Fisher, Wms. … 9/18 … transcripts

Rams Head Coach Jeff Fisher – 9/18/15

(On how he assesses the running back situation for Sunday’s game)
“Well I think it looks a little better than it did last week, not that it was an issue for us because (RB) Benny (Cunningham) really carried the load for us. Both (RB) Tre (Mason) and (RB) Todd (Gurley) practiced full with the offense this week, and we’ve got them listed as questionable for the game. So we’ll see how they are.”

(On if RBs Tre Mason and Todd Gurley are both listed as questionable for the game Sunday)
“Yes.”

(On if either Mason or Gurley are more likely to play)
“We’ll see how things go during the warm-ups. But I was pleased with…the two situations are completely different. You’ve got a guy coming off a season-ending ACL injury, and you’ve got a guy coming off a three-week hamstring, so they’re completely different. But they both practiced full speed the last two days, which would reflect Wednesday and today. So that’s encouraging.”

(On if the field in Washington will have any impact on his decision to play either Mason or Gurley)
“No. Not whatsoever. No, not a concern.”

(On LB Daren Bates’ status)
“’Batesy’ practiced full as well. We’ve got him listed as probable. I designated…I’m sorry, I designated (DE) Eugene (Sims) and (RB) Chase (Reynolds) as out. They won’t play this week.”

(On if getting Bates back helps with the roster numbers)
“That helps. Yeah, he plugs right in for (RB) Chase (Reynolds). The question last week was, if Daren could play, then who’s down? So sometimes these things just work themselves out. So Daren’s back, which is good.”

(On if Gurley being active will change his play calling)
“No, he understands the whole offense. Whether it’s the run-game, play-action game, screen-game, pass protection; he understands it all.”

(On the primary difference of the young offensive linemen playing on the road for their first regular season away game)
“Well we’re going to be dealing with the silent count, which we work on. We dealt with it a little bit in the preseason. So to me, that’s probably the biggest difference. It’s being comfortable with (C) Tim (Barnes) and understand the snap count and all those mechanics.”

(On if CB Trumaine Johnson has passed all the protocol tests)
“Yes. He’s off the report, yes.”

(On if he sees a different response from his team after playing such a physical game against Seattle last week and if he’s concerned with them underperforming this weekend against Washington)
“Well I haven’t looked at that, but I also can say that would be the case for teams that have just finished playing us as well. It’s hard to bounce back, so we’ll wait and see what happens with them. But this team had a great week. They’re rested and ready to go.”

Rams Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams – 9/18/15

(On the problems Redskins RB Alfred Morris presents)
“He’s another great running back. He’s another great explosive, upper-body running back. We saw arguably one of the best in the league last week. That was one of the few things that we can be critical, I thought we upper-body tackled way too much in that ball game, but we brought a lot of people to the point. We’re going to have to do the same thing. We’re going to have to bring a lot of people to the point on this guy. We’ve got to make sure when you go upstairs on him, he’s powerful and you have to understand why you’re doing that. For the most part, we’re going to be downstairs.”

(On what he sees from Redskins QB Kirk Cousins on tape)
“I see a very smart quarterback. He’s doing the things that (Redskins Head Coach) Jay (Gruden) and that staff wants him to do. We’re going to have to try and disrupt the timing of things as much as we can. Any quarterback becomes more human when you can disrupt the timing of it and try to move him off the spot in the pocket. He’s very smart and he’s doing a lot of the things, a lot of familiar things that I’ve seen Jay do with some other quarterbacks on other teams, too.”

(On the Redskins getting away from being an outside zone running team and what he sees from them)
“They do a lot of things in the run game and that’s (Redskins’ Offensive Line Coach) Bill Callahan. Bill Callahan I think is arguably the best, if not one of the best offensive line coaches in the league. He’s been a lot of places. I’ve gone against him for a lot of times. (Defensive Line Coach) Mike Wauffle on our staff, our D-line coach knows him very well too, but we see his influence. We see him… them adopting his run game. We’re going to have to be very solid in the run game. We were last week. There was a couple of plays that popped out on us last week we’d like to have back, but we’re going to have to be even more solid than we were last week, this week. They did a very good job in the first half on keeping the third downs down to shorter minimums and running the ball very well. They did a great job in the third quarter on a long drive, a scoring drive, where they had 17 plays and ran it 10, 11, 12 times in that drive. We’re going to have to make sure we’re understating gap sound. Make sure we’re understating how we want to play in the run game because they’re going to challenge us in that area.”

