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May 23, 2013
Redskins Park
Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan
On quarterback Robert Griffin III saying he wants to be ready for training camp:
“Well, we’re hoping that he’s ready for training camp. He’s been working extremely hard like we’ve talked about in the past. I think you guys could see today that he’s been throwing for a while. His arm is in pretty good shape. It looks like he’s making a lot of progress.”
On how closely he watches Griffin III:
“I’ll take a look at film each day, drills he’s going through and how he’s throwing the ball and exactly what he’s doing. You want to make sure that he doesn’t overdo it, and so that’s one of the reasons why you look at the film. But he’s in there getting a lot of treatment, in the weight room every day, doing the things that he needs to do. I think you could see today he’s been throwing the ball for a while. You can see his arm is feeling quite well. So it’s a process.”
On what he thought “ahead of schedule” means for Griffin III’s timetable for return:
“I don’t know. I really don’t know what 'ahead of schedule’ means except for the doctors. They keep on saying that he’s ahead of schedule, and we want to be patient with him because if you go too quick and you set it back, he could hurt himself. And so our goal is to see where he’s at when he comes into camp July 25.”
On if Griffin III could play in the season opener without playing in the preseason:
“It’s hard to say. Probably not…. Do you mean in a preseason game or in practice? You’d have to practice against yourself, not necessarily against an opponent. One of the reasons for that, he’d have to work with the first-team offense and he’d have to have some practice time.”
On if he would have separate “Robert Rules” rules for participating in training camp if Griffin III is ready to play:
“You can’t have 'Robert Rules.’ What you have to do if a guy is able to practice, he’s able to practice, because whatever you’re doing, you’re going to put your legs in certain situations that causes stress. We don’t want to put him in situation that he’s not ready for. So it’s an ongoing process. The doctors will evaluate him. They’ve looked at guys with ACLs for a long time. They’re the experts in that area. They’ll let me know if they think he’s ready to go.”
On his conversations with Griffin III this offseason:
“You kind of go through each game. When he came back, you talk about the Cleveland game even though he didn’t play in that game. You talk about the Philly game and you go through the plays as well as Dallas and Seattle. You kind of communicate, get to know each other better every practice, every year you’re together. He knows my personality; I know his. And you talk about the things you could have done differently, things that went poorly during the season, things that went well. But overall we had a great conversation.”
On if he paid attention to comments by Griffin III’s father:
“I read what he said and I could see his thought process. When he got hurt, on the sideline it was my reaction too when I saw it on the replay. When I went over to the doctors, I talked to the doctors, 'Are you sure his knee is stable? Are you sure he can go back in the game?’ Because to me, there was some question marks when I did see it on the screen. And that’s part of the process. You get a lot of information. You talk to the doctors. I talked to Robert, and we talked about those conversations, but at the end of the day, you make a decision [and] you go with it. You get a lot of input from a lot of different people, but the bottom line is that’s over with and we’ve got a season to look forward to.”
On his relationship with Griffin III:
“Robert’s a very competitive guy. You want guys like Robert that’s going to go out there and give you everything he’s got. He wants to compete every time he’s on the football field. It doesn’t matter if it’s a run or a pass. I think Robert is the first person to tell you that, 'Hey, this year, I’m going to be a little bit more conservative than I was a year ago.’ If you’re not on the field, you’re going to hurt our football team. And you have to take those dives. You have to throw the football away, regardless of if it’s a dropback pass or a scramble or if it’s a quarterback keep. There’s a lot of different scenarios that are involved in a football game, and I think each year you grow. Every quarterback that I’ve been [with] grows every year. What Robert was able to do last year doesn’t happen very often, that’s never happened before in the history of the National Football League for a guy to be as successful throwing the football and running the football like he did. So there’s a lot of pluses.”
On Griffin III’s concern that he’ll be pulled from games with minor injuries:
“Here’s what I do – I ask the doctors. I’m not an expert in that area. A doctor says, 'Hey, he’s got a little sprained ankle. He’s fine,’ then he plays.”
On if the offense is going to be more conservative:
“We really don’t know what defenses are going to do to us. I can’t tell you for sure. You know, you adjust a game plan during the game. Defenses are going to be more ready for different things we did last year and we’ll be able to adjust. The fun part about it is we’re going to be much better than we were a year ago in knowing what to do. We look forward to the challenges this season, especially with a very competitive schedule.”
On if he would preemptively change parts of a successful offense – like the zone read – to keep Griffin III healthy:
“Remember, the zone read probably gave Robert more time in the pocket than anything else you can do in the National Football League. Where Robert did get hurt was dropping back and doing a couple of scrambles. That’s probably one of the toughest situations for a quarterback is to dropback, look downfield, know when to scramble, know when to slide. It’s just tough. I think every year you get better and better. But we’re going to try to protect Robert as much as we can. We’re going to let him do the things that we think he does the best and hopefully it will be as productive.”
On the growth of quarterback Kirk Cousins:
“I think anytime a quarterback gets the reps that Kirk is getting right now, he develops. That’s what we’re looking forward to him doing, is developing during these OTAs. And with the extra added reps that he’s getting, you can see the progression in his game. He’s playing with a lot of confidence and we like what we see.”
On cornerback Josh Wilson and defensive end Adam Carriker:
“To be honest with you, Adam, he was getting rehab and Josh was probably getting the same thing. I thought Josh was out there for a little bit, but maybe he wasn’t.”
On the next step for Griffin III:
“They have a time schedule and different things they do – when he can rollout, when he can do a little different work with his feet. You just don’t want to go too quickly because everybody thinks that they’re ready to go and they’re feeling good. So our doctors and trainers are trying to take the proper protocol in his progression and he’s looking pretty good. His strength is there and he’s not overdoing it. So far I like what I see.”
On Wilson’s injury:
“He had a pec [pectoral]. He had a couple of things. But I think he’ll be fine [and] ready to go for camp.”
On tight end Jordan Reed:
“We don’t want to throw him in there too quick. It was a thigh.”
On how Wilson injured his pectoral:
“It was a labrum tear and he had a little bit with the pec too, but anytime you have a labrum tear like he had, he played through the season. It was sore and he played through it. Then when he went in there and he went in for surgery, it was worse than they thought it was. So they repaired it and he’s feeling pretty good.”
On his impressions of his 2013 draft picks:
“Everybody looks good. You’d never admit somebody doesn’t look good anyhow [laughter]… But I like what we see. We’ve got some experience at the safety positions. We got a couple of safeties that have a lot of playing time. We got a corner that’s had a lot of playing time that’s made a couple of big plays thus far in our camps. You take a look at [linebacker Brandon] Jenkins and you can see his pass rush ability very quickly. I’m looking forward to seeing him with pads. Same thing on offense. We were taking a look at guys that are skilled athletes that hopefully can add something to what we did last year.”
On if tight end Fred Davis is doing more than what he expected:
“You know, Fred to me looks very good. The trainer thinks he’s about 90 percent. The one thing with Achilles is you don’t want guys pushing off too quickly when they’re blocking, so we’re kind of holding him back a little bit. I don’t really want him to go until we get to training camp, give him that extra time to heal up. But right now I think there should be no setback and should go full speed ahead.”
On safety Brandon Meriweather:
“I think Brandon will be fine once we get to camp. Same thing. Today, I don’t know if you watched his drills, but he did a good job in his drill work. The one thing you don’t want to do when somebody hurts his knee is get him going too quickly. Just let it heal and strengthen the muscles around the knee. Right now he looks pretty good.”
On what Griffin III is missing developmentally by not being able to participate:
“Any time you’re missing reps, obviously it doesn’t help you, but what he’s able to do is get all the mental reps and that’s what he’s got to do. Get mental reps – that’s your only choice. Does it hurt? Sure, it hurts. If I told you a guy misses all these snaps and said it didn’t hurt, then we wouldn’t have all these OTAs. But he’s a student of the game. He’s done a good job of coming in and looking at all our games and all our cutups and we get a valuable work process through it all.”
