August 27, 2008 – (Tysons Corner,
VA) As I said last year when I covered the event – the Redskins Welcome
Home Luncheon is a great opportunity to see, speak to, and get to know our Washington Redskins players up close and personal.
During the luncheon, the players sit
with fans who get the opportunity to intermingle, adore, and talk to their favorite Redskin player.
It's where, for the first time this
season, many fans got the chance to see and hear new head coach, Jim Zorn, talk about his plans for
the upcoming season, and listen as he shared his insight on being the coach of the Redskins for the last six months.
“Everyday something new happens.
We’re not just a team, we’re a family. We go through the same issues that many families go through”, said Zorn.
"The birth of children, the death of
player’s family members, we go through it all”, said Zorn.
Zorn went on to talk about a lot the
team has experienced since he got to Washington. He spoke about losing Sean Taylor (who passed last
season), to Reed Doughty’s child
receiving a kidney (wife and mom, Katie Doughty, donated her own kidney), to Dan Snyder’s wife dealing
with breast cancer, to Joe Bugel losing his thirty-six-year-old daughter to cancer.
Through all the ups and downs, including
player injuries such as Phillip Daniels hyper-extending his left knee on the first day of training camp, Zorn says he is trying
to build something special with the Redskins and hopes to be with the team for the next ten years.
On building the team, Zorn tells the
fans, “I don’t need characters. I need players with character.”
“I also need players with courage,
consistency, and commitment.”
"We’re going to continue to press
on towards one goal, and that goal is very simple - that goal is to win", assured
Zorn.
“We want to put something together
that the players can be proud of, and also put something together that the fans can be proud of. It’s
your team”, he added.
Ending his address to the fans, Zorn
encouraged the fans to participate in a hardy, Washington Redskins hip, hip, hooray!
The luncheon also offered several auction items, with proceeds
benefitting the Washington Redskins Charitable Foundation.
The Skins are 3-1 in preseason action,
and face the Jacksonville Jaguars tonight at FedEx Field.
The Skins will start off their regular season on September 4th against the 2007 Super Bowl Champions, Giants in New York.
2007 Player of the Year Awards
Chris
Samuels, Offensive Tackle. Award: Offense Player of The Year – Award
presented by Jeff Bostic
London
Fletcher, Linebacker. Award: Defensive Player of the Year– presented by Dexter Manley
Rock
Cartwright, Running Back. Award: Special Teams Award - presented by Mike Nelms
Player
Interviews
We caught up with a few players at the
luncheon, veteran and current alike.
Santana Moss On the 43-7 Loss to the Carolina Panthers
DCUrbanSports: Santana, give us your take on the loss to Carolina.
SM
– It was just their night. We went out there and did what we could. Once
we got behind we tried to attack them a lot of different kind of ways that really wasn’t in the scheme of how we really
wanted to run that game. We just got caught up in being in a tough game and being
behind pretty fast and we just couldn’t climb up out of it.
DCUrbanSports- What did coach Zorn say after the game?
SM
- “He just bascially let us know that it’s better to have experienced
that [the loss] now than go into the season meeting these tough guys that hadn’t been beaten in the preseason.”
“I personally, wouldn’t
have like to have suffered a loss like that, but it was good that we did get a chance to take that so we’ll know how
if feels going into the season.”
“He let us know that we played
better than that our previous three games, and all we need to do is get back to playing the way we did in the previous three
games, and we should be alright.”
DCUrbanSports: When you looked at the tape of that game was there anything that stood out to you?
SM: “I actually feel like those guys [Carolina] took that game more like it was
a regular season game than we did. Don’t get me wrong, we went out there
to play, but those guys came out there and they pressured, and pressured, and pressured until we got ourselves in some deep
water and couldn’t climb up out of it.”
DCUrbanSports: What are your
expectations for this Thursday’s game against Jacksonville?
SM:
“We’re just gonna go out there and do what we can do.”
“ It’s another preseason
game, our 5th preseason game. We had that other game staring at you
at a distance, so we have to just go out there and prepare and do the best we can do.”
Next: An Interview with Jason Taylor
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