Offensive Coordinator Tommy Rees (11.6.25)

So how do you feel about taking over the play calling duties? What do you feel you can bring to the table? What kind of stamp do you want to put on it?

“Yeah, I really think, the mentality here from the beginning was like, whatever is asked of me last year, this year, whatever the organization it’s going to ask of me, want to do that to my fullest capabilities. Excited about the opportunity, certainly, but try not to think of it in those terms. Like we have a job to do – as a staff, myself, players included, like, focused really on having a great week of preparation, making sure that we’re putting our best foot forward, using the bye week to improve some areas where we really need to improve on, and ultimately then, call a good game on Sunday.”

 

Obviously, on Sunday, your role and stuff changes, but from Monday through Saturday, how much does that change what you have to do and what’s asked of you?

“Yeah, I think we’re fortunate to have a really good staff that you can collaborate with, lean on. Obviously, Kevin (Stefanski) this week’s been great. The rest of the staff’s been great, Bloom (Mike Bloomgren) and C.O. (Chad O’Shea) and some of the guys that you lean on throughout the week. You know, your job changes a little bit, right? Like you’re having final stamp power on the game plan, and where you see things fall, and what’s going to make it to Sunday. So, that certainly changes, but the collaborative nature of it does not. Ultimately, you’re making the final decision, which, like I said, changes things a bit, but process goes on as normal outside of that final part.”

 

I mean, what was the conclusion you drew after the bye week about the passing game?

“Yeah, look, there’s a lot of areas there we need to improve, and in the passing game, like we said, from the jump, takes all 11. Certainly, we want to stress defenses in probably some ways that we have not yet been able to or not able to connect on. You know, feature the guys that we can lean on and make our quarterback feel comfortable. So, the bye weeks are always great. We needed the reset to kind of look at things, make sure that we’re doing the best things for our players, best things for our quarterbacks, and feel like we have a good plan moving forward.”

 

What do you think are the biggest things you learned when you were calling plays at Notre Dame and Alabama, and do you think calling them in the NFL would be any different?

“Look, you learn every time you call plays, right? I started calling plays the last game of the season in 2019, I had a handful of years there in a row calling them, called them in big games, called them in games people didn’t watch, everywhere in between. Worked for two head coaches that are pretty intense on game day, so obviously you learned how to block out some noise, some friendly fire there. But I think you get into a groove, you get into a comfort level. So much of it is about learning your own team, learning your own quarterback. You know, fortunate for me, I’ve been able to be here, sit with Dillon (Gabriel), be with the offense. I know kind of what helps him, what makes him click. I think, you know, got a good feel for our personnel here. That’s so important when it comes to calling games, and then you get into a rhythm throughout the game of figuring out what from the plan works, what you need to adjust, what they’re doing to try to take some things away. And then you’re just looking to build counters and things that can complement what you’ve already tried to set up. But I think every time you call a game, you learn. Even for me, in the role I’ve been in, like you learn as you’re putting yourself in the shoes to call a game again, as you’re listening, and observing and helping, you know, I think those were critical moments for me to move forward on. So, like the NFL part, I think these last couple years, just being in the position I’ve been and seeing it firsthand, I don’t have a whole lot of concern there.”

 

Along those lines, Tommy (Rees), I mean, the fact that you’ve got some so many young skill players on offense, and you have this experience calling plays in college and these college concepts, how much of an impact is that do you think?

“Yeah, I don’t know if it is. I really look at it as calling a game and you’re going to shape it to who you have. You know, I think we have a good blend of young and vets right now and we got to get the most out of them. You know, I wouldn’t say, like, solely because I called games college it gives me a leg up – I think calling games gives you the perspective, how you utilize your personnel and how you utilize putting guys in the right spots. Certainly, like, you see a lot of things from college transferring to the NFL as of late. You watch Denver play; they have a lot of stuff there that makes their quarterback comfortable. So, I think finding the right blend of, again, maximizing your personnel and who you have is important.”

