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Rams Head Coach Jeff Fisher – Press Conference – 11/30/15
(Opening statement)
“I’m going to kind of give you an injury update from the game. I guess I’ll speak first on (QB) Case’s (Keenum) situation. He’s still being evaluated. He’s much better. We’re going to do some things with him tomorrow and then hopefully he’ll be on the practice field in a limited fashion or a full capacity on Wednesday, so we’ll see how that goes. We kept (T) Rob Havenstein up in the game. He was active. We did not need to go there. We felt like he gave us the best chance to give us some options in case we had a tackle problem. Rob didn’t have to play, so I would expect there will be a really good chance that he’ll get back to the right tackle spot this week. We’ll see how he is. (G) Cody (Wichmann) came through it okay. (DE) Rob Quinn had a really good session well before pregame warm ups, so we’re encouraged there. He had a good workout today. We’re going to see if we can get him back on the practice field here on Wednesday. Then (G/T) Andrew (Donnal) is coming along. He’s really ahead of schedule, which is good, with the MCL sprain. (CB) Trumaine (Johnson) has got a chance. We haven’t ruled him out this week. (K) Greg (Zuerlein), we’re just going to see how he is later in the week. It’s probably unlikely that he kicks any time before Friday, maybe Saturday. We don’t want to stress the injury. It’s kind of a...I’d describe it as a hip flexor strain, something along those lines. (K) Zach (Hocker) did a good job for us. He hit the good extra point, then he kicked off, got the two touchbacks. We’ll just see how they are. From the injury front, we’re getting better. We’ve got a chance to get some people back.”
(On if Quinn’s main issue is his back)
“It’s his back, yeah. It was hip and then back and now we’re concerned about the back.”
(On if Quinn simply needs rest to recover)
“It’s rest and rehab and core strengthening and those kind of things. We’re going to keep an eye on it. He’s encouraged. He wants to come back. He doesn’t have 100 percent of his lower body strength right now.”
(On if Zuerlein suffered his injury on Friday)
“He went out to warm up and then as we were kicking field goals there outside on Friday, I noticed that he didn’t look right. I went up to him, asked him how he felt. I asked him if he needed to kick anymore and he said, ‘No, I think I’m done.’ So I just shut it down. Often times you get tight. A kicker will get tight. Then he came in and we examined him. It was more of a concern well after practice, so we shut him down.”
(On if Zuerlein’s issue was a pre-existing one)
“It’s reps, it’s a combination of things. Sometimes, unfortunately, it happens to kickers because there’s a lot of twisting and a lot of torqueing that goes on.”
(On if Keenum didn’t progress after practicing Wednesday)
“What happened was...as part of the protocol - not to go into too much detail - but there’s testing that goes on. There’s a number of tests that they’re required to take. Then the next phase is the exertion. How does the athlete respond from exertion? That’s increased heart rate, whether it’s bike or whatever it is. The testing got to the point where our doctors felt like it would be okay to let him go out to practice, and not subject him to contact by no means, but see how he is running around. He got some reps on Wednesday and then on Friday, he took a few reps and he was honest with us and said he just doesn’t feel right. So we pulled him out on Friday. At that point, it was very, very unlikely that he’d play in the game. He has to really be back to 100 percent. From what I’ve been told, today was good. We’re going to wait on what he does tomorrow and we’ll see on Wednesday.”
(On if he was glad that Keenum was honest with him on Friday)
“Yeah, he was honest with us after the game and Monday and all the way through the week. Again, it was a very unique situation that happened. I don’t need to go back through the chain of events, but we all knew what happened.”
(On the reasons behind changing the practice schedule)
“I felt like we needed a day of rest. Instead of working tomorrow afternoon, we just need to rest tomorrow. Pretty simple. It’s not the first time I’ve changed the practice schedule. We change it all of the time. Tomorrow will be their day off. They can rest and recover. We’ll work Wednesday. Normal Wednesday for you guys. Normal Friday for you guys. Thursday will be pretty much more of a walk-thru kind of tempo thing. At this time of year, where you are, it’s hard to practice full speed three days a week. It’s not unusual. I’ve done that before.”
(On if he will keep the schedule this way)
“Right now, it’s a one week thing.”
(On if he feels like this team has shown enough progress and like he feels he’ll back for a fifth year)
“I’ve been doing this for probably short of 20 years and I’ve never gone into a game or into a season worried about my job security. That would be unfair to the organization and unfair to the players. So, I’m not concerned about that. What I’m concerned about is this week. I know that’s not the answer you guys want to hear, but I’m concerned about this week. We’re 3-0 in the division. We’ve got the division leader coming to town and we’re going to get ready to play. Mathematically, we’re not eliminated. I’m not going to put all of the pressure. We talked to the players today, we’re not going to put this live or die or win or lose situation on this game. We’re going to have fun, we’re going to work, we’re going to prepare and we’re going to get ready to play the Cardinals.”
