Floyd Reese Quotations

We didn't want to have to go into the draft trying to hit 10 different spots. We had hand-selected a group of guys that we thought if we could get one or two, we'd be in great shape. We've ended up with four.

We've seen him play successfully as both a fullback and a running back, ... I think we're going to be real open-minded and bring him in and just see where he excels. He's a big, strong, heavy kid. We're anxious to get him in and let him do some different things and see what he does well.

We won't exercise. You can write that if you want, though I don't think it will be a surprise to anybody.

Last year, we had seven players leave. Those seven players had a combined 52 playoff games. We've signed four players to date, and those four have 30 playoff games ? a younger, healthier group. I think you can see the direction we're headed.

So he's got to carry a heavier load.

Now, our team is talented but very young. We lost a number of really good players and it takes time to replace them, if you can. We're working our way through that.

I don't know. He's not one of those 6-4, 220-pound guys who runs the 40 in 4.6. But he's an athlete. His father coached for 30 or so years, so he grew up in a passing system.

If both sides are realistic, then that rookie deal gets done, ... We know how important it is to get a rookie to camp in time. We know you can't make up 35 practices overnight.

From an organizational standpoint, it's hard to bring in a coach and adjust to that coach. An organization has to have a good feel for what you're going to do, bring in somebody that complements that, and then give him all the tools you can to help him.

If (agent Carl) Poston comes and says, 'Hey, my guy is in love with your team and he wants to play for the minimum,' then things might be different.

I don't think I've ever seen this. So this one's kind of new. I've only been doing this for 30 years, and this is the first time the press got an e-mail and the G.M. didn't.

I don't think I've ever seen this. I've only been doing this for 30 years, and this is the first time the press got an e-mail and the GM didn't.

He was always a half a step ahead of everybody else.

He will hopefully be a Titan for a number of years and finish his career here.

He's certainly on par with the quarterbacks that have come out on a yearly basis over the last few years.

He may round out into a player and end up playing for 10 years, and that could make us look pretty dumb,

Whatever the rules are, we'll follow them. I personally think it's healthier for the league to have a cap, but that's my opinion.

There is no doubt we're much better with Albert in there, ... Albert is one of those forces when he's playing the way he should, people are just forced to deal with him. Because if you don't, he's going to knock down everything you're trying to do, and that obviously helps the other guys.

We talked about the plan last year. We went through it. We had a tough time. We purged. We got past that. We said this year we would be 100 percent better off. We are 100 percent better off.

We're of course prepared to live with that cap number. If that has to be the case and if we have to, we will. But we'd prefer to lower it.

He knows that. He's a bright kid. He's very bright.

Kevin has been extremely durable just year after year. Kevin is one of those guys who understands what winning is and knows how to win and can help everybody along that way.

I wouldn't be surprised if (Edwards), a veteran guy, gets gobbled up at some point,

It comes and it goes, ... He'll go out the first two weeks of the season and gain 200 yards and people will be saying, 'Well, the old Eddie's back.' You know, Eddie never left. It's overreaction and overanalyzing. He's going to be the same, and he is the same. We expect him to be as productive this year as any year.

I think you can look at the linebacker position and say this is probably as strong a group as we've had in a while.

I think all things being equal - speed, size, strength - you're always going to lean toward those players who are more tested,

It has always been a key element for us. We have never wavered from Day One. It's always been at the top of our list.

I think right now we have to call it a draw. Is that a surprise?

I think rightly or wrongly from my standpoint, you like to see someone who has been through it. When you get through the postseason, it's a different world. If you've never been there, it's a learning curve. You have to learn and understand it. If someone has been through it on several occasions or just once, they step in with some advantage.

It doesn't mean that we hit on 100 percent, that doesn't mean that every guy that enters the locker room is an angel. But that doesn't cause you to waver from the fact that you still deem it important, and you still look for it and you fight to get it.

That's the intention - at least talking to their agents, it sounds like both would like to be back, and we'd like to have them both back.

