 players, spread the message to our fans. So it's always good to see you guys here in person. We got to get along because this is that big stretch. We're going every day for a couple of weeks. So we're going to have to all play nice and get along and respect each other. And I know we will. I want to thank Ms. Amy and her family for providing us the resources. As you guys can see, we still have some new construction going on. But the coaches offices and the meeting rooms, the player meeting rooms, the squad room is finished. It's fantastic. It's going to allow us to teach and coach our players. The cafeteria was done a couple of years ago. So again, just want to thank her and her family for continuing to provide us the resources for us to do our job. Excited, excited to be here with the players. We had a couple guys, 30 guys in Saturday. And the rest of the 60 were in today. Ran ready to move forward to get going tomorrow morning. And I think that there's we'll get the other guys back tonight. We'll have a big meeting tonight. And we'll be ready to roll. So with that, I do notice that we're missing Teresa. I'm not sure where she's at. I did get a memo. She might have been in Tokyo. Hi, Teresa. Thank you, Teresa. And there's a lot there. And there's going to be a lot there with the vaccine. When I get that, I recognize that. Hopefully we can get a lot of that covered here today. So that moving forward, we can talk about football. We can talk about our team. And we can talk about our players. The first thing is, is that obviously this is something that's very sensitive to everybody. It's also very important, everybody in the league. It's important to the fans, the players, the NFL, the NFL Players Association. It's important for all of us to make sure that we're well aware of what the protocols are for vaccinated and unvaccinated players and that we follow those without reservation. That whatever that may be, the mask wearing, we're all wearing the tracing devices, the social distancing, the responsibility that each and every one of us has to this game, to this league, and most importantly to the team. I'm comfortable with where we're at. We continue to add players as recently as yesterday to the vaccination list. And guys are continuing to do research, to educate themselves, to make a personal decision that we've said it was all along. It's a personal decision and hopefully one that they can come to that will help them and that will help this team. So the percentages are very comfortable with where they are. And I think they've continued to go up and I would expect them to go up. As far as identifying those players that haven't been vaccinated, that will be done within our building so that we can continue to remind them of the protocols that they have to do and make sure that they are following those protocols. There won't be any different protocols once you're on the practice field. So I wouldn't see any reason to try to differentiate those players on the field. It's being done so that inside the building, we can remind those players that aren't of, hey, this is where you have to sit. This is what you have to do. And so that was the reason for that differentiation. Do you have a sense that what you went through early last season with the mini breakout, whatever, and all the rescheduling that that was a motivating factor and maybe guys wanting to get vaccinated? I don't think so. I think that was so far, so long ago. I just, I mean, I think that players wanted to continue to educate themselves to feel comfortable with a personal decision. And I'm not sure what their own motivating factors were. Us as a staff, we didn't have many choices. Once you guys reach 85 or if you've already reached that, I don't know where everybody's getting that number. There's no difference and if you're at 85%, the protocol doesn't change. If you're at 50%, there's, but there's not, that's not. I mean, unless you're getting a different memo, there's protocols for players and everybody that's fully vaccinated and there's protocols for those that aren't vaccinated or that haven't become fully vaccinated. That's the only thing that really, that we're tracking right now is what those two protocols are. Any sense from anyone that they may set something though? That something? I don't know, I don't know. And I don't know where that ever came from because I don't know what would change, right? If you're not vaccinated, my guess is that you're gonna ask you to wear a mask in the building through the entire season. I don't think that would change. So we're not focused on what that is. We're just focused on making sure that we continue to educate our players to let them make the best decision for them. And hopefully this football team and then make sure that if they are, which they will be in one of those two categories that they're following the protocols exactly the way that they've been laid out by the Players Association and the NFL. And the new forfeit rules though, the new, that the league said last week, does that kind of worry you or maybe change your tone, you take to the players on the decisions? No, I think those are things that we would deal with if it would ever came up and the expanded practice squad and the roster and we're just gonna try to prepare and educate them. And that's the most important thing that we can do is prepare right now with the guys that we have that are available to us and then follow the protocols as things come up. If we move forward to football, I know in the past, good degree has been a message. What particular message are you looking to establish with the guys to start camp? Well, I think that we always wanna raise expectations. We wanna try to find a way to make a positive daily impact on this football team. We wanna show up with a great attitude. But I think when you look at training camp, from all the training camps that I've been associated with going back to 1993 or even in high school, that you have to build a certain foundation. Now, you have to build a foundation that is gonna stand up over time. It's gonna stand up over the stress of a football season. That's gonna happen, whether it's with injury, with loss, with family, with COVID, with positive tests. I mean, there's gonna be stress, right? There's a lot of stress in what we do and that foundation begins now and it gets built now. Hopefully with the foundation of effort and finish, technique, fundamentals, accountability, building trust, those are all things that we believe in. Anything differently with just three preseason games and a 17 game regular season? I mean, I think the way that we approach camp is that we have a schedule that we're working off of and then always willing to adjust and adapt based on health of the football team, what