Danny Crossman – January 4, 2022
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Tuesday, January 4, 2022
Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman
(I know you have high standards. You’ve been a good special teams coach in the league for a long time. Has your unit’s overall play this year met your standards?) – “Obviously not. To be quite honest, we’ve never met my standards. But obviously this year even a little bit more so of not being where we need to be.”
(Can you explain? I’m not asking you to throw any player under the bus obviously, but can you explain specifically where you need to be better? What tops your list?) – “Well, the list is long as it always is. We need to be better in everything. I need to coach better. We need to execute it better. When we have opportunities, we need to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. A lot to work on.”
(I was surprised when I saw that the Dolphins are last in the NFL in field goal percentage. Obviously, K Jason Sanders has shown that he can be much, much better than that. Where do you stand in terms of how his season has gone and whether or not he can get this straightened out and be the long-term solution?) – “No. 1 obviously, there is not a doubt in my mind that Jason is going to be fine. We expect him to be fine and productive and have a good game this week which is the only thing we are really worried about. And then on top of that, we expect him to get back to where he’s shown and what he’s shown he’s capable of doing.”
(How much of this has been a product of new rule changes and not having a return specialist in terms of what’s gone on with the return game this season?) – “I think it’s a little bit of everything. Any time that you have flux and you don’t have the guy that you know is going to be out there every single week and how that role falls, there’s always going to be some ups and downs. Again, I put that right in that category of we’ve got a lot to work on. Once we get through this, we expect to go play well on Sunday against a very good team and then get right to work on getting us back. And you guys said it, my expectations and where I believe we need to be – get back there to where are productive in every single phase and then I can complain about when we’re productive that I want to be even more productive.”
(Since we won’t have another chance to talk to you until maybe August 7th, I do want to ask you a long-term question on WR Jaylen Waddle and S Jevon Holland, two established talents and very good college returners. Would your hope be that when these decisions are made during the summer, that these guys will get another opportunity next year to show that they can be good NFL returners, not merely good college returners?) – “Again, that’s way down the line and you guys have been great all year – the National Football League, roster management, game day management, roles on game day, is a giant puzzle. How that puzzle fits, we’ll have a long time to figure that out. To answer your question, I don’t have one right now. I know that we are going to have somebody back there that we are going to feel very comfortable with being back there, being the guy.”
(I didn’t notice if anybody in the National Football League had a punt return for a touchdown this week but I thought it was bizarre that entering last week there had only been two punt returns for touchdowns in the entire season for all teams. First of all, why do you think that is? Why is the punt return touchdown not happening anymore?) – “To me, there’s a litany of reasons. No. 1, there are some very good returners in the National Football League and then you compound that with there is very good awareness of understanding who and what those guys are and what they can do. There’s a lot of things that people are trying to keep the ball away from some of those guys. You see penalties have nullified some things. There’s not a real great answer for you but I think like anything you see, that will be something that comes in waves and one year, it’ll be a little bit less then the next year there will be much more than the norm. It’s always going to seem to balance out.”
(Do you feel like in general, teams are putting an emphasis on just a guy who can catch the ball, in general across the league? Speaking of a league-trend here. Are teams focusing more on just catch the ball as opposed to maybe focusing on there is a huge difference between a guy who returns it seven yards per return versus 12? On the surface, seven to 12 doesn’t seem like that much.) – “I think it varies. Believe me, I think if you have and are fine and are able to have a dynamic guy back there, you want to have that guy. Again, maybe that’s me, but I think around the league if you would ask most coaches, they would love to have and be able to have a guy down there that you feel is a threat every time he steps on the field.”
(I think if we just looked at tackles for coverage, it would probably be lazy to conclude who is your best guy just based on tackles. I wanted to ask you, first couple of names that come to mind when I ask you who have been your best coverage guys on punt and kickoff returns?) – “Again, you look at the normal core guys – Mack Hollins, Clayton Fejedelem, Duke Riley. That crew. Cethan Carter. And then we’ve had some guys be in and out and had some flux. We feel like it’s a solid group and we need to be good this week because we’re facing a verry good returner here to finish off the season. It’s been a good group to work with.”
(How would you assess P Michael Palardy’s play as we enter Week 18?) – “Again, I think it’s been we’ve talked about it, we’ve got to be better in everything. We’ve got to be more consistent. But again, you can take that from top to bottom on this season. We need to be better in really everything we do.”
