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Skins Quotes Post-Game vs Seahawks: Jay Gruden

Boone

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October 6, 2014
FedExField

Head Coach Jay Gruden

On injury updates:
“Let’s see, [Tyler] Polumbus had a finger dislocation. He came back in. [Brian] Orakpo had an ankle. He came back in. Perry Riley had a knee sprain, MCL knee sprain. He came back in. Ryan Clark had an ankle sprain. He came back in. Other than that it was pretty clean.”

On his challenge:
“I saw his whole body was two yards in front of the line, it looked like. The ball was at the 48 [-yard line], around there, and he went all the way up at the 50 [-yard line]. I don’t know. It looked it was clear from up in the box and looked like it was clear from the sideline. We challenged it and lost again. I thought it was worth a challenge. It was close, but they said the ball had never crossed the line, but it looked like it did on the replay.”

On what happened with the fake field goal:
“We couldn’t get a block on it. It was well-contained and did a nice job on their scheme. They got the first down. They had a pin on our right side, their left side and they got the first down, obviously. Unfortunately, it was a good call by them and not very good by us.”

On his thoughts on the game:
“I thought the guys played hard, number one. We wanted to come out and really go toe-to-toe and play our butt off. I think we did that. As far as them not being at their best, part of that was because we were playing pretty darn good. Had nothing to do with them, and everything to do with us, I’d like to think. Got some penalties in our favor, got some penalties not in our favor. Overall we were in position to win or make a great game out of it in the third quarter and we had a couple of three-and-outs, and we never could change the field position there after the failed onside kick. We were backed up, backed up, backed up, and then we’d punt and we could never change the field position. They just held on for the victory.”

On if some of the missed throws are part of a growing process for quarterback Kirk Cousins:
“I’ll tell you what, he can make a tough throw look really easy and he can make some of the easy throws look a little tough. That’s part of the consistency process, and seeing throws under pressure. You can never really get a good look at this game-type speed, especially against Seattle. He had a great pass rusher, up the field fast. Guys are all over the place. For the most part, he played pretty good. I thought he kept his composure. I know that when he watches the film, as all quarterbacks do, there will be some plays he’s going to wish he had back. Overall, I thought he kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win.”

On if there was something about Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s game they were not prepared for:
“No, I think we were ready for the zone read. They did a little bit more than they have shown in the past, but that’s no excuse. We were ready for the zone read, we’ve practiced that. I think some of the keepers, they faked the outside zone, and he was reading the backside pursuit. He was keeping them, and that’s where he hit us on a couple of them. Just a true blue, not a zone read, just a true blue faked outside zone and he just kept it on his own, which they haven’t done a whole lot of that. Russell is a hell of a player. He kept a lot of plays alive, obviously that play at the end of the game was unlike I’ve seen in a while. He’s won a lot of games for them because of that. He’s a heck of a player.”

On if Cousins corrected things that went wrong from last game:
“I think he did. I think he played well. There were some things he could have done better, obviously. I think he came out here and competed. That’s the number one thing. I think early in the game he was maybe a little bit gun shy, so to speak, as far as not being able to pull the trigger, maybe throwing balls a little bit too quick to get them out of his hands, looking for the checkdown a little bit quick. I think as the game went on and he felt the pocket and got in the flow of the game, he was a lot more patient and saw a lot more throws. I think he played pretty well. He’s going to need to step up his game, as we all are, coaches and players alike, for us to really get this thing turned around for Arizona. Well, he did good.”

On the depth of the offensive line:
“Yeah, we have [tackle] Morgan [Moses], who’s been playing a lot of left tackle and right tackle, and when [Tyler] Polumbus went down, Morgan went in there and then had a little mental mistake there. We have [tackle Tom] Compton there, he backs up left tackle and right tackle and Morgan, so we feel alright about our depth there. We have [guard Spencer] Long and Polumbus on the inside and [Chris] Chester as backup center, so from a depth perspective we’re better than most teams at this point in the season on the offensive line. The offensive line actually played pretty well in the past game. In the run game, there weren’t a lot of holes there for Alfred to run through – I think he only averaged 1.5 or 1.8 yards a carry – but kind of knew that going in. We knew it was going to be a struggle to run the ball against these guys, base personnel, and it was.”

