Q: What were your thoughts on (quarterback) Jaxson (Dart)?

DABOLL: Just about what I thought he would do. Efficient, effective, aggressive, confident in the pocket. Some stuff we can work on, but he’s doing good.

Q: You talked a little bit about where he had to show some poise where he was pressuring the pocket, got the ball out with a nice screen he had in the turnbuckle. Were you impressed with the poise that he showed?

DABOLL: He does it in practice. I think I was asked a question about how he’s holding on to the ball. Look, there’s things he can be better at, but we missed some opportunities on third down, some drops that would have even been better for him and for us. But he’s a confident young player. He’s improved since he’s been here. Still have a long way to go, but I enjoy working with him. I like his demeanor on the sideline. He sees the game well. Again, not that we’re getting, we got a couple blitzes and things like that, but I’m glad he’s here.

Q: How is his poise in practice is different than standing in there when the (Buffalo Bills tackle) T.J. Sanders hits you in the face?

DABOLL: Well, we saw that on tape at Ole Miss, though. He did that for a long time there. He’s tough. I told you, good moxie. He’s got toughness. He’s got leadership. I think we threw the ball 51 times and didn’t have a sack today. Credit the offensive line first and foremost.

Q: How about just how the whole progression, how promising it looked to have (quarterback) Russell (Wilson) open the game the way he did with the quick strike passing attack. Then just Dart taking over just the whole how it’s set up?

DABOLL: Well, look, we’ve worked hard in practice. You never know how it’s going to go. It’s one preseason game. Russ has done this for a long time, so it’s not his first rodeo. Gave him some plays to get in a little bit of a rhythm. I think all the quarterbacks led their offenses down to scoring points. Got held up in some of the fringe stuff, drops, a couple too many false starts. At one point, we were pretty good on third down. I’m not sure where we ended up, but big plays didn’t have a ton, I would say, gave up far too many on the defensive side of it in a number of areas. So, it was a good first day, but I think each offense had about 400 yards.

Q: One of the criticisms that Jaxson faced when out of college was the offense that he played in.

DABOLL: From? No, who’s criticizing him?

Q: Just draft analysts, all the draft criticisms on him.

DABOLL: Oh, draft analysts, yeah,

Q: The big picture coming out, which is why he might be more green, might take a year, he needs to sit, things like that. Was there anything that you saw about him that made you not be concerned with that, that, yeah, he’s going to now be in a pro-style offense, it’s not going to be a problem?

DABOLL: Yeah, pretty much everything. Stood in the pocket, was good under pressure, good with his legs, tough, competitive, accurate. Again, everybody comes from different offenses. You know, (Philadelphia Eagles quarterback) Jalen Hurts came from a running college offenses, he’s doing pretty good. (Miami Dolphins quarterback) Tua (Tagovailoa) did when I was there. I mean, a lot of guys run offenses similar to that. There’s not a lot of just this is what it does. Whether they run RPO offense, whether they run some, usually when you come to a league, the offenses are going to be different. Again, it’s one game, he’s had good practices, he’s had practices we got to improve on. There’s good plays out there, plays he can prove on, but again, just talking to him on the sideline, his demeanor, you know, it was a good start for him.

Q: There will be a lot of quarterbacks, too, that avoid the rush when it’s in their face, but it’s almost like they avoid the rush and then they just run, and Jaxson does have the ability to run, but it seemed like when he was back there, his eyes never left downfield, and he was moving.

DABOLL: Yeah, and that’s something that’s something else we saw on tape when he was coming out. He’ll stand in there and take one now, but he’s got good feel and good athleticism if he has to run. Again, pretty simple defense we’re playing. We understand what it is, but it was good to be here in this environment, no surprise, packed house, first preseason game here in Buffalo, not a surprise, so we practiced with a lot of noise, and great first environment to be in for a rookie quarterback where some places you have 10,000 to 15,000 fans here, you’ve got a packed house, which is a good thing.

Q: What about getting the first team involved? When you made that decision, were you happy with what you got out of the first team on both sides of the ball?

DABOLL: A number of questions was asked about that leading up to it, and you know the answer is do what’s best for the football team, so I thought we needed that. We’ll do it again. We’re going to play in the preseason. People that are able to play are going to play, and if they’re not able to play or a doctor or a trainer says it’d be smart to hold them out, we’ll hold them out, but other than that, we’re going to play.

Q: You talked about earlier this week wanting to see Jaxson in different scenarios. He obviously got to manage a two-minute drill at the end of that half. What did you see from him in that?

