OPENING STATEMENT:"We don't have any injuries or anything that we need to talk about. The guys are working hard, doing a nice job and it's good to see the young guys picking it up and going against good competition here. We're getting a lot done here schematically. This is a good opportunity where you get to work some new things into your schemes. There's a lot of benefits to Phase III. With that, the time is yours."
Q:What's going on with Dee Ford? Why hasn't he been here?
REID:"It's a voluntary camp. Let me tell you how I work on this whole thing about guys not being here. I can allow you out here one time. If I get pummeled on who's here and who's not here, we'll just do the one. We come out here, we give you every day that you can talk to these guys, so don't worry about all of that. It's a voluntary camp and that's how I'm going to answer it every time you ask."
Q:Over the past couple of weeks, what's the most encouraging thing you've seen out here?
REID:"The young guys are getting better. In this day and age of professional football, young guys have to play. You've got to get them incorporated in there and they've got to be a part of it. That's how this works with the salary cap and how that thing is situated. There has to be an urgency there with the way we set this up with the different phases, well the league sets it up, but I look at that as a plus with how they're going about their business."
Q:What's your favorite aspect that goes into teaching?
REID:"We're here as coaches to be teachers. That's what we're here to do. When I hire guys, that's what I'm looking for ‐‐ guys that can teach. They've got to do it well in whatever time period you have to get it done. I would tell you we try to keep it as precise and as accurate as we possibly can. And then you go from crawl, to walk, to run, between the walk‐throughs and the whole deal."
Q:Is Derrick Johnson still on track to be able to return for camp?
REID:"Yes."
Q:How would you compare his progress at this time to his previous Achilles injury?
REID:"I think when guys go through an injury twice, they kind of know how to handle it better the second time. They're not afraid to push themselves a little bit further. He isn't pushing himself like crazy ‐‐ I'm not saying that. But you kind of know that you're not going to break it. You push it to the limit. That's where he's at. It seems to me like he's ahead, but Rick Burkholder would have to tell you that."
Q:Where have you seen the growth in Terrance Mitchell since he got here?
REID:"It's a matter of him knowing what's going on. He's a talented athlete. It's a matter of knowing the scheme. We ask those guys to line up and play a lot of man‐to‐man coverage. It's a matter of getting used to that."
Q:What had you heard about Greg Lewis that you liked about him?
REID:"I coached him forever. There are certain guys you just kind of think when they're players that they would make a good coach. I'm not telling you he was the most talented guy we had, but he maximized his talent. He wanted to know everything about every position. He wanted to play, and did play every position from the wide receiver spot to stuff in the backfield. I just thought someday he would be a good coach and I hired him."
Q:What are the traits you like about Justin March‐Lillard's character?
REID:"He's a tough kid. He's not the biggest kid or the fastest kid, but he's tough. He's smart, he's always around here and he wants to be good."
Q:When guys have traits like that, how often can you relate that to their upbringing?
REID:"I'm not all that good with that stuff. But he's a good person. I know that. Whoever touched him, taught him the right way of doing things."
Q:Despite limited contact at OTAs, has Kareem Hunt done anything out here that has caught your eye?
REID:"You're probably right. You probably need to see him get banged around a bit and answer the bell again, and again, and again. I'll tell you I see the center of gravity and the way he moves, you guys see it out here. Those guys that can run and shift that big body around the way he does, you think he's going to be okay and he catches the ball well. He's a pretty smart kid when we're throwing a ton at him. That's a tough position ‐‐ that and tight end. You've got to know a load there. He does a good job with that."
Q:Is that part of it ‐‐ the passing game part of it? Is he maybe more advanced?
REID:"We've got to see about the protection. He's doing the right things today, we just can't go live."
Q:What can you look at beside physicality to evaluate Bennie Logan through OTA practices?
REID:"That's the one things these guys can do ‐‐ work those fundamentals. They've got to stay off the ground. You can work your hands in this. You get an idea of balance, base and all those things. He does a pretty nice job with that."
Q:What's the upside with Stanley Jean‐Baptiste?
REID:"We'll see. He's a big kid and he can run."
Q:With regards to pass protection, how much of it is a guy's desire to do it?
REID:"You've got to start there. Very few of them come out with the technique and fundamentals. The part that you're asking about with it being relentless, you have to do that. It's not going to be pretty the first couple times and you can't back up. You've got to keep coming and then work on your techniques. That drive is going to get you through to be good. If you get beat and you think, 'Eh … this isn't my deal,' you're probably not going to be very good."
Q:Have you seen it before?
REID:"I've been around a few guys before."
Q:In the span of two weeks, can you tangibly see a major difference in some of the young guys? REID:"Yeah. Especially from that first rookie minicamp. That thing was a mess at times. We're asking them to do a lot in a short period of time without any pre‐teaching going on. We hand it to them, boom they're out here and they go. You look at the young guys that we've kept around and there's some big jumps there."
