Danny Crossman – December 28, 2023
Download PDF version
Thursday, December 28, 2023
Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman
(What can you say about K Jason Sanders’ performance with the five field goals, and the whole special teams really?) – “Every time we send Jason out there, we expect positive results. We haven’t run him out there a lot with as aggressive as we’ve been on fourth downs, but in this particular game, it was his time and fortunately, not surprisingly at all, he answered the bell.”
(How has K Jason Sanders been hitting the ball now as compared to the last couple of years, or even earlier this year?) – “Absolutely the same. Absolutely the same mindset, physically, everything is exactly the same it’s been over the years since I’ve been with him. Again, (we have) absolute confidence in Jason when we send him out there. In this particular game, the team needed him, and he answered.”
(You say exactly the same, but sometimes the ball goes through and sometimes it doesn’t, so something has to be different.) – “No. That’s the nature of the beast. I have not come across anybody that’s been perfect in their career. There are ups and downs, ebbs and flows to every position, on every team, throughout the season. It’s part of it. As long as he’s hitting good balls, I don’t get concerned. This year he’s hit good balls. He’s had a couple of misses. You have two blocks in there that have nothing to do with him. We worry about what we see on a day in and day out basis. He’s been hitting good balls all season, and hopefully continues to do that.”
(What goes into hitting a good ball? Can you explain the technique?) – “It’s really the ball flight. The rotation, the ball flight, the pattern, is it moving, is it not moving, where is the tip. We talk about ball flight and hitting the ball. What is the target and where did the ball go based on the target. We spend a lot of time at practice and we film every single one of those. We have a pretty good idea of what the ball flight is doing and if the ball is not flying like it should, there are things you do to tweak that, whether you do it with Jason, or whether you do it with the hold. There are some ways around that, but he’s been striking good balls all year. Fortunately he was needed this game and he performed well.”
(Is the target always down the middle, is it that simple?) – “No. It isn’t that simple. A lot of different aspects that go into it.”
(How tough is the play S Elijah Campbell made to down that ball on the two-yard line. He kind of had to run through a couple of Cowboys on the return team.) – “That was a heck of a play. He transitioned into trying to execute one technique into a different technique. A really good play by him. A good spot. A good punt by Jake (Bailey), but really an exceptional play by Elijah down the field. That is not easy to do. He transitioned from one aspect of trying to make a play in one particular way to making it in another way. It’s good to see. A big play in the game.”
(It seemed like the ball was exploding off K Jason Sanders’ foot Sunday maybe more than we’ve ever seen. The 57-yarder for example looked like it may have been good from 65 yards easy. Am I off in my assessment? And secondly, what would lead to that?) – “If I had it in a bottle, I would bottle it and sell it, and probably be doing ok and make a couple of bucks. (laughter) He had a good week. He usually has a good week, but had a good week, had a good Friday, was good in pregame. It was not surprising that he hit the ball well. For whatever reason, if it looked like he was hitting it better, good. I hope that we can find the answer and we can find that every week.”
(You mentioned that nobody is perfect and I would agree with that, although the guy that you are going to face on Sunday is pretty close it seems in K Justin Tucker.) – “He’s been outstanding. You look at him and he’s having another great year as he always has, and he’s (1-for-5) from over 50 this season. Again, nobody sees that coming. He’s in my opinion the greatest that’s ever done it in the National Football League and in my opinion, a Hall of Famer. But as I’ve said, there are ebbs and flows to every season, to every game. I think we’ll have two good kickers in the game this weekend.”
(They’ve won a game in overtime recently on a punt return. What are you telling your guys about WR Tylan Wallace?) – “He is a physical ball carrier. He is tough to bring down. You look at his big returns this year and he’s broken a lot of tackles. He runs through a lot of tackles, is a physical player and makes good decisions. Their kicking game there has been good for as long as I can remember with John (Harbaugh) being there. We expect nothing different this weekend. It’s a good group at every level. The specialists are good, the core players are good, they are well-coached from the top down. It’s going to be a heck of a test.”
(We don’t talk about the holder very often. A couple of things on that, P Jake Bailey notices there is only 10 on the field. He told me after the game, and I’ve never thought of this, he says there are four on each side of LS Blake Ferguson. But talk about him noticing that, and how difficult it is for a kicker to change holders.) – “Starting with the number, that’s just part of his operation, part of our sequence that we execute on every play. Hopefully it doesn’t come up a lot and we don’t have to talk about it again. But that’s just part of the operation we work every time we step on the field as a field goal unit. We have the same thing with the field goal block unit and really every team we have someone responsible for that. In terms of changing holders, it is. It’s never an issue. It’ll be different for the first couple of days, but fortunately at this part of the season, those guys have been working together since last spring. We spend a lot of time together and there have been a lot of balls put on the ground and talked about in terms of the spot, the spin, the lean, whatever it may be. It’s a good group, but every time you are successful making a kick, it’s the snap, it’s the hold, it’s the kick, and it’s the protection. The whole group, like anything, it takes all 11 guys on any team, on any phase, to have good execution.”
(How long does it typically take for the holder and kicker to have that chemistry?) – “It depends on what that guy has come from. If he’s an inexperienced guy, who he has held for in the past and what that guy likes. Some guys like certain leans, forward, side, back. The muscle memory develops after X amount of holds. You take a guy that’s been some place with a different kicker for four or five years and his mindset and muscle memory are one thing, and then you may have to tweak that. it doesn’t take long. They are professional athletes for a reason and they work on their craft and execute it.”
(When the holder notices that 10 men are on the field, is that an automatic timeout?) – “It depends on the time, the situation, where the ball is at on the field. There are a lot of things that can tie into whether or not we want to take a timeout or we’ll take a delay, whether we’ll get somebody in there. There are a couple different scenarios.”
(I was talking to P Jake Bailey after the game and he was saying all the kicks, the process has been pretty much flawless this year. He was saying that the laces are out. Tell me about laces out. What’s the significance of that, and why can’t a kicker hit the laces?) – “It affects the impact of the football and how much pressure you’re able to generate. When you hit the laces, being a hard surface, the ball is not going to compact as much, so you’re not going to get as much distance.”
