Transcript of Steve Spurrier Interview

Washington Post staff writer Mark Maske interviewed Coach Steve Spurrier Thursday at Redskins Park following his team's final practice of its bye week.

We're going to try. We're going to try to get back to playing our style of offense. That's what we've got to do. We've got to protect. We've got to avoid penalties and things of that nature. We know what we need to do.

This is not 0-7. This is 3-4. We were 2-5 [actually 3-4] at this time last year, so it's not like all of a sudden we went in the pot. [But] I don't think I've ever had to punt 10 times in a game before, like we had to the last game. We believe we're a better team than last year. But until we play like it, it's just hypothetical thinking. We need to perform, starting with the Dallas game.''

I've been frustrated. I've been frustrated because as people say, 'You're not coaching your offense the way you used to.' And I say, 'You're right.' I'm frustrated that when we go back there, Patrick [Ramsey] drops back there and he's getting hit too much. We're not throwing it downfield as well as I think we're capable. You know, we've just been handicapped. Protection is running backs, tight ends and offensive line. It's all of them. We've got to do a better job.

What you do in coaching is, you try to take the players you've got and maximize their potential and achieve the most you can. That's called coaching. What we're doing poorly is blocking and tackling and being disciplined -- playing our assignments with discipline and blocking and tackling. That's what football is all about in the long run. We're going to try to get back to those fundamentals as best we can starting next week.

On whether the Redskins can be a good team this year:
I think it can be, but obviously we've got a lot of changing to do.

This is our team. These are our players. You're not going to find a bunch of guys out there that can come in and produce a winner. But at some point, we've got to have disciplined play and have got to coach better. I'm not putting it on the players. We've got to coach them to tackle and block better. It's as simple as that. If we can do those things, we'll have a chance.''

On needing to play different players:
I'm not sure if that's what we need to do. I think we're playing our best players most of the game. But if there's a time to rotate around a little bit more, we may try that.

On his relationship with Redskins owner Daniel Snyder:
"Dan and I are cool, as they say. He and I are okay right now. We had our differences. I'm an honest person. We had our differences when they somehow or another -- I don't know if he was convinced that I'd put Danny Wuerffel in if Patrick struggled. I certainly would not have. Danny was strictly going to be the backup quarterback. The only reason was that he had played better than Rob Johnson in preseason. He had an 84 quarterback rating, and Rob Johnson had a 48. To everyone around here, he outperformed him. When we brought him in late, we told him we'd give him a chance to do that. We didn't do that, so I felt bad about it. But that's history now. That's history now. Dan Snyder has said, 'If you want to sign Danny Wuerffel, you can go sign him.' He's given me the green light to sign anybody we want. So we get along fine now. We had a little disagreement back then, but that's history. So we're getting along fine.''

On whether he likes coaching in the NFL:
I sort of got NFL-ized, I guess you'd call it, the last two or three weeks as far as, 'You can't audible. You can't drop back like that.' I almost got to where I was believing it half the time because of the frustrations we were having. All I can say is that I'm going to try to coach the way I've coached in the past. And if it ends up not being good enough, then so be it. But I'm going to try to coach the way I used to coach. I got away from it a little bit the last two or three weeks, and I'm going to try to get back to it. . . . It was the frustrations of pass protection. You call this play and he gets hit or throws an interception, you think, 'We should have run the ball.' . . . Football is very simple to the fans: If you throw the ball and throw a nice completion downfield, that's good. If the quarterback gets bumped and hit while you've got a guy open downfield and they intercept it, then that's a bad call. You're only as good as the play call and the execution of your players. If the play goes bad, it was a bad call -- even though it might have been a pretty good call. That's just the way it is, and we accept it and move on.

On whether his offensive system works in the NFL:
Oh, sure. I mean, the Rams play that way. They're still sort of a pass-first team, but they mix in the run. And our teams have mixed in the run, which a lot of people don't understand. We mix the run in, but we have been more of an attacking-style of pass offense where we throw the ball down the field rather than these little quick screens behind the line of scrimmage. Right now, those are our safe throws. Without them, we'd be in trouble this year. . . . But we've got to get to throwing the ball down the field. We've got the players to do it. We've got to shore up our overall protection to be able to do that.

On whether he will go back to college coaching after this season:
I don't see that happening. My old athletic director at Duke called me the other day trying to get some names. He was just halfway kidding and he said, 'Do you want to come back and coach at Duke?' I said, 'I've already done that. I've already done my time in college and at Duke.' I said, 'Nah, this is the challenge that intrigues me the most, no question about it.' This is the challenge that I have not succeeded in yet, and I'm going to try my best to succeed at this level.

On his committment to stay through the end of his third season:
I think that's a realistic statement to make. That's a very realistic statement to make -- that if after three years, this team is still struggling, we're playing undisciplined and we can't block very well or tackle very well, shoot, somebody else deserves to be the coach. That's pretty simple. ...

We're going to try to get there between now and Dallas. We're going to try to get there. We're going to try, first of all, to coach better. I admit that myself and our staff need to do a better job. We need to demand that we block and tackle better fundamentally. We're going to try to get that started -- well, we did a little this week, but really the week of the game. We've got to practice better fundamentally because right now execution-wise, we don't do as good as we need to.''

On whether the lack of NFL experience among his assistant coaches has hindered him:
I do have some young coaches, but I don't really believe that is the biggest problem we have here. George Edwards has been in the NFL about seven or eight years. If we think it would help to add a more seasoned coach, we may do that down the road. I think George Catavolos is in his 18th year in the NFL, and I wouldn't say the secondary is playing a whole lot better than the other positions. I think we're all about the same right now, to tell you the truth. So I don't really believe that how many years you've had in the league determines how well your players play. . . . Coaching is coaching. But as coaches, we need to get a little more fire and passion and be more demanding that our guys get the job done. I think players will respond to that, and we'll see.