Joe Gibbs held a press conference at 2:00pm at Redskin Park on Thursday afternoon. Here are the highlights.
Coach Gibbs started off the press conference by talking about a few items before even being asked by the media. The first thing he addressed was how the OTA's are going. He stated that he thought they were going well and that there were no injuries to report. He also briefly went through status reports on the very few people who aren't working out at the sessions.
Lavar Arrington is present at the OTA's and working out in the weight room but is still rehabbing his knee. At this point medical officials feel it would be aggravating to Arrington's knee to have him standing around doing nothing, so he is not out on the field. It was implied that the Redskins might not expect Lavar to participate in the June mini-camp but that they did expect him to be ready for training camp. Mike Barrow is also still rehabbing his knee. Gibbs went in to more detail on Barrow's injury stating that he thought that Barrow had regained his flexibility, but now he was just working on strengthening his leg. Coach indicated that Barrow was trying to account for about an inch of muscle loss due to atrophy. Brandon Noble is also not working out yet, but was said to be recovering well from his infection. Tom Tupa is also still absent due to a personal matter and it was re-iterated that Rod Gardner would not be attending at all.
That's everybody right? Of course not... everybody had something to ask about Sean Taylor. To summarize many different questions and answers, the situation is still exactly the same. Taylor isn't at camp, the Redskins have yet to hear anything from him, but they fully expect him to meet his obligations and show up for the mandatory team workouts in June. Coach Gibbs re-affirmed his position of just wanting Sean to sign on like everyone else has, and stated that his role in it all was merely to, 'try and reach him.'
The second thing that was addressed without being prompted was this week's hiring of Don Warren. The former Redskin great was signed on as a scout, and Gibbs said that he was thrilled by the addition and that Donnie was a 'great Redskin. One of our star players.'
R.W McQuarters was addressed. Gibbs said that he had a very good visit but that he expected that McQuarters had a few other teams to visit before he was going to make his decision. The Redskins said they were interested in him because of his ability to play safety and corner and that his versatility fits in well.
Then there was a question about Chad Morton who also is not at the OTA's. When Coach Gibbs was asked if Morton's absence was troublesome, he replied that it wasn't and that he felt it was just because Chad's injury occurred a little bit later in the season.
There were also some rumblings about training camp dates. Coach was surprised that they hadn't announced the dates publicly yet and that he would try getting them to the media as soon as he could. He did say that they would not likely be having a quarterback camp before camp this year because the NFL took slight issue with it last year.
The last thing that was talked about was some specific 'feel good' camp stories. Gibbs said that he thought it was a great story that Marcus Washington was even working out. In fact, just two days after surgery, Marcus was back on the field and it was implied that the Redskins would have gladly given him a pass on the workouts to recover if he so desired. He also thought it was great to see Jon Jansen back out there as well.
The other story touched on was Ray Brown. Perhaps the funniest comment in the press conference came when Gibbs joked that he had walked up to Brown and Joe Bugel at practice and asked which one of them was older. Despite the crack, there is obviously a huge amount of respect for Brown who Gibbs said could probably play another 5 years. As the ultimate compliment, Gibbs finished his comments on the 42-year old veteran by saying that the Redskins would keep Brown in the organization no matter what, inferring that Brown would become a Redskin coach or official when his playing days were finished.
You can check out the whole press conference by checking out Audio Archive: Gibbs Media Session, May 26 on the front page at Redskins.com.
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