CLEVELAND, Ohio — Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski took questions from reporters on Wednesday with regard to preparing for the Green Bay Packers, Joe Flacco, and more.
Below is the transcript as provided by the Browns media relations department:
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Opening Statement:
“Okay, great challenge this week with the (Green Bay) Packers coming to town. Coach (Matt) LaFleur does an awesome job with his team, he’s always done a great job. He’s won a lot of games, they’re playing great on offense, defense and special teams with a 2-0 record, so really talented team. I’ll start with their defense, talent at all three levels. Obviously, bringing over Micah Parsons, bringing a great player to an already great defense. They play very fast. I think Coach (Jeff) Hafley does an excellent job of deploying all their guys, so strength at all three levels. Offensively, the quarterback’s really, really good, really good player. Can make all the throws, pushes the ball down the field, makes great decisions. I have a ton of respect for the running back. He plays hard, he’s quick, but he’s powerful. He’s always fighting for extra yardage. We’ve played him before, he’s a terrific running back. And then they’ve got really good skill players, good tight ends, good offensive line. Special teams, big challenge, good specialists, good teamers, they play physical, it’s a big group. So, it’s a great, great challenge for our football team. It’s one of those that we understand what we need to do, but it’s one that is going to be a great challenge where you have to be prepared. You have to work really hard this week to understand this team, being that they’re an NFC North team and a different opponent in that regard. So, you have to understand their football team, get to know their football team, and then be ready to play really well at our place on Sunday. So, with that, I’ll take any questions.”
Kevin (Stefanski), Joe (Flacco), the other day after the game said the defense is playing so well that even if the offense isn’t clicking on every cylinder, if you just play good football and clean football, that that can work for you guys. So, what do you think you need to do to clean stuff up so it’s clean enough that you can support the defense?
“Well, obviously you have to play well in the run game, you have to play well in the pass game. You have to stay on the field and score points, and certainly have not scored enough points the last couple games. And it’s really incumbent on us as a team to play complementary team ball. Of course, we would like to play well on all three sides of the ball, and there’s opportunities to always do that, but we have to play really good, complementary team ball.”
Tommy (Rees) was talking about last week how the offense really still has to get synced up. What can you do at this point during a practice week, when you’re just going through your regular week, to maybe put extra time and effort into getting things synced up that way?
“Well, I think we’re two games into a season. I think every team, you hope continues to play better throughout the year and you play better each month. So, we get an opportunity this week as a team and certainly as an offense to play better than we did the previous week. You know, in a given season you have guys in and out of lineup due to injury or whatever it might be. So, you have to get those guys up to speed. So that’s no different, I would say, for every team.”
Kevin, the unofficial depth chart this week lists (Quinshon) Judkins number one at running back. Are you ready to commit to him as the feature back?
“Yeah, obviously we’re going to keep bringing Quinshon along, but that unofficial depth chart is done by Peter (John-Baptiste).”
I asked you this Monday and you said we’ll see how he gets out, recovers from the game…
“He did great. Yeah, he’s doing better. Want to continue to bring him along, Tony (Grossi), from a conditioning standpoint, understanding all the nuances of the scheme. So, that will only grow each week.”
Jack Conklin is not on a pre-practice injury report. Is he okay now?
“Yeah, all these guys are progressing with their rehab, and we’ll see how it goes the next couple of days.”
Kevin, Green Bay creates a tremendous amount of pressure up with their front. They have a ton of sacks, a ton of QB hits and pressures and things like that. How much of that is a byproduct of them adding Micah and the importance of trying to neutralize that, where pressure has been a little bit of an issue the first two weeks.
“Yeah, it’s a terrific front. It was a great front before they added Micah Parsons, who’s a great player. So, certainly understand that they have multiple guys that they can throw at you on the outside, on the inside, that can rush the passer. That means it’s important for the offense to play together, play sound, play assignment sound, trust rules. And then running backs, tight ends getting involved, of course, in protection. And then quarterbacks making quick decisions and wide receivers getting open quickly. When you’re facing a great rush team like we’re facing, and I’m sure it’s very similar when teams play us in our rush, you understand it takes everybody to be about business to be able to play productive football.”
Kevin, Quinshon was talking after the game that he felt like, as it progressed, that things were starting to slow down for him. How important is that for that to happen quickly, especially for running back? I think it was first carry of the second quarter, he bounced it outside, saw the seam on the outside. Just how important is that?
“Well, I think for him in particular, he missed the opportunity to be tackled in preseason and training camp and those types of things. It’s continuously part of ramping him up and getting tackled, having great ball security, catching the football, all those type of things Chris (Easterling), that he missed. But we’re obviously ramping up.”
Do you think that you will continue to perhaps platoon Dawand (Jones), or was that really just a heat-related thing or what was that all about?
“Yeah, again that’s heat related. We’ll see what the temperature looks like coming up.”
Kevin, with the Green Bay offense, I mean it seems like even with (Jayden) Reed out that (Jordan) Love kind of spreads the ball around to all these different targets. Like how much do they as an offense have the ability to push a defense in that way?
