HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK
Press Conference
Wednesday, October 2, 2109
BB: We've been digging in here on the [Redskins]. Obviously, this is a team we don't know very well even though we played against them last year in preseason. That really is a lot different than the game planning that goes on now. Really, a talented team. The Redskins have a lot of good offensive skill players at every position – quarterback, running back, tight end, receiver. Pretty experienced offensive line, a very experienced coaching staff. Coach [Jay] Gruden, Coach [Bill] Callahan, [Matt] Cavanaugh, so those guys are really very experienced on the offensive side of the ball, do a real good job with the offensive system and create a lot of problems for the defense. Defensively, the front is very disruptive. They have good players on the edge, good players inside, guys that are hard to block. They cause a lot of negative plays, ball disruption, tackles-for-loss, put a lot of pressure on the offensive line. Again, very experienced players in the secondary, very experienced coaching staff with Greg [Manusky], Rob [Ryan], Ray [Horton]. Solid unit in the kicking game, good cover players, good specialists. They've played three pretty good football teams that played well. I think they're a good team. Their record is what it is, but I think when you watch them on film you see a good football team that has a lot of good players, that is well coached, that knows what they're doing. We'll have a lot of things to get ready for here this week. Starting in on the process today and just grinding through it.
Q: Can you confirm the report that you signed Jordan Richards?
BB: Yeah, we signed him.
Q: What made you want to bring him back?
BB: We think he might have a role for us here.
Q: What might that be?
BB: We'll see how it goes. Dealing with a few things here. We'll see how it all plays out. I'm not sure exactly what it is yet, but he has experience. He's a smart kid and he's played for us in the kicking game and on defense, so we'll see.
Q: Is it difficult to game plan against an opponent when you don't know who the starting quarterback will be?
BB: We prepare for all of the players that are on the active roster every week. As we all know, it could change after a play or two in the game anyway. No matter who you think it's going to be, it could change so we have to be ready for everybody, and we're preparing for all three quarterbacks. All three guys are very talented. Two of them have a lot of experience in the system and [Dwayne] Haskins, obviously, is a young, talented guy that was taken in the first round. Really, they're all problems and we'll have to be ready for whichever ones play.
Q: When you have guys like Jordan Richards that leave the organization and then return later, do they typically come back as different players or do they more or less have the same skill set?
BB: I don't know. Everybody's different, every situation's different. I don't think there's any straight book on it. We'll see. Jordan's only been back here for a few hours, but glad to have him back and we'll see how it goes.
Q: Does the offense change for them when they go from one quarterback to another or have you seen it run similarly on tape?
BB: Yeah, well, [Colt] McCoy's run the offense. He's been there for six years, so I think we kind of know what that is. [Case] Keenum's running the offense this year, so I think we've seen a lot of him. Haskins played in preseason, played a little bit – came in the second quarter, played the second half last week. Would they do something different with him if he was the quarterback? I don't know.
Q: What have you seen from Haskins in his small sample size?
BB: Big, strong kid. Athletic guy, has a strong arm, can make a lot of throws, just doesn't have as much experience in the offense as Keenum does this year or as McCoy has in the years that he's been there. Going back and watching film from him in '18 and prior years. We'll see. You'll have to ask Jay what he's going to do with them. I don't know.
Q: Is his Ohio State tape at all relevant for you in this week of preparation?
BB: The offenses are completely different. Jay runs a West Coast offense and Coach [Urban] Meyer ran Coach Meyer's offense, which I would say there's not too much similarity between them.
Q: What led you to decide to bring in some kickers for a workout?
BB: Yeah, I don't think we worked anybody out yet, Tom [Curran].
Q: Are you saying you're not working out kickers today?
BB: No, the question was have we worked them out, and I said I don't think we've worked any out; no.
Q: Why bring them in for later today then?
BB: Yeah, look, I'm not confirming anything, denying anything. We haven't worked any kickers out, so that's the answer to that question.
Q: Do you feel the need to give Stephen Gostkowski some competition in the kicking game?
BB: I don't really think any of that's related to competition; no.
Q: Do you have any concern with how the last couple of weeks have gone with the field goal unit?
BB: Yeah, I think as a team, there's a lot of things that we can do better, so we're working every area to improve. I think we can improve in all three phases of the game and within those phases there's a lot of things we can work on there as well. We need work on everything. It's barely October. We've got a long way to go.
Q: How has Michael Bennett done in his role as a sub-rusher and does he have the skills to do more than just that role?
BB: Yeah, he's playing on all downs for us. He's playing on first, second and third down. Depending on how it goes, some weeks he could be more on early downs than third down or vice versa, or it could be on all downs in a rotation. Maybe we play all of those defensive linemen. We've usually had five active and I think all five guys have played. It just depends on what we're in and what the situation is and so forth. But they've all played. I would expect them all to play if we take them to the game.
Q: How much is pressure a part of what the Washington defense does to disrupt offenses?
BB: A lot. Yeah, their base defense is almost all pressure and then there's a decent amount of it in their sub package, although they probably feel like they don't need to bring as much in their nickel defense as they get so much pressure from the front four. They blitz most of the time in their base defense which would mean four or five rushers. They're all good. They're good inside, they're good outside, they're explosive, powerful, they do a good job on the edge. They're hard to block inside. It's a good front. They've got a lot of good players up there.
Q: Do you already have a good idea of what type of player you'll be getting in Ben Watson given his experience here or do you have to wait and see given that he hasn't been a participant thus far through four games?
BB: Yeah, well, we'll have to work him back in there and see how it goes. I don't know.
Q: How do you see the Redskins scheme up deep passes on the offensive side of the ball?
BB: They have some vertical plays that they're good at, things like double seams and play-action vertical routes. They do a real good job of double moving their regular routes, so out-and-go's, slant-and-go's, tight end hook-and-go's, things like that. So they get a lot of shot-plays out of regular routes that they convert into double moves if you're overaggressive on that. They probably run more double moves than any team we've played in a while. Every team has them, but these guys, they run quite a few of them so it really keeps the secondary honest. Again, Jay does a nice job of creating vertical plays through play-action and some of his kind of core plays that come off of the – that look like it's the start of the West Coast passing but then it turns into more of a vertical game. They do both. Obviously, [Terry] McLaurin gives them a lot of good speed out there. He can stretch the defense. He caught a couple of teams without post help and he's made them pay. He had a 60-yard against Philadelphia, whatever it was, something like that. He's really fast and he can stretch the defense. He's probably their No. 1 deep threat.
