to keep swinging how it goes. And they've got good talent around them. So he's got a heck of a arm. He's got good experience in this league. And if we can't affect him early, he can make it hell for us. What can you do now in practice to kind of prevent a slow start with week one, especially with guys like C.P. who haven't played yet in the preseason? He did play in the preseason. Well, not a lot. Yeah, I'll just make sure we got that out there. No, we feel good about him. That's stuff we monitor in those practices. He did play a little bit. I understand what you're saying in all seriousness. No different than Grady. Grady got a handful of snaps. We assessed where he's at. Felt like he was ready to go. Same thing with C.P. So this isn't his first rodeo. We feel like he's in good shape. Love the way he's been practicing and been working. One more if I could. You talked about the Saints knowing who they are. Where do you guys feel like you guys are in your journey of figuring out who the Falcons are this season? Yeah, absolutely. Like I said the other day, it's a completely different team we're taking in. And it happens a lot just the way that he's set up. And it's so much more transactional now than it was in the 80s. Pre-free agency and some of the different solid cap restrictions or I think today in society people are way more transactional than they used to be. So you're always going to have a little bit different team. They've got some veterans that have been there. They've added some other veterans. Jarvis Landry, Matthew, guys that I have a ton of respect for that will add something to their team as well. So with us, we feel pretty good at this point. We feel like we're ready to go. Certainly not going to ask guys this is something that we've been trying for already. So like we're excited as hell that we get to open up here with the Saints. Yeah coach, just a couple here. How do the new weapons fit in, you know, London, Edwards and Damian Williams in the great sphere of things offensively? You know, we got a lot of different weapons. So that's our job. New, new, new. New? Yeah. No, sometimes I look at guys too that take a jump, maybe a little bit improved. So hopefully you get a better version of Kyle, CP, laminates of kids. So feel good about where they're at. I'm not going to get into the schemes here. We'll let Dennis and those guys try to figure it out on Sunday. And do you have any theories on why we're seeing quarterbacks get second chances? Not just here. A lot of, a lot around the league here this season. I don't know if there are people who are worse than them out, but a lot of guys are getting a second off around the league this year. I just think it's the way the league is. I mean, I think that's why those guys get paid the amount of money they do. It's so hard to find guys that can play quarterback in the NFL. And guys, different reasons sometimes to change the scenery. Guys learn. We've seen that over and over. And that's nothing new. Guys have gone different places even back in the day and gone to a new environment and taken off. I think now what you're seeing, again, it's a hard position to play. It's so different than even what they're asked to do in college. And sometimes if they're not in the right environment, climate, guys can have some early failure, but they're so good players and, you know, you want to give them another opportunity. And they kind of what I said at the beginning, it's amazing in this country, right? Over 300 million plus people, 32 quarterbacks in the NFL, it's hard to find. So it's probably why the market dictates what some of those top guys get paid. And I just had an extra one come to my mind. Camara had the big game last time. How big of an issue was he? And then Cam Jordan's had big games throughout in the series. Yeah, really good football players. Camara, you know, he can make you pay if he gets going and he's a problem, not only running, but use them in the passing game and he can make them make them go. And then Cam Jordan, I was kind of hoping he was going to go ahead and join you guys in the media. Maybe he needs to get a new talent agent. I probably could have helped him get more money where he doesn't have to, you know, because honestly, in all seriousness, I see a guy, he predict he'll be on the network shows one of these days and maybe Cam, if you're listening, I could have gotten you more money and you wouldn't have to take on double teams and cuts and chips that may be thrown at you on Sunday. So, but I'm ready for him to start to join you guys. Are there, going back to kind of the preseason, when you look back at it now, how did you balance making sure Marcus got enough reps so he would be ready now versus getting Desmond enough reps so that way you had at least a sign of what he needed? Yeah, he needed to play. So, you know, who you wanted him out there with, seeing what it looked like, felt he had a preseason, but the same thing until he got out there and play. And then the same, where he's at, what he needed to prove and assess where he's ready. And then developing the young guys. I think that's the hardest thing to do right now is develop young offense alignment and quarterbacks from an offense standpoint. The only, the best training is to play in the preseason. So you're trying to balance him getting ready, making sure that he's can do the job and he's up to par there. And then the same time, trying to develop some young guys. So it's a fine balance. How much, was he part of that conversation and how was it? Talked to him about it. Yeah. I don't run a dictatorship. We have our thoughts as a staff and we go to the players and I listen and we got to assess and make the best decision for his team. But I certainly, I'll talk to all our players. I never have a problem. Maybe it's my Jesuit education and ask him why. It doesn't ever bother me. The guys ask me why we're doing something. Coach, you were talking about Jamies earlier. For you guys, since you have a new quarterback, week one, obviously one that is very different than this team has had for a long time. What kind of an advantage will that give you against the Saints? I don't know much of an advantage. I mean, we got to, at the end of the day, it's still going to be about, can we, in offense, I mean, can we block, move the ball, fundamentally get open and score in the red zone and vice versa on defense? Can we cover it? Can we tackle? And the same in the kicking game. So that's what I'll really come down to. They got good players. It's opening day. Like I said, we're excited. We feel good about where they're at. I'm sure they feel great about where they're at too. So hopefully it's a big time environment in here. Sunday at one o'clock. You mentioned quarterbacks