Fleur-de-Links - NFL Wildcard Week: No Jenkins, No Graham, No Problem

Leigh Torrence. We have won games with him. I have no problems with playing Pierson Prioleau. We play a different style when we have to play Prioleau. We could play Roman Harper down there. You have seen us put Roman Harper there. When I got here, we had 21 packages of defense and now we have 32 packages of defense. We have 32 ways to add up to 11, and we are going to go out there and play."

(On being considered for a coaching position in Denver) "I know you guys have to report on that. I have had no contact and they have not made contact with me. That’s part of the rules in this league. I am very happy being here. I don’t know how many times I can say that. I have been a lot of places. Before I left Tennessee to go to Buffalo, I had a lot of opportunities to leave. When I was at the Redskins, I had eight opportunities to leave there. Eight different opportunities and didn’t. Same thing here. I really believe this with all my heart, the four W’s will always control where I coach from now on. Blake kind of screwed that up. He is making me coach longer because he is on my staff now, my son. What am I doing, where is it at, who is it with, and the ability to win. I really like it here. My only focus is on this week. You can’t look down the road on the remaining playoffs because we may be doing exit interviews on Sunday. That’s how hard this game is. When you have been in as many playoff games as I have and had a chance to coach in, the finality of every play, the finality of every preparation, the finality of every meeting and practice, that’s the fun part of it. That’s the electric part of playing in the playoffs. It’s also the part of the business to know that you have to be focused. Any team can win on any given Sunday and you have to play. If it was just predictions, we wouldn’t go up there this weekend, we would just advance. It’s not that way. We have to go up there and be the best team on that afternoon or otherwise the other team advances."

(On improvements this season) "Our space tackling has improved. We believe that our toughness has improved. This has been a pretty tough team but every single year you have to improve your mental toughness as well as your physical toughness. All of us have a cap on that. It’s my job to make sure that they are bouncing their heads up against that cap of that potential. The thing that gives me the most pleasure is that players take a toolbox in to every game. Players play the game. I am over on the sideline guessing. Some pretty calculated and some pretty good guesses most of the time. When you, as a coach, and I am one of the few that does it this way, I put the game in our player’s hands. I am not afraid to teach them how to make the calls within the structure of the defense so they have tools in their tool box. That’s where we have grown. They understand the system, they understand the call structure. Good coaches hide weakness and highlight strength. With all of our different packages for everything we do, (Jonathan) Vilma, Will Smith, Darren Sharper, Malcolm Jenkins, those kinds of guys, Scott Shanle, Roman Harper has grown so much also. They understand the one, two, or three audible calls that they make within the structure of the defense to give them an advantage. They are not going to make a mistake on purpose. There are some ego-driven coaches in this league that would say ‘how dare you, how do you let them make the calls, that’s what you are hired to do.’ No, I am hired to make them play the best they have ever played before. When you empower them to have say and then teach them the say and how to choose the right thing, you have a chance with lesser people to beat better people. We have had some guys who have really played the best of their careers here. The various scouting agencies say that they have made big improvements. Why have they? Because they have say. It’s amazing how they have grown in that way. Just this morning, I gave a 30 question test off of my PowerPoint. Everybody in the room.  It’s pretty brutal with the pressure and the testosterone in the room anyway. I had an inward smile listening to how far we have come from when I would have asked about an opponent a year ago, they didn’t even know that was part of the game. Now, they are fighting like little kids in a classroom to see who gets to answer. They are all that way. They are all bought in. When you know what the opponent is going to do before they do, you have a chance to make a good play. We have got to go up there and see it through."

(On Darren Sharper) "I will say this; I wish I would have been able to have coached Darren Sharper his whole career. Some coaches don’t. Some coaches probably say no because he is head strong. I am head strong. That is the fun part of coaching somebody. He has instincts that I can’t coach. He decision making and ball skills that I can’t coach, but I can help him make better decisions. I can put him and help him help other people play better around him. I think we have done a really good job managing his health and managing him on our football team to be right where we are right now. We had kind of a complimentary part of the staff meeting yesterday afternoon. Sometimes, I don’t pat guys on the back enough. I drive and I drive and whip and whip. Yesterday, I kind of caught the staff off-guard by praising them a little bit on how we have handled Darren Sharper’s health and Jimmy Wilkerson’s health. Do you realize that kid (Wilkerson) is not quite 13 months ago had an ACL reconstruction? Some people don’t even let you start playing before 12 months. This kid has been playing and was in training camp. I have seen him in the last two weeks of practice start firing some muscle groups and start moving better just because he is in the 13th month of that recovery. Usually, that doesn’t happen until 18 to 20 months. I think we have managed that well. Sean Payton gets it now. You guys that cover here all the time, I tell my players to be proud and to be happy to be a part of one of a few functional organizations in this league, to be happy to be playing for a head coach that gets it. He has a thumb on the pulse of that team. I believe that Sean Payton and Jeff Fisher are the two best guys I have worked for on that type of understanding of the players and having a feel for what the players need. Darren Sharper is a classic example of that and Jimmy Wilkerson is too. I have been at places that wouldn’t allow you to milk them through the season and to have them sitting there at this time of the year is pretty special. It’s a good place there. "

(On facing Matt Hasselbeck)" He has been hiding all week long. That’s who we thought we were going to get. I think he is good. I really do. I think he has the experience. He is one of the guys who from a pre-snap standpoint, there is not a lot of disguise that we can do to confuse him. We have to go out there and perform and win. He is going to put them in the best position that they can be in offensively against whatever we are playing defensively. The best players, the best team of players, will win. I think he did a good job in creating the space plays that spread us out a little bit when they played down here before. We have our work cut out for us. It’s not going to be an easy game. That’s not an easy place to play. The last two times I have been up there in the playoffs, I came home a loser. The year they went to the Super Bowl in 2005 and again in 2007. It’s a tough place to play. They really do have a 12th man. It’s loud. It can be overwhelming to the offense. It was overwhelming to our Redskins offense. It was overwhelming with the noise, the false starts and the penalties. Sean has done a really good job all week long. It has been deafening for the defense at times even in our walkthroughs. Our offense has been practicing with noise even in the walkthrough part of practices so that they understand the communication disadvantage that we are going to have. This is what we work so hard for all year long. This is why coaches work so long in offseason and once we get into the regular season, this is why players lift all of those weights, run all of those sprints; listen to all of those dog-cussing coaches riding their ass every day. This is why. You get a chance to be in this tournament. You just want a chance to be in the tournament. To be reigning world champions, it’s not easy to get back there either. You have seen how many years this has been going on with returning champs not being able to come back in here. We are fortunate and we understand how fortunate we are. I know that Sean has done a great job with the message to this team all week long. Even if that is going up tonight to get some rest. You have to get those guys some rest on a short week."