Do you need to restructure the scouting department or any other area of the organization?
“We’ll find out. I’m going to take a look at everybody. We’re going to get the best at every position. If we don’t have people willing to make that commitment, then we’ll have to make some changes.”
How involved do you get with the defense? Do you stick your head in the meeting room every once in a while or do you just kind of let them hire a good coordinator and let them do their thing?
“The only way I think you stay in the position of the head football coach is you better know offense, defense and special teams. You better know it as good as your assistants, or at least try to, because your team knows it. If you know offense, you know defense, you know special teams, because you’re in charge of the whole team. They have to understand that all three areas are very important. I enjoy football, in general, so that’s pretty easy for me.”
Are you aware of the possible disagreement between Jason Campbell and Clinton Portis this week?
“Yes I am.”
How would you diffuse that?
“I think, in time, what I’ll do is talk to the football team. We’ll talk about, hey, if we’ve got some problems or some business, we’ll keep it inside the organization. I understand how that happens, but what you have to do is you have to talk about these problems before they happen. They happen all the time. But some organizations, they don’t happen [publicly]. Other organizations, they do. I think players will get the message that the Redskins will stay together.”
Are you a tough coach?
“I don’t look like one, do I?”
Are you familiar with secondary coach Jerry Gray and his credentials?
“Very much so. I’m aware of everybody, every coach. That’s what I do. I study coaches. I study coordinators. I know what they’ve done. I know where they’ve been. He’s got a very, very good past. I’m looking forward to talking to him.”
When you look at this team, do you see 4-12 and a bad team? Or do you see a team that could have been 7-9 or 8-8?
“You are what you are. If you’re 4-12, you’re 4-12. I’m looking forward to watching a lot of film and evaluating this guys and figuring out how we’re going to get better.”
What do you look for in an offensive line? This team hasn’t really used the draft or a lot of resources in that area.
“You know you’ve got to have players up front. I don’t care if it’s offensive line, defensive line. You win with those big guys up front. You have to have that, so that will always be an emphasis for me because you can’t find teams that are successful without that.”
Will blocking follow the scheme you used in Denver or is that still to be evaluated?
“It all depends on the players that we have. We’ve had success doing not only zone schemes, but power schemes as well. Denver, even though it’s noted to be a zone blocking scheme, there’s a lot of things that Denver did outside just a zone, and we’ll continue to do those types of things. We’ll evaluate that once we get a better feel for our personnel.”