Jay Gruden Redskins Presser: Colt McCoy will start this week; it was his job to lose heading into training camp

Jay Gruden spoke to the media after today’s practice and said what everyone knew he was going to say; Colt McCoy is your Washington Redskins starting QB this week! The Patriots come to town and they will have to face a hungry McCoy who hasn’t played since breaking his leg against the Eagles last season. Exciting stuff.

Colt McCoy:

“I think he’s done well. I think last week was a good coming out party for him. You know, we made a big deal about, I don’t want him on the field until he feels like he’s 100 percent. He got some good throws in last week to get his feet wet and then this week he’s had a good week.”

“Well, it’s his job to lose, that’s for sure. You could see he wasn’t quite healthy in training camp and that’s why we kind of sat him, made him get well, get that strength back and that confidence back in his leg so he could be out here now.”

What it means to have a quarterback who knows the system so well:

“It means a lot, I think any coach would tell you that. It’s very, very important for your quarterback to know your system, otherwise you have to change your system and make the quarterbacks know it. There’s no excuse for any quarterback – I think all three know the system, but [QB] Colt [McCoy] has the most experience in it. He’s very comfortable with it, but we’ll see. I think this will be a great test for him, he hasn’t faced a live rush since Philadelphia last year. I think that will be the biggest test for him.”

How important it is for the quarterback to feel comfortable in the system:

“It takes time. It’s his sixth year in the system, these other guys just got here in the offseason. It means a lot, really – confidence in the protections, I think a lot of it has to do with being able to protect yourself with the protections. Obviously, knowing the route concepts that we’ve been running for a long time, he’s got experience with them. Even [QB] Colt [McCoy] though, he was behind obviously [QB] Kirk [Cousins] and [QB] Robert [Griffin III] and then obviously [QB] Alex [Smith], so he hasn’t really had a whole ton of reps himself. And then he finally got the job last year, it was on a Thursday and he didn’t get reps live there, and then he got hurt in the first quarter of the Eagles game. So, the number one reps for Colt have been sparse throughout his career, but still he’s been in all of the meetings, he’s confident in the system and now it’s just a matter of going out and doing it.”

How he let the team know QB Colt McCoy would be the starting quarterback:

“I think the guys taking all the reps usually know who’s going to be the quarterback. So just getting him out there with the first team again, getting him all the reps, seeing all the looks was beneficial to him. With the team, I really don’t know if they really care who the quarterback is, they like all three of them and they think all three of them will give them a good chance. They’re all great competitors, all great people, they have a lot of respect for all three. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had this dilemma, but hopefully [QB] Colt [McCoy] plays well and puts an end to it.”

Injury updates:

Backup QB:

Terry McLaurin:

“I think ‘questionable’ is a great word for him right now. I think he did a little bit today, which was good to see, but I think that could be a gameday-type thing. I didn’t want him to really go full-speed today, I wanted to give him another day. Then, tomorrow is obviously a walk-through and then Sunday we’ll see where he’s at, but it is probably 50-50 with him.”

Robert Davis/Cam Sims:

“I think, just overall, the full body of work, really I think [WR] Cam [Sims] has put in some good work out here at practice. He’s made some splash plays running scout team and I thought it was time for him to get an opportunity. Plus, he has great knowledge of knowing both positions – really all three – so he’s a little bit more versatile. That’s the main reason for it.”

Kevin O’Connell Presser

Colt McCoy:

Chaos in the decision-making?:

What he thought about Haskins’ performance in Week 4:

“I think the best thing about it was it was a great learning experience for him, being ready to go, being one snap away like he was and obviously he gets in there and we were looking for a spark from him. He’s able to kind of us on a sudden change drive like he did, got a couple first downs, couple conversions and then we get down in the low red zone, then he learns right off the bat, no matter what we do in the drive, if we can’t finish in the red zone for touchdowns and not field goals, it could come back to haunt us. But that was just one of the little things. Then from a football side of things, the coverages, some of the pressures, some of the looks that we got from those guys, some of the things that maybe he could have digested earlier in the game when [QB] Case [Keenum] was in there that maybe repeated themselves later, now he knows, ‘Whether I’m the starter, I’m one snap away or two snaps away I have to use every moment to be ready to go when my time is called.’ And I think that will be a good thing that comes out of it in addition to now he knows what it’s like on a Sunday to be in a game when we’re trying to go win a football game and that will help him from a preparation standpoint. I think that’ll help him the next time he gets into a game.”

What has stood out to him in this new role as Offensive Coordinator:

“I just think all the little things. From a scripting standpoint, from an installation standpoint, the time at which you have to operate to try and get all the details in that you want to have in, and then all the conversations that you want to have in – individually or collectively as a group – in an install, and then with the quarterback position trying to still have as much of a role as I possibly can with those guys as well. Just time management and those things that – there’s only so many hours in the day before you’ve got to reload it and move onto the next phase of the game plan. So for me, it’s been that. And then just how great of a group we have from a standpoint of – our guys are tough, we’ve got some great leaders on the offensive side, so I can really rely on those guys. Even when some of them may be injured, they can still have a voice in the locker room and in our offensive team meeting room to allow us to have the best possible chance when those guys have a voice and a role, no matter whether they’re on the field or not.”