Head Coach Kevin Stefanski (10.13.25)
Opening Statement:
“Don’t really have any injury updates based on what we talked about last night. Obviously, watched the tape this morning and watching it now with the players and ton of areas that we just need to better and need to better in all aspects. Offense, defense, special teams, players, coaches, you name it. We have to be better. That’ll be our focus. That’s what we’ll focus on moving forward so we can go play as a football team and find a way to win. And obviously got a big one this week with Miami coming town. That’ll be our sole focus today. With that, I’ll take any questions.”
Hey, Kevin, does it feel like just nothing is coming easy on offense? You know what I mean?
“Yeah, I do know what you mean, but we have to do it, Scott (Petrak). It’s a matter of coaches putting guys in position to make plays. Guys making plays when they’re put in position, doing their job. Don’t expect anything to come easy. That’s not the name of the game in this sport. But we’ll just keep grinding on it.”
In search of fixing things or a spark, you were asked about play calling yesterday. Have you made a decision there?
“Yeah, I’m going to keep calling plays, but I want to stress that this is – we have to get better in so many areas and that includes coaching. That includes how we teach our guys, how we put them in different formations, the ways you run the ball, ways you pass the ball, all of the above.”
Yeah, Kevin, I mean, arguably in the first few games he’s played, Quinshon Judkins has been your best threat in passing game as well as, you know, in the running game, obviously. Can you explain why he only touched the ball 12 times, especially none in the passing game?
“Yeah, obviously that game…if you look at the fourth quarter, the number of plays that we had in that game being down three scores precluded us from running, you know, our normal base down offense, Fred (Greetham). But he’s obviously a key part of our offense.”
And what about, you know, first and goal on the three there late. He didn’t touch the ball. I mean, is there any reason for that?
“No. We need to better. Whether we throw it or pass it there in those situations, we have to be better.”
Yeah, Kevin, I know you said you didn’t have any injury updates per se specific. But, Jack (Conklin) and Cam (Robinson), those were your two starting tackles. Do you feel confident that you might have one or both of them? I mean, how do you sort of approach it when there is sort of that much uncertainty about both those spots?
“Yeah, with both guys, they’re obviously dealing with different injuries, if you will. So, it’s Monday. I think we need to get through the next couple days before we can really answer that. And it’s like anything else, there’s uncertainty, but that’s part of the game.”
And another question about the penalties, the last couple of weeks have been, what can you do during the course of the week, I mean, to alleviate that? I know you’re not coaching penalties, but at the same time, you know, how do you fix that specific area?
“Yeah, we focus very hard on those avoidable penalties, which are the pre-snap penalties. Obviously, we had an illegal formation there in the game. We have to be better in those areas. And then you have to play with clean technique. That’s always going to be a part of this as well. Understanding that your hand placement, how you do your job is very important.”
I know the score got out of hand in the fourth quarter, but even in the first half you were throwing the ball much more than you were running the ball. And given it was his second career start, in a place that’s very difficult to play. Would you redo the game plan on second thought? Because it seemed like you were still in the game 9-3, when you were throwing a lot.
“Yeah. I would tell you every game is its own thing, Tony (Grossi), where you’re trying to take advantage of the looks that the defense is giving you. I don’t think it’s any secret that Quinshon (Judkins) a big part of our offense, will always be a big part of our offense. But so much of it is based on what’s going on in that particular game.”
And it looked like Aaron Rodgers played a large part of the game behind the six offensive lineman and you did some of that. But do you think you just need to do more jumbo just to stabilize things on offense?
“I think, you know, we did a decent amount of it yesterday, Tony (Grossi). Again, I think it’s based on sometimes health and what the bodies are that you can use in those areas, but that’s really game plan specific.”
