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December 8, 2013
FedExField
QB Robert Griffin III
On Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to pull Griffin out of the game:
“He just came and talked to me before the last series that I was in and told me that if they scored, the game was out of hand and there was no way we could win it, so he was going to pull me out. I got one extra series when they missed that field goal, and after that I was pulled out of the game. At that point, I just didn’t want to risk any injury in the latter part of that game – that fourth quarter with the ending.”
On wanting to finish playing the game:
“It was tough. I understood you don’t fight that. As a competitor, you don’t care what’s going on on the field or what the score is of the game. You want to finish the game with your guys. That was tough, but I understood. You still have to sit there and do everything you can to help Kirk Cousins out there — to perform, move the ball and score. I thought I would try to do that effectively.”
On if he has doubts about being next week’s starting quarterback:
“No, that’s not an issue.”
On outside thoughts on his personality:
“That’s not what the game is about. Constantly, I come to these press conferences and get asked questions about non-football things as opposed to football. It’s not the way the game should be going. When you are sitting there [at] 3-10, you partially understand some of it. But at the end of the day, there are other questions that need to be asked and other things that we have to do and one of them is playing better. None of us played good today. I didn’t play well. We all have to play better. I have to play better. I think they outplayed us today, there’s no other way around it. The game got out of hand right from the get-go, and that was hard to deal with.”
On reports about his relationship with Redskins Owner Daniel M. Snyder:
“I didn’t hear about it, and I hope no one heard about that because I wouldn’t want that to be what happened out on the field today. I didn’t know about it, still don’t know about it. I’m just trying to deal with what we have to deal with right now. I’m thinking about this game, getting ready to watch the film and getting ready for Atlanta.”
On reports coming out in pregame recently:
“It is old, but I don’t know, it has been the past couple of games. Is it calculated? I don’t know what it is. Like I said, I still don’t know what the report was and I am not going to worry about it.”
On the first half of the game:
“I think we were just shooting ourselves in the foot too often, whether it was a bad pass, a dropped ball here or there, or just missed assignments. That is tough part about it, it is all fixable and we know that. Yes, they played well, but it’s not anything that they are necessarily doing. It is what we are doing to ourselves. We just have to get it right. We can’t keep going out there, not get it right, and come up here and say, 'Hey, we need to get it right.’ I know it gets old, but at the end of the day, something has to change and we need to get it right.”
On how he would change the preparation for this game:
“There is nothing I could say up here about any of that stuff. We have to win football games. We have to do what we have to do no matter the conditions on the field, and no matter who we are facing. Collectively, we haven’t done that this year.”
On if the off-the-field media reports are starting to become a distraction:
“It’s not, and it was not like that last year, even when we were sitting at 3-6. I don’t know what is going on this year. It is pretty crazy, but at the same time, I know I don’t see any of that stuff before the game. I don’t know if the other players do or not. I can only speak for myself in that sense. It certainly didn’t affect what I was doing on the field today, and I don’t think it had any effect on anyone else.”
On the interception by Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson and the field conditions:
“Yeah, the snow, sleet, hail, or whatever you want to call it damaged the field pretty good. The interception, D.J. made a good play. You can’t throw that ball. Aside from that, too many missed opportunities.”
On if he knew if Shanahan was prepared to leave after last season:
“No.”
On his relationship with Snyder:
“I’m not going to talk about that stuff, guys. It is not relevant to the football game or relevant to my life, and that is my answer to that. This is ridiculous.”
On why his relationship with the coaches and the owner is always being questioned:
“I don’t know. I’m getting frustrated now too and trying to hold everything back. Some things are allowed to happen, and we can cut a lot of this stuff out, and it is not being cut out. I don’t know what else I can do about that. I come to work every day. I work with those guys every day, and I go to war with them every day. It is very unfortunate, and that is all I can say about it at this time. I will be ready for Atlanta. They are a good football team no matter what their record shows. What we have to do is play hard these last three games.”
QB Kirk Cousins
On Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to play him in the fourth quarter:
“He just told me with the score being what it was I’d go in and finish the game. That’s kind of the role of the backup. If the game gets out of hand in either direction, you put in the backup quarterback, and that’s what we did.”
On what he thought of his performance:
“I did some good things. The conditions were tough. I was going back and forth as whether to wear a glove or not. In hindsight, I should have taken the glove off a lot earlier. I felt like I was seeing things well, but I was missing by a little bit because that glove was inhibiting me. I probably should have just taken it off earlier.”
On the difficulties of playing sharp with tough weather and limited reps:
“With all the conditions and lack of reps, that’s my life. There’s no excuses. I have to go in there when called upon and perform. Sometimes, I barley do that and other times, I’ve had to grow and learn. But the coaches tell me, 'What you need more than anything is reps.’ Practice reps, game reps, whatever it may be. I benefited today by getting some reps.”
