So, hopefullly, this was the last Commanders interview focused on what happened against the New York Giants. Fan fatigue has set in — we’ve heard you in the comments — and now all bases have been covered. Peters was largely forward thinking in that regard during his weekly set, and focused on Dan Quinn the culture builder – that has been evident during the practice week, with complete player buy-in – the NFC East, the trade deadline and more. Here are the highlights from that Monday morning interview:
Dan Quinn as a culture builder
“He did a really good job with that. Presenting to the team, ‘This is what happened, this won’t happen again; what are we’re going to do to fix it and how can we beat the Niners?’ I think he created that culture. I have been on teams where things have fractured and people start pointing fingers and there are whispers in the building and the doors are closed and guys are having conversations. We aren’t even close to that. That’s a testament to his leadership and leadership in the building with the coaches and veterans on the team have done a great job of that, too.”
“It showed a lot of leadership and growth that everyone took accountability. That’s the sign of a well-coached, good team that no one’s pointing fingers. Then it’s just about looking at what we have in front of us. And it’s everything. We still have 12 games, 70% of the season and the division’s still open. It was about, ‘what are we going to do to beat the 49ers?’ That’s the approach we took, and it was really impressive to see from the group.”
Communication on final drive vs. Giants
“There’s communication throughout the drive, with how many timeouts we have. I think everybody was aware of that. It obviously didn’t pan out that way. It didn’t look that way and, certainly, the result that we didn’t execute it well enough. I think the communication there was good, not as good as we needed it to be in that instance. After we did the postmortem on that and figured, ‘where did we miss this and how can we make sure this doesn’t happen again,’ — I wasn’t on the headset. I wasn’t able to hear any of that. I was on the sideline watching like you guys all were. Getting the rundown, we figured out where the miscommunications were and it won’t happen again.”
Issues with second-half defense
“We can be a dominating defense at times, really good against the run and attacking the ball and making plays on the ball. We had an interception that was taken off the board …We’re getting our hands on the ball, making plays on the ball, but in the second half we haven’t been as effective and consistent. Those are things we’re looking at. What do we need to do? Is it our calls, our execution, our stamina? What are the things that are holding us back from us being a 60-minute defense?”
Division falling back to Commanders
“Everything is in front of us. That’s 12 games, 70% of our season, and we’re still right in that. Hopefully, we’ll be in that until the end. If we win this game, we’re right back in that even closer.”
“At this time, we’re actively making calls. Teams are calling us and we’re assessing the market right now. If there’s something that makes sense for us, we’re certainly going to take action. … I wouldn’t categorize us as either (buyers or sellers) right now, as we get closer that will crystalize a little bit more but, certainly, the give up part, that ain’t happening.”
Listen to 106.7-FM’s entire interview right here:
