WR Odell Beckham Jr., G Joel Bitonio, S Morgan Burnett, S Damarious Randall and RB Nick Chubb (9.12.19)
WR Odell Beckham Jr.:
On returning to MetLife Stadium:
“It is just another game. It really is. Monday Night Football in the lights. Just trying to get wins.”
On what will be different Monday night from the Titans game:
“First, we have to eliminate the mistakes, the self-mistakes and the penalties. We get a big play and it is just calls back. Offensive pass interference, holding, false start or whatever it is, we have to eliminate those penalties. It makes it very hard for you to win. On top of that, you just have to make plays. That is what it is going to come down to is the team that makes the most plays, the team that the most stops and usually the team that has fewer penalties wins.”
On the passing of DE Chris Smith’s girlfriend, Petara Cordero:
“It is tough. I was thinking about it last night, and I can only imagine where he is at right now. We are all praying for him, his family and her family. Right now, we just have to pull together for him. Chris, I know if you are out there, it is nothing but love and I am here for you. I am always going to be here for him, along with any other teammate. We just have to pull together for him, as well as ourselves. Just be there for him any way that we can.”
On if he ever expected his watch to become a NFL story:
“I am done talking about the watch. If I wear pink laces and it is not breast cancer [awareness] month, it would probably be talked about. With me, I know what it is. People just need something to talk about. I have a completely different mentality, a different take on where I am in my life. I came here to play football. I do not talk about anything else but football. If anybody wants to talk about how I did, how I produced individually on the field or how I did not produce or how the team lost or whatever it is, we can talk about that. I would love for people to talk about me as a football player. I would love for them to say that I am not a good football player or things like that. You show me those facts. Other than that, I am not talking about necessary stuff that people are mad about. It does not bother me. I am not going to lose any sleep over it. If I want to wear it, I will wear it. I am done talking about it. I am done talking about the watch.”
On how well he knows QB Baker Mayfield and confidence in his resiliency following three interceptions last week:
“He is not going to quit ever. Just from what I know from him, he is not going to quit. We were saying to each other, lead even when it hurt. (WR) Jarvis Landry will come walk over and say, ‘Lead when it hurts.’ We are down, whatever the score was, we did not give up. Not saying he needs a pat on the back for not giving up, but that just shows you what kind of person he is. He is the leader of this team. Interceptions are not always on the quarterback, it goes under his stats, but it is not always on him. We just need to be where we need to be and make the plays that need to be made.”
G Joel Bitonio:
On if it is difficult to process the news of DE Chris Smith and the passing of his girlfriend, Petara Cordero:
“Yeah, that was a punch in the gut. I think the whole team is thinking about him every chance we get. That is one of our brothers, and for him to be in that situation, I could not put myself in that situation. Me and my wife sat down last night and really just talked about things that were just like, ‘Man, that is tough. What are we going to do to help this guy?’ We know words cannot really help him so we are trying to build him up as much as possible, and I know the D line is really trying to take care of him over there. It is a tough situation. I think you forget about things when you are in this building and sometimes the outside world, you forget that we love this game and this game does a lot of things for us but football comes second to a lot of things sometimes. That is one of those things. We are trying to pick Chris up and his family and his little baby and all of those things. It is something we are thinking about him every chance we get.”
On as a new dad how unfathomable it must be for Smith, given they had a child last month:
“Yes, I can’t put it into words. It is hard for me to truly accept or understand what is going on for him. I just know how tough it would be for me to be in that situation right now. I am really, really praying for him.”
On playing in his first game on Monday Night Football:
“For me, it is a night game so it is kind of like preseason and stuff, but besides that, you can’t really tell with all of the cameras and stuff. You do not know how many people are watching when you are playing out there. You just go out there and play, but it is cool. You get the theme song and all of that stuff. It will be fun. Your friends and teammates across the league that you have played with can watch and stuff, but it is just another game for us.”
On if he feels the mistakes from last week have been corrected:
“We definitely need to execute. We talk a lot about unforced mistakes. We had a lot of penalties. We were in 1st-and-15 or 1st-and-20 and more a bunch of times. You talk about cleaning those things up and you work on them in practice, but until you can really play a game, it is hard to see that execution pay off. There are other little things you can work on, but when you are behind the chains that much – honestly, our two touchdown drives, we were behind the chains both of those times, too. We had a 15-yard penalty with (T) Greg (Robinson) and I think there was another hold on the other one. To score on those drives is impressive, too. It is one of those things, though. We have to really be disciplined this week. We can’t put ourselves behind. It is hard enough in this league to get 10 yards, let alone 20 yards. That is the main thing on offense we are really focusing on is executing and being disciplined.”
S Morgan Burnett:
On the NY Jets offense:
“You see they have playmakers on that side of the ball. The running backs are explosive, the receivers are explosive and they added another explosive receiver in (NY Jets WR) Demaryius Thomas. You see those guys making big plays on film. We have to be technically sound, make sure we are communicating and playing as one on the backend.”
On how the team has rallied around DE Chris Smith following the passing of his girlfriend, Petara Cordero:
“That is a brother in our locker room. Some things are deeper than football. This is a brotherhood in this locker room, and we want to be there to support our brother by any means. It is deeper than football.”
On if the team was called in for a meeting to learn about the situation involving Smith and his girlfriend:
“I want to keep that in house. That is something deep, that is something personal. I just right now, out of respect for Chris and his family, I will just keep that personal for what we did and just talk about the Jets.”
On how rough the day was after hearing the news involving Smith:
“Yeah, it is rough. That is hard. You cannot put that into words.”
RB Nick Chubb:
On how he and the Browns offense could have done better against the Titans in Week 1:
“I know for me, I could have been more patient, trust my eyes more and see what I see and not get distracted or anything like that. As a team, you have to eliminate the penalties. We have to play smarter and play together, I think that is the biggest part. We killed ourselves last week. This week coming in, we have to be smarter.”
On how long it took to move past the loss:
“Games like that, you do not get over it until you find a way to win next week or whenever. It does have to come out at practice, get that bad taste out of your mouth and kind of fix the mistakes we made in practice. We are not going to feel better until we get a win.”
On if it was tougher to be patient running the ball since it was the season opener:
“The nerves were there. I was excited – the whole team was – but just coming back today to start over, clean slate and try to get better any way we can.”
On playing against former Browns and NY Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and the NY Jets defense:
“I am excited. I got the opportunity to play for Gregg last year. He is a tremendous coach. I have a lot of respect for him and what he does and I see all of the things he does in practice, but now it is a real game so I am excited about that. He does a lot of great things. I am looking forward to going up against him.”
S Damarious Randall:
On NY Jets defensive coordinator Greg Williams and what he brings to the NY Jets:
“Next question.”
On playing against NY Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams:
“I am playing against the Jets offense, not the defense.”
On his reaction to NY Jets QB Dam Darnold being ruled out and NY QB Trevor Siemian stepping in:
“A very unfortunate situation. You never want to have any type of sickness and have to [miss the game]. I wish the best for him, but we are definitely getting prepared for the next man up and just looking forward to it.”
On if he faced Siemian while playing for the Green Bay Packers:
“No.”
On his familiarity with Siemian:
“Actually, we just got the news right before practice. I know he went to Northwestern. Pretty smart quarterback. He can make all of the throws. I am sure he started before – Denver. Two years so he definitely has the experience so I am looking forward to maybe pulling up some of his Denver film and seeing what he did well and seeing what he did not.”
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