RB Alfred Morris
On if the loss is the toughest of the season:
“Yeah, you’re losing, of course it’s tough to digest. We play this game to win and when you come out here and lose… especially with all the time we put in, it almost feels like the effort is in vein to go out here and not find a way to win.”
On the team’s mentality after the loss:
“I really couldn’t tell you. I’m not in everybody’s head. I can only know my mind. My thought process right now is to finish this season off strong. We still have a lot to play for. And like I said last week, my brothers are in the trenches. That’s the main reason I’m fighting, but there’s so much more besides that that we’re fighting for. If you want to know how everyone else feels mentally, you have to ask them. I only know how I feel mentally, and my thought process is to continue to fight.”
TE Logan Paulsen
On his touchdown catch:
“At that point, we were like, 'OK, we’re going to get the ball back in the second half. There’s 53 seconds left in the second quarter. Let’s get out of here and maybe we come back and score on our first drive and we’re back in the game.’ Then, they returned the ball for a touchdown, so, that’s always disappointing.”
LB Brian Orakpo
On balancing taking lessons from this game and moving onto next week’s game:
“We’ll pick it up, and we’ll be ready to go. It was a terrible game to be a part of. You have to control what you can control. We didn’t play well in all phases of the game. We have three games left. We’re going down to Atlanta and we’re going to try and clean up this mess that we left on the field at FedEx.”
On if Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan has lost the team:
“He hasn’t lost the team. We’ve been working our tails off each and every day. We have his back. I have his back 100 percent. All these rumors and stories, I don’t care about that.”
On if Shanahan is still committed to the team:
“Absolutely. In my opinion, yes.”
On if he is sick of the rumors:
“I just try and stay away from it, but it’s tiresome at times. It is what it is. We’re a big market team, and we get a lot of [stuff] that goes along with it.”
On the high hopes for the team heading into the season and where it went wrong:
“I have no idea. We have three games left. We have to make the best of it. I have no idea as far as what went wrong. It’s just frustrating.”
On players’ effort this season:
“I have to watch the film and see exactly what went wrong to answer that question. You can come and ask me that Wednesday. All I know is that we didn’t tackle well. We didn’t do well on defense, special teams and offense. We have three games to correct it. We came out very flat, and it was very hard to pick it back up. It’s a tough loss to swallow, and it’s just frustrating.”
On if Shanahan’s message is still getting through:
“I have his back 100 percent. We prepared very well this week, and it was just another one of those games that just didn’t go our way.”
On if Shanahan should have taken as much of the blame as he did:
“Coach is always going to say that to have our backs, but at the end of the day, guys have to look at themselves and be accountable.”
On if he is worried about potential coaching turnover:
“Who knows? It’s the NFL. I just have to keep playing. The rest of this team has to keep playing these final three games and let everything sort itself out.”
On his reaction to the kickoff return touchdown:
“We just needed to make a play and get some momentum. The coaches can only do so much. I’m just trying to get guys to be accountable for themselves. The coach can only take so much of the blame. Inside the locker room, we know we have to hold ourselves accountable each and every time we’re out there on the field.”
On his thoughts at halftime:
“We just have to keep fighting. Who knows? You’ve seen a lot of crazy things in this game in the NFL. My mindset is to keep fighting. I’m not going to quit. I know [linebacker London] Fletcher isn’t going to quit. I know a lot of guys aren’t going to quit. We just have to go out there and keep fighting regardless of what the score is.”
WR Pierre Garçon
On how to get the team to perform down the stretch:
“[Head] Coach [Mike Shanahan] told us that everyone is playing for their jobs and that should be all they need to know, especially at a time like this when you’re losing.”
On if the players are putting forth enough effort:
“I think so. I’m sure you guys are going to point out who’s not. That’s your guys’ job. I think everyone is giving 100 percent.”
On turning around the negative vibe surrounding the team:
“I think it’s possible. You just show up and do your job. They told me to come here, catch footballs and make plays. That’s what I do. I don’t listen to anything else. I don’t worry about anything else. I just try to do my job the best that I can and keep giving 100 percent effort.”
On if he is worried about the coaches:
“It doesn’t matter to me. You guys are going to say good things, bad things. I just don’t pay attention to it. Guys don’t pay attention to it. It’s football. We’re having a bad year. We just have to deal with it.”
On if he is worried about the futures of Mike Shanahan and Offensive Coordinator Kyle Shanahan:
“I’m not worried about anyone’s future here. My future is what I’m worried about because that’s all I can control. It doesn’t matter who I play for, I’m going to give 100 percent.”
On if Mike Shanahan should have taken as much of the blame as he did:
“At the end of the day, football is fun. You have to enjoy it. It is a job. You have to win. You have to make plays happen, but it just comes with the territory and comes with the sport.”