On if the mental leap is bigger than the physical leap for quarterbacks in their second year:
“Let me say this, Robert will come back here a few years from now and he’ll laugh, saying, 'Oh my God, I thought I really did know a lot about the game.’ That’s as much of a jump as you make every year, especially coming from almost any type of offense. But with Robert running the type of offense he did at Baylor, it’s a little bit different from a dropback passing game in the National Football League. But he’s got the ability to make every throw, and the more he plays, the more comfortable he’ll be. And what he was able to accomplish last year, when you think about it, for every time a ball was snapped, he had the most production out of anybody in the National Football League. That doesn’t happen very often as a rookie.”
On Griffin III throwing to other injured players like Pierre Garçon and Fred Davis:
“Well, somebody’s going to be catching. It’s always nice to have guys be able to run some routes like you just mentioned. You have three or four guys that are hurt as well as Chris [Thompson] and you get a chance to get some time in with those guys, it’s always good. And those guys are in a situation where both guys are around 90 percent, so they can run some routes even though they’re not going full speed. It’s also nice for them to get some handoffs with a guy like Chris through the process. So it’s been positive for him.”
On offensive lineman Maurice Hurt working on a stationary bike:
“He had a groin, so we had [Josh] LeRibeus and Hurt out for a couple of days. They did a good job the first couple of weeks. They had no problem. And then the next three weeks, a couple of days ago, they stretched something and they’re about 90 percent. Hopefully in the next couple of days they’ll be back.”
On anyone he doesn’t expect to be ready for training camp:
“I would think that everybody but one will be ready. That’s my guess, but I’m not telling you who the one is, so you guys have got to keep on guessing…”
On Garçon:
“I think Pierre, his rehab has been unbelievable. I mean anytime you get operated on like he did and you’re able to come back as quickly as he has… I was watching him this morning in the weight room and he’s lifting weights that he shouldn’t be able to lift. He feels very comfortable. It’s been a slow process, but he’s in excellent shape, so I’ll be surprised if he’s not full speed ready to go once we go to training camp.”
On wide receiver Joshua Morgan:
“He’s a lot better. He’s got the screws taken out of his ankle. You can see it’s a lot easier for him to cut.”
On the competition at right tackle:
“Well, what I always like to say, once you come to training camp, we’ve got 90 guys and every position is open. Now we know guys that have played extremely well and the chances of those guys getting beat out probably aren’t very good. But the mindset is we’ve got a lot of competition, a lot of people that we believe can play in the National Football League. So we’re going to evaluate everybody, how everybody plays and how everybody practices every day and that’s one of the speeches I gave our guys today. If you’re in this room, you’ve got a chance to make this football team because there’s something you have that’s very special or unique. We’ll evaluate every day. Just because you had a Pro Bowl year the year before doesn’t mean it’s automatic you’re going to be on our football team unless you show us in practice and the game how you’re going to play. And if you have that type of competition, you’ve got a chance to get better.”
On issues surrounding the organization beyond football:
“To be honest with you, I don’t pay any attention to it. I can’t. I concentrate on football and that’s for everybody else to talk about.”
On linebacker London Fletcher:
“You know, there’s some people you worry about. I don’t worry about London because [of] the way he’s prepared. I told him to kind of stay out of the OTAs and he said, 'Mike, I think I’ll be ready to go on Tuesday.’ He said, 'I think I’ll need that extra week or two weeks to be where I want to be once we get to camp.’ So it gives you insight on what type of guy you’re dealing with. But he’s been that way and if he tells you he’s going to be in shape, he’s going to be in shape.”
On linebacker Brian Orakpo:
“He’s had no setback at all. He’s been going full speed over the last four weeks. He looks as good as ever. Hopefully he can keep that up… He was hurt last year. You could see that soreness in there. Right now, you can tell it’s completely healed and we’ll keep our fingers crossed that there’s no setback.”
Quarterback Kirk Cousins
On his haircut:
“Yeah, I found a place in Ashburn to get my haircut, so it was a productive offseason. The last time I was in this position, at the podium, I was live on SportsCenter and didn’t realize it. I started rambling about a bad haircut. So, if I’m live on SportsCenter, somebody tell me.”
On the challenges of his role this offseason:
“I think it’s a great opportunity for me. Even if Robert [Griffin III] comes backs tomorrow ready to go, the fact that I got reps with the number one offense for the first three practices is a great benefit to me. However long I have a chance to get reps is a blessing. Obviously I want to see Robert come back healthy and as strong as ever. I see this as a great opportunity for me for however long it lasts. It’s a challenge to be a backup quarterback, but that’s what I signed up for. If I can’t meet that challenge I really have no business someday being a starter. I view this opportunity as a backup and the challenges it brings as the proving grounds for being a starter.”
On his mindset at practices:
“My mindset as a backup, whether it was at Michigan State or here in the NFL, is that I want to play so well in practice that, even if I’m not the guy, the coaches are going back to meetings, watching film and saying, 'I can’t wait until we can give this guy an opportunity to show us what he can do on Sundays.’ I want them to be excited about me. I want to create excitement in that coaching meeting room, even if I not out there on Sundays doing it. I want to continue to work hard so that happens.”
On his playing time his rookie year:
“Yeah, I don’t know if I would’ve expected to start a game my rookie year and play an entire game. I probably wouldn’t have expected to play as well as we did in that game, but clearly it was a great rookie year when you talk about winning the division for the first time in many years. It probably did exceed my expectations and now the bar is set that much higher for our second year. We’re excited about that and we’re working hard right now to make it a good year.”
On receiving more reps this offseason:
“I wasn’t expecting to be with the No. 1 offense much at all, so now to be able to do it for several extended practices will help my growth and development tremendously.”
On his experience in the Pistol and zone read:
“I didn’t do any Pistol in college. I didn’t do any zone read in college, whereas Robert had done that quite extensively. For me it was very foreign last year. I was learning on the fly, and obviously when I got in the game, that was not our bread and butter. It still won’t be, but having a little more experience with it now I feel much more comfortable doing it. I’m working hard on my agility to make it a viable option for me. We’re going to keep practicing it and have it ready for fall.”
On importance of practicing zone read and Pistol:
“Even if the quarterback is as slow as can be and isn’t quite simulating Robert, it’s still worthwhile to call to get reps for the other 10 guys because a day is going to come when Robert is back and it will be called.”
On his mindset entering the season:
“My mindset last year was to be ready to go and to have a mindset of preparing like I’m starting. If you start to let the thought that I’m probably not going to start creep in then I think your preparation starts to suffer. Whether it was last year or this year, regardless of the injury, my mindset was to just be ready to go as if I was starting and then react from there. I’ll never regret the preparation that I put in. I’ll never regret that.”
On auditioning for the other 31 teams:
“Well, every game is filmed, so even if coaches are coaching other games they’re going to be able to go back and watch tape and see what I can do. That’s in God’s hands. Let’s see what the future holds. I believe that he has me here in Washington, D.C. for a reason and I think this is a great place to be right now. It may be the best thing that ever happened to me to start my career in Washington, D.C. We’ll see what happens, but obviously if I play well it opens up doors elsewhere. If I don’t play well, it doesn’t.”
On asserting himself more:
“I think I’ve asserted myself more just as a result of no longer being a rookie. I’m not the low man on the totem pole. This is now my second time around the block, so it gives confidence regardless if I was with the ones or the twos. It’s very important as a quarterback to have confidence and when you’re with the ones to be able to play at a high level and step in and get the job done.”
On if he had thoughts of being somewhere else this offseason:
“I really didn’t. I felt that, with a four-year contract, it’s just too early. I really felt like I’d be back. I wanted to be back. I think this is a great place to be right now in this system with what we’re doing. Coming back off of a division championship, this is an exciting time and an exciting place to be. I’m very glad that I’m back with the Redskins.”
