Press Release: #Redskins HC Jay Gruden Quotes

[TK]

May 13, 2017

 

Head Coach Jay Gruden

             

On his first impressions of the rookies:

"I was impressed with them all, even the tryout guys that came in here. They had to learn on the fly. The first day, we were throwing a lot of stuff at them offensively and defensively and they picked it up well and competed. As far as our draft picks are concerned, I’m satisfied. I’m happy with them. They have a long way to go, without a doubt. They know they have a lot of work ahead of them. They’re behind. They have to catch up, but I like the way they worked, I liked the way they practiced and I like their athletic ability.”

On why practice was cut short:

"We’re down defensive linemen. We only had four interior defensive linemen. We lost two of them today, so I had to cut it off. I didn’t want to wear those guys down.”

 

On the defensive linemen:

"We had a guy pull his groin and another tryout guy left.”

 

On what he saw from DL Jonathan Allen:

"I think he’s got great football knowledge, number one. Number two, he has great hands and his feet are good. So I think he’s got all the tools to be a great defensive lineman, without a doubt. I think there are some things he can clean up as all of these young guys have issues they need to clean up. As far as skill set is concerned, Jonathan has everything you’re looking for in a defensive lineman.”

On RB Samaje Perine:

“You see him out there running around – were you impressed? [Reporter answers yes] Yeah, so was I. I like guys who come in here and love football and he does. He’s a very smart guy. You can tell that he’s going to be a very hard worker and, of course, he runs hard. You can’t see that in shorts, obviously, but you could see that his pad level is always down, he’s got good vision, he’s got good feet in the hole and he caught the ball well.”

 

On having new coaches on defense:

“It’s going to be a challenge. Anytime you have a new defensive staff, I don’t care how experienced you are, it’s your job to get the team to gel. The secondary, linebackers, defensive line, they’ve got to play together as one and that’s a challenge. I think from a talent standpoint, we feel like we’ve done a good job in the offseason addressing some of our needs with the draft and free agency. We lost a couple of good players, but we feel like we replaced them and upgraded our team with depth, which is very good. I think we have a lot of depth on our defense right now as opposed to previous years, so it’s going to be their job and it’s a great challenge, that’s the challenge of all coaches is to get your team to gel defensively and play together. I feel like the talent is there for them to work with.”

 

On CB Marrio Norman, brother of CB Josh Norman, trying out this weekend:

“You would think one would be enough… [laughter]. But, you know, he’s got a skillset. I’ll tell you what, he’s a good player. He’s played in a couple different leagues and runs around out there good. Josh has been touting him pretty hard for the last year and a half, so we wanted to give him a shot and give him a look. We gave him a look and we’ll discuss his future here today.”

 

On the timelines for CB Fabian Moreau and S Montae Nicholson:

“Not really an update on their timeline. We’re just going to play it by ear, let them rehab and get them back. Right now for them it’s about getting mental reps. Trying to learn our system, learning the secondary, the corner spot, obviously the safety spot, very, very important. They’re behind, like I said, so they just have to pick it up on a chalkboard so when they’re ready to go, they can participate. But it will be a while. I’m hoping maybe training camp, maybe later. It might be the regular season. We don’t know yet.”

 

On if the meetings this week can help Moreau and Nicholson:

“Oh, yeah. That’s the only chance they have. You have to learn it mentally before you go out and do it physically. You’d like to let them learn and participate, but the best they can do is just learn it. That’s half the battle.”

 

On LB Ryan Anderson:

“He’s got great strength. What you see on tape at Alabama, you can see it kind of transfer here with how hard he works, his work ethic. He’s heavy right now. He’s 260-plus pounds. He’s a big man. He’s got to get in football shape, but I don’t think he’s far away at all. The type of guy he is, he’ll work his tail off and get in shape. All of these guys, they have been off really since the combine. So they are all a little bit behind. Our guys have been in here working, running and lifting. We’ll get him in here. Get him in the building and get him to work.  But he’s an impressive guy, strong-minded guy, physical and a good add.”

 

On an ideal weight for Anderson:

“I don’t know. I’ll let Chad Englehart [decide]. We’ll talk obviously with Ryan and come up with a target weight. It’s the first time we’ve seen him since the combine. So we’ll decide that later. It’s not like he’s grossly overweight. He’s fine. All of these guys, all of these rookies come in and they’re not necessarily in football shape. We don’t expect them to be. They all have to keep working.”

 

On the process of evaluating and deciding which players to add to the roster:

“Right now, we’re right around 90 [players], so if we want to sign one of these tryout guys, we’ll probably have to make a move. That could happen as early as next week. Maybe one or two or three spots, we’ll see. It’s also good to have these guys, get them in front of us so if something does happen with injuries later on, we can pluck one of these guys if they’re still available. It’s a good exercise for us. It’s good for us as coaches to get out there, practice before OTAs start in a couple of weeks. It was good for everybody to see these guys and get them to work.”

 

On CB Joshua Holsey’s return from multiple ACL injuries in college:

“Watching him move around, it doesn’t look like he was hurt at all. He’s really quick in and out of breaks. He’s a competitor, you can see that. He likes to talk a little bit, as do I, so it’s a good match. We have a lot of fun with him. I think he’s going to be a good candidate for this football team. I know he ran around well in special teams drills, so we’ll see how it goes, but I was impressed with Holsey.”

 

On a reported trade proposal with the 49ers during the draft:

“That’s news to me. I’m not sure where he got that; he wasn’t in our draft room. I never heard the phone ring, but even if it did, I don’t a second and a third and a fourth would be good enough for the 17^th pick in the draft, personally. But Bruce would’ve had to make that call and he never said that he was offered that.”