SANTA CLARA – Seattle’s new quarterback, Tarvaris Jackson, spoke to Bay Area reporters on a conference call an hour before Pete Carroll did, but I’m giving you Jackson second. Hope that’s alright.
Here’s the full transcript.
Q: Where do you think the Seahawks offense is at this point?
JACKSON: We’re getting better each day, you know? We’ve got guys coming out to work, trying to get better. The time limit we were unfortunately given… as far as trying to get our offense together, what was given to us, we’ve just got to take advantage of it to the best of our ability. We’re growing, we’ve got a lot of guys trying to figure out who they are, who we are as players as well as where we are as an offense. We’ll get more of an understanding of where we are as an offense as the days go by.
Q: Are you watching Stanford film to get ready for the 49ers?
JACKSON: Yeah, we watch a little bit of both. But, you know, it’s going to be hard to tell exactly what they’re going to do, as far as, are they going to back to their established stuff, or are they going to do the stuff they showed in preseason. So we’re just going to try to study both and be ready for anything they pretty much give us, all the little things they’ve given us in the past in the preseason, and all the little things they’ve given us as far as the Stanford tape goes, so, we’ll pretty much be prepared for whatever they do.
Q: Are there a lot of differences between what Stanford does and what other defenses do?
JACKSON: There’s some similarities, but I’m sure they’ll make some tweaks here and there, being that it’s a different game at the pro level, they probably have guys to execute it a lot better on this level, and have more of an understanding of what offenses are trying to do in the NFL instead of college, so I’m sure they’ll be some tweaks here and there, but I think the guy (Vic Fangio?) will pretty much go with what he knows.
Q: Will adjustments be key, more in this game than any other you’ll have this season?
JACKSON: Adjustments are always key. We have a game plan so far that we know, and if we can execute that, we’ll be fine, but if they come out in different looks, then obviously we’ll make some adjustments. But, I guess time will tell just exactly how many changes we’ll have to make. You know, teams usually don’t go too far from what they did in preseason, they’ll have a couple of tweaks here and there, a couple of un-scouted looks, but you have to expect that. So it will be interesting to see what exactly they do.
Q: Will it be difficult for your offensive line, not having had much time to prepare?
JACKSON: I won’t say that. It hurt us a little bit, you know, as far as guys getting on the same page with the terminology and stuff. Some of the younger guys are getting used to the NFL defenses and used to the calls, the subtle changes that we have to make them change their whole blocking scheme and who we’re targeting and stuff, so, I mean, that time would’ve been much needed, but we’re just going to try to get ourselves in the best position as well as, you know, spreading guys out or protecting a lot more, I guess we’ll just switch it up and see how it goes, depending on the game plan situation.
Q: How much are you looking forward to seeing what Zach Miller can do in a Seahawks uniform?
JACKSON: I’m looking forward to it. I watched him when he was in Oakland and the things he did in Oakland, we’re just trying to make sure we just play to his strong suits, trying to get him the ball and let him run after the catch. From what I’ve seen at Oakland, he was pretty good after the catch, so we’ll just try to give him the ball and let him show what he can do.
Q: Were you ever frustrated playing behind Brett Favre and wondering if you’d start again?
JACKSON: Like you said, it was frustrating the past couple years. I honestly thought, maybe, especially after the first year, that maybe I would have a chance to start again in Minnesota, but, you know, Brett came back again, so after that I kind of figured that it was going to be a move for me, being how things played out and everything, but I really didn’t know other teams’ situations and how they felt about their quarterbacks or how they felt about me coming in, so I was going to take each opportunity, any opportunity I get and try to make the best of it and coach (Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell) Bevell came in and it became a great opportunity for me to step in and lead this team. It was a great situation for me and a place I really wanted to end up. It seemed like they really wanted me, so it was a no-brainer for me to come here.
Q: Do you expect to be blitzed a lot in this game?
JACKSON: I expect it anyway. You kind of want to treat every game like a blitz drill until they don’t blitz, especially for a guy who’s known for blitzing and bringing pressure. We’re expecting it, but we haven’t seen a lot of it in the preseason. But I’m pretty sure they’ll have a couple of regular ones and then a couple of blitzes of the week that they’ll have prepared for us and scouted for us, so we’re just going to try to prepare for it and go with our rules and try to make plays when they do.
Q: How much attention do you have to pay to Patrick Willis? Are you gonna have to identify him each play?
JACKSON: Definitely. He’s one of the premiere playmakers in the NFL. He can run around, there’s not too many things he can’t do out there, so of course any guy on defense that’s the caliber of player he is, you want to keep an eye an out for him, and being that he’s so close to the line of scrimmage, he’ll be one of the guys you want to identify first, when he comes up.
Q: What do you think of your rotating running backs?
JACKSON: I guess it will go by feel, you know? All our guys are pretty talented. We’ve got Marshawn (Lynch), all those guys have their different skill sets. Marshawn’s the biggest of the three, but he can still run and make guys miss as well as get that hard yard, and the rest of the guys, you have Leon (Washington), who is a shifty guy, can makes miss when he gets the ball in that open field one-on-one with linebackers and stuff like that, as well as Justin (Forsett), so we’ve got so many guys to choose from and I guess coach will just plug them in as he will, depending on how the game’s going.
Q: Impressions of 49ers newcomers in the secondary?
JACKSON: I’ve watched those guys over the years. I watched Carlos (Rogers) when he was at Washington and I know he’s been a starter over there for the past couple of years and he got banged up a couple years ago, and I think he’s finally starting to get his legs back underneath him. I played against Donte (Whitner) last year and he’s a solid player and always around the football, so you’re gonna make sure to keep an eye out on that guy, because he’s a pretty solid player. Tarell Brown, I haven’t seen much film on it. I know he’s been like their nickel guy who’d come in for them the past couple of years. I know he’s a quick guy, I know he’s got good feet, you know, he can make some plays. We’ll try to take advantage of those guys, and their weaknesses and stuff like that, but I don’t really see a glaring weakness in their secondary.
Q: Harbaugh vs. Carroll? Anybody discussing that?
JACKSON: Not really. I haven’t heard any of the guys saying anything about it, but I’m sure the Stanford guys know more about it than we do and coach Carroll knows more about it than we do, but there hasn’t much conversation about what happened when coach was at USC and when Harbaugh was at Stanford, so I can’t speak on that too much.
Q: You haven’t talked to (former Stanford CB, current Seahawk) Richard Sherman about it?
JACKSON: I sat in and watched their little spring game with (WR) Doug (Baldwin) when it was on TV a couple weeks ago. We sat and watched the spring game a little bit, just talked about some of the players and stuff like that, some of the guys he got on with and stuff, but nothing about the rivalry between them and USC.
Q: Did you talk to Baldwin about what Stanford did and what the 49ers might do?
JACKSON: We talked yesterday a little bit. He gave me some insight on what the defensive coordinator likes to do and he was with those guys a couple years and knows them and has watched them a lot, so I’m going to try to get with Sherman probably later today or tomorrow and ask him a couple of things, different indicators or something, whatever he can help me out with, what they like to do as far as their defense and stuff like that. But, like I said, who knows if they’ll keep doing the same things they did at Stanford, so we kind of want to prepared for both, so I’m going to go back and make sure I do some history on that.
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