| November 11, 2020 Opening Statement: “Just want to start, obviously, with Veterans Day and just make sure that I want to say thank you to all of our veterans for their service. To you and you families, we can never thank you enough for your commitment. We appreciate that. Also, obviously, playing Washington here this week. Coach (Ron) Rivera is a very good friend of mine. I know two weeks ago he finished his last chemo treatment, and I just want to wish him continued good health. He’s been a great friend and a great mentor any time I’ve had anything or questions. He’s been very unselfish in sharing, so I appreciate him a lot and hope he’s doing well. “We obviously have a big task in front of us here with Washington. We know how dangerous they are; they’ve got some great players. Just like every week, they’ve got a lot of good guys out there. I think that they did a great job in the game last week really coming back, and obviously that was a close game at the end. I think, obviously, Alex Smith is an amazing story. Everything that he’s been through and his ability to battle through all that and step out onto that field and perform, it’s pretty amazing. I have a lot of respect for him and just this team in general. So, we’re at work today and we’re grinding it out. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’re ready for it here this week to get going.” On Washington QB Alex Smith’s recovery and his appreciation for it: “No doubt. I didn’t see the special, but I know playing the quarterback position, and really stepping onto an NFL football field in general, us as coaches, we stand on the sidelines and we watch. We know there’s a general border of safety there, I would say. But when you step in the middle of the fray, especially at the quarterback position, it’s courage. Just the utmost respect, and especially for all that he’s been through in his recovery in his road back. It’s a tremendous, tremendous – just for him, it tells everything about his character and who he is as a person and as a player. It’s pretty amazing, and watching him on tape, obviously, getting comfortable back in there. You could really see in the second half last week where he kind of settled down and just played football again, and I’m sure he enjoyed that a lot. So, pretty amazing.” On Washington RB Antonio Gibson and how he’s developed: “We really liked him coming out, too. I thought that the projection was going to be exactly what Washington has done with him. You could really see – the plays on tape from college, one of the things that just stood out over and over and over was when he touched the ball, when he carried the ball, good things were going to happen for the offense. So, in that situation, he’s a big guy. He’s a big, strong, powerful guy. So, the projection to wide receiver, just a pure wide receiver, was a little bit more of – I think you’d rather have him in the backfield, being able to run certain plays with him. They do a great job with the stretch run game where he can really stretch and cut and have vision and kind of get that one-cut, downhill, low pad-level run that he’s so powerful with. I think if you try to tackle this guy low, he breaks a lot of tackles. And like I said, you can just see the projection for this guy. I think he’s, quite frankly, I think he’s gotten there very fast. I think he’s done a really good job adapting to the NFL game, and certainly, I think the other part of it is when you get him out in space, there’s certain things that they can do with him and J.D. (McKissic). They put them both out on the field at the same time. It gives the defense a lot of problems, and it’s two really good players that you’ve got to try to handle. I think they’ve done a great job developing them, and you see that on tape.” On if he has seen a comeback similar to Washington QB Alex Smith and the inspiration it provides: “I can’t off the top of my head, think of anything as probably public and severe as his was. I certainly think that guys that come back from injuries that come back and go compete, and you see the courage and strength and the toughness they have to go back out on that football field – I think it puts everything else back in perspective. I think for as a player and as a coach, everyone deals with a lot of stuff certainly through the course of the year, but when you’re going out there and you know everything that that guy next you has been through, you kind of just go out there and push a little bit more. Like I said, it’s a great story; it’s an inspiration; it’s amazing to see. Certainly I think a lot of people are rooting for him from that standpoint, absolutely. I think it’s just a testament to (inaudible).” On how to explain to CB Amani Oruwariye the decision to bring him off the bench instead of start in the cornerback rotation: “I think for all of our guys, and even Justin Coleman, when he’s out there in certain positions – we have corners that we trust and put out in the game in certain situations. Whether they’re going to be out there the first series or the second series or the third series, we have guys that can go play. I think that’s important for us to try to stay fresh as we see fit in the gameplan – just very open and honest with those conversations. I think from that standpoint, we compete every day in practice, that’s one of the reasons we compete in practice because we want everybody to go out and just earn it every week and that’s what we try to do. So from that standpoint, we’re fortunate to be in a situation where we have guys, good guys, that can rotate in and go play for us. That’s a positive thing for us.” On what stands out about Washington’s pass rushers: “Obviously (Defensive Coordinator Jack) Del Rio does a great job of getting those guys up front going after the quarterback. They generate a lot of pressure with those front four, and I think they can kind of rotate them in. Obviously (Ryan) Kerrigan is a great player, been doing it for a long time. He can get after the quarterback, and certainly the two young guys – they’ve got a lot of young guys up front. But certainly with Chase Young and (Montez) Sweat on the edge, those guys are going to roll in there, and they’re going to go. I think with as much attention obviously as the guys get on the edge, then it just opens up things inside for (Jonathan) Allen and (Daron) Payne to be able to get in the middle and push and the quarterback moves. They take a good advantage of that situation, and they’re in on a lot of those plays, too. So I think up front, they’re very, very good in the pass rush. They just kind of get into the pocket and get after the quarterback.” On if he has gotten enough production out of the linebackers: “I think overall in general, everyone wants to play a little bit better and play more consistent, and we want to coach better. Certainly our numbers are not where they want to be across the board, and obviously that reflects in where our record is. So we know that if we can improve all those little things, and we can do better at those details like we talked about, and those stats better, then obviously the chances for us to win get better. So those are things that we concentrate on all the time, and certainly starting with the basics, making sure we do those well, in those situations we can be productive and then usually it’s going to turn out OK for us.” On how he learned to stay even and not ride the emotional waves and how he teaches the players to do the same: “That’s probably a good question. I don’t really know. I would say that obviously (I’ve) just been in the NFL long enough to see what the NFL game looks like, and obviously there are good weeks and bad weeks, but staying consistent is one of the best ways that we can judge improvement. I think if you don’t stay consistent, then the swings really mask whether you have gotten better or gotten worse. I think from that standpoint, it’s good for us to just stay level so that we can always evaluate because we always want to improve. We need to be able to see when we’re not improving. I think that’s a big part of it, too. So making sure that we stay consistent, that’s important. I probably get a little bit of that from my dad, too. I think he was just a real steady kind of guy and handled a lot of situations pretty remarkably. Just growing up and watching that, too, had great mentors and coaches that I’ve worked for. I just think that it’s important for, again like I said, to be able to tell really what’s going on, whether it’s getting better or getting worse. You have to stay consistent every single day. That way, when things aren’t going well, you have to focus on what you have to do to get better.” |
