Skip to main content
Advertising

News | Washington Commanders - Commanders.com

Jim Zorn Friday Press Conference

On the performance of Jason Campbell in the Giants game:

"He had enough minuses to know where he needs to improve but the good things he did was protecting the ball. We had no interceptions and no fumbles at the quarterback position. He had a couple of opportunities to make big plays, however we needed to also make big catches. We had a chance to make a couple of big plays but we didn't make those. The minuses were locking in on a receiver and not turning a receiver down. He needs to move on from locking on and it's where we need to improve. I'm not discouraged from a lot of the things that he did, I just want him to continue to get better"

On the run game:

"I think the run game was average and we will improve there. We had some miscommunication errors on who to double team and who to go up too. I was very pleased by the way Clinton Portis played and I thought his vision up the field was good. It's so good to see a running back strain for everything that he could get and I loved it. I thought that he did a very good job with blocking and pass protection as well."

On Stephon Heyer:

"He was excellent for his first go, although he had some communication problems. He missed some things but overall I felt that he was very aggressive in his plays and his pass protection was excellent."

On the tempo of the game:

"I felt we did an excellent job before the half and I'll tell you why. We ended up scoring and leaving them with only 13 seconds to go. I didn't want to give them an opportunity to get back on the field. We had a long way to drive and I wanted to save my timeouts and call plays that would get us out of bounds. I called two plays to get us out of bounds but we didn't get out of bounds. The call that I would like to have back was when I ran the ball up the middle to keep the clock running. I felt because we had to have two scores that they were going to play soft zone. Not going no huddle was the big issue for me because I wanted some specific plays that we couldn't necessarily call on the line of scrimmage and they actually work. However, we wasted too much time and probably wasted a minute of the game and I would love to have that opportunity back."

On vertical calls on the drive at 6:12 in the fourth quarter:

"The calls were vertical and we took a couple shots, to James Thrash on the sidelines, and to Santana Moss in the end zone. Even when we dropped the ball off they took away some of the vertical opportunities that we were trying to get and that was just good defense."

On the third quarter:

"What happened in the third quarter was very irritating because we had three drives of missed opportunities. We had a third-and-five and got to four-and-a-half, we had a third-and-seven and got six, we had a third- and-one- half and got none, and ended up having to punt the ball. I didn't go for it because we were really playing great defense and we really shut them down in the second half. The game was going and we were competing in every aspect of it but we just didn't convert those third downs.

On the first half:

"It took us a while to stop their big back and we had our defense in a real tough situation with Plaxico Burress one-on-one with the corner. All they were doing was running curl routes and little in-routes and completing them. When we got pressure on him he through the ball up for us to have opportunities to make a couple of interceptions. A couple of the passes the DB's were there, but just couldn't react to the ball quick enough. They were really in great coverage position and the ball was thrown a little bit off in which we had a chance to react, but we were not quick enough. There were probably three legit interceptions that we didn't take advantage of."

On London Fletcher and the defense:

"London made a lot of tackles and the thing that we were very good on was defensive positions. They got some yardage and they have a very good run offense. We did play for it and I thought we did play violent and I thought that we were in great position to allow London to make those kinds of tackles. Other guys have to sacrifice to be in position for London to make the play."

This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an issue.
Advertising