FedExField
QB Robert Griffin III
On Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to pull Griffin out of the game:
“He just came and talked to me before the last series that I was in and told me that if they scored, the game was out of hand and there was no way we could win it, so he was going to pull me out. I got one extra series when they missed that field goal, and after that I was pulled out of the game. At that point, I just didn’t want to risk any injury in the latter part of that game – that fourth quarter with the ending.”
On wanting to finish playing the game:
“It was tough. I understood you don’t fight that. As a competitor, you don’t care what’s going on on the field or what the score is of the game. You want to finish the game with your guys. That was tough, but I understood. You still have to sit there and do everything you can to help Kirk Cousins out there — to perform, move the ball and score. I thought I would try to do that effectively.”
On if he has doubts about being next week’s starting quarterback:
“No, that’s not an issue.”
On outside thoughts on his personality:
“That’s not what the game is about. Constantly, I come to these press conferences and get asked questions about non-football things as opposed to football. It’s not the way the game should be going. When you are sitting there [at] 3-10, you partially understand some of it. But at the end of the day, there are other questions that need to be asked and other things that we have to do and one of them is playing better. None of us played good today. I didn’t play well. We all have to play better. I have to play better. I think they outplayed us today, there’s no other way around it. The game got out of hand right from the get-go, and that was hard to deal with.”
On reports about his relationship with Redskins Owner Daniel M. Snyder:
“I didn’t hear about it, and I hope no one heard about that because I wouldn’t want that to be what happened out on the field today. I didn’t know about it, still don’t know about it. I’m just trying to deal with what we have to deal with right now. I’m thinking about this game, getting ready to watch the film and getting ready for Atlanta.”
On reports coming out in pregame recently:
“It is old, but I don’t know, it has been the past couple of games. Is it calculated? I don’t know what it is. Like I said, I still don’t know what the report was and I am not going to worry about it.”
On the first half of the game:
“I think we were just shooting ourselves in the foot too often, whether it was a bad pass, a dropped ball here or there, or just missed assignments. That is tough part about it, it is all fixable and we know that. Yes, they played well, but it’s not anything that they are necessarily doing. It is what we are doing to ourselves. We just have to get it right. We can’t keep going out there, not get it right, and come up here and say, 'Hey, we need to get it right.’ I know it gets old, but at the end of the day, something has to change and we need to get it right.”
On how he would change the preparation for this game:
“There is nothing I could say up here about any of that stuff. We have to win football games. We have to do what we have to do no matter the conditions on the field, and no matter who we are facing. Collectively, we haven’t done that this year.”
On if the off-the-field media reports are starting to become a distraction:
“It’s not, and it was not like that last year, even when we were sitting at 3-6. I don’t know what is going on this year. It is pretty crazy, but at the same time, I know I don’t see any of that stuff before the game. I don’t know if the other players do or not. I can only speak for myself in that sense. It certainly didn’t affect what I was doing on the field today, and I don’t think it had any effect on anyone else.”
On the interception by Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson and the field conditions:
“Yeah, the snow, sleet, hail, or whatever you want to call it damaged the field pretty good. The interception, D.J. made a good play. You can’t throw that ball. Aside from that, too many missed opportunities.”
On if he knew if Shanahan was prepared to leave after last season:
“No.”
On his relationship with Snyder:
“I’m not going to talk about that stuff, guys. It is not relevant to the football game or relevant to my life, and that is my answer to that. This is ridiculous.”
On why his relationship with the coaches and the owner is always being questioned:
“I don’t know. I’m getting frustrated now too and trying to hold everything back. Some things are allowed to happen, and we can cut a lot of this stuff out, and it is not being cut out. I don’t know what else I can do about that. I come to work every day. I work with those guys every day, and I go to war with them every day. It is very unfortunate, and that is all I can say about it at this time. I will be ready for Atlanta. They are a good football team no matter what their record shows. What we have to do is play hard these last three games.”
QB Kirk Cousins
On Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to play him in the fourth quarter:
“He just told me with the score being what it was I’d go in and finish the game. That’s kind of the role of the backup. If the game gets out of hand in either direction, you put in the backup quarterback, and that’s what we did.”
On what he thought of his performance:
“I did some good things. The conditions were tough. I was going back and forth as whether to wear a glove or not. In hindsight, I should have taken the glove off a lot earlier. I felt like I was seeing things well, but I was missing by a little bit because that glove was inhibiting me. I probably should have just taken it off earlier.”
On the difficulties of playing sharp with tough weather and limited reps:
“With all the conditions and lack of reps, that’s my life. There’s no excuses. I have to go in there when called upon and perform. Sometimes, I barley do that and other times, I’ve had to grow and learn. But the coaches tell me, 'What you need more than anything is reps.’ Practice reps, game reps, whatever it may be. I benefited today by getting some reps.”
