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Danny Crossman – October 20, 2020 Download PDF version

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman

(Last week, or it seems like every week, we always ask you about WR Jakeem Grant, so what did that mean for himself and you and just the unit as a whole to have a pretty electric performance this past week?) – “I think number one, it was good for him. I think number two, it was good for the team because it really helped us with the field position; but like I said, games are – you’d like to have that every week, but there’s so much that goes into having those opportunities. When you talk about what’s the field position, the down-and-distance and you talk about all those things, and that’s even before you get to the ball if you’re getting an opportunity based on the ball. But it was good for Jakeem, it was good for the group and most importantly, it was good for the team helping us get field position to help win the football game.”

(We asked K Jason Sanders I guess about this last week, but he hasn’t missed a kick yet. As a special teams coach, how do you go about that? Is that sort of you don’t want to talk about it to jinx him or how do you kind of go about the idea of perfection? Obviously you guys push for that.) – “To your point, no, it’s not like you’ve got a no-hitter or something going. Every kick is a new kick. So in practice, in the game, things that – we don’t talk about them whether they’re in practice or the game, whether he’s made, we don’t want to talk about if the last kick was a miss. It’s always the same communication – talking about the rhythm and the footwork and the mental space of where we want to be, and then you just let the kick go and see what happens. But again, just like we’ve talked about basically every week, he’s in a good place right now working hard, and hopefully we continue that.”

(You guys rank first in kickoff coverage, kickoff yards and return yards against. What has been the secret to your success? Has it been a couple players that you might want to mention that played particularly well? Have you done things scheme-wise that maybe teams weren’t ready for? What’s been the key?) – “I think it’s a combination of all those things. I think everything starts with the kick, what we’ve done with some different situations, what we’ve tried to do with how and where we’re kicking the football. But then it comes down to players making plays. We all know and you guys have seen it over your careers, whether it’s a good call or a bad call, players can make the difference. They can make a bad call good and they make a good call really good. So all those aspects right now are working; but again, it’s a long season. We’ve got a long way to go.”

(Now that you’re at the bye week and you can reflect a little bit, what names come to mind if I ask you who have been your best coverage guys on punt and kickoff coverage? I don’t want to go merely on tackles because I’m sure there’s more to it than that, obviously.) – “I think when you look at the last couple weeks, I think our gunners have done a nice job. I think Jamal Perry and Mack Hollins have done a nice job getting down the field, which in the National Football League, if your gunners aren’t down the field disrupting things at minimum, you’re going to have a hard time. And then I think the inside guys have done a nice job with both protection and coverage. Getting Clayton (Fejedelem) at the personal protector has been nice. Kavon (Frazier) has done a nice job whether he’s played inside or outside. Sam (Eguavoen), Calvin (Munson), Andrew Van Ginkel – they’re all doing a nice job. Then you’ve got the guys, a lot of those guys – Kamu (Grugier-Hill) – that are playing on both phases. So we feel good about the core group. We’ve just got to keep working and detail a lot more things. We’ve got a long way to go.”

(P Matt Haack on Sunday didn’t have any booming punts, but the Jets did not return a single one of them, so how would you assess how he did in that game and so far this season?) – “I think Matt’s done a nice job. I think again, some of the situations that come up in games,  what you’re able to do and what you want to do, sometimes the numbers in terms of your gross – is it a net, is it inside the 20s – each game is a little bit different. How the game evolved and really the situations and where we were punting the ball and what we were trying to get done on Sunday, I thought he had a very nice game.”

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