“Yeah, it’s a tremendous offensive attack that Coach (Matt) LaFleur has going. Like we talked about the quarterback making great decisions, but they really do to your point, Ashley (Bastock), have the ability to throw it to all their guys, whether it’s the receivers, the tight ends or the running backs. And it comes in a variety of scheme. It can be hard play action shots down the field. They can spread you out very quickly with some of the things they do. They’re an excellent motion team. So, it’s a great, great challenge. But there’s certainly a number of guys on their offense that they try to get the ball to.”
They’ve had leads of 17-3 in both games. As a play caller, what does that do for you when you got a two-touchdown lead early in a game?
“Well, yeah, that’s the goal. I think any team wants to play from out front. It allows you to really run your entire offense but lean into the run game. It also allows your defense to pin their ears back as teams try to catch up.”
Kevin, when Micah (Parsons) was in Dallas, they moved him around a lot. I know it’s only a couple small sample size, but have you noticed Green Bay doing the same thing with him or they sort of tried to at least early on keep him relatively…
“I would tell you Chris (Easterling), it’s a small sample size, we have to expect him to be anywhere. He could be off the ball. He can be on either side, he can be up the middle. So, there’s really no telling on where they can utilize him, especially in a small sample size.”
Kevin, as a play caller and a game planner, when it’s not going well for the offense, do you have to fight any kind of urge to panic?
“Yeah, I don’t know that panic is a word really for us as coaches or players. We focus on work. That’s really our…what we hang our hat on. I trust the group we have. I trust that we can get better from a fundamental standpoint, from a certain schematic standpoint. A lot of when you get some small improvements in a bunch of areas, it makes a big difference.”
One more on Dawand Jones. How is he playing? I know he had those 10 snaps when you rested him, but how has he been playing?
“Young player, getting better with each game. So, I think he’s improving.”
With Denzel Ward, can you sort of explain what was going on with him? I know it was cramping, but I mean, he’s young, he’s healthy. You wouldn’t think that Denzel Ward would have to miss most of the game because of cramping or did you guys give him IVs and it just wasn’t working?
“Let me tell you, Mary Kay (Cabot). It was warm. So, these guys, you can fight those and a lot of our players are excellent athletes, but that heat can certainly cause those type of things.”
So, the Browns added two veteran offensive tackles to the practice squad. (Jack) Conklin’s ability to stay healthy, are you concerned about it? Is that the reason to ensure that you have somebody else?
“I think you’ll always see with our roster, Tony (Grossi), you’re constantly adding guys, some young, some older to your point, to the roster. You’re constantly looking at ways to improve it. But we’re confident that Jack (Conklin) will continue to get better.”
Kevin, how do you, when things are starting to down slow offensively, the defense has started fast, how do you prevent or I guess help the defense not get worn down?
“Well, again, I think it goes back to Daryl (Ruiter) playing complementary football. You know, it’s our job on defense to get stops and take the ball away. It’s our job on offense to take that ball and score with it and then play the field position game when necessary. It’s our special team’s job to control field position and return the ball better than they return the ball. So when you play complementary ball, I think the offense does their job of possessing it, keeps the defense on the sideline and the defense gets out there and gets their stops.”
Kevin, you mentioned taking the ball away and I know it’s been such an emphasis for you going back once you get in the season, is there anything you can do more to try to get these turnovers? And when you look at like Devin (Bush), the ball goes off his hands and Cam (Cameron Mitchell) punches it out like, is that just a luck thing?
“The ball bounces some funny ways. It’s our job to run the football and play sound defense and takeaways will come. What you don’t want to do is go searching for a takeaway and not do your job on defense. So our focus is playing our defense, playing it with great effort and then obviously taking the ball away in those moments when that allows us. But the idea that we want to just take it away, we want to play great defense and then take the ball away when we’re presenting those opportunities.
Kevin, it seems like these past couple games you guys have had difficulty pushing the ball downfield even with those big chunk plays. What can you guys do on offense to really kind of create advantageous chunk plays?
“I think every week is a different challenge from a coverage standpoint, from a rush protection standpoint. And you have to find the schemes and obviously put the players in positions. There’s also times when you’re going to call those plays or try to get to those plays and the defense won’t allow you to. And that’s when you have to chuck the ball down and something you’ll see teams do and certainly we’ve done over the years when you make plays, when the defense takes away with the deep shots.”
The last two times (Dillon) Gabriel’s been on the field, Rams game and Ravens game has been pretty impressive. Is he whetting your appetite to see him in the regular season?
“Yeah, that’s not our focus, Tony (Grossi). Our focus is to put a game plan together and try to beat a really good Packers team.”
With DeAndre (Carter) still in the protocol, would you think Isaiah (Bond) remains the punt returner?
We’ll work through that DeAndre (Carter) is still in protocol, but he’s progressing.
Do you like Mike Hall (Jr.)’s chances to play this week?
“We’ll see. He’s going to do some stuff and we’ll see how it goes.”