we need at a particular moment, what situations we may need to go back and revisit. So I think the one thing that we've always been willing to do is to adjust a schedule. We've got padded practices scheduled and there may be days where we're not or that there's days where we don't have pads on that we may have to be in pads. So I think that's something that we've always been real comfortable doing is adjusting the schedule based on what we feel like we need. Mike, one more question about the COVID. You were talking about the players. Have all the coaches and staff been vaccinated? All our coaches that will be working with the players have been fully vaccinated, yeah. What the number of changes, Mike, defensively for you guys, as you look at the personnel group overall, are there certain traits that you hope to see in this group or that maybe some of the new personnel might bring? Well, I mean, I think you're always looking for players that are impactful, that are willing to be playmakers within your scheme. You know, I think that you have to play within a scheme and you have to do your job. But at some point in time, there's a football and your job's to go get it or knock it away from somebody or tackle the guy with the ball. And so the more that we can have guys that impact football game, that are ability to make plays, what would always be welcome. John Simon, I guess the lightest position for this team, you can go back with him. What do you like about him? What do you hope to see from him and Ken? Well, we expect, you know, out of John is what we expect everybody else is be available to come out there and work, learn. You know, coach John in college, had an opportunity to coach him in Houston and we made a decision to bring him in here. And I'm sure he'll compete at that outside linebacker and special teams, just like the rest of those guys in that group. Several college coaches, Nick Simon, have said that the lack of practice last year, spring practice hurt the development of defensive players given that they weren't able to react on the field. What was it in front of them? Do you feel like that was the case in the NFL given the COVID restrictions and how it changed practically in the last season that made it more difficult for defense than offense? Nick knows a lot more about defense than I do, so I'm gonna defer to him. You know, I just think that anytime that you don't have those reps and you're used to having them, that's, we were excited to be able to work with the guys that were here, either, you know, for the entire off season or the ones that came in at some capacity, you know, throughout it. That's all I could say. I can't really tell you, you know, why or what happened because we didn't have it last year. I just can tell you that, you know, I saw some guys make some significant progress, guys that were here. They Anthony Firks are here, Tart, Christian, Fulton, you know, those guys that just, that were here working out, you know, and I see them now and I mean, they look, they look different. They don't look like the guys that we coached last year. Different is your feel for these guys right now compared to a year ago at this point and how does this compare to like a regular year right now? Yeah, I mean, I think there's always that purgatory, right, that time after many camp before training camp and so everybody talks about what's the most important time of the year and to me, that's the most important time because whether they're working out with somewhere in May or June or they're working out with you in May or June, they leave and they go away and they go different places and it's the players that can go and be self-motivated and be determined to come back better in end of July than they were for off-season workouts, better than they left it. So we'll see. I mean, you don't really, you don't have much contact with them other than a text like, hey, how's it going? Just checking in on you, we do that throughout the summer but to see them physically, I can just go by the conditioning touch which was excellent and then, you know, where we're gonna start at tomorrow. As a coach over the last three years, entering year four. I think having been at college and then you go to Houston, you try to find what your coaching style is and you don't ever wanna change or waver but I just think that there's so much more involved with me investing time in the individual and the person as well as coaching them and I don't know if that was necessarily the case when I played but I don't, you know, I take that and I'm very honored to be able to build that trust and know what are the good things that are going on in a player's life and what are some of the things that maybe aren't so good and that we have to work on because we all have it. We all have things that we have to deal with and so I think I've probably put a lot more time into that than I thought I would have and that's okay because I've enjoyed that just as much as coaching a guy on the field as I have trying to get to know him and help him through his growth as a man, as a brother, a husband, and as a father. What side in Kaiser have had little to no game action the last couple years? How important are the pre-season games and do you have a sense of how much you want each of them, how much work you want each of them to do? I would imagine they, you know, I don't really go in there with a plan but I would imagine they're gonna play a lot and they're gonna play a lot with different people. I think that's the thing when you're evaluating quarterbacks is that they both have an opportunity to play in front of some, or play with some players that you anticipate being on your roster and then sometimes you evaluate them with guys that may not be and how do they motivate those guys? How do they inspire those guys? How do they function when they're not playing with a first string receiver or a first string offensive line? Thank you a lot further ahead of where you were this time last year because of the off-season work that you had. I think we're right where we were every year. You know, we're right back to needing to do a lot of work and build that foundation that we talked about. You know, to say, hey, we go back every year and we're gonna go back to our installation and go back to our fundamentals and coach all that stuff that we feel like is important. When you had those kind of set the expectation conversations for Julio Jones, was leadership something that you guys talked about? The reason why I asked is because it seemed like he hit the ground immediately running, how helping the guys, you know, the younger receiver? Well, you know, one thing I told him was that I'm gonna hold the best players the most accountable and hopefully that they can then in