Quarterback Robert Griffin III
On how his knee feels:
“My knee feels great. I can do all the stuff on the field without any hesitations and that’s the best part. It is all about the confidence and if I work hard enough to get the confidence back, I can get back out on the field. ”
On working on the side during OTAs:
“In the weeks leading up to OTAs, I was feeling good so I went to Coach and asked him for the space to train since we have an all-world unclear team with me, Fred Davis, Jordan Reed, Pierre Garçon and Chris Thompson. I wanted us to have that area to the side so we wouldn’t be standing around the whole practice. Practice can get a little boring when you aren’t taking those mental reps, but as long as you can get at least a little bit of work in, we don’t feel like we are completely separated from the team.”
On the next step in his rehab process:
“There are two phases left in my rehab, explosive sprinting and cutting. Those are the only two things left with my knee being about four-and-a-half months out of surgery. I am a little bit ahead but the team is doing a good job allowing me to do the things I can do at the moment.”
On how hard it is to hold himself back in the rehab process:
“After my first knee surgery, it was really hard to hold back during the rehab process but I didn’t have the LCL so I could so some more things. Now that I have been through it already and I can see the bigger picture ahead, it is hard to hold myself back but I know why I am doing the rehab. As long as I know what I am doing the rehab for, the struggle to hold back does not matter.”
On the timetable for what he has left in his rehab:
“The timetable for the explosive sprinting is over the next couple weeks and the cutting a couple weeks after the sprinting. I am not worried about those phases. One of my goals is to be on the field for training camp. At this point I am just worried about what I can control. As far as the season goes, I want to be back by Week 1. As soon as I woke up out of surgery I put the date of the first game as the pass code to my phone. Playing in Week 1 has always been the goal, but I am not going to risk my career to play in one game. I am definitely all in for Week 1 but also all in for my career too.”
On testing out sprinting and cutting in practice:
“I have gotten used to not being allowed to do those things thus far. I can’t wear a jersey, throw with the quarterbacks or take snaps with anyone. Every day I get restricted just a little bit more. As far as the sprinting and cutting, I do some throwing and handoffs, which has some sprinting and cutting involved in them. I keep myself limited so I do not put myself or the team in jeopardy. My sprinting and cutting is more organized at the moment, but when the doctors clear me to begin those movements, I will.”
On holding training camp in Richmond, Va.:
“I think Richmond is going to be a good time for the team to get away from everything and be together as a team. This forces us to learn more about each other because you will have no family around. Your focus will be learning the playbook, playing some ping pong and doing non-athletic things. I think it is good for the team and good for the fans too. The fans will be able to see us in a different part of Virginia.”
On adjustments to his game:
“Everyone gets fired up about changing the way that I play. My view is I can’t change my mindset but I can be smarter about what I do on the field. I have a year of experience in the NFL. Some may think that’s not a lot but a year of experience in the NFL is a big deal. I know what I have to do and what I don’t have to do out on the field. It is all about limiting the hits and being able to stay on the field for my teammates. If it is third-and-7 and I am three yards away from the first down, then I need to slide or get out of bounds. After what happened to me and the team at the end of the year, I understand that I have to be on the field and more careful while I’m out there. I can still keep the same mindset about wanting to run every play but just knowing to be careful.”
On the future of the offense:
“Coach Shanahan and his staff know what they are doing. We have had talks about the offense. Whether it is me running or Alfred [Morris] running, we will be ready to go. We have to go out there and be united as a team and united as a staff to be successful.”
On how the season went last year:
“I was happy with the wins. I was happy how we faced the adversity of being 3-6 and coming back to make the playoffs and winning the division. All of those things were the building blocks and now it is all about continuing to grow the relationship as a team.”
On handling the injury at the moment it happened:
“The injury and how the injury was handled overshadowed the success we had on the season. The injury left a bad taste in the mouth of everyone between us players, the fans, and the coaching staff. At the end of the day, we won the division and played extremely well down the stretch but had an unfortunate loss in the playoffs. We tasted the playoffs but we want to get back there and go deeper into the playoffs this year. My injury seemed to erase everyone’s memory of what happened throughout the year and that was tough for me. People were picking apart every little thing about the team and I could not even walk. I could not go to the bathroom on my own or any of those things. It was tough.”
On his father’s comments this week:
“I talked to my dad after I saw what he said. I do not have a leash on my parents. They’re my parents, guys. And I love my dad. I talked to him after I heard what he said and I told him thank you because that’s what he is supposed to say as my father. He does not want to see me running around out there on the field. He wants to see me throwing the ball. He was the one that trained me, so he knows what I can do and coach knows what I can do. It is not that I disagree or agree with what he said, but I proud of the fact that he stood up and said something. As far as what he said about the team being united, it is true. It is proven in the NFL over the years that if the quarterback and coach are on the same page then you will win a lot of games.”
On if he needed to repair relationships with the coaches:
“It was an unfortunate situation at the end of last year. I do not think there is anything that needs to be repaired. We just need to move forward and let the bad taste come out of everyone’s mouths. We need to move forward. The only thing I needed to repair from last year was my knee and that is repaired. I am ready to go.”
On if he feels like there is any repair that needs to be done in his relationship with the coaching staff:
“No, I mean there was an unfortunate situation there at the end of the season. I don’t think there is anything that needs to be repaired. Obviously, we all need to just move forward and continue to let that bad taste that was in everybody’s mouth get out and move forward to the next year. The only thing that needed repair from last year was my knee and that is repaired and I’m ready to go.”
On Twitter and his tweet about his wedding gift registry:
“It’s really been crazy. You can’t really do anything or say anything without it being blown out of proportion. I know what tweet you are talking about so when it comes to the political correctness tweet, I don’t want to sit here and talk about it all day because we literally could. There is so many different aspects of that, that were in that phrase that we could dive into and the only thing I will say about that is I think there is a difference between political correctness, common sense, and being offensive. That’s the only thing I will say about that. And then the wedding registry, I just want to say thank you to the fans. Thank you guys. I didn’t ask you guys to do that. The media made that public and you guys decided to give out of the generosity of your heart so I do truly appreciate that. Anything else that came after that, criticism, stuff like that, I just have to move on and not worry about it.”
On what players have given him advice about coming back from an injury like his:
“I have talked to Adrian Peterson, that’s the obvious one and he says what everyone else says. I’ve already been through the injury once and I’m not all-knowing about the injury, so I listen to guys and Adrian said what everyone else says. I’m not Adrian; Adrian is not me. Everybody’s body heals a little differently. Rex [Grossman] also tore an ACL in his career and he’s talked to me about the uncertainties he had with the injury. My view is always, even from the first one, you come back as if you were never hurt because that is the only way you can play. You don’t play the game afraid to get hurt, you play the game like you are supposed to be invincible while at the time being smart and sliding and all of that other stuff.”
On moving forward in the offense, if he has to run less and throw more going forward:
“Going forward I think it’s whatever the defenses want us to do. I think defenses, with any quarterback in the league, want to be physical with the quarterback. It doesn’t matter who you are. Myself, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, [Colin] Kaepernick, Russell [Wilson], [Andrew] Luck, any of us, they want to be physical with the quarterback. I think when it comes to quarterbacks who run, the zone read option, I think it’s brought up a lot more but anytime you saw in the playoffs or down the stretch, teams were saying, 'Hey we need to get to Peyton Manning. Hey, we need to get to Tom Brady,’ and that’s the same thing they are saying about me and other quarterbacks around the league who are running the zone read. I don’t know what it will be, what the mix will be, how many rushing attempts I’ll have or how many passing attempts I’ll have, I just know we want to win games and that’s what we are going to do.”
