Defensive tackles, receivers and focus were topics for Pat Narduzzi in his pre-practice press briefing on Wednesday, and here’s a rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: Practice number 11 for us. Just to give you a little review of yesterday’s practice, I thought it was just an okay day. Just a little disappointed in the focus. In all reality, it’s day 14 of camp, they’ve got 10 to go so they’re in the hey-day of camp. I think we had a solid scrimmage and then when you look at the focus and the details of what we did yesterday, it’s like, it didn’t match up to Saturday’s. Just because Saturday was scrimmage and live doesn’t mean you come out with less focus. So just the details, as we talked about each kid in the staff meeting, just wasn’t where we wanted it to be, so I challenged them today to get it back and we need to gain a little bit more ground because maybe we lost a step yesterday, or at least some guys did. We talk about getting 3% better every day and that’s really the standard that we try to have our guys go with.

At receiver, you know what you have with Taysir and Maurice; what have you seen from the rest of the group so far?
Narduzzi: I mean, Dontavius Butler has had a really good camp. He’s a guy that’s going to get a lot of reps and we expect to make a lot of plays this year. You look at Michael Smith - Michael Smith does a lot of great things. He still could catch the ball a little bit better than he is, but he’s got speed, top-end speed, to take the top off of coverage. Vardzel continues to progress. Jared Wayne, one of our puppy receivers as well, is doing a nice job making plays.

Any separation at defensive tackle between Jaylen Twyman and Keyshon Camp?
Narduzzi: Keyshon and Jaylen? Really, it’s a three-man war in there for who’s going to get their name on game day. But Twyman’s playing at a high level right now. Maybe as high as you can get. He’s really played good.

How so?
Narduzzi: You know, I couldn’t tell you what it is. He’s bigger, he’s stronger. Jaylen Twyman is like a gym rat. He is in the film room as much as the coaches. He studies the game. He’s got a plan every day. That guy is about as focused as you could get a guy to be focused. If you had 110 focused like that guy - it’s amazing, his desire on the field. And again, Watts and Camp are fighting to be that guy right now, the way I see it. But you’re happy with all three. They’re all going to be starters, in my opinion, and the good thing is, we’ve got three of them.

And then there’s another three-man race between Devin and David Green and Bentley. They’re like three other dudes. So I feel really, really good about the depth at that position.

When a team loses focus, what kind of coaching techniques can you use to get it back?
Narduzzi: Well, a size 12.5? I don’t know. You first need to know why, you know? As coaches, you kind of know why: 14th day of camp, oh man, feeling sorry, tired when you wake up. So it’s just getting them jumpstarted to go. And it’s our coaches’ job, each individual coach, if we’re not getting the ABC’s in the teach period, if we’re not getting the focus there, it’s got to go from individual to the team period and we have to see it. You don’t sit there and watch every individual period but you hope the ABC’s will transfer over to the team period and you see the fundamentals. But when the fundamentals aren’t as good in team - we talk about stages of learning, they know what to do, but they can’t do it without concentration. They know what to do; there’s no question. They know how to do it. But they have to be focused. Some guys can’t do it without focus. I would say 75% of the guys have to have focus to do it exactly - so it’s just a matter of, what am I doing today?