DABOLL: Yeah, we manufactured one earlier, too, kind of an up-tempo, no-huddle, touchdown drive, I believe, where I told (assistant head coach, offensive coordinator) Mike (Kafka), let’s kick it up a gear and go no-huddle. He’s had different situations, third down, it was good to play him almost a half. I don’t know what Russ got. What did he get, 12 or 13, 14 plays somewhere on there, 12. So, again, as many situations as we can put all the quarterbacks in. I thought (quarterback) Jameis (Winston) came out good, too. We got a couple of plays. We need to make those plays to keep drives going. We’re a yard short on a stick, so then we kick it, and they get a short field, we bust the coverage there for a big play, and we have to do a better job, complimentary football. Good things to learn, a lot of things to learn from. Proud of them. It’s always hard to win a game in this league, regardless of what it is, but a lot of things we have to improve on, a lot of good learning things that you get from the preseason that we got to make sure we watch, and we learn from it.

Q: Can you go into it and talk a little bit about his (Jaxson’s) touchdown?

DABOLL: Yeah, sweet throw. He had a couple of them. We had a couple of chances down on some goes, too that we should have caught.

Q: What he was supposed to do, obviously, the touchdown works.

DABOOLL: He said, Connor, go out there, run a go against that corner. I’m going to throw it to you, buddy. So, luckily, we didn’t have Connor out there, we had somebody else, and he threw it. It was a one-on-one play. Threw it up, threw a go. Receiver made a nice play, stacking them. Good catch, ball in stride. He gives guys chances down the field, doesn’t throw the ball out of bounds most of the time and gives them chances to make plays, and then it’s the job of a receiver to make a play when you’re one-on-one. That’s the job of a receiver. The job of a quarterback is give your guy a chance. Don’t throw it out of bounds. Don’t give them no chance when it’s a one-on-one play. That’s what we expect from all our QBs.

Q: (Cornerback, Deonte) Banks played long after most of the starters, what was the significance in that? I know you were short at corner, but is there also something?

DABOLL: Well, (cornerback, Cor’Dale) Flott wasn’t here, but I thought D could use some work. So I played him as much as I wanted to play him.

Q: Your other rookie was pretty good, too, (outside linebacker, Abdul) Carter. Was he all right?

DABOLL: Yeah, not a ton of plays for those first guys. A couple series, which was the plan. Somewhere between six and ten plays, unless we were playing a certain way, maybe it would have been a little bit more. Again, there’s some good. There’s plenty of, I don’t want to call it bad, but bad that we got to learn from. We got to build on it. We got a big week of practice here against A.G.’s (New York Jets head coach, Aaron Glenn) Jets. Expect good competitive practices with that group. Try to take another step. Still a ways to go. But beats the alternatives.

Q: Abdul obviously, he did some good rushing the pass but we expected that. But just in the face of those wide balls, how does he get some of that?

DABOLL: Not a lot of plays. Good week here coming up against the Jets. Keep on building with him. So, with all of these, with the rookies, with our team, with everything, again, let’s take it for what it’s worth. It’s one preseason game. There’s some good stuff, and there’s a lot of things we need to correct, and that’s what our job is to do, is to leave here and go home and some of the guys played a fair amount and make sure they’re ready to go and then come back on practice and improve the things we need to improve on, which we can learn a lot from this tape, a lot.

Q: What did you talk about, I think it was (assistant General Manager) Brandon Brown who said it a couple months ago that, you know, when you’re scouting guys and you see it on film in college, you’re scouting and then they get here and all of a sudden they’re on the field and you start seeing the same things. You just mentioned things you saw on tape at Ole Miss for Jaxson that you’re now seeing now. Is that also part of the extended nature of these guys, especially for Jaxson?

DABOLL: Yeah, and again, we’re talking about one game, but I’ve seen him in OTAs. I’ve seen him in training camp. I know his personality, developed a good relationship with him throughout the draft process. Got here, he’s someone that I enjoy coaching and have a very good relationship with and see a lot of positive signs and he’s very hard on himself. I said, I’m proud of you tonight. You did some good things. We got to make some more plays, too, on the perimeter. That’s not what we do. You know, we got two or three chances to make those plays and whatever ‘mid,’ what’s mid now mean? ‘That was mid.’ That was his response. He’s pretty hard on himself. I’ll say that. You got to ask him about what mid means. Six, seven.

Q: Everybody who didn’t play was limited in practice, so we know why they didn’t play except (wide receiver) Jalin Hyatt. Was that a medical thing, too?

DABOLL: Everyone that didn’t play, didn’t play because the medical team or the doctors told me that it’s probably a good idea they don’t play this game. Everyone, including, that would be everyone including Jalin Hyatt.