RB Alfred Morris
On if the loss is the toughest of the season:
“Yeah, you’re losing, of course it’s tough to digest. We play this game to win and when you come out here and lose… especially with all the time we put in, it almost feels like the effort is in vein to go out here and not find a way to win.”
On the team’s mentality after the loss:
“I really couldn’t tell you. I’m not in everybody’s head. I can only know my mind. My thought process right now is to finish this season off strong. We still have a lot to play for. And like I said last week, my brothers are in the trenches. That’s the main reason I’m fighting, but there’s so much more besides that that we’re fighting for. If you want to know how everyone else feels mentally, you have to ask them. I only know how I feel mentally, and my thought process is to continue to fight.”
TE Logan Paulsen
On his touchdown catch:
“At that point, we were like, 'OK, we’re going to get the ball back in the second half. There’s 53 seconds left in the second quarter. Let’s get out of here and maybe we come back and score on our first drive and we’re back in the game.’ Then, they returned the ball for a touchdown, so, that’s always disappointing.”
LB Brian Orakpo
On balancing taking lessons from this game and moving onto next week’s game:
“We’ll pick it up, and we’ll be ready to go. It was a terrible game to be a part of. You have to control what you can control. We didn’t play well in all phases of the game. We have three games left. We’re going down to Atlanta and we’re going to try and clean up this mess that we left on the field at FedEx.”
On if Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan has lost the team:
“He hasn’t lost the team. We’ve been working our tails off each and every day. We have his back. I have his back 100 percent. All these rumors and stories, I don’t care about that.”
On if Shanahan is still committed to the team:
“Absolutely. In my opinion, yes.”
On if he is sick of the rumors:
“I just try and stay away from it, but it’s tiresome at times. It is what it is. We’re a big market team, and we get a lot of [stuff] that goes along with it.”
On the high hopes for the team heading into the season and where it went wrong:
“I have no idea. We have three games left. We have to make the best of it. I have no idea as far as what went wrong. It’s just frustrating.”
On players’ effort this season:
“I have to watch the film and see exactly what went wrong to answer that question. You can come and ask me that Wednesday. All I know is that we didn’t tackle well. We didn’t do well on defense, special teams and offense. We have three games to correct it. We came out very flat, and it was very hard to pick it back up. It’s a tough loss to swallow, and it’s just frustrating.”
On if Shanahan’s message is still getting through:
“I have his back 100 percent. We prepared very well this week, and it was just another one of those games that just didn’t go our way.”
On if Shanahan should have taken as much of the blame as he did:
“Coach is always going to say that to have our backs, but at the end of the day, guys have to look at themselves and be accountable.”
On if he is worried about potential coaching turnover:
“Who knows? It’s the NFL. I just have to keep playing. The rest of this team has to keep playing these final three games and let everything sort itself out.”
On his reaction to the kickoff return touchdown:
“We just needed to make a play and get some momentum. The coaches can only do so much. I’m just trying to get guys to be accountable for themselves. The coach can only take so much of the blame. Inside the locker room, we know we have to hold ourselves accountable each and every time we’re out there on the field.”
On his thoughts at halftime:
“We just have to keep fighting. Who knows? You’ve seen a lot of crazy things in this game in the NFL. My mindset is to keep fighting. I’m not going to quit. I know [linebacker London] Fletcher isn’t going to quit. I know a lot of guys aren’t going to quit. We just have to go out there and keep fighting regardless of what the score is.”
WR Pierre Garçon
On how to get the team to perform down the stretch:
“[Head] Coach [Mike Shanahan] told us that everyone is playing for their jobs and that should be all they need to know, especially at a time like this when you’re losing.”
On if the players are putting forth enough effort:
“I think so. I’m sure you guys are going to point out who’s not. That’s your guys’ job. I think everyone is giving 100 percent.”
On turning around the negative vibe surrounding the team:
“I think it’s possible. You just show up and do your job. They told me to come here, catch footballs and make plays. That’s what I do. I don’t listen to anything else. I don’t worry about anything else. I just try to do my job the best that I can and keep giving 100 percent effort.”
On if he is worried about the coaches:
“It doesn’t matter to me. You guys are going to say good things, bad things. I just don’t pay attention to it. Guys don’t pay attention to it. It’s football. We’re having a bad year. We just have to deal with it.”
On if he is worried about the futures of Mike Shanahan and Offensive Coordinator Kyle Shanahan:
“I’m not worried about anyone’s future here. My future is what I’m worried about because that’s all I can control. It doesn’t matter who I play for, I’m going to give 100 percent.”
On if Mike Shanahan should have taken as much of the blame as he did:
“At the end of the day, football is fun. You have to enjoy it. It is a job. You have to win. You have to make plays happen, but it just comes with the territory and comes with the sport.”