 

Tommy, prior to the New England game you mentioned that you got to make Gabriel comfortable, and then he went out and did what he did. He only threw eight balls to receivers. How do you make them comfortable with receivers?

“Yeah, we got to put the receivers in the right spots, we got to ask them to do the right things, we got to make sure that we’re giving them the looks during the week. You know, certainly they did some things there to take some looks away but getting him to progress and feel confident in those things. And again, all that work is done throughout the week, and then when a team’s doing something that’s gonna take it away, you got to have counters and answers for that.”

 

Will you stay upstairs in the booth?

“I will.”

 

And why do you like to do it like that?

“It’s a great vantage point to be able to call the game, it’s a great environment to be able to call a game, and it’s where my comfort’s been. I’ve called games from the field. I prefer to call them from the booth as times progressed on but want to keep the same rhythm that we have.”

 

And do you feel like Dillon or whoever’s at quarterback then, will have Bill Musgrave right there as, like, boots on the ground right next to him?

“Yeah, we’ve had good, throughout the entire year, plan on how to communicate from the box down through Bill (Musgrave) and through the phone. So, there’s plenty of ways to get that across.”

 

Tommy, you talk about getting the most out of stuff. Jerry (Jeudy), obviously, it’s been a tough first eight games. How do you balance trying to get him involved, especially early in the game, with not trying to force the game plan to one player or something like that?

“Yeah, I think you got to be multiple in what you do, so that way you can’t just let them hone in and take something away. But that’s a good perspective, right? Like, there’s a balance between, ‘hey, feature these guys, get them easy touches’, also understand that that could happen in the rhythm of the game. But look, we’re better when our best players are playing well, we’re better when our best players are touching the ball. So, I think that’s an area of focus for every team, not just us. So, our job as coaches is to find ways to not allow them to take that away.”

Gabriel was comfortable out of the shotgun at Oregon. Gabriel was comfortable playing mostly shotgun at Oregon. You think you need to go to that to make him more comfortable?

“I think there’s a lot of things we can do to make him comfortable. I think there’s great communication between Dillon and the staff on what gets him to that point.”

 

Why do you think now the decision was made to turn over the play calling?

“I think just the bye week gives, you know, some perspective. Certainly, we want to play better. I’ll say this, like, I came to Cleveland to work for Kevin. That’s really the reason I took this job two years ago. Like, think the world of him, still think the world of him. Really, like, fortunate for the support he’s given me over the last week, the support he’s had for me over the last couple of years. I wanted to come to Cleveland to work for Kevin. You know, I think the timing of it, you have a bye week, you have some time to step away and look at things through a different perspective and want to create a spark for the offense. And again, like how I feel is, whatever they want me to do, whatever’s asked me to help us win games, that’s what I want to do at the highest level. So again, working really collaboratively with Kevin, really appreciate that part of it. So, it’s his decision and want to make the most of it.”

 

He said yesterday that you will have final say and latitude over most things, and he really wants you to be able to put your stamp on this. But also, when it comes to maybe whether or not to go for it on fourth down, he’s going to retain some of that. How do you feel about how that all…?

“He’s the head coach, every head coach makes the decisions on game day management, right? It’s your job to call the play when the situations come up, it’s their job, the head coach’s job to make sure that they’re putting the team in the best position.”

 

How do you get this receiving corps more heavily involved than they’ve been in recent weeks? And also, too how much of maybe the inconsistency involvement do you think has led to some of the dropped passes that you’ve seen?

“Yeah, I think just maximizing what they do really well, not allowing a team to kind of bear down on certain things and make sure you have enough multiplicity there to move guys around, put them in the right spots. And then, yeah, I mean, I think you want to get guys into a rhythm – the more success they have, the more confident they play, get them in their rhythm, you’re going to see better play, I think, and higher percentage of things going the right way. So, it’s our job, again, as coaches to build that in.”

 

In Gabriel’s four starts, do you think defenses are trying to hem him into the pocket to keep him in the pocket and make it more difficult for him?

