Head Coach Kevin Stefanski (12.9.24)
Opening Statement:
“All right, injury front, Mike Ford is still in concussion protocol. Greg Newsome has a hamstring injury. Obviously, you watched the tape yesterday, it’s extremely disappointing to play not well enough to get a win on the road. Obviously, losing a turnover battle is difficult. Makes life harder on yourself when trying to find a way to win. So, we have to do a better job there, which I think is obvious. So, there’s things that we feel like we can clean up and do better, and that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just keep our head down and get back to work.”
Jameis (Winston) is the starter?
“Yes.”
And given that the quarterback situation beyond this year is kind of up in the air, do you think it’s important to get kind of more tape on him and evaluate him longer in your system and everything?
“Yeah, our focus right now is really just trying to find ways to get a win, Scott (Petrak). And that’s a big part of this week is finding ways to play good football on offense, defense and special teams and put ourselves in position to find a way to win.”
And then on that screen, the interception, I guess what’s he supposed to do there? Was it just a good play by the defense or what did you see when you looked at that?
“Yeah, I think with screens you got to be careful. Obviously, sometimes they look really good, sometimes they don’t. There are times when as a quarterback, you can dirt that thing and throw it away. He’s obviously trying to make a play. I think it’s a great play by their player. There are things that we can do better, really, across the board on that play, but I also have to tip my cap to their player.”
Just wondering what kind of goes into that decision to stick with Jameis? Is it just a no brainer because obviously he’s averaging more than 300 yards or what kind of is the line of thinking there?
“Yeah, I understand the question, but for me and for us, we’re just going to continue to do everything we can to play better. Obviously, I think we can play better on offense. Certainly, as a team we can play better. But really the focus is making sure that we put our guys in position to find a way to win.”
Is there going to come a point at all maybe that you might want to take a look at Dorian (Thompson-Robinson) for the future or is that really not in your line of thinking at this point?
“Yeah, my line of thinking really, Mary Kay (Cabot), is about Kansas City and this week. That’s where I’ll really focus.”
I hear you say that you’re just focused on Kansas City, but JOK (Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah), do you think he’ll play again this season?
“Yeah, I’ll rule him out for this week, Jeff (Schudel). I’m not going to go past this week, and I’ll just obviously update you guys as we get more information.”
We haven’t seen him in the locker room. Is he in the building and what is he doing if he is?
“Yeah, again, he’s making sure that he’s taking care of himself, getting all the information he can get. He’s been in and out of the building.”
Can you just talk a little bit about the job Jack Conklin did again yesterday going against T.J. (Watt) because it seemed like two really strong performances from him?
“I’m glad you pointed that out, Ashley (Bastock). It was two good performances versus a great rusher. There are times when you help your tackles versus that team, there’s times that you don’t, and I thought Jack really did well even when he was singled up. Where he’s come to this point from where he was with his injury, I think is pretty impressive.”
That was going to be my follow up, basically, just to see him to not only get a chance to come back out there and play for you guys, but to excel in these moments. He’s talked about like, that’s definitely giving him something to play for over these last handful of games. Just how have you seen him kind of embrace that even though the wins haven’t necessarily come super easy?
“I think he’s fought really hard to get back, got back and really hasn’t missed a beat. I think he’s certainly gotten better each week, as most players do when you’re coming off an injury. You get more comfortable, and you get a little bit stronger and those type of things and I thought he’s acquitted himself really nicely.”
I realize there’s not been a common theme here week-to-week with why things have gone the way they have, I know you’re not in a reflective mode, but as you head down the home stretch here, what’s been the challenges of going week-to-week and having to correct the wide variety of things that have popped up and just why do you think that has not gone positively for you?
“I just think our job as coaches, Daryl (Ruiter), are to find ways to win games, obviously, and identify the things that are holding us back and correct those things. It’s not just one thing. It’s not a specific side of the ball. It’s not players, coaches, it’s just all of us. We just need to identify those things that we can do better, and we just have to do them better.”
