Q: Is this one of those games that you've had circled on your calendar since you're playing your former team?
Coach Olson: No, I haven't at all. I enjoyed my time in Jacksonville. I have a lot of good memories. It was a frustrating season last year. It was a one-year stint, but I enjoyed the players and the organization.
Q: Has coach [Jason] Tarver tried to pick your brain at all?
Coach Olson: No, I mean we've talked about it in staff meetings just in terms of looking at their personnel. I think our personnel people do a great job. Really, their evaluations of that team were right on.
Q: Have they changed a lot schematically since you were there?
Coach Olson: Yes they have. Certainly defensively — they're running the scheme that Gus Bradley ran in Seattle. It's a completely different defensive scheme than what [former Jaguars defensive coordinator] Mel Tucker ran.
Q: Marcel Reece said that you called a near perfect game, but that's one guys take. How would you evaluate yourself last week?
Coach Olson:I think obviously we lost the football game. We're 0-1 right now. We're far from perfect right now as a football team. We've got a long way to go. We've got a very young football team. We've taken some steps forward, but this team has a long way to go offensively.
Q: NFL teams are big on repetition, precision and doing things on time. How much of an internal struggle is it to allow a guy like [Terrelle] Pryor to create?
Coach Olson:I just think that it's a different mindset for everybody and every position — wide receiver certainly, offensive lineman certainly. Where's he going to be? He's not a pocket drop-back passer. That's not his game and we certainly don't want that to become his game right now. With as athletic as he is, we embellish and appreciate that part of Terrelle Pryor. Everyone's on their toes. When he does create it creates excitement when he makes some of those plays. I think the players feed off of it as much as the fans do.
Q: At the same time, there are some of those plays — the slants and things like that — where he throws pretty well.
Coach Olson: Yes, there are timing things where the ball should be getting out and he does get it out. He does do a good job, and he'll continue to improve. He works at it. As we said last week, he's a player that will work at it. We're just looking for continued improvement. Get a little bit better every day.
Q: Does his success last Sunday running the ball open up things now for you passing-wise?
Coach Olson:Again, it's one game. I hate to make any type of an evaluation after one football game. If we can continue to build upon the start, continue to add, continue to create and be creative in what we're doing, then we'll at least give ourselves a chance to win a football game. That's what we're looking for right now, and that's what we're asking from our players. Just try to build every day and get a little bit better. We've all sat out here and watched these practices and said, 'We've got to get better.' We certainly haven't arrived. We've had our fair share of injuries thus far, and everyone's got to be on the same mindset if trying to get better every day.
Q: Are there certain tricks of the trade to speeding up the process when you call in a play, he looks at it on the wrist, spits it out in the huddle … Are there things you can do to make him speed that up, or is it just a repetition thing?
Coach Olson:Certainly we can shorten the play calls. We've done some of that — code words for plays. We'll put a little more of the responsibility on the other players in terms of instead of him telling them what to do it'll be more memorization for the other players. We'll continue to work on that part of the game as well.
Q: Were a lot of [Terrelle Pryor]'s problems with getting the plays in exclusive to plays where he'd just run the ball?
Coach Olson:No, not all of them, to be honest with you. It wasn't something that was a problem during the preseason. Again it was the first time, live game on the road. It was his first time really for us, starting in this system. As well as he executed in practice, there were a few glitches in the game, so we're trying to get those cleaned up this week.
Q: When you're coaching a young quarterback like Terrelle [Pryor], what do you have to do to strike that balance between him taking the smart risk and being conservative?
Coach Olson:Well it is hard. You certainly don't want to preach caution into the player. You want him to be smart. We always talk about, and I think most coaching staffs do, want to look at the number of hits — number of unnecessary hits — that the quarterback took at the end of a season. You're trying to eliminate the unnecessary hits. We preach that. We want you to be the athlete that you are, be the runner that you are. You're a big strong runner, and there are times on third downs when we may ask you … There may be a collision in order to get the first down. On some of the other runs, maybe you've gotten the first down for us. Now as you get close to the contact area we want you to think slide and take some of those hits off of you. Now the competitive side of him and the competitive side of everyone, if it's a one on one matchup down the field on a run, try and make the guy miss and score. If you're getting hemmed in by numerous defenders, that's when you've got to play smarter and get down.
