Redskins.com:Quotes From Redskin Park, Nov. 24

[TK]

http://www.redskins.com/story.asp?ContentID=12301

Quotes From Redskin Park, Nov. 24

11/24/2003

HEAD COACH STEVE SPURRIER

On the team’s injuries:

"Jermaine Haley, our defensive tackle, was put on injured reserve. He’s scheduled to have surgery on his thumb—it’s been bothering him all year. As far as players who will not practice or unlikely to practice: Taylor Jacobs, Andre Lott, Darnerien McCants—he had a little knee contusion—Larry Moore, Patrick Ramsey and Chris Samuels."

On Samuels’ injury:

"Chris may be out a week or two with a sprained knee. He may not play in Sunday’s game, along with Andre Lott and Larry Moore. Taylor may make it back."

On Ladell Betts:

"He should be ready for some limited practice and be ready to play this week. He’s expected to be able to suit up."

On the Miami loss:

"It was a disappointing game last night. We had some good plays here and there and a lot of guys who played well and with a lot of effort. But overall as a team, we didn’t play with enough discipline and enough effort the entire night to come out a winner. We had a lot of chances but we didn’t make it happen."

On what he wants to say to the Redskin fans:

"I apologize to the Redskin fans out there. Our team has not achieved what we thought we were capable of this year. If anybody deserves most of the blame, it should be me. I’m the head coach. My record is 4-7."

On the assistant coaches:

"Our assistant coaches are an excellent group. I can assure they put in as much time and effort trying to put our players in position to make plays as well as any staff in the NFL. It seems like we’ve struggled to put players in position as far them carrying out their assignments. We’re not an assignment team as well as we need to be to win close games. It’s as simple as that. That’s why we lost so many close ones. It’s one or two plays here or there. We have made too many errors to be a winning team. So I take most of the blame. If you want to blame someone, blame me. As head coach, I have not gotten our guys to be assignment-conscious as well as we should be.”

On the season:

"The last thing I told our players last night in Miami? Let’s try to win one for our fans at FedExField this Sunday against the Saints. The playoffs are very unrealistic right now, but we’re going to play out our season with our best players and try to win every game we play.”

On Patrick Ramsey:

“Patrick is still our starting quarterback when he’s healthy to play. If not, then certainly Tim Hasselbeck will get the call. We’re all very proud of the way Tim played last night. He played with a lot of courage, hung in there, and made some plays. But it didn’t work out for the team.”

On when he will evaluate the job status for his assistant coaches:

“At the end of the season, we’ll talk about whatever’s happening next year. Between now and the end of the season, we’re going to talk about the opponent coming up and how we’re going to beat those guys. We have the Saints coming in, they’re one win better than us, and it should be a heck of a game.”

On Patrick Ramsey’s status:

“Patrick’s foot was bothering him again Monday. In Sunday’s game, he sort of got his head [pushed] into the ground in the first quarter and that’s the reason he had to come out. But his foot problem is something that’s really bothering him to the point where he cannot practice during the week. That hurts him also, not being able to take all the snaps in practice.”

On whether it would be wise to sit Ramsey for a week or two:

“We’ll base that on what the team doctors tell us and how Patrick feels as far as his physical condition. If he says, ‘Coach, I’m ready to play,’ then he’ll be our guy and away we’ll go. But if he’s hurting a bit, then we have a lot of confidence in Tim Hasselbeck as our backup.”

On Tim Hasselbeck’s performance:

“I thought Tim made some real good decisions back there. I thought he picked out his receivers well. I think the more he plays, the better he can become. We didn’t call an audible the entire night, so we ran right into the teeth of their defense 4-5 times and left on a few plays that had very little chance. Hopefully, we can coach him up to maybe get out of bad plays and into better plays. That wasn’t his responsibility to do that last night.”

On why the defense’s NFL rankings have fallen so far this year:

“I’ll let you guys [answer] that. Sometimes, as just an observer, I don’t think [the media] watches the game as much as you should. You guys watch the plays, you watch the television replays. Call it like you see it. If somebody messed up, write it. But it’s not for me to say. Coaches are not responsible to come out and criticize players. We can’t do that—that’s not part of our job. To me, it’s the media’s job to call it like you see it. If you’re wrong, then you’re wrong. If you’re right, you’re right. That’s just a suggestion. But blame the coaches—we deserve a lot of blame because we get the credit when it goes well. If it goes bad, you deserve the criticism also.”

On Brandon Winey playing for Chris Samuels on Sunday:

“Brandon played well. He hung in there pretty tough. We gave him a little help now and then, but he blocked Jason Taylor pretty well. He got beat once, after Chris got beat once earlier, but I thought Brandon held up well in there. Chris is probably out this week, so Brandon would be the starter at left tackle."

On what is most frustrating about this team:

“The most frustrating thing is, we’re not playing our assignments the entire game. Most of the time, we’re pretty good, but in a crucial situation, we’re not fundamentally sound. That’s the biggest disappointment. Obviously as coaches, that’s what you constantly try to teach your players. We’ve not done that very well. We’ll talk about improvements down the road. We’re going to continue with our team and continue to harp on playing your assignments better and try to win as many games as we can.”

On whether Ramsey will require surgery:

"He’ll need some type of surgery after the season, our doctors say. It’s a type of injury that he cannot hurt any more, it’s just painful. That’s scheduled for after the season."

On how hard it was for Hasselbeck to come in and play against Miami:

“Tim just went out and played. He knows the offense very well and made some good decisions. I wasn’t totally shocked at what he did. We watched him at practice quite a bit, watched him run the offense. He did about all the snaps last week because Patrick did not practice. Again, until a player is under fire, you don’t really know what he’s going to do. Certainly we thought Tim handled himself very well. I think he earned the respect of all his teammates and coaches last night.”

On whether he changed play-calling for Hasselbeck:

“No, not much at all. We didn’t change any plays that we needed to at times. But that’s something he’ll need to learn to do during practice this week—and Patrick also, if he practices.”

[Tarhog]

Ramsey may not be able to hurt the foot anymore, but if his mobility is so limited he can't even evade the rush to the degree he could earlier, last night's won't be his last concussion this year. Gotta wonder what the trainers are thinking?

[Cskin]

Yeah.... J. Patrick might not be able to hurt his foot anymore... but getting hit so hard his head falls off would be detrimental to his development and the long-term QB situation of the team.