On Thursday, May 23, 2013, Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan addressed the media following an OTA practice at Redskins Park.
On quarterback Robert Griffin III saying he wants to be ready for training camp:
"Well, we're hoping that he's ready for training camp. He's been working extremely hard like we've talked about in the past. I think you guys could see today that he's been throwing for a while. His arm is in pretty good shape. It looks like he's making a lot of progress."
On how closely he watches Griffin III:
"I'll take a look at film each day, drills he's going through and how he's throwing the ball and exactly what he's doing. You want to make sure that he doesn't overdo it, and so that's one of the reasons why you look at the film. But he's in there getting a lot of treatment, in the weight room every day, doing the things that he needs to do. I think you could see today he's been throwing the ball for a while. You can see his arm is feeling quite well. So it's a process."
On what he thought "ahead of schedule" means for Griffin III's timetable for return:
"I don't know. I really don't know what 'ahead of schedule' means except for the doctors. They keep on saying that he's ahead of schedule, and we want to be patient with him because if you go too quick and you set it back, he could hurt himself. And so our goal is to see where he's at when he comes into camp July 25."
On if Griffin III could play in the season opener without playing in the preseason:
"It's hard to say. Probably not…. Do you mean in a preseason game or in practice? You'd have to practice against yourself, not necessarily against an opponent. One of the reasons for that, he'd have to work with the first-team offense and he'd have to have some practice time."
On if he would have separate "Robert Rules" rules for participating in training camp if Griffin III is ready to play:
"You can't have 'Robert Rules.' What you have to do if a guy is able to practice, he's able to practice, because whatever you're doing, you're going to put your legs in certain situations that causes stress. We don't want to put him in situation that he's not ready for. So it's an ongoing process. The doctors will evaluate him. They've looked at guys with ACLs for a long time. They're the experts in that area. They'll let me know if they think he's ready to go."
On his conversations with Griffin III this offseason:
"You kind of go through each game. When he came back, you talk about the Cleveland game even though he didn't play in that game. You talk about the Philly game and you go through the plays as well as Dallas and Seattle. You kind of communicate, get to know each other better every practice, every year you're together. He knows my personality; I know his. And you talk about the things you could have done differently, things that went poorly during the season, things that went well. But overall we had a great conversation."
On if he paid attention to comments by Griffin III's father:
"I read what he said and I could see his thought process. When he got hurt, on the sideline it was my reaction too when I saw it on the replay. When I went over to the doctors, I talked to the doctors, 'Are you sure his knee is stable? Are you sure he can go back in the game?' Because to me, there was some question marks when I did see it on the screen. And that's part of the process. You get a lot of information. You talk to the doctors. I talked to Robert, and we talked about those conversations, but at the end of the day, you make a decision [and] you go with it. You get a lot of input from a lot of different people, but the bottom line is that's over with and we've got a season to look forward to."
On his relationship with Griffin III:
"Robert's a very competitive guy. You want guys like Robert that's going to go out there and give you everything he's got. He wants to compete every time he's on the football field. It doesn't matter if it's a run or a pass. I think Robert is the first person to tell you that, 'Hey, this year, I'm going to be a little bit more conservative than I was a year ago.' If you're not on the field, you're going to hurt our football team. And you have to take those dives. You have to throw the football away, regardless of if it's a dropback pass or a scramble or if it's a quarterback keep. There's a lot of different scenarios that are involved in a football game, and I think each year you grow. Every quarterback that I've been [with] grows every year. What Robert was able to do last year doesn't happen very often, that's never happened before in the history of the National Football League for a guy to be as successful throwing the football and running the football like he did. So there's a lot of pluses."
On Griffin III's concern that he'll be pulled from games with minor injuries:
"Here's what I do – I ask the doctors. I'm not an expert in that area. A doctor says, 'Hey, he's got a little sprained ankle. He's fine,' then he plays."
On if the offense is going to be more conservative:
"We really don't know what defenses are going to do to us. I can't tell you for sure. You know, you adjust a game plan during the game. Defenses are going to be more ready for different things we did last year and we'll be able to adjust. The fun part about it is we're going to be much better than we were a year ago in knowing what to do. We look forward to the challenges this season, especially with a very competitive schedule."
On if he would preemptively change parts of a successful offense – like the zone read – to keep Griffin III healthy:
"Remember, the zone read probably gave Robert more time in the pocket than anything else you can do in the National Football League. Where Robert did get hurt was dropping back and doing a couple of scrambles. That's probably one of the toughest situations for a quarterback is to dropback, look downfield, know when to scramble, know when to slide. It's just tough. I think every year you get better and better. But we're going to try to protect Robert as much as we can. We're going to let him do the things that we think he does the best and hopefully it will be as productive."
On the growth of quarterback Kirk Cousins:
"I think anytime a quarterback gets the reps that Kirk is getting right now, he develops. That's what we're looking forward to him doing, is developing during these OTAs. And with the extra added reps that he's getting, you can see the progression in his game. He's playing with a lot of confidence and we like what we see."
On cornerback Josh Wilson and defensive end Adam Carriker:
"To be honest with you, Adam, he was getting rehab and Josh was probably getting the same thing. I thought Josh was out there for a little bit, but maybe he wasn't."
On the next step for Griffin III:
"They have a time schedule and different things they do – when he can rollout, when he can do a little different work with his feet. You just don't want to go too quickly because everybody thinks that they're ready to go and they're feeling good. So our doctors and trainers are trying to take the proper protocol in his progression and he's looking pretty good. His strength is there and he's not overdoing it. So far I like what I see."
On Wilson's injury:
"He had a pec [pectoral]. He had a couple of things. But I think he'll be fine [and] ready to go for camp."
