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BB: Good morning. [We're] winding down here on the Redskins. How are you guys doing? Getting everything you need?
Q: You released Santonio Thomas. Can you talk a little bit about letting him go?
BB: We'll see how things go here this afternoon, see what happens with the transactions. There'll probably be some movement here at some point. We'll see what happens with Santonio.
Q: It terms of Santonio and what he was able to accomplish while he was here, I assume it's not really a reflection of him personally but was more of a team decision?
BB: Well, all roster moves are, yeah, but we'll see what happens. He's been released before, he's been re-signed, so we'll see what happens.
Q: You've mentioned before about Richard Seymour not being in training camp. When he comes back in do you have to monitor him almost like a pitch count, or do you throw him right in there?
BB: I think every situation is different. Certainly any player that comes back at this point in is behind guys that have been here all the way through, but other guys have been in and out, so we'll just take it on a case-by-case basis and, again, do what we think is best for the player and then integrate that into what we think is best for the team based on what the player can do and where he's at. [There's] no set formula there.
Q: How is Eddie Jackson doing in his second week back?
BB: Eddie has done well, as has Chad [Jackson]. I think each practice, each day those guys are moving forward and that's good. They've worked hard to get back and they were in good condition when they got out there – they've been working a lot on their own, but they just need football time and they're getting it.
Q: What did you like about Eddie when you signed him, when you brought him here?
BB: Eddie played defensively and played in the kicking game for Miami. I thought he did a good job for them. [He] played the inside position in sub, also played some outside corner. He's played on special teams – he was a good special teams player for them. So he's done a lot of different things. He has some versatility. Even though he hadn't been in our system, being in Nick [Saban]'s system for a couple of years down there, there's some carry-over. It's not the same, but there's some carry-over.
Q: Are there any games between Joe Gibbs' Redskins and when you were at the Giants that stand out to you?
BB: Sure. I'm sure the ones that stand out to me aren't the ones that stand out to him, but sure. 21-0 in the NFC Championship game in '86 would definitely be one. [The] opener – we opened with them a couple of times. I'm trying to remember. One of those is a [Dave] Meggett game. One of those was a Pepper [Johnson] game. Pepper had, what was it, three sacks against them when [Lawrence] Taylor was out? We had some great games with them. They had their real good teams, of course, in '82 and '87 during the strike years, which I'm sure those are games they remember a lot more than we did at the Giants. It was interesting because we basically had the same defense from year to year. There were very few changes in our personnel or scheme, for that matter, and they basically had the same offense year after year after year. Donny Warren at tight end and [Mark] May and [Joe] Jacoby at tackle and [Russ] Grimm and [Jeff] Bostic at center. [They] changed the backs a couple of times between [George] Rogers – [John] Riggins to Rogers and Kelvin Bryant and all of that, but the same receivers – [Art] Monk, [Gary] Clark and [Ricky] Sanders, so it was a lot of the same guys matched up year after year. We got to the point where I would say somewhere there around '88, that when we got ready for the game the only games we watched were our previous games. You know, we played them three times in '86, we played them twice in '85. '87 was a strike year, twice in '88, so by '88, '89, '90, we would watch the previous five games against the Redskins even though they were three or four years ago, rather than the previous three games that they had played against Philadelphia – whoever – Kansas City and Dallas. Because our defense was – our match-ups were the same. Their match-ups, the scheme. They really only had two running plays. The zone play – especially with Riggins and Rogers, because they didn't really try to get outside with them, so they ran the inside zone play and then they ran the counter play that married with it, besides a draw. It was just running those same plays over and over again from different formations, different personnel groups, different looks, but it was the same plays out of the same passing game. I've never really coached a team like that, but I just thought that was the way to do it. There wasn't any point in watching them play against Buddy Ryan's Eagle defense, because they didn't block it or even try to do the same things that they tried to do against the Giants year after year.
Q: Winning three Super Bowls as a coach for him is impressive, but is it more impressive that he did it with three different quarterbacks?
BB: Well, really, it was almost three different teams. Not just quarterbacks – it was three different teams. '82, '87 and …'92? What was it? I can't remember. What was the third one?
Q: '91.
BB: '91, yeah. They were spaced out and there were some significant differences. It was probably three different running backs, too, right? It was Riggins in '82. I don't think Riggins was there in '87. And '91, that would have been…
Q: Smith. Timmy Smith.
BB: Yes, Timmy. Right. He was a kind of one year … But all of those backs, even though they were different – they had George Rogers and they had Kelvin Bryant. They had Joe Washington for a while. They had those different guys, but they all had that same role. They had the third-down back and then they had the first and second down back. They had the third receiver and the second tight end – it was [Clint] Didier, it was [Mike] Tice. I think Tice was there for awhile. [Don] Warren was the main guy and then it was their second tight end, whoever the move tight end was, so they had guys that had those roles, but they changed. Obviously the quarterback changed – [Joe] Theisman, [Doug] Williams and [Mark] Rypien. It wasn't just the quarterback, though, There were some other guys. And then defensively they had a lot of continuity there with [Dexter] Manley, Darrell Dreen. There were some key players there – Charles Mann – it seemed like it was always the same guys making plays. They made a lot of them. That was back in the days when Lawrence Taylor was a gunner and Dexter Manley was a gunner, on the punt team. Those two guys were hard to stop, I can tell you that. Dexter could really run. He probably ran under 4.6. So did Taylor. [There were] guys that were 260 out there, split out covering punts [laughs].
Q: After the Dallas game, Randy Moss said that you were a heck of a coach, if not the greatest ever. Tom Brady said something similar. What does that mean to you, to hear your players say that?
