Washington coach Jay Gruden talks with reporters on Thursday. Washington (1-1) plays at Philadelphia (2-0) on Sunday.
On the injury report:
“Really the only change we have is Darrel Young was full practice today. He wasn’t limited, he was full practice today. Other than that everybody else was the same. Kedric [Golston] did not participate, DeSean [Jackson], Akeem Jordan, Tracy Porter, Jordan Reed – they all did not participate. Limited was Kai Forbath and full-go was Roy [Helu, Jr.], Shawn [Lauvao] and [Brian] Orakpo, and then Kory Lichtensteiger, he was limited today.”
On his level of optimism or concern for wide receiver DeSean Jackson and tight end Jordan Reed:
“We just have to wait and see. Injuries, I try not to get too excited or too down on anything. I just let the injuries play out, let the player honestly let me know how he’s doing and then the trainer and just go from there, but for predicting injuries, I try not to do that. So, we’re just going to wait and see, and tomorrow will be a better gauge of where they are.”
On if he anticipates Jackson will be able to practice tomorrow:
“Yeah, we’re hoping so. We’re going to challenge him, push him a little bit more tomorrow. And, we’ll see where he’s at but he’s still a little sore, but I think he’s getting better and the range of motion is better. You know, it’s an injury where I think a couple more days will do him a lot of good.”
On the injury to center Kory Lichtensteiger:
“Groin.”
On if Jackson’s injury could linger:
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s that. I don’t know. You know, I’ve had them before, it still hurts, but I think a lot of it is just pain tolerance, some of it, and the big thing is to make sure he gets his range of motion. But as far as doing more damage to it, I would have to ask the trainer on that one, but I think he’ll be OK. He wears shoulder pads, he’ll be alright.”
On if he has prepared for a short week against the New York Giants next week:
“We did some work on the Giants in the offseason and tried to prepare for the short week and tried to get a game plan somewhat together. Then we’ll obviously check out and see what they’re doing over the first three games and go from there, but we have done some work on the Giants already. It’s been on file, but we’ll just have to go faster on Monday really and try to get the whole game plan together by Monday evening.”
On the challenges of being a backup quarterback:
“The toughest thing is most quarterbacks’ mentality is they all want to compete and they all want to play. Not being able to play is the toughest thing. You’re standing there and you’re watching the other guy practice. You’re standing on the sidelines on game day and you’re seeing what you would have done and thinking what you would have done, and, ‘Dang, if it was my turn, I would have done this.’ And that’s the most frustrating thing, the most difficult thing for a quarterback and not to mention is to try to get all the mental reps. You’re not getting many of the reps like I mentioned yesterday. So, not being able to play and then not getting the reps, that’s very frustrating for guys that have a lot of talent. They just have to sit, be patient and wait their turn and be pros and learn and when their number is called, then they’ve got to be ready to produce.”
On how much of the Eagles’ success on screens is related to their scheme compared to their talent:
“It’s a little bit of both. They’ve got great talent, and they’ve got a great scheme. They go really fast, they have great drop-back passes and play-action passes and of course the running game. Then they throw the screens at you – the receiver screens and the halfback screens. They do a great job and sometimes defenses play them extremely well, but the big thing is some of those screens when they hit, they hit for gigantic chunks of yards, and that’s the one thing we have to guard against. It’s one thing having them hit for six or seven yards or five yards, but when they hit for 40 and 50 yards, those are the ones that really put a dagger in your heart. We’ve just got to do a good job and know where they are and do the best we can of pursuing and taking good angles and wrapping up and keeping our eyes open because both those guys are excellent in space with obviously all the moves they make on defensive players.”
On Jackson’s ability to play through injury:
“I think we’ll play it by ear. Tomorrow we’ll get a good look at him, see how he’s doing. Then on game day, the pregame warm-up we’ll see how he’s doing. Then out in the game there’s no guarantee even if he does dress that he has to play the whole game. You know, you can play 20-30 plays, maybe it’s 60. I don’t know yet. We’ll just have to gauge and see how he’s doing. He’s going to be honest about it. I know he wants to play and he wants to compete against the Eagles, obviously, but he also knows that we have other guys that can do a better job than him if he’s injured. He’s got to understand that. He’s still got a few good days left to get this thing right and we’ll see where he is.”
On who stands out on the Eagles’ defense:
“[Trenton] Cole, I like. There’s a couple players that stand out, but Fletcher Cox has done a great job, Cole has done an excellent job, and I think the corners have done a nice job. They compete and they battle for the ball. They’ve got a good team, good scheme defensively, and they’ve been very impressive. Brandon Graham comes off the bench, he provides a good pass rush. They have a good combination of players, good scheme and they play really hard and take advantage of some miscues by the offense.”
On quarterback Kirk Cousins’ comfort in the offense:
“We are throwing a lot of looks at him today that he hasn’t really seen the last couple days. He has handled them pretty well and he is a very poised, composed individual. How that translates on game day, he has played one game for me and I was very impressed with his attention to detail and his poise on game day. So hopefully that translates to next week and the week after that. So I think his quarterback demeanor as far as awareness, poise and all that seem to be top notch but time will tell. Different situations, being behind, third down, how he handles the red zone, all that, playing on the road, that can do wonders to a quarterback or do damage to a quarterback depending on how you look at it, so we will see how he does in the composure area come Sunday.”
On the difference in being a backup quarterback as opposed to having a defense game plan specifically for you:
“It’s different every week. That’s the thing about being quarterback in this league is every defense poses different issues for you and it’s every week it’s something different – you’re going to see a different blitz, a different coverage and it is something you’ve got to continue to be flexible in your train of thought and your thinking and your approach to the game. The game evolves every week, every week something new comes up, so he has got to understand that. We have different plays, different coverages, different blitzes, all that, so how he handles adversity, how he handles change, how he adjusts to things will be how he is on a consistent basis, so time will tell on that. We are waiting to see. All of us are.”
On wide receiver Ryan Grant:
“I don’t know why, I just have been a big Ryan Grant fan since the first day he walked in here. He is very poised, he has been very detailed in his routes and he has got big strong hands and does not give any indicators whatsoever where he is going and runs every route. I called him ‘Clinic’ today. He runs every route like a clinic tape. So [he is] very good, but he is still young, still learning and may make a rookie mistake here or there but he hasn’t made many since he has walked through our door. So he has been very impressive to me, so that’s what I am talking about if DeSean [Jackson] is struggling a little bit with his shoulder, I do not hesitate one bit. Ryan Grant will play and Andre [Roberts] will play out there and of course we have Aldrick [Robinson] so we are pretty well covered at that spot.”
On if it is unusual for rookies to be that polished:
“It’s unusual, but it’s not uncommon. It happens. We had one in Cincinnati. Marvin Jones was a later-round pick and performed very well. There has been other rookies that have performed well. The Jacksonville kid last week had a great game Week 1 as a rookie free agent, so it happens. Guys come in and they take advantage of their reps like Ryan has and they perform and they continue to carry it over into the preseason games and then the regular season games. It doesn’t happen very often but it does.”
On if he will pump in crowd noise tomorrow:
“Yeah, we worked on all our different snap counts out there today and then tomorrow we will do the noise.Saturday we will do a little bit of the noise, so we will work on that. That is definitely a part of the game that people underestimate how important it is, and that gave us problems in Houston a little bit. We had the fumbled exchange, we dove and fumbled the ball at the five-yard line, we had another fumbled snap, so that can play a major part in your offense if you don’t take care of it. So we have to work different types of cadences and that will be taken care of hopefully.”