Danny Crossman – November 17, 2020
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman
(I was curious how many kickers you’re bringing in for a tryout this week after that miss from K Jason Sanders.) – “(laughter) It doesn’t even register with me. He’s in a good spot. Those things are going to happen and the best thing about it was being able to come back and get one more after that, so I like where we’re at.”
(It feels like we could ask you about any part of the special teams. They all really came and performed this past Sunday; but I’ll ask about WR Jakeem Grant. Another good performance from him and actually something I didn’t even know – I saw a Tweet yesterday that he leads the league in punt return yards. It’s a repetitive question, but when he’s able to do that on now it almost seems like a consistent basis, how much does that help your team and help the offense?) – “Obviously I think any time you’re able to get good returns – obviously that was three returns of close to 20 yards, so you’re talking two first downs – based on how we played complementary, a lot of those balls were punted with a negative situation in terms of where the punt was coming from, from the Chargers, so our starting field position on those three drives after those returns were all either across the 50-yard line or just behind it. So obviously when you have that starting field position, it really puts the offense and really the team, in good position where a couple of first downs with Jason, we’re right back into field goal range where we have scoring opportunities.”
(I’m always interested and I know you sometimes don’t want to reveal secrets, but if there’s anything you can tell me about the two parts of the punt block – how rare is it for a corner to blitz on a punt from the outside like CB Jamal Perry did? I don’t know if you do that regularly or if that’s a unique call. And then also, if the punter didn’t drop or bobble the ball, did LB Andrew Van Ginkel still have a shot at it? So it’s kind of two parts.) – “I think No. 1, is it something you see a lot? No. More times than not, when you see that corner adding himself, it’s in a different timing sequence; but it’s just something that’s in one of our concepts that like everything, you have different things that you like some weeks, you don’t like other weeks. And then the opportunity presented itself to actually make the call, which is the hardest thing. You don’t have control over how many opportunities you’re going to get in certain phases and when those things do present themselves. In terms of being able to make the play whether it was bobbled or not, we thought Andrew (Van Ginkel) had a good get-off. He got on the edge. When you look where and how he blocked it, we felt confident that he would have an opportunity, but that’s the unknown. We liked it and fortunately it was successful.”
(When you have a head coach who has special teams experience like Head Coach Brian Flores does, how much easier does that make for you to sort of convince him to try some of the things that you want to do in the game?) – “I think it’s big with having that background that ‘Flo’ (Head Coach Brian Flores) has, the communication is – I don’t want to say ‘simpler’ – but it’s an easier conversation because he understands a lot of the concepts, techniques – both in terms of what we’re looking for and how it’s going to affect or what impact it could have on the opposition, because he understands both sides of it. So obviously having that background is big for me and big for us in terms of our communication.”
(This team seems to have a great deal of mental toughness; and I’m curious, when you’re evaluating players collegiately, maybe on other teams, how is that something – certainly it’s obviously something that’s very important to Head Coach Brian Flores and you all – how do you evaluate mental toughness and when do you know when you have a player, if that toughness shows up?) – “I think that evaluation – there’s a lot of things and a lot of situations and circumstances that you can look at that players have been through, whether it’s college, back to high school, the program that they’ve been in, maybe the individual circumstances in terms of play time, injury. There’s a lot of things that you can carry, but really you really don’t know until you get them in the building and put them in those situations. As we all know, this is a week-to-week league and it’s tough. It’s hard to win; and to put the time in in terms of meetings, practice, walkthroughs – and then you add to that the nutrition and the strength and conditioning – and you do all that stuff understanding that all it’s going to do is give you a chance. If you don’t do those things, you have no chance of competing in this league. So if you’re willing to make those sacrifices to just give yourself a chance, then sometimes you’re going to win, sometimes you’re going to lose; but the more that you can have a history and recognize a history of guys having to overcome some things, you feel better when those things do come along, that you’re going to be able to overcome them.”