turn do that to the rest of the team. You know, I've always said that that's something that we believe in. That's how I was coached and that's what I know. So I just wanted to make sure that he understood that which he did and you know, that's something that he was very comfortable with and we were able to have a conversation. So all our conversations and that everything that he's, you know, done since he's been a member of our team has been positive. Jeff talked about wanting to kind of show that they're a lot better than perhaps they were last year. You brought Chris and Fulton and the improvement you've seen in him. Kind of how much with the addition of some guys in there and you know these core players can coach them now for in some cases three years going on for? How much do you believe in this defense? We know how much you believe in Shane because you stuck with him. How much do you believe in this defense? A lot, you know, I mean a lot. I can't wait to watch these guys play, practice, perform. You know, because we go back and our job is obviously with coaches especially you're looking at the negatives. You can remember every time you called something and they hit you on it or something bad happened but you know, when you go back and you watch there's a lot of great snaps. There's a lot of great defense but we have to be better. We have to be better on third down. We have to go and force the quarterback and make him be uncomfortable. We have to cover guys at the sticks and all those things that we teach because again, that's where the problems occurred. I don't think that it was like just miserable. You know, there's a lot of good snaps in there and then unfortunately when you play bad third down defense you're just giving them more opportunities and you know, we know with more opportunities comes more production. So, you know, that's something that we hit hard in the off season. You know, we were teaching it and practicing it. So hopefully that will start to show up and then we'll be, you know, we'll be obviously practicing it out here. Given both of your kickers, they haven't kicked an actual field goal in a game. What went into the decision not to bring Gostowski back and kind of stick with those guys as a competition? Well, we'll work with those guys right now and see where it goes. You know, we're comfortable and positive that those guys are going to go out, compete. Give Tucker an opportunity. You know, he wasn't available to us last year. He was really impressive as we worked our way through training camp and then got injured. And so, you know, I think it's... And so does John, obviously the right thing to do to let those guys compete. And then if, like any other position, if we have to bring guys in, we can do that. Does Gostowski have potential options on the road? Until he retires, I would imagine that anybody would be a potential, you know, but I don't know. I think he lives down the street, but I'm not sure. I don't know. Two guys, Kevin Johnson and Avery Jones, retire weeks after they sign. How surprising is that when a guy makes that decision and how much of a wrench did it throw into sort of your plans? No wrench. I mean, I think that every player, you know, me included, you get to a point and you get to a time where it's, you know, your heart or your mind or your body just isn't in it. And it's hard to fake that every single day in training camp. The grind gets you. The grind gets every one of us. And I told those guys congratulations. I was proud of them that they came to the decision that they did. You know, and hopefully they can find something quickly that continues to motivate them and makes them want to be successful. I think we'll continue to be patient with, I guess, Caleb and Bud. Do you feel like those guys made progress from the last time you saw them? And then what's the process like? Well, they're on PUP. So they work out, they go to meetings, they rehab, and they just can't be involved in practice or the walkthrough. And those guys are working hard to get better. And the same thing I tell our team that everybody here has a plan. For most everybody at plan's the same, but then for others it's a little different. But at the end of the day, everybody's working hard to improve or get better and help the team. I think that's what we've got, Dylan. Has it been your experience that smaller school guys, even very talented ones, take a little bit more to transition to the NFL level or does it just matter to them? Yeah, man, I don't know that the size of the school is necessarily matters. I mean, I'm sure there's been good players from small schools, just as there's been, probably the numbers, there would be the only thing that's different. Dylan's working hard. He's learning. He's been here the last couple of days. It's been good to be here with Taylor and Roger. Couple guys that came in here early and we're really ready to go. Really, really excited about their, the way they showed up here with great leadership, great attitude, great effort, great conditioning. Thank them for that. Those guys were off today. So hopefully they can all come back and those 30 guys could be ready to get going tomorrow with this new group of 60. Mike, how are you gonna approach Taylor? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of guys that are gonna be off and on and do things. And that's all part of what I tried to talk about with Jim's question was just the ability to adjust and adapt and look and see what guys need. Some guys may need more individual time and less team reps. Some guys may need more team reps based on age, based on how they feel, based on what they're coming back from. So to sit there and say this is exactly what it's gonna be, I couldn't tell you that, but yeah, he's not gonna take every single he's not gonna be in every single period from tomorrow until the end of training camp. I think we all know that. We have coaches for that. I mean, we pay Taylor to block his guy. And, but in all seriousness, you learn a lot from guys and we really are happy with their coaching staff. But then a lot of times, you know, when you hear it from a veteran player that's been in that position or say, hey, maybe try this, you know, that can always help. Ash, got anything, Ash? Bring it. How good does it feel to be back? It feels amazing, Ash. It feels good to look back there and see you back there. I think our team's ready to go. We'll work with you, hopefully with the in-person interviews. I know Robbie, you know, has had a plan. You know, but let's just be respectful, you know, of what we're doing and we'll try to make sure that we get the guys in front of you, you know, that you need, you know, hopefully each and every other, you know, each and every day. So thank you. Appreciate it.