Yeah, Kevin, in a situation like this, of course, everybody’s going to look to the quarterback after only nine points are scored and how the quarterback did. Can you just address, and especially because of your situation with Shedeur (Sanders) and so many people clamoring for him and wanting to see him, do you have thoughts on how the offensive problems are run much deeper right now than quarterback and that switching out the quarterback might not solve what you have going on here?
“Yeah, I think just the big focus for us, Mary Kay (Cabot), is we have to better in all areas, players, coaches, you name it. Obviously, Dillon (Gabriel) is in his second start. Some good things to build off of. He’s learning just like all young players are learning for us right now. And we’ll continue to try to get him to make those improvements that young players make and also play better around him. That’s our focus.”
Yeah, Kevin, wanted to ask you about the downfield passing again, as far as explosive plays go. Do you feel like with two starts under Dillon’s belt here, that it’s going to be easier for you or more comfortable for you to take some shots down the field and try and open up this offense?
“Well, I think certainly, Daryl (Ruiter), we have to find ways to be explosive on offense, and that can come via the run or the pass. And, you know, explosive passes can happen in a variety of different ways, but it really comes down to our ability as an offense to, put those guys in position, protect the quarterback, and then when those opportunities come, we got to let it rip. But I think that can come in a variety of ways.”
And then Mike Tomlin had some comments today, landed on social media in which he basically said he doesn’t understand why the Browns traded their opening day starter in Joe Flacco to a division rival in the (Cincinnati) Bengals and just how surprised by that move going into the Steelers game he was. Just, you know, your thoughts on what he had to say about that and the fact that he was so taken aback, just like you acknowledged last week, you were a little surprised as well and not anticipating that you guys would trade Joe this season?
“Yeah, I don’t have a comment on that, Daryl.”
Kevin, just for him coming in for a couple practices and everything. How did you think Tyson Campbell did?
“Yeah, I thought he battled. Obviously, there’s some plays he wants back, but I thought, you know, with the circumstances and him out there competing, I thought there were some really good moments and things that we will certainly clean up with him.”
And then just in terms of you and the play calling, what would be the decision or maybe the point where you would decide to give it up?
“Yeah, I think for us, the focus is on being better as an offense, Joe (Reedy). And that goes into a bunch of different areas. And I know I can better for this football team. I know I can certainly better for this offense. But our focus is on making sure that we all do our part in getting this thing going.”
Hey, Kevin, in the past couple weeks, you talked about how important your players development is to you, especially at the quarterback position, and you’ve also acknowledged that the issues with the offense don’t solely lie with the quarterback. Now, I know Joe is gone, so it’s a bit of a moot point, but what about this infrastructure in the offense led you to believe that putting in a rookie quarterback will lead to success and positive development and growth in that player?
“Yeah, we trust our guys, Daniel (Oyefusi), that are out there across the board. We just have to all be better. That’ll be our focus.”
Kevin, I know you’re focused on cleaning those things up, being better as a team. When you look at the makeup of this team, of your coaching staff across the board, what is it about this team that gives you the confidence that you will be able to successfully clean things up to better each week?
“Yeah, I believe in the people we have, Cam (Camryn Justice). I believe in the coaches. I believe in the players. I also believe we have a ton of room to improve. None of us love where we are, our record, all those things, but we own it. We have to own it. We have to. I can acknowledge that we don’t feel good about it, but that’s who we are, and all we can do is affect that moving forward. We can’t really worry about what’s in the past.”
Joel Bitonio last night said that, you know, he sees when things are working, the potential, the vision. Quinshon said that, too. But Joel said every game the offense is struggling, there’s like 10 to 15 plays where there’s a missed block or a penalty. Is that a shared belief that those things can directly lead to what you’re looking to achieve?
“Obviously, you know, the goal offensively is to contribute, to score points to help this football team. We got to focus on all the little things that go about that. But it doesn’t get too far away from just simply doing your job, doing what’s asked of you. And I’m talking all of us, players, coaches, you name it.”
