It took one loss, one big day by an opposing receiver. And DeAngelo Hall went off, saying he wants to cover the best receiver all game – which he has not done in the first two games. But he did it in the strongest way possible, even saying it doesn’t matter what the defensive coordinator says.
There’s really no way to do this one, but let Hall have his voice, because it’s that good. Oh, and for good measure he takes a subtle shot at Peyton Manning (whom they play on Oct. 17) and Andre Johnson (who caught 12 passes for 158 yards).
So here’s Hall on:
Staying on one side: “That’s how it was. It ain’t how it’s gonna be from here on out. I’m going wherever the [bleeping] ball is going. Wherever the receiver is going, that’s where the [bleep] I’m going. That’s something we’ve got to do in order to win games, so that’s what’s going to happen.”
How open defensive coordinator Jim Haslett will be: “It don’t matter what he say. This [is] my team. This [is] my defense. I’m gonna follow the receivers around. If we’ve got to do that to win games, that’s what I’m gonna do.”
When he decided it was time to say something: “It’s been something that I’ve been doing, and we hadn’t, I guess, felt like we needed to. But like I said, I feel like we need to.”
If it would made a difference if he had covered Johnson on the fourth and 10 touchdown pass: “I guess we’ll never know. I can’t it won’t. I can’t say it will. That’s an opportunity that I need.”
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More on the Johnson touchdown: “It’s a two-man coverage that has a guy playing man-to-man [Phillip Buchnon] and a guy playing man to man over the top. He kind of came off a little bit early, but you won’t expect Reed [Doughty] to win that battle anyway. That’s a good receiver in this league. You would like the coverage to work out the way it’s designd to work out. … It won’t happen like that again. When Andre Johnson is out there, I’m gonna be out there.”
Taking it personally: “Yeah. Like I said, I hadn’t played Andre in the league. I played him in college. This is my first time going against him in the league. I gave him a lot of props during the game. During the game, he didn’t scare me. He didn’t do anything that looked spectacular. He didn’t do anything to make me feel like he was the best. Maybe the numbers indicate he is, but I didn’t feel that way when I linied up against him. He caught a lot of balls in zone and was just kinda running wide open in zones, not really man to man.”
If he ever talked to Haslett about doing this before: “Nah, we never really talked about it. Has knows me. He has seen me play over the years. He knows I like to do that. I don’t see many problems at all.”
Covering one guy all game: “Guys are gonna catch balls. My first four years in Atlanta, I followed the best receiver around and [they] caught balls. It didn’t matter. If you give me enough opportunities, I’m gonna make plays. It’s frustrating to go out there and be up 17 points and still lose the game. So, like I said, a guy could catch 20 balls, throw it 20 times my way and I’ll make some plays.”
The fourth and 10 play, again: “That particular instance, it felt like we had the perfect play called anyways. It felt like it didn’t matter if I was on him or we could have put you on him. I felt like it still should have been resolved. It probably should have been resolved. Fourth and 10, that shouldn’t have been an option. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and evaluate some things.”
Balancing blitzing and playing coverage: “We were hitting [Texans QB Matt] Schaub. We had him rattled. I need to watch the film. I haven’t watched the film. I was sitting at home trying to figure out what the hell happened. I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t walk through the game in my mind how the hell it ended up the wayc it ended up because at one point I felt like the game was over. I felt like we were dominating those guys, hitting Schaub whenever we wanted to. He was falling down, you know, without anybody even around him, like Peyton Manning does a lot. I don’t know what transpired from third to fourth or all in the middle of that to spark that comeback and us eventually losing.”
Playing more man instead of zone: “It’s neither here nor there. Like I said, I didn’t feel like none of their receivers scared us enough that we were in man that, you know, anybody should have been scared of them.”
Playing a lot of man when blitzing so much: “It’s gonna be Jets football out there then. It’s gonna be just sit back there, get a penalty if they throw it up. If you can try to do something, sort of like that game the Jets played against Baltimore where they were just sending everybody and they played man behind it. There’s different kinds of ways you can do things, and we played man behind some and we played zone behind some, but for the most part, we were in a good deal of zones. They were running through them. The other guy, Walter, I think he had 10 catches. He was running through some. They quietly, quietly put up a lot of yards and made a lot of plays.”
How many times he faced Johnson one on one: “I played the left. Wherever he went, I saw him a couple times. I ain’t sit there and count snaps, but I don’t think I got a ball caught on my side. Jacoby Jones caught a little ball one time. Like I said, it’s frustrating.”
For early analysis of the Redskins 30-27 overtime loss, click here.
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