(Opening Statement)
“In our world – every day, win or lose – we make decisions which are in the best interest of this football team and this organization. Today, I made a very difficult decision but one that we’re going to stand behind and that’s relieving Frank Cignetti of his offensive coordinator duties. I’ve become a very good friend of Frank’s over the years and I’m very fond of Frank. He’s a great man. It was, in my estimation, time to move in a different direction. Our focus is on the future of this offense, the future of this football team. I felt like this was the best thing we could do. I have got great confidence in (Assistant Head Coach/Offense) Coach (Rob) Boras to take over the offense and he’ll do so. He’s done so as of about noon today. I talked with the offensive players and informed them shortly after, right around 2 (p.m.). All of the blame is not to fall on his shoulders, but it’s the way this business works. Players contributed, coaches contributed, everybody contributed, but we have to move in a different direction. The lack of production is obvious. We’ve been talking about it for weeks and we need more production. Our rankings are there for you. You see where we are. You know, 18 touchdowns in 12 weeks just doesn’t give you a chance to win a lot of games. In seven of our 12 games, we’ve scored 13 points or less. We’re going to move in a different direction under the guidance of Rob. That’s going to include our philosophy, which is to run the ball and convert third downs and play-pass and be aggressive and attack and do those kind of things. We had to make a tough decision today.
“As far as the game is concerned, some opportunities early, like I said. A chain of events and things happen. There’s a touchdown pass and then we gave up the drive right before half. If we make a catch, we have a chance to go in, maybe it’s down 7-0 and things kind of slipped away. We have work to do on our defensive run front. Two consecutive weeks now we’ve given up way too many rushing yards. We’re working on that. From an injury standpoint, there are two players that are in the concussion protocol. That would be (CB) Janoris (Jenkins) and (TE) Lance (Kendricks). They’re doing fine. They’re ahead of schedule, according to the doctors. We have some concern about (S) T.J. (McDonald). We’re doing tests on the shoulder and we’ll see where that goes once we get the results back. (DE) Rob Quinn is again questionable. He’s making progress but we’re going to do some further tests with Rob. As far as the kicking situation is concerned, we scheduled an MRI for (K) Zach (Hocker) to examine the extent of the thigh pull, the thigh injury. But, I am optimistic that (K) Greg (Zuerlein) has a chance to come back and kick Wednesday and then kick Friday and then we’ll see where he is. That’s where we’re at.”
(On what Boras can bring to the offense)
“There’s some different thoughts. Stimulate the staff. A little more creativity. But, it’s run game. We’re lacking the run game efficiency right now and it all starts right there. Rob, wherever he’s been, he’s been very successful with respect to the run. So, that’s where it’s going to start.”
(On how Boras’ role changes considering his previous involvement in the run game)
“What I’m anticipating is it’s play selection, it’s calls, it’s adjustments and things like that. It’s commitment to it as far as the play calling is concerned. Expanding on some things that we need to do and then hopefully pushing things down the field as a result of it, because that’s what we haven’t been able to do.”
(On what he liked about Boras when considering him for the job back in the spring)
“If you’ve seen Rob coach on the field, Rob’s a hands on, very enthusiastic or detailed guy. He gets the big picture. He’s not done a lot of play calling before and that was really the difference and the reason I went with Frank, but we can take care of that. I have no concern about that. He’ll be more than prepared to call this game by the time Sunday comes along. It’s just the relationships that you see, the relationships that he has with the tight ends and the energy that he brings and the expectation that he has. He’s a perfectionist and that’s what we need. We’re not in a position to have a wide receiver false start or a tight end false start on first-and-10 and go into first-and-15 because we can’t overcome that right now. So, those things are unacceptable. He’s going to bring and demand accountability to the offensive players with an expectation of them going above and beyond what they’ve already done.”
(On if Cignetti knew he was on notice for the last few weeks)
“No, he didn’t. I didn’t put him on notice. I had the discussion with him today.”
(On if the coaching change was something he’s thought about for a while)
“I’ve looked hard it, yeah, over the last couple of weeks. Just haven’t gotten the production. We’re getting what we want out of them on the practice field. It’s not carrying over to the game. I didn’t wake up this morning and make this decision.”
(On if he’s ever made a coaching change in season)
“I’ve never released a coach or a coordinator during the season. No, I have not done that. But again, this is big picture. This is what’s in my estimation, which is in the best interest of this football team moving forward for the future. We’ve got good players. We’ve got to use them. We’ve got players that are hurt. We’ve got to get them back. We need direction moving forward offensively. And we’ve got to get better quarterback play. We’ve got to get better play out of all of the position groups.”
(On the wide receivers missing a lot of catchable balls)
“There were catchable balls, yes. I think as I mentioned to you guys after the game, this is a game of inches and you’ve got to make those tough, contested catches. They made some big time plays yesterday. The one against (CB) Janoris (Jenkins) was a great play. But, you’ve got to make those plays to win games. And we’re not making those plays. So yes, wide receivers as well.”