I want to ask you about that Kadarius Toney taunting flag there in the fourth quarter. I know he wasn’t in on the ensuing offensive series, but you sent him back out there. Was there any consideration to just keeping him off the field? I mean, it’s pretty obvious why he was flagged. He said after the game he really didn’t get why that happened. And it just seemed a little ironic that situation popped up after Bubba (Ventrone), last week, had talked about how much you as a head coach stress not doing things that hurt the team or things like that.
“Yeah, obviously, I mean, that’s correct. We can’t cost our team 15 yards. We did it twice yesterday and that’s not good enough for this football team. And we can’t not field that punt. Those are big plays in these games, and that’s just something that we need to, again, make sure that our guys understand how important it is to maintain possession of the ball. And when you do that on the road and you have two interceptions, a muffed punt, a turnover on downs, it makes it really hard to win. It’s not impossible to win in those situations, just makes it really, really hard.”
I understand the desire to win. This is the first time you Andrew (Berry) have been in this position where you’re so out of it with four games to go. So why wouldn’t you guys collaborate and start working on next year with player decisions? Is it the risk of losing the locker room or what is it?
“Well, I would tell you, obviously, Andrew and I collaborate on a lot of decisions, and we’ll continue to do that and talk about those type of things, Tony (Grossi). But I think for me and for as an organization, really, our focus goes to finding a way to win this week versus Kansas City (Chiefs).”
Dustin Hopkins, you made it very clear yesterday that he’s your kicker and he talked about how hard it is right now for him to get a swing he thought that worked. He’s missed six out of nine. Would you even bring in kickers to look at just in case? Put a guy in the practice squad.
“The thing I would tell you, Tony (Grossi), is we will work through this with Dustin. This is something that I know he can get through. We’ll get through it together. He’s a veteran. He’s been through a lot in his career already and this is something we’ll continue to work through.”
I know Isaiah McGuire was involved in that forced fumble. He’s made some plays throughout this season. How have you seen him kind of grow in the role, especially, after the Za’Darius Smith trade where he’s been asked to do a little bit more?
“I think he’s done a nice job, Cam (Justice), with those increased reps, was playing however many plays for us prior and then certainly has seen an increase in his reps and has done a nice job with them. He was close a couple times yesterday. So, it’s just, to me, an example of a young player that’s going to continue to work, try and get a little bit better every single week.”
How much of that has been the time that he spent around guys like Myles Garrett, those veterans in that room and the coaching staff too, but people who have kind of helped get him along?
“I think that’s a big part of player development, is leaning on your locker room, leaning on that position room, leaning on the guys out there on the practice field. I think if you watch our D-line work throughout the day and watch them on the field together, there’s a lot of conversation between the vets and the young guys and talking about what works, what might not work, what are some things that they see. So that’s just an example of veterans in this locker room, veterans on this team that want to bring their young guys along.”
Greg, do you think he’ll miss time with that hamstring?
“He’ll miss time, but I’m not sure exactly how long.”
Do you know if it’s the same one he had surgery on before the season?
“It is.”
Is Ced (Cedric Tillman) still in the protocol?
“He is still in the protocol.”
Mike Hall, did he have surgery? Because I think he’s eligible to come off IR, do you know if he will?
“He did not have surgery. Yes, he’s eligible. We’ll work through that in the next couple days.”
I know we’ve talked about the interceptions with Jameis, but do you feel like in some ways that’s part and parcel of having thrown the ball 99 times in the past two games, or how do you feel about them? Are you getting irritated, mad at these interceptions? Are you accepting them because of some of the circumstances, or what’s your sort of feeling on them?
“I look at it, Mary Kay (Cabot), as we need to play better as an offense to help our team win. We don’t want to give the ball away in any form or fashion. We don’t want to fumble it away. We don’t want to throw interceptions. But we also coach each play because each play is a little bit different than the last. So, like I’ve said to you guys before, not all interceptions are created equal, and all we can do with any play is learn from them. And that’s what Jameis will continue to do.”
When he said perfect throw, perfect throw about the one to Elijah (Moore), was he intimating that perhaps Elijah didn’t run his route deep enough on that second one or what? Where do you think he might have been going with that?
“Yeah, I’d have to talk to him about that more specifically. Not sure.”