00:00A little bit more Quinn from this morning.
00:04This was Quinn talking about Stephon Diggs and the roles in the wide receiver room for him.
00:11Hey, Dan.
00:12With Stephon here now, I know you guys have confidence in the rest of the receivers.
00:17Does it change anybody's role for how you want to see them potentially,
00:20how you might use them in the regular season?
00:23I think that's a fair question, Ben.
00:24It could.
00:26I think it's going to depend on what takes place over the next few weeks
00:30to see how roles begin to emerge.
00:33But, yeah, for a player of his caliber, things will shift and move around.
00:37That's, like, part of that.
00:39But also there's a good byproduct of things that he's adding.
00:43What can they do?
00:44You know, like adding another veteran receiver to your room, like they lean on Terry a lot.
00:49Now having the ability to, you know, go through things with Steph,
00:51like that's pretty valuable for Antonio and Luke and, you know, Jay in a lot of ways too.
00:56So there's definitely a tradeoff.
00:58But as the roles emerge, I think that that'll take, you know,
01:02the next few weeks to sort itself out.
01:06Yeah, it's going to take a few weeks to sort everything out at wide receiver.
01:10Better position that they're in than they were last year.
01:12It's still a bunch of who knows behind Diggs and McLaurin,
01:18although Van Jefferson's had some moments in the league for sure.
01:22Traylon Burks was a first-round pick.
01:24There's still some expectation from him.
01:26And they seem to be impressed with those two as much as anybody else.
01:32I think it's going to be a fascinating call for them if they don't think either their kickoff returner from
01:41last year,
01:42Luke McCaffrey, or Jalen Lane, their punt returner, both who were exceptional doing those things,
01:48if they don't think they can see the field as a wide receiver
01:51and they think somebody else that they'd be releasing to keep them as a returner could see the field as
01:58a receiver.
01:58Now, I think McCaffrey can see the field as a receiver.
02:01I'm questionable about Lane.
02:04And I'm even questioning whether or not Antonio Williams ends up being,
02:08at least in the early portion of the season, a guy that is even active and sees the field.
02:15I mean, who can take Lane's punt return position?
02:19I don't know that I'd risk it.
02:21He was really good last year doing that.
02:23Where did he finish in the league?
02:25I forget where he finished.
02:27He was up there, though.
02:28Among punt returners last year.
02:32Pretty sure punt returns, his average was up there.
02:39So among those that had, because there are a couple, you know, punt returners that had high averages
02:47but didn't have a lot of returns.
02:48Of the punt returners that had over 20 attempts on punt returns, he finished fifth in the league at 13
03:01.7 yards per return.
03:02He also had two touchdowns on returns.
03:07Remember that.
03:08Two punt return touchdowns for Jalen Lane last year as a returner.
03:16So I don't know that you give up a guy like that.
03:19He's explosive.
03:20He's decisive.
03:22I mean, you saw that.
03:23He's a one cut and boom.
03:27You've got to have some of those plays, man.
03:29If you're going to be a team that still we're unsure of defensively, it's got to be better than it
03:35was last year.
03:37Offensively, maybe, you know, a developmental process, maybe okay early, much better late.
03:46You've got to have – you've got to take the ball away defensively, which they haven't done in the two
03:51years here
03:51with Quinn and his defensive coordinator, Joe Witt, Jr.
03:55And Larry Izzo has got to continue to provide some big plays in returns.
04:01They've been excellent in kick coverage, excellent in punt coverage under Larry Izzo.
04:07And last year they were really good as a punt return team.
04:11Big decisions coming as far as receiver goes.
04:16This was Quinn talking more about Diggs.
04:21We've already seen Stephon Diggs, you know, share handshakes with his new teammates.
04:25We've seen him coach some of the younger guys up between plays.
04:28How have you seen him really start to ingratiate himself into this locker room and that wide receiver room?
04:32Sure, a number of ways.
04:33He's a good communicator, and he brings good energy to the group.
04:37He's approachable.
04:38He's like somebody that you want to spend time with and gravitate towards him.
04:43Like I saw him, you know, just as small as it sounds, like just having breakfast together with some of
04:48the guys,
04:48going through things.
04:49He's spending extra time with, you know, Bobby in the meeting room.
04:51And so some of the other guys are just sitting in that same meeting just to help.
04:55And so I thought that's also a cool thing to see that the Ami and Jay and others,
05:00while Bobby was going through the new calls, they're also echoing, that is like this.
05:04This can be like that.
05:06And so it's nice to see both sides of that where they're helping him get up to speed.
05:11And then there are some concepts that he knows inside out.
05:14So he might have called it something differently through the years, but he has insights to share with them.
05:19So I like the balance that I'm seeing so far.
05:23And then there was one more that we wanted to play.
05:27This is back to the Brandon Coleman situation.
05:31If you weren't sure about Brandon Coleman's definitive position as the starting left tackle,
05:39Quinn made it very clear today that he was.
05:41Adam Epstein, 910 The Fan, how long is a true evaluation period for Brandon Coleman at left tackle in your
05:47mind?
05:49Brandon's the starter at left tackle.
05:50And so he's got a lot of experience into that space.
05:53And he's, you know, put it to work in.
05:56We have, you know, lots of confidence in him.
06:00There you go.
06:01No evaluation period for Coleman.
06:04He's your starting left tackle.
06:06Real issue would be what if they started to lose players along the offensive line?
06:10I mean, what would happen if Coleman got hurt between now and the opener?
06:15Yeah, they've got, it's thin up front with the loss of Tunsil.
06:20There's no way to sugarcoat that loss.
06:24Again, the team is in next man up mode.
06:27That's not what we are.
06:28We're observers.
06:29And we discuss what the reality of it is for us,
06:34which is right now they've got a player that's capable because we've seen it before.
06:40But, man, that player was exceptional.
06:45Hopefully he's back.
06:47And there's still a chance.
06:48You know, I was reading yesterday after the show some of the doctor stuff out on the Internet,
06:53which can be dangerous.
06:55But that tricep, you know, four months is doable.
07:00Four months in being ready to play is doable, which would put him in early December,
07:06which, you know, the league gets started late this year.
07:09So there are more games in December and January later in the season because Labor Day is late.
07:15So the opening date of September 13th is about as late as you can get an opening Sunday.
07:20So we're talking about, you know, five games potentially if he were to get back four months
07:28and be available to play, that would be five games of the season.
07:33That's not a third of the season, but it is, you know, a big chunk of it,
07:39and it would be the most important games if they were able to navigate the season well without him.
07:44So I guess we don't close the door on a return.
07:48His rehab's got to go well, and there have been multiple discussions on the Internet
07:53that you can certainly be ready after four months with a tricep.
07:58We'll see how it goes.
08:00All right.
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