I was ready to commit suicide. Then the next thing I know, I'm dancing on the table.

We pushed the envelope for a number of years there, trying to win as many games as we could. And we won a bunch of them.

We were still good enough that we decided let's give it another shot. But we got to this year and said it's time. Rather than try to tippy-toe our way through it, we just took it all in one big shot.

We know it can't go on forever, that's obvious. But I think as long as you have the quarterback that we have, you've got a chance. The real exciting part is that if you keep getting invited to the dance every year, then at least you've got a chance. We've got to just keep making the playoffs every year and keep taking our shot.

We're kind of waiting on a counter from them. We're still way early in the negotiations. We're just getting started. It's just a matter of trying to find some common ground and going to work on that common ground.

We're trying to standardize everything we're doing as much as possible so that at some point in time we'll be able to evaluate.

We didn't get the only thing that matters, the ring, but we won some games. The whole time we knew we'd have to pay the piper.

Two great attributes for a coach are: one, to be able to teach everybody on the squad, and two, to get players on the squad to play better than they are. Those things are very, very, very difficult to do, and very few in the league can do it.

We've had a premise and a game plan for that set aside all along in our plans -- a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C type of thing -- so we've been able to work through it.

The receivers are maybe a little bit shy at the top, but maybe thicker and more plentiful in the second and third and fourth round.

We will be able to participate in free agency. We will not be a big player. We will be able to participate. The players we have now, we have money pocketed in three or four different places.

We were thrilled to death to have an opportunity to get him back. So it worked out well. It's a plus-plus, and we're awful happy.

What happens is in camp you can go five days and get in eight or nine practices, ... During the regular season, you might get in 21/2 practices in five days. What you miss in camp, it takes weeks to make up that time.

We're very pleased to have Kyle here for the next several years. Last season he exemplified himself as an important part of our defense through his work ethic and intensity on and off the field. It helps us to get something worked out with him before free agency, and I think both parties in this case were able to accomplish what they wanted with the deal.

We're very pleased to have Kyle here for the next several years.

You have to probably be happy with that,

I've seen players test in single digits and play 10 years, and I've seen some guys test in the 30s that couldn't walk across the street.

The thing that is really unique about it is that this at least the third year in a row where you could go out and say, 'Well, how much can he improve?'  ... But after six games this year, he's off the charts, and yet there's nothing to make you say this is as good as he's going to get or he'll never be better. I don't know where he goes from here, but right now he's doing pretty darn good.

The thing, of course, you're afraid of as much as anything right now is him jumping in there and getting a pull or twisting an ankle or something like that ... and that slows him down even more. It's very scary and you have to be careful how you handle it.

Thank goodness we're not where we were last year or the year before. Because it has to be a very, very scary situation to be way over the cap right now and trying to redo contracts and get your money right, and yet you're not exactly sure what effect the CBA is going to have on it. But that's our world and that's the way we have to live it.

Quarterback, the most important position in professional sports. So all you need to do is find one before your career is over.

Rather than trying to hit two or three moving targets, that is trying to get the right coach or the right GM or the right coordinator or whatever it is, they keep that pretty much stable. Now all they have to do is go find another one of these kinds of players, plug them, and in theory, you should be right back and running at full speed.

People get a giant misconception about running backs in the NFL,

The old contracts we would do with somebody along these lines. You would say, 'OK, I'll give you a $10 million signing bonus, and then the minimum salary the first year and maybe the second year, and then later on in the contract really jack the salaries up.' Now, because of the 30 percent rule, you really can't do that.

Anything short of paying the $50 million is a possibility.

All along, we have had two plans put together. One if a deal got done and one if it didn't. Plan A and Plan B. Everybody hopes for A, but you made the other one for a reason, I guess.

You're so far behind the eight ball before you come in, and then you don't do as well, ... Then your confidence suffers. In some cases, you don't get a guy back until the next year. I think that's a gigantic factor.

You see flashes of what you're getting, ... But you can't see it with any consistency.