On if there was ever a moment of doubt following his injury and if there have been any setbacks in his rehab:
“No setbacks during the rehab. There was no point in the injury process or surgery that I woke up and said, 'Oh no, I might not play again.” That was never a thought that crossed my mind. You know the tough part about it honestly was I went in the surgery not knowing what was wrong. I knew I was going to have to get my LCL repaired but looking at the MRIs and everything we couldn’t really tell if my ACL needed to be repaired. So you know I have been through this before so I know if you have a patella tendon graft on the same knee, you can’t get it from the same knee. So I knew when I got put to sleep if I woke up and felt my left knee that I’d had surgery on my ACL. So I woke up, the nurse didn’t notice I was up, and I felt my left leg and I went back to sleep because I didn’t want to have to deal with it at that time. Yeah, it’s tough for me to talk about it. It’s one of the things I get emotional about because it’s tough at that time. I woke back up and I told everybody who was there in that room with me and it was tough. I mean that’s the easiest way to say it. Yeah, I cried, real men cry. It doesn’t matter and I moved on. As soon as we finished our little cry festival, I put the date of the first week in my phone and that was my goal since then. You know the doctors have tried to keep me down and keep me from doing so many things and I appreciate that from them because that is what they are supposed to do. While at the same time I have to push through it because that is what you have to do with an injury like this.”
On not knowing he was going to have his ACL repaired:
“The doctor told me after he looked at the MRI that he was not sure if the ACL was gone, which gave me, my family and the organization a little bit of hope that the injury would not as serious. Then they put me to sleep and I woke up and my dad was talking to me and he said the doctor said he looked at it for 15 minutes and he could not tell what he needed to do. He said if I were 40 years old and I was not going to play football anymore and just play pickup game of basketball here or there, I would not have needed the surgery on my ACL, but because of the player that I am and the type of game that I can play, he went ahead and did it for me because he felt it was needed.”
On if his LCL was completely torn:
“The LCL was not completely torn.”
On if he will be ready for the opener:
“If I had the say, yes. I control only what I can control. I can control my recovery. I can control how hard I work. I can control my mental reps out on the field. I can control what I can do in the film room. I cannot control what the coaches do.”
On if he thinks he will have less say moving forward:
“No. I just feel like everyone is going to be very hypersensitive about anything that happens with me. My biggest fear is that I roll an ankle and they pull me out of the game, and that is being serious.”
On “everyone” being hypersensitive:
“I am saying everyone. It is the position you put yourself in when you are a high caliber athlete, especially a quarterback. Fans are going to be more hypersensitive, as well as the media and the coaches, but that is something that I have to deal with now. But just like I told Coach [Shanahan] at the time, I was being honest with him then, and I’ll be honest with him in the future.”
On his relationship with Shanahan:
“Mike and I hashed everything out well after the season because I was in Pensacola, Fla. for a month. We hashed everything out, we talked, and we are moving forward from it. I told you guys that before and I will say it again. That’s all I can say. We talked about it, we are on the same page and we are ready to go.”
On if there were apologies during his conversation with Shanahan
“No, there were no apologies.”
On if he would play in the season opener without playing in the preseason:
“I have thought about that, and yes, I would be comfortable with that. That is all I can say. I have no control over whether I play or not in the preseason. I would be comfortable running out of the tunnel at FedExField with the smoke and everything.”
On if he has been creative to replace physical reps he is missing:
“Yes, I have and that is part of the process of me with those other guys. Being on the 15-yard line, going in and we go through the entire script. I do the same thing I did as a rookie with going through the script each play and writing down what I have to do, because as long as I know it, I know I can do it. There is where the year of playing and knowing the system a little bit better now helps you so that you can make sure you actually get the mental rep and that you know exactly what you are looking at every play that goes up. And then after practice, I will stick around and do some stuff with the guys. The OTA process will be a very frustrating one. As you saw, I feel healthy and I look healthy, but they are not going to put me out there. They are not going to let me go anything, but I have to just keeping grinding as much as I can to make sure I get there.”
On mental reps:
“The mental rep is basically this, you know the play and you know the defense you are going against. You need to know where you are supposed to be looking, and what all your eligibles are. It is basically just paying attention. You know what you are supposed to look at and you are yelling it out before it happens. It helps you by looking at it from a different perspective, so that when you get out there on the field you understand that you only need to look at this one guy on this play or this one guy on this play, and you go about it that way.”
On gift he received and if he would throw a party for the team at his house:
“I do not know if the neighborhood I live in would enjoy that many cars being out there, but I will definitely being having a housewarming get together, because that is what we do in the National Football League; we get together, no parties. It will be fun. Once everything is settled and the furniture and everything is in, I will have everyone over.”
Quarterback Kirk Cousins
On his haircut:
“Yeah, I found a place in Ashburn to get my haircut, so it was a productive offseason. The last time I was in this position, at the podium, I was live on SportsCenter and didn’t realize it. I started rambling about a bad haircut. So, if I’m live on SportsCenter, somebody tell me.”
On the challenges of his role this offseason:
“I think it’s a great opportunity for me. Even if Robert [Griffin III] comes backs tomorrow ready to go, the fact that I got reps with the number one offense for the first three practices is a great benefit to me. However long I have a chance to get reps is a blessing. Obviously I want to see Robert come back healthy and as strong as ever. I see this as a great opportunity for me for however long it lasts. It’s a challenge to be a backup quarterback, but that’s what I signed up for. If I can’t meet that challenge I really have no business someday being a starter. I view this opportunity as a backup and the challenges it brings as the proving grounds for being a starter.”
On his mindset at practices:
“My mindset as a backup, whether it was at Michigan State or here in the NFL, is that I want to play so well in practice that, even if I’m not the guy, the coaches are going back to meetings, watching film and saying, 'I can’t wait until we can give this guy an opportunity to show us what he can do on Sundays.’ I want them to be excited about me. I want to create excitement in that coaching meeting room, even if I not out there on Sundays doing it. I want to continue to work hard so that happens.”
On his playing time his rookie year:
“Yeah, I don’t know if I would’ve expected to start a game my rookie year and play an entire game. I probably wouldn’t have expected to play as well as we did in that game, but clearly it was a great rookie year when you talk about winning the division for the first time in many years. It probably did exceed my expectations and now the bar is set that much higher for our second year. We’re excited about that and we’re working hard right now to make it a good year.”
On receiving more reps this offseason:
“I wasn’t expecting to be with the No. 1 offense much at all, so now to be able to do it for several extended practices will help my growth and development tremendously.”
On his experience in the Pistol and zone read:
“I didn’t do any Pistol in college. I didn’t do any zone read in college, whereas Robert had done that quite extensively. For me it was very foreign last year. I was learning on the fly, and obviously when I got in the game, that was not our bread and butter. It still won’t be, but having a little more experience with it now I feel much more comfortable doing it. I’m working hard on my agility to make it a viable option for me. We’re going to keep practicing it and have it ready for fall.”
On importance of practicing zone read and Pistol:
“Even if the quarterback is as slow as can be and isn’t quite simulating Robert, it’s still worthwhile to call to get reps for the other 10 guys because a day is going to come when Robert is back and it will be called.”
On his mindset entering the season:
“My mindset last year was to be ready to go and to have a mindset of preparing like I’m starting. If you start to let the thought that I’m probably not going to start creep in then I think your preparation starts to suffer. Whether it was last year or this year, regardless of the injury, my mindset was to just be ready to go as if I was starting and then react from there. I’ll never regret the preparation that I put in. I’ll never regret that.”
On auditioning for the other 31 teams:
“Well, every game is filmed, so even if coaches are coaching other games they’re going to be able to go back and watch tape and see what I can do. That’s in God’s hands. Let’s see what the future holds. I believe that he has me here in Washington, D.C. for a reason and I think this is a great place to be right now. It may be the best thing that ever happened to me to start my career in Washington, D.C. We’ll see what happens, but obviously if I play well it opens up doors elsewhere. If I don’t play well, it doesn’t.”
On asserting himself more:
“I think I’ve asserted myself more just as a result of no longer being a rookie. I’m not the low man on the totem pole. This is now my second time around the block, so it gives confidence regardless if I was with the ones or the twos. It’s very important as a quarterback to have confidence and when you’re with the ones to be able to play at a high level and step in and get the job done.”
On if he had thoughts of being somewhere else this offseason:
“I really didn’t. I felt that, with a four-year contract, it’s just too early. I really felt like I’d be back. I wanted to be back. I think this is a great place to be right now in this system with what we’re doing. Coming back off of a division championship, this is an exciting time and an exciting place to be. I’m very glad that I’m back with the Redskins.”
