Preseason - Nate, Samson, Ikaika

Nate Ilaoa talks to The Free Lance-Star about his need to rebound off his so-so performance in his NFL preseason debut.

He'll need to do better in Friday's home exhibition against Carolina.

"Every game is important," Ilaoa said. "You have to try to get better each and every time--make sure you're improving. You're going to make mistakes, but you need to correct them and improve."

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Samson Satele also talks about needing to step up after disappointing play by the Dolphins offensive line.

The group played so poorly Saturday night against Jacksonville that Satele described it perfectly Tuesday when he said, ``We didn't have a game plan for the game and we stuck to it.''

''They got on us a lot the whole day yesterday up until our practice,'' said Satele, a rookie starting center. ``It was a wake-up call for us. I know I woke up. I don't want coach Cam on me anymore.''

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Ikaika Alama-Francis is recovering from a minor injury.

Defensive end Ikaika Alama-Francis had a bruised shoulder but “should be fine,” Marinelli said.

Ikaika also has a new diary entry up. Here's an excerpt:

“I think things are getting a lot better, day-by-day. We’ve made a lot of improvements, put in almost all the defenses and everything. Everything is looking really good; everybody’s getting better – that’s the main thing, that’s all you can ask – and what I try to focus on is getting better with everybody else.

“If we grow as a team, we’ll build on what we did last week and we’ll get even better from there. I mean, we won, but there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of good things also. So all we can do is build on that and focus on the next game and who’s our next opponent. We have a big game – regular season coming up at Oakland – so we have to be ready for that. We have to get these preseason games in. We’re trying to win all of them. It’s just a preseason game, but we want to win all of them.