“Yeah, I think every defense you play has certain rush patterns where they try to take away what a quarterback’s comfortable with. You see a lot of times with right handers, they try to use a flush rush, get them out to the right and they’ll loop somebody and show up as a quarterback tries to get out to their right. You see guys who may be retreating the pocket, they want to push the inside. So, I think defensive coordinators do a good job of studying quarterback’s habits, and we got to make sure that we’re doing enough in our protection scheme to allow him to have different answers.”

 

Not from a production standpoint, but just from aesthetics, how it looks. Because it’s the same playbook, because it’s still collaborative, do you think, like, just watching the game, the offense and how it operates is going to look much different than it did the first eight weeks?

“I’ll ask you next week, I guess. I would think every play caller is going to have a different feel, a different spin on things. They’re going to have things that they value, things that they want to get to. Kevin and I are not the same person. Although, to your point, we have enough in our offense to make it look different in spots, we have enough depth in what we’re asking those guys to do to make it look different. But I think some of the core principles continue on, we just have to do them at a higher level.”

 

That being said, obviously fans aren’t familiar with the Tommy Rees offense. So, without giving anything away, what do you think that they can expect?

“I’m not going to put any labels on it. We want to go out there and play sound football, put our players in the right spots and have success. Like, look, we got to score points, we got to stay on the offense. To sit here and say a bunch of stuff that it’s going to look like – we want to maximize the guys we have, and that’s a little different. First year I called plays at Notre Dame looks different than when I was at Alabama. You’re trying to maximize the guys you have on the roster.”

 

It’s been a trying year for the offensive line in general. But do you feel it’s stabilized now?

“Feels like that, right? I mean, you get a couple weeks here being healthy, and then you feel good about where those guys are at, where the tackles are at. So, yeah, I think as the year goes on, the more continuity you can have up front, the better off you are in pass pro (protection), the better off you are in combination of the run game, all of those things.”

 

With you serving as the tight ends coach last year, do you have some affinity for tight ends? Do you think that you might just let the tight ends cook a little bit more?

“I don’t know about that, yeah.”

 

You mentioned working for Brian (Kelly), then Nick (Saban) and now Kevin, as a coordinator or maybe a play caller, where do you feel like you’ve evolved or maybe changed throughout everything?

“Yeah, that’s a really good question. You know, I think when you go into it as a coordinator, like I was 27 when I got the job at Notre Dame, and you have an idea of what you want your offense to look like and you try to shape it. And I think you learn pretty quickly, it’s really not about what you want it to be, it’s about what your players can do and what puts them in a position to have success. So certainly, learned that young in the career. And I think with coach Saban in Alabama, one, you learn how to have compliments, how to have counters in that league at that level – like, you better have that stuff built in or you need to expose pretty quick. And then I think you learn the ability to anticipate and have some foresight into what teams are going to try to do to stop you and then have a great plan there. I will say with Nick as well, like, you better have a core belief on what your guys can execute at a really high level and continue to ask them to do that, like he challenged you to be simple and execute those things at a really high level. And I think again, you have all these ideas of what you want to be – it’s important to remember, put your players in a position to execute the same thing over and over again and they can be pretty good at that. Definitely learned that throughout that year. I’ve had great mentors, great people to be surrounded by my entire coaching career, and certainly along the way they shape how you call play, shape how you coach and coordinate.”

 

Tommy, how do you know, how does a coach you’re maybe working under know when you’re ready for that elevation to become a play caller, an offensive coordinator? Like, is it more of like a just trial by fire?

“Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t had the opportunity to do it from the other side.”

 

How did you know you were ready?

“You probably don’t. You just put in the work, and you try to put your players in the right spots. The first game I called was a bowl game at the end of the year. And you work towards it, you try to start visualizing it and anticipating it, but at some point, you got to go out there and do it. And you rep it, you practice it, you work exercises throughout the week to put yourself in that spot, and then you lean on the people around you and you have confidence in what you’re doing.”

 

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