dealing with maybe early failure in their career, but how much do you talk to your guys about dealing with failure on a micro level just in terms of, why is that such a big thing? Because I think that's the only way you really truly improve. If you step in this and you're afraid to fail as a coach, you're just trying to survive. You'll be a dime a dozen. You make some good money. You may get changed logos five or six times. Great, but my best learning experience has been failure and you're going to put yourself out here as a player and as a coach. And sometimes it is painful, but you know what you signed up for and I've learned more lessons from failure and you know historically. And I'll go look at, I thought it was pretty good that Derek Jeter documentary talks about him early in his career. And you talk about pressure. Got to be an early pick playing in that market and that organization. And I think it's good for all of us if you have the right mindset to know how to handle failure. Is that a difficult or challenging message for you to get across to players who are sort of at an elite level in their sport? No, it's not at all. Because they need a great one. I know there's a lot of famous quotes and things like that, but you go, whether you're talking about Michael Jordan, all the great players and a lot of sports, usually they've had to overcome some kind of obstacle or failure. Probably helped them drive and understand and improve. I mean the worst kind of guys are the ones that are afraid to make a mistake and they're worried about so hard about criticism or what somebody's saying about them online. You're basically done, but that's your mindset. And left turn, complete left turn. The change in the preseason, it feels like you've played guys more. You're coming down here this week is, how much of that, if any, is a reflection of the way of week one last year against the Eagles? It's not just week one, I think you go back and assess the whole thing, right? So, and this is a different team and you gotta make decisions that you think is best for your team to get them ready to play, not only week one, but 17, hopefully more than that, games. You know, I'm a hypocrite, if I don't look at myself first and say, hey, what can we do better? And there's gotta be a sound reason why, because you can make a great argument for or against really any decision you make. So you go back and you take the off season and that's what they pay me to do. I gotta make decisions what I think. We use the whole staff and people are involved but ultimately in the day, I've gotta make the decision. So you go back and you look at it. We felt with this team, where we're at, youth, lessons learned from last year, to my learn from certain failures, okay, what can we do better? Go back and look at the way other people have done it, historically, and where we're at and that may change next year. But we felt this was the best for us and we'll see where it goes. I wanna go back to something you were talking about with seeing growth in Kyle Pitts and I know it's something you've talked about in terms of seeing growth in his blocking and I know everybody's gonna wanna talk about how many catches he's gonna have but how did you see him take ownership of that part of his game this off season? Well, he's got the right mindset. I've said it before, he's forgetting he's only 21. But a lot of times the guys would come in the lead with that amount of hype and potential, it can be overwhelming for him but he's continued to get better. He's got the right mindset. In a day with all these guys there's really two ways, right? There's people that care about stats and you can make a subjective argument in the 32 team league what matters, what really matters is winning and I think at the end of the day it's the hardest urge to fight is to not be selfish as a coaching player. Stats, money, because in the day if you win as a team, usually people get rewarded. So yeah, coach guys, you had a poor year and they caught 95 footballs. Great, you won three games. Congratulations, maybe it makes you money. You come back the next year and you're able to change it to a winning culture and you win more, maybe your production goes down but you've affected winning more and you played in more games. And then when you're playing in games that don't matter in late December and January usually works out really well for coaches and players. So that's what we try to focus on. It's the same human urge you have all the time is to not be selfish and we all fight that but when you're trying to team you don't care about stats, you're trying to find ways to win and ultimately if everybody can buy in you'll have a lot of success in the long run. This might be like a very philosophical question. Sure, I'm on a philosophical rant, let's go. I feel like it, so you talked about failure so when's a very notable time in your life that you failed and what did you learn from it? I mean a lot, I mean even in my coaching career. Things that maybe I thought was a quality control that I had an arrogant belief that oh if I get my chance I'll do it this way and get your chance and you try something and then you say oh I gotta see what some of these old coaches were telling me. Whether you have a game where you score 40 plus points or you score zero, don't buy, don't buy the lie either way because to me if you can go back and assess how can I improve, I can get better that's how you'll win in the long run. So that's kinda how I've looked at it. And I was just curious real quick do you ever plan maybe this during the season to like come and have a practice here or is it just first game of the season like gonna do it? So it goes, I mean we don't have it on the counter right now. The opportunity came about, played two games in here this weekend, told Grady and AJ they were better honorary captains than Marcus was but there's two games played there United's got a game on Saturday so the opportunity came up and you know that's the thing you've got essentially two weeks to get ready for week one opportunity came up and talked to Rich about it and we were able to pull it off. Thanks to a lot of people the stadium coming up at Flowery. Not to harp on the whole failure conversation but I'm just curious if you've seen guys take those kinds of lessons from last year maybe some tough situations that they've internalized and kind of propel them forward into this year this week one. Yeah I would hope that they did we'll find out Sunday at one and yeah I mean I've seen it in practice and you've seen it day after day and that's the challenge you know not just the first day at camp or you know it's the third week or coming out so you're very hopeful based on what you've seen. Thank you.