Archives for August 15, 2006

‘"There are things I have to work on personally to help this team progress," Losman said. "The guys want a quarterback who can go in and get the job done. And, if I can’t do that, they aren’t going to want me. If a guy is not taking care of business and doing his job, you have to look elsewhere."’

‘”He played well and he’s still getting comfortable,” said Losman, named the quarterback front-runner Monday night by coach Dick Jauron. “The more reps he gets the more comfortable he’s going to get. He’s a very talented guy, and we’re going to start seeing a lot of things come out of him.”‘

‘Still, I have no sympathy for Holcomb. His performance in camp has been timid and uninspiring. He’s content to make the safe, easy throw, while Losman tries to make plays down the field. Holcomb acts as if he’s accomplished big things in the NFL. He’s a career backup. All along, I’ve felt the coaches wanted Losman to start, and Holcomb needed to knock him out to win the job. But Holcomb is trying to finesse his way to No. 1, and he’s on the verge of being KO’d.’

‘Apparently, snaps for the other quarterbacks are going to be hard to come by. Craig Nall returned to practice after missing most of the last two weeks with a hamstring injury and participated in seven-on-seven drills. It is not certain if he will play against the Bengals. Kliff Kingsbury, who played against Carolina, didn’t take any snaps Monday. Holcomb took 12 snaps, while Losman took the last 19 of practice. “That’s just the way it is,” Jauron said. “We’ll just base our decision on what we see, and that’s how we see it.”‘

‘”We said we’d base our decisions on what we see and that’s what we see,” Jauron said. “It was based on everything; how Kelly played to some degree and how J.P. played.”‘

‘”I know physically I wasn’t ready to play the other night, but hopefully if everything goes well this week I should be able to play and show what I can do (Friday against Cincinnati),” he said.’

‘”I thought he did a great job,” Losman said. “You can tell coming into his second year he’s a lot more comfortable, he knows where to run with the ball, he’s running downhill and he’s running over guys so that was great to see.”‘

‘Nall insisted that his time lost won’t affect his chances to compete for the starting job, but he said this just minutes before Jauron announced that Losman had taken the competition’s lead.’

‘”He’s a consistent football player,” Jauron said. “He’s one of those players that doesn’t look a lot different than he did in college. Sometimes, you’re fearful that a player is pretty good in college but that step up in talent leaves him behind. He doesn’t look like he’s that kind of guy at all. He looks like he’s very comfortable here, and he looks very confident, and he steps right in and plays.”‘

‘”Clearly he has mobility going in his favor in this competition. Very mobile, very athletic down the field, and he’s a got strong arm,” Jauron said. “He had opportunities to make a number of other plays but he didn’t make. That’s why we are where we are right now.”‘

‘The moral of the story for Jauron is, when you have an opportunity for a young, capricious QB to gain some confidence by leading his team to a late triumph, do it. It may have only been Week One of the preseason schedule, but Kliff Kingsbury wasn’t the answer. J.P. Losman, on the other hand, was.’

‘Losman got about 1/3 more snaps in Monday’s practice than the other quarterbacks. Losman will continue to get more snaps all week and will start Friday’s game vs. the Bengals.’

‘"We are coming off a 5-11 year," he says, "and if you look at the statistics, it looked worse than that."’

‘”J.P. is the front-runner,” Jauron said. “At this point, he’ll get more of the reps in practice. It won’t be 50/50 anymore.”‘

‘On the possibility of playing on Friday: I don’t know yet, maybe tomorrow I’ll go a little bit longer, and maybe get some snaps in team. Right now, I’m just concentrating on getting better.’