(On if he ever watches tape from games like last Sunday and watch the havoc his defensive line is wreaking)
“I enjoy being in this league. I’ve had a chance to coach a lot of different players. I’ve coached a lot of players that are in the Hall of Fame already. In that respect, (DT) Aaron (Donald) played very well and I think he’d be the first to tell you, don’t take this the wrong way, but he thinks he can play better. That’s why it’s fun to coach him. One of the things, an unsung hero that’s kind of going unnoticed this week, is kind of how well (DT) Michael Brockers played. Michael Brockers has been playing outstanding and allows Aaron to even have more freedom to do the things that he can do that I can’t coach that Aaron can do. So, we’ve got a good group of guys here. But, behind the ball (LB Alec) Ogletree played well, (LB) James (Laurinaitis) plays so solid week-in and week-out. When we’re playing that tight coverage and we’re forcing them to do the right kind of things there, the pass rush has got to help the coverage and those guys can do an awful lot of good things in the pass rush. It’s fun for me to have the chance where I don’t have to pressure as much, but I can’t not pressure – we’ll always pressure.”

(On how he works around Washington cut-blocking so frequently)
“We rep that every day. It’s not only this team, but every team. That’s one of the tools that offenses have, especially when you’re as a dominant as a knock-back defensive line that we are. We have to understand that that’s a technique that we have to refine each and every week. Some of the best ones in the business, I don’t care what kind of technique, occasionally you’re going to be on the ground, but we do not want that. We over-emphasize that here. In fact, we keep a stat every single day in practice on the guys that are on the ground. That might be a good story for you guys to ask the guys in the locker room what the little song that goes off in my head when I see them on the ground. I’ll let them sing the song to you instead of me.”

(On what CB Trumaine Johnson means to the defense)
“He’s playing real solid. Last year was a good chance for me, being my first time seeing him, he had to battle through all of those injuries and I don’t think I ever saw the real Trumaine last year. This spring, he has been one of the more dominant guys in the building, every single aspect of what needs to be done to be a real pro. In the rehab, in the strength and conditioning, in our practices – all of that. And it’s been fun for me to see him, the real Trumaine Johnson, come and rise up and play. He’s got that long body that you can’t coach. His burst and his instincts are good too. I think we’ve gotten a little bit better with him on his understanding about how we play in the secondary wherever I go. He has bought into that very well. I think that staying healthy, we’ve got to continue to stay healthy. I think you’re going to see a big year out of him.”

(On how CB Marcus Roberson did in place of Trumaine Johnson last Sunday)
“He did very well. Here’s the one thing about Marcus, he’s a sharp kid. He’s the first one in the building in the morning and the last one to leave. I always tease him that I always try to be the first one in the meeting room and between him and Aaron Donald, I’m always competing to try and get in the meeting room before those two guys. The thing that I’m also real proud of is we adapt scheme to personnel. Some of the things that Marcus can do are different than Trumaine. So, we adapted our scheme to fit him. We didn’t play some of the same things that we would’ve been playing had (No.) 22 been in the ball game. Had Trumaine been in there, we’d have been doing some other things. I think good coaches do that. I’ve had a chance to do that every stop and every place I’ve been. And even in the course of a ball game, you’ve got to be ready when a guy goes down or a guy comes up, whatever it is, you’ve got to fit things to their strength and not just call things that I really like to call.”

(On S Mark Barron and what he brings to the defense)
“Wow. Not only can he play the safety position, he can play the linebacker position. You’ll see, we call it a fancy term, but he basically plays like a linebacker because he has the size and the strength and the burst to do that too. And then he does a lot of the things that a nickel and a safety does. But, I thought he played very, very well and I’m challenged each and every week to make sure I give him enough reps. As you’ll see, he’ll play quite a bit this week too.”

(On if there are not a lot of players with that skill set in the league)
“I’ve had this particular package that we call that we put him in, I’ve had it every stop. But, I’ve never had anybody with that skill set. I’ve had guys that I’ve had to adapt that package to, to fit them, because we still want to do that three and four safety package at times. But, with him, it’s almost like playing with another linebacker in there. But, he still does all of the DB things you want him to do. He’s very, very, very good at what we want. He’s a joy to coach. I really, really, really like the way he plays. And the other thing I like about him too, do you see him overly talking about how good he is? He just goes out and plays and he shows you how good he is. His silence is not poor leadership. His example is great leadership and that’s what he does.”

(On which player he’s coached that most resembles Barron)
“I’ll tell you what and I don’t want to throw this name out because we’re heading up there right now, but there’s some similarities on what he can do that Sean Taylor could do. Sean did some other things in the back end that Mark is not as strong on. But, around the line of scrimmage, there’s some similarities of some of the things I used to do with Sean down and around the line of scrimmage. I know that that’s somebody that he has looked at too and there’s kind of a smile on my face when he and I talk about Sean Taylor.”