(On how he gets this team focused)
“It’s about avoiding distractions. It’s about believing in yourself and working hard and finding ways to improve. It’s especially difficult on them right now because of the lack of production on offense. But, you look at the tape and there’s potential for big plays in this game. It can show them that, ‘Hey, this is an elite team that we played. This is a playoff team that’s been there for years. They’ve got a Pro Bowl quarterback. Had a couple of things gone differently, the end of the game could’ve been different.’ That’s the perspective that you take. We’ve lost four in a row. They’re not losers. Their effort is outstanding. They’re doing the best they can. We just have to find a way to make some plays.”
(On how tough it’s been to having changing parts on the offense almost every game)
“To give you an example, (OL) Garrett (Reynolds), you can’t be more proud of Garrett. He’s played three different positions in four weeks. Garrett Reynolds, he’s playing left guard, he’s playing right guard, he’s starting at right tackle. That’s the mindset that we have. Unfortunately, that’s what we’re going through, but guys are doing the best they can. (G) Cody (Wichmann) comes in, (T) Andrew (Donnal) comes in, he gets hurt. Injuries are a part of this. The offensive line, when you’re rotating guys in and out and counting on guys and developing players and they go down, it’s difficult to overcome. It’s reflected, specifically in our run game. We’re not giving up a lot of sacks by league standards. We’re doing a good job of protecting the quarterback. We gave up one last week or yesterday. They’re working, but I think it’s reflected in our run game, with our interior run game. And that’s why we made the choice to try to get things on the perimeter last week with (WR) Tavon (Austin) and do some things. We couldn’t get things going with (RB) Todd (Gurley). (QB) Nick (Foles) was 10-of-16 at halftime. Because of the rest of the things that happened around us in the game, we had 30 pass attempts in the second half. You’re not going to get your run game going when you’ve got to throw to catch up. Our focus is on improving inside, the interior part of our offensive line, try to get the run game going and keep Todd going.”
(On how he thinks the team held up emotionally)
“Emotionally, they were fine.”
(On how close of a call it is between quarterbacks Case Keenum and Nick Foles and how far Keenum has come in his eyes)
“He’s come on. He’s really disappointed that he didn’t get to play last week. I don’t buy in to the philosophy where someone’s going to lose their job because they got hurt. Unfortunately, Case had the set of circumstances at the end of the Baltimore game that prevented him from playing last week. Hopefully, he’s going to be back this week and he’ll play. I’m going to give Case a fair shot.”
(On what he saw from Foles on the three interceptions)
“First one was a little late. (Bengals S) Reggie (Nelson) did a great job overlapping and read his eyes and just took off and pushed and the ball was deflected right before half. The second one, he was trying to make a play. He was scrambling around. He should not have thrown that ball. Throw the ball in the ground. Get what you can, get down and punt the ball away. Last one, we double moved outside. We double moved at him, ball sailed a little bit inside. He was a little bit late, it sailed inside and the safety made a great play on the ball.”
(On how Foles’ confidence is)
“He’s a confident player. He’s confident. Those things are not unsettling to him. He comes back.”
(On if the Baltimore game was a week off for Foles mentally)
“No, because as a backup you have to prepare yourself to play and that’s what he did. He prepared himself to play in the Baltimore game.”
(On QB Sean Mannion)
“Well, he’s doing everything he can. He’s been in the meetings with the quarterbacks every day since the draft. He got reps during camp. He got to play in preseason games. Once you get in the regular season, your (No.) one’s and (No.) two’s are getting the reps. It’s hard to get your (No.) three reps. (No.) One gets primarily, probably 95 percent of the reps. Your No. 2 gets to work against the defense. Last week because of the circumstances, Sean got a little bit more work against the defense. But, I think when he comes in the game in ‘mop up’ situations like that where the defense declared itself and still six for seven and making good decisions and putting the ball where he’s supposed to, there’s light there and there’s hope there.”
(On if you only draft a quarterback in the third round of the NFL draft because you think he’s a potential starter)
“That’s correct, yeah. Not many teams have drafted a quarterback in the third round and started him as a rookie either. It takes time.”
(On if he’s ever had an offense that has struggled like the Rams have this season)
“No. It’s a combination of things. We’re going to find our way out of it. We’ve got good players. Got playmakers, we just have to get them the ball.”