Redskins Park
Executive Vice President/Head Coach Mike Shanahan
On quarterback Robert Griffin III saying he wants to be ready for training camp:
“Well, we’re hoping that he’s ready for training camp. He’s been working extremely hard like we’ve talked about in the past. I think you guys could see today that he’s been throwing for a while. His arm is in pretty good shape. It looks like he’s making a lot of progress.”
On how closely he watches Griffin III:
“I’ll take a look at film each day, drills he’s going through and how he’s throwing the ball and exactly what he’s doing. You want to make sure that he doesn’t overdo it, and so that’s one of the reasons why you look at the film. But he’s in there getting a lot of treatment, in the weight room every day, doing the things that he needs to do. I think you could see today he’s been throwing the ball for a while. You can see his arm is feeling quite well. So it’s a process.”
On what he thought “ahead of schedule” means for Griffin III’s timetable for return:
“I don’t know. I really don’t know what 'ahead of schedule’ means except for the doctors. They keep on saying that he’s ahead of schedule, and we want to be patient with him because if you go too quick and you set it back, he could hurt himself. And so our goal is to see where he’s at when he comes into camp July 25.”
On if Griffin III could play in the season opener without playing in the preseason:
“It’s hard to say. Probably not…. Do you mean in a preseason game or in practice? You’d have to practice against yourself, not necessarily against an opponent. One of the reasons for that, he’d have to work with the first-team offense and he’d have to have some practice time.”
On if he would have separate “Robert Rules” rules for participating in training camp if Griffin III is ready to play:
“You can’t have 'Robert Rules.’ What you have to do if a guy is able to practice, he’s able to practice, because whatever you’re doing, you’re going to put your legs in certain situations that causes stress. We don’t want to put him in situation that he’s not ready for. So it’s an ongoing process. The doctors will evaluate him. They’ve looked at guys with ACLs for a long time. They’re the experts in that area. They’ll let me know if they think he’s ready to go.”
On his conversations with Griffin III this offseason:
“You kind of go through each game. When he came back, you talk about the Cleveland game even though he didn’t play in that game. You talk about the Philly game and you go through the plays as well as Dallas and Seattle. You kind of communicate, get to know each other better every practice, every year you’re together. He knows my personality; I know his. And you talk about the things you could have done differently, things that went poorly during the season, things that went well. But overall we had a great conversation.”
On if he paid attention to comments by Griffin III’s father:
“I read what he said and I could see his thought process. When he got hurt, on the sideline it was my reaction too when I saw it on the replay. When I went over to the doctors, I talked to the doctors, 'Are you sure his knee is stable? Are you sure he can go back in the game?’ Because to me, there was some question marks when I did see it on the screen. And that’s part of the process. You get a lot of information. You talk to the doctors. I talked to Robert, and we talked about those conversations, but at the end of the day, you make a decision [and] you go with it. You get a lot of input from a lot of different people, but the bottom line is that’s over with and we’ve got a season to look forward to.”
On his relationship with Griffin III:
“Robert’s a very competitive guy. You want guys like Robert that’s going to go out there and give you everything he’s got. He wants to compete every time he’s on the football field. It doesn’t matter if it’s a run or a pass. I think Robert is the first person to tell you that, 'Hey, this year, I’m going to be a little bit more conservative than I was a year ago.’ If you’re not on the field, you’re going to hurt our football team. And you have to take those dives. You have to throw the football away, regardless of if it’s a dropback pass or a scramble or if it’s a quarterback keep. There’s a lot of different scenarios that are involved in a football game, and I think each year you grow. Every quarterback that I’ve been [with] grows every year. What Robert was able to do last year doesn’t happen very often, that’s never happened before in the history of the National Football League for a guy to be as successful throwing the football and running the football like he did. So there’s a lot of pluses.”
On Griffin III’s concern that he’ll be pulled from games with minor injuries:
“Here’s what I do – I ask the doctors. I’m not an expert in that area. A doctor says, 'Hey, he’s got a little sprained ankle. He’s fine,’ then he plays.”
On if the offense is going to be more conservative:
“We really don’t know what defenses are going to do to us. I can’t tell you for sure. You know, you adjust a game plan during the game. Defenses are going to be more ready for different things we did last year and we’ll be able to adjust. The fun part about it is we’re going to be much better than we were a year ago in knowing what to do. We look forward to the challenges this season, especially with a very competitive schedule.”
On if he would preemptively change parts of a successful offense – like the zone read – to keep Griffin III healthy:
“Remember, the zone read probably gave Robert more time in the pocket than anything else you can do in the National Football League. Where Robert did get hurt was dropping back and doing a couple of scrambles. That’s probably one of the toughest situations for a quarterback is to dropback, look downfield, know when to scramble, know when to slide. It’s just tough. I think every year you get better and better. But we’re going to try to protect Robert as much as we can. We’re going to let him do the things that we think he does the best and hopefully it will be as productive.”
On the growth of quarterback Kirk Cousins:
“I think anytime a quarterback gets the reps that Kirk is getting right now, he develops. That’s what we’re looking forward to him doing, is developing during these OTAs. And with the extra added reps that he’s getting, you can see the progression in his game. He’s playing with a lot of confidence and we like what we see.”
On cornerback Josh Wilson and defensive end Adam Carriker:
“To be honest with you, Adam, he was getting rehab and Josh was probably getting the same thing. I thought Josh was out there for a little bit, but maybe he wasn’t.”
On the next step for Griffin III:
“They have a time schedule and different things they do – when he can rollout, when he can do a little different work with his feet. You just don’t want to go too quickly because everybody thinks that they’re ready to go and they’re feeling good. So our doctors and trainers are trying to take the proper protocol in his progression and he’s looking pretty good. His strength is there and he’s not overdoing it. So far I like what I see.”
On Wilson’s injury:
“He had a pec [pectoral]. He had a couple of things. But I think he’ll be fine [and] ready to go for camp.”
On tight end Jordan Reed:
“We don’t want to throw him in there too quick. It was a thigh.”
On how Wilson injured his pectoral:
“It was a labrum tear and he had a little bit with the pec too, but anytime you have a labrum tear like he had, he played through the season. It was sore and he played through it. Then when he went in there and he went in for surgery, it was worse than they thought it was. So they repaired it and he’s feeling pretty good.”
On his impressions of his 2013 draft picks:
“Everybody looks good. You’d never admit somebody doesn’t look good anyhow [laughter]… But I like what we see. We’ve got some experience at the safety positions. We got a couple of safeties that have a lot of playing time. We got a corner that’s had a lot of playing time that’s made a couple of big plays thus far in our camps. You take a look at [linebacker Brandon] Jenkins and you can see his pass rush ability very quickly. I’m looking forward to seeing him with pads. Same thing on offense. We were taking a look at guys that are skilled athletes that hopefully can add something to what we did last year.”
On if tight end Fred Davis is doing more than what he expected:
“You know, Fred to me looks very good. The trainer thinks he’s about 90 percent. The one thing with Achilles is you don’t want guys pushing off too quickly when they’re blocking, so we’re kind of holding him back a little bit. I don’t really want him to go until we get to training camp, give him that extra time to heal up. But right now I think there should be no setback and should go full speed ahead.”
On safety Brandon Meriweather:
“I think Brandon will be fine once we get to camp. Same thing. Today, I don’t know if you watched his drills, but he did a good job in his drill work. The one thing you don’t want to do when somebody hurts his knee is get him going too quickly. Just let it heal and strengthen the muscles around the knee. Right now he looks pretty good.”
On what Griffin III is missing developmentally by not being able to participate:
“Any time you’re missing reps, obviously it doesn’t help you, but what he’s able to do is get all the mental reps and that’s what he’s got to do. Get mental reps – that’s your only choice. Does it hurt? Sure, it hurts. If I told you a guy misses all these snaps and said it didn’t hurt, then we wouldn’t have all these OTAs. But he’s a student of the game. He’s done a good job of coming in and looking at all our games and all our cutups and we get a valuable work process through it all.”
