Falcons vs. Redskins: Mike Smith comments on Robert Griffin III, Washington zone running game

Atlanta Falcons head coach Mike Smith is looking to help lead his team to 5-0 with a victory against the Washington Redskins on Sunday. Atlanta's defense is going to have its hands full with Washington's rush attack, which is designed to complement the strengths of rookie Robert Griffin III with zone reads.

"You have to stay on your feet, and you've got to make sure that you attack their gap," Smith said. "All they're looking for is one guy to be out of their gap. What you like to have is when you're looking at it defensively, you want to see your color jersey, their color jersey, your color jersey, their color jersey. When you see two of their jerseys together we have got a problem. They're going to have an opportunity now with two color jersey and we don't have one between them, that's the hole they're going to run through."

Smith was also asked what's changed in the game for rookie quarterbacks to have success, sort of a follow-up question to the points he made about the Redskins' zone running game. Without directly saying the Redskins have established their offense as a reflection of what RG3 does best, he still spells it out for the most part:

"I think that when you play a young quarterback, you first have to identify what their strengths are and what they do well. Then you just try and design your game plan to their strengths and give them an opportunity to be successful. When they're successful you can add to it. I'm sure there is more to it in the playbook for the Redskins. I'm sure we'll see some of it this week. He's played very well through the first four weeks. He's kind of taken everybody by storm in terms of his passer rating. He's got a 103 passer rating. He's throwing the ball very well. Everyone talks about his ability to run. He's a 4.35 guy at the combine. He runs extremely well."