He kicked a field goal and went up 17.

I, I give him a lot of credit.

He checked his pride.

You know, he checked his ego at the door and said, "You know what? I'm not gonna be the one to change the momentum of this game.

It's only 14 points.

I'm gonna take the points, do the right thing." And hopefully he might have learned because this analytics thing drives a lot of us nuts.

I don't care about the analytics.

Mm-hmm

I mean, on paper, the Browns have some dudes on defense, yet Trevor just tore them apart for four touchdowns today.

Well, they definitely have some talent on their team.

I mean, there's some players that they have on their offense.

You know, like Harold, he didn't get a chance to get the ball until the second half.

You know, it doesn't get any better from the standpoint that when you say this game starts up front, it started up front.

The offensive line came together and played, okay? Cleveland started off moving the ball down the field.

And if they were able to continue to do that, we're going to see both teams do the same thing in the first game, the opener.

What's the teaching point there? What do you say to the special teams guys in that meeting tomorrow?

Coach, how confident are you in that running back room on Sunday?

Well, I feel good.

I think the people that they've chosen here, you know, by committee, I think they can help each other.

They can service each other and they can inspire each other in situations.

You know, I think Tootin is, you know, they all have something to prove.

And, you know, when you go by committee, the next man up is pretty excited to contribute.

But I think in, in true yardage and tough, situations you know we we we know what we have in our big solid guy and rodriguez and and base shell is is a guy that can you know he's going to be tested to see how well he runs inside and finishes blocks and keeps his feet i mean his runs and keeps his feet moving and you know can he make people miss and those kind of things uh i think it's going to be a good situation those two i i think they'll be fine with the two and if they have to use the third they will I think we saw Rodriguez pass protect and third down situations towards the end of camp, and he'll be fine there and do what's necessary to protect the quarterback.

With Cleveland, again, just a lot of unknowns with this Browns offense coming in, and I'm curious your thought from a coaching perspective on how Anthony Campanile needs to prepare for that.

What was your thought on that whole backup quarterback situation?

You know, when I did my list last week, and it was just my opinion and everything, I didn't think he deserved to be here.

I was never really a fan from the standpoint.

And he's played well off and on and spotty at times.

But in this kind of year that they have and what they have to prove, that they can go two years in a row and have success, I just didn't believe that he's a guy that can carry this team if our quarterback went down.

And I think through practices and situations and, you know, things that we saw while we were out there, you know, in the red area at times, you know, missing receivers, having the arm throw strength at times, you know, throw it, you know, you're like, come on, kid.

You know, we're not treating you like we would – you know, the rookie quarterback.

That's an anomaly, right, to find three undrafted players at the same position in 12 months?

What's that going to be like for Trevor Lawrence, in your opinion?

Well, I don't think it affects Trevor in any way.

I remember the days of sitting on the bus talking to Kurt Warner and the differences between our style, being with Tom Coughlin in our offense and being with Mike Martz.

And Kurt said his eyes were, as a quarterback, highly were keyed on downfield.

And when he had to come with Tom Coughlin, he had to learn more about defensive line play, offensive line play, and worry about those kind of things.

Where in the past, Mike March is, you know, it's the receivers, it's the coverage, it's the alignments, and making sure you're in the right protection if you had to override.

I think Trevor is being when Liam has grown from the coverage aspects of where we had doubt in the past.

The 1-2 combo, your thoughts?

But a lot of the defensive guys, particularly the guys we've looked at, you know, B.J. Green, Danny Strigow, Wesley Williams, Durfee, Albert Regis, Ruka Rororo all of those guys played on Saturday and I gotta be honest coach I thought had some good moments and I'll tell you a guy that had a great moment we don't talk about him a lot he's been here for a few years I was impressed with what Yasir Abdullah did

yeah he definitely took advantage of the situation of an injured player and he played well there were some guys that stood out and they looked like they were fighting for positions and I was happy for all those guys but You know, we've been watching those guys every day in practice, and every one of those guys have been showing their desire to be on this roster.

So I really was happy that those guys continued to show it in the game.

You know, B.J. Green is playing well.

Strigo is playing solid.

You know, Wesley Williams is coming off the ball.

You know, some of these backup role guys are going to have to help us out through this through this whole journey of getting where we want to be.

Do you try to get more work in? How do you assess the difference between last week and this week?

And, you know, Gerald, do you throw out everything? Do you let your defensive line stunt tomorrow? Do you blitz? Do you have your running backs help out and pass protect, keeping a tight end, a double team? Or do you basically stay with just, you know, football 101 on both sides of the ball?

Well, that's the discussion usually in the past that Tom and the other head coach would decide, you know, before we would play.

And I'm assuming it hasn't changed.