On if the mental leap is bigger than the physical leap for quarterbacks in their second year:
“Let me say this, Robert will come back here a few years from now and he’ll laugh, saying, 'Oh my God, I thought I really did know a lot about the game.’ That’s as much of a jump as you make every year, especially coming from almost any type of offense. But with Robert running the type of offense he did at Baylor, it’s a little bit different from a dropback passing game in the National Football League. But he’s got the ability to make every throw, and the more he plays, the more comfortable he’ll be. And what he was able to accomplish last year, when you think about it, for every time a ball was snapped, he had the most production out of anybody in the National Football League. That doesn’t happen very often as a rookie.”
On Griffin III throwing to other injured players like Pierre Garçon and Fred Davis:
“Well, somebody’s going to be catching. It’s always nice to have guys be able to run some routes like you just mentioned. You have three or four guys that are hurt as well as Chris [Thompson] and you get a chance to get some time in with those guys, it’s always good. And those guys are in a situation where both guys are around 90 percent, so they can run some routes even though they’re not going full speed. It’s also nice for them to get some handoffs with a guy like Chris through the process. So it’s been positive for him.”
On offensive lineman Maurice Hurt working on a stationary bike:
“He had a groin, so we had [Josh] LeRibeus and Hurt out for a couple of days. They did a good job the first couple of weeks. They had no problem. And then the next three weeks, a couple of days ago, they stretched something and they’re about 90 percent. Hopefully in the next couple of days they’ll be back.”
On anyone he doesn’t expect to be ready for training camp:
“I would think that everybody but one will be ready. That’s my guess, but I’m not telling you who the one is, so you guys have got to keep on guessing…”
On Garçon:
“I think Pierre, his rehab has been unbelievable. I mean anytime you get operated on like he did and you’re able to come back as quickly as he has… I was watching him this morning in the weight room and he’s lifting weights that he shouldn’t be able to lift. He feels very comfortable. It’s been a slow process, but he’s in excellent shape, so I’ll be surprised if he’s not full speed ready to go once we go to training camp.”
On wide receiver Joshua Morgan:
“He’s a lot better. He’s got the screws taken out of his ankle. You can see it’s a lot easier for him to cut.”
On the competition at right tackle:
“Well, what I always like to say, once you come to training camp, we’ve got 90 guys and every position is open. Now we know guys that have played extremely well and the chances of those guys getting beat out probably aren’t very good. But the mindset is we’ve got a lot of competition, a lot of people that we believe can play in the National Football League. So we’re going to evaluate everybody, how everybody plays and how everybody practices every day and that’s one of the speeches I gave our guys today. If you’re in this room, you’ve got a chance to make this football team because there’s something you have that’s very special or unique. We’ll evaluate every day. Just because you had a Pro Bowl year the year before doesn’t mean it’s automatic you’re going to be on our football team unless you show us in practice and the game how you’re going to play. And if you have that type of competition, you’ve got a chance to get better.”
On issues surrounding the organization beyond football:
“To be honest with you, I don’t pay any attention to it. I can’t. I concentrate on football and that’s for everybody else to talk about.”
On linebacker London Fletcher:
“You know, there’s some people you worry about. I don’t worry about London because [of] the way he’s prepared. I told him to kind of stay out of the OTAs and he said, 'Mike, I think I’ll be ready to go on Tuesday.’ He said, 'I think I’ll need that extra week or two weeks to be where I want to be once we get to camp.’ So it gives you insight on what type of guy you’re dealing with. But he’s been that way and if he tells you he’s going to be in shape, he’s going to be in shape.”
On linebacker Brian Orakpo:
“He’s had no setback at all. He’s been going full speed over the last four weeks. He looks as good as ever. Hopefully he can keep that up… He was hurt last year. You could see that soreness in there. Right now, you can tell it’s completely healed and we’ll keep our fingers crossed that there’s no setback.”
Quarterback Kirk Cousins
On his haircut:
“Yeah, I found a place in Ashburn to get my haircut, so it was a productive offseason. The last time I was in this position, at the podium, I was live on SportsCenter and didn’t realize it. I started rambling about a bad haircut. So, if I’m live on SportsCenter, somebody tell me.”
On the challenges of his role this offseason:
“I think it’s a great opportunity for me. Even if Robert [Griffin III] comes backs tomorrow ready to go, the fact that I got reps with the number one offense for the first three practices is a great benefit to me. However long I have a chance to get reps is a blessing. Obviously I want to see Robert come back healthy and as strong as ever. I see this as a great opportunity for me for however long it lasts. It’s a challenge to be a backup quarterback, but that’s what I signed up for. If I can’t meet that challenge I really have no business someday being a starter. I view this opportunity as a backup and the challenges it brings as the proving grounds for being a starter.”
On his mindset at practices:
“My mindset as a backup, whether it was at Michigan State or here in the NFL, is that I want to play so well in practice that, even if I’m not the guy, the coaches are going back to meetings, watching film and saying, 'I can’t wait until we can give this guy an opportunity to show us what he can do on Sundays.’ I want them to be excited about me. I want to create excitement in that coaching meeting room, even if I not out there on Sundays doing it. I want to continue to work hard so that happens.”
On his playing time his rookie year:
“Yeah, I don’t know if I would’ve expected to start a game my rookie year and play an entire game. I probably wouldn’t have expected to play as well as we did in that game, but clearly it was a great rookie year when you talk about winning the division for the first time in many years. It probably did exceed my expectations and now the bar is set that much higher for our second year. We’re excited about that and we’re working hard right now to make it a good year.”
On receiving more reps this offseason:
“I wasn’t expecting to be with the No. 1 offense much at all, so now to be able to do it for several extended practices will help my growth and development tremendously.”
On his experience in the Pistol and zone read:
“I didn’t do any Pistol in college. I didn’t do any zone read in college, whereas Robert had done that quite extensively. For me it was very foreign last year. I was learning on the fly, and obviously when I got in the game, that was not our bread and butter. It still won’t be, but having a little more experience with it now I feel much more comfortable doing it. I’m working hard on my agility to make it a viable option for me. We’re going to keep practicing it and have it ready for fall.”
On importance of practicing zone read and Pistol:
“Even if the quarterback is as slow as can be and isn’t quite simulating Robert, it’s still worthwhile to call to get reps for the other 10 guys because a day is going to come when Robert is back and it will be called.”
On his mindset entering the season:
“My mindset last year was to be ready to go and to have a mindset of preparing like I’m starting. If you start to let the thought that I’m probably not going to start creep in then I think your preparation starts to suffer. Whether it was last year or this year, regardless of the injury, my mindset was to just be ready to go as if I was starting and then react from there. I’ll never regret the preparation that I put in. I’ll never regret that.”
On auditioning for the other 31 teams:
“Well, every game is filmed, so even if coaches are coaching other games they’re going to be able to go back and watch tape and see what I can do. That’s in God’s hands. Let’s see what the future holds. I believe that he has me here in Washington, D.C. for a reason and I think this is a great place to be right now. It may be the best thing that ever happened to me to start my career in Washington, D.C. We’ll see what happens, but obviously if I play well it opens up doors elsewhere. If I don’t play well, it doesn’t.”
On asserting himself more:
“I think I’ve asserted myself more just as a result of no longer being a rookie. I’m not the low man on the totem pole. This is now my second time around the block, so it gives confidence regardless if I was with the ones or the twos. It’s very important as a quarterback to have confidence and when you’re with the ones to be able to play at a high level and step in and get the job done.”
On if he had thoughts of being somewhere else this offseason:
“I really didn’t. I felt that, with a four-year contract, it’s just too early. I really felt like I’d be back. I wanted to be back. I think this is a great place to be right now in this system with what we’re doing. Coming back off of a division championship, this is an exciting time and an exciting place to be. I’m very glad that I’m back with the Redskins.”
