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News | Washington Commanders - Commanders.com

Joe Gibbs Tuesday Press Conference

On how the defense played against St. Louis:

"We felt like our guys truly played hard. At times, we did not play as smart as we would have liked to. We felt like in the first half we played solid and went after it as hard as we could. Obviously, they have some Pro Bowl players on offense: a quarterback, a running back and a receiver, and they certainly made plays on us. They got it going and we kind of got out of sync. We had two penalties but both of them were questionable. We became inconsistent in the second half. We would play four or five plays real well and then we would have a breakdown. We gave up a number of explosion plays, which really hurt us. I do attribute quite a bit of it to excellent play on their part. Shawn (Springs, CB, #24) going out early caused us to juggle some things. You count on a lot of guys jumping in there for us and fighting their guts out. I think we did that in the secondary and all the way across the board. Phillip (Daniels, DE, #93) went out in the third quarter and we were scrambling around from that standpoint. Playing our first game without Marcus (Washington, LB, #53) in three years, you certainly miss him."

On Rocky McIntosh:

"An example of some of the good things that happened was Rocky (McIntosh, LB, #52). He got to start his first full game. He played extremely well. He is very explosive and quick. He made a bunch of plays and was chasing things all over the place. Even though we had a struggle, particularly in the second half trying to get St. Louis stopped, I felt like we learned some things about some guys. It was a real step up for some of the guys that took the place of some of the injured guys."

On how they played offensively against St. Louis:

"We start off the game with a very good drive all the way down to score. We started the same way in the third quarter. In this game we had no sacks, no interceptions and we had no penalties. We had 176 yards rushing. We had a 10-play drive for 76 yards and an 11-play drive for 67 yards. We also, for the first time in a long time, were perfect in the red area. We had one turnover which always hurts you. We got stopped on third-and-one. Our third downs were not at what we would like."

On how they played on special teams against St. Louis:

"We had 37 snaps on special teams with no penalties. Our starting yard line was the 30. We won in every single category. We had seven kicks inside the 20. The bright spots on our football team right now are punting and our field goals. Shaun (Suisham, K, #6) is eight for his last eight and doing a great job for us. Derrick (Frost, P, #4) is doing a great job and netted 39.4 yards per punt. We had seven kicks inside the 20, which includes four kickoffs and three touchbacks. We had 13 guys make tackles. We had one real good chance on our punt returns. It is one of those things this year where people are trying to find a way to keep the ball away from Antwaan (Randle El, WR, #82). It is also paying off for us. They are kicking the ball out of bounds and I think it is helping our field position. Vernon (Fox, S, #39) blocked the punt, not only that he was in on tackles on seven straight kickoffs. He did a fantastic job plus he played in the secondary and did a great job for us back there. Shaun also hit a 52-yard field goal which was a big deal for us."

On Phillip Daniels (DE, #93) injury against the Rams:

"What happened was he got hit in the throat. I didn't get the full explanation but I think it caused him to have shortness of breath for a while. They made sure to check him over and they said he was fine once he got settled down."

On the fact that not everyone got involved in the passing game last week:

"Everyone is in routes most of the time. The problem is defensively they have schemes and it depends on the read of the quarterback where he is going. Some games you will get balls to (Chris) Cooley (TE, #47). You would love to get balls to our playmakers down the field, particularly when we are rushing the ball this well. We are getting people close to the line of scrimmage. If we can do that and rush the football then we should be able to get our shots down field. We are not getting as many as we want. Coming out of a game and Santana (Moss, WR, #89) only gets two balls it breaks our heart. In this game we were so convinced that they were going to come after us on third downs. We felt like that was their make up. They have real good corners and that is the scheme that they had been playing. We geared a bunch of stuff for them coming after us. They shocked us and sat back. When they sat back it meant some of the things that we thought we would be able to get plays off of we couldn't. Every play you have four or five guys going out and it depends on the read of the quarterback."

On finishing out the season:

"We want to win period. The last five weeks we have played extremely hard, not as well as we want to play sometimes. We want to finish it out. New York has something to play for and we don't. They are a division rivalry just like Philly. You mark yourself against other people in our division. That is who we have to beat. Philly swept us. They beat us up there and down here we played them extremely well. Dallas beat us down there and here we had a miracle type game. Certainly we don't want New York to sweep us. It is a big deal to us. It is a big deal to our fans. We want to finish this the right way. Our guys have been playing with a lot of pride."

On Shawn Springs (CB, #24):

"Shawn has meant a lot to us. He is one of the guys that when he went out of the game we had to scramble around and it made it tough for us. He is a big corner. He has struggled this year with the injuries. That is something that has really hurt us. He missed the whole first portion when he had that surgery. It took him a while to come back from that. This is the third time that he has broken his scapula. You hate for something like that to happen. Certainly, he is someone that has a future with us. We think he can play a number of spots for us back there besides corner. He is very important for us at corner but he can play other spots too."

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