HC Freddie Kitchens (9.16.19)
Opening statement…
Well, it was good to get a win after last week. I thought those guys showed some resiliency in how they prepared during the course of the week. They continued to just keep their head down. They blocked out the noise outside. Still got a lot of work to do, but it’s always better to do it after a win.
On the chemistry between WR Odell Beckham Jr. and QB Baker Mayfield…
Well, I think it’s getting better and better each week. I’m sure it’ll be better next week than it is this week. Both of them work extremely hard on each of their crafts and if they continue to do that then they’ll get better knowing each other a little bit more as we go along.
On Beckham Jr.’s ability as a game breaker…
He’s got speed to finish the job. We got it in his hands down the seam and he finished it. Of course you guys have seen plenty of that. It was nice to see him get involved with that.
On addressing DE Myles Garrett’s penalties…
Well, on one of them he had to lower the target range a little bit from what we were told and we’ll keep working at it. I mean, that’s the only thing you can do, and help him, put him in situations, communicate with him to put him in situations to make better decisions. It’s a decision-making deal and he’ll still continue to work on his decisions
On whether Garrett was removed from the game due to his penalties…
No, he didn’t. I brought him over, I talked to him and sent him back in. And then he got a sack a couple of plays later. So, no he didn’t come out of the game. He’s in there to get sacks.
On what a player like Beckham Jr. can do for an offense…
Well, any time somebody can touch the ball and put it in the endzone from anywhere you go, it’s incredible. You know we’ve got a couple of guys like that, that can touch the ball and put it in the endzone. Our running back can do that. We’ve got a couple of other receivers that can do that. So, sometimes they make the guy calling the plays look like a genius when they can take a five-yard route and take some of the pressure off the quarterback and still be very successful, and put it in the endzone from, I don’t know how long the pass was. It was a good deal.
On Beckham Jr.’s touchdown…
It was an RPO. I mean, there’s plenty of them on tape. It was a called run and adjustment by Baker and Odell.
On DE Chris Smith playing in the game after the death of his girlfriend…
I think it’s an emotional time for Chris, of course, still. She would’ve wanted him to play. He talked to me about it and he wanted to play. Chris is a part of this family and a part of this team, so we wanted him to do whatever he felt comfortable with doing, that’s what we wanted him to do. We wanted to support him in every area dealing with that.
On his feelings about getting his first win as a head coach…
I’m just ready to get to work on the next one, you know?
On whether Beckham Jr. and Mayfield worked through some frustration early in the game due Beckham Jr. having to remove the visor on his helmet…
Yeah, I think both of them showed some resiliency from the standpoint of, football games in general you have to face adversity through the game, and that was one of them, but we got it rectified and fixed the problem, and came back out and stayed focused with the job at hand. I thought they both did a good job of that.
On what happened with the visor…
The uniform guy told him he needed to take it off. It was too much reflective something, I don’t know. That’s all I know right now. What they told me on the field was too much reflective stuff. I guess the lighting was better down there at that end of the field, after we drove down there inside the five and they could tell he had too much reflective stuff on his visor. They waited until we got down the field to tell him, so I don’t know. I guess the lights shine differently.
On whether he is being facetious…
I am. F-A-C-E-T-I-O-U-S.
On whether he was able to speak to Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams after the game…
I didn’t. I looked for him but he wasn’t out there. He did a good job. Gregg did a good job of combatting some of the things that we had. He wasn’t going to let us beat him deep. He did a very good job.
On what he liked about the game…
I thought these guys stayed together. This was a tough week in a lot of areas for our team. I think we’ve continued to come together and be tighter than we were last week. And I think that’s going to continue. I think adversity, either you run from it or you run toward each other and I think we ran toward each other a little bit this week, and I was proud of them. This was a tough week for our team after the loss and then the other things on a personal level that happened. And when things like that happen you either scatter or you run together and I think we had a bunch of guys that ran toward each other.
On whether it crossed his mind to remove Mayfield from the game on the final drive…
No. He’s our quarterback. I wanted to make that last third down. Not to say that Garrett (Gilbert) couldn’t, but I wanted Baker to do it.
On whether he said Garrett’s penalties were a form of selfishness…
First of all, I’ll say this. When you get penalties with hits on the quarterback, it’s either the level that you’re hitting on or you hit him late. At least this week it wasn’t hitting him late, the second one. The first one I’m not sure about. The official said he hit him too high and I think it was a good call. And I don’t know what it is but he understands the problem. He’s going to continue to work on the problem. I called Myles over to the side and I talked to him. He told me what the officals told him. I sent him out there and his job was to get after the quarterback and that’s what he’s going to continue to do. So, you guys can make a big story about it all you want, but he’s going to continue to get after the quarterback.
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