Q. How did practice go today, after introducing Robert Ferguson?A. "Robert Ferguson got his second practice in this morning. Our other signee, Marty Booker, was not out here today because he was late signing last night. He will be joining us before the end of the weekend, and we look forward to seeing Marty out there in our practices next week. I thought the guys focused well today. This is a little bit of a different day for us. We are going to go out and work extremely hard tonight in our scrimmage. Normally the majority of our hard work is done in the morning, so it's a change for the guys in terms of what we're asking them to do."
Q. How important is it to the franchise to hold this scrimmage at Brookwood High School and give back to the community?A. "Well, I think it's very important. The organization and myself have a real passion for high school football. We had our Coach of the Year banquet last year that we started, and we want to have a good relationship with the high schools. That's why we've taken this show on the road to the different schools. This year we are going to Brookwood and I think we should have a big crowd. Their program is one of the perennial top programs in the state. I think it's very important for us to have a connection because if young kids aren't playing midget football, Pop Warner football, junior high football, or high school football, then you're not going to have the interest that the NFL has."
Q. What matchups are you looking forward to tonight?"I want to make a correction. We're going to go on ahead and put our quarterbacks in jerseys. After considering that question from the other day, we're going to have them in blue jerseys. Blue will be the color that they will be wearing. Really, the things that we're looking for as a coaching staff, we know that there's going to be mistakes in the scrimmage tonight. We've given our guys a lot of volume in terms of what was installed over the first week. We want our guys to go out, communicate, and play with a lot of effort. I think that if you communicate properly, then that means you're all on the same page, even though it may not be right. If we're all wrong, then we're all wrong. Effort is very important. We want to see guys going out there and playing the game the way it's supposed to be played."
Q. How is the team health wise, and is Curtis Lofton close to returning?A. "Curtis is getting closer. If it was during the season, and we were closer to game, I think that it would be a different situation in terms of getting him back. We're going to make sure that he's cleared by the training staff, by Ron Medlin and Scott [Kneller]. We anticipate that he'll be getting back. We'd like to get him back as quickly as possible."
Q. The receivers you signed are big guys. Do we need to read into that?A. "Well we do like to run the football here in Atlanta. As you know, the wide receivers not only are guys that catch balls, but they've got to be able to block in our system. The better they block, the more opportunities they're going to get to catch the ball."
Q. Did you see Marty Booker's work out?A. "I thought Mary's workout went well. Marty was just under 200 pounds so that was a good size for a wide receiver. He caught the ball very efficiently. I'm looking forward to getting him out here, getting him into our system and into our scheme."
Day Seven -- Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
10:15 a.m. Practice/Friday Night Lights**
@FalconsJMoore "Words of the Day"
VIDEO:Head Coach Mike Smith | Ferguson * FEATURE:Memories stir for Elam at Friday Night Lights * BLOGS:J. Michael Moore's blog posts from Aug. 7, 2009 * LIVE BLOG:Live notes from Friday Night Lights * PHOTOS:Photos from Friday Night Lights (Flickr)