(On if the players were shocked when they heard about Cignetti)
“Yes, they were. They were and I hope they all took it personally because they need to. You’ve got a good man and a good football coach that’s busting his butt every single day. Now, for whatever reasons, he’s no longer here. They have to take some responsibility for that.”
(On how he thinks QB Case Keenum will do with a full week of practice)
“Full week of practice, feels good. He’s excited about the opportunity to get back. He’s going to take charge and go. ‘Wink’ (Quarterbacks Coach Chris Weinke) will have him ready to go and he’s going to get the reps and he’s going to run around and make plays. Extend some plays for us and do what he does best.”
(On if he thought about putting Keenum in at any point in yesterday’s game)
“No, not yesterday. Just because of the reps. He just didn’t have the reps last week. As I said, I’m not going to give a player an opportunity to lose his job because of injury. We committed to him, he got hurt. He’s now healthy. It’s his job right now.”
(On if this is an opportunity for Keenum to show everyone what he can do)
“Yeah, well, it’s an opportunity for him to go out and win us a game, which we need to do.”
(On if offensive assistant Kenan Smith will be taking over the tight ends coaching position)
“Yes. Yeah, Kenan’s been working really close with Rob. We made that move during the OTAs. So, he’s got a good feel. He’ll handle that. Tight ends, it’s a smart group, sharp group. They’ve been well-coached. They know how to prepare, so Kenan will do a good job there.”
(On trying to play pass defense in the secondary against Arizona without CB Janoris Jenkins and CB Trumaine Johnson and basically with just two corners available)
“Well, there was a significant change in the lineup because we moved (DB) Lamarcus (Joyner) out to corner. Then, (S) Rodney (McLeod) came down to play the nickel spot. Then, based on the packages that we had, (S) Cody (Davis) came in for a couple plays, but we also had ‘Mo’ (S Maurice Alexander) in there at safety. Then, (S) T.J. (McDonald) was a little banged up and it wasn’t easy. We had players playing positions that they hadn’t played before against an outstanding quarterback.”
(On if he’s going to look into adding another corner to the roster or if he has expectations for Johnson’s return)
“Tru had a good day today in the training room. We’re hopeful that he’ll come back. If not, we’re looking at that. We’ll have those discussions. There’s a potential for some roster moves because of injury. We’re just going to look at that here in the next day or so.”
(On WR Stedman Bailey being eligible to come off the suspended list today)
“That’s correct.”
(On if Bailey came off the suspended list)
“He did. We’re working right now with the league. We’re probably going to put him on NFI, a non-football injury, since that’s what it is. We’ll take care of Sted – that’s our intention. Yeah, he comes off, he’s eligible to play. By no means is he in any kind of condition to play right now.”
(On Bailey’s status)
“He’s doing better. He’s doing better, yeah. Thanks for asking. It puts a smile on my face when I get to think about him and where he’s at right now.”
(On if there could be any long range issues beyond this season for Bailey)
“Are you asking is there a potential that he doesn’t return to play? Yes, there is that potential. We don’t know. It is just going to take some time.”
(On if those issues are health related for Bailey’s return)
“Yes, from a health standpoint, there’s a chance that he doesn’t play. However, based on what he’s done over the last 10 days, he may surprise everybody.”
(On if Bailey is making good progress in his recovery)
“Yes.”
(On what he sees from the run defense on tape)
“People are scheming us. They’re doing a nice job of it. We missed tackles in the run front. We’ve got guys with gap responsibilities and we missed. T.J. (McDonald) had a tough time. He was hurt. His shoulder was hurt and he couldn’t wrap. He had a tough time. He missed some tackles. Those created a couple of those big plays. You also have (Cardinals WR) Larry Fitzgerald and you’re pass-conscious. You don’t want to give up those big plays, so they committed to it. They creased us. I think they had 36 carries. The 36 carries for rush attempts in this game is kind of where we want to be. They were able to do that because we couldn’t convert third downs offensively. We just gave them another drive, after another drive, after another drive.”
(On several of the front seven players talking about just doing their job)
“There’s a gap fit. There’s a pass set, when someone reads the pass, gets up the field and gets out of their gap. Those things that typically happen when you give it up. The carries weren’t…it wasn’t like they were explosive plays, but they were seven and eight yards. Those kept their drives alive. We did, however, have some positive plays. What’s overshadowed in this game was (DT) Aaron Donald, I think because of the loss. It’s hard to find a better tackle playing right now on the field than Aaron. Aaron was outstanding in this ball game.”
(On how he thinks T Rob Havenstein and G Cody Wichmann performed)
“Rob got through it okay. Felt good. Little sore, but felt good. Shouldn’t have any setbacks this week. Cody’s coming on. He’s learning. He’s young, but he’s learning. He’s coming on. He’ll be a good player for us.”