(On if he has any updates regarding WR Stedman Bailey’s status)
“He’s improving. One thing that was really, really cool…it was really, really emotional was that he obviously had extensive surgery. He was in surgery for over six hours. Then to remove one bullet. There were two wounds to the head, two shots. He was in a medically induced coma for obvious reasons to keep the swelling down in the brain and didn’t know how long that was going to last. His girlfriend texted a picture to some of his teammates yesterday in the locker room of him signing his name on a piece of paper, so got to share that with the team yesterday and it was good news. We don’t have any more information other than he’s recovering. He’s still in intensive care recovering.”
(On if the picture Bailey’s girlfriend sent the team was before the game)
“Yes.”
(On if there are any updates about the shooting)
“Don’t have any more details on the investigation as far as that is concerned.”
(On if he has any updates about the league protocol discussion)
“No. I mean, it was well documented there was a discussion league wide with the trainers. The information was shared there as to what happened. The league’s continuing to look into it and hopefully make some adjustments. I would suspect that those adjustments would involve the medical timeout and the ATC and the calls down to the referee.”
(On how the team psyche was today)
“Great. They were good. We had a good meeting. Got things corrected, had a good meeting. They’re looking forward to a day off. I would anticipate most of them are going to be in the building tomorrow and we’ll go Wednesday.”
(On if Bailey was serving his suspension in Miami)
“Correct.”
(On if he wished Bailey would have been training in St. Louis instead of Miami)
“He was working out down there. He was working out really hard. The unfortunate part about the timing was he had a ticket Wednesday morning to go back to Atlanta to spend Thanksgiving with his mom and then come back here on Friday to resume his training here with us. So, it was just an unfortunate timing situation.”
(On if Bailey had talked to him about going to train in Miami and if he was okay with it)
“That was okay, yeah. I trusted him, yeah.”
(On how he thought G Demetrius Rhaney played in his first start)
“First start but not first time playing, but he was okay. That was a handful up front. It was a handful. As I said yesterday, one of the things we wanted to stay away from was putting our situations where we had to throw to catch up. So, now they’re rolling off. They’re pass rushing. So, they’re pass rushing, they’re gaming and stunting and doing all that kind of stuff. That was hard on us, but he held up. I thought he held up.”
(Opening statement)
“I’m going to kind of give you an injury update from the game. I guess I’ll speak first on (QB) Case’s (Keenum) situation. He’s still being evaluated. He’s much better. We’re going to do some things with him tomorrow and then hopefully he’ll be on the practice field in a limited fashion or a full capacity on Wednesday, so we’ll see how that goes. We kept (T) Rob Havenstein up in the game. He was active. We did not need to go there. We felt like he gave us the best chance to give us some options in case we had a tackle problem. Rob didn’t have to play, so I would expect there will be a really good chance that he’ll get back to the right tackle spot this week. We’ll see how he is. (G) Cody (Wichmann) came through it okay. (DE) Rob Quinn had a really good session well before pregame warm ups, so we’re encouraged there. He had a good workout today. We’re going to see if we can get him back on the practice field here on Wednesday. Then (G/T) Andrew (Donnal) is coming along. He’s really ahead of schedule, which is good, with the MCL sprain. (CB) Trumaine (Johnson) has got a chance. We haven’t ruled him out this week. (K) Greg (Zuerlein), we’re just going to see how he is later in the week. It’s probably unlikely that he kicks any time before Friday, maybe Saturday. We don’t want to stress the injury. It’s kind of a...I’d describe it as a hip flexor strain, something along those lines. (K) Zach (Hocker) did a good job for us. He hit the good extra point, then he kicked off, got the two touchbacks. We’ll just see how they are. From the injury front, we’re getting better. We’ve got a chance to get some people back.”
(On if Quinn’s main issue is his back)
“It’s his back, yeah. It was hip and then back and now we’re concerned about the back.”
(On if Quinn simply needs rest to recover)
“It’s rest and rehab and core strengthening and those kind of things. We’re going to keep an eye on it. He’s encouraged. He wants to come back. He doesn’t have 100 percent of his lower body strength right now.”
(On if Zuerlein suffered his injury on Friday)
“He went out to warm up and then as we were kicking field goals there outside on Friday, I noticed that he didn’t look right. I went up to him, asked him how he felt. I asked him if he needed to kick anymore and he said, ‘No, I think I’m done.’ So I just shut it down. Often times you get tight. A kicker will get tight. Then he came in and we examined him. It was more of a concern well after practice, so we shut him down.”
