New Orleans Saints Offensive Line Coach Dan Roushar
Video Conference with New Orleans Media
Thursday, August 20, 2020

Can you give us your initial evaluation of Cesar Ruiz now that you are working with him in person?
"For three days in pads each day we're encouraged with the improvement he's making. I think he's been really good in the meetings. I think it's obviously very early in the evaluation, but each day I've been impressed with his improvement and his intensity it continues to get better and that's, that's what we're striving for."

Cesar is obviously rotating with Erik McCoy between center and guard. Just when you look at Erik McCoy, what about him is you know, showing you guys that he too has the ability to kind of bounce around and you know how to handle that that transition between positions?
"Eric's obviously very smart to begin with. He's got great attention to detail. He's got an exceptionally strong lower body, and it gives him an opportunity to be able to do both center and guard. We feel like he's been doing it at a high level. One of the great things about this group is there's so much there's so much intelligence in the group in addition to intelligence, there, I think there's a lot of flexibility because there, there's guys that can play multiple positions."

Just to kind of follow up on that of you. I noticed that these guys build chemistry because it seems like from where we're sitting, they all seem to really get along and you know, really kind of match each other's personalities?
"Well, it's a fantastic group. I think Terron (Armstead) is an exceptional leader in that room and yet, there's just as a group collectively, I think there's such a determination and desire to improve each and every day. There's a willingness to share, from those veterans from the day Brendan Nugent and I went into that room, they've been so good about giving the young guys pointers, things that they have success with that they do or see and I think that really adds to the chemistry and the willingness to work together. And then we're working so hard to just develop not only the chemistry but the accountability factor, of all five guys functioning together communicating, seeing the angles exactly the same way as each of them work combinations and blocks, and that can be run and protection. We're excited about where we can go. We do realize that today being day three in pads, we have to hurry up and improve quickly."

At least in the three practices we've been out, we haven't seen Cesar play center at all. Is that something that's still in the cards for him?
"No, because what we'll do is in the afternoons, we'll rotate those guys in early before you guys got in there. We're rotating those guys, and will continue to do that. I think one of the challenges is if you rotate too much, you really cannot get a fair evaluation of a player at one position or the other. So our focus has been for a couple of days, let's zero in on this and see if we can make improvement. The way our installations are set up, the first two days are really our base offense with a little bit of our sub offense mixed in there and then today being a little bit introduction to third down. Certainly there's a lot of consideration for what we're doing each and every day and that factors into how we want to rotate those guys and when you start with on the line (period), which is pre-practice work for us, we're getting chemistry developed with those guys both at center and working with the quarterbacks and then certainly in individual (period)."

If they are getting comfortable with cadence is switching between center and guard not that hard?
"Oh, for sure. I think, just the more work they get with nine (Drew Brees) really helps the entire group and just your ability to anticipate the cadence. We stress trying to jump that cadence as quickly as we can. I really thought yesterday we saw some real growth as a group collectively. Today, just coming off and having viewed a little bit of film, I do see improvement, I do see consistency, but we're a little load off a couple times and that impacts the play negatively."