Lewis, Dalton Press Conference Transcripts

MARVIN LEWIS Opening comments: ML: “The situation Adam Jones is in obviously is not something you want to get involved in. It's unfortunate that he's in this situation. That's really about all I can add to it. Obviously this has got to work its way out, whatever way it does. Many of you have probably seen the video of things, which I haven't, but I've had enough people tell me about it since last Tuesday, or whenever it happened. “The second thing that is a minor distraction is that Andre (Smith) won't be here these three days. He's really dealing with something he's got to get through. We would have hoped he would have been here and picked up on some of the things we felt like were good to work on at this point in the year. But he's got some personal things he's dealing with. Obviously, there's certain things that come with not being here these three days, so, that's unfortunate for him. Once we get through a week of training camp, then everything will be good. We have to focus in and coach with the guys we have here right now, and that's a good thing. “We've had a good three weeks of on-field work prior to this week. With the mandatory camp, over these three days, we are able to extend the day a little bit, which will provide for some more teaching time for the young players. That's what you are trying to do. You are trying to get them enough quality time to go and ask questions and be able to understand concepts. They are in there with the veterans, and you’re going a little faster. Instead of starting over again from scratch, like we have done in some cases, we are going to just kind of continue on with some of the installation points with the coordinators over these three days. “The rookies can continue to make up time, with the extra meeting time we have over these three days. I think it’s a real focus on the mental part of football, the pre-snap football. Making sure we don't have pre-snap errors – elimination of those, whether they are from not knowing what to do, mental errors, or snap-cadence errors on both sides of the football. Because we are still not able to do physical football. We've got these three days of practice and two more days of training camp before we can get to the physical part of football that is really going to be the telling tale of where we are. “We'll get a couple guys who haven't had much work thus far who will be able to work more over these three days. We'll still kind of hold and be cautious with some of the other guys. Right now, as we enter into training camp, we are in a pretty good spot physically. I feel good about that. We want to keep moving forward, keep guys off the ground and keep working the way we've worked thus far in this offseason.” Since there are things associated with a player missing mandatory minicamp: ML: “Not in this case. I didn’t mean to cut you off, but not in this case at all.” So it’s safe to say Andre Smith won’t be fined? ML: “Oh, you are subject to fine when you aren't here. You ...