This is not going to happen in the next day or two or week or two. It's going to take time. We'll continue to talk on a daily, weekly basis and see if we can't make progress.

This is probably going to be as big a contract as we've ever done, just from sheer volume.

This is probably as strong a linebacker group as we've had in a while. Corners, I think, are going to be young, but they are going to be talented.

This does not end the process with Jevon. We would still like to have him as part of this team, just not under the 'franchise tag' parameters.

They've dealt with hoopla for three, four years. You know, at least some of the time, a little better maybe, what you're going to have when you get a guy in your program.

It's kind of a sad place. It's just such a zoo that you almost can't get anything done. There's always somebody knocking on your door or calling you on the phone or stopping you in the lobby because they are desperate for jobs.

It's a sensitive topic. If you talk to most pro personnel people, they would rather have the players stay in to get the extra year of maturity.

It's not unusual at all to go to any major college in the country and every offensive linemen will have knee braces on both knees, ... They've been wearing them for years and years.

It's not where we want it to be, but it's not completely off the wall, so we can work with it.

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens at the beginning of free agency. I'm not sure it's not going to be very close to the vest because people are just unsure as to how it's going to end up.

David is a proven winner that will provide experience to a young receiving corps.

It just shows you, if you're fast, you're fast, it doesn't matter where you run.

It was just an awful day, cold, rainy and windy. And it didn't affect him in the slightest.

Again, I think (he's) an example of what we've been looking for.

So a guy like that, I think I would be surprised if he didn't end up banging around a few years with somebody.

If you look at it from a position standpoint, you can say this is probably as strong a linebacker group as we've had in a while.

If you could draw up your image of the first free agent you were going to sign ... short of a franchise quarterback who's 22 years old, you probably end up with somebody like Kyle.

If there is a regret, it's that we didn't win the world championship,

It has to be a very, very scary situation to be way over the cap and trying to redo contracts and get your money right, and yet you're not exactly sure what effect the CBA is going to have on it. But that's our world, and that's the way we have to live it.

But I am sure he would be very, very expensive. You never say never, but I am going to guess he is going to be out of our price range.

He's probably a great example of just what we're looking for in unrestricted free agency. He's young, he's healthy. He's done a lot of things, and maybe most importantly, he's a great guy, classy kid ... and he's coming from a program that's won a lot of games so that's very, very important to us.

He's one of those eight or 10 guys that you know you could draft and he could come into your franchise and carry the ball 20-30 times a week for a lot of years. It wouldn't matter if you went to Slippery Rock or any place else as talented as he is. Those things stick out.

I don't know if all the talk the past two years has gotten into his head, ... But I think he's been probably stronger than a lot of us, a lot of his backers. A lot of people that he maybe expected to hold the line with him maybe caved in a little bit. If everybody was as strong about the commitment as Eddie is, then none of these questions would have ever popped up.

But you know what? The system that was put in place years ago works. And it works better than it ever has. There is parity, and this system keeps everybody in it. It's still a bit early this season, but there are two or three teams that look really strong and two or three that are really struggling. Everybody else is in the middle. Last year at this time, we were 2-4 and people were burying us. But we ended up in the AFC title game. Now we're 4-2 and we're scared.

He threw the ball well. I think you saw a variety of things. He threw the ball on the run and under a little bit less than ideal conditions. He came today and performed, and I can't imagine too many quarterbacks performing better than he did today.

He's a prime example of everything you look for in an unrestricted free agent. He's young, athletic, dependable, versatile and comes from a winning program.

If he can't find something that suits him, he may be back. So again, we have not severed that relationship.

I could draft running backs for the next 30 years and I may never draft another Eddie George,

And I think, certainly, that's what people want to see from anyone who has done what Jeremy has done. How he does when it's all football.

The cap number is much bigger than we'd like to live with. It would help if we extend his contract, and it also helps us get more players. He will for sure be a Titan for another year, and then hopefully more after that.