(On if Zuerlein’s issue was a pre-existing one)
“It’s reps, it’s a combination of things. Sometimes, unfortunately, it happens to kickers because there’s a lot of twisting and a lot of torqueing that goes on.”
(On if Keenum didn’t progress after practicing Wednesday)
“What happened was...as part of the protocol - not to go into too much detail - but there’s testing that goes on. There’s a number of tests that they’re required to take. Then the next phase is the exertion. How does the athlete respond from exertion? That’s increased heart rate, whether it’s bike or whatever it is. The testing got to the point where our doctors felt like it would be okay to let him go out to practice, and not subject him to contact by no means, but see how he is running around. He got some reps on Wednesday and then on Friday, he took a few reps and he was honest with us and said he just doesn’t feel right. So we pulled him out on Friday. At that point, it was very, very unlikely that he’d play in the game. He has to really be back to 100 percent. From what I’ve been told, today was good. We’re going to wait on what he does tomorrow and we’ll see on Wednesday.”
(On if he was glad that Keenum was honest with him on Friday)
“Yeah, he was honest with us after the game and Monday and all the way through the week. Again, it was a very unique situation that happened. I don’t need to go back through the chain of events, but we all knew what happened.”
(On the reasons behind changing the practice schedule)
“I felt like we needed a day of rest. Instead of working tomorrow afternoon, we just need to rest tomorrow. Pretty simple. It’s not the first time I’ve changed the practice schedule. We change it all of the time. Tomorrow will be their day off. They can rest and recover. We’ll work Wednesday. Normal Wednesday for you guys. Normal Friday for you guys. Thursday will be pretty much more of a walk-thru kind of tempo thing. At this time of year, where you are, it’s hard to practice full speed three days a week. It’s not unusual. I’ve done that before.”
(On if he will keep the schedule this way)
“Right now, it’s a one week thing.”
(On if he feels like this team has shown enough progress and like he feels he’ll back for a fifth year)
“I’ve been doing this for probably short of 20 years and I’ve never gone into a game or into a season worried about my job security. That would be unfair to the organization and unfair to the players. So, I’m not concerned about that. What I’m concerned about is this week. I know that’s not the answer you guys want to hear, but I’m concerned about this week. We’re 3-0 in the division. We’ve got the division leader coming to town and we’re going to get ready to play. Mathematically, we’re not eliminated. I’m not going to put all of the pressure. We talked to the players today, we’re not going to put this live or die or win or lose situation on this game. We’re going to have fun, we’re going to work, we’re going to prepare and we’re going to get ready to play the Cardinals.”
(On how he gets this team focused)
“It’s about avoiding distractions. It’s about believing in yourself and working hard and finding ways to improve. It’s especially difficult on them right now because of the lack of production on offense. But, you look at the tape and there’s potential for big plays in this game. It can show them that, ‘Hey, this is an elite team that we played. This is a playoff team that’s been there for years. They’ve got a Pro Bowl quarterback. Had a couple of things gone differently, the end of the game could’ve been different.’ That’s the perspective that you take. We’ve lost four in a row. They’re not losers. Their effort is outstanding. They’re doing the best they can. We just have to find a way to make some plays.”
(On how tough it’s been to having changing parts on the offense almost every game)
“To give you an example, (OL) Garrett (Reynolds), you can’t be more proud of Garrett. He’s played three different positions in four weeks. Garrett Reynolds, he’s playing left guard, he’s playing right guard, he’s starting at right tackle. That’s the mindset that we have. Unfortunately, that’s what we’re going through, but guys are doing the best they can. (G) Cody (Wichmann) comes in, (T) Andrew (Donnal) comes in, he gets hurt. Injuries are a part of this. The offensive line, when you’re rotating guys in and out and counting on guys and developing players and they go down, it’s difficult to overcome. It’s reflected, specifically in our run game. We’re not giving up a lot of sacks by league standards. We’re doing a good job of protecting the quarterback. We gave up one last week or yesterday. They’re working, but I think it’s reflected in our run game, with our interior run game. And that’s why we made the choice to try to get things on the perimeter last week with (WR) Tavon (Austin) and do some things. We couldn’t get things going with (RB) Todd (Gurley). (QB) Nick (Foles) was 10-of-16 at halftime. Because of the rest of the things that happened around us in the game, we had 30 pass attempts in the second half. You’re not going to get your run game going when you’ve got to throw to catch up. Our focus is on improving inside, the interior part of our offensive line, try to get the run game going and keep Todd going.”
(On how he thinks the team held up emotionally)
“Emotionally, they were fine.”
