“We played hard. That was good. Made a ton of mistakes. Execution errors. Alignment errors. Stance errors. Things right from fundamental one on, but when you play hard sometimes you can make up for that. We have a ton of corrections to make tonight. We made them on tape. Now we got to walk through them.”

Plan on running ball in red zone a lot?

“I think in anything you have to mix it up, but you like to be able to do that if you can.”

How do you decide the tailback battle between LeGarrette Blount and Doug Martin?

“No matter what the decision is, they’ve both shown already that they’re going to help us, that they’re both going to run the ball. So I think it’s going to be  a fluid situation until someone kind of distinguishes himself as deserving more touches and then that will kind of go into that lead and trail back deal, but I can’t tell you how it’s going to go right now, I don’t know.”

Could this go on into the season?

“Sure, until it happens, I’m not going to make it happen. If I feel it should go one way and the staff feels that way, I’ll do it. Otherwise, they’re two good backs and a lot of teams do that now in this day and age.”

Are you pleased with the defensive line and pressure able they were able to get on the quarterback?

“Early on I felt like we kind of moved the guy off the spot a little bit, which is the key. Later I don’t think we did as good a job. And I think that showed. They threw for a lot of yards. Some of that was coverage; some of it was lack of pressure. But overall I thought there were some good things. Some TFLs. I think we had seven TFLs, which is a good thing. So if we can get a little bit closer to him… and one of the things that’s tricky is you spend the entire beginning of training camp, stay away from the quarterback, stay away from the quarterback, and then you turn the switch on and say, go get the quarterback, sick ‘em. So we may have to work our way into that.”

How did the rookies look?

“Overall, yes. (pleased). There were some of them that their eyes got a little big. But that’s good. They have that one behind them now, and let’s see what they do the next three.”

Could Barron miss any regular season games?

“I think he’ll be able to go. But if it keeps dragging on, then it certainly becomes a concern because there’s something more wrong than initially thought. But I don’t think that will be the case. But again, until he starts going you can’t say that.”

What did you think of the tackling overall and how do you get better at it?

“You see the circuit we do every day, we work on tackling. Although it’s not live tackling, you’re practicing the fundamental parts of the live tackle. We just need to get better. We need to do it more. The more games we play, the better we should get. We just got done meeting with guys and pointing out, ‘this was an opportunity for this type of tackle and this is why we missed it.’ So when we practice this drill now, connect the dots. This is why we’re doing it. So hopefully, the improvement will come. We missed 12 tackles. I’ve had games where we missed 18 to 20 tackles and you also had games where you missed four tackles. So 12’s kinda, eh. Not good, not the worst.”

Do the penalties concern you at all?

“Like I said last night, the alignment errors on the d-line was just because they were way off the ball and our guys we lined up on the linemen. I kick myself. I should have warned them more than I did. The one, we already talked about (Preston Parker), not going to be a problem anymore. That I’m sure of; as long as we learn from them. We had six total. Six for 36 or whatever it was, guys would say, I’ll take that every day. But that’s not what we’re looking to do and I don’t know if they called it as tight as they will in the regular season.”

In general, do you see progress in putting pressure on the quarterback?

“I do. It's a double-edged sword because you're rushing against yourself .I watch our one-on-one pass rush and when we get to the quarterback I'm excited, but then I remember they just whipped our guy, and then when we get picked up...so it was good to see us against someone else. I thought we did a couple of things that if we had just rushed a little carter, we probably would have had a couple of sacks.

It's a combination...the famous 'It's a coverage sack.' Well, I haven't met one yet that's solely coverage or solely pressure. If a guy's wide-open, they're going to get to him before you get hit. So I think it all works hand-in-hand and we need to be a little better and a little smarter on both ends, and I think we'll get some more pressure.”

Thoughts on Demar Dotson last night and how did he grade out?

“I thought he did a solid job. I'm sure he will use this experience as a reaching out or stepping out point; I hope that's what he'll do with it. There are certain things that fundamentally he's got to feel better at. But it's a great story for having not played -- one year on the defensive line in college -- now he's starting at left tackle last night in an NFL football game. Good for him. And he's you root for. He works his tail off. He's got a great attitude, a great team guy. You love it when guys like that do well.”



-Victoria Horchak contributed to this report