And, you know, you don't want to basically have to worry about, you know, that's what the game is about.

And really this time of year it's about being as basic and simple.

Yeah, you want to establish that winning feeling in your locker room.

but you want to be able to evaluate the players and let them just come off the ball and play straight.

I mean, of course he's going to start a fight.

He's

becoming more and more consistent and reliable.

Strange is strange.

We know what he can do.

It'll be good to be able to evaluate all the tight ends as we go.

Being able to see Chris Rodriguez out there on the field, and I know, and looking at his gait a little bit, that he isn't 100% in his gait, but his demeanor is, and just feeling his presence a couple times, he's a thumper.

Oh, my gosh, yeah.

When

A lot of

speculation.

You know, we're, as an offensive staff, and we're putting our depth charts together and the offensive swing and who's going to be the swing guy, who's going to be the backup center if this goes, who moves here, who moves there.

We won a Super Bowl with a guy who played three positions and ended up playing in the Super David Deal, playing left tackle, started off as right tackle.

But he played tackle, guard, and left tackle.

Now, if you were to tell Dave Deal that he wasn't the best athlete, but he was probably the most hungriest guy on the field.

He was the overachiever.

If they can do all that, if this team can do all that with all the other guys they've raised to their ceiling, they can do it with him.

Right

...

Dallas will count each other out.

And it's, you know, the Giants, Redskins, Philly, they're all gonna count each other out.

Now we kind of have the same thing really in our division.

Everybody's out for us, but what did we do in the off-season to get better and find a way, you know, schematically, you know, and put the right pieces together? How are we gonna have to grow with our offense? Because they're gonna study us, and we better have studied ourselves as well.

So going into camp, he probably already talked a little bit about, you know, what are your mannerisms? You know, what do you do as a tackle? You know, and how you stance.

Right.

But spend a second on what you – How do you think Jacoby, Brian, and Parker had OTA and camp so far?

Well, I think it was a great – I mean, when you're out there and you're seeing – Parker Washington is – the way he works and how he comes to work every day and how he comes out of his breaks, how he goes into his breaks, he's got to the point where he does it naturally all the time.

So you trust, you've built that trust in him.

BTJ, you know, Junior, we had to build that trust that he's going to be the long ball guy.

But he's back to himself again.

He's a big receiver.

He's a big, fast, physical receiver.

And he's infected the team Jacoby has with that attitude, which has been a huge positive infection, if you will, in terms of where this team wants to go attitudinally, no doubt.

I like the fact that there aren't pads, and they're still trying to knock each other around a little bit, even in the run game.

No, they're playing safe football right now.

And there are a lot of things that defense would do that they can't help themselves with.

You know, because they do use their hands, and they'll press the envelope in situations, you know, until you come off the ball.

But they're playing good sound, but we haven't seen enough one-on-ones yet.

We have the one-on-ones versus receivers and DBs.

We've seen some press covers, deep routes, and those kind of things.

But when you got a team like that, that's, I don't want to say police, but self-policed, so to say, that they take care of what they need to take care of, I think you got something in a team when you got players that act like that.

Can you put your finger on it? It almost felt like the defense knew that the screen was coming.

You know, sometimes you can overdo the screen game, and the screen game a lot of times is based on the defensive rush.

And if you don't match the intensity of the defensive rush, and calling your screens, it's not really a great play.

A lot of times it was my job to let the offensive coordinator and ask the offensive lineman, hey, what is the rush like? Are they rushing hard enough? Are they trying to just two-gap and read, trying to figure out what the quarterback's going to do, especially with your three techniques and that kind of thing.

But your outside rush guys, If they're bull rushing and doing those kind of things and not rushing hard up the field, the screen game can go either way.

Now, your outside screens, that's a totally different deal.

That is a mechanic issue between the receivers and the pullers and the recognition of the blitzers.

Anything else that you either saw that you really liked in practice or maybe a player that you'd like to mention before we say goodbye?

How are you?

Oh, it was wonderful.

Good to see you too, Ryan.

It's great to feel like we're back in football again.

And I know you had the best of vacations in Hawaii.

Just so envy of you.

But today was a good day.

Are you happy with the room to replace ETN right now, as we sit here in the early portion of June?

I thought

he had a lot more sense of urgency.

I thought he got into his breaks.

He looked more confident the way he should have been.

as an elite receiver, and he got out of his breaks real well.

So that was really good to see, and I was standing there with Jimmy Smith.

And there's some times that Jimmy and I would remember back in the day with Mark Brunel, when you're going to throw the deep ball, Jimmy had the speed and the acceleration to run under it.

How much do you look at that and say, no, it's the Jimmy and the Joes, the other side of it being possibly a better blocking scheme?