So, Kevin, my question is, after every one of these, you say, well, we have to fix it. How do you do that with so many inexperienced receivers after Jerry Jeudy?
“Yeah, I understand the question, Jeff (Schudel), but I trust the guys we have. And when I say fix it, we just have to perform better. And that’s how we teach it, how we coach it, getting it out of our players throughout the week so they feel confident doing it on Sunday. It’s pretty simple. We got to just do our job, play hard, play smart.”
But do you see improvements? It doesn’t look like it from the outside. There’s things you see that you are progressing, even though it might not show up on the scoreboard.
“Yeah, obviously we want it to show up on the scoreboard. That’s where the true improvement will come. But we will just focus on what we can control with all of our players, young or old, and that’s making sure we utilize this week to find ways to improve.”
Kevin, you always talk about the precision in the passing game and how vitally important that is for you guys. And I know it’s a two-way street between where the receivers are on their routes and all those kinds of things. But particularly as I was looking, you know, at red zone passes and it just seemed like there were drops, tips, knockaways, dropped interceptions. It just seemed like the, you know, once you guys got down into the red zone and trying to throw into the goal line that I’m thinking specifically of like the wide one to Jerry Jeudy. Is that because Dillon was under so much duress in those types of situations, or is he having an accuracy issue per se, you know, in the red zone or end zone type of throws, and if so, what can you do about that?
“Yeah, I think the red zone, obviously, Mary Kay (Cabot), you go 0-3, you’re making life hard on yourself and you have to come away with touchdowns there. Obviously ran out of time, so to speak, there at the end of the first half, so the ball had to be end zone or out of bounds. It limits you in what you can do, of course. And then a couple times down there, later in the third and fourth quarter, we have to execute, we have to do – and that’s, I’m talking quarterback, running back, wide receiver, you name it. We all have to be at our best in those moments when the field shrinks. We had too many mistakes there that are going to hold you back. And that’s a little bit of what I mentioned before, where we have to better as coaches, we have to be better as players so that we can make sure we’re all just doing our job in those moments.”
Do you feel like you saw enough from Dillon throughout the football game that those things will be correctable for him and that moving forward with him and just getting some of those things taken care of will do the trick?
“Yeah. Again, you know, the quarterback position gets a lot of scrutiny, and we understand that. But we, collective we, have to be better. There are things that we’re doing that are good, things that we have to build off of, and there’s things that we have to get better at, but it’s never going to be about one person.”
Hey, Kevin, do you understand and how do you handle the frustration of Myles (Garrett) and some of the other defensive guys with the offense not supporting the defense?
“Yeah, we all share in the frustration, Scott (Petrak). When you don’t come away with the results that you work really hard for, that’s obvious. It’s the greatest team game there is. We all need each other. Players, coaches, offense, defense, special teams. We need each other to go perform it and find a way to win, and that’s how it goes.”
Has there been a conversation there, like, hang with us, you know, try to stay up and I know that they know you’re trying hard, but when Myles expresses that frustration, feels like it’s getting to him.
“Yeah. Losing is not fun for anybody, Scott. I think there’s natural frustration that comes with that, and that’s us as a football team. We own it. We can’t hide from that. You have to acknowledge where we are. Having said that, all that matters is what we do moving forward.”
Two questions about looking for the ball. Did Isaiah Bond have an explanation as to what the heck was going on at the goal line when the ball hit him in the helmet?
“Yeah. Obviously, miscommunication there. And again, that’s our job to get it cleaned up.”
And Tyson Campbell also had a great coverage, but not looking at the ball. Is. Is that obviously a coaching point this week? But is that in his past in the scouting report, did you see that?
“Yeah, I think that’s…obviously we’re now getting Tyson. We’ll coach him up. He’s in great position, now it’s a matter of making a couple of those plays. But really play pleased with where he is. And he will only get better with Jim (Schwartz), with Brandon Lynch, with our coaches, as we get him playing in this scheme.”
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