Opening statement:
"Happy Holidays. If I do not see you before Christmas, hopefully, Santa Claus is good to you."
On DB Jabrill Peppers' performance in Week 15:
"Oh shoot, exciting. He not only does it on the field in the game; he does it in practice. On the sideline during games, very good at communicating, telling you what is going on telling you what he sees and then accepting ownership. He is also a guy that accepts his own mistakes and tries to move on from that. Really good. Really good in meetings. It was nice to see that and it opened up. From my vantage point, you could almost see, 'Wow, it is getting ready to happen.' It was a great play."
On the Bengals kickoff return unit's effectiveness:
"I think he (Bengals WR Alex Erickson) runs the ball hard. He is relentless in his catching. He will try to make a big play every time. If you looked at how he has gotten his yardage in this league, people have not taken a shot on him early and are kind of letting him get himself going both in punt and kickoff because he runs both of them the same. He runs the same way in terms of vertical grass. That is the whole key to guys like that is you have to keep them edged in and bottled in so everybody gets a shot to put something on him. You have to tackle him. He can break tackles."
On if college FG percentages are significant when evaluating Ks for the NFL, give K Greg Joseph's FG percentage in college:
"Not to me because like I have said before, the ball is different, situations are different and they spot the ball at a different location from a distance standpoint. Most colleges do not have guys that do work with kickers so most of them are still guys that are out there on their own. A player can develop bad muscle memory if somebody is not watching. Kickers, specialists, snappers or whatever the position might be, they all get into sometimes a muscle memory that they need to be told to get out of. I look at Greg as the canvas is still clear for me with him. I think he has a lot of room to grow. I think he has shown a lot of resilience. It is not easy to come in during the middle of a year, early in the year like he did rather in terms of just getting acclimated. There is an adjustment period there. The adjustment periods in college, I have had a Lou Groza (Award) winner. Before the Lou Groza, there were percentage kicker All-Americans, I have had a couple of those guys. It takes a special guy to be able to transition from college to pro. A lot of those guys struggle and it takes a couple of years. Greg has gotten a great opportunity here with (General Manager) John (Dorsey) and the Browns and us to be able to showcase his talents as a rookie. Not very many of those guys get that opportunity. He is a hard worker. What he needs to correct, he will correct as he moves forward."
On if it benefits Joseph's development to join a veteran unit with P Britton Colquitt and LS Charley Hughlett:
"Oh yeah, no doubt. You always want at least one of the three to be the experienced guy. It is hard when you have to go with two rookies at two spots out of the three, but having two experienced guys – two guys that know the stadiums, know the pitfalls of the wind and all of that kind of stuff at each one of them – I think that has been a valuable asset. He has used them. They have also taught him a lot about what it is to be a pro – how you have to do things during the week, how you have to go about your process. He still keeps his journal as I like to have them write down everything they do. He is meticulous with that. Having Charley and Britton has got to make him at ease a lot more than he would be if one of those spots had to be changed out because of injury or whatever. Yes, I think that is a big help to him."
On the Browns' turnaround since the midseason coaching change and changes on special teams:
"From a special teams standpoint, the roster changed on us. I do not even think we had the same guys out there other than Charley, Peppers and Britton on the punt team that we started with. I do not know if there is a guy out there that even went to training camp with us other than maybe (RB Dontrell) Hilliard and guys are now having to step in roles. That was a maturation that we had to go through on special teams on every phase. We were always having to do that in that phase part of it and that one-third of the game part. Then when you have the coaching change like we did, I think just the players quickly bought in. They knew they had a pretty good coaching staff. We are attention to detail kind of guys. (Offensive Coordinator) Freddie (Kitchens) is, (Head Coach) Gregg (Williams) is and I try to be in our phase. I think the continuity and the consistency that we were able to show them and the willingness that stuff happens you have to move on, I credit the players and obviously our coaching staff in terms of being able to stay together and focus on it. Gregg does a good job of having meetings with Freddie and me in terms of how we are going to see the game together. I think that has been a big help for us to be able to support each other in all three phases. It is not something you usually see, particularly when we have that many games to go. Hopefully, we finish strong because that is the goal is to get this thing to 8-7-1 and let the chips fall where they may."
On working with players in training camp, given many special teams players in preseason may not make the roster:
"I like at that as… A lot of coaches used to call it KISS – keep it simple, stupid – but I look at it as that is why we preach technique. When I am watching an opponent and if I see something that does not fit our technique and I want a player not to emulate what he sees on tape, I am very mindful of that is not how we would do it. That is how they did it. It is two ways to do everything in life, but we focus a lot on technique. A lot of our meetings are geared towards 'Do we want three points of contact on a field goal protection stance?' Yes. How we finish plays and leverage positions. It is easy for a player to come in and then we do a good job with (special teams assistant) Josh (Cribbs) and (assistant special teams coach) Sam (Shade) of being able to take teaching techniques each week. If we have a guy that comes in or a guy that has been elevated rom practice squad, it is nothing new for him. He is not going to come in here and we are not going to invent the wheel with him. We are just going to try and do what he does best. One of the other things we do – I feel like we do a good enough job with it – is we practice guys in positions on the practice units where they are going to play for us. If you are a gunner, we are going to play you and practice as a gunner. You are going to get those techniques and those points of emphasis as you are getting ready to become a guy that is going to play for us. I think keeping it simple schematically is probably overrated, underrated or whatever you want to say in terms of you do not have to be complicated. Good players are going to find a way to win games for you if they play hard, they play with sound technique and they win the play. They have to finish. We preach a lot about speed and finish."
