“For practice today. [WR] Mike Evans, Achilles, won’t practice. [CB] Renardo Green, back, won’t practice. [DB Deommodore Lenoir] DMo, foot, won’t practice. [WR] Deebo [Samuel Sr.], hamstring, limited. [DB Siran] Neal, knee/foot, limited. [CB Upton] Stout, shoulder/neck, limited. [DL] C.J. West, knee, limited. Go ahead.”

“No. Just can’t go today.”

“Yeah. We were real excited to get him. We think he makes us lot better. Keenan’s obviously had an unbelievable career and it was cool to turn on his tape, watch him at Indy and still see the same guy, so we were pumped to get him.”

“Yes.”

“He’s playing damn good. I mean, stat-wise, probably. Statistically and things like that, I’d say yes. He’s playing at a real high level. It’s hard to compare Pro Bowl years to other Pro Bowl years, but he’s playing at a very high level.”

“Definitely. I thought they had a hell of a game. Blocked very well, especially in that first half. I don’t put the second half on them or anything. We just didn’t stay out on the field long enough, but it was a really good game as a unit. Wideouts I thought had a hell of a game blocking too and our backs ran real well.”

“Just trying to get the best receiver that you can. When you look at it, it always starts with separating, catching the football. He’s always been as good as anyone at separating, as good of hands as anyone. Then how good he plays without the ball. He’s a guy who blocks, who never takes a down off, is extremely competitive and a very smart, aware football player.”

“That could be the case, but even if Mike was good on all eight of these games, wouldn’t have changed anything with trying to add another guy.”

“Not really. We throw everything at him. He got in late last night and just got thrown into our install, so I’m sure he’s spinning right now. I mean, he gets two hours of install to the face and then he gets to go out there and walk through it. No person in the history of football has been able to hear it for the first time and go out there right away. So, it was a good first start and I’m sure he’s reviewing it right now at lunch. We’ll see what sticks at practice. Then we’ll watch film after and then we’ll put in some new stuff tomorrow. Then we’ll see by the time we get to Saturday where he’s at, where we’re at and then we’ll play the game accordingly.”

“We’re just waiting. We know the league handles that. It could go either way, so waiting for them to say.”

“Yeah. It’s still possible.”

“No. Week-to-week.”

“No, I think there’s not any runs in particular that only this guy does that that guy doesn’t do. It doesn’t matter to me which back’s in based off of what runs we call. I think they both can do them all.”

“Yeah. I mean, definitely. Anytime you say that with Christian. Christian always has the advantage in the pass game over anybody in the league, so that gets harder, but that’s been cool with Kaelon and even [RB] Jordan [James] also. They’ve been improving in the pass game too.”

“Not that I can remember. It is always unique. I’m sure it’s unique for Keenan playing the same team two weeks in a row also. I haven’t had that. I texted Kirk congrats and reminded him he hasn’t had a Bye Week this year and he’s not going to get one, so maybe he should take that week (laughter).”

“I haven’t. I actually just read that before I came in that he’s in the same boat, so we’ll give him that after our Thursday night game versus the Chargers. Give him a nice three-day Bye Week. But, that’s tough. That’s what happened to [former WR] Emmanuel [Sanders] when he came here too. I remember he missed his Bye Week and it’s a long year. I couldn’t imagine missing that as a coach too. It’s a grind, 17 weeks in a row. That’s why those Thursday night games are so important.”

“No, I don’t. I haven’t.”

“Nate’s a real good NFL corner. I’ve seen him at a number of different places. We’ve scrimmaged against him, I’ve played against him in games. He didn’t have a long camp, but he had long enough with us that you could see him effective inside, effective outside and his versatility is great, so wherever he’s needed.”

“Just being away for a while, I think adds up. Just guys being away from the routine of their families and things like that, so that usually gets old by the end and everyone’s screaming to get back. Very similar to how we felt in Australia. Anytime you change the elements of stuff like going to Mexico City, just the altitude and everything, it’s just good to get acclimated. Going to Australia was good because of the time difference, so we had to do that. Going to Mexico City, just how high the altitude is, it helps us going to Colorado for a week. It’s things that we feel helps us a little bit during the game which makes it worth it, but it does get old to be away for that long.”

“I just feel like he’s had that as a weapon for so long. When he came in the league, it kept getting bigger and bigger, but I think within like three to four years of it, him and, he changed his name so I forget it. [Former NFL LB Shaquille] Shaq Leonard, that’s his new one at Indy. Those were the two younger guys, Fred and him, which I think may have been the same year. Maybe Fred was one year after, but I think they both started taking it to another level and Fred’s been the best to me for these last five years. I remember when we were playing Miami, just seeing [Miami Dolphins LB Jacob] Rodriguez and how good he was as a rookie in his second year. I told Fred, this is what he’s done to us since he’s been doing it at such a high level. All guys like that have been studying it probably since 8th grade now, so everybody’s coming up doing better at it. It’s just kind of a normal thing in the league. It’s really hard to hold on to the ball and Fred’s right at the top with that.”

