Danny Crossman – October 17, 2024
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Thursday, October 17, 2024
Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman
(The punt that was blocked, was that – it looked like they had overloaded that side and the blocking got off. Was that them or was that you guys?) – “It was a combination. It’s the same rush they worked later in the game. Just slightly off on technique and you can’t be slightly off on technique versus good players. That’s probably their best player and he did a hell of a job with effort and lean and bend the corner and was able to get a hand on the football. But again, your technique is off a little bit some bad things can happen. Especially against good players.”
(LB Quinton Bell looked like he got in on a couple of field goal attempts on the kicker’s left side. What have you seen from him and what did you see – without getting too specific on those plays, what did you guys do right?) – “I think we’re doing a good job with that unit overall. It’s the old adage; you’re close but it doesn’t matter. We’ve done a good job on that team. We’ve had a couple of guys get close and I think as that happens the emphasis goes in certain directions which creates maybe some opportunities for some other players. I think ‘Q’ (Quinton Bell) did a good job and was ready to answer the bell, and when those opportunities came for him did a good job. We just got to, again, clean up the little bitty things which could be the difference between getting a hand on it and not getting a hand on it.”
(Kicking in domes, obviously no wind but kicking off turf, is that better than kicking off of natural grass? How do you view that?) – “It can vary based on the stadium, what type of turf it is. Some turfs – I was in Buffalo for six years and now have played there for six more years, that turf has a tendency to get slippery because it’s built into the ground with cement. So that gets a little bit slippery, other ones not as much so. The good thing for us is the kicker spends a lot of time in our indoor. They kick off turf, they warm up on turf, so it won’t be that big of a transition.”
(After a week where you had so many special teams mistakes, the botched snap, the blocked punt, missed field goal, what are special teams meetings like with Danny Crossman with those guys?) – “They’re the same. There is always going to be issues. Some of those things can’t – that snap issue is something that, I’ve been around this thing a long time, that’s the third time that a group that I’ve been involved with has had that happen. You’re going back to when I’m 12 years old. So those things can’t happen, but they do. You see it around the league, it doesn’t happen a lot, but those things can’t happen. We miss a field goal; we bang it off the upright which is our nemesis, as you guys know, and then we have a little breakdown with the technique. Those things we got to get cleaned up and they can get cleaned up. We also steal a possession by quick counting them and getting 12 guys on the field so it’s a turnover. We get a possession we do a good job on punt return twice. Doing a good job with the returner and the vice players on their gunners to get touchbacks against good players. There’s good things – I like a lot of things we are doing in the play; we’re just doing too many things that we have to do better before the play or at the end of the play. We had another penalty last week; we’ve got to eliminate the penalties. We’ve talked about that in here. The things that in my opinion we can control, that’s what we’ve got to do a better job of. They’re good players, we’re going to play good players. There’s going to be plays made. I can live with some of those things. The hard thing is living with the pre-snap, the post-snap things and the things that you can control. If you can control it, we’ve got to do a better job of it.”
(All of those things I mentioned occurred in the first half. Was there anything mentioned at halftime to get guys right?) – “To answer your previous – I’m harder during the week. On game day, game day is game day. They know when the mess up those things. There’s technique stuff that we’ll talk about, schematic stuff that we will spend a lot of time talking about, but when guys mess up, they know they mess up. They don’t need me reminding them; they know that. Blake (Ferguson) knows he had a poor snap. Jason (Sanders) knows he missed a field goal. What did we see technique standpoint that we can correct and let’s move on from that. Now when stuff happens in practice, then I get a little bit more upset because it’s private, it’s inhouse and nobody needs to see and hear about it. On game day, they don’t need to hear about it from me. They know. I mean you guys know – when you guys mess something up, you mess something up. When you mess something up, you don’t need somebody reminding you. Sadly, we all get reminded then you get even more mad. (laughter) But that’s part of life.”
(Are there certain calls in the punt return game where it’s an automatic fair catch for the return man?) – “Not necessarily when you’re going into – situationally yes, but overall no. It may be a case of based on score, time, time on the clock, trying to not use time, try to save time, try to take time off, no matter what if you can’t return – there’s a lot of those situations, but we don’t ever go into the game like, ‘Hey, we are going to fair catch.’ No.”
(There has been a couple of incidents where guys have jumped over the center on the line to block kicks. Take me through that from both sides. Do you coach your guys to do that, and what are your interior guys supposed to do?) – “It’s going to be an interesting thing because technically when that’s happening, there’s holding. In those situations that it’s happening, guys are grabbing the guard and grabbing the center and pulling them in a direction enable that player to jump through. By rule, it is legal if you’re at the line of scrimmage and leap over as long as no part of your body touches any of the offensive players. You can’t touch them on the way over, you can’t land on them – legal. The process of that, using hands to grab and pull people is something that you’ll see the league is looking into because that goes outside of what is viewed on paper as legal. That’s something that’s in everybody’s gameplan and a lot of times it’s based on the technique you see the field goal team. There are some things that the field goal team can do to help themselves, but I think that is something you’ll see being talked about here in the near future.”
(On the blocked punt, LB Duke Riley was on that side and the week before he almost had the touch. He’s one of your more reliable guys generally. Is there any conversation you feel needs to be had with him?) – “Believe me, we have conversations all the time. Again, a little bit off on your technique against a very good player and that’s the kind of stuff happens. If you guys want to go back and look at it, it’s the exact same alignment, outside, wide 1, 2, 3, that they run later in the game and you get it protected. Again, the technique is a little bit better and it doesn’t happen. I don’t care what it is; when you play good players and you’re off a little bit, I don’t care what position. If you’re off a little bit, there is a chance of something negative happening and it happened to us. Credit to them and more importantly credit to the player. He makes a hell of an effort, leans around the edge and still it’s almost like, how the heck did he get a piece of that.”
(To move things forward, what do you see in Indy? K Rigoberto Sanchez, what do you see about their special teams?) – “They’re a good group. Matt Gay was a good pick up for them. They’re playing the game aggressively. They have a really good group of core players. They have that 200- or 230-pound group, they’ve got about six or seven guys that all run very well and then they add the big guys into it, so they’ve got a couple of big bodies that cause you some problems also. It’s a well-coached group. They made a switch at returner with (Josh) Downs and he’s done a good job of getting the ball up the field. They’ll be ready to play.”
