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May 5, 2013
Redskins Park
Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan
On his impression of rookie minicamp:
“Good. I thought we got a lot done. We had five practices. I thought we got a lot out of it. We got a chance to evaluate a lot of players. Our draft choices and our free agents that were signed got a chance to be more familiar with our terminology. Overall I was really pleased.”
On if he saw what he was expecting from those players:
“Yeah. It’s an introduction to our system, both offensively and defensively. We don’t work on special teams in this camp, but we will in our OTAs. But they get a feel for what we’re trying to do. We get a chance to take a look at them, what type of athletes they are, what type of quickness and speed. And that was very impressive to see our draft choices out there and to see their size and their quickness and their speed and things we were hoping for. Their ball skills were very evident out there over the last few days. So it was a good practice.”
On if he saw a big jump in some of the players, particularly defensive backs like cornerback David Amerson:
“I think what someone does is they get used to what you’re doing, what kind of system you’re having. We do a lot of different things with our secondary and we put a lot of pressure on them mentally as well as physically. He gets a chance to see some of the things that we’re trying to do and I think by the fifth practice, he feels a lot more comfortable with our system and himself with what he’s trying to do. It was good.”
On Phillip Thomas and Bacarri Rambo playing both safety positions:
“You have to. Any time you have the motions and the shifts and the tight ends with the type of talent they have nowadays, you’ve got to be able to play both positions. And the good part about them, they’ve got the size and the athletic ability to play both positions. I think everybody knows what type of receiving skills they have and their ability to make plays, but I’ve seen enough on them on film I think both of them could do a great job at the strong safety position as well as the free safety position. That’s what you’re looking for when you draft them and hopefully that plays out that way.”
On if he can gauge their work ethic this early:
“When we drafted them, we have different tests that they take that tell us what type of mental quickness they have, what type of dedication, commitment, those type of things that are very important to us. Those two guys, one had a 10 and one had a nine out of a 10-point [scale]. That’s as good as you see and that’s what you’re hoping for. Now it’s open competition. It really doesn’t matter where you’re drafted, if you’re a first rounder or a free agent. It starts over again. We get a chance to see what they can do on a day-to-day basis and who wins the position. So it’ll be fun.”
On how close the personnel in the secondary is to being where he wants it:
“Well, like we were saying from day one, you’re constantly trying to get better. You’re trying to add depth where people can compete, and that’s what I think we’ve been able to do. We got three quality guys in the secondary that we were hoping to get. A lot of times you go in there with the idea that you get two or three guys and sometimes it doesn’t work out that way because your guys are taken. But I feel very good because the guys we were after were there. Now they get a chance to show us what they can do.”
On where he felt the team needed to improve in the secondary:
“When we started out, we had [Brandon] Meriweather and Tanard Jackson as our starters and both guys were out. So anytime you have those two guys at the end of your OTA days, you’re thinking that they’re going to be the starters on your football team. You lose two guys and actually have guys step up. I thought Reed [Doughty] did an excellent job last year, especially at the strong safety position when he was in the box. He played as good as you could ask a guy to play. I think we got better collectively after the bye week with our defense overall. If you take a look at it statistically, both in turnovers and point production, we were actually in the top 10 in point production over the last seven games. So we did improve in that area and guys felt more comfortable in their roles, not only at the safety position, also at the outside linebacker position when Rak [Brian Orakpo] went down. So that’s good experience that we’ve got with guys on our football team. Now you look at the addition of these guys and you let them compete. We’ll find out in time. That’s why we’ve got these OTA days, we’ve got these preseason games to evaluate these guys. I also like some of the guys behind them. I thought [Jordan] Pugh did a heck of a job last year. [Devin] Holland came in. We’ve got Meriweather coming off of a ACL. Hopefully he can come back. But we do have some competition and that’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking for depth, so if you do lose some players, you can still find a way to win. We have that now much more than we’ve had in the past.”