“Everybody’s different. Running backs are a lot easier because once you hand them the ball, they can just run. It takes a lot for receivers just getting lined up, knowing all the route tree, hearing the verbiage and everything on how to do it. Sometimes it’s easier. I mean, Emmanuel had a year with an old coach from us, so they had the same terminology for a year, which helped him, but it was still a challenge for him. You’ve got to work at it a ton and you know they can do it physically, but it does take some time to get really comfortable with it.”

“I’m not the one on the phone calls and everything, so I don’t know how tough it was. Just because people are trading doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing though, and sometimes a lot of people are being traded for a reason. Anytime you just throw out big draft picks and you don’t have an exact role and know what you want to do for someone, it’s not always guaranteed to make your team better. To do that at the expense of making it a lot worse in the future is always a lot harder than it seems. That’s why there’s so much talk about it for all 32 teams, but rarely does it come down to it. It’s hard to get a good deal on someone and one that you’re excited about usually is going to cost you way too much. It’s not free agency. There’s a lot of talk and rarely do many things happen, but I thought we did a lot. For us to add [DL DeForest Buckner] Buck and Keenan Allen over these last couple of weeks, I was real happy with that and I know they’re two guys who really help us.”

“I know teams called on him in these last 48 hours and I’m very glad he’s still here.”

“Yes, we have. That’s why we’ve covered it a number of times. We haven’t covered it this year, which means I probably should cover it on Friday. I feel like I’ve covered everything with our team because we’ve been here together for so long and then you realize, oh man, there’s six people in there who didn’t hear that in Week One, or oh crap, there’s 20 people who didn’t hear that last year. That’s why you see stuff like that and you don’t think you need a reminder. I didn’t think you needed a reminder that you can’t hang on the goalpost or anything since [former NFL TE] Jeremy Shockey took it down, or [former NFL TE Jimmy] Graham, but then you realize a lot of these people weren’t watching football then. So, you’ve got to keep repeating some obvious stuff and you cover too much you don’t get to cover a lot of important things, but eventually you’ll see one of those things is important. So, don’t take anything for granted.”

“Not much. Brock keeps his mind very clear and doesn’t add any clutter into it. I think that’s why he’s so consistent in what he does. I mean, he’ll tell you what he likes and doesn’t like and things like that and there’s dialogue, but he’s not making a lot of stuff up. I think some guys do as jokes. [TE George] Kittle’s really good at that. What if we did this? What if we did that? Trent always tells me about some tackle-eligible plays. Then I show him what happens to those guys when they catch the ball and how everyone goes for their legs. Then he tells me not to call it after that (laughter), so it ends pretty quick.”

“Each play is different. It’s not like, ‘hey, we had one thing wrong. Just correct that and everything goes right.’ One time the kick wasn’t aligned up with where all our stunts were going to. One time we had a guy fold over just too quick and open up one lane. One time a guy missed a tackle and lost contain. The other times we didn’t. It’s just like on defense. You can stop the run all day and you get one guy out of a gap and give a 70-yarder and you go from 10th to 30th in one week in rush stats, so we’ve got to get better at that. They had way too much in the first half. The reverse got us a little bit just for yardage on the first one, didn’t on the second one, but they got us a few times. We cleaned it up, but we’ve got to obviously be a lot better.”

“The Atlanta game was the same thing. It was two plays where two guys got out, so it’s not like it is as a whole. I thought we got more guys back last week, which I thought would help us play a little bit better. It takes 11 guys to stop it, 10-and-a half. You don’t always count on the kicker to make a tackle, but you count on them to have the best kicks as possible and if you have one guy off it’s going to happen. That’s why it’s hard to say just a clean thing as in, ‘Hey, they were good this week’ or ‘They were bad.’ You’re judged off the results of it and we’ve got to get one guy fixed on each play.”

“I did. They all went in, so I was really happy with that. I thought we could have been better on the kickoffs, but I was really happy with being 100-percent on field goals.”

“Yeah. I think the more you play, the more success you have, the more confidence you get. I think Jordan’s worked through all this and it’s hard to just get playing time on our team. You’ve got to beat people out. You’ve got to go ahead of them. Just because you’re capable, it doesn’t mean that you get it. You’ve got to beat guys out and he’s been close to that, just not quite as consistent as a couple of guys in front of him. Got his opportunity with injuries and just the way he attacked it in practice. Some guys, when they don’t get their opportunities, they start to make excuses, blame people, listen to social media too much and they don’t work quite the same. Then their opportunity comes and they’re actually worse than what they were two weeks before that. Credit to Jordan, he wasn’t like that at all, which takes a mentally strong kid. He kept grinding, kept working and he kept asking what he could do more and to get out there. It was, ‘Dude, you’ve just got to be ready when your time’s there. You didn’t get ahead of those guys in training camp, but that time will come and hopefully you’re ready when it comes.’ He’s been more than ready and he’s been able to string together a few weeks and he should have more confidence because, yeah, he’s earned it.”