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Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley is always worth a listen. This time’s no exception. Donovan McNabb summoned a number of Redskins to participate in a pre-camp week of practice this week, but Cooley is not in attendance. Instead, he’s relaxing and gearing up for the new season in Wyoming where he keeps a residence. Cooley insists he’s ready for the real deal to begin and is feeling outstanding physically – he just needed a little time off to charge his batteries before the grind begins all over again soon enough. Cooley joined 106.7 The Fan in Washington D.C. to talk about what he’s been doing for fun this summer, his recent 28th birthday, why he chose not to attend the voluntary week of practice this week organized by McNabb, how he’s feeling great physically, the new-look offensive line of the ‘Skins, how there won’t be two-a-days at Mike Shanahan’s first camp in D.C., and how he thinks the ‘Skins can be a playoff team in.
On what he’s been up to this summer away from the game of football:
“Summer vacation is going well. I’ve spent the last three and half weeks in Wyoming at my house there. I’ve been up in the mountains a lot doing a little fishing, a little hiking. It’s been fun.”
On what he did for his 28th birthday:
“I just had a bunch of my family over that lives here, and a bunch of my friends live here. We just hung out at my house and had a barbecue. It was pretty cool. I don’t like my birthday. I don’t like everybody treating it like it’s a special day. I just want it to be a normal day and I just want to hang out. It’s funny because it’s your birthday but then everybody wants you to do stuff, so I don’t like that.”
On why he’s not at the hell week of practice held by Donovan McNabb this week:
“You know, I’ve been working out. I worked out with the team all offseason. You need a couple weeks, I needed three four weeks to just relax. I’m still working out, I’m doing my own stuff, but it’s a long year and we play football all year. I think there’s maybe three months out of the year I’m not doing something with the team at Redskins park. So it’s nice to have a month to relax a little bit before we get going.”
On if McNabb was cool with him not attending:
“Yeah he just texted and invited people to come. Everyone’s cool with it, I think it’s cool they’re all doing it. Personally I’m just happy to have a month to relax before we go to camp.”
On what he thinks of the new-look offensive line of the Redskins:
“I think they look great. I like Artis Hicks and now we’re going to move him to guard. I haven’t seen the kid they brought in from New Orleans, but that’s a great move for us. So I’m really excited about our offensive line going into the season strong. Obviously they’ll have to come together a little bit in camp, those guys that really haven’t played together. But as far as talent, guys being healthy, I think there’s a real positive outlook there.”
On if it was true that training camps have been fairly easy in recent years and what he’s expecting out of Mike Shanahan’s first camp with the ‘Skins:
“I don’t think at any point we had camps too easy. The couple years with Zorn we had a lot of two-a-days. It was a tough camp. I know that we’re not going to have any two-a-days this year. I know we’re going to have a morning practice and a walk through. I think guys are excited about that. I think two-a-days are a tradition that kind of need to go away with all the time we spend in the offseason now. I mean, they used to use training camp as a way to get everyone in shape. Well, everyone’s in shape now. So I’m excited for our camp. It’s been a while since I’ve had pads on. So personally it will be fun to get back, do some hitting and start playing some games.”
On if he thinks Washington is good enough to make the playoffs in 2010:
“I think absolutely. You see teams around the league coming in with new coaches winning in year one. The talent’s everywhere in the NFL and it’s definitely on our team. It’s just going to take us coming together a little bit into the season and going on a little run. But it’s there, we can win, clearly we’re a good enough team to win football games.”
On the Albert Haynesworth situation and if he thinks Haynesworth will be pleased that there’s no two-a-days:
“Everybody was so worried about Albert. The first thing I thought was first of all he’s doing what he wants to do or what he thinks he needs to do. I just thought the guy’s got to come back in unbelievable shape. Because if he comes back out of shape, looks bad, he’s just going to get murdered. But I felt like if he came back in shape and ready to play football, within two days everyone will forget what happened.”
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