Hogs Haven
Kliff Kingsbury and Joe Whitt Jr speak to the media before practice
Commanders defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. met with the media on Thursday to discuss the Washington defense and the upcoming game against the Dallas Cowboys.
Opening Statement:
”So, I know we’ve had two games since I last been up here. I’m just going to discuss the Philly game and if you want to talk about Pittsburgh, we will.
The Philly game, it’s disappointing that we played well, defensively, for 53 minutes — but it’s a 60-minute game. And so, we talk about finishing [in] winning moments, and we didn’t get that done. And it is disappointing.
I know people want to say that we got tired. Well, that’s why we roll with a deep crew. I don’t believe in excuses. We’re here to win and we gotta win, okay?
I thought the men did play hard though. And they executed the plan the way that we wanted to go. They ran and hit and for 53 minutes it looked the way that it’s supposed to look. And now I gotta do a better job of getting us to play 60 minutes of football. Hopefully with this next opportunity that we have with Dallas, we’ll get that done.
Talking about Dallas a little bit, I [was] there the last couple years and have a lot of respect for the men in that room — coaches, players ownership, front office, everybody. It was a good place to be. I know how hard those players in that locker room work and how they prepare and how they get ready. So, this is going to be a very, very hard game.
[We have] a lot of respect for [QB] Cooper Rush. We won a number of games with him as our quarterback when we were there, so I know he can play winning football.
This is a divisional game; alright, it’s the next game. That’s why it’s a big game. It’s not a big game because of any other reason than that. It’s the next game, but we gotta do our job, alright?
Let’s play 60 minutes of hard-nosed football and get back to — not get back to — get to turning this ball over. And so, we can get back in the win category. Alright, with that, any questions?”
On examples of winning time plays he wants the defense to make:
“Well, when we didn’t get the fourth down there, they hit the explosive pass. We had an opportunity, we got the ball out — we should have picked that ball up, okay?
The two big runs that they hit late in the game; we were [against] run defenses.
I know a lot of people say, ‘Oh, we’re trying to protect the corners.’ We didn’t protect the corners at all this game, alright? Those guys went out there and covered....