Quarterback Robert Griffin III
On how his knee feels:
“My knee feels great. I can do all the stuff on the field without any hesitations and that’s the best part. It is all about the confidence and if I work hard enough to get the confidence back, I can get back out on the field. ”
On working on the side during OTAs:
“In the weeks leading up to OTAs, I was feeling good so I went to Coach and asked him for the space to train since we have an all-world unclear team with me, Fred Davis, Jordan Reed, Pierre Garçon and Chris Thompson. I wanted us to have that area to the side so we wouldn’t be standing around the whole practice. Practice can get a little boring when you aren’t taking those mental reps, but as long as you can get at least a little bit of work in, we don’t feel like we are completely separated from the team.”
On the next step in his rehab process:
“There are two phases left in my rehab, explosive sprinting and cutting. Those are the only two things left with my knee being about four-and-a-half months out of surgery. I am a little bit ahead but the team is doing a good job allowing me to do the things I can do at the moment.”
On how hard it is to hold himself back in the rehab process:
“After my first knee surgery, it was really hard to hold back during the rehab process but I didn’t have the LCL so I could so some more things. Now that I have been through it already and I can see the bigger picture ahead, it is hard to hold myself back but I know why I am doing the rehab. As long as I know what I am doing the rehab for, the struggle to hold back does not matter.”
On the timetable for what he has left in his rehab:
“The timetable for the explosive sprinting is over the next couple weeks and the cutting a couple weeks after the sprinting. I am not worried about those phases. One of my goals is to be on the field for training camp. At this point I am just worried about what I can control. As far as the season goes, I want to be back by Week 1. As soon as I woke up out of surgery I put the date of the first game as the pass code to my phone. Playing in Week 1 has always been the goal, but I am not going to risk my career to play in one game. I am definitely all in for Week 1 but also all in for my career too.”
On testing out sprinting and cutting in practice:
“I have gotten used to not being allowed to do those things thus far. I can’t wear a jersey, throw with the quarterbacks or take snaps with anyone. Every day I get restricted just a little bit more. As far as the sprinting and cutting, I do some throwing and handoffs, which has some sprinting and cutting involved in them. I keep myself limited so I do not put myself or the team in jeopardy. My sprinting and cutting is more organized at the moment, but when the doctors clear me to begin those movements, I will.”
On holding training camp in Richmond, Va.:
“I think Richmond is going to be a good time for the team to get away from everything and be together as a team. This forces us to learn more about each other because you will have no family around. Your focus will be learning the playbook, playing some ping pong and doing non-athletic things. I think it is good for the team and good for the fans too. The fans will be able to see us in a different part of Virginia.”
On adjustments to his game:
“Everyone gets fired up about changing the way that I play. My view is I can’t change my mindset but I can be smarter about what I do on the field. I have a year of experience in the NFL. Some may think that’s not a lot but a year of experience in the NFL is a big deal. I know what I have to do and what I don’t have to do out on the field. It is all about limiting the hits and being able to stay on the field for my teammates. If it is third-and-7 and I am three yards away from the first down, then I need to slide or get out of bounds. After what happened to me and the team at the end of the year, I understand that I have to be on the field and more careful while I’m out there. I can still keep the same mindset about wanting to run every play but just knowing to be careful.”
On the future of the offense:
“Coach Shanahan and his staff know what they are doing. We have had talks about the offense. Whether it is me running or Alfred [Morris] running, we will be ready to go. We have to go out there and be united as a team and united as a staff to be successful.”
On how the season went last year:
“I was happy with the wins. I was happy how we faced the adversity of being 3-6 and coming back to make the playoffs and winning the division. All of those things were the building blocks and now it is all about continuing to grow the relationship as a team.”
On handling the injury at the moment it happened:
“The injury and how the injury was handled overshadowed the success we had on the season. The injury left a bad taste in the mouth of everyone between us players, the fans, and the coaching staff. At the end of the day, we won the division and played extremely well down the stretch but had an unfortunate loss in the playoffs. We tasted the playoffs but we want to get back there and go deeper into the playoffs this year. My injury seemed to erase everyone’s memory of what happened throughout the year and that was tough for me. People were picking apart every little thing about the team and I could not even walk. I could not go to the bathroom on my own or any of those things. It was tough.”
On his father’s comments this week:
“I talked to my dad after I saw what he said. I do not have a leash on my parents. They’re my parents, guys. And I love my dad. I talked to him after I heard what he said and I told him thank you because that’s what he is supposed to say as my father. He does not want to see me running around out there on the field. He wants to see me throwing the ball. He was the one that trained me, so he knows what I can do and coach knows what I can do. It is not that I disagree or agree with what he said, but I proud of the fact that he stood up and said something. As far as what he said about the team being united, it is true. It is proven in the NFL over the years that if the quarterback and coach are on the same page then you will win a lot of games.”
On if he needed to repair relationships with the coaches:
“It was an unfortunate situation at the end of last year. I do not think there is anything that needs to be repaired. We just need to move forward and let the bad taste come out of everyone’s mouths. We need to move forward. The only thing I needed to repair from last year was my knee and that is repaired. I am ready to go.”
On if he feels like there is any repair that needs to be done in his relationship with the coaching staff:
“No, I mean there was an unfortunate situation there at the end of the season. I don’t think there is anything that needs to be repaired. Obviously, we all need to just move forward and continue to let that bad taste that was in everybody’s mouth get out and move forward to the next year. The only thing that needed repair from last year was my knee and that is repaired and I’m ready to go.”
On Twitter and his tweet about his wedding gift registry:
“It’s really been crazy. You can’t really do anything or say anything without it being blown out of proportion. I know what tweet you are talking about so when it comes to the political correctness tweet, I don’t want to sit here and talk about it all day because we literally could. There is so many different aspects of that, that were in that phrase that we could dive into and the only thing I will say about that is I think there is a difference between political correctness, common sense, and being offensive. That’s the only thing I will say about that. And then the wedding registry, I just want to say thank you to the fans. Thank you guys. I didn’t ask you guys to do that. The media made that public and you guys decided to give out of the generosity of your heart so I do truly appreciate that. Anything else that came after that, criticism, stuff like that, I just have to move on and not worry about it.”
On what players have given him advice about coming back from an injury like his:
“I have talked to Adrian Peterson, that’s the obvious one and he says what everyone else says. I’ve already been through the injury once and I’m not all-knowing about the injury, so I listen to guys and Adrian said what everyone else says. I’m not Adrian; Adrian is not me. Everybody’s body heals a little differently. Rex [Grossman] also tore an ACL in his career and he’s talked to me about the uncertainties he had with the injury. My view is always, even from the first one, you come back as if you were never hurt because that is the only way you can play. You don’t play the game afraid to get hurt, you play the game like you are supposed to be invincible while at the time being smart and sliding and all of that other stuff.”
On moving forward in the offense, if he has to run less and throw more going forward:
“Going forward I think it’s whatever the defenses want us to do. I think defenses, with any quarterback in the league, want to be physical with the quarterback. It doesn’t matter who you are. Myself, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, [Colin] Kaepernick, Russell [Wilson], [Andrew] Luck, any of us, they want to be physical with the quarterback. I think when it comes to quarterbacks who run, the zone read option, I think it’s brought up a lot more but anytime you saw in the playoffs or down the stretch, teams were saying, 'Hey we need to get to Peyton Manning. Hey, we need to get to Tom Brady,’ and that’s the same thing they are saying about me and other quarterbacks around the league who are running the zone read. I don’t know what it will be, what the mix will be, how many rushing attempts I’ll have or how many passing attempts I’ll have, I just know we want to win games and that’s what we are going to do.”