On his expectations for these players retaining information from this camp:
“The majority of the guys, depending on their finals, they come back a week from tomorrow and they get a chance to go through not only one more week of the second phase, but they get ready for OTA days. If someone is here for all the OTA days, they get a good feel for what we’re going to do during the season. Collectively, we’ve got a lot of time for these guys to come in, get in football shape. We get a good feel for what they can do actually before we go to Richmond. That’s what we want to do, get these guys mentally ready so once we do start in Richmond, they don’t have to think, they can react and we can see their athletic ability.”
On the injury statuses of running back Chris Thompson and tight end Jordan Reed:
“Take a look at Thompson. It’s six months since he had the ACL [injury]. He’ll be full-go according to the doctors by the time we open camp. It’ll be right at eight months, which is great. He’s working out now. Doctors say the ACL is looking great. He’s working out right now. You can see him run. I’m very impressed. He’s a guy that we think can help us. He’s got big play capabilities and a guy that we had ranked very high. I believe if he didn’t have that injury, he would have been a first-round, second-round draft choice. That’s how we had him ranked. Hopefully he can get healthy. When you take a look at Reed, he had a little bit of a pull with a quad, a little bit of soreness in the knee because of the quad. We’ll see. We’re going to put him through a little bit of rehab and hopefully he’ll be able to go in a couple of weeks. We just don’t want to push him too hard because it’s a little bit sore right now. He hasn’t done anything in about two-and-a-half, three weeks. But our key is to get him them ready for the season and both guys will be, I think, more than ready.”
On what he looks for in players trying to make the roster:
“Well, the good part about it right now is it’s hard to make our 90-man roster. We’ve got a lot of guys out here. We had 47 guys, I believe, that were free agents and they had to show us what they were made of or what they could do to earn a spot because we’ve got to cut somebody to bring somebody on. We’ve got more depth right now than we have had, so it’s not easy to make our football team. The last couple of years, we’ve had a lot of guys come in. Now it’s a little bit tougher and that’s the type of depth you want.”
On comparing running back Shawn Morris to his brother, Alfred:
“Same personality, for sure. I’m not sure they both run the same. But what a quality young man.”
On Morris and other tryout players getting an opportunity:
“What we do is have our scouts look at these players and if they think somebody has an attribute where it gives them a chance to make our football team, then we bring them in. We brought in, like I mentioned, I believe it was 47 guys and either a scout or a coach saw something that they thought they should be in our camp and have a chance to make our football team.”
On if it was interesting to have offensive lineman Andrew Robiskie, the son of former Redskins coach Terry Robiskie, try out:
“It really is. In fact, when I was with the Raiders, Terry was on the staff and I got a chance to know Terry quite well. In fact, I brought his son into the office today and I talked to him for about 10-15 minutes and shared some stories with him about me and Terry when I first got to the Raider job. We had some fun stories to talk about. But [he is] a class young man. You can see that he handles himself just like Terry. Very smart, just coming off some injuries and he did a heck of a job in our camp.”
On the timeline for players knowing if they made the team:
“I tell them that I can’t tell them for sure. Sometimes a guy will get hurt. Sometimes we’ll lose a player. I just tell them to stay in shape. I tell them to believe in themselves. If they believe in themselves, the opportunity will come sometime, if not from us, from another team. There’s a number of teams next week working a lot of these guys out, so they’ll have some opportunities to go other places and show people what they can do. But there’s a number of players out here today that could be in the National Football League that we won’t be able to sign. I just told them to believe in their dreams and just don’t let people tell you you can’t do something if you believe in yourself.”
On quarterback Ryan Radcliff:
“He did a good job. That’s part of the process of evaluating all these guys. After five practices, what we’ll do this week is look at the tape of these practices and evaluate not only our players that are signed, our free agents and our draft choices in our schemes that we’re doing. But we’ll get a chance to look at some of these young players that we haven’t watched early enough to really make a decision and we’ll do that throughout the week.”
