WitP: Solomon, Colt, Veikune, Ingram

Bad news for Solomon Elimimian, who was waived by the Buffalo Bills today.

Colt Brennan talked to the Washington media today, and Redskins.com has the video. Lots of great quotes. Thanks to Patty G and LizKauai.

Cleveland Browns coach Eric Mangini talked about throwing David Veikune into the fire. Not literally.

"David's worked a lot of different spots. Some of it's been out of necessity. Some of it's been out of trying to expose him to a lot of different things and find out where his strengths are.

He has to be swimming. He's played inside. He's played outside. He's played the buck position. He's played defensive end and he's going from a three-point to a two-point. There's a lot of information. It will serve him well over time.

The important thing, that I've tried to get across to everybody, and especially the rookies, because, I don't know about their college programs, but what I try to get across to them is understanding the whole defense.

If you understand the whole defense and why we're doing it, what it's designed to stop, what it should look like, where people should fit, then problems aren't as tough to figure out and new looks aren't as hard to process. When you just know your spot, other stuff doesn't make any sense."

The New England Patriots' new long snapper is profiled by Christopher Price of WEEI.

Jake Ingram knows he didn’t win the job of Patriots’ long snapper by himself.

The rookie out of Hawaii said Tuesday morning he owes a sizable debt of gratitude to Nathan Hodel, the veteran who was also invited to training camp by New England this summer. Hodel was released by the Patriots on Monday, leaving Ingram as the lone long snapper on the roster.

The 23-year-old Ingram said the lessons he learned from his time with Hodel will serve him well down the road.

“He definitely, definitely did help me,” Ingram said Tuesday morning. “He’s never a guy who was trying to treat me like a rookie. It seemed like he was more trying to help me out, trying to help me get better. And also, we were pushing other, hopefully making each other better.

“It was awesome having him around, and I wish the best of luck to him and his family. I’m sure he’ll get a job soon.”

The article also has a quote from Greg McMackin:

“At his college position, he was the best in the country. Period,” said Hawaii coach Greg McMackin. “I’ve had him here the last two years, and he was 100 percent on all snaps. I don’t want to hex him, but I’ve never seen a bad snap from him.

“I think Bill Belichick has made an outstanding decision.”

Belichick had some good things to say about Ingram in today's press conference.

Q: Going back to the snapper, you had mentioned in an earlier press conference that there are a couple different elements to the actual snapping and then there’s coverage and protection. In Jake [Ingram], what areas did you see improvement of and what areas were he already pretty polished?
BB: I guess I would say both. I think that he was fairly polished in all the areas: long snapping, short snapping, protection, other things in the punting game, on releasing and so forth, and coverage. I also think he’s improved in each of those areas. I think his accuracy is better, his protection is better, his ability to play on the line of scrimmage in the punting game, release, help other guys release – that kind of thing – coverage. All those things have improved over the course of training camp, but I think they were also, in relative terms, fairly well along or we probably wouldn’t have drafted him if we felt that we hadn’t seen them and had to develop them all. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it makes sense to me. It probably doesn’t make any sense to anybody else. But I think he’s along to a point…He’s further along now than he was four weeks ago, five weeks ago – whatever it was.