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Skins Quotes 10/31/11: M. Shanahan

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Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan

On what he can do differently to stop the three-game losing streak:
“First thing you try to do is go back to the basics and that’s good practices. We’ll continue to try to do that day-by-day. That’s the only way you have a chance.”

On the injury status of tight end Fred Davis’ ankle:
“They’ve got it in a boot right now. They said it’s a Grade One ankle sprain, so hopefully it’s not too long.”

On the injury status of linebacker Rocky McIntosh:
“I think he’ll be fine by Wednesday.”

On the injury status of tackle Trent Williams:
“No, we’ll find out more on Wednesday, but he has improved so there’s a chance that he’ll be ready this week.”

On if practices are an indication of how the team will play on Sunday or if sometimes practices don’t match how you will play:
“Well, sometimes, you don’t match up, but any time you have a few guys in new positions you try to get in sequence. Sometimes, it works out and other times it doesn’t, but our guys have been working extremely hard, so hopefully it pays dividends down the line.”

On if the coaches can do more to prepare for games:
“Yeah, we try to. We try to.”

On if the offense was unprepared against the Bills similar to the way the defense was unprepared against the Panthers:
“Last week I was referring to the option, counter-option, Wildcat, some of the things that they did last week that you normally don’t do. What we do today is you go back, especially when you have a goose-egg up on the board, you go back and you look at the things – you might miss an assignment, you might miss a block – you go through all of those things one at a time and collectively you try to improve.”

On if he’s concerned Davis may miss some time:
“We don’t know yet. There’s always concern.”

On if there is a lack of leadership now because of the team’s injuries:
“If you take a look at the defense, I think we have more of a veteran club on defense than we do offense. That’s for sure. You’re always looking for guys to step up as leaders. Leaders come from playing at a very high level consistently and that’s how you become a leader. Some are a little bit more vocal than others, but you want as many leaders as possible as you can on your team.”

On if the scripted plays change during the game when the team is down early:
“Well, usually when it changes more in that fourth quarter. If you’re down by three scores, in that area, you’re more in a two-minute mode than you are in your first half or your first three quarters of the game, depending on how the game’s going.”
On why the team didn’t go into a two-minute offense earlier:
“I thought we ran it almost the whole second half if you take a look at our play calls. You have to get first downs to keep it going.”

On if he’s comfortable with the play-calling:
“Yeah, [I’m] pretty comfortable with the play-calling. I’m heavily involved with the offense.”

On the foundation of the offense:
“Any time you add a new center, a new left guard, a new left tackle, you’re using two tight ends not as much, you’ve got a couple of [new] wide receivers in there, it’s not going to happen right away. It takes some time for those guys to work together. Some games will be better than others. All you’ve got to do is keep on working [and] try to get that chemistry to gel, and hopefully it will gel.”

On the defense’s problem stopping the run:
“That’s a good question. Overall, you take a guy like [Fred] Jackson and you miss one-gap responsibility and, all of a sudden, here’s a 25-30-yarder. He did a good job making us miss in a couple of situations where I thought we had our gaps filled.”

On if the three-game losing streak will cause friction in the locker room:
“Everybody’s disappointed when you lose. No question about it, especially when you lose the way we did without scoring a point. That’s always disappointing. You find out what type of character you have by work ethic that the players have, how they come back. Hopefully, we’ll put a full game together.”

On if he would consider moving Will Montgomery back to center:
“It all depends if Trent [Williams] is healthy, if he’s ready to go. But we will change or at least try to do what we think is best for us next week depending on the health of our players.”

On the blocked field goal:
“Well, if you’re referring to the blocked field goal, it was more of a low kick than anything. Their defensive line, there wasn’t a guy that was scot-free. I would say normally that ball is much higher in field goals [and] extra points. Usually a guy in that position doesn’t block a field goal. The kick was a little bit lower than normal.”

On the status of safety Kareem Moore:
“Same thing, on PUP. We have to make a decision by November 16.”

On determining when to keep players in for pass protection and sending players out as receiving options:
“What you have to do is you have to have some balance in your offense and we all know that and you have got to be good at both. In order to have that balance, you’ve got to work extremely hard, especially with a couple of guys being out. You have to establish that running game and, if you’re not going to establish that running game, you’ve got a one dimensional game [and] you’re going to have a lot of sacks.”

On if he does anything different with the practice schedule because of the losing streak:
“Like every other week – same schedule.”

On his thoughts of the offense 23 games into his career with the Redskins:
“I think what you do is you look at as guys have an opportunity to show us what they can do. We’ve got some young players that are playing [that] I think have a big upside at a number of positions. Obviously, it’s not going to happen overnight. I’ve got a lot of belief in these guys that they’ll play well [and] hopefully much better than we played yesterday.”


On quarterback John Beck’s performance against the Bills:
“John [Beck], like most young quarterbacks, is going to go through some growing pains as I shared with you guys before. There’s going to be some good games, there’s going to be some games that are a little off. I would say that yesterday was one of the games that John was a little off in.”

On what he can do to turn around the team:
“There’s not one thing that you do. What you do is try to take it day-by-day. The only way you get really good is if guys can focus on their job and not really worry about what’s being said and what’s being done. They have to focus on their job. We have a lot of young players that come in, they’re trying to learn [and] trying to do what they can do. We can’t use some of the personnel groupings that we did before, so we have to concentrate on a couple of things to get a little bit better. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

On the responsibility of the sacks allowed:
“Everybody looks at the offensive line saying nine sacks and everybody says it’s the offensive line, [but] that’s not the case. There are a lot of people involved in sacks. Sometimes, it’s pass protection. Sometimes, it’s routes. Sometime’s, it’s the quarterback. A lot of things go into a sack. Of course, this game was no different.”


(Courtesy of the Washington Redskins)
 
Heh heh. Pretty succinct answers for the most part. Bettin' that loss stings in Ashburn too.
 
You read between the lines and it appears as though Mike is preaching a lot of patience. That's a tough sell when the team has appeared to get worse as each of the last two seasons have progressed.
 
Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm reading way too much into this, but these responses leave me with the impression that Shanahan is somewhat baffled and probably frustrated at the lack of success. One of the things that's doing it is how generic the answers seem.

Another thing leaving this impression is a noticeable increase in the use of words like "hopefully." My inference here is that he isn't suggesting a correction or "fix" but the hope that improvements in execution will resolve the problem. Improvements in execution will undoubtedly help but I'd be happier to see more of an analysis of how well what we're doing-scheming, player utilization...etc-is working as opposed to just how well we're doing it. Of course such an analysis might call the "system" into question and I'm not too confident he's willing to go there.
 

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