BB: Obviously it's a huge compliment and I appreciate it. I don't want to minimize it, but I don't think it really means anything for this game. This game is all about what happens this week. It's not about what somebody did a couple of years ago or whatever with another team. It's about where we are right now. Right now we're going into Washington. We haven't played them in several years. We didn't beat them when we did play them back in, what was it … '03, right? Yeah, in '03. I mean, that was [Steve] Spurrier, it was a whole different deal. It's a new match-up for us and it's a good one. They're a good team. They're outstanding on defense, they lost two real close games. They could easily be undefeated right now. I mean, I appreciate the compliment, I really do. And they're great players and I feel probably the same way about both of those guys that they said they felt about me, but that doesn't really matter, either. We're all just trying to find a way to play well this week and compete against a good Redskins team. That's what our challenge is.
Q: What type of year is Logan Mankins having?
BB: Logan's had a good year. I think our whole line has had a solid season, both in terms of protection and the running game. We've seen a lot of different schemes. They work well together, they make good adjustments, work well with the quarterback in terms of communications. Logan really doesn't have a lot of weak points. He's strong, athletic, he's a good pass-protector, he's a good run-blocker. He can pull. He can block big guys over him. These days it's tough on guards, because sometimes you're lined up against guys like [John] Henderson and [Marcus] Stroud down there at Jacksonville you have to block and then the next week you're trying to block linebackers, athletic guys like [Jonathan] Vilma and London Fletcher and guys like that who line up. So it goes from playing against some of probably the most powerful people in the league to some very athletic linebackers to some very quick inside pass-rushers that they see over them from week to week, so there's a big contrast in style for what the guards play, let's say, as opposed to a left tackle who would get [Aaron] Schobel and Justin Smith, DeMarcus Ware. And they're all great players – I'm not saying that. Andre Carter this week. But they all have a similar – they're athletic, their up-field speed undercut pass rushers that they're probably not going to see a 320-pound Reggie White kind of guy out there playing defensive right end on our left side. But at guard, you can go the whole gamut and even though you won't be lining up across from a big, physical player, then on the snap of the ball they stunt and you end up blocking a 230-pound linebacker who's quick and is an elusive guy to block in space up at the second level. So it goes from blocking those big guys on the line to running out on a screen pass, trying to block London Fletcher and Rocky MacIntosh and guys like that, where they have a lot of space to work. So it's tough. Guard it a tough position to play for teams that face multiple defenses and have multiple defenses and have multiple-type plays. But Logan has done a good job. He really does, and he's handled himself well, like I said, in a lot of different situations.
Q: I know you don't rate them, but would he be one of the top guards?
BB: He's a pretty good football player. He's a pretty good football player. Like I said, he does a lot of things well. Some guys are good run blockers. Some guys are good pass protectors. Some guys that are good pass rushers. Some guys that are good run stoppers. You've got guys that can pretty much handle themselves and you don't mind matching them up against anybody and I'd say that Logan is one of those kind of guys. If he's matched up against a linebacker or a real quick pass rusher or a guy like Jason Taylor, like last week when they moved Taylor inside and rushed him up the middle or they line him up outside and stunted him inside like Buffalo did with Schobel and the Dolphins did with Taylor. A lot of the time your guards end up on players like that. Like I said, the next time they're getting Keith Traylor so it's not all the same. I know it's X's and O's, but there's some big X's and then there are some fast X's and some quick X's, but that's one of the things about an offensive line that's unique because it's usually the same five guys. You don't usually see a lot of rotation there. I know Cincinnati did it, but you don't see a lot of rotation there so it's the same five guys, but the match-ups that they have, you watch these shows and they're matching up this guy's got to block that guy. Well maybe for 20 plays a game that's who he's blocking, but for the other 40 plays it's somebody else because they're stunting or they're blitzing or there's a game or whatever so it's a lot of different match-ups for the offensive linemen.
Q: Has the addition of [LaRon] Landry allowed [Sean] Taylor to make more big plays down the field?
BB: No, I wouldn't say so. I would say, you know, last year Taylor played strong safety and [Vernon] Fox played free safety for the majority of the year. [Adam] Archuleta was in there and then this year Taylor has played free safety and Landry's played free safety. Taylor's actually played away from the line of scrimmage more than he's played close to it. He does play down there. I'm not saying that, but the majority of the snap he's more on the deeper part of the field and Landry's closer to the line, but they play a lot of two-deep coverage. I'd say though, trying to think of all the interceptions that Taylor has had and he's had a couple of them that have been called back, which you know when you're watching the film that you don't really care whether it was called back or not because some guy lined up offsides. You're just watching the coverage. He has five, but I'd say he's had a couple more that have been nullified by penalty and the majority of those have been to the deep part of the field. I might be forgetting one, but there was two against Green Bay, one against the Giants, last week he was in the deep half against Arizona when he intercepted [Kurt] Warner so he's had a lot of them in the deep part of the field and Landry's made his plays, too. Last week, he had the interception on the 2-point conversion and it probably didn't even go on the stats. They're both active guys. They're fast. They're physical players that have a lot of range. A lot of times when you see them making a tackle, you run the play back and you see how far they came to make the tackle. It might be 30, 40 yards away and making a tackle after a 5-yard gain, too, I'm not saying they're making it 40 yards downfield. They have great speed and range. Guys turn the ball back and they get there or they get in on them. But Taylor's had a productive year and Landry and I think those guys are fairly similar in their skill set even though Taylor's a lot bigger. He's probably 25 pounds heavier, but they're similar in their skill set so they can kind of do either one. Whereas, I think last year Taylor was down a lot more, playing strong and whoever the free safety was Archuleta or Fox was back there playing deep. That's helped their team too because Fox has become more of a special teams player for them and he's very good at the kicking game and he's made a lot of plays for them there. Those are probably plays that he hasn't had as many of in the last year because he was playing more on defense. |
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