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Former college and NFL head coach Herm Edwards joined Steve Russell on SportScene to talk about his perspective on the NFL preseason. They discussed balancing snaps between the first team veterans and younger players coming in. Edwards also shared how he evaluates players during position battles.
Balancing Snaps
Edwards first spoke about veteran players in the locker room. He wanted his starters to play 30-to-50 snaps a game and during one game have that group of players come out of halftime and start the third quarter. The reason for that was to allow his players to get a feel for the adjustments during the game. For the younger players, Edwards thought it was important for those who could start to get reps against the starters from the opposite team to see how they will react.
Edwards also commented on organizations like the Indianapolis Colts, who have a veteran quarterback like Gardner Minshew along with a rookie like former Gator Anthony Richardson. He said that no matter when Richardson goes on the field, he has to go in with the first team starters. Richardson can see the veteran players around him and those veterans can see his command of the offense.
Position Battles in NFL
Along the same theme of veterans versus rookies, Coach Edwards spoke about who he would choose if the decision is close. He would take the rookie. The reason why is the only thing that the veteran player has is experience and the only way for a rookie to get experience is to play.
When Edwards was evaluating players, he said this first factor was the player’s availability to win the battle. He also said that it was sometimes necessary to take the battle into the first couple weeks of the season. He reiterated the point that in order for players to get experience, they have to play.