Redskins Park
Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan
On his impression of rookie minicamp:
“Good. I thought we got a lot done. We had five practices. I thought we got a lot out of it. We got a chance to evaluate a lot of players. Our draft choices and our free agents that were signed got a chance to be more familiar with our terminology. Overall I was really pleased.”
On if he saw what he was expecting from those players:
“Yeah. It’s an introduction to our system, both offensively and defensively. We don’t work on special teams in this camp, but we will in our OTAs. But they get a feel for what we’re trying to do. We get a chance to take a look at them, what type of athletes they are, what type of quickness and speed. And that was very impressive to see our draft choices out there and to see their size and their quickness and their speed and things we were hoping for. Their ball skills were very evident out there over the last few days. So it was a good practice.”
On if he saw a big jump in some of the players, particularly defensive backs like cornerback David Amerson:
“I think what someone does is they get used to what you’re doing, what kind of system you’re having. We do a lot of different things with our secondary and we put a lot of pressure on them mentally as well as physically. He gets a chance to see some of the things that we’re trying to do and I think by the fifth practice, he feels a lot more comfortable with our system and himself with what he’s trying to do. It was good.”
On Phillip Thomas and Bacarri Rambo playing both safety positions:
“You have to. Any time you have the motions and the shifts and the tight ends with the type of talent they have nowadays, you’ve got to be able to play both positions. And the good part about them, they’ve got the size and the athletic ability to play both positions. I think everybody knows what type of receiving skills they have and their ability to make plays, but I’ve seen enough on them on film I think both of them could do a great job at the strong safety position as well as the free safety position. That’s what you’re looking for when you draft them and hopefully that plays out that way.”
On if he can gauge their work ethic this early:
“When we drafted them, we have different tests that they take that tell us what type of mental quickness they have, what type of dedication, commitment, those type of things that are very important to us. Those two guys, one had a 10 and one had a nine out of a 10-point [scale]. That’s as good as you see and that’s what you’re hoping for. Now it’s open competition. It really doesn’t matter where you’re drafted, if you’re a first rounder or a free agent. It starts over again. We get a chance to see what they can do on a day-to-day basis and who wins the position. So it’ll be fun.”
On how close the personnel in the secondary is to being where he wants it:
“Well, like we were saying from day one, you’re constantly trying to get better. You’re trying to add depth where people can compete, and that’s what I think we’ve been able to do. We got three quality guys in the secondary that we were hoping to get. A lot of times you go in there with the idea that you get two or three guys and sometimes it doesn’t work out that way because your guys are taken. But I feel very good because the guys we were after were there. Now they get a chance to show us what they can do.”
On where he felt the team needed to improve in the secondary:
“When we started out, we had [Brandon] Meriweather and Tanard Jackson as our starters and both guys were out. So anytime you have those two guys at the end of your OTA days, you’re thinking that they’re going to be the starters on your football team. You lose two guys and actually have guys step up. I thought Reed [Doughty] did an excellent job last year, especially at the strong safety position when he was in the box. He played as good as you could ask a guy to play. I think we got better collectively after the bye week with our defense overall. If you take a look at it statistically, both in turnovers and point production, we were actually in the top 10 in point production over the last seven games. So we did improve in that area and guys felt more comfortable in their roles, not only at the safety position, also at the outside linebacker position when Rak [Brian Orakpo] went down. So that’s good experience that we’ve got with guys on our football team. Now you look at the addition of these guys and you let them compete. We’ll find out in time. That’s why we’ve got these OTA days, we’ve got these preseason games to evaluate these guys. I also like some of the guys behind them. I thought [Jordan] Pugh did a heck of a job last year. [Devin] Holland came in. We’ve got Meriweather coming off of a ACL. Hopefully he can come back. But we do have some competition and that’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking for depth, so if you do lose some players, you can still find a way to win. We have that now much more than we’ve had in the past.”