On if there was ever a moment of doubt following his injury and if there have been any setbacks in his rehab:
“No setbacks during the rehab. There was no point in the injury process or surgery that I woke up and said, 'Oh no, I might not play again.” That was never a thought that crossed my mind. You know the tough part about it honestly was I went in the surgery not knowing what was wrong. I knew I was going to have to get my LCL repaired but looking at the MRIs and everything we couldn’t really tell if my ACL needed to be repaired. So you know I have been through this before so I know if you have a patella tendon graft on the same knee, you can’t get it from the same knee. So I knew when I got put to sleep if I woke up and felt my left knee that I’d had surgery on my ACL. So I woke up, the nurse didn’t notice I was up, and I felt my left leg and I went back to sleep because I didn’t want to have to deal with it at that time. Yeah, it’s tough for me to talk about it. It’s one of the things I get emotional about because it’s tough at that time. I woke back up and I told everybody who was there in that room with me and it was tough. I mean that’s the easiest way to say it. Yeah, I cried, real men cry. It doesn’t matter and I moved on. As soon as we finished our little cry festival, I put the date of the first week in my phone and that was my goal since then. You know the doctors have tried to keep me down and keep me from doing so many things and I appreciate that from them because that is what they are supposed to do. While at the same time I have to push through it because that is what you have to do with an injury like this.”
On not knowing he was going to have his ACL repaired:
“The doctor told me after he looked at the MRI that he was not sure if the ACL was gone, which gave me, my family and the organization a little bit of hope that the injury would not as serious. Then they put me to sleep and I woke up and my dad was talking to me and he said the doctor said he looked at it for 15 minutes and he could not tell what he needed to do. He said if I were 40 years old and I was not going to play football anymore and just play pickup game of basketball here or there, I would not have needed the surgery on my ACL, but because of the player that I am and the type of game that I can play, he went ahead and did it for me because he felt it was needed.”
On if his LCL was completely torn:
“The LCL was not completely torn.”
On if he will be ready for the opener:
“If I had the say, yes. I control only what I can control. I can control my recovery. I can control how hard I work. I can control my mental reps out on the field. I can control what I can do in the film room. I cannot control what the coaches do.”
On if he thinks he will have less say moving forward:
“No. I just feel like everyone is going to be very hypersensitive about anything that happens with me. My biggest fear is that I roll an ankle and they pull me out of the game, and that is being serious.”
On “everyone” being hypersensitive:
“I am saying everyone. It is the position you put yourself in when you are a high caliber athlete, especially a quarterback. Fans are going to be more hypersensitive, as well as the media and the coaches, but that is something that I have to deal with now. But just like I told Coach [Shanahan] at the time, I was being honest with him then, and I’ll be honest with him in the future.”
On his relationship with Shanahan:
“Mike and I hashed everything out well after the season because I was in Pensacola, Fla. for a month. We hashed everything out, we talked, and we are moving forward from it. I told you guys that before and I will say it again. That’s all I can say. We talked about it, we are on the same page and we are ready to go.”
On if there were apologies during his conversation with Shanahan
“No, there were no apologies.”
On if he would play in the season opener without playing in the preseason:
“I have thought about that, and yes, I would be comfortable with that. That is all I can say. I have no control over whether I play or not in the preseason. I would be comfortable running out of the tunnel at FedExField with the smoke and everything.”
On if he has been creative to replace physical reps he is missing:
“Yes, I have and that is part of the process of me with those other guys. Being on the 15-yard line, going in and we go through the entire script. I do the same thing I did as a rookie with going through the script each play and writing down what I have to do, because as long as I know it, I know I can do it. There is where the year of playing and knowing the system a little bit better now helps you so that you can make sure you actually get the mental rep and that you know exactly what you are looking at every play that goes up. And then after practice, I will stick around and do some stuff with the guys. The OTA process will be a very frustrating one. As you saw, I feel healthy and I look healthy, but they are not going to put me out there. They are not going to let me go anything, but I have to just keeping grinding as much as I can to make sure I get there.”
On mental reps:
“The mental rep is basically this, you know the play and you know the defense you are going against. You need to know where you are supposed to be looking, and what all your eligibles are. It is basically just paying attention. You know what you are supposed to look at and you are yelling it out before it happens. It helps you by looking at it from a different perspective, so that when you get out there on the field you understand that you only need to look at this one guy on this play or this one guy on this play, and you go about it that way.”
On gift he received and if he would throw a party for the team at his house:
“I do not know if the neighborhood I live in would enjoy that many cars being out there, but I will definitely being having a housewarming get together, because that is what we do in the National Football League; we get together, no parties. It will be fun. Once everything is settled and the furniture and everything is in, I will have everyone over.”
Quarterback Kirk Cousins
On his haircut:
“Yeah, I found a place in Ashburn to get my haircut, so it was a productive offseason. The last time I was in this position, at the podium, I was live on SportsCenter and didn’t realize it. I started rambling about a bad haircut. So, if I’m live on SportsCenter, somebody tell me.”
On the challenges of his role this offseason:
“I think it’s a great opportunity for me. Even if Robert [Griffin III] comes backs tomorrow ready to go, the fact that I got reps with the number one offense for the first three practices is a great benefit to me. However long I have a chance to get reps is a blessing. Obviously I want to see Robert come back healthy and as strong as ever. I see this as a great opportunity for me for however long it lasts. It’s a challenge to be a backup quarterback, but that’s what I signed up for. If I can’t meet that challenge I really have no business someday being a starter. I view this opportunity as a backup and the challenges it brings as the proving grounds for being a starter.”
On his mindset at practices:
“My mindset as a backup, whether it was at Michigan State or here in the NFL, is that I want to play so well in practice that, even if I’m not the guy, the coaches are going back to meetings, watching film and saying, 'I can’t wait until we can give this guy an opportunity to show us what he can do on Sundays.’ I want them to be excited about me. I want to create excitement in that coaching meeting room, even if I not out there on Sundays doing it. I want to continue to work hard so that happens.”
On his playing time his rookie year:
“Yeah, I don’t know if I would’ve expected to start a game my rookie year and play an entire game. I probably wouldn’t have expected to play as well as we did in that game, but clearly it was a great rookie year when you talk about winning the division for the first time in many years. It probably did exceed my expectations and now the bar is set that much higher for our second year. We’re excited about that and we’re working hard right now to make it a good year.”
On receiving more reps this offseason:
“I wasn’t expecting to be with the No. 1 offense much at all, so now to be able to do it for several extended practices will help my growth and development tremendously.”
On his experience in the Pistol and zone read:
“I didn’t do any Pistol in college. I didn’t do any zone read in college, whereas Robert had done that quite extensively. For me it was very foreign last year. I was learning on the fly, and obviously when I got in the game, that was not our bread and butter. It still won’t be, but having a little more experience with it now I feel much more comfortable doing it. I’m working hard on my agility to make it a viable option for me. We’re going to keep practicing it and have it ready for fall.”
On importance of practicing zone read and Pistol:
“Even if the quarterback is as slow as can be and isn’t quite simulating Robert, it’s still worthwhile to call to get reps for the other 10 guys because a day is going to come when Robert is back and it will be called.”
On his mindset entering the season:
“My mindset last year was to be ready to go and to have a mindset of preparing like I’m starting. If you start to let the thought that I’m probably not going to start creep in then I think your preparation starts to suffer. Whether it was last year or this year, regardless of the injury, my mindset was to just be ready to go as if I was starting and then react from there. I’ll never regret the preparation that I put in. I’ll never regret that.”
On auditioning for the other 31 teams:
“Well, every game is filmed, so even if coaches are coaching other games they’re going to be able to go back and watch tape and see what I can do. That’s in God’s hands. Let’s see what the future holds. I believe that he has me here in Washington, D.C. for a reason and I think this is a great place to be right now. It may be the best thing that ever happened to me to start my career in Washington, D.C. We’ll see what happens, but obviously if I play well it opens up doors elsewhere. If I don’t play well, it doesn’t.”
On asserting himself more:
“I think I’ve asserted myself more just as a result of no longer being a rookie. I’m not the low man on the totem pole. This is now my second time around the block, so it gives confidence regardless if I was with the ones or the twos. It’s very important as a quarterback to have confidence and when you’re with the ones to be able to play at a high level and step in and get the job done.”
On if he had thoughts of being somewhere else this offseason:
“I really didn’t. I felt that, with a four-year contract, it’s just too early. I really felt like I’d be back. I wanted to be back. I think this is a great place to be right now in this system with what we’re doing. Coming back off of a division championship, this is an exciting time and an exciting place to be. I’m very glad that I’m back with the Redskins.”