(On how close of a call it is between quarterbacks Case Keenum and Nick Foles and how far Keenum has come in his eyes)
“He’s come on. He’s really disappointed that he didn’t get to play last week. I don’t buy in to the philosophy where someone’s going to lose their job because they got hurt. Unfortunately, Case had the set of circumstances at the end of the Baltimore game that prevented him from playing last week. Hopefully, he’s going to be back this week and he’ll play. I’m going to give Case a fair shot.”
(On what he saw from Foles on the three interceptions)
“First one was a little late. (Bengals S) Reggie (Nelson) did a great job overlapping and read his eyes and just took off and pushed and the ball was deflected right before half. The second one, he was trying to make a play. He was scrambling around. He should not have thrown that ball. Throw the ball in the ground. Get what you can, get down and punt the ball away. Last one, we double moved outside. We double moved at him, ball sailed a little bit inside. He was a little bit late, it sailed inside and the safety made a great play on the ball.”
(On how Foles’ confidence is)
“He’s a confident player. He’s confident. Those things are not unsettling to him. He comes back.”
(On if the Baltimore game was a week off for Foles mentally)
“No, because as a backup you have to prepare yourself to play and that’s what he did. He prepared himself to play in the Baltimore game.”
(On QB Sean Mannion)
“Well, he’s doing everything he can. He’s been in the meetings with the quarterbacks every day since the draft. He got reps during camp. He got to play in preseason games. Once you get in the regular season, your (No.) one’s and (No.) two’s are getting the reps. It’s hard to get your (No.) three reps. (No.) One gets primarily, probably 95 percent of the reps. Your No. 2 gets to work against the defense. Last week because of the circumstances, Sean got a little bit more work against the defense. But, I think when he comes in the game in ‘mop up’ situations like that where the defense declared itself and still six for seven and making good decisions and putting the ball where he’s supposed to, there’s light there and there’s hope there.”
(On if you only draft a quarterback in the third round of the NFL draft because you think he’s a potential starter)
“That’s correct, yeah. Not many teams have drafted a quarterback in the third round and started him as a rookie either. It takes time.”
(On if he’s ever had an offense that has struggled like the Rams have this season)
“No. It’s a combination of things. We’re going to find our way out of it. We’ve got good players. Got playmakers, we just have to get them the ball.”
(On if he has any updates regarding WR Stedman Bailey’s status)
“He’s improving. One thing that was really, really cool…it was really, really emotional was that he obviously had extensive surgery. He was in surgery for over six hours. Then to remove one bullet. There were two wounds to the head, two shots. He was in a medically induced coma for obvious reasons to keep the swelling down in the brain and didn’t know how long that was going to last. His girlfriend texted a picture to some of his teammates yesterday in the locker room of him signing his name on a piece of paper, so got to share that with the team yesterday and it was good news. We don’t have any more information other than he’s recovering. He’s still in intensive care recovering.”
(On if the picture Bailey’s girlfriend sent the team was before the game)
“Yes.”
(On if there are any updates about the shooting)
“Don’t have any more details on the investigation as far as that is concerned.”
(On if he has any updates about the league protocol discussion)
“No. I mean, it was well documented there was a discussion league wide with the trainers. The information was shared there as to what happened. The league’s continuing to look into it and hopefully make some adjustments. I would suspect that those adjustments would involve the medical timeout and the ATC and the calls down to the referee.”
(On how the team psyche was today)
“Great. They were good. We had a good meeting. Got things corrected, had a good meeting. They’re looking forward to a day off. I would anticipate most of them are going to be in the building tomorrow and we’ll go Wednesday.”
(On if Bailey was serving his suspension in Miami)
“Correct.”
(On if he wished Bailey would have been training in St. Louis instead of Miami)
“He was working out down there. He was working out really hard. The unfortunate part about the timing was he had a ticket Wednesday morning to go back to Atlanta to spend Thanksgiving with his mom and then come back here on Friday to resume his training here with us. So, it was just an unfortunate timing situation.”
(On if Bailey had talked to him about going to train in Miami and if he was okay with it)
“That was okay, yeah. I trusted him, yeah.”
(On how he thought G Demetrius Rhaney played in his first start)
“First start but not first time playing, but he was okay. That was a handful up front. It was a handful. As I said yesterday, one of the things we wanted to stay away from was putting our situations where we had to throw to catch up. So, now they’re rolling off. They’re pass rushing. So, they’re pass rushing, they’re gaming and stunting and doing all that kind of stuff. That was hard on us, but he held up. I thought he held up.”