On tight end Jordan Reed:
"We don't want to throw him in there too quick. It was a thigh."
On how Wilson injured his pectoral:
"It was a labrum tear and he had a little bit with the pec too, but anytime you have a labrum tear like he had, he played through the season. It was sore and he played through it. Then when he went in there and he went in for surgery, it was worse than they thought it was. So they repaired it and he's feeling pretty good."
On his impressions of his 2013 draft picks:
"Everybody looks good. You'd never admit somebody doesn't look good anyhow [laughter]… But I like what we see. We've got some experience at the safety positions. We got a couple of safeties that have a lot of playing time. We got a corner that's had a lot of playing time that's made a couple of big plays thus far in our camps. You take a look at [linebacker Brandon] Jenkins and you can see his pass rush ability very quickly. I'm looking forward to seeing him with pads. Same thing on offense. We were taking a look at guys that are skilled athletes that hopefully can add something to what we did last year."
On if tight end Fred Davis is doing more than what he expected:
"You know, Fred to me looks very good. The trainer thinks he's about 90 percent. The one thing with Achilles is you don't want guys pushing off too quickly when they're blocking, so we're kind of holding him back a little bit. I don't really want him to go until we get to training camp, give him that extra time to heal up. But right now I think there should be no setback and should go full speed ahead."
On safety Brandon Meriweather:
"I think Brandon will be fine once we get to camp. Same thing. Today, I don't know if you watched his drills, but he did a good job in his drill work. The one thing you don't want to do when somebody hurts his knee is get him going too quickly. Just let it heal and strengthen the muscles around the knee. Right now he looks pretty good."
On what Griffin III is missing developmentally by not being able to participate:
"Any time you're missing reps, obviously it doesn't help you, but what he's able to do is get all the mental reps and that's what he's got to do. Get mental reps – that's your only choice. Does it hurt? Sure, it hurts. If I told you a guy misses all these snaps and said it didn't hurt, then we wouldn't have all these OTAs. But he's a student of the game. He's done a good job of coming in and looking at all our games and all our cutups and we get a valuable work process through it all."
On if the mental leap is bigger than the physical leap for quarterbacks in their second year:
"Let me say this, Robert will come back here a few years from now and he'll laugh, saying, 'Oh my God, I thought I really did know a lot about the game.' That's as much of a jump as you make every year, especially coming from almost any type of offense. But with Robert running the type of offense he did at Baylor, it's a little bit different from a dropback passing game in the National Football League. But he's got the ability to make every throw, and the more he plays, the more comfortable he'll be. And what he was able to accomplish last year, when you think about it, for every time a ball was snapped, he had the most production out of anybody in the National Football League. That doesn't happen very often as a rookie."
On Griffin III throwing to other injured players like Pierre Garçon and Fred Davis:
"Well, somebody's going to be catching. It's always nice to have guys be able to run some routes like you just mentioned. You have three or four guys that are hurt as well as Chris [Thompson] and you get a chance to get some time in with those guys, it's always good. And those guys are in a situation where both guys are around 90 percent, so they can run some routes even though they're not going full speed. It's also nice for them to get some handoffs with a guy like Chris through the process. So it's been positive for him."
On offensive lineman Maurice Hurt working on a stationary bike:
"He had a groin, so we had [Josh] LeRibeus and Hurt out for a couple of days. They did a good job the first couple of weeks. They had no problem. And then the next three weeks, a couple of days ago, they stretched something and they're about 90 percent. Hopefully in the next couple of days they'll be back."
On anyone he doesn't expect to be ready for training camp:
"I would think that everybody but one will be ready. That's my guess, but I'm not telling you who the one is, so you guys have got to keep on guessing…"
On Garçon:
"I think Pierre, his rehab has been unbelievable. I mean anytime you get operated on like he did and you're able to come back as quickly as he has… I was watching him this morning in the weight room and he's lifting weights that he shouldn't be able to lift. He feels very comfortable. It's been a slow process, but he's in excellent shape, so I'll be surprised if he's not full speed ready to go once we go to training camp."
On wide receiver Joshua Morgan:
"He's a lot better. He's got the screws taken out of his ankle. You can see it's a lot easier for him to cut."
On the competition at right tackle:
"Well, what I always like to say, once you come to training camp, we've got 90 guys and every position is open. Now we know guys that have played extremely well and the chances of those guys getting beat out probably aren't very good. But the mindset is we've got a lot of competition, a lot of people that we believe can play in the National Football League. So we're going to evaluate everybody, how everybody plays and how everybody practices every day and that's one of the speeches I gave our guys today. If you're in this room, you've got a chance to make this football team because there's something you have that's very special or unique. We'll evaluate every day. Just because you had a Pro Bowl year the year before doesn't mean it's automatic you're going to be on our football team unless you show us in practice and the game how you're going to play. And if you have that type of competition, you've got a chance to get better."
On issues surrounding the organization beyond football:
"To be honest with you, I don't pay any attention to it. I can't. I concentrate on football and that's for everybody else to talk about."
On linebacker London Fletcher:
"You know, there's some people you worry about. I don't worry about London because [of] the way he's prepared. I told him to kind of stay out of the OTAs and he said, 'Mike, I think I'll be ready to go on Tuesday.' He said, 'I think I'll need that extra week or two weeks to be where I want to be once we get to camp.' So it gives you insight on what type of guy you're dealing with. But he's been that way and if he tells you he's going to be in shape, he's going to be in shape."
On linebacker Brian Orakpo:
"He's had no setback at all. He's been going full speed over the last four weeks. He looks as good as ever. Hopefully he can keep that up… He was hurt last year. You could see that soreness in there. Right now, you can tell it's completely healed and we'll keep our fingers crossed that there's no setback."
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