On the team’s offensive struggles:
“They haven’t put it together, fully. It’s a process. We have to keep working at it. You know, we’ve got to get the running game going, we have to get more than 1.9 yards a carry, and it’s not good enough. When we take some shots we have to do the best we can. But overall as a group offensively, our running game is not quite good enough, obviously our deep passing game is not quite good enough. We’re not quite good enough anywhere, and obviously that starts with the play calling, so I’ve got to do a better job to get these guys prepared. We’re going to get there, I think we’ve got the talent on the team to get there. Seattle is a great football team, great defense; they’re going to make a lot of teams struggle offensively. But moving forward I think we competed and we will compete in the future.”

On the onside kick and not kicking the ball deep to Percy Harvin:
“That hurt our field position a lot. We decided not to kick to Harvin, and then the onside kick was my call. We had a plan for it, we were working on the pooch kicks and seeing how they lined up and we thought we had a numbers advantage on the onside kick but it didn’t work out. So we lost some field position, but we lost field position all night on the kickoffs, and we kind of knew that coming in. We don’t want to kick line drives to him, don’t want him returning it, so we thought that if we could stop them at the 28- or the 30-yard line with the pooch kicks, it’s better than risking kicking it to him deep, with room to run. That’s the decision we had going in.”

On sticking with the running game despite their struggles on the ground:
“Well, you know with Kirk [Cousins] as the quarterback we wanted to take some pressure off of him and get the run going. Alfred [Morris] is obviously one of our better players so we can’t just abandon him, although we probably should have. Some days when you don’t play very well you abandon it too quickly, some days you don’t abandon it quick enough. So I just didn’t want to put the pressure on Kirk and have him throw the ball 55 times against this pass rush, so we thought we’d try and stick with it. We had some good looks, but just didn’t make any good runs.”

On the team’s identity and linebacker Brian Orakpo calling it a work in progress:
“It’s a work in progress. We’re still working together. Finding out our identity, for what we are. I don’t know what anybody’s identity is defined as. We’re just trying to get our guys out there, reallyfor the identity to be to just go out and play their butts off every day and compete every snap, and I think our guys have started to do that, defensively especially. And that’s very, very important. Offensively, you know, it’s a work… you go from Robert [Griffin III] to Kirk and you get some changes up front every now and then and we’re still working to find that. But we’ll find it, we’ll keep practicing and keep working it and keep studying it until we do.

On the significant growth in quarterback Kirk Cousins’ play:
“Significant? I mean, I think he was coming off of a four-interception game, and you’re a young quarterback, to come out here and compete against the defending champs like he did, I think that’s progress, yes.”

On if he thought the defense improved in the second half:
“Yeah, I thought so. I thought we came in at halftime and Coach [Jim] Haslett did a nice job of making some adjustments to get those guys off the field. He kept getting the ball back for the offense; the problem is we kept getting backed up. We were at our own 1 one time, we were at our own 8, our own 10, we were unable to flip the field position, which just kept giving them opportunity after opportunity. So, we’ve got to do a better job offensively to at least flip the position or special teams. And again, we’ve got to get a turnover somewhere. We aren’t getting turnovers, and we aren’t really changing the momentum with our special teams. There was a couple areas where we’ve got to really figure out what to do. When you’re playing these close games, eventually somebody’s got to get a turnover. We’ve got to block a kick, somebody’s got to do something. I see these ESPN highlights all the time, I see blocked kicks for touchdowns and interceptions for touchdowns and we’ve got to figure out a way to get some of those.”
 

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