On his expectations for these players retaining information from this camp:
“The majority of the guys, depending on their finals, they come back a week from tomorrow and they get a chance to go through not only one more week of the second phase, but they get ready for OTA days. If someone is here for all the OTA days, they get a good feel for what we’re going to do during the season. Collectively, we’ve got a lot of time for these guys to come in, get in football shape. We get a good feel for what they can do actually before we go to Richmond. That’s what we want to do, get these guys mentally ready so once we do start in Richmond, they don’t have to think, they can react and we can see their athletic ability.”
On the injury statuses of running back Chris Thompson and tight end Jordan Reed:
“Take a look at Thompson. It’s six months since he had the ACL [injury]. He’ll be full-go according to the doctors by the time we open camp. It’ll be right at eight months, which is great. He’s working out now. Doctors say the ACL is looking great. He’s working out right now. You can see him run. I’m very impressed. He’s a guy that we think can help us. He’s got big play capabilities and a guy that we had ranked very high. I believe if he didn’t have that injury, he would have been a first-round, second-round draft choice. That’s how we had him ranked. Hopefully he can get healthy. When you take a look at Reed, he had a little bit of a pull with a quad, a little bit of soreness in the knee because of the quad. We’ll see. We’re going to put him through a little bit of rehab and hopefully he’ll be able to go in a couple of weeks. We just don’t want to push him too hard because it’s a little bit sore right now. He hasn’t done anything in about two-and-a-half, three weeks. But our key is to get him them ready for the season and both guys will be, I think, more than ready.”
On what he looks for in players trying to make the roster:
“Well, the good part about it right now is it’s hard to make our 90-man roster. We’ve got a lot of guys out here. We had 47 guys, I believe, that were free agents and they had to show us what they were made of or what they could do to earn a spot because we’ve got to cut somebody to bring somebody on. We’ve got more depth right now than we have had, so it’s not easy to make our football team. The last couple of years, we’ve had a lot of guys come in. Now it’s a little bit tougher and that’s the type of depth you want.”
On comparing running back Shawn Morris to his brother, Alfred:
“Same personality, for sure. I’m not sure they both run the same. But what a quality young man.”
On Morris and other tryout players getting an opportunity:
“What we do is have our scouts look at these players and if they think somebody has an attribute where it gives them a chance to make our football team, then we bring them in. We brought in, like I mentioned, I believe it was 47 guys and either a scout or a coach saw something that they thought they should be in our camp and have a chance to make our football team.”
On if it was interesting to have offensive lineman Andrew Robiskie, the son of former Redskins coach Terry Robiskie, try out:
“It really is. In fact, when I was with the Raiders, Terry was on the staff and I got a chance to know Terry quite well. In fact, I brought his son into the office today and I talked to him for about 10-15 minutes and shared some stories with him about me and Terry when I first got to the Raider job. We had some fun stories to talk about. But [he is] a class young man. You can see that he handles himself just like Terry. Very smart, just coming off some injuries and he did a heck of a job in our camp.”
On the timeline for players knowing if they made the team:
“I tell them that I can’t tell them for sure. Sometimes a guy will get hurt. Sometimes we’ll lose a player. I just tell them to stay in shape. I tell them to believe in themselves. If they believe in themselves, the opportunity will come sometime, if not from us, from another team. There’s a number of teams next week working a lot of these guys out, so they’ll have some opportunities to go other places and show people what they can do. But there’s a number of players out here today that could be in the National Football League that we won’t be able to sign. I just told them to believe in their dreams and just don’t let people tell you you can’t do something if you believe in yourself.”
On quarterback Ryan Radcliff:
“He did a good job. That’s part of the process of evaluating all these guys. After five practices, what we’ll do this week is look at the tape of these practices and evaluate not only our players that are signed, our free agents and our draft choices in our schemes that we’re doing. But we’ll get a chance to look at some of these young players that we haven’t watched early enough to really make a decision and we’ll do that throughout the week.”
