Washington Redskins Training Center - Richmond, Va.
Head Coach Jay Gruden
Redskins Coach Jay Gruden James Murphy CCS |
On the skirmishes today:
“Tempers flared. I don't know who started what. We
tried as a staff – Coach [Bill] O'Brien and myself tried to make it
clear that wasn't acceptable behavior. Unfortunately, it wasn't two
people. It was a group of men that was escalated
very quickly. For whatever reason it escalated into a nasty brawl, so
we separated the teams and just finished practice on our own.”
On deciding to separate practice:
“Initially we had a couple on our field on the
offensive field, and I was just going to cut that period out and have
everybody go to the side, let everybody cool down and finish practice,
but then the other one broke out on the other field
and it wasn't worth it. Injuries take place. Obviously, it wasn't a
good situation, but we missed an opportunity to get better today against
a good team. A lot will be written about that, what happened today. But
really we had two excellent days against them
and I appreciate them coming. It's an unfortunate happening.”
On if he felt today was wasted:
“Yeah, I do. On the other side, we had quite
a few guys down, some guys taking a rest day today. We're a little bit
banged up and we need this day off tomorrow
for our players to recover. I do wish we had that practice. We had some
red zone, some two-minute, some great situational work we were going to
do today. Unfortunately, we didn't get it done. Weather had probably a
little bit to do with the energy levels of the players, I don't know. It
is what it is and we still got some work
done though.”
“Yeah, I think everybody is fine. I don't think there's any new injuries to report. Matt Jones re-tweaked his knee a little bit. I think that’s the only new injury we have but he’s going to be fine.”
On if he had a sense that this might happen
“No, not at all. I thought the first two days were outstanding. It was good work, really. Going in full pads this day, the last day, the rain, the weather, the crowd… you could see everybody was a little anxious to get the practice in and put in a little bit extra in finishing runs and all that stuff. You could sense a little bit but what happened there you can’t really control. You try to control, but unfortunately it happened.”
On positive takeaways from the joint practices:
“I think there’s a lot, really. We got great work for a lot of young guys, situational work, like I said. We got [Brandon] Scherff and Morgan Moses and J.J. Watt. We got scheme, we got quarterbacks seeing a different scheme, we got a lot of great work for young defensive backs, young defensive linemen. So it’s another chance for them to get on tape and see what they have against other teams’ players. Sometimes when you’re going against each other all throughout training camp, you don't really have a sense of how well they’re doing because they’re going against the same guy all the time. But when we go against different people, it's a great measuring stick for both sides and for us to look at the young guys."
On if linebacker Ryan Kerrigan’s day off today was planned:
“Yes. This is really the toughest stretch throughout the season. We go four, five days in a row now without a break sometimes, so some of the veterans we’ll give a day off who’s coming off an injury – like Kerrigan, like Trent [Williams], like D-Hall would have had one today had he been OK.”
On tackles Willie Smith and Tom Compton:
“Willie’s been out with a little bit of that
Achilles deal. He was getting some work here yesterday and today, so I
was anxious to see how he’s progressed but I don’t have a lot to go on
with shoulder pads on. He’s going to get a lot of
great work, obviously in the Cleveland game and the preseason games and
moving forward. Tom is a valuable player for this football team
because he can play left tackle, right tackle, left guard, right guard.
He probably could play center. He’s still in here
competing his butt off and not giving up by any means the starting job.
But he’s going to come out… knowing that you have a guy that could play
four positions effectively is very, very important for this team.”
On if he’ll rethink joint practices in the future:
"No, I think the only think I’ll rethink is going
three straight days in pads. I think against New England last year we
were probably two days and then we went in shorts the day before a game.
I think three days in a row is probably too
much. These guys get a little… The third day in shorts there is no way
they can really fight cause there is no contact. We thought it was
important to get the work in for a lot of our young guys and our
preseason game is not until Thursday
so we had time to
do this. So that would be the only thing I would rethink but I think
these are very, very valuable. Like I said, I appreciate Coach O'Brien
coming here and the Houston Texans. I know they are sick about what
happened today as we are but that happened and we
just have got to move on."
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