Jay Gruden Redskins Conference Call: “I cant live with the fact that we give up easy plays on defense”

Jay Gruden spoke to the media on a conference call today and talked about what went wrong last night in New Orleans. He gave no updates on injuries from last night’s game, but there was a report today that Adrian Peterson won’t miss time with a shoulder strain. Josh Doctson should be ready to return next week vs the Panthers. The defensive breakdowns against the Saints can’t keep happening

Josh Norman:

"Well, I mean if you’re going…I think as a secondary as a whole, we have to perform better. You know we had some pretty good plays from time to time, but for the most part, the big plays stick out. Those are plays that you can’t give up. We blew a two deep coverage. We blew a three deep coverage. Those are simple from day one training camp that for whatever reason we have to communicate and make the right calls and be in the right spots and for whatever reason it didn’t happen. I don’t know if the noise got to them, personnel changes, the formations got them. But for whatever reason, we blew those. We haven’t had a chance to meet as a team yet, but we will get to the bottom of it.”

Injury updates:

Alex Smith:

On if he is using QB Alex Smith for what he does best in contrast to how he wants to use him:

”Yeah a little bit. I think a little bit. I think we had to become a little one-dimensional sooner than we wanted to last night. But for the most part, I think we have to continue to work with Alex and communicate to make sure that we’re all on the same page from what we’re doing with our progressions and our reads and all that good stuff – protection. So, work in progress but we intend to get to the bottom of it. It has to happen sooner than later. I think we took a step backwards for whatever reason last night, but we intend to take two steps forward this week.”

On evaluating Smith:

”We got him outside the pocket a couple times and had some pretty good looks and it didn’t work out. I think changing the launch point of the quarterback is going to be important – whether it’s a quick game, whether it’s outside the pocket, play action, all that good stuff. Like I said, we were pretty much one-dimensional with the straight drop backs last night. But we did try to get him outside the pocket, which we didn’t have much success, unfortunately. We have to stick with the plan and try to move him around a little bit, keep the defense off balance. But, we didn’t have that ability last night because we got behind so quick.”

Offensive failures:

Drew Brees:

Defensive breakdowns:

1st in NFC East:

Running game:

“We had a couple looks in there, a couple hits in there, but like I said, we started off the game with a naked running play that we ran against them three or four times, and had a chance at the tight end, then threw it out of bounds. Second down, we had pressure, threw it out there, third and ten we got stopped, and then the next try, we had a nice drive right down the field and got stopped right there in the red zone. We had some decent looks, but when you are falling behind and Adrian was hurt and banged up and all we had left were [Kapri] Bibbs and Chris Thompson and they are different types of backs and some of our running game we had planned for that game were out when Adrian went out.”

Josh Doctson: